Karin Holley is a leadership & mindset coach on a mission to help entrepreneurs and professionals navigate challenging transitions, elevate their life with confidence and joy, and be the best version of themselves. In this interview, Karin shares the benefits of Positive Intelligence and some helpful tips for aspiring coaches.
What defining moment inspired you to start your coaching career?
It was something I had been thinking about for a while. I loved my role in education, but I reached a point where I felt the need for personal growth and a new direction. After exploring options with a coach, I realized coaching was a natural progression from my work as a counsellor, allowing me to guide adults through their challenges.
As for the whole idea of running a business, that was completely out of my comfort zone. I didn’t know anything about business. I still feel like I don’t. In my heart and soul, I don’t think I’m a real entrepreneur. I’m a coach, and I want to coach people. But the whole business side of things has been incredibly challenging and rewarding, an exercise in really trying to break free from my own limiting beliefs about myself.
Success is about being happy and healthy and enjoying every day, right now.
What challenges did you face when setting up your practice and how did you overcome those challenges?
The Positive Intelligence course not only prepared me to teach it to clients but also transformed my own mindset, enabling me to navigate the uncertainties of starting a business. Except marketing or sales. I think marketing is still a bit of an enigma for me.
Are there any particular tips or strategies from the Positive Intelligence approach that you would like to share?
You can do a free online quiz to find out which saboteur is in charge of your negative self-talk. It was designed by a Stanford professor who did a lot of research on factor analysis. He narrowed down ten different negative voices that all of us, to some degree or other, have in our head.
One of my biggest challenges as an entrepreneur was overcoming the hyper-achiever mindset. Positive Intelligence helped me recognize this pattern and re-center myself through mindfulness practices, like taking a walk to reset and find perspective. I wasn’t doing that before, I excelled at my job and I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t like a daily moment-to-moment contentment and joy. That’s changed. That’s been the beauty of my journey, that I’ve been so much more present.
It’s so important for leaders and people in power, and particularly female entrepreneurs with brilliant ideas, to feel energized and experience joy. Because then, magic happens.
What role did networking and organizations like Female Ventures play in the success of your business and personal life?
I’ve really enjoyed Female Ventures. It’s a really wonderful, accepting, warm community where you can drop in and out, there are no strict expectations that you need to show up all the time. And it’s just incredibly supportive. People are friendly. I have found that to be very nice, to connect with other female entrepreneurs. Part of my mission as a mom and as a bit of a feminist is also to lift women up in any way that I can, whether it is a talk, a conversation, connecting, bonding, being. Communities like Female Ventures lift women up.
Communities like Female Ventures lift women up.
You help leaders unleash their potential and create positive change in their organizations and communities, including improving employee wellness, performance and relationships. Why is that important to you, and how does personal development and coaching help improve professional success?
It took me a while to figure out what my niche is and who I want to coach. Even though the majority of my clients are leaders, for me it’s about people who are highly ambitious for themselves, the high achievers. What I find is that high achievers, perfectionists, people who like to please and are in service to others tend to forget themselves. They really want to make an impact, but when they give so much of themselves, their impact decreases. The worst-case scenario is they burn out and then they’re out for six months or a year, sometimes longer. This has financial implications, career implications, it lowers their self-esteem. So, how can we find more balance, how can we make that positive impact in a way that is sustainable and joyful? Can we also be the parents we want to be and be the friends and the partners we want to be, and engage in the hobbies that we want to have? Can we have a more well-rounded life, not just consumed by work? Many leaders are consumed by work because they have big jobs and lots of responsibility.
How can we find more balance, how can we make that positive impact without burning ourselves out and do it in a way that is sustainable and joyful?
What advice would you give to coaches who are just starting out?
As a coach you need to walk the talk. I’ve known peer coaches who went through the Positive Intelligence program and liked it, but they didn’t use it themselves. And yet they wanted to coach others in it. It doesn’t work that way. You have to apply what you believe in and do it. I still use Positive Intelligence. It’s become more natural and ingrained and automatic. I sometimes go back to the app. I do some of the exercises. I still listen to some of the modules. Coaching needs to become part of your life. You have to embody it.
Have you observed any common themes or patterns in the challenges your clients face?
I coach leaders, high achievers, perfectionists, and often they don’t even realize they are. They have such high expectations of themselves and so they can never meet those expectations. They’re always disappointed in themselves. They’re highly critical. And that sucks the joy out of what they’re doing, even though they love their jobs. They might say: I don’t understand, I’m where I’ve always wanted to be, and yet I don’t feel joy. And it’s usually because they have a very strong inner judge. They have high stress, sometimes to the point of anxiety. They never have a moment for themselves. They feel overwhelmed by their calendars. They feel they have no control.
So it’s about flipping all of that, giving them a greater sense of control over their lives. Empowering them so they can say no, set boundaries, learn how to pause, go for a walk. Most importantly, learn to be in the present moment. When you’re in the present, you don’t worry about the past and you don’t worry about the future. You’re just here. That is it. That’s the key. That’s the secret to a joyful, balanced, confident life.
That’s the key: presence is the secret to a joyful, balanced, confident life.
Another pattern I’ve noticed is that many of these confident women leaders or entrepreneurs are working so hard to compensate for their insecurities. But they don’t identify that. They’re strong and powerful; in many situations they feel very confident. And yet there’s this niggling feeling inside that makes them seek approval from others. They second-guess themselves and their decisions. Another effect of really being in the moment is the ability to be more centred and grounded in yourself, in your body, and feel more confident in who you are.
In addition to the Positive Intelligence approach, I’m also a trained somatic coach. Good questions to ask are:
- How do I embody strength, confidence, being centred and grounded?
- How do I recognize the saboteurs in my body?
- How do I take on a new shape?
That’s all present-moment work, becoming more conscious of patterns and embodying something different.
How do you think technology has impacted the coaching profession?
We can do everything online. That’s been the gift of Covid. My clients are all over the world – Mauritius, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, the United States and quite a few European countries. That is wonderful. I like coaching face-to-face too. I have some clients here in the Hague. I like that energy, that’s why I like networking in person as well, to be with people. But I feel, for the most part, you can still get so much powerful coaching done online. And I think the fact that people can get coached in their home, in a safe space, without having to rush out of the door, I think that takes away quite a bit of the stress.
How has the coaching industry evolved in recent years, and how do you see the future of coaching?
Of course I have to talk about AI. For example, the cool thing about Zoom is the AI summary feature. It’s really good and very useful. I think most coaches who coach online will start using it, if they haven’t already. With permission from the client of course.
I would hope that person-to-person coaching is here to stay. I think ultimately, people don’t want to talk to machines all day. I’m not worried about the coaching profession disappearing. I just think people will offer different kinds of coaching, some will use technology and others will favour an approach with no technology whatsoever.
Is there any resources that you would like to share with our community, or anything that inspires you?
I’m biased, I suppose, but I love my two coaching frameworks, and these are my sources of inspiration: Somatic Coaching and Positive Intelligence. I would recommend other coaches to go and look at those two.
I’ve just started a podcast called Authentic Pathways, interviewing leaders, entrepreneurs and professionals that have inspiring missions, are trying to have a positive impact, and live fulfilled lives. My first episode is with Mary Lyn Campbell, a well known leader in education, now turned social entrepreneur. She shares lots of generic lessons about becoming the director of your own destiny and love-based leadership. If you’d like to join next episodes, you can sign up here or catch previous episodes on YouTube or Spotify.
I’ll be facilitating a Buzz Business Networking Online event about your Money Mindset for entrepreneurs on February 11th 2025 at 11:00 AM CET. It would be great to see you there! Sign-ups available here.
Female Ventures also inspires me. The people who volunteer, spending their time doing this, giving so much. The Delft/The Hague team and female mentors are so sweet. They’re always reaching out. Jay Vedala [Community Manager FV Delft/The Hague, ed.] is just such a wonderful golden nugget of a person. She inspires me!
Thank you, Karin, for sharing your inspirational insights with us!
Stay in touch with Karin:
Connect with Karin on LinkedIn or through her website.
Listen to the Authentic Pathways Podcast on Spotify or watch it on YouTube.