Nicole Hollar, a fitness coach and author, launched a podcast to explore the anxiety of trying something new. She argues that calling discomfort "scary" stops growth, and shares five practical moves: pick a direction and act, ditch perfectionism, expect uneven progress, compare yourself only to your past self, and stay flexible. She also introduces a "Confidence Anchoring Tool" from her book that lets you visualize your most confident self coaching you through fear.
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Welcome to the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar, where we're going to talk about stuff to help you get out of your way, take charge of your life, and, well, other stuff too. Hey everybody, welcome to the very first episode of the Own It Podcast with me, Nicole Hollar. As I was trying to figure out what to even talk about in this first podcast episode, I thought to myself, how about this? How about creating a podcast? And the reason I picked it is because it's scary. I have no idea what I'm doing is uncomfortable, and things that are new are uncomfortable, and they're often considered very scary. And I thought that was relatable because how many things in your life, my life, all of our lives do we have to do that's uncomfortable? But instead of doing it, we put it off because it's scary, because we found excuses that we're afraid we can't, we aren't good enough, we don't know. Well, I've been working with people for more than 20 years in fitness. And personal development. And if you know my story, I got into fitness because I couldn't find a job. When I moved to Florida more than 20 years ago, the jobs I was looking for just weren't there. So I had to pivot and adapt all the time. So I ended up in fitness and that got deeper and into general wellness, health coaching, and of course, personal development too. Even when I was young, as some of you have learned about me as well, I told my English teacher in high school that I was going to the journalism program at the top 2 journalism schools in the country. And she laughed. And I was like, well, I mean, rightfully so. I was not a very good English student, but here I am. I just wrote an Amazon bestselling book and I'm really proud of that. And every single thing has been uncomfortable and scary. And I want you to ask yourself, what are the things that you aren't doing because you're too afraid to do it because you don't think that you have the knowledge, the skills, the ability to do it? Because I can tell you this much, until you honor that something is scary and that it's uncomfortable rather than making excuses and why you just can't, then you will never be able to acknowledge how capable you are at figuring it out or finding the resources or help in order to figure it out. So you have to honor the scary in order to allow yourself to move forward, because otherwise we put in all of these excuses and limiting beliefs and And that gets us nowhere. I mean, as I thought about, you know, doing what, like, what would I do next? What's the next scary thing in my entrepreneurial evolution? Podcasting was not on my mind at first, but then it occurred to me, if I make a video podcast, it could be an audio podcast. It could provide so many different ways for me to reach people. The thing is, is I never listened to podcasts except for every now and again when something's, you know, referred to me and it's Kind of funny or sarcastic or certainly some type of suspenseful thing. So of course I'm listening to podcasts now, because if you are going to do something that's scary and that is in the unknown, don't do it without any direction. I went through all of the excuses, the, I don't know how, where will I do it? And I really should include a picture if you could see like what's around me right now. And I know some of you are just listening, but that's okay. Like, I've definitely got to put a picture up because anybody who knows me, who has seen this evolution, will realize that it's all kind of crazy. This is my office space, which I converted. I had to make some choices of where would I do it, what will I say, and how long will it be? I can tell you this much. My wife often says that she's been in jobs where They've had to build the plane while they're flying it. And I think it's such a great expression because how many of us have had to build the plane while we're flying it? And all that means is that we have to pivot and adapt. Now, you don't want to spend your entire life pivoting and adapting to every single thing, but being flexible is really important. And so I have some basic takeaways that I want to share with you that I think are relatable just in Even my creation of this first podcast, this experience. And the first one is to basically just have a general understanding of the direction you want to go and then take action. You don't have to know the final, final product, but basically the general direction of what you're trying to accomplish and where you want to go. And the second thing is don't worry about being perfect. Like, you're not going to be perfect. I'm certainly not. perfect right now, and you never will be. Everything always evolves and adapts. You're going to adapt to what feels good to you, what's your natural style, what feedback you receive. That's going to be, in my experience here and yours in job, yours as a parent. We're always receiving feedback, and you're just not going to be perfect. If everybody waited for the perfect time to have kids, I bet you would see there would be a lot fewer people with kids because There's just all those moons don't necessarily line up in exactly the way you want them to. And another thing I wanna remind you is that, and I say it all the time to coaching clients, is that we all pedal at different speeds. And all that means is we're all at different stages of the process. I mean, I've seen podcasts where people have done their 500th episode. If I looked at episode 1 to 500, I bet I'm gonna see a huge evolution. In all of that time. But I'm not at episode 500. I'm at episode 1, and I'm sitting on a chair that I've duct taped so I don't spin on a platform so I'm tall enough. And I'm going to show you a picture. I'm going to put it on my website. It's pretty something. And I like to share it because you'll realize, like, you just have to go, and it's not always going to be shiny and bright, and that's okay. So remember to not compare yourself unfairly to other people. If you do that, you won't start because you're going to look at people who've done something forever and be like, I'm not good enough. How would you have ever gotten a job for the first time if you're like, oh, but I don't know the job perfectly yet? Of course you don't. You have to learn it, and that's okay. So the next thing I want you to remember is to be flexible because flexibility in that building the plane, You know, while you're flying, it is so important. It's even in my case, like, what am I going to wear? What should I look like? How about this? What about that? How long will my podcast be? Well, I can tell you this much. They're going to be 5 minutes to 20 minutes. I'm not trying to create a murder mystery story. I want to give you guys some insights, some tools, some information, some funny stories, some explanations, some, some experiences that I have that I think are relatable and useful to you. Because as I've always told my clients, I am a person like everybody else. I've started in wellness. I eat pizza. I don't work out sometimes. Like, I have icky days and I get in my own way. And if you listen to my trailer, this podcast was born out of the desire to help remind people that you need to own it, take charge of your life, own the stuff in front of you, your good stuff, your bad stuff, and all of those things, because we really have more power than we acknowledge. And that is why this podcast was really created. And, you know, I love to work with people in workshops and speak to them and author and coach, and all of that is amazing. And for that reason, and my interest in interaction, I just want to remind you guys in this first podcast, That I want to hear from you. If you go to my website, nicoleholler.com, you're going to see a form you can fill out with different topics that you'd like to hear about. I already have some great submissions and requests that I definitely plan to address, but I wanted to start here. And I'm going to just wrap that for today. And I want to leave you with this. Like, the next time you feel unsafe or scared or uncomfortable, Remind yourself how capable you are because you have done so many things in your life that have been uncomfortable that you were able to get through. And for those of you who have my book, Feeling Stuck: Empower Yourself to Live a Happier, More Fulfilling Life, if you read into the personal assessment, I have something called the Confidence Anchoring Tool. If you haven't bought the book, you can on Amazon, Barnes Noble, all those good places. However, I will tell you this much and summarize it. I want you to imagine a time in your life, multiple times in your life, where you felt the most confident, where you were a little afraid maybe, or you were, and then something amazing happened, or you just went into something with all the confidence you had. And I want you to step out of that self, of that version of yourself, and see yourself in the situation that you are uncertain of and imagine that most confident version of yourself coaching you. Because it is absolutely within you. So I'm gonna leave it here for today. If you like this episode, be sure to give me 5 stars, of course, and follow the podcast where you're gonna get updates. I'm gonna try to post them about every week. And you can also follow me on most social media platforms, Nicole Hollar Coaching, or my website, of course, nicoleholler.com, where you can see, you know, books I've written, learn more about my empowerment and wellness coaching, as well as book me for speaking and workshops. Thanks, guys. Remember, this is your time.
