September 10, 2020
Have you ever felt like your mindset and internal dialog are holding you back from success? For example, have you ever thought of any of the following?
“I’m not qualified enough.”,
“It’s already been done before.”
“I don’t have enough time.”
“Making money is greedy.”
“I can’t possibly have a successful business and be a good mom.”
If so, you’re in for a treat.
Today’s guest is the incredible Kate Crocco.
Kate is a psychotherapist, confidence and mindset coach, and incredible writer who mentors female leaders around the globe. She has coached thousands of women through one-on-one, group, and mastermind programs, as well as through her Confident Ladies Club community. Her first book (of three), Thinking Like a Boss, released with Baker Books in February 2020. She is the host of a weekly podcast, Thinking Like a Boss, where she shares and equips entrepreneurs to stop believing the lies holding them back from success and to begin believing the truth that they are capable of turning their dreams into their reality. A guest expert on numerous podcasts and telesummits, Kate has been quoted in publications such as The Huffington Post, Best Kept Self, SheKnows, and BlogHer. Kate currently resides in New York with her husband, her two sweet girls, and her rescue pup, Turbo.
Today, we jump straight in with Kate on all things mindset. We talk about some of the biggest lies and difficulties female entrepreneurs face today, what it means to “fake it until you become it,” how women often use our financial situation as a barrier, the comparison trap, boundaries, and so much more. If you know us, you know how much we believe in the power of mindsets, especially as entrepreneurs. Today’s episode is a freaking goldmine of info and tools.
Kate is a therapist, author, and confidence and mindset coach for female entrepreneurs. She and her husband live in New York with their two girls. Kate’s journey began about six years ago when she started a therapy private practice. She went through all of the lies that she helps her clients with today such as feeling like she wasn’t qualified enough to start a business, she didn’t have it all together, or that she didn’t have a blueprint or all the steps in place to be successful. By working through some of those limiting beliefs she was telling herself, Kate was able to grow her business quickly and leave her nine to five within three months of starting.
The business she has today doing confidence and mindset coaching was born out of this experience. It was born out of her own journey of insecurity. Other people asked her how she did it and how she was able to work through it all. She started her coaching business about 4 and a half years ago. Throughout the journey of adding another business and motherhood, Kate decided to write a book.
In Kate’s work as a therapist, she was trained in dialectical behavior therapy. This is a skills-based cognitive behavior therapy to help people in all different areas of life. There are four pillars in DBT (dialectical behavior therapy). The first is interpersonal effectiveness which is how to best communicate in relationships, get across what you are trying to get across, how to say no, how to have boundaries, and how to stick up for yourself. Next, is distress tolerance which is how to tolerate really difficult situations and how to work through that. Then, there is emotion regulation which is the skills to help you work through when you feel like your emotions are a rollercoaster. Finally, there is mindfulness.
Dialectic is being able to see that you can be two things at once. You can have joy in your life and also experience pain. Being able to learn acceptance and learn that to have a joyful life or a fulfilled life doesn’t mean that it has to be free from pain. Pain is inevitable and we can’t avoid it. There is always going to be disappointment in life. For Kate, learning this in grad school and then using it in her therapy practice as well as with herself to better understand herself as a person, friend, and business owner, she realized that these are skills that everyone should have. Whether you are in therapy or not, these are great human skills to have.
She had different entrepreneurs asking her how to work through the difficulties and find success so quickly. Kate began to teach those skills.
It was never something that Kate planned on doing. It all happened organically, but this doesn’t mean it was easy. Once Kate got things started, tons of roadblocks got in her way. She realized that not only did she need to market her business locally, but also online. Kate was terrified to put herself online. She told herself that if she could get through this, she would help other people, so she hit the ground running.
She began to market her business online and with time it just got easier. Some people think that others are born with confidence or that you learn it and know it forever. Confidence is like a muscle. It’s something that we have to work on all the time. Confidence is born through consistency. It is doing uncomfortable things over and over and over again until they feel a little more comfortable. Once they are comfortable, this doesn’t mean you can stop the work. It’s work that you have to work on all the time.
It all comes down to mindset and not believing the lies that we tell ourselves.
Kate’s book, Thinking Like a Boss, highlights the top twelve lies that we tell ourselves. These are the lies that most of the women Kate works with experience. If you are experiencing these, don’t feel like you are a failure. Just know that you are in a good place because it means you are moving forward. If you aren’t coming up against something it probably means you are getting comfortable. Being comfortable is not a good place to be in. The more growth the more pain you are going to experience but with each new experience you learn to work through it and it gets a little easier each time.
It was in Kate’s first business in the therapy practice. Kate was so afraid of getting on the phone with people and even sharing with others that she had a business. She kept asking herself “What if I fail?” and “What if nobody calls?” She didn’t tell anyone about her business for a while and almost viewed it as a hobby until she realized that she needed to take it seriously. If she wanted a business, she needed to step into the CEO mindset. She knew she was falling prey to these lies and needed to do something about it. This was when she started to work on dialectical behavior therapy and teach herself some of those skills that she was teaching her therapy clients.
Kate originally thought that once she worked through all of those, she was set and business would be so easy. She didn’t realize that that is so far from the truth. Each new level and each new pivot you get to, there is going to be something else that you come against. You’ve got to keep practicing and working every single day. In many ways, the further ahead you get in your business or career, there will be even more challenges.
So many women tell themselves that they will step into a place once they are confident and feel ready. The thing is, if you tell yourself you are not going to do it until you are ready, you are never going to be ready because ready never comes. No one ever cracks the code of figuring out “readiness”.
The important thing to do when you are not feeling confident or ready is to start showing up as the future version of yourself.
Public speaking is something that is still very scary to Kate. When she started doing a bit more, she would envision herself as someone who was doing a TedTalk and was incredibly confident. It started to really help! There is a TED Talk by Amy Cuddy and she talks about doing certain power poses. You have to stand very confidently, walk confidently, and maybe throw on a pair of high heels. Practice walking around like you own the place and that you have no care in the world. Kate would picture someone that she looked up as a successful speaker and act as if she was already the future version of herself.
Kate says “fake it until you become it” but you aren’t actually faking it because what she believes is that the person you are trying to be and who you see yourself as in the future is actually you underneath all of the layers of insecurities. You are not faking it, you are just stepping into that version of you and peeling away the lies and stories that you tell yourself. It’s about keeping yourself in the present and showing up how you want to show up. If you can keep your eyes on that, you will step into that version of yourself more than if you were keeping yourself small and listening to those negative stories.
One way that a lot of women hold themselves back financially is because they are fearful that they will outearn their partner. They often don’t realize they are doing this, but they tend to be afraid of what would actually happen if they outearn their partner. They worry how it would shake up their relationship and change the dynamic.
Once you can identify this situation, start to have these conversations with your significant other.
In order to show up for your family and be the best version of you, you have to charge for your services. In order to show up for your clients, you have to show up for your family. In order to show up for your family, you have to charge for your services. There’s no other way around it.
Money is a magnifier of the heart. If you are giving with just a little bit of money, you are going to give more with a lot.
We all need to be more transparent. It is so important as humans that we show what is really going on. As a mom, Kate really loves to show behind the scenes. It is so important to show the messiness and the hardships because there is not a lot of it out there on social media.
It is so easy for people, especially moms, to look around and think that everyone else has it all together.
Life doesn’t’ have to be perfect. It should be the theme for everyone. Of course, we want our Instagram feeds to be pretty, but be sure to show vulnerability in some sort of way. Show that you are human.
Share your scars and not your wounds. Often people think that in order to be vulnerable they need to show it all. In order to actually share it, you need to process it first. If the wound is still open, if someone disagrees with you or questions something that you say, you are going to attack back and not be in the right mind to respond appropriately. It’s important that we are fully processed before we share the vulnerability.
Most people think that others are the ones who are overstepping boundaries. But, boundaries start with us. We are the first person that we have to set them with. If we can’t set them with ourselves and draw the line with ourselves, no one will ever respect that.
Look back at every situation and take note if the other person actually overstepped or did we allow them to come in. If we do this, we won’t resent them.
It has to start with us. We have to figure out what our boundaries even look like. So many people don’t even have a clue what these look like.
One key thing is to be flexible with yourself. Just because you have a boundary today doesn’t mean it has to look like that tomorrow. Often when we first set up boundaries, we tend to go to the extreme. Boundaries are fluid and they can change at any time. Learn to practice self-love and say that just because you said no yesterday, doesn’t mean that it is a no tomorrow.
In business, we have a lot of great opportunities and things that we want to say yes to. Ask yourself if this is something that you really want. If it’s not a hell yes today, then it’s a no. We often feel that in the future you will have more time, but what it usually comes down to is that we have a hard time saying no. Future out if it is something that you need to do, have to do, or should do. If you are saying yes to those questions, don’t say yes. It should be a yes because you want to and get to do it. We tend to say yes to so many things out of guilt and not wanting to disappoint the people that we love.
When you show respect for yourself, the right people will show it back.
Practice boundaries in your personal lives and then practice in business.
This one really helps you reconnect to the things you may be missing in your life or business. As an entrepreneur, we have these ideas that once we do “x” we will have all the time in the world to travel, spend time with family, cook, etc. We have all these ideas of things we are going to do, but then we become an entrepreneur and we realize we never did those things.
This visualization exercise helps you reconnect back to when you were a little kid. So many answers are there.
Think back to when you were a little kid. Think back to some of the earliest memories that you had. Think back to before the world told you you couldn’t be an astronaut or a fireman, or whatever it was you wanted to be. Think of what you loved and the way that you believed that you could be anything that you wanted to be.
What were those things you were doing? What did your day look like? What did the weather look like?
Get back into that mindset of when you were a little kid and the way you looked at the world. It didn’t feel like a scary place and you felt limitless. You felt like there were so many opportunities out there for you. Reconnect with those things that you loved. Try to find ways to bring those back into your life.
Tell yourself today’s the most time you are going to have and just get started on whatever the new thing is. When life feels busy and full, we say that we will start that thing tomorrow. What happens is that our lives just get busier. It doesn’t slow down, it only speeds up. If you wait, you will be waiting for forever. If it’s a priority for you, get it started today.
Just do it for yourself. Do try to prove things to other people. It is so easy to always want to prove to yourself or other people. Make sure to sit and celebrate what you have done. Do it because you love it, not because you want others to see it.
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Website: http://www.katecrocco.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/katecrocco/
Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/TLABPod
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/KateCrocco
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/KateCrocco/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KateCrocco
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-crocco-lcsw-994b652b/
Success Kit: https://www.katecrocco.com/success-kit
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WASSUP FRIENDS. We’re Evie + Lindsey, co-founders of this wild partayyy called The Heart University. Our goal is to empower entrepreneurs to kick freaking BUTT in their businesses, dive down into the heart of their why and how, and serve you with all possible tools you’ll need to up-level your business game and CRUSH those goals of yours.
Whether you’re coming to an in-person workshop, joining our online course, or soaking up all the strategies via this blog or our podcast, we’re STOKED you’re here + can’t wait to see you out there kicking butt.
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