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 coaches, all right, we are talking about poisonous thoughts you may have that are impacting your business. I'm going to isolate some today. And I am so excited to be connecting here with you today. If you have not yet, please share this podcast with another coach that you know could benefit. I think speaking of regular thoughts that I hear so often.  I think as coaches you believe that you should be able to figure this out. You should be able to do this on your own. And I know that's a recurring thought I hear from coaches all the time. We expect so much of ourselves, we put so much pressure on ourselves, when the reality is that there's a lot to learn as we are building businesses. Expanding our mindset. Expanding our money beliefs. Expanding our skill set, sales, marketing, running a business, coaching.  So I just think it's so important to get out of this frame of I should be able to do this on my own, I should have figured this out by now, and rely on resources, and learn from everyone you can. So if you haven't yet shared this podcast with someone today, I promise that it will be useful for you, useful for them, and we can help each other out as we're building these businesses. Okay. So I wanted to isolate some thoughts that I hear regularly from my clients, as I'm working with them in my business, as we're working with them in the coaching collective. Building a coaching business is amazing, and exciting, and fulfilling. And it's also full of challenges, just like anything else interesting that we create in our lives. And as we build this business, as we have so many fears and doubts, and we have all these tricky ways that our brain is trying to keep us safe, I find there are common thoughts that come up for my clients. And some of them are very poisonous. In that they take your ambition, your excitement, your vision, and they minimize it. They diminish it. They try to shut it down altogether.  And the reason I think it's so important to isolate some of these thoughts and give a moment of attention to them here with you, is that, the only way that these thoughts have power over us, is if we don't see them for what they are. The thing about most of these thoughts is they don't really seem like thoughts to us. And we know this for our clients. We hear the things our clients say, and we can help our clients identify those things that they're perceiving versus what is actually true. We help our clients look at their perspective. Their views on the world. And it's very clear when talking to our clients.  But then when it comes to our own life and our own business, the thoughts that we have seem so true. They seem so real.  So I want to spend this time with you today, shining a light on these thoughts. Taking a look at them. The more you can recognize them, the more power you have over them. “If you can see it, you don't have to be it.” That's one of my favorite phrases. I've stolen from Alex Howard of the Optimum Health Clinic. Amazing coaching, amazing program they do for people with chronic fatigue. And that's one of the things I've heard him say so many times, and I love it. It's so simple. “If you can see it, you don't have to be it.”  Poisonous thoughts. Let's talk about them. How many of you can relate to, I should be further along in my coaching business. I'm so far behind. It's too late for me. There are too many coaches in my niche. I got into coaching too late. I missed it. How about the thought, I'm not that kind of person, the one who makes money, the one who succeeds, the one who's able to be such a leader and so powerful. How about I don't know enough, I'm not really an expert, I really should have more credentials. When I learn this, when I finish that, then I know I'll be qualified but right now I'm not there. I'm not smart enough. How about these questions; who do you think you are? Who do you think you are to try to build a business like this? Who do you think you are to charge people money for your time? These are some of the things that we hear all the time. So I want to isolate just a few of these here with you. And let's start off first with this idea that you should be further along. How often do you feel this way?  [00:05:00] I feel this way. I think this way. This is not. I am not exempt from any of these thoughts. So I want you to take a minute and notice what it is like for you when you think I should be further along. How do you feel? Discouraged? Do you feel hopeless? Do you feel devastated? What do you feel? My guess is whatever that feeling is for you, it's probably a feeling of being a little bit small. Maybe holding back. Closing down a little bit. I know for me, I feel that in my body when I think that. So I want to talk about a couple different ways this could go. Because for some of you, when you think I should be further along, you may feel discouraged. A sadness. Something that kind of causes you to just put a freeze on what you're doing. And what happens is, when you're thinking you should be further along, and you're feeling discouraged, and you tend to shut down a little bit, of course, this results in you not taking the action. Not doing the thing. Not moving your business along. It's definitely not infusing the energy, excitement, and momentum in you. And, of course, you know, because you're a coach, because you understand how all of these works. If you're believing you should be further along and you're feeling discouraged, and it's keeping you from taking the action you want, you are not going to be moving forward. Direct relationship between this idea that you should be further along and this result you're creating or not moving forward. I want to talk to you about a different version of this scenario that I've just played out for you. Because some of you may have a very different and yet similar experience of this thought. So for some of you, when you think I should be further along, you may feel a little bit of panic. Maybe some urgency. Maybe an anxious energy. And maybe in fact, you often use this anxious energy, this panic, to take what I call frantic action. I know this well, because this would be my model of this my version of, I should be further along. So what happens is we take this energy, this instinct that we have, and then we do things we do more. We take a lot of action. And the tricky thing about this version is that it can fool us into thinking that this is a useful way of thinking. And for each of you listening, if this is you, and you're thinking, yes, I do this. And yes, I think it is really useful, Molly, because I do a lot of things. I take a lot of action. That may be true for you and I also want you to make space to learn and see if there are ways it is not so true for you.  And I know that, I believe for me and for many of my clients who fall into this, that both can be true. There may be ways that taking that action is serving you. But it can also mean that you're taking action that is more scattered action rather than focused. It may mean that you are overworking. It may mean that you're not present in your business, in your life. It may mean that frantic action means a lot of energy put in, a lot of action taken, a lot of time spent with less results than you would desire. And certainly less results than possibly should be coming from all of that mental energy. Because if you think about it, and if you imagine, if going at your workload from more of a place of belief, of confidence, of grounded, of momentum, of moving toward this vision. Often what that looks like, is it looks like a more strategic approach. It looks like more focus. It looks like possibly more planning. It looks like really creating an experience of building your business that is more empowering than panicked and desperate. So for those of you that experience either one of these, take a minute to notice what it is creating for you. And one of the things that I talk with our clients about, is this idea of really accepting where you are, and noticing the resistance to accepting that. It's almost like we're believing that we should be further along on a trip when we just started. One of my coaches in the collective we were just talking about this on one of our master your coaching calls. And this is where we come together and we coach each other there and we face all the things that we're dealing with in life and business and really help our coaches to up level their coaching. And one of the coaches gave the analogy.  It's like being on a road trip.  [00:10:00] And you started the road trip. And you've been going the speed limit. And you're at a certain place. And you're really frustrated that you're not at the location yet because you believe you should be there already but you haven't gotten there yet. So I think that this seems very obvious to all of us. But it definitely doesn't feel that way in our business. And part of that is because people are always going to go at a different pace. Each of you are going to have your own style. And so that's what can complicate it a little bit. It's kind of, like, well, that person must have had a faster speed limit or a faster car. But I want to just offer to you this idea that, when you are resisting where you are, believing you should be further along, is it serving you? Because most of the time, it is not. And when you can spend a little bit of time acknowledging where you are and acknowledging how far you have come, that is how you're going to have empowered motion forward. This is something we do so much with our clients in the collective as well. Where we really help them to focus on the progress that they've made and how far they've come.  This is actually a very powerful brain trick that you can use that will allow you instead of focusing on the lack of where you believe you should be, and this gap, which kind of seems like a useful thing. Especially as coaches, we think about setting goals a lot. And this is where I want to go. And this is what I need to do to get there. While this is useful, I believe it's most useful in the strategic part of your planning, and less useful when just stuck as part of your frame of mind. Because when you're focusing on the lack, that's when you're always entertaining this idea of, I have so far to go. I should be further along. I'm so far behind. What if I don't get there? Notice all of these thoughts creating so much of a feeling of lack, scarcity, and can really bring a sense of desperation, either resulting in that shutting down that I mentioned, or that frantic action.  So the more you can make space for where you are, and truly inviting it in, and being with it, and seeing the power in how far you've come, it is everything for you. So those of you that have struggled with this thought, this idea that you're further along, take this in. I want you to imagine what it would be like if right now you could truly step into just for a minute, believing you're exactly where you should be. Appreciating the progress, seeing the potential, believing that you are on the exact path you need to be on. Okay, let's talk about the next family of poisonous thoughts. It's too late for me. These other coaches got in earlier than I did. There are too many people in my niche. Everyone's doing the same niche. How can I stand out? How many of you relate to some of these thoughts, some of these questions. So I want to speak just a minute to these. If you are believing that it's too late, there are too many coaches and you can't stand out, you are standing in the middle of scarcity for sure. Think about this, if you're believing that it's too late, there was this one point in time when opportunities were there and now they're not, you're not really believing in an abundance of opportunities. You're not believing in abundance in any sense of the world. You're believing there are limits. Limits on timeframes. Limits on clients. Limits on opportunity. So just notice where that comes out for you. Because as long as you're in scarcity, you can't really create abundance from scarcity.  The other thing this way of thinking means is that, we're not really making room for individuality. Think about this for a minute. If you believed that your unique gifts as a coach, and your abilities, and who you are, and your experience could not be duplicated, and you made room for that individuality to not only be there but to really matter, you would never thinking this way. Are there other people in your niche? Absolutely. But there's no one that's you in your niche. And so I think even though we know this intellectually, and we hear these great quotes about it, and it sounds like a great idea, what if it's actually true? Can you imagine what if it's actually true? And the longer I have been in this business, and the longer I have coached, I have seen it to be true.  There are people that are my people. And there are people that are not my people, people that would never want to work with me. There are people that are mentors and amazing leaders that I want to follow that I'm drawn to. And there are others that are highly successful and people love them. And that would never be my flavor for a leader in my life. So the more we can truly open up not only to abundance, but into this idea of individuality and appreciation for who you are and what you bring, it can definitely quiet all these noises around you, about too many in your niche, too late for me, not standing out. [00:15:15] And to be honest, what I find is, the more we buy into this idea that there are too many out there and that we don't stand out, and that there really isn't a unique place for us in our business, I find that it shuts down the best parts of us. Because we end up trying to be like someone else. Trying to beat someone else out in whatever niche you're in. And that's never going to be authentic. It's never going to be genuine. And it's not really you showing up as you. So if this is something you fall into, look at your abundance mindset. Check in with your beliefs. Really connect with who you are and what you offer, and what makes you so different. And make sure that you make plenty of space to be you in your business.  All right, let's talk about this last poisonous thought. I don't know enough. Another version of this would be something like I just need more credentials, like when I have this other training, or if I just learn a little bit more, or if I just torture myself with a few more thoughts of inadequacy about my skills, then I will learn what I need to learn in order to be confident. Believing you're not smart enough.  So I want to talk about this because I am a huge believer in expanding your knowledge and training. In the collective we offer advanced relationship coach training. We offer advanced coach training in our master year coaching classes in our program. I am a believer in it. I myself went after my master coach certification and immediately, as soon as I could, I had other training. I continued to expand my skills. So I am a believer in that. And yet, if you are believing that your ability to help people lies on the other side of those credentials only, if you are believing that that is where confidence is and you are always operating from this place of lack within you, have incapable, imposter syndrome, feeling this way and seeking these programs so that you can have more of a sense of certainty in yourself that's when it becomes a problem. And I will say for myself.  I can speak from personal experience, that initially when I started coaching when I got my certification, I fortunately was able to really connect with some beliefs about my coaching and connect with my coaching in a way where I had a very high level of confidence in my ability to help people. And I did put myself out there, and I practice, and I coached everyone, and I tried this, and I tried that, and I just went for it. And so I had a very high level of confidence. And yet, I did master coach training, as soon as I possibly could. I wanted that opportunity. I wanted to build my skills. I've done other trainings where I have increased my knowledge. Where I've got new skill sets. New tools that I brought in. And so I'm a big believer in it. And yet for me, I've come toward those things from a place of already having confidence and a desire to grow, and build, and expand. And that is the difference I want to point out to you. And if you want to know more about this, you can go back to an episode where I talked about confidence and competence.  Because I believe there is a level of competency that we want to create. And we want to bring confidence. And when we can have that confidence ahead of time and create that confidence while we are building our skills, it is everything. Because what that means is that we can help people now as we continue to build our skills. We put ourselves out there now; we practice and we're growing our skills with confidence as we're building them. So for each of you notice where this comes up for you. Are you online and you see a new program that offers something different? And you think, Oh, I should do that. Then I'll have more confidence. Then people will think that I'm qualified. And sometimes this even relates to this last poisonous thought we talked about, which is like there's too many in my niche, or how can I stand out? And so we see this program, or we think oh, if I have that, then I would be different and then I would be confident. So notice for you where it comes up for you. I am a huge believer in growing your skills and you have to create the confidence first and bring it with you. So definitely if you fall into this, think about how much weight you're putting into your credentials. And I will tell you in all the years that I've been doing coaching, I've had someone ask about my formal education one time. One time. People do not care what your credentials are. People care that you can help them. They care that you believe in them. [00:20:02] That you're willing to be there for them. Show up for your clients 100%. And you will have way better results with them than showing up with a lack of confidence with all the credentials in the world. Last thing I want to offer you in regard to this is to really make sure that, if you are believing you're not smart enough, that you don't know enough, that you need more credentials, challenge your beliefs by finding evidence to the contrary. Really challenge them in a serious way. Write down those doubts. Write down all of those thoughts telling you need more, or you're not quite there, or you're incapable. And I want you to prove that the opposite is true. The more you can challenge those thoughts in a tangible way, the closer you get to shifting your entire point of view.  All right, coaches, so great to be with you. Watch for these poisonous thoughts and others. Take all this in. Listen to this again. If you can shift these thoughts and go from I should be further along to total acceptance of where you are. And if you can get rid of this idea that there's too many coaches out there, and there's no room for you and instead move to a space of truly appreciating what you bring. And if you can really soften this idea that I don't know and I need more and instead bring confidence. With that acceptance, that room for individuality and that confidence you will be able to move forward in your business and make a difference. So good to be with you all. I will talk to you on the next episode. Thanks for listening to the Masterful Coach Podcast. You can check out www.thecoachingcollective.com for info about the ultimate program for coaches building a business. To find out more about Molly you can visit www.mollyclaire.com.