Episode 2: Sas Petherick
Founder of the Self-Belief School and the Self-Belief Coaching Academy
SPEAKERS:
Scott Robson, Kate Jaeger-Thomas, Sas Petherick
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 00:00
Scott, our listeners are the luckiest today.
Scott Robson 00:03
They don't even know how lucky they are. I tell you, on today's podcast, we have an incredible interview with the one and only Sas Petherick.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 00:13
Yep.
Scott Robson 00:14
Sas is somebody that Kate and I both know very well, Sas is the head coach and founder of Self Belief school and also the Self Belief Coaching Academy. She teaches coaches, therapists and mentors how to support their clients using evidence based trauma informed coaching methodology that is all about getting to the root causes of your self doubt.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 00:35
And we're both certified within it. We both went through the SBCA program and instantly fell in love with her methodology and absolutely wanted to have her on this podcast.
Scott Robson 00:45
So excited for everybody to get to know Sas today. Her story is incredible, her work around self belief and self doubt is game changing for the coaching industry.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 00:56
And she's going to be also launching the Self Belief School which is a group coaching program to help humans, so what she refers to as muggles, you know the rest of us who are not coaches move from understanding the root causes of self doubts cultivating tangible and sustainable self belief, self acceptance, self worth, and self trust. Again, game changer.
Scott Robson 01:21
So excited for everybody to meet here. Everybody here Sas Patrick.
Intro 01:27
Welcome to Less than Likely, a podcast featuring honest behind the scenes stories of real entrepreneurs, and their less than likely journeys in creating successful businesses. Kate and Scott chat with founders from all industries and stages in business development to bring you the real, the brave and the messy of building something larger than yourself while being human.
Scott Robson 01:50
Hey, Sas, welcome so glad you're here.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 01:53
You got some fancy equipment there too.
Sas Petherick 01:56
I know this, this protrusion is pretty (laughter)
Sas Petherick 01:58
Sas: well that I've got a profile of me and it looks like it's coming into my face in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable when I look at that photo. Seriously, the wrong shape. (Laughter)
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 02:21
Sas so I was saying to Scott the other day I was on your website. And I was looking at the front page and your preferentially parts of it. And yeah, it's so fucking funny.
Sas Petherick 02:21
Sas: No one ever reads that so I'm good.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 02:22
Kate: Are you serious? I was like, This is amazing. Now everyone's going to read it. By the way, everyone. But, this was my first thought. Was she always like this? Like were you always this way?
Sas Petherick 02:33
I just hide it when I go into teacher mode.Yeah. Yeah. Completely.
Scott Robson 03:02
Well, we're so happy to have you here. Sas. Thank you so much for coming.
Sas Petherick 03:05
Thank you for inviting me. I'm thrilled to be here.
Scott Robson 03:09
One of the things that we always like to ask folks when they first come on, is what makes you or your biz less than likely?
Sas Petherick 03:16
Oh, my God, like you don't know this about me. But 15 or so years ago, I was a high functioning alcoholic. Like, seriously, in a ridiculous corporate job.
Scott Robson 03:30
Wow, what did that look like for you at that time?
Sas Petherick 03:33
I was playing hard and wishing very hard and trying to fit in and please everybody that I was working with. Impress them so they would all tell me that I was doing a good job. I had, what I can now see is over functioning self doubt. So I worked really, really hard to try and alleviate my own anxiety that I didn't belong, I wasn't good enough that people would reject me that I had to work much, much harder than anyone else. Like I look back now. And I just think, Oh, sweetheart, like, how did you do that every day for 15 years?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 04:14
You know, what strikes me about that is that it is one incredibly relatable, I feel while different components to the story, but when you started talking immediately, like just went back to that moment where I was trying so hard, where I was working so much internally/texternally, all the different ways in order to do the good job and and how applauded that all was too. Like it was like that was how you showed up to work.
Sas Petherick 04:49
What now I can see that every way that I was trying to survive and that environment was rewarded by the organizational culture I was in and what we now would look at that and say, That was a trauma response, like almost everything I was doing was a trauma response. Very much using humor as a way to deflect any kind of conflict, and to kind of charm my way into work relationships. I would just basically use my body as a mechanism to get me to meetings, but I wasn't really having a feeling while that was happening. So I was very tuned out to my own, like emotional well being. For me, it was just get on the ladder, get as high as you can, as fast as you can, then you'll get to have the fun stuff in the weekends, that will alleviate all the sadness, and the upset and the questioning all of your life choices until Monday. And then it all starts again. And so alcohol for me was a very understandable survival strategy, where I could just not feel anything and escape my reality. You know, I had the fancy flat in West London. For a very small town, New Zealand girl, I came from a town of less than 2000 people, I felt like I was suddenly at the center of the universe working in the financial district and in London.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 04:52
Wow.
Sas Petherick 05:16
And I was miserable. So the idea that now, this many years later, I'm actually running my own business and feeling all my feelings. And I've been sober for 18 years, and I've good. Nothing could be more unlikely.
Scott Robson 06:37
Incredible. Well, congratulations to you. That's a massive accomplishment. You know, like most people, I've been touched by alcoholism in my family and friends. And I know what a huge and difficult thing that is. So congrats again. Yeah, so what broke that for you? Stepping away from alcohol and being like, this is not something that is actually serving me.
Sas Petherick 06:56
I was being touted to get my boss's job. And I'd been taken out for lunch by our CEO, and that was always the sign something was gonna happen. And I can remember, like, going into the bathroom at that lunch and having a little cry. Like, like, kind of like brushing away the tears, going "get it together, do not lose it. Like this is a good thing." And the thought of getting my boss's job made me want a heave. Yeah, because I knew how much stress he was under. That was all building up. I was I felt completely out of my depth. And I didn't feel like I could ask for help. And I remember I had a very, what we now would call quite a cliched life coaching moment, of being very, very hung over, kind of that naked on the bathroom floor feeling of, I don't actually remember the last time there went a day without having a drink. And I'm so terrified of taking away this one thing that is keeping me propped up. And I was six months into my second marriage, I felt really frightened of who I was turning into. And it was such a real and healthy, good relationship. I didn't feel like I was capable of showing up for it because of the way I was kind of trying to cope. And I can remember saying to my friend, I just I just, I feel like I'm made of glass right now. And she was sort of like, Hey, don't really get what you're talking about. Should we go out for mojitos? (laughter)
Sas Petherick 08:40
You know, but that was really the feeling. I feel like I'm made of glass. And I just felt like anything could happen that would just you know. So I hit that moment on the floor. And I just thought I think what I'm gonna do is not drink for a while, and I just made the tiniest silent promises to myself, I think I'm just not going to drink for a while. And I didn't tell anyone. And then I went for a couple of days, and then a week and then a month. And I realized that it was both a good thing, and it was the worst freaking thing. Like it was just horrible. Because what you do when you're drinking, when you're scrolling, when you're gambling, when you're doing anything that is distracting you... any kind of addiction that that any of us have, that's distracting you from real life. As soon as you take that away real life comes back and goes "Hi. Here are all the things you haven't been feeling or dealing with." Yeah, and so that first six months was pretty shit to be honest.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 09:44
It's amazing. I wrote down "tiny silent promises." That really resonates with me, and it feels so much like not only were you quitting drinking, right, to stop drinking, but also just talking about your whole experience of your work, I mean, it was also turning away from the intoxication of this work and this world that you had built up for yourself. And there's so much in our world where it's just like, you're not allowed to say I maybe don't want this anymore. And I wonder for you, like, were the tiny silent promises a big part of you being able to stay with all the decisions that you are making at that moment?
Sas Petherick 10:27
Oh, completely like, because I realized, oh, I don't actually have to, this doesn't have to be about anybody else. This is actually about me. And I think, at the time, I mean, a couple of years prior to that my mum had died very suddenly. And I had not really dealt with that grief, I was living 2000 miles away from my family, and they were all sort of falling apart as a kind of result of of our shared loss. So it just felt like all of my anchors had kind of gone. And I realized later on, certainly not in that moment, but I needed to find my own anchors, like I needed to find a way to be me, that felt okay, to me, instead of looking for other people to say, you're okay, I needed some way of giving that to myself.
Sas Petherick 11:20
So I think the silent tiny promise was really, let's just see what's underneath all of this. And I think what you start to see is that it is a bit of a house of cards, because we drink for really good reasons. And the same way we do any kind of addiction is for really good reasons. It's because life is actually pretty raw and brutal when you're living in it without any really healthy resources to support yourself. And so the purpose of just stopping drinking really just brought me face to face with who I was who I am, you know, do I like being me, all of these, like tiny bits of shame, that kind of drop into your life when you are involved in some kind of addictive behavior. They just weren't there anymore. And I actually started to kind of like more of myself. But the coolest thing was the house of cards was Oh, and this may doesn't really have ambitions for corporate stardom.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 12:25
So, how did your business, How, you know, knowing all of this... how did it come to be like, how are we all sitting here talking together at this moment?
Sas Petherick 12:33
So it was kind of mad. Okay, so what happened was I wrote a poem that came true. And then I went and saw a shaman. And he told me to be a coach.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 12:45
Put on my to do list. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 12:50
At the time, this is back in the Gosh, when was it the early 2000s, blogging was really big. I had a blog. And I was blogging through all of this process. And a friend of mine had guest posters on and she asked people to write a poem, she did a poem a day. And I wrote a poem, which was all about what it felt like to leave this tower of glass and steel and never go back. And just how, like, viscerally excited and frightened that would feel to me. And I wrote that on the Sunday night in about 10 minutes went to work on Monday, and I had a meeting with my manager and the head of HR, which is just FYI, never a good combo.
Scott Robson 13:37
No, You always go in there a bit scared about what you're walking into.
Sas Petherick 13:40
Yeah, but but it was a kind of beautiful thing, because they basically said, Look, you know, my manager and I, our relationship had broken down in a number of different ways. And they basically said that they were happy to pay me out if I would go quietly and not make a scene about stuff that I found kind of problematic. And they said, We'll give you three days to think about.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 14:06
How about three minutes?
Sas Petherick 14:08
Seriously, I can remember just my whole body fizzing that I thought I made this happen because this is what I wrote in my poem. And literally three days later, the poem came true and I left and I was actually in shock. I remember walking around London for about two and a half, three hours, the rest of the afternoon just going What the hell just happened? Like I had six months salary in my back pocket. I had freedom. I had space. It just it just felt totally miraculous to me. And in the course of that time that I had off. A friend of mine said, Hey, have you ever been to Glastonbury? Which is, I don't know for for American/Canadian audiences, it's kind of like Sedona.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 14:56
Got it.
Sas Petherick 14:57
Right? (laughter) Glastonbury is like, I know it's known for the music festival, but it's, um, it's on the site of a couple of ley lines and it's very tied into Arthurian legend in the UK. It's a pretty awesome spot. There's definitely something kooky going on there. Kate: I wanna go...that sounds amazing.
Scott Robson 15:17
It's like, yeah, it's like Sedona and Hogwarts had a baby. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 15:25
So we drove down there for like a day trip. And she's like, "I'm going to book us in for a reading with this Shaman I know." I know that at that point, I was starting to loosen up from my corporate persona. But I still was pretty encased in a lot of sarcasm, like, I was like, "Sweet, we'll go see your shaman, of course, whatever." But I had no, like, there's nothing in it for me. And he looked like a lost geography teacher. He was straight to me, like I was just like, "where's your robe man?" I don't know, it just was a bit underwhelming. So I'm like, okay, whatever. He knew my name. But we'd never, he didn't know anything about me. And he just said, "Oh, it's really good that you're resting right now. Because everything is going to change. The whole of your work is changing, you're going to move, like all of it is changing." And I'm like, Okay. And at that time, I was toying with the idea of maybe we'd move to the Cotswolds and open a cafe or something, because it felt to me like, if I'm going to create my ideal life, it's going to involve a lot of coffee and conversations and a bookshop, maybe attached to a cafe, you know, that felt really amazing.
Scott Robson 16:42
Can you still do that, by the way, I'd love to go if you do.
Sas Petherick 16:45
I know right, It's a dream. It's still a dream. But yeah, and he just said, "Oh, no, no, nothing like that." He said, "You're part of the new consciousness that's coming to the planet. And you need to like, stay in your light, and then your high vibration," at which point, I'm just like, dude, what, what is even happening right now. And so anyhow, he went on about how there is a hole in the middle of the universe, and that that is now starting to create this new consciousness that's coming to earth. We're all changing. It's the Age of Aquarius. It's a beautiful thing for humankind. And I'm part of that new consciousness.
Sas Petherick 17:30
I literally remember asking him, so "Is there, um, is there like a job title for me and the new consciousness?" (laughter) And he said, "Well, it's but like what I do, you know, it's kind of healing work. It's, it's helping people tell their stories and feel their feelings. And you'll be walking into rooms and just, you know, helping people heal."
Scott Robson 17:52
Now, hold on, there are so many questions. So you're, you're at a point in your life, it sounds like where you're just starting to process, this trauma that you've been through regarding moving through alcoholism, and also just leaving the corporate world, which so many of us sort of carry trauma from that, right? that really goes unprocessed. And what he's talking about is almost like a completely new persona...
Sas Petherick 18:15
Utterly different paradigms for me, like it was like he was speaking a different language.
Scott Robson 18:20
Yeah. So how do you like what did you do with that? Where do you go with that?
Sas Petherick 18:22
I just laughed and went, This is great. I love it. Thank you so much. This has been amazing. And then we went and had cake.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 18:28
But did you dismiss it?
Sas Petherick 18:30
No, I kind of had the sense of there's something in this, but I don't understand it. And I feel a bit embarrassed that I've sort of pinned my hopes maybe on something magical is going to happen. And he's going to show me the way because I was like, so wide open at this point. But I didn't really understand what he was talking about. And it just felt like oh, this isn't really me. Like, I don't know how I can explain this to people. Right? I don't really know. What, what does even means to me.
Scott Robson 19:01
Yeah. And that's what I'm wondering about to you know, you're in this process of rediscovering and reinventing yourself after so many profound changes in your life. What was that process like? Was that difficult to evolve and shed this old persona?
Sas Petherick 19:14
Well, the one thing he did say was "like, it's like therapy. It's like coaching" and I was like, I kind of know what therapy and coaching is. But I had had a, you know, I had a bad experience with a therapist where, no, they did ended up crying when I told them about my childhood. And I was just like, I'm too complicated for therapy was my my thinking. So I was like, Oh, I won't do that then. And a couple of weeks after the Glastonbury trip, I got a call from the training manager of London Coaches Training Institute, who said, "hey, look, you've you've done our foundations course. And we're doing like a fast trick for the core curriculum. Would you like to come and join?" And I was on my mobile phone in the middle of a supermarket and I was just like, "I'm really interested. Can you send me more information?" And we ended up having this lovely chat.
Sas Petherick 20:00
And I was just this is what I meant to do. Like I felt like oh, something about this. And I remember on the on the tube on the way home, this conversation with the shaman and I thought Was this what he meant, because I understand coaching I kind of do. And within half an hour of that first training program, I had that fizzy feeling in my body of just Oh, shit, this is it. This is home, like this is what I'm supposed to do. And then I spent about six months, particularly of that training, and while I was still sort of doing part time consulting work and trying to figure out in this very liminal place of not quite wanting to be in the corporate world, but not quite knowing what else I could do.
Sas Petherick 20:49
I just kept sort of saying to myself here, but you can't really make a viable business out of coaching. Like, how does that even work? And I didn't know anyone in my family or like wider circle of friends at that point in my life that ran their own businesses. I had no role model to really say, this is how you do it. And then I started finding people through blogging.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 21:12
Were you telling this whole story via your blog too?
Sas Petherick 21:15
Kind of, yeah, like kind of... cause it was anonymous. So it felt like total strangers reading it. So what did I have to lose? And it was like, around 2012, when the consciousness of the Mayan calendar created a whole new wave of energy for humanity. (laughter)
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 21:32
I remember that.
Scott Robson 21:32
I was there for that. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 21:36
Beautiful, that's beautiful. But yeah, around that time, like e-courses were starting to become a thing. People were starting to see oh you can actually create a business and have it online. Like just even just the functionality of paying for things online became more commonplace. And I kept my blog. And then as I...when I graduated from CTI I just added an extra page to it that said, if you want to do coaching with me, then you know, buzz me up.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 22:06
So your business model for the like, first part of your business was one on one coaching, yeah?
Sas Petherick 22:12
I love that you call it a business model with a serious face. Yeah.
Sas Petherick 22:17
Honestly, what it really was Kate was me saying, Hey, if you want to do coaching with me, give me a call, literally, like call me. Like now, who answers the phone? But yeah, it was it was very much like just people who'd been reading my blog. And who sort of knew that I was trying this new thing out? Probably people that were curious, maybe felt a bit sorry for me, I don't know.
Sas Petherick 22:43
I do remember the very first person that paid me 25 pounds for a one hour coaching session. And they paid me via PayPal, which I just thought this is freaking magic. But I did. I was like, oh my god, I just did something I really love. And I think I actually helped this person. And they paid me. And now I have that 25 pounds. And it meant so much more to me than any money I'd earned in the past. Because it was like me, validating me doing something that I really just loved. I really cared about this person. I was like, Oh my God, you can care about your clients, like really want to know that they're okay. Like, all of it just felt kind of miraculous to me.
Scott Robson 23:31
Yeah, this is great. This actually, I really wanted to talk about this bit because I really wanted to talk about what your business looked like before the Self Belief Coaching Academy.
Sas Petherick 23:39
Oh, sure. Yeah, it was amazing in that people just kept coming, like one to one clients would kept coming. I was never short of people to work with. But I was only coaching maybe six hours a week because I was working part time as well, because I had an agreement with my partner that I wouldn't, what he called "do anything sudden," which really meant resigning in a huff.
Sas Petherick 24:07
But I wouldn't do that until you know, we had a plan. And we actually had like a child's growth chart in the shape of a giraffe on the back of our spare room door. And we were tracking our savings on it. And I was like, you know, when we get to four foot six. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 24:26
We don't have kids, so we have to make our own fun. But yeah, so we had like a deal. Like it was I mean, I look back now and I just think he was so he just he didn't even know what the hell I was doing. He married someone who was very ambitious and probably deeply annoying. That he always said "I just really admired how you just wait for stuff that was really big and scary." And then I was going through this mess of transformation personally within a couple of first couple of years of our marriage. So, so, God bless him, he stuck around.
Sas Petherick 25:03
But yeah, so the business model, and I'm using inverted commas because it really was wasn't an intentional one. It was, Oh, I'll put my coaching offer out there and people will start to come. And what happened was because I only had a few hours each week that I was available for coaching, I created a waiting list. And I did that quite quickly. But there was just because I had an established group of blog readers. And I just coached anyone I just talked about, like life transitions if you're trying to make a change. And because I hit a stack of people on my waiting list, I remember it got to about 30 people, and I thought, Oh, maybe I can create an e-course. So I did my first e-course. But didn't think I was very good at it. Because there was like, just a lot of energy when you've got 25 people on a call. And I realized, oh, you can't... like what even is group coaching? But I was still finding my legs a bit with what even I loved about coaching. I knew it had to get more interesting than just I like help helping people. So after a CTI I enrolled with Martha Beck's coaching school, and she does take a much more spiritual and I don't know, she's very, she introduced me to a way of seeing the mystery and the magic of our lives that felt really doable to me. Felt really like, oh, so what you're saying is, it's like the voice in the back of your mind that just how would you do this, and you follow your intuition, and then something good happens. But she made it really concrete in a way that I felt like I can implement this into my life, like this can actually help me. And I remember going to California to San Luis Obispo where she was living at the time for a like coaching day. And it was just like, I don't know, I felt like I was in California, with a bunch of life coaches, having this insanely magical weekend. I mean, we literally bent spoons, because we were talking about the physics of energy.
Scott Robson 27:10
It's very California thing to do.That's what we do all day. It's so yeah, welcome to California.
Sas Petherick 27:16
Honestly, I felt like I was living in a cliche, but I was so alive. Like, it just felt like oh my god. And all of these people were just like, Oh, my God Sas is here, I can't believe you came you came so far. Because I'd flown from the, from the UK. And it was just like, Oh, I had the sense of I found my people like, I belong here. And they don't care about anything that all my old kind of corporate colleagues cared about. Like they just were like, who I like no one ever asked, What do you do? They were like, so what's the best thing that's happened to you today?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 27:51
Oh my gosh, I love it.
Sas Petherick 27:54
I know. I know that that might sound a little trite. But to me, it just felt like oh my god, we're having real conversations. And it just, it just felt so enlivening and exciting to me.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 28:07
You know, I was thinking about all the fizzy feelings that you've had. And you know, that's what it makes me think of with like, you're able to listen to the senses of your body and the experience. And that's so much like, Oh, you're getting fiz.. like, I'll be in coaching sessions be like, Oh, I just got a big old, you know, rush, something good is coming. Whereas in corporate world, it was like, numb it down. You don't feel any of those things. Don't experience that at all. And if you do experience it, please don't share it. Please don't tell us what's happening here.
Sas Petherick 28:41
Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it just felt to me, like different parts of me were allowed out to play. And I think when the more that we do that, the more that like our essential being is allowed out into the world and is kind of met and seen. It's like, the more we kind of can validate ourselves go Oh, yeah, I do belong here. I do. I'm okay here. I like myself. It's one something that I put in my Instagram profile that you know, some things about me, I actually really like myself, and I get more comments about that statement than anything else that's on this little short video thing on my Instagram. It's like, what what do you mean, you're like yourself having that happen? I need to know.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 29:30
That, Was that a switch? That happened for you? Because, you know, I'm wondering, I'm thinking about my own experience of which there feels like a lot of similarities without the shaman and without the bending of the spoons and things like that. But I also experienced a ton of resistance internally around "What am I doing?" Like really as I was breaking away from that mold. "What am I doing what what am I thinking this is crazy," you know, and the way, you tell it, you're a little, you know, sarcastic when you heard from the shaman, right? Oh, yeah. So I'm wondering like, how did you give over to this transition?
Sas Petherick 30:11
It's such a great question. So I, what's coming to me is a memory of being coached by Martha Beck who I remember saying to her, like, is this real, though? Like, and her laughing at me and me saying,I know like, the biggest thing that really shifted things for me was 'Your not your thoughts.' And I had always been rewarded, validated given a shit ton of positive feedback for having a big brain and big thoughts, right? That was something that I prided myself on. And I love analyzing things. I love figuring things out. And to find that actually, this message, you're not your thoughts. There's another part of you that's watching you have your thoughts. Who's that? Who is that part that's observing, you have your thoughts? Because you can change your thoughts, and you're still there. And you can have the opposite thought. So who is that? That's having both of those, you can hold two thoughts that you agree with that hold completely opposing views. Who was that? That's there? And I can remember saying To Martha Beck. I always call her Martha Beck. I don't know why you say her full name. She's one of those people.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 31:28
She's Martha Beck. Yeah.
Sas Petherick 31:31
So, I remember saying Is this real, though? because I don't want to look stupid. And she just said "Give in early."
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 31:40
Oh, my god.
Sas Petherick 31:43
And I was like, Oh, okay. Like, she's like, just "give in early."
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 31:51
I love the inevitability of that. And also... yeah, the, I mean, as I said, so much resistance. I experience resistance every day in my business internally, you know, and there is an inevitability because when you get to the other side, you're fuck, man, of course, this is exactly what I needed to be doing. Give in early.
Sas Petherick 32:16
Like, seriously, I my personal view now, down the line is that, and this might sound interesting to people less interesting. And that seems like, well, that's a bit different to what you started with. My view now is that coaching, what we do is we help pretty well functioning humans go from good to great, we help people create lives that they do, like, yeah, we help them have a relationship with themselves, where they like themselves at the end of it, where they believe in themselves, no matter what kind of coaching we do. To me, that is absolutely what our world needs.
Sas Petherick 32:58
Right? Our world needs more and more people who are thoughtful and curious and willing to play with their sense of resistance, and all the ways we protect ourselves, who are willing to say, Yeah, but it still feels really good to me, I kind of want to see what that looks like. Or this feels really horrible to me, and I know, it's kind of growing me in this process. Like we are stewards of that process for people.
Scott Robson 33:27
Yeah.
Sas Petherick 33:27
That is what our world needs, like, how many leaders do we know, who are completely out of their depths and floundering and so in self protection mode that they can't see what way forward might look like?
Scott Robson 33:42
And it feels like to me, there might be a couple of things happening, you know, for you and your story, you're peeling back the layers to get to this essential core version of yourself. And then in that moment, it turns out that you really like yourself. And I'm wondering if you did or do get any pushback for that. Because, you know, I know that in many places in our world, there's a sense of, you know, if I don't really like myself, who are you to like you, you know, and I think that that can actually be quite threatening to people. Yeah, yeah, I have this theory that the more self belief that I experienced, and self acceptance and self worth and self trust, all that kind of just love that I throw at myself. I have had a belief for a long time, that the more I experience that the lonelier I will be.
Sas Petherick 34:29
Yeah, because I've had experiences where and I think this is really really interesting just barometer check of who holds you in your joy and success? Because a lot of us get quite good at being in the shadows with our beloved friends, and the people in our lives so we are quite good at going, "Yeah, isn't it shit, ah, that happened too." You know, I think for a lot of us, we just really feel overwhelmed by the complexity of life. It's a lot to hold.
Sas Petherick 35:00
And so we'll often either project our fear onto other people who don't seem to be as impacted by it. Or if someone is gets weird around the success of another person, I always sort of assume that it's because then it's not that that person like when after what they wanted or or achieved a goal, it's because they weren't held back by the same things as that other person. And that feels really uncomfortable. So we kind of blame them. Like, how dare you enjoy a life and be happy when that feels like a real struggle? Right? Right. It's really about our ability to hold that complexity like, Can I be in my own heart ache? And watch you have a dream come true?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 35:47
I get the sense, you know, and I just met you right before I started taking...
Sas Petherick 35:52
About 46 years ago. It feels like we've known each other forever
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 35:57
It really does! But I'm making assumptions is what I'm trying to say about what I think the trajectory of your business was based on what I've heard from you and just assumed. But you know, you began the Self Belief Coaching Academy, a year and a half ago, is that right?
Sas Petherick 36:16
Yeah, nearly two years ago.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 36:18
Nearly two years ago, and it represented a big change in your business. So can you take us to that moment, when you knew that something needed to change there?
Sas Petherick 36:32
So it was probably about, yeah, maybe this time two years ago, and at the time, there was three different ways to coach with me one on one. And I had about six different group programs that were run at different times during the year.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 36:49
Oh, talk about a business model.
Sas Petherick 36:51
So the business model was slowly killing me.
Scott Robson 36:54
I'm overwhelmed just hearing that. How did you run that many programs at once?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 36:58
With one person?
Sas Petherick 36:59
Yeah, yeah. I mean, Iwasn't very good at business models. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 37:07
I'm really good at serving people, right. And I just let that kind of get ahead of me. And I was constantly launching, which if anyone's launched anything before you just, I mean, after a while, it's like, losing the world to live, like do not enroll in this program, I need a break. (Laughter)
Sas Petherick 37:26
But you felt that you could feel that feeling of just like, I can't do this anymore. And I always I don't know if folks are saying get this. But for me, there's always like the fantasy escape that I go to. And for me, it's still the coffee shop in the countryside. For some reason, I think serving the general public food is going to be really easy.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 37:51
Having a background in waiting tables and such, you're, you're , you're wrong.
Sas Petherick 37:58
I know. (laughter) I am aware. Every time I say this, too, they're like, What the hell are you talking about? Anyway, so I was starting to feel really burnt out really overwhelmed and kind of just losing my joy, like, people would sign up for stuff. And I just went "Oh, Christ another one." Like, really. And I had a waiting list of one to one clients, that was over 300 people. And I know that probably sounds like a really nice problem to have, honestly, I just felt anxious the whole time. Because I was like, There's no way I can serve all these people. I don't, I just don't know what to do so....
Sas Petherick 38:32
And I was, and I'm kind of 10 years into my business. After I worked with Martha Beck, I enrolled in a master's degree in coaching, because I was like, Okay, this is all great. But I want to know why and how it works and when you know, when it won't. And what even is coaching, like what is this thing is it just something made up because a lot of the feedback that I had from people outside the industry was that coaching wasn't really real, and everyone should just go to therapy. And I didn't really believe that. So I sort of two years ago, I'm in this place where I have a really solid body of work. The dissertation I've done as part of my master's degree was in the experience of self doubt. And I'd use my research findings to create programs and I tested and refined a bunch of tools that I'd made myself, I knew that I had a really good offer. And I was getting a ton of referrals, like people would just have a great experience and then refer their pals to meet with colleagues to me. And so it was an embarrassment of riches. Basically, I started working with a business coach, and I just said, almost like I'm just gonna pay you some money and can you please take the problem away? Like tell me what to do? I was kind of at that point. And she was very good at helping me to just slow down and get back in touch with like, why am I even doing this work?
Sas Petherick 39:59
And I just said, you know, I understand self doubt, like nobody's business. Like, I really understand it, I get what it's here to do, I get how it works, and I know how to support people to move through it. And, it feels to me like it's this combination of our own experiences and the cultural narratives that are piled on top of that. They're just all are there to kind of hold us back, to keep us safe. And I'm like, I just know this and it feels to me like it's the secret to creating what you need in your life, in your relationships, in your creativity, your work, your business. It's like, this is the secret sauce, guys. And it seems a real shame that no one's taught this. And I remember saying to her, we need a school that teaches self belief. And she was like, Oh, I think that's what your business needs to be. So I was like, Oh, I can see that, like felt. And she's like, what if it was just one course that taught self belief? Like the really, really good stuff?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 41:07
So was this like a four sentence conversation?
Sas Petherick 41:11
Oh, no, It was, it was like session number three, when I'm losing the will to live and resisting all of the questions.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 41:19
But the transformation and the aha came in a few sentences?
Sas Petherick 41:24
In a few sentences.
Scott Robson 41:27
What was tha like when she said that to you? Were you like, Wait, there's no way in a million years I'm going to do this? Or were you thinking? Yeah, I could, I could actually, I could fucking do this.
Sas Petherick 41:35
I was thinking, Oh, starting a school. It sounds like a lot. Have you seen what's on my to-do list? (laughter)
Sas Petherick 41:43
That's the thing, right? It's like, we don't realize a risk or an opportunity when we're burnt out. We don't. We can't really discern the difference between the two, I don't think. At least I find that. It's like, 'Oh God, is this gonna kill me? Or is this the answer?' I don't know.
Sas Petherick 41:59
So we played with this idea. And, and she said, the thing is, Sas, you cannot do this on your own. If you want to create this program, this school, and you want to do it in a way that does not leave you in this position in two years, we are going to have to build out a team. Like, that's just going to have to happen.
Scott Robson 42:19
I'm so curious about this part, by the way, because this is when you start really building a proper — not a proper business, you had a proper business before — but a really built up business with staff. This is a real shift in how you're relating to what you're doing.
Sas Petherick 42:33
Yeah, And, you know, to be honest, Scotty, I think the reason that I had resisted this in the past was I did not want to replicate my corporate life.
Scott Robson 42:40
Totally makes sense.
Sas Petherick 42:42
I didn't want a big company didn't want a team didn't want all that responsibility. Didn't want to have to recreate some version of the HR sausage machine. Like it just all of it was like, ugh, so I actually think that my own resistance to anything like that had been with me for those ten years of my business where I was just coaching one to one mostly and doing short, short, smaller courses. It was like, How can I do this on my own, because on my own I know who I am. And it's almost like I can be quite agile. But it's really, really freakin hard work to do it all on your own. And I think it's impossible to scale on your own.
Scott Robson 43:26
You know, one of the things that I've noticed with my clients who are resisting, building out, and hiring on folks to help them out, that there is some sort of unhealed part of them from when from they worked in corporate that they're like, I don't I just don't want to go back to having to deal with people, frankly. That drama and that complexity. Was that something that for you was coming up?
Sas Petherick 43:46
Absolutely. I mean, for about, I mean, it took me about three or four years to kind of make upwards of £80k a year like that. And then I just had a part time business manager who helped me out and that was kind of manageable, but I always knew that was my ceiling. So alongside that, I do not want to replicate a company structure and be responsible for people. I also have a bit of resistance around making big money. Because big money was part of my golden cage when I was in corporate.
Scott Robson 44:21
Sure.
Sas Petherick 44:22
Because it's really easy to get used to. So I think I put in place a bit of a ceiling for myself where I was like, oh, as long as I stay kind of around the £100k mark, I can reassure myself that I'm doing all right, but I don't really have to don't have to take this too seriously.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 44:39
Well, and you could choose another path, potentially, because that I can replicate somewhere else in another way. The cafe, for instance.
Sas Petherick 44:47
Exactly, yeah. But yeah, so it was like a big realization. Oh, I'm actually gonna have to get a bit comfortable with being uncomfortable here. Because this is going to grow and I need to be in. Because I need to lead that. So a lot of our sessions - Ellie, my coach, and my sessions - were about how can I show up as a leader and still like myself, and do what, and create what I want to create? Because I realized that I wanted to create Self Belief School because I want every human to develop really healthy self-belief. And in order to do that, I needed to have other coaches, other practitioners that could support me to do that. Because she was like, well name some people that you would hire immediately. And I was like, “oh, but I'd still have to train them.” Like, that was always my blocker, I'd still have to... And she's like, "Well, why don't you train some coaches up and then open the school." And so that was really the reason why the Self-Belief Coaching Academy came about. And part of this was, in order for me to lead this small company, I'm going to need coaches, and I'm going to need probably some people to help me with marketing and advertising and all of that jazz. And I'm going to need some people to do the technical back end. So we kind of had these areas of, you know, what would need to happen to build this out? And, Ellie just said to me, “Well it just feels to me like, the coaches need to come first so that everything else can flow.” And I had a lot of resistance to that, because I was like, “Well, no coach is going to pay me to train them to be a coach…”
Scott Robson 46:33
Oh, man. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 46:35
Right?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 46:37
It's so funny, because we're both on the other side of being trained by you. And also, you know, I've gone through great coaching programs, but there was always this this moment when I'd be coaching people, and they'd be like, “but I really feel a lot of doubt.” And I'd be like, "Yeeeahhh! Totally understandable. Moving on!" You know, like, what do you then do? And I remember dreading that feeling of somebody asking that question of like, "But really, what do I do? What do I do with this doubt? What do I do with this moment?" And so the fact that you've created a coaching program, where I would have an answer to that, I was like, sign me up. Yes, please. I'm all in. But here you are you are saying that you could never have seen that happen.
Sas Petherick 47:28
Well this is the thing, right, because self doubt such a human experience, like I've been doing this work for 10 years, I still have self doubt on the daily; like, it doesn't go away. The thing is, doesn't hold you back. You know, and so it didn't take very long for me to go, I can kind of see why, why this makes sense. And as soon as I sort of gave myself permission to go, okay, the Self-Belief Coaching Academy has to come first. So what is that going to look like? And then I kind of started getting excited about it. Like, I was like, what maybe, maybe we'll have five people come through that will be amazing, you know, that would that would actually, you know, staff a team and then we can open the school like it didn't feel completely insurmountable to me. And I started to get excited about the the right order to teach things in and how it really what I wanted to give people was the experience of an advanced practice program that was super applicable, right from day one, you have something that you can absolutely use with your clients.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 48:30
100% true.
Sas Petherick 48:30
Yeah, and, but also, like, I wanted it to be the kind of program that I never had. Like, really high-touch and lots of opportunity to just chat about what was going on and how this work applies to us, because I think the mainstream coach training process doesn't really attend to our own self doubt as coaches.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 48:55
You know, I remember when we would hit these moments when my doubt came up in my program, and Scott remembers, we trained together and I was like this hellion in the room. Because I'd be like, “But what about this, but what about this, but what about this.” I doubted everything, and also was experiencing tons of personal doubt, self doubt, as well. And the answer was, like, “just trust, just trust the process,” right? Like, you'll see, you'll see. And they were weren't wrong. I did see right on the other side of it, I was able to kind of come to the to this new conclusion, but it's not addressed practicall.
Sas Petherick 49:38
No, and I hope it's because there isn't a lot of research into self doubt, as a practitioner. When I was doing a literature review, a lot of it is 20-30 years old. Like Clance and Imes study into impostor syndrome, which is often cited, is a very small study that was kind of picked up by the media and became urban myth. But it was only 150 participants, it was over a few months, all the participants were women. Like, all of it just felt to me like, we haven't scratched the surface of this. So my assumption is that for most coach training programs, the teachers themselves have not looked at this in any detail, and we’ll do what we're all taught to do. White knuckle through, just trust the process, ignore it, or characterize your self doubt as something that you can infantilize and dismiss. Turn it into a saboteur or a gremlin or a lizard or somethi ng like that, and try your best to ignore it. And to me, I always found that really problematic. Because, what we have been saying, as practitioners is, “Beloved client, there is a part of you that I cannot be with. And, so you don't need to be with that either.” There's a part of you, that you need to go into battle with and to repress as much as possible.
Sas Petherick 50:03
And what I've actually found, through my own research, and through anything that is kind of self doubt adjacent that's out there in the world, is that it's actually in allowing that part of us to have a voice and to be considered and to really try and understand what is it trying to tell us because, to me, self doubt is always there for a really good reason. And nothing's gone wrong, it's just trying to protect us. And so the moment we say, hey, let's chat about that. We free up some of that energy that we're using to to knock it down, when actually, it's part of our psyche that has a really important purpose. And as soon as you start, you know, give in early, that resistance is coming up, so let's include it in the process. And I think that part of it, just allowing coaches to feel really comfortable that nothing's gone wrong. If a client says to me, “Oh, my god, yeah, I really want to do that but I've got a ton of self doubt about it.” As soon as we get curious about that we're modeling for the client, it's safe to be curious about that.
Scott Robson 52:29
And one of the things that I've found in the coach trainings that I've done is that, generally, we're doing two things when a client comes to us with self doubt, how can we short circuit the discomfort that you're feeling around it as quickly as possible and get away from it, and then B, how do we reframe it? Right? So we're not actually looking at what the root causes are of your self doubt. And one of the reasons why I so loved taking your course and why it was so transformative in my coaching, was that that's exactly what we do: we take a really deep dive into what are the root causes. And this sort of advanced coach training is not available anywhere else. You literally cannot get an advanced coach training like this anywhere else.
Sas Petherick 53:12
Well I know, and that's I think that's the thing. It's like, it's always really annoyed me that coach training is this quite temporary, superficial...some of it is always a bit Captain Obvious to me. And that always kind of irritated me to think, “Well, I don't want to, you know… this is my profession. I don't want to show up to a client and give them the same advice that a girlfriend could give them.” That's not what they're paying me for. Like, actually, I want to understand the psychology of resistance. I want to understand how does our own traumatic experiences kind of team up with our self doubt and hold us back? Give us this kind of double whammy?
Sas Petherick 53:55
I want to understand much more about what is it that we as humans do when we when we dim our own lights? Right? Well, we get into this place of, I can see the thing that I'm here to do. And yet there's a part of me that just won't let me do it. So I'm procrastinating, like, it's an Olympic sport, or I'm, you know, watching Netflix covered and Dorito dust instead of writing my novel. It's like, there's a damn good reason why that's happening. So what if we go into that? And instead of saying to the client, well, just don't do those things. Trust yourself. We can't just tell them that we have to show them how they can do that for themselves.
Sas Petherick 54:36
So, everything in the academy and what will be the school is really aimed to help us as practitioners get super comfortable with all the discomfort that our clients are going to experience so that we just expand to hold that. So I hope that every Self Belief Coach who comes through the program has this much, much more expanded capacity to be with their own and others discomfort, without short circuiting it without trying to, you know, dismiss it or deflect from it. And that just feels super powerful.
Scott Robson 55:13
That is incredibly powerful. I think that facility as a coach to sort of sit within somebody else's discomfort is an incredible muscle to develop. Because it's not something that comes naturally to us. We're sort of built to resist discomfort. And one, one of the things that you said that always stuck with me is how self doubt is the reason why we do or don't do anything. And that, to me, it sums everything up. It's like, why haven't you done something? And I think that a lot of the work around the Self Belief Coaching Academy that's been really transformative for me, has been redefining what self doubt actually looks like. The layperson has a very narrow definition of what self doubt is. But what you've really opened up is that self doubt shows up everywhere. And it really looks like a lot of various things that you don't even realize are self doubt.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 56:02
Well, even what Sas was talking about at the beginning, right her like over-functioning and doing what the world would say is a phenomenal job, right, was complete over-functioning and of your self doubt, right?
Sas Petherick 56:16
yeah.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 56:16
And so what's also coming up for me is like, this is so rebellious against what we are taught as a society as well. And that, in some ways, saying self doubt, is totally normal, is incredibly anti-capitalistic. It goes against all of the things that we've been taught about what it means to be functional, successful, you know, entrepreneurial, even. That you're not supposed to have self doubt. Like, people come to me thinking, I can't do this, because I'm just really, really not confident is how they put it person. And it's like, yeah, that's okay. That's cool. We can we can work with that. But it really does go against everything that we've been taught.
Sas Petherick 57:04
I mean, I personally kind of love that. I think there's a part of me that has always felt like, why do we do these things? There's a whole lot of stuff in the world that confuses me, right? Sport is a big part of that. (laughter)
Sas Petherick 57:22
But you know, it's just like, wow, why is that a thing? You know, like, we've all just agreed it, and no one's questioning it. This is the bit that I was really, you know, delighted, but unexpectedly, so is how profoundly changed coaches who come through the program say they are like, their own relationship with self doubt is just night and day. And I just think, I wasn't really expecting that, even though I kind of had that intention. Like, I really want you to get comfortable with all of these concepts and these tools, and part of that is going to involve, you know, playing with our own self doubt, and what does that actually look and feel like, but what I wasn't expecting was just like, the crazy outcomes that people have had, you know, people that have sat on a course for eight years, and then created it within the length of the program, a woman who is a coach in an organization, and she put together a leadership program based on self belief coaching, that the board signed off during the program, and now she's the head coach in the company. And I just think, Oh, I mean, these are, these are the big, you know, bigger kind of successes, but the amount of coaches that will say to me, oh, whatever happens, whoever I coach, my life is better now, because I just have a different relationship with myself. I think that's the part that I'm just like, oh, cool, that's ace like I was not expecting that.
Scott Robson 59:00
Well, you can't do this work without being profoundly profoundly touched by it.
Sas Petherick 59:05
And I you know, I guess I know this for myself as I think the one thing that does work has given me that feels just like the lottery win is just how much compassion I have for myself, for us as practitioners and for our for our clients. You know, the all the people out there that are just going What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I do this? Like I literally have so much more patience and yeah, really deep compassion for for every body like it feels very heart expanding to just be in that place of seeing that everyone is kind of doing the best with what they have and really, truly believing that like, not just having it on a tea towel.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 59:48
So what is next here? You've talked about the Self Belief Coaching Academy and I know that's been going on and then what will be the Self Belief school is what I heard you say, Can you tell us more?
Sas Petherick 1:00:03
Yeah, well, I realized after the first class, the godmothers and Godfather Scott is our godfather of the first class of SBCA. We sold that class out in like, a couple of weeks. And I was gobsmacked by that. And around about half of the coaches wanted to work with me, like, stay connected to me. And so we've set up coach match, which allows people to work with self belief coaches, without anything else. So Self Belief School has not yet launched, it will soon. But Coach match was a way of saying, Hey, these are the coaches I would refer anyone to. And then we opened the next class because we had a waiting list from the first one. And that sold out. And then we had a third class. And so the third class is just coming to the end of the program. And we're going to have one more class, which opens very soon. And that will run from the end of April 2022 for about six months. The program's about six months long. And that will be the last round for another year. So from now on, it's just going to be a once a year enrollment. And then Self Belief School is opening in the next couple of months. And that's really for muggles, right for just humans with self doubt.
Scott Robson 1:01:23
I love that you call them Muggles.
Sas Petherick 1:01:24
It's easy for coaches to know what I mean by that. But yeah, for just humans with self doubt, and that's going to be a core program will small groups that self belief coaches will help to facilitate. And it means you start to kind of expand into all the ways that self doubt is showing up for you.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:01:47
So if you're a coach, and you want to learn the methodology, now's the time to sign up for SBCA. Yeah, right. Yeah. And if you are a non coach, and you want to be coached by a coach, who has this, you use Coach Match. And then if you're a muggle, and you want to learn the methodology and have access, that's the Self Belief School in a few months.
Sas Petherick 1:02:06
We'll be teaching and Self Belief School. So I will be head coach of Self Belief School, aptly supported by a number of self belief coaches. But you'll get coaching from me in Self Belief School, and you'll be really supported and held as you figure this stuff out. So I don't from what I can tell, there's nothing else like this. And I, that just fills me with joy. It's like, amazing. And I love that I have taken a business model that felt kind of annoying to me at the start. Like, okay, we're gonna have to actually build out the team before I create what I really want to create. Now that we're coming to that point, I'm like, thank goodness, thank goodness, I did that. Now I have this amazing pool of coaches who are like so capable and different people to when I knew them first, right? Because they've been through this program. I just felt like, this is the work I can do until I retire.
Scott Robson 1:03:07
This is your life's work.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:03:08
Yeah. Did you know that you were going to be building the work that you wanted to be doing until you retire when you sat down with Ellie to talk this through?
Sas Petherick 1:03:16
It's it just felt like can I count do I stopped being burnt out? Yeah. Basically that it was more of a sort of desperate plea. Yeah, back then and and I have to say I have worked less over the last 18 months than at any other time in my practice over 10 years. I've worked less I had a proper summer off I've had a proper holiday over the Christmas break. I'm getting through my to be read pile I'm just a way less of an asshole to live with, and Ash can tell you that? Yeah.
Scott Robson 1:04:03
Well Sas thank you for so many things. Thank you number one for creating this this program for any coaches out there please please please look into it. How can they find the program online?
Sas Petherick 1:04:14
Yeah, just go over to Self Belief dot School which if you say it fast it self belief'scool, right?
Scott Robson 1:04:21
Self belief is cool. Yeah.
Sas Petherick 1:04:23
Self Belief dot school. Yeah, and there's a link right on the top banner that will take you to the self belief Coaching Academy invitation page and check it out. And if you want to like just jump on a call and have a chat, see if it's right for you. I'm super happy to do that.
Scott Robson 1:04:40
Please any coach that's listening to this, this is really where coaching is going. Please consider it and take that incredible, generous opportunity to speak directly with SASS. You will not regret it. And thank you again for your time today. This has been just fantastic. Just hanging out with you for for a little bit.
Sas Petherick 1:04:56
I can hang out with you two whenever, like can we do this again tomorrow? Right,
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:05:00
yes, please! I could keep her on here for another hour and a half problem.
Sas Petherick 1:05:09
You asked the best questions. Yeah.
Scott Robson 1:05:13
We so appreciate you coming.
Sas Petherick 1:05:15
Anytime, guys. I love you both so much.
Scott Robson 1:05:17
We love you too. (Music)
Scott Robson 1:05:28
These are the takeaways of the Sas of our lives.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:05:32
We totally just have the exact same idea.
Scott Robson 1:05:34
We share a brain, share a brain.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:05:37
That was such a validating conversation for me.
Scott Robson 1:05:41
I can't, I'm still I'm still processing it. There's so many things that for me, I'm taking away from what we talked about today. Where are you with this? Like, what what really stands out for you?
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:05:55
Well, for me, the big takeaway is like that moment, and maybe it's because it's just feel so relatable to where I am right now in my business. And just that moment before Self belief School and Self Belief Coaching Academy kind of came into view. Right, yeah, for her. And that she just knew that the way things were working was not the way she wanted to move forward. I think one of the reasons why I feel like that is such a validating moment to hear about is that a lot of times there's this narrative out there in the world that are transitions that businesses go through are pre orchestrated, and planned out. And that has not necessarily been my experience. I think that you listen to your business and go, Oh, wait, something's not working. I need to make adjustments and change. Let me figure out what that is. But I just noticed in myself a huge amount of pressure to know where I'm going before I like engage in the transition,
Scott Robson 1:07:02
so much pressure that we all that we all put on ourselves to be so strategic about everything, I totally get what you're saying. Yeah,
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:07:10
yeah. And so it was really great. Because, you know, you and I talked about this with Sas. And I think one of the reasons why we're so drawn to her, her work is so she's so deeply in her purpose in the work that she does. And then I mean, even if Sas wasn't behind it, which of course it would be very different. But the work stands on its own. I mean, it's such an incredible body of work, the methodology has been invaluable to me in my practice, and in my own personal life. But with Sas just saying, Yeah, I, I didn't know this is what I was necessarily going to build. When I you know, sat down with my coach for the first time. I'm just like, immensely relieved to hear that.
Scott Robson 1:07:52
Yeah, it gives us permission to be improvisational, I think, and the moments that for her led to her eventually moving into coaching and then eventually moving in more into getting her master's degree in coaching, which then led into this real specialization and mastery of the story of self doubt. And what it really is there to do. All of that started for her. It seems like to me with just this sort of embodied full body Yes, moment of yeah, this seems like the right move for me to make, and it wasn't this and maybe this is a little bit of what you're saying too. It wasn't this incredibly strategic moment. It was just this sort of body wisdom that she was like yeah, this is clearly what I'm, what is the next step for me and she just trusted that
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:08:40
100% I feel and I've heard this from my clients too. I absolutely have had physical sensations to say like uh-uh or yes please or this is now I mean, this podcast I just want to say like it was probably like five or six years ago that I thought about you know, a podcast not with you because I had just met you.
Scott Robson 1:09:06
I'm offended I'm triggered, no that's okay.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:09:10
but I remember the sensation that I like it was a whole wash went through my body of like, Oh, that is absolutely something that I need to be doing. Right and I've gotten that kind of feedback from my from my physical being you know, throughout my business and my clients say the same thing. So I don't think necessarily it's a cognitive like oh, this is a next thing but my body is telling me something these fizzy feelings I'm ready to go this like floating and whatnot. And so I love that she called that out
Scott Robson 1:09:43
I really liked that as well and and I know for me in my business, leaving my old career behind very willingly. I could dotted line it back to always this feeling of what a yes feels like in my body. Just knowing what a yes feels like Like, my chest has been for me, it's like, that's all I need to know. And I, you know, I trust it. I just completely trust it.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:10:08
Totally. I mean, and Martha Beck, like I learned that from her reading her books and things like that. What does the yes feel like in your body? And yes, I have to say I totally wrote down, give in early,
Scott Robson 1:10:21
Give in early. That's like a wisdom bomb
1:10:25
Life lesson. Give in early. So good. So not easy for me to do.
Scott Robson 1:10:32
No, me neither. For me. And for every single one of my clients. There's always a swan. When you say I should have done this a year ago, or two years ago, or three years ago? Absolutely. I mean, I think that's the story of our lives. And so this idea of giving in early is really about giving yourself permission to trust yourself.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:10:48
Trust yourself, right? Yeah. And so listen, really listen to yourself and just be like, Yeah, this is what I want. And I'm gonna, I'm gonna go get it.
Scott Robson 1:10:56
giving yourself permission. Yeah, I agree.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:10:59
I so loved the conversation in all and related so deeply to all of the the inner experience that she had. And I also feel wildly equipped, equipped to navigate those same fuzzy experiences that I might have in my own career. And I helped my clients and with their work because of everything she's taught me and us in her work.
Scott Robson 1:11:25
And maybe that is the ultimate takeaway, every time that I speak with Sas is how fucking smart she is.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:11:34
Totally.
Scott Robson 1:11:35
Let's just can I just highlight and underline that in bolded and italicized. I am not kidding you the way that she has been able to do exactly what you just said, to take something that for me from a coaching perspective, and also from a lived perspective, felt very amorphous and incredibly hard to pin down. And there just wasn't even languaging around. I couldn't even explain it to you what the process was because it was happening so fast in the way that in her work, she's really slowed the process down, really spelled out what is happening step by step. And has given the tools and the trainings around how to actually get to the root causes of what is actually happening for you in causing this. It's so deeply changed the way that I relate to my life. Yeah, and I've had conversations with coaches, I mean, with my clients, where I've used these tools, and they've literally they've they've been changed by them. This is also the way that I feel like all coaching needs to be going in right now. I mean, that's a whole nother conversation of like, where this where coaching needs to go in. And I think that this sort of advanced training is really what coaching needs more of.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:12:52
I 100% agree. I mean, it definitely filled a huge gap that I was experiencing as a coach in my learning, so I'm just super glad that Sas is somebody I know now.
Scott Robson 1:13:04
Me. too. And yes, fine. Okay, fine. We'll hang out with you everyday Sas, if you really want to.
Kate Jaeger-Thomas 1:13:12
We can tomorrow
Scott Robson 1:13:13
And the next day, and the next day. (Music)