You are listening to The Life Coach School Podcast with Brooke Castillo, episode number 380.
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 be here with you today. I want to talk to you about awesomeness and why you should try to be awesome.
I just spent a week with my son, Christian, in Denver. He qualified for his first pro tournament. He entered a golf day of qualification with hundreds of people. I think it might have been 150 people. He had to place top four in order to qualify. He placed third. He shot a 66. And then went on to play the two days of qualifying in the pro tournament, which was super fancy and awesome. And he made the cut there. And then got to play the two final days of the pro tournament.
It was such an amazing time for me to be with him and see how much he’s learned and grown and how he represents himself and who he has become because of his goal of playing professional golf. And this was like his first taste of actually playing with the pros, and it was just a magical experience for me to watch.
One of the nights during this week, I went out to dinner with my friends Melissa and Derrick. Those of you who are in Scholars saw the behind-the-scenes of us all having dinner. And I was talking to Derrick about my son.
Derrick had played soccer in college at Stanford and we were just talking about how important it is to try to be awesome. And I was explaining to him that with Christian, I’ve just watched him do so many rounds of golf that were so disappointing for him and he was so frustrated and he literally just could not get that ball in that hole in the way that he wanted to and he just wasn’t meeting his own expectations, and all of the negative thinking and the struggling and the failing that he has gone through on his way to become the best golfer he can be.
And I was telling him how fun it was to watch kind of cumulation of success be in this moment of this pro tournament as an amateur making the cut and being able to play with the professionals. And there were many days where Christian thought that that was never going to happen for him.
And I was talking to Christian at dinner one night and I said to him, “You’re living so many people’s dream. There are so many people in this world who wish they could go on that course and shoot a 66 like you just did. There are so many people that dream of playing professional golf that will never have that opportunity, that will never be able to be as good as you are at golf and be able to do that. And you’ve created that for yourself by sticking with it.”
There were so many times where he’s like, “I just don’t know if this is worth it. I don’t know if I want to keep doing this.” And he just kept doing it. And so many painful experiences that he’s gone through.
And he’s by no means done failing. He will continue to fail as a golfer probably for the rest of his life. It’s a sport that is just really hard to consistently win all of the time; even if you’re Tiger Woods, my friends, even if you’re Tiger Woods.
So, when Derrick said this to me, he said, you know, “All people should try to be awesome.” I was like, “Oh my gosh, that is the most amazing thing. I’ve got to do a podcast on this.” Because I think that’s the secret that a lot of people miss out on. They miss out on the opportunity to live their life in a way where they’re trying to be awesome.
And in my opinion, when you’re trying to be awesome, you automatically are awesome. You’re just being awesome. You’re challenging yourself. You’re pushing yourself. You are going to the next level.
And for me, I’ve always been in sports, my kids have always been in sports. I’ve always believed in winning and losing as part of a growth development. I don’t think everybody should get a trophy. I don’t think we should pretend like everybody won a game. I just don’t believe that.
A lot of times, people will be crying because they lost and I’m like, “Yeah, I want to cry when I lose too.” That’s part of the experience of being human, of being competitive, of playing games, is sometimes you lose. But it doesn’t mean you don’t go and play.
I think about the NFL. You’re not going to not join a football team because you’re afraid to lose. You’re planning on you’re going to lose some games. The chances are, if you join the NFL and you play professional football, you’re going to lose some games. You’re going to cry. You’re going to be disappointed. That’s part of the deal.
And yes, I want to do that anyway. And yes, I signed up for that. I signed up for the crying. I signed up for the disappointment. I signed up for the failures. I signed up for the missed passes that I know I may make. Because I know there’s a chance that I could be awesome.
There’s no guarantee that I could. There is a guarantee that I’m going to fail along the way. But is it worth the attempt? Is it worth the attempt to be awesome?
Now, whatever it is in your life that you want to be awesome at, it may be you want to be awesome at being a parent, you want to have children. It may be you want to be awesome at a sport you’re playing, even if it’s just an amateur sport. Maybe you want to be awesome at business, at being a life coach, at being a writer.
Whatever it is, instead of just doing the thing, why not try to be awesome at it? Why not try to play pro? Why not try to make a million dollars? Why not try and do those things that are possibilities for you?
Now, not everyone is going to win. Not everyone is going to have that success. But it is in the opportunity to fail that we get all the benefits of trying to be awesome.
I was recently interviewed for an article about The Life Coach School, and the woman who was interviewing me had done some research and she had talked to some students who had gone through The Life Coach School that hadn’t been successful as life coaches, which of course, you know, there’s people that are successful, there’s people that aren’t successful at becoming life coaches.
And what she said to me – I mean, everyone becomes a life coach, but being successful at really making it in the business. And what she asked me was, “What do you say to those people who said they went through the school and they weren’t able to be successful as a life coach?”
And I was like, “I don’t know. Are they blaming me for not being successful as a life coach? Because if that’s what they’re doing, I have a different response than if they aren’t putting in the effort or they aren’t putting in the work or they aren’t even trying or they’ve given up.” I genuinely did not know how to respond to them.
I’m like, “Yeah, it sucks when you’re not successful. But if you’re still alive, you’re still breathing, you’re certified as a life coach, I would never say that you’re not successful. You’re just not successful yet. What are you doing? How can I help? Where are you at in the process? Have you followed all the instructions that I’ve given you? Have you been learning from the people that are successful?”
Are you still trying to be awesome? Or are you simply just saying, “I didn’t win? I’m not successful at this,” or, “I wasn’t successful at this.” And are you blaming the school you went to? Are you blaming the people around you? Are you blaming the clients?
The other thing that she said to me is like, “Some people say that The Life Coach School, or the life coaching industry is saturated,” which I think is hysterical. Like, when people tell me that I’m like, “What are you talking about?”
Life coaching is for every single person on the planet; every human on the planet. No one ever says the medical industry, doctors, it’s all saturated. No. We need doctors. We need life coaches. You go to a baseball stadium filled with people, there’s a lot of people in that stadium that don’t even know about life coaching or that they need one.
So, the idea that we have given up on trying to be awesome, trying to win, trying to be successful and simply saying, “Oh, I’m not successful and here’s a reason why that might be,” it makes my blood shake. Like, no, don’t give up. Don’t stop trying to be amazing. Don’t stop trying to win. Don’t stop trying to be successful.
I genuinely believe that everyone can be awesome, everyone can succeed, everyone can have success. The only difference is people decide that they can’t for themselves and they give up and then they make up excuses and blame other people for it.
It really just makes me want to cry. I’m like, “Please don’t do that to yourself.” At one point, you believed in this vision. Why did you stop believing? Why did you stop trying? How many attempts did you make?
If you think about my son Christian, are you aligned with what he did? Course after course after practice after course after ball after drill after putt after drive after club after club after club, he still wasn’t winning. But he never said to me, “Mom, I’m not successful at golf. It didn’t work. The clubs didn’t work. The course didn’t work. My coach didn’t work. My training didn’t work.” Never. He just kept saying, “I’m going to go play again,” and, “I’m going to go play again. And I’m going to keep doing this and keep trying to be awesome.”
And to me, he always was awesome because he kept trying, because he kept going out there and doing the thing until he won. Listen, I would rather you be a person that never won but never quit than be a person who quit and never won. And I’m going to give you the reasons why.
Reason number one to try to be awesome is that you will continually grow and evolve. The more you try and do different things in order to create the awesomeness that resonates with you, that is aligned with where you want to be, the more you will grow and evolve as a human, the more you will be able to see what the world and you interacting is all about.
Every fail that you make moves you forward in your growth. When you fail ahead of time by not trying, you move nowhere. You become stuck.
The second reason is emotional management. When you go after being awesome, you are going to stir up emotions. You’re going to stir up self-doubt and disbelief and fear and self-pity and frustration and anger and confusion.
All of these emotions are going to be stirred up to the surface. It’s almost like you lift up the couch and all the dust is going to come up. You want this to happen. You want the negative emotion that is kind of dormant inside of you because you haven’t been trying to be as awesome as you could be to come up so you can handle it.
And as you manage all those emotions as you’re moving forward in your growth, you become stronger. You become better and more skilled at managing your emotions. And if you’ve been listening to this podcast for a while, you will understand that is the most important thing you can get good at.
Getting good at managing your emotions allows you to create an unlimited identity because you’re not afraid of expanding into the biggest version of yourself. The only reason we stop expanding and limiting who we can be is because we’re afraid of the emotion it might bring up for us.
We’re afraid of feeling what it feels like not to win. And if you think about that, if you think about my friends that are saying, “I wasn’t successful as a life coach,” they don’t want to go after doing it harder because they’re afraid they’re going to fail. But what they’ve already done is failed ahead of time.
They’ve given up and failed ahead of time so they’re already feeling that emotion that they dread feeling. And they don’t even realize it. I say this to anyone that I meet in my life who has given up on a dream. Do not give up on your dreams ever, for any reason.
If the dream is still alive in you, if you still want to be awesome at that thing, don’t ever give up. I feel like our desires and our dreams are the maps to our destiny, are the purpose of our lives.
Now, if your dream changes, that’s different. But don’t begrudge yourself for having not achieved it. Just express that your vision has changed.
As you deal with the emotions that will inevitably come up as you’re chasing and going after and working toward your dreams, you will become a stronger, more resilient human being.
The third reason is failing resilience. If you are not afraid to fail, if you are resilient in the ace of failure, you will become a version of yourself that is unrecognizable. Because your failures will evolve you in a way that a success actually can’t.
A failure requires you to dig deep into the meaning of your life, to your purpose, to your goals, and yourself and who you are. Can you pick yourself up and move forward? Can you recognize that your failures are really just steps? Can you have enough self-worth and enough confidence in yourself and enough belief in yourself to keep going in the face of all your failures?
When you shoot an 82 on that golf course, do you make it mean that you’re not a good golfer? Or do you make it mean that you made some mistakes on that course and you’ve got to get back to work? Do you blame the coach? Do you blame the course? Do you blame the scorecard? Do you blame your whoever?
When you do that, you disempower yourself. You lose all your power. When you bring it back in and own it, then you create the results that you can own. And whether they’re good, quote unquote, or bad, you can learn from them.
Failing resistance is one of the most important gifts we give ourselves when we go after our dreams trying to be awesome. The resilience, the belief, the strength, the power of being able to accommodate failure, it’s such a beautiful thing to own. It lets you walk into situations with an open heart, with a willingness; a willingness to be all in.
Number four reason to try to be awesome is simply variety in interest. So many of the people that I see that aren’t trying to be awesome are sitting around complaining about other people. They’re whining about other people. They’re hating on other people.
They don’t have the courage to put themselves out there in a way where they could fail, so they fail ahead of time and then use the energy that they could have been using to be awesome to try to bring other people down to their level.
I want to tell you, there’s a huge difference between going after success and trying to bring people with you – which is motivating and energizing and exciting – versus failing ahead of time and then sitting around and trying to commiserate with a group of people and have them complain with you, and have them hate with you, and have them be negative with you, and to then feel sorry for themselves with you.
I want to encourage you not to fall into that. There is comfort in a group of people complaining about why they’re not successful, justifying why they’re not trying to be awesome.
But there’s no growth there. There’s no emotional skill there. There’s no failure resilience there. It’s all just a puddle of yuck. If you find yourself sitting around complaining and explaining why you’re not awesome, you are doing it wrong.
And I want to be fierce with you here. Not for my sake. For yours. I’m already trying to be awesome. I’m enjoying the ride. I’m failing all over the place. But I’m growing and expanding and feeling alive and feeling energized from the process.
I’m not sitting around feeling bad about myself and trying to make other people feel bad about themselves too. The variety of life is being able to see yourself in different situations, to see what you’re made of, to see how you handle different things, to see what it’s like to try something you’ve never tried before.
Like my son being in this pro tournament, he didn’t know what it was going to be like to play with the pros. Was he going to be able to hold it together? Was he going to be able to play well? Was he going to be able to show up with these other professionals that have been doing this for years?
He got to see himself in a new way, in a new light. He played really well the first two days and didn’t play as great the second two days. And yet, he was able to see himself handle both success and failure in the same tournament because he showed up. Because he was willing. That’s what I want to invite all of you to do.
The fifth reason – and I think the most obvious reason to try to be awesome – is you might get a chance to experience awesomeness. You might get a chance to experience you in your most awesome version of yourself. You might be like my son. You get to experience yourself shooting a 66 and coming in third in a tournament with professionals.
You get to relate to yourself in a new way. You get to see what you are made of, see what you are capable of, surprise yourself, blow your own damn mind with your awesomeness.
You’ve heard me say this. I think everyone is awesome. Just not everyone does the hard work to experience it within themselves. They’re too busy complaining about other awesome people being awesome.
But what if you decided you wanted to be awesome no matter what and you went after it no matter what? You give yourself to chance to win. Maybe you could be a person who makes a million dollars in a business Maybe you could be a person who helps a nonprofit. Maybe you could be a person that has children and raises them by yourself.
Whatever your dream is, maybe you could be that person. Are you giving yourself the chance to do it? Are you at least trying to be the most awesome version of yourself? Or have you decided it’s not worth the effort, it’s not worth the time, it’s not important, you just want to go about and live your life. You just want to rinse and repeat every day.
That is your choice. But I want to encourage you to make a different choice. How could you make your day more awesome, your life more awesome, your week more awesome, your dinner more awesome? Are you trying to be awesome? Please do, for your own sake. It’s so fun.
You get to experience yourself, “Wow, I didn’t know I could bake a cake from scratch. I didn’t know that I could create this beautiful dinner for my family. I didn’t know that I could make this much money on the internet. I didn’t know I could quit my job that I hate and become this other version of myself. I didn’t know that I could fail six times and instead of sitting around and pointing fingers and complaining about it, I could fail seven, eight, nine and then maybe win on 10.”
Don’t tell me your life isn’t working. Your life is working perfectly, especially if you’re failing. You’re doing it right. Don’t give up. Keep going. Make it through that.
And the last reason are the strategic byproducts that you get from trying to be awesome. When you go out in the world and you show yourself to yourself and the world by showing up and going all in, you will meet people you wouldn’t have met otherwise.
You will have experiences that you wouldn’t have had otherwise. You will see places and people and things that you wouldn’t have seen otherwise.
In my attempt to be awesome as a life coach, I have met the most extraordinary people. I have talked to the most beautiful humans about their lives, about their struggles, about their goals, about their dreams. I’ve had the most intimate connections with the most amazing folks because I wanted to be an awesome life coach.
I’ve travelled all over the country. I’ve talked to so many amazing teachers. I’ve had so many lunches with so many entrepreneurs. I’ve inspired so many people to make money, to do the work that they love, to manage their mind.
The strategic byproducts – because I wanted to be awesome in my field – are countless. The ripple effect of my attempts has affected so many people’s lives; my employees lives, the lives of their families, my friends’ lives, my students’ lives.
This industry, this life coaching industry has been affected by me; by me showing up and trying to be awesome. And I get to experience that as a human. I get to experience what it’s like to have shown up. I get to experience myself experiencing that.
And it’s expanded what I’ve been able to see and do in the world. It’s made my life richer, more variety, more interest, more exposure, more painful, more pleasurable, all of it. It’s increased the texture and the expansiveness of what it means for me to be alive just because I tried to be awesome.
And I really want you to encourage your kids to try to be awesome at something. Not just to do something just for fun. Not to just go out there and, “Well just enjoy yourself…” That’s one thing you can do. But pick another thing in your life that you’re going to try to be the best at, that you’re going to try and be awesome at, that you’re going to try and be the best version of yourself.
When you go out and play a sport to just have fun, there is no challenge in it. There’s no doubt. There’s no fear. There’s no growth. There’s no risk of failure. You’re just trying to have fun. That is not what I’m talking about.
I’m not talking about playing soccer for the joy of playing soccer. I’m talking about playing soccer for the joy of trying to be awesome and what it means to challenge yourself to the next version, the next level, the next quality of who you can be.
There’s a lot of talk about accomplishment culture and we shouldn’t always be trying to accomplish things to impress other people. And I absolutely agree with that.
I do not think we need to be any better than we are to be worthy. I do not think we need to be any better than we are to get approval from anyone else. That is not what I’m saying here.
I’m not saying go be successful so you can impress your friends. No. It’s too painful for that. Go be successful so you can see what it’s like to be that version of yourself. Go be successful so you can see what you are made of, what it is like to put yourself on the line of your own life, to use yourself up, to experience yourself at the fullest version of you.
Don’t be a diluted version of yourself. Don’t show up halfway because you’re afraid someone won’t like you. Show up fully so the people who will like you will truly be able to be your heart-centered friends.
If you don’t show up, they’ll never see you. You trying to be the best version of yourself, you trying to be awesome is going to always lead you to more and different and expansive things.
My last note I’ll say on this – and this is really important to remember – when you are in the world trying to be awesome and you miss the mark and you score an 82 on the golf course and you shank your ball into the woods and we can’t find it, never should you ever beat yourself up for that. And never should you ever blame anyone else for that.
You should understand that that is part of the process. It doesn’t make you less worthy. It doesn’t make you less awesome. It doesn’t make you less capable. It’s just information. Take a note of it. Why did the ball go there? How do you do it different next time? And proceed with your awesome self in trying to be awesome.
If you accept an average version of yourself, I don’t think you will ever truly really know yourself. You will never really know what it is to be you if you haven’t put yourself out there on the line. How do you handle situations that increase the intensity of your life? That, my friends, the risk of rejection, the risk of failure, that is how you get to know who you really are.
And I want to tell you a secret. Who you really are is so much more amazing than you can even fathom. And I’m not saying you’re amazing because you created you; because you didn’t. But you have the potential, you have the ingredients to make a recipe that is so beyond awesome, I don’t want you to miss out on you; the fullest most awesome version of yourself.
And listen, if you don’t believe me, just try it out. Give yourself a year to be awesome at something. See what I mean. It’s so worth it. It’s so awesome trying to be awesome. And you already are awesome. So, what do you have to lose? Have a beautiful week, everyone. Talk to you soon. Bye.
