Ep #127: How to Be an Expert Without Arrogance

The Confident Coaches Podcast with Amy Latta | How to Be an Expert Without Arrogance

Why aren’t you claiming your expertise and knowledge to finally become a confident, paid coach?

I watch coaches attempt to blend into the background, hide the unique work they have to share, unwilling to stand out. All because they fear coming across with arrogance.

But there’s no need for superiority or arrogance, there’s no room for pedestals, and your expertise doesn’t trump your clients’. So, tune in this week to find out how to channel expertise energy without arrogance. 

 

The doors to Free to Paid Coach are officially open! If you’re ready to learn the foundational concepts of confidence that get you from being a free coach to a paid coach who makes six figures and beyond, join us right now! 

If you want to make your path to $100K inevitable, you have to join me in my Confident Coaches Mastermind. We’re only running one more class this year, happening in August, so don’t delay this work. Mark your calendars and join the waitlist!

 

What You’ll Learn:
  • How the fear of feeling superior is holding you back from becoming a paid coach. 
  • The difference between confidence and arrogance. 
  • How I’ve put other coaches on a pedestal in my life, and why it doesn’t work. 
  • Why having knowledge and expertise doesn’t automatically lead to arrogance. 
  • The easiest way to channel expertise energy instead of superiority energy. 

 

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:
Full Episode Transcript:

You are listening to episode 127 of The Confident Coaches Podcast. The one where you learn how to channel expertise energy without superiority energy. Yeah, let’s go.

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, Coach, how are you doing? Happy mid-April. I’m going to tell you in advance, obviously, this episode is coming out on the 12th and I’m recording it a week in advance. I’m just going to tell you right now that my birthday was fabulous, thank you so much for asking.

I am actually recording this right before I travel to Austin. So hopefully, I’m just going to tell you right now, it was fabulous meeting you all. If I met you, if we got to hug, if we got to take a picture. It was fabulous getting to know you. Even though I actually don’t board the plane, let’s see, I think I board the plane in about 13 hours. Does that sound good? That sounds good.

And actually, when this episode drops, I will actually be in Louisville at my own mastermind. So not my own personally, but I, as many of you do know, I pay to be in a group mastermind that my coach hosts and we meet quarterly and our meeting is April 12th, which is the day this is dropping. So as you are listening to this right now, I am getting my butt coached by my coach.

I’m sitting in a room with a bunch of brilliant coaches, some of whom are already making millions of dollars, all of us are scaling to a million dollars if we aren’t already there. And we are having high level conversations, not about Facebook ads.

Speaking of amazing rooms, are you in the Free To Paid Coach room yet? So, again, this is coming out in another week, but at the time of this recording, Free To Paid Coach has only been open for two weeks. Literally only two weeks. At the time that you listen to this it will be three weeks, so who knows what will have happened in between now and then.

So Free To Paid Coach is open all of the time. It is an open ended program. It does not start and stop at any time. It is super easy to get your butt in the room, it is a one time, I made it as approachable of a payment as I possibly could. It is worth literally 10 if not 100 times more in value. That price is not too good to be true, it is legit. We coach every Tuesday, and on March 28th we started 30 days of making offers.

And I need to tell you what is happening in there. Like even people who haven’t seen results yet are saying that they’re getting new ideas of what else they can be talking about. They’re getting new program ideas. They’re better understanding their own coaching by doing this work so far. So many of them are suddenly like, I wasn’t showing up at all and now I am. Now I am showing up in a way I’ve never shown up before.

And I want to celebrate two specific Free To Paid Coach Clients. The first one, I don’t know which one’s more miraculous to me. I don’t know which one I want to celebrate more. Let’s talk about Shawn Murray. So Shawn Murray is someone who took a training that I did over a year ago. Last March she took a training with me and from that training, she signed her first client. And then she was not able to join any of my masterminds that I launched all last year.

She is the exact kind of client I had in my head for Free To Paid Coach. I needed a program where I could bring that kind of brand new coach that doesn’t have that track record into a coaching program to build these foundations, let me show you what to do to sign a coach and how to handle your brain when it comes to signing coaches. Let’s dismantle some of that patriarchy we’ve been talking about. You know, all the stuff from the podcast from the past few weeks. But not quite yet ready for that mastermind level.

And so she shared this past week, and she was so funny, she goes I don’t know if this counts, but just when I put my name on the wait list. So I don’t know if y’all remember but I announced that the program was coming and then it opened. And then there was that in between time where you could put your name on the wait list. And there’s still quite a few of you who are on the wait list who haven’t gotten in already. So listen to these success stories.

Shawn put her name on the wait list. She had signed one client last March and had not signed anybody else since then. And then she made the decision, my dog is hacking up in the background. You’re ruining Shawn’s success story. Shawn did not sign any other clients, but then she saw the program, knew she wanted in, put her name on the wait list. Already decided in her mind this is happening. And she went out, and she signed a client before the doors even opened.

Now, she wasn’t sure if that counted. But here’s what I know, that is the power of filling out the application. There’s actually not an application for Free To Paid Coach, but there is for the mastermind. But that is the power of deciding this is happening.

And now she’s in the program and getting the actual full program, and having the Facebook support, and the ability to be coached live in our weekly calls, which she has. That is the power of the program. That is the power of your brain, just the ability to make a decision.

So congratulations to Shawn, who is kind of technically the first client in Free To Paid Coach to become a paid coach, even though she did it outside of the program. Like I love that as a celebration. The reason I love that as a celebration, it’s actually tied into today’s topic. But I’m going to circle back around.

I want to also celebrate Leandra McCullen. She actually is technically the first coach in the program to use the actual Free To Paid Coach process to sign her first client. She created a client from the very first post of the 30 day offer challenge. I couldn’t figure out which one was more awesome because I think they’re both awesome even though they’re two entirely different examples.

One was signing that client from just a sheer place of the decision having been made, it was happening. And the other one from the I’m going to use the process and I’m going to show up, and I’m going to do what Amy tells me to do in Free To Paid Coach. And she is officially the first one using the process to sign that first client.

So Shawn and Leandra, congratulations. I’ve been talking about, like it’s so exciting to create this brand new program. And I think about programs that have been around for years and everybody has those like, you know, oh, the rockstars of such and such program. Like people kind of looked to me sometimes because I have been in certain programs for a very long time and I have moved up through higher ranking programs from the same coach.

And I’m like, you guys in Free To Paid Coach right now, you are the future rockstars. You are the future mentor coaches. You are the future people that, you know, in two years from now when people are joining Free To Paid Coach, more and more people are coming in, they’re going to be looking to you as like oh, I see how you’ve used this process. And I’ve seen everything that you’ve created. It’s a very exciting vibe to be in there right now and you should 100% be in there with us.

And one of the things that we coached on actually in Free To Paid Coach, so today’s topic about being an expert without putting yourself on a pedestal actually came from coaching that we did in Free To Paid Coach. And it was around this uncomfortable feeling of telling people, “Listen, I am an expert and I can help you.” But then equating I’m an expert and I can help you with and I know more than you and I might know better than you.

Can you all ever come up against that in your thinking? This fear of telling people I’m an expert means telling people I know better than you. It’s very pedestal energy, right? It’s very putting people on a pedestal, whether it’s you on a pedestal or whether it’s other coaches on a pedestal.

When you feel like in order to tell people you can powerfully help them and you are the expert, you’re putting yourself on a pedestal above them. And this is a really important conversation that we need to have because this fear of if I tell people I’m better than they are, is actually preventing you from putting your stake in the ground in the coaching industry.

One of the things that I coach people on particularly at the Path To 100K Mastermind level is if there are 10 coaches all in a row who are fabulous and can help this person. Like here’s a potential client and there are 10 coaches and all 10 coaches are equally fabulous. Why should they work with you as opposed to the others?

That’s very hard to do if you’re worried about saying why you’re so fabulous, telling them why you are so awesome. Sharing the expertise you do have. But that is also the work that needs to be done if you want to become a paid coach, if you want to become a confident paid coach.

What happens is, is when you have that fear you’re watering down your message so that you kind of blend in with those 10 people as opposed to stand out from those 10 people. And the funny thing is, is that you’re showing up every day and you’re making offers, but you’re not getting very far. And you’re thinking this isn’t working.

And it could be as simple as you aren’t claiming your expertise. You are blending in with all the other life coaches out there doing the work that you do, as opposed to being willing to stand out from the other life coaches out there doing what you do.

We’re so worried about feeling superior or coming across as superior, people are going to think, oh, who does she think she is, that you aren’t sharing the goods you got in a really powerful way. So let’s take a look at how this shows up.

This is me saying, “Hey, my name is Amy Latta and I am an expert in the feminist business and confident coaching industry, I can absolutely help you go from free to paid coach and I can absolutely help you create your first 100K. I’ve been there, I know the exact processes you need to take.

I know exactly what you need to do in order to sign the clients and in order to handle the mindset crap that comes up when you are in the process of signing those clients. I know exactly how to help you identify the patriarchy in your brain, dismantle that, and figure out what you want to put in its place.”

And then you go do your version of that with that same level of conviction, assuredness, certainty, and confidence, without feeling superior, or putting yourself up on a pedestal above other people or feeling arrogant. What’s your version where you replace all of that with who you are, who you help and how you help them?

And then what would you start thinking about that? What would come up for you? What would prevent you? Once you have that, and you’re thinking about putting that out into the world, what comes up? What gets stirred up for you specifically?

Is it, I’m afraid I’m saying I know more than them? That I know better than them, that I am better than them? What specifically get stirred up for you when you think about writing your version of what I just said about me and putting that out into the world? That I can absolutely help you with this, this is why, this is my expertise, this is what I absolutely know that you need.

Everybody’s thoughts may be a little bit different, but most of them fall somewhere along the lines of I know more than them. I know better than them. I am better than them. And then of course, how does that feel? Like it feels bad, we know that right? Is it superior?

The person I was coaching said arrogant. And to be really clear, arrogance is not confidence because confidence is your willingness to not know everything and to be great with that. To be totally fine that you don’t know everything and that you can handle whatever is coming your way.

Arrogance is convincing yourself that you need to know everything. I need to know everything in order to feel okay about myself. And confidence is I don’t need to know everything in order to feel great about myself. Remember, confidence is very accepting of what you don’t know and what you might be wrong about. And arrogance allows no room for that.

If you are truly feeling superior or arrogant, like you can’t learn from there because superior and arrogant is like I already know all of the things. Because if I don’t know all of the things, then I don’t feel confident. I don’t feel right. But there’s no learning if you want to insist that you already know everything, right? You cannot grow from there. And you don’t want to create that environment of no growth.

So I ask you, how is it possible to technically know more than your audience and still create an environment of growth for both them and for you? So I’m going to share just a couple of stories of where I have put coaches or experts on pedestals instead of just acknowledging the understanding that they have that I may not. Like do you see that you could just acknowledge that they have understanding that you don’t have, but it’s not putting them on a pedestal.

So the first five to six years of me being a coach I was 100% putting any coach, almost every coach on a pedestal of some kind. If you had like one minute more of expertise than me or one minute more of experience, I was like pedestal, pedestal, lots of pedestals around me. They know more than me, they have more years of experience than I do. So let me soak up all of the information that they have and then I’m going to try to adopt it as my own so I might also end up with all the expertise like they do.

By the way, doesn’t work. That doesn’t work, it didn’t work. And the reason that that doesn’t work is because you are leading with what they know, rather than with what you know. When you put people on pedestals, you are putting you and yourself and what you know and what you understand lower than that. You’re putting that on the back burner or in second place to what they know.

So when I decided to work with my master mentor coach for a year in her 100K mentorship program, I 100% had her on a pedestal. She knows better than me, she’s made millions, she’s certified thousands, I have not. I’m going to do everything that she tells me to do. Which is really funny, I’m just going to do everything that my coach tells me to do is something that we hear a lot in the industry. But we don’t really think about what it means.

Because it took me quite a while to understand what we were doing in the program because I wanted her to tell me what to do. I’m just going to do everything my coach tells me. And I remember the disappointment of thinking she’s going to tell me everything to do, but she actually didn’t tell me what to do. Like the idea here is I’m going to do everything my coach tells me. My coach gave me the framework, but I still had to make all of the individual decisions within that framework.

So she lent me her expertise and her knowledge, but I still had to make the decisions and do the execution within that. And here’s the other thing that I found out, I didn’t actually agree with everything that she said. I would put my belief and what I believed in, and I would cast it aside for her belief. And some of her tried and trues just did not work for me.

Like the one thing for sure that I will tell anybody and everybody about that is my easiest example is all about time and time planning. You know, her planning method for the week is her tried and true. It’s a core tenant of her entire coaching program that she has. She teaches it to everybody. There are now coaches who are certified in that method and they teach other people about that.

And it doesn’t work for me. Trying to do that method is like putting a square peg in a round hole for me. That’s not how my brain can wrap itself around time. I used that method to punch myself in the face way more than to use it for me. And it took a lot of emotional discomfort and tears and downright strife before I realized, oh, wait, she is an expert and she has knowledge that I do not have. But her knowledge and her expertise does not trump me.

And do you see that? That you can have knowledge and you can have expertise that your clients don’t have, but your knowledge and expertise should never trump your clients and who they are, and what they know, and what they trust about themselves.

Now, our job is to challenge their thinking, but it’s not to replace their thinking. So I also know, like this whole story with my master coach came full circle because I paid her again for yet another program. Let’s go ahead and talk dollars and cents, I paid her $25,000 for the one year to tell me how to become 100K coach, only to realize that what I really paid her for was to learn how to stop putting other people on pedestals.

But then I did it again, I paid her another $25,000 to have her certify me as a master coach. And I was certified to coach in a very specific manner. I needed to make sure that the coaching submissions that I submitted for my certification and that the coaching calls I submitted met certain criteria and certain standards.

And I also learned to leave what I wanted to leave on the table. Like take their feedback. And yes, show up in a way that tells them I understand the methods for this certification, and also I’m going to take what I need and I’m going to leave the better for it.

And here’s what I want you to consider, what would that look like for you to believe that you are an expert in your area and that you have knowledge that your clients do not have. And also they get to take what they need and they will be the better for it. That your knowledge and your expertise does not trump them and who they are and how they trust themselves.

Again, our job as coaches is not to force our thoughts onto other people. Our job as coaches is to show them their thinking and how their thinking is creating what they are experiencing, and that they have options in what they choose to think. So they have options in what they choose to experience. Like there’s no need for superiority or arrogance, there’s no room there’s, no necessity for pedestals in that kind of experience.

And I’ll share another coaching experience, I am currently in a program called ACFC, which is advanced certification for feminist coaching. My instructor and my mentor, my coach, she’s the person who’s going to certify me. 100%, 100% she knows more on this subject than I do. She has studied it longer, she’s studied it more in depth. When she’s watching us coach she will ask us, where are you going with that? Why’d you ask her that question? Why is this the way that you’re going with the coaching?

And also, there’s no pedestal in this room. She’s merely offering these as suggestions to us, showing us options and what else is available. And it’s up to us to decide if we take it or not. And for sure I’ll need to meet certain X, Y, Z expectations in order to earn that certification. But right now I’m being coached so I can learn and grow as I need to, not as she wants me to. And do you see that difference?

And this is why I love sharing Shawn’s success story, because I didn’t actually coach her. She wasn’t even in the program yet. She didn’t even have access to the modules and to the workbook, and to like whether or not you show up to weekly coaching calls you still get everything you need in the program. She didn’t even have that knowledge. But just because she made the decision to join the program, and I guess we’re doing this, and I am all in. That was enough for her to start creating new results.

So when you show up as an expert, when you show up as I know what you need and I have the solution for you, what you’re actually doing is giving them an opportunity to change their thinking before they even have a coaching session with you. And your job is to find that balance of emotion of what that feels like to know that you are the expert and you have exactly what they need. And also, you are not going to be the person that changes their thinking, they are.

And I think the easiest way to figure this out, I think the easiest way for coaches to solve this is to come at this from the feeling line. I think the easiest way to figure out what that looks like for you is how do you want to feel? So rather than superior rather than arrogant, how do you want to feel? Go into your body and just imagine what that feels like to know that I am the expert and I got this, and they do too. They got this.

What would that feeling be? Can you put a name on it? For me, it’s present. I know what I know, and my focus is on the person in front of me. And every time I start to see that part of my brain go, “Oh, I know what she needs,” I know I’m not present. So I just come back to center with the person in front of me and just be present with them because I don’t want to be thinking about what I know instead of showing her her thinking.

What would your emotion be? Maybe it’s peace, calm, engaged, focused, present. I’d love to know. What is your expertise emotion? I would love to know what it is, share it in the comments of the social media posts for this podcast episode. Because that’s the emotion, imagine being in that emotion as you write your posts, as you write your emails, as you make offers to work with you.

Imagine being in that energy as you hold space on consult calls and you’re selling coaching on a consult call, as you’re coaching your clients. I am an expert from a place of love, presence, compassion, peace. What’s that for you?

And again, this entire podcast episode is based on coaching that we are doing in Free To Paid Coach. This was from, we had a bonus masterclass, Sign Your Next Clients. You can watch the replay as soon as you enroll, it’s in the bonuses section. You can watch it at any time, you can go back and re-watch it multiple times if you need to, you get access to all of it. And this is the kind of coaching we’re doing in Free To Paid Coach. These are the kinds of topics that we are talking about.

The program itself gives you exactly the steps that you need to take and then we are coaching you on all of the crap that your brain throws up at you when you think about putting powerful, irresistible offers out there. This week’s topic was about how can I say I’m an expert without feeling superior.

This is the good stuff we’re doing inside Free To Paid Coach and we’re ready for you to join. You can enroll right now at amylatta.com/FTPC. We are waiting for you inside. This is the place and this is the program that you have been waiting for. And let’s get you on that I’m a paid coach celebrations list. Let’s give you a shout out on the podcast. All right, until next week. Let’s get paid, coach.

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

 
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Hi, I’m Amy.

For years, I took a ton of action to sign clients.

I learned to create self-confidence and powerfully believe in myself first, and then built a multiple six-figure coaching business.

And I can help you do it, too.

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