The first fear was, how much is it gonna be out of my monthly nut? Can I afford to do this? Especially when it’s a long-term project. How long is this going to go on? So that’s the first obstacle you have to get over. And of course I come from a whole different area of, ‘Can I afford not to do it?’ That’s how I think. So that was an easy one, once I figured out I can’t afford not to learn from somebody who’s been doing this and can teach me some things that will really help me get to where I want to be a whole lot quicker.
The next one was time. How much time is it going to take? How is it possible I’m going to be able to do this? You know it takes a big commitment. That’s important. Anything you start to go forward on has to be committed 100%. You can’t marginally commit to it. That was a big concern. But once I got past those two and I made it not an option to not have the time and made it not an option to not invest in myself, then it was an easy decision.
I knew that if I invested this time, by purely spending the money I would have to do something with it. So it was a leverage point to me to really make that business happen. So I created the website. I started talking to people. I was learning from Julia and actually doing coaching sessions with different folks. And I learned a lot. So that was one part. I test phased that I knew that and leveraged myself high enough that it would happen. It didn’t happen as quickly as I wanted, nor what I expected but that’s okay. It’s all part of the master plan.
The second was how was I going to be able to afford this on a business and personal level and with a family? So that was a tougher one, but one that now in hind sight was easy. So easy to say it was money well spent. Here I am, I’ve made it back ten fold, or twenty fold, whatever it’s been. And would I have gotten there had I not done that? And that’s the thought process. I know in my own heart I wouldn’t have. And I followed my own instincts and because of that, things happened.
This school isn’t for everybody. Coaching isn’t for everybody. People who ‘get it’ are the ones you want because those are the ones who get the biggest value.
Biggest benefit: the combination of taking a course and then applying what you were taught in a real-time coaching session and also learning from what other people are saying and doing in real-time coaching sessions. That for me was eye-opening. You know anybody who is as old as I am, you forget what it’s like to learn. You tend to think of learning as reading and reading doesn’t make you do it. We had to read it, talk about it and then apply it and then do it. And then go back and do a look-see at what you just did. That was really critical for me.
How terrifying is that? Once you get over it, you find the value in it. And people come from different angles than you ever thought you could and it’s that whole part of learning that you don’t know everything. And your eyes aren’t the see all and end all.
It was a steady progression to and end. We were on a path of, ‘We’re going to do this and here’s why.’ And it was a build up of our skills sets and what we learned without forgetting what we learned previous to it. So that was valuable to me as well. It wasn’t like when we got to number nine we forgot all about number one. We went back and forth between the different lessons we were learning and layered them on and referenced them as we went forward. For me that’s a key way to learn. Use what you’ve originally learned and reference back to it.
Julia’s really great at understanding that there aren’t steps in coaching. We have to put them there because we have to indentify them. We’ve got to quantify them, somehow. But there aren’t steps. It was, ‘You were doing great on this. Did you notice that?’ And by reinforcing that it gives us all more confidence that, you know, there are things that we’ve learned in our previous lives that do us well in coaching. We just didn’t realize what the term was or how it acted in the coaching world and why it meant anything. So that part of the school was really valuable to me.
I would absolutely recommend this school and I have. Number one, because of Julia, she’s great. She takes care of people. She cares about them, not the business. We’ve talked about this many times. If you just care about the person, the business comes. And I think that’s what’s critical. I don’t think there’s anybody who believes she’s just there to take the money and run. And we all know that there’s a million places out there that do that everyday. Unfortunately the expectations bar is set kind of low! You know, when’s the hammer coming? Sure everything’s free or really low priced but, Everybody’s waiting for the next shoe to drop! That never crossed my mind, nor happened. It was all open and fair and that’s all I could ever ask.
I would just say that anybody who’s thinking of joining, you know it couldn’t be better suited to having something happen on their time with their schedule instead of being forced in something not to their liking. They’ve been or incredibly flexible and patient with me. I really appreciate that. You know we all have to make money while we’re trying to make money! You know, I’m just trying to learn a better way to do that. They allowed me and others to come and go as their priorities shifted and changed. That is deeply appreciated.
There’s a reason why Julia has great students, because we are attracted to greatness, as well. We understand that. She’s a friend not a person we do business with. And how many times can you say that in life. In my experience, I’d rather spend more money with people I value and less money that don’t give a crap about me. And that’s how I run business. It’s how I run my life.
- Greggory Schillinger
Business Coach