Becca: I am interviewing and chatting with my good friend and longtime client, Emilee. We’re going to have a conversation today about the longevity of coaching relationships, the benefits that come with that, and all of the good stuff in between. This is episode number 146. I am your host, Becca Pike, and it is time for your weekly dose of Hell Yes Coaching. Let’s go.

Hey, guys. I’m Becca Pike and welcome to The Hell Yes Entrepreneur podcast, the number one show for entrepreneurs looking to create their first six-figure year. If you’ve got the drive and you know how to hustle but you’re not sure where to channel your energy, we’ve got the answers. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Becca: Hi, I’m so glad you’re here. 

Emilee: I know. I’m excited to be on.

Becca: You guys don’t know this, but a lot of my interviews are on Zoom. But today Emilee is right here with me sharing one microphone. Our knees are tucked together. We’re closed insight.

Emilee: I actually just showed up at Becca’s house and said we’re doing it in person instead of zoom. So forced her in an person one today. 

Becca: This starts off our conversation on benefits of longtime client. But if you can show up at my house, I would say .01% of my clients can show up at my house and get mauled by all my animals, and then come on my podcast.

Emilee: Yeah, they were attracted to me as soon as our pet, which usually isn’t the case. Usually the cats are somewhere and the dog’s somewhere. 

Becca: No.

Emilee: Something about today.

Becca: How many times you think you’ve been at this house?

Emilee: Gosh, I don’t know. It’s been quite a bit, I feel like.

Becca: I know. Let’s back it up. Let’s give some history. So I started coaching you. You own an aesthetics med spa. I started coaching you and your co-owners. What year was that?

Emilee: 2019 because we came to you before we started our business. 

Becca: Yeah, if you’re about to start a business, there’s no better time. Don’t come to us when your shit’s going down in flames. That’s when people like to come to me the most. They’re like, “My business is failing. Help.” I’m like great, where were you six years ago when it was doing well? We could have built on that instead of hand me have flaming piece of shit and hope that we can like build it up. 

Emilee: Whenever we came to you, we had no idea how to do literally anything business wise. So instead of doing something, making the mistake, repeating it.

Becca: A lot of times when I do work with business owners, I was being dramatic about people’s businesses failing even though I have had people come to me from that place. But even if your business isn’t failing, a lot of times when people wait a long time to come to me or to go to a business owner, they’ve built these really crappy habits that are really hard to get out of and to like retrain your brain. 

So when you guys came, one of my favorite things about you guys was that you were so coachable. Like whatever I said, you just did it. You built really good habits from the ground. 

Emilee: I feel like that’s because we’re totally, I mean, we all came from the medical field of the hospital. Business was completely brand new to us. Another thing, there was four of us. So we really had like some adjusting to do to like learn how to work with each other. 

Which I feel like you came into play a lot with that. Helping build that from the beginning because we definitely had some struggles in the beginning. I mean, it’s hard going from working by yourself not having to do things with three others. Now, I feel like our relationship is what it is because we started off like that. 

Becca: Now let’s fast forward a little bit. It is 2024. You guys have your business. You guys are killing it. We still work together. This has been going on for, I guess we’ve been together for five years now.

Emilee: Yeah, I remember it being hot whenever we started. So in the summer sometime. So almost five years. Yeah.

Becca: It was hot because I remember your sunglasses the day we met. You were wearing Quays.

Emilee: Oh really? 

Becca: Quays. 

Emilee: Oh really? They are my favorite. Yeah, I still don’t know which one’s correct.

Becca: I think it’s Quay, but I still call them Quay because I’m American. But I remember you were wearing your Quays, and I was like those are the coolest sunglasses I’ve ever seen. 

Emilee: I do love them. 

Becca: You were like they’re qua. They’re Quays.

Emilee: However I pronounced it.

Becca: Yeah, I don’t know.

Emilee: I think I say it different every time I say it. 

Becca: So we’ve been working together for five years. I was telling Emilee before we got on here that the whole purpose of this episode in particular is I see a lot of dialogue online where people are like trying to say hey, if your coach is telling you that you should stay with them for years, they’re just trying to get paid from you. 

I want to debunk that. When coaches tell you that longevity is a benefit, it’s because of the relationship that Emilee and I have built. The way that I coach Emilee is so much different than the way that I would coach somebody else. She has been able to come into my life for so long, watch me lead my companies, watch how I handle everything. 

I mean, you’ve been around for me having babies. You’ve been around for me getting sued. You’ve been around for me shutting down in a pandemic. These are things that you don’t see from a mentor when you’re with them for three months. 

I think about this as the difference between coaching and mentorship, which is like coaching is kind of like you hire a coach to go learn a task. Like you might hire a social media coach to learn how to use social media. You might hire a weight loss coach to learn a weight loss. In business, you might hire a business coach for hiring, to learn how to hire. 

But a mentor is more like someone that you watch over the course of years. Someone that is, you’re not there necessarily for the strategy. That is a bonus part of it, but you’re there for the long term benefits of seeing how they handle and how they lead themselves through some of these ups and downs and these rollercoasters.

Emilee: Yeah, I totally agree with that. I really like that analogy too of like mentorship, which I feel like it’s very true. You can hire a coach just for say hiring or a certain task. But then what do you do as problems arise, like how to navigate certain situation, and being able to. 

Well, for starters, see how you navigate those things. But then you already have an insight on to past experiences or past things from a year, or two years, whatever it’s pertaining to. So then you have more insight to when problems arise, or not even problems. But just situations where you need help navigating that or it’s the first time you’re coming across it. 

Like we did a big renovation last year. We had never done that before. There were several things that you had to help us navigate with. We had just watched you do one. So it kind of went hand in hand. Whereas you wouldn’t really hire a coach per se to do a renovation.

Becca: Right. Do you feel like because of our longevity and how well I know your personality versus Corie’s personality versus Katie’s versus Krystel? Like do you think that that has been helpful and why? How has that shown up?

Emilee: 100%. I feel like it helps us, like we can be more vulnerable with you. I remember one of the first things that we did whenever we started working with you was really dive into everyone’s personalities because we are all pretty drastically different. Which comes into play. We are able to navigate that a lot better. 

You, I feel like, whenever we’re coming to you with for coaching, things like that, you’re able to give us better, I don’t know, not advice. But you know pretty much how to navigate that based on the four of us and our personalities and such. So I definitely felt like that’s come into play and been super helpful.

But just working with you for so long, you develop that trust. You develop the vulnerability. Whereas someone that I’ve been working with for two months, I’m not going to come to you and say x, y and z. I feel like this. It just yet builds a different level on top of that than just coaching. 

Becca: Yeah, I’ve been with you guys long enough that I understand your tics. I understand what makes you mad versus what makes Katie mad. I understand the way that you run your life at home versus the way that Katie runs her life at home.

Emilee: And what our priorities are.

Becca: Yeah, I understand. Yes, Krystle’s priorities are different than Corie’s priorities. These are things that have taken time to learn. It only makes the coaching better because it’s all of the layers of the onions are coming to surface.  

If I didn’t know you guys, and it was hey come in and help us with this renovation. It would be me coming in and helping with the renovation. But instead, I got to help the renovation in a totally different light. Yeah, it was like why are we spending money over here when I know that two years ago, you said that this was your ultimate goal for two years from now. This doesn’t match up to what was said this time. This person’s personality, I can tell that this person isn’t saying what they want to say. 

The amount of trust that we’ve built to be able to say the hard things to each other because of the friendship that we have, I think, is absolutely priceless. That’s what coaches are talking about whatever they say have a coach for a long period of time because that’s when it becomes not a coach but your mentor. That’s when it becomes oh, I know that I have this person in my back pocket always when big things arise. This is like my insurance. This is the person that I get to look at and model after.

Emilee: Yeah, and I don’t know if this is a good way to compare it to you. But I felt like whenever we first started, which I’m sure is what you see maybe now whenever you have someone for a short term, but you’re helping with small, miniscule or more task oriented things. They’re asking you how to get a new client, things like that. 

Whereas like long term now we really come to you for mindset, behaviors, really things like that that are deeper have been just checking off a task. I feel like you’re really good about whenever we meet with you like getting through the bullshit of okay, what’s really going on right now?

You can tell even whenever we’re all trying to, or like things that we haven’t even said to each other, but then you’re like, “I can tell something’s up.” Then that helps us to dig in and really bring issues to the surface or just addressing things that are important. Since we’ve been with you so long, I feel like that’s why you realize those things, because you’ve been around for all that.

Becca: That’s actually a brings up a really interesting point. I think that over the years, I have gotten better at coaching people that I don’t know but I’m still a human. Right? So the very first initial coaching session, everyone’s kind of a little awkward. We’re getting to know each other, trying to see what offends them, what doesn’t offend them, just feeling the room. 

It can feel that way for the first three to six months. It really can. It was that way with you guys too. I just need to see how you guys react to some of the things that I’m saying, what offends you, what doesn’t offend you. But my best coaching is when I can be unleashed.

Emilee: That’s what I was just about to say. That’s what I feel like benefits us the most is that you can be that way, and I have definitely grown in the five years that I’ve known you. I was 24 whenever we met you. So I’ve definitely grown as a person. 

But things that I used to take offense to or I would get butthurt about like oh, I’m being too sensitive. Or oh, I took that personally. Whatever I feel like I can definitely take that criticism better now as constructive criticism. I know it’s coming from like a place of you want us to do better, do this. So I feel like I can take that better as well too. But that is where we’ve had the most benefit is where you come to us more unleashed. I feel like that’s where you get the biggest transformations.

Becca: Yep. Well, I’m really glad that you said that because I do feel like I can come unleashed. I have said things to you guys that I know for a fact is hard to hear. 

Emilee: Oh, yeah.

Becca: I know for a fact, and you guys have always taken it with such grace. But I also know that I care so much about your own success, that I have to say the thing that I know is going to move the needle and I know it’s going to hurt a little bit. Maybe I get customed to your breath a little bit, that’s like I’m willing to do that almost like a mom or like a big sister or something because I care that much. It’s hard to be at that level of unleashed. I have lost clients over unleashed.

Emilee: I can see that. Yeah.

Becca: That’s okay. They weren’t the clients for me. 

Emilee: Yeah, I feel like too not the clients for you, or they’re not adaptable or willing to like have the self-growth to maybe take that harsh criticism. I mean, it’s hard to look at your flaws or to see what you’re doing wrong and things and have someone pointed out to you. But that’s also how you grow and get better. 

If you just turn a blind eye or don’t want to hear that then there’s no evolving or really, what’s the point of mentorship? I can sit there, and I feel like it’s different whenever you notice. We all pretty much know whenever something’s wrong, or we’re doing something wrong, but having someone else point it out to you, say it out loud in an uninvolved manner, so to speak, really puts it in perspective. I feel like it always does with us, gives us the view or the kick in the butt we need to solve the issue or get over the hurdle. 

Becca: Yeah. Is there anything that you think about or any thoughts that go through your mind when you receive a harsh feeling criticism from me? Is there anything that you remind yourself of or any advice you can give to other clients who might be in a situation in the future where they receive something that just doesn’t feel good, but they know they needed to hear it? 

Emilee: Yeah, I typically think about you’ve probably been there, done that. So you’re telling us from a place of I’ve experienced this, whether it’s exactly the same.

Becca: I’m telling my past.

Emilee: Yeah, which I feel like it happens a lot. I mean, you’re a few steps ahead of us in business, and you’ve experienced a lot of thing that we are now coming to. So I think everything that you say, once I think on it, I’m like yeah, she’s probably been there, done that. 

Then it’s, once again, going back to you saving us the steps of doing something wrong or doing something and correcting it. Whereas if we just take the criticism or that redirect, reflect, whatever we need to do, and therefore in the long run. I mean, once we look back, there’s never been a decision we’ve made that we’ve regretted or been unhappy with because of criticism. It’s always helped us in the long run. 

Becca: Yeah. Do you think, so the flip side of that coin I asked you, do you think it helps that I know your personality? Do you think that it helps that you know all of my shit too? Because there’s things that you guys know, you guys have seen the behind scenes.

Emilee: Yeah.

Becca: You guys have seen the shit that has gone down. You’ve seen me eat dust. You have seen me celebrate. You’ve seen me win big? Do you think that those behind the scene things and some of that friendship that we’ve built, and just to give you guys context. 

At this point, Emilee and I have been on kid’s field trips together. We have worked out together. Our friendship has evolved over time so much more than just the business coaching. So I guess my question is on the flip side of that, is that helpful as well?

Emilee: Oh, for sure. It’s helpful too that you’re very open about your things that you go through in business. So hearing that, seeing the success of it, I mean, it speaks for itself. Which also, in turn, builds trust with trusting the guidance that you are giving. It’s like yeah, you get to see you’re not just blowing smoke. We get to actually see everything behind the scenes of what you’re doing.

Becca: Yeah. Yeah. Like you know that I’ve been there.

Emilee: Right. 

Becca: Yeah, love that. All right, sweet. So sometimes I hear people say that they have outgrown their coach’s container, and they want to leave their coach. I agree with that. I think if you outgrow your coach, if you get to a point where it is no longer serving you. Your business is further ahead than your coach, anything like that. 

I do think that there is a place to graduate from your coach. But on the contrary, a lot of people think that they’ve outgrown their coach, but really what has happened is maybe they are complacent in the way that they use their coaching container. Right? Like, they’re not bringing their best self. They’re not bringing their best questions. They’re not like squeezing the juice out of the lemon in their coaching container. You know what I’m saying? 

Emilee: Yeah, I totally think. I think I did that for a little while just because I wasn’t open and vulnerable, maybe even with myself. But if you feel like that, going through maybe a few weeks or whenever you’re going to meet with them again, and just jotting down like trials that you’ve had or things that have come up that you are questioning yourself and just jotting them like in your notes app. 

Again, bringing whatever up, whether you’ve resolved it or not. Seeing like, but then I feel like you also have to be very open to feedback. If you’re not then.

Becca: Yeah. There’s so many different ways to get coached. I think if you’re paying a high level coach, but you’re not showing up with very good questions, or you’re not even really noticing or being aware of what’s going on in your business that needs help then you’re not, usually the higher the level the coach, the less willing they are to dig through your business when you’re not around. You know what I mean?

Like, when I first got started, I would look through your all’s business when you weren’t around so that I would bring to the table all kinds of shit for you guys. Now my companies have grown. I look at mentorship very differently. Like now it’s much more you get to spend two hours with me, what do you need? 

Emilee: I also think that we need that too just also long term because now the things that we discuss in our meetings are not things we would have talked about three years ago. It’s much on a larger scale of how is your home life? How is, things that all go into play. It’s not what were your sales numbers from last week, which are also important. But also tying in the rest of everything else that’s going on also in a big picture.

Becca: Yeah, so it’s even more of a mindset.

Emilee: Which I think is even more, yes. Even more important. I don’t know. I think if you’re not getting a lot out of your coaching, which like you said, it’s different if you kind of surpassed who you’re coaching with. You can always up level. You can kind of do like a self-assessment. What am I bringing to the table? What am I doing whenever we have these sessions if you feel like that. A lot of times it probably comes back to the person, not so much the coach.

Becca: Yeah. I often try to teach my clients how to be coached. So I bring it up in the very beginning. It’s like hey, you guys are renting my brain for this hour. So it would be best suited if throughout the week, you think about the things that you need help with and really think about these questions. You know? If you come to me, and you’re like how do I host a webinar? That’s a pretty low quality question. 

Emilee: That’s what I was just about to say. I just thought of this. Also it probably, the person might even have to adapt to a higher level of mentorship. Because say someone who’s just getting started coaching or isn’t, they might come and say how do I put in my inventory, or how should I track my supplies? Whereas someone who’s been coached for a while will probably come to you and say, what system do I need to have in place for X, Y, and Z? That would cover a very broad spectrum that way you’re answering 10 questions. You get. 

Becca: Yeah, exactly. If somebody comes to me and they say how do I host a webinar? They could mean what platform do I host it on? How do I market it? How do I get people in? How do I get people to show up live? How do I sell? What type of education do I need to be giving? How do I sell to them afterwards in an email sequence? They could mean anything, anything.

Versus what I teach especially my close proximity, like my mastermind students and my one on one students, is don’t come to me with a question. Come to me with answers to your question. Then ask me what you’re missing. So instead of how do I host a webinar, they would say hey, this is how I’m going to market my webinar. These are the exact steps. Where do you see the holes in this?

That way you’re using your own brain. You’re not becoming reliant on my brain, and we’re not wasting time with me trying to figure out exactly what you’re asking, right. So ultimately, that’s what I want to do. I’ve always taught you guys that as well, which is learn to use your own brain. 

You guys need to be able to figure this out and then come to me last minute, or like last resort when you all can’t decide on stuff or you don’t know what to do next, and then present to me what you’ve already done. I don’t want my students, especially at the highest level, just showing up and like vomiting on me with things that I can tell that they haven’t taken the time to sit with.

Emilee: To process. 

Becca: And to process. Yeah. 

Emilee: Like, even though we don’t meet as frequently as we used to, there can be times whenever two months go by, and I really don’t have anything large major to bring to you. Because, like you said, you’ve taught us to kind of work through things ourselves. You’ve given us the tools to work through that. 

But then whenever something does come about, we have that in our back pocket. So we’re not running around panicking of how to figure something out. So it’s not like we have to use you every second of every day, but we have built this relationship. So whenever we do come with you with an emergency SOS scenario, you already have all the, which has saved us a ton of time. 

Becca: And resources. That actually brings up a really good point. A lot of people, I think, have thought that they have outgrown their coach because the way that they are receiving mentorship is so different than the way they used to receive mentorship. The way they used to receive mentorship was much more Chihuahua energy and like all over the place. You’ve evolved. I’ve evolved in the way that I’ve received mentorship. 

So sometimes I think it’s easy to look at the past and how you used to receive it and how much you need it and how needy you were and how that that coach came and put their cape on and saved you so often. Now we’re in a situation where we’ve evolved so much that we only meet every other month or whatever it is. A lot of times there’s not any huge fires to put out. 

So now it’s about realizing that this is mentorship. This is longevity. This is calm. This is like self-responsibility. This is just checking the boxes, making sure everything’s okay. It’s ultimately insurance to use when needed. That doesn’t mean that the coaching container isn’t working anymore. 

So anybody that’s listening to this, if you’ve been with your mentor for a long time, let your relationship evolve. If you are still using your coach the same way that you were five years ago and bringing forth the same amount of questions with the same energy then there’s a good chance that your evolvement as a business owner hasn’t evolved very evolving. 

Emilee: Yeah, I agree. If I was still during the same as what I did five years ago, I would not be, and it’s exactly what you described, the Chihuahua energy. That’s very much what it is whenever I feel like you start out in business because you know nothing. So you have 27 million questions. 

But now that you’ve got five years under your belt, you have seen, done, and been through a lot of things so you know how to put out fires here, put out fires there. You can kind of do it on your own. But then as business does, it evolves. So do you. But then you’re going to come up with, you’re going to run into bigger challenges, face bigger obstacles. So then that’s whenever it’s very, very, very nice to like, you said, have you in our back pocket to pull out for.

Becca: Yeah, I love that. This is such a great conversation just on self-leadership and maturity of a CEO. Whereas you might have come with some Chihuahua energy in the beginning, I feel like we show up to our meetings now, and I’m sitting down with lions. You know what I mean? You are some bad bitches. You know what you need. You’ve already done it. Now it’s just a checking in and making sure that we’re all on the continual growth, and that everybody is still happy and feeling good with their roles. 

Emilee: Yeah.

Becca: It’s just so different, and it’s so calm. Ultimately, that’s the relationship you want to get with your coach. If you are only using your coach as a place to freak the fuck out, you’re missing out on a lot of opportunities to really be mentored.

Emilee: Yeah, I would agree and probably need to evolve a little bit. Do some self-reflecting and some just working on yourself.

Becca: This is all stuff that I just taught in my class, the Mature CEO. So if you’re listening to this, and you haven’t watched the Mature CEO, it’s included in The Circle membership, but you can also buy ala carte for $333. Definitely, I encourage you to buy that because it’s all about self-leadership and making decisions and basically how to show up as a mature CEO and all of these aspects and how much it moves your needle forward. Thanks for being here. 

Emilee: Yeah, I’m glad you have me on. 

Becca: Oh, absolutely. So it’s only like two o’clock in the afternoon, but I think we should go have a glass of wine or something. 

Emilee: Yeah, for sure. 

Becca: All right. Thanks for being on Emilee, and I love you so much. 

Emilee: Love you. Thanks for having me.

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