Courage and Spice for Coaches: build your Self-belief and Business in under 30mins a week

Content note: This episode includes discussions around intentional weight loss and diet culture, and therefore contains swearing.

This episode is part of a podcast series called The Body Stories. I’m joined by my beloved friend and fellow coach, Ali Shapiro. Over the next year, Ali and I will have an occasional and ongoing conversation about the nuanced relationship with our bodies. These are tender conversations, and at times, I will be in the coaching client seat. Our hope is that listening in will spark your own exploration of your body story.

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In this second episode, we talk about:

* Lizzo’s ‘weight release journey’ and the public conversations over private choices.

* This month I realised I didn’t really know what creating long term health looks like, and so I decided to work with a coach.

* The emotional response I had to a community walk (there are tears!).

* A big old protective belief that has shifted for me.

* And the identity level stories about fitness and health that are slowly changing.

Mentioned in this Episode:

* Connect with Ali here.

* Ali’s upcoming program: Your Emotional Eating Blueprint: Why Am I Eating This Now?

* Lizzo’s conversation with Jay Shetty: YouTube

* Jay Shetty backstory: Guardian article

* Let’s Get Triggered: Oprah, Ozempic and our Outrage

* The Body Stories Ep 1: Can you love yourself and want to lose weight?

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saspetherick.substack.com

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As a highly sensitive person, Sam Dhu believes it is possible to be deeply ambitious and successful AND soft and sensitive at the same time.

Sam is a Psychotherapist, Mentor, and Facilitator of Permission. Mum to eight-year-old, Amelie and two-year-old Frankie, and passionate advocate for being radically kind and compassionate to yourself.

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We chat about how to acknowledge our individual capacity to create a life that feels "soft and successful." Many of us don’t have time, the capacity (and maybe even the desire!) for traditional approaches to achieving success, and rather than making ourselves wrong, we can be much more creative in how we do this on our terms.

Sam shares her journey of embracing her ADHD diagnosis and how the more she has accepted that her brain and nervous system have unique needs, the more successful she has become.

This is where things get really fun: being compassionate with yourself when something isn't working or it's feeling hard, opens you up to your individual, unique needs, so you can get curious about what does work.

This is such a reassuring and nurturing conversation for anyone who wants to create success on their terms. I just know you’re going to love Sam!

Resources for you:

Sam mentioned these assessment tools for sensitivity and neurodivergence:

* Highly Sensitive Test self-report

* ADHD self-report

To connect further with Sam:

* Website

* Find Sam on The Gram

* If you are looking for support, this looks delicious: Slow: the Mastermind

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Content note: This episode includes discussions around intentional weight loss and diet culture, and contains swearing.

This is the first in a new podcast series called The Body Stories with my beloved friend and fellow coach, Ali Shapiro. Over the next year, Ali and I will have an occasional and ongoing conversation about the nuanced relationship with our bodies. 

Ali is a deeply experienced coach whose work sits at the intersection of food, psychology, and behaviour change. Ali holds multiple certifications in integrated nutrition, and her master’s degree is in human behaviour. She has over a decade of work with clients and founded the ‘Truce with Food’ coaching methodology. This work is Ali’s love language!

To give you some context for this episode: I first went to Weight Watchers aged 11, thus began my on-off ‘its complicated’ situationship with the worst of bad boyfriends: diet culture. It’s been hard won, but these days, I have an appreciative and compassionate relationship with my body, and I feel so free of diet mentality. 

I also have a complex heart condition, and losing body fat will reduce the burden on my heart. At age 51, I want to lose weight in order to build a strong body that my 81-year-old self will be so proud of. As I embark on this process of intentional weight loss, a lot of old stuff has come up. So far, this process has contained a lot of surprising realisations, story rewrites, and tentative healing.

In this first episode, we set the scene for this ongoing conversation. We talk about: 

* Diet culture as “thin at all costs”

* Feeling peace within our bodies

* What does it mean to trust your appetite?

* How I’ve changed my eating habits

* Why restriction is different from deprivation

* Doing the “good thing” vs actually feeling good

* Finding satisfaction in our day-to-day

* Letting go of the Weight Watchers “walk of shame”

This podcast series was sparked by our private chats where Ali’s support has been rich with insight. Our conversations felt so nourishing I invited Ali to make this a public chat.

These are tender conversations, and at times, I will be in the coaching client seat. Our hope is that listening in will spark your own exploration of your body story.

Mentioned in this Episode:

* Connect with Ali here.

* Ali’s upcoming program: Your Emotional Eating Blueprint: Why Am I Eating This Now?

* That Sugar Film

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit saspetherick.substack.com

***

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👋🏼 If you've enjoyed Courage & Spice, please leave a review, subscribe on your favourite app, or share this episode with another coach. Sending all good things to you xx

Tamu Thomas is a transformational somatic leadership coach, the eldest daughter of West African immigrants, a mother, a speaker, and now a published author!

Tamu’s first book, Women Who Work Too Much, helps overachieving, overfunctioning women set boundaries, find joy, and flourish.

This conversation was a balm, and I suspect fellow Gen X women in particular, will feel seen and understood. We are the generation that grew up being told we could have it all. Now, we find ourselves in our 40s and 50s—often our most creatively fulfilling years - doing too much during menopause while parenting teens and caring for parents and wondering why we are so bloody tired.

In this conversation, we discuss natural (rather than toxic) productivity, radical rest, and why work (not overwork) can be a positive thing.

This is such an important conversation for those of us who have blurred the boundaries between work, rest, and play (me, too!).

Resources for you:

Women Who Work Too Much by Tamu Thomas

Tamu on Instagram @tamu.thomas

Tamu on TikTok @tamu_thomas

***

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Have you ever daydreamed about a different potential future for yourself?

Perhaps your imagination offers you an entirely different job, country, or relationship?

It might be that your life looks the same on the inside but feels entirely different to you.

This might be a creative way to spend time on a drive or in a queue, and it could also point you towards an entirely new direction.

In this episode of Courage and Spice, we are exploring this sometimes magical connection with Your Future Self. We explore:

* How to connect to yourself years from now

* How to use this envisioning exercise when we want to make a life change

* When this exercise isn’t helpful

* How to decode the breadcrumb trail your imagination offers.

I also share a quite magical experience of connecting to my future self years before I even knew what it was, and how my vision was a giant metaphor for life now.

If you have a feeling that something new wants to emerge in your life, this episode is for you!

Please do share in the comments what your Future Self is up to ✨

Resources for you:

* Self-belief Journalling: make a cosy date with yourself and your journal to explore a topic designed to help you grow self-belief. Our next topic is intention!

* Write a letter to your future self.

* Wishcraft by Barbara Sher

* Rethinking positive thinking: Inside the new science of motivation by

Gabriele Oettingen

* Hal Hershfield in conversation with Scott Barry Kaufman: The Psychology Podcast

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If you love the idea of communal learning and connection, if you are looking for like-minded souls, if you have incomplete online courses on your laptop: listen in!

I’m excited for you to get to know Sally Burns. We recorded this chat before ‘The US Situation’ - I guess we need to start calling it what it is - The Coup by tech billionaires.

To know that Sally is thoughtfully building an alternative to everything they stand for, fills me hope.

Sally is an e-learning expert and ecological thinker. Her work involves reimagining the ways we commune and learn online, away from algorithms and ads.

She’s the Founder of The Portal Collective, an online space where people can gather to learn and grow in a meaningful community. The entire site and its ethos is so beautiful! It feels like wandering through a verdant garden.

Sally also offers support for non-profits, coaches, and educators who want to host their work on a learning platform that is very far from big tech. I think this is a really exciting development for course creators!

We discuss the importance of collaborative, co-created learning experiences that prioritize emotional safety and mutual care. We expand on the broader implications of community, collective action, and the role of imagination in creating a more connected and equitable world.

This was such a hopeful and wildly nourishing chat.

More resources for you:

* The Portal Collective

* If you are a Course Creator - check out the Portal.

* Sally on Instagram

* Combining by Nora Bateson

* Love this? You might enjoy my conversation with Niki Wickes.

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🪴 FREE Private Podcast Bold not Beige: Why your coaching isn’t selling and what to do about it 

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👋🏼 If you've enjoyed Courage & Spice, please leave a review, subscribe on your favourite app, or share this episode with another coach. Sending all good things to you xx

Happy (lunar) New Year!

It’s the first new moon of the year, which also marks the beginning of the Chinese and Tibetan year of the wood snake (nb: I just had a little look at this, and the wood snake symbolises the embodied wisdom of the Divine Feminine who knows her worth, lives close to the Earth and is at ease in moving within her body, which is always changing, shedding old skins for new growth. The wood snake is all about moving forward intuitively, quietly, intelligently and intentionally - I mean YES PLEASE).

So, what cracking energy to begin this year’s podcast with!

In this episode, I’m sharing the benefits of an incredibly effective practice for building self-belief: self-reflection. More specifically supported journalling.

So, if you have never quite gotten into journaling, or perhaps you love the process of self-reflection but rarely move past documenting what’s happening and into catharsis or even changing beliefs, listen in!

I share more about what makes a journalling practice so powerful, how to deepen your reflections and support yourself to process what’s happening, plus: my favourite questions to ponder.

Mentioned in this episode:

* Self-belief Journalling - quieten self-judgement and self-criticism, learn to hear the voice of your Healthy Adult Self, and build your self-belief with my new supported self-reflection practice!

* The Coaching Well - communal reflective practice and supervisory support especially for coaches.

* Let me create a podcast just for you! Email me with your questions or areas of interest for a podcast. And if you have a specific experience you would appreciate my take on, email it through - I will, of course, keep it anonymous if you prefer.

* The post I wrote after my reflection practice following the inauguration.

* My beloved astrologer, Phyllis (tell her we are connected!).

***

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How do you feel about what you wear?

Shopping for clothes in our fast-fashion world, deciding what you like (colours, fabrics, makers), trying things on, and deciding what suits can all feel a bit like a minefield.

It can be incredibly activating for our self-doubt.

Lizzie Parsons runs The Distinctive Style Atelier and she is all about finding joy, confidence, and authenticity in your personal style - she has a really fun, human Instagram account that I recommend.

At the time of our conversation I was preparing for a keynote and having a real moment of what the hell should I wear?!

We had such a fun chat about how to find your personal style and allow your personality to shine through.

If your self-doubt get’s in the way of what you choose to wear, this is a really uplifting conversation.

Enjoy!

Resources:

Lizzie’s Instagram

Uncover your style personality - take the quiz!

The Distinctive Atelier

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🪴 FREE Private Podcast Bold not Beige: Why your coaching isn’t selling and what to do about it 

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I’ve spent a lot of this year thinking about the Coaching industry. It is undoubtedly going through a somewhat sticky phase of maturing - for some of us, this is a long-time-coming-reckoning.

The increasing focus on ethics and having a scope of practice, being trauma-informed, calling out the training organisations that replicate unhealthy practices is all for the good - particularly when it comes to outcomes for our beloved clients.

And if you are a coach, this shift in the industry can feel a little discombobulating, it can understanably bring up self-doubt.

In this episode I share more about how I am showing up to support coaches, and specifically, what I think we need to focus on - what really matters for creating a sustainable, successful practice.

If you are in coach training, or you’ve been a resident of Planet Coach for a while, this is for you!

Mentioned in this Episode:

2025 Ripen Coaches Circle

Three OG Coaches Talking Shop

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🪴 FREE Private Podcast Bold not Beige: Why your coaching isn’t selling and what to do about it 

🍑 Apply now for Ripen www.saspetherick.com/ripen 

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👋🏼 If you've enjoyed Courage & Spice, please leave a review, subscribe on your favourite app, or share this episode with another coach. Sending all good things to you xx

IMHO, the best kind of humans can access deep joy and light because they have sat in their darkness and shadows. Olivia is exactly that!

We talk about the path from anger, pain, shame and addiction to living from a quiet mind and safe body. Olivia shares how breathwork blew her heart open and invited her to follow what she calls ‘the yellow brick road home to myself’.

Breathwork is such a mysterious and deceptively simple practice. Olivia describes how peaceful, soft, and undefended she feels, how she is able to lean into challenging experiences, in particular, grieving for her mother right now. It’s so lush to hear her describe this.

Now, Olivia is a breathwork practitioner; she holds women's circles and the most divine retreats (on my bucket list for when we return to the UK).

Listen in for the richest conversation about what self-love looks and feels like. What it means to let go of labels of ‘good and bad’, to feel our feelings, to build our capacity to be in the mess of life.

I found our first date so healing, I just know you will love Olivia.

Connect with Olivia:

Website and Instagram.

Self-belief School with Sas

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🪴 FREE Private Podcast Bold not Beige: Why your coaching isn’t selling and what to do about it 

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👋🏼 If you've enjoyed Courage & Spice, please leave a review, subscribe on your favourite app, or share this episode with another coach. Sending all good things to you xx