Become a Coach: Your Path to Part-Time Income with Chronic Illness

Discover why coaching could be the perfect business model for you, offering part-time income with minimal energy expenditure. I'll share personal reflections and insights on how coaching has transformed my life and can do the same for you. Gain valuable tips on starting your coaching journey, overcoming obstacles, and finding success even in the midst of health challenges. Whether you're considering a career change or seeking additional revenue streams, this episode is packed with self-coaching prompts and practical advice tailored to those navigating life with chronic illness.

What you learn:

• Overcome feeling stuck in your career due to limitations imposed by chronic illness by exploring how coaching offers a flexible career option that aligns with your energy levels and health needs.
• Find questions you need to ask yourself to build a coaching practice that allows for part-time work and flexible scheduling.
• Gain inspiration and guidance on overcoming self-doubt and pursuing your passion for helping others despite health challenges, enabling you to contribute financially while managing unpredictable health challenges.

Chapters

• 0:00 Entrepreneur Coaching for Chronic Illness Warriors
• 8:09 Discovering Your Coaching Potential

Transcript

Nikita Williams: 0:00

Welcome to Crafted to Thrive, the globally ranked podcast for entrepreneurs living with chronic illness. I'm your host, nikita Williams, and after being diagnosed with multiple chronic illnesses myself, I figured out the surprisingly simple missing links to growing a profitable business without compromising my health. Since then, I've helped dozens of women just like you learn how to do the same. If you're ready to own your story and create a thriving business that aligns with your health and well-being, you're in the right place. Together, we're shifting the narrative of what's possible for entrepreneurs with chronic illness. This is Crafted to Thrive. Hey y'all, in this episode, I'm going to talk to you all about how you can decide if you want to become a coach as a chronic illness warrior, and why I believe it's probably the easiest business model to step into to make part-time income with part-time hours, very, very part-time hours, on low energy and with the biggest return. And I want to talk about this because I've been really reflecting on my own journey and how I'm thankful for coming into the world of coaching, and I've also had some sales calls recently about this idea and the things that are holding them back from doing something like coaching or consulting. And I want to answer the question for you. If you've been wondering could I be a coach? What is a coach? How does it even work? What do I need to do? And so this is kind of going to be the beginning of a brief series on how to become a coach. First, how to start and make a part-time income. Secondly, how to transition to making full-time money on part-time hours and part-time things and like what you need to do in order to be successful at it, even during the tougher times of living with the ups and downs of chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 2:10

Now, before we get into this, I am recording this in DC, my first time in Washington DC. I'm here for a conference for my sales coach and I'm here with my husband and I have to be fully transparent as I record this episode One. I'm so late this week for recording this. Usually I get these things recorded my solo episodes recorded way in advance, but I've been in a flare up myself, I had to travel in a flare up myself and I am going through some serious grief. And you know people people say don't share the wound like don't share the open. You know scar, share the wound like once it started to heal over. I think that's true for most of us and I still I think that's true for me but I'm I'm a fast processor and I'm also a fast healer to some degree, and I'm also a verbal processor. So if that's you, you know what I mean and I'm also a verbal processor. So if that's you, you know what I mean.

Nikita Williams: 3:08

So, on this trip, I can't help to think about a year ago this time I was getting ready for Brooklyn, new York. I was traveling by myself, I was in the best physical shape and the most confident I've ever been in my body, even though I dealt with, I deal with and I was dealing with ups and downs. And I have been having this hit hard feeling of grief, and grief that comes with living with chronic illness, the constant ebbs and flows and ups and downs of being someone one time and then being someone else another time. It kind of feels like and this sounds so drastic, but it's really how it kind of feels, and this is some ways that I know. I've heard my clients explain it it's kind of like having to grieve a version of yourself as it like slips away and then you embrace the new version of yourself and you do this process over and over again, right, and so, while I am going to share with you why being a coach is amazing and why it has been one of my things that I'm so determined is working and will continue to work for me, doing the things that I mentioned before that you want to do, which is pay some medical bills, which is to have some fun money, which is to add to your household, have a livable income. It might be even to be able to replace your spouse's income or add to his income.

Nikita Williams: 4:44

I want you to hear me when I say this If you're in the season of you were doing great and now you're not, or you're feeling like you're, I don't know, something's shifting, something's changing and you're feeling this overall cloud of sadness, or maybe you're thinking, you're afraid. I want you to give yourself permission that what you're likely feeling is grief when you live with chronic illness and you have highs and lows and they come and go and you can do everything right. Right, I was doing everything quote, unquote right, and some new stuff came up into my body and my world. And here I am dealing with it right, and my body's very different. I'm here in DC with my husband, who I love, and I'm so thankful for having such a great partner who just not only is a best friend but gets me and supports me. But the other thing that comes with this grief is a determination to continue to live my life.

Nikita Williams: 5:46

I just think about if I didn't take time and do some of the scary things of like just fear of being like imperfect and going on stages and speaking or meeting new people in different places, I could be looking back in the last year in a lot different light. Like man, I really didn't do much. I really didn't accomplish much as far as my external growth. I didn't really get my growth edge right, happening like I didn't even experience or discover it. And what I'm grieving right now was just a life that felt like it was scary and hard, but in such a good, different kind of way. And this year it's scary and hard, while my body is scary and hard, but in such a good, different kind of way. And this year it's scary and hard while my body is scary and hard, honestly.

Nikita Williams: 6:28

And I just want to offer you the permission that if you're in a space where you are in a good space, you're in a transition, your body's kind of in that cycle where things are going well and if you're holding back on anything, look for opportunities to do it, even if it's a little scary, even if it's out of your comfort zone. Those things are the things that give you capacity and hope. When you're in this season, like I am in, which is a feeling of frustration, honestly, and also determination, the two of those very much live in the same space right now for me, and this is why I so I want to share with you why being a coach is probably one of the best ways to make an income and have the space, emotionally and mentally and spiritually, to be able to process stuff like this and live with stuff like this as a coach. So what is a coach? If you look up the word coach, you're going to find a whole lot of different definitions, but my definition for a coach is really someone who takes something that they themselves are passionate about, that they have done and are really good at it right, and so there are different things that could be, and I think a lot of times we think about coaching in such a professional space of like someone who is got a degree or has an MBA and things like that, but really a coach is someone who's just dedicated to a practice of a skill or a passion.

Nikita Williams: 8:09

Okay, right, and so that could be your form of creativity. It could be watercolor, it could be crocheting, it could be singing, it could be music of some sort, it could be public speaking, it could be business in general, it could be graphic design. It could be what you learned in your schools, like if you went to school and were an MBA and a holistic nutritionist, or you love talking about food. You've lost weight, you love how you've lost weight. You've been able to help others to do that. Maybe you have some experience in a specific genre of work, like a specific tech company or tech roles. Maybe you worked in corporate environments before as an executive admin or as a team manager or a secretary or some sort and you have helped people.

Nikita Williams: 9:05

You've been practicing a skill for a while and you have developed competency where you understand and know a thing really well. So, for example, for me, I've been doing some form of marketing digital marketing since I was in high school. I also have done some type of supporting small businesses in some ways since I was in high school, where I have helped small businesses grow. I have done community events, I've done marketing, I've done ads, I've done all these different kinds of things, and it's something I've kind of pretty much like dedicated myself in being and it's become a skill where I have helped people. It's something I can literally talk about all day long, right?

Nikita Williams: 9:42

So a coach is someone who is dedicated to a practice of something that you talk about with ease, you do with ease, and oftentimes people think about coaching as this thing. Well, if you don't have an MBA, if you don't have a bachelor's degree or an associate's degree you haven't gone to college then you can't be a coach. Some of my most successful and amazing coaches don't have a degree and they're making millions and helping other women make millions of dollars. Right, there are women who are not making millions of dollars, but making what they want and what they need and helping other people do the same thing, and they don't have these grandiose experiences of like MBAs and PhDs and some of them are don't get me wrong my sales coach. She's an amazing social worker. She won awards for being a great social worker, but she's an amazing business and mindset coach. She's amazing and she has helped hundreds of women make anywhere between six to seven and eight figures in their business all from the fact that she practiced the skill of selling. That was her dedicated practice, and it doesn't take long.

Nikita Williams: 10:49

Some people think that being a coach means you have to have 10 and 15 and 20 years experience in order to become a coach, and all you really need to do is need to be at least one to five steps ahead of someone else who's trying to figure out what it is that you know. And that's really the cool thing about coaching is that it's not that difficult to get into. If you have created the result and the skill for yourself, you can teach someone else. And so why is coaching often like, not something that people consider, especially those with chronic illness? Well, I find that what happens is a lot of times, the skills that we develop become really difficult because we've been doing them in containers and environments that weren't made for our lives with chronic illness.

Nikita Williams: 11:40

So, for example, you might have been working in corporate and you were really good at your job, you were passionate about it, but living with chronic illness and doing it in the corporate, patriarchal world that we live in, racist world that we live in, who doesn't leave space for living with chronic illness and disabilities, visible or invisible in their world, may have made it seem like you're really bad at your job or not competent, but in reality, if you had the space to do it the way that, aligned with your life and your body, you would excel at it. And, matter of fact, there are your life and your body. You would excel at it. And, matter of fact, there are probably people who are like you are amazing at this. There are probably people that think that you do more than the average Joe, but someone else might have an opinion about the fact that you might have to take some days off of work or that you have had to take leave and all of those things right. So that's some of the reasons why you may not have considered coaching being a thing for you.

Nikita Williams: 12:42

Other things are people feel like coaching is just made for like business, and, yes, that's one of the cool ones. This is why I do what I do, because I love talking about business and helping people grow their businesses, but it's also for people who are just wanting to learn the new skill that you're dedicated to as well, right, or maybe it is another person in your world that is looking to learn the skill and develop the passion that you have for what you do. So there's so many different reasons why you can be a coach, and it doesn't have to be for business, like it doesn't have to be for helping other business owners. It could be helping your neighbor down the street knit her first blanket for her granddaughter or for her niece or for her sister-in-law right, it could be if you are a coach.

Nikita Williams: 13:38

If you want to be a coach for business, it could be that you don't want to do it for any other business. Maybe you're a photographer. Maybe you want to help someone else become a photographer. Maybe you want someone else to become a nature guide. Maybe you want someone else to be able to share what it's like to plan and decorate and do event planning. You want to help someone else. Really, at the core of being a coach is wanting to help someone and supporting someone get to where they want to go. And what's beautiful about this that I have found in my journey with my business as a coach is that I get to design the space and the offer and how I will deliver that offer at my own pace and my own capacity, without any strings attached.

Nikita Williams: 14:28

So here's another reason why you might have discounted coaching for yourself. Again, kind of going back to the same thought You've discounted your skills and your talent Because you believe you're not good at them anymore. And it's only because maybe when you were experiencing the height of your chronic illness like if you were, like I mentioned in a previous episode, the different phases maybe if you were like a newbie chronic illness warrior and you were going through all of these things, you may have just lost sight of what you're good at because you are too busy and are still too busy trying to survive, right? So if you're in the awareness phase now as a chronic illness warrior and you're kind of getting your jive in, like getting your groove, I should say, in understanding where you are and how your body's working, or if you're an OG and you're still looking for ways to grow and contribute to your household, or just make an extra money, or like start a full-fledged business that's profitable, and you may have thought I could never be a coach, but I can offer you this question for you to consider Are you a person who loves to help people?

Nikita Williams: 15:44

Are you a person who loves to help people? Are you a person who loves to see other people succeed? Are you a person who really wants to be involved in helping someone take one step forward and be excited that they made it to that one step. Is that something you want? Is that something you already do, right?

Nikita Williams: 16:06

So before I became a coach this is going back to my story a little bit. Before I became a coach, I was doing digital marketing, so I was doing websites, landing pages, facebook ads, email, social media, marketing management. I was doing all of that stuff right, and I did it because it was something I did. I didn't necessarily love it, but what I did love about it was when I got on a call with a client to talk about what their vision was, what their mission was, who are their people that they wanted to connect with, who did they want to be Like, who was their dream client and their avatars and things like that. And when I started discovering and dabbling in coaching, when I started to like pivot into doing a coaching business, I found that most of my testimonies from those clients that not only did they enjoy the result of what happened during the marketing, but what they really loved was those sessions where we talked and I helped them get clear and understand what next steps or what was for them or what wasn't for them, and because of that I realized, oh, I was already coaching.

Nikita Williams: 17:10

So I want you to take a moment and think about where in my life am I already a coach? Where would someone else say, yeah, such and such has helped me with this because she shared this with me, or this tip or this tool or this resource? And, yes, you're probably already coaching people for free. That's the beautiful thing about being a coach. Now, if you're a person like that's a big you know, big picture person who loves to see the big picture but is able to see the little nitty gritty and in between, coaching is also a really great fit for you as well, because a lot of people have great ideas but they don't know how to go from the idea to implementation. And if that is your gift, you could be a coach, and I can almost guarantee most of my chronic illness warriors here. We've had to either develop the skill of seeing a bigger picture and figure out the small steps the hard way, or we figured out ways to make shortcuts and make it easier, right, and those are the things that people want help with.

Nikita Williams: 18:11

Now, the next thing that you might be thinking. I could never charge to help people in this way, and I want you to take a moment and think about. How much money would you pay for someone to help you learn the skill that you took decades to learn and half the time? How much money would you pay for someone to help you learn the skill that you took decades to learn, and half the time? How much money, how much energy would you receive back if you could do that and you just had to pay some money for it? Think about it. What would you pay now to have the answer to a big question in your mind about living with chronic illness or starting and growing a business? How much would you pay now in order to have a result of having more flexibility and freedom in your life? How much would you pay for that, right? So this is the first episode of many late episodes in this little series, but I wanted you to start thinking about could you be a coach, and how are you already a coach? All right, this was going to be a brief episode, y'all, just because I'm literally is late and I and I'm not joking I wanted to get something out to you guys to think about.

Nikita Williams: 19:23

I've been thinking about this often because a lot of my clients that I've been working with are starting or working on becoming some type of coach or consultant, and in my sales calls I've been having lots of talks with clients who are like thinking about how can they make additional revenue that allows them to capitalize on having more flexibility and freedom. And I often ask have you thought about coaching? And many of them have dismissed it for a lot of the reasons I mentioned here, and some of them are like yeah, I wanna do it, I just don't know how to do it. And that's where we have made a plan for them specifically to start a coaching business and make it easy for them to do it right. So if that is you, then I want you to step into the show notes and click on the link to book a sales call with me to learn how you can start your own coaching business, if that's what you want, or how you can just start and grow a business. It doesn't have to be a coaching business, but I do recommend if you're a chronic illness warrior, it's one of those things that you could consider, even if you already have a pre-existing business.

Nikita Williams: 20:29

This is a great piece of business that you can add or offer, that you can add to your business right now that can bring you easy revenue into your business. So, even if you're a jewelry maker right now, even if you are a designer, even if you are a nutritionist, you could add an aspect of coaching for other nutritionists, other artists right, you could add an avenue of coaching for other people who want to learn more about a specific topic in what you do. There's so many ideas that could help you bring in just an extra thousand dollars a month, maybe $2,000 a month if you already have a pre-existing business and you want to bring in some revenue. So if that's, you, book a call with me. I'd love to work with you. You can learn how to work with me one-to-one and my container, where you learn how to make 100K specifically with the systems, team mindset and community aspect, all with me, one-to-one with you. Or in my group program called Chronically you and Profitable, where you learn how to do this in a self-paced and coaching experience, where you learn how to do this with a little bit done with you work together inside of a community. So, either way, all you got to do is decide to book a sales call with me and we'll work out which one of these offers might be a great fit for you.

Nikita Williams: 21:55

So, as always, remember you are crafted to thrive, and thanks for tuning in. And our next podcast is actually going to be talking about email with a beautiful guest and we're going to be answering the question are you making the most out of your email? When it comes to clients that have already been in your world, who may not have made the decision to work with you yet, and how to have them convert with ease, that's what's coming up in our next episode. That's a wrap, y'all. Thanks for tuning in to Crafted to Thrive, the podcast that helps entrepreneurs with chronic illness to thrive and build a holistic business and life. Check out our website at craftedtothrivecom for this episode's show notes and all the gifts and goodies. Connect with me on Instagram at thrive with Nikita for more tips and behind the scenes and more. Tag me to share what you loved about this episode and I'll feature you on an upcoming episode. So until next time, remember, yes, you are crafted to thrive. Peace.