Episode 82: Transcript

Welcome back friends. I have been thinking lately about confidence, and I think that there is a, there's been a misunderstanding because sometimes when I'm on discovery calls with doulas. So if a birth professional reaches out and inquires to work with me, uh, we get on a 30 minute call to see if we're a good fit, basically, and to see how I can help. Right? So that's a discovery call and something that's been asked several times and it comes up in my premier coaching center as well. We had a discussion about this on our last live stream is confidence. And the misunderstanding is that some people hanging out with me online and in my communities get the impression that I've unconfident and that I've always been confident. And that being on video is comes naturally to me, doing a podcast, came natural, all these things, and that is a complete misunderstanding.

The truth is it did not start this way. I absolutely did not walk into this with very much confidence, meaning walking into being a CEO of my business and a CEO of my motherhood journey, right? Like the CEO of my life. It did not come naturally to me. Video did not come naturally putting my mouth to a microphone and speaking every week it had to, that confidence had to build, and I have truly committed to doing that for the last several years. And so I thought maybe we should talk about this because I want to explain my process and things I've picked up along the way and give you some examples that might give you context and help you realize that there are parallels to other areas of our lives as well, and how you can do this in your business. You know, whatever your birth business looks like or other business, maybe not birth related at all.

But if you're starting to open up to zooming out and doing something beyond birth as well. And I recently learned that there's a couple people listening. I mean, maybe there's more, but a couple of people that are not birth professionals reached out to me side note and said they really enjoyed last the last episode. And I was like, wait, what? You're not a birth professional, but they're my kind of friend kind of online friend, you know, and they can apply some of this to their own industry. And I was like, it was just really genuinely grateful for that. So whatever kind of business you're building, this should apply. But the examples I'm going to give are related to birth and Parenthood and such. Okay. Having said all of that, I'm going to open with a question, how might confidence or struggling with your own confidence be holding you back from growing and expanding in your birth business in allowing yourself to step into that version that you dream of that version of you being the CEO of your dream business. So, you know, the crap that your brain says, it sounds something like I'm not young enough, I'm not experienced enough, but I'm not pretty enough or skinny enough or this enough or that enough, all of those things that your brain says, those are competence blocks effectively.

And so first let me reflect back to you that wherever you're at in your journey of being a CEO in your life, it took confidence for you to reach the point where you're at right now, whether that's you just showing up to listen to a doula business podcast

Or leaving a job, if you've done that, or you're considering doing that, or your career switching careers or signing up for dilatory training and taking doula training, or some other type of vocational training going to college or not going to college and doing something completely different, building a website or starting a business Instagram account or Facebook page or YouTube channel or wherever you are choosing to hang out online. Those all took confidence. So I just want you to kind of pick up your hand and reach back over your shoulder and tap it a couple of times. So Pat yourself on the back, because you deserve that. So we are all at different points right now. There's no right or wrong. We're just all at different points in our life. And in our business, there's no date set, date and time that we have to have certain things done by. So wherever you're at right now is perfectly fine. What is your next level? What does that look like for you? What's the next stage? What's the next step? And how can you gain the confidence to get to that version of you?

Yes.

Competence comes from doing, and I first heard this at a retreat in 2019 from one of my dear friends, Carol Elizabeth. And I think I sat there on a couch with the mind blown emoji, look on my face like, Whoa, this was before I started my podcast event.

And I was working on building up the confidence to do certain things. And I realized that was it. I have to take action. Confidence comes with action from deciding what you desire, getting very clear about the kind of life and business that you want. And then taking action, even when it's kind of scary, because for me, what that meant when I looked forward to the buy, if I desired for me to get to that point and merge with that version of myself, that meant I was going to have to do things differently than I had been doing so far. I was going to have to step out of my comfort zone and do things that scared me to get to that version. Otherwise I would stay stagnant and it's my belief that we're meant to evolve as humans.

And so your confidence builds over time. We don't wake up one day. At least for me, I didn't wake up one day and just decide to be confident. And I was a hundred percent confident. That's not how it worked for me. It built a little bit over time. And with each action, even small actions, every one of those started to add up. And when I think, okay, so visual for this, imagine you have a big glass and you're pouring water into it. Each little drip that comes in is filling up your glass of competence. Right? I use this, this visual was shared with me by Shelby. She's been on the podcast, a few episodes back. We talked about something like this, and I think she did talk about the cup and the water and energy and adding energy. So let's, let's use that similar visual, but for confidence. So keep adding in little trickles, trickles, trickles of water, and you're filling up your cup.

And it's easier to take those little actions, even when you're scared. When you have a support system, a trusted friend or a business coach, or a mentor, a safe space that you can share along the journey where people are cheering you on and holding space for you in your business. Okay? So let's give a couple of examples. So I have two that relate to parenting. And then one that I'll, I'll talk about business, a business example. The first one is about building competence as a mother, for me, what this was like. So we learned how to change diapers by changing diapers. We learn how to feed our baby by feeding our baby. We learn how to bake them by you guessed it, bathing them, right? Our confidence as a mother belts with doing the things for the children, at least that's, that's what it felt like for me.

[inaudible]

And a very related examples of this is the second one is my son, Ethan, his first bath. So Ethan is now seven and a half years old. And I remember when he was a newborn, like a couple of days old and I hadn't given him a bath yet. And I thought I had to give him a bath, like every single day, which you don't have to do that for newborns. But I didn't really know. I just thought, well, I'm supposed to be giving him a bath and I'm not doing it because I am really scared of bathing him. I had no confidence on how to do this, like how to take care of this little person. And it was really making me feel less and less confident. Like I was totally flopping and screwing up this motherhood gig. And then my best friend came over for dinner.

She, her and her husband brought dinner over one night. Ethan was not even a week old. And I asked her to come in my bathroom with me and I was, I was like, Hey, I need you to, I need you to help me give Ethan a bath. And she had a son. She has a son who's like eight months older than Ethan. So she had been doing this for, you know, eight months already. And I'm like, I need you to show me how to do this. Like, I don't know how to do this. You know, he has his umbilical cord stuff still. And it just, I didn't, I, I was not confident. Right. So she sat with me and she gave him his first bath. He had a bath in the hospital, but she gave him his first bath at home because I was like, I don't know what the hell I'm doing.

And I just watched her and tried to learn and like take notes. And she gave me these tips on like turning off the fans, you know, turn trying to warm up the room and maybe turning off the air condition for a little while before you're going to give him a bath, keeping a warm, wet cloth around his chest when he's in like submerged a little in the water. So it keeps them warmer having a, like all these tips. And I was like, getting it, getting it, getting it. And so I stepped in and started doing and over time, like I figured out how to give my kid a bath. I know sounds so ridiculous. And you're probably laughing about that, but where has there been an experience like that in your life where you're like, what do I do with this? You know, putting your nipple into a baby's mouth for the first time.

It's like, I had never really seen anybody breastfeed. I don't remember seeing anybody nursing. And then when they handed me Ethan and we're like, he's hungry. I was like, uh, what do you want me to do? You know, I, I don't know what to do. And they're like, basically, you know, the nurses are telling me how to hold him. Like the football hold. That's all they said. And you know, we, we totally screwed that up too. Cause I had like no support with learning how to nurse properly, but I digress. And so, um, the third example that I want to share is more tied to my business. And that is the first time that I was on TV. So I was featured, um, to come on TV and talk about being a digital doula. And this was in 2019. I believe I did a lot more audience expansion stuff in 2019.

And then in 2020, I was just really, really spending a lot of time and energy with my clients. So I didn't do much of that last year. But in 2019, I was on the local TV and I thought I would be fine. But when I got to the new station, I was like, shaking. My voice was shaking. I was sweating. And I kept, I didn't tell the only people I told was my business mentor and my husband, that's it. I did not tell anybody that I was going to be on the news because I wanted to give myself an out. I wanted to feel like if I freak out, I can back out of this and nobody will really know my business mentor. Who's like, she's going to back me regardless. And my husband who I would hope is going to back me, you know, regardless.

Cause like he's my husband. And when I was in the waiting room, I just had the worst jetters and I kept thinking, okay, it's not too late. You can just leave. Like you can get up. You can just go. Nobody will know it's okay. It's not too late. It's not too late all the way until she finally called me back, I was in the waiting room for maybe, I don't know, an hour 30. I don't remember. It felt like hours, but when she called me back, it was my turn. As we were walking towards the room, you know, the newsroom area, I just felt like my whole face felt like it got hot and I thought I could throw up. And I was like, my body was like, get out of here, get out now. And I had a moment with myself, like, get it together.

You can put one foot in front of the other and just go out there and do your thing. The message that needs to get out is more important than your discomfort right now. So I did the thing. And then when the, when it aired that night on TV, um, I just thought, Oh my, this is horrible. This is so embarrassing. It's not good. I'm fumbling. I am nervous. I'm very clearly nervous. I didn't say the right thing. I could have said something better. I totally criticized myself. And I, and I messaged my coach and I'm like, well, that was awful. I was so bad. And I remember her advice because it gave me confidence to do it again. And her advice was, you know, Nicole, when toddlers start walking and they fall over and over again, we don't say, Oh, bad job. Don't do that again. That was terrible. Try at walking a terrible try at walking. Don't ever do that again. We don't say that. We say, good job, honey. Good job. You know, we like reach out our arms and we're like, come on, let's go. Let's try again. And we get that silly parent voice. And I was like, that's right. That's exactly right. There's some fumbling, there's some tripping and falling and there's some discomfort. And there's some really awful things that our brain says, but take the next step and the next step and the next step. And it builds

Competence.

So the thing is she kind of wrap this episode up, as you know, many of us, myself included didn't feel prepared to become parents. Thank you. You know, I get States maternal healthcare system or to become CEOs of our businesses, but our heartstrings were tugged and pulled and here we are, right. I mean, whether you're a parent or not like whatever that thing is for you, that you just didn't really feel prepared for, for caring for aging parents or other unwell family members, especially in the last year or, you know, whatever that next step was for you. You know, your heartstrings pulled you and here you are too. And so to get through this and to continue to build your confidence up, we take action and then do it again. Repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat. You know, and along that journey, we lean on our people to guide us through the challenging times and through these transitions from, you know, transitions in Parenthood and in career to business, we need people that we trust to guide us through these transitions too.

So my final thing that I want to leave you with and ask you is what is going back to the beginning of the episode? What is the next step for you? What is the next level and the next version of your business that you desire and what are the actions that you need to take to build up the confidence to do that? And so that's two questions. And the third is who is your support system? Let's figure that out right now, who is a safe space. People that get it, somebody who gets it, somebody that can be nonjudgmental hold space for your business, because yes, that is a thing. And who can guide you appropriately to move forward and move your mission forward in the world. Okay. Friends, this has been great. Talk to you soon.

Okay.