There is an IN.FORM online certification next week. In the course of promoting it through various channels, I got a lot of inquiries from the health coaching community and consequently ended up with some great insight into some things that are holding many of my peers back from getting out there and doing what they went to school for. I also determined that at the end of the day, everyone I talked with just wants to make an impact and help people. That is our common thread. I’m going to tough love on some of you for a minute: You can’t make an impact with a piecemeal of “hand-outs” downloaded from IIN, chasing every 6 figure coach webinar, spending all your time getting that next certification and… then you’ll be ready….to write your “signature program”…

Frank Lipman has called health coaches the foot soldiers of the wellness revolution. That means we are boots on the ground…in our communities, educating people about lifestyle transformations. We know that in the last 50 years the farming and health care practices in America have changed in ways that are hurting us. Before you took a keen interest in wellness, did you know that (good) fat is important in a diet and that “whole grains” can be the hidden source of some illness? You do now, but many people don’t. The “norm” is so far skewed that the average person doesn’t know where to start to get back on the wellness track. Maybe you have decided that you want to work with people with autoimmune issues. I think you can definitely get there, but to be honest, that’s some pretty serious stuff for someone new to working with clients. It’s also putting the cart in front of the horse. If you follow any of the functional medicine practitioners, they all teach basic lifestyle modification strategies as a first line of defense. K.I.S.S. is a good rule of thumb for health coaching for many reasons. Before we can teach our clients, we need to understand something: wellness is a journey. You can’t just sell a cleanse online then hit send on an email campaign and call yourself a coach. That’s called internet marketing.

I mentioned above that there are many things holding a lot of coaches back. For everyone I talked with, I hear you and still suggest that you give IN.FORM a look. Why? It’s a 13 week program that has a manual and power point presentation that is easy to present. That’s 13 weeks of topics ranging from cleansing, emotional eating, hormone regulation, stress. Are any of those areas that you would like to specialize in? Great! You may not think cardio metabolic syndrome is where you want to focus, but when you help someone with this high-impact foundational issue, you pretty much have become their go-to. Do you want to spend time on “funnels” to always be attracting new clients or do you want to keep the ones you have. When you treat the PERSON, you don’t become irrelevant.

Nature’s Sunshine is so much more than just the IN.FORM program; about 600 products more and I invite you to learn about them. There is a ton of third party education that is available to us in addition to the huge library of free webinars. Want to learn about Chinese medicine, essential oils, traditional health assessments or iridology? We have lots of great resources. In the meantime, get your coaching career off the ground with IN.FORM and learn as you go (and while you earn a living…or money for further education). Have a look and ask questions. Sign up for my intro series below and/or fill out a contact form and tell me about what you are looking for and let’s get a conversation started. If you don’t make it to this certification but have an interest, no worries! Dive in and start learning and set a goal to make it to one of the next sessions.