Is fear keeping you small?

Sam. Hello and good evening, everyone. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach. Coming to you live in a few different places. I'm on the facebooks, I'm on LinkedIn and on YouTube. Thank you so much for being here, everyone. A little housekeeping. I do love this to be interactive. If you have any questions or comments, please do share them. But sometimes the technology does not work and I don't see all the comments until after. Okay, so if I don't shout you out and say hi, then I will circle back and comment later. But I'm not ignoring you unless you say something rude. Just the technology doesn't always work perfectly. Anyway, today I want to talk about a really fun topic for everyone. Everyone really enjoys talking about this topic and it is how fear keeps you playing small. And I am an expert at this because I used to let fear keep me small all the time. I early on in my career when I thought I was going to be a sommelier, which was a whole chapter of my life that I actually don't like talking about because I don't like talking about wine anymore, mainly because of how people get when they talk about wine. So please don't try to talk about wine with me. But anyway, I used to be a sommelier, and I was training for the advanced exam. So I went to move to California, got trained and certified up to the second level in the quarter master sommeliers. And after I got that certification, I went out and tried to get a job. And in San Francisco, there are a ton of sommeliers. Okay? There are the most amount of sommeliers per capita than anywhere else in the world. And that's for a few reasons, because there's a lot of money in Silicon Valley, which means that there's a lot of really great restaurants. And then of course, we have a wine region all around San Francisco go Bay. So it was a very competitive market and I was around a lot of really talented wine people all the time. I was dating a master sommelier and hanging out with his friends and, you know, just like always felt like I was the person who knew the least. And because I was, I was the person who knew the least, but I still knew a lot. And when I started applying for jobs in the food and beverage wine industry, I actually got invited to apply for an assistant sommelier position at a very nice restaurant that was very busy. It was, you know, very, very popular. They had a great wine program. And I never called the guy back. I never called the guy back because I was terrified that I would get in and first day on the job, I'd get asked a question, I wouldn't know the answer and it would be embarrassing. They'd fire me and I'd be humiliated. Reality was probably that if someone asked me a question, I didn't know the answer. This very, very kind sommelier would have taught me, would have mentored me. But you know, when I was 22, I didn't know any different. I didn't know that, that like you're supposed to lean into the fear. If you really, really want something, you can't let your fear of getting it wrong or being embarrassed or things not working out. You can't let that fear hold you back. Now I wish I could say I was like, turn 23. And I was like, well, that was stupid. I shouldn't have done that. And then I was fixed. No, that's not how it happened. I continued playing small for a very, very long time through multiple industries, many, many jobs, and well into starting my business. And it showed up in a lot of different ways. And I want to talk about the ways in which my clients play small. Right? And the title or the, the top line of this live is, well, I know what I should be doing, but I'm just not doing it for some reason. And I know that's probably going to trigger a lot of people who've talked to me, probably, probably everyone who's ever spoken with me. Because everyone says this, everyone thinks they know what they need to do and they blame themselves for just not doing it. And let me tell you, chances are you probably don't know exactly what's going to make you successful. Probably the, the laundry list of things that you think you need to do to make yourself successful. It'll help, but it's not going to get you there. All right, so let yourself off the hook with this laundry list. But everyone says this. Everyone acknowledges that they are the one that is holding themselves up. They are the one that's like, ah, I'm not ready. And, and the ways in which people keep themselves from doing the scary thing, from putting themselves out there, from playing bigger, honestly, looks like work. It looks like doing a lot of back end work in your business. It looks like getting to Inbox zero, which by the way, if you are an Inbox zero person, do not ever look at my phone or my desktop. If we're hanging out, you will have to go to the hospital with a panic attack because I'm not that way. Thousands, thousands of unread emails. Anyway, I have a system. It works for me. Okay. Anyway. But it looks like a lot of back end work. And let me tell you, like a lot of business owners, especially early business owners, they spend a lot of time working on setting up QuickBooks and things like that to help manage all the expenses and money coming in before they even have a client, before they even have expenses to manage. And you have a choice. You can do that. You can do all of the back end administrative stuff. That's honestly just you spinning your wheels. You can sign up for online courses that show you step by step what worked for someone else and will probably work for you. That honestly probably will not work for you because it's not customized to the way you do things and the business that you want to have. Yeah, you can sign up for that. You can print out the hundreds of pages of PDFs that they have put together, you know, to help you. That will probably never help you because let's be honest, you'll print it out, you might go through and highlight some stuff and then it will sit in a very neat pile. So somewhere in your bedroom or office. And every time you walk past it, you will look at it and be like, yep, I will get to that tomorrow. I'll look at that later today, I'll look at that this weekend. And it will fill you with guilt and shame because that's just another thing that you started and didn't finish and you're feeling triggered right now. I apologize. But I'm. I'm also talking about former me. I used to do this stuff all day the time. Okay. Another way in which a lot of my clients manage to play small is they give away free sessions and they tell themselves that someone told them that this is what they could do to get clients. And this is just you building your business, when in fact what it is. It's a great way to avoid having a very uncomfortable conversation, which is called a sales call. Right? So let's talk about what this does to you. When you're letting fear drive how you're running your life and you're letting it drive how you are starting your business and running your business, it's pretty simple. When you let fear drive the boat, you start killing your own confidence in your own gifts. Because you're really good at the service you do. You're incredible at it. It's like the thing that you, once you discovered that this is what you were meant to do, you were like, everything makes sense. This is what my calling is. I was brought to earth to do this thing. And then you go out and you try to build the business, but you're not actually trying to build the business. What you're doing is, you're doing all this like fear based, like, kind of time wastey stuff that like, you can tell yourself is part of building the business, but we both know it's not. We both know it's not working to get you clients. And as you try to give away sessions and work on setting up your QuickBooks and do a bunch of other time wasting things and buy all the courses, what's actually happening is your confidence levels in what you do starts taking a beating, right? Because you signed up for that course, but you still don't have a business. You still don't have clients. Well, there must be something wrong with you. You just don't finish things. You're setting up all the back end stuff for your business. Oh my God, like it's so official. And then people ask, oh my God, like, how's your business going? You're like, oh God, do I lie? Do I, do I lie and say it's going great, or am I honest? Do I admit that I feel like a loser and I don't have anything? And then your confidence takes another hit. And then you give away free sessions and sample sessions. You might do sample work for people and you know, they're so complimentary. They, they say, this was amazing. Thank you so much. This is so helpful. And then you ask them, well, would you want to be my client if you even get to that point? Because most people chicken out before they get there. And they say, oh, I'll think about it. Or they say, no, I'm not, I'm not ready to be a client right now. And then you start getting in your head about the service that you offer, the gift that you just discovered that you could do for other people, this thing that feels like a calling for you. And you start questioning if you're even that good at it. You start doubting that this is something that you could actually make money off of. And let me tell you, when you get to that point, it's really hard to rebuild from, right? Because now you're not just at the point where you don't have any money from this business and you've wasted a ton of time and money and energy. You're also starting to doubt if you can actually do the service you want to do, right? So if you're in one of the early stages of this, if you're like, shaming yourself for knowing what you should do, but just not doing it. I want you to question if you actually know what you should be doing and if you do actually have an action plan, where is your accountability? Who is the person who is pushing you to step outside your comfort zone, right? Who is inspiring you every single damn day to step outside that comfort zone and face your fear and go after what you really want? Because if you're not investing in your time, energy, money, whatever. And I'm not saying this is necessarily a coach. This could be like an author. You read their books, it inspires you. It could be someone you follow on social media. About a year ago, a year and a half ago, I got a message from this random person I had never spoken to before. She lives in Australia. I know. Not in Australia. Sorry. New Zealand. She lives in New Zealand. Sorry, sorry. I know people will be upset by that. Anyway, it lives in New Zealand. And she'd started a business, and they had 17 clients. And I had never heard of her. I never heard of her business. And she sent me a message, and I honestly thought it was a cold. Yeah, I thought she was pitching me something. But what she had to share with me is that she started this business with a partner and was dragging her feet and, like, it wasn't going anywhere. And every single time she felt like she was kind of backing off of it, she'd see a post come up with the tagline, stop being weenie, and she take it as a sign, okay, I have to stop being weenie. I have to go do the thing. I never had a conversation with this person, okay, except for this one little brief exchange we had in the dms. But she saw that I had this message, saw that I was telling people to stop being weenie, and she made the conscious decision to follow me, to read my content, to pay attention when I posted so that that would continue showing up in her awareness field. Right? And that made a massive difference. She shared with me that every single time they'd hit a roadblock, every single time she wasn't doing what she needed to do, she or her business partner would say, stop being weenie. And it worked to get them out of their slump and they went on to start a business. I haven't checked in with her. I actually should. I should go through my DMs and see how they're doing. But if you do not have someone who is inspiring you or pushing you, like I said, it could be someone you follow, it could be a book, it could be a coach, then you're actually choosing to play small because if. If you were already going to go and do the thing that's outside your comfort zone, you would have already done it. You would have already pushed yourself beyond that limit. It's really hard for us because we're so close to our own existence. We're like. We're there for the whole time, right? I'm. I'm in this body for the whole time. I experience everything that this body experiences. I'm too close to my own life, and I'm too close to my own business to see where I'm bullshitting myself. And you are, too. And if you're choosing to, ooh, just trust yourself that you're gonna figure it out and do whatever without focusing on something that will push you to do the brave thing, then you, my friend, are choosing to let fear run your life. And fear will always have you living the smallest possible version of your life, right? The fear side of your brain. So in coaching, in classical coaching, the fear side of your brain is called the saboteur, right? So we think of saboteur. Sabotage, right? So your saboteur part of your brain is always going to tell you, oh, well, you know, your relationship's not great, but at least you're not single, right? Or, you know, your house is kind of small and dingy, but at least you have a home. You should be grateful. You know, if your job is kind of abusive and toxic, well, at least you have a paycheck. Like, the saboteur part of your brain does not care that things are not great. The saboteur part of your brain is coming in, constantly, showing you, okay, well, this isn't good, but there are dangers out there. And, of course, this is from, like, back in the day when we were nomads and, like, it was dangerous to leave the cave. You had to, like, check everything. You had to look for tigers and lions and bears, and that was out of order. That kind of bothers me. But if you didn't. If you didn't, like, keep an eye out for danger always, then you're gonna die, right? Because you were out in the wilderness and There were no EMTs and helicopters that were gonna come and save you. We're not there anymore. So that saboteur part of your brain has not evolved fast enough to show you that the things that you're afraid of, the rejection, people laughing at things not working out for you, people making fun of you, being cringe, all that stuff, like, that's not actually going to kill you, right? And the tricky bit about this is that, like, you are so in your own experience of your life that you're probably not even acknowledging the areas in which you're holding yourself back, right? You probably think it seems so reasonable for you to just do the things that you're comfortable doing. Let. Let me just let you in on a little secret. The things that you're comfortable doing have gotten you to where you are and they're not going to get you any further. That's not how that works. If you want something more than what you have right now, you have to do something different. And usually that something different is something that will scare the absolute crap out of you. But if you really, really want it, if you want to live this dream life where you reach your goals and you have a successful business and you love your work and you get to work with really incredible people, like super exciting projects or whatever it is that you do, then it's time for you to call bullshit on yourself. Because if you are not making the conscious choice to push yourself beyond your comfort zone and do the things that will help you get there, by the way, those things are not the things that got you here. Then you are choosing to let fear run your life. And I'm talking about this right now, in this moment, because I know there's a lot of fear right now, okay? Rightfully so. We're looking at current events and we're holding it up to history. And it looks really scary. But here's why. It is so much more important for you to go after your dreams now more than ever. Because if you do not have hope that you are building your life into exactly what you want it to be, what do you have to fight for? What do you have to stand up for? Nothing. You have this that seems fine. And like, if something bad happens, well, maybe this will all be fine. And if you don't create the thing that you want your life to be right now, if you don't give yourself hope that you are actively working towards it and give yourself the evidence that you're actively working towards it, you're going to lose the thread and you're going to stop being the narrator of your own life and you're going to just start being a side character supporting, supporting role just kind of hanging out in the background. And at the end of your life, you're going to have a long, long list of things that you regret not doing. And I don't want that for you. I don't want that for me. And there's still, things that I'm playing small in, and I got called out in my own webinar today for that. So it's kind of rude, but it happens. So I share that because I want you to know, like, we all do it. It happens to the best of us. But just because we all do it and that it happens to the best of us doesn't mean that you need to continue doing it. Just as this has worked for you up until now, doesn't mean it's going to make you happy at the end of your life. So stop being a weenie. Stop letting fear drive your life and start creating something. Start fighting for something. Start standing for something. Okay? Right now, we need you more than ever. We need your gifts. We need the work that lights you up and makes a real impact on the world. Right? We need it now more than ever before. And if you're watching me, chances are the work you do actually helps make the world a better place, because I'm really proud. Those are the kinds of people that I attract into my world. I want you to imagine what you could accomplish in the next five years if you were to build a really successful business and you were able to help the maximum amount of clients for the next five years, and you were able to have that ripple effect by making their life, their work, their whatever else better. And imagine the impact that would have on their families, on their companies, in their communities, and what they'd be able to do beyond that. And we just think about that. You're going to think about the people who you could support to do really brave work. We talk about the clients whom you could legally protect if you're a lawyer, or the clients whom you could help be more successful in their business if you're in marketing or copywriting or do some consulting. I need to imagine, like, all the people who would be able to save their jobs, keep their jobs, if you just got over your little fear brain right now and went out and offered your services to help them be more successful. I want you to think about all the clients you could help get a raise or a bonus if you just got over yourself and pushed yourself outside of your comfort zone. Now, I want you to imagine you have all that, all that impact, all those incredible things that you've done for the world, and I want you to shift it back to you doing none of it. And every single one of those people that you could have helped now doesn't have it. They don't have the raise, they don't have the bonus. Their kids Never see them. The good work that they want to do in the community, that's gone too, right? Some of it might still happen without you. Some of it, but not all of it. For those things to happen, for that impact to happen, you are the key. And for you to be the key, you have to accept it. And you have to grow a pair of ovaries and stop being a weenie and go and do it. And I know the world is scary right now, but the world has been scary before, and I firmly believe that things are going to be okay. Going to be hard, no doubt, but things are going to be okay only if you stand up and you do the thing that scares the crap out of you. All right? If we all do that, we'll be in a far better place. All right with that. Thank you so much for being here. I have some work to do to wrap up before I go and spoil Luna with lots of treats. I hope this was a fire under your ass to go and do some things. If you want some support from a business strategist, reach out to me. I am accepting new clients both for one on one and in my group programs. If you want a career coach, if you need a consultant for something, if you need a lawyer, if you need a copywriter, if you need any of these things, reach out to me. I know a ton of people. Whatever it is that you are playing small on that you need help for, I know someone that could potentially help you. I'm happy to make an introduction. All right, everyone, thank you for being here. I again, I hope this is really useful to you, and I cannot wait to go live with you again tomorrow. I'm Katie McManus, your practical business strategist, and I will see you all very soon. Good night.