How To Replace Your 9-5 Income with Health Coaching

Michelle Leotta:
Welcome to the Health Coach Power Community Podcast. I'm Michelle Leotta, ex corporate girl turned certified health coach with over 15 years of experience growing a successful online practice. I started out with no idea what I was getting into and learned a lot of lessons along the way that have given me the freedom to do the work I love and raised two boys as a single mom.

I created a health coach power community over a decade ago to make it easier for health coaches to build a career they love and make the world a better place.

I remember sitting under the buzzing, fluorescent lights of the office, feeling completely. If you're like, I was coming to health coaching from another career, coming from corporate, you might be feeling that same lack of passion in your current job. In fact, it's probably draining the life out of you, and you're starting to wonder, what if I could actually do something I care about?

What if I could actually help people and get paid for it? Like, what if health coaching could be, you know, a full-time thing or a part-time thing that was enough to replace that other job? Is that just crazy talk? Like, do people actually do that? Well, I am here to tell you, yes, I have been there. I left my full-time career in advertising, and we are talking window office, nice salary, the whole thing.

I left it to build a business as a health coach because, you know, having gone through my own health transformation, it started feeling entirely misaligned to be working on ad campaigns for McDonald's or Ocean Spray. So I started using the little extra time that I had to explore something different. I got myself certified as a health coach, and I was working on establishing this new identity for myself.

Even though you're probably feeling the same way, I really had no idea how I was ever gonna take the leap into coaching full-time. In today's episode, I wanna talk to those of you who are stuck between a steady paycheck and that nagging voice coming from somewhere inside you that says there's something more.

If that sounds familiar, I can help email the word full-time to michelle@HealthCoachPower.com. I wanna hear from you and whether you wanna leave your job eventually or just have a meaningful side gig, this episode is for you. So let me take you back. We are talking 2008, 2009. If you remember that banks had crashed and the economy was a mess, and if you worked in advertising or lots of other industries, but certainly for those of us working in advertising, your job was about to disappear.

Now, I was in a fairly good position because I had already gotten my health coach certification, and I'd been trying to get something going on the side, but it was slow, and I had no idea what I was doing. So I was just kind of dragging myself through the nine-to-five and wondering if this dream of health coaching was even realistic or if I just wasted a lot of money on a cute idea.

But then layoffs came, and I got that pink slip, and I was like, Oh my goodness, what happens next? It felt like the rug got pulled out from under me, but at the same time, weirdly, I felt like, okay, like I'm getting my moment. It's being handed to me in the form of this pink slip, which is a little disconcerting, but still, it was like a not-so-subtle nudge from the universe saying, go.

So I went, I didn't have much choice. I jumped in with both feet. The next day I woke up, and I'm like, I guess I'm a health coach now, but there was no roadmap, and there was no backup plan except for the little severance package that they gave me. I just had time, energy, and desperation to make the health coaching thing happen.

Now, back then, there wasn't so much support available, not like now, and I just threw myself 1000% into any avenue that I could think of to get clients. I mean, what else was I gonna do? And I managed to get a couple, and I was covering my expenses at least, but it was pennies compared to my old salary.

About six months into that whirlwind woo, I ended up being featured in a documentary called Lemonade. Lemonade was all about following people who came from the advertising world, who had left or lost their jobs. And we were doing something totally new with our lives. So in that interview, and my friend Eric was the director, they asked my advice.

He said, What advice do you have for someone who wants to do something new? Who wants to reinvent themselves? And here's what my 28 or 29-year-old self said, because even though the money wasn't quite there yet. I knew I was on my path. Sometimes there's things you love to do that you forget about, so put your energy in the things that you love.

Put all the energy you can into those things and see what happens. Man, I didn't even know yet how much was going to happen. That was just the beginning for me. So if you're listening to this right now and you're stuck in a job that feels like it's draining the life outta you, and you're wondering what comes next.

Hold onto that idea. My 28-year-old self was onto something. Put your energy into the things you love, and it doesn't mean that you have to quit your job tomorrow. It just means you can start moving towards something better. Like today, like I did months before the layoffs happened, I positioned myself to be able to make that leap.

You just never know how it's gonna happen. Now, when I'm thinking back to those early days, starting my business, working for myself for the first time in my life, I also had to face something. It wasn't anything that I was expecting or anything that anyone prepared me for, so I just wanna prepare you in case this is your experience as well.

I went from an office that was just buzzing full of people. I think we had 800 people working at that ad agency, so I was never alone. And now I was always alone, sitting at my kitchen table, wearing yoga pants, talking to my cat, and just second-guessing every decision because I didn't have coworkers, I didn't have a boss, like I had no guidance or even a sounding board.

I really wanted the water cooler. You know? I wanted to be able to just chit-chat with other people who were doing the same thing because I'd always been part of a team that collaborated. So, way back then is when I started a Facebook group for health coaches. And at first, it was just 14 of my friends, and they were all people I knew from health coach school.

We were all trying to figure things out. We all just needed that water cooler. But then other coaches started requesting to join people I didn't know at all. And little by little, what do you know? The group grew, so today it's called the Health Coach Power Community. It has over 15,000 members, and that is what spawned this podcast.

But honestly, it's still one of my favorite corners of the internet because it reminds me that it may feel like you're alone. You might be the only health coach you know in real life. Certainly, the only one that, uh, in your town or in your local area. But we are definitely not doing this alone. Anyway, I share that because if you are still working full-time and you're trying to grow your health coaching business on the side, you're in the thick of it right now.

Like, you work all day, and then what are you supposed to do? Come home and make YouTube videos and write cute, little, funny Instagram captions. You finally work up the nerve and you ask somebody to be your client. And then they ghost. You know, it's like you're doing all the things, but you might feel like you aren't making much progress, or it's just going very, very slowly.

I know that can feel discouraging, and especially discouraging when you're doing it by yourself or you feel like you're all by yourself. So what I see health coaches doing is, you know, we start thinking like, oh, I need another certification so that someone's gonna take me seriously as a health coach, or I need to start a blog.

I need like a 5, 10-year plan. I have to start a podcast. You know, and it's in all this like doing and more that coaches tend to burn out before they even get started. So that's why I teach something a little bit different, just based on my many years of experience. I'm working with so many other coaches because you know, whether it's a full-time job for you or you're taking care of the kids or you're taking care of aging parents or all of the above.

I know your time is limited. I know your energy is limited, so yes, you can and you should offer private coaching when that makes sense. But what if you made offers that were easier? What if you did things that took less time, less upfront work? What if we could just cut to the chase and give clients something easier to say yes to so that you can start helping people now?

That's what we're gonna talk about next, because the traditional private coaching package that you're taught in health coaching school, that may or may not be the best place to start when you're working full-time. And so it's like, what can you do instead to start earning and start gaining experience right now, because you need that.

Nothing makes your business feel real like seeing money go in the bank account, like seeing those aha moments with the clients that you're working with, even if it's just one or two. I'm working with a client right now, a health coach who works a lot of hours in her other job, so we've gotten creative.

We've concocted offers that she's starting to earn with. First of all, they don't take as many hours as much one-to-one time as private health coaching would, and they allow her to work on her own schedule asynchronously. That is my favorite word of all time. Certainly, my favorite coaching concept. Asynchronously.

It is so much more flexible in this way. You know, it works with her schedule. She needs that. When you're working full-time, you just can't afford to sit around hoping that someone's gonna, I don't know. Go to your website and book your six-month coaching package. Not gonna happen. You need some momentum.

You need to feel like, yes, this is happening, or else you won't keep going. Confidence comes from getting paid, helping real people, and seeing how this can start to work even in small ways. That's the proof you need that you could eventually replace your job with coaching. So that's what I do with my clients, health coaches who are taking real steps forward.

If you are feeling ready to move forward, too, just email the word full-time to me at michelle@HealthCoachPower.com. There are bite-sized services that you can offer. You can run right now, even along your full-time job. We wanna talk about things that don't require hours of preparation or a million tech tools.

They don't require a huge commitment from your audience either because you are new, right? Like, let's just make it easy for goodness sake. Alright? Example from my own business. Uh, there's a lot of things I didn't do right when I was starting out, but here is one thing that I can look back and say, that was a very good idea.

I wouldn't recommend doing this exact thing right now for a variety of reasons. Including that it is illegal to charge people for food and feed them in an uncertified home kitchen. But I didn't know that at the time. I was just starting out, and anyway, mistakes were made, but I started out hosting a Sunday cooking club.

And it was very, very simple. I would get about six women to come over. Friends of mine. Friends of friends, and we would cook some healthy food together. We would prepare it together. We would cook it together, we would eat together. They paid a small amount of money to cover my costs. Maybe a little beyond that.

Not much, we all cooked. We chatted, we ate. It was community. It was a sense of figuring out what people wanted to talk about. Gave me so much purpose. It gave me a sense of doing something, even if it was, as I later learned, just a little bit illegal. Oops. So anyway, you don't have to leave your full-time job to be a health coach to start doing, right?

You could hold your version of a Sunday cooking club, you know, if you like your job, if it gives you stability or structure, or a good 401 (k). Great. I love it. You can absolutely build a side business that supports your passion, that makes a difference, and you don't have to blow up your whole life. If you're like, I was, you know, I was waking up every Monday with that pit in my stomach, like, I do not wanna do this anymore.

Or if you think there's a chance that your job, like mine, could just disappear one day, you know, maybe it's time to start putting together Plan B. Either way, what you need is to prove that your business can earn consistently. So not just once, not just when someone randomly out of nowhere signs up for something outta the blue.

You need to see that you can create offers and you can sell them, and you can repeat that process because that's what takes you from. This is an idea. This is a dream to, Oh, this is actually happening now. So you don't need a big old business plan. You don't gotta quit the job. Nothing like that. I am a big fan of a stable paycheck.

Please, we love that. But I want you to see some small wins so that you can prove to yourself that yes, this can happen. And yes, I've seen plenty of health coaches go full-time, which means you can replace your income as a health coach. It's not gonna happen by accident. You have to stop trying to do the hardest, most complex things first.

What you see other people doing online, they've probably been in business for 10 or 15 years. Don't try to do that. It's like the cart before the horse. You have to focus right now on simple offers, things that fit your life right now, fit your experience and your abilities right now, and help you start working with clients now.

Not someday, not down the line. I can help you make progress quickly, even while you're still working that other job. Email the word full-time to michelle@HealthCoachPower.com, and I will see you next week. Until then, keep putting energy into the things you love.

Thank you so much for listening to the Health Coach Power Community podcast. Please take a moment, leave a written review on Apple Podcasts. It helps us reach more coaches and allows me to bring you this free content every week to join us live. Ask your questions and have a direct line to me. Join our free Facebook group at HealthCoachPowerCommunity.com.