From Social Worker to Coach: Meet Abi Mallick

In our Case Study series, we're diving into the personal journeys, the real-life ups and downs, and the unique paths of Lumia graduates. Discover how real coaches found their way to coaching, built their businesses, and get clients!

Every interview is a window into the life of someone who has embraced coaching as a way to not only change their own lives, but also to impact others. These conversations are about connection, growth, and the diverse ways each coach brings their authentic self to this meaningful and important work. 

As an experienced mental health professional, Abi Mallick brings a wealth of knowledge and expertise to her coaching practice. She holds a master's degree in social work and has served as a clinical counselor in diverse settings, including a county jail and a national nonprofit organization.

As a coach, Abi’s mission is to guide individuals towards living their one wild and precious life in a way that is truly joyful and meaningful to them. She recognizes that each person's path to fulfillment is unique, which makes her coaching practice endlessly fascinating and rewarding.

With her blend of professional experience, academic background, and personal zeal for life, Abi offers a distinctive approach to existential coaching. She is committed to helping her clients navigate the complexities of life, find their authentic selves, and create lives filled with purpose and joy. You can connect with Abi here.

Please introduce yourself and describe your niche as a life coach.

I'm Abi Mallick – I am a life coach. I mainly focus on anxiety, but I coach around a number of different things, including parenting.

What’s your professional background before becoming a coach?

I have a social work background. For many years, I was a case worker at a non-profit working with folks in addiction recovery.

There were many things I loved about being a case manager. I learned a lot about misunderstandings and misconceptions about addiction recovery - what's helpful and what's not, and how common it is for mental health issues to go along with addiction recovery.

I loved that job and that experience. But when I had a kid, I wanted to try something different. I wanted to try being my own boss.

I started my coaching business early in the pandemic and since I had some experience in social work, I had some confidence starting out even without a coaching certification. But then after a few months, I decided to get certified and signed up for Lumia’s coach training program. 

What sparked your interest in becoming a coach?

I became interested because I had worked with coaches. I had worked with some who I just felt were incredible, including one coach who had graduated from Lumia.

I looked at a couple of different certification programs. I was looking for one that was somewhat social justice oriented, and that felt like it was in line with my values. 

I got a good feeling from Lumia, and I spoke to someone over the phone about the program – it definitely felt Lumia was in line with my values and that I would be comfortable.

What does your life coaching practice look like now?

I primarily do one-on-one coaching for folks with anxiety. I also do parenting workshops where it's a combination of parenting skills and techniques, and also using some coaching strategies.

I also offer art journaling workshops where I teach what I call “self-coaching tools” where we're doing some art, but we're also thinking about, “what can I ask myself to help figure out the answer to this question, or to help myself feel more confident.”

I love doing different kinds of workshops and group coaching. Those are really fun, and they also help me get more one-on-one clients. So it's good for my business as a whole.

Where do you find your coaching clients?

A little bit through Instagram, a little bit through going to in-person networking meetings. 

I've been surprised by how much I enjoy networking. At first, it felt really awkward and uncomfortable. Once I got into a routine and I got used to it, I figured it out. 

There's different networking events with different vibes. Some are much more formal and stuffy and some are more relaxed and casual.  I tried a bunch and I found the ones where I tend to be more likely to get one-on-one clients. 

I find clients from doing workshops at event spaces, where the venue will do some of the marketing for me and they'll get people to come to that event.

I'll do the workshop, and then I'll give everybody a little gift certificate for one free coaching session. I have pretty good results around people who do the one free coaching session. 

How did you find event spaces to put on your workshops?

Half of them were places that I had been to events at. I had a chance to briefly chat with the owner and say, “Hey, I'd love to use this space to do an event.” 

There are a couple of places where I cold called or emailed and sometimes people don't respond, which is fine –  sometimes people do and they're really excited about what I'm working on. A trial and error process!

Look for places that are already leading workshops that are somewhat similar to yours. Try yoga studios or places that have events that are around well-being or personal growth.

With the parenting classes that I lead, I do them at a children's music school because there are music classes during the day and then in the evening, the building is empty. The school was happy to let me rent out their space in the evenings to offer some workshops.

It turned out to be a great partnership because the school will send out notices to everybody who sends their kids to music and dance classes there – “We're having this parenting workshop next month. If you want to sign up, check out Abi’s website.”

How do you develop a workshop?

When I'm workshopping a new idea, I will lead it for free with a bunch of people I know and ask for feedback. You can do that in person or over Zoom. 

It's easy to say “I'm gonna be leading a workshop called Art Journaling for Anxiety.  Do I have six friends who want to do this workshop for free and give me feedback on the pacing of the class and the information? Is it understandable? Is there too much jargon?” I’ve done that with my workshops and that's really been helpful.

Renting out an event space can be great because they help with marketing. I love not having to do all my marketing, but you can also do an event over Zoom and, for the first one, charge people five dollars and see how many people show up. It does take experimentation!

Tell me about starting your own coaching practice.

I am coaching almost full-time right now! 

I started my business three years ago when my daughter was born, I was working very part-time. It was easier to get enough clients to fill 15 hours a week at first, especially early in the pandemic. There were many people who wanted to do coaching around anxiety. And I was lucky in that I was able to work very part-time as I slowly grew my business because it was this huge learning curve.

I had a lot of experience in social work. I felt confident in myself as a coach, especially after I did Lumia and I had read some books that were helpful.

When I started, I didn't know anything about marketing or sales calls or how to build a website. I didn't know what SEO was. There was this huge, huge learning curve in building a business. 

What are the practical business skills that are needed and how did you get them?

I worked for a few months with a business coach and I did a group coaching container. I got together with other coaches who are starting out their businesses. I talked to more experienced coaches and asked them for advice. 

For a while, I had a weekly meetup with other new coaches who were just starting out their businesses. We would share ideas:  “How do you keep track of finances? What does your client contract look like?” It was really helpful to have a group of coaches that I could consult with.

If you want to start your own business, I would say find your community, find people who are doing similar things that you can share ideas with. Because the business side of it can be hard. But there are lots of people who are willing to help out, and there's lots of people who are willing to collaborate and share ideas. 

Would you recommend people with a social work background to explore coaching?

Social work and coaching are very similar, there's a lot of overlap. The personality types that are drawn to social work can also be the same people who thrive as a coach.

Coming from a social work background, I knew a lot about how to listen and how to analyze what someone is saying and think through all the parts of a story – “This is your living situation. This is your background. These are your goals. These are the habits that you tend towards…”

Active listening and asking questions in a helpful, empathetic way is something that a lot of social workers have experience with. Also understanding that everything is systemic, that everyone exists in family systems and cultural systems and exists within our broader culture and our work systems… It's a helpful lens if you're going from social work to coaching. 

How do you feel Lumia impacted your personal growth and development?

Lumia gave me a bunch of great coaching frameworks and coaching strategies and different types of skills to use at different times. Lumia also gave me a lot of great coaching practice –  it was great to have so much in built time to practice with my peers. 

Do you have any client success stories you’d like to share?

I work with a lot of parents and I find one on one clients through my parenting workshops who feel really stressed or unfulfilled or challenged by parenting, which is all normal of course!  

There's one particular client – I won't give any too much detail about them, but somebody who didn't have a great example of what parenting is supposed to look like who had a pretty difficult childhood without much guidance at all. Now this person is a parent and is really struggling with how to figure out appropriate ways to discipline and talk to their kids about behaviors.

The client didn't have a good example of healthy parenting, they just have a lot of doubts in themselves. By using that active questioning method to help the client brainstorm strategies for different things that they wanted to try, that was helpful. 

Just giving them this idea of – You don't have to be perfect every time. Try different things with compassion and love and see what works and see what doesn't. Have it be an ongoing conversation, an ongoing give and take with your family and figure out what works for you, what works for your kids, and what works for your family. That's going to look different for every family. 

That's the client that I was just so excited to work with because they really made huge strides, huge gains in the six or eight weeks that we worked together. 

How has your self-confidence changed since becoming a certified coach?

I really love coaching. I loved being a social worker, but coaching has been wonderful. I really enjoy it. But also being a small business owner has had a huge impact on my self-confidence because there was so much that I had to learn and figure out on my own. 

I never imagined that I would do this. I never imagined that I would have a baby at the beginning of a global pandemic! I never imagined that I would start my own business around the same time. I was learning many new things. 

I've really seen the power of coaching. I've really seen that I can change people's lives in six or eight coaching sessions. It is a huge confidence boost to look back at my past clients and think about all of the different issues that people have worked through in my little Zoom office.

What professional goal have you reached since completing Lumia?

I have a successful small business! It took maybe two years to get to the point where I was meeting my income goal, but at this point I'm working 30 hours a week, I get to spend lots of time with my three-year-old, and I'm meeting my income goal. 

I'm making the same amount that I could make as a social worker in Texas, working 40 or more hours a week. I'm really happy with that. 

I'm really happy that I get to choose my own hours and be my own boss and work 30 hours a week while I have a little one. It's been great for my life. It's been great for my family.

How would you describe the quality of the Lumia instructors and curriculum?

The Lumia instructors and the curriculum were excellent.

I had already been to graduate school for social work, so there were some parts of the coaching program where I felt like, “Oh, I remember learning this in grad school.” But also things that were brand new. I found myself thinking, “Why didn't they teach this in grad school? This is such a great strategy.” 

Learning different coaching strategies was so helpful and seeing some of the teachers did demonstrations of coaching and we had demonstration videos we could watch as well, which was helpful. And we got to practice the strategies on each other. That whole system worked really well for me and for my style of learning.

What was the biggest thing you were looking for in coach training at Lumia?

I was looking for a variety of different coaching strategies that I could use that would be helpful with different kinds of people or in different situations. I definitely got that from Lumia – lots of different techniques and different perspectives and different strategies. 

But the other thing that was impactful for me about Lumia is just that I had a wonderful cohort – this group of people who I could share with and bounce ideas off of. That definitely became something important to me to my professional growth. 

In my growth as a coach it’s great to remember – “I know a ton of other awesome people who are doing the same thing I'm doing and they're always happy to help me and share with me.”

What words come to mind when you think of Lumia? 

Empowering. Supportive. Community-oriented.

Would you recommend Lumia as a coach training program? 

Yes, absolutely I would recommend Lumia. 

Lumia is a company that's really grounded in wanting coaches to be prepared to do great work and wanting coaches to be able to empower their clients and not manipulate their clients. It’s a great community. I would definitely recommend it.

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