BA Q&A: How To Gain Confidence At Work

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we're going to go for today. Got a question from someone who is really feeling not very confident in their job anymore. And then we're going to follow that up with a woman who is wanting to launch her own business and take her online doulah business or her doula business into like an online space, which is really cool. Let's get into it. Number one over for okay, so they want to be called over forty level of confidence. Hey, hey,

longtime listener, first time emailer. I have been working for an engineer company as an unlicensed engineer for the last year and a half. I've been in and out of the industry over the last fifteen years, each time starting at an entry level position. So I'm older and in an entry level position again. And a few months ago my supervisor went off on me and it really shook my confidence. I've gone to him and told him not to yell at me anymore or to perform on site

on site visits. The incident occurred during my training. However, since that time, I'm not getting anything right. I'm making mistakes all over the place. I'm going along to get along, but it only makes me feel worse. What are some exercises I can do to build my confidence again? Well this makes me sad. Yeah, but you know my first reaction is like, I'm kind of happy that your boss is paying attention because engineering is all about accuracy, right,

being really attention to detail. I don't know what kind of engineer you do, but like, if you're engineering an airplane that I'm going to get on, then I would like you to not make mistakes either. And it sounds like it's maybe not a realistic expectation for your boss to not do on site visits, especially if you're training

like you're going to be getting that feedback. I think what's hard is that, as someone who's got fifteen years of experience, yes you say off and on, you're probably coming into it with like an attitude of I've been around the block, Like I do know some things. I'm more senior, I have more experience than these other juniors,

So like, why are you picking on me? And I think you need to humble yourself if you're going to be in this position and recognize that you still may have things to learn from your supervisor in that space. And if it's shaken your confidence, I think the only exercise that will help you is to do your work well. And what do you need to do your work well? Is that feedback maybe your boss, Like maybe you've taken it so personally now like with a feedback from them,

it's going to continue to shake your confidence. But I'm going to need you to like find a mentor find a colleague who's doing everything right and watch them like a hawk, even if they're twenty years younger than you, watch them like a hawk. Age is nothing when it comes to I feel like has nothing to do with

whether you're capable of a job or not. But if they really understand what you guys are there to do, and they're doing things really well, then follow them and see what they're doing right and then try to emulate that. And I think it is just like eat a slice a humble pie and recognize, Okay, maybe I'm not in my area of strength here and I've got some learning to do. That's all I can think of. That was radical candor, and I hope that it didn't hurt your feelings.

are their classes are there? You know, are there programs that you can order that Like she literally useduld just like buy these kind of like programs on the side and just practice with them. I remember distinctly when she, like even my sister Tracy, when she was wanting to be a buyer, she like ordered kind of like these

buying programs that she would just practice with. So that way, because she knew she was new to that industry, she had been in the financial industry up until then, you know, so that when she went to interviews, she can say, although, you know, I've had had this direct experience, I've got my master's in marketing, and these programs I've been doing them, you know for the last year or just on my own, And so are there ways you can lean in to skill sets that you're self developing so you feel good

about that?

you like going in and out? And I know your question is just about confidence, but like, if you're wanting a career, like a real career in this field to see some upward trajectory, I'm going to guess if you even you've been in and out of it, you're not gaining skills or gaining a master of your craft to the point where you're going to be moving up. And I think you just got to, like, you know, forget about your age for a second. I don't I find

that your age being forty is irrelevant. Honestly, It's just really about do you want to be really good at this one job and bring value and be recognized and move up and get more opportunities. And the best way to do that is, like TIF saying, is to really invest in your skills and grow. And you know, and of course, like I would agree, yelling is not the best I know you say they went off on you. I don't know what that means, but I'm going to assume they weren't thrilled and they let you know it

in front of probably some other people. But like, what is the benefit of sitting in that and just like letting that continue to get you down, not very much like it's it's just better for you if you you know, I'll take it for what it's worth, take the criticism or the feedback, and then find ways to just prove them wrong, you know, and to bring that excellence. And if they look over your shoulder more often because you made some mistakes early on, then that's sort of the

price to pay when you lose that trust. But you can rebuild it, you know, if you continue and you bring that excellence every day.

so how do you do that? Can you look at my lesson plan? Can you take you know, And so that way I can start to see what good looked like, so I can emulate that. So good luck to you over forty confidence.

a eighteen year old be like, oh that's my aunt Mandy. Okay, we canna let that slide because you got tea oka but not no, but because I remember I had this woman that you just called me auntie, and I'm like, says, I'm five years older.

for her. Yeah, huge potential. Well for inst let me just welcome you on into y'all know I'll be coaching young young brown girls in business at over at my mentor Tiffany dot com coming over, because this is the type of thing that we would like, you know, not that we talk on one on one, but you know that I would either do a lesson on which I definitely have about how to grow and and scale, or you know, we sometimes I do a Q and A. I do a live once a month where you get

to like kind of lean and learn a lesson, ask questions. I bring experts in, Like tonight, I mean, y'all are you know you will listen to too late, But tonight I'm having the assistant superintendent of the largest school district in Newark come to talk about how to build a curriculum that sells. So I'm excited about that. But I say all that to the same that this is great. You are in a position that so many budding or new entrepreneurs find themselves in, and that is like pre scale.

group coaching. So when I scaled, I went from one on one, then I went from in person still but group, and then I went from two larger audience. So for you, you know, you might consider how m because I'm not gonna lie. Online courses are getting people are getting a little exhausted by traditional online courses. That's what that's what the word is. And we've seen it too. We've seen a little slow down to business. I've also seen it with my friends who have online courses, and so I

don't know I would. I don't want you to, like maybe take the full leap uti courses, consider kind of maybe doing someone off. That's what I would see, just to test the market to see if there's interest there of like teaching, like hey, I'm going to teach this class you. If it was me, i'd want to align myself with like mommy groups like you know, pre mommy book groups, like especially first time moms who are like, what am I.

So I'm assuming the labor stuff that you do, it's like you with one single mother, you know, with one not single mother, but one individual woman, you know. So that's what I would ask myself, is this possible for me to do this with a group?

the race type of growth? I know some people like to have explosive growth, which can be fun but can also be overwhelming, and it's not always telling about whether or not that's something that can be sustained, and so like, yeah, I would be looking for what is the next step versus the next leap, you know, And I think that, you know, maybe in person group coaching might be a nice step and see if those people will be interested in something online with you and then moving from there.

you have such a wide audience. I mean, my feeling about online courses is and I hear to what you're saying about the you know, like the waning interest in it, and I do feel like, I mean, I think that you could say about anything right now, in the economy that we're in, people are just more tight with their dollars and they want want to be sure that they're spending money on so then that is absolutely for them and your key, you know, the key hurdle you have

to overcome when you are trying to pivot something online or even just any business is figuring out who's your core market, who's your audience and creating an offer that they it's it's completely apparent to them that this is exactly for me. And that was an exercise that I went through with my business is making sure that I

am speaking to her. I am speaking to the woman who goes on LinkedIn and you know doesn't even want to look at her feed because she's sick of seeing everyone else post about new jobs or they just got a promotion. You know, the person who's got twelve different versions of their resume and still can't land a job.

Like I've thought deep and hard about the specific person that I'm speaking to and for you that you know, maybe you already know because you've been in business for a while, but tips right, like you want to get that like focus group, you want to talk to women, talk to sorry, people who give birth. What are they need? What are they wanting? You know, there's a whole market, I feel like for support after the birth, you know,

like postpartum support, which you say that you offer. And I mean I was talking to a mom at my son's daycare and she just bought a course on how to get her son to sleep through the night, and there's and I was like, oh, did you do this? One, and she's like, no, I did that one. There's a bunch of them out there, you know, So there is there is definitely a market for definitely an appetite, and I don't want you to get stuck on like I think I had this idea, how could I get there?

So that's where I'm like, you know, yes, I agree, you know, some in person coaching might be helpful, but I also feel like finding people who are competitors potential competitors in your space, but like let them show you that it's possible if you find other people who are you know, they have lactation consultant consultancies, and they have an online you know, component of what they teach, Like find other examples of people out there doing the thing

that you want to do, not to make yourself feel like there's no space for you, but to make you feel like it's possible, and you can like connect with them and learn from them and start you know, being in and start growing your community of like minded entrepreneurs.

As well as far as like the marketing side, I would say, if you don't already have a way to capture emails from your clients, like you have to get something, get some sort of very basic I think in the when we say CRM, we're probably talking about just like an email, an email platform, you know, like I use flow desk, you use the big one once it called it KEEP.

got something that you're launching. So a lead magnet could be something small for you to start with, Like can you create the ten lactation tips to save you from cracked nipples? You know, because ouch, right, no one wants a cracked nipple. It's as bad as it. Okay. So if you have something that you can like package together and just like and it's your area of expertise, so it shouldn't take you that long to create it, you know.

Like for me, it's my four free scripts to ask for a raise, you know, I put that together and people download it for free and they give their email and that's how we can stay in touch with them. But you can find some free like email software, flow

desk is free. It's a you know, I don't like, I'm not affiliated with them in any other way than I use their product, but there are some you know, just like just do just get the basic version of whatever you think you need to email these people and you can always like grow with your tech, like you can always get tech art of technology. Yeah, you can always like level up, but find something to start And should you hire a business coach?

where it's like educational lives. And so one of the best ways to get people to see you as like the go to is for them to see you as an expert because of what you teach and how you teach, you know, So just consider like that too, that you're not supposed to do out here alone, Like you know, partnership is critical.

my prenatal yoga studio that I went to. You could do zooms where because I used I remember when I had my first son, I was stressed about breastfeeding, as most first time moms are. Am I doing it right?

Is he getting enough? You can't tell. And they had like this little group at my hospital and I had to go in person, but you would sit in a room and just breastfeed together, and they'd like, but you could do that a virtual version of that, you know, just to like get moms together, look at their latch and make sure it's right, get them, you know. I just wanted to quickly say though, and we're we could do a whole series on this whole question. But about

the business coach thing. When I had gotten my proof of concept with Mandy money Makers, when I had I did it, you know quick. I did it like not dirty,

but I didn't wait for it to be perfect. But like I did my focus grouping by doing the free career coaching, and then I launched what I thought was a good webinar to then launch my online course and my community, Mandy money Makers, and I did like three versions of that, and then I enrolled in a business coaching like a program, and it was like a group coaching program, so it wasn't like I had a dedicated

business coach. I did get a couple of one on ones, but it was me taking their course on how to sort of do what you're talking about which is you know, really just like make your business, you know, bring in

these different income streams online with your business. That's at that point I was when I hired the business coach and did their program, and I think that that worked for me because you will get stuck in the beginning of any good program doing that work anyway of like finding your perfect customer, working on your you know, your

marketing and your message. And I had kind of done a lot of that work in advance, and I felt really ready to just like enroll in this and get the template and like the curriculum or the blueprint that I needed to you know, create like a smooth running online business in that way. So and the woman that I worked with and I do not get any affiliate from her anything like that, but that was we had

her as a guest on the show. Natalia Copeland is as the coach that I worked with in Talia Copeland, and her her program is called the Fast Academy Fast.

It's just like that's kind of like the the grouping that I like to have that I've seen create success for myself and others.