Career Coaching Secrets
Career Coaching Secrets is a podcast spotlighting the stories, strategies, and transformations created by today’s top career, leadership, and executive coaches.
Each episode dives into the real-world journeys behind coaching businesses—how they started, scaled, and succeeded—along with lessons learned, client success stories, and practical takeaways for aspiring or established coaches.
Whether you’re helping professionals pivot careers, grow as leaders, or step into entrepreneurship, this show offers an inside look at what it takes to build a purpose-driven, profitable coaching practice.
Career Coaching Secrets
Empowering Emerging Leaders to Push Past Limits with Brenda Mariah
In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, we speak with Brenda Mariah—founder of Push Career Management, certified career coach, and powerhouse strategist. Brenda shares her inspiring journey from engineer to career coach, how she overcame personal and professional upheaval, and how she helps others break free from outdated career paths to discover work that truly fulfills them.
You can find her on:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/coachbrendamariah/
https://www.pushcareermanagement.com/
You can also watch this podcast on YouTube at:
https://www.youtube.com/@CareerCoachingSecrets
If you are a career coach looking to grow your business you can find out more about Purple Circle at http://joinpurplecircle.com
Get Exclusive Access to Our In-Depth Analysis of 71 Successful Career Coaches, Learn exactly what worked (and what didn't) in the career coaching industry in 2024: https://joinpurplecircle.com/white-paper-replay
And I now in front of an audience of people, I have this opportunity. I show up with a whole different energy. I show up just, I give it my all. I put the 110% of me, like I give you the last drop of me if that's what's required. And when I get feedback, like that was the most engaging and energetic presentation I've ever heard. Like that was fun. Can you imagine somebody saying they have fun? at a resume development workshop or a job search workshop. They have fun. And this is what's happening is people are having fun and they're finding that joy again. And they're reconnecting with the things that actually matter to them. And so a lot of times those individuals will find their way to my inbox and we'll end up working together and have some very fruitful relationship.
Davis Nguyen:Thank you. Before Purple Circle, I started and scaled several seven and eight figure career coaching businesses myself and consulted with two career coaching businesses that are now doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or just building your practice for the first time, you'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.
Rexhen:Hey everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Rexhen, and today's guest is Brenda Mariah. Brenda is the founder of Push Career Management. She is a powerhouse career strategist, keynote speaker, and a certified confidence builder who helps emerging leaders rise, negotiate boldly, and land the roles that they deserve. With a background in outplacement consulting and a passion for breaking limited beliefs, Brenda equips professionals to outsmart the system, own their value, and climb the corporate ladder with clarity and conviction. Her coaching is sharp, motivational, and deeply grounded in real world results, whether she's guiding a job seeker through tough transitions or helping high potential talent navigate leadership growth. So it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Brenda.
Brenda Mariah:Thank you so much. What an amazing introduction.
Rexhen:Thank you, Branda. Thank you for taking the time. So tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become a coach. So how did you get into coaching?
Brenda Mariah:It's very interesting. I mean, we could really be here for days, but I'll try to be brief. Honestly, I think it was because of my own lack of really rooted in my own lack of critical thinking. So much of my life had been dictated to me. And I see so many individuals following that same pattern. It was predestined. We go to college, we get a job, we get married, we have a baby, we buy a house, we do things in a particular sequential order. And very few people, the bold ones, take the time and opportunity to actually sit and think, well, hold on. That doesn't work for me. That's not the right path for me. And so throughout the course of my life and career, I've seen so many kind of changes that were forced upon me, like a layoff. It's hard. It really, it stung. It hurt. Depression doesn't even begin to cover what it felt like. But the truth be told, I wasn't happy in that job for a very long time. But because I was told that you go to college, you get your job, you work for so many years, you retire, you do these things, you follow this mold, because that was the pattern that was prescribed for me, it never dawned on me that I could actually do something different. And so coaching for me starts to open the eyes of other people, open the eyes of those really brave folks that know that they wanna do something new, something different, something's gotta shift, something's gotta change. I don't necessarily know what, I don't know how, I don't know where to begin, but I know that something has got to shift and it's gotta happen now. How do I take those first steps? And so those are some of the things that really inspire coaching within me.
Rexhen:When did it start specifically? Was it once it got laid off or was it maybe a little bit later than that?
Brenda Mariah:It was later. It was later. I actually didn't realize that I had been coaching for many years. I never called it coaching. I'd really started in this career leg of my journey. I'd really started as a just professional resume writer and I didn't have any aspirations beyond that. I was good at writing. I was good asking questions and that was kind of good enough. But what I discovered in the course of that journey is that so many people were like, oh my God, wait, I see myself differently. Wait, I didn't even... that that was possible for me wait you know they started to have all these epiphanies and revelations and all of these good things started to emerge and i never called myself a coach i'd always called myself a resume writer so it was kind of Accidental, maybe. I don't know. Just kind of born organically. But yeah, the real rooted change didn't begin within me until some time later. Probably I had a grand awakening in life and it was by way of divorce. It was a grand awakening for me. Didn't see it coming. Came out of nowhere, right? This is what a lot of folks say, came out of nowhere. It really, truly felt like it came out of nowhere. And so I'm like, wait, so my whole life plan that was pre-described and pre-defined has just been completely uprooted. I have to go through this thing that I call the awakening. I had to go through this whole awakening process. And that was what just like, okay. oh no, we've got to learn to navigate some really unfamiliar territory here. We've got to learn to first love ourselves. We've got to learn to kind of set a new direction. We've got to learn to embrace that, that that is a new reality that wasn't supposed to be this way. And yet here we are. And so learning to like really operate in a new skin, a new mindset and all the things is really what kind of, helped me to see that coupled with so much of my clients' feedback. Like, oh my gosh, you're changing the game. Like these conversations are helpful. This is really good. Like, oh my gosh, in the first five minutes I knew X, Y, and Z. And so all of these really good things had started to emerge within me. And I said, you know, am I a coach? And then I learned about a coaching program I'm like, wait, that sounds a lot like what I do. Maybe, you know, formal training could help a lot. And so I did. I went through some formal training and got certified. Like now I feel confident in my own skin calling myself an official coach.
Rexhen:Cool, such a great story. So yeah, like I said, so it came out of nowhere, but it actually turned out to be the awakening, like this, like a different version of Brenda that is so much powerful, so ready for the world. And so not following the normal patterns that normal humans go through and breaking those patterns, questioning them. So it's like, you'd say that, just like you mentioned earlier, Only some bold people go through them and question these patterns. So I'm so glad that you had the chance to do that. And now it's been like looking at your LinkedIn. It's like with your coaching, this has been almost 18 years or more than that.
Brenda Mariah:Yes, my God. So my historically, I actually am a degree student. engineer. And so I worked as a full time engineer for many years. And when I got laid off, it was that was the first kind of mild awakening. Like, wait, this whole career path thing that was kind of promised to me, you go to school, you do the thing. And no, that was that was stripped away. And so depression was that that was that first kind of mild depression that I didn't know a whole lot about. But yeah, going back all the way nearly 20 years at this point, where I so much growth, so much... My word that I've been using a lot lately is just evolution. Just so much evolution growing. And I love the thought of looking backward and seeing how far I've come. It's... It's pretty spectacular when you look back at some of even like the older resumes that I've written and it's like, oh my God, I would never write that today. Oh my, you know, I've come such a long way or conversations that I had, perspectives that I've had 20 years ago that just simply no longer hold today or don't believe the same beliefs that I held at that point in time. And so what an exciting evolution it has been over nearly two decades.
Rexhen:Do you think that there is for anyone listening, and this would be valuable for coaches as well as people in their careers, do you think that there is a way to, for example, losing a job or getting laid off for a lot of people doesn't always mean that they pivot. Sometimes they will just try and get another job or go into the same industry, same career, and maybe that is the right move for some people or might not be the right move is there a way or is there some questions people would like ask to themselves that could trigger the break in the pattern
Brenda Mariah:yes absolutely there are questions there are multiple directions that a single person can have even throughout the course of their own career journey their own lives multiple pathways i'm clear for evidence of this an engineer turned resume writer and evoluting into career coach, I'm evidence right before you. And so a lot of times, one of the things that I'm so just focused in on in this season of my own life is just thinking, deep thinking, being still, taking time to think, pausing. drown out some noise there's a youtube channel and it's i just listened to like 75 minutes of thunder and rain it's lovely because all it is is just white noise Thunder clashing in my ear and it allows me to just sit and be still, which so many times what we're doing is rushing from one thing to the next thing to the next thing. And we feel like we have to make these very hurried decisions. And one of the best things that people can do is give themselves time to pause and just actually think. And so now when you are pausing and actually thinking, what are you thinking about? And the questions now become, what do I actually want to do? Not what am I supposed to do? Not what was I told to do? Not what have I always done? What is it that I actually want to do? And I believe I have this philosophy. I call it no limits. Take the limits off. Because immediately what happens sometimes is when we start thinking about what it is that I want to do, we say, but I can't do that because, and we immediately, almost immediately disqualify ourselves from this thing that we're trying to, you know, pursue or explore. We haven't even given ourselves permission to try. We are so readily prepared to count ourselves out and say, oh, I can't do that. Oh, I don't have experience enough for that. Oh, I'm not trained for that. Oh, I could never do that. Who said it? Who said you could never do that? Who said that you couldn't acquire the ability to do that thing, but we immediately discount ourselves instead of staying the course, pausing and thinking and taking the limits off? What do you want to do? Not what you can do, not what your parents thought you should do, not what your community said you could do, but what do you want to do and sit with it? And be brave enough to say it out loud to another person. Be brave enough to say it out loud to yourself. This, when I give people permission to say things out loud, they're just like, I've never said that out loud before. And that is powerful when they have heard their own voice, think their own thoughts. And now they have this new sense of adventure and this new territory to explore and to uncover and unveil and see what's behind this curtain and see if this thing truly is as impossible as they thought it might be. Because I promise you what happens is it's not as complicated as you thought. What tends to happen is, okay, I'm not skilled enough yet. I'm not skilled enough yet. I don't have the experience yet. How can I acquire the experience becomes the next question. What experience do I need? How can I acquire it? And that about 98% of the time has nothing to do with going back to university.
Rexhen:another objection that comes to mind is like oh maybe like oh yes i don't have the skill i can learn the skill like i want to pursue this thing but i know that there's not gonna be any revenue for a while so uh there's also that fear of like do i go with it knowing that there's not gonna be any return maybe in this idea that i have for a while is there a way to break that fear
Brenda Mariah:it's almost like You're trying to set me up a little bit because the whole name of my company, did y'all hear it in the beginning? It's called Push Career Management. That word is not an accident. Push is very much on purpose. And so what happens in that situation that you just described is we sometimes need to do some things in parallel. We need to do two things at the same time. We need to do the thing that creates the revenue, that creates the income, that whatever feeds our family and keeps a roof over our head while we also build this thing that we actually want to do. And this season of working in parallel, this is your push time. This is go time. We talk about one of the things that I share publicly is on Tuesdays, we go hard. And on Tuesdays, we go hard means that this concentrated period of time, if I can push Push this one day out of seven days in the week. I can make some real progress in this one period of time. If I push, if I focus, if I go hard for this one moment in time, I can move the needle little bit by little bit. And it amounts to something very substantial over the course of a year. And before you know it, because that year was going to come and go anyway. But before you know it, now you've reached the end of the year and you don't need any longer have to work in parallel now one thing can begin to ramp down while the other thing begins to ramp up and now we have something that we can be proud of that you've worked toward you've pushed for it you've hustled for it you've been grinding you've been working at it and now that season of pushing has come to a close and you get to just operate at this new place
Rexhen:thank you thank you so much Brenda we just got a glimpse of like what working with Brenda would look like so that was very nice so Thank you so much for that. So typically, who do you work with? Is there a specific target that reach out to you or that you generally enjoy working with?
Brenda Mariah:yeah i think there are two different answers to that question honestly actually three different answers to that question one of the groups that tend to reach out to me most are the recently laid off i just lost my job i have no idea where to begin i know i need to update my resume i don't know what to do they're calling they're kind of in a frenzy um and so they're one group the other group is honestly their employers. And so outplacement service is something that you mentioned earlier. Outplacement service means that their employer, knowing that they were going to lay off 50 people or so, they actually reach out proactively and say, hey, we're going to unfortunately have to do this reduction in force. And so will you come help these 50 people transition more successfully and accelerate their transitions? And so we want to hire you to come in and talk about it, teach some classes, work one on one, do some coaching, do the things and help them get back to softer landing as quick as possible. And so they're the second group. And then the third group are the emerging leaders. There's something special. That was an unexpected group for me. When I started in this work, my heart was to help the unemployed or underemployed individuals. That's where my heart was. And the more I realized like, well, hold on, unemployed people typically don't have funds to pay a coach or any kind of service like that. So I end up referring so many people to like government agencies or what have you that were able to help them on some level through like grant programs. Okay, that's great. And so what kind of inadvertently happened is I found out that so many folks that were finding me were doing so because they were ready to be received for promotion at work. They were ready. They had maybe been passed over before. They didn't know how to really get themselves into position. They were kind of tired of being an individual contributor. Now they were ready or they perceived themselves to be ready for that next level and start into leadership. And where do I start? What do I do? What does that look like? How do I have those conversations? And a lot of times it was the nuts and bolts of how to have the conversation, what to have, how to show up, what to say. specific language around a lot of those things that were helping them unlock certain opportunities and climb those corporate ranks. So these are the kind of the three audience spaces that tend to find their way over to me. I adore all of them. I'm here for all of them because I think that every single one of those groups has good intentions and they have specific goals that they simply need practical help in how to achieve it.
Rexhen:I love that. I really love that you are able to impact in three different groups at different stages that they are in. So how do they find your way towards you? Like where do people find you or what marketing channel in a way works best for you?
Brenda Mariah:Probably a couple of different pathways that people might find me on. I think the primary path is referral. One person, even recently, I think it was just like a month ago, I'd worked with a person who had been struggling for months. They came to me and within a month, they were back to work, got the job that they wanted and everything was great. And so that person then sent another person and the chain continues. And so I absolutely appreciate the fact that results are speaking for themselves in terms of referral. I think when a large percentage of your client base does come for a referral, I think that speaks very highly about the experience that you're kind of helping to cultivate within other people. Outside of that, of course, you know, social media is showing up. There's a lot of white noise on social media. So I do try to show up in a way that just feels good to me. I don't feel like I need to follow anybody else's formula. You got to post three times a day and you got to post at one o'clock on Tuesday. I post when the mood strikes. and i don't post when i don't i believe in taking vacation and taking days off and and those things include taking time away from social media but then i also get out there and do some speaking engagements and so i love love love love to be on somebody's stage and educating a room full of people because there are so many morsels of information that I kind of have up here that it's like revelation brand new enlightening light bulb moments for, you know, at least some percentage of people in that room. And it makes a world of difference. I talked about this a little bit. So part of me, so when I was an engineer, One of the things that I worked on was like a microprocessor chip for cell phones. And so if you hold your phone this way, it's in portrait mode. If you hold your phone that way, it's landscape mode. And the dilemma that I was having within myself is I don't really care. This is not meaningful to me anymore. at all. And so the only meaning that I assigned to it was my paycheck. That's all that really kind of got me going and getting up in the morning. And I now in front of an audience of people, I have this opportunity I show up with a whole different energy. I show up just, I give it my all. I put the 110% of me. Like I give you the last drop of me if that's what's required. And when I get feedback, like that was the most engaging and energetic presentation I've ever heard. Like that was fun. Can you imagine somebody saying they have fun? at a resume development workshop or a job search workshop. They have fun. And this is what's happening is people are having fun and they're finding that joy again. And they're reconnecting with the things that actually matter to them. And so a lot of times those individuals will find their way to my inbox and we'll end up working together and have some very fruitful relationship.
Rexhen:Again, I can confidently say that I had fun at the beginning, kind of like a session, whatever you call it. And I think everyone is going to listen to this, potentially will enjoy that part. So there's LinkedIn, but there's no hard-on strategy about it. There's referrals and there's speaking events. When it comes to these events, how do you, like, because I do know a lot of coaches who also want to do more speaking, how do do you find these events? Is there a strategy behind finding events or?
Brenda Mariah:One of the things you can do is, you know, stay plugged into a call for speakers. You can set Google alerts for a call for speakers or, you know, things like that. And now when there's a call for speakers and it calls and connects with you, apply, apply to be a speaker. For a while, when my children were a bit younger, I was resistant to apply to a whole lot of speaking opportunities that required travel. I didn't have the bandwidth to be all over the country and I got little kids at home. Well, now those little kids are adult kids. And now I can move about the country freely. I can move about the world freely. And so I have the opportunity and the space to now say yes to far more opportunities. Not everything is the right thing for me and I am still very discerning and selective, but I Yes, that is one great way. We had a call for speakers through our national association recently and lots of folks plugged into that opportunity. And then a lot of times the folks that I work with, there are some amazing people that I get to work with. And so these folks are leaders in their own right. And so they have these events and programs. So they end up calling me in to just come in. So sometimes it is, you know, formal like Google alerts and like actually jump on certain opportunities. Other Other times it's keeping watch on your homepage on LinkedIn and see what folks are posting about. And maybe they're sharing a call for speaker opportunity. And other times it's just having such strong reputation and engagement with people and kind of reminding them that this is what I do. And if you ever have a need for something like that, they tend to reach out when opportunities come to the surface. And hey, if I'm available and it's all the right fit, Yeah, if I can do anything to help support the folks who trusted in me, heck yeah, I'm going to do that.
Rexhen:Cool. Yeah. And is there any of these either speaking LinkedIn or the referrals you found that actually helped tends to work better for you in terms of like the people that are most qualified to work with you?
Brenda Mariah:I'm starting to track a little bit of data right now. I had put some things out on LinkedIn recently and I did start to see an influx of just kind of random LinkedIn users start to schedule some time with me. The consultation, maybe we can talk about that in a little bit, but the consultation is the kind of the starting point, the best starting point to working with me. And what I found is the folks that did not come through referral, but just the kind of blind social media folks, they're not showing up to their appointments. And so they're not, they don't value my time because they don't know me. It's not a personal connection for them. And so to them, it's just, it was a free thing. I signed up for this free thing and I forgot about it. And I went on about my life. And so that's really unfortunate. And so that might be an area where I kind of pull back and say, okay, maybe I don't post everything, you know, on LinkedIn for, you know, just the general public or I kind of share things more in an inbox kind of situation when requested. But we'll see. We'll see. Let me collect a few more data points because I still am an engineer. I can't help it. But let me collect a few more data points and see if that's the right maneuver for me right now.
Rexhen:Interesting. Interesting that you mentioned that most of these that are kind of like uh consider like cold audience tend to not show up and like even if you like try to follow up always i booked the call here um and then still no answer nothing well In a way, you can still kind of like spot them if they're not answering from the start. And
Brenda Mariah:I immediately implemented a new thing. It happened today. It actually happened a little bit ago. A cold person from the Internet, you know, scheduled a thing like a week ago. It showed up. It's time. You know, this person is not there. And I said enough. I always make adjustments when something like as a response. And so in this case, my consultation is free, but a reschedule is no longer free. And so now if you want to reschedule, you got to put some skin in the game and you'll probably show up.
Rexhen:Yeah. Cool. Thanks for sharing that. Another like, just thinking of ideas here would be like if it's a referral it could be free but if it's coming from the cold internet there could be like maybe a small fee for time and maybe that would get some people to be more committed
Brenda Mariah:I'll work my way up to there but yeah it literally happened in real time so let me see how this takes hold and if it lights a sufficient fire under people's butts the point is is save the time for the people who need it. Don't take the time away from those individuals so that you can throw it away. There are far too many people in desperate times Far too many people that even if they opt to not work with me, the free consultation time is concentrated good information and encouragement and game planning. It's concentrated. And so you took that time away from somebody else. And so for now, I will kind of just gather data, but I am prepared to implement something like that if necessary.
Rexhen:Yeah. cool and moving a little bit away from marketing and this funnel strategy i wanted to ask you with your coaching business right now are there what are some goals that you're working towards for like the next one to three years not long term but like mid long term goals
Brenda Mariah:yeah i'd say really the short to medium goals right now are just growing those those spaces having just recently become a certified career coach, I think is going to open a lot more doors. And so growth is really the objective in the short term. I've been doing job search coaching for a number of years. And so that's still going really strong. But on the career discovery side, this is the folks that have no idea what they want to be when they grow up. The folks that have no idea what they want to do next. This is for them. This is new. This is a new entry. And the folks who are ready to climb that corporate ladder, I've had a few different iterations of that program, but now it's solid, it's locked in, it's proven, it's been tested and validated. And so those are the two areas that are gonna be focused in for growth. And so I think the folks that are coming in on this kind of front end are gonna take advantage of probably some lower pricing than the folks that will be a part of it in two to three years from now. So I really encourage folks to take hold of that, especially when they're feeling stuck, because time is of the essence. And what we're seeing right now is just far too many people struggling and vying for the same few jobs. And something's got to give. Something's got to give you that competitive edge. And these programs, I believe, are where it's at.
Rexhen:So when you say growing, you don't mean growing the audience or like getting people aware of what you're doing. You mean like growing in terms of like offerings? Because I am a little confused.
Brenda Mariah:I'm talking about growing the audience. I'm talking about growing the number of clients in those two spaces specifically. And of course, my evolution will continue. I'll become an even better coach in that time period. But for today, when I get the kind of feedback that I get, like, this is awesome. What great questions. Oh, I really haven't thought in this way in such a long time. This is the kind of thing I just want more and more people to be able to experience.
Rexhen:Cool. Thank you. And again, hopefully this podcast reaches to some of those people because yeah, I do really like see amazing value just like talking to you and having this opportunity is like, and for anyone, like, I feel like I should have paid. so uh when it comes to paying uh or investments have there been any in your coaching business have there been any investments that uh you feel that actually have made a difference in growing your coaching business that could be anything uh that you feel like either coaching programs masterminds communities whatever you feel that actually has made a difference
Brenda Mariah:Absolutely. I think early on I'd followed, she's a friend of mine, but she's also this very amazing mindset coach, Barrett Cogan. She was starting some of the early fires in me, but surely I've been a part of the National Resume Writers Association. Don't be deceived by the name. We served resume writers, but all types of career practitioners. Last year, I was the president of the distinguished NRWA. This year, I get the honor of serving as the immediate past president. Well, we launched last year a program called the Nationally Certified Career Strategy Coach Certification and Training Program. And so that was the inaugural cohort that I was proud to be a part of. Our instructor, Chelsea J., Phenomenal woman. Phenomenal. Phenomenal. Like drop everything and go research her. You'll love her. And she really helps people get out of a lot of toxic workplace situations and really inspires and encourages people to get out of bad and into good. And I really love that about her, but her teaching style and her people connecting activity is I've never seen anything like it. And so that program, I think, was surely it was an investment. A lot of these things that are worth anything aren't going to be free. And so, one, I wanted to be trained by the best. I wanted to learn under the best. But I also wanted to be validated by the best. I didn't want to just call myself a coach because I listened in to a webinar. I took some self-paced lessons. that, you know, just answer five questions and now you're a coach. I wanted to demonstrate that I was coaching material. And that program is chock full of demonstration all throughout the eight week course and subsequent three months to submit live coaching videos and all of these things and answering questions and understanding coaching models and all these things. So it was very intensive and I loved it. And I have this concept, apologies, this is a natural occurring phenomenon, but the tsunami. So if anybody's familiar with the natural occurrence of a tsunami, I want you to understand what the tsunami, how it behaves. And the tsunami behaves, first the waters recede, and then they all come rushing back. And it's a very hard phenomenon, if anybody has ever experienced. And I know we've had that globally in the last couple of decades. And so I don't underestimate the power of the tsunami. But I don't want anybody to underestimate the power of the tsunami when it comes to return on investment. First, it looks like you're putting money away or you're giving money away. It looks like money is leaving you. But what happens is all of that comes back. Every penny times 100 times a thousand comes back to you when you invest in the right places. And so that NCCSC program, the NRWA membership, all of those things are absolutely undoubtedly responsible for the confidence that I feel as a coach.
Rexhen:Interesting. That's an interesting way of looking at the investment. I was just interviewing another coach yesterday and we were having the same discussion. And sometimes there's investment, but you don't know yet if it was a good investment or it was a bad investment because time will tell. Like you might see the benefits later on. You just don't see it right away. So I like that. And so basically our investment has been mostly focused on your coaching side as opposed to your business side?
Brenda Mariah:Now, I have a lot of letters after my name. So I'm naturally certified resume writer, certified job search strategy coach. I have a whole lot of letters, credential career manager, ENCODE, which is the LinkedIn profile development strategy. All of these letters, I'm certified in employment law, but I also invest in career coaching development. I also invest in resume writing, best practices. I also give back, right? That's part of investing too, is investor time. And so investor time, I volunteer with an organization called Career Connectors. That's an amazing organization, one-stop shop. Job seekers are coming in at all levels. And they're coming out with connections and jobs and tools and resources. Like I love to be part of these kind of win-win situations. And so, yeah, it's very important to be a very well-rounded coach and not just a coach or not just a resume writer because the folks that are coming through your doors, they're struggling in a whole variety of areas. And so the more that you can help them holistically, I think the better off we'll all be.
Rexhen:Cool. Yeah. Thanks for sharing that. So what I meant to the question was more like, um, you focused on what you're offering as opposed to like your systems and places of running your business or like, you know, like lead generation or anything like that. Uh, that is more, or something that you're not yet actively-
Brenda Mariah:I think that's moderately true. That is moderately true. I've just had a website overhaul. So we did incorporate a few more like automations in there just to ease the burden of communicating with everybody who has a question or what have you. We have some eBooks. So one centered around outplacement and then the other centered around how to use LinkedIn, how to actually be an effective user of LinkedIn because what's the point of having a profile if it sits there and or you don't know what to do with it. And you could be causing yourself a great disservice if you're kind of misbehaving over there. So be careful. And so there are tools. I mean, I invest in Canva. I invest in QuickBooks. I mean, I have a lot of different systems and tools, but could I always be using a lot of those things better? Absolutely. I use Acuity for scheduling. I think Acuity is one of the best things I've ever invested in. Between Acuity and Canva, I can't decide which one has been the best dollars I've ever spent. But I love these systems that get me out of the way so I can use my time and my mind and my energy to help the folks as opposed to trying to track down, can we meet next Tuesday? How does that work? We're not doing that anymore. So let's put the systems to work so that we can focus on the solutions.
Rexhen:Cool. I have to look that up. I haven't heard that before. Acuity was called.
Brenda Mariah:Acuity. So that's the, you know, hey, it's like Calendly. So a lot of folks may be more familiar with that one. Time Trade, Calendly, they're all the similar types of tools. But it keeps you from kind of playing phone and email tag with folks to nail down times and dates. If somebody says, hey, we should hang out for lunch soon. Immediately, I'm sending them a link. Let's schedule the time. I don't like to have a lot of soon's and some days just kind of hanging out there in the world. Let's get a schedule because if it's not a schedule, it's likely not going to happen.
Rexhen:Yeah, if it's not on the calendar, it's unlikely to happen. Yeah. Because just like we talked about in the beginning, people are always running to the next thing. So there's no time to think about this soon event that is going to happen.
Brenda Mariah:It is a movie. It's called Night and Day. It has Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, but that's irrelevant. But in the movie, his character says, someday is a dangerous word because someday is really just code for never. And I believe it. I believe it. When you say someday, keep in touch. Someday. Let's have lunch soon. All of these things are code for it's not going to happen. So my vocabulary is a lot more like when. How's next Friday? Here's my scheduling link. Please find a time that works. Right. That's more of my vocabulary. If you say someday or soon to me, I know that you're not serious and I'll probably move on with my life.
Rexhen:And since you were talking about movies, I was just like, you reminded me of like, like the serious friends where they say, Oh, we should do this again. Some days just like translate. Oh, I don't want to see you again. What would you say right now with your coaching business is one of the biggest challenges that you're facing in further, further scaling the business. Apart from like you mentioned growing the audience, which is one of the things that you're working on.
Brenda Mariah:I actually have three answers to that question too. I have three answers for a lot of things, don't I? My first is time. A lot of times we talk of systems and things that can make your life easier, but those things take time on the front end to set up and be able to operate. So I know, again, tsunami, I know that's an investment of time that sometimes need to be paid. But time is one factor. Skill is another. I am not born a business person. I actually was trained as an engineer. Now, I have taken several like business accelerator type of courses and series and workshops and cohorts and different things to help prepare me for this moment. And so I believe I have some sense of skill, but there's always an expert that's better, sharper, faster, knows more, can go more in depth that I think that requires some resource to be able to put behind. And this is a Brenda Mariah issue, and it may be applicable to others, but it's reliable energy. And so I actually deal with an invisible illness. And so a lot of times folks will see me, oh, you're just so bubbly. Oh, you got such a loud personality. Everything is good. Like, how could you be unwell? Well, I'm not usually unwell out loud. You can't see that I'm unwell. Sometimes I might be having problems a particular pain or something that's really keeping me pretty low and you would never know it. And so I hold up the energy just long enough to get through the conversation and then I go and take a nap. These are real issues that a lot of real people are really dealing with in the moment. And so reliable energy. I would love to say, you know, I'm super disciplined and I do this same thing every day at this time. That's not real reality for me and for folks that are dealing with something like what I'm dealing with. And so the constant combating of, you know, hearing messages about needing to be disciplined, needing to be, you know, just super rigid and, and, and what have you with your calendar, with your time and doing your certain activities, it, that formula is, I've had to abandon a lot of that formula for the sake of my own body.
Rexhen:Thanks so much for sharing that. And I hope today that we are, we are currently, I hope that I managed to give you like some energy. Oh
Brenda Mariah:yes, you're doing great. I'm feeling a hundred percent right now. Yeah.
Rexhen:And because, um, not often do, do we see people even talk about it? Uh, like you go into LinkedIn, uh, you just see people that are like, oh, I put 80 plus hours today uh 80 plus hours this week and it's like nobody really talks about the other side it's just everybody's just showing off in a way
Brenda Mariah:yeah it it feels very difficult to try to keep up with certain energy levels and it's like i can't do 80 hours in a week and i won't try and i'm not I encourage folks to not do the thing where we're so proud of how much we work. I'm not proud of you because you worked 100 hours this week. I'm proud of me because I listened to my limitations in my own body. I'm proud of the person who says, no, I have a family commitment. It's time for me to go. I'm proud of those individuals, not the ones who say, you should look at me, look at me. I'm the shining example of what work should look like. Work should be a part of your life, not the whole darn thing. And so listening to your body and honoring your values outside of work, I think is so powerful. Now, I love getting up on a Monday morning. I'm like, who do we get to work with today? You know, I'm excited about the work that I do. I love the people that I work with. It's fantastic. I want that to be true for more and more people while creating a life that is sustainable for them.
Rexhen:And thanks. Thanks so much for sharing that. I think a lot of people are going to resonate with with what just talked about. And is there any final advice you'd like to give to other coaches who are looking to scale their impact?
Brenda Mariah:I mean, I do. I believe in systems, but I believe first in honoring yourself. This is, again, a new belief, part of my awakening. loving yourself honoring yourself knowing your limitations you can push those limitations a little bit by a little bit to see maybe you're capable of something more than you were this time last year maybe you've grown a little maybe maybe you've gotten better at a certain aspect and so it's okay to try to push and press and go a little further i love that for you and and and Listen to your body. Honor the values that you claim to have. If you say that your family is your priority and you're working 100 and something hours every week, are they really your priority? Think about some of those types of things with the work that you're doing and understand that there are probably mechanisms or approaches that you can take that can bring your life back into some semblance of balance. It won't ever be perfect. but it will be sustainable and within a particular tolerance that you can actually operate within. So don't give up. Listen to the experts, right? That's what we hired them for. And if the expert gives you advice that you disagree with, just never forget to trust your own mind and your own thoughts.
Rexhen:explaining all of this. I was just thinking how this question is kind of like an egotistical question that I ask and I get all of that advice, but hopefully this advice applies to every other.
Brenda Mariah:Take it and multiply.
Rexhen:Thank you. Thank you so much. For anyone who wants to find you or connect with you, they can find you on your LinkedIn, Brenda Mariah. And they could also, just to double check the website, pushcareermanagement.com is where they can go to. Is there any other way they could connect with you if they wanted to?
Brenda Mariah:Those are the best ways. If you're trying to connect with me on Instagram, I am there, but it'll probably take a couple of days because I'm not very consistent. But I'm far more consistent on LinkedIn. And of course, right directly through my website, you can schedule the consultation right there. The consultation is the absolute best starting point, period. I don't care who you are, what you think you want to do. Start with a consultation and I'll take it from there, even when it's not with me. I have, again... to a national network of experts. And so if I'm not the right fit, I know who is.
Rexhen:Take it while it's free guys. So yeah. Thank you so much, Brenda. Again, thank you for today. Thank you.
Davis Nguyen:Thank you so much.