294: Confidence Conundrums and Attention Budgets with Terri Trespicio

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I think when I realized how little anyone cared about me, about what I look like, what my background. No one cares. They're there to listen to you. And this is obviously just in the speaking context. They're there to get what they need. And that's fine. That's the point.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot podcast and author of Pivot. The only move that matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode to visit pivotmethod.com podcast if change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

Hello. Hello friends. I am so excited to have Terry Trespicio back on the pod today and we are recording in person at Gotham Production Studios. That's the perk. Terry lives in New York, I live in New York and I figure let's just meet in person, get on the mic and jam together. So I'm really excited for this conversation. As a friendly reminder, Terri is an award winning writer, speaker, brand advisor, and author of Unfollow youw Passion, how to Create a Life that Matters to youo. That came out in December 2021. Her TEDx talk, Stop Searching for your Passion has more than 7 million views and HubSpot named her one of the top 18 female speakers who are killing it. What I love about Terri is she's just a font of wisdom and humor. Terri does stand up on the side and she just never fails to make me laugh. So, Terri, welcome to the show and welcome to our in person jam sesh.

Who knew you could be in a room together? This is exciting and I'm very excited to be back.

I know, right? I told you I haven't done too many of these. I'm still super awkward.

Being in rooms with people. We had to relearn it.

What? I know, but that's kind of the topic of today's show because you brought up that after you did your summer camp week of hosting talks and speakers that this topic of confidence has come up a lot recently and particularly the myth of self confidence. So why don't you kick us off? Just give me the overheard, like, what was the general gist of that? And how have you evolved when you think about confidence for yourself and the projects that you're working on?

Well, it keeps coming up. I find that it keeps surfacing in every conversation. It doesn't matter about what about people's creative work, their careers, businesses they want to launch, small things they want to do. It's never because, well, the market isn't in their favor. It's because they think they need more confidence first. Where they say, I would love to do more speaking or insert activity, I can't because I'm not confident enough. And I say, but where do you think confidence comes from?

Right?

You don't amass it and save it up like quarters from your allowance and someday you'll be able to afford something big and you'll blow it all on a gumball machine. Like, that's not how confidence works. But I can't believe that we still are under the tyranny of this idea that we need to be something we're not in order to do what we want. And because I do a lot of speaking, so I'm in front of people a lot, that's just. I think it's fun. But people have this idea that, oh, I do that. And I do it well because I'm confident. In fact, something that people remark on that's weird because I don't hear them ever asking men that question. It's always like, how dare you? You know, how are you so confident? But I'm no more confident than anyone else. I've always been just as insecure, just as self doubting. There's nothing magical in my own confidence. And so people say, well, how do you do this thing? And how come I'm afraid? And I say, well, I am absolutely anxiety ridden, just like the next person. But I've decided that I don't need to be confident to do what I want.

I came to that exact same conclusion. In fact, at the end of Pivot, one of the little taglines I used to have this on postcards I would send out is build first, courage second.

I love that.

Yeah, because I realized the same thing. I'm usually not confident. I'm not confident sitting here right now.

Which is on your own podcast, pretty bad.

On my own show. And you even looked at me, you're like, after seven years, before we were recorded, you're like, after seven years, you've only done a handful in person. And yeah, because we had the pandemic in the middle, and I didn't know what studio and the logistics. So the funny thing is, I feel shy and I feel awkward. But the point is that we're here and we're doing this.

We did it anyway. You didn't say, you know what? We better not. Because it might be this or that or I might feel this way.

And we're friends.

Let me.

And we're friends.

I'm not even a stranger, and I'm.

Still feeling awkward and like, oh, gosh, should I really be doing this? Am I cut out for this? Like, oh, my God, for something that I love?

You've done it for seven years.

I know you.

You love it. You know me now. Think about it. Someone out there who's thinking, I would like to start a podcast. But, I mean, who would listen? And who am I? And da, da, da, listen. You could do it for seven years and still question it, but the difference is you do it and you do love it. Cause if you didn't love it, you wouldn't be doing it.

That's true. And like you said, I don't know. The reason I always mention standup, even that it's not in this official bio that I read, is that you're right that I would look to you and think, you must be so confident to get on stage and try to make people laugh.

Oh, my God, this is the scariest thing in the world.

Because I feel like that goes even beyond. You know, I've done keynote speaking for a long time as well, and my confidence has grown over 15 years of getting on stage, getting in front of people. It's true, I get a little less nervous every time. I still have the heartbeat and sometimes shaky hands or legs, but I feel like standup is a whole nother.

It is terrifying. I'd rather get up and do a talk in front of 50,000 people than in a comedy club with 10 people just because they don't care about your resume. You don't get any pre cred. You show up, you make me laugh every 20 seconds, or else you were no good. And you're judged really on the merit of that. I mean, even Seinfeld says you only get a laugh off being famous for the one second that you walk out. And after that, if you're not funny, no one laughs, and you can't pretend to laugh. So if no one laughs, you really weren't funny. Like, that's it. That's it.

How long have you been doing standup?

I've been doing it well. Before the pandemic, I was doing it more. I really went in hard for like two or so years because I was new. So I took courses, I did practice. I did bringer shows where you drag your friends to the comedy club, right, and make them buy tickets and booze. I did that. And really I was like, how long am I gonna keep this up? Cause the fact is, the people who book you want you to keep bringing your friends. So they're not encouraging you to not do that. And in order to be on stages, you'd have to be committing a ton of time. And I knew at that point I was running my own business when I was doing this. I was like, I need to decide where my time is. And it's not gonna be sitting around at midnight waiting to get two minutes on stage. So I was like, I'm not gonna fight that fight. But I do it sporadically because the skill set, just like you can run and not do marathons, right? I love to do it because it keeps me sharp and because I think it's so scary to get up at a comedy club in front of people, even for just five minutes. The courage, I gather there is. Gives me a kind of ease on stage everywhere else.

That's what I wanted to ask you is a lot of comics will talk about how they bomb for X number of times. So I'm curious, what was it like when you did bomb? Because that feels like a real confidence killer. And then have you found that your confidence has grown? I mean, I would imagine that it's almost like taking an ice bath or a cold shower, doing stand up. Even those five minutes, it does prepare you for everything else. Cause you're. The pressure of that situation, it seems so high in terms of potential for being mortified.

It is very high. And also when you go do comedy as an amateur like me, you're doing it out of love. No one knows who you are and no one cares. So it doesn't really affect your livelihood, your housing, your relationships. I mean, this is. You gotta also take it pretty lightly. And the very first time I was at the end of my first class and I was on stage and I had my first five minutes and my first joke didn't land. Because in truth, I hadn't written it all the way out. I had kind of given a premise for a thing I didn't really. And the audience was like. And there was dead silence. And I said, you know, that didn't go the way I thought. Let me try again. And I just started with the next joke and it was a beginner show. I mean, this was about as warm and friendly an audience you can get. You know, it was fine. But you realize, meh, they're not always going to laugh. People aren't always going to love you. I think it's an important message. If your confidence, and here's where this comes in for me. If your confidence depends on and is intact only when and if other people love you, then it's not really confidence. It's not gonna last. Because now you're saying that everyone else gets to tell you how confident you are. Your confidence has to come from somewhere else. And for me, what's helped when you said, has this changed you? Have you become more confident? I don't know if it's that I've become more confident, which I think is really code for care less. Care less about what most people think, which is true. I don't care all that much. And I make sure I don't care because I don't have the mental budget for it. But what I have done is learned and decided to trust. Trust is different than confidence.

Yeah, I totally agree. I remember I used to hate when people say, oh, you have to love yourself before anyone else can love you. That's a weird.

I know. That's a weird thing.

You know what? I get what they're trying to say. And at the same time, I wrote this blog post, self love formulas are BS because it's this formula that only if this then that only if I love myself fully, then someone else. And the truth is I've learned to love myself because of and with and alongside other people. It's not always.

One thing, then the next. Sometimes people were reflecting things back to me that I couldn't see or acknowledge or appreciate for myself. And of course I understand the memo. If we don't respect ourselves, if we don't trust ourselves, it's a pretty hollow game to try to get other people to fill that void.

Yes. And you're saying trusting yourself, but I'm saying trusting the audience. What's changed my level of confidence in front of a group, whether it's a small workshop or it's a big event or whatever is. I use trust as a shortcut to connection. It's not like I'm trusting everyone with my bank pin number, but what I'm trusting people with is I'm deciding to walk in trusting you, the audience, the workshop participants, whatever. I trust you as if I would trust a friend. Meaning I treat you as If I trust you, warm, open, connected, willing to be vulnerable, all those things. Now, someone might give me good reason not to trust them anymore. Then I pull it back. But when you're on stage, or when you're gonna be talking to a bunch of people, you can't afford to go in not trusting. Cause there's no time for them to earn your trust. You go in just trusting it. So I said, what if I just pretend that I trust everyone here? What if I not even pretend? What if I actually trust everyone in the room, Assume they're there for the best reasons. I'm here for the best reasons. And it's a shortcut. It expedites connection, and it allows me to be loose as a goose on stage because I'm like, meh. It's fine. Because I trust them until told otherwise, until they start throwing bananas at me. And also it allows you to listen to what that audience is telling you. And so it's like, meh. Also, it doesn't matter. They're not looking at you. I think when I realized how little anyone cared about me, about what I look like, what my background, no one cares. They're there to listen to you. And this is obviously just in the speaking context. They're there to get what they need. And that's fine. That's the point.

I love what you said about confidence. You almost define it as caring less about what other people think. It does seem like there's a conundrum, a confidence conundrum, which is that if we're creating anything at all, writing, speaking, podcasting, any content creation, we are putting ourselves out there and saying, I want you to like me. Can't help it. Want you to like me, and I want you to like what I'm creating for you. And that if there is too much feedback or it's like the tree falls in an empty forest, if no one cares, sometimes that's a confidence killer, that no one's even paying attention or the negative comments. It's really hard to separate that out.

Yes.

And I know you've said, and people have told you, like someone even said this. One of my Google colleagues was like, don't let compliments go to your head and don't let criticism go to your heart. And it's just so much easier said than done. Because I think there is a part of us and a part of confidence that we do want feedback, to know if we're doing a good job, if what we're doing is resonating. You know, I don't really Want to be in an echo chamber, but it seems like a fine line until you cross over into caring too much what other people think and then pandering or people pleasing.

Well, the truth is, this is the conundrum you just said. Of course, you know, we have to care about the work we put out. Of course I care enough to be there. I'm not walking out like I don't care. You know, you don't have to listen to anything I'm saying. It doesn't matter. I. Of course I put my heart into it, but I cannot make sure it serves and pleases every person. I put everything in. We wring ourselves out for our work. Absolutely nothing short of that. But here's the difference. Okay, take the book. I wrote, my first book. I wrung myself out for that book. Anyone who's written a book knows how much work it is and how proud you are of it. It feels like it's connected to you in a very intimate way. But that book is not me, and it is its own entity. There are people who will read it who will never meet me. Don't care who I am. Doesn't matter. I don't read reviews of the book. I don't read comments on Goodreads. I don't want to go into that rabbit hole. I just don't see the point. I put myself into it. If you don't like it, it's not for you.

So you don't even read the good reviews?

No, I mean, look, when the Washington Post wrote it up, yeah, of course I read that and shared it. But I don't want to read either one. Here's why. Because I already feel the way I feel about it. And what's the point? I'm going to feel better about it. I already feel as good about this book as I could possibly feel. My friend Elise Bennen, who is one of the wisest women I know, she says, I don't take criticism or compliments. I try not to take them personally at all. She said, if someone's really insulting, says more about them than me. And if it's a compliment, I don't take it personally either. She said, I don't take it as a reason to pat myself on the back, but I take it as information. So if I say to her, and I've said it, oh, you were great on that podcast, she'll say, what did you like about it? She's not looking for more compliments. She really wants to know. If you say, I love how you did this, she goes okay. She uses it to make sure she can continue to do better work. So if we use it as information and try not to connect our ego to it, we won't suffer nearly as much.

I love that she does that. I'm thinking it does give me a boost.

Oh, it definitely does. She's way too wise for me.

When I get nice comments, it definitely makes me feel better. Like, especially when I'm doing something new. I'm not going to lie. Like, it really does lift me up. It really does help me say. But maybe it is partly informative. It's not just the warm fuzzies. It's also okay. It's good to feedback. What I'm doing is working or it's resonating.

It's both. Of course I want to feel. Why can't you take the ride and feel good about it?

Yeah. And then similarly, of course, if negative feedback. What I find mysterious are the. I've gotten some two star reviews that they didn't leave a comment on Amazon or even if it's about the podcast. It's just. I can see that it's there. And I joked, I'm like, did your finger slip? Did you mean. But that's an indicator that I feel confident that for most people the feedback has been so positive. But I just get curious. Like, I wonder what's missing for you and I don't mind. I'm not gonna cry myself to sleep. But I am so curious.

It's done, right?

Yeah. Of what do you wish had been different or what pissed you off? Like, I don't know. I just get sort of curious about.

Oh, absolutely. And of course I ride on that. We all have egos. I have an ego as much as anyone else. It feels good to hear great things about it and. But it can't inform what you think of your own worth. That's where it gets tricky and that's the slippery slope. There's only a handful of people in your life whose opinions you probably really care about, you know, whose love really matters on a daily basis and who you will call when you need something.

Right.

And when you're in trouble. And people who you think about everyone else. It's nice to hear from them. And if you don't hear from them, fine. I think that the fear of that is when we. The locus of trust leaves us. But of course, I mean, do you know a writer or an author who doesn't want to hear what people love about their book?

Right.

Of course we want to hear it.

We'll be right back just after this.

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What about we both said that if we're feeling insecure and awkward, we just don't let it stop us. We show up anyway. We just do the work. Okay, so let's talk about the person who has a big in this case, I'm going to say a big creative goal could be any kind of creative expression. And they're currently holding themselves back. They're not qualified, they're not expert enough. Maybe. Yeah, there's already so much of XYZ out there. What happens at that moment, even for you? Can you think of an example of getting over that hump where you go from holding yourself back out of fear, insecurity, imposter syndrome, to just finally deciding to do it anyway, I think the.

Waiting and standing at the edge of the diving board and questioning and thinking if you knew this, or if you'd only majored in that. I've done that. Putting together all the pieces of things I should have done which would better prepare me for this moment. The thinking is what will crush all of it, because the more you think and ruminate and wonder, the antidote is action of some sort. Well, for me, because I work with people who want to write, I say, well, you can tell yourself a million ways to Sunday that you're not qualified. No one will care about your work. That's the critic. We hear it and we have to work despite it. And so you put words on the page. As I say, you follow your work onto the page, be there for it, write it don't think. Well, I don't know what I'll write. If you say that to yourself, you won't actually do it. So whatever the creative work is, show up and do the steps, do the strokes, whatever it takes for you to start making something. Because motivation comes when you have momentum, and you cannot have momentum if you're not moving. But if you sit and think, well, I can do it later. Like you were talking to your friend Sarah on your podcast and you're like, well, I thought of all these things, like, I could do, or I might do. And listen, a woman who trains for an ironman in order to free up her schedule is a unique person.

Yes.

That woman. You couldn't pay me to do an ironman. I'll do extra work.

Wouldn't pay me. No, no.

But she says, you have to do the thing. You still have to be proving to yourself. I mean, that's what the point of taking action is. It's to prove to yourself that you can do a thing. Now, if you write one page and go, is this publishable? Now you're in trouble. Now you're ruminating again. But if you keep doing it, then you will start to prove yourself wrong. That you can't. I mean, that's the only way. But can I add one thing before you add?

Oh, please do. Yeah.

The thing about the critics, too, about people's. Do we feel good when people say they like our stuff? Of course. The thing I want to add was we have a mental budget, as you know and everyone knows for things they pay attention to every day at a certain point in the night. Now my attention's gone. It's just running over the edges. I have to go to bed. You have a budget every morning when you wake up. And at the end of the day, what did you spend it on? I just don't want to spend it on the things that really don't matter. The people who don't deserve it. So when I feel myself putting good money after bad in terms of attention and still paying attention to someone who's making me madder and more hurt the more I think about them, then you've invested in the wrong thing today. So it's not that I don't care. People think, trust me, I care. Of course I do.

But.

But I am trying to budget that attention better.

Oh, this is so good. I love thinking about attention as a budget and not throw good money after bad. Oh, that's really powerful to think about that. And then we get into an attention deficit.

Yes.

Where We've put so much attention on other people. What we don't have don't want that. We're drained. Completely drained. And I actually wanted to bring that up. So two things. One thing. First is that one of my favorite quotes is action is the Antidote to Despair by Joan Bayes. And that's exactly what you're saying. I've always found that to be true, too, that when I fall into that anxiety and despair, I just have to start taking tiny steps. Tiny, teeny, tiny steps. I just heard today, I think it was Andrew Wilkinson who talked about this book called Wanting. Have you heard of it?

No.

Okay. It's by Luke Burgess. We'll put it in the show notes. The power of mimetic desire in everyday life.

Oh, my God. I really want to read that.

I know. Me too.

That sounds wild. Yeah.

Yeah. We should. We'll do an episode. So we should do one just on this photo.

Yes.

The author says humans don't desire anything independently. Human desire is mimetic. We imitate what other people want. This affects the way we choose partners, friends, careers, clothes, and vacation destinations. Mimetic desire is responsible for the formation of our very identities. It explains the enduring relevancy of Shakespeare's plays, why Peter Thiel decided to be the first investor in Facebook, and why our world is growing more divided as it becomes more connected. And so this idea of wanting and even spending the attention budget that we have. How do you grapple with times where you feel yourself going into wanting mode or envy? My friends used to call it the jealousies, where some amount of that when we look over the fence or at someone else's paper or on social media, which is part of the reason I'm not on there, because it turns me covetous. And then I start wanting what they have, or even I start measuring myself. It's hard not to look at metrics, hard not to like. Audience size is the big stick that everyone compares, you know, or how many.

Likes exactly like this, you know?

Right. And so I find it so challenging, actually, not to fall into that mode of spending my attention budget on wanting.

So are you thinking that the relationship with wanting is bad? Because the way you're saying it is interesting. You're saying, oh, I don't want to be in the envy mode or jealousy, where if I watch and look at other people and compare myself, I will want that. As if wanting's a bad thing. Here's an old text to now compliment this new book, a book from the 1930s, which I'm sure, you've all heard of Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, a now dead white man who wrote about a few rich white men who changed, you know, basically Western civilization. So you think, well, that's really like rarefied air. But in fact, it's very metaphysical in how it talks about money. And. And here's the thing. This surprised me when I read it. I thought I read it and I read it. I go, I don't think I remember this. There's a whole chapter called the transmutation of sex or sexual desire. And I was like, wait, I don't even know. Where is he going with this? And he says that sexual desire is one of the. I think he says it's the top driver. Of course, we're animals. We're supposed to be driven to do that or else we'll die out. But he said sexual desire is so powerful, but until they're older, people waste it on sex itself, which I thought was really interesting. He said that energy, that power of desire, when you transmute it, when you take that and channel it towards something else, that's how art is made. That's probably why most people become musicians, right? It's powered by this sort of basic human sexuality. And I thought that was exciting. And it makes me want to read this book. Unwanting.

Well, that's like somebody said, that's why all our tall buildings exist. A bunch of architects and a.

Yes, very phallic.

Yes, very phallic. Who's the biggest contest? The reason I brought up wanting is that I connect that to confidence in sort of forking the road. You're right. Sometimes wanting that, the jealousies can be informative. That's something I want. That's a way I want to grow. That's something I want to work toward. And that can be good. And then on other times, I find that it lowers my confidence because, I don't know, I'll look over and I'll go, oh, my God, there's so many just incredibly stunning women on the Internet. And then my confidence will kind of lower because I compare myself and I go, I know I'm not an 11 out of 10, you know, or I'll sit on TikTok and I'll see, like, you get so much exposure. And that's why I'm not on TikTok anymore either. But then the ones that.

Make it in our collective consciousness are like almost exaggerated versions.

They don't even feel real.

And many of them aren't. Like, many of them do have filters. And whatnot and injections and fillers and all the things, but still. Maybe it's the amygdala part of my brain that's not even a conscious feeling, but there's a compare and despair that sets you up.

Oh, absolutely.

That lowers confidence or even, let's say, not just in the looks department. It could even be success wise or bank account wise where as soon as I compare, sometimes if I'm not in my more conscious best self, keep my eyes on my own paper. It lowers my confidence because I go, I must not have as good of a podcast if it only has a tenth or one hundredth of the listeners. And it's really hard not to tell that story. Oh gosh, if it was a better show, it would have this many more listeners, you know, so.

Which is a made up story.

How do you deal with. Right. I know, I know it is. But how do you deal with a sense of competitiveness that sometimes can be helpful? And sometimes it's coveted this.

It's so bad. Sometimes it turns on you. It turns on you, right?

Often it does.

Well, you're talking about wanting now as a. When someone is wanting in that department now we're looking at wanting as a signal of lack. And I would want to uncouple those things only because if I want my outfit or my hair to look like that person's, it doesn't mean I look terrible, it just means, oh, I love that. I love that. I would like to do more of that with my whatevers, you know. But can we unhook that? Can we unhook? The idea of wanting means we're missing something. I wanna uncouple wanting from lack because I think that the desiring part of me is the part that drives me forward. I say to myself, it's okay to desire a thing, to want a thing, even to delude myself that I look like that thing. Like I have an idea of what I look like. And then do you ever catch yourself by accident on a camera and you're like, whoa, that is not how I imagined it in my mind. You know, it's just like, it's a shock. And I think I told you this story. Tell me if I did. I had just put up my new website. It's now old, but I had put up a picture of myself on my website and I said, hey, everybody on LinkedIn, here's my new website. What do you think? Well, be careful who you ask because one woman private messaged me to say, I think we can both agree that that's not a great picture of you. No. And I was like. She goes, you know what? You're much cuter in person. I don't know this person. This is shocked to me. And she goes, I'm afraid you're gonna lose business.

What?

I was like, I didn't say anything.

Talk about projections again.

Here's what happened. I got indignantly angry, and it was fun to yell about it with my friends and be like, how dare she? And I wrote the best, nastiest letter to her, and I never sent it. I needed to write it for me to say, you're the problem with women. Like, you know, she doesn't deserve that.

I'm glad you didn't send it.

No, I didn't send it.

Did you feel that it was a good photo of you? Not that it matters. You're gorgeous.

Aw.

Yeah.

It's a very realistic picture. It's what I look like.

She said this.

Well, I wanted to write back and go, it's a good thing I'm not trying to be a supermodel.

Seriously.

But we're comparing ourselves. First of all, who cares? Again, this is a thing that was fun to yell about, and I used it as fodder for my own newsletter. And then that was it.

That's it. Then she gives you a story nugget.

I mean, I had more opens for that newsletter. When I said, listen to what this lady said to me the most engagement, I was like, that.

Was she on that list?

Oh, no, no, no. She's a stranger.

Oh, she was a stranger.

And listen, I looked her up. She's no great shakes either. I'll tell you that right now. But, oh, my gosh, it was funny.

How do you have to be feeling to reach out to a stranger on the Internet celebrating the launch of your new website or the relaunch of your website?

Right.

To say, we know that's not a great photo of you.

I think she was trying to be cute. It was really not fun. It was not a great moment.

But was that, like, a sarcastic joke?

I think she was being like, you know, girlfriend.

I don't know.

It was bizarre. It was bizarre.

That's really funny.

We'll be right back just after this.

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What I love is at least stopping to question why am I doing this?

Why am I doing it?

Is it for me? And then also to come back to what we were talking about earlier. In the creative sense, where am I holding myself back? Not even because of negative feedback, because I'm afraid of any feedback at all.

At all.

That's where I try not to let awkwardness get in my way. Like, I've been thinking a lot about podcasting, of course, because that's my current obsession and that the shows I love. It's a long arc over time. I might actually only love one out of five episodes, but I love that one. And so I'm subscribed and I try to remind myself not to have the bar be so high. Where I do get this way, where I get kind of disappointed in myself if I don't think I've delivered a five out of five on five episodes in a row. However, I need to give myself permission. It's a long arc over time. Some episodes are gonna be a three or I'm gonna rate them in terms of like, you know, quality and best show ever. It's gonna be a three out of five and I'm gonna hit publish anyway and I'm gonna keep moving. And it has to be about the long arc of creativity because otherwise I would never create anything at all. And it's such a high bar. Having to create at peak ability every single time week after week is exhausting.

Creativity's a muscle. It's not a metric. You know, every time there's a tweetable, there's a tweetable. Did you get that down? You tweet that and hashtag me. But it isn't if you expect that your creativity has to hit a certain measure every day. And unfortunately we do. You put up a post. Did anyone like it? Does anyone like it? My cat has his own account and he gets more likes than me on everything. When I Mean more. I mean tens of thousands more. We cannot be comparing all the metrics. They're not all the same. But creativity is a muscle. And if you don't do it because you're afraid of feedback, you won't do it. And if you don't do it, you won't have the life that's infused with creativity, which I know a lot of people want. And they say, well, if I'm not good enough, I can't do it. You're right. It's a long arc, so. And you have to walk the whole way. Thus our friend Seth Godin with the Practice, of course, a fantastic book on shipping creative work. Not thinking about it, not dreaming about it, but doing it and sharing it. How many books has that man written?

At least 20. I'll put my conversation I loved. I was so fortunate to chat with Seth about the Practice, and I was so tired. It was like summer of 2020. I was hot, I was exhausted. We hadn't been sleeping. And that's how the show went. That's how it came up. So talk about not being perfect here I get to interview one of my heroes and I was coming out of a really, really tough few weeks and just showed up anyway. Did it anyway. It even came into the conversation. It just became. And I think that also gives other people permission. Yeah, you're not always going to be your best, most energetic ideal self every day.

No, that's impossible.

Tell us about your friend Elise who you mentioned earlier. And in terms of the actual paid part of our work, she also says, let them like you less and pay you more.

I love that.

What does she mean by that?

I'm always quoting her. She said that the problem is that when we take things personally and we want and need people to like us above all else, we lose negotiating power. We lose the gumption to ask for what you want. We end up taking things we don't want because we're doing it as a favor so someone will like us and people will like you right into debtors prison. Like, you have to be able to get what you need and there could be an obstacle there.

Right.

For a lot of people. If you need people to like you in order for you to do your work, it's going to be harder to get paid. She coaches a lot of creative freelancers and entrepreneurs and people will say, I sent my draft to the client and the client didn't get back. They didn't tell me whether they liked it. She said, did they pay you well? Yeah. Okay. They're not gonna. Oh, you're my beautiful baby. You're the smartest, most talented person in the world. If you have a client who tells you you're wonderful, great. But if we're doing the work because we need to get paid for things and we all need to get paid for something, then what if we remove that part of it? Now, that's hard because I desperately too, don't want someone to not like me, to not think I didn't do my best job. It is, if I'm being honest, very important to me. And it in the way. But over the years, you realize if you ask for something, even though you think, what are you? They're gonna hate you. How dare you send me this proposal? Of course not. I sent a proposal a year ago and I was like, oh, God, oh, God, what are they gonna think? What are they gonna think of me? And I was ready. I'm ready to negotiate. I'm ready to. I'll let go of something. I'll let go. If they say something. She goes, great, just write it up and send us an invoice. And I was like, all that agonizing that someone's not gonna like me and not gonna respect me, they'll respect you more. So this is a tough one for me. That's why it stuck with me.

Okay, so I'll put in the show notes. Jacquette Timmons, she's been on the free time podcast twice, and she says you gotta say the big stretchy rates. Because just saying it the first time, even if it's a no, the next time, you say it's not going to be as big of a deal. And then I just interviewed Richie Norton. I'll put that one in the show notes too. Richie reminds us that pricing is positioning. So often I think people are afraid to put out high rates. But actually, by doing that, what you just said, people will value you more. They will think they're getting a premium service. And I learned this the hard way, too. I think sometimes you do have to practice putting out really high rates, but especially in this thing of wanting to be liked. A business advisor once told me, of course, it's going to be hard for you, the IP creator, to negotiate with procurement because you want to be liked and you, in a sense, need to be liked. You need to be the warm, intelligent content creator that you are. It's gonna be really hard to maintain that reputation of being so, like, easy, delightful, wonderful to work with while being like a tough pit bull of a negotiator.

That's what I'm saying.

It's hard. And so something that really helped me was not being the one to say my prices. So I have someone on my team who says my rates and tells clients. And that's been great because she kind of protects me from myself. There are times where I might jump to compromise before it's needed or jump to lower my rates before it's needed.

That's right. That's right.

And she just holds firm and she. She just says, well, no, this is your rate, so I'm gonna tell. Or sometimes she won't even ask me. She just knows how to do her job. So she replies to the client before I could even negotiate myself down. And she kind of holds the line and toes the line. And so there have been times where having an intermediary has helped me stay firm on something.

Well, I've taken you as the lead on that. When I heard that people hired you before they even spoke to you, I said, oh, you can do that. Cause I would do tap dance after tap dance and pitch a million ideas, pitch any idea. And then I'd have to do a whole new. Like, I was making work very hard for myself.

And you think in the moment, oh, well, if I don't get on the phone and do the.

How will they know to hire me?

Exactly. How will they decide? And then I reached a point in my career where I thought, you know what? There is so much of me out there.

That's what you said to me. You said, they can see that you're not a mystery in a box. No, you have stuff out there they can see. Is this someone we want to speak at our event? You can watch me giving the biggest talk of my life that now like seven and a half million people have seen. How is an hour long zoom call gonna change your mind about that?

No. No.

Yes.

And so I had my. Basically, my director of operations business manager said, you talk to them first and just. You tell them, you know, like, she booked two things for me and I didn't negotiate a thing. And I was like, I'm my worst enemy. Because I will quickly back off because. Oh, that's. Maybe she doesn't care. She cares less.

Exactly. She cares less.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.

We have connected the dots.

Officially, we have connected them.

Okay, Terri, this has been so fun. I actually want to do part two on what you've learned and how you've pivoted since reading Free Time. So let's pause this for now. We'll close out part one of this conversation. If you could give listeners one little experiment to try this week as it relates to confidence, what would it be?

When you meet someone that is not a good, good friend, right? Someone who knows you very well. When you meet someone new or a group of people who are new, treat them as if you already trust them, as if you're already past the breakers of just meeting them and it will affect your energy. Like you said, the energy is what draws people to you. It's not eyeliner, right? So try that. Try it. I swear to you, it expedites connection or will weed out the people who are not for you.

I love that. And the little homework I'll give is craft something, create something. If it's a voice memo, if it's story you want to tell and hit publish on it. And I know not everybody has a blog or a podcast or something super official, but even Instagram send it, right? Or LinkedIn, I don't know, just publish something. That would be my encouragement. It's like no matter how awkward you feel, no matter how imperfect it may be, hit publish or make it public in some way. Terri, thank you so much for being here. Where can people find you if they want to keep in touch?

Terry trespicio.com I'll put that as a channel. Yeah.

And join us next week because we're going to be back talking about free time.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter Ennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow. Hasn't it always?

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