Confidence, Agency & Belonging with Julie DeLucca-Collins

What does it really take to build unshakable confidence and a true sense of belonging? In this powerful conversation, business strategist, TEDx speaker, and award-winning author Julie DeLucca-Collins joins hosts Kim Romain and Louise to explore confidence as a habit, the courage to claim your agency, and what it means to belong authentically in a world that often pressures us to fit in.

Julie shares her journey from personal transformation to becoming the founder of Go Confidently Services and host of the Casa De Confidence Podcast, offering proven strategies, mindset shifts, and simple habits that help leaders and entrepreneurs show up 1% braver every day. Together, we unpack how systemic conditioning shapes our sense of agency, why belonging starts from within, and how acceptance and authenticity open the door to lasting success.

If you’ve ever felt “stuck” or struggled to own your voice, this episode will give you tools, stories, and inspiration to step into your own rhythm.

You'll Learn:

• Why confidence is built through practice, not personality
• How to reclaim your agency when life feels stuck
• The difference between fitting in and belonging
• Simple habits to show up 1% braver each day
• How systemic conditioning shapes (and limits) our choices
• Why acceptance fuels growth rather than settling
• The role of community as “believing mirrors” for our potential
• How saying “yes—and” creates space for both authenticity and expansion
• Why courage is contagious and inspires others to act
• How daily consumption impacts confidence, mindset, and self-belief

Key Moments: 

00:00 – Welcome & Introductions

 03:03 – Julie’s Journey into Mindset Work

 07:20 – Agency, Stuckness & Systemic Conditioning

 09:50 – Fitting In vs. True Belonging

 13:30 – Dancing Your Own Way

 19:34 – Confidence as a Daily Practice

 29:15 – Acceptance & the “Yes-And” Approach

 33:35 – Community, Mirrors & Growth

 40:12 – Final Takeaways & Closing

Connect with Julie:

• Find out more at GoConfidentlyCoaching.com
• Connect with Julie on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest, and TikTok
• Tune in to the Casa DeConfidence podcast
• Watch Julie's TEDx Talk: How Habits Give Us the Confidence to Dance in Life

Join a circle of changemakers committed to leading with purpose, presence and ease inside Kim's Rising Visionaries mentorship program.

Reclaim your career and confidence during midlife through Louise's Rise & Redefine program.

If you’re loving this show, come check out the Feminist Podcasters Collective, where creators like us are uplifting diverse voices and driving meaningful change. If you’re looking for new shows to fill your feed, head to https://feministpodcasterscollective.com

Transcript

The Empowered & Embodied Show

Episode: 179 

Title: Confidence, Agency & Belonging 

Guest: Julie DeLucca-Collins 

Hosts: Kim Romain, Louise Neil 

Release Date: September 30, 2025

Kim Romain (00:00) Claim your agency, ditch the mask, and come dance with us, awkward, conga line and all. Today, we're getting real about confidence as a practice, not as your persona. Belonging from the inside out and the liberating power of a good, wholehearted yes and. Our guest, TEDx speaker and strategist Julie DeLucca-Collins brings the receipts. Habits that build courage, stories that melt shame, and tools to help you show up 1% braver every single day. So take a deep breath, loosen your shoulders, and let's step into our own rhythm together.

Kim Romain (01:45) Hello, hello, hello everybody. Welcome back to another episode of the Empowered and Embodied show. I am one of your co-hosts as always, Kim Romaine, joined by my other co-host.

Louise Neil (01:56) I'm Louise, the other one. And we are joined by our wonderful guest today.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (02:02) Hi everybody, I'm Julie DeLucca-Collins and excited to be here.

Kim Romain (02:05) Thrilled to have you here. I know Louise is like jumping out of her skin right now to have this conversation. I'm so excited too. And I want to let the world know a little bit about you so that they have a sense of who's here at the table. So Julie is a powerhouse business strategist, TEDx speaker and award-winning author dedicated to helping women entrepreneurs build confidence, attract clients and scale their businesses. As the founder and CEO of Go Confidently Services and host of the Casa de Confidencia podcast, she empowers leaders to create lasting success through proven strategies, mindset shifts, and simple yet powerful habits. Julie, we are so, so glad to have you here.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (02:47) Well, thank you so much for taking the time to invite me and getting to hang out with two powerful ladies. I love it. It's the best way to hang out. Yeah, absolutely.

Louise Neil (02:59) How long have you been in the mindset game? How long have you been doing this for?

Julie DeLucca-Collins (03:03) Well, let's see. Unofficially, I think I began to do some of this work in 2009. That's when I first went through a divorce and I started to do some of the work because I knew that there was something that wasn't quite working with the way that I was approaching life, doing life. And of course, going through a divorce, I started working with a therapist, but also I started working with a coach and it was definitely mind-blowing in the sense that it restructured a lot of the way that I thought about things. And I realized that, yes, things happened, but they're happening for us. But more importantly, that we have the agency to be able to decide how we're going to show up. And as I worked with this coach, it created some incredible impact in my own life, not only personally, but then how I started to show up and the things that started to come about in my life. I've always been a high achiever and certainly I was already in the executive team of the company that I worked for, but I was stuck and being able to work in some of that mindset helped me to be able to grow and subsequently go into the executive and to the C-suite of the company. I totally and wholeheartedly will recommend to someone that doing the hard work when it comes to your mind and also working on yourself is the one thing that will help you move toward your dreams or the things that you're trying to accomplish for yourself.

Kim Romain (04:44) You used two words in there that I just want to pull out. You used a lot of beautiful words. There are two in particular I want to pull out. Agency and stuck. And those two in particular, right, because I think those are two that we hear a lot, but not everybody actually understands what agency means or what it actually means to be stuck. I'm wondering what would happen if we dove in there. Cool.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (05:02) Yeah, I love it. So I have to say, you know, agency is the thing that sometimes we don't want to take ownership of, if I may go in that direction, mainly, and I see this even with my clients as I work with individuals now, is that we have the power. We have the ruby slippers. However, even when we know we can do the change, we're not willing to because we become so comfortable in that messy yuck that life tends to sometimes be. And although we may hate where we are, it's easier to stay stuck than it is to maybe do the uncomfortable or pursue the things that may be unpopular or the things that maybe we haven't seen by somebody else. And I know that, for instance, for me in my marriage, I knew from a very early point in my first marriage that it wasn't working and that, you know, that this is not where I needed to be, that I wasn't loved, respected, honored, and you know, everything else that comes with that. But it was so much easier to stay because it was a level of comfort. It was what I knew. It was also the, what will I do? What will happen next? And some of those fears, right, that our brain just goes off and is telling us danger, danger, were some of the things that kept me from taking agency and also kept me stuck. And for many individuals, we don't take and don't choose to take agency because we like where we are in the unknown. And of course, our need to fit in is another great motivator for us to stay. Because if we are going to then take a step in the direction that maybe nobody else is taking or a direction that people that love us haven't seen and will cause them discomfort, it's easier for us to stay where we are.

Louise Neil (07:20) Yeah, I find it's so interesting how we give up our agency without even knowing it. It's not like, at least for me, it wasn't like, here you go, right? Take my agency. I don't know if we get busy and we stop paying attention or what it is, but for me, it was kind of this awakening that happened to say like, hey, where did that go? And then there was this whole process of reclaiming it. It's not, I don't know, like, you think like either one of you or both of you, like, do you think like, does it leak away or does it like, I don't know, hide? Like what happens to our agency? Like what happens to it when it just kind of feels like it disappears?

Julie DeLucca-Collins (08:08) I mean, I certainly have an opinion on it, but I'm curious, because you asked the first question on agency. I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Kim Romain (08:17) I don't... sure, I think we do, it does in a sense leak away. I think that there's also a tremendous amount of systemic conditioning that has caused it to be taken from us without us knowing. And I think we actually show up very early in our lives, through the educational process, through the way that our schools are even set up, where we begin to lose our agency at a very young age. So even as we grow, like we've been systemically conditioned for so long to not actually know what agency looks like. So that's why I don't think we think about it because nobody asks us, hey. Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (08:55) Yeah, nobody asks us, nobody tells us. And absolutely, I totally agree with you in the sense that a lot of these things are very systemic and they become so part of the white noise of life that we don't even notice them. And we go about doing life, right? Fulfilling the expectations of society, the world, the people that love us. And we may have had our own expectations and perhaps we're pursuing them, but then we get so caught up in this is it that we don't stop to evaluate, to create intentionality. And when we don't create intentionality, then we're becoming habitual with the things that don't serve us.

Louise Neil (09:50) Yeah, and we see that around us, right? Like it's not just us who this is happening to, it's everyone. And so, you know, Julie, you mentioned like, you know, how do we belong or how do we fit in? It feels like, well, everybody else is doing it. So I'll do that too, right?

Julie DeLucca-Collins (09:53) Mm-hmm. Yep. Yeah. Yeah. absolutely. That's one of the reasons I started my podcast. The premise of the podcast is originally I wanted to show women that we don't always have it together. We don't always feel confident. When I was in my corporate job, people, every promotion, I would get the woman who would say, you're so confident. I could never do that. And I would look at them and said, I don't not always feel confident. I don't always have it together. Right. But we make the assumption, we create this narrative that if someone is doing something is because they have it together. But yet we don't realize that that person struggle, that person was a beginner, that person failed, that person decided to do it again and again until they get to that achievement, right? And that's the thing sometimes we put on such great weight on ourselves that if I'm not doing it or if I'm not doing it like that person, I don't belong. And yet the answer is be able to say, hey, I wanna do that, but that doesn't fit for me. And it's okay if it doesn't fit for me. And yeah.

Kim Romain (11:32) That belonging starts from inside, right? Because you used the term fit in earlier and that is what we want to do. We want to fit in. And yet that sense of belonging that we actually can start to nurture within ourselves allows us to be in these situations where we aren't trying to fit in and we aren't pushing ourselves in a direction and we aren't showing up in a way that, let me actually say that, not in the negative. So we are showing up more intentionally. It becomes, there's more capacity and more ease with showing up with intentionality, because it's not always easy to show up.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (12:10) No, no, not at all. And I mean, just because you learn that you can and you start showing up intentionally doesn't mean that we were not perfect. We will never be. And we will go back and not necessarily struggle with the same lesson. The lesson becomes a little deeper to learn. Right? We learned the beginner part of that lesson. We healed in that beginner part. And then let's go to the next level. And the wounds begin to heal, but the reality is that programming will stay the same. And it's not until we do the work and we practice different programming, then we shift. But for me, I think that belonging, and again, this is my TED talk, is about belonging. And the reason that I talked about it is because again, not the conversation that we have, and the world ends up distorting the conversation also depending on what slant you're bringing to the table. But for many of us, and right, the premise, I use the quote by Verna Myers and is, "Equity is about being invited to the party and inclusion, which is belonging, is about being able to dance at the party." And so many of us are in the party. So many of us make ourselves known at the party. But really being able to take the step to actually unwind and say, I'm going to dance. And I'm not going to dance like anybody else. I'm going to dance my own way. And being OK with your dance being different than others, that's where we struggle. because we want to do the line dance. It's so much easier. We don't have to think of the steps. We're following everybody. If we look silly, everybody else is looking silly at the same time, right?

Louise Neil (14:00) Yeah, yeah, I think it's really important to really like delineate, right, fitting and sometimes means masking, right? And to say I want to fit into this crowd, I want to be like everyone else, but when we're truly talking about belonging, we're talking about like, how can you authentically be yourself, how can you be who you are in that space and find those communities that accept you, who allow you to dance, right, and who don't...

Julie DeLucca-Collins (14:28) Absolutely.

Louise Neil (14:29) Who don't, I don't know about you, but I remember very clearly, right, like sock hops in grade seven and eight and like, right, and the kids lined up around the gym and heaven forbid you should go out and dance, right, and be the first one, dance your own way, right, it gets really hard, yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (14:36) Yeah. Be the first one or dance? Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Absolutely. You know, I talked about this on the podcast not too long ago and I am a Jimmy Buffett diehard parrot head, okay? I've been to more Jimmy Buffett concerts than, I don't know, anything else you can imagine. Obviously I haven't been to Jimmy Buffett since he passed in... There is a band, a tribute band that is here in New England. I love them. We went to see them. And it was a very interesting venue. It's a little theater that is very historical, has been around for 100 years. And as you walk in, it's not a theater sitting. They had set up some tables for people to sit in. And then there was a stage where they were going to perform. I walked in and I was the youngest person in the room at 50 something and I thought, and by the way, I think that most people had a subscription and that's why they were there. They had a subscription to whatever event the theater is having. So we were not the front, not the back, but somewhere in the middle. And of course, you know, they start playing and I'm swaying along and I'm there with my 82-year-old mother and my husband. And my husband is used to me just, you know, dancing and whatever. And I kept thinking, this is the first Jimmy Buffett-esque event that I've been, that I am not up dancing and clapping. And I thought, wow, I don't know about this crowd, right? And I looked around and again, I was having a good time, but it just felt not me, right? And the head of the band, the guy, the main singer, he said, hey, I want to encourage you to get up and dance. We have this whole up here and nobody got up. And he's playing and he's like, come on, someone. And I thought, screw everybody. I want to go up there. And I went because that's the person that I am. And I didn't care that anybody was watching and I didn't care that anybody was thinking. I was there for myself. I was there to enjoy something that I love. And guess what? That includes me dancing. And by the time it was all said and done, several other people came up and then the conga line ensued, et cetera, right? But I didn't do it to set up an example. I didn't do it because I wanted to look at me. I'm gonna go dance. I did it because that's me. And I want it to show up authentically, which is how I like to go anywhere. If I want to get up and dance, I will dance. If I want to raise my hand because I don't agree with what you're saying, I will be that person. But it's taken practice, but it's also taking that knowledge that I would rather live with whatever consequences of going to dance when nobody else is dancing, rather than sitting around and regretting that I didn't do it. Right?

Kim Romain (17:53) It's so interesting that it started, like I have this beautiful picture of you up there just enjoying the music and then a conga line starting. And I'm like, wow, look at that. Like that's awesome. Yeah. And I think it's, we have all of these, again, they've been piled on us and then we've taken them on as our own. All of these inhibitions where it's like, I can't do that. Somebody's going to watch. Somebody's going to think something. Somebody's going to, right. releasing those allows us to be in our own lives, like fully in our own lives, fully doing our own work, fully being ourselves. And I think most of the people walking on this earth today don't actually know what that feels like.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (18:37) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's why we do the work that we do, right? Because we've been able to step into that and we know how transformative it has been for us. And of course, you know, when we like something and something has made a difference, we tend to tell people about it and what better way of doing it than not only telling them, but being the people that ushers them into their own transformation, their own new chapter, their own whatever it might be, empowering them.

Louise Neil (19:10) Yeah, it's so interesting because I imagine people in that audience seeing you get up go, holy cow, is she ever confident? Right? Like, holy man, like, look at her. Like, look what she's doing. I can never do that. It's the same. It's the same thing, right, that we do over and over and over again. And all we're trying to be is like, is be ourselves, is to step in to say like, but this is who I am. So I don't want to be afraid to not be who I am.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (19:43) Yeah, and Louise, by the way, I have to tell you, I have a clear picture of the junior high dance, right? And I have a very clear memory. From a very early age, I've been the dancer, I've been the one who's grooving along and used to choreograph her cousins and sisters into all the dance moves and dance shows, right? And at one point, and I talk about it again on my TED Talk, I got to junior high and I had to suppress myself. And I remember being at that first dance. I don't know if it was seventh grade or eighth grade, but I remember the music was playing and I was excited and I was excited for my first dance, obviously. And the dance floor was empty. And I wanted to dance. And when people started to go into the dance floor, I never took the step. And I remember years later, or as life began to move forward, I thought, that's not me. That's not me. So it wasn't that I became more confident to dance in front of people. It was that I decided that I was going to practice moving and doing the thing that was my thing, that I enjoy, that I embrace, that makes me happy as opposed to sitting in the background and not taking that opportunity to dance. And maybe it's confidence, maybe I built that muscle, but it was always a decision. Every time it has been a decision.

Kim Romain (21:17) So interesting. I must have gone to very different high schools than both of you. Well, no, we did. But I remember clearly we just went as a group and we just bounced our way through the, like, right? We were all about the same age and we were just bebopping to whatever music was on. And we didn't care if we were on a dance floor, if we were in the middle of the quad, if we were in the middle of the Taco Bell, whatever it was.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (21:32) Well, but this is a junior high, middle school, not high school. I think that in high school things begin to change, right? Because you find the power of community and you're not doing it alone. You're doing it with people. And it's, yeah, it's that group.

Kim Romain (21:57) Yeah, it's interesting because I think I... So I'm thinking seventh, eighth grade. So that would have been the same time. That was still high school for us. So we... I found more confidence when I started doing things on my own. When I was doing things in groups, it was easy to be part of the group, but I didn't really feel like thinking back to that time. I didn't really feel like that it was fun and it was exciting, but it wasn't Kim. Like it was Kim, but it was Kim in a group versus, Hello Puppy. Versus when I, I was on the speech and debate team, I used to do duos and then I started doing it on my own. And I found my voice by doing it on my own, not by doing it with somebody else.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (22:54) Yeah, I love that Kim. And I think that that's why we need to have the opportunity or the space to try it out on our own. Right? And I am sure as you were in the debate team, you had other people that came alongside of you and said, great job. And this may be another way to improve. And this may be another way in which you can hone in that skill and then you also probably went back and say, maybe I need to do it this way, right? And all of that begins to build your confidence bank.

Kim Romain (23:29) Some of it was that and some of it was me hearing that and saying, I don't want to do that then because that's just also my personality was. And that started, the rebel personality started coming online. There was when people started to see some, it's like if I liked it about myself and I'm not... So it definitely got squashed again, like right. Cause we go through those periods. It's not that we become confident. We stay confident always. Right. We have these times and I moved twice in high school. And so like I had a new group, friend group a couple of different times. So I just was kind of stepping in and being me and then doing the activities that I enjoyed. When I went to college and I moved a bunch during college too, it became harder for me to find my confidence. It was a bigger air. Like there were more people, there were more choices. It was, I felt less grounded when I first started work. I felt confident again. I could step in, I could do, and then as I started to move up the ladder, I felt less confident. And then when I went out on my own, I'm like, hell yeah, I feel totally confident again. So I find it interesting how we do move in and out of that in very different times of our lives.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (24:38) Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Louise Neil (24:51) Yeah, it used the word try and practice, right? Like all of these things come into play around confidence because we do need to be practicing it. We do need to be putting ourselves in different spaces and opportunities and see what we see and notice what we notice about the space and the environment and then also about ourselves, right? It's this constant evaluation. It's about data and what's going on and all of that. I had a client actually just this week, super confident, right? Like she was like, yeah, I landed this role. It was created for me. Like, it just feels like it's been this, what I've been working for, for my entire career. I have it and I own it and I love it. And I'm in a meeting and somebody says to me, I don't know what you do or why it's important. And immediately, right, she went from 100% to like 30 in a heartbeat, in less than a breath.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (25:58) Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Wow, I'm so sorry that happened. Yeah, and you know, I picture it and I think that this goes back to there's a level of confidence that we have, right? She got this great role. She was in, okay, yay, I got it, right? And then all of a sudden, when people didn't understand her level of competency because she had not been in the role long enough or whatever it might be, right, she had not gotten to practice how good she could be at that role. Then of course, the level of confidence kind of shrunk. And that's why I truly believe confidence is a practice. It's a habit. It's about showing up and perfectly and gaining a little more insight that, okay, I'm doing it. Check evidence that I have, I can do that, right? More evidence that I did a little better. And then the more evidence we have, then we become more competent. The competency at doing the thing, whatever it might be, that's what gives us the confidence. And there are the different layers of confidence. And that's something that it's so important to remember, that in our confidence is not going to look the same way in every space, and it's not going to look the same as it does for other people as well.

Louise Neil (27:29) Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think that's really important because, you know, it's not, it's not, again, us trying to fit into like that version of confidence. It's, it's, it's how we feel. And I think it goes back to that belonging. I feel like it comes from the same place. The more authentic we can be, the more we can be ourselves, whatever that is. And if you are feeling like you're not called to dance, that's that can be confidence too, right? Yeah. Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (27:58) That's fine, yeah, absolutely. I love that you said that. You know, and I think to my husband, he was not gonna get up and dance, but he was perfectly fine with that. And he was perfectly fine staying put. And that, right? Because he could be feeling, right? And not just husbands, but maybe a friend was with me. They could have been feeling like, I'm not enough or wait, what is Julie going to think that I'm not up there with them? We, our mind can be so tricky and this is why, right? Agency and being able to say, hey, what, why am I thinking? Why do I think that? Is that true? Is it real? And those are the things that again, help us improve and are the building blocks to our empowerment.

Kim Romain (28:49) Yeah, what's right? Because mine could be to dance, mine could be not to dance, mine could be start painting in the moment, right? Start drawing, whatever it is that's mine, it's owning that. And the flip side to that, right, is it's owning the totality. It's also owning and taking responsibility for those aspects of self that aren't always the parts that like, like I love the dancing part of Kim, I don't always like the, you know, when I get a little crunchy around the edges, but that's, that's also me.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (29:25) Right? That's also me, right? And you know, here's the other piece of it too, right? And I think that this is the hardest thing. I've talked to a couple people about this this week in being able to acknowledge all of our parts. That's part of the most difficult things that we can do because we are going to encounter things that, boy, do they scare us or boy, do they not fit in. Or totally, you know, maybe we were told, I don't know what that is and who you are, like, or you don't matter. Whatever it is, the messages that we've gotten, being able to be fully open with ourselves, look at ourselves in the mirror, every single part, wrinkle, you know, little pieces that don't look perfect, right, or are perfect for that matter. That's the hardest thing. And until we, you know, I don't love it at times. Like I stand in front of the mirror and I'm like, God, Julie, put something on or do something different because that's my conditioning. And it takes intentionality to say, my God, I love you. Even though, you know, you may not be as felt, svelte as I'd like you, or you may not be standing as strong or look at those gray hairs coming up, right? Yeah. We have to notice when we're, we're not being the compassionate person and accepting of ourselves.

Kim Romain (31:15) There's the word acceptance.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (31:16) Yeah. And nobody really teaches you to accept yourself honestly from a very young age. As a woman, conform, smile, even though you don't feel like it. Or hey, maybe if you put a little makeup on, that boy likes you. That's why he's hitting on you or whatever and being mean to you. No, then you're telling that part of me that, my God, it's okay for that boy to pick on me. We don't teach each other. And that's why the work that you're doing is important because now it's that new Renaissance where we're seeing, "Wait a minute, let me accept, love myself, teach myself, embrace myself, and be okay with the shifts that are happening and allow myself the room to grow and then have that runway to the next thing."

Louise Neil (32:12) Yeah, yeah, and I think that's really important to underline is like acceptance isn't that we stop growing or we stop moving, right? Acceptance is this ability to like fit into our own skin so that we're able to do those things the way we want and not have to spend this extra energy trying to conform and be something that we're not. And I think that that also gets kind of mixed up in the messaging too, is that like an acceptance is like a settling and it's not at all. That's not what we're talking about, right?

Julie DeLucca-Collins (32:48) Yes, 100%.

Kim Romain (32:49) Acceptance is not acquiescence.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (32:50) You're in there. Yeah, I totally agree with you. And I think that this is the work, right? That we not only have to remind ourselves of, but this is the communities that when we come together and hold each other accountable, when we, I often talk about it in the podcast, right? We are each other's believing mirrors, because we're not always gonna have the bandwidth to see it or to do it, but somebody else is gonna remind us of our goodness, our greatness, our abilities, and how we are also beginning and learners too. But they're gonna shine back to us the possibility and give us the permission slips that we're looking for.

Kim Romain (33:35) I think what's hard about acceptance is the yes and, right? There's the acceptance aspect of I'm growing, I love myself, I can learn to love myself and accepting that not everything is the way we want it to be.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (33:53) Yeah, and it may never be too, right? Because yes, we're work in progress, but I may never get to be that, you know, elite athlete that runs Ironman's. That may not be me. Yes, and I'm going to maybe become better at like going around my block and maybe do a quick little run. But yes, and. Yeah. Yeah. So good.

Kim Romain (34:14) Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (34:16) You guys always have this type of conversation. I love it. I need to come hang out more often. I love it.

Kim Romain (34:19) Yeah, absolutely.

Louise Neil (34:22) It's, it's, I find these conversations so important to have because the messages that are out there are often like, so, just be more confident, just be yourself. Like, like it would be so easy just to snap your fingers or follow someone's prescription or their framework. And then all of a sudden you're this different person. And it's, it's not that because it's, it's different for us. But it's also different for us almost every day or like every time. Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (34:55) It's so funny because as you were speaking, I heard in the background, maybe it's Maybelline, right? Like, okay, maybe it's the mascara we're wearing or maybe it's the other thing. I, I've been shopping on TikTok lately and yesterday, I logged in and it was late and I'm just going to scroll for a little bit. And of course, you know, I don't know what it is. They're like selling me everything in the kitchen sink lately and Tik Tok. And there is the Peter Thomas Roth eye cream. Do you guys know what it is? It's okay. So I'm like, Oh, I have that. Oh, but this is the new formula. I should get that. I am going to be in front of the camera a lot. I really need it. And I'm thinking I had it in the cart and I thought truly. No one's seeing your eyes. Who cares? And you have something already. It's like we're always trying to get the next best thing because we're conditioned that we need the next best thing. And the world is throwing at us the next best thing. And unfortunately, no one is saying to us, hey, it's OK if you have bags under your eyes. And hey, it's OK, right? Whatever fill in the blank may be. And guess what? I may not necessarily want to look at myself with bags under my eyes all the time. So that's okay if I want to get the cream too, right? So those are the things that we need to be able to give ourselves permission for.

Kim Romain (36:24) That's the yes and, right? It's the understanding and the acceptance. And in a lot of the work that I do, I work a lot in the social impact space, it's allowing people to understand they're doing the best that they can, as long as they're making those aligned decisions for themselves. So, right, whatever you decide to buy, wherever you decide to buy it, as long as that is in alignment with your values, the best way it can be. So long as you're not making those decisions based on what the systems, what the patriarchy, et cetera, et cetera, are telling you, you have to make that decision, right? You don't want that internalized misogyny.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (36:56) Yeah, absolutely. I love that. Yeah, I think that this is one of the things that I love so much about the space in which we're in, right? Because our mothers, for instance, did not necessarily have these opportunities. And we are forging the way for others in this sense. Right? We're forging the way.

Louise Neil (37:34) Yeah, I hope so. I hope so. I hope we don't need podcasts like this, right? 10 years from now. I really hope that we're able to do that. Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (37:42) I think we will, but more people are going to be exposed to them. And this is the beauty of podcasting, right? Because the message that both of you have is the message that somebody is going to need to hear in 10 years. Yes, maybe less people, hopefully less people, and we've done that work, but your message remains. And it's available as a legacy to the work that you're doing and others coming behind you saying, I've done this work because this is the space that was provided for me by this podcast, by the work that each of you is doing.

Kim Romain (38:29) Yeah. So while we may not be having the daily conversations that we are, because we're evolving and growing, others will still have that opportunity to learn from what we've already been having. And then we'll join other people in other conversations. right. It's the cool thing and continue to have the conversations that need to be had. And that's really the basis of what we try to bring to every conversation is what are we not talking about? What are we not maybe in our individual worlds? The three of us on this screen are having these conversations a lot. But these conversations aren't in the global context being...

Julie DeLucca-Collins (39:06) No, they're not. And think about it. You asked me, when did I first start this personal development? 2009. It seems like a long time. But I was 49. And I think about Tony Robbins has been around how long? And the workers, the people that have learned from him and the people that have been in the personal development space for how long and John Maxwell and everyone. And I didn't even know who John Maxwell was at some point, you know? So people have been having these conversations and yes, more of us are in there, but there's never the work is going to be finished because the human experience prevails. And it's easier to stay stuck. It's easier to not be aware. It's easier to do things how we've done it, right? Rather than asking the right questions, being willing to not belong for a period of time because you're going to be stepping out of the norm. But then you find your people, then you find your communities, then you find your place in the world.

Kim Romain (40:12) Can you begin to have conversations like these? Again and again. Exactly. This has been such a nourishing conversation. I hope it has for the two of you as well. Yeah.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (40:18) No. I love it. I love it. I'm excited. I mean, I wish, you guys were coming over for dinner. We can have a glass of wine. Right. Yeah, I'm ready to pull out my glass of wine for the guest.

Kim Romain (40:29) Exactly! It's really lovely! If we were to circle or highlight or put giant neon signs around one thing that we want the audience to really take away from this conversation today, what would that be for each of us?

Julie DeLucca-Collins (40:44) Mm-hmm. Confidence is a habit and it doesn't mean that you will do it right and in right away. You will have to practice it. But if you promise yourself that you're going to show up at least 1% better every day, you're going to find that your level of confidence and the way that you're showing up in the world is improving daily.

Louise Neil (41:10) Yeah, yeah. I think it's important to you to remember that, you know, although we're talking about mindset, we were talking about like something that's so like deeply personal, that there's that we're also talking about the systems, right? We're talking about the air we breathe, we talk about the water we're in. And I think that's important for people to hear and understand as well is that it isn't a one and done. It isn't a finger snap, right? There's a lot of mechanics that are going on and we can get caught off guard sometimes and that's okay. Just, right, again, right? What you were saying, Julie, practice, keep showing up for yourself over and over again. It's okay if you fall down a bit.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (41:35) Yeah, that's part of the deal. Fall down, be willing to.

Kim Romain (41:59) I think for me, it's the, it wasn't implicitly said, it's this idea of the... careful what we're consuming and internalizing, right? Or not even just careful, be aware of what we're internalizing and consuming because that is what is affecting us day after day, moment after moment, and is having us think that we need to buy something or that we're not confident enough or that we're whatever those things are outside of our own agency, outside of what we know to be true for ourselves, but it starts with that awareness of how much we've actually internalized.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (42:33) Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. You guys are awesome. I love it.

Louise Neil (42:38) You're awesome. And Julie, let our listeners know where they can get more of this awesome you.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (42:43)

Aww. Well, you can find me at GoConfidentlyCoaching.com and that's where you can find the podcast, you can find my book, you can find all the things. That's my hub. And if you are wondering or questioning or thinking, she needs to explain that a little more. You can always send me a note in there at GoConfidentlyCoaching.com.

Kim Romain (43:09) Well, that will all be in the show notes.

Julie DeLucca-Collins (43:12) Yep, thank you. Oh my gosh. I so appreciate you having the space on, you know, for me to come and hang out, but also for others to sort of navigate what it means to be in this world and show up authentically, but more importantly, become that 1% better.

Louise Neil (43:15) Yeah, beautiful. Thanks everyone. Thanks, Kim. Thanks, Julie. Thank you listeners for joining us today. Take care, everyone.

Kim Romain (43:43) Bye for now.