What happens when your passion for helping others and a desire for accessible coaching collide? You create a business like Ama La Vida Coaching! Join us as we chat with CEO and founder Nicole Wood about her company's origin story, why she chose entrepreneurship over a traditional career transition, and how it impacted her family life.
Starting a business as a couple comes with its unique set of challenges, and Nicole shares her insights on navigating these hurdles. From setting expectations and managing competing demands to ensuring a strong and supportive relationship, we cover it all. Plus, we tackle the tricky task of balancing fear, business, and family – focusing on empathy, trust, and strategic investment in your entrepreneurial journey.
Finally, we explore strategies for staying anchored to your values while balancing work and family life. Discover how to create a shared value system that bridges individual priorities and keeps the focus on success, both personally and professionally. If you're a self-improver looking for guidance during life's transitions, Ama La Vida Coaching may be the perfect fit. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with Nicole Wood!
Do you have a successful business, but struggling family relationships? Then sign up for a FREE strategy session where we can help you develop a new future, plan, and processes for your family so you can enjoy spending time together and create meaningful moments for your children and spouse.
What happens when your passion for helping others and a desire for accessible coaching collide? You create a business like Ama La Vida Coaching! Join us as we chat with CEO and founder Nicole Wood about her company's origin story, why she chose entrepreneurship over a traditional career transition, and how it impacted her family life.
Starting a business as a couple comes with its unique set of challenges, and Nicole shares her insights on navigating these hurdles. From setting expectations and managing competing demands to ensuring a strong and supportive relationship, we cover it all. Plus, we tackle the tricky task of balancing fear, business, and family – focusing on empathy, trust, and strategic investment in your entrepreneurial journey.
Finally, we explore strategies for staying anchored to your values while balancing work and family life. Discover how to create a shared value system that bridges individual priorities and keeps the focus on success, both personally and professionally. If you're a self-improver looking for guidance during life's transitions, Ama La Vida Coaching may be the perfect fit. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with Nicole Wood!
Do you have a successful business, but struggling family relationships? Then sign up for a FREE strategy session where we can help you develop a new future, plan, and processes for your family so you can enjoy spending time together and create meaningful moments for your children and spouse.
Hello everyone, Welcome back to the Motional. Man podcast Today. I'm really excited to introduce you to Nicole Wood. She is the CEO and founder of Amalavida Coaching. I actually experienced this coaching while going through my executive MBA at WP Carey School of Business, and so it really is my delight and treat to be able to have her on the call today, since I really benefited from the leadership coaching I got. So welcome to the show, nicole, if you mind introducing yourself and Amalavida, and let's just start talking about the origin story behind your company.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me here. It's so fun that it gets a come full circle. So I started the company back in 2016. So we're going on our seventh year in business, and the idea actually came way before that, when I was working in consulting. I was figuring out that wasn't where I was going to stay forever, but I had absolutely no idea what I wanted to do next, and so I was grappling with that kind of quarter life crisis, as it's been called, where I was like, oh my gosh, is this what work is going to look like for the next 40 or so years? Is it possible to find something that is lucrative and can sustain a lifestyle that I want, but also much more personally fulfilling than the work I had done to date? And I really wasn't sure if that existed And I was doing nothing about it, and so, luckily, at the time I had been promoted and, as a promotion benefit through the firm, i was given my first leadership coach, and I had no clue what it was. I had very low expectations going into it because I was a little bit skeptical, but it was so powerful for me And I continued working with my coach, independent of my organization.
Speaker 2:She actually coached me through my first career transition and really just got me thinking why doesn't everyone have access to this? Why wouldn't I have sought this for myself? And there were many reasons for that. At the time, perception was, this is for the C-suite or this is really for the wellness space, and it didn't feel like there was a lot in between for young professionals that was approachable but also accessible and affordable. And so I teamed up with my co-founder, forum, who's an incredible coach herself, and she was like I want to build a coaching practice And I was like I want to build a business that can support all of these people I was seeing going through this experience, just like me, of what's next for me. And so that's what we did, and we started with career coaching and built leadership into that And now have about 50 coaches on our platform all across the country.
Speaker 1:And they are phenomenal coaches. I can just put in a plug there I really benefited from it. Now, one of the questions I like asking entrepreneurs especially co-founders, business owners is why did you start a company, versus just transition to? perhaps there wasn't any other coaching companies that were in this space? but why start a company versus transitioning to something where you could maybe still find some net fulfillment?
Speaker 2:I asked myself that every day for seven years. No, i joke that the most confident day I ever had in my business was the day I started it, and every day I've been like what am I doing? It's a joke because it's so worth it And I absolutely love entrepreneurship but it's a risky venture, it's emotionally draining, but you do it because that's in your DNA And it's worth it to you, and so I think there were a few things at play. One was I didn't see any organizations like this. This was 10, 12 years ago, when you really had some traditional coaching, but more like HR services type firms, and then you had all these sole proprietor coaches And a lot of them really felt like they were the folks who had these long successful careers, and now we're coaching senior executives, and so it didn't really feel like something existed that had a brand that spoke to me, that I saw coaches who looked like me and could serve two populations that I pretty quickly realized I wanted to support.
Speaker 2:One is obviously our clients and helping them get this benefit of coaching, and the other was the coaches themselves, because there was no organization like this. They were becoming entrepreneurs by default and most of them didn't want to do that, and what I wanted to do was also serve them and providing kind of the suite of services and operations around it so they could focus on coaching, which was what they wanted to do, and so I really felt a need to create this thing, because I didn't see it anywhere in existence. And then I think there were all these other things. Like I didn't have any children yet, i had pretty low operating expenditures as a human being, so it's like, if I'm going to take a risk now, at the time, Now you mentioned at the time you weren't, you didn't have any children.
Speaker 1:Were you in any kind of relationship at the time?
Speaker 2:I was engaged to my husband at the time, so I got married, i think five months into starting the business.
Speaker 1:Wow. So new company, new marriage. And so, now that we're touching on your family, why don't we introduce your family at this point? Will you share what your family structure looks like right now?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i owe a lot to that initial consulting firm that I worked for, which is where I met my coach and also where I'm at my husband. We met literally day one on the job at trading, and have been together ever since. So my husband's name is Ed. He does not work there anymore either, but we are based here in Chicago. And then we have a two and a half year old daughter named Isabelle. We call her Izzy. two dogs and a fish.
Speaker 1:I know those fish are really high maintenance. That's They really are.
Speaker 2:I'm not gonna underestimate that. There it is.
Speaker 1:So talk to me about the conversation you had as you just started this business and freshly married. What were some of the conversations you were having together as a couple as it related to the business? This is an area that a lot of business owners, a lot of entrepreneurs, especially with families, really have to navigate. Is this conversation about the risks involved, the support, the sacrifices, especially with starting up a fresh company? Yeah, What were some of those conversations like for you? What was challenging and how did you navigate those?
Speaker 2:It was really hard. It's still really hard. My husband is a very risk a first person. He works at a bank, so he grew up in the banking world. His job is to calculate risk. He likes stability, he likes he has a lot of phobies. So he's very much a work to live, not live to work, type of person And I'm the flip of that, where I need to feel passionately about my job. I'm so happy integrating my job into my life in so many ways I can be a little bit impulsive and get really excited about things and go for it.
Speaker 2:And so there was definitely a lot of kind of expectation setting at the beginning, particularly around finances. Since we had met, we were like the 50 50 type of couple where we each paid our own way. I paid rent, it was, and, being a person who never, ever wanted to depend on anyone else, i took a lot of pride in that, and so it was really hard for me both to admit that I needed to depend on him in different ways, like really tactically, like I needed health care, and also emotionally. Hey, i'm doing one of the most difficult things I've ever done. I need you to be there for me in a different way, while also recognizing he was facing this really scary thing. I would never take this risk on my own, but our family is taking this risk because I love you and I believe in you.
Speaker 2:But that doesn't mean day to day. It's not hard for him to see how that impacted our bank balance or when it took longer for me to earn the income that I had hoped to achieve. To really reconcile that as a couple And I think that still exists somewhat today, where there's so much benefit that can come from just having a stable salary and our business isn't always that predictable, and I don't think that we've put that all to bed But what I has been important to me and that is I don't want the solution to be we make so much money that this isn't a conversation. I want the solution to be we're good even in the midst of whatever happens.
Speaker 1:It's people who always kind of imagine happiness or success will happen when I reach a smile marker and they're constantly chasing it versus experiencing it. So talk to me about how you approach those conversations. The potential for resentment in a couple when there is competing demands, competing priorities or interests or needs, is really high. How do you navigate that challenge?
Speaker 2:I think for me, knowing him and probably I mean knowing anybody it started with empathy and recognizing, like where I was so sold on my idea and I was seeing the progress we were making, he wasn't in the in the same way And so leading with understanding his upbringing and why he does have a scarcity mindset with some of these things and really appreciating like I know you're doing something so uncomfortable and scary for you, for me, and really making sure that, like he heard that I knew that, because I think he would sometimes feel you're just going off doing this business and you're not recognizing my feeling and he wouldn't articulate it in that way, but I think that was his sense and could lead to that resentment.
Speaker 2:So I think, making that really clear to re-anchoring around that and then also it sounds silly but almost like a business approach to it, like celebrating the wins and showing the milestones with him so he could get more and more confident and excited when we were featured in the press or hit a new financial goal, and so he was getting reassured, as I was, that I was sharing almost like an investor in a way, like he's an investor in this business, and so I wanted him to know that we were actually doing the things and I wasn't just goofing off all day long. And then I think we're really like separating the fear of it from the tactical, like how is this impacting our lives? Like we've made a bunch of sacrifices. That is true, and also we were okay And I could see that sometimes the fear of the what if was bigger than the reality of what was, and so trying to help him get on board and really separate those two things.
Speaker 1:What did that look like? Because the fear of the what if that is such a huge emotional and be such a huge emotional burden to handle as a business owner or as a spouse of a business owner, How do you handle the fear of what if?
Speaker 2:I think for me it's like diving fully into it And I know Tim Ferriss has an activity around this where you literally list what is the absolute worst thing that could possibly happen, or the whole suite of worst things, and then talking about what we would do if they did happen, and then your reality is somewhere way further over here. But at least if you've realized, no matter what goes down, there's some response And that response is not as catastrophic as you may have initially felt. I think that was helpful. What's the worst that happened? I closed the business and we lost some money and some time, but what do you gain from that?
Speaker 2:I felt like my experience in doing this would allow me to land a job that maybe I couldn't have gotten prior to it. For my co-founder talks a lot about advice her dad gave her about thinking about investing in entrepreneurship. The same way you'd think about investing in a degree. Like you're paying for this education that you can't get any other way, and you wouldn't have problems about doing that for a medical degree And going into it with that same mindset I think is helpful. It's okay, great, it didn't work. What did I learn And how does that actually set me up for success in the future, and so I think actually walking through that and being okay, knowing that was a possibility, was really helpful for both of us.
Speaker 1:I love that concept of really just going to the root of the fear, the what if. Have you In a lot of our families' relationships, that fear of what if? about failed relationships or trials for our kids, especially as parents are really present? Now you have a two and a half year old daughter. There's a lot of emotional burdens that come just being a mother, being a parent, the fears that come for your own family. How do you juggle those emotions? Because business owners have these dual burdens The burden of bearing their company, the burden of bearing their family. So how do you handle those two burdens?
Speaker 2:A big question.
Speaker 2:I think I focus or at least I try to.
Speaker 2:I don't always do this try to focus on what's in my control in both scenarios, in how I show up, in what behaviors I have, in how I set myself, my family, my company up for success, and really try to let go of the rest of it.
Speaker 2:Because I've done that as a mom, where you scare the shit out of yourself Excuse my language, frankly around everything from what my kid falls down the stairs and just getting so set in my mind when I leave for vacation that all of a sudden, because I'm not there, will be the day that she's going to fall down the stairs to like, is she going to be happy and have friends? to all these other things that you can get really caught up in. And what can I do? I can make sure that there's a gate, I can make sure that I have a conversation with whoever's watching her about being careful, And then I have to let go, And so I think that's really what I anchor on is what is in my sphere of influence, and then how do I try to quiet the rest of it?
Speaker 1:Wow, you mentioned something about being in the midst of it as a parent. Are there any red flags that you pay attention to or you've helped recognize for yourself? when you're down the emotional rabbit hole, whether it be at work or at home, how do you stay aware of where your mind's at and whether or not you're in a good space?
Speaker 2:Funny I was actually talking to my own coach about this morning, and I think there's two things that are big triggers for me that are like whoa, you're not in a good mindset right now. One is my default reaction to everything is frustration. If I'm just annoyed by every little thing that otherwise would be benign or positive, like I'm, like I probably need to sleep more. I need some things off. Why did that email that just came in just irk me when it didn't need to, or I attributed some meaning to it that probably wasn't even there. And same thing with my kid.
Speaker 2:If I'm getting frustrated, that's not great. And I think the other thing that I can see myself do is when I'm having the feeling like this situation is never going to end with kids, like everything's a phase, for both good and bad. Something great comes along and oh, two weeks later it's gone and something they're doing this crazy behavior and all of a sudden, in a week it's over. And so when I'm in that mindset of, oh, this thing's never going to end, or I feel like this is my reality forever, i'm like I need to take a step back and have some perspective, because that's not true, that's never the case, and know that I need something or reset some space, whatever it is, to get back into a better place.
Speaker 1:You mentioned getting perspective. It can be so easy, when you're focused on a goal at work, to lose perspective or family or balance or integration, whatever you're achieving. So what is it that you do to recalibrate your perspective?
Speaker 2:I'm lucky that I work in a space where I'm surrounded by amazing coaches all the time, so there's a place, something just so top of mind. But I think for me I'm a systems person. I'm like if it's not on my calendar, it doesn't exist. If I don't have a system for it, i won't do it. And so anything, even with the best intentions, if I don't have some kind of structure built for myself, it's not clear and I'm never going to follow through.
Speaker 2:So there are certain things that I like to do, as simple as I have three questions that I'm asking myself, based on what is important to me, what the line with my values, where I'm at in this current season of my life. So, as I'm approaching summer, i'm teeing up. What are those things for me? How do I know that Izzy's having fun? How do I know that I'm learning and growing And how do I know that I'm fully present? Let's say those are my three questions. I'm going to ask myself those every week. I kind of readjust my activities and behaviors based on that thought. That's one example of something I like to do, and that might be a weekly thing, it might be a quarterly thing, based on what's important to you in your business, then, or what's important to you in your life. But developing some sort of system for check-in is really helpful and making sure that you're re-anchoring on what your values are and what's important to you.
Speaker 1:In talking about values earlier we were talking about how Ed has certain values. You may really value stability, or you mentioned you might be a little risk adverse, and then you have your own individual values you gain fulfillment from. How do you bridge the gap or the conflict that sometimes in a family, individual values may sometimes compete or conflict with each other? So how have you navigated that, the individual difference of values? how do you develop a shared value system, or have you, or what are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2:I think I try to be additive more than compromising and thinking about what's the best we collectively and she can gain from both of our value systems and perspectives versus. We've had to dull them each down to meet somewhere in the middle because they're serving us in different ways, based on our own life experiences and perspectives, and so I don't want mine to win. I think that there's a balance and harmony that happens with those two systems, so I think it's more of a flex versus. We have to agree that this is now the shared value that was somewhere in between, or mine one and yours one, like both of them are valid. It's just where, based on the need or the specific situation, do we need to flex our family's decision?
Speaker 1:One of the main objectives of this podcast is providing the space for business owners to really talk about the challenges that come from balancing work and family, and I have found that with a lot of business owners there's that almost attention between this desire to be together, to spend time together, have these relationships. So can you share with us your journey over the past seven years of how you've slowly or integrated the value of what you're seeking in your business and the values you have for your family?
Speaker 2:I think it's tough because in some ways, i feel that my business affords me opportunities to be with my family in ways that may be a traditional corporate job wouldn't Like. I have infinite flexibility. Essentially, i have fulfillment and I get so much joy from my work. So I think I'm a better person and parent because of that. I think I may study an example of what work ethic looks like.
Speaker 2:And then it's hard because your job never ends And you could just be on one more email, or you could have done one more outreach, or you could have done one more thing. And so there's always this am I doing enough? feeling? But I think the same is true with your kids There's no, it's an endless ways that you could give and do more, do better.
Speaker 2:And so I think, where I struggle and you hear so much about mom guilt, especially as, like a new mom and first time mom, and I never struggled with it in the way of I feel bad that I'm away from my kid and I feel bad that I'm away from my work.
Speaker 2:I felt bad that I didn't feel like I was filling them each up enough or doing each one particularly well because I was so stretched. And am I'm saying this like a past and stretch between the two, and so I think that's really where my challenges are is like how do I get content with? there are X hours in a day and I did my best with them, while knowing that in both spaces there's always going to be more. And to the where we talked about earlier, like the bar just keeps raiding, like you'll never arrive at that, where you're like perfect parents day. So to me it's more of like a journey of acceptance and recognition that I am doing good work, even if it looks different from how it used to look when I had more capacity. Maybe it's more thoughtful, maybe more strategic, while recognizing that my time is much more limited. I don't know if that answered your question.
Speaker 1:No, i think that was beautiful, just recognizing kind of this concept of there's always one more thing, there's always more you could do by identifying what is enough, and it's kind of comes into this concept of success, i believe, is Jordan Peterson talked about. Very few people find success because they don't define what success is, and so one of the questions we really like discussing on this podcast is you know, in business it's really easy to identify KPIs, key performance indicators that help us know whether we're winning in the game, whether or not we're in the market space. Are we achieving our goals? It's really easy. Numbers make a very clear cut a lot of the times, or our company culture. As we turn towards family, it seems like it's a lot more difficult to determine whether or not we are successful as parents, whether our children are successful, whether our family is successful. There's so many different voices out there as to saying what your family should look like, what your relationship should look like, and so for you, how do you define success for yourself and for your family?
Speaker 2:Yeah, i think it's bringing me back to the like systems and questions piece, because it's so easy to get caught up in the 10,000 parenting Instagram accounts. I follow all of the other moms that live in my neighborhood and what they're doing, and even when I know like I have this limited time and capacity, then I see this like elaborate scavenger hunt that my mom friend arranged for her toddler and I'm like, oh my gosh, i'm not doing enough And so it's. Even though you can tell yourself don't let those things get to you, it's so easy to get sucked into them, and so I think that is where I go back to the. What is my ultimate job as a parent, as a wife, as a partner? And am I fulfilling that? And I think when I think about that for at least my kid, is she safe? Does she know she's unconditionally loved? Am I proud of how I show up to support her? And if the answer to those is yes, like the scavenger hunt, doesn't matter. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:It's like a way to kind of shift back until what's ultimately important and what is going to shape her future emotional existence, and that's not yes, that factors into, like joy and all of these other great things, but there are so many ways that I'm showing her that she loved beyond elaborate games.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I love that. I love this idea of a systematic question you can ask yourself. One of the ideas that I've been toying with is this idea of can you create KPIs for your family? What would be your response to that? If someone asks you for potential key performance indicators for a family, what would your response to that be?
Speaker 2:I think it depends on your style, and if that's helpful and feel enlightening to you, rock out, and if it feels burdensome, then maybe not. I like measuring things because what gets measured, gets done. I love accountability structures Like that's what business we are in, but I don't want it to become another to-do list or something that then takes the joy out of it. But I like the concept And now I'm thinking about it for my family because I've never thought about it in that way before.
Speaker 1:I think for so many business owners or just parents in general, it's so easy to get down on ourselves. Where you put your attention to is what you get more of. So how do you keep yourself in a good mind space? Because you talked about mom guilt And there's dad guilt, kid guilt. The idea of I'm not enough is just so pervasive, especially when a lot of companies use it as a marketing technique. You'll be enough if you have this thing or if you have this milestone. How do you focus on the small victories? This is something you talked about when in your conversations with your husband, ed, celebrating the wins. How do you go about celebrating the wins as a business owner and as a parent?
Speaker 2:It's something I'm actually really focused on because it's not in my nature.
Speaker 2:I'm very much, as I would describe, a striper You do the one thing, then you do the next thing, and that's led to success in my life And it's also led to burnout And it's led to probably imposter syndrome, And so it's something I'm really actively doing.
Speaker 2:I'm trying to recognize And just sit in the moments of victory for longer, Because I think we all do the thing where we disproportionately attribute attention and energy to the negative stuff over the positive stuff, And so just being aware of that and calling myself out on that, I think had helped a lot.
Speaker 2:So something as simple as my husband and I went on a vacation recently just the two of us and just spending time on that vacation talking about the things that we appreciate in a new way now after having our daughter gave us a moment that we would have never had before and you would have just been doing the thing and doing the motion and being like, yeah, people take vacation, And it felt so special in a different way because we were taking the time to discuss it. So I don't know that I have a oh, I take myself for a pedicure when this good thing happened like a reward system, so much as really trying to appreciate those little moments Hey, I got to teach her how food is grown today. Or we got to enjoy sitting waiting for a tow truck, getting a flat tire on our vacation, And it was hysterical because we listened to podcasts and enjoyed it, versus being like, oh, this would have been such an annoying experience had we not just appreciated the fact that we had this time together.
Speaker 1:Oh, i just love the idea of just being willing to sit in the victory. Pay attention there. It's so easy to distract ourselves constantly from what we're experiencing. I love this idea of just being willing to recognize and sit in those moments.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and like when you had an hour long experience and you walk away from it being like, oh, that's the mistake I made in that parenting experience or whatever it is And that's what you think, versus the 59 other minutes that you, that were great and that you were great. Like we all have that tendency. I certainly have that tendency to ruminate on that piece and really checking myself and like right sizing that.
Speaker 2:I think, has been really helpful. So it's like quieting the thing that's taking up too much face and expanding the thing that I haven't been giving enough attention to.
Speaker 1:I love right sizing, right sizing the experience. I'm right that one down for the gold nuggets from this one. And, wrapping up, nicole, if someone wanted to get some coaching, if they wanted to go to Adam, who's my coach? Who's the right person to come? Who's the right customer for you? Who would benefit most from the services at Alameda?
Speaker 2:It's such a great question because it's so different from what. Back when I started this business, i had thought the size would be the answer. So for me and I we both came from consulting backgrounds We're like hi, burnout, job, we'll probably get a lot of other people who are just like not happy at work and one something else, and we were super wrong. We definitely serve a lot of career transitioners, but that's actually not the common threat. We thought we would attract mostly women because we're a female founded company. Not the case at all. Pretty even split.
Speaker 2:What we've found is we cross sectors, we cross ages, we cross gender, we cross all these different demographics. What is the common thread is one of our taglines, which is always be bettering. We attract people and the right people to come to us are people who want to be bettering themselves, that people who have this really deep desire to learn about themselves, to grow and to be better and a commitment to making that happen and taking that ownership for themselves and not expecting that's gonna be given to them through the process, are the right people to come to us. So I'm guessing, by nature of this podcast that's probably describes the listeners. So that's really pretty much how I would sum up who would come. But that can manifest in many different situations Big light transition, new role that we're wanting to make a transition, so it represented in all these different scenarios but that's the common thread of the client we serve.
Speaker 1:So, for all of our listeners, if you want to better yourselves, highly recommend Amalavita coaching. And this has been Nicole Wood. Thank you so much for your time, so much for being vulnerable and sharing your thoughts and your wisdom with us. We really appreciate it.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me. This is so fun.