Ep #68: Cause and Effect

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast, episode number 68.

Welcome to The Life Coach Business Podcast, a show for coaches who are ready to up-level their business and take their impact, leadership, and results to a whole new level. If you’re ready to start taking powerful action and become the leader your business needs in order to grow and thrive, this show is for you. I’m your host, Amanda Karlstad, certified life and business coach, and entrepreneurial leadership expert. Now, let’s get down to business.

Hello and welcome, everyone. So glad to have you join me today. I hope your week has been going well and I hope you’re staying healthy. I have had a productive week. I’ve had a really great week. I’ve been in the process of onboarding some new team members in my business this week, which I’m so, so grateful for. And I’ve been spending some time behind the scenes working on some big projects in terms of my programs and my strategy. And I’ve been thinking a lot about all of you.

So, as I’ve been thinking about all of the work and all of the content, all of the strategies, really all of the things when it comes to building your business – and let’s just for a moment be honest, there’s a lot. So, I’ve been thinking deeply about the different ways that I can serve all of you and how I want to help more of you get the results that you want in your business.

And one of the ways that I’m able to do that currently is in my business accelerator program. It’s called The Mastermind, which is currently open for enrolment.

And when I look at that process, when I look at the process that I take clients through as we work through that program, it really blows me away. The level of work that we do in that program really blows me away.

And the reason that I’m so blown away when I step back and look at everything we’re doing is because, for the clients that go through that program, who they are when they start that process is vastly different, it’s very different to who they become through that process.

Their business, from where the business starts in that process to what it becomes in that process is really an amazing thing. And I was taking some time this week, just kind of stepping back and observing my clients and observing the successes that so many of them are having, and I couldn’t be more proud of the work that they’re doing. I couldn’t be more proud of the work that we’re all doing in that program, the deep transformational inner work and also just the level of strategy that is being brought into that program.

It’s really, really something that I’m proud to offer to my clients. It’s something that I think is really a critical process if you’re trying to grow, and especially if you’re trying to eventually scale a business.

And so, the truth of this really is that the level of work that we do in that program – and I have the opportunity to see this firsthand in many different ways – the level of work that we do in this program is really at the highest level. And it’s at the highest level from both a mindset perspective and also from a purely strategic, tactical perspective.

And so, it’s been something that I’ve been thinking a lot about lately because has always been really important to me as I have built out my program. And in fact, actually, the reason that I built out this program in the first place was to not only offer the highest level of mindset support, but also the highest level of strategy support.

Because I really do believe, and I observe time and time again, that it really does require both and it’s really the best way to accelerate your results. So, if you’re currently wanting to build to your first six figures in 2021, if you’re really ready to take your business to the next level this year, I want to invite you to apply. You can go to amandakarlstadcoaching.com/the-mastermind. We’ll also link that up in the show notes and I would highly encourage you to apply if that’s what you’re looking to do.

Alright, so today, I want to talk to you about something that I really think you need to understand and have an awareness around if you’re growing and scaling a coaching practice. And it’s something that actually came up in a recent coaching call that I was doing recently in one of my groups. And it’s something that I have talked a lot about in a lot of different ways in several podcast episodes.

But I decided to really dedicate today’s show to going a little bit deeper with this because it’s really, really important to understand. And it’s something that, for those of you, if you’ve ever studied universal law, for instance, if you’ve ever gotten into the different success laws, it’s actually something you’re going to find that is actually one of the main universal laws, one of the main principles.

And since a big part of my work and the work that I do with clients is helping them make those quantum leaps in their business, helping them make those quantum leaps both in the inner work but also in the external, actually implementing the strategies in their business, I want to take some time and really teach you this concept today.

And it’s the concept of cause and effect. Now, as I mentioned, if you’ve ever studied universal laws or success principles, you’ve probably heard of the law of cause and effect. And maybe you haven’t. I do think it’s worth noting that this is an actual law of the universe. And it’s something that I’ve studied in the past, and even more recently I’ve picked that back up over the last few months. And I’ve been studying this much more intensively.

And it’s something that I think is one of the biggest differentiators when it comes to growing your business. So, the idea of cause and effect is this; it’s the idea that every cause has an effect and every effect has a cause.

So, on the surface, this seems easy enough to comprehend. It seems easy enough to understand. But what I want to teach you today is that you as the business owner are always the cause. And because you’re always the cause, that also means you always produce the effect.

You are the originator of that effect. And if you think about this on the most cellular energy, since we’re all just energy, the law is that energy always returns to its source of origination.

So, let me give you an example. And I want to just use a simple example to demonstrate this. So, let’s say that you have a goal of losing 10 pounds this year and let’s say that for whatever reason you’re really committed to that goal. You’re really committed to losing those 10 pounds.

And so, because you’ve made a decision to lose those 10 pounds and because you are fully committed to losing those 10 pounds, you’re probably also making some decisions that you’re going to do some things differently.

So, let’s say one of those decisions is that you decide you’re going to change your diet. So, you know you need to cut out the carbs. You decide you’re going to cut out the sugar, all of the things. And you might also decide that you’re going to, let’s say, increase your workouts or you’re going to incorporate maybe some new workout into your schedule in order to try and lose that weight.

So, you’re changing up your diet. You’re going to do some things differently from a workout perspective. And let’s say that you’re really committed to this goal of losing these 10 pounds.

So, because it’s so important to you, because you’re fully committed to that goal, you’ve incorporated these new habits into your life that will help you to achieve that goal, that will actually help support you in achieving that goal.

And so, maybe one of those things is cleaning out the pantry and you’ve gotten rid of anything with processed sugar. And maybe you learn to cook differently or prepare different foods that no longer include carbs.

So, whatever that looks like exactly, because you’re really committed to that outcome, you are taking different actions that support that goal. And depending on your body type, depending on your diet, depending on your exercise, all the things, let’s say you were able to lose those 10 pounds in, let’s just say, over the next six months.

So, you stayed committed to your goal. You were able to lose those 10 pounds. You’ve made all of those behavioral changes and you did it in a really healthy way and in a way that would help you sustain that weight loss.

What I want to show you is that after those six months, after achieving that result, that is the effect that you created. And that effect started when you made that initial commitment, that initial decision to lose those 10 pounds, when you decided it was important enough for you to do the things that you knew you needed to d in order to lose that weight.

So, in essence, the cause, it started with the goal of losing the 10 pounds, which then you fully committed to, which then allowed you to follow that up and support that with different actions, like changing your diet, like incorporating new exercises into your routine, et cetera.

So, the reality is that you actually produced that result for yourself. You started with and were the cause, which then created the effect. And the reason I use that as an example is because I think that’s a relatively easy example we can all kind of see.

And what I want to say is that the same is very true in your business. You are always the cause. And the result that you have is the effect of that cause. So, I want you to think about that for a moment because this is a universal law. It’s a truth, right?

But what tends to happen – and I see this happen a lot – is that instead of really understanding that we’re the cause, what tends to happen with a lot of newer coaches especially is that we tend to see different effects that we have in our business.

We see different things happening. Maybe we don’t have the level of clients we want or maybe things aren’t quite working out the way that we had planned. And so, when we have results that aren’t in the place where we want them to be, what happens is, we start looking externally for all the reasons why we don’t have those results that we want.

So, we might start looking at others and we might start to compare and despair and we might start to think that we’re missing things in our business and that others maybe have figured certain things out that we haven’t.

And what essentially ends up happening is we start to actually incorrectly miss the actual cause. And so, that’s what I really want to hit home with all of you today, is that you are the actual cause.

Now, this is very common. And I see this all of the time, but it’s also why I think it’s really important to have this conversation with you. One of the things that I look at, when I look at the most successful people in any industry – and I’m not even talking the coaching industry. I’m talking any industry.

And I actually like looking at professional sports when I think about things like this. I like to look at who are the top athletes in the game, or that have played the game. I just think it’s a great demonstration because when you look at the players that are at the top of their game, and depending on what your sport is, it’s going to determine who this is, but let’s just use Michael Jordan.

So, I think Jordan, we can all agree, was one of the best to play the game. And if you really take time and you really study Jordan, if you really look at how he approached the game and how he approached himself, how he approached everything, you see this playing out very clearly.

You can see the extreme level of responsibility that he took for his skill. You see the level of responsibility that he took for his performance. You see the level of responsibility that he took for mastering the game.

And so, whether he consciously thought about it or not, he knew and he acted as the cause and he took responsibility as the cause. And eventually, the effect of that was he eventually became one of the greatest players, if not the greatest to play the game.

So, this is something I really want to encourage you all to think about. And I encourage you to look at the results you have right now in your business and really take some time to consider how you’ve been the cause of those results.

And so, no matter what your results are, I want you to really look at how you’ve created the results that you have. And I want to just bring to light a really common scenario that I see.

And so, a common scenario that I see is that maybe you’ve invested in a coaching certification and because of that, you’ve committed to being a fulltime coach. And let’s say that you’re currently still working in your corporate job and you’ve invested in the training and right now your goal is to essentially transition into your business fulltime.

And let’s say that this is your first year in business and you’re a few months in and you’ve made it through the certification program and now it becomes the point in time where you’re really looking to grow your business.

And what tends to happen is – and I see this very consistently – is that you’ve probably had a couple of clients to this point. You’ve probably coached some people as part of your training program. Maybe you’ve even coached some clients for free. And maybe you’ve enrolled a few clients into your program. But you really want to grow your business to a much larger scale.

And you want to be, of course, bringing in more clients so that you can be making more money in your business, and eventually feel comfortable transitioning out of your corporate job. But you’re probably in a place where you haven’t quite been able to do that yet. And so, you might be in a place where you’re feeling some frustration because you don’t have as many clients as you think you should have at this point.

And so, because you haven’t made a lot of money and you’re feeling some frustration because, at the end of the day, you know you can help your clients and you’re confident in your coaching skills, but you’re just frustrated on how to find them, what I see happen very, very often in this scenario is that instead of really stepping back and looking at how am I causing this, how am I being the cause, what ends up happening is I see so many of you that gets distracted.

And you get distracted by what’s in your newsfeed and what’s on social media and all of the things that I call those shiny objects. And what very quickly happens is before you know it, three months, six months, even a year can go by and still you don’t have the results that you want and the cycle just continues from there.

And it can be very difficult, I believe, unless you’re getting good support through that, to really be able to break out of the cycle. So, this is why I believe that what we’re talking about today, what I’m teaching you here is so important because until you truly understand that you are the cause, it’s very hard to create the desired effect.

And I want you all to know that there is a big difference between knowing all of this intellectually and actually embodying it. Because when you embody it, you’re taking full responsibility for being the cause. And what happens when you do that is you show up differently. You interact differently. You take full responsibility for your results.

And one of the things that I think has allowed me to grow my business so quickly and has allowed me to create the results that I have in my business has been the embodiment of this. And when I look at the last couple of years in growing my own business, I have to say, there have been some tough times.

There were a lot of times, especially starting out, that I didn’t have the results that I wanted. But I want to tell you something. I always believed very deeply and I knew that I was the cause and I believed very deeply that I was the cause of the effect that was in my business.

And looking back at that, I really do see how that helped me move forward in a much more empowered way in my business. It helped me move forward to make certain decisions in my business, to get the necessary support, to get the necessary coaching that I needed so that I could continue to be that cause for the effect that I wanted.

And so, this really never was about me showing up and expecting someone else, whether that was a program I was in or working with a coach or whoever I might be learning from at the time, it wasn’t about me expecting that effect to come from that thing or to come from that other person.

I knew that the effect always had to come from me. And that didn’t mean that I didn’t seek out help. That didn’t mean that I didn’t seek out knowledge. And in fact, I can honestly say that had I not invested in the programs and the mentors and the things that I’ve invested in over the years, I would not be where I am today. I would not be able to show up and deliver in the way that I deliver to my clients. I wouldn’t be the high-level coach that I am today. I would not have the wealth of knowledge that I have when it comes to building, growing and scaling a coaching practice.

And so, all of that really came from immersing myself in the things that I needed so that I could implement. And now I get to help others do the same. But it was never about putting that responsibility or abdicating that responsibility of being the cause to someone else.

And when I look back at the things that I have learned and the different situations that I’ve had the opportunity to be in and look at how I’m able to deliver this podcast, the value I deliver in my programs and to my clients, it’s because I really do take to heart that I am the cause and that I have the power to create the effect.

And so, that’s what I’m doing and that’s why this work is so important to me, and it’s why I believe it’s so important for you too. Because I really do believe that understanding this will completely change the game for you. Embodying this will change everything for you.

So, I challenge you to look at your current results. I challenge you to look at this past year and question how you have caused the effects that you have. Question how you’ve created the results that you have. What would it look like to take full responsibility for being the effect? Because I’m here to tell you, you can create the effect that you really want.

Alright, my friends, I’ll talk to you all again very soon. Have an amazing week. Take care. Bye-bye.

Hey, if you’re ready for a real breakthrough in your business and want to grow and scale your business to at least six figures or more in annual revenue, I invite you to apply for my exclusive program The Mastermind atamandakarlstadcoaching.com/the-mastermind. I look forward to seeing you there.

Thank you for listening to this episode of The Life Coach Business Podcast. If you want to learn more about how to build, grow and scale your business and accelerate your results, visit amandakarlstadcoaching.com.