0:00:01 - Speaker 1
Hey, do you got big dreams for your consulting or coaching business? Chances are you also have very big fears, so tune in now to discover why those very same fears that keep you up at night are actually a very good thing. Welcome to the Enough Already Podcast. This is the show for consultants and coaches who want to forge their own path to success in their businesses and their careers and their lives. I'm your host, betsy Jordan. I'm a business mentor and brand messaging strategist for remarkable consultants and coaches and their unique strengths. You can find out more about my personal branding services on my website at wwwbetsyjordancom. And Jordan is with a Y.
Today we're continuing with my series all about how to turn your career into your calling, and it's all about how to build a consulting or coaching business that's profitable, that is in alignment with your unique purpose. But the thing is, there's number one thing, there's one thing that's gonna stand in your way of getting what you want, and that is fear, and that is the topic for today. So the bottom line, fear is one of the most uncomfortable emotions that we can have and it's the culprit behind all the choices that we make, whether we play small or procrastinate, or simply settle for less than our potential. And boy oh boy, do I get it In the last episode. I kicked off this series with my roadmap on how to build a sustainably profitable consulting or coaching business you actually really love not one that you tolerate, but one you actually love and if you missed this episode, please go back and listen in. But in that episode I share with you about my story about how I left Disney to start my very own highly successful consulting business, and it really wasn't the right one. What I didn't get into was all the thousands of dollars and hours and agony I spent pivoting from the wrong business to the right one for one very expensive, time-consuming, self-esteem-crushing reason. It's because of my undealt fear and imposter syndrome. So the thing is about. Fear is that it really costs a lot of money and there's a lot of reasons why we just make bad choices when we have fear.
So I started a consulting business because you know what? It made sense, it was safe, it was proven. I spent years as an internal organization development consultant at Disney. It was the logical next step. In many ways. I pivoted initially from my consulting business to what I call the Consultants Institute, where I thought I would just train a bunch of consultants on all of my organization development, best practices and all of that, again, safe and proven.
But what I really wanted to do is this whole personal branding and messaging. It felt like it was new to me but it was authentic to me and that created a whole lot of other types of fears. You know all that imposter syndrome like can I really do what I really wanna do? And so the thing about fear is, if it's not addressed, as I mentioned a minute ago, it's very expensive. It costs you time, money and opportunities. So, for example, if you're still in your nine to five and you're dreaming about the day that you're gonna become your own boss and become a consultant or coach, with fear, that is unaddressed, it will remain a dream.
Fear will cause you to do what I would say that flight into health where all sudden one day you're like, oh, I hate my job and I really want to work for myself, I want control over my career. But then all of a sudden, your career is amazing. You know like, wow, I just really love it when you really don't, but that's an excuse. Or you're going to say things like, oh, I'll have to wait until the kids are out of college or if you're getting started, you might do what I did and just simply start the wrong business. Or what a lot of my clients do is they avoid the essential investments that you need to do at the beginning to set yourself up as a business. Or else you're going to wind up as a subcontractor or just avoid marketing and sales and you just become like just dealing with a lot of fear around how in the world am I gonna get clients? That could happen. Or for the seasoned consultants and coaches out there, fear and imposter syndrome, unaddressed, will cause you to avoid the things that you need to take your business to the next level. Like maybe you need to create a course or step up your speaking, create content that will set you up as a thought leader. Fear will keep all of this capped, but fear when you deal with it and you develop a relationship with it, you will know how to have the tools to do everything you need to do to start your business, to grow your business, to scale it to the next level. But bottom line fear is expensive and it costs you time and money and self-esteem. So that is what we're going to address in today's episode Now.
Because this topic is so important and so critical and so sneaky, I did create a slide deck to go along with this podcast content. So please head on over to wwwbetsyjordancom. Forward slash four hyphen fears to grab this PDF, and my hope is is that you'll have a tool that will allow you to engage and transcend fear and make that part of your regular practice, just like everything else you do as a consultant or coach. So go ahead and grab that. Before I get into the content, though, I got just a couple questions I want you to really think about so that this concept really just delves into your heart and your mind. I want you to think for a second what if you had the rock solid confidence to achieve what you dream about? What would that look like? What would that feel like? My second question what would it mean to your career, your personal life, your spiritual life and your sense of living your purpose if you could figure out how can I address and transcend fear and imposter syndrome? Got that in your head? If so, let's dive in.
Before I talk about the specific fears, though, I do want to back up for just a second and I want to talk to you about what fear is and why we have it. I want us to get on the same page. So fear to me? This is my definition. You might have a different definition, but this is mine.
Fear is simply an unpleasant emotion that alerts us to a threat that our needs our normal needs, human needs won't be met in the future. It's an anticipatory emotion. It's saying, okay, that there's a threat to getting our normal human needs met, but underneath the fear is we have normal human needs that deserve to be met. So how our brain is really cookie in many different ways. This is going to be one of those things when I get to the other side and I'm going to ask like why, why does this happen? Why is it that we live in a world of constant change and we have brains that are designed to hate change? If you feel the same way as I do, please drop me an email at Betsy, at BetsyJordancom, or follow me on social media, especially on LinkedIn, and let me know that that drives you crazy. This weird paradox but the thing is is about our human brains is trained to associate the unfamiliar with dangerous, so that's why leaving corporate to start your own consulting or coaching business creates so much fear is you're moving into that unknown and your brain is designed to hate that, and so it uses these warnings to get us to react quickly, like, oh my God, there's a beer in the woods. So fear pops up every time we step outside of our comfort zones, like if you never written a book before, fear is going to come up again. If you've never been a speaker before, it is going to come up again, because that's the way our human brains are designed. So what we're afraid of is these human needs aren't met.
And there's several different ways that we can categorize our human needs. You know you could look at Maslow, you could look at a lot of different models. I just have it bucketed in the five different areas. You know there's the emotional, physical, spiritual. Well-being is one part, then, moving up, there's the financial security, then there's connection and belonging, Then there's competence and esteem and then there's self-actualization. So the thing is about when you are leaving to start your own business and you want a business that reflects the best of who you are and you want it to be aligned with your purpose. You know there's a lot of fears because there's a new need that's coming onto your awareness that you might not have been aware of before. So Marshall Goldsmith might say you know what got you here won't get you there, but we know and trust what got us here, even if it no longer works.
So the thing is is that self-actualization maybe in our previous career was tied to our status and our symbols of our accomplishments, and the problem is right now it's no longer satisfying. Maybe you built a career expertise over time and you have special education and experience, but now you want to do something different. So now there's like oh my gosh, how am I going to get my competence and esteem needs met? Or maybe you're in corporate and you have lots of treasured colleagues but you're missing out on time with loved ones. So you're trying to figure out how do I get that need met? You know we might have financial security. You know, until we're laid off, or when it comes to the emotional, physical and spiritual well-being, you know, a lot of times what gets us to make that move from corporate to our own business is we've sacrificed our health and well-being for the sake of career success.
So there's all this stuff that's going on is okay. Here's how my needs were met. I'm not sure if they're being met anymore, but I don't know how they're going to be met in the future. And so that's the issue we don't know. We don't know how we are going to get to a place where we have self-actualization, where we're doing work and creating a life that's expression of our true purpose, or work that uses our gifts and reflects our passion, or we have time to invest on being on our best self. We don't know how to get there, but that's the whole dynamic of fear. So, bottom line fear is an unpleasant emotion that alerts us to a threat that our needs will be met. We have human needs that deserve to be met. When we are at a certain phase of our career, those needs were satisfied for the most part. And then you hit a certain point in your career and those needs are not satisfied in the same level. Now you got to make a change, but some of the needs that were met are not going to be met in the same way, and you're not sure. And now you have new needs. So that's why it's so complex.
So let me talk to you now about the gift of fear, and you might think, betsy, that is such a crazy way to describe fear. It does not feel like a gift at all and I could tell you I get it. You know, I'm currently in a process right now where I am planning a cross-country move and I'm selling my house and I'm buying a new house and I'm waiting for the buyer to come and I have no control over the buyer and I'm dealing with all kinds of fears. So this is perfect timing for me to record this episode, because I have to deal with the fear on an ongoing basis, but there's a gift of fear, because I have to deal with the fear on an ongoing basis, but there's a gift of fear.
I will go back to the study of a man called Dr Paul Brand and he worked with leprosy patients in India and later in the United States. And what's really interesting about leprosy is that we think that it's just like this weird disease where, maybe, like your limbs fall off or what have you, and really it's a disease that affects our nerves and which can lead to a loss of sensation and an ability to feel pain, which might seem like oh well, wouldn't that be wonderful to have no pain. But the problem is is that you get all kinds of injuries and infections because if you have leprosy, you're not aware of damage that you might be doing to your bodies. So what Paul Brand says is pain is a gift because it alerts us to potential harm and it prompts us to take action to prevent that potential harm. So that's why your fears are a gift, is it's alerting you.
So the first gift that you get out of your fear is this discontent that motivates you to grow. Your consulting or coaching business is really a wake-up call to your human need for self-actualization. And I'll tell you, a lot of times we think self-actualization is just for a lucky few. But it's not. It's a human need and it's designed to be met. We deserve to have that need met. The second gift that comes with fear is that the fears you have are gifts because they are highlighting to you that you're on the right track. If you were in your comfort zone, you know you wouldn't have the same fear. But you're out of your comfort zone. So it's telling you that to achieve this new need of self-actualization, you're going to have to reshape the rest of the foundation, of what self-actualization rests on.
You know, one of the things I did recently was to go see MJ the Musical, which was amazing. It was all about Michael Jackson's life and he is somebody who really was known for his genius, but he did not have a solid foundation underneath it. He did not really have a healthy way of a relationship with his emotional and physical well-being. He didn't have a good relationship with his connections with people. You know there was a lot of things that he didn't have. So you think about the famous people who really have it all.
You know, as we might look at it, the people who have the genius they need to have genius, genius needs something to rest on. So it's important that you do pay attention to all of those other needs. You know that if you get in a habit of meeting your needs, that peace, the happiness, the integration, the wholeness, the sense of purpose that you long for will happen as a direct consequence of intentional actions to meet all of your human needs. So these feelings that you have, both positive and negative, relate to the degree that our needs are getting met or unmet, and when they're unmet, your body Simply meet the needs underneath the feelings and what you can achieve. So this is the fourth gift what you can achieve with your consulting or coaching is directly tied to how well you manage your fears. The skills you learn now on transcending fears, as I mentioned before, will serve you at every inflection point of your business. So pay attention. And the other thing I'll just add in, you know, as another little ancillary gift, because we're consultants and coaches here. We're in the transformation business. All of our clients are going to deal with similar fears. So what you master now you're going to pass on to other people. So those are all the gifts of fear. So we talked about what fear is. We talked about how it actually is a gift, even though the experience of it feels anything but a gift.
And now let's get into the four fears that are specific to your consulting or coaching. So the first one imposter syndrome. How do you know you have imposter syndrome and you're dealing with this? This is what your inner dialogue might sound like Do I have what it takes to achieve my dreams when it comes to the work I want to do? Am I a fraud? Can I claim to the expertise that I want to claim? How will I stand out? There's so many other consultants or coaches. That's imposter syndrome. So that's where you question like do I have the abilities to deliver on what I want to deliver on, will I be exposed as a fraud?
The second one the fear of rejection and being seen. So this is a big one for me. I'm somebody who hides in plain sight. But the fear of rejection and being seen is what if I put myself out there and no one cares? Are there clients who will want what I have to offer? What if I let my loved ones down who are depending on me? Or how do I deal with the isolation of working for and by myself? If that's your inner dialogue, the fear of rejection or being seen, might be something that you struggle with.
Biggie money fears, money fears, money fears I would say imposter syndrome. And money fears is like the most obvious ones that we all deal with. The fear of being seen is a little bit more of a sneaky one, but it's there. But the money fears. How will I replace my income with consulting or coaching revenue? That's your inner dialogue that keeps you from taking action. That's a biggie. How will I achieve predictability and consistency with my money? How will I find enough clients who will pay me what I'm worth, or at least what I'm making now? Or if I go after what I love, will it send me to the poor house.
I find it interesting is when I'm dealing with somebody on an intro call and I'm seeing their money fears is when they say something like well, I really can't afford to start my own business because I have X, y and Z, you know, responsibilities. I'm like are you thinking that having your own business means that you're supposed to be poor Because businesses are supposed to make money, so you're supposed to make money with your business? But what they're really conveying is I have all these responsibilities. I'm afraid if I start this business, I won't have the money I need. And then, of course, there's the fear of failure. You know what if I fail? What if I spent all this money and time on a business that just does not succeed? You know how will I get any of my needs met if this venture doesn't work out? You know I'll be embarrassed, it'll affect my relationships, I'll disappoint my loved ones. How will I deal with starting over again? Will I lose everything? And what will people think? So those are the four fears.
So just take a moment and think about what is your experience, which fear is the most prevalent for you, or what time periods activate those certain fears? Like, what is your relationship with these four fears. Do you have them? Do you not have them? What's your experience? Take a moment and just think about what is your experience with these fears. All right, got that, let's move on Now.
Let me give you my compassionate approach for engaging and transcending fear. What do we do with it? Now that we know that fear exists, it's alerting us to our potential human needs not being met, and we have four different types of fears. We have imposter syndrome, money, fear of being seen and fear of failure. What do we do about it? So the first step, the most important step, is simply recognize when fear is present.
One of the biggest mistakes that consultants and coaches make and I think, all of us as humans is we want to ignore fear when it's present or we feel shame about it, so we repress it. And I want you to think for a second. What do you think happens when you ignore fear? And I want you to personify fear as sort of that resistant person in a workshop that you might be leading. You know the one who keeps saying things like when you try to ignore that person, do they just start all of a sudden getting engaged? No, they don't. You have to acknowledge them and you have to validate them. So the facts are is that if you, if you don't ignore fear, it's going to come out sideways. So the fix is you need to learn the signs when you're dealing with fear.
So there's some obvious expressions of fear. You might know it when you say, oh, I feel worried about money, or I feel dread when I think about doing X, y and Z. I'm so anxious about putting myself out there and what you're thinking in your head is like I'm afraid. Or you might be thinking I'm afraid and you do other things because you don't want to acknowledge it. So here's some less obvious expressions of fear. And mentally, be raising your hand or doing something where you say, yeah, that's me. You know the first one is perfection paralysis. You know that's where it's like, oh, I can't release anything until it's perfect. Or analysis paralysis, where you get stuck in your head and you overthink everything. Or procrastination, you know avoiding tasks that make you feel uncomfortable, or giving yourself away. You know doing work for free or undercharging for your work. You know I would call this one the education obsession. You know where you get certification after certification versus marketing. You know I worked with a woman a few years ago we created an amazing website for her. It's absolutely gorgeous. We worked on her branding. She's afraid, so she never launched her website. You know it's there, but she doesn't promote it because she has to get another certification, yet another certification. That's a less obvious expression of fear. Or if you're busy, not productive, so you try any tactic you come across waste time on social media, go to networking events without purpose. That's a way that we are expressing our fear Hoarding, under-investing in your business or yourself as a result of playing out worst case scenarios oh, this is a big one.
Next one Overcontrol, hiring experts and fight with them and resist their advice. You know so. I work a lot of times with clients who are dealing with a lot of fear and every time I suggest something, they say no, no, no, I can't do that. And I could tell that they're dealing with a fear. Or what I mentioned before, that flight into health like convince yourself, like hey, whatever I got going on today is meeting your needs. So you need to decide right now is how do I become more aware of when fear is present and what's your go-to strategy to protect yourself from that uncomfortable feeling of fear? So that's number one.
Step two follow the fear to your need. So when the fear comes up, you want to go deeper and find out what is the need that is not being met or there's a threat to it being met, and so the mistake here is repressing the fear. You don't want to repress the fear, you want to follow it. You know, and, as I mentioned before, if you repress the fear, it's going to come out sideways. So, deeply, listen to your fears and what they're alerting to you, because you can't action plan feelings without addressing the needs. You don't deal with feelings, you can action plan needs.
I want to emphasize the difference between that. You know you might have whatever emotions worry, anxiety but you can't action plan that. You really can't even meditate your way out of it. You have to get deeper and figure out what is the need. So, for example, let's say, with imposter syndrome, you might have a lot of emotions like doubts about your skills and achievement, anxiety about being exposed as a fraud, guilt about deceiving others about your abilities, anxiety about performance and interaction with clients, or shame because you don't feel adequate. So the underlying needs here.
So let's get to the need. You want to feel competent and mastering what you do. You want to have authenticity, you want to be true to yourself and your work and you want to have validation that you have what it do. You want to have authenticity and you want to be true to yourself and your work and you want to have validation that you have what it takes. So you can't action plan. Well, how do I get more competent? How do I align my work to more of who I am? Where can I go get the validation? You meet the need and the emotions will go away or they will get transcended. So you got to ask yourself like how do I get beyond the fear to the underlying needs behind the fear? And then step three give fears what they need. That's all you're doing is you're becoming your own personal need meter and you're going to give them what they need. So the big mistake here is that surface level or white knuckle solutions like you don't want to do that. You really want to think about not just placating the fear but meeting the needs underneath it. So you want to be paying attention.
So, as I mentioned with imposter syndrome, the need is competency, mastery, authenticity, validation. Help you reflect on your past accomplishments and success. Give you the strategies and skills that you need to achieve your goals, help you practice self-compassion and acceptance and repackage your career into a new business and help you use your strengths in a new way. You know so. For example, when I first started working with Lori, you know she had called and her big anxiety was like how do I get clarity and confidence, confidence in what I want to do in the future? How did we solve that? We went to her past. We helped her see that what she wanted to do in the future was aligned to her past. We just needed to repackage it. I gave her validation on what she wanted to do and how there was a market need for it and through some of that work the self-compassion and that acceptance just kind of came along. And then I also gave her the strategies and skills and tools to bring her business to life.
So you need to hire somebody when you're starting off and doing something new. For example, I'm working on my first book. I've never done it before. I have all kinds of imposter syndromes. I can sit there and try to spin on my own, or I could do what I'm telling you to do when I hired somebody who's a book coach who can help me figure out what is my book all about and what are the steps I need to do to create a proposal that will make my book attractive to potential publishers.
So now let's talk about the fear of being seen. What do you do with the fear of being seen? So the emotions that you might have is apprehension about being judged, nervous about putting yourself out there, you know, worry that you're not good enough, concerns about making mistakes publicly lonely, isolation, worry. You know your needs here are you need to be accepted by a community of your peers. You need to have clients. You want to be respected and valued. You want emotional safety, meaningful connections. So the solution is very simple Join a supportive community who can help you normalize your feelings, provide encouragement, reduce the feelings of isolation, cheer you on, provide feedback, give you empathy as you try new things. I mean this is a big part of what I do with my clients in the Purpose to Profits Academy. That is my mastermind community and they will all tell you, the best part about being in the community isn't what I teach. You know, I definitely teach important things around persuasive communication, copywriting, marketing and sales, but that's not the real thrust of it. It's learning those things with other people who are trying those new skills out. That's the power of it All.
Right now let's talk about money fears. Money fears is just so basic for all of us as humans. We need money to live and we all have this weird relationship with money because we don't want to be one of those people who are like, ok, I'm just in this to make a million dollars, but I do need consistent, predictable income. So the emotions, for for sure, are about anxiety stressed out by your responsibility, frustration or anger over financial constraints, or shame about your financial struggles or dread of being broke. You know all of that. Underneath it is your human needs of security, having enough money to meet your basic needs and your lifestyle, to be in control of your financial destiny and not be at the mercy of external circumstances. You have a human need for financial freedom and stability.
So what you need to do is you might need a business mentor for sure, like me, who could help you package what you do, figure out what your offers are, put some money against it, identify your pricing. But you also might need a financial expert. So you need to get a monetization plan. So I might strategically help you big picture, but you might want to work with an accountant or a fractional CFO, like I have a fractional CFO and she helps me with my money decisions so that I build a smart financial foundation. My CFO was on my podcast. Her name is Nicole and I will put a link in the show notes where you can get access to that particular episode. What was interesting to me about one of the things that she shared is how important investing in your business is to your overall tax picture. I never knew that, so there's some things like that that you will get from that kind of expert.
So now let's talk about the failure fears. So here's the failure fears. The emotions might be as concerned about not meeting expectations, fear of letting people down, fear of wasting money and time on the wrong things just the guilt and shame, you know, or the anticipatory shame of public failure. The underlying needs success and significance with your work, financial abundance, control over your destiny. That is a human need. You don't need to apologize for those human needs. The solution here is really about having a vision of becoming a CEO of your own business and having all the right people can help you with all aspects of your business.
One of the biggest mistakes I see consultants and coaches. Having all the right people can help you with all aspects of your business. One of the biggest mistakes I see consultants and coaches make all the time is that they just want to leave their job and they're like I'm just going to go out there and get clients. So what they do is they kind of build this subcontracting business or they wind up just like going from client to client but they never really build a business. And you need to think about yourself. Like, yes, you are a consultant or coach and you deliver your expertise one-on-one or with groups. You know you do all of that, but you're also the CEO of your own business, so you need somebody to help you with branding and strategy, marketing and sales and all the administrative stuff, the technology, finance. You need to build that whole team underneath you. That's how you can assure that you will not fail, just like any company. You would never imagine a company that you might work with or consult to that it's just the CEO and he does everything, and or she does everything, or they do everything and there's nobody else there. Like that's not realistic. You can't do that for your own business. You may not have them full time, but you need those people in your corner.
So the decisions that you need to make as you think about all of these different types of fears that you deal with, is you need to think about what solutions you need to invest in that will help you meet the needs that are underlying your fears. And I want to emphasize once again those needs are human needs, they're normal and they deserve to be met. It's up to you to meet those needs. So let's review. So that's that was it on the fears. So let's recap.
So first things first. Fears are unpleasant emotions that alert us to when there are threats that our normal human needs may not get met in the future, and they always show up when we step outside our comfort zones. It is what it is Fears are a gift and without fear we'll be at even greater risk. And fears are also a gift is because when we address them with compassion, they set us up to thrive. And that is the truth. The more that you know how to deal with your fears, the more your business will thrive. And to transcend the four most common fears imposter syndrome, money being seen and failure we have to first recognize them and then follow the fears to the needs. Then we can create the right solution to meet those needs.
So here's what I would love to you to do to take action. Learn to love your fears and you'll build a business you love. Bottom line if you learn to love your fears, you'll build a business that you love. Second action go ahead and download the pdf that I created so that you can get to know your fears and your protection style and so that you can engage your fears in a more compassionate way. So head on over to wwwbetsyjordancom forward, slash four hyphen fears and, whatever you do, stay out of judgment. The biggest mistake that we make that we all make is that if we have fears or imposter syndrome, we're completely on the wrong track, when the reality is is that they are signs and signals that we are on the right track, and it's a natural part of our heroic entrepreneurial journey. So the thing is is about loving your fears and having a business you love. The thing is about.
Fears are very tricky and they're very powerful, and so that is why every hero has a mentor. You know every single one of them. You know Luke Skywalker had Obi-Wan. You know Simba had Rafiki, dorothy had Glinda. You know, even in my latest favorite hero's journey story, which is Barbie, the Barbie movie, you know she had weird Barbie, you know, as a mentor to begin with, and the word mentor comes from the Odyssey, where the goddess Athena assumed the form of mentor, actually, and the root word of mentor is manos, which is a Greek word for mind and courage. Mentors help the hero and heroines face what scares them the most, and so that is the reality and that is why sometimes you need help.
So my number one fear transcending strategy is anticipate and engage fear with self-compassion and, when needed, hire a mentor compassion and when needed, hire a mentor. Now, if I'm the one for you, please head on over to my website or go to wwwbetsyjordancom. Forward slash schedule and let's just book some time to chat. We'll talk through your visions, we'll talk through your goals and we'll talk through what's getting in your way. And you might also wonder part of fear might be is maybe you're just not clear on who is your niche and your ideal client. That's exactly what we're going to be addressing in the next episode in this series. So, for sure, subscribe now to get notified when the next episode in the series dropped. And so, until next time, remember that you have enough, you do enough and you are enough. I will see you soon.
