Ep #30: When Life Hits Your Business

You are listening to episode 30 of The Confident Coaches Podcast, the one where we talk about what to do when life happens.

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 are you doing out there? Holy crap in a hand basket, it’s June. When did that happen? Of course, I say when did that happen like, when did June get here, and also at the same time, January feels like five years ago. So that is the oxymoron of living in 2020, am I right?

Each of these individual months are like, what? But then you’re like, holy cow, time is flying and it’s never been slower, ever. It’s absolute craziness. I hope you guys are doing amazing. So what I’m going to be sharing with you here is something that actually happened.

I realize that by the time you listen to me, this didn’t just happen last week. So for ease of my brain though, I’m going to just keep talking last week, last  week, last week, but know that it actually was a couple of weeks ago. I’m going to be sharing with you something that happened, a piece of life happened and how it affected my business, how I allowed it to affect my business, and how I can help you not allow it to help affect your business.

What? I’m not sure that last sentence made sense but you know what I mean, right? I also want to give a shout-out to my brand-new mastermind that started in May. It’s not brand new by the time you listen to this, but we just started the first week of May.

We’re just a couple of weeks in and it is so amazing to already see the work and the shift that they are creating, so shout-out to the May Confident Coaches mastermind. You ladies are doing amazing. You are putting yourself out there. You are stirring up all the feelings.

I don’t know if you guys remember when Biggest Loser was really, really big, like before we realized it was a terrible show. My husband and I used to watch it all the time and it was always like, week two, week three was always the worst, right? It was the worst week, everything was awful and terrible, and that’s totally where my May masterminders are right now, so I’m sending them a big shout-out of love because they’re doing amazing things.

We’ve already got some of my clients getting consults and signing new clients of their own. But every single one of them is showing up in their business in a way that they never have before. This is the work that it takes to become a confident coach and I’m just super proud of them all.

And I’m already signing people into my next mastermind. So if you want to be doing this work that we talk about in the podcast, make sure you take me up on the offer at the end of this podcast and get that free training I offer because once you sign up for that free training, you’re going to know how to get into the mastermind also. Alright my friend?

So let’s talk about what happened. Here’s what happened. A recent life event really triggered a breakthrough in some unknown shitty thinking of mine. Like, a new way of buffering. I didn’t even know that this was a way that you could buffer, but as I was writing this podcast, I was like, holy shit.

Now, the life event itself is not the issue. It’s a personal life event, it’s not necessarily something that we’re talking about here right on the podcast. It was the kind of event that kind of stirs up multiple human fears, the kind that makes you say, “Well, that wasn’t what we planned. This was not in our plan, thank you universe.”

And it’s one that is common but no one spends a lot of time talking about. And so here’s what happened. This thing happens, personal life happens in the family, has nothing to do with my business. None of this has anything to do with my business, have anything to do with me being a coach, me coaching people, my program, nothing.

So I’m going along like, all week. I’m aware of this, I’m being present, holding space for the other family members involved, allowing for all of the feels. Or so I thought. But I didn’t notice until a week later that I had kind of gone numb.

I thought in all of this allowing and all of this feeling, I was feeling and I was doing a good job, but I was actually – here’s a new one. This is the new buffering. I was buffering with false peace. A false sense of peace. Here’s how I know it was false.

Because sure, I was allowing the feels, or so I thought, I was allowing all of them, right? Like when panic would come on, I see you and I feel you and I allow the panic to be there, would lean into it, that emotional strength training, all of that work that I’ve talked about so much in this podcast.

When anxiety would come on, when anger would come on, and all of these varieties of emotions, as they would hit me, I totally allowed for them. Alright, here we go. Like, I was all up in my F line. I was all up in my feelings, for those of you brand new to the podcast. The F line is part of a coaching tool I use called the model and all F stands for is feelings.

So I was all up in my F line, and this is a huge win because we weren’t taught how to be all up in our feelings line. We didn’t learn how to feel, so I was just feeling all the feels. Becoming somebody who learns how to feel all the feels is so huge. It is so important, right? So that feels like a win.

I thought all week long, “I’m winning here, I’m allowing all of the feels as they come on, I’m not ignoring them, I’m not stuffing them down,” or so I thought. But here’s what I wasn’t doing. I wasn’t paying attention to my Ts. I wasn’t paying attention to my thoughts. The thoughts are the things that trigger my feelings.

So you see that? I’m having thoughts that are coming up that are triggering feelings. I was completely ignoring the thoughts. I wasn’t even paying attention to them. I didn’t even have awareness of them. I was just leaning into the feelings.

Now, this doesn’t sound like a terrible thing because isn’t learning how to feel, like, the superhuman power of feeling more confident is by learning how you can feel anything? Yeah, but if I’m not addressing where those feelings are coming from, I can’t actually fix anything, right?

Now, how do I know I wasn’t paying attention to my Ts? How do I know I wasn’t paying attention to my thoughts? Because I wasn’t self-coaching. What? I’m a master life coach and I’m not self-coaching? Nope. I totally stopped.

In all fairness, I did one partial thought download all week long. It was like, five lines long and I just wrote a bunch of things and then I got distracted and never went back to it. I didn’t put any of those thoughts into a model to see what those different thoughts were creating for me. I didn’t put any of the feelings I was experiencing into a model to see if I could reverse-engineer a model.

Alright, so if I’m feeling panic, why am I feeling panic? No, I was just feeling the panic. I wasn’t asking why I was feeling the panic. I was feeling anger, but I really wasn’t asking why I was feeling anger. I was just feeling the feeling. So yes, I’m feeling the hell out of all my feels and I’m leaning into them until I feel better, feeling peace even, but it was a false peace because I wasn’t looking at any of the thoughts that were creating the feelings.

I wasn’t examining – here’s the other thing. I wasn’t examining how those feelings were driving my actions because that’s the next line of the model. Your thoughts create your feelings, and your feelings drive your actions. How you’re showing up in your life and in your business. What?

When life happens and we allow it to affect our business because we’re not showing up or not showing up in the way that we want to be. We are not compartmentalized human beings. We can’t have this life thing happen over here and it not affect our business in some way if we aren’t dealing with the thoughts and feelings that the life event creates.

Because see, I was mistaking this false peace for taking a break, relaxing. It’s okay that I’m not showing up. I feel very peaceful right now and allowing all these feelings. I lean into the feelings and then I feel calm. So this kind of sense of peace, like I’m pulling back for a moment because that’s normal, right? When life happens and it hits you in the face, isn’t that what people do? Isn’t that what I should be doing?

Like, it’s normal to have this thing happen and you kind of shut down. Like, I’m not shutting down, I just feel very calm even. I feel very relaxed. I mean, I’m allowing those feelings and that’s good, so all of this, I mean, if I’m honest, complete lack of action for a solid week, it’s okay, right?

That should have been the first sign of trouble, am I right, my friends? So the first sign that it wasn’t right should have been when I realized that a major life event happened and I wasn’t getting any coaching. I didn’t ask for coaching from my people.

So I am in a small group mastermind that’s called the 200K mastermind. I’m in this group, there’s 29 other coaches at my disposal. I’m also in a master coach training cohort. 20 other coaches at my disposal. Like, I let them know that this thing happened and what I was experiencing, but I didn’t ask for coaching because I’m like, I’m doing okay, I’m feeling all the feels, I don’t need coaching, I’m fucking killing it over here, I’m allowing all the feelings.

But I wasn’t self-coaching. So I didn’t ask for coaching from them and I wasn’t coaching me. I didn’t open my damn notebook except that one time for five lines. So the craziest thing is after years of I have identified my superpower to be this feelings machine, like I’m so good at it, it’s what I’m so proud of, it’s what I teach my clients, my favorite thing to teach my clients, how to be these feelings powerhouses.

What I realized though is that that alone is not the work that we should be doing. We can’t just focus on one line of the model. We have to really pay attention to our thinking and really see how our thoughts are creating those feelings and really feeling all of the feelings that come up so that we can then pay attention to the actions.

And when we do or don’t do those actions, what are the results that we get? Like, really diving into each one of those and I was only diving into one line. So I did realize at one point. It was Monday morning a week later. I did realize that I had planned to do more work the previous week. And while I was right in that office like, I’m just in this chill place because this thing happened and it’s totally okay.

And I was like, well, but I didn’t do the work. Maybe. It really was – it was just this weird, maybe I should do a self-coaching session. So I sit down Monday morning, three pages later people. Three pages later. Wow. Alright, so I’m going to go ahead and get super vulnerable here. I’m going to tell you what came out of this.

So I opened up my notebook. There it is, Monday, the day’s date. Feeling. I’m feeling numb, uncertain, just here. See? False sense of peace. Couldn’t put my finger on it, but as soon as I put that pen to paper, I realized I wasn’t actually feeling peace. I was feeling numb and uncertain and I was just here.

Alright, why? I don’t know what to do next. I then proceeded to write down all of the things that I wanted to be doing. Reading my mentor’s book, taking her How to Be Interesting workshop from a couple months ago that I’ve never taken, taking a self-sabotage course from another mentor of mine, reviewing this Advanced Selling program from my current coach as I look towards all of my launches in June.

My master coach trainer’s mastery level coaching class that she offered because I’m still working on that, plus all of the client work, all of the admin behind the scenes work, all of my coaching client, all of that stuff. So my next thought I write down, there’s too much to do.

I’ve been down this aisle. There’s too much to do. I literally spent three months of master coach pre-work and two full weeks really observing that thought for me to be thinking that bullshit no more. This is not true. I know this. There’s too much to do, bullshit. I’ve already been down that lane. I know that’s a crock of shit.

Okay fine, I don’t know what to do next. Alright, well, now wait a minute, I make a calendar, I decide ahead of time what I’m going to do, I follow it, I deal with the uncomfortable emotion, and then I allow the feelings that come with that.

Alright, so then I write down next, I am a master coach. Why am I not confident in me right now? I no longer tolerate inadequacy. It’s boring and I know it’s not even true. I’ve done that work before. Why am I indulging? Teenage brain. This must be more of that teenage brain that I’ve been talking about in the past couple of episodes.

I just don’t want to. Why do I not want to do it? What do I have to drop in order to be me? What do I have to do to just drop that inadequacy? The worry of what will they think. I’m not powerful enough. Wow, record scratch. Did you just hear that? Holy shit. I did not even know that was in there. I literally turned the page and I wrote in huge letters, “Oh no. I am not powerful enough.”

Just going to stop for a moment here. Do you realize that I didn’t realize I was thinking that? That thought was in there and it wasn’t until I took pen to paper and I did that self-coaching session of all these random thoughts, and out pops I’m not powerful enough. What the mother? What, right?

I’m doing all of that feeling, I had no idea that that was in there because I wasn’t doing my self-coaching. So then I was like, wow, there’s a thought. So then I create a model. The circumstance, the C line. I was like okay, what exactly is the C? Now I’m going to put it as me as a coach and a business owner and a member of my mastermind in my master coach training cohort.

The thought, I am not powerful enough. I immediately wrote down the feeling. Meek. Wow, totally. That’s what I was feeling. I was feeling meek. I was feeling meek because I was thinking I’m not powerful enough. So then you should see my action line, my A line. It’s most of the page, by the way, and I’m going to go ahead and read them all to you because in the effort of full disclosure here, right?

I eat brownies and popcorn when I’m not hungry. I don’t make a plan on my calendar. I don’t follow the non-existing plan that I kind of have in my head because I didn’t post on Facebook, I wasn’t posting on Instagram. I didn’t follow up on my coaching with my clients in Slack and on Facebook. I didn’t make a decision about hiring my VA. I didn’t listen to my own coaching calls or my master coach trainer Bev’s coaching or listening to other coaching examples.

This is work that I’m doing for my certification. I didn’t take a look at my coach’s advanced selling and revisiting that and creating my June plan, which is what I was supposed to be doing in May. I didn’t look at any of my receipts or upload them for my taxes. I didn’t turn in the retirement paperwork that my financial planner is waiting on.

I didn’t brainstorm podcast ideas. I didn’t create my email plan. I did listen to some romance novels. I did overeat. I did lay on the couch. I did do a crap ton of work in the yard with my husband. I didn’t work out and I did not self-coach.

All of which gives me the result, my R line, I didn’t act with power. I’m not powerful enough gives me the result of not acting in any power. Not owning the power that I do have. The interesting thing here is I don’t know if you see it, but I immediately saw it. I lost sight of future me.

I turned my back on her. I let her go for a moment. I was so focused on not being powerful enough and feeling meek and all of that action and inaction that I totally neglected, I totally forgot about future Amy, who’s already been there, who’s already done this work.

So then I flipped the page again. At this point, we’re on page three. Okay, so if I remember that future Amy exists, if I remember that I’ve already done this work and I’ve already tapped into her and I know she’s a powerful freaking badass and she’s phenomenal and she’s amazing and she’s walked this walk already, she knows exactly the work that I need to do, she knows exactly what I’m made of, I have the same circumstance.

Me as a coach and a business owner and a member of my mastermind and my master coach training cohort, and my go-to thought, “I am a million-dollar master coach.” I know this thought. I have practiced this belief so much. I didn’t do it for that entire week. Are we surprised? No. I was too busy over here feeling all my feels and not paying attention to my damn brain.

But if I remember that I’m a million-dollar master coach, oh that’s right, that brings certainty. My F line is certain. And when I feel certain, I sit in belief, I brainstorm, I make a list, I make a plan, I make a schedule, I follow that schedule. I follow through on that schedule. I take care of me. I get to sleep, I take time for me, I take care of me, I make a decision on that hiring thing, I file my paperwork with my accountant and my retirement person.

Creating the result of being the million-dollar master coach. I also have two other go-to thoughts that I did the same work with. So the first one is, “I am a million-dollar master coach,” which creates certainty. The second one is, “I have created the best damn confidence program in the industry,” which creates committed for me. And, “I show up for me, my clients, and I get all of us results,” which creates empowered.

I had to remember that. So what can we learn from all of this? Number one, if you think there’s some magical point where you don’t doubt and worry and feel shitty and completely lose all of it and let life happen to you and let life affect your business, you aren’t paying attention. I’m a master level coach who has earned $325,000 in the last 12 months and I spent a week feeling meek and I didn’t even know it.

I will never be without a human brain. Not until I’m dead. You will never be without a human brain. There is nothing wrong with thinking shitty thoughts. There is nothing wrong with having a human brain. There is nothing wrong with having doubt and fear and worry or anything. There’s no magical point where that goes away. There’s no magical point, no matter what level of confidence you have, there’s no magical point where you don’t indulge in shitty thinking because you are a human being.

So point number two, it’s because of that that you got to be self-coaching. You’re never going to be without a human brain. You’re always going to have shitty thinking. That’s how we’re wired. So you better be damn self-coaching.

Now listen, we can’t force our clients to self-coach because that’s not their job. We can strongly encourage it and all of that, but it is our job because we are coaches. Coaching is your job and you should be a product of your product, and that means self-coaching. That means spending time every day looking at your own brain. What is the shit going on up in there?

I had no idea I was thinking that I wasn’t powerful enough. Not until I took pen to paper. I use a kitchen analogy. You don’t have to clean your kitchen every day, but you use it every day, or at least you’re eating and preparing food every day, right?

Now, if you’re one of those people that’s like, “No, I do all takeout, I only eat out at restaurants,” you know what I’m talking about here. You use your kitchen every single day. It’s necessary. You can not clean it but the more days you go without cleaning it, the stinkier it gets. Best practice is to clean that shit every day.

Your brain, same thing. You don’t have to clean your brain every day, you don’t have to look at it every day, but it gets really shitty and stinky up in there. Best practice, clean that shit once a day, at least. Take a look at it.

Listen, yeah, I realize it’s full of scary ass shit, but that scary ass shit is affecting you anyway. The only way it’s going to not affect you is not by ignoring it but by actually looking at it. Let’s put it under the microscope. I am telling you, when my brain saw I’m not powerful enough, I was like, wow, I had no idea that was in there, and yet it was causing so much stink. It was causing so much trouble.

It was creating this meek feeling that I was thinking was false peace. Alright, so number one, you will never be without a human brain. Number two, that means you better be self-coaching. And the third takeaway here is realizing I lost sight of future me in all of that. When we aren’t self-coaching and we’re not tapping into what’s going on in our brain, we’re probably not staying in touch with future me.

Remember, future you is your best mentor. No one else has your best answers. If you’re not paying attention to what’s going on in your mind, you’re not paying attention to what future you has to say. You can’t lose sight of future you because so many reasons. She’s your biggest cheerleader. She knows what you bring to the table. She knows what you’re made of. She knows exactly what you can do.

And here’s the best news about future you. She’s already in you. You can’t disappoint her. Even when you turn your back on her because she’s always there. She’s always waiting, she’s always cheering for you, she is always believing in you. All you have to do is believe in her.

Alright, so what’s your work from this? What’s the action steps we’re going to move forward with here? So first and foremost, make a self-coaching plan. Make sure that you have a plan in place. If you don’t already, create one now. Make it a habit if you haven’t already. Put it in your calendar. Set an alarm on your phone.

I find it’s easiest to make this part of your morning routine. You can make it part of your end of day routine if you need to. It doesn’t matter. But we’re talking 15 minutes, a notebook and a pen and just start writing. So how do you self-coach?

Now, I teach my clients how to self-coach if they don’t already, but the easiest thing is to just take that notebook and start writing. I give my clients writing prompts when they need them. Frequently, we’ll be coaching and I’ll say alright, for the next week, this is your self-coaching focus, this is the work you need to be working on.

At a minimum, the easiest way to self-coach is to put your current goal, the number of clients for how much money and by what date, put that at the top of the page every single day and write down what your brain thinks about that every day. Because it won’t think the same thing every single day.

Create models from the thoughts that keep coming up. See what new stuff comes up. See what thoughts you didn’t even realize were in there. See what comes up. Like my I’m not powerful enough, I never would have known that was in there if I hadn’t self-coached.

And then number two, when you see what comes up, you can see what those thoughts are creating, you can put them in a model and see what feeling they’re creating and how they’re driving your actions, and then once you own that and you see it and you can’t deny it’s happening anymore, then number two, you’re sitting in belief.

What is the answer to those shitty thoughts? Those thoughts that are creating the models you don’t want, that’s your cavewoman brain. How would your evolved woman brain answer that? What do you need to think in order to believe you can hit that goal or do that thing that’s in the circumstance line?

What are the beliefs you need to sit in? Now, I talk about this in like, episode two, How to Purposefully Believe. So you can go all the way back and do that. So self-coaching, see what the crappy stuff is that comes up, what do you need to think in order to believe, and then sitting in that belief is number two.

And then lastly, don’t forget to spend time with future you. Have you defined her? That’s a podcast episode too. We talk about that I think that’s episode four, Be Your Own Best Mentor. Because when you feel disconnected from yourself, that’s a great time to go visit her.

Spend some time in her thoughts. What would she think about this? What would she advise you to do? Sit in the energy of future you. A lot of times, that’s the energy of the go-to thoughts that you need to be believing.

Alright my friends, so I hope this lesson and what to do when life happens to your business has been helpful. I hope that my story of having life happen and how it affected me, we all lose sight of our future selves, we all stop self-coaching sometimes. None of that is a sign that there’s anything wrong with you at all. It’s a sign that you’re a human being.

Your work is to get back on track. And we do that by making a commitment to self-coaching, remembering to sit in belief every single day, and also staying in touch with our future selves. Alright my friends, 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 www.amylatta.com and until next week, let’s go do epic stuff.