Lauren Jones of Zant On An Inside Look at the Benefits and Impact Of Working With an Executive Coach
An Interview With Chad Silverstein
Coaching is about making decisions faster and with more clarity. It is about not ruminating or going backward. It builds confidence. And I think the ROI is not just in what you gain, but in what you avoid losing by moving too slowly.
The competitive edge in business often comes down to a combination of strategy, foresight, and professional development. For executives looking to level up their skills, an executive coach can be their biggest asset. In this feature, we talk to business leaders who heavily invest in personal and professional development opportunities, coaching, and leadership programs. They’ll share why they invest so much and the impact it has on their life.
As a part of our series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Lauren Jones.
Lauren Jones is an executive and life coach, former corporate banking leader with 25+ years at institutions including JP Morgan and Bank of America, and advisor to founders and leadership teams nationwide. She helps executives, founders, and professional women stop overthinking, make confident decisions, and lead with both power and peace. You can find her at laurenjonescollective.com, on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/coach-lauren-jones, or on the coaching platform Zant at zantcoach.co.
Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Let’s jump in and focus on your early years. First off, can you give us a snapshot of your life before you started your career?
I really grew up in a place where I was always working. I started my career as a teller and went on to spend 25 years in banking. Because of that, I really understood that you had to work hard. That was just part of my upbringing and personality. You keep your head down, and you keep working hard.
There was not a lot of self-awareness in that season of life. It was more about taking the next step and doing what needed to be done. For a long time, that was great. That grit provided an important foundation for building my career. But honestly, and this is something I work on with a lot of my clients, what gets you to where you are is not always what gets you to the next step.
When I was working professionally in a corporate setting, I was constantly trying to be the best, to be number one, and to figure out who I was and what my worth was. I feel like I have always been working, so it is hard to separate career from identity in some ways. I spent all that time learning what I needed to learn, and I was really successful in banking. I climbed the ladder, led my own team, and I loved it.
That is when I got a coach, honestly, because it is hard to see outside of yourself when you are in the middle of it and being given direction all the time. I have been working with a coach since 2016, when I was managing teams. I left my corporate banking job in 2023, mostly for personal reasons, and then I kind of fell into coaching myself. I got certified and have worked with clients who’ve found me through my own channels or the coaching platform Zant. I’ve found myself coaching many corporate professionals, specifically in finance, who are going through the same journey I went through.
What was it about personal and professional development that attracted you to start investing in yourself? Also, can you share when you started and what your first investment was?
Honestly, it was not really a choice. I think women, specifically, just kind of hit a wall. I know I did. I had this realization that I was so tired, and it was not the kind of tired that a nap could fix. It was the kind of tired that made me ask myself how I was supposed to keep working. What I was doing was not sustainable.
I think that is where things started to shift for me. You’re constantly thinking that nobody cares that you’re tired and you just have to work harder. That is often how you become successful on paper. But in reality, you are quietly exhausted.
That is where investing in a coach became important for me. I went through a leadership acceleration program, and one of the biggest takeaways was to invest in a coach so I could get more aligned with my internal worth and my external worth. From there, I could become much more intentional about how I was performing in business and in life.
At first, I honestly didn’t know what the coach could do for me. How am I going to work with them? I told myself it wouldn’t help me. But since then, comparing the first half of my career to the second, the difference is clear. The first half was all about the climb. The second half, after having a coach, became much more strategically focused. It changed how I showed up for myself and the people around me. From an investment perspective, it changed how I viewed competition, my high-level role, and even how I thought about earning more money. It was not really about the money, but it came with it.
Can you think back and share one of the biggest blind spots you had that someone helped you see and something specific about what you learned and how it showed up in your life?
Honestly, I grew up at JPMorgan. My first corporate job was there, and I worked there for 12 years. That was my foundation. In that kind of environment, there is no room to doubt yourself. You just keep going. For a long time, it never even occurred to me that I might be missing something, or that I could be learning in a better way or from a different perspective. That shift did not really happen until I became deeply involved in a private wealth practice, where I had to start engaging with clients in a different way.
The other piece was understanding the best use of my skill set. For a long time, I wanted to take the jobs that made me prove I was smart instead of the roles that were more relationship-based. Then someone sat me down and said, listen, that is not the best use of you. Sitting there crunching numbers is one thing, and yes, I can do it. But most people cannot walk into a room, build trust, and make the sale or close the deal. Having someone support you, whether through coaching or otherwise, helps you get intentional about your visibility, the roles you want, how you are performing in those roles, and where your strengths are best used.
Sometimes we abandon ourselves because of what we think we should do. We think that is professionalism, when really, it is just a harder way to go.
How long have you had an executive coach and how would you describe your relationship?
I have had an executive coach since 2016, so for about 10 years now. The relationship has ebbed and flowed over time. At first, it was pretty regular. Then it shifted into more of a mastermind format with that coach. Even now, I still have a coach for my coaching business, because the work is ongoing.
It is a little like going to the gym. Once you get in shape or reach your goal, you cannot just stop going and expect everything to stay the same. You cannot go back to old habits and expect the same results.
For me, it has really been about having an honest, safe space with someone who aligns with me, genuinely believes in my potential, and does not let me shrink back down. There is warmth in that relationship, absolutely, but it is also rigorous.
That is what coaching does. It asks the questions you are probably avoiding. It holds up the mirror and shows you that the one thing you do not want to handle may be the very thing holding you back from something you cannot even imagine yet.
If I was sitting down with your coach, and asked “what’s the one thing your client needs to work on more than anything else in the world” what would I hear them say about you?
Well, it does change. From the beginning, it probably would have been about slowing down long enough to receive feedback, good energy, and sometimes even downloads.
I think women in corporate jobs, especially women like me, often carry a kind of perfectionism. There is a type A energy, and there is a lot of masculine energy that can take over, just so you can be successful. I am good at giving out insight, energy, support, and strategy. But it is harder for me to let people give back.
That is why the coaching, in my executive career and even now as I am growing a business, has been so important. It reminds me that I cannot do this alone, and neither can you.
I think that is the work. You have to sit in the unknown sometimes. You have to slow down to speed up. It is slowing down so you can become steadier, so that things can move more easily. And honestly, it makes such a big impact on business and life.
If you were questioned about your “ROI” (return on investment), is there anything you can point to that justifies how much you spend on being coached? If not, how do you justify it?
A couple of things stand out to me. First, I think you can always tie coaching back to some kind of tangible investment. In my first six months of working with a coach, I think I paid around $6,000 over a three-month period. During that time, I was able to negotiate a new job with a $20,000 increase in my base salary. That is a very real example of return on investment. But coaching is not only about the numbers.
Coaching is about making decisions faster and with more clarity. It is about not ruminating or going backward. It builds confidence. And I think the ROI is not just in what you gain, but in what you avoid losing by moving too slowly. Slow decision-making has a cost.
So yes, I can point to a clear financial example, like a multiplier on the investment. But there is also the cost of not doing it. There is also the cost of taking opportunities that are just distractions. There is the value of making a smarter choice, like hiring the right person or stepping into the right role.
Those things are tangible, and they all add up. They also raise your overall energy and perspective. While that may not show up on a P&L or on a tax return, it does show up in the version of yourself you become. And to me, that is priceless.
Let’s dive into specifics. What are the top 5 things you’ve either gained or learned about yourself, where you specifically made changes, and have seen positive results. Be specific and feel free to give us either the background or story about each.
1. Slow down to speed up
This isn’t about slowing down your pace of work or your ability to make decisions. It’s about taking time to get good feedback, process it, and stabilize yourself to give back your best. It’s easy to get carried away by the pace of work and think that you have to always keep going. But taking time to really process your position and performance can lead to making the right adjustments that could end up speeding up your growth.
2. Worthiness is more than performance
A lot of times in the corporate world, executives, myself included, tie their entire worth to their scorecard. I realized that my worth had become connected to performance. As a banker and as someone driving business, I was often operating out of fear. If I did not make the numbers, I felt like I was not worth anything. That mindset followed me even more as I became a leader. Coming from that place and trying to motivate and encourage other people did not help. I was leading from fear more than I realized. Having a coach helped me see that differently. It showed me that your worth is not tied to your success. You are a worthy person simply because you are human. Leading from that place is powerful. It changes how you show up, how you lead, and how you support the people around you.
3. Boundaries are a strategy
It does not make you unlikable. It does not push people away. In fact, I think boundaries are meant to hold you together. When you are leading a team and trying to be everything, it is easy to forget that you cannot do everything at once. You can do anything, but you cannot do everything all at once. I used to think saying no was a terrible thing. I thought I always had to say yes, always put myself out there, and always be available. But one of the most powerful tools I have had as a leader is the ability to say no. I didn’t have to take every meeting and every partnership. I chose what we needed to focus on. That is what keeps things clear.
4. Feeling capable to use my voice
As a woman, I was often in rooms full of white-collar men in banking. I would feel inclined to make myself smaller, but coaching gave me the ability to speak up with precision and confidence. That has honestly been one of the most valuable intangible returns on investment I have experienced. I have had people say to me at work, “You get away with saying things that nobody else would.” And I think that comes from coaching, because it gave me a place to untangle my feelings and my thoughts. It helped me bring more precision to my leadership and more intention to how I show up, so I can make a difference.
5. You don’t find yourself, you build yourself
Everyone wants to find themselves, find their purpose, and find their value. And I understand that. It is fair to say, “I do not know who I am.” But the real question is what work are you doing to build yourself? Where are you putting in the effort to increase your capacity and become the person you need to be in order to reach that big goal? For me, that is what coaching does. It opens your mind to a different version of yourself, the version you have to become to get to the next step. It is not really fake it till you make it. It is more about stopping the search for something external and starting to build what has to come from within.
What advice would you give other entrepreneurs who don’t think it’s worth investing in a coach or spending money to join a leadership program?
Think about what decisions you are not making right now that are costing you? Where are you stagnant, and what is that costing you in real terms?
In banking, specifically, I was a lender for a long time. If we could not analyze the deal and figure out how to get the money out the door, we were not making any money. Even one day could cost us a real dollar amount. We could lose interest income just by delaying something and leaving money on the table. Of course, there is risk assessment and all the necessary checks that have to happen. But that same idea shows up in life, too. Where are you not moving because you are overwhelmed, exhausted, unclear, or scared?
I can think of two examples off the top of my head where I could use this advice right now, because life just keeps coming at you. When you work with a coach and get clear on your values, when you have a decision-making framework, you are able to level up. This is not hypothetical. It is about where you are circling decisions, hesitating, and losing real momentum and real dollars.
Honestly, I am going to say something a little blunt here. If you do not think coaching is worth it, then do not do it. As a coach and even as a leader, the executives I work with now are not broken. They are just focused on being efficient and getting intentional about their performance. They are serious, and they know that coaching makes a difference.
So, if you do not think it is worth it, it is not for you.
Do you have any examples of how being coached had an impact on others who work around you? How has it spilled over to your team or your family?
It is all intertwined. You cannot get coaching and not have it spill over into other parts of your life.
When you start living intentionally in your business, you also begin taking better care of yourself. You become more aware of what you eat, how you sleep, and how you treat your family. There is nothing that is not impacted by the value of coaching, especially as you start eliminating indecision.
I also think that when you are doing the work, it radiates outward. It has a trickle effect. And then you start to notice that things begin to come together. The universe starts collaborating with you, and things begin happening.
What my clients experience, and what I experience too, is a shift in everyday life. You become calmer when things are hard. You are more decisive and less reactive. That does not mean bad things never happen, and it does not mean everything says something about you. It means you are showing up differently in every part of your life.
Even at home, you are less exhausted. You have more presence. You can show up fully. You are just showing up differently everywhere.
There are so many executive coaches out there. How did you go about selecting the right one for you?
Back in 2016, there were not as many options. When I was looking for a coach, I was very clear that I wanted someone with a finance background because that was my world too. At the time, you found your coach mostly through word of mouth.
Now, I think it is worth approaching it like having a conversation. If you feel like you have to guard yourself, that is probably the wrong coach for you. If someone is too soft, too passive, or not willing to push you, that is not going to work either.
It is a little like hiring a personal trainer at the gym. If you say, “I am tired,” and they simply say, “Okay,” then they are not really helping you grow. You need someone who will push you through that last rep. The point is not comfort. The point is progress.
That is why chemistry matters so much. If I were looking for a coach today, I would ask around. I would talk to people I look up to and ask whether they have worked with a coach or know someone they trust.
There are also platforms, like Zant, that help match coaches with people, which can be useful. But no matter how you find them, the fit has to feel safe, honest, and challenging. If you are only feeling good all the time, nothing is really changing.
Lastly, where can our audience go to follow your journey and perhaps get inspired to make their own investment in coaching?
The best place to follow me is on LinkedIn. You can find me there as Lauren Jones. I post pretty consistently, so if you want to follow along, that is a good place to do it.
If you are interested, you can always book a call with me there. I also have a website, laurenjonescollective.com, and you can email me at hello@laurenjonescollective.com. But the best next step is to set up a call. Let’s chat.
Thank you so much for joining us! We wish you only success.
About The Interviewer: Chad Silverstein is a seasoned entrepreneur with 25+ years of experience as a Founder and CEO. While attending Ohio State University, he launched his first company, Choice Recovery, Inc., a nationally recognized healthcare collection agency — twice ranked the #1 workplace in Ohio. In 2013, he founded [re]start, helping thousands of people find meaningful career opportunities. After selling both companies, Chad shifted his focus to his true passion — leadership. Today, he coaches founders and CEOs at Built to Lead, advises Authority Magazine’s Thought Leader Incubator.
Lauren Jones of Zant On An Inside Look at the Benefits and Impact Of Working With an Executive… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.