Ep #57: How to Be a Successful Coach

You are listening to episode 57 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we define how to be a successful coach. 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 Coaches. How’s everybody doing out there? I hope you all are doing amazing. We are in this last and final month of 2020. What is this, month 67 at this point? Something like that.

I hope you guys had an amazing Thanksgiving holiday. I hope that you are looking forward to the end of this year. And I want to drop a little love right here and right now. So, this episode is dropping on December 8^th.

So, when you are hearing this, it is December 8^th and you still have over three weeks left in this year. So, no matter what you are thinking, no matter what y’all got going on in your head right now, do you believe that you can still create phenomenal results between now and the end of this year? That’s your work, okay.

Time does not create your results. You do. By the way, I’m foreshadowing a little bit there. Okay. So, what do you want to create in the next three months? And any talk around, like, “People don’t buy coaching in December. People aren’t paying attention, people are busy doing this…” any line of thinking like that, zip it. Nip that in the bud. Alright, my friends? Okay.

I’m so excited to talk to you today about how to be a successful coach. And what I just shared there actually is a little bit of foreshadowing because I think we have so many definitions about what being successful means and what we think creates success. And we are going to get through all of that today. I’m going to debunk a lot of myths in today’s podcast episode.

But before we get into that, I want to give a shoutout to my May Confident Coaches Mastermind member Leslie McHale. Hi, Leslie. So, our May group finished working together, I think it was the first week of November. So, it’s been a solid month since we’ve met.

But last week, Leslie messaged me and, first of all, heart swells, right? I need to share with you guys what she shared with me. Here’s what Leslie wrote, “I am loving me some Amy Latta this week. I’m literally bursting with gratitude over you. I’ve been re-watching the modules, been selling myself on $10,000 instead of $500 for the next mastermind and I just want to say how freaking amazing this work is. It’s not only a great program or coaches. It’s like the how-to for life in general. I’ve been applying your tools in other areas of my life and it’s been so helpful. You are amazing.”

Okay, listen, Leslie, you, my friend, you are amazing. Leslie is one of my favorite success stories. And not at all in the way that so many people might think. But totally outlining where this episode is going today.

Because here’s the thing. When Leslie started with me in the Confident Coaches Mastermind all the way back in May, she wasn’t talking about life coaching, like, at all on her personal Facebook page. She wasn’t putting herself out there at all. She was quiet about what she was doing. She was terrified of what other people would think. She was afraid that they might disagree with her, what are they going to say?

She was not okay with who she was putting herself out there in the world, setting herself up for criticism. But by the end of our mastermind, she’s posting every day. I see her stuff pop up in my feed all the fricking time. She’s learned how to handle people who comment on her posts when they don’t agree with her. She’s tried different technology. She’s tried different ways of making offers. She’s testing all kinds of different things to attract her ideal clients to her. She’s set boundaries in her personal life, which she never thought was possible.

This, my friends, this is the kind of confidence that I am talking about. I will continue to share success stories, like so many other clients who are meeting and exceeding their goals and, you know, those clients that go on to take the tools that I’ve taught them and they use them in high-level business masterminds and they kill it, you know, my clients that are making 8K a month, my clients that are surpassing that $100,000 mark.

Yes, everybody loves those stories. That’s like the sexy success story. Here’s what I want to offer you though. True confidence, nothing is sexier than that. Nothing is sexier than knowing that I’m okay with me, no matter what I’m creating in my life. That, my friends, is sexy. That, my friends, is confidence.

I want to offer that there is no way that I am heading into my $2 million mastermind with my coach in January if I hadn’t done this work first. No way. I would have drowned in self-doubt already. But I learned these tools that Leslie is talking about, being okay with me when shit’s not working, not making the presence of fear and doubt stop me anymore, how to answer my own questions and go into my own mind to solve my problems. That’s confidence. That’s confidence. It’s sexy as hell. It is not a luxury. I guarantee you; it is absolutely a necessity for every single life coach out there. And you earn exactly how to create it in the Confident Coaches Mastermind.

So, this is airing in early December, so if you are listening at another time, what I’m getting ready to say may not exactly apply to you. But applications for the January 2021 class of Confident Coaches Mastermind opens tomorrow, December 9^th.

The applications are due next Monday. We have a group sales call next Wednesday, and enrolment is by next Friday. You’ll be enrolled by Christmas and you’re going to get a welcome package the very next week; you very own Christmas gift to yourself, right?

We have a kickstart week the first week of January and a brand-new two-day event, Confident Coaches Bootcamp, January 11^th and 12^th. You will literally have everything you need to double or even triple your confidence and sign more clients by the second week of January. And you still get a full six months of coaching, my friends.

Maybe you’ll be creating 8K months by July. Maybe you’ll have learned to stop beating the shit out of yourself, even if you haven’t. It’s a win-win either way. I love win-win success stories. I want to share your win-win success story here in the podcast, alright, my friends?

So, speaking of success stories, that’s what this episode is all about; how to be a successful coach. And there’s a good chance that if you’ve been paying attention to what I just shared, that you’re already understanding that this episode is not how to be a successful life coach, a plus B equals C success formula. This is not a success formula type of thing. This is the mindset of successful coaches.

But I’m sharing these three steps with you today that will make becoming a successful coach inevitable. Okay, so how to be a successful coach, the first thing you’ve got to do is realize that you get to decide what that even means. And then I want you to challenge every single bit of it.

It’s so interesting to me, so many of my clients will come to me needing coaching because they think they can’t ever be successful because they don’t have X or Y or Z or X, Y, and Z, right? And I’m like, “Why are you deciding that that’s what success is?”

Listen, every single person listening to this has a different definition of what successful coach even means to them. For some people, the results you’ve already created, that would be a successful coach to them. For other people, successful coach doesn’t mean until they have X number of clients and x number of dollars. For other people, a successful coach means the number of dollars and the number of clients doesn’t matter. But a life-work balance is what’s important to them.

Successful coach is subjective. And every single person is going to define it differently, so define it in a way that works for you instead of against you. Because listen, if you define success as a certain set of skills or attributes or dollar amount that is always above you, you’re never going to get there because your brain will always be setting the bar higher.

Because when you arrive at this line of, “This is success,” you’re going to get there and you’re going to find out you still feel the same way, life is still life and stuff still goes wrong and you still fight with your partner and your kids are still unrealistic jerks sometimes and tech still doesn’t work.

Like, I literally had a day this week, no internet whatsoever at my house. It was crazy. And I would consider myself a successful coach, but I had some shit go down here at the offices of Amy Latta Coaching.

Or maybe you’ve decided that success is a certain dollar amount, like plain and simple, “I will be a successful coach when I make X number of dollars.” But maybe you haven’t learned how to master your calendar or you still wake up feeling like crap and you think you shouldn’t, or maybe your closet is a mess and you can’t possibly be successful because successful people, haven’t they figured that shit out already?

So then, you make another bar, a higher bar mean success, and then it just goes on and on and you’re always chasing what it means to be a successful coach because you’ve decided it’s got to look and feel and act a certain way. That’s not typically how life works out.

Now, that doesn’t mean I don’t set goals. I set really big goals for myself. I just don’t decide that equals success or not success. It doesn’t mean that I don’t push myself. It doesn’t mean that I don’t expand my comfort zone. It just means that I realize that successful coach is how I’m thinking, not my achievement of a goal or not achieving it.

I get to decide what successful look like to me. I can be as professional or unprofessional as I want. I can be as organized or unorganized as I want. I can be a master of my time or not. Y’all getting triggered by those statements right there? Does that make you a little uncomfortable? I bet it does because I know it did me.

I had it so set in my mind that successful coaches look this way, act this way, do this certain set of things because I think that it’s the actions of the coach that makes them successful. What? It’s not? What if it’s not? Be willing to challenge all of it.

Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t show up professionally dressed. I just don’t make professionally dressed an attribute of a successful coach or not a successful coach. Because sometimes, I look like something that cat dragged in.

My language is another good one. There are absolutely people who are like, “You can’t be successful and drop F-bombs and say shit in your podcast.” Hello, fuck that. I just don’t make that mean successful to me.

I certainly thought that somebody who brings in $425,000 in 12 months, which is what I’ve done in the past 12 months, for sure, she has a totally organized house, she is a master of her calendar, her calendar is completely scheduled and budgeted out, I know exactly where I’m going to be in any given time in the next week. And guess what? No. Actually, that’s not what happened at this point.

But I would consider myself an incredibly successful coach. So maybe, those thoughts and ideas that I had about what makes somebody a success isn’t necessarily true. Also pay attention if you’re like, “Oh, successful coaches post X number of times a week, or successful coaches do this, successful coaches have a podcast, success coaches do Facebook lives. Maybe they do, maybe they don’t. You get to decide.

And ultimately, successful coaches understand that there is not better than here and as long as you think that, you’ll always be chasing another there. I want to offer that it’s possible to consider yourself successful right where you are and to love right where you are. And by loving right where you are knowing you’re not necessarily staying here. Did you catch that?

Love where you are right now, the success that you are in, in this moment. Fully appreciate all of the success that you have in your life knowing that you’re not staying here. You’re not staying here because part of being a success is what makes all of this worth it, to have fun, to be an example of what’s possible, to see what I’m made of, to see how much I can grow by pushing my boundaries and outside of my comfort zone.

Like, I don’t think it’s better there than it is here. But I also know that I’m going to love where I am right now so much because I’m going to see what else I can create in the world. I’m not staying here. And that’s what makes me love where I am so much.

Be so in love with the successful human that you are, knowing that you’re leaving this place for more growth. It won’t necessarily be better there. I just know that I’m going to have a hell of a lot of fun getting there and I’m not doing it because I think it’s better there. I’m doing it because I want to see what I’m capable of. I want to see what next layer of growth is waiting for me.

I could totally choose to stay here. But I’m going to go ahead and decide consciously to keep going. I also want to note that the opposite of that is true, that here is not necessarily better than there.

I actually just coached a client this past week on her belief that her 25-year corporate career was so great, she feels so amazing about it, and she has not yet gone all in on her self-run coaching business, on being an entrepreneur because she thinks that back then is going to be better than what’s coming ahead. She can’t quite imagine that she’s going to have the same level of success and feel the same way as she has in the past.

Successful coaches understand that no place is better than another. And you can choose to see yourself as successful right now and your ability to do that will actually help you create the new results that you want to create.

Okay, so the second part of how to be a successful coach is learning to be okay with you when shit doesn’t work out. Yeah, be okay not hitting your goal. Like, what is she saying to me right now? Be okay not being a success will actually make me a successful coach? Wait, what? Yeah.

This is a follow up on that defining success as you want it to be and being okay where you are. This is about being okay with who you are. Because not only does your brain tell you that there is better than here. It will also tell you that you will be better there than you are here, that you’ll be more enough, you’ll be more worthy, you’ll be more valuable at this place in the future.

No, wrong, that’s not how this works. Confidence is being okay with who you are no matter what, no matter where you are, no matter who you are, no matter what you are. When no one is signing up for consult calls, when no one is saying yes, when no one is resigning with you or worse, when they’re quitting, being okay with you even when all of that is happening.

Successful coaches are aware that shit often doesn’t work out and being okay with themselves when shit isn’t working out, that is what being successful is. Because if successful isn’t a certain set of circumstances that you decide has to exist, you can still be successful even when those circumstances aren’t there.

Imagine this roller coaster with me, for a moment. We’re on a little rollercoaster ride here. So, we’re going up, we’re at this peak, we’ve got six consults on the books, 10 existing clients. You’ve just had your first five-figure month. I am successful. I feel amazing. I’m motivated. I’m excited. And how do you show up from that energy, this belief that you are a successful coach?

Now, another week or two goes by and suddenly, for whatever, any number of reasons, the consults aren’t coming quite so frequently and now some of those existing clients are finishing up and most of them are not resigning and then you might have a month where actually you have no new clients and no resigns. You might have a no money month after three or four months of making money and suddenly, are you suddenly not successful anymore?

And by the way, this totally happens. You get on good streak and then you get a little bit of a rut. Now, if you actually have these thoughts, good streak and I’m in a rut, I will totally coach you on them because those lines of thinking, they’re so loaded with emotion.

But the larger question is, can you be a successful coach one week and then not the next? Your brain will tell you that if you’re defining success as, “I have X results and if I have them, I’m successful, and if I don’t have them, I’m not.”

I think the better question is, can you be okay with you one week after the other, no matter what specifics are in your circumstances? Because that’s confidence. That’s success.

Alright, so lastly, on how to be a successful coach, successful coaches rely on themselves. You rely on you. Successful coaches know that their results come from them. This episode just came full circle. Not from the coach that they hire, not from the mentors in their life.

In other words, let’s just be completely – like, we’re in the tree of trust right now. I can’t make you successful. Yeah, it’s true. I can’t do it. Amy Latta, Confident Coaches will not make you successful.

And if you’re considering hiring me because you think that’s how it’s going to go down, you’re going to struggle, my friends. You’re going to struggle big time. No, my best clients know that I can’t bring them success. They know that it’s in their brain and it’s their thoughts, not mine. It’s not me. It’s not my mojo that brings you success.

My best clients hire me because I teach them these confident skills that I talk about on this podcast and in this episode, and specifically here, I teach them how to find their own answers, to use their own brain to solve their problems. I teach them Gigi thinking, where I actually have them, like, go into your own brain to discover what you are sure of, what you do know, what is working in your favor.

I teach them to evaluate what they’re doing and to treat this like one big giant experiment. Successful coaching clients that I have, they’re like scientists. They have their hypothesis and they keep running experiments every single week until they prove it, until they get the results that they want.

Successful coaches know that it’s not their coach. It’s not time. It’s not a perfectly planned calendar. It’s not Facebook ads or organic marketing. None of that makes you successful.

Successful coaches know that it’s their brain. It’s your brain and it’s your ability to ask your brain what to do next, what to try next, to follow the guidelines of any given program and then make them work for you, to get what you came for and to learn what you need to learn and that the results will always, always come from your belief, your thoughts about yourself, your thoughts about your ability to be a good coach, your thoughts about your ability to run a successful coaching business. That’s where your results will come from.

So, my friends, that’s how to be a successful coach. Define success how you want to. You don’t have to make it a certain set of circumstances that you either hit or you don’t hit, that you either have or you don’t have. And it ain’t better there than it is here.

It’s about being okay with you, no matter what results you have right now in this moment. And it’s relying on you, relying on your brain and your belief to create the success that you want. And these are the skills that you learn in the Confident Coaches Mastermind.

So, make sure, if you haven’t already, sign up for the freebie at the end of this podcast, because that will make sure that you get emails from me. Because that’s how you’re going to know how to enroll in the next Confident Coaches Mastermind class. We’re doing four CCM classes in 2021; January, April, July, and October. You coming with us? I can’t wait to see you in there. I can’t wait to share your win-win success story.

Alright, in the meantime, I can’t wait to see what results you create this next week. Alright, Confident Coaches, remember, until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.

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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.