#328: Can You Be Your Own Business Coach?

Welcome to the High Income Business Writing Podcast, helping you propel your writing business to a whole new level. And now, here's your host, Ed Gandia. Hey there. Welcome to another episode of the High Income Business Writing Podcast, the number one podcast for business writers and copywriters who want to earn more and less time doing work they love for better clients, with over 1 million downloads from listeners just like you across 101 countries. So this is an interesting podcast episode title, one that I usually don't go with, but it's a question, can you be your own business coach? And I want to give you the spoiler right out of the gate. The answer is yes, you can to a certain extent. And I want to tell you that right away because I didn't want you to think that this episode is about me trying to sell anyone into working with me as a coach. It's not. Not at all. So don't worry. Instead, this episode is about exploring how you could coach yourself. If you're not going to be working with a coach, if you're not in a good place right now for that, if you're not ready for it, if this is not something you can take on, if you're not sure if it's something you take on. So here's the thing. Life and business, obviously they're full of challenges, right? That's an understatement. And even though we deal with most of those challenges on our own, I know many people wonder, I know I do, if getting outside help would sometimes be beneficial. Help in the way of a business coach, a life coach, a writing coach, and if that's you, I encourage you to look into it. You know, I'm not the only game in town in terms of a business coach. I focus strictly on business building. There are others out there. There are writing coaches out there. There are life coaches, counselors, really, I'm talking generally about getting help with some aspect of your business. I've been a business coach for the past 11 years. I have a pretty solid track record of helping writers, copywriters, content marketing professionals grow a more profitable and fulfilling business. But again, this episode is not about that. It's about this question of should I just keep doing things on my own? And if I do, what should I do? What if I sort of try to coach myself? Is that a thing? Is that effective? Can you coach yourself effectively? And if so, how would you do it? First, I'll say this. Not everyone needs a coach, and that's because not everyone needs help, and not everyone is Coachable. In fact, I would say that a large percentage of people are not coachable and or they're not ready to work with a coach and that's okay. Some of the factors I evaluate to see if a prospective coaching client would be a good fit. I just want to kind of give you an idea and this is mine. This is not every coach. But I look for things in no particular order but things like need. Do I feel like this person really has a need for a coach right now. Somebody who does what I do for the kind of help that I can provide, the kind of guidance, internal drivers and motivators. What's driving them right now to seek help? Attitude. I'm looking for growth. Mindset. I'm not looking for someone who has a defeatist attitude. Mindset is everything. And if you're thinking you're doomed to fail and you're trying this as a last resort, it's just not going to work. So I look for that. I look to see what kind of attitude that person is bringing to the table. The mindset. They have belief in themselves. So do they believe in themselves? Now they may be at a low point and that's okay, we've all been there. But is there at the core a sense of belief in themselves and their abilities and very important. Do they believe in me? Do they believe that I can work with them to help get them to a better place? That's important. And the reason I say that might sound kind of a no brainer, but I've had people contact me in the past who want help but. And everything checked out. But I could tell that they didn't quite believe in me or they didn't know. Maybe they were very new to my world and they just didn't quite believe that I may be able to help them. But they went ahead and applied for coaching anyway just to see. And you know, the last thing I want to do is spend the first three months working with someone, selling them if you will, on, you know, the idea that I can help them. You need to come ready to work. You need to believe in yourself and you need to believe that I can work with you to help get you to a better place. I look for vulnerability. Someone who's willing to be open, vulnerable, honest with themselves, honest with me. Obviously a strong work ethic. You know, if I'm working with someone, there's work involved. I mean there's just no getting around that. Somebody who's got a sense of ownership, agency, self responsibility, they know that they're responsible for Their actions for themselves. I can't do this work for them. I tell people right off the bat, look, I'm responsible to you, but not for you. Along with that, a sense of high level of maturity, somebody who's emotionally mature. And I look for other factors, but those are some of the ones that just come to mind. So that's just me. And I don't think I'm that different from many other coaches. I might have some things, some more nuance factors that I look at there from that list that maybe other coaches don't have. I don't know. But the question here is coaching yourself, what factors would need to be in place? Okay, so I'm not. Let's say you're telling yourself, I'm not in a place right now where I really want to or can seek outside help. But if I'm looking at maybe working, doing some inner work myself, what factors need to be in place? And I'd say that all the factors I've already mentioned are really, really important. Because whether you're working with someone or you're doing some inner work on your own, that doesn't change things. You need to be, for instance, you got to be vulnerable, you got to be honest with yourself. You got to have a strong work ethic. You need to have the right motivators, the right mindset. So that doesn't change all those factors. Very important. Even if you're taking a DIY approach to maybe looking at your business and fixing some things now, what would be missing if you went out on your own? So let's explore that a little bit because it's obviously not the same experience. I'd say there are six things you could kind of expect if you're working with someone. Let's start there and then we'll talk about which ones you might be missing and which ones you would still have. I think if you're working with the business coach or really any coach, it's the ability to gain outside perspective. You know, we all have blind spots. And by definition, blind spots are things we don't know or see or understand that we have. We just, because we're used to those blind spots, we just don't think there's anything there that there's a problem there. Well, an outsider can bring in a different perspective. He or she can show you some things that you might be overlooking as an example. Another thing would be accountability. So working with someone can provide some much needed accountability. Different coaches offer different levels or types of accountability that they work on. But that Accountability would definitely be a factor. Another benefit would be getting ideas, strategies, systems, things that you don't have to figure out on your own, you know, so if somebody has already created something that works in a certain area, no reason for you to reinvent the wheel there. You know, it's nice when a coach can bring in some tools and systems, strategies, ideas and insights that you can apply right away and get your results faster. Another one would be a conversation. Just the fact that you have someone you can have open and honest and thoughtful conversations with and have some Socratic dialogue, for example, which I love to do, that's really, really powerful. As you talk, you see the ideas emerging and surfacing, and that's a really powerful process. Along with that, you get clarity. Clarity is a really important benefit. I think one of the biggest things we're missing and that we yearn for is better clarity. We have so many inputs these days that, especially if you're the kind of person who lives in their head or who works alone, like many of us do. And it's just that internal conversation can really muddy the waters. So getting that clarity is important. And finally, and this is not the last one, but this is the last one I thought of that's definitely on big is confidence. Just gaining that confidence that you can do this, that you have what it takes, that you have the capability that there is a better future and better outcomes ahead. So those are six things that you can expect if you're working with the right person. Now, here's the good news. If you decide to coach yourself and do this on your own, you would be missing the first three. So perspective, accountability, idea, strategies, and systems. Okay? But here's the good news. You can still get some of the final three benefits if you coach yourself the right way. And that's conversation, clarity, and confidence. Now, to be clear, it wouldn't be the same experience if you're doing this on your own, but there would still be many benefits. So let's explore these a little bit. Conversation. All right, So I think one of the most important, beneficial things you could do is to journal every day. Journaling is where the best conversations happen. I journal even when I'm working with a coach and a mentor, okay? I'm able to get the ideas out of my head and even the trash, right? So the good stuff and the bad stuff, just get it all out of my head so I can break that cycle of just unproductive internal conversation. Sometimes we create these loops that they're just running nonstop and we need to just get them out on the page so we can really see them for what they are. Journaling is a great tool for doing that. I follow the morning pages approach, which is very, very simple. Julia Cameron, from her book the Artist Way, which is a brilliant book and a brilliant process. And it's basically three pages in a full size journal. I just do three. It takes me about 20 minutes. And it is just essentially a stream of consciousness writing. Many times I'm looking at the blank page. I give myself a limit as to how long I can look at that page. Most of the time I already know what's on my mind. And I do this first thing in the morning, by the way. So whatever thought is just kind of surfacing, whatever I kind of woke up thinking about, I just start. I don't care. I don't tell myself that I'm writing something that's supposed to flow. I'm not writing an essay, I'm just spilling my thoughts on the page and it'll go from conversation to conversation, from one topic to another. Many times. Sometimes I don't think I'm going to stick with one topic, but I just need to start writing something and before I know it, I've written three pages on that. So I don't care. I'm not writing these for anybody else. Sometimes I wonder, is this really helping? But I know it is, I know it is. So I just trust in the process. So it's a really powerful approach. I strongly recommend if you do this, that you don't do it sporadically, that you do it every day. And to be more specific, when I say every day, I'm not talking about work days, I'm talking about seven days a week. Now that is something I resisted for a long time. I thought, hey, look, weekends are mine, I'm going to sleep in, I'm going to chill. I don't want to have like a thing that I have to do. But a few months ago I changed that. I started journaling seven days a week. I just started waking up a little earlier. And before anyone woke up, I would just go straight to this. And I meditate and I go straight to my morning pages. Three pages every single day. I rarely miss a day, rarely miss a day. If I'm traveling, I'll work around that somehow. Maybe I'll wake up a little earlier so I can get it done. Or if I already had to wake up at 4 o' clock in the morning to catch a flight, then I'll do it on the plane or I'll do it once I arrive my destination or whatever, but I make it a point not to miss it. There have been a couple of instances over the past few months, like three, where I have missed it, but those are rare exceptions. So just know that I understand the resistance. But once you start and you see the benefits, I think you're going to start getting motivated to do it more often if you don't already do this again. I'm sticking with the idea of conversation, the ability to have this conversation with yourself. I think another important element to having a productive conversation is gratitude. Expressing gratitude. And I do it in a couple of different ways. And when I'm journaling, I end my session with a list of things that I'm grateful for and I just write it out. I am grateful for X. I am grateful for Y. I might even add a sentence that explains or details why I'm grateful for that. Sometimes there'll be some of the same things. I don't try to make this hard on myself. If I've repeated an item several times that week that I'm grateful for, that's okay, I will do that. But I will work to look for other things that maybe it would be easy to ignore or to overlook. For instance, one that I'm constantly being grateful for is my health. And another one, a variation of that, is to the fact that I live a pain free life. All it takes is to have a little bit of pain for a few days, like lower back pain, for instance, or see people who are struggling with pain. For me to remind myself, wow, I'm extremely lucky to not have that. That's one that I constantly do or I constantly am grateful for. But what about the coffee that I'm sipping right now? Or this comfortable chair? Or the fact that I live in the south and it's the middle of summer and I have air conditioning and I actually slept well last night because I'm sleeping in a very comfortable room in a comfortable bed. Just little things like that. I look for the little things as well. I also like to have conversations with my higher self. So that could be part of a different flavor of the morning pages. I literally just ask my higher self, hey, I need help with this. What do I need to know about that? And I will start writing as if it were my higher self giving me advice. I know that can seem a little hokey sound a little hokey. Don't knock it until you try it. It's been really powerful and effective for me, brainstorming. Sometimes I'll just do a little Bit of brainstorming. Set a timer for 20 minutes and just start brainstorming or thinking through different ideas for a specific challenge that I'm facing or something that I'm planning. I sometimes will do a little bit of role playing and I'll pretend, hey, what would this mentor that I worked with one time, or someone I really respect or somebody I really like, who I've never met, let's say an authority, Stephen Covey, the late Stephen Covey, what would he say to me right now about this issue? Or what would he do in this situation? And I'll just start writing, or sometimes I won't write. Sometimes I'll just ask myself that, what would Stephen Covey do here? What would Tony Robbins do in a situation like this? And I just channel that person and I just imagine what they might say or do and how might they act. And that can really be a powerful conversation or thought exercise. So, again, conversation, you know, if you're working with yourself, you don't have a coach or a mentor. You can still have those conversations. And I just showed you many different ways you could do that. So the next area is clarity. How can you get clarity if you're, quote, unquote, coaching yourself? Well, just the act of putting it all on the page, you know, with journaling is extremely powerful. Again, it gets it out of your head, helps you see gaps, holes, connections, patterns. Even when I'm resisting in a big way, because I don't think it's going to help. Like, I've already thought this through in my head. I've had this conversation multiple times, so what's the point? I still force myself to get it on the page, and I get that clarity every time, which is why I force myself to do it. Because I just trust that even if it's just a little nugget or even if it's just a confirmation that I'm on the right track, then that's great. That's still a huge benefit. So seeing those gaps, those patterns, those connections, sometimes it helps me see how ridiculous a certain fear that I have might be. I'm kind of. I woke up with a bit of anxiety or just discomfort or worried because something's coming up that I need to prepare for and I feel unprepared. Say I have to deliver a talk or, I don't know, I have to finish some training, and I just don't feel like it's quite there. And I'm worried. And then I create the story in my head that, you know, I'm not good enough and that this is not good enough. I'm not ready. Just writing it out helps me see how ridiculous this might be. It helps me confront my demons and helps me see a better path. I really, really sometimes just need to see it for what it is. The fear, the anxiety. I need to see that it's my inner critic, in many cases, just doing his thing and just trying to keep me safe. It's my ego using the inner critic to keep me in line because I'm about to do something that I'm uncomfortable with but could lead to personal growth. And my ego wants to keep me safe and in line, doesn't want me growing. That's risky. And when I can see that, when I can see what's going on, I can detach from the situation. Again, clarity. I think this whole process of just having that conversation with myself, especially in writing, helps me see that I'm not alone. I start seeing that everyone else is struggling with much of the same stuff and just pretending that they have their act together. But inside I feel like. And this is. Sometimes I remind myself of this and I'm able to remind myself of this when I'm honest with myself. I remind myself that inside we're all scared five year olds. That's all it is. We pretend to have it all together, but we're just little kids scared, we're worried, we're really little kids. So that can be really humbling. It can be helpful. And just that shared experience, that feeling of that shared experience that it's not just me, that's pretty much everybody, whether they admit it or not, that makes me feel so much better. So again, all that under the umbrella of clarity. And then the last area I think you can really gain some benefits from is confidence. Improved confidence. Now, this is maybe the hardest one to do or to get on your own, but I think you can still boost your confidence if you are taking the time to coach yourself a little bit every day and to work on yourself. And by confidence, I mean confidence, the that you're not alone again, that there's a shared experience out there, that we're all dealing with the same stuff. Confidence that you have divine help, that if you believe in that. I really believe that we can all tap divine help and that we can get help from others. It doesn't just need to come from another dimension. I think that we can all benefit from other people who maybe people we know, people in our lives, friends, colleagues. And it could be strangers as well. I mean, sometimes some of the best help I've gotten is just from reading a very helpful book that just had some wonderful ideas and really struck a chord emotionally, maybe. So confidence that you already know how to do something. Sometimes I just need to realize, well, wait a minute, I know how to do that. I've done that many times before. Once I see it for what it is, and once I see that, wait a minute, this fear is unfounded. I'm good at this thing. I can deliver that information really well. I can help a lot of people. I have a track record of success or high level of performance in a certain area, or I'm perfectly capable of working on this project and delivering a great product for the client. It's just in my head. Again, my inner critic has been very active, very busy telling me a different story. Confidence that again, most fears and doubts are imagined and confidence that moving forward is the only way. I think sometimes that's what we need. It's like, look, I've been procrastinating on this. I've been on hold. I've been putting this thing off. But I need to move forward. That is the only way. Because guess what? I might actually succeed. But you know what's going to happen if I don't move forward? Failure is guaranteed. That will definitely happen. I will fail. But if I move forward, I may actually succeed and I might actually prove something to myself and show myself that I am better at this than I think I might be. I'm better at at this type of writing or I'm better at what I do for a living. So when you work with a coach and mentor, these are things that they can help you see. They can bring that mirror to the relationship and help you see that more clearly. But again, even though it's a little bit more challenging when you're doing it on your own, these are things you can uncover and see for yourself. I've worked with a coach and a mentor for a long time, since 2011. More specifically, before that, I've worked with several coaches, different types of aspects of my business, and I'm a big believer in investing in yourself and in your business. But I also believe that many of the answers are inside me. Some of the best answers are inside you. And in between coaching sessions or coaching engagements, I do exactly what I've been recommending to you. Here in this episode, I engage in a lot of self dialogue through, again, a lot of journaling. Recently I had a session where I got some excellent insights and breakthroughs. That happens a couple of times a month. Something big will Click. But this particular session was very special. And to put it in context, this has been a somewhat of a challenging year for me. I've had some big changes in my team that have been disruptive emotionally, they've been difficult. I've made some significant changes in my business that have cost me revenue, but they've been important changes because they're changes that are going to benefit everybody. And a lot of it has to do with my business model. And with that has come a lot of doubt, fear and uncertainty and just sometimes questioning my general business path and direction. Now, I had been journaling about this for a few days, but one morning it just kind of all came together during one of my journaling sessions. And it did so in a way that frankly felt like exactly what I needed to hear. And it just kind of came out of nowhere. So I wanted to just summarize the highlights of the guidance that I received, which personally, I feel that this was divinely inspired. You can take that as you wish. But I really feel that it came from somewhere else because when I read it later, I realized that I don't know that really came from me or entirely from me. The reason I want to share it with you is just to give you a glimpse into what I have experienced can be the kind of insights you can get from this process. It's going to be a little awkward for me to share this with you because this was never meant to be published. This is really a private conversation that I'm having with myself in my journal. So please understand that, you know, the whole objective here is not to show you where I think I'm doing well and just announce that to the world that that's not my intention at all. I simply want to share with you some of the insights that I got from this powerful session. The first one is I trust myself. Okay, so I'm going through again, just kind of a difficult patch, a lot of just questioning my business, my business model, my path, what I'm doing. And I realized that, you know what? I need to trust myself. And I will trust myself. I'm more resourceful than I give myself credit for. And I trust that I'm going to come through for myself, for my business, and for my family. That was an important insight. The fact that just a reminder that I need to trust in me. I need to trust myself. The second one was I can always ask for help. And by that I mean help from others, help from my higher self, and help from God. All I have to do is ask. But I Rarely do that. I rarely ask for help. Why? And I started wondering, do I not believe I can actually get help? Do I think I don't deserve it? And I realized that it's my resourceful nature that was getting in my way. And I admitted that I need to be more vulnerable and humble and just ask, ask for help. I know this. I just need to do it. And I need to do it more often because there's no limit to the help I can ask for. The third insight was I know what to do. So if I calm down for long enough, I will hear my intuition speaking. But that takes time. It takes time. It takes patience, it takes work. In a world where we're just used to getting instant gratification all the time, that might seem like an old fashioned idea, but it's timeless. I need to calm down, I need to be patient, and I need to recognize it. I know what, what I need to do. And if I don't, I need to wait for the answers because they will come. The fourth one is I get it done. I get it done. I really do. When I set my mind to it, I am a focused machine. I'm better at this than almost anyone I know, meaning getting it done. I have incredible stamina and determination. And even though that can be a liability sometimes, I need to see it for the gift itself. It is. And finally, the final insight was I know people. By that I mean that I have a great reputation within my network and in my market. And there are people out there I know who can help me, people I can tap into. And I recognize that I know more people than I think. And at the end of the day, relationships will save the day. So again, tying it back to a previous insight. I need to ask for help. I need to recognize that there are people out there who are willing to help me. And I need to ask for help when I need it. Because you know what? You won't get help if you don't ask. So back to the original question. Can you coach yourself? And I hope you understand and see by now that to a certain extent I believe you can. And frankly, if it's between doing nothing or trying, I encourage you to try it. I think you're going to see some great benefits just from going through some of what I shared with you today. Now, that doesn't mean one is a substitute for the other. Okay? There's a time and a place for both working with a coach and coaching yourself. But I hope that at least I've planted the seed that maybe I've inspired you to enter into a daily conversation with yourself every morning and to explore your thoughts, your worries, your fears, your aspirations, to unpack those things and to listen more to that voice inside you. Your soul, your inner guide, your higher self, whatever you want to call it, somebody inside you or a part of you wants nothing more than to help you on your journey. And it's there. It's there for the taking. You have access to more help than you recognize. And by the way, this is really not a religious claim I'm making. This has nothing to do with religion. It's really more about trusting yourself, trusting the fact that you have more power, abilities, resources than you might recognize and you might not be tapping into anywhere near as much as you have access to. So I hope this monologue has been helpful for you. I hope it's inspired you to maybe try some new things. And I appreciate you being a listener of the show. I appreciate your loyalty and the fact that you listen to these episodes and share some of the ones that resonate with you. And in fact, I have a request for you. A small ask. If this episode is something that is resonating with you, has resonated with you, and you think there are others who could benefit from it, I would really appreciate your sharing it with that person or those people you think would get something out of it. That's how the show has grown over the past 10 years and all been word of mouth. Thank you for considering that this has been Ed Gandia. Hope you have an amazing rest of your day. Well, that's it for today. I hope you enjoyed the episode. And just a quick reminder to grab your free copy of my latest book, Earn More in Less Time. The Proven Mindset, Strategies and Actions to Prosper as a Freelancer Writer. You can get your free copy@b2b launcher.com or you will also find the detailed show notes to this and all my other episodes. Enjoy and have a great day.