The Real Reason You're Stressed About Getting Clients

Let's be honest.

If you've been in the coaching space for any length of time, you've probably told yourself that the stress you feel about getting clients is just part of the process.

That it's normal. That it means you care.

But what if the stress itself is actually the thing standing between you and the clients you want?

This is something I had to learn the hard way, and I want to share it with you today because I think it's going to shift something for you.

Your Circumstances Are Not the Problem

For most of my life, I believed that my stress came from my external circumstances.

The credit card bill. The relationship. The job. The thing that wasn't working.

I walked around feeling like I was constantly at the effect of everything happening around me. And that belief alone made me incredibly stressed.

What I eventually learned through a lot of personal development work is that only about 10% of your subjective well-being is actually determined by your circumstances.

The rest? It comes down to your mindset, your narrative, and the story you're telling yourself about the facts in front of you.

That was a game changer for me. And it can be one for you too.

The Real Culprit: Trust

Here's something I want you to sit with.

I have worked with coaches at every level, all the way up to eight figure entrepreneurs, and I can tell you with complete confidence that happiness and fulfillment never come from money.

Now I know that might be hard to hear depending on where you are financially right now.

But what I've seen over and over again is that the coaches who are most stressed are not stressed because they don't have enough money.

They're stressed because they don't have enough trust.

Trust in themselves. Trust in their clients. Trust in the process.

When you're worried about offending someone by charging for your services, you're not trusting them to manage their own money.

When you're scared to show up online because someone might judge you, you're not trusting yourself to handle it.

When you're holding back from having a real sales conversation because you're afraid of the outcome, you're not trusting the relationship.

And all of that distrust creates an enormous amount of stress that bleeds into everything you do in your business.

Anxiety Is Not a Strategy

I had to get really honest with myself about this.

I realized that I was simultaneously judging the people I most wanted to serve. I was looking at people who were more financially successful than me and feeling a mix of admiration and fear.

And that combination was keeping me small. It was keeping me from building the relationships that would have grown my business so much faster.

Here is what I know to be true.

Anxiety is not a strategy.

Being really anxious about getting the client never got me the client. Being really anxious about posting content never helped me attract anyone into my world.

What did help? Chilling out and being myself.

Showing up consistently, with joy, with authenticity, and with a genuine belief that the people I wanted to serve were capable adults who could make their own decisions.

That shift alone changed everything.

The System That Lowers Your Stress

Now let's talk about systems, because this is where so many coaches get stuck.

You might be telling yourself that you don't have time to set up a system, or that it's too technical, or that it's going to take forever.

I want to challenge that story right now.

Setting up the foundation of your online business, a website, a lead magnet, an email cadence, a community presence, can happen in weeks, not years.

I recently worked with a client who had a fully branded website with booking capabilities live within four days. Four days.

The reason most coaches don't implement a system isn't because it's too hard.

It's because they're afraid of the first few reps being messy. And they will be.

The first time you go live, it will be awkward. The first time you write a sales email, it might fall flat. The first time you show up at a networking event with a new approach, it might feel uncomfortable.

That's not failure. That's growth.

And if you can accept that the first few reps are supposed to be messy, you free yourself up to actually do them.

Consistency Is the Cure

Think about it this way.

If you had started building your system just two months ago, where would your business be right now?

What if you had a regular email going out, a lead magnet bringing people in, a community where you showed up live every week?

That consistency compounds.

And it's that consistency that lowers your stress over time because you stop wondering where your next client is coming from and you start trusting the system you've built.

Your results right now are a direct reflection of the systems and support you currently have in place. That's not a judgment. That's just the truth.

And the good news is that you can change it.

You can decide this week to do one thing differently. Maybe it's protecting time on your calendar for the things that actually move your business forward. Maybe it's showing up somewhere new. Maybe it's reaching out for real support and accountability.

You Are Stronger Than You Think

The stress you feel about getting clients is not a sign that something is wrong with you.

It's a sign that you care deeply about your work.

But caring deeply and white-knuckling your way through your business are two very different things.

You are way stronger than you think.

And when you stop treating yourself like a delicate teacup and start trusting yourself, trusting your clients, and trusting the process, everything changes.

The clients are out there. They are looking for someone exactly like you.

Let them find you.

Chapter List:

00:00 Understanding Stress and Its Sources

05:22 The Role of Money in Happiness

11:17 The Importance of Authenticity in Coaching

17:39 Building Trust and Reducing Stress in Business

23:50 The Power of Systems in Business

29:13 Embracing the Messiness of Growth

35:05 Shifting Perspectives for Success

Full Transcript:

Amanda Kaufman (00:00)

Your results are in very large part a result of the amount of support system that you have in play right now.

What you're doing right now is creating the level of result that you have. And the only way to level up is to break what you have and replace it with something that's going to be more bodacious.

So we're talking about more leads, less stress, more leads, less stress. So let's talk about what is it that's causing stress, right? Now for years, like before I ever became a coach, I always thought that stress was

primarily because of my external circumstances.

So I used to think that all my stress came from my external circumstances. So, for example, I was stressed because there was a big credit card bill or I was stressed because I was worried about my romantic relationship at the time. Chris and I are coming. Oh, my God. I'm glad I talked about this because her anniversary is in like three days. I remember it. OK, so. But, know, like I was I was always worried about, is the am I doing the right things in my relationship? Is the relationship OK?

I was not like my my stress is coming from like circumstances around me So if there was something going on at work, know, which by the way, when is there not something going on at work? That's a really good question, but I was always like worried about it. So I just went through life Feeling like I was at the effect of everything and that on my own

made me really, really stressed. So, shout out why in the chat if you can relate to that. Now, through personal growth and development, by investing really heavily and learning things that I just was not taught when I was growing up, I learned that actually only about 10 % of your subjective well-being is indicated by your circumstances. So, subjective well-being is what scientists call happiness, right? I went on a big binge on understanding happiness because I really wanted to be happier. I didn't want to feel

so stressed out all the time. didn't want to feel depressed. I didn't want to feel frustrated. I wanted to feel more joy and more happiness. And what I learned was I'm like, turns out there was a pretty significant genetic component. And I'm here to tell you that's true.

Right. That is very true. Anecdotally, data point of one, I can tell you there is some genetic tendency towards, you know, your different personalities. So you guys heard of the ocean framework, right? It's a great framework for describing personality traits and your genetics do play a role. And it's a pretty significant one, about 40 percent. But that leaves you, you know, a good 50 percent has to do with your narrative.

your cognitive biases, experiences. And what is the story you're telling yourself about the facts?

And to be very honest with you, when I was making $250,000 in take home salary per year, pre-entrepreneurship, that didn't necessarily make me happy. And I know you're gonna be like, go, yeah, duh. Like everybody's heard that, I guess. I don't know, there's like two camps. There's like, I don't believe you because that's more money than, you know, like if I had that kind of money, I'd be happy, you selfish person.

But I've also had people go like, yeah, I mean, like the best things in life are absolutely free. Right. And I believe that, too. I like I do think that the most valuable things in my life you could never pay for. Right. So like I think about my my marriage, I think about my kids, I think about my friendships, I think about my family, I think about the experiences, the memories that I have. I'm like, you can't you can't buy that ish. You know what I mean? Like money is a really powerful.

tool, but it doesn't on its own actually make you happy. Right now, I do think Dean Graziosi has a pretty good good point that he likes to make in his podcast. He says the thing about money is it's a lot like oxygen. You know, like if you just kind of consider right now, you're not gasping for air. There's plenty of oxygen. There's plenty of air. So you're not really thinking about it. You're not really worrying about it. If there's not enough air.

That's the only thing you'll think about, right? And he says money is about the same way. And you know what? Having experienced severe, genuine lack and being on the other side of that, I really believe that. Like I work with a lot of coaches who...

are struggling financially. And that's not on purpose. What I realized, and this was actually just a couple of years in working with coaches, what I realized is a lot of coaches are super overextended financially. And they're often working in like helping professions where they're not getting paid a lot of money. And they're starting to realize that the agent stage that they're at that they need a better way to earn income. And they've heard the stories tell about how you can charge so much more for

coaching than you can for the helping professions. But I want to like actually lower your stress because you think, you know, maybe, I don't know, just like talk to a lot of people over the years. They think that the money is going to solve things. And I'm like, no, no, no, no money no longer being a obstruction to being healthy.

Right? Like being able to afford good food, good shelter, like all those kinds of things. We got to get there. And they've done scientific studies that show that like after you're, you know, well established at middle class, more money doesn't necessarily correlate to more happiness. It's other things. And so if you're super stressed, I want you to just like take a deep breath right now and we're going to play a little game.

And this is a game that I taught my daughter. She was really struggling with a lot of anxiety. She was struggling with a lot of concern about her future. Can't imagine why. And this was when she was like 13 years old. Right. So she was was she's now 20. So this was a few years ago. And the game is this. It's happy now. So if you're with me live in the chat, I want you to just take a deep breath.

What makes you so happy right now? Just like right now. So the way the game works is it's like you're not thinking about something you're anticipating in the future, you're not grateful for something in the past, you can't say things like your family, because like everybody says that, that's like your default go-to. I mean, observably, what are you actually happy about? It could be an idea that just popped into your head, that's totally cool, but like challenge your mind to look for the thing that does spark joy. So for me,

Forgive the lipstick. I've got my mug. says in a world full of unicorns, be a unicornisaurus rex. That just like makes me happy right now. I'm pouring my cup of coffee this morning and I'm like, it's a unicornisaurus rex. Like it's so funny, you know? Another one that makes me happy. And yeah, I guess this is a little bit the past, but I'm like riding the endorphins. I'm gonna, I'm gonna go with it. I went to the gym this morning when I did not feel like it. And when I walked out, I felt like a beast, right?

Yes, my cute dog partner. love it. I love it. So like what's making you happy? Right now is it Amanda Kaufman meeting you in the morning? Maybe right maybe maybe you've got like your favorite shirt on or maybe you have like I'm just looking down I got I got a pink mouse who does that right who has a pink mouse? I you know, I it's awesome So yeah, what around you actually sparks like that joy and the

is is that you can spark joy anytime you want about anything you want.

When it comes to building a successful coaching business, people kind of poo poo this little stuff, you know, and they're like, no, it's going to be like the big stage and the New York Times bestselling thing. And, you know, I've fallen for it too. You know, I've I've spent an enormous amount of money to get in front of cameras and to be able to like get onto stages and things like that. And the return on those investments, I'm going to tell you completely for free. Bubkiss, hardly anything.

Right. And you know what gave me huge return on my investment? Anytime I spark joy in a relationship. I know that sounds so like trite and silly. And don't worry in today's training, I'm going to get to some of the practical, actionable, you know, business, business, business stuff too, because that's what we always talk about around here. But I really wanted to start with this baseline. Like, what's the point of putting a system into your business if your joy

is inaccessible to you anyway, right? I've coached hundreds and hundreds of coaches at this point. I've worked with so many entrepreneurs at different levels, all the way up to eight figure entrepreneurs, and here's what I have to tell you.

Their happiness, their fulfillment never comes from money. Everybody thinks it will. And depending on what your money story is, your money story might be that there's never enough money. Or your money story might be that the money's gonna leave soon.

Or your money story might be that you are a more fancy person if you can be more flashy, right? And show off your money and then people will like you better because you have better status, right? You could be someone who even just like loathes money, right? You might think that money is like the root of all evil, right? And what I'm here to tell you is like all of those are cognitive distortions, right? The reality, the truth.

is a tool. Money flows, right? It's a tool and it flows towards you and you direct it away from you however your spending habits are. And most wealth creation is actually through systemization of doing so. Whoa.

That was good. You should write that down in your notes. Shout out notes if you wrote that down. Real wealth does not come from being just fancier or more popular or having more views or vanity metrics. It comes from a systemization approach to make sure that you're always attracting money. You're always accepting money, receiving money. And it also comes down to the systems for how you decide to allocate money. And the wealthiest people, what they do is they do basically

the lifestyle allocation. So this is like what pays for your lifestyle. They have a savings allocation and they do something to actively grow their savings. They don't leave it in cash under a mattress. They don't leave it in a savings account getting 0.00001 % interest. What they do is they usually do something like the stock market or they work with a financial advisor to like figure out what portfolio of investments can I put this money in?

is going to on average across all of the performance likely return something significantly better than my savings account, right? And then, you know, if you haven't already set it aside, your emergency fund. What's an emergency fund? Have you ever had something bad happen in your life? I know I have. I've had like bad things happen recently. And it's having the...

extra set aside that allows you to recalibrate and get back on track with the original system. That's what generates wealth. And being anxious about whether you can generate wealth...

I am here to tell you after many points of data, and yes, I am like all my own experience, of course, but like being really anxious about getting the promotion never got me the promotion. Being really anxious about getting the client never got me the client. Being really anxious about posting content and attracting people into my world never helped me do that. You know what did? Chilling the bleep out and being myself.

I know, it's just like, it's not this crazy, like your emotional condition isn't going to help you to get more because you want it better. I'm aware the grammar was a little rough there, but seriously, like think about the people around you who complain year after year about the job that they're in.

What are they doing to activate towards something better? Do they really believe that they deserve to get paid more? Or do they believe that where they are is the best they can do?

And when you settle into that thinking, then of course you're going to just get paid whatever you get paid. You're not seeking new opportunities that are worth more. You're not challenging yourself to raise your competency or to develop relationships with people that perhaps intimidate and scare you a little bit. When I was very first starting out as an entrepreneur, was simultaneously amazed by people who were more financially successful than me.

and also kind of scared, right? I was scared that I wouldn't be able to build a relationship with them, that they would think I was a big waste of time and oxygen and all of that kind of thing. And let me ask you, when somebody's being really anxious around you, how does that make you feel?

Personally, right? Totally nervous, right? Because you're like, wait, is there a bear hiding out in the bushes? You know, is something on fire that I didn't know? So as human beings are social creatures. So if somebody is being like really like clammy, paw palmed and stuttering because they're scared of seeing the right thing. Now, here's another way that it tends to show up.

when somebody is nervous, they tend to be less vulnerable. And so they tend to show up as a fakedy fake fake version of themselves. So now,

I used to get very confused about this because I thought like people who dressed nicely or were like in the latest fashion that like that that they were fake, right? Because I was kind of raised to think like that, too. when here's here's the truth, you can have like two people wearing the same exact outfit and like check me on this. But I'm pretty sure about this one. You have two people that are like similar body composition, similar outfit, similar level of grooming, right?

similar, similar, And they you can have one person who's who's not being authentic in that. And you have another person who's being completely authentic in that. Right. Because some people genuinely like to express through their clothes. Some people genuinely like to express through, you know, their fitness and all that kind of stuff. Like for some people, you can just smell it. Right. Like you can smell if it's real and you can smell if it's putting on a show.

Shout out small if you hear what I'm saying. we have to be like one of the reasons that more coaches don't get leads and one way that I definitely sabotage myself is that I just had judgment for everybody who was different from me.

You know, I was like, I wouldn't prioritize those things. And the fact that you are maybe you're using it as a manipulation tactic. That is an overly simplistic way to look at it. And what I had to really accept is like, I was scared of being judged for not being enough and scared of being judged for not being, you know, pretty or smart or wealthy or whatever status. I was just, I was so nervous about that. And the condition

that I had was like fear the thing that I don't feel I can have and disdain it. And let me ask you, how's that gonna bring you leads, right? People who can actually afford your coaching, people who genuinely would believe in a process that you're facilitating and bringing them through. If you have all this self judgment that you project out as others judgment and people watch you judging other people.

how likely are they going to want to engage you? We've got to be so careful. know, like stress shows up as judgment. Stress shows up as stuttering and fear, but it also can really show up as snobbery, right? And, and,

What am I? I'm looking for the word like it's not just snobbery in terms of like flashy cars and flashy clothes. I submit to you that coaches regularly do virtue signaling, meaning it's like I'm better than you because I have higher moral standards. Look in my beautiful moral standards. Look how shiny I am. And let me ask you, how is that different than flaunting a purse?

In my opinion, it's not really different and it actually adds a huge amount of stress because what you're literally doing is you're saying, I'm separate, you're lesser, here's a barrier and it cuts off the flow, right? Yeah.

Yeah, Jenny, exactly. You're nailing it. It's like if I can't have that beautiful purse or if I can't have that bank account or if I can't have that hot boyfriend or whatever the thing you're coveting is, then then it's like, well, then I hate it. Right. And and that's an understandable response. And that's an average response. But if you want to have lower stress, stop putting so much energy into separating yourself from everybody around you.

Right now, I want to also say it makes sense to have sensible boundaries. So when you start marketing on the internet, it is like having a storefront in public, you know, like you want to have reasonable precautions. I would never say build a brick and mortar business and don't lock the front door on Main Street. Like, would you ever have that kind of an advice? But if you want to have people come into the store, can you keep the door locked?

Right? During the day, during the business hours, you've got to what? Open the door. Right? Open the door. It's the same thing with building an online business. You know, I was resistant for the first few years to having systems in place because I thought the systems were stressing me out. I thought having to be at work at a certain time or stay for a certain number of hours, I thought that was adding to my stress.

I thought that being committed to a goal that someone else was working towards would stress me out. And I call this lovingly teacup thinking. You know, it's this idea that you're this delicate little teacup. You know, the teacups that had the flowers on them and they chip off super easily.

I thought that the rigor and the discipline around accepting responsibility for my business and for other people's goals was going to crack my teacup. Right? And here's the truth. I'm way stronger than a teacup and you're way stronger than a teacup. And here's another truth. Why would someone hire you to help if they didn't believe

that you were invested in their success. If they didn't believe that you took radical responsibility for your contribution to their success. If they didn't believe that, why on earth would they hire? You know, so much stress in the coaching space. It's coming from, again, belief that, you know, these people, their goals, they're going to assign their goals to me. They're going to make me do all this stuff.

They're going to make me do things I don't want to do. And so then again, we're putting all these boundaries up and all these rules in place to avoid talking to people. Is this too much on a Monday? Right? I'm telling you that your stress would come way down if you just realized that just like you, most people want good things for others.

Most people want good things for others. Now that does not mean that they're going to just pry their wallet open and be like, here you go. You know, take my money. It's it. They they need to see that you actually have an actionable solution to help them to achieve their goals and that you're a reliable provider of that solution and that they can trust you. Right. Shout a T in the chat if you hear me loud and clear.

So much of the stress that comes out of not building your business as big as it can possibly be is because you've got trust issues. You're not trusting people to trust you.

You're not trusting people to trust you. You're worried about offending people because you want to charge money for your services, but you're not trusting them to manage their money. You're not trusting them to own their decisions. And, and what I've had to learn myself that really lowered my stress towards getting new clients is I'm like, I'm an adult. You're an adult. Right?

You can choose to tune out, opt out, unsubscribe, block. You could leave negative reviews. You have all this power, right, to not pay attention to me helping you. You have that. And I trust you to exercise whatever boundary you need to have, just the way that I do for me. If that's fair, show the F in the chat, because

When I realized that when I could just release that, was like, my gosh, know, average marketers, they're so scared that it's so hard to get leads, that it's so hard to connect with people, that it's so hard, so hard, so hard. They have this big narrative about how everything's so hard. They get really stressed out about that. So they make it really hard for people to leave. Right. They don't use the systems that allow for easy unsubscribes.

because they don't trust the people that they're gonna work with and they don't trust themselves to be trusted as well.

Can you all see this in the space? I want to make sure I'm not talking crazy talk, right? You have a beautiful service. You have a skill set to deliver an incredible service. And that service is rooted and based in trust. The reason that most coaches in particular are so stressed about getting leads and getting clients is because they

They are obsessed with the short term money in the door. They have this expectation that they should go to a networking event, meet a person, the person falls in love with them, love at first sight, credit card. And let me ask you, do you shop like that? Or are you a bit of a browser? Are you somebody who kind of diversifies your portfolio of people that you might learn from? I'm not offended by the way, I hope you do.

learn from people other than Amanda Kaufman. Genuinely. Like, I hope that you've got this curriculum for how you're developing your life, and maybe even in your business, and that you're listening to multiple of us, because we all have perspectives that are probably valuable.

You see, I'm very secure in that idea because you know what? I do that too. I have multiple people that I look to for inspiration, for instruction, for mentorship, for accountability. I have a portfolio of support system. Right? Now, the thing is, is that if I never go deep with anyone in my support system, then I'm unlikely to shift the needle.

and to really be able to move my business. And if I'm always fixated on where's my next client gonna come from today, I'm not building the systems that allow somebody to meet me, talk with me on their terms, and join me for a fit conversation again on their terms.

Who here sees that, right? Like you're intimidated by the system. You're intimidated by the techiness of the system. You're intimidated by how long this techie system is gonna take to implement. And I wanna tell you something. I recently worked with a client. She actually just enrolled with me in our Experts Network program. And she asked me on the consult call, she said, how long is it gonna take before I have an attractive website where people can book with me? I said, let's get it done this week.

And literally within four days, soup to nuts, whole thing, beautiful domain, branded colors, all these decisions made, done within just a few days. And now that that's done, she's got the foundation, right? The foundation of a presence on the internet that she can anchor back to within days. Now, is she going to make millions of dollars through

just having a website on the internet, yes or no, right? Obviously, probably not. But she can't build a six figure or seven figure anything if she doesn't put a stake in the ground and say, this is my business. This is my space.

So many people are stressed because they don't realize that setting up your system happens fast. Relatively, it happens really quickly. Like when you're in the Experts Network, for example, you're going to have the whole thing done in six to eight weeks, which that might sound like a long time, but let's just check in. Today is March the second. 60 days ago, approximately, was New Year's Day.

New Year's Day. So at the, like, let's just imagine you started on New Year's Day and you did the six to eight week thing of implementing the system with, by the way, a few hours a week. We're not talking about a full-time job. We're talking about dedicating five to maybe 10 hours a week. If by now you had a regular email cadence, you had a lead magnet with an opt-in, you even had advertising.

up and running and you were testing new ideas, you had a community that people were hearing from you just like this with a live stream. Like how awesome would that be? Now, not everybody that enrolls in a program with me, they want to go that fast, right? But I got to tell you that's a little like me thinking that all my externals are the things that are causing me stress. I'm enrolled in this program. That's stressful.

Oh, I've got these commitments. That's stressful. But if I was to look over your shoulder at your system for how you manage your time, I'm willing to bet that we're not using the calendar yet to block out the time for the things that matter yet. I'm willing to bet. And I'm not saying that's a guilt. I get it when I started my business. I was like, no, that's going to compromise my freedom. That's going to compromise my ability to relax. Did you know that you can put on your calendar? Stare out the window.

You can protect time on your calendar to to to pick your nose. If it was really important to you, you could have a nose picking session, right? And you could set how long or short you want that to be and how frequently you want it to be. I know that's gross. But like you could you could put on your calendar the time you need to be able to prepare healthy meals that you want to eat or your sleep or your.

cuddle time with your spouse, you could put literally everything that's important to you on that calendar and protect the time. And coming back to the whole like have a system in your business thing, imagine like if you had started on January 1st or 2nd, you know, give you the day off. If you had started on January 2nd, here we are on March 2nd, whose business would be like so different right now? If you'd had that discipline, if you'd had that focus, if you'd had that accountability.

Right? Show them why in the chat if you can see it.

So many times we're stressed because we're actually just in this decision making space and we're showing up in reaction every day. And what a system gives you is it gives you basically a pre decision. I have already decided that I'm going to contribute to my community through free training today. This was decided like this, this was decided like

A long time ago. Because, it was decided that I was gonna likely spend this morning at 9 a.m. speaking to you years ago. Years ago. Why? Because I was like, that's the time slot that I'm gonna make the commitment. Now have I broken that commitment a couple of times? In advance, generally. I think I've had one major incident that I genuinely could not show up.

for this and it was like a medical emergency, right? But I don't have to re-litigate or re-decide every week, what am I gonna do to grow my business? And let me ask you this, if you had a library of videos for years that people could see who you are, how you operated, what you think, all those kinds of things, would your business be better off? Yes or no?

Let me even take it another step further. A lot of people don't implement a system around marketing and selling in their business because they're scared of the first few reps.

I mean the first three reps. Because I've done this enough that I've seen people who get past rep two, they get into rep three, and this is why I call my membership the first five club. You get past those five reps, in the very beginning, and you're like, great, I get it now. But everybody's afraid of doing those first few reps, and you want to know why? You know why it stresses them out? It's because it's going to be ugly.

It's gonna be a damn mess. It's gonna be chaotic. It's gonna be awkward. When I first started doing live streams, you guys, no kidding, I ran out of breath. I couldn't even believe it. Like I couldn't complete a full sentence without taking a breath in between. Cause I was so panicked about not like...

I was going to embarrass myself in front of because like, can you guys actually just notice by the way, when I did that quick breath thing, it really threw off my rhythm. Now I breathe through everything that I do online and it allows me to be fairly smooth. Now, if I watch the tape back, there's going to be times when I repeat words.

I have a slight stutter. I say the word right far too often. You know, I can look at everything that I'm doing in my videos and I can be like, right, that's, that's something I need to work on. Like that's something that if I improve that it's going to improve the experience for everybody, especially me who's watching it back and cringing, right? I've done my 10,000 hours of video though.

And by picking one thing to work on each week, guess what? Pretty solid now. But most people are so scared of those first five reps because they're like, my camera's in the wrong place, I don't have the lighting, I don't have the scripting, I didn't use a good hook, I'm not social media famous, I'm old, I'm young, I'm fat, I'm thin, I'm a woman, I'm a man, whatever.

Whatever judgment you have, you see like coming back to what triggers our stress. Our stress is we have all these expectations and then we apply our judgment against those expectations and then we feel like crap and then we don't feel like doing the thing. It demotivates us. And I'm here to say, if you accept that the first few reps are gonna be basically shitty, more or less crappy,

Not because you're a crappy human, but because you haven't done it before. You know, my eight-year-old has been doing some new things in art in his homeschooling, and he was in tears the other day because he had an assignment and he needed to draw a self-portrait in pencil, and he had never done it before.

And they had given him like all these instructions about, you know, how to get the proportion of the head right, where to place the eyes, where to place the ears, how to place the nose, how to place the mouth. And they were trying to teach him this concept around proportionality. So he went to go and do it and it was like a self-portrait. So he had to use a mirror and then drew what he saw. And then when he finished the drawing, he freaked out because he says, my gosh, this is so...

Ugly. It actually broke my heart. Like as a mommy, I was like, okay. But he had his meltdown because the picture didn't look anything like what he expected it to look like. And I'm here to tell you that I did have to calm my eight year old down and it just brought up for me. like, man, like how many times do we as adults walk into an exercise just like that?

and have a meltdown because the first time we walk into Canva, it just doesn't look pretty. Or the first time that we go live, it just doesn't look pretty. Or the first time we show up at a networking event or say hello to someone or try something new and it doesn't look pretty. And here's where it really can screw you is if you have been doing something badly for a long time, when you start to improve it, you're going to go through that same cycle.

So like, let's say that you've been really good about networking and connecting with people, but you're capped at the level that you're at with the number of, the number of consults that you're earning and generating, and you're just capped, like you're not able to grow the business anymore. Well, you're gonna need to shift maybe the rooms that you go to, maybe how you interact in those rooms, maybe who you're choosing to spend time with and inviting forward to the next step.

And when you make that adjustment, it's going to be like my eight year old looking at that picture going, wait a second, I used to be good at this. You know? Yeah. Thank you so much, Jenny. I'm glad that you got something good. So when we're hung up on the stress of getting new leads and getting people in the door, so often it's like my eight year old looking at the picture, having this expectation that the first time that I do the thing, it's going to be really pretty.

and not tolerating that mess of growth. And there's not a domain that I can really think of where you can build a skill without feeling the discomfort of kind of sucking. Right. And and look, like a lot of coaches, they get really stressed because they're like, well, I don't know if I want to learn the skill of video. I don't know if I want to learn the skill of writing copy. I don't know if I want to learn the skill of being more effective in my networking. OK.

Right? No one said you had to develop the skill. And also, don't get stressed, though, because if you aren't willing to do the work that other people did to get the result that other people get. What are you so stressed out about?

Genuine question. Right? You see how we throw all these things in front of our success? When I first decided to get good at copywriting, I was so stressed about it. I was like, people are going to judge me because of my words. And here's the truth. Everybody's judging you anyway.

You know what's crazy? They're judging you for what you don't say.

They're judging you for what you do say. They're judging you for how you say it. They're judging you for having an opinion at all. Okay. Right? That like, okay.

You've got a job to do you're here to help people right and you're not entitled to anybody's business and That like that maybe feels a little rough. I'll calm down a little I guess but I know I felt kind of like hey, I did the work I Used to tell myself that a lot. I used to be like I did the work. I got the certification I did the work. I got a second certification

I did the work, I spent tens of thousands of dollars, X, Y, Z, and I could stack for you like this huge list of stuff that I had done. And then I had this question mark on my face of like, why am I not making more money and getting more clients? And why am I so stressed out all the time?

And then I realized I was like,

No one cares what you did to prepare.

Right? They might have cared in high school. They cared a little bit in college, but like nobody really cares what you did to prepare. All they care about is are you going to help them now? Are you going to help them now? Can they trust you? Do they even know about you? Are you visible?

And I had to get brutal and be like, actually, I think I'm still a little nervous about being seen on a bigger stage. Actually, I think I'm still a little nervous about somebody getting mad that they don't get the results that they're hoping for. And I'm maybe a little nervous about disappointing people. I had to get real about that. But let me ask you this. Do you think I was more stressed?

before getting real with myself or after.

This is the last big thing I want to share with you today. Your results are in very large part a result of the systems that you have in play right now, the amount of support system that you have in play right now.

What you're doing right now is creating the level of result that you have. And the only way to level up is to break what you have and replace it with something that's going to be more bodacious.

And I know what it's like to be like, I don't want, I don't want to hear that my ego is getting a little tied up here.

I don't want to hear that I'm being like maybe a little entitled to business, but I'm not doing the business things that I need to do to get the business. You know, that's awkward. That's embarrassing, right? But I'm sharing it with you because maybe that's going to unlock something for you this week. What is one thing you can commit to this week that is going to challenge how you've been looking at your business? Maybe it's choosing to spark joy. Maybe it's...

setting up a simple time management system. Maybe it's getting some more real support and input. And by the way, I've got a really cool, let's see if this works. Experts, we got a really cool video. DM me the word expert on Instagram and I'll send it over to you. That training, it does such a great job, if I say so myself, of just like, what is the overall process?

to get into more detail about the system. So we've talked about this for the past few weeks. It's activating the action, it's getting the tracking in place, it's getting the belief in place, and it's driving the horsepower behind it. So where are you confusing an activation of your willpower for anxiety? I see you Deborah, I'll send you a message later.

Where are you confusing white-knuckling in your life for caring?

Right? Because the thing is, is like you wouldn't white knuckle about it if you didn't really care. But sometimes we kind of stop at the white knuckling and the anxiety. What can you do this week to explore, huh, if I really do care about this, do I care enough to be calm?

Do I care enough to be calm? Because if I'm gonna get calm, then I can plan long term. Like I said, today's March 2nd. If you had started with implementing the system that I've been talking about on January 2nd, it would be done. Was January all that long ago? The year is going super fast, isn't it? But was it all that long ago? And most people, they're looking for that sale in the next week.

two weeks and they're not thinking about building a business that brings them clients every month. Which would you rather have? Would you rather have a couple of clients really fast right now? Or would you rather have a reliable system that allows you to generate new clients every single week within your cash flow limitations? Right, because we all have them. We all have cash flow limitations. For me, I vote consistent system. Consistent system.

Because if I have that consistency, that predictability in my business, then my stress does go down quite a lot because I'm not activated by financial stress of wondering where money's gonna come from. Y'all, if you love this, make sure you invite a friend.

to join us in the Clients Over Chaos group. Thank you so much to Cathy again for letting me know that she was struggling with the audio a little bit and that was like for everybody. So we were able to fix that. The entire replay is in the group already as soon as I hit end. Just skip over the first five minutes. We did the meat and potatoes after that anyway. All right, so thank you so much for joining me. Yes, I'm glad you're here.

We'll be back with another strong start next week. And again, if you want my help with implementing the system so that two months from now, you're all set and you've got something that's reliable that you can relax into and you can start doing some serious skill development with your marketing, whoop baby. Like this sounds like a lot of fun. I hope you send me the word expert on Instagram. I'll send you a video that walks you through all those details. You're back, Megan. I love it.

Hope to see you in some high performance coaching. We'll see you very soon, everybody. Take care. Have a great rest of your day. And don't be so stressed out. OK, bye.