Betting on Yourself: How to Have Your Own Back

This is episode 291 of the Empowered Team Podcast. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast where we explore how to optimize your performance in career, sport and life. And now your host, executive coach and life strategist, Kari Schneider. Welcome. Welcome to the Empowered Team Podcast. Today we're going to go into something that I think you're going to find really, really helpful. Especially, especially if you've taken some sort of leap. You've bet on yourself, you're doing something new and then you got to have your own back. You know, it's kind of like, oh, I'm going to be a climber and I make sure I've got my harness on and I make sure I've hooked up and I've got somebody belaying me. In fact, I'm going to be belaying myself. I'm going to make sure I have my own back. So today is all about betting on yourself. You've done something that's bet on yourself and now how do you have your own back? What's holding you back? How do you do this? So I'm going to start with the number one prerequisite to betting on yourself. And we just did a podcast on this. So if you listen back to the last podcast, you're going to have all kinds of info on it, but it's self belief. So if you haven't listened to that last podcast, listen to that. Because self belief is the prerequisite. Be able to bet on yourself successfully. You're not going to make a bet on yourself. You're not going to do the thing unless you already have some level of self belief that you can. Because betting on yourself is literally putting your money where your mouth is or your business where your mouth is based on what you believe you can do over something else. It's like when I started my own business back in 2005, I was betting on myself. I was betting on myself more than I was betting on the job and the salary that I was getting prior. I was betting on myself with my finances, with my future, with all those things. So self belief is the prerequisite before you bet on yourself. So let's assume you've done that. Let's assume you are off on a new adventure, you are starting a new business, you are doing a new project. It typically it's new. Notice how I'm saying a new blank. Because typically it's something that you maybe haven't done before. That means that there's going to be a requirement of some significant self belief in order to go forward. All right, so let's say you're. You've bet on yourself, you've got the thing, you're going forward now. You gotta have your own back, your own backside, baby. Yes. Have your own back. What does this mean? This means you're showing up for yourself in a way that's going to support the bet you made on yourself. All right, I'm getting intense here, smacking my hands, doing the thing. It means that if you bet on yourself, you garnered enough self belief, you took action going forward. Now you have to have your own back. Yes. So before we go into fully having our own back, what does that look like? Having your own back means taking care of what needs to be taken care of. It's your own self advocacy, it's your self support, it's your self care, it's your team around you, it's your resilience, it's your supportive environment that you've created, created that's conducive to the results that you want. That's some of what can go into having your own back. But the truth is, is that it's whatever is needed for you in order to keep betting on yourself. So whatever you need, your needs are going to be specific and individual to your situation, your past, your future that you want. So your situation is specifical specific. However, it typically requires some of the things I mentioned, like a team, like support, like the environment around you supporting it, like your self efficacy, your self care, all of those are very important. So here are the things that will tend to stop you from having your own back. These are the top three. Now we've just done an entire month of coaching on this, of betting on yourself and having your own back. In our group coaching mastermind, our empowered team. So we've just taken a bunch of action and workshopped it, coached and masterminded, done all the things. And so there are more than this. But I'm going to give you the top three in this podcast because I think these will be very helpful for you to help you get out of your own way. So what gets in your way? What's stopping you from having your own back? These three things I see a lot in the people I work with. Now, these are going to be specific to achievers, high achievers, peak performers, people who are pushing themselves to another level. They want more growth. So what often gets in their way is, number one, perfectionism or a fear of failure. Ouch. That sound familiar for you? Because it's familiar for a lot of us. Perfectionism or fear of failure. Huh. So what does that look like? Perfectionists fear making mistakes or appearing weak. They don't like that. They want things to be just right. They want to look good. They want things to be perfect in what they've done. So they do not like looking weak or failing. But what happens is this fear can prevent them from seeking help or even investing in their own growth because they view some of these actions as potentially weaknesses or inadequacies. It's an admission of inadequacy to ask for help. Well, we know that's not true. But when you're in that perfectionist behavior, which I've been in, I've seen lots of people in, in, in it. When that happens, what's happening is that we perceive that asking for help, getting support, is showing that we're weak. So if strength is one of your high level values, if strength is one of your high level skills, then chances are you don't like the antithesis of that. You don't like feeling weak or appearing weak or being weak. Trust me, I've been there. I know what that feels like. So then there's this perception, falsely false perception, that asking for help, asking for support is this admission of being inadequate. We don't want that. So this is, this very thing is what gets in our own way of having our own back. If you've just bet on yourself, chances are you're not going to be proficient at a few things because it's probably new. Chances are you're going to be on a steep learning curve. Chances are you're going to be making mistakes. So trust me, been there. You need help. You need to ask for help. You need the support system, you need the team around you. You need help. It does not mean weakness. It means intelligence. It means that you're going to be more likely for success. It means growing more strength by having more humans to help with the direction you want to go. So number one of the things that hold us back gets in our way from having our own back. Really, we're getting in our own way here is perfectionism. This level of perfectionism tied with fear of failure. Number two. Oh, this one hurts. It hurts. Hurt. Overwhelm and burnout. Yeah. So those of us who are trying something new, chances are we're going to feel overwhelmed because we're not used to the things that are necessary to do this new thing. If we've bet on ourselves and we're going forward, we're likely navigating some things we haven't seen before. Just because it's new. Our human brain typically will find some level of overwhelm if we. And if we stay in overwhelm for too long, where there we have this feeling of too much coming at us, we're very susceptible to burnout. So this is likely in a high pressure environment. So this is where individuals may focus solely on survival, meeting the immediate demands of whatever the the situation is. Work, family, new, whatever the new endeavor is. Without the bandwidth to consider our own well being, this leads to us neglecting our own needs. Ouch. Yes, that's right. Here we are again, getting in our own way of not having our own backs. So we want to have our own backs. So what we need to do is take care of our own needs so that we're not putting ourselves into a situation of severe overwhelm or burnout. So that's number two. Number three, this last thing that really gets us, keeps us from having our own back is poor boundaries. Ouch. I keep saying ouch because every time I say it, I'm like, oh, that's me. I did that. I did that. Learn the hard way, everyone. You get to learn on this podcast about my falling on my face moments and my mistakes and my failures and all those things. Because really, this whole endeavor is me learning and teaching others how not to do where I've made these mistakes. All right. Poor boundaries, this one. The thing about boundaries is it's not. It's not an ultimatum. It's not having someone else. You know, if you do that, I'm gonna do this. No. Or if you do that, then you're gonna have to do this. It's. It's more about what I will do. It's. If I'm in this situation, then I will draw a line in the sand. Now, there's no such thing as boundaries. There's not a picket fence, there's not a wall. There's none of those things. It's simply us creating an imaginary space for ourselves. Okay, think of a boundary like that. I'm creating an imaginary space for myself. And in this imaginary space, it's going to look like if this happens, it could be someone else's action. It could be something in the business. If this thing happens, then I am going to do this for myself. So this is where we have difficulty in setting or maintaining healthy boundaries with others. And it can lead to prioritizing someone else's needs or their opinions over our own. There therefore, we end up failing to advocate for ourselves effectively. This has happened to me in my family. This has happened to me in my marriage. This has happened to me in my business. This has happened to me with clients. And it's not happening to me. It's something that I allowed by not making sure that my own needs were just as important as the other person's needs. That's why I have to make that imaginary line to go, wait a second. I'm not meeting my own needs because I haven't set a boundary for my behavior around this context of perhaps another human's behavior, perhaps a work level or load. I haven't set my own standard or boundary around that. So this one is very, very important to understand that you're not making someone else do something. You are advocating for yourself and in the same level of worth, in the same level of value as you would anyone else. And it's taking care of your own needs. That's what the boundary is doing for you. And again, it's imaginary. There's no such thing as this wall that you're putting up. It's just you creating protective space for yourself by your own actions, by how you show up, by who you're going to be, by what you're going to do or not do. Those are what the boundaries are. All right? Those are the things that are the top three, I think that I've seen the most often in people, high performers, myself, and others not having our own backs. These are the things that prevent us from that. So what are we going to do to actually bet on yourself and have your own back. One of the easiest way to do that, I'm going to give five things, five things here that you can do to have your own back when you're betting on yourself. Number one, start small. You don't need to go full everything in and risk everything. You can go and have your own back by going, okay, I'm going to start with the. It's the mvi, the most viable intervention, the most viable, the smallest little thing. So start with small investments. If it's money. So a hundred bucks, that's what I did for my daughter's school fund. 100 bucks a month, that's all I could afford for a very long time. Until I could put a little bit more in 100 bucks. Then I wasn't feeling like I was risking all my grocery money for that month. So little things, start small, mitigate your risk. It doesn't have to be a big risky thing. Just take a small action. This allows you to bet on yourself without risking everything. That's how you're having your Own back. You're betting on yourself by doing some action, but you're having your own back by not putting yourself in undue harm's way or major risk. The second thing is reinvesting your profits. Now, I know this can be misconstrued when I say this by reinvesting your profits. Most of us think money, money, money, money, money, money, money. Profits don't have to be money. Profits can be your extra time, your extra energy, your extra ideas. That can be your profits as well. Because if you've put something in and you've created something and the creation, the value you're getting back could be in money. So if I've got some profits in my business, then I can reinvest my profits into the business. I'm currently doing that right now. Profits I'm making in my business that has, that is consulting and coaching. Those profits that I'm making are being reinvested into the camp project, which is Wick Cliff Lodge, this old fishing log hunting, fishing camp that I'm restoring into a space for events, for small retreats, for business retreats, for events. But I'm reinvesting the profits back into the business. That could be energy. If I've gone, gone and taken care of myself or done something really important in my relationship and then we've got more excitement, more energy, I'm going to take that energy and reinvest it into the relationship. Yay. So it can be time, it can be energy, it can be emotional state, it can be money. Reinvest your profits, you're going to get profits. Anything that you're going forward and growing on and doing well in, you're going to have some profits. Don't always think that they're financial, but they can be. So that's number two, profits. Number three, leverage, baby, leverage. You are incredible. You are skilled, you are magnificent. And you have unique skills, something that is very special to you. Guess what? Leverage. That I'm good at certain things, some things I'm not good at. Patience is not my greatest strength, but pushing forward, taking action, going hard, like those are strengths of mine. I have to have my own back and make sure I don't burn out my energy, but I want to leverage my skills. You're going to find opportunities that align with your unique skills and your talents. These are your superpowers. So use your superpowers when you're betting on yourself. This is important because it means that you're walking away from conventional paths in order to go in a direction that's more Conducive and more unique to you and your superpowers. So leverage that you might be really outgoing. You're not belonging in a quiet desk cubicle. If you're really outgoing, leverage your skills, put yourself in front of the camera, in front of an audience. You might be really skilled at working with your hands. Make sure that you're doing something that leverages your skills. All right, that's number three. Number four, except a short term plan. If a ten year plan might have been appropriate 20 years ago. Now with technology, with AI, with our fast moving society, a ten year plan is really hard to have accurate. A five year plan is very hard to have accurate strategic plans. I end up being involved in helping with or privy to many strategic plans within businesses. And when I am, what I'm noticing now is that it's harder and harder to have a longer term plan. Back in my days that were before my business or before working with other businesses in the the Olympic level, we worked in quadrennials four year cycles, going from one Olympics to the next Olympics. However, even a four year business plan at this point likely has massive amounts of change and shift. So there has to be ability to pivot. So if you're going to bet on yourself and have your own back, part of that is going to involve short term sacrifices. For, for the now, your short term sacrifice might mean that you're not spending as much time on pickleball, you might not be watching as much Netflix, you might be not traveling as much because you're focused on the thing that has to be done. Now if you're in massive action of betting on yourself, your short term plan is going to be very focused. When you've made some headway in this short term plan, then it's going to be easier for you to make a one year or a two year plan. But until you've really pushed hard on this short term plan, that is going to be hard to have a longer accurate view. But the, the having your own back part of this is actually saying no to some other things in this short term plan. So what you're looking at is accepting that your short term plan is something that may involve saying no to other people, it may involve not doing certain things, it may involve accepting that there's a little short term pain for this longer term plan gain. All right? So those long term rewards will really be aligned with your talents, your skills, your goals. And number five, we're coming in for the five. We're coming in for the high five. Number five is Making sure that you've got continuous learning. Practice, practice, practice, learn, learn, learn. Do not stop learning. Because having your own back when you're betting on yourself and something new, some new endeavor, means that you're making mistakes. If you're willing to learn, then it doesn't matter that you're making mistakes. In fact, it's a gift that you're making mistakes because it means that you are going to be able to have more to offer. So continuous learning is going to be so important, so, so, so important for you being able to continue to move forward. So the having your back in this is that you allow yourself to learn from your mistakes. You allow yourself to see where things went wrong and then it's okay. Give yourself permission to attempt and fail. Attempt and fail. That's the thing, continuous learning. Attempt and fail. Get that valuable, valuable lesson and then that gives you the leverage, it gives you the edge for your future bets on yourself. Those failures, those lessons, those moving forward then give you better information for whatever's going to come next because you're going to have to bet on yourself again and you're going to have to have your own back again. When you go into your next step of whatever your plan is going forward. This is a continuum. It doesn't stop. You might think you bet on yourself once and then you got to have your back once. It doesn't work that way. It's going to keep happening over and over for you to make the progress that you want to do for that long term vision. We know we love a good long term vision. So that, my friends, is what I encourage you to do is, is to not only mitigate those three things that get in your way from having your own back, but really stepping into the five things that will help you have your own back. So I'm going to review those really quickly right away. Again, number one is in, in prevented that you, that you want to make sure you're not doing is the perfectionism or the fear of failure. These are the things that prevent you from having your own back. Number two is the overwhelm and burnout. And number three is the poor core boundaries. These are the things that are most likely to prevent you from having your own back when you've bet on yourself. And then the ways that you can have your own back most effectively is number one, smart. Start small, mitigating the risk. Just take small steps without a ton of risk. Number two, reinvest your profits. Remember, those profits are not just money, they are energy, they are time, they are other resources that you've garnered from doing the work. Number three, leverage your unique skills. You have superpowers. You are amazing. You have something to offer that's different than other people. So leverage that. Make sure you're putting your uniqueness out there. Number four, accept the short term plan. Accept the pain that's going to come with the short term plan. The pain in that short term portion is going to help you have what you want for that long term plan. And number five, continuous learning. Make sure you keep learning from those mistakes. Make the attempts, make the fails, make the attempts, make the successes. Learn from those failures and successes. That's going to help you keep going forward. All right, so here's to betting on yourself and having your own back. That's what this is all about. I hope it has served you. If it has, please share with somebody who needs to hear this. Spread more positivity. Spread more empowerment around you so that people can keep going towards whatever lights them up and helps those around them keep going. We could use your five star rating. It helps this podcast get out there. If you loved it, then pop us a rating. I hope hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Keep going this week. You've got this. If you enjoy listening to the Empowered Team Podcast, you'll love being on the Empowered Team. The Empowered Team is our group coaching and accountability program where we provide the tools, skills and community for you to grow your self mastery as a leader and optimize your results along alongside other leaders. The Empowered Team runs year round to learn more about our leadership consulting for business and our Empowered Team Group coaching. Head to www.thempowered.ca empowered learn more. 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