February 18, 2025 • 19 mins
The online business coaching industry doesn’t want you to succeed — it wants you to stay dependent.
In this episode, I share the truth behind high-ticket coaching, why so many programs fail ambitious leaders, and how to break free from the cycle of feeling “not enough.” I share my own experience with TEDx, speaking and business growth coaches, the moment I stopped following their rules, and the game-changing realization that led to my success. If you’ve ever felt like your ambition is being shrunk instead of supported, this is the wake-up call you need.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Khanspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello, blasphemers, youknow, let me.
Let me take you back for asecond.
I was pitching TEDx talks,probably for about two years,
(00:45):
two years of working withcoaches who were TEDx coaches.
Speaking coaches had year-longprograms, not just one, like
there were several.
I worked with three inparticular.
You know it was all about.
Here's exactly what you need tosay and how you need to say it.
Here's the topics that aretrending.
Here's how you write a keynotethat you can then sell into
other spaces, and blah, blah,blah.
(01:05):
As an aside, that is somethingthat I think a lot of us need to
stop doing.
Right, this thing will allow usto use it in multiple ways
after, when we haven't evengotten the first thing yet right
?
So, for example, if you aretrying to put together a TEDx
talk, don't worry about how youcan leverage that later on until
you get the TEDx talk.
(01:26):
So you know, they're tellingyou all of this stuff and
they're guiding you to writethese keynotes and they're
guiding you to and I mean, I wasin one program where it was
very, very pricey because thisperson was supposedly an expert
and guaranteed you a TEDx talkat the end of it.
And I mean they ended uppivoting their business about
(01:47):
six months into the engagement.
But 30 minutes a month with acoach, and then you're left to
your own devices to figurethings out.
That's not really high ticketcoaching and that's not really
helping anybody.
So all of that aside, all ofthat aside, I spent a lot of
time working with coaches to putthese talks together, and I
(02:08):
wasn't the only one, becauseobviously a lot of these group
programs, they have cohorts andyou get to talk to each other.
So we were not the only ones.
Long story short, didn't get asingle one, did not get a single
TEDx talk, with all of thesehigh-priced, perfectly curated
talks that I paid a lot of moneyfor and did a lot of work to
perfect.
I have five of them in total.
(02:29):
They're still in my hard driveand they are crap.
I look at them and I'm likethis is not even me, but on
paper they look fantastic.
So I stopped because whenyou're pitching events over and
over and over again and you aregetting rejected left, right and
center, it can be a little bitdemoralizing.
I'm human, right.
So I stopped pitching.
I was like I'm going to take abreak.
(02:50):
Then we ended up moving andmid-move we're in an Airbnb and
I'm like you know what?
I saw a TEDx event come up thatwas kind of local to my area,
so I and everything set up, yetI was just working off of my
iPad.
I didn't have access to where Ihad put these talks, but they
weren't working for me anyway.
(03:11):
So I decided you know what fuckthis?
I'm just going to talk aboutwhat I want to talk about.
So I pitched an idea that I hadbeen feeling so deeply on my
own heart and this was kind ofthe space I was in.
The move was a big change.
I was feeling really emotionalabout that and I was feeling a
whole bunch of feelings abouteverything that had transpired
(03:34):
that year 2024, because it was ahard year, right, I had had a
lot of eye-opening experiencesand a lot of wake-up calls and I
just decided I'm just going totalk about what I feel.
A lot of experiences, a lot ofwake-up calls and I just decided
I'm just going to talk aboutwhat I feel.
And so I pitched it andwouldn't you know, I got the
fucking talk.
I got the talk, it got accepted,and I started to think about
(03:55):
why afterwards and it's easy forme to sit here and say I
pitched the talk on my terms,saying exactly what I wanted to
say, and it's kind of true, onmy terms, saying exactly what I
wanted to say.
And it's kind of true, right, Iwas speaking from my heart.
I was speaking to somethingthat look, a lot of you probably
see me as somebody who justspeaks her mind, right, business
(04:17):
blasphemy, she is the dragon,she says whatever she feels like
.
But the reality is I reallyhold a lot back.
If you've been listening to thepodcast or if you follow me in
any capacity, you're probablythinking bullshit, sarah.
No, but it's true, I do.
I hold a lot back, and a lot ofit is because there is still
that fear of like, what arepeople going to think, what are
people going to say?
(04:38):
And you know, this was one ofthose weird moments where I just
didn't care anymore and I saidwhat I truly wanted to talk
about, the very thing that myvery first coach told me not to
talk about because nobody wouldunderstand it.
It was too personal, it was tooemotional and you don't want to
(04:58):
do that because you want peopleto buy into the transformation
and you want people to buy intothe possibility.
And there was some of that inthere.
But I was speaking from myheart.
I truly was.
It wasn't doom and gloom by anystretch of the imagination, but
it was a very honest and rawstory about my experience
getting to this point as a womanof color who is ambitious and
(05:19):
who did all the things, and itgot accepted.
That was the one that resonated.
That was the one that, afterthe event, had young women
coming up to me and saying thankyou, thank you for saying what
we have wanted to say for solong, but we've never been
allowed to say, we've been tooafraid to say out loud it was.
(05:39):
I mean, I've talked about it onthe podcast before just how
emotional that moment was for meand honestly, it was a gut
punch.
It was a huge wake-up callbecause it made me realize
something, not just about how weshow up as people in the online
business space, but it made merealize something about the
entire coaching industry.
(06:01):
So years ago I went on a bit ofa tirade in my blogs, because I
had a blog back then and Italked about how much I hated
self-help, the whole self-helpindustry.
Now, first of all, don't get mewrong, I think self-help is
wonderful.
It's been very, very helpfuland really supportive of people
who need it.
But the way it's been spun overthe decades right, and you have
(06:26):
these gurus in the self-helpspace, your Tony Robbinses and
whatnot who profit off you neverfeeling quite good enough.
You're always just a little bit.
You need a little bit more work, a little bit more work, and
that's fine.
I'm not saying the work everstops, but the mindset work,
that's maintenance work.
(06:46):
Right, that's not the work thatactually fundamentally changes
you at a behavioral level.
It's not.
That's the work you do when youhave begun the change, and now
you're maintaining the change.
But the whole self-helpindustry rely, and I'm talking
about the industry, okay, relieson you never quite feeling good
enough.
And the online coaching space,the online coaching industry, is
(07:08):
exactly the same thing.
It requires you to never feelgood enough.
It requires you to never feelright enough because it needs
you to constantly feel less thanin order to sell to you.
That's the bottom line.
That's the truth.
It is predicated on makingpeople like us bottom line,
(07:28):
that's the truth.
It is predicated on makingpeople like us right, people who
have real visions and whoactually want to leave a mark.
And for all of this to meansomething, it's necessary for us
to never feel like we quite fit.
Your sales aren't good and theybreak it up.
Your sales aren't good enough.
Your messaging isn't goodenough.
Your operations aren't goodenough.
This isn't really like it's.
It's a never ending cycle ofyou need more, you need more.
(07:50):
It's not good enough yet.
Now, yes, I get that.
This is nuanced because youobviously need to continually do
the work.
You're never finished working.
I get that.
But at some point there therehas to be an elevation, and the
entire coaching industry isbuilt to make sure that
elevation doesn't happen,because it requires them to
(08:12):
shift.
We've seen a little bit of thisshift recently, with a lot of
online coaches suddenlyswitching tactics right, and I
mean, I don't know if youremember when vulnerability and
authenticity became a thing,because there was this pushback
against all of the curatedbullshit on Instagram and
whatnot.
So they do kind of pivot alittle bit, but they never
(08:34):
elevate.
And the truth is a lot of thesebusiness coaches cannot handle
big visions.
They tell you they can, right,they promise you they can, but
when you come to them withsomething that is different,
something that requires breakingthe status quo that they have
been benefiting from andprofiting from for so long, they
(08:55):
panic, they start trying toshrink it down, they start
trying to say no, no, no, yougot to clarify it more, you got
to make it digestible, you gotto make it relatable and, like
all of these buzzwords, right,they aren't expanding your
vision, they are dumbing it downso that they can understand it,
because the horrible truth is alot.
(09:17):
I'm not saying all this is neveran all or nothing, but there
are a lot of coaches out therewho did the equivalent of a $7
weekend course and got acertification and they'll call
themselves coaches, and most ofthem never even did that.
They just decided one day thatit was probably easier to coach
than actually making a livingserving people in a different
way Actually, you know, puttingyour fingers on the keyboard, so
(09:38):
to speak.
So I'm going to become a coachbecause I did a thing, so now
I'm going to coach other peopleto do that thing, but I only
know how I did it and not takinginto consideration how my life,
my circumstances, my resources,my time, my energy, my money
all of these things arecompletely different than
everybody else's.
Okay, but they think that it'sjust cookie cutter.
(09:58):
I did it this way.
I'm going to take a cookiecutter of that, put it on your
business and you're going tohave the same success.
And if you don't, well, my dear,you didn't work hard enough.
Maybe your mindset was shit.
That's my favorite one.
Your mindset was shit.
You weren't ready, you weren'tclear.
Honey, the problem is not you.
It's the problem that mostcoaches don't know how to guide
(10:19):
people who are actually leadersat the level they claim to be
teaching at, because most ofthem aren't leaders.
They're good marketers.
They sell a proven methodologyand, yes, you need a methodology
.
You do.
You have to have some kind offramework.
You take people through.
But the problem is 99.9% of theframeworks that are out there
are frameworks based on how thatperson did it and you have to
(10:41):
do it in the exact same way,because they don't know how to
handle the detours.
They don't know how to handlethe things that don't fit.
Instead of trying toaccommodate them, they just cut
them off.
You got to fit in the fuckingbox, because if you don't fit in
the fucking box, I cannot guideyou to the very deliverable
that I'm trying to get you to,not your outcome.
(11:02):
They're deliverable.
There's a difference.
A good framework will help youwalk through certain milestones
like there's a process togetting where you want to go,
but it allows fordifferentiations.
It allows for things to bedifferent.
It allows for people to comewith their own lived experience
(11:25):
and you accommodate for thatbecause it's not a deliverable,
it's an outcome and there's adifference between the two.
Having an idea that doesn't makesense to someone who's only
ever had one idea is not amindset block.
It's a coach who can't see pasttheir own limitations.
And what happens when theyrealize their frameworks don't
(11:46):
work?
On limitations?
And what happens when theyrealize their frameworks don't
work?
Well, now they startessentially doing lifestyle
coaching.
Yes, I can help you make money.
Look at me.
I'm so successful, I'm soglamorous, I live this
incredible life.
I have enormous success.
You should be paying to be inmy proximity, in my energy.
Guess what?
Proximity doesn't do shit.
You still have to do the workyourself.
(12:07):
And this is, I think, where alot of people get stuck.
Because, in my experience, whatI have seen, what I have learned
, is that people who truly,truly have a service heart,
people who truly are buildingthese businesses or trying to
build these businesses, becausethey want to make a difference,
they want to leave an impact,they want this to mean something
, they want to give back, theywant to do good in the world.
(12:30):
We are the ones who feel it themost, because our vision is not
like theirs.
It's not Look, wanting to makemoney is not a value add to a
business, it's an expectation.
And people like us, we don'tjust want to make money, we want
it to mean something.
And that's why, when thesequote, unquote successful
(12:51):
coaches and whatnot, tell youthat your mindset is shit or
you're not working hard enough,or blah, blah, blah, blah, we
take it personally, weinternalize it.
We internalize it because whatelse could it possibly be Like?
Even I've worked with coacheswho at first made me feel really
seen.
They said all the right wordsand they made me feel like, yes,
they understand me, they get it.
(13:11):
Until we got into the work andI realized they were giving me
the exact same advice they weregiving to every other client.
How do I know?
Because their messagingstrategies were the same, their
thought leadership tactics werethe same, their frameworks were
exactly the same.
They were calling themselvesthe same things, but my vision
isn't like theirs and theirsisn't like mine, and yours isn't
(13:32):
either.
This is the problem with thisindustry it's built for people
who are following a game, notfor people who are trying to
redefine it.
And if you are the kind ofperson that sees things
differently, if you know you'relike 10 steps ahead of everybody
else and they're just stilltrying to figure out how to put.
And I know it's hard to get,because a lot of the time you
(13:53):
don't know what you don't knowuntil you know it, and that
requires you being in the spaceof a coach or a program before
you start to realize this isn'treally for me, but you do need
guidance from someone who isn'tthreatened by your ambition, who
isn't going to try to stuff youinto a template because it's
easier for them.
Someone who knows how to honorand sharpen your vision and not
(14:14):
just water it down for them.
Someone who knows how to honorand sharpen your vision and not
just water it down.
So if you're sitting therethinking, okay, sarah, so what
the hell do I do about it?
I wish I had concrete advice.
I don't, but there are a coupleof things you can start to do,
and the very first one is stopoutsourcing your vision to
people who can't hold it.
You have to learn to trustyourself again.
(14:40):
The number of people that havecome to me after working with a
coach and they needed to rebuildthat self-trust, that inner
knowing, I can't even begin totell you.
So many people have been beatendown morally by these coaches.
And so how do you start trustingyourself again?
Well, be really aware of yourfeelings and no, I'm not talking
about leading from yourfeelings, that's not what I'm
talking about.
Like you can't be in yourfeelings and you're making
(15:00):
pragmatic decisions, blah, blah,blah.
But start reacquaintingyourself with the sensations
that are happening in your bodywhen a coach or a mentor or a
consultant or whoever asks youto do a thing a certain way and
you feel some kind of way aboutit.
I want you to pause, take amoment pause and I want you to
(15:22):
ask yourself does this make mefeel icky or does it just feel
hard?
Because a lot of the time whenyou're feeling resistance to
something, you know theresistance is when the coaches
start to gaslight you intothinking that you're not trying
hard enough, you don't want it,blah, blah, blah.
You got to try somethingdifferent.
A lot of the time, thatresistance you're feeling is
(15:44):
actually misalignment with yourvalues, but we often will
misinterpret it as I don't wantit bad enough, I'm not trying
hard enough, I just got tobuckle down, double down and do
it.
You know, no matter how hard itis, there's a very, very
distinct difference betweensomething that is hard and
(16:04):
you're feeling some kind of waybecause it's challenging you to
work outside your comfort zone,and something that is
fundamentally misaligned withyour values and how you want to
work and what you want to do,and if you're quiet long enough,
you can differentiate betweenthe two.
That has got to start beingyour first order of business
(16:27):
whenever you feel resistance, isit because it's hard, or is it
because I really don't want todo that?
Because your gut knows, and themore you can tap into your gut
to make those decisions, or atleast help inform them, the
better you're going to be.
But you got to be really,really honest with yourself,
though.
(16:47):
The other thing you need to dois surround yourself with people
who are going to challenge you,not just affirm you right.
A coach who just cheerleads youis not a helpful coach.
You need someone who's going tochallenge you, not just affirm
you right.
A coach who just cheerleads youis not a helpful coach.
You need someone who's going topush you, who's going to call
you out, who's going to questionyou Not in a way that makes you
feel bad.
All right, that's got to beclear.
Not somebody who's going tomake you feel terrible every
(17:08):
time you get off a call withthem, but someone who is going
to push you in a way that helpsyou realize your potential and
helps you realize how fuckingmagical you actually are, but
not just rah, rah, rah your wayto whatever.
Who's actually going to saylook, I see your vision and I
see how important it is to youand I'm not going to let you off
(17:29):
the hook because you deserve it.
You deserve that.
That's what you need, whetherthey're coaches or biz besties
or just friends, and if peoplein your space are not helping
you feel that way, then you needto start blocking them with
vigor.
Look, this is not meant to be a.
Coaches are bad rant, becausethere are some really great ones
(17:51):
out there.
But if you are feeling likeevery coaching experience has
left you feeling smaller and notbigger, trust that instinct.
You are not the problem.
The industry was just not builtfor women like us.
Now, if this episode resonatedwith you, please share it with a
friend.
(18:11):
Hell, share it with your coach.
See how they react.
You know I really appreciateyou being here and listening to
this and this podcast is mypassion project.
So if this episode resonated, Iwould very, very much
appreciate a share.
I would appreciate a review onApple Podcasts.
(18:32):
And you know what, if you'refeeling extra spicy, leave me a
text.
Head to the show notes andyou'll see a link to do just
that, because, at the end of theday, you can absolutely have
success without the BS, and it'stime we started calling it out.
I'll talk to you next week.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
(18:53):
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
, help a sister out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy, rating thispodcast.
And don't forget to share thepodcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblasphemypodcastcom to
connect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
Welcome to the Business Blasphemy Podcast,
where we question the sacredtruths of the online business
space and the reverence withwhich they're held.
I'm your host, sarah Khanspeaker, strategic consultant
and BS busting badass.
Join me each week as wechallenge the norms, trends and
overall bullshit status quo ofentrepreneurship to uncover what
it really takes to build thebusiness that you want to build
(00:23):
in a way that honors you, yourlife and your vision for what's
possible, and maybe piss off afew gurus along the way.
So if you're ready to commitbusiness blasphemy, let's do it.
Hello, hello, blasphemers, youknow, let me.
Let me take you back for asecond.
I was pitching TEDx talks,probably for about two years,
(00:45):
two years of working withcoaches who were TEDx coaches.
Speaking coaches had year-longprograms, not just one, like
there were several.
I worked with three inparticular.
You know it was all about.
Here's exactly what you need tosay and how you need to say it.
Here's the topics that aretrending.
Here's how you write a keynotethat you can then sell into
other spaces, and blah, blah,blah.
(01:05):
As an aside, that is somethingthat I think a lot of us need to
stop doing.
Right, this thing will allow usto use it in multiple ways
after, when we haven't evengotten the first thing yet right
?
So, for example, if you aretrying to put together a TEDx
talk, don't worry about how youcan leverage that later on until
you get the TEDx talk.
(01:26):
So you know, they're tellingyou all of this stuff and
they're guiding you to writethese keynotes and they're
guiding you to and I mean, I wasin one program where it was
very, very pricey because thisperson was supposedly an expert
and guaranteed you a TEDx talkat the end of it.
And I mean they ended uppivoting their business about
(01:47):
six months into the engagement.
But 30 minutes a month with acoach, and then you're left to
your own devices to figurethings out.
That's not really high ticketcoaching and that's not really
helping anybody.
So all of that aside, all ofthat aside, I spent a lot of
time working with coaches to putthese talks together, and I
(02:08):
wasn't the only one, becauseobviously a lot of these group
programs, they have cohorts andyou get to talk to each other.
So we were not the only ones.
Long story short, didn't get asingle one, did not get a single
TEDx talk, with all of thesehigh-priced, perfectly curated
talks that I paid a lot of moneyfor and did a lot of work to
perfect.
I have five of them in total.
(02:29):
They're still in my hard driveand they are crap.
I look at them and I'm likethis is not even me, but on
paper they look fantastic.
So I stopped because whenyou're pitching events over and
over and over again and you aregetting rejected left, right and
center, it can be a little bitdemoralizing.
I'm human, right.
So I stopped pitching.
I was like I'm going to take abreak.
(02:50):
Then we ended up moving andmid-move we're in an Airbnb and
I'm like you know what?
I saw a TEDx event come up thatwas kind of local to my area,
so I and everything set up, yetI was just working off of my
iPad.
I didn't have access to where Ihad put these talks, but they
weren't working for me anyway.
(03:11):
So I decided you know what fuckthis?
I'm just going to talk aboutwhat I want to talk about.
So I pitched an idea that I hadbeen feeling so deeply on my
own heart and this was kind ofthe space I was in.
The move was a big change.
I was feeling really emotionalabout that and I was feeling a
whole bunch of feelings abouteverything that had transpired
(03:34):
that year 2024, because it was ahard year, right, I had had a
lot of eye-opening experiencesand a lot of wake-up calls and I
just decided I'm just going totalk about what I feel.
A lot of experiences, a lot ofwake-up calls and I just decided
I'm just going to talk aboutwhat I feel.
And so I pitched it andwouldn't you know, I got the
fucking talk.
I got the talk, it got accepted,and I started to think about
(03:55):
why afterwards and it's easy forme to sit here and say I
pitched the talk on my terms,saying exactly what I wanted to
say, and it's kind of true, onmy terms, saying exactly what I
wanted to say.
And it's kind of true, right, Iwas speaking from my heart.
I was speaking to somethingthat look, a lot of you probably
see me as somebody who justspeaks her mind, right, business
(04:17):
blasphemy, she is the dragon,she says whatever she feels like
.
But the reality is I reallyhold a lot back.
If you've been listening to thepodcast or if you follow me in
any capacity, you're probablythinking bullshit, sarah.
No, but it's true, I do.
I hold a lot back, and a lot ofit is because there is still
that fear of like, what arepeople going to think, what are
people going to say?
(04:38):
And you know, this was one ofthose weird moments where I just
didn't care anymore and I saidwhat I truly wanted to talk
about, the very thing that myvery first coach told me not to
talk about because nobody wouldunderstand it.
It was too personal, it was tooemotional and you don't want to
(04:58):
do that because you want peopleto buy into the transformation
and you want people to buy intothe possibility.
And there was some of that inthere.
But I was speaking from myheart.
I truly was.
It wasn't doom and gloom by anystretch of the imagination, but
it was a very honest and rawstory about my experience
getting to this point as a womanof color who is ambitious and
(05:19):
who did all the things, and itgot accepted.
That was the one that resonated.
That was the one that, afterthe event, had young women
coming up to me and saying thankyou, thank you for saying what
we have wanted to say for solong, but we've never been
allowed to say, we've been tooafraid to say out loud it was.
(05:39):
I mean, I've talked about it onthe podcast before just how
emotional that moment was for meand honestly, it was a gut
punch.
It was a huge wake-up callbecause it made me realize
something, not just about how weshow up as people in the online
business space, but it made merealize something about the
entire coaching industry.
(06:01):
So years ago I went on a bit ofa tirade in my blogs, because I
had a blog back then and Italked about how much I hated
self-help, the whole self-helpindustry.
Now, first of all, don't get mewrong, I think self-help is
wonderful.
It's been very, very helpfuland really supportive of people
who need it.
But the way it's been spun overthe decades right, and you have
(06:26):
these gurus in the self-helpspace, your Tony Robbinses and
whatnot who profit off you neverfeeling quite good enough.
You're always just a little bit.
You need a little bit more work, a little bit more work, and
that's fine.
I'm not saying the work everstops, but the mindset work,
that's maintenance work.
(06:46):
Right, that's not the work thatactually fundamentally changes
you at a behavioral level.
It's not.
That's the work you do when youhave begun the change, and now
you're maintaining the change.
But the whole self-helpindustry rely, and I'm talking
about the industry, okay, relieson you never quite feeling good
enough.
And the online coaching space,the online coaching industry, is
(07:08):
exactly the same thing.
It requires you to never feelgood enough.
It requires you to never feelright enough because it needs
you to constantly feel less thanin order to sell to you.
That's the bottom line.
That's the truth.
It is predicated on makingpeople like us bottom line,
(07:28):
that's the truth.
It is predicated on makingpeople like us right, people who
have real visions and whoactually want to leave a mark.
And for all of this to meansomething, it's necessary for us
to never feel like we quite fit.
Your sales aren't good and theybreak it up.
Your sales aren't good enough.
Your messaging isn't goodenough.
Your operations aren't goodenough.
This isn't really like it's.
It's a never ending cycle ofyou need more, you need more.
(07:50):
It's not good enough yet.
Now, yes, I get that.
This is nuanced because youobviously need to continually do
the work.
You're never finished working.
I get that.
But at some point there therehas to be an elevation, and the
entire coaching industry isbuilt to make sure that
elevation doesn't happen,because it requires them to
(08:12):
shift.
We've seen a little bit of thisshift recently, with a lot of
online coaches suddenlyswitching tactics right, and I
mean, I don't know if youremember when vulnerability and
authenticity became a thing,because there was this pushback
against all of the curatedbullshit on Instagram and
whatnot.
So they do kind of pivot alittle bit, but they never
(08:34):
elevate.
And the truth is a lot of thesebusiness coaches cannot handle
big visions.
They tell you they can, right,they promise you they can, but
when you come to them withsomething that is different,
something that requires breakingthe status quo that they have
been benefiting from andprofiting from for so long, they
(08:55):
panic, they start trying toshrink it down, they start
trying to say no, no, no, yougot to clarify it more, you got
to make it digestible, you gotto make it relatable and, like
all of these buzzwords, right,they aren't expanding your
vision, they are dumbing it downso that they can understand it,
because the horrible truth is alot.
(09:17):
I'm not saying all this is neveran all or nothing, but there
are a lot of coaches out therewho did the equivalent of a $7
weekend course and got acertification and they'll call
themselves coaches, and most ofthem never even did that.
They just decided one day thatit was probably easier to coach
than actually making a livingserving people in a different
way Actually, you know, puttingyour fingers on the keyboard, so
(09:38):
to speak.
So I'm going to become a coachbecause I did a thing, so now
I'm going to coach other peopleto do that thing, but I only
know how I did it and not takinginto consideration how my life,
my circumstances, my resources,my time, my energy, my money
all of these things arecompletely different than
everybody else's.
Okay, but they think that it'sjust cookie cutter.
(09:58):
I did it this way.
I'm going to take a cookiecutter of that, put it on your
business and you're going tohave the same success.
And if you don't, well, my dear,you didn't work hard enough.
Maybe your mindset was shit.
That's my favorite one.
Your mindset was shit.
You weren't ready, you weren'tclear.
Honey, the problem is not you.
It's the problem that mostcoaches don't know how to guide
(10:19):
people who are actually leadersat the level they claim to be
teaching at, because most ofthem aren't leaders.
They're good marketers.
They sell a proven methodologyand, yes, you need a methodology
.
You do.
You have to have some kind offramework.
You take people through.
But the problem is 99.9% of theframeworks that are out there
are frameworks based on how thatperson did it and you have to
(10:41):
do it in the exact same way,because they don't know how to
handle the detours.
They don't know how to handlethe things that don't fit.
Instead of trying toaccommodate them, they just cut
them off.
You got to fit in the fuckingbox, because if you don't fit in
the fucking box, I cannot guideyou to the very deliverable
that I'm trying to get you to,not your outcome.
(11:02):
They're deliverable.
There's a difference.
A good framework will help youwalk through certain milestones
like there's a process togetting where you want to go,
but it allows fordifferentiations.
It allows for things to bedifferent.
It allows for people to comewith their own lived experience
(11:25):
and you accommodate for thatbecause it's not a deliverable,
it's an outcome and there's adifference between the two.
Having an idea that doesn't makesense to someone who's only
ever had one idea is not amindset block.
It's a coach who can't see pasttheir own limitations.
And what happens when theyrealize their frameworks don't
(11:46):
work?
On limitations?
And what happens when theyrealize their frameworks don't
work?
Well, now they startessentially doing lifestyle
coaching.
Yes, I can help you make money.
Look at me.
I'm so successful, I'm soglamorous, I live this
incredible life.
I have enormous success.
You should be paying to be inmy proximity, in my energy.
Guess what?
Proximity doesn't do shit.
You still have to do the workyourself.
(12:07):
And this is, I think, where alot of people get stuck.
Because, in my experience, whatI have seen, what I have learned
, is that people who truly,truly have a service heart,
people who truly are buildingthese businesses or trying to
build these businesses, becausethey want to make a difference,
they want to leave an impact,they want this to mean something
, they want to give back, theywant to do good in the world.
(12:30):
We are the ones who feel it themost, because our vision is not
like theirs.
It's not Look, wanting to makemoney is not a value add to a
business, it's an expectation.
And people like us, we don'tjust want to make money, we want
it to mean something.
And that's why, when thesequote, unquote successful
(12:51):
coaches and whatnot, tell youthat your mindset is shit or
you're not working hard enough,or blah, blah, blah, blah, we
take it personally, weinternalize it.
We internalize it because whatelse could it possibly be Like?
Even I've worked with coacheswho at first made me feel really
seen.
They said all the right wordsand they made me feel like, yes,
they understand me, they get it.
(13:11):
Until we got into the work andI realized they were giving me
the exact same advice they weregiving to every other client.
How do I know?
Because their messagingstrategies were the same, their
thought leadership tactics werethe same, their frameworks were
exactly the same.
They were calling themselvesthe same things, but my vision
isn't like theirs and theirsisn't like mine, and yours isn't
(13:32):
either.
This is the problem with thisindustry it's built for people
who are following a game, notfor people who are trying to
redefine it.
And if you are the kind ofperson that sees things
differently, if you know you'relike 10 steps ahead of everybody
else and they're just stilltrying to figure out how to put.
And I know it's hard to get,because a lot of the time you
(13:53):
don't know what you don't knowuntil you know it, and that
requires you being in the spaceof a coach or a program before
you start to realize this isn'treally for me, but you do need
guidance from someone who isn'tthreatened by your ambition, who
isn't going to try to stuff youinto a template because it's
easier for them.
Someone who knows how to honorand sharpen your vision and not
(14:14):
just water it down for them.
Someone who knows how to honorand sharpen your vision and not
just water it down.
So if you're sitting therethinking, okay, sarah, so what
the hell do I do about it?
I wish I had concrete advice.
I don't, but there are a coupleof things you can start to do,
and the very first one is stopoutsourcing your vision to
people who can't hold it.
You have to learn to trustyourself again.
(14:40):
The number of people that havecome to me after working with a
coach and they needed to rebuildthat self-trust, that inner
knowing, I can't even begin totell you.
So many people have been beatendown morally by these coaches.
And so how do you start trustingyourself again?
Well, be really aware of yourfeelings and no, I'm not talking
about leading from yourfeelings, that's not what I'm
talking about.
Like you can't be in yourfeelings and you're making
(15:00):
pragmatic decisions, blah, blah,blah.
But start reacquaintingyourself with the sensations
that are happening in your bodywhen a coach or a mentor or a
consultant or whoever asks youto do a thing a certain way and
you feel some kind of way aboutit.
I want you to pause, take amoment pause and I want you to
(15:22):
ask yourself does this make mefeel icky or does it just feel
hard?
Because a lot of the time whenyou're feeling resistance to
something, you know theresistance is when the coaches
start to gaslight you intothinking that you're not trying
hard enough, you don't want it,blah, blah, blah.
You got to try somethingdifferent.
A lot of the time, thatresistance you're feeling is
(15:44):
actually misalignment with yourvalues, but we often will
misinterpret it as I don't wantit bad enough, I'm not trying
hard enough, I just got tobuckle down, double down and do
it.
You know, no matter how hard itis, there's a very, very
distinct difference betweensomething that is hard and
(16:04):
you're feeling some kind of waybecause it's challenging you to
work outside your comfort zone,and something that is
fundamentally misaligned withyour values and how you want to
work and what you want to do,and if you're quiet long enough,
you can differentiate betweenthe two.
That has got to start beingyour first order of business
(16:27):
whenever you feel resistance, isit because it's hard, or is it
because I really don't want todo that?
Because your gut knows, and themore you can tap into your gut
to make those decisions, or atleast help inform them, the
better you're going to be.
But you got to be really,really honest with yourself,
though.
(16:47):
The other thing you need to dois surround yourself with people
who are going to challenge you,not just affirm you right.
A coach who just cheerleads youis not a helpful coach.
You need someone who's going tochallenge you, not just affirm
you right.
A coach who just cheerleads youis not a helpful coach.
You need someone who's going topush you, who's going to call
you out, who's going to questionyou Not in a way that makes you
feel bad.
All right, that's got to beclear.
Not somebody who's going tomake you feel terrible every
(17:08):
time you get off a call withthem, but someone who is going
to push you in a way that helpsyou realize your potential and
helps you realize how fuckingmagical you actually are, but
not just rah, rah, rah your wayto whatever.
Who's actually going to saylook, I see your vision and I
see how important it is to youand I'm not going to let you off
(17:29):
the hook because you deserve it.
You deserve that.
That's what you need, whetherthey're coaches or biz besties
or just friends, and if peoplein your space are not helping
you feel that way, then you needto start blocking them with
vigor.
Look, this is not meant to be a.
Coaches are bad rant, becausethere are some really great ones
(17:51):
out there.
But if you are feeling likeevery coaching experience has
left you feeling smaller and notbigger, trust that instinct.
You are not the problem.
The industry was just not builtfor women like us.
Now, if this episode resonatedwith you, please share it with a
friend.
(18:11):
Hell, share it with your coach.
See how they react.
You know I really appreciateyou being here and listening to
this and this podcast is mypassion project.
So if this episode resonated, Iwould very, very much
appreciate a share.
I would appreciate a review onApple Podcasts.
(18:32):
And you know what, if you'refeeling extra spicy, leave me a
text.
Head to the show notes andyou'll see a link to do just
that, because, at the end of theday, you can absolutely have
success without the BS, and it'stime we started calling it out.
I'll talk to you next week.
That's it for this week.
Thanks for listening to theBusiness Blasphemy Podcast.
(18:53):
We'll be back next week with anew episode, but in the meantime
, help a sister out bysubscribing and, if you're
feeling extra sassy, rating thispodcast.
And don't forget to share thepodcast with others.
Head over tobusinessblasphemypodcastcom to
connect with us and learn more.
Thanks for listening andremember you can have success
without the BS.
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