Explore Marie-Elizabeth Mali's journey in the Coaching Industry

I grew up in New York between three different cultures. My father’s side of the family was Venezuelan with some roots in France as well. My mother was Swedish. My father met her in Sweden and brought her back to New York. Before I was a year old, I left the country two, maybe three times to see my family in all these places. So, I grew up in this kind of rootless way, with multiple senses of connection and home in multiple cultures. Now I can look at that and think of myself as fortunate, it has made me a more flexible person, I can connect with people from different cultures more readily than someone who grew up steadily in one place. However, as a child the rootlessness expressed itself as insecurity and a need to fit in. I would try to mold myself, chameleon to whatever room I was in to fit in, be appropriate, do things right. I had to do a lot of unlearning of all those behaviors so I could find my own sense of self that I could bring with me everywhere. I had to learn how to use rootlessness positively as a way to connect but not fall into the pitfall which is about not having a secure sense of self. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

As I was growing up, I really just tried to do things right. I was a perfectionist, and drove myself hard. I’m still undoing that tendency to drive myself too hard. The benefit of having a more fluid sense of self is that it makes you more able to connect with people. It had me develop more empathy, sensitivity and nuance to a conversation, more ability to read people. All of that has been very useful to me in my work. As a coach I need to be feeling and sensing and reading my clients. I need to ask the right questions to guide them to that deeper realization they need to make to get free in whatever sport they are tight. It has served me beautifully to become the coach, healer and teacher I’ve become. I’ve had to work with that. At first, I experienced it as more of a dislocation. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Thinking back, after I got my massage license, I worked at a massage facility. They got all the clients and did the advertising. After a couple of years of that, I ended up getting hired as the lead massage therapist at this new super hip health club that was opening. I was in the position of hiring massage therapists for this club. As I began to build my own reputation and clientele, at some point I realized I would rather just work for myself and have more control over who I serve. I had enough dedicated people to be able to transition. I rented an office from an acupuncturist. So, we shared the space, my costs weren’t super high because I worked certain days a week and shared the expenses with her. I build up my practice in this other context working for other people. So, I had the reputation, the baseline to then be able to go out on my own and build my practice pretty much on referral. There was no online marketing in 1992 Basically, I got every client through word of mouth, had really happy customers. When you’re starting out, that’s the best way to do it. Don’t overload yourself with costs up front. Make sure your product is viable, that people actually want to buy what you’re selling and build it through word of mouth. Once you have enough and are ready to expand, that’s when you go into the bigger marketing tactics and strategies. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

So, while I already had a healthcare background, I already knew I was driven by helping people. I had over 25 years of personal self-development work and spiritual practice. I had a lot of groundwork to support this new direction. I had been a coach before, and knew I was a good one. Even though stepping into the relationship space was a new direction I already had over 13 to 14 years of patient care under my belt. First of all, make sure you’re good at what you do, that’s the baseline. Everybody wants to coach in relationships but I always ask how deeply have you worked on your own stuff. When I used to teach at acupuncture school, I always said that you can’t take a client or patient where you haven’t gone. If you want to serve people deeply, you have to do your own work deeply. Whatever it is that’s coming up in you to be seen is definitely going to come up in them. You don’t have to be perfected by any means; you just have to be one step ahead of your clients. In this way, if you’re doing your own work, you won’t get broadsided by something they bring up. You won’t get shocked in a session by them bringing up something you don’t know how to deal with because you haven’t taken a look at yourself. Number one, do your own work. Number two, I am a fan of research, training, reading, listening to podcasts, following other people in the relationship space, seeing what they do that resonates with you and what doesn’t. That helps you understand what makes you different. That’s the second key piece. What’s important to building a business and finding your niche is finding out what makes you unique. That is a selling point. Why should your ideal client choose you over 5,000 people doing the same as you? – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I see us as being in relationship with everything in life, all the time. The thing that brings them in the door might be a problem they’re having with their partner or lack of confidence they’re having with themselves and it all ends up affecting everything. When you start relating to yourself with more compassion and permission to be yourself, to hear what you’re thinking, to change your automatic reactions and make new choices yourself, it all changes. When you start doing that work with yourself, your relationship improvers, your business improvers, your relationship with your family too. I’ve a client in particular wanting to manifest her soulmate and her relationship with her daughter transformed because she started setting healthy boundaries with her daughter when she would babysit her grandkids. She came in thinking to transform one thing, changed the relationship with her daughter and still manifested her soulmate. I think that happened because she worked her boundary and her communication issues with the relationship most present at her life at the moment. So, when someone came along that was a good match, she had all those skills in place and could make the relationship work. She also got a promotion at work, and was chosen as the employee of the month. That’s because she started showing up differently in her relationships with her coworkers too. It’s all key. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I firmly believe we teach what we most need to learn. So, I had done all these healing work, this personal development but hadn’t really cracked the code on what made a relationship work. It was my divorce in 2012 that was the catalyst that made me want to figure this out. I went deep into two years of study, coaching, receiving coaching, learning how to coach on relationships. As I came through that, it really dawned on me that relationships are so core to our health. Here I am, a lifelong healer and one of the things that makes or breaks our health if the state of our relationships. So, I really turned to that as both my own interest and as I got into a relationship in 2015 that is the best I’ve ever been in. We support each other’s individual growth, connect with each other beautifully. I’m with the love of my life because I’ve worked to get here. I want more people to get this experience, to know what it’s like to be loved for who you are and show up transparently, real, authentically in your relationships and be met there. So many of us don’t ever get to experience that, it’s just not the norm. I’ve developed this passion for helping people show up in relationships in such a way so they can have the love they want. A great relationship starts with you and that’s what I help people have. You need to ask: How do I show up in such a way that I’m open, receptive, give and receive love, navigate conflict skillfully, ask for what I want? These are the things that are key in relationships and every area in life as well. That’s the other piece I saw, when you’re turned up and better in your relationships, you do better in business, it’s not separate. I want people to be lit up, turned up, happy so they can go and do what they want with their lives. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

When you’re first starting out, first of all, you need to post consistently. Specially on Instagram, it has to be pretty, make interesting looking posts. Get professional photos taken, balance them with the spontaneous life pictures. Do a balance, don’t sell all the time. Especially for Instagram, you want to do at least five to ten interesting posts before you sell. People don’t want to be sold on Instagram. They want to be delighted, see your life, get to know you. Another way to be creative is by collaborating. Go live with other people whose audience complements yours. Pick a time and go live together, have a conversation, repurpose that into your IGTV. In this way you can start building cross alliances with their folks that can become referral or affiliate partners. In this way you can also leverage other people’s audiences that may be bigger. You may partner with someone with a smaller audience because these people have a dedicated fanbase and may have more engagement compared to people with bigger audiences. So, show up, talk, be unfiltered. It’s good to have a balance of that with specific, maybe a series of videos you make for IGTV on a topic. One relationship coach I know has been doing reels, “30 days of self-love”. Reels get a lot more of visibility. She’s been doing a reel everyday just saying something she’s doing that day for self-love and self-care. That has exploded her visibility. I’m about to post a video almost every day and go through the letters of the alphabet and post on something related to relationships for each letter. For example: A for alignment, B for boundaries, C for communication, etc. So, there will be a series of videos out there for people who’ll want to know more about how I work. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I mostly work with women. I also work a lot with queer women, I have non binary clients as well. I mostly work with folks who inhabit the more feminine side of the relationship. I work with high achievers, type A folks who are extremely reliant on their drive, effort, their power to get things done and find it more difficult to relax, receive and inhabit the more invisible witchy feminine side of life. I tend to help people who have achieved a lot, who are perfectionists, driven and need support to soften more into their beingness. A “doing” person needs to have more beingness available. In this way, by balancing the “doing” and being better, trusting you being more, relationships get better, business, life, everything gets better when you develop this kind of relationship, that’s the core. I tend to work with people to bridge that gap they often feel. They worry why doing and saying the right things isn’t working. I ask them where they are from, let’s open that up. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I’ve been online for six years. I was online way before Covid-19 hit. I can feel people through Zoom, I don’t need to be in a person’s space to feel them. Consciousness is non-local. The thing is, we get stuck on this body being encased by this skin. However, so many studies have shown that consciousness and our minds are connected , we can feel each other across vast spaces. You think of somebody and they text you randomly. For example, the other day my partner was meditating and I left the room. I texted him that I wanted to go to Bluestone Lane to have breakfast. On the way to the elevator, he casually said he had thought of going to Bluestone Lane and wanted us to get there. He received my text before he even looked at his phones, that’s how powerful we are. I think Zoom is fantastic, I am able to connect with clients all over the place, work with so many more people I wouldn’t get to work with if I was stuck. As an introvert, I love Zoom because I don’t enjoy having too many people in my space. So, I’m a big fan of Zoom, I have no problem feeling people through it. It’s almost more intimate in a way. The client is coming into my home. If I was seeing my client in person, they would not get to see my home. If we were working together, I would have an office, it would be more professional. By using Zoom, we see each other in our personal spaces. I love that. If someone has that fear, I understand it. It’s because someone has done it another way before, you’ve got to shift and trust that you can feel. Most people I’ve talked to that have had to pivot, are so shocked to find out it works online. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Mine has definitely evolved and adapted. I think you have to start with something and test it, see if it connects. Reach out to people you feel would be your ideal clients and do market research basically. Throw ideas by them, find out what is attractive to clients, what is interesting to them. Ask questions of your friends, colleagues, people who you feel would get your niche whichever your niche is. You have to start just putting stuff out there. Through what comes back to you, you’ll discover what’s most resonant. I’ve had an evolution over the past couple of years. About a year and a half ago I branded as a ‘relationship artist’ because it brought together my creative and relationship side. I tend to work with writers, graphic designers, artsy people in addition to entrepreneurs. I attract those types of people and thought ‘relationship artist’ would be a thing. A year and a half, I realist ‘artist’ as a word carry this idea of solitary, torture and it doesn’t go with relationships all that well. It was a client who in her testimonial said that working with me was like some advanced alchemy and my whole body sobbed. I knew that was it, it was alchemy. I’m not just doing artistry up here in this beautiful elevated way. I’m down there in the mud, alchemizing the barriers, blocks, challenges, difficulties, trauma to then create what I call relationship gold. That is the ability to show up and work with whatever is coming up within you and between you and another human being or between you and life in a present skillful and resourceful way. That’s alchemy. It was someone that reflected back to me what I’m actually doing. That happens for us as we go along. A client will say something, a Facebook post we make may have a lot more engagement. You have to see it as a thread, go further down and investigate. I really believe in allowing the market place to teach you more about who you are but you have to put things out first. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I’ve definitely been in that position. You just have to suck it up and try. I mean, I have put out things I was afraid people would slam me for and that didn’t happen. I’ve put out things I thought were safe and not offensive and it doesn’t go anywhere because there is no punch behind it to actually have an impact. You have to be able to polarize people to magnetize the right people. This is one of the things I learned from one of my mentors: “To magnetize people you have to be willing to repel the wrong people”. Anything in between is just not going to get noticed at all. You’re setting boundaries for yourself and by being true to who you are, you’ll attract people you want to work with, you’ll like each other. If you’re putting up a fake façade to succeed, you’re never going to attract the right person. There’s going to be more turnovers in your clientele, problems, people wanting refunds. I’ve never had that happened because I’ve been authentic. I used to have this idea that I had to show up in a put together, professional way that wasn’t true to me. I’m professional but I’m not buttoned up and corporate and I have never been. That’s a language I don’t even know. Me trying to show up and try to fit myself in that box had nobody be interested and attracted to me because you can feel that someone’s not in their zone. Once I started to let loose and be myself, really be comfortable with who I am, what I have to say, people can take it or leave it, it all got better. There are many ways to slice the pie. If my way of slicing is what you want, come and join me because I’ll do awesome work. If I’m not your person, that’s ok. Once I started to feel like that, people became more interested. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I think it depends on your client base. The first thing to ask is: “Where are my ideal clients hanging out?” If you have a more corporate audience, LinkedIn is the place for you to focus. If you have an older audience like I do, have clients over 30, Facebook is the place to go. If your brand is catchy visually, you work with millennials or younger generations, maybe Instagram is the best for you. If you’re in the political space, go on Twitter. I’m really enjoying Clubhouse as a way to have conversations and connect. However, I focus mostly on Facebook and Instagram because that’s where most of my clients come from. I post on LinkedIn but don’t put a lot of attention there. I recommend starting with one platform first, get really good at it, target specifically to that. You have to post differently in each one because they resonate differently. Question two it: “Can you learn everything you need on how to best post on that platform where your ideal clients are hanging out?” Suggestions number three would be to get good at video. Today I think people are responding a lot to video. That would be the second thing I would say. Whichever platforms you choose as primary and possible secondary when you’re ready, get good at video and go live because people want to see and feel you. I think we don’t trust the power of our presence enough to carry us and look for all these strategies. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Start simply first. Let’s talk about startup costs. I’ve made a few mistakes early on by buying software, programs that were not right for my stage of business. Even Facebook ads weren’t right for me. They didn’t really work and I lost a lot of money on that. What I would suggest to someone who’s starting out is to get rock solid on their message. Test the heck out of it by posting on Facebook, writing articles, talking to people, try out different messages, see what lands. Once your message is clear, start seeing how you could get on other people’s podcasts. The thing that really began to turn my credibility around and opened an audience to me was just that. Seeing the questions that they asked me, my answers, what landed and what didn’t, allowed me to keep refining. By the time the opportunity came along to write an article for Forbes, I wrote it and it was accepted within a week. That happened because I knew how to target their audience, what I wanted to say and how to say it. However, that takes a while to understand. So, in the beginning, clarify your message, try it out, go live on social media, see what kind of engagement you get, begin building partnerships and friendships with people who are in adjacent spaces that are supportive, not direct competition. I have relationships with other entrepreneurs, they don’t necessarily work in my field but like that I do. Don’t buy too much software too fast. You’ll build your business by reaching out to people directly, talking to them and asking whether they’re interested in working with you. That’s how you start and that’s all free. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

That is a heartbreaking question. First of all, I don’t think you need to give up. It doesn’t mean you want to do it, it just means there is a little learning you still have to get. Use that. In what way could you not help them? Where was the breakdown? What did they need that you didn’t provide? Work to figure out what the issue was, what got in the way of actually helping them. If they want a refund, you refund, minus coaching time. I don’t believe in not paying yourself for the time you’ve spent already. I would do a self-inquiry and use it as an opportunity to improve and not as a way to punish yourself and feel not good enough. I don’t think we can help every single person. I haven’t had a lot of people who weren’t helped. I remember there was one client early on who I signed up for a very short time. There was a moment I said something on our call that was triggering to her. I went for the thing more directly than she was ready to hear. She disconnected at that moment and there was another month left in our time together and I didn’t understand what was happening. She didn’t tell me until we were just about to complete that this thing had bothered her a month before. I didn’t know, I was just wondering why the program wasn’t working. What I’ve learned from that experience is that I check in often. If I feel someone disconnecting, I name it and ask what’s happening, I work it through in connection with them because I am there to serve their results. If something I have said or done has caused disconnection, I want to repair that. Doesn’t mean that I’m bad at what I do, it just means I’m a person. If the person doesn’t bring it to you, you have no way of knowing that. I try to set up a relationship with my clients so they feel comfortable enough telling me if something didn’t feel good or is moving too fast. I invite my clients to be open with me so we can pace together better. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

Credibility is a tricky one. I stumbled and struggled with it a lot in the beginning. Everybody asks about awards you’ve won, magazines you’ve been in and for a long time, I didn’t have any of those assets. What I had was 25 years, now 30 years of practice under my belt, two master degrees and lots of years of working with people. For me, I answer that my credibility comes through time and the work I’ve done. Now, I’m starting to have external markers like Forbes, Thrive Global, etc. but until you start to have those assets, your life experience is enough. I’m a fan of getting training. I don’t believe you have to get certified as a coach. I was first trained as a life coach in 2003 and have chosen not to pursue certification. I can’t speak to that. Some people get certified and that feels good. You may feel the need to have that. In my opinion Your life experience makes you certified. I have a clinical counselling background. Some training and learning how to hold people well is necessary. If you don’t know how to listen carefully, old space, ask good questions, you need to get that training, However your life experience qualifies you to be there for someone with what they’re struggling with and what they need to open up more into especially if you’ve been doing your own work along the way. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

There are two tracks you can go. One track is to write a book early and use the book like a calling card. Instead of giving someone your business card, you give them your book. When you are invited to speak somewhere, you offer your book. It works for people who choose that track. That never resonated with me. I have a background; have a poetry book and an anthology I co-edited that were published by a press. Personally, I don’t want to put out a book until I have a bigger audience. The track I’m choosing is to build my authority first and then put out a book. Marie Forleo has been in business forever and she just wrote her book and it was a massive best seller. That’s because she built her audience first. I know other people who put the book out first and use the book to build the audience. it all depends on what fits your personality better because both ways work. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

I work on an ongoing basis. So much of my work is allowing everything to exist, not suppressing the parts of us that are inconvenient, that we wish weren’t there, that we’re ashamed of. When I notice myself going into a shame spiral or feeling like a failure, I pause and tend to myself. I write in the journal about it, I ask for my own inner guidance for what I’m struggling with. I believe in being in a relationship with it. I don’t think the kind of toxic positivity of saying everything’s fine works long-term. I’ve found out that what works well is being what is and adjusting. If it’s a day that I’m down, that’s not a day that I’ll post a major video because I know that energy is going to be off. I’m very respectful of my inner space. I meditate, alternate between different practices that move energy, move my mind. Lately, I’ve been into Joe Dispenza meditation and am really working to place myself in the field, it’s a possibility, noticing where my more contracted self wants to grip and get small. I’m constantly on my own edge in that way. I try to keep a regular routine, sleep enough, eat cleanly. I don’t always succeed because I can get very rigid. I was very rigid in my 20s about my meditation practice because I was afraid of the chaos I have inside of me. I loosened it a bit so I can actually get comfortable with how chaotic my insides are. Now, I respect the chaos, honor it and do what I can to be clear and potent when I need to be. I give myself permission to be down, chaotic, not in a great state when I need that space to rest. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

This has been a big area of struggle for me. I have a tendency to overwork. What I’ve seen is that the business that gets built from that space of overwork ends up not feeling very good. It ends up owning you instead of you owning it. This comes back to the ‘doing’ and the ‘being’. We overdo when we don’t trust being. So, you can build your business while also taking time for yourself, while also prioritizing your own pleasure and not just the pleasure of doing a great job. I’m talking about the pleasure that comes from eating a good meal, from getting a massage. When you prioritize feeling good in your beingness, your business is going to grow more sustainably and enjoyably. I constantly see people grinding themselves on the ground to build the business. They end up hating the business and close it down, have to stop or back off because they build this thing out of their drive. That doesn’t end up feeling good. Even if you don’t have a lot of time in the day because you have a kid or family you’re dealing with, you can still take 10 or even 15 minutes for yourself. Make sure that you feel good because everything you do from a place of feeling good is going to be more powerful and take less effort than everything you do from the grind. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali

The work is to stay focused on who you’re meant to be, who you want to be, how you want to show up. Simultaneously, do the work to tend to the parts of you that are hurting from that earlier experience. If there’s trauma involved, did you work to get it out of your system? Whether that’s some kind of shaking practice, therapy, body work, any of the things that help get trauma out, it’s going to also help you show up more powerfully. That’s number one advice. It’s also an active turning of the mind away from what your limited experience growing up taught you to believe about yourself. You have to be turning your mind away from that, practicing every day, tuning in to who you actually are, who you want to be, making that person you want to be so real in your awareness that it gets louder than the sound of the past. In that way, you’ll develop the power to be that person and stay in that new space more and more. The limitations of the past will start to get quieter. They’ll still pop up but they won’t bother you anymore. They don’t drive your life. The one that drives your life is you knowing that you can belong anywhere if you belong to yourself first. That’s job one. If you can learn to relate to your fears more as protective impulses, that also gives you a little more freedom to make a new choice. – Marie-Elizabeth Mali