How I Overcome Imposter Syndrome And Started My Online Coaching Business (2 Ways)
In this solo podcast episode, the host recounts how they conquered imposter syndrome and secured their first business coaching client. The narrative begins with a DM conversation with a prospective coach who is hesitant due to imposter feelings. The host shares their own backstory: no certifications, no prior results, and a deep fear of being a fraud. They describe the mindset shift from perfectionism to "jump off the cliff and build the plane on the way down," and detail the minimal viable offer they presented—a 3‑month program ($1,500 total, $500/month) with weekly Zoom calls and Voxer access. To neutralize both the client’s and their own fear, they introduced a risk‑reversal refund guarantee, allowing them to act confidently despite uncertainty. The host emphasizes that imposter syndrome appears at every stage of a coaching career, but it can be reframed as an advantage: early‑stage passion, care, and the fresh perspective become unique selling points. They also discuss the importance of storytelling—flipping excuses into opportunities—and conclude with two actionable takeaways: use strong risk‑reversal mechanisms and leverage genuine caring as your primary asset when starting out.
Chapters
Alright guys, what is good? Uh, welcome to this podcast, uh, where I'm going to talk about how I overcame my imposter syndrome and signed my first business coaching client. And, um, to give you some context on this podcast, the reason that I'm recording it is because of a conversation that I was having in the DMs today. And I was like, you know what? Somebody else needs to hear this. But long story short, um, there's a lady that I've been chatting with and super cool human. Um, she's been debating joining the Full Time Faster Fast Track. And I honestly really hope that she does. But anyway, she's been debating joining the full-time Fast Track. And today we are kind of having a conversation in the DMs. And, you know, there's, there's like a bunch of things sort of holding her back right now, or that honestly she feels like are holding her back right now. In reality, she just needs to decide to do it. But, you know, you know the drill. But one of them was imposter syndrome. And, you know, specifically this client, or not client, but this this person that I was chatting with, imposter syndrome is like really holding her back. And part of it is like she's getting into the more so the business coaching side of things. You know, she's got like a reasonably successful— and I guess I don't know all the details, but she's, she's been successful in business. I think she's created a six-figure, you know, video business, video editing business or something like that. And she's wanting, wanting to get into that and help other people and teach other people. But she's wanted to get into the business coaching side of things. Like that's something that she's passionate about. And, uh, you know, we were chatting today and she was like, the thing that came up like over and over again was like imposter syndrome, uh, and more imposter syndrome. And so when we were having that conversation, I ended up just sharing with her my story of how I overcame that, um, in the hopes that, you know, that would help break some beliefs for her and she could leave those stories behind, you know, because the reality is like we all go through this and I went through this, you know, at one point I I had never had a business coaching client. And, you know, you could imagine for me, like, I didn't have any sort of credentials. I didn't have any certifications. All the other types of coaching I'd been in, I had certifications. In fact, I had 4 certifications. But when I got into the business arena, I didn't have any certifications. I mean, yeah, I'd had some success in my business, sure. But I had no, like, I had no certifications. I had none of that stuff. And, you know, I had never had that, that first business coaching client yet. And so I guess we're kind of, we were kind of in similar situations. But anyways, I'd never had I had that first business coaching client before and I'd never— I didn't have results to stand on. And I can remember it's so funny and what I hope to illustrate to anyone who's listened to this podcast or watching this podcast, if you are watching on YouTube or something, but it's just like how little you need in terms of your offer to start a coaching business. Like when I started, I'm like, God, I used to be so stuck in like perfection and overthinking. And at one point I had this coach and she just like beat it out of me, right? She just like beat all those crazy perfectionism and waiting and spinning and, you know, not making decisions. Like we just overhauled all that mindset crap, right? And what ended up happening was I became much more of an action taker. Like, my default is now to just jump off the cliff and build the bridge on the— or build the plane on the way down. And that's like literally I had to polar opposite switch those things. But when I, you know, to wrap this back to the story, when I took on my first coaching client for business, that's exactly what I did. I jumped off the cliff and I built the plane on the way down. And I remember I like, you want to know my offer was? It was like Oh, you need help growing your business in this thing? Okay, cool. I can help you with that. Here's what I have. It's a 3-month coaching program. We're going to meet once a week on Zoom. You're going to get Voxer access in between. How does that sound? We're going to solve the problems you just said that you had. How does that sound? They're like, yeah, that sounds good. Okay, cool. Here's the investment. At the time it was like $500 for 3 months, right? Like $500 a month times 3, right? So it was $1,500 for the first client I ever took on. And when I pitched that, it was like, okay, cool. Um, but you could, you could sense that hesitation there. There was that hesitation there on her side, but there was also that hesitation there on my side and the hesitation on her side, the potential client that was going to sign up with me back in the day, right back in, I don't know, 2020, January 2020 or something like that. That first business coaching client, she had the hesitation. Well, you know, what if I pay this money and I don't get the result? What if I pay this money and you suck? Right. And that's what she was dealing with on the one side of the phone and what I was dealing with on my side of the phone. Um, was like this internal, like, I don't want to be a bad person. What if I suck? What if I'm an imposter? What if I can't deliver? You know, like all these things were going through my head and they will go through your head when you're taking on your first client. They'll go through your head when you're taking on your first couple of clients. They'll go through your head when you got a 6-figure business. Like it doesn't go away. It's new level, new devil, right? But in that moment, My fear with making the offer, the thing that was really holding me back from being like confident in my offer was, what if I can't do what I say I do? What if I end up robbing this person of $1,500? Like, that would not feel good to me, right? I don't want your $1,500 if like I didn't give you value, more than $1,500 in value, right? And so what did I do to overcome that? And that's what I want to talk about here. So Basically, the first thing that I will say is I just want you to know and like maybe take some solace, if that's even the right word, in the fact that everyone goes through this and it pretty much happens at every stage of the game. And so if you're feeling that, cool, great, we all do. Don't let it stop you. Don't let the fear dictate whether or not you're going to go after this thing, because the worst thing is not going after the thing and then regretting it, you know, a year or 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 or 20 later. You know, what if I would have started that coaching business? Like, that would suck. So just know that we all experience that. And the other thing that I want to say is like, when I did this, here's how I eliminated the risk. This is a really big thing. I talk about this right now with all my people inside the Full Time Fast Track, and I still get them to do this, but it's like, offer some sort of a risk reversal. Now, as I've gone on, I've learned more about risk reversals from a bunch of different people. James Wedmore, Alex Hormozi, all that kind of stuff. But back then, back in the day, I knew it intuitively. I knew I had to do that intuitively. And so when I made that offer to that first person, I didn't even have a framework. I didn't have a structured process, didn't have a framework, didn't have nothing. I was bold enough to make the offer. I was smart enough to, you know, reverse the risk and I cared. And those are, those are the ingredients, right? And we're gonna talk about those here. So the first one is when I made that offer, I could sense the hesitation when I made it right. And When I said, hey, it's X amount of money, it's $1,500 for 3 months, right? We can do a payment plan of $500 a month. How does that sound? And I could sense that hesitation. I said, you know what? I'll tell you what. If you get to the end of this program and you're not happy, I'll just refund you. No questions asked. How does that sound? And in that moment, what did that do? That took away the risk. From that person. And they felt more confident being like, you know what? Even if this is crap, she's gonna refund. She's gonna refund me, right? And for me, what that did for me is that allowed me to step fully into the arena and not worry about being a bad person because I knew that even if I totally effed it up, I had an exit strategy. Cool, I'll give you your money back. Great. Either way, we were both still gonna win in that situation. She was gonna have gotten 3 months of free coaching, like of free coaching. And I was gonna have gotten 3 months of experience, which guess what I need to get better at coaching, to grow my coaching business? Freaking experience. You know where I'm not gonna get it is on the sidelines complaining that I've got imposter syndrome. Great. What are you gonna do about that? Right? You gotta get in the arena. You gotta take the first step. You gotta coach the first person. You gotta get the first result. You gotta make the first mistake.. And so that's what I did. So that was a big, big way that I used to overcome imposter syndrome was de-risking the situation, not only for the potential client, but for myself, so that I could in good conscience make the offer and feel damn good about it. Right? So that's piece number 1. And then the second piece, and the thing that I actually like was talking about to her in the DMs today, another piece of this, you know, like if I look back and I think about, the coaching that I did in 2020, I freaking cringe. Like, I'm like, wow, did I not know as much as I know now? Like, it is insane. There's so many things I would do differently. It's crazy. Like, it pains me to think about it to some degree. But in that moment, I was in the perfect place, you know? Like, in that moment, I was in the perfect place. And what we don't realize when we're in those moments, every moment has a pro-con to it. You know, like the people that have, let's say, a $50 billion— not billion dollar, let's say $50 million coaching business, or they're making $10 million a year or something like that. The thing that gets more challenging for them, the thing that's harder for them is like they probably don't have the same amount of passion for the thing. Why? Because they've been doing it forever. They know it like the back of their hand. It's not exciting to them, right? But like when you know just, just enough, just a little more than that person who is a couple steps behind you, you're so excited about teaching them that stuff because you just learned it and, and that passion carries on to them. And so sure, you could look at it. This is the thing. Our mind will look at anything we give it. You could look at that like, oh, I've never had a business coaching client before. This is a handicap. Or you could look at that same thing and be like, this is actually an advantage because I'm so in it. I'm so fired up by all this stuff right now. I'm so excited about it that like, and I'm just like one step ahead of this person that I like have so much passion and so much care. And like when I look back at, you know, probably the reason that my business is where it is today, It's because of that care piece. Like, it's because of the heart piece. And if you have that, if you care about your clients, God, that will overcome so much stuff. Like, that will overcome so much, you know, maybe lack in terms of skill or, you know, process or whatever. Like, if you really care and you really try with your clients, like, That's incredible, and people can feel that. And like, that like energetic exchange— I mean, I don't even know how to say this in English, but like that, that energetic exchange, like people feel that. And that energetic exchange is value. And so I think, you know, the imposter syndrome thing, you're just gonna get it at every level of the game. You're gonna get it, um, when you start You're going to get it when you're in the middle. You're going to get it when you're at the top, whatever that is. It's just new level, new devil. But what I don't want for anyone who's listening to this podcast is to let that be the thing that's preventing them from starting. Because if it is, you're never going to start. You have to do something. You know, you have to be willing to get into the arena. You have to be willing to mess something up. And the best thing that you can do is do it with, like, the best of intentions. And for me, that was having a really strong risk reversal. That's an incredible way to kind of get over that imposter syndrome, just take the pressure off, you know. And then the other thing that you really want to realize is that like there is an advantage and a disadvantage to everything. And I feel like most of the time us humans are just using like using the disadvantage as an excuse. But conversely, you could flip that and you could find an advantage. And the advantage in the imposter syndrome case is cool, you're one step ahead of that person. You'll never be more lit up and stoked to teach that thing than when you just learned it yourself, right? Because it's so new to you. But if you're that person who's already done that, you know, 500 times with a bunch of different people, you're probably not as fired up about it, right? And so you just have to focus on your advantage and you have to leverage that. And, you know, it's gonna be the same thing with anything, you know? I think of a story in my mind, you know, last year when it was around this time last year and I had been thinking about investing a huge sum of money in a mentorship program. It was like $20,000 or something. And I was like, wow, this is the worst time ever. I'm about to drive across the country. And yeah, I'm about to drive across the country. It's going to be 80 hours of driving. I'm going to be moving from one country to the other country and it's just going to be a nightmare. And wow, this is the worst time ever to start this coaching program. And yeah, that could have been true if I bought into that story. But the other side of that story was actually, this is going to make me so much more focused and intentional with the work that I am doing with the very limited time that I have on this trip. And I made the best money I made all year on that trip because my energy was great because I was traveling, I was having fun and, um, and I was being very effective with the time that I had. And so what I hope you take away from this podcast is You know, really, this is for you if you're struggling with imposter syndrome. But what I hope you take away from it is two things. Number one, how you can get around that with, you know, having a strong risk reversal. And then also knowing that, you know, caring is your biggest asset always. But certainly it's like the thing that you really have to flex on when you start because you don't have much else to flex on, right? And I had to really flex on that at the start. And not that I don't flex that now, I do, but it's just like That's the only flex you can make. It's one of the few flexes you can make in the beginning, right? And then I guess the last thing is just like, just be aware in general of the stories that you're telling yourself because there's always an excuse not to do the thing. There's always a reason why this isn't the time or imposter syndrome and this thing or that thing. And there's always a counter to that. There's always a flip side and there's always a way to come out empowered and get the thing that you want no matter what's going on externally in your life. And so I hope this finds you well. If it was helpful, let me know. If there's anything else you want to hear a podcast about, let me know. And that's it. Peace, love. And abundance.
