Latest / Callum Walker | Figuring It Out / #112 - What To Do When You Feel Like A Failure As A Coach

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#112 - What To Do When You Feel Like A Failure As A Coach · Callum Walker | Figuring It Out

• 0:03
  Callum: If fear is the only thing stopping us from achieving our dreams, and we only fear what we don't understand, then the antidote to fear is knowledge. All we have to do is find out who has the knowledge knowledge that we need to conquer our fears and achieve our entrepreneurial dreams. My name is Callum Walker, and welcome to the podcast that will help you figure it out and conquer this lonely entrepreneurial journey. Hello, everyone, and welcome to the podcast. If you've been an avid listener for some time, I am in a very special location, which is I'm back in my canal.
• 0:38
  It's been god. It's gotta be a few years since I recorded a podcast on this specific canal. And, yeah, it's very special to me. So, yeah, because long story short, you know, I live down in London now, and, my parents still live in Birmingham. But, anyway, it's irrelevant.
• 0:56
  You don't care about the canal. What I'm gonna talk to you about, I'm gonna talk to you about specifically when things get really tough. When things get really, really tough and you're running your coaching business. It's a real bit of a head fuck running your coaching business because you it's never really kind of a middle ground. There's always two very, very powerful and aggressive polarities where you're either on top and you're the king of the world and you're conquering everything and everything is really easy.
• 1:25
  You've literally just got clients coming out of your ears. You're making a shed ton of money and you're like, I am invincible. Or it's the opposite where you're like, oh my god, I'm an absolute failure. I'm gonna run out of money. Everything is doom and gloom and like, I don't know where I'm gonna get my next client from.
• 1:45
  And it's a challenge. There's never a middle ground. There's never kind of just a, yeah, we're sticking along really nicely. It's either boom or bust. It's either doom and gloom or my god, I'm the king of the world.
• 1:59
  And, I wanna kinda share with you specifically a couple of things that I do to to navigate that. I think this is the key thing. Navigate it, not conquer it. I think the first thing is, like, accepting that that is just kind of a nature of business. You know, there's a time where it's kinda like seasons when you're in summertime and you're harvesting and you're, you 're kicking back, you're loving life.
• 2:25
  But then also there's a winter where it's cold, it's dark, it's miserable, and anyone can be successful in summer. Anyone can be successful. It's easy to do that when everything's going your way and life is giving you that helping hand, but not many people can hack the winter. And I think that the first thing is that the reason why a lot of people can't hack the winter and they give up is because they don't accept that the winter is just a part of it. They don't accept that this is normal.
• 3:02
  It's part of the process, and it's also kind of a little bit of a test. And your your your goal is actually to ensure that you can deal with the winter and navigate the winter. And I think that the thing that helps me is something that I learned You can't be stagnant. If you think about it in natural terms that when it is winter, as an example, if you stand still, you're gonna freeze and you're gonna die. Whereas what have you gotta do?
• 3:48
  You gotta heat yourself up. How do you heat yourself up? By moving. So I think that the first thing is you've gotta figure out a way to just just move forward. And it can be very overwhelming at times.
• 4:00
  And I think that we overwhelm ourselves because what we do is we put our pressure on ourselves to go, right, I've got to get to the top of the mountain. Whereas there's a, you know, a time and a place where you can get to the top of the mountain and you can get to the top of that mountain quite easily during summer. You can just run up it. But when it's when it's winter, when it's really hard, when it's really difficult, you can't do that. Actually, all you just need to focus on is putting one foot in front of the other.
• 4:29
  So how does this how does this look in the, you know, a practical term? How does this look in real terms? Well, the way that that looks is instead of trying to focus on getting five clients, 10 clients, 20 clients in as an example, Yeah. You may not have the energy and the capacity and the ability to do that right now. Your primary focus should be not necessarily how can I get one client, but actually how can I just get a conversation?
• 4:59
  How can I just get some form of conversation, some form of conversation going where someone can, you know, just give me an element of interest? I know for myself that when I'm paralyzed and immobilized by fear, the thing that gets me out of fear is momentum. Just getting into some momentum that when things get really, really tough and challenging when you're running your coaching business, it really comes down to primarily that you've felt that that loss of momentum. Think about it that when you're having success, what is success? You've got momentum.
• 5:30
  You've got sign up after sign up after sign up after sign up, you know, or you have client getting result after result after result after result. Whereas you think about when things aren't going well, it's stagnant. So what do you need to do when things are stagnant? Gotta get moving. And you've just gotta get moving moving forward in any direction that you possibly can.
• 5:52
  And it's hard. It's tough. I experienced it so many times. I've been running this coaching business for ten years now. And if anything, it gets it gets heavier.
• 6:04
  It feels heavier, but you get stronger. And your ability to just move forward when things are challenging. And one of the best things that you can do is really remember like what is business? Business is really just the, you know, relationships with people. So really, if you think about it, if you're not signing up enough clients, it genuinely comes down to the fact that you're not having enough conversations with people.
• 6:30
  So whether that's just a case of even from a non fitness perspective, you're just out and about in the world like actively trying to speak to more people because you can habitually then get yourself into the, you know, the the habit of talking to people because then when you're talking to people in the outside world, you then wanna feel like you can talk to people in the gym or you can talk to people, online or whatever. And just get yourself into the habit of having conversations with people, speaking to people, finding out about them. And that would just kind of help you again, just get into that momentum. But I think that the most important thing is that when things do get really challenging, when things do get really, really tough, take the expectation of yourself. Take away the expectation of yourself.
• 7:19
  One to, you know, not not feel like things should be tough like they are. There's a reason why so many people can't hack running a business. There's a reason why there's all of these stats that, you know, most businesses fail within two years. Yeah. Because it's so hard and people can't handle that difficulty in that challenge.
• 7:39
  But the ones who can handle the difficulty in the challenge accept that it is difficult and it is challenging. And I have to adapt myself to be able to deal with the challenging and the difficult circumstances. And one of the most powerful ways of doing that is when things get tough, when things get challenging, I'm not going to try and see the top of the mountain. I'm not gonna look I'm not even gonna bother looking at the top of the mountain. All I'm gonna do is just put one foot in front of the other.
• 8:04
  And that brings me to, you know, a real powerful story that helped me when I was probably going through the most challenging time in my business. And funnily enough, it happened on this exact canal. I remember like I was in a place where I I really, really did feel like the ultimate failure. Like I really did. Like things were not working for me.
• 8:29
  No matter what I was trying to do, it just wasn't working and I couldn't find a client for my life. And I just remember going, I just need to go for a run. I just need to go for a run. I need to get myself out there and go for a run. And sorry.
• 8:50
  I am just on the canal. And if you've been listening to this podcast for a long time, you will know that I have some friends when I've recorded on the canal who have always joined me, and it's my ducks. And the last time I saw these ducks, they were little babies. And now we've got seven ducks that have all swam by me, and I guarantee it's those ducks. I can see the mom, but I can see all the grown little babies.
• 9:18
  How beautiful is that? But I'm just gonna come back to, yeah, I remember like I was in a real negative headspace. I felt really down, anxious, fearful, panicking, and I just went right. I've just gotta go for a run. I need to go for a run.
• 9:35
  So what I did was I brought myself to this canal and I started running and it was absolutely pissing it down with rain. It was hammering it down with rain. And I I went to this canal and, my god, there was just mud everywhere. And I just remember thinking like, no, I've gotta run-in this mud. But I remember I was like, look, it's not a problem because last year I bought some waterproof trail runners which will allow me to run-in the mud.
• 10:04
  So I was able to just move forward and then it was hammering it down even further. It was, sorry, hammering it down even harder. It was freezing cold, the wind was blowing, and I was like, I've just gotta keep moving forward. And then it started to hail. Yeah.
• 10:21
  It started to hail. And, when it was hailing, my mind was like, I need to, like, hide under a tree here or, like, take shelter. But also I was like, no, I've gotta keep running. I've gotta keep running. And then it was hailing down so hard.
• 10:38
  Like I genuinely couldn't really see forward. Like I had to kinda like look down at the floor. And I remember just thinking like right now the only thing I can do is just keep moving forward and just put one foot in front of the other. There's no point in me looking right to the end of the canal because I can't see it right now. The only thing I can focus on is just putting one foot in front of the other.
• 11:01
  And what was really amazing was that eventually it stopped hailing and the sun came out. And then when the sun came out, I just had this thought come to me where I was like, if I can run this far when it's cold, wet, muddy, hailing and I can't see, what am I going to be able to achieve when it is sunny, when it's warm, when it's when it's easy. And that really kinda taught me like a lesson that, you know, that sometimes in life, it it is hailing. Sometimes in life, it's cold, it's miserable, it's wet. And to accept the set to expect the same standards in summer as you would expect in winter is foolish.
• 11:46
  Like, it's cold, it's wet, it's miserable. Operate in accordance with that. So if things are really challenging for you right now, forget about trying to get to the top of the mountain. Forget about trying to get to 6 figures. Forget about trying to like bring in twenty, thirty, forty, fifty clients or whatever.
• 12:03
  Forget about even trying to just get one in. Just get yourself into a habit of having conversations. Just get yourself into a habit of falling back in love with what this thing is really actually about. Just put one foot in front of the other because I promise you, if you can just get yourself moving forward, you can then get yourself into momentum. And when you get yourself into momentum, eventually things will get easier and life will kind of sweep you up on the current and be like, look, know, I'm gonna give you this helping hand because you, you know, you prove to me that you're like, I am still going to move forward when things are tough and things are challenging.
• 12:38
  So if you are struggling right now, it's alright. You're not alone. You're not the only person struggling. There's nothing wrong with you. You can make it work and you can make it happen, but just keep moving forward.
• 12:51
  Never forget, if every one of your clients gave you one new client, you've doubled your business. Have you got a client who isn't losing weight right now and you have absolutely no idea why? And maybe you're worrying that if nothing changes, they could drop off at any moment. Well, I've got a free nutrition masterclass for you where I reveal the secret nutrition strategy that guarantees that that stuck client loses two to four pounds in the next seven days without lowering their calories, upping their cardio, or even tracking macros. Click the link in the description to get access to the free elite nutrition secrets masterclass and get your client moving in the right direction, stopping them dropping off today.