Natalie Franke, GUTSY: Learning to Live with Bold, Brave, and Boundless Courage
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[1:03]Natalie Frank is the author of Gatsie, learning to live with bold, brave and boundless
[1:08]courage.
[1:09]She is an author, community builder, neuroscience nerd, and mama bear for small businesses.
[1:14]As the host of the independent business podcast, the chief evangelist at Honey Book and
[1:18]author of Gatsie, she leads tens of thousands of independent business owners while fostering
[1:22]a spirit of community over competition around the world.
[1:26]Welcome Natalie.
[1:27]Thank you so much for coming on momstone.
[1:28]Have time to read books to discuss Gatsie learning to live with bold, brave and boundless
[1:33]courage.
[1:34]Thank you for having me.
[1:35]I'm so excited to be here.
[1:36]My pleasure.
[1:37]Tell everybody the story of this book.
[1:39]Why write the book?
[1:41]Why be Gatsie?
[1:42]What is the importance of being Gatsie?
[1:44]Yes.
[1:45]Okay.
[1:46]So the book was truly inspired by the work that I've done over the last decade of my life
[1:50]with small business owners.
[1:52]That was the inception of the inspiration because I, you know, like everyone at the beginning
[1:57]of 2020 thought it was going to be my year.
[1:59]Okay.
[2:00]So I know that sentiment can be shared for a lot of us and I chose a word for the year
[2:05]as one does.
[2:06]My word was home.
[2:07]Didn't know that that was a foreshadowing of the quarantine to come.
[2:11]You may have caused that whole thing to happen.
[2:13]I know.
[2:14]And if you ask some friends of mine, they would claim it is all my fears.
[2:17]What's your word for next year?
[2:18]I know.
[2:19]I stopped doing it.
[2:20]Okay.
[2:21]Not a story for the name.
[2:22]I had to stop because I realized perhaps my words have even more power than I realized.
[2:25]Yeah.
[2:26]It just became a little bit too concerning.
[2:27]So anyway, I chose the word home.
[2:29]I sold our house to be moved into a suburban.
[2:32]I mean, truly like my husband, my ten-month-old and I put art along things into a suburban.
[2:37]And at the end of 2019, early 2020, we started driving across the country to meet with
[2:42]our community of small business owners.
[2:43]And so I've been supporting these business owners for several years.
[2:45]We had a community called the Rise and Tides Society going city to city and there were
[2:49]meetups of hundreds of business owners in each of these cities talking with people, asking
[2:53]them about, you know, what would this year look like for them in their business?
[2:56]What were their goals?
[2:57]What were they going after?
[2:58]They started it based on your own photography business.
[3:00]Yes.
[3:01]Yes.
[3:02]So I'm a small business owner by trade.
[3:03]And now, you know, in another season of life, I'm still just a big mama bear for small
[3:07]business.
[3:08]But yes, that was the origin of kind of why that community in particular for me.
[3:11]And so we're driving city to city, rinse and repeat, hosting these meetups, talking to
[3:16]people.
[3:17]I mean, I truly sat with over 2,000 people over the course of three months.
[3:21]We had to stop March 5th, 2020 for obvious reasons.
[3:25]But when all the way around the United States, I lived near D.C.
[3:28]and we drove all the way down to Florida doing these meetups around the entire peninsula
[3:32]of Florida across the United States to the coast of San Diego and then all the way up
[3:36]the California coast.
[3:38]So truly in the trenches with this community, with what many people call it, the backbone
[3:43]of America, the small business community.
[3:45]And I'm talking to them and asking them all of these questions.
[3:49]And what I started to uncover is that for so many of them, it wasn't failure that was
[3:55]holding them back from going after what they wanted.
[3:58]It wasn't that they pursued something and failed and decided they were never going to do
[4:02]it again.
[4:03]It wasn't that they didn't have the resources because these aren't entrepreneurs.
[4:06]They can figure it out.
[4:07]They know how to figure it out with no resources and they know what it's like to be underestimated.
[4:12]It wasn't that.
[4:13]I kept trying to figure out we have this room full of geniuses every week when we're stopping
[4:18]in a different city.
[4:19]I have this room full of brilliant humans, incredible ideas, amazing potential.
[4:23]Why aren't they going after these things?
[4:24]They're talking to me about after I get off the stage.
[4:27]Why is nobody going after the things they want?
[4:29]Why aren't people being gutsy in the way I know they can be?
[4:34]And it wasn't failure.
[4:35]It was fear.
[4:36]It was fear and fear in particular of what other people would think of them.
[4:41]When I started to boil it down, it came back to that.
[4:44]And so it set me on a little bit of a personal quest and the years that followed, actually
[4:49]while I was writing my first book built for long, to just get to the root of this.
[4:53]Why do we care so much about what other people think of us?
[4:55]Why has the advice that we've been given failed us?
[4:59]And what can we learn from science that can help to inform how we navigate this sort of
[5:04]self-help reality around being more courageous?
[5:07]And so gutsy was this merging of the experience of working with brilliant, incredible entrepreneurs
[5:15]that had big dreams with so many of them weren't even taking the first step from a background
[5:19]in psychology and neuroscience.
[5:20]I studied at UPenn and did my degree in visual studies, but I was on the science track
[5:24]where I studied the science of seeing, ultimately.
[5:27]So a little bit of nerdiness in there.
[5:29]And then just honestly, this desire to kind of give everyone a little kick in the pants
[5:33]after three years of going through it, recognizing that we deserve a gutsy ending, right?
[5:40]Like we deserve a moment of bold, brave and boundless courage in the future after everything
[5:46]that we've gone through.
[5:47]And so it's a little combination of those factors that inspired me to write the book.
[5:52]Amazing.
[5:53]That's wonderful.
[5:54]Well, the way you write is as if we're like having a conversation.
[5:59]It's very relatable and approachable, which is wonderful because that's the best way to
[6:03]I feel like get through to people.
[6:06]Can I just read the beginning of chapter three, remember who you are?
[6:09]In the months after my daughter, Harlow was born, I struggled.
[6:11]Heck, I'm more than struggled.
[6:13]I felt like a complete and utter failure as postpartum depression suffocated me from
[6:17]the inside out.
[6:18]It wasn't the first time I had battled with my mental health.
[6:20]However, it was the first time in a long time that it felt like the darkness was winning.
[6:26]Talk about that a little bit.
[6:27]And that time, you got through that time in your life, not because that is gutsy to make
[6:33]it through that.
[6:34]And so many people can relate to that and whether it's postpartum or other stages or
[6:38]just this sort of national depression, I feel like that we can have together.
[6:44]Yes.
[6:45]And you know, before I even get into that, I say in the book a little earlier on and part
[6:49]of what this is supporting is the assertion that each of us has a different definition
[6:54]of what it means to be gutsy, what it means to be brave.
[6:56]And I say earlier on in the book, you know, for one person, yes, it can look like these
[7:01]external measures of success, bungee jumping, doing some sort of extreme athletic event,
[7:06]getting a tattoo and being bold and brave enough to do the thing, right?
[7:10]Like there are perceptions in the world of what it means to be brave.
[7:14]But I may get an argument that for some people, the bravest thing they can do is something
[7:18]like look in the mirror and accept who they are or get out of bed in the morning that
[7:24]like that level of courage that it takes some of us to just get out of bed in the morning
[7:28]is something the world will never applaud.
[7:30]But yet, I don't want us to exclude it and exclude the significant magnitude of being
[7:37]brave enough to do those things in moments when we are struggling because they are brave,
[7:41]they are gutsy.
[7:42]So I kind of key it up with that.
[7:44]And then I share again, yes, a little bit, vulnerability from my own journey, been pretty
[7:49]open throughout my life about my health.
[7:51]I was diagnosed with a benign brain tumor in my early 20s and have struggled with
[7:56]depression and anxiety, whether it's connected or not, I will never know.
[8:01]I sometimes joke that it actually is nothing to do with it.
[8:03]It's just I'm an eldest daughter and we sort of are born that way.
[8:07]But, you know, how many younger siblings do you have?
[8:09]Just one, but one's enough.
[8:10]Let me tell you, younger brother, younger sister, a younger sister and then three younger
[8:15]cousins.
[8:16]So it's kind of, I was the oldest grandchild old child that, you know, but yeah, I share
[8:21]openly over the years and I have about my own struggles with physical health, mental
[8:26]health, all of that, you know, and after Harlow was born, I, even with the tools that
[8:31]I had spent my life, because in the fireworks, the tools I've gained over the years of my
[8:35]life of going through these things, you know, the coping mechanisms, the awesome mental
[8:39]health professionals that I've worked with, all of that still found myself, I think in
[8:43]a really, really dark place.
[8:45]And I know a lot of people can relate to that, especially in the postpartum season, especially
[8:49]people have never dealt with it before.
[8:51]It's a shock when it happens for a lot of us and something people don't like to talk
[8:55]about.
[8:56]But what I also go on to share in that chapter and what's named remember who you are
[9:00]is because I recognize, I think, in particular on a day when, like I said, I feel like the
[9:07]darkness was winning, it was over and over again, this just exhaustion to even pull myself
[9:12]from the bed and just feeling like, well, if I can't even do that, you know, like, what's
[9:17]the point?
[9:18]This is a battle I'm not going to win and I really was hitting a very, very low point.
[9:24]My husband came up to me and I just, it will forever be seared into my memory.
[9:30]I remember him, I was crying, I was losing it and I remember him kind of gently taking
[9:36]me by the shoulders and looking me in the eyes and saying to me, not only remember who
[9:43]you are, remember what you've overcome, remember how strong you are, remember what you can
[9:50]do, remember how many people need you, love you, respect you, remember what you're capable
[9:57]of.
[9:58]Don't you dare forget it.
[10:00]And it kind of just jarred me in the moment
[10:05]and a little bit woke me from the days
[10:08]of what I was going through,
[10:09]seeing that one other person truly saw me,
[10:12]but also wanted to ensure that even though
[10:14]right now I couldn't see it,
[10:15]and even though right now I didn't feel it,
[10:18]that one day I would find my way back to myself.
[10:22]And in the days and weeks that followed that,
[10:25]I remember when things would get hard
[10:27]or when I would start to spiral,
[10:28]it was as if those words would just yank me back
[10:30]from the twister into descending despair,
[10:33]of saying no, but I am strong, I am capable.
[10:37]I have overcome every difficult thing in my life.
[10:41]And I'm still here.
[10:42]And there was this sense of just reminding all of us
[10:46]when you face something that scares you,
[10:48]when you face something you're not sure you can overcome,
[10:51]that you don't lose sight of just how much you already
[10:54]have overcome.
[10:55]You don't lose sight of the accomplishments
[10:57]that maybe the world has never seen.
[11:00]The childhood moments where you chose to get back up again
[11:03]when you fell figuratively or literally,
[11:06]when you dealt with a heartbreaking moment,
[11:09]a loss, a relationship that tore you apart,
[11:12]you kept going, right?
[11:13]When you fell out of love with your body postpartum
[11:16]and you learned to love yourself again.
[11:18]These are things that we so quickly dismiss.
[11:21]We so quickly ignore.
[11:22]We treat as though it's not important.
[11:24]And yet, I think there is power, tremendous power,
[11:27]in going back to the root, remembering who we are,
[11:31]and also being very intentional about the stories
[11:33]that we tell ourselves about that past,
[11:36]knowing that we are the author very much of our own story.
[11:40]And therefore, we have a lot of power
[11:42]in how we craft the words that then empower us
[11:45]to move forward and be gutsy in our lives.
[11:48]I hope you have like a speaker's agent or something
[11:51]and that you're on the road like giving this talk
[11:54]because I was like, I was crying,
[11:57]just hearing you say all of that.
[11:59]And it's really motivating.
[12:01]And as you were finishing talking,
[12:02]I was like, I'm gonna send this to this person.
[12:04]I'm gonna send this clip to this person, so I don't know.
[12:08]You gotta take this show on the road.
[12:09]I'm sure you already are, but it's powerful stuff.
[12:11]You're very kind.
[12:13]And by the way, with the Chumba Wumpa quote,
[12:14]by the way, I get knocked down, but I get up again,
[12:16]I literally was going to put that in like a book I wrote
[12:20]like somewhere.
[12:21]And somebody was like, you can't just make that
[12:23]like the quote on the cover of your book or something.
[12:25]I was like, I feel like that is like my anthem,
[12:28]you know, that is anyway.
[12:29]So I love that.
[12:30]Another thing that I also say to people
[12:33]and you have a whole thing in here and said it much better.
[12:35]I always hear people saying, well, I'm just a mom
[12:38]or I just have one kid in anywhere.
[12:39]I just, you know, I just wrote the one book
[12:43]or I just did the this or I just,
[12:45]I'm just a whatever.
[12:46]And I'm always like, there is no just.
[12:49]Like, stop it.
[12:50]So you have a much better way that you address this
[12:53]in the book, which I loved.
[12:54]You said basically the same exact thing.
[12:56]So I promise I'm not copying you.
[12:57]I just, I feel you.
[12:59]So you said, can I just read this part?
[13:02]Is that okay?
[13:02]Yes, go for it, go for it.
[13:03]In the small business world,
[13:05]many of us have been on a mission for years
[13:07]to eliminate this term from our vocabulary
[13:09]and transform the way that we talk about ourselves
[13:11]and the work that we do.
[13:13]When used alongside parts of our identity
[13:14]becomes even more damaging.
[13:16]And again, most of us don't even realize
[13:17]that we're doing it.
[13:18]I am just a, like, I am just a photographer.
[13:21]I'm just a teacher.
[13:21]I'm just a stay-at-home parent.
[13:23]Whoops, this gets me all fired up.
[13:25]I wish you could see me furiously
[13:26]typing away in my keyboard with that angry mama bear,
[13:29]look in my eyes.
[13:30]I need you to hear me when I say
[13:32]and then you have a space and then this phrase
[13:34]in bold and then another big space.
[13:37]You are not just anything.
[13:40]The work that you do matters.
[13:42]Your contributions matter.
[13:44]We need to eradicate this adverb
[13:46]and being used in our vocabulary like this.
[13:48]Stop downgrading the work that you do
[13:50]by throwing just immediately before your title,
[13:54]language matters.
[13:55]It impacts how we feel about ourselves
[13:57]and how others perceive our self-confidence.
[13:59]If you swap out the word just for any one of its synonyms,
[14:02]it becomes even clearer how language is harmful.
[14:04]Yes, isn't this awful?
[14:06]Let's cut it out.
[14:06]Take it to the curb and hold one another accountable
[14:09]to stop saying it.
[14:10]Yes, yes.
[14:12]Love it.
[14:13]I'm so passionate about this.
[14:15]I think it's because I was doing it.
[14:18]And I still catch myself doing it.
[14:20]It's very much ingrained.
[14:22]I think with the perhaps intent of humility,
[14:25]like from the standpoint of,
[14:27]oh, it's just, you know, it's not that big of a deal.
[14:29]But it's passive language.
[14:30]It's passive language particularly that women use
[14:33]and it's sort of the not gently socialized
[14:36]into our very well-being of how we navigate the world
[14:39]of wanting to make ourselves smaller
[14:40]and more palatable, pleasing to others,
[14:42]not take up space, not be too loud,
[14:44]not be more than we should be.
[14:47]So we're just enough, we're quieting ourselves.
[14:50]And again, I could go on and on about perhaps
[14:54]the harmful nature of that.
[14:55]But I think one of the learnings I've had as well
[14:59]in my work and not to go off on a tangent too much
[15:02]is that, you know, is one thing if somebody else
[15:07]tells us who they think we are.
[15:09]It can hurt and it can definitely cause harm.
[15:13]But it is nowhere near as harmful
[15:15]as when we select the words to tell ourselves who we are.
[15:19]And so the hope here is to say, you know,
[15:23]even if outside, people are going to criticize your choice
[15:26]for being a teacher or a parent or, you know,
[15:30]a parent who works from home versus who works in an office
[15:34]all parents work, by the way, all moms work.
[15:36]Like there's nothing harder truly
[15:38]and in the pandemic having certain seasons
[15:40]where my corporate work would stop
[15:43]when I was full-time with my kids
[15:45]immensely hard work, more than full-time work.
[15:48]The point being, the world will always have opinions.
[15:51]We have the choice of whether we make those our opinions.
[15:54]And there's a huge portion of the book
[15:55]where I actually talk about the science of opinions,
[15:57]the fact that, you know, we have to acknowledge
[16:00]that the opinions we are surrounded by
[16:01]have a far more impactful day-to-day influence on our lives
[16:05]than we realize from a science perspective.
[16:07]If you're curious about this, there are really cool studies
[16:10]about this where, you know, you can completely change
[16:12]the way that somebody even perceives something
[16:15]by how you ask a question and then they absorb it,
[16:17]they think about it and then, I mean, it is fascinating.
[16:20]So you have to be really intentional about one,
[16:23]and we talk about this in the book, being discerning
[16:25]in what opinions you allow to surround you.
[16:28]Some of it you have no control of her,
[16:29]but your inner circle you do, the content you consume,
[16:32]to a degree you do, you have this ability to be intentional
[16:36]with those opinions, but then again, most importantly,
[16:39]it comes down to, okay, once you take those inputs
[16:42]in, how are you talking about yourself?
[16:45]What language are we using?
[16:46]Are we allowing passive language to become part
[16:48]of our vocabulary and describing our identity?
[16:51]Are we discounting our own courage and saying,
[16:54]well, so and so did XYZ?
[16:57]Why is it so hard for me to just get out of bed, right?
[17:00]Playing comparison games with something like courage.
[17:04]Those narratives that we tell ourselves are so important.
[17:06]You know, John, John A. Cook calls them soundtracks
[17:09]and says that oftentimes, you know, the soundtracks
[17:11]in our minds that repeat over and over and over again
[17:14]can dictate the symphony of our life, like how we move forward.
[17:18]And so it's an important thing to take into consideration.
[17:21]I've been talking a lot and thinking lately about fear
[17:24]because people are afraid to speak up in the current environment
[17:29]about a lot of different levels, right?
[17:31]There's fear in general.
[17:33]There's, it's just right now I feel like fear
[17:36]is dictating a lot.
[17:38]And some people get angry at the people
[17:40]who are scared for not doing things that they wish they would do.
[17:43]And I've been trying to talk to people
[17:45]like the way I talk to my kids, you know,
[17:47]like when my kid is really scared,
[17:49]it never makes them feel better to give them shame
[17:51]about their fear, right?
[17:52]Like you're not going to change their fear
[17:54]by being like, oh my God, that's ridiculous
[17:56]that you think there's that that something's going to happen
[17:58]in the dark, you know, or saying like just stop being scared
[18:00]and do it, like that doesn't work.
[18:02]That is not how it works, right?
[18:04]I have to like sit with them.
[18:05]You're like, I understand.
[18:06]And like let's make it just a little darker tonight
[18:09]or like, you know, like so gutsy I feel is the flip side
[18:13]of fear, right?
[18:13]It is the antidote and there are lots of ways to get there.
[18:18]But when people feel paralyzed by fear
[18:21]because I feel that fear really is paralyzing you,
[18:25]you kind of shut down and you're like,
[18:26]I can't do anything and I'm stuck.
[18:29]Like how do you, like what is the solution for grownups
[18:33]that is not sitting in the dark with someone?
[18:35]Like how would you try to get the first step away
[18:38]from fear for like all those business owners
[18:40]in the room with you for instance?
[18:41]Like what's just the first step people can take
[18:44]to try to gradually get themselves away
[18:47]from a place of fear, even if the fear is justified.
[18:50]Yes. And look, so a couple of things quickly.
[18:52]One, there is nothing wrong with you for being afraid.
[18:55]Fear is built in to your neurobiology.
[18:59]We are afraid to keep us alive.
[19:00]Now, whether the fears are justified
[19:02]at night is another conversation and whether they're based
[19:04]in rational kind of, I feel this way
[19:09]because I can see evidence for that,
[19:12]that's a different story.
[19:13]But fear very much exists.
[19:14]I think I can't remember if it's chapter one or two.
[19:16]I actually say, anyone has ever told you,
[19:18]stop being afraid of what other people think.
[19:20]So I'm worrying about what other people think.
[19:22]You can't, there's nothing broken about you.
[19:26]It's a feature, not a bug in the tech world
[19:28]is something we'll say at times.
[19:29]Like it's designed that way.
[19:31]You're actually designed that way.
[19:32]So I actually believe, number one, it's accepting
[19:35]that it is actually a K to be afraid.
[19:38]If it fears natural, fear is very much part
[19:41]of the human experience.
[19:43]And it is woven in for, I believe, good reasons
[19:47]to keep us alive.
[19:49]However, when I talk about this a little bit in the book,
[19:51]I talk about it more actually in my first book.
[19:53]One of the most eye-opening realizations I had
[19:55]in studying the human brain is that the rate
[19:58]of evolutionary change.
[20:00]in the brain can't even keep up or compare to the rate of societal change and cultural
[20:05]change that human beings have endured. What I mean by that is we're operating with very similar
[20:11]neural hardware, same brain that ancestors 2000 years ago had. But if you were to take an ancestor
[20:18]from 2000 years ago and drop them on Main Street USA today, could you imagine what a different
[20:25]world they would encounter? How different our lives are today from the lives that our
[20:30]ancestors experienced meaning the brain could be argued and I believe this although again
[20:36]hypothesis it could be argued that although our world has evolved the brain has not and therefore
[20:45]we are operating with ancient neural hardware that designed with great intent to keep us alive
[20:52]with this fear that we experience and actually go awry under modern modern circumstances.
[20:58]Now I think I mentioned this from the standpoint of you know if you see a tiger chasing after you
[21:03]your brain and your body is supposed to react in a certain way you're supposed to be afraid
[21:08]you're supposed to have a rush of adrenaline there's a reason why cortisol floods your body in that
[21:13]moment right like this is all by design it tremendously impacts your ability to run away from the predator
[21:20]however there is a big difference between an actual tiger and a man in a tiger mascot costume
[21:28]these aren't the same things and yet metaphorically speaking oftentimes today fear can feel as though
[21:36]the real tiger is chasing us metaphorically when it's Uncle Bill in a tiger mascot costume on the
[21:42]football field you know drinking a brew ski we have trouble at times discerning the difference
[21:49]I experience this all the time in my own life even you know give an example I and parents maybe
[21:55]can relate to this and I love mom's listening to this when something very small very quickly becomes
[22:01]kind of distorted and expanded from an anxiety lens from a perspective of worry and concern if
[22:08]on maybe a more passive passive side but you know I think about my kid not one tourist coat
[22:15]in the winner can anyone relate to this and again the coat like my child not wanting to wear his
[22:20]coat is the man in the mascot costume like yeah could it cause him harm possibly I'm running him in
[22:26]an out that's fine but there is a part of me a deep fear part of me at times that things in a
[22:33]spiraled way but then what are other people going to think are they going to think I'm neglecting
[22:36]my child that my child doesn't have a coat and by the way people do make comments all the time
[22:42]about where the where the where the hats where the gloves where the coats why why you know it's like
[22:46]but you get a minute at the car seat he doesn't want to wear it is it worth a fight and then I go on
[22:50]and you could very easily create a fear and a concern that then expands in a way that perhaps
[22:56]doesn't connect to its origin so the first thing I want to just cover here is it's natural
[23:01]second thing I want to cover is it's by design with good intent I believe but ultimately we've
[23:06]entered an era where sometimes our neural hardware is actually hindering us just a little and these
[23:13]fears that were meant to protect us were meant to keep us safe can actually hold us back and cause
[23:18]us harm and then in the book we go into more tactical details around different ways to combat
[23:22]this so for one I talk about you know always starting from a foundation of values whenever you
[23:27]I mean it's a great exercise by the way to do whether it's rough fear in decision difficulty
[23:32]just learning a path forward and fear playing into that starting with a foundation of values it
[23:37]sounds sort of fluffy it sounds very easy and I would argue that I bet anyone listening to this would
[23:41]say of course values matter to me like I'm a value driven person however I think a lot of us would
[23:47]have more difficulty communicating what the top five values are that we hold dear or what are the top
[23:53]three values that we make decisions by because it's not going to be the same person to person
[24:00]and and I recommend actually sitting down and I credit my amazing amazing therapist with this
[24:05]this was one of the activities she did with me when I was going through the discernment process
[24:09]during my infertility journey around do I keep going or do I stop and I was torn either way
[24:15]fear was crippling me either way it was either I invest all this money all this physical pain
[24:19]this time this wear and tear in my body to go through idea after all these failed other paths
[24:25]have led me to and not even get the result I'm hoping for and that terrified me and then the
[24:32]flip side of no longer pursuing parenthood and then spending the rest of my life afraid of what
[24:39]if I had and feeling like either option was terrifying right so I talk about it from this lens of
[24:44]these types of decisions that can be really hard and so starting with the foundation of values
[24:49]getting clear on those three to five values and then running your fears through those can be
[24:53]immensely helpful another thing I talk about more loosely because I am not a mental health
[24:58]professional yes I'm a nerd I've studied the brain but there is a vast difference actually working
[25:03]with one if this is something that you feel is not only impacting you maybe on a goals level but
[25:08]truly day to day there is no shame in it I will be if you're afraid or you don't know where to start
[25:13]send me a DM I will directly there are incredible resources to help you find somebody to chat with
[25:17]about it another thing you can do third audit your inner circle so a lot of the time I find
[25:23]I've mentioned opinions mattering immensely to how we perceive ourselves how we navigate the world
[25:27]our own opinions being shaped significantly by the opinions that surround us which was something
[25:32]I've always found fascinating for example you know if you enter a friend group and you hate
[25:37]Gilmore girls but everybody loves Gilmore girls eventually you're gonna like Gilmore girls according
[25:41]to science right like you'll eventually get swayed and you're gonna not know it was never your
[25:45]idea in the first place and that goes with politics because of religion it goes with and literally
[25:51]the opinions that surround us impact us even when we claim we're independent thinkers it's just
[25:56]science it's how the brain works and it's a protection mechanism more in the book on that if you're
[25:59]curious so you do have to craft that inner circle if fear is holding you back I would just ask you
[26:04]who in your inner circle are the ones that challenge you because again I say this too
[26:10]an inner circle isn't just yes people an inner circle can't just be your cheerleaders right that's
[26:14]an echo chamber if everyone's saying yes they're saying the same thing that you say that is not an
[26:18]inner circle that is an echo chamber what you need an inner circle it's a combination of different
[26:23]individuals you need people yes that share you on and root for you and they're there because you
[26:26]need support you though also need people that share your values have your best interested heart but
[26:31]maybe come to the table with a different lived experience maybe a different set of challenges they
[26:36]overcome maybe they're older maybe they've been through more maybe they're younger and they just
[26:39]vastly view the world in a different way but they challenge you they either challenge you
[26:44]just step beyond you know your confirmation bias which I talk about too of just looking for evidence
[26:50]of what you already believe to be true all around you rather than seeking truth rather than
[26:54]challenging your assertions right like you need those people in your circle too so if fear is holding
[26:58]you back I also say sometimes you have to look around you not just within you you have to take
[27:03]into account is this fear maybe being fed by somebody or something in your in your world this
[27:09]opinion you're consuming is it social media who you're following is that making you more afraid
[27:14]you mentioned people being afraid to speak out I know that is something that's very real right now
[27:19]and there are consequences to having an opinion they're always have been they seem to be tremendously
[27:24]painful in 2023 in a world where everything has a permanent footprint and everyone has access to
[27:30]both share their opinion and give you their take on your opinion yes it's very very hard but I would
[27:35]challenge you as well to say are you just living in in the consumption of cancel culture in the
[27:40]fear of its existence or are you taking time offline to surround yourself in real human conversations
[27:47]where people can look one another in the eye and mirror neurons fire because there's a difference
[27:52]when mirror neurons fire we have something called empathy and with empathy right comes true impact
[27:56]and true change and props true uh ability to vocalize your opinion and be open to receiving
[28:03]criticism that isn't so painful so wounding into permanently damaging before that expanding into
[28:08]other spaces I could go on and on okay I've ran this a lot that was great but I mean literally
[28:13]the whole book talks yes it's amazing it's amazing Natalie thank you this is amazing you are such
[28:20]a font of knowledge and inspiration your brain is like un overdrive it's amazing no it's good you
[28:26]have a lot to share and your passion totally comes through and we need that like we need that
[28:31]so much right yes we really just need that so thank you for the book which is fabulous learning to
[28:37]live with bold brave and boundless courage this is a great book for now fabulous cover too by the way
[28:43]with this bold yellow so look for this book in your local stores everybody and yeah I'll be following
[28:49]along I feel like you know we we need people to be out front helping other people join them yeah
[28:56]thank you so much I really appreciate it okay have a great day bye bye bye
[29:02]thanks for listening to this episode of moms don't have time to read books don't forget to
[29:06]follow me on instagram at zibi Owens and at moms don't have time to read books also sign up for
[29:11]my newsletter at zibiowans.com and sign up for my virtual book club and meet lots of authors on zoom
[29:17]every other week thanks so much to Steve and Ryan back texture sound for the sound editing
[29:21]and thank you to morning moon productions for providing this fantastic intro and out trim music