YOU CAN DO THIS

EP #50



“Do I need a life coach?” You’re listening to Episode 50, with Rhiannon Bush



Welcome to the Do I need a life coach? Podcast. We’re here to discuss the ins- and outs- of the life coaching industry and give you tools to use, to see for yourself. I’m your host, Rhiannon Bush. Mother, management consultant and a passionate, certified life coach.



Well hello my friends. I hope you're having a sensational week. I am having a ball, I can't believe we are at Episode 50! Yes 50! And the body of work that I’ve created in getting to this point… I'm really, really proud and I hope that if you're listening to this, if you're a regular listener, or if you've only just joined that you're really enjoying the content that I'm bringing. The best thing about this is that I'm doing it my way so whether people like it or not, it is sort of by the by to me. Don't get me wrong, I really want to make a difference and I want to have an impact but I also understand that I'm not everybody's cup of tea and that's okay. So if you're listening and you're enjoying it I would love to hear about what you're enjoying and if not then you know… will you listening to this? And that's absolutely fine. So I just, yeah, I really want to thank you all for being here and yeah… I'm just can't believe episode 50! That's huge.



I have come off the back of a conference, an industry conference, with the Tasmanian Mining Manufacturing and Energy Council. TMEC, and it was just the best week. I had such a wonderful time. It's the first time since having kids that I have been able to go back and do what I do professionally and just be, you know, completely and holistically me and who I was anyway pre-kids. It was really nice. I had the best time and that has definitely inspired this podcast because I’ve had a really interesting six weeks at work. My director went on leave and so I stepped into his shoes which is no easy feat if you know who he is and it's just been massive between… you know… kids and work and extra things that I do outside of work and look, everybody in life seems to be the same, I don't think I'm alone in this. I feel like we all have these crazy lives and we all do these things that, you know, we're just on the hamster wheel so often and if you get little moments in that of doing things that you absolutely loving it and light you up, whether it's saying friends or doing something like rowing or singing or performing arts or gardening… I can if you do anything that you did as a child really that you remember as a child you absolutely loved, the chances are as an adult you'll love it just as much. It's just changed a little bit in terms of its perspective. So if there any little rays of sunshine in your life where you get to go and do that thing, then that's awesome and you'll kind of understand, I guess, how I felt last week. I'm doing what I do and it was brilliant to come home and see the kids and see the family and yeah it's definitely made me much more patient and a lot more compartmentalised which was just awesome.



I had this real moment at this conference of just thinking “I can do this” and I want to tell you the same. You can do this. Whatever it is that you are going through, wherever it is that you've been, you can do this and at times on the journey, and i'll talk to you a little bit about that in a minute, it's something that I took from one of the speakers at the conference but it's definitely something that we lose sight of as we go down this road because things get hard and then life steps in and then all of a sudden we stop and go “wait what are we doing this for” and “why?”. “Why am I adding more pressure?”



I remember once Damien looked at me and said “do you enjoy what you do?” and I was like “it's such a complicated question” because there are certain needs I definitely have fulfilled by my work. Would I say I am happy? Happy is probably not the word that I would describe it. Am I fulfilled? Yes, to an extent for sure. Is it hard? Yes. A girlfriend said to me the other day “yeah but everything that's worth having is difficult”. It's a hard slog, you're in the trenches you working through it and it's through coming out the other side and having it that you get that feeling of ‘yeah this is what it was’ and ‘this is why I didn't’ and ‘this is, you know, the reason that I did it’ because now I get that feeling of satisfaction or happiness or peace or whatever that might be for you.



Funnily enough, from where we stand right now, today looking at what we want in the future (because we may not have it yet) there is so often this perception that by having that thing we're going to feel differently and we're going to feel happy. We are going to feel content. We are going to feel fulfilled. When actually, a lesson that I continue to learn is that that's not the case. Life is happening right now you're doing it, right now and yes, things external to us can be tweaked and can be changed to ensure that we get that feeling of happiness and gratification and whatever it is that we need, faster and more steadily and more readily… however usually it's through the accomplishment of having that thing, that we’ve changed so much through the growth that we experience to get to that thing, the feeling that we have when we get there it's like “oh so this is now the problem”.



You know the business saying “better levels, better devils” and I think that that's true. You know, you start and you've got your energy at the beginning. You've got the certain problems that match you at the level that you're at and then as you expand into the next level, you think that when you get to that level you've got better cash flow for instance. All of a sudden you're not going to have the financial pressure that you had at the beginning so cash flow is going to fix everything. And then you get to that next level and cash flow is great but then you don't have the resources to deliver. You can't do it all so then it's like “well now I’ve got to recruit people” and when you recruit people that's a whole world of problems but you can deliver what you said you going to deliver and you can go and expand.



And then you go and expand and then there's another problem that you couldn't foresee at the beginning. It's like trying to go through a maze and trying to find that centrepiece. You can't see around the next corner, you don't know what's around the next corner, so you've got to just jump in and walk through that maze to get around the corner to then make your next decision and make your next move and take your next step.



So you kind of are, in a way, flying blind and I don't know if this is resonating with where you're at right now but you can do this. It does matter why you want to do it in the first place. The purpose for which you are doing this and I think when it comes to goal setting and really projecting your life forward and having a big aspirational goal, it is so good to understand your expectations around what it will mean to have that thing. So if you dream of having a seven figure business, if you dream of being a CEO, if you dream of having a loving partner, then while you're here where you are right now having the aspiration to have that thing which is wonderful, I think it's a really good exercise to manage the expectations that you have when you have actually achieved that thing.



I spent a lot of time in my 20s wishing that I was with somebody, that I was sharing my 20s with somebody. I was always very happy in my own company, I was always really footloose and fancy free and I was always really comfortable in my own company so I was happy with that, I really was, but there were also times when I will absolutely pined to meet somebody, and not be alone. Really, I wanted to be sharing that with somebody and then have all the experiences that you get to have when you have a trusting loving partner and then you know… Damien came along and that was sensational, it really was. It was a really special time with all of these things that I just couldn't anticipate. Like all of a sudden I didn't have my weekends to myself. I didn't have time to fall into Netflix hole if I wanted to, or coach a client because I would prioritise spending time with him over coaching a client. Or I used to wake up and go to a yoga class on Saturday morning and then I would go to the market which was just of Church Street in Richmond and I used to love just pondering that and doing that in my own time, on my own. I’d go and sit in a cafe by myself with a coffee and a good book or write an article or do any coaching work that I was doing.



You know I used to just really value that space and time to be creative and in hindsight, I used to live in this state of hope. In my 20s I felt like I could do anything and like anything was possible and there was always “what do I want to do next?”. “What do I want to try?”, “where do I want to go”, and that was absolutely awesome. And I realise that's why I love a library so much. I love going into a library and seeing all the different books all the different things but yes of course we can google right?! Yes, we all know we can go to Google, we can literally look up anything but there is something really magical, for me, about being in a book store where you do you have a visual representation of every single thing that you can pick up and read and learn about and study all you can in a book.



In a bookstore, for me, I'm feel like I can completely transform who I am and I love that feeling. I love that feeling of knowing that I can change everything if I want to and that was very much the state of mind I lived in in my 20s and I did that from 18. I left here, lived in Sydney for seven years where I did a whole bunch of different stuff and like polar opposite stuff and I knew what it was like to be broke. I knew the generosity of a human beings, like nothing dire before you take it the wrong way, I was never in huge financial strain, I’ve always been very fortunate like that, but I also worked hard and there was a lot of circumstances around that. I was a student in blah blah but I had a really great life and yes they were also very mentally tough times and that's where my coaching journey started.



I had a coach because I wasn't in a good space and then I remember picking up and moving to London. I was like “well I can't really afford to go and travel there and gallivant around the world like I'd like to” so I moved. I had nothing to lose and so I picked up and moved to London, came back to Melbourne as I was able to choose, I did chop and change and chop and change and I thought that would serve me and I thought that was fantastic and it was. It was an amazing experience and now I have this beautiful friendship group that are dispersed all over the world and I miss them. I miss them being here and being able to just go to their house and swim and go for coffee and yeah… I miss being able to do that so. I'm not great at keeping in touch, I need to make more of an effort to pick up the phone and actually reach out but my point is, every single decision we make or we don't make has consequences and you don't know what you don't know.



So around the corner you can't see, and you’re going to head down that road anyway so the reason for you taking that unknown road and dealing with the uncertainty and dealing with all of the additional problems that you can't face right now along the way and having resilience around that matters. And the thing that will give you that resilience and that drive and that purpose is knowing what you want at the end of it. So for me with my podcast I know exactly what I want to do and exactly where I want to get to and I'm on the path. I am on track and I am stoked. I'm really, really stoked.



I just recommend doing a sense check around what you expect to be different when you get there. What do you expect relief from? The pain are you in right now that is forcing you to chase this thing? And is that pain real or is it something that maybe you're making up? Maybe it's not real? Maybe, for instance coming back to the relationship example, I remember just wanting to be with someone but then when I was with someone I was like “oh I didn't realise it's so much more of my time taken up” and while I was happy to give it and I really enjoyed giving more to that than being on my own, I did miss, at the same time, being on my own. So there was that payoff and that's okay. It's just something that you have to go “well would I prefer to have my own time and can I bring that in anyway or is it a compromise?”.



Damien and I were able to navigate that but in business, you don't know what you don't know. It's having a mentor to help you with those hurdles and by mentor, I mean somebody that has the results that you want that is a few steps ahead of you so they know where you're going and you can follow their lead and they've gotten the results that you want to get. That's a very, very important factor because we don't want to be following somebody's behaviours and actions and plans if they haven't already gotten the result that we want to get, and again, I would be very careful of people that are clever with their marketing on social media. It's always “seven figure” it's like “6 figures”, “7 figures” … and that may be true and I genuinely hope it is. I really hope when people spruik that that it's true and if it is, great! Go ahead but if they're just doing it to be using that label to get your attention to get you through their doors, then there needs to be a few more questions around whether that's who you need to be working with to get to where you want to be, if obviously, six or seven figures is a thing that you're chasing. If it's not and they're offering business coaching services, they maybe business coaching but it's really important to understand what result you want to get, why are you want to get that result, and then getting the help you need to get that result from somebody who is obviously already got the result themselves.



Because when those unknown hurdles come they can completely derail and I have people going to disagree with me on this as well but I am not a fan of the whole “hustle your backside off and burn yourself out” to achieve something. I think if you have a plan and you can break that plan down into weekly and hourly targets so you know exactly how much time each week you have to dedicate to that thing that you're trying to achieve and therefore when you will achieve it by, I would add like a 20% caveat to that just to allow a little bit of buffer and a little bit of space for you and make sure you've got your plan, you've got your why, and then implement that plan. Be strategic about it. Be smart about it. Do it in your pre-frontal cortex, really get logical about it and that way any emotional highs and lows you experience along the way, you will be able to manage. You will be able to slow yourself down and go “hang on does this need to be so emotionally taxing or is this just another hurdle I need to overcome on the road where I need to get to?”.



Because when you're truly alone with what you want and why did you want it, and what expectations you have around things that will be better and things that may not change when you get that thing, then along the way emotions like “oh yeah okay so that happened. That's not great” but moving on, focus forward, fail forward and make your next decision to get to where you want to be.



To get to where it is you know that you want to achieve that thing and why so at the conference there was a guy by the name of Dom Thurbon and he was a partner at EY and he did this amazing talk. He opened the conference and everything he spoke about was just so personal but also so overarching like it was a beautifully put together presentation and I was just in from the get-go, he was incredible. I think he ran away at the end of his talk, he knew when we got a chance we’d hassle him or come after him with questions so I get it but I would've loved to have just spent any time with him, as I'm sure so many of the other conference delegates would've, because he was brilliant. He was really, really brilliant



One of the things he spoke about was the five human responses to change and in that was a really pretty graph. Basically at first we go into denial. Think of a time when achieving something, on a big long road and all that has been a long journey that you've been trying to undertake this achievement and you get hit with a hurdle and sometimes, actually, it's not even something you're driving, by the way. Sometimes it can be the thing that you just like I’ve got to do this. Like whether it's stepping in as acting director, or getting a promotion, or starting a business, whatever it might be… but it's a hurdle. The first thing we do is deny and it's just a question of when will this be over? When will this be over. The second step is to resist. We go and stick our head in the sand and it's like “how do I stop this?”. How do I stop this? The third is to adapt. And when we adapt, we’re asking “how will I survive?”. The fourth is to leverage so “how do I make the most of this?” and the fifth is direct. Being a director, acting like you have control, and “what am I going to change next?”.



And the thing I love about it is it by the time you start to recognise the phases that you go through to get to where you want to be, you realise that that is the pattern you'll go through most of the time. That's your strategy and when you can work through that faster and start asking yourself better questions, you will get to that point of saying “I can do this” much faster and you can my friend. You can! You can do this. You are doing this. So do it. Get out there, change the world, change your life, do what drives you and do it because you can, I promise you!



I'll see you next week.







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Also, if there are any topics you’d like me to cover specifically about life coaching or the life coaching industry, visit rhiannonbush.com to contact me. Thanks for joining and I’ll see you in the next episode of Do I Need A Life Coach?!


Please note, this transcription may not be exact.