Fear & Know How

Foreign I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach. First off, I want to take this opportunity to invite you. I don't know if you know this, I don't always advertise it, but every Single Friday at 11:00am Eastern Standard Time, I host a free group call called Being Brave. And it is a group call meant for entrepreneurs or anyone who's putting themselves out there and being brave in the world. In their professional lives. It is normally a free form Q and a standardized call where people get to show up and ask me questions about how to get how to get actual paying clients. That's a fun one. How to figure out their niche, how they should do their marketing, and of course, my favorite money mindset. And we also do some mindset activities. Sometimes there's an element of networking, depending on who's there and all that stuff. I love to create it in the moment and hi David, welcome. Hi Ron, welcome. So I love to create it in the moment. It's a really fun call. It is honestly my favorite call of the week. No offense to any of my clients, but a lot of you show up. So I get all of you at the same time. It's amazing. Anyway, I would love to invite you to it. The link is in this post in the comments on LinkedIn and I will add it to the ones on Facebook. I've also added it to Eventbrite so you can register there. Anyway, it's every Friday at 11am I would love to see you there. But that's not what we're talking about today. Today I wanted to talk about the two reasons that people don't go and do the thing that they want to do. And I don't care if this is your work and starting a business or if it's your relationships or any other arena in your life that requires you to be brave to actually get this. This thing done. H Naomi. Oh yeah, Naomi's a regular. Thank you so much. It is a fun call. I have a lot of fun. And there are a lot of reasons why people give that people give about why they're not doing the thing. But there are really only two things. They're afraid or they don't know how anything else is caused by one of those two things. Fear and not knowing how. I want you to imagine them. They are like the two biggest bullies on the playground who sometimes team up to shake you down in the alleyway when you're on your way home. They rob you of everything. Your confidence, your money. Because let's be real. If you don't know how and you're afraid of actually putting yourself out there, you're probably like me three years ago and spending a shit ton of money on online courses that you are never going to watch. Teaching you the how, but not the how, but not in a way that feels authentic to you. Hi, Tara. Oh, Tara, I'm so delighted to see you. I will send you the details, of course. I'd be so honored if you joined us. Not the HR lady. I've. I've been meaning to tune into more of your things as well, so it'll be cool to have you there. Okay, so here's the thing. I want to talk about fear first, okay? Because fear dresses up as a lot of different things. When you're doing something that's brave and wild out there, fear can show up like, I don't have time. I don't have time to do this thing. I don't have time. You know, I'm too busy. I have my full time job, I have a family, I have all these things. This is gonna sound harsh for some of you. You're gonna think that, ah, she doesn't know what she's talking about, but just stick with me. It shows up. It's actually fear of saying no to other things that you've previously said yes to. I'm going to say that again. Saying that you don't have time to do this important thing that you really want to do in the world is really just fear of saying no to stuff that you have already committed to that used to be important to you, but maybe isn't anymore. And let's just give fear its credit. You know, there absolutely is fear of, oh my gosh, well, I have to work 40 hours a week or else I'm not going to get paid and I need to pay my bills. Absolutely. Where fear messes you up is when it becomes the excuse for everything. I don't have time for this, I don't have time for that. I don't have time to make small steps in my business. You know, no one expects that you're going to start a business and it's going to be 40 hours a week right away. No one expects that. Okay? I want you to imagine you wouldn't take an acorn and plant it in the ground and then sit there and stare at it and be frustrated that it wasn't 100 year old oak tree already. That's just not realistic. Okay? So take, take a step back and just see what is the smallest Thing that I can do to, to start my business right now, the smallest thing, maybe it's sending an announcement out to your friends and family. That's how I started. And I got one paying client for from it. There you go. It wasn't a huge tax on my time. I could absolutely fit in one paying client. He didn't pay much, but he was wonderful. Fear also shows up as I'm afraid of what people will think of me. I'm worried that people at work will find out that I'm starting a business. I'm worried that my parents are going to think that I've gone off the rails, that I'm giving up my security at my job and starting a business, which, I mean, you can absolutely start a business by quitting your job. I don't recommend it for most people. I honestly don't. I will be totally upfront. I quit my job too early to go full time coaching. It was a rough road and it was full of a lot of tears and a lot of sobbing and a lot of snot. And you can talk to my coach, Rick Tamlin. He got those phone calls. And you can also talk to my mom. She also got those phone calls. It was an ugly time in my life. It worked out though, obviously. But a lot of people, I. I wish I hadn't put myself through that and I wouldn't want to put other people through that. Okay, so fear of ridicule, fear of people. Okay, so here's another one that shows up is fear of people judging you for making a change. Okay. And I went through this, okay, because when I was 22, I switched from wanting to be an educator to driving to California to become a sommelier. And for those of you who are about to DM me, asking me about wine and wanting to talk about wine, I no longer like talking about wine. It's one of the reasons I don't bring up being a sommelier very often. But anyway, moved there was in the wine world for about two and a half years and then quit it. Quit everything. Tried acting, tried modeling, tried. I was a knitting teacher and I managed a yarn shop for a while. Ended up in fitness and sales and worked in Internet security and solar sales. So when I finally made the decision to become a coach, my number one fear was that everyone in my life would look at me and be like, oh my God, what a flake. She switched. So her. Her career switch so many times in the last. Only, I don't know, five, six, seven, eight years, something like that. In that, in that breath of time. That's how many times I had switched it. I was worried that they would just think, oh, this is. This is the thing that she's on right now. She'll change again. Let me tell you. I got clients from every single walk of life, from each stage of my life, from each career. There was not one area of work that I didn't get a client from, okay? It was like they were all waiting for me to finally realize that this is the work that I was meant to do. And not just from my career, from high school, from college. I got clients from everywhere. So these fears, and I'm sharing this about my experience because I want you to see that the fears that we have often are so out of whack. Hi, Steve Foley. Welcome. Thanks for the thumbs up. So they're so out of whack, and it's. It's this voice of doubt. And in coaching, we call it the saboteur. And let's just talk about the saboteur for a moment, okay? Because it is well intentioned. It is the voice in your head that is trying to keep you alive. It is your lizard brain, okay? But it's operating on the outdated operating systems of the caveman, okay? So if Mac were to have, like the worst kind of operating system that shut down all the time, it would be called caveman. And Caveman is worried about getting kicked out of the tribe, because if you get kicked out of the tribe because people don't like you, you're going to end up all alone in the wilderness, freezing and starving to death. And if you have children or pets or any dependents, they're going to be there with you. And so the Caveman operating system, your saboteur, is constantly looking for danger. It's constantly looking for reasons why you'd get kicked out of the tribe, and it's trying to prevent you from doing that. Steve, fear is perceived fear. Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. There are absolutely dangers out there in the world, okay? So like tall cliffs, don't walk off of them. Tigers, stay away from them. You know, great in the zoo and maybe if you're on like a very safe, like, wildlife, you know, safari, but don't go up to one murderers, you know, don't get too, like, cozy with them, you know, maybe watch them on tv, but that's pretty much it. And also, like, you know, poisonous things, don't. Don't lick them, don't ingest them, don't rub them all over your body and then dance around, okay? So they're absolutely dangerous and things to be afraid of in the world. But it's usually not the kinds of things that are, that our brain makes up that are actually a danger to us. It's just our voice of doubt, our saboteur, trying to keep us safe. But remember your saboteur, that voice of doubt. Its goal is to keep you fed, but it doesn't care how great the food is, to keep you sheltered, but it doesn't care if you live in a home that you know actually makes you happy to keep you in a tribe. It doesn't care if your friends are complete crap and treat you terribly. As long as you have acceptance there and they won't kick you out, that's fine. It doesn't have a great standard of living, is what I'm saying, and it doesn't have great standards for how you should be treated. Lauren. No murderers, no licking poison. Check and check. Good. I'm glad you're following these basic rules for engagement in life. Just in case those of you who are wondering, I know I've been teasing that I'm writing a book like I. I'm now deciding in this moment that there has to be a chapter on things that you should be afraid of and things that you shouldn't be afraid of. And on the afraid of list, it's going to be murderers and poisonous things that you shouldn't like and stuff that Steve Foley reality is usually far worse than what we anticipate. I don't know if I believe that. I don't know if I believe that at all. Most of the things that I'm afraid of happening never come to fruition. Never. Never ever. So, and what's the saying by the Dalai Lama? I think that when you, when you worry or when you worry about the future, you're suffering twice. And usually it never happens. And I'm probably completely misquoting that. So if anyone who's watching wants to go and look that up, I would love, I would love to be able to properly quote it and quote it, you know, in the right words. So anyway, please and thank you. So this is, this is the, the Fear Mobile. Okay. This is the. The reason you're not moving forward on your dreams is, is partially because of fear. Fear dances with know how. Like if you don't know how to do something, that's absolutely also a barrier to entry from you doing it. Fear likes to dance with know how because it doesn't want you to look stupid. It doesn't want you to look like you're Uneducated. Like, you didn't pay attention in class. Um, it doesn't want to make you. It doesn't want for you to look weak, because when you're weak, it thinks, oh, Naomi, you had to bring up sharks. I hate sharks, by the way. They freaked me out. There's this meditation that I do, and they always. The guy always says, like, imagine yourself in a vast and endless ocean. And then my first response was like, where are the sharks? Are they coming for me anyway? And it's an abundant ocean, so I don't know if that means there are abundant sharks or if they're abundantly fed or whatever besides the point. So fear will also have you be worried that, you know you're going to be criticized or show your vulnerabilities when you admit that you don't know how to do something. You know what? Some. Yeah, sure, sometimes people will judge you for not knowing how to do something, but how badly do you want this thing? How badly do you want to start a business? How badly do you want to make this real? Steve Foley. I mistyped. The anticipation is usually far worse than the reality. Yes. Okay, cool. I'm like, poor Steve over there. He has a tough life, dude. Jeez. What he's afraid of is always way worse than reality. Oh, my gosh. So you can be afraid of people, you know, making fun of you for not knowing how to do the thing, or you can be afraid of just admitting it and admitting that you're weak in that area. But here's the thing about knowing how to do something. You can. You can read many books about it. You can read lots of articles online. You can Download all the PDFs. And I say that as a reformed freebie chaser. I used to download all the freebies to try to figure out how I could start a business. By the way, I didn't do anything with them because they were free and I didn't have any skin in the game. So you can absolutely do that. But if you really, really want to create this thing, you need to learn how. If you want to become a cartoonist, you know, or an animator, an animated cartoonist, you know, like Pixar. I'm sorry, you have to learn how to do that. I. I wouldn't be able to do that. I wouldn't be able to apply for that job. I'd have to go through some kind of training program. And so this. So you can always learn how. By the way, there's always a way to figure it out. If there's a training Program. Steve, I. Typing at red lights is not recommended. Steve, you can't type and drive at the same time. Keep your eyes on the road. Goodness. I appreciate you watching, but I don't want to lose you. Okay, we're just. Now I'm. Now I'm experiencing real fear for poor Steve. He's driving and listening and watching at the same time. I hope there are no police in your area who are also watching. They'll be on the lookout for you. So. So you can always find out how. I mean, this is, this is the thing that most of my clients come to me with. They're afraid of starting this thing, starting a business. They don't know how to do it. What sometimes takes away the fear, though, is just having the how broken down into really bite size action steps and action steps that fit your personality. Like I said, you can go online and you can download a million free PDFs, you can even go and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars on online courses. If it doesn't fit your personality, if it doesn't feel authentic to you and the business you're trying to build, guess what? You're not going to move on it. You're not going to do it, you're not going to take action. And the business you're trying to build is just going to stall out even further and it's going to have the added weight of, well, crap, I failed at this one thing, so I'm probably going to fail at the next thing too. Because each time you, you set yourself up to rely on a free PDF or to rely on something that isn't a good fit for you and your business, you're never going to finish it and it's never going to have the results that you hope it will. And what happens then when you fail? What happens? So I want you to imagine your head. Well, as if you'd imagine anywhere else besides your head. Anyway, so. New Year's resolutions. People fail at New Year's resolutions all the time. So imagine I, you know, so it's the turn of the year. I'm saying I want to go to the gym every single day. And I make it for like a week and a half. But then it's Thursday, two weeks into the New year. Work is a lot, you know, I really want to go out with my friends. I haven't seen them in a few weeks and I decide I don't want to go. And so I don't go to the gym on Thursday. And then Friday, I feel really, really down about it. Like oh man, I had such a good streak going and now I failed. Like, I don't want to go now. And then Saturday I have the whole day to myself. But now by Saturday, the gym, actually that whole building and everything associated with it now carries failure energy for me. Okay? So even thinking about going there, I've already failed. Like me going today wouldn't even matter because I failed. So when you do this to yourself in your business, when you set yourself up for failure because you're, you're committing to doing stuff that just doesn't tell you the whole picture or doesn't fit your personality, what you're doing is you're preemptively attaching failure to your business and it just adds to the ick factor of it every single time. You don't have to do that anymore. Can I just say that you don't have to do that anymore. You can absolutely hire help to show you the how in a way that feels authentic to you. It's one of the things that I do with my clients. I only work with clients though who are running a service based business, meaning they are offering their expertise, they are consulting, they are coaching. It's a lot of intellectual exchanges or they're, they're artists and they're doing that. Hi Martin, welcome. Thank you for joining us. But there are plenty and plenty of mentors and coaches and consultants who can show you if you are a real estate agent and you're trying to learn that there are coaches who deal with, who work with real estate agents and teach the best practices there. The same for financial advisors, the same for drop shippers, everything. I mean, friggin Tim Ferriss, I know I have his book around here somewhere. There's lots of how to's in that book as well. You have to find what works for you. But stop BSing yourself that you don't have talent. Stop BSing yourself that you don't HAVE time. Stop BSing yourself with all the other excuses babes. You are afraid of doing it and you don't know how. And that is totally okay. That is on the path to figuring it out. We all had to start somewhere. We all were afraid of the thing and none of us are born knowing this stuff, okay? So stop having that expectation of yourself. Okay? One of the things that I have to remind myself about all the time is I have never done this next thing before. I have never written a book before. I have not never started a podcast. You know, I've been going live here for about a year. But there's still times where, you know, something technical happens and I've never had to deal with that before. You know, it's just we are all learning and growing and. Give yourself some credit. You've gotten this far, okay? You have overcome every single challenge and every single scary thing that has ever happened in your life up until this point, okay? You can take on a whole hell of a lot more. And I really hope it's empowering, scary stuff and not actual tigers and poisonous things and murderers. I don't wish that on anyone. But I know you can do it. And if you want any support in that, I am opening up my calendar for four sessions, four 30 minute generate income strategy calls this coming Monday. And if you would like to book a 30 minute session, this is only for those of you who are like, shit, she's right. I'm letting fear and not knowing how be my excuses for not doing this thing. This is only for those of you who are like, I need to do this thing. I cannot walk away from this any longer. I cannot wait any longer. If you're interested in taking me up on this, I want you to send me a direct message right now or as soon as this ends. Because I don't know how it works in the interface. If you try to go and do something, and I would love to give you those sessions, we'll talk about where you are, what's getting in your way, we'll make a path for you forward. And if it's a fit, then we can talk about what it looks like to work together. And also, if I'm not the consultant or the coach for you, guess what? There are a million people like me. Find someone who is a good personality fit for you or who focuses on your area of business. Because guess what? You are born on this earth for a reason. And you not doing that, you not going and doing the thing that you were brought here to do is a waste of you. So, okay, if we learned anything this last year is that our lives are precious, okay? Another, Another crazy illness could absolutely be, you know, mutate out of anything you can out of the ground from animals, whatever, and could knock you out tomorrow. I don't want that. And I don't want you to waste any time to do your dream, okay? Because life is short, life is precious, and we need your gift. You know, the world, the world is broken right now. There are a lot of ways that we're broken. You know, black men being shot by police men or police women. Climate change, inequality, everywhere, inequality, poverty. There are so Many problems that could be solved. And if you could just solve a tiny little piece of one, imagine the impact that would have. Anyway, that's all I have to say tonight. Stop being a weenie. That's my final thing I want to say. Stop being a weenie. This whole thing is about, you know, not being afraid. You're going to be. I'm not telling you actually to not be afraid. I'm telling you to be afraid and do it anyway. So stop being a weenie and get to it. And if you do want to book one of those calls, then DM me. And for those of you who, oh, and Steve, I jumped into real estate and I have no idea what I'm doing, but I'm absorbing every bit that I can. Steve, I mean, that's exactly what you have to do. The real estate industry is also super supportive of each other. There are so many partnerships. For those of you in real estate who are watching, if you're looking to do Instagram work to build awareness for your brand and for your clientele. Clientele, not clientele's. You want to look up Lily Weiss in Portland, Oregon. And if you can't find her, she's on Instagram. I don't know where my phone is. But she is brilliant. She has the Instagram game down and she coaches other real estate agents on their social media presence. You know, I can, I can recommend her. I actually, I've known her since she was 0 years old. I was in preschool with her older brother so I can vouch for her credibility. Anyway, fun little plug for a friend. If you have any questions for me after this, then please do DM me also. Again, I would love to reiterate my invitation to join the Being Brave call this Friday and every Friday at 11:00am Eastern Standard Time. The link to book is in my, in the comments here and also on my page. Anyway, I hope you all are having a great week so far. We are halfway through and I look forward to talking to you tomorrow. Okay, bye.