Career Coaching Secrets

Balancing Purpose, Success, and Fulfillment with Coach Carrie Vanston

• Davis Nguyen

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 In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen sits down with Carrie Vanston, executive and leadership coach, speaker, and creator of the Leadership Mindset System and Intentional Travel Program. With over eight years of experience, Carrie helps executives, business owners, and emerging leaders unlock their purpose, shift into growth-oriented mindsets, and elevate their leadership with clarity, joy, and impact. She shares how mindset transformation drives better results, the power of purpose-driven leadership, her journey into coaching, and her vision for combining travel with transformative leadership retreats. Whether you’re an established coach or just starting out, Carrie’s story offers powerful insights into building a fulfilling coaching business while staying true to your passions. 



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Website: carrievanston.com 


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Carrie Vanston:

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets, the podcast where we talk with successful career

DavisNguyen:

coaches on how they built their success and the hard lessons they learned along the way. my name is davis win and i'm the founder of purple circle where we help career coaches scale their business to hundred thousand dollar years hundred thousand dollar months and even hundred thousand dollar 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

RexhenDoda:

Everyone, welcome to another episode of Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm your host, Regan, and today's guest is Kerry Vanston, an executive and leadership coach, speaker and creator of the Leadership Mindset System. and intentional travel program. With her unique approach, Carrie helps executives, business owners, and emerging leaders connect with their purpose, shift into growth-oriented mindset, and supercharge their impact, all while creating more joy, fulfillment, and balance in their lives. As an ICF PCC certified coach, she blends compassion, humor, and pragmatism with actionable frameworks that spark mindset breakthroughs, intentional leadership choices, and fresh perspectives. Her clients consistently say she changes the way they view their lives, their people, and their leadership, giving them the tools to inspire themselves and others with greater clarity and vision. Keri also helps other coaches discover their deeper purposes and become more successful in their coaching practice, business, and life. And it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Keri.

Carrie Vanston:

Thank you very much, Regine. It's a real pleasure to be here.

RexhenDoda:

Thank you. It's a pleasure for us to have I wanted to ask you when it comes to your coaching business and your coaching practice, it's been around for almost eight years and a half, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. Cool. And throughout these eight years and a half, working with your clients, going through the coaching journey with them, what about it would you say you find most rewarding since you started doing this?

Carrie Vanston:

I think what I find most rewarding is just giving them the techniques to not only get themselves out of fight and flight but actually to keep them out of fight and flight so that they have ways of of really changing and anchoring themselves into more positive mindsets and more growth oriented mindsets the concept of you know you have a thought which leads to an emotion which leads to an action is kind of what um everything that i do is built around so if you have a negative thought or mutual thought then you're likely to have an emotion that's neutral or negative and your action is going to be neutral or negative but if you have more of a okay thought oh no this is fine then your emotion is going to be more matter of fact and you probably have a a better result. But if you really have a thought of, wow, this really has some great possibilities, then your emotion is going to be more excitement and your action is going to be much more positive and your results are probably going to be a whole lot better. So how do you raise that mindset to a higher level? How do you raise that energy to a higher level? And that's what I just really love is being able to change that thought through various techniques so that people have that to go to it helps their business in their life and those having the higher emotions and having the better results and also it also helps me because I As I'm doing it for them, it reflects back on me often too. And I think, oh, wow, that's a really smart thing. I should be doing that too. More of that.

RexhenDoda:

It's so interesting to be a coach, right? You get to learn for yourself as well. Exactly. So when it comes to your clients, if they're listening, if there's a portion of them listening, how would you define your ideal client profile? Is there a certain industry or a certain demographic or something? psychographic that you typically find yourself working with or do they have some common goal or goals or other commonalities how would you describe them

Carrie Vanston:

usually it's executives and business owners and professionals and sometimes coaches that just have a lot going for them but they're feeling stuck or they're feeling uncertain on next steps and so i really help them go to that next step and really get get really deep dive into what their purpose is and really shift to that more positive mindset and then really get confident about their leadership by really looking into their whys, understanding why they're unique, why they're passionate, what impact they want to have. And by doing this, they become better leaders and they also become better people in both their personal and their professional lives.

RexhenDoda:

And how is the engagement that you have with them? Is there a certain program of a certain length? Is it like all one-on-one coaching or is there also group coaching? How would you describe the program and the engagement they have with you?

Carrie Vanston:

Kind of from the beginning, I was encouraged to do programs other than hourly because hourly it's harder to justify some of the prices that we charge. But with a program, you're learning all the time. So it's much more about this is the price for the program as opposed to this is the price for the hour. So I usually work in either nine months, six months or three months. three-month programs. And within that, I've set up a specific program where I start with shifting the thinking by starting with an assessment that shows where they are under stress and where they are under normal circumstances. So we sort of have a baseline. And then once we have that, then we can really figure out, oh, you're in fight and flight here. You're in compromise here. You're win-win here. How can we shift these to higher levels with specific techniques? And so I have a purpose statement. We come up with emotional intelligent statements. We come up with an impact story. We come up with win-win relationships. But at the same time, we're always like looking at what they're bringing every single week. Usually, I mean, you know, every couple of weeks, but sometimes weekly, where they are in their business, where they are in their lives. And we talk about how we can make those shifts specifically to what they're doing during that time period that we're talking about. So I sort of bring together both the the leadership techniques, as well as the actual coaching around whatever they're going through at the moment. And so ideally, six months or more, sometimes it's shorter. And then sometimes people continue with me after we go through the main program pieces and continue. I have one client that's been with me about three and a half years, and she's wonderful. And we just continue to make progress at becoming a more inspiring and confident leader. I also have quite a bit of speaking, and so that's another way that I bring money in and also get clients. I don't do a lot of workshops, but I do do some workshops. I do some workshops for a group called Growth Space, a platform, and some on my own. I've done some for the government and some others. And then I've had masterminds in the past that worked really well for getting people involved with what I'm doing and then turning them into clients.

RexhenDoda:

Interesting. And so what about the future for the next one to three years with your coaching business? Are there some specific goals you're working towards on your business that you'd like to share?

Carrie Vanston:

Yeah, I have a real passion for travel. So I've been kind of shifting it a bit to the travel industry. So I came up with a keynote about travel that also involves leadership. And then now I've been doing that keynote quite a bit. on intentional travel, about bringing a purpose and bringing purpose and intention to travel. And then I've included that in my regular speech, my signature one, which is about leadership and put that as an innovative way to deal with leadership as well as a couple of other concepts. And then just recently, I became a travel agent on the side. My next, what I'm planning the next year to three years is bringing that more and more into the coaching, but also what I'm envisioning is doing retreats, leadership retreats, where I can set them up as a travel advisor, and then I can actually create and put on the actual retreats using my leadership mindset, intentional travel talents, so I can kind of get everything going at the same time. We'll see but that's what uh where i'm kind of going from here

RexhenDoda:

it's so interesting because we also do that with our community so we in may we did a retreat with our coaches in tulum in mexico and right now for october we're looking at another retreat who's going to be in phuket in thailand we're going to see how that goes because that's a lot further away than than mexico is for most coaches so So we'll see how it goes, but it would be fun. We found it very powerful when we were able to get these people in paradise, but also they got to learn and grow while being there, not just have a vacation. So that was so powerful. Yeah, we're thinking of doing that again. And I'm so excited for you to be able to focus on that area as well, because we've seen it work so well.

Carrie Vanston:

I love it that you're going like so far away. I want you to keep me updated on how that goes. And hey, if you need someone to set up the travel.

RexhenDoda:

Yeah.

Carrie Vanston:

I could do that too.

RexhenDoda:

Yeah, we'd be happy to reach out for that. And when we think about like your goal of going through and doing more leadership coaching retreats or more travel and even like working on improving your pricing and finding the people who can afford that type of pricing, what would you say are some challenges or like where is the bottleneck right now? What are you trying to solve for next to get closer to the position?

Carrie Vanston:

I'm always looking at it is to continue with the right people. So I know a lot of my speaking engagements in the past have been with people that probably wouldn't hire me. So I'm really trying to focus on people that will hire me, like more executive leadership meeting types. And in my case, travel industry, industry associations, groups, and really kind of paying attention to the types of people that are coming instead of just throwing it out there and speaking to anyone, being very specific about that. So that's one.

RexhenDoda:

That is one challenge. So finding the right people. Is there any other challenges that you see like short term that you're trying to solve for?

Carrie Vanston:

Yeah, you know, it's a lot of the people that I really, really help can't necessarily afford the more corporate rates and the higher rates. And so it's always kind of a challenge to figure out how to work with the people that you really wanted to work with within a budget and still still have you know prices that make sense and are authentic and that that fit in you can you know that makes sense for everybody so that it's fair and makes sense instead of just throwing prices around. So I think that's a challenge that, you know, you help everyone. And so I think you have to kind of like decide who you want to help and it can be a real challenge.

RexhenDoda:

That is definitely a challenge. And it's like a continuous challenge too, because you might figure out how to get to a certain price right now. Later on, it still becomes a bottleneck in the future. We get more and more people. You have to raise your prices in order to keep growing your business or in order to be able to serve more people. So yeah, your time is limited. So you got to raise your prices and kind of like be more selective. It's kind of like part of the problem of working on one-on-one coaching is that what you can do is either raise your prices and work with less people, but still be able to earn a good amount of revenue, or you'd have to hire more coaches to do one-on-one coaching for you and kind of like manage those coaches. That's kind of like different ways to scale. And the other one is like, if you were to do group coaching where you get a group of people and you'd coach them at once instead of like one-on-one that depends on how that is possible with the type of audience you work with is the impact the same as one-on-one or could you maybe be able to make the impact as strong with group coaching as you do on one-on-one so it's always a challenge there yeah totally agree with you and right now I also wanted to ask you when it comes to investments and this goes back to the research that I mentioning. What have been some investments that you feel really good about, either you learned a lot or got a good return from? And what have been some investments that you don't feel so good about or you feel like maybe I should have not invested there? It's like not a good investment overall, if there's any of those.

Carrie Vanston:

Well, the certification I got was through IPAC and pretty expensive one. Really not, though, compared to other groups, not so much the certifications, but some of the other groups that do various, say, and all sorts of other stuff. But that was really worth it. I felt like I came out of that with real super, super as a coach. You know, I had lots and lots of practice, had lots of feedback, and I really felt good after I came out of it. It was a nine-month program, so not surprising. So I felt like that was a really great investment. I felt... I did have a sales coach for a while and it was quite expensive. I probably wouldn't have stayed with her as long as I did. They can back on it. It was quite expensive. And I would say as far as the speaking goes, the Talkadot has helped a lot, a group called Talkadot. And they capture the leads for you and then you can reach out to the different leads and follow up on them. whether they're speaking or, you know, hopefully some of them be coaching too. And another group, uh, with the speaking, I don't know, you know, we're kind of getting off of coaching here. Uh, but another group that I've found extremely reasonably priced and wonderful is innovation women. And that is a speaking group, but there's quite a few coaches there too. So, uh, That's another group.

RexhenDoda:

And it makes sense because speaking actually has been one of the bigger side of the investments that coaches have made. A lot of coaches do a lot of speaking because it helps them get more clients through speaking to these live events. So it makes sense that it is a valid investment for coaches. So it's not out of topic. I would say it's actually kind of like more of the norm of what I've noticed with the And this is the final question. When thinking about the coaches who want to scale their impact, just like you do, is there any advice you'd give to these coaches? And it could be like an advice you'd give to yourself. So you don't have to think about who is going to listen to the advice. It'd be like an advice you'd give to yourself.

Carrie Vanston:

You know, if I had to go back, when I was doing, I had, I did three masterminds. One mastermind was kind of for myself, which lasts about eight months. Another one was with organization where I founded and led a a mastermind for about a year and a half, almost two years. I also had a roundtable every month. And I suggested that I got it through the organization, you know, I put it together. And I started doing that. I got some clients out of that. And then later, I did my own mastermind. And my sales coach really, really helped me on that. And I had several people in that. And I think the 11 people in that mastermind, which went on about six months, I think, it was, three months plus three months. I think three of them became clients, which was amazing. And then my coach recommended that I go way up in my prices. I think it was like from $250 a month to $3,000 for the three months or something like that. I think it was three months or something like that. And I just had a hard time selling that. And so I just sort of threw the whole thing out the window. But looking back, I think if I just kind of stayed with what was working and brought people in at that lower amount and stuck with that, that the clients were coming from that. I guess my point is having a lower rate to come in and then moving them into that round one at a higher rate. And I imagine all the people that you are talking about that are scaling their business, that's one big thing is doing groups or doing masterminds or doing retreats. And for me, I'm thinking retreats might be my next thing. And then taking those retreats and turning them into one-on-one clients. And one of the reasons I decided to be a coach 10 years ago, I really, my background was innovation and culture. I realized that mindset was really important to really have successful companies and leaders needed to have a good mindset. And so I got very involved with that. And something came across my email and it was like, oh my gosh, that's what I want to do. You know, that's what I want to do. But so with the coaching, I think one of the reasons was because it gave me flexibility to travel. So even back then, I knew I wanted to travel. And so I think it's important to not lose sight of what you really want. One of my clients was wanting to be flexible, yet he had a community work space, and he was talking about opening more and more of these workspaces. And my question to him was, the more book and mortar you have the flexibility to travel, be sure to consider that. I think I would say that as you're scaling, be sure that you realize what you're doing and that it really is what you want and leads to what you want and not get stuck in something and then later say, oh my God, now I can't do what I really wanted to do. In my case.

RexhenDoda:

I completely agree with you. And thank you so much, Carrie. Thank you for the amazing advice. For anyone who wants to connect with you or find you, they can go into LinkedIn and look up Carrie Vanston. They'll be able to find your profile. There's also, if I'm not mistaken, kerryvanston.com, which is the website, right?

Carrie Vanston:

Yes, kerryvanston.com. I'm also on Facebook, Kerry Vanston. Gosh, I'm on Instagram. But yeah, you're welcome to reach out to me on the website. Definitely. There's a free thing there. Reach out to me and I'll give you a free travel guide to an intentional travel guide. So yeah, I'd love to. I'd love to. hear from you, your people. And I also give a half hour discovery sessions. Love to do that too.

RexhenDoda:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Carrie. It was lovely to have

Carrie Vanston:

you. Thank you, Regine. You've been wonderful. Thank you very much.