Are you struggling with self-doubt and anxiety in your business? Do you find it challenging to lead effectively while managing your emotions? Discover how self-awareness and emotional intelligence can transform your entrepreneurial journey. In this episode, Kristin Taylor, a systems and productivity consultant, shares powerful insights on overcoming imposter syndrome, developing authentic leadership, and leveraging mindfulness for business success.

Connect with Kristin:

Website: https://kristintaylorconsulting.com

Email: [email protected]

Kristin is offering a free discovery call and coaching session to listeners of this podcast. Reach out to her directly to claim this offer!

Show Notes: https://laurenglynn.com/10

Mentioned in this episode:

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Kristin Taylor Interview

kristin-taylor: Thank you for having me. I just gave you such a mouthful of a bio. That sounds great.

Lauren: Well, it's funny. I usually cut them down and I guess I didn't cut yours down because there was so much good stuff in there that I didn't want to lose any of it. So,

kristin-taylor: Well, thank you.

Lauren: so why don't we start by you introducing yourself a little bit more outside your bio about sort of what you do, who you help, you know, how you might be able to benefit our service based entrepreneurs?

You know, like we want to go out into the world and do these amazing things. We're called to step into our lives and our bodies and our minds and our thoughts, but mostly our nervous systems can feel like they're hijacking us. And so I give people the space to learn the tools. To move through stored and packed emotions that are holding us down and release limiting beliefs so that there's greater freedom, greater curiosity, greater joy, which is super big.

Um, because I'm sure your audience, they are endeavoring to do hard things. Meaningful things. They want to achieve success, but they don't want to harm themselves in the process, or they don't want to limit possibility because they're living with the torture of anxiety.

kristin-taylor: Yeah, I think it's both. I think it's both. Like, I'm in my fifties when I, when I grew up, there just wasn't the language for it, and there certainly was more of like, That is a private conversation. You know, people didn't talk about therapy. So certainly people are talking about it more openly, but also the world is becoming more digital.

Socially, economically, politically, environmentally, there's just a lot that we're holding on to. And thank God in the midst of this, we are taking away the barrier of shame. So we can't have conscience. Yeah.

I kind of forced him out. And so Lorelai suggested he goes to therapy. And her mother is like, only deviants go to therapy. Like, that's not something that we do. And then they had a revival in, I think it was 2016, they did like four new episodes. It was kind of a reunion. And in that Lorelai and her mother actually go to therapy together.

So it's just an interesting sort of, know, of how the view of therapy has changed. And Emily's still resistant. It's kind of her, her generation and she's still not really participating in it, but at least she's there. And so it's just sort of an interesting, like, like I said, microcosm of, of the changing thoughts around therapy and how much more open people are about going to it and needing it and wanting it in their lives.

Lauren: Yes, for sure. So building on that, what do you think? The purpose of, or the helpfulness of, why do you think self awareness matters so much for people who are entrepreneurs, self employed, you know, in leadership roles, maybe they're running a company, maybe they're solopreneurs, but why does that self awareness matter so much in that capacity?

kristin-taylor: I could talk for a very long time about this. That is such a great question. So, let me tackle it from this angle, which is to say, most of us, and I would probably say, really say all of us have the scars and wounds of just growing up. I don't care how perfect a family was. It's hard growing up and finding out how to move through the world.

Really understanding, not just it. Why am I feeling this? But being able to identify a feeling, process a feeling, and then get really clear with our body and our mind, who am I? Why am I here? How do I engage in number one, a healthy conversation with myself and healthy relationship with myself and then foster and facilitate healthy relationships?

It is directly impeding your ability to be successful in a sustainable way. I'm not saying you can't be successful. There's certainly been a lot of people who are not. Functioning well, they can target everything on success, but what's happening when they go home? What's happening in terms of the risk of burnout?

What is happening in terms of The relationship to food, to sex, to drugs, to, you know, there's ways, like I said, that will come out sideways. The more we are self aware, the more we can have greater agency and live a life where beliefs, our inner experience, is congruent with how we move through the world.

kristin-taylor: Well said. Well said.

Lauren: Yeah. Um, so let's move a little bit more into sort of the business aspect.

So what ways can you sort of use your self awareness for success? What can you sort of do to better your self awareness so that you can be more successful? How can you help use that as a positive instead of, you know, as a negative for all the history and the trauma and things like that? How do you kind of flip that around?

that I'm struggling in this way and I don't know how to fix it. To me, I want to like standing ovation, standing ovation. We all have those moments. And when I say fix it, the symptom can be so many different things. It might be self doubt. It might be, you're not sleeping well. It might be, you're afraid of confrontation or conflict.

It might be stepping up in front of people and talking to an audience. It can be any number of things where it's like, I know it doesn't have to be this hard.

Lauren: Yeah,

kristin-taylor: And to be able to say, I'm going to reach out to resources because for me, it's recognizing when you start working with someone. That you decouple the symptom from your sense of who you are.

Lauren: yeah,

kristin-taylor: are tools and that self awareness will not only alleviate your suffering and liberate you from that suffering, but my God, the sense of empathy it can create for other people to pave the path for their success.

It's just has that beautiful ripple effect. So I hope that answered your question because it's such a big one, but courage to ask for help.

So it was just really interesting to me that all of that came to the surface. Once I became a business owner and had to start doing that stuff that I didn't realize I was really holding on to.

kristin-taylor: That's such a beautiful example and I'm sorry you were bullied and that sounds excruciating to be able to, to be in a situation where you're like, okay, now I'm an adult in order to get from here to there, I need to engage in social media and my trauma is being reactivated. That is the space I meet people in because truly when we step into saying, I'm going to do something not everyone does.

Everyone's so nice. Like, no, no, no. They're just, it's such a nurturing environment. No, it's not.

Lauren: She did. She did not say that to me, fortunately, so,

kristin-taylor: Yeah. No, it's not. What the, and that goes back to my bio. You were reading how I really focus on self compassion. Because there are sometimes jerks in the world that we will encounter. So we have to have our own backs. Because when you say, yes, I'm going to, you know, expose my opinion and especially like what comes up for me when I'm hearing you say that is in your podcast, as we're sitting here, you get to choose what you're going to say in the moment.

Lauren: yes.

kristin-taylor: You know, it's hard.

And that's why I love, and I don't mean to be referencing her so much, but, um, Brene Brown quotes, um, Theodora Roosevelt, and I'm going to butcher it like crazy, but the idea is if you decide to step into the ring, step into the center, cause not everybody does, but if you really put yourself there and do something ambitious and meaningful where other people can watch you.

Lauren: goodness.

kristin-taylor: but a handful And I wanted to, and it was about the way I look, the way I sound.

I mean, it was misogynistic. It was like, okay.

Lauren: Mm

kristin-taylor: And I wanted to be like, I'm so above this, but that would have been a lie.

Lauren: hmm.

kristin-taylor: truth was to say that hurt. That doesn't feel good. And to have the tools to process it, to feel my feelings, to recognize how dysregulated it was to read a really mean biting comment and then have my own back and recover.

Bye.

You know, what does that look like when you start working with someone?

kristin-taylor: Yeah, I got it. That's everyone asked me that. And it's, uh, one of the most important things is trust that the person that I'm working with that they, and I, she, he, they, and I have trust with one another. And so, um, the number one thing is being a great listener because Above all else, if I'm going to take them to places, they need to feel seen, heard, understood, valued.

Perfect example, I have a history of being bullied. The thought of posting something, not so good. It's physical, it's emotional, it's beliefs. You're back to 12 years old or however old you were, right? So I'll need to take them there, within their window of tolerance. I'm not just going to say, Hi, nice to meet you.

Right? Like, we'll, we'll see how someone feels about that. But I always start with the body because 80 percent of communication goes from the body. Not the other way around. And one of the, um, distortions, the, the false beliefs is just, you know, reframe your thoughts. Absolutely reframe your thoughts when your body is sending you signals that you're safe.

And then when they feel it in their body, this is the mindfulness piece. I want to understand through neutrality, not through the lens of your narrative of the brokenness of the trauma, but just tell me, let's say it's in your gut. What does it feel like? It's hot. It's heavy. It's, you know, it feels like a rock.

I might visualize this, whatever it is, just connect with it without judgment. And then I might ask them to close their eyes and say, do you remember the first time you ever felt that? And it's connecting them to the source of the sensation. And the disempowered narrative, perhaps the trauma. I don't want to overuse that word.

And basically it's almost like reparenting them. Like what did she, he, or they need that wasn't received? Let's do it now. And I think of it as like a dimmer switch, it's just turn down the blare of the light until you can restore safety to the body and you know that you can do this by yourself. So it's the capacity to self soothe and to recover when we're activated so that we can get to a safe place in our body, get out of what's like a limbic hijack, the amygdala hijack and go, okay, I am now 35 years old or whatever.

It can be important, hence

Lauren: It sounds really intense, important. It sounds like it.

kristin-taylor: the courage, but it

Lauren: It's it's

kristin-taylor: also takes a lot of courage to endure pain over and over every single day, and to your point, to then say, what is the cost of this? Or to step in, and again, I went deep real fast with you. I am going to pace it with the person I'm with,

Lauren: right.

kristin-taylor: obviously.

What can that look like? in their future of, okay, now I used to do this, but now this is how I, what's happening instead, or I will be more successful in my business because I've dealt with this and now I'm not, you know, weighed down by it. What does that look like when someone sort of, I know that the work may never be done, but what does it look like when they've sort of worked through some of it?

kristin-taylor: Yeah, well it's, they have a mitigation of suffering. Let's say they are working with a woman right now who, um, and this is so common, which is why I bring it up. She is a leader and she really wants to be liked by her employees, which means when there's any time that she needs to give Delivered difficult feedback.

So she's caught in a cycle. And so in the work that we get to do together, it's being able to study And find the words and begin to practice her courage in doing it, and then start to see the positive reinforcement of, Oh, my employees are performing better. Oh, I actually, back to the compassion, I'm not going to go to war against myself or abandon myself by spending hours not sleeping because what if she doesn't like me, or what if he doesn't like me.

Whatever it is, you fill in the blank. The problem saturated story is every single time she gives a nugget of feedback that was difficult. Every single time she sleeps better. Every single time when she used to worry this much about it, now she's worrying this much about it. And in those moments of, and I tell people, write them down.

Acceptance to problem saturated story. They are creating a new story that they want to connect to in a way of like, That's my life now. That was then, this is now. So you're really tracking progress because coaching is saying, where are you now? Where do you want to be? We're going to talk about how you're going to get there.

Let's create, you know, the vision of what you want to be. And let's start piling up the evidence to say, Oh, it's happening. You are changing.

Like, don't let it just fall by the wayside, like be excited about it, even though becoming more commonplace and you know, it's, it's happening for you and it's all kind of coming together. Make sure that you continue to celebrate the successes because you've come so far from where you started that now you're, you're doing, you know, discovery calls and you're booking people with ease because they can see how excited you are and how knowledgeable you are.

And she was working with her mindfulness coach to think like, okay, well, how can we reset this? You know, what are we actually looking at? Your business is not going under, you're not running out of money. You're actually booking more clients. Like, how can we reframe these thoughts that you're having into the reality or into a more positive way of looking at it?

It's just, it's so amazing to realize how much your emotions impact your physical feeling that

kristin-taylor: Yes.

Lauren: I personally didn't really connect before.

And you can also interrupt habits that actually in your desire to stay safe, right? Evolutionarily. You can short circuit that and create thoughts, activities that line you up. For better success and man, if it doesn't feel better along the way versus being rocked and riddled and panic, because that's just a waste of time.

Life is short. It doesn't feel short, but it is.

kristin-taylor: Yeah. Okay. So I'm going to suggest two things that are just low hanging fruit, not easy, but accessible. And especially what I want people to hear is you need to rewire your thoughts and your nervous system response. And it is absolutely possible and not astronomical. So the first one is breathing. Okay.

So there is a breathing exercise. Some people call it straw breathing. Some people call it ratio breathing, but it's really simple. The important thing is that you do six breath cycles and a breath cycle is four inhales with the nose count of four, exhale for a count of eight or longer with the mouth.

six times. And you will notice that you just feel calmer. Inhale four times through the nose. Exhale eight. I said four times again. I was going to try not to do that. Inhale the count of four through the nose. Exhale for a count of eight through the mouth. Do that cycle six times. So if you find,

Lauren: to try that.

It'll take about a minute, maybe a minute and a half of your life. Okay. That's the first thing. Ratio of breathing. Look it up. The next thing I want people to get an emotion wheel. Just get an emotion wheel. Talks. Excuse me. It gives you the language to talk about your feelings. The first thing we need to do in order to emotionally regulate is breathe and then say, what am I feeling?

Such a simple question, right? What am I feeling? Not so simple. My husband used to have one word. I just feel different. No, we need a master vocalist.

Lauren: and helpful.

kristin-taylor: It's really descriptive and helpful. And so an emotion wheel, it gives all sorts of nuanced, different feelings. I feel disappointed. I feel despair. I feel overwhelmed.

And to recognize that how you are feeling, it's just a feeling. It's not who you are. Emotions can move in and out of us like leaves in a breeze, waves on the ocean, but it's not who you are. And so you can say, I feel angry. And then notice how Where is it in my body? You're not always angry. In that moment you are angry.

Take your emotion wheel. Now I'm feeling annoyed. Now it, right, like it can start to change and the more you can breathe and identify your feelings, the more you're setting yourself up for self awareness and we already talked about how important that is.

kristin-taylor: Yeah.

Lauren: What am I doing? What's wrong with me?

kristin-taylor: So many people do that. We all do that. Right. I love that. Which is why I went to the mindfulness piece around the neutrality. Just go to the body. The body isn't like, if you have. You know, if your nose itches, you're not like a stupid nose. I can't believe a nose itch, right? Noses shouldn't itch, but we do that with things.

And so when I say go to the body, it's like, what are the sensations? Neutrality, lack of judgment. Cause when we have an emotion, there's the sensation and then there's the story. And often those stories are, you know, maybe we were told by our parents, like, you know, stop being so sensitive, just stop it, just knock it off.

None of this is like, Oh, easy peasy. It feels good. All of it. If you're really doing the work requires saying yes to discomfort, but here's the thing you're already super uncomfortable. This is a route through versus a route where you're just, let me just push it all down and now I'm getting autoimmune illnesses or whatever it is.

Heart disease.

Lauren: high blood pressure, all of those things.

kristin-taylor: Exactly. Exactly.

Lauren: Well, Kristin, it has been so great talking to you and learning about all of these things. It's interesting because I've been to therapy, but we didn't talk about how the emotions just sit in your body like this and how it all self, how your body regulates and being aware of all of it.

kristin-taylor: I would love that because I actually do have some openings right now. Um, So they can go to my website, which I believe you have the link to as well. It's Kristin taylor consulting.com. Um, they can go to Linked in, Kristin Taylor. Um, another, just like I didn't use to until I got married 20 years ago. I have the most common name.

You have all the links. Best place to go is um, Kristin taylor consulting.com. They can also go to coach [email protected] and it's K-R-I-S-T. I

Lauren: great. And I will make sure I link all of that below. And do you have a free gift for our listeners today? I can't remember.

kristin-taylor: don't! I don't! I feel like it was! Did

kristin-taylor: I wish I had a free gift. You don't have

Lauren: me see. Oh, you said no in the, in the thing. So.

kristin-taylor: a free gift. You know what? I would give someone a free. So I always do a discovery call. If someone wants to because, um, like I said, I do have some opening right now for a couple of clients. I will give away a free session. So it's a discovery call and a session. That is a gift for anyone who reaches out to me.

And if at that point they want to move forward, fantastic. If It's good for both of us, but if it's not, then pleasure meeting you and, um, no harm no foul.

Lauren: All right. Sounds great. I will put all that information in the show notes and the description on pot on And again, Kristin, thank you so much for being here. It was wonderful talking to you again.

kristin-taylor: Thank you so much. You're really good at this. I really had a good time. Thank you.

Lauren: Thank you. right. Bye everybody.

kristin-taylor: Bye.

Lauren: Uh, okay.