Why Confidence Comes Later: Unlocking Your True Potential.

Confidence. It’s a word we often associate with success, leadership, and the ability to conquer new challenges. But what if we’ve been thinking about it the wrong way? In my recent conversation on The Amanda Kaufman Show, we explored a transformative idea: Confidence isn’t the prerequisite for action—it’s the result of it. This realization can be a game-changer for anyone looking to thrive as a coach, entrepreneur, or leader.

In this blog, I’ll unpack some of the key insights from our discussion and my upcoming book, Confidence Comes Later. Together, we’ll explore why confidence isn’t the starting point, how action builds resilience, and the essential mindset shifts you need to unlock your full potential.

The Confidence Myth

One of the biggest misconceptions about confidence is that it’s something you need to have before taking action. We’ve all heard phrases like, “If I only had the confidence, I could do X,” or “I’m not ready because I’m not confident enough yet.” The truth is, this way of thinking holds us back.

Confidence is built through experience, not the other way around. It’s the product of taking steps—even when you’re uncertain or scared—and learning from the outcomes. When you complete a challenging task, survive a setback, or achieve a goal, you gain the confidence to take on something even bigger next time. It’s a virtuous cycle, but it only starts when you take that first step.

Why Action Precedes Confidence

Let’s reframe the narrative: Confidence comes later. Here’s why:

1. Action Builds Evidence: Each time you try something new, you gather evidence of your capabilities. That evidence builds trust in yourself and your ability to handle challenges, which in turn creates confidence.

2. Resilience Through Experience: Mistakes and failures are inevitable, but they’re also invaluable. Each stumble teaches you how to get back up stronger. Confidence doesn’t mean avoiding failure; it means knowing you can handle it.

3. Momentum Breeds Success: The more you take action, the more momentum you build. Success, big or small, creates a sense of accomplishment that boosts your self-assurance.

Reframing Resilience and Wisdom

During the podcast, Angus and I discussed how confidence often mirrors wisdom. It’s not about having all the answers upfront; it’s about trusting your ability to figure things out along the way. This is where resilience becomes critical. Resilience isn’t just about bouncing back from challenges; it’s about using those experiences to grow stronger and more self-assured.

Amanda shared her own journey of overcoming social anxiety and body image issues to become a successful coach and business leader. Her story highlights how stepping into discomfort—and even embracing it—can lead to profound growth. For her, confidence was less about “getting it right” and more about building trust in her ability to navigate life’s uncertainties.

Three Keys to Coaching Success

Whether you’re a coach, entrepreneur, or creative, the principles of success are universal. Here are three key takeaways from our discussion that can help you thrive:

1. Care Deeply About Your Craft

Success begins with a genuine commitment to serving others. In a world filled with superficial efforts and quick fixes, standing out requires depth. Caring deeply about your work means honing your skills, investing in your growth, and showing up authentically for your clients. When you operate from a place of care and excellence, confidence follows naturally because you’re grounded in your expertise.

2. Be the Challenger

As a coach, your role isn’t just to cheerlead; it’s to challenge your clients to rise to their full potential. This can be uncomfortable, both for you and your client, but it’s essential for growth. Asking tough questions, holding your clients accountable, and pushing them to stretch beyond their comfort zones creates transformational results. And when you see the impact of your coaching, your own confidence grows as well.

3. Keep Your Pipeline Full

Many coaches fall into the feast-and-famine cycle: working hard to secure clients, only to slow down once they have a few wins. To avoid this, you need to consistently market yourself, nurture leads, and engage with your audience. Confidence in your business stems from knowing that you have a steady flow of opportunities—even during challenging times.

Overcoming Wealth Blockers

Another powerful concept we touched on is the idea of “wealth blockers.” These are the limiting beliefs and habits that prevent you from reaching your full potential. Through my work, I’ve identified six common blockers that hold people back. If you’re curious about what might be standing in your way, Angus’  created a quick assessment to help you identify and overcome your unique challenges. (You can DM Angus the word “Blocker” on Instagram to access it.)

Permission to Thrive

Everything you want is on the other side of giving yourself permission. This idea resonated deeply with Amanda and me because it’s a lesson we’ve both learned firsthand. Permission to succeed, permission to grow, permission to take risks—it all starts with you.

If you’re a coach or entrepreneur, ask yourself: Are you giving yourself permission to truly show up? To take bold action? To bet on yourself? The moment you start saying “yes” to those questions, you unlock a new level of confidence and possibility.

Conclusion: Take the First Step

Confidence comes later. Action comes first. Whether you’re launching a business, starting a coaching practice, or pursuing a new goal, the key is to start. Trust that you’ll learn, grow, and adapt along the way. The more you show up, the more confident you’ll become.

If this resonates with you, I invite you to listen to my full conversation with Amanda Kaufman on The Amanda Kaufman Show. You can also connect with me on Instagram for more insights and tools to help you thrive.

Let’s take that first step together. The confidence you’re seeking is waiting on the other side of action.

Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Confidence Comes Later

03:51 The Journey of Writing a Book

06:54 Redefining Confidence

09:49 The Importance of Action

12:41 Navigating Change and Resilience

15:43 Exploring New Opportunities

18:46 Permission and Self-Discovery

21:41 Key Takeaways for Coaches

Full Transcript

@angusnelson (00:00)

actually we've defined confidence incorrectly. We define confidence as the thing to do the thing. When I define confidence as the confidence in the thing you've already done. Confidence is because you have the experience, because you have the battle scars, the wounds, you know, the story. That's how you can be confident. And so now all of sudden this concept of what do I need to do this next thing is actually not confidence.

Amanda Kaufman (00:06)

I see.

I see.

Yeah

@angusnelson (00:27)

It's not the confidence in the action or the achievement or the task. The confidence is in who I am, in my inert understanding that, holy crap, I can go through some things. I have resilience. I have audacity. I can get up again when I fall down. And even if this next thing falls apart and goes sideways, I'm gonna be just fine.

Amanda Kaufman (01:11)

Well, hey, hey, welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show and we are continuing our series on the coaches that don't suck. And let me tell you something, Angus certainly doesn't. Hello and welcome to the show, Angus.

@angusnelson (01:27)

Hello, great to be here Amanda with no suckage.

Amanda Kaufman (01:30)

Exactly. Well, listener, in today's episode, we're welcoming Angus Nelson, an executive coach and author of the upcoming book, Confidence Comes Last. Confidence happens to be one of my favorite subjects, so I'm sure we'll touch on that today.

@angusnelson (01:43)

Do you know, I'm gonna

interrupt you. We actually changed the title and now it's confidence comes later. And yeah, right. So with that little shift, it makes your brain go, what? Okay, why? And hence the change in the title. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (01:50)

Confidence comes later. Okay, all right.

I love that. Yeah. So,

so sorry about announcing the wrong title, but I think it, you know, this is this is what a lot of coaching business building is like, isn't it? It's making those little adjustments along the way when we find a little bit of a better way. I love this. OK, cool. Well.

@angusnelson (02:16)

100%, yeah. And I

love what we were talking about before we got on here. You're like, don't try and make it perfect and stuff like that. So even, you have that in your head, because it was in our press material, like, we're talking about this book, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so that's the seed that's in your head. In the same way, we have our own things that are in our heads. As coaches, we're supposed to be this, we're supposed to do that. We have to have our act together. You have to have it perfect. You have to know more than the other people, blah, blah, blah.

Amanda Kaufman (02:23)

Exactly!

my gosh. Yeah, the pressure to be a smart patootie. That's that's so true. And it's like, I'm just really excited to have you on the show, Angus. And, you know, listener, this is this is a fella with years of experience in coaching. And when we were preparing for this, I was I was impressed by Angus's preparedness for the podcast. And you know what that that tells me that he is somebody who has done the reps.

@angusnelson (02:45)

And none of it's

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (03:13)

and he's someone who has gone through the cycles to identify like, well, here's what works and here's what could work even better than best. And he's definitely systems and process oriented. So again, welcome to the show. And I'm really excited for everybody to get to learn from you. Just for by way of background, why don't you just take 30 seconds and let us know what you're working on today.

@angusnelson (03:14)

Hmm.

I'm working on this book, right? So, that's going to, the goal is to have that out Q1. So I just sent the final draft actually to the editor this week. met with my coach and.

Amanda Kaufman (03:39)

Yeah.

Fancy, that's so

cool.

@angusnelson (03:50)

Yeah, I hired a coach, even coaches have coaches. And in this area of getting this book done, I needed somebody to like hold me accountable and help me get out of my head, get out of my way. I've been working on this book literally for years. And finally I can look at this book. Yeah, seriously. I signed a contract years ago and this is probably the fourth iteration of the book. And it's the book that's supposed to be. And my acquisitions editor actually told me,

Amanda Kaufman (04:05)

Really?

@angusnelson (04:18)

and she was so kind. She said, look, after I'm like feeling so guilty, I haven't got it done. She said, the book will be ready when you're ready. And now that I've written the book, I can look at it. It's like, that's the work I was trying to do. And all of that time was invested in me becoming the person I needed to become in order to write that book.

Amanda Kaufman (04:28)

Dang, that's so good.

You're giving me goosebumps like right up to the top of my scalp like that to me when I get goosebumps. That's exciting when I get goosebumps that like wrap around my head. It's like that's a whole nother level of delight because I've been thinking about the exact same thing about even my own business. You know, I'm I'm into my eighth year of business as a coach and to the G I've done so many things. I kind of joke sometimes that I'm like the try guys of coaching, you know, I've just

@angusnelson (04:47)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (05:10)

I've

tried so many different ways to meet people, to engage with them, to talk with them, to... I've run sales teams, I've dialed it up and down. I just feel like I've touched every dial on the panel for adjustment with this business. And I was literally just thinking the other day, you know, because when you're on that journey, you're going to do things that you're going to like, gosh, you know, if I knew what I knew now, I might have done something different, but I had the literal exact...

@angusnelson (05:21)

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (05:41)

I was like, what if, what if everything that you've done was exactly what is needed for you to do what you need to do next? Right? So good.

@angusnelson (05:50)

100 % 100 % I even talk about that

in the book. I talk about the fact that you're exactly where you need to be right now. And we think we that we have to and this is kind of our comparison part of our brain is I'm not like that person or I'm not like this person or that person got further ahead. And we qualify ourselves according to someone else's journey versus qualifying ourselves to our own. And so therefore we can

Amanda Kaufman (05:57)

So good, so good.

That is a tough thing to

do, isn't it, sometimes? Unless you have the presence and the awareness that you do need to do this, I'm so glad you're doing this book because more people need that lens.

@angusnelson (06:26)

Yeah, and this is the kick in the ass that I got in this book. And as I was reading it just yesterday, I was reading it to a friend of mine and I broke into tears because I felt my heart in the words as I was reading it to my friend. And they said, holy shit, Angus, I feel you through those words and I can see why you're crying. And it's like, because this is my heart.

I didn't write a book just to like spit out a bunch of like mumbo jumbo knowledge and logic. But I wanted to reach people in the heart because the whole premise of this book is to get you to a place of action. Because we use confidence as an excuse when the truth is no one does anything with confidence. Confidence only exists in the past. You can only have confidence from something you've already done.

Amanda Kaufman (07:00)

Right.

That's so good.

That's so good.

@angusnelson (07:23)

So anything you're gonna do next is something new or fresh or different than what you've already done. Even if it's the same industry, even if it's the same product, you're gonna have to take a different approach. And so therefore, it's all a big experiment, right?

Amanda Kaufman (07:23)

Interesting.

Yes, that iteration is absolutely,

yeah, absolutely necessary. You know, on my own journey with confidence, I definitely started from a very not confident place. know, body image issues, social anxiety challenges, just like absolute.

@angusnelson (07:45)

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (07:53)

And I think a lot of entrepreneurs struggle with this one of, you you do the Google search that everybody does. I don't recommend it, but everybody does it anyway. And find out, you know, X percent of businesses fail in Y period of time. And then you do the search that's like, well, what demographics or industry do I belong to? And you find out that the numbers are always worse. I don't know how that is that you end up with like an average and then you go deeper into the analysis and the numbers are always worse.

@angusnelson (08:00)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (08:22)

But it did like a huge number on confidence. And one of the things I had to do was really like revisit how I understood what confidence actually meant. Like what was the word? And for me, I actually started with math because I had experience with statistics and I was like, well, confidence is my ability to predict.

@angusnelson (08:33)

Mm.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (08:42)

what is likely to happen in the future on the basis of probabilities, right? And so that's where I kind of started with it. I've involved my definition, but I'm actually really curious, like how would you define the word confidence, given what you know now? You've literally written the book on it. So what is the best definition you've come across?

@angusnelson (08:43)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Hmm.

Yeah.

So my belief is actually we've defined confidence incorrectly. We define confidence as the thing to do the thing. When I define confidence as the confidence in the thing you've already done. Confidence is because you have the experience, because you have the battle scars, the wounds, you know, the story. That's how you can be confident. And so now all of sudden this concept of what do I need to do this next thing is actually not confidence.

Amanda Kaufman (09:12)

I see.

I see.

Yeah

@angusnelson (09:33)

It's not the confidence in the action or the achievement or the task. The confidence is in who I am, in my inert understanding that, holy crap, I can go through some things. I have resilience. I have audacity. I can get up again when I fall down. And even if this next thing falls apart and goes sideways, I'm gonna be just fine.

Amanda Kaufman (09:57)

That's so good. It sounds a lot and akin to wisdom.

@angusnelson (10:03)

I would say wisdom, can call it courage, you can call it, you know, betting on yourself. There's so many other ways to describe it, but at the end of the day, at the very end of the day, also the end of my book, is all about taking action. Because you will never know how great, magnificent, or powerful you are until you take the first step.

Amanda Kaufman (10:21)

Love that.

@angusnelson (10:29)

Until you go out into the world and reveal to the world your power and your presence, no one will ever know, no one will ever experience, and the world will not be able to be what it could be if you didn't let your light shine. And here we are in a world full of uncertainty and doubt and holy crap, we just had an election that whatever side of the equation you're on, you've got an opinion about it and someone else has a very different opinion that's causing anxiety.

Amanda Kaufman (10:43)

So good.

Totally.

@angusnelson (10:57)

And

how do we function as a society if there's so much confusion, so much ambiguity, so much uncertainty about wars and economies and governments? At the end of the day, the only thing you have power over is you. So what if you assert all of that confidence in who I've been and what I've done and I go back through my story and I love what you said. Everything I've done has prepared me. That was the tuition.

that I paid to be who I am today and today is my fucking graduation. I'm gonna choose to step into what's before me today because I want to create something and my belief in who I'm going to be is so powerful I can't not take action.

Amanda Kaufman (11:32)

That's right.

I love that. I love that so much. you know, when I I think one of the biggest things that a lot of us deal with as coaches is that intimidation or that imposter syndrome. And I think that's why we very quickly go, well, if I just had confidence, then I would, you know, then it would all be different. And I just love what you said about our relationship with the thing, the happenings, the things that have happened in our life that build that

@angusnelson (12:03)

Yeah. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (12:16)

that we have in ourselves about that resilience and about that ability to navigate challenging times. One of my favorite mentors often reminds us that change comes from within and change comes from outside. And I think one of the things that I over indexed on for sure, and I see a lot of people do the same thing when they're launching and building their business, is they over index on the change coming from within.

@angusnelson (12:29)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (12:43)

And when you're

in business long enough, you're going to have changes that come from outside. And it could be as simple as, you know, I remember last election cycle, actually, my my Facebook advertising account got shut down after years of compliance and years of, you know, all good. Like they were like, not only can you not advertise, we're shutting the whole business down. And and I remember, experiencing that change that moment. And it stopped me from promoting my business for two months because I allowed it to. And thank

@angusnelson (12:47)

Mm-hmm.

you

Hmm.

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (13:12)

I was in a coaching container because I was able to raise the concern, you know, finally with one of my coaches and he was like, yeah, this sort of thing kind of happens, doesn't it? So what do you want to do about it? And it was just

@angusnelson (13:18)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (13:27)

It was such a great resilience moment because then I was like, my gosh, you're right. There's a lot of businesses that are out there operating that are advertising and maybe they had like a new account that they were creating or operating under or they chose to advertise on a different channel. you know, I also got the useful question, which is what did you learn from the experience? And what I learned from that particular experience was how important it is to know what you are putting through your

@angusnelson (13:38)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (13:55)

your advertising channels with whoever you're doing. Because what I was doing is I was promoting every live stream that we did. And I have no idea what I wasn't compliant with. But because I had no review of that, and it was so variable, then it increased my risk for getting shut down.

@angusnelson (14:02)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (14:12)

And now I know and I learned

so much about like advertising compliance, compliant language and all of that kind of thing. And I think sometimes when people go into, for example, social media, there's somewhat of a sense of entitlement because it is so easy to do it once you do figure out like the process and, you know, to kind of get that humbling moment was so huge for me because.

@angusnelson (14:27)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (14:35)

It actually made me feel more grateful for the capacity to post to these free platforms on such a frequent basis. This podcast, for example, is rather low cost to host, right? And I don't think I had that appreciation until I went through that initiation, if you will.

@angusnelson (14:45)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, it's a, another question that I would ask of you. And we hear this all the time. I'm sure in our coaching world is, know, what does this make possible? You know, how do I look at this differently? How do I take this as an opportunity to do something different? You know, like you said earlier, you've tried this, you tried that, you put stuff against the wall, see what sticks, you know, like

Amanda Kaufman (15:04)

I love that, yeah.

percent.

@angusnelson (15:20)

when you're iterating your business over and over again, trying to find the right message, the right audience, what's going to resonate and then like I've got rebuked by our fellow coach Dan Martell because he said you're too effing creative. He said start being boring. Just do the thing you know to do and you know and so here we are like, I'm going to reinvent this. I'm going do this. But when something fails and you fall flat on your face,

Amanda Kaufman (15:40)

I love this. This is so good. Yeah.

@angusnelson (15:49)

When I ask myself now, what does this make possible instead of me going to that creative like, I'm going to do a new thing. I think what. Yeah. I'm going to go another direction. I'm going to do a thing and not to say that that isn't true. There may be something like that, but there's different philosophies that once you get more grounded in yourself, more comfortable in your skin, you can say, well, what do I know?

Amanda Kaufman (15:57)

Totally new momentum, totally new initiation.

@angusnelson (16:15)

I know that this works, I know this client responds to this. So let me go back to that basic and then I can tweak from there. So one of the things I've been marinating right now, I mean in real time today, one of my heroes in the marketing space is a guy named Alan Satanic. If you don't know him, holy crap, the guy's like, yes, holy crap. genius, yep.

Amanda Kaufman (16:21)

Yes.

Nothing held back, right? Yeah, freaking genius. Anybody listening to this? If you want to be

good at marketing and you want to be good at mastering your psychology, like I am not an affiliate. I am simply telling you, you need to go to the nothing held back Facebook group and just spend an afternoon reading the posts by Alan. Like he's a genius. I'm not even in one of his programs. I pay the man nothing. I'm telling you, you need to go to that Facebook group.

@angusnelson (16:44)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

best Facebook group.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah.

He's just,

and he's so generous, and he wrote this thing that said, who's not paying you money? And I've been chewing that all day today. So.

Amanda Kaufman (17:09)

Interesting. Say more about that. What

was the full context of the question?

@angusnelson (17:16)

So we always think, like I said, we're gonna go create a new thing, this whole creative, bent and chasing rabbits and shiny objects and things that we can find ourselves doing. And he said, sometimes you have to get really creative in how you're seeing your product. There are other facets to your business that perhaps you are not amplifying. In other words, let's say you're a business coach. Cool, cool, cool.

So the people that are paying you are to give them insights into their business. And that might include some mindset. Well, what if you had a mindset program? What if you spun out an aspect of your coaching that includes just a 30 day mindset cleanse or something like that, I'm just making something up. And then you go on some further and you're like, some of these business leaders have families.

I wonder how they're showing up for their families, how to be an entrepreneurial parent and now you can spin up another arm of the business that is related, but there's people who have another need that now you create another avenue of resources because that's another cashflow area. Well, all of these different income streams are not different. They're just facets of the same diamond.

Amanda Kaufman (18:44)

Yeah.

@angusnelson (18:44)

And so

asking yourself who's not paying you causes you to say, well what part of the people I'm trying to reach is there something I can present to them that actually would be beneficial and they would want to pay for it. And so it gives you a different perspective. So in the same thing I'm saying, what does this make possible? It's like the more you get to know yourself, the more comfortable you are in your skin, going back to that confidence.

Amanda Kaufman (19:00)

I love this.

@angusnelson (19:11)

If I believe in me, if I trust in me, if I listen to my intuition, because I know my intuition is a smart mo foe, and then I take action on these little inklings, I can discover the gold, right?

Amanda Kaufman (19:26)

I love this. Just this past weekend, I finished a migration from one technology platform to another. Very, very stimulating and exciting. But the old platform, I had created 86 different courses and programs. 86. And this was the OG platform that I started working with when I started doing courses and coaching and training and everything.

@angusnelson (19:38)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (19:55)

You know, I think if if somebody was to just like pop behind the scenes because you see what you see on social media, right? But just exactly that, like how else can I help is a question that I'm constantly asking. And it was so funny because I'm going through like the 86 different products and there's a really cool. I love statistics. It's just so fun. There's definitely like the for the top few that outperformed the rest. But I would never have created those top few.

@angusnelson (20:17)

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (20:25)

had I not given myself permission to create different facets and test different facets. And the other little tidbit that I want to offer our audience is don't be afraid to ask your people. We recently ran a community survey. And one of the questions that had me the most nervous was, if you could ask Amanda anything, what would you ask? And the stinking thinking that popped into my head was I was like, nobody's going to answer this question.

@angusnelson (20:29)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (20:54)

And you know what? So many people did. And there were some people who were like, nah, I can't think of anything right now. And that's totally cool. But I was actually surprised to hear some of the things that they wanted to know. And I wouldn't have known that if I hadn't asked. So in our business anyway, we're planning on doing a formal launch of the community survey like every six months on a schedule because it's just so important.

@angusnelson (20:55)

you

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (21:20)

You know, I've done survey data for our audiences for years, gotten thousands and thousands of responses from different coaches. But what happened was I fell off when I was changing some directions on things. I fell off of the asking bus. And I think we went like 18 months without running a survey. And let me tell you, the results were actually pretty different. There was a significant skew.

@angusnelson (21:34)

Hmm.

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (21:48)

18 months later. So I would strongly suggest that you have some sort of a survey method in place for your audience. So Angus, yeah, yeah.

@angusnelson (21:49)

Yep.

Well, can I just jump in there real quick? Just because I think

something that's important to know is, know, markets change full stop. And that's why it's so important what you're saying right now and talking to the customer, listening to your sales calls. I'm at the point now where I will take the transcript from a sales call and I just throw it right into chat GPT. I tell it to be an incredible, you know, closer and sales coach and tell me where I missed it. my gosh.

Amanda Kaufman (22:02)

They really do.

Yeah.

@angusnelson (22:23)

It's teaching me all these different perspectives about a where I'm not doing a good job in my sales and where I missed opportunities to point out some this or that. And then second of all, it's like, what do they actually need? well really they just need this. And I'm trying to sell them all these other things, but the very thing that they actually said, because I'm caught up in my own head or I'm caught up in the way I've always done it. Right?

Amanda Kaufman (22:49)

Yeah

@angusnelson (22:51)

And you need that clarity, you need that perspective. There was one other thing you said when that was permission. And that's a powerful word. And the reason why that caught me, because it's actually part of my book, I write this whole thing about permission. Everything you want is on the other side of giving yourself permission. And if you're a coach who's trying to build a business and you're like, why am I not making more money? The first thing you need to do is give yourself permission to make more money.

Amanda Kaufman (22:57)

Mm.

It is.

love that.

@angusnelson (23:20)

If you're a coach who's trying to step into a new place, the first thing you need to do is give yourself permission to say, belong in this new place. If you have to serve clients that feel bigger or more experienced than you, or maybe they have a company that feels too broad for you, like it's like, my God, it's a hundred million dollar company. How am I gonna help someone like this? Give yourself permission to serve someone like

Amanda Kaufman (23:28)

fit.

That's so huge.

@angusnelson (23:46)

Because as

you see yourself is who you can become. But if you don't take the time to give yourself permission to even be that person, it's an impossibility to you ever even to try.

Amanda Kaufman (24:00)

And that's another good reason to work with a mentor, work with a coach, because sometimes we don't even see where we are withholding permission. And that's one of the most powerful perspectives that a coach can even offer you is, you know, where are you holding back on that? Or where are you? Where are you operating according to old rules? You know, rules that maybe used to serve you but don't anymore. I love it. So Angus, I love asking in this segment, like, what do you think are three things that a coach should take care to do so they don't suck?

@angusnelson (24:19)

Mm-hmm.

Three things that they should do so that they don't suck. Number one, I would say give a shit. And what I mean by that is there are a lot of coaches out there and there's more and more joining the army every day. And you have to compete with great marketers who are actually 23 year old life coaches with not a lot of life to coach. And so,

Amanda Kaufman (24:34)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

True.

@angusnelson (24:59)

By you caring, by you giving a shit, what I mean is you get good at your craft so that you can serve with impact.

Care for the people that you serve without being needy, without being hero complex. Hear me straight, I'm not talking about being weird. I'm talking about in a healthy, proactive state. The second thing is be the challenger. Most clients,

Amanda Kaufman (25:23)

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

@angusnelson (25:29)

to ask them the questions and call them out on the things that nobody else will. And sometimes that means it makes you feel uncomfortable because maybe you don't have that kind of personality, maybe that's not something you're accustomed to. But it's incumbent upon you to challenge your clients so that they can rise to another rank. And you might say to yourself, what if they reject me? What if they fire me because I challenge them? And I guarantee you,

Amanda Kaufman (25:47)

Mm-hmm.

@angusnelson (25:56)

If you're doing it the right way, if you are doing it with love and you're doing it to serve, you cannot lose when you challenge them. And in fact, you actually win them over for more. And then the last thing I would say about not sucking is you are constantly selling. Keep your pipeline full. And that requires you to

Amanda Kaufman (26:17)

Mmm.

@angusnelson (26:19)

not get fat and happy when things are good. So if suddenly you close a couple clients at really high dollars and like, my God, I'm gonna be great for the next three months. And then you don't continue to keep your foot on the pedal on the gas. In those three months, suddenly everything's gonna dry up. And now you're feast and famine, you're gonna go into scarcity and panic, and you won't be able to get the momentum back.

And where I see so many coaches failing is they go through this seesaw where they fill their pipeline and then finally they get the clients, yes, life is grand. And then they don't keep the natural trajectory. Now, if you're a really good coach and you're challenging your clients and you're helping them raise through another ranks, they're likely to stick around. That's amazing. You want that. I have a client I've been working with for five years. We just celebrated.

However, there's a nutrition, there's normal life cycles to the people that you serve and that for some, might be just a three month program. Hey, for three months we're gonna do this, we're gonna knock it out of the park. And then you better have a plan at the end of that three months that says, now that we've built a plan for the next year, let's sign another engagement for the next year.

and always be thinking about where you can take them. Always be thinking about how you can help them take the next success and the next success. Not to where they're dependent on you because you're the hero. Again, I'm trying to not be toxic. I'm helping you succeed by helping your client succeed. So give a shit. What was the second one I said?

Amanda Kaufman (27:31)

Mm-hmm.

I love that. Yeah.

It was was give a shit. Keep the pipeline full and then.

@angusnelson (27:57)

Keep the pipeline

full. No, that was the last one. Keep the pipeline full. Give a shit, challenge, and then keep the pipeline full. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (28:03)

challenge, they pay you to push. You

know, I, I'm a certified high performance coach and Brendan Burchard leads that training and he, I feel like for I've been a CHPC since like 2017 and I've done re certification nearly every single year, sometimes twice a year with that. And he said to me, they pay you to push, I swear for four years before I finally again, progress is in permission.

@angusnelson (28:14)

Mm-hmm.

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (28:28)

Finally felt that permission to push and and for me the the thing that I had to learn was to take that risk You know take the risk take the risk on the truth because if you are always sugarcoating everything or your You're not saying the obvious thing that that ultimately over time undermines trust right because people need to hear the the truth from you and if if a client what I realized was if a client is Really all that offended

@angusnelson (28:36)

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yep.

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (28:57)

by the truth or if your relationship is such that there's an unwillingness to unpack and push around that truth. Because sometimes the truth isn't just the truth, right? Like sometimes we gotta like push it around and look at those different facets to say like, hey, you know, I'm seeing this observable fact, right? But the interpretation is where all the conversation happens. If the interpreter...

@angusnelson (28:57)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (29:21)

If the interpretive conversation is not able to take place because you do not have the rapport to be able to do so, there's so much opportunity in all of that. Opportunity to develop the skill of developing rapport, opportunity to identify like, hey, push, and you start to learn. It's almost like driving a car, right? And we do it unconsciously, but we will put our foot down a little heavier as the car is climbing a hill.

@angusnelson (29:30)

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Amanda Kaufman (29:48)

and we'll take our, well, we'll ease our foot off the accelerator when we're going downhill and maybe even put it towards the break. And we don't even really realize that we're doing it. But what I think a lot of coaches do to your point is we were scared of the pedal, right? And so then we're not necessarily pushing and they literally do pay you to push. Like they want that additional perspective. I love it. Angus, what's the best way for people to keep up with you, find out about your new book release, all of the good stuff.

@angusnelson (29:55)

Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

You can follow me on Instagram is probably the easiest and best way I'm available on all the things at Angus Nelson ang us any LS on and if you want There is a blocker that's likely holding you back. We call them the wealth blockers There's six areas we've observed in our research with the clients that we serve if you want to make a discovery

about yourself and what that blocker is, just put the word blocker in a DM in my Instagram and I'll send you over an assessment that you'll take in less than three minutes. And it's going to reveal to you something that you cannot not see after you've seen it. And it will be a mirror shining in your face saying, this is the thing that you're allowing to get in your way over and over again.

Amanda Kaufman (30:58)

Ha

sounds like an incredible goodie.

Y'all make sure you do follow Angus and also make sure you subscribe and leave a review on this episode. It helps others find the episode and choose to listen to it. So we really appreciate when you do that. And in fact, I'm sure you've got a couple of friends who might do with a little confidence conversation injection. Go ahead and share this episode with three of your friends. You can just click on the three dots or click on the little hamburger menu, wherever you happen to be listening to this and share the link on whatever channel you want to.

Go ahead and spread that word and we will see you in the next episode. Thanks for listening. We'll see you soon.

@angusnelson (31:44)

Bop bop