78: What You Need to Know About Courage and Vulnerability

Episode 78-Vulnerability.mp3

Speaker1: [00:00:09] You're listening to the Time to Level Up podcast. I'm your host business life coach, Andrea Libros. I help women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly. Gain confidence. Make your time productive. Turn every obstacle into an opportunity. And finally overcome the overwhelm so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's time to level up. Let's do this. Hey, time to level up. Listeners, welcome back to the podcast. We are talking about confidence this month. That is the topic of the month and if you haven't figured it out already, the topic of the month also coincides with what I am doing with my clients. Slash student slash coach e's inside committed to growth. So these podcasts work alongside the work we are doing in their. And the work we do in there really just I like to say ten X's what we are talking about on the podcast. It's one thing to listen to the podcast. It's another thing to really explore and do work around the learning from the podcast. When you actually sit down and assess what's going on in your own world.

Speaker1: [00:02:10] Because you know, these concepts are great and you can walk away from listening, thinking, Yes, that's totally true. But then what do you do with it? What do you do with it? That's the question. So that's the kind of work we do inside the Committed to Growth program, and we tackle it from lots of different angles. We tackle it from true coaching, we tackle it from getting input from our community and we tackle it from a whole library of coursework that goes along with each topic. Anyway, that is not exactly what I wanted to do to start the podcast. I wanted to tell you a few other important things before we dig in. Number one, I am going to be sprinkling some client words, client audio throughout the next few podcasts because as I have said before, my clients say it better than I can say it because they are saying it in their own words in live time. And often I think that is what we relate to even more than specific teaching on a topic, right? When we can hear someone in their own words explain what they're going through or how they've dealt with something, it's way more impactful than reading it in a book. So I will be sprinkling client stories in to the next few podcasts and let me know. Do you like that? Do you not like that? I'm curious. I love it, but I want to hear from you.

Speaker1: [00:03:50] Next thing I want to share with you a couple of things I'm working on. So one is a class. On really. The topic really is like how to get shit done, how to get shit done using the full focus system. So now you may have heard me talk about how I became a full focus certified pro last year. Well, I shared some of that teaching at my live event achieve more due less and I've shared some of it inside my group committed to growth but I'm going to share even more and go more in depth in a four part series in August. And how do you know if this is for you? If you are someone who feels like there are there's not enough hours in the day. If you are someone who feels like no matter how you plan anything, it's just not going to happen. If you are someone who feels like, I don't even want to write down a goal because I probably won't reach it, it's not worth it. This is for you. If you're someone who struggles to even write goals and I'm talking personal and professional, then this is for you. If you're someone who at the end of the year, your New Year's resolutions are still resolutions and not realities. This is for you. So it's going to take place in August. It's going to be via Zoom. It's going to be a four part series.

Speaker1: [00:05:17] Check your email inbox for the link to register. If you're not on my email list, that's a problem to. Dme. Go to my website somehow. Get on that list. You can even just send an email to support at Andrea Libras. You are missing out. You're missing out. If you're not getting those weekly emails with all of the news that's fit to print. As my mom would say. So get on that email list so that you can get the link to the Full Focus Masterclass series on how to finally write some goals and get shit done. And if you're listening to this after August, Demi, there might be ways that you can get access to the replays. Haven't quite figured that all out yet, but be on the lookout for that full focus plan or class. And I'm also working on something that's specific to business, so that is also going to come out in emails. Get on the list, email me at support at Andrea Libras to get on my list. Because if you are a business owner, you are going to want to know about what I am creating for businesses specifically. All right. Now let's dig in to today's topic. You ready? So confidence. I have been thinking about ways in which lack of confidence shows up for me and for my clients, or even we could call it lack of trust in themselves or ways in which the real issue is confidence.

Speaker1: [00:06:54] But we call it something else. And if I go back to my definition of confidence, that being your willingness to feel any feeling, I see a strong resemblance to vulnerability. And I also kind of explored this from the angle of intimacy. One of the coaches I followed, Jodie Moore, has been talking a lot about intimacy and how intimacy is tied to vulnerability, and then how in an intimate relationship, oftentimes we don't we feel that intimacy is tied to vulnerability, but yet we don't have the confidence to be vulnerable and to say what we're really thinking. So that is really why this vulnerability, word and confidence and they all started swirling around in my head. So, of course, I went to the Queen of Research on the topic of vulnerability, Brené Brown, and I went and looked at some of her teaching and learning. And although she doesn't really use the word confidence as it relates to vulnerability in her research, she chooses the word courage. I think having confidence takes courage. So I see the connection to vulnerability and confidence via courage. So in today's episode, I'm going to explore with you four of the ways that Brené has identified is how we try to avoid and protect ourselves from vulnerability, which are very closely related to four ways we avoid doing the harder thing, and situations in which we might say, I just wish I had more confidence, but I don't really what you're saying is I wish I were okay with being more vulnerable, but I'm not.

Speaker1: [00:08:46] And I'm going to share with you a client example of each. All right. Here we go. So Brené talks about how we try to avoid and protect ourselves from vulnerability. Or like I said, I might say, avoid doing what you wish was the thing you would do if you had more confidence in. Most of us use some of the same techniques. So here is number one. Number one, the first way we try to protect ourselves from being vulnerable is what I like to call and what she calls foreboding joy. So it feels safer to wallow in a sad or gray state rather than being happy and risking sad. Okay. So think about this. You could be super happy if you did what you wanted to do, but you also could be sad. If it doesn't work out. So guess what? You wallow in the gray. So while it's. True that disappointment might be more disappointing if you were coming from a starting point of happy. It's really not a good strategy. If you want to experience love or belonging or clarity. To feel like you have to be worthy of love or belonging or clarity. Like it has to be a home run, that it is guaranteed love or belonging or clarity if it is not guaranteed, if that state of positivity is not guaranteed.

Speaker1: [00:10:38] A lot of us just hang out in the gray or we wallow. And if this is the case, you're going to end up giving up all the joy in your life or clarity. Just to make your potential down or sad or quote unquote, fail a little less down or sad or a little less hurtful if you did, quote unquote, fail, which I think isn't really true. So here's a client story. My client is the CEO of a family owned business, and she's the second generation of this family owned business. Her dad was the founder and is still part part owner. But more than ten years ago, he passed on the reins of the business to his daughter. So at this point, she has had ten plus years of CEO experience in the company is still afloat. It is still possible, profitable and possible. And the only reason I am inserting the word still and not just saying it is profitable and afloat and thriving. The only reason I use the word still is because of the doubt that she has in being vulnerable, in communicating with her dad about her confidence in the business and communicating with their dad about how their business relationship feels to her. And she's asked for coaching around creating boundaries on what she would like and wouldn't like his input on at this point.

Speaker1: [00:12:21] Ten years after she has taken over CEO and she's really kind of afraid to have this conversation with her dad for fear that it will steal joy away from their father daughter relationship. And their father daughter relationship right now is great. So it is in the positive. She'd loved to say to him, Hey, Dad, I don't need your input on all this business stuff, but she's afraid his feelings will get hurt and then that will impact their father daughter relationship or even just their business relationship. But here's the thing. What if she was vulnerable and actually told him that? Told him that she was having a hard time communicating what she would like their business relationship to look like for fear that it will jeopardize their father daughter relationship. Okay. Which at this point is what Bernie calls joyful. Notice if she could create the confidence and be willing to feel a little vulnerable. She has the opportunity to create even more clarity in her life, even more joy, and even strengthen their relationship. But she needs to be vulnerable and saying, Hey, Dad, this is really hard for me to have a conversation around what she calls boundaries. I like to call it our manual or about what our relationship should look like, or I would like it to look like at this point in our business. She's got to be a little vulnerable in singing that, and she's hesitating.

Speaker1: [00:14:12] But by hesitating, she's stealing away her own joy. So what does lead to joy? I think really what leads to joy is recognizing all the opportunities that are currently available to you to create even more joy and then being a little vulnerable and having the confidence to go after greater joy. All right. So that was number one. For boating. Joy is a reason where we avoid being vulnerable and having confidence to do or say what we really want to do for fear that it will steal away joy when in fact it actually could give us more OC. Moving on to number two. The second way we avoid being vulnerable is lack or vulnerable, or i.e. lack of confidence is that we allow perfectionism to get in the way. And so I'm including this shout out to my client, Rebecca, who asked for a little discussion around perfectionism. So we use perfectionism, I think, as a shield when we mistakenly believe that if we can just be perfect or if what we are creating is perfect, we will avoid the painful feeling of shame. That might and I say might, because it is not a guarantee that we avoid. Someone possibly saying they don't like things or possibly saying we could have done something differently. Right. We just don't put our work out and we wait. So we wait it out until we think it's perfect and can guarantee that everybody will love it.

Speaker1: [00:16:18] Okay. Now there's two things wrong. There's a bunch of things wrong with this line of thinking. Number one, we get the word guarantee. We can't guarantee that everybody will love it. There are no guarantees around what other people will think or say or feel. This kind of goes back to that analogy I have shared with you before, that you could be the juiciest peach on the tree, but if someone doesn't like peaches, they might just not like you. So it could be the most perfect whatever. And if someone doesn't like it, they just won't like it. In perfect is all in the eye of the beholder. And here's another problem with this line of thinking of perfectionism. If we'll never really be perfect, and if we wait, we might sacrifice relationships or opportunities that might never come back to us. So we actually are sacrificing. Relationships, opportunities, other people in our lives if we wait to put something out, that's perfect. So client story. Client story. I have a client who is working on launching a second business. And this isn't just any little business. This is like going to be a big multimillion dollar business. She is working with a team to help her who's who've launched products before. Like this is their gig. This is what they do. She's working with them to create a website and an app and social media. There's even a prototype around this product.

Speaker1: [00:18:05] She'll eventually she'll even need investors, but she's dragging her feet on doing her last part. Before the go button can be hit and before it can go out into the world and the website can go live and be published. Why is she avoiding and dragging her feet? You know why? Because it might not be perfect and she might get some bad feedback. So she and I had a whole coaching session around this and it took a lot of digging to figure this out. She told me she didn't have enough time. She told me she was the only one in the world that could do this last step. But when it really came down to it, she's dragging her feet because she is afraid that it might not be perfect and she might get some bad feedback. But here's the thing. She also might get some great feedback. And she might get some not so great feedback. And I actually challenged her and said, you know what, maybe the best thing is that you do get some this is not so great feedback and then you'll know what you need to improve on. You're actually delaying this process of even making this product even better. By trying to get it right the first time, by not putting it out in the world, by waiting until it's perfect, it's never going to be perfect. I guarantee with something like she's creating, there's going to be multiple iterations.

Speaker1: [00:19:44] Okay. So she's not only missing out on the opportunity of getting great feedback, she's also missing out on the opportunity of getting feedback, whatever kind which might help her improve the product. Okay. And here's another thing. Who knows what really perfect is? This is the kind of product where perfect is going to be in the eye of the beholder. And actually that's kind of the greatness of the product. I know you guys are all kind of curious what this is. You just wait. I will share it with you. But by adopting this perfectionism kind of thinking, okay, she is delaying progress. Now, if she could be more vulnerable and just get out the B minus work into the world, not wait around for the A-plus. She? Which she and she's done this. She has actually become empowered. Okay. She's become empowered. To grow even further. She's become empowered to get her part turned in the product portal in social media turned on. And this new venture out into the world. Okay. What needed to happen in our discussion and our coaching call is that she had to realize that in order to not wait for perfect. She had to have a sense of self compassion and a sense of worthiness that this product was worthy of being out in the world no matter what it looked like that she was worthy. Of being the creator and inventor, which is a little scary.

Speaker1: [00:21:31] Like she some had a little bit of an imposter syndrome, like, who is she? So by dismissing the perfectionism, by not wanting to create perfection, she actually is creating even more opportunity. Okay. I'm sure some of you can relate to that. Here's number three. So we've got we had foreboding, joy as a reason. You are not vulnerable and lack confidence. We had perfectionism as a reason you are not vulnerable and lack confidence. And here is the third way we avoid. Brené Brown calls it numbing. We numb ourselves in many ways. My word for this is really buffering. Okay. I think there's a whole episode on buffering. But regardless of what you call it, it can look like anything we do. Instead of what we have set out to do. Which usually involves having a bit of confidence and willingness to feel all the feelings. This is what we do when we avoid. We avoid being vulnerable, we avoid doing the hard thing. We avoid going into the deep recesses of our brain, our prefrontal cortex, and we avoid quieting the caveman brain. So this could be wine before going to sleep. This could be you saying, I am just too busy right now to think about any things. This could be prescription pills. This could be fantasy football. Numbing or buffering. They tend to be driven really by anxiety, the desire to disconnect and shame.

Speaker1: [00:23:30] Brené Brown said in one of her books that she took up smoking and drinking in her teens to look busy so that she didn't have to do other things. Today. Many teens do this with their phones. Even adults are doing this with their phones. So we buffer, we avoid. I like to say we always think it's a great time to empty the dishwasher or clean out our email inbox instead of being a little vulnerable, doing the hard thing, putting something out there in the world. So here's my story, my client story. For this reason, we avoid being vulnerable and doing things with confidence. I know many women out there with kids. A lot of my clients have kids. Not all, but a lot do. And I know that many women use their kids activities and the demands of running a household as a buffer. In. One of my clients told me that her life was chaotic. That was her word. Her life was chaotic. And she's got four kids under the age of ten and she's got a business and she's got employees. But she wasn't really looking at her business with what I would call a critical eye. All right. And she was using the busyness, the busy badge she wore, the chaos. As the buffer. And she worried that even if she did actually look at all these hard things and got a little vulnerable, how would that affect her kids? How would that affect her home life? Would she not be as so as available to them? Okay.

Speaker1: [00:25:18] So she used her chaos as a buffer for herself. And I am sure you know many women who say that this is just not the right time to tackle whatever because of their family obligations. And their first priority is their pets or their parents or their kids. Of course it is mine too. But should those things stop you from being vulnerable and saying, Yes, I have a family and I want to grow myself or my business and I need to make time for myself, whatever it is you do instead of doing the thing that takes confidence. To do things differently. Whatever that thing is that stops you from doing things differently. Whatever that thing is that you are using to not be vulnerable, to avoid. That's the buffer. It's not allowing you to move in. I would call the right direction. So, as promised, I wanted to share with you Whitney's own words. And as you listen, notice that she doubted she had doubt for a while in her own ability to look at her own numbers and create change from the knowledge about her numbers. And instead she wanted to go back to her norm. That's her word, which included her chaos again, her word. So listen in and see what you can see in this 32nd clip. See if you can see yourself inside of Whitney.

Speaker2: [00:26:57] Before I started coaching with Andrea. The biggest thing was feeling, I think, chaotic. My thinking was chaotic. And even though my situation is still chaotic in a way, I still have four kids. My husband still travels. I still own a business. I feel like I can manage all those factors and think in a different way where even if situations do feel a little bit like out of control, that I can still ask myself, Hey, what do I have power in this moment right now to choose? What do I have control over? What is my next action? And so that's been probably the biggest benefit to coaching in the way that Andrea has taught us to kind of think through situations. And initially, I was like, Oh, I don't know if I can do this. I don't know what you're asking me to do is not my norm. But I'm really glad that I stuck it out and followed through with it, because in the last few months, Andrea has really helped transform how I view money coming into the business and money going out of the business. And I am seeing dramatic results. You know, every month when I look at profit loss balance sheet, that is that tells the story right there. And I owe a lot of that to the way Andrea coached me and how she has guided me and that area, specifically that area of my business. It's not easy, but it's simple and it works. So that's my biggest advice. If you want to feel empowered and view things differently and ask yourself, What would Andrea do? Then I do it.

Speaker1: [00:28:57] Okay. So if you want to feel empowered and view things differently like Whitney did. What do you need to do? I'm going to guess that you need to stop buffering. You need to learn to get in touch with your feelings. You need to stay mindful about your number numbing or buffering behaviors. And you need to learn to deal with the discomfort of hard emotions. And you need to learn to reduce anxiety by just saying no. We have to believe we are enough to say no. To be more vulnerable. Share with others what you really want to be doing instead of sitting on the couch and watching Netflix instead of. Emptying the dishwasher. What do you really want to be doing? I think you want to be putting that proposal out. I think you want to be having the difficult conversations because that's what moves the needle and that's where the intersection of vulnerability and confidence occurs. All right, last one. So we had foreboding, joy. We had perfectionism. We had numbing, numbing or buffing buffering. Who I'm having a hard time with words and last serpentine ring or serpentine meaning? Okay. Brené Brown uses this term to describe the huge amount of effort we expand and expand to dodge vulnerability when it would take much less to just face it. You serpentine when you have to make a call but postpone making it for made up reasons. Or when you need to send the email but leave your draft sitting in your draft box for days. Serpents burning is draining and it is not a healthy way of living life.

Speaker1: [00:31:04] So client story. Right now I have a client who doesn't want to return a call for potential business. This person reached out to her and said, I think I would like to use you to help me with this project. But she hasn't called him back. And in fact, she is dreading it again. Her word, dread. And she is expending huge amounts of energy avoiding the call. To either say, yes, I want to help you or No, I don't. She could call and say, No, this isn't for me, but she hasn't even done that yet. She's avoiding a call to learn more about the project. She's avoiding the call to say, Hey, I'm unsure right now I need more info. So this is definitely serpentine and it definitely is sucking more energy out of her than if she actually made the call and perhaps was a little vulnerable in the call by stating that she's really not sure if she wants this work, that she needs more information or maybe she needs more time. But again, she's just not making the call but thinking about it and it is draining her. This is kind of like decision debt. Which I talk about in a previous episode. So when Bruni finds herself serpentine running, she laughs. She says she breathes. And she reality checks her behavior. To start noticing and to start engaging with vulnerability. I don't know if you've read any of Seth Godin, but he always says Use the fear response as the trigger to run towards fear. So if you are fearing something like this phone call, that's a trigger that you need to run toward it.

Speaker1: [00:33:02] Okay, my friends. So we've got foreboding, joy, perfectionism, numbing slash, buffering and serpentine running of these four ideas. Which one do you think you can relate to the most? Are you avoiding being vulnerable and thus avoiding exuding confidence and missing living in the process? Coach with me right down. All the things that you wish you would do. I just wish I would make the call. I just wish I would look at my numbers. I just wish I would finish up my part of this project so it can go out into the world. What is it? What do you wish you would do? And then assess why are you not doing them? I would bet that vulnerability is playing a role. Okay. If this is resonating with you and you really want to ten x this kind of learning, if you want to dig a little deeper and uncover what's really going on. And discover how you have the power to change it, to create a life that aligns with who you want to be, to live up to your full potential, to make things happen in your own life that you never, ever thought were possible in all aspects of life. Financial, professional relationships, marriage, parenting, career. Do you see how vulnerability plays a role in all of them? If you want to learn tools that work across all facets to create the you that you want to be. Come join us inside. Committed to growth.

Speaker1: [00:34:50] Next week inside there, we're going to tackle another aspect of confidence, just like we tackle it on the podcast, but we're going to go deeper and then next month we're going to even focus on decisions. You need confidence to make decisions. That's why I put confidence before decisions. So if you want to learn how to be powerful in your decision making, how to make powerful decisions, how to have confidence when you do it, go apply now go apply for a consult info call at andrea libras dot com. Backslash committed. Dash to dash growth. You can get started immediately and even catch the end of our May learning on confidence. So my friends, there's never a better time to level up than right now. I will see you next week. Thanks for listening to the Time to Level Up podcast with me, your host, Andrea Libros. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode, I encourage you to take a screenshot and share it with them. Okay, now what about you? You've listened to the podcast and if you now know that you're ready to upgrade your life, upgrade your business, upgrade you, then stop being only a listener and start being a liver living that upgraded life. Head over to my website and schedule a call right there on that call. We'll start changing the way you think and act so that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business and have the resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.