Ever paid for training you never used? Bought books you never read? How about coaching you never implemented? Unfortunately this is not a rare thing–it’s rumoured that 80% of coaching clients don’t implement what they learn. I have nothing but compassion for these people, some of which are my own clients. There are deeply ingrained fears and childhood programming that is preventing them from implementing what they KNOW they have to.
My heart truly breaks though when they don’t recognize the problem and KEEP spending more money on more training, more books and more coaching. Then they’re disappointed again. Sometimes they blame the program, other times they blame the circumstances of the business or their health. The truth of it is, throwing money at and buying more resources are not going to make the fears around what’s truly stopping them go away.
Throwing Money At Things
A fave former client of mine and I caught up this week. Through our work, we’d created a positioning and expertise as well as a keynote for her to use to grow her business. She had never implemented the speaking portion of our plan. This week, she revealed that she had just invested in a new website to feature herself as a speaker. What I sadly pointed out to her was that unless she was willing to pick up the phone to sell herself to organizers as a speaker and to actually go out there to speak, the website wouldn’t do one thing to move her dreams forward. She was not happy to hear my point of view. I don’t know what she’ll ultimately decide to do but throwing money at a publicist, a website developer or a coach is NOT going to help anyone get over their fears.
Throwing Money At People
Coaches, consultants and therapists are great. I will never be without a coach until I retire. They can tell you what’s happening, point out patterns in you that you can’t see. Give you clarity around what to do next. However, NONE of them can put a gun to your head and actually make you do the thing that makes you cringe or hide under the table. Eventually, you will have to be doing it by yourself and recon with your fears and demons. As I constantly tell my clients, you are 100% responsible for your results-good AND bad.
Throwing Money At Events
If you are not willing to be a different person, to act differently than what you’ve always done, what’s the point of spending money to go to networking or training events to grow your business? Buying a ticket and sitting in a seat doesn’t mean you can tick off the marketing plan ‘to do’ list. Are you trying to give advice, connections and friendliness at strangers? Are you willing to help people who look lost and alone? Do you follow up with every single person you were fortunate enough to meet? If you’re not, just stop throwing money at events in the hopes that they’ll grow your business.
So I hope my rant has helped wake you up into realizing that spending money is NOT going to change your life. Actually changing your ACTIONS based on your learnings will.
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