Someone once told me and God, I can't remember who it is now! Maybe it was one of my early coaches, or maybe it was a speaker in passing, you know, we get all these speaker friends, right? You start to like talk shop but someone would say , listen, I did not trust a speaker who says, they're not nervous.
I hear this all the time. There a re certain people that are like, 'Oh, I do not get nervous.' Now maybe you have figured out how to channel your nerves, right? I'm not in that camp. I know how to channel my nerves, but I'm not in the camp of I never get nervous. I absolutely get nervous because it means I care. It means I care about my audience. It means I respect my audience. It means what I have to do matters. And I want to help facilitate change, right?
And to create a call to action that inspires people, and that is a big responsibility. So yes, I feel nervous. I just know how to channel it, right? I know how to, overtime , the more you run the reps , the better you get - turn that fear into excitement.
Have you ever wondered how some people just seem to have a way with words? They have this spark that lights you up when you're near them, they have the It factor. And while most people think it's something that only a few are born with, I believe that you can find it so it can become your superpower to grow your business. It's about you bringing your brand to life by becoming a magnetic communicator in person and on camera, showing up with confidence, authenticity, and inspiration.
So are you ready to become magnetic? I thought so. I'm Heather Sager and I'd like to welcome you to Finding Your It Factor
Hey friend, welcome to another episode. It's your friend, Heather. I am recording this intro from my cell phone because, fun fact, my microphone broke right before I went live for today's interview. Talk about embarrassing, but guys, tech stuff happens.
I am thrilled to bring you probably, I can't say my favorite interview ever because I have some damn good guests on this show. But man, this interview today was fire. I have the author, the incredible bad-ass professional fear boss, Judi Holler, in the house. She is the author of the book, Fear is my Homeboy. She is a professional keynote speaker. She's a creative CEO. She's a professionally trained improviser and alumni of the second city training centers conservatory in Chicago.
Yeah , like the same place where people train for Saturday Night Live. She is incredible. I found Judy probably, I don't know, 10, 11 months ago, maybe a year ago. I can't quite recall. We have a mutual friend. I've talked about her before Kindra Hall who is the author of Stories that Stick. She is a professional storyteller, and trainer and teacher. She is amazing. I knew Kindra from when I had hired her for being a keynote speaker at my conference. I saw that Kendra and Judy were connected.
They had a couple of shared Instagram stories. I'm like, who is this gal? Her energy is infectious in the best way and I had to get to know her. So I started following on Instagram. I bought her book. I devoured it in an afternoon. It is so good. I just love her very authentic, true to herself style. She is a DJ. She wanted to be a MTV disc jockey as a kid. You can just hear her flavor and zest for life in everything she does.
She talks about how her super power is her energy and how she works hard to create and maintain that level of energy for her audience and for herself to show up in the best way possible. I loved my conversation so much with Judi. I think you are going to love it too, especially as you think about where you're at right now in your business.
Now I know we talk a lot about the show about entrepreneurship, about online marketing and most definitely about helping you become the best version of you as a speaker. Whether you're speaking on a stage, whether you're on a virtual stage, on video showing up on Instagram, or you are doing sales calls or any other stage of your life, you're always on stage, my dear. It doesn't matter if there's a microphone on you or not.
You have to think about how does fear impede and impact the choices that we make. How does fear hold us back? How does fear help us lean in? We talk today in this episode about how maybe we're looking at fear the wrong way. And you know, if you're listening to this, you most likely fall into one or two camps. Judi and I talk about this in the interview.
A lot of people when they come around and talk to me about speaking, whether they come to my webinar or they reached out on Instagram or we have conversations, a lot of people are either terrified at the idea of public speaking, or doing videos online, or they're indifferent by it . They're like, 'bring it on, I don't really get nervous.'. I guess there's maybe some of you that are in between.
Here's the thing, you know, you're not going to get over your fear of speaking if that is a fear there, but you are going to learn how to develop that resiliency, that muscle to lean into it. And actually dare I say, call it a fun thing to do that you enjoy embracing that fear.
For those of you who are maybe going, 'I'm not afraid of public speaking,' I want you to pay extra attention to this episode because Judi has some things to share that I think you might want to pay attention to, that really are going to help you play the bigger game that you're after this year and far beyond that. I know you're going to love this episode.
I took so many notes and quite frankly, I abandoned the questions that I h ad had halfway through the interview and just s ort o f asking her questions about what she thought about certain things and some thoughts that I had as I read through her work online. I want you to hear from someone who, she's in our business now full time for four years-ish. She's extremely seasoned, but also still in the early stage of business.
She shares a story about how, what she started out doing and what she does now has morphed over time and how fear has helped lead her to get on the path that she knew she was supposed to be on. I know you're going to love this episode. I can't wait for you to hear it. But hey, before we dive into it, I want to talk to you about something real timely that's happening right now. At the time this episode airs we have, I mean, very little amounts of time left.
For those of you who have been thinking about joining, Speak Up to Level Up the doors close at midnight on Thursday, July 2nd. So depending on when you hear this, you may have missed your chance, friend. If that's the case, don't worry. You can get on the wait list for it next time. But we only open up doors may be twice a year for this program. I don't know if it will be offered again in 2020.
If you've been thinking about playing a bigger game this year, if you've been thinking about experimenting with your fear and taking that mission that you have on that heart a nd making that impact that you want to make sharing your message with more people, you have to have a way to build that resiliency into sharing your message.
Getting uncomfortable in an intentional way to share your message on stages, the virtual ones and the real life in person ones when those come back, because you know, they will. That sense of community, Judi and I have that shared passion for live events. Those will be coming back and you want to make sure that you positioned yourself as an authority and you have your message down.
You have your signature talk down. You have some street cred down so that you can actually get those stages booked . But for now my friend, you got to work on your signature stories. You gotta work on that muscle for how to show up confidence on camera, on virtual stages, how to add value to other people's programs and platforms in a way that people start looking to you as the go to resource in your field.
That's all possible for you right now, but you have to lean into it. Start working on it. So if you are on the fence, my dear , I hope you jump off the fence, whichever direction you go. You know, I'm going to support you. But if you're thinking about jumping in to Speak Up to Level Up, my 12 months signature program to help you design, create, deliver with confidence your signature talk to help you grow your authority and your email list. The time to decide is right now.
Head on over to heathersager.com/join to get all the details, snag your seat and I'll see you inside. Okay. Let's jump i nto m y episode with Judi Holler.
Alright , Judy, I'm so excited that you're finally here for this show. Welcome, welcome to Finding Your It Factor, my dear.
Oh, it's so good to be here and thank you for your patience as we've worked to get this coordinated. It's so fun to officially zoom meet you. Thank you for having me.
Of course! What did they say? All good things, you should wait. I don't know. I'm bad at quotes, so that's not the goal .
All good things come to those who wait.
Okay, there we go. We're going to prove that right today. You're coming on the show. I have talked a little bit about you here and there with my students, but I'd kind of kept you a little bit of a secret because I was so excited to introduce you to my audience through this interview. I would love for those who aren't familiar with your work, I've talked about you a little bit, but would you introduce what you do and then we're going to explore a little bit about how you got into this.
Cool. Yeah, we can own a packet out that question. So what do you do? It's always the one question and i t's w as something I've become obsessed with myself,. You know, finding quick and clear ways to articulate what it is that you do. What it is that I do now is so different than what it is that I used to do, and really what I thought I was going to do so. If someone were to ask me right now today, Judi, so what do you do?
I would say I am the CEO of a creative company that is on a mission to help people live braver lives. I do that through my sp eeches, through the products I create, through my books, through my soon to be courses and most importantly, I have a really - so I'd stop there. But then most importantly, I have a really cool job that I created this community.
Also called the Fear Boss community, which really kind of came out of the work we're doing on fear, most certainly the work in my book, 'Fear is my Homeboy.'. The thing for anyone listening right now to know about me and my work and what makes my work on fear unique and original and most certainly what makes me unique and original is the fact that all of my work and pretty much all of my life is inspired by what I learned in the improv theater.
I'm a alum of second city's conservatory in Chicago. It changed my life in so many ways. That is what I do now. I run a creative company and I DJ out tools on the regular to help people live a braver life. I lead a community. I'm an improv junkie , but it all began in sales and marketing in the hospitality and meetings industry. I didn't wake up, you know, thinking I was going to be the CEO of a creative company , or a keynote speaker, or an author at that.
If we want to unpack that a little bit, we can, but this is a new journey for me. My last paycheck in corporate America was on July 1st of 2016. I am a newer entrepreneur and I'm happy to like I said, unpack that but that's the cliff notes.
Yeah. Okay. First of all, entrepreneurship is kind of like dog years. I mean, four years is a long time. You have three years over to me. My last paycheck I think was in April of 2019, so very exciting! I love how you hit that right on the gate. I actually talked about this a lot around that question around, tell me what you do. It's still hard for us to answer. It's hard.
I love that you said what you do now and how you talk about it has evolved because I think so many entrepreneurs get tied into thinking that they have to get their pitch so bright. It's not to get it right for right now, know it'll morph over time. Let's talk about that more a bit.
That was one of the things that caught my attention really quickly early on, when you were talking about your background in improv, like instantly, I'm like, I am so intrigued because I could see how that can pan out in being a really effective speaker. But why don't you talk a little bit about, so you were in improv and you were in meetings. How did you fumble your way into, for lack of a better term, speaking on stages?
Yes, so good. Even to address the first part of what you just said, which is really important. I think for anybody that is building anything, we have to stop being so afraid to call the whole , to say what it is that we really believe that we are and what we do. For the longest time I'd be on planes and someone would say, so what do you do? So what do you do?
I'm like, 'I'm a speaker, I'm a keynote speaker.' And then I'd go into these really long dis-, not that there's anything wrong with being a keynote speaker. I do not mean that in a condescending way. I'm a keynote speaker. I'm proud of that. However, I am doing so much more than that and most keynote speakers are. What I'm really doing is running a freaking company every single day and building that and scaling my platform. That is so much more than just getting on a stage.
I go to a business conference and I left that conference. We always joke it was R achel Hollis' RISE Conference. I mean, it's on my team go. It's a lways her business conference, not the like, you know, a female empowerment conference. It was like the RISE business conference. And Amanda, my team -
I was there with you.
Where you there at RISE business?
Down in the VIP section.
Shoot! Oh, were you with me like on Instagram or were you really there?
I was really there. I think we didn't realize that we were both there until the day we left.
Oh my God. I don't even remember us having that connection. Darn the luck! We could have met. You know, this conference. There was something that was said on one of the days, like maybe day one. It was pretty early on, Day and a half into the conference where it just clicked. It was like, 'no, I'm a C -. ' I like , I went to that conference. Oh my keynote speaker. I do this and I would fumble over my words because I have a book called 'Fear is my Homeboy.' and it gets kind of confusing.
I left that conference going, 'no, I'm a CEO of a creative company and we are on a mission to help people bring their braver lives and I DJ out tools to help people do that, and one of the ways we do that is through speaking.' I guess the reason I bring this up before I kind of unpack those, the improv-corporate America thing is that we have to be brave enough to own what it is that we really do.
I think when you are brave enough to really own what it is that you do and to get creative about it, you open up doors that you never saw coming. Right? I don't know. I just think we just have to take a deep breath. There are a lot of speakers out there.
A lot of people could say I 'm a speaker and an author, which i s always a cool thing to be able to say, yet there's not a lot of people saying, 'Oh, I own a creative company and I D J out tools to help people live a very, very braver life.' S omebody's going to go, 'tell what does that mean? Tell me more.' Are we looking for creative, cool ways to really do things different than everybody else?
And I believe that if you want a different career and if you want a different speaking practice, and if you want a different business, you have to be willing to do things differently, which leads me right to improv. It was something I chose to do to do things a little bit differently. I was working in corporate America by day, improv by night. I had built a really successful career in hotel sales and marketing. I know you have a background in live events, so you w ould h ave been my client.
I opened hotels. I was in a regional position for Omni for years. I moved from St. Louis to Chicago by way of a big promotion. When I got to Chicago, I said, 'Oh my God, second city is here.' I always had a little bit of a performance background like I did speech meets in grade school and dabbled in, y ou k now, some of the creative stuff i n the arts. I wasn't really a theater kid, but I loved, like writing, and telling stories and performance, I always have.
I was also equally obsessed with Saturday Night Live most of my life. So I said, 'okay, I knew second city was pretty famous. I'm like, let's just go take a class to see if what I need with my performance, and my nerves, and just confidence on stage. I caught the bug, ended up auditioning for the conservatory, which is the professional program. Got in, stayed in. So here I am by day, working in corporate America and by night on an improv stage.
I was 30 years old when I took my first ever improv class. Anybody listening right now that they say they are too old and that it's too late, you are never too old and you are never too late, you know? I s tarted to watch all of those improv ideas and fundamentals. I mean, if you saw us on camera right now, I have a big neon sign that says yes and here in my office.
It was ideas like that, that we use to stay brave on the improv stage, and on a keynote stage, and on a speaking stage that were making me really brave in improv, I guess that was happening. I was starting to boss up in the boardroom and get really brave in my nine to five. It allowed me to do incredible things in my career that ultimately led to me saying, 'Oh my God, I need to teach what I'm learning.
Maybe I should start speaking for free and writing about what I'm learning.' And I did that and it's turned into a full blown fear movement and a business. It was all because I opened the door to that improv classroom the first time , the second time. The first time I didn't , I quit. The second time I walked in the door and it changed my life so improv is a big part of my story, but I did both in tandem for awhile .
Yeah. Okay. I have so many places I want to go with that, but I'm g oing t o keep moving because there's some good stuff we're going to talk about today. I do want to note for anyone listening, I'm g oing t o link up to all your stuff today. Of course, but your book, I like ate this thing up in one session. It is such a good, easy read. It's a feel good book, but also it's like I'm drinking a margarita with you as you're reading it tell the story about the first time you went.
You're like, Oh, I'm going to go to second city and you didn't show up. We don't wanna have to go into that but I do want to encourage people who are listening, go read that story because I think so often we hear stories of people who did something scary and then look at all of the fame, but that's not really the full story.
You share more of the full story in here. We're going to dive in a little bit about, it's not always sunshine and rainbows along the way, especially when we're dealing with being brave. I want to talk a little bit about how you got into the idea of talking about fear, like how you made fear your homeboy as you call it with the book, because you started off with your speaking was more personal branding, using improv to find your personal brand. How did you even start with that?
And then how did you find your way into fear?
Oh my gosh, that's a juicy one. Okay. How do I cliff note that? Yes, I started off kind of like a personal branding coach and speaker person. I was using some of the ideas from the improv theater to help people feel more confident about putting themselves out there because what I was really learning in the app--. It was like going to like work your fear muscles every time you walked into the classroom 'cause it was so scary and it never got less scary. I just got braver. I just got stronger.
I realized I was doing all this work on personal branding and I was calling it like personal branding i mprovised and it was so much fun. Then I realized here's why people aren't really putting themselves out here. We're afraid. We're afraid of judgment. We're afraid of getting fired. We're afraid of failing. We're afraid of public embarrassment. We're afraid of looking like a fool. We're afraid of all other people's opinion , like all the things.
Once I realized that it was the fear we needed to address, everything shifted for me. And I was reading Elizabeth, Gilbert's 'Big Magic.' I talk about this in the book. It was all about creative living beyond fear. When she wrote, I literally--, here's my homeboy. It was on my honeymoon. I was reading this book. It came to me because I was trying to figure out at the time how to articulate what I believed was my relationship with fear. I was doing something. I didn't see a lot of people doing.
I was experimenting with it . I was playing with it. I was talking to it. It was my friend. It was my bestie. It was most certainly my homeboy. I wasn't articulating it in that way at that time. When I read some of Elisabeth's words specifically around this idea that we don't need to be fearless, we just need to be brave. It made me realize, well, that's the answer.
I need to start thinking about how I teach people to work with their fear instead of trying to get rid of their fear because everybody when they think of speaking, how do I get rid of my nerves? How do I get rid of my fear? How do I overcome? I get this all the time at podcast. You know, one of the first questions everybody was asking, how do we overcome fear? I'm always like, 'I hate to tell you this, but you can't.
You can't.' But I don't use the word bullock, but you can get really good at figuring out how to fear it just a little bit less. You can get really good at being brave and you can get really good at doing what fear doesn't expect, which is to befriend it and have different conversations with it. Procrastination, and imposter syndrome, and perfectionism and self doubt, and self sabotage, and excuses, all beautiful little ways that fear loves to hide.
Once we understand that those are fear based feelings, we can go, 'Aha I see you fear.' Now, hold on. Instead of me sitting here going, 'Oh, you've arrived again, 'Perfectionism.' You've arrived again, 'Imposter syndrome.' You've arrived again, 'Jealousy.' I instead go, 'I've arrived. I've arrived,' because it means, I know I'm ready for more. It makes me believe that I feel worthy of more and I feel worthy of it. When I feel jealous of someone I'm like, 'Oh, okay, cool. Listen to that.
What does that mean?' Because I get jealous, you know, we all get jealous sometimes or a little envies. It doesn't mean we don't want it for that person. It just means we kind of want some of that for ourselves. I listen now instead of retreat inside, which is what fear wants you to do.
The long story short on that is, yes, my shift began from personal branding to fear based work because I realized you will never build a business or a personal brand, or get good on a speaking platform, or really thrive as an entrepreneur, if you're not in a good relationship with your fear first. We have to start there and reverse engineer
Okay, I love so much about that. The thing that got me thinking about is obviously when it comes to speaking, so many people are like, 'Oh my gosh, I'm terrified of public speaking like I'm physically ill at the idea of it.' For me, when I made this shift of in person speaking to speaking on camera, I was like, 'Oh my gosh, camera' is terrifying.'
I think it's really easy to go, 'Oh, okay, that's the year I got to build that bravery muscle.' But also one of the things that you just mentioned is different ways that fear surface through imposter syndrome, through procrastination. And I really want to hit on that for a moment because I also have a very large subsection of my audience who goes, I have no fear of speaking, like just bring on.
What I want to say is going, okay, first of all if you're not feeling that fear, maybe you're not noticing it, but also are you playing too small? That for someone who is like, 'Oh yeah, I don't get nervous. I don't have the fear.' What would you say maybe to someone on that camp?
Someone once told me and God, I can't remember who it is now. Maybe it was one of my early coaches or maybe it was a speaker in passing. You know, we get all these speaker friends, right? You start to like talk shop. But someone would said , listen, I did not trust the speaker who says, they're not nervous.
I hear this all the time. There a re certain people that are like, 'Oh, I do not get nervous.' Now maybe you have figured out how to channel your nerves, right? I know how to channel my nerves, but I'm not in the camp of I never get nervous. I absolutely get nervous because it means I care, and it means I care about my audience. It means I respect my audience. It means what I have to do matters. And I want to help facilitate change, right.
And to create a call to action that inspires people, and that is a big responsibility. So yes, I feel nervous. I just know how to channel it. I know how to overtime, the more you run the reps, the better you get, turn that fear into excitement. I would absolutely agree with you in this sense that, I almost think saying that I don't get nervous, I think that's a fear based reaction. I think that's a little ego. I think it's someone a little afraid to be vulnerable.
I do agree with you that you could be missing out on an opportunity because if you're not a little scared, are you playing it too safe? When was the last time you've remixed the order of your slides? When was the last time you've tried to go no note deck or have you given a presentation lately with no slides ? When was the last time you've changed your signature story? When was the last time you brought in new research or tried out new slides or worked with different transitions?
It kind of leans into the idea of your experiments. The big idea behind my work on fear is this idea that we need to become pure scientists and to sort of begin experimenting with our fear every day on purpose and as a presenter and as a performer. Even as someone who sell a virtual presenter, and a virtual performer, a lot like yourself with these online tools, have I scared myself lately?
If I'm not nervous and this is why I love what you said like if I'm not nervous, maybe it's time to mix it up a little bit. Yes, we want you comfortable on stage. Of course, you will get comfortable once you rehearse, and run the drills and put in the reps, yet if there's not anything there, it makes me wonder if you're playing it too safe. I always feel like, someone who says I once did one of my very first workshops on fear and there was a woman in the front row and she bustles into the room.
It was like a breakout, you know, new speakers, breakout room. She bustles into the front row and puts all her stuff down. She sits right in the front of all our scattered notebooksall this stuff. She's like, just so you know, I'm here. I 'm not afraid. I have no fears. Really. I'm pretty brave person. She goes, but I'm just here to take notes 'cause I'm a coach. And I think you'll be able to tell me some really great stuff that I can use with my people.
But I just like want you to know I'm not really afraid. I'll never forget that after the top , this woman was like in tears. She was like, I had no idea that that was fear. I was doing this and these excuses were manifesting in this way. My perfectionism was holding me back here. It was really fun to see her sort of take a deep breath. I think we get afraid. We feel it's bad to be afraid. It's okay to feel fear. What's not okay is to allow fear to make your decisions for you.
Mic drop right there. I think hitting it on the head, the idea that for that woman, like it's easy to like roll your eyes and be like, 'Oh, that woman, like we've all had that woman in a workshop.' There is this piece that sometimes you can't even see that you're mislabeling or misplacing the fear because our minds trick us. They absolutely trick us and they build up walls to protect us.
I love how you talk about just embrace it. In your book, you talk about different ways to name it and conduct these fear experiments. Let's talk about the fear experiment. Can you give some recommendations or just some words of wisdom to people listening around? How do we go about experimenting with it? We have to call it out first, understand what it is, but then how do we play with it a bit?
Oh, I'm so glad you went here. Yes, I could talk about this all day long. This is our rocket fuel . If we're a rocket ship, us. We're this beautiful rocket ship that just wants to freaking blow up into the stars, but we cannot get to the stars if we don't have any fuel in our rocket ship tank.
Fear experiments in my opinion are kind of like your rocket fuel. It gives you wings. It will help you fly and fear your fear a little bit less as you go do that. I want to number one, invite everyone to start thinking about themselves as if you're scientist .
Okay. This just means that instead of allowing something new or scary, you're going to do for yourself, instead of allowing fear, and negativity, and anxiety, and stress and control, manage those scary feelings for you or make fear-based, you want to make more fear based decisions instead of allowing fear to drive your vibe.
You are instead thinking a little bit like a scientist. You are welcoming in more confidence, and courage and creativity and play by only looking at what you're doing as conducting fear experiments . It drives out that stress, and overwhelm, and fear and control. It welcomes in more confidence, courage, creativity and play. Here's why, because it's just an experiment. If you are just a scientists , experimenting with your fear, you cannot fail.
You cannot mess it up because it is just, literally, just an experiment.
Your experiments could be really big, juicy things like speaking on stage for the first time, starting a business, doing your first online course during your first zoom interview, starting a podcast, leaving a toxic relationship, quitting a bad habit. These are all really big fear experiments. A lot of us listening right now, I'm sure you're nodding your head.
You probably have a few fear experiments you've done in your life where you're like, 'Oh my God, yes.' Having a child getting married, getting divorced, all these things right? Yet you don't need to jump out of a plane or like free solo Mount Everest to sort of prove to the world or yourself that you're brave. You can do small every day things and still be priming that fear muscle. I believe that your courage and your bravery is a muscle.
Just like the muscles you have in your body, that you go to the gym and work them out so they get strong. I want to invite you to fear boss fitness. We're lifting heavy. We are working out and we're picking up heavy weights. The weights we're picking up are the weights of discomfort. And so small to your experiments are our drills, right? Our weights are five pound weights, are three pound . We're not going right for the 50 pound weight. We're going to start with a small weights and build up.
Small for your experiments could be like what I did this morning. I am trying to, I've been brushing my teeth with my left hand. It is super uncomfortable. Okay. Fear experiments are, anytime you do something uncomfortable out of your comfort zone. Fear experiments are taking your first selfie and posting it online.
Fear experiments - are trying a new food, or speaking up first on your zoom call, or wearing a color you're not used to, or wearing cowboy boots when everybody else is in heels, or rocking a sequined jacket when else is in business suits. Fear experiments are sending a voice DM to someone you want to get to know, or DM someone in general that you want to get to know. Fear experiments are hiring a coach, or reading something new, or putting down a fiction book and picking up a biography.
Any time you get a little uncomfortable, you are running drills. The more you do this, the braver you get. So taking it back to the platform and the stage, whether it's an online course or a live speech, this is why I have a different relationship with my fear on stage .
I am working regularly experimenting with my fear every day on purpose so when a scary thing happens, like I need to be on stage, like I've got a scary doctor's appointment, like I have to make a phone call that makes me nervous, I have begun to have a different relationship with my fear. I can now have different conversations with it. I'm now stronger because I'm used to getting uncomfortable. This is just another uncomfortable thing that I'm going to get through.
Yes. Oh my goodness. Yes, okay. This idea of being uncomfortable all the time, I love the idea that you used a workout analogy. I use that all the time. It's the, like we think for some reason, yes, it makes sense with our bodies. But when it comes to skills, especially the intangible skills like that around how we feel or how we react. Those are, like you develop that resiliency through practice so I love putting some attention behind it.
One of the quotes, I hear you say a lot is this idea. It's a slight pivot, but I think it goes into this because you mentioned this idea that there's no failures. if it's just experiments. t kind of goes along with what you say a lot. That there's no mistakes, only gifts. Can you talk a little bit about, I know that's one of the things that you repeat often. I also heard you recently talk about how your husband used that back on you to remind you of your lesson. Bless him.
Talk about that piece because I would say, especially for those early in their business, sometimes those little experiments feel like the end of everything . Like, it just feels so heavy. Like whether it's putting out your first freebie and nobody signs up or you do a podcast and you vomit, like everything feels so big. Can you talk about this idea of how do you embrace the gifts when everything feels so large?
This takes time yet it is a game changer. It kind of goes back to the same idea of being of your scientist. Like if it's just an experiment, you can't really fail, can you? Also, when you come into this mindset of no mistakes, only gifts, which is absolutely another improv mantra.
I would have teachers and professional instructors at second city before we go out onto a stage before the live show or rehearsal, we had one instructor in particular that literally would say to the entire ensemble, 'I want you to go out there tonight guys and I want you to fail. I want you to bm. I want you to mess it up so bad.
Sitting here, like, did he just tell us to bum because in corporate America, I'm being told to like, be yourself in the presentation, but email me before you do, having please be yourself, but 'cc' the team before you do anything else. In corporate America, I was being told very different things. Be yourself, but not too much. Get it right, and copy us and make sure you ask first. Fit in this box and improv. It was like, no - fail, fall down, mess it up.
What we found was, number one, we got really empowered. Number two, strip fear's power, because we knew, okay, if we're getting the permission, literal permission, from the gods of second city to go out here and mess something up, how can we fail? We would go out and we would have bombs. We would have t hings go so bad. We would make mistakes.
We would end up getting the most audience laughter b ecause what happened was that the audience instantly goes, 'Oh, you're just like me.' They're not these improv gods who--how d id they d o? I think a lot of people think with improv, they're like, how d o t hey freaking do that? What we do is we use our training to succeed on stage. That's all we're doing.
We run the reps to get better yet when we would mess up, when we would have mistakes, they became such beautiful gifts because it connected the audience to us so powerfully, it made us relatable. It made us real. You want the same from you. It also leans into another really empowering idea that is rooted out of this idea that there are no mistakes, only gifts. And it's this one.
It really sets me free as we think about building our business and making mistakes on stage and not having anyone sign up, and Oh my God, tech going down and all the things that are going to happen. It is this idea. It's really big in my office. I'm looking at it right now. You will either win or you will learn, but you will never lose. We're either going to try something and crush it or we're going to learn something and that makes us a winner. Because we're learning so like you cannot lose.
I think once I really heard that, I had heard that before, bend all these motivational keynotes, I read plenty of books and I'm sure I've heard that before. It was said to me about two years ago. It really hit and it really landed and it set me free. And maybe it was because at the time I was really leaning into the no mistakes, only gifts idea and watching people use that idea to really make big, brave changes in their lives and in their businesses.
Yeah, I mean, you'll either win or learn. You're never going to lose as long as you don't allow yourself to look at it as a failure. The other question I'm really obsessed with, and I'd love to hear what you think about this.
I'm obsessed with this idea right now, Heather. How can I make this COVID, what's going on in the world around social injustice, political injustice, racial injustice, how can we make all the disruption that's happening right now the best thing that ever happened to me? How can you make your problem, your failures, your diagnosis, your l ost relationship, your a chy situation, the best thing that ever happened to you?
That requires you to be brave enough, to sit inside the discomfort so long enough for it to teach you what it's supposed to teach you.
Favorite quote that I use all the time is asking the question, what opportunity does this create? We don't want to ask that in the moment, sometimes, you need to sit with it. For me, the hardest moments in my life have served me the most, whether it's the, I know you and I haven't gotten the background o f my story yet, but whether it was my mom dying from cancer when I was a teen or my audience knows very well that I have a hearing loss, like a significant hearing loss and wear hearing AIDS.
Huge part of my story that I talk a lot about how the things that I've experienced in life, how I've created the unique gifts that I now have in teaching people resiliency and sharing their story and communication and so forth. I think it's really, it's really interesting in retrospect, to look back and be like, Oh, of course those things are like, that's why they happen 'cause you can create meaning or you can create those lessons.
But sometimes it's still really hard when you're in it or when you're facing, going into it to clarify that. One of the questions that I had for you, I did my research. I mean, you and I, for audience to know, we're preparing for this interview for four months, we've had this scheduled. I normally, I'm not to schedule ahead like this, even though I guess I'm a planner by trade. I'm usually more of a like on the cuff conversations.
I think that idea of fear, everybody can talk about fear, but I want to do it in a way that's intentional to really help people, which is exactly what you do. I was thinking about something that really caught my ear when I was listening to your podcast was you had mentioned a metric that made my ears go 'whoop. '
You were talking about, it was specifically on your episode around Mel Robbins, which I'm not going to spoil alert. I really wanna encourage people to go listen to it because you're really vulnerable about a big gift that happened for you.
But here's what I want to say. You had mentioned right when you finished your book, how you were responsible to go find endorsements. You are going after now, but the one thing that you said on that was at that point in time, you had like 1500 Instagram followers. You had no idea you were going to write a boo. I'll see you writing a book. You are responsible to go find endorsements. I had this moment of going, Holy crap, that two years ago you had 1500 Instagram followers.
You, yes, had been speaking, but you were really starting to figure out what your business look like. What I wanted to point out and have you talk about for a second is a lot of my audience are sitting here going like I don't even have anyone on my email list. And I keep seeing these big examples of people with hundreds of thousands of followers o r all these big things. I want you to go back to where you were two years ago. Could you have dreamed what you're doing now?
What does that look like for you? And how has your fear and your fear experiments leaned into what you're doing now being possible?
Yeah, when my book came out a year ago, May 28th. I started writing in 2018. When I approach my publisher, I had roughly 1400, 1500 followers. You're exactly right. When 'Fear is my Homeboy' came out in 2019, mind you, I had been speaking professionally, like left my job in 2016.
By 2019, when my book came out, I had 3,500 followers. Okay. 3,500. Guys, this isn't about followers. We'll have a conversation about that in a second. But let me just make the point, i t's o f t his point of like tenacity and also not getting so hijacked by comparison and what other people are doing yet there is testament in showing up and staying consistent and figuring out what that looks like, which is why I don't take a lot of my old stuff down.
I want people to see the weird posts and how I've evolved. I want someone to scroll back in my timeline from two years ago and see me like eating a steak or a salad, like a boring, basic post t o now what it looks like to storytell, and to serve and to teach and and how I've removed my fear of selling, which I'm saying in air quotes, because really we're teaching, we're not selling.
When I was even pitching my book to my publisher and all of that stuff, like to anyone who would listen really, I mean, I felt like I had all the street cred but I just knew I had an idea. I am self-built and today I think I have almost 18,000 followers on Instagram. Speaking have certainly scaled that, of course, but mostly it's just the reach of the book and it's kind of been an organic thing. I know a lot of people, sadly, and you'd be surprised how many people are doing.
A lot of people are buying followers, just so that they kind of up that influencer status. I would just encourage everyone who gets caught up in those numbers to really take a deep breath, because a lot of what you're seeing , you don't get to be Oprah overnight. Okay . You don't get to be Beyonce overnight. You don't get to get a million followers overnight. Let's also think about what do you really want because that also comes with a whole new territory.
You know, I'm always reminding people to be careful of attaching too much meaning to the good and or bad things that are happening to us because we really don't know what's good or bad. Right? You don't know. All you have is this moment and everything has its own poop sandwich.
Anything great that you have in your life usually comes with something that isn't so great on the other side. Right? You get a million followers, you're going to have a lot of weirdos that are following you. You're going to offer up a lot of attention that you may not want some times . Do think about what you ask for it's like anything in life.
I think for me, the journey has just been so fun because I've built slow. I've built organic and I've gotten more confidence along the way which for me just means that I know no matter what happens, I'll figure it out. That's what I define confidence really as. People are like, 'you're so confident. You're so confident.' I guess I am, because I bet on myself.
I'm in competition with myself and I know that no matter what happens, COVID economy, health, poor health , all the things that we have, I'm going to figure out whatever comes my way 'cauise I always have, which kind of goes back to your previous point on earning your stripes and using your story to connect and to grow authentically and to continue to experiment with things that make you feel uncomfortable.
And the only way I got to where I am today is through a lot of failure , but gifts, you know,. There's no mistakes, only gifts , a lot of gifts along the way and a lot of self - loved, and self belief that I can do it. You know, you have to say 90% delusion, 10% reality, right? When you limit yourself, you become limited. I just kind of had this core belief that, you know, there's something here and I believe in what I'm doing.
And I think, I think we can build a community around this idea and we did.
I think that's the focus is the focusing on the impact that you're trying to make and the mission. I think it's really easy to get distracted by the Instagram followers or the quote unquote fame that you see other people having. It really isn't about that.
One of the things you talk about is this concept of shortcuts versus long cuts. And like, that's what resonated with me because so often we see, especially in online marketing for entrepreneurs, people are chasing the fast solution. It's not about that. It's about making an impact and being in it for the long haul. Can you talk about that?
Yeah and I love that you've used it, I think three times now, the word impact, impact, impact. That's so good. That's something that I wish I would have done. When I started out 10 years ago making sure that I had, and it can evolve and change, but really making sure I had a mission, like a mantra to really rally cry behind because I think that also helps you stay focused on what matters and what doesn't .
Our mission in the Fear Boss community, and I have a big sign up in my office. This idea that we believe our freedom, our mental freedom, our emotional freedom, our physical freedom, our financial freedom, our all the freedom that we want in this life , because I think that's what we're really chasing more freedom, lives in smashing comfort zones. I would be pretty inauthentic to that mantra because we've got to get uncomfortable.
Getting uncomfortable requires you to do things that most people aren't willing to do. Buying followers is easy. Showing up every day and getting it wrong so you can get closer to getting it right takes gut and stamina. It's long cut but you will have people that are with you. They are ride or die. They're the first to buy your book and your work, your course, and sign up, so love the books you have.
We get so obsessed on the growth and attracting new followers when if we just loved on the people we have, they'll tell everybody about you, right? Get into your DMS, respond to everyone, voicetext, video text. Love on your people.
And you know, if I would've had a mission to line up against years ago, I think it would have provided me more clarity and more confidence around saying no to some of those really tempting shortcuts sometimes and really be brave enough to take the long cut, knowing that in the long run, that's how you get the quality that you really want in your life and your business.
It's not easy, but shortcuts are like, what do they call that when you're taking a test? It's not the cliff, what's the cliff note version of the book, or it's the something for your exam when you take an exam. It's like the cheat sheets for a test , right? It's the cliff notes version of a book.
Sometimes we need to read the book. Sometimes we need to go through what we're I'm--.I'm just so glad I've had a lot of long cuts. I talked yesterday, so I h ave this piñata up here behind me. It's a lama piñata. I got it at Target. Do you remember this from RISE Business? I don't know who said it on the stage, but one of the speakers from the stage said that entrepreneurship is kind of like a piñata.
If you think of your online course or building, or the speaking career you want to build or any business you're building, a lot of entrepreneurs listening right now, but this is also true in life. I think this is a life mantra and a business mantra. You got the piñata. I got this piñata in my office and you wake up and you take swing, right? And you swing, and you swing, and you swing at this piñata. Then you wake up the next day and yo u s w ing, a nd yo u s wing, an d y ou swing.
You have a crack di pping o u t. And you're like, 'duh!? Is this pinata made out of concrete? Like what is going on? Where's the freaking candy, right? You wake up again. Swinging, and swinging, and swinging, and you just keep swinging. All of a sudden, a little crack and a piece of gum falls under like , there's a gum in there. Oh my God. Okay. It gives you the confidence to take another swing, then you take another swing, and you take another swing and more candy falls out.
Next thing you know, you've broken, open this piñata and there's candy at your feet. You only got to that point because you showed up every day and took a swing. I believe entrepreneurship is like a piñata. Life is like a piñata. We have to be brave enough to keep swinging . Swinging is the long cut . Swinging is the long cut that earns you.
All of the juicy rewards as you define them for yourself, because success looks different for everybody, but you never get success out the swings , you know? Go buy everybody on your team. I bought everybody a little piñata, little baby piñata. They sit on their desks . Everybody remembers what we're doing. We're swinging, we're swinging, we're swinging, you know,
Oh my gosh, the love of piñata. Okay. I'm going to have to do that. I'll have to tell t his story another time, but I have a little Panda on my desk that I'll go into the story about that on another episode.
Oh I want to hear this. I know it's so close . I love it though. You have to tell me that story.
The story around the Panda, my old team at my old company bought this. We had a code word for Panda meant that shit was gonna hit the fan. Panda was her code word for shit. There's a story behind there, but essentially she was always going to hit the fan.
It was something was always going to go wrong. We worked in live events, something was always going to happen. But here's the thing like when you run a business or you work behind the scenes, you can't freak other people out. Like people don't even know about the shit hitting the fan. We would just talk about the Panda needed to be addressed. I keep that on my thing, reminder, that it is going to be a shit show in business sometimes and that's okay. Also you can take care of the Panda.
Okay. I can talk to you all day long. I want to respect your time. I know you talk about all the time, your super power is your energy. I know so many people are going to feel that and they're like, okay, so how do I hang out more with Judy? I'm g oing t o link to all your stuff, including your book, but can you talk a little bit about, you have the Fear Boss podcast, you have a brand new workbook that just came out last month, in addition to your book.
You have online store that just came out l ike this week. Talk a little bit about that. You have so many f undings going on. COVID has really created an interesting blessing for you with opportunities. So share a little bit about that so people can stay connected.
Make sure after this, you send me your address. I'm going to send you a workbook as a thank you. I want to go ahead and sending it to you. I'm going to send you a side bag. Yeah, Instagram's probably from a social perspective where I hang out the most. I'm always in my DMs. It is me not a social media manager. A great to hang out at @ judihollerr, obviously, this will be in the show notes.
My website, judiholler. com is always a great place to learn about my keynotes and to shop our store. We do have a store , judiholler . com/merchandise and all of that's linked up in my Instagram too . Yeah, my book, Fear is my Homeboy. It's also an audible. If you're listening to this podcast, you might like listening to books. so we're on audible as well. Then I do have a new workbook called the Fear Boss project and a podcast that is always free called the 'Fear Boss' show.
If you like Heather's podcast, I think you'll have a good time listening to the Fear Boss show as well, and just, you know, business on LinkedIn and all the good things, but just so grateful to have been here. You're a good interview. Thank you. I think like anything we all have to continue to try to get better. So this is one of the things, the muscle that I'm working at is how do I be a better interviewer to make my guests feel comfortable, but also creating good content for my people.
I have one last question for you before we wrap up that I love to ask all of my guests. The name of the show is Finding Your It factor. Which I , I m ean, I believe we all have a version of our own It factor. I'm curious. What would you define as an It f actor for someone and what is yours? Oh, I love this. Okay, guys, we're improvising right now. Heather did not send me outside of your really great, like, you know, what to , how long it will be. This is my audience and all that.
Like we did not, you were really prepared , but I did not get fed any questions. I did not know she was going to ask me this which I love, again, very experiment. Okay. I would define having an It factor as someone who is brave enough and a business even that is brave enough to rattle the cage of mediocrity with their courage, right? Brave enough to cause a ruckus and to do things a little bit differently.
You know, someone with the It factor is doing things differently than everybody else and not apologizing for it. I would say my It factor is most certainly the thing that makes me different, the way I rattle the cage of mediocrity with my courage is always with my energy. And because my energy is my It factor and my super power , man, I protect it at all costs. I don't wake up like this.
I work hard to make sure that I am maintaining and sustaining a healthy energy to be able to do the work I love and to talk to beautiful humans like you and to create things for my community. I rattle the cage of mediocrity by bringing the energy and not apologizing for the fact that I'm a pretty high vibe human. Yeah, you're a damn high vibe human. I'm so grateful for your sharing it with us today. I thank you so much for being here.
Judy, it's been a pleasure and guys be sure to go follow her and all the places. I'll linked to them below Judy. Thank you so much. Thank you. Talk soon.
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Guys, thanks so much for listening to Finding Your It Factor. And hey, if you have a talk coming up, you have to check out my free resource. It's called Nail Your Next Talk. 10 must ask questions before taking the stage so you can show up as an authority and turn that talk into future business. These are the questions that I use myself to prepare for my life talks, and they're going to help you ask the right questions of the person who booked you for the event.
So the meeting planner or the client, and it's going to help you serve your audience to the best way possible. It's going to help you anticipate potential tech or 80 snags. Turn the Q&A time into a strategic place for content and make this speaking opportunity, a lead generator for your business. So go get it. What are you waiting for? It's over at heathersager.com/10Questions
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