Male Announcer: You’re listening to From Pain to Possibility with Susi Hately. You will hear Susi’s best ideas on how to reduce or even eradicate your pain and learn how to listen to your body when it whispers so you don’t have to hear it scream. And now here’s your host, Susi Hately.
Welcome and welcome back. I’m so glad that you’re here because today I’m continuing my podcast miniseries on safety in selling. And what started off as just a great idea because of what we had been doing in my certification program really has become a reminder of why I love teaching business to and with yoga teachers.
I remember when teachers first started asking me how it was that I was doing what I was doing way back in the early 2000s, and it sort of struck me as odd that they didn’t know how. I didn’t have a big yoga teacher circle of friends when I first started teaching, not because of any particular reason, it just wasn’t where my friend space was.
So I didn’t understand that there was actually this idea that you couldn’t make a living as a yoga teacher. It was only when people started to see what I was doing that I started to hear this more often. So then I started offering programs on how to make 50K, which evolved into the Yogi Business Program. And it was super fun to be able to show people how you can build out a yoga-based business, help people, nurture yourself and make a living.
So then I started to incorporate those business ideas into my yoga therapy certification program because I had the same idea of wanting to help people not only earn their tuition fee back, but to make a living, whatever that meant to them. Whatever the meaningful living was.
For some people, it’s making 100K. For others, it’s building out a retirement business where they’re not working crazy hours. And I will say that the folks who are making 100K are also not working crazy hours because of how they’re doing it. But the idea is that it’s meaningful and they’ve got spacious schedules and they understand what it is they’re doing and how they’re contributing.
So the reason why this series has come to be, and if you’ve listened to the podcast episodes that have come before this, you’ll have heard me say this, but just to reiterate, it’s because I’ve introduced a new module inside of my certification program on safety in selling. Because what I saw over and over and over again is I could teach the concepts of what’s needed to build out a business and to connect with clientele and to do all the things.
But if your belief was such that you just did not believe it was possible, or who were you to make this happen, or what will other people think, or other thoughts of that sort, like maybe someone will find out that they’re a fraud, or the collection of thoughts and beliefs that typically show up when we talk about imposter syndrome. If those exist, it’s going to be very, very difficult to implement the concepts well.
And this is really vital. And I see this a lot, not just in the yoga industry, but elsewhere as well as people are starting to build out their businesses, like helper-based businesses, whether it’s in coaching or whether it’s in yoga or Pilates or Reiki or any other healing modality. If you don’t believe it’s going to be possible, no matter what you do, it’s not going to be possible. Your beliefs will fuel how you apply the action.
So I can do the concept, I can do the action, but because I believe it’s possible, then that change can happen. So when I say that, often what can happen is people then think, oh, I need to change my thinking. And that’s not what I advocate. And you will have heard this back with the previous episodes where I talk about nervous system down regulation, the ideas of DIMs and SIMs and the healing helix.
And then when Nona and Karen and Lory were talking about their stories of their evolution, what you heard from them really was putting in the hours of teaching. Of really growing your technical skill, of developing and working within your pain-free range of motion, of not pushing what’s often called pushing that challenge skills balance too far.
Said another way is that we know that we have our circle of comfort and if we want to grow, we need to go outside of that comfort zone. But if you push too far beyond the comfort zone, it’s going to lead into a really sympathetic drive of fight or flight and it will create a bit of a heightened state. And then that will lead to likely doing actions that don’t actually support what you’re actually doing.
So there’s all these factors that are actually involved in the process of supporting yourself. So with this episode, I want to talk a little bit more about imposter syndrome. I want to share more about what I’m doing inside of our program to help people find that sense of safety and how the program really contributes to that, particularly as they come into the practicum. And then things that you can do for yourself outside of the program to support yourself and move forward.
So it’s really designed for someone who thinks that they have imposter syndrome and then where to go next. So I think the first piece, as I’ve already mentioned, imposter syndrome has sort of a basket of thoughts and beliefs that tend to show up, which is who am I to say blah, blah, blah, blah. Who am I to do blah, blah, blah. What happens if they find that I’m a fraud? Or like, I don’t have, I can’t do, like there’s a lot of doubt, capital D doubt and capital F fear.
And that leads to the thoughts and beliefs that I’ve mentioned, but also a whole number of thoughts and beliefs that I haven’t mentioned. And I’m not going to list all of them out. I think if you’re someone who identifies with the capital D doubt or capital F fear, and you notice that you’re procrastinating or you’re noticing that you’re avoiding or you’re noticing that you have this, this syndrome is sort of showing up for you, I think that’s a place to just begin. Notice for yourself, what are the thoughts and the beliefs that make up your particular version?
And the reason why I think this is important is because if we look at someone coming in for yoga therapy and they might have a syndrome, and a syndrome in the medical world is a collection of symptoms that there isn’t necessarily a particular cause. There might be, but there’s this sort of collection of a basket of symptoms and they can be labeled as a syndrome.
And when someone comes into my practice with a syndrome, then it’s curious to me, it’s interesting to understand the makeup of those. And I also want to see how they breathe and how they move. How they settle through their system. What they’re thinking about their condition and what’s worked and what’s not worked.
So I’m not necessarily addressing the condition itself, but all of that which makes up the expression of that syndrome and then what’s next. So it’s sort of similar here. So when someone is in my program and they say to me, “I’ve got imposter syndrome,” I’ll ask them, what does that mean? I’ll find out what’s their collection or their basket of thoughts and beliefs that are showing up.
And then I’ll be present to that. I won’t go in and say to them they have to change their belief or that they have to change their thought, but rather we acknowledge that this exists. And then the next step is for me to say, hmm, how can I help this person feel safer? Because the message that those collections of thoughts and beliefs are telling me is that this person is not feeling safe.
So then where do I go from there? And so when I’m thinking about how to help someone feel safe when they’re in my program, there’s two primary avenues. One is that there is technical skill to grow and there’s business skill to grow, because like I’ve noticed with this cohort that I’ve been doing this beta test with this new module, Safety in Selling, they’re all very skilled.
They’ve moved through enough of the program that they’re getting great results with the people that they’re working with. And then when we step into starting to build out and grow and add programming and build those skills, or for some people that are looking to connect with more people outside of their primary group of students, something starts to happen and they can get into that “get a client” energy or “I got to find clients.”
And something just starts to go a little sideways, I like to say, for them. They start to get into a grippy scarcity, got to, got to, got to get. And that’s the kind of energy, as I mentioned in the earlier episodes, that tends to turn people off. They might not be able to state exactly what it is, but they can feel that it’s not comfortable to be around. It’s not safe.
And so then that result then can feed the doubt and the fear that the trainee has. So where I’m working then is how can I help and focus on safety, right? Because like I’ve said, they’ve got the technical skill. We’re starting this module far enough into the program that they’ve really grown that side. I mean, there’s always more skill to grow, don’t get me wrong. But they’ve got enough of that foundation that it’s not so much the skill application that is leading to or correlated to that capital D doubt or capital F fear that they’re having.
So then we begin with how do we support safety when it comes to engaging with people? And the first step, and as I’ve mentioned in the previous episode, it’s recognizing that we are starting the engagement with somebody the way that we want to have them as a client when we start the initial conversation.
So we start by thinking, okay, what’s the healing helix? And this is a tool that we use in most of my programs. What’s this relationship that’s happening between us and our client? And I remind the students, my trainees of this. And it’s like, okay, so we’re here to help cultivate a relationship, to remember that healing helix. And it’s like, okay, yes. Okay, great.
So then if I’m in a healing helix, where does, “I got to get a client, I got to find a client,” where does that live? And quickly people say, oh, it doesn’t really live there. It’s like, okay, great. So then it becomes, all right, so then if you just have a conversation and a dialogue with people about what it is that you do and how you do it, start there. Start gaining the capacity of simply talking to people about what it is that you do.
You don’t need to go and get clients. It’s getting comfortable simply saying, this is what I do. And then people getting the opportunity to then ask you more questions and doing your best to build the traction of not then trying to engage in a sales conversation or try to engage in a conversation where we’re trying to turn them into a client, but rather just having a conversation.
I was on a call with one of my groups the other day and I was saying, a lot of times when we’re talking with people about what we’re doing, oftentimes it’s not those people who then say, oh cool, let’s sign up. What tends to happen is we have lots of different conversations with people, but then the people who do ask for our help kind of come out of nowhere. And as I said that, lots of them were starting to nod their heads. It’s not a back and forth type of thing.
To kind of explain this another way, I remember when I taught my first workshops for teachers when I was starting out my teacher training and they would come to the space where I was teaching. We’d have a great workshop. People were really pumped. And then I would provide them with an evaluation. And then on that evaluation, ask them what would they like next?
And then they would click off, like on the sheet of paper what ideas that I had and share some of their own ideas about what they would like to learn more of. And so then I would send out an idea for the next workshop. And pretty much every time, none of the people who were in that workshop signed up.
When I first started teaching my therapeutic yoga intensive, I was initially asked to teach it outside of where I live. And after I did this a number of times in a row, people where I live would say, you need to run this where you live. And I’m like, okay, sure, I’ll run it. And interestingly enough, the closest locale of where those students came from was outside of Canada. So no one from my city actually came.
So it’s really important to get this, where people might even ask for what it is that you’re offering, you might have dialogue with people about what it is that you’re offering, but yet the people who actually show up and purchase and enroll and all the things aren’t those people. And it’s okay. It’s really important to get that it’s okay because I like to think about our conversations with people as not the conversations that we’re actually having.
I know that sounds sort of strange, but rather they’re conversations, it’s going to get a bit woo-woo here, with the universe, because there is that line out there that when one is truly committed, providence moves too. So it’s the act of me engaging with people that leads people to me. It’s the act of engaging with people that leads people to me.
Another way to say this is we recently finished an enrollment cycle for my certification program and half of the people who enrolled have been following me for five to 10 years. Some of them said, oh, I’ve been stalking you, Susi. I’ve been following everything you put out. I open every single email. I’ve been watching most of your videos on Facebook/YouTube. I know you. I’ve seen you before you were pregnant and after you were pregnant and dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah, dah.
Five to 10 years and I’ve just been at it. I’ve just been consistently at it, right? So it’s important to recognize that the enrollment doesn’t necessarily come, that there could be people right now who know about you, who know what you’re offering, but aren’t yet engaging. They may even be the ones saying, I think I’m going to sign up with so-and-so in three months, but we don’t know that.
So I think it becomes really important to recognize that when people aren’t signing up or in the conversations you’re having with people and they’re not signing up, to really watch your interpretation of why they’re not, and it may have zero to do with you. And there’s actually a bigger conversation going on is the way I like to think about it.
Many, many moons ago when I was working with a business mentor, he said to me, you need to have seven touch points with somebody before they buy. And he then added, and keeping in mind that lots of people are distracted when a message from you comes in, multiply that number by three. So that was 21 times. And I was like, okay, I’ll just keep at it.
Now interestingly enough, fast forward to present day, recently Google posted their survey which their stats that people need 40 touch points before they buy. So then I still follow the same idea of 120, multiply that by three because those touch points still might come. The distraction level is way higher than it’s ever been. So then they need 120 points.
Meaning I can send out my emails. I can send out my social posts. I can do my videos. I can do all the things and it may take someone 120 times, which so when someone takes five years, when someone takes one year, that’s normal.
I’ve also had people who happen upon me. Like I remember one woman, she happened upon me one week in March. Next day she enrolled in the Therapeutic Yoga Intensive and the next week after that she enrolled in certification. And for her it happened in like two touch points or one touch point, right? So sometimes that happens.
So that 40, or the Susi version of that 40, which is 120, multiply it by three, is an average, right? Perhaps. And not everybody’s going to take that many points, but the point being is that we need to be in consistent communication.
And as this relates to the imposter syndrome, as it relates to whatever collection or basket of thoughts and beliefs that you have is recognize that we just need to keep at it and that someone doesn’t respond to something doesn’t mean that what you’re doing is wrong or what you’re doing is fraud, like meaning that you’re being a fraud, right? It doesn’t mean that they’re thinking, who am I, who is she? They’re just not ready yet.
But if you keep going, if you keep going and you keep doing it and then you start to pay attention to some of the emails that are coming into you or the responses that people are giving you, it gives you more insight about what’s working or not working.
So for example, I had someone many years ago who emailed me and said, “I was about to quit yoga and then I found you and I have fallen back in love with yoga.” I was like, that’s interesting. And I remember there was a lot of disruption in the yoga industry around that time, and this was before the conversation around pain and yoga and a lot of the trauma aspects of yoga that were kind of coming out. This was before that time or like in and around that time starting. And sort of a recognition for a lot of people of what they might have not been able to say, but they could feel.
So when she shared that, I’m like, hmm, I wonder if there are more people out there who are thinking the same thing. So I offered up in one of my emails, you know what? A lot of people who came to me were about to quit yoga. Is this you? And so I would hear what people were sharing back to me or were commenting about on my social accounts. And then I would recognize that that was part of the conversation that might be going through some people’s head, right?
So then I just started to kind of play a little bit more and a little bit more with, hmm, what’s the drumbeat that’s out there? What’s another sort of melody that’s out there that people are talking about, that people are feeling?
Do you see how this is different than being kind of caught up into the basket of thoughts and beliefs that we might call imposter syndrome, which then might lead you to doing something. But then it doesn’t work, which only validates and verifies that belief pattern in some ways.
But if I can share with you and open with you and say, okay, I totally get that. It feels unsafe here. Your nervous system is where it’s at and it’s coming from a number of different things that may have happened in your past or that may have happened recently, so let’s try this out. How about doing something that is super easy and safe? Like talking to someone who is close to you that won’t judge you and you just practice talking about what it is that you’re doing?
Or like the next time you’re at the grocery store and you’re at the checkout talking and they say, hey, how’s it going? And you just have a random kind of conversation. There’s been times I’ve been at the grocery store and the person will say – We’re having random conversations and then they might say, what do I do? Like and that’s happened a few times. Then I get to say what I do. I’m not trying to enroll the person at the cash into any one of my programs, but it can be a practice of talking about what you’re talking about and noticing any of the feelings that begin to arise.
And then you start to recognize that these feelings arise. And much like I talked about, I think it was in episode two of just noticing what’s there. As you notice the feelings that are there, you can be in those feelings, you can be in those thoughts, and you can be separate from those thoughts. It’s like a little ninja practice of being in it and then being separate from it. So you can be in it and then you also cannot be in it.
And you start to recognize that these don’t have to drive you. And as you continue to practice in a safe space and kind of akin to the way that I teach, can you do this in a pain-free range of motion? Can you do this in a way that reduces symptoms? And so what would that be?
And it’s so fascinating when I watch the people in my training program go about engaging with people in a way that just has a totally different energy to it. How that starts to really shift their own energy because they are now feeling safe inside. It’s not about not feeling doubt. It’s not about not feeling fear. But there’s a distinction between capital D doubt and capital F fear that really stops you in your tracks.
I feel doubt when I work with my clients sometimes and I welcome it, much like Rumi’s poem, The Guest House. Any of those symptoms or any of those feelings become really, really important. If you don’t know what Rumi’s Guest House is, let me share that with you.
Rumi’s Guest House. “This being human is a guest house, every morning, a new arrival. A joy, a depression, a meanness, a momentary awareness comes as an unexpected visitor. Welcome and entertain them all, even if they are a crowd of sorrows who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture. Still treat each guest honorably, he may be clearing you out for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing and invite them in. Be grateful for whoever comes because each has been sent as a guide from beyond.”
So when we can get to these places where the feelings that we feel, the thoughts that we think, we can start to step back a bit from them because our systems are a bit more downregulated, because we can notice when we’re in it and we can notice when we are separate from it, we can start to zoom in and zoom out. Then we start to see these things as messengers.
Nothing to fix, nothing to go away. If only I just didn’t feel this fear. And you’ll find it becoming easier and easier and easier. More pain-free range of motion. Yeah? Less pain or strain and a whole lot less burnout.
So things that you can practice are exactly that, is to go back to those previous episodes of really just tuning in to what some of these thoughts and beliefs are that you have and how they resonate in your body. Listen to the episodes from Nona and Karen, as well as Lory and notice what they’re saying.
And what they’re saying here is, you’ve really got to put the miles in. You’ve really got to take that time and practice. You’ve got to hone in that technical skill for sure. Our skill will always grow. I always am consistently growing my skill. I’m not growing my skill though because I think I suck or I’m awful or that I need to prove myself, it’s because it’s time.
I recognize that there’s just more for me to grow. Maybe it’s a client who has let me know that, or it’s just time. Something is interesting me in terms of learning about something new. So there is the base level of skill development, and then we just keep getting to grow our skill.
And the same thing happens on the business side. And it’s to recognize if we’re trying to chase after something because we’re not feeling good enough. Because if you’re chasing after something because you’re not feeling good enough or that you are, fill in whatever the blank is, it’s likely not going to solve that.
It’s noticing and playing in that space and recognizing what support might be needed. And what I have seen with my trainees, I’m no psychologist so I’m not working at that belief level, I really feel that that’s where the psychologists and the counselors, where someone who’s got a solid process on that side of things can be really helpful.
And what I’ve seen with my trainees is that as they grow their foundational skill, as they see those results that their clients are getting, that starts to shift. And as they peel back away from trying to get a client and just engage in conversations with people, and they recognize that it’s just having conversations and allowing for that flow to occur, people then show up. People arise. People who’ve been following you for a long time start to sign up, but it’s a matter of putting those miles in.
So consider that, explore that. And if this all resonates with you and you want to take it to a more distinct and deliberate process, I am running Safety in Selling this January and you can read all about it over at functionalsynergy.com/safe. I’d love to share with you more. Take good care.
