Live Coaching Session: Business Growth + Self-Care

Watch this live professional ontological coaching session, it’s going blow you away!

If you’ve been in the marketing or advertising industry, if you’re considering a huge life transition, if you’re a creative entrepreneur or a new parent and need a major mindset shift, I urge you to watch it.

I invite you to join Jen and I as we coach together, unedited and live. The biggest takeaway from this session is that Jen was able to elevate out of the minutia of her business to create a 50,000 ft. business plan, LinkedIn and Instagram bio’s and recognize the #1 thing needed to create her elevated business platform is self-care as the leader of her life. Boom.

 

Interested in a mindset shift around creativity and inspiration? Listen to my first live coaching session with Lindsay.

 

Jen Herrmann and I have been working together for over a year and during that time she has moved from a full time position at a marketing agency as a marketing manager, to full time lifestyle entrepreneur, launching Girl Meets Party.

 

As she grew her business, she also grew her family by one, rented a creative studio for her business. She has collaborated with brands like Williams Sonoma, Paper Source and Monica & Andy.

 

What is so amazing about Jen is that she sets highly ambitious goals, based on that dream that she wants to create for herself, family and business, and she meets those goals–EARLY.

 

She blows me away each and every time. What this tells me is that her dreams need to be even bigger! She is so full of power, brilliance and levity, let’s take a listen to her life and leadership coaching session right now!

 

 

I’m purposely sharing these off-the-cuff live coaching sessions to share the power of ontological coaching–what it looks like to peel away the layers of limiting beliefs that are holding us back and reach deep into what we most desire in our business and careers. Then, most importantly, how to take action on that desire.

 

If you are thinking about hiring a business coach or a leadership coach, this is a great place to start because it shows you a behind the scenes look at how the conversation and relationship could go.

 

I’d love to hear what those insights are, email me here. And if you are ready to see what’s possible for your life, career or business, let’s have a single session to see if we are a match. Sign up here.

 

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Transcript

– [Lisa] Jen, so thank you so much for joining me today I’m super excited to take you through what’s gonna be just an abbreviated coaching session maybe thirty minutes. We’re gonna deep dive and then get super elevated and move into action steps on whatever topic you wanna dig into today. So I’m curious, what topic do you wanna dig into today?

– [Jen] Okay, so first of all thanks for having me. I’ve never done a live coaching session so I’m excited to see how this goes and see what kind of feedback you get. So I would love to talk about how I’m trying to blend two businesses that I have. So I’ve been running Girl Meets Party for three years and I’ve built a social media following with it I do brand collaborations and event planning with it but since I’ve built a social media following it allowed me to actually launch a consulting business where I get to use my marketing background from my ten year brand management career and the social media knowledge that I have but my question is, how do I share some of the wins that I have with GMP Consulting through my strong Girl Meets Party platform? And for some of that I can potentially see that coming to life through sharing updates whether it be in posts or stories but it’s finding the right way to go about that because behind the scenes the businesses are pretty interlinked but outside looking in I don’t think they are.

– And so, why is it meaningful for you to dive into this together?

– It’s meaningful because this is where I spend majority of my time sourcing projects between the two brands, if you wanna call it that and if I can streamline the communication so that I’m coming from a place of one brand I can be more efficient and effective with my time.

– And let’s get elevated for a minute here before we dive in. So if you’re able to streamline the brands it would give you more time back so you could be more efficient with your time you’re a busy woman, you’re a new mom you’re a wife, you’re looking for a house. You’ve got two brands. I mean, right, we do all the things. What would being more efficient and effective with your time actually provide you?

– So leveling up, if I can be more efficient with these two brands, what I can do is actually share clients across both platforms and that allows me to not only better serve my clients because I can be more effective with the people that I do have it also helps to drive stronger referrals as well.

– Nice. So it would help you level up and grow your business.

– Yeah.

– I think for you, too, there’s also an opportunity to super laser in on your target market and really serve them in a super tailored way. Whether that’s taking on less clients for more money for a deeper relationship or growing bigger with volume and hiring an employee, for example there’s a couple different ways that you could go and grow.

– Mhm.

– One more level of elevation there. What would be possible for you as a businesswoman if you were to actually create this next level for yourself?

– So if I created this next level for myself I would be able to then elevate my entire business. I right now focus on social media strategy and branding projects within the consulting base but what I would like to do is work with more corporations on how to properly work with influencers and I’d also like to offer stronger brand management packages to clients who are able to afford services that strengthen their entire brand.

 

– Nice, nice. And who do you need to be in order to create that super elevated level of business?

– You always hit me with the tough questions right out of the gate. So I need to be the person who can elevate out of the minutia which I think, you know, as a business owner it is so easy to… I mean, you’re the president and the janitor all at once and so it’s so easy to focus on the day-to-day every little step, and what it allow me to do is elevate out a little bit so I can be more strategic and more forward thinking and make the projects that I do have even stronger where I can tie it across both businesses.

So for example, if I have a small business that comes in and needs consulting help or maybe it’s actually a medium-sized brand I could help them with their social media strategy but I could also help them with the brand collaboration or throw a hosted brand dinner where I’m working with them on both sides versus trying to pick up a brand collaboration then figure out a way to say oh hey, did you know I also offer consulting services? If I can blend the two, it’s a much more natural fit and easier conversation.

– And what I hear is just like you being of total all of it as a synchronized service. I’m drawing you a little picture. Okay. So this is how most business development goes, right you’re here today and we’re gonna set a goal and we’re just gonna aim for it and keep trying and efforting and striving and getting there with this milestone that we’ve set and you and I both know that working together when you overlay that with who you’re being like, you recognize that you need to be elevated you need to stay out of the minutia and that’s gonna provide you that more forward thinking and stronger projects and so if we act as if now, right you get to bypass and move faster and quicker and in a more elevated pace than you would have and ideally that would take out the striving of it and the efforting and the indecision. Do you hear that?

– Yeah, I mean, that’s like the minutia that I’m thinking of where you… I think the second you start to slow down and say oh my gosh, what’s the next step on the path instead of just proactively thinking take a step forward is where you start to get into that place of self doubt and it makes me think a little bit in terms of elevation trying to figure out what’s the right way to focus on self care that allows me to stay elevated.

– Mm, yeah.

– Because for me that’s a key piece to having the, creating the capacity to actually think at an elevated space cause it’s not like a light switch you can just turn on.

– Yeah, right. Nine flow taken care of. Not so easy parted.

– Yeah.

– Doesn’t work that way.

– No.

– Okay cool, so from this place like we started, if I may be so bold with the minutia, right how do I share the wins and in essence get more leads and weave together these two brands. We’re sort of solving the problem from the problem if instead we take a look at the solution and solve the problem from the solution and so from that elevated place you recognize self care is on the list of things to do how do you take care of Jen in order to keep your mindset, your way of being elevated so you can create stronger projects for your clients so you can share wins across brands and actually create more tenant space for more forward thinking?

– Yeah. It makes me think about designing the platform like almost like the “if you build it they will come.” Designing the platform of what I want and then creating the space for these things to come in.

– Nice.

– Sorry, I talk with my hands a lot and I keep seeing my hands fly up in the camera.

– It means you’re not like, here we go. Like this is you here.

– My Italian side’s coming out where I’m like, ahh!

– Ah. Okay, so creating a platform.

– Mhm.

– If we remove everything that is getting in the way for you what is possible with this platform what does it look like?

– So one of the things that pops up for me is more me, like… There are so many super successful awesome creative women that are out there doing their own thing and I think it’s really easy to get caught up in oh, that looks good, I should do something like that and I need to do a better job of setting boundaries to say hey, this is my lane, the one that I’ve created and I’m going to stay within it and not from a growth perspective but more so an authenticity type place so I think it’s better showcasing who I am and one of the things I’ve been trying to do with Girl Meets Party and it’s come through a lot in our home search is better showcasing what’s going on in my life and who I am as a person so that people can more easily connect and I think I need to do that a little bit with the businesses as well.

– Okay, so how… Paint a picture of what that looks like for me.

– So honestly that’s where I start to struggle because from a Girl Meets Party place it’s easy plan parties and showcase the party photos from it from a consulting perspective it’s trickier for me because I have a lot of work going on behind the scenes that no one sees between coaching clients and social media strategies, brand redesigns and I haven’t figured out the right way to showcase that work and to be tactical for a second do you get approval from your clients to showcase their work or that’s just part of the process when you get a testimonial from them? How… And honestly I think it even while I’m going down the rabbit hole, but I think it even boils down to what does my LinkedIn bio say and my Instagram bio say? What are the words that are on there that’s communicating my platform and do they make sense? Today I don’t think they’re as optimized as they could be. And the piece that I’ve been struggling with is one, I need to set the boundary to carve out the time to work on it but two, finding the right words that help explain what it does.

– Well so what would be most important to you to take away from this conversation today?

– That’s a good question. I think it’s clear to me now that these two ideas can live on one platform, being a website for example but my question is still what’s the level of information that you share? Like Girl Meets Party will always be my one major way to share things and so how do I think about how often I share some of my business related content on this party type platform?

– So how often do you share business on the party platform? And you talked about creating your lane right, that is more you. What I’m hearing that for you it’s also what’s most comfortable and authentic and that you can own as who Jen is, yeah? I’d also like to reflect that Jen is the girl in Girl Meets Party and you’re not a 24 hour party girl you actually have a real life also. Though it is in my mind one and the same you are that person. What does that lane look like for you? If you are super elevated, comfortable and in love with how this is unfolding for you what comes most naturally? How would you share it?

– So you actually sparked something for me when you said Jen is the girl in Girl Meets Party. One of the things that I have struggled with is Girl Meets Party has evolved to be so much more than party planning or party inspiration for example I can design interiors as we’ve talked about, I coach people who are starting their own businesses that doesn’t quite sound like Girl Meets Party however Girl Meets Party can just be me. I’m the girl who parties in life. I approach every situation with a positive perspective that’s one of the things I like most about myself and I think that actually reframes what the business looks like and GMP Consulting is just a piece of that as is my background with interiors it just comes to life through this platform called Girl Meets Party. That’s making actually a lot of sense.

– Yeah, awesome. That’s nice. That is an extraordinarily elevated way to look at it that only you can own.

– Right. Yeah, I agree.

– Yeah. So from that point then can you dive into the minutia a little bit?

– Yeah, I mean from that place because one of the things I’ve struggled with is how does this brand continue to grow? Like you’ve called yourself Girl Meets Party are you just gonna plan parties forever? And I want to expand into things beyond that and from that place you can expand into any line extension because that brand is just more about who I am as a person Girl Meets Party actually summarizes my personality instead of defining what the business is.

– Ah. Yeah, so it’s you. You can do whatever you wanna do and it’s a business. That’s an interesting way to look at it too because that takes it out of the well, these people are doing it this way I’ve seen it then this way versus now Jen is the girl who meets party and it’s my business.

– Right, and that… You know, cause one of the things I’ve struggled with like getting into the minutia is “what’s your elevator pitch?” Who are you? And everyone… We’re such a title-obsessed culture that people are like “Oh, what do you do?” And I’m like, well I have like seven different titles. Which one should I use for this conversation? Where this I feel like helps to streamline that. I’m a creator.

– Tell me more about… So sync that up for me.

– I would say I am a creator of content of business plans, of beautiful parties of stunning interiors, of connections we’ve talked a lot about how I love connecting people and connecting with people that still falls within my mantra of being a creator.

– And what does that all create for your client?

– I think for my clients that creates a space where they can own and flourish because I bring the light to situations and unlock new opportunities creative ways of thinking about problems and solving them from a place that is ownable for them.

– Mhm. And what’s possible when your clients are truly flourishing and owning their own sort of space?

– They level up and then I level up.

– Nice. Well I think you just wrote your LinkedIn and Instagram bios.

– Yes, I’m actually really glad you’re recording this because now I can watch it back and just write it down.

– Yes. Girl Meets Party, GMP is a creator of content, business plans, parties, connections that creates space from a client to flourish creative thinking, it’s ownable and everybody loves that.

– Yeah, will you copy paste that and send it to me?

– Yeah. That’s like a whole business plan in of itself.

– Yeah. Who knew we were gonna solve my business plan in thirty minutes?

– Like yeah, so direct. Let’s weave in the self care.

– Okay. It’s a tough one.

– At that level of Jen totally flourishing owning this platform owning your lane, sharing more of you across both brands, what type of self care needs to be woven in to your life in order to be that way?

– So I struggle with this a ton being a new mom and I hate to be such a cliche but it’s just how it is. One of the things that I constantly think of is how do I feel good being me because you know, every mom can relate you’re tired, you don’t have time to work out you don’t have time to eat healthy there’s no such thing as balance which is a word that I’m banning from my vocabulary because everything’s just a choice.

So one of the ways I have actually been trying to work on this is I actually just started taking a meditation class yesterday it’s an in-person class so that I’m accountable and it’s time for me that’s carved out but I’m working really hard to establish a healthy routine cause one of the things I think everyone can agree with is that having a child and taking my business full time your routine is completely gone and so establishing a healthy routine gives me the structure that I need to flourish but how do I do that in a way that also gives me some self care.

I’ve been toying with the tension of I’m a goals oriented person so what are the goals I set for myself within self care and then what’s something that’s attainable so I don’t feel bad, yeah like I’m not having to say oh I’m going work out five days a week, okay I’m lucky to get two in a week so how about we just start there and I hit that and then if that works I can build in three days. I recognize… So when we first started working together you had me do an exercise, I think I had to rank myself, my family, my husband, work in order and I put myself last, and… Which was the only way to get an F on the test.

– That’s right!

– And here I was like, I’m so selfless this is so good, and you were like “Right, so the only thing you can’t do “is actually put yourself last.” And so since then I’ve really worked to make sure I’m not last and now that I have a baby the baby has been taking, I mean… Takes the number one spot which sometimes has to happen but I’m still trying to figure out how can I still own number one? You would be so proud of me. Instead of watching mindless TV at night I go to bed and read my book for a little bit so I’m trying to do little things that help with self care that take me back to who is Jen?

– Yes. Well… And I think that’s so important because who is Jen is now the foundation and platform of your brand.

– Yeah.

– Your business, your livelihood, your motherhood.

– That’s a good way of putting it too because you know me well and there is nothing that’s out of bounds for me to make my business successful like I will hustle as hard as I can and knowing that self care is a component of that is a really great motivator.

– Right. Self care is like a business goal for you. Yeah. Well you brought up that tool which is called healthy priorities and yeah, you’re supposed to rank in order yourself, your spouse, family, work, friends in whatever order and healthy priorities actually float in that order you have to put yourself first to truly be healthy in what you’re doing you can’t… What is that thing, you like can’t put your oxygen mask on somebody else if you don’t put it on you first. One drowning person cannot help another drowning person. And as a mother I know I’m like no no, my kids need me more than I need me which is not true, like I need to be around to help them get that glass of water I mean simple, simple things so there’s definitely a season for new moms and there’s a season when your child can actually get their own glass of water and you’re like, hallelujah! You’re like, five years old now, okay. So there’s seasons. But Jen as flourishing you’ve got these tactics, right you started the meditation class you’re gonna work out twice a week you’ve got your book, so you’ve got these things in place that are helping you actually create time and space for you which is great. What about your mindset?

– Mm, that’s a good point. I think it’s coming from an even more positive place I have the time to do what I want to do instead of, I wish I had more time to blank. Because we all have the time it’s just a matter of how we spend it and so it’s owning the fact that I need to better prioritize myself especially now that self care is part of my business plan.

– Well what I heard in that was you using time to your advantage.

– Yeah, that’s a great way of summarizing it.

– Yeah. And that you have the choice to do that and you can choose wisely. Yeah. Nice. Well, is there anything else that’s coming up for you what is predictable for you? What is predictable for you that’s going to actually bounce you out of this mindset bounce you out of the flourishing?

– Predictable for me is honestly being a victim to allowing other people’s schedules to impact mine. One of the things I’ve really worked on since becoming a mom is speaking up when I need something versus constantly just saying like oh no, it’s okay, I can move whatever to make sure you’re comfortable or to make sure we’re at this function or whatever it may be and owning the fact that I don’t need to be a people pleaser, I need to make sure that I’m okay and I’m happy because when I’m happy others are happy too so not giving in to… Cause that’s almost the easy way out than to speak out sometimes or short term it’s the easy way out longterm it’s not. So speaking up.

– Yeah, speaking up, asking for what you want and what you need. Nice. I might even challenge you to have a list of your non-negotiables like if that’s… I’ve even had clients be like taking my vitamins every day, non-negotiable. Drinking eight glasses of water, non-negotiable. Having lunch while sitting down, non-negotiable. Like the director of an art school who’s one of my clients and that level we need it to start at the super basics. Just you, just set the groundwork and set the platform so that might be a cool place for you to take a look as you know what’s predictable for you and now you also know your non-negotiables so it’s a no-brainer, you don’t even have to make a decision about it.

– Yeah, cool.

– You see anything else that you could put into action that’s gonna support you as you create this blended platform of who Jen really is?

– Yeah, the other thing that I need to put into action is and I’ve been working on this as well taking the time to connect with more people and sharing my ideas sometimes it’s a little scary to get vulnerable and say like, what are the things that are keeping you up at night. We have this tendency to try and put on this facade like, oh everything’s perfect check out my beautiful Instagram grid. No problems here, keep moving. And the fact of the matter is we’re all working on something and so I’ve been working on getting more vulnerable with people and sharing what are the things that keep me up at night and then getting great feedback.

– Yeah. Yeah, well, and side note last week I reached out to you and to two other groups for a quote to do a social media management for one of my clients and I have to commend you because you got back to me and you had the proposal done and you followed up before the other two had even booked a session with me.

– Thank you.

– Yeah, and since then those other two one has said no for various personal reasons another one just seems to just have scheduling issues like can’t quite link it up but what I was really reflecting on was I reached out to those other two so I could have three, six people to share with my client the other two have the perfect Instagram grids do the perfect Instagram stories I was like, ah, this’ll be a no-brainer this would be great, but when it actually came to the follow through and to the actual business part of business outside of that beautiful grid on Instagram you were the one that was like, boom! Like blew it out of the water.

– Well thank you.

– Yeah, it was really a perfect, again a perfect alignment of Girl Meets Party and business.

– Yeah, thank you, as you were saying that it sparked for me again so thank you.

– Yeah, totally. Okay, let’s sum this up and just quickly run through the laundry list of what it is that you’re taking with you what actions you’re gonna take and next steps.

– Okay. Let me look at my notes. So what we talked about is laser focusing on my target market and I’m able to blend my two businesses because I am Girl Meets Party and coming from that place at an elevated level with self care. I’m better to able serve my clients and bring them through both channels of my work. At the crux of it, I’m a creator and I’m gonna focus more on self care because I should but also because it’s in my business goals now.

– Perfect. And you know what’s predictable for you.

– Yes, it’s predictable for me to retreat and be a people pleaser so I need to own what I need and need to be brave to ask for help when I need it.

– Yes, yes. What was your biggest insight from today’s quick session?

– You know what, the biggest takeaway for me is just connecting with someone who like you who can quickly get on your wavelength where I can be present and focus on growth even just for thirty minutes unlocks so many different growth opportunities for me like this is something I’ve honestly been working on the last three to four weeks and we spent thirty minutes together and I’m like cool, I have a plan, I’m gonna go do it.

– That’s awesome.

– You know I love efficient uses of time and that’s a very efficient use of time.

– This is like the hit interval session of coaching. You’re like, bam.

– Yeah. Exactly.

– So funny. What’s the impact of you taking this plan and actually moving forward with it?

– The impact of taking this plan and moving forward is that I can outline the business for what I know it is and show that to the world which I know will better serve more clients and ultimately allow us all to level up.

– Nice. Flourishing everywhere.

– Yeah.

– Okay, who do you wanna be thanked for being today?

– You know, I wanna be thanked for being brave because I think it’s brave to do a live coaching session I mean I talked about how I’m trying to get more vulnerable by just sharing with people one-on-one and now I just shared it with the world.

– Yes, Jen. Thank you for being real I wanna thank you for being authentic for showing up with courage and bravery standing in what you don’t know what you’re willing to explore and what you’re willing to share like that shows heart and presence and leadership I mean that’s like the definition of leadership right there so I wanna thank you for bringing levity and heart and presence and leadership to this conversation to share with me and so many others that I know it’s just going to resonate with so many and where they’re at in their businesses so thank you for being that person.

– Thank you for taking time to chat with me. This was an awesome idea.