This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 057 / Creating Bucket List Moments

Episode Date: May 26, 2021

I know from the outside looking in it often seems like successful people get really lucky, or the results come easy, or they are able to create overnight accomplishment. Which leaves us mere mortals feeling like we’re behind, or spinning our wheels, or we just don’t have what it takes. I certainly still have a long way to go, but I wanted to share with you the behind the scenes work that went into the creation of my bucket list experience of having the incomparable Dr. Shefali on my podcast. What’s on YOUR bucket list? Identify it and put it out there Ask for what you want Don’t give up and don’t forget the follow through Keep moving in the face of fear and doubt. Put one foot in front of the other This is Woman’s Work. To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Coming up on this episode of This Is Woman's Work. A reminder to myself and hopefully to you that my confidence, my trust in myself, my inherent value was never tied to the outcome anyway. On this episode of This Is Woman's Work, I'm going to take a few minutes to share how I created my own bucket list experience. people get really lucky or their results come easy or they're able to create overnight accomplishment, which leaves us mere mortals feeling like we're behind or spinning our wheels or we just don't have what it takes. I am Nicole Khalil and I certainly still have a long way to go, but I wanted to share with you the behind the scenes work that went into the creation of the bucket list experience of having the incomparable Dr. Shefali on my podcast, because that was a professional highlight,

but it didn't just happen. I was doing an Instagram live recently and someone asked how I got her to work with me. And I answered that the first step was I asked. And that's true. But after thinking about it, I realized that wasn't the whole story. The first thing I actually did was to put it out there to the universe, to myself. The very first thing I did was create a bucket list. So back in 2019, right before we released the first This Is Woman's Work episode, I asked myself what I wanted. What were my goals? If I were going to dream big, what would this look like? And I set aside any judgment and ignored any of the voices in my head that said, you're

aiming too high or be realistic or gosh, that'll never happen. And as part of that, I created a top 20 bucket list guests. So I listed out 20 people that I thought would be incredible, like a life goal to have as a guest on the podcast. And frankly, I never planned on sharing that list. And I had no way of seeing when I wrote it, how it would ever happen. If you've seen it, I posted it on Instagram a few times. You probably died. I know I did when I wrote it down because it seemed so impossible. So just to give you an example, the top five people were Michelle Obama, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, may she rest in peace, Glennon Doyle, Mel Robbins, and Dr. Shefali. Those were my top

five. And the list doesn't get easier. It is another 15 amazing women. And so I guess step number one is I put it out there. I allowed myself to dream big. I didn't put any governors on what would be possible. And then the next step was I asked. It wasn't as simple as it sounds. I emailed, messaged, direct messaged every single woman on my top 20 list. And not surprisingly, I didn't hear back from a lot of them where I got, you know, pretty simple thank you, but no thank yous and a couple kind responses. And I'll be upfront in sharing that it didn't bother me because I expected rejection from this top 20 list. I didn't think at the time that I had a shot, so I wasn't disheartened or frustrated when I got the no's or the no responses. But what's important for you to know and for me to add is I also asked hundreds of other women

who are not New York Times bestsellers, who haven't been endorsed by Oprah, who didn't have the Dalai Lama write the foreword of their book, who haven't had the bestselling TED Talks of ever of all time. And I got the same responses, if not on occasion, worse. I definitely got the no responses. I got the kind thank you, but no thank yous. But I also got a couple uncomfortable, sort of snooty, maybe a little condescending responses in there as well. And that did hurt a little bit more. What I always tell myself when I deal with rejection or when I get no's is that no is my second favorite answer. It's the maybes

or the no answers that'll kill me. Yes is my favorite. No is my second favorite. And anytime I get a no, I remind myself that it's typically one of two actual responses. It's not yet or not my people. So when I get a no, I say to myself, okay, that's a no, that's a not yet. It wasn't the right timing. I'm not quite there yet. It's a no for now. Or sometimes it's a no forever. And it's typically because they're not my people and I'm not theirs. We're just not the right fit. I'm not meant for everybody and everybody is not meant for me. And that's a little bit how I talk myself through those experiences. And then I use my favorite four letter word. It's not the one you're thinking. It's next. Next is my favorite four-letter word in business

because it's just my reminder. I need to keep moving forward. I need to get back into action to find my people, to get the yeses. If I spend all my energy focused on the no's and it paralyzes me, I have no opportunity of gathering yeses. And so I have to get back into action.

Next. And then the step after that was I listened to the responses. And I also made sure that my ask was authentic. So I didn't just send out the same template email to hundreds or thousands of people. I really thought about where my connection with this person might be or what topic would really resonate with my listeners or how I felt we were connected or something that they did that I admired and respected. And I made sure that my ask came from that place, that it was authentic. And I also paid attention to what the responses were,

what seemed to get the most amount of traction, what were people responding to or not responding to. And we made a ton of tweaks along the way. The next big step was having excellent tracking and follow-up. So not only did I send messages to people, Nikki, my team member, she sent messages to people and to people's team members, and we tracked the responses. So we knew what messages were dead in the water. We knew which ones were not yet. And we knew which ones we had a specific time or a specific way to follow up. And then we did follow up when and how it made sense. So in the example of Dr. Shefali, we had sent this email to a team member and then the team member forwarded it and then responded and basically said, not now. Dr. Shefali is focused on writing her book. She's not doing any extra work right

now. And I respected that. It was a very kind email, but it fell into the not yet category for me. And we knew from the email that the book was coming out in spring of 2021. So this was early to mid 2020 when we got this response. So we made sure we put on both of our calendars on tracking sheets. We made sure we had it in our mind to follow up. And over that period of time, I'd already been following her on social media, but I made an extra effort to pay attention, to comment, to like, to really just be engaged into what she was focused on, what was important to her. I researched the book in advance before sending the follow-up email because it was starting to be teased that it was coming. And then I emailed again and I asked if

she would join me on the podcast. And it was a couple days later, I will forever remember where I was sitting. It was at our little round kitchen table and the email came through and I absolutely lost my mind. And then I forwarded it to Nikki. I took a screenshot of it and texted it to her and she absolutely lost her mind. And I told Jay and he absolutely lost his mind in the way a supportive spouse would. And it was so, so, so exciting for about one night. And then I started freaking out. All the fears, all the noise, all the doubt. Will I make a fool out of myself? Will she regret saying yes? How do I take advantage of this amazing opportunity? What if she changes her mind? Oh my God, what about the technology?

And then what do I say? Like, what do I say in 30 minutes that sends the message of gratitude that I wanted to send, but also that aligns with her message or could even possibly be at the level of her message. And then I just reminded myself over and over and over again, I've done this 55 plus times, you know, podcast recordings. And I reminded myself that it is just a conversation and it's not about me. So I began to think about how do I ask the questions that everybody wants to know? How do I ask the questions that are so aligned with her work and her passion and her area of expertise? How do I express gratitude for the opportunity she's just gifted me? And how do I enjoy this bucket list moment? Jay said to me right before I was about to go into recording of the podcast, make sure

you enjoy it. And I'm so glad he gave me that reminder. I wrote it on a sticky note and posted it on my computer so I could see it. And it was just a good reminder that in the creation of this bucket list moment that I didn't let fear and doubt and all of those things overrun the joy and excitement I had before and while doing it. And at the end of our podcast, she had offered to do an Instagram live with me and the rollercoaster started again, the fear and the doubts and the, oh my gosh, can I do it? At the time when she asked, I had never done an Instagram live before myself. I had

once been invited to somebody else's Instagram live. And so again, for me, technology is my nemesis. It brings out all sorts of fear and doubts. And that's where I started going. Oh my gosh, how do I do an Instagram live? How do I invite her? What if only 10 people show up? What if, and all the noise came flooding back in. And ultimately I just had to

take my own advice. I constantly tell people not to overthink, to get into action, to do things before you're quote unquote ready. We as women, we have a tendency to wait till we're a hundred percent ready before we'll move forward with something. And I had to take my own advice and know that somewhere between 40 to 70% ready was the sweet spot. And honestly, when I said yes, it was probably closer to 20% ready, but I knew that I could take advantage of the time between when I said yes and when I had to do the thing to get to closer to 70% ready. And that's about where I was when I hit the Instagram live button on the actual day. Okay. So what am I trying to tell you here? Ultimately, it's this. If you want to create your own bucket

list moments, there's an opportunity to hopefully learn from some of my action steps. And let me say that first, a reminder, it's action that will get you closer to those bucket list moments. It's action that builds confidence. You can't think or hope your way into it. You can only act your way into it. Failure builds confidence. I can't even count the amount of no's, the amount of rejection, the amount of no responses I got in the quest to create this bucket list moment. All the no's just built our confidence though. It made us better. It fine-tuned things. It got me closer to trusting and knowing that I can recover when things don't go exactly the way I want them to or when I don't get the response I'm hoping for. It gave me an opportunity to give myself grace and remind myself it is not about perfection. It is about

taking advantage of an opportunity. It's about showing up authentically. It's about gratitude. And then I also had the opportunity to practice choosing confidence, even when I wasn't feeling confident. We all have the opportunity moment by moment to choose confidence regardless of how we feel in that moment. And that is exactly what I did before I hit record on the podcast. And before I hit the live button, whatever it is on Instagram live, I had to choose, step into my confidence, even though I had the nervous butterflies and the sick to my stomach feeling and the, oh my God, what am I doing moments? I still had the opportunity to choose confidence. And then finally, a reminder to myself and hopefully to you that my confidence,

my trust in myself, my inherent value was never tied to the outcome anyway. I would still be okay if I never had the Dr. Shefali moment. Now I'm grateful and it was a bucket list cool moment, but I would still be okay without it. I would have been okay if the recording didn't go as planned. I would have been okay if she recording didn't go as planned. I would have been okay if she would have been late or if she would have no-showed me. I would have figured it out and it would have done nothing to my inherent value, my inherent worth, and my opportunity to keep and hold onto my confidence because my confidence is never associated with or tied to something outside of me. So my loves, what's on your bucket list? Put it out there. Ask for what you want.

Don't give up and have excellent follow through. Keep moving in the face of fear and doubt. Put one foot in front of the other. This is woman's work.