Looking Back: Melanie Paez

Where and when did you graduate from Accomplishment Coaching??

San Diego Summer 2016-2017

How did you decide to become a coach??

?In retrospect, it's who I've always been. I have always cared more about people's passions than any single other thing under the sun. The actual decision of it came from hearing about what a coach was while I was a dependency social worker and starting my journey of reading tons of self-development books and chatting with life coaches over the course of 2 years until it became too much to bear to be sitting on the sidelines of this profession. I halted nomadic life in Central America, flew back to the US, packed up my car, and drove from Florida to California to find a place to live and work while I went through the Accomplishment Coaching training. I knew in my soul that I had to.

What was the most unexpected thing you took from the training??

That I didn't have to know a single thing to be a powerful coach. On the contrary, I had to be willing to know nothing, to be curious, to ask questions and play in the unknown with people. It was a huge relief that I didn't need to be a "life expert" to be a good coach, but it also took some getting used to that I didn't need to perform perfection. I was so used to that in my other work that it took some time to learn to put that down. I can now have great reverence and respect for my natural curiosity, something that serves me and my clients well and something that I've had all my life. The uncovering of it started with my initial intention to become a coach and has grown so much from there.

?What has been your biggest struggle in building a coaching business?

My biggest struggle has been this notion of grinding and self-promotion. I learned that reaching out and asking people to hire you was the way to get clients. I think the process of learning how to do that was extremely valuable for me, but now that I'm more established as a coach, my natural rhythm is to be fully expressed, make it clear that I am a coach, and wait for a request or invitation to be someone's coach. Learning that it doesn't have to be hard and that my authenticity is what has people hire me took quite a while to really grasp and operationalize.

?What win or wins are you most proud of?

I was a pretty broke backpacker before I started coaching, priding myself on spending $5 in 3 days in Bangkok. My biggest win is that I sought out a lucrative way to serve people and travel the world, and I have coached from a fjord in Norway, a resort in Belize, overlooking a volcano in Costa Rica, and many places in between. I do what I love all over the planet, and I'm so grateful to have created that.

I'm also incredibly proud of being the catalyst for client and friend wins- being in the acknowledgement section of at least 3 published books, a baby being born, multiple businesses starting, incomes being doubled and tripled. I always said that if I could change the trajectory of one person's life for the better, I'd have lived a full life, and the feedback that I get is that I've done such things for many. I live a full life consistently, then. What better win could there be?

What advice would you give you past self, on the day before beginning your training???

Don't wear those pants. You hate them. haha! But really, I had such a need to be perceived a certain way that I didn't even know how to care about my own preferences, wants, or needs. I'd advise myself to start paying attention to what I like, what I want, what I need, and what resonates and follow that with a passion. I was so much more prepared for what I was stepping into than I gave myself credit for, and if I didn't need to spend all that time catching up with myself, who knows where I'd have spent all that time?

?Who do you coach, and where can people find you??

?I coach people who have killed a part of themselves in speaking to the dead. What that means is that if you've reached a plateau in your success and all your tactics aren't working, we're going to go inward and figure that out. I get to the root of what's been tangled and connect people with the highest expression of who they are. I don't care what industry you're in or your position. I care that you have a fiery passion to be fully alive. Those are my clients. You can find me @chiefexecutiveangel on Instagram and at www.chiefexecutiveangel.com.