Episode Summary

Jenna breaks down the detriment of people pleasing as an entrepreneur and offers an alternative.

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Show Notes

Women are often encouraged to be obedient, nurturing, and stay small. But your business needs you to show up authentically as your most powerful self. As an entrepreneur, it is essential to build your decision muscles.

With practice, you can fully trust your decisions rather than question them. "Just because energy" and your inner "yes" are powerful tools that align you with your brain and gut knowledge.

This week I share how to tune into your internal compass and access your truth as you move away from “explaining energy.” Learn how to be big, brave, and aligned with your truth.

What You’ll Learn From This Episode:

• How to move past seeking approval.

• What “just because” energy is.

• Why “explaining energy” is detrimental.

• The difference between justifying and knowing.

• How to make quick decisions.

Listen to the Full Episode:

Featured on the Show:

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• Burnt Toast by Teri Hatcher

• Blink: The power of thinking without thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

Full Episode Transcript:

Okay, quick quiz. Can you think of three reasons that you charge what you charge? Can you think of three reasons that you're making a specific change in your business? Okay, now, final question: Do you feel like you need to explain that to anyone? Your clients, your partner, your friends, your family, your coach? Well, what if you only had one reason, and that reason is “because”. Welcome to ““just because”” energy and strap in for the ride.

You're listening to The Uncommon Way Business and Life Coaching Podcast, the only podcast that helps you unlock your next level in business and life by prioritizing your clarity and your own Uncommon Way. You will learn to maximize your mindset, mission, messaging, and strategy in order to create a true legacy. Here's your host, top-ranked business coach, and reformed over-analyzer turned queen of clarity, Jenna Harrison.

Hello, everyone, welcome back to The Uncommon Way. So, there was this experience recently that brought on a good dose of shame for me. I was being interviewed on a podcast, and the host had me doing a lightning round. I was supposed to answer these 10 questions as quickly as I could, whatever came to my mind.

One of his final questions was… I don't know, he was bringing in some sort of Avengers superhero. I'll probably get the story all wrong. But apparently, there's some character there, and if you put on this special glove, then you can have anything that you want come true in the world. That's how the world will be.

I guess, for this one person, he wouldn't die, but normally, when you make this kind of wish you would give your life. You would die, but then this world would change in the way that you wanted it to. I don't know, it was something like that. So, he was asking me what my wish would be if I had this glove on, or if anything at all.

In that moment, I was trying to, of course, figure out what the story was. But in that moment, I said, “No, I wouldn't give my life. I love life. In fact, I think there's so much beauty in the ups and downs of human experience. And that's something I wouldn't want to change.” So, yes, I did that. I said that. I said that the world can just go on suffering about its own business, because I'm not going to give my life to stop any of it.

I can just imagine my dad up in heaven shaking his head, career military, right? I've, of course, married into the military as well. I'm surrounded by military here, living on a military base. And the values are very clear, we know what we'll give our lives for.

Sometimes, unfortunately, that gets corrupted by the politicians who have final say on where lives are put at risk. But we're people who are willing to sacrifice for the greater good.

So now, I'm going to tell you what was going on behind the scenes. I was having some strange physical symptoms, and my doctor had me go in for a diagnostic test. And then he called back and he was like, “Yeah, we need to get you in for a biopsy as soon as possible.” And so, because of the symptoms, and because of my doctor's urgency, I really was feeling a lot of fear about this.

Usually, when there's some diagnostic thing, I don't think the worse until I have any information to make me feel upset. But something landed, something about this just landed in a certain way that really brought up a lot of fears for me about worst case. And in that moment, when he asked me that question, I remembered just looking at my son that morning, and feeling emotional.

I remembered just saying, “No. No, I do not take the bait. I don't take the challenge. I don't say anything. I don't give my life. I love my life. I want to be here.” So, why am I telling you all of this? It's because the topic of this podcast is “just because” energy. It's about tuning into your own internal compass and being willing to let that move through you, unapologetically.

And yet, after that happened, y'all, my first urge was to explain and apologize. Which there is definitely room for, right? But that needs to come from reflection and retuning, rather than this knee-jerk urge to garner the good favor of those around us and never be perceived as wrong in any way. And I had that knee-jerk urge to explain this.

But I also had the knee-jerk urge to just do what the host asked me to do. Right? So, note to self, I shall be politely declining lightning round questions from now on. Especially those pertaining to life and death.

Look, as we get into the meat of this podcast, I just want you to know that I am not saying all of this from way up here on my high horse. I mean, I have made a lot of progress on this front, and I'm very, very happy about it. I definitely do these kinds of things a lot less than I used to. But it does tend to kick up again in new situations, or at different levels.

Now that I'm doing the podcast circuit, it means new levels of exposure, and a part of my brain reads that as a threat and perceives vulnerability. And then what happens, I'm right back to explaining again. Giving you all the details about why I said what I said on that podcast. “Actually, I'm really a good person, and there were these extreme circumstances.”

I remember I had this urge to explain myself just minutes after ending the podcast. And that was the final question, by the way. I caught myself with this urge and went, “Oh, yeah. Yeah, I need to talk about this while it's fresh.” Because I see it running rampant in the women entrepreneur space. I see it on so many of my discovery calls with potential clients.

Because what most of us do, instead of living in what I call “just because” energy, where we've shed the need to justify our words, our actions, and our decisions. Instead of living in that, we're living in its opposite, explaining energy. So, let's talk about it.

Let's talk about how it sneaks into so many things, and what that's costing us. And what happens when we shift into our “just because” selves, and how to start to do it.

Now the roots of this won't come as a surprise to any of us, I think. But we spend so much of our lives seeking approval from our parents, our teachers, our hiring managers, our bosses, our partners. And we get that approval through our words, our actions, and our decisions. But also, through explaining our words, our actions, and our decisions.

It's like we need to double down, or cover our bases, especially as women in this culture. And so naturally, we then go out into business carrying all of that with us. It's not like when you start your company you become this bold, confident entrepreneur overnight. You bring your brain with you.

Like, “This is my pros and cons list. I'm weighing all the options logically. This will be my ROI. And this is the smart adulting thing I do if I really have a good head for business; which I don't actually believe I do. Because I've been told since I was a little girl that women aren't as good with numbers or logical decision making as men,” right? We're too emotional.

And so, we need to fear and distrust anything that we just know, or that we desire. Those are very dangerous words historically for women, knowledge and desire. Both meant you'd probably live a more difficult life than the blissfully ignorant and completely satisfied woman next to you. Because you should just be a good little nurturer that doesn't make waves.

But of course, this works against us as entrepreneurs. And here are just a few of the ways: We set ourselves up for the impossible. We try to conform to what other people want, setting ourselves up for an impossible task because everybody wants something different. So, we're trying to avoid the discomfort of their dissatisfaction, but we're creating the internal discomfort of this impossible task anyway.

Manipulation is defined as: Subterfuge, designed to influence or control another, usually in a manner which facilitates one's personal aims. And when we show up as something we're not fully, in order to influence another's opinions or actions so that we feel better and avoid discomfort, that is a form of manipulation. Right?

We're manipulating the people around us into the opinion of us that we want them to have. But we can never truly control what people think of us anyway. So, when we don't speak our truth, when we don't show up as ourselves and we contort ourselves to fit into a box, nobody gets to know the real us.

And that thing that we were desiring in the first place, which is that connection, is the very thing we miss out on. We don't have real connection when someone doesn't see and hear the real us. And in business, that means we miss out on our ideal clients being able to hear us and truly resonate with us.

Now, I have this story, it is so glaring in my mind, because I recently hired a new coach. But I actually worked with her in another mastermind. She was a group coach, in this other mastermind that I was part of, and I worked with her for months without feeling any resonance. I would have laughed if you’d said that I was going to hire her. In fact, I kind of actively disliked her.

What I can see now so clearly, in hindsight, is that during that last round for her of being in that group she was, and because of being in that group, and because she was working for someone else coaching in their model, she wasn't able to fully coach in her own way, right? She was needing to be, to present, in a certain way, in order to be a good guide for us in this program. But it wasn't really her. And that is where the friction came.

Once I could see her in her element, and I could see how she really was, I absolutely resonated. And obviously, riding off into history. But I think it's such a great story, and so important to remember that every time we make these large or even subtle shifts, in order to orient ourselves in some direction that is not fully aligned with us, we are creating a wall between ourselves and our potential clients.

And that's not even mentioning the wall in our private life, right? As we're doing the same thing with our family, our romantic partners, our friends, or whomever it may be. Don't even get me started.

So, that explaining energy also has us showing up less powerfully. First of all, this is what keeps a lot of us telling ourselves that we just prefer being behind the scenes. Or we're more comfortable behind the camera, not in front of it. Or maybe we're not comfortable doing this type of business strategy, only this other type of business strategy.

And yeah, when you're focused on needing to show up in a certain way, and then potentially falling short, you're less likely to want to grab that iPhone and say exactly what you think. So, we hang back. But it's not just a camera issue, our power is drained when we're trying too hard.

Another way that can show up is over explaining to your potential clients. Because we explain so much that we project that our clients need explanation, too. And that is a very passive energy. It's a very ‘Oh, pick me’ energy.

On my discovery calls, almost the entire thing is a journey for my clients benefit. It's some powerful coaching questions, so that they can create clarity about their desires and their direction. And then, when I finally tell them about the program and price, it's super short. I'm not explaining much.

I mean, I'm happy to answer any questions. Some people just want to be walked through each module, and I'm definitely not hiding anything. But the bottom line is, I'm taking them from A to B. Do they want to go to B? Great, this is the price and this is the place.

Let's say you go to a surgeon, and you say, “I want you to fix this knee that I injured,” and the surgeon says, “Okay, I recommend surgery, and here's what it costs.” The surgeon is not usually telling you, “Okay, first we sterilize the scalpel. Then we make an incision in this direction, and we do all of these different things.”

And you're probably not going from surgeon to surgeon being like, “Well, this one would move the ligament first and then do the whatever-whatever, versus this other one, who would do this and this.” I, of course, have no idea what I'm talking about. I can just imagine my doctor clients shaking their heads right now.

But your clients also probably don't fully understand all the steps anyway, or necessarily even agree with them at this point in their journey. And the energy behind you needing to explain it all. that transmits to them. You might be the best’ fill in the blank’, coach or branding expert or whatever your service business is. But the way you're presenting yourself to your potential clients, when you are in explaining energy isn't doing you a lot of favors.

Along the same lines of showing up less powerfully, you don't need to tell them why you charge X versus Y. You don't need to justify all the things you want. And maybe then, not take action if the justifications you've come up with don't fit into the model that you've been conditioned to think is acceptable. That model might be ‘this is what a smart business owner does.’ Or ‘this is how a responsible person manages their money.’

Just ask yourself if there's something you want, and the reasons that aren't justified or deserved about wanting that. And then ask yourself, do I like that? Am I my most powerful self when I think that? There are things I've said no to, even though maybe yes, I felt an urge to do it or get it. But I still said no, and still felt that was me in my most powerful.

But other things, I notice myself starting to say no to, and then I realized that that no, is actually me abdicating my power. It's something else or some other way of thinking, telling me what my truth should be, rather than me accessing own truth.

I see this with people holding back from investing with coaching. I see this with people who are maybe following a certain coach or a certain way of doing things, and then they think they can't do anything different, or go outside of that structure. Even though they're getting such a strong hit to do it in their way, or to try something slightly different. Or with entrepreneurs where no one's telling them anything. But because they've been doing it that way, and then they want to change, they make that unacceptable.

Another product of the “just explaining” energy is that we spend so much time and brain space trying to justify our desires to ourselves and to others. How many of us are filling up mountains of journals? How many of us are making the spreadsheets on the computers? How many of us are talking our partners ears off? And what would be different for us if we could decide, and then honor that decision?

So, those are just a few examples. We all do it in so many different ways. But really, when we take a pause, and we look at this whole thing in an observational manner, why do I have to explain my reasons? Yes or no, is enough. I want it. I don't need to explain myself. I'm doing it. Because.

Now, if any of you are feeling any little alarm bells going off right now, I just want to caution you about black-and-white thinking. My husband Ben will do this sometimes when I bring up these subjects. He'll say, “Well, but we don't want to be like so and so.” And he'll name some narcissistic sociopath who wreaked havoc in some way; only caring about themselves.

We are all scarred by these public figures, they are burned into our collective fear. And that protective part of our brain is shouting, “Not that. Not that.” That is its job, right? As it should be, to some extent, because we don't want to be that. We don't want to be, what was it? Narcissistic sociopaths. But there's a far, far stretch between the narcissistic sociopath, and the woman who can make a decision for herself without the need to explain it.

And when we spend so much of our energy trying to be not that we often, unfortunately, are not us, either. We're living our lives with the constant looming question of, what should I do? Feel the difference in the quality of energy between justifying and knowing. Between because… until you're blue in the face, and because. “Just because.”

Because I'm a grown ass woman, and I can do whatever the fuck I want. I can say naughty words. Yeah, I can have opinions you don't agree with. I can buy things and invest in things that you maybe don't think I should. And I can run my business the way you don't think I should run it.

This is why I would never ever want to sell the kind of program where I'm sharing some sort of blueprint formula. No, I don't know the exact right path for you. I'll share the best practices, of course. I'll share the pros and cons I've seen from different people who have maybe tried some of the options you're considering. And I can help you excavate a bit, and see if your decision is clean or if it's laced with ‘shoulds’ or with fears. I can help you move towards neutral and create clarity.

But I want you building your decision muscles, right? So, you can build your self-trust muscles. We need to marry both the head and the gut. We spend so much time in our head, and so little time in our trust and in our gut. And that's not building the muscle of living from our truth unashamed.

That is the ultimate act of honoring yourself. The ultimate self-trust. Every time you do this, it's a little act of self-love. I remember the actress Teri Hatcher wrote a book. She was talking about how she always used to, if she accidentally burned her toast, she would spend all this time scraping the burnt toast off, so that she could still eat the toast. Until finally, she realized, maybe it's worth it for me to just make another piece of toast. Maybe it's okay for me to throw out this piece of toast.

Maybe it's okay for you to make these decisions and give yourself this type of trust and love. Because imagine saying, the things that we say to ourselves, the way we question ourselves, imagine saying that to the little girl version of you know. That little, cute picture you have of you at a certain age, where you would always only be encouraging?

Imagine telling her, “You can't really be trusted. You're not very good at this. No one will really love you. People will be really angry with you if you say or do that. And they probably won't forgive you. You don't deserve the good toast.”

So much of our manipulations and our posturing and our theorizing, we do that in order to stay safe. But what if you are safe already? Think of the things you worry will be thought of you if you mess up, or you aren't explaining, and therefore are perceived to be whatever, fill in that blank for yourself?

What are the worst things people would think or do? And what might you think of yourself? Would they stop loving you? Would you feel stupid? Would they think you're an impostor? Or not a good mom? Is it an identity thing, that you could no longer hold your head up?

Really find out what that is for you, and then ask yourself, can I believe that I am, for instance, lovable even if…? Can I believe that I'm smart even though…? Can I believe that I am worthy now?

Because if you can, maybe even just enough to get you playing with the idea of not justifying or explaining that choice or decision you're about to make or that thing you're about to do, you are shifting into “just because” energy. And you will get to know what it's like to live out loud. To fully live as you and walk the earth as you, the most grounded and powerful version of you.

And then instead of should I or shouldn’t I or I wish I could, you can finally get to work on making it happen. It'll be, “How will I do it?” Instead of, “Will I do it?”

So many clients tell me I'm great at figuring things out and making things happen once I have a plan. Yeah, clarity allows you to take massive action; it's the opposite of tentative energy. And then, you can attract clients too, who are comfortable doing that for themselves. Right? They'll stop talking themselves out of what they really want, and start acting from their inner yes.

You moving in this way does not equal crazy, harebrained, or a whim, right? That is all patriarchal language right there, used much more frequently for women than men. But listen, I am here to tell you that your gut hits, they are powerful. Like, when you actually take a breath or have a good workout or sleep on it or whatever you do, and you tune into your truth, that is powerful.

I believe we are never wrong when we are truly moving in the direction of our alignment and our truth. But also, we have this amazing brain that has built up a lifetime of experience and risk assessment, and can perceive nuance in ways that we're not even calculating. And it's doing all of this for us behind the scenes.

In Malcolm Gladwell’s book, Blink, he tells a story of a museum curator who was looking at a newly acquired piece of artwork, and just knew it was a fake. And this piece of artwork had passed through the buyer, had passed through so many people, I believe. I'm probably not getting all the details of the story right. But the point is that everyone was really surprised about how in the world did this person know it was a fake; it was proved to be a fake.

It was because that person had spent so long living and breathing this artist’s work that his brain could see something that his conscious mind couldn't quite describe. And that is happening for you too, my friend. Just because we can't logic our way into it doesn't mean that it's not the right decision for us.

This is what you need to become comfortable doing. And work with someone who can help you do it and start to pick these things apart and build your self-trust muscles. Because the single most important thing you can develop in your entrepreneurial career is your decision-making ability.

Entrepreneurs listen to their gut. They make quick decisions. If you wait, it's too late. Right? They're moving quickly. And they're going in directions that not everyone else is going. That is where the profit is. Meanwhile, risk averse people, the good employees, are adding up the pros and cons and they are staying accountants or actuaries.

It's just two completely different ways of thinking. And even if that has been your way of thinking, which it is most of our ways of thinking, that is how we're trained to be good adults and good employees. You can retrain your brain. You must shift into a different energy in order to succeed at this gig. It's what you signed up for by being here. It is what you wanted.

Awareness is the first step. Just like when I became aware that I was moving into explaining energy about that podcast interview, right? And then, bringing those hidden insecurities to light. What's really going on that's driving that need to explain?

Because while that thing might feel real, it might also be totally made up. It might be given to you by someone else, or handed down through evolution and an outdated part of your brain. And even if there is some truth, it’s probably over inflated. And in the rare, rare case, where it's not over inflated, it's absolutely true, this is absolutely what will happen, it is still probably so worth it for you to follow your truth.

So, when I felt shame over the podcast thing, there's a hidden thought that “You all won't love me” or something if you came upon that podcast and heard me saying that, or some future client wouldn't.

There's probably perfectionism in there, right? That there's no room for me to make mistakes and still be accepted. And a fear that I'm out of touch and living in a bubble of complete privilege and entitlement, that that's the first thing that would come to my brain.

Now, you can bet that I am going to get some coaching on those things. It doesn't matter if I think I've worked through them before. This is a new level being exposed. And I am willing to do that, because how much cleaner and more authentically human and myself, can I show up when I've worked through them some more? And isn't that my work, to be aligning to my truth and acting on my truth and being okay with my truth?

So, what is your need to explain revealing to you? Is it that you don't really think you're good with business? Is it that you think your offer isn't quite strong enough to stand on its own? Is it that your price isn't really justified? Or is it that your price is too high?

When you do identify the root, you're welcome to continue believing those things, but they're probably not serving you. And there's probably a lot of evidence there to support a completely different story that you are not able to see an access. Because your brain is living and perceiving within the framework of your current beliefs.

What does serve you, and what serves us all, is for you and me and other women to move through the world with a healthy dose of “just because” energy. Tuning into ourselves, trusting ourselves, and boldly making moves as ourselves; no explanation necessary. And of course, supporting our fellow sisters when they do the same.

Okay, everyone, I hope you enjoyed this. Remember, you know who you are. And every day you’re stepping further into what you’re here to create.

Hey, if you're a coach who wants true clarity about your secret sauce, your people, your best way of doing business, and how you talk about your offer, then I invite you to join us in the Clarity Accelerator. I'll teach you to connect all the dots, the dots that have always been there for you so that you can show up like you were born for exactly this.

Come join us and supercharge every other tool or tactic you'll ever learn, from Facebook ads to manifestation. Just go to TheUncommonWay.com/schedule and set up a time to talk. I can't wait to be your coach.

Thanks for joining us here at The Uncommon Way. If you want more tips and resources for developing clarity in your business and life, including the Clarity First Strategy for growing and scaling your business, visit TheUncommonWay.com. See you next time.

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