Ep #34: In Love with Your Business

You are listening to episode 34 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we nail down this relationship you have with your business. Is it hot and heavy or on the skids?

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, hey. Hello, my confident coaches. How is everyone doing out there? Friends, here’s the super good news. We have made it through the six months of 2020. Now, I realize that that’s like, six years because every month seems to be about the length of a year around here, but this is a good thing. This year of 2020 is half over.

Y’all remember our bright-eyed and bushy-tailed emotions and feelings on January 1st when we were like, “2020, we’ve been thinking about 2020.” I don’t know about you guys, but I remember that show when I was growing up for like, 40 years we’ve been thinking about 2020 is going to be this monumental year.

Guess what friends, it has been. Just not the way we expected it, right? And this year is halfway through. So first and foremost, I just want to make sure that we’re all on the same page here. That no matter where you were on January 1st, I don’t know that too many of us expected to be where we are on June 30th.

I’m pretty sure this episode is coming out on June 30th. So this episode is coming out on June 30th, the last day of June, the last day of the first six months of this year, and wherever you were on January 1st, there’s no way you could have predicted what would have happened in the next six months.

So first and foremost, have some grace and love and compassion for wherever you are. If you’re killing it, if you’re knocking it out of the park, if you’re one of my Confident Coaches masterminders right now, I am telling you, my January group is wrapping up this week.

I’ve got a client who’s gone from $500 a month to $12,000 a month, a client who went from just a couple of handful of clients to 13 fully booked clients, another one who’s just deciding whether or not she’s fully booked at the 15 hours a week she wanted to work, and now she’s deciding, do I keep going? I’m fully booked. She’s already quadrupled her income in half this year than she did all of last year.

So this is some of the amazing stuff that my friends in the Confident Coaches mastermind are doing, what some friends of my own mastermind that I attend, we’re knocking it out of the park. But not everybody is, so no matter where you are, I’m willing, if you’re willing, let’s give ourselves a little bit of a clean slate here. Let’s start fresh.

What do you want to create in the second half of the year? No matter what you created up until this point, do you believe you can create whatever you want from this point on? You here with me? Are you ready to do this? Definitely listen to this episode but go back and listen to some of those episodes in November and December and early January about setting BHAGs, big hairy audacious goals.

What do you need to think in order to believe you can accomplish that big hairy audacious goal? Go back and reset and let’s kick it out these last six months. Literally anything can happen. Have we not realized that by now? I wouldn’t be surprised if the Death Star showed up tomorrow?

Do you know what I’m saying? Anything is possible. Godzilla could come out of the ocean tomorrow. Literally anything could happen. You could totally, totally be making 8K a month by the end of this year no problem. And I know this because this is what so many of my own clients are creating for themselves. I know you can do it too.

Set your sights on it. What do you need to think in order to believe? And take what you’re going to learn in this episode. I’m going to share some stuff in this episode that I think might really shine a light on what’s going on inside your life coaching business.

Before I do that, I’m not going to read a review from the podcast. I just want to give my good friend a shout-out. So last week’s review was from Jen9999, I don’t know if you guys remember that. And I didn’t know who Jen was. I found out who Jen was. She’s one of the newest members of my Confident Coaches mastermind.

I have a brand-new mastermind starting next week. It’s my July group, and Jen Walter, thank you for the awesome, awesome review that you left last week. I’m so excited to get this new batch of coaches to 8K a month by feeling more confident and signing more clients, so welcome Jen.

And if you have a review to leave for the podcast, just know that I’m going to read it on the show because I love you guys. So as I just mentioned that I do have a new group starting, I run multiple masterminds at a time. So I’m wrapping up my January group. I let that one go for a couple months before I started a new one. I started one in May, and now I’m starting one again in July, so just two months later, which that one’s going to start next week.

And one of the big topics of conversation in the group coaching sessions that are part of my current masterminds has been a discussion about the relationship you have with your business. So whether you’re knocking it out of the park, whether you aren’t creating what you want to create, if you don’t yet feel confident to sign those clients you want to be creating, if you’re not yet at 8K a month this is a great conversation to have to think about you and your business being in a relationship with one another, just like a relationship with your spouse or a girlfriend or a boyfriend or your ex-girlfriend or boyfriend.

Think about romantic relationships of all kinds, right? There’s almost as many people as you know that are in a relationship, there’s almost that many different kinds of relationships that you could be having. Any kind of relationship you’re having with your lover, right?

So have you ever considered what kind of relationship you have with your business and whether or not you like the relationship that you’ve established with your business? Does this relationship serve you?

So let me help kind of crack open your brain a little bit. So what am I talking about here? So thinking about you and your business, would you say you guys are just kind of acquaintances? You’re not even sure if you like it or not, it’s just something that you know? It’s like that guy you know. Are you a secret admirer? Like it’s over there and you’re over here and you’re looking at it longingly?

Is it a passionate love affair like you are so in love with your business, you can’t stop thinking about it, you pour in all of your love and nurturing energy? Oh my gosh, and are you one of those really annoying passionate love affair couples where you’re telling everybody about it? Anybody who will give you the time of day?

Are you fully committed? Are you fully committed to your business? Are you in a fully committed relationship with your business? One of my really good friends, Maggie Reyes, she’s a life coach, she described her relationship with her business sometimes as a rom-com. Kind of like one of those kooky rom-coms where she’s on this page and he’s on this page. Eventually you figure it out, but you’re not always on the same page and there’s a lot of mishaps going on, right?

Think old Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan kind of rom-coms. Maybe it’s a brand new relationship and you’re kind of in those new awkward beginning stages of like, I don’t really know what they like and they don’t really know what I like, but you’re kind of too afraid to have the conversation about it so you’re just kind of awkwardly holding each others hands like two 15-year-old kids.

Is it kind of like a long-term boyfriend that you have poured your heart and soul into and he hasn’t given you the ring yet and you want to know why? What’s happening already? I expect some payback at this point. I’m giving you everything I got, I’ve been in it for the long haul, when’s the wedding date?

Maybe it’s just a one-sided relationship, right? Kind of one-sided relationship that you feel like you’re all in but they’re not. Maybe it’s the other way around. Your business is all in and you’re not. I don’t know. Are you on the verge of divorce?

Are you like, you know what, I’ve kind of had it, you’re not doing it for my anymore? Are you possibly just kind of like, going into that old married couple kind of vibe? Like you’re committed, you’re fully committed, but the passion is gone? You’re not going to quit but that fire and that deep love, you’re just kind of like, okay. Could that be it?

So those are the different kinds of relationships. You might even come up with something else. I’ve been having so much fun inside my groups talking about the different kinds of relationships that they have. And I’m telling you, my own clients have come up with even more ideas.

If you just really think about the kind of movies that you’ve seen, the different kinds of relationships that you’ve seen, how would you describe your relationship with your business? Using one of those old romantic tropes or maybe something else that you’ve come up with.

Really describe it, define it. How would you write it out as a movie script, right? So next, I want you to think about how does your business make you feel? You’re in this relationship with your business, how does your business make you feel?

Does it make you feel anxious? Are you excited? Are you committed? Are you more fearful or apprehensive? Are you worried about your business all of the time? What kind of feelings do you have for your business?

Once you’ve listed those feelings that you have for your business, what kind of thoughts do you have about your business that are creating those feelings? You don’t have to go run full models on each of those, but for whatever feelings you came up with, what’s the thought that you have that’s creating that feeling?

Here’s a little secret here about relationships in general. So I am not a relationship coach. I’m a coach that helps you feel confident about yourself so that you’ll go sign your clients, but you are in a relationship with your business. So relationships, whether it’s with your business, with your spouse, with your mom, with your kids, all a relationship is is your thoughts about that thing.

A relationship is merely defined by the thoughts that you have with the thing that you’re in a relationship with, that includes your spouse or your mom or your kids, or your business. So start with how you define your business, then hone in on those feelings that that relationship creates. And then what are the thoughts that are creating those feelings?

Just have a sense of where the story is coming from about this relationship that you have with your business. That movie plot line story, let’s really figure out where it’s coming from. It’s coming from how you’re thinking about your business and the feelings that those thoughts are creating for you.

And then I want you to dig in just a little bit deeper into your relationship with your business using three relationship tools that we learned in coaching school. So the first one is we talk a lot about manuals in relationships. So I want you to think about a manual like an appliance manual.

I’m in a relationship with my husband, I have a manual for how he should operate. I want him to do A, B, and C, so I can be happy. So this is a lot like expectations. What kind of expectations do you have of your business? So should it be providing you with a certain level of security or comfort?

Are you waiting for it to start paying you back on the investments? What kinds of expectations do you have on your business? Know what you expect of it. And then understand this right here; when we have expectations of people, when we have expectations of our business, one of the things to keep in mind is that our happiness can’t depend on our business meeting those expectations.

We’ll try to make it depend on it meeting those expectations, but that’s the slippery slope. If you are making your happiness in your business dependent on your business meeting these expectations, that’s a long-term struggle that you’re going to have there.

Think about if your business was your significant other and you needed them to act a certain way all of the time in order for you to be happy. That relationship is going to be a struggle. So know what your expectations are of your business but then go to work on not attaching your happiness to those expectations.

Now, there’s a lot of coaching right there. We are not covering that in this podcast episode. Just have the awareness of whether or not you are attaching your happiness to your business meeting those expectations.

We also talk about boundaries in relationships. So nine times out of 10, what we want from the other entity in a relationship is a manual issue. I would really like you to do this so that I can be happy. This is what I would really like for you to do, but if you don’t meet that expectation, then I’m going to be responsible for my own happiness.

But sometimes there’s boundary issues. Like, it’s not okay for you to do this. So have you set boundaries with your business? What kind of boundaries might you set? Some of the most obvious boundaries are time with your business, right?

Do you allow your business to intrude on family time? Do you allow family time to intrude on your business? What kind of boundaries have you set or do you need to set with your business so that you can fully love your business all of the time and have a balance in your life and have enough time for your family and have enough time for you? You personally.

So setting boundaries with your business. And the last relationship topic that we talk about is unconditional love. This has a lot to do with that happiness in your manuals as well as happiness with setting boundaries, and that is do you have unconditional love for your business?

No matter how your business is performing, can you still love it no matter what? Even when you don’t follow the boundaries that you have set with your business, can you still have unconditional love with it and not blame your business on that?

The most important thing about boundaries is you’re the one setting the boundaries. It’s also your responsibility to follow the boundary. The business cannot break a boundary unless you allow it to. So unconditional love really is about no matter how you are operating in your business, you have this unconditional love for it. No matter how it’s operating, you’re giving yourself grace, you’re giving yourself unconditional love, and you’re giving your business grace and you’re giving your business unconditional love.

And what would you need to think in order to have unconditional love for your business? What would you need to think? What would that look like do you think? What would be different about you if you had unconditional love for your business? If you were aware of those expectations that you put on it? If you set those boundaries that need to be set and then you just gave it unconditional love all of the time?

What would that be like? What kind of nurturing would you give that business? What kind of support would you give that business? Without any expectation that it pay you back or return the favor in a certain way or by a certain time.

Those are relationship goals right there. Can you have that kind of relationship goal with your business? I want to really challenge you to think about these questions this week in terms of your business and what would shift in you in how you view your business and what its expectations are of you and the boundaries you’re going to set with it when you have that unconditional love.

And that original story that we started with, how would you describe it? How would you rewrite that story now after considering all of these things? Would it light that passion up again? Would you let it off the hook for it not being there the way that you wanted it to be? Would you pull it out of the closet and tell the whole world? Would you stop being a secret admirer?

How would that description that we started off with just a couple of minutes ago, how would that description shift by considering how you think about it, the expectations you have on it, the boundaries that you set with it, all from a place of unconditional love? It would shift everything, right?

Alright my friends, so think about defining your relationship with your business on that old romantic trope, that old movie plot line. How would you describe it and why would you describe it that way? Because how does it make you feel? How does your relationship make you feel and what are the thoughts that are creating that?

Bring so much awareness and honesty to that part of the conversation. And then think about your manual or your expectations that you’ve put on your business and what boundaries that you need to set with your business. And what would it look like, what would you need to think about your business to feel unconditional love?

Because you’ve done that work, when you go back and define it by romantic type, would that shift a little bit? Would you define it differently after you’ve considered the expectations and boundaries and unconditional love your business?

Changes everything, right? I’ve been loving having this conversation. We’ve been having such eye-opening conversations inside my masterminds right now. Like oh my goodness, I didn’t even realize I was keeping it a secret, I was keeping it in a closet. Oh my gosh, I didn’t even realize I was doing a whole put a ring on it.

Now here’s a little bonus work for you. We have just had this entire conversation about the relationship that you have with your business, right? But at the start of this episode, I said go ahead and revisit and reset this year and let’s go ahead, like, what do you want to create in the next six months, right?

Here’s where I’m going to marry these two things. What about the relationship with your goal? Everything that I’ve just talked about, literally everything that I’ve just shared of how to define your relationship with your business, you can also do it with your goal.

Because your relationship with your business might be one kind of relationship, but your relationship with the goal that you’ve decided that you want to hit by the end of this year, you might need to work a little bit harder on that one, right?

So you can use all of the same material that we just covered in this short episode and now apply that information about how would you define your relationship with your goal. And how can you have unconditional love for your goal and how differently would you show up if you were able to establish that unconditional love with your goal, not just your business.

It’s such good stuff, my friends. Alright, so I’m feeling a little bit like Dr. Ruth, maybe a little bit like Delilah. Not necessarily my specialty, but I will be the Delilah of life coaching businesses this week for you guys. Think about the relationship that you have with your business, think about the relationship you have with your goal, and what would change if you were able to take whatever that funny romantic story is, whatever that story that you create and actually put it through the lens of unconditional love.

Good, good stuff. Alright my friends, let’s go do epic stuff this 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.