We were lucky to catch up with Brandi Molitor recently and have shared our conversation below.

Brandi, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Looking back, do you think you started your business at the right time? Do you wish you had started sooner or later

My relationship with time is something I’ve had to really work on. I’ve had breakthroughs over the last few years around time and “my purpose.” My new context offers me much more peace. So no, I don’t wish I started my business sooner. It all took what it took.

I wanted to coach and work with people since I was a kid. I always had this profound pull to be of service to others and a gift in seeing through a lot of the noise most of us project outward. I could see beyond people’s perceptions of themselves and I carried a deep sense of people and their energy. I recognize now this is a gift. Everyone came to me for advice or pep talks or how to process through their situations.

I pursued degrees in Geology (I have a strong passion for environmental sciences and to understand how things “work”) while on the side I studied leadership, human psychology, wellness, spirituality, etc. This was over 20 years ago.

I took a leap away from the environmental consulting world and started to pursue a career in coaching when I was 28. My passions for wellness were overpowering me and I was living in NYC where I had an abundance of opportunities to study wellness and coaching work. I finished the programs offered at the Institute for Integrative Nutrition (their last live program) and that gave me a bit of a jump start.

I coached part-time while working full-time gigs, usually for organizations that also fine-tuned my skills of coaching, consulting or business operations. All the while, I constantly felt this tug within me that I should be on my own and doing my own thing, and I would compare myself to others why I wasn’t further along in my own full-time pursuits and launching this epic business.

It took 10 more years for me to finally settle into the idea of going out on my own full-time and launch my business.

I’ve always been a highly-intuitive person and looking back I knew there was a calling for me, but I realize now the experiences I had between then and now is exactly what I needed to have the confidence and emotional perseverance and fortitude to create my own programs.

Many of the folks I followed who launched their full-time coaching businesses while I was still toying with the idea grew and experienced their growth and pain points publicly or at the cost of their business. I’ve been able to build these muscles with mentorship, support, guidance and almost Olympian-like training prior to launching. I feel more grounded, stable and confident than I ever have and I trust who I am as a business-person.

I was able to learn along the way working for companies who and what I never want to be like, what really resonates with me, how to run a business, how to treat people, how to be financially responsible, how to spot manipulation, how to run impactful workshops, and not to mention the profound and deep inner work I needed to do to get to where I am now.

Many people in the coaching and consulting business have a set of skills that can be very impactful. However if they are not doing their own inner work and addressing their own shadows, those parts of themselves can seep out into their business. I’ve been able to address the big beasts (there’s always more to work on and that will never end) and have routine and self-care to tend to myself to ensure I can show up in the best way possible for my clients.

Coaching comes with a huge responsibility. I don’t take it lightly. It’s an honor to support others and had I of started earlier, I may of been not been fit enough to handle it. I really think that’s why a part of me kept holding back and worked mostly under other people until I felt it in my bones I was ready. There was a lot I need to uncover that I didn’t realize I needed to uncover and work on. Had I of rushed things, the learnings may of been that much more painful or may of never happened.

There’s a delicate balance of knowing when you’re ready vs. thinking your mind is getting the best of you. That’s something I am always mindful and weary of coaches and programs that coerce people into taking big risks and convince their clients it’s just their mindset. Sometimes there really is a knowing that you’re just not ready yet and there’s ways to work through those paths to see what’s really preventing you from starting the business you think you want. I think it’s important to honor one’s personal timeline.

Our culture also has this obsession with age. That we’re supposed to be fully immersed in the careers we dreamt of by the age of 30 or 35. That’s really not realistic. Most women don’t hit their stride until 38-42 years old based on our feminine energy and cycles. Our culture ignores this. It’s when, as women, we experience this deep sense of knowing. Our truth pushes up within us and starts to resist a lot of what our dominant culture tells us we “need to be like.” This is why many women who start their businesses early make big pivots around this time. That’s OK, too. The way I work and how I’m designed, I make strategic, all-in moves when I feel the timing has passed its tipping point. That’s what feels most comfortable to me. I have a lot of life left in me and at 44 years old, if I can do what I’m doing now for the next 40 years — fanf’intastic.

I’m incredibly grateful for my journey and what it’s offered me. I know I’m right on time and I wouldn’t change a thing.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

High-achieving people come to me looking to restore peace and fulfillment in their work and life through my coaching programs at Courage & Joy at Work.

I call myself a business and life coach because I believe the two are not separate. I believe in integration and alignment. When one or the other is out of alignment, the other area suffers.

Together with my clients, we create a customized coaching program that typically focuses on 4 main areas:
Scarcity
People-Pleasing
Perfectionism
Comparison

My clients see profound growth through subtle shifts that bring them back to their true purpose and calling. They are reminded as to why they got into business in the first place and no longer feel held hostage by their life and work.

I focus in these primary areas because after being in the coaching industry for around 2 decades, I was seeing time and time again the same symptoms and feelings from my clients when they hit this point of “success” in their businesses and lives. They followed the American blueprint of success. They checked all the boxes yet were seeking reprieve from this monster they created. They came to me in this state of hating their business. It was as if they wanted to throw it all away and just be an employee. Or they were hiding in deep shame that they created something they wanted to be proud of, but were somehow afraid of it, or their personal lives were suffering.

It was abundantly clear that achieving the American standard of success does not equal happiness and fulfillment. They were craving something deeper and they felt like they lost themselves a little along the way.

Our work together restores their truth, providing them the freedom they craved in the first place.

My style is unique in that I don’t offer a cookie-cutter system. I coached systems for a long time under other people, and what I realized was most people who’ve achieved a certain level of success didn’t need another system or rigidity, they needed to do the personalized, inner work. They jumped ahead to the systems of building a business but overlooked tending to themselves and finding what motivates them and what they are inspired to create. How they find joy. What brings them peace. What values DON’T align for them.

I integrate a level of spirituality and honoring one’s desires that provides a sense of serenity most don’t experience in a traditional coaching program. I believe our perceived weaknesses are our superpowers and some of things we are most ashamed of can actually be our greatest gifts.

My wish is for people to see there is nothing to be ashamed of and to honor who they are. Help is available to create a life you feel aligned with, regardless of how trapped you feel or how far along you are in your career.

I’m also here to tell you there are no overnight or quick fixes. It takes work, but with subtle, steady changes, your results can be profound. It’s how I live my life and I am a testament to my own work.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

I practice slow, steady and intentional growth. When I first started my business I was of course swept away by all the marketing and funnels and ideas on how to grow quick. We are saturated in our country on hyper-growth and fast growth. We obsess over celebrities and this idea of star status. The approach and result often felt off to me. It also kept me afraid of launching my business because I didn’t want the exposure or being under a microscope. I didn’t realize you could have this intimate, successful, boutique-like business designed within my own standards and comfort.

I take my self-care very seriously. I also think it is crucial in the world of coaching to do my own inner work and ensure I am showing up for my clients in the best way possible. If I am over-worked, not addressing my own issues and consumed by making more and racking up numbers, the integrity of my work will suffer. I do know this to be true. I found mentors who supported this strategy and practiced it themselves.

I do what I do best which is nurture relationships, create value, show up, collaborate, speak my truth and honor my space and the others, and trust the process. I keep showing up even when it feels like there’s no movement or when I have the days where I don’t feel as confident.

The entire point of the work I do is that my clients experience results and feel that there’s an exchange of value in our relationship. That’s really how you grow a business. Keep showing up, do the work (inner and outer), stay consistent and provide value. Clients will spread the word and people will seek you out. Clients will invest in the work and the business will be sustainable. I’ve had people work with me for years because as they continue to grow there’s more they uncover and want to work on it together. It’s beautiful to witness and an honor to be part of.

Collaborative relationships are key, too. I don’t show up with the intent of “how much can I get from this person” but more “how can I create the most value for this person.” I believe in reciprocity. My goal is to be a value-creator. It works.

There’s no quick rise if I want to stay true to myself. I practice this approach and practice gratitude daily. I don’t take any of this for granted.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

The last decade of my life has been dedicated to unlearning that my worth was found in how productive I was and what other people thought of me.

I grew up in a household where the only love and attention I received was when I performed well in school. I was the star athlete and student and president of all the clubs. The classic perfectionist, high-achieving story! I also grew up in an abusive home with addiction, so I also learned that the opposite of performance=love wasn’t being ignored, but abused.

I ended up with a very distorted sense of the world and my self-worth and value. It’s no coincidence I’m in the work I’m in now, because part of my coaching journey is also my own healing journey. This is also why I feel it’s so important for coaches to do the inner work because most people who desire to help others likely have their own healing to do. It can bleed out onto their clients and it can create some unhealthy situations. I’m grateful I was able to free myself from this.

I see now that my worth is inherent. Nothing I “do” will make me anymore valuable than someone else and my love comes from deep within. I almost killed myself in working so hard at climbing the corporate ladders and fulfilling everyone else’s standards of me. The drive was such fear. This nerve-wracking terror that I would be trapped in this abusive situation if I wasn’t able to perform and be “enough.”

Today I feel safe, loved, cared for and tended to. It all comes from within and I’m grateful I’m able to have my cup filled to then be of service to others from a place of abundance and not from a “need.”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.courageandjoyatwork.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/brandi.molitor/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/courageandjoyatwork
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brandi-molitor-96947016a/