Career Coaching Secrets

From Emmy-Winning Journalist to Executive Coach: Liz Brunner's Journey

• Davis Nguyen

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In this episode of Career Coaching Secrets, host Rexhen interviews Liz Brunner, an executive coach and former Emmy-winning journalist. Liz shares how she transitioned from a 28-year television career into coaching, inspired by a mentor who encouraged her to leverage her established brand.

She explains her coaching model, "Intentional Transformation," which helps clients achieve the "it factor" by aligning their physical, mental, and relational selves. Liz's marketing relies on referrals and relationships, though she has seen new clients find her through ChatGPT. She also discusses the challenge of scaling and how she addresses it with online courses and a dedicated support team. Her core advice for other coaches is to define their personal vision of success and leverage their unique gifts.

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Liz Brunner:

So when you can figure that out, then I think comes the balancing act of when do I scale? How do I scale? What does scaling look like for me? What does success look like for me? Not somebody else, but for me. Because some people are quite happy. I don't need any more clients. I don't need to scale. I don't want to scale. Great. You're happy with where you are. I'm someone who likes to continue to grow, to continue to learn. And I just, I feel so passionate Regan that I have a message to share. I have gifts and talents that I believe that I've been blessed with and honed, and I want to be able to share that and use them to help other people, whatever that means. That's my goal.

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 $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 Liz Bruner, a keynote speaker, executive coach, author, and award-winning journalist, and the founder of Bruner Communications and the Bruner Academy. Liz spent more than 20 years as the main news anchor at ABC TVs in Boston, where she earned multiple Emmy Awards and national graces for her groundbreaking reporting and experience. Thank you so much. in the world. And it's a pleasure for me to have her on the podcast today. Welcome to the show, Liz.

Liz Brunner:

Thanks so much, Rajen. It's great to meet you. And thanks for having me on the show.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, so it's a pleasure to have you on. So I wanted to learn a little bit about your beginnings as a coach. So we're going to focus today mostly on the coaching side of it and wanted to learn, first of all, what inspired you to become a coach and then start your own coaching business?

Liz Brunner:

Well, first of all, I loved television. And I was in television for 28 years. And it's all about storytelling and presentation skills and presence and leadership when you think about it. And the industry was changing. And so I kind of had this visceral gut level feeling that maybe there was something more I was supposed to do. And initially, Rajen, I had no idea what that was. But what I did know was that I had skills and expertise that I had honed over my entire career. And I had also had gifts that I believed I'd been blessed with. And I wanted to be able to use all of that to help other people. So that's how I ended up becoming a coach, but also in part because one of my mentors said to me when I said, what does somebody like me do if and when you think you're ready to leave TV? And his response was so beautiful. He said, Liz, you're well known. You're well respected. That is value. You have credibility. Why would you give that to somebody else? Launch a business. If you don't like it in six months or nine months, you can always go do something else. But you You have so much that you can coach people on and teach people on. He said, go for it. And I literally, Rajan, in that moment in his office, I made the decision to launch a business and become a coach when I had never, ever, ever, ever thought I was ever going to do that. It was not on my radar screen. So that's how it all started.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. So it's been almost 12 years since you did that?

Liz Brunner:

Yes.

Rexhen Doda:

12 years. And so throughout these 12 years of working with people That's

Liz Brunner:

easy. I often see the progress in my clients before they do. But when they see it and when they feel it, it is the best feeling in the world because they're now doing something that, A, they didn't know how to do or didn't know what to do to get there. And to be able to help them move that dial is just so much more rewarding. just an incredibly wonderful feeling. And it's one of the reasons I'm so passionate about coaching because it's all transformational. It's all transformation. And I work with a framework that I've developed called intentional transformation. It's all about aligning your physical and your mental and relational self to achieve the it factor. And when you align all three of those, now you have more presence. You have more confidence, more authenticity, and that all leads to influence. And so being able to help people make those kinds of transitions and transformations. It's very powerful and it just makes me happy.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. So you said the it factor. Yes. Can you expand a little bit more on that?

Liz Brunner:

I'd love to. Are you kidding me? That's like my favorite thing to talk about these days. First of all, I'm sure you can relate to this. In fact, all of your listeners can relate to this. How often have you been in a room where somebody walks in and you go, They've got this energy, this charisma, this confidence, this presence about them. I call that the it factor. And I believe every single person can have the it factor. And why is it important? Because when you have that it factor, there are more opportunities. There are more career chances that come your way because it is about presence and confidence and authenticity and influence. And you get that by aligning your physical, mental, and your relational self. Now, the physical is, yes, it's the nonverbal cues that you send out. People don't realize this is one of the things I coach on. 65% of what you communicate to the outside world before you have said a single word is are all your nonverbal communication cues. So that's a big piece of the pie, but it's not only the physical of your nonverbal communication, it's the energy, the energy that you convey because people feel that energy. So that's all the physical. Now the mental is this little thing up here, this little brain, which is so important because that mental image of what are you telling yourself Are you dealing with limiting beliefs? Are you dealing with imposter syndrome? All of these thoughts that you have, and we have something like 50,000 thoughts that run through our brain every single day, and about three quarters of them, if not more, may be negative. So what you're telling yourself now becomes your reality. So now you've got the mental. So the physical and the mental, that is all the bridge to the relational. Because how you relate to yourself is what you're going to relate, how you're going to relate to the rest of the world. With your colleagues, with your direct reports, with everyone in the world. Now, when you align all of that, and it takes intentional transformation, a choice you have to make every single day to do it, is what leads to that confidence, to that presence. to that authenticity, to that influence. And so it's just such a powerful thing when you can combine all of that. And I love working with people on pulling that all together because everything I coach my clients on now is funneled into this intentional transformation and the it factor. So important.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. You said you'd have to kind of like intentionally have this transformation every day. It's a decision you make. Is it everyday conscious?

Liz Brunner:

Yes, but What's interesting about that is at first you may be unconsciously unconscious. And what I mean by that is you don't even know what you don't know, which is why a lot of people come to me. But then once you are suddenly now conscious of these things of, do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are? Do you know what your challenges are? Are you owning all of that? Are you working to better yourself? Take the physical piece of it. I love to work out and I probably work out about six or seven times a week. Now I'm not saying everybody has to work out 24 seven, six or seven days a week, but What are you doing to take care of this body? Because then that connects to your mind. And so it's all kind of interconnected, which is what I love about it. So yes, do you need to make those choices daily? Sure. Are you working on growing? Are you working on learning? Do you need to get yourself a coach so that you can work on your presentation skills, so you can work on your storytelling, your leadership, even your media training? You know, Regina, I thought media training was going to be the biggest part of my coaching business. It's actually the smallest. Everything that I learned in my 28 years on television and all the three careers I had before television is really what now feeds this platform that I work on with people. And coaching people to move the dial and take them from where they are to where they want to go to who they want to be, it's very powerful.

Rexhen Doda:

What is something that can push people every day to show up for themselves?

Liz Brunner:

Own who you are. That's the title of my book, Dare to Own Who You Are. And it really is about accepting who you are, understanding what your strengths are, because we all have them. We also have challenges. I like to call them challenges as opposed to weaknesses. But are you working on those? And so every day, just think about that. Can you own who you are? Because when you do, that is so powerful. Incredibly powerful.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. And for me personally, I have a very similar line that kind of like pushes me sometimes is remember who you are. Yes. It's kind of like the same thing.

Liz Brunner:

It is. It is. And I love that. Remember who you are. Because when you remember who you are, then you can own who you are and then you can dare to be more of who you are.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, because every time in the past you have had very good wins that have gotten you to where you are. And it's that person you have to remember that got you there and can obviously get you to the next step as well. Obviously thinking that there is no new development depending on where you're going. It's always important to remember who you are. It's from my perspective.

Liz Brunner:

It's very important. And what I love about that also, Rajan, is sort of what was the premise of my book, Dare to Own You, which is a quote from my grandmother, which is no knowledge is ever wasted. The good, the bad, all of your life experiences, you carry them forward. And when When you do, when you trust that, when you remember who you are, and even on those days when you're like, man, I don't know if things are going so well, you got to remember those strengths. You got to remember those wins.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah.

Liz Brunner:

Read a little logbook. Go back when you're not feeling great. Oh, I did have that win. Okay, I had that win too.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, absolutely. So I want to ask you when it comes to like your ideal client profile, who are they? How would you describe them if they're listening?

Liz Brunner:

Well, I work in all industries, first of all. because communication is communication, coaching is coaching. The other thing is I've been very fortunate, Rajan, that most of my clients have come to me by referral. And I know how lucky I am to have that happen. But they're also mostly top-level executives who are either in the C-suite and trying to even grow and get better to maybe they want to become the CEO or they want to get to that level. Now, I don't only work with top-level executives, but that's predominantly where my client And what's interesting is that many of them have had huge successes, but they know, they know that in order to continue to move that dial on the it factor, they need to be intentional about their transformation. And so they come to me because they want to work on their storytelling. They want to work on their presentation skills. They want to have more leadership. They want to have more authentic leadership. And so being able to help people with that is really a beautiful thing.

Rexhen Doda:

And how does that work? You kind of touched a little bit on this earlier on, but how do you engage with these leaders? Obviously, there's a program. How does the program work? If they're listening, maybe I could save you explaining this to them on a discovery call or something like

Liz Brunner:

that. Well, exactly. Thank you. LizBrunner.com, L-I-Z-B-R-U-N-N-E-R.com. a concierge coach. And what I mean by that is that every client comes to me with a different set of needs, with a different set of goals. And it's my job to meet them where they are. And yes, while I have some specific, quote unquote, engagements of varying lengths, depending on what the needs and the goals are, everything I do is 100% customized for that client, for that client. And so it's kind of difficult to say, well, I do this and I do that and I do this, but it touches on all of those topics of presence and presentation skills and storytelling and leadership and everything in between that I work on with people. It really is what is their specific need. And how am I going to help them get there?

Rexhen Doda:

And we start there. And so where do they find you? This is a question that maybe other coaches will find useful is what marketing channel is working really well for you?

Liz Brunner:

Well, I believe, as I said, it's primarily referral. And so people have heard about me from a colleague or they've heard me deliver a keynote speech or they've seen me on a podcast or they've read my book. So how they find me from that, it's all over the place. And you know what's also funny? People have started reaching out. to me from ChatGPT. And I remember the first time I got an inquiry from someone who wanted me to be a keynote speaker. And I said, how did you find out about me? Because in the form, it said just other. And he said, well, I put in the theme of our conference and asked for the best speakers on this topic. And your name came up. I said, amazing. And then there was another client who reached out to me. Actually, it was the husband of the woman who became the client. And he said, I want to get a gift for my wife who really wants to learn how to have more presence and more public speaking skills. And I said, and how did you find out about me? He said, chat GPT. I just typed in who were the best coaches in Boston. I said, oh my gosh. So how am I finding people? All of those ways. Plus the, you know, the quote unquote traditional social media platforms of LinkedIn, et cetera. I'm on, you know, most of them. And that's where people are finding me.

Rexhen Doda:

Wow. Amazing. Especially chat GPT. I've had so many coaches who have tried to to train ChatGPT to recommend them. And it just

Liz Brunner:

did nothing to do of the kind. But then again, I mean, I have a lot of content out there. I have a blog, the Brunner blog on my website. And so there are always two new blogs a month, sometimes more. So that, that may be how the algorithms are picking me up. I really don't know, but I have to say the first time I heard that I was blown away. It

Rexhen Doda:

is, it is, it is flattering to know that ChatGPT is like, like considers and yeah, it's a, It has its own benefits. That's great. It does. So what are your goals with your coaching business? Like where is it going for the next one to three years?

Liz Brunner:

Well, a lot of different areas. I'm continuing to do the coaching because I really, really enjoy it. But I'm also working on expanding more of my keynote speaking business. So those are some of the goals in the next one to three years. I'm working on my own intentional transformation, if you will, of expanding that piece of the business. Any organization, any coach, you have to continually be learning and growing and adapting and developing your presence because let's face it, the world is changing so fast. And it's hard to say you have to keep up, but it's more than just keeping up because how do you keep up and yet stay ahead of the game? You just have to constantly be thinking, what's next? What's next? How do I do this? What should I be paying attention to? So it's not easy. Right? learning and growing all the time with your clients and being open, you need to be the same. And I love to use the analogy, Reggie, that's like, I think of people as rubber bands. Okay. It's like, this is, you only stretch yourself this far because this is my comfort zone. I'm not going to step out of that comfort zone. Well, guess what I do? I like to stretch people way out here on all kinds of different things, because if this was your comfort zone and you've stretched, now this is your comfort zone. So I have to do the same thing for myself.

Rexhen Doda:

Interesting. And so right now, and this goes back to that research that I mentioned earlier, when it comes to investments you've done as a coach, what have been some investments that you feel really good about? You've learned a lot. Either you've learned a lot or you've gotten good return from. And what have been some investments that you wish you didn't get involved

Liz Brunner:

in? Well, look, as an entrepreneur, I mean, every day is a challenge. Every day is a challenge. And you're continually learning. You're continually growing. And I can't say that there's necessarily one platform that's been better or a learning opportunity that's been better than others. I just continually try to explore to see what else could I be learning. And I'm very fortunate that I have a good team around me. And that is huge for any entrepreneur, for any coach. You have to have good people around you so you can do what you're really good at. Like, I don't understand SEO. I don't understand some of this tech stuff. I don't want to deal with the accounting other than my own invoicing. But it's being able to have other people who are really good at that. so that you can focus on what you are good at and being a coach. That's what I'm good at. That's what I love doing, as well as being a keynote speaker. So do that. Do that.

Rexhen Doda:

So right now, you'd say you have a team structure that is helping you out?

Liz Brunner:

Yes, I do. And I just, you know, talk about making changes and growth. I literally, in the last few weeks, have just made some major changes on my team. And for a my chief of staff, as well as my social media manager, well, she's going to have a baby. So her first one. So I already knew, I was like, oh, she's not going to be able to have the bandwidth or the energy to do everything that she's been doing for me before. And so I started working on where could I find the right people to be on my team to help me with so many of the things that she was doing that I know she's not going to have the time for. And I found a company and And so they're going to be able to help me with marketing, with virtual assistants, with video, etc. She's going to keep one small pie, not small piece, but a small piece of the pie of just the social media content. She and I work on that together, but she does most of it. So that's her genius. Now I've got other people who are going to handle the other genius stuff that they're good at so that I can continue to do what I do. And it is important to find the right people. And it's hard. Can I just tell you how hard it is to find the right people? Lord have mercy. But when you do, hang on to them.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, it is hard. And so when it comes to coaching, is that the part that you handle all by yourself or you also have maybe some other coaches in your team?

Liz Brunner:

I do have one other coach on my team and she only has a small handful of clients because that's what she wants. And she has a very particular niche that she likes being specifically involved with, which is helping people. She likes, likens herself to being a speech writer for people. And that's her expertise. That's what she loves doing. And ironically, she is also an award-winning radio broadcaster who I've known in this market. And I knew she would be so good at this. And when she left radio and I said, I think you need to join me on my team. I don't know. I've never been a coach. I don't know what I said. Trust me, Candy. I know you can do this and I know your work ethic. And she's been phenomenal. She's been terrific. So she's really the only coach on my team. The rest of it is moi. It's me. I

Rexhen Doda:

like the team structure. And where would you say is a challenge or what is a challenge that you're trying to solve for next in your coaching business right now to get to that next step?

Liz Brunner:

Well, I think, you know, we, we touched on this just prior to actually recording, which is all about scale and how do you do that? Especially when, you know, even though I have Candy on my team and she has a small piece of the business, it's really me and I'm only one person. I'm only one person, which is why I started bruneracademy.com, which has my How to Be a Rockstar Public Speaker course, and it has a VIP version, which means you get coaching with me after you conclude it. Or you can just do the course yourself. It's, you know, it's a self-paced. It works best if you do something once a week with it, of course. And then there's some other courses with my book. So that was one way that I was able to scale. The other way that I'm enjoying scaling is by being on shows like this. You know, when I have an opportunity to share knowledge and have great conversations with someone like you about coaching. And I encourage all coaches, if you have the time and have the interest, become a guest on other people's podcasts. The other thing, you don't have to write a book, but let's face it, that's another way of reaching out. And so there are all kinds of ways that you can scale and grow. You have to be clear about your brand. You have to know what that is. You have to continually refine your presence and leverage all that social media. Find out where your clients are. Are they on LinkedIn? Are they on Instagram? Are they on Facebook? Are they on X?

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah.

Liz Brunner:

Who is your client base and where are they? And that's what you kind of want to focus some energy on. And you have to collect testimonials. You have to collect testimonials. So all those things I'm continually doing myself. So when you ask, what are my challenges? Well, I'm continuing to do all of that as well. And that's another reason why I brought this other group of people on because I was like, okay, I know I want to continue to expand my thought leadership. I want to continue to expand my keynote speaking. I want to continue to expand the coaching. And so I just felt like they were a really good fit for everything that I wanted and needed. But it is a challenge all the time, as I said earlier, to continually grow.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah. Yeah. So basically scaling is itself is a challenge, but also hiring the right people to get you there is a challenge.

Liz Brunner:

Yes, it is. And look, it's not easy. How do you find them? That's a really good question. If I could get a million dollars for the answer to that one. I mean, I've tried all kinds of different ways to find the right people. And sometimes it is just asking, who do you know? Who do you know? Who do you know? Maybe it's an ad on LinkedIn, or maybe it's and add someplace else. But it really, I believe, everything comes down to relationships. Everything comes down to relationships. So if you can maximize those relationships to help you find the right people, I would encourage people to do that because scaling is a journey all the time.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, I agree with that. I agree. And it's actually one of the challenges, and it comes down to levels at this point from what I've observed. The challenge that you have right now, which is with hiring, comes after you've received a certain level of success and you want to get to that next step. So yeah, it is not something that every coach faces because most can actually handle the type of workload by themselves. But when we're thinking about scaling, expanding, that's when you actually get to the point that you want to have to hire. So think about these coaches that want to scale. And this is the final question. What advice would you give to other coaches just like yourself who are thinking of scaling their in And it doesn't, you don't have to think about who is going to receive this advice. It'd be like an advice you give to yourself.

Liz Brunner:

Everything I just said.

Rexhen Doda:

Truly.

Liz Brunner:

I mean, truly. I mean, if you can make sure that you can define your brand, what's your special sauce? Okay. What are you good at helping people do and learn and grow? And that's probably true for any business. So when you can figure that out, then I think comes the balancing act of when do I scale? How do I scale? What does scaling look like for me? What does success look like for me? Not somebody else, but for me. Because some people are quite happy. I don't need any more clients. I don't need to scale. I don't want to scale. Great. You're happy with where you are. I'm someone who likes to continue to grow, to continue to learn. And I just, I feel so passionate that I have a message to share. I have gifts and talents that I believe that I've been blessed with and honed, and I want to be able to share that and use them to help other people, whatever that means. That's my goal.

Rexhen Doda:

Yeah, and that's because you know who you are. You remember who you are. I remember who I

Liz Brunner:

am. It

Rexhen Doda:

took me a long

Liz Brunner:

time to remember who I am, but yes.

Rexhen Doda:

Well, you have all of those awards in the back that kind of like remind you every time.

Liz Brunner:

Yeah, I have a few back there.

Rexhen Doda:

But you

Liz Brunner:

know, it's interesting you should point that out because as wonderful as these are, and I'm very proud of all of them, what makes me most proud is that I feel like I'm making a difference and I'm helping people because that truly is my vision for my life. I want to be able to inspire and motivate people to live their best life, whatever that means for them, because everybody has a different definition of what that is. But if I can do that and make the choice to do that every day intentionally, then Then I'm fulfilling my purpose. authenticity and dreams into your next chapter. And I'm very proud to say that it's a best-selling award-winning book and Forbes actually recommended it. So I encourage people to check that out. You can also find that on my website, very easy to get to all the other platforms. And I would love for people to not only, yes, follow me on LinkedIn, but sign up for my newsletter because now I only do it once a month, once you get past the nurturing campaign, but I love to be able to share with people, you know, thoughts and ideas of how they can grow and learn, whether you're a code or whether you're in any kind of industry. So I'd love for people to do that. And thank you for asking and follow me on social media and all that good stuff, right?

Davis Nguyen:

Thank you. Thank you so much, Liz. 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.