This past weekend, I was feeling under the weather with a flu bug that’s going around this time of year.  Being confined indoors, and needing a break from editing the podcast, my girlfriend and I decided to have a Netflix movie marathon yesterday afternoon.

First up was the action flick Battleship, which she saw before and really enjoyed (and I, being a male, had no trouble agreeing with).  Next up was her choice – what would it be?  Another action movie with Will Smith or Tom Cruise? Maybe something starring The Rock? Or a horror film? (one of my favourite type of movies are the ones where a few teenagers go out to a cabin in the woods and get picked off one by one).  Or perhaps we’d turn Netflix off and pop in Star Wars for an all day Star Wars marathon???

Her choice was … Julie and Julia.  In case you don’t know the plot, here’s the synopsis:

Frustrated with a soul-killing job, New Yorker Julie Powell (Amy Adams) embarks on a daring project: she vows to prepare all 524 recipes in Julia Childs’ landmark cookbook, “Mastering the Art of French Cooking.” Intertwined with Julie’s story is the true tale of how Julia Child (Meryl Streep) herself conquered French cuisine with passion, fearlessness, and plenty of butter.

“Julie and Julia?” I asked.  “The cooking one???” .  As much as I love butter, I’m not really into movies where it makes up a central part of the plot – and my cooking abilities are limited to things that can be made in the toaster or in the microwave.  But being fair, and too sick to put up much of a fight, I gave in and we watched the movie.  And as much as it hurts to admit it, I actually enjoyed it.

I like movies where the main character has to struggle to achieve something.  But even more specific for the coaches who listen to the Natural Born Coaches podcast and who read this blog, the film actually has lessons that us coaches can use in our daily practices …

1) Just Get Started

When Julie came up with the idea to blog about her attempt at completing all of Julia Child’s recipes in a year, she was like most people that have an idea.  She was frightened, unsure of herself and stuck in her comfort zone (but her comfort zone wasn’t all that comfortable, since she was miserable in her job!).  Although she threw out the usual excuses like “I go to work early in the morning and don’t get home until 8 pm at night – when would I have the time to do all of this?”, she decided to start the blog and just get going.  She had no idea that it would lead to her becoming an author, a celebrity in the cooking world, and to have a Hollywood film made about her journey!

2) Small Daily Actions Beat Occasional Large Ones

Julie consistently cooked recipes and blogged.  Everyday.  Rain, shine, sick, healthy, fighting with her husband … it didn’t matter, she committed to the process and did it.  Most people go in spurts.  They take massive action on something, then back off and do very little for awhile before taking another big action and starting the pattern all over again.

The daily actions that you take to build your coaching business will become ingrained in you, so they become habits.  They’ll become as natural as eating and sleeping.  I’d put my money on the coach who commits to doing a few basic things every single day as opposed to the one who takes massive action occasionally.

3) Your Actions Are Creating Momentum (Even If It Doesn’t Feel Like It) 

I know the feeling that you probably get after posting that blog, video or social media update: “Is anyone even noticing this?”. That’s a natural feeling for coaches to have – we pour our heart and souls into something and it feels like it isn’t doing any good. One of the funniest scenes in the movie is when Julie gets notified that she has a comment on her blog and excitedly checks it only to see that it’s a comment from her mother, who’s asking her why she’s doing what she’s doing (note: sometimes friends and family will give us doubt, even when they think they’re being supportive).

But if you’re consistently taking action (and showing your passion in those actions), it is making an impact.  People may not be sending you an email after reading/watching your content, but it’s having an impact with someone.  And if you keep going, you’ll eventually impact a lot of someones.

4) Support Will Come From Unexpected Places 

In the beginning, Julie felt like she was all alone with her project (besides the support of her husband).  But as more people started following her journey, support came from unexpected places.  She was finding it difficult to find and buy the food for the 524 recipes that she had to complete, when readers of her blog began mailing her various things that she would need to complete the challenge.  This support gave her a boost, and was vital to her success.

I’ve found the same thing in my own coaching journey (no, I haven’t been sent any food in the mail!).  When the podcast launched last month, I started receiving support from people that I didn’t even know – they reached out to let me know they subscribed to the podcast and gave ratings and reviews in the iTunes Store which has allowed the show to soar up the iTunes “New & Noteworthy” chart (shameless plug: I’d love to get your support on iTunes – if you’d like to help, you can do it here!)

5) Setbacks WILL Happen

Throughout the movie, it looks as if Julie has finally reached success.  A reporter from a newspaper calls to book an interview that will get her story out to the masses … but on the day of the interview, the reporter calls to cancel since it was “raining too hard”.  Another time, Julie is set to have a big food critic come to her apartment and she sets off to prepare the big dish to impress.  But exhausted, she falls aseep on the coach and it burns in the oven.  More than once she falls to the kitchen floor in tears, tempted to give up.  But she kept going …

6) Have a Thick Skin

Throughout the film, it’s clear that Julie idolizes Julia Childs.  She even admits to a reporter doing a story about her that she sometimes talked to an imaginary Julia Childs while she was cooking, even though she had never met the chef (who at the time when the movie was set, 2002/2003, was quite elderly and would die in 2004).  But Julie discovered that her idol – the big motivation for her to do what she was doing – didn’t like her blog at all. Child’s editor and friend, Judith Jones, was quoted as saying;