Every where we look, we are presented with the myth that the right answer will fix us.
The right presidential candidate will fix the United States.
The right marketing plan will fix your business.
The right eating plan will fix your thighs.
The right kind of man or woman will fix your love life.
The right coach or strategy will fix your bank account.
We’re trained to look for what’s wrong; it’s become a great pass time. It’s event become a great career for some folks.
For those of us who have been on the path of personal and spiritual development, we have been trained to process why we have the problem in the first place. Because maybe, just maybe, if we process it just right, the problem will be “healed.”
And for sometimes even years, we process the shit out of it. We enroll others to help us process it because we just can’t see what we can’t see. We even start clubs for people who have the same issues, because if we can’t fix ourselves, then perhaps we can fix someone else.
Some of us have even led the bandwagon of the big 6-figure problems because we believed that with the right solutions, we could fix our broken businesses and bank accounts. We thought it would work. We hoped it would.
I thought it would work. And the master trick is, it can work for a short time, but it’s not sustainable. So BAM, we have another problem to fix and the cycle continues.
We search some more. Some of us find a path of trusting ourselves, after being told most of our lives that our intuition isn’t sexy or reliable.
Some of us find the next shinier thing that promises the fix. We find the next shiny thing when the dullness of the first thing makes us feel uncomfortable, which must be the sign that we’re still broken somehow because we’re not healed.
This is why I can’t talk about marketing right now, because marketing isn’t the problem, or the solution.
It’s about if you are willing to take the first step when it feels like you have no idea what you are doing. When you feel like a total ass, and totally broken, and like a big fraud, you take the step forward. Stepping into THAT discomfort is the key to dropping the BS of the magic pill and actually creating something that brings you joy.
A business plan won’t fix your bank account.
A marketing plan won’t fix your confidence.
A sales training won’t fix your money issues.
Finding a business partner (or an investor) won’t fix your overwhelm or cash flow.
Getting another certification won’t fix your visibility.
You see, there isn’t a problem to be fixed because you aren’t broken.
Being broken is a great illusion; one that people pay thousands of dollars to learn. I invested over $200,000 to find what was wrong with me in my business. I convinced myself that if I found the missing key to what was wrong with me, my money mindset would manifest $10,000 months as if by magic.
It didn’t happen.
While I’m on this topic, please stop victimizing yourself and the people who buy into the promise of the 6-figure bandwagon. No one twisted my arm to put down my credit card number to buy into something that I believed would fix me and my business. And no one twisted yours, or the people you feel sad for who buy programs or products that you are angry about.
Victimizing people never creates a solution, it only creates another “I’m good, they’re bad” game where both sides lose. It completely disempowers people from creating something different.
So back to your business…
If you have been obsessed like I am about the Mad Men series, it’s fascinating what advertising has created in our society. This advertising industry was invented and it is really good at telling us what’s wrong with us to get us to buy. And like good little robots, we buy.
We hope that the thing will make us happy. We hope that it will make us feel loved, fulfilled, skinny, rich, admired and gorgeous.
The coaching industry is going through what the housing market went through in 2008 and I don’t think we’ve seen the end of it yet. There are too many people blaming and not enough people thinking for themselves or asking enough questions.
I’ve been seeing for a while now the sales pitches that are based in fear, captivate people to sign up for stuff as a solution to their confidence “problem.”
As a coaching industry, we’ve made sales into the art of convincing people that the fear of missing out is the primary motive to buy something. What if we all started taking a hard look at the real value we offer and invite from a place of total TRUST?
Trust that the right people who want what we have and are READY to receive it, say yes. And the people who aren’t, will find exactly what they need next.
What if we actually trusted people to choose for themselves? Even when we can see (from our sometimes arrogant perception) that someone is sabotaging the hell out of themselves and using the same perpetual excuses that have gotten them where they are. Are you willing to trust that people can actually think for themselves?
I believe that the coaching industry does a lot of good in the world, AND we have to start thinking for ourselves. We have to ask questions instead of prescribe what we’ve been told from our coaching lineage.
We have to:
…take accountability for ourselves and stop victimizing people and ourselves. …stop blaming the “big earners” for taking advantage of anyone.
…learn that “no” is a complete sentence and friggin’ use it.
…have the courage to align with what is a yes for us, even when it’s unpopular.
…know the difference between fear keeping us in our smallness and resistance showing up because we are about to make a quantum leap of change.
I say WE, because WE are all responsible for ourselves. No coach, program, product, or president, for that matter, is going to save us.
What if there is nothing to be saved because we aren’t broken?
So this is why I can’t talk about marketing. It’s not the answer you are really looking for.
Most people are seeking permission that no one but themselves can give them.
Here is what I know for sure:
- Business and money are not so damn hard. We are just really good at complicating it to give us another thing to fix.
- Confidence is a choice. We’ve just believed that something had to happen before we gave ourselves permission to have it.
- Putting yourself out there before you FEEL ready is one of the hardest things you will do in your business. Courage is the key to life, not getting it right or perfect.
- Community that supports you is priceless. Being witnessed is part of what makes us get back up again when we can’t see what’s next.
- A coach can’t do the hard work for you. (or the easy work for that matter)
- You have what it takes. A program or product isn’t the missing key, trusting yourself is.
- Let your desires pull you forward, instead of the lie that you are broken push you into “solutions.”
- No is a complete sentence. Use it.
- You are the only one who knows when you are letting yourself off the hook.
- Trusting yourself starts with acknowledging that you are in fact, an alchemist of magic. You can take the mundane and ordinary and turn it something magnificent.
Recommended Resource:
Business Alchemy Workshop
Attend in person in Salt Lake City, UT or online where you’ll learn:
1. Discover practical ways to truly heal your money story and get out of the money mindset trap.
2. Let go of the struggle with marketing (whew!) and design your magnetic marketing plan.
3. Learn the key to owning your value and clearly communicating your message so you reach your ideal audience.
4. Learn how to put all of your gifts into one business so you stop getting distracted by “shiny object syndrome.”
