Bonus Training

December 16, 2016

Want to talk to us about Self Coaching Scholars? Call us at 916-461-3116

Learn more about it at http://thelifecoachschool.com/join/

Episode Transcript

Okay, so, let me introduce myself to y'all. My name is Brooke Castillo. You guys are all muted.

So, you're just gonna hear me speaking. If you want to ask me a question, I'm going to open up the end of the training for some questions, and you will go into what we call the Q&A queue, and I will be able to unmute you. And the way that you get into that queue is by hitting star six on your phone, and that will put you in line.

I will call you out by your area code number, and then I will unmute you, and then we'll be able to speak, okay? So, I'll say, okay, 801, area code. I'm gonna unmute you now, and then you can ask me a question.

A lot of people sent us in some email questions ahead of time, so we will be answering those. I will unmute Erika, and we will be answering those questions. She'll be reading those questions to me, and I will be answering them.

I also received a few questions that I'm gonna answer. Now, some of the questions are related to the program Self-Coaching Scholars that I'm newly offering, and we will be answering all of those questions. I am not going to spend a lot of time talking about that training on this call.

I'm gonna tell you a few things about it, but all of the information that you need to know about that training is on my podcast called Study Yourself, and also on thelifecoachschool.com/join.

If you've read through the page on the lifecoachschool.com/join, and you want more information, that's what this call is for. So I'm not gonna go through the whole thing again. This training is really designed to give you some content, to give you some information that even if you don't join Self-Coaching Scholars, you can walk away with some value, that you can apply to your life right away.

So here's what I'm gonna start with. Some of you may not know me very well, so I'm just gonna give you like a really brief overview of where I'm at right now in my life. I've been a life coach for about 10 years now.

I was a life coach when nobody knew what a life coach was. I started off with weight loss coaching, and then I moved into a lot of just self-coaching and teaching people how to coach themselves, and then I moved into helping other people become coaches to train them in my method. So my main focus at The Life Coach School for the past two years is three different programs.

I've been teaching a program called Stop Overeating Masterclass. That's a small group of people that I work with, and a very VIP level. I meet with them once a week, and we do some group coaching.

It's very intimate and very intense, and that program is $12,000, and I do a few of those a year. Again, very small groups. I have another program that I started that's called Stop Over Drinking, and that's kind of more of a self-study program where you go through the process all within a membership site, and then we have a few calls a month to coach on the main purpose of Stop Over Drinking.

And then the third piece that I've been doing at the school for the past year, the past couple years exclusively, is an in-person training to teach people how to become certified coaches. I used to teach online. I used to teach over the phone.

People, I used to teach them all my tools about self-coaching and how, excuse me, how to coach other people and self-coaching at the same time. You have to learn how to coach yourself before you can coach someone else. And really, that was the main focus of my business for these last two years, is doing those in-person trainings and really working exclusively with people who wanted to become coaches.

So, that's been my focus. Stop over eating, stop over drinking, and training coaches. The main communication, the way that most people find me and learn about me and start studying with me is through my podcast.

And that's kind of a much broader audience, right? So, I get many people that are interested in losing weight. I get many people that are interested in stopping drinking too much.

I get many people that want to become coaches. The big group of people that I haven't had anything really to offer in terms of direct contact with me are people who just want to coach. They just want someone to help them through everything that I'm teaching in my podcast.

And so, the way that I've accommodated that is I have so many well-trained coaches is that I've just been referring many of my students from the podcast to those coaches. And I've been having them get their individual coaching in that way. So, that's been a great business model for me.

I'm a very successful businesswoman, very successful entrepreneur. I have a very successful business. It's all great.

I've put myself kind of through the wringer emotionally to kind of evolve to this next version of myself as a businesswoman. And I'm very proud of the work that I've done over these past two years specifically to grow my business. One of the things that made the most significant difference for me was hiring my own coach.

And I went into a group coaching program with my coach. I paid $36,000 to sign up with him. And he gave us a quarterly program that we were to follow.

And he educated us and gave us insight and told us what we needed to apply in order to grow ourselves emotionally and our businesses. I, when I signed up with him, I made a commitment because it was such a significant investment for me. And I talked to my husband about it and we were making this huge investment in this coaching.

And one of the things that I told him is I said, you know, I believe in coaching. I know that it's powerful and I know that it's something that I think every person on the planet should have a coach. And so I want to work with this particular coach, even though he's in San Diego, because I think that he'll push me and expect more of me than I expect of myself.

So my husband said, okay, that's fine. You can sign up with him, but you have to do every single thing he says because you're always complaining that some of your students don't do what you tell them, and if they did, their life would be so much easier, so you just have to do everything he said. So I signed up with him, and it really exploded all of the personal work that I had been doing in my own life, and also the work and the limits that I had put on myself in my business.

So I'm meeting with my CFO. I would say this was probably about a month ago. And I'm meeting with him, and I tell him, he says, gosh, you have such a great well-oiled machine in terms of your business.

You are, you know, you have these very consistent marketing programs where you're able to fill your certification programs. Your people love you. Once they go through your certification, they want to sign up for your Master Coach Training.

They want to keep working with you. You have your Stop Over Eating Master Class.

They love you.

Very easy to fill those classes. Everyone wants to sign up with you. And, you know, the Stop Over Drinking is off the hook.

Everybody loves that. He's like, I can't wait to just do it again next year. This is what my CFO says to me.

And the rest of my team is laughing because they all know that I always like to change things up. And I heard myself say this. My CFO's name is Mark.

And I heard myself say this to him. He said, you know, I just think you have such a great well-oiled machine. I wish all my clients could be like you.

And what I said to him is, I want to change everything. He was like, what? I'm like, I want to change the whole structure of my business.

I want to do a completely different business model. And I want to focus on all the people that I have focused on in my podcast, but haven't been able to serve. And he was like, what in the world?

Why would you do that? And this is what I told him. And this is the reason why I wanted to teach this class with you all.

As I said, for me, it's not about finding success and then staying there. And I think a lot of us, we try, we think, if we get this certain amount of money, if we get this job, if we get our business going enough, if we lose this much weight, if we do this, if we do that, right? Then we'll be good, and then we'll just coast, right?

How many of you guys think that? Then once I lose all this weight, then I'll just coast and I can finally relax. And I think that is the kiss of death.

I think if you're coasting right now, right? You know what that feels like. It doesn't feel good.

And you may be at someone else's version of success right now. Someone may look at you and say, you're so successful. But here's what you and I both know, is just because someone else looks at you and says, you're successful, you're amazing, you've arrived, doesn't mean that that's how you feel about yourself.

Doesn't mean that you don't know better, right? Because for you, what is inside of you? What is that inkling that is pushing you forward that is making you want more?

And here's one thing I know for sure, that I have learned about myself, is that it's never about arriving, it's always about blowing my own damn mind. What is something I don't yet believe that I can achieve, and then how do I go about getting it? So in my business for 2017, I am basically changing a very stable, significant, predictable income that I have, I think, perfected in terms of my business, and I'm changing it in a way that will ask about ten times more of me.

So I went and met with my coach again, and I told him that I wanted to create Self-Coaching Scholars, which is this program that I've created, and that I wanted to launch it before the New Year. And he said, let's do this. And so I came home and I produced this program, and I shouldn't say I did, I did it with my team.

And what it did was throw me right back into beginner mode. Right? This is why most of us don't start new skills when we're over the age of 40.

We don't say, hey, I'm going to learn Spanish, or wouldn't it be fun to learn how to skydive, or I'm going to learn how to tap dance, or I'm going to go to a ballet class. Most of us at this point in our life, we don't want to be beginners. We don't want to start new jobs.

We don't want to start new things. It's so daunting, the whole idea of it, right? It puts us right back into discomfort.

So I can't tell you how many of my students tell me that the reason they don't want to leave their job is because it's so comfortable. The reason that they don't want to go out and meet a new man or date someone new or try a new profession is because it's so uncomfortable. They don't want to be a beginner.

They don't want to be vulnerable. They don't want to make a bunch of mistakes. They don't want to be rejected.

They don't want to fail. And that is true for all of us. That's how our human brains are designed.

We're designed to avoid confrontation. We're designed to avoid rejection. Our brain tells us to stay in the house, tuck ourselves away, and stay safe.

Right? And you can't blame the brain for it. That's what got us to this point.

Right? But now we're safe. The brain doesn't know that yet.

Right? We're safe. We're good.

Now we have to choose discomfort on purpose. So that's what I did. I decided that I was going to choose discomfort on purpose.

I was going to re-hire my coach and start all over again, and I was going to promise myself that I would do everything he told me to do. Now, this is not an easy thing to do. If any of you have ever signed up for a course, taken an online course, done anything with a coach, most of the time we make excuses for why we can't do what they've asked us to do.

We don't do our homework. We don't fill out the worksheet. I mean, even think about a book you've read that has worksheets in it.

You know, you don't do the worksheets. You don't, you know, do what is asked of you. I mean, you make a very justifiable excuse, and then you don't get the benefit that you would get had you done the work.

So I decided, I'm going to sign up, and I'm going to do everything he tells me to do, even though I don't want to, and even though I think he's wrong, and even though I think he doesn't understand my business, and even though I think it's unnecessary, and even though, whatever my reason is, it doesn't matter what excuse I come up with, I'm going to do everything he's taught me to do. And so what I've done is put myself right back into doubt, I've put myself right back into fear on purpose. The question is, why would anyone do that to themselves?

Why not just find that success, grab that, you know, whatever it is, that six-figure income that you want, that goal weight that you want, and just hold on to that for dear life. And I'll tell you the reason why it is for me, is I know that the reason why we are on this planet, the reason why we are here, is to evolve. We are not here to just sit stagnant and stay the same.

If you look at the human being and the purpose of this planet and what has happened with the human being on this planet, the one consistent thing that we have done is evolve. And we are at, I think, a very important part of our evolution, where we're transitioning from survival to creation to contribution, in the most significant way. And the reason why I know that is not because I studied it in school, but because I can feel it within me.

I can feel that nudge to create, to contribute, to become more of who I am. So this takes me directly back to the title of this training, which is what is the most important question that you can ask yourself? What is the most important question that you can ask yourself?

And here's what I think it is. When you are looking, and I love that we're coming to the end of the year. When you look back at this year, ask yourself this question.

Are you getting better?

Now, you get to define what better is because only you know. Someone else can look at you and go, oh, you've gotten better in your life. You're getting better, but only you get to answer it and tell yourself the truth.

No BS, just the truth. Are you getting better in the way that you want to get better? Now here, as I was preparing for this class, one of the things I was thinking about for a long time was, does it matter to everybody to get better?

Does everyone want to get better? And I think that truly, if you're telling yourself the truth, I believe that the answer is yes. Because I think that's an innate thing for us to grow, right?

For us to go to the next level of ourselves, to evolve. But does everybody know that consciously? We know.

So I'm really mostly interested in the people that consciously want to get better in their lives. And so we get to this place where we ask ourselves, am I getting better? So many of us, the answer is no.

We look back at this year, are you better today than you were a year ago? Now a lot of you will want to ask me, okay, specifically in what area? But I want you to look at as a whole.

If you're looking at yourself as a whole, if you're doing a full 360 evaluation, have you as a human gotten better in the way that you want to get better? So when I look back at my year, this past year, and I ask myself that question, I would say that the answer is emphatically yes, and I'll tell you why. About one year ago, I decided I wasn't going to drink alcohol anymore.

I wasn't going to buffer. What I mean by buffer is use any false pleasure to not feel an emotion. I wasn't going to do it anymore, and so I stopped drinking.

And that choice, and the choice to work with my coach and keep pushing myself to the higher version of myself in my business and in my emotional life, I would say, increase the quality of who I am as a person. Now, that's very different from evaluating whether you've gotten better based on an external result. They're directly related, but I want you to think about that question in terms of your quality and your opinion only of yourself as a human being.

And the reason why I want you to measure that based on your own insight is you know what you're capable of on some level. You know how much energy you're putting into your life. You know what your dreams are.

And you're either meeting your own expectations or you're exceeding them. You're either asking that of yourself or you aren't. No one else can see that because I've worked with tons of students that will tell me, well, everyone else thinks I'm great.

I'm an attorney. I make, you know, $500,000 a year. I am thin.

I, you know, have a great husband and great kids. Everyone thinks my life is great, but I know inside that I'm nowhere near where I could be. And I'm just coasting and it's eating me up inside.

And that's the craziest thing, right? For some of us, when we aren't getting better, when we aren't evolving, we're actually using all of that energy that we could be using to evolve against ourselves. So I want you to think about it this way.

You have a certain amount of energy to expend on the planet. You are either going to expend that energy, hiding from yourself, buffering from yourself, seeking false pleasures, spinning out, yelling at people, acting out, lying, hiding, or you're going to use that exact same energy to make yourself better, to evolve, to keep moving forward. So when I look back at my year, now I will say there have been years in my life where the answer to that has been no.

I have not gotten better that year. But the years where I have gotten better, where I've asked more of myself, are the years that I feel better, that I do better, that I end up having better results in my life. A lot of you will hear me say this, and you'll be like, listen, Brooke, I think your theory is great.

But here's the problem I have. I'm exhausted. I can't, I'm barely keeping my head above water.

How in the hell do you expect me to get better? I'm just trying to make it through my day. And I want you to know that I hear you.

I hear you saying that. I understand that that's the way you're thinking. But if you are in survival mode, if you are in victim mode, if you are in self-pity mode, it is impossible to get better.

You can't, because you're spending all your energy just trying to overcome all of your own negativity. Just to get through the day. You think that what's happening is that your life is hard.

You think that what's happening is your circumstances are hard. You think, I just don't understand. But I promise you, that is not the case.

You have to tap into your brain and see what's going on in there. So, look at your life. Everybody on this call, look at your life for the past year.

Ask yourself, as a whole, have you gotten better? And then ask yourself, have you gotten better to the extent that you would have liked?

One of the things I like to say all the time is, you know, anytime we have a challenge in front of us, it's an opportunity to double down. So, if you were able this year to make yourself one times better, what about next year you try and do it ten times better? Without expending any more energy, without any more negativity, without any more overwhelm or exhaustion, but with pure strategy and confidence and commitment and follow through and discipline.

What if you could do that for yourself? This is what I'm always saying. I'm always like, dude, you killed that.

This is me talking to myself, right? Nice work. And I'm proud of myself that I'm making this choice for this year to challenge myself instead of just coasting, because I know that I will earn my own respect even more than I already have.

I'll honor my commitment. I'll be able to establish more of this skill set of being able to create results for myself. Right?

So here's how I want you guys to think about it. The result you want to create for yourself, if it is easy, you don't strengthen the ability to create. So for example, if I tell you to go to the store and get some rice, you're not going to be like, I am so good at that.

I am amazing at getting rice. I'm so glad you asked me to do that. Right?

It's not a challenge enough for you to have to get better. We don't get better at getting rice. We get consistent at it, which makes us better at being consistent, but we don't get better at getting the rice, right?

When we make it a challenge to go earn $100,000, that's going to require a little bit more of you, right? And here's where the part where getting better, I think, is worth it. Where not coasting is the answer, right?

For me, hiring my coach, who I know is going to kick my butt. And, you know, my coach isn't one of the ones that, like, provides accountability. He doesn't say, okay, here's your homework.

Okay, are you getting it done? Okay, do you need some help? Okay, are you running into trouble?

No. He's like, here's your homework. It better be done next time we talk.

He doesn't even say that. It's just an unspoken expectation. It's like no excuses allowed until I go to work and I apply, right?

But here's the reason why getting better is worth it. Because when you set a goal for yourself that will require you to become more of the person that you are, that will require you to increase the quality of how you show up in the world, what happens is as soon as you set that goal, all of your ugly comes up. You guys know what I mean about that?

All your ugly comes up. I can't do it, it's too hard, I'm too tired, that's too much. I mean, I just hear myself whine in my own head.

This is a very bad idea, what are you doing? You're always screwing things up, why can't you just be happy with what you have? Why do you have to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah?

This is what I do to myself. I tell myself that I'm not good enough. I tell myself that I'm not capable.

I tell myself that I won't be able to endure the emotion that I will create by setting this big goal for myself. And at that point, that's when we decide whether we're going to get better or not. And so for me, overcoming all of that ugly that's still within me, that still prevents me from evolving, is so worth it because it makes it so at the end of this year, when I have accomplished my goals and when I've brought myself back up from being a beginner and made myself a master at whatever it is I'm trying to do again, then I will have a deeper ability to manage myself and a deeper ability to create the results I want in my life.

Do you guys notice that successful people beget more success? It's like everything they touch turns to gold. It's like they're good at everything.

They can do this, they can do this, they can do this. You have total confidence in them. That's why, is because they've developed the ability to create the result they want.

So basically, this is what I want to have in my life, and what I'm getting much better at is I want to decide, I want that. I want, so for me, one of the things that I want, this is just kind of a random thing, one of the things that I want is I want a house that's on a very small lake in a wooded area. We have a family house in Lake Tahoe that's on a lake, but it's more of like a condo, so we share a wall with another condo, and it's a huge lake, right?

But I have this vision in my mind of this little house kind of in a smaller lake, and it's very quiet in this wooded area. And I want to just go and pay cash for it, and have that as like my own little retreat getaway, okay? So I need to make enough money to pay for that, and that's something that I really want.

And I want to be able to create that on a dime, right? I want to be able to just be like, oh, I'm going to go get that. I need to figure out how to make the money, and then I need to go find the place, and then I need to purchase it.

And I want to know without a shadow of a doubt that that's something that I can do pretty easily. I want to create a new program called Self-Coaching Scholars, and I want to work with all the thousands of people who've been working on my podcast. If they want to come to me and have some coaching, I want to be able to talk to them on a coaching call and talk to them about their specific issue and connect with them.

That's what I want to do. And so I just, and I know that I can create that, and so I go and create that. Right?

Now, do I have more doubt about creating that than I do about teaching a coach training? Yes, because I haven't done it before. I've got myself to the point now where I'm just doing one coach training a year.

We're going to be exclusive. We're going to select the people that are in that training. We're going to work with the best of the best people.

And I have that dialed. I know how to teach that course. I know how to train coaches.

We get amazing feedback on that product. So I don't have any real doubt about that product at all. I know that I will slay that.

And this is my new product and all of my new stuff is coming up about it. And I keep proving it to myself. You can do this.

This is amazing. You are going to help so many people. Right?

So that's where I'm at. So when you look at your life, have you gotten better? That's the most important question.

And have you gotten better to the degree that you've wanted to get better? And if the answer is no, please, under no circumstance do you beat yourself up over that. You just simply ask yourself why.

And be really curious and compassionate about that answer. And if the answer is yes, keep doing that. Double down, right?

Double down on that. Now, a lot of the feedback that I've been getting in talking to a lot of you about some of these concepts is, one of the main things you guys say is, I just don't know how. I don't know what it is I want.

I don't know if I can do it, right? That's all very normal, but I just want to tell you, if at any point you're telling yourself that you don't know something, you don't know how, you don't know if you can do it, you are blocking your own dreams. I don't know and confusion keeps you in a comfortable holding pattern, right?

It's kind of like, here's the way I want you to imagine it. I want you to imagine it. Hang on, I'm just going to take a quick sip of water.

I keep feeling like I'm going to sneeze, so warning you. It's like you're standing with a parachute on, and you're standing on the plane, like looking out, you're about to jump out, right? Skydiving, and you're standing there, you're like, I just don't know how to do it.

I just don't know how it's all going to work, right? And you're just standing there, standing there, standing, then you never have to jump. You never have to be freaked out.

You're too scared to jump. So you feel like staying in the plane is going to keep you safe and keep you comfortable, and it does, but you never get to jump, right? That's how I feel about my life when I put myself in an I don't know spiral.

So please don't let that be the reason why you don't get better. It's because you tell yourself you don't know how. Always, always, always confusion about those things is a lie.

So the way that we deal with it, we say, what would you do if you did know how? What would you do if you weren't confused? What would you know if you didn't not know?

And immediately your answers will come to you. It is like magic. Some of you have been telling yourself you don't know for so long that you don't even realize what you do know.

So do you want to get better? Are you getting better? Now, here's the last piece of this.

You just looked at your last year in review. Did you get as better as you wanted to get? Right?

And you can look at it as... Now, one of the things that you can do after we get off this call is break it down. You can break it down into specific areas.

You know, you can pick, okay, my health. Did my health get better? Did my weight get better?

Did my relationships get better? Did my money situation get better? Did my career get better?

Did my courage get better? Did my level of discipline, my commitment? My dreams, did they all get better?

Right? You can pick all those little areas and you can ask each question and go through this process, why or why not, for each one of those. But it's always important, I think, to look at the big picture because here's the thing, if you aren't getting better, if you aren't growing, you aren't staying the same, you're probably getting worse.

If you aren't making a deliberate, purposeful decision to make your life better than it is now, you will stagnate. Right? You have to live, if you want to get better, you have to live a conscious and deliberate life.

So I want you guys to think about 2017, think about moving forward. Think about where you are right now, and in what area do you want to get way better? You want to blow your mind better.

You want to get so much better in this area. Now, immediately, your brain will say, and I'm going to talk the way my brain talks, but your brain may have its own accent. My brain is like, listen, this is a terrible idea.

I don't know where you got this idea. I don't think we should do any of this. I think we should just relax.

Everything is good. Why are we deciding? I mean, this is a lot.

This is a lot to be thinking about. That's what my brain does, right? So what does your brain do?

When you start thinking about what you want to get better at, does it say, oh, you won't be able to do that? You're totally worthless. Or does it say, oh, you don't have time for that?

Who the hell do you think you are? You're a kid. You have kids.

You have a full-time job. You have a husband. What do you think you're going to do?

You're not capable of any of that. Or maybe it's your mother's voice you hear, your mother-in-law's voice that you hear, right? But I want you to give yourself permission to just listen to your voice.

Don't listen to that primitive brain that's trying to protect you. Listen to your own voice. If you could get better, what would it look like?

What would you want to get better at? How would you focus? Would you focus on your career?

Would you focus on your weight once and for all? Would you focus on quitting drinking once and for all? What would you focus on?

And then what would that look like? So one of the things that I've done with the Self-Coaching Scholar Program, which is my membership program, it's a monthly program where I coach everyone, and I teach classes. Right now, we're at three classes a month.

That will go up to once a week, four classes. But one of the things that we're doing in that program is we're teaching you all the tools that you need to manage your mind, to manage your emotions, to take action, to get the results you want. We've also brought in all of my tools from Stop Over-Eating.

We've brought in all of my tools from Stop Over-Drinking, right? But you can pick anything you want in your life that you want to get better at. I've been coaching for 10 years, so every issue that has ever been thought of, I've probably coached on it, right?

Some people just want to get better at not thinking about their past all the time. Some people want to get better at not being so full of shame. Some people want to get better at being more balanced.

Whatever it is, like think about what it is that you want to get better at. For a lot of you, it's money. You want to double the amount of money you're making.

You want to double the amount of money in your savings. For some of you, it's I want to find a relationship. I want to go about dating like it's my job.

I want to find someone that's compatible with me. So think about that. Now imagine what that would look like.

So when I fast forward to the end of the year, and I look at December of 2017, I want to be able to say, not only did I restart my business, so to speak, at the beginning of 2017, but now it's even easier than it was at the end of 2016. I want my CFO to say to me, wow, you really have a well-oiled machine. You should just stay with this.

This is even better than your last well-oiled machine. That's where I want to be. I'm nowhere near that yet.

I'm glad I'm nowhere near that yet, because it's going to require me to become a different person. It's going to require for me to be so much better than I am right now in order to have that result in my life. And that's what I want to ask of myself.

And that's what I want you guys to think about. Think about yourself 50 pounds lighter. So my goal last year when I stopped drinking was, one of the things that I said to myself when I was drinking is I just said, you know, if I have to be thinking about this shit a year from now, I'm going to be so mad.

I don't want to be thinking about Chardonnay. I don't want to be spending so much time thinking about wine. It's such a waste of my brain power.

And here I am a year later, literally a year later from that time. I have not had anything to drink this whole year. I've had like sips of wine when we were in Italy and stuff like that, but nothing like I haven't had a drink drink.

And I am completely free of all of that chatter about drinking in my life. I made that decision and then I honored that decision, and now I get to benefit from that. So now I'm reaping the benefit of something I did a year ago.

And I know for sure that a year from now, I will be reaping the benefit for what I decide today. And here's the other thing you guys that's so amazing about this, is I kind of know that I have my own back. I kind of know that I follow through on my goals.

And I do what's expected of me. Even when it's hard. I do that for myself.

So because I had this accomplishment last year, going into this year, I feel pretty confident that I am going to get better. I'm going to keep asking myself to get better. Right?

Here's the point. I'm not trying to be better than anybody else, ever. I'm just trying to be better than I was last year in those ways.

I want to keep growing. I want to keep evolving. I want to increase the quality of how I'm showing up in my contribution.

Okay. So for those of you who joined late, if you want to get into the Q&A queue, what you need to do is hit star six on your phone. It will ask you to confirm and then it will put you in a queue, and I can answer questions for you.

We also had some questions sent in through email that Erica is going to read. I'll tell you guys, my best friend in the world, Erica, we went to high school together. We were very, very naughty in high school, and now we have teenagers, and we always say, karma is a bitch, because our teenagers were very naughty, and we're dealing with it now.

And I just recently asked Erica to join my team at The Life Coach School and help me out with the Self-Coaching Scholars Program. So I know some of you have already spoken with her. But a lot of you sent her your questions, so I'm going to unmute her, and then she can ask me some questions.

She can ask me the questions that you guys have asked. If you don't want to be on the phone asking questions, then you can email Erika, and that's Erika at thelifecoachschool.com. Make sure you put the the in there, lifecoachschool.com.

If you want to send her a question, she'll read it to me and I'll answer it. You can ask me any question you want. It would be great if you have a question about this training I just gave you about asking yourself to be better about evolving.

That would be great because then we can kind of stay on the same topic. But if you have another question, if you have any questions about joining self coaching scholars, about being part of that membership, or if you have any questions about something that maybe you've heard on the podcast, that you need some clarification, I am going to do my best to answer all of your questions. If there's duplicate questions that they're very similar, I'll try to answer them both in one answer, so we're not doing a lot of repetition.

So I'm going to go ahead, and here's the thing, when you hit star 6 on your phone, I will only see your phone number. It will show up on the screen as a phone number. So what I'll do is I will just hit the engage button, and I'll call you out by your area code.

So if you've hit star 6, and your area code is the area code that I called, then I'm going to be calling on you. And Erica, why don't you go ahead? There's so many people on this call that I can't find you.

So Erica, you go ahead and hit star 6 too as well, and then I'll be able to unmute you as we get through. Okay. I'm going to start with area code 909.

You are live.

Hi, Brooke.

Hi.

Hi. This is Annabel.

How are you? I'm great. How are you?

I'm good.

Thank you.

So I do have a question that kind of has to do with the theme that you were talking about. Yeah. I recently had a baby four months ago.

Okay. I'm now about 25 pounds over my ideal typical weight that I normally am. So this is my third baby, and I'm obviously not happy with the weight that I'm at.

And I told myself during my whole pregnancy, I can't wait till I have this baby. I'm going to work out. I'm going to eat so healthy.

I'm going to do this and that. I'm going to have a trainer, all this stuff. Well, I get cleared to work out.

I get into an accountability group, pay like $120 for this workout plan thing. I work out for two weeks straight, like every time I have to. I'm eating healthy, and then I just stop.

And I've done this before, but this is the most that I've weighed till now. I really want to get in tip top shape. And I'm by no means like...

I'm like a size eight, so that's stupid, right? But I just... I'm tired of it.

But you know what? This is the same thing we were talking about. If someone else may look at you and be like, oh, you're fine.

Right. But you know how much you want to weigh. You know the kind of discipline you want to have with your workout and your foods, and you're not there yet.

Okay, go ahead. And I'm typically like... Yeah, well, that goes beside the point.

But anyway, I'm just really upset with myself because I told myself this whole time, I'm going to do it, I'm going to do it. And here's the thing that I noticed, like I'm being aware of when I'm working out. I don't like the physical pain.

When I'm doing the workouts, like squats and things like that, I'm like, oh, it hurts so much. And like I push myself as much as I can. And then I hate being sore and then I hate the pain while I'm doing it.

And I'm, I noticed that with other things, if I'm hungry, I'm like, oh my god, I'm really hungry, I have to eat. Or if I'm cold, oh my gosh, I'm so cold, I need a jacket. Or like I, it feels like physical things feel more intense to me.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

So I exaggerate them or something, I don't know.

Right, because your tolerance for pain, any kind of pain, any kind of discomfort is very low. And let me tell you a secret. This is one of my favorite quotes I heard come out of my mouth.

And I was like, oh my god, that's so true. Is that discomfort is the currency for your dream achievement. Right?

So the better you get at being uncomfortable, the more wonderful things you're going to have in your life. Isn't that crazy? So the more willing you are to experience hunger when you're not supposed to be eating or experiencing pain during your workout or experiencing the negative emotions that make you want to eat, the easier it's going to be for you to lose weight, right?

Yeah.

Because what are you eating now? You're overeating, yes?

I'm not overeating. I'm just eating that stuff. I have a really small appetite, so I'm just eating.

I'm not eating healthy food.

Okay. Because?

Or is that considered overeating?

Yeah, I consider it that, but that's fine.

Okay.

Here's what I recommend from all my... It's like you have to decide ahead of time, just like you decided what your workout was going to be. You have to decide what's the fuel that's going to get you the goal that you want.

Right? And anything you eat that isn't aligned with that is overeating, right? It's buffering.

You're eating food that isn't good for you as a way of buffering because you don't want to be uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

That makes sense. But here's what you're trading. So you're trading that momentary discomfort for ultimate discomfort, because how does it feel to be 25 pounds overweight and not have honoring your commitments to yourself?

Yeah, I hate it. It feels horrible. I don't fit into any of my clothes because I won't buy bigger clothes.

Yeah, right. I'm like, you're trading that feeling. You're trading that feeling of kind of letting yourself down by not honoring what you said you were going to do for the momentary pleasures of, you know, overeating and buffering.

Now, here's what the most important piece is, because a lot of people will tell me, well, that's not a bad trade. Like, eating Oreos is kind of just as good as fitting into a size six or four, whatever size you normally wear. But what I want to offer you is this.

The pain and the discomfort of overeating and choosing pleasure gets worse. And the joy of honoring your own commitment and following through on your own self-discipline gets better. So whatever you keep doing is what you're practicing and what you're getting better at.

So right now, you're getting better at evading yourself.

Yeah, and not honoring my word.

Yeah. So even in the moment, that may seem like a great idea. That's what you're going to get better at doing.

Once you really focus and it's non-negotiable, you don't eat anything that isn't on track to your goal. You don't ever skip a workout no matter what. You deal with being uncomfortable and deal with the pain.

It's worth it, you're doing it for you, and then you thank yourself for doing it. You're going to get so good at that, that eventually it's not uncomfortable anymore.

So it's just creating that new habit of honoring the calendar.

Well, and here's the thing that makes it easier. And that for me, that I just told you, is the compelling reason, right? So you have to decide what is more important to you?

What is the reason why you want to lose 25 lbs? Why does that matter to you? Is it just matter to you because you want to look, you know, really sexy?

Because if that's the case, it's probably not worth giving up the food. But if it's because you want to reconnect with yourself, find your... You know, you have three little kids now.

You want to make sure that you have that relationship with yourself that's very solid. You want to know that you can count on yourself. You can honor your own word, right?

And that takes work and discomfort. It's so much easier just to coast in a size 8.

Why do you think that it's easier to do certain things and not do this? For example, my husband and I gave up drinking alcohol, and that was so easy to do. We decided, we watched your three videos that you had on your website, and we planned ahead.

And then once we noticed that we were keeping to that, we were just like, we just don't want it in our lives, and we haven't, and it was easy.

But this is hard. Right, because this is what you're using to buffer with now, right? Because here's the thing, it's like I can take away alcohol, but then you still have food, and I can take away food, and then you could start smoking, or overworking, or over Facebooking, right?

It's when you get to the point where you're not going to do anything to avoid yourself. That's when the magic happens. That's when the confident happens, right?

Because you have this commitment, and then you honor it, and you're like, hey, did anyone notice that I'm a badass? This isn't just 25 pounds. This is, you know, 300 days at the gym.

What? What? You don't think I can, and what's next, right?

Because then you feel like, what? I'm amazing. Like, don't you feel great when you go to the gym, and you deal with being uncomfortable, and you deal with being sore, and then you see the effects of that?

Right. That's a gift you give to yourself, right? And don't you feel terrible when you overeat, and you say you don't want to, and you just give in to that, right?

That's... It's kind of like... One of the examples that I use a lot with my overeating masterclass is I call it grab-ass.

Like, you're cheating on yourself. You're grabbing someone else's ass. Like, you would never do that if your husband was there, right?

No, never.

You wouldn't be like, oh, I'm just going to grab this guy's ass. It's not a big deal. It's just this once.

I mean, who really cares? Right? Your husband would be like, no.

And you would be like, no. But we do that to ourselves all the time. We have all this little, oh, it's just a bite.

It's just a lick. It's just a taste. Right?

And we do that to ourselves, and we totally diminish our ability to rely on ourselves. And then we just give up. We're like, forget it.

It's just too hard. I can't do it. Right?

Now, most people will live their lives that way. Most people will keep giving in and letting themselves down. Because it's easier.

You don't have to be as uncomfortable. You have to be willing to be uncomfortable in order to give yourself that deeper level of gift.

Yeah. When you say buffering, I thought buffering when you said... I thought it was like you're using something...

You're doing something that feels good to you, like to avoid feeling bad.

Is that correct? Yes. So like for you, you're supposed to go to the gym.

You have an appointment to go to the gym. What do you do instead?

Sit on the couch and go on Instagram.

That's a buffer, right?

Yeah.

Because the feeling of getting up, getting in the car, going to the gym, feeling the pain of doing that, overcoming all of that, doing that self-discipline, right? It's just easier to just buffer out. Yeah.

And then you have a net consequence. What's that?

I'll sit there and look at women that are working out, and I feel like I did it by watching them, which is stupid.

That sounds retarded. Yeah. Here's the deal I'll make with you.

You can do that. You can just watch other people work out and count that as your workout, but then you also have to do that with your meals. You just have to watch other people eat.

You can't actually eat yourself. I'd be like, I don't need to eat today because I watch someone else eat, right? It doesn't work that way.

So that's what this work is about. Go ahead.

I want to be able to email you next year around this time and say that I committed, and I really want to join your course. So the scholars.

But listen to me. Here's one thing I want to tell all of you. Do not sign up for this course and then use it as more evidence to let yourself down.

Do not do that to you or to me. If you're going to sign up for this, it's all in, game on, no excuses. Do not be like, because like you just told me that you spent a hundred and something dollars on a workout plan.

Right? And then you didn't follow through. The last thing you want to do is that again.

Right? I would say you take that workout plan and you do it. No matter what, you paid the money for it, you honor that investment that you made in yourself.

And that's true for anyone wanting to sign up for this program. Like, do not commit unless you are all in and you are going to honor that investment. Because then in a year, you'll be like, whoa.

I cannot believe how far I've come. And the way that you could become far, come far in a year is by continually staying conscious. And one of the best ways I know how to do that with my coach is just having time set aside to focus on my life without being in it.

And to reset sometimes, right? To say, okay, I got to reset my goals. So that's what I just want you to double check with yourself before you sign up for anything else.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

Does that make sense? Okay.

Yeah.

Awesome. Great question. Thank you.

Thank you, Brooke.

See you later, Annabel. Okay. I'm going to unmute 404.

Hello. How are you? This is Mickey.

Hi. What's happening?

I have a question that's kind of similar to hers, but my issue is I have a lot of weight to lose. And I know how to lose weight. I can tell somebody how to drop pounds very quickly.

I know exactly what to do. I know what I have to do for my body. I don't necessarily eat to buffer because I don't feel like I'm trying to not feel something like I used to, but I'm not doing everything I need to do to lose weight, and I'm not aware of why.

Okay.

Now, you tried to sneak in, and I don't know. Did you see that? You said if you used the word aware, I'm not aware of it, then I wouldn't catch it.

I'm like all over this. Okay. You know how to lose weight, you're just not doing it.

Right.

Tell me why.

That's a good question.

No, you answer it.

Answer it.

You know why. Tell me why you're not doing it.

Part of me feels like I can, but it's still that piece back there. Right.

What are you doing instead?

I'm not doing it.

What are you doing instead? Nothing.

That's the problem. It's nothing. I'm not exercising.

I'm not...

So at this point, you want nothing more than you want to lose weight. You want to do nothing more than you want to lose weight. Why?

Because it's easier. Yeah.

And I won't let myself down that way. I'm succeeding while I'm succeeding in doing nothing.

And I don't think I can succeed because it's so much.

I don't know if I can succeed in actually doing it.

But here's the thing. The way... This is what we wanted to know.

We want to know that we can succeed in actually doing it, so we don't do it to see if we can succeed in doing it. The way that we succeed in actually doing it is by doing it. And the choice is always discomfort over comfort.

And right now, you want comfort more than you want to succeed. And that's okay, but just tell yourself the truth about it. It's not because you're not capable.

It's not because you don't know what to do, because you know exactly how to do it. You're just choosing nothing over succeeding. And here's the thing I want to tell you.

A year from now, where will you be? If you keep doing nothing?

Worse off than I am now?

Yeah, for sure. You'll probably gain weight, right? Yeah.

So really think that through. Every time you choose nothing, you get a little bit more than nothing. That's true.

And that's totally up to you. Now we want it to be enjoyable. Like Annabel wants to go work out, and she wants it to not hurt.

She wants eating healthy food to be easy. She wants it to be all like quitting drinking was. She wants that magic pill.

But here's the thing, if I have the magic pill, then you don't have to dig deep. You don't become a better version of yourself. You get better results, but you don't have to dig deep to become and evolve.

Like think about, I always think about that little creature that had to go from water to land. Like that was messed up. The first creature that had to do that, right?

That's what we're being asked to do. We're asked to go from overeating and doing nothing. Not only do you have to perform at the level if you had never done that to your body, but you have to overcome everything you've done already, right?

That's where I was, too. I wasn't just like, okay, now I just need to eat healthy. I need to eat healthy and less enough so I can get rid of the weight that I already have on my body just so I can be back to non-buffering.

Exactly. Yeah. So most people won't take that challenge.

Most people will stay overweight and keep getting more overweight until they pass, right? So you have to, that's the easy route. So you have to decide, okay, I'm going to choose to be uncomfortable so ultimately, I can have that pride in myself and accomplish that in myself.

And I have to choose what I'm going to believe, what I'm going to feel, what I'm going to do in order to get that goal. And I'm going to be that 1% that does it.

That's what you have to do.

Or you can sit around and say, I don't know what's wrong, which is always, always, always a lie. You know exactly what's wrong. You should just always tell yourself the truth.

And here's what happens. You'll get tired of hearing it because you'll say, I just want to be comfortable right now. I just want to do nothing.

I don't want to honor my commitment to myself.

That's hard to say. That's hard to say.

It's much easier to say, well, I just don't know. It's all so confusing. Right?

That's pretty.

It's so, so pretty, especially if you say it in a high voice.

It's just, oh my God, it's just so much.

It's so confusing. I just need to read one more book. If I just read one more book on the topic, it'll all be solved.

Right? That's what I kept doing. I'm like, no, I'm just waiting for the right book.

And then what I noticed is that when I actually did what the book told me to do, then it worked. Most of the books, right? You just got to do that thing that it's asking you to do.

So you have a choice between taking action or unconsciousness. And when you choose unconsciousness, you don't directly create your results. That's where you end up in a body that you don't recognize.

Does that make sense?

Yes. I basically have to become comfortable with being uncomfortable.

Absolutely. Not only do you have to be comfortable with being uncomfortable, you have to choose discomfort over comfort on purpose, because it'll make you stronger and better. Right?

But here's what we do, and this is really an important distinction. When I tell my students you have to choose discomfort, they're like, I want my money back. Right?

I say you have to choose discomfort. But here's the thing, we're so used to making discomfort so awful that we don't even know what it's like just to accept discomfort. So, for example, like the example of Annabelle, she's going to lift weights, and the whole time she's lifting weights and feeling that physical pain, but then she's also complaining in her brain about it.

So she's making that discomfort totally worse. Like, oh, I wish this didn't hurt. This is totally terrible.

When is this going to be over? I don't ever want to do this again. I'm going to try and skip out of my workout.

I can't wait to go home and have, you know, a chili corn dog, whatever. Instead of just staying in that moment, just being like, this is supposed to be uncomfortable. I'm doing this on purpose for myself.

That'll be a whole different experience than, oh my God, it should be easy. Go ahead.

I was just saying that I ran through that as you were saying that. And that totally changes the dynamic of the uncomfortableness. That's right.

Because we don't make it worse.

I never thought about that. Yeah.

Great question, though. I'm going to move on, okay?

Okay. Thank you. Do that.

All right. You got it, Mickey.

Okay.

Who's next? Let's do area code 760.

Hello.

Hey, Brooke.

It's Suzanne.

Hi, Suzanne. Hey, Suzanne, hang on just one second. I just want to let you guys know that we're about an hour in right now.

I am going to keep taking calls and keep answering questions for as long as it takes. You and this is all recorded. So for those of you who are listening in, stay with me.

You're going to get everything you want. You can keep asking questions. For those of you who thought it was just going to be an hour and need to leave, totally fine.

It won't hurt my feelings at all. It takes a lot to offend me. Okay, Suzanne, what's your question?

All right, so it's definitely along the same lines. I had to hop on the call link, but I feel like it's all about wanting to be a better version of myself a year from now. Except my package is more creating...

I've been trying to build a business for the past two years, and it's very clear that I'm the block that I'm thinking is getting in the way of any traction. So it's the same, like, same stories. It's uncomfortable, and then all the thoughts of, I don't know where clients are, I don't know how to get them.

I think my question is I will, I'll get in the place where, like, no, I really want this, and I'll start taking action.

Yep.

But because I still have that, like, underlying, those underlying beliefs and thoughts, that I'll do it, but I'm doing it, and it's uncomfortable. So there's these very inconsistent firsts. Right.

Action doesn't get me anywhere.

Well, and this is what happens to most of us, right? This is the reason why I created Self-Coaching Scholars because this is what happens. A lot of people listen to my podcast, or they listen to a class like this, or they get an idea, or they decide they're going to start a business, like what you've done, right?

And then you start thinking about what's possible for you. Like, you could have a coaching business, and you could be coaching clients, and you could be making money, and you get motivated because you're just thinking about it, right? Then, you start taking action from that motivation, and then you don't get that instantaneous result.

You don't get that instantaneous approval. And so, immediately, all of your ugly comes up. Yeah.

Right? And instead of us saying, oh, that's supposed to happen, I'm doing a big dream, I'm building my own business, of course, I'm going to be uncomfortable, of course, that's going to present, that's my work now, is to work through that and keep taking action. But instead, we're like, oh, your brain's like, see, I told you, this is a terrible idea, we never should have done this in the first place.

And then you fade away. But what happens is, that energy inside of you that wants you to grow keeps pushing you towards that. And so, then you try again.

But then you keep telling yourself you can't. So, the way that you have to manage that is by just knowing that at some point you're going to tell yourself it's too hard. And you are going to tell yourself that you don't know.

So, here's one of the things I recommend for you. What would your life be like if you weren't allowed to say you don't know something?

I wouldn't have to take action.

Like, I think you should go on an I don't know diet. Like literally, you cannot tell yourself that lie anymore.

Yeah. I know the answer is I'm so good at being in my head, and doing journaling, and doing the models. And there's no more resource.

Like I have to get out and talk to people and do the action. But so, yeah.

And the way that you can do that is you do the model backwards. So, in that result line, you say, I want one client, and what is the action that I need to take in order to get that one client? And you have to make at least, I'm going to say, 20 offers.

Right? Now, all of a sudden, you can use the model as an action-producing activity. So, I'm willing, so your thought could be, I'm willing to make 20 offers, and here 20 noes.

I'm all in. Right? And then you're going to, the feeling you're going to have is committed and disciplined.

And then you know how uncomfortable that's going to be? You're going to be like, hey, I'm a coach. You want to sign up?

No. Okay. Hey, I'm a coach.

You want to sign up? No. Hey.

Right? And you just keep going. And then eventually, someone will say yes, which will be very confusing.

You're going to be like, what just happened? What about my belief that this is impossible? Right?

So, we make it so complicated on purpose, because the more complicated it is, the less action we have to take. Yeah.

Oh, definitely. It's been the past, yeah, couple years of coming up with different stories and different reasons and...

Yeah. And it's the same exact work that Mickey's doing, right? It's the same exact idea of, you know, are you going to accept that as an excuse from yourself?

Is that acceptable? Is that the type of relationship that you want to have with yourself? Or are you going to ask more of yourself than that?

Now, listen, at the end, here's what the deal is. I have this goal to create this program and coach many people on all of these kind of topics ongoing, and I want to create a business that supports that, and I'm going to do everything I possibly can to make that happen. And at the end of a year, I will be a different person.

Whether that result is exactly the result I wanted or not, I for sure will be a higher quality version of myself if I show up. And so that, I think, can be a very compelling reason. Like, it's like, Annabelle, it's like, I want to lose 25 lbs, not just because I want to be in my clothes, but because I want to know that I could do that for myself.

Like, when she does that for herself, when she loses that weight, she's going to be so thankful and have so much gratitude and so much honor and, you know, respect her own discipline so much more than if she doesn't. And it's the same with you. Like, don't you want to give yourself the dream of having your own business?

Yeah. And at this point, it's not like a few of the reasons before where I want to quit my current job, I want to make more money. But now I'm like, I just want to see this through.

Yeah.

Because I put so much energy and money into it. I don't even, I just want to know that I did it all the way A to B and finish it. And then regardless, if I'm still at my job, then I am.

So true. It's so true. And that's what I tell myself.

I remind myself all the time. At the end of my life, I'm not going to care how much money I made. I'm not going to care how successful anyone thought I was.

All I'm going to care is like, did I spend myself to the best of my ability? Can I be like, girl, I don't know how you could have done any better than that. Like you showed up and delivered.

That's all you can do. And I deliver for the sake of having myself evolve, so I can be proud. And in that process, you make a contribution and you help lots of other people, which is super cool.

But you don't do it for that sake. You do it because of that little inkling inside of you that knows that you can. And you know that that's true for you, right?

Or you would have never had the dream in the first place.

Yeah. Yeah, I keep... There's something that's kept pushing me.

And it's more... It's so unimaginable for me to think about staying in my current job. Like that, I can't even comprehend being there.

So that is enough to be like, no, you are... This is right.

It is...

It's hard, but this is still...

Yeah.

It's worth it.

It's worth it to be uncomfortable, right? A year from now, you'll be like, damn, that was an uncomfortable year, but now I have my own business. Or a year from now, you can be like, oh, that was an uncomfortable year, being in a job that I hate, and oh, I get to do it again next year.

Yeah.

Right? So pick your flavor of discomfort. One lets you down, and one keeps you growing and evolving.

Yeah.

You have to keep reminding yourself that it's worth it for you to do that, because it's so much easier just to slip into coasting.

Yeah. I think now it's just, it's been, yeah, that exhausting, like, oh, I'm going to push, be motivated, action, and then backsliding.

Yeah.

And then action again. So yeah.

And here's the thing I want to offer all of you guys. This is such an important distinction, is when you are going towards your goals and you're embracing discomfort, it doesn't feel like force, it doesn't feel like you're shoving yourself, it doesn't feel mean. It feels compassionate and committed and open.

If you feel yourself being confused and angry and frustrated, you're doing it wrong because you're forcing yourself to do something with a lot of negative thinking about yourself. You got to clean that up and take action from that more positive place. But don't use any kind of negative emotion as an excuse not to take action.

Just know that that's your brain doing its thing.

Yeah, I think, I don't know if you're familiar with Todd Herman, but his concept of the ow brain and the wow brain was really helpful recently. Like, oh my gosh, okay.

Totally, totally. So, you really think about this. Where do you want to be a year from now?

Are you going to be better in this area of building your business? Or are you just going to coast to be at the exact same spot? Or are you going to be worse off?

That's a decision. You get to decide that for yourself, right? Super good.

Okay, I'm going to move on, all right? Yeah, you're welcome. Okay, next person's area code is 484.

Hi Brooke, it's Danielle from Delaware. How are you?

I'm great.

So first, I have to say thank you for all you offer all of us through your podcast and the materials that you don't make us pay for.

You got it.

Great information, and I did just finish reading, if I'm so smart, and that's been extremely helpful.

Oh, good.

Yeah, my question, and I say extremely helpful just in the early stages, so I'm hopeful that I will stay committed. What I wanted to know, because I have a real interest in going through your coaching program, and is there any correlation between the program you're offering now and the once-a-year coaching program? Have you established a business model to show where there's any type of correlation at all in the long term, if not in the more immediate?

Okay, wait, so my program, self-coaching, that I'm offering the self-coaching scholars, is it correlated to the work I did with If I'm So Smart, You Mean?

No, no, the program for coaches, that you have every September, is there any connection? Like I heard your description.

Oh, yes, totally different programs. Totally different programs. Yeah, yeah, let me explain.

Okay. If you want to come to me and have me teach you how to be a coach, I'll be like your professor, instructor, and I will teach you how to coach yourself and how to coach clients. I'll teach you how to build a business, and a coaching business, and we will help you do that, and you will be in the world as a coach.

Okay, that's my certification program. So for those of you who are interested in that, you go to the website, it's under certification. This program is I am your coach.

I'm your teacher too, right? But you're my client, and I'm your coach as you're in a big group of people, but I'm showing up just like I am here. So the way that it would be different is I would say, okay, when you're working with your client, this is how you should handle that versus, okay, tell me what your weight issue is, and let me start coaching you on it.

Okay, so in your normal, in the regular coaching program, it's not about getting coached as much as it is just preparing you to coach others.

That's right. That's right. I do coach because I coach in the certification program just to demonstrate coaching, right?

So I do coach everyone that goes through that program, so they do get some experience coaching. A lot of people get life-changing coaching. But that's not the main purpose of it.

The main purpose of that is for me to teach you how to do it with yourself and your clients. So it's different in that sense.

Okay. Yeah, I thank you because I just wanted to hear your description of that. Yeah, great question.

I didn't know if there was any connection, so thank you.

Yeah, you're welcome. Okay, next area code is 510. Hello.

Hi, Brooke. This is Kara.

Hi, Kara.

Hi. I have a question about how do you balance the desire to be better and the goals to be better with self-acceptance? I've been having a hard time.

Like, I'm pretty hard on myself and I'm pretty judgmental. So I've been working a lot on self-acceptance, but for a long time, I was like, I just need to be better. I just need to be better.

So I'm worried about how to balance this to desire.

It's such a good question. It's such a good question. Here's why.

You cannot get better from that place of lack and from that place of beating yourself up and from that place of scarcity. You have to start with compassion, curiosity, and acceptance. And so that's why we're saying, beating yourself up is not going to get you anywhere, right?

If you don't follow through on your goals, beating yourself up. But, but there's a huge confusion with a lot of people. I get this question kind of asked in a different way, where accepting yourself as you are does not mean that you don't make progress.

And in fact, when I have clients that are trying to lose weight, right, and let's say they're 30 pounds over weight, and I have to teach them to accept their body exactly where it is in order for them to then release that 30 pounds, which is kind of counterintuitive, because people think, if I accept my body and love it the way it is, then I'll never lose the weight, right? I'll just be complacent with it. But the exact opposite is true.

Once you accept it and find yourself in positive emotion, that is when you feel that inclination to grow and to expand and to be kind to yourself. So if you've already taken that step to learn to accept yourself, here's where you're going to run into challenges if that's been an issue for you before. Because what will happen is you'll feel very accepting of yourself, very loving of yourself.

Then you'll go out there in the world to try and do something more, like let's say it's losing weight or building a business, and you'll run up against all that self-doubt and immediately you're going to go into your brain and say, see, you're not good enough. This is too hard. You should just accept the way you are right now and not try and do anything else.

So it will challenge your self-acceptance as you progress. That is not a reason not to progress. Right?

It's not threatening it. It's simply just giving you another opportunity to take it to a deeper level. Does that make sense?

Okay.

Challenging, yeah?

Do you have suggestions on, like, types of goals, aside from starting a...

Like, if there was more personality goals, like relationship goals that are less judgmental and more growth-oriented?

Yeah, I mean, I think that that would be an amazing goal. You could pick a specific person that you wanted to work with or work on that relationship with that person, and you notice where you're not showing up the way you want to show up. You're noticing where you're struggling.

And then the reason why you do any action is because of the way you're thinking and feeling. So once you identify that, then you can understand with compassion and, like you said, accept where you are, and then you can create goals for how you want to be in that relationship. For those of you who are doing relationship goals, it's very important to remember that you can't control the other person, and you don't need to.

Your goal in any relationship is how do you want to show up in that relationship? Who do you want to be? No matter what that person does, who do you want to be in that relationship?

And that's where you can really use the model to adjust yourself when that person doesn't meet your expectations, or doesn't show up the way you want to, or you notice yourself judging them. Because I love the way Marianne Williams says, it only takes one sane person to make a relationship better. And I think that is totally true.

And it takes two people to fight. So that would be my suggestion in terms of a relationship and how you would approach it. You kind of look at that big picture, and then you tap into all those self-coaching models that are in there.

Now, if you're on this call and you're like, what is she talking about? What is the model? What are these self-coaching models?

On my podcast, I teach the model, and you can go to the early on podcast, and I teach all through the model. If you've joined Self-Coaching Scholars, you will get the books and the videos that teach you the model in detail. So you'll be able to understand that as well.

Okay, does that make sense? Yes, thank you. All right, awesome.

Good question. Okay, next person is 914.

Hi, Brooke.

Hi.

Wow, this is such a treat, because I've listened to practically every one of your podcasts.

Wow, that's impressive.

I know. Yes, and the woman who spoke earlier, who thanked you for all your generosity, I want to mirror that and thank you as well.

Thank you.

It's huge what you do. So, my question is that I got your e-mail, and I'm really interested in what you're doing, this self-coaching scholar. At the same time, I have been starting a coaching business over this past year, and it hasn't developed as well as I had hoped.

And so, I don't know, do I need a business coach, or do I need this?

Tell me why your business isn't where you want it to be.

Because I don't have enough clients, and...

Why not?

You know, when I... I don't have enough clients, probably because I'm not out in the world enough, talking to people, promoting myself.

I mean, I think this is a great question. I think a lot of people have this one when it comes to, do I need someone to help me figure out how to build a business, or do I need someone to help me get over my own head? My answer will always be, get over yourself.

Because getting the clients and doing the technical stuff that you need to do in order to get clients is the easy part. Learning that stuff is the easy part. The hard part is getting over yourself, being willing to risk the rejection, being willing to put yourself out there, being willing to be really clear in your mind about how much money you want to make, how many clients you want to have, and then being committed to getting them no matter what.

Now, there are business coaches that do both, right? There are business coaches that have the expertise to be able to teach you the techniques that they believe will help you build your business, and they will help you get over the mental part too, right? So that would be an option, hiring someone that has both of those skill sets.

Now, that's going to be much more expensive than, I mean, if you get someone really good, that's going to be thousands of dollars a month, worth every penny if you get someone good though, by the way. I think investing in a really good business coach is really worth the money because they can help you make so much money. This program will be different in the sense that there'll be a lot of mental work that you'll need to do in order to get all of those doubtful negative thoughts that are preventing you from putting yourself out there into the world.

You're going to have to work on those. And that's it. It's simple, but it's difficult, right?

Because your brain is so used to spinning all of those thoughts.

Yeah, the thoughts that I keep telling myself aren't there.

You tell yourself what?

I tell myself that, you know, I mean, I've done a lot of work on myself, and I have done a lot of self-coaching, and I've progressed so much. And then I have to look in the mirror and say, you know, you don't really like, well, I'll phrase it as you don't really like going out there and doing that. But it's not true.

When I do it and it's good results, well, even when it's not a good result, I do like it. It is the fear of doing it. It is the fear of presenting myself in the world.

Yeah, it's very uncomfortable.

And it's just like Annabelle, right?

It's uncomfortable to do squats. It's uncomfortable to ask someone to coach with you, right?

That was a really, really good metaphor. The idea of, because I was in my yoga class last night, and it was so hard, and I was thinking, oh my God, this is so hard. Why do I keep coming back here?

And just the way you put it was like, it's supposed to be hard. This is how you get better.

Yeah, you're doing hard on purpose. We have a sign in our house that one of my master coach classes gave me. It says, we can do hard things.

I love it. I love it. But here's one of the things I want to offer you guys.

Those of you who, some of you have asked me the question about the group coaching, and feeling like, oh my gosh, I'm going to be in the self-coaching scholars, and there's so many people that need to get coached. What if I don't get my turn? And this is a perfect example of that.

Sometimes, it's so much easier to see how someone else is struggling and apply it to yourself when it's not your specific issue, right? So you can listen to someone talking about working out, and you're like, oh my gosh, that's the exact same thing I'm doing in my business when it comes to asking for clients. Because here's the thing that's magical for me.

My perspective is, I have thousands of people who want coaching, who want to pay for coaching. And I have all of my students, right? And I have lots of my coaching students that feel like there aren't enough clients.

And I'm sitting here looking at it. I'm looking at the ocean of clients, and then I'm looking at the disbelief. And that's the only thing that's holding them back from all of that abundance.

And so my perspective is there's absolutely nothing you can say that would convince me that you couldn't build a very successful coaching business, because I see the reality of it, right? But the only thing holding you back is, I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't want to risk that rejection.

I don't think that I can do it. I don't think it'll work out for me. Once you get rid of all that, then it's just a matter of doing the work to get the clients, right?

More, yes, that's correct. But then I'm thinking, well, and this is a little bit of devil's advocate, because I believe in what you're saying right now. Or is it that I need someone who's going to tell me, this is where you need to put your focus, this is where you need to put your resources, this is what you need to be doing, you know, in order to drive people to your website and get more traffic, whatever.

But here's the truth.

I mean, the truth of this is, and this is why I know that's not the case, is because I have every single one of those steps documented in How to Be a Life Coach on a podcast, and still people tell me they don't know what to do. And here's the thing, even if I didn't have all that stuff documented, even if it wasn't all over the web in so many different ways, you still have to figure it out for you, right? You have to figure it out for your niche and your people and your approach and your positioning, and you have to put yourself out there and like, re-correct, re-correct, re-correct.

And here's the problem, if somebody tells you what to do, and you do that, and it doesn't work, then you're going to lose faith in them, versus just, go ahead.

Well, I was going to say, that's what I was sort of thinking about as I was listening to this call was, it is finding our own way of being out there and doing this, it's going to be uncomfortable, no matter what, at least for me in the beginning, getting out there, it's going to be uncomfortable. And somebody can tell me those steps to do, but I need to find my way through the steps in a way that's going to work for me, that feels genuine, that feels real, that feels like, not just like following a script and getting out there and trying to do something. So I understand.

But here's what I want to tell you, because you're already tripping yourself up, you're telling yourself you need to go out there in a way that feels real, in a way that feels genuine. And I'm going to tell you what, it's not going to feel real, it's not going to feel genuine, it's going to feel awful.

I love that. Okay.

Right? I want to feel like I'm aligned with my life's purpose. You're going to feel like ass is what you're going to feel like when you first put yourself out there.

What I was thinking is like someone's going to tell me what to do, and I think I'm going to go out there, and I'm going to figure out what doesn't work for me, and then I'm going to find a way to do it that does work for me.

That's right. Of course.

Yeah.

But until you figure out what works, it's not going to feel great, right? And so, and that's okay. That's what we're embracing.

Yeah.

Perfect. Great question. Thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. Let's see who's next. We have 303.

Colorado, I think. Used to live there.

Hi, Brooke.

Hi.

Hi. Thank you. Thank you for all that you do.

Oh, you're welcome. My pleasure.

I love what you're saying, and I've been trying to apply a lot of what you're doing or sharing. Looking at your scholars class, hoping that I can pull the funds together for that. Awesome.

Very excited. But my question is around boundaries and manuals.

Yes.

Can you speak a little bit more? I'm struggling with how do you do what you need to do for you to be the best that you can be.

Yep.

Creating boundaries without manuals.

Yeah. So here's the thing. The only reason you need a boundary is if there's a boundary violation.

Very rarely do we need boundaries, right? Boundaries happen when someone comes into our property emotionally or comes into our property physically, right? So someone, for example, yelling at you in your face, or taking your things, or stealing your money, or coming into your house uninvited, or calling you 700 times a day, right?

Very rarely do we need boundaries. A lot of us create what we call boundaries, because it sounds pretty, which are really manuals, which is telling someone else how to behave. So do you want to give me a quick example, and I'll let you see?

I'm trying to think of one that's directly related to, like, I'm trying to create my own coaching business, but I can't think of something that relates in that respect, so I'm going to go to a personal one. My sister and I, we have this tax relationship, where sometimes things are great and sometimes things aren't. And both our parents are gone, holidays are coming up, and I think I know what you're going to say.

She tends to flake on holidays, and so I just offered, hey, I'm going to host Christmas. Will you come join us? And she said, you know what, I'm just going to stay at home this year.

And I know exactly what you're going to say. That's her, and I can't make that personal. I keep hearing your voice saying, are you making that mean?

And do you answer it? See, you don't even need to sign up. You just already have it in your head.

I love it. What are you making it mean?

I do. I make it mean that I'm not good enough, and that she doesn't want to spend time with me. And it could be that.

It definitely could be that. Maybe she just has had it with me right now.

Yeah.

But that's okay. I have to be okay with that. And so, it's not about me, because what I want to do is I want to set a boundary and say, well, I'm not okay with that because we're family.

Okay. That's a very inappropriate place to set a boundary because there's no boundary violation, right?

Right. You're right.

So, be careful. What you want to do is write a manual and say, no, no. Page four, it says, if you're invited, you attend whether you want to or not.

Did you miss that?

Right. Right. And then I went into the space of, well, it's an example I need to set for our kids because family is important.

And I thought, no, because then that's a manual for my kids.

That's right. Do you want her to come even if she doesn't want to come?

No, I don't.

Really think that about that.

I want her to want to come, and that's different than wanting her to come.

Yeah. And here's the thing, like, we have so much trouble just managing our own self, trying to help someone want to want to do something.

It's impossible.

It's impossible. And the sooner I learn that, but it's interesting, because I go one layer down, and I'm like, okay, this is a manual. Then it's like something else comes up that is also a manual.

A manual is any time you want someone else to behave in a certain way so you can feel different.

Yeah.

And it's such the long way around because she's not going to comply. You're like, listen, sis, the only thing I need you to do is want to want to come. That's it.

Even though you don't want to come, I want you to want to want to come.

And do you think sharing that with her or no?

Because I think- Absolutely not. Because she's not, I promise you, she's not going to go, oh, is that all?

Okay.

I'll work on that.

No. Right?

She doesn't want to come to your house.

It's totally fine. Right? It's like other people get to do and be and have and act and feel the way they want.

And she says to you, I don't want to come, and you have some thoughts about that.

Right? I got to deal with that.

But here's what I'm going to offer you. You want her to want to want to come, you could decide you want to want her to do whatever the heck she wants to do.

Right.

And you can be okay with it, and you can unconditionally love her anyway.

Right.

You don't have to be mean and rude and put your hands on your hips, and that will really make her want to come.

Yeah. And I knew that. But I was like, well, how do I honor my feelings?

I honor my feelings by not attaching my worth to her choices.

Be really careful, you guys, when you say something like honor my feelings, because the feelings that you're having are based on really negative thoughts. So you want to be aware of your feelings and you want to feel them, but you don't want to honor the negative thoughts that are creating it, right? Because the thought you're having is she should want to come over.

She should want to be with me. I'm offering, she should accept that, right? So then you feel terrible and you're like, I'm going to honor my feelings that she's causing me to have.

But really what's happening is you're creating all those feelings for yourself and giving her the credit.

Oh, my gosh. Yes. OK.

Busted.

No, it's all good. But here's the best news is she doesn't have to want to come over for you to feel better. That's what I want to give you, because you don't need to set a boundary and you don't need to send her a manual.

You just change how you're thinking. And here's the other thing is you can still reach out to her and love her and offer her and do whatever you want with her from that positive place. But you have to clean up your own feelings that you are causing yourself.

She's not causing you. And that's what will set you free. And then you'll be able to show up the way you want.

That is powerful stuff, Brooke.

Such good stuff, yeah?

So, so much.

Yes, you are amazing.

All right, thank you. Great question. All right, who's next?

Bye. All right, let's try 773.

Oh, I didn't.

Sorry.

773.

Hello.

Hello. How are you?

I'm good. I love that you're a dude. I see you.

I hope you're a dude, actually.

Oh, yeah.

Yes, I am. What's happening?

Tell me.

Oh, well, first, I want to just say thank you for your work and all that you do. It is very helpful and necessary.

Awesome. My pleasure.

My question is, well, actually, I actually got the help before I got to the call.

Oh, good.

Before my turn came up, because my situation is a lot like the young lady. I thought that I had an issue with starting my business. But just listening to person after person, my issue is me.

Your issue is you.

It always is. This is very good news.

Yes. The limited beliefs and steady rewinding my past. And although I've accomplished so much since that time, it's that fear of still feeling not good enough or feeling as if I'm going to fail.

But the other side of it is the fruit that I produce when I'm having just conversations with people. I know if I can get past me, I could master this fear.

And that's what it's all about, right?

Yes.

You know what? That fear is there for you to get past. It's not a mistake.

It's like, okay, here's your assignment. Here's fear. What do you got?

You know what I mean? Go after that and get that. And make sure when you think about your business, that you are thinking about it deliberately and on purpose.

Okay. Make sure those thoughts are supportive. But I'm glad this is exactly the point.

You get your help by just listening in to other people. Brilliant.

Yes. Yes.

Love it. All right.

Thank you. Okay. Next.

717. Hello. Hi.

Good evening, Brooke. Good evening, Ms. Ricardo.

How are you? I'm good. Are you a dude?

I am.

I'm a second dude.

Two dudes in a row. I'm stoked. What's happening?

Tell me.

Brooke, first of all, thanks. I say along with everyone else, thank you so much for everything. You're very inspirational.

My wife and I have been listening to you for a long time. As a matter of fact, we signed up with the self-coaching scholars. We're really looking forward to it.

Oh, I love that you're doing it together. That's brilliant.

Definitely. Definitely. Here's kind of what I struggle with, and I guess the best way to describe among other things.

And I'm pretty great at passive action. Massive action, not so much. Yeah.

Join the club.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm convinced that I use classes and books and reading and training.

I'm convinced that I use that in major books. So what it amounts to, I should be kind of the smartest person in the world to get started in all the different areas of my life. But what I find is, of course, that I can't find a way to kind of stick to things and overwhelm takes over.

So I can't seem to buckle down and accept one route to get to my individual goals. So I kind of know theoretically what I have to do, but I was wondering if you have any tips, having talked about it in the past, about the whole passive action thing.

Yeah. So here's the thing, is passive action can actually be buffering. And for those of you who don't know what passive action is, passive action is action that doesn't create a result in the world.

Right? So it's taking classes. It feels like you're taking action because you're learning something, but you're not actually creating a result until you go out there and take action based on what you've learned.

So a lot of us and my students, I am like probably the worst at it, is that we just keep taking classes. Like if we just know one more thing, if we just learn one more thing. And that's one of the reasons why I decided to create self-coaching scholars, because most of my students, they email me and say, Oh my gosh, I love your podcast.

Can you give me more books to read? What books do you read? And I'm happy to give more books to read, but I know that they could be actually taking that action instead of learning.

So one of the things that you can do is create a protocol around passive action. You give yourself a limited amount of time and a limited amount of money, and a limited amount of energy into passive action, and the rest of it is all massive action, which means you go out there and take action in the world. That will change everything very quickly.

Excellent. Excellent.

Yeah? Does that make sense?

It very much makes sense.

It's an easy answer. It's difficult to implement, but it's an easy answer. But if you schedule that and you honor it, your life will change dramatically.

And I remember your sessions on goal setting, and it's kind of hard for me to see the whole, taking it a step, a little bite size at a time, because I want everything right now.

Yeah, me too. I get it.

But I guess there's no way around it. There's no shortcut around that.

Yeah. I remember I used to just sit around saying, I want to be skinny and rich. Where's that class?

Where's that book? And then I realized that that's not what anyone wants, right? We want to become the person that that's easy for, and that requires that we go through it.

But it's just like the last dude saying, you know, I have this fear, and if we could just take the fear away, everything would be fine. But it's the process of moving through the fear that makes the result easy. So just be willing, know that you'd rather take passive action, know that that's your buffer, and then go take some massive action and be really uncomfortable on purpose.

And then if you're in Self-Coaching Scholars, you have to keep updating me and let me know how that turns out.

I will do that. Thank you, Brooke.

All right.

Awesome.

Thank you. Okay. I have one more live question.

That's area code 650.

Hello, Brooke.

Hello. This is Alana. How are you?

I'm good.

How are you? I'm doing well.

I was hoping that I wouldn't get called on. I know. I've done that too.

I raised my hand and I'm like, why is my hand in the air? What just happened?

Okay.

So I signed up for the self-coaching scholar. Nice.

And I don't know, I know you've worked with a lot of people, but what I'm going through is, I'm definitely in peri-mental puzzle.

Yeah. So I've had my period since March.

I'm really moody and I'm depressed.

And so I'm wondering, a program like this is going to help, if that makes sense. I'm not even sure what I'm trying to ask. Here's what I want to offer you about that.

I work with a lot of clients in my stuff over reading masterclass that are in peri-menopause. And what we do, are you familiar with the model yet? Somewhat, yes.

Okay. So, and you'll learn more about it. We'll send you a package.

But here's the thing. What I do with peri-menopause, because it does have some really legit symptoms that you're, I mean, you really are having mood swings and all of that stuff is happening. That you can make worse or better by the way you think about it.

So we put peri-menopause in the C line, in the circumstance line, and then you get to decide how you want to think about it. So most of us, when we go through any kind of mood swing or, you know, period issue or whatever, is we complain to ourselves about it, and we make it worse. Yes.

We use it as an excuse. And so what I would suggest that you do is decide, and this is a really important question, decide how you want to feel about going on this journey through menopause, knowing that you're going to be moody, you're going to have issues, right? Now, we can make some food adjustments and stuff like that, but what I like to do is just have you consider, okay, this is what I'm dealing with today.

For some of you, you're tired physically today. For some of you, you're on your period. For some of you, it's perimenopause, right?

Whatever. So, put that in that circumstance line, and then you make a decision about how you're going to travel with perimenopause, and you can make your life so much more pleasant. Or if you sit around and complain and make it mean a whole bunch of horrible things, and you feel entitled to feel better, and you don't want to be uncomfortable, you'll make it so much worse.

Does that make sense? Yes. Okay.

But keep bringing it up. Let's keep talking about it, because I think that could be really educational for a lot of people that are in self-coaching scholars, because I know a lot of us are women that are heading that direction. Right.

So when does it officially start, like the calls and all that? We start in January.

January. Okay. Great.

Yeah. So everyone will get sent a bonus box right when they sign up, which includes four bucks and all of that. And then starting January 1st, you'll start receiving the materials that we'll do in January with the videos, and then the calls will start up in the second week of January.

And you'll get all the information in the schedule there. Awesome.

All right.

So I'll see you soon.

Okay.

Erica, you're my last one. Are you still there? Hello?

Erica?

I am here.

I am here. I'm here. We have a lot of questions.

Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

I can hear you. Okay, good. I just got a weird recording.

So, okay, you got some questions for me? I do. Awesome.

What do you got?

First of all, I just want to know if anyone can take notes or type as fast as you speak.

Just a no.

Because it's a lot.

Are you trying to take notes? Oh, of course. Okay.

You guys, this is Erica. She's my best friend. She's also my colleague working.

We're kind of partnering on Self-Couching Scholars. So she's like your main point of contact for all of this. But I do.

I talk very fast. That's why we cover a lot of ground. That's why people are like, how is she going to be able to coach me?

I'm like, don't you worry. I got you. That's what I've said.

Don't you worry. Perfect. All right.

What's the question? What do we got?

First one is, if I haven't done any formal work with you, will it be a problem for me?

No. The answer is no.

Absolutely not.

Okay. I think what she's asking is, I haven't ever worked with you before. I don't know all your material backwards and forwards.

You've never coached me before. I feel like I might get left behind. And the answer is absolutely not.

So basically, what happens, you guys, is I send you this bonus box and all these videos to bring you up to speed, and then we go over, and I go over everything on a video. I am not going to do beginner stuff, like brand new beginner stuff on the calls, because I have provided all of the videos, but I do have one of my master coaches who will be in Self-Coaching Scholars with us. So if you are a brand new beginner, you can set up some tutoring time with her.

Isn't that amazing? We call it tutor time. And you can set up time with her, and she will help bring you up to speed with the model.

But I will tell you, if you are a brand new beginner, and you attend all the classes and do all the work I assign, you will be, within one month, you will be up to speed in terms of understanding the model. So don't worry about that at all. We've designed it so you're very well taken care of.

If you feel like at any point you're falling behind, we have coaches that can help you catch right up. If you, on the other hand, if you feel totally advanced, don't you worry. I'm not going to let you be bored.

Don't you worry. All right. What's next?

Okay. Next one is, I am a registered clinical counselor in Canada, working in private practice, interested in coach training, and changing the direction of my practice. I have a friend who did Martha Beck's program, and she recommended either that program or The Life School Training.

And I'm wondering if you'd be able to share some similarities and differences with me. Is the core skills training of your program the in-person component only? Okay, great question.

This is a really good question. So she's asking about becoming certified as a coach. Now, here's what I want to say.

I offered that program once a year in September, it's in-person. That program is designed to train coaches, how to be coaches. The Self-Coaching Scholars is a separate program for clients who want to be coached by me.

I will not be teaching you how to be a coach. That being said, I have a lot of coaches who have signed up for Self-Coaching Scholars, but they haven't signed up for Self-Coaching Scholars to learn how to be a coach. They've signed up for Self-Coaching Scholars for me to coach them so they can work on their own brains.

That's a really important distinction. Now, her question was, what's the difference between Martha Beck's program and my program? And that is a question.

There's a lot of differences. They're very dissimilar programs. So to understand those differences, I want you to go to the Certification tab on The Life Coach School site and make sure you sign up for the Info Call with Jody Moore, who is one of my coaches and also does all of my enrollment for that in-person, and she'll be able to tell you those differences.

She knows them very well. So good question. All right.

What's next? All right.

So the next one is, intellectually, I understand that self-forgiveness is important, but I can't seem to put it into practice for myself. What can I do to make this real in my life?

Good question. So, self-forgiveness, if you guys have listened to my forgiveness podcast, self-forgiveness is all about stopping the thoughts and the feelings that cause you to resent yourself and blame yourself. So when you ask me, I understand intellectually that it's important.

I just don't know how to do it. You've locked yourself in an I don't know confusion lie, which is the first step we have to remove. The second thing that's really important to understand is that when you are wanting to do something and you aren't doing it, ask yourself the question, why am I not doing it?

What am I doing instead? And so it sounds like what you're probably doing instead is beating yourself up. And you're probably beating yourself up because it's a habit, because you're feeling guilty and upset because of something that you did.

Now, you can continue to choose to do that, but I just want to offer you there is no upside, it serves no purpose, it doesn't give you any benefit whatsoever. It's simply a habit that doesn't serve you. You will, your brain will try to convince you that feeling guilty about something is somehow compensating for what you did.

It never is. Feeling guilty about something, resenting yourself or blaming yourself does not make what you did any less. In fact, it makes it worse.

So you have to be willing to let go of your reason for hanging on to that blame, and then forgiving yourself will be much easier. If you're in Self-Coaching Scholars, make sure you bring this up to me on one of the calls, and I will run a model with you. I need to be able to talk to you to do this, but I'll run a model with you that will completely set you free from this.

I've done this work a lot. Good question. Okay, what's next?

Okay, so this one says, how will I learn more or different than listening to your podcast and doing the model and taking notes, etc., which I've been doing by joining the scholars? How will it be different?

Good question. So here's what I want to say. If you are listening to my podcast, and you're taking notes, and you're doing models, and you're applying what I teach you, and you're getting the results you want in your life, don't sign up.

You don't need it. And there's quite a few of you that are in that camp, right? You're already applying.

This Self-Coaching Scholars is set up for people who aren't getting the results they want, even though they understand intellectually everything I'm teaching. So there's understanding it intellectually, and then there's applying it, and stumbling, and struggling, and getting my help with it. That's what Self-Coaching Scholars is.

We're going to offer two main things. One of them is we're going to give you exercises and assignments where you have to apply what I'm teaching you, not just listen in on the podcast. And the second thing is you'll have access to me.

So when you get confused, you think you're confused, when you need help, you'll be able to talk to me directly. Right? And so that's a huge benefit.

Right? And you'll also be able to listen to other people going through the same process with you, and you'll be able to learn from that. So you will get more learning than you would just get from the podcast, but the main reason we're doing this is so you'll apply it more.

But if you're already getting the results you want, rock on, mama. All right.

So I have a couple more questions for you.

Perfect.

This one says, I've quit drinking for eight glorious, wonderful weeks now. My first thought about this training is that without alcohol influencing my life, I really don't have that much to work on. I'm 54, work only a couple of hours a day by choice, have worked through so much of my chaos in my marriage, and feel my family is in a good place.

Is this training more for career minded people? I was in journalism for 30 years, and I've had enough. Or can anyone benefit?

Oh, great question. So here's the thing. No, it's not for career.

It can be. It can be for anything, right? So we're going to have people that want to lose a lot of weight.

We're going to have people that want to quit drinking, which congratulations, by the way, it sounds like you've done that brilliantly. And we're going to have people that just want to work on getting better in any area. So I think this call is probably perfect for you.

I think you'll go through and listen to this and decide, okay, where do I want to be next year? Do I want to get better? Sounds like you're in a coasting zone right now, which you may want to stay for a while and enjoy.

But if there's a part of you that wants to grow and get better, and you want to benefit from me being able to help you to do that, that's when this program would make the most sense. So yeah, that's completely up to you. But I think this call will, the first part of this call will help.

All right, what do we got?

Okay. This one is pretty similar, but it says, how do I maintain consistency in my life with my family, discipline, business, personal scripture study, and any kind of goals? Good.

Manage your mind, mama. That's the only way. So use the model.

So when you want to be consistent, when you want to be disciplined, when you want to honor your decisions ahead of time, honor your commitment to yourself, the only way I know of how to do that is to remain conscious and be deliberate. And the model is the best tool I've ever used to be able to do that. The reason, and here's how we understand that, the reason that you're not doing those things is important.

The reason you're not doing those things is because of the way you're currently thinking. And that's where the model comes in, and that's where we can start looking at your thought downloads. We can start looking at your thoughts and seeing why aren't you getting the results you want to get in your life, what is preventing you, what are those obstacles, and then using that work to actually get you to do it.

That's the work that I did really, really consistently these past two years in terms of being able to really pay attention to the things in my life that I was doing that weren't getting me the results I want, and then turning that and focusing on the things that I want to be doing to get the results I want. And this course, that's exactly what we're going to do. We are going to look at our brains every single day and make sure our brains are supervised.

Okay? We have those two parts of our brain. We have that primitive brain that tells us we're going to die all the time and is trying to keep us safe, and then we have our prefrontal cortex that supervises it.

And if you don't deliberately supervise your own brain, it will do things that are naughty and will give you results you don't want, right? So that is the whole purpose of this course. Holy cow!

Two hours! So much. So good.

So good. So here's one thing I want to offer you guys. Those of you who are in self-coaching scholars, we have the calls scheduled for one hour.

Sometimes they will be one hour. Many times, I reserve the right to go longer. If we have enough people that are on the line that want more coaching, that want to ask questions, I'll go for up to two hours.

You don't have to stay on the call that long. Certainly, we're not going to force you to stay on and listen to everything. But you will get the recording, and a lot of people like to listen to the recordings multiple times.

So I want to thank all of you guys who joined me live today. It was really nice to talk to some of you. You have some great questions.

I'd love your appreciation for me, and it just shows the kind of people that I'm attracting are just so amazing and generous with their consideration and their appreciation. So thank you guys all so much. And thank you, Erica, for being here this whole time, gathering questions and for helping everyone make this decision.

If you are having a challenge to make this decision, whether you should join or not, I highly recommend that you go to thelifecoachschool.com/join, and you can call... Do you want to give them your phone number? Or you can call Erica directly, and she will get back to you, and you can have a conversation with her and see if it's a good fit.

So only call Erica about self-coaching scholars. Don't call her for any other reason, because she's going to be busy. I always get nervous when we give out phone numbers online.

Like, she's not going to coach you. She's only going to talk to you about self-coaching scholars. That's right.

Exactly. So thank you, everyone, for joining me today. I really, really appreciate all of your high-quality questions.

And if you have any other additional questions, make sure you contact Erica at thelifecoachschool.com. You can call her or go to thelifecoachschool.com. Join and just join Self-Coaching Scholars.

And let's rock this out this year. All right, you guys. Thanks, Erica.

Thank you, everybody. Thank you, everyone. I'll talk to you soon.

Bye-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 lifecoachschool.com.

Make sure you type in the The lifecoachschool.com.

I'd love to have you join me in Self-Coaching Scholars. See you there.

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