Interview with Amanda Kaufman

Welcome to One sharp sword cutting through to what matters most with your host, Dr. P. Dr. Wayne Purnell, the breakthrough success coach and your powerful presence mentor.

Welcome to One sharp sword cutting through to what matters most. I'm your host, Joe. Dr. P. Dr. Wayne Purnell, the exponential success coach and the president of Dynamic Leader Inc. Today I'm going to read this because she's fascinating. My guest today is a woman who had social anxiety and body image issues. She was a business consultant for almost two decades, and then she began to focus on helping others in a different way, starting her coaching company, the Coaches Plaza, from a list of just eight names. She quit her corporate job in just four months. And less than half a year later, she was able to invite her husband to do the same. And now her business has generated over $2 million in revenue. Here to talk about her journey of perseverance and building authentic connection in the coaching and consulting world, my friend, Amanda Kaufman. Hooray.

Hooray. I'm so excited to be here. Thanks for inviting me.

It is, you know, I've just had this smile since you and I spoke and we talked about you coming. So it's really great. It's really great. You've got. Your journey is amazing. When I first met you a decade ago, maybe more, you were on such an amazing path, and you've turned that amazing path even into more amazingness. And I just, I wanted to share your story with our audience, the listeners, the viewers and those that get to see the little amazing, real clips that we'll put together. We were, we were talking about your name just prior to hitting the record on this. And I wanted to use that as kind of an introduction to your approach in life. Kaufman, right? In German, but Kaufman in Canadian.

Canadian, yes.

So it means, it means like someone who deals in sales, purchasing, buying, that kind of thing. Talk about your. What, you had a fear of sales?

I did.

I.

So it's really interesting how I became a procurement expert. That was my expertise as a consultant.

Amazing.

I became a global expert in purchasing and sourcing and procurement. I used to help governments and organizations in different industries with their, like, how they went and stretched their dollars and got a lot of value out of their dollars and purchasing. And it was just interesting how I wound up in that world as a consultant. And I didn't realize until I was already working as a consultant that my last name did mean, you know, salesman, you know, so great. And when I became an entrepreneur, sales was the thing I was the most terrified of. And, you know, I didn't. I never wanted to take advantage of someone else. I didn't want them to think I was that sleep sleazy salesperson, you know, the car dealer or something like that. That kind of stigmatized image we have of that person that does a bad deal. I always wanted to have great deals and. But for some reason, being on the other side of the table, being the seller petrified me.

Yeah. So this is. This is huge because most people are afraid of being that person. We've all had one experience, maybe, maybe two, maybe even a half a dozen, with the sleazy salesperson. If you think about the salespeople in your life, they haven't really been all that sleazy, but we always are afraid of being that person. I think the other thing, and this is huge because so many of us rely on being able to talk about what we offer.

Right.

So that's sales. And so to. To approach it. I think one of the biggest things that we face is the fear of rejection. What if we put ourselves out there and we show somebody our baby and they say it's an ugly baby and they don't want it? Right.

That's what I discovered was ultimately at the root of it, you know, I was really afraid of being seen being rejected, being abandoned, being told that what I had wasn't all that good after all, you know, And I think when you invest so much in your skill sets or wanting to do a good job by other people, it's only natural to be so worried about, you know, well, what if. What if they don't think it's so hot? What if they don't think it's so good? And to take that on board, to mean something about you as human, as a human being. And, you know, it kind of takes you back to being that kid that was bullied on the. On the playground, and. And all of those kinds of feelings come up.

So what was your reality? Because the fear is always bigger than the reality, right? The. The boogeyman in the closet. Oh, it's a shadow. Like, what? So. So here's this. I'm going to be rejected. I'm going to be abandoned. If I'm abandoned, I'm isolated. If I'm isolated, I won't have what I need. I will shrivel up and die if I don't make this sale.

Yeah. I mean, like, my reality at the time when I wanted to make my. My business work was I was replacing like, a $250,000 corporate salary and benefits and the whole thing and you know, I was pregnant with my fourth kid. So, you know, we have a family, we have a lifestyle that we're supporting. And, you know, it's so funny, you hear the word lifestyle and you think yacht or pool. And I'm minivan, you know, life insurance.

You know, I think that's really important too. We talk about, you know, build the lifestyle you want. And really, like, if you've got four kids and one of them is an infant, the minivan is the life you want. It's like, just make it secure and safe and comfortable.

Exactly. I'm like, suburban mom coming at you hot. You know, like, that's my lifestyle. But still, you know, there, there, there really did feel like a lot at stake. Stake. And what was so funny is that when I felt like I had a big corporate machine behind me, the deal that I sold before leaving corporate was worth $10 million. But when, like, the very, very first deal that I did as a coach was 10 bucks per hour to my very best friend, and she, like, cajoled it out of me, she's like, come on, you know, sell it to me. And, you know, bless her heart because, like, I'm really, really grateful that she me to do some kind of transaction. You know, she never actually came to any coaching sessions. Just btws, pro tip. You want to be more expensive than somebody's Starbucks habit. If you want them to show up

to a session, that is a pro tip.

Pro tip. But I'm so grateful she did that because just going through the motion of the Venmo payment, it was Venmo,

and

collecting the cash kind of startled me awake going, this is crazy, you know, like, this is such a small amount of money. But if. But up to that point, everything was a fantasy in my head. And I think one of the biggest things about fear is it's false expectations appearing real. And when you have in your head all this rejection, you're going to see all of this catastrophic thinking that we have about how terrible it's going to be. That's false expectations appearing real. And what happened when we had that real transaction happen? The Venmo came across, the 80 bucks hit my account. I was like, that is a pathetic amount of money. That is a very small amount of money. But it kind of broke this seal that I had on this whole narrative in this whole story about whether or not I can make money. And the next time I went to make a sale, I raised my price to 50 bucks a session. And then it was, you know, 350 or something like that. And then I had a $3,000 package. And then I realized that if I was really going to go somewhere with this thing and really authentically place replace, excuse me, $250,000 a year in annual income, I didn't know how to do that. And there was just something about acting in reality and, like, actually transacting and having real conversations with real human beings and finding out that they weren't laughing in my face, you know, and just having that interaction point caused me to get real with myself. That, like, oh, I don't know how to entrepreneur. Like, I knew how to different, right?

You know, how to sales, but you didn't know, right?

I was like, oh, my goodness, I don't know how to actually do this. So I turned around and hired a coach, a mentor, who then taught me the difference between a $3,000 package and a $30,000 package, right? And 48 hours later, sold that. And the thing. The thing about learning a thing is you don't learn it.

So don't unlearn it.

You don't unlearn it. So within six weeks, I had closed $114,000 in. In packages and sales. And so you can't unlearn it.

You know, you don't unlearn a thing. Which I wanted to pause and just highlight, because when you get a repeatable skill, when you get a skill, you learn how to make it repeatable, you learn how to expand it. It's like, well, I know how to sell this, therefore I might know how to sell that. It comes down to you, right? At that point. It's yourself, your belief so true.

You have to back yourself first, right? And I now think of that as confidence stacking, where because you did a thing in the past, you bet on yourself and you go, okay, well, maybe I could do this thing in the future. And sometimes we look at what we want to do, and it's such a leap. It's so far ahead of where we are right now, and we think, oh, gosh, that's impossible. I don't. I don't know that I could ever do that. And part of my ability to believe forward in the self is that I do that. I confidence stack. I take what was something that I did in the past that is related, you know, even if it's very tangentially related. And then I borrow that belief and I inject it into the future thing that I'm. That I'm wanting to learn or do.

Okay, let's pause, because that's. You gave so much Right there. And this is the kind of thing that I want my, my audience to take with them. The whole idea of confidence stacking so many people and what you said was the stopper for like a lot of people do look ahead and go, it's such a big thing. That's such a big hill to climb. I don't think I could ever do that. Yeah, so they don't start versus doing what you did, which is you looked at, well, where, where have I been successful before? Like for me, for example, I sold nectarines to my neighbors when I was six years old.

I love that.

We had a giant, we had a giant nectarine tree. It was amazing. And I put them in a basket and this cute little six year old, scrawny, big ears, like all the, all the goofy things about, you know, little six year old me. And I go, they're two cents, let's see, they're three cents each or two for five cents. Because a nickel was really easy back then. Right? So, so $0.03 each or two for $0.05. Oh, I'll take 10. It's like. And then I sell my basket. So knowing that I could sell just by saying, here's what it is, here's the value, you take that. I mean, think about, the reason I bring that up for me is I want each of our audience members, as you're listening to this, like, think about, where have you gotten what you wanted by just asking.

It's so true. It's so true. For, for me, I, it's so funny because I never made the connection of, hey, the last deal that you sold was $10 million. I didn't make that connection until years later because, boy, what would have happened if I did? Because in my mind I was like, oh, well, that's not me, that's the company. And that's what we do is we discount ourselves out of the story. We discount like, oh, well, that wasn't me, you know, that was luck. Or that wasn't me. That was because the team was involved. That wasn't me, that was the company. And so I love those stories about when we were a kid or we did that thing when we were ignorance on fire. Those are my favorite moments. Because when you were completely ignorant and you still did the thing, man, that's great confidence stacking, you know, because he

didn't know better, being completely ignorant and still doing the thing today as adults, we would say, cool, if it works, awesome. If it doesn't, I have to learn from it. There's no failure, there's lessons. And so either winning or falling down, it's a lesson. What worked, what didn't work. Go be ignorance on fire. That is going in my show notes.

I love that. I was just actually training my team about how do you move from visioning something or getting a really great idea to enacting it and building really strong proficiency in something. And I told them as I went through a bit of a cycle of step by step process on this, that there comes a point when you need to take action. You need to enact on your vision. And what most people do is they enact on that vision and the plan ends up working out maybe 5% compared to what your actual vision was. Because the vision is. Is a dream. It's. It's something that we construct in our mind. It doesn't bang up against reality. So when you bang it up against reality, the very, very first time you go to do it, typically, and this is just, you know, rough statistics, a study I just made up, about 5% of the plan survives contact with reality.

Yeah.

And what most people do is they go, oh, man, 95% failure rate. That means I suck. That means it's not possible. That means I can't do it. And what I've learned over the years is no, that means you figured out 5% of it.

Yeah.

So you need to integrate the 5%. That's the confidence stacking. Integrate the 5%. And then when you reconnect to your. Your reason why you're doing all that visioning, next time you run the simulation, next time you do that vision, guess whose vision is going to be way more informed. 5% better. Right. So then when you run the plan the next time, guess what you're going to win. 10%, 15%. In my experience, it's exponentially better because you've got better information. And so then that confidence stack ends up being an exponential improvement over time. But a lot of people stop short after the first failure attempt.

I love all of that. I am hoping that, that our audience understands they just got probably 10 to $20,000 worth of value in those last two minutes. Like, think about that in terms of coaching. Holy cow. Right? Replay those last couple of minutes till you get it, because what Amanda's giving you is gold right now. Thank you. That's. That's awesome. And it really is like, it really is. What do you do? We used to think 2% conversion. Holy cow. We got 2% conversion. That was really good, right?

Yeah, 2%.

And so we would look at, do we get 2. Oh, we got 1.6. Right. And that 0.4 was the failure. So really, it wasn't. Oh, 98 didn't. It's like, did we get that, too? So when you're talking about, you know, 5% of your plan, it's going to come through, and then the next time you bring it up, it's going to be greater, and it's going to be greater. That also goes back to skill stacking, where you go, oh, I know what works. It's also you listening to your intuition. It's also you gathering enough information from outside sources. So all of that plays into how you make your plan for your business, for your life, etc. You know, I'm. I'm going to say one more thing and turn it back to you for more brilliance, and that is that most of us plan our vacations with more detail and more thought than we do the next year or two of our lives. And it's like, come on, right? You are building the next, like, lever from which you springboard in your world, in your life. The impact you're going to make. It's really great. It's sort of like, well, all right, what's working? And let's keep focusing there. What is working and how do we leverage that?

I love that. Yeah. Yeah. And it has taken me certainly a lot of time to one, learn the. Learn the skill of integrating. Integrating Win. Because I love to win. Oh, my gosh. I love to win. You know, and it's. It's not about other people losing. It really is just, I love to win. Right.

I'm just gonna ask you that. And this is. I. I am doing kind of some. Some writing around this because I think in most people's pasts, there's either the. I've got to win, and it is. It is. I will win in order to knock people down. And that is how I win. In order to win, other people have to be decimated. And. And so the idea of competition comes up strangely because really, the win is over yourself. It's not over other people. It's not about other people. Must lose in order for me to win. Right. It's about me winning over yesterday. Right.

I used to be so afraid of competition, okay? So here. Here's how competition used to show up for me. It's like, oh, God, if we're competing, you're gonna crush me. I'm gonna be a little bug under your thumb or whatever. And again, it was like a huge assault on my ego. You know, I had an ego problem dude, like, it was, it was. And it didn't show up cute. Like it wasn't, it wasn't like, I don't know what you would even call it. You probably would know, but it was just a self obsession in the negative.

I think that's what I'd call it.

Is that what you would call it? Dude, you've had more schooling in this than I have. But what I've had to learn is

that I got out of like traditional clinical psych because I really got tired of having to pigeonhole somebody. So what do you call it? You call it what you call it?

I call it self obsession. Self obsession in the negative, you know, and, and that relationship with self is the opposite of self love. And you know, it's self loathing. That's, you know, it was, it was, it was a constant reclamation of the self. It was constant reclamation of the self and it was just a really dark, horrible place to be. And every time competition would come up, it would be a reminder of my own deficiency. And the reframe and this has taken me years of practice and I still have to practice this. As in like it's a practice. I really have to be like, okay, Amanda, this is how we think about this is when I see someone doing something great that's in my lane, you know, you applaud them to appreciate, to applaud, to admire and go, wow, you know, this person is demonstrating what's possible and to look at it in that frame because when you can look at something with admiration, with love and to go, wow, you know, they're demonstrating what's possible. And then you. For the self to have the self love, to go, you know, that's possible for you, babe.

Exactly. Good for you.

That, that has given me a level of peace, that goodness, goodness that took a long time and a lot of, a lot of work.

What's cool is that really good coaches do that work. You do it with another coach. Like good coaches have coaches.

Yep.

And, and you know, high performing individuals, whether they're in business or in sports or any other field, they have coaches. And I mean, what you're talking about is what makes you a good coach. I've gone through it. I'm still going through it. Right. If growth ever stops, we're going to stop being really good at what we do. So we have to find our own next level. That's what we do as a, as not just a good, but a great coach. It's what I've been fortunate enough to be your witness along Your journey, even though there was a gap and we just did some massive catch up. Holy cow, what a great journey you've had. And it's because of that self discovery that you can say, I'm holding a torch. I. I'm gonna light the way so that you don't have to bump into as many walls as I did. You're still gonna have to do the work, but you don't have to bump into the walls. It's great.

That's it. And. And you know what's been really interesting, like very lately, I've. I've also realized the value of the bumps.

Yes. Yeah.

You know, because I think, I think sometimes when we're, when we're coaches, we're experts, we're writers, we're content creators, we're often very motivated by our previous pain and we, we don't want others to experience it. And something I've been really thinking about, I'm curious about how you feel about it, but I've been really thinking about how if not for my pain, I wouldn't be here. And sometimes that desire to rescue or that savior complex, you know, that desire to be the one, I think can sometimes actually interfere with the process. Sometimes, like, sometimes people really do need to experience their own transformation the way that they need to, to be able to feel it. Like, for me, to be able to flip my egoic experience from being self loathing to self love. Like I had to. For me personally, I'm not saying this is anybody else's journey. I'm saying for me, I personally walked through some dark nights. I spent a lot of money, a lot of time. I took lots of risk, you know, to be able to get to that place where I went, ah, like where I finally got my aha right? And it was like no one could, no one could do it for me. I had to do it, you know? And I feel like the best transformations in my own life have been like that.

I think what's cool is that once you get that first aha and you're like, ah, now I understand. You think you're done. You think you're done. And then the next big aha happens and you're like, oh, oh, growth for real. Oh. And then you start to wait for the next one and the next one because it's like, well, I feel really good in my life right now. I know there's more. I wonder what I'm missing. I think that's really great. You know, we, we turn our pain into wisdom that we can pass on. For me, it shows up in my books. Right. Choosing your power. My first book was about 300 women that I'd worked with all combined into one voice. It's like, how do you show up bigger? How do you. Right. And it's sort of like. And. And oddly enough, my journey was similar to the work I was doing at the time. And so I turned 300 women plus my voice into that. And it's. It's like you get to show up, you get to have a voice. And I mean, for you, and your coaching is. It's like you get to be bigger. That's. That's what you're showing people. And. And it's. It's great. It's really.

Yeah, you get to be. You know, I like to say people don't really choose the coaching so much as they choose the coach.

Yeah. It's what comes through us, isn't it?

It is. It is. I mean, it's the coaching that really does the work, you know, it really is. But when it comes to that inflection point of that moment of choice really is like choosing the trust in that relationship.

I think it's so great.

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so what are you working on now? Like, what's do you're continuing your coaching? Are you working on expanding that you' online courses, group classes? Like, I want you to talk about you and your biz. Go ahead and just like, dive into you doing a book, you doing a like, or you're just going off on some adventure.

Oh, love this. Love this.

All right, so before you answer that, I want to point out one thing, because you were talking about, you've got to let people bump into the walls. My. I don't know if you heard that, but my Amazon in the hallway, just like. Anyway, literally, just as I said that, it was weird. Got like. We call them the A Word devices all over the like. So if we say, if we say that it'll. I have one in the room.

I've, you know, oh, I see, I

see my thermostat in the hallway. It's like, what the heck? What I was going to say is we let people bump into walls and we let people fall down. It's. I was going to point out you have four children and at some point when you're teaching them to ride a bike, you have to let go of the bicycle. They have to get their own sense of balance and they may fall down. Very likely. Will they get up? Will they try it again? Right. It's under guidance and encouragement. Yeah. And you're still going to let go of the bike so that they can do it on their own. And I think that's part of allowing people the experience. Like coaching isn't doing it for them, it's encouraging them to have the experience and grow.

Right, so that's exactly right.

All right, so what's, what's new for where's, where is the amazing and wonderful Amanda Kaufman? Are you headed, what are you up to?

Wow. So I, since we last connected, I decided to deepen my coaching again. So I reopened my private practice after having that not available for a couple of years.

So you were doing just online stuff?

I was doing group only. I was only offering group and I decided to open up a couple, just a few private spots because it is very expensive to do that when you, when you have the capacity to be able to do group. It's very expensive to, to offer private for your time exchange. But I decided to do that because I wanted to get, you know, close to a couple of case studies again. I, I wanted to get back into the spirit of it again. And you know, I'm working with a couple of really, really outstanding coaches on their, on their business, on their craft in a really intimate way. And I'm documenting my process along the way because I realized that I could do a better job of, you know, building that up as standard operating practice to potentially be teaching other coaches the way that I do. I call it co created action coaching. I think what's a little different about how I coach is I'm very forward, action focused. You know, a lot of coaches, you know, I hold space too. I do, I do. But I just really do believe in the power of confidence stacking and I really do believe in the power of getting that skinned knee and, you know, that embarrassment won't kill you and that, you know, what doesn't Kill you, makes you a heck of a lot stronger. And you're going to learn so much more about when you go out and you do the thing. And the relative risk versus the relative reward of really going out there and doing the thing is so much more. So. I tend to bias toward, you know, action and, you know, creating that traction and that real commitment. I know a lot of coaching modality can be very focused in exploration, and I love exploration. I think exploration is great as long as it goes to action.

So my style is a little of both. Yeah, that. It's. That it's like a little reflective and always toward action. It's like, why. Like, why are we coaching if you're not going somewhere with it?

Coaching is about forwarding the action. It is about growth. And I increasingly am reflective on my journey as a figure skater, you know, and how much I pushed as a figure skater to get better season after season as a figure skater. And I think, you know, I hear a lot in the coaching community about justification for. For stasis, you know, so I am. Oh, yeah, yeah. I'm here where I am because. And we use the exploratory. We use the exploratory phases to justify stasis. I'm here because I can't tolerate line with me, so I'm not going to do it. And I'm like, that's.

That's great. Like, you got here. Congratulations. What's next? How do we lever? How do we use the leverage of what got you here for what's next?

Exactly. And like I said, I'm all for bumping into walls, but you're gonna bump into those walls a heck of a lot faster through action than contemplation.

Definitely. Wow. Can I divert a little bit? Can I get personal? Do you mind going? Okay. I didn't know that you were a figure skater. So how old were you when you figure skated?

I officially start. Gosh. So I farted around when I was five, but I officially started with coaches when I was six.

Okay, so you had eyes on you. And this is where it gets a little personal. At what point did social anxiety and body image issues show up for you? Was that.

Goodness.

Was that, you know, after you into your teens? Is that, like, because you were a figure skater, eyes were on you, coaches were coaching you on the ice.

I always felt like that was on the ice. So contextually that that was. I was on the ice, and I was usually alone on the ice, which

is scarier than anything sometimes. You can't be.

It can Be. Yeah.

You can't hide in a line. Right. It's like you can't hide on a field, on the ice.

Absolutely. I would say that it got pretty intense for me when I left my hometown, so I would say that I was always, like, socially careful when I was growing up, you know, as a teenager and so on. But it really got very specifically pointed when I moved from my teeny, tiny little town in Inuvik, Northwest Territories in Canada, which is a town of like 3,000 people.

Yeah.

And I went to find my fortune as a university student in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, the big city of Saskatoon.

Wow.

And I still remember stepping onto a city bus for the very first time when I was 18 years old to talk about being a fish out of water. So, yeah, I would say that I experienced a massive change in environment, culture, expectations. I also went from being, like, top academics to hanging on by the skin of my teeth, and I made it through C's, get degrees, so thank God for that. But, yeah, it was. It was a really intense change, and. And I physically changed a lot. You know, like, when I went into engineering, I. I, like, dropped everything to survive that experience, as far as I was concerned. So I. I really didn't skate as much. I skated maybe once a week. I went from skating five, six days a week for hours at a time to like, once a week for a couple of years in college. And so I gained, like, 100 pounds in my college years. So that also had a huge impact on my body image.

Okay.

Yeah. So it kind of explains a lot, doesn't it?

Well, I mean, you know, I think one of the reasons that I asked you is that you're so resilient, and you got to a point of going, this is no longer serving me. Right, Right. It's either a pattern or, you know, whatever is happening for you that you go, I. It's time to. To change this up a little bit. It's time to regain control in this area. And. And I just wanted to ask you about that journey, because I think that story itself is actually a universal story. You know, we're confident and competent as kids, and maybe we're coached to do something. We have some skills. But then, you know, it's like the hero's journey. We step into this place, the cave of the unknown, and all of a sudden, we are battling things we had no idea that we would have to battle.

That's so true. So true. And, you know, what's coming up for me, too, is, like, as I finished the degree and you Know, I had the weight gain and I had all of that. I applied to, like, 148 jobs because I had lucid clarity that it's like, oh, this girl's got to make some money coming out of college. Like, duh. You know, as far as I was concerned, that was like, yeah, happening. That would be happening. And so I landed a job with big consulting firm, but the truth was, none of the engineering companies are hiring me because I did get C's in that degree. So, like, they had options. But the. What the consulting firm saw that wasn't really appreciated by the other. The other jobs was here's a gal with computer skills, problem solving skills, you know, she's got all these skills that turned out was a perfect fit for a consulting profile.

Awesome. And that, I mean, had you not done that, your path to coaching probably wouldn't have been.

Would never have happened ever, right? Never in a million years.

You know, so that's the other thing. It was Steve Jobs who said, you can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking back. And it's like, oh, this led to that, which led to that, which.

Which put me in procurement as a Kaufman.

Exactly. And from there, you were like, I've had enough of this. Let's help more people. Right?

That's right.

So good.

That's right.

That's so good. All right, so you still doing group coaching? Mostly focused on. On coaches who have a coaching business. Right.

So, yes, I love helping people with business. So, you know, I love, like, the. The saying, you know, your mess is your message. Because as we're talking about this and I'm thinking about, like, the path and how did I get here and all this kind of thing, and, you know, if it wasn't for all that social anxiety and for feeling so out of place in college and all of that, I very much doubt that I would have been so coachy in consulting. You know, I doubt that I would have had so much like, empathy and tactical empathy in my consulting style that I would have been like, oh, well, that should be what I should be an entrepreneur in, you know?

Right.

Funny how those dots connect, but it is. I really hadn't thought about it until this interview.

See? Welcome to my gift. Welcome to One Sharp sword.

Oh, yeah. Aptly named.

It's. It's so good. So, all right, I'm just. I'm. I'm putting it out there. Like, if people listening, watching, wanted to find you, you're on. You're on. All the socials. You're on LinkedIn.

Ah, yes. So I am on all the socials you want. Amanda Kaufman. 1F1N. And if you want to come check out the coaches plaza, if you go to www.thecoachesplaza, that'll take you to my facebook group where there's hundreds of trainings on how to market, how to sell, how to. How to brand, how to be authentic in your coaching consulting expert business. And that's really my jam. I love people. I love helping people realize that they just need to show up as who they really are and really show up, though. Like, really show up.

That's great. I want to make sure that coaches is without an e. It's like, it's not the plural. It is the plural.

Yeah, it's the plural. Because we're all. We're all gathering there.

The coaches. C o a c h e s Plaza.

I did not make that easy on myself because then I went and put it in the logo with the possessive and it's just, like, not friendly for domains.

It was singular possessive in your. In your logo, which is why I'm asking.

Yeah. I mean, like, that. Yeah. I did not make that easy on myself, though, did I?

No. Time to change that up or at least get both.

I think I might have both, but the one that. That. That'll work is with ES.

All right. The coachesplaza.com. yeah. This is awesome. What didn't I ask you? Like, I. I. You know, I'm tracking our time together. I want to make sure that you have given, like, at least the opening of your brilliance. I was gonna say given all your brilliance. Like, not possible. So the. The opening to the brilliance that is the Amanda Kaufman. I can't help but pronounce it that way. I'm really sorry.

That's okay. I don't mind at all. It's. It's in its original German, so that's pretty cool. Um, ask me. I mean, is it fun?

Is it fun? Hey, Amanda. Is it fun?

Yes. Living your life on your terms as you designed it is absolutely fun. And it is. And it is rewarding and it's scary.

And that's part of the fun, like, getting used to. Well, I'm going to risk this or I'm going to explore that. Like, you leverage your curiosity, and then it's like, oh, oh, dang, that was a place I probably didn't need to go. Or, wow, that cost more than I thought and I got, like, less out of it. Or, dang, that cost more than I thought. But I Got people, people live in

all this horror story about, you know, entrepreneurship, living your best life, making a change. And, and the thing is, is that your life can be. It's not a blueprint, man. Like, there's, There's. There's so many ways to do it. And, you know, there's all this hustle culture out there, and there's all this, you know, it has to look like XYZ out there. And. And I'm just here to say, like, it can be a lot of fun. And, and, you know, I think Jim Carrey has this story that he tells about his dad who had a chance. I think he was a jazz musician, had a real chance to go for it, and he never did. He always chose, like, the. The safe route because he, he told himself these stories that he would be happier if he just chose the safer route, and then he ended up getting laid off anyway. And Jim Carrey's point was, if you can lose being miserable, why not lose going for what could make you really radically happy?

Yeah, because you might win.

You just might win. Like, you know, and I think that when it comes to the question of whether, you know, should I pursue that entrepreneurial thing, should I consider gaining that skill? Should I write that book? Should I take that trip? Yeah, you should. You really should. Because if you're putting all that time towards it in your mind, you're thinking about it. Yeah, you really, really, really should.

If. Right. And that's. That's one of the. It's a key message. Like, if it keeps showing up for you, it's probably pointing you in a direction or you're seeing it. Like your reticular activating system is going alert. Pay attention here. And. Right. And so, yeah, listen. It's what I call listening to the whispers. It's like this thing is showing up. The other thing is just to remember that it. It's a choice to have fun doing it. Right. Because you could come into it and you could go every step of the way. What if, you know, and it's not about a lack or a lose mentality, it's about a curiosity mentality that's going to get you through.

Yeah. And I really don't want to end us on a. On a downer, but I am going to just acknowledge that there are things that are going to be, like, less good that happen in your life. That's a guarantee. And so we have to do the work, you know, to guarantee that the fun stuff happens.

Well, I think there's that balance, and I don't think it's a downer to say there's a. There are. For every experience you've, you choose how to interpret it.

That's right.

And the down times are times to be doing some work. Okay. And guess what? The up times are times to be doing some work, too. And can you enjoy that flow? Because that's the law of rhythm. That's. That's nature. You know, we're. We're recording this in winter and guess what spring is around the corner. Okay. That's the law of nature.

That's how it goes, right?

It is how it goes. So, yeah. So enjoy it along the way. The seasons are enjoyable, right?

That's right. And you know what makes a huge difference?

What?

The people that join you on the journey.

That's so true. So true. See, that's a great way to end this. Right? That's up. What's enjoyable is the people that join you on the journey and who you let it like. It's. Again, it's your choice. So joining us on this journey, the amazing, the wonderful, the talented, the insightful, the brilliant Amanda Kaufman. Thank you for being here. I really. I just. I love you so much. You're. You. You're such a good human. Your. Your journey is so good and I'm really glad you. You came on the show today.

Well, thank you so much for having me. I had an absolute blast. Thanks for having me.

Yay. All right, this is one sharp sword cutting through to what matters most. I'm your host, Dr. P. Dr. Wayne Purnell. My guest today was is. Was Amanda kaufman. She can be found at on all the social medias at Amanda kaufman K a u f M a n and also@the coachesplaza.com 1 sharp sword cutting through to what matters most. We'll see you here next time. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you for listening to one sharp sword cutting through to what matters most with your host, Dr. P. Dr. Wayne Purnell, the breakthrough success coach and your powerful presence mental.