Ep #40: When Coaching Meets Parenting with Michelle Runnels

Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills, episode 40.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Hello coach, welcome. I have such a treat for you today. I am having a conversation with my incredible client, Michelle Runnels. She is a coach for moms and she is brilliant. I cannot wait for you to hear all of the things Listen, if you are a parent or if you are a mom, you are going to love this. And if you’re not, you might have a good laugh.

Michelle is hilarious. We had so much fun. Just a little warning, might want to pop some headphones in if you have kids listening. It’s not super graphic or anything. But she does spoil some parenting secrets, so if your kids are listening you might not want them to know some of your secrets.

And she’s hilarious, again, so brilliant. I just love her. This conversation is so fun. And I want to be really clear before we get started here that Michelle is specifically a coach for moms. She works with all types of clients.

But the reason I’m saying that is a lot of what we talk about in this podcast, we talk about a lot of the moms that she works with and her own experience. So we are not saying that what she is saying is everyone’s experience. We fully understand that everyone has their very own experience. And she just works with a specific type of client.

So I just want to throw that out there before we get started. Because we talk about motherhood a lot through the lens and parenting through the lens of how it is for us. We know that that is not the case for everyone, and I can fully appreciate that.

I think no matter who you are, no matter where you are in your life, no matter where you are in your parenting journey or not, or have no desire to be a parent, you will love Michelle. She is so funny. I think you’ll get a lot out of this conversation either way. And enjoy.

Lindsay: Hello, I am so excited you’re here. We’ve already been laughing, which I love. This is so fun. I’m going to just let you first introduce yourself, tell people what you do. I have been waiting to do this interview with you, have this conversation, and today’s the day. So let them know who you are and what you do.

Michelle: Yay, thank you Lindsay. I’ve been waiting for this day too, so it’s a mutual love fest. My name is Michelle Runnels, and I’m a parenting expert and life coach for moms. I coach moms with children of all ages, but kind of my specialty because I’ve created a proprietary parenting toolkit is for moms with tween, teen, college age, and even full-on adult kids.

I started parent coaching and teaching parenting when my youngest, who’s now 19, was two and a half, three. And those tools worked for me until my oldest turned 13. And then we just started having an awful relationship. And I doubled down on the tools I knew to use because I believed they would last me forever. And our relationship just got worse.

And the tools were firm but kind, but they also were focused on the time in life where you’re training a child, skills, and boundaries, and character. Like what it means to be generous, and kind, and responsible. And it turns out my daughter had already learned all of that. So I needed a new set of tools to parent her through the emerging adulthood phase and then into young adulthood.

And just none of the books I found explain that. They just told you, “This is what neuroscience is.” Which I love. I’m such a brain nerd and psychology nerd and just everything nerd. But in the end when I would look for the parenting tool, it would just be, “Have more conversations, have more family meetings, be more flexible.” And I just thought none of that was working.

So I just created a proprietary parenting toolkit. And a few years ago, I niched down just to coach moms. Because I feel our experience is really unique.

Lindsay: Yes, oh my gosh. Okay, so the first thing I’m going to say is I literally remember the day your application came in for my mastermind. You applied to be in my mastermind, you’re now in the second round of my mastermind.

Michelle: Yes, love it.

Lindsay: It’s so great, I love having you. And I remember your application coming in. And just that morning I had had this conversation with my, she’s now almost 12-year-old daughter. And I remember sitting down at my desk because she was doing virtual school for a while. Quite a while throughout last year. And her and I are very similar in some ways, but as all parents and kids, very different in other ways.

And I remember having this conversation with her feeling so frustrated, sitting down at my desk thinking, “What am I even doing? Do I even know how to parent?” I felt very confident parenting my young kids. Having an almost 12-year-old is a very different experience. And I don’t love her any less, but I feel a lot of times more confused than I ever have.

And it just so happened that day we had kind of a disagreement about something. Something was due, I got an email from the teacher, she hadn’t turned – You know, just like this whole thing. And we had a conversation and she was mad at me and I was probably mad at her.

And I sat down at my desk and I opened my emails. And I read your application and my first thought was, “I hope she joins my mastermind, but also I’m just going to put this in my back pocket because I’m going to need it someday.”

And so I just want to start there and say, I think the work you do, just because this is a phase I’m in in my life and coming into and I already know, I can see where it’s going to be tricky. I’m so grateful that there are people like you. That are like, “This is my work. This is what I want to do. And this is what I want to help people with.”

Michelle: Thank you so much. Yeah, I love it. It’s so hard. I was there, I mean, obviously. And it’s lonely. It’s a really lonely place to be. And in moments like you had, I’m not obviously trying to tell your experience, but when I was in situations like that it’s a mixture of frustration, and anger, and then shame, and guilt, and confusion.

And then, at least for me, it’s just this overwhelming sense of sadness. Because you feel so much like you’re losing something precious. And at the same time, you just want to smack them in the butt.

Lindsay: Yes.

Michelle: And by the way, I don’t advocate hitting. That’s part of the frustration is you’re like, “I just want to hit you, but I don’t.” I don’t hit. How can you bring this awful thing out in me? Now I am even more ashamed.

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s such a weird, on one side it’s like I love you more than literally anything on this earth. And also, I like hate your face right now.

Michelle: Absolutely.

Lindsay: It’s like such a both sides. So one thing I want to ask before we dive into some of the other stuff, just to clarify, because I have seen, I have worked with a lot of coaches, I know a lot of different kinds of coaches. And when you work with moms, do you work with them on how to parent or do you work with them on how to be themselves while parenting?

I think there’s kind of two sides, or maybe both, right? But I’ve just seen both in this space where it’s like they are parenting coaches that are like, “Let me teach you how to parent. Let me give you advice. Let me coach you on parenting.” And then there’s the other side, which is like, “Let me show you how to be you, help you be you while you’re being a parent.”

Michelle: B. Awesome B. I’m primarily a life coach for moms. And I bring my parenting expertise in to make the load of parenting easier.

I started out being a parent coach for moms. And as I got more and more clients and did more and more intake sessions, I realized that their relationships with their kids, they weren’t rating those very low. It was other things, like their physical wellbeing, their friendships, their relationship with their partners, or a lack of relationship with their partners. Their spiritual lives, their interests, them being passionate about something.

What I discovered was that what happened to me, I had put so much of the responsibility for my own sense of purpose and happiness on my children, on my relationship with my children, that when all of that started to change, I was left with nothing. Nothing that gave me pleasure, gave me a sense of being important, or precious, or cherished, or appreciated, or loved, or any of that.

And I kind of equate it to heroin or something. Having a child run to you when you come through the door is a quick hit.

Lindsay: Yes.

Michelle: Right? It’s a quick hit. You’re just like amazing, you’re wonderful. This beautiful thing is coming to you thing saying, “You think I’m beautiful, I think you’re beautiful!” And it’s like, “I want you more than anybody else.”

And I tell my clients, like when our kids are little, we dream of getting our time back. We’re like, “Oh my gosh, I’m going to get time, I’m going to get time. And when I have my time back, I’m going to do all of these things again.”

But what happens is, we don’t get our time back. Our children take our time like a piece of paper, wad it up and throw it at us like, “Here, take it back.” And then they close the door in our face. And you’re like, “What? What? Wait, but this is yours.”

All those dreams of getting it back, it’s like we forgot. Like when we were pre-children most of us knew how to manage, and enjoy, and relish a life brimming with time. Like just time, it was just time and time and time. And then here we are with children, especially when they turn into the age of your daughter, right, 10, 11, 12, 13, depending on when this all happens. And we have this extra time and we go, “Whoa, whoa, wait a second. Where’s the joy? Bring me some of that joy.”

Lindsay: What do I do now?

Michelle: Right, like you’re the purveyor of joy, get back out here. Come out here. And then we pull them out of their rooms, and we’re like, “Now plop your butt down. Bring me my joy.” And they’re like, “Why am I here?”

Lindsay: All you get is an eye roll.

Michelle: Yeah, exactly. So I help women find their center again. Like find that space where they’re thoroughly planted in their own lives, and grounded in being here. So that then they can start to create a life that isn’t just based on feeling good. You know, feeling purposeful. It’s grounded in the real-world reality, tangible reality.

Lindsay: Yes, I love that so much. Although I, of course, appreciate anyone who is a parenting coach and who helps people parent their kids, probably because this is where I am right now. It’s like, “Oh, I just relate to that so much when I hear you say that.” I can already see, like my daughter specifically, I remember she used to think I was the funniest human that ever lived. And now, only eye rolls. That is all I get. I mean I get a chuckle every once in a while. And I chalk that up to like, huge win.

Michelle: Right, absolutely.

Lindsay: But I’m going to have to find other people that think I’m funny because she’s not filling up my laughter bucket anymore. Just eye rolls.

Michelle: That’s right. Absolutely, that’s exactly what happened with me. I could be so hilarious. I was like a circus act to my kids, and then I became a clown.

Lindsay: Yes, not in a good way, right?

Michelle: Not in a good way. And sometimes even the creepy clown. Like, “Ew, mom.” Like, “Ew, don’t ask me that.” Yeah, it’s a huge transition.

Lindsay: My daughter’s favorite thing to say to me is, “Ew, don’t be creepy.” Like what? Wait, hold on. I was just asking for a hug. Or I was just, whatever, fill in the blank. Anything that comes after that and she just shrugs like, “Yep, creepy.”

Michelle: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you’re like, “I thought we had a relationship. And now I’m creepy lady?” And it’s like, “Do you not understand I wiped your butt? Do you not understand that? Because I literally wiped your butt. So if you think that what I just did was creepy, let’s talk about what you used to need me to do and asked me to do. Let’s talk about that.”

Lindsay: I like this. Is this part of your tips? Is this like, I should start bringing this up more often, “Do you remember when I wiped your butt?” This is what you help parents with?

Michelle: Chapter three, page one, let’s make a list of all the disgusting things you ever did for your children. Chapter four, vomit.

Lindsay: You think I’m creepy now, just wait.

Michelle: Just wait, just wait. Yeah.

Lindsay: So good. Okay, so all joking aside, I know we’re joking about this because it just is like so real when you’re in it. Sometimes all I can do is just laugh about it and say like, “Yep, this is just where we are. I just have a teenager. She’s turning into a teenager, it’s going to be fine.”

But tell me about this for you. When you worked through this –

Michelle: Oh my god.

Lindsay: You’re like, “Wait, I didn’t sign up for this. What is this, a coaching session?”

Michelle: No, no, I’m like flashing back, yeah.

Lindsay: Actually, let’s rewind a little before that. So tell me about how did you become a coach? What training do you have? I think because you have some very specific training that most people I work with don’t have.

Michelle: Yeah.

Lindsay: So let’s just start there and then we’ll move into how you kind of switched into doing this.

Michelle: Okay. So, just like skipping a stone across all of it, I became a certified parenting instructor and coach after taking a parenting class when my oldest was not even three and I was pregnant with my second one. And I loved it so much. It totally shifted my reality; it shifted my mindset. That was the very first time I experienced mindset work.

And it wasn’t that it was coaching, it was that I was having aha moments all the time about how shifting your paradigm can shift your experience, and shift who you are when you come to the situation. And I was just able to bring so much more patience, and peace, and a real sense of curiosity, to the entire spiritual, psychological heart-based act of being a mom.

Being a mom is like throw every job into a box, and that’s being a mom. Everything, everything at all. And any specialty, you know, even medicine. You throw that in there, that’s who we are.

Lindsay: Oh yeah.

Michelle Right, like it’s everything. And so I had my second child. When she was about two and a half, I had resolved early on that I wanted to get certified as a parent educator through the group that I went to. So that group was called Redirecting Children’s Behavior, based on a book. It’s an awesome thing.

So I did that for a while. And then I actually went and got a degree in spiritual psychology. It was a two-year program, and a component of that was coaching. And the way that we did our coaching was that we practiced in trios.

So there was what we called the facilitator, who was the coach. There was a client, who was the client. And then we had a neutral observer. And the goal of the neutral observer was to sit there and practice. And we would rotate, so everyone got a role when we would have our coaching sessions as a big room full of people. We’d make these little groups, so everyone had the opportunity to be coached, coach, but also to learn how to just hold space and observe a moment with neutrality.

Be able to just without any obligation, to just learn how to be present and watch humans being humans and having human interpretations. And the only work that you were doing was to create a container. You were kind of there creating this space. It wasn’t necessary, it was just a role that’s really important to move in and out of, I believe, as a coach, but also when you’re getting coached.

I feel that the ability to like look at your own life with a neutral lens, even if you decide, “Yeah, screw that I’m going to judge shit out of it.” You know, it’s like the ability to just even for a moment to pause and be like, “Crap, okay. All right, I get it. I’m contributing. Fine.” Even if it’s with that attitude.

So we did that. And then I graduated from my program in 2014, with a master’s in spiritual psychology. Just to say, like, spiritual psychology isn’t religious psychology. It’s very similar to positive psychology, if anybody knows positive psychology. Which is just answering the basic, foundational human questions like, why am I here? What is my purpose? What makes me happy? How do I live a fulfilled life? What does that look like? Why do bad things happen? And questions like that.

And then I discovered the Life Coach School through a friend from that program, and started listening to Brooke. And then I discovered Stacy Boehman, through Brooke and join 2K. And then I discovered you through Stacey Boehman, and now I’m in my second round of masters.

Lindsay: I love it. And so at what point in that journey did you decide I’m shifting from – You know, you said you made a shift from the tools that you originally learned into like, “No, I need to make some changes here. I need to kind of create some of my own things.” When was that? And what did that look like?

Michelle: So in terms of parenting, that looked like 9, 10 years ago. My oldest is now 22. So that would have been when she was 12, or 13. So it’s 9 or 10 years ago is when I really started saying I need to really shift my perspective on what it means to parent through adulthood, forever, more.

I believe that there’s a line before puberty that requires a certain set of tools and perspectives and paradigms. And then puberty forward, all the way to the end, it’s a completely different mindset. And so that’s when I started really developing the paradigms, the tools, mindset tools for parenting.

But it wasn’t until, really, I started doing Zoom and really started shifting into not working with groups and stuff like that. Because I would do groups of moms, I spoke a lot at schools, I spoke a lot at events. I was doing a lot more group stuff, teaching. And a component of my teaching, coaching when people were struggling with understanding the benefit of the paradigm, or why they should change at all. You know how it would benefit them to change at all.

Because moving out of the authoritarian mindset into something that’s a little bit more collaborative is a really threatening thing to do. It feels scary. And so it was with Zoom, when I was doing more one on one that I realized, “Wow, I just want to coach people. And I want to give them parenting tools as a way to augment their entire experience of what it means to be a mom.”

Lindsay: I love that.

Michelle: Yeah.

Lindsay: When you think about being a parent, and building a coaching business, and doing it through your kid’s teenage years. I’m just thinking for people listening who are like, “Yeah, that’s me. I am in that space and sometimes I find it very hard.”

Sometimes I hear, “I’m having a hard time spending this time on my coaching business when my head is over here thinking about my kids.” Thinking about what should I be doing as a mom, as a dad, as a whoever is listening, right? Like, just as a parent. What has your experience been? How do you see it creating a positive effect for your kids?

Michelle: Oh wow, that is a great question.

Lindsay: It’s something that I think about a lot because sometimes I’m like, “Listen, I just have to find the good in this because this is going to pay off in the end. But right now, it just feels really hard.” So it’s like this is just coming from an experience of, whether they have little kids or older kids, I think there is a piece of it, where it’s like, “Oh, but I have to spend all my time over here, devoting all my time to my kids.”

And what I hear you saying is, it turns out maybe that isn’t true and there is life outside of just being a parent. But that can also benefit your kids.

Michelle: Okay.

Lindsay:  Just go into all of it.

Michelle: I’m going to give you the long answer.

Lindsay: Yes.

Michelle: So when the earth was – No, I’m not going to go that far back.

Lindsay: Perfect, love it.

Michelle: But I am going to go back to like the days of loincloths and caves.

Lindsay: Yeah, I love a loincloth, let’s do it.

Michelle: So when we women have children that we care for, and I don’t care if it’s that we birthed them ourselves, or that we have made a decision to become a mother. So not that perhaps you’ve married into a family with kids, and you just are kind of having a peripheral relationship with what you see as someone else’s children. I mean, you can obviously feel this way too, but for sure with people who decided they wanted to become mothers.

Lindsay: Yes, because this is who you speak to. These are your people.

Michelle:  These are my people.

Lindsay: Yes, not to diminish anyone else’s experience. This is just your expertise.

Michelle: Absolutely. And I can, of course, coach parents who have children that they’re in peripheral relationships with. And I know I’ve been talking a lot about tweens and teens, but I also coach parents with kids of all ages.

But when we say we’re going to be parents and we have children, as women, it triggers a ferocity in us. A ferocity that scares the shit out of us. It scares the crap out of us. It goes against everything that we, as women –

And I know I’m going to go against how a lot of people feel that a lot of how we subjugate is about culture, acculturation. But I have a nature nurture relationship with that, because I believe that there’s more power in it if we think that it’s something that we’re programmed to do, as opposed to something that’s imposed on us.

And I’m a firm believer in that when we were in loincloths in caves, that we are programmed as the breeder of the species to protect our bodies. Boys were running off getting dragged off by dingoes and bears, and falling out of trees, and like falling off cliffs, and accidentally killing each other. And it’s like, “Oh, it’s okay. Let the boys die, we just need two create a whole tribe.”

But you don’t need just two women to create a whole tribe. You need 10 women, 15 women, 20 women to create a whole tribe. Which is why if you just look at our propensity, guys will punch each other take each other down in a moment. That’s how they are violent and aggressive with each other. Women don’t default to punching each other in the face and kicking each other in the stomach.

Lindsay: Usually.

Michelle: Usually, sometimes, but that’s not our natural default. We use relationships as a weapon. We roll our eyes, we use the silent treatment, we gossip, we ignore, we push out. That is how we perpetuate our sense of dominance. This is how we create stratification, a hierarchy. We use relationship as a weapon, because it protects our body.

Here we are, we are showing other women who’s on top. And meanwhile, we are there available to perpetuate the species. So in a sense, we are programmed to be in other people’s good graces for multiple reasons. First of all, because relationships are the way, just like guys pump iron, and I know we do to. Remember I’m in the cave, I’m not at 24 Hour Fitness.

Lindsay: Big difference.

Michelle: Big difference. Like the guys are running after the mastodons. And the women are picking the berries. And we’re there, and we want women to keep us from picking the poisonous berries. We want them to share the berries with us. We want them when they walk away, and we’re out at one of the far-flung bushes, we want them to call our name so we’re not left alone.

And we’re programmed to do that not because we’re the weaker sex, but because we’re there to protect our bodies. We need our bodies to procreate. So there is a programming we have that says, “Make people like you. Make sure that they want you. Make sure that you’re part of the group. Make sure that if you’re missing, they’ll notice you. Don’t piss anybody off.”

And so when you put that together with how we use relationship as aggression, it creates this stew, to keep with the metaphor, the stew that comes off the stove at puberty.

Did you hear what I did there with the stew?

Lindsay: Yeah, it’s so good.

Michelle: It was a bad metaphor, I should have chosen something else. But at puberty is when all this stuff kicked in. So at puberty, it’s when you see these girls who used to be wearing their hair however they want, and loving rainbows, and not caring who does what. And all of a sudden, they care what everybody thinks all the time. And they are in their bedroom crying because they think they said the wrong thing, or because a text nowadays didn’t come in.

Lindsay: Do you live in my house? What’s happening?

Michelle: And this is the way, right now these are the formative years where we decide what it means to interact. And we start programming ourselves. Like neuro scientifically the hippocampus is taking all of these files, which is like, “She didn’t text me back. And then she wasn’t my friend.” Okay, let’s put that file away. Now we know what not getting texted back means.

And they’re filing all of these experiences. And we did as kids too. So there’s a lot of programming that goes on. But when you’re a child, a lot of that programming is done more magical. Kind of like that’s why it’s so easy to believe in – Moms, I’m about to say it – the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause, because that magical thinking, right?

Magical thinking about what goes on in your home. Bad things can happen, good things can happen. And children take these beliefs that until they’re uncovered you don’t realize that you believed that car doors were scary thing because your coat got caught in it one time and you got yelled at. You know, it’s just random. I know I’m rambling on this.

Lindsay: No, that’s okay. Keep going. I love it.

Michelle: It’s like nerd excitement here.

Lindsay: I want to pause you for a second, and I just have to say, doing the last few interviews that I’ve done, really from the beginning of when I’ve started having conversations with people on the podcast. I just am always amazed by the people that I attract into my mastermind. I’m like, you are all geniuses who know so many things that I don’t know. That I am just like, “Tell me more.” I am a nerd 100%, if you guys haven’t figured this out yet. And love science, science is my jam. I love math.

So talking about this, to me feels like there’s this piece over here where we’re coaching people. And it’s here are some coaching tools, and we use them. But then there’s this whole other world of actual science, actual data, of all the things psychology, you know, everything. Chemicals in our bodies, all the other things that go into it. And I think when I have people like you on and you’re like, “I’m sorry, I’m just going on.” I’m like, “No, please keep going.”

Because I think these things are so important to think about when it’s like, there’s so much more to coaching than just like you have a thought and it creates a feeling. And now what are your results? Right?

Michelle: Absolutely.

Lindsay: Now, that’s such a useful tool. I’m not diminishing the use of that tool at all.

Michelle: Oh, no, it’s a foundational tool.

Lindsay: It’s just so important to know there’s this whole other world of science, of all of the things, that plays so much into this. And so I think it’s beautiful. Keep going. Do you even remember where you are? Because I definitely interrupted you.

Michelle: Thank you. Oh, gosh no, you didn’t interrupt you.

So we were at puberty.

Lindsay: Perfect.

Michelle: What happens is, in puberty, when our bodies are saying, you’re becoming a woman. This is when your body is going to be valuable to the species, right?

Lindsay: Are you giving me the talk right now? I feel like, “Okay, mom, and then what?”

Michelle: And then one day you’ll like a boy, or a girl.

Lindsay: Everything changes from there.

Michelle: That’s so funny.

Lindsay: All right, I just had to go there because it just felt like, “And then, one day your body changes.”

Michelle: And you’ll see a hair. And please wear deodorant because you’ll smell really bad.

Lindsay: Oh boy, that’s a conversation in my house every single day. Boy moms, listen, you think it’s just you. It is not, I promise.

Michelle: Yes, oh my god. And wait until your whole car smells like kid, when it’s like the shoes come off. Kids change so much, they stop even smelling good. Everything just changes.

Lindsay: Not like cute little kid, like, “I played outside all day” smell. But like, “What is that smell?” smell.

Michelle: Oh my god. Okay, so my daughter does not listen to your podcast, I’ve got to say, my second one, who’s amazing, when she was in middle school and high school, before she could drive, she would sit in the back of my car and take off her cleats because she played lacrosse and ran cross country, different seasons. She would take off her cleats, and I knew if she took off her socks.

Lindsay: Oh yeah.

Michelle: She would be in the backseat and I would be like, “You took off your socks, put them back on.” My whole car smelled like nasty foot. So if you think girls smell good, no, they don’t.

Lindsay: Not true.

Michelle: You’re not going to get around it.

Lindsay: Nope.

Michelle: I don’t know, sugar and spice, I don’t think so.

Lindsay: That is a lie that we were told when we had girls.

Michelle: It was a lie when they kept us in little rooms and made us play piano so we wouldn’t sweat.

Lindsay: That’s right.

Michelle: The minute we broke a sweat it’s like, “Whoa, open a window!”

Lindsay: Okay, back on track. I’m just going to keep distracting you and making you say funny things.

Michelle: I love it. I love you. So if this is a four-hour conversation, I’ll be happy.

Lindsay: I love it.

Michelle: So, then what happens is that while guys need to get stronger, girls are programmed to become really adept at their superpower. Which isn’t muscle and strength and speed. It’s being able, and I use this word on purpose, to manipulate other people’s experience of us.

Because the more we can manipulate other people’s experience of us, the more that we can know that we’re included, we’re safe, we’re liked. We’re going to be, and this is again primal programming, protected by the group. We’re going to be allowed in the cave. We’re going to be called back. We’re going to be surrounded. People are going to care.

And so we spend, starting from puberty and definitely like when adolescents really kicks in women, young women, start spending 90% of their time and energy and the superpower ability they have to be really, really mature and skilled in relationships, trying to control what other people experience of them. So they can see on their faces approval or happiness. So that then they can feel, we can feel safe and good about ourselves.

And so we use all of this energy to say what we need to say, do what we need to do, all of this stuff so that people approve of us. And so with my clients, and I’m going to say this and then I’m going to come back to this. When I ask them, “So what’s going on?” It’s about feelings. It’s about I want them to be nice to me. Why isn’t it easier to get them to agree?

All of these feelings and desires that are about being received well, being thought of well, being heard, being responded to. And one of the things I like to do with my clients, which is my goal, is to have them start to recognize how they’re using their superpower for bad instead of good by trying to do all of these gymnastics to get the PTA people to think well of them.

To make brownies, and they hate baking. And then they do it and then literally it’s like a woman will give them five outs, right? “So I know you’re really busy, if you don’t mind, would you mind making three dozen brownies for the fall festival that’s coming up? Like we really need it, and if you don’t mind.”

So there are like three or four outs in that request. And we say, “Sure, I’ll do it.” And then we turn around and we’re like, “Why did that bitch ask me again?” And we’re like, “I hate baking.” And we turn around and we don’t want to do it. And the only reason we said yes was to control their opinion. So instead of saying –

Lindsay: This is so powerful, so powerful. I need everyone to just stop for a second. Every person that’s listening, I don’t care if you’re male or female, I don’t care who you are in the world, you’re doing this somewhere. I do think women are especially programmed to do this. But just let that sink in. You can say no to the brownies. Pretty sure I said this in the first ever public speaking thing I did as a coach. I talked about the PTA and cookies. I was like, “It’s just a no for me.”

Michelle: Absolutely. So instead of saying, “You know what? Brownies, I don’t really bake. Is there something else I can do?” We just say yes. Because we assume that that’s the crux of the relationship. And so I don’t believe that, you know, there are all these things, say no more. I don’t believe that that’s the answer.

In my coaching I say there’s yes and there’s no. And the opposite of both of those is where we want to land, which is I want. I want, and most of us don’t know what we want. We know what we want to feel. We know what we want other people to think of us. We know what we want other people to start or stop doing. But we don’t know what we want, like in physical world reality, what does it look like? What do we want?

And so one of the things that I like to do in my practice is to boil it down to the I want because that 80, 90% of our energy that we spend trying to control people’s opinions of us. If we just took that time and took 90% of our energy and decided what we wanted, what we want. What do I want? We wouldn’t need any of that and then 10% of it would be used to control people’s opinion of us when it matters. When it gave us what we wanted.

Not to manipulate like lie, but to manipulate how they’re feeling to get what we want so we know what we’re doing. As opposed to feeling used, and exploited, and taken advantage of, and ignored, and invisible, and overwhelmed, and so invaluable we can’t say no. We are just like, “This is what I want. Let me negotiate that with you and then we can get what we want.”

Lindsay: I love it. How have you had to use this, like your own coaching on yourself in your coaching business, building a coaching business?

Michelle: Oh my god. So I call it the plate. For me, my big aha moment was when I would get so upset when my kids wouldn’t put their plates in the dishwasher. And I would be like, “Your plate is on the table.” “Yeah, I’ll get to it.” And I’m like, “No, no, no, now.” “I’ll get it.” “Okay, when?” “After this show or after my homework.”

And then I’d come in at like 10 o’clock at night, and the plate was still there. And I’d get so mad. And I would go to my kids and I would literally start the fight about the plate. And they would be like, “What’s wrong with you?” And then I would start. I’d be like, “I can’t believe you’re being so irresponsible, it’s just a plate.” And they’re like, “Yeah, it’s just a plate.” And I’m like, “What? It’s more than a plate!” It was like, no longer just a plate. And then, of course, I had to like take a moment with myself and say, “What was that?”

And I realized that my pattern was that I don’t like a lot of what it means to run a household, to be a mom, to be a woman with a family. I like them as people. I like that. And I like having a house and having a vehicle and having food. But there is a lot I never wanted to admit to myself I absolutely hate, hate about this job.

And I discovered it with myself and I find it over and over and over and over and over again with my clients that other people complaining triggers them so much. Because they don’t complain, they just scream on the inside.

Like when the kids walk in and you’re filling the dishwasher. They’re like, “There’s mom, she’s filling the dishwasher. She loves to put the dishes in the dishwasher.” Meanwhile we’re like, “Oh my god, how many more years do I have of this? When can I get out of here? Can I just leave? Will Child Protective Services take my kids away if I disappear?”

And they’re like, “Oh, there’s mom’s cooking. She loves to cook.” And even like little things like, “What do you guys want for dinner?” Look at mom, she likes to make us happy. It’s like, “No, I’ve run out of ideas. I don’t know what to cook anymore. Someone tell me what to cook.”

So we’re not saying that. We’re not saying, “I don’t like doing this, I need help. I don’t like doing this, that’s why I’m asking you to do it. I don’t want to do this. I don’t like it either.” Nobody likes it. Nobody wants to load the dishwasher. Nobody wants to empty the dishwasher. The first two dinners I make every week, okay, but after that I’m bored. I don’t want to do it.

And so we get into this thing where we think everyone knows we’re suffering. But no one knows we’re suffering because what happens is, we see the plate on the table and instead of saying, “I don’t like loading other people’s dishes.” We say there’s something wrong with you. And then it’s like, “What’s up with you? Why are you so mad?”

And what we really are thinking is, “This is endless place, go in the cabinet, plates come out of the cabinet into the dishwasher, out of the dishwasher. It’s an endless cycle. I want help with this endless cycle. I do not like this endless cycle, it’s mind numbing. I need you guys involved.” We say, “You are lazy. You are irresponsible. You don’t care about me. I’m your servant.” We make it about them because we don’t know what we want.

I don’t think I answered your question.

Lindsay: You didn’t really, but I feel like that was the setup for the answer. And it’s so good, I feel like I’m just getting my own coaching right now. I’m like, “Right, it’s not about just getting them to put the plate in the dishwasher. It’s also just telling them I actually also don’t like to put the plate in the dishwasher.” Just maybe it’s something we just learned to, like let’s be responsible humans maybe.

Michelle: Right.

Lindsay: Which is just so different than like, “How dare you leave your plate on the counter.”

Michelle: Yeah. And when kids get to be a certain age, they don’t want to be trained anymore because they already know the skills. They don’t need training. They need a reason, a good reason to do the stuff.

And so I guess that was the answer I’m thinking, I was like rewinding. When I realized that, when I took the plate and I just dissected it all I realized like, whoa, like this is huge. It’s not just about the fight. It’s about me and my relationship to all of this mom thing.

And I was just like, I want to revolutionize the idea of what it means to be a mother. I want to revolutionize it. I want women to understand that they can say, “I don’t like running a household. I like my house when it’s clean, I don’t like cleaning it. I like dinner when it’s made, I don’t like making it. I like laundry when it’s in my drawers or in my closet. I don’t like washing it and folding it and sorting it. I don’t like it.”

But somewhere along the line, like in the 50s when they made dishwashers and toasters, housework stopped being work. It started being like, “Oh, you’re on vacation so now you can’t complain.” You know, like when the potbelly stove went away and you could buy bread in a bakery. It’s like suddenly, everything we do at home is supposed to be easy, and it’s just a freaking lie. Manifesto.

Lindsay: That’s so good. I’m just over here, you guys, no one can see me, but I’m just nodding my head and just like, “Yes!” I think I was very fortunate because I noticed this very early about myself that like, wait a minute, turns out, this isn’t my job. This isn’t my dream job.

I’ve talked about this on the podcast before. I have two girls when I first had them it just was like my mind was telling me, “You have to be good at everything you do.” So there’s that side of it, right? And then the other side was just screaming like, “But not this because I hate it.”

But I loved so many things about it. But when I decided to stay home with my kids, I tried that out for a couple years. I’m very open and honest about I think that is the hardest job that there ever can be. But I also know –

I’m going to bring you back to the question because I don’t think you ever fully answered it. Which is perfect, because everything you said was amazing.

Michelle: Sorry.

Lindsay: No, it’s perfect. I don’t want you to change anything you just said. But when you decided to kind of go all in on your coaching business and really just own like, “I’m going to be a coach. I still have these kids; I’m still raising kids. I’m still a mom.” Was that hard for you? Or at that point was it just like, “Here I am, I’ve already done all the work and now I know exactly what to do.” Or are there still days you have to work through your roles in all of it?

Michelle: So, when I first began, I had to do a lot of sorting. Now, my girls are 19 and 22, so they’re pretty independent. But when I first started doing the coaching part of it, really kind of doing the group stuff and the coaching, one of the things that I really decided I wanted was a story I was proud of to share with my kids.

Because a lot of what I showed up as to them was as their caregiver and the one who was involved in their life. And I wanted something outside of that, that I could talk to them about. And I’m so happy I did that because one of the tools that I offer to parents is this idea of, especially when your kids get older, is once we’ve taught our kids all the skills –

Like literally we would have our kids open their mouths and smell inside of their mouth to make sure they brushed their teeth, right? Is it minty or is it not? When they were first learning to wipe their bottoms, we would look. We would like look at their underpants, I mean come on. And homework, and were you nice, and their backpacks, all of that training.

But then there comes a time when, like I mentioned, they know all the skills. And one of the main parts of our transition in relationship is how do we bring ourselves? Because we become adult mentors. And a lot of times we keep trying to train, “Don’t do, that do this. What are you doing? Show me your homework.”

And what the stage really requires is us to talk about being adults. You know, like, “It took me five minutes to find a parking spot at the grocery store.” Really? Is that a long time? Yes, it is, person who’s never driven a car and tried to park before. Like stories from work.

One of the most interesting things is when I realized this idea of like, how do you get close? And I started testing it. The first time I tested this idea, which is like talk about yourself, I started talking about my work with my daughters.

And I was in the car driving them to school and I said to my girls, I was like, “Oh my gosh, I’ve got this big speaking engagement. And I really want to talk about the neuroscience of the teen brain. But it just gets a little boring, and I don’t know what to do. And I’m overwhelmed.”

And my daughter was like, “You’ll get it.” And I was like, “Well, it’s in two days, I’m stressed out.” And my oldest daughter said to me, sitting in the front seat, “Don’t worry, Mom, let me tell you a story.”

And she told me the story about, they had iPads in their school, about how she had gone to French class sat in, realized that she had forgotten to do a presentation. Normally, she was one of those kids who like to get it over with first. So she didn’t volunteer. She sat through the whole class. And while everyone else did their presentation she put her slides together on her iPad, went up to the front of the room at the end, did her presentation and got an A.

Now, the mom in me was like, “Correct this.”

Lindsay: You did it wrong.

Michelle: Right, danger, danger, bad child. But then I was thinking, I’m like, “How did this happen?”

Lindsay: It’s genius actually.

Michelle: Right, she’s talking about herself. I’m like, “Oh my God.” And my whole thing is with that I really got in that moment. Like I want to know who she is. And I saw, I’m like she’s resourceful. She’s able to pivot. She’s mentally tough. She didn’t panic. She’s creative. She’s centered, like I saw focus, I saw all of these qualities that I didn’t even know she really had developed, I just hoped.

And then when she told me, I was able to talk to her about it and be like, “Oh my gosh.” And ask her more questions. How did that go for you, blah, blah, blah? And then at the very end, I was able to say from a place of like regarding her with admiration, say, “You know, and there’s a lesson to be learned about that. You’re not going to let that happen again, right?” And she’s like, “No mom, it totally stressed me out.” End of the conversation.

And so I think that, for me, really validated the idea of like the value of work, if we stay out of the drudgery. The idea that it’s drudgery, you know, like we’re going to trudge along, of course, ho hum, repeating the same thing. Even coaches, right? Like what does that look like to you? Sometimes it feels like we can be asking the same questions 30 times a day.

But if you can find, as mothers, I’m speaking directly to that experience. If you can find the excitement in it, look at it with the fresh eyes of a kid who’s embarking on the beginnings of emerging as an adult. Where writing a check is like magic. Holding the keys to your car and sitting in the front seat is like, “Oh, command center!’  Like their heart rate goes up.

To be able to bring that. It’s so much easier, I think, to be able to bring your life outside the home to your children as a novelty, than to bring your life inside the home. Because it really weighs heavily. Like, “Oh, you know, I had to wash that shirt three times to get the chocolate out of it that I got on it.” That’s just not a great conversation. Inside the home is a skill that we experience.

So I would just say to moms who are struggling with, who am I in my career? To really see your career, not just as an opportunity to contribute to your family financially, but to really grow yourself as an example of what it is to be a fully expressed person outside of your home.

And that could mean if you consider volunteer work to be your service, your service to the world, your work, great. If you do other things as well. Even if you’re in the home and you’ve got a cool Etsy store and you’re crafting, you know, carve out time to do that. That’s the future of the conversation you’re going to have with your kids as they evolve. Because it is a freaking long road with kids, I’m telling you. I’ve got clients who complain about their 26-year-olds. So it’s a long road.

Lindsay: I will say just really quickly, and then I want to move on to my last question. I feel like this hour went so quickly. I will say to just agree with you that one of the things my almost 12-year-old loves to talk about the most is my business.

Like when we have conversations that aren’t about like, “Did you put on deodorant? Did you brush your teeth? Did you brush your hair today? What’s happening?” Like, remove all of those, she thinks that’s the coolest thing about me. She has questions. She asked me what coaching is. Her favorite question is, how much money have you made?

I mean, she loves money in a way that is like, not money like she loves to have all of the money. She just loves thinking about money. Like how much does something cost? How much do you pay for something?

It’s fascinating because we don’t talk about money a lot in my house. But for some reason, her brain, the way she thinks about money, I’m like, “Where did this come from? I do not know where you learned this.” It’s so interesting. And she’s always just so curious. So yeah, I mean, my business is really, to her, I think one of the most interesting things at this point, one of the most interesting things about me. So I’ll take that as a win. I like to talk about business too.

Michelle: you totally gave me chills.

Lindsay: Well, I always tell her, I’m like, “Listen, someday you’re going to be on my podcast and we’re going to talk about my business.” And she’s like, “Okay, but not today.” Because she has so many questions. I’m like wouldn’t this be a fun podcast? And she’s like, “No.”

Michelle: I’m not your one trick pony. You can’t use me.

Lindsay: Exactly. My younger daughter would be all about it. Like 20 minutes of fame, let’s do it. But my older daughter is like, “Absolutely not. That is not for me. I do not care to be on any type of platform like that.”

Okay, so let’s just talk quickly about so you have all of this background, you have all of this amazing knowledge, you are insanely smart. What made you apply for Coaching Masters? And how do you think it has helped in your business?

Michelle: Oh my god, I wish I had pulled up this email. The email that you sent out. I was playing with Coaching Masters, I almost got in the previous round and then I talked myself out of it. And then I was toying with doing the round that I did last time.

Lindsay: Can we just say, aren’t you just so glad that you didn’t? I just say this because I know you’ve become so close with some of the clients, my clients in Coaching Masters.

Michelle: Yeah.

Lindsay: I mean, I’m sure it would have been great also, but there’s just something about – There are a handful of you that I know have become very close and one of my biggest values and one of the things I think about a lot with coaching masters is community. And this just fills my heart so much when I know that everyone has someone, and you are so close with some of the people in there.

Michelle: Yeah, there’s nothing like your first round of Masters. That group was just, yeah.

Lindsay: That’s always true. For all the masterminds I’ve been in that is always true. There’s something about the first round that you’ll just remember forever.

Michelle: Absolutely, yeah. No, oh my gosh, yeah, I love them. You sent out an email, and I hate to say that, because I don’t do any email marketing. So I’m like, “It was the email that did it.”

Lindsay: Tell me more.

Michelle: I know, I wish had pulled it up. But I even said to you that you said something, there was one bullet point in the email that spoke directly to me. And if I had a better memory, I would still remember it.

Lindsay: I remember you telling me this. I haven’t thought about it until you just brought it up. It was an email, I only remember this because you have told me this before, where you said there was this one email. And I remember thinking, “I think my emails are terrible, so this is great news.”

Michelle: It was awesome.

Lindsay: And this was, what, like a year ago?

Michelle: Yeah, a year ago.

Lindsay: So I’ve worked on my thoughts about my email since then. But I think it was something like, “This is for you if…” And then there were a bunch of bullet points.

Michelle: Yeah.

Lindsay: And maybe one of them was something like, I don’t know, something along the lines of you love coaching but you dread getting on every coaching call because you’re not sure what to do. There was some form of there’s just some uncertainty in your brain about coaching. Like you know this is the thing for you but… But something and I can’t remember exactly what it was.

Michelle: This is your email, I’m just going to read it.

Lindsay: The whole thing?

Michelle: Well, just the bullet list.

Lindsay: Oh, I’m like, “Oh no.”

Michelle: It was awesome, though. So I read it and so this is what it says, “Here is how you know if this is for you.” Which I’m sorry, that’s awesome. That is perfect. I’m going to have to use that, I forgot how awesome this email was. I kept the email.

“You love being great at anything you do. You want every client to have the best experience and your coaching calls could feel fun. You want to get out of your head and know your calls are having an impact. You have learned some coaching techniques through certificate, blah, blah, blah.

You sometimes feel pressure or stress while coaching your clients thinking they aren’t getting it or that maybe you’re doing it wrong. You think your clients should have quick, huge breakthroughs on every single call, and if they don’t you think something has gone wrong.”

That, I think, was a huge thing for me. And we coached a lot on that on the first round I was in. “You love the idea of really understanding your clients and being better at speaking to them. You aren’t sure how you can grow your business when the coaching you’re doing already feels not so great. (because growing your business means feeling more of the not so great.)” That’s the one. That was it.

Lindsay: I need to find this email, I’m like dang, this is good.

Michelle: I’ll forward it to you. It was like, “Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, eh yes, oh my God that’s me, yes.” And then literally I was like, “Okay, that was it. Where’s my money coming from? I got to join.” That’s how it was like, boom.

And that’s the thing, I’ve told some people in this round when we’ve talked and done peer coaching and stuff like that. When they asked me why I did a second round I was like, “Well, the first round I wasn’t sure if I was a good coach.” I didn’t know. How do you know? I mean, I felt that way, like I had this little other version of myself judging myself all the time.

Oh my god, I’m getting emotional. Because I’m thinking of the group, I’m thinking of the group we were in. And like that whole container you’ve created, it just was like I was able to come in and come clean. And the space was held so beautifully by you. But then fucking A, it’s a room full of coaches. You could feel people holding the space for you when you would get coached. And people would send little chats and tell you. And it was awesome.

And so I left that mastermind having grown my business and having really observed my coaching with a completely different lens. And being like, “I’m changing lives here. I rock, I’m bringing something unique and that’s awesome.”

Like Sherry was in there, right? So was Jess. And Sherry does a lot of body stuff, Jess does EFT. There are other people who do other things. And I was just like I’m bringing something super unique and like my shit is cutting edge. Nobody has what I’ve got. I’m talking about women in a way other people don’t talk about women.

I’m teaching women tools that are going to explode this whole idea of the patriarchy because it’s basically going to be like it was a matriarchy all along, we just didn’t know what we wanted.

Lindsay:  Surprise!

Michelle: Surprise! All we need to do is be like, “I want. I want.”

Lindsay: So good.

Michelle: And there’s a really interesting thing I did with somebody recently where I was like think about, if a woman walked up to you that you kind of sort of knew, you know a PTA mom walked up to you and she said, “I want you to take me shopping.” Think about how you’d feel about that. And then if you had a man you knew peripherally, PTA guy, he’s like, “I want you to take me shopping.” Think about how you’d feel about that.

One, you’d feel controlled and bullied and told what to do. The other you’d feel flattered and like you’re special. That’s what we need to break. That’s not patriarchy. That’s our programming. Women saying what they want scares the shit out of us.

And especially mothers, because that ferocity we have when we have kids, it’s like, “I will take that kid’s sandwich away if my kid’s hungry.” Like, “I will take that kid’s spot on the varsity squad. Get rid of that kid, I want my kid in.” And that scares us because it goes against this whole programming to make other people like you.

So then what do you do? Would you like, literally, like, push another kid down so you can take that spot? And then meanwhile you want those parents to like you? What do you do then? How do you manage those feelings? And that’s part of the reason we stress out.

Anyway, that was an aside, of course. But then the second round I came into, and I’m like, “I’m going to do this now as an awesome coach.”

Lindsay: So fun.

Michelle: And I’m having a completely different experience. It’s a completely different experience this time around.

Lindsay: Yes. Still good, I hope.

Michelle: Oh my God, yeah. It’s like I’m sitting back, like my seat has my name on it now. Before I was like, “I’m borrowing a seat.” Now it’s like there’s a seat with my name on it. I’m sitting here with a bunch of coaches and the seat has my name on it.

Lindsay: Yes.

Michelle: I love coaching, you might have me forever.

Lindsay: Love it.

Michelle:  You’ll be like, “God, when is Michelle going to give up her seat?”

Lindsay: Absolutely not. Nope, that’s not a thing. You are welcome forever. I love it.

Okay, I say this, I feel like, with most guests. I say I feel like we could talk for another three hours. And I always hate to end it. But I want you to tell them, if they’re listening and they’re like, “Wait a minute, I need this in my life.” Of course I speak to mostly coaches, but coaches are also parents. And there are a lot of coaches out there who have lots of thoughts about themselves as parents, about their children, about mom’s, all of the things. How can they find you? How do you work with your clients? Whatever you want to say about that.

Michelle: Thank you. So you can find my website. It’s www.michellerunnels.com. And that’s R-U-N-N-E-L-S. And Michelle is E-L-L-E. So michellerunnels.com. And you can also look at my Facebook page. My Facebook page is currently Parenting-Daughters. But I’m not just coaching moms with daughters, I’m also coaching moms with sons. And, obviously, now we also have our kids who are non-binary or just trying to define themselves. I coach parents with children.

Lindsay: Love it.

Michelle: And then you can find me on Instagram @momcoachmichelle. So that’s me.

Lindsay: For anybody listening, those will all be linked in the show notes. You can definitely go to my website and find the links for all of the things.

Michelle: Yes, and I’m starting a podcast. And I think I’m going to call it When Mama Ain’t Happy.

Lindsay: I love it.

Michelle: Like when mama ain’t happy nobody’s happy. So I’m going to start that soon. You know I am, we’ve talked about it in Masters.

Lindsay: Yeah, and if anybody isn’t sure, and they were like, “I don’t know, I want to hear the podcast.” I’m sure it will be – If they come find you, they will see what you’re doing, right?

Michelle: Yeah.

Lindsay: So they can go to your website, find you on Instagram. Those are the two places I know mostly of you. I think your Instagram is fantastic.

Michelle: Thank you. Thank you, I’m new to that.

Lindsay: Any parents should just come look at your Instagram and see what you’re doing. See what you’re up to.

Michelle: Thank you, you’re so awesome.

Lindsay: I love it. Thank you so much for being here. This was so much fun. I appreciate you and I’ll see you in mastermind next week.

Michelle: Yes, definitely. And thank you for this privilege. I think you’re so awesome. And I appreciate the privilege of being able to do this. And I just love your mastermind so much. So if anybody is feeling that bullet list that I read, this for me at least was the answer.

Lindsay: I love that you did that. I love that it’s like a year old, and I was like, “Yeah, turns out that’s still what I do. That’s good.”

Michelle: It’s awesome. I kept the email.

Lindsay: It’s so great. I’m in a launch right now, so I’m going to have to just revisit this email. There’s someone out there that needs to hear it that hasn’t heard it yet.

Michelle: Absolutely, I’ll forward it to you.

Lindsay: Perfect. I love it. All right, thank you again. Thank you so much.

Michelle: Thank you.

Lindsay: Thank you so much for listening to that interview and conversation I had with Michelle. Wasn’t she so fun? I told you. I am glad you stuck through the whole thing. She is magic.

I just wanted a little bit of her to rub off on you, bring some fun into your business. Could you just feel how much fun she has? When she thinks about her business, and she thinks about what she does, and coaching her clients. Just let that rub off. If you’re not having fun in your coaching, why not?

For sure, come find me. I can help. It’s one of the things I do, I think, that I don’t talk about a lot. But this is one of the things that I do in coaching masters is I just really help my clients think about how can this be fun? Not that it’s not going to be very serious sometimes and that we’re not going to bring up some heavy emotions and do all the deep digging.

But when you think about your business and your experience of coaching your clients, I want you to have as much fun as Michelle is having. Okay, promise me? Perfect. All right. I will see you next week, bye.

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. see you next week.