Betsy Butterick 00:00
Every time I was in a space like that, I just reminded myself, each person in this room has a future opportunity. Maybe they won't hire me today, but maybe six months, a year, or two years down the road. That's someone who's gonna say, hey, remember that time when we were in that space, and that person offered that thing that was helpful. So for me, the driver and sustainability of building a business are providing value before you're asked to be of service.
Lindsey 00:35
Welcome to the Mindset Coach Academy Podcast. I'm Lindsey Wilson. And I am a high-performance mindset coach, a mom, a former professional athlete, and an entrepreneur, I help coaches and high performers optimize their mindset to improve their coaching their performance, and those of their athletes and their lives. Here, you'll learn all about mindset, how to live it, how to teach it, and how to sell it.
Lindsey 01:00
Hi, all and welcome back to the mindset coach Academy podcast. My name is Lindsey Wilson. And today we have a very, very special guest in Betsy Butterick, how are you?
Betsy Butterick 01:08
I'm great, Lindsey, thank you for having me on.
Lindsey 01:10
Oh, of course, always a pleasure, you guys, you're in for a treat. Betsy is an expert in communication. She is a former athlete coach and knows all the things about starting a business and being successful in entrepreneurship. So I'm really excited to talk about that. And then I, we never know where these conversations are gonna go.
Lindsey 01:28
But I think talking a little bit about how to listen and communicate better would be beneficial for all of us, especially as mindset coaches, that speaking for someone in this room myself, always thinks they have the answer and the advice. So learning to slow down and really hold that space for other people. I want to talk about that. But first, Betsy, if you would, please let our listeners know a little bit about you.
Betsy Butterick 01:52
Sure. My background is in athletics. And when I meet folks, for the first time, I like to say that I have a degree in psychology and a background in sports, but I'm not a sports psychologist. And I played all sports growing up, I ended up pursuing basketball and golf through college.
Betsy Butterick 02:08
And golf by way of the fact that my basketball coach was the senior women's administrator when they started a golf team at my college and she said, Oh, that's you play field hockey in high school, you should come out for the golf team. No. And I said no coach, I only ever have done putt like mini golf. Just like now, you'll be fine. And I was the worst by far on our golf team.
Betsy Butterick 02:29
But my pace of play was so good because I would jog between strokes. So I easily took twice as many as everyone else. But they let me stay on the team because my pace was good. So I learned golf in college. And then I started coaching or was involved with basketball immediately after I graduated. I had the privilege of coaching 14 years of basketball camp for Tara VanDerveer at Stanford.
Betsy Butterick 02:49
And when I was in my junior year of college, that summer camp, she said that's when you graduate, would you like to come back and intern with our program? Of course, the answer was yes. And I interned at Stanford. And then I went and worked in the WNBA. At the Seattle storm for a year, the University of Washington took on an all-new staff.
Betsy Butterick 03:05
So I got on staff with them. And then after that first year, I got out of division one becoming the assistant coach with Heidi Vanderveer at Occidental College, which is Division three. And then after four years at Oxy Heidi and I moved over to UC San Diego, which at the time was division two, now Division one. So I have experience in D one, D two D three in the WNBA.
Betsy Butterick 03:25
And then in 2011, I was working at Occidental and we had a tournament in the Bay Area. And I got a voicemail from our athletic director after one of our games. And then the voicemail said, Hey, bats, you know if Heidi says it's okay, I want you to take the minivan drive into the city. There's someone that I want you to meet, and our ad to come with us to meet with some donors and alumni in the area.
Betsy Butterick 03:46
So drive up to this Whiskey Bar on an iconic rainy dark San Francisco night. And in the back. There's my athletic director sitting at a table with another woman and I walk up and she says Betsy, this is Sue, Sue coaches leaders, I think you have a lot to talk about.
Betsy Butterick 04:02
And I tell that story because that was the exact moment in time where I learned that something called coaching existed outside of sports. And as soon as I did, I felt That's it. That's the thing. That's the thing I feel most called to do. And the joke, while I was coaching basketball, was always that I liked basketball.
Betsy Butterick 04:17
What I really loved was the people. And for me, coaching basketball was a meaningful way to be with people, especially at the college level during a huge transitory part of their life. And when I learned I could do that with others that became the path that I pursued.
Betsy Butterick 04:30
So in 2011, I went to school for a year at a place called New Ventures West in San Francisco, while I was also coaching basketball at Occidental, and then I began coaching coaches. And I did both for about three and a half years and then stepped off the court in 2015 to do what I do now, which is working with athletic departments and teams on the topics that are most important to them, specifically as a communication specialist.
Betsy Butterick 04:54
And part of what I love about communication is with improved quality of communication. Everything else gets a little easier. And because it's a skill, it's something that anyone can develop at any time. And yet, there's no ceiling for how competent we can become as far as our level of communication. So I love being in that space.
Lindsey 05:10
And you're also a mom?
Betsy Butterick 05:13
I am. Yes. So that's been, you know, you talked about the entrepreneurial journey later on to that the parenting journey. And that's been wild.
Lindsey 05:23
So okay, so let's talk about, so a lot of people listening are aspiring mindset coaches, you are in a similar field. And a lot of people that are listening also have that sports background. So I'm interested in, like, understanding what your journey was, like, you planted the seed, you got, like, some sort of degree or certification in some sort of coaching. And then you jumped? That was, what, six years ago?
Betsy Butterick 05:57
It was 2015. I left. So we're not quite at 10. And I think I spent honestly, the first at least six months letting What I didn't know to get in the way of what I could do. Yeah, it was like, Oh, shit, what have I done?
Betsy Butterick 06:09
You know, I remember I was home, it was right after season ended in 2015. So in the spring, and at the end of each season, basketball rules your life for a couple of months. And so I'd gone home to visit my folks. I remember I was sitting at the breakfast table. And my dad said, So how long are you going to keep doing this?
Betsy Butterick 06:25
And I said, Well, I think I'll give it at least one more year. And he said that's what's gonna change with another year. And I just started crying. Because I knew [inaudible] talking about coaching, yeah, like how long you're gonna keep coaching basketball, because he knew they knew that I wanted to do this thing, coaching people
Lindsey 06:43
Done any work yet? I mean, had, you know, done a workshop or had a client or?
Betsy Butterick 06:48
I had not done a workshop, I'd had probably three or four clients for three or six-month programs. Yeah. But I mean, I could count on one hand, maybe with the aid of two how much work I've done in the space, and no facilitation yet was not, you know, on the public speaking circuit, and so scared, and that's why I was crying because I knew I needed to leave and give up basketball to realize this vision that I had of, gosh, if I can help coaches be at their best, then they could give their best to the student-athletes in their program.
Betsy Butterick 07:18
And in doing so we could elevate the quality of the student-athlete experience. That's what I wanted to do. And I didn't know anyone at the time that was doing that, that was just there for coaches that were separate from an administrator, a spouse or significant other, a colleague in the space. And I thought it was worth that could matter.
Betsy Butterick 07:36
And yet, I had no basis for confirming that, that was true, let alone that people would pay me for it at a sustainable living wage. So I left coaching, and I'm typically someone who sleeps very well. And I think for the first two weeks, or at least 10 days, I barely slept and the thoughts racing through my mind were What have you done? Like this was such a dumb decision.
Betsy Butterick 07:57
You were at UCSD, you were living three blocks from wind and sea beach in La Jolla. You have a wonderful head coach that you would coach until the end of time with you have a team that you love and adore. What were you thinking? And the thing that sustained me was I think this could make a difference.
Betsy Butterick 08:12
Like I think this matters, knowing what I knew about the coaching profession, seeing the ways in which coaches were wildly unsupported and still, still so what was being asked to them, it's like, this matters and I have to make this work. So yeah, that was my what made me do it.
Betsy Butterick 08:30
What made you take the job? And then the fall? I mean, the fall last years, and people talk about the entrepreneurial journey being a roller coaster, and it very much is except it's not over in two minutes. It's ongoing for years. And there were absolutely times where the self-doubt the fear Gremlins, you know, talk about mindset, gosh, it would have been so great to have a mindset coach helped me figure out or clarify the thoughts in my head that were separate from my heart saying you can do this in my head saying who are you to do this?
Betsy Butterick 09:02
The imposter syndrome was huge. Why would anybody pay me Betsy, who was a basketball coach to help them with their communication?
Lindsey 09:11
I've known you for a long time. I think we might have been separate. We definitely got a University of Washington.
Lindsey 09:15
Yeah.
Lindsey 09:16
And then I remember sitting with you in, where were we like?
Betsy Butterick 09:21
it was on a Final Four, I think.
Lindsey 09:22
Yeah, but which we're, I don't know, maybe New Orleans or something. I don't know. I remember he had just sort of jumped in like we might have had a year and you would just have like, clients and I now look at you. You have like a roster. And it's so cool to see I just keep raising. Yeah, so Okay, so tell me so.
Lindsey 09:41
But so how helpful was it? So one of the things that we teach is with our ultimate mindset coaching toolkit is like so many coaches are sitting there with knowledge, and they want to jump into something whether that's mindset coaching or communication or facilitating workshops, a lot of them have access to people that need what I've heard as they can provide, right, whatever their expertise is, and they're sitting on the sidelines, instead of like running a session.
Lindsey 10:09
You know, like, taking somebody through an exercise that you know, or doing a workshop, if you want to do that, or one on one, whatever it is, talk to me about how important it, and maybe if you look back and wish they were better, of sitting with those first few clients before you took that jump, like, as far as what you learned, as far as the confidence as far as like, yes, I want to do this experience. Like it's I feel like those first few slides whether you got paid or not don't really matter. That idea of like, I'm sitting in the expert chair. Probably, I'm not sure I'm...
Betsy Butterick 10:47
Yeah. That, and I'll say, Lindsey, I think that part of my, what ultimately contributed to my success, was being able to sit in that chair, and yet, move that chair. So I'm sitting alongside the audience. So having a background as a coach, immediately, I have credibility, that separates from anybody else that would teach the exact same thing, because I know what it's like to be them.
Betsy Butterick 11:10
So if you're someone that's listening, and you're already in that space, where you have the shared experience of your peers, please lean into that, because that's absolutely an asset that's irreplaceable in terms of experience, we know that relatability to an audience is a key to opening their ears to learning what it is we have to offer.
Betsy Butterick 11:27
So I think that coming alongside that partnering with is something that was intentional for me and also helped selfishly damper down a little bit of that, that impostor syndrome, that fear of who am I to be the expert, I was just sitting where you're sitting, you know, six months ago, when you know, something, and you know, it has value.
Betsy Butterick 11:48
What's interesting with coaches I found is we don't know what we don't know, we know what we're being asked to do. We have an idea of what might be helpful. But unless you've experienced it, it's very hard to articulate, I need a mindset coach, I would really benefit from this activity or exercise.
Betsy Butterick 12:04
And so what can be in coaching, we always look for openings, sometimes an opening comes because something isn't going well, and sometimes an opening comes because there was a question or conversation that created a possibility that didn't exist before.
Betsy Butterick 12:17
And so being aware of and looking for opportunities for an opening, so even if let's say you're having a casual conversation with a colleague that you know, and you aspire to be a mindset coach, but maybe you haven't taken that leap yet, in a formal way. And they mentioned a challenge that they're happening, that they happen to have with an athlete or with their team, offering into the space, you know, I don't know if this would be helpful.
Betsy Butterick 12:38
But would you mind if I shared an exercise I've done in the past that I think may be beneficial, usually coaches will be like, Oh, sure, that'd be great? And then you take them through what you would do, or you give them an example of what's been successful, and all of a sudden, they have a possibility that didn't exist prior to your conversation, that possibility creates the opening for more.
Betsy Butterick 12:58
So maybe they leave that conversation, they say, Hey, thanks, I'm gonna try that. You say, yeah, if you do, if you want me to write it down for you, you know, just shoot me a quick email. So you do it once. And then what happens, the ripple effect that happens away from that conversation, is really how my business has built to the level that it has today.
Betsy Butterick 13:14
And I remember speaking, I think it was the final force, it was the final four for women's basketball, you're not paid to speak, you pay to come to speak. So you have to cover your transportation and your room, and you submit your application, your registration, and, and then you're given an opportunity to speak if you're selected. And I remember thinking, Gosh, it's costing me to do this.
Betsy Butterick 13:36
And yet every single person in that room, whether it was 20, people, or whether it was 200, people, every time I was in a space like that, I just reminded myself, each person in this room has a future opportunity. Maybe they won't hire me today, but maybe six months, a year, or two years down the road. That's someone who's gonna say, hey, remember that time when we were in that space, and that person offered that thing that was helpful.
Betsy Butterick 13:58
So for me, the driver and sustainability of building a business are providing value before you're asked to be of service. And for me, that took an early form of the activity of series. So on YouTube, I have short videos, they're called active communication techniques, Acts. And there are three minutes or less than designed to give anybody something that they can do today to improve the way we communicate and connect with each other. I started recording those videos, in part because I didn't have any clients.
Betsy Butterick 14:24
So you had a lot of free time. And I thought, okay, how can I get people or give people more specifically an experience of what it would be like to work with me or learn from me without them ever having met me? And so even not knowing anything about marketing, I think part of my journey, too, has been being very self-critical of not having an established business background, not having, you know, tools or resources where I'm like, Oh, I know what I'm doing in terms of branding and marketing.
Betsy Butterick 14:52
No, I didn't. But I had a really good sense from my coaching background of what coaches needed or what would be helpful. And so starting to put those tools out into the space before anyone asked for them that started to create the identity of me being a person of influence in the space.
Lindsey 15:12
I mean, there's so much here. Okay, so I think so many coaches come into entrepreneurship with this idea that they have to know something about business. For marketing, or selling. And we have like, these blocks, almost like, this is kind of like, and there might be projecting a little bit, but it's almost like the extreme of like, we're like the dumb jocks or something. Yeah. Old school-like mentality because we ever worked in an office. And it's like, there are so many things that are transferable. Like, I've talked, so many of my clients, like, their experience, recruiting is like,
Betsy Butterick 15:49
oh, my gosh, usually, Yes, absolutely.
Lindsey 15:54
That, but I think what with that, so I think overcoming those thoughts, and then the idea of like, we can't charge there's a whole lot of money stuff with coaches, as well. And I'll talk to you about that. But that idea that like, what you just said, is so crucial like, well, first of all, you said the things that you are good at not letting them get in the way of the things that you don't know yet.
Lindsey 16:14
But also that idea that you really understand the problem. You went person, which is a coach, who you understand like the back of your hand because you are one and not trying to like, I'm going to take this out to the world. I'm going to talk to the coach, and you were speaking specifically to that one person talk to me about that, because that was, I don't think you knew it. But that was genius.
Betsy Butterick 16:37
Thank you. Well, and it's, and that was what I knew. So genius or not, I decided to make a full commitment to working with what I knew and helping the people that I wanted to help. And that was always my commitment was okay, I want to support coaches. Okay, well, how do I support coaches? If no coach is asking to be supported by me?
Betsy Butterick 16:54
What can I do that's useful or supportive for them right now. And this is the difference, I think, that I see often when a coach steps out of coaching and decides to do something like consulting, whether it's in leadership or culture, or what have you.
Betsy Butterick 17:11
Sometimes, because of that, imposter syndrome of that fear of who am I to do this, it's almost like they overstep and now they're coming into the space saying, I am better than you when I used to just be you.
Betsy Butterick 17:24
And I have this knowledge that you need, and you don't have unless you hire me, versus I understand you, and I want to partner with you to do this thing that I know is really hard. Like there's a very distinct difference in feel when you position yourself as someone who has knowledge that can be helpful, versus someone who has knowledge that is grander and bigger than the person that they used to just be colleagues with.
Betsy Butterick 17:48
When you talk about, like, not knowing what you don't know. And having I feel like I'm the poster child for, you don't have to know a thing about business or marketing or branding, to be successful. I've learned things along the way. However, the best marketing I've ever done is consistently showing up and being a value before you're asked.
Betsy Butterick 18:13
And one of the things I think about you mentioned recruiting Lindsay and one of the things that I often think about is when someone reaches out, let's say they fill out the contact form via my website, we set up a call, there's no charge for this call.
Betsy Butterick 18:27
I am getting hired in the very first conversation, whether I give them any quote unquote, knowledge, their experience of me in that conversation before there's ever a proposal is what makes or breaks whether I get hired or not. So thinking about the fact that every conversation you have and I love the book, fierce conversations by Susan Scott, and one of the quotes in there is to have it on my usually have it hanging out, but I just rearranged the office a little bit.
Betsy Butterick 18:57
I might butcher it a little bit. The gist is no single conversation is guaranteed to change the trajectory of a life or career or an opportunity that any conversation can. Like no conversation is guaranteed to get us what we're aspiring for, or what we're striving towards. And yet any conversation has the possibility to change the trajectory of our life personally, professionally, or somebody else's life.
Betsy Butterick 19:25
And that's what's so cool is as an entrepreneur, maybe you know, you can call it naive, but you get to live in this world of possibility. You get to create things that did not exist until you brought them into existence and offer them to others. And then there are years that go by and this is what I didn't know until I was a few years and I'm putting out the act videos.
Betsy Butterick 19:46
And I used to be so obsessed with like how many people liked it how many people watched it doesn't matter. The crickets are a symphony of fear and shame and self-doubt. And then years later Lindsay, I would have someone who either eventually hired me or I run into at a conference and they said, Oh my gosh, I loved your ACT videos, I've been using them with my team for years. Or they'll say, hey, like, I've been following you for so long.
Betsy Butterick 20:12
These are people you did not know existed, that you didn't know it matter to. And they're listening. So just, if you're starting on this journey, I want to offer what you don't know, like, don't measure your success based off of what you don't know, put out into the universe, what you know, is good, and a value and do that consistently. If there's any branding, marketing, business advice I can offer, that's it.
Lindsey 20:37
Well, and without wanting, which is hard. Without wanting those immediate results.
Betsy Butterick 20:44
You can want them I'm just gonna get, you're gonna get Yes.
Lindsey 20:47
[inaudible] usually now. It's like, we look for the likes, and the watches and the clicks and the blah, blah, blah. And it's like, first of all, I want to put the link to those videos so that I remember those, they were great. And you just were doing them like you did these videos you offered value.
Lindsey 21:02
And like, I think the our propensity to want to get some results, find out who's watching or listening, or is it you know, immediately isn't working? Right? That's a very natural human experience. And it's like, you can't know. You can't know. And then the long tail on that is so long that you may not so long.
Betsy Butterick 21:26
It's so long. And I remember I think this was like around act 10. I was living in Austin at the time. My sister and I were sharing a two-bedroom apartment. She had gone to work on home alone, and it was actually video day. And I was like, Okay, I'm gonna film this video. There are 40 currently.
Betsy Butterick 21:42
So I've slowed down on on making them since our daughter came along, and work has picked up. I'm excited to get back to the menu. And when I travel people like oh, do you have an activity on this, or you should do an activity on this? And so I'm always sourcing ideas. I remember stepping out of the shower, so it's an empty apartment. I have my towel wrapped around me.
Betsy Butterick 22:02
And I just peeked my head out of the bathroom door and shout into the living room. Makeup. Where is makeup? Because in my mind, I'm playing the long game of like, oh my gosh, it's gonna be so great. One day when I have like a sound studio, and I have a team that's there to support making this look wonderful instead of it just being me.
Betsy Butterick 22:22
So as an entrepreneur, yes, there are so many ways in which we are going to judge our perceived success or failure. And if it's unknown, we have a choice we can choose to lean into, you know, I haven't heard from anyone about the video. And that doesn't mean it's sacked. Or that doesn't mean nobody cares.
Betsy Butterick 22:42
It could also mean that people are watching and taking it in and storing it up for when they come back later and say oh my gosh, that meant so much to me. Thank you.
Lindsey 22:51
Yeah, amazing. I remember watching you do those. And I was like, Sure she's got it man.
Betsy Butterick 22:58
I'm glad you knew that.
Lindsey 22:59
Like stay in that trap to do 40 of them and just keep putting it out there like I'm I just recommitted to, to posting in my Facebook group that for mindset coaches that I've it's a private, but free group. And for a long time, I am like, I'm not sure how I'm gonna use this, what should I do?
Lindsey 23:17
And I just had this like, kind of blocked with it that I was like, You know what, I'm going to commit to this many weekly videos. And like, I'm just bits because I know that that's what they need to know. [inaudible] people comment, I'm doing this for me, because I know that [inaudible]
Betsy Butterick 23:34
Yes, whether or not what you put out there as validated. And this will be a guidepost for any entrepreneur, entrepreneur starting out, if you know that what you're offering has value, put it out there. And let that be enough. And I realized that's a very hard ask to make art when we want that validation, especially when we're just starting out. Trust that if what you have to offer has value, that it matters, period, full stop. And then put that on repeat.
Lindsey 24:00
Offense of continuing that though to like you stayed very specific, you didn't like bob and weave all over the place. You didn't say Well, I'm not getting coaches lined up. So maybe I'll talk to the athletes, or maybe I'll talk to the athletic directors and let me like, well, communication isn't working.
Lindsey 24:14
So let me talk about leadership, like, stayed the course, which takes a tremendous amount of discipline, because we always get a dopamine hit when we change and do something new. Right? And it works. And it's like, yeah, I feel really good. And I'm expired. And I'm excited and like, I'm very impressed with you being able to stay the course on 40 videos, talking to the same person about roughly the same concepts.
Lindsey 24:37
Because a lot of people start all over the place, myself included. You know, it took me years to be like, Nope, I'm only speaking to this person takes a tremendous amount of discipline. So I'm definitely impressed on that.
Betsy Butterick 24:49
Thank you. And maybe it was, you know, we think about incoming freshmen at the college level and they don't know what they don't know. So maybe we're gonna play the rival and we haven't beaten them in eight years. Well, this is their first playing up, they don't know.
Betsy Butterick 25:01
So they're not nervous in the same way that returners are. And I think that happened for me in the entrepreneurial journey, not knowing anything about business, not knowing what I quote unquote should be doing or the metrics around, it allowed me the freedom to simply create, and to put forth not having a path also allowed me the freedom to not know whether I was on or off the path.
Betsy Butterick 25:23
And just to keep going. So I think that's where a lot of the confidence came from. And I say the word confidence and please know, there was and still continue to be a lot of self-doubts, I become very confident in what I do well, and the value that I provide. And yet, you know, the turn of the year, and we're having kid number two on the way.
Betsy Butterick 25:43
And while business has grown incrementally over the last couple of years, I still have no way of knowing exactly what my income going to be. Now, there are a few retainer programs there speaking at conferences, there's ongoing work virtually and in person with different teams.
Betsy Butterick 25:58
And yet, I don't know, there's no guarantee that people are going to continue to show up and say, Betsy, we would love for you to work with our team, or Betsy, I would love for you to support this coach. It's unknown. And in that unknown, there's always fear.
Betsy Butterick 26:09
And the moment I feel fear is when I remind myself that I have the choice to be grateful that, gosh, it's wonderful that I get to live the life that I'm living, that I get to create my own schedule, that I get to do work that matters to people that also is deeply fulfilling for me, that in my small corner, I get to make a difference that impacts the world. Like, how lucky am I if that ended today, I would still feel just as lucky.
Lindsey 26:35
I think that leap is really such a big one. And I think it's it's, the Instagram sort of view of it as you like, you're gonna get to like, take away the lap, you know, at the coffee shop working on your own business. Wonderful is that. And yet, the idea of like, I think as athletes, we're used to, like, the immediate scoreboard. Like, immediately, like we're winning or losing.
Betsy Butterick 27:00
Yeah, that's it, or we're tired, which means we need to do something different. Yeah. Whatever, yeah, we're gonna,
Lindsey 27:06
We're going to make those changes now, you know, whereas, like, entrepreneurship is a lot of winning and losing. And we're, we're trained to deal with that, and the ups and downs, but it's kind of like playing without a scoreboard because it's that, you know, it's we don't know quite what to trust the process, even more, to know that if you know, right now we're working to win in six months.
Lindsey 27:26
How do you deal with sort of trusting that process and managing your thoughts around that? Because that can be really debilitating? It can be very motivating it can cause all kinds of procrastination stuff. And subsequently, asure. How do you deal with that? Do you get some coaching? Like, how do you keep up even the psychological component of keeping up?
Betsy Butterick 27:46
Yeah. I'll say first, when sometimes, and I had a post, I think in the fall, where I hadn't posted in a while, and I could feel it was this pressure, this this stress that was constantly in the background, like every day that clicked off the calendar that I hadn't posted, I felt more and more pressure and more and more guilt of you're not being a responsible business owner, you're not showing up for the way that people have followed you expecting you to show up, right?
Betsy Butterick 28:11
And then recognizing, also, what were the reasons that I wasn't showing up in that way. Because when I had time off the road, when I wasn't on a zoom call, on the other side of my office wall is my daughter's room. And being a parent changes you, and like, there is very little that is more important than the person that's on the other side of that wall.
Betsy Butterick 28:34
So could I spend half an hour making an Instagram post, I could. But that was a choice about time that was taking me away from this little person who is on a running clock called life and I will never get these moments back. And so it's making choices and then being not just okay, but at peace with your choices in this space.
Betsy Butterick 28:54
And this is a wonderful woman by the name of Marlene Burns, who lives here in Colorado Springs as well. And I've known Marlene for years, she has been a dear friend and mentor. And I remember when I first took the leap to leave coaching, she said, Betsy, you're in the space between no longer and not yet. And over time, I've learned to honor that space with patience and love, and reverence.
Betsy Butterick 29:19
And I like to believe that the universe and I have a very great relationship. Every time I feel like I'm pressing or I want to know, it's a reminder for me to take a step back and to allow what is and what will be without efforting and it served me incredibly well.
Betsy Butterick 29:36
Some nights there's wine, you know, other nights there's like crying. Sometimes I call my parents you know, I'm great friends with my folks. And I've been blessed to have a very supportive partner and a lot of people who believe in my ability to do this work. So in those times, you talked about the roller coaster.
Betsy Butterick 29:54
So we're talking about the bottom of a hill where we don't know how we're going to climb up to pick got momentum to do the next thing, being really intentional about how I treat myself and my thoughts. And the way that I care for this developing thing.
Betsy Butterick 30:12
And you make the analogy, it's like, if a little kid is learning to walk, and they stand up, and they take a step, and then they fall down, we're not going to be like, you suck at walking, like, why are you even trying, right? Don't do that, again, we would help them out. And we would help them try again. So almost treating yourself like that little kid. If you're starting an entrepreneurial journey, that means you have yet to do a list.
Lindsey 30:34
Right.
Betsy Butterick 30:35
And not being good at something yet, and the power of that word yet, does not mean that you won't be good at something, it means you're in process, and you're learning. And gosh, what a space of possibility. That is. It can also be a space of pain and depression and doubt and holding space for all of those without it having to mean something.
Lindsey 30:58
Right? The facade? I think that. That space, also, I think, as high-performing people that, want success. That's who my clients are, as coaches, the suspending the need to know the how in that space. I'm interested in how you've done that, because I know you've done that, because everyone wants to do that should not knowing yet.
Lindsey 31:32
So wanting to know how you can, especially when you take a leap of faith of leaving a job or that How have you been able to deal with that? Because that is a very real thing.
Betsy Butterick 31:50
This answer comes in two parts. For me, the first part is, I've trained it. One of the things that I had to learn how to do when I was in school to become an integral coach, which is a fancy word for saying I take a whole person perspective when I work with other people is, I almost had some unlearning to do.
Betsy Butterick 32:09
So what made me a really great coach in sports would not serve me in the same way when working with people. Part of my journey in the year that I was in school was and this was specifically my task for the year. So our first session, there were 20 of us in the class, were in class for four days, 10 hours a day, at four different times of the year.
Betsy Butterick 32:29
And then we have remote work and small pots, that at the end of that first block of four days, each of us was given by our instructors, a task for the year of focus. And the woman to my left was she was 54. At the time, she was she self-described as recovering HR.
Betsy Butterick 32:51
So she'd been in HR for a long time. And now she was looking to work proactively with people. And she was a woman of Indian descent and had been the dutiful daughter for most of her life. And so her task for the year was a year of orgasmic pleasure, is what she was being asked to lean into, like, find all the things that give you joy. And so I'm like sweet, like, this is going to be great. I can't wait to hear at minus. And I get my challenge for the year was to sit with suffering my own or others without moving to fix it or change it.
Lindsey 32:51
Oh, this is good stuff here.
Betsy Butterick 33:30
It was like, Well, shit. Like, I thought No. Okay. So that was my task. And I couldn't have been gifted a better opportunity. Because I always thought that my optimism was an asset. And I believe in the best in people, I saw the best in people. And I coached to that, to bring that out of them.
Betsy Butterick 33:55
And what I had to learn is, in doing that, I needed to also cultivate the ability to meet people where they were. And oftentimes when people are in search of coaching, or find themselves in need of support from another person, they're not in that like super positive place.
Betsy Butterick 34:10
And so instead of simply trying to move them from where they are, to where I thought they could be, could I be with them, wherever they are, and not move until they were ready? And some of my homework activities, the practices were, watch depressing movies, like starting with Schindler's List and go towards more depressing. Go sit in the waiting room of an ER at the Children's Hospital. Just things that were incredibly painful, but also helped me develop patience, with uncertainty, with fear with sadness.
Betsy Butterick 34:45
I'm a very empathic person, and so I feel things deeply. And that was absolutely the work I needed to do to be able to serve others. So when you ask about it in an entrepreneurial sense, the waiting part that not knowing I've practiced I've trained how Gotta gets more comfortable in that space. Is it still uncomfortable? Yes.
Betsy Butterick 35:03
But I'm so familiar with it that I know what that discomfort is. And I don't have to take immediate action in it, I can simply stay there. The other part is, I do not always take my advice, like, what I coach other people to do. I so quickly, sometimes forgetting I remember it was last year, I was on the road to speaking in a conference.
Betsy Butterick 35:25
And I had gotten a voicemail after I spoke from an athletic director. And something had really gone awry at a school that I was supporting. And I remember I called my wife and I said, you know, this happened and how to do and I want to do this and, and she stopped, and she said, Hold on a second.
Betsy Butterick 35:41
Are you in your boat right now, because there's a story I tell about controllables and uncontrollable, and being inside your boat or outside your boat, and she knows that story really well. And I was absolutely outside my boat like I was trying to influence things that I do not control.
Betsy Butterick 35:53
And I was like, No. And it's like, we need those people, those guideposts those anchors to bring us back to ourselves and remind us where we are in our journey and where we are even in a moment or a situation. So I think the truest answer I can offer is I've trained it, and I practice it, and I still practice it. And sometimes I'm not good at it. And it helps to be reminded that I do have a choice in that way.
Lindsey 36:21
I don't want to talk about that holding space. I know we don't have a ton more time. But before we get into that, I wanted to go back to your first few clients. How you got them, what you offered, if you're willing to share what you charged like that whole, like, let's say making your first you know, 5000 as an entrepreneur like that is hard that's probably the hardest 5000 you will ever make. Like you remember how you got them what you did to get them how you I mean it just the whole thing, whatever, very interesting part of something
Betsy Butterick 36:59
I remember very distinctly after I left coaching, my very first client was a athletic director, one of the associate IDs at UC San Diego. So, Katie McGann, she's a good friend of mine, she's still there. And she was the best first client I could have hoped for because she was so skeptical.
Betsy Butterick 37:20
And I couldn't have asked for a better client in that way. Because it made me beyond my game as far as when I, when we had the first discovery conversation. And then I put together a draft of her personal development plan, and it had our purpose statement and the six or seven outcomes we were working towards in the time that we were going to be working together.
Betsy Butterick 37:39
And I think at that time, I think I was charging like $125 an hour for coaching. And I had put Katie on, I think a six-month program where we're going to meet a certain number of times a week, and I just lump that into like, I think it was $2,500 for six months. And so at the time, I was like, Oh my gosh, like a wall, I've never really made money in this business be of all I've got like a client for six months.
Betsy Butterick 38:06
See of all this person who she was a friend. I mean, we knew each other from what I had spent three years working at UCSD, we'd hung out socially. And we also had to have that conversation because part of the rule of coaching is, don't take it off, like don't coach your spouse or significant other adult code, your friends, you never coach without an invitation.
Betsy Butterick 38:23
She had given the invitation. And I remember one of the toughest questions she asked me is, am I going to like who I am after we finish working together? And that was a great question to ask because the answer I gave her became an answer that I use routinely when I'm talking about the possibility of coaching with someone, which is I'm not here to change you. I'm here to give you options.
Betsy Butterick 38:45
So that if at any point you decide to change would be beneficial. You have the skills and abilities to make those without needing to rely on anybody else. And so there were so many ways. S
Betsy Butterick 38:58
Oh, I was gonna say there are so many ways in which Katie was the perfect first client because she challenged me in ways I hadn't been challenged before, which allowed me to provide information that people really want to know, at a much earlier point in the coaching conversation.
Lindsey 39:12
And how did you even get to that point of consultation? Like did you say, Hey, I'm now a coach? And [inaudible]
Betsy Butterick 39:24
I had a blog at the time, which has since been, you know, used to be on MailChimp and called something else. And now it's different. And so Katie was on my blog less than I had written a post about my transition of leaving coaching and doing this thing full time. And I was still living in San Diego.
Betsy Butterick 39:38
And so Katie knew that I was doing this and she also had reached a point for herself professionally, where she was trying to figure out some things as far as her path and next steps and could use some support.
Betsy Butterick 39:49
And we had such a great working relationship that she thought, okay, you know, you could be someone that I feel comfortable enough to do this vulnerable work with, who also is skillful in this space. And before that the coaching clients that I had had, were all word of mouth.
Betsy Butterick 40:05
So part of my year-long coaching program, the first six months, we were getting coached by the leaders of our program. And then we were asked to take on guest clients, so we had to take on three to four guests clients. And so I started where I was, and I was at Occidental at the time.
Betsy Butterick 40:18
So I simply asked coaches in our department, hey, you know, I'm working on this thing. And if any of you would like to be coached, I need some guest clients to work with. So it was free for them, but it gave me experience. And then moving from there.
Betsy Butterick 40:32
You know, I remember the second client after Katie was one of those guest coaches that I had worked with at Oxy and a friend that was a coach and was trying to figure some things out. And they said, Hey, why don't you give Betsy a call, and see if she might be a good fit for you?
Betsy Butterick 40:45
And that, that's really how it's built. I mean, it wasn't marketing, it wasn't taking out, you know, ads, which can be great, whether it's on Facebook or LinkedIn, if that's something that's beneficial, absolutely do it. There's no one right way. For me personally, to make this happen.
Betsy Butterick 41:00
The best marketing I've ever experienced is doing a really phenomenal job with the task in front of you, to the point that people talk about you after you've left. And even if that person that was in the room doesn't hire you, they have a conversation with someone that you might never meet.
Betsy Butterick 41:15
And that person shares something and they say, Oh, actually, I was in the session with this person, you should look them up. And now they're on your website. Now they follow your Instagram. And now another two months go by if they're just watching what you put out there before they make that call, or make that ask, so you never know.
Betsy Butterick 41:30
But that's how it started was letting people know what I was up to. From the workshop side, the very first workshop I did was back at UC San Diego. And I called the athletic director and said, Hey if you're open to it, I would love to come and do a free workshop for coaches and one for administrators on communication.
Betsy Butterick 41:49
And that was the very first time I did championship communication. And I did 290-minute sessions for free. I think the next event I did was the Final Four and I went and I did championship communication at the Final Four. I remember when I was living in Austin, I worked part-time at delta as a ramp agent.
Betsy Butterick 42:06
And that's anyone you see outside the plane when you're coming in or taking off. So you know, loading bags, driving the ground service equipment, walking the plane in and out, in exchange for 12 hours a week, I could fly standby to anywhere in the country. And so that job enabled me to fly to places I couldn't even afford to get to so that I can have free opportunities to speak. And so that was the hustle.
Betsy Butterick 42:30
And I also got a part-time job working remotely with a company in San Francisco called on the go on the go technologies. And there's a wonderful name by the man who appears a very small company like eight to 10 people. But he had designed a series of workshops specifically for tech companies in the Bay Area.
Betsy Butterick 42:49
And I remember applying for a position as a copy editor because I love words and language. And Pierre the CEO responded to my application and said, It seems like you're completely overqualified for this position. However, I'm giving a workshop in San Francisco, would you like to attend and see if it's something you'd like to learn to the facility?
Betsy Butterick 43:07
So I went I met Pierre. And then I learned how to facilitate that first workshop and ended up learning for more. And so I became a facilitator for a peers company. Now, does that have anything to do with my chosen topic of communication or with sports? No. But what it gave me was years of experience in front of rooms of people to be able to hone my public speaking skills, my presence, my delivery, handling, audience objections, and questions.
Betsy Butterick 43:34
I also at one point joined the team for on the room. So on the room is a company that does presentation and executive training for presentations and speakers, for CEOs and executives. So lots of fortune 500 companies, which gave me the opportunity as part of a team to work with execs at Facebook, at Google at Qualcomm at Oracle, and at LinkedIn.
Betsy Butterick 43:58
And so again, I'm learning material that's not mine, but I'm practicing the thing that I want to do really well in my own business. So when you're in via when you're involved in the grind, or the hustle, it's like looking for, okay, maybe this isn't the thing I really want to do.
Betsy Butterick 44:12
But doing this thing would help build my skills for this area of my business. And if you cobble those things together, even though you yourself aren't getting hired to do exactly what you want to do, you're absolutely building skills that will benefit your business in the future.
Lindsey 44:29
It's so beautiful. I mean, one of the things we teach is to fish in the pond you're in and you start expanding. And then the world basically opens up. But I think and this is where I'm kind of interested in your experience that fishing in the pond you're in.
Lindsey 44:44
Oftentimes in my experience watching people starting their businesses, they often miss the opportunities right in front of them because they're scary. Station with the ad and telling her you're gonna charge her 2500 which was a bargain that now You know, your price real prices, but probably at the time felt like, oh my god, I could never ask somebody for that much money.
Betsy Butterick 45:05
Yeah, well, even now, I mean, he's right there. Yeah, my spouse calls it our beer meeting because the first time we had this meeting, we were at a brewery where we're talking about my prices. That's been the hardest thing for me personally because I know resources at different divisions.
Betsy Butterick 45:19
I know for most of my life, I've been living paycheck to paycheck. So it's hard for me to charge what I value. And in the last year, I had two individuals say that see, we appreciate what you charge. And I need to tell you, you could be charging so much more like we just hired this person, and they were awful.
Betsy Butterick 45:35
And it was this price and whatnot. So it's like, I'm still working really hard to get comfortable with that. And we just had this meeting couple of days ago, and my spouse threw out a price for one of the services I offer. And I was like, That's so much money. Like, that's way too much money. And she's like, why, like, why, but you do understand the value that you give.
Betsy Butterick 45:54
Having that conversation, a couple truths I've had to learn about being an entrepreneur is people don't people can't accept what you don't offer. So you might be nervous about creating that post that feels, you know, self-promoting, and is because you are your brand, or you are your business.
Betsy Butterick 46:09
And yet, if people don't know it's out there, they can't actually purchase it, which sounds really black and white and simple. And yet, that's the hurdle we don't cross. So calling the ad at the school I used to coach at and saying, hey, I want to come to do this thing that I think might be a value, and I'll do it for free. Is that scary? Yes.
Betsy Butterick 46:27
They can't say Betsy can do this thing, if they don't know that it's out there and available. And so whenever I feel fear.
Lindsey 46:34
It means something.
Betsy Butterick 46:35
Yes, like, no, there are so many different reasons.
Betsy Butterick 46:38
And I've applied this to different areas of life to if I don't hear back from a client, after I've sent the proposal, let's say we have a wonderful conversation. And I don't hear back, I've gotten really practice and not making it mean that the price was too high, or that something happened in the conversation or that, you know, they found somebody else, like, there are so many reasons that I've come across in life, that have nothing to do with us.
Betsy Butterick 47:02
Like, unless you know everything about their life. Please reserve making judgments about why they'd hire you. Because there's so much that we don't know. And it doesn't help us energetically confidence-wise to buy into stories that may not be true.
Lindsey 47:20
That was amazing. I mean, I think there's a whole lot of I think we need to do a whole nother series.
Betsy Butterick 47:25
We need to do another session/
Lindsey 47:28
[inaudible] that you've been on, and your personal growth through all that is like so fascinating for me, and I know where you're at now, or hopefully I'll get a little more details after we get off. Like where you're at now and where you started.
Lindsey 47:40
And like so many people listening to this are either at those first couple steps, some of them maybe a little bit further down if they've gone through our certification, but a lot of them are like thinking about it.
Lindsey 47:42
So I'm wondering what sort of advice maybe you didn't have for your former self, or what wisdom you've gleaned over these years on like, remembering what that was first. couple clients with that feel? The mindset hurdles? Like, what do you have to say about all that?
Betsy Butterick 48:09
It's really scary. It's really scary until it's not. And it's not that sending the proposal, like I still, especially the big ones, like when I hit send on that proposal, I'm like, Oh, my gosh. And my thought is always like, what if they say no, or what if, like, you know, but again, just that we can criticize ourselves for the things that we didn't do or have yet to do, or we congratulate ourselves for the risk that we take. And being an entrepreneur is risky.
Betsy Butterick 48:37
And I think now and this is one of the reflections that I have looking back, I totally get why so few people get to the space that you're in Lindsey are the space that I'm starting to occupy where we have the freedom of choice, where we own our own business, we set our own hours, we choose the clients that we say yes and no to.
Betsy Butterick 48:57
We can take time off if we want to take time off without asking permission from anyone. Like there are so many hurdles that you have to get over.
Betsy Butterick 49:04
But my gosh, like it's so I feel like it's rare, err, like it's and I'm not talking about like, that's easy, you know, wildly rich, I'm talking about the gift of time, like, we can always make more money in some way or another. We cannot make more time and the freedom of choice around time, that having your own business that being an entrepreneur gives you not immediately because it takes so much of you earned from you.
Betsy Butterick 49:31
But when you get to the point where you're able to relax a little and settle into this thing that you've built, I can't think of anything more special like it. And especially if you have a family like that gift that you're giving to other people of your freedom of choice about how you spend your time.
Betsy Butterick 49:51
If you feel fear, like think about those things and just know that the fear oh gosh, it's so normal and it's a part of it and to not make the fear mean, anything negative. Like if it's scary, it means it matters. Yeah, if it's scary, it means it matters. And if you think something, if you're having those thoughts about like, Man, I don't know, but I think to follow it, like, just see, to see.
Betsy Butterick 50:17
Because right now it's not a thing. And if you try it, and it doesn't become a thing, you haven't lost anything, you're right back where you were. But man, if it does become a thing, that's cool.
Lindsey 50:27
I feel like everything we've talked about. And so much of what I teach, like, boils down to that, like people on the fence of doing something that they may even feel called to write. And then like, the fear is either like, oh, this matters, and I really want to do it. And I know that if I don't, I'm gonna regret going for it. Or, Oh, it feels scary. So that's my brain telling me I shouldn't do it. That's how you interpret it. Yeah, even was right.
Betsy Butterick 50:58
When I think about sitting on a fence, I'm looking at our back fence right now, like, that would hurt a lot to sit on the fence for any amount of time, like, just get on one side or another, no judgment about which side you're on. But let's get off the fence. Because that's not a good place to stay, or, that's not sustainable.
Lindsey 51:16
Started, it's like, you get off the fence. But it doesn't mean you're like jumping into you don't have to stop your job like met those first few clients, you got the training ship. Like I think that's also like this misnomer of like, well, you either need to start your own business all in, or quit your day job. Or you never.
Betsy Butterick 51:34
I mean, I coached coaches for three years while I was also coaching basketball. And then I reached the point where I was like, You know what, if I'm really gonna go for this, I need to stop doing the other things. So I don't have divided attention.
Lindsey 51:45
You do come to that point at some point. But it's just [inaudible]
Betsy Butterick 51:48
Yeah, it doesn't, please don't make it the first step like, because that can be really scary if you haven't built anything yet, but we're gonna leave everything else behind. That can feel terrifying, and I get it. And you don't have to do that. If that's the perception that you have a belief currently explore that a little bit and get curious about what could it look like to just start a little bit like to dabble over here.
Lindsey 52:10
Betsy, I always enjoy your talks. And I feel like you're...
Betsy Butterick 52:13
You too!
Lindsey 52:14
It was is just so palpable, and your vulnerability, and I'm so happy that your business isn't the place where you want it to be or where you are right now.
Lindsey 52:24
Because I've seen that journey, and I know how much that takes. And I see that you share it with our listeners because I know at least one person, if not 1000s, is gonna listen to this and be inspired to do something scary that they've been putting off. That's what this is all about.
Betsy Butterick 52:40
Yeah. And thank you for allowing me the space to share that. And to anyone listening. Please let me be. If you don't know anybody else, let me be the person that says, I am a normal, like, average person. And yes, there are certain skills and abilities that I've developed over time.
Betsy Butterick 52:57
And yet, if I can do it, you can absolutely do it. If you have something to offer the world, please. Let's see what it is. If it makes the world better, even just in your own mind, like explore it. Let's figure that out. You don't have to know. You don't have to know. Let's just see what happens.
Lindsey 53:13
How can people learn more about you?
Betsy Butterick 53:15
You can go to Betsybutterick.com All of my social media, you can connect you through there. If you want to go on YouTube and put in Betsy Butterick those act videos will pop up. But my website will be the best, easiest way to connect with whatever is your favorite space to follow along.
Lindsey 53:31
Perfect. Betsy, thank you so much for your time. So appreciate you. And...
Betsy Butterick 53:36
Thank you, Lindsay.
Lindsey 53:37
Watch your continued success.
Betsy Butterick 53:38
Yeah, and let's do this again soon. This was fun. Thank you so much. Bye.
Lindsey 53:46
Hey, if you love this episode, make sure to check out all of our free and paid resources over at positiveperformancetraining.com You want to take mindset training to the next level we got you. But here are three more specific ways.
Lindsey 53:58
If you want to take mindset training and live it more in your life. Definitely subscribe to this podcast. We send out bonus episodes, we have our mental Mondays, we have interviews and training episodes, definitely subscribe. If you want to teach it, meaning taking it to your athletes or your clients. I highly recommend the Psychology of Competition.
Lindsey 54:16
Again, you can check that out at positiveperformancetraining.com It is a great course that will teach you and your athletes how to have pre, during, and post-competition routines to up your performance. And if you want to learn how to have a mindset coaching business in order to sell mindset coaching, highly recommend signing up for our waitlist for our next certification cohort, which usually opens about once a year, but in the meantime, go to positiveperformancetraining.com.
Lindsey 54:41
And check out our Ultimate Mindset Coaching Toolkit which will show you exactly how to get started with your first mindset coaching clients. Again, go to positiveperformancetraining.com for all of our free and paid resources.
