I know I am supposed to want a coaching empire - 

and it is not that I don't want an empire exactly. 

Part of me wants my coaching practice to be larger than life, AND of course, I want to make big bank dollars and an impact. 

I want to leave a legacy. 

I want to leave an inheritance for my children. 

Money is a big ass deal, and I love money as much or maybe more than the next person - 

but here's the thing: I don't want to boss-babe to build my future. 

Yes, I want big, but I also want soft. 

I want a soft life, and I want a soft business. 

I want a coaching practice that feels generous. I want it to feel open-hearted and spacious. Generosity flows both ways. Decades in my coaching practice have taught me this is true. I gave up struggle in my work a long time ago. 

In an industry that often feels like it values profit over people, where coaches are trained to extract dollars from clients at the highest possible price point they can pay, I will coach for free, and pretty much everyone knows that. 

In all my years of coaching for free, I have never felt like the client didn't work hard enough because they didn't pay for it. 

I have never once felt taken advantage of. 

I have never worried a paying client felt resentment because someone else didn't pay what they did. 

I am not afraid of giving too much of anything away or not getting paid.

I always get paid - and I coach for free in some way, almost every day. 

I will coach for free if a disaster or a crisis has rocked your world. I know what it's like to muddle through those first days or weeks when the world has turned upside down. We can just figure things out.

I will coach for free if a labor strike has impacted your income. I am pro-labor. I am happy to walk my talk. We are in it together.

If we have worked together before, I will not charge you to chat for a few minutes or, frankly, an hour or two if something has shifted in your life and you don't want to feel alone. 

If your mom, best friend, or dog just died, I would be honored to sit with you in that space of sacred grief if you invite me there - and no, I will not bill you for that. 

If you just got a diagnosis, and your head is spinning, and you can't find a way to take one step forward, DM me. I'm not expecting you to dig out your credit card to get through that moment. 

If you are fleeing a relationship or a country and might be in danger, or in danger of going back, seriously, we do not have to figure out if you can afford support - let's just talk. 

If your husband asked for a divorce over dinner, I am probably going to be happy to get on the phone with you at 9 pm because, good Goddess, I have been there, and sometimes it just cannot wait. 

If something happened on that date last night, and you are scared or ashamed and have no one to sort it out with - message me - please. I am not going to ask you to Venmo me first - or maybe ever. 

Do you need a payment plan for pretty much anything I offer? Sure. 

Do you need to pay me later? Let's talk about it. 

And I am not saying this to be altruistic or to brag about my heart. I am just not an altruistic person.

I am saying this because doing business this way, with an active practice of generosity, has been the best and most sustainable source of income in my coaching ecosphere. It also feels very soft and I want a soft business. 

Generosity has created a flow of energy in my business that is circular, moving in, out, and through. It has carried me for years in my business. 

Marketing and business experts will read this and roll their eyes.

Coaches who are struggling, going through the deep woods of building a practice where it seems like you cannot even give your work away, will think I am full of shit. 

Lots of coaches will read this and say I am a boundaryless pushover. 

However, I am telling you, I am always as booked as I ever want to be.

I support my family with a lot of ease in approximately five hours a day, four days a week. 

I work with clients who cannot pay me and clients who pay me A LOT of money for very little time. 

If the coaching space has got you down and you feel a little or a lot sick to your stomach about what it looks like sometimes, please just know there are lots of ways to build an empire.

In the coaching universe, grandeur and big money allure often make generosity feel like weakness. A soft life paired with gentle but potent ambition isn't about compromising on your dreams but more about up-leveling them to be more human. Generosity, unleashed in your business, becomes more than just a gesture—it transforms into a potent marketing plan. 

You cannot have a soft life and rigid edges around your business. 

If you want to build a coaching practice that fits a soft life, you should check out The Coaching Guild.

The Coaching Guild is a training coach training program specifically designed to nurture dreamers, artists, creatives, outsiders, rebels, and good troublemakers. It is a multi-instructor, multi-disciplinary approach to training that prioritizes learning innovative foundational coaching skills and marketing training.