Ep #75: The Secret to Nothing Working

You are listening to episode 75 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where you put an end to this nothing’s working. 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, hello my confident coaches. How’s everybody doing out there today? I am so excited to have you. Did you guys enjoy last week’s episode? Last week’s episode was all about celebrating you. It’s part of my annual birthday episode. If you have not done that, that’s not one to skip, my friends.

Because today, we’re going to talk a little bit about the flip-side of your brain. So last week was all about Gigi thinking, your forward-thinking part of your brain, that evolved woman part of your brain that knows what you’re capable of, that thinks you’re amazing, that believes in the impossible goal, that believes in what you are capable of, even though you can’t see it.

It’s not just happenstance. It’s a little serendipitous that we’re going to then follow up with I know that that vibe only lasts so long and your brain will naturally revert to, “But nothing’s working.” So that’s what we’re talking about today.

But before we jump in, I do want to give a listener shout-out to Kristin Foust, who left a new podcast review. So on Apple Podcasts, if you are listening on an Apple iPhone, you can do it right on your phone. If you don’t have an Apply iPhone, anybody can have an iTunes account and you can leave a review for the podcast on your computer.

And why would you do that? Well, why would you do that? Because I’m going to give you a listener shout-out, first and foremost. I’m going to give you some listener love right here on the air. But also, the work that we do here on Confident Coaches, not all coaches in the world know about this work.

Not all of the coaches in the world went to the same coaching school that I did and know the power of distinguishing between what you think about things and what you think about things, not all of them understand the deep work that we use here on the show called the model. Most of them have not heard of the five steps to creating self-confidence.

So every time you leave a review, every time you give it a five-star rating, every time you do that, it just shows the podcast to more coaches who need to do this work. And why keep it to ourselves? So listener shout-out to Kristin Foust who left this review. It was titled, “All coaches need this.”

All humans need this. But yes, all coaches specifically. And as she wrote, “If you coach people in any way, listen to this podcast. Down to earth and real about being a confident coach and tools to put into action.” Short, sweet, and I love it.

And exactly what I set out to create. That this is down to earth, you’re going to get real stories, you’re going to hear a real story in today’s podcast about some real drama that went down in my brain, some real nothing’s working drama that went down in my brain. Literally three days after, I was like, hey everybody, let’s celebrate what makes you awesome.

So everything you hear on the podcast are true stories from the trenches, my friends. True stories from my own coaching business, my clients’ coaching businesses. Everything that I teach you here I give you real actionable steps in most of the podcasts.

Some of the podcast episodes have been more high-level concept, but most of them give you actual tools to go put into action. What I like to say is the podcast is your way to have me in your ear every single week and you can take my work and apply it to what you see in your own coaching and the Confident Coaches Mastermind, which is the paid program that you can work with me in, that’s how you can have me in your head every week, where we actually apply the tools to your specific thoughts.

We’re going to talk more about that in this episode, about the difference between having me in your ear and having me in your head. So again, thanks to Kristin for an awesome review. And let’s talk about getting down to earth and real about being a coach and some tools you can put into action today.

So literally just a couple of days after I recorded that podcast just a week ago about celebrating you and loving the shit out of yourself and how everything is awesome, I had a situation. I actually had a couple of situations, one after one after one.

And it kind of culminated in this one thing that was just terrible and awful, or so the story goes. So first of all, I was doing a confidence in training free money training, and it was going really well. And I was adding additional FAQs and additional open coaching hours.

And in the last one, I was fumbly, all over the place. Like, have you ever been like, I’m drunk but I’ve had nothing to drink here? And I was like, I had gotten amazing night’s sleep, I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me. Maybe I got too much sleep, maybe I got too much sleep hangover because this is how I would act if I didn’t get enough sleep.

So I was cognizant of it, I was hitting wrong buttons, I went live in the wrong room, I was raising my standing desk when I thought it was locked and so it was moving. It was a real – it wasn’t a shit show by any means, I recuperated and we – I was running with it and kind of making light when things were going wrong.

And then towards the end of the hour, I noticed that I was coaching a coach named Caroline, and I was really struggling to focus on her face. And then towards the end of my coaching with her, I realized that there was something in my vision. And oh, it was the squiggly lines, and oh, squiggly Z lines in my vision.

Now, some of you have no idea what that means and some of you are going, oh damn, yup, migraine with aura. Basically, that means I’m having a migraine – I was having a migraine all morning and you can have migraines without headache pain.

The headache pain is the last symptom I experience. The first symptoms I experience are confusion, miscoordination, not clear speech, I was fumbling on my words, all these – kind of that drunk without being drunk. And then the next symptom I experience is the squiggly line, and then I get the headache.

So then when I do get these, they kind of take me out. Really, the only thing I can do is sleep and not stare at a computer screen. The worst thing I can do is stare at a computer screen. For two days, I could not look at my computer screen.

Now, I realized I’m in the midst of my April launch. I am writing emails and amending emails and following up with people, and I can’t look at a screen for two days. And then when I finally can look at a screen for two days, it was Easter Sunday. And it occurs to me, people aren’t on their screens right now.

What I needed to have sent, probably should have gone out 24 to 36 hours ago but I couldn’t look at the computer screen to send it. Couldn’t make those personal connections. So then it was Easter, and well, Easter’s not the best day to be making personal connections.

So okay, I made a plan on Easter Sunday of the lives and the emails I was going to follow up with and how I was going to finish. I took the emails I had already written and was like, okay, here’s how I’m going to play with these, here’s the new plan of action given these two days that I had of migraine.

So then of course, I woke up Monday morning, the day after Easter, only to find out that my websites were down. So my main website, which is amylatta.com, that’s where I’m sending everybody, to amylatta.com/mastermind. So my mastermind sales page is there, and the application for the mastermind is housed on that site, and everything that I have planned is directly meant to send people to that site.

And it’s not working. My member site, which is technically a second site that I own and maintain – I’ll be honest, I don’t maintain it. I have a tech team that does that. So my member site, so this is the site where you actually pay me. This is the site where you enroll. This is where you submit your credit card information to when you sign up for the site.

And then it logs you into the member site and all of the new people who are swatting to enroll and pay me, all of my confident coaches tools are housed on my member site. Literally everything you’ve ever heard on this podcast times 100 is in that member site.

And you get lifetime access to it, so people from last year were logging into it, people who had just started and paid me money three days before were logging into it. But they weren’t because everything was down.

So of course, what happened? Helga kicked in. First it was the oh, the drama. So I send a message to my website designer, my website designer has literally given birth to a human being three days before. She gave birth to a baby on Friday.

She was on it though. Let’s be honest, I got to tell you, shout-out to Jenny. She was on it. She alerted her staff, of course she had people put in place, but she’s still three days after giving birth is having to coordinate amongst her team to make sure that her clients’ needs are getting handled.

I never head to the place of being fully stressed and maxed out because here’s what happened. Here was this thing that was not working, that was crazy, that was this terrible awful thing, and I was like, okay, here’s this thing that’s happening, which is awful and terrible. Okay, I kind of started to freak out and be like, oh my gosh, and I was like no, what I call brought myself back to center.

So that’s my term that I use. My CCM students might use different language but my language to myself is bringing myself back to center, which just means every time my Helga brain wants to take something and run with the drama of it, all I have to say is, “Amy, come on, bring yourself back to center.”

And that’s a reminder to me of the five steps of self-confidence. What do I need to believe that I’m not believing? What do I need to feel that I’m trying to avoid feeling? What am I not answering for myself? What do I think I don’t know? Where am I not having my own back? Where am I quitting on myself or what am I not evaluating?

So that’s kind of how I use my five steps is to just constantly, how do I bring myself back to center? Which of the five steps am I not in alignment with right now?

And so here’s this terrible, horrible, awful thing that’s happening, and how can I use the five steps to creating self-confidence I teach you in the podcast, that you learn and you really get into your bones when you join the mastermind. And that’s how I operated the rest of the day.

And I was putting – I wasn’t able to actually run with any of the emails I had originally planned or any of the Instagram stories I had originally planned. And because I was reworking all of that and actually had half a day blocked off for personal time, for my son’s baseball game and for a doctor’s appointment, it was the evening before I started to really be able to communicate with you, my audience, and pick back up on hey, mastermind sales, here’s what happened.

And I was still approaching it all from here’s this terrible, horrible thing that happened, here’s how I used to tools to come back to center. And it occurred to me about an hour after I put out all these Instagram stories and I sent out this email, Amy, you are looking at this as if something has gone wrong.

I know, your brain is also going to be like, “But it did go wrong. Your sites went down and there was the migraine thing and that was a thing that happened,” and there was a couple other minor things that had happened too that would not at all have been a big deal. But when you kind of just throw it into the pile, Helga ran with that drama.

And it occurred to me that it was assuming that all of it was a problem. That all of it was a bunch of stuff that didn’t go the way it was supposed to be and this was a bad negative thing. In order words, I was deciding that this was a terrible, awful day as a fact of the situation and how am I going to feel better about that, as opposed to challenging my belief that it was a terrible, bad situation in the first place.

We’re getting closer to that secret part that I want to share with you. There is a secret question. I want you to tattoo across your forehead, I want you to put a sticky note on your computer or in your self-coaching journal. You get a big fat self-coaching journal when you join Confident Coaches Mastermind from me.

So all my clients right now, if I haven’t told you already, put this secret question there. Really, what it was for me in that moment about an hour after I put out all the stuff about how I used the tools to overcome this terrible, awful thing, I realized that I was choosing to believe that I had this terrible, awful thing.

What if nothing had gone wrong? The site not working, the migraine, the emails that I had planned that did not go out when I had originally planned to, the Instagram stories I never did do, all of those things, the plan that I had created and the fact that I had to create a different plan. All of those different things, what if none of that was actually a problem? What if nothing had actually gone wrong? What if I wasn’t actually in a nothing’s working circumstance?

I know, some of y’all are like, I’m pretty sure that that’s a problem, and what you did, use your tools to overcome that problem is pretty okay. This is the difference between having me in your ear and having me in your head. And I’m going to be honest with you, what I heard in my head was not my own voice. It was my coach’s voice.

Me applying my tools, I was still all up in my own head and not seeing the forest through the trees. But as about an hour later, I heard my coach’s voice in my head, “Amy, you’re doing that thing where you think something’s a problem and it’s not.”

This is the power of having a coach that gets into your head and helps you apply your own tools or these tools in Confident Coaches and helps you create better results faster. So I want you to think about other scenarios where this happens.

This was one off situations. This is like a thing that happened that I can say here is a situation that happened specifically. But this also happens when larger things aren’t working, like my marketing’s not working, I don’t have any consults on the calendar.

So I want you to think about this secret question that you’re going to run this filter through, that you’re going to tattoo on your forehead and write all over your journal. I want you to think about how else nothing’s working scenarios might happen in your coaching business.

Do you have zero consults? Do you have 10 no’s in a row? Are you having clients fire you? Are you having clients that are just generally not really resigning or signing up with you again? Are you having negative feedback? Are you experiencing things like I don’t have enough skill, ability, or knowledge to be a good coach?

My clients seem to dictate what I can and can’t do with my time, my marketing’s just not working, I don’t really think I have a unique message, I can’t communicate the value of coaching very well, I don’t really believe I’m ever going to get to a six-figure year, my clients, they don’t have money to pay me, or they don’t want to pay me for coaching.

Selling and marketing is inherently selfish, it’s really conceited to think really positive celebratory things about yourself, I have to know Facebook ads in order to effectively market, I’m just not good at technology, I need a plan and I know I don’t have one, or I just can’t believe I can do what I’ve never done before.

So all of those are different kinds of nothing’s working scenarios. So sometimes it’s a specific thing like me, my brain wasn’t working, I had a migraine for two days, and then my website wasn’t working and they were down for – I think they were down for 24 to 36 hours. Somewhere around that range.

So you might have specific things, but it might also be more general things. So this can show up in a couple of different ways. And so the secret question that I want you to ask yourself is what am I putting in the C line that actually goes in the T line?

So in my situation, this horrible, awful thing that’s happening, I decided that that was a C line item, that was a circumstance. It was a fact. And I was trying to come up with thoughts, I was trying to use my confidence tools to come up with thoughts so I could feel better about this horrible, awful thing.

Now, my tools are really good and that doesn’t not work. But it’s so much harder to think positively about something we are assuming is inherently negative than to question the negative thing in the first place. And that’s what I needed. That little coach’s voice in my head. When I heard my coach saying, “Amy, you’re putting the wrong thing in the C line. Amy, you’re seeing this as a problem and it’s not.”

Instead of this terrible, awful thing happened and how do I feel better about it, how about I just state this happened, and I get to decide if it’s terrible and awful in the first place. How many of you are just deciding that your marketing’s not working, as opposed to saying here’s how many posts I’ve made, here’s the engagement I’ve gotten, here’s what worked, here’s what hasn’t worked, here’s why I think that, and here’s what I’m going to do differently this next week?

I can’t communicate the value of coaching, you’re just taking that as fact, as opposed to here are the things that I have said, here is what they have or have not responded to, what do I want to think about that, how do I want to feel about that, and what am I going to do on the action line? Are you getting into the heads of your ideal client so that you can find out what they need to hear, what are they thinking, what are they struggling with?

When you tell me as fact, I’ve already spent too much money on my business and I can’t invest any more, how can you possibly come up with a thought that helps you feel better about something that is inherently makes you feel like shit?

As opposed to here’s the money I have invested in my business, here is the return I have or have yet to get back, how do I want to think about that circumstance, which is totally neutral that leaves me feeling in a more positive way so that I can find a solution on the action line.

It’s so much harder to come up with positive feelings and positive actions when you are fighting against a negative circumstance. What are you putting in the C line that actually goes in the T line?

Listen, I know all about Helga taking circumstances and running with the drama. Hi, see Amy over the weekend. Here are these things that happened that I wasn’t viewing as neutral, that I was deciding was inherently negative, and I was trying to come up and use my tools to come up with positive ways to think about something I was inherently seeing as negative, as opposed to challenging that they were negative in the first place.

You can use confidence tools to feel better about a situation. It doesn’t not work; my tools really are that good. But it’s a hell of a lot easier to challenge your belief, it’s a shitty situation, in the first place. This is why Confident Coaches Mastermind students get the results they want faster.

This is the difference between knowing these tools in general because you listen to the podcast, you’ve taken that confidence and money training, you’ve taken my confidence solution training before, you took that getting unstuck paid training, and you apply what you hear to what you think is fact.

Or you can have me in your head every week and challenge that “fact” in the first place. This is how you get the results you want faster too because you’re not fighting between the C and the T line. So I’m just going to ask you right now, what is not working right now?

What’s not working in your business right now? Write it all out. And now I want you to take every single thing that you wrote and look at it and run it through the filter of would all seven and a half billion people on the planet agree with what you wrote?

If there was someone somewhere who knows absolutely nothing about life coaching or online marketing or any of this at all, would they still agree with that statement? And if you’re like, “Well, I mean, I’m sure somebody somewhere,” then it’s a thought and not a fact.

That is your litmus test to finding out what are you putting in the C line that goes in the T line. And then when you apply the Confident Coaches tools to that, you get so much farther because you’re not trying to positively overcome something you are assuming is inherently negative.

So whatever’s not working, see that what’s not working is your thinking and not this thing that’s outside of you. And I am also touching on another confidence tool that we use. We do weekly evaluations in the mastermind where every single Monday, all my clients post their previous week’s results and then what’s working, what wasn’t working, and what’s your best guess why, and what will you do differently next week.

So we’re always looking at what’s not working but really, what we’re looking for is what’s the thinking that you have that’s not working and how might we tweak that and change that. And then you can find a solution, actually try a different action line.

It’s very hard to come up with new actions when you’re inherently like, the entire situation is shitty. What’s the positive thought I can think about this terrible, horrible situation that I’m somehow going to overcome and trudge through? Let’s get inspired on the feeling line in this horrible, awful situation.

What are you putting in the C line that’s actually a T? This is what I want you to challenge yourself and ask yourself. Because I know every single one of you is putting something in there. You are believing something is fact and you just don’t have to. And it’s holding you back right now.

And here’s what I want to offer you. I don’t know inherently where we are in the mastermind. We are – we have yet to have our first call. So if you know that this is the work that you want to do, get your ass in the April group. Do not wait to do this work any longer.

Actually, it’s a really funny story that on April 1st, my January client Patty sent me this screenshot of her calendar. She had put, “Join Amy’s April mastermind” in her calendar, somewhere at the end of 2020. But she ultimately decided she didn’t want to wait any longer and she wanted to go ahead and join the January class.

And how grateful she was she did that because she made more money in the first quarter of 2021 than she did in all of 2020. And she created all of these workshops, she grew her Facebook group, she grew her email list, she knows exactly who she serves and how glad she was that she didn’t wait.

So this is the kind of thing that you know you get hung up on, let’s not wait any longer. There’s still time to get into the April class, so let’s get your booty in there, alright my friends?

Okay, so what are you putting in the C line that goes in the T line? What are you inherently viewing as shitty and terrible and awful that you’re trying to come up with positive thoughts to feel better about? Instead of challenging that it was terrible and awful in the first place.

I want you to look at what you believe is not working in your business and run it through that litmus test of would all seven and a half billion people in the planet agree with your statement? Because if not, you’ve just discovered something you’re putting in the C line instead of the T line.

Alright my friends, with that, until next week. Let’s go do epic stuff.

Coaches, I have created a brand-new freebie offer just for you podcast listeners. I created a brand-new training called Stop Overcomplicating Confidence because I see my coaches do it all the time. Make this confidence thing way harder than it has to be.

In this free training, you’re going to learn exactly how you overcomplicate confidence, what’s creating that, and how to stop it. Here’s the best part, all of it, less than an hour. Less than an hour of your time. You will feel more confident in less than an hour.

Friends, this is the best training I’ve ever done. So visit amylatta.com/podcastgift to get yours. Again, that’s amylatta.com/podcastgift. Go now and feel more confident in just an hour.

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