Sneak Peek Inside Wife Teacher Mommy Life Coaching with Chrissy Nichols [episode 26]

Hey, friend, I’m really excited about today’s interview with Chrissy Nichols. If you’ve been listening on the podcast, you may have heard her before, you may have heard references to our life coaching. But you might be wondering, what is it? Is it weird and woowoo, is that therapy, is it only for people who are struggling? The answer to all those is no by the way. But I am so passionate about life coaching, it has truly blessed and changed my life only for the better. I went from being an anxious wreck at the end of 2019 with postpartum anxiety, and I landed in the ER, I got on meds, I got therapy, those things kind of helped a little bit. But then at the beginning of 2020, and it was before the pandemic, shortly before I found life coaching, I found a coach. And I was able to see very quick progress in my life. And boy was I glad I had coaching in my life before the pandemic started, because that was a really hard time for all of us. And as I’ve had this personal growth, and I continue to have it I’m not, you know, as we’ve talked about in the gap in the game, I’m seeing so many gains from life coaching, rather than looking at the gap. But you know, there’s still more always more help ways we want to learn and grow. So I still get coaching and continue to learn from these tools. Sometimes it’s to work through a problem or a struggle I’m having. But sometimes it’s to get help reaching goals, or just finding more balance in my life. Coaching and the amazing coaches I’ve met through the community have truly changed and blessed my life for the better, so much that I even want to become a coach and certify myself soon. I actually say that on the podcast for accountability there. And also that I wanted to bring coaching to teachers everywhere, because I have seen how teachers are struggling. And that so many teachers don’t have these tools that may be able to help them with navigating the hard times. Maybe you are struggling with teaching, maybe you’re feeling burned out. Maybe you’re like I want to enjoy teaching again, but it’s just so hard, right. And while we can’t change the circumstances of your teaching and whatnot, we can help you with these coaching tools and strategies, we know that we can help and support you. And that is why when I opened the club last year of September 21, it was all access resources. But I wanted to take it a step further. Because you can have all the resources in the world but if you’re spiraling and overwhelm or burning out, you need more hands on support. And that is what our teacher life coaching is here for. And again also, like I mentioned, if you don’t feel like overwhelmed, right, oh, that’s not for me. No, it’s for you too wherever you are, as long as you have a human brain coaching is for you.

So Chrissy is our amazing coach in the program. She is incredible. And today together, we are going to pull back the curtain and give you a sneak peek at our life coaching program inside the club. I call it our hashtag teacher life coaching program, kind of like because it’s life coaching but you know, on Instagram and Tiktok like hashtag teacher life. I just thought that was fun. But this teacher life coaching program is included as part of the experience in Wife Teacher Mommy club. So if you were in the club, it will not cost you an additional dime. So let’s dive in and you can see what it is and how it might benefit you this school year.

But before we do I need to introduce Chrissy to you really quick. So Chrissy has been teaching for over 20 years in both independent and public schools in the US and Europe. She is the founder of the coaching group, The Chrissy Concept where she serves smart, dynamic teachers who want to feel better about their lives and relationships at school. Chrissy specializes in helping teachers who feel overwhelmed and burnout with tools to master time and improve challenging relationships. Can we all use some of that? I know we can. So let’s dive in. Let’s hear a little bit about coaching. And you will get to meet Chrissy she’s so amazing. I cannot wait. This is a special treat for you today. So let’s dive in.

Hey, Chrissy, I’m so excited to have you here on the podcast again.

Kelsey, you know, I always love coming on the podcast. Thanks so much for having me.

Yeah, this is about your second or third time being on the show. I can’t remember.

Listen, I will be here as much as possible and you’re gonna be on Teacher Talk as much as possible. My podcast, I just love what comes up. I love what happens. I love everything we get into so I’m excited.

Me too. Okay, so really quickly, though, for those who are listening to an episode with either of us for the first time, can you introduce yourself to our listeners?

Gladly. Thank you for asking that. Yes, my name is Chrissy Nichols. I am the Life Coach for teachers who struggle. So anyone who is in any kind of a struggle, and let’s face it, we all are there at some point in our day or hour or life because we have a human brain. And our brain has thoughts. But I was a teacher for over 22 years, I taught everything from first grade to seniors in high school, in public school and private school all over the world. My area of expertise was French, and I love France. I am French, I love speaking French. And I just felt burnt out. I didn’t really know why I didn’t know what was going on. And I found coaching. A very wise colleague gave me her life coach. And I really changed my life. I had to get very honest with myself. And kind of some of the shenanigans my brain was telling me. And it took it took some good long work, but then I loved it so much. I lost 26 pounds, met the love of my life, had so many transformations. And that’s what I do with teachers today I got certified at The Life Coach School to be a weight loss and life coach. And then you and I found each other so glad that we did because now I’m able to extend my reach thanks to you and work with teachers through Wife Teacher Mommy, and it’s just been a dream. So thank you for that.

It really has been and for those of you listening be sure to listen to episode three, Chrissy was my first guest on the podcast and we talked even more about her story about becoming a coach and and how she ended up how we ended up doing this collaboration.

And I will also just put a plug in here at listen to my episode three. I didn’t realize we both shared the same. Yeah, Kelsey is in my podcast about how we met and how coaching really has changed her life. So if you’re interested just about sort of a beginning story and Odyssey about folks that don’t know about coaching and came to it listen to both of us.

Okay, so Chrissy now that you know, we’ve talked about we have this collaboration and with that collaboration because some who are listening may be like, what collaboration are you talking about? So Chrissy she is our life coach inside Wife Teacher Mommy club. So in Wife Teacher Mommy club, we launched that in September of 2021. And it started with all access to all of our resources. That was a great value as is but then I was like, you know, teachers are struggling, you know, you just hear more and more about teacher shortages and all the different struggles that are going on even now more than ever with COVID and all the things and I’m like, You know what teachers need more than just resources. They need resources, but they need more support too. And life coaching has changed my life. So, I want to add live coaching to the club. And more the story is on episode three. But now that is what happened. I needed a coach, I found a coach Chrissy’s here and she coaches our members inside the club. So Chrissy, can you tell us a little bit about what it is like to coach in the club?

Yes, yes to give all of this listening a bit of a sneak peek about a coach’s life inside the club. You mentioned Ask A Coach, and I think that is one of the first brilliant things that you added in because a lot of us listening to this podcast, we might live on the east coast, maybe we’re in Europe, maybe we’re on vacation, but we might have a question just then. And maybe we’re an early riser or we’re a night owl and Ask A Coach is a way for you to get coaching 24 hours a day whenever you need to. You put in a question, and then I go through and I answer it and I give you thoughts and some ideas and some tips to really look at your thinking, and see if there are thoughts in there that you’d like to keep, or some that you’d like to maybe discard. So that’s Ask A Coach, which is amazing. The other cool thing I think you’ve done and your team Kelsey has done over at Wife Teacher Mommy is you can scroll through and see all of the other questions. So maybe yours might have been answered, but you’ve got a little bit of a of a tweak, or you’ve got a little bit of something else to ask, which I, you know, one’s personal question might just be a little bit different. You might read through the Ask A Coach, which I think is brilliant, and get your answer right there. So that’s the first part. The second part is what we do, when we go live, we either have an open live coaching, where our club members will come and they’ll populate a Zoom and we’ll hop on and we’ll just get through as many folks as they need to be coached. That’s a very vibrant and dynamic space to come. Even if you decide not to get coached, and you’re listening, it is an amazing way for you to apply, maybe I’m helping somebody else with her issue, but it’s a great way for you to think hmm, how would my situation be put into what I call the model, which is you have any kind of sort of circumstance, a thought or a story about that circumstance that drives a feeling, which creates a certain set of actions, what we do what we don’t do, we get a result. So that’s in the live. And then the other amazing thing that we just did that we have regularly are workshops. So that’s more of an active exercise driven, coaching moment where I take everyone through a worksheet, or I take them through some concepts, and they’re actually able to do it right, then there’s no I’ll do it later. There’s no I’ll get this answer at another time and put it off. It’s active. It’s for you. It’s right then it’s brilliant.

Yes. And I love how you during those you like ask questions, and people are engaged during these like, it’s really like you’re teaching a workshop, but it’s with these coaching concepts and like you know, and there’s tools that they can actively use during it. And then you know, if you can’t make it live, there is a replay available. But coming live is amazing. It’s incredible. I love it.

I love that you said that just now, Kelsey, because the secret sauce is coming live, because I don’t know about you. But as a busy teacher, and as a coach, I always think, Oh, I’ve got a replay. I’ll do it later. Sometimes later never happens. But if I’m there, and I’m live, and I’m seeing my other teacher friends and colleagues and community, and they’re scribbling down things, too, and they’re in the chat box, and they’re encouraging me, I just want to tell everyone, we have such a strong community that’s building even more in Wife Teacher Mommy, that you start to see people, you know, talking to each other on the chat in a way that feels really supportive and nurturing. And you’ve really created that. So thank you for creating that vibe.

Thank you Chrissy and I have noticed especially like since Educate & Rejuvenate, I feel like that event and everything really brought so many people together. The community has just been really supportive. And people have even like commented in our Facebook group and like, I love this supportive group of women and how we support each other and also men you are welcome to join too.

We love our men, we love our male educators, we love our dads, we love our homeschoolers.

Yes, absolutely as long, as long as you are a teacher with a human brain, then you’re good. This will help you as long as you have a human brain, which we all do. So Chrissy, what I want to ask a little bit kind of back up a little bit is we talked about like, you know, the different kinds of coaching we do and like the people can ask a question whenever and I’m like open coaching calls, they can ask a question, but like what exactly like if people are like, okay, like, what would I ask, you know, what do I do with that?

Yeah, great question.

What types of things have we coached about before, like, example, questions?

I think you you hit it on the head, sometimes people think I’m gonna go to coaching, but I don’t even know what to do. Right? And people sometimes will say, Well, do I have to prepare something? Is it like therapy? Do I have to come with a, you know, heavy duty issue? And the answer is no, you can come however you are. But sometimes people come to coaching, they say, Okay, I don’t know what to ask or I’ve got nothing. And then that’s on me. I’m your coach, right to do the work. So then that’s when I ask some probing questions. That’s when I just asked when you think about school, what do you think about? And then we dive in, when you think about your life, and where you’re at? What do you think about? So it’s really going that metacognition, we are the only species that can think about our thinking. And so as your coach, that’s all they do is I look inside your brain together with you. And we kind of tease things out. And you know, it’s amazing having done this now for a few years. It’s amazing what people say about their lives about school about their partners about their kids. They don’t even think or or realize subconsciously, the stories they might be telling themselves. But basically to answer your question and get back to it, it looks just like a conversation. Somebody comes on to the coach, let’s say it’s you. And you just I asked you questions, you come back for some answers, I ask you more questions, I like to say that my job is basically asking a lot of questions. But some of the things we’ve coached on, I love that you brought that up. I mean, our most recent workshop, which was brilliant, was five things you must know to change back to school forever.

Yeah, that was just a few days ago.

What I love is giving, you know, some very practical and real tools to our club members that they can use now, today, this hour, doesn’t have to be big, I’ll give you just one example. Because you asked, I really love that I dove in to if your brain is dreading back to school, and if you’re hating school, it’s okay to use that kind of language. Maybe you’re just kind of soso Maybe you love going back to school, and this advice in this tip, and this tool will still work for you. But I just talked about creating more value for yourself, you know, we do so much and back to school for the kids. And I gotta get that bulletin board up. And my classroom has to look just so I’ve kind of have all my materials and resources labeled Sure, that’s fine. But how can you create more value for yourself, meaning what’s one beautiful Italian seascape poster that you can put up, not for the kids just for you. I also recommended, you know, creating a cozy corner in your class, maybe putting some plants around it, maybe your students will think it’s for them. It’s just for you. It’s for those 10 seconds that you need to recharge, it’s for that time when you close your door. And maybe it’s been a great day, but maybe it’s been a hard day, you’ve got maybe, you know, 15 minutes before recess or before lunch, maybe it’s your planning period. And you just go into that comfy corner, and you just sit, right, it could just be as easy as a throw pillow that you bring from home. These don’t have to be fancy value ads. But it’s so important for us to create this value for ourselves. It could be a lesson plan that you’ve always been dying to do. And I just urge everyone to want what they want. Do that art lesson, right? You’ve always wanted if you’re interested in some part of frogs, and it doesn’t fit in your science that year. Make a way right, be creative. And just say, hey, you know what we’re gonna do frogs. I’m going to tie this in, in some creative way. Teachers, we’re also creative. Everyone listening, you’re so creative out there. But I think, to dread school less, we need to make it more valuable for ourselves. And let’s create that now. It’s not for the kids. It’s just for you.

I love that see, everybody? Isn’t that a perfect example of like, you know, you didn’t have to come up with anything to come and get this value from coaching Chrissy, Chrissy’s bringing it and there were four other amazing tips that she shared in that workshop. So if you are a member, and you did not make it, that is totally okay. Like we mentioned, coming live is incredible. But I’m gonna be real here for a second, I am a mom of three young children. And sometimes it’s hard to make it work in your schedule. So even if you’re never able to make it live, you can if you have time to listen to this podcast, you have time to do the coaching because we have a private podcast of the coaching, you can listen to it, you can listen to after the fact and learn from it.

Yes, I love that you said that. And I just want everyone here’s another like amazing coaching tool, especially as we’re going back to school, and we’re making that transition from summer or you know, momming and having kids and having a lot of things and different time, you know, a sense of time we’ve been on vacation, or maybe kids have been at Kids Camp or we’ve been doing different things, making that transition, everyone be really light on yourselves. B minus work here. I also like to call that b minus c plus work meaning I always have the thought when I listen to a replay. I’m gonna get out exactly what I need from these four minutes of listening to this replay. I don’t have to listen to the whole thing. I don’t have to be a perfectionist. I don’t have to finish it up. But if I’ve got four minutes, and maybe I’m in the bathroom, and that’s the only alone time I have because let’s face it, moms are really only alone in the bathroom sometimes. Sometimes teachers too. We know that’s true. Exactly, exactly if you’re racing to the bathroom and you can get there between free periods. But just grab those four minutes or five minutes and just take one thought and I think sometimes we need to, we feel as if we need to do all the things but b minus c plus work mediocre. Just medium, just what you can do right now. I love that you brought that up, because replays are also fabulous. And thank you for adding them to the club.

Yes, absolutely. We want everyone to be able to get the coaching, whether it’s live or whether it’s a video replay or a podcast replay, we’re making it as easy as possible. And again, you may not even be able to watch or attend every single call, but you will get what you need to out of what you’re able to do. And I truly believe that. And if people are willing to do just what ever they can do, what results or changes will people see in their lives when they utilize the coaching tools they will learn?

I love this question, because we already had a member she showed up to a coaching call on a Friday, let’s just say was a Friday. And then she got coached, I would say for literally 14 minutes because many people asked for coaching. And I do try to you know, there’s no hurry, we get through exactly what we need to. But, you know, it’s nice to serve everybody who would like to have some coaching there. So is there on a Friday culture for about 14 minutes. She came back on a Tuesday. And she was like, I started using some of the tools. This was around body balance for her. She was just feeling not great about her body she was feeling like and when I say not great about her body, she was having some brain fog. She wasn’t sleeping very well. She was having some anxiety, some even some joint stiffness. And so we just talked about some of her thoughts about that and what she was making. That means that maybe she was having some brain fog, that’s totally okay, we all have it, sometimes, maybe her joints felt a little bit differently than they usually do. We just kind of talk that through. And I gave her some really very easy things to add, I asked her to drink more water. That’s literally changing her brain chemistry because it’s washing her neurons with clean water. And I asked her to sleep seven to eight hours every night. And I also asked her just to plan fuel foods and write it down the day before. Now she could put anything she wanted on there. She could put down Oreos, she could put down whatever felt good to her. But just that intentionality of writing it down from a Friday to a Tuesday, she reported complete difference in feeling clear, and feeling competent. Her joints and body felt totally different. She credited that to the water and the sleep. And maybe that’s all she needed. But she said my mindset is totally different. And I think your question is so good. Because we can listen to all this stuff. And many of us out there listening, we know what to do. Or sometimes we know about these mindset shifts. We’ve all heard sort of the research and we put mindfulness in our classroom. But how often are we really doing it? How often are we really applying it? And for me, my life completely took off when I just stopped consuming a podcast. And what I mean by consuming is just I’m driving and I’m listening now. That’s great. That’s step one. That got me so far. But when I actually would stop, when somebody would say, Okay, now write this down or answer this question for yourself or write three bullet points about this. That’s when the AHA started to happen. So I just think I love our club member who really she showed up, and then she came back. That’s the other thing I just want to say for our club members out there and everybody listening that I see the most transformation with people who keep coming, you know, and even, maybe they got their camera off because they need to be cooking, or they need to be doing something else. Or maybe they’re even driving, but they are there. And they are getting what they need. And again, what an incredible value. We all know that coaching is becoming kind of so chic, and in vogue, and many places and spaces are using life coaching, but it’s often quite expensive. And so I love that you’ve added this in this tremendous value that can cost you know, hundreds of dollars elsewhere 1000s of dollars elsewhere, and you’re really putting into the program. That’s the best professional development that is the best PD that we all ever need. We don’t need one more program or pedagogy or, you know, computer grading Gradebook system. We need this.

Yes, absolutely. We need these tools as teachers and I just love that you’re able to come here and do that and that and the reason we added this, you know, we didn’t even increase the price of the club at this point in time. No, we might need to at some point but right now we have not. So it’s like really an additional free value for our members. We want them to be able to get the most out of this experience. We know that times are hard with the economy. And we know that sound they’re like $29.99 a month that’s so much you know I totally feel you I totally feel you. I want you to know that we packed so much value into that $29.99 a month. That is less than you would pay for one bundle on TPT, you’ll have access to our entire store, and live coaching either of those things independent of each other would cost more than $29.99 a month.

That is a true story that is 100% right. And I just love that you you do bring up the fact that the economy is interesting right now. And sometimes I think that we think, Oh, I can’t spend this time on myself or I can’t spend this money on myself. But I would say too with the kinds of transformations that are possible for you to create anything you want in and outside of the classroom. How can you afford not to, it is the very best value that I’ve seen out there. And getting I’m saying this, not to upsell for Kelsey over here, but that I truly believe I would never align myself with any kind of company or product that I didn’t believe in 100% myself, so I really believe that this is the wave of the future Kelsey that Wife Teacher Mommy is leading the way as an example for educators moving in of what’s possible. And then you’re just going to be doing this for so long that. Yeah, we’ve been doing this for years. years, like coaching. Yeah, that’s what’s up. So yes, thanks for leading the way and being a trailblazer.

Well, thank you. I’m glad you said that when you’re a Wife Teacher Mommy, whatever the song came back in my head. So we have our song at the beginning of our podcast now. It’s like Wife Teacher Mommy’s the place to be, ya know, and I really believe that it is place to be. But yes, I just believe that it’s such a good value. And I’m not saying that just because I’m the owner of this company. But just because I want to make sure again, because I do care about if you are giving me this money. If you are trusting me with it, we are going to give you everything we’ve got absolutely 100% You’re getting into our events, you are getting all our resources, you are getting all the coaching. And Chrissy tell us a little bit about what’s coming up at the next workshop. So if those who decide to join or have those who are listening, we have a lot of members who do listen, but maybe they haven’t attended coaching yet. Tell us a little bit about the upcoming workshop on September 1.

Yes, it is September 1. On September 1, we’re going to put on a workshop that I love. It’s very near and dear to my heart. It’s called How to Achieve Body Balance. And I’ve got worksheets, and I’ve got all sorts of really great tools to take everyone through just about how we’re feeling about our bodies right now. And hey, listen, you might hear body but balance in here, weight loss, that’s fine. If that’s what you’d like to come for, you’re gonna get everything that you need. But I really want to come to this in a more holistic way of where our bodies are right now. How can we love our bodies? How can we be maybe a little bit less mean to our bodies? How can we adjust with our bodies as we’re back to school and more stressors. And maybe sadly, a little less sleep is happening for our bodies on our minds. Sometimes I think we at least I will do this, I think my brain or my heart is sometimes outside of my body in some way, and completely dislocated. And what I want us to do is really come back to our selves by coming back to our bodies, and back to our thoughts and back to our gratitude for movement, if that feels good to you, but how to really appreciate what we’ve got. Because I think so often we do ignore or punish. Or sometimes we tend to be a little bit mean to our bodies based on what societal standards and some of the shizzle out there that society tells us, especially as women, about our bodies and the size it needs to be, why don’t we just celebrate and appreciate them right now? Not tomorrow, not five pounds later. But right now exactly where we’re at.

I love that Chrissy and I think everybody is going to learn so much from that workshop. And again, taking what they want from it. Maybe some people are like, Oh, I really do want to lose weight. But I want to feel good about myself in the process. That’s right, that maybe other people are like, you know, the member recently who just she was burning herself out so much that her body just wasn’t functioning like she wanted it to be able to get that or being able to figure out how to process all the emotions you’re feeling with everything.

That’s right. And body balance can also be about Wow, Tears are coming out of my eyes. Okay, how can that be balancing? Sometimes I feel like I just want to take a nap as soon as I walk to the door after school. Okay, how can we create that for yourself? So I would really love to, you know, you mentioned that and some of those, those old, the old old thoughts come from the diet mentality that North America loves to give us but maybe we can just start to unlock some of those ideas and thoughts, see where we’re at with all of it. And just really give ourselves a break. And let’s let that break last for the rest of our lives.

Amen. It is a lifelong thing for sure. Yes. Okay. I’m so excited for that workshop on September 1 club members make sure you were there. Chrissy, what’s new or upcoming in the Chrissy Concept?

Because Body Balance is coming up all over the place, it really has been coming up in coaching with club members, which I love. But it’s interesting when I have my teachers come to me, they come to me for maybe three things time power, they’re looking for gaining more time. And we do that for them. So no one’s grading at home anymore, you’re not allowed. Don’t take any work home, we look at where they’re at with their relationship with their bodies, and then connection to themselves. So I’d like to take this idea of body balance and in mid September, I’m going to be I’m finalizing some of the dates now. But I’m really going to be putting on something a bit more intense over at the Chrissy Concept. And if you want more updates, you can always come to my website. But I’d like to just create a small group, you know, where we can tease this out together and see where everybody is, because it’s been coming up. Because I think we’ve gotten through the pandemic, a lot of people out there talk about, oh, I want to lose my pandemic weight, that might be fine. But maybe we just take a look and see where we’re at. So I’ll be starting a coaching group, it’s going to be very, very affordable for all of us to be able to join it. And it will be around mid September, after the big push after labor day after we’re kind of into things. And again, you can come whether you’d like to maybe lose a few lbs, maybe you don’t. Maybe you just want to achieve a better relationship with yourself. We’re going to look at all of it because whenever I coach on weight loss, it’s never about the food. Kelsey, it’s never about what we’re putting in our mouths. We always uncover some deeper longing and deeper need for connection with ourselves. And I really do believe that coaching is just connecting each one of my clients with her or his innate wisdom, her or his true insights that say, Yeah, I know what to do. I remember myself, maybe I’ve forgotten myself a little bit and that’s okay. But here I am. I’m connected to me.

I love that Chrissy that’s such a good thought to like, end this episode with and you know, and coaching. There are so many different like, directions we can go with it and things people can bring to coaching and whatever you need you can get with that coaching. So I’m very glad to have you as a part of the club. Where can our listeners find you?

Thank you so much. Thank you also just for everything that you said, our listeners can find me over at my website, which is www.thechrissyconcept.com. You can also find my best stuff I love putting as you are now great conversations like this and value that is free over at Teacher Talk with Chrissy Nichols. It’s my new podcast. You can also sign up for my newsletter. It’s also called teacher talk comes out every Tuesday. And that’s also where I put my best stuff. So if you’re interested in any further work or workshop or group that I was just talking about, planned for mid September, you can find that over at my website. But of course, no doubt you can come to Wife Teacher Mommy, you’re always gonna hear me over here. And I just love being here as well.

Well, we love having you. It’s so great having you as our Wife Teacher Mommy club coach and just as a collaborator, and friend, it’s been so fun these past few months. I feel the same, I feel the same. Hey, Chrissy. Well, thanks for being here. And for those of you who are club members, remember, we always have these fun bonus segments with our guests. So be sure to hop on over to the members only private podcast for a special bonus segment with Chrissy.