Career Coaching Secrets

From Uncertainty to Momentum: Bryan Knous on Student Career Success

• Davis Nguyen

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In this Career Coaching Secrets episode, host Rexhen interviews Bryan Knous, a career success coach at the University of Texas at Tyler. Brian discusses his journey into coaching, viewing it as an "outcomes-based ministry" for students. He specializes in coaching College of Business students, helping them gain confidence and clarity in their career paths. Brian aims to scale his impact through small group coaching, leveraging the collaborative nature of business students. He strongly advises other coaches on the importance of certification for credibility, even while acknowledging its varied financial return for independent coaches.

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Bryan Knous:

You know, you mentioned we were talking about the target audience, right? Who am I helping with? Who am I working with? And it's those College of Business students. That teamwork, that collaboration, those are the things that my College of Business students excel at. They love whenever you can give them a group project. They may not say it, but I do know that they enjoy it. As long as everybody's pulling their weight and because my services are kind of voluntary, it's not mostly part not a requirement, people can volunteer their time to come to those small group coaching

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 have been a consultant at two career coaching businesses that are doing over a hundred million dollars 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. Hey

Rexhen Doda:

everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regan, and today's guest is Brian Nauss, a dynamic career success coach, speaker, and nonprofit theater leader who's helping the next generation of professionals thrive at the University of Texas at Tyler. With a unique blend of higher education expertise and a flair for the arts, Brian brings energy and purpose to everything from one-on-one career coaching to leading large-scale events that connect students with opportunity. Whether he's mentoring business students, directing local theater or crafting strategies that spark personal growth brian is driven by a mission to turn uncertainty into momentum and help others lead with clarity creativity and confidence and it's a pleasure for me to have him on the podcast today welcome to the show brian thank you rich and appreciate you having me thank you for coming brian it's a pleasure to have you on could you tell me a little bit more on like when it comes to your career right now as As a career coach, tell me a little bit more about what inspired you to become a coach and start coaching people.

Bryan Knous:

Sure. So I actually started coaching at a junior college. I was at that junior college for about nine months in the admissions department. And at that particular school, admissions and career planning were tied together. The idea being if we can show a student the outcome of them sticking to even a two-year associate's degree, a certification program, whatever it may be, that through the admissions team, they'd be able to stick with that and then end up in a role. The retention would be higher. The outcomes for that student would be higher. And so those departments were intertwined. And at the time, it was a one-person department. It was one person with a master's degree who was knocking it out of the park. And she saw me in the admissions office, knew that I had a love for teaching and for mentoring people and for showing next actionable steps in what I was doing in the admissions office and decided to take a chance on expanding and invited me in. So I was a career planning specialist was my first role. And I learned everything about career assessments and early, early professionals, like talking with 16 to 18 year olds, sometimes 19 or 20. depending on where they were. And then on top of that, non-traditional students who were coming back to school for the first time at a junior college level. So that's where I started. She was a great mentor. The number one thing that I learned from her was looking at my career coaching as more of a ministry, an outcomes-based ministry where you got to see people come in who were maybe lost or afraid, unconfident, and they left your office. If they weren't in If they were at like a four out of 10, they left at a five or they left at a six or sometimes they left at a 10. They felt like they could take on the world after talking to you. And so that was my goal as a career coach. And it's still my goal today. I've transferred now over. Like we said earlier, I work at the university of Texas at Tyler. I'm a full-time career success coach here, and I am working specifically with the college of business. But even in that point, I am very, very happy that I was brought into this world by my mentor back at that junior college. I've been here for now two years. I'm probably one of the younger career coaches that you'll probably meet. A lot of my peers tend to be people who have had industry experience, who have had other experiences and have brought the educational interest into their work. And mine was the opposite. I didn't have much industry, but I had a real love for education. And so that's what inspired me to pursue doing this professionally and doing it more full time.

Rexhen Doda:

And

Bryan Knous:

right now, when

Rexhen Doda:

you're working with the students in the school and going through the coaching journey with them, which part of the coaching journey do you find the most rewarding when you're working with the students?

Bryan Knous:

Yeah, definitely. The most rewarding part for me is the students who start to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Students come to me with Any problem that they have and think that it's a career problem. And some of them are, but our careers and our lives are so deeply intertwined now that when a student comes in with low career confidence, not sure where they're going to be going, not sure what their next step looks like, not sure even if they're in the right major or if they're even supposed to be at a four year university. And maybe they should go to trade school. Maybe they should just go join the military. Maybe they should just go down on a completely different route and start working and doing something else. After discussing it with them, whatever their decision is, I love it when they feel the confidence that they have the information or at least the tools to get the information that they need. I've seen everything now that I've been in this role long enough. I've had a student journey, my one student who I point to all the time, who has started off with I've changed my major three times and I don't want to do it again. All the way to I've landed an internship in a field that I'm really confident in and I can't wait to see where it goes. So seeing that journey from beginning to end of unconfident, lack of self-awareness to learning and really reflecting and having the tools and space to do that, there's nothing that beats that in this profession. You can't put a price tag on it. You can't. Quantifying it is more and more difficult every day. The qualitative side of it is what really keeps me going with some of these days. It keeps you going through all the emails and the slush and all the mess of doing administrative work so that you see those outcomes. And it's what everything pays off.

Rexhen Doda:

That is amazing. Such an amazing story, by the way. So who do you work with when it comes to like, as a career coach at Tyler, who do you work with specifically

Bryan Knous:

when it comes to these students? So I work specifically with the College of Business. So that entails all of your typical business majors, marketing, HRD, finance, accounting. And on top of that, a couple of technology programs as well. So I've kind of got a dual role there working with typical business majors in administrative fields, in management fields, whatever that may be, all the way over into the technical IT, computer science, and industrial tech sort of world as well. So those are my student populations. It's really interesting because at junior college level, whenever it was just me and that one other individual, I was working with whoever would walk in the door. So I would have back-to-back appointments. A nursing student would walk in, followed by an English major, followed by an accounting major, followed by an engineer. And every single one of them have different pathways that they're going down, have unique challenges associated with their major. And they also usually bring separate personalities. Not all of my nursing students were very similar to my engineers. Not all of my engineers were similar to my future teacher. So there was overlap, but every student, that's where I really learned every single time that somebody puts themselves in the seat in front of me. I have to be aware that they're bringing something separate, even at the business school level where I work with them there. So yeah, I hope that answers the question.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, it does. It does for certain. And right now, when we think about the future for your role at Tyler, do you have any goals right now that you're working towards for, let's say, from now to the next year, so short-term future?

Bryan Knous:

Sure. One of the things that we've been really good at is one-on-one coaching. Our appointment structure is very scheduled. Everything is done very well. We give everybody adequate time in order to meet the needs that we have. Just because of scope and the coach to student ratio, I mean, think about it as your coach to client ratio, right? That's going to be a little bit different. But if you have too high of a ratio, it's hard to give every student the focus that they deserve. And on top of that, oftentimes being at the university level, the client side is mixed in with requirements and certain things that are structurally built in, red tape that it turns your job into a checkmark sometimes on a sheet of paper. And so what we're trying to do is find opportunities to be able to bring in more students and get that same coaching experience through small group coaching. So this is a program I've been working on. Summer is the best time to plan these things when you work at a university. So I've been working on the small group coaching side of things, doing some research on what other areas have looked like or what other universities have done or even other independent coaches have done for small group coaching and looking at how does the dynamic change? How does the outcome change? How does the measuring of those outcomes change? And then what can you do in order to keep the progress going? How do you keep the impact of what you do scaling at that point? to a larger group of people. And so one of the biggest parts that I found that I've had to come to terms with is reversing that thing I talked about earlier, not necessarily saying this is an individual right in front of me who I'm helping, but instead saying this is a group of people and we need to have some sort of structure to keep this discussion going. And so I now have to bring a curriculum. I don't just have a bunch of tools in my tool belt that I can share and assist and meet that individual where they are. Now I have to develop something that is organized and structured enough so that no matter who walks in the door, for me it's freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, right? For other people, it might be 15 years of experience, veteran in the field who's making a transition. and new graduate who's just out of school, right? Or a single mother returning to the workforce, right? Those different areas and those different backgrounds all have to be accounted for in small group coaching. And so developing a curriculum where all of us can cover the same material on a month-to-month basis that assists and guides and actually makes progress at the same level that a one-on-one coaching appointment relationship would have. And so that's been a really big challenge that we're hoping to possibly prototype a little bit next year is kind of the way I'm thinking about it. But I think with the research that we've done The idea is that I don't want it to feel like a prototype. I want them to come in and feel like I've been doing this for 10 years and I can't wait to see if that's the outcome, if they feel as confident in it that I do.

Rexhen Doda:

Wow. Well, what I can say for that is that Tyler is certainly very lucky to have you because this is a very creative way of actually Scaling how much you can actually coach within the universities is actually a business level at that point, like the ideas that you're putting in. Because I interview a lot of coaches, just like I mentioned to you earlier, many coaches that do this as a business find it difficult to think about group coaching, but you're thinking about it even more. been at your job right now at the university. So that's like, I feel like Tyler is very lucky to have you on there. So yeah, just wanted to say that just honest opinion

Bryan Knous:

right there. Thank you, Richard. And to add to that, just really briefly, you know, you mentioned we were talking about the target audience, right? Who am I helping with? Who am I working with? And it's those College of Business students, that teamwork. That collaboration. Those are the things that my College of Business students excel at. They love whenever you can give them a group project. They may not say it, but I do know that they enjoy it as long as everybody's pulling their weight. And because my services are kind of voluntary, it's not mostly part for most of it, not a requirement. People can volunteer their time to come to those small group coaching sessions and speak to people at their level or maybe even just beyond or just behind. And they can all make progress together. And whenever they see that ability to collaborate and work together in a group, specifically my population loves those opportunities. They are persuaders. They are enterprisers. They are entrepreneurs and future small business owners. They are the sons and daughters of small business owners that I've met a lot. And so seeing them be able to have that environment where they can collaborate as well, that just adds icing to the cake. Amazing. And so

Rexhen Doda:

right now, thinking about all of this, When it comes to other coaches, just like yourself, other career coaches, what advice would you give to them? We're thinking not just maybe career coaches that are doing it as a business, also career coaches that are working for universities like yourself. What advice would you give to them when they're looking to scale their impact?

Bryan Knous:

Sure. I think the number one thing that I would say that's been beneficial to my impact has been certification. And so when it comes to certification, there are I mean, whenever I first started researching certifications, dozens of potential options out there for career coaching, executive coaching, for niche areas within the coaching world. There are large organizations all around the world that people have probably heard of that have global coaching certifications and things of that nature. There's also more small scale ones or national versions that you can do, but I think that the number one, the number one thing that I look for whenever I'm looking at a resource is are they qualified to give me that service? Do they have the qualification? Do they have the metrics that showcase the ethos behind it? Do they have the, I can see the logos and I can see the pathos and what they do during the appointment, but knowing that they have the background, the resources, the training, the information that I need is going to be twice as important for me. And that's for me going out to see if somebody will fix my car all the way to see if they can do open heart surgery on me, right? So a career coach should be somewhere in the middle there. What is that area of having good personality and having good confidence that you bring to an appointment and then balancing that with actual certification, knowledge and research? I've sought out certifications mostly on career assessment because that's where I meet a lot of my students and clients right now is what do I do? Where do I go? How do I know that I'm going in the right direction? And so I've been certified in things like CliftonStrengths, like the Strong Interest Inventory through MBTI, other areas like that where you can gain a certification in order to administer these things. It gives you that extra level of confidence as a client to say, this person knows what they're talking about. Not only do they know what they're talking about, but whenever they read my results and they're looking left to right, they're seeing something that I don't see. And so what is that thing that they see and through their questions, they should be able to showcase that to me. So certification is one of the biggest pieces of advice I would say that adds a level of ethos to what you do. It adds the letters next to your name in the signature line of your emails. And it lets you be able to showcase, I actually have this background and somebody else will be able to tell you and vouch for me that I do. Absolutely. Especially

Rexhen Doda:

for people that are looking for that level of expertise, right? For people who actually want to have confidence in the person that they're investing money into. They want to see that they are qualified for this field. It will give them that confidence. So I really appreciate that. Brian, and thank you so much for taking the time to come to our podcast today. It was lovely having you on the show and I'm looking forward to in the future having you again for another episode. So thank you so much. Yeah. And also, by the way, I forgot to mention this. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, they can go into LinkedIn. They'll look up Brian Nauss and they'll be able to find you there and reach out. Is there any better way to reach out to you if they needed

Bryan Knous:

to? That's probably the best way. It's what I check every day. I'm helping my students leverage LinkedIn to the most of their ability. And so I try to be a good example. of leveraging LinkedIn online. I will say if you connect with me, a lot of my work, I build into what I do. And so you'll see a lot of reposting for some great things out here in Tyler, Texas. A lot of great opportunities that I'm trying to get on my students' radar. But if you're interested in coming out this way, if you're interested in East Texas, it's a great follow for you to be able to have. I also try to do every Friday, I've been kind of slacking on it, but every Friday I try to do an original post where I connect a little bit of my theater, creative arts background into the world of career coaching online. or at least into something that clients can use on that side. So something along the lines of how to use adaptability, the skill of adaptability that you have on stage. How does that cross over into the career search? How does that cross over into interview abilities and things of that nature? So I try to write little small blog posts like that on there. In the future, if I come up with a blog website or if I have a book or if I have something like that that you want to reach out for, we'll see where that goes. That's a five, 10 year goal for Brian, not even for my role down the line. But as that gets closer, I'll be sure to keep you guys in the loop. I can't wait to see where this goes. Thank you. Thank you so much, Brian.

Rexhen Doda:

And yeah, wish you a great day ahead. Thank you. Thank you, Reggie. And a note for the editor, the podcast episode went here. So Brian, how do you think that went? Let me know if you have any feedback, any change you'd like to make to it. From my perspective, I think it went great.

Bryan Knous:

I think it went great. You were very adaptable, being able to pull things around and make it work for my journey specifically and for my role. I can't wait to see. Like I said, I learned a lot today and definitely opened a part of my brain. I'm one of those people, if you plant a seed, I'm going to go grow it real quick and I'll show you what it turned into later. If you give me an idea, I'll play with it and I'll see where it leads. But thank you for today's conversation. This has been great. And I can't wait to share it and hopefully get some eyes on it through the Career Coaching Secrets podcast, right?

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, you're welcome, man. And just like when you were answering some of these questions, when you went into group coaching, I was like, damn, that's advanced for some people that are doing this as a business. And he already is thinking of doing it to the university. It's like, You're thinking about scale, but you're thinking about it for your university. It means you can already do that strategically for yourself as well. The other thing is when it comes to certifications, I'm going to break a limiting belief here because I wanted to let you go on with that thought. It's not that it's not true, but based on our research last year, what happened is that for coaches that are doing this as a business, certifications in terms of like investments have been the investments that were the ones that had the kind of like the lowest return on investment. The reason why is not because most clients don't actually are not looking at the certifications. It's not that they're bad for the coach, meaning they get to learn, they get the title better, but the clients are not clients like you, meaning you would look for it, but the majority is never going to look for it. And I feel like that could be a limiting belief that you feel like, oh yeah, I got to have these certifications to start my business. Totally don't have to, because most of the times they don't even know that these certifications exist, which is kind of sad, but it's the reality that we live in. coaching field is not as governed as a business field as the other areas are. Just wanted to let you know that. Yeah, no, that's fascinating. You don't have to have all the certifications to start your coaching business.

Bryan Knous:

When it comes to coaching, I found similarly, a lot of people aren't familiar with even that it is a field that you can go into. It's something that seems to be reserved for C-suite and for more prominent speakers and for people who are needing that executive coaching or needing that next level up, career coaching almost doesn't even sound like an actual something that needs to be certified as opposed to if you take it another step further going into counseling. You have to have full school programs that are devised to that. I foresee a future. I don't know if you do, Regin. I foresee a future where certifications and coaching are actually incorporated into college programming. I can definitely see that in the near future as long as coaching continues to have the success that it does. So it might be one of those things that turns into something one day. It might be something that evolves. I agree on the limiting belief of a lot of people aren't sure what they're looking at. If they see a CCP, if they see something along those lines, they're not really sure what that career coaching certification actually is. And they might not even be looking for it. But one of the things that I wanted to point out, or I guess I could point out, is the... things that I learned collaborating with the other coaches in that program are things that I use every day. And so there is a certain level of educating yourself that testing your abilities and beliefs against a system or against another individual going through a system with you could be a really, really beneficial thing as far as your ability to coach. Maybe not as far as scaling, making the one sort of marketing level decision of if I have the CCP next to my name, does it get me to Possibly not, but it might get you more referrals if you're a better coach. It might get you more outcomes and impact if you're a better coach because of it. So maybe that's a devil's advocate from my side to explore and play around with and see what people's experiences are as the coach gaining the certification as opposed to the client looking for the certification. Yeah, that might be cool to dive into.

Rexhen Doda:

From my perspective, I just wanted to let you know that you don't have to do it for yourself to start your own business.

Bryan Knous:

And that feels good because I don't feel like getting another certification right now. I would love to jump into it without that.

Rexhen Doda:

And the reason... Why we like to push a little bit on it is because these certifications are not cheap. It's not like something you just put your money into and just have a title. They cost a lot. So we don't want people to put money on something that necessarily is not going to bring that money back. You get better as a coach potentially by doing the certification. I'm not a coach, so I'm not qualified to tell you that, but it's just that we haven't seen the return yet. on the investments that is a lot. That's important. Yeah. So it's like, it could be, it could be a good move for a coach that has a lot of revenue and it's just like wants to add some more to its title. But like for anyone that is starting out, it's not probably like you already have the experience as a career coach from the university. And just like I said, from my perspective, you are more than qualified that some of the coaches that are doing it for years. So yeah, I just wanted to, because I like the interview and I wanted to make sure that you get this from me.

Bryan Knous:

Yeah, yeah. And a lot of my certification I've done because I've been part of a university that's helped pay for it. So I haven't felt the financial investment that an independent coach would have to do. Yeah, of course, that makes total sense.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah. So again, thank you, Brian. And I wish you great success.

Bryan Knous:

Thank

Rexhen Doda:

you. Yeah, talk with you hopefully soon. So I'll send you the email with the podcast links. I'll also send you the research paper on your email so you get it. That'd be perfect. And yeah, let me know if there's anything else. Feel free to reach out or you have my email so you can always email me for anything. But yeah, I will keep in touch from them.

Davis Nguyen:

All right. Sounds great. Thank you, Regine. Have a good one. You too. Bye. That's it 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.