Welcome to the masterful coach podcast with Molly Claire, where coaches learn Skill Mastery, Business Mastery, and Life Mastery at a whole new level. If you're ready to create a meaningful Coaching Business that makes a difference, you're in the right place. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Molly Claire. Hey everyone, welcome to this week's episode. I am so excited to dive into these three pillars of mastery in your business today. I think just understanding the idea that these three pillars exist in and of itself can cut out so much self-doubt, frustration and give you a lot of clarity in what you need to do to move forward in your business. Today, I'm just going to be touching on each of these three areas in future episodes, I will be going in depth in each of them in a lot of different areas in ways. But for today, like I said, we're just going to talk about just touch on each one at a high level and give you an overview on why each of them matter as you build your Coaching Business. First of all, why does understanding these three different pillars matter? Let me back up and tell you that the three pillars we're talking about today are; Coaching Mastery, Life Mastery and Business Mastery. I like you to put the things that you're learning into these three buckets, because it really allows you to have clarity. Here's what I mean, let's imagine that your sales or marketing process is not going that well, you haven't quite figured it out, and you’re still in the stage of trial and error. Well, all of a sudden, our brain can decide that this must mean I'm not a very good coach or our brain may decide, I'm not very good at managing anything in my life, I'm kind of a mess. So notice that the problem is within the bucket of Business Mastery, specifically within sales and marketing in your business. And yet, you are allowing that to bleed over into your coaching skills, what you believe about that, bleed over into your life and what you believe about yourself. I'm sure many of you have experienced this, I know that I have absolutely, it can be really easy when we are frustrated in any one area of our business or things are not going the way that we want to allow that to bleed over into these other areas. We make it bigger than it is and we really confuse the issue at hand. My hope is that as you listen today, you will start to think about these three buckets in your business and you will be able to see the difference between each of them and see why it may benefit you to focus on one at a time. That's not to say that, oh, you're only focusing on Coaching Mastery for six months or a year and then you switch not at all. But as you're building your business on a daily basis, that you separate each of these three areas out. If you're here, you obviously are a coach wanting to have a successful business, a masterful business done well. I want to tell you that whether you're just starting out and brand new to learning all of the skills you need, this is useful for you. If you are maybe working toward that 100k doing really well but not quite there, this will be helpful for you. If you're one of those coaches who has passed that 6k Mark, and you're now ready to expand and scale again, this is vital to helping you as you move forward. Specifically for those of you that are moving beyond 100k, I will be speaking in future episodes about that Business Mastery and scaling. How to really expand your business, expand your beliefs in yourself and everything that's required. No matter where you are in your business, I want you to think about these three pillars; Coaching Mastery, meaning your skill set and your confidence about those skills. Life Mastery, this is how grounded you are in the life that you want, how clear you are on how your business fits into your life. Then there is Business Mastery, building a business that aligns with you, your values and your contribution to the world. Let's focus first on Coaching Mastery. What do I mean by this and why does it matter? I'm talking about Coaching Skill Mastery; your competence level within coaching. Now, depending on the type of coach you are, you may use the cognitive model like LCS or you may have plenty of other tools that you use. Let's first talk about Coaching Mastery. What do I mean by this? And why does it matter? I'm talking about mastering your coaching ability, your skills, competence and also definitely related to this is your confidence in those skills because one thing that I'm going to speak to in later episodes is the difference between competence and confidence with your coaching. Competence is really about the skills that you have. This includes the knowledge that you have, tools that you use in your coaching, that you've practiced a certain amount of time, maybe you have a certain experience in that it is your actual competency level and how effective you are at using the coaching skills that you have been trained in. There's also confidence in those skills and in your ability to use those skills, which is a different thing. Sometimes we can rely too heavily on our confidence, and not really work to hone our skills, which can get you people in the door because you're pretty good at marketing and sales but it's not going to be a very consistent long term option. Alternatively, some people can have a lot of competence but they are maybe stuck in perfectionism and thinking they need more credentials and other certification, more something, even though in truth, they have a solid set of skills, and they're just lacking confidence. This is something I'm going to talk about more in future episodes but I just wanted to touch on it because I want to make sure that when you're thinking about Coaching Mastery, you're not thinking about falling into perfection or believing that you have to have everything figured out everything mastered before you can coach. Notice that I'm not talking about a mastered coaching skill but I'm talking about Coaching Mastery, which is always mastering always improving. This is the difference between where we can get really caught in perfectionist thinking, when I do all these things then I will have arrived versus seeing we've never really arrived when it comes to our coaching skills. We're always mastering them, we have mastery and that we're always improving. I'm talking about Coaching Mastery, I want you to think about it in that frame. Why is Coaching Mastery such a big deal? Well, number one; this is the product that you offer. This is the thing that you hang your heart on as being able to give people to make a difference. So personally, I feel it's important to know that I am offering a good product, there's a lot to be said at being excellent at something. This really allows you to feel good about what you offer. The other benefit of this is that when your clients are maybe not getting the result that they are asking to have you help them with, maybe your client is struggling, maybe your business isn't going the way that you want, you can remind yourself and ground yourself in the skills that you have and the confidence. Furthermore, you can also be a coach who's open to saying, I wonder how I could improve how could I show up even better in this way because the truth is that mastery isn't just about something that we've arrived at but a willingness and an openness to always be learning and growing. So be excellent. This is important. Having excellence will allow you to feel good about what you offer, allow you to navigate the challenges that your clients may be having both with an assurance that you are showing up in the best way and also with a curiosity to the ways that you can show up better. The other reason that Coaching Mastery is so important is; to be honest, when you are giving people an amazing coaching experience. People cannot help but refer to you. I know some of you listening want a referral based business this is the key be such an amazing coach that people cannot help but refer to you. This in and of itself can be your marketing strategy if that is the type of business that you want. The last thing that I'll touch on here with regard to Coaching Mastery is what I've already spoken to which is really having less drama, fear and doubt because when you are solid in your steps that you have in place to continue to master your coaching when you have that level of competency when you're solid in those skills, when things aren't going the best way, when your clients are not getting the result that you want, it's going to allow you to cut the drama, cut the fear, cut the doubt and make it clear as to what needs to happen. I hope this gives you a little bit of taste of this and for those of you listening, thinking, hmm, maybe I need to work a little on my Coaching Mastery on my skills on my ability on my confidence. Just make note of that and specifically ask yourself how will focusing on Coaching Mastery impact my business? Let's talk next about Life Mastery. When I talk about Life Mastery, am I suggesting that in order to have a successful business, you have to have mastered your life or that you have to have everything perfectly organized perfectly on track, perfectly balanced, always present? Absolutely not. Because I am talking to you here as a human as well and I would say, I feel like I have a very successful business, my private practice, as well as my partnership. My life is a lot like your life most likely, where I'm still figuring out how to navigate parenting, balance, how to make sure that I'm present and how to make sure that I'm always improving. When I'm speaking about the importance of Life Mastery, I'm not talking about this in terms of something you have to have figured out but rather that you have the life that you want, front and center in your mind. A lot of people can get caught up in building this business in achieving this thing they want and the reason that you want the business that you want is because of what it means for your life. We can get so caught up in that, that we lose sight of what the point really is. Imagine, you are thinking, I want to create this business so that I can have time and freedom and flexibility then suddenly, you find yourself a slave to your computer, a slave to social media, a slave to your clients because in the pursuit of creating time, freedom and flexibility, you are completely squashing out your time, your freedom and your flexibility. I know many of you can relate, I know that I can relate to this. For me personally, as I was building my coaching business, I was also becoming a single mom and at the time, I did not want to give up the time and flexibility that I had with my kids, with their schedule, being really involved in our lives is something that really mattered to me. I didn't have that as a kid, my mom was working all the time, I mean, an exorbitant amount of time. I didn't like it and I never wanted that. I really valued the time and relationship that I had with my kids. I was really afraid that that was going to go away and that wasn't okay with me. For me, my big why was, I want to create a business that allows me to be there for my kids, with all the things that are most important to me to be there, I want to be at activities, I want to be there when they need help, I want to be able to take them on trips. Over time as I get older and my kids get older, I want to be able to travel and have flexibility to be able to visit them and be involved in their lives. This was my big vision. Then as I started building my business, oftentimes I would find myself on the couch in the evening typing away fixing this, fixing that and it was a constant balance of figuring out, how do I create the life I want now while building toward something even bigger, even better. Honestly, I feel like I remember a point in time, it was probably maybe my third or fourth summer time building my business and I remember thinking, Oh my gosh, like I've finally figured a few things out. I had finally hit this place of rhythm where I was able to be a little more present, where I was able to draw a line around personal and work time, where I was able to create the experience I wanted in the summer with my kids, while also continuing to move my business forward. What I want to offer you in terms of this first point with Life Mastery is it's really important to have the vision of what you want in your life before moving forward with your business because that's going to allow you to create a business that will support the life that you want and not the other way around.  Next point is within Life Mastery, having your priorities and values in place makes it so much easier to move forward because when you are falling out of alignment in your life and you feel like you're not holding to those things that you value or that you prioritize, it can get really frustrating. This is when you can doubt yourself and also build a lot of resentment towards your business or frustration in your business. Having those priorities and values in place will not only allow you to move forward more easily but it's also more likely that you will actually stay the course and build your business rather than giving up and quitting. Let's talk about Business Mastery. Obviously, there is so much to be said in this realm and I'm going to be talking more about this in future episodes, for sure. But I want to just talk about three basic things here. When it comes to Business Mastery or having a masterful business, first and foremost, make sure that you are showing up and committing to that end goal. The key is not to have success after success after success. Actually, the truth is, you're going to have a lot more failures than successes, those failures build that success. But when you can be clear about that end goal that you want and commit to it, it is everything. I've shared the story before, and I'll speak more in depth about on future episodes as well. But for me, I had this goal of what I wanted to make specifically and that amount seemed way like above and beyond what I thought I could create. I had a life in mind that I wanted, I was so committed to creating that, that it didn't matter how many times I failed, it didn't matter how many times my results were not lining up, it didn't matter how many times I had self doubt, fear, worry, any of it come up, I decided that I would keep showing up, I would commit to that end result no matter what. When it comes to Business Mastery, you're going to be learning a lot of different skills as you go. So committing to that endpoint is so important. Which leads me to my next point in Business Mastery; of the importance of honing each skill and accepting it as part of the process. I remember sitting in my room on the floor with my laptop on my lap and feeling totally overwhelmed in thinking about all of the skills I had to learn. I was a fairly new coach, I felt like my coaching was going pretty well, I was bringing in clients, I was definitely having plenty of practice coaching, feeling pretty good about it, but what I didn't realize is that coaching was only one part of it. I also needed to learn how to do sales and marketing, run an online business and what is running a business even look like? All of these new skills that I was learning all at once and as I thought about all of those things that needed to be done, I felt so overwhelmed. When it comes to Business Mastery, there's a lot to be said for laying out all the skills that you need to learn and honing each skill in and accepting that as part of the process and remembering you're not supposed to have it all figured out. You're not supposed to have it all mastered but you do accept that learning each of these skills is just part of the deal. The last point I'll speak to on Business Mastery today is about integrity in your business and congruence. As you are building a business, one of the number one mistakes that I see coaches make is building a business that's someone else's ideal business, taking what someone else's goals are, taking someone else's business model that doesn't actually fit with the type of business that you want to have, doesn't fit with your values or what you want to offer the world and trying to believe that you're supposed to do business the way someone else's. One of the most foundational things that I do with my clients and that we do in our work in the coaching collective is to help our clients get clear on what their ideal business looks like and this may seem like a small thing, but let me tell you, it is everything. The two times in my business that I saw the biggest longest pause on my growth, were the two times that I knew inside the direction I wanted and needed to go in my business and I listened to another voice and outside voice who I saw as an expert, tell me that I should do something different with my business. These are the times that I had that slowdown, don't get me wrong. There's a lot of value in listening to experts and I invite you all to take in information and think about what expert advice you can get from people that have gone before. However, it always has to run through your own filter. Does this feel right to me? Is this in alignment with my ideal life? So in a nutshell, when it comes to Business Mastery, when you can connect to that end goal, hone each skill as you go accepting that as part of the process and also make sure that you're grounding yourself in integrity and in alignment with you, that is the key right there. I'm going to be talking so much more about all of these. Hopefully, this gives you an overview of these three buckets. For today, think about when you go to your desk and you're looking at your day and you're sifting through what you're doing, just start to flag different things on your to do list as far as what category they fall into. Ask yourself how am I doing with my coaching, competence and confidence? How am I doing with making sure that my life vision is clear first? How am I doing with committing in the business realm to continuing to work on each skill as I go? That's what I've got for you today. I can't wait to see you on the next episode. Talk to you then.