How to learn to be brave!

Yo, yo. Good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist, Money Mindset Coach, coming to you this evening on the Facebooks, on LinkedIn, on YouTube and on Twitter. Tonight, I want to talk about how to be brave in your business. And I think the only way to really talk about this is to share my own journey here. Because there is a reason why my tagline is stop being a weenie. Because I used to be the most massive weenie I knew, Okay? I was that kid growing up. We lived on a hill and all my friends loved getting on their bikes and riding like full speed down the hill. And I would go down with my hands, like gripped around the brakes and I'd just be going the whole way down. I didn't like risk. And I doubted myself a lot. I doubted myself. I was terrified of public speaking. I was so terrified of public speaking. I once had a professor. I wasn't in his class, but he was a professor at my college. He voluntold me to speak at a literary luncheon with like 300 English teachers and writers and professors. He volunteered me that I would read a letter for one of the authors who was being honored. Getting nervous even just talking about it, reading a letter by one of the authors who was honored at that lunch but couldn't make it. And I practiced this letter. I read it a million times. I typed it up in bigger print, did all these things, and I stood up there and I stuttered and I stammered and I painfully made it through. Reading this letter in front of 300 people, I was sweating. I was just. I was beside myself. It was so mortifying and I was so bad that people came up to me afterwards, like people who are in the audience came up to me afterwards to apologize to me about how bad I was. This professor had lent me some books that I will never forget. That night. I stayed up until about 2 o' clock in the morning, like past, when I knew he and his wife would be up. Hi, Sanjay. Welcome. And I literally, like, put the books that he lent me in a plastic bag and I drove to his house and I left that plastic bag on his porch. And I never spoke to him again. I actually don't even know if he's still alive. He was kind of old when. When this happened. It was traumatizing. And from then on, and I was never comfortable speaking in public. There was a reason why I tried to say no because I was not comfortable speaking publicly. And here's the problem with that. If you're wanting to start a business is that you're going to need to be visible in some sense. And. Hi, Amber. Welcome. I know, right? Mortifying. You're going to have to be visible in some sense, and you don't necessarily have to speak publicly. That is not a requirement for having a successful business. And. Hi, Gabriel, Welcome. But it helps. It absolutely helps. And I think what it does is it helps you kind of get out of your shell so you're willing to show up in different places in different ways. You can absolutely create that visibility by posting, by sharing pictures of yourself, by, you know, doing other things. You don't necessarily have to stand up on stage in front of hundreds of people. But anyway, so just wanted to share. That's where I came from. So that you can really see how. How much work I put into it. Because going from there to I now speak as part of my work and do lives constantly to you guys. It was a big jump for me. And so I want to go over how I worked on my bravery, how I developed my bravery as a skill. Hi, David. So hard to imagine you having a fear of public speaking. Yeah, I know, right? Yeah, I put in the work, David. It's. I'm going to explain exactly what I did. So there are three things really, that. That you have to work on when you want to be brave and brave to do a specific thing. Right. One, you have to learn the skill of the thing that's holding you back. Okay, Whatever that is. You have to learn the skill of the thing that's holding you back. And for me, that was public speaking. Two, you really. I just lost my thought. Went away. Where. Where did it go? You really have to practice. That's what it is. You really have to practice showing up in that space. Like you can't just learn it and not do it again. You have to learn it and then start doing it and doing it and doing it and doing it again. Okay? There's a reason why you see me on Lives all the time. This is practice for when I'm talking on stages. This is practice for when I am hosting group events. There's a reason why I do my Friday Brave biz lab call, okay? It keeps me sharp in holding space for groups, you know, for my. My paid group programs. You know, if I'm not practicing that skill all the time, I'm not getting better at it. And then you have to ask yourself, thirdly, if not now, when? And if not you who? All right? Because you don't know what life has in store for you. There's Catherine Gladwin. I think that's. Yeah, that's her last name. Brilliant woman. If you're ever wanting to be a virtual assistant. She actually coaches women through becoming virtual assistants. She had a brain tumor and she's been battling health issues for last, like, 10 years. Okay. She finally, like, that brain tumor made her question, like, if not now, when she made the decision to change her life. And please do not wait until something drastic happens. Please do not wait until you have no other choice. All right? Because you have a gift. You have a gift, and it deserve. You deserve to see that gift have impact in the world, and the people that you can help deserve to have that kind of help. All right, so let me go into the different things that I did to get over my fear of public speaking. So first and foremost, I. I invested in a crap ton of classes. Crap ton of, like, clubs and practice scenarios and all that stuff. My very first thing that I signed up for was improv classes. If you're in the Bay area, in San Francisco, Bay Area baths, Bay Area theater, sports. It's an incredible school. They also have. I think they used to have shows every Friday and Saturday night before the pandemic. I don't know if this is still the case, but I took a bunch of classes there, and there was nothing. There was nothing that changed the whole game for me like that. Because when you're doing improv, you're. You don't have anything planned like, that's. You improvise. You improvise the whole thing. So you're in front of a bunch of people and you don't know what's going to come out of your partner's mouth. All you know is that whatever comes out, you have to build on it. You have to. Yes. And it. You have to take it and run with it. And if you fuck up, your. Your partner has to play with that. That just becomes part of the thing. All right? So there is nothing like that. There is a. One teacher that I had who, whenever we messed up, one class, I remember this. Whenever we messed up, whenever we, like, stumbled over our words or fell out of character or forgot, like, what the storyline was and got lost in what we were creating, made us buck like a chicken. And Sanjay, you have fear of public speaking, so pay attention to this. So, I mean, there's nothing more demeaning for, like, an adult to be standing in front of a classroom of other adults just bucking like a chicken because you. You screwed up the scene. Like, there's nothing like that. And the beautiful thing about improv, especially these classes, is that they are so much fun. And what happens to your. Like, your brain actually learns a lot more when you're having fun and when you're laughing than it does when you're really serious or you're scared, right? So if you want to get comfortable speaking on stage, speaking in front of people, like, there are going to be moments when you speak. Even if you have a whole speech written out, you've memorized it, there are going to be moments that are unscripted. Someone is going to ask a question from the audience, or, like, someone's going to make a loud noise, or there's going to be something that happens, and you're going to have to dance with that. And it's not always going to go to plan. Sometimes you forget your words, sometimes you forget a line, and you're going to have to come up with something on the spot to get through that moment. So, yeah, I highly recommend taking improv class. It's also just a lot of fun. I made a lot of friends through that. I mean, you guys know me. I make a lot of friends everywhere. But it's just. There's nothing that gets you out of your shell more than improv. So wherever you are in the world, go find an improv class. It will be that first step to getting comfortable speaking publicly. Right? Now, here's where improv has its limitations in getting comfortable speaking, right? So you're getting up and pretending to be someone else. You're getting up and, like, willingly being silly, right? That is very different from you standing up as yourself in front of an audience and looking out to the audience and delivering a speech or a talk or a workshop when everyone's just staring at you and you're the only one there that is commanding attention. So another thing that I did, I invested in, like, speaking classes through this program called Own the Room. I actually don't know if they're still in business. The Pandemic really hit them hard. And I joined a toastmasters group. It was through my work. It was super easy. I mean, easy to join. It wasn't easy to, like, be in it. But here's the thing. Like, when you're in these programs, when you're in the club, and when you're doing these classes, you have to raise your hand. You can't join and then be shy about it. That is not going to help you get better. All right? Which brings me to step number two, Becoming brave. Now, for me, this was just practicing over and over and over again. So every single Toastmasters Club meeting, I would stand up and I would do something. I would. I would do one of the exercises. I would volunteer to do a speech. I would volunteer to run the meeting. Anything to get me in front of a room so that I could practice speaking. If we ever had an all hands at the company that I worked at, like, I would raise my hand and ask a question, even if it was a dumb question, because I wanted to practice standing up and speaking in front of a couple hundred people. All right? And that was a perfect opportunity. And what was funny is that, like, I would get up and ask a question. Question. And all my Toastmasters friends would be like, katie, you did such a good job. It was like, one sentence that I asked, you know, but we all were working on this together and we all were so supportive of each other. So if you ever thought about joining a club like Toastmasters, I highly recommend it. I also just read books. I read books and I listened to podcasts. I can't remember which podcast I listened to, but I could probably dig it up if you're curious. But I just, I practiced. And here's when. When we, you know, the pandemic hit us and we all had to, like, go home and be in our houses and be locked up. Sounds so weird when I say it that way. I realized, like, I wasn't going to be able to practice this way. I wasn't going to be able to be in rooms. I wasn't going to be able to, like, stand up and be seen in front of a bunch of people. So if, I mean, oh, God, if you were my Facebook friend, you were my Facebook friend, like, the year of the pandemic, like, that summer 2020, you were privy to the most cringe lives that a person has ever done. I had this coach who just, like, knew what I needed, and he's like, just go live. Just go live. Don't even plan what you're saying. Just go live. Like, if you're on a walk and you just, like, go live, just come up with things to say. And so I'd be like in my workout clothes, I'd be like, bright red and sweaty, having gone for a run, and I'd be like, on a street. Be like, I'm on the street and I'm doing this thing. And actually thinking about this, it probably wasn't a good idea for me to, like, name my location to a bunch of strangers on the Internet. But I got through it and I did it and I had. I had people reach out and be like, you're so brave. And I had people reach out and be like, that wasn't very good. And they criticized me. And I got through it and I learned that I could do it and survive. And here's where practice makes perfect, right? It actually doesn't make perfect. Practice shows you that you can do something and not die, right? Because when we're afraid of something, when we're being a weenie about something, it's because there's a part of our brain that is going, mayday, mayday. This is dangerous. You could die. Like, you could be rejected from all of society. You could be evicted from your home, whatever it is. The only way to quell that voice is to just show it that it's wrong, right? To just show it that you can go live, that you can speak on stage, that you can go and start your business and you won't die. Let me see, Amber. My classmates always knew that he'd give me the look and I'd be the 1 of 148 to raise her hand and voice concerns or questions. Yes, I was not that person. I was not that person. I was the one that everyone thought was that person and would voluntel me to do stuff because I come across as confident, but I was not that person. I would stutter and stammer through. Everything is awful. So practice, my friends, practice. You know, if. If sales is one of your hurdles, if you're just so afraid of asking people to join your program to sign up to be your client, then you just gotta practice. Okay? Do. Do role playing with friends, with family members. I was also your student at 35. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Okay, got it. Thank you, Amber. But still, it takes brain free. But yeah. So if, if you're afraid of sales, you just have to practice. If you're afraid of writing, if you're afraid of writing and if you think like, who, who is ever going to listen to me? What do I have to say that's worth reading? Then just start writing and just start posting. You know, Seth Godin is one of my favorite authors and his whole thing is create and ship. Create and ship, create and ship. You know, you create the thing and you ship it out into the world and you create the thing and you ship it out into the world. It's the only way that you're going to get better, right? It's the only way that you're going to get braver, right? Because you're going to be creating stuff and sending out into the world and just being like, whatever the reaction to it is, is the reaction and I can't control it because at that point that's all you can create. Right. At the point where I was doing lives on Facebook and it was super cringe, that was the best I could do. You know, I hadn't hacked it, I hadn't figured it out yet, and that's it. But you just have to create and ship. That's all you can do with whatever it is that you are trying to get braver on. As complicated and uncomfortable as it is, I keep pushing forward one small step at a time. Yes. I don't know who you are because the privacy settings are weird. So you're just showing up as LinkedIn user. But yes, thank you. Please keep going one step at a time now. Okay, so you have to learn the skills of the thing. You have to practice and just show up and keep doing it. And finally, like, there comes a point. Oh, Jason. Hi, Jason. There comes a point where you are going and going, going, and you can just plateau, right? You can be practicing and just plateau in a certain area. Now the only thing that's going to get you out of that is to give yourself a wake up call or have someone like me give you a wake up call, which. Welcome. You're welcome. Aloha. Yes. I'm so jealous. We're not getting. We have sunshine, but it's like, like not warm sunshine. I want to come visit you. So there comes a point where you're doing the thing. You're showing up and you're showing up, but you have to get real with yourself. You have to get real with. Okay, cool. I've gotten good at this. I, I have hacked this. I'm, I'm good at it. I'm comfortable here. Where's the next uncomfortable area you can go? Where is that next step? You know, for me, like, I got comfortable doing Facebook lives, you know, like, it was just like old boyfriends and people from high school watching me and people from old jobs, which, honestly, looking back, I should have been more uncomfortable with that than I was. But the next step for me was going live here, right there. The next step for me on the next thing was, you know, something else. But anyway, you have to push yourself. You have to push yourself to that next uncomfortable level, okay? Because what got you here won't get you there. Whatever your goal is for your business and your life, what got you to where you are right now will not get you there. So you have to ask yourself a very critical Question. Right? If not now, when? If not now, when? Like, you can continue doing what you're doing right now. Nothing's gonna change. You're. You're just gonna stay right here, right where you are. And if you're happy with that, please stay there. That's. If you're happy where you are, don't change a thing, okay? If that is what lights you up, if you are inspired every single day by the life that you live right now, don't change a thing. But if that's not the case and you want something different, if not now, when are you going to make that change? I hear so often. I held myself back in this area, too. I was so worried, like, okay, well, I'll just wait until I feel ready. I'll just wait until I feel ready to do this. And here's the thing. Like, we never feel ready until we've done it a couple dozen times, right? If I were to ask you to go ride a bike, and you've never ridden a bike before, and even if I explained it, if I, like, drew a model, my drawing sucks. So you probably. It wouldn't be helpful if I drew a model and, like, I explained, like, you have to. And maybe I, like, held you up and you, like, pedaled your feet and did all the things, you know, you got to see my socks there. You still wouldn't feel comfortable. Like, you wouldn't feel ready to get on that bike because you had. You wouldn't have done it before. You know, you only feel comfortable to get on the bike and start riding when you've done it a bunch, right? Like, I haven't ridden a bike in, God, years. And, like, I know the next time I hop on a bike, I'm going to remember, but I'm going to be a little shaky for a bit, right? So you have to really get real with yourself. If not now, when? And the other thing you have to get real about, you have to own the fact that you have a fucking gift. You have something that no one else has because no one else is you. And there are people out there who are waiting for you to show up and teach them whatever lesson it is to provide whatever service it is that you want to give. And they're not going to get that help until you get real with yourself, right? So if you're not gonna. If you're not gonna pony up on the bravery side, you're not only robbing yourself of that future that you are holding so dear and also keeping it at arm's length, you're also robbing your ideal clients of the help that they are waiting for from you. And that's just fucking selfish. Don't do that. Don't do that. You know, I'm a big believer that we all pay our way in this life and not in a monetary way. Not in a monetary way. I believe that we pay our way by having a positive impact on others. Like, that is the thing that creates those positive, beautiful ripples in our world. That makes the world better. That makes our earth able to better heal and recover and support us longer is if we just show up with our gifts and give them freely and. And bravely as much as we can. And of course, because we are humans and we're the only animal on the planet who has to actually pay here, we do have to charge for it. We can't give it completely for free. But you're the only one who can give your gifts. That's it. And so stop. Stop holding yourself back. Stop waiting to be ready. Okay? Because if not now, when? If not now, this moment, this very second, then when is this ever going to happen? So with that, I'm going to leave you to stew and be motivated. And maybe with that fire under your butt, you're going to go take action on something today. And I want to thank Sanjay and Amber and Gabriel and David and Jason. Thank you all for joining. And to anyone else who was here and didn't comment or I just didn't see your comment. Thank you for being here. I hope you have a great Tuesday, and I look forward to going live with you again tomorrow. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Have a great night, everyone, and I will talk to you soon.