The Everyday Entrepreneur Podcast
#19: How To Ask For Anything You Want (and get it!)
This week I'm honored to have Brook McCarthy, Business Coach, and Digital Marketing Trainer, on the show. Brook works with business owners to help them magnify their impact and grow their professional reputations.
Join Brook and me as we chat all about the importance of actually asking for what you want - a key step when it comes to making changes in our lives and creating more of what we want. Brook also gives a simple strategy to really go for it and ask for what you want… and get it!
There is a lot of misconception surrounding confidence – confidence is a feeling but it is also an action.
If you act confident, the feelings you are hoping for will follow those actions.
You cannot afford to have a negative thought if you are self-employed.
Your brain is so powerful and tells so many stories, which are often untrue!
Instead of just trusting your feelings and listening to your thoughts, you have to act.
We have to get to a place of pain before we make a brave decision.
If you’re too comfortable and everything is too easy, you will be more reluctant to change.
It is so important to set your boundaries – move away from the things that are overwhelming you and causing pain.
As a consultant, it can be difficult to have a set fee – try to create packages and clearly defined services with clearly defined terms and conditions.
If you feel like an imposter and your confidence is lacking, put your price on your website and think thoroughly about your terms and conditions.
Have boundaries and a clear process so people know exactly what the path is.
If you don’t back yourself, who is going to back you?
You cannot accrue experience waiting for someone to tap you on the shoulder – you have to pitch and be direct.
Don’t wait for the phone to ring – go out there and get it!
As business owners, it is up to us to define what we want and we get the freedom to say no.
Introducing yourself to strangers is so important, especially as we get older.
Women are judged very harshly, so it is no wonder we all feel subconscious sometimes!
The only way to get over the fear of pitching is to just DO IT! The worst outcome is that you will be ignored.
Keep your pitch short – 1, 2, or 3 sentences.
Be genuine, authentic, real, and ask questions about them.
Keep practicing your pitch – act confident until you feel it.
Think about the one thing you want to ask for today and go and ask!
You will never know until you ask.
Remember:
Rather than waiting to be confident to show up, keep showing up until you are confident!
You Don’t Want to Miss…
01:50 – A little bit about Brook
05:48 – Brook’s business journey
13:52 – Finding the confidence to just go for it
18:08 – The reality behind being a business owner
23:08 – Reclaiming your time in business
26:30 – Overcoming imposter syndrome
37:30 – The framework for pitching yourself
Chat With Me and More Free Resources At…
Create your compelling business idea in 6 steps with my Free Business Action Guide
Website - http://hollyknoll.com/
Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/hollyknoll/
Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/consult.hollyknoll
Email me – holly@hollyknoll.com
Find Brook At…
Website – www.hustleandheart.com.au
Freebie – www.hustleandheart.com.au/pitch
Holly:
Hey Brook! Thank you so much for being here today. It's great to see you.
Brook:
Thank you. Thanks for having me, Holly.
Holly:
Yes. Well, so obviously you are not likely living in the United States, given your accent. So tell us a little bit about you. Where are you living? What do you do? And yeah, just tell us, give us a little bit of background.
Brook:
Sure. So I live in Sydney, Australia. I've lived here my whole life apart from when I was working and traveling overseas because Australia is a long way from many places. So we are keen travelers. We generally do like to travel. So for a couple of years, I lived and worked in Cambodia in Vietnam. I've traveled around Southeast Asia, India and ended up meeting my partner in Cambodia. And then we traveled for another year after that and ended up working in Turkey. So it's odd to be back in Sydney still, and especially because travel is a distant memory now. So yeah. Luckily I have a big country to explore.
Holly:
Yeah. That's one of the things I was really drawn to when I first met you is just all of your travel experience and me being a big traveler as well. I always admire Australians for traveling the world. Wherever I go, I always seem to meet Australians. You're so isolated, but yet I feel like culturally, you guys are like... I don't know. I'm overgeneralizing, but it seems like I meet Australians traveling wherever I go. So I really admire that about Australian culture and your desire to travel.
Brook:
I think it's such a big deal to leave. [inaudible 00:01:51] anywhere. You could go to New Zealand or the Pacific Islands, but every flight is a long-haul flight, so you might as well stay away and keep going.
Holly:
Yeah. As long as you're going somewhere, you may as well knock all the countries out at once or many at a time. So aside from traveling, tell us a little bit about your business. Obviously, you have always been a business owner. So one of the things I love to ask, my guest just tells us about your journey and how did you get to where you are today?
Brook:
Sure. So my father was a business owner. He had about, I think at the height, he had maybe 10 to 12 employees. He worked in public relations. So I worked with him for a number of years and he gave me definitely a leg up and helped me get into the workforce outside of hospitality, of course. So I worked in public relations as a default fallback career for a number of years for a couple of different PR consultancies, including wine PR, which was super fun.
Holly:
Nice.
Brook:
[inaudible 00:03:04] lots of wine. We used to go out for like a sandwich for lunch at the local cafe across the road and we'd take three bottles of wine.
Holly:
Did you go back to work after that? Or did you just go to the beach or something?
Brook:
[inaudible 00:03:22] do that nowadays. PR was turning into my default Korea and there are aspects of PR that I love, but I knew it wasn't really what I was meant to be doing. And in PR I got involved in the internet. I looked after a big multinational client’s website. I loved everything about it. I loved the instantaneous nature of it. I loved the fact that I could write stuff and then press send on a mass email and then I could watch what happened. I could see in real-time where the people were responding to different things. So I love the immediacy of it. I love the fact that you could get real information. I always loved communicating. I knew whatever I did, it was going to be in communication and I thought I'd be a journalist. That was my dream. I wanted to be a journalist. So from PR I took a sideways step into magazine publishing and it turned out to be totally the wrong thing.
Holly:
How did you know you were in the wrong spot?
Brook:
So many things. It's essentially the same thing in so far as I was writing, I was writing articles, but the lack of movement in print just killed me. So for example, we'd get the proofs back from the printer and we'd have a budget to make five changes. And so the art director would be arguing with the chief editor about where those changes should be made because somehow or another, there's a full stop in the middle of a word, even though five separate individuals have edited and proof-read it, this color is wrong, that's wrong, this is wrong. There's so much effort that goes into producing one thing. And it drove me in sign, I'm lucky if we were on the internet right now. [inaudible 00:05:21]. I like to move at speed. And then I have crafted a piece of writing that I thought was perfect and somebody would say, you need to lose two words from this sentence, or you need to cut so many characters from this bit here and it's just like-
Holly:
Oh, soul sucking.
Brook:
It was like this makes no sense. Maybe I was stupid, but I'm like, this makes no sense. So that was 13 years ago. And so I was managed out of that because it was clear that it wasn't working for me or the boss, but it was a pretty soul destroying experience. It was not fun. And I didn't know what I was doing. And I did a yoga teacher training course, which is a thing you do when you don't know what you're doing.
Holly:
Been there, done that too, when I didn't know what I was doing, yeah.
Brook:
It was a great thing to do and I've been doing, and I've been teaching yoga for a number of years before that. It was a great thing to do and I don't regret it. And I landed my first client. So the teacher trainer at the end of the first day said, so Brook, tell me, what do you do? And you know that question, you want to die on the inside a little, especially when you're young and you're in that quarter life crisis and it's painful and you really feel completely lost. Anyway, I could have said a number of things because I honest to goodness didn't know what I was doing. And instead I said, I'm a writer because I thought I can write. I know I can write, I have confidence in my writing ability. I write, I'm a writer and he said, I'm looking for a writer.
Brook:
So he became my first client and I started pretty rapidly because I didn't have a backup plan. I didn't have a plan at all. I didn't have a job and I floated the idea with my partner and he's a really practical guy and I was waiting for him to push back and say, that's a really dumb idea. I thought I was too young. I was 28 at the time. I'm like, I'm way too young to start a business. This sounds awesome. But I don't know enough. I don't know what I'm doing. But he didn't protest and so within the space of a week, I had registered the business. I had registered for a website domain name and I had emailed, and this is the same advice I give to all my clients. I had emailed every single person in my Yahoo minus a couple of ex-boyfriends.
Holly:
Yeah. Why not? What?
Brook:
[inaudible 00:08:09]. And I told them I was in business and I didn't beg them to work with me instead, I said, this is what I offer. This is who I work with. If you know anybody, can you point them in my direction. And from that single email, I think it went out to about 110 people. From that single email, I had about five or six coffee dates. And from those five or six coffee dates, I started working with three or four different clients. And within three or four months, I was replacing my old salary. So I was back.
Holly:
Amazing.
Brook:
I was back, baby.
Holly:
You were back, back in business for yourself. I love what you just said. You wrapped your journey into also a piece of advice, and I think it's brilliant. And I've heard similar types of advice along the same vein, but I love how specific you are in terms of, you're starting your business. A lot of people are like, it's a choking point. Like, Oh my God, how do I find clients? How do I replace my corporate income? And you did something very tactical and simple that anyone can do today. You literally went through your address book in your Yahoo account and email people. And you weren't trying to sell yourself directly to those people, but the spin you put on it was like, if you know anybody and that turned into people who knew people that wanted to hire you, that wanted to have coffee with you, that turned into people who wanted to hire you.
Holly:
So I think that is such a... And I want to continue on your journey because I know you don't stop there, but I think that is such a good... Right there, that's such a good, strong action that people can take. And we're going to talk about imposter syndrome in a little bit too, but I would love to know. Maybe I'll say by question. Well, I'm wondering. Well, let's talk about it. So I would like to notice at that point, what made you feel confident enough to press the send button? Because I think a lot of people when they're just starting out, they're like, who am I to be doing this? People are going laugh at me. They're going to think I'm ridiculous. They're going to think that I can't do this. Who does she think she is? How did you just move forward and do it anyway without hesitation? Or did you hesitate?
Brook:
Did I hesitate? I don't remember hesitating at the time, but I do think we have a lot of misunderstanding and misperceptions around confidence and one big thing that I'm a massive advocate for that I teach that I share at every opportunity is that confidence is a feeling absolutely, but it's also an action. And if you act confidently, the feelings that you're hoping for will follow the actions. And I think that this was something, when I was traveling when I was 20, 21 and then when I became a tour leader at 22, which was ridiculously young. Really, I thought I knew everything, but I was very very young.
Holly:
We all thought we knew everything at 22. Yes, and that nobody else knew anything.
Brook:
[inaudible 00:11:38], but the thing that really struck me there is that your brain is so powerful and it tells all kinds of stories. And a lot of those stories are completely untrue. So there was one experience that I still think about today. I don't know why, but there's one experience where I got on a bus. We used to have these massive bus trips. We crossed the border over land from Vietnam into Cambodia then we had this seven hour bus trip to get into Phnom Penh on this terrible road. So I'm sitting by myself on the tour bus this day. I get on the bus feeling fabulous. I get off the bus feeling like, kill me now, my life is over. I suck at everything. I don't know what I'm doing. Your brain-
Holly:
What happened on the bus?
Brook:
Nothing happened on the bus. I was left alone with my brain for seven hours, and I thought myself into depression. And I know that the mind is powerful and I know it plays tricks. And I know it says things that are completely and utterly untrue. So rather than trust my feelings and my thought and believe every single thing that I think, I'm going to act instead and trust feeling will follow the action. Because I could sit at my computer and argue with myself about why I shouldn't press send on that email, why I shouldn't pick up the phone and call that person, and why I couldn't possibly pitch myself to that organization. I could do that all day long, but I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought if I'm self-employed.
Brook:
And having been self-employed now for 13 years, I can see in my profit and loss statement, when I have allowed myself to wallow and allowed myself to believe what I'm thinking. And I think one of the biggest things I feel most proud about 13 years later is because it used to take me longer to get out of a funk. If something crappy happened, if I had high hopes for something and it didn't work out, or if I had a negative experience with an individual, it would take me way, way longer. Whereas now I can brush it off a hell a lot quicker and not allow myself to wallow because I cannot afford to.
Holly:
Two things I want to pull out of what you just said. Number one is I cannot afford to have a negative thought if I am self-employed. How do you know that from your profit and loss statement, you can see where you've wallowed. You can see how you were feeling and the direct ties to your profit. The numbers don't lie. And I love that conclusion that you were able to draw. And so I would love to hear more as you keep telling us about your journey. How has your thinking changed as a business owner and how have you continued to employ this mantra of, I cannot afford to have that a negative thought and keep telling us about your journey. And then I'd love to hear how your thinking has shaped your maturity as a business owner.
Brook:
So the first few years I set up my business as a consultant, as a digital marketing gun for hire, like PR and digital marketing gun for hire. And I worked in a retainer relationship with a small number of clients because I'd come from the PR industry and that's how it's set up. So that's pretty normal. We set up our businesses based on what we can see around us, based on our experience. And then I had one child. I had my very first baby, I allowed. I had a whole five days maternity leave before the client called me and said, it's an emergency. I'd asked them not to call me and-
Holly:
Five days?
Brook:
Five days and stupid me, I responded to that. So anyway, baby number one, I just thought I could do anything because we bought a new house, we'd taken out a million-dollar mortgage. We were completely stretched financially. My partner lost his job in the middle of the global financial crisis. And I turned 30. So picture this, Holly, it's my 30th birthday. There are like 120 guests. We've got a band, I've got a brand new baby, who's four weeks old, just the thing you'd never do with the second child.
Holly:
I would love to imagine a party with 150 people right now. But aside from that, you had set up all this celebration, but inside, were you just scared out of your mind? Or how were you feeling inside at that moment?
Brook:
I had to cry about it when he told me he'd lost his job [inaudible 00:16:46] mortgage and a brand new baby, I definitely had to cry. And I'm glad that the baby was there actually because it made it better. If the baby wasn't there and he had lost his job, I would have been like, oh my God. So I did carry on feeling like I was invincible and that I could do it all. And my partner very quickly became self-employed himself and still is. And that was the best thing ever. I don't think he would have done that without the push of losing his job. And that was easily the best decision, the best thing that could've happened career-wise to him and us. But the second baby came along very quickly and that's when the wheels fell off. And I was like, I don't know if we can swim, but this is not ideal.
Holly:
What changed? Obviously, another kid complicates things, but what made you start to be like, oh God, this is not working or what was happening?
Brook:
She stopped sleeping. And I had my very first speaking gig. So I was speaking at a conference at the Sydney convention center and I was extremely anxious and nervous about that. Plus I wasn't sleeping. She was waking me up every 90 minutes throughout the night. I wanted to throw her out the window. And it was just [inaudible 00:18:09] that this was not sustainable, that things weren't great. I had also, whilst pregnant with the second child, started a business partnership with a friend. Which is clearly not a bright idea. So I had two businesses. I had two babies at home. My part was working from home and friends and colleagues had hear about our situation and go, wow, you're living the dream.
Holly:
Yeah. From the outside in, it looks amazing.
Brook:
[inaudible 00:18:40]. I want to quit my last. I have these very elaborate fantasies involving running away and jumping on a plane and leaving everything behind, everyone behind.
Holly:
Control Z, Like the past four years of your life.
Brook:
Exactly. But anyway, so that was actually, I guess you could talk about rock bottom and I don't know, there's a lot of other people's rock bottoms, which is far more dramatic and exciting perhaps than mine. But I do believe that we do have to get to a place of pain before we make a brave decision. And certainly with my clients when I meet them and I can tell they're overwhelmed, overawed, had enough, pissed off angry, all the rest of it. It's actually a good thing because it gives you the courage to change your situation. If you're too comfortable and everything's a little bit too easy, then it's hard. Change is not fun. Despite the propaganda, change is not fun even for people like me who, I like variety, I like spontaneity, I don't like routine. It's still not fun. It's painful. And so I did a lot of things then. I did a much better job of boundaries, I moved away from the baby and left her to cry it out, and it didn't take very long. We didn't leave her crying for hours and hours. It didn't take very long to change that, in the end. And I changed my business model. I put my prices up, I put my prices on my website, I stopped meeting random people for random coffees and-
Holly:
Coffees and picking brains. And yeah, it's a time suck. Yes.
Brook:
It's a massive [inaudible 00:20:33]. And I tell me what, it's not necessarily our fault, but if you give people an opportunity to be flaky, they will take it. And there's no way I would do what some other people have done to me, but that doesn't mean that people who know what they're thinking. Maybe they do think [inaudible 00:20:56] hand in their pocket and pay for your services. But I reclaimed my time, I took my time back. I said these are my new terms and conditions payment upfront in full. Nothing is happening unless payment is in my bank account. Here are the price and the website. So we don't have to have the long protracted negotiation. I don't the courts that go back and forth, back and forth. Can I just cherry-pick and you'd be like.
Holly:
And I think when you're starting out, I think there's a fine line that people walk. I know I did, I wanted to win the work, but I also needed to get paid. And so it was like, I wasn't in the position to be able to just walk away. I am my own backup plan. I don't have the other support network or resources that other people might have, but I was operating on my own when I started out, I still am. And so when I was early starting out, it wasn't an option to be like, well, forget you. It now is an option because I've planned for that. But when you're walking that fine line, how did you decide where did you ever give a little, or how did you get to the point from your experience where you're like, no, it is what it is and if you aren't willing to play by the rules that I'm setting for my own business, then we're not a good fit. How did you establish that?
Brook:
Look again, I think it was just making the mistakes over and over again. Having bad experiences over and over again. And I'm pretty good at repeating the same mistake multiple times, just to make double sure.
Holly:
Me too. Yeah.
Brook:
And it was just like a matter of actually, I don't know how many times I am stretched to capacity. Here is the price and the second I put the price on the website and it's not everybody's cup of tea. Some people are great at sales conversations. Some things are a lot more difficult as a consultant. It's a lot more difficult to have a set fee, but the second I created packages, I created clearly defined things, clearly defined services with clearly defined terms and conditions, and put the price on the website, I may double the money with half of the stress.
Brook:
And I was so convinced that if you're feeling like an imposter, if your confidence is lacking, if you hate talking about money, if you find that you're constantly being negotiated down, if you constantly feel like people are bullying you, then it's a great thing to put your price on the website and it's a great thing to think thoroughly about your terms and conditions and to have those boundaries and that very clear process in place. So people know exactly what the path is. Number one, if you wish to proceed, answer these questions. Number two, if I like your answers, then we will schedule a call and not in those words.
Holly:
Right. But that's the thinking, the logic behind.
Brook:
Exactly.
Holly:
So the last we left off with your story, you were in PR or not in PR you had started your own writing business and you left PR, you had started your own writing business. You had sent that email. You're now back in business for yourself. What did you do next? Obviously, you have so much experience and valuable things to share, but I would also like you to talk about what has been your journey to learn all this stuff? What did you do next with writing?
Brook:
I think I was a bit early with social media and it's not always great being early. In fact, it can be really problematic. So, in 2009, I started a lot of Facebook pages. 2010, I was doing... We didn't even have Instagram back then. Can you believe it?
Holly:
Yeah. I can't imagine my life without Instagram.
Brook:
[inaudible 00:25:05] management. I was looking after other businesses, social media. And it was clear that people didn't value it. They didn't want to do it. They didn't understand it. They resented it and they didn't want to pay for it. They didn't value it. They didn't want to pay for it. And that is still the case. I still see people on Facebook naming their price for social media management, these ridiculously unsustainable amounts. So I started teaching and training, and again, that was another thing of taking a leap and then building the net all the way down. I had gone to a yoga class. I recognize the yoga teacher who was checking in the students. And I knew he was well known and well regarded. I've read about him. So when it came my time at the front of the queue, I gave him my elevator pitch and he said immediately, do you do training? I had never done any group training. I had done one-to-one training when I was a [inaudible 00:26:13] and so I said, yes.
Holly:
What kind of training?
Brook:
Training on how to start a business quickly and how to do your marketing. Like how to start marketing your services as an individual yoga teacher.
Holly:
Okay.
Brook:
He was training yoga teachers. So that was what I did and he was my first training client to which I am eternally grateful. And I got a whole bunch of other similar gigs doing something similar. So I'd come in at the end of yoga teacher training, or I'd come in at the end of a vocational training course in a vocational college. And I would pitch a crash course in how to start your own business and how to start marketing yourself and doing it yourself and not outsourcing the marketing. And that was awesome. And I loved it. And so I saw this as an escape route, and I said, see you later babies. I got on a plane and I started running courses around Australia.
Holly:
Okay. Pause there, because I think what may be missed if we just kept going, was again, you had this opportunity where somebody was like, do you do training? And you're like, yes. Even though you didn't have a super established business doing training for years and years, but this was like, yes, exactly. You left and then you built the net later. So I think a lot of people are like, oh my God, I can't lie. To who am I to say I do something when I really don't. I don't have a website, I don't have a logo. I haven't officially declared it. So how would you tell somebody that it's okay when an opportunity comes up and it's exciting? How does somebody mentally get in that space where you're like, yes, I do that. And then just start owning it as if. How do you act as if?
Brook:
I think you owe it to yourself and again, I find it really motivating to get angry. And I think there is [inaudible 00:28:16] to get angry, especially as a woman. Especially as a small business owner. And what I see over and over again and have done for years is I see people in Facebook groups offering everything for $2 or for free. I've seen that multiple times. Oh, yes, please. I had somebody earlier that pitch me and say, I'd like to work for you for free in exchange for testimonials and well, that's fine for a short amount of time to perhaps build up your portfolio and perhaps get a couple of testimonials. It's not sustainable. It's not good for the long-term.
Brook:
And I see it over and over and over again. So what I find personally, super motivating is being in these social media communities and seeing other people who have a fraction of the experience. Who has spelling mistakes in every update that they write and charging three times what I'm charging? I find that super motivating. The other thing I do is I go on Facebook and I find some twit talking, nothing about nothing, and then I think, wow, if that dude has the courage to put his blah, blah, blah, on the internet, why on earth am I sitting on this email full of awesome nuggets of gold?
Holly:
Value versus fluff, yeah.
Brook:
Exactly. So I find that super motivating. And the thing is, I think you have to back yourself. Because if you don't back yourself, then who's going to back yourself and back to my point earlier about acting confidently and then the feeling will follow is you cannot accrue experience waiting for somebody to tap you on the shoulder, especially in self-employment. Also in employment, but especially in self-employment, you have got to pitch, you've got to be direct. You've got to make the ask. You've got to put your hand up and say, I want this. You got to tell everybody, this is what I'm looking for. This is what I want. I'd really like to blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We had a conversation and I said to you, I'd like to appear on more podcasts as a guest and you said?
Holly:
I was like, oh, of course, come online. Yes, I took the bait, and here we are.
Brook:
[inaudible 00:30:41] the world is not a mind reader.
Holly:
No, the world is not a mind reader.
Brook:
That was why I took the leap into training because I realized one day that I was sitting at my desk, the children were young and I was waiting for the phone to ring. And this thing came from my unconscious to my conscious brain. You're waiting for the phone to ring. You're waiting for somebody to say, Brook, we've got a group of people, could you come and talk to them and train them and speak. And the second that came into my conscious, I'm like, well, why am I waiting for the phone to ring? The phone is not going to ring. I need to get out there. And I need to pitch myself to conferences, pitch myself as a speaker, ask people for the work directly. And it's amazing what happens when you ask people directly, they say yes.
Holly:
We all know no one, most people, and I don't want to blanket this with anyone, because someone's going to come back and be like, well, this isn't true. But most people don't die from being rejected. So the worst somebody can say is no. And I think one of the things I've learned as a business owner is no ego, amigo. It's constant drinking from the fire hose because there's always something new to learn, a new goal I have, and a new gap that I have in my knowledge. And so the amount of nos and failures and rejections and things that you put out there and no one responds, no one seems to give to shit, but then it's that one time that you connect with somebody and then the one-time turns into like 10 times and then it just expands on itself.
Holly:
To me the fact that you keep showing up and that you keep doing it, you keep perfecting your craft regardless of what the outcome is. It seems for me, like one of the biggest mindset transitions that one must make when they transition from being an employee to a business owner. Because as an employee, then that is already built-in there to fall. You have goals in a box on a piece of paper on your performance review and that's really all you need to do. As a business owner, if the whole landscape is great and there's no right or wrong there. There's no definition. It's up to us to define what we want, right?
Brook:
Yeah, absolutely. And that takes some couple of years. I have clients who've been employed for decades and it's not until we talk and I'm like, you don't have to do it the way that [inaudible 00:33:17]. You can take Mondays off. You can take Fridays off. You can say no to the meeting. You don't have to go to the meeting just because the client is paying you. It doesn't have to be done the way that you're doing it if it's not working for you the way that you're doing it. And I think that's a huge thing, this whole idea. Because we swapped one boss for many. We go thinking, Oh, freedom, flexibility. I'm going to go to [crosstalk 00:33:43] yoga in the middle of the day. And what happens all of a sudden you've got 10 bosses or 20 bosses.
Holly:
Yes. And also just because it was something that you're using your example of somebody who's been in business for 10 years and is doing things they don't like to do, just because we had to do a thing in our corporate jobs or previously in, even yesterday, today as business owners, we can decide we don't want to do it. But we also have to be fully responsible and prepare for the impacts of not doing it. But oftentimes when we're working for somebody else, we don't have a choice. We can't really say no, we could get fired. But as business owners, we do have that freedom to get to say no and to adjust and to pivot and change. But obviously, it's a calculated decision, but there is that freedom. And just because you did it one way for 10 years, doesn't mean you have to do it the 11th year.
Holly:
You keep bringing up pitching a lot Brook and I know you obviously, and I know what you offer now in your programs that you've expanded out. If you were to help somebody understand pitching, what would be... Somebody who's nervous, a new business owner, they want to go talk about themselves, they want to send that email to the group, maybe it's not an email, it's a different thing, but what are the fundamentals or a framework somebody could use to pitch themselves when they're just starting out to put themselves out there? How do you do that?
Brook:
Well, I have a free challenge called [inaudible 00:35:22].
Holly:
I swear listeners, I did not set this question up. Okay. You have a free challenge. Tell us about it.
Brook:
[inaudible 00:35:30] free challenge, because I think I find it fairly straightforward and fairly easy for a lot of people it's radical and I need to-
Holly:
And really awkward. Yeah.
Brook:
And like this giant big task and big deal. And that, firstly, I need to clarify that you pitch your children, that they should have pasta for dinner and not pizza. You pitch your partner that we should have Thai tonight and not Chinese. You pitch people all day long. We just don't call it that. So the life's a pitch challenge includes a whole bunch of different copy and paste scripts for a whole bunch of different situations. I introduced myself to strangers. I've been told by other people that I'm a good networker. I don't see myself as a good networker, but that's what other people say, because introducing yourself to strangers, I think is super important as we get older. And it's super important as a business owner, but it's important in general because we get older and we have friends drop away and we have convenience friends or friends that are there for a particular purpose or a reason or a season. It's very uncommon to actually go actively seeking friends because you think you'll get along. And I do that.
Brook:
I think, Oh, that person looks interesting, I think we'd get along, they're saying interesting things. And I introduced myself and some of those introductions have turned into fabulous long-term business, buddy relationships. People that I honest to goodness, consider a friend who incidentally, secondly, have also helped bring me tens of thousands dollars worth of business and helped to grow my business and given me plenty of different opportunities. But that's not the point. The point is that it's important to... It feels radical because it is, it goes against our socialization as women in particular, to ask for what we want, to be direct. And we've been, this is for very real reasons, for thousands of years, if women were in the spotlight, if they were visible and they weren't a queen, they weren't in power, they weren't a Duchess or whatever, they were killed.
Brook:
So there is a very real reason why it feels painful or wrong to put your face on the internet. We have thousands of years-
Holly:
Generations of that, we've all carried with us. That's a great point. I hadn't thought of that.
Brook:
And even nowadays, feminism is so new.
Holly:
Oh yeah.
Brook:
The history of humanity, it is a blimp, a tiny blimp in the last 50, 70, maybe 90 years, we have so much further to go. We are still judged a hell of a lot more harshly. So of course we feel subconscious. Of course, we want to avoid it. Of course, the idea of introducing ourselves to strangers or saying, "Hey, look at me. This is what I want. Can you help?" Feels outrageous, it feels bizarre. But the only way to get through this is to do it because you do it once and you don't get shot, you do it again, you don't get shot, you do it again, and really the worst that can happen is you get ignored. That is the most likely outcome, you get ignored. And the number one reason why you get ignored is that you're making a pitch far too long. So most of my pitches are one, two, three sentences.
Holly:
You sent me three bullets when we were brainstorming this chat. It was super easy to say yes to you. We had already decided we were going to do it, but it was super easy to say yes to one of the bullets. I was like, "Yeah, let's do that. Let's talk about that."
Brook:
Too long, didn't read. Nobody wants to read super long emails, especially from a stranger. I had a phone call yesterday, I was driving the car, the guy got me at the right time because I was in the car and it was a couple. I don't know him, he's trying to sell me something, I pushed him, telling him what he did and whatever. But I said, "Call me tomorrow and let's talk." And I fully intend to give him my time and attention because he showed interest in me. He did not waffle on about himself. He asked me intelligent questions. He appeared genuinely curious about me and my needs and my wants and my goals. And that is at the crux of an effective pitch.
Holly:
Yes. Thank you. Being genuine, being authentic and wrapping up genuine, authentic, being real, asking someone else questions about themselves versus focusing all on you. And then the practice, practice, showing up, showing up until you're confident rather than waiting until you're confident to show up, show up until you're confident, right?
Brook:
[inaudible 00:40:43] experience.
Holly:
Yeah. In closing Brook, I know we have to wrap up here, but I just would love you to tell everyone where can they find you, find your programs, learn from you, take your courses, be a part of your membership. Where can people find you?
Brook:
All the social places, digital marketing trainer. I'm a social media trainer, so I'm on all the goddam platforms.
Holly:
Yes you are.
Brook:
Don't look me up on TikTok, it's really embarrassing. You can find me under my own name, Brook McCarthy. It's a Brook without an e, and there are two cs in the McCarthy. So Instagram's probably my favorite, Facebook and LinkedIn of course, and my business is called hustle and heart. So that's hustleandheart.com.au
Holly:
Hustleandheart.com.au. And where can people grab your free pitch? Freebie?
Brook:
So it is at hustleandheart.com.au/pitch.
Holly:
All right. /pitch everyone. Thank you Brook for being here today, this was very insightful. I learned a lot here and I feel like I have some renewed confidence too to go pitch myself to something scary. So listeners out there go pitch yourself to something scary, do something that scares you today and use Brook's framework at hustleandheart.com.au/pitch to have your framework and to use that as a jumping-off point. So thank you Brook for being here today, and I appreciate you.
Brook:
Thank you. Thanks so much.
I had a very structured calendar, I had every single possible treatment availability slot marked out in between my classes and clinic shifts, and I saw as many private clients as I could, and then I took really good care of myself on my one or two days off.
Holly Knoll:
Yeah, I imagine that was a lot for you to take on, going to school full time and [inaudible 00:39:32]. It's a lot.
Muse:
Yeah.
Holly Knoll:
So then what happened next? How soon after that did you decide to move to Brazil?
Muse:
Well, when I graduated, I graduated with my masters in 2016, and I had a feeling I needed to do some more travel, and I've always been really in love with the Portuguese language, specifically Brazilian Portuguese. I have been to Brazil in 2010 for three months and I traveled around and I loved it. So it was kind of in the back of my mind, but I had just gotten out of school, I was ready. I took my board exams, I got my license, I was more focused on practicing. So I practiced for a whole year full-Time when I finished school. But then Trump got elected and I just couldn't [inaudible 00:40:28].
Muse:
I was like, "I can't be here." And that also was on a nervous system level. It felt so stressful for me to have a known verified sex predator and just all around asphalt being in this position of power, doing so much damage and amplifying everything. It just felt so heavy and inundating that I was like, "I got to go."
Holly Knoll:
Yeah. Fuck this.
Muse:
And then I [crosstalk 00:41:00].
Holly Knoll:
You asked about swearing on the podcast. I'm like, "Anything goes," and I feel like this is F this moment.
Muse:
Yeah, and just, oh.
Holly Knoll:
I know. And speaking of nervous systems, I think a lot of Americans... Pre-COVID, we've lived under a heightened state of stress. My friends and I have talked about this. We have lived under a heightened state of stress for four years because of the 24/7 news cycle because of Twitter, his access to being able to broadcast and spew evil and just waking up and be like, "God, what happened last night?"
Holly Knoll:
And so I think that, although it feels small at the time, like reading or hearing a quick soundbite or a story about what he did, I think that weighs on us, and you add that up and it compiles and compiles and compiles and all of a sudden we're just living in this state of like, "God, what next?" And that is so draining. And so I hope everyone this year can take a collective sigh, the whole world. I feel like the whole world has exhaled with the exception of a few, not even a few, but a lot of people don't feel the same way, but we won't talk about them.
Holly Knoll:
But I think just like looking at 2021 as a new slate and time to exhale overall is yeah. And so back to your story, back to you Muse. Okay, so you were one of those people who actually said, "I don't want to live in this country," and actually moved.
Muse:
Yeah. Okay. I mean, for anyone who's aware of Brazilian politics, Bolsanaro is at least 100 times more dangerous and more vital than Trump, which is hard to imagine, but it's true. And so it's not like I came to some Eden, but it is actually paradise because I live in a very rural area in Rio de Janeiro State. I'm three hours from Rio de Janeiro City, but it the culture is very different here. I still feel the weight of his administration here, but it's not so incessant everywhere all the time.
Muse:
I think if I was still living in New Mexico, I might have had a similar experience in the Trump presidency as I feel here, where I'm far enough removed from kind of the hubbub. And the infrastructure in Brazil is weak. It's very malleable. So local communities really depend on each other in a way that doesn't exist in the US. So in a lot of ways, it doesn't matter who's president here because when it comes down to it, each local community is helping one another survive, which I love. But just to say, there's definitely...
Muse:
I'm feeling a lot of levity from the shift in US politics now, even though I'm still here where economically, and the healthcare system things are rough here for sure.
Holly Knoll:
And you mentioned you met your husband. I know he's Brazilian babe. So you guys met after you decided to move down or had you already known each other before?
Muse:
Well, I met him near the end of my first three month visit. I always would come in three months stints because that's what my passport allows. So I met him at the end of 2017 the first time I came to this region, and I came right back. I went to the states and I was just there for a few months and I came right back because I really felt connected to the land here and to community, so it was that second visit that we started dating. And then by the third visit, I decided to move here. So the forest visit, I actually moved here. Over two years dating long distance.
Holly Knoll:
Wow. And you've been there now since... How long have you been there this last time? How long have you lived there?
Muse:
I came in September, 2019 permanently and I went back to the states actually to do a couple of work tours at the beginning of COVID. So I landed in Ohio and a week later, everything closed. So it was very interesting timing. Yeah, so just to rewind. Yes, I am one of those people who actually left the country, but I was back and forth a lot. I was also in Europe for several months, so I tried to stay out of the US a lot, but I also was back and forth working up until September, 2019.
Holly Knoll:
Well, Muse, it's been so great having you here. Tell us a little bit about your program and how people can find you online. And if they want to work with you, what are the options right now just from a distance? How could someone sign up for a session with you or enroll in your course or what do you offer right now?
Muse:
Yeah, so I do distance consultations for anything pelvic health related, literally. I work with a lot of people who have already been to a traditional gynecologist and have not been satisfied with the answers that they've gotten or they haven't found a solution yet to what they're wanting. I also work with folks who have had trauma and are wanting to reclaim their pelvic space or deepen an intimate relationship and work through prior sexual trauma.
Muse:
And I do distance consultations through my website, which is medicineofthefeminine.com. And I have a few different options for how to do, how we can start working together. I also just added a super quick 20 minute consult. I'll do a free clarity call for people who think they want to work with me, but we can decide together which option is best for them, but I just added a quick 20 minute consult that people actually just want to ask some tangible questions before they sign on-
Holly Knoll:
Like a pick your brain for 20 minutes kind of thing.
Muse:
Yes.
Holly Knoll:
Nice. Okay.
Muse:
So I have three clarity call and then a paid a 20 minute consult. Both of those are really brief, quick ways to meet me and see if it's the right fit between us. And then I have a course, I have one course called Sovereign Vagina, which I just closed enrollment to yesterday, but I'll have that again soon. And that Sovereign Vagina course is on my website too. It's all about the basic set of tools that I work to give every single female bodied person I work with, so ways that we can take care of our lava, our vagina, our pelvic floor, all the things that I feel like we should know at 16 and 17, 18, 19, 20. Basic user or manual information for our female body.
Holly Knoll:
Which of course, the majority of us who are now in our 40s or late 30s are... Or I don't know, majority of women still do not know.
Muse:
It's never too late, because it's so empowering and it's so liberating. It's going to change all of your future, all of our future, gynecological appointments so that we can have an awesome [crosstalk 00:48:34] gynecologist imagine.
Holly Knoll:
Yes. And have the right conversations. Yes. Well, everyone, go visit Muse's site medicineofthefeminine.com, it's dot com, right?
Muse:
Yeah.
Holly Knoll:
Okay, medicineofthefeminine.com. It's a tongue twister, and book a consultation, get your questions asked, work with her. Now I'm like, "Oh, you do all this?" Now, I have questions. So anyway, thank you for being here. Is there anything that we didn't talk about today that you'd love to mention?
Muse:
I made a note here when you were talking about how easy it is to not realize that we're stressed. It's really important that we guard our personal time before we go to sleep and when we wake up in the morning. It's so easy to get inundated in tech and information, and we're in this age now where we can just keep consuming, we can keep taking in, but we also need to let go and unravel and being still and quiet in our homes and with our families, with our partners, turning off all the screens, I think it's really important to have-
Holly Knoll:
It's a kindle count.
Muse:
I think reading is still taking in. I'm talking about real unplugging time. I think music is probably okay, but even then, we get so little stillness. You don't have to meditate. If that's something we're interested in, awesome, but it's not for everybody, but to have really restful time where we're not taking in media, I think is very, very important for the health of our soul and our nervous system.
Holly Knoll:
All right. Well, it's Friday here. And so I guess that'll be my Friday night before I go to bed tonight. Not doing much anyway these days on Friday nights, but thank you. Light a candle, take a bath. I was going to say, read a book. No, that's taking in. That's always my way of relaxing, but I'm going to be intentional about this and think about what I can do tonight to just really... I think I'll just pet my cat, I don't know.
Muse:
Yeah, I love to just pet my animals and hang out and do nothing. Well, when the weather's nice, we can go outside, and just enjoy the night sky if we have some beauty around us. I like writing too. I should say, I like writing, but I do journal, which is not necessarily something I always like, but I make myself do it anyway because it unwinds me in such a [inaudible 00:51:12] way.
Holly Knoll:
Such incredible messages come to me through my writing. I mean, I found that as my top way of connecting with my higher powers, the higher powers is through writing. I've had some incredible breakthroughs there where I've been able to tap into source that I didn't know existed. And so that's been a breakthrough I've had since October and I'm like, "Gosh, has this always been available to me?" That's a different subject for a different time, but yeah, it's fascinating. So, thank you, Muse, what a treat to talk to you today like this and again, Medicine of the Feminine everybody. And thank you so much for being here.
Muse:
Yeah, you're so welcome. It's so wonderful to talk with you Holly, thanks so much.
Holly Knoll:
You're welcome.