Ep #81: Trusting Your Intuition with Tammy Helfrich

You are listening to episode 81 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where guest Tammy Helfrich shows you how to trust your intuition so you can create the coaching business that only you want. Alright coaches, 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.

Hello my confident coach, how you doing out there today? How are my Latta loves? I hope you’re doing fabulously and how did we already get to the end of May?

It has been an amazing spring and we’re kicking off the launch of the next round of Confident Coaches Mastermind, the series of client interviews. So last week, you heard me talk to Xena Jones, and this week is one of my favorite humans, Tammy Helfrich. I cannot wait for you to dive into this juicy episode right here.

So Tammy Helfrich is a coach and an author and an all-around amazing human being. In this episode right here, here’s what I want you to dive into and really wrap your head around and get your pen and paper and take lots of juicy notes.

She’s going to be talking about she’s one of my clients that didn’t think she needed confidence coaching because she’s very confident in so many areas of her life, but she wasn’t building the coaching business that she wanted, and that’s where she was lacking confidence. So she’s going to tell you all about how she used the confidence tools that I teach you inside Confident Coaches Mastermind to create a business that doesn’t look anything at all like all the other coaches’ that are in our in our coaching circles, and how that has allowed her to thrive.

So those of you who are like, I think I would rather do it this way, this feels more in alignment with me, this is more of what my intuition is telling me, and that’s it right there. Not only did Tammy create a business that is reflective of her wants and desires and not what everyone else around her was building, she’s really tapped into how to trust your intuition and how to strengthen your intuition so that you know if you’re listening to your Gigi brain and not your Helga brain.

I get this question a lot. What about intuition? Where does your gut come into Gigi and Helga thinking? And we talked a lot about that in this episode, and including some specific things that she shares with you on how to strengthen that intuition muscle.

She’s going to talk about intuition, being in alignment with what you know you want to put out into the world, having the confidence to create something that’s different than what everybody else is creating, and really how to thrive in this life coaching business as the person that you are. Not someone else.

Plus my friends, she’s literally my coaching bestie. So she’s one of my best friends in the entire world. She knows the ins and outs of my brain. We Marco Polo each other multiple times a week. She has seen me at my worst, best, my thriving, my lowest points. She has seen me whine and complain and she has celebrated and cheered for me.

She’s heard so many of these ideas before you guys do. She’s my sounding board, she’s my confidant, and I just could not love her more. I cannot wait for you to get to know her.

Now before we dive into the episode, I do want to point out we were having some technical difficulties. We literally spent an hour getting our internet and our Zooms and all of our equipment in alignment with each other, we rebooted everything multiple times, and there are still some sound glitches that you might hear, you know when you’re on Zoom and the other person lags just a half a second and you hear that little digitized voice.

That does happen a handful of times in this episode. I’m well aware of it. But the interview with Tammy and our conversation was just too damn good to attempt a re-do. So I’m well aware and I trust you and I trust your brain to dive in and love the juiciness of our interview just like I did, so let’s go ahead and dive in right now.

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Amy: Alright, everybody, I’m so excited today to bring an interview to you that I think is going to land for so many people out there that are trying to figure out how their business should look like for them. I am bringing an interview to you today with not only a brilliant mind and coach, but one of my actual BFFs in real life.

I am welcoming Tammy Helfrich, who is a life and business mindset coach. Tammy works with entrepreneurs to make the aligned decisions that they need to make to create the business and life that they love. Tammy has been coaching for five years, she’s actually the person who introduced me to The Life Coach School podcast and ultimately changed the course of my life.

She is in my ear via Marco Polo or text or any number of channels almost every single week as I am in her. She’s also the author of two journals, as well as – and this has me super excited, an upcoming book on learning to stop apologizing for who you are. Everybody, welcome not just a brilliant coach but one of my best friends in the world, Tammy Helfrich. Hi.

Tammy: Hi Amy. Thank you for having me.

Amy: I’m so excited to have you. One of the things I left out is one of the reasons you are here is you are also one of the graduates from Confident Coaches Mastermind. You were in our September group along with Xena Jones, who I interviewed just last week.

So you and Xena were in the same class together and the two of you have such – it’s so fascinating because I know you guys are also super close. The September class friends, the September class really bonded outside of our coaching calls and I think a lot of them have made some lifelong best friends. Am I right?

Tammy: Yes, for sure.

Amy: You and Xena I know are super close. You’ve been on each other’s podcasts and yet you’re – what? Your growth through the mastermind was also very different. You know how very the same and yet so many different takeaways for the two of you.

So one of the reasons I scheduled you guys like I did is because I know you guys are so close and also your takes on confidence and what you learned from the mastermind and your growth were also very different.

Tammy: Yes, for sure. Shout-out to the September class. They rock.

Amy: Shout-out to the September class. So just before we really dive into the meat of what we’re going to talk about today, tell me a little bit more about how and why you became a coach and what motivates the work that you do.

Tammy: Yes. So as you said, I found Brooke Castillo many years ago and found her podcast right before I said, Amy, you need to listen to this woman, she’s amazing. I actually did group coaching with Brooke on the phone, which is so funny to think about now, way back in 2015 I think.

So it’s just been amazing to watch her growth. And so coaching just changed my life and I just realized that one of the things people had told me and that I kind of knew is that I’ve always been a coach. I’ve just always been that person that people came to and just was able to see things kind of objectively.

But Brooke and her model and her coaching just really helped me formulate a way to actually put that into really applicable practice. And then you introduced me to Stacey Boehman, so we just have continually helped each other on our journeys. And you and I have coached each other for so long. So it’s just been such a cool journey to watch both of us.

And I just am so passionate about helping people have these tools because I’ve seen the transformation in my life and how it’s impacted me, and just how I’m able to really hold space for other people, which I feel like I’ve always been able to do, but I can do it in a much more intentional way now. And I just love being able to help others do that.

And so I have a real passion for entrepreneurs especially because I think that they have so much to bring to the world, but we get so caught up in our own minds and in our heads, which we all know as coaches we do. And being able to have somebody to objectively help us look at that has just been transformational for me.

Amy: 100%. And I know when we talked earlier, there were five big things that you really seem to – resonate with you from being in Confident Coaches Mastermind. So tell me a little bit more about creating what you want. I know that that was a big – I don’t want to say, I don’t know if issue is the right word, but contention, noodle that kept swimming around in your head, right? What does Tammy want versus – so let’s dive into a little bit more about that.

Tammy: Yes, for sure. So it’s interesting because I knew that I wanted to be a part of a mastermind and I knew that I wanted to level up and be around other women who were doing the same thing. Because as a coach and as a person who has done a lot of this work, that’s who I am for people.

So a lot of people come to me, so I wanted to be around other women who were doing the same thing and really leveling up. And so in the process of that, because I’ve chosen a different route than a lot of people, you and I chose very different routes of how we’ve been doing our coaching and the practices, and you went to The Life Coach School and I chose not to.

So I think for so long, I had been getting really caught up in my head of watching what other people were doing and being attracted to that and parts of it really resonating with me, but then other parts not feeling right for me. So that’s what really became clear in the mastermind with you.

Because confidence wasn’t my thing. Like when we originally talked and I did my interview with you, I was like, I’m a really confident person so I’m not sure that your mastermind is right, but I also trust and believe in you and have been such a part – seen so much growth from you that I wanted to have you coach me through that and meet other people.

But also what I realized in that process was that I am confident in certain areas, but in certain parts of my business I was not as confidence as I thought that I was for sure. And the biggest part was doing it my way. And doing it in a way that doesn’t look like what anyone else is doing.

And that’s kind of part of – I’ve learned a little bit more about human design and so I understand that that is how I am wired and so it made so much sense to me that of course I want to do it my way, and of course I’ve been tripping over myself because I’ve been trying to do it like someone else is doing it.

Amy: I’ve always thought of you as an incredibly confident person. Your background is in sales, right? Corporate sales. As you listeners may know, and Tammy 100% knows, that was not my forte at all. I am probably your most classical not a very outwardly confident person, and Tammy, I’ve always been like, she’s so confident.

But this idea of if you don’t have – if you’re allowing something to stop you do something that you know you really want to do, you can be very confident in many areas of your life but lack confidence right there. So this lack of confidence to do things differently. What was it that you think that you saw that didn’t resonate with you?

Tammy: That’s a good question. I think there were a lot of different pieces. I think that there’s just a way – and I think this happens when we get in these coaching communities and we see people that it’s working for. And so we think we should just replicate that.

But our journey is our own and so again, for me, the confidence part was really – first of all, I knew I was ready. So I’ve been doing this part-time because even though I’ve left the corporate world, I’ve still been very involved in a non-profit and so my coaching has always been part-time. And I knew when I was ready to join your mastermind that it was time to up-level that and to change that. So that’s why I chose to join the mastermind.

So I wouldn’t say there’s really one specific thing but it just was – like you said, I’m an author. I create journals. I’m writing a book. I have a podcast. I’m really involved in my local community. So I like to do a lot of different things and a lot of coaches will tell you you shouldn’t do that. You should just focus on one thing.

And I think that’s probably the biggest thing that wasn’t resonating with me because that’s where I’m most productive and where I am most creative, when I am doing multiple things. Because otherwise I get too bored too quickly.

Amy: Yeah. And I do remember that because you are – one thing about Tammy is she’s incredibly active in her community. She has been part of a non-profit that is completely revitalized an old space and is created into a workspace, she is well known in her community, and she coaches people also. You are definitely what people would call multi-passionate. You have multiple journals; you are working on this book. You’ve had a podcast long before – I’ve created two podcasts in the time you’ve had your one. You know what I mean?

Tammy: Right. Yeah, I started podcasting and that was part of my journey because I was in the corporate world for almost 20 years. And when I decided that I was feeling the move to do something, and it wasn’t coaching. I wasn’t a coach at the time when I left. I left to go and be part of a non-profit.

But podcasting became the thing that really pushed me out of my comfort zone because the technical part was so challenging for me and at that time, I was interviewing a lot of people and people that were living differently. I’ve since changed it and it’s more about living intentionally. It’s called Intentional Life.

And it’s all about just owning your decisions. Being intentional about what you want to do, who you are in the world, and living your life that way. And so podcasting, it’s fun. Now it’s kind of coming full circle, like you were on my podcast when you were still doing weight coaching.

Amy: Oh my gosh, I actually completely forgot that that was a thing that happened in this life. Yes, I was. When I was a weight coach I was on your podcast. So fun. And I know there’s a lot about kind of touching on this idea of what people should do, versus what?

What do you think? Somebody that’s out there going, alright, it looks like everybody else is doing A, B, C, D, what do you think is a great indicator for them to pay attention to of maybe their journey is something different?

Tammy: I think for me, it’s been so much of my own personal work has been about learning how to integrate body, mind, and spirit. I think we are so intellectual and so much of coaching is mental and mindset is so important, but what we tend to forget is how that feels in our body. And so you and I are both very empathic and so we’ve learned to understand that, and that for me was the biggest thing.

I kept watching what people were doing, and I kept – so a big part of it was you have to see that. You have to see the possibility. Even watching you and seeing what you’ve done with your business has helped me see the possibility of like, these are not unicorn people. These are real people that are doing this. It’s totally possible for me.

But paying attention to how that feels, that has been something over the last few years that has really changed my life is really – I think just for so long I tried to compartmentalize that and not pay attention to it. So while I would try to do certain things and it wouldn’t work, I mean, part of that is just a part of the process. You have to experiment and try to see what works for you and what doesn’t work for you.

But also a part of it is really paying attention to your intuition, which is what I coach a lot of people on because I think most of us have really shut down our intuition over the years because people have told us what we should do. Also, watching other coaches, how they do things a little bit differently, and really just paying attention to kind of what resonates with you in your body.

So the body has been a big part of that for me. You and I both see energy workers, which has been a big component of my journey too, to really realize how I’m holding things in my body and how I’m maybe holding myself back in those ways too.

Amy: How can people – because I think sometimes we can get confused between how do you know when it’s intuition and alignment and not just your Helga back in disguise going, “I don’t think we should do this.” Do you know what I mean?

Because sometimes Helga is shouty and mean and nasty, and we know that’s not alignment and intuition. But sometimes she can be kind of more like, I don’t know. How do you discern between your Helga brain and trusting your intuition that you know what works best for you?

Tammy: Again, I think it’s practice. I think for me, it was just looking back over my experience. So I had a great job. I worked for a Fortune 500 company, I made great money, I traveled the country. On paper, everything was right. But something inside of me was like, there’s something more, there’s more to you. You can totally do this, it’s totally fine for the rest of your life, but there’s something more.

So I just had to listen to that and it wasn’t immediate. It takes time to learn to trust that, especially if you have been caught up in doing what other people tell you that you should do, which is what our whole society is pretty much based on. You should do this, you go to school, you go to college, you do these things.

So a part of it is listening. So I would say I think the biggest way that you can tell – multiple people have said it so I don’t know exactly who said it, but your intuition is more like a whisper and Helga is shouting a lot of the times. Now, sometimes it is protectionism like, maybe not. But I’ve also – so many people that I coach, you just feel it in your body.

I like to do this with different words. So there’s some words that we just are like, I’m not really sure I like the energetic feeling of that word, and then you try a different word and you’re like, oh, okay, that feels better. So sometimes it’s just – first of all you got to give your brain space to breathe because we spend so much time with mental energy and really looking in our thoughts, especially as coaches.

But we don’t provide enough room for creativity and for new ideas to come in, and so a lot of times I think learning to trust your intuition is just taking time to not be producing and not be working on your business and not be doing all these things that we think we should be doing, and maybe it’s taking a walk.

For me, anybody who knows me knows it’s getting out in nature, it’s being at the forest, it’s being by the beach, it’s being anywhere where I can just be grounded. But it looks different for everyone. So I think the best way if you’re really struggling with it is just your intuition is very rarely going to scream at you.

I mean, sometimes it does honestly. If you’re in a situation where it’s not going to be really helpful for you, you might feel that. Helga and your intuition might be on point together, that point. You’re in danger, right?

Amy: I was going to ask you, what do you coach on? What are your favorite techniques for tapping into that – because what I’m hearing you say and so much of our coaching is thinking, using the model, and I know that you are way more and guys, 100%, Tammy is constantly sending me Marco Polos from the beach, from the trees, from – I will send her a glorious tree.

She sees trees and beaches way more often than I do. But what are some of your favorite get into your body – because that’s what I’m hearing. You want to get into your intuition, get into your body. And quiet yourself away from the shoulds. So what are your favorite practices that somebody who’s like, I’m jiving with what Tammy’s saying but how do you do that?

Tammy: I think the easiest way and kind of one of the ways I started was meditation because you’re just literally sitting – I remember the first time I took a yoga class and I was like, what? I don’t know what to do because everybody’s not screaming at me and everybody – like wow, what’s happening in my mind? My mind was racing.

So I think for some people it’s meditation and sitting and being still. For other people, it is movement. It’s yoga, it’s walking. And I think you have to experiment. This definitely has been an experiment for me. I can look back on my life now and see I always was outside all the time when I was younger and there was a reason why. Because I felt very grounded that way.

But there were also years and years when I was in the corporate world and my kids were little, I never got outside ever. And I was just a wreck at that point. So now it’s just because a really big self-care practice. For other people it’s music, like music is a really good way to get into your body. You’re a great example of that.

Amy: That’s 100% my jam.

Tammy: Yeah. Your reels and dancing and so sometimes it’s remembering what you loved when you were younger, or also just really starting to pay attention. So what we talk a lot about as coaches is paying attention to our thoughts. But it’s also paying attention to how we feel in certain things and to where we’re feeling it in our body.

And trust me, this has been so much of my work over the last couple years because I have been so disconnected from my body for probably most of my adult life. And so learning this has really helped me. And it’s even to the point where you can start to notice if you’re starting to feel really antsy or really frustrated.

Maybe get up and just take a little walk around or just get outside for five minutes. So it’s really just starting to pay attention, just like we talk about a lot with our thoughts.

Amy: Yeah, I love this because I think a lot of people, get it in concept but how does one who doesn’t know how to do that do that. And I think that’s one of the reasons why I love you so much Tammy is because you’re like, listen, corporate world, corporate sales, you were in a high-powered position, you were a mom of young kids, to say that you don’t understand what that’s like to have your brain going in 27 different directions and meeting sales goals, it was 100% you.

Tammy: Yeah. And I think that’s been such a big part of my journey too is I can look back now first of all and see that I was completely suppressing my entrepreneurial spirit for years and years. And also just the biggest thing that was so important to me was flexibility and freedom. Time flexibility, time freedom, nobody dictating when I needed to be somewhere, me dictating my schedule, being able to do these things, to be able to take a walk when I want to take a walk, or to be able to do those things.

Those were important to me. It’s different for everyone. It might be financial freedom for someone else, it might be whatever, fill in the blank for you. And so, so much of this and so much of the coaching that I do is helping people to really figure out what do you want.

Because we get so caught up in what we think we should do, or how we think we should do it, or what someone else does, and that’s why we’re constantly feeling frustrated. Because we’re not being in touch with what we want and who we want to become.

Amy: What I hear a lot is – and I don’t know if this was you but I wonder if you could speak to this for people who might be struggling with this, what if you’re not 100% sure what you want? Something feels a little off about this thing over here that every other life coach that I follow seems to be doing, but I’m not sure if I were to say great, what do you want, there are people who don’t know always how to answer that question.

Tammy: Right, and I didn’t. When I first started getting coached and someone asked me what I want, I said what do you mean? I know what my kids want, I know what my husband wants, I know what my boss wants of me.

Amy: True story. One of our – Tammy and I met through this entirely different online entrepreneurial group and there was a coach, somebody who was already coaching in that group, she was offering free sessions. She asked me if I could create whatever I wanted, what would it be. And I proceeded to tell her all of these things, and she goes, okay, but I asked what you want. Not what you want for your husband and your kids. I literally did not know how to answer that question.

Tammy: Right. And I think so many of us, so that is so much of this work that I do is really helping people to see what it is that they want. This is where I say – I tell all my clients, I don’t have your answers. You have your answers. And I totally believe this. The problem is they’re stuck in the way of it.

There’s the shoulds in the way, there’s the expectations of other people in the way, so what I like to do is help people uncover what that is because a lot of times we’re going for all these things that we think we want and we don’t really want them. I just had a client recently, we have been coaching for quite a while. She’s been in the networking marketing field and she always had resistance so we always worked around it.

But she kept saying that this is what she wants. We finally got to digging away at all the stuff and she’s like, I don’t want to do this. I want to go to a job and leave my job at my job. And I want to be done. I mean, how amazing is that? And now she is so free because she had all of this mental weight and energy that she was trying to make something work that she really didn’t even want.

And I find that too when I ask clients about success, because they’re comparing themselves to what other people they think are successful, but then if I ask them what success means to them, it does not even match up to what that person has or how they’re doing it.

So I think for the biggest thing is coaching. Finding a good coach who can dig into your answers. Let’s get really honest in a safe space with no judgment so that you can decide what it is that you want. That’s where the magic is.

Amy: That is where the magic is. I think what we often forget as life coaches, we can – so many of us have our Facebook feeds, our Instagram feeds or whatever are all filled with similar groups of people. I still remember when our master coach from The Life Coach School – and this was when I was pretty young in my coaching.

I was certified but I myself wasn’t a master coach and I don’t think I had done much work with my coach now, Stacey Boehman. But I was defining success and how one becomes a successful coach and what is a successful coach and I was referring something to my mentor from The Life Coach School, who at the time was Brooke Castillo, and I remember this coach going – this idea of there are coaches who are incredibly successful in their own right how have never heard of any of the people that I think have “set the rules.”

That there are multiple paths to multiple destinations and I think – what’s the word? Is it myopic? I’m throwing in fancy words. We can just become so singularly focused and we think that this life coaching world, we think the world in general is very small and we can really think that this life coaching world is like, okay, here’s this – these are the successful people, let’s all emulate them without considering that there are hundreds of thousands at a minimum examples of different ways to create this business and this life that we want. And what does it take to really feel confident in ourselves to create that?

Tammy: Right. And that’s what I had to do. That’s what I did in the midst of your mastermind was I was so wrapped up in watching what everybody was doing, the launches they were having, how they were doing it, all of that. And I had to snooze all of that because what I have found for me is when I’m constantly consuming what other people are doing, I get so wrapped up in compare and despair.

Instead of being creative and figuring out what it is that works for me. So part of that is yeah, it’s fantastic that we have these examples of other people, but you have to know what works for you. Because for me, it totally shut me down.

Now, other people, it totally motivates them and they’re like, if she can do it, I can do it, I’m going to do it. I think so much of this is learning to understand how you work, and that was just the biggest revelation from being in your mastermind. Getting coached by you, getting coached by other peer coaches.

Again, the idea of somebody continually helping you not give the pat answers. I’m classic at this. You have always called me out on this and people in our mastermind called me out on it too. That’s a really nice simple answer but that’s not what you really think. That’s the beauty of coaching.

Amy: Yeah. You also touched on too one of the favorite things that I love about my own mastermind that I am in and why I designed CCM the way that I did is the peer coaching aspect. So you’re not just having one person, the head lead whatever person coach you, but being coached on the same subjects using the same tools but from other people and having multiple people call you out either on the same thing or I’m coaching on let’s say having your own back, and then you have a coaching session with Xena and she’s taking those concepts and she’s mixing them with her own brain and it just becomes exponentially more coaching from that.

Tammy: Yes. And they see you getting coached, so they know what you’re already working on and then we’re sharing in the Facebook community. And so they can easily call you out on it, and I think as life coaches, this is one of our biggest challenges. Because again, intellectually, we know. We do this for our clients and so it’s very easy for us to give what looks like the right answer instead of the honest, real answer, which is where our work is.

Amy: Exactly. Our work is in that honest, let’s be brutally honest, lovingly honest. Lovingly honest. How can you coach somebody like, confidence in creating something completely aligned with you? So we talked about intuition and I know the other part is alignment. Tapping into your intuition so that you can build something that is in alignment with you and having confidence in that. How do we do that?

Tammy: Yeah, you do a lot of experimenting, you get yourself coached pretty regularly, you let someone really dive into figuring out, and you really start asking yourself these questions of what do I want. So one of the things in watching you and watching Stacey, I’m not really sure that I want a multimillion-dollar business. So why am I killing myself to try to create that or recreate that instead of just focusing on what I want?

Maybe I do, I don’t know, right now that’s not – that’s been a big thing for me too is that money, while we love making it and we all want to make it, it’s not the driving force for me. And so being able to just understand that about myself, that’s not going to be the biggest motivator. For other people it absolutely is. That’s their goal and that’s where they want to get to.

So alignment to me – and this is funny because align was my word last year, which is the pieces of what you’re doing, what your gifts are in the world, and connecting them to how you serve others. That’s where I feel like alignment really comes together.

And for you, it’s asking yourself those questions. First of all, what do you really want? Because if you don’t know that, you’re going to keep going down all different kinds of paths and you can get so distracted from that. So knowing what you want and then figuring out what works for you.

One of the biggest shifts I had from coming from the corporate world was understanding that I am really good in chunks of time. So I’m an early morning person, I get so much done in the morning, following my rhythms of who I am. That helps me stay in alignment so I’m posting and I’m creating content when I’m in the flow, versus late afternoon, I don’t record podcasts late afternoon because that’s not my best, that’s not the brightest of when I am.

So again, so much that I think – to be in alignment is to understand who you are, what works for you, and then how you bring that to the world in a way that feels good. And especially since I work with so many entrepreneurs, what I see them doing is again, creating something that they think they should create but it doesn’t align with their life and it doesn’t align with their goals.

Freedom for me was the biggest thing. I wanted to be able to be with my kids and travel and to do all these things. That’s my driving force. For someone else it might not be. It might be they want to have a storefront or they want to have a place that they’re at.

So it’s really understanding what you want and then trying things out and testing things and experimenting until you start to feel that alignment. And I think that’s where getting more in touch with your body and really feeling it, because you can. Once you start to really trust yourself and trust that you are the one who knows what’s best for Amy, I don’t know, you know when something feels good or when something feels in alignment. I don’t know that for you. So it’s learning to trust yourself.

Amy: Yeah, it was funny, even when you were describing your times of day, I’m the exact opposite. I shine in the afternoon. My mornings, I’m a slow out of the gate kind of gal. I’m a slow out of the gate kind of gal, it takes me time. You’ve done and conquered half your day by the time I’m putting my clothes on.

Tammy: Yes. And that, in the past I think so many people have told us that that meant there was something wrong with us.

Amy: I always thought there was something wrong with me, yes.

Tammy: Yeah, if you’re not a 5am person, you’re unproductive, right? Or whatever the thing is. And that is a part of knowing yourself. I’m doing this with my kids. I think so much of what I have learned is so that I can help my kids be who they are.

My son is the exact opposite. He is a night owl. He gets so much done, it’s a little challenging being a teenager, but understanding your rhythms is super important for you and not judging yourself and not telling yourself that something is wrong. I think that’s one of the biggest lies that we’ve all been sold is that something is wrong with us and we need to fix ourselves. And I just don’t believe that at all. I think you need to learn to understand yourself so that you can bring all of you to the world in a really authentic way.

Amy: I really don’t function well before 10am if I’m completely honest. I just don’t. But I didn’t step into that. It’s really only been the last year or two because I finally realized, oh, this is who I am. Maybe I should stop fighting it because I am most creative in the late afternoon. You’ve just flat out said exact opposite, and I love what you touched on there.

You and I have had this conversation 700,000 different ways. The work that you and I are doing, the work that we do as coaches, for those of us who do have children in our life, whether it is in a parenting role or more of a mentor role, we’re doing this work and we have the ability to help them learn it earlier than we could even imagine.

Tammy: Yeah. Not have to deconstruct it later. That’s what I always say. I’ve had to deconstruct so much in my mid-life that I don’t want them to. I want them to know who they are and to be able to lean into that and to love that and to honor that. And I think when we do our work and we heal ourselves and we are as healthy as we can be, it flows out into everything.

It flows out into our family, flows out into our community, our neighborhoods, our world. That’s how we heal our world, by starting with ourselves first. And that’s why I love coaching because that’s what we get to do. We get to help other people do that.

Amy: So if you are new to the podcast because you’re just here because you love Tammy so much, I teach five steps to creating self-confidence inside Confident Coaches Mastermind. Purposeful belief, embracing discomfort, be your own best mentor, having your own back, and how to keep going.

So what tool really resonated the most for you becoming confident in learning to trust your intuition and building a business that was in alignment with you? What tools do you feel like really helped you step into that?

Tammy: I think all of them of course. I think they’re all really important. I think the biggest one was being my own best mentor because I think I knew that but I don’t think I fully believed it. That’s been so much of my journey.

I wrote an e-book years ago and it was all about moving away from ordinary. It was about other people. And my friends called me and was like, you didn’t even mention yourself in the whole book. And I was like, yeah, because I didn’t think that I was extraordinary.

So, so much of my work has been this. It’s been learning to trust myself, it’s been learning to understand that I am my best mentor. I can have amazing mentors too but at the end of the day, future Tammy is my best mentor. Future Tammy who is cheering me on saying come on, look at all that we can do together, listen to me, follow me.

And that was such a huge shift for me in the mastermind because I think again, this is where I intellectually have believed that for so long that I really integrated it and felt it in my body. And you’re going to cry. You look like you’re going to cry.

Amy: No. I mean, we’ve literally been the closest of friends for six years now, so just really being able to see you step into that, and it is kind of – guys, I need y’all to lean in here. We’re going to talk about Tammy for a second here.

Guys, I have seen this in her for six years. Six years. Imagine your best friend, imagine your best friend’s going, I don’t know what the answer is, and you going, it’s right here, it’s right here, it’s all – how many different ways can I show you that it’s right here. And so being able to see her be like, guess what, it was right here all along, and you’re like, yes.

Tammy: Right, I know, it’s so fun. And that’s what’s been so fun about our journey is watching us step into more of ourselves and just being your best mentor is – for me it was life-changing because it did, it just gave me the confidence to do it and to just stop talking about it and to – that was my thing.

I think I even said that to you when I joined, when we were talking about joining. If not now, when? I’ve been talking about this, I’ve been doing this part-time for years. If I want to really do this, I got to stop fucking around. Sorry. Just do it.

Amy: You can drop that on my show.

Tammy: I hesitated and then I was like, wait, I’m on Amy’s show, I don’t need to hesitate.

Amy: That’s right. And it is funny, I don’t know how many different Polos were exchanged over the years of like okay, and let’s do it, alright let’s do it, you keep saying it, let’s do it. And of course, doesn’t it make sense that when your biggest obstacle was following and listening to too many people and it not being in alignment and it not following your intuition and knowing that in a subconscious way, of course the tool that serves you the best is actually learning how to be your own best mentor by following your intuition and getting into alignment with what’s you. Of course.

Tammy: Yeah, because you just get so distracted by what everyone else is doing. And again, you can learn – I am so grateful for all of the mentors and people that I have been able to learn from. I don’t take any of that for granted. But I also just have discounted my own – being my own mentor and listening to what resonates with me, which for me is doing multiple things.

Coaching is the big piece of it, there’s also lots of other parts to my business. And I’m totally okay doing that because that is what makes me who I am. And so just even listening to that has been super helpful.

Amy: So when I first started teaching future you, I was like, oh, the way you define future you is by who are the people you admire most. So what you see in them is what you see in yourself. And I don’t know if you were aware when I added that next element. I can’t remember – I feel like Tammy knows everything that’s in my brain because I have hours, hours, days, days even of Polos this woman has listened to of me just verbal diarrhea thoughts and ideas, almost everything.

She knew the program probably even better than anybody else because she had heard most of it as I was formulating it. But when I realized that one of the pieces that was missing in that is yes, what you see in others is also what you see in yourself, it’s just been unrealized. But what do you know are your superpowers that we often overlook, that we often shove to the side?

And I think that’s what – yes, I love the mentors that we all follow. I love them to death. But they don’t actually have anything more than we have and we discount what we do have when we put them kind of up on a pedestal. I know you remember all those conversations of me finally bringing the pedestals down of like, there are no pedestals Tammy, did you know?

Tammy: I remember that. You had some pedestals. We both did.

Amy: Absolutely. When we bring those pedestals down and you realize that those mentors that are outside of us do have valuable information for us, valuable lessons, valuable information but none of them are more valuable than what’s already in here inside us.

Tammy: Right. And you can use that as an excuse. I think I used that as an excuse for a long time. I’m not Brooke, not Stacey, I did it, I chose not to go to The Life Coach School. But until you take that responsibility of like, those are choices, those are decisions that I’ve made, and so now if I understand that and I take the responsibility for it, there’s nobody else standing in the way.

And that’s when you go oh, if I really want this, maybe I just have to do it and stop having so many excuses, which I think is also something else that I really, really released in the mastermind. I didn’t realize how many excuses I had that were just me standing in my way. So I feel like they just were falling off of me every week and I was like, oh okay, yeah, we could do this because it was just me. It was just me standing in the way.

Amy: That was my next question for you is what did you have to figure out on your own? Is that one of the things or is there anything else that you would add? What did you have to figure out on your own outside of the five steps?

Tammy: Yeah, I think it was that. I think it was. I had to figure out I am the only one standing in the way. And I know that, I’ve said that for years, but again, I think it’s just another one of these things that we intellectually get, but until we really get super honest about it and feel it and go, yeah, it’s me, and don’t judge ourselves for it.

Because that’s the thing, I think I judged myself for it for so long. Like, what is wrong with me? I used to – I’ve said it so many times to you too like, I sold millions of dollars for other corporations, why can’t I do it for myself? Because I’m choosing not to do it for myself. That’s the only reason why.

Amy: It’s so funny because when you say it it sounds so obvious. You sold millions of dollars for corporations, why aren’t you doing it for you? Because you’re – it’s a choice.

Tammy: Because I’m not choosing to. And that’s freedom. It’s scary as hell when you realize it because maybe there really are no excuses.

Amy: Then what?

Tammy: Maybe I really want this. And I think that’s when you have to come to do I really want this? I think that’s also another big thing I took away from the mastermind was do I really want this and knowing that now I don’t have these excuses or I’m choosing to release them, now what am I going to do about it?

Amy: You know, it doesn’t happen very often but I have had a couple of clients who’ve gone through the mastermind, I can only think of two of them off the top of my head who have gone through three quarters of the mastermind and realizing you know what, I think I’ve just realized I don’t actually want to be a life coach.

What a great thing to realize? You can stop putting your energy into that now. Kind of like your client that realized they wanted to be coached on being a network marketer only to realize I don’t actually want this.

Tammy: And it’s so freeing, again because it goes back to what we talked about, figuring out what you want. If you can figure out what you really want, I’ve coached so many people on that who think that they want this business that’s this certain size or this certain way, but then when we really drill down into it, that’s not at all the life that they want. So you can keep going towards that but you’re just going to be miserable when you get there because it’s not what you really want.

Amy: Yeah. And I think this is just that larger confidence conversation. The confidence to truly create a life that is what is in your bio, a life that is truly what you love. Being able to define it, what do you really love, and then the confidence to actually declare it and claim it and create it even when it doesn’t look like what everybody that’s standing around you is going after.

Tammy: And owning it.

Amy: So good. Oh my goodness, I know your biggest growth was in this right here. Let’s talk about how did your business grow?

Tammy: It did grow.

Amy: Where are you now?

Tammy: Yeah, so like I said I’ve been doing this part-time and so my business did grow and actually I don’t have the exact numbers in front of me but I ended up doing more in the last three months of the mastermind than I did in the whole year before I think. Something along those lines.

That wasn’t my focus so I wasn’t super – I didn’t have all those numbers specifically but I think my biggest growth was really in showing up consistently. So you challenging us to make an offer a day, to keep putting ourselves out there. I was not doing that at all.

So showing up consistently, clients that have been watching, that have hired me, I definitely have more clients. I have more consistency. I think that’s probably the thing I would say. The best way that my business grew in the mastermind was in the consistency. My consistency and then the consistency of my business as a very solid foundation.

I don’t think that I would have described my business as having a solid foundation. It was very up and down. Whereas now I feel like this is very solid and we’re only going up from here.

Amy: We’re only going up from here. So good. And yeah, you actually still do work part-time at your non-profit too, right?

Tammy: More than part-time.

Amy: You really are such a great example of coaching being a big part of your life but not the only part of your life and it being…

Tammy: Yeah. And I’m glad you brought that up because I think people might relate to this too because I know a lot of people who have full-time jobs, or they have a career and they’re starting their coaching on the side. I also – one of the biggest things that I released in the mastermind was thinking it was an either or.

Like I either had to give this up and go full-time in my coaching or not do coaching at all. And there’s so much in between there, and that’s where I really landed. That also gave me the confidence to say no, again, that’s something else I get to create. I get to create what this looks like, and it could mean – for me it’s really shifting the amount of time, how much time I’m spending in each.

It’s like reversing those. But it doesn’t have to be like I have to let this totally go because I’m very passionate about a lot of the things that I’m doing there too. So again, it’s going back to that choice of what you choose.

Amy: Again, your overriding story probably. And maybe rather than me summarize that, I’ll kind of let you do that. What nugget do you want to leave the listeners with? What nugget of info do you want listeners to walk away with?

Tammy: I want them to walk away with that confidence looks different for everyone and just because you feel confident in one area doesn’t mean that it applies in every area that you have. And also just that learning to be you and to live authentically and unapologetically as you is how you bring your awesome to the world.

That’s what I say on my podcast. I believe we all have awesome to bring to the world, and so learning to understand how you are, how you work, what you want, and healing and being yourself in the world, that’s how we impact change. That’s the nugget that I want to leave.

Amy: So good. So juicy. It’s a juicy nugget. And so then we’ll just end with anything that you want to share that you’re working on now and how can people connect with you.

Tammy: So a couple big things that I’m working on. So as you mentioned earlier, I am writing a book, which will be coming out hopefully this summer, so stay tuned for that. And I also – it was after the mastermind ended but I, again, doing some of this experimenting have aligned with a big project that I’ve been working on specifically for entrepreneurs.

And so that is going to be announced soon, which is basically a way to do all these things that we’ve talked about, to allow you as an entrepreneur to really dive into what you want, what makes you you, how do you live intentionally, aligned, with mind, body, spirit, create the life that you want, and the business that you want, and do that with others. So that will be coming soon and you can just connect with me at tammyhelfrich.com and stay tuned for those big things coming soon.

Amy: So I want to be clear, Tammy Helfrich is not spelled how you think that it’s spelled. This is one of my best friends in the entire world and I always mispronounce her name because her name is Tammy Helfrich. So tammyhelfrich.com and I’m going to include in the show notes – you’ll be able to link right to that.

But I wanted to make sure that if you guys wanted – if you’re listening right now and you’re trying to figure out how to spell Helfrich, it’s Helfrich. So you can find out about Tammy’s new projects. I mean, you have products you can buy right on your site. You’ve got inspirational cards, some of my masterminders have received some of Tammy’s cards before.

She’s got her journals and her new projects and all of that will be announced. So make sure that you connect with Tammy, and Tammy, I mean, you already know that I love you more than anything. I mean, this woman has seen me in all states of undress via Marco Polo.

She knows I’m either in the bathroom getting ready or in my car, and she has had such an insight to my brain and she has heard almost everything you guys have heard come out of my mouth as I’m still processing it. I love you so much truly. She also, side note, tidbit, Tammy is the best gift giver ever. If receiving gifts if your love language, I strongly suggest you figure out how to get into her good graces. She is the single best gift giver ever.

So I invite you guys to connect with Tammy. Thank you. Thank you for being amazing, thank you for being my friend, and thanks for coming on The Confident Coaches Podcast to share your take on confidence, which I think a lot of people will resonate with the – I know that there’s people out there right now that are just hearing this permission. If they learn how to tap into what they are truly in alignment with, there’s nothing that they can’t create because they are in alignment with it. So good.

Tammy: Thank you so much. I love you too. And I just have found this to be such an honor to be a part of your mastermind, to be in your world, and I’m just so grateful for you so thank you so much.

Amy: Alright, I love you dear.

—

What did I tell you? So good, right? And what I love – and you’re going to hear another guest interview next week, what I love is that the three people I’m bringing on to interview as we are going into the next launch of Confident Coaches Mastermind could not be more different from one another.

Tammy’s story is very different than Xena’s story, and yet, it’s still reflective of how what are we believing that we don’t have to. Tammy was believing that the only way to have a successful business was for it to look a very certain way and that it needed to emulate the other examples.

And really, trusting herself, trusting her intuition, getting into alignment with what her values and her desires, and feeling confident in that even though she didn’t see a lot of examples out there in the coaching industry, that was her work. And that shift in confidence for her will take her so far into the future, there’s nothing that she can’t create without that confident foundation that she needed and that she got in Confident Coaches Mastermind.

So on that note, we are opening the next round of Confident Coaches Mastermind just in the next week. I’m so excited, my friends. It’s going to be in the next week or so. So you’re going to want to make sure that you’re connected with me on Instagram, on Facebook, and that you’re getting emails so that you can get your applications in, so you can also create that confident foundation for yourself.

What will you create when you stop believing something you don’t have to believe? When you learn how to believe something else? When you learn how to make next best step decisions from that new place? Where will you be in another six months to a year from now by doing that work? Let’s find out.

Applications open very soon, make sure you are connected with me. There’s an offer at the end of this podcast that will get you on the email list, plus you can always find me on Instagram and on Facebook @iamamylatta. Alright my friends, until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

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