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Should You Go to Grad School or Become a Certified Coach? · Six Figure Certified

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: one of my biggest regrets was wasting so much time being worried about what other people would think if I did what I actually knew that I wanted to do and that was very scary and it's very scary to invest money that you don't have on a vision that has not yet been realized and most people won't do it.
• 0:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my question for you is will you?
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you are considering a career change and you've started researching coaching, then there's also a very good chance that you have had this thought.
• 0:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's this thought where, like, if I could spend, or if I'm going to spend thousands of dollars anyway, should I go for a coaching certification or should I go to grad school?
• 0:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I actually think that's a really smart question and I feel like I am prepared to answer that for you all today because I have done
• 0:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me tell you, so if we haven't met before, my name's Liv Chapman, I'm the CEO of IGC Coaching School before coaching.
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was a public school teacher who, of course, not of course would of course.
• 1:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: It became super burnt out.
• 1:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I decided to go to grad school, so I could become a principal, I majored in educational leadership.
• 1:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: And right when I finished that master's degree, I kind of added this existential crisis where I was like, I cannot do this anymore.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: And by happenstance, I met a life coach at a baseball game.
• 1:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: She introduced me to my business partner in IGC Katie.
• 1:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: It was like this whole series of synchronicic events.
• 1:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you're in the pity?
• 1:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, that.
• 1:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And so I ended up never really using my master's degree.
• 1:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: I never became a principal, but you could kind of call me like the principal of IGC.
• 1:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I did both, and I did eventually go through an actual ICF accredited coach training program.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: I got a much higher ROI on both on my coaching certification than I ever did on Oh god, my like hundreds of thousands of dollars I spent on undergrad and grad school.
• 2:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not here to tell you the graduate school is a waste of money.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I did it.
• 2:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: I would get another degree, probably.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think learning is fun.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm big into education over overall, but I do think that a lot of ambitious women or people in general automatically default to traditional educational past.
• 2:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And sometimes that is the right answer for you, but sometimes you're about to spend like 30 or 50 or $100,000 on solving a problem that a degree actually will never solve.
• 2:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I think it's important that you really evaluate what you want and the vision for your life and your career over which school should you go to.
• 2:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to compare like professional coach training and graduate school and I want to look at five different categories with you.
• 2:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the cost, the time, the career outcome, earning potential and then the key to all of this which is like, what do you actually want your life to look like when you're finished?
• 3:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because that's the part that most people miss and I a hundred percent missed this.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was always like,
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: What should I do with my life?
• 3:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then I'd like ask a million people and everyone had a different answer for me.
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I never started it by like, what do you actually want your life to look like?
• 3:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: What career are you trying to build?
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe if we just started there, we would save a lot of money and have weight less problem.
• 3:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: So number one, what career are you actually trying to build?
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: before money, maybe money is no object anyway, but before we even talk about that, what does the career you want actually require?
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you want to become a psychologist and attorney, a doctor, a physical therapist, nurse practitioner, professor, maybe that one's arguable, or you know, enter another profession requiring a specific graduate degree or license, that's a very easy conversation, go get a degree.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: you're done here.
• 3:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're excused.
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coach training is not a substitute for education or licensure that's required by a state or another regulating body.
• 4:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: But if your goal is different, like if you want to work in leadership development or career development or executive coaching or you want to do like business coaching and consulting or you want to develop employees or create
• 4:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: or really work on personal development with people.
• 4:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe you even want some of the what I would consider more like fun versions of coaching, which would be like writing a book, being a public speaker, having a podcast, being sort of like an influencer in the wellness personal development space.
• 4:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now we're having a completely different conversation.
• 4:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're kind of having choose your own adventure and go figure if you are a millennial, probably an elder, a millennial, you might have remembered this book series that was my favorite book series when I was a kid and it was choose your own adventure and you'd like read a few pages of the book.
• 4:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then you would say at the bottom, like to do this, go to this page to do this, go to this page.
• 5:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I consider a coaching certification more of a choose your own adventure path because it is less rigid.
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It coaching is a skill set, so it can be, it's a transferable skill into many other.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: areas like I said, you can do individual coaching group coaching workshops, leadership development, HR stuff, you can own your own coaching business.
• 5:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: But coaching is not synonymous with becoming like an Instagram entrepreneur or an influencer, okay?
• 5:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is an option.
• 5:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: you could want that and you could be really, really good at that.
• 5:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could also want to go do lunch and learn at Fortune 500 companies and, you know, make six figure contracts while helping leaders become better leaders.
• 5:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so many
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: different ways to do this.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can coach inside of non-profits.
• 5:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can consult in coach.
• 5:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You could even therapy and coach.
• 5:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's so many different ways to use coaching, but I'm just throwing out all of these ideas on what I've seen our students and graduates do.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You, this is your job.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is your responsibility.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you don't take responsibility of that vision and you're just like waiting for everyone else to tell you what you should do, then you need to hire a coach.
• 6:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not, I would say I'm kidding, but I'm not, but like you cannot outsource your future anymore.
• 6:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: We are in the age of information.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: I digress.
• 6:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: Have I had too much coffee today?
• 6:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: You'll be the judge.
• 6:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: All I want to do is for you to get an idea of what's possible.
• 6:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Picture the career path you want.
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: And please remember.
• 6:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Olivia at 18 was not the same as Olivia at 25 was not the same as 35 and is sure not the same at 40.
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you aren't like thinking 10 years out, maybe stop.
• 6:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe stop because there is no rule that says what you choose today has to be with you forever.
• 6:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know, but money in a time and blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 7:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: The time's going to go by anyway and you can always make the money back.
• 7:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: I do not say that like leisurely or carelessly.
• 7:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: I say that from experience.
• 7:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I anchored so much into I have so many student loans.
• 7:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: I've already done this job for a decade.
• 7:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are my parents going to think?
• 7:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are my friends going to think?
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are people that I don't even know going to think?
• 7:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: take a chance on yourself and choose from the heart, okay?
• 7:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it's not going anywhere.
• 7:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: If it's the purpose that God put on your heart or whatever you believe, it's not going anywhere and the longer you push it down, the worse you feel.
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, number two.
• 7:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: So figure out what you want is number one.
• 7:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number two is let we'll talk about the money because this is where things can get a little bit more interesting.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So everyone's like starting point with money and expectation is the same.
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: So what I consider expensive might not be the same as you.
• 7:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have people that get on the phone with our admissions advisors and they're like skeptical because it's so inexpensive.
• 8:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then we have other people that like hang up on us when they hear the price.
• 8:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to think carefully when you make an investment and notice I'm saying investment, whether you go to grad school or you go to a coach training program If you're only thinking about like, oh, what's this going to cost me?
• 8:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: What's it going to cost me?
• 8:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Well, let me say first of all you're mental health probably if you don't make a decision second of all
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: If this is a career, if this is a business, if this is a professional path, it's less about cost and more about, like, will you actually make money from this skill?
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if not, it needs to go in the hobby bucket, which is fine.
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I wouldn't necessarily spend $10 to $50,000 on grad school or coaching program if it was just for a hobby.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you got it like that though, good for you, good for you.
• 8:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: but you really want to think about this more of as an investment, obviously of money, also of time, and also considering, like, I feel like we have this very, like, cultural reaction to grad school.
• 8:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if someone says, like, you know, I'm thinking about enrolling in a master's program.
• 9:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: We're automatically thinking, like, 50K, 100K.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And everyone's like, oh my god, that's so amazing.
• 9:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: You got in there, and like, that's only going to probably take you 20 years to pay off.
• 9:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: but then the same woman with the same bank account, the same amount of money says she's going to do an online coach training program and some people, oh, that sounds risky, that might be irresponsible, maybe you shouldn't do that, like I don't, you know,
• 9:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Everyone is going to have something to say about how you decide to use your money.
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you have to be clear about either way, whether you're going to go six figures on grad school or five figures on a coaching certification, why are you buying this or why are you investing in this?
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: And do you think you are going to get a return?
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is what you walk away from that degree or certification with going to put you closer to your goal if not already living inside of it by the time it's done?
• 10:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: What qualifications will you have?
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Which skills will you possess?
• 10:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: What career opportunities does this create?
• 10:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: How quickly can I begin using those skills?
• 10:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: That one trips me up a little bit with grad school because when I want something I wanted a lot faster than like two to four years.
• 10:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Also, what do you need to happen financially for this to make sense for you?
• 10:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's an ROI conversation.
• 10:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're just sitting there thinking like, oh, it's expensive, it's expensive.
• 10:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is not helpful business woman, future business woman.
• 10:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: It is more helpful to run the numbers.
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have a good ROI calculator of coaching schools on your agenda.
• 10:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll link it in the show notes or comments.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: But run some actual numbers.
• 10:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no guarantees in anything in life.
• 10:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I can guarantee you that if you are doing something you love, it is way easier.
• 10:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: to get a return.
• 10:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you are fulfilled or joyful, most of the time.
• 11:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number three, the number three thing is time to completion.
• 11:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: A graduate degree as we know commonly takes years, professional coach training is considerably shorter, depending on the program and the credential you're pursuing, as well as the amount of time you have to actually be coaching.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: At IGC, for example, we have different ICF credentialing coach certification programs that are typically completed in like four to eight months.
• 11:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: And whether that sounds like a long or short amount of period of time, it's pretty moderate, most coach training programs are between three and 12 months, depending most of our students are working full-time and starting this on the side at first.
• 11:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: So ours is spread out up to eight months with weekly classes, so it's not totally overtaking your whole life while you're still like in between what you're doing now and where you're going.
• 11:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, depending on the path you're pursuing, you have to give yourself some time to generate the skills needed in order to execute a coaching business or a coaching career.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: The difference, though, I would say is that most of our students, they want to have a business or a career sooner than when they graduate.
• 12:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: So,
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: a lot of them start coaching while they're in training.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if you go to grad school, depending on your specialty, that may also be the case.
• 12:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You may be able to get an internship in the field.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: You may be able to get a job in a similar field.
• 12:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know for me, I couldn't get a job as a principal until I finished the degree, so there's an obviously like if you're an attorney or doctor, certainly.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You probably have to finish all of those degrees first, and they can take
• 12:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just for the record too, I definitely don't recommend quitting your job tomorrow.
• 12:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like once you know that you want to be a coach, I gave myself a few months to get things going.
• 12:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: Again, you may be in a different position and I know we've had many people come to a program who'd been laid off or terminated from a job and so now they have time and I do think time is actually much more valuable than money when it comes to starting a business.
• 12:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you will need to do that.
• 12:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you don't have to...
• 13:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like jump off a cliff to get started, you can absolutely build a bridge for yourself.
• 13:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: If all of this is just like creating more confusion in your mind too, I want you to like maybe pause this and actually book a call with an admissions advisor because every person's situation there is different, there fears are different, there financial situations are different.
• 13:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a lot to consider.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And just listening to me, yeah, about what I would do and what and do is maybe not always the best thing.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that you deserve someone to listen, someone to give you some feedback, someone to show you what options are available to you, someone to help guide you into the right path, because if you got on one of our advisory calls, and you said you wanted to do therapy or counseling or addiction counseling,
• 13:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: We would say those are things that you need to explore graduate school for, but if you said you wanted to work with executives or become a health coach or become a life coach or help women become more confident, we would show you which coaching path was right for you.
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number four, what is the all-in-compassing ROI?
• 14:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I know we just talked about the money ROI, I told you to go check out the ROI calculator, but there's a lot more that goes into rebuilding your professional identity than just money.
• 14:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: Even though money is usually the thing that we focus on first, I do too, okay?
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Don't get me wrong, I do too.
• 14:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: But this is where I want you to stop thinking just about tuition or a price tag, alright?
• 14:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So let's say program a costs $10,000 in program b costs $40,000.
• 14:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: it would be very easy to say that program A is a better investment because it's cheaper maybe, but that's not necessarily the case.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if the $40,000 program helps you get a career that's going to pay you 150 grand a year, that would be a better investment, right?
• 14:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So if you spend $10,000 on a training and never use it, that may have been cheaper,
• 14:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: But it could have been a terrible investment.
• 15:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the cost is not the only thing or really much of anything that determines the ROI.
• 15:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's the utilization and the life experience, like the day-to-day experience.
• 15:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when I say utilization, what I really mean is like,
• 15:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: What are you going to do with the education?
• 15:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is also why I care so much about the business side of coach training to like or any career.
• 15:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like you can learn the skill somewhere, but turning the skill into income is a whole other thing.
• 15:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And even colleges aren't typically helpful with that.
• 15:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: My college didn't help me get a teaching career.
• 15:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: at all.
• 15:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: My grad school didn't help me get a principal's job.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: None of that happened.
• 15:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you really need to understand what pathways this opens up and are you willing to be the person that engages with the material that goes above and beyond to take that education and do something with it.
• 15:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if it's build a business, how are you going to do that?
• 15:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you in the right environment
• 16:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: This is a part that it kind of goes back to question one, but like, where do you see yourself enjoying your life more?
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it if you take the traditional path and become an accountant?
• 16:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, you go to school, you get your CPA, you become an accountant, you have a study nine to five, you have your 401k, you are, you know, very predictable life.
• 16:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: For some people, that is freedom.
• 16:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: For some people, that's a cage, so you also want to consider the lifestyle and the experience that you want to create for yourself when you invest in these different things.
• 16:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know I just gave you kind of a dramatic example and not every account is an occasion.
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know that.
• 16:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's weird to picture.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do ROI is much more comprehensive than money and it's not just like a basic math problem.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's really, is this going to pay off for me?
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And is it going to give me the life that I want?
• 16:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, number five really builds on what we just said in terms of ROI, but you need to figure out what life are you trying to create?
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: They really want you to separate education and outcome for a second, because if you imagine yourself three years from now,
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: Forget the degree, forget certifications, forget what, you know, sounds impressive on a resume or when somebody asks you what you do or who you work for and all of that and like, what does it Tuesday in your world?
• 17:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: look like.
• 17:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Do you work for yourself?
• 17:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you leading a team?
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you working remotely?
• 17:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you working from your laptop and Bali?
• 17:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you coaching executives at a company?
• 17:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you hosting workshops?
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you seeing private clients in your cozy home office situation?
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you doing consulting inside of nonprofits or fortune 500 companies?
• 17:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are you like Wendy,
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: getting those guys in order.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: That is the future that should determine the education that you choose now.
• 18:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not the other way around.
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you want to help people,
• 18:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can go to coaching school or you can go to grad school.
• 18:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Here's the simplest way I can explain it.
• 18:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's like, if the career you want requires a graduate degree, go get a graduate degree.
• 18:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when you are looking at coach training, just like maybe you're looking at universities, I want you to look at what's actually included.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is it accredited?
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Does it offer mentorship?
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Is there an actual curriculum?
• 18:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Are there actual live instructors helping you?
• 18:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hello, it's so weird to me with some people try to be a coach and they go to coach training that they've never even been evaluated on their coaching and no ones ever heard them coach before and then they're like, it's a million dollars!
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: weird, which investment gets you closer to the career that was question one and life which we tied a bow on the end that you're actually trying to build.
• 18:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: That answer is going to be different for everybody.
• 18:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Instead of spinning out around it, book a call and actually talk to someone about it.
• 19:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you need someone to actually hear you and what you want, that's why you would book a call.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You got to get off the hamster wheel.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's no amount of money that you can't earn back, but there's a lot of time that you cannot get back.
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: When you're wasting it, when you're stuck, when you're miserable, when you're taking out on everyone else around you, when you're physically feeling worse because you're doing another day at something that you hate, or maybe you don't even hate it, but it just drains your soul.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: You can't get that time back, and I'm also really feeling
• 19:37
  [SPEAKER_00]: was wasting so much time being worried about what other people would think if I did what I actually knew that I wanted to do.
• 19:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that was very scary and it's very to very scary to invest money that you don't have on a vision that has not yet been realized and most people won't do it.
• 19:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my question for you is, will you?
• 19:59
  [SPEAKER_00]: All right, I hope this was helpful.
• 20:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: I hope you're inspired.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you're confused, just book a call.
• 20:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: And did you know this little girl was with us the whole time?
• 20:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, I'll see you next week.