Day in the Life of Cate Baio

[Day in the Life of a Coach]Interview with ICA Coach, Cate Baio
(Transformational Coach, CANADA)

ICA graduate Cate Baio always knew her career would involve empowering others. She started working in the fitness industry, but soon found she wanted to support others in creating deeper change in their lives.

With courage and faith as her guides, she left her job and followed her heart. Today, she is helping others to do the same – to listen to their inner voice and allow it to guide them toward their true path. Cate who lives in British Columbia now focuses on wellness coaching and transformational coaching. And she does this as a mother of three,  which gives her the flexibility and work-life integration she craves.

Cate says there is no typical day in her life as a coach except for one thing – the joy of being a part of the profound changes coaching offers others.

In this interview, she talks with Merci on how she discovered coaching and how she has been grateful every day since.

 

Interview with Merci Miglino

Merci: Welcome to another day in the life of a coach. This is Merci Miglino. Today I’m with Cate Baio and she’s in British Columbia and I’m in New York. Good Morning Cate!

Cate: Good Morning Merci!

Merci: Cate got up really early for this because she is a mom with three kids and finding time is pretty much a Herculean event in her house so it’s so good she could join me. Cate is a recent graduate of ICA. She graduated in July 2015 and is a transformational coach. There’s a lot of ways to go with transformational coaching Cate. How do you describe it to folks?

Cate: Great question! I describe transformational coaching as a level of coaching that goes a little bit deeper and really taps into the self and the heart and uses that as a tool to guide us in our path, whatever that may be.

Merci: So it’s sort of like, some people call it situational coaching or transactional coaching. “What you’re going to do by when?”, which is definitely one aspect of coaching. But what I’m understanding from you and from others who are transformational coaches is that we go beyond that to creating a sustainable shift in the way people see the world or themselves. 

Cate: Yeah, I do find it very powerful.

Merci: So how did you come to choose transformational coaching?

Cate: Transformational coaching, I discovered through my education in ICA. And when I entered into my program, I understood coaching more on the transactional level. So the further I dug into it, and was coached myself, and I was learning more about coaching, and how to facilitate coaching and came across to the transformational level of coaching. And it deeply resonated with me and it’s definitely a tool that I use throughout my coaching now.

Merci: So you started out in the fitness industry?

Cate: That’s correct. Yes.

Merci: So from fitness to coaching, tell us how you got there.

Cate: Sure! So as you said, I’ve got three children, and I was on maternity leave with my third child, who is now four. And at that time I felt like I needed to know more, learn more, and have some more letters behind my name, just to have an edge when I went back to work. So I started figuring out what I wanted to do and started exploring and taking up nutritional course, and getting certified and being able to council on nutrition. I have a relative who is a life coach and we were having this conversation and I was just about to enroll in a program when she said, “Have you heard about coaching?”. At that time, believe it or not, I hadn’t heard much about coaching. And she explained to me what she does and what it was. She had me at the idea that you’re not giving advice. And coming from the fitness industry, that is what we do, but also recognizing that we’re helping people create change. I’ll just give you an example. I mostly teach fitness classes. And I manage fitness instructions and I teach fitness instructors but the main thing I do is teach classes and so I really love that part of empowering people and just being with them in this learning, fun, educational fitness experience. But at the same time, you’d have people coming for years and years and maybe they wanted muscle gain or weight loss or whatever it is and you don’t necessarily see any change. So I saw first hand that there’s something deeper that needs to happen for some people in order to create change in their life.  And so I was really intrigued by the idea that you don’t give advice as a coach, necessarily, depending on what coach you are. If you’re a coach mentor, that might be a little different. So that deeply resonated with me and I decided to look into it. The other piece of advice she gave me was you “probably know everything that you need to know” and that aspect of learning to ask powerful questions and active listening and all these beautiful things that we do. I was hooked.

Merci: Yeah

Cate: And so I felt that I would go into wellness coaching but along that journey as I have already said, learning about transformational coaching, my path has changed its own course on its own and it’s been kind of neat.

Merci: I think many coaches that I have spoken to start somewhere or have a concept of who they want to coach and then find something else that resonates. We’re always blending our skill set. Coming from the fitness industry, you know a lot about people’s behaviour from the training that you took yourself. And I love the idea that we don’t have to start over when we’re coaching. And you don’t have to be looking for the next degree or the next credential. The masterful coach really understands, “It’s not about me”. It’s about the process. I have a mentor-coach that often says, “You’re working too hard at this Merci” and that has been a profound shift for me to just say, “You know what, my job is not to get this person to their goal, my job is to listen, to ask questions, to be curious, and release judgement, and all those beautiful skills that coaches have”. It’s just a total paradigm shift for me after years of making this happen. So I totally relate to what you’re saying. It’s beautiful.

So tell me a little bit about some of the work you did at ICA. I know we do different things like a research paper, or a power tool, which is a way of looking at perspectives. What stands out in your mind as a key take away from your training?

Cate: Well there’s so many things. Maybe I’ll share my power tool.

Merci: Ok.

Cate: My power tool is process vs. event. And what I mean by that is the idea that we can often get caught up in the end point and the event. I used the reference to a woman getting married. And in my analogy, she knows that she wanted to lose weight for her wedding day and that focus on the events and the end point, we can get lost on the journey and not acknowledge and be aware of the shifts and the changing that are happening during and so sometimes, the end point looks a little bit different than what we originally anticipated. And if we’re not mindful of that journey and that process, there can be some, less than positive feelings around that end point. so to speak. So really, it is about embracing the journey, it is about the process, taking those steps and being aware, see what changes are along the way and allowing that to unfold with grace and acceptance. When you’re open and aware during that process, things can really shift and mold and there’s an easefulness about it. We can be, to borrow your term, we can be less hard on ourselves. And we’re not working so hard on something when it is about the process.

Merci: Right. That falls into what we were talking about. I think of the metaphor of getting on a train. I want to go somewhere, I get on a train, and I don’t pay attention to anything because all I want to do is to get there. But attending to what is going on in the train, outside the train, that’s often where the richness of life is. So I like your analogy of a woman getting married. I think everyone of us who has been around or has been knows exactly what you are talking about. I love it. I really enjoy that aspect of coaching.

So Cate if you could tell the world just one thing about coaching, what will it be?

Cate: What I would say is, coaching is a profound experience that’s not to be underestimated. I believe that it can really facilitate change and expedite your dreams. But moreover, with coaching you can bring more awareness and mindfulness into your life. I found both as a client being coached, and seeing with  my own clients that coaching is just a wonderful form to really explore and express your true self. It’s a really powerful experience and don’t underestimate it.

Merci: Yeah, exactly. Don’t underestimate it. Well, thanks again for joining me. Let’s see. I have one more question for you Cate.

Cate: Sure.

Merci: For all the people out there who say to themselves, “What the heck does a coach do all day?” So tell me how a typical day in the life of Cate Baio, mother, coach, wife is. What would that look like?

Cate: A typical day involves me rounding up my little kiddies, and getting them ready for school. I’m blessed to be able to get them to school and be the contact person all morning and get them ready for their day. And then I usually head home and sometimes I would meet with a client right away when I get home. Or I schedule a little bit of time for exercise or for some relationship building and friendship is very important to me so I have a weekly standing coffee date with a good friend. So there’s a little bit of time for that in my day and I’ll usually have one client, or two during the day. And I’m also blessed to be able to pick up my children and get them to the places that they need to be and as much as we possibly can, we enjoy our family meal together, and I have one evening client and one weekend client. So I’ve been really able to create a schedule that feels balanced. It gives me room to work on my business and dream build, design, envision, decide where I want to go as a professional. And I really savor that time for creativity. There’s also time for me there to be coached. Which I feel is really important and it’s been profound for me so that’s really a special time that I get to carve out.

Merci: Yep, we talked about in the beginning about flexibility as one of the advantages of coaching for sure.

Cate: Yeah.

Merci: So I’ll let you return to your busy life Cate. Thanks for spending the morning with us. And have a great day.

Cate: Thank you Merci!

Website: www.CateBaio.com

Portfolio: www.ICACoach/Coach/Cate-Baio