Lessons From Pole Dance For Life And Business | Ep 37

Today's episode is all about some lessons that I have learned from Pole Dance which can help in your life and business 

These are really simple lessons.  Giving Yourself A Challenge, Trusting Yourself, Growing In Confidence.  All of these intertwined can help you in life and business. 

I also give a shoutout to some good friends of mine that you should go and check out:

Sam Byrne - https://www.instagram.com/iamsambyrne/
Taz Thornton - https://www.instagram.com/thetazthornton/
Asha Clearwater - https://www.instagram.com/ashaclearwater/
Taz & Asha Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/awesomely-off-topic-books-brands-business-and/id1829309066
Regina Martin - https://www.instagram.com/the_regina_martin/

Connect with me on Social Media 

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/MoveWithCharlotteE/

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/charlotte_elizabeth_dance/

Weekly Email - https://movewithcharlotte.myflodesk.com/email-list

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Hello and welcome back. So today is a bit of a different episode. Today I'm going to talk to you about the lessons that I am learning through pole dance that are helping me with business and life in general. So, and you might be wondering why, so I'm going to explain why. So, if you follow me on social media, which, if you're not, uh head to the show notes and make sure you follow me, you'll get all the juicy behind the scenes and extras. Um, but if you follow me on social media, you will know that for almost a year now I have been going to pole dance. It started because I was looking for a way to get fit. I wasn't liking what I was seeing in the mirror. Um, I was going to Zumba, not really enjoying it. Um, wasn't the best of rooms for Zumba when there's lots of people, and I was spending a lot of the lesson dancing on the spot. And I was like, why am I paying for this? One, I used to be a Zumba instructor, so I could just do this at home. Um, I'd wanted it also for the social side to make friends because beyond my partner, I haven't got my own circle of friends. Um, and that wasn't happening either. So I'd stopped going and I was like, I need something different. And I'd seen a couple of posts. Um and I was like, you know what? I want to try that because it's something different, it's not my typical dance. Um, let's give myself a challenge. Now, what I wasn't prepared for was how much of a challenge it was gonna be, and my first lesson I bunny hopped for an hour because actually trying to get my feet off the floor was a massive mentor block. So that's lesson one. Challenging myself, putting myself in a situation that is not my comfort zone, and I know everyone says nothing grows in a comfort zone, but actually, my good friend Sam Byrne from Comfy, um, not from Comfy. I know her from Comfy Club, but her social is get mirror comfy. So getting comfy with you is actually where you grow. You've got to be comfortable in yourself because you can't grow from a comfort zone or outside of a comfort zone if you're not comfy in yourself, because you're not going to put yourself out there. Um, so that was lesson one. Getting comfortable with me, knowing how my body moves, how to grip the pole because one arm's pulling as one arm's pushing and and all that strength to get my feet off the floor. So doing something that is completely alien to me at 32 is a big thing. Like it's a big thing at any age, but for someone that has spent their whole life dancing and moving to suddenly rely on my body strength to do something has been a learning curve, and safe to say, I cannot get my feet off the floor. I don't have as much of a mental block, um, depending on the move, depending on the week. Um, but it's been really good, and some weeks I go twice a week. So that's been lesson one is trusting myself, kind of pushing out of that comfort zone. Lesson two um is kind of linked in trusting yourself and knowing that I can hold myself on a pole, that it's not the pole that's holding me up, it is my own strength, it is my arms, it is my legs, it is my core, it's my whole being. And even if it's only one arm and one leg, that they've got me. I'm not going anywhere. There have been moods where I've had to get the instructor to kind of be there to put me in position to to trick my brain to know where it was going. Um, because again, certain moods you kind of have to fall into them, and I have this fear that I'm gonna fall flat on my face, so it was really annoying me. But by her kind of being there as a safety net, I was able to get my feet off the floor, get into the move, and then my brain was like, Oh, okay, this is where I'm going to be, and it does it without support. So the same can be said for you in life or business that trusting yourself that it's okay, that nothing major's gonna happen, that you will survive, but that you will learn from it, and your your brain will remap and learn that this thing is okay, and you can do it, and you have got the skills and the strength. And for me, I've always said I have no upper body strength. I now have upper body strength because I'm I can see it. I I always share progress videos, and I can see week on week the strength building and the tone coming in, like, yes, I've lost weight from it. Um, but the trusting myself has been really key because I was always looking for outside opinions, which my good friends Taz and Asher um were talking about on one of their recent podcast episodes. About sometimes we can ask for too much advice that we then don't actually know what to do because we've got too many options that we're more overwhelmed than if we'd have just sat with ourselves and journaled and thought about it and really got in tune with ourselves. So that's been the biggest lesson for me is getting in tune with me, knowing have I got the grip, am I secure in my base before I attempt to take my feet off the floor? Because as much as I'm predominantly doing just one pose at the moment on either a static or a spinny pole, eventually I'm gonna be doing movement combinations. And if I'm not strong in my foundation, those sequences are never gonna happen. And the same as in life and business. If you're not strong or feeling safe in your foundation, it's never gonna progress. So is your relationship a little bit topsy-turvy? Like, are you snapping and you don't know why? Well, maybe you just need to sit and talk, or just sit and be you for a moment, just sit and just be because if you haven't got good foundations in whatever the thing is, it's never gonna happen, and then I would say that the and they all kind of link, but the biggest one for me is the confidence, the confidence in trying the thing that's really hard, um keeping at it even when I couldn't get my feet off the floor, and not just going, oh well this clearly isn't for me. I persevered, and like I say, almost a year later, I am starting to do the more hard moves because I've persevered at it and I've built the built the mapping that I know what I'm doing and I'm okay with it, and it takes time and everyone progresses at different rates, and that is the beauty of going to a mixed class. You you see the the where you're headed and where you were. So as the newbies come in, you can remind them of how you found it that it's okay to struggle, and it's okay to not get on the poll week one. Although most of the newbies at my class seem to get on the poll week one, and I'm like, why did I struggle so much? So you can get a little bit imposter syndrome, but generally it's it's that happy medium of I've been where you've been, but I'm heading over here. Which has then turned into confidence in everything. So my day job, I feel more confident answering the phone. The way I hold myself when I'm walking around, kind of I'm more elongated, I'm less hunched over. In fact, for ages I had a horrific lump kind of arch lump thing at the top of my spine, and it was like, where the hell is this coming from? So, yes, I go for a regular sports massage because there's a whole like neck-shoulder thing going on, but that lump has gone because all the tension in my shoulders has gone, because I've learned to lower everything, because if your shoulders are in your ears, you never get another pole. So having to really pull everything down, hunk in, and yes, I've got it, has turned into a confidence elsewhere that I now kind of like what I see in the mirror, to the point that again, if you watch my videos, you'll see I don't exactly wear very much when I go to pole. It's literally shorts and a crop top. So my stomach's out, and for ages I would always be fiddling and trying to kind of tuck it in my shorts, but gradually there's nothing to tuck in because everything's getting toned, so I'm more confident, like some ways, like particularly at the minute when it's really warm in the UK. I am literally turning up in just my shorts and crop top. I'm not going with layers on top, I'm going like ready. Because I've got the confidence to just walk in as I am. Um so it's been really interesting to go actually, and it came about because I had a good friend, and I know I keep talking about lots of good friends, but I have lots of good friends in my circle at the moment. Um, my good friend Regina asking me why am I sharing my poll videos? Like, what is the point? Like, it's great because everyone's invested in my journey and wants to see my journey, but beyond that, why are you sharing them? To get me to realise why do I keep sharing them? And I realised one, so many people in my audience are invested in this journey of me on a poll and can't wait for me to be eventually flipping upside down, which is a little bit scary. I'm not sure if how I feel about the flipping upside down. Um, I was never much of a acrobat or gymnast when I was younger. Um, I was always very cautious. Um, in fact, my mum's got a photo of me with all of my like cuddly teddies when I was a toddler, and you can see the kind of processing of well, if I stick my hand here and if I stick my hand there and my foot here, it was very methodical, not a typical child that just chucked themselves everywhere. So the thought of flipping upside down on a pole is but I'm not there yet, so I'm not gonna worry about it. Um but yeah, people are invested in the journey, it's getting other people to think, okay, what is the thing that I've always wanted to do or to go and try? Well, just go and try it. Like I have loads of people say, Oh, I wish I could do poll. I'm like, just go and find a class. It's as simple as that. Find a local class and go and try it. Maybe it's not for you, it's not for you, but at least you've tried it. Like at school, I can never get up the ropes or do the ladder. Well, climbing up a pole at 32. Um, but it is, it's that, it's getting people to realise that they can do it, it's never too late. Um, and it's yeah, it's more just for me of this is what I've achieved this week, and I'm I'm starting to see more lessons and and tweaks and things and links of how it links into my movement business and everything else. So yeah, pole dance has a lot more benefits than just getting on a poll. So, to wrap up, because I feel like I've rambled and I don't know if it's made any sense, so I'm gonna wrap it up before I just ramble for the sake of rambling. Um, and I will tag all of the people that I have mentioned in the podcast in the show notes because they are awesome. Uh part of the pun tas, but they are awesome and you should go and check them out. In fact, checkouts hasn't ash the podcast because it is awesome. Um, and so I'll tag all of those people in the show notes. But my three lessons were doing something that is completely alien and out of your comfort zone, and it doesn't have to be drastically out of your comfort zone, it can just be a little tiny step, but it pushes it kind of pushes that boundary to get you to challenge yourself because comfort zones are great, but every now and then we have to challenge ourselves. So that was lesson one. Lesson two was trusting ourselves, knowing that we can make the decisions, we can do the thing, whatever it may be, but trusting yourself, and then the most important one confidence. Because confidence is just yeah, it kind of you can tell when someone's really struggling, and I'm not to say that I am the most confident person, there are definitely situations where I am not the most confident person. Um, but I've built the skills and the brain mapping to trick myself in a way to be confident, and that might be an episode next week. Um but yeah, confidence. Confidence can absolutely be learned, it's not a given. Um by teaching your brain that you can do something, it gradually it knows that it can do it, it trusts it, and you get confident in it, you you know that you can do something. Um push your comfort then, trust yourself, build your confidence. All skills for life and business. So enjoy the rest of the UK heat wave. Keep cool, stay hydrated, listen to the previous episode about how to stay cool in the heat wave, and I will see you next time.