Is Hiring a Life Coach Right For You? My Interview With Jenna Starkey
Photo Credit / The Wildcraft Studio
If you had asked me a couple of years ago if I thought life coaches were a valid profession, I would have had some snarky comments lined up. The funny thing about dragging things you know nothing about, is they are often the exact thing you need in your life.
For years I have been my harshest critic, measuring myself against an ideal that will never exist and would probably be insufferable if she did. After radically altering the trajectory of my life courtesy of my divorce last year, I decided to get curious about myself rather than tear myself down. Part of that curiosity was exploring how a life coach could support, enhance and fuel a life that looked so dramatically different.
I told a friend about my plan to research life coaches and by that afternoon I had reached out to three. Days later I had my first exploratory call with Jenna Starkey, and by minute 5, I knew she was the coach for me.
We completed our work together in December (for now), and it was the most supportive and compassionate gift I could have given myself during such an intense time of personal and global upheaval.
Life coaching, or fulfillment coaching, as Jenna calls it, is becoming more well known, but there’s still a lot of mystery that surrounds it. I sat down with Jenna (virtually) to talk through some of the finer points of coaching to give you, my readers, a more in depth look at this potentially valuable resource.
Word to the wise. Not all coaches are created equal. Jenna has extensive training and experience, and I encourage you to do your research to find not only a coach you vibe with, but one with the experience to support you in reaching your goals.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Disclaimer / Some links in this post are affiliate links. If you click through and pay for a product or service, I’ll be compensated at no cost to you. I only recommend products or services I love and/or use myself.
Photo Credit / The Wildcraft Studio
Jenna Starkey - Fulfillment Coach - www.jennastarkey.com
After six months of speaking only on the phone, it was a pleasure to see Jenna in (Zoom) person. Jenna and I opened with mutual headband appreciation, and then got right down to it.
Please explain what life coaching is and how it is different from therapy.
The way I think about life coaching is that it’s about aligning our lives with our values, and it’s traditionally more present and future focused as opposed to present and past focused. Most therapists are trained from a clinical perspective to heal wounds or to diagnose.
Coaches are trained to see to clients as creative, resourceful and whole as they are now. I’m always thinking about how clients can feel more fulfilled in their lives and thrive more in their lives.
That’s why I call myself a fulfillment coach because I love the idea of combining this idea of values more from a holistic standpoint instead of just our personal lives. It’s so much more than that. It’s everything.
What do clients come to you for most commonly?
Most people come to me because they’re stuck in their career, but it’s more than that. I do wear a career coaching hat sometimes, but I plant myself firmly in the life coaching sphere.
It’s usually mostly career related, but the common thread is “something is missing and I know that there’s more that I can have in my life and I know that it’s got to be a personal journey. I know it has to be inward and I know I can’t do it alone.” So most people come to me “I know it’s about my whole life” but the career is the big thing that drives most people.
What do people say they’re coming to you for and what do they actually end up really needing?
After so many years of doing this work, I’ve learned how to ask better questions in the beginning so that I can make sure that the goals are focused on a state of being, and it’s not about getting somewhere you that you can’t control.
As they’re moving along the coaching journey, there are so many factors that come to play that can affect people but a lot of [the] time they’ll pick up new passions because there’s more spaciousness in their life. They’re feeling more connected to their dreams. New hobbies will emerge or they’ll meet partners.
The sky is the limit about the things that happen along the journey, but to answer your question do people get what they came for? Yes, from the being state, for the most part.
For the people come with a really clear intention around [something] like finding a job by six months then that’s our job during that time to get them there.
What do you find holds people back from hiring you?
The people who book a sample session and get on the phone with me are most of the way there, so for those people it’s really about me giving them space to remember that they have these dreams and to hear their voice really want this thing and believe it’s possible. By that point they’ve committed.
[For] the people who don’t get to the phone call who are watching from the outside, what’s in the way is just the ego- the fight or flight response.
The fear [and] the stubbornness of belief that they can do it on their own which is the old pattern that’s driving everything they’re not taking risks on. It’s the fear, it’s the old patterns, it’s the fear of making the investment, it’s the rationalizing part of our brain that is doing what it’s supposed to be do, which is keep us safe and protected from taking major risks. I always have so much empathy for that part of the journey.
That is where we need the support usually, or we need somebody who really inspires others to remind them that this is hard, take the leap. And of course, the scarcity mindset- pandemic, money and time is a big one too. Time is so precious now, but also time is an illusion. This idea of investing time is so hard to reconcile, but it all boils down to fear in the end.
What would you recommend to those who are not ready to take the leap?
What’s immediately coming up is having a conversation with somebody who’s done it. I’m a big fan of the conversation because you can’t get somebody to do something when they’re in fear, but you can be wiling to put one toe in the water and explore with somebody who’s been there before. [For] those people who are stuck on the edge, brut force and will power is not going to make it easy for them, so it’s just about finding the little opening that does feel good for you.
It’s about following that internal motivation. Finding the people we relate to who are just an inch ahead of where we want to be – we call them expanders- those are magical people. That’s the way to do anything in life, whether its hire a life coach or get a job at a certain place. “If she can do it, I can do it” “Okay, it’s not that scary. She’s done the emotional labor for me. I can follow her trailblaze.”
We can see somebody who’s doing something that we [aspire] to, but if there’s jealousy or they’re too far ahead or they have more money than us then it’s an energetic emotional block. If there’s somebody that we feel good around, we make around the same amount of money, or we feel the same sort of way, those are the people who open the channels.
What can clients bring to their session to get the most out of it?
The thing that make[s] for the best collaborative experience [is] just general openness. Belief in themselves, a sense of what internally motivates them. Willingness- are you willing to dip your toe in the water? A sense of playfulness is great - adaptability and improvisational skills. Those people are true dreams to work with, but it can also be asking a lot when you feel so stuck.
You feel less than fulfilled, you feel short on time, so those qualities can be worked on. [Ideally] you can cultivate a quality of spaciousness where you can really feel committed to the time because a lot of people come to coaching like “what do I do now? I don’t have much time”
Having a sense of spaciousness, patience and openness creates so much more magic and so much more growth.
The enneagram is the foundation of your work. How did you decide to place so much importance on it?
The enneagram found me when I was young. It’s the reason I became a coach. When I was ten [or] eleven years old, my Mom brought it to the dinner table, and it blew my mind because it’s about motivation and understanding other people’s unique points of view.
I used to do living room workshops on the enneagram in high school, in college and after college, and it was just this thing that allowed me to connect with people and offer this beautiful way of seeing the world and connecting.
When I was on my soul searching journey to discover coaching I actually took a step away. I want to know who I am as a coach without the enneagram and a year in I [realized] this is the most helpful tool for coaching, so I came back to it because it’s really a shortcut to helping people understand all of these invisible ways of seeing the world.
I wouldn’t have the same energy and enthusiasm and excitement for coaching without it. There are a lot of sceptics early on, but I’ve convinced almost every single one of them.
What are some of the tools that you use regularly?
I’ve been really into any work around Somatics- body, breathwork, yoga, mindfulness. Anything that can help with that connection I consider a tool. I’m also trained in cognitive behavioral therapy/cognitive behavioral coaching which is work around limiting beliefs and unpacking cognitive thoughts.
Human Design. Thinking about our life in prototypes. It’s a classic creative design methodology that helps us piece our life together in design, so whenever you outgrow a design, that’s how we continue to evolve.
The Grow Model. A classic coaching framework, which I don’t always mention to clients, but I’m doing it behind the scenes to help them understand “what’s the goal, what’s the reality, what’s the obstacle, where are we going” A lot of it is just really intuitive.
How do you see change happening throughout your work with the client? Do they see it at the same time you do?
I can hear when the shoulders are “up by the ears”.
Usually after some visualization or some conversations around values there’s momentum. By session five or six, there’s a shift in the tone, there’s a shit in what I “hear” to be the body language and there’s this self-coaching that starts to happen where people feel comfortable with the tools.
They’ve got these tools in their holster, they are clear about what they want, they’re feeling supported [around] their dreams, and people are sitting straighter. You can hear it in their voice, and the belief in their dreams.
The energy is different.
I do usually hear it before they do. In that mid program reflection, looking backwards “how are you different than you were three months ago? What are you learning? What’s different”
Even reflecting, people go “oh gosh, I do feel really different.” “I have changed a lot”
That’s the point where I go “I know! Isn’t it cool?!”
What commonalities do you see in your clients as they’re wrapping up their time with you?
The word that comes up for me is a calmness.
It always surprises people [that] the answers are inward. I have it all right here. It’s not way beyond me. There’s this quiet calmness. There’s a confidence in the tools, there’s a confidence in their values, there’s a confidence in their resources, actions and prototypes.
The baton has been passed, they can now be their own coach. Obviously, coaching doesn’t end after six months, but there’s this calmness [of] “I got this” I can be my own coach now.
Is there a particular success story that keeps you energized in this work?
There is one girl who when I think about her story makes me giddy. She was living in Seattle and feeling really stuck in this house and her job and everything felt so stagnant. She really didn’t feel like she could live the life that she wanted.
She was able to, within a handful of months, sell her house, pick up and move to Maui and start a life and a business all on her own. Her life was a complete transformation in three months and the reason I love her story so much was it was from darkness to light and a pure miracle in her mind.
She was living in rainy Seattle and she kept thinking about this dream where it would be so cool to move to Maui and start [her] own business and to be a wake surfer. And she totally did it.
The energetics of it! The possibility!
Photo Credit / The Wildcraft Studio
What is some practical advice to give people a place to start?
I am really into Jenny Blake’s book called ‘Pivot’ which is about the next move [being] the most important move. She wrote this book, and she has an awesome podcast. And she has interviewed this woman Penny Pierce who is just a magical intuitive business woman who is also a PhD, and they have 12 conversations on her podcast about life and getting unstuck and about what’s going on in the world.
‘Designing Your Life’ by Dave Evans and Bill Burnett. They’re the ones that I riff off of around design prototypes and design thinking and thinking about your life in this creative way.
I’m also really into a book called ‘Designing the Life You Love’, which is very similar. She thinks about creating the life you love and getting unstuck from a true design standpoint. So deconstructing your life if you’re overwhelmed, and reconstructing your life back together, and this really cool way on thinking about the work.
And of course, the enneagram.
[Also], start with you. What am I motivated by? And how am I different and how can I stop comparing myself to the people around me?
Human Design is also free. Myhumandesign.com
Meditation and morning pages. You get up in the morning and free write. You can self-coach yourself.
What happens if you’re at a place where you feel you can’t move forward?
Meditation.
Getting out of the head and creating space. For clients, dropping into a 20-minute visualization. Guiding them back to their center or focal point, will always bring something new to the table and guide you back to where you need to be.
In the middle of the day, I will lay on my couch and I’ll put on a visualization or a Sarah Blondin mediation. She has one called ‘Accessing your stillness” which I kid you not, I listen to every single day.
It’s my silver bullet.
When we are stuck, our brain is on autopilot and we need to come back inside. Then we can move forward.
Get out of the brain and into the body.
Just for fun -what three words sum up 2020 for you?
Expansive. Insane. Strengthening.
You can find out more about Jenna and the services she provides at www.jennastarkey.com
Have you worked with a life coach before? Are you thinking about it?
Feel free to shoot me any questions you have about my experience working with Jenna.
With love,
Steph
