The Day I Stopped Needing Applause

Are you relying on external validation as you pursue your goals and dreams? In this honest and reflective solo episode, Jen shares the shift that changed how she shows up in her life and business, moving from seeking recognition to becoming anchored in her own self approval.

This episode explores the subtle ways we look for applause in our decisions, our work, and even our growth. Jen unpacks what it means to release that dependency and lead from a place of self trust, where your choices are no longer shaped by how they will be received, but by what feels true, especially when there is no external validation to guide you.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

• The hidden ways we seek validation in everyday decisions
• What shifts when you stop needing approval to move forward
• How self trust becomes the foundation for leadership
• Why external recognition can quietly shape your identity
• What it looks like to lead without needing applause

Connect with Jen:

• Read Magazine here: www.instagram.com/iconicmagazine__
• Business Mentorship here: www.instagram.com/becomingiconic
• Watch here: www.youtube.com/@theiconicmagazine
• All resources: www.becomingiconic.co

Transcript

1:06

Welcome to The Iconic Podcast. I am your host, Jennifer Leigh, CEO, founder, and editor-in-chief of Iconic Magazine. Each week, I bring you into the rooms most people never get access to. The cover features, the contributors, women who are making big bold moves in their life and business. I sit with them, learn from them, and I'll bring their stories, their thinking, and their standards directly to you in real time. Alongside those conversations, you will hear from me. With over 20 years of experience building brands and over 100 million in client sales, I share the insights, strategies, and leadership perspective that most people have not yet accessed. This is not surface-level advice, but the real decisions, standards, and shifts required to build something that lasts. This is how Iconic Women think, build, lead, and live. And while I have you, I want to encourage you to go download the most recent copy of the magazine, whether in digital format or to get your hands on that physical copy delivered to your door every quarter. And I'd also love to see you in the House of Her membership. Thank you so much for being here. Welcome back to the Iconic Podcast, and I want to talk to you today around the day that I actually stopped needing applause in order to move forward in my vision and dreams. And I want to share these stories with you in hopes that you can hang on to these ideas and this inspiration for perhaps a day that you are met with someone who doesn't agree, maybe is a bit of a dream stealer, or perhaps nobody around you is giving you any applause. They're not supporting you. They're not cheering you on. And it's a hurtful situation if we allow it to be. And it also can be water on our fire easily. But I chose really early on to let it be kerosene on my fire. I chose really early on to give myself the belief that I was hopeful for with the people that I was surrounded by. When I initially started entrepreneurship back 20 years ago, I was met with such adversity. And I was actually really surprised at that adversity and really surprised that the people who I loved, the people closest to me, weren't excited. Because at the time, I was a stay-at-home mom. I had left a really thriving marketing career to raise my children. And then I found entrepreneurship where I could blend both of my worlds. I could be that CEO. I could set goals and achieve while also being present with my then two children that were very young, two and seven months old. So I thought, this is going to be amazing. And everybody around me is going to see how amazing this is because I was a young mom. I hadn't even hit the ground running really in my life. I didn't even know who I was or what turned me on or what I was capable of achieving. So I was hopeful that the people around me would applaud. I was hopeful that my family would be excited for me. They would be the first to give me that round of applause, standing ovation, and encouragement. but I was met with everything but. My husband at the time was mortified, and he actually said to me, please, could you not tell anybody what you're doing? So that's the first thing. Second thing was my mom. She cried for two weeks and told me that I am going to be burnt out and I'm not going to have enough time and it's going to sacrifice my time with the children. And I made this choice to be home with them. And I was really shocked. And at first, I would say saddened by the reactions, especially the people who I loved the most, who were closest to me. But I decided in that moment that this was a crossroads. I could either follow their advice and listen to them and not try this entrepreneurial journey, or I could go down the path and see what I'm made of and create a life that would bless them and bless myself. And so I made that choice in that moment to be the belief that I was hopeful for from them to me. And so if you're met with someone right now who's not supporting you, if you have someone in your life who rolls their eyes or makes sarcastic comments or just gives you that that feeling of not supporting i want to let you know you're not alone and you also don't need their support in order to become successful i think that's really important to acknowledge when you're given a god-given vision it almost immediately creates a little bit of isolation because a vision that is huge and big most people shouldn't be able to grasp bit or see it. If people understand what you're doing and they're like, oh, yeah, that's easy, or I know someone who's done that, I would say your vision isn't very big. I would say your dreams are not very big. You're not stretching yourself into what's possible. You're still playing safe. But when you say something and declare something to yourself, to your family, to your world that you want to do that stretches the norm, it's going to come with a little bit of adversity. And you have to be ready for that. You have to steward that and lead that. And it's really, really important that it not be that water, but the kerosene. So as I poured belief in myself, what I realized is I had to also be a little cautious with what I shared and what I didn't. There was a quiet build for me as I started because I knew if I shared some of the disappointments or things that weren't working well with the people who were asking me to stop doing what I was doing or rolling their eyes or crying because they thought my life was going to change for the worse, that that wasn't actually going to help my relationships. That wasn't actually going to, I guess, create any sort of support. It was going to be that fuel for them. So I quietly built. And I did that on purpose. I shared big wins. I shared successes. But when I was disappointed or when I thought things weren't working, I was very careful with whom I shared that information with. I went to the people who were doing the things that I was doing. I spoke to peers who were further down the path than I was because what I realized is someone who has done what I desire to do is never going to criticize me who's at the starting gate. They're the champions. They're the cheerleaders because they are showing me they're the evidence of what is possible. So you've got to make sure that you are careful about what you share and maybe it is time for you to quietly build because you do not need their approval. You do not need them to support you. What you need is your own belief and for you to be willing to keep going despite some of the circumstances. Here's the good news. What I didn't expect was the shift and change in their belief of me and how those initial days of don't tell anybody or what's this mean or this is going to cause some sort of grief turned into awe. My husband at the time ended up becoming one of the greatest supporters we were traveling with the kids i was creating income that was making a massive difference in our home and relieving him as the sole income earner we were paying off debts we were you know doing things that we had once dreamt of and so what i learned too is that sometimes those people that don't support you you've got to go get that success go attain the success because they will support when you start making money and you start having success. It's just sort of inevitable. So that quiet build that I was doing was supporting my belief, making sure that I was protecting myself. Because at the beginning stages of your career in entrepreneurship, it's fragile. It's vulnerable. You don't really know what you're doing. You're kind of flailing forward. So in that protection, my belief stayed steady. But then when the success started to arrive, it was really greeted with so much enthusiasm. So learn that they're, maybe not supporting you now, but that doesn't mean forever. Go give them a good show. Go do what you said you're going to do. The other thing that came through for me as I was growing and now helping other women doing what I was doing was noticing some things that we had to be accountable for. So women would come forward to me because they heard my story of the fact that I didn't have support and they were wanting to start a separate career or a side hustle or they wanted to shift away from staying at home into entrepreneurship. And so they would come to me and say, my husband doesn't support me. Like, I know you had this. What should I do? So I want to offer you the advice I offered them that really, I believe, changed the trajectory for most of them and really did give them the kind of nudge and support that they were looking for at that time. So the first piece of advice or wisdom I bespoke on them was, how many times have you said you're going to do something and not follow through. So that person that's not supporting you right now, have they witnessed you say that you're going to go to the gym more regularly and then you do it for a small window of time and go back to the same behaviors and habits? Have they watched you say you're not going to spend money and save or you're going to eat differently? Or what are those promises, those declarations you've made in the past and they have watched you say something and not be the person behind what you declared? And so perhaps that crack in belief in you, there is some reason why. I mean, they've watched you say these things and not gone and done the thing you said you were going to do. So sometimes we need to own the responsibility in this to know that their lack of support could be coming from the fact that I've never actually showed them that I'm going to do the thing that I said I'm going to do. So owning that is important because it brings back a little bit of responsibility upon yourself. And then it's also great accountability because now's the time to actually do it. Let this be the time where you don't falter, you don't pull back and retreat, but you keep steady and you keep going forward. And the second thing was from someone that I hired. His name is Pinball Clemens. Some of you may know him. He's an amazing man. And he came to speak at an event. I had hired him, and it was full of women. What I knew about that room is a lot of women in that room had big dreams, but they felt held back by their families, specifically their spouses, that weren't supporting this dream. They didn't want them to spend money. They didn't want them to spend the time. They were using the kids as, you know, leverage to not build a business or why they shouldn't build a business. So I asked him, I said, Pinball, what would you say to a woman in this room who is not supported from a spouse or whether someone close to them that they love? And he asked the audience, is anybody in here in that situation? And it makes me a little emotional because I watched most hands go up in the air. And that was sad to me it was sad to me that as women first of all that this is a scenario we have to walk through i don't think much many men if any have that same scenario we tend to back up the men and and their dreams and we're really that fuel behind them so why is it as women that this is our our circumstance why is this you know something we are having to walk through but at the same time, what a beautiful challenge. What a time for us to rise to the occasion. And so as those hands came up in the air, he was even taken aback by it. And he said something really powerful that I would love you to hear today. He said, you can respect somebody's opinion, meaning listen to them, hear them out, let them dialogue with you around what their concerns are or what they are feeling is going to pull you away or whatever those fears are. He goes, you can respect that, but you don't have to accept that. Meaning, we can respect that person we love and their opinion, but we don't have to accept that as our truth. We don't have to accept that as the end of the sentence where we stop doing what has been placed on our heart. Instead, it's a continued conversation of understanding and maybe some compromise. I loved when I would say to women, sign a contract. Maybe it's time he understood how serious you are. Write a contract that here are the things i'm committed to doing every single day or every single week here's what i'm committed to achieving and and the success that i'm going to acquire here's the investments i'm going to make but i promise i will not stop until i've made that money back in the business like what are those promises agreements you can make and sign it with him sometimes that promise and that mutual understanding is what actually lets the waters kind of calm for the meantime. When you have that type of accountability, it's actually wonderful for you because you realize, oh, I have to follow through now. I've made these agreements. I've made these promises. We've signed a contract. I've asked him to support me. I've asked for him to understand. So now I've got to step up to the plate. Now I have to lead this. So it's important for you to know that, again, you don't need them to support you in order to have success. It's wonderful when they do, but that comes with time. I don't know a single woman in my scenario who has acquired great success and lives a beautiful life that has people that are unsupportive. Sure, there's still times and moments where they know our buttons and say, Mom, you're working so much, or a husband says, You're always on your phone. But those are just checkpoints. Those are moments to actually look and discern and say, am I actually on my phone and distracted when it's family time? And I am. So thank you for letting me know. I'm going to put my phone away. Or perhaps you're in a busy season in your business and you haven't properly explained what's going on. You're not communicating what's going on and what's in it for them. We don't often share with our friends and our family what's in it for them, why we're doing what we're doing. It's not because you're not providing. It's not because we don't live a great life. I'm doing this because I want to see what I'm capable of. I want to do this and contribute to our family. I want to live the most pleasure-soaked life. And so let me be a part of that equation and build something together. When you stop needing applause you start believing in yourself you start being accountable to yourself you start being responsible for the things that you say you're going to do. And lastly, as that success starts to come, and as people support you, one of the things that can happen is we don't give ourselves that applause anymore. We're really good at it at the beginning. Like, oh my gosh, I did that, or I have a client, or I launched this product, or whatever it may be. We're really good at recognizing our wins. We're really good at celebrating those wins. But as time goes on, we can almost stop giving ourselves the round of applause we deserve. And so a best practice I've put into place is to make sure that every time there's a win, I write it down in my journal. Nothing is too small and nothing is too big. But I write every single thing down, every win that happens on each day, so I can look and kind of zone out at the end of a month and be like, wow, look what happened. Because the business is so fast-paced at this point, I forget. I forget that on February 2nd, somebody signed up for the Iconic World membership and paid in full and sent me a DM talking about how excited they were. I forget that private client who sent that beautiful note to me because again, I'm in the work. So I hold a best practice for myself to pause and be in gratitude. I believe that celebration and gratitude go hand in hand. So what can you do? What practices can you bring in to give yourself that applause, especially as you start growing and scaling your business? Because if you are not standing up and being the loudest cheerleader for yourself, then there's going to always be that moment where we look outside of ourselves, give our power away. And remember, adversity is cost of entry. I mean, we've set ourselves up for massive success, big dreams and visions, and we can't expect that to come easily. We're going to be challenged. But how you handle those challenges is so, so important to the success and failure of your business. So remember, be your biggest cheerleader. Take responsibility, accountability. Be quiet in the meantime. And once you're successful, everybody starts to give the standing ovation that you once really wish you had at the beginning. I'm really excited to be with you on the Iconic Podcast every single week. Thank you so much for tuning in, whether on YouTube or a podcast channel. It means a lot to me that you're here. And I'm really, really looking forward to knowing how this landed for you today. Because it's not about where you are on your journey. You can have support from the get-go, or you can have that person that doesn't support all the way through. But remember, take your power back. Be the believer in yourself and give yourself a round of applause. Thank you so much for your time and presence with us. I would love to nudge you now to respond to the generosity of this podcast by leaving a review and sharing this episode. Please tag the guest and myself as well so more people can be served. Our latest issue of the magazine is now out and linked below for you for your convenience. And if you're interested in this incredible PR and visibility opportunity, we've linked that below for you as well. Now let's go make it a great day.