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The Courage to Say No
86 Plays3 months ago
What does it *really* take to build a sustainable, ethical, and successful coaching practice?
In this powerful episode of PRIME SPACE, host Elias Scultori, MCC, sits down with executive coach and HR consultant Michelle Tajudeen, PCC, Managing Director of MetaCC Incorporated, to explore one of the most challenging and defining moments in a coach’s journey: having the courage to say no.
Michelle shares a candid story from early in her coaching career, when a lucrative corporate opportunity required her to compromise the very principles she was trained to uphold. Faced with pressure to guarantee outcomes, impose agendas, and prioritize short-term results over client autonomy, Michelle made a decision that would ultimately shape her reputation, integrity, and long-term success.
Together, Elias and Michelle unpack the realities of coaching in revenue-driven environments, the risks of “voluntold” coaching, and why honoring the client’s process is non-negotiable—even when it feels financially or professionally risky.
This episode is essential listening for new coaches, experienced coaches, mentor coaches, and leaders navigating the intersection of ethics, business, and authenticity.
🎧Episode Highlights
• Why saying yes too quickly can cost you your integrity as a coach
• The hidden dangers of outcome-driven, agenda-based coaching
• What happens when coaches compromise their values—and when they don’t
• How saying no led to an 8-year corporate partnership and coaching 250+ executives
• Trusting intuition as a core professional competency
• Building a coaching brand rooted in credibility, ethics, and authenticity
⏱️ Chapters
00:29 – Meet Michelle Tajudeen, PCC
04:06 – The biggest lesson of Michelle’s coaching journey
08:41 – The cost of compromise in coaching
09:51 – Finding the courage to say no
12:52 – How integrity created unexpected long-term success
14:47 – Reputation, trust, and coaching without compromise
17:13 – Final advice for coaches at every stage
🔑 Key Takeaway Quotes
“It takes real courage to say no as a coach.”
“Integrity will always cost you something upfront—but it pays dividends long term.”
“Trust your intuition. It will lead you back to why you became a coach in the first place.”
If this episode resonated with you, subscribe, rate, and share PRIME SPACE with fellow coaches and leaders who care about excellence, ethics, and humanity in coaching.
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Transcript
Introduction to Prime Space Podcast
00:00:02
Speaker
Welcome to Prime Space, a Prime Coaching Academy podcast with your host, Elias Scultori. So hello, coaches. Today here at Prime Space, I have a guest.
Michelle Tajudin's Professional Background
00:00:19
Speaker
And today with me, I have the fabulous coach, Michelle Tajudin. And I had to be very mindful of saying your last name, Michelle. Welcome to Prime Space. Thank you. Thank you.
00:00:30
Speaker
Michelle is a PCC coach and on her very close path to getting her MCC. So she's a very experienced coach, a fabulous coach, an HR consultant. She is the managing director of Meta CC Incorporated.
00:00:47
Speaker
And as I said, she has a long experience working as an executive leadership coach in the corporate arena.
Role at Meta CC Incorporated
00:00:55
Speaker
So Michelle, I'm curious here to get started with What do you do as managing director at MetaCC Incorporated?
00:01:05
Speaker
Sure. This is my own business. And I would say do a little bit of everything, to be honest. It feels a bit of a jack of all trades. But the main focus is on the executive leadership coaching and the ah HR consulting. And typically, I'll be hired by organizations, for example, to come in maybe on a policy issue and end up doing some executive leadership coaching or vice versa. Or, you know, maybe working with the employee population and end up doing some training, development, facilitation. So a bit of everything is what I mean by that. But I would say the bulk of my business is in the in the heart of my coach of coaching, which I love.
00:01:48
Speaker
Yeah, I love that. I love the diversity. This is one of the things that I encourage my my students and mentees, diversity, right? There is so much that we can do with our skills and with everything that we have as professionals.
00:02:01
Speaker
And you are a successful, you have a successful business because of this.
Cultural Influence on Coaching
00:02:05
Speaker
I have to ask you about the Tajuding name. Where where is that from? Yeah, so I am, my background is Caribbean Canadian.
00:02:15
Speaker
And if you, you know, it's been an interesting journey with the last name. As far as I know, we are the only ones with that spelling. It's from my father's mother, which is a Muslim background.
00:02:26
Speaker
um I did not grow up in the Muslim faith. I was very lucky to grow up in a very diverse background. So fathers' families, a mix of Muslim and Christian, mothers' families, a mix of Hindu and Christian. And in the Caribbean culture, you kind of go to everything. So you grow up with with it all. And I also had the experience of being born and raised in Canada and then immigrating there for a few years into the Caribbean and then coming back.
00:02:53
Speaker
which has really informed my coaching. Diversity has been a big part of how I coach, in the impact that I want to have, in the understanding and the tolerance that I want to promote.
00:03:05
Speaker
And then, of course, I married interracially, so that just added to the to the mix of things. And for those of you who are in Canada, I am from Canada, we are known as being very multicultural. So I just love it.
00:03:18
Speaker
It makes life interesting. Yeah, remember the very first time I went to visit Toronto and I was not expecting the diversity of that yeah that city. It's just beautiful. That's where I'm from.
00:03:30
Speaker
Yeah, thank you so much for sharing. and I love when you described how much of this life experience coming from your last name is is a part of your coaching and you have been able to to introduce this in your coaching.
The Courage to Say No in Coaching
00:03:45
Speaker
showing that, you know, coaching is who we are and how we live and how we we connect with our clients. But let's let's get started here with, the the you know, the meat of our conversation. And my question is for you, what is the biggest lesson you learned on your coaching journey that you would like to share with our listeners?
00:04:06
Speaker
That's a really good question. And I would have to say, you know, my biggest and toughest lesson that I learned was that it takes real courage to say no as a coach.
00:04:17
Speaker
And, you know, for some light humor, many would say the struggle is real. So I can totally relate to that now. You know, I think becoming a coach is a huge investment in your time, the process to get to your certification and obviously a financial investment as well.
00:04:37
Speaker
But I was not prepared for the mental investment that the training would involved. And it stretched me and challenged me in ways that I never imagined. And honestly, I can say who I was at the end of it was a completely different person because I had transformed.
00:04:56
Speaker
But i you know, some people hear transformation and hear that kind of work and and really saying, oh not sure I'm in for that. But it was really, um as much as it was that difficult, it was really exciting as to who I became by the end of it.
00:05:13
Speaker
After I got the designation, i was bright eyed and really excited to get started. And I grew up in ah corporate, as I mentioned. And so it wasn't that long before I had like an an exciting opportunity to develop a pilot program. And there was a really strong need for the program and the potential to have a big impact.
00:05:35
Speaker
So I was super excited and i everything was going along really well until we had to get buy-in from the key stakeholders. And those of you that are in the corporate world understand what this is. So they can have a great idea But someone right up at the top usually needs to approve. And that's where the selling piece comes in and really having to understand how to advocate for the program.
00:06:01
Speaker
And I quickly learned about the, and I'm putting this in air quotes, the revenue generating environment. And that typically comes with conditions when it comes to programs like coaching.
00:06:13
Speaker
and you know, depending on the background of the industry you're in, those conditions can look different. But in my case, what it meant was having a preset agenda that they wanted the participants to follow.
00:06:27
Speaker
They wanted an expected outcome and they wanted that in a very specific time frame. And there wasn't a lot of flexibility that I was hearing in my conversations around honoring the client's process or values, which a huge cornerstone of our training.
Challenges in Corporate Coaching
00:06:44
Speaker
This is fabulous. So what what did you do there? You were faced with those questions and those requirements that challenge what you believe in and what you're proposing.
00:06:56
Speaker
How did you handle that situation? And it's really like the foundation of our coaching training is honoring the client's process that is reinforced. through everything that we do. And, you know, I really attempted to listen very carefully and very diplomatically convey, you know, here are some of the challenges that come with that.
00:07:15
Speaker
And, you know, some of how that would impact you from a business perspective, long term. So you might get compliance in the beginning, but what is the long term impact of that? And, you know, outline those risks to the organization and that the changes might be immediate, but they may not be sustainable.
00:07:34
Speaker
Eventually, retention would be the biggest risk and reputation risk as an organization. So you said all of this to your potential client.
00:07:45
Speaker
Yes. How did they respond? There were some people that understood it. and could relate to it and could get on board, could support. i could get the buying from, but there were others that were bit, I would say hardcore um and did not really firmly believed if we were going to invest this money, we needed to have a guaranteed outcome.
00:08:09
Speaker
And we were not willing to invest this money unless we could guarantee that outcome. So, you know, the divide remained and, At that stage of my career, being, you know, fresh off with my designation, I wanted to see if I could make it work. And so I went ahead with it as outlined, you know, raised my concerns, noted, but went ahead with it.
00:08:34
Speaker
Okay. And what happened? Like, you as you continue the the work and you you accepted those terms, what happened with that experience? compromised, basically. Yeah? I compromised, yeah.
00:08:46
Speaker
So what happened was that went through the cohort as expected, you know, changes were not sustainable. The cohort, some complied.
00:08:57
Speaker
And then what we saw was large turnover after, you know, because they felt voluntold into the coaching, as we say. And just not the feeling that I had at the end was not that it was not the best that I could have done in service of my client.
00:09:13
Speaker
And it felt a bit forced to me. And I think that's really a hard pill to swallow as an employee. And so when it came around to the next cohort, I had to do a lot soul searching and go back and forth on whether this was something I could continue to compromise on I think at the beginning, i you know, this was my projection. i didn't know if it would happen. But after having the evidence that, yes, this went as predicted, was I really being authentic with myself?
00:09:48
Speaker
And what was the level or the quality of the coaching that I was offering? Was that my best? And I had invested a lot to become a coach. So it's it's not something I wanted to downgrade in any way.
00:09:59
Speaker
That was really important to me. And in the end of it, I couldn't ignore that that instinct. And I passed on that opportunity.
Integrity in Coaching Decisions
00:10:07
Speaker
And being able to say no took real courage, conviction, and a lot of ah coaching with my coach. Yeah. This is why i wanted to bring you to Prime Space and to share this story, because I think that this is a real struggle that lots of coaches, especially new coaches, feel.
00:10:30
Speaker
Not only new coaches, do you have ah this great opportunity And the sponsor is not quite clear of what is the coaching mindset, what is the proposition of coaching. And of course, I don't mind i don't blame them that they they want guarantee. I'm going to invest. so I want guarantee for my money. or And what's going to happen? your not Let's hit the bottom line. ah Exactly. And you're not going to give me that guarantee? How how how in the world are you expecting me to you know write you a check? Totally understand on that side.
00:11:03
Speaker
And what is interesting is that, you know, what usually happens, especially in new coaches, we end up compromising that. And and sometimes I see this even experienced coaches that start like even creating excuses to why we are compromising just to justify, oh, this is how it happens in the real world. You know, we start creating stories around that situation. but What is beautiful about you is that you said yes.
00:11:32
Speaker
you noticed that you were not offering your best work, and then came another opportunity and you said no. So years have gone by and you are ah successful coach.
00:11:50
Speaker
What was the consequence of that no? It felt scary. It felt awful in the moment. I had a lot of Did I do the right thing? So questioning myself.
00:12:03
Speaker
Am I going to regret this later on? So all of that was churning in my head. And of course, you know, because I said no to an opportunity, i i lost that opportunity of that money as well. So, you know, when when when you're a new coach and and, you know, you haven't established yourself financially yet, that's a huge consideration.
00:12:22
Speaker
and you know, I really wondered, is this going to be a career limiting move for me? Like, will it define me? And I felt personally that I was letting some people down too, like those that had advocated for the program and I did have the buy-in for. I felt I kind of let them down when I said no for the second cohort.
00:12:42
Speaker
and And that was hard to deal with as well. But it did take a little while. i want to say six months, maybe to a year. And what happened in an unexpected turn of events, one of the individuals who was a supporter of the program left, went to a competitor and had referred my name there as a result.
00:13:05
Speaker
And so I got the call to come in to speak about a similar program based on my experience there. And it was amazing.
00:13:16
Speaker
a really wonderful opportunity for me to say, you know what, this wasn't the be and the end all of the story because not only did I get the opportunity to be considered for the, the the new pilot,
00:13:32
Speaker
But I learned to be very transparent upfront. So in that stakeholder meeting, I was very clear on here are the risks that does happen.
00:13:46
Speaker
And here's what I can do for you, but here's what I'm not able to do for you. And that took a lot of courage and guts and a lot of, as I said, sessions with my coach and how to get that worded right. Thankfully, I had an HR background, so that helped as well.
00:14:02
Speaker
But they accepted the program. I started within a week and I've been there eight years and I've coached close to 250 executives there and helped a number of those become executives.
00:14:13
Speaker
And, you know, in the first year of the pilot, obviously it's, it's you know, what's this coaching about? And who's this coach? And by the second year, there was a wait list to get into the program. And I remember when i got the second cohort, and they started to come in, they said, I've been waiting to work with you. i I've been so excited. I heard, I heard that, you know, you don't compromise on this and that you've got integrity. And this is what we've been waiting for. Because there was this concern with internal coaches that they're still, they may still have an agenda. And I was external, and they'd heard this about me. And
00:14:47
Speaker
because it was a competitive industry, they knew people from other places as well. So for me, it was just, wow, it can come full circle and you can get the opportunity to coach as
Career Growth Through Integrity
00:14:58
Speaker
you like. And it can lead to beautiful outcomes if you can say no in the moment and ride that discomfort, that fear, that awkwardness, that I think it's growing pains as a coach, right?
00:15:11
Speaker
I want to emphasize something that you said here and it's a data point. yeah Eight years working for this organization. Yes. More than 250 coaches. two hundred People coached, That is that is ah an incredible record. And it came out of you standing in your integrity and being true to what the coaching mindset is about. And now you are known in your circle for being in integrity, for being someone that does not compromise. This is such a a powerful message for all of us. Yes.
00:15:52
Speaker
Was it easy for you to say no that that first time there? It was not easy to say no. But things came around and now you have a thriving practice that is authentic to who you are because you had the courage to say no.
00:16:07
Speaker
And what it did do for me as well is within there, apart from the regular program that I run, I started to get calls about specialized situations to coach. So ad hoc situation, because of that integrity, because of that discretion, because of that brand as the coach, it led to more, I would say exclusive opportunities.
00:16:27
Speaker
Versus just the regular cohort, which is really where I stretched and grew as well, because now i had to be accountable to myself that this brand got created about me as well. So I had no choice but to say to this brand, but good for me, right? To keep me in authenticity.
00:16:44
Speaker
Wonderful. Now you have to live up to your reputation. I do have to. Fantastic. Raising the bar. I appreciate that. So, Michelle, as we are concluding our conversation here today, what is the the message that you would like to send to coaches that may be listening right now? Coaches, there are just starting coaches. There are experienced coaches, successful coaches. Based on your experience, what would you like us to remember?
00:17:13
Speaker
It's really easy. no matter what stage you are as a coach, to get caught up in the profitability of your business and really trying to please our clients.
00:17:24
Speaker
And i think the biggest thing that I want to share is trust your intuition because your intuition will lead you to that authenticity of who you are, what's really important in service of yourself and of the client, and why you got into this in the first place.
00:17:42
Speaker
And I think if you can really trust your intuition and step into that, as scary as it seems, and it is, and as uncomfortable as it makes us, it is worth the investment to trust and to be to sit in that discomfort and see what comes up for you. You know, we're always encouraging our clients to be aware.
00:18:04
Speaker
mean, what is this trying? what What's the opportunity here? It's really to ask ourselves, what's the opportunity for us? Yeah. And this is the the thing that is always in my mind, right? We are there in this supporting our clients to be true to themselves, to understand who they are.
00:18:20
Speaker
Can we do that first, right? And really be true to ourselves and really be in alignment with what we say we do and ah the the mindset that we believe in as far as coaching and and be authentic. And it will will not be easy.
00:18:36
Speaker
it will not be easy. That is true. But, you know, things will come around and then we are going to be able to build a practice like you you did. So thank you so much for your commitment to this profession, your commitment to this mindset and your commitment to showing up authentically to your clients and to the world. Michelle, it's truly a ah joy to have you here.
00:19:01
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you very much. Everybody, thank you so much for listening and thank you so much for being a part of Prime Space. Don't forget to subscribe and share these episodes with others.
00:19:14
Speaker
And I will see you next time.