Ep #58: Loving Now

You are listening to episode 58 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you learn to love where you are, just so you can leave it. Yep, I said it. 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, all my Confident Coaches. How’s everybody doing out there. it is mid-December, friends. We are actually going to be in 2021 soon. Like, we can see it. We can see it, my friends. It’s almost here.

I am having a pretty fabulous December and I hope you guys are too. We’re in the midst of our Confident Coaches Mastermind launch for the January class and all of the work and all of the studying that I have been doing of my current and past students and studying their brains and reimagining Confident Coaches, reimaging the content that I’m going to be bringing you in 2021, the changes I’m bringing to the program and to the mastermind.

This is the exciting stuff. I actually want to offer to all of you out there, the best way to be, to offer the best marketing and the best sales and the best coaching that you can is to study the minds of your potential and your current clients. What are the thoughts that they struggle with the absolute most?

I know, just as a little tip, when I’m coaching, I keep a notebook the entire time and I write down the thoughts that my clients are sharing with me. I write down the thoughts people told me in consultation calls. I would study – even when I was a new coach and I didn’t have many clients, I would be, like, who are my ideal people? And then I’d go study them and see what kind of stuff I would see that they we reposting, what they were struggling with.

Study that and then go to work on how can I make that easier for them? Guys, right there, that’s not even today’s podcast episode. I just threw out a huge confidence coach tip right there. Like, that right there, we could make an entire episode just out of that. I’ll leave that with you right now but study your people and you will reimagine your program and your coaching and your sales and your marketing over and over and over again with such confidence because you’re going to know, I know what they’re thinking because I study them.

Also, before we get into today’s topic, which is all about loving now, can I send out some love? Yes. I need to send out some huge love to my mastermind member Jessica. Because in six months, she has doubled her confidence. She’s doubled her clients. And she’s five-times her income.

Yeah, when you double your clients but five-times your income, that means you not only signed more clients, you’ve also raised prices. It’s a simple shoutout because it’s so amazing. And I want to offer you that sometimes the simplest wins are the best wins. The simplest coaching is the best coaching. This right here is what’s possible. Like, kudos to you, Jessica. I’m so proud. I’m so excited of how you’ve kept showing up, even that middle patch.

This is what frequently happens. A lot of people sign up for Confident Coaches and right out of the gate they have huge wins. And then the process of actually learning how not to listen to that Helga brain and how to actually believe your Gigi brain.

It’s kind of like do you guys remember the Biggest Loser TV show? Yes, I did used to watch it like 15 years ago. And they would always have this great weight loss push, but then week two and three always really, really sucked. Yeah, that kind of happens in coaching.

You feel great. You get this great big boost right out of the gate for this first couple weeks. And then your brain’s like, “Oh crap, she’s serious.” And then your Helga brain throws three times as much crap at you as normal.

And so, I remember that with Jessica. She had this huge right out of the gate, then she had this kind of, like, blah – I don’t know how else to describe it, blah – middle section. But in the end, because she kept asking for coaching, because she kept showing up, because she kept evaluating, that’s the work. I’m so dang proud of her.

And seriously, doubling her confidence – and the reason that I know she doubled her confidence is because of this new tool that I have added to the program. It’s actually a really simple tool, but it’s completely reframed the entire program and really put a way for me to gage how my clients are growing, not just in new clients signed and now dollars earned, but actually, is their confidence actually increasing?

Now, the January class of the Confident Coaches Mastermind, the January 21 class will be the first one that gets that new tool from the beginning. But I have introduced it to all of my existing classes. And I’ll be introducing it here on the podcast probably, if I look at my schedule, probably after the start of the next mastermind. But I’ll be sharing it with you guys too.

And, if you guys don’t know this already for 2021, the plan is to run four masterminds, one every three months. In 2020, I was doing it every other month. And that just didn’t give me quite enough time to really spend – I want to be able to hold space for my brain, create that open space for my brain to really even study my clients harder.

So, we’re going to do a launch. You’re looking at January, April, July, and October, most likely for the masterminds in 2021. So, hopefully I’m going to see you in the January class. Did you apply? Are you getting in?

Depending on when you’re listening to this, the window might have already closed. Depending on when you’re listening to this, the window might possibly still be open. So, are you going to be there with me? It’s only open for 20 coaches. I certainly hope so. And will you be doubling your confidence and doubling your clients, five-times-ing your income in just six months? Let’s do it.

Okay, so, in today’s show, I want to introduce a concept that’s so simple. There’s not a ton here. It’s so simple, and yet it is so powerful. It gets overlooked often. It’s something that we might hear in passing and we go, “Yeah, yeah, yeah, okay,” before we immediately forget it, which is why I’m dedicating an entire show to the concept of loving now.

Now, when I first started thinking about this show, I was trying to come up with a witty title. Like, in the podcast world, we’re always trying to come up with, like, “What am I going to call this episode?” It’s like now acceptance. And I was like, no, it’s not now acceptance. I’m not telling you that you need to accept where you are now. I’m telling you; you need to love where you are now. What? Yeah, you heard me. How to love now. How to love where you are right now, no matter what you have got going on. Not just accept it, not just tolerate it, but actually love where you are now.

And here’s the kicker. Love where you are now because you’re not staying here. What? It was just a couple months ago, in the same mastermind that Jessica is in, Barbara heard this, and she was like, “Wait a minute, what did you just say?” I said, yeah, you need to love where you are now because you’re not staying here. So, you might as well love where you are now.

And this concept is so contrary to what we know about anything. It just goes against everything that we’ve been taught. It’s uncomfortable because of that. It sounds like a foreign language.

I still remember the first time I heard one of my coaches say, you know, don’t leave your marriage until you can love the person. Don’t leave your job until you can love it. And I was like, “Well, A, what? And B, why would you leave it if you decided that you loved it?”

In my brain, you would only want to leave a place if you hated it, and that was the only way you could. Like, the only way that I would be able to get the gumption or the mojo or the knowhow or the drive or the determination in order to leave where I am now is through despair of some kind. I have to hate where I am in order to leave it.

This is so ingrained in our thinking. It’s in TV shows. It’s in movies. In fact, a lot of people even have negative thoughts about other people, “Why would she leave such a good thing?” We hear that all the time. Why would you let go of a good thing? Why would you walk away from a good thing? That’s greedy, right? It’s greedy to love where you are and still want to move forward.

The other thought that we have is that the only way you can move forward is from a place of despair. In fact, I want to share with you guys – I know, I’ve probably shared this 100 times and I’m going to share it 100 more. So, I actually started weight coaching in 2013. So, I had been a health and fitness blogger and I decided I wanted to actually coach people in 2013.

And I signed up for a direct sales company that sold weight loss products, a 24-day challenge. And then, they got to coach with me every week for that challenge. And then I got paid because they bought product. So, I loved the coaching part. I hated the selling. And, of course, it was direct sales so you wanted to bring people onto your team and all of that.

And I remember my upline telling me, tap into their despair. If you can tap into their despair for where they are now, that will be the thing that they need to sign up and make this business work.

And at the time, I didn’t know anything about cognitive behavioral therapy. I didn’t know anything about thoughts create your feelings and that drives your actions. I just knew that it didn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. But I didn’t know why it didn’t at the time. I just knew that it felt icky. I just knew that it felt like crap. I knew that it felt like crap that I was supposed to tap into someone else’s despair in order to motivate them to change their life.

And I was like, something about that kind of sucks. By the way, I didn’t do a great job in that business. I think I made the first rank. I think I made it to silver out of quadruple platinum, right?

So, I didn’t make it very far and eventually I stopped selling the product and I moved into body image coaching. And honestly, even that is super-crazy. I charged $400 for six months of weekly coaching people. Like, how undervalued did I see myself?

But I knew that tapping into people’s despair sucked and I knew that tapping into people’s hatred for their body in order to lose weight sucked. That’s why I got into body image coaching. Like, love yourself first, then through love you’ll be able to move forward. You’ll be able to fully accept your body as it is now and when you do that, you’ll be more likely to take care of it. And then you’ll be more likely to actually achieve the weight loss that you want.

I still hadn’t heard of life coaching at that point. But even I cognitively understood that when I feel like shit, I just feel like shit. And that when I don’t feel like shit and when I’m kinder to myself, I more likely take care of me. I didn’t know thoughts create my feelings, drive my actions, but I understood that fundamental thing, even though it was so contrary to everything else that I heard.

And here’s the other thing about why you want to love where you are, because you are going to leave it anyway. It’s really important to understand that it’s not better there than here.

We get this idea, like I’m where I am in my business right now and I don’t want to stay here. And when I am fully booked, when I am making 8K months, when I am a six-figure coach, when I am in demand, when people are reaching out to me, when I have a waitlist, when I move into group coaching and scale to six figures and beyond, then it’s going to be so fabulous. I’m going to feel better. I’m going to feel confident. I’m finally going to believe that I can do this thing.

And what happens is we’re suddenly going to think, like, I’m never going to argue with my partner. My children are going to be amazing all of the time. Nothing wrong will ever go bad in my life ever. No, that is totally not true.

It is actually not going to be better there than it is here. And the number one reason why is because you’re taking you with you. You’re taking you and your human brain with you. You’re taking you and your human brain and life with you.

Life is not going to stop happening. You’re still going to have plus or minus, 50% shit and 50% awesome, and everything in between. You’re still going to have somebody cut you off and do this thing and yell at you at the grocery store and you’re still going to have technology not work out and you’re still going to have loved ones die. And you’re still going to have rainbows and daisies and baby’s laughter and hilarious movies and somebody winning a big award.

You’re going to have crap and you’re going to have awesome. That’s life. And that’s coming with you, no matter where you are. And your brain, your Helga brain is coming with you. She’s always, like – even when you’ve, quote unquote got it really good, she’s still going to be finding the things to be scared about, to be fearful of.

It’s never going to be better there than it is here. So, you might as well love where you are right now. And here’s another thing I want to share with you. You’re going to miss these days. I know you think I’m crazy. Trust me, I’m not. Because even where I am right now, I’m at about a half a million dollar a year business.

And even where I am right now, I now have to manage a team. I now have to think about more pieces than I used to have to think about. There’s a little bit more on the line than there used to be. I can’t just decide to take three weeks off, not that you necessarily should either.

But I can’t just walk away, necessarily. There are more pieces in play. There are people I have to manage. There’s more money I have to manage. There’s more tax laws I need to be aware of. I have had to hire a CFO and am accounting team to make sure I’m compliant and I’m not breaking any laws because I’m now making enough money that they’re going to come after me if I am.

There’s just more things that I have to think about or hire a person to think about and pay them, and that’s kind of where I’m getting to, I’ll be honest, that I now am outsourcing a lot of those details. But they’re still details I have to think about.

And there is something to be said about those days when there wasn’t a lot going on. And yeah, I had my Helga brain yelling at me. But I also had a lot of open space for thinking about what I wanted to do and what I was going to create, a lot more thinking space for creating vision and a lot of that work. Now, I have to make an invested time to make sure that I’m including that in my time.

So, you might as well love where you are now because you are going to leave here. You are going to create that successful business that you wanted to create. Go listen to last week’s episode on how to be a successful coach. I told you exactly what you need in order to be a successful coach. Literally everything in the Confident Coaches program is all of the mindset and the belief work and the feeling work and the future you work that you’re going to need in order to create that successful business. That’s everything that you need. So, love this now.

This kind of reminds me of – because I’m a mom. I don’t know if everybody listening is a mom, but I am a mom and there is something to be said about I couldn’t wait until they could start walking and then I couldn’t wait until they could start talking, and then I couldn’t wait until they could take care of themselves.

But I kind of miss those days when it was just me and “Baybay…” shoutout to my Schitt’s Creek fans right there. I kind of miss those little toddler days and that sweet little voice. Actually, I want to offer you that my youngest son just turned 12 a couple of weeks ago and on his birthday, he was talking to all of the relatives that are out of town. And I was listening to him on the phone talking to my mom. And it struck me, that little boy voice wasn’t there anymore. And I mourned for those days.

And yeah, were those days hard when he was wee little and he threw more tantrums and he wasn’t so self-sufficient? They absolutely were. It is a lot easier now that I have a 12-year-old and a 14-and-a-half-year-old that can pretty much take care of themselves, and our 21-year-old daughter is living on her own and she’s essentially taking care of herself too. In some ways, these days are easier maybe. But I still long sometimes for those days when it was just me and my kiddos and the laughter and the giggling, right?

There are pieces of right now that you’re going to miss when you’re gone. So, cherish them and love them now. And ultimately, the reason that loving now is so important is just because of how it feels. It feels terrible to focus on how much you hate being where you are right now in your coaching business, or really anywhere in your life.

It just feels like shit. It feels like crap and it feels like crap right now. And you could totally choose instead to love where you are right now, to feel better immediately right now by looking at your life coaching business, looking at everything that you have, or even have not created and saying, “I like this. I appreciate this. I see the value and the benefit of being here right now.

Because the more I appreciate, the more I see the benefit of being here, the more I see what’s open to me and available to me now, the easier it will be for me to create what I still want to create that is in my future.

Like, loving where you are right now because you’re going to leave it is freeing and it’s open. It’s telling your brain, “Listen, we got it really good right now and here are all the reasons why. And guess what? We’re going to create something even better.” Because I think that’s ultimately the question that people get hung up on. Why would I want to leave a place where I love? So, like, what’s the point of me deciding that I want to love where I am ow because then I won’t want to leave? And I want to offer you that that’s not true.

When you find the appreciation and the gratitude and the benefit of being where you are now and paying attention, taking a moment to appreciate the things you’re going to miss in the future, just really seeing that if I were to stay here forever, I would be okay, then it becomes about why would I want to keep moving forward? To see what else is possible. To see what else I’m made of. I got to this point where I’m at right now and I’m so proud of me for that. How much more of that is waiting for me? How much more fun is possible? How much more comfort zone can I expand into? How much more will my life grow? How much more inner personal growth and how much transformation is waiting for me?

Not because I have to in order to gain worth or in order to have a life that I love, but simply because I want to and it’s available to me. This is such a powerful mindset shift, my friends. And it’s so important to really appreciate what is possible for you when you love everything about where you are right now, knowing that you’re going to choose to leave it because of the growth, and not because you have to leave it.

If you’re in despair and if you’re hating where you are, it feels like you’ve got to leave. I have to leave this because it sucks. But if you can find the love for it and the gratitude for it, you get to decide, I’m going to leave anyway because I want to, not because I have to.

So, here’s the work for you. I want you to take a look around. Right now, in your C-line – and by the way, for those of you who are new, the C-line would be like the facts of what’s going on. The C-line means the circumstance line. And those are the circumstances. Those are the facts.

As factually as possible, describe your business and your life right now, factually. Don’t add adjectives. Don’t add flair. Are you married, are you not? How many dollars have you made? How many clients have you signed? How many consults are on your books? How many hours a week are you working? Be as factual as you can without any flair, without any opinion added to it. And then, what do you love about what’s going on right now? What’s good about it? What’s helpful about it? What are you grateful about where you are right now? And what’s in your life right now?

What are you protected from by staying here? What do you appreciate about where you are right now? Wat brings a smile to your face? Where do you have fun in your life right now? And, as a side note, what are you protected from, what might you be afraid of when you are more successful? If anything comes up there, that’s some great stuff to get coached on, by the way.

But this exercise right here just helps you see, I’ve got it pretty good. Because what I want to offer you is that for some of you, you’re living your worst-case scenario. And if you can love this place and appreciate this place, it becomes so much easier to decide to create something new because you want to, not because you’re desperate and you have to.

Alright, my friends, so that is loving now. I want to challenge each and every one of you to look around. And this is just a great end of the year activity in general. This is such a great thing, particularly in the year of 2020, to really look around and appreciate the good that we have seen.

Actually, this loving now concept is perfect for the coronavirus times. What positive things have come out of this doesn’t mean that there aren’t things that we hate or don’t like, particularly if you’re one of the at least 50 people I know, at least 50 people I know have been sick. Thankfully, I have not lost anyone close to me, but I certainly know people who have.

But there are innovations that have come out of this. I love that I’m more connected with my family. I love that we’ve built in more quiet time. This is just a great thing to look around and appreciate what is good in your life. This is just a great thing to do all of the time because you just feel better, first of all. And then you get to consciously decide, I’m going to choose to stay here, or I’m going to choose to see what else is possible. And it’s not from hate or desperation. It’s from love an it’s from gratitude.

Alright, my friends, so there’s a little warm, sit by the fire, by the light of your Christmas tree or your Hanukkah Menorah or whatever festivities that you have I your home right now, get a cup of cocoa, sit in your hooga spots where you’re all comfy and cozy and think about what it is that you love now, knowing you’re not staying here.

Alright, I can’t wait to see what you create, my friends. Okay, Confident Coaches, remember until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

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