WEBVTT NOTE This file was generated by Descript 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.929 Hey, this is Mark Butler and you are listening to a podcast for coaches. 00:00:05.520 --> 00:00:08.969 Today I wanna share with you an abbreviated call from my Office Hours 00:00:08.969 --> 00:00:14.970 community, and it's the call in which I articulate for the first time a new 00:00:14.970 --> 00:00:20.160 hypothesis I have around how coaching practices can actually get full 00:00:20.760 --> 00:00:25.170 without the coach having to spend too much time or money pursuing clients. 00:00:27.160 --> 00:00:29.980 If you like what you hear, you really should consider giving 00:00:29.980 --> 00:00:31.720 the Office hours community a try. 00:00:31.929 --> 00:00:34.090 You can go to office hours with mark.com 00:00:34.300 --> 00:00:38.939 and do a 30 day trial for just $1, but whether or not you join us in the 00:00:38.939 --> 00:00:42.870 Office Hours community, I would ask you to seriously consider the concepts and 00:00:42.870 --> 00:00:45.089 the ideas that I share in this episode. 00:00:45.690 --> 00:00:46.829 I think they're different. 00:00:47.010 --> 00:00:48.150 I think they're compelling. 00:00:48.449 --> 00:00:53.130 I think that if you can buy in to these ideas, you could transform the 00:00:53.130 --> 00:00:54.900 way you think about your practice. 00:00:54.990 --> 00:00:59.339 You could go from having to think about yourself mostly as a marketer to 00:00:59.339 --> 00:01:02.519 mostly as a coach, and in my opinion. 00:01:02.680 --> 00:01:07.810 That's what we all want, so enjoy the episode and I will talk to you next time. 00:01:11.139 --> 00:01:13.769 Mark Butler: Hello, I'm Mark Butler and you are watching this or 00:01:13.769 --> 00:01:17.009 listening to this because you are a member of Office Hours with Mark. 00:01:17.919 --> 00:01:22.738 And when I launched Office Hours, I launched the website with a specific 00:01:22.739 --> 00:01:25.958 headline and the headline said, fill your coaching practice without advertising. 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:29.368 That's an exciting promise to me. 00:01:30.264 --> 00:01:34.894 The truth is I had a lot of confidence that I could guide people in the 00:01:34.894 --> 00:01:38.044 direction of how to fill their coaching practices without advertising. 00:01:38.044 --> 00:01:40.264 But I don't know that I could have spoken in very clear terms 00:01:40.264 --> 00:01:41.633 about how I think that happens. 00:01:42.213 --> 00:01:46.093 I think it's finally coalesced in my mind and do a, a single kind of 00:01:46.283 --> 00:01:53.943 mantra or hypothesis that I believe works reliably for anyone who wants 00:01:53.943 --> 00:01:55.863 to fill a one on one practice. 00:01:56.283 --> 00:01:57.983 So let's start today by. 00:01:58.413 --> 00:02:02.103 Reminding ourselves of what the objective here, the objective is to create a one 00:02:02.103 --> 00:02:05.573 on one coaching practice that delivers five to 15 coaching sessions per week 00:02:06.213 --> 00:02:09.653 without spending too many hours or too many dollars pursuing clients. 00:02:10.143 --> 00:02:12.313 That's the objective as I understand it. 00:02:12.323 --> 00:02:14.413 That's the objective as I've proposed it. 00:02:14.863 --> 00:02:15.934 That's what we're shooting for here. 00:02:16.394 --> 00:02:20.414 If that's not what you're excited about, you probably won't be 00:02:20.414 --> 00:02:21.854 excited about this approach. 00:02:22.954 --> 00:02:27.984 This is a way to have a one on one practice fit in your life. 00:02:29.034 --> 00:02:34.054 Without having to give it a bunch of extra resources, this is a way to approach 00:02:34.054 --> 00:02:38.784 your practice patiently so that as time passes, you notice that more and more 00:02:38.804 --> 00:02:42.594 of your week, more and more of your available coaching time is filled by 00:02:42.594 --> 00:02:48.084 clients without you ever having to hire a Facebook ads contractor or, you know, 00:02:48.839 --> 00:02:49.389 whatever. 00:02:49.969 --> 00:02:50.879 That's the objective. 00:02:51.619 --> 00:02:53.059 This is the hypothesis. 00:02:53.089 --> 00:02:54.099 This is the mantra. 00:02:54.579 --> 00:02:58.399 As I spend time in spaces and with people, I enjoy becoming more interested and 00:02:58.409 --> 00:03:03.519 interesting coaching clients will appear confidence, curiosity, and patience. 00:03:03.559 --> 00:03:06.339 Save me from anxious, desperate chasing. 00:03:07.109 --> 00:03:11.149 I build my practice in a way that feels good now and will feel good later. 00:03:11.219 --> 00:03:14.869 Never believing the lie that misery is the price of success. 00:03:16.779 --> 00:03:20.359 So let's go through it sentence by sentence and see if I can make the case 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:23.879 that this is maybe the right plan for you. 00:03:25.199 --> 00:03:29.389 So first let's talk about spending time in spaces. 00:03:29.409 --> 00:03:34.189 And with people you enjoy, you're going to go where your people are. 00:03:34.779 --> 00:03:36.529 You're going to go where your people are online. 00:03:36.699 --> 00:03:38.759 You're going to go where your people are offline. 00:03:40.129 --> 00:03:41.689 It's total personal preference. 00:03:42.169 --> 00:03:45.819 Some people really enjoy spending time in Facebook groups. 00:03:46.529 --> 00:03:50.369 Around specific topics and around specific communities, those Facebook groups may or 00:03:50.369 --> 00:03:51.899 may not have anything to do with coaching. 00:03:53.149 --> 00:03:57.129 They may relate to other hobbies, other passions of yours. 00:03:58.159 --> 00:04:00.609 I'm not a person who likes to spend time in a Facebook group or a 00:04:00.609 --> 00:04:03.489 slack channel or group or whatever. 00:04:04.409 --> 00:04:08.844 That doesn't appeal to me very much, but I have Watched my peers and some 00:04:08.844 --> 00:04:12.804 of my clients have great success in building relationships and then through 00:04:12.804 --> 00:04:18.834 those relationships seeing client relationships Spark by hanging out in 00:04:18.834 --> 00:04:24.434 online spaces of all kinds same thing with offline spaces Hanging out at the 00:04:24.434 --> 00:04:27.373 gym you like to go to the yoga studio You like to go to the church you like 00:04:27.373 --> 00:04:34.394 to go to your work your office Your neighborhood community get togethers 00:04:35.334 --> 00:04:40.124 affinity groups like hiking groups and, networking groups, which sometimes can 00:04:40.124 --> 00:04:44.204 get a bad rap because networking groups can often be seen as highly transactional. 00:04:44.814 --> 00:04:45.604 I get that. 00:04:46.254 --> 00:04:51.294 But the key to this is that you're going to meet and to listen and to connect. 00:04:51.844 --> 00:04:53.714 You are not going to sell. 00:04:53.964 --> 00:04:57.454 Other people might be there to sell, but you are not going there to sell. 00:04:57.934 --> 00:05:00.914 You are not going to spaces because you believe they are 00:05:00.914 --> 00:05:02.234 the spaces where you will. 00:05:02.619 --> 00:05:03.759 Find your clients. 00:05:04.009 --> 00:05:06.629 You're going to those spaces and meeting with those people, hanging out 00:05:06.629 --> 00:05:08.559 with those people because you want to. 00:05:09.559 --> 00:05:13.459 The idea of quote, getting clients may or may not even cross your mind. 00:05:14.809 --> 00:05:18.029 I would hope that your primary motivation would be, I like these 00:05:18.029 --> 00:05:19.349 people and I like this space. 00:05:19.349 --> 00:05:20.259 I like this activity. 00:05:20.299 --> 00:05:21.629 That's why I'm going there. 00:05:22.149 --> 00:05:23.759 And that's my intent in going there. 00:05:24.029 --> 00:05:25.929 It's to meet, it's to listen, it's to connect. 00:05:27.129 --> 00:05:31.388 If you don't feel enthusiastic about going, go somewhere else. 00:05:32.569 --> 00:05:36.729 I don't think it's a long term winning strategy to go places and 00:05:36.729 --> 00:05:40.919 do things just because you believe they will quote get you clients. 00:05:41.739 --> 00:05:44.329 It's not that I think that's an absolutely losing strategy. 00:05:44.339 --> 00:05:48.629 You can do that and you can have client relationships start as a result. 00:05:49.348 --> 00:05:52.278 But in the long run, I think the winning strategy is to go where you want to 00:05:52.279 --> 00:05:54.678 go and be there with people you enjoy. 00:05:55.359 --> 00:05:59.789 So that the dread doesn't creep in to the habit and start to build 00:05:59.789 --> 00:06:03.389 resistance and friction such that eventually you quit that activity. 00:06:04.369 --> 00:06:05.939 These things change over time as well. 00:06:05.949 --> 00:06:12.439 There was a season roughly, let's say 2016 to 2019, where I really enjoyed getting 00:06:12.439 --> 00:06:16.268 on an airplane and flying to an event where there would be a bunch of coaches. 00:06:16.998 --> 00:06:17.609 It was fun. 00:06:17.669 --> 00:06:18.659 I enjoyed the travel. 00:06:18.919 --> 00:06:19.929 I enjoyed the content. 00:06:19.989 --> 00:06:20.979 I enjoyed the people. 00:06:21.429 --> 00:06:23.459 Somewhere around the end of 2019. 00:06:23.799 --> 00:06:25.679 That itch felt scratched. 00:06:26.819 --> 00:06:29.409 I was noticing I didn't really want to travel anymore. 00:06:29.419 --> 00:06:31.769 I wasn't excited to go. 00:06:31.769 --> 00:06:34.389 The content wasn't as interesting to me anymore. 00:06:34.399 --> 00:06:38.679 The communities didn't feel as aligned with my values anymore. 00:06:38.698 --> 00:06:42.439 And so early 2020 around the time COVID hit, in fact, I had 00:06:42.439 --> 00:06:45.199 already decided I don't really want to travel for work anymore. 00:06:45.779 --> 00:06:46.889 It doesn't appeal to me. 00:06:47.499 --> 00:06:52.909 So I decided that I wasn't really going to many coaching events from then on. 00:06:53.959 --> 00:06:57.799 So when I lost the enthusiasm, if I couldn't generate the enthusiasm, 00:06:58.109 --> 00:07:00.719 I just stopped going there and I decided to be other spaces. 00:07:01.068 --> 00:07:05.519 In my case, I had built enough relationships during the season where 00:07:05.519 --> 00:07:06.879 I was willing to get on a plane. 00:07:07.259 --> 00:07:11.719 And connect with other coaches that when I do things like a podcast for coaches 00:07:11.719 --> 00:07:15.389 and when I do things like office hours with Mark, and when I very occasionally 00:07:15.389 --> 00:07:20.489 send newsletters, there are enough relationship seeds already there that my 00:07:20.489 --> 00:07:24.788 newsletter and my podcast end up being a space in which people hang out with me. 00:07:25.788 --> 00:07:30.918 And build enough affinity that eventually I, you know, I get messages asking 00:07:30.918 --> 00:07:32.148 if I have coaching availability. 00:07:32.828 --> 00:07:37.938 So I only want to do these things, not if they just always feel so easy and 00:07:37.938 --> 00:07:42.588 so fun, but if I feel a lot of dread around it, I'm just not going to do it. 00:07:42.918 --> 00:07:48.388 There is a space and there are people that I'll be excited to spend time with. 00:07:48.468 --> 00:07:51.908 And the job is to find those and spend time there, even if they 00:07:51.908 --> 00:07:55.208 seem to have nothing whatsoever to do with your coaching practice. 00:07:56.708 --> 00:08:02.028 This by itself, I believe it's the foundation of a winning strategy 00:08:02.028 --> 00:08:07.338 for having, not an easy, but maybe an ease full way of growing 00:08:07.338 --> 00:08:08.548 your, your coaching practice. 00:08:08.578 --> 00:08:12.748 So that's where we start spaces and people we enjoy. 00:08:14.758 --> 00:08:17.118 So next up we have interested and interesting. 00:08:18.438 --> 00:08:21.308 It might seem to you that interested is the thing that you've already got covered, 00:08:21.318 --> 00:08:22.618 that everybody already has covered. 00:08:23.058 --> 00:08:24.938 They're entertained and they're fascinated. 00:08:24.938 --> 00:08:28.978 They're curious about coaching topics and people's psychology, their 00:08:28.978 --> 00:08:32.798 behavior, their relationships, and helping them thrive in those things. 00:08:32.808 --> 00:08:35.448 So you might say, I'm already definitely interested. 00:08:35.538 --> 00:08:36.298 I've got it covered. 00:08:37.758 --> 00:08:41.238 I'm talking about a different type and level of interest. 00:08:41.723 --> 00:08:45.693 Obsession is too strong a word, but it moves us in the right direction. 00:08:46.743 --> 00:08:50.523 The person who is truly interested in their work goes into what my own 00:08:50.523 --> 00:08:52.833 coach Liz has called a scholar phase. 00:08:53.293 --> 00:08:58.973 And in a scholar phase, the person is paying a price in 00:08:59.203 --> 00:09:02.323 time and effort and ego to. 00:09:02.578 --> 00:09:05.968 Know something about a thing that other people don't know to 00:09:05.968 --> 00:09:09.328 experience it in a way that other people have not experienced it. 00:09:10.008 --> 00:09:17.998 So the way to get interested is to make more effort with more intention 00:09:17.998 --> 00:09:22.439 and more focus in developing your knowledge and experience in an area 00:09:23.088 --> 00:09:24.578 then other people are willing to pay. 00:09:24.828 --> 00:09:29.038 So if I were to describe my interested phase in the world of coaching, my 00:09:29.048 --> 00:09:37.848 scholar phase, my phase of deep interest was kind of 2015 to about 2021 ish. 00:09:38.428 --> 00:09:44.488 And in those six years, I was deep in the trenches of a bunch of coaching practices. 00:09:45.803 --> 00:09:51.603 And it was hard work and it was costly in time and it was costly in ego and 00:09:51.603 --> 00:09:55.653 it was costly in freedom because I didn't always love the work I was doing. 00:09:55.703 --> 00:09:59.684 I mean, I was up to my elbows in coaching businesses in all 00:09:59.684 --> 00:10:00.734 different kinds of coaching. 00:10:00.949 --> 00:10:05.029 Models, tens of thousands of coaching transactions because 00:10:05.029 --> 00:10:05.989 I was doing accounting. 00:10:06.559 --> 00:10:12.189 And when I came out the other side of that, I believe that I'm in the top 1 00:10:12.208 --> 00:10:17.488 percent of the world's population of people who really know what coaching 00:10:17.489 --> 00:10:19.838 businesses look like from the inside. 00:10:21.238 --> 00:10:23.909 So almost anything that anyone says about a coaching business. 00:10:24.779 --> 00:10:27.289 I have experienced it. 00:10:27.329 --> 00:10:28.019 I've seen it. 00:10:28.059 --> 00:10:31.969 I can ask them questions to tease out what they actually mean, how it actually works. 00:10:32.729 --> 00:10:38.519 That was a price paid over the course of years and a few thousand hours to where 00:10:38.519 --> 00:10:41.609 I can say, I know coaching businesses. 00:10:41.629 --> 00:10:42.668 I know training businesses. 00:10:42.689 --> 00:10:44.368 I know them inside and out. 00:10:44.449 --> 00:10:46.149 That was my interested phase. 00:10:46.739 --> 00:10:48.569 What does it look like to bridge that gap? 00:10:48.929 --> 00:10:51.968 My interest in coaching businesses and in coaches. 00:10:53.468 --> 00:10:57.878 Are what created this mantra, this hypothesis that I'm 00:10:57.878 --> 00:10:58.708 sharing with you today. 00:10:58.968 --> 00:11:00.868 It's a lot of hard thinking. 00:11:01.548 --> 00:11:06.788 So we listen, we learn, we read, we care, and we hang out there for a long time. 00:11:07.678 --> 00:11:12.798 In my opinion, truly becoming interested in a topic goes beyond consuming 00:11:12.798 --> 00:11:17.528 what other people have said about it in the most consumable, Places. 00:11:17.538 --> 00:11:24.118 YouTube, social media podcasts for me, depth looks like primary research. 00:11:24.168 --> 00:11:26.568 It's, it still could be books, but maybe it's older books. 00:11:26.578 --> 00:11:27.518 Maybe it's thicker books. 00:11:27.518 --> 00:11:31.378 Maybe it's books that don't necessarily seem completely related to the thing, 00:11:31.378 --> 00:11:33.708 but they might have some nuggets and I'm willing to dig through them. 00:11:34.708 --> 00:11:37.118 It looks like trying to get experience. 00:11:37.698 --> 00:11:39.478 So this is not a consumption. 00:11:40.178 --> 00:11:41.868 Interest that I'm talking about here. 00:11:42.218 --> 00:11:45.658 This is effortful and costly. 00:11:47.028 --> 00:11:51.448 Is it effortful and costly beyond the 5 to 7 hours per week that 00:11:51.448 --> 00:11:53.478 we're hoping to spend in session with our clients eventually? 00:11:53.478 --> 00:11:54.798 Anyway, probably not. 00:11:55.108 --> 00:12:01.943 What I am saying is, if you will become unusually interested, In the thing that 00:12:01.953 --> 00:12:06.633 you're trying to help people with, and if you will direct your effort accordingly 00:12:07.333 --> 00:12:10.493 and make a sacrifice that maybe other people aren't willing to make, you're 00:12:10.493 --> 00:12:12.323 showing a higher level of interest. 00:12:13.103 --> 00:12:15.843 The payoff is that you become more interesting. 00:12:17.303 --> 00:12:21.154 It's really, really hard to become interesting without 00:12:21.163 --> 00:12:24.193 having first demonstrated a high level of interest yourself. 00:12:24.873 --> 00:12:29.233 So we're getting really interested is about listening, learning, 00:12:29.233 --> 00:12:31.733 reading, caring, experiencing. 00:12:33.028 --> 00:12:36.818 Being interesting ends up being practice, writing, sharing, and teaching. 00:12:38.448 --> 00:12:42.148 So you're taking what you learned in the interest phase, or in the scholar phase, 00:12:42.488 --> 00:12:44.138 and now you're sharing it and teaching it. 00:12:45.638 --> 00:12:50.628 In the process of being very interested over an extended period of time, you 00:12:50.628 --> 00:12:55.958 become harder to ignore, because you have more experience and more insight, and more 00:12:56.088 --> 00:13:02.168 opinions, defensible opinions, than people who have invested less time, effort, 00:13:02.178 --> 00:13:05.018 energy, ego, in the interest phase. 00:13:06.328 --> 00:13:09.228 The more we're regurgitating and rehashing what we've been taught, 00:13:09.958 --> 00:13:11.598 the easier we are to ignore. 00:13:12.108 --> 00:13:15.088 This is why one of the things I talk about so much with people 00:13:15.088 --> 00:13:19.858 when it comes to content is practicing productive disagreement. 00:13:20.858 --> 00:13:24.338 If you will take what you've been taught or what other people say, 00:13:24.338 --> 00:13:29.438 conventional wisdom, if you will take it and you will try to find ways to 00:13:29.438 --> 00:13:35.058 productively disagree with it, you become more interesting in the process. 00:13:36.148 --> 00:13:40.138 Just recently to a group here in office hours, I said, I think that 00:13:40.358 --> 00:13:45.429 really the 11 years that I've spent in the coaching world are defined by. 00:13:45.844 --> 00:13:49.034 Number one, me having the great opportunity and blessing of working 00:13:49.034 --> 00:13:53.394 with incredibly high performing coaches, high performing in terms of 00:13:53.734 --> 00:13:58.603 content and sales and numbers of people served and all of that, and being 00:13:58.784 --> 00:14:00.194 in a support role for those people. 00:14:01.194 --> 00:14:05.894 And eventually finding ways to productively disagree with them. 00:14:06.774 --> 00:14:09.144 Now, I still agree with a very high percentage of what 00:14:09.154 --> 00:14:10.904 most of my former clients say. 00:14:11.474 --> 00:14:14.733 So this isn't about me versus them, right? 00:14:14.754 --> 00:14:16.873 Versus wrong, good versus evil. 00:14:17.224 --> 00:14:19.664 This is, you have a way of doing things. 00:14:19.664 --> 00:14:21.213 You have a way of seeing things. 00:14:21.273 --> 00:14:26.664 You have a way of saying things and given my experience and my values and my bias. 00:14:27.494 --> 00:14:32.394 I disagree with points A, B, and C, and I think I can back up my disagreement with 00:14:32.514 --> 00:14:38.814 stories and data and in that disagreement, people suddenly have a reason to pay 00:14:38.814 --> 00:14:42.314 attention to the other person and me. 00:14:43.134 --> 00:14:46.624 But I've said for a long time now, if you're saying the same thing in the same 00:14:46.624 --> 00:14:52.624 way to the same people in the same place at the same time as many other people, 00:14:54.404 --> 00:14:56.594 you are not necessary to the equation. 00:14:57.804 --> 00:14:59.554 You may get some attention. 00:14:59.684 --> 00:15:04.874 There may be some interest coming your way, but if I know that you're 00:15:04.874 --> 00:15:09.124 teaching exactly what the other person is teaching and I'm human. 00:15:09.134 --> 00:15:12.914 So if I know that more people are paying attention to the person who taught 00:15:12.914 --> 00:15:16.883 you the thing that you're teaching me, unless there's some big friction 00:15:17.173 --> 00:15:22.334 in my ability to consume it directly from them, I'm going to consume it. 00:15:22.564 --> 00:15:23.564 Directly from them 00:15:25.054 --> 00:15:31.544 I think in the long run if we're talking about investment Versus return the person 00:15:31.544 --> 00:15:37.014 who will in the long run get more return per effort will be the person who finds 00:15:37.014 --> 00:15:42.434 a way to be just a little bit harder to ignore a little bit differentiated 00:15:42.694 --> 00:15:46.314 from the person they learned from or from the group of people that they 00:15:46.314 --> 00:15:48.628 learned from what is going to be. 00:15:49.099 --> 00:15:54.959 My disagreement with them and on the basis of what learning, what experience 00:15:54.979 --> 00:16:01.059 and what stories can I disagree with them in an interesting way so that people 00:16:01.059 --> 00:16:05.869 find me harder to ignore and have a greater desire to pay attention to me. 00:16:07.424 --> 00:16:12.924 So, we're going to be scholars and we're going to dig in and learn and experience 00:16:13.294 --> 00:16:19.244 and disagree and practice and fail all in pursuit of having something useful to say. 00:16:20.104 --> 00:16:23.744 But then in saying it, we've got to not be boring. 00:16:24.024 --> 00:16:25.994 We've got to be interesting. 00:16:27.704 --> 00:16:30.424 So the job is to become harder to ignore. 00:16:32.424 --> 00:16:34.154 Coaching clients will appear. 00:16:34.424 --> 00:16:36.264 I phrased this in a specific way. 00:16:37.019 --> 00:16:43.339 Because I feel quite strongly that in the long run, you want your coaching 00:16:43.339 --> 00:16:48.719 practice to, get full and stay full as people reach out and ask you for coaching, 00:16:49.199 --> 00:16:53.009 not as you become the best at reaching out and offering coaching to them. 00:16:55.019 --> 00:17:00.579 The issue is if my objective is to deliver 5 to 15 coaching sessions per 00:17:00.579 --> 00:17:03.829 week without spending too many hours or too many dollars in the pursuit of the 00:17:03.829 --> 00:17:11.224 client then As an efficiency factor, I need people to reach out to me because I 00:17:11.224 --> 00:17:16.514 don't want to close 50 percent of consults because I don't want to do any consults. 00:17:17.334 --> 00:17:21.894 I want my coaching practice to be filled mostly by people reaching out to me and 00:17:21.894 --> 00:17:23.594 saying, Mark, do you have availability? 00:17:23.654 --> 00:17:25.394 Me saying yes, them saying great. 00:17:25.404 --> 00:17:26.394 When can we start? 00:17:27.014 --> 00:17:30.384 That's not always how it happens, but in my case and in many of their coaches 00:17:30.384 --> 00:17:32.844 cases, that's usually how it happens. 00:17:34.244 --> 00:17:38.584 I think it's a function of being interested, interesting, letting 00:17:38.744 --> 00:17:41.054 people have an awareness of the fact. 00:17:41.064 --> 00:17:45.274 Yeah, I'm available to coach you and then waiting for them to ask. 00:17:46.774 --> 00:17:51.094 So just the other day, a client texted me and said, I just got another client. 00:17:51.104 --> 00:17:53.804 She stays pretty full, uh, over time. 00:17:54.084 --> 00:17:55.114 She fits our model. 00:17:55.114 --> 00:17:58.234 You know, the five to 15 coaching sessions per week, not too many hours or 00:17:58.234 --> 00:17:59.794 dollars spent in the pursuit of clients. 00:18:00.004 --> 00:18:01.214 She fits the model perfectly. 00:18:01.214 --> 00:18:03.934 She texts me and says, I just got a new client. 00:18:04.054 --> 00:18:05.994 And she said, you were right. 00:18:06.559 --> 00:18:09.589 The best clients are the ones who find us. 00:18:11.379 --> 00:18:15.439 That is another truth that I think I've discovered and that I think I can defend. 00:18:16.439 --> 00:18:21.619 You will find that the clients who are happiest with your work, easiest to serve, 00:18:21.979 --> 00:18:27.023 most likely to renew and refer, will be those who started the relationship. 00:18:27.104 --> 00:18:28.314 By reaching out to you, 00:18:30.314 --> 00:18:36.004 if you can buy fully into this idea that I want to be asked for coaching, 00:18:36.624 --> 00:18:41.084 not ask people if they will allow me to coach them, then what you 00:18:41.084 --> 00:18:46.874 will do is in the time between those yeses, those difficult, quiet times 00:18:46.874 --> 00:18:51.284 between when a client is saying yes to you, you'll refocus your effort. 00:18:51.829 --> 00:18:56.429 On where you're spending time with whom you're spending time and becoming 00:18:56.429 --> 00:18:58.539 more interested and more interesting. 00:18:58.889 --> 00:19:04.959 So that it becomes inevitable that a person, and then people ask you if 00:19:04.959 --> 00:19:08.069 you have availability and could we have a conversation about coaching? 00:19:09.909 --> 00:19:16.269 The really uncomfortable reality here is that if no one is ever asking 00:19:16.269 --> 00:19:20.799 you for coaching in the long run, if you're finding that you have to go 00:19:21.089 --> 00:19:23.319 sort of hunt every coaching client. 00:19:23.594 --> 00:19:28.754 You ever work with first of all, you've created a job for yourself. 00:19:28.754 --> 00:19:30.454 That isn't very appealing to me. 00:19:31.494 --> 00:19:38.859 Secondly, You may be promoting something in the world that doesn't have enough 00:19:38.889 --> 00:19:42.069 intrinsic appeal that people pursue it. 00:19:43.569 --> 00:19:45.349 Confidence, curiosity, and patience. 00:19:45.619 --> 00:19:47.619 A confident person says, I know who I am. 00:19:47.649 --> 00:19:49.589 I value and validate myself. 00:19:50.429 --> 00:19:53.599 Now, many of us, maybe most of us would say, of course I feel that way. 00:19:53.599 --> 00:19:55.569 I know who I am and I value and validate myself. 00:19:55.879 --> 00:20:00.019 But if I watched the silent movie of their lives, I would see a lot of anxious 00:20:00.019 --> 00:20:06.374 chasing behaviors and, Looking for other people to value and validate you 00:20:06.374 --> 00:20:07.604 so that you can feel good about yourself. 00:20:07.904 --> 00:20:09.044 All of us do some of this. 00:20:09.144 --> 00:20:13.154 I do some of this, but in my coaching practice, I am now 00:20:13.184 --> 00:20:17.084 confident enough that I know who I am and I value and validate myself. 00:20:18.303 --> 00:20:18.763 Enough. 00:20:18.764 --> 00:20:23.813 People resonate with me and my work that I will have a full 00:20:23.814 --> 00:20:25.204 thriving coaching practice. 00:20:26.519 --> 00:20:27.949 That's what I mean by confident. 00:20:29.339 --> 00:20:31.139 Curious is just this ongoing. 00:20:31.179 --> 00:20:32.059 I wonder. 00:20:32.709 --> 00:20:34.169 I wonder what else I could learn about this. 00:20:34.169 --> 00:20:35.679 I wonder who else I could connect with. 00:20:35.699 --> 00:20:38.689 I wonder where I could go spend time that I would enjoy spending time. 00:20:39.219 --> 00:20:42.289 It's curiosity as opposed to anxiety. 00:20:43.499 --> 00:20:48.259 And then patience is the constant reminder that there's no hurry. 00:20:48.419 --> 00:20:50.138 I'm living a full life. 00:20:51.638 --> 00:20:55.108 Coaching clients will come into that full life in their own time. 00:20:56.108 --> 00:20:58.448 We want to pursue more fullness in our life. 00:20:59.108 --> 00:21:00.058 Let's do that. 00:21:01.358 --> 00:21:02.848 And the coaching clients are on their way. 00:21:04.468 --> 00:21:05.088 They're on their way. 00:21:06.588 --> 00:21:08.508 Saves me from anxious, desperate chasing. 00:21:08.508 --> 00:21:09.578 That's where we are in the mantra. 00:21:09.588 --> 00:21:11.778 Saves me from anxious, desperate chasing. 00:21:13.218 --> 00:21:17.618 I believe that most courses, most trainings, most masterminds are 00:21:17.638 --> 00:21:21.238 purchased by coaches who cannot cope with the silence between yeses. 00:21:23.038 --> 00:21:25.508 When people buy a course, when they attend a training, when 00:21:25.508 --> 00:21:30.598 they buy into a mastermind, that's mostly an anxiety driven. 00:21:33.128 --> 00:21:36.868 Not only does it not necessarily accelerate the arrival of the next. 00:21:36.868 --> 00:21:37.378 Yes. 00:21:37.928 --> 00:21:42.518 It muddies the water around what actually impacts the next. 00:21:42.518 --> 00:21:43.008 Yes. 00:21:43.848 --> 00:21:49.658 It puts coaches in situations where they buy a course, the yeses don't arrive. 00:21:49.918 --> 00:21:52.118 They join a mastermind, the yeses don't arrive. 00:21:52.318 --> 00:21:54.048 And they start to think that it was the courses. 00:21:54.443 --> 00:21:57.403 Or the masterminds that were wrong, but what might have actually happened is 00:21:57.733 --> 00:22:01.743 the courses in the masterminds actually increased their anxiety because they 00:22:01.743 --> 00:22:04.403 looked around and got the idea that everyone else is winning and I'm losing. 00:22:04.413 --> 00:22:06.393 Everyone else is smart and I'm dumb, etc. 00:22:07.263 --> 00:22:08.823 So their anxiety increased. 00:22:08.833 --> 00:22:10.783 So it actually had the opposite effect. 00:22:11.243 --> 00:22:15.793 So courses, masterminds and trainings are usually not the antidote 00:22:16.283 --> 00:22:18.443 to anxious chasing behaviors. 00:22:19.133 --> 00:22:22.173 Usually that's getting internally regulated, finding our own inner peace. 00:22:22.833 --> 00:22:26.363 And that ends up being the thing that's attractive to the people we hope to serve. 00:22:28.143 --> 00:22:33.623 Our job is to avoid through our internal peace, through our genuine interest 00:22:33.623 --> 00:22:38.133 and curiosity and confidence and self acceptance is to avoid anxious, 00:22:38.133 --> 00:22:40.543 desperate chasing when we know. 00:22:40.863 --> 00:22:42.253 Because we check in with ourselves. 00:22:42.353 --> 00:22:43.103 I'm desperate. 00:22:43.113 --> 00:22:44.653 I'm anxious, and I'm chasing. 00:22:44.933 --> 00:22:48.763 We know that whatever we're doing can be stopped without any negative 00:22:48.763 --> 00:22:50.963 consequence to our practice. 00:22:51.433 --> 00:22:55.523 In fact, if we stop anxiously chasing, there will be positive 00:22:55.523 --> 00:22:56.853 consequences to our practice. 00:22:56.943 --> 00:23:03.503 Because Never forget the chased animal always runs, the curious 00:23:03.513 --> 00:23:05.323 animal always approaches. 00:23:06.123 --> 00:23:09.113 The chased coaching prospect will run away. 00:23:10.393 --> 00:23:14.723 The curious coaching prospect, the person who's observing you and 00:23:15.203 --> 00:23:18.703 wondering how you've made the changes you've made and who's remembering the 00:23:18.703 --> 00:23:22.853 interesting thing you said the last time you were together, that person, 00:23:23.183 --> 00:23:25.263 the curious person will approach. 00:23:25.753 --> 00:23:27.853 The chased person will run away. 00:23:29.638 --> 00:23:32.888 I build my practice in a way that feels good now and will feel good later. 00:23:33.888 --> 00:23:36.528 Now, when I say feels good now, I don't mean this whole 00:23:36.538 --> 00:23:38.438 process is devoid of discomfort. 00:23:38.708 --> 00:23:43.108 It's going to have discomfort, but it's going to have discomfort now and later 00:23:44.768 --> 00:23:49.088 there'll be discomfort and awkwardness now and later there'll be fun and connection 00:23:49.148 --> 00:23:50.908 now and later there will be learning. 00:23:51.253 --> 00:23:56.963 Now and later growth, now and later boredom, now and later 00:23:57.833 --> 00:24:02.163 there will be disappointment and exhilaration and hope all of it. 00:24:02.233 --> 00:24:04.233 You'll have it now and you'll have it later. 00:24:05.233 --> 00:24:10.673 You should never buy into the lie, which we'll talk about more in a second. 00:24:12.018 --> 00:24:16.068 That I'm in the uncomfortable part of growing a coaching practice and 00:24:16.068 --> 00:24:19.908 then the uncomfortable part will end and then I will be in the comfortable 00:24:19.908 --> 00:24:24.538 part of having a coaching practice and that there will be a dividing line 00:24:24.538 --> 00:24:28.968 between the two and I'll cross over a threshold and I'll throw a party and 00:24:28.968 --> 00:24:30.798 oh boy, it used to be uncomfortable. 00:24:30.798 --> 00:24:31.568 Now it's comfortable. 00:24:31.868 --> 00:24:34.788 But I would say about myself now having done some form of 00:24:34.788 --> 00:24:37.358 coaching since 2000 and eight. 00:24:38.558 --> 00:24:40.978 Yes, we move the needle. 00:24:41.238 --> 00:24:47.018 I'm a lot more comfortable more of the time than I was in keeping 00:24:47.188 --> 00:24:51.048 a full coaching practice, but I'm still uncomfortable a lot. 00:24:52.208 --> 00:24:54.488 I have very uncomfortable interactions with clients. 00:24:54.798 --> 00:24:56.448 Sometimes I say and do the wrong thing. 00:24:56.648 --> 00:25:02.118 I have to apologize sometimes a person who I thought would renew doesn't renew. 00:25:03.088 --> 00:25:06.188 Sometimes a person quits in the middle of their sessions. 00:25:07.738 --> 00:25:12.128 There's discomfort available to me at every stage of having a coaching practice. 00:25:12.158 --> 00:25:18.408 It never goes away, but it never has to be something that feels. 00:25:19.648 --> 00:25:24.708 At a basic level, wrong or inauthentic to me or dishonest 00:25:24.738 --> 00:25:27.308 or incongruent with my values. 00:25:28.258 --> 00:25:31.338 That this isn't honest versus dishonest. 00:25:31.428 --> 00:25:32.448 That's not what I'm saying. 00:25:32.778 --> 00:25:38.108 This is true to myself and to who I want to be or not as true to 00:25:38.108 --> 00:25:39.158 who I am and who I want to be. 00:25:40.948 --> 00:25:41.418 So. 00:25:42.268 --> 00:25:46.918 There are some people that I really think that once they get into 00:25:46.928 --> 00:25:52.698 coaching, they're going to discover, they just don't like it very much. 00:25:52.988 --> 00:25:55.468 I mean, it's just, that's just the deal. 00:25:56.458 --> 00:26:02.248 If I get into it and I, find that the work of developing a coaching practice 00:26:02.448 --> 00:26:05.838 and then of maintaining that coaching practice, if I find that they just 00:26:05.838 --> 00:26:10.878 don't feel good to me and right to me, it's okay to go do something else. 00:26:11.008 --> 00:26:13.198 We can express our genius elsewhere. 00:26:13.538 --> 00:26:14.948 Everybody has some genius. 00:26:16.238 --> 00:26:19.638 It's a question of looking for the place where that genius is best expressed. 00:26:21.183 --> 00:26:26.563 So if a person feels miserable, there's a lie that I think we hear 00:26:26.563 --> 00:26:30.243 in the personal development world that misery is the price of success. 00:26:31.603 --> 00:26:33.923 Now, we also hear a lot that discomfort is the price of success. 00:26:33.923 --> 00:26:35.463 And of course, I agree with that. 00:26:35.913 --> 00:26:40.733 But sometimes the way people frame this idea is like we're in the trenches and 00:26:40.733 --> 00:26:45.923 it's so hard and it's, uh, this is awful, but eventually we'll make it through. 00:26:45.923 --> 00:26:48.483 And when you make it through, then the vacations and the houses 00:26:48.763 --> 00:26:49.943 and all of it's going to come. 00:26:51.278 --> 00:26:54.148 What's truer is that it's not miserable. 00:26:54.568 --> 00:26:58.258 And the discomfort is actually not terrible. 00:26:58.268 --> 00:27:03.298 Most of the discomfort is the discomfort that we generate with fear and impatience. 00:27:04.538 --> 00:27:06.248 That's where most of the discomfort is. 00:27:06.288 --> 00:27:10.128 There's some discomfort and feeling like we completely blew it on a coaching 00:27:10.128 --> 00:27:11.838 session, which I still experience. 00:27:12.298 --> 00:27:14.348 There's some discomfort and having a person that we 00:27:14.348 --> 00:27:16.678 thought would say, yes, say no. 00:27:17.763 --> 00:27:22.043 There's some discomfort there, but overall, I don't think growing a coaching 00:27:22.043 --> 00:27:26.713 practice offers a lot more discomfort or more extreme discomfort than getting 00:27:26.713 --> 00:27:30.203 into a car at seven in the morning and commuting to an office and being in a 00:27:30.203 --> 00:27:32.343 cubicle all day and then commuting home. 00:27:33.153 --> 00:27:34.963 That's not necessarily a bad thing either, but 00:27:35.243 --> 00:27:37.903 if the thing that you feel like you're supposed to do right now 00:27:38.183 --> 00:27:41.903 feels very miserable or very dangerous, I would suggest that. 00:27:42.978 --> 00:27:45.518 That's something, true and correct inside of you. 00:27:46.318 --> 00:27:48.838 It's telling you it's just the wrong thing to do, maybe not 00:27:48.838 --> 00:27:50.348 for someone else, but for you. 00:27:51.348 --> 00:27:55.428 And that there's some other way for you to spend time in spaces and with 00:27:55.428 --> 00:28:00.228 people you enjoy working to become more interested and interesting, staying in 00:28:00.278 --> 00:28:03.118 confidence and curiosity and patience. 00:28:04.118 --> 00:28:08.378 That will have discomfort in it, but then the clients will arrive 00:28:08.378 --> 00:28:12.648 and you'll realize, Oh, number one, it's not as exciting as I thought it 00:28:12.768 --> 00:28:14.278 would be when the clients arrived. 00:28:14.328 --> 00:28:16.979 I'm thrilled about it, but it's not the fireworks necessarily 00:28:16.979 --> 00:28:17.929 that I thought it would be. 00:28:19.269 --> 00:28:22.609 And number two, you'll realize, wait, that's it. 00:28:23.729 --> 00:28:25.349 Isn't there a lot more to it than that? 00:28:26.209 --> 00:28:27.999 No, there's not a lot more to it than that. 00:28:28.349 --> 00:28:35.139 But what we find is that because people can't cope with the silence, the 00:28:35.139 --> 00:28:40.404 space in between yeses, And they get involved in a lot of frantic activity 00:28:40.754 --> 00:28:43.504 and then they talk about the frantic activity that they're involved in. 00:28:43.734 --> 00:28:49.024 You fall prey to the idea that it's all much harder than it actually is. 00:28:50.954 --> 00:28:55.114 You'll notice as I conclude, this whole conversation didn't 00:28:55.114 --> 00:28:56.474 include anything about niche. 00:28:57.304 --> 00:29:00.904 It didn't mention anything about content or content strategy. 00:29:01.904 --> 00:29:06.274 Not that those things have no place, but those things do not matter. 00:29:06.989 --> 00:29:14.129 The way our industry culture talks about them, because if you're a 00:29:14.129 --> 00:29:19.159 person who spends time with other people in places you enjoy, you have 00:29:19.169 --> 00:29:24.519 real enduring curiosity and interest in the problems you hope to solve 00:29:25.229 --> 00:29:26.559 and the people you hope to support. 00:29:27.979 --> 00:29:32.709 If you're willing to share that interest as you accumulate it in the 00:29:32.709 --> 00:29:36.279 form of sharing, teaching, writing. 00:29:36.544 --> 00:29:40.334 Speaking, et cetera, clients will appear, 00:29:41.334 --> 00:29:42.084 they will, 00:29:43.084 --> 00:29:50.674 my focus from now forward will be to try to back up my words today. 00:29:51.394 --> 00:29:57.354 I don't want to be guilty of presenting a simple case like this one and 00:29:57.354 --> 00:30:01.409 then teaching complex topics or implementations of those topics. 00:30:01.699 --> 00:30:03.429 I don't want to be guilty of saying. 00:30:04.429 --> 00:30:07.489 Here's how to do this very complicated thing in order to get a client. 00:30:08.949 --> 00:30:12.129 I will teach things like, you know, I'm working right now and how do I 00:30:12.129 --> 00:30:15.799 write 52 newsletters at once, but I'm only trying to write 52 newsletters at 00:30:15.799 --> 00:30:20.779 once because I want to be interesting and trustworthy in a specific context. 00:30:21.779 --> 00:30:26.369 And I think that might be the best way for me to get that done, but I 00:30:26.369 --> 00:30:29.729 will never say that somebody else needs to do that, that they need to 00:30:29.729 --> 00:30:31.519 implement things the way that I am. 00:30:31.989 --> 00:30:34.599 For me, I'm just expressing this principle of being interested 00:30:34.599 --> 00:30:36.269 and interesting in that way. 00:30:37.269 --> 00:30:39.479 But you're not going to hear me do challenges. 00:30:40.269 --> 00:30:42.639 I'm not going to say, okay, for the next 30 days, we're all going to 00:30:42.639 --> 00:30:45.519 try to go have 16 conversations. 00:30:46.689 --> 00:30:48.619 I might say, oh, consider this. 00:30:49.159 --> 00:30:54.289 Consider this way of engaging with the activity, but I'm just going to 00:30:54.289 --> 00:30:57.129 keep teaching these principles and inviting you to consider how you 00:30:57.129 --> 00:30:58.749 want to express these principles. 00:30:59.989 --> 00:31:04.379 My goal, if you and I share the same objective of delivering five 00:31:04.379 --> 00:31:08.134 to 15 coaching sessions per week, Without spending too many hours 00:31:08.144 --> 00:31:09.864 or dollars pursuing clients. 00:31:10.334 --> 00:31:14.184 My goal is that in the months and years to come, I'll be hearing messages 00:31:14.184 --> 00:31:18.094 from you that say, yeah, I do have five clients a week right now. 00:31:18.704 --> 00:31:22.388 And it hasn't felt very hard. 00:31:22.628 --> 00:31:26.265 I'm almost wondering if it was too easy or if it was a fluke, because I 00:31:26.265 --> 00:31:28.355 didn't suffer very much along the way. 00:31:30.235 --> 00:31:32.845 And I'll say, no, by my standards, you did it right. 00:31:33.869 --> 00:31:34.573 You did it right. 00:31:34.883 --> 00:31:39.193 And now I want there to be thousands more of you and thousands more of me 00:31:39.743 --> 00:31:47.953 whose primary focus is supporting those five to 15 clients a week so that as a 00:31:47.953 --> 00:31:52.383 group, we move the needle in people's happiness, health, and relationships. 00:31:53.598 --> 00:31:54.368 That's where we're going. 00:31:54.918 --> 00:31:58.618 And with that, I will leave you to consider these ideas and to 00:31:58.628 --> 00:32:01.248 ask me questions about them in an upcoming open coaching call. 00:32:01.438 --> 00:32:02.338 Thank you for being here. 00:32:02.368 --> 00:32:03.228 I will talk to you soon.