Build Your Business Like a Coach: Why Following Your Soul Is the Most Reliable Strategy There Is with Kristy Halvorsen Ep 435

Most people build their coaching business the way they were taught to build everything else. Make a plan. Set goals. Execute. Measure. Optimize. And somewhere in the middle of all that doing, something feels off. Not wrong exactly. Just not quite theirs.

Kristy Halvorsen has taken a different path. A wildly different path. And in this episode of She Coaches Coaches, I sit down with Kristy, former engineer, former firefighter, coach, and bestselling author of Perfect Unfolding, to talk about what it looks like to build a life and a coaching practice by following the tickles of your soul instead of the expectations of everyone around you.

We're All Living in the Unknown. We're Just Really Good at Making Stuff Up.

One of the most useful reframes in this conversation is Kristy's take on the unknown. Most coaches, most people, experience the unknown as a source of anxiety. Something to plan around. Something to minimize. Something to survive.

Kristy sees it differently. "We live in the unknown all the time," she says. "We're just really, really good at making stuff up and predicting the future."

The stress, she suggests, doesn't come from the unknown itself. It comes from the effort of pretending we're not in it. When she stopped trying to control the outcome and became genuinely open to whatever was going to happen, something shifted. All of her attention, curiosity, and energy could go toward what was actually happening. Not toward managing what might happen.

For coaches building their businesses, this is a direct challenge to the planning mindset. Not a rejection of strategy, but an invitation to hold it more lightly. 

Being Lived by Life

In February 2019, sitting alone in nature, Kristy had an insight that changed everything. "I'm just being lived by life," she says. "And that's all any of us are doing."

She uses the word life deliberately. Universal enough that anyone can bring their own meaning to it. Universe. God. The energy of everything. Whatever word fits. The underlying idea is the same. There's a larger intelligence at work. And when you can let your hands off the wheel, when you can follow what she calls the tickles of your soul, life becomes cleaner, more exciting, and the unimaginable starts to happen.

She describes it with a metaphor about horses wearing blinders. The blinders help you focus on where you're going. But they block your peripheral vision. They keep you from seeing all the other possibilities. When the blinders fall off, and you let yourself be pulled in a direction you didn't plan for, you sometimes discover something that changes everything.

"The old me would have missed it because I would have said, I know where I'm going," she says. "I would have said no." 

From Engineer to Firefighter to Coach to Regenerative Farm

Kristy's career path looks, from the outside, like a series of impossible pivots. Engineering degree. Firefighting for 15 years. Full-time coaching. Nine years of solo off-grid Airstream living. And now, program coordinator for an educational regenerative farm in New Hampshire where she's helping young people learn to farm regeneratively and helping leaders from around the world see how the same principles apply to building healthy businesses.

None of it was planned. All of it was followed.

The first pivot happened at 24. She was doing engineering work she didn't enjoy and volunteer firefighting she loved so much she couldn't believe they paid her. So she left the engineering career everyone respected, took a massive pay cut, and became a full-time firefighter. Everyone thought she was nuts.

"Going to work started feeling like summer camp," she says. "I'd get my paycheck and say, I can't believe they're paying me. Do they know I would do this for free?"

Then 15 years later, the tickle of coaching appeared. She had no logical reason for it. She'd never been coached and didn't fully understand what coaches even did. She followed it anyway. And then a health crisis from a chemical exposure at a fire, followed by a torn ACL and a year of desk duty, made leaving firefighting not just appealing but necessary.

"I don't know if I'll be alive when I retire," she realized. "And if I am, I don't know if I'll be able to hike trails and ride bikes."

She started her exit plan within two weeks of injuring her knee. 

Perfect Unfolding: The Book and the Year That Broke Her Open

For years, people who followed Kristy on social media and in her newsletters told her she needed to write a book. She always resisted. She lived in the woods. She traveled alone. She wasn't sure what she'd write about.

Then 2023 happened.

She ended up in Labrador, at the edge of the Atlantic where the roads end, spending time with the Inuit and visiting one of their most culturally significant spaces. She crossed to Newfoundland and had life-changing encounters with strangers. She got seriously injured in the middle of nowhere and came close to dying. And through all of it, something in her understanding of herself and of life broke open in ways she couldn't have predicted.

"If a novelist wanted to write a novel about an incredible journey of personal adventure and transformative awakening, I don't think they could have made up what happened in that year," she says.

She had been encouraged by a stranger to journal that summer and had kept nearly a complete record. In December she sat down and wrote the book. She named it Perfect Unfolding because that phrase had already become central to how she saw life. All of it, even the parts that don't feel perfect, is part of a perfect unfolding.

The book is written to feel immersive. Readers have told her they feel like they're the one on the adventure. And the message at the center of all of it is simple.

"You already have permission. You were born with everything you need to live the life that's calling you." 

What Kristy Tells New Coaches

Near the end of the conversation, I ask Kristy directly. What does she want to say to new coaches who are just starting out?

The answer comes quickly and without hesitation.

"You've got to love people. Every single person that sits with you. Love them."

And then let go of everything else. Let go of signing the next client. Let go of hitting the income goal. Let go of leaving the day job or paying the rent. Find a way to release all of that and just be with people.

"Go be in service," she says. "Whether that's in service to one person at a time or groups or companies, it doesn't matter. You just go be in service to humans and watch your life and your business grow. It's really that simple."

For coaches who have been focused on the strategy and the systems and the numbers, this is a direct invitation to return to the center of the work. The coaching itself. The person in front of you. The relationship. The trust.

It's also full circle. The same principle that guides Kristy's entire life, following what you're drawn toward with no agenda attached, turns out to be the same principle that builds a thriving coaching practice. 

Key Takeaways

• We're all living in the unknown all the time. The stress comes from pretending otherwise. Releasing that pretense frees up enormous energy.

• Following the tickles of your soul, the inner pulls that have no logical explanation, is a more reliable guide than any plan.

• The blinders of goals and expectations block peripheral vision. When they come off, the unimaginable becomes possible.

• You were born with permission to live the life that's calling you. You don't need to earn it, wait for it, or be told you have it.

• The simplest way to grow a coaching practice is to love the people in front of you and let go of everything else.

Ready to Build a Coaching Business That's Actually Yours?

Grab the free course, Stop Guessing and Start Signing Clients, and get clear on your next step:
https://candymotzek.lpages.co/vfo/

Download the free Coaching Business Insights Report 2026 for real data on what's working for coaches right now:
https://candymotzek.lpages.co/business-growth-survey/

Watch the How to Start a Coaching Business playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4Ja1CypZHinAnJBRM6ENbRtYs--2hSwY

Ready to work with me? Book a free 30 minute call:
https://stepintosuccessnow.com/

Get Kristy's book Perfect Unfolding and find her resources at PerfectUnfolding.com