Yesterday I had the honor of actually meeting one of my coaching clients in person. Now, this is a rare opportunity for me. So, what we were actually meeting for was somewhat informal, but what we were talking about in conversation was how the last quarter was for him.
Now normally this is a very formal systematic process, I take my coaching clients through. But we had decided that he was in town and last minute we were gonna get together, have a beer and just chat. Just an informal conversation because his last quarter had been so difficult for him in so many personal ways.
We sat down and he started telling me, “Doug, I apologize, I feel like I’m failing you, I’m not a good student, I’m not a good client of yours, and I feel horrible. You know, when you came into my life it was perfect because all of a sudden my relationship started to crumble, my business was on shaky ground, and my health started to go down.” Which, is really important to him, right, he got sick and wasn’t able to actually do the things that he really loves to do.
When he said that, his head hung a little lower than normal. This is a very proud man. I looked at him, I started to relate to stories about my past. Stories about my shortcomings, my failures, and how I’ve gone through bouts of depression and anxiety. Where I would even … on Friday evenings, I would go home and pour myself cocktails, by myself and pretend to work to make myself feel better. I went through that bout time and time again. He looked at me and said, “Wow, you just never would have guessed.” I was like, “Oh yeah, that was my past. This is something that I’ve gone through. I’m human, just like everybody else.” He said, “Well geez, I guess that’s why they say never go out and meet your idols.” He was talking about another person he really idolized who was … ended up just talking really negatively behind his back and he found out.
I said, “I totally disagree.” I think we want to go out and meet our idols because then we realize our idols are humans too. They’re flaw-able and they make mistakes just like you and I. They make tons of mistakes, I can’t tell you how many mistakes I’ve made in all of my areas of my five to thrive.
The key isn’t that you make the mistakes, the key is you identify that you made a mistake, and how fast you can pick up and course correct. It’s costed course correction. So as I started talking to him, I said, “Look, yeah maybe this isn’t been your best, but maybe the best timing, because when we met we started coaching. We’ve improved all of these areas of your life, despite all life has thrown at you.” And he was excited and agreed. I said, “Look at this, don’t be embarrassed, as a business owner, every business owner goes through depression, anxiety, bouts of just not feeling sure. Do I really wanna do this? Do I really wanna go on this journey? They battle it just like anybody else does.”
You have to be a little crazy to be an entrepreneur, let’s face it. There’s very few of us out there that are truly entrepreneurs. There’s a lot of people started a business but are really an employee in their business, right, very different. Very different categories here. But, also you’ll see people online painting themselves with the leased Ferrari, or the leased Bugatti, or they have done clothes changes … because they’ve only leased it for one day and have gone to different places, they’ve got a camera crew with a rented house. You see it all over the place, and it’s unfortunate.
The truth is we all make mistakes and this is exactly why we should go out and meet our idols. We should meet the people that we hold on a high pedestal. Now, they may exceed our expectations, but the reason I think we should meet our idol is because we also might see how human they are.
Hopefully, they impress us with their ability, their humility, and their ability to be vulnerable and share their fears and their failures, basically, right. They’re not just putting these successes in front of us time after, time after, time again.
I can tell you for myself, back in 2007 everybody around me kept telling me how successful and lucky I was, I ran multiple businesses and lived in beautiful Santa Barbara, California.
I was, I was very blessed and very lucky, but I found myself not living my dream. That’s when I started to make a change and try to hustle and figure out how I can do it because there was nobody else out there running multiple companies, seemed to have a whole list of representation of what it meant to be happy. To live their dreams, have that digital nomad freedom that I wanted as well as by not sacrificing relationships, and still being able to grow businesses.
So I had to forge that on my own, and along the way, I will tell you I made so many mistakes in all areas. But the key is picking ourself up and getting back on track.
Often times I talk about The Author of Your Own Story journey. The reason I used journey or path is because it’s a journey, it’s not a destination, it’s a progression that we all go on. Now, when you meet your idols, and I’ve had the ability to meet mine. I will tell you, they are extremely flawed individuals, and I love them for that.
When I met them, I met them at a time in their life, a snapshot of their life. They’ve even become very good friends of mine, in fact a few of them have become clients of mine. I’ve been coaching them for a very long time and it’s great, right, because I get to see the nuances in their lives, the things that I idolize, I still idolize about them. But I also see the other depths and complexities of their lives, things that we all face.
So, what I encourage you to do, is grab your journal, list out who your idols are, but also look at yourself as an idol. Where do you feel that you’re flawed? That’s okay. Where do you feel like that you’re great? And celebrate those greatness’. Remember as you’re journaling, this is a snapshot of you in time, this is not your destination. You’re meant for so much more than even you probably realize. That’s why I wanna help you with this journey.
Now, what I’d like you to do is make sure you sign up for The Author of Your Own Story newsletter. We just released the 90 day game, As The Bridge and The Bridge your Gap course. Which we’re giving to our subscribers for free. I wanna make sure you have access to that.
So go over to authorofyourownstory.com and sign up for that newsletter right now. Go ahead and push pause, I’m telling you, it’s going to be worth it.
Now if you hit reply to me and just let me know that you’re looking for the 90 day Game or the Gap. Now, these are exclusive trainings that I give to my coaching clients who are paying me over six figures. Now, I don’t say that to impress you, but to impress upon you that this works, and it works really well. Obviously, I’m not going to be able to go through this with everybody in a personal basis, hopefully we meet and you’ll see how flawed I am. I’m definitely not perfect, I work on myself every single day, but I also cherish my flaws and I hope you do too.
That’s it for me today. As always, I will see you tomorrow. Go out and inspire someone simply by being the author of your own story.
Take care.
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