243: You Don’t Need a Business Coach, You Need a Strategic Thought Partner

Welcome to the She Thinks Big podcast. I'm your host, Andrea Liebross, coach, speaker, life balance architect, and strategic thought partner for high-achieving women who want to think differently, lead confidently, and create success on their own terms.

As an entrepreneur myself and the bestselling author of She Thinks Big, here's what I know: You've been at this for a while, but somehow you can still feel stuck in the day-to-day. And running your business like a to-do list does not fulfill the vision.

So around here, we're not about more hustle, we're about smarter strategy, bolder thinking, and leading a business that fits your life. Each week, you'll hear the mindset shifts, real-world tools, and CEO-level conversations that help you reclaim your time, grow with intention, and elevate your leadership. Now, let's dive in.

Hello, everybody, and welcome back to the She Thinks Big Podcast. How are you today? I am recording this, it is nearing the end of August. It feels like fall. Does it feel like fall where you are? I went for a walk this morning on a trail called Turkey Foot Trail.

I don't know, after all these years, why it's called Turkey Foot Trail. I should do some research. Anyone local, let me know. But there were leaves all over the trail. So I don't know. I feel like fall is in the air. By the time you're listening to this, it's definitely fall. Definitely fall. So here is what I want to know. I want to know, first of all, where are you listening from today? I see you on your walk or emptying the dishwasher, or driving in the car. Message me, let me know. It would make my day if I could get five people to tell me where they are.

Do you want to be one of the five? I will send you a prize. If you want to be one of the five people that message me on LinkedIn or on Instagram and tell me where you are, I will send you something. I promise. I want to know. So I'm putting a little incentive out there. Here's something else that I want you to be thinking about. When or where were you when you heard someone calling themselves a business coach? I think that everywhere you look these days, everywhere you look, someone is calling themselves a business coach. Scroll Instagram, check LinkedIn, open your inbox. Coaches are everywhere, each with their own system or approach.

But here is the truth. You can quote me on saying this. Here's the truth. You don't need another coach. You don't need another person handing you their playbook. You don't need a coach. You don't need another person handing you their playbook. What you actually need is a strategic thought partner. Yeah, you don't need a coach. You need a strategic thought partner. I don't say that lightly because the coaching industry, I did a little searching, it is now worth over 20 billion worldwide, and it is growing every year. But here's the kicker. More information isn't what's missing for most entrepreneurs.

We don't need more information. In fact, 72% of small business owners say their biggest challenge is not lack of ideas. It's figuring out which ones to prioritize. That's not a coaching issue. That's a clarity and strategy issue. That is where my belief that you need a strategic thought partner comes in. You don't need someone on the sidelines yelling plays. You need someone right there with you, helping you zoom out and zoom in and cut through the noise in real time. You need someone right there next to you, helping you zoom out and zoom in and cut through the noise in real time.

Now let's talk about coaches. Let's think about Ted Lasso. If you haven't watched Ted Lasso, I urge you, I think it's on Apple Plus, go watch it. Ted Lasso, here's a guy who literally knew nothing about soccer. So the plot is he knows nothing about soccer. He didn't walk into that locker room and give his players more drills to run and he didn't teach them the rules of the game. But what made Ted Lasso effective was his questions, the questions, the way he got inside the minds of his players, the way he helped them see themselves differently, and the way he drew out answers that they already had inside of them.

That is exactly how I see my work. My job isn't to tell you, "Here's how I did it. Now do it the same." Because how I did it isn't necessarily how you should do it or even could do it. Your business is different. Your goals are different. My role is to ask the right questions so you find the answer that works for you. So when someone says to me, "I just need time now to put everything into play," to me, that sounds like they've gathered up lots of information and lots of rule books, and now they have to make it all work. I don't see that as my role, giving you lots of playbooks.

My role is to continuously ask you great questions and help you see things in a different way. So it's not like, "Oh, coaching is over. My work is over. Now I have to go implement it." I think that's missing the whole point. This work we're doing together is not over. There is no over. Because there's always more that we can learn about ourselves and understand through the right questions. Let me be clear. I need this same thing too. In fact, about a month ago, I got a late-night text from a client that left me, I'm going to call it like completely incredulous.

My mind was spinning. "What did she mean? How should I respond? Did I miss something?" And I could feel myself spiraling out here. I was getting really upset about it actually. So I Voxered my coach. Voxer, if you don't know, it's like a walkie-talkie-ish type app. I Voxered my coach, and she happened to be listening I guess, or happened to be on her phone, because within a few minutes she just asked me a handful of questions and reframed the whole situation. So we went back and forth a few times, but she asked me a handful of questions. She reframed things, and suddenly I had clarity.

She didn't tell me what to do. She didn't give me a script. She didn't hand me the right answer. She asked me questions that led me to my own answer. I think that's the power of having a thought partner, not just a coach, a thought partner in your corner. This is also why I coach people across different industries. Just the other day, I coached someone who owns a sewer cleaning business. Yes, I said that correctly. A sewer cleaning business. A few hours later, I coached an interior designer. Now, on the surface, no pun intended, those businesses couldn't be more different.

But both of those business owners were struggling with the exact same thing, how to have a tough conversation with a team member. The strategies, the frameworks, the clarity that came from talking to me, their strategic thought partner, it didn't matter that one person was talking about sewers and the other was talking about design, because the skill of coaching isn't industry-specific. Remember, Ted Lasso didn't know anything about soccer. So the skill of coaching isn't industry-specific. It's about asking better questions, about seeing the patterns, about helping someone move forward with confidence.

So when you get into like, "I need someone in the same industry," that has its place, it can be helpful, but that's not really what the kind of coaching I'm doing is about. My type of coaching is about getting you to move forward with confidence. That comes from you seeing patterns, me asking better questions, you seeking better answers from yourself. So I want to give you a couple more examples. I want you to look at Mr. Miyagi in The Karate Kid. That used to be one of my favorite movies when I was a kid, The Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi. Daniel in The Karate Kid thought he was wasting time waxing cars and sanding floors.

Do you remember those scenes? The waxing cars, wax on, wax off? But Mr. Miyagi wasn't teaching karate moves, but what he was doing by having Daniel wax the cars, and sand the floors, he was building resilience and discipline and perspective. That's what a thought partner does. A thought partner helps you build the foundation you didn't know you were building or needed to build.

Let's take Serena Williams. It happens to be, I'm recording this since the US Open time. Serena Williams is the greatest of all time when it comes to women's tennis. At her level, no coach is teaching her how to hit a forehand. She already knows that. What her coach is, it's more than one; what her coaches do is they help her refine and adapt and stay sharp when the stakes are high or the highest.

Sometimes it's a small shift, and sometimes it's just the right question at the right moment. Whether it is Ted Lasso's questions, Mr. Miyagi's wax on wax off, Serena's mental edge, or even me Voxering my own coach on a tough night, the truth is the same.

Transformation, growth doesn't come from more instructions. It comes from better questions. It comes from someone who can reframe what you're seeing and really unlock what's already inside you. That's not what a typical coach does. That's really what a strategic thought partner does.

So the next time you think, "Maybe I need a business coach," pause. You don't need someone else's playbook. What you do need is a partner in your corner who helps you think bigger, cut through the noise faster, and trust yourself more deeply. That's the difference between coaching and thought partnership. That's the difference between having someone in your corner versus having someone on the sidelines.

I like to say you don't need someone to jump in the pool with you when you're drowning. You don't need someone who jumps in the pool with you when you're drowning and commiserates. That might feel good in the moment. Oh, look, someone else understands how cold the water is. But now you've just got two people flailing around in the pool. A strategic thought partner is the one that stays on deck and throws you a line and helps you climb out.

A true strategic thought partner is not someone who's what I call to say inside the peanut butter jar with you. You might have heard me saying that. When you're inside the peanut butter jar, it's so sticky, you can't get out. You can't even read the label from inside the jar. When you're too close to your business, you can't see it clearly. That's why you don't want a thought partner who's in the jar with you covered in peanut butter, trying to make sense of the same sticky mess. You want someone outside the jar.

That's the role I play for my clients. I'm close enough to understand what you're going through, but I'm far enough back to see the bigger picture you can't see for yourself. That's how I can help the sewer business owner and the interior designer with the same issue on the same day because I'm not inside the jar. I'm not splashing around in the pool. I'm outside. I'm asking questions. I'm reframing the perspective and helping them find solid ground.

So remember, if you've been thinking that maybe I need a coach, I want to invite you to pause and ask a better question. What you might actually need is a thought partner. Here's how you can take the first step. I want you to start with my Silent Saboteur Audit. It's a quick, powerful tool that will really show you the beliefs and the blind spots holding you back in your business.

Once you've taken that audit, and you can reach it at andrealiebross.com/audit, once you've taken that two-minute audit, schedule a call with me, we'll go over your results together, and you'll get a taste of what it feels like to have a true strategic thought partner in your corner. You don't need another coach. You need clarity. You need perspective. You need strategy. You need to see what's silently getting in your way.

That really all starts by taking that Silent Saboteur Audit today and then scheduling a call with me, and we are going to go over the results. Okay, my friends, I hope you found this quick episode super helpful. I want to be there for you. I want to be your strategic thought partner because now is the time for you to think bigger. It's time to level up.

That's it for today. I will see you next week.

Thanks for listening to She Thinks Big. I know you’re committed to yourself and your businesses because you listened all the way to the end of this episode. But this isn’t really the end. It could be the beginning of your next power move.

If today’s episode gave you clarity, courage, or just a much-needed breath of fresh air, take that as your sign to take the next steps. So do it. Visit andreaslinks.com to take my Silent Saboteur Quiz and to discover our next steps in getting you to take action and achieve the success and freedom you crave.

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