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A Podcast for Coaches shines a light on one of the most elegant, underrated business models in the world: one-on-one coaching. Mark Butler hosts the show, and he's been a coach and advisor to every kind of online business you can think of, having helped businesses earning everything from $0 to $25,000,000+. Although Mark believes every online business model has merit, he worries one-on-one coaching is viewed as a stepping-stone business for people who aren't ready or able to scale. But it's not true, and A Podcast for Coaches sets out to show people--through clear teaching and rich, current stories of successful coaches who love their business--that one-on-one coaching is one of the most gratifying and lowest "hassle-per-dollar" businesses in the world.
Hey, this is Mark Butler and you are
listening to a podcast for coaches.
In the years before COVID
let's call it 2017, 18, 19.
I was traveling.
What for me was a lot for work.
Now for me, a lot of travel meant
four or five trips per year, which
I know is nothing compared to the
way a lot of people travel for work.
And at the time I really enjoyed it.
I liked going to the airport.
I liked getting on the plane.
I liked being in the hotel.
I like to be in the conference
room, meeting people.
Sometimes I'd have the chance to teach
or to speak, which I always love.
And so I really loved the travel.
I looked forward to it.
Then of course we have
COVID everything shuts down.
We're kind of in our
houses for in, in Utah.
Anyway, we're in our houses for a
couple of weeks, a month, maybe.
And I loved that.
I loved that.
And in that moment, I lost
all desire to travel for work.
And in the four years since COVID,
I don't know if I can think of
any work trips until the one I
just took a couple of weeks ago.
But then I did take that trip to, to
Tennessee that I talked about in the
last episode a little bit and I loved it.
So now we get all this nice contrast.
I get the high travel season
of 2017 through 2019.
And then I get the post COVID season
where I haven't traveled much at all for
work and I haven't had any desire to.
And I've turned down Um, not a lot,
but a few speaking opportunities that
would have required me to either go
on a long drive or get in an airplane.
But then , my client, my friend
Edie Wadsworth asked me if I'd
come and speak to her community in
Tennessee a couple of weeks ago,
a few hundred people in the room.
And I just had the most amazing time.
I loved it.
Now, I didn't like the travel.
I admitted this to Edie's community,
and I'll say it again here.
I knew that I was excited to
engage with the community.
I was excited to speak.
I was excited to hear people's
stories, to talk with them.
I knew that, but I also know I
didn't want to get on an airplane.
So I complained.
This is what I do.
I'm a whiner about a few things, but one
of the things I whine about is travel.
So all the way up to the event, until
the moment that I'm walking out the
door with my suitcase to get in the
car and go to the airport, I'm still
whining and saying, I just, I don't
know, why did I say yes to this, etc.
I'm doing this kind of whining.
It's very predictable with me.
I also do this, by the way, with social
gatherings, if there is, a double
date with another couple, they could
be our best friends in the world.
And I will whine about it, but Up to the
moment that we leave and even in the car
while we're driving there And then i'll
have a great time and i'll never shut up
through the whole two hours We're together
because we know me and we know that if i'm
awake i'm talking and so Then on the drive
home I'm saying things like you know what?
That's just the best time.
Why don't we do that more often?
I really think we should do that more
often and then kate Rolls her eyes
as she should, because , my pattern
is so reliable, whine and complain
all the way in, have a great time.
And afterward, talk about how
we should do that more often.
It's very reliable pattern in my life.
And I do the same thing with work
travel because I came home from the
Tennessee trip, riding that same kind
of high., the single biggest takeaway.
From going to Knoxville, Tennessee
a couple of weeks ago, spending
time with Edie, which was so fun.
I'd never met her in person
spending time with her community.
I had some other clients in the room.
It was so fun to spend time with them.
My big takeaway is there is no substitute
for being in the same physical space.
There just isn't
all the online stuff.
We do this podcast webinars.
I like all of it.
I like other people's podcasts.
I like their YouTube videos.
I like online classes.
I think they can be very
powerful and transformative.
There is no substitute for being
in the same physical space.
I think there's interesting
neurobiology to that.
I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to
comment, but there's something about
being in the same physical space, which
I think is compounded when everyone in
the physical space has had to pay a
price to be there, a price in time and
effort more than anything, but also money
, there's something about the ritual.
Of going to the airport, getting on the
plane, getting to the hotel, setting
up shop, having this big context change
that I think primes us for a great
experience, something about being
outside of our normal routine, outside
of my office, not looking at the same
computer screen that I always look at,
not having the same air pods in that I
always have in my ears, which is mostly
how I engage with this kind of thing.
Um,
I think that we prime ourselves
for insight, for clarity,,
for enthusiasm, for decisions.
And then because of the
price we paid to be there.
And then because we're occupying the
same physical spaces, people, and
we're shaking hands and maybe we're
hugging and we're laughing together.
And because it's a life coaching
event, there's always blasted
dancing every time, every time
there's going to be some dancing.
It's okay.
But through all of that, we have
such a different experience together
than if we'd been at home on zoom.
Now, some of these great events, including
the one I just went to in Tennessee,
they are live streamed and I think
the live streams are probably great.
It's not that those don't deliver any
transformation or any enjoyment or any
insight, but speaking for myself, I
know that I am in a different state.
Mentally and emotionally, maybe
spiritually, if I've gone through the
airport airplane hotel ritual, then
if I put on my standard work uniform
of sweats and a t shirt, go down to my
desk and turn on a live stream, it's
going to be a different experience.
So.
Yeah.
I loved being in Tennessee.
I loved being on that stage.
And if I hadn't been on that stage, I
still would have loved it because it's
an opportunity to gather with like
minded people who have paid a similar
price to be where they are with you to
laugh together, to cry together, to be
inspired by each other and all these
other wonderful, corny, beautiful things.
And there's no replacement for it.
That was my single biggest takeaway,
something that I think I had forgotten in
the four years since I stopped traveling.
Cause I don't like to travel.
This is applicable across many
domains and at many different scales.
For example,, my wife, Kate
spent the last three days.
Off and on at a youth camp, a church
youth camp, about an hour from our
house, the camp was for young women.
So, uh, young women who are ages
12 to 18 and their leaders, and
it has a lot in common with the
event that I did in Tennessee.
Everybody gets out of their normal
routine, out of their normal context.
In this case, I think the
girls don't have their phones.
I am not positive of that, but you
cannot overestimate the impact of having
people not have access to their phones
when they're in these kinds of settings.
They had an amazing time.
Kate was invited to speak or teach
a couple of different classes at
this, at this young women's camp.
I've watched this incredible
transformation in Kate over the
last three or four years to go from
where she was a person who would say,
you know, I'm not really a teacher.
I don't like public speaking.
I'd rather not be at
the front of the room.
Don't give me the microphone.
Don't put the spotlight on me.
And over those three or four years, I've
seen her become a person who says, I think
I've got some ideas that I want to share.
Who has embraced opportunities to
share and to teach in places like
church and with,, with friends and at
home and in settings that she creates.
So I've seen this transformation
in this evolution happening in her.
Normally, if she were going to be teaching
a couple of classes at a, at a camp,
like the one she just presented at,
there would be at least a pretty good
amount of, I don't know, I'm nervous.
I hope it goes well.
I hope they like me.
I hope I make sense.
I'm afraid I won't make sense, but
this time it was very different.
It was, I know what I want to share.
I like the stories I'm going to share.
I think it's going to be good.
I can't wait to interact with the girls.
I can't wait to interact
with their leaders.
She really looked forward to it,
which was a beautiful thing to watch.
And of course I'm able to
validate her all along the way.
I'm able to say, yeah, you're
a great teacher and I have
great taste in teachers.
You're a great teacher.
They're lucky to have you.
Of course it means something
to her, to have me say that.
But I tell the story because , it ends
up being another example of how powerful
it is to be in the same physical space.
She goes and , she teaches
her a couple of classes.
She has an amazing time.
She gets great feedback.
She gets home very late last
night Very late last night.
It's like midnight Just to be clear.
My sweetheart is a person
who at about 9 29 p.
m It's like somebody injects her with
some sort of coma inducing serum and
she is out gone dead to the world Last
night she gets home at midnight Normally
when we come back together after a
little time apart, I'm going to be
talking nonstop because I talk nonstop.
Bless her.
She has spent 20 years of her life
basically listening to me verbally process
last night.
She gets home at midnight
and from midnight to 1 a.
m.
She never took a breath.
Telling me stories about people she met
and individual girls that she engaged
with and, , women that she talked to and
how it all came together and how inspired
, it was, and how, how impactful and how
meaningful and how much she enjoyed it.
And for me, it was great
to listen to her download.
And I felt inspired.
One of my takeaways ,Is even though
her confidence had been building.
And even though I have sincerely
validated her growing confidence,
there could be no substitute for
going and doing the things she did in
person apart from our normal routine,
connecting with those other people
and confirming all of her confidence.
Getting strong evidence that
she was right to be confident.
She was right to be excited and to
be able to see the facial expressions
and hear the tone of voice and have
the conversations with people who
are participating that confirmed all
of her confidence and compressed the
timeframe in which that confidence grows.
I don't know what the math of it is,
but I'm just hypothesizing that if
that confidence had would have taken
a year without last night's experience
or without the experience of the last
couple of days, I have the sense that
what could have happened within a year
or two years might've happened within
two days because of the physical presence
and the physical experience that she had.
Thanks to this and other conversations,
I think we're probably not too
many weeks or months away from me
being able to come on this podcast
and say,, my wife is brilliant.
And if you want to get some coaching
sessions with her, you can, I've
been trying to persuade her of
that for the last year or so.
Well, really ever since she . Finished
cancer treatment last fall and share her
health is, you know, she's feeling pretty
healthy and she's feeling pretty inspired.
And I think we might get her folks.
I think we might get her,
but my persuasiveness can't compete with
the confirmation that she received by
getting out of a routine, going into
that physical space and time with those
people and getting all that confirmation
of her own best instincts about herself.
There's just no substitute for being in
the same physical space as the people
we want to learn from and that we want
to teach and that we want to share with.
Now I already did know that in those
years, 2017 to 2019, I was the beneficiary
of the hard work of great leaders
like my old client, Brooke Castillo.
She had worked for years and years
and built a brand and built an
audience such that when she extended
an invitation to have hundreds of
people come and join her in a room,
we all said, yes, that's hard work.
It's some of the hardest work.
Same thing with, my friend, Jody Moore.
I was the beneficiary of her hard work
in rallying people to an idea and filling
big rooms with great people, it's one
thing to just fill a room with people.
It's another thing to like
all of the people in the room
and then of course I get to go
sit in Edie's community and, and
kind of breathe in that air and
enjoy that and appreciate it.
And I still believe that getting
300 people in a room far from their
homes is something miraculous.
And I don't know that I'm
ready to even attempt it.
I don't know if I want to.
I mean, I think I probably could want
to, but for the rest of us who aren't
a Brooke or a Jody or an Edie yet, we
may choose to be, we can do this in
the micro, we can have five people in a
room, we can have 10 people in a room.
And the fact that it isn't 300 or
500 does not make it less powerful.
In some ways, it's more powerful
sometime in the next few weeks, Kate
and I will be teaching a class on
relationships here in our basement,
just because we want to, because she has
a heart for it and a desire to teach.
And of course I want to, so we're going to
come together and we're going to do that.
I don't know how many people will be here.
Maybe five, maybe 15, who cares?
I'll be excited about all of them.
You can do the same thing.
You and I in the micro.
Can create and experience all of
the same benefits or almost all of
the same benefits that are created
by leaders like Brooke Castillo
and Jody Moore and Edie Wadsworth.
We can.
The numbers will be smaller, but
the dividends for us at our place
in business and life will be
very, very similar and very sweet.
And we will compress the timeframes.
We will compress the time that it would
have required for some of the people
that we'd like to serve to like us
and trust us enough to want to engage
with us in a formal way, through a
program, through a coaching experience,
whatever it is, I don't think the
transaction is the best motivation to
do this, but it is an ancillary benefit.
I think the relationships and the
experiences and the inspiration and
the clarity are the real benefits.
And then we have, you know, transactions
that result in the form of coaching
sales and program sales and et cetera.
And those are great too.
They're just not as
exciting as the rest of it.
So I'm probably not
going to do this a lot.
But I'm going to do it some, and I'll
probably partner with my wife and
I'll probably partner with some of you
listening who are my friends that I
already have that trust and confidence
with that we could, we know we could
do something together and we could both
enjoy it a lot and benefit from it a lot.
But all of you have somebody like
that too, or you can do this alone.
I'm just trying to persuade you
that it will be worth the effort.
If you try to do it every
month, might become a grind.
If you try to do it three times a year,
those three events will probably be
some of the highlights of your year
because there's just no substitute
for being in the same physical space
as the people you want to serve.
And with that, I will
talk to you next time.