Ep #28: The Power of Intention

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast, Episode number 28.

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. I’m glad to have you join me today. I hope you are well and your family is well and that you continue to stay healthy and well. I’m really looking forward to our conversation today and what we’re about to talk about.

So, today is the fourth episode in a special series I’m doing that I’m devoting to helping you successfully navigate and grow your business during this time. And I want to add that not only is my intention with these episodes to help you right now. But my intention is to help you really emerge from this even stronger and to really strengthen you and your business so that you’re positioned even better once we’re through this.

And the last three episodes that I’ve released, I’ve been talking about the tremendous opportunity that we have as coaches right now to step up and lead and to help others navigate this time. And as business owners, I believe that right now is the time to be leveling up, to seal up and to be doing the deep internal work and putting in place the external strategies and the systems that you need in your business in order to grow and thrive.

This is really, really important right now. And so, over the last few episodes, I’ve given you some strategies. And last week, I shared some facts with you on why this is so important and why it’s such an important time to be doing this work. And today, I want to go a little bit deeper.

I want to talk about this from the lens of where you’re operating from. And what I mean by that is how am I really approaching and looking at what’s happening? And how is this impacting my actions and the results that I have right now in my business?

This is also really, really important to be looking at because I’ve been having lots of coaching conversations lately with clients, and I have to say, I am so proud of my clients and how they’ve been handling what is going on and how they’ve been stepping up and serving and delivering even more within their own communities and with their own clients. It’s been really amazing to witness.

And so, with that, I’ve been thinking about the fact that, at some point, we will return to a state of normalcy. So, even though I believe that things will never quite be exactly the same, there will be a point in time where, as a collective, things will have calmed down, where we will shift back into more of a “normal state” and that’s what’s inspiring my conversation with you today.

So, many of you, you’ve probably heard the quote, “Perception is reality.” And if you’re a coach, you probably have your own interpretations of that. And so, to me, I want to share with you what mine is. That quote is something that I have believed for a very long time. It’s something I can remember saying very early on in my adult life, even before I became a coach.

This is something that I’ve always believed. I truly believe that this is a universal truth. And so, in my work, I talk a lot about how our thoughts create our reality and how our perceptions are made up of our thoughts, of our belief systems and how these thoughts and these belief systems essentially create the results that we have in our lives, which essentially creates our reality.

So, I want to talk about the thoughts that were choosing to occupy our minds, not only for what’s happening right now, but also in the future. Because if we look at today’s climate, if we look at the Covid-19 and just the world and what’s happening, we all have our own thoughts about what’s happening. We’re all thinking something about the current situation, whether we’re thinking about what we’re thinking or not.

So, I want you to consider for a moment, what is it that I’m choosing to think about the current situation? What is it that I’m currently thinking about what is going on, and how is that impacting me? What are my thoughts on how this is impacting my business?

And I want you to take a minute and I want you to identify what those thoughts are because here’s what I want to offer to you today; we all have a choice as to which lens we want to use. And I think now, more than ever, because the world has changed overnight, it’s extremely important to be intentional about what we’re thinking and about how we’re perceiving things, which ultimately shapes the actions that we’re taking or the actions we’re not taking.

And these actions or inactions that we take, that is what will ultimately dictate the level of results we have in our business and in our lives. And here’s the problem with this. As humans, we are conditioned to live and to operate at the effect of our circumstances. And here’s what I mean by that.

Right now, the Covid-19 situation has a lot of people, the majority of our society living at the effect of the virus, meaning most people right now are living in a mode of reaction to what’s happening on the outside. And you can see this everywhere.

Some examples of this are people that are hoarding toilet paper. And I’ve heard stories of people hoarding food, going to the grocery store and buying 100 pounds of meats and different things. And so, that is coming from a reaction. That is living in reaction, which is living at the effect of the Coronavirus.

And what’s interesting is that, as a society, this is pretty much the way we operate all the time. So, if we even, before Coronavirus hit, before we were in the situation that we’re in today, as humans, we tend to react to what’s around us versus responding or living from the inside out.

And so, what I want to offer to you all today is that we do in fact have the ability to respond to what’s happening. And the interesting thing here is that this is how the world works because the world and our experience of the world, the results that we have, is a direct reflection of what’s going on within us internally.

We all have the ability to respond in a way where we can use intention, where we can live from the inside out versus the outside in. And there’s a major difference between the two. And I think right now, this is the perfect time to be doing this work, to be looking at how am I really approaching all of this? Am I reacting or am I choosing to respond with intention?

And what I want you to see here is that intention, or lack of intention, has the ability to create how you’re experiencing the world and how you’re experiencing what’s happening with the Coronavirus situation right now. And it’s also the results that you have in your business.

And unfortunately, for most people right now, they’re living at the effect of the virus. They’re living in reaction to what’s happening versus living from intention and thinking about the type of experience they want to be having and creating that intentionally from their thoughts.

Now, if you’re listening to this podcast, I’m going to assume that you’re building a business; either a coaching business or some other type of service-based business. You’re likely an entrepreneur. And I also am going to assume that you want to build a successful business, which is why you’re listening to this podcast.

So, my question then to you is have you really sat down and thought about how you want to be experiencing this time living in the midst of what is going on? Have you considered whether or not you’ve been operating out of reaction, or have you been operating in response to things?

And I want you to take a minute and think about that. Think about that in terms of your business and also think about this in terms of your life. And to help you with this, I want you to start by looking at your results.

Take a minute and look at the results you have currently right now in your business. Some of you are probably in a position right now where you’re not quite where you want to be. Maybe you feel like you’ve been doing all the things but you don’t have the number of clients you want or you just haven’t made the amount of money you think you should have made by now.

So, whatever that is for you, I want you to take a moment and look at your results. And I want you to ask yourself, why do I have these results? And then write that down. Take stock of the answer because whatever you’re thinking your answer is to that question, that’s all being driven by your level of thought, by how you’re mentally approaching your business.

So, if we know that our thinking drives our emotions, which lead to our actions, which ultimately create our results, it’s normal to want to just jump in and change the thought. And I see this all the time, whether it’s clients or just within the industry, really with anyone, we just want to know, what is the solution? And we want it now.

As humans, we always want to escape as quickly as possible form any discomfort, from things we don’t want. So, I the case of business, I see this really often where coaches just want me to tell them what to think. They want me to just give them a new thought to think.

But here’s the problem with that. When you’re looking for the “quick fix” when you’re not thoughtfully and with intention creating the vision, creating in your mind first how you want to experience your business and who you are being within your business, there will always be a disconnect there. And that disconnect is in your vibration, which will not be in alignment to that which you want to create.

So, I want you to see how powerful intention really is and how it’s one of the most powerful tools that you have as an entrepreneur. And it’s also one that’s so often completely overlooked yet we’re all born with it.

Every one of us is born with the ability to use our intention and to create the results that we want in our life. But we don’t learn about this in school. And most of us aren’t programmed to know how to use this in our lives.

We didn’t learn it from our parents. We didn’t learn it from our environment. Instead, as a society, we operate at the effect of things. That’s what we learn. We operate in reaction. And so, the difference with using intention and will is operating in response to things. It’s operating from the inside out.

And this takes practice. It takes repetition. It takes effort. But it’s like a muscle. Once you learn to use it, once you learn to consistently apply it in your life, that is when the results you really want are on the other side, when you’re using your intention and your will consistently, when you’re approaching your business with the understanding, with the knowing that you are the creator of your experience

So, let me ask you, which lens are you looking through? Are you looking at things through the lens of what is? Or are you looking at things through the lens of possibility. Because when you use the lens of intention, when you use the lens of, “What is my intention? What do I want to create?” along with the belief that you do, in fact, create your reality, your experience of the world, that is true power, my friends. And that is true power in your business.

So, to help you navigate and respond to right now, no matter what is happening, no matter what others are doing, no matter what the “chaos” is that’s happening around you, I want you to ask yourself this. Number one, what do I really want right now? What do I really want right now in my life and in my business? How do I want to experience this time?

And I think you’ll find, by asking yourself these questions and really thinking about what it is you truly want to create, that which you really want, you’re flexing your intention muscle. You’re creating that powerful intention forward.

And the second question I want to ask you is this; where do I want to be six months from now? Once we’ve moved past where we’re currently at, once things have been returned to some level of normalcy, ask yourself, where do I really want to be? What does my business look like? Who am I? And most importantly, who do I need to be right now in order to create that experience?

I really encourage you all to ask yourselves these questions so that you’re not only giving yourself the opportunity to create what you want right now, but giving yourself the opportunity to create what you want in the future. Because the future is already being written by you right now in this moment.

And I want to leave you with a quote that sums up what I just shared with you, “Mind is the master power that molds and makes. And man is mind. And evermore, he takes the tool of thought, and shaping what he wills brings forth a thousand joys and a thousand ills. He thinks in secret and it comes to pass. Environment is but his looking glass.” That’s a quote from the book As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. It’s a fantastic book; I highly recommend.

Alright, everyone, I hope this serves you. Create an amazing week. Stay healthy and well. Take care, bye-bye.

Hey, before you go, I have something amazing I want to share with you. To celebrate the launch of the show, I’m going to be giving away three free VIP Strategy Sessions where I’ll be diving deep into your business and helping you put a strategy in place for the next 90 days, so you have a real game plan on how to create results in your business, and finally gain 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 this 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.