The Waitlist for Worth

Content Note: This episode contains a brief mention of suicidal thoughts. Listener discretion is advised. 

Rachel Artise didn’t wait to feel ready, chosen, or validated.

She walked into a location of The UPS Store as a part-time employee. Then she became the manager. Then the owner.

In this first-ever NDA guest episode, Rachel gets honest about what it actually took to stop waiting for someone else to recognize her value and start moving like it was already true.

At franchise network meetings, other owners dismissed her as “just a manager.” She didn’t try to win them over. She paid attention. She realized their behavior had nothing to do with her worth and everything to do with theirs. Then she started asking a different question: want to sell?

That’s how one location became six.

This is a conversation about getting off the waitlist for worth. It's about what changes when you stop looking for permission and start making moves. It's about not letting rejection be a signal to shrink but a green light for momentum.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

I am so excited because this is our very first episode with a guest who's Paul's.

SPEAKER_02 0:09

And not just any guest, but a very special guest.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Without further ado, welcome to Rachel Artiz, our wonderful guest for today's episode. Hi, Rachel. Hi, Amanda. I'm so excited to be here. We're so excited to have you. Rachel is here today because we are going to be talking about how so many women have a tendency to not know and appreciate their worth. And Rachel has so much experience to share. She is a business owner. She is a mentor. She's a coach. We'll let you tell everyone all about that here in a minute, Rachel. When Elizabeth and I were talking about this topic, and then you and I had a conversation shortly after that, you said a couple of things, and I was like, oh my gosh, she's literally the perfect guest to talk about this. We want you to share a little bit about your journey to getting to where you are. You are the owner of, are we at six now? We're at six stores. Six locations of the US store across uh western Pennsylvania, which is incredibly cool because I think when I met you for the first time, you had what, one, two stores?

SPEAKER_00 1:18

Yeah, I think just one. I think I just bought my first store.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

And Rachel and I met through a program called Athena Power Link. I was in a panel advisor for Rachel, and I was part of the shoot the moon committee, which was the we don't really know like what the ultimate goal is here. We just know that we're going big and the sky's the limit. So whatever happens this year, we're just gonna go for it. And it was one of the coolest panel experiences I've ever been on, easily.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

I love that you remember that it was called the shoot the moon committee.

SPEAKER_01 1:50

It was I will never forget that because it was the it was so much fun because it was like, okay, what's the what's the biggest, most audacious goal we could possibly have? Let's go for that. And then if we achieve it, let's go for whatever the next thing is.

SPEAKER_00 2:06

Yeah, that was like divine intervention of like the exact right people in the exact right space for me to realize that I could expand the way that I never even dreamed of. Yes. How many years ago was that? Ooh, about 12, 11? Probably.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Really? Yeah. Okay. Super excited to have you here with us, Rachel. And I can't wait to dive into your story.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Most NDAs keep people quiet. Ours does the opposite. Around here, NDA means no dicks allowed.

SPEAKER_01 2:38

Not men, the behaviors that keep women small.

SPEAKER_02 2:42

This is the podcast for women who are done shrinking and ready to rise. I'm Amanda Kachurka. And I'm Elizabeth Zipola. Welcome to NDA.

SPEAKER_01 2:59

Let's take it back a little bit. Rachel, we would love to hear about what led you ultimately to the path of owning multiple businesses.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

When I was 21, I had gotten married the day or two days after I turned 21. And then I took a job at a part-time job at a UPS store. And the guy that hired me was like, Oh, did you, you know, you have manager experience? And I was like, no, no, sir. I have manager experience, but this is not a serious job for me. I'm like, I'm trying to go to college and get myself established. And so, you know, I'm not interested in being a manager. And I think it was like four months into working for him, maybe not even. And his manager had resigned, and he was like, You can be the manager or you can train the manager. I was like, Oh, yes, I'll be the manager. And so I ran his business with him for eight years. I say that was my on-the-job training into owning a business because he had the pleasure of like really being absentee. He didn't have to come to the store. And I did it all, you guys. All the things, all the things, like bookkeeping, and I mean, it was entrepreneurship 101. And so eight years into that, I had both of my children. I was like really trying to find how to make more money. And he had told me that I had capped out at what he could afford to pay me. And boy, have times changed, but I think I capped out at$12.50 an hour. Oh my God. You had two children? And I had two children. So all of my money was going towards daycare.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

Absolutely. Oh my gosh, yes. Do you mind if I just pause you right there? Because a lot of our listeners are possibly in your shoes now, where they have young children and they feel like they're just working to pay for daycare, but yet they still keep working. What made it feel necessary for you to keep working, even though it was really hard with two little ones and how expensive daycare is, let alone bet on yourself to take him up on his offer to train to be the leader?

SPEAKER_00 5:05

I have a big problem with saying no to other people and saying yes to myself. I realized early on that any position that I've ever been in, I have been offered to be in leadership. I say life leaves you breadcrumbs. And if you pay attention to what was left in the past, it tells a story, right? And so I was always like the therapist of the friends group in high school. And I was always the person that people come to, you know, when they have challenges. And as I said, I was always asked to be in leadership. And so that pattern just kept repeating itself. And I think that when you're destined for something, it only gets louder. And so to preface, just to be real, I never thought I wanted to be a mom. Uh I I had two oops babies and I love them dearly. I love I love them dearly. Um, when I found myself at home, you know, even just on maternity leave, I was so antsy to not be in that space. And not that I didn't love my child, but I'm a people person. I'm I'm social. I and I'm and I loved what I did in the UPS store. So that was um something that I wish I would have not had guilt and shame around, but there was so much guilt and shame around still working when it didn't make financial sense. But I knew that there was something that I was going to come out of it eventually.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

And that's you just articulated far better than I did exactly what I was getting at. Because when you're working, when you're in that phase of life with little ones and it's so expensive. And in some cases, let's be real, and maybe this was even you, it's costing you money to work.

SPEAKER_00 6:44

Totally, right? Totally. And and my mental health, like the mental health part, I underestimated because I was one of those moms. I home birthed both of my children. I was determined to breastfeed until they were a year, and it almost drove me into complete madness. And after my son, I definitely had postpartum depression that was undiagnosed, but you just live in your bubble and you suffer in silence. It's a travesty for women to not feel empowered to say that they need help or support in those circumstances and to feel mentally like they have to continue doing it all in order to be valuable.

SPEAKER_02 7:21

Absolutely. Yes. Don't we talk about that? We just talked about that recently, Amanda, on one of our past episodes, didn't we? Yes, we just did. So the topic, obviously, for today is knowing your worth. So it sounds like in what you shared with us, there was just something that you felt deep from within where you knew there's you're destined to do something. And it sounds like you weren't necessarily clear of I want to own this many UPS businesses in Western Pennsylvania.

SPEAKER_00 7:49

It was it was never like that. Honestly, I was going, I went to a like they do convention for the for the network every two years, and I had convinced the owner early on to send me to convention, and he was like, Oh, it's really expensive, and talk about knowing your worth. I was like, Okay, I'm like, I know it's gonna be expensive. You gotta pay for my hotel, pay for my ticket. But if I don't find a way to make that money back within the first three months, you can fire me. So you said that out loud. A hundred percent. And he was like, right? But I knew I knew it was in the connections of the people that I was going to meet at these events that I would gain more inspiration and and tools for my toolbox in order to know how to continue growing the business.

SPEAKER_02 8:37

I freaking love that because one of the things we were curious about is when you realize you were being asked to bet on yourself, yeah, and you literally slid the chips in the middle of the table and said, Yeah, three months, you're gonna see a return and then some.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

And honestly, at year eight, I was like, okay, I'm not gonna make any more money in this industry. He can't pay me more, I can't ask for more. And so I was going to leave. And when you live in Erie and you're like, what am I gonna do with my life? Everybody tries to go to Erie Insurance. So that was my plan. I was like, okay, I'm gonna get a job at Erie Insurance somehow. And so I went to the convention that year, it was it would have been 2014. And I was like, this is my last convention. And I started telling my friends when I went there, like, oh, you know, I'm gonna be leaving the network. And this woman, um, I'll never forget her. Her name's Colleen Small. She's face, she's a franchisee out of state college PA. And she invited me to dinner. And so we all go out to dinner, and the whole table toasts to me for all of the value that I've brought to them and how I've helped them build their businesses. And it was just like this beautiful, we call it giving somebody their flowers, right? They were like, We're gonna, we're gonna give Rachel her flowers. And I was like, Colleen, I really appreciate that. I told her, you know, I think I'm gonna be leaving the network. And she went to my husband and was like, you guys would be foolish to let her walk away. This woman has a skill set that does not exist in this network. And the crazy thing is that that is all it took was to plant the seed. I'm like, I don't know how to buy a business. She's like, I'll help you figure it out. It's she's like, you are too good at this to walk away. Right. And so sometimes it just takes somebody else pointing out the value you bring to them in order for you to understand the value that you have within yourself.

SPEAKER_01 10:21

I think a tendency that a lot of women have when someone is trying to give them their flowers, uh, trying to give them compliments, trying to get them to see the value that they possess and what they bring to the table, but we're not always open to that, right? We we sometimes deflect that. So what was it about these conversations, maybe about this person, that really got you to see, you know what? Maybe there is something to what she's saying.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

You know, I think her saying it directly to my husband, like planted the seed for him that he was like, huh, this could be a thing. But she's, you know, somebody who's been in the network much longer than I had. And I had so much respect for her that I knew that it wasn't just um lip circus. Like a lip circle. Obligatory. And so it was like just that one thing kind of started the domino effect. It wasn't this glowing light that I walked out with of like, I can do this and I can take over the world. It was just this slow process of like, huh, if I were to buy my own store, what would that look like? And then looking at the price and going to banks and being rejected, rejected, rejected, and finding the people who were willing to guide me along that process. When I went to buy my first store, and this is the most hilarious thing about worth, and I was like, okay, I'm gonna negotiate with this guy. And he wanted way too much money for his store. And so we sat down and I'm like, this conversation wasn't going anywhere. So what do we do as women? We bring a husband. I'm like, okay, let's bring a man to the conversation so they can have man talk and we can actually get something done. We make the offer of what we were willing to pay for the store, and he was like, Yeah, you know, I could see how you would think that the store is valued at that. I think that we should be at around the number that is$50,000 higher because the value that Rachel's going to bring to this business is going to grow it astronomically. And I was like, Oh my God, he thinks I'm worth$50,000. It was like it was it was like the biggest compliment I think I could ever receive. And my husband's like, but we don't pay him for your value. Right. And it had never it like didn't even cross my mind. I was just so over the mountain that somebody would think that I have that kind of value because I just didn't believe it within myself.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, absolutely. So you eventually obviously reached agreement on purchasing the business, and that was one time where you bet on yourself and made that big leap. Let's talk about the leap from one store to six stores, because that's repeatedly betting on yourself multiple times over. So let's talk a little bit about that journey. What did that look like?

SPEAKER_00 13:01

I had just the one store for the next four years, and you go into something thinking you already know what you're doing, and then like we were kind of were mentioning it, Amanda, about entrepreneurship. You think you know what you're doing, and then all of a sudden, like the world laughs at you, and you know, it's it's like just kidding. And so I didn't realize A, how broke you are when you become an entrepreneur because you take on a ton of debt, and my financial situation before buying my first location was actually better beforehand. And I found myself in like this spiral of leading from desperation. It was like, shoot, I got bills, my dad had gotten cancer and moved in with us. My husband got laid off from his job and was taking care of my dad in Cleveland. These were supposed to be the happiest times of our lives, and like everything started just crumbling. I realized that desperate leader mindset is an icky experience for the people you employ because I was trying to push them to sell and push them to help me grow. And it wasn't until I actually hired Courtney, who's still she's my GM now, but she's been with me 12 years. And I realized that my gift in leadership is that I lead from a place of love and giving. And so I was trying to take from my team members and really I needed to pour into them and give them the employment experience that they deserve as team members, but also give them the tools that they need for their future. Once I tapped into that and learned to kind of step away as a business owner and not a manager of my business, it was like, oh shoot, I know how to build other great leaders. Right. And once you figure out that part of like, oh, this isn't about me being the best at what I do in this business. This is about me building the best at what they do in the business. Um, it made it scalable. But I had to go to Pittsburgh to buy that second location, which was a two-hour commute from where I currently live. So it opened up a whole new can of worms and challenges to have a business that you're two hours away from. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yes, and especially with all those other personal things you were trying to navigate at the exact same time.

SPEAKER_00 15:15

Yeah. But but it taught me it taught me to keep betting on myself because I, you know, every time I take on a team, I've heard um entrepreneurs say, like, when you go through an acquisition of purchasing a business, just let the whole team go because it's so much harder to build with somebody who has habits that were formed from previous ownership. And I just could not let that sit well with me, you know? And so when asking team members, like, what is it that you wish you had in this business? That was like call it holding space, right? You hold space for them to just be honest, and then you provide them with what you can provide them to create a better work environment. And that is what the culture building for me has to be like. It's been a very interesting thing because I don't know, everybody says it's lonely at the top, and I beg to differ. I think if you treat people well and lead from a place of, you know, we say love, respect, and gensai, you can't go wrong.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yeah, truly. I know. One thing I want to go back to one thing you said because I think it's really important. You mentioned how when you were getting started and things when you're starting a business are uncertain, there's a lot of variables. You were also dealing with some challenges in your personal life with your father's cancer battle. And I think there's when when things start to get difficult and really challenging, we have a tendency to try to, like you said, why aren't you working as aggressively to sell and and help me keep this business going and help me grow when your natural tendency is to be more of a giver and a nurturer? I think that's such an important realization to come to, especially. I mean, really, as a business owner in life, if you're leaning outside of what your natural tendency and behavioral hardwiring is, the results are never going to be as good as if you're leaning into what comes authentically as a strength to you. And so that's such a huge realization that I think so many women, it's something that is imposed upon them that they impose upon themselves. Oh, I have to be this way in order to see results, but that's completely different from my natural hardwiring. So kudos to you for coming to that realization.

SPEAKER_02 17:27

Yes. I love how you got advice from other people who who bought businesses and they said, Oh, yeah, you just have to get rid of everyone. And you said, No, not me. I'm gonna do it my authentic way. And look at it's not lonely at the top for you, is it?

SPEAKER_00 17:42

Definitely not. There's lots of people up here, y'all. But it's, you know, I think to that point, we all have a vision of what our future could be, and it's based on what our current or past experiences are. And it's not, it's not until you expand your horizon that you can see what is actually possible. I think the hard part is that a lot of us end up in male-dominated industries, right? The UPS store shipping typically has been a male-dominated industry. I'm still the only black woman in Western Pennsylvania who owns UPS stores at all. And so there's a lot of preconceived notions of how you have to operate a business based on what the standard has been for all of the people who have come before you. That doesn't mean that that's how it has to be. I think that we don't realize that until we mature a little and realize there is a way to do it in your own flow.

SPEAKER_01 18:38

I think there's, especially within the construct of a very large, recognizable, popular brand, who doesn't know UPS? Like that's that's a huge brand. It's it's got a ton of reputation and and identification associated with it. So I think, especially in that kind of a construct, it can be twice as difficult to lean into your own authenticity for the sake of preserving the brand. But I think you create so much more value when, okay, yes, there's the brand, but this is what the brand looks like lived out through my own personal style, my own personal values, my own personal approach. I'd love to hear your thoughts on how you've navigated that.

SPEAKER_00 19:21

What I liked about buying a franchise is that the branding kind of gives you the guidelines of how to operate the business to somebody else's standard and expectations. Um, but when it comes to like employing people, the franchise or does not tell you what that part looks like. And so it gave me this kind of creative freedom. Obviously, there's laws and rules and stuff that you have to follow, right? Um, but but there is like this creative freedom of how you lead. And that part I didn't realize to me is the most important part. And it's not talked about enough of what making the decision when you buy a business or start a business, what type of leader you want to be. And the funny thing is, and this is this is how my handbook is constructed, right? It's built on all of the past traumas of things that I've been through. And so my leadership style is similar, right? It's like, okay, what did I what have I done that has worked and what have I done that hasn't worked? And so it's evolved over time, but I've learned my intuition is so important to trust in and bet on because when you know something doesn't feel right in business and in leadership, it's your body telling you that there's something, you know.

SPEAKER_02 20:40

And we have to listen to our intuition. A lot of times we silence it, we try to ignore it, or we try to explain it away. It's there for a reason. Yeah, it's definitely there for a reason.

SPEAKER_00 20:52

And so full so full circle moment after I bought my second location, which nobody in Pittsburgh thought I was gonna actually buy a location. And so when you go down to Pittsburgh and you go to these meetings, they are like, oh, introduce yourself pretty much every single time. Not everybody at those meetings were nice to me. There were times where I was shushed, especially because I would go to those as a manager. There were women who actually shushed me and told me that I had no skin in the game and I had no right to even be talking to them about how to build a business because I didn't own the business. I very much had this, for lack of a better word, I'm gonna use the I word, the imposter syndrome of if I don't belong, I don't belong. These aren't my people, I don't belong. I realized that they were treating me that way because they were not happy with their own circumstances in the in the industry.

SPEAKER_03 21:40

Exactly. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

And so then it then it almost became my business plan of like, oh man, everybody who's mad and ranting at a meeting, I'm just gonna offer to buy their businesses. And so I started introducing myself of like, hi, I'm Rachel Artiz. I'm from Erie and I'm looking to buy stores down here. And if you don't like what you're doing anymore, maybe we should have a conversation to see if. I could buy your store. And I love that so much. You know what I mean? And it felt like such a naive move. I like to say, thank you, Grandma. I look young. So people thought, like, what is this? What is this child doing telling everybody she's gonna buy their businesses? And oh, I love it. And so the very first location I bought down there, I um they don't even tell anybody that there's an acquisition underway. You just show up to a meeting one day and they're like, hey, this person's gone and this person bought their business. And then it was like once they realized I was serious, I had another offer for my next location within really a couple weeks. Wow. So you put it out there, you put it out there into the universe. And I've never been that girl of like, manifest this, right? But I am that girl who is crazy enough to just tell so many people that they know that if they need to do the thing, I'm the one to do it. Yeah. Yeah. Anybody who was mean to me, I bought their business. Right. And so they're they're no longer in the room. Two years ago, I was the I I was the first franchisee to co-host at the national UPS store convention. Full circle moment because I was the girl who thought that I didn't belong. I didn't think that this was a real job that I should be taking. I didn't think it should be taken seriously. I didn't think that I could ever buy my own store to being like literally the poster child for the network now. And I I love what I do with and for this network and so wild, right? It is.

SPEAKER_02 23:30

You shared your story and your progression so eloquently. We all know, of course, life isn't always so smooth. Were there any specific points along the way that stand out more than others where you truly were about to hang it up and genuinely do something different and give up on yourself?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

When you're scaling, you're always going to hit that moment of like, oh my God, do I actually want to be doing this? Because it gets harder. When it rains, it pours. And so two days before I closed on my second location, my father had passed away. We were unfortunately unable to keep one of the employees on board when we bought the store. And so when you let an employee go right away, it sets the tone for the rest of the team. We ended up losing a few team members, and I ended up driving back and forth from Pittsburgh to Erie every day for the next like four months until we could rebuild the team members that we had lost. And those were really, really dark times for me. I was just so exhausted. My kids were young and in school, so I was getting them on the bus to get off to school and then driving to Pittsburgh, working all day, driving back. Those are the only times I can say that I have been pushed to the point that I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't even know if I want to be on this earth anymore because you're just pushing yourself to a point where your mental state and your body cannot handle the abuse you're putting it through.

SPEAKER_02 24:51

Yes. There were some real dark times, right? And then real dark times. Looking back, I'm sure you're like, oh my gosh, how easy would it have been to choose to just walk away from it all?

SPEAKER_00 25:01

To walk away, or even like what's crazy is that even just asking for help would have made a huge difference. I've not been good at that part. And people see me as this strong, competent, capable woman. And so help is never offered. It's it has to be asked for because everybody's like, you looked like you had it together. I didn't think that you needed help or support. I feel like I've had to learn to bet on myself because I always had felt like other people were just going to let me down.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

So did you have to keep telling yourself I'm worth it? I'm gonna keep betting on myself.

SPEAKER_00 25:36

It was just like ignorance on fire. I was like, I'm gonna do this thing. And once I started telling people, I was like committed to following through with it because I had already told people. And so it very much was like, no, I'm gonna buy another business because I've told people I'm gonna buy a business and I don't want the embarrassing walk of shame that I didn't do it. Sure. But also once I saw that it was possible, there was nothing that was gonna stop me from making it happen. And so I realized that everything is figure-outable. It's like, no, we can make this happen. We just have to figure it out as long as it fits the mold of what I'm trying to build. Everybody talks about work-life balance. And for me, what I realized is that it was never about balance, and balance is a lie, it was always about alignment. I did this 25-year plan. One of the questions that was asked of me was, who do I want to be there in 25 years? And I was like, huh. And I looked at my kids and I was like, well, obviously them, but I was not showing up as the mom that they would want to still talk to in 25 years. Oh, right. I wasn't fully present. I was rushing out the door. I was always yelling at them because we were in a hurry and we're running behind, and mommy has a meeting. And so that checked me. And then every business offer, every every move I made, I ran it by them, whether they were five or whether they were 15. Hey, we're going to do this as a family. How do you feel about it? And yes, it's going to impact all of our lives. What do we want this to look like? And how is it going to benefit our future together?

SPEAKER_02 27:14

What about the other relationships in your life? Whether it be friends, significant other, whatever it is.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

Yeah, anybody that I wanted to be a part of my life in 25 years, it's like, let's have this conversation. I have a tendency to want to fill my life with people who need me. And what I really need to be strategic about is that I need people who can also pour into me.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Yes. I would imagine there's a connection to it being difficult for you to do that, and what you said several minutes ago relating to it's always been difficult for me to count on other people because I was let down so much. So I'm positive there's a connection there for sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

Absolutely. And it creates that producer mindset, right? My therapist knows this about me too. She's like, you know, you I have this innate fear that if I stop producing, that people are not going to stick around, right? Because my value is in the production. It's such a lie to tell yourself. But when you have operated like that for so long, it's very, very hard to detach from the need to produce for people to love you.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, it's that tie between usefulness and worth. Yeah. It's as long as I'm useful, then I'm worthy. Yes, yeah. Which yikes.

SPEAKER_00 28:34

Right? And like when you say it or you hear it out loud, you're like, oh, that's horrible. Who would feel that way? But I definitely know and acknowledge that, like, if I don't make myself self-aware of why I do those things, it'll run my entire life. I I agree.

SPEAKER_01 28:50

I think there, and I think it's an important exercise around understanding the why behind what we do and and how we approach work, life. Um, that's such an important exercise. And and Elizabeth and I have talked about it, I think, several times on previous episodes, but just understanding the the value that we bring outside of the usefulness, quote unquote, because we can't all be useful 100% of the time, right? I sort of liken it to some advice that my husband and I got shortly into our marriage, where it's never gonna be 50-50. Sometimes it's gonna be one person's giving a hundred because the other person has absolutely nothing left. Sometimes it's gonna be 60-40, sometimes it's gonna be 80-20, but rarely is it ever gonna be actually 50-50. And the same applies when you are defining yourself by how useful you are to others. There will be a time in your life where you're not gonna have it in you to be useful to somebody. And so if you haven't built up the support around you to help you through those times and to continue to see your value outside of your usefulness, then you're gonna be left in a pretty dark spot.

SPEAKER_00 30:00

Yeah. You will.

SPEAKER_02 30:02

It's extra difficult if you've never, if you've grown up in a situation where you've never seen other people model the behavior of what it looks like to identify with who you really are versus just what can I do for others. It's there's literally no frame of reference for a lot of people to even draw from.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

I think that that's been like a core piece of work that I have been working on within myself. And I I I think that a lot of it ties to obviously childhood and how your upbringing was and how you were with money. And all of those things are connected and you have to acknowledge and know that. And my value of what I valued myself was 100% connected with growing up in poverty and just not understanding how to even see what your own value is. I think that everybody wants to monetize value. Am I worth$20 an hour or$100 an hour? And really the value that I have found within myself is the amount of love and appreciation and life that I have within me, especially when I'm with other people. I think that that part I wish I would have tapped into sooner.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah. It's something I feel like worth is something that women especially wait to feel. It's funny because you you see women so often who are taught to wait for that validation of your worth. Whereas men are often taught to act with, I mean, partial, virtually non-existent sometimes. Certainty of their worth.

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Waiting to be chosen, right? Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:43

Waiting to be chosen.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

Yes. And I think that there's something about that mantra throughout our lives as women that we're not as amazing, you know. Right, right. I just think that we need to change that narrative. Absolutely. Definitely do.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

So I think this is a good time to transition to our regular segment. We call it shrink this. This is a segment where we talk about the shrinking behaviors that we exhibit ourselves that we've caught ourselves in at some point recently, or maybe that we witnessed somebody else doing. And so, Rachel, if you have any shrinking behavior that you've caught yourself in recently, we would love to hear about it.

SPEAKER_00 32:30

Oh man. I, you know, I think that it's very, very interesting to think about this because I turned 40 last year, but something happens at 40 where your brain just shifts and starts observing as opposed to being in the tornado of life. I realized that my success had created a belief system that I shouldn't want more. I'm already successful. And I knew that I was capable of more. I knew that I needed to step into the light, but I was fearful of the people around me, my family, and what it would do to them if I didn't stay this size. Because this size is not small to other people. This size is already large in life. And so it felt almost offensive to say that this is shrinking behavior because I was like a goldfish in a tiny bowl. And so it wasn't until I mean, I can say two years ago when I hosted convention that was like the wake-up call of I'm really good at this. And it's okay to be really good at this, and it's okay to know that I'm really good. Yes, it's okay to see it and acknowledge it and take the flowers from the people who were like, Oh my God, that it was so good. It was at that moment that I was like, A, I said yes to that opportunity because I wanted my children to see me do it. I wanted them to see that like this is possible. And I was just gonna be like, okay, I did it. It made me realize that it wasn't even about that moment, it was about the momentum that that moment built. And literally, when I got off stage, my son was like, I hope I can do something like that someday. Oh, how old was he at the time? He was 14. That's a huge compliment. And then that year he performed at his school as a solo vocalist. Aw. And that was like he's he's like my little introverted guy. Like he that was so far out of what was normally possible for him. But I feel like, you know, I raised the bar of possibility for him. Yeah, you can't do it. But I didn't I very much have always known I was meant to be in this light of presenting and hosting and speaking and coaching, and I've just always, always, always shied away from it. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 34:49

So that that isn't feel worthy, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

You didn't think I feel qualified. Yeah, I didn't feel worthy, I didn't feel qualified, and I felt greedy. I felt like greed and gluttony to want more. Yeah, that's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 35:04

Amanda, can I share one?

SPEAKER_01 35:05

I would love for you to share one.

SPEAKER_02 35:07

So this one, I have been chomping at the bit. And this is gonna step on a few toes, but everyone knows that's kind of what I do, and that's what we do here. This is something that I have been noticing with grown women in social media. So this is specific to women, and what I'm talking about in terms of shrinking behavior are women, and there are a lot, a lot, a lot of women who are doing this who are posting deeply personal moments. So I'm talking photos of their children drugged up coming out of surgery, or sharing a very vague kind of coded post about how hurt they are or how hard things have been without actually saying what the hell is going on. I want to be clear with this shrinkage example. There is nothing wrong at all with sharing parts of your life. Social media is definitely a place that it can help with connection, right? But sometimes if we're being honest, and this is comes full circle to my shrinkage example, it's not about connection, it's about validation. To me, those posts, if we're being honest, we're trying to get validation or reassurance or wanting people to see us or indirectly asking for support without actually asking for support. So to me, that's when it becomes shrinkage. Because instead of standing firmly in your experience and saying, I'm struggling, I'm needing support, or telling the person that hurt you or pissed you off, that really hurt me. This is what I need you to do, or this is what I need from you. We post something really vague and overly personal or curated. And then what do we do? We wait and we keep checking how many likes did we get? Did anyone comment? Just for someone to notice us. So that, my friend, is shrinkage because it's like we're outsourcing our emotional needs to the world through social media instead of having those real conversations that require us to be vulnerable with actual human beings and taking ownership for what we're feeling or what we're needing. We just drink and hope that someone will read between the lines. So to me, that's shrinkage. I'm not judging you, I'm just throwing it out there for awareness. Try to stand in your truth and say it out loud, girl. So that's mine.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Yeah, owning up to what you're feeling and being honest about what you're feeling. It's something that we're not conditioned because I think we've talked about it before. Women already have this stigma of being overly emotional. And so when you're showing that emotional vulnerability, there's a lot of risk associated with that, that people see just the emotion and not what's underneath it. So I understand where it comes from for sure, but I completely agree in that there's a lot of power in owning, hey, this is an emotional moment for me. This is what's happening, this is what I'm feeling. And I'm gonna sit with this for a while and understand like what's driving it and where it's coming from. So I can actually do something productive about it.

SPEAKER_02 38:06

Yeah, because girl, we want, we want a bunch of, we want to create a community of badass women out there who aren't posting about how hard something is, and instead they're picking up the phone, they're actually calling the friend or they're talking to their partner or they're setting a boundary, they're saying what they need because grown women don't need to throw hints out there and hope that someone picks it up. They need to handle it and speak it and stand in their business.

SPEAKER_00 38:32

I don't know why this is how social media has become, but I think that some people are just using it as like a dopamine hit to get that like or get that feedback. I will say that I'm trying to be more aware of my posting on social media because I it's like we all post all of the great things that are going on, and I do feel compelled to like be honest and transparent when shit is hitting the fan, right? Yeah, because I don't want everybody to believe that this is an easy ride and I just got here, you know, and that it's easy, that it's easy now that I'm here, right? Right. I just think that's really important, and so like there's there's a way to to go about it. And one of the speaking courses I took, the woman teaching it said that you should not share your story until you can tell it and leave the people who are a part of the story with dignity. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 39:24

Oh, I like that.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

And so that's kind of like my social media filter. Like, if I'm in my feelings and me and my husband are fighting, I'm not gonna go on social media and rant about it because I I don't want to tell a story about him without leaving him with his dignity still. And so for me, that's the important filter that I've been using to not rant on social media about people.

SPEAKER_01 39:46

I love that. And to your point, I think there's so much value in modeling true vulnerability. I'm gonna emphasize the word true because that's what some I think people, men, women, anybody who do what you were describing, Elizabeth, it's like faux vulnerability. There's not real, it's performative vulnerability, very performative. So I think there's a really important distinction. I love the dignity filter, Rachel. I think that's a great point to use as your guide of like, okay, if I share this, is the person that I'm talking about walking out with your am I walking out with my dignity? Or am I gonna look back at my Facebook memories in a year and be like, oh my god, what the hell was I thinking?

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Yeah, because you know Facebook be calling you out, like, oh, do you remember when we posted this wild stuff? Facebook's a really good sometimes.

SPEAKER_02 40:38

So embarrassing. We don't need to stand back and wait to be chosen. We don't need to stand back and wait for other people to validate or notice us or give us permission to be good enough to make an ask or pursue a goal. And the story you shared is so relatable to our listeners because and even to me right now, if I could be honest, because we, Amanda and I, we have taken a big step professionally together and you know, with new ventures. And it's easy to say, oh gosh, I don't know. Are we trying to bite off more than we can chew? No, keep your eye on what you know to be true of what you can do and the difference you're gonna make in the world and in other people's lives by doing it.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

A hundred percent. I think that you know, even the the thought of are you gonna bite off more than you can chew? I don't know who created this term, but they say, like, how do you eat an elephant? It's like one bite at a time, right? And so I think that the whole concept that you could even bite off more than you can chew, let's just eradicate that way of thinking completely. In my life, I've considered everything that has put me through a hard time as muscle building, right? It's like emotional muscle building, grit muscle building. It is in preparation for what comes next. Like every struggle is in preparation for what comes next. And if I didn't do that prep work, I wouldn't be able to lift the weight of my future self.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yeah, absolutely. I love that so much. Because it becomes muscle memory. Yes, yes, it absolutely does. Rachel, this has been incredible. Thank you so so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it sharing your story, which is truly incredible. Just really grateful for you to take some time and and come chat with us today. Our listeners are used to hearing from just us, and so something we want to start doing from this point forward is featuring a guest maybe once a month or so, because we have two perspectives. There are lots more out there. So we want to start featuring more of those. So thank you for for being the first person to to come on and do that.

SPEAKER_00 42:41

Of course, and thank you guys for having such an amazing platform for people to be able to listen to like real talk conversations that are going to help expand their horizon. You guys are doing amazing things, and Amanda, I've fangirled you forever because you're just so freaking smart. She's she really is.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Thank you. She's pretty special. I love myself some Amanda.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

Listen, and and Elizabeth, I've I I've it's been so cool getting to know you. I really hope we can grab coffee sometime and just have some girl time.

SPEAKER_02 43:15

We will. We will do that. I will definitely take you off on that.

SPEAKER_01 43:18

Thank you to all of our listeners. As always, we sincerely appreciate you. As always, if you have a shrink this moment that you'd like to share with us, or if you have an idea for a future episode, if there's a behavior you'd love for us to unpack, please feel free to send it to us via our Instagram. Uh, we are at NDA underscore pod. You can also subscribe on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, anywhere you get your podcasts. Thank you so much for listening. We will catch you next time.