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Stop Booking Coffee. Start Booking Stages.

By Laura Berman Fortgang on May 10, 2026

Grab your coffee my friend because today we’re doing math.
Specifically, speaker math.

I’m going to save you a lot of money on lattes by the time we’re done.

The Coffee Chat Math Nobody Wants to Do

Let’s run the numbers on something most service-based business owners are quietly doing every single week: the referral coffee.

If you take two referral coffees a week (you know the ones, where someone “wants to learn more about what you do”) in a year, you’ve talked to 100 people. You’ve also probably gained 12 pounds from all the lattes. (No judgment. I’ve been there.)

Here’s the part that should make you pause: You’ve spent roughly 100 hours of your life saying “so tell me about your business” to strangers who may or may not ever hire you. That’s two and a half work weeks. Gone. Poof. Just oat milk and good vibes.

OR …

You could give one talk. Thirty minutes. Reach those same 100 people in half an hour instead of a full year. Same audience size, way less caffeine, and—plot twist—infinitely better margins on your time.

This is why I tell every service-based business owner I work with that speaking is the #1 way to grow your business. The onesie-twosie referral hustle, as lovely as it is, will keep you stuck in a loop of espresso and small talk.

Here are the four reasons why.

1. The One-to-Many Math

A referral conversation puts you in front of one person. A talk puts you in front of 20, 50, 200 prospects all at the same time.

These aren’t strangers you cornered at a networking event. These are people who showed up. They self-selected. They chose to be there. They’re already leaning in.

You can build a year’s worth of pipeline from one 30-minute talk, while your referral-loving friends are still scheduling their next “quick 15 minutes.”

2. Speaking Compresses the Know-Like-Trust Timeline

You know how referrals work. Someone has to meet you, like you, trust you, remember you exist three weeks later, and then hopefully hire you.

I’m tired just typing that sentence.

When you speak, you collapse all of that into 30 minutes. The audience sees your expertise, your point of view, and you doing your thing in real time. By the time you’re finished, they don’t feel like they’re hiring a stranger; they’re already much further down the sales funnel with you.

Sometimes there’s barely a sales conversation at all. Sometimes people walk up after a talk and ask, “How do I hire you?”

Music. To. My. Ears!

3. You’re the Only Authority in the Room

This one is sneaky-powerful.

When you have a referral meeting, that prospect might be talking to three other experts too. They’re comparing you. Checking you out. Maybe even Googling you mid-conversation.

But on a stage? You are the expert the host chose to bring in. You’re already vetted. The credibility and authority are baked into the moment you step up to that mic.

You’re no longer being evaluated. You’re being chosen.

That authority, my friends, pays the bills.

4. Every Talk Is a Renewable Asset

Here’s the part most people miss.

A coffee chat equals one possible client and a slightly elevated heart rate from caffeine. That’s it.

One talk equals the room you’re in PLUS the recording, the clips, the testimonials, the email signups, the host introducing you to their next event, and that one person in the audience who books you on their podcast and puts you in front of a whole new audience.

Referrals give you addition. Speaking gives you compounding.

__________________________________________________________

Your Challenge This Week

Stop booking coffee chats. Start booking stages.

It doesn’t have to be a TEDx Talk. (That comes later.) Start with a webinar. A podcast guest spot. A workshop. A 20-minute lunch-and-learn at someone else’s company. That’s how I started.

Just get in front of more than one person at a time.

The fastest path to a fully booked business isn’t in your inbox; it’s in front of a room.

Go book the stage, ditch the coffee circuit, and let me know how it goes.

Sell or Die

By Laura Berman Fortgang on May 3, 2026

If you don’t sell, you don’t have a business. Let’s fix that.

Let’s just say it out loud: You hate selling.

You’d rather redo your website for the fourth time, reorganize your inbox, or clean your bathroom with a toothbrush than get on a sales call. I get it, and I see you. But here’s the thing — and I say this with love — that is broke behavior.

You have a gift. You built a business, and you’re hiding it like it’s a secret. Nobody’s going to discover you. This isn’t Hollywood. You have to sell. Let’s talk about how to do it without wanting to crawl under your desk.

The reframe that changes everything.

Selling is not something you do to someone. It’s something you do for them.

It’s not convincing, and it’s not strong-arming. It’s getting in there with people and helping them invest in themselves. Here’s the truth: When people don’t invest in themselves, they stay stuck. If you’re backing off politely and saying, “Oh, I get it, no worries…” you’re not being kind; you’re letting them stay stuck.

Here’s what “I’ll think about it” really means: I’m scared, and nobody’s called me out on that yet.

You can be that person. That’s not pushy — that’s coaching.
You ask tough questions in your sessions every single day.
So why aren’t you doing it in your sales conversations?

Treat every discovery call like a coaching session.
Stay curious. Stay in it.
The best sellers don’t close people. They wake them up!

Stop saying this. Say this instead.

Where do most coaches leak money? In how they respond to objections.
You’ve been trained to be accommodating, and to back off when someone pushes back.
Stop that behavior!

When someone says: “That’s a lot of money.”
Don’t say: “Let me work on a discount for you.”
Say instead: “What are you comparing it to? Because compared to staying stuck, it’s a bargain.”

When someone says: “I need more time.”
Don’t say: “No worries, take all the time you need.” (That’s you letting them off the hook.)
Say instead: “What do you need to feel ready? Because ready rarely just shows up on its own.”

When someone says: “Can you send me more info?”
Don’t say: “Sure!” and disappear into their inbox.
Say instead: “Sure — but what question isn’t answered yet? Let’s go through that right now.”

When someone says: “It’s just not the right time.”
Don’t say: “Totally fine, I get it.” (You just gave up.)
Say instead: “If not now — honestly — when? And what changes between now and then?”

When someone says no and you say: “Let me know if you change your mind.”
You will never hear from them again.
Say instead: “What does another six months of this actually look like for you? What is it costing you? Let’s name that number.”

See the pattern? Every single one of those pivots keeps you in the conversation. Because the sale doesn’t live before the conversation or outside of it — it lives inside it. That’s where the magic happens.

Your homework (just 1 thing).

I’m not going to give you a 12-step system. Just one thing.

Think of one person who’s been circling your orbit.
Someone who came to your free call.
Someone who DM’d you and then disappeared.
Someone who keeps liking your posts but never takes the next step.

Reach out to them today.

Not with a pitch deck. Not with a brochure. Not with a carefully crafted sales sequence.
With a real, human question about the thing they actually care about:
“Hey — I’ve been thinking about you. What’s going on with [that thing you mentioned]?”

Start the conversation. That’s it. The rest unfolds from there.

You built something that people actually need. Stop being coy about it. The world doesn’t need another coach hiding behind a beautiful website and a perfectly curated Instagram. It needs you, in the conversation, asking the uncomfortable question that nobody else will ask.

That’s selling, which looks a lot like coaching.
Now go sell something.

What A-List Coaches Do Differently (It’s Not What You Think)

By Laura Berman Fortgang on April 26, 2026

Here’s the lie the coaching industry sold you:
Get really good at your skills, build the field, and they will come.

So you did everything right. You got certified, then you got certified again. You took NLP training, logged your hours for ICF, participated in mastermind sessions, made a pilgrimage to Sedona, and hung out with the crystals. You came back absolutely brilliant … and still broke.

Here’s what nobody told you; it’s the thing that changes everything once you really hear it:
People cannot hire your skills. They can only hire your reputation.
Then, once they hire you, they get the skills.

Most coaches and consultants are five stars at what they do, and zero stars at being known for what they do. Not because they aren’t good, but because they’re invisible. Invisible doesn’t pay the bills, no matter how talented you are.

What do the coaches who ARE fully booked, charging premium rates, and turning away clients actually do differently?

Here’s the infuriating truth —
They are not always the best coaches in the room; they are the most known coaches in the room.

Here are the three things that separate them from everyone else.

1. They Have a Take

Ask the average coach what they do and they’ll say something such as, “I help people reach their potential.”

So does every therapist, yoga teacher, and fortune cookie on the planet.

A-List coaches say something that makes people stop scrolling and go — wait, what? They say things like, “Mindset work alone is keeping you broke.” Or, “Your niche isn’t too narrow. It’s too boring.” They plant a flag. They have a real, specific, and sometimes uncomfortable point of view about why their clients are stuck, and it’s usually not what those clients have been told before.

That point of view polarizes people, which is good. Polarizing is great because neutral is forgettable, and forgettable keeps your calendar empty and your bank account low.

You need a take – a real one. One that actually means something to you, that comes from your experience and your convictions. And yes — one that might make someone a little uncomfortable. Because if they’re uncomfortable, they’re listening, and listening is the first step to hiring you.

If your positioning could belong to anyone, it belongs to no one.

Get specific. Get bold. Say the thing that only you would say.

2. They Sell the After, Not the During

This is one of the most common — and most costly — mistakes I see coaches make. They spend all their time talking about their process when they should be talking about the destination.

Nobody wakes up at 2:00am thinking, “I really need a 12-week transformational container with bi-weekly Zoom calls and a private Slack community.” Nobody. That is not the thought that jolts someone awake in the middle of the night.

You know what is? “I am so tired of second-guessing every decision I make.” “Why did that person get the promotion and not me?” “I cannot keep pricing myself like I’m apologizing for existing.”

That’s the 2:00am thought. That’s what your potential client is wrestling with when lying awake. Your job is to speak directly to that moment — to that raw, honest, middle-of-the-night feeling — and show them what life looks like when that moment is gone.

The difference between “I offer six months of coaching” and “In six months, you will never have to justify your pricing to anyone again” is the difference between furniture and a door. One sits there. The other opens into something.

People don’t buy the journey. They buy what’s waiting on the other side of it. Sell that.

3. They Show Up Like They’ve Already Made It

This one is my personal pet peeve, because I hear it constantly.
“I’m not ready to be visible yet. My website isn’t finished. I don’t have enough testimonials. I need to wait until…”

There is no ready. Ready is a myth your fear invented to keep you comfortable and invisible.

Here is what is actually happening while you wait to feel ready: Coaches with half your talent and twice your audacity are posting every day, going live every week, and signing the clients who were meant to be yours. Not because they’re better. Because they showed up and you didn’t.

Visibility is not vanity. Visibility is a moral obligation when you have something that can genuinely transform someone’s life. The person who needs you is out there right now, searching for exactly what you offer. If they can’t find you, they will find someone else, and that is not a win for anyone.

You don’t need a perfect website. You don’t need a massive following.

You need to show up, consistently, as the expert you already are.
Start before you’re ready. Start now.

The Gap Between Knowing and Becoming

Let’s be completely candid about something . . .

Reading these three things and nodding along — that’s the easy part. Your brain is probably doing what I call “mental popcorn” right now, going yes, yes, this makes sense, I get it. Maybe it does make sense. But sense-making is not the same as change-making.

Insight without implementation is just entertainment. I am not in the entertainment business anymore. I’m in the business of helping coaches and consultants actually make money by building the kind of reputation that makes clients choose them without hesitation, without negotiation, and without explanation.

Knowing what A-List coaches do differently is step one. Becoming one — building your positioning from the ground up, sharpening your message until it’s magnetic, creating a visibility plan you’ll actually stick to — that requires a room, a real plan, and people around you who will not let you shrink back into hiding the moment it gets uncomfortable.

That room exists, and the A-List seat has your name on it.
All you have to do is come claim it.

The Entrepreneur You Need to Be (So You Can Be the Coach You Want to Be)

By Laura Berman Fortgang on April 19, 2026

Let me ask you something. Are you a great coach (or service business owner) who’s struggling to build a great business?

If so, you’re not alone – and it’s not your fault. Coaching school teaches you how to coach; it does not teach you how to run a business. And those are two completely different skill sets.

Here’s a number that should stop you in your tracks: 82% of coaches fail within two years of starting their business. Eighty-two percent! That’s not a coaching problem. That’s an entrepreneur problem.

The coaches who are earning six figures or more, designing their own schedules, working with clients they love — they didn’t get there by being better coaches than everyone else. They got there by making a decision. The decision was: I am the CEO of my business. It doesn’t matter how small your business is. When you start thinking like a CEO, everything changes.

What do entrepreneurially-minded coaches do differently? Three things.

1. They Build a Lead Machine, Not a Hope Strategy

A full practice doesn’t happen by accident. It doesn’t happen by waiting for word of mouth to kick in, or for referrals to magically fill your pipeline, or for the right moment when you finally feel ready.

It happens because you have a system — a consistent, repeatable way to attract your ideal clients. Whether that’s doing live broadcasts, speaking (which is arguably the most powerful way), podcasting, or building an email list, the key is to pick your lane and show up in it every single week.

Not when you feel like it. Not when inspiration strikes. Every week.

Consistency is your competitive advantage. The market rewards coaches who keep showing up because most don’t.

2. They Price Like a Business Owner, Not an Employee

This one is where so many coaches leave money on the table, and burn themselves out in the process.

Fear is usually at the root of it. Fear that people will say no. Fear of not being “worth it” yet. But here’s what actually happens when you undercharge: You attract clients who undervalue you, you exhaust yourself trying to make up in volume what you’re not making in revenue, and you start to resent the very work you used to love.

Here’s the reframe that changes everything: You are not charging for your time. You are charging for the transformation you create and the results you deliver. That is not an hourly wage; it’s an investment your clients are making in themselves, so price accordingly.

One more thing worth noting — scarcity signals value. When you’re not endlessly available, when people have to get on a waiting list to work with you, that communicates something powerful. It says: This person is in demand and is worth it.

3. They Design Their Business Around Their Life

This might be the most important mindset shift of all.

Too many coaches are afraid to build a big business because they think it will take over their life. Therefore, instead of designing the life and business they actually want, they play small and stay stuck.

Here’s the truth: You are in control. You don’t have to show up on someone else’s schedule anymore. You decide when you work, how many clients you take on, and what your days look like. Want Fridays off? Take Fridays off. Don’t want to work evenings? Don’t. Want to work fewer hours overall? Charge more and take fewer clients.

Your business should be built to serve your life — not the other way around. Design the life you want first, then build the business to match it.

The Foundation That Makes It All Work

Your coaching skills are real, and the value you create is real. But without an entrepreneurial foundation underneath those skills — the systems, the pricing strategy, the visibility, the mindset — you will stay stuck, undervalued, and underpaid.

The good news is that entrepreneurship is a learnable skill, just like coaching is. You weren’t born knowing how to coach — you learned it. The same is true here.

The question is: Are you ready to learn it?

Because the clients who need you most haven’t found you yet – and they’re waiting.

Discipline: The Muscle You’re Not Using (But Can Start Today)

By Laura Berman Fortgang on April 12, 2026

I’m going to be honest with you. I fell off the wagon.

Last fall, I built a workout habit from absolute zero. Not “I used to work out and got lazy” — I mean nothing. I made the ten-minute deal with myself: all I had to commit to was just ten minutes. Ten minutes turned into twenty. Twenty turned into thirty. Thirty turned into forty. Before long, I was working out five to seven days a week, and it felt incredible. I had done it. I had built the muscle — literally and figuratively.

Then winter came. The cold crept in, the days got shorter, and somewhere between the gray skies and the warm blankets, I lost it. The streak broke. The habit unraveled. I found myself doing exactly what I tell other people not to do, which is waiting to feel like it again.

I’m sharing this because discipline isn’t a destination you arrive at and stay forever. It’s something you build, lose, and build again. And right now, I’m building back. I’m back to making the ten-minute deal with myself, back to starting embarrassingly small, and reminding myself that the version of me who showed up every day last fall? She’s still in here!

If you’ve fallen off something too — a workout routine, a business goal, a creative project — this one’s for you.

When most people hear the word “discipline,” they picture someone waking up at 5 am to hit the gym, turning down junk food without a second thought, or staying clean and sober through sheer willpower. We tend to assume those people were just born that way.

They weren’t. Discipline is a muscle, and like any muscle, you can build it.

First, let’s kill a myth.

Discipline has nothing to do with motivation. Stop searching for the right playlist, the right podcast, or the right inspirational speech. When you’re hunting for motivation, you’re really just trying to change your mood – that’s backwards. Mood follows action, not the other way around. Stop waiting to feel like it. Do the thing, and the feeling will follow. Discipline is a decision — ideally one you make once, though sometimes you have to make it every single day.

Four Ways to Build the Muscle

Schedule it.
It’s not “when I can get to it.” It goes in the calendar, and you treat it like any other commitment. Do the hard thing first.
Start embarrassingly small.
Five pushups count. Seriously. The goal isn’t volume; it’s telling your brain, this is who I am. I’m someone who moves daily. I’m someone who works on their business. You’re building an identity, not just a habit.
Design your environment to support it.
This isn’t about willpower; it’s about removing friction. Don’t keep foods in the house you’re trying to avoid. Put fruit on the counter. Lay out your gym clothes. If you know you won’t drive to a gym, collect what you need, even if it’s used equipment to build one at home. Make the right choice the easy choice.
Track your progress visibly.
Make a chart. Old-school, simple, visible. You won’t want to break the chain, and that instinct is powerful.

When You Just Don’t Feel Like It

The 5-4-3-2-1 method (from Mel Robbins)
Count down from five and physically move your body. Change rooms. Get up. Just move.
The 10-minute deal
Tell yourself you only have to do it for ten minutes. You can stop when the timer goes off, but odds are your mood will shift and you’ll keep going.
Identity anchoring
Instead of asking “How do I feel about this?,” ask “What would a disciplined person do?” Then do that.
Pre-decide for your future self
Pack a healthy lunch the night before. Put a sticky note on your laptop. Set yourself up so future-you doesn’t have to negotiate.
Zoom out
Ask yourself, Will I regret not doing this? The answer is almost always Yes.

How to Sustain It

Discipline isn’t about perfection; it’s about consistency. Progress over perfection, every time. The real reframe is this: Discipline is choosing your future self over your present self. Not What do I need to do today? but Who do I want to become? A healthy person does this. A writer does that. A strong business owner shows up like this.

Invest in who you’re becoming. Start imperfectly. Just start!

You Are Not Your Story — But Your Story Is Running Your Life

By Laura Berman Fortgang on April 5, 2026

Most of us hear the word “storytelling” and think of campfires, children’s books, or maybe a TEDx Talk. But veteran coach and one of my early mentors, Jay Perry, has spent decades thinking about something far more fundamental: the stories that are already running inside you, whether you chose them or not.

Perry calls it the “story sphere,” a term he coined to describe the invisible atmosphere of narratives surrounding us at all times: interior stories, media stories, family stories, political stories. According to Perry, AI estimates there may be as many as a trillion stories operating at any given moment. “Like the atmosphere,” he says, “we don’t necessarily see everything that’s going on, but we know if we didn’t have oxygen and hydrogen and all those things, we couldn’t survive. We don’t survive without story. Story actually is what human is.”

This isn’t a metaphor; it’s neuroscience. Our brains are literally wired to function through story — seeking patterns, confirming what they already believe, and above all, protecting us from perceived threat.

The Squatter Stories

That protective function is where things get complicated. Over the course of our lives, we accumulate what Perry calls “squatter stories,” which are narratives that took up residence in the brain and refuse to leave. Things like I’ll never finish anything; I’m always behind; or Just when things get going, everything falls apart. Many people Perry works with are neurodivergent, and for them these stories often coalesce into a single punishing belief: There’s something wrong with me.

The brain doesn’t mean harm. It’s doing exactly what it was designed to do — protecting you based on patterns it has recognized. But the problem is confirmation bias. “Every time something shows up that confirms that I’m stupid, or whatever that story is,” Perry explains, “the brain digs deeper and deeper into it.” The story becomes identity. It becomes the lens through which you see everything.

Simply telling yourself to “change your story” doesn’t work. As Perry puts it: “Easy conceptually, but to actually do that requires lessening the power of those foundational stories and increasing our narrative intelligence.” Trying to override a deep story with sheer logic, he says, is like bringing a knife to a gunfight.

The Intelligence We’ve Been Ignoring

Here’s where Perry’s work gets truly provocative. He distinguishes between two modes of thinking. Logical thinking works on data, and AI does that better than any human ever will. But there’s another kind of thinking, what he calls Narrative Intelligence, that operates on something entirely different: imagination, intuition, emotion, wonder, common sense.

“Narrative intelligence works on no data,” Perry says. “Logic works really well when the future is likely to be like the present and the past.” In a world changing as rapidly as ours, that’s a liability. The people who will navigate what’s ahead are those who can think in story and can imagine outcomes not yet in evidence, hold multiple possibilities at once, and pivot when the plan stops working.

We’ve been rewarded our whole lives for getting the right answer. That rewired us toward the logical, computational mode of thinking. Now that machines are taking over that function, the undervalued skill — narrative intelligence — suddenly becomes essential.

How Fascinating

What do you actually do when a squatter story shows up? Perry was inspired by conductor and author Benjamin Zander, who teaches a deceptively simple practice: When something goes wrong, say “how fascinating,” and mean it fully, physically, emotionally.

It sounds almost too simple, but the point is precise. You can’t fight a foundational story with a cognitive argument, because the story has far more emotional force than any counterargument you can muster. What you can do is interrupt the pattern with enough energy and presence to actually stop the loop. “How fascinating” isn’t just words. It’s a full-bodied shift in stance that says: I see you, story. And I’m curious about you, not imprisoned by you.

Perry calls this approach “playful story catching.” The goal isn’t to eliminate the stories or shame yourself for having them. It’s to notice them, to create distance from them, and remember that you are the author, not the character.

One powerful technique is shifting your narrative perspective. Our brains are conditioned to protect “I.” But if you can catch yourself in an “I story” and reframe it, such as Laura is having trouble with this instead of I am having trouble with this — the brain relaxes its grip. The protective mechanism doesn’t guard “Laura” the same way it guards “I.”

The Power of We

Perhaps the most striking idea Perry offers is the shift from “I stories” to “we stories.” No one has ever done anything entirely alone, yet we insist on framing our lives as solo narratives. When you expand your story to include others — a community, a collaborator, an idea, even a place — possibilities open that the I story simply cannot access. “The I story is chained by that protective mechanism,” Perry says. “When we start thinking in we stories, things become possible that aren’t possible for the I story.”

He built his community, Story Sphere Central, around exactly this principle. For $22 a month, members from Thailand to Europe gather for group coaching, co-working sessions, creative workshops, and a course called Heroes of the Story Sphere — a name Perry chose deliberately. “I think it takes bravery,” he says. “It takes heroism to show up and actually look for the truth about what the stories are.”

Be Open to the Plot Twist

Perry closes with what may be his most powerful invitation. In a study by researcher Angus Fletcher, veterans with PTSD were given access to every conventional healing modality available including massage, meditation, and yoga. Only one person in the group made a full recovery. What set them apart? They had experienced a plot twist.

A plot twist isn’t something you manufacture. It’s something you receive — a bankruptcy, a loss, an unexpected phone call, an idea that comes from nowhere. What you can do is stay open to one. “If we can open our consciousness to seeing the gifts that are given to us,” Perry says, “that’s why it’s so important to have we stories — because that multiplies the number of opportunities we have for plot twists.”

You are swimming in a story sphere right now.
The question is whether you’re authoring the story or being authored by it.

Jay Perry’s community, Story Sphere Central, can be found at StorySphereCentral.com.
This article is a synthesis of an interview conducted on March 27, 2026