Career Coaching Secrets

HelloSelf: Unlocking Authentic Expression with Patricia Leonard

• Davis Nguyen

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Rexhen interviews Patricia Leonard, "message artist" and founder of HelloSelf. Patricia blends storytelling, creativity, and coaching to foster authentic self-expression and reinvention.

Inspired by a lifetime of leadership, Patricia's unique, intuitive coaching uses creative methods (e.g., "what kind of shoe are you?") to empower clients for swift action. She aims to reach millions internationally through the arts, including her "High Heels Cabaret" show.

Her main challenge is differentiating her unconventional style. Patricia advises coaches to break from tradition, engage authentically, and use personal lessons as their best teaching tools.

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Patricia Leonard:

And I think the best teacher we have is looking at our own issues because everything that others have, we have had. And how did we get through it? So I think instead of just going by what somebody says in a book, well, Joe said this, or Stephen Covey said this, or somebody else, some big writer today said this. Oh, I just have one more story. I remember I went to a workshop once.

Davis Nguyen:

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. My name is Davis Nguyen, and I'm the founder of Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, and even $100,000 weeks. Before Purple Circle, I've grown several seven and eight figure career coaching business myself, and I've been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over $100 million each. Whether you're an established coach or building your practice for the first time, You'll discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Rexhen Doda:

Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regan, and today's guest is Patricia Leonard. Patricia is a motivational speaker, expressive writer, and founder of HelloSelf, a platform dedicated to helping people turn their cans into cans and their dreams into plans. Known as a message artist, Patricia blends storytelling, creativity, and coaching to guide others towards personal and professional fulfillment. With a career spanning over three decades, she champions authentic self-expression, purpose-driven living, and the courage to reinvent at any stage in life. So it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Patricia.

Patricia Leonard:

Thank you so much. That was a fabulous introduction. I am so excited to be here. I really am. And I think it's interesting in my preparation for this, I probably learned a a lot more about myself. And that's what life is about, is learning who we are. And

Rexhen Doda:

I'm here to ask you today, what inspired you to become a coach and then start your own coaching business? So I want to learn more from you.

Patricia Leonard:

I think that's an excellent question because it really made me think I was in corporate America for a number of years in human resources. But even going back in my childhood, I was the oldest of four children. And I think that I learned leadership at that point because I was older and I took care of them. And then I went into school and it was the same thing. This is what inspired me. I became the coach and the person that a lot of people came to. Even in my sports, I played a lot of sports and they always wanted me to be the leader. And it was fun. I liked it. And I like center stage anyway, so it was a good opportunity for me. But I think from the very beginning, I'll never forget. I want to tell this one story because I'll never forget. I had an old car and it was high school and I had several of my friends in there. And I don't want to sound like a prude, but maybe I am. But anyway, this man wanted to smoke. And I said, not in my car. Now it was an old junker, but I said, not in my car, but I'll pull over at the side of the road and then you can get out and smoke and then get back in and we'll go on. And from that point on, I realized that people had a lot of respect for me. We stopped the car, he got out and they trusted me for guidance. I didn't put them down for what they did, but I simply gave them other options to do. And I think that was the main thing. Now in corporate America, Like I said, I was in human resources and I had a lot of opportunity to do coaching because I recruited at a lot of schools. I'm from Indiana and I recruited at specifically engineering schools because I was in a diesel engine company. And I'll never forget, I think this was when I really woke up to I have the ability to coach and shift people's life. Sang Bui was one of the interns that I brought from the university and his family had all gone into medical and his mom and dad said, you need to go into something that's going to pay a lot of money and so you'll have a good living. And he was Vietnamese and he said, Patricia, I've been in civil engineering, I've been in mechanical, I've been in electrical. I don't like it. This was his third year. And I had him as an intern at Cummins in the engineering department at my company, at the engineering department. And he said, I want to do what you want to do. I asked him, what do you really want to do, Sang? And he said, I want to do what you're doing. And I said, I've got an idea. I want you to come back one more internship. And I'm going to put you in the engineering department. And then I want you to come back. I'll hire you. And I want you to come back and work two years in the engineering department. And then I will bring you in to human resources in coaching and development, talent development. That's exactly what we did. There's always a way to get what you wanted. And he was so excited because he was still in engineering. where his parents wanted him. However, he had the opportunity to coach people coming into engineering. So there's another, and so I think that's a time that I really thought I wanna do this. And then I left the company after a couple of years and started my own business of doing coaching and consulting, mostly contracting work.

Rexhen Doda:

So contracting work, meaning you working for other companies

Patricia Leonard:

as well?

Rexhen Doda:

Yes.

Patricia Leonard:

It was specifically a company that helped organizations during downsizing. And they were letting people go. And I was there to help them transition into their new position. Now, sometimes they would stay in the same field. And then other times they would transition out to something else through our coaching. And I think I'm not a big, a resume is important. However, a resume is only one piece of who we are. It's the paper piece. And I think that that piece can be a real motivator though, because once you get it on paper, and I'm a big person about writing because I am a writer, but once you get it on paper, you can see yourself different. And I think a lot of them switched careers and said, I didn't know I could do something like that, Patricia. I am so excited. And I said, do you see? I had people coming right out of college that had worked to go to college. And they said, well, I can't do that because I'm just graduating from college. You've got all this work experience. Let's look at that. So I think that typically we don't see that as... I don't say we, a lot of organizations or a lot of people think, I just graduated, I don't have any experience. That's not true. If you babysat or if you worked in food industry or you worked on a farm, whatever, or in your parents' business or you mowed grass, I wanted to give them credit for that experience. And I think sometimes we don't see that as... skills that is something they've had. It transitions and all skills are transferable to different environments if we start thinking about how could that transfer into this organization or into this kind of position.

Rexhen Doda:

And who are Typically, the people that you end up working with, is there a specific audience that you generally like to work with and happen to work with? In a specific industry or demographic?

Patricia Leonard:

I've been in every kind of industry. The auto industry, warehouser, Capital One. People are people, no matter where I go. They're all the same. They just maybe have different titles and different jobs. But I do like the diversity of industries because I think, and even with coaches, I think they get too pigeonholed. And then they can't... I'll say this about myself. And sometimes I have to step outside of that just because they've been in... This kind of an industry, let's say the credit card industry or the banking industry forever, does not mean that those skills are not transferable someplace else. So sometimes they just don't want to stay in that industry anymore, not because of anything. I just had a woman recently that came to me. And if I'm not answering your questions, you tell me. But she recently came to me and she was a CPA. And she said, Patricia, I don't like this. I am not just the person that sits behind the computer and taps in numbers. They don't talk back. And some people think they do talk back, but they like accounting or they like finance. But she said, I just don't want to do that. Now, this is going to take you into how I am a different kind of coach. her family's her mother-in-law to be sent her to me and said i want you to go talk to patricia if you don't like cpa work anymore or finance work and her parents had coached her into going in that direction because they said there's money there you can get in the top level and um she said but i'm not happy and she had a great job but anyway i said well i'm not like most coaches I remember I am a message artist and I like to use performance-based and creative-based and activity-based workshops and coaching styles. So I said, I do do an assessment as my first step in your coaching. But it's not about are you purple or green or are you an ENFP or are you a tiger or a lion? I'm not using that kind of an assessment. I said, here's the assessment that I have for you. So if you have a piece of paper and a pencil, I want you to write it down. This is what I tell her. And don't talk. Whatever comes to you, write it on a piece of paper. Because you remember I said we discover a lot about ourselves when we write and then can go back and look at it. So anyway, I said, just answer the question. So I asked her the first question. And I said, this is not going to be your typical ICF questions and all that. And I said, so what kind of shoe are you? Don't tell me. Write it down. Who does your shoe like to hang around with? If your shoe could do anything besides accounting or finance kind of work, what would your shoe like to do? Where would your shoe like to live? And after I had a series of questions and after we had those questions, I said, take three minutes now and look over what you just wrote. And I want you to tell me, who are you and what is your vision? Now, this is a true story. When she was leaving, I said, do you think that's unusual? And she said, well, I've never had a coaching session like that before. But she said, the funny thing is, it made me think where I'd really like to live and what I really like to do. And it ain't where I am. And I said, well, good. That's what I was hoping would happen. And the last question I asked her as she was going out the door was, Tell me When you're going to leave, it was a big corporation. When are you going to leave this company? This will only be between you and me. It's not going to be recorded. And she said, well, I'd like to leave in the spring. This was October of 2023. She said, I'd like to leave in the spring of 24. I said, I think you misunderstood the question. I didn't ask you when you'd like to leave. I asked you, when are you going to leave? And you know that That's another thing that happens, Rexon, is that we talk about it, but we don't commit. And that's the problem. But anyway, about a week later, okay, so anyway, she said, I'm leaving in two weeks. I said, ooh, wow, that's fast. But then I said, that'll give you time to give them some time to get position so they can fill the job. She called me about seven to 10 days later and she said, could you have some time to talk? And I said, absolutely. And that's another thing I want to point out here. I don't set up a series of coaching sessions. Most coaches set up, you can buy a package of six sessions. I don't do that. My goal is to empower my client To take action. So I said, sure. Do you want to schedule a session? No, she said, I only need five minutes. And I said, good. She said, you'll never believe this. And yes, I would believe it because miracles happen. And I hadn't heard from my college buddy for five years. We both got our careers and we just went off. And she said, he called and said, I've been thinking about you. What are you up to? And she said, you'll never believe this. I'm leaving the company that I went to work for. I've got a great job. Anyway, they talked. Guess what he did as a living in his job? A recruiter. That's what she is now. She wanted to talk to people. She didn't want to be in front of a computer all the time. She wanted to be like you and me where we could see each other and feel like we knew the person. And she said, Okay, about a month or six weeks later, she called me and she said, I helped my company transition to a new person. I even came back on board and trained them. And she said, now I'm having a great life. I'm not saying that I know the answers. I'm saying you know the answers. And I just want you to say them, that's all, as a coach.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for walking us through that story. It really explained your point perfectly. And for me, I want to understand better, how do you see your... coaching business in the next one to three years do you have any goals in mind for the next one to three years with your coaching business

Patricia Leonard:

oh absolutely my family always says excuse me what's next Patricia what are you up to now so do my friends because I old as dirt but I can't sit still I've got to be doing it's either writing a book or being in a creative a show or whatever. But anyway, this is what I see myself doing. As a matter of fact, I think it's funny how synchronicities happen. I got a text from the woman that is designing, I'm designing a new website. And I'm moving and How can I say? It's not an invention because I know there are things like this out there, but I'm embracing intuitive coaching and I'm calling all of that that I do intuitive coaching because I'm trying to get, my goal is to get to the soul of the person and not just to create another job or to fit into another job. But fine, what is your passion? What do you really want to do? What are you here for? So, The next phase of my work is as As you said earlier, I turn camps into cans and dreams into plans. That's my mission. And I want to do it in different ways. And I've been testing this. I had a TV show recently called High Heels Cabaret. And it's a performance-based show where individuals can come on there and express. Because, you know, I truly believe that our society... is the problems we have today is because people the soul says let me express let me say what i know in my heart and so sometimes we have to have help getting that out me too i coach because i learn from myself but anyway we have a society that feels like they don't know how to express, but the heart and the soul and the body is saying, I just want to say what I know. And so as we go through that expression, people or that time of learning how to express, we have to expose them to different ways to express. They'll go to a show, to a movie, and they'll see a movie, and they get moved by one line in that movie. It's stuck with them. And I'll never forget, in my High Heels Cabaret show, I had this woman, she's a songwriter, and she's in her late 60s, early 70s, and she wrote a song, Bingo Wings. I may have told you this before, I don't know. But It's the floppy skin under as we get older and maybe anybody can have it. But she wrote that song and I called her. This is how I coach. I said, I want you to be in my show and I want you to be a comedian. She said, I'm not a comedian for heaven's sakes. I'm a composer and a filmmaker. I said, you're a comedian. And so we talked about the Bingo Wings song while we were on the phone then. And we both laughed so hard that, well, you know what happens next when you laugh too hard. And so anyway, she came on the show. And she sang Bingo Wings, told the story about it, and then sang it. And it's funny. She was so funny. One guy actually fell out of his chair. He was laughing so hard and I said, see Val, you are a comedian. We don't know who we are until we're allowed to express. So in the next phase of, you asked me what I'm doing next and what I'm planning, I am building a new website and I want it to be more open. Yeah, a young woman is designing it. She interviewed me and she said, Patricia, my generation's going to understand exactly what you're talking about. And I said, well, so does the older, because almost everybody I had on my show was older. And because here's what inspired me years ago was I like Shakespeare. Shakespeare taught about life through the arts. And so I'm using the arts because I think words are dead. We have heard the words so many times and I may have shared this with you before, but I was doing a workshop at a corporation in Tennessee and I asked, have any of you been to a communication workshop before? And they all raised their hand and they said, yes, we have, sure. I said, well, are you slow learners? Why are you back again? Because I think that the problem is words are dead anymore. We have abused them to the point that they don't mean anything. Oh yeah, I've heard that before. Now I can go to sleep. No. So I believe that the arts is a way to wake people up. So that's the direction of my next phase of my coaching is I may dress up like a magician and pass out magic wands and and tell people, you got the magic within yourself. Let's talk more about it. I have a one-woman show that I do. It's about a woman in midlife. And she discovers maybe life's not over, but just beginning again in the show. So I want to use, in some of the different kind of ways, masking. I want the mask on. Authenticity is so important. So I'll wear a mask in, and I've done this in corporations right here in Nashville, Tennessee. People loved it because they didn't know what was next. So they couldn't plan their statement about what they were going to say. And I think coaching sets people up just to say what they think people want to hear. I don't. I said to the lady, I don't think you understood the question. And I'm pretty bold about that. And then hello, self. is uh it's conversations with self so i invite people to come up and say what could you say to yourself if you knew at six years old or 10 years old or 15 who you are today so um i think that arts No, I'm not thinking. And I use cards. I created a deck of cards. So I also read cards as part of that. It's an entertainment focus. Now, the idea about that is it's not giving people the answer. It's showing that there are multiple ways to touch cards. the soul of who we are and discover our passion. So I want to go into the arts. And I've always been in the arts. I've always done acting and performing. But I like it from that standpoint that I think it's not words. It may be words, but it's a combination. If nothing else, they'll remember the magician outfit. I remember I was doing this work with one group Oh my gosh, I've got so many stories. Somebody said the other day, write a book about all these. But I was at a restaurant and we had a room off by herself. And I was doing this abracadabra of life, dressed like a magician and pastor. And as I was leaving, there was a table of adults and children. And they said, come and read our fortune. Come and tell us, magician. And so I went over, and it was children. They were little girls here to be in a softball tournament. And they said, are we going to win? And I said, well, I'm going to ask you the question. And I'm going to give you the magic wand, first of all. And then I'll ask you, are you... going to win? Is your team going to win? And these little girls were 10 and 12 years old and they said, yes. Did you wave the magic wand? So they waved it. And guess what? I gave them a business. I gave the mom and dad a business. First of all, I asked permission. It was okay to talk to the little girls. And then I gave them a business card when I left. And, um, I got a contact, I got a call, I mean a text message on Monday after that weekend. And they said, we just wanted to let you know that the girls believe so much in that magic wand that we won the tournament. You know, that's all it takes, Rex. And it's all it takes is a different perspective. in our life. And I think that people are open to that now.

Rexhen Doda:

What is right now a challenge for you in your coaching business that you're trying to solve for?

Patricia Leonard:

Yeah, that's fabulous because I've been thinking about this. One of the things is I'm not like anybody else. So when I get out there, and I think one of the things that I liked most that I've done is I had a monthly group that it was the same group all the time, and they would pay a certain amount to come to the sessions. And they could say, here's something I'm working on, or here's what I want to do, or I don't know, I'm here to discover. And it was adults. One of them was retiring from a company. But I remember she said, I want... to create a garden in my backyard where we it's like a meditation garden and she said and I want to do this for other people she said but I don't have a website she had worked for this company her whole life and she was retiring and she said but I don't have a website so guess what Somebody in there knew how to design websites. So they helped. So that's why I saw that. And then another gentleman in that group wrote a book. I love it too. Oh my gosh, it's going to go. There's going to be a film made by it too. But I love that because it was synergy. It was the other's energy that said, no, no, no, we can do that. I can help you do that. And so I really like small group coaching like that too. And I thought, I don't know if I'm answering your question. Anyway, I really like that a lot. My preference now is not one-on-one coaching as much as it is coach. I want to touch millions. I know Everybody wants to touch millions. But I want to touch international. I want people to come together. We talk unity and we don't act like it. And I want to help people see others, not as the color of their skin or how they speak or their career. I'm not interested. Truthfully, titles don't impress me. I don't care if you're a president or what. It just doesn't impress me. So I just want people to start seeing people as individuals, wherever they live, whatever their religion is, whatever their background is, And I want to help with that. I should be in Congress.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Patricia. Those are all very helpful. And the other thing is I'm looking also at the time. The final question I want to ask to you while I still have the time is what advice would you give to other coaches just like you who are trying to scale their impact? It would be like an advice you'd give to yourself.

Patricia Leonard:

Yes. And I think the best teacher we have is looking at our own issues because everything that others have, we have had. And how did we get through it? So I think instead of just going by what somebody says in a book, well, Joe said this, or Stephen Covey said this, or somebody else, some big writer today said this. Oh, I just have one more story. I remember I went to a workshop one time and there was a female leading and she came in and all she had was a flip chart because I don't believe in flip charts and PowerPoints anymore. Those are words. But anyway, she came in there. There was nothing on the flip chart and she started with nothing. And we had to create, what was this meeting gonna be about that would be beneficial for all of us? So it was a pulling of people together to talk to one another and to find out what did you come here for? What did you, yeah. And so I think that I would say to other coaches, get out of the rituals, look at the moment. Engage with the person. That's the thing I like about Zoom versus a telephone call because I can see the person. And to me, body language is a lot. And I can tell when somebody's confused or that doesn't make sense to me, you know, or something like that. Or when they're not participating. No, this is not how coaches work. So I think get out of the, it's this way, this process. And that's why, I don't know if I should, that's why I only, I go to workshops all the time to learn, but not to copy because it helps me see more where my gaps are and not to say, Well, I'm going to get another certification because certificate and that is true. That's what opens the door. If you went to Yale or you went to Harvard or you got a master's or you does not mean that that person is going to be the right one for that job. That's why I'm not really in favor and you can put this in or not of DEI because I think we should look at the individual and say, why are you interested in this work? What can you bring? What are your talents? Just the questions you've been asking me. I love them. Those are the questions that people need to be asking that coaches. And I think that's why I'm getting my website designed now. And you could go now and see my website. It's Runway to Success, Patricia, patricialennard.net. And you can begin to see the controversy. Go to my blogs if you want to see something different about how I coach because I coach a lot. a lot through blogs too. And, you know, I've got one on there, take this job and shove it. And then I've got another one on there, my conversation with a frog. I'm not like other coaches, but there is a message, artist, in each of the blogs. So I hope that helped a little bit. Did it to answer your question?

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, it helped. Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Patricia. And for anyone who wants to find you or connect with you, they can go into your LinkedIn, Patricia Leonard, or they can go into the website, patricialenard.net, and they will be able to find more about you there. Yes. Let me know if there's any other way they could reach out to you.

Patricia Leonard:

Well, you can take my personal email, it's patricia... patricialennard.net and it's a lot like on my website it's just patricialennard.net so i just stayed consistent with that though if you want to learn more about some of the books i've written you can go on my website or you can go on amazon a lot of them on there so uh And they're all very controversial. One book, Hello Self, the one you're looking at here is written like a screenplay. there's nine frames instead of chapters. So I'm different and I like myself.

Rexhen Doda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Patricia.

Patricia Leonard:

Thank you. This has been fun. I hope I've helped you with what you're looking for too.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, that was very helpful. I'm going to have to jump off, but thank you so much. As soon as the podcast comes out, I'll email you with the link to Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you so much for coming and have a great day. That's it

Davis Nguyen:

for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe on YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This podcast was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to $100,000 years, $100,000 months, or even $100,000 weeks, all without burning out and making sure that you're making the impact and having the life that you want. To learn more about our community and how we can help you visit joinpurplecircle.com.