Released on June 19th, 2020
A few years ago, I created a tool and a short book for helping people grow their professional practices.
It covers 10 ‘multipliers’ that can amplify the impact and results you’re creating in the world.
See, whether you’re a transformation professional or not, you’re going to discover that these 10 multipliers apply to almost everyone (at least, with a little creativity). In this week’s Friday Shot of Clarity, we’re going to start with Multiplier Number 1 – Grounded Certainty.
The first three professional practice multipliers are focused around grounding 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 making a difference to others? 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 make a bigger difference in the world, 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 of the grounded certainty multiplier. 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, 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, 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 deeply 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. 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 Thriving Coaches Blueprint 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 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).
One way you can do this is by joining me on the Clarity Certification Training. The January 2021 intake is now open for enrolment and you can save up to £3,000 when you register by next Friday, 26th June.
To your increasing clarity,
Big love
Jamie
Jamie Smart, Sunday Times Bestselling Author, Speaker and Executive Coach
PS. If you want to bring an understanding of the principles behind clarity into your life and your work, I wanted to let you know that the 2021 Intake of our flagship programme, the Clarity Certification Training is now open for enrolment and you can save up to £3,000 when you register by next Friday, 26th June. A few things worth knowing…
1. Clarity Certification Training is our flagship seven-month programme for people who want to bring an understanding of the principles behind clarity into their life or work.
2. I’m going to be delivering all 7 modules on the Clarity Certification Training myself, so you’re going to be working closely with me personally.
3. We’re limiting the number of places on the programme to 36 people, and…
4. You can save up to £3,000 when you book your place by Friday, 26th June 2020.
>>> You can find out more and book your place at www.JamieSmart.com/coach