Women Entrepreneurs: Stop Playing Safe and Start Owning Success

Welcome to Did She Really Say That? The podcast for women who are done following the traditional business rules that don't service. I am your host, Katrina Van Out, who's done in every episode, we break down what it really takes to scale your business as a woman. No burnout, no BS, no apologies. So if you're ready to discover how your natural female intelligence can become your biggest and most authentic advantage, grab your free guide at createherplanner.com forward slash free. Now let's dive into today's episode. Well, welcome to Did She Really Say That? And Susie's on with us today because, you know, there's one thing that we don't tap into as women is our own intuition. And I love the conversations we're going to have around the wise women, some of her stress reducing techniques that we're going to go over because you know me. I love as we've been building out and using the create her planner as women as collective learning a new way of planning a new way of living into our natural embodied cycle. Some of that looks at what is our bodies doing? How are we monitoring that? How are we really regulating that? And that's why one of the reasons I invited Susie here not only because she ties into our concept and supports what we're doing around the create her planner, but she also is going to give you another layer around this on really what you want to be looking at. How do you reduce that stress that we all deal with as women and really getting back into your body? So who the heck is Susie? I'm so glad you asked. She's excited to be here with us. So she's a certified professional coach energy. Wait, she's a certified leadership. See, I'm screwing this up and having fun doing this. All right. So who is Susie again? We'll get back into this. certified professional coach. She's an energy leadership index master practitioner. So let me say that again. She's an energy leadership index master practitioner. I think that's fantastic. We'll dive a little bit into that background with her. She's a certified facilitator of trauma informed body mind program and the creator of the wise woman, giving women the ability to rise, feel empowered and to truly thrive as their most authentic and human self, right? She helps women interrupt the stress response cycle, reconnect with your bodies. And ladies, you know, every time we talk about this on this podcast, did she really say that? We're talking about getting back into your bodies, reconnecting, getting out of your head, getting back in to remember who you are before the world really told us who we should have be. And that's, you know, you know how I feel about shitting. We should not be shitting all over the place, okay? So she believed that growth happens in communities. She's aligned with me on that one. The more community connected we are, the better. Clarity comes from curiosity, not control. And that we can always find a way back home to ourselves if we learn to listen. So Susie, thank you for joining us and being with us here today. I'm excited to have you here. Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here as well. This is my first podcast experience, and I could not be more thrilled that it is with you, Katrina. Ah, we're going to have some fun. So I want to dive in first a little bit. What is an Energy Leadership Index Master Practitioner? I think that's the one question everyone said there when they heard me say that, which is why I repeated it twice. It was like, what is that? I don't even think I've ever heard that until I met you. So explain. Sure. So the Energy Leadership Index is actually an assessment. I know a lot of folks out there probably know like the Myers-Briggs or the Clifton Strengths. So the ELI, that's the short version, it's a Forbes top ranked yada yada assessment. It's research backed, but it's very different from those other assessments that I named because it is attitudinal. It acknowledges that we as human beings have the ability to change. We are not fixed. And that's what I really love about this assessment. And what it does is it shows you how you show up on a typical day across seven different energy levels, and then how you show up under stress under those same seven energy levels. And it can be usually the way that I use the ELI is that I work with people, take the assessment and then they get a one-on-one debrief with me where we really dive into the results. And more women have used, which I find this fascinating, the exact same phrase of amazingly accurate to describe that debrief experience, which, you know, goes really well on a like a LinkedIn post. It truly is eye opening and helps people think about stress in a different way and also possibility in a different way. well and i think it's interesting too because as i've talked with women and i've met women that run companies they don't necessarily like the title the ceo like chief executive officer i've heard everything from like chief emotional officer chief energy officer like i've actually heard the it was women were shifting that language and a lot of women are really drawn to the energy element of leadership and i think that's really where i i when i asked this question about what it is and you said, you know, it's about the, it's not a fixed. I think that's one of my biggest issues with so many assessments. It's like a fixed moment in time or a moment of when, which you were born. Like some of these are like the human design and I'm not bashing anything for those that are huge of it. So I've had you on my podcast, but it's a fixed moment of when you entered into the space, but who you are as you evolve gives you that opportunity to really look beyond. It's like, well, who do I want to become? And I think that's the other element that we have in this conversation is who am I becoming? So that is really fascinating. You talk about like the energy, how your stress relates to that. And so this really, you're diving into stress regulation now with women, because I know that's a big piece of this. So talk to me about how you're kind of what you're noticing as you're working with women, what are some of the techniques that you're developing that help women kind of interrupt that stress cycle? Thank you so much for that question. So I definitely rely on the Energy Leadership Index to kind of provide women with a baseline of here's how you're showing up and also a framework for talking about it in a different way, right? Because sometimes I've learned through the work that I do with women is that when you just throw things at them and everything is wide open, it's overwhelming and it actually triggers that stress response. And so bringing some structure to a conversation creates a boundary. And boundaries for me are all about creating space for exploration. I might have strayed away from your question a little bit. No, you're perfect. You're perfectly on the question because it is, it gives women the ability to look at, okay, what am I reacting to in this situation? What am I saying to myself? How's my body responding? I think that's one of the big things for me. I've come to recognize, even in myself. This was my like, interruption four years ago, three, four years ago, was like, I got off a call with my, my mentor, my business partner, my coach, and I was like, what are we doing to go to the next level? What are we doing to scale and everything that fell out of his mouth just sounded like exhausting. And at the same time, I know it was triggering some stress inside of me. But it all felt up here. And this down here felt numb. yes yes yes totally so why was that whole body experience numb like tell me what was going on so let's break down a little bit how stress keeps women small okay okay so i mean we're gonna look at it through the four key stress responses which are freeze fawn flight i'm sorry fight and flee fawn by the way a lot of people don't know about that one but i did when you said thought I was like, wait, are we talking like deer? And that's where my brain went. So talk to us. So let's, let's start at the top and break down each of these four, uh, stress responses that we're experiencing. Totally. So fawn, this is what we show up as people, pleasing women, apologizing constantly, trying to meet everyone else's expectations, trying to mold themselves into what they think others want them to be. And it is all for self-protection. All of these are for self-protection, by the way. Okay, I'm going to stop you right here at Fawn. How many women in this audience, they were just listening to that go, because I just felt myself go, God, where's my hand, right? Like you just described me to a T So okay So Fawn so that the over over having to serve serve everybody Okay Yeah Having to show up as the life of the party you know all of the ways that we show up for others and leave ourselves at the door. Okay. So the next one, let's talk about freezing. So this is basically holding back, staying silent when you have something to say, not taking action on your dreams, keeping yourself in the background. Fleeing is very similar. It's really about avoiding being seen, running away, like from the moments when you actually do have an opportunity to speak up, being so terrified you run. You just let others take the spotlight. You make yourself invisible, even when you deserve recognition. And then I can see that showing up also in personal relationships. Like I'm thinking to myself, there have been times where I flee. So instead of being willing to go into the conversation, I'd rather retreat and hide from the conversation. I mean, I'm just totally pointing out myself because that's that's my. OK, so fleeing. So we got fawn, freeze, fleeing. And the last one is fight. Now, for women, I find this shows up often a little bit differently. Like women in general, we are not socialized to get into actual confrontations. We tend to be conflict avoidant. But what I see with my clients is a constant state of vigilance. So one of my coaches, I love her, the analogy that she uses. She said, picture a cat back arched, ready to pounce on guard, no matter what. So this is what we often do. This is our way of fighting. It's tensed up, always on guard, holding a protective stance just in case. and this is absolutely exhausting for our nervous systems. Another image is like when my mother, remember once we traveled to a big city and at night, it was a big city she wasn't used to. And she literally put keys in her knuckles so that if she had to punch somebody, it would like poke them. And my mother has probably never punched anyone in her entire life, but she's ready to, she's got those extra keys ready to go in her fist. So that on guard feeling is the way that we get our fight out into it. And we often also, by the way, fight shows up internally within ourselves. It shows up through blaming, complaining, frustration, and I mean, all of that. Yeah. And the bottom line is that when we're overwhelmed by stress, we're in reaction mode and we're not making conscious choices. We're just operating from our nervous system instead of from our wise mind. And we do that too, even as women, as entrepreneurs, like when we're looking at businesses and all the options and opportunities that we can do for our business, we create that internal stress factor for ourselves too, because we want to do it perfectly. We want this sense of perfection. I think that plays into a lot of the stress that we deal with as women too, is this we have to look be act a certain way we're so we are internally just beating ourselves up over everything so yeah i can i can definitely do that so you're talking about love this phrase too so we've kind of been on this journey with you we know what this assessment that you say is like the base core right it's energy leadership it's that energy leadership index you want to look at taking that as a woman go through find out what is that piece and then when you work with suzy she dives you deeper into it makes you understand it's like yeah that's me kind of a thing and then we're talking you through like how to like um like how to interrupt that stress so what are some of the things and I know we started talking about the wise woman we'll get to wise women just wait a minute women just hold on it's coming but let's talk about those stress interrupters so now that you've defined the four and I felt myself just get up and I love the cat analogy because I can definitely see that like always on guard in the world that even in the world of dating which I'm in right now I feel like I'm always on guard too so I can see we're letting that go and releasing so what are some of your tips uh for the stress stress interruption piece okay so I use four main skills okay now I have there's a million others that I include in the course different ways of tapping into this but I've grouped my core techniques under a little acronym called BEST, Turtle Fire's Best Tool. And each letter stands for a practice. Now, I would like to say I did not invent these things, right? There's probably a million other people who practice these, but I do try to make them easier to remember and group together. So all of the practices are important, but B and E combined are really the most impactful. B stands for breath. everybody's everybody's like oh my god stop talking about breathing right like people hold up I'm gonna stop everyone's breath let me let me just talk about this Susie do we have a little story right before we jumped onto this podcast you'd like to share totally yes I have never been on a podcast before so I came in I'm like oh my gosh I'm so nervous I've been to the bathroom a million times my nervous system is a little anxious right and you I love this about you You cued me into breath, which is so demonstrative of how often we need the support of others to bring us into things that we already know, right? Because when we're in that triggered mode, it's difficult to practice. I will say I probably would have breathed on my own, but I love that you told me to because it helped me know that I would have the space to do that, right? without having to advocate for myself. And so I just want to say thank you for that. You're welcome. And it's that acknowledgement too for all of the audience that's listening and our listeners here. We are in the work and yet we do need reminders. And I think that's the sisterhood. That's the community. It's like Susie breathe. And if I, same thing, if I came on and I was like, Susie, I'm going, you'd be like, what do you got? You know, like take a moment to breathe. So as a community, as women, it's acknowledging that and just saying, okay, it's okay to take a breath. Like we're not expecting you to jump from one activity into the next, into the next. and like really creating that safe space to be and to take those moments. Okay. So your best practice is breathe. So breathe is the first one. What's, what are we looking at for the second one? So I like to combine, to combine B with E and E stands for emotions in the body. So often we are disconnected from our bodies, as you mentioned earlier, and I think you did a visual, you're living up here in the head. And so the E really invites us to tune into our body sensations. And the breath helps us to create a break so that we can do that. And our brain wants to avoid feeling anything in the body. It really is like, no, no, no, no. Let's solve this problem. Let's get going. Let's take some action. Because often the sensations that come up in our body aren't very comfortable. Right? They just don't always. Yes, often. Okay. Yes. Yeah. So when we pause, breathe, and tune into our body's sensations, we are giving our body the opportunity, opportunity to listen to our body. And we're giving our body the message that we care and that we are listening. Now, in the beginning, the body doesn't always talk. You might tune in and experience total numbness. You're just like, whatever, this stupid lady told me to tune in. I got nothing. And then our mind takes over and starts to judge ourselves and do all of those crazy things. This is stupid. What am I doing? This feels awkward. There's something wrong with me. Yeah, something wrong with me. Yes. But the more that we just be with that numbness, the more the body starts to build trust and we build trust in our body. and the more that we start to notice our sensations when we build that relationship with our body and vice versa our body building that relationship with us then we're actually able to tap into our intuition our inner wisdom more easily and we learn also that our emotions and our body sensations are not going to kill us They not out to get us You basically teaching your body that it safe to be in your body Yes And I think that really hit home for me just listening to you say that. It's like how many times as a woman do you not feel safe in your own body? And when you don't tap in, when you don't listen, and like I said, even inside of the Create Her Planner, when we do the accountability, when we tap in, we actually ask you to get back in tune with your body because it's such a basic element of being a woman that we've suppressed and shut down because we've been told we don't feel safe. We've been criticized. So we don't feel safe in our body. So how do we have let somebody else help us or be feel safe around them if we don't feel safe ourselves? That's really key. Yeah, I think also, when I remember when we talked about your planner, and you were talking about how we kind of live in this man's world on this man's timeline. And the truth is, is that we also try to adopt men's way of doing things, which tends to be focused in the brain and just leaves the intuition out the window. And I don't want to, you know, offend anyone out there, but that is just how our society functions. And so, and we miss out on so much wisdom when we ignore our wisdom within because women carry so much wisdom. Amen. Okay. So let's get back in and put this. So we've got, we've got breath. We've have the emotions in your body. I think that's really, it's not just the emotions you're feeling with emotions in your body. What is the S and the T? So the S is senses. Now I would say this is really good also when you're having a hard time doing the E or when you're having it, when you need more than just breath, right? Because the goal with everything is to pause, create space to tune in. But if you only just pause, then you are just inviting that freeze response to come in. So you can't pause alone. You have to pause and do something. And for some people, breath is really hard, but senses are easier. So you pick one sense that you're going to focus on. One of my favorites is to literally hold up your hand and combine breath with senses. So what we're going to do, Katrina, would you like to do this with me? Yes, please. Is trace your finger up your thumb and breathe in and then breathe out as you come down. Now notice what it feels like the touch, Breathe in as you go up the next finger. Breathe out as you come down. Breathe in and up, noticing what it feels like to actually touch your skin. Experience that touch as you continue to breathe through the rest of the fingers. And when you bring a mindfulness to that activity, and you're truly with it, you're in tune with your senses, you're connected physically to your body. You are also inviting calm through the breath. And you can pick any sense. The thing that I love about this one too, is that you can bring it. I mean, really all of these you can bring anywhere. So you can be in the middle of a job interview and want to calm your nervous system and bring your attention to your touch and notice what it feels like to touch your hands in your lap, for example, or bring your attention to listening and just a moment of bringing yourself into the present moment awareness. And that's what the goal is connected through your, through your body, one of your body's senses. Yeah. I love that you do that because I think as women, the one thing we, we avoid is actually touch of ourselves. there is something that we have been taught whether innately or down but the idea of physically touch holding experiencing your body is like a forbidden type of a thing so i it's really interesting as you do this and i know you do this inside of the the wise women cohort like this is your part of your nine week transformation and really having women truly experience this shift and transformation around breaking the stress cycle, becoming more embodied literally in themselves and understanding that through your methodology. And there's one interesting thing that we chatted about. You said like of the first group and you're continuing this, right? So this is all my listeners, all the audience out there. This is something I truly would recommend stepping into with Susie is step into this wise woman, because there is, like she said, and you've mentioned it, Susie, there is a wisdom trapped right now inside our body as women. So what has been the, I guess, the outcome of the women that have gone through your program so far? This was an interesting and fascinating statistic that I'm just curious as it continues to evolve what it will be looking like. Thank you so much for asking that. So I do a pre and a post, right? Because I do them. There is a part of me that recognizes that a lot of people care about data. And you have a little bit of a background in data collection. So we're good. Like we want this in here. So yes. Over 70% of the participants in the first round of wise women reported at the end that they were had improved their ability to manage stress. And over 70% improved their connection to and their relationship with their bodies. I love that. And more that the majority reported that on a typical day, percentage of that day that they felt alive and engaged increased over the course. And I really feel like that's kind of my dream is that women feel alive and engaged and connected. And some experienced nearly 100% increases in daily vitality. I mean, I will tell you some of the women moved up by 300% their connection to their body. I can see that even in that little exercise for those that were not watching and are listening. And we did the hand to breath exercise. And I do invite you to trace and do that work for yourself, even in that few minutes that it takes, right? Less than 30 seconds, maybe 90 seconds. But there is a beauty in that when you're able to really combine those elements of what you're talking about, like the best. and inside of that emotional intelligence and just getting back to the wiseness that's innately held in our bodies as women and seeing that come through. So this has been, as for our audience, come play. Because I hear all the time, there's a lot of talk around, oh, do breath work, do this. But what I love about what you're doing, Susie, is like you're combining the modalities. And I think so many times, and I love our men out there, you know I do, but I think sometimes we segment everything. So we're trying to prove one piece of the puzzle. But humans are complex beings. We're not one thing and one thing only. So I think when you start siloing all these modalities, but you're not letting them breathe and cross barriers and weave together, you're actually doing more harm than good. And so I like where you're like, no, let's blend this together. Let's bring these things in. Let's look at what stress response is specifically in women, right? how do we tap back into our intuition create our safe space in our own bodies so that that radiates out because I will tell you this woman when you start feeling safe in your own body you will start increasing your attraction to the things you want and the desires you want in your life but it does start with you would you agree Susie it starts with the women first totally okay yes I completely agree. All right. So this is a podcast called, did she really say that? Right. And you've said some things already that had me go, Hmm, need to know, right. Has there been a moment as you've coached women, as you're kind of going through this journey in your business where you've said something and the woman looked, you go like, holy crap, did she just really say that? Yeah. So I think that happens often in coaching because all the time it all about helping And I would say Often it happens around boundaries A lot of women come to me and when they talk about like a boundary they talking about trying to externally control someone. And the, the, did she really say that is, oh no, no, no, no. Boundaries are not about other people. They're not for other people. boundaries are for you boundaries are about creating space for you to feel safe enough to heal and you can't trust that other people are going to do what you say you have to be the one to take the action and to maintain the boundary and when I've had these conversations with women there is like a big aha that goes off in their heads and then we dive deeper and I help them actually learn how to set and maintain boundaries. And it's through that action of maintaining their boundaries, that I get to witness their confidence bloom, their sense of power bloom. And it's so beautiful to witness. So what's next for you, Susie? What's next for your business? And how can those that are listening, get to know you take part in your programs and really take this to the next level. Thank you so much for asking that, Katrina. So let's see what's next for me. Well, I am continuing to run wise women rise and power thrive. It's a nine week group coaching program for women who are exactly, you know, kind of what we've been talking about today, functional, capable, holding it together on the outside, but like running on empty on the inside and women who are stuck in those stress response cycles that we talked about, the fawning, the freezing, the fleeing, and women who are ready to interrupt that pattern for good. So I run Rise Women both in person in the Boston area and online. And online is kind of cool. When I've run it, I've had people from all over the world. Like somebody was zooming in from Zambia, right? And that's Anyway, it just, it was fun. So women can join from anywhere. And I also have something else, like for people who want to taste before they commit to anything, I have this really fun quiz that I've created called what's your mind's default mode. It helps you identify which stress pattern is running the show for you. So I think we talked earlier, I can't remember about the wise mind and how we have a rational mind and emotional mind, and then the wise mind. And a lot of times we're ping-ponging between the rational and the emotional because of our stress response, where the wise mind is where we're really going to be the most powerful in the world, the most successful, also the most confident and calm and really be able to have a deeper impact and feel more connected to ourselves. And so this quiz will kind of just show you where you tend to hang out? Are you rational? Are you, you know, that's like our emotional verse. Are you an emotional feeler? Or are you what I like to call the weather vane, you're spinning, depending on the direction of what's happening in your life back and forth. Or maybe you are already a way finder. And the way finder is somebody that is really on their way to spending much more time in their wise mind. So that quiz is kind of an eye opening place to start. And so that's, that's what I'm most excited about right now. I definitely recommend everybody to take that quiz, because I went through it with Susie, I went through it. And I was like, I even asked you specifically, because I did it with you, like, well, you were sitting here, and we're going through this before we got onto this podcast. And I was like, Okay, let me go through this. And I said, you know, there are times when I would have been this, I would have responded this way. And you're like, no, where are you at right now? Because I could see myself in all of the answers, right? And I think that's where when you answer this is your most authentic self, you can say, okay, really, where what happens in these moments? And I love the specificity of the question. I love the types of responses that you you ask for, because it really does even from my own perspective, not only did I take it and go, okay, like, this is cool to see where I'm at now. But also in that reflective of seeing where I had been, and just the journey that I've been on in this whole process, becoming a wayfinder to becoming a wise woman, like, it hasn't been freaking easy. This is not the simplest thing. So definitely take the quiz. For all of our listeners, It's going to benefit you. And then continue to connect with Susie around this because, you know, being a wise woman, we have so much always going on in our life. And just being able to talk with you and listen to it and hear other women and what they're experiencing gives us a sense that we're not alone. And I think too many times as women in high achieving that are always carrying so much and doing a lot of the invisible work, we don't recognize. And I think this is that mirror that comes up with working with you. that's like, hey, this is okay. And these are some of the ways you can work through this. And I think that's the beauty of what you create. And nine weeks isn't like a lifetime commitment, but a sense of really understanding that wise woman mind and how to get there quicker when you go through decisions in your life. And so that's why for my listeners, definitely connect with Susie on this. what do you see next for your business in the next year? Yeah, so I'm planning to continue running and growing the Wise Women movement. I'm calling it a movement. It's gonna be a movement and offering that more. Oh, I have ideas for the next courses, because definitely there's interest people who just finished my in person cohort that I ended more recently have already asked, okay, wait, where's the next course? What's happening? And I do have ideas for that. So I'm going to be building that out soon and just helping more women kind of get out of their own way. So they are able to show up from a place of confidence and empowerment. And I'm super excited about it. I love it. It's fun for me. It's fun for the women in the course. I mean, it is a deep course, but we also have fun. In fact, one of the women who most recently finished, she talked about how she realized in the course that she doesn't play anymore and how much she misses that sense of play. And we incorporate kind of playful aspects into this course. So it is certainly we dive deep and sometimes tears come out. and also we play and explore and enter a space that allows for more creativity and intuition and all of that so honoring what it means to be a woman so thank you for that so for all of our listeners you know the drill it's go out and share this if there is something that Susie said throughout this entire podcast episode and you're like that resonated if you've ever experienced any of those uh fawn what is it fawn freeze fleas fight fight and you're thinking to yourself i know another woman that would benefit from hearing from this then invite her to listen share this podcast episode with her the more women that we connect with the more that we share then we start to understand what it is to be a woman and especially how to become that wise woman that as a collective, you women out there, when you understand this, it would shift the world on its axis and totally transform everything that we know. You are the power force. You are the one. And that's why I have guests like Susie on this podcast. Did she really say that? So thank you for joining. Leave a comment. What was your best takeaway from this episode? And we look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Bye everyone. If today's conversation hit home, don't just listen, take the next step. Download the free Create Her Authentically Guide at createherplanner.com forward slash free and discover how to build your business in alignment with your natural rhythm. And if you love this episode, please leave a review. It helps more women find the show. I'll see you in the next episode.