By Nettie Owens, CPO-CD · The Sappari Group
Originally explored on Wake Up Women Leaders — Episode 20
For nineteen episodes, Victoria Whitfield and I have been bringing you conversations about leadership, business, money, mindset, and what it takes to build something that works and keeps working. Topics you can apply. Frameworks you can use. Real examples from our combined decades of coaching women in leadership.
Starting now, we are adding something different.
A real leader. A real challenge. Coached live on Wake Up Women Leaders.
In Episode 20, we pulled back the curtain on what that format looks like, what kinds of challenges are a good fit, and how to put your hand up to be our next guest. This article is the written version of that conversation — for the woman who has been listening and thinking, I think I have something I could bring to this.
Why We Decided to Do This
The decision to add live coaching to the show did not come from a content strategy meeting. It came from what we kept seeing.
Women leaders watching the show, engaging in the comments, sending DMs — and navigating something specific that a general episode topic was not going to address. The questions were real. The challenges were particular. And the format we had been using — two hosts, a topic, a conversation — was valuable but had a ceiling.
Victoria noticed it first from her own podcast history. “The most engaged episodes I’ve ever done on my former podcast was when I would bring someone on and coach them. And unfortunately the engagement for interviewing others was when it would go down — perhaps it would feel a little bit more promotional.”
I had a similar experience. I have loved interviewing people. My What Businesses Need to Know Right Now series through the pandemic produced two books and some of the richest conversations I have had publicly. But for this show specifically — for Wake Up Women Leaders — bringing in an outside expert felt like it was pulling away from what we are actually here to do.
“The idea that we could bring somebody in and help them in the moment, and that help could wake other women leaders up — it just seemed like the natural fit.”
There is also something that happens for the audience when they watch coaching happen in real time that does not happen when they hear a polished summary of what coaching produces. Victoria described it this way: “When I listen to other podcasts and I get to listen to people work through things, it helps me almost as if I’m being coached as the listener. It’s so much more intimate and digestible.”
That intimacy is the point. Women leaders watching live coaching on Wake Up Women Leaders are not just observing someone else’s session. They are seeing their own challenges reflected back — often more clearly than they can see them directly — and they are watching what it looks like to move through them.
What Live Coaching on Wake Up Women Leaders Actually Looks Like
This format is not an interview. There are no prepared questions. There is no topic agreed upon in advance. The guest brings what she is actually navigating right now — not a cleaned-up case study from two years ago, not a hypothetical scenario she thinks would make good content. The real, current thing.
Victoria works the energetic and mindset side. Start with the problem beneath the surface. Then uncover what the leader is carrying but hasn’t named yet. Finally, listen for the inner conversation that unfolds when no one is watching. This is her specialty — getting underneath the stated problem to the thing that is actually running the situation.
I work the structural and systems side. Find the practical path forward. Identify what needs to be built, documented, decided, or handed off. Then take the next concrete step once the fog clears.
Together, our live coaching for women leaders on Wake Up Women Leaders addresses both the inner game and the outer structure. That is where most leadership challenges actually live—not entirely in the mindset, and not entirely in the tactics, but in the space where the two intersect.
The session is broadcast live on LinkedIn on Wednesdays at 3:30pm ET. This is not a performance for the audience. It is a live working session that the audience gets to witness.
One important distinction: the session is broadcast live but not recorded live. Victoria explained why: “This is to respect and honor whatever may come up during the coaching session — just in case you have quite an aha moment that on second thought, you wanted to keep private. We want to give that extra barrier of respect, privacy and protection around you so that you feel good about it.”
The format has three parts. Before the session, we have a brief conversation with the guest to understand the challenge and make sure the format is a good fit. During the session, the guest leads with her challenge in her own words and we work through it from there. After the session, we debrief. She does not walk out of the room and wonder what to do next.
What Kinds of Challenges Are a Good Fit
The best live coaching on Wake Up Women Leaders happens when the guest is specific, honest, and willing to go somewhere real on air. That rules some things in and some things out.
What works well:
A decision you cannot seem to make — something that keeps coming back without resolution. You know the decision needs to happen. It keeps getting deferred. You are not sure if the block is the decision itself or something underneath it.
A pattern you keep running into in your business or organization. Something that shows up again and again in different forms, with different people, in different situations — and you cannot quite see your way out of it because you are too close to it.
A growth edge. You can see the next level clearly. Something is keeping you from stepping into it. You are not sure if that something is external or internal.
A leadership challenge. With your team, your board, your clients, or yourself. Communication, authority, identity, the loneliness of being the decision-maker — these are all coaching territory.
A money conversation. Pricing, revenue, financial clarity, the gap between what you are earning and what you want to be earning. What is underneath the number.
I listed more specific topics during the episode: “Sales, money management, events, offers or launches, confidence, systems and processes, well-being, imposter syndrome, communication, leadership identity.” If any of those landed when you read it, that is probably your topic.
What doesn’t work: asking vague or general questions without specific context, bringing situations that require confidential business information you can’t share publicly, or seeking legal or medical advice. Those conversations belong in a private setting.
On the question of vulnerability — because this comes up — I want to be direct about it. You do not have to bring your most raw or intimate challenge. You need to bring something real that you are actually working through right now. There is a difference between sharing from an open wound and sharing from a genuine current challenge. The second one is what serves both you and the audience.
“If it is too new, too fresh, too intimate, then we are not asking people to expose those parts of themselves publicly and then have the fallout from that.”
I have found, in my own experience, that the topics I thought I would only ever discuss privately have been the ones that produced the most connection when I finally shared them openly. My experience with perimenopause. My experience with the EIDL loan. I thought those were too personal. What I found instead was other women saying — I thought I was the only one. So while I encourage you to be discerning about what you bring, I also want to push back gently on the instinct to edit yourself out of the conversation entirely. Your challenge is very likely someone else’s challenge too.
What the Guest Does and Does Not Need to Bring
This is the question I get most often from women who are interested but hesitant.
You do not need a polished presentation or a fully formed problem statement. You also don’t need to have the answers—in fact, if you already have the answers, you probably don’t need the coaching. What you need to bring is the honest version of where you are stuck, in your own words.
“You may be sitting here thinking — I don’t know that I want to be coached live on air. That’s really vulnerable. You’re not wrong. But you need to be able to bring a real problem that you are really facing.”
Keep in mind, coaching is vulnerable for the coaches too. “Coaching as a coach is actually a very vulnerable position as well — because you are problem solving and thinking on the fly, trying to support the person across from you in this very sacred container through the questions that you ask.”
We are both showing up to do live, unrehearsed work. That is a feature of the format, not a risk of it. The realness is the point.
Also worth noting: you do not need studio lighting, a professional background, or a particular appearance. “The more that you are yourself, the better, the more relatable you’ll be. You just need to be present.”
How to Raise Your Hand
It is simple and intentionally human. No forms, no automated links, no funnels.
Comment the word COACH on this episode on LinkedIn — or send a direct message to Nettie or Victoria on LinkedIn with one to two sentences describing what you are working through. If you’ve been wondering whether live coaching for women leaders is right for you, this is your opportunity to experience it firsthand. We will follow up directly to schedule a brief pre-show conversation and confirm the fit.
You do not need to have it figured out to raise your hand. You don’t have to have it all figured out. That’s the point.
And if you are watching and you know someone who should be our guest — a woman leader who is sitting with a real challenge right now — tag her in the comments or forward this episode to her directly. Sometimes the people who need this most are not the ones who would think to put themselves forward.
What’s Coming Next
In Episode 21, Victoria and I are talking about building a business that makes money on purpose — not by accident. We’ll explore how to design your revenue architecture, strengthen your business model, and build profitability into your business from the start instead of hoping it shows up at the end. Join us Wednesday at 3:30pm ET.
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Nettie Owens, CPO-CD · The Sappari Group · sapparigroup.com · © 2026
