Blending the benefits of life coaching and business coaching, a clarity coach like Chelsea Montgomery can help you reach your goals through transformational coaching, workshops and speeches. We chatted with Chelsea, who, through group and one-on-one sessions, offers clients a crystal clear step-by-step plan that changes lifestyle habits, gives purpose and sets them up to thrive, about her services (including three-month programs and public speaking engagements), and got her top tips on dealing with stress and other issues in a post-pandemic world. —Noa Nichol
Hi Chelsea! Please tell us a bit about yourself to start.
I am a woman on a mission, determined to help others live their purpose and experience achievement in life and business in ways they previously only dreamed of but didn’t believe were possible for them. I wake up wanting to make a positive impact on those I meet, be it clients, friends, family or strangers I encounter in my day-to-day life. I am obsessed with personal development and live my life through a lens of curiosity and belief that we are all worthy of incredible things.
What is a business, life and clarity coach? What is your background, and how did you land in this role?
As a coach I use my method of Clarity Coaching in both life and business with clients to help them get clear on where they are, who they are and where they want to go. Most of us do not take the time to stop and evaluate these things, we are in a constant state of motion without direction, the feeling of busy-ness without actually getting things done. As a Clarity Coach I hold space that allows for my individual clients to get to explore these facets of their lives, develop a plan and implement the change that they have hoped for in the past but never really experienced. When working with my corporate clients the methods of Clarity Coaching can be applied to a specific project or to improve employees well-being and in turn, their productivity. My experience as an entrepreneur, my background in corporate, mixed with my training and certification as a coach is how I landed the role as a Clarity Coach.
We love that you offer a blend of life coaching and business coaching! How does this balance of services benefit your clients?
Simply put, because most of us live in a world made up of both life and business and these two areas will always ebb and flow and impact each other. I have never had a client where I have not had to work on both, even if they come to me specifically for life or business. How we do something in one area of our life is usually how we do things in other areas. I believe we can use this to our advantage and by leaving in to this understanding, create effective and lasting change, if we choose to. I believe that if I address both areas, it allows me to see my clients completely and wholly, and leaves no stone unturned. We really take stock of everything in their life in order to know what steps are needed to create the habits and the changes for the life they want.
How else/in what other ways do you help clients? How do you guide people to reach their goals?
I help clients really get to know themselves, really understand who they are. We spend so much time getting to know others in our lives—our partners, our family, co-workers—but rarely do we take that time with ourselves. I often have clients come to realizations like, “I don’t even like doing X,” or, “I’m not sure if I ever actively chose this life.” I create the space and ask the questions to establish where my clients are in their life. It’s a lot of self-leadership and self-honesty. I help people achieve goals using the Clarity Method, which begins by making the needed choices, building effective habits and creating patterns that align with where they want to go and how they want to show up in life. I always tell my clients that they know what they need to do, that there is a quiet inner voice that knows, I just give that voice a megaphone and sometimes translate it.
We know that you offer both solo and group sessions; does one or the other type of coaching work best for different types of clients? Or, do you recommend a mix?
One-on-one coaching is definitely more personal and can be a real self discovery. I always recommend it if you have a feeling like, “I know I want something to change or be different, I just don’t know what.” Individual coaching can create a Brave Space to explore this with me as your guide. My group coaching is definitely more goal oriented, such as creating a work life blend that sets you up for success, and the groups are made up of individuals that typically have done some type of self development. That being said I have had clients do both individual and group programs at different times in their life, depending on where they are at. For example, a client worked with me individually and came to the conclusion that some major career changes needed to happen. We worked together through these big life transitions. Then later they were a part of a group program made up mainly of business owners. The goal of that group was to create positive, personal development and self-care-centred businesses by operationalizing values. A perk to group coaching versus individual is that you hear other experiences and questions that you have yet to, or maybe never would encounter and you can learn from them.
Tell us about your three-month programs; what can we expect to gain from these?
In one-on-one programs I develop a connection with my clients and put them at ease with the type of self-exploration we will be undergoing together over 12 weeks. We review what has and has not worked for them in the past when they have had major changes in their life and get clear on what they are wanting to achieve now. Sometimes clients don’t know what it is they want but they know that they want something else, I help many people get clear on this. As we move through the program, sessions begin to look like: reviewing the past week, reviewing the implementation of concepts and ideas we worked on in the previous sessions and fine tuning the habits and patterns to achieve the bigger vision and goals. The best and the most common feedback I get from clients is, “You made what seemed impossible, possible.” My clients gain a sense of empowerment through clarity and feel in the driver’s seat of their life, not just a passenger on a rollercoaster.
You do speaking engagements, as well! What are some of your favourite/most-requested topics?
I love speaking about how people can be their true authentic selves in all areas of their lives and how this helps them find greater ease in life and success in business/work. In workplaces I love talking about the power of human first business and how centre-ing the self-care and the well-being of your team can lead to greater productivity, workplace satisfaction and better performance for not just the individual but the business as a whole.
With restrictions slowly lifting here in Canada, what are some of your top tips for dealing with stress around going back into the office? What about other post-pandemic life or work concerns we may be experiencing: do you have any tried-and-true advice?
As with anything acknowledging the stress is important, because you can’t change or address what you’re not clear on. I suggest a good ol’ pen-to-paper brain-dump to get this process started. Set a timer for 20 minutes and be it through note taking or free-flow writing get all of the things you are stressed or concerned about in regards to heading back to the office out of your head and onto the page. This may feel awkward or challenging at the beginning but the key is to keep going; don’t self censor and don’t judge what comes out, just get it out. After the timer goes off, look at what comes out and organize (there may be some repeats or things that are connected) put the things you are concerned about into two lists: What is Within Your Control and What is in the Control of Others. For example, Within Your Control may have the worry about time. You will now have to factor in time for your commute to the office, which may cut out the time you were working out or getting a few extra zzzs. Things within your control you can prepare for, so this would look like evaluating your schedule to fit in the workout or adjusting your bedtime to get the sleep and still wake up on time. Things Out of Your Control would look like: What if it’s unsafe? This is something you can learn about, check with your employer to see what rules they are bringing in to address health and safety for employees. Go through each concern you have in both lists and write down beside each how you can either Prepare or Learn, re-evaluate and play with these answers and keep addressing them in order to get more comfortable with the idea of going back. The more we look at things, the more we familiarize ourselves with ideas and realities the more we are able to adapt and act in a way we would like to. If you are in a position of leadership at your company I would highly recommend you bring in a corporate wellness professional to run a workshop or just to support your employees to adjust in the transition of returning to work. My team and I do this often, even before the pandemic, helping teams and businesses move through transitions and set themselves up for success.
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