Service, Spirituality and the Long Game of Coaching
A Conversation with Carolyn Freyer-Jones
By Jonathan Carroll
As Editor in Chief of The Coaches' Chronicle, it is a joy to sit down with leaders who have not only built successful coaching businesses, but who have done so with depth, integrity and real heart.
Carolyn Freyer-Jones is one of those leaders.
For over two decades, Carolyn has been a quiet force behind the scenes of our profession. She earned her Master's in Spiritual Psychology at the University of Santa Monica, served for 12 years in a senior leadership role there, co developed the Soul Centered Professional Coaching program with Drs. Ron and Mary Hulnick and Steve Chandler, and has since built a deeply impactful private practice and her signature CFJ Coaching Success School.
What stands out most about Carolyn is not just her experience. It is her devotion to service, her willingness to tell the truth, and her insistence that real success in coaching is intimate, human and spiritual at its core.
What follows is a Q and A style summary of our conversation, capturing some of the essence of her wisdom for coaches who are serious about this work.
Q & A Highlights
Question
Jonathan: You have said that spiritual psychology became the foundation for your entire life and career. What core principle do you feel most coaches overlook when trying to integrate spirituality with entrepreneurship?
Answer
Carolyn: Most coaches look at people and think, "This person really needs a coach." We can all see where coaching could help. What we cannot know is what is for their highest good.
"I cannot pretend to know what is going to serve someone best. So before enrolment conversations, I would centre myself and say, 'If this is for the highest good, I would love to serve this person, and if it is not, I am okay with that.'"
That posture removes ego. It keeps me from getting attached. My job is not to decide that someone needs a coach. My job is to be available in service if it truly serves their highest good.
On Rewriting the "Not Enough" Narrative
Jonathan: Many coaches feel "not enough" in their early years, which is something you lived through. What helped you rewrite that narrative and step into a sense of innate wholeness?
Carolyn: My education at the University of Santa Monica was central. It was a two year program where we used our lives as the content. I brought all the ways I judged myself, all the ways I made myself wrong and not enough, into that room.
Over time, I learned that judgements are an illusion. They are not the truth of who we are. I began to forgive myself and recognize that the "not enough" story was just that, a story.

I still have those thoughts sometimes, but now I know they are not the truth. Often it just means I need sleep, food, a break or to step away from the computer. I know when I am being messed with and I can take better care of myself.
Transforming Challenges into Spiritual Practice
Jonathan: You often write about using everything for learning and upliftment. How do you help high achieving clients transform challenges into spiritual practice rather than self criticism?
Carolyn: For most people that is a process, not an event. I have a client right now who is very successful and very challenged with his business partners. He has spent years bowing to the god of money and success.
Unravelling Patterns
Our work is slowly unravelling that. I point out patterns when I see them, he reads what I send him, and together we treat everything that happens as material for learning.
Intimate Transmission
Coaching is intimate. What happens between client and coach is a transmission. My job is to love my clients enough that something shifts inside them.
Responsibility Without Shame
They begin to feel different, to see that their worst behaviour is not who they truly are, and they can take responsibility without collapsing into shame.
The Deeper Spiritual Context of Enrolment
Jonathan: You have taught thousands of people the art of service centred enrolment. What do most coaches misunderstand about enrolment, and what is the deeper spiritual context they might be missing?
Carolyn: Many coaches forget that service is not tactical. When we are new we often think, "I have to get a client," so we start to serve with an endgame in mind. That energy does not feel good, and it certainly does not feel good to the person on the receiving end.
Coaches love to say, "I am not salesy," but we have all absorbed salesy patterns without realizing it. The coaches who insist they are not salesy are often the salesiest in their conversations.
"The spiritual context is this: am I willing to serve someone without knowing the outcome? Am I willing to spend time with you simply because you are a human being I find interesting, and I care about your life, whether or not you ever become a client?"
Our work is connecting, being curious and being with people. The most spiritual part of this profession is getting to be with other humans.
Shifting from Neediness to Service
Jonathan: New coaches are often trying to fill their practice and make the business sustainable. How can they practically shift from neediness to service when they do need clients and income?
Carolyn: The most important thing a newer coach can do is get into community and get coached. We often cannot see our own neediness.

I used to send emails to Steve Chandler and say, "This is a great email." He would reply with one line: "Who is the one who wants something here?" The answer was always, "Me."
Neediness leaks into our emails, posts and messages. We need mentors who can lovingly call it out and help us learn different language and a different inner stance.
Also, do not send emails from desperation. Go for a walk. Even if you need money, you do not need this person's money. Dial it down. Get support from coaches who can see what you cannot yet see.
The Power of Slowness
Jonathan: CFJ Coaching Success School is known for slowing coaches down in order to create more meaningful conversations. Why is slowness such a powerful accelerator for income and client results?
Carolyn: Most of us are moving too fast. The world is not slowing down, so we have to. When we slow down, we make better choices, we connect better and we serve better.
Steve would say to me, "You have five conversations this week. Can you be with each one person and just serve them?"
We do not need to think in mass quantities. We only ever talk to one person at a time. Slowing down helps us actually be with the person in front of us. No one wants to hire a rushed, distracted coach.
Essential Conversation Skills
Jonathan: What are the essential conversation skills every coach must master to create real success and real clients?
Deepen Your Listening
Carolyn: First, deepen the quality of your listening. Nancy Kline says we are paid for the quality of our listening. That is true.
Genuine Acknowledgement
Second, learn the power of genuine acknowledgement. Most people are starved to be truly seen. As coaches, we are in a unique position to acknowledge who they really are and what they bring.
Steve Chandler acknowledged me early on. He told me I could do this work professionally. He saw something in me I had not even considered for myself. That changed my life.
Depth is not tactical. It is about being willing to see the beauty in another person and help them see it too.
Barriers to Financial Success
Jonathan: In your view, what are the biggest barriers preventing good coaches from becoming financially successful coaches?
Carolyn: They do not know how to enrol, and they are not having enough conversations.
  • Enrollment is a skill and an art that must be learned and practised. Most certification programs barely touch it.
  • Many coaches think social media and a few "discovery calls" will build a practice. It will not, at least not by itself.
  • Most coaches simply do not have enough conversations on their calendar. They do not know what to do with their time when they are not with clients.
The work is to create conversation, community and connection, every week.
Lessons from Motherhood
Jonathan: You built a financially successful practice while raising a young daughter. What did becoming a parent teach you about boundaries, priorities and self trust in business?
Carolyn: I was terrified to have a child. I was an older mum and worried about what it would do to my life.
What I discovered is that having a child naturally creates boundaries. There is bedtime, pickup, drop off. You cannot work endlessly any more. You learn to do more in less time because you have to.
It also gave me much more compassion. We all went through being babies and toddlers with parents who were doing the best they could. That softened how I saw everyone, including my clients.
Do not do this alone.
Jonathan: For new coaches entering the industry today, what is one piece of advice you would offer as they begin their careers?
Carolyn: Do not do this alone.
Find mentors, communities and coaches who have what you want. I saw something in Steve Chandler and thought, "I want what he has."
After Certification
Go find support
Find Your People
Look for people your peers say, "That person helped me"
Real Business
"I did not know what I was doing and now I have a real business"
You need people beside you who can champion you, help you see your uniqueness, and reflect your gifts back to you. It is more effective and it is much more fun.
Closing Reflections
As I listened to Carolyn, a few themes kept echoing through the conversation.
The first is humility in service. Carolyn refuses to assume she knows what is for someone's highest good. That one shift moves a coach out of ego and into true partnership with their clients, their intuition and something larger.
The second is depth over tactics. From her work at USM to CFJ Coaching Success School, Carolyn consistently points to inner capacity, genuine listening, acknowledgement and real connection as the true drivers of a thriving coaching practice. Tactics have their place, but without heart they quickly expire.
The third is the long game. Whether she is talking about motherhood, consistency in her school, or building a business over years, Carolyn keeps reminding us that coaching is a profession, not a quick fix. It takes effort, conversation, courage, mentorship and a willingness to be with discomfort instead of avoiding it.
There is also a subtle but powerful invitation in her words: to become trusted sources of transformation, not just coaches trying to "get clients." To be interested members of society, not simply interesting ones. To allow community, mentorship and honest feedback to refine us as we go.
On behalf of The Coaches' Chronicle, I want to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Carolyn Freyer-Jones for sharing her wisdom, humour, stories and experience with our readers.
Carolyn, thank you for the way you continue to elevate our profession through your school, your writing and your devotion to service centred, soul centred work. We wish you every success in all that you are creating for the coaching industry and for the many lives you touch.
With appreciation,
Jonathan Carroll
Founder & Editor in Chief, The Coaches' Chronicle
Watch the full interview with Carolyn Freyer-Jones and Jonathan Carroll below (47 min).
Jonathan Carroll
Founder & Editor-in-Chief, The Coaches’ Chronicle
Jonathan Carroll is a strategic partner, coach to world class top performers, bestselling author, and the Editor in Chief of The Coaches’ Chronicle, a digital publication dedicated to elevating the coaching profession through depth, mastery, and conscious impact. With decades of experience guiding transformational leaders into authentic alignment and full expression, he has shaped The Coaches’ Chronicle into a movement that amplifies the voices redefining success through purpose and integrity.
As the founder of The Dragonfly Club™, Jonathan creates transformational experiences for conscious, visionary leaders. His private alliances and immersive retreats support those ready to dissolve invisible barriers, align with their highest expression, and create visible breakthroughs in life, business, and mission.
Rooted in energetic alignment, intuitive leadership, and the long game of legacy, Jonathan partners with leaders who feel called into greater coherence, presence, and purpose. His work opens the space for exploring infinite possibility and studying the intersection of time honoured mysteries and modern day mastery, creating the conditions for elite performers to rise into their next evolution with clarity, refinement, and grounded spiritual intelligence. Click on Jonathan's photo to connect with him on LinkedIn.

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Way of the Dragonfly: 101 Maxims for Leading a High Vibrational & Conscious Life

Way of the Dragonfly: 101 Maxims for Leading a High Vibrational & Conscious Life - Kindle edition by Carroll, Jonathan. Religion & Spirituality Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

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