Today we’d like to introduce you to Elizabeth Barbour.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Elizabeth. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
It’s funny that people call me “Coach E” because I don’t have an athletic bone in my body. But that’s the direction I was guided two decades ago – professional coaching, that is. I had been working in higher education administration for almost a decade (university admissions and residence life) and I was in a failing marriage and struggling with chronic health issues. I knew it was time for a change. I attended a day-long career workshop taught by a career coach and by the end of that week, I had hired her to be my coach. The next week, I enrolled in Coach U to begin my training program and within a month, I had my first paying coaching client! The rest is history. That was back in 2000 and when you told people you were a coach, they asked you what sport you played! Professional coaching was a budding profession at the time but I knew it was my destiny and it would – and I could – make a big impact on the world. Twenty years later, I’m grateful I made the leap and never looked back!
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
Entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart! I always advise my clients to create a transition plan from a stable job to owning their own business – mostly because I didn’t have one! I went through an unexpected divorce from my high school sweetheart less than a year after beginning my coaching practice. I left my full-time job, we sold our house and I relocated from Philadelphia to Asheville, North Carolina where I only had one friend. I decided to give it a year and see if I could make a real business out of my coaching side gig. At the end of the year, I could still pay my rent and they hadn’t repossessed my car so I figured I was going to make it.
My biggest struggle (after the obvious early years of business building where I hustled hard!) was when I became a mom at age 41. I was happily remarried and had been in business for 11 years at that point and didn’t know how to scale back and slow down. But I remember my coach at the time asking me “What kind of a mother do you want to be?” and I knew what I needed to do. I stopped working 40 hours/week and went down to 10-15 hours/week with the help of naptime (a work-from-home-mother’s saving grace!) and occasional babysitters. Then as my daughter grew older, I gradually increased my hours as she started pre-school and eventually elementary school. I’ll never regret choosing to scale back my business to spend more time with her. Now, she thinks it’s cool that mom is “famous” (in her eyes) and she loves looking at my website or watching videos of me speaking. I’m very networked in my community so she’s always impressed when we go places and people know who I am.
What should we know about your business? What do you do best? What sets you apart from the competition?
As a life and business coach, I help entrepreneurial and professional women grow their businesses and find work/life balance–and sanity–in the chaos of daily living. It’s not unusual for clients to cry in their first sessions with me because they are just so relieved to find support.
As a shamanic practitioner, I help clients get unstuck by utilizing the power of shamanic journey work to access messages and information from the spiritual realm, which is sometimes referred to as non-ordinary reality, to help my clients cut through the muck and gain clarity fast.
One client calls me a “spiritual party planner” and I love that! I’m passionate about helping my clients to design meaningful rituals and celebrations when big transitions are afoot like birth and death, weddings and divorces, moves and more.
When teaching and speaking, I’m multi-passionate. I’m equally comfortable facilitating a team-building session in a corporate environment, inspiring a room full of entrepreneurs to become authentic networkers, preaching the value of self-care to a room full of overworked realtors or leading an intimate women’s retreat through a fire ceremony ritual to release their stress and to reclaim their balance.
I see what’s possible for my clients when they can’t see it for themselves. I see their strengths, beauty, gifts and talents… and I help them step more fully into the truest version of themselves.
It would be great to hear about any apps, books, podcasts or other resources that you’ve used and would recommend to others.
My favorite self-care books are Wayne Muller’s Sabbath: Finding Rest, Renewal and Delight in our busy lives, Don Miguel Ruiz’s The Four Agreements and Brene Brown’s Gifts of Imperfection.
My favorite business books for entrepreneurs are Jim Horan’s One Page Business Plan, Jan Brogniez’s Attracting Perfect Customers and Michael Gerber’s The E-Myth Revisited.
My favorite spiritual authors (too many to name books) are Elizabeth Gilbert, Wayne Dyer, Louise Hay, Caroline Myss, Tosha Silver, Lissa Rankin, Sandra Ingerman and Sarah Seidelmann.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.elizabethbarbour.com
- Phone: 281-778-7298
- Email: elizabeth@elizabethbarbour.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/elizabthbarbour
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/elizabethbarbour
- Twitter: www.twitter.com/elizabthbarbour
- Other: www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethbarbour
Image Credit:
Kelley Sweet Photography
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