Okay, so, because many of my listeners are becoming coaches or becoming entrepreneurs, or what I lovingly call a coach-preneur, I want to share with you what you should focus on sooner and what focus is for later, so you don't get hung up too soon on things that aren't going to serve you well in the beginning stages, and there are a lot of people out there who would love for you to buy their service, course, and coaching, three years before you need it.
If you are just starting out and you see things all over Facebook and Instagram, and you're signing up for things and getting all these emails about building out your funnels or taking an online course that teaches you how to create a course and launch in four weeks so that you can make six figures, just stop and don’t do it. If you haven't been coaching, that is not where you're at yet. If you haven't started creating a business, that’s not where you're at yet either. I'm literally going to give you a roadmap and I'm asking you to trust me. I'm also going to tell you about how to define the focus, remember the focus and file that focus where it needs to be.
So let's talk about the difference between the root focus and the fruit focus first. Obviously, roots and fruits are in two opposite places on the tree. But, more importantly, they're very different seasons with a very different timing. So the roots have to begin to develop before you can bear good fruit. You have to have the roots so you can grow a trunk and branches and later start to see flowers before there's fruit. But first you need the roots to find their way into some good soil. And the difference between these two is that one's tangible and one is intangible. So if you're struggling because you're like I can't see the work that I'm doing, I don't see any results, it’s because some results are tangible and some are intangible.
And if all you're focused on is tangible fruit, let's say money in the bank, or testimonials from clients with amazing transformations, or a built out and fully optimized website, or a sense of true confidence and lots of clarity about your future, then you're not actually going to see those things actualize quickly or sustainably. You can't have fruit before you have a tree. If you believe in these things coming to pass because you're doing the work to create a root system that can hold up a tree and source the fruit with life giving nutrients, that kind of focused vision is valuable.
But if you think cutting corners and multitasking and skipping the line is how you're going to get the fruit, you are mistaken. So you have to manage yourself well here, because your impatience, your drive, your thoughts and needs about getting, having, doing, being, and even your overall desire for this to come to pass quickly, will work against you if you don't manage yourself.
So get clear first of all on what you really want. If you say, ‘I want a website’, okay. Do you want a website so you can point people to what you have done, so they think you're legit, or so you feel good about yourself, or you feel like a real business owner? If so, these are okay things, as long as you're honest with yourself about what it is you're wanting.
Say this to yourself, ‘Before I start coaching, I want a website’. Or you can insert anything else here that you're focusing on, because the thing you're focusing on is your True Goal, since that's what's getting your attention and action. You're not building a coaching business if you're building a website. Website is part of building a coaching business, but if it comes first, before you have begun coaching, then you're just building a website.
Say this:
‘Before I start coaching, I want a website. So therefore, I don't really want to become a coach right now. I want to be on this end of being a website builder. Sure, one day it's gonna hold amazing content and have funnels and flows that all point to the incredible offers I'm gonna make, but for now, I just want to play with the elements and the widgets and the colors for a little bit…
Maybe I need a brain break from all the scary things in life, or an escape from this looming pressure of taking all the risk and starting my own business, because entrepreneurship is scary stuff! And even though I feel called a coach, I don't feel confident in it. So I'm gonna build a website and if that doesn't go well, then I can always fall back on the truth that I'm actually not a coder and I've never built a website, so I'm not really held accountable for any failure...
But if I try coaching and I stink at it or it takes a long time to figure out, then I'll know that I'm doomed to fail and it will be true that I haven't found what I'm called to, and then I'll indefinitely feel hopeless and lost. So I'm gonna build a website or I'm gonna create some business cards, or I'm gonna go get a Google phone number or a second work phone for the work I don't really have. But I will coach later, after I have built the most perfect coaching business website anybody's ever seen.’
Amen, let's stand, right? Ask me how I know.
So this is normal. In fact, it's a normal response to an abnormal situation. Let's define the abnormal situation as you are on the precipice of doing something that could be turning your calling into a career and create a legacy. That is no small thing. So if your soul is a little resistant or scared of it and just wants to build a website, so you feel good about it, or you can blame your failure on something else and make excuses, I'm just going to tell you that's actually a normal response. This is not just my coach-self telling you, this is my chaplain-self telling you. You are having a normal response to an abnormal situation.
Okay, now what if what you really want is money? Well, it's not bad to want money to pay your bills and care for yourself and your family, to get out of debt and have financial freedom, all the things. But you know, the book of Timothy 6:10, will tell you it's not good to love money. And you can be rich or poor and still love money. You can be real middle-class and still love money.
How do you know if you love money? Well, regardless of how much you have of it, you can ask yourself how much time do I spend thinking about money? How much time do I spend thinking about having money? How much time do I spend about thinking about how I don't have money, how others have money and what they do with it, about what I would do if I did have money, and about how hard life is with money, how hard life is without money?
If you actually take an assessment and say, ‘I'm thinking about money,’ almost like a food journal but instead a money-thought journal where every time you think about money you take a pen and write on your palm, you’ll realize how much you think about money and that's going to help you understand. Because if something is an idol, meaning it takes up more time in your thought-life and more space in your soul than God does, then you love it. You're loving money, and if you have less money than you want or need, you may actually be thinking about money and loving money more than all the people who have money that you're judging.
Having money is not a sin. It's the position of your soul and the belief that money is your provider instead of God. So if you want money as a coach, work through this thought process and mindset. Work through it because it's a major root you need to deal with in your own life so it can be a healthy root in your coaching business. There's always more underneath the concept that in becoming a coach you just want to help others or provide hope and lead people into transformation. You want to shine your light and help people who are in the spot that you used to be in.
Well, there are things you want and need as well, soo identifying them is important. Do you want success, power, accomplishment, accolades, position, freedom, belonging, satisfaction, opportunity, security, to be wanted, to be needed? I'm just gonna tell you, with all of these things, no matter what it is you need and want, refer back to the money concept because none of these things are sins unless God is speaking to your spirit that it is in the way of Him being your true source and your first love. So take a moment and just get honest with yourself.
If you're beating yourself up about the fact that you do want money, listen, here's the deal. I have struggled with that, especially having a non-profit, ministry mindset for the past 25 years of my life. I have struggled through the concept of thinking it's not okay to want money.
It IS okay to want to pay my bills though. When we put all our attention on money, it's a different focus. But I want to pay my bills, I want to be out of debt. I want financial freedom. I want to be able to take care of health concerns that my family has. I want to be able to pay for weddings and grandbabies. I do want these things and those things require money.
So it's not about the money as much as what is it you want that money is required in order to have it. The same thing goes for all of the other things you might want besides money. Are they actually the thing you want or are they the thing that helps you get the true goal, the thing you really want?
Don't beat yourself up about it. Don't shame or condemn yourself. Live in grace, forgive yourself and just turn around the other way. If you realize you need to repent for something the Lord puts his finger on, He's gonna show you and if it's a sin or an idol, get it out of your life. It's so easy and He's big enough.
You have to just say, ‘I'm sorry, God, I don't want to do that anymore. Please forgive me. I forgive myself. Now let's go do this fun thing together’. Yay, and go forward, because all that stuff that you just gave Him and asked for forgiveness for is way to the west, way, way, way, way, way, or way to the east (Psalm 103:12), it's on the opposite side of the eternal universe from you now, so you don't have to worry about that anymore, right? Knowing what it is you really want is gonna help you get a focused, developed, firm belief that you can reach your goal. It's gonna help you make a committed decision to it, and a committed decision is required to truly attain something. And then you're going to get intentional, which is what actually leads you to take the right action that grows the fruit and gets the results you want later.
Back to tangible versus intangible- what else in your life can you think of to show you how important it is to value the intangible? What are the intangibles in your life that you can tie to tangible fruit? Take confidence for example. That is intangible, it's internal. When you have it, you do things because of it. If I think I'm confident, if I think that I can go forward, that God is with me, and then I feel confident, I'm going to take actions from that thought and emotion. Then you do things and that creates results that are tangible, like signing clients or getting that speaking gig, getting invited onto a podcast, whatever it is.
Hope and faith and things like that are all intangible, but they produce some of the greatest tangible fruit that there is. They bear the fruit of thriving instead of surviving. They bear the fruit of mental and emotional health. They bear the fruit of reasons to get out of your bed every day and do something you didn't know you were capable of, simply because you believe in God's great love for you and you're walking out faith.
Now to move into the journey of growth, from a seed into a fruitful orchard, I'm going to go over the stages of growth that you can apply to becoming a coachpreneur. So that means you're not only a coach, you're actually running your own business and working for yourself rather than working as an executive coach for a company that hires you only to coach their employees. You're taking on the risk and doing all the work and wearing all the hats for a while at least, as you grow your business.
Now, when you first think, 'I believe I might be called to be a coach,’ you're going to be faced with every option under the sun once you speak the words aloud, because you know Facebook is going to hear you tell your friend about it and you're suddenly going to see ads everywhere that encourage you to buy that course that tells you to start doing everything you can and really be a driver so you can make seven figures in the next two years. That all leads to FOMO, right? The fear of missing out, which is not a new thing, because that fear started in the garden with our girl Eve.
This all means you're going to have to learn how to weed out what you don't need at the moment and learn how to identify everything that pops into your social media feed, your email inbox and what you find in your Google searches as something that belongs in one of the following stages of becoming a coach.
Stage #1 Planting the seed that creates a strong root system.
Stage #2 Grow the trunk and the branches.
Stage #3 Produce the flowers and the fruit.
Stage #4 Mature for sustainability.
Stage #5 Prune for greater growth.
Stage #6 Evaluate your growth.
Stage #7 Rest and restore.
Stage #8 Multiply growth.
So here's something you can tangibly do today. If you are a device learner then create a folder on your desktop or in your Google Drive titled ‘My Greenhouse’, putting it in the context of your growth starting in your greenhouse.
Inside that folder, create eight folders for each of these stages, 1-8: Planting, growing, producing, maturing, pruning, evaluating, resting and multiplying.
I will put all of eight of those in the show notes too, because I always add all the important info there. Homework you can do, any resources or scriptures I refer to. All of the good things are always in the show notes links and lots of good stuff.
If you're more of pen and paper or pencil and graph paper person, then get a binder or folders or even different notebooks where you can have everything in a separate place that you can easily access. I also will encourage you to consider all of these stages in how they apply to your client, when you decide how are you going to create offers and programs and content How are can you apply that to your clients? Are there stages like this that apply to whatever you're coaching in? You can contextualize this concept.
Then I want you to just go on and keep listening to all of the next several episodes that are coming, where I'm going to cover each one of these stages and more in this Greenhouse Series, because I'm actually going to tell you as you start and grow a coaching business about all of the possibilities out there and what stage you each possibility in. What you're going to do inside that greenhouse folder, wherever you put it, I want you to create one that says future opps, which is short for opportunities, and that is where you can put a document that has links to anything you ever find.
Let’s say you're on Facebook or Instagram or you got something in your email inbox. Maybe you come across something while you're doing a search for something else and you go, ‘Ooh, I might want to do that. I wonder if I need that right now’.
I want you to copy the link to it and don't go chasing butterflies or waterfalls.
Hear me singing to you: “Don’t go chasing waterfalls. Please stick to the rivers and the lakes that I tell you to. I know that you're gonna have it your way or nothing at all, but I think you're movin' too fast.” This is my version of TLC's 1994 'Waterfalls'.
Sorry, I had to do it, so don't go chasing the waterfalls. I hope you're laughing with me and not at me, but I want you to put those links in a document and put them into the future opps folder inside your ‘My Greenhouse’ folder. This way you don't have to feel that FOMO and you're not gonna lose it or miss out on it.
I’m gonna give you a hack. Everybody who tells you that ‘the doors close on this soon’ and ‘this offer will never come back to you’, I promise you they will either open the doors again, they will make this offer again when you need it and you can go back and find it. And if they don't offer what you need when you need it, if it's not the right time, the right offer and the right price point, somebody else does.
There are more fish in the sea. Consider this like a dating game. All of those people are making offers to you out there are one of many fish in the sea. They're not all going to be the right person for you when you need that program, that course, that coaching, that book. They are not going to be the right person right now because you're not necessarily their ideal client. If you are just starting out, you are at a different stage than they are offering to help you at, unless you're actually talking to somebody who works with you in stage one or stage two.
All of those people and their offers are beneficial and can really help you when it truly becomes time to create a funnel, which is not right now. Don't click that button. You don't need a funnel right now. You need clients and practice, you need clarity and you need knowledge about your next steps.
And you need to take action right here in stage one and stage two. Don't take stage #4 ‘maturing for sustainability’ steps because they will get you off your game. They're actually not meant for you right now.
The whole concept of, ‘I'm going to help you make six figures ASAP’ offers, are made by people who are not talking to you. If you're in stage one through five, you’re not there yet. I'm going to say until you are in stage eight is where you can say, ‘I'm ready to multiply, and not just my clients or my offerings or amplifying everything, but my bank account. I'm going to add things to what I'm already doing now’.
By the way, for those of you who are creators and you don't love to caretake inside of your creative cycle- once you start multiplying, you repeat these stages with each new offer or program you add, and I highly recommend you go through all eight stages and go through planting, growing, producing, maturing, pruning, evaluating, resting and multiplying with each one, before you plant another seed.
Don't get ahead of yourself. Let Holy Spirit come in and walk with you. He will show you the way. I hope that these episodes in the Greenhouse Series can benefit you in getting your head really clear about the direction forward.
Transcript from the Christian Life Coach Collective Podcast Episode: #188
Show notes: For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows. Tim 6:10
Stage 1: Planting the seed that creates a strong root system Stage 2: Growing the trunk and branches Stage 3: Producing the flowers and fruit Stage 4: Maturing for sustainability Stage 5: Pruning for greater growth Stage 6: Evaluating your growth Stage 7: Resting and restoring Stage 8: Multiplying growth
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