Ep56 Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD - Sacred Pivots: From Nun to Million-Dollar Mentor - A Raw Journey of Transformation

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  0:00  
My time is as precious to me as everything else. I mean, if you don't know where you don't belong, you never get to discover the places where you do belong. So it's really becoming so discerning that I'm willing to say I will work with fewer at a higher price point.

Suzanne Taylor-King  0:21  
Hey, hey, welcome to a podcast where dreams meet determination and success is just around the corner. I'm your host, Suzanne Taylor King, and I'm here to help you unlock the full potential of your business and your life. Welcome to unlock your way with SDK, let's unlock your path to success together. Hello, everyone. We are here for a special edition of unlock your way with STK, with one of my incredible mentors, Dr Dorothy Martin Neville, and I want to just say she has been guiding visionary leaders through transition to the freedom of transformation and developing their legacy. And I'm a little biased, because in the last two years, she's helping me do exactly the same thing. Welcome, Dr Dorothy,

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  1:19  
hello, and I'm so glad to be here. I

Suzanne Taylor-King  1:22  
know this is so exciting. The feedback from last time you joined my coach's conversation was so incredible. That's why we're here today. We're here because everybody was so interested in what you had to say, and this idea of having a mentor, and how so many questions I get, what does that look like, and how has it helped you, and how has it benefited you? And paying it forward for me has been incredible. So having a couple of mentees myself has been absolutely amazing. So

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  2:02  
thank you for that. You're most welcome. I love working with you. Oh, thank you. All right, let's

Suzanne Taylor-King  2:07  
let's talk pivoting, because I love reinvention so so much. It's part of my business model. I want to dive into this idea of pivoting careers, and it almost seems you're a master at this. You have done it numerous times in your life where you've pivoted your life and your career. And I want to dive into the strength required, not only to do that, but the motivation to do it. What was your first pivot that when you got to the point where you knew it was time to change directions? Well,

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  2:48  
since we're speaking about careers and life goals, I would say way back, way back in my years as a Catholic nun as sister James Marie, when I had wanted to be a social worker, and I was doing social work, which I thought would be my career for the rest of my life, and within the context of religious life, and at some point, realized that it was really much more about following the rules and doing procedures that this was In Massachusetts. Every state has its own those regulations doing things that I didn't necessarily believe are the best things for my clients, for my that's true. I was in residential treatment with kids from six to 16, so I was house mother for girls from 10 to 60, and I learned immense amount working with social workers, psychiatrists, psychologists and so forth. However, I thought there was so many other ways we could do this, so many other ways we could move forward. And at the same time being in religious life, I started to feel that my life was becoming smaller and smaller and smaller. And some people may say obviously, but that's not the truth. There were so many blessings, some wonderful parts of being religious life, but that for me, I needed more. I needed more for me as a human being, and I needed more for the people I was going to be working with. So it really required a huge amount of strength, a huge amount of fear, because you find what you think is that perfect place for you, whatever that looks like you found a perfect place for your career, for your life, to realize it's not you've outgrown it, and to say, I've outgrown it, or I've grown beyond it, is frightening because you're walking into an unknown. It's there's excitement and joy walking into an unknown, but there's also fear, because there's safety and security in where you are, and then you realize I can choose safety and security and be progressively less happy, or take a risk of coming alive and going forward. And so I did, and when I left and went back out and thought, I'll just find a job doing what I do, but as a lay person, as somebody who Not really. Just and then realized, wait a minute, when I went back to where I grew up, in South Boston, realized I had nothing in common with all the people I had grown up with. And thought, all right, then I've got a clean slate. If I was to do anything in the whole wide world, what would that look like? And I think we need to get there, if I could do anything in the whole wide world. What would that look like? And when I took away all shoulds and expectations and thought, I want to see the world. I want to see this vast world that I live in, that I've never been exposed to. And to me, the most logical way to do that was to move to Manhattan and become an international alien stewardess. It made perfect sense to me.

Suzanne Taylor-King  5:44  
Jump. I know it doesn't make sense now, I will say it does make sense. Looking backwards, connecting the dots backwards, your journey makes so much sense. Each step makes so much sense, leading you to where you are today, but this idea of making a jump in the moment, you have no way of knowing where you are going to end up making that decision, right?

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  6:16  
Not a clue. And I went from it wasn't just a career shift. I went from wearing a very long black habit that has layers and layers and layers of material, surge, which is a very heavy, heavier than wool material, to being an international airline steward is wearing micro mini skirts and by high boots. And so the complete cultural shift was absolutely dramatic, absolutely dramatic. Living in Manhattan, going clubbing on Third Avenue, and just when a month before I was in a long black habit, and in Massachusetts and it Yeah. So when you make changes to follow where your soul or where your essence is calling you to, where you know, in your art, your your intuitive self says, We need a change, it's trusting it's trusting you. It's having such faith in yourself that this no longer works for me. There was nothing wrong with that decision. It was an exquisite decision. It was the perfect decision for the moment, whatever our career choices. But that doesn't mean that's the rest of our life, and it's having that freedom to continuously evolve, to continuously become more and more of who you're called to become, as well as to impact the world in dramatically different ways all the time. And so becoming an international airline stewardess, I can assure you, when people found out where I came from, I became the confessional. I mean, more people had more things to share with me, trusting that I would, without judgment, be there to support them, and traveled over a million miles, saw many, many, many countries, and discovered a life I never knew was possible, much less possible for me. So yeah, and what it did, however, in the long run, was allow me to see that this infinite possibility, if you're willing to take them, there's infinite possibilities for who we can become and what we can do on this planet.

Suzanne Taylor-King  8:27  
I think that's, that's the intriguing part for me, is this idea that making a jump, that there's no way, I mean, you could have intuition, and you can have, you know, a gut feeling, which I'm sure you did, but you really have no idea where you're going to end up and what opportunities lie in front of you Because of that decision. Looking back now on that decision, what was made possible for you at that time in your life, making that decision

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  9:11  
so many things and again, as you just said, We have no idea what we're going to be exposed to. What opportunity is it going to show up? What parts of us are going to come out that we didn't even know existed, you know? And what I discovered living in Manhattan and then ultimately flushing in Queens, what I discovered is that there is so many right ways to do things, you know, I think most of us were raised with the one right way to to eat, the one right way to do this, the one right way to do that, when there are many right ways to do so many things, as long as we are not hurting anybody else, there are many, many right ways to do pretty much anything. And whatever works in your integrity, whatever works for your truth, whatever allows you to become more of you is the correct way for you, not the correct way for the world or the correct way for you. And I really learned that repeatedly by being exposed to people from all over the world, people who came from all kinds of countries and states to become stewardesses or pilots or whatever, in the industry, as well as people I met socially, there was a whole other world, you know, growing up in the housing projects and then joining a modeling agency in New York City. It's like, Who would have thunk, you know, who would have imagined such a thing? So there's so many, many realities that show up and which then let me know that the rest of this life is absolutely an unknown. It will unfold as it unfolds.

Suzanne Taylor-King  10:57  
Oh, that's such a beautiful trust that you have in yourself, and I think that's one of the things that makes you so appealing as a coach, as a mentor, as a teacher, because you've experienced so many it's almost numerous lifetimes of knowledge and experience that you have, and that's really enabled you to help more people because of the different understandings that you have. And I would encourage anyone listening who's a coach or consultant, if you've only done one thing in your life, to experience those other things that so you can have more perspective and help more people. I think it's just a gold mine of experience that you're sitting on. Do you think there was one thing about your personality or your makeup that made you more resilient, gritty, available for that risk of pivoting.

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  12:07  
I think I came in as somebody who just loved life and loved people, right? But I also believe that because I grew up in such a violent home and in the inner city, that there was a there was a fighter in me, there was a survivor in me, there was somebody who was not going to allow the world to stop her, right? And I needed to connect with her. I mean, obviously I didn't have the terminology, but I needed to connect with her early in order to get through what I got through for those years that I lived in that home and that just said, Okay, there's I can do this. I can do this. They may keep telling me it's impossible. So I've heard it's impossible most of my life. But you know, knowing that that's a perspective and that's all it is, is a perspective, and so that's never been a stopper for me. You know, it can't be done unless it can be, you know, I don't I don't hide opposition. I just walk around it and somebody says to me, Oh, that's not possible. Okay, all right, I'm not going to argue with you about it. I'm just going to walk around you and keep on going and have it happen, you know. So I don't waste my time in battle. Life's too short.

Suzanne Taylor-King  13:24  
I love I love that, and I think it's so inspiring for me, getting to spend, you know, this time with someone who just demonstrates what they do that's always been very important to me. I can remember being 16 and working for a dentist who was my first mentor. And I can actually look back and thank Dr Timms for teaching me how to treat people. You know, I had wonderful parents and very nice, kind, wonderful people, but Dr Tim has taught me how to treat patients connections with compassion and empathy and just by by doing it. And that's what I love so much about you, is you actually mentor me by doing it. And which brings me to my next really sassy question is, do you see any future pivots for

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  14:32  
Dr Dorothy? Oh, of course. I have no idea how many future pivots are out there.

Suzanne Taylor-King  14:38  
Oh, there could be more than one. Oh, my

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  14:40  
goodness, if I'm here for another 2025, years, who knows how many more credits I may make. I don't plan them. I just know when it's time to go to the next level, the next place for myself, really, as well as for my business, you know. And I formed numerous companies. And so it's who knows what the future holds. Yeah, right. And at this point, I'm aware that I love the work I do, but it's time to scale the business. It's time to take it to another level. I love the challenge. I love the part of me that gets to grow and move into another way of being and to present myself and my work to the world in a different way. And so that's, that's exciting to me. You know, it causes me to keep expanding. And why not stagnation? Why not?

Suzanne Taylor-King  15:31  
That is such a great, great question to live your life by. Why not? Instead of, how can I or, Oh, I don't know if I can. Why

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  15:44  
not? Why not as my why not as my standard?

Suzanne Taylor-King  15:49  
I love it. I love the idea of, you know, not being content with the status quo. You could easily stay where you're at right now for the rest of your coaching career, as could I and I think the idea of always growing, always learning, and adding that growth and Learning to what you do, and you have something so incredible. You have a four year curriculum that I remember when I saw it in the notebooks, I had to sit down, what is that in those notebooks? And you said, Oh, that's my four year curriculum. And I remember it like it was yesterday. And I said, Do you have digital versions of all of that? And you said, why? Yes, I do. And I had to sit down. I had to, like, take a moment, because so few coaches consultants have their own intellectual property like that, and it really stands out to me. So let's talk a little bit about intellectual property that you've developed over the years, how you use that with your coaching clients. Because I think this is really transformational. When you think about energy, the energetics of leadership, the energetics of being a, you know, a leader, a CEO, a coach, you talk about the energetics of that. And you you have a four year curriculum that's in energy medicine. Let's talk about that connection a little bit. But I

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  17:45  
had developed. I had a school for 19 years, the Institute of Healing Arts and Sciences, which I founded, and it was my work and based on the psychodynamics of health. And my doctoral dissertation was in the psychological and spiritual causes of physical disease and disorders. And so I really studied it. I became certified in nine modalities of integrative health care, five of which were in Eastern medicine, and really started integrating that into my therapy practice, you know, seeing 42 patients a week for 20 plus years as a as a psychotherapist, you know, and integrated all of that in and then recognize that certain personalities present more particular diseases. Different personalities develop different diseases because they hold their stress differently. They hold their emotions differently. Some are more prone to depression, some more prone to anxiety, some more prone to rage and so forth. And that impacts your energy, which impacts your physical, emotional and spiritual health. And so looking at all of that, I just happened to see patterns. You know, we all have different strengths. You're an amazing moment with systems. I happen to see patterns everywhere. And so I noticed the patterns, but to created some work, and then started teaching it just in six week courses. And people said to me, you've got to do a structured program. I did a two year program. They said we didn't want to graduate. You need a three year program. And eventually became a four year program. And my third and fourth year students, who were physicians and nurses and occupational therapists, massage therapists, physical therapists, and some wanted to be healers. And fourth year students required to do medical internships. So we opened up integrative health departments at a number of hospitals across the country, Canada and Australia and in the Caribbean, because people were flying in from all over to study with me, because we were the only school in the country that did a four year program that also had a two year medical internship program. So we were affiliated with hospitals, as I said, across the country and out of the country, and so I took that work. Eventually, after 19 years, I closed the school for numerous reasons too much to go into here, and decided to. To take that curriculum and look at how it applied to the leaders I was working with, right? So translating that from personality constructs into leadership styles wasn't that difficult at all, but for me, that's just how my mind works, so that wasn't hard. So I created the five styles of leadership versus five styles of personality and development. And really looked and saw tested. When you research and you come up with ideas, you best watch, you best research your own research, right, if you're going to be have any credibility, even in your own integrity. So I watched and watched and watched and it worked, and so I developed a leadership self assessment tool that really supports them. Obviously, it's not as extensive as support your curriculum, but it's there to support people, and it's free on my website for people to take this leadership self assessment tool to look at their style of leadership, the strengths that go with that style, the vulnerabilities that go with that style, the belief systems that go with that style, the relationship patterns that go with that style, and the physical diseases that they are more predisposed to, because each style holds their stress differently, as I said earlier, and I I just love the work. It supports me with every one of the leaders I work with, for them to see i at this point in my world, having done this for decades, I can identify people really quickly. But that's not what's important. I want them to identify themselves so that they have the ability to say, Ooh, I thought that was coincidental. No, it's not coincidental. This is your style, and this is why this particular thing exists, and when it's the strengths, I can help them expand it. If it's vulnerabilities, we're always going to have those vulnerabilities, right? But we can minimize their impact in our life. And so that's really the work I do. You know, part of the work I do in working with my leaders, yeah,

Suzanne Taylor-King  21:56  
and I so one of the things that comes up you're describing, this is, is really leadership has to start with knowing yourself as the leader, right? We can't lead others. We can't I mean, from being a coach and having one client or, you know, being a speaker to an author, you can't lead other people and share your knowledge with the world unless you know yourself and these connections that you're talking about seeing the connections between the energetics, your personality, your relationships, the illnesses that are attracted to you, and I say that, I say attracted to you because I truly believe that you can decide with any illnesses whether you have it or not. But what I think is really, really key here is knowing yourself, and you're asking your clients to know themselves at a very deep level so that they can be a better leader. What what happens when that's scary to somebody or they're not willing to see those true sides of themselves. Well, let's, let's

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  23:26  
back up and say there's also always going to be fear there. Yes, this fear and discovering things about ourselves, because we don't know what that is, right? I remember one client said to me once, what if I said, want to take you back to Soul level awareness, to essence. I don't care if it's soul essence, the word is irrelevant to me. Take you back to the understanding the essence of who you are. And they said, Well, what if I don't have an essence? What if I don't have a soul? What if I don't that's like, well, I hadn't thought about that fear before. Again, there's so many different things we have to be wide open to, you know, I'm not gonna say, of course, you do get over it. You know? It's like, oh, let me meet you where you are. And then how him identify the ways in which he recognized that some intrinsically didn't feel right or felt perfect for him, that that that inner knowing is what we're talking about. And so it's to me, how do you bring people back. How do you bring people back to themselves? And when I'm able to do that, and some are frightened, and yet I can let them know they're not going there alone. I'm walking with them. And then there are those that refuse to do this level of work. They don't want it. That's okay. I'm not meant to work with every person on the planet, yeah, you know. And this where, as a coach, we need to know that not everybody is our client, and not everybody should be our client. Very true, right? And so we need to recognize we're not failing if every single person we meet does not want to. Work with us. We're not right for many people, and we're here to serve those for whom there's an energetic match, those for whom we can really create an intimate relationship with emotionally and spiritually, so that we can best support them becoming who they're meant to become in order to do what they came here to do.

Suzanne Taylor-King  25:20  
Yeah, yeah, I I think that's so important to remember, especially, I mean, I'll just say for me, you know, three, four years ago, thinking, Well, I'm not doing as well as I had hoped, and I wasn't serving at the level I was capable of serving at. And I knew it. I felt it, but I didn't know why, and it was only through the self evaluation and assessments and conversations and energy work, inner child work. I mean, I can't even describe how many different modalities I searched for finding that thing within me that would bring the confidence, bring the awareness, bring and I think it all comes back to trust, trusting of yourself. You do this so so well. You trust your intuition, your guidance, your knowledge. Let's talk a little bit about how that skill as a coach really is the thing that up levels your coaching practice.

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  26:46  
I believe that anybody that chooses to be a leader and a coach is a leader because you're leading somebody down a path of self awareness, down a path of personal and professional growth, that anybody who is doing that is in integrity, obligated to have done that work themselves.

Suzanne Taylor-King  27:05  
Let's say that again. All right, people in the back,

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  27:10  
if I am going to say I have the ability to lead you down the path of self discovery, to lead you down the path of understanding the stories you're telling yourselves, to understand the ways in which you sabotage yourselves, to understand the ways in which you have minimized your view of who you truly are and the impact you can have in the world. I had best have done that with myself beforehand, if I have not and none of us had done to the day we go home, but if I hadn't done extensive work with myself, extensive levels of self discovery, extensive levels of self and healthy criticism, you know, how are you setting yourself up? What did you What did you do? Never out of integrity, but just believing in small believing in playing it safe, believing in whatever the case may be. Nobody likes me. Nobody ever wants me around. You know, I don't fit in anywhere. Whatever the story is we tell ourselves until we're ready to look at that and see that it's a story. We don't recognize the power of stories in our lives. So how are we going to help a client see the power of their story and their life, if we haven't been willing to identify the power of the story in our life? Yeah? So to me, it's, it's really yeah, get certified. Get all of those if you want to belong in national, global organizations. Do so, but get the training. But even more importantly, do the inner work that's required to have the ability to bring yourself to immense freedom, so that, having walked that path, you can advise somebody else down a similar road.

Suzanne Taylor-King  29:03  
I love the integrity of it, too. You know, for me, I just had a conversation yesterday about overcoming objections with a group of coaches. And my group of coaches, I was invited to speak to them because of my perspective on overcoming objections. And I started off the talk with, I don't do that. And everybody was like, Well, what the heck is this talk going to be about? Then if you're not going to teach us how to overcome objections? And I said for me, if you have objections about working with me, it's too expensive. I don't have time. Whatever. That's not my job to overcome them. For you, that's your own limiting thoughts about yourself, or maybe. See it's a bad business decision to make the investment. And I really was a little nervous about this conversation about really standing in the belief that I don't overcome objections. If you have an objection, it means I haven't explained the transformation well enough see or you don't understand or you don't need it, and at that point I'm not going to argue with you. I'm happy to coach you around that, and you do this so, so well when I have challenged you or had a limiting belief, you don't tell me your belief and why I shouldn't think that way, or you always have this way of having a conversation that gets me to see another perspective within myself, and you said something the other day, and I think what this is called is soul alignment, helping me and the other people that you serve see their own value, journey, whatever it is, and and feel the alignment of that and how to bring it to life in the world, and what that looks like as a leader. And it really resonated with me when you said that the other day. Thank you. You're welcome. You're welcome. I'm glad. What does it mean for you to feel that way about yourself?

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  31:50  
I can't imagine going through life without feeling that way. Not moment. Do I want to say that anybody's life, my mine included, is always marvelous, is always in in great synchronicity, is always working beautifully. The difference is, when you spend much of your life in alignment with who you truly are, and for whatever reason, you step out, something didn't work out. And, you know, God, I've never really done any good. It's been Sherlock. I really don't know what I'm talking about. And you start down that road when you live in alignment, walking down that road just to feel like, oh my god, this feels horrible, you know? And then you come on back. The difference is, when you live over here, it feels familiar, and that's where you stay, and that's frightening to have the ability to believe in yourself, because what if you're making a mistake? What if I really am small, what if I really am limited, really? What if it is impossible, and only they have the ability to get there, I meant to be back here, right? For somebody to say that might be the truth, and maybe it isn't. What if we just took a risk for sure. Let's take a month, two months, and take a risk of growing and see what it feels like. And you can always go back, you know, knowing, I can always go back to being small, you know. All right, then I'm willing to take a risk and come out with the awareness that once you experience freedom, I'm fully aware you'll never be able to go back there, right? Once you start coming alive, you'll never be able to go back there. But again, it's not forcing a belief system on somebody. It's asking if they're ready, asking if they want to go to the next level, and it's, and it's, you know, they may be here and and their ideal is to get there, but I see they're capable of this, yeah, right, as we're getting to their dream. And I can mention, yeah, that's one option. Who knows what we'll discover once we get there, then, because they see movement taking place, there's an awareness. Whoa. I can really grow. I can this. This feels good. I like this. And so as we get closer, and I say, Who knows when we get there, you may not be content. You may recognize there's so much more that you can do with the world and so much more you can become, then it's far less frightening because they've had the experience of evolution. They've had the experience of expansion, right? Yeah, it's I just think of my granddaughter when she was four or five years old, and somebody she was going away to college, and she said, I don't ever want to go to college, Nina, because that's scary. I don't want to leave mommy and daddy, that's scary, your honey, by the time you're ready to go to college, you're going to love the idea, you know, but right now, you're way too young, sweetheart to think about it. Don't have to go to college. No, you don't, honey. You don't ever have to go to college if you don't want to. But by the time you're old enough, you may decide you like the idea. Okay, Nana, but I'm, I'm gonna stay right here with mommy.

Suzanne Taylor-King  35:04  
My son said something very similar at about four or five, he said, when I go to college, like his cousin, will you come with me? Yep.

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  35:17  
And you know, Donnell at 18, he does not want his mother coming with that, you know, but, but it's, it's honoring. This is where they are. These are the fears. This is what's here. That's okay. I'm not going to force you at this point to believe in what I see for you, right? And that's, you know, in my school for 19 years, I kept saying to everybody, respect their timing as well as their process, because their timing and your timing for them may not be the same, but we have to respect somebody's timing as well as the process. Keep offering them an option, and they have the right to refuse it. You know, it's not about our ego, it's about their journey, and as

Suzanne Taylor-King  36:01  
a coach, that's super important. I've noticed, you know, different little frustrations with clients over the years where I wanted them to hurry up, or where I want to just get the work done, like, Oh, hurry up and do that thing. So we go do this thing over here. And really, that over here was a little scary so, and they weren't

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  36:28  
that was about you this, because I'm gonna love here with you, right? So it's all about me, so you're paying me to work with me, and it's all about me. Actually, I think it is. Think it's all about them, you know,

Suzanne Taylor-King  36:40  
but that was, that was part of that whole, you know, upgrading your coaching skills. That's really the skill. It's not another certification, and I chased those for years. It's not another certification. It wasn't, you know, some worksheet that I hadn't developed yet. It was really the ability of knowing where I'm at, knowing where you're at, and I meet you where you're at, and we go where you want to go.

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  37:08  
There's a difference here if you're also or simultaneously, you're focused on this client. While you're with them, you're absolutely present with them. When you're with them, when you're not with them, hopefully you work on your business as well as in your business, right? So if you're working on your business, you're aware that I need to grow me and my business. You know whether that's just expanding it or scaling it, all that's up to you, but that's a personal choice, but that level of constant growth on your part is going to have you invested in your own journey. So you don't need to invest yourself in their journey. You can let that be about them, because you're over here invested in your own journey. Yeah. So important again, your own process never ends till the day you go home, or the day you die, whatever, however you see that that that's your journey, and if you forget that you exist, you start expecting too much of the people you work

Suzanne Taylor-King  38:15  
With. That's gold, right there. Yeah. Thank you for that. That's really, really important. All right. Last question, this is all about positioning. When we talked a couple weeks ago, we talked about pricing, and you know, there's so many claims out there of teaching you to be a high ticket coach. There's there's also this myth that you just decide, you know, to charge, whether it's 10,000 or 100,000 or a million, that you just anyone, can just make that decision and charge that amount. I disagree with that a little bit or a lot of it, but when you decided to raise your prices, and I remember you being about 25,000 and you went up to 100 there was a conversation that that pricing, when you mentioned it to someone actually disqualified you for a networking group. Like, oh no, your your ideal clients and referral partners are not in this group. Don't bother coming. Let's talk about that a little bit, because the life changing people complain about not being in the right rooms, not meeting the right people, and I really believe that by you being transparent about your coaching packages, start. At 100k positioned you not only to be in certain groups, but to not be which might be more important? Let's talk about that. Well,

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  40:11  
this year, well, I went from 25 to 50, and then I stayed at 50 for a few years, and then went to 100 and what happens is that if you're going to ask more, you better become more, right? So if I'm going to increase my price, I better increase my value, which means I have to grow as as a person, and I have to grow more in my skill set. Again, another reason to say, as a coach, we need to keep growing. As a coach, of anybody in service, we need to keep growing. But what ends up happening is, but when you say, and for me, it was in working it with that person who was at the $50,000 level, I wanted somebody who was going to challenge me more. I wanted somebody who was going to call more out of me. I wanted somebody who was going to make it more of an adventure for me, right? And so that meant they needed to be more present, more developed, more aware in their own business skills than in their own personal skills. So that meant asking a higher fee, because it would change my audience, which would change me, right? So we all got to win. Plus, I truly believe that we, those of us who are called to work with leaders have an obligation to bring healthy leadership back. Okay, to create healthy leadership, which is continuous transformation, continuous transformation in the leaders. As they continue to grow, they have more and more to offer to themselves, as well as to and so when you know that that this is the audience I now want to work with. What it says this is the audience I don't want to work with, right? Right? So whenever you make a decision, you're turning away from something. If I choose to have chicken for dinner tonight, that means I'm not having pork or beef or fish or whatever else, right? Every choice we make has a cost, so the cost of making a choice to work with that level audience means I don't work here now. I've always done give back. So part of my give back is I forever have done it right now I see four people on Husky a week as a therapist, you know, which is Medicaid, right? So that's my give back. So it's not as if I'm saying I don't have a lot of work with people who aren't at this level. I will do give that. But philanthropic work is very different than my career, right? So what happens is that that being the case when I was at a meeting with somebody, another coach, and she said, Hi, I haven't seen you in forever. And I said, Yeah, I happen to have an evening free, and I wanted to check this out, see if this is my people that are in this group. And she said, Yeah, I've got a lot of people here. I think you're going to love it. And I said, Great. I said, What? Tell me about your packages. She said, Well, I charge $1,000 for three months. And I said, Oh, I don't. And she said, Well, what do you charge? I said, I started 100,000 for the year. She goes, oh, god no, no. The these ain't these ain't your people, you know? And I said, Oh, I had no idea, which is why I came. You don't know until you explore, right? She said, No, no. She said, I've worked with many of the people here. They're much more in my my bracket. She goes, I love seeing many, many people, and so I charge that price point because I get to work with many, many different people. And I said, Oh, I I prefer to work with the Pew select at a real deep level of transformation. She said, Yeah, I know those, those people out here, which was a wonderful gift, because my time is as precious to me as everything else. I mean, if you don't know where you don't belong, you never get to discover the places where you do belong. Beautifully said. So it's really becoming so discerning that I'm willing to say I will work with fewer at a higher price point versus many at a lower price point. And again, there's no right way to do this. This is my way. After decades as a psychologist and then now a couple decades as a coach, I get to decide this is the group I want to work with. And so. It's very discerning about where I spend my networking time, where I'm willing to travel to to meet people at an event, and what those events are going to be. And it saves a lot of wasted time, lot of wasted trips, a lot of really ineffective networking. It you just you've got to be so discerning. And that's really important. That's not judgmental, that's discerning. You've got to be very discerning. This is my audience. This isn't, yeah, well,

Suzanne Taylor-King  45:36  
you, you spend a lot of time knowing who your ideal client was, you're very clear on that. So when you're at a conference like when we were at last year and you met numerous ideal clients, now, do they become clients that weekend? No, the higher, the higher fee you charge, the more in depth, the transformation, the longer the sales process. And that's such a good reminder that you know, meeting people who are your ideal clients, they have no idea that they're your ideal client until you're in relationship with them. And

Dorothy A. Martin-Neville, PhD  46:29  
that's also when I go to those events, I hook up with the presenters. I don't hook up with the audience necessarily, because the presenters, the organizers, are going to be much more likely my audience than the people who are sitting in the seats. Now I'm not saying exclusionary, because there are times people sitting in those seats are exactly my audience, but I want to look at the vendors. I want to look at the presenters. I want to look at the organizers. Yes, as it's much more likely, and as I'm there speaking and meeting anybody and everybody I know, who I want to work with and who I don't. Yeah, so when somebody says I'm thinking maybe, sort of, I kind of, I'm thinking about a coach I've never worked with one before, and I say how sweet this is. Not my, not my person, right? And treat them with absolute respect and just Who am I here to meet? What am I here to do? Yeah, and to make make it worth my flying in, or make it worth my whatever, you know, yeah, so and always treat everybody with respect, always, always with respect and dignity. But know where do I want to spend my time? Yeah, it really again calls us to know who we are, who our audience is, what it is I bring to the table. So I can clearly say this is what I bring to the table, and know that in one of mine, we can close with this. One of my clients is written on my website, you know, and we posted it says she holds your heart while she kicks your ass and and the it was a powerful woman in charge of a whole when major hospitals in this country a major division of that hospital, and she knew that if I choose to work with you, there will be absolutely non judgmental, unconditional love and support for who you are as a person, as well as who you are As a leader, and simultaneously, I will have immense compassion. And when I see you telling your stories of making yourself small, of holding yourself back, it's like, Are you out of your damn mind? Let's take a look at this again, you know. And so, no, no, I don't want to play games with you. You do not pay me this price point to play games with you. You pay me this price point in order to be real, in order to be honest, in order to take you where you're capable of going. That's what I want to do. I want to do that because, again, at that point, I'm not dealing with somebody who's just beginning when, as when I was in there doing therapies, who's just thinking, I don't know that I'm worthy. They've already had great success. They've already had great success. They know they can do this. They're getting in their own way to take it further. And now this may be in their relationships, in their personal lives, but if your business impacts your life, your life impacts business, right? So you're never doing one, you're always working with both areas of somebody's life. Oh, yeah, why not? All right, yeah, this has been an absolute joy.

Suzanne Taylor-King  49:47  
Oh, it's been amazing. Thank you so much for being vulnerable and willing and transparent and incredible as always.

Speaker 1  49:55  
Thank you. Hun, you're welcome. Have a great one. Bye, bye. You.

Suzanne Taylor-King  50:01  
Thank you for tuning in to another empowering episode of unlock your way. I hope you found today's discussion inspiring and you're ready to take your business and personal growth to that next level. If you're feeling as fired up as I am and eager to unlock that full potential, I'm here to help you on your journey and provide that personalized guidance tailored to your unique goals and challenges. Simply book a one on one coaching. Call with me, and we'll dive deep into your business aspirations and see how we could co create a roadmap for your success, and whether you're striving to scale and enterprise are just getting started. I'm here to support you every step of the way. To schedule your coaching call, simply visit the website at unlock your way with stk.com click on the book a call button, and we'll turn your dreams into that reality. Subscribe and review on your favorite podcast platform and on YouTube, plus, you can join over 800 entrepreneurs in the IDEA Lab Facebook group. Let's make success as an entrepreneur happen together until next time I'm SDK. Keep dreaming big, stay focused, and most of all, have fun while you're doing it.

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