Narrator [00:00:00] Successful individuals use coaching and mentorship to help them unlock their potential. Not all coaches are created equal and that’s why we work with the top 5% of coaches at ideamix. Welcome to Coaches You Need brought to you by ideamix.
Jamie [00:00:17] Welcome to Coaches To Know, a podcast short by ideamix radio. This brief podcast is designed to demystify coaching and help you, our audience, understand what coaching is and how it can help you. I’m you host, Jamie, and today I have the pleasure of being here with Coach Roberta to discuss a program called Designing Your Life. Coach Roberta, of course, is a certified Designing Your Life coach. She’s been an executive leadership coach and facilitator for five years. She has a background in education policy where she worked in government at all levels and then also in the nonprofit area. In all her walks of life, she’s held leadership roles. Her clients are people seeking to upskill and become leaders. And these are leaders from C-suite executives to senior and mid-level leaders to emerging leaders, which includes young professionals and college students. So welcome to Coach Roberta and thank you for joining us here today.
Coach Roberta [00:01:25] Thank you very much, Jamie. Great to be here.
Jamie [00:01:28] So let’s briefly start, if you could just help us understand what is the program Designing Your Life and how does it differ from other programs that are out there?
Coach Roberta [00:01:37] Sure. So designing your life is a framework that was developed by two design engineers at a Stanford University. Bill Burnett and Dave Evans. And basically, they have applied design principles for helping people design a life they love. Bill And Dave’s philosophy is that everyone deserves to be able to have and design a life and, as by extension, a work life that they love and that no one truly, if you embrace the principles, no one is ever finished designing their life. [00:02:28]Once you learn the model and you learn the philosophy and you learn the framework, you have the tools to continue to, I would say, fail forward and design a life you love as you evolve and change because as humans, we are constantly developing, evolving, and changing. [23.5s]
Jamie [00:02:54] Brilliant. Thank you so much. We are not robots, right? So we’re–
Coach Roberta [00:03:00] Not yet. Not yet anyway, right Jamie?
Jamie [00:03:04] Makes us different from Chat GPT. Right?
Coach Roberta [00:03:07] Right.
Jamie [00:03:09] Thank you so much for that introduction. So it sounds like one of the key differences, just for clarification, is that the framework and the way it’s built it is with a design lens. Is that correct?
Coach Roberta [00:03:24] Correct, yes.
Jamie [00:03:25] And there really aren’t any other programs that take that approach.
Coach Roberta [00:03:30] Not that I’m aware of.
Jamie [00:03:33] Okay. And, you know, I’m sort of getting to my my next question which is who is this for? It sounds like it’s something that it’s for everybody at any stage of life. But, you know, I’ll let you talk to that point, as well as you know, you mentioned that people can use the framework over and over again. Is there a, you know, is there a recommended frequency with which you use this framework to, you know, I guess, reflect on your life and where you’re at and where you want to go?
Coach Roberta [00:04:07] So those are a lot of questions packed into one. So let let me try to peel them apart. So first of all, yes, I would say it’s almost for everyone. I think some starting with high school students, you would have to have a certain level of maturity, I think, in order for it to be effective. But certainly college students, absolutely anyone in the workforce, and then most recently I have done some workshops with individuals who are recently retired and ready to do their second act. So related to your other question about, you know, what is the recommended frequency? It’s very individual. It’s based on when someone starts to feel as though whatever they’re doing for their in this case, usually it’s for their job, for their career, is not aligning with their values and their beliefs. And I call it feeling squidgy. I know that’s not a word in the dictionary. But you just start to feel–people start to feel off kilter. They start to feel uncentered, or they’re not as–they don’t have as much energy. They’re not as motivated, they’re seeking something else. [00:05:37]So at any point in someone’s career or in someone’s life, as in the case with the people who are moving on to their second or third or in some cases their fourth act, they want to be able to take some time to reflect and use these tools to figure out what it is they might want to do and then start exploring and finding out and and testing the water to see, in fact, if it is something they want to pursue. [30.2s]
Jamie [00:06:10] Thanks so much. I love the word squidgy.
Coach Roberta [00:06:13] Haha.
Jamie [00:06:15] I’m going to use that. You might want to trademark that. And yeah, squidgy, which is your feeling unsettled or like something is just not right in what you’re doing and what you’re feeling. I really appreciate that term and it’s a perfect and perfectly describes the emotion, I think. This is all very enlightening. You know, as a–as a final question, you know, I’m interested in understanding why you chose to get certified and design your life. What was it for you that attracted you to the program? Because, you know, in the coaching sphere, there are a lot of different assessments and programs. You know, there is no lack of opportunities to pursue different frameworks. So what–what spoke to you about Design Your Life?
Coach Roberta [00:07:11] So I am a product of the program is the short answer. When I was in my–when I was in my senior leadership position in the federal government, I started feeling squidgy, or uncentered, or off kilter, or that something wasn’t just quite right. And so I started, you know, casting my net and exploring different options. And I landed on the Designing Your Life course, which I took the course myself as–not as a coach–I wasn’t as a coach this time. I just took it to try to find out what I might want to do next. And that led me down the path of exploring, becoming an executive leadership coach. And, you know, fast forward probably about eight years later, here I am today, you know, in business for myself as an executive leadership coach and facilitator. So, again, short answer is I am a product of the program and once I became a coach, then I pursued the certification to be certified as a coach for the Designing Your Life program. And I have continued to see success, after success, after success with my clients.
Jamie [00:08:41] And that’s an amazing note to wrap up on, an amazing testament as well to the Designing Your Life program. But thank you so much, Coach Roberta, for your time today. And to our audience, if you would like to work with Coach Roberta or one of our other qualified coaches, please visit theideamix.com. Thank you for listening today.
Narrator [00:09:07] Thanks for listening. Please subscribe wherever you listen and leave us a review. Find your ideal coach at www.theideamix.com. Special thanks to our producer Martin Milewski and singer-songwriter Doug Allen.