That constant push to prove, please, and hold it all together isn’t strength—it’s self-betrayal. In this convo, life coach and former D1 athlete Jenn Verser shares how high achievers can release perfectionism and people-pleasing by rebuilding deep self-trust. We dig into healthier self-talk, resilience over “all-or-nothing,” and giving yourself permission to be human—in business, health, and relationships.
You’ll learn:
- Simple shifts to quiet the inner critic and speak your truth
- Why perfectionism blocks joy, momentum, and real success
- How to choose what your body and life need today (without guilt)
- Practical ways to get unstuck and start again—any time
🎁 Grab Jenn’s gifts: Unstuck mini-class + The Unbound Journal
Connect with Jenn: IG @jenn_verser • LinkedIn/Facebook: Jenn Verser • jenverser.com
Want premium clients from your content?
Grab a free Client Acquisition Audit and I’ll show you exactly where your message, offer, and CTA are leaking conversions—and the 3 fixes to turn your podcast/Substack into a client pipeline.
👉 Book here: https://coachsalchemist.com
Transcript
WEBVTT
1
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That constant push to prove yourself?
2
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Please, everyone, and hold it all together, isn't strength. It's a slow drain on your soul.
3
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: In this episode, we'll explore how to break free from the perfectionism, release the superwoman myth, and finally discover the freedom that comes from trusting yourself fully.
4
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Hi, and welcome to the UWorld Order Showcase Podcast, where we feature life, health, transformational coaches, and spiritual entrepreneurs stepping up to be the change they seek in the world. I'm your host, Jill Hart, the Coach's Alchemist, on a mission to help coaches and entrepreneurs amplify their voice, monetize their mission, and get visible.
5
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you're ready to start attracting premium clients without chasing algorithms or hunting people down like a banshee on a mission, head over to thecoachesalchemist.com and schedule your free client acquisition audit. It's the first step to building a business where your clients seek you out without you having to hunt them down. Today, we are chatting with Jen Verser. Jen is a life coach and speaker who helps high achievers release
6
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: perfectionism and people-pleasing by rebuilding deep self-trust so they can grow their income and impact. A former Division I athlete, Ivy League coach.
7
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And corporate leader, she knows firsthand the pressure of chasing external validation. Today, she guides clients to reclaim their truth, embrace support as strength, and create lives defined not by expectations, but by freedom. Welcome to the show, Jen. We're happy to have you with us today.
8
::Jenn Verser: Thank you so much for having me, Jill. I'm thrilled to be here.
9
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's great to have you here. So, what's the most significant thing, in your opinion, as individuals, we can do to make an impact on how the world is going?
10
::Jenn Verser: That's a wonderful question, and just a beautiful way to look at the world, how we as one person can do something differently. And the thing that I encourage my clients over and over again is to trust themselves and speak their truth to themselves.
11
::Jenn Verser: The way that we speak to ourselves is so important.
12
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It is… it's the thing.
13
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, we… it's so easy to just, like.
14
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Not think anything about the berating that we give ourselves, and that includes little things like having conversations with people that you wouldn't have out loud, because you're running it through your head, because you… you feel like you've minimized your voice.
15
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And if we could just… Speak your truth!
16
::Jenn Verser: Yeah, especially to ourselves. We are the only person that we are going to spend our entire life with.
17
::Jenn Verser: We are with ourselves 24-7.
18
::Jenn Verser: And we tend to be so hard on ourselves. And I see it with so many women, that the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves
19
::Jenn Verser: Tend to be so negative.
20
::Jenn Verser: And when we change that script, and we start speaking our truth to ourselves, and start treating ourselves kindly, our worlds can change drastically.
21
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And our health.
22
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely.
23
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you'd be surprised how many people, they shift the way that they think about themselves, and their health improves, because they start making better decisions for themselves. Like, you wouldn't… you wouldn't do the things that we sometimes do to ourselves to somebody that you really cared about, like a child?
24
::Jenn Verser: I mean, not.
25
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But we'll do it to ourselves, even though, you know.
26
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: like, food is one example. You know, you might not…
27
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: give your kid alcohol. We'll just use that as an example.
28
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But you might be self-medicating with lots of glasses of wine at night, and not thinking anything of it.
29
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just like, you know, you should treat yourself like the goddess you are.
30
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely. I mean, we starve ourselves so frequently to look the way that we think society wants us to look.
31
::Jenn Verser: And especially with social media being so prevalent in our lives, we get this highlight reel of what other people are saying and doing and what their thoughts are. And so, instead of giving ourselves things that take care of our bodies.
32
::Jenn Verser: we do what we think we're supposed to to look good to other people. Just like you said, we wouldn't do that to our child. I wouldn't say to my kid, no, you shouldn't have that piece of chicken. He wants it, he gets it. So speaking to ourselves, taking care of ourselves, is absolutely where we need to start.
33
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, for sure. So… I told you I was gonna ask you about your…
34
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: athletic career, so I'm curious. Tell me about that.
35
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely. So, I was a bit of a couch potato until I was in high school. And when I got to my freshman year of high school, I knew that they had a swim team at the school, and I really wanted to be on it. I'd always loved being in the water, and I showed up for the first day of practice my freshman year of high school.
36
::Jenn Verser: In the same swimsuit I wore in the summer to play in the pool, with no cap and with no goggles.
37
::Jenn Verser: And I remember seeing a poster of Janet Evans in the locker room, and thinking, I'm gonna be like her as I was getting dressed. And I go out onto the pool deck, and all the other girls have caps and goggles, and I'm like, it's fine, I don't need that.
38
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Be no swimsu.
39
::Jenn Verser: Yes, let's just say the first day was very challenging. I had never done a workout of any kind before. I'd taken swim lessons growing up, but then I get to this pool, and it's an hour-long workout.
40
::Jenn Verser: And I was not ready. The next day, my grandmother and I did go get cap and goggles, but that was a very hard first season. But I loved it. I loved the sport so much, and…
41
::Jenn Verser: Every chance that I had to do more and learn more about it, I dove into it, no pun intended. I did a clinic after the high school team season ended, I joined the YMCA swim team for the next two seasons, and at the end of the spring of my junior year of high school, I joined a USA swimming team.
42
::Jenn Verser: I was training with people who were Olympic trial level athletes, and I loved it. I loved going to practice. I was so excited. We had 4-hour workouts every day after school, and my teammates would joke with me that I was the preschooler of the group, because I just couldn't wait to be at practice.
43
::Jenn Verser: And I loved it. I dove in every day, had a great practice.
44
::Jenn Verser: wasn't the fastest swimmer, because I hadn't been doing it that long. Most kids started when they were 6, 7 years old.
45
::Jenn Verser: And I really wanted to swim at a Division I college. That was my dream. The University of New Hampshire was my dream school.
46
::Jenn Verser: It was my REACH school, and I didn't get in with my swimming. I was able to swim on the team, I walked onto the team, I got in because of my academics.
47
::Jenn Verser: And I swam for 4 years, and every chance I got home… I could go home. I went home and I trained with my team at home, because that's where my friends were. I enjoyed swimming in college, but it was a really hard experience for me.
48
::Jenn Verser: However, it taught me how to coach.
49
::Jenn Verser: Because I didn't want to coach the way that my coach coached me.
50
::Jenn Verser: So, a couple years after I graduated, I decided to get into coaching myself, and pretty much my first year was spent going, what would Josh do? I'm gonna do something different. What would this person do? I'm gonna do something this way, or in that this way, or yes, this way, judging on all the coaches that I had before. And so, I learned so much
51
::Jenn Verser: from these experiences. And being an athlete.
52
::Jenn Verser: is the definition of a high achiever in so many ways. I'm intimately familiar with the high-achieving mentality. You want to win the race, you want to be the best at practice, you have to be there on time, you have to do all of these things to be the best that you can be.
53
::Jenn Verser: And I became a perfectionist. Yes, because of that, I was always at practice on time, I always did all the sets, I would go sick, I would go hurt, I would be there. And I learned as a coach that we can't always do that.
54
::Jenn Verser: Showing up sick doesn't help anybody. Showing up hurt only hurts yourself further.
55
::Jenn Verser: And becoming an athletic coach
56
::Jenn Verser: I learned on the back end of it was how I fell in love with coaching people outside of a pool.
57
::Jenn Verser: That's what led me to this work.
58
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love it. I have a funny story about swimming on swim teams? Because I swam on swim teams my whole… my whole life.
59
::Jenn Verser: Love it! I love another swimmer.
60
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And so, my sister and I, who's 2 years younger than I, I was maybe… 8?
61
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So she was, like, 6?
62
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it was a Navy swim team, so… and it was in San Diego, and I don't know if you're familiar with Mike… Mark Stamm?
63
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I think was his name. Really, it was a long time ago, but he was… he went to the Olympics, and he trained on our team.
64
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So the coach is, like, all the beginners were down at one end, and, you know, the real swimmers that were competing were at the other side of the pool, but he… he… the coach looks at the whole team and says, okay, everybody in, do a thousand.
65
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And my sister and I, we looked at each other, and our eyes were, like, this big. We thought a thousand laps was what he was talking about.
66
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We made, like, 2 or 3 laps in the time that it took everybody else to, you know, just whip them all out.
67
::Jenn Verser: Gotta start somewhere.
68
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And we met on the side, and she's like, how many have you done? I said, something like, two. She's like, I've done one.
69
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I'm never gonna do a thousand!
70
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I said, well, just… let's just do one more, and we'll call it good.
71
::Jenn Verser: Goodness. Yeah, I remember those instances when I was starting out where I didn't know what the words meant.
72
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And that's a lot of it, when you get into something, and you want to be really good at it, and you don't know the terminology, and it confuses you, and so you're not…
73
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You're more worried about whether you're doing it right.
74
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or that you can't really focus on doing it.
75
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: sufficiently.
76
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Which kind of takes us back to what you do, which is help people overcome the perfectionism side of things.
77
::Jenn Verser: Yes, and as my background as a coach, and also as an educator, I have a master's degree in education, I understand how important it is to explain things to people differently.
78
::Jenn Verser: And sometimes we have to explain the same concept, or discuss the same concept, or run by different ideas. The same theory.
79
::Jenn Verser: In several different ways, because people absorb things differently, and sometimes it takes a few times before you absorb it and before you understand it, and that is okay. We don't have to get things the first time out.
80
::Jenn Verser: And I think that people get discouraged when they make a decision that they want to change, and something happens, and they fall off the wagon, if you will. Or, you know, something comes up, and they make a choice that wasn't in line with what they really want.
81
::Jenn Verser: These things are okay, we're allowed to make mistakes.
82
::Jenn Verser: You get to choose to stay on the wagon, you get to choose to get back on, you get to choose to try again.
83
::Jenn Verser: Failure is only a lesson.
84
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yes.
85
::Jenn Verser: can always restart.
86
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love that, and I… I loved when you were talking about, jumping in the pool and you'll never be as fast as everyone else. Your muscles…
87
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: grow in a certain way, and your body actually grows in certain ways. Like, if you look at gymnasts, gymnasts' bodies, because they start when they're really young.
88
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: grow in a way that facilitates them to be able to do that sport. Swimming is kind of the same way. Your body muscles grow, and your bone density, even, is affected by the sport that you do.
89
::Jenn Verser: And…
90
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: If you start into the sport later, you can be good.
91
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can be really good, but you're never gonna be the same as somebody who started really young and just stuck with it. Like, figure skaters, any sport that you can think of, that develops, works on developing muscles in a way that isn't
92
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: necessarily natural. I mean, you don't wander around doing, you know, freestyle swimming motions when you're walking. I mean, it's not a normal motion.
93
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely, not to mention the fact that you're anti-gravity when you're in the pool. Right! All the laws are different, the way we breathe, the way we move, it's all different, because…
94
::Jenn Verser: it's an anti-gravity sport. So, absolutely, and the way that we look at the world is different based on the lens of our own backgrounds.
95
::Jenn Verser: Everything that we perceive, you and I could have the exact same experience. You and I are experiencing this podcast together, and we're gonna walk away, and you're gonna take things that I take differently. That's just the way the world works.
96
::Jenn Verser: And it's to be able to have the conversation, and to learn something, and to process something, and how you process it in your mind, and speak to yourself about it.
97
::Jenn Verser: That's how we can make the world better.
98
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And giving yourself space to not be the best right out the gate.
99
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You may get proficient at something, and you can love it, and be proficient, and that's enough.
100
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You don't have to be perfect.
101
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely. Absolutely. I loved practice.
102
::Jenn Verser: I still love training. I don't like going out and competing. I don't do swimming anymore. I do… I enjoy CrossFit, that's my drug of choice now. And I love going to the gym and working out, but I don't want to go and compete. I have no desire to do that.
103
::Jenn Verser: And that's okay. I'm just… I show up a couple of times a week, I enjoy it, I go run the other days, I do whatever it is that feels good for my body. I'm finally at 44, feeling, what's good for me today?
104
::Jenn Verser: I don't have to go do anything particular.
105
::Jenn Verser: And to be able to have that freedom, and to not beat myself up because, oh, I should have gone to the gym today.
106
::Jenn Verser: That's a gift.
107
::Jenn Verser: It's a gift you can give yourself.
108
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, and it applies beyond just, like, fitness. It applies to your business. It applies to your relationships. You know, some days.
109
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Just don't feel like talking to anybody.
110
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I go upstairs in my room, and I… Veg.
111
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's fine. It's not like I do it every day, but, you know, it's giving yourself permission to be you.
112
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And to like being you.
113
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And not feel like you have to have somebody come along and say, okay, you're good.
114
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Who are they, and why does their opinion matter?
115
::Jenn Verser: Right. I have a client who is in her 20s, and she is now, for the first time, learning who she actually is.
116
::Jenn Verser: because we've… I've asked her questions about why she does certain things, and she started to realize the impact that all of the other people, all of her family members, all of her friends, have encouraged her to believe one way or another, and she says.
117
::Jenn Verser: Oh my goodness!
118
::Jenn Verser: I am actually getting to know who I am, and why I want to do things, and how I want to spend my energy.
119
::Jenn Verser: I wish I knew that in my 20s!
120
::Jenn Verser: And it's… So cool to see someone opening up
121
::Jenn Verser: Because they're starting to see, oh, that's what my mom said, or my dad said, or my brother said.
122
::Jenn Verser: I get to make my own choice.
123
::Jenn Verser: I get to speak kindly to myself. I get to have gratitude for my experiences.
124
::Jenn Verser: I get to do things.
125
::Jenn Verser: We are autonomous humans. How cool is that?
126
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, cool.
127
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it's so cool when you finally recognize it.
128
::Jenn Verser: And it's something that's happening more and more now.
129
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: But it… I would say it's a relatively new phenomenon.
130
::Jenn Verser: Most…
131
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: People just have gone through life
132
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Basing their decisions and their self-worth on what other people told them.
133
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It was gonna be.
134
::Jenn Verser: Yes.
135
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's a miserable way to live.
136
::Jenn Verser: And unfortunately, partly because of social media, because of the way the world has gone.
137
::Jenn Verser: Our youth is becoming more and more perfectionistic.
138
::Jenn Verser: They expect things to be perfect and wonderful right away, the first time out, I get into my dream school. I'm going to do this, I'm going to do that, and…
139
::Jenn Verser: Unfortunately, that's really hindering our youth.
140
::Jenn Verser: We're seeing more and more perfectionism, and…
141
::Jenn Verser: I really hope that, as a parent, I instill in my child that he doesn't have to be perfect.
142
::Jenn Verser: We all make mistakes. We have to be resilient.
143
::Jenn Verser: We have to learn how to move past things.
144
::Jenn Verser: And that's something that perfectionists really tend to struggle with.
145
::Jenn Verser: That's where the self-talk can get really, really negative, when something doesn't go the way that they expect, or the way that they want, or the way that they were told it would go.
146
::Jenn Verser: That's when the self-talk gets really, really rough.
147
::Jenn Verser: So that's why we focus on it so much in my work.
148
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Well, you have to. It's… It's a matter, I think, of… of people… Not enjoying the present.
149
::Jenn Verser: they're always…
150
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Waiting for these expectations that they've set to occur.
151
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: For them to be happy.
152
::Jenn Verser: Rather than just.
153
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: enjoying the experience. However that experience shows up.
154
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's perfect, because that's how it showed up, so it must be perfect. Instead of saying, well, you know, I have to look a certain way, or I have to have the latest whatevers to… to show up in, and I have to dress a certain way, you know, the dress for success thing.
155
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I wear overalls most of my life.
156
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's, like…
157
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's what makes me comfortable. I don't really care what other people's opinions of my overalls are. But, you know, for so long, we've been told you have to look a certain way in order to be successful.
158
::Jenn Verser: But that's not true. What you need to do is have fun.
159
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And have an experience, and appreciate the experiences that you're getting, and it's not that, you know, hard times aren't gonna happen, but you can appreciate even the hard times. The things that seem like they're going crossways for you could be the best experience you ever have.
160
::Jenn Verser: They can teach you the most. Absolutely. If I had been promoted into two different jobs that I tried to apply for when I was coaching.
161
::Jenn Verser: I probably wouldn't be sitting with you here right now. I probably would not have met my husband, I probably wouldn't have my amazing little 4-year-old. If I had been promoted to an associate athletic director for excellence, or if I had been an associate head coach, I probably would have stayed in Hanover, New Hampshire.
162
::Jenn Verser: instead of following my heart and moving to St. Petersburg, Florida, and having my now-husband be, I think, the third person that I met when I moved down there.
163
::Jenn Verser: life takes us in the direction that we're supposed to go. Our plan
164
::Jenn Verser: is not usually the way it goes. Almost always the universe has something else in store for us, something unexpected. And when we learn to have gratitude in the moments that we think are hard, and they can be hard, and you can be hurt, and experience it, and live it.
165
::Jenn Verser: But when we look back, if we can have gratitude.
166
::Jenn Verser: We realize that all of those moments make us the person that we are right now, and right now we get to choose the person that we're going to be.
167
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And it doesn't necessarily have to be that person in order for you to be perfect.
168
::Jenn Verser: No.
169
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you can have an idea, and I, you know, I really believe people should have an idea of where they want to go, because otherwise you're just going to meander
170
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Fameless.
171
::Jenn Verser: Seamlessly.
172
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it doesn't have to be that exact spot, and it doesn't have to look the exact way you think it's gonna look. It can look…
173
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it can look different, but you need to recognize that, hey, I got there, and appreciate how it turned out.
174
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely. I actually shared a really funny story on my Facebook account a few weeks ago about the cake at my wedding.
175
::Jenn Verser: I had, you know, I was 36, 37 years old when I got married. I'd been planning this, I'd gotten to a point where I thought I wasn't going to get married. So, when we got together, we were getting married, I was… I know what… I know where I want to have it, I know what I want to do, da-da-da, I had a list, I had a binder, I was one of those girls.
176
::Jenn Verser: And we got to the reception. The wedding went without a flaw, the ceremony was wonderful, the photographers were fantastic. We get to the reception, and two of my bridesmaids come running over to me, and they said, Jen!
177
::Jenn Verser: There is a giant bump in the cake.
178
::Jenn Verser: And I walk over, and I was like, just give me some food, and put a glass of champagne in my hand, I am so ready to party. I walk over to the cake, and I go, huh, my cake has a tuma!
179
::Jenn Verser: They both look at me and they go, you don't care? And I was like, I don't care. Let's have a party.
180
::Jenn Verser: And we had people coming up saying, is she pregnant? Is this, like… are they trying to say something? Is this a surprise? No, it was just a… the cake smushed a little bit, I don't know.
181
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's a story now, you can tell. Had it been perfect?
182
::Jenn Verser: Funny! It…
183
::Jenn Verser: It didn't have to be perfect. I just wanted my dad… my dad did the service. As long as my dad said the right names, I was happy.
184
::Jenn Verser: he'd been calling my, my husband Justin instead of Jason several… for several weeks, and we're like, that's not gonna work. As long as he got through it without doing that, we were good.
185
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And you got a story, and it was an experience, and everybody else got to enjoy the experience, and you didn't have to be worked up about it, and you could just, like, appreciate.
186
::Jenn Verser: Deb?
187
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the day.
188
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely.
189
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: have a great memory, and like I said, you got a story.
190
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, how many people get a bump in their wedding cake?
191
::Jenn Verser: Hopefully not too many, but…
192
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
193
::Jenn Verser: Yeah, it was a great day.
194
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: So, when you coach people, how does that look? Is it groups? Is it one-on-one? Is it combination? Is it courses?
195
::Jenn Verser: Sure, I am primarily one-on-one right now. I really enjoy the interaction of speaking with a person, and watching them grow, and challenging them. Every single session is completely unique.
196
::Jenn Verser: I coach as a life coach the same way that I coached as a swimming coach. I have a plan in my mind of what I want to do, and then I see what my client needs at the time.
197
::Jenn Verser: I really do pay attention to what's happening in their lives, and sometimes I might think, hey, next time we're gonna talk about body image, or we're gonna talk about family trauma, and something comes up and happens, and we have to shift gears, because something more important is happening.
198
::Jenn Verser: When I started working with my own coach last year, I was wanting to leave my corporate job, and I was wanting to get into business for myself, and I hired a coach because I wanted to start this business, and a few weeks into our working together, my mom fell very, very ill.
199
::Jenn Verser: And I called her, and I said, I can't talk about business right now. And she said, of course you're not! Of course you're not going to be able to talk about business. And we probably didn't come back to talking about business for a few months, because I learned I had a lot of other stuff I needed to work through first.
200
::Jenn Verser: So, the presenting problem, the presenting reason that you come to coaching
201
::Jenn Verser: is so often not the reason that you're actually in it, even if you don't realize it at first. My problem was that I didn't want to work in a corporate position anymore. I wanted to have more freedom, I wanted to see my kid more, I wanted to be part of my family more, I wanted to travel and do fun things and talk to interesting people.
202
::Jenn Verser: And so that was why I got into it at first. I wanted to make a difference and a bigger impact in the world.
203
::Jenn Verser: And then, my family started to fall apart.
204
::Jenn Verser: And I had to put it all on the back burner. I had to take care of my mom, I had to take care of my dad, I had to take care of my relationship with my husband.
205
::Jenn Verser: I thought that I needed a coach to help me get through business, and it wound up that I needed a coach to help me figure out my life.
206
::Jenn Verser: So it has to be individualized.
207
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, it really does, when it…
208
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Life coaching, when done right, it's… it is…
209
::Jenn Verser: really one-on-one. You can teach people tools in communities.
210
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And… and communities are really helpful because they can support each other.
211
::Jenn Verser: But…
212
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: just the… because life just happens. I mean, you may think you're going down one path, and… and really, it's…
213
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: surprised! You're going down a different path. And there's seasons in life. So, you know, you may think this is the start my business season, when it's really the… it's the put my family back together recent season, and then that will give me some experience and some…
214
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Some examples, even, to take forward into coaching, because
215
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: unless you've actually had these experiences, it's really hard to coach somebody else coming through them. Not impossible, but it…
216
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it just… It helps you keep up.
217
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And… and to make a difference in a meaningful way, and to be able to… Absolutely.
218
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know, you've had this experience where you had to switch gears with your coach, so you understand that it's gonna happen to your clients, too.
219
::Jenn Verser: Of course. Life… life hits us when we least expect it.
220
::Jenn Verser: You know, literally, my mom was gardening and cleaning out the garden on a Saturday, and by Wednesday, she was in the emergency room, and…
221
::Jenn Verser: Thank God I took her. Sometimes you just don't know what's gonna happen.
222
::Jenn Verser: And I have to be willing… I could have all the plans in line for any one of my coaches… any one of my clients, but if I come in with a plan, and they come in and say.
223
::Jenn Verser: My mom's in the hospital. We gotta be willing to throw all those plans out the window and take care of the situation at hand.
224
::Jenn Verser: And take care of the presenting problem at that moment.
225
::Jenn Verser: So…
226
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: How do people actually work with you? I mean, in terms of how do they Connect with you.
227
::Jenn Verser: Absolutely. So, in terms of, like, how do they reach me, I'm on Instagram at Jen, J-E-N-N underscore Verser, V-E-R-S-E-R. I'm on LinkedIn and Facebook as Jenverser, and my website is www.genverser.com.
228
::Jenn Verser: And I, like I said, I work one-on-one with clients, I meet with them over Zoom, I have people that I work with all over the world. I'm very flexible with my time because I do want to make the impact with people. I feel like it is so special for people to trust me to be inside their lives.
229
::Jenn Verser: And I'm here for them. Presence is so important.
230
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: really is important. I…
231
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I've had times in my life where I really needed to talk to somebody who was a little bit disconnected from my life, and…
232
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: From my circumstances.
233
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Not… not family, not friends, because they're too close to you.
234
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And they're gonna be inclined to just give you advice that may or may not be useful, because they don't personally have the tools to help you navigate what you need to navigate. And sometimes in life, it's just really helpful to have a life coach who can say.
235
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I see where you're at, and here's a little bit of, like, these are some of your options that you may not have even known existed.
236
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: It's just giving them tools to be able to navigate the situation that they're in. Not a, you have to do it this way.
237
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Here's some ideas.
238
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Or…
239
::Jenn Verser: So standing in the grass, it's impossible to see it growing.
240
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah, I love that.
241
::Jenn Verser: Can't see it. And… Even sometimes people come in, and they love you so much, They want to fix.
242
::Jenn Verser: And I look for… maybe not the fix, but the why.
243
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: Yeah.
244
::Jenn Verser: Why is it a problem? Why are you doing this? Why… and I ask the questions.
245
::Jenn Verser: I really do try to not give advice. I give some options. What if you try this or that?
246
::Jenn Verser: But…
247
::Jenn Verser: what works for me, in my mind, might not work for them, so it's important in my mind to give people choices and thoughts and ideas, and…
248
::Jenn Verser: Opportunities.
249
::Jenn Verser: Opportunities for them to allow themselves to make a decision.
250
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And sometimes, just… opening the door of conversation. Like, you may think of something that's, like.
251
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: have you thought about this, or that, or the other thing? And not being attached to the outcome, because it's not… it's not your life, but allowing them
252
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: the… the space, I guess is the best way to put it, to… to imagine a different…
253
::Jenn Verser: scenario, because you've given them some, like.
254
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: it's like piling on the kindling and starting the fire. They're gonna throw the logs on. They're gonna come up with their own solution, but had you not given them some ideas that, you know, options were available, you're not stuck in this situation. And sometimes we just find ourselves stuck. It's like.
255
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: You know that there's a million things you could do, but you're not really sure what's…
256
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: What's the best direction to turn in?
257
::Jenn Verser: And… and…
258
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: to just be able to have the conversation about why. You know, you said you looked for their why, but, you know.
259
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: your friends aren't going to ask you why… why are you thinking that? What… what's the outcome that you're looking for, and why… why are you going down this path, and can we just explore it without being attached to any outcome? And I don't have to tell you how to fix that problem, because.
260
::Jenn Verser: You know.
261
::Jenn Verser: And how often do you… I'm not attached to it! How often do your friends talk to you for an hour?
262
::Jenn Verser: about you.
263
::Jenn Verser: And you don't have to feel guilty, or like you should turn the situation back on them, because that's the time for you. You come to me, and my energy is for you. It is for your growth, it is for your development, it is for your success. You don't have to ask me how my day's going.
264
::Jenn Verser: I get to be with you?
265
::Jenn Verser: Right here, in this moment, this is the best part of my day!
266
::Jenn Verser: Because I get to be here for you.
267
::Jenn Verser: You don't always get that with your friends. You rarely get that with anybody.
268
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I rarely get it. Yeah, because everybody has their own problems, and they're trying to, like, navigate it, and so you…
269
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: you never get to that space where you're getting a conclusion, or you have the space to just talk. I mean, we complain about our husbands, they don't… they never listen to us. As women, often we just need to talk things
270
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: out. And it just… we don't need to have anybody telling us anything about what we're talking about, but we just need to express it so we can hear it for ourselves.
271
::Jenn Verser: Yes.
272
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I do that all the time.
273
::Jenn Verser: I, at one point, had a very challenging coworker when I was coaching, and we were on a training trip, and I said to my mom, I don't know how I'm gonna get through this training trip.
274
::Jenn Verser: I don't know how I'm gonna make it through with this person. And she had been watching Good Morning America, and at that time, they were doing this play of the day. I don't know if they still do it, but she said, I want you to call me every night, and I want you to tell me what the play of the day is.
275
::Jenn Verser: And when I got home after those two weeks of training trip, she would say to me, I can't believe that this happened, or I can't believe that that happened. I'd forgotten about half of them.
276
::Jenn Verser: I've been able to let them go.
277
::Jenn Verser: It was the play of the day, I told it, and then it was gone. And I got to let go of that.
278
::Jenn Verser: What a great idea!
279
::Jenn Verser: You have a very wise mom. I do. I am very blessed, for sure.
280
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: That's awesome. And I know that you have a guide that you give to people, it's called Unstuck, What's Really Behind Your Procrastination, and The Unbound Journal, Three Shifts to Help You Break Free From Perfectionism.
281
::Jenn Verser: Talk about.
282
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: that a little bit.
283
::Jenn Verser: So, Unstuck is a… about a half an hour masterclass, and I go into, just about how to let go of that procrastination. What causes it? What are the scientific reasons behind it? Why do we do it? And then some ways that we can let go of it.
284
::Jenn Verser: I give 3 really solid tips that you can use, and there's a little meditation at the end, it was about 5 minutes long, where you look at your future self.
285
::Jenn Verser: We often look back.
286
::Jenn Verser: But I offer a meditation to look at our future. And then, The Unbound Journal is, a guided journal to help you work through what's keeping you in one place. I want you to learn how to speak your truth, especially to yourself.
287
::Jenn Verser: I want you to learn to release judgment. We all judge. We are human beings, it happens, but usually when we do it, it's actually a reflection of ourselves. So if we're judging someone else, what is it actually saying about us?
288
::Jenn Verser: And then, to really trust yourself.
289
::Jenn Verser: Speak your truth, release your judgment, And then trust.
290
::Jenn Verser: So I guide you through those in that journal.
291
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: I love it, I love it. And people can find that at Jenverser.com forward slash pod gift.
292
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: We will be sure to put those in the show notes. Thanks for joining us, Jen. This has been a great conversation.
293
::Jenn Verser: Thank you so much for having me, Jill.
294
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: To learn more about Jen, and to access Unstuck, What's really behind your procrastination, and The Unbound Journal, Three Shifts to Help You Break Free From Perfectionism, please visit Jenverser.com forward slash pod gift.
295
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And, as I said, we'll put those in the show notes below. Thanks for tuning in today to the UWorld Order Showcase Podcast. If you're ready to amplify your voice, monetize your mission, and start attracting premium clients, your next step is simple. Head to thecoachesalchemist.com.
296
::Jill Hart-The Coach's Alchemist: And schedule your free client acquisition audit. Be sure to join us for our next episode as we share what others are doing to raise a global frequency. And remember, change begins with you. You have all the power to change the world. Start today, and get visible.