Money, Fear, and the Investment that Changed Everything

BRAND NEW (FREE!) MASTERCLASS...& a LIVE Q&A session at the end 🤭

"From Crickets to Clients: How to sign your first 3 clients without a huge audience"

Happening on JULY 28TH AT 1PM EST. SIGN UP HERE.

You'll learn exactly how to go from feeling invisible online to confidently attracting and signing your first paying clients. Even if your audience is small, you don't post consistently or you're brand new to the coaching space. 

Will I see you there!?

In today's episode, I discuss the following: 

• You've been thinking about investing but this one thing keeps getting in your way
• Fear around money is normal (but it's not the full story)
• The investment that changed everything for me
• Besides money, what is the real ROI that is more powerful?
• Would you rather keep hesitating or want to finally celebrate?

and so much more!

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Transcript

0:00

We have a brand new masterclass. It's called From Crickets to Clients, how to Sign Your First Three Clients Without a Huge Audience. I am so excited to offer this to you because I get it. You are showing up online and it's crickets. You've got value. You know, you can help so many people, if not just one person, but no one's biting. You don't just want the double tap on your stories, you want to get paid. Well, I've got good news. You don't need a big following. You don't even need to post every day. You need clear, bold messaging and the courage to ask for the sale. You'll learn exactly how to go from feeling invisible online to confidently attracting and signing your first. Paying clients. Even if your audience is small, you don't post consistently or you're brand new to the coaching space. And I've never done this before, but I am offering a free live q and a session at the end of the masterclass so that I can help answer your questions right then and there live. So. Join us July 28th at 1:00 PM Eastern. The link to sign up is in the show notes below. I hope to see you there and let's get into today's episode. Hey, my name is Kati Lillian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting hashtag sweaty selfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and. Challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. Today's episode is a really important one. Okay. They're all really important. I may be biased, but this one's really important because if you're here, chances are you are an early or aspiring coach or online service provider, and you're curious about what's possible. Whether you are thinking about starting your own business or you did just start and you're still kind of getting your feet wet a little bit, or you have started and you're like, okay, well, like what's the next level? And you've been thinking about investing in yourself either for the first time or again, but maybe you have this little voice. I like to also say maybe a little inner critic in your head, and it's whispering things like. Mm, can I really afford this? Or the what if doomsday worst case scenario, what if it doesn't work for me? What if it's a scam? What if it's a failure? Should I wait until I have more clarity? Should I wait until I feel more ready or have more money or more clients first, and then I invest? If you have ever felt that and any of those thoughts resonate with you, I just wanna recognize you and validate you because you are so not alone. That is so normal. And remember, your brain is always trying to protect you. That is it's job. It's trying to keep you safe, it's trying to keep you comfortable, and it's trying to keep you in familiar. Territory. So the minute you decide and not decide, the minute you think of doing something new and doing something different and investing money, perhaps you've never invested money before, those are the thoughts that are going to come up because your brain is like, that that's not safe, that's not familiar. But this episode is devoted to you and your brain and to talk to you about money, about the fear attached and the investment and just the power of investing, but more so the investment that changed everything for me. I just wanna share my story with you because I feel like there's a lot of belief and. Conviction and confidence that can come from someone just sharing their story. So, I've broken this episode out into four parts to make this pretty easy for you, hopefully and digestible for you. So let's just, let's get started. Part one, fear around money is normal, but it's not the full story. It doesn't have to be fearful. Sorry. Your fear around money does not need to be normal, but perhaps it feels like it. But I just want you to open your mind a little bit for me and understand like, okay, well maybe fear isn't like a bad thing. We don't have to demonize money. Okay, so, so let's just start here. It is completely normal. For you to feel scared when you think about investing in yourself, especially when you're not making steady income yet, or or steady money yet. Now, I just want you also to recognize that feeling of like hesitance and fear and, oh God, what am I doing? Is kind of like when you start at a gym. Right. Normally you go to the gym because you're not in shape, and so you invest money, whether that's a class or a monthly membership initially, to then go to the gym so that you have this desired outcome result of what? Getting fit, getting strong, getting healthy. But if you chose to wait. To go to the gym until you are in shape. That's kind of the thought process of how we look at investing in yourself, right? Like, oh, I don't have the money yet, or I don't have the clients yet, or I don't have the business yet. It's like, okay, well how do you think you get those things? You have to invest first to then learn and try all those things to then get that desired outcome, just like a gym investment. So. I remember the first time I put money into a business program, it felt like everything was writing on that decision, right? It felt so big, it felt so heavy. I was like, what the fuck am I doing? I had no guarantee it would work, right? There is not one investment that I've ever made that ever came with a guarantee, so just recognize that there is always no guarantee that it will work. And I didn't know what. C what the ROI would be. I didn't know what kind of return I would get. You hope you make your money back. You hope you profit. But still again, no guarantee. And I wasn't even fully sure I saw myself or I didn't feel ready to do the thing. It's not like, you know, it was end of year for a January 1st start or whatever. It was just kind of like a a random. Day of the week in March, and I just so happened to see this guy advertising this program. I got into a DM conversation, I said yes to one of the sales calls, and I just kind of went for it, right? So it wasn't really like a okay, like, I'm gonna do this and, and had to get there mentally. It was more of just like, all right, let's fucking go. So I had all the same worries. I had all the same fears, I had all the same doubts. I had zero guarantee. So I just wanna normalize all of that for you. But here is what I learned and here is what I want you to hear. Fear is a part of it. Fear is a part of every expansion that I have ever gone through. So the version of you who has the paying clients, who has the confidence, who has the clarity, she had to walk through fear to get there. Fear is a part of the process. So if you are afraid now, it doesn't mean something is wrong. It means something is stirring within you. Something is rising up to the surface, something is happening. There's some kind of feeling, some kind of momentum, some kind of divine timing of. Oh shit. I am about to do this. I'm about to join. I am about to say, let's fucking go. I'm about to invest. I'm about to swipe that credit card, right? There's like this energy bubbling up. That is the fear. And I just want you to recognize that so that when you feel fear with your next investment decision, you embrace the fear. You're like, yeah, this is a part of it. Doesn't mean that I'm doing something wrong. It doesn't mean that I am unsafe. You have to remind yourself. You have to remind your brain. You have to self-soothe. It's okay. I know that I want to do this. I don't even, I don't know the outcome. I don't know the, the guarantee. I don't know the ROI, but something about this feels right. Something about this feels like it is the necessary step that I need to take in order to get closer. Maybe not all the way and have all my expected results happen, but if I could get closer and take a few steps towards that goal. That would be a worthy investment to me. Right. So it's like you have to do this inner dialogue with yourself and soothe yourself of like, it's okay, we're safe. Fear is gonna pop up. It's okay. Yeah, but we're gonna go do it anyways. So just recognize that fear around money is always normal. Now, part two, I just wanna share a little bit more about the investment that changed my life. So this was the first, well, it was the second investment, but the first amount that was scary and it was my first investment into a specific like business coach, not just life mentor type person. And it, it wasn't about like the tools or the lessons, the worksheets, the video modules. Like it was none of, none of that that I received. It was more of like who I became because I said yes. So I always say 50% of the transformation is already when you say yes and you swipe that credit card because that is you showing the universe like. I'm, I'm so ready, and I'm so, serious about making this happen for me. Halfway is already at that point I. The other half is you showing up, doing the work, taking the sta, the messy action, all of that stuff, right? So I became someone who didn't just talk about my dream and starting my coaching business, but I literally started building one with that decision of saying yes on that sales call that one day in March and swiping the credit card. Okay. I became someone who showed up differently than what I had before because I had skin in the game. I became someone who was no longer just watching everyone else grow and everyone else making their dreams happen on social media. But I was now in the arena too. I was on the field playing the game now too. My ass was in the bleachers for too long. Okay. So I made it down to the field and I started to participate on the field and play the game. So that is then also what led me to, lead creating CEO my four month Mastermind for early and aspiring coaches. So my story for the investment and I'm sure I've said this already before on other episodes, but I. I had made around$6,000 in my part-time side hustle, which was still like brand work. And then also clients that I had hired on my own without any mentorship of like getting them. But I had created my own six week program for$600 and I. Signed 10 girls with that, and I was on cloud nine. I was like, holy shit. People are saying yes, this is amazing. My cup was full. I loved it, but financially it wasn't panning out, right? Because at the time I was making a six figure salary at my tech company, and so once I tasted that money from my side hustle, I was like, okay, this is cute and I'm so grateful, but how do we make. This real, how do we replace my tech salary so that I can go full time? So that was like this big question I asked and said out loud and you know, said to the universe. And I don't remember how long it took to get the answer, but what I do remember is not me ever mentioning this to my mom, by the way. Like I never told her, man, I wanna replace my income. I just told her a bit about the side hustle and she knew I wanted to be coach and all that stuff. And so she started listening to a podcast known as The Mindset Mentor. And I had never heard of it at the time, but she listened to one episode and they're just about like 20 minutes long. And she thought of me, and I don't even remember now what the episode was. I might have to look back in her text messages in the archive or something to find out.'cause now I'm curious too. But I listened to her as, she's like, listen to this. I was like, great. Listen to it. Every word of course resonated with me. And at the end, he has a CTA of take a screenshot, tag it or tag me on your stories. And I had already been doing that with other podcast episodes I listened to, especially during COVID, that's like all I did. So when that was the CT, I didn't think anything of it. I was like, oh yeah, sure, duh. I already do it. And so when I did that the host of that podcast, Rob Dial, he started DMing me, right? Because he can see it and you can start direct messaging that person now. Little naive Katya at the time thought it was Rob dial, and so I was so giddy. I was so excited. I was like, oh my gosh, Rob Dial, which by the way, I didn't even know who he was. I just saw his following and it seemed like he had a big account and all that stuff. So I was a little, like, I put him on the pedestal, you know, that kind of thing. So he was DMing me and just very like organic, genuine conversation of who I am, what is my business all about? Where do I hope to be with it? And so eventually the conversation led to an invitation for a call. And then again, naive little Katia thought it would be with Rob and I get on the call and it was not, it was, you know, one of his sales guys. And I. Regardless. It was a great conversation and it felt like exactly what I needed to do because they knew my goal of replacing my tech salary and they basically were like, that's possible. Like we can help you do that with our program. So it felt like an immediate fuck yes on the call. Now the amount was scary to me. So going back to Fear around Money, it was 7,500 for a three month program. Now this is not withdraw. This was a group program. So it's quite a, a lofty amount for that type of time and the group dynamic in my opinion. However I remember I had my business account separate from my personal and in my business account there was$15,000. And I was like, that's kind of crazy that. Exactly half of that amount would be the investment in here. So one, I had the money, two, I'm not I still have half remaining even with this investment. So I remember financially like, okay, 7,500 is a lot of money, but also I have the money. Like, why not? Right. It was kind of like a yolo moment. So I talked to Bert that night. Not from a place of permission, but more from a place of support. Like I had already decided I'm doing this. I need your support. I need your yeah, just blessing essentially of me doing this, you know, I already have the money and blah, blah, blah, blah. And so of course he supported me and yeah, I decided to do it then the very next day. And that program changed my life because there were so many mental roadblocks around. Me, myself of, you know, am I good enough? Why me? Why did I choose the coaching lane? I don't have enough certifications. All those limitations I believed. And then also around money. So charging thousands of dollars for coaching and then raising prices and depending on like who I even signed if I thought they might have been like. Better than me or further along than me. Who am I to actually coach them? Oh my gosh. All mental roadblocks and hurdles that I had to, to sort through. And I'm just really happy to say that I wa was able to sign two, one-on-one clients in the three month duration. And because of that I was invited to, let's say, a level two of that program where it would be an additional I think it was three more months, if I'm not mistaken. And then I signed two more one-on-one clients in the extra three months. So four clients in a six month span. And then I was invited to their, level three, which was the highest you could go. It was called Elite. And then we were invited out, just the elite group, like, I don't know, 15 people. We were invited out to Austin to go meet Rob in person and do like this retreat conference type thing with like somatic breath work and different activities and journaling exercises. It was again, life changing. And yeah, ever since then, then I had built up so much confidence in my ability because I did the work. I had built up so much belief in the coaching industry and just the possibility in this industry and this arena. And then I remember I had a really intense somatic breath work experience and I. Basically just had this intuitive ping and voice of like, you're ready, like. Like it's time and I will never forget it. Visually speaking, I saw a butterfly come out of its cocoon and like fly on its own, and that represented me going out off on my own. And I even got the tattoo of the butterfly on my wrist. That's what it's from. If you didn't know, but. Yeah, life changing to say the least. And then the very next day this was over the weekend, so then the next Monday I called my CEO and basically said like, you know, I'm done. I'm out. And that was it. So it's crazy what one$7,500 investment did for me. I was able to quit my job. I believed in myself more than ever. I gained four clients. I made thousands of dollars. I made my money back. And then some, I don't know the final amount, but I do remember I surpassed 7,500. The biggest thing is just the belief, not only myself, but just again, in the possibility of this actually becoming a lucrative career for myself. And that changed everything for me. And now here we are years later and I'm still doing it, but bigger and better and further along, and now with group programs and a podcast. And so it truly changed everything for me. Now the biggest thing, so. Rob is on a different level in terms of his coaching and his career and. You know, he has so many team members and employees and staff and all that stuff. But what I didn't know is his group program was probably even more powerful for me at the time of where I was at in my journey and building my business because I was in a group, I was with other people who were trying to do the same thing. And I will never forget like how many video, like. Squares popped up on Zoom and immediately I just felt I was in the right room because I was like, wow, I'm not crazy and this is possible.'cause look at how many other people are in here literally trying to do the same thing. And I remember that was so expansive for me. I was like, oh my gosh, I feel less crazy. I feel like it's more possible and all that stuff. And that's literally why. Going back to CEO, that's why I created a group program. I could easily just stick to one-on-one.'cause that's what I'm doing with girls who want to become coaches or have already, and they just wanna level up. But in a group dynamic, I wanted to give that same experience to the girls that do feel alone and do feel crazy and feel like they're on an island in their own reality. Right? Their family doesn't get it. Their friends. Don't get it, nor do they want to get it. You know, like it's just really hard if you wanna go off on your own and you have no one else doing it with you and no one else that gets it. So that's why I created GEO. So you have the video vault, like the business trainings to go off of, but then also those live phone calls with the group so that you get that hot seat q and a coaching. And that is just everything. It, it gives you clarity, it gives you strategy, it gives you structure, it gives you support. You know, you wanna show up, you wanna sell, you wanna serve. Like this is the the room that you wanna get into to actually make that stuff happen. I just wanna share my story, and again, why I created CEO. It's literally because of my life changing experience, so I just hope that resonates with the, the woman that is listening right now, and again, depending on where you're at in your journey. Okay, part three, I really wanna talk about ROI. Everyone always talks about ROI return on investment, return on investment, return on investment. So the biggest question I think when you invest into a business coach or a business program is, what if I spend this money and I don't make it back and I get it? That was the same thought for myself as well. Again, I had the money, so I was like, fuck it. If I lose 7,500, I lose it. But if I make it back, great, I make it back. So it's a fear that we all face. But I want you to consider something different. Just for a moment. Stay open-minded with me. What if you don't say yes? What will change if you keep waiting another six months? How much is staying stuck or waiting to feel ready already costing you? Think about the cost and time. Think about the cost and energy. Think about the cost in building self-trust, self-belief, self-confidence. You have to look at the opportunity cost. So worst case, what if I spend money and I don't make it back? Okay, then you don't make it back. However, money aside for a moment, if you show up. Two calls and you see other women doing the thing that you want to be doing, and you actually start showing up online. Messy. I. Yeah, but you are able to be seen and you try to go live and you have a DM conversation and you have a consultation call. Do you think you might learn something about yourself? You might pick up some skills that would serve you even well long after the program ends, right? Remember I said it wasn't even about the money that I made or the clients that I picked up. It was about who I became in the process. So you have to look at that. When you, when you invest into something, there's actually only a gain. There is no loss because when you put money. Into the universe and say, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that. Maybe not to meet your expectations, but for you to show up. For you to try, for you to make the effort, you will change. I. And you will become a version of you that you don't even recognize, and you will gain skills that you would've never gained before had you not made this investment. So it's who you become in the process. That is the ROI. The money is almost the cherry on a Sunday, if I'm being honest. It's a byproduct of the work and the effort, but the actual life changing. Desired outcome is you who you become. Okay, so inside CEO we talk about the ROI as more than just money. I would say it's return on intention. It's, it's on the courage. It's on. Finally, betting on yourself. Right. And when you show up for yourself like that, the money often follows faster than you think, because even after the four month period of the group program, think about six months down the road, think about a year down the road like this is knowledge you gain for a lifetime. These are traits and skills you learned for a lifetime. This is a mindset you develop for a lifetime. Like what is that worth to you? Let that sink in for a minute. What is that worth to you? It's not about the business, it's not even about the money. It's about who you become in the process. I cannot say that enough. So last part, if your gut is saying, I want this, I feel like I need this, but your fear is getting in the way and saying, well, what if. Insert worst case scenario, take a breath and ask yourself, who do I want to be four months from now? Not where do I wanna be, not the business, not how much money, but who do I want to be four months from now? Do you still want to be hesitating? Or do you want to be celebrating your first or next paying clients? Feeling clear in your offers and actually doing something to build the coaching business that you know you are capable of? Think about it. If you want a taste of what it's like to get in the room and to work with me in a coaching sense, I highly, highly recommend you join my free masterclass coming up this Monday and just get a sense of my energy and what I'm even all about, what is my offer, all of that stuff, and it's for free. Doesn't cost you anything, it just costs you your time. So think about what you get in exchange for that. Think about strategy, think about mindset, think about support, and think about community. All the information is below in the show notes so you can. See the information there for the masterclass. How to sign up, where to sign up. You can also ask me any questions on Instagram at katya lillian, and just simply DM me. Maybe use the word masterclass in all caps first so that I can see it at the top of my dms. I don't want it to get lost in. The shuffle, if you will. So, yeah, that's it. I hope to see you on Monday in my masterclass and just remember, fear is natural. Growth is uncomfortable, but nothing will change until you decide to change. And it's in that decision that you have to find your power deep within to make that. But also know you don't have to do it alone. So that's what I got for you this week. If anything about this episode resonated with you, you already know what to do, take a screenshot and tag me. And I'd love to personally thank you and invite you into a conversation. So I'll talk to you guys next week. Thank you so much for being here.