Are you content with your career choices? Or are you itching for a change? It’s never too late to take a leap of faith, and as my guest today can attest to, there is no profession so exalted that you can’t transition out of it.
Dr Karen Barnard, went from doctor to life coach, and in this episode we speak about the mindset that can make or break your career, the voice of the inner critic, aha moments, mitigating risks and re-skilling to become proficient in a whole new skill-set.
As part of her re-skilling, she did my 16 Week Side Hustle Course, and of it she says: “I can be as good a coach as I ever think I’m going to be, but if I don’t know how to make a business out of it, I’m not going to make a living.”
Are you ready to take the leap?
Sign up for the 16 Week Side Hustle Course!
Show Notes
- [00.44] From doctor to life coach, and what spurred the change.
- [03.53] From the moment of first sensing the shift, to the reskilling – change takes time.
- [05.36] Dealing with naysayers, particularly the inner critic. Understanding the role of that inner critic, and keeping on regardless.
- [07.40] The question of age, and the age of the Internet (and it’s opportunities!)
- [09.19] The unlimited source of energy – finding your purpose and passion.
- [10.58] The steps to reskilling:
- Developing the new skillset required to move from doctor to life coach.
- The importance of business skills.
- [13.09] Managing the transition from the safety of corporate employment to relying on the strength of oneself for our sense of energy. The risks! The growth! And the importance of getting your mindset right.
- Top tip: a strong vision and a strong why will give you the rocket fuel you need when times are tough.
- [16.41] The wisdom of planning ahead, and transitioning slowly.
- Top tip: avoid overwhelm by taking time to get clarity before making any moves.
- [23.17] Aha moments!
- [33.08] Fundamental shifts, and the confidence needed to fight the voices in your head.
- [37.02] Dreaming big.
Learn more about Karen
Visit Karen’s website for a free 30 minute sample session.
Related posts and episodes
- Wake up your creativity with Nina Pearse.
- From my IT day job to my meal planning side hustle with Monika Malan.
- Changing the financial future of creatives with Shotgun Tori.
- The biggest myth of a side hustle.
- You unlimited source of energy
Quotes from this episode
“It’s only when you look back that you see it’s been brewing for a while.” – Lisa Linfield
“With each new frontier, the brain is trying to keep you safe.” – Lisa Linfield
“I can be as good a coach as I ever think I’m going to be, but if I don’t know how to make a business out of it, I’m not going to make a living.” – Dr Karen Barnard
“The hardest step in any venture, is that first step.” – Lisa Linfield
“I remind myself about that time and time again, that when I’m really feeling somewhat afraid of doing something, I know that’s where the gold is.” – Dr Karen Barnard
Transcript
Lisa Linfield:
Hello everybody, and welcome to today’s episode of Working Women’s Wealth. I am joined by an amazing human being who I’ve gotten to know over the last couple of months, Dr. Karen Barnard. Thank you so much for joining us on the podcast.
Karen Barnard:
Good morning Lisa, it’s wonderful to be with you.
Lisa Linfield:
You are a phenomenal human. You’re a qualified doctor, you have been working America for a number of years and you are also a specialist in endocrinology. So you are highly talented, highly qualified, and yet you have begun a journey, you’re in the very early stages of a journey that is taking you into coaching. Now, the world out there would tell us that being a specialist, highly trained doctor and being a coach is not even in the same kind of… not league, but they’re not in the same type of space. Why would you give up so many years of training and backbreaking work and so much hours of expertise to completely start again, and have to re-skill and certify and all that stuff into a whole new profession?
Karen Barnard:
Well first of all, thank you so much for your kind words. I mean, they just bring tears to my eyes, it’s very, very kind of you. And it’s a very good question and the backstory is I graduated from medical school 30 years ago. I went to that in Johannesburg and I’ve been in academic medicine for the last 30 years and it’s been an incredible journey. And it’s really a privilege to take care of patients and to teach trainees and to do research and the amazing people I met along the way.
Karen Barnard:
A few years ago I started feeling like I was just feeling more tired and I wasn’t feeling as connected to the career as I had been before. I was feeling less effective, I wasn’t interested in new things, and a lot of bells went off for me because this was a huge change. And through a process of sort of asking introspective questions and looking on the outside what’s going on, I hired my own life coach, I came to the realization that I really want to now help people in a different way. To use the skills that I’ve acquired, the knowledge of humanity to, instead of really helping disease, look more at health and wellness and helping people uncover the beauty and the power that’s within them to live their best lives.
Karen Barnard:
I had no idea really what I was going to do, I just knew I needed to make a change. And I took a course a few months ago on the fundamentals of life coaching and the penny just dropped. It was an aha moment and I realized this was the space that I want to be with people, this is how I now want to serve going forward. And I have not given up medicine completely. I still do part time work, which I love, I still get to interact with trainees and wonderful colleagues and my lovely patients. And let me stop there and see if you have any follow-up questions.
Lisa Linfield:
All right, if you look back, because these things you can only ever see in hindsight, you can never see them whilst you’re in the journey. And if you look back, how long was it before you started sensing that there was the shift coming, and this first course thought you took a few months ago?
Karen Barnard:
Oh, easy five years, Lisa. You know, medicine is such a dedication and it’s all I knew, and so I kept trying to convince myself that I just needed a vacation or maybe if I tweaked something here and there at work I’d feel effective again, or there were a few little things that I tried. But yeah, I would say this has been going on for longer than I would care to admit but I’d say about five years before I really just said, “okay, I need to look at some other things.”
Lisa Linfield:
That resonates with me. It was five years before I started my re-skilling, my new degree, and then that took two years, so it was seven years before I actually started. So I totally resonate because when people often say to me, “Well, how do you know, did the lightbulb just suddenly come on?” In my experience there are people who have that, but for the most time it’s only when you look back that you see it’s been brewing for a while and it’s kind of growing inside you.
Karen Barnard:
Exactly. That was exactly my experience. Especially at my age. I’m 54, and it’s scary to think, “Well what I’ve been doing my whole life no longer fits,” and so there’s that too, there’s that, “well, I’m getting a stable paycheck, and what are people going to think, and what am I going to do?” So it takes a while, at least it did for me.
Lisa Linfield:
And how do you deal with the naysayers? Because they must come in all forms everywhere, people who go, “You must be absolutely nuts.”
Karen Barnard:
It’s so interesting you ask that, because my colleagues, my friends, my family, the people that know and want the best for me have been completely supportive and certainly haven’t once indicated to me that they think I’m making a mistake or that I’m nuts. The naysayers really are those voices in my head. The inner critic that says, you know, you’re too old, or you can’t do anything other than medicine, or you’re not a businesswoman, you’ve always had a paycheck, how are you going to learn the skills?
Karen Barnard:
And you deal with this in your course as well. That really understanding the role of those voices, and I’ve gotten to the point now when I sort of thank them for showing up and for caring about me enough to not want me to make a complete idiot of myself, but then I just turn right around and remind myself that I’m strong, what my vision is, what I want to do, what my purpose is, and I just keep going despite those voices. And those voices are still there, every day. And I just keep going despite them.
Lisa Linfield:
Absolutely. And you know what, friend, they don’t ever go away. I mean, that’s my experience because the challenge is that you grow you take on new challenges. So I thought that I was done with all the voices in the head when I switched careers, and then I started a podcast and then I stared courses and now I’m writing a book, and those voices are as strong as they always have been, because each new frontier the brain is trying to keep you safe, to keep you in the tribe, to not go to those far-off lands because you never know if something’s going to eat you there. So I love your approach of saying, “Hey, thanks for showing up and caring for me, having said that, get out of here.”
Karen Barnard:
Exactly.
Lisa Linfield:
Age is always such an interesting thing. I literally just recorded a solo and it was around this whole thing of age, in the sense that there is so much ageism we put on ourselves on when we can and when it’s too late to start something new. Yet one of this things that I’ve realized, and I saw it especially at the conference that I went to in New York, was that is completely our own stuff, because around me in New York were people who were 65 and retired and starting all this for the first time. The sense of age, for me I look at you and say, “Well, 53, okay, so you’ve had 25 years in one profession and you’ve probably got another 25 years still to go in another, you’re only halfway through.”
Karen Barnard:
Exactly. And we’re living longer. I mean, statistics are clear about that. We’re living longer and healthier and we have this amazing thing called the internet that we can take a course, we can learn whatever it is we want to learn without spending thousands of dollars to reskill. And there’s just so much opportunity that’s out there. And honestly, I always thought I was going to be a doctor till the day I died, I imagined being in my seventies still hobbling along and taking care of people, and now I think that’s just an outdated vision that I had. And the world has changed so much and for us to take advantage of all that’s out there to help us to live the best lives we can.
Lisa Linfield:
Absolutely, and when you find something that is your purpose and your passion the amazing thing about it is that it gives you so much energy. Yes, there are bad days but on the whole it gives you so much energy that you can’t imagine your life without it so it really doesn’t feel like work but it kind of is. Has that been your experience in your new path?
Karen Barnard:
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, that so strongly resonates with me as we were talking just before we got started. It’s going so well, I’m only losing money so far. I have put a lot of money into the business. And I am so excited and I don’t have any doubt that I’m exactly where I’m meant to be. The coaching space for me when I’m with a client, I feel completely aligned that this is how I’m going to be helping people going forward.
Karen Barnard:
And it’s not even me, it’s the coaching process, and it’s just so powerful and I feel so grateful that I hung in there through all the doubts and the didn’t know what I was going to do and feeling stuck, to where I am now which is I have so much energy, Lisa. I don’t know where it’s coming from. I just know that I am working really, really hard and yes, you’re right, there are days when I have a setback or something doesn’t work but I don’t waver that this is the next step, this is the path that I’m meant to be on.
Lisa Linfield:
Since you’ve had the idea that you’ve waned to start coaching, what steps did you put in place to underpin yourself with the skills that you needed in order to start this new coaching business?
Karen Barnard:
Yes, so there were two major parts to this. The first is developing my skills. I feel very strongly that the coaching space is very different than anything that I’ve ever done before. So I am enrolled in this amazing training course with the Coactive Training Institute, I’ll be done with that next month, I’ll be doing my certification to become accredited so there’s that portion. And part of that bolsters, I listen to podcasts, I have a great group of my cohort that are in training with me that we support on another, and I’m doing a lot of practice coaching with clients to develop my skillset in my sort of new craft, if you will.
Karen Barnard:
And then the other very big part… well, the sort of two pillars of this, one is the skill and the other big part is building the business. And it’s not enough to just get training in whatever you’re going to be doing and not get the business skills. I mean, I knew nothing about business. I’ve never tried to sell a thing in my life before. So for me, the learning curve has been very steep. So I came across your ad for your 16 Week Side Hustle course and I think the Brave to be Free was the mini-course that I got as part of that. When I came across that I signed up, and to be honest, Lisa, that was a big game changer for me because it gave me a lot of the basic tools and know-how, as well as mindset support for the business side of things. Because honestly I can be as good a coach as I ever think I’m going to be but if I don’t know how to make a business out of it I’m not going to make a living.
Karen Barnard:
I also have read some books, some of the ones that you actually suggested as part of your course on business, on selling, on marketing, to help me get upskilled. I listen to podcasts. I listen to your podcast, Working Women’s Wealth, and some other business podcasts to help my skills.
Lisa Linfield:
I think that’s one of the hardest challenges, especially when you come from a highly specialized field like yourself where your knowledge is truly your hugest asset. To make the transition into a place where you are totally accountable for bringing your customers, i.e. the sales, for marketing your business, for building your own brand and reputation and for trying to get the stream of income to come in and come in consistently so you can replace the income you used to have and then start building and growing your wealth. And I think that’s one of the thins that one truly underestimates, especially when you have been an employee your whole life. I always say, the thing I miss most about corporate is that little message on my phone telling me that the money’s in my bank account.
Karen Barnard:
Yes. It’s a huge lesson in humility because suddenly, and for me as well, I knew nothing about how to coach and I feel very strongly that people need to get coach training because it is a very different space but I was starting over. And there were times when I thought, “I know how to do other stuff, why am I coming back to the beginning?” but it’s so rewarding. And yes, that paycheck is amazing and I would say that one sort of has to be in a space where you’re ready to take a little bit of a risk, because it is a risk but oh, the growth that I have experienced I would never have experienced if I had just stayed in my full-time job getting my regular paycheck. There is no way I would’ve grown as I have.
Lisa Linfield:
I totally agree with you. In my book I talk about the transition and I always say that when I went into financial planning, I thought that the hardest thing would be getting new customers and keeping on track with the world economies. And compared to that, the most I’ve had to learn about is myself and managing the transition from the safety of effectively corporate employment to relying entirely on the strength on oneself for our sense of energy and all of that and it’s something you just cannot anticipate.
Lisa Linfield:
I always say it’s a bit like having a child, as hard as it is, it’s the most rewarding and fulfilling thing because as you say, you personally grow to such a massive degree but yet this energy fills you. You have no idea where it’s come from because it is effectively missing in an employed environment because your sense of the ability to govern your own pathway, to have the freedom and the flexibility and work in what you believe your purpose is. I mean, there is no energy like that.
Karen Barnard:
Yeah, and something that you taught me during the course was this concept of how a strong vision and a strong why will give you the rocket fuel you need when times are tough. And every day I remind myself, I see my vision, I know what my why is, and both of those are so much stronger than any of the difficulties that I’m having. And so yeah, you’re right, it’s tough but if you get your mindset right and you understand why you’re doing what you’re doing, it really does fuel you.
Lisa Linfield:
So how did you plan the transition? The reality is you’ve all got to pay the bills and those bills keep coming regardless of whether you’re changing careers or not. How did you plan the transition from full-time corporate employee and how is that going?
Karen Barnard:
Yeah, so I planned several months ahead. I looked at my finances and figured out the optimal timing to start the transition. I also figured out how much clinical work I would need to do to just have still that safety net, not only the safety net financially but also just for me to continue to practice medicine that I think is important for me to still be doing.
Karen Barnard:
And I spoke to all the wise people in my life and had their support in the timing and how I was going to navigate the transition. I have a wonderful boss and set of colleagues at work that are just amazing, and they have made it also so much easier for me to be able to do this transition. I think it’s not something that one wants to do lightly, for me I’m not an impulsive person, I’m a planner, so yeah, it took me several months of planning and then setting a date and taking it from there. And you know, there is risk to it. If you don’t take a risk you’re never going to see where things are going to go. So, so far I think it’s gone really well. The expenses I’ve had have been anticipated and I am on track for getting my credential in coaching and for being able to start generating some revenue.
Lisa Linfield:
i think that’s fantastic, the way you approach it in terms of understanding the financial impact, understanding how much money you needed to pay the basic bills and transitioning slowly in terms of releasing time and therefore salary in order to start taking on your new career. It is always I think one of the wisest approaches because what it allows you to do is to not almost sabotage your new business by having this massive money worry. Yes, it’s absolutely a mindset transition to go from a well paying job to the entrepreneur space where for the first couple of years you don’t really make much money, but if you don’t have the stress of meeting your daily expenses by doing transitions and cutting down your hours it really allows for you to make much more grounded decisions in this process.
Lisa Linfield:
And also, you said your colleagues have been really supportive. One of the experiences I’ve had is that if you are good at your job people will always support you through your transition, because if they can’t have the whole of you they at least want half of you. I think that’s a huge tribute to you and the work ethic that you’ve had, and it’s one of those things I say to people as they transition is make sure you don’t drop the ball. Even if it is your half day job now, you can’t drop the ball because you have the flexibility of the situation because you are a great performer and you need to retain that flexibility. So I think it’s fantastic that you have been able to do that.
Karen Barnard:
Thank you. And I just want to say too, if there are women out there or men out there listening to this podcast, it felt very overwhelming to me when I was in the midst of… I knew something had to change but I didn’t know what it was going to be and how I was going to do it, and really just feeling a sense of overwhelm of that I’ve got a full time job, how am I going to start something on the side, and I’m tired as it is.
Karen Barnard:
And what really worked for me is taking the time to get the clarity of what the next step needs to be. And so not making an impulsive decision that could really hurt you and your family but just hiring a coach or a therapist, whatever, or a good friend, and really look inside. And then once you sort of have some space and you can think through it, this is what worked for me, then you can try some things. It wasn’t clear to me initially what the path was going to be but the universe has an amazing way of when you take action, you get supported. And so it was within the action that I then got supported to say yes, I think this is the direction, and then I knew it was the direction and then I could plan from a space of less overwhelm.
Lisa Linfield:
And I think that’s absolutely right. The hardest step in any venture is that first step. And the challenge is that is the scariest part when you take the leap of faith. I always say, the princess isn’t brave when she’s sitting on the couch watching Netflix. In actual fact nor is she really that brave through the actual battle because her adrenaline is pumping. It’s as you leave that culture of safety, that metaphorical culture of safety and you head into the battle, those first steps, that’s when the braveness is needed. Because as you say once you’ve stepped it’s amazing how the universe, god, life, however you see it, it’s amazing how that always when will then open the path but the real challenges, all the old wisdom stories of ages, you have to step first into the river before it parted.
Lisa Linfield:
And that is unfortunately the reality with this. There is a a certain leap of faith that I think is less scary, as you say, if you upskill yourself in your knowledge of the part that’s going to come. And I fully support you, you know? I’ve tapped on many coaches through my journey, different coaches at different stages that helped me in different things, and I would never be where I am today without my coaches because that clarity of thinking mitigates some of the risk. You know when you take that step that you’ve thought through as much as you can. And obviously the things you don’t know so you can’t think through them.
Karen Barnard:
Yeah. Joseph Campbell, I love when he said, “The cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.” I remind myself about that time and time again, that when I’m really feeling somewhat afraid of doing something, I know that’s where the gold is.
Lisa Linfield:
If you look back on this journey and you were kind of explaining to someone else, as you are to all of our listeners, what have been your biggest ahas that you have had through this process, either from yourself, from the skills that you’ve acquired, or from doing the side hustle course?
Karen Barnard:
So many. Where do I start? We’ve been talking about how important both the mindset and knowing the nuts and bolts when you’re starting a business and looking at business development, and not underestimating doing work on your mindset as you do work on developing your website and learning to do a landing page and all that. So I think that I have a couple under of each of those.
Karen Barnard:
So I think what I’ve learned in terms of practical nuts and bolts was this concept of the know, like, trust, buy, value letter that actually I learned in your course which is that you can be the best coach or the best pottery maker in the world, but if people don’t know you exist and they don’t like you and they don’t trust you, they will not buy from you. And so what I’ve been focusing on in developing my business is looking at each of those. How am I going to get people to know I exist? How will they like me, how will I like them too?
Lisa Linfield:
Absolutely.
Karen Barnard:
And how will I show that they can trust me? Because coaching’s a very personal thing. And then to get them to buy. And I think in your course it was really pivotal for me in terms of really knowing at each juncture of those what I need to be doing.
Karen Barnard:
And then the other sort of aha in terms of nuts and bolts is the concept of bold, measure, learn. And that is very personal for me, because I want to do something and I want to do it right first time. I have such perfectionist traits and what I learned from-
Lisa Linfield:
Thank goodness, because when you’re a doctor we’d very much like you to be perfectionist. I’d really like my doctor to be a perfectionist.
Karen Barnard:
Ooh that’s funny, it’s true though.
Lisa Linfield:
That’s why you’re such a successful doctor.
Karen Barnard:
Yeah, and even in medicine you test something and you make sure that it works and you get feedback, and in business just this idea that you bold something and you see what effect it has and then you learn from it. And you need to adapt and you need to find out what the customer wants. And for me a really important lesson is that if you can’t fail, you’re not going to learn, and your business is not going to grow. So I’ve had to become comfortable with failing, with maybe putting something out there that’s not quite right and then learning to adjust.
Lisa Linfield:
You were talking about your transition from being effectively expert in one field to tota novice in another. And that is hard as it is as a human being, but it’s even made harder when you’re also having to open yourself up to shaking off perfectionism, you know?
Karen Barnard:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Lisa Linfield:
To putting something out there and learning. The insecurities of being a novice are just made even bigger, as you say, by the voices in our head when you are having to grapple with failure.
Karen Barnard:
Exactly, exactly, and another aha under the mindset that links with that is the people who win are those who don’t give up. And it’s so easy when you put something out there and it doesn’t quite work or it doesn’t quite resonate to say, “Okay, well, I’m no good at this,” instead of saying, “How do I need to modify it or change it in order for it to work?”
Karen Barnard:
And something that really gave me so much courage is when you said to me it took you two to three years to find your voices and you’ve given yourself eight years to be successful. That’s really helped me get into that. I’m in for the long haul. It’s not an overnight anything. It’s going to take time and I’m going to fail along the way and I’m going to pick myself up and I’m going to adjust and realign and keep moving forward. But one thing I’m not going to do is give up. Because I know I’m in the right place.
Lisa Linfield:
I love that book by Angela Duckworth where she says that grit, which is the highest indicator of success, is passion plus perseverance. Because it’s really tough, especially when you’ve been at the top of your game in one field and it comes naturally and you are an expert and to effect you are on autopilot. I mean, it’s not that you’re not conscious, it’s just that your skillset, it’s like riding a bike, it’s become automatic.
Lisa Linfield:
And then you come into this new field and you might have all the passion in the world, but if you give up because you have a day when there’s absolutely nobody booked for coaching in your diary, you will never achieve the greatness that you were supported to achieve. That perseverance part is truly the hardest part, I think.
Karen Barnard:
It’s so, so true and it’s such a great reminder to me now just hearing you say that. I almost want to write it down again because perseverance really is key.
Lisa Linfield:
No, it’s hard. I’m going through a really tough time in my business at the moment and my natural instinct… I always say it, it’s very weird, I’ve got this desk that’s got a hole where you put your legs in. Everything inside me wants to jump underneath the desk and hide and just hope it’ll all go away, and when I get up it’s going to be sunshine and roses and unicorns and everything’s just going to turn out. And the problem is it just blooming well doesn’t.
Lisa Linfield:
And you’ve got to go through these phases and there are these phases when you put stuff out there and it doesn’t work. And it really is so heartbreaking. I always say I’m a recovering overachieving good little girl. And why I put the recovering in it is because I don’t know if it ever leaves you. If you have experienced being top of your game and you have experienced autopilot, and maybe in eight or nine or 10 years time when I am in top of my game it won’t be as much.
Lisa Linfield:
But goodness, I find that these knocks, as I said in beginning, the real challenge of this thing is as you grow you set new frontiers for yourself to conquer and with every new frontier comes all of this all over again. Because you can stay small and you can stay at the bottom of your game but you never will. You’re a phenomenal doctor, you’re going to be a phenomenal coach because you’re going to apply the same discipline, the same rigor, and the same passion for the people you coach as you did for your medical skills.
Lisa Linfield:
And I think when I was coaching you through the side hustle course, one of the things I always tried to make you and others see was that we all think our skills are non transferable. Even if you’re going to go be a painter or you’re going to go and be a whatever, we think our skills from our last profession are non-transferable. In reality, probably 60 to 70 percent of them are totally transferable. Yes, there’s a lot of difference between teaching academics medical and endocrinology and all that stuff and dealing with patients, but that skillset of empathy, of diagnostics, of being able to work out what’s going on even when the patient can’t even speak, it’s at same as working with a coaching client who truly hasn’t got their stuff sorted. Those skills are totally transferrable.
Karen Barnard:
You’re so right and I knew that cognitively but I really have started to experience that. And I remember you had us do an exercise where we had to email 12 people who know us, colleagues, friends, family, people in our lives, and ask them what do they think our superpower is. And initially I was a little bit hesitant because I was like, “Well, I’m kind of uncomfortable with thinking I have a superpower,” and the inner critic came in, but I did it and what was so amazing to me was that what people said about me are really some of those transferrable skills. Like you mentioned, the empathy, but I don’t want to make this about me necessarily, but I think if anybody does that exercise you can see wow, there are these so called other skills or soft skills or human skills that we bring into whatever we do, when we want to make change happen in the world and we want to serve people. And so that’s a very powerful statement.
Karen Barnard:
And I have coached people who have said to me, “But I’ve just been skilled from my current job I don’t know that I can transfer this,” and when they see how many skills that they have that they’re going to be able to use elsewhere it’s very powerful.
Lisa Linfield:
Absolutely. And the reality is there is almost no job in the world, there’s almost nothing you can do in the world that doesn’t require people skills. Even for the most introvert of us that like to hide behind our computers, you have to have people skills in order to just sell and promote and be with humans. And those skills we accumulate through our entire life. Sometimes we use different versions of them and sometimes we’re stronger in some of that almost muscle group of human relationships, but the same skills you use them to influence the people around you in any job you take because that is what life is about, as much as we try and think that it’s a digital age. It still comes down to relationships.
Lisa Linfield:
If you look at the way you think about the business of Karen’s coaching, what is fundamentally shifted over the last few months for you?
Karen Barnard:
My self confidence. When I entered into this several months ago, I just didn’t even know where to begin and the confidence that I’ve acquired both in the business building skills and also in my own coaching and the realization, very strongly, that I am in the right space now, that this is where I’m meant to be, the confidence in the coaching process has been the biggest shift for me.
Lisa Linfield:
And it’s fantastic you say that. You know, I often get asked, in writing a book, why didn’t I start writing about money and I say because the biggest thing I’ve learnt on my journey over the past couple of years is that it doesn’t matter what you want to do, your mindset, the way you think about whatever it is you’re tackling, whether it’s health, wealth, relationships, work, that mindset component makes or breaks your success. Whether it’s starting a new business, whether it’s taking on a career transition like you’re coaching people through, whether it’s trying to shift yourself from being in debt to having wealth, all of that, it doesn’t even begin until you have your mindset right
Lisa Linfield:
And I always say one of the biggest lessons in sales is that you sell people what they want but you give them what they need. So in the course we structured it-
Karen Barnard:
Oh, it’s so true.
Lisa Linfield:
Absolutely, and in the course we structured, you sell people how to do a side hustle but one of the things I realized in my very first prototype of the course was that I had three days of mindset work and the response from that mindset work, and then I weave that mindset work through the course, was so phenomenal that we made an entire course that paralleled the side hustle course. Because at the end of the day if you can’t battle the Cruella de Vil in your head that is working to put you down at every second and to say, “You see? You should’ve done this. You see, you should’ve done that, you shouldn’t have tried this,” if you can’t quieten that voice and you can’t overcome the massive barriers it is to doing any change that will lead you to your best life, you will never move forward.
Lisa Linfield:
And someone could look at you and say, “Hey, you’re a doctor, you’re a flipping amazing human being, how on earth could self confidence be the number one thing that’s shifted for you because you should be very confident,” and the reality is that confidence that you have when you’re doing something that is a hundred percent only you is a strength of confidence that I don’t believe one gets in a corporate world, where you’ve got your bosses telling how wonderful you are and your patients telling how wonderful you are and your colleagues telling you how wonderful you are.
Lisa Linfield:
When you get to do this course, and especially in the beginning, it’s you, yourself, and you because when you do that transition into your work there is nothing yet. You’re still building a business. And for you to say self-confidence has been the biggest transition is absolutely the pearl of the hardest part of starting any part of any life transition is the confidence that you need in order to fight the voices in your head.
Karen Barnard:
I couldn’t have said it better, I completely agree. And it’s ongoing work. It’s a journey. But I think to not take action has such a big price, or would have had for me, that it’s been worth it a hundred percent.
Lisa Linfield:
So in la-la land, in the next few years, where is Karen? What has happened to your business, where’s it growing, what is that little slight vision or dream that’s in your head?
Karen Barnard:
Oh, I love talking about this. So, Lisa, I am going to be…. and I still have my suitcase picture as you called it, this vision. I am going to be traveling extensively, particularly spending more time in South Africa. Both my brother and my dad are there, so I want to spend not just a week or two but several months there. I’m going to be in Europe.
Karen Barnard:
And at the same time I’m going to be in my coaching business coaching most likely healthcare providers going through transition. I can do that anywhere in the world. I will always have a base in the US because I have great friends and colleagues here, so I will be here from time to time and I will be helping people to make changes in their own lives so they can be happier and more fulfilled in their life, and ultimately have the world be a better place to live in.
Karen Barnard:
Part of my business, the pro bono piece is going to be helping women, usually young women, I’m thinking it’s going to be young women with career change, who are considering what steps are. And I really want to help develop younger women because I think that as women we all need strong female role models that we can learn from.
Lisa Linfield:
I think that is the most wonderful vision. Because you know what the thing is, I think that you’re right, is that the more people you can coach to realize their passion and purpose and where they really will be happier, the more people will be set free in the world to serve other people in those gifts that they were all born for. Every one of us is born with gifts.
Karen Barnard:
Exactly. Thank you, Lisa.
Lisa Linfield:
Well, that’s fantastic. And the reality about coaching these days is… I mean, I am coached weekly depending on the different things that I do. So I have a book coach when I was writing my book. I had a podcast coach when I was writing my podcast. None of them have been physically based anywhere near me, they’re all been across the world in Puerto Rico and Spain and America, because the reality these days is that with Zoom and other technologies you can be face to face reading that person’s body language and signs on the other side of a screen. So you can be all over the world as your dream wishes, you know?
Karen Barnard:
Yes, and most of the practice clients I have now, they don’t want to leave work. They’ll take an hour and close their office door and have a coaching session then they move right to the next meeting and they don’t have to travel anywhere. So even just to do phone coaching is as effective as face-to-face, and there’s actually some research that’s been done on this, on the effectiveness of virtual and telephone coaching. So the times have changed and we’re all going to benefit from the wonderful world we’re living in.
Lisa Linfield:
Absolutely. It’s been a phenomenal time chatting with you and there are probably many people out there who would absolutely benefit from your coaching and especially your career transition coaching, how would people be able to get hold of you?
Karen Barnard:
Well, I would love to hear from people. At this point in time I’m coaching anybody who wants to be coached and my website is drkarenbarnard.com, that’s D-R-K-A-R-E-N-BA-R-N-A-R-D.com. Feel free to email me at Karen, K-A-R-E-N, @doctorkarenbarnard.com, that’s my email. I offer a 30 minute free sample session to see if you’d be interested in working with me and then we can take it from there.
Lisa Linfield:
Well, I think that’s absolutely fantastic and we will connect in our show notes all the links to those two places to get hold of Karen Barnard. It gives me goosebumps to hear that it is bringing you such joy to be working in your purpose, so thank you for joining us.
Karen Barnard:
Absolutely. Thank you, Lisa, and I want to thank you for being such an inspiration and role model for me. and for all that you’re doing for women and men, that I know your million woman goal to teach women about wealth is something that has inspired me. And I just want to say, please don’t crawl under the desk, just wave your magic wand and get right back up because we need you.
Lisa Linfield:
Thank you, I appreciate that. Have a great day.
Karen Barnard:
Thank you, Lisa.
Lisa Linfield:
That was Dr. Karen Barnard. And it’s been phenomenal to watch her journey, and she is a fantastic and talented coach and human being, and I do recommend that all of you take up her free half an hour offer of coaching if you have any form of transition that you are wanting to be coached about, because I think her experience and her talent is just amazing. So you can reach her on drkarenbarnard.com and take her up on that great offer.
Lisa Linfield:
And as you know, we have only one more week left of the Side Hustle. I really do encourage all of you that are wanting to start earning an extra income, but more importantly to start generating the freedom in your life to do the things that you were born and built to do, to sign up for the 16 Week Side Hustle. I will take you through all the transitions that you need to go through, not only in terms of the skillset of product sales and marketing, but also in terms of the mindset that you need to have in order to stick with these transitions, because there are hard but my goodness are they rewarding. So go to workingwomenswealth.com and sign up for the Side Hustle, it really is going to change your life.
Lisa Linfield:
Take care, have a great week. I’m Lisa Linfield and this is Working Women’s Wealth.