Latest / The Academic Coaching Podcast / How Do You Find Your Style as an Academic Coach? | Nancy Minolli

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How Do You Find Your Style as an Academic Coach? | Nancy Minolli · The Academic Coaching Podcast

• 0:00
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): If you could sit down with 2018 Nancy for 15 minutes, what would you tell her knowing what you know now, and what would you not tell her because she needed to learn it herself?
• 0:11
  Nancy Minolli: Ooh.
• 0:13
  Nancy Minolli: Okay.
• 0:15
  Nancy Minolli: I would tell myself that you're good at this.
• 0:21
  Nancy Minolli: This is gonna be fun, that you can do this.
• 0:25
  Nancy Minolli: I think there was, there was definitely self-doubt, like am I good at this?
• 0:28
  Nancy Minolli: Because you don't have a boss, you don't have this feedback like you do in other, you know, careers or professions.
• 0:33
  Nancy Minolli: And so that yeah, I think that was important to me that like there was some kind of, you know, confirmation that I was gonna be okay, that this was fine, you know?
• 0:42
  Nancy Minolli: What did I need to learn myself?
• 0:44
  Nancy Minolli: Ooh, that's a tough one Probably I just needed to just help kind of sometimes just meet students where they were.
• 0:51
  Nancy Minolli: That I didn't need to follow a script or that they weren't all gonna fit the same box.
• 0:58
  Nancy Minolli: And you know that, but when you first start out you're trying to like kind of like do things the same way'cause you, I just didn't know who I, was.
• 1:06
  Nancy Minolli: But I definitely think I was trying to mold students in this way that I thought was probably like the best way for them.
• 1:13
  Nancy Minolli: And then you quickly realize like no, every student just needs their own, own program, their own path.
• 1:20
  Nancy Minolli: And so yeah, I think that was something you just can't figure out on your own, that you just, or that you have to wait and figure out, that nobody can tell you that one.
• 1:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Welcome back to the Academic Coaching Podcast, brought to you by the Anti-Boring Learning Lab.
• 1:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I'm your host, Gretchen Wegner, and this is the show where we dig into the craft of coaching students, the study skills, the executive function strategies, and the occasional business tip for those of you in private practice.
• 1:45
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Today, we're especially going to be talking about both study skills and executive function strategies and business because my guest today is Nancy Minolli, who has been in my world since 2018, can you believe it?
• 2:01
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): When she was just figuring out how to become an academic coach.
• 2:05
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Eight years later, she has a thriving practice.
• 2:08
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): She actually has discovered her perfect niche for her, a whole lot of students behind her, and she's actually even beginning to imagine winding down her coaching career.
• 2:19
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So it seemed like the perfect opportunity to look back together.
• 2:23
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): How has she changed as a coach?
• 2:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): What has she learned?
• 2:26
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And what does she know now that she couldn't possibly have known when she started?
• 2:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Let's get into it
• 2:33
  Nancy Minolli: Hi Nancy.
• 2:37
  Nancy Minolli: Hello
• 2:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Before we started recording, you asked me how I am, and I refused to answer'cause I said,"Let's save it for the recording." So how I am is a little tired from a lovely Labor Day weekend out camping in the foothills to the Sierras.
• 2:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And also how I am is a little exhausted from having already done another podcast earlier today, and I'm going to speak at the high school that is local to both of us
• 3:09
  Nancy Minolli: Yes
• 3:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): where I do a regular gig.
• 3:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And I think you came to watch me at that gig once oh so long ago, didn't you?
• 3:16
  Nancy Minolli: Yes, I think two or three times maybe.
• 3:18
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you come that many
• 3:19
  Nancy Minolli: I think so.
• 3:20
  Nancy Minolli: I think so.
• 3:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): of
• 3:22
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, local.
• 3:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So how are you?
• 3:28
  Nancy Minolli: I'm good.
• 3:28
  Nancy Minolli: I'm also tired.
• 3:29
  Nancy Minolli: We did a lot of social stuff this weekend, so yeah.
• 3:32
  Nancy Minolli: I realized that at, uh, 52 I'm like I, I need a little more bounce back time than I used to.
• 3:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I forgot we're almost exactly the
• 3:42
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 3:42
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): as well
• 3:44
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, no, it was a fun weekend.
• 3:46
  Nancy Minolli: My husband plays in a band, and so, um, we, his band played twice over the weekend, and then we went to a concert in Napa.
• 3:53
  Nancy Minolli: We just had a lot of stuff.
• 3:54
  Nancy Minolli: So a lot of music, a lot of music this weekend.
• 3:56
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you're gonna have to, um, offline tell me your husband's band because I know I'm going...
• 4:03
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I mean, I've already not seen a lot of you in the last few years.
• 4:06
  Nancy Minolli: I know
• 4:06
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): to see a little less of you even,'cause you've just let me know that this is your last year coaching
• 4:14
  Nancy Minolli: it's a loose...
• 4:15
  Nancy Minolli: I mean, I don't know if it's last year.
• 4:18
  Nancy Minolli: I am waiting for my husband to retire,
• 4:20
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): see.
• 4:22
  Nancy Minolli: which he said, so maybe he says 62,
• 4:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I see
• 4:26
  Nancy Minolli: 'cause it's
• 4:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): feeling the end coming, and it, then it sounds like you're using...
• 4:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I mean, so many people come, have come into the Anti-Boring Learning Lab wanting to learn how to start their business because they know it's gonna be the business that bridges them into retirement, and it sounds
• 4:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 4:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 4:44
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, I think, um, it'll probably be two more years, but I think the glorious thing about this is that we can make our own schedule.
• 4:51
  Nancy Minolli: So if I just wanna take on less students, I can do that and feel good about that instead of, you know, feeling like I have to take a full caseload or something like that, so.
• 5:01
  Nancy Minolli: Which has varied for me over the years.
• 5:03
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 5:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So let's get into it.
• 5:05
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): My purpose for today is when, when I heard that you were going to be leaving the lab and sort of taking your business to its end, I was like,"Oh, what an amazing opportunity to reflect." I think 2018 is the year you came into my world.
• 5:20
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Does that feel right to you?
• 5:22
  Nancy Minolli: Yep.
• 5:22
  Nancy Minolli: Yep.
• 5:23
  Nancy Minolli: So that's why I was like, an even 10 feels pretty good if I make it a 20/28, so
• 5:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Ja.
• 5:30
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Ja.
• 5:31
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Ja
• 5:33
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 5:33
  Nancy Minolli: Not that I don't love it still, it's just, you know, you know, like different phases of life.
• 5:37
  Nancy Minolli: But I was like, if my husband's not working, I'm not working.
• 5:41
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Well, let's time travel a
• 5:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 5:44
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): back to 2018.
• 5:46
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): What, where were you in your career then and yeah, just paint the picture for us
• 5:52
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 5:53
  Nancy Minolli: So I am a credentialed teacher, so I had been in the classroom on and off for, like, 15 years, taking time off with my children, job sharing, and sort of just not, um, not wanting to go back to that world.
• 6:09
  Nancy Minolli: But my children were old enough that it was like,"Oh, I'm finding that I have time to do something else, but what is it?" So, um, actually, a dear friend of mine, um, is the...
• 6:21
  Nancy Minolli: She's the dis- she was the disabilities director at a local college, and she said,"You'd be great at academic coaching." And I was like,"What is that?" And she's like,"Well, catch up fast because I'm gonna send you, like, your first client," which she did.
• 6:35
  Nancy Minolli: And so fast-forward, I muddled through that, and then at the same time, you know, searched the internet for there must be a better way to do this if there's this, this, if there's this, you know, job called academic coaching, and who knows how to do this.
• 6:50
  Nancy Minolli: And so that's how I found you, so.
• 6:51
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I came up from those searches.
• 6:54
  Nancy Minolli: Go- yay, Google.
• 6:55
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that was before we were the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, so
• 6:59
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 6:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): were still, I was still gretchenwagner.com.
• 7:02
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 7:02
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I blogged so much about academic coaching.
• 7:05
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): That must be why I showed up in your feed.
• 7:07
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 7:08
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 7:08
  Nancy Minolli: So that's how it started.
• 7:10
  Nancy Minolli: I felt like I was in a transition period for, like, what am I doing with, you know, the next 10 plus years?
• 7:17
  Nancy Minolli: Um, uh, my youngest was in high school, my oldest was already in college, and I was like,"All right, let's, you know, figure this out." So yeah, fast-forward, here we are, and it's been, yeah, the, the-- It's definitely evolved for me.
• 7:30
  Nancy Minolli: You know, it's definitely been kind of fun to see.
• 7:33
  Nancy Minolli: And I look back, and I, um, keep all of my students', um, Google Sheets on Google, and I have them all, I have-- I drag them all into a past, in a file called past students or past clients.
• 7:44
  Nancy Minolli: And I popped it open the other day, and it was just like brr, and scrolling down.
• 7:49
  Nancy Minolli: It was really a fun visual to see all of these students that I had worked with.
• 7:54
  Nancy Minolli: And I was like,"Wow, that was a lot." So, it's not over yet, but it was just kind of fun even to assess right now.
• 8:00
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah.
• 8:01
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): tip, maybe I should have asked you to do this before we recorded, but in Google Drive,
• 8:08
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 8:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): can open that folder with all of your, your spreadsheets in it.
• 8:13
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And just by the way, for those of you who have not been in the Anti-Boring Learning Lab world, Nancy has been following my process, it sounds like, of
• 8:23
  Nancy Minolli: Mhm.
• 8:24
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Sheets in a
• 8:25
  Nancy Minolli: Ja
• 8:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): way to track each of the clients.
• 8:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So
• 8:28
  Nancy Minolli: Yep
• 8:29
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): get trained on when you come into the lab, and it seems like it worked for you.
• 8:34
  Nancy Minolli: Yep, absolutely.
• 8:35
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, for sure.
• 8:36
  Nancy Minolli: It's fun to...
• 8:37
  Nancy Minolli: It, yeah, it's a great system.
• 8:39
  Nancy Minolli: I've, I didn't know a lot about Google when I first started.
• 8:42
  Nancy Minolli: I was definitely like a Word girl, and I was like, oh, this was a foreign concept to me.
• 8:47
  Nancy Minolli: But now I, like, can't live without it.
• 8:48
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah, and you're not the only one.
• 8:51
  Nancy Minolli: Mm-hmm.
• 8:51
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): even just this year, someone's coming going,"Oh, I need to learn more about Google." It's like, yes, students know Google so well
• 8:58
  Nancy Minolli: That's it.
• 8:58
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): to use it.
• 8:59
  Nancy Minolli: Yes
• 9:00
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that I'm randomly choosing Google, it's that our students use it, so we should know how to use it too.
• 9:06
  Nancy Minolli: Absolutely.
• 9:06
  Nancy Minolli: I'm, by f- by, I'm no expert, however, it is, um, yeah, I love using it to track all my students, and families can see all of our notes and progress, and yeah, it's, it definitely is working for us, so yeah.
• 9:20
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): is
• 9:21
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 9:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): is now embedded inside Google Drive, and if you look up to the top right, you see a little
• 9:27
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 9:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you-- if you click on that, you can ask questions.
• 9:30
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like, you can say,"What are some themes from all of my coaching sessions over the years?" Or whatever you wanna
• 9:37
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, that's fun.
• 9:40
  Nancy Minolli: Is it only searching your documents?
• 9:42
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): your documents and only in the folder that you are in, unless you want it to be different.
• 9:47
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So I will even now these days for my blogging, and I, I didn't use to before AI be able to tell stories from past clients because I, I didn't have time to go back and read through everything to find it.
• 10:00
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And now I will say,"I'm writing a blog post about note-taking.
• 10:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Can you please find three clients who struggled with note-taking in different ways, and tell me their stories were and how I helped them?" And then it will give me a little summary.
• 10:16
  Nancy Minolli: Very cool.
• 10:17
  Nancy Minolli: Very cool.
• 10:18
  Nancy Minolli: I need to...
• 10:19
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 10:19
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): yeah, not just a hot tup- tip for you, but I
• 10:22
  Nancy Minolli: Right, right.
• 10:23
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 10:24
  Nancy Minolli: Absolutely.
• 10:25
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, that's fun.
• 10:26
  Nancy Minolli: Okay, I have to explore that.
• 10:27
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, it'd be fun to go back and see what did I used to type at?
• 10:31
  Nancy Minolli: What was so important?
• 10:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Or how has my coaching changed
• 10:34
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 10:35
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, that'd be funny.
• 10:35
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 10:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): reflection question too.
• 10:38
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But speaking of how it's changed over the years, without AI,
• 10:42
  Nancy Minolli: Yes
• 10:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): what do you notice your different phases were?
• 10:47
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like, if you could go back and say,"Oh, yeah, I think I had, like, three phases or five phases of becoming a coach
• 10:55
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 10:55
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): what would you say?
• 10:58
  Nancy Minolli: I think the beginning phase is just figuring out who you are as a coach, figuring out what type of students.
• 11:03
  Nancy Minolli: You know, I think a lot of us coaches, especially those who have gone through your training, are just like, not every student is a fit for you.
• 11:10
  Nancy Minolli: And, and, and, and I say that to the families.
• 11:12
  Nancy Minolli: I'm like,"They...
• 11:13
  Nancy Minolli: your, your child needs to have choice, and they should go and chat with other, you know, academic coaches besides me." Because they, we are going to be asking them to do things that maybe make them feel uncomfortable or are gonna stretch them, you know, academically or things like that, and we have to have a good rapport.
• 11:30
  Nancy Minolli: So I think the beginning phase is sort of fini- figuring out like how you're asking that of students and how, push them a little bit, and just what kind of students you, you know, you jive with the most.
• 11:42
  Nancy Minolli: And I think, so for me, I took on all students.
• 11:47
  Nancy Minolli: And at the beginning, I quickly discovered that nobody-- middle schoolers were not for me.
• 11:56
  Nancy Minolli: And then, um, then I was like, ooh, and maybe even freshmen.
• 12:01
  Nancy Minolli: I need to like the, like the older kids, and so I've completely evolved, and now my entire practice is all college and grad students.
• 12:10
  Nancy Minolli: So no more high school students.
• 12:12
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah.
• 12:14
  Nancy Minolli: I know, and they're...
• 12:15
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, they're my fave.
• 12:16
  Nancy Minolli: I mean, I loved the high schoolers.
• 12:17
  Nancy Minolli: They were very sweet.
• 12:18
  Nancy Minolli: But there's something about college students and grad students that they, they kinda mean business, and they're there, and they get the consequences, and they are more a willing participant.
• 12:33
  Nancy Minolli: I still think even though our high school students are say that they wanna come work with us, there's often the parent involvement that is, you know, help pushing it and which rightfully so.
• 12:43
  Nancy Minolli: They're minors, right?
• 12:44
  Nancy Minolli: They need to...
• 12:45
  Nancy Minolli: Their parents are still in charge.
• 12:47
  Nancy Minolli: So but there's something, um, kinda special about these, um, younger adults that I just love.
• 12:53
  Nancy Minolli: And it's, as my children aged as well, they're 23 and 26 now, I've also sort of like aged with them.
• 13:01
  Nancy Minolli: So the older they got, I think, the older that I wanted to, um, be around.
• 13:05
  Nancy Minolli: So it is
• 13:08
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): it's kind of a gift in some ways.
• 13:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like, you see from the parent's bird's view, the pa- what it, what they're going through, and then you can use some of that in your coaching, whether it's the young adulthood phase, trying to, like, have their first jobs, or like you said, grad school, or whether it's just college and getting to know college
• 13:30
  Nancy Minolli: Absolutely.
• 13:30
  Nancy Minolli: The college kids are, they're a different breed.
• 13:33
  Nancy Minolli: They are so fun.
• 13:34
  Nancy Minolli: And then, you know, just sort of the different stuff that comes with their lifestyle, right?
• 13:38
  Nancy Minolli: They are managing life a lot more when you're in college, and being independent, and how do I, you know, kind of manage all of that?
• 13:45
  Nancy Minolli: And so having a s- you know, having, giving advice on that and, you know, helping them kind of navigate that part of it has been super fun, so.
• 13:54
  Nancy Minolli: But also challenging watching their anxiety and some of those things really ramp up too when you're in your 20s, so
• 14:02
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 14:03
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 14:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So many questions I wanna ask, but I wanna make
• 14:06
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 14:07
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): phases.
• 14:08
  Nancy Minolli: Okay
• 14:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): try everybody
• 14:11
  Nancy Minolli: Yep
• 14:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and then what would you...
• 14:14
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Was the, was the next phase automatically only college students or was there a
• 14:18
  Nancy Minolli: No.
• 14:19
  Nancy Minolli: N- no, I definitely, like, phased out, like you say, okay, maybe the middle schoolers aren't for me.
• 14:23
  Nancy Minolli: And then my practice was really all high school students.
• 14:26
  Nancy Minolli: Um, and then of course COVID hit.
• 14:30
  Nancy Minolli: So let's see, that was 2020, wasn't it?
• 14:33
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 14:34
  Nancy Minolli: So I was only a few years into it, you know, I guess in my third year of coaching, and so that was an interesting time too.
• 14:41
  Nancy Minolli: I think the students that we saw sort of shifted, the, at least I saw shifted then.
• 14:45
  Nancy Minolli: I had students that were, um, struggling, um, prior to COVID, and then during COVID, they were like,"Oh, I've got this covered." They were, like, the students that were overscheduled.
• 14:56
  Nancy Minolli: So you're starting to figure out, like, oh, maybe it's not executive function.
• 15:00
  Nancy Minolli: Maybe this, maybe they just have too much on their plate.
• 15:03
  Nancy Minolli: So that was kind of an interesting shift.
• 15:05
  Nancy Minolli: So, um, and then others just needed more support in that area of kind of managing everything when their teachers were sending them novels on email, and it was totally overwhelming.
• 15:15
  Nancy Minolli: So I'd say then it was definitely a high school phase, and then some of those high schoolers started to go to college, and they were like,"Oh, by the way, can we still, you know, see each other and coach that way?" And I think that is where the, um, the college morphing, you know, started to happen, so.
• 15:35
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and that makes sense too.
• 15:37
  Nancy Minolli: yeah
• 15:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): kind of like your kids have grown up, your, your clients have grown up,
• 15:41
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 15:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 15:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): college with them, you were like,"Whoa,
• 15:46
  Nancy Minolli: Yep, 100%.
• 15:47
  Nancy Minolli: Yep.
• 15:48
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): me."
• 15:49
  Nancy Minolli: And last year, last school year, I still had two high schoolers, and this year I, um, I sent them on to other coaches, which felt really sweet.
• 15:59
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, other coaches in, um, the learning lab, and I, you know, kind of paired them up and said,"I think you'd be a good fit for these coaches that I've known before, and go check'em out." So, um, that felt really, like, yeah, it was a really sweet moment to say like,"This is what I'm focusing on.
• 16:15
  Nancy Minolli: I'm excited to just have high sch- you know, just have college students and let somebody else specialize in the high schoolers, so."
• 16:21
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): were you aware before you got there that,"Oh, I do actually wanna start focusing on college more"?
• 16:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Had you shifted your market- marketing to try and get new clients, or did it just happen organically?
• 16:34
  Nancy Minolli: Well, I'm a horrible marketer.
• 16:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Hey, don't say that.
• 16:38
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I trained you
• 16:40
  Nancy Minolli: Okay, I don't follow it.
• 16:42
  Nancy Minolli: No.
• 16:43
  Nancy Minolli: No, that's not true.
• 16:44
  Nancy Minolli: Um, it happened pretty organically.
• 16:47
  Nancy Minolli: I do think it's an interesting market to, um, to market.
• 16:53
  Nancy Minolli: Mm.
• 16:53
  Nancy Minolli: You know, because I think in high school it's mostly parents are doing the searches, and they're trying to seek out something for their child'cause they're seeing that they need something else and, or maybe a neuropsychologist are saying your child needs to...
• 17:06
  Nancy Minolli: It would be helpful if they worked with an executive function coach.
• 17:08
  Nancy Minolli: And so then they find us.
• 17:10
  Nancy Minolli: Although, that's fascinating too, because I have had so many young college women newly diagnosed with ADHD.
• 17:19
  Nancy Minolli: So that's been a, a mini niche that I didn't know.
• 17:23
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah, an accidental
• 17:25
  Nancy Minolli: accidental...
• 17:26
  Nancy Minolli: So it was sort of tracking that way, and I just wasn't really you s- uh, attracting many high school students that much anymore.
• 17:33
  Nancy Minolli: And so it just sort of morphed into...
• 17:36
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 17:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): find it often does.
• 17:38
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 17:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): some people do try to make very intentional decisions about this is the niche that I'm going to be marketing myself to, but others, and myself included, it's just my whole career has been quite organic
• 17:51
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 17:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I just notice, oh, of liking this, and then when I notice that, I tend to get
• 17:57
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 17:58
  Nancy Minolli: Although, you know, that's probably hard to describe to somebody who's starting out, right?
• 18:02
  Nancy Minolli: Like, just trust the process.
• 18:04
  Nancy Minolli: You're gonna find your niche.
• 18:06
  Nancy Minolli: And, um, I've always been fortunate that I haven't felt like, I haven't been trying to replace, you know, a salary or support, you know, a family on my income.
• 18:15
  Nancy Minolli: And so I have been able to just sort of let it morph into what it is and what it needs to be for me.
• 18:22
  Nancy Minolli: And so, um, but yeah, it is kind of fascinating to see those, you know, patterns.
• 18:25
  Nancy Minolli: I probably could have helped the patterns along, but yeah.
• 18:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But you did just fine.
• 18:30
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, I'm like, push it along.
• 18:31
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): No, but let's go back to that
• 18:33
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 18:34
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): "I'm a horrible marketer." So you say that, haven't you largely been full for the last many years?
• 18:44
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, it's true.
• 18:45
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Okay, interesting.
• 18:47
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And how come you're full?
• 18:48
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Or well, actually, what is full for you?
• 18:50
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): That answer
• 18:51
  Nancy Minolli: Mm.
• 18:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): every person.
• 18:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So what is a full coaching client load for you?
• 18:57
  Nancy Minolli: 10's my sweet spot.
• 18:59
  Nancy Minolli: I've gone up to 13.
• 19:02
  Nancy Minolli: I was-- It felt like a lot.
• 19:04
  Nancy Minolli: Um, and then I'm currently at nine.
• 19:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Great
• 19:10
  Nancy Minolli: Yep.
• 19:11
  Nancy Minolli: Yep.
• 19:12
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah, that-- 10's a nice spot for me.
• 19:16
  Nancy Minolli: But I wa- I've also taken on some other volunteer stuff, so right now nine is full for me, so I won't take on anybody if they, um, come to me, unless they're, you know...
• 19:25
  Nancy Minolli: We always have a soft spot for somebody who's, like, really struggling during the middle of the semester or something.
• 19:29
  Nancy Minolli: But
• 19:29
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): leave a little wiggle room
• 19:31
  Nancy Minolli: yeah.
• 19:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): could
• 19:32
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 19:33
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 19:34
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): it was a good fit
• 19:35
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 19:36
  Nancy Minolli: But no, I guess I-- when I say I don't market, it's that I just haven't-- You've taught us so many wonderful things in terms of partnering with, you know, other professionals and things like that, and I definitely did that in the beginning.
• 19:48
  Nancy Minolli: So maybe it's that, that a lot of that has paid off.
• 19:52
  Nancy Minolli: But, um, the reality is I'm not really nurturing tons of relationships right now in terms of referral partners and things like that.
• 20:00
  Nancy Minolli: It is pretty organic.
• 20:02
  Nancy Minolli: The word of mouth I think is pretty strong.
• 20:04
  Nancy Minolli: Parents talk.
• 20:05
  Nancy Minolli: Even the college parents, you know?
• 20:07
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, they definitely are, um, maybe even more, right?
• 20:11
  Nancy Minolli: Their kids are far away from them, and they're worried, and so they, you know, say,"This is what's going on with my kid," and then,"Oh, I, I, I know somebody who could help with that." So yeah.
• 20:22
  Nancy Minolli: And I s- again, the neuropsychologist, I-- that's always a nice referral,
• 20:26
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Right.
• 20:26
  Nancy Minolli: partner path.
• 20:27
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 20:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So I just wanted, yeah, I wanted to come back to that because you may have forgotten that the final module in what we used to call Launch Your Biz,
• 20:36
  Nancy Minolli: Mm-hmm.
• 20:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): through,
• 20:37
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 20:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Your Biz resources, is actually labeled Attract a Steady Stream
• 20:43
  Nancy Minolli: Uhum, uhum
• 20:44
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And it seems to me
• 20:47
  Nancy Minolli: That I have.
• 20:49
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And
• 20:50
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 20:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): if you're only looking for an annual client load of 10 to 16, sometimes even 10 to 20,
• 20:59
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 21:01
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I have noticed many people can stop marketing
• 21:05
  Nancy Minolli: Mm.
• 21:06
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): they really have done a nice job of cultivating
• 21:10
  Nancy Minolli: Yep
• 21:10
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): referral partners early on.
• 21:13
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 21:13
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I think you gave your business a good name that, that back in the...
• 21:18
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Before AI, I don't know what it's like now, but before AI it was a very, uh, search engine optimized
• 21:24
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, right
• 21:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): wanna say what it is?
• 21:27
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, sure.
• 21:28
  Nancy Minolli: BayAreaAcademicCoaching.com.
• 21:32
  Nancy Minolli: It's long.
• 21:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Mm-hmm.
• 21:34
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, and that is fascinating since we both live in Bay Area of California.
• 21:41
  Nancy Minolli: they...
• 21:41
  Nancy Minolli: A lot of my clients, their families are still from here, even though m- my students now are range from, you know, Chicago to Philadelphia to, you know, Washington to New York.
• 21:54
  Nancy Minolli: They're all...
• 21:54
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, I, and I had an abroad student last, uh...
• 21:57
  Nancy Minolli: A, a student that was, has been with me but traveled, did a semester abroad.
• 22:00
  Nancy Minolli: So they're, but they, a lot of them have ties to the Bay Area, so that's kind of fascinating.
• 22:07
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 22:07
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): surprised
• 22:08
  Nancy Minolli: No.
• 22:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that name.
• 22:10
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 22:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): we, we look for these, like, cute or sexy or interesting name to give our business.
• 22:16
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like, I'm the culprit, called myself Anti-Boring.
• 22:19
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Nobody's googling,"How can I be more anti-boring?" Everybody's googling,"How can I be a better academic coach?" Or,
• 22:26
  Nancy Minolli: Right.
• 22:27
  Nancy Minolli: Right.
• 22:28
  Nancy Minolli: That's true
• 22:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): names are not always the best names, and it's actually one reason why I named this podcast, I called it The Academic Coaching Podcast.
• 22:37
  Nancy Minolli: D.
• 22:38
  Nancy Minolli: Yep
• 22:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And already some people have joined the lab, and I asked,"How did you find me?" And
• 22:44
  Nancy Minolli: Evet.
• 22:45
  Nancy Minolli: Tamam
• 22:46
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): searched for an academic coaching podcast,
• 22:50
  Nancy Minolli: Wow.
• 22:51
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I
• 22:52
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, I love that.
• 22:53
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 22:55
  Nancy Minolli: Per- yeah, no, it's kind of amazing how to, yeah, people have found us.
• 22:59
  Nancy Minolli: And the school that you're speaking at tonight, definitely some families found me that way.
• 23:03
  Nancy Minolli: I still have one of them still with me who's in college.
• 23:06
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah.
• 23:08
  Nancy Minolli: It's been fun to watch the progression of all these students and where they came from, where they started, and where they're living now.
• 23:14
  Nancy Minolli: That's, yeah, it's cool.
• 23:16
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So we, we, it seems like we named your phases by the type of students you were working with.
• 23:22
  Nancy Minolli: True.
• 23:23
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): of seeing phases.
• 23:24
  Nancy Minolli: Mm-hmm
• 23:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I guess another way of seeing phases is how much you had to actively market yourself.
• 23:31
  Nancy Minolli: True
• 23:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and if you said that, would you say there are, two phases, or might there be more phases in terms of your mar- figuring out how to fill your roster?
• 23:44
  Nancy Minolli: Probably like less phase and just evolution, right?
• 23:46
  Nancy Minolli: You're st- I think to your point, like the first five, three to five years, I was still working to actively find, you know, or at least put my name out there, um, try to get it out there in some fashion.
• 23:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): う ー ん。 う ー ん。 う
• 24:04
  Nancy Minolli: of, being that both of my students, or both of my kids were in college while I was working, the parent Facebook pages was always a great resource, but you had to be real careful how you, um, uh, you can't advertise on that.
• 24:17
  Nancy Minolli: So but I did feel like I did a lot of educating other parents, um, about like what academic coaching is.
• 24:24
  Nancy Minolli: They would go onto the Facebook pages, and they'd be like,"My kid's really struggling," or,"There's this." And, you know, I was able to like share like,"Well, there's help for that," or,"You need to go to this department at the school," or things like that.
• 24:34
  Nancy Minolli: So I enjoyed sort of being a little bit of a, a mini expert on those, um, Facebook pages.
• 24:40
  Nancy Minolli: But yeah, I'd say, you know, the first, you know, three years definitely making those connections, trying to build it up, and then it does kind of start to snowball.
• 24:49
  Nancy Minolli: You know, the people start talking to each other.
• 24:51
  Nancy Minolli: Your students who are with you often will stay with you as well, right?
• 24:56
  Nancy Minolli: So I think that's part of that snowball.
• 24:57
  Nancy Minolli: They, a lot of them stayed with me, um, for a couple years, and so that sort of just sort of built into more and more and more, kind of layering on.
• 25:06
  Nancy Minolli: So, um, yeah, it's...
• 25:09
  Nancy Minolli: I didn't pay attention to the phases, but now that you're pointing them out, it is kind of fun to think about,"Oh, yeah.
• 25:16
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah." And I, I think I became more con- I mean, then there's my level of confidence, right?
• 25:20
  Nancy Minolli: The type of coach that I became, the way that I communicated with parents was a lot more honest.
• 25:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Okay, so what are some shifts?
• 25:29
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like, could you be, let's be specific about how you communicated with parents and how you used to versus now what you
• 25:35
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah Well, I mean, I think when you start something new, there's probably always that little complex, like, am I good at this?
• 25:41
  Nancy Minolli: Is this, like, the right path for me?
• 25:42
  Nancy Minolli: And I thought I was a pretty good teacher, um, although I spent most of my teaching, um, years in elementary school, so this is a big shift in age.
• 25:52
  Nancy Minolli: And so, you know, but the more the feedback that I got, which, you know, we all need feedback, and the feedback came of parents going,"Oh my gosh, thank you so much," and students going,"I couldn't have done this without you." And while those accolades felt, you know, nice and warm and fuzzy, I think it was over time this like,"Oh.
• 26:11
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, I am pretty good at this.
• 26:13
  Nancy Minolli: I do know what I'm doing.Look at me." Um, so I think even that, uh, you know, the more Like with anything, right?
• 26:22
  Nancy Minolli: You get more confident the longer you do it, the more you do it.
• 26:24
  Nancy Minolli: And just being able to tell, tell parents this is not...
• 26:30
  Nancy Minolli: Especially for college students, like, your student doesn't belong in college right now.
• 26:35
  Nancy Minolli: Your student- Yeah your student's not college ready.
• 26:37
  Nancy Minolli: This isn't working.
• 26:39
  Nancy Minolli: They probably need to take a break from college and maybe try to get a job.
• 26:43
  Nancy Minolli: Like, some of those really tough decisions to have to...
• 26:47
  Nancy Minolli: Or, you know, family decisions, but just tough conversations to have with parents to say, like,"This is not working for your kiddo," so recognizing that because I think we, as parents, we just are like, keep them, you know, we just thought our kids go to college, and that's what they do for a lot of families.
• 27:02
  Nancy Minolli: And so when these students are veering off of that path, you know, trying to help navigate that for, um, their families has been tricky, so yeah.
• 27:11
  Nancy Minolli: So I then-
• 27:12
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that before, like when they were high school students before they turned into college students?
• 27:18
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Or did you have to say it while students were in college and failing miserably?
• 27:25
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, in college.
• 27:26
  Nancy Minolli: So I think one of the things I've seen with the education system, and then also with parents of students who, um, maybe have, you know, a learning challenge or, you know, um, attention diagnosis or something like that, there's a lot of hand-holding that's going on in high school.
• 27:44
  Nancy Minolli: And, you know, they need it.
• 27:45
  Nancy Minolli: It's fine.
• 27:45
  Nancy Minolli: But depending on the family and the school where these students end up, a lot of those, um, s- you know, guardrails are coming off.
• 27:54
  Nancy Minolli: And so I don't think the families are prepared for that.
• 27:57
  Nancy Minolli: The students certainly weren't prepared for that.
• 27:59
  Nancy Minolli: Um, I think the biggest struggle I see them, they weren't willing-- the students weren't willing to ask for help, to get help.
• 28:05
  Nancy Minolli: Um, and they had a lot of it that was probably set up for them and layered in in high school, and then a lot of that did, um, you know, go away in college.
• 28:14
  Nancy Minolli: Not that it's not there, they just have to, they have to be the ones in charge of going.
• 28:19
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, exactly.
• 28:21
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah, no, I think in high school you can sort of see it, sort of like saying like,"Oh, I think that..." You know, you can, we, uh, I'm not professional, but I'm like,"Oh, I think that person has, you know, maybe has attention deficit," even though they're not just, you know, diagnosed, right?
• 28:35
  Nancy Minolli: If you sit with the student for so long, you may start to...
• 28:38
  Nancy Minolli: I make my own judgments of that, of course.
• 28:39
  Nancy Minolli: But so yeah, there's these inklings of like, are they college ready?
• 28:44
  Nancy Minolli: And then they get there, and you're like,"Ooh, no, they weren't." Yeah, so.
• 28:48
  Nancy Minolli: But getting up, parents, let your students get up on, get up by themselves.
• 28:52
  Nancy Minolli: Stop waking them up in the morning if they're gonna go to college.
• 28:55
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): like there's so many things that parents could stop doing, but that if you are waking them up and they are a junior or a senior or even a sophomore
• 29:06
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 29:07
  Nancy Minolli: Let the, let the consequences be in high school and let them learn the consequences then,'cause they're so much steeper in college, especially when parents are paying lots of money for college And maybe high school too, but you know, there's, th- there's alwa- that's what we're, they're there for, right?
• 29:22
  Nancy Minolli: To learn those lessons then and know, try to figure it out on their own.
• 29:26
  Nancy Minolli: But yeah, we've, myself included, we've helped these kids.
• 29:30
  Nancy Minolli: We've coddled them.
• 29:31
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Mm-hmm.
• 29:34
  Nancy Minolli: So
• 29:34
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): make the decision?
• 29:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): 'Cause I'm thinking about, so there they are, worked with them maybe for a semester or two, maybe
• 29:42
  Nancy Minolli: Mhm
• 29:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and you were a little them going to But I also know sometimes kids who don't seem like they're gonna make it in college
• 29:51
  Nancy Minolli: Do.
• 29:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like,
• 29:53
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 29:53
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): out of the house, they really rise to the occasion, and so we just don't actually know
• 29:59
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 29:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): who's gonna fly and who's not.
• 30:02
  Nancy Minolli: Угу
• 30:03
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): are paying us,
• 30:05
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 30:06
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): A, we wanna make good on what they're paying us, and B, we also wanna support ourselves by making the money from the client, and I can imagine it's hard.
• 30:16
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Also, we are endlessly creative, we coaches, especially we Anti-Boring Learning Lab coaches.
• 30:22
  Nancy Minolli: And, and, uh,
• 30:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): way.
• 30:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Or we,
• 30:23
  Nancy Minolli: yes
• 30:23
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): a lab call to talk about,"Oh, here's something new to
• 30:27
  Nancy Minolli: Угу
• 30:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you make that decision for yourself, or for families?
• 30:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like,"Oh, I, I think it's time for the hard talk."
• 30:36
  Nancy Minolli: It's usually layers.
• 30:39
  Nancy Minolli: It's usually, it's been things have been happening, and they're building up, and they're building up.
• 30:42
  Nancy Minolli: But I think in coaching in general, and I've had to tell families, you know, and high school families, and,"This isn't working.
• 30:49
  Nancy Minolli: Your student isn't r- willing to try the s- the things that I'm suggesting," right?
• 30:56
  Nancy Minolli: And then as a coach, we want their buy-in, and sometimes they're just not ready to buy in to something, or they're just not willing to even try anything new.
• 31:04
  Nancy Minolli: Or, you know, they'll tell us during a session that they're gonna do this, and they're gonna do that, and then they just can't follow through on that.
• 31:11
  Nancy Minolli: And I don't say that they d- they don't think they do that willingly, you know, intentionally, like,"I'm just gonna, you know, really, you know, piss Nancy off." You know, I think that they just are struggling, right?
• 31:19
  Nancy Minolli: And so it's sort of unpacking, like, what is that struggle for them, and where is that coming from?
• 31:24
  Nancy Minolli: And trying to, you know, help them with that part of it.
• 31:27
  Nancy Minolli: But multiple layers of things have not been going n- r- right.
• 31:34
  Nancy Minolli: And for a college student, it's often I'm, they're n- they've stopped going to classes, or they've missed a lot of classes.
• 31:41
  Nancy Minolli: Um, a student that's really struggling to be honest with me, um, is usually s- um, struggling to be honest with a lot of people, and so I'm sort of like the last, you know.
• 31:51
  Nancy Minolli: And so that, usually if they're, if they're not honest with me, and they're lying about going to class or getting assignments done, usually they, there's a whole, you know, backlog of other things that they haven't been able to be truthful for.
• 32:02
  Nancy Minolli: And so I just feel for them, though.
• 32:04
  Nancy Minolli: They so I feel like sometimes when I'm able to say to them, like,"This isn't the right decision for you right now," it's a relief because I think some of these students and families are just on this path, like,"This is what we're doing." And just to say,"Wait, did you know that I have like...
• 32:18
  Nancy Minolli: I've had, like, 12 clients that have, like, left college and then come back, or they're doing this now," and, like, that there's other options.
• 32:25
  Nancy Minolli: And, or,"Yeah, take a semester off," or,"Do you need to take a medical leave?
• 32:30
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 32:30
  Nancy Minolli: Did you know that nobody knows that it took you six years to go to college?
• 32:35
  Nancy Minolli: Nobody, nobody cares.
• 32:36
  Nancy Minolli: It's not on your diploma.
• 32:38
  Nancy Minolli: Your employer doesn't ask," you know.
• 32:40
  Nancy Minolli: And so I think that's the other beauty about college students these days, is there are a lot of other things that these kids are doing it their way, which is the way it's supposed to be.
• 32:50
  Nancy Minolli: They're trying to kind of break out of that mold a little bit, which, you know, I love to see them kind of like,"Let me forge my own path.
• 32:56
  Nancy Minolli: I'm taking less credits right now." Great.
• 32:58
  Nancy Minolli: Be successful taking less credits.
• 33:01
  Nancy Minolli: That is huge, so.
• 33:03
  Nancy Minolli: Um, but yeah, usually when you get to that decision, there, there's kind of been a lot going on.
• 33:07
  Nancy Minolli: That kind of adds up.
• 33:08
  Nancy Minolli: It's usually not one thing that happened in college that...
• 33:10
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Right
• 33:12
  Nancy Minolli: But going to class is a big one.
• 33:15
  Nancy Minolli: It sounds, it sounds funny, but it's not because my ch-
• 33:20
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): have stor- I mean, at the speaking gig that I'm going to tonight, I start with a
• 33:23
  Nancy Minolli: Thank you.
• 33:24
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): of one of my clients who to drop out of college.
• 33:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): His parents took him out
• 33:30
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 33:31
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): going to
• 33:32
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 33:33
  Nancy Minolli: I know, I tell my college students, I said, I, uh, the first thing we do is read the syllabus at the beginning of the semester.
• 33:38
  Nancy Minolli: We read it together, and I keep a copy of, of all my students, all their class syllabi.
• 33:42
  Nancy Minolli: And the first thing we read is, you know, attendance policy, and then I'm like, I get all excited when there's a mandatory attendance policy.
• 33:51
  Nancy Minolli: And the students are so irritated by that.
• 33:53
  Nancy Minolli: I'm like,"It is your best friend.
• 33:55
  Nancy Minolli: You have to be there.
• 33:57
  Nancy Minolli: You only get three free passes this, you know, semester." I'm like, this is the...
• 34:01
  Nancy Minolli: Or the integrated textbooks where it asks you, you have to read the chapter and every, you know, few pages you have to answer two or three questions, and they get a score.
• 34:10
  Nancy Minolli: And I'm like,"This is mandatory chapter reading.
• 34:13
  Nancy Minolli: This is the best thing that could ever happen to you." And of course, students are always really annoyed by those, but they, they, they love to appreciate them.
• 34:21
  Nancy Minolli: They do well in the class.
• 34:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Uh-huh.
• 34:24
  Nancy Minolli: So
• 34:24
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): fun for us to
• 34:26
  Nancy Minolli: yeah.
• 34:26
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): just so nerdy and excited
• 34:29
  Nancy Minolli: Totally.
• 34:30
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): specific academic coachee kinds of
• 34:33
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, yeah.
• 34:34
  Nancy Minolli: For sure
• 34:35
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you still keep the habit tracker?
• 34:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Um, that was something that I
• 34:40
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 34:41
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): okay if the answer's no, but I'm curious how that morphed for you over time
• 34:46
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, I, you know, I felt it was more-- I definitely used it more with my high school students.
• 34:51
  Nancy Minolli: It doesn't seem to come into play as much with my college students.
• 34:54
  Nancy Minolli: Not that they're not tr- or the-- Did I say college?
• 34:57
  Nancy Minolli: Um, not that they're not tracking things and habits and behaviors, but yeah, not using it that way with my, um, college and grad students.
• 35:05
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 35:06
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): it's
• 35:07
  Nancy Minolli: just
• 35:07
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): funny'cause there are some people who swear by it,
• 35:09
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 35:10
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and that's what's so cool about academic
• 35:12
  Nancy Minolli: Угу.
• 35:14
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): it really is an art and a science.
• 35:17
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Like, we, we collect
• 35:18
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 35:19
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that we need, and then the tools interact with who we are and our personality and our connection with the student.
• 35:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And so
• 35:26
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 35:27
  Nancy Minolli: It's probably very helpful for students still.
• 35:30
  Nancy Minolli: I was definitely one of those classroom teachers that couldn't keep up on the classroom, you know, responsibilities where you had the, the kid that was the, the door leader or the whatever, the line leader and every- and I was like,"Oh, yeah, you be the line leader." They're like,"Wait, Mrs.
• 35:43
  Nancy Minolli: Minoli, it was supposed to, it's so-and-so this week," and I never could keep up with that.
• 35:48
  Nancy Minolli: So it's probably on me that I was like,"Ah, I can't keep up with this."
• 35:51
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But you know what's so funny is I created the habit tracker because I'm that person
• 35:56
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 35:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): who couldn't keep up with all those
• 35:59
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 35:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): had to try to do something that was going to be front and center in
• 36:04
  Nancy Minolli: Угу
• 36:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): sessions.
• 36:05
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And so I, I just love what you said because all of us have our own various neurodiversities, I think,
• 36:11
  Nancy Minolli: Uhum.
• 36:13
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that's cool.
• 36:14
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): We have to find our way through it.
• 36:15
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I needed the
• 36:17
  Nancy Minolli: Yep.
• 36:17
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): the
• 36:18
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 36:18
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you were like,"Oh, I just can't keep up with the
• 36:21
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 36:22
  Nancy Minolli: Well, it's fascinating.
• 36:23
  Nancy Minolli: I think college almost, um, has a little bit more structure in it than high school for some, or at least the way that I'm interacting with students.
• 36:32
  Nancy Minolli: 'Cause I did find that doing the habit tracker took a few minutes out of, you know, in the beginning of each session.
• 36:38
  Nancy Minolli: And so I'm sort of like, ah, crunched for time with these college students, if we're talking about every class and getting through, you know, what's due and how they're mapping it out and how they're planning it, that, um, that I, yeah, that, that I think maybe that's also a reason that I was, you know, just needed to maximize my time with them.
• 36:57
  Nancy Minolli: But the beauty of college as well is that you do have a syllabus for every class.
• 37:02
  Nancy Minolli: You do always have an online, um, portal.
• 37:05
  Nancy Minolli: And so, um, and, you know, high school, we still have some, you know, high school s- uh, teachers that are using Google Classroom, and then some aren't, and some are using this, and some are using that.
• 37:18
  Nancy Minolli: And so we were really piecemealing it together for these kids.
• 37:20
  Nancy Minolli: But in college, it does seem to be a little bit more streamlined.
• 37:23
  Nancy Minolli: So that's kind of maybe the, just zone it in on a little bit, so
• 37:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): is there an anti-boring tool that you do still lean on a lot even these days?
• 37:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): The gears?
• 37:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): No, the study cycle.
• 37:39
  Nancy Minolli: Oh my gosh, yes.
• 37:41
  Nancy Minolli: My med students.
• 37:42
  Nancy Minolli: I have two, I have one med student right now, and one preparing for the MCAT, and one student studying for the LSAT.
• 37:52
  Nancy Minolli: boy, oh boy, getting questions out of the basket, right?
• 37:57
  Nancy Minolli: They're learning it all, and then they've gotta quiz themselves.
• 38:01
  Nancy Minolli: And a lot about taking this vast, huge amount of material that they have to learn for these advanced degrees and tests, and whittling, I describe it as like whittling your basket down.
• 38:14
  Nancy Minolli: So every time you quiz yourself, you're whittling that basket down to less material that you have to be an expert on,'cause you've already f- you know, figured out.
• 38:23
  Nancy Minolli: This one already is stuck in there, so, And then, uh, what did you call the one, um...
• 38:31
  Nancy Minolli: It's more in the train your brain.
• 38:33
  Nancy Minolli: The re- Neuro pathways?
• 38:35
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): or
• 38:36
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 38:36
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 38:37
  Nancy Minolli: In neuro pathways and how we need to hear things multiple times, to really have all those brain synapses, like, come together and connect.
• 38:47
  Nancy Minolli: And so that is a huge one, because these college students are reading really dull,
• 38:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 38:53
  Nancy Minolli: textbooks.
• 38:55
  Nancy Minolli: And so, um, how do we, how do we get a first co- how do we get a first dive at that, right?
• 39:00
  Nancy Minolli: Whether it's a...
• 39:01
  Nancy Minolli: And that, I mean, that is where I love a PDF book, and I love that there is AI now for these students to...
• 39:08
  Nancy Minolli: And some of them thought,"Well, this is like cheating." I'm like,"No, you're summarizing it for yourself.
• 39:11
  Nancy Minolli: You're taking your first pass at this information, and then you're gonna read it on your own, and your brain's gonna be so much happier that it knows the path that it's traveling down, that there's...
• 39:21
  Nancy Minolli: You need a spoiler alert.
• 39:22
  Nancy Minolli: You need a spoiler alert at the...
• 39:24
  Nancy Minolli: You need to know the end of the story.
• 39:26
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 39:26
  Nancy Minolli: So-
• 39:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): could, as you're reading, you're like,"Okay, I know we're gonna get there,
• 39:30
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 39:30
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): there?"
• 39:31
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 39:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): are the,"Okay, okay, this is what I'm reading," is to see what the stepping stones are to that point.
• 39:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I love that.
• 39:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): You need a spoiler
• 39:38
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, you need a spoiler alert.
• 39:40
  Nancy Minolli: I mean, it's not, it's not a, you know, blockbuster movie.
• 39:42
  Nancy Minolli: We need the spoiler alert, so.
• 39:44
  Nancy Minolli: And I think I, of course, note-taking, and instead of maybe honing your notes, they're honing them, they're definitely honing them, but we have a talk a lot in college about, like, what are you doing with your notes?
• 39:55
  Nancy Minolli: Why are you taking your notes?
• 39:57
  Nancy Minolli: Um, helping them merge their textbook notes to their lecture notes.
• 40:03
  Nancy Minolli: Like, how do, where, where do those two come together?
• 40:06
  Nancy Minolli: Because they're often, um, a- assessed on sort of what they read, and then the lecture part, and can we see the similarities there?
• 40:13
  Nancy Minolli: So that one comes up a lot, too, the honing your notes that way, so.
• 40:19
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 40:19
  Nancy Minolli: The, yeah, they all, they all still come up.
• 40:21
  Nancy Minolli: The study cycle ones.
• 40:24
  Nancy Minolli: They're ingrained, of course, right?
• 40:26
  Nancy Minolli: It's the best way to study.
• 40:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah, so now I'm curious about how has the way you've leaned on the lab members and me shifted?
• 40:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So if we're talking about different ways of seeing phases,'cause it has, it's shifted a lot over the years.
• 40:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): You've stayed with us
• 40:44
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 40:45
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): longer than you needed to.
• 40:48
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But I'd be curious to hear you reflect
• 40:51
  Nancy Minolli: Ja, men
• 40:51
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): phases you went through that way
• 40:53
  Nancy Minolli: Well, I think any time you're a solo practitioner, right?
• 40:57
  Nancy Minolli: We are just by ourselves in our homes for most of the day, and we are one-on-one with a student and a parent.
• 41:05
  Nancy Minolli: It is so nice to have a community of people that you can call on and be like,"This happened to me.
• 41:11
  Nancy Minolli: This happened to you?" Or,"What do I do with this?" And so that has been absolutely invaluable, and I don't know that, yeah, we could place a value.
• 41:18
  Nancy Minolli: I mean, it's just, it's been awesome.
• 41:20
  Nancy Minolli: I, I, I'm, I'm always been a collaborative person, so I don't wanna, I don't wanna be alone in it, you know?
• 41:25
  Nancy Minolli: So, um, so I love that part of it.
• 41:28
  Nancy Minolli: In the beginning, definitely because you have such a big platform, and I, um, was not interested in, um, in like pod- you know, doing my own podcast.
• 41:37
  Nancy Minolli: I did try my own Instagram account for academic coaching and it, I can't keep it up.
• 41:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I can't.
• 41:44
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I'm
• 41:44
  Nancy Minolli: I just, I, I just am like,"Ugh, this just felt like another chore." You know?
• 41:49
  Nancy Minolli: So, um, so a lot of families found me through you, for sure.
• 41:54
  Nancy Minolli: Because you- Sure.
• 41:56
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 41:56
  Nancy Minolli: 'Cause, and so I was listed on your website as a, um, as a trained coach, and so, um, so that was a, you know, reason, one reason for staying in the lab.
• 42:06
  Nancy Minolli: But that support, and I did use it a lot more probably the first five years in terms of engaging in it more and asking, like...
• 42:15
  Nancy Minolli: And I think as my confidence grew and as I sort of knew what I wanted for my business, um, it just, it didn't feel as important, or I didn't need to interact with as many coaches anymore.
• 42:28
  Nancy Minolli: But I still, like I just posted a question the other day more like, you know, like,"Hey, does anybody, can anybody help with this resource?" And one about a note-taking software, like you know, a month or so ago.
• 42:39
  Nancy Minolli: So I still appreciate it, and it's there.
• 42:42
  Nancy Minolli: But, um,
• 42:44
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): lurker more now because you're not as desperate for the connection
• 42:49
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 42:50
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and the
• 42:51
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 42:51
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you...
• 42:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And it, it
• 42:53
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 42:53
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): leaning on it to go in when you need referrals
• 42:57
  Nancy Minolli: Y- yeah, I like to, I love seeing all the coaches on there and seeing, you know, who's, who's starting out and, you know, who needs...
• 43:04
  Nancy Minolli: If I have, you know, if I have clients that I can't take on, to be able to share them with the group and things like that.
• 43:10
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah, I definitely think it's probably my confidence level and just where I'm at.
• 43:15
  Nancy Minolli: Um, I'm definitely, like, spending my time on academic coaching, and then I'm, like, doing something else, where more of my-- When I started out, I had more time where I was working on the business when I wasn't in front of a student than I do now.
• 43:30
  Nancy Minolli: I have things pretty streamlined, and that's a big shift, too, with the college students.
• 43:35
  Nancy Minolli: I don't interact with their parents much.
• 43:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): That's a
• 43:39
  Nancy Minolli: so,
• 43:40
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): thing
• 43:41
  Nancy Minolli: yeah.
• 43:42
  Nancy Minolli: So well, sometimes I'm like,"Hey.
• 43:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Uh-huh.
• 43:45
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you.
• 43:46
  Nancy Minolli: You know?
• 43:47
  Nancy Minolli: "Did you know?" And you have to walk a fine line.
• 43:51
  Nancy Minolli: I usually ask a student, if they've told me something that's pretty, um, that I think needs an adult interaction, I'll usually say,"Who else knows about this?" And then they say,"Oh, my parents do," and I go,"Oh, thank God." Right?
• 44:03
  Nancy Minolli: That's usually my response internally, like,"Okay, phew, I'm not the only adult who knows this," right?
• 44:08
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Ja
• 44:09
  Nancy Minolli: But yeah, that has shifted.
• 44:11
  Nancy Minolli: So I definitely have, um, you know, different interactions with families, and that's a less time-consuming part of my business now.
• 44:19
  Nancy Minolli: And so, um, yeah, and other things are streamlined, so I don't-- I feel like I got my systems down, and I was probably still on there lurking.
• 44:27
  Nancy Minolli: Um, but there's...
• 44:29
  Nancy Minolli: It's not to say that, like, I shouldn't be back on there.
• 44:31
  Nancy Minolli: I know there's some coaches doing some, like, amazing things, though, that are, like, still learning.
• 44:37
  Nancy Minolli: Um, yeah.
• 44:38
  Nancy Minolli: I just haven't adopted it.
• 44:40
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): is shifting, right?
• 44:40
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): There's definitely a phase when people are
• 44:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 44:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and grow and grow their skills as a coach, and wanna be going out just like I wanna go with you now to some...
• 44:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): You need to tell me about your husband's gig so I can
• 44:55
  Nancy Minolli: Gigs.
• 44:56
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and dance
• 44:57
  Nancy Minolli: Yes, I know, right?
• 45:00
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, there was some dancing this weekend.
• 45:01
  Nancy Minolli: No Lindy hop, though.
• 45:02
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): That's okay.
• 45:03
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I do, I, I'll stand at the side and shimmy my
• 45:07
  Nancy Minolli: There you go, yeah.
• 45:08
  Nancy Minolli: I got more, I got more pickleball to play.
• 45:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah, exactly.
• 45:13
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, no, it's a different phase for sure, yeah.
• 45:15
  Nancy Minolli: It's a, it's a confident phase.
• 45:18
  Nancy Minolli: It's, uh...
• 45:19
  Nancy Minolli: I know where this is going.
• 45:21
  Nancy Minolli: I'm super happy where, with my students and clients right now, and the grad students have been like a surprise joy,
• 45:29
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Mm-hmm.
• 45:30
  Nancy Minolli: which has been really fun too.
• 45:32
  Nancy Minolli: That, and I'm, I'm definitely learning along with them.
• 45:35
  Nancy Minolli: That's, and how to, how they're doing school and how different that looks like from undergrad and high school and, you know, what different tools they need to take with them.
• 45:45
  Nancy Minolli: So I feel like I am learning along with them on that, some of that stuff, so
• 45:49
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): always
• 45:50
  Nancy Minolli: just...
• 45:50
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): keeping one grad student in the
• 45:52
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 45:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): never gonna go get my PhD, but
• 45:54
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 45:55
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): have somebody who
• 45:56
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 45:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): higher learning like
• 45:58
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 45:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): in my world for that kinda scholarly buzz.
• 46:02
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 46:03
  Nancy Minolli: I, for sure.
• 46:03
  Nancy Minolli: Like, well, my own daughter is wrapping up her master's and it's, it's fairly scientific and I was like,"This is taking forever." And I'm saying that because I'm also helping her foot the bill so I'm like,"Wrap it up." And so I have this other, um, young man that I'm working with and he's under- undergrad but going on to get a master's and very scientific and he's like,"Oh, no, the research can stop at any time." And I was like,"Okay." He's like,"That's just how it goes in the scientific...
• 46:32
  Nancy Minolli: you know, when you're running trials and things like that." And I was like,"Okay." So all right, I'll stop bugging my daughter to hurry up.
• 46:41
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Getting coached by your clients.
• 46:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 46:44
  Nancy Minolli: Totally.
• 46:44
  Nancy Minolli: Totally.
• 46:45
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, there's me
• 46:46
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I asked ChatGPT what are some questions I should ask you, and there was one that I wouldn't have thought of on my own, and but I do wanna ask you as we m- go into our wrap-up mode right now.
• 46:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And it's a l- I might have to read it twice.
• 47:00
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): We'll see if you get it the first time,
• 47:02
  Nancy Minolli: OK
• 47:02
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): if you could sit down with 2018 Nancy for 15 minutes, what would you tell her knowing what you know now, and what would you not tell her because she needed to learn it herself?
• 47:14
  Nancy Minolli: Ooh.
• 47:16
  Nancy Minolli: Okay.
• 47:18
  Nancy Minolli: I, I would tell myself that you're, you're good at this.
• 47:25
  Nancy Minolli: This is gonna be fun, that you can do this.
• 47:28
  Nancy Minolli: I think there was, there was definitely self-doubt, like am I, am I good at this?
• 47:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 47:33
  Nancy Minolli: because you don't have, because like
• 47:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Sorry, go
• 47:37
  Nancy Minolli: because you don't have a boss, you don't have this feedback like you do in other, you know, careers or professions.
• 47:42
  Nancy Minolli: And so that, um, yeah, I think that was important to me that like there was some kind of, you know, confirmation that I was gonna be okay, that this was fine, you know?
• 47:52
  Nancy Minolli: what did I need to learn myself?
• 47:54
  Nancy Minolli: Ooh, that's a tough one
• 47:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Leave it to AI to ask a hard-hitting question, huh?
• 48:02
  Nancy Minolli: Mm.
• 48:04
  Nancy Minolli: Probably I just needed to fig- just help kind of sometimes just meet students where they were.
• 48:14
  Nancy Minolli: That I didn't need to follow a script or I didn't, that they didn't all, they weren't all gonna fit the same box.
• 48:22
  Nancy Minolli: And you know that, but when you first start out you're trying to like kind of like do things the same way'cause you, I just didn't know who I, you know, was.
• 48:30
  Nancy Minolli: But I definitely think I was, you know, trying to mold students in this way that I thought was probably like the best way for them.
• 48:38
  Nancy Minolli: And then you quickly realize like no, e- every student just needs their own, own program, their own path.
• 48:45
  Nancy Minolli: And so yeah, I think that was something you just can't figure out on your own, that you just, or that you have to wait and figure out, that nobody can tell you that one.
• 48:52
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah
• 48:54
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that's exactly right.
• 48:56
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 48:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): that maybe you wouldn't tell yourself how much you love college students and that you would wait and figure that out
• 49:03
  Nancy Minolli: Ja
• 49:03
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): you would.
• 49:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Would you go back and say,"Hey, by the way, get more college students sooner"?
• 49:08
  Nancy Minolli: No.
• 49:09
  Nancy Minolli: I think it just happened the way it was supposed to happen.
• 49:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yes
• 49:13
  Nancy Minolli: Well, and you learn too.
• 49:14
  Nancy Minolli: You learn talking to parents, you learn what is important, and then that's carrying them.
• 49:19
  Nancy Minolli: I think, yeah, growing with them was cool.
• 49:23
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Mhm
• 49:24
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, growing with them was cool.
• 49:26
  Nancy Minolli: And I love the part of families who have been with me.
• 49:29
  Nancy Minolli: I love the parents, you know, are chatting with me and relying on...
• 49:32
  Nancy Minolli: Not relying on me, but they, they appreciate the perspective that I have, and being able to see this other lens with their, you know, child that is giving them so much confidence and, you know, calming the system, calming the whole family dynamics down.
• 49:47
  Nancy Minolli: I think that was something that I was really surprised by, that I would have an impact on, you know, that part of it.
• 49:54
  Nancy Minolli: But, um, for sure I have.
• 49:56
  Nancy Minolli: That's been, that's been fun.
• 49:58
  Nancy Minolli: These people are part of my family.
• 50:00
  Nancy Minolli: There's cup- there's cupcakes and birthday things being sent back and forth.
• 50:04
  Nancy Minolli: You know, it's really sweet.
• 50:06
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 50:07
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): about your friend who was the one who suggested you consider coaching, and she was so right.
• 50:11
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): "I think you'd be good at this.
• 50:13
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I
• 50:13
  Nancy Minolli: She was so right.
• 50:14
  Nancy Minolli: She just quit her job
• 50:16
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I know.
• 50:17
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): She played around with coming into the lab to join us,
• 50:20
  Nancy Minolli: She did
• 50:21
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): a different job and went in a different direction.
• 50:25
  Nancy Minolli: I think her, her, her job is doing nothing.
• 50:27
  Nancy Minolli: No, I'm kidding.
• 50:29
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): You know?
• 50:30
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): It's
• 50:31
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 50:31
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): to
• 50:32
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, right?
• 50:33
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 50:34
  Nancy Minolli: But no, I, I, uh, invaluable support just having a, you know, having a friend, and then my daughter is in a neurodiverse, um, she works with neurodiverse students with her master's program, and just having common language now too, you know, that I didn't have just as a classroom teacher.
• 50:50
  Nancy Minolli: It's just been super fun to, like, be able to, like, chat, you know, offline about, you know, what's going on in our day.
• 50:56
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah.
• 50:57
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 50:58
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I now wonder, you...
• 50:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Well, so first of all, I need to thank you for something very specific,
• 51:03
  Nancy Minolli: Okay
• 51:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): which will be a setup for my last question.
• 51:06
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And that is you have just been the biggest cheerleader of me and the lab, and some people who were thinking about,"Should I join or should I not?" It's funny'cause it actually used to cost a lot more than it does now.
• 51:18
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And, um, when people were trying to decide,"Do I want to invest$6,000
• 51:24
  Nancy Minolli: Right
• 51:25
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): how I would send them to you.
• 51:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And boy, you said you're not a good marketer, but you turned
• 51:31
  Nancy Minolli: Gotcha.
• 51:32
  Nancy Minolli: No.
• 51:32
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): them in, and they're some of, uh, my favorite people, and
• 51:36
  Nancy Minolli: Oh.
• 51:36
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): now.
• 51:38
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): so thank you for believing in me and letting me believe in you
• 51:43
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, thank you.
• 51:44
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, no, you, I mean, you have something very unique, and we, I certainly recognize that, and I think so many others do as well.
• 51:52
  Nancy Minolli: And I'm a firm believer of, you know, not recreating, you know, not, not recreating the wheel when it's already there, and I just felt so out of my element when I started coaching.
• 52:02
  Nancy Minolli: I think we all are like,"I could do this," but there's gotta be a way and a system, and I loved just being able to, and follow that in the beginning,'cause it was sort of like training wheels, and then now still use it, and it's just, um, but I- if- I'm comfortable in it right now, and now it's just like it's my...
• 52:19
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah, it became part of, you know, our, the way we coach.
• 52:23
  Nancy Minolli: So yeah, I appreciate that.
• 52:24
  Nancy Minolli: It was your...
• 52:25
  Nancy Minolli: It's unique.
• 52:25
  Nancy Minolli: There's nobody else like you.
• 52:27
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Oh.
• 52:28
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): see, I didn't even have to ask the question.
• 52:29
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I was gonna ask something about what would you tell people who are considering joining the lab?
• 52:35
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But there, you just, you got
• 52:37
  Nancy Minolli: Do it.
• 52:38
  Nancy Minolli: it.
• 52:39
  Nancy Minolli: You won't regret it.
• 52:40
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 52:41
  Nancy Minolli: Well, you always say you will make the money back within your, you know, first, you know, semester of clients, and th- that I don't think there's a, um, anybody that's...
• 52:51
  Nancy Minolli: I don't think there's a person that's gone through your program that hasn't done that if they've followed, uh, what you said to do, so
• 52:56
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and if they
• 52:57
  Nancy Minolli: yeah.
• 52:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): with it.
• 52:59
  Nancy Minolli: And as we know, not everybody follows it, but that's okay.
• 53:01
  Nancy Minolli: They're on their own path.
• 53:02
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Right.
• 53:02
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And now, and now, you know, it's especially easier to recoup your, your investment because, I mean, you paid, I think it was 6,000 at the time you paid it, and now if people are doing Rock Your Biz, they will pay a total of, I think, 3,000 or so.
• 53:17
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So the prices
• 53:18
  Nancy Minolli: Bargain.
• 53:20
  Nancy Minolli: Bargain.
• 53:21
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 53:22
  Nancy Minolli: Yes, bargain.
• 53:23
  Nancy Minolli: Well, it's a neat, it's a, uh, there's not that many businesses where you can start with like a pretty low overhead too.
• 53:29
  Nancy Minolli: I think this is, you know...
• 53:30
  Nancy Minolli: But you gotta, you gotta wanna do this.
• 53:32
  Nancy Minolli: I wouldn't suggest that somebody just like starts academic coaching.
• 53:35
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah
• 53:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): into the, the deep, dark depths of family life and
• 53:43
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 53:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and it's,
• 53:45
  Nancy Minolli: It's
• 53:45
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): a lot.
• 53:46
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): We're not therapists, but we're holding a lot in our work as coaches
• 53:50
  Nancy Minolli: Oh yeah, and that's why we're exhausted at the end of the day,'cause we do put our heart into it too.
• 53:54
  Nancy Minolli: I don't think there's, you know, two of us out there that aren't, you know, putting everything we have into it.
• 53:59
  Nancy Minolli: And so, and yeah, we w- I, you know, we think about the kids, we worry about them, we text them.
• 54:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Mm-hmm.
• 54:06
  Nancy Minolli: that paper in?"
• 54:08
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Exactly
• 54:09
  Nancy Minolli: They hold space up here, and they're, and are, they're clogging up our working memory.
• 54:14
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): sure
• 54:17
  Nancy Minolli: It's okay though.
• 54:19
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Well, and I'll say too, if you're just hearing, if you don't really know a lot about the Anti-Boring Learning Lab, I do have some free resources that you can go download at antiboringlearninglab.com, the Free Resources tab.
• 54:31
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Join our free library and learn a little bit about some of the tools that actually Nancy was talking about earlier, including the study cycle.
• 54:39
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Oh, that's one thing I did wanna say.
• 54:41
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I love-- So the people in the audio didn't get to see she was holding, you
• 54:45
  Nancy Minolli: Okay
• 54:45
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): paper, but didn't get to see that she held up, uh, an image of the study cycle.
• 54:50
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But I actually something from you just now when you were sharing about that.
• 54:56
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Uh, I love the image.
• 54:57
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): So the basket at the bottom of the study cycle is supposed to be the basket of knowledge and skills, and that's everything that's outside the student's body and mind that they need to get into their brain.
• 55:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I love the image of the basket ideally getting smaller and smaller and smaller as you prove to yourself through retrieval practice how much you know.
• 55:17
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): There's less outside your brain'cause it all got into your brain, and so that's-- I don't, I don't know why.
• 55:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I've been teaching this for 15 years, and I've never thought about having the basket get smaller and smaller
• 55:27
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 55:28
  Nancy Minolli: It's, yeah, it's a nice image for the, especially when it feels overwhelming and there's so much to learn.
• 55:33
  Nancy Minolli: Like, you are, you're proving to yourself you're learning it, and less to learn now.
• 55:37
  Nancy Minolli: It's already there.
• 55:37
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Yeah Less, less, less.
• 55:39
  Nancy Minolli: Less.
• 55:40
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I appreciate you so much, Nancy.
• 55:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): I'm so glad you were willing to come tell your story here, and I hope it was helpful for
• 55:48
  Nancy Minolli: Super fun.
• 55:48
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): reflect
• 55:50
  Nancy Minolli: Well, thank you.
• 55:51
  Nancy Minolli: It was fun to be with you and see you, and I will try not to be just a lurker in the community.
• 55:58
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Or lurk.
• 55:58
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): It's fine.
• 55:59
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): It's fine, just lurk.
• 56:00
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): But it is your last few months or whatever it is, so come, come
• 56:04
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 56:04
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): for what it's worth, you know?
• 56:06
  Nancy Minolli: You never know, Gretchen.
• 56:07
  Nancy Minolli: You might just see me for
• 56:09
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): That would be
• 56:10
  Nancy Minolli: I may have completely...
• 56:11
  Nancy Minolli: Yeah.
• 56:13
  Nancy Minolli: I may have completely made it up.
• 56:15
  Nancy Minolli: I'm still here.
• 56:16
  Nancy Minolli: 10 years from now, you're like,"She's still coaching?"
• 56:19
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): That's great.
• 56:20
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Well, it would be a blessing to students if you were.
• 56:22
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): And now I'm about to hit stop recording, but before I do, will you please tell all the good listeners out there to like and subscribe and do all those things that they need to do for podcasts?
• 56:32
  Nancy Minolli: Oh, yes.
• 56:33
  Nancy Minolli: I think you're supposed to like and subscribe and follow this, right?
• 56:38
  Nancy Minolli: Follow.
• 56:39
  Nancy Minolli: And YouTube.
• 56:39
  Nancy Minolli: Is YouTube still a thing?
• 56:40
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): YouTube.
• 56:41
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): This will be on YouTube, so
• 56:42
  Nancy Minolli: Okay.
• 56:43
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): and subscribe to
• 56:44
  Nancy Minolli: Mm-hmm.
• 56:45
  Nancy Minolli: It doesn't cost you anything to like and subscribe, but it does help Gretchen.
• 56:49
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): so does.
• 56:50
  Nancy Minolli: Yes.
• 56:52
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Thank you.
• 56:53
  Gretchen Wegner (she/her): Take care, everyone
• 56:54
  Nancy Minolli: Bye.