Business & Life Coach and Leveling up Leadership | Shelly Bays
Updated: Apr 19, 2022
Shelly Bays is an experienced Business and Life Coach who challenges and equips leaders to become the best version of themselves. Being a leader is a lot more than just calling the shots, and Shelly unpacks how leaders can level up their own business and impact by focusing on developing themselves. We talk about what makes a great leader, the three things every business owner should have, and how leaders set the stage for self-care and burnout. You will be challenged to find mentors to actively learn from. The first step is to accept this fact: you can’t just listen to what they say, you have to do it too.
Listen to Discovery Call Podcast
Looking for those awesome show notes so you can connect with Shelly? Jump on down by clicking HERE
About Shelly Bays
Shelly is from an entrepreneurial family. Her parents started their first business when she was in the second grade, and her dad always said, "You can either work for someone else and help them build their dreams, or you can work for yourself and build your own."
When she was 24 years old Shellys started her first business and has been on her entrepreneurial journey ever since. Shelly had stints where she worked for someone else and helped them build their business, which allowed her to see things from others' perspectives. After learning from amazing people she went into the insurance business and helped build huge teams and very quickly became a district manager.
Now as a coach, Shelly predominantly works with women. She really wants to empower women to launch their own businesses. Her goal is to help them understand that it is a beautiful thing to build a business with feminine energy. Yes, there are times when we need to pull out that masculine energy! But for women, their business tends to be more successful when you lead with feminine energy.
Shelly as a Life Coach
Shelly is a certified elite life coach and a John Maxwell team member. She has always been passionate and curious about leadership and how that impacts us, and how we can lead ourselves better.
It's her belief that you cannot lead others well unless you can lead yourself well - making personal and professional development the number one focus.
You can't grow a business larger than your ability, skills, and capabilities. You have to continue to level up in order to grow your businesses. You cannot lead people that are at a higher leadership level than you are - at least not for very long.
So it's in your best interest to level up your leadership abilities, skills, capabilities, and capacity so that you can continue to grow your business. Wherever you have the opportunity, seek to grow your teams and lead well.
What Makes a Great Leader?
Shelly would say that the ability to communicate and connect on different levels with different personality types is a huge component of good leadership. As a certified DiSC consultant, Shelly loves the theory behind DiSC and uses it often. There are four distinct personality types, but we are all blends of all four with a dominant style. Depending upon your natural style, you will find it easy to communicate and connect with some people because they share your style. But then you'll find other people that you struggle to connect and communicate with because they are the opposite of your style.
When you better understand yourself and others, you can serve them in ways that show you are there for them.
It's not about you, and really, as a leader, it's never about you. It should always be about other people.
It's about who you are serving, your external public, and also your internal public - which are your team members, your vendors, your mentors, and your peer advisory
groups. We have to connect in a way that is trust-based with integrity. This is what makes a good leader.
Three Things Every Business Owner Needs
There are three things that Shelly says every business owner needs to have: a coach or consultant, a mentor, and fellow comrades who are in this with you.
Because it can be very lonely being a business owner... especially the bigger your business becomes.
You have to be very intentional about making sure that you're staying connected to your people. Shelly has seen too many new business owners cut their legs out from under themselves because they didn't seek outside help.
How to Find a Mentor
Shelly was very fortunate and blessed to have a great mentor when she started her first business. She approached her and asked, "would you be willing to be my mentor in business?" and the response was, "I would be happy to as long as you're willing to commit to taking action on the things that I advise you." That made Shelly sit back in her seat and realize - oh boy, she actually has to do something with the information!
Find someone who's an influencer in your community. Look for the people who have success, not just in business, but those who volunteer in the community. Notice those who give back and are well respected with a base of integrity. Who do you want to model and emulate? Those are the people you want to be your mentor
You can have an accountant do your bookkeeping, you can have an attorney review your leases and partnership agreements, and you can find good people to help build your business; but for that mentor, find someone to emulate your life around.
Modeling Self Care as a Leader
It is so important to focus on resilience and wellness to avoid burnout. If we do not take care of ourselves and learn to recognize when we are going down that slippery slope of burnout, it impacts not just you but your business and everyone else around you.
Shelly had an opportunity to speak to a group specifically on this topic, and one of the things that she shared with them is the leader sets the tone for the entire organization. Whether you want to believe it or not!
It's in your best interest to model wellness and balance. Because if you don't model balance for your team, they don't believe that's actually possible for them. You can tell them all day long to take an extra half hour for lunch, or to leave the office, or do something for themselves... but if you don't do it yourself? They won't believe you. You need to put visible action to your own self-care. Live out what you want them to do!
Symptoms of Burn Out
One of the first signals of burnout is when you no longer find joy in what you're doing. When you wake up in the morning and dread getting up and getting to your desk.
When this happens, take a look at what else is going on around you. Are you giving yourself time and space to pull back in?
Shelly listened to a Ted talk about boredom and it talked about how bad we are at multitasking - it's a complete illusion. We keep ourselves so busy that we do not give ourselves time to be bored! This is a problem because when we are bored this is when our minds start thinking deeply and creativity fires up. It comes out of boredom. Give yourself space to be bored, to not do anything but think. It is really important for your physical health, mental health, and your spiritual health.
Take Care of your Spiritual Health
Shelly encourages people that no matter what you believe, whether it's in God as Shelly does, or a higher power, practice it! Don't dabble in it - actually practice! It will help find your center and inner peace and allow you to make better decisions.
Connect with Shelly!
Shelly’s website: www.shellybays.com
Shelly’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shellybays/
Shelly’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shellybaystrainingandcoaching
Shelly’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/shellybays/
You can book a time with Shelly right now here: https://calendly.com/shellybays1/30-minute-consultation
Connect with Dani:
As always, you can find me at https://www.daniellehamlet.com/ Want to be a guest on the podcast? Email discoverycallpodcast@gmail.com. Find me on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/danihamlet/
Connect on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/danihamlet
Want to join the Discovery Call Community? Hop in at https://www.facebook.com/groups/discoverycall
Before you go, one more question: Would you like to start your own podcast for your business? If that is a YES, Let’s connect and book a free strategy call: discoverycallpodcast@gmail.com.