Ep #43: Mentor Overload

You are listening to episode 43 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you stop looking out there for the answers that are already in here.

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 coaches. How’s everybody doing out there? Okay, so listen friends, I don’t mean to alarm you, but the calendar does not lie. It’s September. What? Holy crap bowl on a Tuesday. It is Tuesday, September 1st, how did that even happen? What is life even, right?

I mean, here’s the craziest thing about this year, 2020. I mean, this has been the longest decade of our lives this year, right? But at the same time, being so discombobulated as to what’s normal and what’s not normal, the word September has me going, what? Really? How did we get here?

Of course, we’re here already. It’s been the longest year of our lives, but at the same time I’m like, wasn’t it just April? Here’s the other interesting thing. I’m also recording this episode, obviously I’m recording it in August and I’m recording it on a day when St Louis is in a heat advisory, so that might also be part of my discombobulation. I do record these in advance.

But anyway, my friends, despite COVID and all those bullshit lies that your Helga brain tells you, this year, this year of 2020 just keeps on marching on and literally any day, you can keep marching on too because today could be the day you switch it in your head, that you finally believe this is going to happen for you, this coaching business that you decided you wanted to create when you got started and you still haven’t created it yet. It’s possible.

I know that I’m over here and I’m starting to sound like a broken record when I tell you your only job is to believe, but friends, your only job, your number one job is to believe. Without that, none of the rest of the stuff that you’re doing matters. You got to believe. You got to learn how to believe the new stuff and you got to learn how to unbelieve the old stuff. The rest is gravy.

Now of course, there are steps and there’s methods of learning how to believe and no one teaches belief quite the way that I do, but it is still your number one job. Anyone can learn it, yes, even you out there right now listening. Even if you’re out there going, “Amy, I believe all the time and it doesn’t work,” then you just haven’t learned it my way, my friends.

It is your number one job because a whole lot of shit goes down when you aren’t believing, and we’re going to be talking about one of those things in today’s podcast. But before we dive in, I do just want to make sure that have you connected with me on Instagram? Because my Instagram, my Insta stories, they are the stuff of inspiration, my friends.

You’re going to get all kinds of snippets of little bit of Latta real life, some business, some family, some fun, definitely some behind the scenes of Confident Coaches, how we get things done, how we do things around here, including my new assistant, shoutout Denita.

My new assistant on board helping me get these things out to you guys, quotes to motivate, quotes to inspire, you’ll find media recommendations, it’s all good. Plus, I love sharing the Insta stories that you guys all share when you’re listening to the podcast or when you’re watching a free training.

So I love the shoutouts. I will give you a shoutout. Follow me at Amy Latta Coaching. My handle is @iamamylatta. Alright, here’s the irony here. This is actually funny that I was like, hey you should follow me on Instagram and let me be an influencer on your life as I dive into the subject of this podcast, which is mentor overload.

So I’ve just told you to let me be your mentor and let me influence you, and now I’m getting ready to do an entire podcast on why you shouldn’t do that. But there’s a reason why. It’s not that you shouldn’t follow mentors or have influencers in your life. It’s how you’re utilizing them and using them and turning to them that could be the problem.

After listening to this podcast, you might take what I’m telling you and decide that you don’t need to listen to me anymore. So why the hell would I be giving you this episode, right? But what I’m going to share with you is just too important not to talk about.

Because what I’m seeing so much in the world in general but especially in the life coaching world, I think this is human nature in general when we start following too many influencers and too many mentors, or more to the point what we’re doing is we’re consuming so much from mentors and consuming so much from influencers and we’re not spending enough time with the most important mentor and influencer in your life, which is you.

Remember, this is step number three in the five steps to creating self-confidence, which is becoming your own best mentor. I think back to my 20s and 30s when I was desperate to lose weight. I followed the South Beach diet and I followed Body for Life and I followed Chalene and a few years there were I sold and was a big influencer in Advocare and do you remember those old Buns of Steel videos?

And the paleo cookbook lady, Diane. Countless weight loss mentors. I’m just scratching the surface to the number of books, videos, shows, influencers that I would bring into my life and I would jump from one to another, and sometimes I would try to follow multiple books at the same time.

Like no doubt, if podcasts and Facebook Lives and Instagram had existed back then in my 20s and 30s, I would have been listening to all of it all of the time, constant consumption, but there’s problems with this. So if you’re a life coach following multiple mentors right now, we’re about to have a come to Jesus.

But I promise you, you will leave feeling more empowered. Not feeling lost. So first of all, let’s establish that this is not a slam against mentors. I’m a mentor. I’m somebody that some other people look up to. It’s not that we’re bad. It’s not that it’s bad that we’re in your life.

We’re great. We can be amazing. The mentors in my life, I cherish them so much. Some of them I know personally, some of them, they’re my BFF and they just don’t even know it. Shoutout to Brené out there.

In fact, I love mentors so much that I even have an exercise inside my Confident Coaches members site, a skill and a tool that I teach all of my masterminders to go through is how to identify their mentors. And then we explore what it is we admire about these different people. What do we see in these people that we really love?

Because the purpose of this exercise, it’s not to then go rely on those people, call them out and rely on them, but it comes back to the idea that what we see in others is what we see in ourselves. What we see in our mentors is a reflection of what we see in us. What we believe about us.

Now, whether or not we see those qualities in us right now, we may see those qualities in us, we may not, maybe we just haven’t brought them up to the surface yet, so imagine this. So when I’m in a room with a bunch of my mentors, or if I’m listening to one of their podcasts or one of their trainings, what’s really happening, it’s not that their genius might possibly rub off on me and then maybe I can possibly harness it.

It’s that what is in us is being triggered by their presence. We are stirring up those qualities we love about us that are already in us. And being in that mentor’s space is merely bringing our attention to it. That changes things, right? Doesn’t that change our relationship with our mentors when we realize what’s really going on inside of our brain?

All of these mentors, it’s not necessarily that they have something that you don’t have. Certainly nothing that you can’t learn. It’s that what you love about you, about this future version of you is reflected in them. They stimulate you but not for the reason that you’ve been thinking.

So knowing this, we can better see what’s happening when we say, oh my gosh, we just love these mentors. Realize that what you see in them is in you. And you just haven’t brought that up to the surface just yet.

And so those practical and tactical things that they know that you don’t yet know, you might be able to learn from them but understand that it’s the qualities of that person, it’s the descriptors of they’re so prosperous, they’re so giving, they are so admirable, they’re so tenacious, they’re so witty, they’re so committed, those kinds of things, they are reflecting you back to you.

You can go learn how to write better copy, you can go learn how to run good Facebook ads. That’s something that anybody can teach you. But those qualities, that je ne sais quoi, that intangible thing you can’t put your finger on, that is you, my friend.

And so what I do is I teach my students in CCM, Confident Coaches mastermind, how to bring those qualities to the surface, how to tap into those qualities so that you can actually begin to embody those qualities, rather than just seek the need to feel those qualities in someone else.

So as I’m teaching you to step into those qualities, that doesn’t necessarily mean you never have to listen to any mentors ever. Of course not. Just understand why you are listening to them.

What I see so often in my students, even in the ones currently enrolled in my masterminds is that when they can’t find the answer, they go looking for it. And the problem is they go looking for it outside of them. It’s our default to believe that our answers lie outside of us. And it never does, but your Helga brain is trying to convince you otherwise.

She sends you scurrying to all your other mentors out there to try to find what you are missing, but the thing is you aren’t missing it. These ideas that you’re looking for are already inside your head.

This happened recently in one of my groups. There was a few weeks when I realized in our private Facebook group, I was seeing all kinds of links to other programs and emails and videos. One or two, this was really helpful post on a specific subject is one thing, but when consistent going to watch this video and then listen to that podcast, and then I’m going to go spend time doing this training, when you aren’t coming up with your answers, that’s your litmus test.

Are you going to your mentors to elevate what you already know? Or are you going to these mentors to try to seek out something that Helga has convinced you you don’t have a clue about? Are you going to you first? If you’re not, that’s how you know, okay, I might be having a little bit of mentor overload right now.

Because when you are in mentor overload, you’re thinking these mentors are who you want to be as opposed to them being a reflection of who you are inside, who you will become if you commit to doing the work of future you. And you think they have some special secret answer, that they’re some special secret unicorn who has some secret that you aren’t aware of.

That also means that you are completely disconnected from your own genius that is already inside of you, and instead, totally hoping that some of their goodness will rub off on you, some of their brilliance will rub off on you, like I love you so much and I think you’re so amazing and maybe you have my answers because I feel completely lost and clueless. Let me just be in your space and maybe some of your genius will rub off on me.

If that’s the energy that you are in, you’re completely disconnected from the genius that is already inside of you. Do understand this; you have brilliance in you right now. No, you may not have a skill mastered and you can get better at writing more compelling copy, you can learn some practical and tactical tips you hadn’t considered before, but that brilliance, that who you are that is going to attract your people to you, no one can teach you that. No one has that but you and it’s in you right now. Every single one of us was born with amazing gifts and brilliance and energy that cannot be found anywhere else.

As Marianne Williamson has said, I quote her all the time, our greatest fear is not that we’re inadequate. Our greatest fear is that we are powerful beyond belief. It’s our power that terrifies us, so we go running to other people looking for it, when really, if we understand that our brilliance is there, it’s ready for you whenever you’re ready to discover it, when you learn how to tap into the energy of being your own best mentor, it’s all right there waiting for you.

And when you’re running to other people, that’s also a sign you just simply haven’t built the skill of learning to go inside to find your genius. So maybe you’re bought in that the genius is in there, but how do I do that? So I teach my CCM students two different methods to find their own answers, which is asking first, what would future you do?

So after you follow the steps that I outline very clearly of how to define future you, learn how to get to know her, think like her, feel like her, then you start asking her, what would future me do? What does fully booked me do in this situation?

When I’m making six figures, what would I decide? If I’ve already hit my goal at the end of this month, how would I handle this? What do I do next right now? The other skill that I teach I call GG thinking, which is the answer to your brain when it has a bad case of the I don’t knows.

So after you’ve done the what would future me do and your brain’s like, I don’t know, I got nothing, we need to go find out from somebody else what we should do next, when your brain is full of I don’t know, I have a very specific tool to teach them how to direct it to go find what it does know.

We just ask our brain, what do you know? What’s clear to you right now? And this is super hard to do. These two tools that I teach my students in CCM, they are super hard to utilize if you are indulging in this mentor overload to try to find all of your answers, rather than learning how to find them yourself.

You have to believe the answers are there and not someplace else before you can go and even find those answers. Because here’s really the bottom line and the biggest point to this mentor overload episode is this; it doesn’t create confidence to look for your answers in other people. Hear me right now.

If you’re truly believing that what you need to do next is in that training or in that video or somebody else’s podcast, you will not become a more confident coach waiting for someone else to answer the questions you have the power and the brilliance to answer yourself.

You will however, find an unprecedented level of confidence when you grow and then master the skills of finding the answers you’re looking for from inside of you. Learning how to find the answers from your own brain. It’s a skill. It’s a skill your Helga brain may very well resist but I promise you, anyone can learn it.

And here’s the bonus. You don’t actually have to give up on any of your mentors. I certainly hope you’re going to keep me around. You just learn these skills of finding your answers first. Your own answers first. And then go check in with your mentors and see what they have going on.

I mean, it’s an entirely different dynamic. You get to enjoy what they share because it adds to you. It enhances you, not replaces what you know. It totally changes the energy. It’s that energy of I don’t know the answer and I think maybe somebody else has it, I’m going to go consume this and this and this and this, versus okay, I spent some time with me, this is what I found out, I think I’m going to try this, this, and this. Oh, I see so and so is giving a training on that, maybe I’ll watch it and see if she has any other nuggets I didn’t already think of.

It’s an entirely different energy and it completely changes the energy of the relationships that you have with your mentors for the best. And by the way, this also relates to something that I shared quite a few episodes back now, my lessons learned from becoming a master coach. This also brings down all of those pedestals that we put our mentors on, which I used to do too because I used to think they had something that I didn’t have either.

Listen, mentors, instructors, they don’t have anything special that you can’t develop and that’s the best news because that means the special you see in us, in your mentors is simply a reflection of the special you see in you. And a good coach, a good mentor will help you find that in you. There are no pedestals needed.

Now, I will add one thing I do get asked a lot about as far as mentors in your life. I do recommend that if you are working with a mentor, if you’re going to hire a mentor, to just commit to one mentor’s methods for the time that you’re working.

I’ve had quite a few mentors. In fact, I have two mentors that taught how to build a coaching business very differently. If I had tried to work with both of them at the same time, that would have sent my Helga brain into more of a tailspin. So not only do I not have my own answers, here’s two people telling me two opposite things.

I worked with them very differently and very separately, and I learned everything the one mentor had to teach me, and then I learned everything the other mentor had to teach me, and now I have both of their tools. But what I learned the most with both of them of course was how to find the answers in myself.

And just know this, that you doing this work, it will be so much easier to teach your clients to do the same. Isn’t this what we want for our clients? For them to be able to find their own answers, for them to feel more empowered to find their own answers?

No one knows what will work best for anyone else except for that person. You just need the skills to believe you can do it and then the skills as to how to find those answers inside of you and then the willingness to put them to the test and to have your own back that you’re going to keep standing up every time you fall down and that you’re going to keep going.

Again, all skills that I teach in the five steps of CCM. Alright my friends, so the next time you find yourself running from one podcast to a Facebook Live to this free Facebook group back and forth or whatever, ask yourself instead if the answer that you’re seeking might already be inside of you.

I don’t just teach my clients how to identify their future selves but how to actually mentor with their future selves. And if you find yourself running to other mentors before you’re running to you, your best mentor, you are missing out on so much brilliance just untapped, waiting inside of you. Alright my friends, that’s your work. And until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

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.