We were lucky to catch up with Jenn Espinosa-Goswami recently and have shared our conversation below.
Jenn, so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
As I tell my coaching clients, confidence is not a mindset. You can’t think your way into confidence. Confidence is a set of actions that strengthen you overall. Confidence is a muscle.
What happens when you stop strengthening your muscle? It gets weaker and prone to injury.
You may not be confident in every area of your life (I certainly am not), and never underestimate the ability to borrow confidence from yourself. For example, I am confident when it comes to speaking, and not confident with certain networking situations. However, if I know that I will be speaking at a networking meeting (even for a few minutes), I can lean on that confidence for the rest of the meeting.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
As a public speaking coach, I help small businesses leverage the power of public speaking in order to sign more clients, sell more books, and get paid as experts. Back in my corporate days in Toastmasters, I delivered a short 5 minute speech that had multiple audience members determined to change their lifestyle. If 5 minutes could change someone else’s life, what could a 30 or 60 minute speech do?
The first time I spoke was in 5th grade, when I recited Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address to my entire elementary school over the PA. As a morbidly obese kid, I never would have had the confidence to stand up in front of the school. I had made it a habit to hide in plain sight. To do otherwise brought unwelcome attention and bullying to myself. Maybe that’s why I still enjoy being a podcast guest- there’s a freedom to speaking your mind without being watched.
Coaching came later for me- after several years of sharing how I lost 100 pounds entirely without support, my audience members were hungry to take the next step with me. That is how I started coaching- and I coached folks on a 4 step process to embracing a healthy lifestyle.
In August 2020, I joined the Holistic Coach Training Institute to become an ICF-certified coach. The health coaching industry either veers in favor of medical trainees, or folks who promote products or proprietary protocols. I yearned for a more agnostic coaching model, so I could help more clients. The ICF is the only internationally recognized coaching program, and follows specific ethics and standards. I became an Associate Certified Coach in 2023 with over 150 hours of coaching specifically around public speaking.
I believe my coaching clients are innately powerful and can tap into the right solutions for them with the right guidance. Coaching is client-led and my role is to facilitate a transformation through direct communication, asking powerful questions and creating a safe and support environment. As a speaker, I want to see more women in leadership sharing their message on stages, especially women of color.
Clients work with me one to one in 4 or 8 month containers, where I help them create clarity, consistency, and confidence on creating and delivering a signature speech as well as marketing and booking their own paid speaking engagements. You will see coaches offering help on story-selling and presentation coaching or coaches who help you find and book high ticket speaking, Within one year of working with me, you will have everything you need to launch yourself as a well-paid expert speaker, no matter what stage you dream of standing on.
My newest offer is Sold Out Speaker coaching, which is a 4 month coaching program to sign more clients into your coaching offers from the stage. Speaking is more than just a single opportunity- it is an invitation to change your pre-clients’ lives until they have mastered the concept you are sharing. How you invite them to take the next step matters, and this program addresses how to do it well and in a way that excites and inspires your audience.
For those who want to learn the basics of booking your speaking engagements without paying thousands for a speaker agent, you can join a quarterly masterclass via Eventbrite. I teach you to fish, so you have the skills to feed yourself.
Speaking can be scary, but so is business. My speaking engagements kept my business alive during the pandemic, when many speakers found countless events being canceled. I believe in my clients’ businesses, and know that public speaking is the best way to grow and maintain their business for the long-term.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
My most impactful 3 qualities are curiosity, a desire to learn, and consistency.
Curiosity is always asking “why?” and wondering how things can be different, better, or more simple. I come by this honestly- my favorite question as a child was “why”, and I typically sought out friends who were different than me. In college, I majored in International Studies and spent some time in Germany. I married an Indian national, and was involved in diversity work in Wells Fargo. I demonstrate insatiable curiosity about other cultures.
On the Strengthsfinder scale, learner is my number one. That could explain why I went back to graduate school for a Master’s in Leadership, and have two different certifications (my first was Certified Fraud Examiner). Every year, I seek to learn something new- whether it’s through community education, a local class, or learning through coaching colleagues about new tools. I went into business completely blind- and learned most of what worked “on the job”. There were some tough lessons, and every failure was a chance to learn.
Consistency is how I lost 100 pounds back in 2002. Consistency is the most important thing in my business, and a pillar of how I work with clients. Many people dream of delivering a Tedtalk- but why? It is simply one presentation. You can run a single race, and will it make a difference in your overall fitness? Consistently fuels your purpose- once you determine the daily, weekly and monthly milestones that compound into your purpose, all you need is to keep doing them. I adore routine and closely manage my energy levels. Without energy, you cannot bring your best. Coaching and speaking are deep work and require much energy. I lean into supportive routines for both personal and business.
As for developing your own qualities or skills, this depends on your unique strengths. Take a moment to identify what those qualities are, and flex your confidence in those areas. Then, lend that confidence to the weaker areas. If you recognize a weakness in an area of business, it is ok to hire support around those areas. Pay attention to how you best learn- personally, For example, I don’t receive as much value from group coaching or courses as I do from private coaching or personal development books.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
Do you know the T-shirt that says “I’m not for everyone”? This is completely true when it comes to coaching! I have personally worked with coaches who were not a good fit for me or my business goals. Not all clients are “coachable”.
Being “coachable” means you’re willing to have a beginner’s mind. A beginner’s mind is someone who doesn’t bring pre-conceived notions or knowledge to coaching that can impede their progress. For example, if you say to yourself, “I already know that”. Coaching is not knowledge, it is an action. If you have yet to take action on knowledge, you have to be willing to explore why.
Being “coachable” also means you are committed to the process more than the results. I compare this to running a marathon. As long as you show up at the starting line, you will most likely cross the finish line. However, you will hit a wall of resistance along the way. This resistance can be fatigue, pain, frustration, despair, overwhelm, disappointment, etc. You always have a choice of what comes next in your process. This is where transformation lives.
The ideal client for me is someone who already has an established business model, whether coaching or consulting. You are confident in your ability to serve your clients, and wish you could become fully booked without struggling against social media algorithms or spending all day networking. You may have spoken in front of some groups in your industry, and wonder how you can leverage that more consistently and with greater results. You offer transformational work, and believe in your message. That is who I serve. I can help you transform your work into a signature speech that you can present on stage in front of your ideal clients. This speech naturally leads your clients to take the next step with you, even if you are not allowed to sell from the stage. You also are willing to command a speaking fee, or charge a higher fee than “free dinner”, or an honorarium of a few hundred dollars. You have a speaking vision- who, where, what, and how often you would present. You simply need a strategy on how to achieve that.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.weightlesschronicles.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/jennspingo
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/bweightless
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/jego3
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/JenniferEspinosaGoswami
- Other: Schedule a complimentary mini-coaching call: www.calendly.com/jennchat
