0:00:00 - Joanna Newton
Welcome to the Her First podcast, a platform to help online business owners, coaches and creators gain the confidence needed to build a successful business while creating sustainable lifestyle balance. We are here to help you prioritize yourself in business and life. In this episode, Michelle and I are discussing the way in which we inadvertently make ourselves small to meet other people's needs. Michelle, why are we chatting about this today?
0:00:25 - Michelle Pualani
So I just wrapped up and was at the Yellow Conference here in San Luis Obispo, at the Madonna Inn. So the Yellow Conference hosted by Joanna Waterfall and Yellow Co., which is a community for entrepreneurial women and non-binary leaders, it's a time in which we can come together, make an impact for good and really talk about some strategic business practices as well as some really inspirational and motivational things. So this is actually my first yellow, as they say, your first yellow, or you've been to yellow before and it was a really wonderful space. I have to just comment on the fact that they're so community-driven, and I've been to other conferences which have also been wonderful. Obviously, you and I met at Kajabi Hero Live and everyone is wonderful there too. But this conference really had a sense of grounding to it and it had a sense of community support in a network of folks who really had your best interests at heart, and you could just feel that the moment that you walked in on the first night and as it evolved through the weekend. So I was very lucky to be a part of the conference and to enjoy that time.
Just to give you a little bit of awareness around who was there, some of the speakers were Dr Sonia Anderson, having worked with the Oprah Winfrey Foundation when it came to nonprofits. ALOK was there, who is a gender non-conforming author and performance artist, as well as Arielle Astoria, a poet and spoken word artist, who did a beautiful presentation on Friday night, and then also Mandy Teefey, who is CEO of WonderMind. So that's just a few of the keynote speakers and some of those folks who were there talking about these things, and this is a through line that I noticed in the discussions, in the speeches throughout the weekend, and the general theme for the entire conference was wonder, and that came out in a lot of different ways, so that was really wonderful to dive into, but this idea of making yourself small to accommodate other people was something that I saw come up consistently throughout the weekend, so it's something that I really wanted to chat about today with you, Joanna, on this podcast, the great thing about conferences is getting a bunch of people in a room together with a like-minded focus.
0:02:42 - Joanna Newton
That can be so inspiring, so inspirational, and then I can imagine that being the focus right. Thinking about this concept of not making yourself small there's so much in our lives all of the time that teaches us to make ourselves small. People telling us to be quiet fit a specific mold. This is something I've dealt with in my corporate career, as well as relationships of actually being trained to diminish my own self, my own personality, to make others feel better or handle themselves better. So I'm really excited to dive into this, learn more about what you learned about at the conference and dig into this topic together.
0:03:28 - Michelle Pualani
I think that conferences are such a unique opportunity for us to come to, for learning, for inspiration, for motivation, for connection. There's just such a vibe, there's such a buzz, this feeling of integration and this feeling of excitement and enthusiasm for what it is that you're doing. And in the industry that we're in, we go to conferences of other business owners, other creatives, other content creators who are really putting themselves out there in a big way. So I think that this topic of not keeping yourself small really relates to how you show up in your life on a personal level and also really how you show up in your business. So we're going to talk all about that today and, as you're listening, starting to think about, as we bring up some of these pieces, where you might be doing this in your life inadvertently, because we really do it without realizing it. It's something that we have, like Joanna says, almost been conditioned to do, and this came up for REL as well as for Sonya, and what they were speaking to is the ways in which they were told, taught or modeled to not confidently show up in the presence of who they were, in their expertise, in their physical form, in their expression, really identifying and recognizing where those were. And then, of course, the entire topic of the conference was wonder. So I wonder what it means to actually show up as my truest, most authentic self. I wonder what it would be like if I just lived my life without worrying about the acceptance of others. I wonder what it might mean if I dress differently, speak differently, show up differently in my business or in my relationships or in front of the camera and what that looks like. So it really actually encouraged and empowered me to take more ownership of the person that I am and how I show up and not being so cognizant or worried Joanna, you've mentioned this before of having almost like a podcast presentation or a content creation presentation and like, okay, I'm in front of the camera and this is who I am, only in this setting, and I want to be polished and put together. I'm learning to let that go, I'm learning to not worry about it so much and I do think that we are more drawn to and the presence of authenticity is more magnetic. So the more that I drop that barrier, the more that I'm going to pull in people who connect with me and maybe repel, and that's okay.
So, more generally speaking, when this shows up in our lives without realizing it. It can be in our voices, in just our loudness, or if we're speaking up about a certain thing or not. It can be in your physical appearance. So, whether that's your body language or your choice of attire, it's how you're presenting yourself visually to the world. And then it can also relate to your actions, whether you're risk taking and trying new things or putting yourself out there or not, or whether you're hiding yourself behind the scenes and thinking that, oh, this is too much, this is too intense, people aren't going to like this, and kind of having that dialogue and those thoughts running within you that keep you from expression, that keep you from creativity, that keep you from growth and putting yourself in front of people.
0:06:40 - Joanna Newton
So, Joanna, I want to hear from you a time or a story in which maybe you've done this before, in making yourself small, I mean this is something that I've dealt with on an ebb and flow throughout my entire life, so I could probably tell 100 stories and I think in different phases of my life it had different meanings and purposes. I've literally had sit down conversations with friends where they have told me I am too much. That has happened to me, that my decision making, my forthrightness, my directness was too much, and that's crazy. And that definitely seeped into some career opportunities. I had bosses tell me that if I'm asking a direct question in an email, I should add a smiley face to make it sound like I'm nicer.
These are things I've experienced a lot, and there's a joke like a meme I've seen go around that I find so relatable. I don't know the exact words, I'm not going to quite get it right, but it says something like there's no more sure person that they know they're right than a woman in a meeting who starts a question with I'm not sure if I'm right, but it makes a statement and I can't tell you the amount of times I've been in a meeting where I know I have the right answer. I know what that person is doing wrong. I 100% remember we discussed something in the past but instead of saying oh, everyone, in the last meeting we decided X, y and Z. I'll say something like hmm, I think last time when we were talking about this topic, joe, you said blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And whatever the whoever Joe really is said said I know for a fact. They said what they said, I know that decision was made, but there's something in me that feels like I need to qualify my correctness all of the time.
And for me right now in my life, I'm sort of in this, like trying to get away from that.
Sometimes I go too far and it causes problems, like I'm trying to like figure out that right balance.
But for some reason, for me, you know really the last couple of years of my life I mean I'm in my mid 30s, like I'm not a child, but it's taken me into my mid 30s to really start to come into my own and that seeps into my fashion choices, my word choices, the way I speak, the way I share my opinions. I'm trying to grow in that confidence and I feel like I'm getting there in a really big way, which is exciting and fun but also hard, because you make those decisions to be more direct, be your big self and then when it doesn't go well, that can really hurt, you know, and make you question if you're doing the right thing. But then sometimes you have these moments where you're like, oh, I am 100% doing the right thing. So for me, right now, this is a really big journey, so that's why I'm even really excited to talk even more about this topic today. But I'd love to know, Michelle, for you, like, do you have any personal experience with this, with making yourself small?
0:09:51 - Michelle Pualani
I think just like you. So many come to mind always, and we have so many instances of this happening. A couple of things that you brought up that made me think of a few things that I wanna cover before we dive into my story with making myself small. So there's a few things in terms of your contact and communication, which is interesting because you have a tendency to more direct communication, similar to a male might be, especially in the workplace, whereas women do have a tendency to be a bit more nurturing, to be a bit more soft, to be a bit more accommodating in our communication, and so it's interesting that you have that tendency, and so you're being encouraged to actually add a smiley face or an emoji or exclamation points in order to soften the blow of whatever it is that you're communicating or asking. We see online on social media, making our female communication more male. Right, you've seen those examples of like the typed out emails and their like hung high exclamation point, would you line da-da-da-da-da, and then they go back through and they edit it for a more professional, direct or even like male communication, level of being really intentional, and so forgetting all of the fluff. And then it actually makes me think of how to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. So he actually advises to soften the blow, always kind of asking questions or being more suggestive rather than direct. So I think it's interesting that from his perspective, the leadership style of suggestion is actually a positive thing being intentional about what you're asking and having an understanding of what you're bringing to the table, but really being able to present it in a way that is more easily received.
I know that there's a company and I'm not sure who it is, I forget if we talked about this in another episode but there's actually a company with two female founders who are struggling with communication, getting responses and getting the things that they needed in the development of their company. So they actually made up a male counterpart, a made up co-founder, who I forget his name, we'll just say Steve, and so Steve started taking over these communications. They got responses more quickly, they got lower quotes on things. They just had a totally different experience when they had this male fake counterpart, and I've seen the same thing. I know that there's another story of a company who were a male female duo in their business. The male counterpart just thought that he was better at his job. He just thought I've been doing this for longer. I have more experience. I have more expertise so I'm able to get a lot more done and move projects forward at a much quicker rate with clients, and she does a great job. But she just doesn't have as much experience. She's not as good as I am.
In the signature of his email, this switched one week I don't know why the technical details of it Instead of Ben, it was being signed as Kate and he wasn't getting responses as quickly. Clients were like wishy-washy, unsure of things, and he was like what is happening with clients right now? Why am I getting these responses? And then he noticed that it had been signing his counterpart, his female counterpart in the company, and then, once he switched back to his own name that's such a great suggestion, ben. Yes, let's move forward with that. So just having the communication, whether that's in voice or writing or showing up on screen, we perceive based on a certain bias, and so I think women are already at a disadvantage, to be received as needing to be small, as needing to be accommodating, as needing to be kind and compassionate, in our language in order to even get a response. And then sometimes those responses, that reception, that communication, whatever we're looking for takes even longer. So just some things that what you mentioned brought up.
0:13:38 - Joanna Newton
So this is a really funny story, like directly related to what you're talking about, because I did an experiment once I have my business partner is a man and he's absolutely wonderful, and I played around one week and used his templates he uses for communications in sales conversations. So I was like, let me just use his exact language, but send my own proposals and I was telling them from my name. So this isn't the exact situation, but it is a female using a sales language. And now he's an amazing closer right, like so what, he does work. So I was like, let me try his language in emails and see what happens. And it went horribly. I didn't close anything using his exact language, same pricing, same package. Do you know what I mean? Like all the things are the same. It's just his language versus mine.
So then I was like, okay, you know, now let me try being less direct and softer. And for me that was more well received, absolutely fascinating. Then I got more responses, more interest, more back and forth, because I think that people have. We're not just playing with like communication differences, we're playing against people's biases towards us. So if you're a woman and you come across super direct, it's going to be more of a shock than a direct man, and vice versa. Actually, when you think about it, we both men and women, I think struggle with this, but people's expectations of you, mixed with what you do, is really what creates that reaction, and it was a really fun little experiment, but it was really fascinating to see that it's something that worked for him, did not work for me. Now, this wasn't a real study. There's no real sample size. It could have just been a fluke, but it was across a couple different conversations and I thought it was fascinating.
0:15:35 - Michelle Pualani
But testing these things out for yourself are critically important. We have to learn how to navigate as ourselves in the world, and what works for someone else is not going to copy paste work for us. That's exactly what I would coach on in healthy habit formation, fitness and lifestyle. We can see someone and say, oh, that looks amazing, oh, it's so wonderful. I would love to be doing that, but it almost never copy pastes to our life and we have to be critical and thoughtful about how we're taking in those things assessing, trying, testing, experimenting but then, at the end of the day, choosing what works for us when it comes to making yourself small.
For me, this has shown up in a lot of different ways, and I'm gonna share one specific story from college. I was a philosophy major, so I have a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Cal Poly University here in St Louis-Busbaw, and I learned a lot while I was in school. I did other things as well dance. I got really into food systems for a little while. I went a lot of different directions in college, but I was a philosophy major at heart, and so with philosophy, there's a lot of postulating, there's a lot of thought, there's a lot of questioning, there's a lot of critical analysis, there's a lot of visualization and thinking about concepts and ideas, and you're looking at different schools of thought and how they present in the world, whether that's cultural, religious or from political affiliations. You're just kind of looking at all those things. You're questioning, you're asking, you're thinking about alternative narratives to our world, and I loved that kind of stuff and I loved talking about it and I loved ideating around it. Now, when I would be with my family, I would start to talk about a concept that I was learning about in epistemology or science or physics, ethics, and it they would do something. And when I would start talking about these things, they would jokingly pretend to fall asleep. And yes, they're my family and I have two sisters, one older, one younger and, yes, we joke. But what that taught me is that what I was interested in and cared about was not worth sharing, because the person on the receiving end of that communication was not interested in what I was talking about. They didn't care about what I was talking about and it bored them, causing them to quote unquote fall asleep. This was an instance that I didn't think of a lot at the time. As we do through these situations again. Oh yeah, funny jokes but I wouldn't talk about it and it really actually stifled my interest in it.
Maybe in college, if I had been Encouraged in this way by a supportive network, I might have actually gotten on YouTube earlier to talk about these concepts and interesting things that I was learning. I might have created a social media presence around this. I might have built a brand. The idea is that I was so enthralled with at the time that I loved teaching. You know, I would get into my study groups and I would teach certain concepts, and so there are lots of other instances that we could talk about, but that, for one, was a huge Indication of making myself small, of really teaching me consciously, subconsciously, that I shouldn't share my story, I shouldn't share what I'm interested in, I shouldn't share these things that I really care about, and that impacted me in a huge way and has continued to impact me to this day, and only am I starting to uncover that, and only now am I starting to unravel that so that I can work against it.
So, Joanna, I want to talk about some of the ways that our listeners might be doing this. So we've talked about a few examples. In communication, you've shared a story from your life. I've shared a little bit of my life, and so I want to really get into what are some examples of how this is showing up in their life, so they can be more cognizant of when it's happening.
0:19:15 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and what I'll be talking about here are Symptoms, right things that you might be doing, either subconsciously or consciously, that make yourself smaller and make yourself less heard. It's very likely, like Michelle's story, like some of the things I've shared and shared in other episodes, that there are root causes that have brought you to acting this way, thinking this way. As you're listening today and thinking about these things, I encourage you to reflect on If you're doing these things and think about where that might come from and and what that might stem from. So one of the first things is just speaking softly. If you're a person who Doesn't clearly loudly share what you think, what you want to say, having a soft, timid tone might be something you're doing to quiet yourself and diminish who you are. Now, some people have a quiet demeanor if that's just naturally how you are a softer, quieter person. That's not what I'm talking about here. What I'm talking about is when you feel strongly on the inside and express something in a diminished way to make others more comfortable, which is something as women I think, we're often taught to do.
The next one I want to talk about is a big one for me and something I've worked a lot on is apologizing Excessively. You often hear this is something they joke about on the internet all the time, too, is women just like over Apologizing. You bump into me and I say I'm sorry, and I think that can have a really interesting effect On the way other people see you. So think about a time. You know, say, say you're working at a company and you're working with a team and you're working on a project and Someone owes you a deliverable by Friday. Right, friday rolls around, it's the end of the day and that person hasn't delivered you what they're supposed to. A message to that person often goes I'm so sorry to bother you, I know you are so busy, but we are working on that project and I need you to give me that thing today. Right, when you approach that situation like that, you're doing a lot of strange psychological things to how that person sees you. When you're making it your fault that they didn't do their work, and Even though that's not true to the people around you, they can start to think of it like that, right, like I'm sorry to bother you, I'm a nuisance, and then that person then has the control to give you that item or not in that moment, whereas being direct and just saying like hey, that deliverable is due today. Do you know when you'll send it to me? It's not your fault, you don't need to apologize. You have every right to ask for what you need. But so many times we qualify With an apology and this is something I've worked on in my life and and have coached a lot of the women that have worked for me In is if they have something going, I'm saying you don't apologize unless you apologize when you do something wrong. You know what I mean. If you made a mistake, if you put up a social post with a grammatical error in it, yes, of course, say I'm sorry my mistake, I'll fix it right, but if it is not your mistake, you don't need to apologize, and Really reflecting on that for me has made a big difference in my reputation and how I show up in my job.
Another big thing is avoiding disagreements. So sometimes you might just not like something or be unhappy with how you're treated or have a difference of opinion and you just don't share it because you don't want to have the fight. I am a true believer in picking your battle, so that's not what I'm talking about. If you're in a workplace, if you're managing a team, if you're working in a corporate environment, if you're dealing with relationships, not every fight is actually worth having, right? You know, if you're in a household with your spouse and you know there's a minor thing you don't like they're doing, maybe it's not actually worth fighting about. But when you start to avoid Disagreements for things that actually matter to you and make a difference in how you feel like what's going on, that can be a problem, because one you're gonna have like resentment and anger bubbling up underneath everything that's gonna come out in the wrong ways. But then you're also just not going to have two relationships with people because you're just going with them and going with what they want. Really thinking about making sure you're standing up for the things you believe in and not just avoiding disagreements to just be nice is a way to make sure you're being heard.
This is a big one for me. This next one is diminishing achievements. It can be really easy to not actually take credit for or fully share or express your, your achievements in a way and for me I remember this actually goes back to sales emails. That's the theme of the day is a client acquisition and selling. I First started pitching my company and pitching my services as a company.
I had a really hard time using Examples I didn't make when I was selling my company. So if there was a project completed that was a good example for that particular potential client. If I didn't write that page copy or was really involved in the creation of that project, I don't have a hard time saying in the conversation oh, this is an example of my work which makes absolutely no sense, like this is my company. I've hired the people, trained the people, built the systems. I pay them right, like I do all of those things. So work that my company does is my work, you know, because it happens under my watch and my eye.
Now that doesn't mean I have to say no one helped me.
That would not be true. But I felt like I couldn't present work my own company made as my work, that it needed to be something I Personally did myself, and this was something I got over and has definitely helped me realize that I can Take credit for things that I've been a big integral part of in a really direct way. The last one that I think this kind of shows up for people is seeking approval. This comes down to being the kind of person that only can make decisions, do things, speak in a way, if they think others are going to like it. And this one's really hard and in this phase of life where I'm trying to Come out in my own be myself, be my true, authentic self, I really struggle with because when you start doing that, you get more criticism. You know, when you start showing up, there are gonna be people who do not like that and do not like you for it, and you actually have to start being okay with that to be able to fully come into your own.
0:25:53 - Michelle Pualani
I hear this list and I know that there are times when I've done every single one of these. Each of these has shown up in my life in varying ways and I want to share, just like a little story of something so silly but really made me realize that I was making myself small, especially when it came to being heard or using your voice. You know, when you're walking down the street and I have two dogs so I walk them quite frequently and we're walking and we're walking. But when you pass someone and I know everyone's in a different location and I know, Joanna, you're east coast, but in California, we're like unnecessarily polite over here. So we often say hey, how's it going? Or hi, or how are you, or some type of greeting, and for whatever reason, I had gotten to a point when I was really dealing with anxiety. I would go, I would just mouth it and I would just say like no, no noise would come out of my mouth and I started to realize like what, why can't I just say hi, why can't I use that diaphragm and that voice and my vocal cords to express myself Hi, hello, how are you? And actually to be heard by this person, and so it was just something that I started noticing in my day to day life that I questioned and thought why am I afraid to simply express myself Just seeing a stranger passing them on the street? So that's one thing that I've really tried to work on is actually using my voice in seemingly small, mundane situations, but that actually translate in a really big way to the rest of our lives.
So some of the things that I wanna talk about are more about the physical appearance, how we show up physically in the world, whether that's actions, choices, dress and those types of things, the first of which is avoiding eye contact. So my husband is exceptional at this. It's actually almost a little uncomfortable to have a conversation with my husband because he has these beautiful green, like golden, eyes. In part of our wedding, efficient speech is getting lost in Jeremy's eyes because it's such a common theme and we joke about it. But he holds incredible eye contact and when he does that, he looks you in the eye and you know that nothing else in the world matters and that you are the only person that he's paying attention to in that instance, and it feels like he's not in like a vulgar way, but it feels like you're slightly uncomfortable right. That makes you feel like, oh, like you're addressing me, like all of my insecurities, all my flaws, I have something in my teeth, like there's something in my face. It really communicates a sense of presence and awareness and so when you avoid eye contact, it shows a lack of strength, presence, interest and integrity in what you're doing and how you're showing up. And you can maintain that eye contact with someone. You're really showing that you're there, you're really showing that you're interested in, engaged and that you're paying attention to what it is that they're communicating and it shows a sense of strength for you.
When I was struggling with anxiety and really was feeling a lot of insecurities, I had a hard time maintaining people's eye contact and would look away or while I was talking, or look down or look around. And only when I started to discover my own confidence and get away from those sensations that I start being comfortable looking someone in the eye and it's kind of an amazing thing. I think that we lack connection so much in social media and how we lead our lives today that the more that we can do that, the more that we can really build connection and trust, establish something special from one human to another. So avoiding eye contact, something to be really mindful of. The other thing is, in terms of your dress, something that Arielle, the spoken word poet, shared in her experience was when she was thinking about going to get her masters and showing up to work as a counselor at her alma mater and showing up in that setting she was thinking about. You know, I have to dress a certain way, I have to wear suit type clothes, I have to wear blouses and I have to wear trousers and all of these things just to fit in to the environment in which I'm in. And there's something to be said about professionalism. But if you had seen Arielle on stage, she was in this beautiful pink tool outfit and then she came back on stage with this rainbow sparkly top and it just was so much more authentic and genuine to who she was and how she identified as a person and how she wanted to show up in the world. So oftentimes and I know that I've done this is wearing certain clothes that hide my body shape or that hide certain parts of my body so that I can appear more professional or more put together or that it can come off a certain way, and so concealing that is a way to diminish your personality. It's a way to diminish your sense of self if you're using it just to fit in.
So thinking about how you're showing up physically in the world, and then that can show up in our physical demeanor. So I took an acting class in college. Well, actually, I mean, we've talked about this, right, you, Joanna, you pursued acting for a while. I did as well, more so in the very amateur stages of high school and play production. I had taken a Santa Barbara City College acting class and one of the things we talked about was physical presence of a character. And you have the very different physical presence of someone who is dominant, someone who is competent, someone who takes up physical space. So when you expand your body presence to consume a certain physical area, as opposed to someone who is maybe more meat, more shy, more soft spoken, more insecure, is someone who turns inward. And whether you have a hunch posture or whether you have your chin down and your head down, there's a lot to be said about how you're showing up in the world. And now I do wanna bring up the fact that there are major cultural differences, right? So I do know that in some cultures eye contact isn't necessarily appropriate in certain settings, certain postural behaviors aren't appropriate, but if we're speaking more generally to American culture and showing up in the online space for these reasons.
And then makeup so how you're presenting yourself again physically to the world, whether you are diminishing the amount of makeup that you're using for more minimal appearance, again to be accepted, to fit in, or because you feel like that's the thing to do, as opposed to expressing yourself fully with your makeup. Or maybe the opposite, maybe you're completely putting on way too much makeup because you wanna fit in when you actually wanna have a more natural look. So just being aware of how you're using makeup as something to hide behind or whether you're using it as a way to make yourself more seen and more visible. And then, lastly, again on that physical side of things, is really thinking about just certain accessories Again, whether you're choosing certain earrings, certain piercings, certain tattoos, certain jewelry in order to again express yourself, make yourself be seen and loud and colorful.
One thing I loved about the Yellow Co-Conference this weekend, friday the theme for the night was color, and so I wore a bright yellow dress, and seeing the rest of the color palette and color scheme on other people's bodies was so magical and we don't always see that for using muted tones. If we're wearing khaki, it's not a bad thing and that could be totally on brand for you. But just being aware of the ways in which you're showing up in the world and doing it in a really expressive way, not worrying about what other people are gonna think of you A look, the gender non-conforming comedian and performance artist showed up. I can't even describe the entire thing, but basically it had these big, poofy 80 pink sleeves. It was a pink zebra short dress and then these heels that wrapped around their lower legs and had some eye makeup done.
And just getting to live your life in a way where you're not concerned about how people are going to perceive you or judge you especially if you're in the online business space and trying to carve out your own presence is so, so critically important. So just thinking of all those ways in which you are demonstrating your authentic self or whether you are diminishing yourself in those ways. So, Joanna, I want to talk a little bit now about how this shows up in our business. We've talked about some of the things. You've shared a lot of really great experiences when it comes to the workplace and relationship with others, and we're speaking again to some of the ways this can show up in our personal lives. But let's chat a little bit about how it shows up in our business and why this is so important for each.
0:34:31 - Joanna Newton
Yeah, and I think the key here is when you're looking at how this applies to your business. It's all about showing up as your authentic self. So Michelle walked through some of these things like how you dress, how you look, how you talk, your eye contact, your posture. Does it necessarily mean that you have to wear colorful, loud clothing or accessories or those things? It's about being your authentic self, because that's what's gonna be memorable and true.
The last time I interviewed for a full-time job which will be the last time I interviewed for a full-time jobs ever I decided to take my interview experience and do things a little bit differently that I had in the past A lot of times in interview settings. I would really try to look the part that was right for the company, answer the questions that fit the company's ethos and what they wanted and all of that, and not really necessarily focus on showcasing me. And I made a very conscious decision to say that interview process. I always got good jobs. It was always fine, but I was never happy. I would do the job I would like it for three months, six months, and then I wouldn't be happy anymore and I was like I need to go about this differently. I made a very conscious effort in my resume, in the way I answered interview questions, in the way I dressed and looked to try to just be my authentic self. My theory behind it was I want someone who wants me, not whatever version of me that I can put into the world, because I know I have skills, I know I have the right background, I know I can help a company. So they just have to know and if they're bought into me, it's gonna work out great. And one of the funny things I remember the job I ended up getting during this interview process was a fantastic job. It was the biggest salary offer I'd ever had in my career as like a starting salary with benefits and shares and like all of those things.
And I remember being in one of the interviews and one thing we've talked about this before, Michelle like how we both have like kind of crazy curly hair. It can cause some insecurity because when we were growing up, what was really popular was like stick thin, perfectly. Not stick thin, but like really stick straight, perfectly quaffed hair. And when you have curly hair, like you know, my bangs are always all over the place. Sometimes something's sticking out in the back and I remember being on this video interview and my hair was like particularly big and curly that day and like there was like something kind of sticking out. I saw I like caught myself in the camera and I was like so proud, like I was so proud of myself. I was like I'm just like doing my thing and if a hair is sticking out I don't care, and if they don't want me because I have a curl out of place, then I don't want them. You know, it was this like really empowering experience.
I got the job. I had an amazing experience at that company. I still have a relationship with them and are working with them. I just showed up from day one of my interview to what? Well, when over my last day, will them be as my true, 100% self? So when you're thinking about this in your business, if you're a business owner, if you're in a corporate setting, if you're working, showing up as your true, authentic, full self, whoever that might be, can really help you get job satisfaction and help you win and get what you want. This is something that I talk about with social media and, course, clients of mine.
When you're for everyone in your brand, you end up being for no one. You're vanilla. If you have no personality, whatever, that is, if you're trying to appeal to everyone or just be normal, they're not gonna actually attract anybody. Like nobody is going to care. But if you're a person who wears crazy accessories, people are gonna notice that. If you're a person who likes a daily uniform and only wears white t-shirts and that's who you are people will notice that. So if you just start coming into yourself in your own confidence, your opportunities are going to grow with the right people. You know what I mean. Like you don't have to get everyone to wanna buy your course or hire you or use your service. You just need the right person to. That's really really super freeing.
And I think when we don't do that, when we don't show up as our authentic self, when we're not taking credit for who we are, we do things like we underpriced our products or services. That's when you say, oh, my time isn't really worth that much and you undercharge. You end up overworking yourself. In a salary negotiation you can like not confidently say what you need to get that job, cause you're more worried about getting a yes than getting what you need. You can hesitate to actually share your expertise. Right. Tell your stories, be confident in what you know.
And the opposite of this this is something I did in my last career was I also would have a tendency to say I was good at things I wasn't great at. Because I wanted that acceptance, I wanted them to hire me. But actually saying that's not what I do actually gives people confidence in you. So one example in my career I would not consider myself a paid ad specialist. I don't do paid media.
In a past life in interviews I might have said something along the lines of, yeah, I'll do your ads. I might have done that and I could think I can run ads like I'm okay at it. But is it my forte? Is it what I love to do? Do I think I can get someone amazing results Like, maybe Do you know what I mean? I am good at like brand awareness ads, but actual conversion ads is just not what I do. So I will do brand awareness ads for clients until clients I would help them with brand awareness ad setup because I'm confident in my ability for those. But I'm not confident in doing like conversion ads and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not a bad marketer or a business owner because that's not what I do and that's okay. I can say here's a great referral for someone who specializes in this particular thing, and that's part of gaining confidence.
The next thing that I think you can like have a negative impact on your business is just having a minimal social media presence, and this goes for, again, whether you're looking for a job or growing a business. Having a robust LinkedIn profile where you're sharing your opinions and thoughts in your work can help you land a really great job. Being active on social media for your business, showcasing what you're doing, talking about your opinions, that can help you get clients. I've seen the effect of how that helps me. When I post about what I'm doing on LinkedIn, people will send me direct messages asking for help, asking for advice. Sometimes those end up being free conversations. Sometimes they end up being clients. So being active and loud about what you do every day can really make a huge impact on your business.
0:41:35 - Michelle Pualani
Leaning into the authenticity, leaning into the confidence, leaning into your ability to show up more present, more active, more authentic in who you are is such a key component of this and again, I think we're going to have to bring on an authenticity expert of how to really do this without the insecurity, without the doubt, or do it in spite of, because confidence is not built prior to doing the thing. Confidence is built by doing the thing. So I think that's a really important thing to keep in mind. But some of the ways in which you can also manifest this negative impact in your business by playing and staying small, looks like having the self-doubt in whatever it is that you're promoting. So, whether that's a new marketing campaign, whether you're releasing a new offer, whether you're running a launch, whether that's live or evergreen, a lot of times what happens is that we start to question. We start to question is this messaging working? Am I connecting with the right people? What if I look silly on camera? We have all these questions in our minds of maybe this isn't a good product after all. Maybe no one's going to join the program. We start to doubt and become insecure about the process, without just fulfilling the process and moving through the entire runway and a lot of times, a lot of those sales come in at the close cart. So there's no way to really tell how things are going. Yes, you should be cognizant. Yes, you should pay attention to the data. Yes, there are all those things, but a lot of what bubbles up is that self-doubt and then you pull back. People don't want to hear from me as often. I don't want to show up in their inbox every day. I don't want to be annoying, I don't want to burden them and we're diminishing our ability to sell our offers and promote ourselves and get ourselves in front of the right people by doing and having that self-doubt.
So it's important to really think about the ways in which you are showing up to present your business to prospective clients, to audience members, to anyone who will listen. I'm at a point where I'm just like, yeah, let me talk to whoever is in front of me and I want to share what it is that I'm doing, because I used to not. People used to ask me oh, what it is that you do, and I used to default back to oh, I'm an instructor, I teach fitness, I teach bar and yoga, as opposed to I'm an online course creator and I have products and a suite of programs and this, this and this and this which you'd be interested in. Something like that maybe not that direct, but at least leading the conversation that way or, if this is something that you're struggling with or interested in, yeah, go ahead and check it out. And being really, really confident in delivering that which leads into the self-promotion.
A lot of times when you're making yourself small, you're not going to own your expertise. Like Joanna said, you're not going to own your own authority. You're not going to own and be confident about what it is that you're sharing, whether that's opinions, beliefs, studies, data or anything that you're bringing to the forefront of your personal brand or your online business. Leaning into that and knowing that you can show up loudly, showing up in a way that you're really owning what it is that you do your expertise and your ability to deliver on your products and programs in your offer suite. So having that confidence to do so.
And then Joanna talked a little bit about this, but oftentimes, when we are good at what we do, we deflect credit. Oh, I didn't really contribute to that that much, or it was something simple. Oh, it's not that great of a product or a program. Yeah, I just learned it here and I have such a history of doing this, especially if you've ever worked in like a group format. You know, in school they used to make you do those group projects together and usually I'm sure, Joanna, you were like this and I know I was like this Usually I'd be the one in the leadership seat and directing the entire show and making sure that everyone was taking care of the pieces that they were doing and then when we would turn that in, it was, yeah, fine, we get all the same grades, that's not a problem.
But actually acknowledging like, no, I was the leadership person, I did show up for this, I probably did put in the most time, the most effort and the most energy and owning that credit and really standing in that presence and in that power of who you are, what you offer the world and really allowing yourself to own your success and own what it is that you've accomplished and stepping into that. Once you kind of like realize that you're doing this, because I'm sure that the things that we've been talking about today, you can identify and acknowledge and say, oh, I do that. Oh, I think that this shows up in my life in this way. So, as a listener, you really might be wondering how do I stop it, how do I change it, how do I address it. Joanna's going to kick us off with some behaviors that you can start to think about adjusting when it comes to getting over some of these things and really owning that confidence and expressing yourself more truly and authentically.
0:46:10 - Joanna Newton
One thing that I'm really big on is like practically, you've realized this is a thing. What do you do next? Right, and I think some of the things that you can do is to just start to advocate for yourself. Think of little ways in your day that you can stop apologizing when something's not your fault. Stop qualifying your statements by saying not really sure, but maybe start just working on it, little thing at a time, and start with something. Once you start, it's easy to keep going, but getting started is really hard. Another really big one is to build a support network. This is not something that's easy to do alone, and if you're not surrounded or have some like-minded people in your life, it's even harder to do this.
One of the things that I love about my experience we go back to a lot about Kajabi, hero Live and what we experienced there is I met so many amazing creators, including you, Michelle, as well as a whole bunch of others, and I've connected with them all on social media and I interact with their content, like it, leave comments, share. I've shared some of their services and products with friends of mine. I'm actively involved and one of my favorite things is when they like or comment on my content. I know, you know, wave, every time she likes one of my TikTok videos, it just lights up my soul and I should send her a clip of this to let her know how much it means to me, because I haven't actually sent her that, because she's like a TikTok expert, so when she likes my content I'm like I'm doing the right thing, someone she wants to interact with me right, and obviously we're friends, we talk offline and stuff. So I know that's part of it. But all of a sudden, when you know people who are going in the direction you are going and want to go, even in different niches, different areas of the world, that really, really helps versus only being surrounded by people who don't have that mindset. And obviously not everybody is going to be looking to be a business owner, looking to grow, looking to advance their career. But if you're only around people who are saying, oh, don't work so hard, don't do that podcast, don't do that thing, just hang out and do nothing, you're not going to be able to like, move yourself forward in life.
Really, thinking about creating a support network. That can be through making friends, you know, networking. That can be through joining digital memberships, different things where you can network, going to conferences, going to events but that's a really huge part, which leads me to the next one, which is continuous learning. You know, if you're constantly trying to learn about the things that you want to do, that's going to give you confidence. For me, sometimes, like this sounds really weird, but like I'll read a book that someone suggested and a lot of times I don't necessarily learn anything from the book and this sounds really weird, but I'm glad I read the book because it's affirming to me that I'm doing the right things. It's like hearing an expert say oh yes, like your strategy is correct. We saw a presentation at Kajabi Hero Live about YouTube strategy and there were a couple little tidbits that I learned as takeaways to add to what I'm already doing. 90% of the things that were on that stage that were said were things that I do every day for clients, and sometimes I diminish and I say I'm not really a YouTube strategist. I'll say that. But then someone on stage getting paid probably a lot of money to be up there and speak is sharing the same strategy I would share. So that gives me the confidence to know oh, I am a YouTube strategist, I do these things, I know what I'm doing.
The next one is just embracing the idea of failure, like you're going to mess up, you're going to fail, and if you don't, you're probably not trying hard enough at doing anything. And I try to look at failure as a lesson. You know what I mean. What can I learn from it? What can I get? I probably failed more times in my career as a business owner since you know I started this than anything else, but everything is a lesson and everything builds into a learning opportunity.
And so when I deal with a mistake and you know someone on my team makes, I never think that they're bad for making that mistake I look at it and say, hey, let's look at what happened, let's understand why and let's build a system to keep it from happening again. Maybe we need some more checks and balances, maybe we need a better process. It's never about them making some big mistake. It's about, okay, let's take a step back, let's fix it for next time. Great, let's move on. And being able to think of yourself like that is amazing. If you make a mistake, instead of thinking I'm horrible, I don't deserve this, I'm not talented, you think, okay, what was the mistake? What was the impact One how do I fix it now that it happened, and then what can I do to prevent that same mistake from happening again? And it's just a learning experience. So these are just some ways you can start to shift your mindset and adjust this behavior in life For you. Michelle, do you have any suggestions for our listeners and how they can handle this?
0:51:22 - Michelle Pualani
So, personally, as I've evolved through this experience, I've really had to figure out ways in which I could build my confidence, and that shows up in my business. So I'm going to talk a little bit about the ways in which I have just taken certain actions that have really, really helped support that confidence, have more belief in myself and start to kind of get rid of the insecurities and the self-doubt that comes along with creating a personal brand and putting yourself out there in the world, vulnerable to everybody's perception and judgment and criticism. Negative affirmations have been actually a game changer for me, which I know sounds fluffy and silly, but we are so often made up of our thought patterns, whether they are subconscious or conscious, and our belief systems show up in the language that we use. Really identifying the ways in which you're speaking to yourself is so, so critically important and there's so much of that negative self-talk that leads to that making yourself small, thinking oh, I don't have the right to be here. Oh, what is this person going to think of me if I do this? I shouldn't speak up in this situation or ask this question because it's dumb or it's irrelevant or they already covered it. There's so many ways in which it shows up and you have this running dialogue in your head.
So what I started using is I don't know if you're familiar with Mimi Bouchard. She's wonderful and she created the superhuman app and it's really kind of like meditations, but it's kind of not meditations and there are positive affirmations and statements that happen in these recordings that you can listen to in all different settings. So there's walking, there's getting ready for your day, there's winding down at night, there's sleep meditations. There are all these situations in which you can listen to positive affirmations and you can kind of start to repeat them to yourself. And what it does is it kind of bleeds out into the rest of your life so that you experience more confidence, more self-efficacy. You start to really show up in your life in a way that aligns with the person that you want to be and how you want to show up. So I think utilizing positive affirmations can be really helpful to just start to change that dialogue and start to change how you see yourself altogether, setting boundaries.
So setting boundaries in your personal life as well as in your professional life is hugely important. We've talked a little bit before about overextending yourself and over your working yourself for clients, especially if you're in space, working with clients, or even in your product creation or your program creation is thinking that you have to completely over deliver when really you're just over complicating and making things more challenging for people. But feeling like the education that you have, the knowledge that you have, what it is that you're sharing, just isn't enough. So being able to set boundaries with yourself and say this is either the time that I'm working, this is how I'm able to show up for this person, or saying no Making, the ability to set your boundaries gives you more confidence. You start to realize your own value and your own worth, and if you haven't yet listened to the self worth episode because it dives into this topic so much more extensively.
Next is celebrating achievements. So we've talked a little bit about how making yourself small really shows up in the way that you diminish your successes and you diminish the credit that you should be given in certain circumstances. And celebrating your achievements Do you have to like, plaster it and brag to the world? No, can you post about it? Absolutely. And should you celebrate for yourself 100%? Buy yourself a cake, throw a party, get a little something, whatever that looks like for you is really celebrating and acknowledging your own achievements. And as you start to do that with small things, it'll get a lot easier to accomplish big things and own the achievements and sit in that place of success saying and identifying and acknowledging yes, I did that, that was me, I showed up for that and I should give myself the credit that's due. Also, I think that there's a big thing to be said here is that when you can celebrate and when you can do these things, you're also modeling and demonstrating for other people in order to do it for themselves as well. So I think giving yourself permission then trickle effect improves other women's lives and other people's lives, because then they get to identify and acknowledge all the ways that they're celebrating their own achievements too, visualizing your success. So visualization is a really strong practice that I utilize with clients and that I have in my programs.
Being able to actually see yourself in the way that you want to show up in the world is a really important part of being able to accomplish that thing or being able to take action in that way.
So if you identify and acknowledge that you are small in a meeting or that you are holding back your opinion, or that you are not using your voice or you're not creatively expressing yourself.
I want you to think of a situation, in a circumstance, in which you're going to do that thing. So, whether that's the next meeting, whether that's your next social media post, whether that's a video, whether that's in a one-to-one conversation, close your eyes and actually see yourself in that situation. And how do you want to show up, what are the words that you're going to use, what does your body language look like if you're giving a speech? How do you show up on stage, how do you present, what is your tone of voice, what is the outfit that you're wearing? And really seeing yourself in that state of being, so that you can start to mentally prepare yourself for it and so that you position yourself to accomplish that thing in the real world much more successfully. So, using those tools and those practices to help you challenge those then negative thought patterns, to help you diminish the state of being that you've been maybe putting yourself in for a long period of time and that you're really ready to shift by this point.
0:57:04 - Joanna Newton
I think it's really important to remember that this is a journey and for me, this is a journey that I think I've really been on for the past three years. Recognize this behavior in myself. I started making small changes which turned to big changes. I'll tell you that this has completely transformed my life. I look back at old pictures of myself, old content I created, and sometimes I don't even recognize that person because I was doing so much. The way I dressed, the way I did my hair, the way I did my makeup, the kinds of things I chose to talk about and be were more focused on what others wanted than really who I was. And as I started to show up as my authentic self one, I just became more confident. I feel like I make better fashion choices. I feel like I am happier with the way I look Not that that's the most important thing, but I have never really felt that way about that.
Confidently, I also think I show up better at work. I'm more confident, I make better decisions and then, tangibly, my process with the job interview got me one of the best jobs I ever had. That led to me starting my own entire course creation marketing agency with a team of multiple people. This has completely changed my life, because now I work for myself, I'm a business owner, I get to make content and show up every day and do the things that I love to do.
And do I face challenges? Yes, is it hard? Yes, to some days. At the end of the day, I'm in tears and think that I've made a million too many mistakes. And all of that, yes. But I also know that 90% of my life is that much better, that much stronger for making this change. And I know this is just the beginning of that journey. I know every day, every month, every year, I'm going to grow in that confidence and be better at living life as my true, authentic self, showing up every day. So if you're sitting here and listening to this and thinking I can't do that, I encourage you to start with something and start small, and you're going to be surprised by the impact that it has on your life. And, Michelle, I know you're also. You've talked about being on this journey, making those changes. I'd love to hear from you how this has impacted and transformed your life.
0:59:27 - Michelle Pualani
For me, the impact has really been felt in opportunities and relationship building. I have to reiterate for our listeners you have to start somewhere. So don't wait until you can have the perfect presentation or that you are fully wearing what it is that you want to be wearing, or that you're fully talking about the things that you want to be talking about. You will not build the confidence without taking the action. So we just really want to encourage you to, wherever you are at on your journey, to take that next step and, like Joanna is saying, start small. Consider one opportunity today that you can start to think about where can I show up a little bit more loudly and how can I be a little bit more present in exactly the person that I am? Because for me, the impact that I've really seen is connection building. I've found, and has shared this past weekend at the conference, that we are all so human. We are all on this human journey and, yes, there's a lot of facades in front of us about fame and success and money and clout and respect and expertise and knowledge, and you can lean into that and say, oh, I could never talk to that person or I'm never going to be at the same level as that person, or that person has so much X More than me. But when you let all that fade away, we're all human and we're all really connected in that way. We're not isolated in what it is that we're going through. So the fact that you might feel like you make yourself small in this really insurmountable way is not the case. There are a lot of other people who experience a very similar thing. Joanna and I have also been through these challenges and these difficulties and these insecurities and these doubts, and the important thing to remember is that you can continue to show up in spite of that, and through those actions, through taking those steps, you really will start to build that confidence and belief and, for me, attracting and almost being magnetic to the people that I want to connect with. Because I'm showing up more loudly, other people are drawn to me and then, with opportunities, by putting ourselves out there into the world, opportunities find us. People ask for the speaking engagements, people ask for the podcast interviews, people are interested in the client work because you're putting yourself out there in the world. So I think that's the impact that's really made a difference in my life and it doesn't mean to say that we're not still outreaching, because if anything that's another impact is the ability to actually reach out and say I deserve to be here, I deserve to be present, I deserve to be heard, my opinions are worthy, my opinions are valuable, and being able to ask for that stage or ask for that platform, or ask for getting in front of somebody's audience right, being featured in their membership or being a part of their products or programs, or hosting a mastermind together is really allowing yourself to be seen in that way is such a huge part of this. So really really allowing yourself to be seen. So those are some of the impacts that I've seen in my life and we hope that you can take a lot of what we talked about today and start to implement them so that you can be more seen in your life, in your brand.
So if you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share it with your friend and leave us a review, and we'd absolutely love to hear from you. So feel free to reach out social media. You can find that in the show notes below. We'd love to hear what you took away from this episode and what you've been able to implement so far in making yourself more present, more loud. Thank you so much for tuning in. Be sure to catch our next episode and that remember. You are meant for bigger and better things, so go out there and be heard. And then, what is one thing that you can do today to prioritize you in business and life?
