The Myth of Being Ready- Day 1 of 5

Hello, everyone. Good evening. I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and leadership coach, and I did not dry my hair tonight. This is a whole show about being ready or the myth of being ready, and I'm totally not ready. The beauty of having long hair is that when your hair is wet, you just pop it in a bun. Anyway, I'm starting a little late. I just got off the most incredible phone call with someone who I'm really excited to interview really soon. I mean, their story is just mind blowing, and. Oh, Larry, I'm talking about you. Oh, my God. I'm just still all just speechless from hearing your story, and it's incredible, and I can't wait to interview you here. But tonight, I want to talk about this myth we have about being ready, and. Hi, David. Welcome. Good evening. And I know this. I'm actually going to be talking about this all week, okay? Because this myth is so pervasive, and it got in my way when I started my business, and I hear it every single day. I just don't feel ready. Oh, you know, just. I need to do one more thing before I'm ready to, like, take the leap, and I'm tired of it. It's bullshit. It just doesn't serve anyone. And I know there are trolls out there who are gonna be like, well, there are things that you should be ready for. And I totally agree with that. You know, heaven forbid I ever need brain surgery. I don't want them giving a scalpel to a medical student who's never held a scalpel before. Okay, I'm not talking about that. And I'm also not talking. You know the saying, fake it till you make it. Not talking about faking expertise. I don't think that's helpful. I don't think that's ethical. I don't think it's right. Never fake expertise. But you can fake confidence, and you can do things before you're ready for them. Oh, Larry, you're getting connection requests. Oh, my gosh. And David has a killer podcast that would be really cool for you. Anyway, so let's talk about the costs of waiting until you're ready for one. I mean, if you're starting a business, you lose all the money that you'd make if you just jumped in and did it. I mean, that's cost right there. That's actual financial cost. There's also the cost of time and confidence. I'll be talking about this later in the week, but I swear to God, it is, too. You're too young to to start something. Right up until that split second that you switch to being too old to even start. Okay, just let that sink in. You're too young to start something. Just until that moment that it flips that you're too old to even start. Okay. If I had followed my gut and my heart, I would have been a coach a lot sooner. I don't know that I'd have the same impact as I do. I don't know if I'd be working with the same clients, because obviously I went through a sales career and a bunch of other things that influenced how I work now. But the thing that held me back was, I'm too young. No one's going to listen to me. And that's a version of I'm not ready. That's a version of I'm not ready. And then, of course, there is the, oh, it's too late. I'm too old. I'm too old to start something. You know, I've had a whole career. I should just stick it out for another seven years and then retire and maybe I'll do something in my retirement. Okay, I mean, that could actually be a valid argument, but it's your life, and if you wanted to create it in a way that's fulfilling to you, you should just do it. Oh, and David just said, just do it. Yeah. There's a loss of confidence in your ability to actually go and do things. When you put things off over and over and over again because you're worried that you're not ready for erodes your confidence, it erodes your belief in your abilities to go and do badass things. And that sucks. And that carries over. Okay, so if you're that person, I see this all the time. So oftentimes someone who's kind of wimpy in high school, and I say wimpy. I'm not being cruel. I'm just saying, like, they didn't go for the things, that becomes their narrative. That becomes their narrative in college, that becomes their narrative as a young adult into adulthood. And they're just that person who just doesn't go for things. And it's hard to deprogram that. And so if you start becoming that person who's pushing things off until you're ready. Oh, I'm not ready. The narrative you're actually creating for yourself is that you're never ready, that there's always another thing for you to do. And by the way, all those things that you put in the way of being ready, like, I don't have enough Money saved aside, my kids need to go to college. You know what else? Like, I'm not thin enough. Believe it or not, that actually does get in the way of people starting their businesses. It's one of the reasons it took me forever to get my photos taken, which is absolutely crazy, especially since I'm not a model. I'm not modeling bathing suits. I'm not acting. My body has nothing to do with my work, and yet I completely let it get in the way. It's crazy the kinds of things that we let get in the way. The other thing that we let get in the way is worrying about how we're going to do it. Oh, I don't know how I'm going to do that. So I'm just going to put it off. I'm just going to put it off because I don't know how. I'll probably have to learn how before I do it. No, no. Decide you're going to do it, and then your brain will actually shift into scanning the world for how you're going to make it happen. Okay. The how comes after deciding. And I know that feels counterintuitive. You know, we're raised in a world where you have to study and you have to learn the thing, and then you take the test and then you pass or fail it, and then you again, prepare, prepare, prepare. Take the test and you pass or fail. And that's pretty final. Like, you pass or fail, and then you either pass or fail the class or not. What if we just decided to take the test and see if we knew it already? Like, that's essentially what entrepreneurship is, is you just go and take the test and see if you know it, and then you. Oh, great, I got a 50. That means there are 50% of the. Of the questions that I didn't understand or I didn't know the answer to. Great. I need to go figure those out. It just becomes a shopping list. There's this. Oh, I'm getting messages on Facebook, but they're not coming through. On LinkedIn, on the LinkedIn thing. Bummer. Anyway, just a reminder, I am doing this on streamyard, so if you're commenting and I'm not calling you out, it's not you, it's just the platform, unfortunately. It's imperfect, just like all of us. I wish it showed me all the. All the comments, but, you know, this is what we've got. It's not ready. It's just not ready. And it's just. It's doing its thing anyway. It's being A great example for us, David, do or do not. There is no. Try a wise little green. Why a wise little green wise guy said this. Okay, I think I've heard that saying, but I don't know the green wise guy kind of thing. I'm going to take a sip of water. Been talking all day. So this voice in your head that tells you that you're not ready. In coaching, we call this the saboteur. Okay, your saboteur voice is basically that annoying voice of doubt that constantly tells you, no, you can't do that. No, don't do that, you might get rejected. Oh, those people probably don't like you. Oh, it's Yoda. Yes, thank you. I'm not, I'm not a Star wars person. Sorry, I'm gonna get hate mail for that. Anyway, so your saboteur voice of doubt is constantly telling you all the things you shouldn't do and like the worst case scenarios that could come about from you actually going and doing them. And let's look at this voice of doubt because it's in your brain, it's there. It's not going anywhere. Actually, sociopaths and psychopaths don't have this. So if you have this, congratulations, you're not a sociopath and you're not a psychopath. Welcome to the club. But it is, it is based in our need for survival. It is ancient. It's all about, don't get kicked out of the tribe, don't do anything that rocks the boat, don't upset anyone. Because if people don't like you, they may not let you hang out with them. And then you may end up in the woods starving to death and freezing to death. And if you have children or pets, they're going to starve and freeze to death with you. Like that brings me back to every single time when I was employed by a company. I got called in by my, by my boss or something just for a check in. And I panic, thinking that I was in trouble. And then I'd worry about, immediately it would jump to, I'm going to lose my apartment and I'm not going to be able to pay my credit card bills and I'm not going to be able to do this. When really he had a question about, you know, how my progress is going on a project. It is just so reactionary. This part of your brain doesn't know the difference between there being a live hungry tiger in the room that's hunting you and an email coming in from someone who you're not super psyched to talk to, okay? It just, it goes way, way overboard. This is your brain. Welcome. It is set up this way to protect you, but it is not set up in this way to make sure that you have a fulfilling, kick ass life or to make sure that you do work that you love doing. Which if you've listened to me before, I firmly believe that everyone deserves to do work that they love and, and make a solid living out of it. So this part of your brain is never going to serve you. And this part of your brain is the part of your brain that tells you you're not ready for things. And here's the truth. You're not ready for things. You're not ready. You know, the first time you get up and make a speech in front of 3,000 people, you've never done that before. Great. You're probably not ready in some way. There's going to be some part of that experience that is going to overwhelm you. There's going to be some part of that experience that catches you in some way. It's not, it's not like riding a bike. You haven't done it before, you know, but there's nothing wrong with not being ready for something. Yeah, Larry, it's catastrophizing. I can never pronounce that word. It just gets jumbled about here. Catastrophizing. Exactly. It just is the worst case scenario of the worst case scenario of the worst case scenario scenario. And you can choose to believe it. And LinkedIn user says, who cares if you're ready, let's go. I totally agree. Let's go. But only in certain circumstances. Not if anyone's gonna get hurt. But so here's the thing about that part of your brain is that once you're aware of it, once you understand that it's fucking with you, you can choose to continue to believe it or you can choose to believe something else. And so here's a couple things that I like to do with my clients when they're stuck in this I'm not ready kind of mindset. Thomas Woodhams. What up? Welcome. You have a square and a rocket ship next to your name. I wonder what the square is supposed to be. Anyway, so first and foremost, that voice of doubt that's telling you that you're not ready, it's going to tell you all the things that you don't know, and then the things you don't know that you don't even know. And then it's going to tell you all the resources you don't have. And then it's going to tell you all the people who will laugh at you and make fun of you and, like, cheer at you failing. Okay, It's a really shitty voice. I'm swearing a lot tonight. It's a bad voice. So here's. Here's what I want you to do. When you're wanting to do something that scares you, that you're not ready for and this voice starts piping up, I want you to write a list of everything that it's saying to you. Every single thing, Thomas, I'm talking about. Yeah, I guess it is kind of like imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome. Not being ready. That voice of doubt, it's all the same thing. It's different facets of the same diamond. Let's just call it that. Isn't that romantic? Day after Valentine's Day. Talking diamonds. Anyway, so you're gonna make a list of every belief that this voice of doubt is telling you about the situation. So it could be. Say you're going on a speaking tour. You've never spoken in front of more than 20 people. Some people may laugh at you. You don't have a microphone. You don't have this. You don't have the funding to pay for hotels in half of these cities. You don't have this, you don't have that. You don't know this. You don't know what happens if something happens on stage. You know, I think it was year of yes. Shonda Rhimes. She talks about giving the commencement speech at her alma mater. And her biggest fear is that she's going to be on stage at the podium and like, like, fierce knot is just going to come, like, out of her nostrils and land on her face. You know, this is the kind of stuff this voice of doubt comes up with. It just paints any bad outcome on you, and it doesn't let up. So you're gonna make this list. You're gonna just own that some of it's gonna be bs and you're also gonna own that some of it's right. You know, maybe you don't have the funding for it. Maybe you don't have the skill for it either. Maybe you need to take some lessons. So what you're going to do with this list is you're going to go and you're going to cross out the things that are obviously just catastrophizing. Getting better at saying that word, by the way. You're going to cross all those things out, but then you're going to Go and you're going to look at the things that are actual to do. List items, shopping list items, you know, resources. And you're just going to take a deep breath and you're going to think, okay, cool. These are the things that I need right now to go and do this thing, to get ready for it. These are the things that I think I need. Cool. I'm just gonna set my intention that I'm going to get ready in these ways. I'm going to find a way to get better at public speaking. I'm going to find a way to get the funding that I need to pay for hotel rooms on my speaking tour and so on and so forth. We often get hung up on I don't know how. And like I said, it is just something that comes after deciding you're going to go after something and it feels counterintuitive because we like being prepared. We like knowing that we're going to get at least a 90 on the test and you know, the last 10% of the questions just. I'm just going to let that go. Going into a test situation and only getting 50% is really scary to most of us. Thomas. Katie McManus reminds me of the Chimps Paradox book Acting on feelings and Emotions. I'm not familiar with that book, but I'm guessing at where it's going with that. I'm gonna have to read it. Thank you. Thomas. A LinkedIn user. Anyone know why it doesn't show who I am when I comment? Oh yeah. So I think your privacy settings have something to do with it. And I can't be more detailed than that because I don't know further than that, but someone at some point said it's the privacy settings and. Oh, and maybe it's because you and I aren't connected. Are we connected? Because David saying he can see your name and your name is Jake, but you're still LinkedIn user to me without a picture. Sorry. The other thing to think about and this is gonna be really woo woo. You guys ready for some woo woo? Okay, so I'm just gonna pretend you all said yes. Bring it on. So we have neurons in our brains, right? We can do thinking in our brains. It's where we spend most of our thinking time. There have been studies over the last decade or so. They've discovered that you actually have neurons in your heart tissue and in your gut. So when you know something in your heart, you actually know it in your heart. Your heart is doing some thinking. And when you know something in your Gut. You also know that in your gut I'm a believer that in your heart that's where your inner leader lives and your gut, that's where your intuition lives. Oh, David, bring it. Okay, I'm bringing the woo woo. The thing you want to remember when you're thinking with your heart or with your gut is that it doesn't have a language center. Okay? So the answers are not going to be straightforward. They could come up in smells or in sensations or in memories. Now, an exercise that helps you ground into thinking there is. You just close your eyes, bring your awareness to your breathing. Don't do anything special, don't do. You don't have to breathe deeper or anything. Just bring your awareness there and imagine there's this ball of light and it's in your skull and it's in your brain and it's just your thinking mechanism. And you just very consciously imagine pulling it down, you know, through your skull, down your neck, into your chest and landing it in your heart. And whatever question you're thinking up here, that is just getting you all swirly, bring that question down into your heart as well, and you just wait for some kind of answer to pop up. And I imagine it bubbles up. You know, it doesn't, it doesn't just happen, it happens over time. So you can just breathe into your heart and let the question sit there. And then again you can take that, that light, that thinking light down into your guide and you can ask your gut, what do you know here? What's your knowledge on this topic? The surefire way to tap into your intuition. Also, I want you to notice my energy was really frenetic before. And just even talking about this process, not doing it myself, actually brought my energy down. I'm much more grounded in this moment. I was all kinds of wild crazy hearing Larry's story before because it's just so crazy, you know, inspiring. And now I'm feeling a lot more centered, a lot more myself. Just talking about this, Thomas. Okay, so LinkedIn user, we're talking about Worcestershire sauce, a catastrophizing flavor. I feel like I'm missing a joke here, Thomas. Katie McManus, top five books in the world. Wow. You need to read. Listen, I suffer with severe adhd. I struggle with impulsive behavior. I take Concerta XL Speed in the uk. Struggling to sleep. Haha. Just love listening to layered conversations. Oh, you'll get that here. Can you tell that I have ADD as well? This is like the add, the ADD show, I think. So welcome. And hopefully this puts you to sleep. Do the. Do the heart and the. And the. And the gut thinking if you're having trouble sleeping, it actually helps as someone with ADD who also has bouts of insomnia and LinkedIn user. Yep. Okay. Yeah. Missing a joke, I guess. So here's the moral of the story today, and I'm going to be harping on this all week because I'm tired of hearing people say that they are not ready to take on the thing that they really want to do. You're never going to be ready. Sorry? You're never going to be ready. You're probably not going to be ready three times into doing the thing, you know, but it's going to be a little easier. Okay? Ask any actor about if they were ready to go into an audition, if they were ready for their first acting part, if they were ready for the first time that fans went crazy for them. No, you're never ready. I think, I think I heard somewhere that Adele, you know Adele, the crazy, incredible, incredibly talented singer, she vomits before every concert show that she does. She's that nervous. You're never going to be ready. It's just. It's a myth. So stop waiting to be ready. Because if it's never gonna happen, it's just an excuse for you to just not do your thing, you know? And if you really don't want to do the thing, I don't know what your thing is. But if you really don't want to do it, find a better reason. You know, this is one of the things that I talk about with prospective clients with me, if they're four on the phone and they really want to work with me and they're saying, you know, I just can't, you know, it's too expensive. I don't know if I want to spend this money on this. Great. That's a shitty reason, though. Let's come up with a better reason why you don't want to work with me. That's fine too. Thomas. Katie McManus. Yeah, I'm thinking. Just my brain starts firing. Yeah. 120 miles per hour ideas. I know that feeling. Thomas. And everyone else. Oh, hi, Jake. Jake, I think I can see your name now. Unless this is a different person. So anyway, Thomas. And for everyone else, a friend of mine just recommended the Gaia app. We're talking woo woo. It's very woo woo. So G A I A. And they have some excellent meditations there, guided meditations. And there are some great ones for sleep. So if you struggle with that, I can't recommend it more. And also, as someone who's taken Ritalin in the past, maybe not take it past 4pm I don't know. I don't know what your. What your medication schedule is. And I'm not a doctor, and I am not qualified to prescribe any kind of, you know, adherence to anything when it comes to medications. Just a suggestion. Anyway, see what I did there? I'm not qualified to give medical advice. I wasn't ready for it. And that was a valid reason for me to, you know, just put the kibosh on that. Anyway, whatever it is that you're saying that you're not ready to do, even if you're not ready to take a step, I want you to stop using that language. I want you to stop saying, I'm not ready for it. Switch to I'm preparing for this. I'm preparing. I'm getting my ducks in the row. I'm looking for opportunities to do X. Okay? That linguistic shift can be magical. And you know me, I'm a big fan of momentum. So if that's too big of a thing, what are some smaller things that you can do that are still outside of your comfort zone that will build that momentum? You can do it every single day until all of a sudden that thing that kind of makes you nervous doesn't scare you anymore, and then you do something a little further beyond that. For me, this was doing Facebook lives until I realized, okay, well, I'm actually comfortable doing this now. And I applied for LinkedIn Live. This doesn't seem like a big thing, but it helps. I'm going on a speaking tour in a couple months. I'm organizing that with a speaking consultant right now. I would never, ever have been brave enough to do that if I hadn't done those baby steps for myself leading up to it. And I'm someone who, if you ever saw me speak before the age of 27, I would stutter, I would stammer, I would sweat profusely. I once gave a speech reading a letter in front of a luncheon. My college professor had volunteered me for this. I was so bad that people came up to me after I read this letter reading, just reading in front of people, and apologized to me for how bad I was. Okay. Like, I never imagined I would enjoy public speaking as much as I do now. But that took work, and it took baby steps, and it took me building that momentum and just going and doing the thing over and over and over again. So if you had ever asked me back then if I would Ever be ready to go on a speaking tour? Not on your life. Not on your life. But here I am. So if. And I just. I wish I had a video of how bad I was back then so you could actually see the progress that I've made. And if I could do that, if I could turn from that to this and to the thing that I'm going for. You can do whatever it is that you want to do, too. I was that bad. But anyway, guys. Okay, we have a couple questions. You take yours at 7am when you wake up. Oh, wow. Yeah. Okay, question. What's your biggest challenge and what's the hardest thing you have to deal had to overcome with your add? Ooh. You know, it's. It's in my relationships, if there's ever a TV on or, you know, something like bright and shiny happening, I actually will not hear what my friends or family are telling me. And this actually happened a couple weeks ago. My mom was telling me that my aunt had two heart attacks, and I just. I was completely tuned into something else. We had been talking two minutes prior, and I. She completely lost my attention and she honestly thought that I just didn't care for about a week until she brought it up to my sister in front of me. And I was like, what? Aunt Carrie had a heart attack? And she's like, yeah, I told you. That's probably the biggest thing. I also have a really hard time completing tasks and doing anything. Data entry. Unless I'm listening to the Hamilton soundtrack. Yeah, yeah. Hyperfocus is like the, like the positive side of having add, but it can also be a negative. Anyway, but yeah, that's. This has been my first session or live on the myth of being ready. I'm going to be talking about this for the rest of the week, and I'm going to be talking about it from different facets. And because I'm talking about the myth of being ready, honestly, I didn't prepare for this. I'm going to be totally honest with you. I didn't want to have to get ready to talk about the myth of being ready. So throughout the week, it's literally going to be what comes up in conversations each day. I'm going to let it be super organized. And honestly, if you have any questions about anything about how I deal with my add, about how you pronounce Worcestershire sauce, I'm more than happy to answer those. But it's going to be every weeknight this week at 8:30pm unless I have a really interesting conversation right before. And I'm a little late anyway. I've been talking to you guys for like, a half hour now, so I'm going to go. I'm going to go. It's bedtime here, Thomas. I hope you get some sleep. And thank you all for joining me this evening. It's been so lovely to hang out a little bit. And I can't wait to talk at you and with you later this week. All right, Have a good night. Bye.