Hi Brooke,

Fantastic call this morning (as always). I totally resonated with everything the woman who had the multiple jobs and wanted to take her business online was struggling with. Your advice to her was excellent and really made me face what MY personal issues/blocks are from starting my coaching practice.

I know who I want to coach. I want to coach 30-something, successful, ambitious women who have perfect-on-paper lives but who feel stuck, stagnant and constantly wondering “is this really it?”. These are women who are driven, have tasted a lot of success in their lives but are now questioning who they are stuck, frustrated with their current reality and in need of clarity about what’s next. They’re asking the question “what’s ACTUALLY going to make me happy and fulfilled”.

But the truth is, I’m asking that same question. 5 years ago, I developed cystic acne after running myself into the ground following the ‘shoulds’, wearing busy as a badge of honour and thinking the only way to accomplish anything was to use self-criticism as a motivator. It had worked my whole life – so what not now? I know now that I was stressed the EFF out and my mental and emotional life was a mess. It took me 2 years and a lot of self-development work, but I eventually cleared my skin naturally (I literally LOVED myself to clear skin).

But I still struggle with self-doubt, owning my worth, negative self-talk etc etc. So how can I coach other people? Yes, I cleared my own skin and made a LOT of positive progress to get where I am today, but at what point can you say you’re ready to coach versus being honest and knowing you still have work to do? What if you want to help people with something you haven’t mastered?

I asked this question in the chat and the amazing Suzy gave me some SERIOUS food for thought and it made my head spin a little. She told me to do a model on this thought (see below).

As a sidenote: I coach my friends (who are this ideal client, by the way) on this stuff all the time for free and they ALWAYS say that I always make them feel better and see things differently and ask the hard questions to get them to really see the truth about themselves and their lives, but I still have a lot of resistance to asking people to pay me because I hear this loud, annoying voice in the back of my mind that says “you’re a hypocrite, you don’t even do this consistently yourself, you’re still working on that so how can you honestly advise someone else to do XYZ with a straight face”.

I know all of that is self-talk and now that I really SEE it, I am going to do the work on it, but my question is: how do I know where I’m at (teacher OR student) and based on where I am, what do I do next?

Here’s my model…

C: I don’t have any paying clients
T: I want to help people with something that I haven’t mastered yet.
F: Unqualified, like a fraud
A: Take more courses, read more books, procrastinate, take massive action
R: More knowledge, less action and integration of the things I’m learning into my own life, not becoming the person I think I should be that is capable of coaching

Thanks SO much Brooke!

Sam