This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 041 / Failure

Episode Date: January 6, 2021

In this episode I talk about failure. My failure. I open up about my current, fear and doubt inducing, very real, and not entirely sure things will work out, failure. I share the honest, raw and completely vulnerable side of experiencing failure in the hopes that it will make us all (myself included!) feel less alone. It is in this spirit that I release this episode because everything inside me is screaming “ABORT!” But I also know that our failures change nothing about our purpose. Dreaming big, risking big, failing big and overcoming even bigger ...well that is most certainly woman's work. So, here goes! To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

I am Nicole Kalil, host of the This Is Woman's Work podcast, keynote speaker, confidence sherpa, coach to some of the most badass women and Fortune 500 leaders, partner to Jay, mom to JJ, friend, daughter, sister, hotel snob, and wine and cheese enthusiast, among probably many other things. And I'm here to talk to you about failure and not hypothetical failure, or I've recovered and now it's easy to talk about it because I'm swimming in all my successes failure, not failure in general or inspirational failure. I'm talking about my current fear and doubt inducing, very real and not entirely sure things will work out failure. We so often hear about all the failures of the

uber successful. Michael Jordan missing 9,000 shots and losing 300 games. Oprah getting fired from one of her first television gigs. 12 publishers rejecting J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter while she was on welfare, divorced, with a child to support, as examples. And it's meant to teach us that failure is part of success, a lesson in belief in ourself. And it is inspiring, but we almost never get to hear from people while they're in it. We hear once they've overcome, proved themselves and achieved, and again, super inspirational, but not necessarily current. Now I'm not comparing myself to any of these icons. I'm just telling you that at this moment, at this time, I'm in it. And trust me, I'm not enjoying it. And I'm not sure that things will work out or how they'll

work out. I'm not even sure if or when we'll release this episode. The only thing I am sure of is this is real. And I know other people have felt or are feeling this too. And I hope that doing this episode makes us all feel less alone, myself included. And honestly, I'm hoping that being real and sharing my truth will be cathartic for me. So here goes. The current state of my life, the current state of my union, if you will, is that business is not going the way I anticipated at the beginning of the year. I walked away from a very large contract, six figures, almost $200,000 of income

guaranteed that I had in 2019. Now, this was my choice. I consciously and purposely stepped away from that contract. I liked what I was doing. I loved it when I started, but I'd been doing it for a few years and it was losing a little bit of my enjoyment. And frankly, it was becoming an excuse for me not doing the things that I really wanted to do, the risks that I wanted to take, because I was so busy with this particular contract. So my excuse became I didn't have the time to start a podcast or launch an online course or work with other clients or whatever the

case may be. And so with lots of support and coaching from people I trust and real desire to focus on these things that I wanted to do, at the end of 2019, I stepped away from this very large contract. So, you know, a big risk at the time still would be today. And I ended another engagement, which I knew was ending in May of 2020. I didn't know at the time, of course, that there was going to be a pandemic and what that would mean when I shifted my focus and energy to doing more keynote talks or onsite engagements. So think for a minute, I am walking away from two multiple six-figure contracts. The one that ended in May was in the 300,000 range. So that's about a half a million dollars of income that I had in 2019 that I knew and purposely walked away from in 2020. Now, I promise you I'm not an idiot.

I just thought that it was the right time for me to take some risks. I'd saved a lot of money knowing I wanted to do this and really focus on some of these things that I'd always wanted to do. Again, podcast, keynote talks, online course. So this was strategic, but of course, there were some things that were unknown, some things completely out of my control, like a pandemic, which of

course affected my ability to do keynotes and onsite work. And then on top of that, just the added, I don't know if pressure is the right word, but being a mom during that and being engaged with JJ, but her not being at school or having summer camps and then us moving out to Indiana to be closer to my family to get more help and then deciding to sell a house and so forth and so on. Ultimately what that led to is just a mixing up of priorities, less time to do the things that I should have done, refocusing in some ways and letting go in some ways. So now as I sit here at the end of 2020, what I'm looking at is a lot of question marks as it relates to income and opportunities. I had a great month in 2020, generating $85,313 of income in one month, which as you're listening might feel like, holy crap, that's more than a lot

of people make in a year. Or you might be listening and going, that's it. I've had better months than that. I am not sharing this to compare. I'm just sharing it so you understand where I'm at. I also had my worst month in 2020 at $7,916 of income. Now, again, you might be listening and going, well, that's a good amount. You can live on that amount. But what's important to know is that I have about $20,000 of business expenses each month. So when I bring in around $8,000 of income, I have to still pay out an additional $12,000 in expenses. So that really sucks. So that's where I'm at from an income standpoint. It walked away from big contracts. I have a big monthly nut and I'm not really sure where it's all coming from in 2021. On top of that, we recently launched our This Is Confidence course. I'm very proud of the course, but the results and the registrations

just have not gone the way we hoped, the way we anticipated, and frankly, the way that I planned from a business owner perspective transitioning into 2021. I am having some challenges with JJ right now as a mom. Up to this point, she's been an unbelievably easy child. And again, maybe comparatively, she's still super easy. I'm not trying to create a comparison situation. I'm just telling you what's going on. And she's been very difficult. She is not listening. She's having a really hard time with certain things with her cousin. She keeps wanting to pick him up and hold him and he doesn't like it. And we're constantly telling her not to do it. And then we yell and then it's just a mess. And I feel like she is really pushing against boundaries and rules and maybe more the people who love her the most, the people who are closest to her. So she's going to test out and bring her worst to us.

But as a mom, I'm just like, I don't know what to do. I'm trying everything. I'm not sure that anything is working. It's just, it's tough. Uh, so, you know, there are probably more things than that, but those are the most concerning or, or, or the, the areas where I've just feel like I've failed. So the things that I've said to myself, I've had days where, you know, my head trash, my voice inside of my head that's never kind and I know very rarely true have said things like, I fucked up. Sorry, my head trash is not PC. So, lots of cursing to come. I've fucked up. I shouldn't have walked away from those big contracts. I let arrogance or ego or something get in the way and I shouldn't have done that. I focused too much of my time and energy over this last year on social media and not enough

on generating new relationships. I should have done more outreach and phone calls and all of that. I've had the voice say, I'm not good at what I do. I have, for the first time, really experienced imposter syndrome. Others are better at doing what I do. Like I can't measure up. I can't compare. I might as well just phone it in. This is stupid. I've definitely had that there's something wrong with me. I'm too much for people.

I'm not enough to be a good mom. I'm a shitty fill in the blank. I'm a shitty mother. I'm a shitty spouse. I'm a shitty business owner. I'm a shitty friend. I'm a shitty daughter. All the noise. I've literally called myself a fucking loser in my own head. I have compared myself to other people who do similar work or play in similar spaces and have come up short over and over again. I've had days where all I wanted to do was run away, go somewhere, hide, pretend I'm not trying to accomplish anything, fear of other people finding out that I've failed, fear of

being embarrassed or ashamed, fear of previous people that I've worked with going, see, she's really not that good. I mean, I could go on forever, but I think you get the idea. And I've had moments where I've felt horrible and then been able to work myself out of it and back and forth. And I would tell you that this has been going on for about six weeks now, really since we launched the online course. That's not the primary issue, but I think it was the tipping point. That's my current state. Those are the things that I've said to myself. And here's where I'm at now and where I'm trying to find the silver lining. And again, this is not me saying I figured it out and I feel good and I've overcome it and all that,

but here's what I'm working on in my brain. Number one, this gives me a really great opportunity to personally test out my own advice, my own coaching, the things I tell people to do when they're in similar situations. Basically the coaching I provide in the This Is Confidence course. Now, this is not how I thought it would go, but there it was. And I realized that all the things that I'm telling other people to do, I've created or arrived at a point where I get to utilize the same coaching for myself. And so I have been checking in with myself. Am I letting a confidence derailer take over like judgment and in comparison or head trash or perfectionism? Am I overthinking? And most importantly, am I looking for external things to give me confidence? Am I looking for a certain amount of people to register

for the course? Am I looking for perfect behavior for my child? Am I looking for a certain dollar amount to land it in my account? Am I looking for a certain amount of likes or comments? Or am I looking for a certain amount of followers or traction on social media? Am I looking to those things to deliver and determine my confidence level? And the answer is honestly, at some points, yes. Yes, I've let some of those confidence derailers, even though I know they're confidence derailers, I've let some of them chip away at my internal confidence. So what do I do? Well, I go to the confidence builders. I recognize when the derailers are derailing me, I name them. So

for example, I know what this is. It's head trash. The voice that just said I fucked up and that I'm not good at what I do and that there's something wrong with me, that is head trash. That is not my internal knowing. That is not my inner voice. That is not true or fact. That is my head trash. So I name it.

I know what it is. And then I begin to leverage the builders, the confidence builders that I know ultimately reconnect me to my internal confidence, the confidence that we all have. The reason I know we all have it is we've all felt confident at times, at moments, in spaces, in certain areas of our life. And so since we've all felt it before, it stands to reason that it is there. It lives inside us. And so it's our opportunity to connect back to it, to access it. And so, yes, I have been getting into action as much as humanly possible. I've been sending emails. I've been making calls. I've been working my things I know to be true about me list. I have really connected. Okay. I feel failure. I'm perceiving this as failure. I'm experiencing failure, but failure does not define me. I've reminded myself that every failure I've faced,

every time I felt this way in the past, I've gotten to the other side of it. I've recovered from my own failures 100% of the time up to this point because I'm still alive. So I can count on the fact that somehow, some way, sometime I am going to recover from this one. I've, uh, I've practiced giving myself grace. I've practiced saying, what would you say to somebody you were coaching in this situation? I've practiced focusing on the positive. I've practiced giving myself the space and the time I need to feel my feelings, but also to redirect to what I know works. So I'll give you some examples. One of the things that I've learned from my coach, Lisa Kalman, is that failure is neutral. And so what might seem like a big failure to me, you might be listening and going, God, that's not that bad. This is what I've got going on. Or you might be

listening and going, there is no way in hell I could overcome that or anything in between. But how you see it as it relates to my failure isn't really that important. What matters is how I choose to see my failure. And I know from practice and from logic and from coaching and teaching that I have a choice to look at failure differently. I have a choice to look at it as an opportunity. I have a choice to look at it as a lesson. I have a choice to look at it as the universe or God's way of redirecting me. And I'm not sure what this means yet, but here's what I can do. Here's what I can say. First, I've recognized that some of my failures this year have occurred because I stopped

playing to my strengths and I started focusing on things that other people said mattered or that I made up that mattered. As an example, social media, my marketing team, which is their job, so I love that they're doing this, have really encouraged me to focus on social media as a strategy. I started really focusing on the amount of followers I had because I figured the more followers I had, the more people who knew about the course or the podcast. And of course, then the more people who would sign up. I started thinking about people like Jenna Kutcher or Amy Porterfield or people who have these amazing online presences and have done really great with online courses. And I started using them as my guide. And there's nothing wrong with that. Learning from uber

successful people and following in their footsteps and taking their advice, there's nothing wrong with that. Learning from uber successful people and following in their footsteps and taking their advice, there's nothing wrong with that. But what was problematic is I lost myself in it. I stopped playing to my strengths and I stopped asking myself why. What was it that I really wanted? And so all of this has really forced me to check back in with myself. What is it that I want? Well, nowhere on my list of things that I want is being a social media influencer. That is not a desire of mine. I don't care about having millions of followers. In fact, I don't want that. I would prefer not to do that. I have no desire to live my life and build my business on social media. Now it is a strategy, but the problem was I made it

the strategy and I lost myself in it. And so this failure has allowed me to reconnect with me. It allowed me to recognize where I went off course and I wasn't playing to my strengths anymore. It's allowed me to create some pivots. So as an example, really, what do I want? What does light me up? What am I passionate about? Yes, coaching and supporting and impacting others, especially women

in the area of confidence is what lights me up. So how do I do that? Well, I love having conversations with other women. I love doing presentations and keynotes. I love impacting larger audience. So the way that I can do that while playing to my strengths is not probably through social media, but maybe by doing more Facebook or Instagram live Q&A sessions, booking more keynotes and onsite engagements, speaking to women about confidence. So as an example, we're going to do a confidence tour in Q1 of 2021, where I'm going to focus on college campuses and delivering the lessons that I've learned about building confidence to 20-something-year-old women who are in college about to go into the quote-unquote real world and teaching them what I wish I would have known

in my early 20s. So those are just some examples about how this failure has caused me to step back and reconnect with who I am and what I want and recognize that there was a lesson in this. The lesson being that I was not playing to my strengths and I was showing up as somebody different than who I ultimately want to be. There are also some little lessons that we've learned. Things like, I don't know, don't launch something during the biggest and most contentious presidential election in history. I mean, we launched the day before the election and who knew that the election was

going to drag out as long as it did. But even outside of that, it wasn't a mystery that this was top of people's minds and a big focus for people. And it might not have been the smartest thing to launch that week. We also made a few other little mistakes that we've learned from it and have been able to get better. I feel much more strongly connected to what I teach in the This Is Confidence course because of these failures. I've really been able to test out, as I said, and implement for myself the things that I teach. So I must have looked at my things I know to be true about me list, I don't know, seven times a day recently. And for example, one of the things I have on there is I can trust my gut. My instincts are worth listening to. That has been so impactful so many times. Things like I show up when it matters. Things like I'm a good decision

maker. Things like I practice what I preach. Things like I'm willing to take risks because I trust myself. I choose courage. Reading those things in the times where I'm not feeling any of those things have been such a good reminder, such a good connection back to what I know to be true and what I can count on. And it has been a lighthouse for me in what feels like really dark and stormy waters. So again, not perfect. And I don't yet know how this is going to all turn out or how it's all going to play out or where this is leading me to. I'm just sharing that I have been able to connect, not every moment, not every day, but I've been able to connect back to my internal confidence because of the work that I've done, because of the work that I share in the course.

And it has been invaluable. It has literally been the difference maker between me giving up. It has been the difference maker between me delaying and overthinking and waiting to feel ready or for things to line up. It's been the difference maker between me crawling into bed and getting under the covers versus getting into action and doing things that move me forward. It's been the difference maker between me taking deep breaths and re-engaging with JJ and re-engaging with my business and re-engaging with what I know to be true versus me sitting on the couch, drinking heavily, crying a lot,

and feeling like a total failure. And it's also forced me to focus on what's good. The giving myself grace, the choosing confidence, even when I'm not feeling it, the connecting to my internal confidence, the knowing, even though I don't feel it, that failure builds confidence, the getting into action has actually had me reconnect to what does work. So I could say 2020 was a failure, but that's not true. Even though I might feel like that right now, that is certainly not true because what did go well in 2020 is first and foremost, that I love my family and that they love me and that we're all healthy. During all of this, we're all safe. We're healthy. We are still in a good situation with each other financially, health-wise. I mean, there's so much to be grateful for in just that. On top of that, I've had amazing successes. I mean,

I still made multiple six figures in this year. I was able to pay all of my expenses and have money to save going into 2021. Some of my big risks paid off. I booked keynotes with people I didn't even know. Companies I didn't even know existed a year ago. I've built new relationships, brought on new clients. I launched a podcast that has been even more successful than I ever anticipated at the beginning of the year. Certainly more opportunity there and more work to do, but I am so proud of what we've been able to produce over the last year, knowing absolutely nothing about being a podcast host a year ago at this time. I've launched an online course. Whether or not the results have been what I wanted or expected six weeks in, I still didn't. I invested the money.

I invested the time. I invested my heart and passion into this course. And I feel so good about it. And I know from personal, real, current experience that it works. I signed with a speaker agent so that I can book even more keynotes. And I'm so excited because this agent represents some of the most amazing talent in the keynote speaking space. And I'm so excited because this agent represents some of the most amazing talent in the keynote speaking space. And I can't even believe that I get to be in the same website as them. And maybe most importantly, I'm still here. I'm still thriving.

I'm still thriving. I'm still engaged. I'm still mostly happy and healthy in the midst of months of a global pandemic that none of us saw coming. And I know has impacted people in such horrible ways. And I'm still here. And so 2020 could be seen as a failure or it could be seen as a huge victory. It just depends on how you choose to see it. So I, even in the moments where I'm not feeling it, am choosing to see 2020 as a massive success,ons learned, relationships made, a deepening and strengthening of the love that I have for my people, risks that have been rewarded. There's so much positive that

has happened in 2020. And yes, as it stands, as I record this right now, there are a lot of things that I'm worried about. There's a lot of fear and doubt. There is a lot of concern about making ends meet and all of that, but I just somewhere trust that it will work out. I trust myself. I trust the things I know to be true about me. I trust the people I love and who love me and the support that they give and the relentless belief they have about me and the work that I do. And I trust the history that I've lived, which is that everything eventually works out. And if it hasn't worked out yet, then it's just not done. I get to keep going.

Everything will work out in the end. I fundamentally and truly believe that. Just because I can't see it yet doesn't mean it's not happening behind the scenes. I hope, I pray, that this episode is what I intended it to be, which is me being transparent, vulnerable, and sharing what it looks like, what it feels like to be in the temporary feeling of failure. And my ask is that together we put one foot in front of the other, that we get into action, that we connect with who we are, we own who we're not, and we choose to embrace ourselves today and every day.

My failures change nothing about my purpose. We all have so much important work to do. And I don't know about you, but I believe that dreaming big, risking big, failing big, and overcoming even bigger, well, that is most certainly woman's work.