Ep #5: Clarity 2.0

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

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, everyone. So glad you’re joining me today. I’m really excited to talk to you about today’s topic. But before we do, I just have to say how much fun I’m having with this podcast. It has really been such a fun process to create this show every week, and to connect with all of you in this way, and to hear from so many of you, and to receive your support. I just want to say thank you so, so much.

And on a personal note, I am officially 40 as of today, and I have to say I’m a little excited about turning 40. So maybe you’re thinking that’s a little bit weird. It might be a little bit weird. But I just have a feeling that my 40s are going to be great, at least that’s what I’m deciding ahead of time. I’m deciding that my 40s are going to be awesome. It’s already done. So here we go 40. Bring it on.

All right. So let’s dive into today’s topic. The topic I want to talk to you all about today is clarity, and specifically clarity as it relates to your business. I know a lot of you can relate to this topic because I hear from so many of you that you’re struggling with clarity, so I know this is super important. I think that having clarity in your business is one of the most important things you can have whether you’re just launching your business or relaunching or even if you’re in the process of scaling your business.

In my own experience and in working with so many other coaches, I’ve found that until you have the type of clarity that we’re going to be talking about today, what tends to happen is there is a lot of spinning, a lot of indecision, a lot of back and forth on things like your niche, and your program, and just general stuckness in your business. I found that when you’re in this place there tends to be a lot of frustration, and a lot of confusion, and a lot of second-guessing what you’re doing, Just all of those things.

The bottom line is, is that when you’re trying to operate your business from this type of emotional place, it’s really hard to create any forward momentum and it becomes very hard to take the types of consistent actions that really are required to build a successful business. So when you’re in this place, it feels like you’re spinning and you’re stuck. And unfortunately, what then happens is we tend to perpetuate the cycle because we’re operating from a set of beliefs, from a set of thoughts that are in conflict with what we want to create. I know so many of you can relate to this, and I know that I can relate to being in this place as well. And when I look back, I probably spent about the first 12 months of my business in and out of this place, and I found it to be a very hard place to be in.

So as we dive into this, I want to just talk for a minute about what it really means to have clarity and what it means to have clarity in the context of your business and how important it really is. So as we’re talking about clarity today, when I use the term clarity, what I’m talking about, it’s your level of clarity as it relates to you as the business owner, as the leader of your business. What that means, how you want to show up, who you need to be, how you need to operate your business in order for it to grow and thrive. I’m also talking about what you’re trying to build in your business, what your vision is for your business, what type of impact you want to have, what are your financial goals, how do you want to structure your business, all of those things, okay? Really think about your end game here.

It’s because of this that all of those foundational aspects of your business fit into this. They’re critical, right? Things like who you serve, your niche, what major problems are you solving for people, how are you delivering your offerings, how are you going to market your business effectively, things like that.

So when I think about clarity and the importance of it, I think of it on the same level of importance as your ability to manage your mind, to your level of emotional resiliency, to your overall psychology and leadership as a business owner. It’s just as important. I also believe that your level of clarity in your business, it’s going to help you develop in all of those other areas that I just mentioned. Because when you have clarity, it helps you tremendously during the times when you have inevitable obstacles come up and you have to effectively manage your mind to get through it. It also helps when things don’t go exactly as planned or when some unforeseen circumstance comes up and it throws you off track. Having clarity in who you are and where you’re going is invaluable in those moments. I have found that it helps you develop stronger emotional resiliency and emotional intelligence. It helps you to be so much stronger mentally in your overall leadership as a business owner.

I think one of the best and the most important byproducts of having clarity is that it supports you so, so much in the day-to-day in building your business. Because let’s be real, as a business owner, there are opportunities everywhere, right? There are options everywhere, and there’s so many different types of strategies and so many different types of approaches to help build your business. And it’s so common to want to grab onto that next shiny object and not play full out on one strategy or one approach. Having clarity supports you in being 100% clear on what your priorities are, and it allows you to play full out.

And when you think about things like how to organize your day, where to put your focus, what to put your energy towards, what to create to support your clients and to support your business, it helps with all of that. It also helps you be so much more strategic in your business and make much more intelligent decisions in your business, especially when it comes to where to spend your time, where to spend your energy, and those precious resources.

Another one of the byproducts that I’ve experienced that I think is super helpful is that it also allows you to constrain and tune out all of the unnecessary “noise” that quite honestly isn’t serving you in your business. That in and of itself is huge.

I want to emphasize how important clarity is in your business, and I also know that so many of you are yearning for it. I know so many of you are struggling with having clarity right now in your own business. Some of you might be in a position where you realize you need a whole new level of clarity in order to take your business to the next level. You might be in a position where you’ve maxed out your one-on-one offerings and now you need clarity on what is that next business model that’s going to support my clients and support my business moving forward.

And for others of you, you might be in the early building phase of your business and you’re lacking clarity surrounding your niche, surrounding your programs, surrounding how to market your business effectively, surrounding how you’re actually going to achieve your goals. Goals might be a revenue goal. It might be how you’re actually going to be able to out of your nine-to-five and into your business full time. So for those of you that are in this place, I want to emphasize how important it will be for you to generate this level of clarity as soon as possible. Because what it allows you to do is it will allow you to start building a foundation in your business that will actually support you in that transition, in actually achieving the goals that you have. And others of you, you might be in a position where you’ve already fully transitioned into your business and you’ve invested maybe a large amount of time, or money, or both into your business already but you’re still not seeing the level of results that you want and you’re probably feeling more urgent to figure all of this out.

What I want to offer to you is this. Wherever you’re at, I want you to know that your current level of clarity as it relates to your business is going to dictate your success tomorrow. Your level of clarity, as you’re listening to this podcast today, is going to impact the level of results that you have days, weeks, months, and even next year. Because having clarity is step one, and once you have clarity, that’s when you can really go out and take the daily actions that are going to fully support you in building your business in a meaningful way.

Because the truth is you can be taking all sorts of actions every day. But is it really action that’s helping you build a solid foundation? I want you to really consider that. Because once you have a level of clarity that supports you in building your business, that’s at a point where you can go out and actually implement a meaningful structure in your business and you have the ability to make much more intelligent decisions based on data that you’re getting as you’re going, it’s huge. Because when you don’t have clarity, oftentimes, you end up getting stuck and you fall into inaction versus taking powerful and intentional action in your business.

So I want to be clear that when you’re starting out it is important to stay in action and it is important to put yourself out there regardless of the level of clarity you might have because clarity will come from action. But the type of clarity as it relates to what I’m talking about here is intentionally generating clarity for yourself and for your business so that you can go out and take even more powerful action in your business. It’s like clarity 2.0.

And once you’ve tried a few things, once you’ve worked with a few paying clients, once you’ve failed a few times and you’ve been at this for a while, that’s when you’re ready for clarity 2.0. Because clarity 2.0 is getting to a place where you’re doing things that are actually going to move the needle in your business and actually support you in building a six- or seven-figure business. That’s the level of clarity that I’m talking about.

This level of clarity tends to happen once you’ve worked with, again, your first few clients, once you’ve tried some strategies, once you’ve reached the point where you’re really ready to get serious about building your business so that you can eventually make that transition out of your nine-to-five. And if you’ve already transitioned, it’s when you’re ready to take things to the next level.

But, I want to break it down a little bit further. I want you to think about your current level of clarity and how this is impacting you on a daily basis. Because depending on how clear or unclear you currently are, your level of clarity right now is determining how efficient and how effective you are with your time, your energy, and your resources. I know that some of you feel like you’re not being as efficient and as effective as you could be. And I know many of you feel frustrated because you don’t have the level of results you want yet in your business. What I want to offer to you is that the higher level of clarity you have, this clarity 2.0, the more effective you can be with your time, with your energy, and with your resources and the quicker you’re going to see results in your business.

Clarity accelerates your results, and it’s also critical when it comes to decision-making. Because when you don’t have clarity, it’s harder to make decisions in your business. You spend more and more time second-guessing any decisions that you do make, and it also makes it harder to even assess what’s working and what’s not in your business. So the current level of clarity that you have, it’s also impacting your current level of decision-making, and making intelligent decisions is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner.

I want you to understand that not only does it impact your ability to make decisions but also how quickly you’re able to make those decisions and how effective you are in making key decisions that you need to make. And your ability to make quick decisions and make effective decisions is going to dictate how quickly you’re going to grow your business and the overall level of impact you can have with your work. So I want you to think about any high-level CEO and the level of decisions they’re working on in any given day and the level of decisions that they’re making on any given day, right? It’s the same with your business. Being able to make smart decisions is everything, and clarity 2.0 will help you do just that. So I hope you can all see the value in this.

I also want you to understand the impact that clarity has on you as a business owner. When you think about your own psychology and how you approach your business day to day, this is one of the most important byproducts. Because how you’re showing up every day in your business is what’s creating the level of results that you have.

I want to talk for a minute about why when you’re in those earlier stages and when you’re working to build your business and you want to take things to the next level, why getting to that next level of clarity, that clarity 2.0, can be tough, why it can feel so difficult. I know this because I’ve been through it myself. I think it’s pretty much something that all new coaches, all new entrepreneurs struggle with when they’re in those early phases of their business. It’s also when you’re going through a major transition or uplevel in your business, I think it’s very normal to struggle with a different level of clarity and to really not have this clarity 2.0 that we’re talking about.

Of course there’s a lot of reasons for this, but one of the biggest reasons that I see newer coaches or coaches who are going through a business transition or uplevel is because in a lot of cases we just want the quick fix. We just want to know the how. We want the overnight success. And we think it should be easier than it is, so we get impatient and we feel entitled sometimes. In some cases, we might even start to resent having to work so hard. And when we don’t get the results we think we should have gotten, or when we think the results are taking too long, or we didn’t get the results that we thought we would get, we a lot of times think the solution is by moving on and trying a new approach. We usually focus on external things and blame external things for not working.

But what happens is, is when those new approaches don’t work either, when we jumped from one approach to the other and we keep moving and we keep blaming the external, and we keep moving on to the next thing and the next thing, what ends up happening is we get into this cycle where we’re jumping just from one thing to the next and we’re not slowing down and really looking at it from a higher level of thought and we’re not really getting to the root of what’s causing the issue, and we’re definitely not getting any closer to the level of results that we want.

What happens is, is we then end up not fully exploring why it’s not happening and why we’re not solving the real cause, and it’s because we’re not taking the time to step back and assess what’s really happening. When we don’t truly explore why this happens, when we keep perpetuating the cycle. and we keep jumping from one thing to the next, or even worse, maybe we’re stuck and we don’t take any action because of fear, both places are an extremely hard place to build a business from. So I want all of you to see that when this happens, when we’re in this place where we get very externally focused and we start to believe that the answer is in the next marketing fad, or the newest marketing fad, or the next course that’s about to launch, or even the latest book, we start to believe that other people have the answers, answers that we think we don’t have access to. Essentially, we’re abdicating our responsibility to someone else rather than taking full responsibility for our results.

The true deep problem with all of this is that we spend our time, we spend our energy, we spend our resources looking outside of ourselves, throwing spaghetti at the wall hoping something will stick, and we miss the opportunity to see that the clarity we’re searching for already exists within us. When we’re in that space, we don’t have the current capability to even access our own clarity because we’re so focused externally. So we miss out on the real work, the internal work that’s actually going to make the difference.

So when we’re not taking a step back to actually cultivate clarity and do the internal work, the work of exploring why it is we’re even doing this work, what our life experiences have been up until this point, how we’re positioned to do the type of work we do with clients, what life lessons we’ve learned that has brought us to where we are today and what type of impact we want to create, when we’re not asking ourselves these types of questions, we’re not working towards that real level of clarity, that clarity 2.0, that’s going to support us and help us move forward much more powerfully in building a successful business in the long term.

The tricky part with all of this is that I’ve experienced very few people in the industry who really understand this, and therefore have the ability to teach this and help others achieve the level of clarity I’m talking about today. So instead, I think sometimes the message can sometimes be just start going out, and enrolling anyone into your program, and do a lot of networking, do a lot of social media, but we’re not stepping back to really consider what we’re even doing and how we can best help our clients and what really best supports them in their transformation. And at the end of the day, this is a slow way to build a business, and it usually doesn’t feel very congruent with what we want to build long term anyways.

I will say I’ve also experienced very early on in my own business the strategy that I should just pick a niche and go with it without, again, taking a lot of consideration as to what that might even be. I found that this type of approach, it quickly results in maybe getting a client here or there, but it’s not sustainable in the long run. So again, both of these approaches might work initially if you’re in those very initial stages of your business, and maybe you’re in one of these stages now and so maybe you can relate to what I’m talking about.

But once you’re ready to move out of that stage, and once you’re ready for clarity 2.0, and you’re ready to really take things to the next level so that you can really transition from your corporate job or you’re ready to really build the foundation in your business so that you can be positioned to make six or seven figures, it requires a different approach. It requires a much more holistic approach. It requires clarity 2.0. This is the work that I do with my clients. It’s about cultivating a level of clarity that allows you to create a long-term strategy that’s sustainable and scalable and supports the growth of your business over the long term.

And once you have the level of clarity like we are talking about, it allows you to accelerate your results and be positioned to grow and scale to those first six figures and create the ability to scale into multiple six and even seven figures from there. So in order to do that, your level of clarity, having clarity 2.0, you have to have it so that you can be crystal clear on what you’re creating to a degree that you can already see it, that you can already experience it in the future because it’s so clear to you.

I want to note here, even if you have that level of clarity and it’s so clear to you what you’re creating and what that end game is, you’re probably still not going to have all of the how, and that’s okay because you’ll figure that out as you go. But if you’re in a place where you’re focus on just your first few clients or focused on making that first few thousand in your business, clarity 2.0 is definitely something you’re going to want to work towards. It’s something that you will need once you’re ready to really get after it and grow your business to your first six figures and beyond because it’s a level of clarity that allows you to stay so focused, stay grounded, and be confident in what you’re creating that you’re no longer looking externally for any type of validation for it.

In fact, it doesn’t matter what anyone else might think about your niche or it doesn’t matter that someone else might be working in a similar niche. Because when you’re in this place, you know that what you’re offering is just as valuable and in many cases probably even more valuable and it’s exactly what your clients need, and you understand your unique value proposition and what you’re bringing to the market.

So when you have clarity 2.0, you’re not spending your time wondering if you’re on the right path. And you’re not entertaining thoughts about changing your niche because you’re so confident in what you’ve created and what you’ve developed, and you know that your program is the answer to what your clients need. I will say when you’re also in clarity 2.0, you’re not jumping from course to course trying to find the magic answer because you already know. You’ve already done the work to know that what you’re offering and what you’ve created is the answer.

This is really, really important to understand because what happens is, is you no longer spend time trying to convince yourself to believe something that you don’t really believe. And you’re not dealing with any type of forced belief that you think you should believe, right? So there’s this overall knowing, once you’ve arrived there, knowing that whatever your goals are it’s already done because you’re already doing the work and you’re taking the right steps to finally make it happen and you know it’s just a matter of time.

This is a very, very important shift to make in your business, and it’s an extremely powerful place to work from in your business, and all of this comes from having clarity. And when you get there, the best part is that you feel an overwhelming sense of peace and you know you’re completely congruent with that which you are trying to create, with your compelling vision where you can literally feel the power of your vision, of what you’re working to create. You can feel it physically within yourself. But you can only get to this level of clarity, this clarity 2.0, by doing a different level of work, by doing the intentional and internal work that is going to get you there and asking yourself the right questions that is ultimately going to lead you there. And for most of us, we don’t know what those are, and we need guidance on how to do that.

So if you’re questioning with where to start with all of this, I want to offer you a few things to start with to really help you start your journey to clarity 2.0. Number one, I want you to open yourself up to the possibility that the clarity you’re searching for, it’s already within you. Consider that you already have all of the answers you need. Consider that you don’t need another course, you don’t need to consume any more content, and open yourself up to the possibility that today, wherever you’re at, you have the answer. Consider that it’s already inside of you.

And once you’ve done that, I want you to look at the reasons as to why you’ve been struggling with clarity in your business. I want you to look at the thoughts and the narratives you’ve been hearing as it relates to your current level of clarity. What are they?

And once you know what those thoughts, those narratives are, I want you to question whether or not they’re actually true. I want you to question whether or not they’re actual facts. Because chances are the thoughts, the narratives that have been occupying your mind, they’ve been holding so much weight and all they are are just old operating systems, old patterns that are surfacing in maybe new ways for you. The problem is, is that we’ve been accepting them as facts instead of neutral circumstances in our mind.

So once you can see them for what they are, I want you to begin by asking yourself some new questions, new questions that are rooted in knowing that you already have the answers, knowing that you can already access the level of clarity that you need. There is so much value in stepping back and slowing down long enough to really explore this on a deep level and cultivating a level of clarity that’s actually going to serve you in creating long-term success, in being a more powerful business owner, in making quicker, and more informed, and more intelligent decisions in your business. Because the truth is your level of clarity in your business will always show up in who you are being in your business, and that’s always going to impact the level of results you have in your business.

Use your current results in your business as a mirror to your current level of clarity. See where you have opportunity to cultivate clarity 2.0 for yourself. Get guidance if you need it. Understand that it is a process and it will take intention, but also know that you have everything you need to get there.

All right, my friends, go get some clarity. Have a great week. I’ll talk to you all very soon. Take care. Bye-bye.

Hey, before you go, I want to tell you about something amazing that I’m offering to celebrate the launch of this show. I’m going to be giving away three free VIP strategy sessions where I’ll dive deep into your business and help you put a strategy in place for the next 90 days, so you have a game plan on how to create real results in your business and start gaining momentum.

I’m going to be giving away one free VIP strategy session, the same VIP strategy session I offer to all of my highest level clients to three lucky listeners who subscribe, rate, and review the show on Apple Podcasts. Visit amandakarlstadcoaching.com/podcastlaunch to learn more about the contest and how to enter. I’ll be announcing the winners on the show in an upcoming episode. Thanks so much.

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.