Ep #216: Every Beginning is Another Beginning’s End

You are listening to episode 216 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we say goodbye and no fancy intro music today.

Welcome to the episode. But we’re just going to dive right in. No fancy intro, no jazzy music, none of the fluff. Because this is a super special episode.

And I’m looking at the words that I wrote 216 episodes ago, the self-confidence you need to do your best work as a life coach. That’s been in the introduction this entire time, bringing more boldness, resilience, and joy to your work. I wrote that before I even knew really what I was going to do with that, what I really meant by that. I feel like I never could have known. I had no idea.

Goodness, I love this work and so, if you haven’t picked up on the vibes just yet, yes, this is your last episode of The Confident Coaches Podcast and I’m going to do my absolute best not to cry while delivering it to you. It’s just you and me stripped down in the microphone. Wait, no, I’m not stripped down, I’m fully clothed.

It’s been a brilliant run. I never could have known. Over 200,000 downloads. I think by the time this episode comes out, will be just over 207,000 downloads, Over a thousand, almost a thousand downloads per episode. I mean, I’ve met so many amazing people. I’ve met so many of you. When you show up in my comments on Instagram, when I get emails, when so many of you become clients and you’ll show up on my Zoom screen and you’ll be like I’ve been listening to you for six months, two years.

So I know what you’re asking. So why is this the last episode? What’s next? And yes, a little foreshadowing there is something. There is something next. So I actually had another podcast. I know I’ve mentioned it before. It’s called Business Women Losing Weight. I did 72 episodes of that podcast. The last one was called the Next Big Thing. It aired October 30th 2018, over five years ago. I ended my first podcast after 72 episodes, over five years ago. It’s crazy, right? The Confident Coaches Podcast debuted on November 19th 2019, just over a year later.

Think back where you were in November 2019. What you thought you knew, what you dreamed of what you hoped for. First of all, can we celebrate the difference between you in 2019 and you the last week of 2023? What do you know now that you didn’t know, then? What have you let go of? What have you brought into your life? What would you have told November 2019 you like? For one thing? Hey, listen you, in a few months, you’re going to ride, you’re going to board a roller coaster and you’re not going to get off for a really long time. 2020 is going to be a ride strap in. Like neither of us could have possibly known where we would be on December 26th of 2023, which is the day that this episode is dropping four years and 216 episodes later.

And I don’t know about you, but I am not the same person, and you know that about me. So, like, unless you just got here, you have seen, you have heard me for the past. I mean, what is it? It’s been a good 20 plus months. You know, I’m not even remotely the same person that I was 20 months ago, much less four years ago, and I’ve shared a ton of that transformation with you. I’ve truly loved every moment of being vulnerable, but vulnerable with you, the conversations that we’ve had, allowing you to see my shift in thinking and how I was so sure of back in 2019 and 2020 that I completely changed my mind about or that I just acknowledged I’m not so sure about that anymore.

Things that I have since brought in that didn’t even exist in my realm of thinking. You’ve been along on this ride with me. You have been a witness to that growth on this side of the table and you’ve let me into your spaces and I’ve seen so much of your growth. It’s been seriously. Are you for real? Is this really what I have been able to get up and go do every single week for the past four years been a part of that amazing relationship. Stop it, stop it, stop it, stop it.

I have seriously loved every moment and something I’ve known. This might be the first time I’ve shared it with you, but this is not the first time I’ve shared this with my deepest confidence, because something that I’ve known for a good two years is I’ve known that there’s something past this. I have known that there was something on the other side of what I’ve been doing for the past few years. I’ve known that and only as I have known how much I love my kiddos, known how much I’ve loved the work that I’ve done with you, I’ve known there’s something next and that’s that’s actually why I stepped away from my usual mentor and coaching circles that I had been in for years, back in April 2022.

I knew I didn’t know what right, but I knew there’s a whole world I have not yet explored and I’m supposed to explore it and it’s something that has passed this space where I have been in the funny thing is 20 months ago it felt out there somewhere like it felt out there, like I needed to go explore.

I remember I might have shared this with you guys, is that you know I would feel untethered, and I know now that’s because I was out seeking out there which I know now that it’s always been right here this thing that’s next, this thing that’s past, where I’ve been this whole time for these past 10, 11 years which, by the way, 11 years January 1st I became a coach.

Like by the end of this week, we’ll mark 11 years that I first started a coaching business and I’ve always known that there was something next. Well, I haven’t always consciously known that, but I’ve known for sure. For the past two years, I just thought it was out there and I finally understood this past year that it’s right here. You don’t have to go seek it, and I didn’t get that back in April 2022.

I thought I was on a seeking mission but no, I was on an excavation mission, excavating all the expectation and obligation and supposed to. It’s been piled on since I mean honestly, since before I can even remember.

You have your big thing and you might know exactly what it is. You might just have a sense of it, but it’s already right there with you and so much of the work that I have done week in and week out for literally years, literally so many years of my life, so many amazing years, has been confronting all that expectation and that obligation and that feels so real and so true when really it’s just piled on top of what is actually what we really want, what you really want and what you are empowered to really step into. Like you don’t even have to step into it. That’s not even the right words because it just is there now.

This year I brought I brought a ton of practical and tactical marketing to this podcast and to Free to Paid Coach and introducing Elevate Your Income. It’s, it’s good stuff. I love the way I present it. I love the way that I teach it and you know what it’s marketing and sales for sure. New tools are always going to pop up. You’re always going to have new ways of doing these things, but the ideas and the premises never really change. You need to figure out how you meet new people, to start new conversations and how you continue those conversations so that they come to a place where it’s simple and easy to decide are we going to work together or not?

That is what I’m known for, here is what I do. Here is who I am for. This is my vibe; this is my mojo. This is what you get when you work with me. Do you want some of it? Do you want that? I spent four years studying this as a degree. It goes a little bit deeper than that. There are definitely avenues we can go down and explore, but it’s all just sales and marketing. There’s tons. Here’s the bottom line. There’s tons of amazing people out there all sharing that practical and tactical.

11:14

The funny thing is what I’ve done the longest. I took my very first business class in the fall of 1991. My God, that is 32 years ago. Don’t mind me, while I die just a little bit. For 32 years I’ve been doing some variation of sales and marketing and if you are still seeking that, I will happily tell you who you should go be hanging out with for sales and marketing. Big fan of Kelly Diels, she does great work with Danielle Cohen. If you want to work on the who you are, what you do, your words, your vibe, your messaging kind of stuff, they’re your people.

I love Maggie Patterson for solid business strategy no nonsense, BS Free is her branding and for social media strategy. I’m a big fan of Sarah Magnoni. I don’t know all of her work but from what I can tell, she’s going to be one that’s not going to steer you in too far of a wrong direction by any means. But the practical and tactical that’s not really the work. No matter how many times I would go down the alleyways of practical tacticals and the strategy, we always landed back at the real work. And you might know that intellectually, you might not quite be on board for that, which is totally cool, but the real work, that’s the excavation work.

Back in 2018, when I ended businesswomen losing weight I actually did know what was coming next. It took me a year to fully understand and articulate it. I did morph a bit from my initial decision. From confidence coaching I went from Businesswomen Losing Weight. I knew in 2018 when I ended that podcast, I knew I was entering confidence coaching in general, which, by the time the following November came around, I was a confidence coach for coaches. Now, the last week of 2023, I can honestly tell you I’m not exactly sure what’s coming next. Like for real. I’m recording this and I honestly I’m not 100% sure what’s coming next. It’s the excavation, for sure. I know that part, but am I selling that? Is this a coaching package? Is this a blog? Is this a YouTube series? Is this going to be a new podcast? That’s somewhere. Is it even a thing? I want to think about marketing and sales strategy at this time.

Back in 2018, I was surrounded by an inner circle of extremely successful life coaches. I couldn’t have imagined that, less than five years later, none of them would be a part of my life. So much of that certainty that I had back in 2018 wasn’t so much my certainty. It was my certainty that my inner circle was certain they knew.

Now, in this last week of 2023, five years later. I’m my inner circle. Yes, I do have mentors of sorts. My relationship with them is so very different than I’ve ever had before, like so solidly. None of the people that I consult or mentor with at this time, none of them, have my answers like at all. I don’t look to them for my answers. I don’t seek from them my answers. I know my answers are right here. I use their mentorship and their guidance to help bring those answers up. Five years ago, not so much the case. And here’s the funny thing. I had a coach a year ago who was totally ready for me to be in this place, but I wasn’t there yet. I wasn’t quite ready for this place. In this place, that is, if you can do whatever you want, what would it be? It’s a simple question what do you want? What do you actually want? It’s a hard question to answer, though, if you’re not familiar with answering it.

In years past, I’ve always laid everything out on the table and plucked out what’s not staying. This year, I’m wiping the table clean and I’m only putting back on the table what’s staying. It’s like cleaning out your closet, right?

There’s what we normally do, or what I’ve normally done, and it’s you know, look at what’s hanging, pull out those things that I don’t love and all right, I’ve cleaned up my closet, bag that stuff up, send it on its way. And then there’s the Marie Kondo method, where you empty everything. You empty your closet, your drawers, your baskets. You leave everything out on your bed and you physically hold everything and ask does this bring me joy, do I love this?

And only then do you decide if it actually goes back in the closet or in your drawer. And that, my dear friend, that is actually where I am today. Everything’s laid out on the bed and I’m just deciding what’s coming back, and I’m still in that process. I’ve actually decided some things already, but not all things.

And I’m going to be really clear if the Facebook hacking thing hadn’t happened, I would probably have already what’s coming with me in the closet and everything else ready to go out. That’s a whole separate conversation that, no, I don’t really want to have. But if you do, follow me on my new Facebook account which is ironic, right, it’s very ironic I’ve been sharing a lot of snippets and a lot of security how-to’s and how to make sure you don’t have financial information stored in your Facebook, because most of us do and we don’t even realize it. All of that stuff and, as a side note, to be really clear, did the Facebook hacking and me losing 16 years of my networking and all of my and all of those nurtured contacts, and losing my business page that I started in 2010, which was my means of selling some of my programs next year. Was that a deciding factor? Sure, but it was probably what you would call the feather on the pile on the back of the camel. It wasn’t the only thing, it was probably the last thing that was like okay, all right, I see, I got some stuff to figure out here.

Maybe I’ve been looking at this through the wrong lens because I literally had most of my plans shaken up. And here’s the thing I still have full access to you via this podcast. I still have full access to my email list. I’ve done a really fantastic job of nurturing that, so that’s why I want to be really, really clear. This is not a oh my goodness, I had Facebook pulled out from under me. Therefore, I can’t run my business. More like, that was the feather on top of what was already directing me in a new a new direction. To be a little over-redundant, there with my words, it was already steering me in a different direction. That was just the, oh yeah, I’m actually headed in the right direction. I actually am supposed to take a sharp left at this corner up here instead of slowly veering. So, first off, practicals and tactical information here.

19:46

The Confident Coaches Podcast yeah, this is coming to an end. At first I did think about just a hiatus, but as I’ve Marie Kondoed my business and, in turn, my life, I know that Confident Coaches is not coming with me and you’re going to see in a moment why.

And my current programs, I am putting them to bed. So, as of this recording, I am no longer selling Free to Paid Coach or Elevate Your Income as I previously have and the communities that exist for those programs. I am absolutely still showing up for those people who are already in, and that communication with them has already been had, so the community aspect of that is still being fulfilled.

Now, at the time of this recording, again, a decision that I thought I would have had by now, and, unfortunately, that Facebook situation, because still, as of this recording, that is still ongoing, there are still hackers running ads under my business account that I am still trying to get under control, but as at the time of this recording, I do plan to keep that knowledge of those programs still available, you know, as a self-study.

And while I’m not 100% sure the platform that that’s going to be www.amylatta.com will be the place to go for that. So the mindset tools, the marketing and sales tools that are in both of those programs, www.amylatta.com is your place to go to get your hands on those. And I’m also putting Play More Sell More to bed, my free Facebook Group, my weekly live pep talks, at least the pep talks that are geared towards that audience.

And this is a hard one. But you know, I know that I’m shifting and again, I’m getting ready to share with you what I do know for sure, that Play More Sell More group has a very specific purpose and it’s not in the direction that I’m getting ready to share with you. It’s not unrelated, but rather than repurpose and repurpose and repurpose, let’s not do that, let’s Marie Kondo this. So I mean I’ve basically listed what I pretty much do, day in, day out.

Okay, the Podcast, these two coaching programs, the free Facebook group, like what’s left, and that is where I now invite you to come with me, because you want to go on a real journey in real time. Let’s see where this excavation goes. Let’s keep this conversation going. Again, thank you very much.

Facebook hacking has taken up the past 9-10 weeks of my life. I had planned for those pieces to be set in place, and they are not necessarily. But here’s what I do know, because I’ve had a ton of conversations with so many women this year, women who often hired me for the marketing strategy these were still the conversations that we had and then some women who didn’t necessarily hire me for the marketing strategy because they wanted to have these conversations, and you know so much of what I’ve put out into the world has already told them she’s the gal to how these conversations with so many of us, so many of you, powerful women, women who are already highly accomplished in so many areas we’re still masking, we’re still playing it safe and biting their tongues.

Who’ve been, you know, maybe delegitimized in their homes, in their offices, in their communities, sometimes even in rooms that are self-proclaimed rooms of empowerment. That’s what fucking sucks the most is to feel delegitimized in a room that’s supposed to be elevating you. That tells you in not so many words of playing it safe and playing it small. But still, just listen to me. I know what’s best for you and listen. These conversations that I’m having, the women I’m having them with, we’re not accommodating anymore.

This is midlife power time right here. You know, maybe you’ve been under resourced, maybe you’ve been unpowered, but not because you don’t have power. You are very acquainted with your own power and again, not in that girl boss kind of way. This isn’t power. That’s actually just patriarchy, dressed up in some red-soled shoes and a Chanel dress. Because we’re not going to gain our power by replicating the very systems that have previously kept us small, because they’re just going to keep someone else small, and we’re not doing that anymore. You are ready for legacy building because you have hit your fucking point. Uh-uh done, not doing this anymore.

And also, I don’t really know what that looks like. That’s not been modeled for me. I don’t know how to actually say I know what I want, even though I actually do know what that is, and because now it’s the time to decide.

What do you want to be, what do you want to have to say, to accomplish, to be known for? How do you want to use your voice? Do you wanna have that conversation with me? Because those are the conversations, as you can tell. Can you tell, I can tell? Have you felt my energy to shift? I totally felt it in 2018, I knew I wanted to be a confidence coach so you could do your epic thing.

I remember the room I was sitting in when I said those words out loud I wanna be a confidence coach, so that scared people can go do their epic thing. I wanna go do epic shit. Go do that epic thing you’ve always wanted to do in the world. But even there, can you tell? Still, it’s like I wanna do confidence to go do the epic thing. Let me pull back for half a second. I knew I wanted to be the confidence coach so you could go do your epic thing in the world, and that morphed into the epic thing was building a coaching business, and that’s what led to Confidence Coaches Podcast. That’s what’s led to my work for the past four years.

But even there, it’s like this epic thing, as opposed to stepping into your full epicness, because it’s not the thing that’s epic, it’s you that is. Even back then, I was still playing not at my full power because even then it was like, oh, you’re going to go do this epic thing. Maybe that epic thing is to run the marathon. Maybe that epic thing is to write a book, maybe that epic thing is to and it ended up being starting your own coaching business, as opposed to go be epic, be the epic human you actually were made for. The difference is just a couple of word choices, but the meaning is a giant shift, because now we’re talking about facing head on those things, those systems that have prevented, that, prevented you from being your epic self. Like you’ve been caught between belonging and autonomy and not really sure where to land. Who is your mentor here, who is your guide here?

And if you want these conversations, these are the conversations I’m having and I’ve put together a survey and this is what I’m asking of you, if you’re picking up what I’m throwing down, if you felt that energy shift and you’re like, yes, give me more.

www.amylatta.com/2024survey I don’t know how long this is going to be up. It won’t be up indefinitely, because eventually it won’t be 2024 anymore, but www.amylatta.com/2024survey I’ve put together some questions for you to consider, to ponder, to see what comes up, to help me steer this conversation. What does this conversation could have looked like? How would it land for you, knowing where that conversation is going to be had as of this recording? I am still deciding that part, but make sure you get emails from me to know where this conversation is going.

Again, is this going to be a podcast? Is this going to be a coaching program? Is this going to be a blog? Is this going to be a series of emails? Is this going to be an Instagram profile that lights your phone on fire every time a new one of my posts pops up when you’re all of the above? That’s what I’m going to invite you to come find out with me.

Taking that survey will ensure that you are able to stay connected with me and also www.amylatta.com will always direct you to wherever the conversation is going and I will drop it right here.

You can always just email me, amy@amylatta.com and say, hey, I want to make sure I’m getting your emails and also I don’t have a link. I don’t have a sign up for this, but I created so many freebies there in the last couple of months. All of these great marketing tools, all of that’s going to be fully available too. They’ll just let me know what you want. Again, you can send me an email and go to the website.

But number one www.amylatta.com/2024survey If you want to have these conversations with me, I’m even going to make it so you do not have to fill everything out. If you have a voice and you have something to say, a chance to say it, but also just to let me know. Yes, I want to make sure I’m coming along wherever you’re going here to have this conversation.

Okay, here’s the interesting thing. What I love most, actually right now, it’s actually the not knowing. I have to be honest with you. I’m actually recording this just over a week before you’re actually listening to it, but something that’s so true is that I’ve never felt so calm, I’ve never felt so sure and I’ve never felt so at ease. Then it’d be really clear. I’ve had the answers to way more questions. I’ve had way more answers to all of the questions before, but none of those answers actually created the calm and the sure and the ease. I know that because right now I have very few answers. I don’t have most of those answers. It doesn’t matter, because actually it’s the knowing in your gut that you’re doing what your soul truly wants and where your life’s work is guiding you.

That work, let’s be honest, it can be done in any space. It might be your own business. It may be as a coach; it may not be. It might be working somewhere else. It might be working from the inside of an institution instead of from the outside of an institution. It might be in your neighborhood; it might be in your home. But you know, this is my voice, this is my power, I own it and it is mine. So www.amylatta.com/2024survey  This is the first step in using your voice and a sure way to know when and where we are having these conversations in 2024 with me and no matter where you are headed, I truly cannot wait to see what you create.

Let’s go do epic shit and let’s go be our epic selves.