It’s a cliché in the coaching industry to say “you are good enough.” But here’s the truth: maybe you aren’t. What kind of results are your clients getting? How are their lives or businesses changing? Are they moving on because they got so much from you that they don’t need more? Or signing with you again because their results with you were so powerful and life-changing?

If their results are so-so, maybe you need to get more training. Or rethink how your services are structured. Or change the kind, amount, or type of support you’re providing. All these things could be true. (I do not agree with the too-common view in the industry that life experience is enough and you can just set up shop as a “coach,” “guide,” “mentor,” or any other kind of practitioner without some quality training.)

Here’s another possibility: Maybe it’s because you’re not doing what you do best. You’re not working from your brilliance, your creativity, your sacred spark. (Instead, you’re copying what you’ve seen your teachers, mentors, and colleagues do. You’re being cookie-cutter, like almost everyone else in your field.) Maybe you don’t know what you do best—or how to talk about it so clients are inspired to buy.

Not doing what you do best can cause bigger problems: If you aren’t doing what you do best, your clients can’t do their best. Even worse, you’re most likely attracting the wrong clients. You see, your ideal clients want what you do best. So if you’re delivering a watered-down, worse version of someone else’s brilliance, the people who are attracted to that won’t be your ideal clients. They won’t fully resonate with you—or take in all your wisdom—or get life-changing, business-changing results with you.

However, once you understand what you do best (and how to talk about it), you can attract the right clients. Make more money. Do so much more for your clients. You can give the world what only you have—and do what you were always meant to do.

Love note: Even though you may not be “good enough,” you are enough. You are valuable and sacred and worthy of love exactly as you are. Because your worth is not dependent on what you do or how well you do it. Your worth comes from being you, alive and unique, passionate and flawed and scarred and wise. Your worth comes from your beating, loving heart. Your worth comes from you, and from the Divine. Because you are part of the Divine.

Where are you not doing what you do best? Explore more here.

Straight from the heart: Words from my heart to yours–to help you get on your  
path, stay on it, and fulfill it with joy!

You are on this earth to do something. Something meant only for you.

Are you doing it? 

(Here’s one clue: You love it. It feels like play. You could do it for hours, for no pay at all (though you love money too).)

If this isn’t your life, what will you do TODAY to make a change?

I didn’t have fun for five years.

In my early 30s, I was building a writing and editing business, doggedly pushing myself to write fiction, and determined to build a real estate business that would eventually support me with passive income.

These were serious goals, and I was prepared to dedicate all my energy to making them happen. Added to that, I was involved with a man who did not believe in leisure time. He wouldn’t go take a day to go to the beach—or a weekend to go to a bed-and-breakfast—but he would fly across the country for transformational retreats for self-growth and real estate cruises where we spent hours in conference rooms learning from assorted gurus.

I didn’t mind. I was ready to put aside “childish” fun and do the adult work of making my dreams come true. (Yes, I did go out with friends… and yes, there was some fun in all my growth and work. But did I make play a priority? Did I make time for fill-me-with-delight, nothing-else-but-fun fun? No. I had more important things to do.)

When the relationship ended after five years, it was winter. Through the dark days, I worked long hours for a client, redid my apartment, and read books on how to recover from a break-up—working obsessively to heal and move on.

Then, one day, in January, I noticed a meetup for Harry Potter fans: “Ice Skating in Bryant Park: Put on your best themed fineries or character costume, wrap that striped scarf around your neck, and join us at The Pond!” Somehow, that appealed. Quirky. Fun. And if I didn’t like the people, I never had to see them again.

But, I did like them. I liked their friendly, down-to-earth personalities, and I liked that they were smart and unafraid to have fun.

Over the weeks and months, we followed a screening of Sweeney Todd with an excursion to a Lower East Side meat pie shop. Commemorated Harry’s disastrous Valentine’s Day date by taking high tea in elegant dress. Played Quidditch, sliding through mud and tackling each other to catch the Golden Snitch.

As winter turned to spring and then summer, as we went from knitting Gryffindor hats to putting on cloche hats for a Jazz Age picnic on Governor’s Island, my joy expanded and expanded. I was dizzingly, delightfully, spin-in-circles in love with my life.

At the same time, I grieved. I had given up so much. For five years, I had pushed fun aside and looked down at it. And because of that, because of all the play and joy I had cut out, I had lost five years of life.

Want some exercises to help get play in your life?
Click here to get the exercise.

When I first started my coaching business, it was slow going, and my income was tiny. There was not much joy. I thought it was because of my fears and resistance (which were big!), but there was another reason I didn’t see: I was doing things that should have been saved for later—and NOT doing the things that would get me clients and income right away.

Here’s what you might THINK you need to have a thriving business: a website, a logo, an LLC, a bank account, an office and all kinds of equipment, business cards, a newsletter or videos or podcasts, a social media strategy, joint ventures, a social media strategy, a blog, … and the list goes on.

Here’s what you REALLY need: clients and income. (And no, you don’t need everything above to get clients and income! 🙂 )

If I had truly gotten that, I could have saved myself years of stress, guilt, self-blame, and hard work that didn’t pay back. My FREE WEBINAR, “Sign High-Paying Clients in 5 Simple Steps: The Fastest, Most Direct Way to Make Money Doing What You Love,” covers what I learned.

The DIRECT path to clients and income is so simple and clean–and there’s a real joy in doing business that way. And, of course, bringing in clients and income will probably bring you some joy as well! 🙂

I invite you to join me on the webinar, so you too can take the direct path to high-paying clients—and a more joyful business.

A few months ago, we potty trained our older son. This was huge because I’d been dreading potty training for over a year and a half.

Every time I thought about it, I imagined weeks of poopy pants, rugs that smelled like pee (or unsuccessful, vinegar-y attempts to get the pee out), and long hours sitting beside him and his little potty. Diapers were so neat and tidy and controllable—why not stay with them until William reached the age when he magically and almost instantly potty trained himself?

Periodically I would dutifully Google and read free articles on potty training and note, with both disappointment and relief, that William didn’t meet all the “readiness” criteria. I thought about a former supervisor who trained her toddler over a long weekend and felt hope—but I also worried that we wouldn’t succeed and would be stuck washing poopy pants for weeks. In the end, my intimidation won and I would put aside thoughts of potty training again, waiting for the magical time when he would be “ready” and it would be easy.

Pursuing your life dreams or running a business is like this. For most of us, there’s something we’ve been putting off. We imagine all the “crap” we’ll have to deal with… and we put off action, hoping for a magical time when we’re “ready” and everything falls magically, quickly into place. In the meantime, we suffer. We dread, we worry, we avoid, we feel bad.

The feeling that ‘the clock was ticking’ finally pushed me to action. The day Oh Crap! Potty Training became available on my Kindle, I bought it. And the author (Jamie Glowacki—huge thanks to her!!) explained that my son didn’t have to be ready for potty training—he just had to be capable of it. No one starts by being ready, because potty training is a completely new skill. And it doesn’t magically happen by itself. But, it also doesn’t have to be traumatically difficult. There are simple steps you can take, each one building on the prior one, and if you follow those steps, potty training happens.

The same is true for running a business–or reaching any life goal. If you know the right steps to take, what seems big and intimidating can become simple, straightforward, and easy to resolve.

Over the next couple weeks, William went from diapered to totally diaper-free. (And into the bargain, we also moved William to a “big bed”—another step we’d been dreading for at least a year!) Along the way, I learned something incredibly valuable: because I had the right guidance and because I went ahead despite my fears, something I was scared of—and avoided—for a year and a half was quickly and easily resolved.

I’ve noticed a similar thing with my clients. They come in struggling to make enough money or get enough clients, unclear about what will work and anxious because their business isn’t getting easier or better. Then they learn the simple straightforward steps to take, and their world changes.

If you’ve had the same issue for a while (getting your income to the next level? ending the trade-off between overwork and underearning? pursuing your true creative vision?), you can resolve it much faster than you think. You don’t need to wait for some magical time when you’re “ready.” Because the fact is, you’re never “ready.” But you are capable. You can make the change you need. You just need the right guidance and the right steps.

(Wondering what your next steps are? Apply for a complimentary business breakthrough session!)