Going into 2013, I wanted to expand my coaching business. I’d had an awakening about how to better connect with people and I was eager to help as many as possible.
I put in some work on my business plan and realized that the way to grow my business was to attract many more partners.
So, I laser-focused on expanding my coaching team, and I was able to bring on thirty-five new coaching partners in two months.
It was incredible, and at first, I was overjoyed at my massive success. The only problem was… I didn’t know what to do with all of my new partners. Fortunately, I did have a mentor who had plenty of experience here, who had often helped others in my situation.
I went to her with a proposition that I felt would be mutually beneficial.
I said, “I have all of these new people—do you mind if I acquire them and you coach them, turn them into leaders?”
But to my surprise, her response was no.
Or, more specifically, it was, “I won’t do it for you, but I will show you how to do it.”
I was completely blown away.
She had done something similar for other people, so why not me? I had thirty-five new people to train. There was no way I could do it all myself. So, I went back and begged, “Will you do it for me? Please?”
But the answer was the same: “No. I won’t do it for you. But I will show you how to do it.”
No One Will Help Me
As I walked away, still shell-shocked from the rejection, I began to wonder: How come no one would help me? Did they not want my business (or their business) to grow? Did my mentor see me as competition? Was she betraying me? As her mentee, wasn’t I entitled to her help? Had I made the mistake of trusting yet another authority figure who would abandon me to fend for myself?
As time went on, these questions continued to gnaw at me, and I grew more and more upset.
No one wanted to help me. My confirmation bias pointed out all the ways that people had failed to help me in the past. The people I thought were here to help me had carelessly cast me aside when I needed them most.
Finally, I said, “Forget it. I’m going to stop bringing on more coaches. And those thirty-five new coaches I just brought on? They can go ahead and die on the vine. They’re not going to be trained, they’re not going to be successful, and it’s all because no one will help me.”
I stayed in this negative headspace for about a week, enjoying the feeling of righteous indignation just as much as I hated it.
Eventually, I realized I didn’t want to feel like this anymore, so I said, “Forget it. I’m going to figure out how to do it all myself.”
Personal Responsibility & Self-sufficiency
It felt good to declare my independence.
Determined to succeed, I stayed up later, reading more books and watching more videos. I asked more questions and had more tough conversations. I delved deep into what motivated people and, over time, even began to understand (and process) my own mindset.
I stayed at the gym longer, and I did my own damn push-ups.
And as I grew into the person I had needed to be all along, I finally began to realize that I had been asking my mentor to do my push-ups for me. And I had been angry when she wouldn’t.
Wow. Talk about entitlement posturing.
I had been looking to grow without actually growing.
Even now, I look back on that and can’t believe what I had been asking my mentor to do. By asking her to do the work for me instead of enabling me to learn for myself, I was asking her to take away my ability to develop my own gifts.
I was asking her to take away my ability to understand that I had another superpower.
That superpower was self-sufficiency.
We must move away from the mentality of people doing everything for us. Now, that’s not to say you can’t ask for help when you need it or that you can’t hire assistants or employees. But when you need to make a major shift in your life or your business, that is work you need to do yourself.
No one can do that work for you.
And if you’re sitting around, wishing, hoping, and praying that someone will come along and do the work for you, you’re going to stay seated. So, unless you want to stay where you are, in that comfortable seat that takes you nowhere, take radical personal responsibility for your life.
Build the muscle. Put in the hard work. And learn to fly.