Guest post: Becoming a nourished leader
Katie Abbott is a certified health coach and an innovative leader with a personal commitment to improving the health and well-being of individuals and communities. She is the Founder of The Bold Collaborative, a holistic leadership and wellness coaching business focused on helping people live healthy, empowered lives so they can achieve what matters most to them.
I have had the honor of coaching Katie 1:1 for the last 9 months. And while I’m the coach in this relationship, I truly walk away from every one of our sessions inspired by Katie. She’s committed, smart and also not afraid of doing the work.
Which is why I was thrilled when she agreed to share a bit of her story and some of her most important takeaways from our work together with you.
Katie's words hold nuggets of wisdom for all of us, but especially those aspire to be empowered, supported and nourished leaders.
I’ll let Katie take it from here…
Hey there! I’m Katie Abbott - holistic leadership & wellness coach, healthcare advisor and yoga practitioner living in Oakland, CA.
I teach go-getter leaders to build an empowered relationship with their stress so they can move from “just surviving” to sustainably thriving in all areas of life.
Through 1:1 coaching, small group programs and workshops I help people remember that their most intimate relationship does not have to be with their stress and that there’s a different way to live life - a way that feels nourishing, fulfilling and soul-serving.
When I met Emily I had just left my corporate job, recently transitioned to full time consulting work and was in the process of launching my coaching business with whatever little time, brain power and passion I had left over. While it was working to some extent, it didn’t feel fun, I was always second guessing myself and it was easy to put my dreams to the side when I hit a roadblock.
As a recovering perfectionist, someone who has built and run successful businesses for corporations and a daughter/wife/granddaughter of successful entrepreneurs, I was so hesitant to ask for help when building my own business. I felt like it was something I should be able to do on my own. Asking for help felt like I was admitting that I didn’t know what I was doing.
Newsflash to my past self: I had never opened and scaled a coaching business before, so I kinda didn’t know what I was doing. And that’s okay!
Reflecting on my coaching journey with Emily, it is abundantly clear that our work together has been both internal and external. I came to Emily with the goal of learning how to build and grow my business. And along the way it has been so great to see, sense and feel the growth in my confidence, the clarity of my passion and the transformation of my direction.
Here are a few of my favorite things I’ve learned along the way!
Have a Plan & Let it Flow
What I love about Emily that has been so different from other coaches is she really works with you to pull together a plan for your coaching sessions.
As a process-oriented business leader who has focused on operational excellence for a majority of my career, this is my jam. But sometimes this jam gets extra sticky and prevents me from moving forward - sometimes it makes things feel too black & white, too judgemental and not much fun.
Emily has helped me to understand the balance of having a plan and allowing things to evolve. While this was always my approach in the corporate world, I had a heck of a time translating that over into my own work.
As I’ve learned to adapt this Plan & Flow approach into my own business, I’ve felt less resistance in moving forward with program launches, speaking opportunities and client work.
From a yogic perspective, this reminds me of the concept of Sthira (steadiness) & Suka (ease). While not every yoga pose (life transition, business decision, etc.) feels comfortable, if we invite a bit of steadiness and ease into our approach, life starts to feel and look different.
When I’m feeling stuck, or when things are feeling really hard, I often ask myself: how can this feel 5% easier? And go from there.
Accountability is Queen
Like a very brilliant, supportive queen you want to sip kombucha with on your back porch.
I’ve never been one to struggle with meeting deadlines, setting and achieving goals or tackling new things. I have found, however, that with developing my own business, it can be so easy to put everything and everyone else first.
Having clear goals coupled with routine check-ins with someone you know has your back has been the extra support I’ve needed while creating new content and launching new programs. I think of Emily as part of my own personal Board of Directors helping me to develop strategy, hold space for reflection and growth, keep my dreams and goals center stage.
There’s a common myth that leadership and building a business is a lonely path. While it can certainly look that way, nothing says it has to.
In my group coaching programs I always encourage clients to seek out the community that will hold them accountable to their dreams and who will fiercely support them along the way.
Like a corporate board of directors, your own personal board of directors should be filled with a diverse set of friends, colleagues, mentors and coaches who all offer unique perspectives.
Take a moment to reflect on who is on your board. Where are there gaps in expertise? What support are you missing and where can you find it?
While I am ultimately responsible for building the path forward, there is such comfort in knowing I have the most amazing people in my corner cheering me along!
Astrology & Human Design as a Guide
Emily offers a fierce balance of practical, process oriented coaching combined with a solid dose of magic. During one of our first sessions Emily and I went through my astrological birth chart and Human Design chart. While I’ve always been into “the woo”, it has been beyond impactful to include this element into building my business.
For me as a Project type in Human Design, I’ve learned that a full body YES may feel like 80% Yes and 20% Uncertainty. While there are times I feel an abundance of YES coursing through my body, there were many times I stopped moving forward because I didn’t feel that 100% YES.
Learning more about my Human Design has offered me a sense of grounding and freedom and a way to make decisions from a fully aligned place. It has strengthened my relationship with intuition and has allowed me to know myself on a deeper level than I could have imagined.
As a business owner, coach and overall human it is so important to have tools that we use as guide posts along the way. And it’s equally important not to cling to these tools for every answer.
I like to keep a list (most of the time on a post it) of my top 5 tools that I can lean on when life is feeling fuzzy. That way I have a quick, accessible resource to turn to when I’m feeling the need to make a shift. I pick which tool is right for me in the moment and make shifts and pivots from there.
Fun & Fluidity Create Opportunity
With all of the changes we’ve experienced as a global community recently, my motivation seemed to have its own shelter-in-place mandate going on. I started the year on a high, full of excitement about the next steps in my life and business and everything seemed to come to a halt.
As much as I tried to coax my motivation to spring back into action, it just wasn’t happening. That approach felt forced and left me feeling exhausted and depleted. I mean, how could I launch a program called The Nourished Leader when I wasn’t feeling anything close to nourished myself? I was ready to call off the launch and wait until a better time.
During a call with Emily I came to the realization that I was trying to demand clarity, strategy and ambition. We talked a bit about what was behind this forced approach...it was mostly fear…and what it might look like to take a different approach.
As soon as I landed on the idea of taking life and work from a fun and fluid approach, the flood gates opened!
I had a deep sense of clarity to guide my work and my life.
My motivation and creativity were running wild.
Opportunities (speaking, writing, guest coaching) came my way from every direction.
And I launched and filled my virtual group coaching program in 10 days!
I’m a big believer that whatever energy we put into the universe is the energy we attract.
While it’s certainly okay and normal to have our energy ebb and flow (especially in the midst of a pandemic), it was clear that choosing to stay in that stagnant energy was no longer serving me.
Not only have I leveraged this fun and fluid energy in my business, but I’ve carried it over to my approach with cooking, my relationship with my husband and our puppy, and my daily physical movement practices.
Not every moment has felt fun or fluid since I had this shift of energy, but when I can connect to breath and come back to the idea of fun and fluidity as a guiding principle in how I show up for myself in these ever evolving times, it always invites in the option to experience more joy and less stress. And most of the time it works.
My experience with Emily has been the best investment of my time and money that I’ve made in my business. It’s without a doubt that our work together has set me up for sustained, aligned and empowered success. Each coaching session reveals more about who I am as a coach, business leader and human.
I hope you’ve been able to take something away for yourself from what I’ve learned through my work with Emily!
I’d love to connect if you’re interested in working 1:1 with me or in an upcoming group coaching program! Connect with me here!
Looking to build an empowered relationship with your stress? Join me for The Nourished Leader Mini Series!
Thank you Katie for your words and wisdom! It’s seriously been such a joy to support you and see your business, coaching programs and expectations on what is possible expand, and I can’t wait for what’s next.
Here's to us all feeling nourished in more aspects of our lives, including business and leadership. It is possible to be a nourished leader, as Katie has shared with us here today.
CONNECT WITH KATIE:
Website: https://theboldcollaborative.com/
Instagram: @kt.abit
Work with Katie: 1:1 Coaching with Katie