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I remember last year when I was coaching with David Neagle as part of his Mastermind program, and he issued us a challenge:

“Make more money this month than you ever have before in your business.”

At the time that was one of the biggest challenges I had ever been given by a coach, and it quite honestly scared the crap out of me. It became an inner roller coaster ride of thoughts, fears, obstacles and such before I was able to accept the challenge.

Having just issued the same challenge to the ladies in my coaching groups this week, I was reminded of my own personal journey – what I like to call the cycle of accepting (or resisting) a challenge from your coach.

So here is the sequence of thoughts that I went through with that first challenge, and yes – this essentially happens to me pretty much every time I look at taking my next big step. Perhaps you can relate?

Thought #1 – “There is no way I can do this now!”

“I have too much going on already, the timing is totally wrong. If you had asked me last month, or maybe next month, then I would be in a better place to do this… “

I like to call this first phase the “I can’t” phase… because it never feels like a good time to tackle a big challenge. And whenever I find myself faced with a big challenge or opportunity, my mind first goes to all the reasons why I can’t do it. Be it timing, money, energy, other commitments, etc. (It’s amazing how many excuses my mind can come up with!) And yes, I feel a bit angry/annoyed in this stage.

In the example with David last year, I was in the middle of creating a brand new program and planning a big launch for the next month – and was essentially planning for it to be a lower income month. And then he issued that challenge, how dare he! Totally threw me for a loop.

Thought #2 – “But I would really love to do this…”

“The timing totally sucks but I would really like to do this. Hmmm, what if it was possible? I hired my coach to push me, and if I’m not going to accept these challenges then what the heck am I here for.”

Once the initial shock calms down a bit that gives some space for desire to sneak in. And for me it becomes a matter of really acknowledging that yes, if it was possible I would REALLY love to be able to achieve this.

With my challenge last year, I had already had some really great 5-figure months. And my brain started to wonder – “what if I could have MORE great months and continue to increase my income? Why the heck not!?”

Thought #3 – “What if I try and I fail?”

“I don’t know if I can do this… yes, I would love to, but I really don’t know if I can. What if I suck? What will people think of me if I don’t reach my goal?”

The anger/annoyance has settled, desire has crept in and now fear rears it’s ugly head. This is where I really start to doubt my ability to make stuff happen. This is where I start to worry about what other people might think of me. This is the point where I want it, but it all seems impossible. Basically this part sucks… and it is REALLY easy for me to get stuck here for a long time if I’m not careful.

Thought #4 – “I’m going to make this happen”

“Alright, enough is enough. I refuse to be ruled by fear, so I need to just suck it up and decide that I’m going for it.”

This may sound weird, but when I’m in this stage, I always get a vision in my mind of standing on the edge of a cliff and falling backwards. I have to trust that someone/something/someway will show up to make it happen. This part is all about faith – in myself, in my coach, in my team and in God.

Thought #5 – “So how could we make this happen?”

“OK, so if I’m going to operate on the belief that I can create what I want in my life, then that means there must be a way. I wonder what some options might be?”

Curiosity creeps in and this is where the challenge starts to feel lighter, more fun and actually possible. When I shift from “I can’t do this for A, B, C reasons” to “I’m going to do this now – how can I make this happen?” then the entire thing changes.

I can tell you, with that first big challenge last year we did find a way. I reached my goal of making $25K that month and we did it in a way that would have NEVER occurred to me had I not been issued the challenge and accepted it. In fact, it’s still something that we do today and has made a big impact on the business overall. (Curious what it is? Just ask me and I’m bound to tell you. )

Oh, and as a final note. I believe that a coach should really stretch you… and throw down a challenge every once in a while that really makes you go “eek!”. If you are a coach to your clients, what are you doing to really stretch them? If you are being coached, do you feel like you are being stretched enough?

(And I’m happy to say that we are only half-way through this month and a few of the ladies in my coaching program have already met their goal of making more $ in a month than they ever have before. Woo hoo! So we upped their goal even more. )

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I’ve been delivering training programs now since 2007, and I’ve always had an internal debate around this topic.

Should I deliver my training programs live or in a self-study format? Self study being either via online audio recording, video or a shippable product with CDs/DVDs and workbooks.

There are pros and cons on both sides of the fence, and I’d love to hear your opinion here (if you are game to pop a comment on the blog).

I think live training programs are the best from a value perspective for participants – be it a teleclass or webinar, it’s great to go live for so many reasons:

• Biggest consideration is that people are more likely to actually show up and participate when they have a place and time to be on a live call – vs. a self-study or recorded program that they have good intentions of doing, but quite often end up gathering dust on a shelf or in a computer – yes, I have many of those myself.
• Likewise, people are willing to pay more for a live program than a self-study program – in many cases at least double the price or more, the perceived value is much higher when a program is live.
• You can add interactivity to the program – via chats, forums or open Q&A on the calls themselves. This is one of the biggest benefits of our OBM Certification program, as our participants get to “chat” with each other along the way asking questions, sharing aha’s and such. Makes for a strong community component.
• The vibe is totally different – even if it’s just people on a bridgeline together, you can feel the *energy* of a live program. From the perspective of having led many programs and also participated in many you simply can’t beat this.

On the other side of the coin, self-study programs can be very appealing, especially from a business building perspective – offering self-study programs has some real benefits as well, including:

• Leveraging what has already been created – record a program and continue to sell it ongoing (via digital or tangible packaging) is a great additional revenue stream for any biz.
• People can get what they want when THEY want it – they don’t have to wait for “the next class” in order to get the training they want right now.
• It doesn’t take up any more time to deliver – many business owners are already tapped out, and simply don’t have the time/energy to continue to do live programs.
• The person may be bored with teaching that topic – there comes a point in time where a business owner may simply be tired of teaching something. They might have moved on to other things and don’t want to deliver an existing program anymore. If someone is in this space, then it’s best not to “be live” imo.

Bottom line for me – as a participant I MUCH prefer a live training. I can’t count how many times I’ve bought a self-study program and simply never got to it (actually, I can count them if I look on the shelf behind me where they all sit). I need to have a date & time to be there or I probably won’t participate. Sad but true for me.

As a business owner/trainer, I do a bit of both – some of our programs are live and some are self-study. I think the key is to consider the training itself – what is the “scope” of the training program being offered? How in-depth is it?

For example, I can’t imagine ever teaching our OBM Certification program as “self-study” – there is simply so much to learn, so much to absorb and I think people would lose a lot of the value (especially the value of the community) if we went the self-study route. Plus I would become really disconnected from everyone.

However for some of our OBM Academy courses – especially the how-to courses – they are simple and straight forward. Want to learn Infusionsoft? Great, as a self-study you can get it when you want it and dive in right away to access the training videos.

So many options, and at times can be hard to decide. Curious about your thoughts – from the perspective of participant or trainer, what do you prefer? What has been your experience with live and/or self-study programs?

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