THE COACHING CURSE:
Why You Really Can't Find Your Voice
Issue #30: Letter from the Editor
CEO/Founder: Angel Quintana
Photo Credit: Dasha & Mari
Magazine: Issue #30
If you’ve been working at your business for a couple years now and you’re still in the phase of turning a profit, well, don’t worry you’re not alone. After numerous consultations with prospects and consulting sessions with clients, I’ve come to learn that the majority of new entrepreneurs are struggling with the same exact problem: finding their voice. I like to refer to this as The Coaching Curse.
The Coaching Curse is the inability to tap into your own creativity and thus you struggle to ever find your voice. You want to start a WebTV show, have toyed with the idea of launching a podcast, or when the keyboard hit the text edit document to write an article, the same exact problem shows up: you can’t hear your own thoughts. All you can hear is all those annoying voices from people you follow on Facebook or newsletters you subscribe to.
Before you know it, The Coaching Curse has taken over your soul, and you’re left with two options: follow the crowd and become a copycat or you take a step back and call bullshit on the entire industry. Am I right?
I know this not only from the personal struggles I hear from clients, but I was once right there struggling with the same problem— But instead of falling into the copycat syndrome, I got hella angry and decided to rebel against the industry.
Here are three tips to help you rebel against The Coaching Curse and
finally find your own original voice:
Unsubscribe from 90% of Newsletters:
Yup, you heard me right. If you can bring yourself to unsubscribe to the majority of ezines, you’ll stop feeling like you’re missing out and start focusing on what it is you want to say. You might have been coerced to thinking all the Gurus have all the answers to your problems, but you’d be mistakenly incorrect. The only person who knows what’s best for you… is YOU. Stop your excessive desire to fill your brain with more ideas and sit down and find your own thoughts.
Stop Asking Others for Advice:
And yes, this includes your mom too. It’s only natural when we are excited about something and/or are having a problem with something in our business that we want to share it with people we are closest to. The problem is, most of your friends and family members (are not entrepreneurs) will generally always want to provide their two cents and be helpful because they love you and want you to see you thrive, but they aren’t you ideal customer. Furthermore, they are filling your head with their voice, and alas preventing you from finding your own. Stop asking everyone else what they think and start asking yourself different questions. You’ll be astonished how miraculous the brain can be when it’s trying to problem solve! Give it a try.
Make a List of 50 Things:
This is a miracle worker when struggling to find your voice in business. Pull out a pen and paper (yes, I truly mean a pen and not your keyboard— creativity works best when the ink hits the paper) and make a list of 50 things you are passionate about, topics that get you jazzed up, bullshit tactics you want to call bullshit on, and what subjects you want your customers to start thinking about that aren’t currently being talked about in a real way in your niche. When you get to number 25, this exercise gets hard, but I assure you by the time 45 comes around, you’re going to want to go to 100!
And remember, to have a successful business, you’re going to have to wear many hats, but if you can’t keep the role of the Entrepreneur inside you excited, you’re going to fall off the wagon. That means you’ll either want to give up, take a step back, or be tempted to thinking someone else has a better idea for you. It’s all nonsense.
Finding your voice is one of the key ingredients to the success of your business. Copycat businesses will eventually go out of style and pretty soon, everyone will be calling you a bullshitter too. Don’t fall into The Coaching Curse. Find your voice and forget about what everyone else thinks or does. You became an entrepreneur because you had BIG ideas, not mediocre ones and not ones that were created by someone else.
Best of Luck!
Angel
ABOUT the FOUNDER
Angel Quintana is the founder and CEO of Holistic Fashionista®, a business academy and magazine helping philanthropists build boutique brands so they can help change the world. In The Holistic Fashionista Academy, she helps clients discover their Kismet Clients®, develop a product collection that represents their cause, and build well-thought out sales funnels to change more lives and make more money!
In her book, Funnel Foreplay, she teaches change makers how to successfully quickly warm up cold leads and turn them into buyers. While her tattooed exterior shows her creative tough side and her road to success has been difficult, it is her thoughtful approach to brand building and unique selling approach that has won her thousands of raving fans. Angel and her businesses have been featured on: Apparel News, Examiner.com, Law of Attraction Radio, and spoken on stage at Digital Marketing for Business, At The Helm, and Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles, CA.