You are listening to My Freedom Grove podcast with Gretchen Hernandez, episode 149.

Welcome to My Freedom Grove Podcast, your calm space for practical help to get your dream business up and running while being authentically you and taking care of your mental health. I'm your host, Gretchen Hernandez. I'm so glad you're here!

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Hi My Strong Friends.  How are you doing on this cold, wet, windy January day?  I am amused at these first 2 weeks of January.  I started off the year full of excitement and energy.  I was ready to get going on all my goals.

I didn’t see the storm coming.  I didn’t see Covid coming. Oh yeah.  In last week’s episode I shared that my daughter tested positive for Covid.  I am also positive for Covid.  Everything aligned well with the schools being shut down because of the storms.  We needed to stay isolated anyway. 

So here we are 2 weeks into 2023.  My energy level right now is several notches below where it was on January 1st.  That’s OK though.  Goals are not bound by calendar dates in my world.

I like to live by the 4 agreements of Don Miguel Ruiz.  One of them is to always do your best.  The subtext to that is to acknowledge that your best may be different depending on the day. So, I’m quite pleased with my Best over the last 2 weeks.  I hope you give yourself that flexibility too. There will be times when your power is out, it’s storming, and you’re sick.  The bar is lower on those days.

For this week’s episode I was inspired by a couple of my clients.  They are facing an obstacle I faced in 2019.  It was a really painful obstacle for me.

The obstacle was about Giving Myself a Voice.  I received undesired feedback from a couple people when I used my Voice when I worked in corporate.  Also, when I started as an Entrepreneur, the social media, podcast and email engagement caused me despair, doubt and anxiety.  Starting from zero is hard.

I had to work through shame about speaking up at all.  And then I had to work up my courage to be consistent as my brain shouted “will anyone want to hear what I have to say?”

It took several movies, songs and a lot of mindset shifts to get where I’m at now.  I’m confident using my Voice, I know I’m helping people and changing lives.  I’ve podcasted for 3 years and made 149 episodes.  I have over 10,000 downloads so far and I regularly get 10,000 - 12,000 views of my website where people stream my podcast directly.  My email open rate averages 38% and keeps getting better as I improve my skills.  With the exception of a Q4 pause in 2022, I’ve maintained being fully booked on 1:1s for almost 2 years.  And I have a growing business mastermind membership.  All of that is possible because I worked on resolving and healing my obstacle about giving myself a voice.

I believe in you.  I know you are going to have a highly successful business.  First, let’s work on getting this same obstacle resolved for you.

Today I’m going to go over:

How you don’t need to be an Expert to be helpful
How not to let other people’s limiting beliefs limit you

How to know if people are tuning into you

BUT FIRST, SOME INSPIRING MOVIES & SONGS

Two movies helped me through this painful obstacle in 2019.

The live action movie - Aladdin.  Aladdin is my favorite Disney movie of all time.  The live action version brought in a new song when I needed it the most.  It is called “Speechless”.  Jasmine sings out “I will not go Speechless”.  She was breaking out of cultural norms that a woman should be seen, not heard.  I highly encourage you to watch it within the context of the movie.

I remember sobbing in the movie theater.  When you are processing a Change, your first step after the shock is Denial.  You have to move into the Anger phase to start your healing journey.  If anyone has ever tried to silence you, you must watch this movie.  The scene with that song is what moved me from Denial to Anger.  I wouldn’t be where I am today without that moment.

The next movie is The Greatest Showman.  There is SO much in this movie.  Especially about being held back by other people’s limiting beliefs.  The song “This is Me” should be a national anthem.  Again, I highly encourage you to watch it in the context of the movie. I was bawling my eyes out.  Even though I’ve watched this movie 4-5 times now, it still gets me.  In fact I can measure my healing by watching this movie.

If you have ever felt Less Than others, you need to watch this.  Those things that make you different are your strengths.  Your scars help you create medicine that will heal others.

YOU DON’T NEED TO BE AN EXPERT, YOU JUST NEED TO HAVE A VIEWPOINT

“There’s an a** for every saddle” was the best advice I ever heard.  The reference at the time was about dating.  It was provided by the mother of a guy I was dating.

There is always someone out there especially designed for you.

The same is true for your Voice, your business offerings and your approach.

Have you ever held yourself back thinking “My stuff isn’t helpful” ?  Perhaps you’ve looked around and thought everybody already knows this stuff.  Is that true?  Does everybody already know this stuff?  Flip the question.  Who doesn’t know this stuff?

I’m 50.  I know a lot of stuff.  I’ve experienced a lot of stuff.  Sure, other people that are my same age, that have lived a similar personal or professional life, and had the same teachers might know the same stuff as me.  What percentage of the world does that really amount to? 10% maybe?

When I was 30, I didn’t know most of what I know now.  In fact, when I was 40 I didn’t know as much as I know now.

The world is constantly refreshing its supply of humans.  Lol.  I know, that is a funny way to think about it.  But, it’s true.  People are born not knowing any of this stuff.  Every human starts a journey.  Nobody can learn all of it by the time they are 18.

There are always younger people out there that need guidance on the stuff that is new to them.

As people are developing they go through many stages:  newcomer, beginner, intermediate and advanced.

Your fear that “my stuff isn’t helpful” may be true if your audience is all the advanced participants.

Although having a refresher of the basics is always helpful.

Is your stuff helpful to the newcomers?  They’ve never been exposed to this information before.  They may need your special approach.  Newcomers often get overwhelmed by the experts because it’s too much, too fast.

Is your stuff helpful for the beginners?  Maybe you don’t know the advanced stuff.  Who cares?  Beginners are not ready for the advanced stuff anyway.

Is your stuff helpful for the intermediates?  Sure, maybe they already know the basics.  Even if they hear you talk about the basics, it’s ok.  They recognize that you know what you’re talking about.  You’re already speaking the same language.  They know they can talk to you about all of their stuff.  They don’t have to worry about educating you.

As a customer or client, have you ever experienced needing to educate your service provider?  It can be very frustrating.  But, if there is only one service provider visible, that’s your only choice.  Meanwhile, there could be a knowledgeable service provider who is holding themselves back from being visible.

I’d rather have a service provider that has equal knowledge to me than one that I needed to educate.

So, your stuff may be helpful in communicating that you have equal knowledge.

Is your stuff helpful for the advanced people?  It’s very possible.  You still have experiences that they have never had.  I remember going to a PBWC conference.  That’s the Professional Business Women of California conference.  They introduced the concept of having a younger person as your mentor.

For example, I’m 50, I can consider a mentor in their 20’s.  Why?  I’m pretty advanced in my knowledge and skills.  Because someone in their 20’s has a different perspective.  And they have experienced the world in a different way.  They grew up in a world that had the internet the whole time.  They grew up during a time when there was more equality and acceptance of authenticity.  They also use different social platforms and communication styles.  I have so much I can learn from them.

Flipping that around, I can be the younger mentor for entrepreneurs in their 60’s and 70’s.  I have a different perspective and set of experiences.

Advanced learners can also learn from different cultures and alternative living/working experiences.  They may already know the advanced stuff, but they don’t know the advanced stuff through that cultural lens or how to do it with the alternative living/working setups.

I used to have a client that lived in multiple countries.  She had first hand knowledge of the obstacles and processes involved in moving between the countries, working and raising kids.  She was able to take all of that knowledge to turn into courses and coaching to help families and international employees.

There may be some aspect of your life experiences that factor into your special sauce as an entrepreneur.  Things you haven’t even considered yet.  Those stories need to be told.  There are people out there that have nobody to help them with these things.

New obstacles popup when people experience life changes.  If you’ve already discovered that obstacle, and experimented with different solutions, others will find your voice helpful.

DON’T LET OTHER PEOPLE’S LIMITING BELIEFS LIMIT YOU

When I was creating my own content to develop employees and improve business, I had an old co-worker say to me “Who do you think you are, you’re not the expert” because I had not written a book.

I had another old co-worker tell me I was posting too much on our internal Social Media site when I posted 3 times in one week. 

At the time, I didn’t consider that they were voicing their limiting beliefs.  Isn’t it interesting when someone gives you advice that you may consider it the truth?

Was posting 3 times making me look bad?  Was sharing knowledge invalid because I hadn’t written a book?

I reference Don Miguel Ruiz again.  In his book, The Four Agreements, he talks about how humans are all living a dream formed by the thoughts they agree to believe.  Every human has the right to agree or decline to believe thoughts.  However, there are times in our lives, such as childhood, when we don’t know we have this right.  In fact our tendency is to trust that every thought offered is the truth.

When my old co-workers offered their thoughts, I had the right to agree with their thoughts and adopt them as my own.  Or I could decline to agree.

What I realized is that each of them have their own mindset.  A mindset is just a collection of thoughts and beliefs they’ve collected throughout their lives.  Some thoughts were donated, others were created.  Their mindset is made up of helpful and unhelpful thoughts.

The first co-worker agreed to a thought that only book authors are experts and allowed to teach their original content.  He believed he could share what was in the books, but not his own teachings.  At some point in his life someone told him that is the way the world works.

I noticed that anybody could write a book.  I visit bookstores a lot.  I look at the author’s biographies.  People from all walks of life write books.  They came up with their own teachings and put it in a book.  Most likely they were already teaching that information before they wrote the book.  In fact I know many authors from my professional business circles.  They taught the information first.  They worked out their processes to ensure people (or themselves) were getting results.  Once the process was working, they wrote a book.  I was following in their footsteps. I have different thought agreements than my old co-worker.  I like mine better.

Can you imagine if everybody agreed with my old co-worker?  There would be no books.  Especially not new books.  No cutting edge technology.  No breakthroughs in psychology or the healing arts.

What about the co-worker with the belief that posting 3 times a week is bad?  He would constantly offer thoughts about staying humble.  At some point in his life he agreed to the thought that rarely speaking kept you humble and good.

I grew up watching the news and Oprah.  They were on all the time.  They provided a valuable service.  As I entered into the world of self help, frequent posts and videos helped my Mental Health.  Without them, I was alone.  I was stuck with all of the old unhelpful thoughts in my mindset that caused me to suffer.  But, because self help professionals chose to show up and do their job consistently, I healed.  It had nothing to do with them not being humble.  They were being of service.  Each of them had a different perspective and a different approach.  I needed to hear from all of them to find the thoughts that would work for me.

The ones that resonated the most were from ordinary people, just like me.  They were courageously vulnerable sharing what they had gone through.  They had the same struggles I had.  And they found the unique solutions that worked for them.  I need unique solutions.  All the well known ones don’t work for me.

If everyone in the world had the same thought agreement as my old co-worker, things would be very quiet.  And a lot of people would be suffering needlessly.

When other people offer you their advice, you have the right to agree or decline to agree with their thoughts.

Just because they have that thought doesn’t make it true.

Don’t let their limiting beliefs limit you.

THEY’RE ALWAYS LISTENING, BUT THEY TUNE IN WHEN THEY’RE READY

This makes me think of Demi Lovato’s song Anyone.  She has a line “I feel stupid when I sing. Nobody’s Listening to Me.”   The first few times I heard this song I bawled my eyes out.  She’s gone through so much depression.

From an outside perspective, we know people are listening to her.  I know I was listening to her.  Everytime I see her perform publicly I see the crowd listening to her.  But, she’s looking for a specific kind of evidence that people are listening to her.

We all do that.  There may be tons of evidence that people are listening or reading.  Yet, our brains are looking at 1 thing.  If that 1 thing is lacking or isn’t big enough, we interpret it as nobody is listening to us.

Your brain will always look for evidence to prove your thoughts true.  That includes misinterpreting data so it proves your thoughts true.

For example, with Social Media marketing we notice how many reactions and comments we receive.  It can get discouraging to have a post with 0 to very few reactions.  Your brain can interpret that as evidence that people are tuning you out.

That’s why I like to look at the other analytics:

Post Reach
Post Impressions
Post Engagement

First, let’s talk about Post Reach.  Why is this important?  First, I’ll give you a real life example.  I had a post that I thought was amazing.  Yet I only had 3 reactions.  My heart sank.  I mean, really, it was a great post.  I knew it would help people.  When I looked at the Post Reach metrics, I saw that Facebook only showed the post to 35 people. 

It wasn’t that people were tuning me out.  They never had a chance to see the post.

The data revealed I had a different problem to solve.

The problem to solve was How to get the Post in front of more eyes.

However, I could allow my brain to act like a runaway freight train with the thought that people are tuning me out.  I could use the 3 reactions as proof.  It looks true on the surface. 

That’s why I like Byron Katie’s famous question…Is there evidence to prove the thought is not true?

What about Post Impressions.  Do you know what that metric is?  It tells you the number of times a post was viewed in feeds.  This number will be the same or higher than the post reach.  Sometimes Social Media will show something to people more than once.  That can be a very good thing.

Consider commercials on TV.  How many times do you need to see a commercial before your desire to buy is built up?  Probably more than once, right?

I heard a statistic somewhere that a buyer needs to see something 7 times before they are interested in buying it.  It could be the same commercial 7 times.  Or they see the company advertising in 7 different locations.

As a solopreneur or small business, how many times are your posts showing up in front of your customer’s eyes?  I know, we’d all love to just post 1 time and all the customers flood in.

Your posts need to be seen many times by the same person before it gets through to them.

Take that thought…They are Tuning Me Out and flip it slightly. 

They haven’t tuned into me yet.

The original thought assumes they were tuned into you and your business already.  What if they weren’t?  What if they didn’t even know you had a business?

It takes a bit for people to realize that.  They will probably have to be reminded many times.

How long does it take you to remember a new detail about someone?
Let’s say an acquaintance got a new job.  How many times do you need to be reminded about the new company’s name or what they do there?

I bet it is more than once.

You weren’t Tuning them Out.  Human brains just need some time to process change and remember.

That’s why Post Impressions are helpful.  People are getting presented with your post more than once so they have the opportunity to Tune into You.

What about Post Engagements?  This helps you to know how many people stopped to read your whole post.  You probably noticed there is a “Read More” link on your post.  To conserve space Social Media typically only shows the first 2-3 lines of your post.

Isn’t it helpful to know if people are reading the whole thing?

I think so.

It also helps you to learn better copy writing skills.  Those first lines need to hook a person’s attention.  Again, this is getting people to Tune In.  A Hook helps them to Tune In.

This is not about you as a person.  This is about capturing a person’s interest.  That involves developing copy writing skills.  This is the same thing with email open rates.  The subject line has to hook their attention.  This is a copy writing skill that can be developed.  In fact that is a skill I’m actively working on.

It’s also about Timing.

Sometimes people are interested, but they don’t have the time right now to explore your business offerings.  I know many times I will forward the social media link to myself to go back when I do have time.  Or when it is relevant to my needs and aligns with my priorities.

In my course The Connection Factor I share the 5 phases of a customer’s journey.  Two of the phases are very relevant here:

Problem Aware - if someone is not having a problem right now, it isn’t time to tune into your solution.

Solution Aware - There are many solutions to the same problem.  Humans are creatures of habit.  They will turn to solutions they’ve used in the past first.  They may glance at your solution, but they won’t tune in until they’ve exhausted their known options.

This has nothing to do with you or your material.  It still goes back to timing.

Consider Car commercials - when you’re not in the market for a car, you don’t care about new cars.  You may watch a car commercial if it is entertaining. But for the most part, you are not tuned in. 

When you are considering getting a car in the future, you may Tune in for information.  You may learn about new features and think “that would be nice” or “I didn’t even know that was a thing”.  You remember it later on. Driving in the car…oh, a backup camera would be so helpful right now.

You keep it in the back of your mind.  New commercials remind you.  When you are ready, you know exactly what you want.

It’s possible this is the same for your clients.  Seeing your posts more than once helps them know your business exists and what you do.  Some of your posts grab their attention.  Some don’t. Sometimes the timing is perfect.  Other times it’s not.

Your job is to help them tune in.  To be relevant and timely.  Eventually the timing works out for everyone.

The ones that make it keep going.  The more you put yourself out there and use your voice, the more people will pay attention.

Remember, there was a time that Oprah was unknown.  She kept showing up anyway.  Now look at her.

Comedians, actors and singers do it too.  They keep putting themselves out there.  They practice on every size stage.  More people discover them and get interested.  If they just stayed home and not used their voice, they won’t be where they are.

I know it’s feels like a lot of work and effort.  And you’re not getting paid to do it yet.  They all started that way too.  So did I.  Eventually you will get paid for using your Voice.  But people have to discover you first.-  How do they discover you?  They discover you when you use your Voice.  Repeatedly.  Consistently.  And on as many platforms and stages as you can.

It feels like pushing a huge boulder up a hill.  But the day comes when you get to the Tipping Point.  All the past effort pays off.  Then everything goes really fast with just a little bit of effort to maintain it.

A 30 DAY CHALLENGE THAT USES YOUR VOICE

My final input on this topic is around what to say.  You have a Voice, but what will you say with it?  I see too many entrepreneurs buying scripts or turning to AI tools.

You have a lifetime of mindset shifts, experiences, skill development and experiments.  All of that can be turned into content.

Not sure how it will land?  That’s where experimenting on very small stages comes in handy.

In fact, that stage can be the floor in the produce section of your local grocery store.

In The Connection Factor course I prepare you to use your Voice.  And I get you out in the arena practicing with a 30 Day Challenge.

The point of this course is to help you develop the skill of connecting with people so they want to work with you professionally.  Specifically, they will schedule consultations with you.

We all start somewhere.  I had to start somewhere too when I started as a coach.  I needed to be able to get my own clients.

This is the process I used.  I was highly effective.  I became the most in demand coach in my BioTech company. And it’s what has helped me to maintain being fully booked as an Entrepreneur.

The Connection Factor course is available to members of the Unshakable Business Co-Lab and my 1:1 Business Clients.

For the month of January I am offering The Connection Factor Course and 30 Day Challenge to the public for just $49.  That’s $200 off the regular price.  Just use the coupon code “KICKSTART2023’.  You can learn more about this course on my website at www.myfreedomgrove.com/theconnectionfactor.  There is also a quick link at the top of my Home Page.

My Friends, that’s what I have for you this week.  I have more I can share about giving yourself a Voice.  It works best to coach with me directly.  That way I can help you with your exact circumstances.

I hope you have a wonderful week.  Stay dry.  I’ll talk with you soon.  Bye Bye.

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Thank you for listening to My Freedom Grove Podcast. When you are ready to make your dream business a reality and take care of your mental health, I invite you to join the Unshakable Business Co-Lab. This is the mastermind membership you've been waiting for. There's no limits on your imagination, nor your timeline. We're with you every step of the way. To learn more, please visit www.myfreedomgrove.com/join. I'll see you there!