When we think about building a business, we usually think of all the tactical or technical skills we'll need to learn, like building a website, or learning sales or marketing.

And while these skills are definitely important, it's the work of managing and feeling our emotions that will ensure whether or not we succeed or fail.

Why are emotions so important? Because our emotions drive EVERYTHING we do.

Yes, everything.

Today we're going to learn how to process what we're feeling and how to learn from the hard or sticky stuff we'll inevitably go through.

Want to start a business but feeling overwhelmed? Join my Finding Your Side Hustle Course and learn the step-by-step process for starting the business you've been dreaming of.

Ready for one-on-one guidance? Schedule a free coaching call with me so we can make progress on your dreams.

Microphone (ATR2100x-USB Microphone):

You're listening to episode 30 of

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Burning Brightly, the emotional

work necessary to own a business.

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Hello.

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Hello, my friends.

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Welcome back.

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Today, we're going to talk about emotional

work, which I know probably sounds boring

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and like work, but I promise it can be fun

and it can be absolutely revolutionary,

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which you probably already know if

you've been following along for a while.

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Just to start off, I want to remind

everyone what a life coach does.

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So life coaches help us get the

results that we want from life.

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And we do it through analyzing

thoughts, analyzing emotions,

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and taking a look at our actions.

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And by taking a look at those

three things, thoughts, emotions,

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actions, we can change anything.

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We can change the results that we want,

regardless of what area of life it is,

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what struggle we have, what goals we have.

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It's, amazing.

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But I want to start off by

sharing a little experience

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I had in a Facebook group.

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I was, reading a post

from a business expert.

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She was asking for advice.

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She was writing a book asking, what

people thought was the most crucial

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factor to success in business.

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And there were a lot of really great

suggestions, but one woman mentioned.

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emotional work, meaning checking your

emotions, your thoughts, and making

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sure that they stay in alignment.

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And this woman actually

didn't really agree.

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She's like, yeah, I guess that can

be beneficial, like in a personal

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development aspect, but I don't know

that it's necessary for business.

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And I responded very kindly, but

I was like, are you kidding me?

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I strongly disagree with that statement.

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Being an entrepreneur, like frankly,

being Anything else in this world,

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a parent or training for a marathon

or other physical event or going to

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college or changing careers or any other

difficult journey requires feeling badly.

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And if we are going to feel badly about

something, we better know how to deal

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with those feelings because otherwise

they can quickly overwhelm us and turn

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us into monsters that just give up on

all the things we want to do because we

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don't like feeling badly and we don't

know what to do with those bad feelings.

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This is the episode where I tell

you about the emotional work that

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is necessary as a business owner.

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This is actually the podcast where

I tell you that, but this episode in

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particular, I want to explain how and

why working on our emotions and the

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thoughts that are connected to them makes

such a difference as a business owner.

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Okay.

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So first let me tell you that Brooke

Castillo, so she is the owner of the

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Life Coach School where I certified,

shares experiences about, when she

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was in these high level masterminds

with a lot of other men, there were

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predominantly, male entrepreneurs

in these groups that she was in.

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And she said she would get up and talk

about emotions and how important they are.

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And, , no one wanted to hear it.

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They're like, Oh, emotions are

too, it's a soft science, right?

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It's too, it's too fluffy.

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It's not necessary.

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We want to talk about marketing

tactics and sales calls and all

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these really concrete tactics for

building your business until they

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understand the power of emotions.

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You guys, emotions drive the world.

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None of us in the entire world ever

have ever done anything that we didn't

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think would make us feel better.

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Never.

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We have never taken an action.

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And unless we thought it would get us to

a better feeling, even if it meant feeling

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crappy first, so have you ever chosen not

to eat a treat because of a health reason

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or you want to lose weight or whatever?

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So you're going through the feeling

of denial, denying that urge to eat

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the cookie because you want to feel

better later on about your body.

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You want to feel better

in your health overall.

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Everything we do is to

feel better emotions.

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Um, because of that, it's very

important for us to understand that

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bad emotions are not necessarily bad.

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Does that make sense?

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Just because we feel an emotion

that doesn't feel good, doesn't

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mean that something is going wrong.

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We are conditioned in this

world to think that when we

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feel badly, something is amiss.

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We've done something wrong.

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Something wrong has been done to us.

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We even like to say things like,

well, I was going to do that thing,

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but it just didn't feel good.

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Now, often when we're talking

like that, we mean our intuition.

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I'm not here to discount intuition.

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I feel that like that's

very, very important.

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If my intuition tells me to change

course or do things differently, I do so.

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But your intuition is very different.

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Um, then the negative emotions that

come up when you build a business,

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and we've talked about these

multiple times, fear, frustration,

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anxiety, stress, embarrassment,

fear of success, fear of failure.

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So many different negative emotions

come up when we try to put ourselves

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out there, especially online

where the entire world can see us.

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So just remember that feeling

badly is not always a bad thing.

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Very often it is the path

to your greatest dreams.

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Okay?

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Now, as any of us who have tried

to build a business know, there

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is a ton of physical and mental

work required to build a business.

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There is education and learning

scheduling and marketing and training

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and sales and how to manage other

people and all the technology

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necessary to get ourselves online.

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So much work, but I would argue

that there is a thousand times

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more emotional work necessary to

become a successful entrepreneur.

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There is a reason why not everyone

who wants to be a business

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owner becomes a business owner.

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Because it is freaking hard,

especially inside our heads.

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I think that is where all

the hard work happens.

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And when we put hard work out into

the world, people think, Oh my gosh,

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that's amazing that you figured

out how to build that website.

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That's amazing that you made a connection

with somebody overseas to manufacture

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this product, but none of those

amazing things happen without amazing

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work happening in your head first.

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So let's talk about this

emotional work for a minute.

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I'm going to share a quick little story.

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I'm not going to get into details,

but this last week I had a, one

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of the phenomenal experiences

that comes in life where someone

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said something unkind about me.

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It was many unkind things, actually.

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And I was called a bad mother and, my

business was brought up as evidence

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of that, that I wasn't managing

both of those roles very well.

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So you can imagine what

that brought up for me.

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, I'm going to walk you through what

happened after this, because I

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know we're all going to get to a

place where people say bad things

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about us or critical thoughts

come up in our own minds about us.

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I think it's really important that we

understand what happens in our bodies

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and in our minds when the criticism

comes, whether it's internal or external.

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Okay.

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So this is what happened to me first, very

first thing, nervous system activated.

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So that means fight or flight.

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Okay.

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So.

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Um, my heart rate immediately skyrocketed.

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I started sweating profusely.

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I went into legitimate

fight or flight mode.

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It was, someone is attacking me, like

it felt the same in my body as if

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someone had come at me with a weapon.

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That's what it felt like in my body.

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It was fascinating.

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I can talk about it now.

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It was not so fascinating

when it happened.

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It was terrifying.

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my brain translated those words

as actual physical danger.

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Isn't that interesting?

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And so first I had to process that.

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First I had to get into a

place where my brain felt safe.

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And that took some time.

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It took several days.

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You guys, even now talking

about it, I feel a little bit

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of nervous system dysregulation.

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I feel a little bit of

a spike in a heart rate.

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It's it's not gone yet.

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And it might not be for a long, long time.

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So that's the first thing to

notice is very often when criticism

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comes, we go into attack mode

because it's like, wait, what?

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You know, defense mode.

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Our hackles are up.

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And then the thing that I noticed

were the emotions that came to me.

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So the first vulnerable emotions that

I wanted to feel were fear and sadness.

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And that, that was due to another

part of the story that I won't share.

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But what I noticed was very quickly, my

brain wanted to kick out fear and sadness

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and replace them with shame and anger.

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So fear and sadness are primary emotions.

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They require a lot of vulnerability.

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They require you to feel.

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Some weakness, , feel a

little bit exposed, right?

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Shame and anger do not

require vulnerability.

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They are defensive mechanisms.

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Well, shame does.

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It does require vulnerability.

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But isn't that interesting that

my brain preferred to feel shame

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about myself and feel some self

criticism over just feeling sadness.

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And that anger was there

for a long, long time.

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And because I don't believe that feeling

anger all the time is necessarily a good

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thing, I found myself justifying that

anger by fault finding in this person.

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I was having defensive thoughts like,

that person doesn't know anything about

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me and throwing up all these shields and,

defensive words were coming out of my

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mouth as I was explaining to friends and

trying to find justification from them.

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So eventually I got to the point

where I could calm down my nervous

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system and just take a look at these

emotions that were coming up for me.

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And I had the opportunity to

learn so much about myself, about

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my thoughts, about my feelings.

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And that opportunity arrived

because I was criticized.

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Now, am I grateful for that criticism?

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Not particularly.

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It still hurts, but what a lesson

that never would have come.

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Likely wouldn't have come without

the opportunity to build a business.

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Um, committed to living a full,

amazing, magnificent life.

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We have to be open for the bad stuff.

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We have to be open to criticism.

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We have to be open to embarrassment.

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We have to be open to failure.

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And I know none of that sounds fun, but

on the flip side, Oh, it's so much fun.

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You guys, it's so much fun to

build a business, but there will

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be a lot of crud to wade through.

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So, what I'm talking about here, , is

really similar to episode 21 where

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I talked about haters and trolls.

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So make sure you listen

to that one as well.

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But here are a few questions that

I came up with to ask ourselves

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when we are dealing with either

inner or outer criticism.

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And I promise you will have opportunities

to deal with plenty of both.

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First question, is there truth to it?

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And when I took a look at my emotions,

my nervous system response, and the words

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that were said to me, I realized that

my brain thought there was truth to it.

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Now when I sat down and very

calmly looked at it, I thought, do

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I really think I'm a bad mother?

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No, not at all.

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Do I really think that my business is

making my children suffer in any way?

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No, not at all.

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But I do struggle with my

own self criticism of that.

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Gosh, is this the right thing to do?

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Is this, is this going to?

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Make my children feel neglected.

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Or, you know, is this the right

amount of balance, work, family, etc.

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And so because there were some concerns

in my own mind about that, I'm always

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worried a little bit about that.

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Those words rang a little bit true to me.

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And so that was hard to deal with.

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So is there any truth to it?

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And if so, acknowledge it.

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Yeah, there is a little bit.

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Maybe that person is right.

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Maybe I do need to take a look at this.

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Second question.

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What happens if the person is right or

you are right in your self criticism?

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Then what?

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What does that mean?

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We kind of talked about that, right?

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Is there truth to it?

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If so, Then what?

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What does that mean?

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Third question, what happens

if they or we are wrong?

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What does it mean if the criticism

is wrong and there is no truth to it?

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That's a little bit more peaceful

thought, but either one is beneficial

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to understand whether or not there's

truth, whether or not there is not.

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Fourth question, what are their or

our words or thoughts making us face?

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And for me, I had some

tricky emotions to face.

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Things like why I kept

defaulting to anger.

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Why do I keep going back to anger?

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Why do I keep going back to shame instead

of just feeling sad about the whole thing?

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Why can't I open up and be a

little bit more vulnerable?

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Learned a lot about that.

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And then finally, what lessons

can we learn from this experience?

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What are we going to take away from this?

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I personally am going to learn

that it is okay to feel hurt.

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It is okay to feel angry.

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It is okay to let someone's words

affect me, because I don't want to

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be the kind of person that never

listens to other people's words.

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If people have some responses or criticism

to me, I want to be able to listen to it

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and take it, especially as I build a team.

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I don't want my team to come to me and

be like, We don't like how you did this.

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You did this wrong, or can we fix this?

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And me get all offended and

never be able to make changes.

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I don't want to be that kind of a boss,

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are there other lessons that you

need to be learning or that you

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want to learn from this experience?

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And you guys, it may take time,

especially if your nervous

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system gets triggered like that.

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It's going to take time to calm

down and feel rational again

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and to look at those thoughts.

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Be gentle with yourself.

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It is not easy to be told either

by yourself or someone else that

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you're doing something wrong.

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Especially if you do feel

like there's some truth to it.

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That is scary and that is hard.

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So be gentle with yourself, but

be open to learning those lessons.

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Finally, I will say that there is

so much strength in vulnerability.

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You guys showing up as ourselves

online is often not fun.

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We know people are going to see our flaws.

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They're going to see our mistakes.

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It's scary and it opens

us up to criticism.

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Um, from our own heads and

from other people's, but this

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is where the strength comes.

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I now personally know better

how to deal with someone who

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attacks me and my life choices.

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I do.

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Will I be a hundred percent

better the next time it happens?

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No, for sure not.

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But I will learn a little

bit more each time.

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And I know how to deal with

myself better now as well.

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Whenever I harbor critical

thoughts about what I'm going

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through or what I'm experiencing.

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So many lessons come to us

from building a business.

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We just have to be open to them.

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And we need to have a good coach or a

set of coaches in our corner to bounce

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ideas off of and to be vulnerable with

so that we can better understand why our

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thoughts and emotions are going this way

and whether or not they are serving us.

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So I wish you the best of luck in your

business building endeavors this week.

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Friends, get out there, be

courageous, be gentle with

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yourself and enjoy the journey.