We’re back and ready to continue our discussion of EMyth business coaching with Rock Paper Scissors CEO and Creative Director Amanda Sutt, who is also a certified EMyth business coach. Read on to learn more about this great resource and learn why Amanda decided to become a coach. If you missed part 1, check it out here.

EMyth Business Coaching

What motivated you to become a certified EMyth Business Coach?
A: I was always looking for something for me. Until we started with the coaching, I hadn’t found my niche; what I really wanted to do. I joined RPS in 2005 after I graduated college and was trying to figure out what to do full-time. I had some ideas and offered to help my parents as a part-time project manager for a year so I could still pursue my love for theatrical design. My role at RPS evolved over the years, but I was helping build my mom’s dream and I had not connected with my specific calling yet.

Toward the end of our year of coaching, EMyth restructured to a consultant-based coaching staff and my mom suggested I look into it. I talked with a coach and realized that coaching was what I wanted to do. I could apply my experience at RPS and decided to go for it. The day after I signed my contract with EMyth, we received my mom’s cancer diagnosis. That was on a Friday, and mom was scheduled to have major surgery the following Tuesday. I offered to hold off a while before starting my training, but mom said “No, you need to do this for you.”

During the next three months, instead of just focusing on my new business coaching path, I took over the company and was in training simultaneously. It was hard work, but the silver lining was that it was good training to go through the EMyth content again in this new role as the company’s leader. I reshaped things in three months so that the business could fit our new reality. Looking back, if we hadn’t gone through EMyth coaching, I’m not sure the company would have survived this time of transition.

This also prompted conversations about what mom could do for the business while she was in treatment and what we could do without her to remain sustainable. The last year of her life, I was able to leave the office at 6 and have my weekends, take my mom to the doctor, and take time off to just have fun with her. Those days wouldn’t have happened without EMyth because it helped us put systems into place to help us work more efficiently. It gave me time with my mom I otherwise wouldn’t have had.

It seems that RPS and EMyth are very similar in terms of wanting to make an impact and leave things better than we found them. How do you feel RPS experienced that first hand with EMyth?
A: One of my reasons for becoming a coach was because I saw the services as a good compliment to our current client base. I was tired of creating beautiful campaigns and clients not using them or not being prepared for an influx of sales. I wanted to have more impactful conversations with clients that go deeper about their business and not just their marketing. It’s an extension of what we do. You are right that we are very similar, we have the same values about business and culture, and the end results of growing our businesses.

You’ve said this program helped you realize the importance of authenticity and honesty in conversations in the business world. Can you expand on that a little more?
A: The core of EMyth – their philosophy and mine – is that a business is a reflection of the leader. That’s the core of authenticity. EMyth helps people who are brave enough to go into business for themselves find opportunities to thrive and make ideas successful when other aspects of running the business makes them feel drained and worn down.

EMyth Business Coaching

Being a business owner is lonely. You can’t talk to your employees about finances, hiring and termination decisions, and those types of things, so who do you talk to? EMyth allows for a space for business owners have those tough conversations. As a business leader, without this kind of council, you can get yourself in trouble; you avoid things you shouldn’t avoid, make stupid mistakes, and make mountains out of molehills. EMyth coaches can help you realize yourself as a leader, your strengths and weaknesses, and when you need to get out of your own way.  It’s about empowering people.

Every business owner has the same fundamental problems. EMyth gives them someone to talk to about these problems and enables them to make things happen to and for their businesses. 

How do you think going through EMyth as a client has helped you as a coach?
A: I can support my coaching clients better because I’ve been there. I’m one of a few coaches that was actually an EMyth client before becoming a coach. I have a different sense of confidence because I know and believe it is possible. I will never be a coach and not also run a business because I want to keep up with what’s going on in the industry and what’s changing. 

If you could say one thing to someone considering EMyth’s coaching program, what would that be?
A: I think EMyth’s purpose statement says it best. “We exist to help business owners create a life and a business that they love leading.”

The whole idea behind the program is that EMyth is there for business owners who want to both enjoy life and business. One of the first things to look at is “What do you want your life to look like?” – The things you thought you would have by going into business for yourself. By having a clear picture of your life, we then start look at your business and shape it so that it serves that vision. Happy leaders lead to happy employees and customers, which leads to a better world.

Like other small businesses, we have experienced our share of hardships over the years, but through the help of EMyth we learned that we can work through any difficulty and view it as a part of our story as  something that helped us build a better business by implementing specific systems to help keep things running smoothly.

Interested in learning more about EMyth Business Coaching? Connect with Amanda for more information! You can also hear more from Amanda by listening to “From Client to Coach” from the On It by EMyth podcast series.

Categories: Services