Wellness and Wealth
Wellness and Wealth
Shining Bright: The Power of Visibility in Entrepreneurship with Gaëlle Berruel
This episode centers on the vital connection between mindset, wellness, and visibility for women entrepreneurs. We discuss the transformative power of collaboration and challenge the societal narratives that inhibit female visibility, emphasizing the importance of self-love and breaking the cycle of self-doubt.
• The significance of visibility in entrepreneurship
• Collaboration as a pathway to empowerment
• Overcoming the scarcity mindset and embracing sisterhood
• Understanding and addressing the roots of imposter syndrome
• Strategies for enhancing visibility and self-trust
• Taking actionable steps toward authentic presence and connection
• Importance of self-love and inner reflection in business success
Connect with Wendy Manganaro:
Hi everyone. This is Wendy from Wellness and Wealth for another episode. As always, I'm so happy you're here to listen, and today our topic is mindset, wellness and visibility. I have as our guest Gael Barrett. I'm going to read her bio and then we're going to get right into it.
Speaker 1:Gael is a motivational speaker, a visibility maven and a wellness expert. She also is a UK ambassador for Psychologies magazine, inspiring and motivating readers to create a life they love through the online Life Labs platform. After 10 years working in the banking industry, she created her wellness consultancy, a Rockstar Mindset, to help women leaders and entrepreneurs become a rock star of their life. Inspired by the world of neurosciences, positive psychology and wellness, gael has created her holistic system, the Rockstar Women Framework, which helps women to be visible, charismatic and confident so that they can shine unapologetically.
Speaker 1:Gael is the host of Rockstar Mindset Podcast, inspiring women leaders and corporate mavens so they feel empowered to make career transition or create their own businesses with renewed optimism, enthusiasm and drive. Gael is a managing director of the International Community for Women Entrepreneurs, based in Canada. Gael was featured in magazines like Psychology Magazine, medium, entrepreneur Herald and gave talks at Vodafone, monica Vinator, the Women Economic Forum and the Women Federation for World Peace. Welcome and thank you for being on the show. It's a pleasure. I have to tell the listeners we started the conversation way before the podcast started, but we're really going to talk for the listeners. We've just been having a grand old time. But I love this topic branding, especially when it comes to visibility. But because you work with so many women entrepreneurs, what does collaboration mean to you?
Speaker 2:Collaboration means sisterhood. Why? Because I believe that more women are supporting each other, they collaborate, they feel powerful and they have better results in their business, in their lives. Being in a position, when you feel aligned, to work with another woman, you have the same or similar values and motivation in their lives. Being in a position when you feel aligned to work with another woman, you have the same or similar values and motivation, and so it's very important as well that you work ethically. It's very similar as well, like you're very serious and professional in the same way and you have no issue in terms of the way you're working.
Speaker 2:This is collaboration for me, and I think it's such a beautiful way to share this. There is enough for everyone. We are all determined from each other. We cannot be everyone for everyone, so there is no point basically just to put on the altar this concept of competition. There is no competition. This is my point of view, this is my point, this is my truth. I do believe that, basically, each person has the potential to create their truth, but from my experience, I've got much more success and happiness from collaboration than competition.
Speaker 1:And I have a really not funny story. It is a kind of funny story. So years ago I was part of this women's network and it was when Facebook was still new and there was a woman there and she and I did similar stuff, but she was so into Google oh my gosh, I can't even Google Buzz, whatever it was back then. It was a long time ago and every time we'd come up we'd go to this thing together. And it was a long time ago and every time we'd come up we'd go to this thing together. She would have to talk about this and why Facebook wasn't going to last and all that. It was really funny.
Speaker 1:Now, today, it was a group that some people really believed in collaboration. The women who had believed in collaboration were the ones that were always there, always together, always really sharing their wins, always together, always really sharing their wins. Those that didn't get that were the ones who really didn't understand, because they went with the mindset of I need to get a sale right now. And it's such a different way of looking at it right, because to me, I look at business as the long-term, the long-term gain of what can this relationship bring? And that's what collaboration does. It brings a long-term game of something that can really be created beautifully in a business where this idea of competition, it doesn't allow you to grow past the present moment.
Speaker 2:Indeed, yes, I agree with you when you think about it, your marketing strategies and you know the way it is. It's a question to run a relationship and the investment is on the long term. How can you expect that basically being in competition with others is going to bring you to this result?
Speaker 1:People feel when you're competitive, they feel this very strong, hard energy behind you and they don't like it and you feel it because I think that's the other thing too is that when you're in competition, there's a feeling of this is just business more cutthroat. There's such a separation of you and the business, like you're supposed to be two different people. You would be the nicest person in the world as long as you didn't get them from a Monday through Friday while working, and I'm like that doesn't make sense. So for you, what has been some of the things that you've seen from collaboration Because I think that's the other thing is that people don't realize they go oh yeah, I can collaborate, but they don't have the ideas of what that could look like.
Speaker 2:Okay, one of the good examples is I met a woman I remember, and I was on her podcast. It was, I think, around 2018. And from this interview, we collaborated together basically to create a workshop in London about visibility. And I remember, after we started to collaborate because we get to know each other, we really have a very great relationship and friendship and we did we show up live three times per week on the Visibility Series in 2021 during six to seven months and we created so much buzz, so much visibility, so much collaboration opportunities around us.
Speaker 2:I think it's really a question of look in your network, these people, these women that you're amazed by what they're doing and they inspire you. I think it's really coming from these women. Or when you have an idea and immediately you're thinking, oh, I know this woman, I think she would be grateful, um, to do this with me, and all the time, my collaboration basically started this way. It started just from one idea and I've got a feeling, inspiration or former intuition, contacted the person and said, oh yeah, I it. So this is what I'm doing right now with another woman from the community. She did it Uh, her name is Julie Dallela and we came up with the idea to create a networking session for women entrepreneurs so they can basically create, you know, opportunity, collaboration, referrals.
Speaker 2:It was just a nightmare because we get to know each other through networking. So we know the power of networking. We started to collaborate together on Instagram and on different ways and that's why I'm a nice summit. I chose her as a guest speaker to open the summit with me because I was so that she crashed and she was out and I collaborated with her several times and it went very well. I love that you're as she goes up and I collaborated with her several times.
Speaker 1:I love that you're doing all these collaborations and it's a beautiful thing. I have one other story. So there's a woman here in the States and since she was a wreck they call her the million dollar party girl. But what I watched her do and she was actually one of the people who I watched and I understood collaboration from she would have all of the direct marketing companies have a girls night. It was amazing. She did one. Somebody would do candles, somebody would do makeup, somebody would do the food and they got it that if they did this girls night, everybody's products would be seen and eventually bought because of word of mouth.
Speaker 1:So when I was in another state for a little bit, I brought this up to some people who were struggling in the marketing field and they could not understand it. They're like but you don't understand, everybody only brings so much money that night and that's that long-term. They can't see that long-term gain. I've gotten everybody's context and talk about visibility and that's really what a true collaboration is. That it's that trust to bring two people together and say I believe in what you do and I believe in what you do and I'm going to share you with my community because I do.
Speaker 2:Yes, this is it, it's just. I think it's really an opportunity to put more intention into your networking and by doing so you expand your network, and it's a beautiful way to be visible in a safe space.
Speaker 1:Exactly so. I think that's one of the things, and part of that is mindset too right, because if you're coming from a place of lack, it's always going to be competition.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because I think it's really a question to think about OK, what one's the way for you if you have a job in 9 to 5, basically to get to know people, you speak to them, you create relationships. It's just coming back to the basics, to the roots, and sometimes I think, because people start to create their businesses, they're so much into their ads in terms of system and structure and business tools and the source, they're losing basically the basic foundation which is building relationships with people, because they're going to know you, like you and trust you.
Speaker 1:You do that in a nine-to-five job, you do that in a business and even when I moved and I had a business partner that didn't work out between us and within a year I had more than half of the clients, and not because I even went to go find them, but I had spent so much time building relationships with them, they ended up finding me and that's really key and I think that's part of the collector archetype. Really is that collaborator, because they're going to work, for how can everybody have a relationship in this? So why is it important to you that women step into the rock star as they are?
Speaker 2:Because they are rock stars, but they don't give themselves permission to be themselves. They have this craving. It's not just to shed their disabilities, and to be themselves is just to shed the possibilities and to be to themselves. And they don't dare. They don't dare to become this woman, and it's just, sometimes it's a question to really step back and hear, okay, where I am in terms of my self-love, where I am in terms of my self-trust, do I trust myself? Do I believe in myself? Because we are very good to be over-givers, to be the cheerleaders of everyone around us. We are so good for that. But what about yourself? What about you? Because, to the end of the day, no one is going to do it for you. You have to do it for yourself. All of these people you cheer on all the time, are they going to do it for you? You don't know, you don't know. And that's why so many women go into these people-pleasing tendencies, until basic reality just hits hard in their face and they say, no, it cannot go, it cannot no longer go like this. And that's why I think I'm so passionate about it, because I can feel it when they come in and they like one of your posts, or they come and something or they ask a question, it's because they don't judge, but they still have, basically, this need to say, oh, I would love to be, I would love to be like this person, I would love to be confided and speaking up. Yes, they can Think about everything as a woman. We overcame I mean non-came, not to stop. We are multitasker, we are overgiver, we are sensible, we are wise. They know about it. So, when you think about it, all the conditioning creative around us is to keep us where we are. And it's for us to do this inner work to roll all these layers of all conditioning, of programming and see that, oh, I can become who I want to be, I can make myself a priority, I can set up boundaries, I can be visible the way I want to and I can define what success and beauty and happiness means to me. And that's why I think I'm so passionate about it, because once they start really to see that, oh my God, the problem is not me, it's not me the problem, it's just conditional, worrying, the way of thinking they understand this. Oh wow, something is lifted from their shoulders. I have some clients when they started to understand the way they might walk. They were so lifted. They say, oh my God, I'm so happy it's not me.
Speaker 2:If you don't have the education, if you don't know the way it works, you're always going to blame yourself. You're always going to self-sabotage yourself in so many ways. But when you do understand that you have the choice, it's so boring. You still have this possibility to say yes to playing small or no to playing small. And listening to my intuition. And something I heard recently is someone said when you think about it, you're giving so much power to the voice of our ego. What if we don't sustain the thought and creation? Where will we?
Speaker 1:be. That's very true. I was just on a call the other day and it was on affirmationsorg and what you were talking about is that ego will ask us all of the reasons why, as we stay stuck in, that it's like you worry about paying the rent next month and it's like why me, why can't I? This always happens. But the idea of these affirmations is that you ask the reverse, the intuition. You ask that reverse question of why can't I pay the rent or why can't I? Because it's more affirming to be able to say I'm going to challenge myself not to listen to the negativity. So once you know what you want, asking the question why can't I? Do that, there's a reason not to, and it really goes to that idea of listening to your intuition, because our mind will exhaust us it's exhausting, honestly, even sometimes, you know, I notice it, maybe because I'm really a driver, but I don't hear so much about my ego.
Speaker 2:But where is your work? Immediately I stop myself and I say, could you just try to repeat what you said? And I'm like, wow, you're still here, still in the background, and you can hear. I say thank you for sharing, but I'm the one to decide.
Speaker 1:It's funny because I always say thank you for sharing my adult self will take over now. That's hysterical and that's really what I had to start doing because I would listen to it. And it's funny because, as we're talking about this, I heard once that only women suffer from imposter syndrome. Men don't have that and I don't know if that's true or not, but there seems to be a lot of women who feel like they suffer from imposter syndrome, especially when they open their businesses, which amazes me because I will see women come from corporate America, they know their stuff backwards and forwards and because owning yours is very different. But it shocks me. I'm like you were just talking about this with such like passion and then you go. I don't know if I can do this.
Speaker 2:It's quite interesting because there is this voice of intuition saying go for it, you can do it. And yes, the voice of the ego is here. Sister, you have no map, you have no guidebook, you have nothing of what you expect. But I think more you create your business and more you delve into these old narratives. Create your business and more you delve into these old narratives that you're competing in the world. I remember when I started I was sitting here cool about it, until I started to delve a little bit deeper and I said, oh, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2:But this is where you have the key, with your mindset, to redefine what selling means to you. You know that is still in alignment with your business, your service and why you created it. Most of the times they're going to say no, I feel like an imposter, and that's fine. But this is the key when you're like an imposter I'm branding an imposter because the society basically has been created for him to feel like an imposter. You follow all the rules, you tick all the boxes. Now you're going to entrepreneurship. There is no success, there is no to-do list. It's absolutely normal.
Speaker 1:It doesn't mean that you cannot learn. That's the big one is that you can learn anything. I really do believe that Everything is at our fingertips so that we cannot learn. That's the big one is that you can learn anything. I really do believe that Everything is at our fingertips so that we can learn. We're in a remarkable time in the world that everything is at our fingertips.
Speaker 2:Years ago there was no web energy to have Google just write what you need and get all the information.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's amazing, and on the other side, it makes it so wonderful how we can find each other. There's also no excuse of not finding the right person as we go back to collaboration, because it's all there.
Speaker 2:So that's why, even when a woman comes to me and says, oh yeah, I get it, I feel like an imposter. I say but why did you decide basically to see and to be an imposter? You can step out of this narrative and say no, I'm learning my way to become a badass businesswoman. Is that any better?
Speaker 1:So what are the signs that female entrepreneurs are allowing their mindset to interfere with their visibility?
Speaker 2:They're not visible consistently. They have this push and pull relationship with visibility, when they know that they need to be visible to launch their product, to launch the services, and for that reason there's a tick on the to-do list. But once basically they got the clients, the program are filled and everything, they get back into their comfort zone and they need to go out again into the same things. This is showing that something is not right, and from some of them I know. Sometimes then even they consider it like pressure, because they want to show up, to go up, and they don't want to have this additional pressure added on them because it's like they need to perform again. They need to show up like another person, like a fake person, and this is where you say, okay, from an intellectual point of view, women are really smart, but to trust them enough to define what is visibility for them and to turn it in a way that is irresistible, this is where you can see that there is a problem in terms of smartness.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I look at that a lot. There's a lot of businesses who I call it the feast or famine Visible to get the clients, and then they go oh I'm too busy, and then they go. I have no clients. And thing is that there is this inconsistency this is the other thing that I don't know, if you notice and it's this fear about. I've grown to this level, whatever this level is, and I can't take on any more clients. I don't have time to market, but I'm so afraid that I won't be able to sustain this somehow. Right, because maybe my self-esteem or whatever that I'm afraid to bring anybody on to even help a little bit, because then it's going to make me really responsible. And they just stay stuck in this merry-go-round and they don't realize that in the letting go of, not that you have to go hire the Taj Mahal, but even a little bit of help in the areas that could free your time so that you could be more visible. But I think that goes back to the black mindset.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because when you think about it, like you said, if you are into this mindset of scarcity and you're going to basically your intellect saying, oh, I need help, I need to have Z, a, b, c, d, e before to get help Circle, creating your one vicious circle is only okay. I do not know the solution, but I'm going to move for something, for some help, that you're going to open the door to something different to help you. So it's just yeah, in a certain way saying to a woman stop doing what you're doing and do something very broad, very different, because the universe loves you, you know. I remember when I started I said you know what the universe has no clue about it. It's not with them, no clue about it. But we're going to take action and I did it and so far I don't know if you want to quit your life for me.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I like that. You said that, because I always say the universe says yes, but it always needs the action behind it to know that's what you really want. I love affirmations, but at some point we have to also show up in certain ways so the universe knows that we're serious. I don't have to figure out the how it's going to come, I just need to show up so that it does come.
Speaker 2:And it's quite funny because most of the time it's showing up. The question is have you got the visibility to see the opportunity just under your nose? This is another matter and this is why your mindset is so important. If you move your mindset into possibility, opportunities and saying you know what? I create my destiny, I create my reality, every day, you're going to see, you're going to make your mind, creating your neural patterns to identify these opportunities, to find them. If you don't do it, he's not going to see it.
Speaker 1:And that was actually probably one of the first things I ever learned was if I was so stuck in what wasn't happening, I wouldn't see what could happen. My first client ever I split from my business partner and I get this thousand dollars for six months. That I had to drive an hour each way for six months. That I had to drive an hour each way for six months. But I had to make that time and I tell this story a lot because the coach I was working with at the time. I'm so disappointed. Two days before they were supposed to sign the paperwork they didn't sign it. I was devastated.
Speaker 1:This was my first big client. It was with a university. I was going to go and teach. I thought I had run and she said to me if you hold on to that, you're going to miss the next opportunity. The next opportunity was my first do it for you client for six months for the same amount for every single month. But I would have stayed stuck in what I thought, but because it kept showing up, despite how I felt to tell the universe, I was serious. I find that it's that partnership with the universe of going okay. I can't stay in the fear. I cannot say whether it's visibility, whether it's the mindset diversity, but if I stay in the fear I'm never going to be able to see what's rising.
Speaker 2:Always this peak in your stomach and you want to do it, but you don't dare. I think a moment. You have just to throw away your fears. That's it. You say you know what I've been living with with me for a while Now. I'm just going to give you some orientation. You go away and I do my things. I am going to see if it's working or not.
Speaker 2:I have no scene to do it To the end of the day. You have no scene to do it. Even if it's not working, it's going to help you to get some nugget of wisdom for your next opportunity. It's no fun. We're always learning. That's why you, in your story, the next client was your client, Even better than the rest.
Speaker 1:I learned that very valuable lesson, like I don't get upset when people say no, I'm like that's okay. And then I learned how to say no, because that was the other thing is. I'd be like this is going to be a terrible match, and then I'd say yes and I'd be like, look, it was a terrible match, and that's the other thing too. We were talking about knowing that we can't serve everybody and being okay with that, because there is somebody for everybody and it's all right that I'm not it yeah.
Speaker 2:No, I think it's important as well. I think it's only when you start to have clients that you start to realize which kind of clients you want and you make sure that, basically, you embody being the leader for these clients and for yourself. Most of me, what I learned is all the times they say think about your client, think about what they're thinking, put yourself in their shoes, but you have to think about you, right? You're supposed to be the leader, you're supposed to be the one they're going to follow you, they're going to listen to you. So, yes, I think being receptive basically to your client yes, I think being receptive basically to your client, definitely, but being receptive to you as well is capital.
Speaker 1:Exactly. I learned some valuable lessons on that journey. Let me tell you and it would be so funny my husband would ask they want to work with you again after what happened last time, and you're going to do it. I'm like they told me to change and he would say please don't take that call. He wouldn't even know. This is a bad idea, wendy. But that ability to say no, this isn't going to work out and that's okay. Being so okay with that and being really picky and like telling the universe this is what I want and that's what I learned from that too. It tells the universe what I do and what I don't want.
Speaker 1:I have a final question and you have an offer, but for female entrepreneurs who feel like they're realizing that they're having problems with visibility and they're really having problems stepping out of their comfort zone, what's the first step they should take to move past that so that they don't sabotage their business?
Speaker 2:I think I would really invite them to stand back, be honest with themselves and say okay, why is it so difficult for me to be visible? What's going on there? What are the stories? There's something Each woman I talk to or I just share about what I do. They each have a story about Visible. They saw someone being visible and they didn't like it. Or they try to raise their hand in their class and basically they're being told off by their teacher. There's always a story in the background. Okay, let's be honest. Okay, what's going on here? That's it, and it's completely safe there. Go on, let's be honest. Okay, what's going on here? That's it, and it's completely safe.
Speaker 2:There is nothing wrong. We all have a story in regards to our mother, our generation of mothers. They learn, basically, to hide, so it's natural for us to have this in our DNA, in our sets as well. Nothing wrong with that. But we are here to break. But we are here to break this vow of silence, of poverty. So let's do it in an elegant way, in a way that is good for us, one step at a time. This is what I would say to them.
Speaker 1:That's awesome and I would follow that up with it and write it down and then forgive yourself.
Speaker 2:This is definitely the next step. Once you understand what's happening, you say, yeah, it's time to forgive yourself, it's time to let go, let go of the story that is a very disservice to you. And starting to decide and to be sobering and say, okay, I let go of the story now and I create a beautiful and confident story about my visibility.
Speaker 1:I have had such a pleasure talking with you today. This has been great. I know that you have an offer, so if you want to share with people what that is and how to get in touch with you, and then I'll have it all in the show notes too.
Speaker 2:Okay, so there is a quiz on my website. It's really great. It's for you to identify what is your visibility style, what makes you stand out, what makes you memorable to people. So it's free. It's on my website, rockstarmansetcom. I'm pretty sure the link will be in the show notes.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for being on the show today. I really enjoyed the conversation.
Speaker 2:It was a pleasure, Wendy. I really love our discussion.
Speaker 1:Well, our listeners. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you loved what you heard, please leave a review. Get in contact with Gael. Her spirit is beautiful and we will talk to you next time. In the meantime, have an abundant week.
