Ep #275: Result Truth

Welcome to The Life Coach School Podcast, where it’s all about real clients, real problems and real coaching. And now your host, Master Coach Instructor, Brooke Castillo.

Oh yeah. How are you guys today? And gals and guys and friends, how's everybody doing? I'm amazing. You guys have started making fun of me for saying I'm amazing, but the truth is I feel amazing today. We have been interviewing like crazy. We are hiring and hiring and hiring and hiring at The Life Coach School. And you know what's so fun? So many of you want to work here and we laugh. We're like, if they only knew.

We work hard up in here. But it was fun. Today we did a group interview. We had three of the candidates interview in the same room together and that was so awesome and so fun and so efficient. So that's going to be probably how we do it from now on.

So any of you guys who are interviewing multiple candidates at one time and you're going to do them in person or even on Zoom, why not do them at the same time? Genius. Loved it. It was so great. And I was expecting them to be super nervous and they were like, not at all. They were totally comfortable. We laughed really hard the whole time. It was like a fun interview. What?

I just love all the people that want to come work for us. They're so excited. So, super excited about that. I don't know if I've told you guys this yet but I'm going to tell you again if I haven't. We are going to hire a CEO. If you remember about a year ago, I tried to hire a CEO so I wouldn't have to set up my business infrastructure. That did not work, so I ended up doing it myself and now we are ready.

So we have recruiters that we are going to bring on board. I'm super excited about that process. I think it's going to take a good solid year of working with this person but it's kind of like when you're single and you want to get married and you start dreaming about your mate. I'm dreaming about my CEO. So I can't wait to share all of that success with you guys.

It's kind of fun, those of you who get to binge-listen to the podcast because you can just listen to me transform and change throughout the years. It's so funny. My husband the other day sent me a little picture, like a little drawing and it had a caterpillar and a butterfly sitting at a table, and the caterpillar was saying to the butterfly, "You've changed," and the butterfly said, "We're supposed to."

And I just loved it. I loved it because people tell me that sometimes. "Well, you've really changed," as if it's like, an insult. Like, amen I've changed. I hope I've changed. Maybe you don't like the way I've changed. That's okay. I've loved the way I've changed. My life just keeps getting better and better and better.

So it's okay. I used to have this fear when I was younger, when I first became a coach, my big fear was that if I got too big in my life, I wouldn’t have any friends. And it's true. Some of the friends that I had when I started, I don't have now, but I have so many more friends than I've ever had in my whole life, and those friends are really seeing me truly be who I am, and they still like me. What? So fun.

What are we going to talk about today, y'all? We're going to talk about result truth. What does that even mean? Well, here's what it means. When you think about the Model, you can tell what you're thinking and feeling and doing by the results you have. This is not escapable, my friends.

So when my students come to me and they want to tell me hey, I've been doing my self-coaching work, I've been doing everything I need to be doing, I've been doing everything you told me to do to build my business, I've been doing everything you told me to do in terms of my self-coaching, I just don't understand what's going wrong. The Model never lies, my friends. Ever.

So if you're getting a negative result in your life, you're getting a result that you don't want, it's just math. All you need to do is go up the Model to find what's causing it. It'll work every single time. Now, here's the problem. We are super good at lying to ourselves. Our brains are super good at believing things that aren't true. Believing things that don't add up.

So here's what I want to suggest that you do. I want to suggest that you look at the math of the Model to find out what you're thinking and feeling. Because here's the truth; sometimes you're thinking stuff that you don't want to be aware of. What? Self-awareness is the first tool, and when you first come to work with me, you're going to learn how to watch your brain think.

And you'll be overwhelmed with how many thoughts you're actually thinking, and there's no way you can supervise all of your thoughts all of the time. You have about 65,000 a day. You'd have nothing else that you'd be able to do but sit around and watch yourself think. It's not reasonable to do that.

The best way to know what you're thinking is to look at the results in your life. Those are your most significant thoughts. This applies to all of the great things that you're thinking, creating great results in your life, and all the not so great things that you're thinking, creating not so great results in your life.

We talked in the last podcast about blaming other people for our results. That doesn't add up. You can't mix models. So your results are from your model, from your actions, from your thoughts, from your feelings. So one of the best ways for self-awareness is to look at the results in your life and make a list. Make sure you separate out the circumstances from your life, the things you can't control, the things you didn't create, and the results that you did create, that you can control.

So for example, your weight. That is your result. How much money you have in your bank account, that is your result. Where you live, who you're married to, how many friends you have, your possessions, where you work, the car you drive, the clothes you wear, the state of that house of yours, the state of your tax returns, what your pantry looks like, what your day looks like, what your calendar looks like.

All of it, those are all results. Your accomplishments. Everything you've done. I really want you to be aware that a lot of times, we discount all of the amazing results we've created because we're trying to beat ourselves up. And I want you to be aware that this is something that you might be tempted to do and not do it, but I also want you to look at it as if it's just math. These are the results that I've created because I've thought positive thoughts, and these are the results I've created because I've thought negative thoughts.

Now, some of you have created results that you don't think you've created. You want to argue with me that you've done everything I've told you and you've created a different result, or you've done everything the book said to do, everything life said to do, everything your mom said to do, and you're creating a result you don't want.

And that's when you really have to go back up to that thought line, that feeling line. I was working with one of my students and I had asked her what she'd been doing, and she was really frustrated with her results and I asked her what she had been doing, and she told me hey, I followed your program, I did everything you told me to do.

And I said, "Well had you done that, it's a self-correcting program, so had you done that, you would have for sure had a different result than you're having." So I asked her, I said, "So what is the program you've been following? What is the process?" And it was just like crickets. I'm like, how can you follow a process if you don't even know what it is?

And it was so fascinating because I don’t think she thought she wasn't telling me or herself the truth. She thought she was following the process. She thought she was doing what I had told her to do, but she clearly wasn't. And she wasn't even aware that she wasn't.

So when we started talking about our thoughts and feelings, what we realized is that her thoughts were well, I'm just following this. It's Brooke's thing. And the feeling was one of kind of abdication, meaning like, I'm just doing what Brooke tells me to do and the feeling was it's not really my responsibility to make this happen. It's the process's responsibility.

Well of course then the process isn't even something she knows. She just set something up one time and didn't get the results she wanted. So it was really fascinating to look at that and just see how frustrating that is when you believe you're doing something, you believe that you're following a process, you believe that you're doing everything right, and yet you're not getting the result you want, you don't have anywhere to go from there.

And that's when you abdicate all your responsibility. You're like, well, that just doesn't work. But the truth is if you go back and you look at your thoughts, your feelings, and your actions, there will always be clues as to why you're not getting the result you want.

So let's do an example with money because that's fun and we love money. Somebody told me I needed to stop saying that, so now I'm going to try and say it more. You mad bro? Why you got to be mad that I love money? I like money. It's great. It's fun. It's awesome. It lets me hire people. It lets me really contribute to the world. It gets my message out to help more people. Don't be mad. Don't be mad about me loving money.

Alright, so let's use an example of money. I want you to think about how much money you're making in your career or in your business. And that can just be gross revenue or your gross salary, paycheck before taxes. Now, just put it in the R line as a result that you've created for yourself. Now, what are the actions that you have taken to create that result for yourself?

Now, don't judge here. Don't be like, oh, that's a good result or a bad result because that will prevent you from being able to see the full picture. Just try to be as neutral as possible. If you're making $100,000 a year at your job, what actions got you that job and continue to get you paid in that job? What are the actions that you take? And what are the feelings that drive you to take those actions, and what is the thought that creates those feelings?

For example, it might be something like I want to provide for my family. I want to manage these people. I love this company. I need to pay my bills. What are the thoughts driving the action that gets that result? And here's the other thing; what is the feeling that's generating that result?

And here's a cool trick for you to look at when you're looking at your models. If the feeling driving it is positive, you will most likely see the result as positive, unless you're switching models. So if you have a thought I love my job and you feel excited and motivated and you go to work and produce enough value to get $100,000, my guess is from that model, you'll be super happy with the model.

It doesn't mean you don't want to make more, but you're super happy. You're happy because you're fueling that money with positive emotion. Now, someone else could have the exact same R line, $100,000 in the R line, and what's fueling that $100,000 could be negative emotion, and then they're going to think about that $100,000 as a negative result.

So I have to pay my bills may cause you to feel resentful and angry and the action could be the same. You still go to work and do your work from a place of anger and resentment, and then the result is $100,000. One person interprets that as a positive experience, positive model, another person, negative model. But the result don't lie. The reason why you're making that amount of money is because of the model that you've created.

So now that you have that model, what I want you to do is - that's your before model, that's where you are right now. I want you to imagine the result that you would most want to have, and I want you to imagine what is the model that would create that result for you. So let's say you want to make $200,000 a year. You want to double that. And my guess is whatever positive result you want, whatever result you want, you want it to come from a positive place.

So this is what I find fascinating. A lot of people will say to me, "Well, I want to create $200,000 but I know I'm going to have to work and grow and grind and stay up all night in order to do that." And what's so fascinating is those people do work and grind and stay up all night. Most of them don't end up with the $200,000. Or if they do, it's actually a negative result for them because of all that negative energy.

So think about the result that you want to create and think about what you believe you would need to do to create that result, and what emotion do you want to be fueling that result? A lot of you who are in Scholars have an impossible goal and what we did at the beginning of the year - actually at the end of last year is we set an impossible goal for this year.

And for some people, that was to make a million dollars, for some people it was to make $100,000. For some it was to lose 50 pounds. Whatever your goal is - to get a new job, to write a book, whatever the impossible goal was that you chose for that. Now, what happens when I coach people through the year is I notice that they start trying to get to the goal with grit and anger and frustration.

They start getting mad about it and then they start getting desperate. And I watch it happen and as soon as it happens, it's almost like I can see the model change. Even though the result is the same, what's fueling the energy for that model changes. And so now we're fueled by desperation and fear and anger that we're not there yet, and of course that prevents you from being able to get to the goal, and even if you do, you're not even happy about it because you've burnt yourself out literally to a crisp in order to achieve it.

And so I always say like, what burns you out is not how many hours you work. What burns you out is the fuel you're running on, and I'm not even talking about physical fuel. I'm not even talking about food. I'm talking about emotional fuel. When you think about your actions are always being driven by an emotion, so the whole first part of my career I spent working with clients who wanted to lose weight.

And so many of them were trying to fuel that weight loss with self-loathing, and I always tell them like, what is the point of losing weight when you hate yourself? Do you think you will stop hating yourself because you have less tissue on your body? The answer, my friends is no.

Do you think you'll be happier when you have more money? No, it doesn't happen. Stop trying to change the world out there in order to change what's going on emotionally. What is fueling you will determine the result that you're able to sustain. What fun is it to make $100,000 if you have to beat the crap out of yourself every year to get it? What fun is it to lose 50 pounds when you have to keep beating yourself up in order to maintain it?

And yes, I think if it's not fun, forget it. So when you think about that result and you think about the emotion that you want to be driving that result, then you can understand whether you're going to achieve it or not. So one of the questions - I just got asked this on a podcast. Like, what is the most important indicator of long-term success, and I said the emotion fueling the activities.

What is the emotion that fuels the growth? Because if it's desperation and fear and doubt and worry that's fueling it - now, it doesn't mean that those emotions won't come up. They will. But you have to be fueled by a deeper purpose, a deeper reason, and you have to really pay attention to that. So when you look at the results in your life, know that they are the indicator of what you're thinking and feeling and doing, and they do not lie.

It was really important for me to do this podcast because I can't tell you how many times I talk to my students and they want coaching from me, and they always start their session with me by saying, "I've been doing all the work, I've been doing all the self-coaching." And they genuinely do believe that. But I always say, "No, you haven't, when you're not getting the result you want."

So if I were to tell that to you, my dear listener friend, you would be tempted to be discouraged and be angry and be frustrated maybe. And be like, what the hell? Why are you telling me I'm not working hard? I am working hard? Why are you telling me I'm not doing my self-coaching because I am doing my self-coaching? Let's say. Just look at your results.

I mean, you can tell me all that, you can tell yourself all that, but that's not getting you what you want. So if you can take a deep breath and just be like okay, me talking about what I've done, me talking about my A line or me talking about what I've been thinking and feeling, if it's not getting me the result I want, it is not serving me to talk about my model that way.

So here's what I want you to do. I want you to look at your R line and say what do I need to do differently in my thoughts and my feelings and my actions in order to get the result I want? It will always be solvable. Here's what I promise you isn't going to work. To keep repeating that model harder and harder and harder.

Now, if you look at your model and it looks legit, if it looks like hey, this model really should be producing the result I want, then you're going to have to dig a little deeper. Is your goal reasonable? Have you set yourself up? Are you lying to yourself? What really is going on here?

Because any kind of abdication, like I'm just doing what I'm supposed to be doing and nothing's happening, that is the most insidious problem that I see is the blame, the external blame, the external abdication, the indifference. I'm just going to keep doing this and hopefully one day it'll start working. That is not how it works. Your results are in indicator of what is going on.

Now, if your A line, if your action line is to quit doing something, you're going to have the result of it not working of course. If your A line is to keep doing the same thing, you're going to keep getting the same result. So that A line, and this is a really important point, that A line, that action line can keep changing a million times, 100 times, 1000 times to get you the result.

Sometimes you don't need to change your thought and belief. Sometimes you don't need to change your feeling. You just need to take different action from that same energy. So for example, let's say my goal is - let's just say my goal is to make 100 million dollars and my thought is I believe I can do it and I'm excited and I'm committed.

And the action I take to do that is to sell one-on-one coaching and I realize that's not working. Now, I can still be totally committed. I can still be totally excited and change that A line and produce a different result. I don't necessarily have to change my thoughts and feelings. I may just have to change the A line 100 times.

And I think that's one of the keys for resilience and for staying committed and for success. I mean, literally I watch this happen with my students. The ones that succeed are the ones that stick with it. The ones that come out of the gate the hottest and can't handle their first failure are the ones that end up quitting.

It's almost like they believe so much in their big goal in the beginning that one failure like, completely topples them. So that's why remember, we always have to look at our results as math, but we always have to decide again from the future, from the place where we have already achieved that goal.

So think about that. If I'm believing in my 100-million-dollar goal and I have something that happens in my business right now that kind of seems contrary to that, I may want to give up. But from the perspective of right now, when my result doesn't match what I want it to. But when I go to my after model and I see this failure, I see this issue from that future place, there's no reason for me to quit. I know I'd get here eventually. It's just a little blip in the screen. It's all that perspective.

And because I'm identified with my future self so clearly, then I can look at the results in the present self and not freak out that success is never going to happen. I just look at it just like math and I tell myself the truth. And that's what I want to recommend to all of you is that you tell yourselves the truth about what you're thinking and feeling and doing based on your R lines, and you tell yourself the truth about the R lines that you most want to have.

That's what I want to finish with because I've watched a lot of people change what they want their result to be when they find out how hard it is. They want to write a book and then they start writing a book and they're like, well maybe I'll just a pamphlet. Maybe this was a terrible idea. So then they change the result that they want and they start lying to themselves about those results.

And I just really want to warn you to not do that because you may get a different result but it's not the truth. You're now lying to yourself about what you really want, and here's a pro tip. You know when you're lying to yourself. And I really think that is one of the most damaging things you can do with your relationship with you is to lie to yourself about what it is you really want and to downgrade your dreams so you don't have to be uncomfortable, and to not tell the truth about the result you really want.

And the way that you find out about that is if you get a result that feels lukewarm to you, the thought and feeling driving it are probably lukewarm as well. And it doesn't matter if someone else is super excited about that same result. I watch some of my students do this too, where they're like well, this person was super stoked about this. I can be too. But you know your potential and your desire is at a different number or at a different place.

Tell yourself the truth about the result you want and then tell yourself the truth about the results that you have. The Model will never lie to you and you can always rely on it, you can always do the math on it in order to create exactly what you want. Alright my friends, talk to you soon. Bye.

Hey, if you enjoy listening to this podcast, you have to come check out Self-Coaching Scholars. It's my monthly coaching program where we take all this material and we apply it. We take it to the next level and we study it. Join me over at the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. Make sure you type in the TheLifeCoachSchool.com/join. I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.