Did you know? You are EXACTLY where you need to be to learn what you need to learn in order to reach your dream! Yes, the road towards our goals may be filled with challenging obstacles. However, let’s take comfort in knowing that the dark and winding roads are also necessary in order to become who we want to be. THIS is where we tap into our fullest potential.
Join us in today’s episode as Kacia Fitzgerald shares with us her secret to becoming the best version of YOU. Kacia is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster who’s on a mission to help women unapologetically share their voice and message with the world. She emphasizes that we should always look forward and chase our dreams, but we must not forget that it’s in the journey where the growth and the skills develop to attain your dream. Listen to this episode and become the person you need to be to have what you want to have!
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I am joined by a very special guest, Kacia Fitzgerald. She is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, speaker and podcaster who’s on a mission to help women unapologetically share their voice and message with the world. She is the host of the top-rated podcast, EmpowerHER, with over 4 million downloads in the first 3 years.
She has a global community of 2,600 personal growth-obsessed women. She is the Founder of two podcast courses that help women launch or grow their podcasts and the host of an in-person women empowerment event. She found that what’s often holding women back is the thoughts they think about who they are and what they’re capable of.
She takes her knowledge from working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, paired with her high energy, bubbly personality and a “Come with me. Let’s figure this out together” approach to light a fire under their booty and get them out of their way and go. It couldn’t be more aligned with the work that I am called to and know that I’m here to do in the world. Welcome, Kacia. Is there anything that you would add to that bio that maybe gives us a picture of who you are that wasn’t mentioned?
I was so excited to connect with you. I feel like we do have very similar vibes of how we want to inspire women to take action and build lives and businesses that they’re obsessed with. Often on social media, you see this carefully curated content and a bio is like this highlight reel but the truth of the matter is I’m someone who is constantly trying to figure it out as I go. I’m buckled up for the whole journey of entrepreneurship, which means sometimes having your best day and worst day where you’re crying on your bathroom floor with your mascara getting together and choking on it in your mouth in the same hour. That’s what it’s like.
I follow my intuition and do the thing that feels aligned. I’ve quit so many things, failed so many times and gotten so used to getting myself back up. I’m obsessed with the journey of this and helping women to step into this inner knowing that they’re capable. If they’re gifted this vision for their life, business, relationships, health or whatever it is that they’re working on, it’s because they can figure it out and it’s not about the hows. I’m excited to dive more into this conversation.
I always say entrepreneurship, like life, is the highest highs and the lowest lows. That’s the human experience. If we want to enjoy the highs, we have to experience the lows. The lows are where the growth happens and where we’re learning the lessons. They aren’t always fun and comfy but that’s where we learn to expand beyond our borders and comfort zone and create the container for more. I love that you are obsessed with the mental aspect and the mindset piece. You had overcome some of your blocks. Can you tell us what that process has looked like for you?
One thing that a lot of women reading this might connect with is we are taught not to compare ourselves to other people. We cognitively know that it’s not helpful because we never know what’s going on behind closed doors and nobody’s going to have the same experience as us. One thing that I’ve had to navigate through, especially as I’m reaching for bigger goals, is that I’m not yet the person that can accomplish that goal. Part of the reason to sign up to have a goal like that is you become that person in the process.
When I’m starting something new, I have to start at the bottom and work my way back up again. I have to remind myself not to compare myself to a prior version of myself when the circumstances were different. Full transparency, I don’t struggle a lot in comparison with other people. It’s a lot more with me when I’m making these transitions and I have to start at the bottom. No matter how long you’ve been in this space, when you’re doing something for the first time, you suck at the beginning.
Every single person that you see that is rocking on stage, public speaking, podcasting, writing or whatever it is, at some point, was a sucky beginner. You can’t compare your beginning with their middle or farther in their journey.
Even if it's a good change, change still requires grief of what we already knew. Change is the loss of the familiar. Click To TweetWe’re almost at six million downloads on our podcast. It’s growing like crazy, which is so cool. In my first episode, I was sweating in all the places that you didn’t even know that you could sweat. I was having the same fears that come up for everybody like, “What if nobody listens in?” The next fear of, “What if people do listen in? What are they going to think about me? What am I going to make that mean?” As humans, we’re meaning creating machines. One thing that I want women reading this to think about is what are your success criteria for yourself in this exact season? It can’t be the same as every other season.
Maybe your kids are sick or your in-laws are in town. You’re navigating grief or anxiety or it’s a major change. Even if it’s a good change, change still requires grief of what we already knew. Change is the loss of the familiar. Our bodies are adjusting to that too, which means that we also have to be compassionate with ourselves as we’re working towards big goals. I have big visions for what we want to do and not tell ourselves that just because the circumstances are different, we’re not capable. We have to be on our own team.
I like to go through life thinking about, “What are my success criteria for me to feel like I’m winning the day-to-day in this season?” If I’m in a GOMO like let’s freaking rocket and I’m feeling good, maybe those success criteria, the tiny little things that I want to do for that day, are bigger. Maybe if I’m in a season where I’m struggling mentally and having an off day, I’m walking 30 minutes and drinking half my body weight in ounces of water. I’m trying to listen to a podcast where I can borrow belief from somebody else so I don’t throw in the towel.
It’s something that I’ve had to learn to navigate. I’m in control of having this mindset that serves me no matter what season I’m in. I can quickly recalibrate because of having to struggle through it before. I had this brought to my attention when my husband lost his dad. The day before, we got a call that his cancer was back and we needed to go to Seattle. We lived in Austin, Texas, at the time. The day before, I was crushing through stuff.
I’m speaking at virtual events, creating all this content and doing all these things. I feel like I’m on top of the world, as happens in entrepreneurship sometimes. As soon as we got that call, everything was drastically different. When we got up to Seattle and I was trying to do the things that I needed to do to maintain my business while also having this priority of being there with my family, I had to remind myself in real-time. The success criteria that I had even yesterday are not applicable now.
If I have those criteria, I’m going to feel like I’m failing. I’m in a downward spiral because our brains like to look for evidence to confirm whatever our thoughts are to be true, self-confirming bias. I got to be careful about the story that I’m telling myself about this season and what I’m capable of. That’s something that’s always been in my mindset ever since I recognize that’s a big strength of my now that I can course-correct when I need to and recalibrate.
That clarity alone of knowing what your priority is and what success means to you in this season of your life is powerful. I’ve been through a few seasons. I’m processing it as you’re talking about it. I wouldn’t necessarily have taught about it or even put it into those categories or that container. I had a similar conversation with myself because it’s like, “What does success mean for you as a person and a woman?” When we’re in business, we so often are like, “Success is this dollar figure, this rank in my company, this promotion or this thing.” I went through a painful, chaotic divorce years ago.
For a long time, I was single and jamming on my business. That’s where I felt safe, comfortable and at home. This new relationship enters my life and throws everything into chaos. I had a hard time with that. This is what you said to your point about how you think about things and what you make them mean. In my mind, I’m thinking, “This is a distraction from the thing that’s important. This is messing me up because I’m moving slower or don’t have the focus or the drive-in this area because I’m over here.”
I had to have a moment with myself where I was like, “What’s important to me in this season?” It is building this relationship and exploring what’s there for the future. I’m not going to quit my business, fall apart or anything but it’s okay to shift focus in a season to fill something that is maybe a higher priority than business and money. That’s important. It’s not the only thing because when you get to the end of the day and have successes, sometimes when you get to the end of a goal, you’re like, “This didn’t give me what I wanted.”
You have to rethink, “What will give me that? What am I after? How do I want to feel?” At the end of the day, that’s relationships, your children, friends, spouse, significant other or parents. You had that moment of clarity where you lost someone close to you and important to you. It takes your focus away from the business and that’s okay. That’s a good thing. If you beat yourself up mentally, you’re not fully on the other thing that you’re meant to focus on and be there for your husband and for your family to process through this grief and walk that season out.
It’s such a powerful message, especially for women. You’re right where you’re supposed to be all the time, no matter what, even if it doesn’t feel like it. If you’re in pain and you feel stuck, there’s something there to learn. You’re going to get some codes for your mission in the future. Your future self needs that experience to move on into the future.
It’s like Steve Jobs’ quote that says, “You can’t connect the dots until you’re looking backward where you were leading into.” It’s the character, grit and resourcefulness that you learn it’s hard when you need those skills. You can’t learn that when it’s rainbows, butterflies and happy little unicorns and you’re crushing it all. You need those skills to get where you want to go but you also need to go through those seasons of contrast so that when you do get where you want to go, you get to feel the deep sense of pride of knowing that you earned it. You had to become a different person to accomplish it. Often, we set these goals and a lot of times, we don’t even know why we set these goals.
We think that we should have these goals. We assume that we’re going to know the feeling that we’re going to get when we accomplish those. It is what we want or what other people are going to think about us if we accomplish those goals. What they’re going to make it mean about who we are as humans, which is why I’m always a huge proponent of making sure that the process in pursuit of getting to those goals is fulfilling for you. You’re stopping along the way to give yourself opportunities and feel proud and recognize your growth. I don’t want you to get where you wanted to go. Look around wherever you want to go and be like, “This wasn’t worth it.”
You look back at the path that you took towards getting there and you’re like, “My relationships were put on the back burner. I wasn’t present where my feet are. I didn’t show up for these things. I burned the candle at both ends. I’m not fulfilled by this.” What might happen then is you throw in the towel. If you had focused a little bit more on the process and your alignment in pursuit of the goals, you’d have gotten to where you wanted to go.
You look back at the past and you’re like, “If I can do that, I wonder what else I can do.” It’s not just about you. It’s about the other women out there who need to see someone in your exact circumstances or situation and see what’s possible for them. It’s worth it to navigate through those seasons where it feels like you’re pushing a mantra truck tire up a hill and you’re like, “Is this ever going to work out?” You got to have that grit built-in so you can handle business curveballs but more importantly, life curveballs.
There’s no other way around it. I’m a parent to three kids. I tell them all the time, “There’s one way in life to build confidence and that’s to have a problem. You either persevere through the problems because we can’t always change things about our circumstances or get resourceful and solve your problem.”
You’re there to learn resilience and perseverance or solve that problem. At the end of the day, we’re all here to solve problems for the world, society and other people. If we never have any problems, we never have to flex our muscles to be able to develop the grit to sustain it through our calling and what we have to do to learn the keys that we need to give to others.
If we make it mean, “This hurt and it’s hard equals it’s bad.” That’s not the way that you think about hardship and struggle. This is a key entrepreneurial skill. You think about it like, “Here’s my opportunity to learn something, set a boundary, learn to honor myself and not betray myself.” That was a big one for me in business.
We struggle because there's a big distance between where we are and where we want to go. Click To TweetWe talked about the network marketing space. My team has heard me say 1,000 times that network marketing is a personal development program with a paycheck attached. It will break wide open all of your dysfunctional patterns of relating. That’s not just network marketing. It’s entrepreneurship as a wholesale concept. Whether it’s people-pleasing, workaholism, hustling for your worth, beliefs about how people are or you are worthy of influence, money or whatever, it will break all that wide open. The process is the point. If you miss that and skip over it to get to the goal, you’re missing what you’re there for.
The other thing that is so critical to point out is that when you have a goal and have something that you want, there’s a reason why you want that. It’s because of how you think it’s going to make you feel but you have total control over how you feel. You can feel that and deal with all the things blocking you from feeling that in this moment. It will hasten the arrival or the manifestation of that goal in your life.
Sometimes it’s hard for people in entrepreneurship, network marketing and people that have big goals. It’s easy, especially if you’re very ambitious, to look at this big macro vision of where you want to go and this big goal feels very unattainable. We live in this instant gratification society like Amazon Prime, so we celebrate the quicker that we get to some arbitrary goal.
We struggle because there’s a big distance between where we are and where we want to go. We don’t consciously label that space as something that serves us. We don’t understand the need for the distance between where you are and where you want to go. We label it as overwhelming or intimidating. We start looking around at other people thinking that they have something that we don’t.
What’s so interesting is I help a lot of podcasters in the space and do a group call with a bunch of podcasters that want to grow, scale and monetize. I asked them, “How many of you would love to have 1 million downloads on your podcast in 1 month?” The chat goes wild. They’re like, “I love that.” I was like, “That’s interesting. For the sake of reference, my podcast, EmpowerHER, gets about 250,000 downloads in 1 month.”
I said to them, “I do want to get to the point that it’s making that amount of impact for my show, for example, but I don’t want that yet.” The keyword is yet. It’s figuring out how to, in your mind, understand the need for that space between where you are and where you want to go because that’s your qualification period. When you get where you want to go, you are qualified to handle it. What happens is we look at the shiny thing like, “If I had this many people listening to my podcast, that could drive into this much impact and income, whatever we make that mean.”
I also know that with any type of goal, there are also problems associated with that goal. Not in a negative way, just in a very honest way like, “Can I handle the amount of feedback that I’m going to get that won’t also be positive with one million downloads a month?” I can handle the negative feedback that might come with 250,000 downloads a month because not everybody’s going to side with you but can I get a handle as a person on that type of feedback? To be honest, not yet.
Am I learning in real-time? Yeah. I can maintain it when it gets there. I think about the backend of my business. I can’t give people the type of support and the connective tissue that I want to give them when they listen to the show or want to join my programs because I don’t have the backend of my business set up to maintain that amount of people going in. I don’t say this to scare people trying to stay comfortable, even though, as humans, we’re wired to want to stay in our familiar thought patterns and our comfort zone.
It’s to remind you that where you are, to your point, Amy, is exactly where you need to be to learn what you need to learn. If you got it quickly, not only could you not maintain it but you would be robbing yourself of all the confidence building along the way and the deep pride that you want to have knowing that you earned it. Anything that’s handed to you and is easy robs you of pride and the fulfillment that you’re craving as a person if you’re someone reading this episode who has big goals and visions for your life.
How many of the goals that women set are in an effort to prove to the world that they’re worthy? It’s such a hall of mirrors because when you get to the goal and you realize, “I still feel unworthy,” speaking from experience, that’s the almost ultimate failure. Tony Robbins says, “Success without fulfillment is the ultimate failure.” If what you want is to feel worthy and you think hitting this benchmark is going to give you the feeling of worthiness, I’m here to tell you it won’t. You have to do that work internally. The process is how you build that muscle, change your mind and develop strength and muscles.
Honestly, I’ve had to sit more with failure and think, “Who am I when I’m not producing a result? Who am I when I’m changing a diaper or feeding kids lunch?” Nobody sees what I’m doing and pays me for what I’m doing. “Who am I when I’m sick or tired or I can’t perform?” That place right there, although those aren’t comfortable or fun questions to ask and sit with, that’s where you develop the grit that you are worthy of no matter what, no matter what your bank account number is, how many people download your podcasts or how many people tune in or tell you.
The most toxic thing for anyone in leadership, especially women, is when they’re taking that question of, “Am I good enough? Do I have what it takes? Am I worthy,” to their calling. It’s not about the people you’re there to help. It’s about you. You’re not there to serve. You’re there to be served. That is so toxic because people can always feel your energy and intent. It’s a negative feedback loop.
When you’re trying to get something to tell you that you’re worthy and it feels like your business or the people that you’re leading feel that you’re trying to get something from them, they resist it. You’re in conflict and feel horrible. You’re enforcing the false belief. Spoiler alert, everybody’s worthy, whether you know it or believe it or not. You’re a child of God made and created on purpose. Every human is worthy. It doesn’t matter. You can do it cognitively. Until you know it, you’re not going to be ultimately successful in those positions when you reach those goals. You can’t be convinced of your worth from the outside.
Energetically for yourself to love, you’re asking yourself, “How many things that I’m doing to get it done,” versus doing to do it. Your experience of showing up in a very authentic way that feels aligned for you, not only will other people recognize that but people can see right through in authenticity. It feels better. You find that it then becomes not a quantity problem but a quality problem of what is the depth of connection. There’s this obsession with growth, which is so interesting. I do like helping women grow as people and in their businesses. The obsession with growth needs to be a question of, “How can I have more depth of connection with the people in my community?”
Help some women in the podcasting and the business space where it’s like, “If I have more followers, I’m going to have so and so.” If you nurture the people that you have and make sure that they know that they are appreciated and loved genuinely by you, that goes so much further than if you’re like, “Let me try and go viral. Let me focus on all these vanity metrics.” Does that feel good? Do you feel like you’re in alignment? I don’t know about you but when it doesn’t feel in alignment for me and I start to feel that resistance, I know.
Other people can feel it because there are so many people out there doing this like, “What’s your competitive advantage?” Keep it real. Instead of trying to act so polished and hide the things that you perceive as flaws or weaknesses, you say, “Let me pull back the curtain and have more of this narrative with my community and the people that I want to serve. Come with me. I’m going to be real with you because I get it. I truly deeply care about helping you.” People can tell. The most effective sales strategy is the no sell-sell, honestly like, “I care and want to help you. I’m in this with you.”
I have a long background in corporate sales training, sales and marketing, sales management and curriculum development for sales training. There’s all this crap out there about closing, overcoming objections and all the basic manipulations and verbal gymnastics to convince or get someone to buy from you. None of that nonsense is necessary when you truly show up. You know who you are and what you have to offer. You want to serve people. You explain to them how you can help them and they buy from you. It’s that simple.
You talked about growth. There are two ways to look at growth. You could look at the growth of your numbers, your metrics, the key performance indicators or your character. I feel like this is true for everybody but character development is what will create that deep resonance with your audience where they know that you’re not coming to them to be like, “Buy my thing so that I can pay my mortgage, hit this rank, get this award or feel good about myself.”
At the root of entrepreneurship is this beautiful opportunity to build confidence in yourself. Click To TweetIt’s like, “I have this product and it will help your life. Take it or leave it. I want you to have it because I want you to be served by it. If it’s not a fit, it’s not a fit.” You go from pursuit to attraction when you develop the internal calibration, your character and true motivation to serve. It’s a buzzword and all over the places showing up to serve but are you? What’s inside of you?
I feel like we come back to this central topic here of the process being the point. You get that character building through the process. One of the questions I have for you is something I hear a lot as a coach. I know that I’m worthy but I don’t feel worthy. It’s up here but it’s not like here. Can you talk a little bit about your process of how to get it from my head to the heart?
I do think at the root of entrepreneurship is this beautiful opportunity to build confidence in yourself. You led into the confidence of being problem-solving but I think of it even in a more simplistic manner of, if confidence is a bucket and every single time that you show up and keep a promise to yourself to do the thing that feels aligned for you or do the thing that you said that you’re going to do, it’s like you’re putting a deposit into your bucket. It doesn’t have to be about production and your productivity is your worth. It’s about keeping promises of how you want to show up in certain situations.
For example, l think of how there are certain habits in my day that I can stick something on that’s going to get me closer to where I am going to be? It’s going to get me closer to the person that I want to be. Every morning when I’m brushing my teeth, I prime my brain to think about what I’m excited about for the day.
As humans and there’s a lot of talk about this in psychology, especially in positive psychology, you’re not responsible for your first thought because you get to have that one for free. You woke up and you’re like, “This is sucky. I didn’t sleep well. My toddler is doing whatever.” That’s a freebie. You can think whatever you want to think, especially a woman with your body image. That first thought is free.
The second one, you’re taking radical responsibility for that. It’s the type of person and how you want to show up, what type of energy and what type of onus you want to bring. For example, when I’m brushing my teeth, I’m priming my brain to think, “What am I excited about? How do I want to show up for the day and get myself into that state?” I’m always brushing my teeth. My husband used to be a dentist, so we are about the full Sonicare rotation.
We do not hit the button early. We do the full thing. It gives me some time to do this. I’m doing this to build up my confidence and belief in my ability to figure things out and navigate whatever life throws at me. Every single day during that time, I’m not looking at my phone or doing anything. I’m saying, “What am I proud of myself for?”
It can never be tied to an action that I took that society would clap for. I was like, “You will accomplish that. You did that website copy. Good for you.” Instead for me, I struggle with concentrating on things that are boring to me. I might have ADHD but I struggle with that. If I’m excited about it, I can get into the zone. For me sitting down to do website copy, honestly, feels like I’m taking a fork and shoving it into my eyeball.
When I’m telling myself that I’m proud, I’m like, “I’m proud of you for raising the necessity to do something that needed to get done so that you could make the impact that you want to make. You focused, stayed in the zone and proved to yourself that you are capable of focusing on something like that for two hours. Good for you.” I then go on to the next thing. I’m taking something so small.
Honestly, sometimes we can get overwhelmed when we hear people talk about how their morning routine is to journal, take a five-minute cold shower, go work out, meditate and do their gratitude lists. I don’t even know how that’s possible. I’m not a mom but thinking of moms with young kids, “How do you do that?” I try and take things down to a very simplistic way of focusing on the root. Let me focus on building confidence in myself. If I believe in myself and believe that I’m worthy, I’m going to feel it physically.
For the people that are still in that cognitive like, “I want to say that I’m worthy because it sounds good but I don’t believe it.” Sometimes we do need this proof that we can look at it like, “I am the type of person who does the thing that I said that I’m going to do.” It could be drinking your water, having a tough conversation with someone or being kinder in this situation.
It can be that type of thing to give yourself some tactical proof. There are a lot of people that want to come from a heart-centered place and want to feel it in their body but they’re struggling to make that connection. I like to think about what tactically I can also do to give myself those little dopamine hits and start moving in the right direction.
I wrote three things down that I wanted to highlight for the audience. The first thing is I feel like you probably have read it because you’re speaking the language but it’s James Clear’s Atomic Habits. I’m an obsessed reader but that’s one of those books that I go back to over and over again. It changed the way that I think, my mindset and how I show up for my business and my life. He talks about a 1% improvement. When you get to the end of the day and you’re like, “I was busy all day and I did nothing.” Is that true? Did you move 1% towards your goal?
You can focus on that and celebrate it. Let that get bigger and take center stage rather than focusing on what you didn’t do right and anchoring that feeling. The other thing and this is so important for women to hear and you said it but I’m going to repeat it, is in a relationship, how is trust built? Trust doesn’t show up. Trust is built by observing somebody’s character and behavior every day, day in and day out, over and over and again, until you know that that person is trustworthy. It’s no different than your relationship with yourself.
If you can’t trust yourself, other people can’t trust you but you’re not going to be able to trust anybody else either. You get the Lone Ranger syndrome where you’re out there wondering why you’re so lonely and unfulfilled. It’s because you have to build those bonds with other people but it starts with building them with yourself. How you build trust with yourself is you do what you say you’re going to do.
You don’t make promises to yourself and betray yourself. When you set a boundary, you hold the boundary and build trust little by little so you can connect those 2 concepts of the 1% increase. I’m a recovering co-dependent and people pleaser. I will look at that and be like, “Did I get 1% better with stepping and holding boundaries and keeping promises to myself? Did I get 1% better at saying no when it’s honestly a no in my heart?” Maybe I did say yes, did something I didn’t want to do or did a little people-pleasing but was there any evidence at all that I made 1% progress on who I want to be and how I want to show up?
I love thinking about that concept, especially since so many women can probably connect with having people-pleasing tendencies and wanting to wear this badge of honor and wanting to say like, “I can do it. Take it on because we want to make everybody else happy.” It’s interesting because I like to reframe this concept of asking for help, especially for people that struggle with people-pleasing. We all know how good it feels to help somebody else.
If you’re telling yourself the story of, “I don’t want to ask my sister, friend or mother-in-law for help with the kids and my business because I don’t want to ‘burden them,'” that’s the narrative that so many people say but to that, I say, “Flip it around. Are you robbing your mother-in-law, sister or friend of the opportunity to get the fulfillment that you get from helping someone else if you don’t let them help you?”
Where you are is exactly where you need to be to learn what you need to learn. Click To TweetWhen you’re carrying all that weight on your shoulder like, “Look at me. I’m superwoman,” I’m not inspired by Superwoman. I don’t want to have that life where you constantly are saying yes to everything else and hanging on by a thread. The people that matter to you are put on the back burner because you’re saying yes to someone in your job that you would be replaced if you decided to quit.
I had a conversation with my mother. She said, “Don’t get me any present.” I said, “It’s too late. The kids and I already got your present.” She’s like, “I don’t need anything. Don’t get me anything.” I said, “It’s not about you needing anything. It’s about the joy we get in giving to you and spoiling you.” Get with the program because this is happening.
That’s a wonderful way to reframe your mindset around not asking for help and not accepting help. People feel the most fulfilled when they’re able to show up for you. That’s how you build trust too. You have to let somebody show up for you before you can build the trust. It’s not just about whether they show up or not. Are you letting them show up for you?
You mentioned something else that is so powerful and critical for women to know. It was tucked in what you were saying around some other things but you talked about how much you hate writing web copy and how you have difficulty showing up for tasks that are boring for you. There is this perception and all the talk about alignment, manifestation and a healthy body following your bliss. I run into a lot of times with coaching, especially in business coaching. It’s like, “That doesn’t feel good so I’m not going to do it.”
I’m like, “It’s a sticky wicket because it’s a yes but also a no.” You do need to be in alignment with where you want to get to but there are going to be some scratchy, uncomfortable and boring things that you’re going to have to do on the road. I would love it, especially with your generation, because that’s the self-sabotage de jure. It’s like, “That doesn’t feel good. That’s out of alignment. I’m going to sit here and manifest.” “Get yourself into emotional alignment with your desire but you have to do the work, which is sometimes not fun. Can you not run with it?”
There’s this entitlement feeling of like, “I should only get to do the things that feel right for me.” People start a business and they want to be able to outsource everything that they don’t like straight out the gates. Full transparency, I can outsource a lot of stuff that I’m not good at this stage but a prior version of me was not in the financial place to do that. It is a lot important if you want to be an entrepreneur to understand how to do the things that you’re outsourcing. It’s taking this responsibility for the things that bug us in the world or we don’t think we are being represented the way that we want them to. It’s our job to be the representation of it.
I take the weight on my shoulders of sometimes showing entrepreneurship is not sexy, despite all these people that are showing themselves in their bikinis with their laptops. We know you can’t see your screen when it’s sunny. You’re not working on the beach. We all know that. It bothers me so much because, with any goal, there are problems associated with the goal.
You have to pick the problems that you want more. I’ll pick the problems of having to navigate, sitting down and doing some of these things because I need to learn this or be written in my voice. I need to do that because the other problem alternative was sitting in my corporate job that, on paper, made sense. I felt so unfulfilled and had to live by somebody else’s standards of what success was.
I had to sit at my desk until 5:00, so I could leave. That was soul-sucking to me. The problems mean that sometimes I have to show up when I don’t want to or when it doesn’t feel good because that’s part of the full spectrum of being an entrepreneur. You don’t just get the wins. Whenever someone’s thinking about goals for the future, I always like to challenge them to also think as much of an enthusiast. I am an enthusiastic person for life. I also want you to understand what are the problems that you’re picking with that too, because it comes together. Not in a negative way but like, “Let me take full ownership for the full spectrum of the goal.”
If you want to get healthy, that means you’re not going to be able to eat cake and drink margaritas every single night. Can you do that in moderation? I’m sure you can but it’s more so like, “Do I want the problems,” which is going to be the uncomfortable feeling that I feel when I want to go for that but I know it’s not aligned to where I want to go for me to feel confident and strong. It’s the same with entrepreneurship. Do you want the problems that when other people get off of their corporate job and can unplug and leave it at work because they don’t care about what they’re doing but you still have to work on it at night?
You then get to gift your future self the opportunity to have more flexibility and freedom. You have to do that part. Nobody gets to skip that stage despite the narrative out there, especially from my generation and people in their twenties about entrepreneurship. It seems so sexy but it’s hard too. That’s also what we’ve been even talking about. That’s why it’s so fulfilling because it is also the contrast that you get to feel the full spectrum of being a human by being in this space.
I feel that fitness analogies are always so apropos and relatable but the pain ends the pain. There’s pain associated with being out of shape and unhealthy. I do CrossFit five times a week. There’s pain associated with CrossFit, counting out what I eat and making sure that my workouts are fueled. It takes a lot of mental energy and effort but the payoff for that is a body that’s healthy. I feel confident in and good about it. Which pain do you want? Do you want the pain of discipline or the pain of regret of having the result of something that you didn’t choose?
That’s where the whole concept of choice and being intentional about what you’re choosing comes in. Simon Sinek has a book called Start with Why. I’m not sure who said this quote but he either references it or said it. “If you know the why, you can put up with anyhow.” You do need to intentionally choose your why, maybe even your what and be aligned with that. The how is something else entirely. Even in marketing, if you’re selling workouts or nutrition plans, you’re not going to sit there and be like, “You’re going to have to counter fat grams and run 1 mile.”
You sell the results and the thing that people want but in that culture of marketing to the pleasure that you’re going to get or the pain that you’re going to avoid, it’s wise to be able to consider what it’s going to cost you and what you’re going to have to do or maybe what you don’t want to do to get to the thing that you do want to have. That is so important. I love that you talked about the juxtaposition between corporate and entrepreneurship. People are like, “I want to be my own boss.”
“Do you really? I’m the one up at 2:00 AM when the webserver crashes, not my team. My team is sound asleep in their beds. I’m the one that’s figuring out how to make all the finances work and pay for all the things. If it doesn’t work, I’m the one that deals with the consequences. When somebody is angry, guess who comes? It’s not my team nor my employees. It’s on me.”
I tell my kids all the time, “A choice and consequence are two ends of the same stick. When you pick up the choice, you pick up the consequence.” If you want entrepreneurship, you’re picking up all of the burdens that go with it. If you know why you want entrepreneurship and you’re willing to take ownership and embrace the difficulty to get you where you want to go in life, it’s so powerful.
Tapping into that why, for me, it’s always, “Who else is going to benefit as a by-product? Who’s going to be negatively impacted if I don’t? How can I develop and strengthen this relationship with the future version of me, thinking about the gifts that I’m going to give her if I continue to show up? What would she be missing out when an opportunity cost lands on it?” We talk about the cost a lot. “What’s the cost to start the thing? What am I going to have to navigate to get where I want to go?”
“What are you not going to have if you don’t do it?” The impacts, fulfillment, joy, income, opportunities and choices for your family and our future, especially as entrepreneurs, we’ve got to figure out how to raise the necessity to show up and navigate through the murky crap feeling because t’s going to pay off. I like to even toggle it to this future version of me like, “What gifts am I giving her?” I even toggle back to this prior version of me, which is like, “Look at what you did for her. She’s so grateful for you and how you showed up and the opportunities that you gifted her because you navigated through the things that would have been so easy to throw in the towel on but you chose not to.”
Everybody is gifted a different vision for their life. It's our responsibility to figure out how to get out of our wing and give that back to the world. Click To TweetYou have that relationship with a past where you can feel proud of yourself. Even for women reading this, they’re maybe starting a business and it’s their first business. They don’t have like you, Amy, to track record and look back like, “I had this successful career. I did this business first and then I’m in this business. I see success. The last time I did this, it worked out, so I’ve got this confidence in my ability to figure this out.”
I have so many women that come to me that are like, “I’m scared to start a podcast and build this business.” I’m like, “I’m sorry. You birth two humans out. That sounds way harder than starting a podcast. I haven’t done that.” You’ve done something hard in the past. Anyone reading this, think back to a time when you ran into an obstacle and had no idea how you were going to figure it out. To your point, Amy, the why was strong enough that you had to figure it out and here you are on the other side, even better because of it. It’s all part of it. I love this whole conversation.
I talk to women who are like, “I don’t know about starting a business or if I can trust myself or be successful. I’m scared.” Yet, they’re working their guts out for a large multinational corporation that they’re a number in. Why can you show up for that person or entity’s dream and not your dream? Why wouldn’t you give at least as much effort to your dream?
The reason is that there’s an external force acting on you. Even with childbirth, I can say from experience that once that thing is in you, it has to come out. There would be many times during the pregnancy or birth process where I would have been like, “Kidding, I quit.” You can’t. It’s happening. I’m a Tony Robbins big fan but he says, “If you want to take the islands, burn the boats.”
There’s so much power and commitment in saying, “I’m going to find a way or make a way. This is what I’m doing and the direction I’m going.” You cut off all of the other options and do it. Why women can show up for childbirth is because they’re forced to. That’s why women or men even can show up for a corporate job and meet all over their criteria because there’s this external force.
One of the keys to entrepreneurship is to learn to exert that force internally from the inside out. To do that, you have to connect with your why, your future self and what this is going to afford you for the future. I love this conversation too. I am so pleased, refreshed and uplifted by having been able to have it with you. Is there anything else that you feel you need to add?
It’s amazing how you’re showing up with such a transparent lens to your community. For women that are reading this, remind yourself that this imperfect version of you that’s trying to figure it out and what you’re navigating that somebody does need to hear it from you. You can look at comparing yourself to another person and think that they’re more qualified or farther along. I want to learn from someone that gets me and feels like they understand me.
To you that are maybe an introvert reading, you’re telling yourself this narrative of why you can’t do this because this other person is a different personality. No, you are going to connect with the people that you’re supposed to connect with. You have to be more open. Get out of your way and put yourself out there. What a beautiful gift it is to give to yourself the fulfillment, impact, income and all the things but also to the world. Everybody is gifted a different vision for their life. It’s our responsibility to figure out how to get out of our wing and give that back to the world. It’s our job here.
You don’t have this idea in your heart for you to push it to the side. Your sister, your mom and the other woman that your kid plays baseball with don’t have the same vision. They’re not going to understand you. Maybe they don’t even believe in you because they can only give their advice from their experience. Take that radical responsibility and ask yourself, “What can I do in the next 24 hours to move the needle forward?” Get that dopamine hit and go because you’re capable and worthy.
I’m guessing you’re an extrovert. I’m an introvert. I have seen that in past versions of myself. I’ve seen that as a major drawback in sales and marketing, especially on social media, because I like to be private. That’s more my comfort zone. The beauty of that is that we get to surround ourselves with people that are different than us, people that are stronger in areas where we might be weaker or people who are gifted in areas where we may be aren’t. That’s the beauty of community.
The other thing that I would say to add to what you said is also to embrace who you are and how you’re made to be. Surround yourself with people that are the puzzle pieces that fit into the areas that are maybe missing or empty where you might be strong and collaborate with people where you might be weak. I love hanging out with extroverts. I like to talk to people but I’m not going to walk up. That’s not my personality but when I’m with an extroverted friend, they get the conversation started and I have something to add. That’s the beauty of collaboration. You’re not meant to do this alone.
I feel that an epidemic is isolation in entrepreneurship. You have what it takes but you also don’t have what it takes and that’s okay because other people do. That’s the beauty of being able to combine and collaborate. Can you tell us how our audience can get ahold of you? Do you have anything coming up that we can participate in?
Thank you so much. This has been so much fun. My favorite social media platform is Instagram. It’s @Kacia.Fitzgerald. My podcast is called EmpowerHER. It’s a Monday, Thursday podcast. If you happen to be someone who wants to start a podcast or grow scale and monetize an existing podcast, I have a lot of podcasting programs.
We’re hosting our first live event, which is an empowerment event for women. We’ve got killer keynote speakers. It’s going to be 500 women from all across the country in Phoenix, Arizona, on October 21st, 22nd and 23rd, 2022. That’s what we’re working on. I’m so happy we’ve connected. Thank you so much for this beautiful conversation. I’m so happy to know you.
Thank you. That’s it for this episode. Thanks so much for reading. We’ll see you at the next one.
Kacia is a multi-passionate entrepreneur, speaker, and podcaster who’s on a mission to help women unapologetically share their voice & message with the world.
She is the host of the top rated podcast EmpowerHER with over 4 million downloads the first 3 years, has a global community of 2.6K personal growth obsessed women, founder of two podcast courses that help women launch or grow their own podcasts, and the host of in person women empowerment events.
She’s found that what’s often holding women back is the thoughts that they think about who they are & what they are capable of so she takes her knowledge from working with hundreds of entrepreneurs over the years, paired with her high energy bubbly personality and a “Come with me, let’s figure this out together” approach to light a fire under their booty to get out of their own way and go.
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