Ep. 01: How I Started Building a Business After Shifting My Internal Beliefs

You know that voice in your head that has said, "Who do you think you are?" when you've tried to do something big in your business?

Where does that voice actually come from?

If you've ever frozen up trying to launch something, raise your prices, or put yourself out there, even though you really WANT to do it, then this episode is for you.

In this episode, you'll discover:

—Why a two-year-old will try anything, but by the time we're adults, we've decided we "can't" do certain things

—My personal story of freezing up when trying to build my business (and what was really happening beneath the surface)

–Why entrepreneurship brings ALL your beliefs to the surface (and why that's actually a gift)

–The difference between analyzing your beliefs to death vs. actually shifting them through evidence and experience

If this episode made you go "Oh... THAT'S what's been happening," please leave a 5-star rating on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. I'm on a mission to get this wisdom to the entrepreneurs who need it most.

This is just the beginning. Next episode, we're diving into how these beliefs actually show up in your body and nervous system and what to do about it.

Transcript

1:07

Hello. Hello. Welcome to the In Your Bones podcast. I have tried to record this episode a couple times now, and there was some hiccup in my recording software, but that is not going to stop me. I wanna jump right in because I'm gonna talk about something that I have been actively processing for like over a year now on my own entrepreneurial journey, and that is. When you want to do something, when you have the desire to do something, say you wanna launch a program or raise your prices or put yourself out there in a bigger way, and then there's just like this wall, this invisible resistance that stops you. And like I was there for a long time. And I'm still working through some of that, and I think it can be so easy to have these very reasonably sounding stories come up about it. Like, I need to wait until I'm more ready to start showing up online, or the timing isn't right, or I need to learn more first. Together with that, there's usually like this loud, cranky voice that says something like, who do you think you are? Or You're gonna fail, or, that's like, not for people like me. And I've been really curious lately about where that voice comes from and like, here's what's interesting. You know how sometimes you'll catch yourself saying, I'm not a numbers person, or I'm not creative, or, I could never do that. And like it feels so true to you, like it's just who you are. Like when did we decide that? When did we decide I'm not a numbers person or I'm not creative? Because if you watch a 2-year-old, they don't have those thoughts yet. A 2-year-old doesn't think, I don't have creativity, or I'm not a numbers person, or. Like I can't build these blocks or whatever. They just do. So somewhere between being two and being me now, I picked up on some ideas of who I am and what I can do, and I don't think most of us realize. How much of that happened before we were even old enough to question it? And that's what I want to explore today because there is nothing wrong with me. There is nothing wrong with you, but I think understanding where our beliefs come from is actually a way to give us more freedom to do the thing that we actually wanna do. And honestly, this is the most important work we can do as entrepreneurs. So let's dig in. Imagine you inherited a garden. Like it's been there for generations. Your parents tended to it, their parents before them, and when you move in, it's full of plants. There's some vegetables, there's some flowers, there's some herbs, there's maybe some weeds. Here's the thing, you didn't plant any of it. You just inherited it and for a long time you didn't even think about it. You just went out there every day to water everything. You tended to everything. Because that's what you do when you have a garden, right? You take care of what's there, and then one day, maybe because you're trying to grow something new or you're just paying closer attention, you start to notice some of the plants, like there's this one plant that's taking up a huge amount of space and it's got some deep roots. And you realize I, I don't even think I like this plant. Like you never chose to grow it. But you've been carefully watering it for years because it was just there. And then there's another one that's kind of choking out everything around it. It's like this aggressive plant and it's spreading fast, and you look at it closely and you think wait, this isn't even helpful. This might actually make it harder for the other things around it to grow. That is what our beliefs are like. When we're really young, like toddler age, people are planting seeds in our garden. That's our parents, our teachers kids on the playground stuff we see on tv, and they're not being malicious, they're just gardening. They're planting the same things that planted in their garden, passing along what they know, so someone says Money doesn't grow on trees, and a seed gets planted about the scarcity, revolving money. Or someone says, who do you think you are? And something gets planted about knowing your place, or you are so smart. Every time you get good grades. And then something grows about your worth being tied to achievement. Let me give you a more specific example. Like say there's a kid maybe three or four years old let's say he, he's at the dinner table with his family and someone says something, maybe the dad says, we're not rich. We have to be careful with money. Or the mom says, don't show off. People won't like it if you're too full of yourself. Or maybe grandma says, you're so sensitive, you need to toughen up. And the thing is, the adult who said it, they're not trying to hurt this kid. They probably don't even think twice about it. It's just something they believe. It's something they were taught and they're just passing it along. But that kid, they're taking it in like a sponge. Because when you're that young, you don't have the ability to go, Hmm, I wonder if that's accurate. Let me consider the evidence. You just absorb it. You just trust it because people around you are your whole world. They're the ones keeping you alive, teaching you how things work, and when they tell you something about how the world is or who you are. You just believe them. It's not even conscious. It's happening at a level way below your awareness so that kid hears we're not rich people and somewhere in their developing brain that becomes, people like us don't have money or they hear, don't show off, and it becomes, it's not safe to be seen or they hear you are too sensitive. And it becomes something's wrong with me. I mean, I heard that a ton when I was growing up and I definitely internalized that belief. And the interesting part is this happens over and over and over again, hundreds of times, thousands of times, different messages from parents and teachers and other kids and everywhere. And like all of it is building this framework, this structure of beliefs about who you are and how the world works. And we're not even old enough to question any of it when it happens. And then you grow up and you're like 25, 35, 45, and you're trying to start a business, or you ask for a raise or you put yourself out there in some way. And then there's that same voice in your head that's like, who do you think you are? Or that's not for people like us, or You're gonna fail anyway. And we think that that voice is us. We think that it's our thought, it's our own assessment of reality. But what if it's not? What if it's just an echo from something somebody else said when we were four years old that we've been carrying around ever since, treating it like it's truth, and that's what I mean about the garden. These seeds get planted so early in such small moments. And you don't question the seeds. You don't know that you can pull things out. You just let it all grow because the people planting them are your whole world. And so by the time you're an adult, you have this garden full of beliefs and most of them you didn't consciously choose. So here's what's interesting. Some of those plans are beautiful, nourishing might be exactly what you want growing. And some of them they might be taking up space that you need for something else or like choking up something else you're trying to grow now or they were useful once, but they don't serve you anymore. The question is are we looking at what's in our garden? Because I know I wasn't for so long, I was just going around with the beliefs and the information that was passed down to me. And I'll tell you, I started noticing this when I became an entrepreneur. I would think of something I could be doing. Launching something new, writing a sales page, making an offer, telling people about my business, and I would just freeze. I like all of a sudden the need to organize my desk or go on some random research rabbit hole would be so much more interesting. And then I would convince myself like, I need to wait until all of it is perfect, or I need to learn something else, or some other thing would come up that would feel very reasonable to not actually do the thing. And then I started looking at the pattern like, why am I doing this? I want this thing to exist. I have such a big desire for all of these creations to be out there in the world, so why do I keep stopping myself? And to get a little bit more clarity around that, I wanna tell you a story about a tree. There's this practiced in Japan called Bonsai, where you take a tree that would naturally grow to 50 feet tall. And you keep it small, sometimes just a foot tall, by carefully shaping it from the time that it's a small little seed and you bend the branches with wire, you trim the roots, you keep it in a small pot, and the tree adapts it, believes this is how big it can be. Its entire structure Reorganizes. Around the constraints that you're giving it. So here's the interesting part. If you take that bonsai tree and then you plant it in open ground, it doesn't just shoo up to 50 feet. It stays small sometimes for years because its root system, its branch structure, its entire growth pattern was shaped by those early constraints. Those constraints aren't there anymore, but the tree still grows like they are. That's what happens with our beliefs. They're wiring, they're becoming how you see the world. And then you grow up and you wanna start a business and you wanna grow and you want to expand, but your root system says this is how big you are allowed to be. And you might not even realize it's there. I know I for sure did not. So I started paying attention to what I was thinking before I would shut down trying to do something new. And it was always this version of if I put myself out there and people don't want it, it means that. I'm not good enough. It means I was wrong. It means I failed. And then underneath that, there was this deeper thing of like, failure is dangerous. Failure means something terrible about who I am. Where did I learn those things? Where did I learn that? So I sat with it. And I started remembering things like when I'd bring home a test in middle school and the response I would get would be tied to the grade that I had a good grade meant praise and celebration and warmth, and then a bad grade meant disappointment and tension and lectures. You know about not trying hard enough. It was just normal stuff that most kids experience. But what I learned was your worth is determined by your performance and success equals love and safety, and failure equals something like bad, and that became this root system in my garden. This belief, I didn't even know that I had quietly influencing everything, and that makes it really hard to take risks. It makes it scary to try new things. Every potential failure feels like a referendum on my entire worth as a person. So no wonder I kept freezing. And the thing is, the people who taught me that they were doing their best, they probably got taught the same thing by their parents, my grandparents. So it's so not about blame, but now I'm an adult and I can go and look. At my garden and say, okay, you've been here for a long time, but are you actually helping me? Are you serving what I'm trying to grow now? And the answer to a lot of the, the things that were growing in my garden was no. And so I got to decide what do I want to plant instead? Actually, let's try something right now. If you're in a place where you can do this safely, not driving, I want you to try this with me. Think of the one thing you keep telling yourself you can't do in your business. Just one thing. Maybe it's raising your prices or maybe it's putting yourself on video and doing a reel, or maybe it's reaching out to a new potential client or maybe it's hiring help. You got something? Now, I just want you to ask yourself out loud if you can. Where did I learn that I can't do this? Like, don't overthink it. Don't search for the perfect answer. Just ask the question and see what bubbles up. Maybe it's a specific memory, maybe it's a person's voice. Maybe it's a feeling or an image. You might even wanna close your eyes. Whatever comes up is fine. No judgment. Just notice it. Interesting, right, because usually when we ask that question, we realize there is a source. It's not just objective reality. It's something we learned somewhere from someone, and that is actually really good news because if it's learned. That means it is not permanent. It is not who you are. It is just a belief that got planted. And if it's been learned, then it can a hundred percent be unlearned and you can learn something new. Okay, here's another way to think about it. So I'm old enough to remember, when there was only just FM radio stations, well, FM and AM radio stations, and that's what you would listen to in your car. Sometimes you would just get in the car and the radio station would just be on because that's what was on when you. Turned the car off, so it just automatically came on and there would be the same station playing and you wouldn't even notice it on anymore. It'd just kind of be background noise. It's still affecting you. You still hear it in the background, you know, you might hear the commercials or the DJ talking, but you're just not really listening. And that's a lot like what our beliefs are too. They can be in the background. And we're not even conscious of it. It's like out of our awareness and a lot of us are listening to the same stations that we were tuned into when we were five or seven or 10, and we just don't realize we can change the channel. I was listening to the You are Not Enough Station for so long, or what will people think? Station, that's a classic or like there's never enough, there's so many stations that can just be playing in the background, shaping how we see ourselves and what we think is possible. But the amazing part is once you notice you're listening to a station, once you can like actually tune into what is playing, you can reach over and change it. It's like, oh, this station's not serving me anymore. What if I tuned it into something different you're now choosing what you are listening to. Because for so long I thought that my thoughts were facts, reality, the truth about the world, and they're not. They're just a station that I was tuning into. I just wasn't noticing what was playing. So why does this matter so much for your business, for your entrepreneurial journey? Because building something, creating something, growing something requires you to stretch beyond what's comfortable, beyond what you've done before, beyond. Who you've been, and every time you try to stretch, you're going to bump up against your beliefs. When you try to raise your prices, you'll bump into your beliefs about money and worth. When you try to market yourself, you'll bump into your beliefs about visibility and safety. When you try to hire help, you'll bump into your beliefs about control and trust and what it means to work hard. Entrepreneurship doesn't create these beliefs. They were already there growing in our garden, playing quietly on our radio, but this journey. Of being an entrepreneur. It brings them into the light. It makes them visible. It puts us in situations where we cannot ignore them anymore. And that can feel hard. It can feel like, why is this so difficult for me? Why can't I just do the thing that I see so and so doing. And I do wanna say that it is hard for everyone, whether they're posting some fabulous reel about their fabulous life or not. Every single entrepreneur is bumping up against their inherited beliefs. So it's not something unique to me. It's not something unique to just a handful of other people. We are not broken or behind or messed up. This is just part of the process and I actually think it's a gift. I am so grateful to be on this journey because now I get to see what's been there all along. Now I can look at those beliefs and consciously decide like, do I wanna keep doing this? Is this serving me? Is this valuable to pay attention to? So most of the beliefs that were running my life I inherited when I was too young to choose them. But I'm so thankful that I'm not young anymore I get to now have say over what's in my garden and I get to decide. What I want growing there and I get to notice what station is playing and I get to change the channel if I want, And that is the real work of building a business. Really, it's, it's building a life you actually want that you look forward to waking up to every single day. When I lay my head at night on my pillow, I'm so freaking grateful. Like, I'm so freaking grateful for this journey and where it has led me and what I have learned and how I feel. I feel more alive today than I have ever felt in my entire life. I feel more creative and I have more capacity for the things that come up for me, like I have more ability to. Be in a place where I'm not just reacting to everything that comes up. Instead, I'm intentional about my life and it's, it's so different from where I was five years ago, five short years ago. I. And I think one of the biggest misconceptions out there about being an entrepreneur is that it's about learning strategies and tactics, but it's not. That's such a small piece of the puzzle. It's absolutely dominated by becoming aware of your beliefs and shifting your beliefs because your beliefs shape everything you do. It's such a huge, huge part of it. So here's what I want to invite you into this week. Not changing anything yet, not fixing anything, but just noticing. Noticing when you're about to do something in your business. Like send an email or make an offer or post something, whatever it is, and you hesitate and just pause for a second and ask yourself. What am I thinking right now? What am I afraid will happen? And then get curious why, and then ask why again. Then ask, where did I learn that you might not have an answer right away, and that's okay. Or you might notice an exact example of when someone told you, you can't do this thing, you can't charge that much. You can't post about that. You can't hire someone. You can't take that risk and just notice it and wonder, is it actually valuable for me to continue believing that because I want you to know. You are the person who gets to choose what is valuable to believe, and we didn't decide what got planted. That part isn't our fault, but it is our responsibility now to plant what is actually valuable. And it's not something to do all at once. It's not something to do overnight, but slowly intentionally, beliefs can shift one at a time, I don't actually believe it's very valuable to get all introspective about it. Like, oh, well this one time this happened to me. It's because of this thing my aunt said for so long and blah, blah, blah. Like I think it's really valuable to notice that it's a belief that someone else gave you, but I don't think it's valuable to go further than that intellectually and like get so introspective on it keep thinking about it over and over again. Analyzing your own patterns. I don't see the value in that. I also don't see the value in labels. Labels, like I am an anxious person because then we're putting ourselves in this position where we're trying to analyze the crap out of ourselves and it's not beneficial. What I think is more beneficial is to start noticing evidence of the beliefs that you actually want to hold onto, that you actually want. So if you wanna believe that you're somebody who can go to your social media and post something promoting your skills and what you know you can do. Then look at the evidence that you've posted on social media in the past, because I bet you you have and see how you actually can because you already have done it, and lean into the energy of that. And that's how we start actually shifting our beliefs. It can't only be done in the mind. You have to actually experience and lean into the experience of more of what you want to believe in It has to be this full feeling of I know I can do this thing because here is the evidence that I have already done something like it in the past. Trying to shift it only in the mind, like for example, using just affirmations. Like I know I can show up on social media without actually leaning into the experience of proving that you can. Is like trying to learn how to drive a car by only ever reading how to drive a car. Reading about the signals and the stop signs and this and that will give you knowledge, but you won't actually know how to drive a car until you get in the car and start doing it and experience what it's like. You still have to have the experience of the belief you want. So look for the evidence that the thing you want actually already exists in your life. Be grateful for the way it has already shown up in your life. Acknowledge it, because a lot of the time we are already doing the thing that we want to believe that we can do in some capacity. If you're in a position where you wanna create a digital product, look to see where you've already taught somebody something. If you're in a position in your business where you want to hire help and you want to believe that you can be fully supported by a new member coming in, that is a belief you're looking to have. Then look and see where you're already supported in your life. That might be through a housekeeping service, and they come and they support you, and they help you free up some time. That you can then devote to something else, lean into the feeling of that, how good it feels to be supported. Alright. If you're listening to this and you're like, huh, that makes a lot of sense. Well, that's what this whole podcast is gonna be about. Taking you into little micro steps that you can take to shifting your beliefs so that you can actually do hard things. So stay tuned for the next episodes. And if you found value in this podcast episode, give it a five star rating. On Spotify or Apple because I'm on a mission to spread this knowledge and this wisdom and to get it out to people that could really use this. alright, that is it for now. Until next time. Bye.