Photo courtesy of Perzonseo Webbyra and Flickr
I’m doing a new experiment. Yesterday I kicked off a free online programme called “10 Days to Your Profitable Coaching Practice”. In this article, I dive into lesson one from the course, looking at what I call “Grounded Certainty”, the foundation of your professional practice. Whether you’re a transformation professional or not, you’re going to discover that the 10 lessons I cover on the course apply to almost everyone (at least, with a little creativity). If you want to jump on board and get access to all 10 lessons (including audio, video and live Q&A), head over to www.JamieSmart.com/live for your free place.
Each lesson in the programme is based on one of the ‘Multipliers’ from my Profitable Coaches Scorecard, a self-to-self comparison tool which helps you you take a clear-eyed look at strengths, weaknesses & opportunities to grow your coaching practice in ways that fit with who you are. You might want to grab a one-page summary of the scorecard here before reading on.
Profitable Coaches Multiplier Number One: Grounded Certainty
“Grounding” refers to your personal transformation. Here’s why this is important. I’ll often talk to coaches, therapists and other transformation professionals who claim they have a sales or a marketing problem, but when I scratch the surface, it almost always turns out to be a symptom of a grounding or impact problem.
Grounding is where we start. Think of grounding as the inner work. Your personal transformation is the root of the tree or the foundation of the building. Imagine you’re building a skyscraper, the higher you want the building to go, the deeper the foundation has to be. It’s the same with creating your exponential practice. The foundations for your practice are inside you. The first three multipliers are the base for everything else.
Professional practice multiplier number one is Grounded Certainty; this refers to the embodiment of the power of transformation. It’s the foundation piece upon which everything else is built. Think about it. What first sparked your interest in becoming a transformation professional? Maybe you had a coaching session or went to a nutritionist. Maybe you read a book or went on a weekend course. For many people, when they first become inspired to become a coach, therapist or consultant, they learn things and have insights that have a big impact in their own life. However, to begin with they are not confident in their ability to make a big difference to others in a professional capacity. They might even think the insights they had reflects some fundamental weakness in who they are, something they’re lacking.
To review the way that might manifest itself in your practice, we can start by looking at column one on the scorecard: “stuck”. You feel unworthy, lacking confidence in your abilities and in yourself. You suspect there is something wrong with you and wish you could fix it. Believe it or not, this isn’t unusual and it’s exactly what your clients are likely to be up against a lot of the time. Sometimes, people who have been successful in a job in some specific part of the business world struggle with their personal abilities or who they are.
What I want to tell you is you have a reason to be hopeful. Everyone who’s created a successful practice and is taking their impact to a very high level has been through some version of this on their journey and it’s just part of the process of transitioning into doing something that’s truly based on giving your gifts to the world.
In the second column, “struggling”, people have seen they can have an impact but they have a lot of self-doubts. They say things like, “If only I felt more confident,” or “if only I had more self-belief.” In column two, you can make a difference to people, but when people challenge you or your beliefs, you feel prickly and defensive. That feeling of defensiveness comes when you’re saying things that you’ve learned, but you don’t truly embody them. Maybe you’re parroting something that one of your teachers said or you’ve heard in a recording. You know it intellectually, but you don’t really know it at a deep level like you know your own name or you know how to ride a bicycle; ironically, other people pick up on that. When you don’t really know it, they know that too and those are the areas where they challenge you.
In the third column, “successful”, your grounding has been developed over the course of plenty of action and experimentation. As a result, you feel confident in yourself, your abilities, and the methods you use. You have a good track record and people pick up on your confidence. Now, a lot of times when people are in the third column, they have many examples of success. They have some good instincts about how to help others and the tools that are working well. When I meet people at this level, they’re looking for the next level for themselves and for other people. They intuitively feel there is something more they could be giving, but they don’t know exactly what it is.
That brings us to the fourth column, the exponential column, where the term grounded certainty comes from. In the fourth column, you have a deep embodied understanding of people’s innate capacity for health, realization and transformation. Your certainty impacts others. Other people pick up on your certainty, creating a powerful basis for leadership. You may have experienced it yourself if you’ve ever met someone who has a gentle certainty you can almost feel is beyond confidence. It’s a complete lack of insecurity that comes when you’re feeling comfortable in your own skin. You can go into any situation and know what to do, even when you’re out of your depth. It’s that gentle grounded certainty knowing you have what you need and know how to take the next step, whatever situation you might be in.
You can aim to improve your score on practice multiplier number one – grounded certainty – by “putting your own oxygen mask on first”. This is about committing to your personal transformation. You’ve already started your personal transformation or you wouldn’t be reading this book. Keep going, take action and be courageous is the fastest way to move forward.
A lot of people say, “Yeah, I’ll take action when I feel more confident,” but taking action when you don’t feel confident is often the best way to increase your confidence and that takes courage. You have an innate ability to learn, transform and grow in the way you need to, when you need to.
The only thing that gets in the way of being courageous and taking action is what I call contaminated thinking and the fastest way to clear out contaminated thinking is by deepening your understanding of the principles behind clarity.
You can aim to improve your score on practice multiplier number one – grounded certainty – by “putting your own oxygen mask on first”. This is about committing to your personal transformation. And the fact that you’re reading this means that you’ve already started your personal transformation. So keep going: take action and be courageous. It’s a fast way to move forward. You know, a lot of people say, “I’ll take action when I feel more confident,” but taking action when you don’t feel confident can be a very fast way to increase your confidence, and that takes courage.
You have an innate ability to learn, transform and grow in the way you need to. The only thing that gets in the way of that – the only thing that gets in the way of being courageous and taking action – is what I call “contaminated thinking”. And the fastest way to clear out contaminated thinking is by deepening your understanding of the principles behind clarity.
A therapist we worked with, Dr. Shoshana Garfield, is an example of grounded certainty in action. She works with clients who’ve been through extreme crises and trauma. She’s been through her own healing process; having suffered from all kinds of trauma in her own life where she successfully healed herself and experienced her own transformation.
As she’s become clearer and clearer about the capacity for insight and healing in every person, it’s had a huge impact on her professional practice. As her grounded certainty has increased, so has her impact and her income.
She’s told me that she’s now happier than she’s ever been. She’s earning more than quadruple what she used to earn before working with us and she sees a link between her own wellbeing and her earning potential.
And that makes sense: The more you realise that you have the source of security, wellbeing, and happiness already within you, the less needy you’ll be in your interactions with clients and the more you’ll radiate that sense of grounded certainty.
Another example is a coach we worked with, Pete Bryceland. Pete is one of those people I mentioned earlier who thought he had a selling problem. He’d have initial conversations with potential clients, connect with them beautifully, finding out what they wanted and really having an impact on them. But when it came time to talk about money, he’d become uncomfortable and uneasy. His potential client would pick up on that and they’d become uncomfortable and uneasy, and they wouldn’t buy.
He thought he had a selling issue, but actually it was a grounding issue. In fact, Pete was on my first ever Coaching Package Power programme (aka Project Glasswing). I had a one-to-one coaching session with him, in front of an audience of 40 people. Pete had a big breakthrough during that coaching session and signed up two coaching clients each on £10,000 packages in the weeks that followed. He made more money in the next month than he’d made in the previous year because of his increase in grounded certainty.
The third example is Malachy Donaghy. He was doing a full-time job when he started working with us. While he was on our Clarity Trainer Training Programme, he had some big insights into where security comes from and the results were pretty impressive. First he negotiated a four day working week with the business he worked for (previously, he never thought that was something that was possible for him). Then he signed his first large client, a training and consulting contract that generated £18,000 for him.
When he told me about this, he said, “I’m starting to see the beauty in life again.” Now, that’s no coincidence. You see, as life looks more enjoyable, friendly, beautiful and full of possibility… your ability to do the things and have the insights and realizations that can help you grow your practice in an exponential way… those continue to increase.
It’s no surprise to me that when people say how much better things are going financially, they also comment about how they’re enjoying life a lot more. In almost every case, the enjoyment, the security, and the peace of mind comes first followed by the bigger financial results because it’s all about grounding, which starts with you.
Gaining a deep understanding of people’s innate capacity for health, realization and transformation isn’t the only thing you require for an exponential practice, but it has enormous leverage (in part, because your clients pick up on your certainty).
If you want to go deeper into this, and explore the other 9 lessons, join me for free on ’10 Days to Your Profitable Coaching Practice”. I’m going to be answering your questions and giving you all the support you need to take the next step in ‘moving the needle’ as a coach, therapist or transformation professional.
>>> You can get your place for free at www.JamieSmart.com/live
When you join us, you’re going to get a daily lesson with:
– An article about that day’s ‘coaching practice multiplier’
– A short audio about the multiplier
– A link to ask questions in the Profitable Coaches Facebook group
– Details of a daily Facebook live where I’ll answer your questions
– Instant access to the video of my live coaching masterclass
>>> You can get your place for free at www.JamieSmart.com/live
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart
Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PLUS: Whenever you’re ready… here are 4 ways I can help you get the clarity and results that matter to you:
1. Hire me to speak at your event
If you want an entertaining and impactful keynote speech or breakout session for your conference, offsite or town hall meeting, click here https://www.jamiesmart.com/book-jamie-to-speak-about/
2. Join the Profitable Coaches Group
Join the Profitable Coaches Professional Group and connect with the growing community of like-minded transformation professionals who are passionate about exponentially increasing their grounding, impact and their livelihood. You can join for free at https://www.jamiesmart.com/profitable/
3. Join the next intake of Project Jupiter
If you want to transition from full-time employment to something more fulfilling and on-purpose for you, you may be a good fit for the next intake of Project Jupiter (starting January 2018). Here’s how you’ll know if you’re right for Jupiter (and vice-versa):
– You are currently in full-time employment, but…
– You want to transition from your job to something more fulfilling and “on-purpose”
– You sense that it’ll probably take 1-3 years to complete the transition, but…
– Your goal hasn’t been getting much closer; it seems to stay the same distance away
– You want to make progress, but lack clarity about either the ‘what’ or the ‘how’
– You know that if you were clear on those, with a solid plan, you’d do what it takes to make it happen
– You’ve been thinking about it for long enough, and you’re ready to do something about it NOW
If that’s you, email Nikki at info@jamiesmart.com and type “Project Jupiter” in the subject line.
4. Join the next intake of Project Glasswing
We’re putting together a new practice-building case study group at Coaching Package Power. Stay tuned for details… If you’d like to work with me and my team on growing your practice… email Nikki at info@jamiesmart.com and type “Project Glasswing” in the subject line.
PLUS: check these out :
Get your free Profitable Coaches Scorecard book www.JamieSmart.com/scorecard
Listen to the Results Mindset Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/resultspodcast
Listen to The Profitable Coaches Podcast www.JamieSmart.com/pcp
Read the first 2 chapters of my Sunday Times Bestseller RESULTS: Think Less, Achieve More www.JamieSmart.com/instantresults