78: Speaking Boldly On The Internet - #GrowYourLife

Hey, everyone. Thanks for listening to the Grow youw Life podcast. My name is Jeremiah Krakowski. If you haven't listened to this podcast before, this is where I give you tips, tricks, tools, and strategies to grow in your life and in your business. Now, I've been helping businesses grow, get more customers and sales online for the last 17 years, help scale companies to seven and eight figures, and now I help coach business owners to go from 0 to 6 and 7 figures. And that's the purpose of this podcast, to help you to go there with the mindsets, the tools, the strategies to do that. And every single episode is a mini course, so to speak, a masterclass, kind of a mini masterclass where I condense what's working for me and my clients to get results for you. And so if you haven't listened to any of the other episodes, go through some of those, read the titles and see what stands out to you as well. If this podcast has impacted you, please share it with somebody. Share it with your friends, share it with your competitors, share it with whoever. All right? And on today's episode, that's what I want to talk with you about, is unlocking your voice. Many times when we have a product or service to sell, we're afraid of how we're going to be judged by people, what they're going to think, and we stay silent. We have this vision of what might happen, what people might do to us if they misunderstand us. And that keeps us from putting ourselves out there, because if the judgment comes, people misunderstand it. What if my reputation is hurt? What if my confidence that people have in me is hurt? What if I get hurt in the process? Right? And many times that comes from very valid reasons. I want to have some compassion for that. I'm going to share a little bit of a story for you. You know, I have been somebody in my life that I frequently have put my foot in my mouth and messed up so many times, can't even count, that have hurt my reputation, that have hurt how I look to people, that have caused me to take a hundred steps backwards after one step forward. So I've experienced that before, that fear of losing everything, that of it all coming crumbling down after you've built something up and you made one tiny mistake with your mouth that ruined everything, quote, unquote. And what I've learned is that's actually setting us up for the next level that we're supposed to go to. The other thing that I've learned is wisdom. And the word is prudence. And Tact, being tactical with what we say, being tactical with how we say it. And this is where a lot of people get stuck is on the tactical side of things, is they're so focused and thinking in their mind all day long on how to be tactful, how to say things the right way, how to be prudent because of what's happened in the past where they've gotten hurt or they've hurt somebody else. And so that's a good thing. That comes from a good place. But I've seen that lead people to not let out what's inside of them out of fear. And they define that fear as wisdom. So their fear, the terror that they're worried about what might happen, gets defined as well, I'm being wise. These are two very different things. And then I've seen boldness. People define it as boldness when it's actually stupidity. So these are the two things we define fear as wisdom, and we define stupidity as boldness. And these two things just completely cause problems. This is what I've been learning, is that when I think about what I'm gonna before I say it, when I spend some time to process what I'm going to say, but not too much time, being intentional with the processing, being intentional about the words that come out of my mouth, but not letting fear keep me silent by allowing true boldness and courage to let me put the words out there and say what I know that I need to say, even if I get misunderstood. Yesterday I had a situation. I was on a meeting with a client, and I said one of the stupidest things I probably could have said in that moment. It was pretty bad. He was meeting with a new graphics designer, and I was like, yeah, this social media, it's terrible. Like, what they're doing. Well, it turns out the social media I was criticizing was actually the designer that was on the call with us. And I was like, oh, no, put my foot in my mouth. I was meaning the intentionality behind the content, the value, the impact, the designs were killer. But see, I didn't know who I was was talking to in that moment. And so I didn't use wisdom. I just let come out what I was thinking, whatever was the first thing in mind. And I know I messed up. And so when we mess up like that, we got to own it. We got to own our mistakes and keep moving forward and not let the fear of making mistakes keep us silent. So that's also the problem here. We have to develop courage to go after those things that we Know that we need to go after. And for many of you listening to this right now, you have a business, you have something that's going to impact the world, a message in your heart. You have something that you know that has to come out, that's birthing you, that's been birthing over time. But these past experiences of messing up or you've seen other people mess up or you have a stellar reputation, this is the third one and you don't want to mess that up. So your fear keeps you from taking risks. This is all the same thing. So I often work with people, they have really good reputations in the marketplace. The people that I work with are stellar at that. They have integrity. But sometimes when it comes to being bold and putting out there what they know they need to do, there's a worry and fear of, well, what if I lose some of the people that trusted me before? What if they don't like what I had to say? What if my friends and family don't like what I have to say? What if I get counsel from people that they say, hey, that wasn't a good idea. This is where we have to develop our self confidence and belief in ourself and know that what we stand on is correct. We seek wisdom from a few people. I have a few people, less than a handful now that I let speak into my life. Now I get opinions from a lot of people, but I don't let opinions decide my beliefs. A couple years ago, nine months ago, even I was letting the opinions of anybody decide my beliefs. For me, now it's not that way. And so we have to get to the place where we, you know, turn off the social media, we turn off the news media, we turn off listening to all the voices that are out there telling us how to think. We don't answer a call from our sister or our, you know, uncle or whatever that wants to tell us how we're doing everything wrong. We don't let criticism be the only voice we listen to. And I know some people, when they hear that, it's like, okay, well, a wise man heeds correction. Correction is not criticism. And so this isn't even to be critical as well. I have a tendency and a nature to be a very critical person. So I attract that to me. And I'm learning now it's okay to not have to criticize everything that I see out there, to focus on what I'm doing, to speak boldly of my position truthfully, and then to connect with those that resonate with it. I've lost a lot of people that have followed me. I've had people write me and tell me they could never listen to a thing that I say again over the last nine months. Great. That's wonderful. I love it. Maybe one day come back and that's what I say. I have open arms. If you want to talk about this later, let me know. Connect, reach out. But we don't do so from a place of criticism, of trying to make somebody do the right thing. We have to establish healthy boundaries. And boundaries really is the key to all this. If you've been watching my videos on my social media, listening to my podcast, I've mentioned the book boundaries by Dr. Henry Cloud and his Boundaries Me membership, which is less than $10 a month. I don't even earn anything off of referring you to that. It's just been so helpful to me that I recommend it to you. The Boundaries Me membership is really incredible. So much good training. Some of us have never been allowed to have boundaries before. We've never been allowed to say no when things make us feel uncomfortable. And this is where the dichotomy is, say no when things make you feel uncomfortable. You have that permission. At the same time, you have to do uncomfortable things to have a different life. So how do we balance these two almost opposing truths? Well, they're not opposing of each other. In fact, what it is, is you get to choose and decide what your discomfort is, what you're going to do. For me, even recording this podcast is uncomfortable for me right now. It is for me. Creating courses and launching things is uncomfortable for me all the time for me to put myself out there is uncomfortable for me. Now you might look at me and say, you don't seem to be in discomfort. You don't see what goes on behind the scenes. It's very uncomfortable for me, but I know that it has to be done. I know that the things that are going to take me to where I want to go, to where I was born to go to, the calling and the destiny of my life require me to do uncomfortable things. Now I have a lot of people that come into my life and try to tell me what those uncomfortable choices should, should be. Do I listen to all of them? No. Do I ignore all of them? No. There's certain voices that I listen to and certain ones that I don't. It's picking and choosing who are these people in our lives? And boundaries is a great way to do that. We want to cordially and politely and compassionately say no. We don't want to use boundaries as a weapon to cut ourselves off. Boundaries are all about creating and developing better connection with other people. They're not about cutting people off. They're not about taking them out of our lives. They're about creating connection. Danny Silk teaches us in his book Keep youp love on. Dr. Henry Cloud has another book called Safe People that helps you identify who safe people are in your lives. Listen, there's some people in your life that some of you are meant to go no contact with, to no longer talk to or to set boundaries with that. Listen, I'm not going to have a conversation about family here with you. I'm not going to have a conversation about business here with you. I'm not going to have a conversation about this with you. If you want to talk about something else, let's do that. Because you get to decide what you tolerate in your life. And when we make that decision to decide what we are going to tolerate, we get to create the life that we want. And so if you have a vision in your heart, if you have a dream in your heart of where you want to go after this boldness and this courage, to no longer tolerate what hasn't been working is one of the first steps. And the next step as well is to love yourself enough to say no more. I am going to choose what my life looks like. I'm no longer gonna let my feelings dictate it for me. Wait a sec. That almost doesn't sound like it's the same message. It is. Our feelings are not something that we want to suppress, that we want to put off. And again, I'm not a psychiatrist. I just listen to a lot of great teaching that's helped me. Feelings are important, but many times how we define our feelings is wrong. So that's what has helped me a lot, is I pay attention to them, but I don't let them make the decision for me. And so when we feel that something is uncomfortable, we get to decide, is it a no or is it a yes? Is it a no? If somebody tells me that they think that I should work for them for free? Yes, That's a no. That makes me feel uncomfortable even thinking about that. Is it a no? If I feel uncomfortable making a podcast and putting something out there and recording and selling, that has to be a yes because I know where I'm going. So it's defining your values, defining your convictions, defining your plan and your path for your life. And it's not going to be the same for everybody. It's not going to be the same for everybody listening to this right now. But you have to develop the courage and the confidence inside yourself to choose to do what's best for you in your life and in your business, to go after those dreams that you got. All right, and so how does that apply to sales? When you get on a sales call and somebody starts grilling you and berating you and being rude to you, don't let it throw you off. You know, we've experienced often salespeople that felt were pushy. And so we become afraid that we don't want to appear that way. So then our fear ends up creating a situation where we come to the phone on a sales interaction and act in a way that is not confident. We start writing sales copy that is not confident because we're afraid of appearing like those people. Right. What are those people? What do those people do? Well, it's those people that you've judged in your life that you've been critical of what they do to get results, that you've been critical of how they do things. And so you're just as critical of yourself. Whatever we judge comes back to us. And so for me, I was very judgmental of people in business, people in sales, people in marketing, people in religion of what they do or don't do. Right. As if I was the law enforcement and the cop that was supposed to tell everybody what the right things to do are. And through a series of realizing that that is not. My role on planet earth is to make sure that everybody does the right thing, but to focus on what I'm doing right. And to model that to other people. You see, that's what it is. Our actions speak louder than our words. And so we can model the truth that we stand in by what we do. It's hypocritical to say one thing and do another. Absolutely. And yet at the same time, we have to be real with ourselves, that every single one of us is oftentimes a hypocrite, including myself. You know, I'll say often, you know, don't criticize somebody. And then, like, the next minute, I'll go criticize somebody like me. Even saying don't criticize people is a critical thing. So I'm growing in this, and I want to encourage you, too. You can grow in it. You do not have to be at the finish line before you put yourself out there, before you sell your products or services, before you build your business. You do not have to have all the pieces together figured out and perfect before you go out there to go after your goals. You do not have to have all of the pieces in the right order and sequence before you can activate yourself in your destiny. Step out with boldness and courage. It's a book I started reading this last week called Chase the Lion by Mark Batterson, where he talks about going towards the lion, the fear that we have instead of away from it. And that's what you're called to do. That's what every single one of us, if you're listening to this podcast right now, you were born to go into the lion's den, deeper into the darkness of the hardest places that you never thought that you would go. Because you get to pick and choose how you're going to react, what you're going to do, and you're going to be a light in those dark areas to model truth. What hurt you before no longer has the power to hurt you unless you decide that it still has power over you if it does. And there's areas that I don't go myself because I know that I have not fully overcome in those areas. It's a process. It's a process of growing to become who we were born to be and give yourself grace every single day. To walk the journey without fear, without worry of Am I doing it all perfectly? Am I doing all the right things? Am I feeling guilty because I'm not at my destination yet? Am I feeling down on myself because I haven't done everything perfectly? Am I irresponsible because I haven't manifested all of my dream shed? I know some of you feel that way because I see it in the comments. I see it on my social media. You feel guilty and irresponsible that you're not at the finish line yet. That's not going to help you get there. That's only going to keep you manifesting that same cycle. If we keep the vision of our past in the forefront of our mind, we end up manifesting the exact same experiences that we've had our whole life. We have to untether ourselves from the past. We have to untether ourselves from the past experiences and the worry and the fear of what might happen, what might go wrong. We have to stop beating ourselves up for not doing everything perfectly. We have to stop feeling guilty because we're not at the finish line yet and and encourage ourselves on our wins. Celebrate the small wins. Celebrate the growth that's incremental. Celebrate the fact that you are one step closer to your goals today than you were yesterday. If you grab onto this, and you start encouraging yourself and becoming your biggest cheerleader instead of your own worst enemy. Your life will change. Your life will completely shift. And literally everything that I'm telling you today on this podcast, I'm still learning myself. My wife will tell you, yesterday I was not walking out what I'm telling you right now at all. And it was convicting to me, it was correcting to me that I'm not doing the very things that I was born and made to do. And so I want to encourage you today to encourage yourself and to be an encouragement to other people. You want to know what the fastest way for you to activate yourself and your goals and your destiny is. Recognize somebody else and encourage them to go further than you. Give encouragement to people that might even be competitors of yours. Help empower and raise up somebody else to go further than you in what you're doing. Listen, we're not about trying to change people. We're not about trying to make people into our image. We want to empower and encourage others to reach their destiny. And when we do that, we have reached ours. Dave Meltzer has that quote that if we can empower a thousand people, to empower a thousand people, to empower a thousand more people, we have impacted one eighth of the entire world's population with our message. Okay? And so whatever that is in your heart, you have a message that you. You have to get out there. You have to go out there with courage. And if you're selling products online, your message is that impact that those products or services are going to have on people. Your message is the result that people are going to get. Your message is the case studies that people are going to get out of that, the outcome that they're going to get, the transformation that they're going to get, the solutions to the problems that they have. And so when you listen to other people's frustrations and issues and you deliver solutions to them in a way that makes sense to them, a way that they can grab onto tactically with courage, you can connect with other people and impact their life. Now, they have to get on board. They have to decide for themselves that that's what they want. You know, there's a lot of people that listen to this podcast right now that have not gotten to minute 22 in the podcast like you have. And you know what? That's where they're at on their journey. That's okay. It's absolutely okay. But for you, if you're somebody that's listening to this right now and you've gotten to this point in this podcast, it's time for you to step up, raise the stakes, get into the game in your life. Stop playing small, start playing bigger and start believing in what's possible for you. Start realizing that it's going to take some bold, uncomfortable actions, things that you have been neglecting doing for you to get there. And if that fear and that worry of that discomfort is keeping you stuck, I'd love to help you with that. That's what I coach people on is we're going to take a look at what's the path ahead, where are you at now and how do we make the right decisions with wisdom in your business to get you more results. And so if you haven't yet, schedule a free 15 minute call with me on my website, Jeremiah krakowski.com freecall I'd love to talk with you for 15 minutes and we can just start to break through some of those things, start to break through some of those patterns that have kept you stuck together. We can talk through that. If you want to win a free 30 minute coaching call with me, you can leave growyourlife on my Instagram I pick one winner every single week on my Instagram. On the post Leave growyourlife all one word as a comment. I'll pick a winner for that. Alright, so Grow youw Life, Everybody, Everybody and we'll talk soon.