#204: Are Limiting Beliefs and Imposer Syndrome Holding You Back?
Are limiting beliefs and imposter syndrome holding you back?
Today, I have business and mindset coach, Maria Conde, on the show.
In this episode, we talk about what it looks like to have a successful entrepreneur mindset.
This means being willing to be uncomfortable in your business, noticing when “busyness” is just an avoidance strategy, and using affirmations, meditation, and hypnosis to change the way you think.
We also talk about how men and women are different when it comes to mindset, how to understand why different parts of your brain may be in conflict, how to ask for the sale even when you feel undeserving, and how to build a support system around you when starting a new entrepreneurial venture.
If you are hoping to break free of patterns that are holding you back, so you can explode your business in 2022, definitely listen to this episode!!
Table of Contents
Show Notes:
- MiloTree Easy Payments
- Free Paid Workshop Checklist
- MiloTree Pop-Up App
- Maria Conde
- Catch My Party
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Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.
Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I am Jillian Leslie, your host, and I am so happy you are here. Before I get started, I wanted to talk about what we are building MiloTree Easy Payments.
Which is the easiest way for you to set up a live workshop or a membership or sell coaching or services. And I feel as creators, 2022 is going to be a very important year for us.
This is the year where we take our followers and our communities, and we move them off of social media that’s where we interact with them, and we interact with them much more closely. We get to know them more intimately.
And I can’t think of a better way to do it, than to teach something you know, and wait for it and get paid for it. I am so excited. If this sounds like something you are interested in.
And also remember, we build products with no crazy technology, no platforms to learn, you can set this up in minutes. And wait, here’s the best part. You do not pay us a thing until you start making money.
That’s right, there’s no monthly fee, we just take a small transaction fee. So there is no risk. We want to be aligned with you.
So, if you want to learn more head to milotree.com/easypayments. Sign up for your free account and start monetizing what you already know.
Today, I have Maria Conde on the podcast. And she is a business and mindset coach. I think this is a great episode to listen to at this time in December, as we’re all thinking about what is 2022 for us in our businesses.
So, we touch on topics such as imposter syndrome and limiting beliefs and money mindset and how to stop getting in our own ways. I think we all need to hear this how we can use affirmations to change some of the wiring in our brains.
I think you’re really going to like this episode, I loved talking to Maria. So, without further delay, here is my interview with Maria Conde.
Are Limiting Beliefs and Imposer Syndrome Holding You Back?
Maria, welcome to the show.
Maria Conde 2:37
Thank you so much for having me today.
Jillian Leslie 2:39
And we were talking a lot before I press record, and I’m thinking oh, no, I want to press record. We’ll just step back.
Will you share how you got to where you are today coaching entrepreneurs, to understand how mindset really plays such an important role in their overall success?
Maria Conde 3:04
Absolutely. I was in the corporate world for like 30 years. And there was a little bit of crossover there because I’m not quite that old. But I’ve been a coach for about a dozen years.
And I first went into coaching for completely different reasons. And I went in to be a health coach and nutritionist. And then I went into money coaching because I’m a CPA by trade. So, that was a natural evolution.
And when I got into be a money coach, that’s when I really realized that a lot of the stuff that gets in our way is in our mindset. And that was the time when I really really noticed it. And then I kind of veered into different areas.
And it was messy, and to get to where I am today, which is a lot more solid in working with entrepreneurs strictly in mindset, pretty much. I do some strategy because I have a 30-year background in business.
So, I’ve had several businesses in my lifetime. So, it’s a little bit easier for me to do both worlds because I have the background in it.
How to Have a Successful Entrepreneur Mindset
Jillian Leslie 4:04
When you look at successful entrepreneurs, let’s say and ones who are struggling, what do you think, is the difference when it comes to mindset? What have the successful entrepreneurs been able to incorporate in their lives that helps them move forward?
Maria Conde 4:22
I think there’s three real key components. And the first one is clarity. Really knowing what you want, who you’re serving. The more clear you are, the easier the path is. And this was a hard one for me to learn.
And it’s even more so now that it’s getting easier and easier as I go along because I’m getting clearer and clearer and clearer. And sometimes it’s really hard to get that clarity right out the gate. You have to take action to get clarity.
Jillian Leslie 4:49
I have to stop you there. I love that. That just just in terms of the way that I think about it, you tell me what you think about this. I think you have to have a hypothesis. And then you have to go test it.
Maria Conde 5:02
Yes. Yes.
Jillian Leslie 5:03
So, you can’t keep it inside you and go, well, here’s the way I think my business is going to work. And this is what it’s going to look like. I think it might go this way.
I’m going to go out there, build a crappy website, get in front of people, talk to them, make it messy, and like iterate and iterate. So anyway, I didn’t mean to interrupt you.
Maria Conde 5:22
No, that’s okay. And that’s exactly how that evolution goes along. And so that first one is clarity. And the second one is, there’s a mindset component, but there’s also about being productive versus being busy.
And we get into busy mode, when we’re self sabotaging. We’re afraid to take some of those actions that we need to be taking. And so it’s easy to get busy doing all the pretty stuff in business.
And we can get lost in Canva and websites for days and days and days, and you have no clients. And the ones that are successful don’t have websites, until further down the line.
But they’ve got a handful of clients that they just open their mouth and ask for the sale. And in the messy mode it is, and they just go there and deal with it and pick it up, pick up all the pieces from there. Because it is a lot messy when you do it that way.
Jillian Leslie 6:20
Absolutely.
Maria Conde 6:21
But everyone is afraid to do that.
Jillian Leslie 6:22
Right. I was saying this before we pressed record, we all think like once I get all my ducks in a row, I’ve got my pretty website setup, I’ve got all these things that I think I need.
Only then can I launch my business, or can I go ask somebody for the sale or only when I look kind of professional and that could be for years.
Being Busy Vs. Working On Your Business
Maria Conde 6:47
It could be. Some people never make it out the gate or they build all that out. And I’ve seen it especially with course creators, they spend a year building a course. And then no one buys it because they didn’t test it. It’s not what people want.
Or they might have two or three sales, but they have a hard time getting off the ground. They’ve invested, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars in photography, and film and videography and all that. And they’ve built out something that hasn’t been proven yet.
You have to kind of go the messy backwards way to do it. I’ve got one I’m starting right now and it’s on paper, but I’m starting to test with people. And I let them know ahead of time, this is going to be a little bit messy, but we’re going to make sure you’re successful.
And that’s the benefit of doing it this way, working with me, and then come January, I’ll have this nice concise piece put together with all the words that my clients use versus my words, that will help it sell even more, because it’s not about me.
Uncomfortable Feelings When Launching or Selling
Jillian Leslie 7:49
You are preaching to the choir. It’s funny, I noticed this in myself. We are launching this new product called MiloTree Easy Payments. And David, my husband is my partner and we’re working on it. And we’re super jazzed.
And then all of a sudden, I decided to host a workshop. And it’s going to be actually this week. And I noticed I got a little depressed. I didn’t know why. And then I realized it was because now it was like the two of us behind the scenes. It’s fun. It’s all like in our vision.
And then I had to go out and I had to sell this. I had to pitch it to people and be rejected. And see maybe we’re crazy. Maybe this isn’t a viable idea. And what if we show up and it’s not good.
I kind of noticed I had been feeling so excited. And all of a sudden I was like, Wow, I feel so unmotivated. And I feel kind of scared. And I feel kind of anxious. And then I gather it was that time now to push myself into the discomfort.
And I didn’t like it. I love the planning phase.
Maria Conde 9:03
Me too.
Jillian Leslie 9:04
But to actually be there and do this weird thing of saying, “Hey, buy this from me. And this is going to change your life and all that, it was like I had to push myself to do it.
Maria Conde 9:17
But usually those first couple moments of that you have to push through it or else that’s when people don’t become successful.
Jillian Leslie 9:23
But the realization though, that my sadness was tied to the next phase was very enlightening, because then I was like, Oh, I get it.
Maria Conde 9:34
And once you have that awareness. You can act on it differently then.
How Men and Women Are Different with Mindset
Jillian Leslie 9:43
First of all, we were talking about how men and women are different when it comes to mindset. My audience is predominantly women. So, when you think about coaching men versus women, what would you say as women or men how we think about this?
Maria Conde 10:00
It’s interesting because my corporate world is very male dominated. And I did a lot of coaching in my corporate world, and my audience in my entrepreneurial world, and coaching world is very women driven.
But what’s interesting is, and I’ve done a fair bit of studying on confidence between both genders.
And I don’t like using the word gender that way, because I like to have a little more fluidity in there. But men overall, everyone’s still feels scared like that feeling you just said, when you have to put yourself out there, everyone still has that anxiousness.
But men just proceed forward, more so than women do. They’re still scared, but they just jump into it. They know, to be successful men have that I think it’s a little bit different drive of using hunter gatherers sort of thing.
They have to serve protect all those things. And so it’s a little bit more, I think, natural in them to step forward in that uncomfortableness.
Jillian Leslie 11:07
They have to go like, spear the wild boar to keep their family.
Maria Conde 11:12
Yeah. Lead into it, and once they get past a certain point, it’ll be okay. Where women, it’s sad too, because society has really held women back, I think overall. And we’re afraid to put ourselves forward, we’re afraid to fail.
There’s a whole bunch of things that go with that. And society as a whole, has done that. And when we think about what’s an attractive woman, and if you’re not that stereotypical person, then you feel less.
And there’s a whole bunch of that that goes on in society for women, not as much for men. And men don’t get as hung up on some of that stuff, where women have multiple layers of that throughout history that it has, I think held us back at all different levels.
Jillian Leslie 12:12
So, you think that when it comes to things like going out and asking for the sale, we have a harder time doing that?
Maria Conde 12:19
Oh, absolutely. Yeah.
Jillian Leslie 12:23
I think too we all as entrepreneurs, all of us, I don’t know, one who doesn’t suffer, we all suffer from imposter syndrome.
Maria Conde 12:33
Absolutely.
Jillian Leslie 12:34
We all think, oh, who am I? It’s funny, because with our new product, MiloTree Easy Payments, what I’m saying is, hey, go visit with a way to enable you, you might be interested host workshops or memberships super easily.
But what I’m going to be teaching next week is like how to set up a workshop where you can teach something, and I’m going to say to people, what are you an expert in and whenever I’ve said that in the past people kind of flinch.
And they kind of sulk and they go, “I’m not an expert in anything.” So then I say, “What are you a small ‘e’ expert in?” Where you’re only a step ahead, or two steps ahead of where your people are.
Because what’s great about that is that, you know what they’re going through. You’re not like the expert, you don’t have the PhD, you’re just like I’m muddling through.
But I kind of figured out a couple of these things that I can then go back and share with you. So when you think about this idea of imposter syndrome, like how do you coach people about this?
Facing Imposter Syndrome
Maria Conde 13:42
There’s a whole bunch of different things. I follow. Can’t think of the name of the book. I’ve lost the name of the book. But she has five different areas of imposter syndrome.
And I look at each one of those areas because it shows up differently for people in different ways. You have the expert that feels that they have to know everything before they get started.
And then there’s the perfectionist that has set the bar far too high for themselves. And there’s the natural genius that they are the expert everything.
And they don’t want to even accept help from other people they think they know more than everybody else. And that holds them back too.
And then you have the soloist who’s the person who won’t ask for help. And the Superwoman that is you have that person that’s competes.
“Well, I had seven clients today and I did the groceries and I went to three meetings today.” And they’re trying to do more than everybody else and show that they’re Superwoman. But that’s not serving them either.
And those are all imposter syndrome. It’s a really great book. It’s all about imposter syndrome for women. And there’s another really great book about confidence and I think it’s called Confidence Code. That’s really another great book on confidence.
And they bring in all those different layers to it. So, depending on what somebody is, thing is, I treat it a little bit differently. And if they think that they’re better than everybody else.
Then it means that you have to work on a different area to get them to be open to all new things in life, not that they can learn from everything. Because that’s still not serving them when they go to show up.
And for me, I do a lot of work, as you know, I do Rapid Transformational Therapy, which is layered in with hypnosis, and NLP, and a couple of other modality.
Jillian Leslie 16:02
Just share what those are for the people who don’t know.
How Does Rapid Transformational Therapy Transform Our Minds?
Maria Conde 16:05
Yeah, so the Rapid Transformational Therapy is a faster way of getting through limiting beliefs. And it’s rooted in the base of hypnosis, but we do NLP in the sense that we’re reprogramming.
So, we look at those limiting beliefs. And then we transform them to say, okay, that’s not who you really are. Those are beliefs that you chose, when you were little, for all kinds of interesting reasons.
And then we reprogram the mind to say, okay, what do you want in your life? And how do you want to show up. And then that’s how that transitions and it’s more NLP, which is Neuro Linguistic Programming.
That just helps reframe the mind and the subconscious. Because we have our conscious and subconscious. Our conscious knows what we want. And the subconscious has another agenda. And I love using it.
Dealing with Limiting Beliefs
Jillian Leslie 16:58
So when people have these limiting beliefs, what are some of the most common?
Maria Conde 17:07
I was just going to give a great example, I love using this example, because this was me way back when. When you go to do that sales conversation, you just said, when you go to step out there, you need to have to ask for the sale.
All kinds of stuff come up for you. Your conscious mind knows that you need to do this to be successful, it knows that. But your subconscious mind in the middle of that conversation is going to do all kinds of crazy stuff.
Because its job is to keep you safe and alive. And if you’re in that flight and fight, all that space is kicking in, then it wants to keep you safe. So, it’s going to do whatever it needs to do to get you out of that situation.
Jillian Leslie 17:47
To kind of sabotage it almost.
Maria Conde 17:48
It’s a sabotage. Yeah. So, I’m in the middle of a sales conversation I just de-position myself and derail and won’t say the price. And I’ll hmm and ahh. I used to do this, way back when. And that’s what’s happening is because it’s trying to protect me.
And that’s what your subconscious does. And you have to go back and look at, okay, why does it need to protect you so much. And there’s a lot of people that are afraid of success, too. And there’s some layers in there that you have to get into.
So, it’s not just a one stop shop sort of thing that it is. Every person has different layers of why they’ve shown up the way they have throughout life.
Jillian Leslie 18:27
Do you have any techniques for people to examine themselves to figure out what their beliefs were? So for example, when I was telling you this, that I noticed, I was not as happy when we were talking about our product.
And then and I kind of had to step back and go, “Why do I feel this way?” Then I was able to recognize oh, because we’re switching now into that forward facing selling, putting our value out there and kind of saying, like, possibly reject me.
I was able to have that like moment and that ding ding ding. But because I am kind of self-reflective in general. I was able to get it like nugget and go oh, oh and kind of shine a light on it and say, “Can I challenge this? Can I still move forward?”
But for a lot of people who are really busy or don’t spend the time doing this, they’re kind of operating then on these two layers where their conscious mind is making certain decisions and their unconscious mind is making other decisions.
So how do you get people to really go, oh, here’s the thought behind the thought.
Maria Conde 19:41
Yeah, there’s three ways and obviously some are slower and faster. Doing a lot of journaling yourself, where you’re saying, Okay, what is causing this and just sitting down and being quiet sort of meditating through it can work.
Having a coach that can actually ask you all the right questions to try and dig through that. And then when we use the hypnosis, the hypnosis actually takes you right back to that.
And that’s why it’s called Rapid Transformational Therapy, because it actually takes you right back there quickly.
Jillian Leslie 20:10
And is it usually based on trauma, those kinds of things.
Maria Conde 20:14
Not necessarily. Not necessarily. When I went through my own training for it, we had to be hypnotized over and over and over. So, I had to come up with a new theme every time I wanted to do it, right, because I didn’t want to do the same thing every time.
But for me, exercise was a big deal. And I struggled to show up all the time. But what came up for me was not necessarily trauma. What it was, is I had grandparents, the grandmother was really, really sick with cancer in another hospital for years.
My grandfather was super healthy outdoorsman. And he just dropped dead of an aneurysm one day. So, my little girl said, “Why would I want to be healthy and exercise when he just drop dead?”
Even though it’s not logical to our conscious mind, it’s a meaning you attached to it when you’re younger. So, when I was little I attached that if you exercise, you’re not going to live as long.
Actually my own coach, who was super, super healthy, who died very, very young, she was 47 years old, and she just had twins that were eight months old when she died. Super, super healthy.
So my mind struggles with that, the conscious and unconscious have two different agendas. And your subconscious is trying to keep you alive. That’s what it does. And that’s his job, which is good.
But your conscious mind knows that exercise is healthy for you. And I used to be a health coach. I know that right. But my subconscious mind, it says that we need to keep you alive. That’s our job.
And you’re seeing all these things, and you’re believing and the meanings you’re attaching to these says that you’re going to die. So, it was really interesting to unpackage that.
And then I had to reprogram to say it’s safe to exercise and it’s okay to exercise. It’s good, it’s healthy, it’s going to keep me living longer. Those were anomalies, those sorts of situations.
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How to Reprogram Our Brains
Jillian Leslie 22:56
So, if I don’t have a coach, though, how would you recommend I reprogram certain belief systems? So, it seems like there are a variety is what you’re saying.
Maria Conde 23:06
Yeah.
Jillian Leslie 23:06
It sounds like you’re saying, we have these two parts of our brains. And they don’t necessarily talk to each other.
Maria Conde 23:13
They don’t get along very well.
Jillian Leslie 23:15
But they don’t even know the other one exists.
Maria Conde 23:17
No, no, no
Jillian Leslie 23:18
So you need to figure out like, Okay, you want this but there’re parts of your brain that might be limiting you limiting beliefs that are keeping you safe. But then you need to identify what those are. But then you need to change those beliefs.
Maria Conde 23:34
Yes, you can do some of that through like affirmations. And I use affirmations and something called afformations. So, an affirmation which we know is an I am statement that says I attract money easily to me.
And an afformation, because for some people, when that’s not a true statement, their mind still has a little bit of a hard time making that true.
Jillian Leslie 24:01
Right. It feels kind of basey.
Maria Conde 24:02
Yeah, exactly. And so an afformation helps you transform that and what you would say in afformations, if I can get this right without having it in front of me, is why do I attract many easily?
So, what it does is your brain tries to solve that. When you ask it as a why. When you say I am, it’ll say okay, but that’s not true. If you say why do I?
Jillian Leslie 24:33
You’re assuming you kind of factor into.
Maria Conde 24:37
And your brain is going to try and go figure that out and work with that. And then it makes it happen. A little bit different angle of doing it.
Jillian Leslie 24:46
So, let’s talk about this. Like, okay, I can say that and do I need to say it once? Do I need to say it a hundred times?
Maria Conde 24:57
A lot. I do it daily?
Jillian Leslie 24:59
You do. So let’s talk about that, when?
Maria Conde 25:02
And so it’s best when you do any of these, subconscious work is right when you’re waking up and right when you’re going to sleep at night, because you’re going into an alpha state at that point.
And I love doing the mornings when I wake up and you have, I believe, it’s like 17 seconds, before your conscious mind really kicks into gear, and starts going into your agenda and panicking and, “Oh, my God, I got this client today.”
But first, when you wake up and open your eyes, the best thing you can do, for instance, I did it this morning, I have this podcast recording with you today. And it’s like, I woke up and I said, I have this recording first thing.
And I want all the perfect words to flow out of my mouth. And I don’t want to get jumbled in my mind. And I want it to be clear and concise. I want to show up with grace, and I feed this to myself.
And I have two clients right after this session. And one of them I know might be a little bit challenging. So it’s like, programming for that to be successful. Before I’m into the state of oh my God, how am I going to work with this person today?
It’s what kind of questions is this person going to ask me on the podcast. What if I’m not ready for them? Which we can easily get into soon as our conscious mind wakes up and puts us into that oh, my God moment.
But when you’re in that earlier stage, if you can actually do that positive reinforcement for yourself, it’s really helpful.
Jillian Leslie 26:30
Oh, I like that. I will try that before I go to bed and when I wake up. So is it like this is like a lifetime’s worth of work? This is not like I do this for a month every morning. Is it also about if you can catch yourself in your own thought process?
Maria Conde 26:52
Absolutely.
Jillian Leslie 26:53
When you notice when you go, oh my God, I’m so poor, or whatever it is, whatever that belief is to challenge it and go hey. I’ve always heard this, which is when you’re feeling poor to give money away.
Maria Conde 27:07
Yes.
Jillian Leslie 27:08
It doesn’t mean like, give $1,000 away, it means like, go give $5 to somebody.
Maria Conde 27:14
Or be of service in a big way.
Jillian Leslie 27:16
Be of service because the idea of me doing it is I couldn’t be poor if I have money to give away.
Maria Conde 27:24
Yeah, absolutely.
Jillian Leslie 27:25
It weirdly, tricks me into going, Wait, you’re not that poor, you’ve got $5 or you can help somebody else. So go do that, rather than focusing on oh my God, I’m so poor.
Maria Conde 27:38
Absolutely. I was going to add one more thing about lifelong doing it. When we do the hypnosis, when I do it with people, they actually get a 21-day recording, which helps reprogram for that 21 days, but you can use that longer term.
The Power of Affirmations to Change Your Beliefs
And so when we do that piece that is 21 days to actually make that big transformation. I do those a lot of my own affirmations every single day, and I change them as I need to. Because there’s different points where I have more confidence or less confidence.
I’m trying something new or different things are happening in your life. Even for myself, I realized that I had some generational things happening. And one of my newer affirmations was, is that it stops with me.
It could be for all different reasons that you’re using your affirmations and the statements that you’re saying to yourself to make those changes. It’s evolutionary.
As you grow and develop as a person, those are going to change. And when you feel concrete in something, you’re going to move on to that next layer it’s like, peeling that onion, it’s what’s next.
And your own personal growth is going to grow and develop and those are going to change over time. But the promise of doing them lifelong, will probably be lifelong.
If you’re into wanting to grow to be your best person throughout your life. I don’t think it’s just a one stop shop sort of thing.
Jillian Leslie 29:07
Right. Like I solved it.
Maria Conde 29:09
Yeah, it’ll change over time, and I just had this flash of like, when my daughter leaves for university, I’m going to have a whole new set of stuff coming at me, as how do I cope with this now? How do I deal with this? What does this mean to me? Who am I?
Because it’s a whole self defining moment again, I was mom for 20 years right now, who am I? And there’s a whole other evolution of you as a person in all those stages.
How to Have a Positive Money Mindset
Jillian Leslie 29:34
Absolutely. So let’s talk about money mindset, because I’m sure this is like a big stumbling block.
Maria Conde 29:40
The biggest.
Jillian Leslie 29:41
The biggest. Let’s tackle this and I do think again, as women too. We tend and again, I’m making generalizations, but just this idea that we might not feel deserving.
Maria Conde 29:57
Yes. Well, there are two sides. On the money side, I see men and women equally having lots of challenges with money from different reasons though. So, on the worthy side, yes, I’d see that being more on the female side for women.
But men can do some crazy stuff with their money too, men can be hoarders, too, which isn’t good either. And men can still not doing the right things with their money, and wasting it in different ways. And just what we spend our money on.
I’ve watched men buy all sorts of things. It’s like why did you just spend money on that? Like, you just wasted it. Where women, we’re known for shoes and handbags sort of thing.
But in the entrepreneurial world, you have a lot of people that spend a lot of money on courses. I got course junkies, and I am one of those too, I love learning. But when do you stop and actually start implementing?
Jillian Leslie 31:01
Right. And current courses can be a great way to think you’re working on your business when you’re really hiding from your business.
Maria Conde 31:08
Exactly, exactly. So, let’s jump back to the money side of things, it is a lot to do with our worth. And women, it shows up more when it comes to pricing for instance. Men can just say it’s going to cost $5,000 to work with me.
And women will be like, sweating out $1,000. And that’s where that difference comes in. And that is about your own self-worth.
I think there’s still a layer of society and history that has deemed our worthiness when you look at even glass ceilings and income disparity and all those things.
That’s always been there in history, it still is, sadly, men still make more money than women. And there’s a confidence piece to it. And there’s a worthiness piece to it, too.
Mindset to Ask for the Sale
Jillian Leslie 31:59
So how do I get my mind around asking for the sale, knowing I’m worth it?
Maria Conde 32:08
For women, I find it helps when we just do smaller increments. Some women can just say and bite it and just say, “You know what this is it.” Our brain works better when we do smaller steps, because our brain has to get familiar with the unfamiliar.
And when you do that, in smaller increments, it’s a little bit easier. So, there’s not the panic attacks, and the self-sabotaging where you shut down completely, because it’s just too hard.
But if you say you know what, I’m going to charge $1,000. And by the end of next year, I want to be at $2,000. And once you start getting that, then it’s easy to do bigger increments. It might be the year after that, where it’s at $5,000.
Because I know, I can deliver, I’ve proven it. We need a lot of proof ourselves, where men can just go out there and know that they can make it work. And you see that in the corporate world a lot.
When men and women apply for a job, a man will apply for a job if they feel they can, not even remotely close to but if they can do a little bit of it, they will apply for it.
Jillian Leslie 33:10
I read the same thing. It’s something like men will apply for jobs where they have 10% the skills that are needed for the job. Whereas a woman will apply for a job only when she has something like 85% skills for that job.
Maria Conde 33:29
And if there is one thing on there that she can’t do, it will throw her off completely.
Jillian Leslie 33:33
Totally. But I feel like as women we are taught and it’s part of our DNA to be helpers. And it seems almost like icky to go, “Well, I’m a helper, but I need to get paid for it.” Instead of I give it all away for free.
Maria Conde 33:51
Yeah, absolutely. There’s that, too. And I just wanted to add another piece on the corporate world, which, when it comes to our money stuff. When it comes to like mostly a promotion or making money and in that sort of environment.
A man will get promoted based on his perceived ability to be able to accomplish something, but a woman will only be promoted based on what she’s proven herself to do already.
And so when we look at that when you look at how that disseminates, sort of through society and community and everywhere, because it comes down to your home, it comes down to your family.
And then when you show up as an entrepreneur, it’s all there still where we have to prove ourselves. Where a man will just put a price tag on something and make it happen, where we have to prove that it’s going to work out okay.
But I just wanted to add that but then you going back to that helper side too, which is it’s hard to put dollars on helping people. Especially when you get into holistic practitioners and that’s on the male female side, too.
It doesn’t matter who you are, if you’re a holistic practitioner, your innate way is to help people. And unless you’ve been a doctor, and you have hundreds of thousands of dollars tuition bills to pay, they make a lot of money.
But when you look at just general, if you’re a massage therapist, for instance, or a nutritionist, those are people that are just helper people. We need them just as equally as everybody else in this world.
But there’s a piece that says, if I’m helping why are you charging that? There’s also a society that says, if you’re doing that, why are you charging for it? If you’re a money coach, why are you charging people to learn that?
Jillian Leslie 35:53
Right. That’s the kind of thing like, your daughter wants a snack and you give her snack and you don’t think to go, okay, that’s $5. Like, okay, now you need to pay me for taking care of you. It’s just natural. And it’s what we do.
So, all of a sudden be like, “Wait a second, oh, I can help but my helping has value financial value.”
Maria Conde 36:14
Yeah. But the big piece is, and that’s what I bring into my platform a lot is the more money you make, the more people you can help in this world.
Jillian Leslie 36:24
I know.
Maria Conde 36:26
A lot of people have that disconnect, if I charge for this, that’s great. Because if you’re charge is that, it means you can reach so many more people, whether it be through paid advertising, or you’re actually doing a charitable thing.
A lot of people that make a lot of money, especially women, build out charitable foundations that support whole communities and schools and all kinds of amazing things. Because they’ve made a lot of money.
Jillian Leslie 36:49
Yep. I had a guest on who was blogger way at the beginning. And she said that exact same thing. She’s like, I want to make a million dollars. I think she was, she’s like, because I give away money.
It was so bold, and I was so impressed with her like, she knew her vision and her why and why she wanted to make money. There wasn’t like the embarrassment, like, “I kind of want to go to Hawaii.”
Maria Conde 37:17
And you can have both of those, there’s nothing better than writing a check for $10,000 and hopping on a plane to Hawaii, at the same moment because you can and being with at all.
Jillian Leslie 37:28
So, if I were to want to chip away at my issues around money, what would you recommend I do?
Track Where Your Money Goes
Maria Conde 37:38
People hate this part. But a lot of it looking at your own actions, I believe in tracking your money, and money in and money out to start with, I still track all money in. Actually, I’m an accountant by background, so I track everything.
But really focusing on where your money is coming in, and where it’s going out. So you’re aware. And once you create that awareness, I looked at it, and says this whole man, I have made a whole bunch of money on these passive income things.
I need to up that because that feels great to make that passive income. But I wasn’t aware that I was doing so much of that. And then this piece that’s feeling so hard, and as it’s not really making any money. So why am I doing that?
But we don’t often look at our money because we don’t want to. You can’t transform anything, if you don’t know what is there. I’ve worked with people that are encore career, I call it.
Where they can actually retire if they wanted to, but they’re afraid to look at their numbers. But when they do, it’s like, Oh, when they somebody helps them do the math, like even a financial advisor that says, Yeah, you could retire now if you wanted to.
And if you’re going to do this business, this is what it would look like. But they just don’t even want to go there. And a lot of people have, like a warped sense of what they think is in their world for money. And it goes on both sides.
People don’t realize how much they have. And some people don’t realize how much debt they have or how little they have. And nobody wants to look at that often. Money has a positive history all the time. But it’s very empowering when you do.
Jillian Leslie 39:19
So, you’re saying go to the scary dark money closet with the biggest flashlight, open the door and go shine the light.
Maria Conde 39:26
Exactly. Know what you’re dealing with. And then take those first steps. Okay, yeah, you got a bunch of debt. I like to reframe debt. I really love to say, and I learned this, I want to say about 30 years ago with my own coach, and I did not like the word at all.
She said, I want you to be grateful for your debt. I said you want me to do what? You need to be grateful somebody believed in you enough to give you credit so that you can have all those things that you have.
You got to go to school, you got to go to that trip. You got to have whatever is in your home, whatever it is, somebody believed in you that you were going to pay them back and had faith in you. I need you to be grateful for that.
And it’s like, okay, and so I do take that space now.
Jillian Leslie 40:16
Hmm, that’s interesting.
Maria Conde 40:18
Yeah. And I don’t feel if I do have some debt, which mine has gone up and down throughout my life for various reasons. And I’ve done different things over time in school and bought properties and things.
And it’s all over the map at different points. But I never get mad at myself anymore for it, because when I was young, I would beat myself up and I have a credit card balance, I get mad at myself, it’s like there was purpose on that, there was a reason for that.
And your daughter needed emergency surgery that you paid for on your own, because that was the best path at that moment, and so it is what it is. And my daughter when she was two fell and crushed in all her teeth when she was little.
I had to pay to actually have them all extracted, at two years old, so her teeth would grow back in properly. So, that was a big bill.
And so I could beat myself up about it, or say, “Wow, I’m so grateful. Somebody believed in me that I actually had credit for that when I was at that point in my life.”
Jillian Leslie 41:30
I painted this scenario for you earlier, before we press record. This is the narrative I hear; I have my job. I’m married. And then I have kids. And I go, this isn’t fitting for me, this life doesn’t work for me, I want to do something on my own.
I want to start a blog or start an ecommerce Store or something where I can then take my fate in my own hands have something that’s mine, that hopefully is making money where I can send my kids to summer camp or whatever.
And it’s really important to me, however, say, my husband doesn’t understand this or my in-laws, or my neighbors, my girlfriends are like, “What are you doing? Or that’s so cute.”
Whatever it is, and you feel disempowered, kind of belittled, it just feeds on those narratives that you’re already telling yourself. And let’s say you’re just starting, so you’re not making any money.
Maria Conde 42:27
Yeah. It takes awhile too.
Jillian Leslie 42:28
But you have put in a lot of time. And maybe money is going out to pay for this.
Maria Conde 42:33
More often than not.
How to Find Support for Your Entrepreneurial Dreams?
Jillian Leslie 42:35
How do you not just crumble and give up?
Maria Conde 42:38
Yeah, and I coach on this a lot. And more often than not, your family’s not going to be supportive. And when you start getting successful, your friends are not going to be supportive in the sense that they’re going to be envious of you.
Which is a whole other world to deal with. When you start making money but you just write a blog, and you’re making all kinds of money, yeah. But they don’t see what goes on behind the scenes.
So, there’s sort of two different angles, you need to be surrounded in a community of people that support you. And you’re going to have to usually find that online or whatever world you’re in.
You probably have a community; I have a community of people that’s where they get that nourishment from. So that when things are rough, you’ve got support, you’ve got somebody who’s got your back.
And I always tell people not to tell their family, a lot of stuff. Don’t lie to them, obviously. But don’t elaborate on all the stuff all the time. Just don’t go there, because it’s just going to hurt you if they’re not supportive.
If they’re really supportive, that’s great. But if they’re not, just say, I’m just going to go write my blog today. See you later, don’t get into all the details, because it’s just going to deflate you if they’re not supportive.
Jillian Leslie 43:49
So it sounds like again, I agree with this completely, find people who are like minded. Who understand.
Maria Conde 43:57
You have to find your tribe.
Jillian Leslie 43:58
It’s funny. When my daughter was in preschool, and we were starting our company called Catch My Party and the other moms, I didn’t talk about it to them, because I didn’t think they’d understand.
But then I had this whole online world, where we will totally got what I was doing. And I learned very early, we have enough to talk about in preschool be like, what we’re feeding our kids and all that stuff that I didn’t have to be sharing.
Because when I did, I didn’t get the feedback that I needed that fed me, it only makes me question what I was doing.
Maria Conde 44:30
Yes. And then that’s when people give up a lot of times too because they believe what everyone else is telling them. You’re wasting your money; you’re wasting your time. But to be an online entrepreneur, there’s a journey and it’s not easy all the time.
And there’s an energetic piece. There’s a mindset piece, there’s tactical things you need to do, right. There’s many layers to it. And to have all of those it takes a while to get that success path. That’s why a lot of people don’t make it through.
Because they don’t have the stamina to get through that. And then they’re listening and believing in all the people around them that are telling them all these other things.
Jillian Leslie 45:14
So it is about creating boundaries, being okay, not sharing everything, having something that is your own, believing in yourself. I will say anybody out there who feels this way, email me at jillian@milotree.com.
And I will just give you a little extra juice for that day to tell you, you got this. And then it’s rough. And we were talking about this before, it’s messy. And you do fall into self- doubt.
You look at all these people on Instagram, and they look like they’re just living the best lives, and that they’re having just so much success. And it’s so easy for them.
And you peel back that curtain, and you will see all the messy stuff and all this self- sabotage that you feel you have. We’re all kind of human at the end of the day.
Maria Conde 46:01
Yes. Absolutely. When you’re an entrepreneur that really taxes on you to start with, let alone not having a support system around you at home. It’s hard enough as it is. Even if you do have a support system.
Jillian Leslie 46:19
Yes, definitely. So Maria, this is super interesting. And I feel like you’ve given me a lot to think about just take it like especially shining the light where we don’t want to shine the light.
Maria Conde 46:31
Yeah, absolutely.
Jillian Leslie 46:31
You know, really examining.
Maria Conde 46:33
You have to go there though. You have to go through to be successful. You can’t skirt around this stuff.
Jillian Leslie 46:40
And I’m going to start affirmations in the morning when I wake up. I love that. So Maria, if people want to find out more about you or connect to you, what can they do?
Maria Conde 46:53
The easiest thing to do is find me at my website is mariaconde.com.
Jillian Leslie 46:57
And how do we spell that?
Maria Conde 46:59
M-A-R-I-A C-O-N-D-E.com.
Jillian Leslie 47:03
Perfect.
Maria Conde 47:04
And there’s lot of ways to connect with me there.
Jillian Leslie 47:06
Awesome. It’s a Saturday while we are recording this. It’s a beautiful day here in Austin. And I feel like I’m just going to kind of soak in our conversation throughout the day.
Maria Conde 47:16
I love having conversations like this. I love it.
Jillian Leslie 47:19
Well, Maria, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Maria Conde 47:22
Thank you for having me. It’s been a pleasure.
Jillian Leslie 47:24
I hope you liked this episode. I’ve actually started doing affirmations in the morning and I do think it gives me a sense of groundedness. I feel more connected, a little calmer.
If you start doing affirmations, please reach out to me. Let me know what you think. Reach out to me at jillian@milotree.com. I’d love to hear about your journey.
If you are in a giving mood during the holidays. I have a simple request. If you’re enjoying the show. Would you head to iTunes. You could also get there on your Apple Podcast app, head to the Blogger Genius Podcast and leave a five-star review.
I would be so grateful and I might even read it on an upcoming episode. And I will see you here next week.
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