Konversation with Life Coach, Author, & Speaker Amy McCann

Konversation with Life Coach, Author, & Speaker Amy McCann

This week’s Konversation is an interview with our Global Small Business (GSB) partner Amy McCann of Amy McCann Coaching. Amy is a high-performance life coach for individuals and businesses, author, motivational speaker, and mother living in Manchester, New Hampshire. Amy’s story is a powerful and inspirational one. Get a glimpse into a day in the life of Amy below and learn what she can offer you to help you live your best life.

Konversai: For our readers who are not familiar, what is Amy McCann Coaching? What do you offer?

Amy: I offer guaranteed transformation, confident movement, and higher clarity through and out of stressful and uncertain situations and circumstances. My business is registered as a Professional Certified Coach as well as a Certified High-Performance Coach. I offer services through one-on-one and group coaching packages via phone, in-person workshops, or online courses. I offer professional speaking on behalf of businesses/organizations who seek to move out of stagnancy and reach higher levels of enthusiasm and performance across all departments and who value the personal growth and health of employees and teams as a direct and contributing factor to the overall success, customer satisfaction, and potential growth moving forward.

Konversai: What inspired you to start your coaching business?

Amy: I was not seeking to start a coaching business. It is my story of hardship and transformation that caught the attention of a former practicing psychologist who began a very successful coaching practice. I found this person via her Meetup group through a workshop she called Now That You’re All Grown Up, What Do You Want to Be?

I thought I was going to kind of explore who I was a bit. At the time, I felt lost and was in a very confusing transitional period. While this woman was searching for new prospective coaches to train in her paid program, I was not there to become a coach. What was unique and influential to my becoming a coach was the fact she went beyond her business objective to personally take me under her wing and help me uncover my potential.

There were no strings attached to her program, and she invited me to participate in her high-priced program for free. I did the work, got certified, and my new life and business began to unfold. This woman delivered high value at the human level and successfully influenced me to see that I had already succeeded in a way that others could benefit. She believed in my story and the value it has in the marketplace. If not for her, I may never have thought to help so many people in this capacity. This would be my first professional coaching certification prior to adding to my skills as a Certified High-Performance Coach through High Performance Institute with the #1 Success Coach in the world.

Konversai: How many clients have you served to date?

Amy: I have a combination client/student/speaker audience base, so I’ve served well over a thousand people to date.

Konversai: What do you believe sets your business apart from other businesses in the industry?

Amy: A quick answer to this question might be to say we as coaches all have different personalities and stories and that’s what sets us apart. I offer a more thoughtful answer of how I came to set myself and my business apart from others in my industry.

Prior to putting my work into the world in a bigger way, I researched my industry—how it’s perceived (negative and positive), how it’s grown, and where it’s projected to go in the next 20 years. I did trust that my story and training had an impact (as I had already been sharing it to paid groups who were reporting transformation). Still, I was also aware of the rapid growth of this industry and what I perceived to be an oversaturated world of coaches (trained and untrained) with cookie-cutter delivery of coaching programs and packages—mostly a mediocre vision of what I experienced as world-class transformation.

I was worried. How might I avoid getting lost in this sea of sameness? How might people view me as a real professional with the ability to help? How on earth would they believe such a powerful transformation is possible?

What I learned from my trainer (psychologist turned coach) was to stay in my own lane. Focus on the transformation I can help my most ideal clients with, and my business would grow. I retrain and upgrade regularly to keep my skills sharp. 

You see, when clients come to me with a problem, they are already open-minded and curious. They are tuning in to what it is I can do to solve their specific problem. Sally Coach down the street may be selling the same process, but she doesn’t possess the same story-connection or even necessarily touch the same problem I’m solving for clients. In fact, as I’ve moved past my fifth year in the industry, life/business coaches work in harmony together, often referring clients to one another—and we offer and deliver higher and double value to our client/audience base via collaboration. It is the only industry I see that actually works to lift each other’s progress. Most, in my view, involved in this industry walk our talk.

Konversai: What aspect of running your business would you delegate to someone else?

Amy: When it comes to coaching, I’m at a point now where I’ve begun delegating the mundane tasks of keeping the business moving forward. I now feel confident to hire virtual assistants as needed to do scheduled posts, edit content, post content, and upgrade my presence. As for speaking, I’ve just contracted with a professional who will work as an agent seeking out opportunities to present that match what I offer. She will save me tons of time and get me to the point of making phone calls that may actually lead somewhere! She will also help me coordinate and plan events that have been an extremely exhausting and stressful venture on my own. Since stress is my main topic, I know I need to take care to not burnout. My time can now be dedicated to my personal ‘genius’ as a coach/speaker and mastering skills vs. trying to be everything in the business.

Konversai: What are you most looking forward to as a GSB member?

Amy: I am looking forward to the people I will meet! I am looking forward to providing feedback the GSB organizers may ask for. I’m looking forward to sharing my experience with others.

Konversai: You wake up on the set of The Transformers, and all your electronics walked out. How are you going to spend your day?

Amy: If I were alone, a long walk through the woods or through a garden to exercise my body and revive my spirit, a book that inspires me and two cats on my lap to exercise emotion-connection, a pen and paper to write my thoughts and to stay connected to my inner self, a blank canvas and art supplies to draw and paint for creative fulfillment, an evening bubble bath with soft music or sounds of the ocean to heighten my senses and relax my body, and a hot cup of tea to allow me to slow down my mind before bed.

Konversai: It’s Freaky Friday! Trevor Noah, Donald Trump, Taylor Swift, Hussain Bolt, or Caitlyn Jenner? Pick one, and tell us what you’ll do.

Amy: I would take five people I know and put them in Donald Trump’s mind.

My objective is not to have them feel sorry for our president or to change their mind about him. I would want to offer a perspective that may work to influence these people to relieve themselves of their own self-professed daily frustration that comes from the disdain they say they have for him.

This is where I’ll guide them through my same journey—to partake in a common human story and journey through emotional pain he may have experienced throughout his childhood, his internal and present fears, ways in which he may feel with regard to his worthiness, and ways in which he learned to cope with pain. 

I would spend my last fifteen minutes taking them to the part of his brain that processes emotional pain to view any present blazing red color you might see on a brain scan that gives a true scientific representation of what he may be going through and what he may be wanting to protect. If what I do works to ignite empathy, these five people might feel relieved to shift their energy and attention to doing good work in their life vs. engaging in stressful complaining. To consider their own fears in relation to our president would be a plus!

Konversai: If you had the power to be invisible for an hour (and you get to choose the hour), where do you go, and what do you do? Use your time wisely – you only have an hour! 

Amy: I once thought I had the power to be invisible to someone close to me. If I could go back to one hour when I felt this way, I would tell myself the only real power I have is in the ability to stay visible to myself at all times. I’ve come to realize this is my only way to create real, lasting, and positive change.