…you need to know how to say ‘Hi’ and keep going.

Do you ever have that feeling of being paralysed? Of knowing there are proposals you need to be writing, problems you need to address, messages you need to answer, but instead of sitting down and dealing with it you’re literally doing anything else? Your office is clean, you’ve organised your filing system, you’re completely caught up on Facebook, but you’ve not actually done THE THING.

Or maybe it’s not as bad as that, and you’ve worked at your business all day, but it’s all the item 2 and 3 and 4s that you’ve crossed off your list, while item 1 is still sitting there looking at you. Sound familiar?

That paralysis is fear. It happens to everyone, and today’s blog post is going to help you get on top of it.

So what does fear look like?

Fear can show up in so many ways where you don’t recognise it for what it is. You might call it procrastination, or disorganisation. You might feel frustrated with the ways you’re sabotaging your own success, but not seem to be able to pull it all together. Or you might know that it’s fear, but not be able to squish it.

Fear can look like:

• Avoiding opening emails or answering the phone because you’re afraid of what will be required of you.
• Feeling a sense of dread when there is a new business opportunity because you’re not feeling in control of your process.
• Feeling afraid when people reach out to you via DM because you’re not sure how to pull it off and convert the lead – and/or not sure if you do convert the lead that you’ll know how to get the project to unfold smoothly and easily.
• Working on a design for way longer than you’ve allocated because you’re afraid they are not going to like it.
• Procrastinating putting together a quote or proposal because of an underlying fear of judgement. Will they like me? Will they like my work? Will they think my prices are too high?

Sometimes it can seem like you’re afraid of being successful. Or maybe you’re just not cut out to run a business.

STOP BEATING YOURSELF UP! Your fear is a natural response. You just need to know how to manage it.

First, make friends with your fear

Because really, it’s not the bad guy. Your fear is there to protect you. It’s trying to look after you. It’s trying to keep you safe and it thinks you might be going to put yourself in a dangerous situation. It’s just not very sophisticated, because it’s a very primitive emotion and it can’t always tell the difference between real and paper tigers.

To your fear, a dangerous situation might be:

• Change. Even good change that means you will level up. Because fear wants you to stay on familiar ground where you know all the safe places to put your feet.
• Visibility. Because there are predators out there in primitive land. Fear wants you to stay small and quiet, not draw attention to yourself, because whatever pays attention to you might be threatening. Fear wants you to hide and be careful.
• Judgement. And this is a big one. Your brain is wired for social connection, it’s part of your survival instinct, and along with that comes fear of disapproval and rejection.

But of course you can’t grow and develop a successful business without embracing change, making yourself visible and putting yourself in situations where you will be judged. Your fear isn’t protecting you here, it’s holding you back.

So this is where you and your fear need to have a little chat. Literally. Tell your fear, ‘I know you’re trying to keep me safe, and thank you. But right now I am going to do this. You can come along with me if you want to keep an eye on things and that’s ok. But this is what I’m going to do today’.

Consider what could happen

And we don’t mean the worst thing that could happen. Although, sure, consider that too. Because a lot of the time, when you really consider the worst possible outcome to a scenario, when you really look it in the face, you realise, ‘Meh, I can get through that. If that happens it won’t be the end of the world’. The shadow fear casts is often way bigger than the scary thing behind it.

But what we mean is, consider what could happen if you don’t leave your comfort zone. And the answer is……nothing.

As Jim Fortin says, if you don’t leave your comfort zone, you won’t leave your comfort zone. That might be fine with you. You might be perfectly happy where you are and not have any ambitions to grow your business or level up to more challenging projects, or increase your profits.

But it’s not you. You’re reading this blog. You’re listening to our podcasts. Maybe you’re trying to get brave enough to sign up to The Academy. You want to grow – and the only way to do that is to do it.

Jim has some really great analogies that we love, and one is about jumping off the high diving board. You can climb up to that high platform. And if you’re too scared to jump, you can climb back down again and that’s fine. But you need to own it. You have to acknowledge to yourself that you’re choosing not to have the experience of jumping off the high diving board because you’re afraid.

Or you can do it. Tell your fear to come along with you and make the jump. Once you do it, you’ll be able to climb up again with way less fear, because you’ll know you are going to do it. It won’t be so scary. The next time it will hardly be scary at all. Eventually it will be so normal and familiar that you’ll start looking around for a higher diving board to jump off.

Get to know the unknown

Because it’s what it’s all about really. Anything unknown or unfamiliar sets off all those primitive fear alarms that are designed to keep us safe. So tell yourself, ‘I’m going to get to know this,’ or ‘I’m going to make this my comfort zone,’ and know that once you do, the fear you’re not really escaping from by faffing on Facebook or attending to item 4 on your list will actually calm itself down.

Of course there’ll always be a new challenge to set those alarm bells ringing again and make you feel like you just don’t want to do it. But it’s a practice. The more you teach yourself to see fear as just a natural response that you have to work through, the less it will hold you back.

Picture yourself in the future you want to be in, looking back on yourself now with affectionate amusement, because the things you felt so nervous about are the things you now do skillfully and without a second thought. There’s only one way to get there. You have to open your emails. You have to write the proposal. You have to take that client problem by the horns and address it.

Let us make this even easier….

Because we’ve jumped off a lot of these diving boards already and we know the best way not to belly flop!

The whole reason we started Design and Prosper was to take the things we’d learned in our decades in this business and package them up so they’re not so unknown. We want you to be able to head into the challenging situations in your business with a feeling that your feet are already on familiar ground.

We’re so glad you’re reading our blogs and listening to our podcasts, and if you haven’t joined us in The Academy yet, we’d love to see you there to really help you design the blueprint for your business’s success.

In the meantime, we have a new product to help you feel like you’ve done all this before and you already know how to handle the issues that regularly crop up for designers.

Introducing the ‘Nicely Said’ Script kit

This week we’ve launched our ‘Nicely Said’ Script Kit. 40 ready-to-use scripts for responding to a whole range of the situations that can leave you feeling a bit paralysed and unsure how to handle them.

New project enquiry problems like:

• Your client hasn’t responded to your proposal
• You’ve been contacted by a charity and you’re not sure if they’re asking for you to work for free
• Your client wants to see some initial concepts before they sign off

Money stuff like:

• You’re asked to discount services to get a dream project
• Your client is late with their payment
• Your client wants you to match the quote from another designer

Client wrangling problems like:

• Your client is unhappy
• Your client is ghosting you or keeps skipping meetings
• Your client is micromanaging the project

And many more.

We’d love to put these in your hands to take a whole lot of the stress and uncertainty out of dealing with these issues when they crop up, and as an extra bit of a leg up, we’re offering them for half price during launch week!

That’s the end of the sales pitch..

We really hope you take advantage of this offer. The kit is versatile and useful, and we totally wish we’d had it when we were first in business! We recommend you adding it to your toolbox.

But even more than that, we hope you take the pressure off your fear. It’s just a little friend of yours trying to be helpful. Let it come along for the ride with you and chatter away if it needs to. Just remember you’re the one with your hands on the wheel.

If you’d like to unpack this a bit more, head over to our podcast at …

Much love

Kris and Donna xo

Podcast #53 Full Transcription

[00:00:00] Kris: Hello everybody.

[00:00:01] Donna: Hello.

[00:00:02] Kris: So today we are talking about fear and the impact it can have on your design business, how it shows up in your design business. And it might be some sneaky ways that you may not realize. And we wanted to address that. 

[00:00:18] Donna: That’s right. You may not think it’s fear. You may, you may just think it’s, you know, a little hurdle or whatever, but it’s really fear that’s keeping you really stuck. Yeah. It’s a powerful, powerful emotion. Mm

[00:00:31] Kris: Um, so we want to help you overcome playing small because that’s one of the things that can happen 

[00:00:40] Donna: Yeah. 

[00:00:41] Kris: there’s, there’s quite a few things, but it is a practice because Donna and I have both experienced all the things we’re going to be talking about today. It’s not like we’re immune to fear that we’re like these super confident people. We’ve experienced it you’re definitely not alone, if you’re experiencing fear, but it is a practice.

[00:01:01] Donna: It absolutely is a practice. And kris and I have talked about fear a lot, and we have overcome a lot of fear because we’ve faced fears head on, and we’ve done a lot of work around it and we are practicing it all the time. So it’s a daily practice like Kris just said, but we don’t know whether it’s that we’re at a certain age. We’re where we’re at that age where we, where we don’t really care what other people think as much as what we did maybe in our twenties and even in our thirties, we have done a lot, a lot of work on fear to, to overcome it because it does pop up daily. You know, there’s a lot, there’s a lot of little hurdles that can stop us, stop us from growing and keep us small and keep us playing small. So we want to share with you today, what they might look like, and then also some strategies around how you can overcome those fears. Like we have.

[00:01:53] Kris: Yeah. So let’s get into talking about some of the ways it can show up in your business because it can even be as simple as this and this one would show up for me and it’s a bit embarrassing, but it is, afraid to answer the phone or check email, how crazy is that? Right? Like. I don’t want to check it because there might be something that is required of me, um, you know, what, what is going to happen? Am I going to have to step up here? Am I going to have to send off a proposal and I’m not ready? It was all of these things in, in business that were happening. And it could be as simple as I don’t want to. It’s like this feeling when something lands in your inbox, right? Like, oh, I really have to step up to address this now.

[00:02:36] Donna: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s, it is paralyzing. It’s like, well, what, I don’t know won’t hurt me. So I would just not check. I’m not checking emails. I’ll not answer the phone and or you do answer the phone and you do answer that email it, or get the email and read it and realize, oh, this is a moment where I do have to step up. So what next? And then the fear hits and that’s when the paralysis happens. It happens as soon as you know that you’ve got to put out a proposal or you’ve got to respond to a really tricky question where a client’s, to make some inappropriate changes or whatever, and the hits you. And it’s like, okay, you’ve got to overcome that and be able to then get that quote out, get that proposal out. Keep that business growing, play big, get going. So, yeah, it’s a, it’s a real fear that I think a lot of people have.

[00:03:26] Kris: I’m sure I’m not alone in this, you know, getting a big email in your inbox, which is a big prospect. And it’s like, the fear just sets in. It’s like a feeling of dread, like, and why is that? It’s like, holy crap, this could be a really big income generator for my business, but I’m scared. So what is that all about? So it’s just that, um, leveling up fear that happens as well. But with this whole, I don’t want to answer the phone. There’s an energetic thing that happens as well. Or I don’t wanna see that big email or I don’t want to see that really exciting DM. There’s an energetic thing that happens as well with the universe. Like you’re, you’re kind of saying no, don’t contact me. You’re pushing it out, basically saying don’t contact me. I want, to stay invisible. Thank you.

[00:04:10] Donna: yeah, absolutely. And, really if you’re doing that without working on the fear, without practicing ways around elevating out of that, you’re going to be attracting more and more and more of that. So that’s the reality of it, isn’t it? So we have to be able to put on our armor if we really do need to have courage to answer these things and absolutely make it happen. So practice feeling the fear and doing it anyway, responding anyway, you know, be courageous. Yeah.

[00:04:42] Kris: Feel the fear and do it anyway, by the way is a really great book. It was written, I don’t know. I’m guessing the eighties. But it’s worthwhile, if you can find a copy of it, read that book. It’s a

lovely, quick raid.

Can’t Remember the author, but we’ll put it in the show notes.

[00:04:59] Donna: We will put it in the show notes. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It’s a really great book and that’s the truth. Isn’t it? The truth is and this is a Jim Fortin nugget of gold. He says that the cure for fear is fear itself. Is going into the fear. So it’s, it’s sort of like a little bit of a paradigm shift for everybody, but that is the reality of being able to, okay, here’s the fear. This is what I’m most afraid of doing that thing anyway, conquers the fear. Awareness is first, first acknowledging that it is fear that is holding you back. And what is the fear like? I like what Kris said earlier, what is the fear? What is the thing? I think you need to unpack that. So it doesn’t repeat. And that’s one of the things that we do in our practice. We really ask that question. What is it that’s really holding me back here, feel that. So then coming back to it, feel it, acknowledge it and move through it. So take it on, take that fear on and say, okay. There you are see you fear. But I’m gonna work through it. I’m going to go into the fear and then once you’ve done it, once you’ve done it a few times, you realize, oh, that’s not that much to be afraid of. I can do this. And it worked, it was successful. It was easier. It’s getting easier with each and every time that I break it down. 

[00:06:19] Kris: Yeah, I love that Don, because everybody experiences fear, right? We’re not immune to fear, but it’s what we do with the fear, that’s really important. It’s like some people will just stay really small. They will play small. They will become invisible. So people who seem to do things that are brave and take courage, they’re actually still feeling fear. It’s just like you said, they’re feeling the fear and they’re doing it anyway. And it’s about getting out of your comfort zone. And fear can show up in a really sneaky way, because fear is trying to protect you. Right. It’s trying to look after you. It’s trying to keep you safe and it thinks it’s got a good reason for doing it. And sometimes it’s just change. Like it doesn’t want you to level up. because it’s like, no, that’s different to my current reality. Let’s just stay here, thank you, where it’s familiar and let’s not go to that little zone where it’s really different. And so that’ll keep you small in that way, but also, um, you know, fear is going to have some benefits. Like it’s going to keep you free from judgment, right? If you’re not showing up on socials. So if you’re not sending out that big, scary email that has a proposal attached to it, that’s got a price that you’ve never charged before. You’re free from judgment. Aren’t you? So fear is keeping you right down there. 

[00:07:39] Donna: Absolutely, Kris. like, nobody can have an opinion on you if you’re not there. If you’re not showing up, nobody can have an opinion on you. So it’s like, oh, that’s easy. I’ll just stay small. I’ll stay over here. Then I can’t get it wrong. Nobody can say that I’m doing the wrong thing. Nobody can say they don’t like me. So I’ll just stay over here and I’ll keep it really small. So it’s yeah, it is. It’s safe. It’s, it’s keeping you safe. I love what you were saying about keeping comfortable. Again, this is amazing, Jim Fortin magic. Kris and I really, um, love, love, Jim’s work and really respect him. And we’ll put some details about Jim in our show notes as well, but he also says about the comfort zone. He says, if you don’t leave your comfort zone, you won’t leave your comfort zone. So it’s, it’s that simple. If you don’t push through and leave it, then that’s where you’ll always be. You won’t ever leave it. So be really aware of that and aware that that sort of uncomfortable feeling that you have is going to take a little bit of courage to push through it. But once you do that will no longer limit you. That will be, it that’ll be the last time, or it might not be like, listen, I said, it’s a practice, you know, but it’ll get easier and easier. But as soon as you do leave that comfort zone, it’s no longer your comfort zone because you’ve left it. You’re in a new zone. Now you’re in the next. you’re leveling up. You’re leveling up. So you’ve got a new comfort zone and you want to break through each time. So that’s why it’s a practice because you’ll always get to that next little block. Okay. Now I’m scared in a different way now, or I’m, this is scary because it’s a bigger proposal or it’s a bigger way of showing up in socials and I’m going to do this thing now. So then you’ve got to break through that comfort zone. So it’s always a practice, practice, practice.

[00:09:25] Kris: Yeah. Um, level of responsibility is a bit of a level up as well. Like that can be fear trying to keep you down. Like, no, don’t take on that level of responsibility with the project, you know, so that, that’s another way that fear can creep in. But Jim Fortin has some really great analogies that we love to do with fear as well. So he talks about, You’re jumping off a diving board, so you can choose to go high. You can go up to that high platform. And if, if you’re too scared to do it, that’s fine, but you need to own it if you want to expand and change and grow, but you’re not prepared to jump off You know, own it. Like it’s, it’s,

not going to 

[00:10:05] Donna: you’ll stay the same. There will be no growth. It’ll be okay. I’m just going to stay here. You can jump or you can do, or you can action. The thing that you’re most afraid of, but if you don’t do that well, then there’s no growth. You’ll stay where you are. So if you are not happy with where you are really it’s, you are forced to face the fear and do it anyway, because otherwise, get comfy where you’re at, that’s it, that’s where you’re going to be. So, a lot of our beautiful students come to us because they want to elevate. They want to break through the barriers that they have and they’re all at different levels and their barriers are all at different stages. They’ve left that comfort zone, but they’re in the next comfort zone and they need to keep breaking through. So it’s really important to make sure that you’re aware of that. You’re aware that if I don’t make any changes, I am going to stay where I am. You can’t expect anything to change if you don’t, if you don’t push through. There’s, there’s just like zero possibility of you elevating without you actually showing up to elevate.

[00:11:11] Kris: Yeah. Yeah. The other one that he mentioned, which you might relate to is gaining altitude in a plane. So the pilot will say, you know, buckle up. We are going to be experiencing some turbulence here and that’s can be how it feels like it’s only temporary, but it’s this temporary turbulence that we feel as we’re elevating, as we’re increasing an altitude. That can be a really good visualization for you as well. It’s like, don’t worry. I’m just buckling up here. And, and we’ve got to say, and we’ve mentioned this in other podcasts, but you’ve already been so brave. You’ve already jumped off a pretty high platform. You’ve dived off already just by being in business. And we applaud you for that because not everybody can do that. Like look around you. Not everybody is happy to even consider being in business. Everybody wants to just be secure with their jobs and, you know, not take on that responsibility. So Bravo to you for even doing that. So, you know, you can do it because you’ve already made that leap to commit to your business. 

[00:12:10] Donna: Absolutely. Remember the courage that that took, because I know there’s some statistics out there and I would love to find them of how many people actually go into business and you are in business and that you are already in the elite, like it’s a tiny percentage of people that actually have the courage to do that. So remember that you are in that top echelon of people who have already faced their fear and done it anyway, that courage that you have, you know, that it’s within you.

[00:12:38] Kris: Yeah. And look at you listening to a podcast like this. Like you have it within you to do great things because you want to improve yourself. You want to be running a business that’s brilliant and is going to work for you. Not every designer is listening to a podcast like this either because they just don’t have that drive, you know, that need to do things in a better way.

[00:12:59] Donna: And they are stuck. I love that Kris. I love that. Well done well done for being here and listening to a podcast that will help you to level up and to break through some barriers.

[00:13:10] Kris: Yeah. There’s a really great book called clockwork, highly recommend it if you, if you want to have a read about business systems and that sort of thing, so the author talks about when he had a business coach and in the very first sort of sales meeting, I guess, they hadn’t quite engaged yet, but the business coach said something really frightening to this guy, the author. So he gave a really absurd, almost comical example, of what his life is going to be like almost to shock him out of his comfort zone because our comfort zone wants us to stay in the comfort zone, right? Our fear wants us to, our ego wants us to stay in that comfort zone. So he used a kind of absurd example. This is what’s going to happen to you, you know, if you don’t do something about your business. 

[00:14:02] Donna: I have to read it. Kris was telling me about it just recently. So it’s on my to read list. So I will have a read of that as well. I’m interested to hear what the absurd example is as well. So that, that is it. That the, the reality is unless you actually want to change and want to have that life that you aspire to and visualize that beautiful life, and go, right. I want to go there, which will generally be, I think, breaking out of that comfort zone, you need to keep breaking it. You’ll need to keep smashing it. We don’t just have one comfort zone we have to break through. Like I was saying before you get out of that one, then you’re in another one. You get comfy there. And it’s like, Ooh, I did that. This has leveled up. This is great. We, then you’ve got to smash that one. And then you got to move through to the next one, if you’re not where you want to be. If you’re not where this is where I want to be. So there’s nothing wrong with that either. Like, if that’s where you want to be, that’s fine. But if you’re thinking something’s missing, this is not quite right. I’m still feeling this fear. You’re being challenged. When then you’ve got to keep the practice going. You’ve got to keep working through so that you are elevating each time. 

[00:15:11] Kris: So just remember that fear can really show up in a way that may seem counter intuitive. Like why would I really want not to be successful? So really have a good look at that as well. Like, is it just fear of visibility? Is it just fear of judgment? Judgment is a really big one. And it could be, like we said before, judgment of like, oh, my design is not good enough. Um, judgment of friends and family. Isn’t it funny? When friends and family follow us on socials, I’m sure I’m not alone in this.

[00:15:41] Donna: You are not, 

[00:15:43] Kris: It’s 

[00:15:43] Donna: know, I know, what you’re going to say. You are not.

[00:15:46] Kris: yeah. It’s like, you’d almost want to block them so they can’t see what you’re posting. So you can just be free to express for your audience because you’re like, oh, they won’t get it. They won’t get it. So even those little funny things, you never know what it is. Do you have a bossy relative or something, or some sort of judgemental relative that’s sort of stopping you. So try and find out why for you is trying to keep you safe. That’s really important.

[00:16:11] Donna: yeah, and I would actually recommend, and Kris and I have recommended this to one-to-one clients as well. Just block those people. Like get rid of them out of your business account and say, look, I’ve got lots of lovely life stuff happening in my personal account, or don’t even tell them, just switch them off so that they are not there as a block for you because family and friends can really anchor you and, and they not even knowing that they’re doing it, poor things. They’re not deliberately doing it, but just their presence is stopping you. So think about that. It’s your business. You’ve got to do what you’ve got to do in order for you to grow in your business. Don’t be afraid to do a little bit of a clean-out, just a little bit of a spring clean, make sure that your audience is who you want to be speaking to and make sure you can be completely uncensored and completely yourself in that space.

[00:17:04] Kris: Hmm. Yeah. Amy porterfield had a really interesting podcast episode recently, uh, where she’s talking about, she was judged really harshly and it’s sort of new for her and she’s quite big in the business world. And she has had more judgment in the past year. And I think culturally, and in society, things are getting pretty judgy, you know, like everybody’s got an opinion about this, that, and the other thing, um, there’s a lot of opinions. People are getting offended a lot. And so if you are going to put yourself out there, like Brene brown says, you know, if you’re going to put yourself out in the arena, chances are, you are going to be judged and attacked, you know, it’s going to happen. Um, not to be negative or anything. What Amy said, that was really interesting was nobody’s going to judge you, who is in a better place than you mentally and emotionally. Nobody’s going to judge you who . Is more successful than you. Nobody’s going to judge you who’s doing better than you, you know, they’re just not going to do it. So they’re threatened by what you’re doing. That’s why they might attack or judge. So that, that was an interesting take on it as well. And just to feel empathy, empathy, for any judgment, it’s like, ah,

[00:18:22] Donna: Yeah, 

[00:18:23] Kris: You’re not there yet. that’s ok.

[00:18:25] Donna: Yeah, absolutely. Just reminded me of something that Jim has said as well in that he taught us to take comfort in the knowledge that no matter what, we, as human nature, we judge, we all judge. So be happy with who you are, be okay with where you’re at, because you’re going to be judged anyway. It’s inevitable. So just accept the judgment. He said that someone is always going to, like you, there is always going to be somebody who is neutral to you. And there’s always going to be someone who doesn’t like you. That’s going to happen. So when we had this nugget of gold again from Jim, it was like, oh, that’s great. The pressure is off. There are going to be people who are neutral. I loved that there are going to be people who are neutral. Don’t have an opinion. Oh, do you do you? I don’t care. I’m not, I have no opinion. And there are going to be people who just don’t like you and that. It was like, it almost like dispelled the power that they have because oh that’s your job. It’s your job not to like me. That’s going to happen. Okay. All right. I see you. And it doesn’t matter. So then you can be neutral about it. Oh, whatever. It’s completely fine.

[00:19:35] Kris: I love that. I love that so much. It really is liberating. I love it.

[00:19:39] Donna: Yeah, it is so liberating. And the other thing that he said, and I think this is, this speaks to Amy Porterfield’s way of looking at it as well. This is a Buddhist saying. It’s I am not who and what you think I am. You are who and what you think I am. So it’s just a reflection of themselves. So it’s like, wow. That’s incredible, right? I’ve got goosebumps. I get goosebumps when you think about that, when people come at you and this is sort of like that sort of really negative judgment we’re talking about now. Um, so there’s levels of judgment. So that, that level of judgment where you really feel really attacked by your choices, decisions, or who you are or what you’re doing. When people come at you like that, if you actually think about that beautiful Buddhist saying then, wow. It again, completely dispels the power that that person has, because they’re just reflecting who they are. So it’s incredible. I found that so powerful.

[00:20:46] Kris: Oh, it’s so powerful. And even when you look at a situation, like somebody comes back to you and says, Oh, that’s too expensive. Or this other designer charged X amount. Can you you charge that? You know, even those sorts of things, that’s their stuff. That’s not your stuff. That’s their stuff. They’ve got money issues. They’ve got stuff to work on and you can go, oh, well, I think they’ve got money issues, even having that energy changes everything. It changes everything about your business, because all of a sudden, you’ll start to call in people into your business who don’t have those money issues because you release them, you release them. And it’s just such a powerful thing. And, and if you don’t know what to say, just as a little side note Sorry, somebody says things like you’re too expensive, or can you do it at this reduced rate? Or can you give me a discount and all these other little tricky things that come up, keep your eyes peeled. Hopefully you’re on our, list and you’ve downloaded one of our freebies and you’re on our Amy email list because we’re very soon going to be releasing some scripts for you to use, like jam packed scripts for you to use it in all those tricky situations that come up with clients. We have left no stone unturned with these scripts. There’s many scripts for you in those tricky situations. So keep tuned for that one. It’s exciting.

[00:22:04] Donna: And do you know what, this was born out of a desire to help people conquer fears. Because we get those tricky emails. We get those tricky requests, we get that tricky thing that happens. And then we don’t know what to say. And we play small and we get squashed and we get paralyzed. So this, we shut down. So this was born of that, we were like, we’re seeing these beautiful one-to-one clients and academy students all too afraid to speak their voice. Like, okay. We need to have these words ready. To help overcome the fear of reaching out and addressing a situation immediately. Cause that’s another thing I just want to touch on really quickly. If we let things sit in an inbox, or if we’ve had a phone call and we don’t respond, the longer it takes to actually respond and speak to the problem, the bigger it becomes. The bigger, the leap of courage is required. It becomes so tricky and so hard. So we wanted to have a resource where this tricky things happening. This is scary as hell. Um, what do I say? I know, I’ll go to design and prosper’s scripts. There’ll be something in there because believe us, we have covered it all. We’ve we’ve got so many juicy scripts ready to go, ready to support you in leveling up and being honest and being discerning and courteous and kind with your communication with your clients. I can’t wait for you to get your hands on that.

[00:23:34] Kris: Yeah, So the plan is to get that out before the end of January, 2022. So keep your eyes peeled. 

[00:23:39] Donna: Okay. We’ve got a couple of little points that we want to say before we wrap up. So, one of the things was a beautiful insight from Elizabeth Gilbert from big magic. She talks about not allowing fear to be the driver. She said, you know, acceptance and awareness is key with fear. So, knowing okay, fear there you are. You’ve shown up. I see you. So knowing that that is the fear, then just popping it in the back seat. You can be there. I can see you, but you’re not driving. I’m driving. We love, love, love that. Fear is going to show up. We know that so acceptance is the first step. We need to practice putting yourself outside of your comfort zone, even if it’s just a little way out, once you break through there’s no going back. So even if it’s just a tiny step, little steps, small steps, and you’ll have heard us say this many times, even one tiny step is still momentum. So keep that momentum going toward breaking out of your comfort zone, release the fear of judgment. And now that’s really hard, but we hope that some of the things that Jim shared that we heard really made a difference so we hope that helps. 

[00:24:45] Kris: Okay. So we’ve got some new developments here, which has made us feel a lot of fear because my tech has just failed. The beach ball is happening and, um, I’m using logic pro, which I don’t think has the auto recover. So I think my whole recording might be lost, but we also record on zoom. So my audio quality might be a bit less this time round, and I know you’ll forgive us for that. That’s all good because it’s too good not to share. We love this conversation. We love talking about this. We know it would be so helpful for you. Um, where did we get up to Don?

[00:25:17] Donna: Oh, I just want to say done is better than perfect, right? What gorgeous evidence that we’re just going to go for this even though Kris’s audio is going to be compromised. It’s too juicy not to share. We’re going to do it anyway. So beautiful example of practicing what we preach, Kris. Um, so, what I was just about to speak to and would love you to speak to, is how earlier in the podcast you were talking about being in that fear energy and how we can potentially swap that out and, and see it and understand it, but then we want to swap it out. So if you wanted to speak to that, that’d be a great ending because we want to have a strategy straightaway. How can we start to get fear out of our little system?

[00:26:03] Kris: Yeah. So we’ve got EFT for starters, which is incredible. Emotional freedom technique. It is a tapping technique, which is a real circuit breaker. It’s a disruptor. So if you’ve got something that you’re holding onto you, you air it, you voice it, and then you disrupt it. And there’s so many resources out there on YouTube, just go and Google it. If you search for it in YouTube, it’ll be there. There’ll be a video where you can run through. 

[00:26:26] Donna: So acknowledging , seeing it, being aware of it is the first thing and swapping out that fear of judgment is critical because Kris and I believe that judgment is underlying most examples of fear in our lives. Remember, we were saying, what is it? What’s the fear. We actually think that a lot of the time judgment will be a factor. So if you can start to really see judgment for what it is as well and expect it, it’s going to be there. So get on with life. You cannot control judgment. So just let it be.

[00:27:01] Kris: We’ve talked a lot today about others judging, but there’s also yourself judging. Self judgment is a big one as well. And that’s where perfectionism and all that sort of thing can come into it. So it can be about others, the external judgment, but it can also be about you not feeling enough, not being enough or those sorts of things as well. 

[00:27:22] Donna: Hands up. That, that has been me in my career and, a lot of the creatives that I know have a lot of self-judgment. So we’re sort of guessing that might be out there for sure.

[00:27:34] Kris: Yeah, definitely. Well go forth and conquer your fears, people. Actually no, I don’t even want to say conquer your fears. You don’t have to conquer your fears, you just have to feel it and go forth and do, and time uplevel. 

Yeah. 

[00:27:52] Donna: love it. Go forth and up level. That’s good one. There you go. Go forth and up level people. 

[00:27:57] Kris: Yeah. 

Okay. bye everybody. 

[00:28:01] Donna: Bye.