Ep #179: Do You Have Investment Trauma?

Welcome to More Than Mindset, the only podcast that bridges the gap between spirituality and success. Go beyond the mind with clarity and confidence Coach Kim Guillory, and learn how to integrate your passion to serve with your skills and experience to create a business you love. Let’s get started. 

Hey guys, and welcome back to the show. So today I am talking about investment trauma. Not in a bad way, just you remember my thought about trauma is it is a separation from safety.

So what I’m talking about is past investments that have now created this distrust, or this lack of safety and you begin to doubt yourself. So then you find another product, or someone else you want to work with, or something that you want to purchase, but you’re afraid to mess up again. Or you’re afraid to make a bad investment, and you’re not really trusting yourself.

So what I want to talk about is how to vet, whether it’s a product or a service if you have experienced what I’m calling investment trauma. What can you do about it so that you can be back in safety and still get the service or the product that you were seeking?

I have this with contractors, carpenters, like remodeling my house, and just people who have worked in my business in the past. And things that have gone, I’ll say wrong, if there is such a thing. And it’s kind of like I really don’t want to remodel my kitchen or buy new appliances because now I have a distrust about the quality of the new things, right?

And back in the day, like in the 80s, 90s, when we purchased things, I mean, they were just like lasting forever. Now it’s basically disposable. Even clothes, I bought clothes at a boutique recently and like three of the items, one has like pulled string, one’s got like a hole in the seam, stuff like that, you know shrunk half the size when I washed it for the first time.

And so that’s kind of the investment trauma, like it’s almost a regret of purchase. And we’re seeing this in the coaching industry and hearing a lot about it for clients who are inquiring about E-School, is they’re afraid to make a mistake again or they’ve already invested so much money and didn’t get what they were promised.

And I was talking to my son today and we were just talking about the quality of service. And even some of the things that he was telling me about, like the assumptions and the labeling that some adults have put on him because of his age. And so there’s this distrust, there’s a distrust of generations, and ages, and how we box people into certain criterias.

And it’s kind of the same thing that I’m seeing in the coaching industry, because it is not a regulated industry. Kind of like the healing world is not a regulated industry and so there are a lot of claims that are being made. And this is actually the reason why social media is, like there’s certain things that you can’t say. It’s really for the protection of the people.

So it’s like there’s kind of a balance between vetting, being careful, what kind of questions can you ask, what can you do? And that’s really what I want to talk about on the show today, is how can I help you become empowered to make decisions according to what you want? And how can you vet some of these coaches, some of the services?

So if you were looking for a marriage coach, you would want someone who has some experience, right? Someone who has already gotten results themselves. Who’s already helped other people get results, and they have a system so that it’s not them using you as their learning guinea pig kind of thing at a high dollar.

Now, I understand when you’re a new coach or you’re hiring someone who is fairly new and they’re not necessarily a high dollar coach. So that’s kind of the thing I’m talking about, is we used to pick appliances according to the amount. So there was a cheap, mid-range, and then high dollar. And typically the more you paid, the better quality it was, right?

Would you all agree that that’s kind of how we bought things? Like cheap cars compared to more expensive cars, and they would last longer and the doors wouldn’t rattle, and they wouldn’t feel like the doors were 200 pounds when it was a year old and they would start squeaking and all of these things. It was like you got a better quality, you got better service. Well that’s not the case anymore.

And we’re seeing this in the coaching industry. So just because someone is a $10,000 coach does not mean that they are qualified. It could mean several things, but I want to give you a set of questions for you to ask so that you can better qualify if you have had investment trauma.

And so it’s basically you just saying like, listen, I’ve paid lots of money for this before and I didn’t do my homework. I didn’t ask quality questions. And so I really didn’t know what I was going into. I was just blindly trusting and I wasn’t sure what I was purchasing, so do you mind if I ask you a few questions?

So you have the right to do that, guys, without being shamed. And if someone says that to you, like you shouldn’t ask questions, you should just buy and not consider that you need to know these things, then maybe that right there is an indicator.

So here’s one of the things that I’m noticing, is there are a lot of advice givers. So let’s just look at parents do this to children, right? They tell their kids to do something that they don’t do, you shouldn’t drink, you shouldn’t eat that, you should go and exercise. And they’re not doing it. So it’s happening even in our homes, it’s not necessarily just in the industries.

So these are things that you can be transparent without being ugly, without being rude and calling people out, but just seriously asking the questions. Like so have you gotten the results that you’re claiming you can help me with? Have you lost the weight? Have you done meal prepping? Do you have an exercise routine? What does your daily schedule look like? Like what have you done?

Another question that you can ask is, have you helped others do it? So do you have proof of concept? Do you have evidence? By the way, I have coaches who are inquiring about my school that ask this all the time. All the time?

I had someone a couple of days ago, she’s like, do you have someone like me that you’ve helped get results? Someone like me, someone who, like I see that you have massage therapists that you’ve done it for. I see that you work with coaches. What about someone like me? And I was able to give her evidence and also my past experience.

So I opened the doors to a business and I figured it out 20 something years ago. I’ve had multiple businesses and there’s a system. I have a system that helped me, that helped other people, and it’s now something, it’s a framework that we use. Even though it’s individual to each client, there is a specific framework that fits the model or the mode of creating a sustainable, predictable business.

No matter what your business is, it fits into this framework, it’s a proven system. It’s been proven time and time again with myself and with others. We’ve taken others through it. We know for a fact that you need to be clear, you need to be confident, the problem that you solve, the person that you solve it for.

You need branding, you need to be represented in the market, in your authority. You need to have past experience, you need to have a skill set. You need to have done it yourself so that you can take someone else through it so that you can therefore create a system that is predictable and that is sustainable.

Guys, the minimum, that is the minimum of having a business. And so if you are feeling like an imposter and you don’t have a skill set, you don’t have a proven system, you haven’t done it for yourself, and you haven’t taken clients through it, you’re going to have impostor syndrome. So guess what? Homework time, go out and get some practice clients. Go help people, go get evidence, go get a system, get busy. That is your responsibility.

And if you are interested in working with a coach who is claiming that they can get you to $100,000, ask them what’s the highest that they have attained? How many clients have they helped? And do they have a proven system? Then you will reduce the amount of investment trauma that you experience.

Do your homework, ask the questions, be transparent, be responsible, take responsibility. Just because they’re popular and they’re claiming to be millionaire coaches, or multi six-figure coaches, or they’ve got the branding for it, they might just be great marketers. It doesn’t mean that they’re great coaches or mentors.

So you have the right to ask the questions. And even ask them if they have referrals. That’s not rude or inappropriate. And anyone who makes you feel that way or insinuates that, you might want to reconsider or ask in a clearer way. Do something, take responsibility for yourself.

So one of the other things is ask them what’s their core message? Like what’s their greatest advice about business? And find out where they’re coming from. So ask them how they reached that milestone. How did they get to that status? Was it because they were referred by someone else? Was it because they were in a, what we call a honeypot? Like they were in a community where they just had referrals?

Can they help you build from the ground up if you don’t have that opportunity? Let’s say their coach brought them into the network that had thousands or hundreds of thousands of followers and they kind of pitched to their community and they were already vetted. So can they help you build an audience if they haven’t done it?

Can they help you brand if they haven’t done it? Can they help you with your messaging if they haven’t done it? These are questions that you can ask so that you can find the right product and the right person.

Okay, so I’m going to let you know those three questions again. So what are the results that you have attained that I want? So what are those results? Have you helped others do it? And do you have a proven system? Okay, so that’s three questions that you can ask.

The other thing is really to swipe left and be willing to let go of that past experience. Just allow the entire experience to integrate, take it as a lesson learned, and then do better. Ask qualifying questions. And the better quality your question, the better answer that you will get, the better experience that you will have.

And really, if you have shame about asking these questions, then let’s really look into what is causing that shame. What are you thinking about yourself? Why don’t you feel like you can ask these questions? Are you intimidated? Do you think that you don’t have the right to ask these questions?

So I’m just wanting to kind of expand being traumatized by this so that you can trust again. And you will be able to trust others when you can trust yourself. And the wounding that comes from losing trust in yourself because you didn’t ask the questions will often put you in victim mode, and that is the worst thing that can happen.

We want you to be in empowered mode, not in victim mode. Nothing has gone wrong, the experience has a lesson to it, you are now wiser than you were before. So see if you can just like let it go. Forgive the person, forgive yourself, allow it to be what it was.

Very often the problem is perception. So the promise that was made was under the assumption that you were at a certain understanding yourself. So it’s very often not done intentionally, it’s just that you’re speaking two different languages, you’re on two different frequencies.

So if it is a coach who has made lots of money, who has been coaching for a very long time, they truly believe that they can help you get the results. But what they might not notice is that you’re having a trauma response, or you’re having a nervous system response and you’re freezing up. And if they’re not into like doing the healing work and that’s not the role that they’re playing, they’re just business coaching and mentoring, then it’s inappropriate, the program that you signed up for is inappropriate.

It’s not necessarily that the coach was bad or sold you something that malfunctioned. It could just be that their perception and the frequency was different and they made the assumption that you could handle the program, but then your nervous system froze up. So does that make sense?

So we don’t want you looking at this as if anything was done intentionally or maliciously. I just want to show you how you can vet before hiring another coach, buying another product. And this could be weight loss, business coaching, relationship, maybe even parenting coaching.

Just ask the questions, what have you done? How have you done it? Have you done it with other clients? Has your process been successful? Where can I read about it? Where can I go find out more information about you? Do you have a variety of products to offer or is this the only product?

Because for myself I have a $25,000 product, a 15,000, a $10,000, a $99 a month, like 5,000 down, 497 a month. We have different products according to your capacity to utilize that information. So in other words, where is your understanding? Where’s your business understanding? Where is your mindset? What is your mental understanding?

Do you need to start in Self-Healing Masters at $99 a month before coming into E-School? Do you need to start in coach training before going to E-School because you need a skill set? Or do you need personal help in your relationships and in your mindset and confidence? So maybe starting in Self-Healing Masters.

So if I were having a conversation with you, I would be vetting the product. And I want to ask these questions, I want you to ask me questions because I want you to be really clear about what you’re purchasing. And if you are being offered something and you can’t ask these questions, that would be a red flag for me.

And also notice, if you’re in a webinar or if you’re being like sold in a masterclass or something and that coach says, “Does anyone have questions?” And you don’t raise your hand, that’s on you. You got to take personal responsibility for the confidence and the clarity that you take responsibility for by asking the right questions.

Okay, that’s what I have for you this week, is vet the product, vet the coach, vet the whoever it is. It could be a counselor, it could be a psychotherapist. Vet by asking clearly defined questions. What have you done? Who have you helped? How many people have you helped? Do you have a proven system?

And if they say, no, I’m just starting, I’ve only had a couple of clients, they might still be the coach for you. But at least there’s transparency and then you can make the decision on what that investment is. So if they’re a brand new coach, and they’re just like charging 10,000 because that’s what their friend is charging, you want to find that out. Don’t make the assumption because it’s a high dollar that it’s high value. Got it? All right, have a great week.

Thanks for listening to this episode of More Than Mindset.