Ep #65: Who Are You Becoming? (Part 2)

You are listening to The Life Coach Business Podcast, episode number 65.

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. Happy New Year. I hope your 2021 is off to an amazing start. I know mine is. We’ve had a beautiful winter break here in Minnesota. We’ve had a lot of snow actually. And as I mentioned in my last episode, we actually did a little bit of travel as a family and we were able to see some extended family over the break, over the holidays, and it was great.

And I actually took off about two and a half weeks from my business and really spent some quality time with my kids, spent some time traveling for a good part of that. But it was so wonderful to be able to take that time and to just disconnect and be offline and enjoy the holidays and enjoy the time with the kids.

And so that is what I have been up to in these past couple of weeks outside of all of the things that I’ve been working on kind of behind the scenes in my business. But I do want you all to know that I think it’s interesting to note as I’m thinking about it that even though I may be offline, I may be unplugged, I still think a lot about my clients.

I think a lot about this podcast, I think about all of you. And so while I did respond to a few messages in that time, one of the things that I thought I wanted to share with all of you is that for me, I really love what I do. And so for me, I am really excited to hit the ground running in 2021.

I’m really excited about some things that I’ll be implementing in my business, and I just love being able to do the work that I do, and I love working with the clients that I get to work with. And it’s so amazing when I think about the fact that I get to be able to do this work every day, and the fact that I can do this work while also really being able to be present for my family and be present for my kids.

And to be a mom to two small kids is pretty significant when I think about growing a business to the level that I’ve been able to grow my business and where I’m going in 2021, and to also be able to be a present mom and do the things that we were able to do, like going sledding over winter break and different crafts that we had done.

And so it’s pretty special to have this opportunity to do that. And in addition to that, I spend a lot of my time thinking about, as I said, my clients, thinking about the topics and the teachings and the messaging and all of the things that I know are really important for all of you as you’re building and scaling your businesses.

And so I do think about my clients all of the time, and I spend a lot of that time thinking bigger for them, thinking beyond in many cases what they feel their current capacity is. And it’s just something that I know I’ve been gifted. It’s something that the way that I have been designed. That’s a gift that I have is being able to really help my clients extend and go beyond what their current capacity is, and to be able to do that in a really accelerated way.

And so being able to do that is just something that I love doing. And I just have such a deep sense of gratitude, and I even shared this with one of my groups right before I went on break is that for me, it’s really special to be able to take this time off, to be able to take two and a half weeks off and to be fully on break with my kids.

That’s a pretty significant thing. And so when I think back to where I was even just a short three, four years ago, when I was transitioning out of my corporate role, one of the big reasons that I decided to launch my coaching practice was so that I could be a more present mom.

And so having a seven year old and a three year old, I know how quick this time goes. I have a sense of how quick they grow up. And I know that being able to spend this time and not feel guilty about taking the time but really being able to be present with that and spending the time is really, really a gift.

And so for me, that’s a really significant thing. Because if you would have asked me four, five years ago, being able to take two and a half weeks off, there would have been a lot of guilt there. There would have – I don’t even know that it would have been possible quite honestly, having 50 plus team members that were reporting to me, really being able to be offline like that, it typically is not something that’s done.

So for those of you that are still working your corporate job and you’re trying to fully make that transition, and when I think about all of the podcast episodes that I’ve done, we’re on episode 65 here. And I really do believe that every podcast episode that I have dropped has been related in some way in helping you really step into that identity, in really stepping forward in the faith that is really required to take the leap.

And what I want you to know is that to become an entrepreneur, you’ve got to be willing to do certain things that most people would not choose to do. And I will say that this is very, very true when I look back at the last really three to four years of growing my business.

And I would say that I’ve definitely become an example of that. I’ve definitely – there’s definitely been a lot of work involved, but it’s also been, I will say, the most rewarding and some of the most rewarding moments of my life. And I’m just so grateful to be able to experience that and to have created what I’ve created.

And I get so excited thinking about the future and thinking about 2021 and all of the amazing clients that I’m going to be supporting and helping them build and grow and scale their businesses and all of the success that is coming for them.

And so I just want to share that for those of you that maybe you feel like it’s taking a little bit longer, where maybe you didn’t quite achieve what it was that you wanted to achieve in 2020, I just want to share that you’ve got to just keep the faith. You just have to know that it’s really important and especially the conversation that we’re going to have today is really important to your process of being able to make that full transition.

And so I want you to know that whatever dream that you have, I want you to know that it’s possible. And whatever that vision is, whatever vision you’re holding for your business, I want you to know that it’s fully possible and it’s fully available to you. And it’s possible and it’s available to you right now in this moment.

And I certainly don’t want to say there isn’t work involved and there are certainly things that need to be in place, but beyond that, it’s really important that if you’re listening to this, I do believe that this is a message that you’re meant to hear in this moment.

And so I want to dive into this further today because it’s a really, really important conversation. And I want to continue the conversation that we had from last week’s episode, in episode number 64 on who you’re becoming.

And so there’s so much to talk about when it comes to this topic. And so I will start out, I guess I want to start out this conversation today by saying as I was thinking about 2021 and the new year and thinking about the timing and when I wanted to drop this episode, to me, it was very clear that this was the first message I wanted to bring to you in the new year.

That this was the first conversation that I felt I needed to bring to you all, and it’s a conversation that I really felt I couldn’t do in just one episode. And so I could probably in fact do an entire series month or two on this, but I just want to dive a little bit deeper into the topic because there are so many reasons why being able to do this in your life is going to be the game-changer for you.

And so when I look at my own experience and when I look at my most successful clients and the clients that have literally been able to go from zero to multi-figures very quickly, so the ones that have really made those biggest leaps and have done them very quickly, it’s because of what we’re talking about today.

And so the idea here is that there has to be a focus on who you are becoming. And so this idea of who are you becoming is really about becoming the person that has already created the results that you want. And so that’s what we’re going to talk about today.

So when I think about my clients that I’m working with privately in my programs, and for all of you listening to this podcast, I know some of you are considering becoming clients, I know some of you are just consuming this podcast and finding it helpful in your journey.

So one of the things that I want all of you to know and I’ve talked a little bit about this is I think this is significant to note is that building and scaling businesses has been what I’ve done my entire life. And I’ve talked a little bit about this in the past and I’m not going to go into every detail and my full resume.

But I’ve been in this for over 20 years of my life, where I’ve really been in startup environments. And taking organizations from zero to, in many cases, multi-million-dollar organizations. And so it’s really second nature to me a lot of this.

And when I think about all the components of being in the startup environment, whether that’s part of a larger organization or whether it’s your own business, whether you’re a solopreneur and you’re in more of an entrepreneurial setting, there’s a lot of crossover between what is required and the things that need to be in place for a business to be able to grow and scale.

And so I want you all to know that what I am sharing with you on every single podcast episode and all of the topics, all of the conversations that I’m bringing to you are all things that I have lived. They’re all things that I have lived in many cases for many, many years.

And there are things that I have lived in and have a lot of experience with. And so this concept that we’re talking about today is one of the concepts, it’s one of those that I would rank up there as probably one of the most important, probably one of the most significant concepts to really get and to really implement in your life as you’re looking to grow and scale a business.

And so the reason that I want to continue this conversation today is because for all of you listening, by nature, you’re human and so by nature, we are literally programmed to create our life based on our past. So by the way that we are wired, we by default live from our past.

And so when you step back and really think about this process, when you think about this process of becoming your future self, this is why it can be a very difficult process. And for many people, and I won’t say for many, for most people, it’s a very painful process.

And the reason for that is because of the fact that as humans, we are very focused on who it is that we think we are. And who it is that we think we are in the present moment also filters what we think we’re capable of and what we do.

And so in order to think about who it is that we’re becoming we have to let go of our past. We have to let go of the past programming that we are a product of. And so just know that as a human, the primitive part of your brain is constantly scanning for those past experiences. It’s constantly scanning for that past data, for the past evidence of whether or not you’re capable of achieving what it is that you want.

And so this is getting into – what I’m going to talk to you today about is getting a bit quantum here, and I actually love the quantum, and we’ll be bringing that more into my podcast episodes this year. But I want you to know that this is really important because at any moment in time, our brains are naturally programmed in a way where they’re constantly looking to our past experience.

They’re constantly looking to our past behaviors, the past memories, all of it for that evidence. And so let’s take last week’s episode. So in last week’s episode, I posed some really important questions for you. And if you haven’t listened to that episode, I would highly recommend that you go back and listen to episode 64 on who you’re becoming, and also do the exercises that I gave you in that episode.

And so the questions that I asked were really around thinking about 2021 and thinking about what it is that you want to create and the results that you want to achieve in 2021. So the first step of this is to get really clear on what that is.

And so the next piece, once you understand and once you identify what it is that you want to create, then it’s time to really think about and put some focus on what is going to be required of you in order to achieve those goals.

And I think it’s one of the most important questions you can ask yourself, especially as we’re heading into this new year. And so I really encourage you all to identify what it is that you want to create, and then from there, identify what is going to be required of you and how that’s different from how you’ve been operating up until this point.

And so that’s really kind of the starting point for today’s conversation. And I want to go a little deeper on this and give you a little bit more teaching around why this is such an important concept and why it’s really important if you’re growing and scaling a business.

And so when you’ve identified what it is that you want to create, and once you’ve identified what it is that needs to be different and who you need to be that is different from who you’ve been, then it’s really important to bring this into your present moment and really understand the importance of not looking to your past for validation.

Because what happens is if we’re constantly looking to our past for that validation and whether we’re asking the question of can I achieve this goal, we’re always going to be off track and the reason for that is because let’s just say you have a goal of achieving a million dollars in 2021 in your business. And let’s say that you haven’t created a million dollars yet in your business.

For your brain, it’s immediately going to set off alarm bells. It’s immediately going to feel danger. You’re going to likely feel some discomfort when you think about that goal, when you think about that being able to create that in the next year.

And so for many of you, your natural instinct is going to immediately go to the how. And just know that that’s a natural part of it. Just know that that is okay for you to ask that, but just also understand that that’s just your brain trying to keep you safe.

And the reason it’s doing that, because it’s looking for security. It’s looking for certainty. And so it’s important to understand that your past will never be able to tell you what you’re capable of. And the reason for that is because what you’re capable of isn’t here yet in the physical realm.

And so what we’re really capable of is our capacity to be able to grow and to become these next versions of ourselves, these next versions of ourselves that do the things that are required to create the new results.

And so I want you to think about where you’re headed. I want you to think about your goals and what you’re capable of. And I want you to try to not look to your past. I want you to recognize that when you’re looking at your past for your answers, you’re limiting your capacity for growth. You’re limiting the actual capacity for your future.

So this is a really important conversation as you’re growing a business. And for those of you that are really looking especially to scale a business, that are really trying to create results that are beyond where you might feel your current capacity is.

And I do have to say that I did a recent podcast on this. This was podcast episode number 60. And it was all about goals beyond your current capacity, and it was just a really great episode. So I’d recommend that if you haven’t listened to that episode as well that you do go back to that and listen to that.

And I will say that I get a front row seat to this every day. I get a front row seat every day as I’m working with clients and just being in this industry that our brains, I can see very clearly whether it’s clients or whether it’s someone new that I’m speaking with that’s considering my programs, I can see very clearly where we’re spending our attention, where we’re putting our focus, and if we’re spending our time looking to our past for those answers.

And I just want to tell you, if you’re having trouble maybe making the progress you want in your business and maybe you are not really achieving what it is that you want in your business, what I want to offer to you is that what might be happening for you is that you’re looking to your past. And you’re looking to your past for these answers.

And it’s something that, trust me, it really creeps in and it’s really – it can be really hard to notice. And I know this because I’ve experienced this myself. But it’s something that when I think about even a child, when I think about – I like thinking about nature.

So for a lot of the concepts that I’m bringing to you and a lot of these teachings that I’m bringing to you, I love to really think about this and how this plays out, how these things play out in nature. Because I do believe that in nature, it’s really just a mirror of these concepts.

And so it’s also something that’s really alive and I think we can just really get some great examples from. So for instance, if we just think about a child, a small child, let’s say a one-year-old, and when you think about perhaps a one-year-old, and that’s generally the timeframe where a child starts to walk.

And so when you think about a one-year-old who’s learning to walk, you know, especially those of you with children, you know there’s kind of a progression there. So as a newborn baby, usually there isn’t a whole lot of movement mobility happening. But as the baby grows, they start to roll over, they start to crawl, and then kind of that next step is they start to stand on their feet. They start to develop more strength. And from there, they start taking their first steps.

And when that happens, in a lot of cases, it’s not like they’re just often running right away. Now, some children I know it does happen. But I know in my experience, it takes a little bit of practice. And so when you think about this process that a child goes through to learn to walk, and the progression that they have to go through in order to get to that point, when you think about the fact that a child at that age, which we know doesn’t happen, but let’s just say that the one-year-old was thinking and looking to their past for that evidence.

If they were really looking to their past as to whether or not they would walk, they would never walk. And so I just think this is such a great example to think about. This concept is that we would never expect a child to look to their past as evidence as to whether or not they could walk. We would never be asking a child, “Well, do you think you can walk?” Based on their past.

We know that they can. And so the funny thing about this is that this is exactly what we do as adults every single day. And so we look to our past, we look to that past evidence and we ask ourselves whether or not we’re capable of something based on what we’ve already achieved or based on what we’ve already done in our lives.

And so I really want to encourage all of you to switch from the questions of who you are and who you are that’s based on your past because it’s a very, very limiting way to think about your future. And it’s very much limiting your future and your capacity for growth.

And so one of the most beautiful things, and I’ve talked a lot about this in previous episodes is that we have the ability in our lives to be able to create whatever it is we want to create. We have the power to intentionally decide who it is that we want to become, who it is we want to become in this world and what we want to create in this world.

And so it’s such an empowering question to shift our focus, to think about intentionally what it is that we want to create and who it is that we want to become. And when we can start to focus on this future self and focus on who it is that we’re becoming, it also shifts so many things in our world.

And one of the things that I think is really interesting, and I see this a lot with my clients is that it really – I can see this very clearly in the language that we use. And I do believe that our language is really a mirror for our inner dialogue.

And what happens is we can literally start to see where we’re putting our focus. We can literally start to see whether or not we’re using our past as evidence or if we’re creating our future. And so for most people, most people spend their time looking to their past.

Most people allow themselves to be defined by their past and they bring that into the present and allow their future to be created by the present. And so again, one of the most important gifts that I think we all have and especially for those of you listening to this podcast episode is your ability to intentionally create what it is that you want to create.

And so this is why I spend so much of my time with myself on this, with my clients in doing this work, and I want you to know that you can start to define yourself by your future. You can start to define yourself today by what it is that you’re creating.

And so 2020 for me was a big year of this. This was a question that I spent a lot of time personally with this. And it’s all about for me, at this point, my answer to that question is all about human potential. It’s really about bringing a level of awareness to as many entrepreneurs as possible, on human potential and what we’re really capable of and how we’re able to really take these quantum leaps and collapse time and be able to come at this from a place of being able to yes, create the financial rewards, but also really make positive impact in the world.

And so that is the work that when I think about my larger work in the world and my legacy is really focused on doing that. And so when I dig into that more and think about what is required for that, it’s really about what I’m offering to my clients. It’s really about creating the best programming and staying and becoming the leading edge of all of this.

And so I’m really excited about some things that I have that I’ll be implementing in 2021 that do align with this. And that have already started filtering the decisions that I’m making today.

And what was interesting is over the break, I read a quick article on Jeff Bezos and it was so funny, I had to kind of laugh about this because it was all about why Jeff Bezos doesn’t set New Year’s resolutions. And the whole concept of this was because basically, the results, the whole idea was the results, like 2020 and Amazon of course had an amazing year, but the whole concept was that the reason Amazon was able to have an amazing 2020 was because of the ideas and the things that were put in place three years prior, because those were ideas that were baked into the strategic plan and the things that were in place already that allowed Amazon to have the year that they had.

And I was thinking about that because I very much think along those same lines. And so I am very much on that same wavelength of thinking that the results that I had in 2020 were the results of the years leading up to 2020. They didn’t just happen in 2020.

Of course there were certain things that I had implemented, but decisions that I made in 2018, in 2019, investments that I made during those times to really help me learn the things that I needed to learn and implement in my own business were actually what helped me have the year that I had in 2020.

And so I think this is a really important thing to consider is thinking about the longer-term view with this and looking at what it is that’s really going to be required to create those bigger results and creating those bigger visions.

And so when we start to develop some of these bigger visions and when we start to develop these bigger goals and we start stepping into this new identity and who it is that we want to create, the important second piece to this is that we also start to create those emotions now.

And so when we’re looking to our past and when we’re in a place where we’re assessing maybe things we’ve done or we’re thinking about past limitations or even things that maybe we’ve regretted in our past, what’s important to understand is that we’re also bringing those same emotions into our present.

And when we’re bringing those emotions into our present, we’re also creating more of that in our present and by default in our future. And so being able to shift our focus in the present and being able to create the future from the future that we really want is really important.

And the emotional side of this again is one of the most important pieces that we have to be paying attention to and we really need to understand where we’re putting our focus so that we understand the results that we’re really creating.

So I encourage all of you to really take a look at how and where you’ve been putting your focus and where you’ve been spending the majority of your time in your mind. And whether or not that’s really been spent on your past or whether that’s really been spent on your future.

And so I want you all to recognize that this is a really important shift for you. And it’s important to recognize that you have such a sophisticated part of your brain that’s available to you that can actually help to manage that primitive brain, that primitive brain that is driving – that is usually in the driver’s seat and looking to that past for evidence.

And so this whole idea is really about managing that and really being able to utilize your prefrontal cortex and really become and create the future that you want. And so I want you to know that 2021, it’s ahead of you and it’s a blank slate.

And regardless of how 2020 shaped up for you, regardless of what did or didn’t happen for you in 2020, whatever it is that you want to create in 2021, whatever goals you have in 2021, I want you to know it’s available to you. You have an amazing gift in front of you to be able to do this work and to have the opportunity to build the business that you want to build.

And so I want to encourage you to start imagining what it is that you’re going to create. Start becoming this person. Become the person that creates those results.

And whatever it is that you want in your result line, whatever results that you want to create, the more you do this work, the more you believe in yourself, I’m telling you, the more the odds are going to be on your side. And the more extraordinary results you’re going to create.

So I really look forward to 2021 with all of you. And I really encourage you all, if you are in a place in your business where you are ready to grow, you are ready to scale, and you are ready for high-level coaching and mentorship and guidance and ready to really make 2021 a breakthrough year, I would love to have you reach out and have a conversation and talk about how I might help you get there.

Alright, I hope you have an amazing week, my friends. I’ll talk to you all again very soon. 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.