Business Coach Grace Hao

Intro: [00:00:02] Broadcasting live from the business radio studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for coach the coach radio brought to you by the Business Radio Embassador program, a no cost business development strategy for coaches who want to spend more time serving local business clients and less time selling them. Go to B.R. ex Ambassador Dotcom to learn more. Now here’s your host.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:33] Lee Kantor here, another episode of Coach the Coach radio, and this is going to be a fun one today, we have with us Grace Hao. Welcome, Grace.

Grace Hao: [00:00:44] Thank you. It’s an honor to be here.

Lee Kantor: [00:00:47] Well, I’m excited to learn what you’re up to. Tell us a little bit about Koch with Grace, who you serve serving.

Grace Hao: [00:00:54] Yes, we are a S.B, a certified women owned small business, as well as a minority business enterprise. We get to work with people all over the world and servicing them with learning how to coach and then applying this leadership best practice with those that they get to collaborate with and serve. So it’s an honor to be a part of this profession.

Lee Kantor: [00:01:19] So what’s your back story? How did you get involved with coaching?

Grace Hao: [00:01:22] Well, it was it was not intentional. Somebody had offered me offered to coach me. And I was so resistant to that idea, I was like, no, thank you, because I thought that coaching was about fixing people. I thought it was about, you know, somebody is broken and someone’s going to come in and tell you what to do and how to do it and fix you. And so I was very resistant to it at first until I discovered really what coaching is and why it is so valuable. And my and transparently my life transformed. This was over 20 years ago. And, yeah, it’s it’s a completely new life and a new world as a result of coaching. So thank you for that question. I haven’t thought about that in a while now.

Lee Kantor: [00:02:14] Can you share a little bit for the folks who maybe have never been coached and they might be hesitant as well? Can you kind of give them the elevator pitch about what the coaches and how they can really take your business to a new level?

Grace Hao: [00:02:30] Yes, so a couple of things to keep in mind with coaching, coaching is known for accelerating success in high performance. It’s known as the leadership best practice. I like to use the term. It creates a space for people to awaken their creativity and inner wisdom and bring it to light and life. I think that coaching is such a gift. It’s it’s an invitation, not an expectation. So a couple of quick indicators of when we can know when when we’re more likely being coached than we are being trained. And that’s where there’s a lot of confusion around coaching versus training. And so a quick indicator would be when someone’s coaching us, they’re likely asking us questions. They’re likely listening. They’re likely looking for our best answers. When we’re experiencing training, a quick identifier is like is to look for the person that we’re communicating with is likely telling or sharing or giving us guidance or more, offering their suggestions of what to do and how to do it. That’s more of a trainer or mentor approach. And I think that that’s an important distinction to be aware of, whether you’re a coach or someone considering coaching. I like to use this quote. We I’ll share it with you really quickly. It’s one of my favorites by a gentleman, by the name of Carl Gustav. And he said those who look outside dream, those who look within a wakin. And that’s what I believe coaching can offer people.

Lee Kantor: [00:04:13] Now, can you walk us through what it’s like to work with you or somebody on your team? What is kind of the what’s my before and after? Like, what’s the pain I’m having before I discover you and your team? And then what is like a possible outcomes for me after I started working with you?

Grace Hao: [00:04:30] Sure. So, I mean, you know, it’s interesting, people come for different reasons. I had one lady, she said, Grace, after our first couple of coaching conversations, she said, I feel like I’m so good I don’t want to waste any of my coaching time. And I was like, well, this is the best time for us to work together. So it’s not just when there’s a pain. There were three best times to coach. So one of the best times to coach is when there was a significant goal. You’re stressing for something beyond your current business or life circumstances. Number two, when there’s a roadblock, it could be a limited belief, something that’s hindering your progress, something that’s standing between you and the life you prefer. And then the third best time to coach is when you’re looking for more clarity, whether that’s clarity around a plan, clarity around your vision for your business, your why, your dream, clarity around how to go from where you are to where you’d prefer to be. And those are three best times to coach. And so it’s what I like about that is that when people are saying, gosh. I have a challenge, this is when I want to seek out a coach or I, I want to optimize what myself I want to optimize my approach to my career or my relationships. So with us, people look to us and it’s interesting. I’m I’m a wife of one and a mother of eight. So I find that I have a lot of clients that look to me for coaching because because they know, OK, this is a business owner. She’s been in business for over 20 years. She works all around the world. I want and she creates she’s constantly and in innovation and creativity. I want to work with somebody that can relate to me. So and I’ve also worked with couples. I’ve worked with individuals, people. I’ve worked with CEOs, people that are looking for that extra edge in their career or even in their family life. That’s the people that come to me and then also people that are now committed to.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:52] Go ahead, I’m sorry.

Grace Hao: [00:06:55] Oh, sorry about that, Leigh. Please go ahead.

Lee Kantor: [00:06:57] Well, I was just wanted to clarify. So what I’m hearing you say is that it’s not only people that are struggling with the problem. These are just people that also want to take their business to new levels. They don’t have a necessarily a problem. They just want to make the most of the opportunity.

Grace Hao: [00:07:14] Yes, they want to maximize their moment. They want to maximize their time. They’re like, OK, this gives me this gives me an edge to accomplish something beyond where I’m at. I could be happy with the way things are going. I’m looking to accelerate that. I’m looking to multiply that impact. Also, what I’ve what some of our clients do is they they are looking to be coached so that they can strengthen their tools because they’re leading organizations. They want to experience the gifts that they’re getting. So they’re not just saying, OK, I’m doing this for myself. I’m also being model that that’s a best practice. I see every great coach has a coach.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:03] And then the people who are some of your clients, actual coaches.

Grace Hao: [00:08:10] Yes, many of my clients are coaches, many of my clients are applying coaching best practices in their businesses and in their relationships. Many of my clients are looking to create a coaching culture. And so they’re willing to be vulnerable and and to be reflective and to be coached through that any any process that they’re walking through. And then they can authentically, when they go to offer the gift of coaching, they can say, well, this is something that I’ve experienced firsthand. This is I to have a coach. I, too, am willing to be vulnerable in order to take my life to a new level.

Lee Kantor: [00:08:55] Now, are you finding that more and more organizations are trying to help their people kind of develop some leadership skills? And leadership is an important component of a lot of people’s work nowadays.

Grace Hao: [00:09:11] Oh, yes, we people are what they’re doing is they’re saying we want we are definitely looking to optimize the people in our organization that are representing our brand. A lot of organizations are have gone through transitions and they’re looking to they have let go or they have retired out. A lot of people that were the matriarchs or the leaders of of their organization during our global recent global staycation. And so now how do we how do we on board and then develop and identify, identify and develop these these next level, the leaders. So what I’ve done actually with one of our one of our clients, we we created a coaching curriculum for a major bank. And they use this as part of their leadership development for managers, middle management and above, because they want them to use these skills as they’re interacting with one another. So they’re bringing out the best in the people that are representing the brand. So, yes, the answer is absolutely. Yes, they’re looking to to develop leadership. They’re they’re doubling down on that investment. They’re saying, OK, how can we how can we develop these soft skills, these communication skills within our people?

Lee Kantor: [00:10:37] And can you share maybe some advice for those organizations to to do that, is there some low hanging fruit that they can be doing themselves before they enlist the aid of a coach, that they can help their people with these soft skills?

Grace Hao: [00:10:56] Sure. So one one thing that they can start doing is start to exercise, asking themselves some self coaching questions. So and what I’ve heard one woman said this to me. She said it was so it was so brilliant. She goes, Grace, I want to make sure that when I that I don’t that I that I don’t need you. I don’t need or rely on you. And I said, well, she said, I want to make sure that I’m not needing you. And so this is an important point for all coaches is how to not create codependents, how to create independence. This is an important piece of our profession and part of our accreditation through the Worldwide Association of Business Coaches is to do authentic coaching, and that is that there is a cycle to coaching. It’s not forever and always. One of the strategies, though, that I shared with this woman when she reached out to me and with this concern, as I said, I want to get clear. Have you exhausted all of your tools before calling me to be coached on this particular situation or not? And she said, Grace, I had to exercise all of the self coaching that I could, and I still was not I was not getting that clarity that I was looking for. I know as a coach, you will ask me the questions that I will not ask myself. So I thought that was a powerful message I wanted to share with you. In addition to that, though, so self coaching is that exercising and and using the tools that we already have. So using our who, what, when, where and how questions on ourselves coming from a place of discernment and curiosity, not judgment. The judge comes in many forms and sometimes it shows up in our questions. Usually the judge comes in the form of a why question. Why aren’t you further along? Why did you do that? Why are you like your sister? You don’t know what the why questions, the painful why questions. And so being mindful that why can carry a lot of judgment whether we’re using it on ourselves or someone else. So asking the two most strategic questions that we can ask ourselves begins with what and how.

Grace Hao: [00:13:23] So what are my possibilities for today? How could I, how could I, how can I work through this? What are my options, especially right now? There are a lot of people in our world that feel a little bit out of control. They don’t they feel like a lot of decisions are being imposed upon them. And so one a few self coaching questions that I’m going to give to all of you right now based on your quest, your phenomenal question, Lee, is what is within my sphere of influence? What do I have a stake in? How could I move forward, forward with this? What are the possibilities? What would be an alternative? These are questions that we can ask ourselves to put ourselves in the driver’s seat, give ourselves options versus an impossibility versus defeat. And so those are a few tips that I wanted to share with you as far as self coaching and to start exercising that muscle and ask yourself, oh, and remember, always the more beautiful answer for the more beautiful question, always the more optimized mindset for that optimized question.

Lee Kantor: [00:14:43] And do you find that? Some people just can’t get it out of their own way in terms of they do things to self sabotage themselves when like success could be right around the corner, but they’ll find a way to make a wrong turn or to to put a roadblock in front of it.

Grace Hao: [00:15:03] Oh, yes, oh, yes, there’s actually I’ve been doing quite a bit of study on positive intelligence and mental fitness and understanding, we have actually ten forms of self sabotage that we can activate and oftentimes our sabotage is our strength overused. Sometimes our sabotage is our strength overuse. So, for example, judgment is is one of our saboteurs. And there are three specific ways that we judge. We can judge ourselves, we can judge others. And then the most the most cunning and and least obvious. And it’s actually sabotaging our success in judging situations and circumstances. So the judge comes in three forms. So being able to identify that and label it say, oh, that’s the judge not that’s my judge. That’s the judge. How can I have discernment around this? What is the gift and opportunity in this situation? What have I discovered and learned? How will this be a gift for the rest of the journey? So, yes, there are there and and we all have them. So it’s not that we have immunity. I have them. The key is, is how the key is to be able to identify it and then be able to look at it and say, OK, that idea that thought may have served me in the past is no longer relevant. So I’ll share with you a quick story. I had a client one time, if I may. Lee, may I share with you a quick story? Absolutely. OK, I had this incredible client that called me up one day as I was coaching her and she said, Grace, I think I’m going to step away from my business and my career. I just don’t want to speak in public anymore. And when she said that I had already had the privilege of seeing her speak and she had humor, she had visual imagery, she had exercises, she was fantastic at speaking. I was so impressed by her. And when she said that, she was like, I think I’m going to step like that. I want to speak anymore. I was a bit surprised, actually shocked. And and I asked her a question. She said, well, I just don’t like speaking anymore.

Grace Hao: [00:17:34] And I said, well, where did that thought originate? And sometimes those that little question gives people an opportunity to be reflective and to go a little bit deeper than a surface response. She said, oh my gosh, that that originated years ago, originated when I was a little girl. And I said, tell me about that. I said, well, yeah, I remember an instance where I was my dad told me, shut up, zip my lip and that I talk too much. And so I’ve kind of carried that with me since then, that I was meant to shut up my lips and that I talk too much. So speaking is is is talking, which I didn’t want to do because I was told this and I said, well, what do you think your dad could have meant in that moment? And she just stopped and she was like, oh, my gosh, Grace, he didn’t mean forever. He was he was frustrated in that moment with me, he said he said that because I was chasing him around, he was working in the fields. He was getting ready to you know, we’re farmers. He was working out in the farm. And I was chasing him like a tail. And he was like, I got to get this done. He didn’t mean set up, zip my lip and I talk too much forever. He just meant that in the moment. This is her saying this. She was like she and she just started she just started crying because I asked her I said, when was that? She said, Gosh, Grace, that was 50 years ago. I was five years old. And she said, Grace, I’m going to I’m going to go I’m going to call you back. Let’s talk next week. So I said, OK, the next week comes around. We see 2006 Grace. I’ve cut my hair. I’ve called my company. I am a new person. I’m I’m not going to call the coach. You I’m going to give you a little report. Here I am on the move. I told them I volunteered to speak anywhere at any time to represent our organization. I’m a new person. And this is what was powerfully is that she had told herself a story that that sabotaged her and that was going to take her away from all that she was capable of because it was an outdated belief system that was no longer relevant.

Grace Hao: [00:20:08] I see, and I saw her years later, and again, the transformation was sustained and this was this was one conversation in less than 30 minutes, transformed a person’s decision that could have sabotaged her, her present and future as a result.

Lee Kantor: [00:20:27] Yeah, she was carrying around this weight for 50 years. That was just really a misunderstanding. And then you were able to shed light on it and kind of make it go away. It’s an amazing story.

Grace Hao: [00:20:39] Oh, thank you, Lee. And the key is, is that she was willing, right? Absolutely.

Speaker2: [00:20:48] She shared and was vulnerable and and was open to listening and she was ready to listen. And that was great.

Grace Hao: [00:20:57] And she was ready to listen to herself. She keeps we as coaches, we create an environment for people to to come up with their own solutions. And when they come up with their own solutions, they own them and they transition from dependence to independent to empowered to inspired.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:18] Yeah. And that’s why the action happened so quickly, because it’s there. They they figured it out. Grace, if there’s someone out there that’s frustrated or, you know, maybe in a good place that once to get to a better place and they want to get a hold of you or somebody on your team, what’s the website?

Grace Hao: [00:21:34] Sure. It’s coach with grace, dot com coach with grace, dot com. The best way to to get in touch with us. Absolutely. And we have a couple of complimentary trainings and we have information about the programs that we teach and the coaching that we provide.

Lee Kantor: [00:21:51] Well, thank you so much for sharing your story. You’re doing such important work and we appreciate you.

Grace Hao: [00:21:56] Oh, my gosh. You are, too. We thank you for the difference that you’re making in this opportunity. It’s such a privilege. I’m so grateful.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:05] Well, I’m grateful to have learned from you. Thank you again for sharing your story

Grace Hao: [00:22:10] And you as well. We’ll see you again soon. Lee, I appreciate you. All right.

Lee Kantor: [00:22:14] This is Lea Kanter. We’ll see you next time on Koch, the coach radio.