Ep #15: 5 Reasons Why It’s Okay that It’s All Been Done Before

You are listening to episode 15 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you drop the it’s-all-been-done-before drama.

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 squad. How are all my confident coaches doing out there today? I got to be honest. Once again, I’m doing so stinking good. I just got home from Atlanta where I spent three plus days with some powerhouse women in my own mastermind.

So yes, I host a mastermind group and I am in one of my own because coaches have coaches, am I right? And there is just nothing like coming together with a group of women, all doing very similar work, but all in our own flavor, our own style, our own vibe, and that’s what I love about being in a group like this.

And that is what the women in my mastermind do for one another. We celebrate our wins, we call each other out on our bullshit, we brainstorm ideas, it’s simply the best. I just came off that really great vibe. I’m feeling all loved up, raring to go, and I am super excited because we made some big decisions for my own coaching business and I can’t wait to share some of that with you guys. And make sure you stick around to the end because I did already come up with something brand new for you guys and I can’t wait to share it with you.

And talking about how some of us are all kind of doing some similar work, that’s actually what we’re going to talk about today, and how the thought, “It’s all been done before,” is such a confidence killer, right? And some of you are using it as an excuse not to show up for your people, and we’re going to put an end to that today. You hear me?

Alright my friends, but before we do that, let’s give a shout-out to Confident Coaches listener Billie Jo, who wrote this review of The Confident Coaches Podcast on Apple Podcasts. Billie Jo wrote, “My favorite thing about Amy and this podcast is that when I listen to her, I feel like she’s inside my brain.”

It’s because I am, y’all. It’s because we have the same brain sometimes. “Every time she talks about the issues her clients face, I think to myself, that’s me. I was hustling and doing all the things in my business and making zero dollars, and Amy was my missing piece. On top of being an amazing coach, I love how real and human she is. I can’t wait to see what else is to come.”

My friends, Billie Jo actually is a client of mine. I’ve been working with her for almost six months now and watching her growth as she applies the five steps to creating self-confidence has been such a super fun journey. Every week with Billie Jo, working through all that crap that she uses as a reason to not feel confident enough as a coach and to create that coaching business she wants, it’s truly so much fun because I love calling her out on her crap and she and I really do have just the absolute best time together.

And really, that’s what most of this is. We talked about fault obsessions a couple of weeks ago and how our brains love to focus on all the crap that’s not working, or that we say is in our way, and whatever the specific thought is, it’s almost always one that we use as an excuse as to why we can’t have what we want, why we don’t feel more confident, why we can’t sign more clients.

And today, I’m going to take one of those thoughts. We’re going to deep dive into this thought of it’s all been done before. Y’all said that before, I know you probably have. I know that last fall when I announced that I was creating this podcast, I put out a big email to all my people and I asked what coaches were struggling with to help me come up with a variety of topics to discuss here on the show.

And it’s all been done before was one of the things that came up in that list of hey, I need help with this, Amy. I know that one of my clients in the Confident Coaches group brought it up just last week, and I have to be honest, I would guess, if I had to put a guess on it, that I probably coach someone on this, it’s all been done before, at least once a month.

So what my client came up with last week specifically was – well, this was in our group, Confident Coaches mastermind, and another client asked for coaching on creating good copy, because all copy is is the words that you use to market your services. And good copy sells coaching.

And the only way to become a more confident copywriter for yourself is like anything else that we do around here. You have to actually go do it. What do you want to believe about your ability to write compelling copy? Are you willing to feel the discomfort of putting your copy out there? How would future you write this copy?

Making sure you have your own back when you do put something out there and it doesn’t quite land with your audience, and your willingness to evaluate everything that you put out there and to keep going. See these five steps? We’re always using them, right?

So one of my actionable tips during that coaching session was to follow people that you really admire. Sign up for email lists of your mentors. Study how they write compelling sales copy. And seriously, this is not a copywriting episode. I’m not going to go too far off on this tangent of copywriting, but I really can’t recommend this tip enough.

The people on my email list have sent me specific emails remarking improvement of my own copy over the past year. Not that I was always a great copywriter, but they noticed how much better I’ve gotten, and I’ve done that because I’ve been following my own mentors. Because I was willing to be not so great and to keep learning how to write and to get better and to refine how I wrote so that I could then become a more confident copywriter.

And seriously, I happily invite all of you guys to sign up for my emails as an example. You can go to www.amylatta.com/unblockconfidence and you will even see how I improve over the course of this year because it’s a big part of my work this year.

So I’m sharing all of this within my Confident Coaches mastermind and my client said that she was nervous about following other people because she was afraid she might inadvertently copy them. You know, you hear something or you read something somewhere and then you forget where it came from, then you end up sharing it as your own because you can’t really remember how or where it came from.

Raise your hand if you’ve done this. And not everybody is raising their hand right now. One of you is lying. Because we’ve all done this. This is just how the human brain works. Hear something somewhere, we’re not even sure where we hear it, we repeat it, we don’t even remember where we hear things all the time, right?

So here is the good news and the bad news. It has all been done before. It’s true. It actually has all been done before. You’ve heard the old adage. There’s no new ideas. The basic concepts of life coaching, that your thoughts create your reality, and you have a choice in what you think, this isn’t new. None of this is new.

It’s as old as time and I have the receipts on this one, my friends. Buddha, all the way back in 500BC said, “All that we are arises with our thoughts, with our thoughts we make the world.” Aristotle in 300BC, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.” Proverbs 23:7, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he.”

Marcus Aurelius in like, 150AD – that’s a weird year to say, by the way, in 150. “Very little is needed to make a happy life. It is all within yourself in your way of thinking.” Shakespeare said in the play Hamlet in the late 1500s, “For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

Philosopher William James said in the 1800s, “The greatest weapon against stress is our ability to choose one thought over another.” Einstein said, “The world we have created, it is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without changing our thinking.” And modern-day success and leadership author Bryan Adams wrote, “Like attracts like. Whatever the conscious mind thinks and believes, the subconscious identically creates.”

Y’all picking up a theme here? Everyone out here is worrying that there are no ideas and I’m over here like, well yeah. I just gave you how many quotes that tell you that your thoughts create your reality and create your life, and that is the basis of all of life coaching is that you can create whatever you want in this world by simply changing how you think.

We’ve literally been talking about this for thousands of years. So the bad news is none of this is new. So what? Who cares? We can actually use “it’s all been done before” to give us so much more freedom, instead of using it as an excuse as to why we can’t share what we want to share.

Because if we’ve literally been talking about this for thousands of years. What’s preventing you from talking about it too? And right now, I want to share five things that you can absolutely believe in right now that will help you stop using it’s all been done before as a reason to not go out there and talk to your people that you can actually help.

Remember, this episode right here, I want you to end this episode with the ability to drop that story for once and for all. And here are the five things that you need to hear in order to do that. The first one is it’s all been done before, but not by you. No one is you. Listen to all of those great deep thinkers and all of those philosophers who literally said the same thing over thousands of years.

But maybe only one of them really connects inside your head. Like, thanks to the glory that is Facebook memories, I can tell you that I was posting inspirational memes along the, your thoughts create your life vibe for 10 years. But when I found my coach and mentor Brooke Castillo and her podcast back in the summer of 2015, I thought that was the first time I’d ever heard it.

I was like, oh my gosh, what? Your thoughts create your feelings and your feelings drive your actions and those create your results? What? Your thoughts are optional? I have never heard this before. And that wasn’t even true. I had totally heard this before because I had been alive. I’d heard of those people. I’ve read Shakespeare’s Hamlet before.

I heard that back in high school, but it didn’t connect when I first heard it. The way Brooke shared it was in a way that it had never connected before. Never mind the fact that my mom was talking about the work of Louise Hay back in the 80s, and she’s the godmother of modern life coaching, right?

And we take these brilliant life coaching basics, all of these thought leaders, all of these people whose quotes I’ve just shared with you, my mentors that I have, my coaches and my colleagues, we take these brilliant life coaching concepts and then we run them through our mind. And we put our brilliant spin on them, right?

And you, dear listener, you have lived a lifetime of completely different experiences that I have or my mentor Brooke, or my coach Stacey, or Shakespeare. You’ve had a completely different life, so it is impossible that you can completely copy someone else.

I mean, unless you have their email up and you’re literally copying it word for word, you can’t possibly be copying something because it’s running through your filter and no one else has your spin, your filter, and your lens on life. It’s virtually impossible for it not to come out with a new zing to it because even if it’s going in one ear, it’s coming out the mouth and it’s passed through your life experience in order to get to the other side.

I see this happen all the time when a client or a listener takes something I’ve said and then they’ll add a caption to it and I’m like, well, that’s not exactly what I said but I like your interpretation of it. I know I’ve done that. I’ve taken something that someone said but I have my filter on it and then I’ll spin it in a way that they’ll come back and be like, oh, that’s an interesting take on what I said.

I’m like, wait, that’s not exactly what you said? No. Because it’s run through my brain first. We take other people’s work and we put our spin on it, and we make it our own. And that will speak to your people in a way that it could never speak to my people.

In fact, it’s really funny. Two episodes ago about fault obsessions, episode 13, I shared that the best way to find your fault obsession is to ask yourself what’s in the way, which I got from the quote that I didn’t remember where I heard it from, what’s in the way is the way. And then I realized what’s in the way is the way is a book from a couple of years ago that I never read, so I don’t know how that came across my radar.

And then my client Joanne pointed out that actually, that was from another Marcus Aurelius quote that says – and remember, this guy lived in the year 150 – and he said, “The impediment action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.” Guys, he said the back in the 100s.

How many other people have said it before I heard it and before I put it into my own concept about fault obsessions two weeks ago? And yet that episode had a ton of comments and feedback and I was told how helpful it was. So I guess no one’s hanging out with Marcus Aurelius anymore, right? Thank goodness it’s been done before and said before and I put it out into the world in a fresh new way for you to hear it just two weeks ago.

Alright, so point number two, it’s all been done before, but one person can’t serve the world. Friends, please don’t ever forget that there are seven and a half billion people, billion with a B, on the planet. And you only need like, what? 20 for a full one-on-one coaching practice.

You think you can find 20 people who need what you have to offer in a pool of seven and a half billion? Yeah, I think so. There is a giant world of people out there and they are all in different stages of their life and they are all at different awareness levels, and I guarantee you that 20 people are where you need them to be right now, and that there’s no one who can possibly serve all of those people at the exact same time.

That’s virtually impossible, am I right? Think about the audiences of the Oprahs of the world, or Tony Robbins, or those really big names, right? Think of that. There’s so many of them, and yet they are all serving slightly different factions because there’s seven and a half billion people on the planet to be served.

There is room for you at the table. I promise you that. And there are 20 people who want what you have to offer right now. You can find them online, on Facebook, on Instagram, at local networking events, anywhere that humans gather. You can find your people that you can sign who are waiting to hear your take on this work.

Okay so point number three. It’s all been done before but your person may not have been ready for it, and they are now. So yeah, fine, there’s seven and a half billion people on the planet, but not all people are ready at all times. Let’s say you just want to talk to the working moms in America. So that’s 75 million women right now.

Some of them may never be ready for this work. Some are ready for five years ago and they found their people then. Some won’t be ready for another 20 years and they will find their people then. But your people who are ready right now are ready for you right now.

Just like I mentioned in last week’s episode when we were talking about what it means to be a good coach, your person is at the level they are at, ready for a coach at the level you are at. You might be saying similar things to other people, but your person is ready for you. So Dr. Wayne Dyer and Louise Hay and Marcus Aurelius, they’re not here to serve those people who are finally ready for them, but you are.

Okay now point number four is kind of a fun one because it’s all been done before, unless it hasn’t. Now, as soon as you say it’s all been done before, you will actually take your spin on something and you might possibly come up with something that no one else has actually said before.

And then you want to know what your asshole brain will do? Then your asshole brain is going to tell you that no one’s done it before, so it must not be that great. Isn’t that crazy? It’s either all been done before and you can’t say what you want to say, or it actually hasn’t been done before and your brain will tell you you still can’t say what you want to say. One of you is a liar, am I right?

This seriously happens all of the time. My podcast listener Julie said that she often thinks of concepts and content that she’s not heard anyone else share, so then she doesn’t think that it’s an idea worth sharing, only to hear someone else share it six months later as the next big concept sweeping social media.

This is part of point number one that you’re going to run it through your brain and you might actually come up with a concept. For instance, I did this two episodes ago with fault obsessions. No one’s ever shared fault obsessions before, specifically the way that I did because I took the concepts that have already been done before, and I put them together in a way that actually was brand new.

Or at least it is brand new to me. I haven’t heard it anywhere else before. And I put it out into the world that way. Now, if I had said, “I don’t know, no one else has shared this already, maybe it’s not a good idea,” then it wouldn’t be out in the world right now.

So you’re going to take all of these concepts out there that are as old as time and you’re going to run them through your experience and it’s possible that you will create a brand new concept and a brand new tool and it’s a terrible reason not to share it with the world because no one else has already shared it.

Alright, and point number five, it’s all been done before, even this podcast. Here are the facts, my friends. This point number five is totally like, it’s very meta. This number fifth point is so meta right now. I am not the first person who has shared this point, and I won’t be the last. You can even Google it’s all been done before, and you will find articles saying so much of what I’ve just said.

Are you having an inception moment? I’m doing a podcast on how it’s all been done before and one of my points is that this story has all been done before, and if you go and pull them up, that story is saying yes, this has all been talked about before, how it’s all been done before.

But right now, this podcast episode exists in the year 2020, at this time, for the segment of the human population that is ready and is tuning in. There is a likelihood that you have heard some of this before, that maybe you will hear it in a way that has never connected inside your brain. Maybe you’ve heard it seven times before and this eighth time will be the time where your brain says, “Oh, I finally get it now.”

Maybe you will connect with my humor, my take on it. Maybe you will connect with the client stories that I’ve shared, or the quotes that I’ve included. The last thing I want to do is not share this with you because it has in fact been shared before. No, because it’s been shared before, it’s information you need to hear and hopefully you’re going to hear it in a way where you’re finding like, yes, now is the time to drop this as an excuse holding me back.

You need to hear this right now in this space from me. Let it connect with you. Let go of it’s all been done before, and remember that it’s never been done by you in this time, in this place, for your people. Okay, so here is your work to do this week. Focusing on this thought. I am the perfect coach for my ideal client. They want what I have to offer and they are waiting for me to offer it.

And from that thought space, and sitting in the energy of those words, sitting in the belief that that is true, ask yourself this question. What is my ideal client struggling with right now, and what can I share with them that will help them? Now go out there, my friends, and share it. Alright, until next week.

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

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

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

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