How to become the authority in your industry before you feel like one

I talk about an upcoming talk that has kicked off the mental gremlins and she shares what she has had to work through to prepare herself for the talk and how being the authority in your industry can come before you feel it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Flat 16. The podcast for ambitious women who already innovate their success, well, confidence, and who are done with getting in their own way. I'm Kirsty to Ponscious and Identity Coach for Women. And in this podcast, we dive into the police and blocks that hold you back from being unapologetically used so that you can step into a life that feels abundant and alive. And my promise is that you're gonna leave every single episode feeling seen, inspired, and equipped with a tool to take your next step towards the women you're meant to be. Because success starts within. So grab yourself a coffee or a glass of wine and let's get started. Hello lovely ladies and welcome to another episode of Success Starts Within. Oh my gosh, am I having a bit of an emotionally turbulent week? Um, as some of you may know, on the 19th and the 20th, I'm speaking at the Wealthy Women Conference in Kingston upon Thames. And I'm also now speaking at the Unapologetic Wealth Summit, which is on the 13th of March. And they are proving to be quite uh pressurising on my nervous system. I am really pushing myself out of my comfort zone massively. So the one, the Unapologetic Wealth one is online. There's gonna at the moment there's over 100 people that have registered, and the conference is gonna have about 120 people in it, and that's the biggest audience that I've ever stood in front of and and spoken to. And I've been doing my talk, but it has really, really dysregulated my nervous system. I've really started to notice some of the old gremlins come up, and it was weird because I thought I've really worked through quite a lot of the things that I have um been experiencing again. But it goes to show that when you are pushing yourself so hard, they will pop up, but they're nothing like they were before, and I know what they look like and I know what they sound like, so I'm able to shift them a lot quicker than I was able to before. But it's just yeah, they've been popping up. So I'm gonna be fine, and the talks are gonna be amazing, and every day I am anchoring into that identity of the woman that has done these talks, of the Kirstie that has that feels truly amazing at the end of each of them, knowing that she's created an impact, knowing that she's given somebody a bit of information that is hopefully gonna change the way that they see themselves. But yes, it's been tricky. But we live, we keep pushing, but we push safely, and we keep expanding. And that is exactly what I teach my clients is this expansion, but doing it in a way that's safe. So I put my name down to do one of the talks in August last year, way before I was even ready. Way before I was even ready. I paid for it, I booked it, that was it. And it's always been on my mind, but now it's here, it's gonna be coming, it's what two weeks away, and which is why I started to experience these um emotions and this dysregulation. But I know what to do, and I know that it's gonna be amazing, and I know how to work through these things, and I know how the mind and the body work, and that's what I say to my clients is just keep expanding, keep noticing what is going on in your mind, keep noticing the sensations in your body, and notice them without any judgment. The problem is when we are doing something that's outside of our comfort zone, we do start to judge ourselves, and what that does is it's keeping us playing small, it keeps us back in that comfort zone. That's the whole point of it. That's what the subconscious mind does, it constantly tries to bring us back into our comfort zone. So we just need to always challenge these thoughts. And one of the thoughts that popped up for me was I don't think I'm giving enough value, I don't think I'm giving enough information. And I spoke to a lovely lady the other day, and she was like, You don't need to overcomplicate things, you have to keep it very simple. And this is a very sneaky little tactic that the subconscious mind does, is it starts to tell you these stories to doubt yourself and question yourself, when ultimately you knew right from the beginning what was right. So I knew right from the beginning that the talk that I created was good enough, but as it's got nearer to the event, it's my subconscious mind is starting to feed this shit into my mind. Um, but that's what happens. That's what happens. I know how it works, I'm working through it, and it's gonna be fine. So if you are knocking around on the 11th to the 13th of March, then come to the um unapologi- sorry, I can't speak today, come to the unapologetic wealth summit. It just costs£1 for three days access. There's also VIP access as well that you can pay for. So the£37 option and a£97 option, but ultimately you can just pay a quid. And I'm gonna be doing£5 till 7:30 pm on the Friday. So any support would be great, and I will put the link to um the event in the show notes. So today I'm gonna be talking about ident um authority through identity expansion. Now, one thing that I've noticed is a lot of women they're really good at pumping out loads of content, but they're not very good about talking about themselves in an authoritative way. And that has a misconception about being boasty and not wanting to seem full of ourselves, that's full of ourselves. But there is a complete difference between the two. When you show authority, you're showing people that you know what they're experiencing, you're showing people that you have been there, and you're showing people that you have the skills to help them through whatever they're going through. You're not saying, Oh, look at me, you know, I'm the best ever, and I know this, this, this. You're doing it in a more classy way, and you're doing it in a way that really speaks to your clients. So, authority is an identity, and an identity that we have to we have to step into, and it's what you have to do to be seen as the leader in your industry, and you have to see yourself as an identity as an authority, and that's quite hard, especially if you're new in business or you're in the early stages, and you still feel that you've got so much more to learn, you still feel that there's so many other people out there that are more qualified than you, and they've been doing it for a lot longer, but ultimately you are an authority, you do know enough, you have enough clients, you have enough information to be supporting people, to be giving information out, to be selling. So you are an authority, and you have to own that. But I know that the thoughts that sometimes go around clients' heads are who am I to say this? There are so much more people qualified than me. What if I say something on Instagram and somebody challenges me? And they're the kind of thoughts that go through people's mind. But one thing I want to say to you is that your authority begins when your self-concept shifts. So your authority begins when you actually see yourself as a leader. And yes, you might not feel like it, but you have to start seeing yourself as the person that knows what the fuck she's talking about. And you've got clients, you've helped clients through situations and experiences, you've coached them or you've supported them in other ways. So you are the authority already. So instead of seeing yourself as somebody who is just starting out or who's just trying to build a business, or somebody that's just sharing her ideas online, you need to start seeing yourself as a leader in your space, and you need to see some, you need to be seen as somebody who people will come for for guidance because the clients will come to you when they see that you know what the fuck you're talking about, and that is where that authority lies, and your audience will feel that shift immediately because what it does is it shapes your language, it shapes your confidence, your decisions, and your standards. So your thought your authority is just simply the external reflection of the identity that you hold internally. Okay, so it's just reflecting what you already know about yourself, but to the outside world, so that other people can see you, and so other people can see that you're the right person for them and hopefully start working with you. Now, for many of the clients that I have supported, they have a wealth of knowledge and information, they know what they're talking about, but the fear that lies behind showing up as the authority is the visibility piece. It's thinking, gosh, if I'm the authority, if I'm showing up as the authority in my industry, more people are gonna see me. I'm gonna have to be online a lot more. People are gonna start having their opinions about me and they're gonna start to judge me and then they're gonna comment on my stuff. And oh my god, the nervous system starts to go crazy. So we have to teach your nervous system that it can expand to hold that, and that's what I do in the main character shift is that I teach my clients to be able to hold this expanded version of themselves so that they don't do some really great content on Instagram and then they think shit, you know, freak out, and they go back to just whacking out content that doesn't really show that they know what they're talking about. Um, and it's so important to work with the nervous system when you are expanding, when you're doing anything. I mean, god, nervous system is the key thing that so many people don't know about. So many coaches overlook the nervous system as well. But for me, I know it works when you do any kind of work with the nervous system combined with it. That's when you're gonna clap when you're gonna completely collapse your timeline and become the person that you want to be. Um, so many women they unconsciously stay small because this visibility creates these fear of judgment. What other people are gonna think of them. They're gonna worry that they're gonna get rejected and people are gonna start sending these shitty comments. And one of the things for me was I might get it wrong, I might say something that's completely wrong, and I sound like a tit, and people are gonna think, what the fuck does she know? And that's always been one of my biggest negative thoughts is getting it wrong and sounding like a tit. But we have to work through all of this so that we can start to become the authority, and when you start to to stop thinking about or worrying about what will people think of me, and change it to something along the lines of um my voice is um is meant to be heard, that is when your authority grows and your capacity for visibility will grow as well. And your authority comes from embodiment, so the actual actions and the doing, not the thinking about it. Because people are not drawn online to somebody that has all these tips, they are drawn to somebody that they can see who has embodied the work that they teach, and I think that's something that was really highlighted with me because I have been on this massive journey. I mean, I would probably say it was November 2024, is when I went to an event with Noah Hibbert, and that day I walked out of that event a completely different woman. So many people that I met at the event and people that I that follow me online and that I speak to, they just say, like, it is crazy how much you have grown and achieved in such a short space of time. And I'm embodying the work that I teach, and I'm showing women, I'm showing you guys, like, it's so possible for you to do whatever you want to do if you do the inner work, if you follow the main character method, which is my unique framework. If you follow that, you can be whoever you want to be, and you can take that framework and constantly use it throughout your life because I know that the steps in it work, and I know that the steps are the right steps to take in order to completely overhaul your identity and to achieve all these big goals that you have for yourself. Some of you might be listening to this, and you you know, you might see me on Instagram and be like, Oh my god, I would love to be able to go and speak on a stage, but I'm not that kind of person, I would just shit myself, like I couldn't handle those eyes looking at me. I felt all of those things too. I felt all of those things as well, but yet I've done the work on still doing the work because I have visions of myself standing on stages in front of a lot more than a hundred people, but my nervous system has to be able to deal with that capacity. So as I'm growing, as I'm doing more, as I'm embodying what I'm saying, I'm showing the people that follow me, the people that I meet, that it's possible for them, and I'm going first. And as the authority, that's what people need to see. They need to see that you are doing the things that you that you say that sorry, doing the things that you teach. They want to see your lived experience and they want to see your perspective because when they do, they start to trust you, and that's when they want to start to learn from you and want to start working with you. So your authority grows the more that you live and breathe your work, the more that you make decisions from the your next level identity, and the more that you show up as the person that already holds the role that you are aiming to have, so this future self. And people will sense that congruence. I can never say that word, sorry, sorry. Congruence? Congruence, congruence, I don't know. People sense it anyway. I know what it means, I just don't know how to say it. Um, people can sense it, and when your identity and your message match, then your authority is what becomes magnetic, and that is what people want to see more, and that's when people want to start working with you. So I want you to define your authority identity, and you can do this by asking yourself who is the woman I'm expanding into? So think about that future version of you and what she's doing and how she's thinking and how she's feeling, but really anchor into who is she? So, does she speak with clarity? Does she trust herself more? Does she share her message and not worry about it hitting the wrong ears and getting that judgment from other people? Which, by the way, I had a client who we were talking about this the other day, we were looking through uh we were talking about her visibility, and she said, Do you know what actually that's popped up for me? I'm worried that someone's gonna come to me and send me a message and say, You don't know what the fuck you're talking about, and so that is what prevented her from showing up online consistently, and that is something that we all have experienced. But if you are so sure in what you say, which you know you are, because you're all fucking amazing, then don't worry about what other people think. It's nothing to do with them because you are gonna find the right people, and the right people are gonna find you and want to listen to what you are saying because it is gonna help them. And the second thing that would like you to ask yourself is how would this version of me show up today? So, this future version of you, the one that that you are striving to be, how does she show up in in this moment? You know, is she trusting herself a bit more? If she has an idea, does she sit on it for ages or does she just execute it? Just give it a go, see if it works, or is she somebody that contacts all these people? Is she somebody that tries to get on these guest podcasts? You know, how does she show up? What does she do? How does she feel about herself? How does she speak to herself? That's one of the most important things. Because identity change happens through repeated alignment, and that is how you become the future version of you. Your authority, your authority grows through simple, small, daily decisions, and what they're gonna do is just reinforce your identity. So, some questions again to ask yourself, and I really want you to think about these, don't just sort of sit there and think, oh, yeah, okay. I want you to really dig into this because you know the deeper you go with these with these questions, the more you're gonna learn about yourself. So I want you to ask yourself, what would the authority in my space say out loud? So think about somebody else in your industry that maybe you admire. What does she say that you would really like to say? And also what opinions would she share? And lastly, ask yourself what message would she stop holding back on? What would she just unapologetically talk about without worrying about what other people think and getting backlash? Which by the way, it doesn't happen. Oh, I went off on a bit of a tangent earlier with this client. So, yeah, she was saying about um, she was saying that she was worried about what other people think of her. But ultimately, when you are so sure in what you want to say, you don't have to worry about what other people think, you're on your own path, and that is why that is how you show up as the authority, and every time you act from your expanded identity, you strengthen the belief that you are the authority. So it's action taking, small actions with nervous system regulation, because that is how we expand without shrinking, and over time, this part, this authority piece that you're worrying about stops feeling stretchy, it stops feeling like um boasting, if that's how you how you feel about it at the moment, and it starts to become who you are naturally, and when you are that person naturally, that is when you're gonna start finding that the clients are gonna start coming to you because you're not overthinking anything, you're just being you that you have up-leveled to the point where people see you as the leader. So I hope all of that is helpful today. If you heard some scratching sounds in the background, my cat was just using the kit litter, kitty litter, which was really annoying because I'm in the middle of a bloody podcast. But hey, don't have time to re-record, don't have time to edit, I don't know how to take the background noise out. So I'm gonna just issue it, uh launch this out anyway, and I know you're gonna get it because you're all busy mums and women too, so hey, but I hope you have the most amazing week. I hope you I hope you're able to do something that your expanded identity would do, and I want you to start being seen as the authority in your space, whatever you do for work, and uh it won't happen immediately, but it's gonna happen through small little achievements, small actions, and don't see it as boasting about yourself, you're not talking about yourself in that way, you're just showing people that you know what you're talking about and that you know how to help them. So have the most amazing day. Bye. Thank you for listening to Success Starts Within. I hope you're leaving today feeling inspired, grounded, and one step closer to the woman you're becoming. And always remember success starts within. I'll see you in the next episode.