Moving Past the Stories You Tell Yourself: Why Every Entrepreneur Needs a Coach
Hey there! I’ve been really enjoying the comments I’ve been receiving about this series of articles on the world of coaching. I’m so glad that it has helped clear some things up for you! Are you still wondering why you would need a coach?
I’ve been in the coaching world for 16+ years now – and I’ve been on both sides of the fence. I’ve had a business coach every year (plus other coaches), and I’ve coached thousands of clients.
And here’s the main reason we all need a business coach or mentor: because, as entrepreneurs, we live and work in isolation.
Even if you have a team. Even if you have vendors or freelancers.
You’re still making most of the decisions for your business in your head – and primarily alone.
And what happens in isolation? We fabricate stories.
See, whenever anything happens in your business, your brain responds by trying to figure out why it happened. It’s trying to connect point A to point B – so it makes up a story. And we often make up that story without any degree of evidence, statistics or information.
Brené Brown writes in her book Rising Strong that a story without any proof or evidence is a conspiracy theory. I love this interpretation – because it’s so true! All day long, we dream up conspiracy theories about why things are happening to us – theories that simply are not true.
And more often than not, we are the villain in our stories.
That’s why it’s so important to have a business coach or mentor in your life – to keep you focused on the REAL statistics, anecdotes, examples, and evidence. Someone who is experienced with trends, statistics and wisdom, and can give you real-time advice.
Someone who will make sure that you don’t end up quitting for no reason – who will tell you when you really just need to make some changes and try again.
Let me give you some examples.
Example 1: The Webinar Show-Up Conundrum
The Situation: You set up a webinar and spend weeks sending out emails and creating content for it. You show up to do the webinar, and only 6 people show up.
The Story You Tell Yourself: “I’m not good enough to do webinars. I hate technology. No one likes me. This will never work.”
Your Response: You mope for a few days, feel a bit hopeless, and then try to avoid technology in the future.
The Real Story (With Evidence & Wisdom!): There were only 20 people registered for the webinar. 30% of them showed up live for the webinar. Those are actually AWESOME numbers – the industry average is somewhere between 10-30%. In fact, you should take the time to celebrate a great turnout, then work on building and cultivating your list so that you can get more people to register and show up for your next webinar.
Example 2: Team Leadership Issues
The Situation: You’re working with a new virtual assistant. You notice that, when you give her a list of tasks, you aren’t sure that they’re getting done, and she seems to be missing deadlines. You try to give her more reminders, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
The Story You Tell Yourself: “Maybe it’s me. I’m not communicating clearly enough, or I’m not giving her reasonable deadlines – or maybe it’s that I don’t know how to work productively and effectively with team members.”
Your Response: You continue to give your assistant tasks. Eventually, you start shoving more of them onto your own plate, and find yourself feeling even more pressure and stress. You wonder how this business thing is ever going to get any easier.
The Real Story (With Evidence & Wisdom!): No one is born a great manager or leader – we all learn these skills over time. But there are a few key points to making sure you get to a place of effective management. One is team meetings – you should be meeting with your assistants 2-5 times a week to get together and chat about status, goals, and debriefs. Two – you need to write down all of your tasks together. This could mean taking notes in a Google doc that you can look at and add to together or using a project management system like Asana or Teamwork PM.
Whatever system you use, all tasks must have 4 parts written down clearly:
- What the task is
- How it is to be completed (show me ideas, do it without me, do it with me, do this part and then show me the rest, etc.)
- A deadline and what part is due by that deadline
- When it will be discussed again (at the next team meeting, at a special meeting time, etc.)
Now here’s the point – all of this information is WISDOM. Gaining wisdom from a business coach is an important component to eliminating the stories that we tell ourselves.
The truth is that no coach can prevent you from making mistakes or having learning experiences or disappointment – that’s impossible.
But it’s so important that you have someone walking alongside you to keep you from making up the stories that take you out of the game – to stop you from creating conspiracy theories based on evidence that is untrue or incomplete.
For me personally, this has been a lifesaver. I grew up with a highly critical mom, so the voice in my head literally has a field day telling me about everything I’m doing wrong and how I’m not doing enough.
With a business coach in my corner, I’ve been able to focus on solving problems externally instead of just beating myself up. It’s allowed me to get off the couch and start working towards changes in my business much, much faster.
And, for me, it has been one of the key components of building and sustaining a seven-figure coaching company for the past 5 years.
When I see entrepreneurs who are trying to play this game alone, it saddens me. Because I see the pain in their eyes and the fatigue in their bodies, and I hear the stories that they are telling themselves –
Stories about how they aren’t good enough.
Stories about how this will always be hard.
Stories about survival and somehow making it through.
So here’s your challenge for this week: take stock and ask yourself, “What conspiracy theories am I making up in my head right now? What elements of my business have I given up on? What have I decided that I can’t do?”
And then find a great business coach or mentor to give you solid strategic wisdom, teach you to let go of the old stories, and help move you forward fast.
If you’re looking for a taste of coaching or feeling like you could really use some truth around money, please check out our upcoming Master Your Money event. This event includes solid business training on all things money, as well as great coaching (by yours truly!) to get those questions answered.
Right now, it’s only $65 – we’re having a flash sale through February 16. You can check out the Master Your Money event at MasterYourMoneyEvent.com.
And use the promo code save430
Because we all deserve to get support – and we all deserve the truth.
