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How Confidence Helps Your Business · Business for Humans

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Hello, hello, here we are again.
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Hello, hello, here we are again. Today, we are talking about confidence.
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Today, we are talking about belief. And this is one of those episodes,
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it's going to get a little weird up in here.
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I love that. I love it. So we're going to get a little weird,
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we're going to talk about belief.
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Life and the reason I want to do it is
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because as business owners or if you're
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a freelancer this episode is not
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necessarily for employees although you might find nuggets but
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if you're a business owner there's this thing that happens
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and it's normal right our businesses go through ups and downs period if you're
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into running your own business or entrepreneurship because you think there's
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going to be stability or no changes,
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or you're going to be able to just make a plan and that plan is just going to
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100% happen exactly to the T.
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You're in the wrong business. Go work for a corporation if you want the stability
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and for nothing to change.
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Don't be an entrepreneur. So if you're an entrepreneur and you already know this,
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when it's in that down phase right it's up and it's down and when it's in that
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down phase it's really easy to just go right into those two feeling states of worry and fear.
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Worry and fear. We just immediately go into these two places and neither of
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these places, neither of these feelings propel our business forward.
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But we just go right into it. And it's interesting because worry,
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more than fear, because sometimes fear can propel you, sometimes fear is beneficial to forward momentum.
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But worry is a recipe for procrastination.
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And it literally does nothing to help you.
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And I'll give you a personal example, which I don't know, it shouldn't make
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me laugh, but it really does make me laugh.
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So recently my daughter lost a
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ring and it wasn't an
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expensive ring but it was a ring that
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meant a lot to her and her aunt great aunt had bought it for her at the beach
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a few years ago and we tend to spend summer times at the beach with our italian
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relatives i know it's as amazing as it sounds.
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But so this great aunt had bought her this ring as a gift on the beach,
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you know, not expensive, but it meant, you know, it meant a great deal to her
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and it was a gift and she lost it.
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And she had a meltdown.
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As we do. She lost a ring. She didn't know where she lost it.
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It felt like it was gone forever.
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And she went straight into worry and fear and shame and guilt.
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I think we're mixed up in that too and she just was inconsolable.
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And as a coach, sometimes I have to remember not to try to coach my daughter through every emotion.
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But I tried to remind her that worrying about it wasn't going to fix anything.
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It wasn't going to change the situation.
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It was out of her control at this point. And she needed to just wait and be
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patient and see if the situation was going to change.
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Was someone going to find it was it
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yeah i mean basically the only two things
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that could happen were someone would find it or it would be gone
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forever and worrying about
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either outcome when we don't know for sure what the outcome will be there was
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still time she had just lost it so there was still time for the situation to
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reverse itself but that worry and i and there's sadness in there and that's fine.
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I'm not saying don't feel all the feelings, but this feeling of worry just really
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got in there and grabbed hold of her and worried about, will I ever find it again?
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So as I suspected, because she had told me what had happened,
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it was at her friend's house. It was just sitting on the table.
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They were playing with clay.
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She took off her ring. She put it on the table. Her friend found it the next day.
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The amount of emotion that transpired between day one and day two was a phenomenal amount of emotion.
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And this is what we do as business owners.
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We know the down is coming. And yet when it comes, we go straight into worry.
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We go straight into emotions, we go straight into self-pity,
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we go into shame, we go into guilt, we go into scarcity, we go into fear.
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And a lot of times we just shut down. That's it.
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It just stops us in our tracks and we stop working on our business because we
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feel so bad about ourselves.
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We're in so much shame that we don't want, we're embarrassed to go out and talk
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about what we're doing because we feel so unsuccessful.
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And let me tell you, people, it doesn't matter if you run a small business,
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or you're a solopreneur, or you're a medium-sized business, or you're a big
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business. I'm not going to say corporate.
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I'm talking independently run. But even if you're on the larger side,
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this will affect you unless you have cleaned it up.
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It doesn't matter if you have a million bucks in the bank. It doesn't matter
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if you have three months of salary put aside.
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It doesn't matter if you have no money the feeling
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is the same isn't that interesting because somewhere
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in your brain if you don't have a million in the bank you're thinking well i
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wouldn't go into scarcity if i had a million bucks in the bank but guess what
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i had a client who had a million bucks in the bank and went into scarcity and
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fear when the business hit a dip it's so normal in a business for it to hit a dip that.
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It's really normal. And yes, you do want money in the bank to cover the dips.
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You want to be ready for them because they will always come.
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And if you've been in business for a while, you'll know precisely when they're going to come.
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You can see the patterns in your sales cycles of when those slowdowns typically hit.
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For some people, it's around the holidays, which could be summer or winter.
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Some businesses pick up, ironically, in the winter and the summer.
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I know my husband's business goes gangbusters at the end of the year because
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every client is trying to burn budget so they get that budget back the next year.
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And so it just feels like they're always on overtime the last couple weeks of the year.
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Whereas I, for instance, am always in a slow period at the end of the year.
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Okay, so that's where we're at. We know it's coming. We go into this worry.
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We can't help ourselves. It didn't matter how many pep talks I gave my daughter.
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It did not lessen the emotionality. It didn't lessen the fear.
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And I can speak for myself, too, that I've definitely been in that cycle of fear and worry.
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And we perpetuate it because there's something that
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feels a little comforting too about being
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there there's something it's a little bit like a
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warm blanket like oh here it is again here's my shame let me just pull it up
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over my my shoulders and let it just be there and because sometimes we need
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a forced slowdown for some people who have a hard time slowing down.
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Sometimes we go into this guilt and shame to force ourselves to stop which is
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kind of an ironic thing that we do but sometimes it's the only thing that will
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get us to slow down or stop because we go into this procrastination cycle because
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we feel like nothing's working so here's what i want to say.
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When those moments come okay here's where
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we're gonna get weird we need to practice belief
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and it's so hard because it feels
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so woo-woo and not connected to real life
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business but there's something about when you believe you have a different level
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of confidence when you believe that your services and your skills and your talents
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and your gifts are exactly what people need.
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And it doesn't matter if they're running through the door right now,
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but you believe so strongly that you can help people with whatever service you provide,
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with whatever product you've created if you
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believe in it so wholeheartedly it
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doesn't matter if people are banging down your door
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because you're going to keep showing up so in
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the slow time take a breath remember
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what you do remember how well
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you do it and go into that
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belief here's what's going to happen okay to
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reconnect it to real life things when you
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believe and you have confidence and you
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are very grounded in what
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you can do you do it it's as easy as that belief is an emotion which it doesn't
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seem like it but it's so much an emotion it's such a heart-led emotion when
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you really believe in yourself, when you really believe that.
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Whatever you want to believe that gets your heart pumping and excited,
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like the universe will provide.
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There will always be another client for me. My business is fine. It's always been fine.
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We've never not had clients. Whatever your mantra is, it can be anything.
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It can be aliens are connected to me.
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They believe they are going to like infuse cash into my business.
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It doesn't matter what the belief is, quite frankly.
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If it gets your blood pumping and the butterflies in your stomach and it gives
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you a feeling of excitement,
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that excitement is going to propel you to do the work that's going to be required
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to actually make those things happen.
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So I'm not going to give you the ingredients for bringing
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in new clients that's a different topic but it
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has to start from belief because if you're
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in worry or you're in scarcity or you're in.
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Shame and you're running the circles to
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keep those emotions going to keep pushing
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them forward guess what happens it's like an
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anchor it just pulls you down it pulls
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you away from your path it pulls you
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out of motivation and it puts you
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into procrastination and that can look a variety of
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ways you can still be showing up at work looking busy
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but it doesn't mean you're doing the things that
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are going to propel your business forward we can all sit down
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and like work on spreadsheets until we're blue in the face
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and it feels so productive i am the queen of
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spreadsheets i love finance and so
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i get myself in there and i start cranking on some
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some formulas I feel like every business plan
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starts with a hundred formulas because for
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me it's busy work it feels so productive but if
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I take a step back those spreadsheets are not
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going to land me more business it's something but sometimes it's better not
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to do something right it's sometimes it's better to just sit in belief so that
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when I come back to the computer I'm actually doing things that are going to
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drive business instead of just doing math all day, which is great.
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And it's weird for me to even say that. I think it's fun because that was not my MO growing up.
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I never liked math, but I love it now because it's this very easy language to understand.
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Whereas sometimes the complexity of business strategy and growth strategy is
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a place where my brain isn't ready to accept how good I am at that either, right?
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I just shame myself. Like, I must not be good at that.
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I'm in a downturn in the business.
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I must be awful at what I do. Right?
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You're not awful. Okay, let me just be the first person to tell you,
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if you're running a business and it's making money, you're on fire.
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Okay, because there are a lot of people who start businesses and a lot of people
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who never make a dime in their business.
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So if you're making money in your business, just give yourself a huge pat on
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the back. I don't care how much money you're making.
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If you made any amount of money this year already in quarter one of 2025,
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give yourself a humongous pat on the back because every
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dime that you bring into your business you created
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that with your brain out of nowhere and you
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brought in money really
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like you just invented it from nowhere and that is a feat so if you've been
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doing this for a while and you've been driving revenue into your business just
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take a deep breath because that is a skill and yes we can up level it and yes
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we can tweak it. And yes, we can make it better.
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But you will always have a slow period. You will always have a downturn.
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You always have a client that leaves.
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You will always have a team member who leaves.
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Things will constantly, always change. That is the known. There are lots of unknowns.
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But then I'm laughing so much today. I don't know why I find this topic really funny,
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but because it seems so obvious right we know
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it's coming and yet it smashes over
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our heads every single time and i'm laughing
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because it just happens to me all the time where i'm like it always changes
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it always comes back like the wave you know dips down and then it goes back
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out it happens every single time but for some reason when that wave starts you
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know coming over my head I feel so overwhelmed and scared.
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And it's always okay. Okay, it's not always okay in the world and our lives,
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but we need to believe that we're going to be safe, that we're going to be fine.
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Because when you watch that wave coming overhead, you can either ride it and
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have fun and just feel like blissed out or you can let it smash on your head
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or you can let it push you to the bottom,
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and be scared trying to like eke your way back up.
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I've been in every one of those scenarios in real life. I grew up in California.
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I've been smashed by many waves and I have been standing in the middle of the
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water watching humongous waves come in and feel super scared and not sure how
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I was going to deal with it.
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And every time I remembered, I know how to do this.
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When the wave was coming, I'm like, I have three choices. I can ride it.
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I can plug my nose and go under it.
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Or I can let it smash me, but I know what to do. Why would I let it smash me? That part sucks.
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And when I was little, I got smashed a lot because I just didn't have my technique down.
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But I survived. I'm here. I'm talking to you. I'm an old lady.
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Okay, I'm middle-aged. But I'm here. And I've experienced this so many times.
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I've run three businesses in my life. and this happens. It's normal.
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It happens at every size. I work with big companies with lots of money in the
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bank and they still get surprised when the wave comes and they don't know what to do.
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You know what to do and it starts with belief.
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And if you're in a slow period, don't just grind yourself thinking.
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Okay, it's slow. I got to grind, grind, grind.
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That's not the answer. go and find
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a way to believe take a step back
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go do some self-care take a
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breath take a walk i know it doesn't feel like
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it should work i know it that's why it
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sounds so weird to even say it because i'm a math person
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i'm so grounded in reality but
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what i've learned time and time again is if
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i get scared and i start grinding and i start pushing
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and i start trying too hard nothing works
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when i step back and i
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remember how good i am at this and
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i get into belief and i start meditating and exercising and taking more walks
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and getting outside it all starts to work because when i sit down at my computer
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i'm doing the work i need to do I'm not desperate. I'm not grinding.
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I'm in my zone of genius.
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I'm in my comfort level. I'm in my confidence and I'm doing things to move my
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business forward from there.
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Now that sounds logical, right? That doesn't sound woo-woo at all.
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You can even hear it in my voice.
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The energy shifts when you take a step back.
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When you are the owner of a company, and you are used to being in the weeds
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and you are used to being there every day and you feel like you have to be an
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example to your team, remember.
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Being an example to your team also means sometimes we got to step back.
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Sometimes we have to take a break. Sometimes we have to take a breath.
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And trust me, being that kind of leader, being that kind of example is what
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we need more of in the world.
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We don't need to keep showing people grind and be proud of working 60, 70, 80 hour weeks.
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No, that is not what we are here to do.
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That is not what we're here to do we're here
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to believe in ourselves make impact
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find alignment with the way we want
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to work the way we want to make shifts in our
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own lives in other people's lives we have
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the power as business owners to shift
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ways of working so that it works
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better works better for us works better for
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our teams works better for our clients and it
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starts with recognizing when you're
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in worry recognizing when you're in shame or
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guilt or overdoing all these feelings that are not propelling you forward don't
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feel like riding the wave and having fun feels like you're just getting smashed
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over and over over the head take a step back go do a meditation.
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Trust me, trust me, trust me. After years and years and years of experience
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and after years of working with
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clients of all sizes, with all different amounts of money in the bank,
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it's not about the money in the bank.
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It's about you. It's about how you show up, what you're willing to do for yourself,
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how you're going to advocate for yourself.
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I don't want to say stand up for yourself because this is your own internal
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battle, right, of worry and shame versus excitement and confidence.
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So give yourself time to be in those feelings of shame and guilt and worry.
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We don't want to shove them down or buffer away from them or pretend like they're not there.
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Allow them for however much time you need to.
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But then remember, when you believe, when you have confidence in yourself, things will shift.
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Things will shift. I promise you.
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And if you've had this experience of thinking you should grind and then it not
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working, and then taking a step back and having more belief and confidence and
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then seeing it work, please share it.
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Because I think the more we realize that this does work, that it's not super woo-woo,
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that it is where we can grow our businesses and just have more grounding in
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our business and more understanding of the up and down cycles and just to be
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more comfortable with that process, please share.
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Share in, you know, wherever you're reading this podcast.
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Reading. If you're reading my blog, if you're listening to the podcast,
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just add a comment with your story.
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If you're on LinkedIn with me, just please share your story because I think
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we just need to see that this works, that it's a real tool, that it's a real
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skill, that if we get into this space just works better for our businesses.
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It's not a woo-woo bullshit thing, I promise you.
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All right, I'm going to leave it at that. I will talk to you next week.