How I Weave My Values into My Life and Business as a Coach
Many of us get into entrepreneurship with the desire to change something. Maybe it began because you had an unsatisfactory career that didn't light you up, or maybe you started because you had this deeply held conviction that you were called to do something bigger, to do something more, to share your gift with the world. Whether your path to entrepreneurship began because of necessity or that deeply held desire to showcase your gifts with the world or a lack of viable options, we all eventually arrive at this point where we have to answer these questions and speak directly to the impact that we wish to have. And this shows up in our mission statement, our vision statement, our differentiators of things that make us stand out, who we aim to serve, et cetera. And this is where our core values are highlighted.
Your personal core values are the foundation of your character. They're the foundation for why you make certain decisions, why you take certain actions, and why your results are what they are. As a coach, it's imperative to understand your values because they are definitely going to surface in entrepreneurship, whether you understand them or not. Learning about values was a game changer for me because I recognized after I learned about them, how they showed up in my life. I recognized how they impacted my decisions, why I was stalled in certain places in my life, and why I felt like I was delaying success to some extent.
So understanding my values and leveraging them, helped to really make a significant change within my business. This is something that I wish I knew in the earlier stages of my business. And this is why today I wanted to come and talk about how I weave my values into my business intentionally so that you can better understand how to do the same.
Security
One of my primary values is security. I grew up very low-income. My mom was a two time teen mom and she struggled all the way up until about 8th grade when she got her first job as an attorney. Those were the prime years when a lot of my personal beliefs and values were developed. I did not live in a safe neighborhood, money wasn't easy to come by, and so I always felt like things were a little bit unstable because of this. Security was a prime value of mine.
And with that, I held on to a 9-to-5 because I convinced myself that that was the only thing that was secure. During the pandemic, I started to see things very differently. I had friends that were losing jobs, and family members that were questioning or losing jobs, and it made me wonder, is this really the only option for security? And it allowed me to redefine ways in my business that I could provide and make security for my family. Which leads me to my second value of family.
Family
As a single mom myself, one of the things that I highly value is being able to be with my children and spend time with them. And when I think about the opportunities that my business has afforded me to do just that, I'm so grateful. Being able to extend my income opportunities has allowed me to take my girls across the country, has allowed me to invest in extracurricular activities and experiences for them, has allowed me to invest in making our home a place that works for us and remodeling and redecorating to make it feel like a place that we can be at peace. It has also afforded me the opportunity to show my girls that when you have a vision and you have a deep desire you can show up for it, no matter what position you're at in life, no matter what barriers are blocks or things are in the way. Also, because family is a value, I've infused my business into my family, if that makes sense.
So, for example, my oldest daughter has helped me make slides before for different presentations that I'm doing. Both of my girls have been on my lives. Both of my girls have written and published books and traveled the world with me. My youngest daughter has made graphics on Canva before for me, and this are all things that they desire to do. It's nothing that I force, but I make it a part of who we are as a family.
And I'm showcasing to them that they're involved, that they matter to me. This has made me love my business even more because it doesn't feel like a block or a barrier to one of my main core personal values of family.
Impact
The next core personal value of mine is impact. When I think of impact, it is my deep desire to showcase my gift to the world and to make a difference. Because of my strongly held value of impact, it has allowed me to make decisions that I will be forever grateful for.
For example, I remember writing my first book and thinking, I don't have the time, I don't have the money. I just don't know how it would happen. But because I desired impact, all I could think about is, all right, how can I leave a legacy when I'm long and gone? And so I'd set an alarm early in the morning and wake up before there were distractions, before my kids were up, before social media notifications came through and I would write. I remember there would be days where I'd get my alarm going off and I'd be like, no, I just don't want to do it.
And then I'd find myself questioning, like, is me hitting this snooze button or me sleeping in going to allow me to have that impact that I deeply desire? Is that going to allow me to leave a legacy? And I started to get real with myself and realized it wasn't right. The truth is my desire for impact and that strong why of having an impact made room for the how. So even when I didn't know how I was going to write a book that impact desire kept drawing me to it.
Even when I didn't know if I was going to have the money, I was still drawn to creative ways to find it so that I could see this vision. And this project, through my deep desire to have an impact, has allowed me to show up and help people in tremendous ways, has allowed me to showcase my gift in creative ways inside my coaching certification program. Impact is something that we talk deeply about.
I talk about I teach people how to build an impactful profitable and sustainable business from their passion. Because I think that that is so important. That if we can create a change with somebody and then they can create a change with somebody and then they can create a change with somebody we're essentially creating this massive ripple effect which is awesome and a great way to serve the collective, which moves me to my next value, which is sustainability.
Sustainability
I am a person that recognizes that we shouldn't be buying into the hustle, that we shouldn't normalize overworking and burning ourselves out, and lacking sleep. Now, I will say it took me years to be able to get to this point but through a lot of my own personal development journey and the change work that I've done in the process, it has allowed me to prioritize sustainability. So the way that this sustainability shows up in my life is that I'm really creative inside of my business. So I will take one piece of content and turn it into a bunch essentially repurposing it so I can create more room to relax because sustainability matters.
The way that sustainability shows up in my business is that I've brought on support staff to support me in my business so that I can see from the back end what I need to do better. Therefore, I'm putting my effort into the things that actually move the needle and not just a bunch of fluff. In addition, I've brought on support staff to help me such as creating graphics, sending out emails, training inside of my different coaching programs, and things of that nature. Not only does the value of sustainability show up in my business it shows up in my personal life as well.
For a long time I used to be scared to ask for support because I thought it was a sign of weakness but through my personal development journey and the change work I've started to incorporate the belief that it takes a village, right? I'm not nervous to be able to ask for support when necessary and o one of the things that I will do is I recently paid my daughter who was looking for ways to earn extra money but too young to get a job. I paid her to cook, right? It’s something that she really enjoys. She's learning an amazing life skill, but while she's cooking, I get to be able to sit back and maybe create content or maybe go live or sometimes even jump in and help her and teach her that life skill.
This also looks like my youngest daughter being involved in gymnastics, and she has gymnastics practice a couple of days a week. One day I may take and pick up her and her friend, but also the next day, her friend's mom may do the same again, freeing up some time for me to do other things.
Learning
Another value of mine is inquiry, aka learning. You're going to learn if you've been in my space for any amount of time, that I'm somewhat of a nerd and I embrace that part of myself. I'm very resourceful and I love learning new things.
In a world of rapid change, you kind of have to. And the way that this has shown up in my personal life is it has allowed me to go very, very far in my studies, all the way up to being able to receive my doctorate degree. And my daughters have witnessed and watched me go through this process, and they too highly value learning. I feel like if we don't prioritize learning, we'll fall behind because the world is always moving forward. So you don't really have the opportunity to stay still.
You're either moving forward or you're going backward and regressing. Just think about it. If we stopped learning a few years ago, we wouldn't understand what Hulu is or Netflix is, or Siri or Alexa, or anything like that. And these are really powerful technology add-ins that help us in our personal life, that keep us entertained and enjoying different parts of our life. And because I've prioritized learning the things that I've learned not only in school but then on my personal development journey, I've been able to compile and put together to build some amazing and transformational coaching programs.
And the cool thing about my programs is the ultimate continuation of expanding your knowledge. As I continue to learn, I continue to feedback and give back to my programs so that my clients are always growing and learning, and expanding as well.
Let's use my Book Writing Bootcamp program, for example. This program teaches my clients how to write, publish, and prosper off of their book in 30 days. And book writing is something that is constantly changing the publishing process anyways. As I learned more and more about self-publishing and hybrid publishing and traditional publishing, I began to infuse my knowledge into the program so that my clients are always in the know and can be informed about the next best decisions and steps they can take. I also prioritize learning. And so last year, I read over 50 books which have given me new and creative ideas and expansive ways of thinking that have allowed me to show up in my business in amazing and new, and unique ways. Which brings me to my next value of individuality.
Individuality
The truth is, in the online space, it's easy to mirror and match what everyone else is doing. But when you do that, you blend in instead of doing what you're supposed to do, which is standing out. I'm a firm believer that authenticity is your greatest asset. I started to embrace my authentic self, my unique self, my creative self, and show up from that place which allows me to magnetize clients that are meant to work with me, not sugarcoat things and not just surface levels. Show up as myself, so I can relate to my clients on a deeper level.
This started for me one time a few years ago, where I went live. I was out on a walk and honestly, I just had a really busy day ahead of me. But I knew I needed to go live about an upcoming training that I had. And so I decided to go live. And I mean, I'm sweating, my hair is all over the place, and I look disheveled, but I just was talking from the heart. Something was in my spirit. That was my most engaged live ever.
People were drawn to that because it wasn't some edited, perfect video, it was the real and raw version of me. And from that day forward, I really started to leverage that authentic part of me. So I challenge you to really consider how you can leverage your greatest asset, which is your authenticity as well.
Embracing your individuality is essential for personal happiness. Trying to change or hide who you are to fit someone else's mold of who they think you should be is exhausting. It's exhausting because you can't continue it and eventually it sends the message that you're not valuable, right? But there's only one of you because you're meant to do what you're called to do.
Integrity
The next value of mine is integrity. Integrity is doing the right thing even when no one is watching it's. The quality of being honest and having those strong moral, ethical compass or guidance, essentially. And having integrity is essential because it helps people to see what you stand for and relate to you in that way. So it's essential in building a healthy and strong relationship, especially as a coach in the online space. Integrity is also important to help you make aligned and ethical decisions. The way that integrity has shown up for me inside my business is part of that showing that authentic part of myself.
I'm not that coach that's going to show up and tell you I live in this fancy home and that my life is so perfect. I'm very raw and real about my story and my journey. I'll talk about my divorce. I'll talk about different ways that I've grown up in financial struggles. I'll talk about single motherhood and how that birthed my desire to do something different so that I could support my children in a deeper way. I also make decisions within my business from a point of integrity.
I'll give you a very tangible example that happened for me just in the last week. I invited a potential client into my DMs to talk about the Elevate Method Coaching program. And as we were discussing the Elevate Method coaching program inside my DM, my goal was never to force her to make a decision, because I'm a firm believer that the energy we make a decision in is the energy we carry throughout the program. And I didn't want that to be her outcome or her reality.
I don't want her to feel pressured or forced. And so as we continued to talk through the process, through her goals, I realized that the Elevate Method Coaching program may not have been a right fit for her at that time. And the reason being is that she wasn't really sure where she was at. She wasn't sure if she wanted to be a coach, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. And so some of the things that we talked about is other options for her while she began to decide.
And because I value her time, her effort, and her energy, I gave her some tips, tools, and strategies. But I didn't try to force her way into the program just for a sale. I also, in my business, try to avoid that bro marketing where I put a lot of fear tactics into my content so that you feel pressured or forced to make a decision, or you make a decision out of scarcity or fear. That doesn't feel good to me, and it feels really icky. Also, as part of integrity is a value of mine, I talk about doing things in your way.
I do not believe in a one size fits all model to success, and I don't sell a one size fits all model to success. I really teach people to leverage their strengths and their passions to really be able to build what it is that they want to create from that place, not from my vision.
Last example I'll give you because I feel like it's important (because integrity really drives the foundation from which I build my business on is recently), I had a client invest with me, and due to some life changes and all the things that were coming up in her life, she wasn't able to commit to the contract at the time. And so probably about three months later, she reached out to me and she's like, hey, I know I wasn't able to commit to that contract in that 3-month time frame that we signed up for, is it possible I could have an extension? Because some things came up, I gave her the possibility of an extension.
And we continue to work together and it's been so beautiful. I do this because integrity is very, very important to me. And I also believe that if you don't start with a healthy foundation using or leveraging that integrity, it's going to be hard for you to build that sustainable and impactful business. I truly believe that.
Inclusivity
As a person who has often been the only minority in a lot of spaces that I've been in, I was in advanced classes through high school, through my career. As I continued to move up the educational ladder, I typically was the only person of color in that space.
In the coaching space online, there's not a lot of coaches that look like me. I prioritized inclusivity. So if you were to head to my website, you would see a statement where I talk about how my space is inclusive for people with disabilities, people of color, people with an LGBTQ plus background, all of these things. Because I think it's so important that we don't try to mold people to all be one way, but that we accept differences and create spaces that are welcoming and inclusive for those that are not like us.
Cool fact: a few years ago, I taught as an adjunct professor for a college, and there I taught a class on diversity and inclusion. And this class taught me so much in the sense that I had so many students with limiting beliefs about how to be inclusive towards those that were different. And so even though I was given a template for what to teach, I infused a lot of ideas for ways that you could be inclusive. The takeaways from my students were absolutely amazing, and I've taken those same ideas and weaved them into my business and my brand, and even my personal life. As you can see, I have so many personal values that have guided and directed my actions and my decisions and determined my results and my success.
My personal values are something that I'm forever grateful for because they helped me to get in touch with who I inherently am. Now, the truth is, I have so many more values and I could list them all, but I felt like it was imperative to touch on my top personal core values that have supported me not only in my personal life but in my business as well. If you haven't given yourself space or time to truly define your personal values for your personal life as well as your business, then I would lovingly encourage you to begin to explore that now. Owning your purpose, your values, your behavior, and your potential allows you to own your results and your success. So as you sit with that, I want you to consider what are your personal values?
Here's a great reflective question: If you could change anything about the world, what would it be and why? This gives you a jump start on what it is that you admire, what it is you want to move toward, what it is that you're called to do. And then you can start to think about the ways in which your values can be leveraged in order for you to be able to do just that. If we're not already connected online, I would love to take this a step further and connect with you online.
I'm Nicolya Williams across the board on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook. And I even have a podcast called The Dr. Nicolya Show. And the reason I love to connect with you is because I lead by example. What I mean by that is I love my values. I leverage my values, I talk about my values, and I teach other people how to live by theirs as well.
So if you are ready to connect with me in that way, I invite you to come find me. And I look forward to meeting you!
