#123: Getting Over the Fear of Putting Yourself Out There

Hey there Health coaches. Today, we are talking about the fear that comes up with putting ourselves out there. And you want to know something even to this very day. Sometimes I still have to psych myself up before a client call or before some sort of important call for my business because really, truly deep down, I am such an introvert. And I know that the work I do with clients is primarily guiding them where they need to go. And I'm doing good work in the world, but I'm not magic. And I'm not the end all be all healer. I don't know all the answers to everything sometimes. I don't know. And sometimes my clients don't get results. And so it's scary, right? Like I get it. It can be scary to put yourself out there in the world, even after years and years of experience. That's what I'm here to tell you today, but it does get a heck of a lot easier.

And when I think back to my first clients, or like the first time that I pitched a workshop at my local yoga studio, those first efforts and putting myself out there, I was so nervous. I was so new and inexperienced and I was sweating and I felt a little nauseous, but I did it anyway. And I think there are a couple of reasons why I was able to do that. But before we talk about those, I just want to thank June for so bravely bringing up this topic inside of our Facebook group. The other day, June said that she needed help with confidence. And when I asked in what area do you need help? Uh, you know, and when it comes to confidence, like what area she said that she was afraid to put herself out there. And of course, as a coach, I then asked, what are you afraid might happen if you did that?

Oh, it a good question for your clients. And June said that she was mostly afraid of being negatively, judged or not being good enough at what she had to offer. June, I promise you up, down and sideways, you are not alone. There are very few health coaches or entrepreneurs, or like adults who don't feel this way sometimes. And that's why I wanted to kind of air this topic out. Cause we don't always talk about it, but I know it's there for like most of us on most days. So for those of you that are here with me live, and I know some of you are, go ahead and tell me in the chat area, how have you overcome the fear of putting yourself out there? And do you have any helpful tips for us June? I'm going to be honest. My main motivator, like when I really sat down to think about this, I was like, how did I get my scared, butt up, out of the chair and over that phone to make that call, like all those times that I didn't want to do it or to go do that workshop or to go show up at that thing when I was just scared to death over it.

And I think my main motivator back then was, oh shoot, I just left a high paying career in advertising and I have to make this work. Like I have to make money. And to be honest, I was married at the time we had enough income. It wasn't really that I had to make the money, but I very, very much felt the pressure. And maybe some of you have felt this way. Like I had to prove myself in this new career. So, anytime I was afraid I did the thing anyway, like I felt like I absolutely had to, it was almost like not succeeding in health. Coaching was more scary to me than putting myself out there and getting judged about it. Cause that was scary too, but it was more scared that this new venture just wasn't going to fly for me, but that's me. And I've always kind of had this overachiever streak may not be you, but still I'm going to ask what motivates you more than anything?

Like why do you want to succeed as a health coach? And what would that mean for you and for your life? You could take those questions and journal on them. I mean, I think it actually runs pretty deep when we start to do this work, it's sort of like, why bother? Like why not go the easy way and work for somebody else? Why not just stay in corporate America? Like most people do, even though they hate it. What would it mean for you? What would it mean? If you could change the lives of hundreds, of thousands of people and you know, earn a living while you're doing it and how would your life be different? So that's sort of my vulnerable story, but there was always another side to it too, that I think is a little, makes me feel better to share this story. The first story made me feel like, Oh man, I was really motivated by fear and money and success. That's not, that's not the person I want to be, but it's, but it's true. It's the honest truth. But the other side of it was always there too. Like the reason that I got into health coaching at all was because, and you know, you could say that this scared me too was I was scared to look around and just see how unhappy and unhealthy, like almost everybody is how much medication everybody is on how much coffee and soda they're drinking, how much candy they're feeding their kids. I ha it made me just absolutely cringe. So partially I put myself out there because yes, I was afraid of failing at this new career.

But partially I did it because I was afraid for humanity. And I was really compelled to try and make a difference. It felt like the most important impact that I could have on the world, in my lifetime. And I'm betting that that's true for like a lot of us. It's like if I just wanted a job and a paycheck, I could still be creating advertising campaigns for my old clients, like McDonald's fact or ocean spray. Right. But at the end of the day, when I was working in big, I didn't feel like I was doing anything good for the world. I actually felt like if anything was the opposite, it was, I was doing something not so good for the world. And these days I feel like 100% fulfillment in my career. And I've seen the difference that it makes in the world. So maybe for June and for anybody else struggling to put yourself out there, maybe you need to see for yourself how important your work is.

Maybe you need one of those clients whose life changes before your very eyes or like that one workshop participant who comes up to you afterwards in tears thanking you. It doesn't always happen like that. But when it does, I'm telling you, it is huge motivation to keep putting yourself out there because you realize like, wow, I am really reaching people who need this and forget all the people that don't, who cares about them because this one person right now, it has meant so much to them. And that is motivation to continue putting yourself out there, regardless of what anybody else says. So this is something else to journal on to meditate on, like, who needs you in this world? Who do you know? You could help? Who do you see struggling? Can you imagine someone who like, all they really need is space to be seen and heard and not judged?

Can you give them that? Yeah. Like I know you can, you don't have to have a PhD in nutrition or whatever, just to give somebody that space. And that's so much of what we do as a coach. Uh, maybe they need something like an idea of what they could eat in the morning, besides a bagel. You can give them that. I know you can give them that. So these small things can be life altering. You may think like, who am I? Or I don't know everything that there is to know, but you don't have to know everything. Sometimes people just need their eyes open to a new idea. That seems second nature to you. So what I want to say to all of you is that I need, first of all, I need you because I can't do it alone. I need like an army of health coaches, all doing good things in the world.

If I'm ever going to achieve what was like my personal goal of looking around and not seeing a bunch of people just sucking down coffees and generally unhappy with life. I need you to put yourself out there for you and all the good that it's going to do for you and how satisfied you feel. And please put yourself out there for the greater good, because you're needed. We are all very, very needed. Sam's saying that one reason that she has the motivation to put herself out there, she doesn't want to feel like she wasted money on school. Yes, yes. How about that? You spend money to get these certifications. I know so many coaches who've done that. They spend all this money to get certified in this certified, in that, get these letters after their name. And then they're too scared to market themselves, to get the clients, to do the work.

I'm not going to say it's a waste, but it's a little bit of a waste of the money that you sunk into your education, right? So that's another reason to put yourself out there. So Terry had a question that kind of piggybacked on this. Terry says, I have a fear that I will be on a live Q&A, which I think is funny because right now I'm on a live Q&As myself, but she says, I have a fear I'll be on a live Q&A and someone will ask a question. I have no idea how to answer.

Terry, that happens. It's going to happen. You could count on it happening. And it might be because it's a very, very smart question. That's probably what you're thinking. They're going to ask me a really smart question and expect me to know the answer. I'm not going to know it. And I'm going to sound stupid. That might be the case. Or they might ask you a question. This happens more often a question that kind of just comes out of left field and you don't know how to answer it because it doesn't really make sense. So just to give you a heads up, that happens too. And either way you can really feel like you're on the spot. Um, but what I want to say to you is that the most powerful thing that you can do when you're working with the client privately, when you're on a live Q&A you're being recorded. If someone asks you a question, you don't know the answer to the most powerful thing you can say is, I don't know, but I'm going to look into it and I'll get back to you. That's it.

Because like, imagine you asked me a question right now about like, I don't know, how to use click funnels or something. I would honestly say to you, I don't know. I don't actually use that tool. So you would think, okay, well, first of all, now I know Michelle's not just like full of it because she's telling me the honest truth that she doesn't know something, which means I can trust everything else she says, because she's not just like blowing smoke. She's honest. I'm going to tell me, I don't know the answer. And then if I went and I got that information and I got back to you about it, you'd be like, wow, like that's helpful. That's integrity right there. So don't be afraid of not knowing and admitting that you don't know. And if it's something that you really feel like you should know, and maybe like your brain is just not coming up with the word in that moment. It's okay to say that too. You can say like, Oh, like my brain is just freezing up on this right now, but let me get back to you on that.

Totally fine. To do this. So do not be concerned with practice. It becomes easier to kind of flow with the, uh, with sort of, you know, the ebb and flow of questions that come in, or like dealing with things on the fly, all the more reason to just put yourself out there and start getting that experience. Cause it's not something that you can practice on your own. Even things like technology hiccups. How many times have I been recording this weekly episode? And something happens, you know, my microphone's not plugged in or, you know, my phone goes off or something like this, we get cut off by Facebook. I mean, so many things have happened and you just kind of learn to roll with it, but you have to like do it over and over again, to get comfortable with that.

Emily's saying you are needed. She said, I needed to hear that today. And she said, yes, me too. I think we all need to hear this every day. Because if we, if we're coming from a place of like, Oh my God, I'm scared. I'm trying to make this business work. You know? And it's like, uh, any business, like you're, you know, you're selling something on Etsy that kind of business, you know, like you're going to be in one mindset, but if we step back and we think about like, what are we doing for the greater good, how we really are here to serve? How can we be of service? And kind of just be curious about how we can do that better. It feels less like I'm failing at my business. It just steals. Like I just, I just want to help, like tell me how I can help you.

How can I reach more people that I can help? And that, that comes with a totally different energy. And ultimately I think a more successful energy than one that is just like pushing through the business stuff and pushing through the marketing and pushing through the sales, trying to sell like a widget. It's a totally different thing that we do. And it's a gift. Okay. So I had a couple other questions, um, some new coaches having some discouraging moments. So I thought I would throw these in here too, and just have like a big pep rally today. You guys, that's what it is. Logan said, I've had several people express interest in coaching, but there are people I've met in person. I know there are so many more people who could benefit, but I'm struggling to find a consistent method to find, engage and enroll new people. Any advice would be so much appreciated. So, Logan, what I wanted to say to you is that you don't need a consistent method to find, engage and enroll someone all in one fell swoop.

Maybe. But what I have found to work much better is that you need to find a way to find people, to find your perspective clients and get them onto your mailing list. And that's just step number one, right. But if you can't do that, it's going to be very difficult to do the rest, engage them and enroll them as new clients. So if you could just break it down for yourself and go, okay, like before I'm going to sign someone as a client, it's not like a prerequisite that they have to be on your mailing list, of course, but you are more likely to convert someone into a paying client. If you have had time to engage with them, if you've built a relationship with them, and that is more likely to happen if they're on your mailing list, right? Because even if they're in your social media audience, they may only see like one out of every five things that you post just by virtue of the way that social media is. So it's always more valuable to have somebody on your mailing list, a mailing list that you own, you control, who gets it, how often they get it. And, um, if you want more information about that and kind of how all these pieces work together, I highly recommend that you sign up for my free training. It's that health coach power.com/earn. And I talk more about this topic there, as well as how to actually put all the pieces together and build a profitable practice, something where you're earning a real salary.

And this kind of ties in to a question that came in from Sue. And I just want to say hi to Sheila because Sheila is saying that she's here, live with us too today. Nice to see you guys as always, but here's what Sue wrote in our group. She said that she's feeling a little discouraged. I joined a Facebook group that has my target client. I wanted to see what they need most great soon, nice job way to do some market research. She said, I wanted to see what kind of questions they have, et cetera. So it seems like there are actually a lot of health coaches in the group trying to sell. And I'm starting to wonder how I'll be able to actually make a living off of this and not just be one of the many fighting for clients off of Facebook.

Great question. So, for Sue and for anyone else, if you feel like this is a game of fighting for clients on Facebook, it's not. If this is your game plan for how you're going to find clients, you need a new plan. The reason you see people doing that is because they don't have a plan. If people are trying to poach clients out of Facebook groups and you see them saying things that feel kind of icky, kind of salesy, first of all, they're probably going to get booted out of that group pretty soon, because most groups don't allow that. And secondly, this is not it like Facebook didn't even exist. Well, no, it existed when I started my business, but it was way, way, way paired back. You know, it was like we didn't have Facebook groups at all. I don't even know what we were doing on Facebook back then, but it didn't exist like it exists now.

I guess what we all found clients. And I was able to build a thriving practice without using Facebook at all. So I noticed with a lot of new coaches coming out of school, it's like, they just think like, oh, social media, like that's the one. And only way for me to build my business and I can assure you, it is absolutely not. And if you are going to use social media, there are ways to do it. That will help you. Like I just talked about with Logan's question, help you build a mailing list, help you gather an audience, engage with that audience and build relationships, um, so that you can then find the clients that want to work with you versus like, just thinking, you're going to show up on Facebook today and say the magic words, and someone's going to become your client tomorrow.

So, it was just like a totally different strategy. And I think if you're in it for the long haul, it makes sense to really build a foundation for your business from the ground up. Sounds like you already have an idea of who your target client is or your target market. So that's awesome. You're already doing some market research. That is also awesome. So then it's like, what's the next step from there? And it's interesting because right now with healthy profit university members, our fast track group is just went through this exact process. They just all figured out a target market, did some market research, and now we're onto the next thing and they're building and they're growing and their list is going to start growing. And we're not so worried about like finding the clients immediately because you need to have like the underpinnings in place for a long-term successful business. There are a lot of coaches who come out of school and like, they'll have like, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, like 10 clients right away.

I remember this happened not to me, but it happened to like friends of mine when I was in health coach health coaching school. And I'm like, Oh my God, they got all these clients. But guess what? Like six months later they had no clients because they didn't have like a long-term strategy. They were just like reaching like, Hey, you want to work with me? Hey, you want to work with me? And pretty quickly they ran out of people to do that with, so now, like they might be on Facebook trying to do the same thing. It's, it's like, uh, quick and dirty. Not, like not thinking far ahead with the strategy, it's just like a quick and dirty technique for getting clients. And I don't recommend it. So don't worry if you see them in the Facebook group all fighting for clients, because you are not going to do that. Sue, you are going to sign up for my free training and take the next step. That makes sense. Right? You're going to build a business based on a strategy. And again, the URL for that training is healthcoachpower.com/earn. I encourage you all to check that out. But it's particularly anybody who feels like, how the heck am I supposed to find clients?

Okay. Sybil said, I definitely needed to hear you are needed. All right. Somebody else needed that message today. Good. And Samantha chimed in and said that she's been booted out of Facebook groups. Yes. That will happen.

There are so many, like even, uh, I'm going to put quotes, like air quotes around health coaches who are trying to find clients that way. And they're not even health coaches, you know, maybe they just represent a company that sells a product, that sort of thing. And then there are other people who are not calling themselves health coaches, but they're also trying to sell essential oils or trying to sell what have you. And they're going into these groups and, and utilizing them to make sales. So that sort of thing, I mean, you can sniff it out a mile away, right. People can sniff that out. The owner of the group's not going to like it. Chances are the member of the, group's not going to like it either. Um, it's really only if you build a rapport with someone that they're going to want to hear what you have to offer or, you know, your marketing message, Samantha, following up with that and just said, but I used your method and landed my first client.

Okay, good, good. Much better. It's not, it's not the Facebook grab and go method. Not that method. Awesome. Okay. What other questions do you guys have for me today? I have a few others in the queue over here, but if you're with me live and you have questions about anything related to your business, we have a few minutes left and I'd be happy to answer for you.

I have one here from Casey. Casey, what are your favorite hosting sites for automated webinars or masterclasses? It's been suggested to use stealth seminar, but it's pretty expensive. Yeah. You know, I think ages ago I looked into stealth seminar and I don't remember how much it costs, like if it's competitively priced or not. But I know at the time it felt very expensive to me, actually, all of the tools that you would use for an evergreen or an automated webinar, they are a little bit pricey.

I am not going to be able to tell you how much off the top of my head, but I would say like a couple of hundred, or maybe more than a couple of hundred dollars a year, which is no big deal. If you're then using that tool to sell something. And it's like, you're making repeated sales all year long. And even while you sleep, which is the beauty of an automated webinar, then the cost of the tool is no big deal. But what I want to tell you, Casey, and what I always say is that getting an automated webinar to actually work and create a sale is it's hard.

It's way harder than a live webinar. And there's a lot of stuff that like, I didn't think it was going to be so complicated. And I do, I have an automated webinar that runs and it took me like I'm still working on it. You know, it's been running for years and we're always making it better, making it convert higher, optimizing it. But I remember when I first set it up, I was, I was like, Whoa, when I saw the price of the tool and when I saw how complicated this setup was going to be. So I'm really glad that I got some good advice. And I know I've shared this before, but I'm going to say it again. You want to hold your webinar or whatever webinar you're thinking about putting on autopilot. You want to hold it live like many times before you tried to make it automated.

And you want to make sure that it works as in you're making sales when you're holding it live. And if those rates like the number of people who attend versus the number of people who buy are consistent and you feel good about it, then it can be a good time to automate it, but don't go straight to automated webinars. It will likely fail. And it's going to be a lot of time and money wasted. And just another rabbit hole that you find yourself going down, make it sort of the natural evolution of something that's already working for you when you hold it live. Okay. Um, what do I have here in this C is asking, what would you say is the best way for a first timer to put themselves out there? Would you say Facebook or Instagram live or a challenge? Gosh, there's so many different ways to, when we say put yourself out there, like what does that even mean? I think the most important thing that you need is a mailing list. So if you could put a mailing list together. the next logical thing to do could be to email that list. And that could be how you start.

Every week or every month or whatever it is. You're emailing something to your list and it's a safe way to do it because in the beginning, everyone on your list to somebody that you probably already know. So that would be just like baseline. And then of course we can put ourselves out there and social media and that's kind of safe too, because it's small, you know, it's not like you're going to go out and like, hold a webinar, you know, or go out and speak on a stage somewhere. Every time you post something to social media, it's sort of like dipping your toe in and dipping your toe in. But as I'm saying this, I'm realizing that one of the most important things that I did when I started my business was I started creating content. I had a blog at the time. I do podcasts now, but I used to do blogging.

And for years I've had a blog and I blogged several times a week or at least once a week. And creating that content that in and of itself is a way of putting yourself out there. And it feels kind of safe because you're still behind a screen and you still get to like proofread it and make it all beautiful before you hit publish. So that can be a way of putting yourself out there. And once you have content, it's easier to then put yourself out there in other ways, because you can like say you wrote a blog post, you can send it to your mailing list. You can post about it on social media. It kind of gives you something to talk about. And so you're not just talking about like yourself, you're talking about this topic that you just wrote about, or this recipe that you just created or whatever it is. So sometimes content creation can be really great way to start. Good luck with that.

Okay. I have another question here from Ashley. Um, Ashley said, I'm curious if anyone in this group has used someone to ghost write some recipes, meaning I would pay the person to develop the recipes. And after that I would own the copyright and could use them for my own website, cookbook, et cetera. Yes. Ashley, I have totally done that. Um, but when I first read your question, I wanted to say, and I think somebody did answer you this way. Why don't you just use that clean life? So, um, for anyone out there, who's like, I need recipes. I need recipes because I'm going to be running a five day challenge, or I need recipes for my group program, or I need recipes to give to my clients. There's a great service out there called That Clean Life. And if you want to check them out, our URL for that is healthcoachpower.com/tcl.

It stands for That Clean Life. And that is our affiliate link. If you would like to use it and support the show, I'm going to put that into the comments right here. That Clean Life is awesome because you can search for recipes. You can customize recipes, you can upload your own recipes, they have beautiful photography, and they basically, you get to download a PDF of like a recipe book, or even put together a meal plan. That's portioned out for your clients. Awesome. And then you can share that PDF with them. But when I looked at your question a little more closely, Ashley, I see here that you want to be able to publish it, like on your own website or publish it in a cookbook and really have these things copyright to you.

So, um, yes, in the past I have hired somebody to help me with recipe development or really develop the recipes. I may have, like given some ideas, like I want it to be like this, or I would say like, here's a recipe that I made in my kitchen. It kind of had these ingredients. Could you formalize that for me? And then, uh, she was able to do the recipe testing, write it up, you know, recipes really should be written up in a very specific way and turn them into something that was like a finished product. And I was able to then use. So you would definitely want to, um, first of all, have a contract in place that outlines what you are and aren't allowed to do with these recipes, how you're allowed to use them, et cetera, just so that you don't run into any trouble down the line. And one, like word of caution that I would put out about this is that developing recipes, recipe testing is really time consuming when it's done well.

Like if I do it from my... you know, in the past, I've created my own recipes for sure. I've put them all over my blog. Um, you know, I'd make it like once and I write down what I did. And then, then that's the recipe I would put on my website, like no big deal. But if, if someone's doing it professionally and they're going to hand you a recipe that like is going to get tested, they want... everybody wants to know that that recipe works really well. So they're going to test it several times. They're going to spend like hours on it where that's not something I would do myself. So, I found that it was actually really expensive to hire someone to do this work for me. I'm not saying you shouldn't do it, but I just want you to be aware that it is, um, a lot of there's a cost involved, a pretty significant cost involved, but it can be done. And there are people out there willing to do it. There may even be someone listening to this podcast, listening to this episode right now, who's going, I would like to do that for you, Ashley. And if that's the case, you can find Ashley inside our Facebook group and you guys can connect there.

All right, you guys, that's it for today's show. Thank you so much for being here next week. We've got something special planned. So I'll look forward to seeing you then have a great week, everybody.