Ask An Expert: Loey Werking Wells Rewrite Your Story Through Coaching-Ep.115

LHey welcome to she coaches coaches, I'm your host, Candy Motzek. And I'm going to help you find the clarity, confidence and courage to become the coach that you are meant to be. If you're a new coach, or if you've always wanted to be a life coach, then this is the place for you. We're going to talk all about mindset and strategies and how to because step by step only works when you have the clarity, courage and confidence to take action. Let's get started.

Hi, friends, and welcome to she coaches, coaches, I've got another special guest episode here for you today. I am interviewing Loey Working Wells, and she is one of my incredible clients. I can't tell you how lucky I feel that I get to work with such amazing people. Now, let me tell you a little bit about lowly. Here's her official bio. It says my lifelong passion is working at the intersection of story and action. Whether it's with individuals or organizations, I bring my experience as a lawyer, writer, project manager and community organizer to my coaching. I've written a couple of screenplays, a collection of short stories, and a few drawer novels. Those are the kinds that stay in a drawer. I've studied storytelling for years. And I'm fascinated by the stories that we tell ourselves. I am deeply curious, and always game for an adventure. In 2005, my husband and I circumnavigated the globe for a year with our then eight year old and have continued to travel, visiting a total of 44 countries and 46 US states. So that's impressive right? Now, that's her official bio. But I want you to hear a little bit, I want you to hear my perspective. And let me tell you the real deal about Louis, I have the honor of watching my clients over the many private sessions, and it is a window into their true nature. Now listeners, it is no secret that I love my clients. This is one of the gifts of working with incredible, powerful people who are up to great things. And they're committed to making an impact in the world.

Loey is the epitome of somebody who walks her talk, she has integrity. And when she identifies with a mission, she goes all in. She doesn't just talk about the injustices of the world. She takes action, whether it's protesting or organizing, or doing something that makes a god damn difference. And she's masterful with words and writing. She kind of glosses over it in her bio. But I want you to hear a little bit about what she wrote. Because I want you to go and read her stuff. This is from one of her stories, and you can see it on her blog. It's called a gift of the year. Now it's just an excerpt but I wanted you to get the sense of it. And she says this. For ages, I've been telling my husband to just wrap stuff up around the house that we already own and stick it under the tree. I pictured him wrapping up the cheese grater or a box of Kleenex or the latest Oprah Magazine laying around, it would have been only slightly wasteful gesture, even though it seems a little pathetic. I'd get my traditional holiday thrill of seeing presents. But I wouldn't have to find new places to put things or feel the guilt of seeing so much unwanted stuff go to the landfill. Except for the wrapping paper, which is an additional layer of blight that we need to come to grips with. Not sure if he would look nuts for doing this. Or if I was truly sincere. He wisely hesitated. Then a couple of years ago he finally took me seriously. He put his own special twist on it. It was Christmas morning, and our daughter had opened her gifts from Santa and was pulling out the gifts from me under the tree. There are so many you didn't buy me more crap, did you? I ungraciously asked my husband noting that not all the wrapping paper matched, but they did coordinate to some degree. The first gift I unwrapped was a book. But not any old book. It was the owner's manual to our first new car. Still cold as he grabbed it out of the glove box that morning. taped on the book was a note he had written that said I love driving our new car. Whoa, this was going to be good. Next, I unwrapped my old pair of glasses no longer needed since having laser surgery that year. Inside the car As was a note that said I love gazing into your eyes. Now that your glasses free after that, a half empty box of English breakfast tea that we kept in the cupboard. A reminder he wrote of the high tea we had at Bouchard gardens on our trip to Canada the previous summer. The best and final gift I opened from him was a two by four carefully wrapped and be ribbit, be ribbond. The note on it said, I'm so happy we remodeled the basement together this year. My old glasses, an open bottle of tea, open box of tea, a scrap of lumber and our cars own owner's manual. This had to be the best haul of Christmas presents I had ever received. No, we hadn't taken a vow of poverty, or spent nothing yet nowhere where Santa topped toenail clippers or homeotic massage gun. Here was a whole year of life celebrated, remembered and gifted to me. What more could I want from a holiday present? So listeners, it is not often that I read from somebody's blog. But I wanted you to hear the soul the spirit and the deep, loving, curious, passionate nature that Louis brings to this podcast. I'm so glad to have you here. Loey. So pleased that you're part of this she coaches coaches journey.

Thank you candy, it's really great to to hear all that. It's like a great big warm hug. Oh, good.

I'm glad I never know what I'm going to say about my guests. And then I spend a little bit of quiet time before we get on Zoom to do the interview. And I'm like, what, what is the thing? You know, like, what is the quality of this person that I see? And and I thought, Oh my God, you're a writer, you write beautiful stuff, people need to hear what you've written. So anyway, that's why I decided that that would be the way it is. So let's talk about your journey to being a coach. Why did you decide to become a coach?

Well, like millions of us, we all were hit by a massive pandemic. And I had to reassess what I wanted to do and who I wanted to be. And after a couple months reflection and some great conversations with people who were also coaches, I really thought that would be the best course for me is because I do want to add value. I love conversations with people. I love. Just, I mean, I used to joke, I would hire myself out as a friend, like, hey, I'll be your friend, I'll be there things are often part of your life. But there's a little bit of coaching that I didn't understand going into it. And there are so many amazing tools so much that goes into it more than just being a good listener. And I thought this just really sounds like something I could enjoy and do well. And hopefully throw that.

And you've been at it for about 10 months now, right? Yes, yeah. But you've really, you've made such huge headway over the last months, that's for sure. Thanks to you. Well, and you're doing the hard work as well, right. So tell me, I'm curious, what's your favorite coaching tool?

Wow. That's a good one. Because they're all really interesting. Of course, the listening, the level two and three listening are incredibly important. I wouldn't call myself an athletic person. But I really thought that taking that standing up, put your hand on your heart and taking a breath. I've seen that really transform clients. It's so simple, but so forgotten.

Yeah. And isn't that the way though, like the sometimes the most powerful thing is the simplest tool, the simplest question. We have this thing where we make life so damn complicated, right? I have

a PhD in computation. So

you got to start adding those letters behind your name.

Complicated doctor.

So talk to me a little bit more about what excites you about being a coach?

Um, I love possibility. I don't care if it's the idea of a job transformation, a new home a trip. I just, it just electrifies me and gets me really excited. So there's nothing more satisfying when you see somebody who just does nothing but tell themselves really negative stories all the time, which are not even true or you know, they're not. We are going to say right or wrong, but they're not the only ones and I'm just seeing them realize what they can actually do and, and become I just I'm so in love with the idea of midwifery being set the right way to say midwifing them to

the person's birth helping them birth. That's my version. Yeah.

Or edit if you talk to me as a writer, but editing seems a little too Correct. You know what I mean? Like it's not a corrective thing that I want to do. Yeah.

So possibility and watching the growth and watching the you know, watching them become bursts that new version of themselves.

Yeah, the potential possibility and the potential are both incredibly exciting for me. And I would open fending for them.

Yeah, do you have a favorite moment? Like, is there a favorite moment that happens for you in coaching conversations? Um,

I mean, when somebody says I didn't think of it that way, or I've never thought of it that way. And I'm like, okay, you know, that is just like it. What it does is it looks like it opens doors. And I just I love that. Like, it's almost like, you know, I'm the key master and I, you know, we talk about and they get that key, and they think turn it and pop that door opens.

Yeah, that I never thought about it that way. Yeah. It's usually that kind of comment usually starts with a big bunch of silence, like, you can almost see the gears turning in their hands. We like. Yeah, yeah. I love that. And you're telling me about the qualities of some of your favorite clients that you've worked with? And of course, I'm asking you this question. Because, as listeners hear this podcast, you're going to be a match for people who want to coach right. So tell me about the kinds of people you love to work with.

I think enthusiasm is infectious. So if they're enthusiastic, I get more and more enthusiastic and excited. I love that I'm a real fan of creativity. Like, there's part of me that wishes I could have coached Lin Manuel Miranda back in 2000. You know, like, she's so adorable and enthusiastic and creative. And, you know, I'm gonna be there. Yeah, to write that musical. With the founding Farmer of founding. What are they? There's a restaurant here in DC called founding farmers, founding fathers. You know, somebody like that I just, I, I love the client who's open to the possibility. You know, you can be rigid, but also, there needs to be just that ounce of curiosity to go hmm, maybe maybe what I'm believing isn't necessarily the only belief out there. And am I willing to kind of try something different? Hmm. That's

a creative pirela we're creative not and not even necessarily in a traditional sense.

No, no.

Yeah, that creativity, enthusiasm, curious, great qualities. Those are,

you know, creativity is interesting, because we tend to think it's just writers or musicians or actors. And I think your creativity is actually in every profession. And it's more of a mindset than a person. One of the things I remember in law schools, I'm in a class called federal courts, which is dense. I mean, it is incredibly hard. And our professor gave us a problem. And she said, and I just, I can't, I can't believe I still remember this. But she said, Come on, guys get creative about it. And we all just looked at her like, you're speaking English. But creativity is just how you decide to problem solve. And I think that that is, you know, it's really important when the first date I ever had with my husband, we made lasagna and I had a little two extra noodles. And instead of just throwing them out, or eating them, or doing whatever you do, I kind of made a little, like moat of noodles around the edge and the lasagna, and he's like, you're so creative. And I'm like, Am I just I just saw this thing, extra noodles and so that I don't want to put a label on creativity and have people think well, oh, I have to be doing this before I go have you know, get some coaching? Because it's there's

always an element of fun too, right? Yeah. Like, like, you know, whether you're in a class in law school, or you're making lasagna with your husband on a first date. There's, there's like a spark of fun or spark of different. Yes. Right. And not looking for the right. You know that one right answer. Looking for options?

Yes. Yeah, that's totally I think what creativity means to me. So a client who likes to think that way, I think would be just incredibly rewarding. Yeah.

And probably very much like some of the people that you've worked with already. Right? Yeah, I

mean, I've enjoyed every client I've had. It's been super fun. And it makes me realize this was a good choice to make. As far as, you know, going into coaching, you know,

Loey, one of the interesting things that I've noticed about your website, and also about you as a coach is that you bring the writing the storytelling into working with your clients, can you talk a little bit more about that storytelling and what you do with people and how it helps?

CAndy, that's Thank you, that's just really is very important to me. I come from a family of storytellers, my parents, my brother, we weren't writers, but we could tell a story. And that was kind of our narrative of our life. And I've was so curious about it, that as I started learning more about writing, I would go to instructors and talk, they would talk about how we gathered around the campfire, as very early humans and story was giving us meaning it was a device to tell us how when where we could do things, you know, watch out for the bear don't eat the berries. But I realized, and I saw this time and time again, how people could tell the same story. And it would literally time travel them to when it happened. For instance, somebody was telling me a story about an incident that happened in 1962, when someone took furniture from another person's house and how angry she was about it. And my comment was, wow, you're still upset about it? And she was like, No, I'm not I said, every like physiological part of her was, you know, you could see her heart was racing, she's speaking faster. It was It was like she was placed in that moment. And I thought that was absolutely fascinating. And I wondered, well, what happens when you tell yourself a different story about what happened, where you get the perspective of what the person taking the furniture was doing or why? It just, it was kind of mind blowing for me. So as I continued to study storytelling, and we hit back in 2016, that great election, that kind of rocked everyone's world, I really started looking into cognitive science, reading George Lakoff, Jonathan Hite and different people who wrote about how we tell these stories to ourselves, what matters and what gets left out. And so that just really became the pond that I wanted to swim in. And so using that, and mashing it up with coaching was kind of the chocolate and peanut butter Reese's cup of my existence. That's where I'm at.

I love that, and this, what matters, and what do we leave out? You know, and using that, to shift your perspective as well. So you know, noticing your spin on it, and then questioning it and is does that serve me? Is that how I want to live my life with that lens? is fascinating. And those makes the coaching super powerful.

Yeah, those are the questions I'd love to explore with clients. Mm hmm. I love myself. Yeah.

Always. It always starts with us first, right?

Yes. So true.

I love that. That's great. Okay, next question. Let me get there. Tell me, you know, like your 10 months into the journey and I know you didn't dive into coaching like in a with random moment like you thought about this and planned it before you started. So What one thing do you wish you had known when you started your journey? Like Was there something that was missing? Or are there some just like one piece that feels like that would have been important?

Oh, I know. First, I wish I had started earlier. I wish that I had done this 10 years ago. I am enjoying it so much. There is nothing like being a writer that allows you to beat yourself up on a daily basis.

Oh my gosh, I didn't write oh my gosh, I really didn't like it. Oh, I can't find an agent whatever.

I really I needed that experience to learn story telling and the phone are more parts of it, but I wish I'd started coaching earlier. I'm glad I did a program. I think anyone can hang a shingle and call themselves a coach. I think it was incredible to be able to do the program I did and train the way I did. And what do I wish I knew, um, I don't know, in so many ways, I still feel new it and I also feel like I did some really smart things like work with you. Um, you know, you kind of help direct and guide me on the early bits.

Yeah. And so I just there's this thing that I've never heard anybody say before, and I like this. I just want to sort of point this out. And I and I want to. I'm also not sure if it's correct. What I heard is, I wished I had started earlier, because I didn't know how much fun it was going to be. Right? Like, everybody's like, Oh, I wished I'd known that. Fill in the blank difficulty or challenge, right? Like fill in the oh, it was going to be hard or whatever. But that I wish I had known it was so much fun. Yeah, and that I should have started earlier. Hello. That's something

I don't regret. But I feel like oh, my gosh, I missed out on like, 10 years of, you know, building a business. But I think I also believe things are meant to come out the way they are. And so there's not a lot of recrimination. But yeah, it's just getting in there getting in it earlier would have been fun for me.

Yeah, yeah. I have got this other thing that I've been noodling on lately. And, you know, just I'm just gonna ask you this question, because maybe it's, maybe you've thought of it too. When you think of coaching, you know, it's still a relatively new profession, right. 25 years and less will say, What do you think the historical profession would have been? Like, if it was 200 years ago? The quality of coaching and the quality of working with people, there is a special essence to it. What do you think that was 200 years ago, or 1000 years ago?

Oh, gosh, I think we had to evolve to the coaching we're at now that, you know, what we would have dealt with 200 years ago, would have had so much baggage to go through whether it would be very strict religious background that like 90% of your community followed or rigid gender roles, or what have you the ability to say, you can do this is kind of new, but I think it would have been helpful. But I think we had to become this. It wasn't a real, like, oh, 2022 coaching wouldn't have fit into 1820. It would have been kind of, I think mind blowing in some ways.

Yeah, there's a good effective I hadn't thought of I like that. Did you have something more to say? Well, there's

a movie called Pleasantville. Do you remember it had Tobey Maguire and Joan Allen. And the first half was in black and white. And then the second half was in color. Yeah. Before I was a coach, I watched that. And I thought, oh my gosh, I mean, what that movie was, was like this journey of people realizing who they wanted to be, and where they were wasn't, you know, wasn't meaningful for them. And I thought, I didn't have the language that I have now to understand what that movie was about. But if I were to go back and watch it now, or if anyone who's interested in coaching, it felt like kind of a, a very beginning kind of coaching. scenario.

So cool. I love that. So that coaching, similar to how it is right now, yeah, could not have existed until we had evolved enough as humans. To really to allow ourselves to be more individual, to allow ourselves to want what we want. And to know that there is strength in that as opposed to more strength and conformity, more strength in being you know, one of one of the one of the community, you know, that all follows the same rules.

That's my theory today.

Yeah, I like that. Curious what your theory is tomorrow, we're gonna find out I could have maybe you'll write on it too. So, wrapping it up. Can you tell me what is one thing that you take away from coaching with me like what's the one thing that you learned that was the most helpful that was helped you develop? into being a strong coach and building a business.

I think it's the idea of a powerful question that I've read articles where I don't know if it's like 40% of Americans don't have someone that they can talk to. And there are so few conversations that people get to have with someone that's focused on one person and non judgmental, and doesn't have an agenda and that powerful question. It's so like it. I've seen it work on other people. And you've done it with me where you just stop and you're like, not only is it I've never thought of it that way, I mean, a real reframing tool, but it's also a no one's ever asked me that. No one's ever cared enough. And I think that is just one of those amazing like, it is kind of, I don't know what it would be if we had it. It would be like the massive Howard grill in your toolbox.

Oh, good. A power drill. That's what we screwdrivers for us.

Down there, right, it digs to the core so quickly, that you're like, oh, oh, and there's simple questions. They're not like, what did you think the world would be like in 2022? For you, it's more like, where, what what Converse? What would you like this conversation to be at the end? Or what was a when you had this week? Just? I mean, they're rooted in caring and also a little bit in in excavation, I think. Yeah.

Yeah. Oh, thank you for sharing that. Yeah, that's really helpful. I must say that, you know, I always enjoy talking to you. And I loved this conversation. So I'm so thankful that you've been a guest. Now, there are going to be people who listen to this episode. And want to find out more about you want to get a little bit closer come into your world? How can somebody find out more about you?

Well, the easiest way is to just go to my website, working wells, coaching@gmail.com. And owner, that's my email. I think their website is just working with coaching. You can sign up for what I call my Monday missive, where I just send out an email, there's a booking console. It has all my contact information. So that would be super easy. And super fast.