Ep #361: Uncertainty Tolerance

Welcome to the Make Money as a Life Coach® podcast where sales expert and Master Coach Stacey Boehman teaches you how to make your first $2k, $20k, and $200k using her proven formula.

Hi coaches, welcome to episode 361. So excited to be back here with you, podcasting. After 12 weeks, I feel like I have so much to say. I’m really excited.

Today, we’re going to talk about uncertainty tolerance, and I am certain it’s going to change your life. And then I have coming out, a 10 podcast, 10 episode podcast series, a little bit of a tongue twister, for my top, if I could narrow down top 10 lessons for the last 10 years that I’ve been in business. And so we’re going to be airing those coming up, and I’m really excited about them. I think there’s going to be some extraordinary learning and encouragement in those episodes. So I hope that you tune in.

But I feel really compelled to share this message today. I am in The Revenue Challenge. This is something that I do with my 200k Mastermind and my 2 Million Dollar Group every round that I run these Masterminds. So this is a high-level, advanced concept challenge skill set that I teach.

I believe the lesson I’m going to share today is life-changing and business-changing, for lack of just better words from the ground up. Like, if you’ve never made a dollar, this episode is for you. And if you are wanting to create your first 100k launch or your next million-dollar launch, this episode is for you.

I’m going to give some examples of even me and my business recently in the last couple of years throughout this episode. So I can’t stress it enough. No matter where you are in your business, listen to this episode, and what I’m going to share with you, it could be the thing that unlocks for you. So tolerance for uncertainty. Let’s talk about it. 

So when you have a goal, let’s talk about a finite goal. That’s what we’re doing in The Revenue Challenge. So that’s what I consider like a more of an infinite goal, like a year-long goal, like, oh, I want to make 100k in a year. It just feels like such a long amount of time, even though it is a finite period of time. It feels like such a long period of time. It’s really easy to just believe it’s going to happen and then suddenly it doesn’t. And this is what happens with a lot of people.

But when we’re talking about a 30 day period or a one-launch period, when we’re talking about a condensed amount of time, I always say like, That’s when the shit gets real, y’all. When there’s a time frame on it. But I am going to give examples of even a year. But when you have a goal in a period of time, a finite period of time, there will be a large amount of uncertainty that comes up, a large amount of uncertainty present between what you want, the action, and you are taking to get it and the time that you’re putting in to get it, and then the result coming in.

So you desire something, you go after it, and in that going after it, even in the desiring something, the going after it, and then the time between when the results come in, all of that time, think about it. All of that time is uncertainty. I want to start a business. I don’t know if I can. I want to sign my first client. I don’t know if I can. Will I make it in business? Will I be able to make money? Will I be able to replace the income of my job? Will I be able to make 100k this year? Will I be able to do my first launch and sell out my group program? Right? It’s all uncertainty.

And what happens when you are actively going after something in a finite period of time, the closer you get to the finish line, the less your brain is going to want to tolerate all of that uncertainty. Especially if you’re really resistant to the not knowing.

So this tends to be people who really need to know, right? People who would typically go the, get a full time job, corporate route, school route, like certainty, makes me feel safe. There are people, entrepreneurs tend to be people, who have higher risk tolerance, but I think the world is now kind of gravitating towards entrepreneurship. So a lot of people are jumping on board and not really, maybe they don’t have this developed yet, or they don’t realize this is required, but I just see it come up a lot. Even the people that are the most risk-tolerant still experience this. This feeling of, I don’t know what’s going to happen.

And so you have a large amount of this that comes up in your body, that feeling. And if you are resisting it because it doesn’t feel good, because it’s scary, because you don’t have power over it, you feel like you don’t have control, right? You experience the loss of control in uncertainty.

If this feels like a really scary place, if this takes your body into fight or flight, like if you have any, like if there’s not allowance, like anything that isn’t allowance of uncertainty, the closer you get to the finish line, the more tired your brain will get of dealing with the uncertainty and resisting it and not allowing it.

And even when you’re allowing it, I still feel like, from my experiences, like I’ve had years where I’m allowing uncertainty, and it’s a constant bringing my brain back to tolerating it because my brain just doesn’t want to tolerate it. I think all of our brains don’t want to tolerate it.

So as you’re doing this, the closer you get to the finish line, the less your brain is going to want to tolerate the uncertainty. So what it does is it’s going to want to give you a prediction of the end result in order to end the uncertainty. It’s going to want you to go ahead and believe as probability what it’s predicting the outcome will be. Like this is probably what’s going to happen so that you, if you can see it, like, okay, I see the finish line, I see what I think is going to happen, then I can get into certainty and I can have relief.

And it will start organizing proof to show you that it’s right about what it’s certain of. So you’re in this finite period of goal setting and taking action. The result hasn’t come in yet. You’re getting closer and closer to the designated time period you gave yourself. You haven’t seen results yet, or maybe you’ve seen results, but not results that maybe match up what you’re expecting or what you’re trying to create. The uncertainty starts really stacking, like you’re really feeling the heaviness of it. Your brain is not tolerating it, not wanting the uncertainty. So it starts organizing the proof to show you, like, here you go, I’m certain of this thing, this outcome, and here’s all the proof to match what I believe is going to be the outcome.

The problem is, our brain is not set to do that for positive outcomes. So our brain isn’t designed to say, there’s a lot of uncertainty. I don’t know if this is going to happen. I don’t know if this is going to happen. Here’s all the proof that it’s going to happen. I wish our brains did that. I wish our brains when we were in the middle of it, in the thick of it. I wish it was designed to offer us positive feedback.

Look, here’s how we know it’s going to happen. Look at this positive outcome. Did you see this traction you got here? I mean, that was really positive engagement. That seemed to be working. I think you’re going to make it, girlfriend. Let’s go. Keep going. You’ve got this. Here’s all the evidence I have for why it’s going to work out. I wish that our brains did that. Some of you might have brains that do that. My brain does not do this, and the bulk, the majority of the people that I coach on a weekly basis, their brains don’t do this either. 

Their brains do the opposite, right? The proof is always the probable outcome is always that you’re going to fail, right? Probable outcome failure. Here’s all of the evidence that I’m going to show you to prove that’s correct, right? That you aren’t going to create what you want.

And if you haven’t been looking for tangible proof of the opposite, that you will succeed and that you are going to create what you want, like if you haven’t been gathering evidence along the way or creating evidence in your brain, reinforcing that it’s going to happen, if you haven’t been seeing any traction yet, right? If you haven’t been getting feedback that it is happening, you haven’t been having engagement and having people reach out that they’re interested, and having people book consults or having people click on your sales page.

If you haven’t been getting that, you’ll be very inclined to grasp for the certainty of failure to release you from the tension in your brain and your body of holding the uncertainty. You would rather grab the, this is just our brains, grab the certainty of failure than hold the uncertainty of possible success, the closer you get to the finish line, if it looks like or even feels like there could be a remote potential for a missed expectation, a disappointment, or a failure.

So this could look like, I have no consultations on the books, and I’m getting close to my deadline for my goal. I haven’t made any money yet. I’ve been at this for three weeks, and there’s no traction. It’s the final day of my launch, and I’m not even close to my goals. We just started the launch, and the sales are already down from what I expected. So I’m already failing, right?

Your brain would rather grab for the certainty of loss than keep tolerating the uncertainty of potential loss or potential win. It’s wild. The loss feels too heavy to hold, and the possibility to win feels too small to be true. So we just are like, okay, it’s got to be a fail. You give in, you fold, you quit, you grab the certainty that it isn’t happening this time either. I can’t tell you how many people have said, I just, I don’t goal set because every time I try, I always fail.

And I’m always wondering, did you really fail? Like what was the fail? Was the fail, I gave it absolutely everything my all. I stayed in belief the entire time. I evaluated and kept taking more action, kept getting more creative, kept problem-solving at the highest level possible. I saw it all the way through the finish line, extended the finish line, kept going. Like, did you really? Or at what point did you give up? Did you stop putting energy, stop putting value, stop connecting to it, stop believing, stop serving?

Like, it isn’t happening this time either, is more like, I didn’t happen this time either. And then what happens is the cycle of the result not happening is just reinforced again in your brain. Right? Like, see, I can’t do it. It didn’t happen again. So the probability of it ever happening is even smaller and then each attempt after you go in with a higher amount of certainty that you’re going to fail and a higher amount of uncertainty tolerance, like I just can’t handle any more potential like potentialness to fail. I can’t handle the unknown because I believe so deeply the unknown is going to be bad that the unknown feels so terrible, right? I’ve tried this many times and it’s never worked.

Versus, you could say the reality from this moment on could be, I’ve not yet developed the tolerance for this uncertainty. So I keep grabbing for the certainty of failure and then proving it to myself through my thinking, through my actions, through the way I feel while I try to go after this goal.

Which is not the same, right? You grabbing for the certainty of failure so that you don’t have to feel uncertainty, you quitting ahead of time, you reinforcing that it’s not going to happen. That version of you, even if you’re like getting your body to still take action and make offers and send emails and go live and write podcasts, that version of you is not the same version of, of course I’m going to do this. Of course I’m going to win. I’m totally going to create this result. I’m so excited.

Like I always say, when you believe you’re in demand and you believe your offer is in demand and you believe you will create the result, it’s like you’re hosting the best party ever and you’ve got so many RSVPs and you know the party is going to be amazing. The thought that you put into it into creating it and designing it, hosting it, everything is so high because you’re just so excited. That’s not the version that we bring to ourself to our goals most often.

And I know that this might sound crazy, right? That we would rather the known, even if it feels crappy or is unhealthy, we would rather that than the unknown. We would rather, our brain actually create safety in believing we’re going to fail for ourselves. It actually creates more safety there than leaning into belief that you could do it. You will feel more unsafe leaning into positive expectation than you will negative expectation.

It’s wild, and this is how our brain operates. It feels safer with negative expectation. It feels safer with the certainty that you will fail than facing the uncertainty and keeping going, not knowing if you’re going to fail or not.

We tell ourselves subconsciously, I’d rather just know I’m going to fail and be done with it than deal with how the uncertainty feels in my body. And we tell ourselves we’re crazy or impractical to believe in the positive wanted outcomes without proof. Like anytime you say I’m kidding myself, that’s you telling yourself you’re crazy and impractical for believing a positive wanted outcome. That’s what you’re telling yourself.

But most money made for the first time or more money than you’ve ever made before for the first time isn’t going to be known. Entrepreneurship does not have yellow flashing lights pointing you in the right direction. It feels more like you’re blindfolded, stumbling in the dark, hands out, trying not to fall, and believing that whole time that you’re going to find your way, no matter how many things you knock into.

So you have to maintain certainty in the positive wanted outcome through the finish line, beyond the finish line. The moment you give up and you stop trying, you drop your energy, you drop your service, you stop problem-solving, you stop thinking creative, you stop connecting, you release the desire for the outcome because you tell yourself it’s not possible. So why would I desire something that it’s not possible? It’s all gone. Poof.

And anything that you had built up and you had going for you, much of which was probably invisible to you, growing under the surface, all of that stops. It’s like you’re boiling water, and the moment you turn the heat down, the boil stops. But it’s not that the water wasn’t actually boiling. You turn the heat down. Or that you can’t boil water. You turn the heat down, right?

The problem is in entrepreneurship and in making money, we can’t see the boiling point. It happens sometimes quite invisibly. It’s like, nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening, nothing’s happening, bam, client shows up out of nowhere.

I actually have a podcast about this, where I had students record their stories of signing clients out of nowhere. No expectation, had no idea someone was following them and paying attention to them, no idea someone was considering coaching with them. Bam, client shows up, reaches out. “I’ve been following you for a long time. I think I’m ready for coaching.” You can go find that episode and listen to it. It’s such proof of this conversation. 

I had a client recently that was failing webinar after webinar after webinar, and then they just got their first five sales on their webinar without doing a consult, on the webinar, five people sending payment notifications coming in, no indication that was going to happen.

So you have to keep going through the finish line with belief, with positive expectation, giving the service, problem-solving the whole way, thinking creatively, connecting, holding the desire, serving the whole time. But in order to do that, the thing you have to develop is the tolerance for uncertainty.

Yes, you might not get the result you want. That’s true. Tell your brain that. You’re right, brain. It’s a lot of uncertainty. I might not get what I want. It is possible. Right? I have a 50/50 chance. But this is what I ask myself, and this is what I ask my clients when we’re in this Challenge.

In The Revenue Challenge specifically, but in general when I’m coaching them, I ask them this question. Who do you want to be in the middle? Who do you want to be in the uncertainty? Like, how do you want to show up to uncertainty in your life? I think this is a question to deeply contemplate. This is something to really take an hour, take 30 minutes, take 20 minutes, it doesn’t even have to take a long time, but start a journal prompt. Go take a walk. It doesn’t even have to be, you don’t have to write it down. Go take a walk. Ponder it in the shower. Who do I want to be in uncertainty?

I always say a true leader and a true coach is someone who can go into any uncertain situation and they bring the certainty. So what does that look like? What’s that look like for you? What’s that look like for all of us?

So what can you be certain of in the uncertainty? Can you be certain of you giving 100% of you through the finish line? Like, I don’t know what’s going to happen with other people. I don’t know if they’re going to buy this offer. I don’t know if they’re going to sign up in as many of them as I anticipated. I don’t know if this is going to land, but what I know is I’m going to go 100% through the finish line. Can you be certain of your ability to tolerate uncertainty?

This is something I know about myself as I’ve developed this a lot recently. Like I have really upped my level of tolerating the uncertainty. And so I know, I’ve told my husband at least three or four times recently, like, can you believe this thing? Like where we were, the tangible result that maybe we’ve had at different times in our lives, and then where we are now and how much uncertainty we faced to get here. Like, I am a master at tolerating uncertainty. I’m like, can you believe your wife did this? Can you believe your wife did that? Pumping myself up all the time. My own cheerleading squad.

Can you be certain of the value you offer? Like if anything else, could you be like, I am certain of how good I am of a coach, or I am certain of how much I fight for my clients. I am certain of the value of coaching. If you don’t have any of these things, start developing it. What am I certain of when it comes to the value of coaching? What am I certain of when it comes to me as someone’s coach? What am I certain of if someone invests in themselves and tries this thing called coaching for them? Like, just start asking yourself, what am I certain of? What am I certain of when it comes to my offer? What am I certain of my level of service?

People think this is crazy, but for a very long time in my business, not anymore, but for a very long time in my business, eight years, nine years-ish, I had money-back guarantees on every single one of my offers. And I sold my 2k for 2k program to so far to date, like over 6,000 people. And I’ve sold my 200k Mastermind to over a thousand people. You don’t create at least $2k, you don’t create at least $25k, I’m going to give you that money back. What? How could you do that? How could you ever make that offer? The level of certainty I have.

I used to think to myself, like, listen, I know they’re going to create $25k, but what I know to be true is even if they don’t, I’m going to get them on calls and I’m going to coach them until they do. I used to create Make Your Money Back calls in the 200k, and we would start them like eight weeks out from the end of the mastermind and I would only invite people on that hadn’t made their money back yet. And I’d be like, okay, we’re coaching all the way through the finish line. And the only people on this call are the same people in the same boat as you and we’re just coaching on the same thing over and over and every single one of you is getting across the finish line.

That was certainty in myself. So I could tolerate offering a program where, at the end, I might have coached someone for six months straight and then given them all of their money back. Like, what? I am certain in that of myself. I am certain in my product. I know that my products are so good, I could put that on them.

The only reason I don’t anymore is because now I’m certain of how I want to feel in my containers and the type of client I want to work with. And I want to work with someone who has risk tolerance because they’re better entrepreneurs and they have more success.

So now I’m certain of my best client, so I don’t need to offer any, I don’t need that guarantee anymore. Because I’m like, my best client doesn’t need it. So I’m certain of myself. Now I’m certain of my best client. So what are you certain of? Are you certain of the connection that you feel to your people? I am certain of that. I am certain that I’m so connected to them that I will always know the thing that I need to say to them. I won’t run out of ideas, and I won’t run out of coaching. Can you feel certain that you will keep problem-solving and won’t quit?

Right? This is even in the uncertainty. So I’m not talking about creating certainty so that you don’t have to feel uncertainty. I am saying when you are in the uncertainty and you don’t have full control over the outcome and you don’t know what’s going to happen yet, can you hold that and tolerate it while also knowing on the other, like in one hand, you’re holding and tolerating uncertainty, and yeah, I might fail, and yeah, this may not end the way I want, yeah, this might suck, yeah, I might feel disappointed, yeah, this is uncomfortable.

And in the other hand, can you be like, and you know what, even though I don’t know any of this stuff, here’s what I do know. I feel certain that I’m going to keep problem-solving and that I’m not going to quit. Can you be certain that you want to enjoy and be proud of your actions, no matter what results they’re creating?

I tell my clients this all the time. I had this powerful realization, like within the last year or so, two years, that I like myself better when I’m in belief. I like myself better when I’m working really hard for something. I like myself more when I’m expanding my capacity. I like myself more when I’m showing up and fighting for what I want, giving it my all, and getting up and going after any fail. I love myself more in my resilience than weakness. I like myself more when I overcome excuses and obstacles versus giving to them. I have a better experience of being me in my body when I live this way, when I have this experience. I love me in my power and in my willingness to tolerate uncertainty. I love me more in that than my intolerance to uncertainty and my mental weakness. I can’t handle this. I’m not capable. I don’t have the capacity. I don’t like that version of myself.

Have you ever stopped and thought about that? Like, do you enjoy the version of yourself that tells yourself I’m not capable, I can’t do this, it’s not possible for me, I don’t have the capacity? Like when you say that out loud, I’ve maxed out my capacity, do you enjoy that version of you?

Because at the end of the day, I was telling my students in The Revenue Challenge, so much of The Revenue Challenge is capacity work, so much of it. How many times in The Revenue Challenge are they telling themselves I can’t do this, I don’t have the time, I don’t have the energy?

I asked them on call one, we’ve done so far at the time of recording, we’ve done two of the seven calls, and on call one I asked them, if you were to quit or back away from this challenge and not go all the way through and disappear and not show up for the coaching and stop engaging with the goal, why would you do it? Like, what would be the thing? Like, let’s go ahead and know it ahead of time, the thing that’s going to try to take you out of this challenge.

The biggest response I got, the most people said, time and energy. I’ll tell myself I don’t have the time, I’ll tell myself I don’t have the energy. Do you enjoy that version of yourself the most? Do you like that version of you? I don’t like that version of me. I know that.

So just for my experience of it all, regardless of whatever I create a result, what I know is I’m going to tolerate the uncertainty because to me, the version of me who doesn’t is the actual intolerable thing. Like our brain is saying, Oh, I can’t tolerate certainty. No, no, no. I can’t tolerate mental weakness inside of me. I can’t tolerate being less of me. I can’t tolerate my excuses and obstacles. I can’t tolerate my bullshit. I can’t tolerate wanting something and then not doing anything about it. Like that’s what I can’t tolerate. I can handle some uncertainty along the way. I can handle that. But I can’t handle the me who doesn’t try. I can’t handle the me who gives up, the me who is out of my power. That’s my truth for me. I think you should explore this for you.

And listen, I can actually tolerate and handle that version of myself, and many of us are, right? Right now, we are tolerating mental weakness inside of ourselves. We are tolerating quitting on ourselves. We’re tolerating less than what we know we’re capable of. We’re tolerating telling ourselves we don’t have the capacity, that we don’t have the time, that we don’t have the energy. We’re tolerating all kinds of less than how we should be living. We’re tolerating making less money than we should be making. We’re tolerating less success than we should have. We’re tolerating less happiness than we should have. We’re tolerating less peace, less balance, less enjoyment of life. We’re tolerating so much, right? We actually can handle it. We have lots of practice in it. We know what it’s about. I just don’t want to anymore.

So the road to your most powerful self, who will coincidentally be the version of you that you probably enjoy the most, is being willing to stand strong in the face of uncertainty. And can you be willing to feel that in your body for a short period of time, for a long period of time, for as long as it takes? A day to start out, a week to start out? What about a year? A whole year of uncertainty.

I was just coaching on this, and so right now I have the public challenge that I’m running where people can join, and even if they’re not my higher-level masterminds, get a taste of what this is, this work is like, and these types of conversations. But then I also have calls in my 200k Mastermind that are just for my 200k students, and I have calls for my 2 Million Dollar Group that are just for them, where they can get coaching on this as well.

And I was in my 2 Million Dollar Group, and we were talking about this level of uncertainty. And I told this story. I said when I restructured, when I restructured my business, like my offers, and then also restructured my entire operation, back-end operations, and my company and my team, everything. Like we basically just said, we’re doing a complete 180 for everything we’re doing, while also millions of dollars of revenue were coming in. It’s a big ask. Like, what I did was a little crazy.

But while I did that, in the year that I did that, we were at break-even for our expenses for 10 months. I dumped $6 million of expenses in one year. Actually, in just a couple of months, I think. There was like a period of time where it was like you could see it in my profit and loss where the expenses were going down every single month, but it did take time for them to go down, and it took time to build back up the structure.

So I was at break even for 10 months as I dumped expenses and built up new offers, sold new things, sold the same offer but different ways. And in the final two months of the year, bam, profitability, a million dollars cash in the bank. Craziness.

I asked my husband this recently because now we’re so far beyond it. I said, Do you think another entrepreneur would have folded six months in? Like I was like, do you realize how like literally how crazy it is what I did? Do you realize how awesome I am?

Like, I have to tell myself this because I don’t realize it all the time. Like I live with me all the time, and you live with you all the time. So, likely you’re not giving yourself credit as well. Like, I’m not even trying to be like annoying, but we just don’t give ourselves credit. So I spend a lot of time trying to recognize the greatness inside of me, and I’ll tell my husband about it, so I can tell myself about it.

But seriously, like, it doesn’t make sense what I was able to do. Most people would have folded three months in, six months in, nine months in for sure. Like mentally collapsed under the uncertainty. They would have stopped creating value, held back, stopped working towards the result, and either folded completely and closed their doors or stayed at break-even.

So many people would have done that. And they would have been like, look, I’ve been at break even now for a year and been telling themselves like it’s never going to happen. I’m never I might as well and then quit. It was a lot of uncertainty the whole year, bringing myself back to I know what I’m creating, I’ve got to tolerate this uncertainty in my body. But I did, I tolerated it in my body. I grew my capacity to experience that emotion. I grew my certainty in myself. I held both of those at the same time. And now no one can take that away from me.

There have been so many people reaching out to me, and they’re like, well, we had someone on The Revenue Challenge that was like, I had a $120,000 business last two years ago, and then I made $8,000 last year. I’m like, I can help you with that. I made $55,000 one year, and I made $5,000 the next year or $15,000 the next year, whatever it was. Yeah, I can help you with that, too.

Like, my certainty is so high, it does not matter what the gap is and how big the hole feels. I’m like, we’ve got this. I know exactly what we have to do. The first thing is you have to develop your tolerance for uncertainty. You’re not going to be certain that you’re going to be able to build it back. You’re not going to be certain that you’re going to be able to build it beyond what it was. You’re not going to be certain. There’s not going to be tangible proof for a large amount of the time. You don’t know yet if you can do it because you haven’t done it yet. So we got to be willing to feel all of that and grow our certainty in ourselves, in our capability, in our capacity, in our time, in our energy, in all of the things. 

And now, this year, what’s so crazy is I refuse to get on tax meetings. It’s not very mature of myself, but I really don’t enjoy doing tax meetings. And so my husband does them as part of his role in the business. And so he got on the tax meeting and he got off, and he was like, Stacey, did you know that you grew your business by a million dollars of revenue? First of all, yes. And our profit is almost at 60%. Yes. And he said, Well, our tax guy wants to know, like, what did you do this year? Like this, he’s like, there aren’t businesses doing this year. Like, what did you do?

And I want to say, like, is it too simple? Is it too simple to say, I tolerated a year of uncertainty, and I grew my certainty in myself, and I kept showing up, and I kept giving value and I believed in what I was creating more than I didn’t believe.

Like, yes, there was strategy, but none of it works if you’re resisting the emotions, your emotions the whole time. Right? You could do all the right things, but if you’re mentally collapsing inside of yourself, if you’re emotionally collapsing inside of yourself, none of it matters. You can do all the right things, and it’s not going to pan out.

So I want you all to take this into if you’re in The Revenue Challenge, take this into The Revenue Challenge, take this into your next launch, take this into your first scale to a million. This is also where I see people really kind of unravel with themselves, is when they try to scale to a million, like they forget how freaking talented they are because they’ve created multiple six-figure businesses, and in the like scale to try to double or triple that, they lose themselves.

They lose themselves in the uncertainty of maybe, maybe I won’t get to a million. Maybe all this energy and effort will be, won’t be worth it. Maybe I’m not good enough. Maybe I don’t want have what it takes. They lose themselves in that. That feeling keeps them up at night. It gives them so much anxiety, they can’t function sometimes.

You know, I remember my first year was, I was a disaster. I had so much anxiety. I’m just being honest about it because I think we have to have the conversation. I had so much anxiety because everybody else in my Million Dollar room, they were all much further along. Like I came in at 300k as the underdog and all of them were at 500k, but also they had systems and structures in their business in place that I didn’t that made them even more prepared to double their revenue. So I was tripling my revenue and had no systems and no processes, and no things skills in place that would have made me ready to scale to a million.

So I had to do way more work, right? Inside of myself, inside of my business, and it was a heavy amount of uncertainty and feeling inadequate and feeling like I didn’t belong. And I met all of that. I faced it. I got intimate with that. Like, yeah, this is a part of me that doesn’t feel like I belong, that doesn’t feel like I can do it, that feels less than everybody else in this room. And I’m willing to feel all of those emotions. And why do I want to scale to a million? Why do I want to do this work? Like what part of me does believe it’s possible? Right? What am I certain of?

I remember when I got kicked out, not invited back to this room. I remember telling my husband, I’m going to fight my way back in this room, but if she doesn’t accept me, I am going to find another coach. I will figure it out. I’m getting to a million. That’s what I knew inside of myself. I’m doing it. And because I had that level of certainty in the uncertainty, I got my way, I asked my way back in, and got in. What I knew I was willing to do is everything it took.

I remember my coach was like, okay, you’ve got to go through Master Coach training. I want you to take this 100k training. You’re also going to be in the Million Dollar training. I’m like, yep, what I’m certain of is I’m willing to work this hard. So are you willing to do that too? And who are you? Who are you lifting the heavy weight of uncertainty? Who are you when you’re tolerating the discomfort and moving forward with purpose and belief of what you are creating? Like, who are you? Who do you want to be? I want you to be so freaking empowered. 

I was telling The Revenue Challenge, this Challenge, so many people think that it’s about being positive for 30 days straight. Nope. It’s about being powerful for 30 days straight. It’s about being powerful through the finish line of your goal. You don’t need to feel positive one freaking second of it.

People who are looking to hire coaches don’t need your positivity; they need empowerment. They need to see you lifting the heavy weights. They need to see you facing uncertainty, tolerating discomfort, moving forward with purpose. That is the coach they want to hire because that’s what’s going to be required of them, too.

If you could just sprinkle some fucking fairy dust on them and some confetti and shoot some rainbows up their ass for them to get the result, great. That would work. If, if, if you could do it, but that’s not what it, that’s not how it works. It’s not just like, like you can’t just give them mantras for their life and suddenly they have results. Like, positivity is not going to fuel them either. Some of it, right? Positive expectation, the certainty will make you feel good. Service makes you feel good. Connection makes you feel good. Like, there are feelings that feel good along the way.

But I don’t, I don’t believe that empowerment feels good. If you really think about it, what feels good is what you get after empowerment. I’ve asked this on an Entrepreneur Series before: What is the actual feeling of empowerment? Like, what’s the vibration in your body? What is creating empowerment feel like? What’s the experience of it? Being empowered in a challenging situation, in an obstacle, in uncertainty, it’s mostly emotions that feel bad.

But people tend to think, Oh, it feels so good to be empowered. No, it feels good after you’ve empowered yourself. The empowerment itself is very difficult because you have to tell yourself you’re wrong about the thing you can’t do and then empower yourself to do it, right? Push power into yourself. That’s what your people need too. So they don’t need your positivity; they need your empowerment. They need you to be able to lift the heavy weights, and they need to see you doing it with integrity, being a product of your product. 

And I want to offer, because I was coaching someone on this in The Revenue Challenge. She was saying, I know I need to be doing more belief work. I feel like it is a bigger thing than I give it, but it tends to be the thing that I do last, or if I run out of time, not at all.

And I want to offer that this, what I’m speaking about here, this work, this skill of tolerating uncertainty, of carrying the heavy weight, of moving forward, going through the finish line, holding uncertainty and tolerating it while also building up your certainty. This isn’t just something. It’s not the extra thing you do at the end of the day. It’s not the thing that you do if you have time, and you don’t do if you don’t have time. It’s not just something, it’s everything. It is the difference between people who make it and people who don’t. People who skyrocket and people who don’t. People who do extraordinary things and people who don’t. People who do the impossible, people who don’t. It’s everything.

All right, I hope you have an amazing week. If you’re in the challenge, I wanted to create this episode really for you to like be a power boost, but also for any future challenges in my 200k Mastermind, my 2 Million Dollar Group, and just anyone that’s a listener of this podcast that needs this juice inside of them this week.

Maybe it’s to just believe that you could start your business. Maybe the uncertainty is keeping you from even going after your first client because there’s so much uncertainty of whether you can do it. This is your first ask. Like, if you really want a client, are you willing to lift the weights of uncertainty to get it?

All right, have a beautiful week. I love you so much. Talk to you next week.

Hey, if you’re ready to make money as a life coach, I want to invite you to join my 2K for 2K program; where you’re going to make your first $2,000 the hardest part using my simple five-step formula for getting consults and closing new clients. Just head over to StaceyBoehman.com/2Kfor2K. We’ll see you inside.