Building HER with Katja Lillian

From Crickets to Clients: The Confidence You Build When You Go All In

• Katja Thacker

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"From Crickets to Clients: The Confidence You Build When You Go All In"

In today's episode, I cover the following:

- What I did in the early days before I had any confidence

- The biggest confidence myth

- Why you often struggle with confidence

- 5 action steps to build confidence

- The single most powerful way to borrow belief before you have any 

- A challenge for you to try today!

and so much more!

2 other episodes to reference 

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Customer Testimonials

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Building Her podcast. I'm your host, Kaia Lillian. If you've been loving this podcast, go ahead and rate the podcast five stars and DM me on Instagram when you do that, because I want to connect and personally thank you. If you are new here, hit that subscribe button. It really helps the podcast grow, and that way you'll never miss an episode. So let's dive in. Hey, my name is Kati Lillian, and I am obsessed with all things mindset, personal development, and helping you build the best version of yourself. I'm a women's life and mindset coach and an entrepreneur who started a fun hobby of posting hashtag sweaty selfies, grew a successful side hustle, and now I run a six figure coaching business. I teach you the secret of building a life that aligns with your deepest values and one that you wake up excited for. This podcast is designed to expand your mind and. Challenge the status quo. So get ready to uplevel your life and let's start building her. I can't tell you how many times my clients or just people in my world because it's my friends and family and acquaintances now as well. They always ask me, how are you so confident? Not in like who I am, but more so confident in my business, confident with my clients, confident in my purpose, confident in my vision, confident in just what I'm doing as a mom, as a business owner, as a little tiny human on planet Earth and. I just feel like people always ask me that, and this is not to toot my own horn or anything, but there's gotta be something that I am doing or energy that I am emitting for people to keep asking me and to keep bringing this up. And I think that's so beautiful. The, the thing about growth, it's so beautiful because we grow and we go so far that we don't even realize anymore. What we're doing or how we're holding ourselves or how we're speaking because it's just now so normalized and autopilot. But I always wasn't this way, and so it took me a minute to go back in the archive of my memory and remember, okay, wait, how did I build this version of Katya? So this episode is devoted to. How I've built confidence over the years and continue to build confidence because as we know, it is a consistent effort. And if you don't practice it, and if you don't use that muscle, you will lose it. Before I dive into my. Episode for today. I also just wanna reference two other episodes that I have also covered confidence with. And I'll link them in the show notes below, but one was from last June, how to Become More Confident, what is Cnce and How to Quiet Your Inner Critic. And then I have another one here from just this. Past March, how to alchemize imposter syndrome and embody True Confidence. So those are also very valuable in their own way as well. I mean, of course you can talk about confidence all day long and, you know, get really, really specific. But those are also really good to reference, especially if you struggle with confidence. So I would definitely recommend jumping to those after this episode. Okay. So important question for you. What if I told you confidence is not a requirement to start? It's actually the result of starting now. People hate when I say this, especially my clients'cause they're like, but I want confidence first, and I'm so sorry. It does not work that way. You have to start. Despite the fear, the insecurity, the worry, the limiting beliefs that you have, and then trust in that process, that messy ass fuck process, you will start building confidence. This could not be more true in my own story because if you already know my story, I started this coaching business as a side hustle from my tech company. So I worked full time for nearly a decade, and I moved to a remote position from LA to Chicago, and then when I was remote there, it took me a minute to get used to that. But when I finally accepted my remote position as a true sense of freedom, then I started doing more shit for my side hustle because I didn't have a boss right over my shoulder. He was back in LA and I just had this freedom in terms of my schedule and, this autonomy of you can do what you want, when you want, where you want, just as long as you get your shit done. And that really opened the floodgates for me mentally because I was like, okay, well if I could give, let's say three hours, four hours to my job at my tech company because I'm getting all my shit done, well, then I've got the rest of the day to work on my side hustle. And at the time it was more influencer work with. Brand deals. And you know, that got me started with deadlines and building self-discipline and time blocking my calendar. Like all of those tools that I developed were born at that time. But my point is when I. Started. I was so scared of one. What will people think? Of course, my coworkers, but also my family and my friends at that time. And then also the thought of like, who am I to be doing this? Why me? Why Katya? I'm not good enough and Right. You play that story i, I still did it though, despite those thoughts and those feelings, because the bigger thought, the bigger feeling that I had, that essentially outweighed those was, well, who the fuck cares we're all on a planet. We're all on a planet. We're all on a floating rock. No one knows what they're doing. Everyone's just trying to figure it out. 80% of people are unhappy in their corporate job, yet they stay because they're afraid of what people might think. They stay because they want the comfort using air quotes of retirement, 401k whatever, retirement funds, you know, health insurance, all that stuff. And so that was. More so what I knew to be true, and so I was like, fuck it, like I'm brave enough to even try. And worst case is that I learn a thing or two about myself, but also about making money online. Because that was still such a new and foreign concept to me. So that was my worst case. And then also my worst case was, well then I'll just get another nine to five job if something were to happen with this one. So yeah, I just feel like I leaned into that thought more. I. And I do have to say when I started posting online social media, brand work, all that stuff, it was just so much fun for me. Like in its simplest form, I got so much joy out of. Documenting my health and fitness journey and connecting with other like-minded women who are on the same path as me and the high of having a brand DM me or email me, and then the high of them offering me money. Then actually taking photos and working and coordinating with them for approval and then a deadline and then deciding when to post it. Like all of that was so new, but there was so much cur curiosity, like a childlike curiosity of like, whoa, I wonder if I do this, what will that do? And I wonder if. What, you know, what happens when I do this and oh my gosh, like they're willing to pay me$500. What if I, you know, go back to them and ask for more? It was just such a playful type of energy that I had, and it was also because I didn't need that money, right? This wasn't my only source of income. I still had my tech salary, and so it really gave me this. Place of, yeah, like, like playfulness, like, when I moved from LA to Chicago, that's when all this happened. I really viewed Chicago as my playground. I was in a new city. I was able to tap into a new identity. My online persona, which by the way was called KJ today. My, my real ones, my day ones get that. I remember that time. But regardless, I, I just had so much fun doing this and so I didn't feel like I was good enough. I didn't know where this was all going. I didn't know if this would be a lucrative way of making a means, you know, a money. And I did it anyways. Because of the joy and the happiness that I felt truly that was my underlying emotion when I was doing all this stuff. And so I think for you listening, if you're considering branching out on your own, doing your own thing, you have to recognize like, well, how does this feel? Does this light me up? Does it give me energy? Am I so curious about this? Would I do this shit for free? Well, that's the path you wanna follow. And as you follow that, you will have those. Thoughts of, I'm not enough. What will people think of me? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But you do it anyways, and then over time you start to get results that actually outweigh those limiting beliefs. Then you even recognize them as limiting beliefs, and then you also grow confident. So this episode is about practical, about heart-centered ways to build real confidence in your business. Now again. Confidence is not there at the start. Okay? It comes after the fact. Now, one thing I also wanna do, well, I guess mm, 1, 2, 3. Yeah. So there are three confident. Confidence myths that I wanna debunk right now for you. I think there's, because I wanna speak the same language. When I say confident, I think I mean something, but you might think something else. So I just wanna make sure we're on the same page here before I go on. I. Number one, a confidence myth is that you have to be loud, you have to be extroverted, or you have to be perfect, AKA. You have to always look your best and speak your best and basically never let anyone in and see anything vulnerable about you. You have to have this perfectionist type of image or appearance that couldn't be further from the truth. I was so shy. I was. So quiet, I'm so introverted, even though now I am an ambivert. But regardless you don't need to have those personality traits intuitively instinctually in order to feel and become confident. I will never forget, and I've shared this story before, but I went to a wellness conference in New York one year. I was still living in Chicago at the time, and this woman named Jamie Schmidt. Created her own deodorant line. I think it's called Schmit Naturals. And she was one of the speakers at this conference, and when she went up on stage to speak, I was floored, like jaw on the floor because of how she spoke. She went up there and she was like, hi everyone, I hope you're having a good day. Like so soft spoken. And I was like, all right, this chick clearly. Has it figured out and just sold her company too, by the way. Her deodorant naturals to some company for millions of dollars, and I was like, okay. So she's confident in her product, confident in the reason why she created a natural line of deodorant. She's confident in her ability to be the one to do it, and yet she sounds like this. So you do not need to be loud or extroverted because the girl was not loud or extroverted and still made. Millions of dollars. So that totally debunked confidence for me. So thank you, Jamie. But then the other two is kind of what I already mentioned before. You don't get confident before you show up. You get confident by showing up. It's literally in the process of it. And then early on in your career, again, if you're thinking about doing something on your own or have already started and now you're going through all these hurdles and mental roadblocks, just recognize that everyone. Goes through that. They all feel like an imposter at the beginning. And yes, I'm talking 6, 7, 8 figure coaches or entrepreneurs. Everyone feels like that. Everyone goes through that phase. So it's kind of like, welcome it with open arms and just embrace that feeling. Now I think. Why early in aspiring coaches, or let's just say entrepreneurs starting a business. Why we often struggle with confidence at the beginning is because, number one, it's the comparison trap. It's what I already mentioned. Who am I to do this, right? Like, why me? I'm not good enough. And then you also have this whole story in your head, this whole narrative of like, well see, I used. To drink and party or, well see, I used to have a binge eating and emotional eating problem, like I'm not perfect, and so therefore I am not qualified to actually go and do something that would be great for myself and others. And so I. Yeah, unfortunately we play small because we have this narrative of, well, see I did this and this and this, or I did not do this and this and this, and therefore I'm not good enough and therefore, who am I to do this? I shouldn't be doing this. It's also lack of validation. So in the beginning, guess what? You've got zero clients. Zero. And then you gotta pump yourself up mentally and be like, yeah, I'm the greatest coach ever and I can do this and I'm confident and I'm a badass bitch. It's like, yeah, that's really hard to do. I get it because no clients yet equals the the no feedback loop, right? Like, see, I suck as a coach. I'm not good enough. And oh yeah, it's because I have no clients left. So it's this and never ending. Cycle of this loop that we are, are stuck in. And then I think it's the over education. I think I'm actually going through this right now with a client. Where they're stuck in a learning phase. Learning mode, and oh, I'm just gonna buy this other course, or, oh, I'm just gonna watch all these videos, or, oh, I'm just gonna go on YouTube. I'm just gonna go on chat GPT, and I'm just gonna invest here and invest there and watch these videos and blah. You're avoiding action. You're avoiding the moving the needle part. And if you're a coach, guess what? That's putting yourself out there and having conversations because conversations equals conversions. Even if you have a digital course, even if you have a group program where you have more marketing first and then sales. Even in those situations, you're still talking to people like you've got to learn how to talk to people, but we get stuck in that learning phase and then it's the fear of visibility being judged or misunderstood. And I think you just need to be okay with getting judged because people judge you no matter what you do or not do and misunderstood, you have to be okay with people. Misunderstanding you because some people look at me and they're like, Katya's this evil bitch, because now she makes money. It's like, is that really on me though, or is that because you have a money mindset issue? Like, people are always going to misunderstand you and your intention because they don't even wanna know. They don't care to know. Otherwise they would ask. So I'm going to walk you through five core actions that you can start taking to build confidence. Number one is clarity of service, and maybe write these down if you can, if you're watch or if you're listening to this in your at home or whatever. Definitely not driving, but if you can take notes, I would on on this portion of it. Number one, clarity of service. Everything I just described about confidence, or let's say lack of is you focusing on you. So I'm not good enough. I'm so scared, I feel cringe, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But if you could shift the focus onto who am I serving, right? Who do I. Who am I helping and what do I help them with? Even if that changes over time and it evolves. Remember, I started as a life coach, so that was. Everything and anything under the sun that I would help with. Now I'm more business coaching, so mine has evolved as well. But at the time, I knew who I was talking to and what I was helping them with, even if it was a lot, but then my focus was less on me, and it was more on the problem that I was solving and the people who needed to hear. My messaging and see my content and eventually work with me. This is why I also always say you don't need a niche in the beginning. You just need a problem that you're passionate to solve, and usually that problem is a problem that you personally dealt with. Hence why you even want to become a coach.'cause you're like, Hey, I learned a thing or two and now I wanna pass it forward. I wanna help someone else with it. You are the niche. Clarity of service. You have to know what am I helping people with and who am I helping people, or who is it that I am helping? And that is what you focus on because we already know there are thousands of people out there, let's say millions of people out there who need help. In all different aspects, all regards, but they need help. And so they're gonna go buy services and coaches and, and, and businesses. They're gonna go spend their money regardless. So why not have that money come and enter your bank account? You see what I mean? So shift the focus from you and shift it to them, and that will help you so much. Number two. Be okay. Taking imperfect action. So again, we gotta go live before we're ready. We gotta show up on stories before we're ready. We have to write the post even if it's not polished. There's a mantra that I use now in motherhood. I'm like, done is better than perfect. And so that just gives me this freedom of mind of like, okay, well it's done. Let's put it out there and trust that it's going to resonate with the right people that are listening and, and still, you know, make change and, and have a positive impact. And then. Also with taking imperfect action, you start to build self-trust. So what I just said done is better than perfect. I have to trust that one. My work is good and I have to trust that it will resonate with the right woman on the other side of this episode. While I'm taking imperfect action and while I would love to put more into it or more editing or whatever it is, I have to trust that the message, the, the content, the actual like meat and potatoes of it. Is the thing that will, will change someone's life, right Will, will spark a new idea, will help them with confidence, whatever it is. And so you have to be okay taking that messy action because it is really messy in the beginning. Later on you learn systems and whatever, but at the beginning you're just trying shit. I, I always say when I first started my coaching business, I was throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what stuck. Like that's messy as hell, you guys, but that's how it works. Number three, following through on what you say you'll do. This hopefully is a no brainer. We've heard of. This one before, but basically what that means is you keep promises to yourself. So if I say I'm going to record a podcast episode, I am gonna sit my ass down and record the podcast episode. If I say I'm going to launch an offer on July 1st, well, I better launch the offer on July 1st. If I want to post consistently and I have a schedule of five times a week, I'm better. I'm posting the, the five times a week, right? I, I think there's one thing to say in terms of like, overextending yourself, like every morning I'm gonna wake up at 5:00 AM for the next year and do two hours of a workout. When you do nothing of that right now and you wake up at 9:00 AM versus five, like that's a little much and you're setting yourself up for failure, right? So there's that piece. But my point is, it's like if you say you're gonna do something, you better take that as. As law in your mind and you better go do it because the more you. Don't show up for yourself, then you lose the trust, self-trust in yourself, and therefore you don't build confidence because you don't keep your promises. I think I've said this analogy before, I definitely have with my CEO girls, but it's like if I have a friend who keeps wanting to go to brunch and she keeps canceling on me, and it's like the third time she's canceled on me, do you think I wanna go to brunch with her? And like put energy into rescheduling and coordinating a day and a time and getting a nanny and all that stuff. No, because I already have a feeling that she'll probably just cancel again, I lose trust in her ability to show up. It's the same exact thing with yourself. So you have to remember that if I'm going to say I'm going to do something, despite the fear, despite the discomfort, that's going to come up because it will, I'm gonna do it anyways. And regardless of the results, you actually build confidence based off of the effort. I always say, you have to root your wins in the effort, not the results. Number four, serving before selling. So this is kind of what I spoke about in terms of number one, focusing on your client and who you're talking to and the message that they need to hear. But it's true, it's like I have to serve. My clients, my audience, my community, my network before I ever sell them anything. So it's kind of like, you know, the free masterclass strategy. We're giving you 60, 90 minutes of free, valuable information. We are serving you at the very end. We have something to sell you. Which, by the way, selling is also. Serving should it feel like a right fit for you and it resonates and you're like, oh my God, I've been looking for something like this. Selling is serving, but look at how we even got you on that call. We're serving you for free with value, and there's no pressure. There's no pressure to do anything or sign up or, or pay or whatever. It's just. Like, Hey, free masterclass, right? So that's one strategy, but that's the reason why, or free content. Literally every single reel, every single caption, every single podcast episode, everything that we do in terms of our content is already for free. And it's always serving you. It's always serving a purpose. It's always serving our audience, our clients, whatever we're selling. And so that also can build confidence because now you see someone benefit from your knowledge, right? Any direct message you receive where they're like, oh my God, this caption hit home for me. Or, wow, this reel is so good saved. Or I just had a woman from our. She EEO group, take a screenshot of my podcast, the one about self-doubt. And she was like, yo, you called me out. And so it's like, it's free, but she already saw so much value in that one free episode. So I have to keep serving my audience and my community and then sell on the tail end of that. The last one, and it's probably the most important one, especially at the beginning, is borrowing belief. So if I haven't coached before, if I haven't built a business before, if I haven't launched a podcast before, if I haven't launched a group program before, if I have not made thousands of dollars from a one-on-one client before. It's really, really hard to believe it's possible without evidence, and so I need to see it first in order to believe it. Now, you could see it online with everyone's free content if they talk about that, but also there might be that little voice in your head of, oh, it's just marketing. Or, nowadays it's called click bait, or whatever. And so if you get yourself into a room where there are people doing this and you hear their stories and you see their results and you, you see and hear them talk about the money that they just made and the wins and the celebrations, now you're seeing it. And so you believe it. So you have to surround yourself with others who. One, not one. Believe in your potential, but then also believe in their own potential and are actually doing the thing that you want to be doing. Hence why I have a job. If everyone believed in themselves and if everyone just said, fuck it, like those thoughts aren't real, I'm gonna do it anyways, then I wouldn't have a job. But it's so hard to do it by yourself and so hard if you have never experienced that before. Hence why I Katya am a coach and help clients. Show and prove to them, no, it's possible because look at what I did. This is literally my life now. This is what I do. All day, every day, full-time income over here. So if I can do it, you can do it. And sometimes people need to see it in order to believe it. And so I'm just Katia one-on-one coach. But let's say also she oh my four month mastermind for early and aspiring coaches, which by the way, doors open next month. Keep your eyes out for that. You can join the wait list link is in the show notes below. But now that's a mastermind. And so now it's not just Katya and her story because you're like, yeah, that's good for you, Katya, but maybe you did this or you have that, or whatever story you make up in your head. But now in a mastermind, not only me, but you also see 10 other women who either are on the same level as you, or they're a few steps behind you, or they're a few steps further ahead than you. Now you can see, whoa, okay, Katya can do it, but also, damn, there's like nine other women in here too that are doing it. So right. So your brain has now more evidence of the possibility and the likelihood of you also doing it, right? So until you believe in yourself, you basically have to borrow that belief from someone else. So again, a coach believing in your potential. I always say this to my clients, I will believe in you until you believe in yourself. I, I've said that to pretty much every single client. But then also you start to bel build the belief in yourself by surrounding yourself with other people that have done the thing that you want to be doing. So those are the five ways that I would recommend. Building confidence, especially at the beginning of your coaching career. Now, in the, in the day to day and in moments of self-doubt, I would recommend writing down evidence of past wins for yourself. Now remember, if you're at the beginning and you have zero clients, you have to remember that you were your first client. So what wins do you have? What, what things? Mental hurdles, mental roadblocks, physical roadblocks, emotional roadblocks, whatever it is. Even small ones. What did you overcome? Hence, why you even want to become a coach. So you have to recognize and remember all of your wins. That you yourself had because you are your first client. And then what I would recommend as you start getting people, let's say that DM you or respond to a reel in the comments section and it's love and it's like, holy shit, this hit home and wow, this really helped me and blah, blah, blah. Like screenshot those or. When you have clients and they give you a testimonial, like anything like that, that is called your confidence folder. So take the screenshots, take the testimonials, create an album in your phone or on your desktop, and literally title it confidence folder. So the next time you get down in the dumps, you're gonna open that folder and you're gonna be like. Damn. I am such hot shit. I am such a badass coach. I'm a badass entrepreneur. It helps so much. I even have handwritten thank you cards and notes and gifts from my clients that are right next to my desk, right? So it's like I also use it, even at this stage of my business, I always remind myself, okay. How far have we come? Who are we impacting the it? It's such good reminders for yourself, I think, I guess the last question for you and then I'll leave you is not even a question, it's more of like a challenge, but I would just ask yourself like, what is one courageous action step that I could take this week, even though I'm scared and the idea around it is like repulsive, but I know deep down it is something that I have to do for my business. What is that thing? And then the challenge is to actually go do it. And if you do DM me on Instagram, I would love to hear your story or tag me if you share it on your stories. I'd love to see your journey. So that's what I got for you this week. If anything about this episode resonated with you, please do me a favor and take a screenshot of this podcast and post on your stories and tag me at Katia, Lillian, I would love to connect with you. So thank you in advance and I appreciate you. Until next time.