[Transcript starts at 1:22]
Hello, hello, hello, my podcast people, and thank you for joining me for yet another episode of my favorite podcast. If you are joining us, listening to us, watching us on the day that it drops, it is Monday, March 11th. Hello. Happy Monday, March 11th. Today we are talking about overcoming the fear of ridicule, but first, right off the bat, gotta give a little announcement in here.
Doors are open. Open for what? Round 15 of my Instagram intensive. For those of you who don't know, how don't you know? I've been talking about it a lot, but it's possible. The Instagram intensive is my six week online group coaching program that teaches health and fitness pros exactly. I mean, exactly how to use Instagram for online business, the link to the info page, the registration page, it'll be in the show notes. Thank you, Courtney. So you can check out all of that there. If you got any questions. Shoot me a DM at The Movement Maestro, shoot me a little text, 310 737 2345, and I'll answer them. This announcement, that announcement, is actually quite meta for two reasons. One, today's episode is about overcoming the fear of ridicule, and that is exactly what the Instagram Intensive does, right?
I market it as the tactical side of things, learning how to use Instagram for online business. But at the heart of that is learning how to show up. It's learning how to be okay, taking up space. So if it interests you again, would love to have you in the Intensive. All the things are in the show notes. DM me, text me, whatever.
Point number two as to why this is a little announcement is meta is I just had a call to action, right, that said, DM me with questions, and that's exactly how I got the inspo for today's episode. Uh, it was actually a DM question. Uh, she did check the website. I love this, right? She checked. She was like, Hey, I couldn't find an episode.
Do you have one? I love that when you folks check, right? If you go to my website, themovementmaestro.Com, there is a search box. It's the first thing that you're going to see. You can type in whatever keywords you want, uh, and all my episodes and any of my content that I have about that keyword and keyword can be more than one thing, right?
More than one word. Um, it'll come up. So shout out to you listening to this. Who posed this question, I don't know if you want me to say your name or not, so I'm not going to, but thank you, right? So quick life updates before I hop into the episode. Um, I really do think that these life updates are important.
As a listener of podcasts, I don't listen to a lot, but the one that I do listen to, um, Heather McMann's. She did a whole ass episode recently that was just, an update about her, her trip to Australia and her time in Australia. And I was like, this is great. This is like, like she does call, she does these calls, um, the people call in and then she has a response to them and they're fucking hilarious.
She's so skilled, but that's what I really want to hear is like, what's going on in your life, what are you doing? Um, so I want to make sure that I continue to include these. It's also like, I want to get away from the podcast just being like, here's some information and go do it. Like, yes, it's my take on things, but I do think it's important, maybe for those of you listening to this that have your own podcast, I think that it's important to infuse and inject the humanness, right, and let people know about you and your day and your life.
So, the updates, still no planter, uh, for that big fake plant that I got. The plant looks nice, but there's no planter, it's sitting on a chair.
I need the time to go and search and research and whatnot and not pay a million dollars. Um, or just get so annoyed that I'm just like, fine, we'll just pay a million dollars. But either way, no, planter. Um, I did order a stool to go on top of the treadmill. I'm standing on the treadmill. You can't see it I'm obviously not walking but Um, I ordered a stool to go on top of it because I don't have to move it out of the way like I can put It on its side and move the chair and things like that but like i'm kind of like I just want a stool that goes on on top of this um just for I don't want to stand the whole time. So I will let you know how that goes.
It should arrive tomorrow by the time this episode airs it will already have arrived. Um, but you know, I record in the past, then send it out in the future, and it's a whole thing. So, um, one of the reasons I haven't had time to research anything is one, I have, I'm working with all my clients and doing all the things, which is great.
But also, took Lex away this past weekend for her birthday. We went to Joshua Tree, it was a total surprise. Uh, if you follow me on Instagram, you saw in the Stories, just, we got a really good video of her, of her being surprised. Side note, if you want to do a surprise well, don't fucking tell anyone. Don't tell anyone, right?
People got loose lips. Heard this phrase last night. Loose lips sink ships. It was on a real estate, real estate show from Australia, but I'm kind of like is that a good phrase? I don't know, but I like it. It rhymes, so we're going with it. Loose lips sink ships. So I didn't tell anybody. I told Jill. She don't have loose lips at all.
So, told Jill and I told the dog sitter. Because I needed to set that up, um, but I got set up at the dog sitter. I brought all the food with us, so we, we're not camping, excuse me, no, immediately no. We rented a, I rented a really dope spot out there, modern, it just looks great, um, out in Joshua Tree, brought all the food so we could cook and let's have like a normal routine, but just there.
There was a hot tub, there's a pool, but you know, we're not getting the pool, it's too cold. Um, but the hot tub was great. I made chicken French. Which was fun, first time making that. Chicken Francaise, right? But they call it chicken French. Or Francaise. Either way, they call it chicken French in upstate New York.
Um, so I made that. Uh, we took on a hike to 49 Palms Oasis. There are like 4 or 5 oasisies, oases. In Palm Springs. And, she'd been showing me them, and I'm like, I've actually been to them, they're pretty cool. Um, she'd been like showing me them on Instagram, and I was like, yeah, real cool. And I had already set this up, so we went, she loved it.
And it was great. We actually left early. So I surprised her. We left on Thursday, got there, took so much traffic. Oh my God. Um, I did not plan for that, but either way it was fine. We left, got there Thursday night. Um, I rented the place until Sunday so that if it was raining, then we could, we wanted to stay because we have volleyball on Sunday, which I assume she'd want to go to.
She would want to go to, but if it was raining, then we could just stay. Um, we wouldn't have to rush back. I didn't have to get the dog until 3 PM on Sunday, but, rented it till Sunday, but we ended up leaving on Saturday, which was totally fine part of the plan if you, if we wanted to do that. Because there was like basically a tornado, like it was the windiest thing ever.
Like things were blowing over, like it was actually like I had to grip the steering wheel driving home. Um, but we left early because the main, the main draw to being there is like actually the hot tub, but you literally couldn't go in the hot tub, the water was blowing out of it. So. We left early. I was like, what do you want to do?
And she's like, do you want to go home? And I'm like, sure. Um, and to me, you know you're living in the right place when you're like, I want to go home and I love it there. Um, Rupert was so happy to see us. Like, we leave Rupert at home alone. I have a million cameras. I just set up an extra litter and he's fine.
Um, but he was so happy to be there with us without Moose. Like, he was back to his old self. He was in the bed. It was just, it was great. Um, so. I'm thinking, and I suggested to Lex that we do this quarterly and she was like, yeah, I think that would like, she would like, she's like, I think I would like that, um, so I think we're going to do that, but yeah, that's the update on that.
It was really fun and happy to send you the Airbnb link to the place that we stayed at if you wanted. Uh, next announcement. Second, this is, uh, the last announcement before last update, before we hop in the episode, I have been writing to my email list every Tuesday, right? My word for the year is write, W R I T E.
And so part of that's just about me wanting to get consistent with writing. Um, I was writing to my email list like once every 10 days, two weeks, something like that before, but I was like, let me get consistent with this. Cause I'm really prolific with content creation as it relates to the podcast and really consistent with it and, and Instagram posts.
But I was like, let me get the email. consistent. So it's been every Tuesday. And last Tuesday, so I don't know, it's like 75 Tuesdays from the day that this drops, um, I shared an email entitled thou shalt say my name, a little shout out to Destiny's Child. Um, and the email was about the, an experience that I had at the Raise the Bar Conference with an attendee who basically addressed the elephant in the room, right?
Saying that, hey, you and I are both people of color. There's like three of us here. And our experience in trying to navigate this. this, this place, and trying to get on stages is different. And I was like like, yeah, it is. And so she would ask me, you know, uh, for suggestions and things like that. And part of the discussion, part of the suggestion I gave, one of the suggestions I gave her was that she use her actual name.
Uh, she's, she's actually came to me and she's like, yeah. And I know that I have this Indian accent and that can, you know, be perceived us as something in some kind of way. And I was like, I hear you, man, you're speaking fucking truths. And so I suggested, I was like, For starters, use your actual name, instead of this phonetic pronunciation, the phonetic spelling of it, rather, use your name and people will figure it out.
They'll learn, they'll probably get it wrong. They're going to have to ask you, but like, use your name. And so I wrote an email about that and. If I do say so myself, it was a banger of an email. And so while I'd love to just have you join the email list and, and, you know, receive these weekly emailings. Um, I am going to link that, thank you, Courtney, that actual email.
And, cause I'm, I'm down with that buy before you try life. So if you want to check out the kind of stuff that I share in this email, in the email list, a newsletter, whatever you want to call it, it's the same. Um, you can do that. All right. You can read it without having to join the email list without having to enter your email or anything like that.
So we will link that. Thank you, Courtney. And then if you do want to receive these each week, then you can do so at the bottom of that page. Okay. So I think that's all for the updates. I'm looking at the screen here. Look at this good lighting today. Um, I think that's all for the updates. So let's hop on into the episode and we are going to talk about overcoming the fear of ridicule.
This was a direct question from one of my dope Insta. homies, podcast homies, and they wrote, Hi Maestro, thanks for posting your solid content. I learned a lot and I'm reminded to stay in a growth mindset when I see your posts. I'm building the skill of self promotion, i. e. adding value by sharing what I know.
It's taking a lot of energy to overcome the fear of ridicule and responsibility. Do you have a post slash podcast episode that addresses any of this? Thanks again. So maybe they didn't check the thing first, but I don't have an episode. Um, but I love that they classified self promotion as a skill because that means that we can get better at it, right?
It's not just like, oh, well, it is what it is. But it's also interesting to me that they equated self promotion and adding value or vice versa. They equated adding value by sharing what you know and that being the same as self promotion. To me, there's definitely some, you know, deep stuff here. But I'm also not going to argue against it and try to say that it's not self promotion because technically and ultimately, I guess it is, right?
But to me, the main point is that there is no issue in doing so. But it's definitely interesting to me and that's something that caught my eye when reading that first DM. So I DM'd the person back and I asked them to elaborate as to what the energy was, usage felt like, and what they felt like they were fighting against.
And they wrote, I'm up against cultural conditioning. In my Cook Island family, you're labeled a show off when you share your skills, knowledge, or experience. Now that I'm older, no one calls me that directly, but still triggered when I hear something like, yeah, yeah, we know you're a dancer. I roll, which makes me want to hide again.
Like I did as a kid because it seems safer. Just wondering if you've had to deal with this or reframe you have about self promotion. Thanks again so much for your help. One. Thank you. The person that sent this in, thank you. Thank for, thank you for going back and forth and answering my questions and just trusting me to provide any kind of answer.
Number two, cultural conditioning and, and family stuff and societal stuff. It's real and I don't want to downplay any of it or invalidate any of it. I know that I have a tendency to be like, okay, here's an action item. Let's move forward. Um, and I think that all of you listening to this or watching this, if you follow me for any point in time on any of my platforms, you know that I get right to the heart of things and right to the action items because it's how my brain works. It's also what I'm being asked for, right? This person specifically asked for like, Hey, how can I reframe this? Um, but all that to say I cut right to the heart of it because it's being asked for it's how my, and it's how my brain works.
Not because I don't care. I'm not like trying to dismiss it. And number three, I want to share some resources that come to mind immediately and that came to mind immediately when I was reading those questions. And those three resources are my girl, Erica Webb. Laura Jean and James Olivia Chu Hillman. I have had all of them on the pod on the podcast, some of them multiple times, and we will link all of those episodes.
Thank you, Courtney. Um, and you can obviously check all of them out on Instagram. We'll link that as well in the show notes. Thank you again, Courtney, and thank you for doing this on, uh, YouTube, JoeJoe. Uh, but those folks, I think, might be able to offer some more nuance to the process, or if you're in Canada, the process of moving through this stuff, um, and some more nuance than, than perhaps I can.
And I think that part of the reason that maybe they can offer some nuance is because I haven't experienced this, right? The person asked, like, have you experienced this? I haven't come up against it. in life. I haven't come up against, you know, someone telling me to be smaller, which hopefully doesn't invalidate my advice.
I actually spoke about this on, uh, this previous Monday, this past Monday's episode, episode 559, uh, was it 559? What was that? Oh, no, because this is a Monday episode. Wow. Last Monday. I'm all confused. Last Monday's episode, which was 5. 59, titled Beyond Personal Narratives, Success Without the Backstory. And I made two major points in that episode, but the second point was that you don't have to be your avatar.
The flip side of that is that the person that you learn from doesn't have to be exactly like you. You will, in my opinion, learn faster and learn more if you are willing to learn from folks who aren't just like you, right, who aren't exactly like you, who don't look like you, who haven't had the same exact experiences.
I'm actually thinking about this with my knee, uh, and a lot of the plyometric stuff that I've been doing recently. Namely, attacking landings, um, with the plyometric work. I'm actually bringing on Matt, Matt McInnes uh, Watson, he is The Plyo Guy. I brought him on, actually, I recorded the episode already, we just haven't put it out yet.
Um, but he's coming on the podcast, he is just the fucking best, but been doing his plyo work and really attacking the landings. And when I'm doing some of my strength work, just having a different mindset and just kind of basically being like, you can do it, just do it. And like lean in and pull yourself into the position now.
To me, there's a plus and a minus to someone having the same experience as you. In this case, what I'm referencing would be pain, right? We can either just lean into it, whatever they're saying, and we can perpetuate narratives that, that might not be true, right? So as it relates, and I'm going to bring this together, as it relates to the exercising and stuff that I've been doing, someone that doesn't have my, my background with knee stuff and all my knee injuries and surgeries, and someone without that experience of pain might just say, Or might say, just do it.
Like just do the jumps, do the hops, whatever, do the, get into the position. Someone with my experience might say all the reasons why I can't do it or all the reasons why I should be, take it slow or, you know, ease in or not do it at all. Right. There's value in both. And so it's good to be exposed to both.
And then you get to kind of choose.
So all that to say, as someone who hasn't had direct experience with having to deal with people telling me to be smaller, my advice for you as it relates to overcoming the fear of ridicule. is to do it scared. Shout out to, uh, Skip and Jazz. We had them on for the podcast on the podcast a while back, but that's what I, when I first heard this kind of like phrasing of it, do it scared.
Oh, hit the, hit the microphone there. Do what scared? Probably everything. So tactically, I got three things that I'm going to suggest you do. Number one, really focus on wherever you're looking to show up to attract your people. Yes, you're at a disadvantage here because one of the things I talk about is how when you first get started oftentimes your initial clients are your friends and your family.
You may not have that family as a part of the, or your friends as part of that initial cohort because they don't support you. I don't know. So my suggestion here is to focus on the ones in that group who really do support you, right? So one, we're looking to focus on the people in your audience that you're trying to attract.
Focus on really looking to help them. Like this is kind of like a pseudo blinders on. But the second part of that is focus on the family members and the friends that are supporting you. Second one is you might have to have some discussions with family members. If they're constantly saying things that, that don't support you and that make you feel some kind of way, right?
This is the whole do it scared. It's not going to be a fun conversation. I don't anticipate it being a fun conversation, but it's a necessary conversation. With these conversations, we shouldn't expect people to change. I think there's just so much value in simply understanding that, you know, the value of asking for what you need, speaking it, verbalizing what you need so that you can tell yourself a complete story afterwards and make a decision from there. So like, this is why this person's doing it. I've said that I wanted this. This is what they said. You know, it's all been put out there. And now I can make a decision about how I want to proceed. All right. Sometimes the decision that you make after that is that you decide, Hey, the other person just doesn't have the skills to support me in the way that I need or to receive this information in the way that I need.
And now it's your responsibility. And you can go forth with all this information, complete information. It's your responsibility to decide how you want to relate with them. Or if you want to relate with them. I'm not by no means being like. Get rid of them, but now you have information around it and you've expressed what you want.
The third action item here is you got to attract your people. So we think about attracting your audience, but we're also thinking about attracting people who will, and who do want to support you. This person, when they reached out, they wrote, I'm still triggered when I hear something like, yeah, yeah, yeah, we know you're a dancer which makes me want to hide again, like I did as a kid, because it seems safer. That part really jumped out at me, that word safer. And I don't know exactly what they're referring to as relates to safety. I actually did follow up and ask them, but I asked them too closely when I was recording this, so I couldn't wait.
Um, but, in general, when people say this and express this, I think that they're referring to the safety of belonging and the safety of being accepted. Uh, not being called out. And the issue here is that you're not actually being seen, not being fully seen, which means you're not being fully accepted, which means it's not, it's ultimately not sustainable. I spoke about this or actually Laura Jean spoke about this in the second episode that we did with her, which was actually a two part episode. So definitely check that out. This idea of like fitting in and belongings like that. So the action item here, do it scared, share content that attracts people like you who want to support you and who want to see you succeed.
I don't want to put words into your family members mouth that they don't want to see you succeed, but I'm looking to, I'm suggesting that you attract people who outwardly say, I want to see you succeed. To me, this is one of the best parts about social media. I've seen it happen time and time again. And, you know, it's, it's, it is one of the reasons I will champion it.
I'm like, I'm thinking I'm just going to say it. Like, this is one thing that happened with Lex. And I was like, You just got to show up, you know, people that are around her before, we're not supporting her. And I was just like, and this was years ago. I'm like, you have to just put yourself out there, do it scared because you will attract people that want to support you.
You're going to attract people that kind of have some shit to say- everyone- people always have some shit to say, but you'll also attract people that are like, they have good shit to say and they, they're in your corner and they want to celebrate you and they want to see you win. I promise you, you will attract them.
I promise you that they are out there.
So I get that my advice in this episode may feel a bit circular, right? This person and you listening to this, you know, you may be asking me, how do I take up space? And I'm telling you by taking up space. How do I be okay taking up space? By taking up space, because at the end of the day, the act, the answer is action, right?
The first action is doing the thing, however small you may think that step is, right? For a bit, it's like, I am going to put a Thread out once every month, whatever this, that can be super small, you know, action item there. The second action item is believing the evidence that you generate. Again, someone will always, there's always going to be someone out there that has something to say.
And those thoughts that are in your own head. Because of what people have said, they will likely always be there. I'm not here to say that they're just going to go away. I think they will always be there. I think that they're always probably going to try to creep back in. The action item is to generate evidence that helps you think differently.
That helps you combat these thoughts. Right? You can attract people around you, right? And get people around you that support you and then gas you the fuck up. And then you got to choose to actually believe what they're saying. You attract and help clients and then they tell you, Hey, what you're doing, what you're sharing, it's helpful to me.
And then you've got to choose to believe that information and choose to value that more than this voice that's in your head. And maybe the voice that's, you know, absolutely in your family and it's near you that's coming and saying these other things. But the people around you that outwardly support you and the clients that say that you've helped them, you don't start with those things.
You start with taking the action that attracts those people. In this case, it is showing up and sharing the stuff that you believe can be helpful. All right.
So to make this meta some self promotion, we'll call it on my end. If you want help doing this as it relates to Instagram, sign up for the Instagram intensive.
This is literally what I do. I hold you accountable to doing the thing and taking action. I know that, again, like, I know that I promote the kind of tactical side of things. Because not as many people are aware that, like, this is what's stopping them. And this is what's holding them back. This, uh, this fear of ridicule.
Um, this fear of showing up. I think some people can articulate that. But, and I, I'm, I took a pause there. Because I'm kind of like, I've been hearing it more. And so I'm like, you know what? I, I probably will change my messaging a bit more with, with how I'm marketing the Intensive. But if you're looking for someone to hold you accountable and actually help you show up and help you do it scared, this is literally what I do, right?
Insert the, the Tina Fey gift. You have like, I'm a pusher. It's what I do. I'm a pusher. Registration closes this Friday. That is, I'm looking at the calendar, March 15th, all of these are on the registration page. It's linked in the show notes, it's linked below if you're watching on YouTube. Courtney. Thank you, Joe.
So, shout out to the Dope InstaFam, uh, podcast homie that sent this question in. Again, I'm not invalidating, I don't want to invalidate your experiences. And I don't want you to feel like I'm brushing them off by like, by being like, well just do the thing. But to me, the answer of how to overcome the fear of ridicule is to show up and do it scared.
Have the conversations with your family and your friends, focus on your audience and sharing the content that you help, that you think is helpful. Yes. If you want to consider it self promotion, okay. Do self promotion, do it scared. Attract the folks who are going to support you and then choose to believe the evidence that you have generated.
Choose to believe the people that you've attracted that are gassing you up. Choose to believe the clients that you've attracted, that you've helped and when they say that your stuff is helpful. But again, you don't start there. That's a by product of the action that you take, that you do scared. Some of the other resources, uh, in the episode that I shared, uh, James Olivia, Laura Jean, Erica Webb, my girl.
Some of the, I think they can offer some more nuance to this and perhaps some more kindness, um, and specific steps, steps and support. So definitely check them. All right, I'm looking at the time. I'm gonna wrap this one up. Hopefully, This helped. As always, I am endlessly, endlessly, endlessly appreciative for every single one of you, especially for this episode, that dope Insta that sent in this question.
All right. All right. That's all I got for you. Until next time friends, Maestro out.
Watch this episode on YouTube!
Registration is OPEN for the Instagram Intensive
Check out the banger of an email I sent out recently
Check out my favorite people:
Erica Webb @ericawebb_selfkind
MOTM #476: People-Pleasing, Perfectionism, and Finding Peace with Erica Webb
Laura Jean @dietitianvalues
MOTM #343: Start With Your Values with Laura Jean
MOTM #485: Being Seen, Heard, and Known (Part I)
MOTM #486: Cultivating Communities of Care (Part II)
James-Olivia Chu Hillman @inquisitive_human
MOTM #228: Relational Fuckery, Antidotes, and Minding Your Business with James-Olivia Chu Hillman
MOTM #298: Self-Judgement, Hard Work, and Suffering with James-Olivia Chu Hillman
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