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[00:00:00] Hello, and welcome to the business of executive coaching podcast. So I, as we get to mid December, I am in a Christmas present purchasing overdrive. So every year in about August, I think I'm going to be really mindful about gift giving this year. I'm going to just gift experiences or books or, you know, really thoughtful gifts.
And then almost invariably by the second week of December, I am in just throw money at the problem mode and I go over the top. I am an overcompensator from way back. An example of that is I once somehow, and this is, I hope she doesn't listen to this. I forgot my mother's birthday. And I felt so bad.
And so I booked us a trip to Vanuatu and I look back and I go, that was a bit over the top, you know, maybe a gift voucher would, it would have done the job. But anyway, we had a great trip. But my, my point is that when I [00:01:00] feel disorganized or when I feel like I'm not on top of things, I tend to go overboard and I'm doing that again this year.
And honestly, my motto is if it feels a little bit. Underdone to me. I just add very expensive chocolates to it. The toddlers, especially really appreciate that. No, I'm just kidding. But today I want to focus on sharing some ideas for how you can celebrate a big year, how you can appreciate yourself for the work that you've done this year.
And in a way, That will set you up for a great 2025 will reinforce the good work you're doing in your business. And, and, you know, really feeds that, that part of you that loves being in business. So that is my intention with these gifts. I could easily make this a, a bunch of, you know, mindset gifts, and I might add in one or two mindset elements, but I always get really disappointed when I listen to episodes or read lists like this.
And instead of actual gifts, they are just, you know, different ways of thinking about things. Now it's really important. It's really [00:02:00] valuable, but I want to be very clear that these are actual things that have options at all price points. Some are items, some are technology, some are investments in yourself and your development.
I'm definitely going to share who should gift themselves some of my programs, but all of these options are going to, you know, really give that sense of recognition of the work that you've done and should make a positive impact on you and your business for 2025. So the first gift I want to share is a gift of just what you need.
And what I mean by that is a lot of the time when we're consuming education material or books or training, really, we only need about 10%. Like the, the gold is in about 10 percent of the content. And so if that's you and you would like to sort of skip that 80 or 90 percent that we don't really need, I'd encourage you to take a look at Blinkist.
So Blinkist is a a [00:03:00] software or a subscription, I think. Where you pay a fee and you can access mostly, you know, business or educational self help topics, but they summarize it for you in 10 minutes or less. It's genius. I'm investing in it in 2025, because there are so many books that I download the full, either the book or the audio book, or I buy the hard copy and I go.
At the end, I go, either I don't get through it to get to the gold, or I decided at the end that I really could have just read the introduction. And that probably gave me all I needed to know. So Blinkist, if you haven't seen that already, is a great gift to give yourself to return you some time. And, you know, of course, if it's something that you really love and you really value it, then go ahead and buy.
Like I tend to buy audio book hard copy and sometimes the the e reader version of, of books that I really love. And you know, recently one that I've done that with is the personal MBA book by Josh Kaufman. It's just helping me [00:04:00] to think a little bit differently about, about business. The second suggestion I have for you, and this is something I have recently gifted to myself and also to some of the members of my community is the gift of uncensored feedback.
So feedback from someone who doesn't have an agenda of telling you what you want to hear. And that can come one way, the way I'm suggesting you gift yourself is, is by way of a paid or a free audit. And so one example of this that I've recently experienced was that I paid the wonderful Kate Merriweather and I will link her LinkedIn in the show notes.
I linked her on sorry, I, I contacted her About a LinkedIn audit and what she does for a very reasonable price. I think of 97 Australian dollars is she goes through your LinkedIn profile. She records a loom video and gives you all sorts of feedback about your profile. Now, look, I think my profiles is, is good, but.[00:05:00]
Kate's a LinkedIn specialist and she gave me all of these ideas that I didn't even know about. And I think when I implement that, which is an important part of this process that I have not yet done when I implement that, I think it's going to take my profile to the next level. So I would encourage you to do that.
Now, inside my program, the accelerator, I also offer reviews. Of you know, websites, coaching, buyers, LinkedIn profiles from the lens of selling executive coaching services to companies. So that is also part of, of what I do. But, you know, I'm always open to learning more and to getting, you know, people who are true subject matter experts to give us advice.
Yeah. In a a really direct way. So I've loved that process. The other feedback that I've gathered recently is that for my podcast, there is a company that is, they are a podcast podcast, I guess, editing company. They offer podcast coaching and I had don't work with them yet, but I can see that I might like to, and the company is called Bambi media and the The owner [00:06:00] of that company is Brianna and I can't remember her surname, but Bambi media, and they offer a free podcast audit.
And I, I took them up on that. And a few days later, I received the most most helpful, most extraordinary feedback on my podcast. Now, I didn't want to hear all of it, to be honest, there was a bit of feedback that I'm a bit waffly. And that not, not necessarily that I'm awfully, but that I don't edit the podcast tightly.
And that is absolutely true. I don't edit the podcast at all. Except for I remove ums and ahs I remove, you know, any sort of interruptions or, or things that, that, you know, where I've, I've coughed loudly or. Choked in the middle of the podcast. So I removed those, but I don't edit it. And, and she suggested that the next level of professionalism would be editing and tightening it up a little bit.
So good feedback. She also had a lot of feedback about how I translate my podcast into my social media profiles and making sort of. Up leveling the [00:07:00] professionalism of that process. And again, not something I necessarily wanted to hear, but I think it was really valuable feedback for me to hear. So you can expect to see some changes in the new year about how I take the content from these podcasts and, and share those across my various platforms.
Anyway, so my point is invest in getting some uncensored feedback. If you have something that you think you may not be doing to its full capacity. So LinkedIn podcast, if you're not, you, if you have one or, you know, for example, in, in my accelerator program, your coach bio, your LinkedIn profile, your website, and you know, sometimes we don't know what we don't know.
So it's really good to get external eyes and you can do that. There are actually. You know, more people who do this than you might think. And then, you know, like a really I guess quick and easy and. Cheap version of this would be to ask an AI engine to give you feedback. So for example, Claude or Chachi BT or your preferred your preferred.
AI to give you [00:08:00] feedback audit your, you know, your LinkedIn page or whatever asset you, you know, your, your homepage and give you some feedback that will help you to become more, you know, whatever your goal is for that asset. I think you can do that as well. The third gift is a gift of time and a gift of expertise.
And that is that you might want to consider making an investment of whatever, of whatever size. So literally it could be a you know, a 50 investment or it could be a 5, 000 investment in time, getting some time and expertise back. And I mean, Buying. A block of hours with, for example, a virtual assistant or a copywriter or a social media assistant, but someone who is going to not just take something off your plate, but also take that thing to the next level.
So it might be copywriter, or it might be someone who gives you feedback on say your LinkedIn copy, or it might be [00:09:00] a social media assistant who. Takes your copy adds you know, adds some imagery or some really nice tiles or creates carousels or a VA who will take your slide decks and improve them you know, if you've got a standard program, you deliver, you know, you could get a slide.
A slide design expert to take that to the next level. So whatever it is, like you might want to give yourself a gift of time and expertise to really take something to the next level. You might also want to give yourself the gift of walking the talk. And that is when I would recommend joining my program, the corporate to coach accelerator.
So it's not just a gift of walking the talk of getting a coach. When you are a coach, right? Getting a coach. It is part, being part of a community, gaining insights, gaining strategy, gaining clarity about the way forward and getting your next 10 [00:10:00] corporate coaching hours, corporate coaching clients while keeping your marketing under five hours a week.
So if those goals sound like you, and if 2025 is your year to take the next big leap, then you might be really well suited to the accelerator. And you might consider giving yourself a gift of investing in the accelerator for 2025, which is really the gift of investing in taking your next big leap in business.
So I have three more slots available for a January 2025 kickoff, so I will put a link in the show notes of how you can do that and how you can book a call with me this week before I go on holidays in order to, to get that get that underway. You might also choose to invest in some high level business tools.
And what I mean by that is a tool that is perhaps has more bells and whistles than what you are [00:11:00] currently using. One example of those is one that I use and love, and that is Kajabi. So you probably heard me talk about Kajabi. I am a Kajabi partner, which means that if you use my link to sign up to Kajabi, You will get an extended free trial at some times of the year, you will get extra discounts, but at the moment I think you get an extended free trial and I receive an affiliate payment, a small payment if you join using my link, but you know, whether or not you choose to use my link, totally up to you, but the reason I would suggest Kajabi is that it is a A very multifunctional tool that can save you a lot of time and emotional energy.
So for me, I use Kajabi as it's where we build out, build my website is based on Kajabi and you can use templates and it's really quite a delightful system to use, particularly if you're not a technical expert in, in website design or building. So it's good for [00:12:00] that. I use it to host all of my. All of my courses and memberships.
So if you have any interest in, in building a course or a membership, this is the tool to use. I would say, you know, that is the primary function of Kajabi. It does it so beautifully. Again, there are templates you can use to do that. But, but it works really easily. It is also where I host my email marketing.
So my newsletter and the list of people. So. It's got all the tools to allow people to opt into your newsletter to, you know, you can make sure you send it to the right people. People can unsubscribe. You can create different mailing lists. You can send sequences of messages. So if someone joins, you can send them a welcome sequence that they get over a period of time, and then they just receive your your normal newsletter.
So it's email marketing functions are great and can expand with you as you get better at business. And I host my podcast on Kajabi. You can use it for so many things. Some people host their community on [00:13:00] Kajabi. So there's loads of things you can do. So if you want to invest in a luxurious business tool, I think Kajabi is the one.
But it is not, you know, it's not cheap and it's not for everyone. So you know, feel free to drop me a line if you want to talk about whether it would be suitable for you. The next gift is this gift of, of, you know, community. Clearing a bit of mental space and a bit of clarity around your to do list.
And so I would suggest investing in a tool like monday. com and there are many others like that. So Asana or Trello will do a similar thing. I love monday. com because I actually like the look of it, even though the function is kind of similar. I like that I can integrate forms into it. So I can make a form that I send out and then people's responses just pop up in a monday.
com board. So easily again, monday. com I'm an affiliate. So if you choose to join using our link, you, I would receive a very small commission. But the main point about why I think you need to use it is pretty early on in [00:14:00] business. You will discover that there are so many things to keep on top of.
There are so many tasks, so many processes, so many things to manage and monday. com can handle a lot of that for you in that it is a place to, to save everything, to get it out of your brain. And also to get it out of, you just can't have that many to do lists in paper, to be honest, it can get a bit unwieldy.
It also allows you to delegate tasks. If you end up hiring a virtual assistant or another team member and it's a good way of communicating. I also use it as my client management tool. So, you know, any coaching engagements, I have all the members of my community. We have monday. com boards that track all of those people and their, you know, their payment schedules, their coaching schedules, all of that.
It's all done there. So I highly recommend that. The next gift suggestion I have is the gift of, of reduced noise and particularly advertising noise. And so that is taking the [00:15:00] opportunity to upgrade yourself to the paid versions of software tools that you use a lot for free. And so some examples of those include like if you like audio books, getting an audible subscription, if you use Amazon a lot.
Get upgrade to Amazon prime that will allow you to get, you know, free delivery and quicker deliveries even down to, if you're like me, so my family are pretty nerdy and a whole bunch of us do wordle every day. And we share, you know, what was our wordle score. And we also do wordle, which is where you do four wordles at a time.
That's like next level nerdy. But what I'm going to gift myself for 2025 is an actual subscription to the New York times quiz. Function or whatever that is so that I don't have to look at 10 ads every time I do every single day when I do a word or puzzle. So that is a gift I'm going to give myself.
And there are many examples of that where, you know, often it's a really small upgrade, but it'll remove a lot [00:16:00] of friction and a lot of time in, in what you do. Another example of that is my daughter. She hit her. 365 day, one year streak of Duolingo learning Swedish. And as, as a gift to her for doing that, we upgraded her to the paid version of Duolingo.
And, you know, the, the, the, she can now do two lessons in the time of one. And if she gets, you know, makes mistakes, it doesn't matter. There's no sort of, it doesn't block you from finishing the lesson if you don't get, you know, a hundred percent. Or close to. So I think that's a worthwhile thing to do. The next two are kind of related, which is firstly, the gift of a pleasant environment for a work environment.
And so there's a few things that that could be, could be that you refresh your office space. If you have one, it could be that you set up whatever space you do have available into a, you know, a really. So it feels like a place where you go to work and you have like [00:17:00] some, some clear boundaries there. It could even just be buying a plant, right?
To, to make it feel like a nicer space to work in. Alternatively, it could be investing in a coworking space that you go to two days a week. These things can make all the difference and it can make you feel more inspired. It can make you feel more professional. So whatever that is for you have a think about how you might do that.
Could be, you know, that you, you upgrade your background so that when you're on zoom, you feel great and you don't have to have a blurry background, but whatever, whatever you prefer. Related to this is giving yourself the gift of a beautiful desk space and an organized desk. So something that I have recently purchased for Christmas for my husband, actually, and I feel confident that he's not going to listen to this.
Babe, please don't listen to this is from the organization, the company called minimal desk setups. And that is a, it's a, it's a wooden tray that sits [00:18:00] somewhere on your desk. And then standing up in that wooden tray facing you a series of every day you write your tasks for the day on a card and it sits there.
So it's really beautiful, minimal. It's just got your priorities. Yeah. It looks so gorgeous. So it's imagine like a piece of wood with some some slots carved into it. And then you stand up your card every day. And that card is just got your priorities for the day. On it, you can also get a card that is like you're weak and it might be, you know, any sort of habits you're tracking.
Your weekly priorities can also sit alongside that but you don't have to do that. So yeah, that's an interesting idea. The company is minimal desk setups. I'll put a link to that also in the show notes. And then, you know, sort of related to this is the gift of focus. And if any of you are like me and most people in my family and a lot of my friends you might have trouble staying on.
Staying focused right when you're working, particularly if you're not in session or [00:19:00] with someone when you're trying to do those things that you know, you need to do, but you know, maybe doesn't come as easily. So it might be the marketing. It might be the writing. It might be the, the outreach. And one of those tools is to use a Pomodoro timer.
So I'm sure many of you have heard of a Pomodoro timer. It, you know, it used to literally be a kitchen timer. That was a tomato Pomodoro. And you would twist it around and it was initially for, for kitchen, but someone used it, they turn it around, they'd say 45 minutes, I'm just going to focus on this one task and when it's done, I'll take a break.
And so, you know, we've adapted that you can get some really beautiful Pomodoro timers. Now, usually they're sort of digital. There's one actually from this minimal desk set up place that sits also on that wooden tray. And it will You can set it for whatever time you want. So if you work best in 30 minute sprints, do that.
If you work best in 90 minute sprints, do that. I like 45 minutes, but if it's a task I find really difficult, I will even make it 15, right? Just to get me going. And then often [00:20:00] I'm, I'm fine to keep going after that. So giving yourself a really beautiful timer might help you. The next one is the gift of boundaries, right?
And so that. What I would suggest the gift to yourself there is, is that you block out one thing on your calendar every week in your diary that you gift to yourself. And it might be time to do a class. You might want to go to a movie in the middle of the day. You might want to. Take the dog for a walk with a podcast.
You might want to go for a swim in the ocean, whatever it is, block it out on your calendar every week and make sure you do that. And then, you know, another version of that is taking time to block out a chunk of time every year for a holiday or a break, or more than one chunk of time potentially, but putting those in your calendar.
So they happen no matter what, that's a pretty great gift. And then the other thing you can do. Which I really love is to book out a, a work retreat for yourself. And it might be a weekend. It might be two days. It might be three days, [00:21:00] but just time to go and work on your business, right? Time to think about your strategy, time to time to, you know, really lean into what you're, what you want to do.
Another version of that could be blocking out time to go to a conference or, or something like that. So I think that can work in many ways. And the other. Another gift is, you know, great tools. So investing in, if you, if you have any issues with your, your tech setup, making sure you have a great microphone, that you have a great camera, that you have all of the systems you need to make them work together.
If you struggle with, you know, things like your calendar integrating with your you know, your, your booking link with your, Anything else you can also pay people to come and do that for you or take yourself. If your app will take yourself to the genius bar and get someone to help you with all your integrations and make sure it's all set up, you know, make sure you've got your, your Dropbox or your Google drive linked into your, your Your file management system on your [00:22:00] computer so that you can easily drag and drop things, make sure it all works well, get really great tools.
And I can give you some advice on those if you want to. And then finally, I'm going to end on a gift that is mindset related. And that is giving yourself the gift of leaving behind beliefs that didn't serve you in 2024 and that won't serve you in 2025. So you will have to figure out what this is for yourself, but some examples might be.
Some unhelpful mindsets about your credibility as a coach unhelpful beliefs about your capacity for doing the things necessary to increase your visibility and marketing. It could be negative beliefs about selling or sales or about money and how much you can make as a coach or. You know, based on your own experience, I would encourage you to just think about not only what do you want to leave behind in 2024, but what do you want to replace it with instead in 2025?
And that's a pretty fabulous [00:23:00] gift for yourself. So on that note, I really hope that that helps. Please do reach out and book a call with me if you would like to be considered for one of the three spots I have left in the Corporate to Coach Accelerator in January. People have been booking in calls, so please, I've got, this week is my last week of calls for the year.
So head to the link in the show notes if you are listening this week. And you can book some time in for us to see if the accelerator is a good fit for you. And then look, if you would like to give me a gift. Please share this podcast episode and please review the podcast. If you found it helpful in 2024 on your coaching business journey.
I've really enjoyed Starting and running this podcast. We're getting close to a year, which I will absolutely be celebrating. I think that's in about February. But till then the podcast is going to continue over the holiday period. I'm going to record some short and sharp and very practical and helpful episodes.
I hope [00:24:00] helpful. So please stay listening and I really appreciate any, appreciate any shares or reviews that you're happy to give me. So thanks again and have a wonderful week.
