Episode #23:

Coaching Women Over 50: What it’s Really Like During and After a Coaching Session with Sally Hanson

There’s a lot of misunderstanding about life coaching, and many people feel apprehensive to work with a coach. But coaches aren’t here to judge you, their purpose is to take you from where you are now to wherever you want to be. Fellow certified Life Coach Sally Hanson joins me on the podcast this week to help demystify coaching and explain the benefits of hiring a coach.

Sally is a certified Trainer and Life Coach who supports women over the age of 50 to find their purpose in life. After turning 50, Sally went through some drastic life changes and found herself at rock bottom, getting into a lot of bad habits and with nowhere to turn for guidance. She hired a coach and by doing so, she picked herself up and created a new, successful life for herself. She uses her experiences to empower other women to develop themselves and create a life they love.

Tune in this week where we’ll show you what you can expect from a life coach, and what a typical session looks like during and after. We discuss what happens in your mind as you process new tools, and how you can move forward in your transformative process. It’s easy to get stuck in being stuck, but remember, you are the director of your own life!

WHAT YOU’LL DISCOVER

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The unique set of challenges faced by women over 50.

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How coaching can transform your life.

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Why things will always improve and why you shouldn’t give up hope.

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How setting goals and taking action is crucial to transformation.

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How coaching works and what you can expect from working with a coach.

FEATURED ON THE SHOW

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Check out more episodes of the podcast here!

TRANSCRIPT

Susan Crockett: Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, the podcast, with Dr. Susan Crockett. You are listening to episode number 23: Coaching Women over 50: What It’s Really Like During and After a Coaching Session. This is an interview with fellow Certified Life Coach, Sally Hanson. This episode is dedicated to me, Sally insisted and I said no. And then she said, “Yes, I want to dedicate this to you, you’re over 50 and you’re doing so much for coaching, and you should just say thank you and do it.” So, alright, Sally, here you go.

Female Announcer: Welcome to Becoming Virtuosa, where women learn to love their lives. Do you find yourself frustrated by society’s expectations? Looking for practical advice on how to discover your talents and level up your life? You’ve found the right place. Here’s your host, US News top doctor, robotic surgeon and Certified Life Coach, Dr. Susan Crockett.

Susan Crockett: Hello, my virtuosas, and my virtuosas in training. I am your host, Dr. Susan Crockett, and you can call me Sue, because we’re doing interviews and I’m not being a doctor here today. We may talk about some medical stuff, but we are here to let you listen in on a conversation that I’m having with one of my wonderful coaches today.

Yesterday I was out on the lake. I have six kids, I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned that before. And my only daughter is the oldest one, so my daughter is 22, I think she’s 22. She and two of her girlfriends came out on the boat with me yesterday; we had a girls’ day on the lake. And it was fabulous, it was so much fun. We did tubing and we did wake surfing, which none of the girls had done before, and it was so cool, we had just a great time, I so appreciate my girls.

So it’s another beautiful day here in Texas. Today I am going to – I’m so excited about this interview, you guys are really going to enjoy this. So today we’re doing an interview with Sally Hanson, she’s one of my favorites, she’s just awesome. So she is a very interesting person, we are going to be talking about just the practicality of what it is to be coached, what a session is like, and what happens after you have a coaching session.

And then we’re specifically going to talk about coaching women over 50 and the change in life, not just from menopause and medical perspective, but all of the things that are happening through this transition, and how coaching applies to that transformation and how it can make it so amazing.

So, Sally is a certified life coach from the Life Coach School, just like I am. But she’s also certified by Jack Canfield, the Chicken Soup guy. She is a certified trainer in human potential, and she puts that together with her coaching. And she also has a long history of wellness experience and instruction, including yoga, meditation, she can help you with breath work, she’s done emotional freedom work with people before. So she brings to the table a nice breadth of experience to coach.

Aside from that she owns her own marketing company and she’s done some of the marketing for us with Virtuosa Coaching. Some of you, especially if you’re my patients, you probably received one of these beautiful postcards that we sent out earlier in the year, just talking about coaching. Well, Sally’s company is the one that produced those beautiful postcards for us, so she is just awesome. So I hope you enjoy today’s show, here’s Sally.

Alright, hey, Sally, how are you doing today?

Sally Hanson: Hey, Sue, I’m doing great, thanks. Thanks for having me here.

Susan Crockett: You’re welcome, thanks for joining us. I know you have a lot of really great content to share with our listeners, especially our listeners who are over 50 or approaching some of those midlife issues. And this is going to be an awesome podcast. So let’s start by you telling us just a little bit about your story, how did you come to life coaching? How did you get to this specific niche? And yeah, tell us about you.

Sally Hanson: Sure. Well, thank you so much for having me on, Sue; it’s just my honor to be here. So I was 30 years in corporate America in sales and marketing. And then when I turned 50, there were so many changes that were happening to me all at once. So I was going through menopause, and maybe some of your listeners can relate. I was going through menopause, which is a hard time in itself. I lost my job and my husband wanted a divorce, all in the same month, the job loss and my husband wanting a divorce. And on top of that my kids were leaving for college, so…

Susan Crockett: You got like everything at once.

Sally Hanson: Yeah, everything at once, and those were just the big things. And then I just really hit rock bottom at that time. I just thought how am I ever going to get out of this situation? How am I ever going to start dating again? How am I ever going to find another job? I just didn’t really know what to do. And so I really hit rock bottom until, you know, and I got into a lot of bad habits like overeating, overdrinking, just anything that I could do to numb the pain.

Susan Crockett: To feel better to try to, you know, feel better, yeah.

Sally Hanson: Exactly, exactly. Anyway finally I got to the point where enough was enough. And I couldn’t continue on like this, so I just picked myself up, I hired a coach.

Susan Crockett: Wait. How did you find out about coaching? How did you find a coach? How did you know what that was?

Sally Hanson: I had heard about it. And I had been to therapy, but I’d heard about this life coaching thing that was taking you from where you are to where you want to be. I was intrigued.

Susan Crockett: And you weren’t really like depressed where you thought you had a medical condition and needed medication or psychiatrists, you just wanted help?

Sally Hanson: Yeah. I wanted someone to support me and I wanted someone to kind of take me by the hand and say, “You can do this. You can do this. We’ve got you here.” And that’s what hiring a coach did for me. So I hired a coach and then I got into the Life Coach School. And also other kind of self-help areas, I was – I’m big into Jack Canfield’s Success Principles. And so I took one thing at a time, and let’s just fast forward, 10 years later here I am. I’m now 60.

Susan Crockett: Which is so hard to believe, if we look at your picture, like my listeners really need to go look at your profile on the Virtuosa Coaching. When you first told me you were 60, I’m like shocked, you look so young. I never would have guessed that you were older than me. It’s amazing.

Sally Hanson: Well, thank you so much. But anyway, I’ve been remarried now for five years to a wonderful man. I started a business and now I have a successful marketing business. My kids are doing great.

In the last five years we have travelled – and I’m not trying to brag, I’m just telling – I want your listeners to know that these kind of things are possible. I have travelled all over the world, in the last five years we’ve been to India. We’ve been on safari in Africa. We’ve been to China. We’ve been to Peru, and just to name a few. And I also became a Certified Life Coach through the Life Coach School. And as well, I became a Certified Jack Canfield Trainer.

Susan Crockett: That’s cool.

Sally Hanson: Yeah. So I mean just imagine where I came from 10 years ago and where I am today. And that really is all due to coaching; managing my mind, setting goals, achieving those goals, and your listeners can do it too.

Susan Crockett: What a message of hope that is, because so often we get stuck in being stuck, and just having the example of women like us being able to make the changes intentionally in their lives and have that hope that if she did it, I could do it. I mean that’s such a great example, thanks for sharing your story, that’s really cool. Wow. Okay, so today we’re going to talk about coaching and what it is. Why don’t you talk a little bit about why you chose this topic?

Sally Hanson: Well, it’s just so close to my heart, because here I was a wreck 10 years ago. And I was able to overcome all of those challenges and I want to share that. I want to share that with other women and give them hope, and give them support and encouragement and show them that it’s possible, because I know where they’ve been.

Susan Crockett: Yeah, you sure do. Why don’t we start by you telling us a little bit about what a coaching session is like? Because I know when I talk to my patients, for instance, about life coaching, there’s a lot of misunderstanding about it or not understanding what it’s like, a lot of fear about engaging in life coaching. And so how about if you just start and take us through what a session is like and what life coaching is in the style and education that you and I have had together.

Sally Hanson: Sure, absolutely. So I’m thinking back to my first coaching session and I was a nervous wreck. I didn’t know what to expect. So a coaching session, it’s going to be on video, so through your computer or your phone. Or it could be just through the phone. And I think my first coaching session; I think I wanted it through the phone because I was a little nervous about what it was going to be. And I didn’t know this person. I just knew she was a professional coach.

So the first thing is developing trust, so I’m developing trust and there’s also a place of non-judgment. So I’m not there, you know, as far as me being a coach, I’m not there to judge. I’m not there to tell you what to do.

It’s almost like imagine we’re sitting on a sofa together and we are in a movie theater and we’re looking at your thoughts on the movie screen. And we are the directors, okay, together we’re the directors and we say, “You know what, let’s cut that part out, that part’s not working, that part’s not serving you. But let’s keep that, this part’s great. And this scene, we’re going to change this scene.” So, imagine that, so it’s almost like giving you the client, the power to create and change your life. And go and take you from where you are now to where you want to be.

So you can imagine that, like visualizing, making a movie of your life, say where you want to be in the next five years. So that’s kind of what it’s like. It’s very comfortable, and it’s, you know, there’s a lot of trust there and then there is a lot of non-judgment. And we are trained as coaches to hold space which…

Susan Crockett: Holding space, tell me about that, what does that mean?

Sally Hanson: Yeah, holding space is really just allowing the client to be who they are without any judgment at all.

Susan Crockett: Right. And that was so eye-opening to me when I first got into coaching. We come from, or I come from a world where everything is diagnostic. So the medical world, I’m constantly making evaluations and not necessarily judging bad or good, but it’s so critical thinking type work. And for me, switching into the mindset of coaching, it’s a very deliberate thing when I switch into coaching mode.

But that was one of the most comforting things about it when I started working with coaching was that I could be safe to say anything. There is truly no judgment; it’s a place that’s safe. You just talk and get it all out. And then the way we learn coaching, we don’t tell people what to do either. So it’s just that unique setting of somebody being able to show you your brain and kind of going, “Well, is that working for you, is that what you want?” And like you said, like the director thing, I love the metaphor of sitting on the couch watching the movie, that’s really powerful.

Sally Hanson: Exactly. And I also want these women to know that they have the power, they have a 100% responsibility on where they are now, but where they’re going to go. And I want them to set their goals, to take action and to manage their minds along the way. And we can really do that together and it’s quite amazing.

Susan Crockett: Awesome. So let’s talk a little bit specifically about coaching women over 50. This is a topic really close to my heart, not only because I am in that group, but also in my GYN practice I have a large population of women that are dealing with, oh my gosh, all these specific topics, for women over 50. So tell us a little bit about what those topics are and how you take care of women in this stage of life.

Sally Hanson: Sure, sure. So when women turn 50 it’s a difficult transition.

Susan Crockett: It can be.

Sally Hanson: It can be, there’s all the changes, the physical changes going through menopause and the hot flushes and maybe sexual issues. But then there’s other things like impending retirement, and aging parents, and empty nest syndrome.

Susan Crockett: Yeah, and like trying to find…

Sally Hanson: I don’t know if that’s a syndrome. But yeah, trying to find purpose in life, so it’s a whole different set of challenges than maybe a younger woman who’s in her 30s or having children. Yeah, so I want these clients to know I understand them, I get them, I’ve been through it. I know where they are, and I can really help them. So this is what I’m passionate about.

Susan Crockett: So the thing I love about this is you mentioned the physical things. So in my medical office practice we’re dealing with the physical issues, the hormones and the hormone replacement and all of that. But so often, like almost universally these women also are dealing with changes that they need help with their brains and their brain management, just like we’re talking about here.

And this is one of the primary reasons that I decided to add coaching to my practice and why things like this podcast are so important. Is because a lot of times I see women who think if I just take some estrogen, I’ll be fine. But it’s not all due to hormones. I mean a lot of it is all of these specific life stressors and life changes. And this is where there’s a huge benefit for coaching, I see it. It really, for the women that are open to doing that and working on their brains and the transformation in a good way, they move through this kind of like you have.

We see this as a time of hope and rebirth almost into the mirror version of themselves, and it doesn’t have to be like a tragic time, it’s just like the end of the life, right?

Sally Hanson: No, that’s exactly right. And you really named it, it’s important to have a medical professional and then maybe a therapist, maybe a dietician on your team, maybe somebody that helps you with exercise or an exercise class and then a life coach. So it’s all part – we’re all part of that wellness team that can help women be the best version of themselves.

Susan Crockett: That’s so awesome. So tell us a little bit about what it’s like – we talked about what it’s like in a session, like what a session actually feels like, that it’s a place of safeness and non-judgment and where we’re just really looking at our brains and our thoughts and redesigning what we want those types of things to be. Tell us what it’s like after a session. What can women expect to happen after having like a 45 minute coaching session with somebody like you?

Sally Hanson: Yeah, sure, sure. So there’s a lot of kind of aha moments, or there can be some breakthrough moments that really can make a change in someone’s life. And they coach themselves and they take that information and work through it during the week or in between sessions. And it really, yeah, so a lot of the coaching will happen not during – of course, during the session. But a lot of it happens after the session when they are out and about in their daily lives using some of these techniques.

Susan Crockett: Yeah. So it’s not just I come and do a therapy session for an hour and then I’ll see you next week, it’s not like just a one hour a week. You’re empowering them with tools that they can use continuously through the week to work on where they want to go?

Sally Hanson: Absolutely. I just got an email from someone that I coached about six months ago, and she sent me a thank you, that things were so much better with her daughter now from our coaching session. She said, “Remember when I broke down and cried?” And she said, “I just want to thank you so much for just letting me see that.” And she’s changed her life because of it, so a lot of…

Susan Crockett: So sweet.

Sally Hanson: Yeah, yeah.

Susan Crockett: Tell me a little bit about how our listeners can find you? Of course you’re one of our wonderful coaches at virtuosacoaching.com. But if they want to work with you in different ways or want to find you on social media, tell us how we can find you.

Sally Hanson: Sure, sure, of course. I am with Virtuosa Coaching, and I will remind our listeners that Sue, on your website right now, I don’t know if your listeners know this or not, but you have a limited time special right now, $20 for 20 minutes of coaching.

Susan Crockett: Yeah, we do.

Sally Hanson: And that’s for all of the coaches.

Susan Crockett: Right. We have like 30 coaches, something like that, in all these different topics, and so it’s a really easy way to try out coaching with minimal risk, it’s really a fun way to do it, who wouldn’t want to do that?

Sally Hanson: Yeah. So I hope everyone will give it a try, but they can also find me on my website which is sallyhansoncoaching.com. And then I’m also on Facebook.

Susan Crockett: Okay, so we’ll make sure we put that in the show notes. And then let’s wrap this up; what would you want to leave our listeners with as your final thought?

Sally Hanson: Sure. So what I want to leave the listeners with is I want to empower women and I want them to know that whatever’s happening in their lives right now, they can move past it.

Susan Crockett: Yes, absolutely.

Sally Hanson: And we can take them from where they are to where they want to go. And we can help them get there, we can help them set goals, take action and manage their minds to get there. So if you’re out there, women, listening, just don’t give up hope and everything is there for you, and we’re here to help you.

Susan Crockett: That is awesome. Well, Sally, thank you so much, this was such a fun meaningful topic for our listeners and have a great weekend and we’ll talk to you later, okay?

Sally Hanson: Thanks. You too, Sue.

Susan Crockett: Okay, bye.

So what I’ve shown you today, first of all I hope that we’ve helped to demystify coaching a little bit, kind of show what a session is like, how relaxing and truly rewarding and fun it can be, what coaching is, what it isn’t. And kind of show you what a session is like, what you can expect, and then also what you can expect from your brain and your mind afterwards as you learn to process the new tools and move forward in your transformative process.

We spoke specifically about what coaching for women after 50 looks like, and the special circumstances that this particular type of work in managing our thoughts and our brains can do to help transition through that time period. I hope that you’ve seen today’s talk is designed to help give you hope and not a sense of despair, but a feeling of hope and excitement about the years ahead.

I hope you feel like you have the power to transform your life. You should have learned a little bit about the fact that you’re the director of your own life and your own script. And a coach is somebody who helps manage your brain to help you build that life that you truly deserve and want so much to live. So, coaching can help you get there.

Now we come to the part of the show where we talk about what we’re listening to and reading. I let Sally pick all of these this week, it was really fun. Sometimes my coaches let me choose. Sometimes they come with stuff. So she is listening to a really beautiful song called Now We Are Free by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. It’s actually the theme song from Gladiator, you all remember that movie, Russell Crowe, 2000, yeah, Gladiator, so, Now We Are Free, beautiful calming, meditative music.

She’s reading a book by Ilchi Lee; it’s called I’ve Decided to Live 120 Years. I love this idea, so a couple of years ago I decided that that’s my target for how long I want to live. And I haven’t reached the halfway mark yet, which kind of gives me a lighter perspective on where I am right now. I feel like I am still very productive and looking at sustainability long term in what I’m doing medically and as a coach, and teacher. I hope you get some inspiration from this book.

And then of course what we’re watching, Gladiator, who doesn’t love some Russell Crowe? And this is a great classic movie. It’s one you can watch together with your men, because sometimes we as women don’t always choose things that our men appreciate. But, Gladiator is definitely one for the ages for both genders.

So that’s all I’ve got for this week. Next week we are talking with Wendy Crabbe about why you need a coach to lose weight. There are lots of ways to lose weight, there’s a million ways to lose weight, but having a life coach can make all the difference in the world. In fact, it probably is the most important thing, the mind management around weight loss, so we’re looking forward to talking with Wendy next week. Please tune in.

Okay, my virtuosas have a wonderful week. Love always, Sue. And I will see you next week in episode 24.

Female Announcer: Thanks for listening to this episode of Becoming Virtuosa. If you want to find out more, come check out virtuosacoaching.com. That’s virtuosa - with an A - coaching.com. See you next week.

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