Ep #21: Confidence in the Time of Coronavirus

You are listening to episode 21 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we talk confidence in the time of in the time of the coronavirus.

Welcome to The Confident Coaches Podcast, a place for creating the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. If you want to bring more boldness, more resilience, and more joy to your work, this is the place for you. I’m your host, Amy Latta. Let’s dive in.

Hey, my Confident Coaches. How’s everybody doing out there? Okay, so, in the time since I last recorded a podcast, the shit done hit the fan, my friends. I can’t be 100% sure, but there’s a very good chance that by the time this podcast comes out, that you are currently living in a shelter-in-place kind of life, as each day, the week that I am recording this, more and more states add that to the list.

The news every day is getting dire and more dire, the number of cases are doubling. It’s exponential growth. It’s no longer that coronavirus may impact your life, but it most definitely has impacted your life at this point. Because of that, there’s all this talk of the economy and our friends and loved ones possibly dying and politics and stimulus packages and what are they going to do for us and just all kinds of never-thought-I-would-see-this kind of stuff going on, right?

So, that changes where I was going with this podcast and what I was going to share with you this month. And guess what – I kind of think that that’s perfect because sometimes what we have planned is not necessarily the work that we need to do. And the universe always gives us what we need, even if we can’t see it.

So, here’s the focus we have today; confidence in the time of coronavirus. What do we know and what don’t we know? And most importantly, what can we choose? And so far, I’m going to present this to you in a series of lessons that I have learned just in the past week, and I’m going to share them with you so that you can take these lessons and then decide what you are going to choose by the end of this episode. Alright, my friends, let’s do this.

So, lessons I have already seen – lesson number one. This is our time to shine. If you are not already tied to a life coaching community, maybe you haven’t heard this. I know, in my life coaching community, I’ve heard this multiple times. But I want to make sure we all understand this.

Know this; our time is now. There has never ever been a better time to be a life coach because among these extraordinary events, the humans of the world still have regular life happening too. So, they still need coaching about their daily stuff; weight and marriage and overdrinking and parenting issues and career. Plus, they have all of those things in the time of coronavirus.

We have no idea where exactly this is going. We have no idea the exact impact it will have on our loved ones, on us. We have no idea the exact impact it will have on the economy, on our bank accounts, or our future. But never before has being able to be aware of the sentences in our mind, of our thoughts, and that we have a choice in what we think, never before has this been more important because our brain tells us that we have to know exactly what to do before we can take action.

And the coronavirus means even the experts in these categories can’t really even predict. We have never, in modern times, experienced this. So, the only tool that we have to keep going and not shut down is life coaching; the ability to be aware of our thoughts and see how they create our results and our ability to decide what to choose to think.

Friends, this is our time to fucking shine. The word needs these tools now more than ever, that our thoughts – all of our thoughts – create our life and create our reality and create our results, even in the time of coronavirus.

So, lesson number two – our brain has kind of been foolish this entire time. I touched on this a little bit in lesson number one, but really think about this. Right now, our brain is telling us that everything’s been turned upside down. And what it was so sure of before, it just can’t be sure of anymore.

But that wasn’t actually true. Your brain just kind of tricked itself into believing that it could be sure about the things that we can’t actually be sure about. Like, months ago, before you ever heard of coronavirus, your brain was pretty sure we weren’t going to die tomorrow. It was pretty confident that you or your husband or your family was going to have that job next week or that check was still going to come, that your kids were going to be just fine.

Yes, our brain is designed to freak out, but there are some things that it chooses to not freak out about. This is why some people panic about money every day and other people don’t. Our brain kind if decides what we’re going to choose to worry about and what it doesn’t.

But nothing has ever been sure, ever. No matter what is happening in the day’s news, we have never been guaranteed another day or another dollar or toilet paper on the shelves when we go to the store, right? Even the experts are just guessing what they think is going to happen or where they think things are going to go.

Really understand what I’m saying here. These things were never guaranteed, so they are no less guaranteed right now than they were three months ago. It’s just that now your brain is freaking out about all of it. Maybe before, it was only freaking out about one thing over here or one thing over here. But now it’s like everything is unsure. But everything has always been unsure.

A fellow master coach candidate friend of mine – her name is Lisa and she’s amazing. And she actually lives in Italy. She used an analogy in our Slack channel of walking on an edge your entire life with a blindfold on, and now it’s been take off.

And she described perfectly the thoughts that I just shared with you. It’s like you’ve been walking along an edge with a steep drop this entire time. Your entire life has been led by walking along this edge. But you had blinders on and so you didn’t know it, so you weren’t afraid of falling off.

But the risk of falling off at any moment was always there and it is still there. But now, the blinder has gone and now your brain can see the steep drop. And so, now it’s afraid.

But you don’t have to be afraid because you weren’t afraid before, and you can choose not to be now. And now that you know the steep drop is there, you can decide to be more intentional with each step forward. You can live more purposefully with more intention now.

Oh my gosh, I had all of these thoughts in my head. And when she shared the blindfold on the edge analogy, I was like, yes, perfect blending of what I had going on in my own brain right there.

So, lesson three – whatever was holding you back before is the same stuff that’s holding you back now. So, I was off last week. The podcast episode you listened to last week, I’d actually recorded two weeks before. So, I was off last week with my family, so I really wasn’t working.

I wasn’t checking stuff too much; I saw emails coming in. I saw messages coming in but I wasn’t really wrapping my head around them. So, as I sat down this morning to dive in and really see all these messages, I noticed that what my clients and what my followers, my podcast listeners and the people who send me emails were sharing with me, it’s all the same stuff that people were sharing before they heard of the coronavirus. It’s really fascinating. It’s like all the coronavirus has done is hold a magnifying glass to what was already there.

So, think about this; whatever people were worried about before in their lives, coronavirus has just brought that to the surface. Maybe they were aware of these worries. Maybe they weren’t aware of them. But they are now. They’re aware now.

Coronavirus didn’t necessarily bring up new worries. It just highlighted the ones that were already there. So, if you were worried about not having enough money before, you’re even more worried about it now. If you’ve always been worried about your relationship with your husband or parenting your children, there’s something about the coronavirus that’s bringing that up more to the surface. Coronavirus is merely a magnifying glass to what was already worrying us.

So, what about you, life coach? Were you worried that selling coaching is icky? Those are actual words from a client I had a call with just today, that selling is icky. Or you’re worried that people didn’t have money to spend on coaching or that people would not spend much on coaching.

Were you worried that you don’t know what to say to your ideal clients? Were you worried that other people had already said it? Were you worried that none of this really matters anyway in the grand scheme of things? That’s something another client said to me today.

How has coronavirus magnified these worries? Or even better, how has coronavirus brought these worries to the surface to you? So, if you knew this was a worry before, see how your brain wants to use the coronavirus to prove you right to worry about it.

What if that thought is no more true today than it was a couple of months ago? Then what? And, if you didn’t know this was a worry before, this is great news to have discovered it because it was swirling under the surface anyway, even if you didn’t realize it.

Now it has come to light, it is brought up to the surface, and now you can get coaching around it. You can coach yourself or ask the coach that you are currently working with, if you are working with one, to coach you around it.

Because all of these worries are just thoughts that you have, and all thoughts are optional, and we know that they’re optional because not everyone, not every life coach is believing the same thing that you are. They might be believing thoughts that you weren’t believing. They might have worries that you don’t have and you have worries that they don’t have. That’s how we know it’s all a choice, even in the time of coronavirus.

Alright, so, lesson four that I have found is that in the midst of all of the not knowing, what a perfect time to redirect your brain to what it does know? My coach Stacey calls this intentional thought creation. And it’s my new favorite tool that’s he has taught me. I swear, I think I have brought it up in darn near every single coaching session I have had in the month and a half since she taught it to me.

So, the idea here is every time your brain goes into panic and it just doesn’t know and it’s unsure and it’s freaking out, redirect your brain. What is in my brain? What am I sure of? What do I know I bring to the table? What proof do I have that people are paying for coaching right now? What is valuable about what I have to offer?

Like the episode a couple of weeks ago about confidence accounts, what am I confident in? What am I sure of about myself? What do I believe that is good about me?

Your brain is seeking information that it thinks it needs to survive. It is doing what it is designed to do, right? Your brains not doing anything different today than what it’s always done. Remember, it has had blinders on the whole time, but these, “What if this happens,” and, “What if this happens,” scenarios were always possible before, you just didn’t constantly seek information about it.

So, when we redirect our brain to what it does know, we give it that little push that it needs, but in the right direction instead of in the wrong direction, like hopping on Twitter and grabbing your phone and reading the latest reports, or damn, watching yet another press conference. Whatever you do, stop watching the press conferences.

I had to give myself that direction this morning. I was like, no more press conferences. It has pissed me off and freaked me out. So, stop allowing our brain to go in the wrong direction, where it’s going to seek out all of the misinformation and all of the data that makes it freak out. And instead, send it into the right direction.

It’s seeking information that it thinks it needs to survive, so at least send it in the direction of the information that helps you, not hurts you, into the direction of the information that serves you, not stops you and hinders you.

So, lesson number five – this is the last lesson, it’s the shortest lesson, and it might be the most important lesson, because this I know; not only is this our time to shine. This is our time to be innovative.

Based on human history, if you look back in history, times of change, turmoil, and uncertainty have either unleashed fear and retreating or innovation and expansion. I choose innovation and expansion.

If my blinders are wide open and I know I have something that the world needs right now and I know that the world has always been uncertain, that this is not actually anything new and the coronavirus has helped me see where my personal work is, what I need to get coaching on, like it has shown that bright light right on all of my doubts and fears, there’s no doubt now, and I focus on what I do know and what I am confident in, what am I going to create from that place?

What are you going to create from that place? What will you share? What will you bring to the table, my friends? Because you absolutely can feel more confident and sign more clients in the time of coronavirus.

Your work this week is just that. Choose innovation and expansion with me. Focus on these five lessons, that this is our time to shine as life coaches, that the only thing that has changed is that we’ve taken the blinders off, that the coronavirus has helped us see where our work is, that we can intentionally redirect our brain on what it does know, and that this is our time to be innovative.

Focus on those five lessons this week and decide how you will show up each day and serve your people. Show up in service and offer to help. You’ve got this. Alright, my friends, until next week.

Friends, I am so excited to offer you a podcast-only treat. I am sharing with you the five-day Unblock Your Confidence mini course. It is only available to The Confident Coaches Podcast listeners and the only way to get your hands on it is right here. Why do you need this course?

Well, in this five-day mini course, you will learn why it seems like you struggle with confidence when others don’t, how to build trust in yourself, how to get over your fear of failure, how to stop caring so damn much what other people think, and the best thing you can do to unblock your confidence today.

All of that in just five days. This is some of my best work waiting for you. Visit www.amylatta.com/unblockconfidence to get yours. Again, that’s www.amylatta.com/unblockconfidence. Go now and get started today.  

Thanks so much for listening to The Confident Coaches Podcast. I invite you to learn more. Come visit me at www.amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.