It took me too long to write this to you.
Last week I had so much going on, that I figured there’s no way I could finish
it…
…so I might as well slow down.
When I told Jeffrey (Dean of Master Coach University) he said…
“Don’t delude yourself. You need to SPEED UP.”
I knew he was right.
In fact, right now I’m helping Terina, whose coaching business was dying due
to (you guessed it) lack of speed.
Terina’s coaching business was a slow motion train
wreck.
Over the last 4 months, Terina’s coaching had devolved into stress about
taking care of her father…
…and arguing with her sister about helping with his care.
She was so stressed that she landed in the hospital with an anxiety attack.
In a recent session Terina told me “With all this happening, I’m feeling
hopeless, stressed out, anxious, and exhausted!”
I said, “But you’ve got to go FASTER.”
She said: “Are you crazy?”
“How am I going to go faster when my world is so chaotic?”
ME: “Speed wins in your coaching business.”
Speed wins in your coaching business.“
“You’ve gotten used to going at your own pace instead of at the pace of
success.”
“IF you don’t go faster, your business will die.”
Terina was speechless.
And if you’re thinking, “What kind of a jerk tells an overstressed, failing
client whose health is on the line…
…to ‘go faster’? That’s coaching malpractice.”
And, you’re RIGHT:
“Go FASTER” is the opposite of what most coaches would tell her.
“Go FASTER” is the opposite of what she wanted to do.
“Go FASTER” is the opposite of what her intuition told her.
“Go FASTER” is the opposite of what seemed healthy, sane & reasonable.
You might think, “You should be supportive.”
“You should tell her to slow down and focus on self-care.”
“Affirm her. Reassure her.”
“Tell her she’s done MORE than enough.”
“Tell her she’s OVERWORKED and needs to take a break.”
Those are all valid approaches to coaching…
…but only if your client doesn’t mind their business FAILING.
I knew that failing in her coaching business WASN’T AN OPTION for Terina.
I knew that her only way to take care of herself and her family was to succeed.
And I knew that she would never be satisfied with quitting, or slowing down, or
giving up.
She would lose her soul if she did that.
But Terina was running her business as if it didn’t matter that much to her…
…but I knew that it did.
She acted like captain of a ship, lost at sea, looking for a port.
But the truth was, her ship was sinking, and she was going down with it.
And you don’t take a leisurely stroll on the deck of a sinking ship.
You RUSH to plug the leaks and repair your ship.
So, after recovering from her surprise, Terina replied, “But I don’t want to
I said, “If you were going faster, you’d have already resolved your family
challenges.”
“Your family will need to ensure their own survival.”
“And YOU are the only one that can ensure your business survival.”
“And if you continue to ignore your business, it WILL die.”
TERINA: “But I still need to help my family.”
ME: “If your business is dead, then how will you help your family?”
TERINA: “I guess I wouldn’t be able to help my family.”
ME: “In fact you’d need THEM to help YOU financially.”
TERINA: ”UGH, I can’t allow that to happen.”
ME: “Maybe stop using your family as an excuse to slow down…”
“…and instead use them as your reason to go fast.”
Fast decisions in your coaching business are better than no decision.”
After that session with Terina I wondered…
…What would Terina do?
Was she going to speed up? or was her business on borrowed time?
Before I tell you what happened…
Why does speed help your coaching business?
Coaching business ‘speed’ has many benefits:
- Problems / Solutions reveal themselves.
- You avoid contending with imaginary problems (overthinking).
- You get clients / get paid faster.
- Your clients get results faster.
- You can charge more.
The guaranteed way to lose in your coaching business is to go too slow.
The faster you move, the less skill is required to succeed.
You could be the “best” coach in the world, but if you go too slow…
…you’ll run out of time, and miss out on clients.
My first boss said, “Go fast. If you do it wrong, at least do it ‘fast’…”
“…because then you have time to fix it AND you’ll learn something…”
“…which will allow you to do it better next time.”
Fast decisions in your coaching business are better than no decision.
If your fast decision is wrong, at least you’ll learn something new.
The FASTER you go in your coaching business… the more likely you’ll
succeed.
The FASTER you go in your coaching business… the more likely you’ll succeed.”
Speed is your friend.
Speed saves money and time.
Speed is sexy.
Speed sticks out like a flashlight in a dark room.
Speed defeats size.
Coaching client’s need speed too.
In fact, many clients pay for coaching…
…NOT because they think they’ll get better or different results.
They get coaching because they expect to get those SAME results…
…FASTER.
They’re paying to SPEED UP their progress and win the game earlier…
…so they can get on with the rest of their life…
…or, even accomplish more.
Many prospective clients ask me, “How long will it take to achieve my goal
through our coaching together?”
Clients want FAST results, not slow.
We live in an instant gratification “if you snooze, you lose” world.
Nobody likes to wait on hold…
…stand in line..
..or wait in traffic.
Take for example… Amazon Prime.
People pay extra for a Prime membership so they can get their purchases
FASTER.
And, even then, they keep checking the tracking number Amazon gives them…
…to see if their package might arrive EVEN FASTER.
BOTTOM LINE: Coaching Clients LOVE speed.
Going slow held back Terina’s coaching business.
Going slow caused Terina to:
- take a long time to pick a coaching niche.
- only contact a couple of people here and there about coaching.
- only run an occasional discovery session.
And now, it was causing Terina to run out of money…
…because she didn’t go fast enough to get paying clients.
In the next session with Terina, she still wasn’t 100% on board with this ‘go
fast’ idea.
TERINA: “I can see that speed matters, but what about doing things the
right way?”
ME: “You CAN’T do everything ‘right’ the first few times, so you might as
well go fast.”
TERINA: “But isn’t it smart to look for the best way to build a coaching
business?”
ME: “Usually looking for the ‘best’ way to do something…”
“…Is just looking for an excuse for not doing it today.”
“The ‘best’ way to do something is the best way you know how to do it
NOW.”
“All you have is THIS MOMENT.”
“You’ll take what you learn today…”
“…and apply it to do better tomorrow.”
TERINA: “But isn’t quality more important than anything?”
ME: “Quality is only an ingredient of success…
“…but ‘slow’ quality never compares with ‘good enough to get the job
done’ speed.”
“If you produce at 80% quality, but twice as fast…
…you’ll be better off compared to slower, even at 100% quality.”
“In fact, you can’t even reach quality coaching without enough speed…
…because you won’t even coach enough to learn it.”
TERINA: “I just don’t know if I can do that.”
ME: “Terina, all your arguments against going fast are based on your
FEAR.”
“You’re not slowing down because you care about QUALITY…
…or doing things right.”
“You’re just afraid.”
“FEAR is why you resist going fast.”
“FEAR is why you slow down.”
“You’re caught up with your ‘reasons’ to justify your fear.”
TERINA: “You’re right.”
“I’m letting my fear slow me down.”
“But how do you go fast?”
ME: “Sense of urgency…”
“With a Sense of urgency, you’ll take action right NOW to reach your
dream coaching business.”
TERINA: “How do you get that sense of urgency?”
ME: “When you’re emotionally connected to the reason ‘why’ you MUST
succeed in your coaching business…
…and why you must take action NOW…”
“…then you’ll maintain a continuous sense of urgency.”
“Your brain is constantly asking two questions…
‘Why does this matter?’
And ‘Do I have to deal with this RIGHT NOW?’”
Finally Terina got it.
In a recent coaching session she reported back to me and blew my mind.
Terina told me, “I was so inspired to look for ways I could go faster in my
coaching business…
…that I got my family problem worked out…
…and I enrolled 3 new clients.”
“All of them signed up within 1 week of each other.”
I said “That’s fantastic. How much income did those 3 clients give you?”
Terina replied “Over $33K!…”
“…all because I didn’t quit and I moved FASTER.”
I said “I bet if you had continued to go so slow…”
“…you wouldn’t have gotten those clients and…”
“…you wouldn’t have had the momentum to handle your personal life the way you did.”
Now I’m reflecting back on the coaching I gave Terina…
…and the snail’s pace at which I was writing this email.
I feel hypocritical for writing about speed while I was going so slow.
I needed to do the opposite of what I FELT like doing.
I needed to use speed to my advantage…
…instead of letting the outside world get in my way.
Now I’m taking Jeff’s coaching and following Terina’s good example…
…bashing out the rest of this email at lightning speed.
AN UPDATE FROM THE FUTURE:
I just shared the first draft of this email with Jeff.
It was pretty raw.
I told Jeff, “I only focused on writing a complete email FAST.”
“I felt a lot of resistance because I kept wanting to slow down and do it
RIGHT.”
“But I said to myself ‘When I want to slow down I’m going to speed up
instead…”
“‘I’m putting the pedal to the metal and going FAST.”
“I can always improve it later.’”
To my surprise, Jeff admitted “When things are moving along fast…”
“…I never want to SPEED UP.”
“I’d much rather slow down.”
“But I know my feelings and wishes aren’t always good for me.”
“So, in that area, I don’t listen to myself too much.”
It seems we have this ‘resistance to speed’ in common:
- Jeff doesn’t want to go faster.
- Terina didn’t want to go faster.
- I don’t want to go faster.
And I bet you don’t want to go faster either.
Like most of us, you’ve been taught to go slow (probably from an early age).
“Slow down! Or you’ll get a speeding ticket!”
“Don’t run in the house or you’ll break something.”
“Chill out.”
Then as you get older, you wonder why you’re afraid of going fast.
If you feel overwhelmed…
…you might think slowing down is the answer.
So I understand if you don’t want to go faster.
But go FASTER anyway.
Or, as Mike Litman once told me:
“You don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going.”
Kris “Speedracer” Thompson
