Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: The CollabWorks Podcast is proudly sponsored by LA Miller & Associates.
[00:00:06] Speaker B: At La Miller and Associates, we believe you are the star of your business, and our mission is to help you shine, whether you're launching your first business or you're a seasoned entrepreneur. Our accountants and our business advisors are here to help discover how LA Miller & Associates can help you at lamillercpa.com or by calling 270-575-3444.
[00:00:30] Speaker A: Welcome to today's episod episode of Collab Works podcast. I'm Andrea Wilson.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: And I'm Sheri Newcombe.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Hi. Today is the first episode of our March for Myself series where we're going to focus on all things for you and pouring into yourself before trying to help other people. And so today we're going to start with.
[00:00:52] Speaker B: Hey. We're going to start with stop stopping.
[00:00:54] Speaker A: So the first question we asked Sherry was, why do we stop?
We came up with five things we did, and one of those was one of the reasons that we stopped is old habits, and so we can talk a little about that. Another one was just being overwhelmed and a lack of a plan.
Then the biggie. The biggie that we're going to talk about and probably spend the most of the time talking about is fear of failure. And that's something everyone struggles with. And it can also be fear of success, which I think is odd, but we all suffer from that, too, whether you think you do or not. Let's see, we got. The last one's gonna be, like, external distractions.
Yeah.
[00:01:39] Speaker B: You forgot right in the very middle, some motivation.
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Oh, yes. Lack of clear motivation.
[00:01:46] Speaker B: What's your why? My favorite question. And you forgot it right in the middle. You did it to me again.
She crushes me every time.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: I didn't. Maybe I forgot it on purpose so that you would jump in. I never know when you're gonna jump in. And I just keep talking.
You know, that's a thing. Like, I don't like silence. So if you don't speak up pretty quickly, I'm just gonna keep rolling.
[00:02:08] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:02:09] Speaker A: All right.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: All right. I'm gonna speak up more often.
[00:02:11] Speaker A: Yeah. So we're gonna go through those five things, and again, I think we're probably gonna talk mostly about fear of failure. I think there's a lot packed in there and how that works. And then we're going to end the show with some things that you can do to help yourself stop stopping. I think these things are so important because I think of all the times in my life that I started something or you know, I felt this urge like of something that I felt passionate about and I wanted to do. And in the beginning I was super highly motivated and had a lot of energy to do that. And I talked to everyone about it and I got lot of excitement and then for whatever reason I just stop and I think about those things like where could I be now if I had stopped stopping?
[00:03:03] Speaker B: A lot of us, we have that shiny object syndrome.
[00:03:07] Speaker A: O, that's a good one.
[00:03:10] Speaker B: I love shiny things.
[00:03:12] Speaker A: Yeah, so what happens naturally to a shiny thing is sometimes it gets a little dull as we have it. And maybe that's part of what happens is it's it or it just the newness wears off or in the case of fear of failure, maybe it's that someone says something to you and so it lets negative thoughts and all those self defeating things that, that maybe you think inside and don't say out loud, but they're there like oh, I'm never going to be able to do this or oh, she's probably right or he's probably right. You know, this is beyond something I'm capable of and we kind of feed into that and maybe that's why we stop. So anyway, we'll spend a lot of time on that. But at the end of the show, make sure that you stay tuned because we're going to go through four, four things, right, that we believe are pretty simple, easy to implement, but you just need the awareness of them so that you have the tools in your bag ready to go when you're working on that goal, personal goal, business goal, whatever it is. But when you're working on that goal and something creeps in that makes you stop. So we want to give you the tools to stop stopping.
So go Sherry, tell them.
[00:04:36] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:04:36] Speaker A: No, I mean go ahead and start the show.
[00:04:38] Speaker B: Oh, stop stopping. Huh?
Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. So one of the first things that we, that, that keeps, that that has us with the stop stopping is breaking our old habits. How many, my whole life I've heard when the fear of change is less than the fear of the staying the same, then you will do something, right?
How many of us have stayed with what's familiar even though it was really hurting us?
I know that I have.
[00:05:15] Speaker A: Oh gosh, me too. Me too. And sometimes not even realizing that's what I was doing. But you know, the brain, the science of it is our brain seeks out comfort. It seeks out what we know because then it becomes predictable. Like so no matter if that is something good or something bad, we, we know what's happening, we know it's going to happen and it's comfortable and we can predict it. And for whatever reason, that kind of feeds into self preservation.
[00:05:43] Speaker B: That's what I was going to say. The BR seeks, it tries to self preserve.
[00:05:48] Speaker A: So, you know, like habits. When I'm thinking about habits and comfort, it's just so easy to. Because habits are usually something that we have carried for a lifetime. Your brain creates these pathways and so those pathways become what we know as habits. And so when you try to change that, you think about walking through the woods and you could take the path that you always take, because it's a path, right. It's cleared out, there's no briars, it's pretty clean. You could probably walk it barefoot if you want to with your eyes closed. But you decide you want something new, so you go to try to make a new path. Well, what happens?
[00:06:37] Speaker B: Oh, it takes a while before you can see your trail.
[00:06:39] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's a lot of work.
[00:06:41] Speaker B: It is a lot of work.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: And maybe you don't have the tools with you so you'll have a, like a sick or a knife and you're having to pull weeds and maybe you didn't wear shoes because you thought you were going to be on your same path. And there's some thorns, there's some things that hurt. So we're not as comfortable anymore.
[00:06:58] Speaker B: Right.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: So naturally we go back and we just. We don't even know. Sometimes it's happening. It's just like, oh, it's just easier to go back to the path. It's going to lead to the same destination. I'm just going to go back and use my same path. You ever done that, Sherry?
[00:07:15] Speaker B: Oh, I've done it my whole life.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Me too.
[00:07:19] Speaker B: I think I have. I don't know. I'm trying to change it and I.
[00:07:22] Speaker A: Want to make new paths because. Because it does. You know, that's why I like to travel. It's something new, It's a new experience, it's a new way to see things.
But I still find myself, if I'm not real careful, just going back to my old ways because that brings me comfort and predictability.
So habits, I think, has a lot to do with why we stop. Maybe not everything, and it wasn't one of the top things listed for sure when I was looking at this, but I felt like it was part of just being a human. That's really important to understand is just that our habits alone sometimes cause us to, to stop even though we want something really badly. And like you said, until the comfort of staying where we are is more painful than moving where we want to go, a lot of times we'll just stay even though we really want something else.
[00:08:18] Speaker B: True.
[00:08:19] Speaker A: So what's number two?
[00:08:22] Speaker B: The number two is the overwhelm. The change can be overwhelming. You talked about the path earlier and we've got that same path drilled out.
And even though on that path we get to like a ditch we've got across, on the other path, there may not be a ditch at all, but it's just starting it out. So there is the overwhelm of it's how long did it take me to develop this? And it is clear, like what you said, how long is it going to take me to do this?
[00:08:52] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:52] Speaker B: And you know what? You never know. That path may actually even be a shorter one and takes less.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Well, and it could be. It could be. But the way you're talking about it, like when you're talking about, well, I got to make a new path. One of the things that goes along with that overwhelm and the reason we get overwhelmed is because you're just seeing the big picture. You're like looking from where you're standing in this whole path that you want to make and you don't have a plan.
[00:09:19] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:20] Speaker A: So you're seeing the one big objective without seeing small steps that you can take for the progress.
[00:09:30] Speaker B: Yes. And your brain is going to automatically go to the worst case scenario.
[00:09:36] Speaker A: Yeah, always.
My kids like to call me worst case scenario mom.
And I think, I think that's one.
At first I think it was hurtful a little bit to me.
There's our new button. There we go.
But it is true, I am a worst case scenario person. That is the way my brain works. But that's part of my survival mode. I think in a little bit of that fight or flight is if I know the worst that can happen, then I plan for better things. But at least I know, like if worse comes to worse, this is, this is the worst that can happen. And in a way that is a motivator for me because I know, look, it's not death.
Right.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: It's not taxes.
[00:10:34] Speaker A: That was a good one. Sher. You're so witty. You're so fast. I'm. I'm just not like that. I'm still trying to think of the next thing. And you're. Anyway, very witty.
[00:10:44] Speaker B: But thank you.
[00:10:44] Speaker A: Yeah. It's your God giving gift.
Do you know that?
[00:10:49] Speaker B: I do. I actually kind of do know that. I've Been told a time or two. A time or two, that your wit is going to get you into something you can't get yourself out of one day.
[00:11:00] Speaker A: This is true. So. So what do you say? You're like, you're. You're watching yourself on here. You're a little bit more inhibited.
[00:11:07] Speaker B: Yes, I am a little bit more inhibited. And I.
[00:11:12] Speaker A: That's good. But I think I am, too. Even though I like to think I get on here and can just be myself, and I really do just want to be myself.
I know I say things even though, you know, we work in a professional public accounting firm, and every day we have to be aware, really, really aware of the words we use, of the actions we use, of everything. And sometimes that heightened awareness, it's. It's exhausting because I know for me, I could say something wrong, I could do something wrong. I'm always terrified that that could happen.
That probably leads me a little bit into fear of failure when it comes to working with maybe different groups that I don't understand really well because I just. I'm so scared to death I'll say something wrong. But I think that our political environment has done a lot to us in that way. Like, it needs to be okay to make a mistake.
I think it does. And I think we'd be a lot better off if it was okay to make a mistake or to ask a question. Because if it's coming from the heart and you're being sincere and genuine and you're not trying to ever hurt anyone, you're just trying to understand, then that should be okay anyway. But I think that's a big thing with fear of failure. And it keeps us.
For me, it makes me stay and withdraw into a group that I'm comfortable. There's that word again that I'm comfortable with, because I'm fear. I'm fearful of doing something wrong, of failing another human. And the last thing in the world I would ever want to do is hurt someone's feelings or fail another human or them. Think that I was insensitive in some way.
[00:13:02] Speaker B: Mm.
[00:13:04] Speaker A: And that's hard. So. Yeah. And I think that holds us back. You know, I think of all the doors we could open if we could just walk in life. And with people as humans who make mistakes without fear of failure, just. Just know that it's okay. I watched a movie over the weekend. It was a really, really powerful movie. And because this summer, one of the things that we work on here and we'll always work on. Cause it's Always changing is just diversity and sensitivity training. And it's so important. And it's. It's so important just to everyone to be aware of the words we use and how we use them. And as we educate ourselves, funny thing happens. Sherry, you know what it is?
[00:13:53] Speaker B: No clue.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Fear of failure actually starts to diminish as you become, oh, yes, you know, more educated about those things that you're scared of. Same as, you know, I'm afraid to try something because I'm afraid I'm gonna fail. Well, the more I try and the more I fail, the better I'm gonna get at it, and the more diminished that fear of failure is going to be.
So, anyway, I was watching this movie over the weekend, and it was really super powerful, and I cried through most of it, probably from about, I don't know, 20, 30 minutes into it for the. For the rest of it. And it was a documentary. And I'll tell you, it has someone that I. I don't really like. I never have really liked him, but Lenny loves him, and that is Will Ferrell. So I watched it because I thought I, you know, Lenny's always watching chick flicks with me. So I thought, well, I'll watch this with Lenny because this is one of his guys and it's a documentary. So anyway, watch the movie. And I thought, oh, my God, everyone should watch this. Everyone should watch this documentary. And.
And it was touching about how, you know, we just need to watch what we say and how we act because those things affect someone else's fear of failing. It's easy to think about it, like in business or working on a goal, but a fear of failing can just be interacting with someone or, you know, little things.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: I'm thinking about this documentary now with Will Ferrell. You really got me. Really have me off subject, very distracted.
[00:15:41] Speaker A: I can. Well, that's.
[00:15:42] Speaker B: That's another one of our things. It's distraction. Is it?
[00:15:45] Speaker A: I'm.
[00:15:45] Speaker B: I'm very curious now about this. This Will Ferrell documentary. Is it about Will Ferrell?
[00:15:51] Speaker A: Sort of. It's sort of. Yes. Yes. Actually, it is about where it is about him and it's about his friend. And anyway, I'll share more with you about that. I don't know that I actually want to talk about on here, because I'm not here to, like, you know, we have. We have such a large fan base that I would have to ask them for royalties because so many people would go watch the documentary after us talking about it. So until I work that out with Will Ferrell, And Netflix, you know, let's just keep that under wraps.
[00:16:22] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:16:22] Speaker A: No, but in all seriousness, it was. It was very eye opening and it was good. So. All right, so there external distractions and life getting in the way.
Sorry, I didn't mean to distract you.
In all honesty, it's not hard to distract you.
[00:16:41] Speaker B: No, it is not shiny objects.
[00:16:43] Speaker A: It's not hard to distract me either.
[00:16:46] Speaker B: No.
[00:16:47] Speaker A: So we have to be really, really careful. So we have some notes with us today. Why we stop stopping? In a nutshell, we've got. We've got all these things. We've got habits overwhelm, daily distractions, just life in general, procrastinations. And then the big one, which I think everyone could agree. I don't know if you disagree. That would be interesting. But I think everyone could agree. Fear of failure is probably our biggest downfall.
[00:17:17] Speaker B: I think that's a lot. That's everybody's downfall. Fear of failure.
[00:17:20] Speaker A: When we were talking about the show last week, we were talking about we would bring in some really famous people as we do these shows through the month of March.
[00:17:29] Speaker B: Okay. So we were talking about. One of them, I think, was. Was Michael Jordan. And he talked about missing, what, over 9,000 shots in his career. He had missed all those shots, and he had lost, like, over 300 games.
That's. That's a lot.
[00:17:48] Speaker A: That is a lot.
[00:17:48] Speaker B: That is a lot. How many times would people try? Nine.
I miss it nine times. I'm gonna quit.
[00:17:55] Speaker A: Yeah. Maybe not even that many. There have been things in my life that I've done. Look, I am easily crushable. I know I'm that person.
And the weird thing is, like, I don't need a lot of people to tell me I can do something. I can tell myself I can do something, and I can create it and believe in it, talk about it.
But if I fail or someone says something to me, maybe just once or twice. I mean, three times, I'm done. It's done.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Same.
[00:18:24] Speaker A: But so this story about Michael Jordan and all of this, I thought that was so inspiring because I wish I had a tiny fraction of that.
Just a tiny fraction.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: I bet you do. You just haven't. You just don't see it like some of the rest of us see it.
[00:18:41] Speaker A: Maybe. I don't know.
[00:18:43] Speaker B: You do have that. I'm telling you right now, I'm looking at you and I'm telling you, you do have that tiny fraction.
[00:18:49] Speaker A: Okay, well, I need to work some.
[00:18:51] Speaker B: Value, give it some value, and pick up that fraction more often.
[00:18:56] Speaker A: Yeah. So.
Well, thanks, Sherry. Because I feel like I don't carry a lot of that.
[00:19:03] Speaker B: Oh, my goodness.
[00:19:03] Speaker A: There's actually someone in our community here and I will not say who this is. Most people would know who I'm talking about. But they are incredible in this area. I have seen them fail over and over and over, but I've seen them succeed. But the success is usually very limited. Like something tragic usually happens. And when they fall, they fall. I mean, fall hard, crushing fall.
And then the next thing, you know, here's the next thing. They just reinvent, start back up, find some way to be successful. And just like with what Michael Jordan says, he uses his failures to find success. That's what he did and that's what this person in our community does.
And I'm always just amazed to watch them and always say to myself, I don't care if people like him or don't like him. I almost said, hey, because I feel like it is that polarizing of a person. You either love him or you hate him. But the fact that he can fail and everyone, this and this is my problem. People see me fail and I just, I can't, I can't stand it, Sherry. If I fail and people see that, then I, I've tied that, you know, to my identity, which. That's going to be one of the things that we're going to talk about on how we stop stopping. But that is a, that's a thing and I don't know how to come back from that.
So anyway, in a way, I believe.
[00:20:46] Speaker B: The way to come back for that failure happens to all of us. Failure happens to you, it happens to me. It's the way that we react to that failure. And like what you said a while ago, you know, it's not death.
[00:21:03] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: We can all overcome it. Something. I just read it just this is past week and thanks to you, I read it and I would have never thought about it. And it's otherizing.
[00:21:13] Speaker A: Oh yeah.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: You know, devastation happens in all of our lives. It's how we look at it. Because, I mean, I'm thinking about myself in a situation that I'm going, going through and I'm really kind of tired of it. I'm tired of.
I'm tired of being the negative Nelly about it. Where's that little button again?
I'm tired of that. I'm tired, you know, because it does happen to other people and I'm ready to change my perspective.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: Yeah. So back to this Michael Jordan thing. I have my glasses on, so I'm going to finish let's see. I liked that. He said, and I have to move my microphone to see this. Okay.
I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life, and that's why I succeed. So he used that for fuel to improve.
And his story shows that failure isn't the opposite of success. That right there. Failure isn't the opposite of success.
It's part of the path, right, to success.
And so the old saying goes, if you're not failing, you're not trying.
You're not.
[00:22:29] Speaker B: Can you imagine if we succeeded first try on everything?
[00:22:33] Speaker A: Yeah. No, that doesn't happen. But hey, Sherry, you know what? You know what has made us think that way in the world that we live in right now is social media.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:22:45] Speaker A: So let's talk about that just for a second because I think it's so important with what we're talking about today with fear of failure. One, if you want to do something, you have to put it out on social media. Well, you know what? On my social media, it's all my friends and family, and they know me, and so they're going to watch it because they know me, and then they're going to judge me. That's what I think anyway. I think they are going to judge me. And you know why that is, is because I probably do that to other people. I watch their stuff and I judge them. But you know what else happens is there's something that we haven't even talked about, and I didn't, I didn't put it on our list of top things, but I probably should have. And that is fear of that imposter being an imposter. Imposter syndrome. Right. So, like, the people that know me that are watching this podcast or anything else I do for that matter, but are they looking at me and they're thinking, oh, God, I. I know her, that that's not her, but it really is. It's just that this wasn't the person I was then.
Does that make sense?
[00:23:59] Speaker B: It does.
[00:24:01] Speaker A: And that, that stops me a lot. When I first. When I first started thinking about doing this podcast and putting it out on my social media, the first thing I wanted to do was only put it on collab works because I didn't want to be judged. I didn't want that fear of failure. I didn't want people to criticize me, and I definitely didn't want to come across as an imposter.
But you know what, Sherry? This is who I am.
[00:24:29] Speaker B: It is.
[00:24:29] Speaker A: Would you say that it is? I mean, you work with me for 13 years.
[00:24:34] Speaker B: It is who we are.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: This is. This is who I am. This is who Sherry is. And we're not trying to be something we're not. I think, if anything, if I was being really transparent and honest, I would say what the most difficult thing about today's episode is, is I did take some notes, and I brought some notes in here so that we didn't get lost. Because I know that with my brain and your brain, and we work so fast and just feed off each other that we might miss some of the things we wanted to talk about here. And so that makes me. That feeds that imposter syndrome a little bit with me, because I feel like, oh, I should know this without having to look at notes. But this isn't true. My notes are here to keep me on task, on target, so we can bring a meaningful message.
[00:25:28] Speaker B: Let's get back to the notes.
[00:25:33] Speaker A: All right, so tell us, Sherry, how to stop stopping.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: So how to stop stopping is re. Rethink what you think about failure, that it is the path to success.
[00:25:44] Speaker A: Remember, other people have gone through it, and what can you learn from it? And remember that it's a step. And if you're not failing, you're not trying.
[00:25:52] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: So number two, the second thing you can do, you want to start small, right?
[00:25:58] Speaker B: Every step counts. Even. Even small steps, they all count. You know. You know, you look at people with. With their weight loss journeys, oh, my Gosh, they lost £400, and it looked like they lost the £400 overnight.
[00:26:12] Speaker A: Because why? Because they put it on social media and you see the success. You don't see all the steps that went into getting there. Well, and we all want this instant gratification. And social media is a magician. You see it this way, and the next thing you know, you see it another way, and your brain believes that really happens that way, and it doesn't. It took a lot of work. It took a lot of baby steps to get to that end. Goal. So that's the second one. So you got your first one. You're going to reframe, right? You're going to reframe how you see it, and then you're going to put in some baby steps. Any good life coach, business coach, they'll tell you that, like, break that down. Know what your big goal is? Break it down to the baby steps. Number three, you're going to focus on effort, not on the outcome.
[00:27:07] Speaker B: True.
[00:27:07] Speaker A: Right. So that helps us feel good along the way. And then, you know, also if we're feeling bad because it may be that was a misstep. If we're focusing on the effort and not the outcome, it doesn't completely demolish our motivation to continue down the path that we've set for ourselves, that goal that we want for ourselves.
[00:27:32] Speaker B: I think about the, the daily drinking water habit. I will go on spells and do really well and then I'll not do really well.
But every day you, you know, you try to do it. And if you fail, don't worry about it. Be thankful you have fresh water to drink.
[00:27:51] Speaker A: Yeah. And just keep trying.
[00:27:53] Speaker B: Don't focus on. Yeah.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Focus on progress, not perfection. Because you're not going to be perfect. You're going to have days that for whatever reason things just don't work out or, you know, it didn't go your way. I have a lot of those.
[00:28:09] Speaker B: I have a lot of those days. And it's mostly because they're distraction. There's a lot of distraction and shiny objects and squirrel. Yes, squirrel.
[00:28:18] Speaker A: So, okay. And then the last thing. So let's talk about the last thing. So you gotta detach your failure from your identity.
[00:28:25] Speaker B: We're gonna stop with the overwhelm, with the lack of plan. We're going to stop having a lack of motivation or clear motivation. We're going to figure out what our why is. We're going to stop being afraid of failing. We are going to stop being distracted.
Good luck with that one. And letting our lives get in the way. And we're going to do that by detaching from failure. We're going to start small with our. With getting things back on, getting them back on track. We're going to focus on our effort and not our outcome.
Outcome will be here before you know it if you just start to take small steps. And then we're going to detach the failure from our identity because you are not a failure. I am not a failure. You are not a failure.
We're just still in the process of getting ready of what our purpose is.
[00:29:16] Speaker A: That's right. Join us next week. Let's see, Tuesday. We are doing what is your self talk.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:29:24] Speaker A: Right. I feel like a lot of this will feed in there as well. And that's a big subject. It's a lot to unpack on. On how we talk to ourselves and where that comes from. So I hope you'll join us.
[00:29:36] Speaker B: Goodbye.
[00:29:37] Speaker A: Bye.
