Today's guest is Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum, founder and CEO of the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy.
Dr. Scheinbaum earned a PhD in clinical psychology at Fielding Graduate University,
where she specialized in positive psychology, cognitive behavioral therapy,
and mind-body medicine.
Her innovative spirit led her to pioneer the use of neurofeedback in her role
as director of a clinic for attention deficit disorders.
In 2013, she earned recognition as the first psychologist to become an Institute
for Functional Medicine Certified Practitioner.
She's taught courses in the psychology of eating and the psychology of well-being
and mind-body medicine in the master's program in human nutrition and functional
medicine at the University of Western States.
Founding the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy has brought Dr.
Scheinbaum's career full circle.
She's returned to her roots as an educator and is bringing innovative approaches
to training students in the new and rapidly growing field of health coaching.
A self-professed lifelong learner, her life's work has been centered around
education innovation since the very beginning.
We'd love to have you screenshot your podcast player and tag us on Instagram at health coach radio.
And by the way, the show notes for this episode and all previous episodes of
health coach radio can always be found at primalhealthcoach.com slash radio.
In the meantime, let's get on with the show and welcome today's guest,
Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum.
Hi, I'm Erin Power. And I'm Laura Rupsis. We're certified health coaches,
and this is Health Coach Radio.
This podcast is about the art, science, and business of health coaching.
We share our insider tips to help you become a better coach and entrepreneur.
And we interview expert guests to discover how they've made it in this growing field.
It's time for health coaches to make an impact. It's time for Health Coach Radio.
All right. Welcome to the show, Dr. Sandra Scheinbaum. We are absolutely thrilled
to be chatting with you, the leader at the helm of a health coaching school, a really cool one. And,
I think there's so many things we can talk about at Coaches Listening,
like buckle up because there's going to be so much good real talk in this episode today.
I want to throw it to you first, Dr. Sandy, and get a sense of your backstory.
What brought you to the Functional Medicine Coaching Academy and sort of the
three to five minute speaker bio so we can get acquainted with you?
Sure. Well, it's a long story, so I won't bore you with all the details because
I'm old. and I actually started not in the place that I began.
I began as a school teacher. I thought I would be teaching. That would be my
career. And then I'd retire.
And as it turned out, one career led to another and then another and another.
Not everyone was successful.
And I just loved learning. So I kept going on. So when I was teaching,
it was in special education, in a classroom.
Then I was teaching at a college because I love teaching, like training people
to become special ed teachers.
And from there, I thought, well, okay, I'm interested in this thing about how to stress management.
And at the time, we're talking early 70s, people didn't talk about stress in
mind-body medicine. Like that didn't exist.
But I was starting to incorporate that in what I was doing with kids, in teachers.
I was training stressed out teachers to take a moment and breathe.
Which I got to tell you at the time was unheard of. Like I got thrown out of
doctor's offices. Like there's no science behind this.
Then I started training parents and leading all kinds of stress management and
relaxation through breathing groups and thought, okay, I'll go back and get my doctorate.
I became a clinical psychologist then.
And for many, many years, we're talking almost 40, I was a clinical psychologist.
I had a practice and I specialized in biofeedback, which again at the time was super new.
And I then became known as that biofeedback lady and doctors started referring to me.
And so a lesson for the audience is like, choose a niche.
I was known to be that person as opposed to this generic psychologist who serves everybody and anybody.
And from there, I started, I was so interested at a personal level in nutrition
and movement. movement. So
I trained through the Institute for Functional Medicine and got certified.
I was the only psychologist at the time in the first class that they had that
was a certification class and thought, OK, I have all of these bucket areas.
I now know functional medicine, positive psychology, cognitive behavior,
which is how you change your nutty, disturbing thoughts to ones that are just
inconvenient and you can cope with.
And then I put that together with mind-body medicine and said, hey, like, teach this.
And fortunately, I had somebody who had been working with me at the time.
And so she's a
lot younger than me and a real just she had a lot very
very creative so we just sat down and said what do
we do with this said okay well what if we approach these
for functional medicine and see if they wanted to partner and collaborate with
us so that's what we did and just took a chance uh and again like just it was
risky uh but there's a saying that the more open and you are to a no,
the more likely you're going to get a yes.
So what could happen if we just, you know, felt big? And that's what we did.
And also not listening to the naysayers. So we were told, oh,
you can't do this all remote.
Like you need to have part of this be live where people will fly in and they'll be on site.
Well, thank goodness I didn't listen. I said, nope, it's going to be all remote.
We're going to do this. We can make it remote experiential. There's this new
thing called Zoom, which nobody heard of at the time.
Like we could put small groups of students together and have course facilitators
and it could be really interactive.
No, no, that will never work. Well, it did work.
And so I was 65 at the time when we launched.
And again, my friends were retiring and most people were saying,
including my husband, like, what do you need this for? Or you could just continue
as a psychologist and then retire.
But I did not want to do that because...
What I had was a mission. I wanted to see a time when there'd be a health coach
in every medical practice where it's a household word.
And I knew that there was real magic in the power of coaching.
So I came from the world of humanistic psychology.
And that type of psychotherapy is totally client-centered.
And it really is the roots of health coaching. It came from psychotherapy.
Then there was life coaching.
And I was fortunate to have mentors who, this was in the 80s,
were just evolving this concept of life coaching.
Like, what if we had people who were not having a diagnosed psychiatric condition
that needed psychotherapy and we could just help them reach their goals?
And so then health coaching was a spinoff so fast forward
now it's five years later and actually as we're
recording this this is our our birthday it's the day that we formally opened
our class to a small group of beta students it's your birthday i feel just that
we're here talking to you about this today that's awesome and hey something
i want to applaud you for that you launched this this huge project at the age of 65.
Oh my gosh. So again, you know, and the role I play at our school as,
as admissions director, and I talk to people over the age of 60,
I enrolled somebody who was 74 years old, a couple of weeks ago.
And I get a lot of these people that are really curious. Now they're retired,
but they're one of very few people in their age bracket that they know personally
that are as well as they are.
And they really want to get out and help people in their age group,
talk about a niche, right? Really focusing on this baby boomer generation.
So I just want to, first of all, thank you for following that mission,
not letting your age be anything other than a number.
And following through with that, because I just think it's tremendous.
And I want to encourage other people to not worry so much about those little
things and just follow the passion and the mission. I love it. Absolutely.
We have students in their 80s who are coming out of retirement.
It's now, as you said, it is their mission. They're passionate about serving,
giving back. And that's the key to longevity when you have that.
I actually want to jump on that because I know we're kind of flogging this dead
horse about like, yay, Dr.
Sandra did it when she was 65. But this actually speaks to just on a broader level,
speaks to longevity, speaks to the one of the benefits of taking control of
one's health is that you have decades of your life,
more productive decades of your life than maybe what we all do.
We all have the possibility, the potential to be very productive well into our 70s, 80s, what have you,
you know, and I think that's kind of an interesting sort of script flip when
you think about sort of, you know, chronic illness and sort of the descent into
aging and how you kind of pack it in once you hit, you know, your 60s or whatever.
So anyway, it's just it's just kind of a cool pep talk for health, I suppose, in general.
Totally. And I'm sure you find this as well. People come to coaching thinking
that, okay, I'm going to train to be a coach, what they often and don't realize
that the process of getting that training and living those principles that you
learn, you're transformed.
And so many of our students and graduates, this was transformative for me,
for my family, my relationships improved, my ability to deal with challenges on a personal level.
So whether it's because of your schooling and then as a coach,
when you're in that relationship with your client, you are healed as well. Wow.
Yeah, absolutely. I really want to thank you for being such a leader in this space.
I mean, I'm just filled with gratitude for the folks who, who pioneered it because
it's, you know, for Laura and I both, it's our second career.
You know, we did a whole career before and now we're doing this.
And I, you know, I think we're both really grateful.
And it's probably a lot of people listening that they're envisioning this as their second career.
So because you're a pioneer leader in the space, this might sound strange,
but I would love for you to give us sort of an off-the-cuff definition of what
you believe a health coach is?
Great question. So I want to credit my mentor, Frederick Hudson,
who was one of the original idea person behind the idea of life coaching.
He called it, and I was on a plane with him, I remember, he was my mentor,
and he wanted to call it the Mid-Career Development Institute.
And it's where you reassess where you're at. And And what he says coaches does
is a coach inspires passion and purpose in others.
And then Margaret Moore, who is widely credited as being one of the absolute
leaders in the field, her program was, you know, we're talking about being a
true pioneer back in around 2000.
And she says coaches help people change when change is hard.
And I love both those definitions. clinicians. I love that coaches help people
change when change is hard. It's so simple.
Right, can be applied in any aspect of life and change you're looking to make.
And from and here's the other thing that I love about it is there's nothing
in there about putting somebody on a diet, writing out a meal plan,
trying to diagnose or treat anything. It's not what it's about.
You know, I get and I'd love your thoughts on this, because we talked about
it briefly before we recorded about working collaboratively about how,
oh, the nutritionist and dietician don't want us doing this and the medical
establishes doesn't want us doing that.
And so, so we seem to be at odds sometimes rather than working collaboratively,
but the actual art and that coaching relationship is what is a true differentiator
between what we do and any other their practitioner.
And quite frankly, it's what finally helps clients and patients find success
because just giving them instructions does not work probably 80% of the time.
So if we can improve outcomes by letting go of all that, oh,
my state says I'm not allowed to do this. Who cares?
There is absolutely no law in any state here in Illinois or any country that
I I can think of, for that matter, that outlaws coaching.
And the fact that this has to do with health doesn't necessarily by prescription
mean, oh, I've got to design a meal plan and put this person on a diet in order
to make them successful.
So I would love your thoughts around this scope of practice issue and how to
let, how to help other coaches sort of let go of that a little bit and embrace
their coachiness, I guess.
I'm so glad you brought this up. I am passionate about providing education and
guidance in this area because like you said, that's what we hear as well.
It's perceived as a threat that there are nutritionists out there.
So the nutritionists are threatened by the health coaches.
They feel like they're invading their own turf.
They say, I went to graduate school and I have all this training and here's
this health coach comes along and what are they doing?
Telling people about what they should be eating. And then as a coach,
just as you said, oh, my state, you know, they're the nutrition,
the dieticians, they're against me.
And so it's us versus them mentality.
And what I say is the power of the coach, your secret sauce is a behavior change agent.
Thank you. And when you are in that space, that's when the magic happens because
they don't need another other expert.
I've got a lot of books behind me. How many diet books do people buy?
And how many podcasts do they listen to about what to eat and how to work out?
And they go to the doctor or the nutritionist or the dietitian.
They get complicated plans.
And yeah, they might start out like gangbusters, but then they fall off the
wagon and they berate themselves. And,
they really need a coach. A coach is to be your personal cheerleader.
And that's where the coach's magic is. You have the training to do it.
So it is the very scope of practice of a coach that guarantees your success.
And let me give you a few other reasons. You talked about collaboration.
So I was a psychologist and I built up a really successful practice.
And it's because I never ever tried to act like a psychiatrist,
or a, you know, I did refer people to nutritionists, for example,
even though I knew a lot about food.
And, but what happens when you make a referral, or you create a relationship
with somebody in your community?
Well, now they're going to refer to you, they're going to respect you,
because they know that you respect their territory.
And so you might, and it's also is a very, very important ethical principle
that you don't, people's lives are at stake.
And so if you have somebody who has very complicated digestive issues,
and you may make a recommendation to eat something that most people would say
is healthy, but for that individual, it's not.
So if you respect the dietician, the nutritionist, for example,
and you refer for a consultation, and then you focus on how did your client,
how do they feel about that?
Are they going to follow through? What are the obstacles?
But also you now have a relationship with that individual. You could give talks together.
We did that all the time. We would collaborate with doctors in the area rather
than trying to take business away and trying to be that, that person and basically
practicing medicine without a license and speaking to that. So again.
The best referral is typically a physician referral.
So people could find you organically through social media, and that's great.
But often when a doctor says, hey, there's this health, I think,
you know, I think you would benefit from some sessions with a health coach.
You know, why don't you give her a call?
Well, doctors, and we hear this all the time, they want somebody who's within
their scope of practice.
We do not want to refer to somebody who is going to be invading their turf,
who is going to be stepping outside of bounds to interpret labs or recommend things directly,
but somebody who works in a collaborative way with that doctor,
that is a recipe for success.
That was how I built my practice as a psychologist, to really respect that other
profession and see us as we're all collaborating.
So people are afraid that they're not going to get business if they stay within
their scope, but it's the exact opposite.
They're respected by other colleagues and their practice grows.
Yes. I think in the interest of maybe neutrality,
I want to just put this out there that there's it's possible that there are
nutritionists clinical nutritionists and dietitians listening because i don't
think we uh uh per se um you know it's possible they could be listening so but
i think that what what i'm hearing and what i believe is that um.
Health coaches are behavior change agents. That's what we are trained to do.
But do you think dietitians and nutritionists could also be trained to do this?
I mean, it feels like we're kind of separating these things a lot.
But any dietitians or nutritionists listening could also take on this type of... Absolutely.
So many of our students and graduates have trained as nutritionists or dietitians.
And then they have a choice. Either they want, some people want to shift over
and just coach, or they have dual roles.
So they have some people that they see for nutrition consultations,
then it may merge into coaching sessions.
And so the role of nutrition is important.
And somebody who has that training, they are the ones who are going to be the detectives.
They're going to look at blood work. They're going to look at different ways
to analyze what this person's exact nutritional needs are,
and they can easily then shift to a coaching conversation to how that person
can make it happen if they have that training, if they're so inclined.
I have some people who I know who are dietitians, and they don't want that.
They have a huge, busy practice, and they just want to be that detective.
They want to have consultations, often on an ongoing basis, to monitor,
to look at the data, to hand somebody recommendations, and then they are partnering
with health coaches to collaborate, and they both grow their practices that way.
Yeah, yeah. I want to just give the backstory why I asked that question.
Just a small, small anecdote is a few years ago, I was delivered a cease and
desist letter from a dietician who thought I was stepping on her toes.
Some of her clients had come to me for implementation of behavior change.
And I had a conversation with her directly because she was somebody that I actually
knew in real life and said, you know, all I'm doing is helping people implement
the information that you've given them.
For some reason, they weren't able to implement it when they worked with you.
If you're open to it, I'd love to teach you how to help people implement change.
And she wasn't open to that. And it kind of became this sort of warring factions situation. situation.
You know, she's got this graduate degree, this massive, you know,
internship she completed.
I just went to a coaching school. And, and so it became an argument that I was uncomfortable with.
And I am generally uncomfortable with it when I see it out in sort of the social sphere.
So I just wanted to put that out there, like in the interest of collaboration,
these are skills that I, I bet you patients and clients wish their licensed
healthcare practitioners had. add.
But if you're a dietitian or a nurse practitioner or a doctor,
anybody listening, and you don't want to, great news.
There's a whole bunch of us out there that really geek out on this behavior
change stuff. Yeah, absolutely.
And if you're a coach, and you're thinking, oh, I would like to collaborate
with nutrition professionals.
Start with people who you have a sense share your values, and are really bought
have bought into functional integrative medicine approach their societies for
those nutrition professionals,
as opposed to perhaps somebody who is in a hospital system and their role is
to, you know, look at, you know, prescribing things like Ensure all day.
So that perhaps wouldn't be a good match for you, but there are many people
and a growing number of nutrition professionals who are are interested in working in this way.
So I wouldn't give up with a first contact.
But also, always provide education for what you're doing.
So whether that's to your client, to the doctor, to a nutrition professional,
let everybody know what a health coach does because there's a lot of confusion.
A lot of people think that a health coach is the one who's going to prescribe.
And if clients are like, okay, just give me the food plan.
What should I eat? They're expecting that. They're not used to this kind of relationship.
And so there's an art to providing that education about what the role is and
what people really need.
And I also want to give health coaches advice.
Confidence to know that yes, talking about food is important as a health coach.
It's just that step of putting somebody on a prescriptive diet that really you should not touch.
And I'll just give you like two examples of just totally different clients.
One, I had a woman in her late sixties who was insulin resistant.
That was the diagnosis from her doctor. And she was given a diet that she was not feeling well on.
She was given the traditional sort of diabetic diet that had way too many grains,
fruits, and other things that were just too high in carbohydrate for her,
but she was trying to stick to her diet.
So me as her coach, I led with education and research articles talking about,
you know, some people in your position do better gearing back on this.
And this is why, and looking to replace it with another, we talked about what
a protein was, we talked about what fat was and where she might be able to find
these sources and Hey, hey, let's play with this. Let's do an experiment.
Where would you like to start? What foods do you enjoy that you could look at
this list of proteins and fats and think, wow, I really like these foods.
I want to try eating more of that and less than this.
And we were able to move forward to find something that she felt well on and
was able to control her blood sugar, but I didn't give her a diet.
Right? Same notion with another one. This is a gentleman that I worked with,
big guy, big guy, and was really into training, really into strength training.
He knew that was a passion of mine. and I asked him to fill out a food log so
we could talk about how he felt about it.
And the thing that stuck out to me is this guy's not eating nearly enough protein for his size.
He's 240 pound guy eating like 50, 60 grams of protein a day.
Training six days a week.
Okay, so instead of me saying, you need to eat X amount of protein,
it's let's talk about what your body needs to fuel the kind of activity you're
telling me that you enjoy and the lifestyle you wanna live.
And let's talk about, and we did a little game. We played a little game on where,
Let's find the protein in this daily menu that I gave you.
And what do you notice about this? And where might we be able to change?
So it was me kind of challenging him and asking him to brainstorm about where
he could do better and what his sort of next steps going to be in the next coming
week on how to improve what he's looking for.
So that's a little bit of a difference. I didn't just hand this guy a bunch
of macros. It was, let's talk about this.
It was a form of education, resources, guidance, but most importantly,
collaboratively. What do you think you can do?
What do you enjoy to be able to move the needle forward rather than just saying,
oh, nope, these macros are all wrong or this is all wrong and this is how you need to fix it.
I love that. And your example is spot on because coaches do have a crucial role
in providing education.
And it is not outside the scope of practice to let the world know about food as medicine.
And we have graduates who have written books, cookbooks, they have blogs,
they have have podcasts.
So many ways that they can get out there and help and then to provide this information,
education, crucially needed.
You can also, within the session, as you described, provide education because
people will ask and you can have that great conversation.
You can also go to resources. So there are experts.
There's a book. Are you interested in looking at this? is there's,
you know, here's some guides that have been written by so-and-so.
And so you pull out research or a book or a guide or PDFs or something so that
you are not saying directly, this is what I recommend for you.
But here's the research, here's information, for example, you know,
vitamin D, rather than saying you should take so many IUs of vitamin D.
Well, that would be out of of your scope.
But, you know, here's a recent article by, you know, this well-respected physician
or researcher, whatever it might be, that's showing the importance of vitamin
D for, during, you know, for coronavirus, for example.
So you are passing it along. You're always asking permission. Are they interested?
And it is always that client who's in control, but you can And certainly provide
a lot of information during those sessions and to the general public as well.
Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that. And actually, it's so wild,
because I just had that exact conversation with a group of clients I was working
with in a large group program who wanted to know my opinions.
And you get asked this a lot when you're a practicing coach,
like, well, what about hemp hearts?
What about almond butter? What about it's like, and I got asked about vitamin
D supplementation. And I simply said, well, if you're open to it,
I follow a really amazing vitamin D researcher. She's the go to resource.
Here's her podcast. Here's her blog, you know, give it a read.
And I think, I think the clients thought my role was to just answer these questions.
Absolutely. But I just never will.
And it goes, even the hemp heart question came up. Can I have hemp hearts?
Like, what, what's the context here?
Let's talk about your relationship with hemp hearts. I don't have any worse
than the hemp heart race, but we know what are you, you know,
are you making some kind of hemp heart smoothie that I think is probably not
the best breakfast choice for you or like, what is it?
So I think I think that
I love that you you brought up that we can educate you
can educate and we can provide resources and our clients are expecting that
of us sometimes I've seen coaches go completely the other way where they refuse
to answer a question right they get so mired in this sort of motivational interviewing
techniques that they're like well what do you think about hemp parts.
And it's like, sometimes the client just really wants an answer,
you know, so we can't shy away from education.
Exactly. Oh, that's, as you were saying that, it reminded me.
So we have coaching and action training videos, and we'll show the bad coach,
and they read, it's super exaggerated.
And so we have a little scene where this person is getting increasingly frustrated,
because they don't, the coach isn't saying anything like, well,
what do you think about that? What are your feelings?
And it's kind of like the old psychotherapy, you know, where it's It's like,
oh, you know, you're just like, what are your thoughts on that?
And the kind of voice to say it and just tell me the facts.
And that it goes along with when you're client-centered. What do they want?
And so having that connection, when you're doing active listening,
then you have a sense that this person is confused.
What do they need at that moment? They need information. they need a resource,
they need whatever reassurance, like that's a question I get asked a lot.
You know, here's a resource that some people, you know, have said,
have told me have found it helpful and, you know, would you like to look at it?
And it's, but it's always like sensing this is what this person in front of
me wants and how do you make that happen to be client-centered?
I know it always strikes me when I talk to, again, leaders in the health coaching space is that.
What we do is truly a relationship. Like it's not a contract.
It's not an agreement. It's not a program.
It's a relationship, right? And in any relationship, what's really important?
Communication, right? Communication, your language is so important.
So, I mean, you know, I've said to clients like, you know, I have an idea of
what the answer to this question might be, but I'd love for you to just explore
some of your thoughts on it. Let's work this up together.
And that's, it is truly collaborative. And that takes just a lot of practice.
I, I adore the fact that you have these exaggerated sort of terrible coach.
We need those. I know that was so great.
Talk a little bit about, because you touched on active listening,
what do you think are some of the other conversational necessities that coaches
really should be practicing?
And I, I'm using the word practice intentionally, because it takes so much practice to get good at it.
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So one of the key researchers in
leadership development and organizational psychology is Richard Boyatzis.
And he talks, and he has a great book, Resident Leadership, talks about mindfulness, hope, compassion.
So mindfulness, that is active listening, and you're in a flow state.
So if I was in session with you or my client, like, I wouldn't have any awareness
of what's going on around me.
You are totally keyed in, focused on everything that that person is saying.
A little more challenging if it's telehealth now, but you can even read body
language through that platform.
And hope.
So one of the most important factors is hope.
And often people come away from a doctor's visit having lost hope,
being told, oh, you're just going to suffer from this the rest of your life.
Just, you know, here's the drugs, this is a condition, you know,
you've got rheumatoid arthritis, and now it's part of you, and okay,
then, you know, so long, take your meds.
A coach, whatever it might be,
offers hope. And when somebody has that, then the body can start a healing response.
And so it's really, that's what's so special that you feel heard because somebody's
actively listening. You feel understood.
Also have a sounding board that this person is not going to say,
well, that's, you know, that's just the way it is.
And they may have lost hope or they may may have heard from family and friends
and the professionals that they've seen, that there is no hope.
And so coach brings that and compassion, which goes along with it.
So really stepping into, we call it empathy, or stepping into that other person's
shoes and really being there and having that sense that you are understood,
there's this connection.
And many people think, I don't have what it takes to be a health coach.
I don't have a background.
I wasn't a nurse or a nutritionist. And how could I be a good coach? I wasn't in healthcare.
And actually the data shows, no, often the higher you are as an expert,
the more degrees you have in healthcare, the more you struggle.
So we have some teachers who've gone through, who have been in like high positions
of leadership in Institute for Functional Medicine.
They are like doctors and high level practitioners.
And they struggled to, you know, when we had training sessions,
to have the coach approach, because they kept falling into the expert role.
And they had to, no, you're an expert again. Can you rework that?
And people who come because they have a calling willing to serve others.
And they feel like, yeah, that's me.
I'm a good listener and I can connect with people.
And that's what you need in coaching. So often people overcomplicate it.
They think, oh, I need to have a checklist for my first session,
and I need to rehearse what I'm going to say and have my list of questions listed out.
And those sessions aren't as effective or effective at all.
So when you go where the client goes, it's like a dance.
Sometimes you're leading, providing education, but a lot of the times it's just
you're taking the cues from that individual.
What do they need? You may come in thinking, or the doctor, if it's a referral
from a doctor, and they may have said, oh, I want this person to,
you know, follow this food plan.
And that person comes into a session with you, and they want to talk about the
relationship with their spouse.
Or the spouse will have it work. And you go there.
So that's the real beauty of this relationship. That's huge.
One of the coaching techniques that we teach, and I'm certain that you probably
do too, is like one of the first questions you can ask in a coaching session
that's extremely impactful is, what is your intention for this session?
What would you like to get out of this session? And I'm thinking to my session
yesterday with a client where in her check-in form, it seemed like we were going
to talk about one certain thing.
But as it turned out, she wanted to figure out how to factor tacos back into her life.
So that was the whole coaching session was about tacos. I was distracted by her.
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And that, you know, kind of the basics of like humanistic
psychotherapy. It's like, how do you want to spend your time?
What would you like today? And then you can also dig into those broader questions,
like what do you want your health for? What matters most to you?
Looking at what their dreams are, visions for the future, and then how they
can design that and how they can start now and where they want to start in those.
Also like tiny steps. We work with BJ Fogg, who wrote Tiny Habits.
And it's that, you know, tiny, tiny.
So, you know, you're going to start by just taking your sneakers out of and,
you know, putting them, putting them out so that you can see them.
So you have that prompt, and then you celebrate after no matter how small as
you're progressing towards a bigger goal.
So that's such an important strategy. You know, I kind of liken coaching to
the difference between, you know, just giving a man to fish to feed him for
a day versus teaching a man to fish to feed him for a lifetime.
And the role of the coach here, the way I see it is different.
They still need a fishing pole and they still need to know where to go find the fish.
Okay. And, you know, for, you know, that's just, yeah, exactly.
You know, I use this because my husband loves to fish, right?
And there are days where he's just not successful because he doesn't know where
to go or he's got the wrong equipment. Right.
So that's kind of how I liken my role as a coach is to just help my client feel
equipped and confident that they have the tools they need to be successful in
the direction that they're going.
And that's the way I view all the nutritional knowledge that I have,
all my fitness knowledge that I, it's not to give them an answer.
It's to equip them with the tools and the confidence to know they have the answer or where to find it.
And I use these tools with my children all the time when it has to do with learning to read or math.
I could just give them the answer because it's easier for me to just,
but they're not going to remember it.
And they're just going to keep coming back to me asking the same question because
they know I'm just going to give them the answer.
Whereas with clients, it's about empowering them. And this is a tough one for,
and maybe this would be a great, I'd love your comments on this.
Really, as a coach, you've been successful when your clients don't need you
anymore and they leave you.
How am I going to fill my pipeline? How's my business going to continue?
You know how? By being that great coach.
Trust me when I tell you this will come back in spades, but it's a bit of a
mind shift for people that come to this space as fitness professionals that
are trying to keep a client long-term as well as practitioners like chiropractors
and things like that. Do you have any thoughts around that?
Absolutely. So I saw this for years and years when I was a psychologist, people didn't need me.
And so what would happen? Well, number one, it's a revolving door because of that relationship.
So they're done with this issue now, but then it might be five years down the
road, and you'll hear from them.
Or now they're saying, hey, my daughter really can use, can you work with my daughter?
Word of mouth is the best referral. It's proof, it's a testimonial.
And so they're going to go out, and they're satisfied customers,
and they're going to tell their friends, and they're going to have a family member come to you.
And so and then that person will be satisfied, and they're going to tell some
people. So So that's how you grow.
And so it's repellent when, as a coach, you appear needy and are saying,
well, you need 10 more sessions.
People sense this. They sense that you're doing it because, you know,
you just want to get paid or it's a big part of it.
And when you let them go and when
you encourage and you celebrate and you acknowledge how far they've come.
And as a coach, you can ask for a testimonial or encourage or you can have that
to help you grow your business as well.
So it's another way, but yeah, and they'll come back.
Let's say you saw them for one-on-one and now you're starting a group so they can come.
They might be fascinated by that new topic that you're focusing on.
They may come to a lecture you're giving, but again, they could,
they're going to refer their friends, their colleagues, their neighbors.
If I may just translate what you just said is the way to grow your business
is to be a masterful coach.
Coach? Absolutely. It's a slight passion project of mine, because,
you know, again, we talk about these filter bubbles.
And I think we should talk about this too, because we were talking about this
before we pressed record about the saturated market.
But before we get into that, you know, it's because as health coaches and health,
honestly, geeks, what we see in our sort of social media filter bubbles is a
lot of health and wellness professionals. So we get the sense that the market is saturated.
But what I also see, and I'm sure a lot of people listening,
is a lot of, with absolute complete respect,
a lot of business coaches encouraging us to sell membership programs and do
these big click funnels and upsells and scale your business without,
or maybe just skipping over the coaching mastery, the getting really good at
coaching and changing people's lives piece.
So thank you for putting that out there because I think that we're probably
in alignment with you on that one.
Oh, absolutely. I totally agree.
And the far from being saturated, we have only just begun.
Now, I started the school, it was five years ago, and name recognition wasn't so good.
And people were worried about jobs. And what have we seen?
We've seen an explosion of growth. We're just on the cusp.
And when I look at the movement in general, so we're still not at the point
where there's a critical mass to have this as a coaching profession.
That's what we're working towards. We need more people badly to become coaches
so that this can become a household name. So you're totally right.
You, in our social circle or in our Facebook groups and people,
yeah, everybody knows what a coach is, But you go out on the street and you
ask 100 people and probably, you know, 90 of them would have no idea or they'd get it wrong.
And so we do need to grow. We do need to have more people there.
And the idea that it's a rising tide lifts all boats.
And so we see other people coming in or I feel that way about coaching schools.
Schools so you know there's more and more
when we started or you know we were the first to
you know integrate positive psychology and
functional medicine and that's right and then now there's
other schools that develop that are you know have the same philosophy I celebrate
that because we need more it means that these theories are good and so we want
to have more choices and have so that it's recognized as amenity.
What's happening as well is that this is no longer fringe.
So when we have the AMA working with the National Board for Health and Wellness
Coaching on CPT, now those are the codes that you need to bill insurance.
This is going to happen. It's just down the road, and it needs people using
those codes and doctors accepting and more and more hospital systems,
companies who have places like Amazon for their workers.
They have a series of centers that they're opening. Well, health coaches are part of that.
So the other thing that is so, so exciting why we're not saturated is because
we've only just begun in terms of connecting the human element of coaching with
the explosion in artificial intelligence through wearables,
through things like continuous glucose monitors and your watch, your aura ring.
And this is becoming more and more advanced. More and more people are using this.
And so we talked a little bit before about patients, clients,
I should say, who are getting on, who are monitoring their own health data.
There's a tremendous need for coaches to be in charge of that,
to say, oh, hey, you know, Mrs.
Smith hasn't slept for five nights. I'll talk to the doctor about that and being that communicator,
helping people to understand as they're taking more of charge of their health
through the wearables that are becoming more and more sophisticated.
The explosion of this and there's even talk like within Medicare and for this
to be paid where practices are going to be obligated to have coaches.
So this is again, just the beginning of the influence of health coaches.
And I might add one more thing. It's affordable.
So we talk a lot about social determinants of health, people who don't have
access to like functional medicine, integrative medicine, doctors, too.
And the coach can play that role because it's an affordable model and groups.
That's the other thing. We're going to see this in the future.
So much demand for groups in remote ways. ways?
We started seeing it a couple of years ago when my life insurance company came
out with a health coaching program that I could adopt into.
And the health food store down the street from me was hiring an army of health coaches.
And the VA is hiring health coaches now.
You've got practices like Virta Health that are 100% focused on solving the
type 2 diabetes problem.
Guess what? But a health coach is an integral part of that clinical team.
So we've been seeing it for a couple of years. And I agree, it's going to continue to grow.
And if you just think about the sheer number of doctors we have that take on,
I mean, what does the average doctor have?
500 patients, 700 patients.
A health coach cannot take on that many clients at once.
So just think about the extrapolation of how many health coaches you need to
serve just the sheer number of people that need medical care.
We need far more health coaches than we need doctors to serve this community properly.
And then, oh, by the way, bringing those health coaches on will then help alleviate
the burden on the medical staff and community.
You'll see far fewer doctors just frustrated that their patients aren't getting
anywhere and they feel like they're just on a treadmill of patients coming to
them that just need more medication or aren't getting better because there's
just no mechanism for when they leave at the doctor's office.
I just think it would alleviate so many of the problems of just the medical system in general.
And I agree with you that we have just seen the tip of the iceberg of how this
is going to continue to grow.
And I think there's plenty of room because we talked, I heard you mention earlier about specializing.
I think this is also a reason why health coaches just need to specialize because
patients are coming to doctors or other professionals that have unique situations and conditions,
and they need to work with a health coach that can relate to that particular condition,
circumstance, whatever the case may be.
And I think if you've got patients, not patients, but coaches that know what
it's like to live with an autoimmune condition and want to help support somebody
or coaches that know what it's like to live with endometriosis or a child with
autism or whatever the case may be.
These specialties are so important because they're unique and the needs of either
the patient or the caregiver are unique in every circumstance.
There's so much room for coaches to be successful and for patients to get.
That really unique specialized care that's just so personalized.
I love it. So you were saying you were specializing in biofeedback in particular,
and that that's what helped your business grow.
Would you elaborate on that a little bit for us and to try to encourage coaches
to not be afraid to do that?
Yeah. So this was way back late seventies, early eighties, and biofeedback was,
that means you're getting feedback about your body.
And so, you know, these are biofeedback devices, your aura ring, your watch.
But back then it was breathing belts to help people breathe better if they're
in panic or any kind of chronic pain.
And it was a specialty.
And there were so few of us. And literally, I was in Illinois,
there was like 30 in the state of that.
So what would happen is I would have somebody come to me and I always wrote a thank you at that time.
It was a handwritten thank you note to
the doctor or I will if they had referred or if
somebody came to me and a doctor didn't refer
them I would find out and I had them sign a release and
then I would write your patient so and so has been seeing me for eight sessions
of biofeedback I would give a little definition of what it is and even please
you know if you'd like to talk about this for and I use the doctor language
you're talking to the doctor you always want to use their language like And
interested in talking about this case,
although I wouldn't call anybody a case, but for a doctor who they were talking about it that way.
So what would happen is that I would send a follow up, you know,
describing the progress that person made.
And then they would say, oh, are you open to having, you know, referral?
I think I have some few other people who might benefit.
And so it grew that way. And they knew me as a.
Biofeedback person, because when they had a person, let's say they had migraine
headaches, or they had panic attacks, and I don't know if it'll help you.
But you know, I have some other patients who've done well.
So go see this biofeedback lady don't quite know what it is she does.
But okay, you know, I'll refer you to that.
And what would happen is that's how I grew and I got people from a wider geographical
area where they would come, like they would drive two two hours to see me.
So I got a lot of the pediatric neurologists on board because this was a great
way to help kids who had severe headaches.
So they were sending me people from like far distance. They were driving across the state line to see me.
That never would have happened if I was a generic psychologist and I would see
my colleagues who were that.
And they would place these ads in the, that time you had ads in the newspaper
and they would list like 12 conditions, or even worse, because they would say,
I can do cognitive behavior therapy, and I can do psychoanalytic.
And that's not speaking to the person who's reading that.
But if they would say, you know, are you suffering from headaches,
you know, one thing, then you become known. And then that resonates.
And some people fear that because they think, well, then what about all the
other people that I can serve you know what I do is can help everybody.
And other people will come to you. So even though like I specialized in headaches,
for example, panic attacks, didn't mean that other people didn't come to me
with other things, but it's so, so important.
And how do you find that? Well, typically you do look inward.
It is your story. So I specialized in panic because I had panic attacks for many, many years.
So I connected with people and I could share my story and offered hope.
Oh, well, if I could overcome panic attacks so bad that I had to go to the emergency
room, then maybe I could do it too.
I can follow some of the strategies.
So it's super, super important to get clear.
And what you start with might not be what you end with. So it doesn't mean like it's set in stone.
And if I decide I'm going to work with women over 40 with certain hormone imbalances,
Does it mean that I may shift at another time in my career?
There's so much wisdom there, so much wisdom for the basics of marketing and
how do I find clients, which is the number one question we get asked when our students graduate.
All right, where's those clients? Where do I get them?
And one of the first things we have them do while they're in school is write their story.
And a lot of times we get a little bit of pushback. We're like,
oh, man, like, do I have to? And it's like, you do, you do.
Like, it really helps the clarity that you described.
Because people don't know that they need health coaching or they don't know
that they need functional nutrition. Like nobody knows what this stuff is.
Nutritional therapy. I don't know if I need that. Even like, oh, gut health.
I don't know if I need that either. What am I struggling with?
What's keeping me awake at night?
And to your point, go with one thing.
Because that's a very crystal clear message that's going to resonate for some people very directly.
And you can change it later. And other people will come to you as well.
It doesn't narrow your opportunities when you narrow and clarify your message.
So thank you for saying that. We've been teaching that for a little while. It's hard, though.
Yeah. Back to that scarcity sort of approach. That scarcity mindset.
There's not enough clients, but there are. Yeah.
And you made such a good point. You speak to them. I hear this all the time.
Well, you know, I help people find optimal wellness.
Well, people don't talk about, I want to find optimal wellness.
They're tired and, you know, oh, I'd like to have more energy.
You know, I'd like to sleep better. And so you listen to people.
You do some research and listen to how your clients are describing what their
challenges are or your friends. or how do normal people talk?
And you use that language and you speak so you feel like you're being understood
in whatever you're doing to market as opposed to using anything like jargon type talk.
Don't assume people understand what you're talking about.
And to close the loop on that, that's where your story comes in handy because
then you're not mind reading.
I don't know what an endometriosis sufferer is struggling with. that's Gia.
Cause I've never had endometriosis, but I've had insulin resistance.
I know what that feels like.
So I'm just going to speak to that because I remember how, you know,
how horrible that felt, for example.
So connecting back to your story and to how you felt really,
we don't need, like, you don't need to write the big, long, you know,
detailed, you know, dramatic epic tale, but how did you feel when you were going
through your health transformation?
That's what you need to hook into with people. Yeah. We hear from people too,
almost a little too shy to tell their story.
They're afraid to put themselves out there. And it's okay, that I get.
And so that's fine. Don't necessarily talk about yourself, but talk about the
person you serve and why you feel you can help them because you had this experience, right?
So you can elevate the person you want to serve and, and use your own story
as a way to connect to that person.
But really what you're promoting is them and sort of where you're focused.
Actually, from a marketing perspective, you wouldn't want to be talking about yourself, right?
Like I'm Erin and I went through insulin resistance and this is what it felt
like for me. No, just have your story, connect to how it felt and then put the,
this is what I help people feel better in this way story out there.
Like you're speaking to your, your ideal client, writing letters to them is
kind of how I always think of it.
But you have to start with your own story so you can connect to what it felt
like. you know, and I have a, I have a question, your thoughts on something,
because this comes up for me a lot on the phones in admissions is so will this
make me a holistic health coach?
I want to be a functional health coach. I, what about an integrative?
And I'm just sitting there like, oh my gosh, your clients don't know what any
of that crap means. Stop it. It doesn't matter.
You're a health coach. Talk to people about what you specifically do.
Yes i'm i'm so glad you brought that
up because we have these buckets and we
have people trying to differentiate and writing articles about you know what
does this mean it's holistic first it reminds me of my days in um in psychology
where you debate you know this i have a psychoanalytic orientation and I have
a cognitive behavioral and I was always about integrating.
It doesn't matter what you call yourself. They're just labels.
And like you said, people don't really know the difference. They know they're
hurting. They know they're in pain. They're suffering.
They feel lonely and you want to have that connection.
And so, yes, we're a health coach. And then, you know, We have,
and speak to them when you define what you do.
That elevator speech is often so confusing when people will ramble on and on
about the modalities that they use,
as opposed to, you know, I help people who are, you know, are suffering from
migraine headaches because,
you know, I believe that nobody should be in pain or, you know,
just speaking to them as opposed to just debating your label. They are just words.
And the truth is that there's just a lot of overlap.
And so, you know, it really, that's not the important part.
Mm-hmm. Thank you. I can't believe people ask you those questions. They do. Yeah.
Dr. Sander, do you have any thoughts on board certification?
I know the FMCA is an accredited school at the NBHWC.
What are your thoughts generally on board certified health coaching?
Sure. So the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching has been,
It was many years in the making.
And first and foremost, it sets a standard so that there are certain criteria.
We talked a lot about scope of practice.
And so they're industry leaders and highly respected.
And they are doing such significant work to advance the field because they are
aligned with the National Board of Medical Examiners, now with the AMA.
They're the primary driving force for getting insurance.
Reimbursement. Right now, it's a Category 3 CPT, which means it's trending.
So coaching has been identified as a trending, promising service modality.
And then if enough people use the code, it'll be bumped up to Category 1,
which means that the payers will then be reimbursing.
And so in that arena, it is really helpful to support their mission.
And will it make a difference if you are thinking about becoming a health coach? It depends.
If you want to be 100% as building your own business, you know,
we talked a lot about the public and what they understand and what they don't.
Nobody's going to come to you unless they do a lot of research in advance to
say, hey, hey, are you board certified and are you board certified by the national board?
So most of them, they're not going to ask that. They're not even going to know what health coach is.
They've been referred, for example. So that you can have a very successful business.
You may choose, well, I'm going to be somebody who is a writer,
a blogger, a YouTube trainer.
So it's not crucial to have that board certification.
If you are somebody whose goal is to work in a medical practice,
in a hospital system, to get hired by one of the big payers,
by one of the large corporations,
then you might see increasingly in a job description that a criteria for that
applicant would be to have that board certification credential.
So, again, it depends on what your career goals are and where you're at,
you know, in terms of needing to have that credential.
Great summary. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you. I know we've been trying to,
um, continue to support that mission because we believe in it too.
Our course is approved there. Now we tacked on a whole separate course to sort
of get us there. Cause we believe in that mission because I mean, look, let's be fair.
There are folks out there who are out there and I applaud them trying to do some good, right?
So the thing that comes to mind is Beachbody coaches that are calling themselves
health coaches, and they're encouraging people to get out there and move.
And they use the same title I have, but they've got no education at all whatsoever
and no real training other than posting pictures on Instagram of workouts and
selling a lot of Shakeology.
We actually get a lot of Beachbody coaches that come here because they've begun
to realize, holy cow, people are actually asking me questions.
And I actually feel obligated to know what I'm talking about now.
And they'll go to seek a certification of some kind.
But then there's different levels of coaching training out there as far as the
depth of the education, the relevance of the education, some coaching programs
calling themselves health coaching programs that don't actually teach coaching.
Correct. Okay. So this is where this sort of third party credential to use to
your point, kind of set this minimum standard.
So I can see, I 100% agree with you.
If you want to work in the clinical space, I think you're going to want really
want to go that direction. you're going to need to go that direction.
But for those that are just going to work independently in their own private
practice, how are you going to use that credential in your own private practice
to make it financially viable to go through the steps and to pay for it and
to have to hold on to it and all that other stuff?
For some, it will make a difference just in their own mind that I hold this
and it builds confidence for me and all that.
But I just, I'm thrilled that.
This organization even felt it needed to be there, that that's how much this
is growing and how viable that this profession is and that there is an organization out there,
like the rest of us little people just out here trying to elevate the status
of health coaching in general.
It's fantastic. Absolutely. And I think it is the gold standard.
And so when you pass the certification exam and you and our national board certified
health and wellness coach, there is that pride.
And it really is something that when you are presenting yourself to get referrals
or when clients come and you are board certified and be really clear that you
are certified through the National Board for Health and Wellness Coaching,
because there can be some organizations that are popping up that look deceptively
like the National Board.
So that is, There is only one national board for health and wellness coaching.
And again, I think that insurance reimbursement, if we're going to grow this field,
when being able to have a third party payer will increase access to coaching
as well as really elevate it to be a very well established profession,
not just a fringe, you know, holistic alternative.
It's so exciting. What an exciting time. time.
So I think it just, you know, where do we go from here?
I'd love to, I'd love for you, Dr. Sandra, to tell us about the Functional Medicine
Coaching Academy, how you teach coaches, what the program's like,
just in case anybody's out there contemplating making the leap into a health coaching school.
Thank you. So we're a collaboration with the Institute for Functional Medicine.
They train the practitioners.
And as part of our collaboration, they are They're intimately involved with
the curriculum design regarding functional medicine and functional nutrition.
So what does that mean? It means that their faculty teaches those components,
that they have particular food plans.
And again, as we talked about earlier, we teach them how to do this within scope,
to educate, to refer to the experts, but not to diagnose or prescribe those plans.
But then what I did when I developed the program is I looked at,
well, if we took these fundamental functional medicine principles where we're
looking at what are the root causes of illness, looking at a systems approach
that's evidence-based.
That's client-centered and put it together with so many of the things that I
had trained in and knew were very,
very important to help my clients when I was a psychologist,
and that is positive psychology.
And that's studying how you flourish, what are the strengths,
what constitutes a life well-lived, and how somebody can use their character
strengths, for example, to make these these difficult lifestyle and dietary changes.
And so we integrated that with the functional medicine principles and then mind-body
medicine strategies because as a coach, we have a big role to play in helping
people to become more resilient.
We talk about anti-fragility and then put that together and also the psychology of eating principles.
So it's taking all that information and then how we present it is online online, but it's experiential.
And so we have training videos, but most important part is a cohort group model.
So we've been using Zoom since the get-go and I have cohorts where they meet
in groups of 10, 12 people.
And over the course of the year, you really get to know your group.
It's like a, like you're going to camp and this is your cabin and there's tiers
of people that want to There's course facilitators. And so you practice.
I'm a coach. You're the client. And go around and there's an assessment of your
skills and giving them the confidence.
And then we also have an alumni program.
We have Ask the Experts. And we have a business building, which we're calling
Building a Heart-Centered Business Outside the Box.
And so teaching some really basic principles that start with mindset and how
do you establish your niche and bring in people who are teaching that for us
so that it's a parallel track that they can go through at the same time.
Oh, I love it. I love it that you're teaching that side because when Aaron and
I went down this path and went to our first schools, they didn't teach any of that stuff.
We both had to start like, great, I'm certified now.
Where are all my clients? And so I just love that organizations are now recognizing
that we can graduate the most productive, talented, well-educated and trained coaches,
yet 80% 10 of them are unsuccessful because none of them know how to start a business.
So I just, I love that. And we're, we're seeing that change.
Our school teaches it, your school teaches it. I think we're going to see more and more.
So I love that. Fantastic. I, and I love teaching.
I have office hours, both for students and people who stay on for our alumni program.
And yeah, we walk them through like, you know, some of the challenges that they're
having with, with starting business. business. I love it.
Nice. Great. This has been awesome.
Just a really great health coaching pep talk. I'm feeling inspired,
feeling renewed, exciting times.
Me too. We're delighted that we got to spend time with you. Yeah, you guys are fantastic.
It is so great to have a conversation and feel like we're so connected that
our missions are aligned.
Yeah, so it's been great. I love it. Where can our listeners find you if they
want to follow you, check out the school? Where should they go?
Or functionalmedicinecoaching.org on Facebook, Functional Medicine Coaching Academy.
It's Functional Med Coach on Instagram. And I'm Dr. Sandy, S-A-N-D-I.
If you want to follow me personally.
Dr. Sandy, love it. Awesome. Thank you so much for your time and for your generosity, doctor.
Thank you. It's an honor to be here.
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