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The same old song: Our jobs as creators and fans.
If you’re a creator (and you are), your responsibility rests in finding your own edges. In staying open to the gifts that you will receive from the unimaginable source. In giving yourself wings - big flappy wing of expansion, and plenty of room. Taking off requires that. If you’re a fan (and you are), your responsibility rests in celebrating what you have appreciates about the artists’ work and to allow them their own space to evolve. It’s true, they may evolve beyond us and fly off to new places we don’t care to visit. It’s a risk we all must take together. It’s called progress.
+++++++ Whether you create (and you do) or are a fan of art (and you are), may this post offer you comfort, inspiration, or something in between.
With love,
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To the Creators.
I’ve been giving variations on the same talk for a long time now, and it was beginning to make me feel like Peggy Fleming skating to a medley from Fiddler on the Roof. Perhaps this is what Fleming’s audience would want to see - left to our devices, we often want what is smooth and familiar and instantly warm.
– Anne Lamott (Traveling Mercies)
As the reader, I of course rooted for Lamott to give a brand-spankin’ new talk. One delivered from a place of fresh truth, freedom and expansion, happily assured that her audience would rise to meet her with thunderous applause and the adoration of a thousand fiery suns.
Turns out, when Lamott DID change up her talk, it was an unmitigated disaster. Sonorous silence, but for the lone cricket chirping away, looking for his mate. (It’s possible that I made that detail up being one of my own grade A biggie speaking fears. Yours too?)
As a fan of people taking big risks, swinging out and saying the truth, it’s really important, (and feels like it’s my civic duty) to point to a couple of contributing factors to the public speaking nightmare that unraveled on that stage.
1) The first is that she didn’t prepare. And the talk, in her words, bombed. We know this: if you’re a speaker, you must prepare and practice and train like it’s your job…’cause from the stage, that IS your job. Fin.
2) The second fact is that the crowd was disappointed that they weren’t getting exactly what they were thirsting for. Which is what she’d been delivering time and time again and they were used to it. They knew what to expect. Kinda like when you go to sip your wine and realize all too soon that you’ve sipped your kid’s milk. Kinda like that, but more cerebral-like.
And frankly, that’ll happen any time we deviate from the script that is “smooth and familiar and instantly warm”.
Which is why so few deviate from the script.
Which is ALSO why there is so little new, fresh and evolved. And that there are so many creative one-hit wonders (who succumbed to the Impostor Complex.)
Remember Elizabeth Gilbert’s famous TED talk on creativity and genius? It’s 19 wise and entertaining minutes that speak in part to her process facing the question: ‘How do I pull off “Eat, Pray, Love” again?’
In short, two words:
You don’t.
Or, in her words:
And it’s exceedingly likely that anything I write from this point forward is going to be judged by the world as the work that came after the freakish success of my last book…it’s exceedingly likely that my greatest success is behind me. Oh, so Jesus, what a thought! You know that’s the kind of thought that could lead a person to start drinking gin at nine o’clock in the morning, and I don’t want to go there. I would prefer to keep doing this work that I love.
The fear of a success and the subsequent “how do I top that?” is a bona fide fear that is revealed to me in hushed tones time in time again by my brilliant coaching clients:
“I’m terrified that this (project, book, launch, business, endeavour, talk etc) will be such a screaming success and I won’t be able to top it, or deliver again”.
While Elizabeth Gilberts’ follow-up “Committed” wasn’t a flop the way Lamott’s talk was, it wasn’t the screaming success that “Eat, Pray, Love” was either.
So?
Neither Lamott nor Gilbert allowed that to stop them. Which is why you know who they are to this day.They are brilliant women, prolific artists and communicators who kept doing the work and DIDN’T become one-hit wonders.
If you’re an artist and you experience success, you will undoubtedly ask yourself:
‘How do I pull off my own personal version of “Eat, Pray, Love” again?’
I repeat:
You don’t.
You’ll create anew. That is, if you heed the Big Point of Gilbert’s talk:
Maybe [artistry] doesn’t have to be quite so full of anguish if you never happened to believe, in the first place, that the most extraordinary aspects of your being came from you. But maybe if you just believed that they were on loan to you from some unimaginable source for some exquisite portion of your life to be passed along when you’re finished … it starts to change everything.
It’s not about you, Dear Artist. It’s bigger than you.
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To the Fans.
A confession. If I ever went to see Peggy Fleming, I bet I’d want to see her skate to a medley from Fiddler on the Roof. If I ever saw Anne Lamott talk, I suspect I’d want to hear share some of the stories that I know and love of hers. And if I ever saw Lauryn Hill in concert, I’m fairly certain I’d want to hear her perform “Doo Wop (That Thing)” from her brilliant 1998 album "The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill".
Because I like what I like and sometimes I like that which is "smooth and familiar and instantly warm".
I don’t love the new and experimental. There. That’s my confession. And it’s a big one.
Which is why this piece by Talib Kweli Greene about the backlash against Lauryn Hill struck me so.damned.hard.
Where have I been treating artists like products?
“The artist is a human being, not a product. Sure, the artist makes products that are for sale, but the artist is not forever in your debt because you may have purchased a product from them at some point.”
Where have I expected to be pandered to?
“Artists make art for themselves. Art is an honest expression. Artists who pander to their fans by trying to make music “for” their fans make empty, transparent art. The true fan does not want you to make music for them, they want you to make music for you, because that’s the whole reason they fell in love with you in the first place.”
It’s not about you, Dear Fan. It’s bigger than you.
Where have I felt like an artist owed me something?
“However fans are not your boss, and listening to them when it comes to creative decisions is a slippery slope. I am not obligated to make the same album over and over again just because fans demand it. I am allowed to try new things, succeed at them or fail at them.”
Yes. Yes. Yes yes yes yes.
With every fibre of my being, I know this to be true:
You are allowed to try new things, Talib Kweli Greene. You will fail and you will succeed.
You are allowed to try new things, Anne Lamott. You will fail and you will succeed.
You are allowed to try new things, Elizabeth Gilbert. You will fail and you will succeed.
You are allowed to try new things, Tanya Geisler. You will fail and you will succeed.
You are allowed to try new things, dear reader. You will fail and you will succeed.
(Understanding what success and failure means is up to us, individually.)
Do what comes next. Write the next book, take the next stage, launch the next THING, create the next project, paint the next canvas.
It may well become an unmitigated disaster. And it may not be.
The Point.
If you’re a creator (and you are), your responsibility rests in finding your own edges. In staying open to the gifts that you will receive from an unimaginable source. In giving yourself wings – big flappy wing of expansion, and plenty of room. Taking off requires that.
If you’re a fan (and you are), your responsibility rests in celebrating what you have appreciated about the artist’s work and to allow them their own space to evolve. It’s true, they may pass us over and fly off to new lands we don’t care to visit. It’s a risk we all must take together. It’s called progress. (And? It wouldn’t kill any of us to challenge our palate, she said pointedly to herself.)
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Blinded by jealousy?
It's not your fault. That’s what jealousy does.It blinds you. Or, more accurately, it only allows you a partial view of someone’s fortune, life, experience and obscures the rest. And because we humans just can't cope with uncertainty, we fill in the blanks with our imaginations.
A little something like this:
If someone you’re eyeing is enjoying the success you desire, then they must also be enjoying the intimacy you crave. If they have the friendships you dream of, they must also have the financial stability you yearn for. This AND that.
Jealousy deals in absolutes, with little room for nuance or space for discernment. AND? With little allowance for the capital “t” Truth.
We see what we choose to see and are blind to the rest.
Maybe you know that the French word for jealousy is “jalousie”. But did you also know that a “jalousie” is also a window shutter with angled horizontal slats? Also know as a...(wait for it)...“blind”?
Funny thing about jalousies…they are designed to allow you to see outside without being seen yourself.
(You see where we're going here, right?)
Yeah…jealousy and blind go hand in hand.
But, of course, jealousy is also an on-point teacher. A snarling, frothing, lusting, hot-breathed swamp dog of a teacher, mind you, but an on-point teacher just the same. Within what you choose to see (and what you've made up that you see) lie your desires: success, intimacy, relationships, and financialstability.
Knowing what you want, of course, IS the first step in making what you want to happen, HAPPEN.
And here's what I want for you:
I want for you to come out from behind the blinds that offer such a limited view of others. And such a limited view of yourself and what's available.
I want you to experience the fullness of the person you feel jealousy towards. And to experience the fullness of yourself. Just add curiosity.
I want for you to see how relative this all is.
I want you to bring some compassion into the fold. For you. For them. For the next time you feel jealous (and you will).
I want you to see, REALLY see, that the magnificence that you've projected onto them is but a prism caught in the light of your own magnificent potential.
I want you to get out from behind the blinds of jealousy and into that light.
Because the light, the light...oh it's so very much warmer in the light.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Take the time to shine light on someone else
Many (many) years ago, I signed up for a course that Pam Slim and Chris Guillebeau co-created. I knew OF Chris, to be sure, but took the course based on my (fabulous) experience of working with Pam.
The sign-up process was smooth and seamless. Several hours later, I received a separate email from Chris on my iPhone. It was so long ago that I don’t have the words verbatim, but it was along the lines of:
Hey. Great to meet you. Love your site. Love your Mom’s mantra. You’re clearly living it well. - Chris.
I actually remember stopping in my tracks and rereading it three times. Nope, it was clearly not an autoresponder.
Shaking my head, I walked on, wondering:
Who had time to go through and read every registrant’s website?
Who had time to respond to each registrant, shining such light on them?
Chris did. He MADE the time.
Since then, I’ve purchased his books, interviewed him in my Thing-Finding-Thursday series, flew across the country (twice) to attend his World Domination Summit (and have invoked dozens of other people to do the same) and speak often of him and his work (in fact, just did this morning with a client).
Yes, yes. He does good work, is a prolific writer and has reams of good information to share. But I’ve been a devotee of his since THAT email. In less than 10 minutes of his time, and in under 20 words, his desire to connect to where I was, his desire to shine a bit of light my way has been a gift that I have cherished and have learned from. He’s been in my heart ever since, and from that place of deep trust, I’ve helped build his audience.
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So often, we stop short of sharing what we see in others. We think that by doing so, we are being arrogant, or ego-driven, or overtly bold. We wonder if they’ll doubt our sincerity.
But what if you dared to shine the light on someone else anyway? You have it in abundance. What if you just.gave.it.away?
Right now, think of 5 people are in your realm that you admire. It could be someone in your audience, your client base, your colleague/peer group, or someone you look up to.
Tell them what you love about what they’re doing or standing for. Right now. Be honest. Be specific.(For inspiration, you can try any of the following options below ... or all of them as long as it's authentic.)
Thank you for modeling xyz for me. It’s an edge I continue to want to grow, so I’m grateful to you.
From your work/words/teachings, I’ve learned/I am learning xyx.
Because of what you’ve shown me, I am shifting xyz.
The impact of shifting xyz will mean this in my life.
And when they ask to use these words in a testimonial, say: yes, of course.
Because you meant the words. They were rooted in your truth and in your heart and you have plenty more of that to give. PLENTY.
With love,
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
Comparison: the chronic, persistently annoying THING that just won't go away.
Right before the first coaching session with a new client, I have them answer my “Quintessential Questions”. Seven power-packed q’s that help to name the deeeeeeep and delicious stuff that gets our work started on the right foot. My favourite questions is:
What is it that seems to be chronic, persistently annoying or that just won’t go away?
It tends to send people into two directions:
This is what wants attention.
This is what wants to be released.
Of course, the real honey shows up along the third path.
This is what needs attention and wants to be released.
I haven’t made a scientific study of this, but when I grab a stack of client files and go looking for the answer to that q, “comparison” rises to the top time and time again.
Which doesn’t surprise me.
It would have been my answer too.
Comparison and its seemingly infinite long-tail have been wound around my legs most of my life. And it’s ensnared me more times than I care to count...in a myriad of ways.
Whipping my head from side to side to see what everyone else was doing only gave me whiplash, not a better sense of what I “should” be doing.
Keeping my eyes on somebody else’s path just made me lose my footing on the steep and jagged rock cliffs of progress.
Projecting my light so brightly onto others just made me forget it was mine to begin with, leaving me to flounder in the dark.
Deferring my expertise and power left me without my sense of sovereignty…and left me flushed with shame…for having done.IT.again.
So yeah, I'm intimate with that particular brand of pain.
In fact, in my TEDx talk, From Imposter to Authority, this piece of content that showed up in the first seven drafts of my talk ended up on the cutting room floor, never to be uttered:
A request: Worship wisely.
Recognize that no one ELSE is ever THE Authority.
Those that we want to canonize are finding their own path and wrestle with their own Impostor Complexes. They don’t see themselves as THE authority either…because they are not. (No one is)
We canonize people and then persecute them when they don’t live up to our expectations.
We are killing creativity with canonization.
Yep. I cut it from the final version…it felt too raw. Too risky. Too…something.
But my desire to address this topic wouldn’t, couldn’t go away. The narrative arc of how we canonize someone we admire to the point of disconnecting from them, then demonize them, well, that has always felt like the missing piece on our collective paths to actually stepping into our great work. Our starring role.
We fear that once we become too big, too famous, too…something, then people will disconnect from us. Because we’ve seen it. Because we’ve done it.
Ugh. I feel that dead smack in the middle of my heart.
So yes. Chronic. Persistent. Not going anywhere.
But then July 3rd, 2013, Lauren Bacon and I got on the phone for the very first time. And I shared this painful piece with her. I gave it voice, because, well, I knew:
1. This is what wants attention.
If I’m being honest, I think my unconscious intention was to pretty much hand it over to Lauren and say here’s this scary thing…can you take it on for me so that I can be rid of it because:
2. This is what wants to be released.
Well. That’s not what happened. Of course not.
In that very first conversation, it was apparent that this was work deeply oh-so-very important to BOTH of us. Something we wanted to heal for ourselves. For our clients. The goosebumps on our arms showed us that. So we heeded the call. We dug in. For the past year, we have spent 90 minutes on the phone EVERY.SINGLE.WEEK drafting, crafting, sweating, incanting and creating the most fulsome (and complete...for now) work we’ve come across on this topic.
Because it turned out #3 was once again the sweetest path:
3. This is what needs attention AND wants to be released.
Released, but as an offering. And it’s just about ready for you. For your discovery. (Yes, it used to be called Worship Wisely and it used to be a group program. But it told us it wanted to be something else. And we listened. We always listen.)
Powerful, propulsive and illuminating questions that will help you see what might be possible for you beyond compare. (Hint: it just might smell like freedom.)
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
This isn’t the post I thought I’d be writing, but it’s what I needed to write. On joy and grief. On awakenings. On wholeness.
It’s been quite the summer. In truth, I’ve re-written that first sentence about ten times.Because, really, what else can you call a summer that’s been rich with ice cream and travel and joyous moments AND rife with pain and suffering and suicides and murders and righteous rebellions evenifitsnothappeningtomeoranyoneinmyimmediatelife?
Quite the summer.
You know how when someone dies, we first grapple with the “right words” to say, feel like we fall flat, and follow up with an impulse to share a casserole? I feel like that here. Like, I’m not entirely sure what the “right words” are, so I’ll serve you a sandwich.
A well-made sandwich is an act of devotion, so here’s my sandwich for you, for me, for us.
The bread of joy (or, where I’ve been)
I am celebrating a wonderful road trip with my family to the East Coast. Three thousand, nine hundred and ninety-three kilometers later, and we’re still talking. Lobsters, tides, old friends, new friends, wild blueberries, seals, porpoises, whales, walking the ocean floor, clam digging, thunderstorms, oysters, campfire chats, beaches, music, reverie and unforgettable colours.
I am also celebrating having had some of the most delightful conversations ever in my years of doing this blessed work:
Anna Guest-Jelley is a force of pure love and light, and in my mind, she is leading the body acceptance movement. Hallelujah! I adored my time with her talking about my childhood relationship with my body, and my current relationship with success and where the Imposter Complex loves to show up.
Jessica Kupferman and I spoke about learning to love the Imposter Complex for what it teaches us. This was a full-hearted chat with a wise and hilarious woman who’s creating an empire. (I may have ended up coaching her…it happens). She’s one to watch, and this is one to listen.
Lovely launch coachsultant Melissa Anzman and I talked about how results are a direct reflection of our approach, all the fears that show up right before any launch…and how to overcome them. Fabulous questions, big heart.
Katie McCarthy of Give Good gave GREAT interview. I loved talking favourite books, regimens, even some of the hardest times. ('Cause they won't break you. Promise.)
I’m also celebrating that fact that the clinical psychologist who co-coined the term "Imposter Complex" back in 1978, Pauline Clance, has recommended me (ME!) for an interview about the IC that she isn't able to do. Dream come true, really. I’m pushing past the lies of the Imposter Complex that have oh so much to say about why I’m not the right person for the job. Because I AM the right person for the job.
The meat of suffering (or, what I’ve been avoiding)
I so deeply want to end the post right there. With my joys and celebrations in the hopes that they lift you up. That they continue to lift me up.
Yes, yes. I want this post to be resplendent with waning summer softness and ease. As the cicadas serenade the setting sun, and the crisp mornings herald the dawn of autumn, this is a gorgeous time of réveil …an awakening from the somnolence of summer.
But with our Twitter streams filled with distress, suicide, murder, pain, suffering, and inequity we don’t know where to put our own grief. Contributing to the conversation feels….opportunistic. Not our story. Not our challenge. Not our cross to bear.
When we don’t have the “right words”, we say nothing. Or precious little. We are afraid that if we don’t fully, completely, wholly understand something, then we oughtn’t say a thing, because if we do say something, even from a place of compassion and desire for understanding and peace, we will be called out.
I haven’t had the “right words” to speak of losing Robin Williams. Not here, not on social media, not with my daughter who held my hand as I became unhinged with sadness as we watched Night at the Museum 2, having forgotten that Williams played Teddy Roosevelt. Particularly when he uttered the phrase: The key to happiness is doing what you love.
I haven’t had the “right words” to speak of Ferguson. (But this is starting to guide my way). I haven’t had the “right words” for what I’ve been feeling into so deeply. But it’s time to risk impeccability and elegance and crash the woods with my humanness (as my soul sister Julie says) and declare:
That it is time to reconnect our bodies, hearts, and minds with our world and speak out against the suffering around us.
That it is time we choose, on a daily basis, how we want to be together, towards each other, towards ourselves, towards our earth.
That it is time that we stop pressing the snooze button of the ‘way it is’ and wake up. And stay awake.
That it is time to say what needs to be said. That we think and feel and express and share and ask and give and receive from a place of love, kindness, and compassion.
Your pain is my pain. Your joy is my joy. I may not hold it with grace the way I want to hold it, but I will hold it. I promise you that. Can you try to do the same?
The bread of joy (or, where I’m going next)
I’ve known for some time that I was about to write a book. I’ve had it on the back burner behind the other pots that have been boiling over. But then, this happened, as I shared on Facebook:
On the long and scenic drive towards home, we listened to music and didn't say much. All lost in our own thoughts. My mind kept playing out what's next in my business, chewing over options and vetting my excitement level.
Imagine my surprise when the border guard in Vermont glanced up from my passport, looked me straight in the eye and asked me when my book would be out.
Okay Angels, I'm on it.
I am excited. In fact, I am elated. I cannot contain the joy that I feel in the knowledge that the 40,000 unpolished words that currently sit in a Scrivener file will some day in the not too distant future come together in harmony and form THE book.
How can I feel such profound joy in the midst of the sorrow that is also true?
I believe that our natural setpoint IS wholeness. That we cannot successfully bifurcate our joy from our pains, any more than we can bifurcate our heads from our hearts (though we try, oh, how we try).
So yes. I believe in angels. I believe in border guards. I believe in the capacity of humans to do incredible things. I believe in you. I believe in me. I believe we can turn this thing around.
"Wouldn't it be incredible if everyone could find the joy that comes with committing to our own goodness? Perhaps we would stop dividing ourselves into malignancies of various forms."
– Eve Ensler, In the Body of the World: A Memoir of Cancer and Connection
Let’s commit to our own goodness. Our own values. Our knowing of what’s right and just and fair and equitable.
Let’s crash through the woods together in our humanness. Guided by the pure clarity of loving intent.
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.
The “Ready for my Starring Role” list
My family and I are heading out on a 2-week Atlantic Canada road trip. There’s really no reason for us to bring our passports. But. Just in case we decide to sneak through Maine, or we act on my creepy Shining-inspired compulsion to stay a night at the Mount Washington resort in NH, we’ll bring ‘em.
And the moment I realized that we were going to pack them, an old panic set in: what if they’re not up to date?
It was a micro-moment, really, because I realized that my (our) passports are ALWAYS up to date. They live on my “Ready for my Starring Role” list.
No? Not ringing any bells?
Okay. Here’s what I share with my Step into Your Starring Role group.
Over a year ago, my dear friend and co-working partner Jamie Ridler and I were talking about the BIG STUFF. You know, life purpose, legacy, and manicures (as one does).
I had just had my nails done and I was telling her how much more enjoyable it was to write (and type) as I watched those varnished digits dance across the keyboard.
Very matter-of-factly, Jamie said, “Oh yes, fresh manicures are on my ‘Jamie’s Ready for Anything List’”. Delighted, I leaned in to hear the rest of her list.
And, of course, I started to create my own “Ready for Anything” list. A seemingly simple, but genius little process with deceptive potholes.
It was a sparse list at first. A valid passport and a made bed, fresh nails (uh huh), a charged iPhone and that emergency $20 tucked in my wallet that my mother impressed upon me at an early age. And that was kind of it.
And then, I got a little more granular. I stopped thinking about being ready for ANYTHING and started getting specific about what I wanted to be ready for. So I renamed it my “Ready for my Starring Role” list.
I would be ready to take Oprah’s call when…I would be ready to say YES to that eleventh hour speaking gig when…I would be ready to partner on that incredible windfall opportunity when…
This is where it started to get tricky. This is where my fall-back into the land of over-preparation began. This is where I started creating barriers.
I’d be ready when I lost 15 pounds. I’d be ready when I had an extra $__K in the bank. I’d be ready when I wrote The Book.
Turns out, I was far from ready. Hello, Imposter Complex.
Now, we can all see where I was blocking what I said I wanted. I’m not suggesting these barriers are the REASON no windfall opportunities fell in our laps, or O’s people haven’t called or, or, or. And yet…and yet...
So, back to the drawing board. This time, I reoriented my “Ready for my Starring Role" List with my Brand of Joy.
My list items became more like embodiments of my values that are in service of my life and less like items on a to-do that only discouraged me.
Today, my list looks more like:
A current passport.
A signature talk that I can whip out at the drop of a hat (but not memorized…just the highlights committed to memory).
A made bed.
Well-hydrated lips that can smile even wider.
Thank you’s up to date (cards, email, phone calls.)
A full tank of gas (literally and figuratively).
Something to write on and write with.
A charged iPhone.
Never missing a chance to tell my family how much I love them before I (or they) leave the house.
And of course, nails done.
I invite to make your own list. Your “Ready for Anything” list, or your “Ready for your Starring Role list”. (Go for resonance.)
Align it with your Brand of Joy. And notice what beliefs you still have about being ready.
For all the items that make you feel filled up, put a star next to them and see how many of those you can “take care of” this week.
For all the items that make you feel a little depleted, and come back to them in a day’s time. Are they essential or are they barriers? If they’re barriers, pull ‘em off the list.
Then notice how much more ready you are than you thought. Which is good. Really good.
But for the love of goodness, please…
Check out my free training on the 5 Shifts Our Clients Use to Overcome the Imposter Complex and Grow their Income and their Impact
Where I pull back the curtain on five shifts to start raising voices, rates, and hands all while being the kind, congruent, and authentic leader I know you to be.