Lauren LeMunyan with Spitfire Coach

Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX studios in Atlanta, Georgia. It’s time for High Velocity Radio.

Lee Kantor: Lee Kantor here. Another episode of High Velocity Radio, and this is going to be a good one. Today on the show we have Lauren LeMunyan and she is the Spitfire Coach. Welcome.

Lauren LeMunyan: Thanks so much, Lee. It’s great to be here.

Lee Kantor: Well, I am so excited to learn what you’re up to. Uh, what’s it like being the Spitfire coach? How are you serving, folks?

Lauren LeMunyan: It’s a little warm. It’s a little hot, a little spicy. But we get right to business. We get. We get that high velocity going, you know? But basically, it’s about helping people get all the weight of the shoulds, coulds obligations off of them so that they can emerge as their most purpose driven and awesome selves.

Lee Kantor: Can you share a little bit about your backstory? How did you get involved in coaching?

Lauren LeMunyan: Oh, you want the short version or the long version? I know we only got a little bit of time here, but I know, I know that every coach has their own kind of wake up story, but for me, I was in a an 11 year career, I was married, I was living in Las Vegas and Co-running a CrossFit gym, and I was sleeping for hours at a time, drained. And I thought, hmm, my job must be making me miserable. So I thought, I need someone to help me with this. But I didn’t seek the help until I literally hit the floor in my own life. Um, and that was from using alcohol to kind of numb whatever unhappiness I had going on in my life. And after 13 months of me avoiding that help, I finally said, you know what? I’m about to throw my life away if I don’t get myself in order. And that came in the way of a life coach. And that coach just started asking me questions that I’d never thought about, which was what makes you happy? What gets you inspired? And it was all about helping other people.

Lauren LeMunyan: It was all about helping them discover it. And he said, well, what about you? And I couldn’t answer that question. And that aha moment led me into discovering my own passion for coaching. I knew it in the CrossFit space of helping people get past those internal mental blocks of feeling physically stronger. But I thought, you know what? That’s what I’m more interested in versus just lifting heavy weights and putting them down. So I got certified as a coach ten years ago. I got divorced, I sold my house, I moved back to Washington, D.C., I quit my career in association management with no clients and said I’d rather be broke and happy than unhappy and knowing what’s making me miserable and willingly doing that. So that is kind of the short, long version. But really, coaching is what makes Present to Future Vision possible. It worked for me, and I get really excited when I see people light up and find that clarity and really do it for themselves and believe in themselves again.

Lee Kantor: Now, what was the transition like going from coaching, you know, fitness and wellness and health and then coaching, you know, leadership and business?

Lauren LeMunyan: Well, you know, it was very similar because those same feelings of self-doubt, of who am I to show people how to be healthy, healthy and happy when I don’t feel that way myself. Like I probably was the most unhealthy I’ve ever been being a CrossFit coach, which people don’t believe because I was super strong. I was supposed to be eating well. Um, and it was that same type of thing where when I became a certified coach, I knew I had to clean up my own stuff if I could feel confident helping other people. Um, so there’s a lot of similarities, but I think for people who are really effective in the coaching space, they first have to address their own resentments, their own mental blocks. They’ve got to clean up their baggage or it gets leaked into all of their sessions and client engagements.

Lee Kantor: So now who is the ideal client for you nowadays?

Lauren LeMunyan: Oh, it’s anybody who wants to have fun, who wants to kind of who isn’t afraid to shake things up and try new things. Um, I think the people who come in and say, Lauren, I’m so coachable, you can’t tell you how many leaders I get. I’m so easy to work with Lauren. Um, but the people who are like, you know what? I’m scared. I don’t know what this is, but I trust you. And I think when there’s that mutual trust, um, you get some amazing co-creation and, um, and openings and awareness. And so people who can take really clear, direct feedback of like, here’s what I’m noticing, here’s some patterns that I see emerging. And they’re like, Holy crap, I see it too now and let me do something about it. So it’s the people who aren’t just engaged but are ready to take action.

Lee Kantor: So when people come to you and tell you how coachable they are, is that a yellow flag? Like, how do you feel about that orange flag?

Lauren LeMunyan: It might be even red.

Lee Kantor: Those people who are so self-aware that maybe they’re missing. They have some blind spots.

Lauren LeMunyan: They usually have, um, some, uh, subscriptions to Harvard Business Review and Forbes. They love to read articles and tell you all about what they know, but they never put it into practice.

Lee Kantor: So what’s, um, for a listener out there? What is kind of is that one of the symptoms that you’re reading so much, but you’re doing so little? Is that kind of, uh, maybe that’s a sign that, hey, maybe I need a coach.

Lauren LeMunyan: Yeah, I think it’s bypassing. It’s. You’re hearing everyone else’s advice, but you’re not listening to yourself. And I think when you have that kind of overwhelm of information and shoulds, that’s where you really should lean into. Like coaching is an amazing space to just kind of process and be still. And I think especially in the US, in our society, we’re a go, go, go go go like look busy, be busy that we miss the really critical art of being still and being silent to allow that inner voice and that intuition to emerge. So yes, coaches can absolutely help to open that space up for you.

Lee Kantor: But at some point, you have to get out of the book and into the work, right? Like the work has to be done. You have to. A friend of mine says, do the do you have to do the work?

Lauren LeMunyan: Well, I would say you have to be the work first. So I see a lot of my clients get so wrapped up in the doing that they’ll have an I actually just talked to a prospective client this morning about this where he he’s like, I love a good plan. I’m really good at planning. And I said, and how’s your implementation? He said, well, I always, you know, go off course. And I said, because you haven’t embodied the transformation. You don’t know who you want to become. So until you can actually become that person and believe through that lens, the doing doesn’t matter. It’s always going to fall off.

Lee Kantor: So when you were making the shift into coaching full time and you were being coached yourself and they asked you those questions about, you know, what fires you up and what your true north and things like that. And you articulated, I think you said you want to help people. That was kind of at the crux of a lot of your work, right? Was that is that correct? I want to make sure I’m on the right track. Um, and then when that happened and you had that aha moment, what changed in terms of like taking an action, like did the next day, all of a sudden you were taking productive action in the right direction or like what was the shift after the aha moment?

Lauren LeMunyan: Well, so it actually was the opposite, because I was so used to.

Lauren LeMunyan: Building and doing for others, I wasn’t doing it for myself. And so the big prompt was to just be still and to journal and to reflect. Because if we go into that kind of I’m inspired, here’s my light bulb, I’m going, we’re not actually like getting the full picture yet. Like, there’s still so much to marinate on and process. And if we’re jumping to go, go, go and do, we don’t actually know if that’s a reactive mode or if that’s actually someone that something that’s future vision towards what we want to create. And so I think that critical thinking lens of is this coming from me because it’s my old default operating system, or is this something that’s now newly programed into this future vision? So I knew that if I was repeating behaviors from my past mode, I would get exhausted. I’d lose my voice. I’d get sick. Um, and we call it actually like the baby giraffe syndrome, where you first learn a new skill and you’re, like, super awkward, but you’re like, I’m so excited. And I got to share it with everybody. And then you keep falling down. Um, so I realized I need to keep practicing. I need to I need to observe other people in this space. I need to work under other coaches. Um, or else I’m going to come off like every other, like creepy life’s life coach who’s like, let me show you how to be everything to everybody. Um, so I was really patient with it, and I was patient with myself, which I knew was a new way of being. And that’s how I knew that I had a new transformation happening.

Lee Kantor: So you believe that this pause in between maybe chapters is an important component that can’t be shortcutted. You have to sit still, and you have to listen to your inner self in order to really get to that next level.

Lauren LeMunyan: Ding ding ding. Yeah, we call it bypassing. So if you don’t sit with it, if you don’t process it, if you don’t reflect on it, you’re missing the nuggets. You’re missing all those amazing lessons and insights that you can apply to those next chapters. And if you aren’t, if you’re bypassing and speed cutting through it, you’re actually probably going to have to relearn those lessons in some other fashion. Um, and they get a little more painful because it’s like, hey, you didn’t really pay attention the last time. So the more that you can slow down, it actually will save you time later on, and it will kind of lessen the blow later on, because you’ll have even more skills and resilience to face those hardships or to face those challenges. You’ll be like, oh, that looks familiar, because I reflected on that before and I know what to do now.

Lee Kantor: Do you find that in today’s world, you know, between the short attention spans and and just people wanting results, um, before maybe earning them, um, that we are susceptible to, let’s call it like catchphrase leadership, like, you know, lean in or let them or, you know, like, whatever. The hottest new.

Lauren LeMunyan: Were you checking out my past episodes? I’m my podcast.

Lee Kantor: It’s just there seems to be every couple weeks or months, there’s some new catchphrase that everybody is like, this is the secret to life, if only I regurgitation. So is that. Do you find that just people are there, they’re hungry for something. And this is catchy. And and a lot of people are buying it and they’re like, hey, that seems like the, you know, that’s going to work for me.

Lauren LeMunyan: Yes.

Lauren LeMunyan: I actually did a whole video on this of like the potency of self-help books will last for about two weeks. And then you realize very quickly that the tools that were shared don’t actually work. They worked for that person. But you try to, like, convince yourself that I just need to do these things. But again, because we’re not pausing and we’re not figuring out what we actually need and how to get that need met, we’re living through the lens of someone else. And so it’s really easy to get excited because you see all these gurus going around like, I’m so successful. And by the way, most of who you’ve mentioned all hang out together. So it’s the same content repurposed in a different way. There’s a whole thing about it. It’s really scary and gross. Um, but the reality is we don’t have short attention spans. We just haven’t been told that we matter enough to go slowly. We’ve gotten wrapped into the capitalism model where it’s like, you’re not enough, do more go. And if you actually, like, sit back and and question who wins by me being busy. Who wins by by me not thinking I’m enough, you start to uncover that it’s not actually about you, and therefore you don’t need all these experts telling you how to live your life. You can just chill out. There’s a great woman I wish I remembered her name that runs the Nap ministry, and it’s all about just take care of yourself, slow the pace and notice. Like it’s not even about Buddhism. Or like you don’t have to have a religion to do it, but like, just start noticing who wins by you chasing down the next fad, the next phrase, the next thing.

Lauren LeMunyan: It’s all the same marketing blitz of you don’t know enough. You aren’t enough. None of this stuff is new. None of what I’m doing is new. I’m just bringing it out in my own voice and lens. It’s the same thing as these books, and they’re half baked like they’re they’re fluff. If you’ve actually, like, read them beyond just like the the back cover, it’s one thought that could be an email Matched with about 4 or 5 fluffy stories that don’t even have any legitimacy. And it’s usually written in the lens of someone who has a high level of privilege and has never really experienced hardship in their life. As much as they want to say, woe is me, I didn’t have anything. Um, Mel Robbins was already at a Ted talk where she just happened to slip in her five second rule. Oh, it just came to me. It’s all these very manufactured stories that people grab onto because it sounds good. It’s like our own little Disney myth that we’re like, oh my God, if it worked for them, it can work for me too. And I think we’re all kind of looking for that silver bullet or that that permission slip to kind of bypass the hardship that we have to live through to get better. But like, we all have trauma. Everyone has trauma in their life. And so we have to heal from it to get to another place. There is no shortcutting it.

Lee Kantor: So now when you’re working with your clients, is this just part of the process you have to bypass? You have to, uh, you know, kind of come to terms with your trauma. Like, what are the kind of what’s your methodology? Ideology.

Lauren LeMunyan: So I don’t. What I do is I acknowledge it. Like if I notice that someone is focusing on a past storyline, that’s where I’ll say, you know what? This sounds like something to work through with a therapist. Um, as a coach, we focus on present function to future vision. Um, some coaches get in trouble with that. It’s actually in the ICF guidelines to not play pay, play phony therapist. But what I do is bring attention to I’m noticing a pattern in your language. I’m noticing that we’re getting stuck here. And so if I notice that there’s a wiggle, that there isn’t like a really stuck storyline here, because that’s when I know that it’s really deep trauma that another professional needs to deal with, then I can help them rewrite their scripts. I can help them upgrade the storylines that they’re telling themselves, because most times people don’t realize how much they’re re-embedding the storylines that aren’t working for them. Um, there’s actually a great book called Mind Your Body. Um, Doctor Nicole Sachs, like love it. Just finished it and she talks about this process called Journal Speak, which is about addressing through writing things that have gotten us stuck in the past, but it helps us reframe it in a positive way because most times we’re not able to communicate these really deep seated emotions like we’re just repressing all the time. And so it’s popping out and then we’re self-sabotaging.

Lee Kantor: Now, you mentioned journaling. And, um, a lot of coaches are big fans of journaling. Is there some, um, maybe techniques you can share when it comes to journaling? Because journaling can mean a lot of different things, and it can be done a lot of different ways. Is there some best practices you can share when it comes to, um, efficiently and effectively journaling?

Lauren LeMunyan: I would say just do what works for you. So my style is probably different from most people. Um, but I love the tangible of having a pen with a with a spiral bound notebook, and my minimum is three pages every day. It can be fluff. It could be. Here’s what my to do list is. It’s I use it as brain dumps.

Lee Kantor: What’s an example of fluff?

Lauren LeMunyan: Oh, like, uh, the sun is outside. My baby’s asleep. Like, it’s just kind of. It’s not fluff. It’s just more of like a here’s what’s happening in my in my present space. And actually, I shouldn’t I shouldn’t denounce my stuff. Um, it’s more of like taking an inventory of what’s happening in the present, um, so that I’m more in a, in an observation space. Um, but where I’ll take that is how am I feeling right now? What sensation and am I feeling in my body? What happened from this? So usually, like I do it as a daily practice, but I also will pull it out if I’m feeling overwhelm, if I’m feeling confused, if I’m feeling like I need some more clarity. And I just am like putting everything on paper and helping to sort things out. Um, so I use it as kind of like a sounding board. Um, and so whenever I have clients who are like, I hate journaling, I said, cool. So I want you to get a piece of paper out right now, and I’m going to set a timer for a minute, and I want you to just write, well, what do I write? Whatever you want, whatever comes up. I don’t care if you write the same word over and over again, but you got to get yourself in the practice of it. That’s why meditation is a practice. Yoga is a practice. Journaling is also a practice. And so it works when you do it. Um, there is no perfect way. In fact, I don’t think that you should ever go back and look at your journals. It is for you, and it’s really there to create more mental space and to help you sort through things that are going on and clogging up some brainwaves too.

Lee Kantor: Now, when you’re talking about all this kind of inner work for an individual, are you also doing work that’s translating to their business challenges?

Lauren LeMunyan: Oh, it’s all interrelated. So I call it holistic coaching because there’s always if you start pulling one thread, there’s other things that are going to lift up. Um, so we’ll typically start with business challenges. Um, and then the client will usually emerge other things. So I don’t ever go looking for it. It just kind of appears um, or they’re like, oh, this this skill really worked well with an employee. I think I’m going to use it with my wife, and then we’ll start to play with, okay, what would that look like? Where what shifts or tweaks would you make. And so it’s never use this thing and then, you know, step and repeat copy and paste and everything. There are nuances to relationships. There are nuances, um, in environments and different situations. And so again, it’s that critical thinking lens of how might this work and how might it not? And where do I need to tweak? Um, but yes, we we focus on every aspect of people’s lives. But specifically, people want to see results in their business because that’s how they pay their bills. That’s how they keep their employees, uh, with their lights on and keeping them happy. Um, so when people have money in the bank, they are more empowered to do other things. And so we like to focus specifically with people in an employment setting or with their business.

Lee Kantor: What’s a typical challenge that an entrepreneur that works with you is struggling with? Like what’s usually the first challenge that comes, you know, or is there a typical one? Or like some people come with sales, some people come with talent, some, you know, they all have different ones.

Lauren LeMunyan: Yeah. Well, so they come to me and they’ll say one thing and it’ll actually be something else. So they’re like, I need, uh, I need to work on bringing my team together, or I need to work on team management. And so we’re it usually comes down to is it’s boundaries. It’s clarity around expectations and roles. Um, and it’s them being able to delegate and not get their hands in things. So a lot of it’s around control and trust.

Lee Kantor: And then, so, um, if they’re in need of maybe some delegation skills, what are some baby steps they can take to let go?

Lauren LeMunyan: Yeah. Well, so I think it’s first, what are they willing to let go of? What are the things that they absolutely need to manage and oversee. And then what are some ways that they can start to hand off. And then also have checkpoints. So one of the biggest, uh, search keywords on our website is leaders leading leaders. Because people don’t know how to manage high performers. So like I should just let them do what they need to do, but then I don’t know what they’re doing and then they’re off off to the races. But I think it’s a matter of having CEOs specifically and and leaders who are leading other people to be clear on what needs to happen. Who’s going to do it, when are they going to do it by? And then when are we going to check in to make sure that we’re aligned? So when those things can happen in a process, then you can create more consistency. And I think that’s the core element of it, because I think a lot of leaders think if I do this one thing, then there’s an assumption that it’s all going to come together. But businesses organizations are microorganism like it’s an ecosystem. So you’ve got to make sure that it’s maintained and that you have the right people in the right seats doing the right work. And then they also have a space and a place and an expectation of when to come back to things, to make sure that they’re on the right, on the right page, on the right track, and they have the resources they need to get the job done.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a story you can share that maybe illustrates, um, how your coaching can elevate somebody? Uh, don’t name the name of the person, but maybe share the challenge they were having when they came to you and how you were able to help them get to a new level.

Lauren LeMunyan: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, unfortunately, I wish this weren’t the case, but I hear from so many CEOs when they’re just like, they’re like, I don’t know if I have to close up shop. I don’t know, you know, if I can make payroll, like, they’re coming to a place out of a place of desperation. And I wish that this was a more proactive maintenance so that we didn’t get to that place of like, I don’t know if I can make this work. Um, but I will tell you a really positive story. So there was a business owner, and I do, um, an exercise of what’s the quality that you admire most in other people. And this person said, Joy. And I said, that’s really interesting. You know what? What is it about Joy? And he said, you know, I just don’t feel any joy in my business. I don’t feel any joy in my life. And I really miss it. And through our time working together, um, I kept linking things back to Joy. I kept saying, okay, tell me, what brings you joy about this? What about this? Like getting people back to that passion of what got them started in running their business. And after six months, they had this reflection of, like, I found the joy back in my company. I, I love what I do, I love this, and I’m sharing it with my team members. And so like I get goosebumps, like just thinking about this. And I know this probably feels kind of vague, but it’s literally helping people fall back in love with their with their companies and being able to spread that energy to other people and creating those safe spaces for people to also be excited to come to work. Like, imagine that right now of like people being excited for Mondays and not and not dreading coming to the office or logging in. And I think that that’s the gift of like insight and awareness of helping people get back what they had.

Lee Kantor: Now, is there a niche that you serve primarily, or are you industry agnostic? Um, is there a sweet spot?

Lauren LeMunyan: I mean, I love me some tech clients. I love professional services, services and design. I love creative fields. But, um, if you’ve got a passion for psychological safety, positive disruption, and you care about your people like I’m here for it, so I am not a I am not going to say no because you’re working in, you know, um, sanitation. Um, because I did have a client with that. I don’t I don’t judge it because it brings in money.

Lee Kantor: So if somebody wanted to learn more, have a more substantive conversation with you or somebody on the team, what’s the website? What’s the best way to connect?

Lauren LeMunyan: You can check out our website at Spitfire. Com. We also have our YouTube channel and podcast at Spitfire Coach or Spitfire Podcast. And we do tons of of free stuff. But also we can come in and help your team feel more confident, upskill them in psychological safety and leading with certainty through these volatile times. Um, and help to equip your leaders with amazing coaching skills so they can be better communicators and problem solvers.

Lee Kantor: Well, Lauren, thank you so much for sharing your story, doing such amazing work, and we appreciate you.

Lauren LeMunyan: Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

Lee Kantor: All right. This is Lee Kantor. We’ll see you all next time on High Velocity Radio.