Transcript: Is Coaching for You? with Dina Cataldo

Hello, how are you doing? I am out here on a morning, walk with my dog, Frankie, and I wanted to talk to you about coaching and whether or not it's for you. Sometimes I'll get questions from people about whether or not it's something that they think that I think that they should do. And in my opinion, everyone should have a coach, but I wanted to talk to you about specifically if it works for you.

So this is something I was thinking about ahead of my master class, which is on Thursday today. If you're listening to this on Thursday and you can still sign up at Dina, cataldo.com/evolution to get that masterclass. So this is where I fall on coaching specifically for lawyers. A lot of times lawyers will tell me, like, I should be able to figure it out on my own. And I will tell you that I thought that for a very long time, and then I got a coach and I was like, why did I wait so long for this? But if you're thinking that you should be figuring out whatever it is that you're trying to figure out on your own, there's a few things that you can consider and I will offer them to you here. So first of all, coaching is for anyone who wants to better their lives.

Like you don't have to be in incredible pain. like I was when I hired my first coach to hire a coach, right? If you want to better, your life coaching is amazing. So imagine if your life right now, as amazing as it is as successful as you are, as happy as you might be. Imagine that's only a seven out of a possible 10. What are you leaving on the table? Right. I think that is such a brilliant question to ask yourself. I got that from one of my coaches. And when you ask yourself, well, what if my life is only a seven out of 10? What changes for you? What might you start thinking about differently? Well, good morning Crow. How are you? And so when you are thinking about your life, ask yourself, what would I rate it scale from one to 10?

Where am I at? Is it average? Is it above average? And like in the podcast that I talked let's go this way. Frankie, come on. And like the podcast that I had the other week, it was on the dark side of gratitude. I would just be really mindful of whether or not you are telling yourself that you should be grateful, that you should be happy versus you truly do love your life. You truly feel fulfilled in every possible way. I would just question that because so many of us who are high achieving lawyers believe that because we have the six figure income because we have the house, the family, whatever it is that you have rated your life as successful as like I am successful, because fill in the blank. If you are feeling any dissatisfaction or you're not feeling as fulfilled as you thought you would be, don't tell yourself that you should be grateful and minimize the feeling that you have. That's calling you for more.

Because a lot of times when we feel called for more, we shut it down because we think we should really be happy with what we have. It doesn't mean that you can't be happy with what you have. In fact, I highly encourage it and you're allowed to want more. So that's one way to look at it. Like if you are already feeling successful in your life and you want more, let's talk another way to know whether coaching is for you is if you wanna improve one area of your life, right? Like a lot of attorneys come to me for time management, right? Because they feel overwhelmed. They don't know, like when they get to the office, they feel overwhelmed and anxious and they don't really know where to start. Their caseloads feel unmanageable, or they have assistance who aren't managing their time, the way they want to.

I help them create the boundaries that they need in order to create the efficiency they want in their practice. I help them learn how to use their calendars and follow through on the calendars so that they're actually getting done what they say they wanna get done in a way that feels much easier and they feel much calmer about, and they feel more confident about how they're showing up at the office and how they're showing up in front of their partners and their bosses. And that is something that if you are feeling overwhelmed, like it doesn't have to be that way. And another thing that attorneys will come to me for is that feeling of doubt that they have about whether or not they're gonna make equity partner. Right. I have attorneys who will come to me specifically, say like, I don't know if I'm gonna make equity partner.

Cause I don't know if I belong here, right? They have doubts. And that always comes down to a pattern that's happening in our brains. Any doubts that we have, come on Frankie. So what we do when we work together is we start unraveling those patterns. We start getting clarity on them and we start unraveling them. And you start to notice what's happening on a day to day basis. And when those patterns show up so that you can diffuse them, cuz like these old habits of our brain, right? The beliefs that our brains can have, aren't always helpful. And they're like little bombs in our brain that cause us to react to situations cause us to do things that aren't in alignment with how we want to show up in the world and show up to hit achieve goals. So it's important to notice those. So if you are having, like if there's a particular area of your life that you want to work on, then that means that coaching is for you.

Another way to know whether coaching is for you is to ask yourself if you have any big goals and are you achieving them? And if you are achieving them, are you doing it with more ease? Then you are frustration. Because a lot of times we will create frustrations without knowing we're creating frustrations and it's just because of the patterns that are going on in our head, we've become accustomed to thinking a certain way to pressuring ourselves, to achieve things. And when we do that, it doesn't mean that we're trying to make it hard on ourselves. It just means that there's a certain pattern of behavior that we've learned over time and it's something we can unlearn. And I unlearned it and I helped my clients unlearn it. So if you find yourself not achieving your goals or hitting your goals, but doing so with like a lot of frustration and like you're pressuring yourself and you feel like you've gotta use a ton of willpower and you're exhausted and all of this is happening.

Then you might want to hire a coach. And one of the things that I've noticed with my clients when they are working towards goals is that they tend to punish themselves. If they don't hit those goals. I talked a little bit about that in the podcast about creating your personal benefits package. So I highly encourage you to listen to that episode. And when we punish ourselves instead of reward ourselves in a way that feels really good, it will feed into the unhelpful habits, the unhelpful brain patterns that we have. So it's important to really notice what's going on in your business, cuz it's not just the actions, right? Like everything that we do is fed by our thoughts and our feelings, right? Cause our thoughts create our feelings and our feelings then fuel the actions that we take. So if you're feeling a lot of pressure, it's coming from a pattern of thought, that's creating that pressure.

And it's probably leading you to some unhelpful actions that are not helping you create the ease when you are trying to hate your goal. I don't know if you can hear that. Like these birds are super happy so anyway yeah. So if you are working towards a goal of any sort that is definitely something that you may want to hire a coach to help you with. And when I help my clients, I help them see those patterns. Right? So one of the patterns of thought that I see and I've seen it in myself too, it's just one that we all have. It comes up from time to time. Is I can't right. I just can't. And we don't question that thought we don't look at what's fueling that thought. What other thought patterns are underlying that particular thought of I can't and there are other patterns, right?

So for instance, my client Nancy, I've talked about this in the podcast before she had this underlying thought about hiring her assistant. She didn't think she could hire her full time. And there were a lot of reasons for that, right? Like she believed what her other managing partners were saying that she couldn't afford it because they had that same underlying thought. I can't, you can't, it's not possible. right. We just think that it's easy for our brain to think that, and she believed them, her brain believed them, but she didn't question that thought. And so one of the big benefits of coaching, right, is that there's somebody there to question your beliefs at all times, right? You're like, oh, why do you think that? Which is why, what I asked her. And she told me. And so I got really curious about that thought.

And I was like, okay, tell me more, tell me more. And when we got to the bottom of it, her brain was just believing them and not looking at the math of it, not looking at the practicalities of it, cuz our brain isn't looking for practical. Our brain is looking for easy and it's a lot easier just to be like, I can't, even though it felt horrible for her, right? Cuz she was very disappointed that she couldn't like that her brain believed it. And so she felt disappointment ahead of time rather than going to problem solving mode. It is our default is not problem solving mode. Okay. Like it, it, it takes some practice to get there. And I would tell you right now, our brain does not like problem solving mode because it takes a lot of energy and it's in the business of conserving energy.

So one of the benefits of having a coach is to watch your brain like a Hawk when it is undercutting, your ability to hit a goal. Right? Because what she found out was that if she hired this assistant, not only would she be able to afford it, but she would be losing money. If she did not hire that assistant. And if you're listening to this and you're telling yourself, well, that doesn't apply to me. I want you to ask yourself where the thought I can't or I'm not gonna be able to, or that's not possible. Or there's some flavor of, it's not gonna work. It's not working. It's not gonna happen. It's not happening. Is there some flavor of that thought anywhere in your life, I guarantee you it's there. You may not be able to see it, but I guarantee you it's somewhere in your life and it will pop up from time to time. And it will prevent you from taking the actions that you wanna take to hit whatever achievement you wanna make. So just take a look for that.

Another thing that I was thinking about was this, what specifically do you want to get out of coaching? And I've seen a few different things and I know why I go into coaching. So I will tell you why I go into coaching. I go into my coaching programs, knowing that I am going to create the result. I never rely on my coach to get me the result, cuz she's not out in the world doing my work. talking to my people. She's not doing that stuff. Right. So what I go into coaching with the mindset of is I am taking responsibility for all of my results. Yes. I go to my coach because she can see my brain, right? Like she can see where my patterns are and she got to know my brain really quickly, which is what I do with my clients so that I can kind of see where all the patterns are and like why something's coming up the way that it does.

Sometimes I'll talk to a client and I'll see just this pattern of behavior. And it just comes up every so often. And we'll just talk about it. Right? And she'll be like, oh, I didn't even realize that pattern was coming up. And like that's okay. Cuz you recognize a new habit that comes from that pattern of behavior. Every time it pops up. So I go in taking a hundred percent responsibility of the results I want to create. And I go in telling myself, I am gonna take advantage of everything that my coach offers me. Even if I don't a hundred percent agree with it at first, cuz sometimes I'll listen to my coach and my brain will wanna say, oh, that doesn't apply to me. so I will remind myself, oh wait, that's not the mindset. The mindset is, how does this apply to me?

Where might this apply to my business? And sure enough, every time I do that, I get some nugget that helps me. And that's why it's so important to go into coaching, knowing what you want. Because if you're relying on the coach to get you the result, you're gonna be really disappointed cuz you've gotta do the work. Right. And that looks differently for everybody. Like some people come to the calls and they they don't take any notes and they get what they came for for, and some people come and they take lots of notes and they get what they came for. It looks different for everybody. All right. Another thing I was talking about is like, when you come to coaching, what is it that you want? What are you looking for? Cuz a lot of people get a benefit out of having somebody just there as an accountability coach.

And I wouldn't hire me as an accountability coach just for that. Like I'm a mindset coach. So I would be helping you with your patterns, but you get the benefit of having somebody to be accountable too, if you want that. Right. But if you're going into coaching, just looking for somebody to kind of like check in with and be like, look, I did it then might wanna hire an accountability coach. That's specifically for that. But working with me is more than that, right? Like we're talking about mindset work. We're talking about understanding your patterns of thought and the behaviors that come from them and starting to unwind those patterns so that you can create what you want in your life. And then another benefit is this. I think about my coach as my partner in crime. I think about her that way because I always know she's on my side.

She wants me to achieve the result that I want to get. She is there to help me get what I want. Right. And when we take that into our sessions, it is so much easier to hear what is being said because when you get coached, sometimes it can feel a little triggering. Right? And so it's important to recognize like those feelings are because of a thought that we're having and that there's something there to be investigated. Okay. It doesn't mean anything has gone wrong or something bad is happening. It's important just to recognize, oh wait a minute. Something's happening. And I feel really uncomfortable right now. And because I have been coached so much, I feel really comfortable speaking up when I am uncomfortable and being able to say, okay, wait, there's something there. I may not know what it is yet. I may need to sit with it for a little while, but I'm noticing there's something there. And I don't know that I'm ready to be coached on it right now. but most of the time, like 99.9, 9% of the time I will show up and be like, okay, I'm totally coachable. But there is that 0.1% where something just like hits you so hard that you recognize like there's some stuff that needs to be dealt with . So just, if you keep in mind that your coach is always on your side, then it's a lot easier to hear the hard stuff.

And when I work with my clients, like I create that safety with them because we get to know each other. Sometimes we'll hit the hard stuff and I'll be like, okay, what's coming up for you. And that's why I do my zoom sessions with video when at all possible. Right? Like there's those rare times when internet connection doesn't work or something. But when you have that video, you can actually get a sense from just someone's face like, oh, I touched on something let's check in. Right? So there's a lot of check-in points to see, okay, what's happening. What's going on with you. What's coming up for you.

And that's why when you go in with the knowledge that the coach is there for you to help you, it be, feels so much better. Right? And those are the three things that came to mind. Why I go into coaching, right? I love also having that partner in crime because there's not a lot of people I can talk to about my business. I'm not surrounded by a lot of entrepreneurs. And when you surround yourself with people who are like minded, high achieving people who are into a lot of the same stuff, you are, it feels more comfortable. Right? And you feel a little more free to express what's going on in your brain than you might at a cocktail party. so like, those are some of the things. Some of the reasons why I like to go into my coaching sessions, how the mindset I go into my coaching sessions with, if this is speaking to you, if you're like, yes, coaching is for me, book a call with me, go to https://dinacataldo.com/strategysession and book a call.

And if you're listening to this and you're thinking, I don't know, it might be for me, I'm not sure book a call with me because we can talk about it. It might not be for you. And that's okay. But if you book a strategy session, then you'll know for sure. Alright, my friend. I hope that was beneficial for you. This has been a really lovely conversation that I've been able to have with you while I'm walking my dog and looking at these beautiful yards. So I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day and I will talk to you soon. Bye.