If you’re ready to move and shake your mindset as a business owner then this episode is for you. Our brains are marvellous things that allow us to create, love, feel and do all those wonderful things, but what happens when they do the opposite? Today I speak with Christine Corcoran on the top 3 fears that keep us playing small & the easy process to overcome them.
Introduction
Hello, incredible human and welcome to another episode of The Hayley Osborne show. We’re on to Episode 48. Oh my goodness, also in December. My favourite time of year this year, this this time of year December is full of magic. It’s just full of excitement. I love the warm weather. I love everything about this season. And this season in business too. And sometimes these seasons that we go through in business can be challenging. So with that comes the work that we need to do as business owners, not just in the business, but on the business and the work around mindset, mindset plays such a huge role in business. And today’s episode, I want to bring light to your world when it comes to mindset. The epic guest I have on today is Christine Corcoran. Christine is an absolute powerhouse. This was such a beautiful chat. I don’t want to spoil it too much. But I want to read a little bit about Christine.
So Christine is a business mindset master coach, she is a speaker she has her own podcast, and she is creator of the Thrive Retreat and Elevated transform your worth money and business programme. Through transformational mindset work money, mindset strategies, value aligned business goals and leadership skills. Christine coaches stressed out and overwhelmed business women to grow and scale their businesses by becoming confident powerhouse women who charge what they’re worth so they can thrive and succeed in business. Now, when it comes to this time of year, I know we’re all feeling a little bit probably tired, a little bit burnt out, we are looking forward to a much needed rest with our families and loved ones. And, that’s where I think the most work has to come into play. And if you if you’re ready to move and shake your mindset as a business owner, then this episode is for you. Our brains are marvellous things that allow us to create love, feel and do all those wonderful things. But what happens when they do the opposite? So without further ado, let’s just get into this episode.
Transcription
Christine Corcoran:
My name is Christine Corcoran, I’m a business mindset coach. And what that means is that I help women who are stressed and overwhelmed in their business who are possibly self sabotaging their success and want to take things to the next level, like help them actually unlock what’s stopping them, what’s holding them back. And then we work through transformational shifts to change that. So then they can step into that next level of success in their business. And with obviously, all my experience with I used to come from I came from a corporate role, where I was doing a lot of business development role. And a very much we’re very much focused on strategy. And what I found is that some women would take that strategy and run with it, and other women wouldn’t. And so I was really frustrated with why that was happening. And so I started to explore the mindset side of things and became super obsessed with understanding what makes us tick, what drives us what motivates us what holds us back. And now I’m just literally focused on that because it makes such a massive difference in someone’s business. And I just love seeing the transformation that can happen when you actually start to look at the mindset blocks that are holding you back.
Hayley Osborne:
It’s huge. I feel like as well for such a long time. That would have been a massive gap in the market, especially saying that in corporate like that is I feel like mindset is something because I have worked for many years in corporate that is never talked about.
Christine Corcoran:
Yeah, it was so Interesting, like I actually studied alongside my corporate role because I was frustrated with the results. And I was like, what? I must be not doing something right. Like there must be the way that I’m communicating the strategy, why are some women working with it and it’s working, and then others aren’t. And I’d see them in a month later, they’d done nothing. And I would just get super frustrated. And so I actually studied alongside my corporate role and started implementing that with the clients that I was working with, and saw amazing results that my bosses were then like, what are you doing, like? And so I was telling them what I had learned. And then I started actually training some of their sales teams. And they and they saw a massive results. But you know, what it’s like in corporate, like making change in a corporate position is so challenging, like, it has to go through so many different people to make a decision. But I got frustrated with how long things were taking, and was like, I’m actually not in love with working for a corporate company anymore. And I really want to just focus on helping small business and women to be able to succeed and just want to focus on the mindset stuff. So that’s when I just stepped away. And I’ve never looked back.
Hayley Osborne:
Yeah, so good. So obviously, I’ve stalked the shit out of you said that to you before we started recording, but on your website, you’ve got success is yours for the taking, you just have to believe you’re worthy of it. And when I read that, I was like, that is such an impactful statement. And it starts with mindset, because I can tell you, myself, as a business owner, there is so many ups and downs that I’ve had over the years. But I’m so thankful for it. Because, this is often said, like What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. And you’re doing the same thing. But it’s new level, different devil, and it’s all in your mind. I’m just like pointing to my head right now for those people listening. But yeah, it’s all in your mind. So obviously, I wanted to kind of talk to you today about your zone of genius. But what is the three, like, let’s talk about the three fears that that you commonly see with women in business.
Christine Corcoran:
So you actually already just spoke about one like that statement is why it’s so poignant is because success, even though we all want it, a lot of us fear it, we actually fear the success. And we fear the responsibility that’s going to bring all the wealth that it’s going to bring and whether we’ll be able to handle that level, we fear the judgement, we fear, the rejection that’s really tied into that, like there’s so many, when it comes to that level of success. A lot of the times we don’t even define what success really means to us. And then we end up trying to pursue an unrealistic version of success or someone else’s version of success. And then we feel unfulfilled in what we’re doing, because we’re trying to pursue something that we don’t truly want. So one of them is definitely the fear of success. And a lot of women don’t realise that they actually have it. And they actually present thinking they have a fear of failure. So the second one is fear of failure. Obviously, if they’ve had experiences in the past, where they fail before or things haven’t worked, Hello, welcome to Business, you find that you don’t want to relive that past pain. So then you do anything you possibly can to prevent that from happening. And the hardest thing with that is that you need to fail in order to succeed. It’s part of the journey.
I see a lot of women present thinking they have a fear of failure. They’re like, Oh, I’m not taking action on this thing, or I’m holding myself back from this, or I’m not showing up in the way that I want to because I’m worried that it won’t work. But then once I actually dive deeper into it and explore it, it’s actually that they’re fearful that it will work. Right? And then we change. But it’s so common, that they are so worried that things will change because it is so natural, because deep down, we don’t want things to change, because our brain wants to keep us safe. And what’s comfortable and familiar is safe. So we want to actually stay exactly where we are. So we tell ourselves a fear of failure. We think it’s a fear of failure, when it’s actually that fear of that next level. And because a lot of the time, when you think about it, women in business make up like 35% of businesses in Australia. It’s not a big number. And when you think about the representations that we have in the world of successful women doing really well in business, you could probably count my five to 10 on your hand, right? Like if I was to actually ask you to go tell me five successful women in business in Australia, you could probably come up with, you know, maybe five, maybe 10. At the most. That’s not a lot. It’s not a lot of representation. And what’s possible.
And what can be attached to that is that once they think of those successful women, they also think of the judgement that they’ve been given. The ridicule, the trolling, the like, there’s so many things that happen at that level of success. And because there’s not much representation, we see so much of the negative, that it’s creating this space that it looks like it’s unsafe. We don’t want to experience that. So we keep ourselves playing safe at this level. And so we just keep doing the same thing we’ve done day in day out and wonder why things aren’t changing. So there, the two big ones were failure, fear of success. The third one is fear of judgement or rejection. Right? So they’re very closely tied. And it’s also one of those things that both of those things are going to happen in your business to sell you. A lot of the time, though, it’s actually the fear of it, not even the result of it.
So we’re so fearful of it happening, we prevent ourselves from even putting ourselves in opportunities to be rejected, or to be judged for the fear that might happen. Right? The amount of times I have business women say, Oh, I just want to earn this amount of money, or I just want to stay at this level, because that feels safe and familiar. And I think that if I got to that next level, then I’d be judged, or I’d get to that next level, I might be ridiculed and rejected. And it’s like, at that level, we don’t even know if it’s even going to happen. But we’re still stuck here, because we’re fearing that it may happen. So rather than looking at that, and going, hang on a minute, like, let’s actually unpack that and figure out the fee, so we can overcome it.
Hayley Osborne:
Yeah, it’s a man’s world sometimes, isn’t it? They don’t go I guarantee you there women, just, there’s so many things that go through women’s brains in business, including my own, that men wouldn’t have to deal with. Take me, for example, now, like, there’s lots of hormones after you have a baby and running a baby with a business like, it’s really quite hard. Now. That’s why I think they say it’s a man’s world. But just in terms of, I guess, like elevating yourself, what do you tell your clients, what would be like your biggest juicy piece of advice for listeners today to I guess go about overcoming those fears, because it is a thing, and you can we can talk about it a lot. But when you get to certain points in your business, it doesn’t matter if you’re starting out, you feel those things.
Christine Corcoran:
I think one of the biggest things is that, if you don’t define it, it will hold power over you. So undefined fear will always hold power over you always because it is uncertain. It is fear based. And we don’t know the ins and outs of it, right. So if it’s like, I kind of think that this is might what hold me back, or I’m not even really thinking about that next level goal, like often they men or women that don’t even set goals blows my mind. And it’s like, we don’t even think about that next level because of that fear automatically stops us. And so what the best thing that you could do is actually further define the fear. So rather than just stop at the fear and go, Oh, no, I couldn’t have that. Or I don’t want that because of that fear. I want to go okay, so what is it about that fear that’s causing me to feel fearful, right? Like, what is it? What am I so afraid of happening?
And really define and get down to the nitty gritty of it, because a lot of the time, we often just stop, like the brain just stopped that fear. And we go back to feeling comfortable, I want you to push past that precipice and actually explore, well hang on a minute, what exactly would have to happen in order for that to happen? Like, if that did happen? How would I even handle it? Exploring beyond that thing.
So let’s give you an example. Let’s say we’re fearful of the judgement that may happen, let’s say you want to launch something new out into the, into the online space or creating a new offering, or whatever it might be, that you’re fearful that it might be judged. Maybe someone might say something about a could be a potential client might say, Oh, that’s a bit expensive. Or you might have a competitor that so who thinks they can do that? Right? We’ll put that out into the world. So rather than going stopping right there, I want you to go Okay, so one, who are you most afraid of making that judgement? Who specifically are you most afraid of making that judgement? And if they said that, how would you handle it?
But it’s just explore and go beyond it and actually say, okay, so if that actually did happen, how would you handle it and actually think about it, because often your brain doesn’t let you go there. And so, if you’re like, Okay, so if that happened, I probably be a bit upset, I might cry, I might get a bit annoyed or upset. And I might just like, you know, hide from socials for a day, like, who knows, whatever it might be for you figure it out, and go, Okay, so this is how I would handle it. I’d probably be a bit upset. I’d have an emotional response, which is natural, and I would then go, I’d probably then start to think about it.
Is this about me? Is this about the offer? Is this about the way that I’ve described it in the market? And think about how would I handle this? At the end of the day, if someone says the judgement which often people don’t even say correct, why not even say it, they think it and you’re fearing what they’re going to think not even what they’re going to say.
And then you go, okay, so if you sit with it long enough, usually you’ll get to a point where you’re like, well, I probably then just get on with it. Or I probably just change the language around it, or I probably just block that person on social media, like, whatever it might be, I want you to move beyond it and actually figure out how you would handle it. And a really good way to do this too, is like you’ve may have noticed, like sometimes in business, you’ll have people do like SWOT analysis for their business, right?
So you could do this with your fears as well, and actually go okay, what’s the possible threat? Is there any weaknesses? Is there anything that could happen? And actually do the fear analysis around it and look at going okay, so how would I handle it if it happened? Because it’s possible, like you could put it, you could put an offer out there no one buys it. So move beyond it, instead of actually letting it come to fruition and then stop, learn to actually move beyond it and go, Okay, so how can I handle it detail exactly how you would handle it? Then ask yourself, how would I prevent this from happening? And you could learn so much in the journey of actually exploring that, and ask yourself, would you make peace with that happening?
Hayley Osborne:
Yeah, I often say to, it’s your ability to move through the things that define you. And, they’re not going to kill you, but they are going to make you stronger, but you have to be strong enough to, to move through it. And how you do that. So working on your mindset and working on what those fears actually are, is like a vessel to help you deal with it. Often, though, we don’t do that.
Christine Corcoran:
Yeah, you’re right. And I think it’s one of those things that if you do take the time to actually do it, it is the biggest game changer in your business, because of the fact that everything and like mindset underpins everything. Every decision that you make every every choice that you make every day about how you’re going to show up, what you’re telling yourself, and the way that you portray yourself, the way you sell yourself, right through to how you charge like it is in every part of your business. And when you start to explore the mindset stuff, you don’t realise how much it’s impacting so many areas of your life. It’s not just one little thing in your business, it’s all areas. But yeah, the working truth and shifting the fears can make a big difference in your business. And it also changes the way that you think about yourself.
So one of the biggest things with business, I think, is yes, dealing with the highs and lows and how you are with yourself how you’re kind to yourself in the low moments, because that’s actually how you get back up. So the way that I think about doing this is actually separating yourself from your business. Because if you make every failure mean that you are a failure, then no one would want to get back up after that, right?
Like, if every judgement, if you make it about you, then you’ll actually take it to heart and make it personally about you, which is not going to serve you in any way shape or form, separating your business and saying, Okay, so let’s say an offer was put out or whatever a social media post, like anything, I could I look at it from a separate thing of like, this is the entity of my business, and I need to understand what it needs. And I need to understand, okay, so how did it not work for my customer, rather than going, Oh, it was me, everyone hates me, I’m just gonna give up, I’m gonna go get a job like, so easily spiral out of control and make it about us.
But we with a strong mindset and a strong sense of who you are, once you eradicate those limiting belief systems, about yourself and about money and about success, you actually can see that as a separate thing, and not take it personally anymore.
Hayley Osborne:
It’s very clever. And I definitely feel that every business owner does need this work, it’s really important because you put this out into the world, you know, like it is reflected in you the way that you show up in your business, the way that you converse with people the way that you appear on your stories, the way that you write your content. It’s really, really important. And I often say that, you know, with marketing, so say like, your website, for example, reflects what your socials are like, and then reflects what you are in person to meet and reflects what how you, you know, go live and like everything is like a summary.
And all it takes is one little thing to you know, get that kind of spiralling out of control. And that’s where the mindset comes in. So I do feel like there is a place for this in every business owners life. So what in terms of let’s talk about impostor syndrome, and I know what that means to me and you know, different ways to overcome that but just coming from you, like the expert,, what is that? And how does that appear in our lives? And what should we do to not feel like imposters in our own industry? Like, I guess it’s mindset too, but it is, it’s two words that are quite large.
Christine Corcoran:
So firstly, I think identifying when impostor syndrome actually shows up for you. So there’s two kind of frames to this one. impostor syndrome shows up when you are growing, when you’re stepping outside your comfort zone, you’re doing things you’ve never done before, it is expected and it is normal for it to show up then. So you almost want to expect it like actually let it be there and go, this is normal. It’s like the part of the journey like we know that we’re going to have to fail at a couple of things in order for something to succeed, right? So same thing with imposter syndrome, we need to actually expect that that’s part of the journey, right? Like, as I’m stepping outside of my comfort zone, the imposter syndrome language. And the dialogue that’s happening in your brain is just a safety mechanism, right? It’s there to protect you. And so as you’re stepping outside your comfort zone, it’s going oh, I don’t know, if you’re ready for this.
What if they think you’re a fraud, oh, my goodness, you’re not gonna think you’re good enough for this. You may not, I think you’re experienced enough. Like all of that fear is fear based language that is there to protect you. So as you’re growing, and you’re stepping outside your comfort zone, and you’re pushing to that next precipice of growth in your business, it’s natural. So I just want to point that out that you just know that you are not alone. Everyone experiences that there is not a person on the planet that I’ve met, that doesn’t experience it. And if they don’t experience it, it means they are not growing, if they’re literally doing the same thing day in day out comfortable as hell.
So trust me that if you are experiencing, it’s probably means that you’re growing second to it to this, if you experience it on a regular basis, where it’s even when you’re doing things that you’re comfortable doing that you’ve done many times before, that you’re quite confident in doing. But you also have a spiral of imposter syndrome, that’s more likely to be a deep seated belief system that’s been embedded in your psyche for quite a long time. So it might not be something that you can necessarily shift on your own. And this is where obviously working with a transformational coach like myself, to do the subconscious processes to shift that would be beneficial. And I think that if it becomes that consistent pattern of thought in your brain regularly, then you definitely want to work on shifting that right, because it’s going to obviously impact you long term. Now, I like to use the imposter syndrome as a way to create more growth. So know that it’s going to show up for you when you’re growing, you’re doing something you’ve never done before. If I haven’t experienced the imposter syndrome in the last month or two, I know I’m not growing, right? So I actually seek it out and ask myself the question of like, okay, what could I do this week that would challenge the imposter syndrome that actually activate that within me?
Hayley Osborne:
I love that. I love that way of looking at it, bring it on.
Christine Corcoran:
Exactly, you can actually use it as your superpower in that way. So you can actually challenge yourself to be like, Oh, what’s something I could do this week that would really like turn that impostor syndrome up, like it would just become this stereo. And it might be putting myself in a new room with people that are very successful, it might be putting something out that I’ve never spoken about before, it might be speaking on a topic that I feel like I’m not really the expert on. But I know that I need to practice speaking on it right, in order to get good at it. It might be, going to an event that you’ve never been to before that feels out of out of your league, right? There’s so many different things that you could do in depending on your experience, where it might activate the imposter syndrome. And so when you have the tools to work through that impostor while it’s happening, and it’s easier to actually seek it out, but often we again, it’s a fear that shows up where we literally go, oh, no, I’m scared, I’m going to go back to where I’m comfortable and small. We’ve got to change that relationship with fear. So it’s more of one of those that helps grow us rather than keep us safe all the time.
Hayley Osborne:
There’s, there’s some real kapow things going on with what you’ve said. And just while I think of it, too, if our listeners are thinking, oh, my God, Christine, how can I actually work with you? How can how can we work with you, I want you to tell us.
Christine Corcoran:
So there’s two different ways that I work with clients. One is through my signature programme, which is called elevated, which is all about elevating your self worth your money and your business. So this is my nine week programme that I take clients through is a live group coaching experience. So if you’re wanting to work on your mindset, and it’s as the first kind of introduction to mindset, and do you want to take your business to the next level, that would be my first initial place to start. I run that three times a year. Otherwise, we feel like you’re on that next precipice of growth. And you may have already done a bit of personal development work before or maybe you’ve done group programmes before and you feel like you’ve done them all. Then it’s time to then do one on one. So one on one is going to be much more personalised experience.
I do a business empowerment programme, which is a journey that I take my clients on, which is literally unpacking your current blueprint of your mindset right now, and then we look at where you want to go. And we figure out, okay, what do we need to shift in order for you to believe that you are that person that creates those outcomes. So we’re literally elevating and changing your mindset and doing a lot of deep internal processes to shift that. So you can take things to the next level. And that’s the next level of work, if that makes sense. That’s for clients who are really ready, really ready to go to that next level. And they are willing to look within to actually go hang on a minute, how am I holding myself back, and then you just come and join me and I take you through, and it’s quite a beautiful experience, at the same time as a whole level, like a whole new level, like a client’s at the end of that journey, are usually turning around and saying to me, I don’t know who I was back then. Or I feel like a whole new person. And that’s the whole purpose of it.
Hayley Osborne:
It sounds really empowering. I can say, now, what’s in store for you? What is in store for you in the next 12 months in your business? Tell the audience can you tell us like what is what’s going on.
Christine Corcoran:
I run my elevator programme three times a year, and then I’m doing a lot more in person in person experiences. So I also have a high level mastermind, which is actually only open to clients that have worked with me before, it’s not a public thing. So you either need to have gone through elevated or my one on one journey, or my retreats in order to join the mastermind. And so I am taking that mastermind a little bit more experience based next year, which I’m super excited for. So I’ll have a couple of retreats throughout the year. And the mastermind is very much my focus on, creating some beautiful connection experiences and in person because we’ve been missing out on that for so long now. Everyone’s super craving it. So I have our end of year event happening in December. And then we’re brand new event in the beginning of the year. So lots of fun in person stuff, which I love. I absolutely love the in person stuff. And I’m also writing a book. I’m almost three quarters done. And then just working on all the ins and outs. So there’ll be a launch party event and a transformational event attached with the book launch. So I’m mapping all that out at the moment.
Hayley Osborne:
2023 Look out. That’s exciting. Congratulations. Wow. Yeah. So if the listeners where can they find you?
Christine Corcoran:
So I hang out most on Instagram. So if you’re listening to the podcast, and you want to come hang out, come and find me @christinecorcoran_coach. I’d love it if you could send me a DM and let me know what you took away from this chat. Because it means such so much to us. podcasters because we feel like we’re just chatting to each other or by ourselves. Yeah. So it’s always nice to hear from people who listen to the podcast. So yeah, mainly on Instagram. Otherwise, yes. I’m on all the other platforms, the same handle everywhere on YouTube, on Facebook, on LinkedIn. And my website is my name christinecorcora.com.au.
Hayley Osborne:
Christine, this has been such an awesome chat. Thank you so much for taking the time to come in to chat with me to empower the listeners to shift those mindset blocks and move through things quicker. And if they want to work with you, I will also put the links in the show notes to the episode so you’d that can be found on my website, but such an amazing chat. Thank you so much.
Christine Corcoran: Thanks, Hayley. It’s been so fun, and I can’t wait to have you on my podcast too.
Links
Christine Corcoran Instagram
Christine Corcoran Website
Hayley Osborne Facebook
Hayley Osborne Instagram
