Ep #417: Coach vs. Hero

You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo episode #417, Coach vs. Hero.

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.

Hello, my friends. I'm so happy to touch base with you today. I have had the most extraordinary week. Just got done with mastermind. It was truly a game changer for me.

Being at mastermind and seeing that we had 179 people on stage getting an award for making 100K or more, and that a huge significant number of them were making over 500K, and then having 25 people on the stage accepting a million award or more and have two of them accepting the award for ten million or more was extraordinary. It was very emotional for me. I feel like I've stepped into a new stratosphere of my life; it's so exciting and amazing.

And I'm just thrilled to have reinvented myself in such a big way, and to keep growing, and to be growing in such a big way. And the opportunities coming my way are just insane. Like, what, the offers that I've had to do things and to change my life in such a significant way is just crazy. So anyway, I'm so happy.

Right now, I'm in LA. I just came here to meet with a photographer that I love. His name is David Yarrow. I bought a beautiful piece of his work and then decided I want to hire him to do some work directly with me and my friends for my upcoming birthday, and so we came here to watch him do a photoshoot with Cindy Crawford on Sunset Boulevard. It was insane. It was, like, out of this world. And a friend of mine and I are just hanging out here, he's working on his business, I'm working on mine, and I'm just so overly inspired and excited about life right now. So, I'm thrilled to be able to talk to you and bring this energy to you.

And one of the things I wanted to talk to you about today was the difference between a coach and a hero. I think a lot of people tell me that I'm their hero, and they put me on a pedestal, and they see me kind of above them in some way, something that they're striving to be towards. And when we put celebrities on pedestals, we think they're somehow better than us, and I think that's how we get this kind of hero worship, and we build people up and make them inhuman. I think it's just something that our human brain loves to do, especially collectively. But one of the things that I want to be really clear with all of you as my students is that I am your teacher and your guide and your coach, I am not your hero. I am not any better than you in any way. I am not higher than you in any way, and I am not here to save you in any way.

I love the example of Yoda and Luke Skywalker. I am Yoda, you are Luke Skywalker. Right? I am not Luke Skywalker and I'm not your leader in that sense, I'm someone on the sidelines of your sporting event cheering you on and coaching you. You are the one that's going to win the game, you are the one that's going to be the hero, you are the one that's holding the trophy up in your life.

And so, I just want to record a short podcast and talk about this for all of you who are coaches and for all of you who are my students, I think sometimes this gets confused. And I really want to be clear about this, when you come up to me and, you know, you run to me on the street and you say you've changed my life, you're my hero, you're so amazing, I look up to you, you are being so kind and lovely and amazing, and I just want to correct you in that moment. I just want to be, like, really clear that, no, I am not at all your hero. I am your teacher and your guide. And I am your coach on the sidelines.

So, I don't want you to put me on a pedestal because it separates us. I want to have us both be on the ground together. And I want you to trust that you are your own hero, and that you have your own answers, and that you have your own talent and your own ability and your own wisdom. And as I teach you concepts, and as I teach you ideas, you will take those ideas and develop them, and make them even better and more accessi-ble to people in a way that I couldn't do, and you will apply them to your life in a way that I couldn't do, and that I'm offering for you to do as your guide.

I learned this lesson a long time ago with my own teachers and my own guides when I had made them somehow more wise than me in my head, and that I had asked them, what should I do? And when they answered, I did it without any questioning. I did it without any kind of feeling or testing with my own self. And I feel like that's just not a useful thing for any of us to be doing, whether we're in the student position or in the teacher posi-tion.

A lot of times our teachers are just someone that are, they're just a little bit further down the path of understanding and knowledge, but they're not at any point more wise than we are. And that is a very important distinc-tion for all of us to remember, because I think this idea that we all want a hero can put us in a position where we're not owning ourselves as he-roes, where we're not seeing our own potential.

One of the things that I hear very often, and it's something I wanted to talk about because it was, like, so profound for me, this time in mastermind, was that when I made my first million dollars as a life coach, it was extraordinary. People had been telling me for so long that that was impossible, and that life coaches don't make money, and that life coaches are just, like, glorified friends, and this industry wasn't going to go anywhere because it was unregulated. And so, for me to make a million dollars by helping people and coaching people and offering them the Model was a very significant milestone for me.

And when people were making comments that, oh, it's easy for Brooke to do because of whatever reason it was, for some it was because I was charismatic. For some, it was because I had a psychology degree, which is insane. For some, it was because I had written a book. For some, it was because I was in weight loss. For some, because I was offering a business opportunity in terms of certification. And I remember thinking, this is not something that only I can do. I knew that that was true, like, in my bones. I knew that that was true. I knew that this was something that we could all do. This was not something unique to me.

And, so, that was when I decided that it was important to make sure that my students had the tools that they needed in order to make the money that I was making, like, not just the same amount, like, hopefully more. And the more people, especially women, that I could help make millions of dollars, the more the efficiency and the effectiveness of the Model would be demonstrated. And so, to be at mastermind and have 25 of us on the stage, what now? Like, what are you going to say now? That we were all just lucky? That we were all just charismatic? That we all had degrees? You know? What? And I think that because we were all so different on that stage, because we all had such different levels of education, and different personalities and different niches and different approaches, and they're all working, and we're all winning, and we're all making a contribution that it really just demonstrated, there's nothing, it's not that there's nothing special about us, it's that there's something special about what we're doing. We're all worthy human beings on the planet. And that means we're ordinary, we're just extraordinary ordinary human beings, meaning that there is no person that's better than another or more capable than another.

I had one of my friends ask me this recently, she's like, do you really think that anyone could make a million dollars? And I said yeah. She said, no, but I mean really. I mean, there's some people, you look at them and you're, like, uh, I don't think that person can make a million dollars. I just do not believe that. I believe we need everyone claiming their escrow. We need everybody's voice, everybody showing up.

You may look at someone, and they may be very different than you, they may not show up the way you think they should, but they definitely have the potential to make a million dollars. And the question is, do they believe in themselves in that possibility enough to actually do it? That is the only thing that would prevent them. But it doesn't mean that they're not capable or that they don't have the capacity. And I really want you to hear me say that, like, I truly believe that it's possible for you. Yes, you listening to this right now.

And I know you may think in your mind that it's not reality for you, or it's not possible for you, but I just don't believe that. I am your guide. Don't put me above you. Don't put me as someone that's capable of something that you're not. That is not true. What I have been able to create, you could do too if you wanted to.

And I don't care, all of you that are listening to me that think that I should-n't be telling people that, I don't care that you think that. I know that sounds harsh, but I just don't understand why we believe that certain people are capable of living out their dreams, and certain people aren't. This is what I believe: I can't be a movie star. I can't be a professional basketball player. I'm not going to ever win a singing contest. Right? I am going to be the ultimate version of the desire in my heart. And if you have a desire in your heart to be a life coach and make a million dollars, I do believe that probably is your destiny, which means you have the capacity to do it. So don't misunderstand me.

I'm not saying that everybody could be a professional basketball player. I'm not saying that at all. But I'm just saying, like, if you have a desire that is in your heart to have an extraordinary life, that is available to you. And when it comes to money and the ability to produce money, I do believe we all have the capacity for that. And I choose to believe that, and there's nothing anyone can do about that. And because I believe that, so many people borrow my belief to get themselves over their own self doubt to get to that space.

So, my job as your guide is to believe in you when you can't. To teach you these concepts that you don't know about yet. To cheer you on, to pick you up when you're falling down, to help dust you off, to remind you of your amazingness and your capability, and your capacity for greatness, is to remind you that you don't have to be like me. Nobody wants you to be like me. We all want you to be like you. I gotta help my people. I don't have time to help your people. You gotta help your people. You can't be worried about my people. I will guide you to that. I will never stop believing in you.

But I also really don't want you, when you see me on the street, to think in some way that I'm a celebrity or that I'm better than you or that I'm somehow in a different, like, level somehow, because I can feel that separates us, and I can feel that might undermine you when you believe that. When you come to me and say, I changed my life, I became the person that I was meant to be, I believe in myself, when I see you on the street and you tell me that, I get so excited. And I feel that from you, and we celebrate together, and I can feel you owning your accomplishment. And when you do that, I know you're going to keep winning.

And when I see you out in the street and you're maybe giving me credit for that accomplishment, it worries me a little bit, like, that somehow, you're being dependent on me to show you the way, or tell you what to do, or be the one. And listen, I am not the one. You are. You are going to be your coach to your students, and you're going to be your guide to your people. And you're going to be your example of what is possible in your life. And that's different than mine. Right? But we all need to be showing up as the best versions of ourselves.

And I was talking to my friend today, and she was always saying, like, I don't want to use your intellectual property to get myself ahead. And I said you can't think about it that way because if you pay me for certification, you are purchasing my intellectual property, which means the Model, but when you teach the Model, when you are using the Model on yourself and on your clients, it becomes something new. It becomes something different because it's mixed with you. You're not copying me because you can't. You can't be me. You can only be you. And when you take that beautiful, amazing tool that we call the Model, and we mix it with you, it creates something that hasn't ever existed before. And that's what we need. We need new things that can offer help to people who need to hear it.

So, I just want to really offer you the opportunity to believe that we are colleagues. We are on the same playing field. And I'm the one with the whistle, I'm the one that's telling you when you should retry something, or move over here, or maybe catch the ball in a different way, but I may not even be as good at the game as you are playing. But I can still coach you. I can still be there for you. I can still be your guide.

My goal is for us to high five when you win. Not for you to somehow, you know, give me credit. And it doesn't mean you don't acknowledge your teachers, and it doesn't mean that you don't give credit when it's due. That is not what I'm saying. But one of the things that I hope that you'll do is be your own hero. Is put your head on the pillow at night, and look at yourself, and be like, I am so proud and impressed by you, self, for showing up in your life as the hero to you. And if you do that, if you don't make me your hero, you make yourself your hero, then when you are coaching clients, you won't let them make that same mistake. And that is an important thing to remember.

As coaches, we need to know who we are to our clients, because it's so easy to be confused, it's so easy to think that somehow because we're further along, because we're more accomplished, that we are somehow better. We are never, ever, ever better. The whole worthiness spectrum is absolute. So if a client comes to you and they're really struggling with something that you can help them with, that's a beautiful thing, but you're both still at 100 percent worthiness. We will stand by your side and help you through this, and you will change your life in ways that you never thought possible. And you will be blown away by what your coach can do for you, and you will be blown away by what you can do for your coach. But your success is yours. Your accomplishment is yours. You are the hero.

I hope you all have a beautiful week. Thank you for letting me come in and give you this reminder. It is so important. And whether you're being coached or you're the one coaching or any other teacher in your life, I hope you will always remember this message. And if you hear someone being confused, I hope you will give them this podcast to listen to. Because we are all better when we know that we're all on this field together, we're all just in this human experience, and we're all 100 percent worthy. I hope you have a beautiful week everyone. Talk soon. Bye.

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