From Awareness to Action: How Coaching is the Key to Getting Unstuck with Jennifer Matthews

Why do so many people stop short of the goals they want most?

In this conversation, Coach Jen Matthews, founder of the Move Strong Method®, explains how behavior-based coaching helps people move from awareness to clarity to meaningful action. Drawing from her background in performance, psychology, and leadership coaching, she shares practical insights on navigating change, managing stress, and building habits that support long-term growth.

This episode is for anyone seeking personal development that actually sticks.

You can find her on:

https://movestrongmethod.com/

https://www.instagram.com/MoveStrongMethod/

https://www.facebook.com/movestrongmethod

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jennifer-matthews-aa70588/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/move-strong-method/ 

Transcript

Jennifer Matthews 0:00

Absolutely. I mean, first off, addressing the differences is the idea that the type of coaching that we do at Move Strong is behavior-based. So our specialty and my specialty is very specifically behavior change. We're all human and we all have behavior. So, you know, in marketing, they'll say something that for some for everyone is for no one. And I'm like, this isn't for everyone. This is for people who look at the behaviors and the habits they have and they go, something needs to change.

Davis Nguyen 0:20

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 David Swin, 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 businesses 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, go discover the secrets to elevating your coaching business.

Kevin Yee 0:51

Welcome to Career Coaching Secrets Podcast. I'm Kevin, and today we are joined by Jennifer Matthews. She's based off LA. She's the founder of Move Strong Method, Coach for Over 17 years. Welcome to the show, Jennifer.

Jennifer Matthews 1:04

Hi Kevin, thank you for having me. Super happy to be here and connect with you today.

Kevin Yee 1:07

I'm really excited. You mentioned something really interesting. You said you had a performance background, and so I'm very curious about your origin story, the lore, like how did you go from performance background to coaching and then make this into a business? Spill the tea.

Jennifer Matthews 1:20

Well, it's a long story, so I'll try to give you the short version. The skinny on it is that my original question was dance. And I like to say that I, when I was little, I found this really amazing room there where they would let you twirl and twirl and twirl, called the dance studio. And like most athletes with their sport, I just fell head over heels in love. So I injured out of my sport for expected, which is also kind of common for us, and especially dance, really high injury rate. But I injured out sooner than expected, and that led me on a journey to physical therapy. I had about four years of physical therapy to work through the different injuries that I had. And my career has sometimes felt like dominoes that you, you know, those lovely patterns of dominoes people create where you knock one over and then they just each knock the next. So I went from dance to physical therapy, and also when I left dance, there was a lot of mental emotional support because when you lose your sport or leave your sport, and you've heard this story before, but many athletes experience kind of a loss of identity, and there's a lot of stress and challenge in that and figuring out, well, now what am I supposed to do? I've only done this one thing for the majority of my life. So I identified as an athlete as a dancer, and so the transition to physical therapy as well as mental emotional support for that transition led me to actually being a personal trainer. And that was my second big career choice. I worked as a trainer through college and beyond work full-time, even after college. I was like, oh, maybe I'll do this full-time. And I really just loved working with people one-on-one. And the thing that was really interesting about working with people one-on-one, I saw a phenomenon happen across the board. Like did not discriminate between age, gender, education, income. Well, it doesn't matter. It happened to almost everyone. And it just stopped me in my tracks, which is actually what was happening to them. People would stop. I witnessed people stopping on the path to the goals that they said they wanted to achieve or the experiences they wanted to have. And maybe they were stopping themselves, maybe something was stopping them. It's kind of a chicken or the egg, and like not for me to judge, right? I didn't have enough information. But I just saw the phenomenon and I became so curious about what stops people that I was compelled to really actually be of more help. I was like, how can I help these people get across this chasm that they seem to walk up to? You know, a trainer is a little bit more of a codependent industry, or at a minimum, it's an effort industry, right? You show up to a trainer and they have the answer. They're gonna show you what to do. And I thought we gotta help people get across from where they are to where they want to be, and how do I do that? And so that led me to researching a wide variety of professions from nursing to neuroscience to psychology, and I stumbled on coaching. So from early in a dance studio to now, kind of the heart of how I got here. That little bit of one domino led to the next.

Kevin Yee 3:37

I'm also like really curious about how people are finding you for your services. Like, what kind of marketing are you doing? Who are the people that you're helping? I would love to hear about it.

Jennifer Matthews 3:47

Sure. I mean, organically as an organization, we've always been by referral. So the majority of my business in the history of 17 years has actually been by the clients that we serve, are referring people to us. As industry grows, you gotta evolve. So there's basic digital marketing happening, and actually, we're about to get into relaunching writing. While back in my early business, I would write a lot more with blogs and you know, be able to give people resources and information, and then I had a child, and you can't do it, you can't do all of it all the time. So kind of relaunching into that information space where you can really open up a dialogue, a conversation, and give people information and things that they can use. So excited to see that blog coming out before the end of this year in 2025. All the usual digital marketing and referral, and then this is like this where people are able to invite me to come speak, and I get to talk about myself a little bit. And I think just sitting and being visible is the number one thing, right? To make sure that you're visible and available. So we're kind of following all the usual channels, but heavily of dependent on referrals. And as far as who we coach, so that's a bit of a domino story too. We coach individuals, we coach organizational leaders, and we coach teams. And the way that journey kind of developed is that my bread and butter originally was individual coaching, right? Through my coach certification with Coach Training Institute, you have to get a certain number of hours to even be able to be certified. I started working one-on-one with people, and that evolved working with a lot of leaders, a lot of business owners, a lot of parents, and I consider parent leaders because they have to figure out how to lead themselves and lead their children. So a lot of parents, a lot of business owners, entrepreneurs, or people in leadership roles and organizations. And naturally, over time, those people would say, Hey, could you coach my staff? And so the group coaching element kind of evolved. And then that came in line with the online programs that we have. We have a self-based DIY coaching program online with MoveStrong Method. And so those three groups have kind of come to be the populations that we serve. And they sound really different, but the one thing they have in common is that they strive, they have a desire to drive, they have a desire to improve or see change somewhere in their life. And they have either tried to do it themselves or they see that doing it themselves gets them so far and they need a hand. They need help anymore. So they don't give up. They have hope and faith that what they want to accomplish is possible and they know when the answer helps. That's who our clients are.

Kevin Yee 5:48

Yeah, that seems like it's really interesting. You're right. It does seem kind of like very different audiences or ideal client profiles and stuff, too. I'm kind of curious though, like, are there common patterns that you kind of see when you're saying like they have the desire strive. They tried to like do it themselves before. Do you notice any consistent themes when people come up to you about your services?

Jennifer Matthews 6:09

Absolutely. I mean, first off, addressing the differences is the idea that the type of coaching that we do at Move Strong is behavior-based. So our specialty and my specialty is very specifically behavior change. We're all human and we all have behavior. So, you know, in marketing, they'll say something that first for everyone is for no one. And I'm like, this isn't for everyone. This is for people who look at the behaviors and the habit they have and they go, something needs to change, regardless of their why, right? So, in terms of phenomenon or kind of common themes that you would see across people, there's usually a need for clarity. Definitely, like, let's explore and discover what you need to get clear on because it's really important to define the what or the how. And when people want to take action, we often focus on the how. That's kind of like picking up your phone and opening up your favorite map app and being like, get me there, but you didn't enter the destination. You have to know what building you're going to, and then it tells you how to get there. Doing some discovery work to find clarity to really understand what is it I'm going for, what is it I really want to achieve, what is it that's most important to me, asking those really juicy what questions then helps the how happen with way less effort. So finding clarity is definitely one piece. The other is maybe facing change or transition, because it's the only constant. Raise your hand if everything stayed the same for the past 30 days, let alone however many years, as no one ever. I was it'd be so much easier. So facing change and transition and being in choice about that versus being like dragged by the momentum of the change in your life, really being alongside it and tracking and choosing the way you want to respond to and live into that change. So I think clarity and those just two to give an example clarity and facing change and transition.

Kevin Yee 7:38

And since um the type of coaching you do is behavior-based change, when people do decide to work with you, how do you structure your coaching engagements? I would love to hear about your methodology.

Jennifer Matthews 7:48

Move strong method has three basic foundational principles, and we begin with awareness. And awareness is really just the ability to know. And how you know is something you can train, like a muscle. If you've been an athlete, you know that a breakdown, and actually, not even athlete, anything, if you learn to read, you learn the letters and then you put them into words, and then the words become sentences, and then the sentences become paragraphs, and you can write a thesis if you want to. But you gotta start with the basic, right? So awareness is that ability to know, and you can really train your awareness. The first thing that I encourage people to become aware of is themselves. And all of the coaching, whether it's individual, leadership, or group, actually starts with a basic personality test. And it's not to say that the personality test is gonna tell you who you are, no testing tell you that. And it is gonna give you a little bit of a window into your get what I call your gifts and your gap, right? The places where you're very naturally strong or you've been nurtured to have a skill set, you have a subject matter expertise, or just feel really powerful and capable and competent. And then the gaps are areas where either you don't have they're not bad, they're just you don't have experience, it's not what you do most, or it's a bias created by your gap, right? So you will default to what you do most. It's just how the body works. And because you will default to what you do most and be good at what you do most, you'll end up with gaps. So we start there with awareness, self-awareness, knowledge, and a basic personality test to just get to know your given, your gaps.

Kevin Yee 9:01

Sounds like the work that you do is quite intimate. You're trying to, you're holding space for a lot of people and helping people kind of realize their gifts and gaps. One of the questions I have is like, how do you manage your client capacity? Do you have like a current team right now? Do you take on X amount of clients? Like, I'm kind of curious how you manage all of that.

Jennifer Matthews 9:19

I have staff in the company that helps me, both contract and employees. I have an employee and then contractors that I work with. In terms of managing the flow, there's a little bit of the universe inspires that, right? Because what comes to me in the time that it comes is what's meant to. And obviously, I work to market and attract and be in front of the people that I most want to. Um, but what happens is there's a certain number of individual clients, there's a certain number of groups that we can take on, and then the area where we're really working to expand is actually kind of a self-paced DIY coaching because we've always been a very B2B model. And so shifting a little bit more towards a B2B model in terms of allowing access. I guess I'll let cheesy, but my dream is for coaching to be as accessible as possible to anybody who needs it. I think it's still just a little much more down to earth than it was when I started. And coaching, when I first started, people be like, that's a job. Yeah, it's a thing, man. I do it all day long, right? And the reality is it opened up to being in reality TV shows. Now you see people on reality TV shows with life coaches. And you know, you've got coaches writing books, and so it's becoming more and more accessible. But we manage the load by being able to one, have the staff and the structure of the business behind, so that's not just me. There is a limit on the number of individuals versus organizations we can work with, and three, shifting the business model towards access and accessibility to really allow a larger, wider range of people to be able to access the basic of coaching and the basics of behavior change at a much lower price point than anyone would ever pay for a coaching session.

Kevin Yee 10:40

Which brings me to this next point, too. You mentioned accessibility, and one of the things I think about is like pricing a lot of times, right? And a lot of people listening to this, a lot of times they struggle with like knowing how much to charge for a coaching engagement and all that. And so obviously you don't have to give any hard numbers, but I'm very curious how you structure your pricing, the pricing strategies do you gravitate to? Because I know some people they do like a project-based or packages, value-based, retainer, subscription models. There's so many different types of pricing models. And so which ones have you kind of gravitated to, Jennifer?

Jennifer Matthews 11:12

For me, in terms of setting a price, I've always gravitated toward being in line with the market that I'm in because I don't only work with individuals in the market that I'm in, but what we charge is comparable to other professional services. It's also based on expertise and experience, like anything is. I have a master's degree, I've been doing that for 17 years, right? Do I charge more than I did when I started? Yeah, because you get more now than you did before. I hope and I believe and I've been told by my clients, right? It's too much. I have some clients that have actually been with me the whole almost the whole time. That as you grow, obviously it's okay to let your writing scale, right? As you grow as a professional individual, as you grow in your services. But I think rating it in line with the market and seeing not only what your competitors are charging, but what other comparable services are charging, I just think that's a fair way to charge. And so that's that's how I've always looked at it.

Kevin Yee 11:54

Let's say you're a new coach and you're kind of new into the industry. How does one find out what other people are kind of charging?

Jennifer Matthews 12:02

That's a great question. Networking, honesty, vulnerability, asking. I mean, when you're out there talking to other people who do what you do, I think sometimes there can be a sense of competition, but the reality is no one individual is good for everybody. Like we have to share the support and we need to, you know, as an industry, I've always felt like coaches, a lot of coaches come together to create like that referral base, right? And say, I have this person coming to me, but I actually think they'd be best, you know, for your expertise, your perspective, your training, wherever you're coming from. So I think if you approach it from a shared perspective and you really work in community with others, you're going to be able to get the information that you need to be setting that. And, you know, coaching is also done in organizations now. It's done, you know, healthcare organizations are huge with having coaches on staff. There's a lot of companies that have coaches on staff. I'm pretty sure you can probably look on Glassdoor, and not pretty sure, I know 100%. You can look on some of these resources for employment and see like what people are being paid. Right now, that's not going to include if you're working independently, that's not going to include the self-employment taxes you have to pay, if you have state taxes, but all, you know, all the business side of things that you can talk to a CPA about. Work in community, find the people that you can work with, grow that network over time so you have a really beautiful referral base. And then, you know, you can choose your pricing based on whatever your motivation and your model is. But I think just honest, transparent communication and networking and building a community to work with, as well as looking at the industry at large and how people are paid when they are coaching within an organization, probably gonna be one of the best ways to go.

Kevin Yee 13:28

I love it. Money is always one of those, like kind of a lot of people feel like it's very taboo, but thank you for shedding some light on, you know, there's some new coaches listening to this, and they're just like, oh man, I know, like I should probably know what other people are charging, but how do I do it? So I just want to thank you for providing that answer too. Now, one thing I am very curious about because like you said, you've been in the coaching industry for 17 years, and so curious about your future goals and where do you kind of want this coaching business to take you in the next few years and the next season? Do you have any secret dreams, big ambitions, like desires for scaling? We'd love to kind of hear that.

Jennifer Matthews 14:03

I mentioned it a little bit already, but my dream is that accessibility, right? And really growing access for the people who want or need to have those basic coaching skills to be able to get them. I'm not saying it isn't gonna, you know, cost money. You could save for it, you could put it together, you could it's like at a reasonable level, you know, like a few hundred dollars, like not off the books. I know a few hundred dollars might be a ton of money from people, and you know, our goal is to kind of break that down into pieces so that you could do it bit by bit, even if you had to. So, really, really bringing the access, the accessibility up, keeping the level of coaching um simple and easy to use for your like to really implement yourself. And then, like we said, putting that price point down where it can be broken down and hopefully realistically approached in a way that people can engage with it and use it. So, access is one and really driving the wider access. I think that is my dream. I mean, anytime you're a solopreneur or you're working on your own and you're building your own organization, the number one thing you face right away is there's only one of me and there's a lot of you. How am I really gonna help people? Right. So this idea of scale uh is not only important for a business, but also for impact, right? Like with the impact that you want to have. And the impact that I want to have and have always wanted to have is to facilitate others' greatness, is to give them the tools to facilitate themselves. So you may come to me first as a facilitator to help you get the feet on the ground or find the clarity or face the change. And in the end, I want you to walk away with every tool that we've used so that you have it. And this goes all the way back to my training days. Trainers used to create programs and keep them. And I was like, what are you doing? Your client paid you for that program. No, they paid me to train them. I'm like, yeah, and you train them with the program. Give them the program. And so giving people the tools in a way that's very approachable and accessible, the dream, right, is really where I'm at, is the vision that I have. Second to that, like there's two sides of that coin, right? So there's the there's the B2C and really helping as many people as possible in that space. And then there's within organization. I've already done it with a few organizations, handful of organizations, and we've had really great results. And it's just so much fun to work with teams and organizations and really allow them like this all boats rise. So the employee benefit, the organization benefit, whatever the consumer outcome on the other side, you know, the client-facing population for that organization benefit, like really creating this all boats rise experience where people are driving their emotional intelligence, right? They're really increasing their ability to respond, overreact in the workplace, and communicate openly and honestly with each other and just do really authentic, powerful work with each other. So expansion through organizations and expansion through individuals. That's kind of my our two-prong approach here at Move Strong right now and where we've evolved to being able to focus. And I can't wait to see what happens.

Kevin Yee 16:33

Yes, there's the accessibility and access to the B2C market, and then it sounds like there's this desire for more organizations, work with them a little bit more. What kind of challenges are you kind of noticing in this like season of coaching right now or your coaching business right now? Maybe some things that people wouldn't be able to see outside looking in.

Jennifer Matthews 16:51

I think they feel it from the outside looking in because the first thing that pops in mind when you said that was stress response. There's a lot of stress response right now. We've always had a lot. I think for the past decade, we've had a lot of stress response. I mean, when did the pandemic or we're not coming up on 10 years yet, but maybe two-thirds of the way there. And managing your stress response to the world at large is really important. I mean, it is like I couldn't emphasize it enough. And back to this idea of, you know, something like a simple personality test to get that sense of who you are. So the personality test that I recommend and support is called ticking personalities. The number sticking the word personalities.com. I don't get paid by these people. In fact, I really enjoy them because they don't get endorsed or take endorsements or partner with anyone. They try to remain independent. And there, my brain's like, why are you talking about this, Jen? Connected to the question. So try to beeline back to what you asked me. But the bottom line is your self-knowledge, right? Your ability to be self-aware impacts every choice you make every day. So, for example, in that personality test, it will give you a sense of how you process information, what your primary source of processing is. And I'll give you two. You can be a thinker, so to speak, right? Someone who has clear language and clear thoughts in response to any information you receive, whether it's a directive from a boss, an ask from your child, or something on the news, there's a go-to way that you respond. And if you're a thinking person, you get language and thoughts, and it kind of might be like it's in your head. Now, if you're a felt sense person or a feeling person, it means you actually get sensation first. You do not get language first. You feel an emotion, you feel a sensation with one of your five senses, and you got to take a minute to translate that into language. So I started with stress response, and you're like, what are you seeing out there in the world? And I'm like, everybody is having, not everybody. Many of us are having, us including me, having a stress response. And knowing how we process information, if we're a felt sense person and we need to take a breath and find the language, and before we do anything, go, what am I feeling? And what is it telling me? Just that pause. And from a thinking perspective, you have all these really fast paws and be like, what's at the heart of what I'm thinking? What's the number one thing that's standing out to me? So we just pause, slow down, find the language for what's happening for us so that when we go to connect with other people, we can share it more clearly with less charge, and more tends to happen that way. That's what I'm seeing. I'm seeing stress response.

Kevin Yee 18:51

A lot of it always feels like the next day the world's gonna end or something like that.

Jennifer Matthews 18:55

And you can get stuck in that story, right? You can have that narrative. It's very easy to have that narrative. And I'm not saying that it's right or wrong at all. I'm just saying we need to be, it's really good for your body, it's really good for you and the people around you when you can be mindful of those narratives, eat them, and just get curious about them, ask questions, and try to be informed. And starting with understanding how you process things is is one of the sort of first routes to that.

Kevin Yee 19:16

And speaking about decreasing stress responses, one of my favorite ways to do it is through games. And so, Jennifer, I would love to go into the next section or the next segment of our podcast. What I want to do is ask you four prompts. Um, and you just tell me the first thing that comes to mind. And we're gonna focus on business investments because you know, a lot of coaches, a lot of entrepreneurs, they invest into either their own coaching or training or marketing or other team members and stuff. So I would just like your thoughts, the first things that come up to mind. Okay.

Jennifer Matthews 19:48

Okay, I'll do my best. I feel nervous. I'm gonna share something that and also give it to myself at the same time. There's a rule, and one of the number one rules in coaching, first thing I learned as a coach is that you can't be wrong. Facts. I get it. A right and wrong. Two plus two is actually four. One, two, three, four, right? And people are not wrong. People are whole, they're creative, they're resourceful. We have everything we need. So I'm gonna give myself permission that I can't be wrong to your prompt and really approach it as a coach.

Kevin Yee 20:09

Sol in your first thoughts. First business investment that you remember.

Jennifer Matthews 20:12

First business investment that I remember. The first business investment I remember is twofold. One, a time, and two, it's my weekend. Literally. The time to do the research on how do I help, right? What are these other disciplines that will help people get from point A to point B? Because I really love that space and I want to be in that space and I want to support people. So that's a time to slow down enough to really look, ask questions, do the research. And my weekend means that, you know, I'm in my 20s at this time, and I'm trying to make good adulting decisions. And I come across the Coach Training Institute's program, and I'd have to look at how it's organized now, but at the time, you gotta give up a whole weekend and boy was that weekend worth it. I mean, come on. Whatever I would have done on that weekend fails in comparison to me pausing to just go try something. Just go try and discover and see what something is and go beyond the two-dimensional space of research and knowledge and go into the kinesthetic space of let's invest a little bit of, you know, get my own skin in the game, not only financially, but with my time and energy, and take a whole weekend to just try something. One of the best investments ever. My time, my energy, and my weekend.

Speaker 2 21:12

Last business investment you made.

Jennifer Matthews 21:14

Last business investment I made. So literally the most recent business investment that I have made. I mean, additional marketing. The most recent business investment I've made is to sit down. And I've had, I've worked with different marketing organizations over the years, has had me sit down and really question, not question, but just be curious about, you know, what are you putting out? What is the message that you're sending? And how do you really want to authentically connect with people? I mean, I'm a coach, my job is self-reflection. So anytime anybody has me sit down, think about what I'm doing, and try to design the impact, I'm gonna be really happy about it. So that's my most recent investment is additional marketing.

Kevin Yee 21:46

Some of these might overlap, but um best business investment you made.

Jennifer Matthews 21:50

My education, hands down, like right out the gate. When my son was two, I had this kind of realization moment where I'd always wanted a master's degree and I was recently divorced. I was alone with a very small child. I was by myself with a very small child, and something just said to me, Girl, if you're gonna go to school, you better do it now. Because once that kid gets in school, you're not gonna have any time. And I thought it was a little crazy because I was like, no, I had this whole rationalization, you know, narrative around it, but I felt so driven and I was like, all right, I'm gonna listen. I'm gonna listen to the call and I'm just gonna go get my master's degree. So I started when he was two, and I got done when he was four, and it just absolutely changed my life. It's uh transpersonal psychology is the name of the study, and it's the psychological study of human potential, and it wildly opened my eyes. It was uh at the Institute of Transpersonal Psychology, it's now called Sophia University in Northern California, but it just opened my eyes to human growth and transformation in a way that I don't know if anything else ever could. I had to go out on a limb and you know, with a small child working by myself, it was a lot to add a master's degree to that, but something told me to, and I did it, and I think that was one of the best decisions of my life.

Kevin Yee 22:50

Worst business investment that you kind of wish you got your money back from.

Jennifer Matthews 22:54

A business coach. And it was on me. I did not pause to understand the outcomes, right? And outcomes are very, well, they're not very anything in coaching, but they are, you know, return on investment and outcomes is something that we really have to look at and contemplate in coaching because it's not a metric-driven business originally, right? The development of coaching in the 60s and 70s was much more feel-good and much more authenticity-driven and you know, heart space-driven, which I love and I endorse it wholeheartedly. And you really got to look at outcomes and alignment of the coach to you. So when I was younger, first business coach I hired had plenty of good business coaches and plenty of business coaches that, again, I just didn't do the work to assess alignment, both with that individual, their the way they execute their coaching, and the outcomes I was gonna get. Those turned into, I mean, you can say bad investment. Are there benefits from working with those people? Absolutely. One of them gave me Coach Jen, which is what I go by. There's always good that's gonna come from it, but I just didn't really understand what I was getting into before I made the investment. I didn't ask enough questions and really have my feet on the ground aligned with that person to do their work.

Kevin Yee 23:55

You kind of alluded to it, but I guess as I'm asking you these prompts, I'm sure stories are coming back. And so I guess as you look back, how has your decision-making process changed and what to invest in and what not to invest in over the years?

Jennifer Matthews 24:10

How has my decision-making process changed and what to invest in and what not to invest in? I mean, the first thing that comes to mind is intuition. Like I said, my career has been a bit of a domino, right? The development and expansion of my business has been a bit of a domino. I look for the doors that are open. And before, I think because the door was open, I'd be like, let's go! And now when the door is open, I go, Oh, cool, the door's open. What's that? So slowing down with a little bit of curiosity and questions. And that's the second thing that came to mind was using the emotional intelligence that I've grown. Because to be a coach, you gotta do the work. And I feel like from 2008, 2007, or eight to now, my own ability to manage my emotions, my self-management, my ability to respond instead of react has grown. So it's a much more integrated decision now. I might have an emotional response, I might have an intuition, I might have some very clear thoughts. And I pause and try to grab the wisdom from each of those areas and bring it together before I make the choice. So integration is gonna be the difference in how I make decisions now. And before I might have only used one of those areas, I guess is what I'm saying, and not necessarily thought it, you know, not really brought it all together before I chose.

Kevin Yee 25:18

Last question. As a coach, you probably got a lot of advice, some solicited, some unsolicited. And so I'm kind of curious as you think about your career. Most overrated business advice that you've gotten, and most underrated piece of business advice that you've gotten.

Jennifer Matthews 25:32

Right. I'm like, I got a lot of advice. I don't know if I can rate it as overrated or underrated. What I'll say is helpful and things that I just haven't used very much. And I think that's gonna be into your overrated or underrated same kind of zone. Make sure I'm aligned. If you have a business banking account, I'm in a room of like 300 people, 25 or less, like 10% or less, raise their hand. And he was like, if you don't have a business bank account, then you're not ready to receive the check that's coming to you for what you do. I was just like, wow, that is the most simple, common sense thing I've ever heard. And of course, of course, and a CPA would tell you the same. So I think it's a really underrated, just having some of the very basic business structure things set up is super underrated and not recommended enough. So I really love that quote. Flip side of that, because it's very sort of logical and linear. On the flip side of that, the best advice I ever got was from the mentor for my master's degree program who said, the world needs you to be you just as you are. And so go, don't be anything else. Catch yourself along the way if you find yourself being anything else, but the world needs you to be you exactly as you are. We would all be missing something. So if you need to hear this, we will all be missing something. And without you being authentically who you are, who you show up as in this world. And it hit me the way he said it really hit me. I've said it to other people because I fully believe it. If it's supporting you to hear that, take it because I said it for a reason and it's for you. And so I feel like those are on the underrated side, right? This sense of find you, be you, and share that because it's powerful and have all your basics set up. Have a have a checking, have a business checking account so money can actually go in. You want to be able to buy it, you want to be able to receive something, have the space where it's gonna go because it shows that your arms are open and you're ready to receive. So really love those. And from an advice perspective, I think I don't have enough Exerion to know the effectiveness of the using things like funnels in marketing because I hire consultants to help me with those kind of things. But I've never heard a business owner be really excited and happy about their funnel. So sometimes I wonder, I just wonder if that's a bit of an overrated advice, this idea of some of the B2C marketing strategies and the way you funnel people in and send them here and there and get them to click. So much of that is predictable and also out of our control. So I'm just not sure how strong that advice is.

Kevin Yee 27:45

Last question for you, Jen. How can people find you and connect with you?

Jennifer Matthews 27:49

Absolutely. So move strongmethod.com is our website. Our socials are at move strong method on Instagram, Facebook, soon to be TikTok, because I'm a late adopter. Sorry, people, I'm coming, I swear. Jennifer Matthews, right, through LinkedIn, and we also have a company page on LinkedIn for Move Strong Method. And keep an eye out for the blog. The blog will be posted on LinkedIn and then eventually on the website. Really, one of our first efforts towards again that sense of accessibility and really supporting people, day-to-day skills that they can use and jump into and get their feet wet in and start helping and supporting themselves.

Kevin Yee 28:19

Well, Jen, I just want to say thank you so much for sharing all your stories, your best investments, your worst investments, your thoughts about funnels. But also that last part. I wish I wrote that down Zach quote that you said, but essentially, like we need people just to like show up as themselves and whatnot. That's the general gist I got.

Jennifer Matthews 28:37

The world needs you to be who you are.

Kevin Yee 28:40

The world needs you to be who you are.

Jennifer Matthews 28:42

The world needs you to be who you are. You will all be missing something if you're not using it.

Kevin Yee 28:48

And I think that's a really, really great reminder when we're in that stress response too, like that you were talking about earlier. And so I just want to thank you just for the work you do, and thank you just for sharing your wisdom on this podcast as well, Jen. So thank you.

Jennifer Matthews 29:02

My pleasure. Thanks so much for having me, Kevin. I really appreciate it.

Davis Nguyen 29:06

That's it for this episode of Career Coaching Secrets. If you enjoyed this conversation, you can subscribe to YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to this episode to catch future episodes. This conversation was brought to you by Purple Circle, where we help career coaches scale their business to seven and eight figures without burning out. To learn more about Purple Circle, our community, and how we can help you grow your business, visit JoinPurpleCircle.com.