Intro: 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 serious about creating a meaningful coaching business that makes a difference, you are in the right place. And now, your host, master life and business coach, Molly Claire.

Molly Claire: Hey, coaches! You are going to love this episode. Listen, if you have ever found yourself shooting for the stars with a huge income goal and finding yourself always feeling discouraged and thinking you should be further along, this episode is for you.

I interviewed the amazing Amy Latta. I’ve had the privilege of working with Amy several times. I was actually her first coach instructor in coach training, and we’ve had many opportunities to work together, and I have loved watching her and the incredible work that she does in the world.

So, Amy shares some of her story about going after big income goals and what that experience was like for her and gives you a little bit of insight into her current view of the best way to set your income goals. You’re going to love it. Here we go!

All right, coaches, I am so excited to bring Amy Latta on the podcast today. So, hi, Amy.

Amy Latta: Hello, Molly. How are you?

Molly Claire: I’m good. I’m so excited to have you here for so many reasons. I don’t remember when we first met. You probably remember the year you certified.

Amy Latta: I remember exactly. It was the first week of April, 2016.

Molly Claire: Okay.

Amy Latta: And you were one of the certification instructors. There were five of you, and you were one of…. You and your sister Amy were both there. And we spent six days in the little Holiday Inn Express in El Dorado Hills, California.

Molly Claire: That’s right. The Holiday Inn Express.

Amy Latta: Yes.

Molly Claire: And what I remember is that when you came to get certified through the Life Coach School, you already had a coaching business going before that.

Amy Latta: I did.

Molly Claire: And I remember because I’d always, like, scope out the coaches, and I looked at your website, was like, “Oh, she’s got it going on. Like, she’s already been doing this.” So it’s like we all find reasons to be intimidated by other people, right?

Amy Latta: It’s so funny, because I love to tell the story of—people will say, “Well, Amy, how long did it take you to make $100,000?” I go, “Four years and 15 months.” And they’re like, “What?” I started my coaching business in 2013, so I’m in the three-year mark by the time I come to the Life Coach school, but I was making like $1,200 a year or $3,000 a year or like $9,000, and it took me another year before I finally started working with a coach that helped me get over what was going on in that range.

Molly Claire: Which, by the way, making that much money as a coach is also not uncommon. I think we have this idea that, like, oh, I’m the only one that’s not making much money here, but you’re learning a new skill…. We’re going to get into all this, right?

Amy Latta: Yeah.

Molly Claire: I could go on and on about this.

Amy Latta: For sure. But yes, everybody… I think it’s really important to know, I was making like… I think I made $1,200. And here’s the funny story. I didn’t want to put the Life Coach School. I wanted to pay for it. I wanted Amy to pay for it. Not Amy and Trey, my husband, to pay for it. And I knew that I could get a credit card with both of our names on it because my husband makes a full-time salary, but I wanted my own.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: And I am a former corporate marketer. I was somebody…

Molly Claire: That’s right.

Amy Latta: Before I took ten years off. And I still remember I needed the credit card. And I’m on the phone with Bank of America, and she’s like, “What was your income last year?” And I said, “Twelve hundred dollars.” And she goes, “A year?!” And I was like, “Yeah, a year. I’m good for it.” I think at the time coach certification was $13,000. I was like, “I need $13,000 line of credit. That’s all I need. My husband makes this much money. I’m good for it.” And the woman was like, “I can’t do it.”

And it really sparks this thing—I know this isn’t where the conversation was going, but it really sparked this thing inside of like, I was a corporate marketer making a lot of money, because I chose to stay home with my kids, I now can’t get credit in my own name so that I can better myself. And the woman at Bank of America was like, “I know.” I’m now certified in feminist coaching. None of it’s foreign to me, but that was a seed that was planted in that moment of, “Oh, no. Oh, no, no, no.”

Molly Claire: Yeah, this is not okay.

Amy Latta: We need to make things easier for the women out there who want to do something totally different with their lives.

Molly Claire: Yes. Okay. You guys, I’m so excited for this conversation for all of you, because, as I said, I met Amy back when she had already had her coaching business. I was one of the coaches that trained and certified her. Then Amy and I were in a marketing program together and trying desperately to figure out how to use the right words to sell and market and all that.

And I just remember watching you, Amy, and it was like, Amy was going to do the things. She did it, and she went all in and she went after it, and that always stood out to me. And then since then, of course, I was one of your Master Coach certifying coaches and all of this. And I’ve watched you. I was telling Amy, I’m like, “I watch you. I see the things. I see what you’re doing, and I’m so interested in what you’re doing.”

And so that’s kind of really why we’re here, is that I’ve seen you. I’ve seen the amazing work that you’ve done. I’ve seen you transform, at least at a distance. And, Amy, you have so much value to add to these coaches that are listening. So, thank you for being here and being willing to have this open conversation.

Amy Latta: Oh, yeah. So I want everybody to know this ain’t scripted. We had a whole list of questions that we threw out before we just hit record. So, strap in.

Molly Claire: We got on and I’m like, “Amy, I just looked over the questions, and I’m wondering if we can talk about something completely different.” Let me put on my red glasses. And here we go.

Amy Latta: Put my red glasses on. Yeah. So where are we going to start?

Molly Claire: Okay. So, I want to ask you, so you’ve been at coaching for a while, obviously, and I want to just know first, why did you first get into coaching? What was your motive? Why did you want to be a part of this?

Amy Latta: So, I actually just celebrated ten years when I first opened up my door. So, it was January of 2013, and I actually was joining a direct sales company that was weight loss, and it included weekly coaching calls with their clients. I had a fitness blog called Fit Mamas. I got some local moms together. We would meet at the mall with our strollers, and we would work out three days a week. And if it was nice, you would work out in the park. And I started blogging, and friends were just always asking me questions, and I didn’t have it all figured out.

So, this authenticity Amy that everybody knows, that’s been me from the very beginning. I would have blog posts about how it was so hard to have a toddler and a baby and to find time for myself. I just started having conversations with people. And I really loved the conversations, but I didn’t know how to make money from that.

Molly Claire: Yes, yes.

Amy Latta: I didn’t understand how I was going to make money for that. So here’s this product I can sell, and then I get to have conversations with people. I got paid from the product. I didn’t get paid from the conversations.

Molly Claire: Right, right.

Amy Latta: I entered it into this kind of like, well, no one’s going to pay me just to talk to me. I got to sell them something else and then I get to talk to them. So, like, I really didn’t understand what was possible when I first started coaching.

Molly Claire: Yeah, but I love that you shared that because in my experience, most coaches that get into the space, and especially most that I would say are drawn to the work that I do, that I work with, and probably you, too. It’s like they’re these coaches at heart, right? They love helping people. They’re connectors. They love helping people transform and inspiring people.

But then there’s this marketing skill gap—which this is a whole different conversation, but I’ll just say this. I think the gap we perceive, it’s much bigger than it is because I just believe as, like, heart-centered, mission centered coaches, we just market differently. And I think it’s just a matter of kind of learning how to do that. But I think what you’re talking about is very common. It’s like, we get into this, we love it. How do I make money doing it?

Amy Latta: How do I make money from this? Yeah.

Molly Claire: What does that mean?

Amy Latta: Yeah. So after I left the direct sales, because it just wasn’t clicking. This was long before I understood thoughts and feelings came before actions and results, because this was all action results. And I still remember my mentor telling me, “You can tap into their disgust.” And I was like, “Something’s not right about that. I’ve got to make people hate where they are in order for them to buy from me. Okay. I don’t think I like that.”

After about like 15 months, and I still remember…This is an important part. The first time I sold coaching without anything else, I sold it for $400 for six months. And I thought that was huge. I was like, “Oh my God, I just got 400 whole dollars just to talk to somebody every week for six months.” I sold three of those that year. That’s my $1,200.

Molly Claire: That’s the1200 right there. Okay.

Amy Latta: And I thought that was huge. I was like, “Oh my gosh!” But I didn’t know. And the funny thing is, I am a former corporate marketer, but so much about corporate marketing really kind of sucked the soul out of me. It was all about complying and fitting in. And again, if you’ve met me, you can see why that didn’t quite jive.

So I kind of threw the baby out with the bathwater at the time. I kind of forgot everything I knew about marketing because I associated it with this environment that was not good for me.

Molly Claire: Yes. And I think honestly, that’s really pretty common, right? Because especially people who love coaching, you want to be authentic, you want to connect. And so you have these marketing and sales tactics that seem sleazy and scripted and inauthentic and we’re like, “I can’t do that.”

Amy Latta: Yeah.

Molly Claire: So we throw it all out, right? Well, I can’t do that. So yeah, that’s such an important point. Okay, this is what I want to ask you. So here you are. We go from $1,200. And you have set your sites on some pretty big goals in the last few you years. And you’ve learned a lot from the setting of those goals and you’ve shifted a lot. So, tell me. Just tell me.

Molly Claire: Okay. Once I realized that I could make money—and that next year when I was certified, I made $6,000, and that seemed ginormous, but I made $6,000. And one of the peers in my…So I was in a class of 30. I think the Life Coach School now does classes of, like—I don’t even know if they do classes, but we’re talking 500,000 people at a time. I was in a class of 30. I actually knew...

Molly Claire: We were in-person, right?

Amy Latta: We were in-person, 30 people. I knew everybody. I made $6,000, but one of my peers made $100,000 in our first year.

Molly Claire: And it was the first time that someone had made that much in their first year.

Amy Latta: And I think this is really important. That was the first time anybody in the history of the Life Coach School… So this is 2016 into 2017. It’s the first time anybody did it, and it flipped the switch in a lot of our brains of, like, well, if one person can do it, why can’t all of us do it? Sounds like a good thought. It sounds like a really, really good thought, right? The possibility, the potential, and the “I want to be on that stage, too.”

I want to say my first mastermind for the Life Coach School was 2017, after I certified. I think there were, like, 60 people there, 75 maybe. Like, the 100k stage was, like, 12 people.

Molly Claire: I’m surprised it was even that big.

Amy Latta: It was ten. It may not have even been…. You want to know what? I don’t think it even was that big, because everybody fit into one limousine to go out to dinner.

Molly Claire: Yeah, like, I remember it was like, “Oh, my gosh, you’re going to the 100k dinner!” And there was this itty-bitty group the first…

Amy Latta: Yeah, it might have been more like six or eight people. So this thing switched in our head, and I think—I want to be really clear when I’m talking about it—this ability to inspire our brains into what is possible and to be aware, because I now know something that I didn’t realize then, is that something happened in my brain that was unspoken. I was like, “And anything other than that, I don’t even belong here.” Anything other than that…

Molly Claire: It’s not quite good enough.

Amy Latta: It’s not quite good enough. And it’s funny because you talk about this mission and this determination. And I will tell you this: now, Ironically, I just happened to have a conversation with a new client who is really wanting to put astrology into her business. And so I was just like, “Oh.” And I looked up my, you know, I’m Aires sun and Sagittarius moon. Turns out, focus and solitary, like determination towards one goal is something that I really do. But I also am very flighty and will bounce around. I thought that was very funny. I’m like, “Oh, look at my business.”

But that determination. And it was so good. And also, there was this unspoken thing of like, if I don’t pursue that, do I belong in this room with other coaches? Can I say I’m making $40,000 a year and I’m really happy here? And then the 100k became Two Comma Club. And then the Two Comma Club became the Eight Figure Club.

In other words, there’s always a constantly evolving. I’ve been constantly hitting higher or setting higher and higher goals. But here’s something that dawned on me. I never just loved where I was, because I did eventually. I went $6,000. The next year I made 18. And then the next year I made 103. I went from 18 to 103. So, what was that? Like, my fifth year or sixth year of coaching that I hit that.

Molly Claire: And spent how much in the making of the 103?

Amy Latta: Oh, let’s talk about that. I spent a whole lot of money. I mean, I kind of remember when I finally got into the black in terms of investments and return on investments.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: Somewhere I’ve done that math, but I can’t remember. I can’t remember where it was when I finally. I think it was in the next year where I finally started getting the black, where my investments—because remember, I took the payment plan for coach certification, so I actually paid $14,000 plus that $6,000 three month program you and I did, the $5,000 program that I took when that one wasn’t working. And then there was this $8,000 I paid to this coach, and then there was this retreat went on, and that doesn’t even talk about the money I invested in the previous coaching that I had done, right?

Molly Claire: And the reason I want to highlight this, and I’ll give a little my opinion on it—and by the way, this one coach that you’re talking about, I did interview her, and we did talk about this as well. So if you guys listening, you can go listen to my interview with Katrina, and she talked about that, and we talked a little bit about this too, how, yes, she was making this money, and then, yes, she was making multiple six figures and how much is going back into the business?

And what I want to say to all of you is that’s not necessarily a problem. It can be a problem. It depends on how your spending is going. But I just want to say it’s normal to have to invest time, money, and energy in your business. And I think it’s also—and we’ll talk more about this, I’m sure, with, like, when you’re spending money when you really shouldn’t have to spend that kind of money, which I know is something that you’ve been talking a lot about.

But I just want to say to all of you that it is normal to spend and invest time and money and energy into your business when you are building it foundationally 100%. And don’t believe for one second that the people that you see that hit this really high number in our mind really quickly, that there hasn’t been money and time invested, and don’t think that they’re just making this enormous profit immediately, because they’re not.

Amy Latta: Right. And there was this kind of understanding, you know, I’m making $6,000, and here’s Katrina making $100,000. And also, she invested twice in coaching outside of our certification. I certified, and we had this kind of—at that time, it was a very rudimentary business program. It was the first time the Life Coach school was adding business coaching.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: It was not up to the par; they were figuring it out as they went.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: And I thought, that would be enough. That’s all I need. It’s perfect. The idea of hiring another coach was like, I just paid $14,000. I’m not going to turn around and pay $25,000 for a coach. It was all I could do to get the credit.

I think what happens is that we get this idea, and what I can now go back and reflect on, when I hit the $100,000, I didn’t just savor it. I celebrated. I want to be really clear. I celebrated. Like, that was a huge day in the Latta household when I told my husband.

Molly Claire: So amazing. It’s a big deal, not because of the number, but because of all that you did to work toward that.

Amy Latta: The work I did for it, and the fact that I’ve been working since 2013, and that was happening in 2018, you know, I mean, these are years have gone by. You know, my husband was like, “Hey, the receptionist at this at the chiropractor’s office is retiring. You want to go down to the corner and apply for that.” That was the year I made $100,000, by the way, when my husband said that, because he just sees me working my butt off and you know, it’s not hitting Amy and Trey’s bank accounts. It’s hitting my business bank account, but it’s leaving as soon as it gets in there.

Molly Claire: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Latta: And if there is kind of like a “what I know now that I kind of wish I knew then” is that I immediately – I celebrated. It was amazing. And I immediately was like, “And now we go up, and now we go up, and now we go up.” And it was a constant drive to go up, up, up without ever really, for lack of better words, just kind of savoring a boring business that brings in $100,000 a year that I get to go work in.

I learned so much about talking to people. I gained so much confidence in my ability to strike up conversations with people that really did make… I was not good at that in those first five years. I had all of that, and I do sometimes think of that just kind of savoring, because then there was this expectation of, when you hit that, now you set your sights on half a million.

Molly Claire: What’s next?

Amy Latta: Yeah. What’s next? When you hit the half a million, you set your sights on the one million. When you hit the one million—and where is the holy crap? And savoring that business of, like, I have created this with my mind. People are investing in my mind, not selling them widgets.

Molly Claire: Yes. I know.

Amy Latta: Amy, when she first started coaching, I was selling product. They’re not buying products; they’re buying my expertise—and just really celebrating that. But there was this “that’s not what we do here.”

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: We’re always setting our sites on a higher goal.

Molly Claire: The next one, the next goal.

Amy Latta: And I never questioned it.

Molly Claire: It’s just like what you do.

Amy Latta: Yeah. Yeah. Because, like I said, I think that little seed was planted in my brain when I was like, oh, one person can do it. We can all do it.

Molly Claire: Okay, so I want to say a few things. One is, it’s definitely built into the culture, right, that we live in, and it’s also very natural for our brain to normalize whatever our new normal is. And this goes for all of you listening, and I say this, you’ve probably heard me say this before, but take a minute to take this in. Wherever you are in your coaching business right now, think about how far you have come and notice what a huge accomplishment that is, and notice, like, remember the moment when you thought, oh, if I could just be there, and where you were talking about is where you are now. It is so common for us to normalize that. And so we really have to make a conscious effort to see and celebrate how far we’ve come and just be excited about it over and over again.

Amy Latta: Literally, it’s one of the first things I do with my secondary group that I offer, is that the first thing we do is like, yeah, we’re setting our sights over there. We’re going to stop a moment, and I want you to look behind you.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: And it’s so powerful. Write it all down. Everything you’ve created, all the people whose lives you’ve touched, all of the content you’ve created, that did not exist when you were sitting on the couch going, “This life coaching thing, that’s a thing I could do.”

Molly Claire: I know, right. It’s such a big deal. And one of the things that—I’ve referenced Todd Herman of the 90 Day Year on this concept a lot because he talks about the Wow Brain and the Ow Brain. I don’t know if you’ve heard about that before, but it’s basically that people that look to what they want to create and they just focus on the gap. It’s the Ow Brain because it’s like, I have so far to go. It’s just this like, space of pain.

Now, not to say that it’s not good to set our sights on where we want to go, but the people that focus on the Wow brain or the “this is where I started, and look how far I’ve come.” And he says, “Hands down, the people that have that Wow Brain, that focus on ‘this is how far I’ve come,’ those are the people that will succeed because they are focusing on their strengths, on their successes, which builds motivation, all of it.” So it’s a big deal.

Amy Latta: So you even said the word the how and the wow. I’ve read Dan Sullivan’s book, The Gap and the Gain, the exact same concept, that we’re always in the gap of where we thought we should be at this point. But as soon as you go into the gain… I kind of like, ow/wow, gap/gain. I want to put my own words on this. I just haven’t figured out what they are yet. I don’t think of myself in the gain. But when you are in the gain, you are thinking about all the things that you created, such a celebratory place, and then translate that to the actions you’re going to take.

This is the exercise that we do on the first call I have with people in my secondary program, is the actions you take when you’re in the gap or the ow or you’re comparing, you’re scrolling, you’re not making offers…

Molly Claire: I’m so far behind. I should be further along.

Amy Latta: I should be further along. When you’re thinking that, what are you actually doing in your business? You’re doing all kinds of non-client producing work, non-revenue generating work. But when you are in the wow brain or the gain brain, you’re thinking about, holy crap, I created all that. That’s how far I’ve come.

And now you’re suddenly like, let me go create more. And now you’re brainstorming your clients, you’re thinking about them, you’re thinking about the problems that are standing in their way that you haven’t helped them overcome. And how are you going to do that? And all of a sudden, your brain gets creative and you’re coming up with new ideas for content and you’re going, you know what, I’m going to try a reel I’m going to give that TikTok a try, right.

We’re not going to do that when we’re in the gap and when we’re in the ow. So 100%, if you get anything out of this conversation, that right there will definitely change how you actually show up on a Thursday at 10 AM in your business.

Molly Claire: Okay. Yes. And then we’re going to have one more. So this is the moment in the podcast, we’re probably going to say this a whole bunch of times, but this is the thing you should take away also.

Amy Latta: Yeah, we’re going to take away so many things.

Molly Claire: So many things. I mean, really, honestly, because if you are listening to this podcast, you are a coach building your business and you have permission to decide what you want to create in your life and your business. And if what you want to create is a multimillion-dollar business and you want that, you have permission to want that and work toward creating that. And if you want to make $25,000 in your business every year, you have permission to want to make that. And all of you listening have permission to spend as much or as little time in your business as you want. That’s the point of this.

Amy Latta: Yes.

Molly Claire: We get to make it up. We get to create it. And I know a lot of my listeners really want a lot of quality time with their family and with their kids and they feel torn between these two things. And really, truly, you guys listening, the deal is, you get to decide what your ideal life and business is, and you don’t have to make it look like anyone else’s. And the minute you’re trying to make it look like someone else’s, you’re not really checking in with what you actually want.

Amy Latta: What you really want. Yeah. And I really want to say, don’t let anybody tell you you’re not dreaming big enough.

Molly Claire: Tell us more about that. Say more.

Amy Latta: All right. That there’s this idea of if you go, “You know what? I think I’d be okay making $100,000 a year.” Well, if you just elevated your thoughts more, we need to talk about why you aren’t…

Molly Claire: Thought shaming.

Amy Latta: Yeah, the thought shaming. We need to talk about why you aren’t open to more money in your life. We need to talk about why you are holding back on your big dream. And I’m like, okay, but also, let’s let people really simmer and marinate in the goodness of those goals that feel really fabulous to them.

And of course, it’s this nuance, right? Of course, our thoughts are the reality of what we create. Totally agree. And also, they can create really beautiful things in your life right now. And I’ve even started talking to my audience from this place of what’s the income…? And notice I’m saying income and not revenue. Revenue is what your business is, but income is what’s hitting your bank account. What’s the income that makes your life easier now, that elevates where you are now, that we are going to visualize this big, dynamic dream…

Again, if you have that, ‘I’m going to be a $25 million coach in my life.’ Amazing. Let’s visualize it. Give you a practice to be able to go there in your mind, visualize it, and how does that person think and feel? And today, what’s the income that actually elevates you?

Molly Claire: I love that.

Amy Latta: Our mind can actually wrap itself around that.

Molly Claire: Yes. That smaller goal.

Amy Latta: Yes. Again, for me, this is the—it’s what makes my life now just a little bit better and being able to think about what’s the dollar amount that allows you to do the things that you want to do? I’m a mom of two teen boys. I have a 20 something daughter. My husband, he’s 50, we’re getting ready to turn 49 and 51.

I’m thinking about these next four years, and then those boys are like—I got no boys into the house. And I’m just thinking about ‘I want to be able to put them in the camps they want to be in, play for those clubs they want to be in, have money to pay for their college, be able to buy a new outfit when I want to buy a new outfit and not have to worry about…’

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: And you want to know what, that dollar amount, that dollar amount is not $10 million. It’s not. That doesn’t mean that I don’t see Amy Latta coaching. I have—I don’t know if I can cuss on your show—big audacious. I’ll say audacious

Molly Claire: You get to say whatever you want on my show, Amy.

Amy Latta: I call it like your big ass dream. Like, I have that. I can see it. I can feel it. I believe leave that Amy Latta Coaching and my voice is going to be around the world. I can sense it. And also right now, I want to know that if my kid wants to go to that summer camp at that college summer camp that costs $2,000, that I can pay for it. I don’t have to worry about that.

Molly Claire: Yes. No worries.

Amy Latta: That dollar amount is actually way more attainable and may like my brain’s like, “Oh, that I can go do that. That’s I can actually sit down and I can go, how many clients a month do I need to sign in order to create that? And that is actually…Because as soon as my brain goes, “Well, how?”

And again, it’s not how am I going to make $25 million, but how am I going to make a million dollars? But when that becomes just who I am so I know the number of clients that makes my life just a little bit easier, and that’s just who I am, and that’s just how I operate, we can go anywhere from there. You can stay there.

Molly Claire: That’s right.

Amy Latta: You can stay there if you want to. You can add one more. We can go anywhere once we show our minds that we can create a coaching business that makes our life easier right now. And it’s not that I’m not dreaming big enough. And it’s not that I’m repelling money, and it’s not that I need to... It’s not that my why isn’t hard enough. My why is perfect. I love it so much.

And then when you really love that place, then you get to decide, for fun, do I want to do more? And not out of obligation, because in order to be with this in crowd, I have to say, oh, I want to be a million dollar. I want to be a $10 million coach, too. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve got big dreams, my friends.

Molly Claire: I wish that everyone could see your face when you just said that about your why. It was almost like she was like, holding and hugging her why.

Amy Latta: I was.

Molly Claire: It’s just so great and I love that.

Amy Latta: It’s so good. When I come back to…Somebody is ringing the doorbell. Hello! There’s, Lou, the chubby chihuahua showing up on the podcast. So, when I focus on that, your heart does light up a little bit. I can sense that. I can feel that. I think about, oh, I want to be able to fly to go see my mom and my sister who live in the Seattle area, and I’m in the midwest, and I want to not have to worry about the fact that airline tickets are $600 apiece or whatever, like, that changes my life right now.

Molly Claire: Yes, yes, yes.

Amy Latta: And that makes my life right now, so much more fabulous.

Molly Claire: Instead of just that future moment in time.

Amy Latta: Instead of just that future moment in time, where I’m on private jets and I’m buying all Gucci and whatever. Trust me, I have learned to appreciate some luxury hotel bedding.

Molly Claire: Sometimes there’s no going back once you’ve experienced that.

Amy Latta: I am going to tell you, sometimes when you go into a $2,000 a night hotel room that you’ve paid for with points, you’re like, “I don’t think I can ever stay in a Holiday Inn Express again.”

Molly Claire: Oh, my gosh, right? Okay. So I want to go back really quickly to one thing that you just— it’s come up a couple of times in different ways. So for those of you listening, this idea that when that coach, Katrina, made that 100k, it was like, “Oh, it’s possible.” And you were talking about how that seems like a good thought but not really sure. And then you kind of brought up again this idea of, you can have this be your goal, and it doesn’t mean that we need to say, why are you limiting what you want?

So here’s what I want to throw out there to all of you listening, is let’s take first this thought of, “Oh, if she can do it, then I can do it too.” If you have a thought like that, it could be that in some ways, that is very helpful for you, and you want to find out why. What about that is helpful?

And then there are also these other sneaky little thoughts that kind of surround it that are the problematic part of that. And so I think it can be easy. And I hope this is making sense. And Amy will make it more clear if none of this makes sense at all. But it’s this idea that understanding and paying attention to how thoughts impact you emotionally, and not always assuming that a thought that seems positive or good is having that impact on you, but paying closer attention to it.

Amy Latta: Yeah. When you were talking right then, what immediately popped into my brain when you were like, oh! And again, I trained with Katrina, she’s so amazing. But when she hit that 100k, that, “Oh, and I can do that too.” What I didn’t realize was the seed of: “I should do it too.”

Molly Claire: Yes. I should do it. I should be a little better. I should be a little faster.

Amy Latta: Yes. Not only is it possible that I can do it too, this little seed of should was planted.

Molly Claire: Yes.

Amy Latta: That’s, I think what you’re talking about, like the emotional resonance with it, of like, all of a sudden, I became the coach who no dollar amount was going to be enough because somebody was always making more. And I should also want that because that’s what we just do around here.

Molly Claire: Yes.

Amy Latta: And I remember being peripheral to conversations of coaches who were really happy making $300,000 a year and hearing them be told, “Oh, you could be making so much more money.” And [inaudible 37:01] is you should be making so much more money.

Molly Claire: Yes. You should want a different thing.

Amy Latta: You should want to be making more. And I saw this happen with coaches who are really happy with where they were.

Molly Claire: Yeah. So I want to talk about that for a minute, because I do think sometimes we set a smaller goal that is not effective or useful for us because it is coming from a place of limiting ourselves, keeping ourselves small sometimes, but that’s not always the case.

Again, this goes back to, okay, how much do you want to make and why? Why are you not wanting to make more? Why are you not wanting to make less? If money, just like every other circumstance, really is neutral, then why is more money a little better? But in all these other areas, these circumstances are neutral and one isn’t better than the other because it’s really the same thing.

Amy Latta: It is the same thing. It’s such a great question of like, oh, I want to make…And I get so many applications, or I meet so many new young coaches, and like, “I want to make a million dollars.” But as soon as you say why, you can tell the ones who’ve actually considered the question or not. Because they’re like, “Well, just because…”

Molly Claire: Because…

Amy Latta: “…Because that’s what we do around here.” And I’m like, “Mm, all right, we need to have a conversation.” Yeah. Which is very different than somebody who’s like, “I want to make a million dollars. And the reason is because I want to be an angel investor into other…” And they actually put thought and reason, “and this is how much money that I want to be able to live off of, and I want to have this amount of money because I want to do this and this and this with my money.”

And even the people who are like, I just want to be able to be that person that does that. I’m excited to become that person. But these are answers that you can tell have been given more thought than just, that’s what I see everybody else saying.

Molly Claire: Yeah, this is like the next thing I’m supposed to…Like, we don’t even think about it, right? We’re just like, “Okay, sure, I’ll pick that number too.”

Amy Latta: I’ll pick that number, too. And I know you kind of keep talking about it in one way, and I think it’s the important message of: there’s no number that’s wrong. You’re not wrong for wanting to make millions of dollars, and you’re also not wrong for wanting to make $50,000.

Molly Claire: Yeah. Yeah.

Amy Latta: And I think what we’re talking about is this real nuance of deciding that $50,000 or $100,000 or $300,000 when you’re making $1,200, all of those dollars sound beyond reach. I know, because I was there. When you’re making $1,200 in one year, you’re like, “$25,000 would change my life.”

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: When I say these smaller amounts, trust me, I know that it’s all relative. When you decide that, I think the question that I get asked is, well, how do I know if I’m settling? How do I know if I’m settling? And I think we just need to even answer the question of, like, what do we mean by settling?

As a human being, we are all capable. cosmically, universally. I’m not particularly religious, but, like a God ordained, if that’s your language. We are all capable. It’s all within our power to achieve literally whatever we want to achieve. I don’t think that’s ever in question. I just think that it becomes the ‘how do we know if we’re settling?’ For me, it is a sensation in my body, it is literally going… not thought wise. This is why I have that like, oh, you’re not thinking high enough. And I’m like, yeah. I don’t know if my thoughts have anything to do with it. Let me go visit that inner knowing that’s in my gut that I can only get there when I’m super quiet and I actually turn my thoughts off.

Molly Claire: Yeah. Yeah. Actually be with you.

Amy Latta: Actually be with ourselves. And if I had been checking more in with myself on that level as I kind of became $100,000 coach, $200,000 coach, a $400,000 coach, I think things would have been very different because I was spending more money on coaching than I was paying myself. I think a lot of people have the assumption that when you’re making that much money, you’re sitting on a mountain of cash. Well, maybe. I wasn’t. All my money was going to running my business in both coaching and coaching expenses and Facebook ads.

And if I were to do it all again, I would totally do it very differently. And I definitely reframe that now. I’m able to teach that kind of, like, if I were to do things differently kind of way. But also, I was doing thought models, and I was like, what’s the result I want to create? And what’s the thought and the feeling I need to create that. But I wasn’t even questioning the result I wanted to create. I didn’t want to create that.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: Am I getting super quiet in the quiet spaces where you really are going into... And we both know who Bev Aaron is. She’s a deep dive coach, and I’ve worked with her in the past. She’s such a master at helping you really go into the sensations of your body and listen to what comes up from them. And I’ve worked with her in the past, actually, we just had our last call this week. And I’m like, oh, this would have been a great thing for me to do on a regular basis from the very beginning and just check in with, like…So how do I know if you’re settling? Go talk to you. Go check with yourself.

Molly Claire: Yes. I really want to highlight this because, you know, you were talking about clients saying, you know, how do I know I’m settling? Or all the other questions that I’m sure my clients and your clients ask a similar thing. We have a similar business, right? Similar things that we do. We’ll talk a little more about that.

But I think usually the answer to those questions is ask yourself that same question and keep asking, right, well, am I settling? What does that even mean? If I am, does it matter? Because I also think in reality, that if we were going for the biggest and best and highest of absolutely everything in our life, like, that’s not human. It’s not humanly possible. And I think sometimes there’s a place in our life where we’re like, yeah, I could probably do more, but I don’t really care about doing more. I’d rather have my energy be here or there.

And so I think it’s so much about choice, and I think for those of you listening, if you’re wondering, am I settling? Should I have a higher goal? How do I know? I know where the answer is. And it is a lot closer than you think, right? Ask yourself and trust that you either know right now, or you will know, as you keep asking yourself.

Amy Latta: And I think that’s the thing. This is not a one and done where you go into your body and you get real quiet, and you do it one time and you find the answer, and then it’s a continuous revisiting. And this is something I know for sure. I lost. I was shown how to do that. And then now I’m suddenly in rooms where it’s like, this is the room where we’re going to make 100k. This is the room we’re going to make 200k. This is the room we’re going to make $2 million. This is the room we’re going to...

And I never checked back in with myself again. I just was like, I checked in with myself a couple of times, and now I’m on this train. I haven’t ever questioned whether or not I should get off the train. Never question, is it still headed in the direction that I want to or the speed I want to? I don’t know if you’re ready to transition to this conversation, but one of the things that I found out is I hate launching.

Molly Claire: We just talked about that, right. We need, like, a launch recovery group.

Amy Latta: If I had stopped and I had questioned, I might have said, is this even how, like, whether the business goal might have been the same? But the way that I got there, maybe the train is…I’m going to go ahead and use the train analogy here. Maybe I want to end up at the same destination, but maybe I want to take an entirely different route that looks very different and it feels very different. It might be slower, it might be faster, but it’s just a different experience. Because if I was checking in with myself and I could be like, I really don’t like this.

And here’s the thing. I don’t even know that the words were said, ‘It’s just your thoughts.’ But I had heard it so many times, I was beating myself up with my own thoughts. Yes. Well, I would love launching if I just changed my thoughts about launching.

Molly Claire: Yeah. I mean, Amy and I would always kind of joke that we felt like a triage center sometimes because people come in and our new coaches and we hear, “I know this is just a thought. I know this is just a thought.” Yeah. And it all is. And we welcome all of them. They are all just there existing.

Amy Latta: Yeah. I think it’s the knowledge that, yes, of course, everything is just our thoughts. And also that doesn’t mean there’s a problem with them.

Molly Claire: Yeah, that’s right. And sometimes I think when we can say, yes, this is a thought, and do I want to keep this thought? Maybe I do. Do I like it. Do I not? What’s my opinion about it so much better to make friends and get to know that thought a little bit before just deciding that it must be a threat, and I need to eliminate stop thinking this way.

Amy Latta: Let’s do an analogy here. I think here’s a great analogy of like. I know it’s just my thought. And the food that’s coming up is actually a food I actually really like, so I can’t even think of, like, I know... By the way, I like green beans, but okay, we’ll talk about my kids then. I know it’s just a thought that they don’t like green beans, and so they hate the green bean before it even hits their plate. Sorry. I don’t like it, I don’t like it, I don’t like it.

But, like, inherently, they may not like green beans. I guess I can coach them to change the thought about, like, it’s not as bad as you think it is, and I’m going to be neutral about the green beans. This is how we’re approaching certain things in our business. There just might be something… Maybe you just don’t like the texture of launches. It just doesn’t vibe with you. Yes, you can coach yourself thought wise to find an energy that will feel less comfortable to you. And this is where I’m going to make everybody fall out. Sometimes you can just change the circumstance, too.

Molly Claire: You can.

Amy Latta: Just want to offer it to you. And I’m saying the truth. By the way, Molly, I just had a visceral reaction because I’m literally looking at the person who coached me to be a master coach instructor, and I’m like, I’m not supposed to say you can change your circumstances.

Molly Claire: Oh, no, I think you’re quite masterful, Amy. I think you’re quite masterful.

Amy Latta: But really, I think it’s important that, like, sometimes you can coach. Of course, you can coach yourself, too. And I just want to offer to you that sometimes that requires more energy, that’s energy being spent to force yourself to think a certain way about a circumstance that you could be putting towards something else.

Molly Claire: I think there is a huge difference between awareness of our thoughts, acceptance of our thoughts, working within our thoughts and trying to manipulate our thoughts and using our awareness as a terrible weapon against ourselves, a new way of beating ourselves up. And I talk about that a lot. We could probably have a whole other podcast on just that.

Amy Latta: It’s like, self-flagellation, like, just beating ourselves up with how we’re thinking, and it’s like, you know what? Maybe you just don’t like that. And of course, we can coach ourselves in thinking and feeling in a certain way. I just don’t think that’s a great use of our energy, and I think it’s punishing ourselves, and we don’t have to.

Molly Claire: Yes. Totally agree. Okay, I want to wrap this up. I want to say a couple more things, and then I would love for you to give just, like, one piece of advice to the coaches listening, whether they’re new or seasoned or anywhere at all. But a couple of things I want you all to consider before we end this podcast is thinking about the Ow Brain and the Wow Brain, the Gap and the Gain, or basically this space of, ‘I’m not there yet. I have so far to go, I’m never going to get there. I should be further along.’ And the other space, right, the Wow Brain or the Gain, which is, ‘look how far I’ve come. I can’t believe what I’ve created. I’m so excited about all of this and my progress.’

Notice how much time you spend in the Wow Brain versus the Ow Brain. And if you don’t like that number, commit to switching it. And the other thing I want to ask you all to think about is, are you willing to give yourself permission today to make a space where whatever you want in your life and business is okay?

And in fact, whatever you want in your life and business is the best thing because it is your life and it is your business. And when you anchor yourself in what you want, that’s when you can really create it, when it’s there.

Amy Latta: One hundred percent.

Molly Claire: Okay. Amy, anything to add to that and/or your amazing words of wisdom to these coaches listening.

Amy Latta: Of course! Oh, I only have 27 things that popped into my head at one time. So now it’s like, oh, I know nothing. I know nothing. I have no words. I think more than anything—and we hear this and I just don’t know that we really follow it. Is that when we really are being truthful when we say there’s no one way. I want to offer that. As many of you that are listening right now, that’s how many different ways of doing business.

Molly Claire: One hundred percent.

Amy Latta: Because you’re going to bring your vibe, your energy, your values, where you want to spend your time and energy to your business. And this is actually something another coach who’s not even a Life Coach School coach said to me literally years ago, this might be a Martha Beckism. I’m not entirely sure where it comes from, but it’s just this idea of, “If your emotional and financial security are guaranteed, what would you decide? What would you do?”

It is a question that has redirected me over and over again. I know that emotionally I’m going to be okay. And there is no emotion I can’t handle. I can’t actually die of humiliation or shame. I’m just going to have to experience it. If I know financially I’m going to be fine. I’m going to be able to pay for my kids’ school and put eggs on the table. Eggs are a thing right now.

Molly Claire: Oh, they sure are.

Amy Latta: I’m going to be able to buy eggs for my family and all of that. What would I decide? And if it’s not what the coach next to you is doing. Do you love yourself and have your own back enough to still love your answer and to say it out loud and to not be like, oh, that’s really interesting. This is what I want to do, because I really think at the end of this is…Now I’m going to get a little meta about it all. We really are creating our own experience here, and we spend so much time worrying what other people think of our experience.

Molly Claire: And they aren’t in our experience.

Amy Latta: They aren’t in our experience, they’re having their own, and they can have all the thoughts and feelings about what we’re doing or what somebody else is doing, but really, this is our ride around the sun. And what do you want it to feel like? What do you want it to look like? And to love yourself enough to say, and I love that answer for me, this is the experience I want to have in my business. And you don’t need to change that answer to fit in with anybody else.

Molly Claire: Yeah.

Amy Latta: Because as soon as you do that, the person you’re distancing yourself from is you. The person you’re not fitting in with is you. And that’s the last thing I want.

Molly Claire: And that’s a really uncomfortable place to be.

Amy Latta: That’s the most uncomfortable place to be.

Molly Claire: Yes. Brilliant. So good. Okay, Amy, thank you for being here. So the good news is, all of you listening, that I know you want to hear more from Amy, and she has a podcast, the Confident Coaches Podcast.

Amy Latta: The Confident Coaches Podcast.

Molly Claire: So, check that out. And Amy and I both work with coaches building their business. Our programs are a little bit different, but you have? Tell the people, what do you have?

Amy Latta: Yeah, so I think the program that I have that’s probably a little bit similar to you, is free to paid coaches, brand new coaches who are just trying to figure out what the heck they’re doing and how to become a paid coach. And it really has my confident basics to get you to that 10k. I know that you have a similar program. Molly has a vibe and I’ve got a vibe.

By the way, can I just make a note real quick? I’m a real big fan of…Some of my closest business besties, we sell very similar things and we text each other and we cheer each other on because there’s more than enough.

Molly Claire: Yes.

Amy Latta: There’s more than enough. So you’re going to vibe with Molly if you’re a brand new coach, you’re going to vibe with Amy if you’re a brand new coach. Once you’re in that, like, 10 to $20,000 range, I have an ongoing group program called Path To 100k. And that’s where we’re going to really start looking at a lot of what we talked about in here. Where is this decision coming from? What’s already working for me? What am I doing in my business that’s because somebody else told me I had to do it?

Molly Claire: Yeah, I love it.

Amy Latta: And then there is also for people who want that work but don’t necessarily want a group program, I do have some limited one-on-one spots.

Molly Claire: Yeah. Awesome. Amazing. Amy, thank you so much for being real and sharing all of your wisdom, and I just appreciate you being here. Thank you.

Amy Latta: I do, too. And Molly, like, for real, it’s been 2016. You’re the one person that has been a mentor that I have stayed in touch probably the longest with. So thank you.

Molly Claire: So fun. All right. More to come, right?

Amy Latta: More to come.

Molly Claire: Okay. All right. Thanks, Amy. Have a good one.

Outro: Thanks for listening to The Master Coach podcast. If you’re ready for complete support as you build your coaching business, check out Molly’s collaborative community, The Masterful Coach Collective. It’s a place where you’ll have access to the best experts in the biz, community support and guidance as you build your perfect business 90 days at a time. Visit www.mollyclaire.com for details.