Foreign.

Welcome to the Successful Nurse Coach Podcast,

the show where nurses become powerful, profitable nurse coaches.

I'm Shelby.

And I'm Laura.

And we are the co founders of Nurse Life Coach

Academy.

We have helped train some of the best nurse coaches in the entire country,

and we help them build real businesses with real income, not just cute

titles.

So if you're tired of guessing, tired

of doing this alone, you are in the right place.

Let's grow your confidence and your skill,

and let's grow your practice.

Let's get to work.

Welcome to the Successful Nurse Coach Podcast.

Today, it's me, Laura, alone here and doing an episode on something that feels so fun to talk

about.

And if I remember correctly, I think that this one particular topic was something that Shelby

and I, we held onto.

We identified and we held onto really early.

And I don't know that we've talked about it in depth before, so I'm really excited to bring

it to you.

And today's podcast episode name is what

changes when you stop playing small?

So playing small is kind of what I think most of us do as responsible adults.

I think that there are different personality types, for sure.

And I think that sometimes when we step into nurse coaching, it feels like we're playing

really big because we're doing something that's different.

It's out of the ordinary, it's somewhat contrarian.

And then we are tasked with thinking about how we relate to that.

Like, okay, the first big step is becoming a professional nurse coach, and the second big

step could be,

yeah, but what kind and at what scale?

And there's these feelings of, do I want to expand?

Do I want to play a bigger game? Do I want to have bigger goals,

Do I want to have more attention on me? And a lot of times our subconscious and our

ego is like, no, Laura.

Like, I don't like, let's stay safe and

comfortable.

So let's come up with a reasonable goal and let's keep it realistic.

And,

yeah, and that's kind of one of the ways that we play small.

So playing small is not dramatic.

It's really subtle.

It is dressed up as certainty and stability and responsibility, and those are all good

things, right?

And so I certainly don't want to equate playing big with being irresponsible.

In fact, I would challenge each of us to think about how irresponsible it is for us to

default to playing small.

And in the world,

we come in contact with ideas and concepts and people that impact us,

whether it be a leader at your organization, whether it Be a family member, whether it be

an author or a podcaster or a musician or whatever,

whatever.

You have been impacted by human beings.

What I find is that everybody that's truly impacted me,

that if I had to list them,

none of them played small.

So then I asked myself, well, I look up to all these people,

or I'm influenced by all these people,

and yet I don't feel a compulsion to expand and to play bigger.

So I think the internal whisper that points to this is,

I think there's more for me here.

Or I know I'm.

I know I'm meant to do something.

Or if you're spiritual, I know God has something bigger for me.

Or I have this sense that the universe wants me to solve a problem.

And it is very quiet, and it comes from intuition, is very rarely intellectual.

It's very rarely gonna be an element of, should I play small or should I play big?

Let me list all the pluses and all the minuses.

Like, it usually comes into play with a feeling.

And so this is the question I want to pose for you is, have you ever had the feeling that

your life looks fine on paper?

Or if somebody was evaluating you from the outside, you kind of have it all,

but you don't feel that on the inside, or there's a sense that something's missing, or

there's a sense that something's not fully aligned, and you can catch yourself saying,

you should be more grateful, you should be more settled.

Like,

even guilt for the compulsion to play a bigger game,

because you should just be content with what you have.

And it is a both.

And so, you know, we want to be careful that

we aren't postponing happiness, that we aren't postponing joy, that we aren't postponing

gratitude of, like, I'll be happy when my business hits this, or I'll be happy when I

get doing 10,000k months.

Because we know that the goalpost will just keep moving.

So it's certainly not that I think it's more of, like, a macro perspective of, is this game

I'm playing big enough?

Is this goal that I have juicy enough?

And would it be my preference to play a bigger game or not?

And I like to use the word preference because that essentially means I am so grateful for

what I have.

I am so grateful for my family, for where I

live, for this business,

for my business partner, for I'm so grateful for all of it.

And certainly from the outside, it looks pretty **** good.

It even looks good on paper.

That's True.

But it can also be true that I'm like.

I'd also like, prefer to play a 10x game.

I would prefer for my day to day to impact more people.

I would prefer to earn more money so that I could do more things that I want to do with

money or help causes that I want to help with money.

And so it's a. Both.

And,

and I think that if we can frame playing it big as a preference,

it gets rid of all the hidden fears that we're not grateful for what we have.

And today we're going to go over a lot of reasons why we don't.

Like, we don't play big.

And it's kind of one of these things that I'm going to just give a. A black box warning on

this podcast, because once you see it or hear it, you can't unsee it or hear it.

All right? And so if you are completely content with your

life the way that it is today,

and you don't want to be possibly ruffled and experience some uncertainty,

turn me off.

Because we're going to talk a little bit about what comes first.

And the first thing that comes first is awareness.

And awareness is what drains you,

what brings you energy.

And this can change, and this can be very

scary.

Imagine you have your best friends from high school,

and you realize over the last five years that every time you do your yearly trip that you

don't enjoy it as much as you used to,

or you notice that it drains you, or you notice that the conversations that you're

having, they aren't the kind of conversations that you enjoy.

And you just keep shoving that awareness away because that could mean something that would

be painful to.

To recognize, which is that you might have

outgrown that specific set of friends,

or that specific set of friends can't play the part or, or be the.

The role that they've always been for you.

And that certainly means you don't stop being

them,

but it.

It means that you start having an awareness of

what drains you and what inspires you.

And if we are playing the game and we are interested in playing big,

then we have to be aware of what gives us energy and what doesn't give us energy.

And we begin to tally up the cost of staying the same.

And oftentimes we talk ourselves out of our own growth.

And I see in.

As a business mentor, this is just.

I see this over and over again because I see the moonshot.

I really want to do this.

And then I'm like, you know what?

I would Just be happy if I had three clients.

And so both are right.

But it's just.

We talk ourselves out of our own growth,

and that really is just a defense mechanism.

And here's the thing.

The tension's not the problem.

The tension is the signal.

And I think that when we start looking at

tension, that word tension,

as a signal and not negative or something that needs to be fixed or where something's gone

wrong, I think that can be so helpful.

I know for me, the tension I feel and I. Oh, my gosh.

I'm thinking of, like, right now of like.

My last job at Kaiser in California was driving to the advice call center.

And it was a big warehouse, and I was pulling up, and I was gonna go put my headset on in a

huge warehouse in a cubicle and take phone calls all day with a script that I couldn't

vary,

that I couldn't come off of.

And so there was just no creativity.

There was nothing.

There was no room for growth.

I had learned that role.

It was fun when I was learning it.

It was challenging when I was learning it, but I knew it.

I wasn't nervous about it.

I wasn't like I was gonna ascend.

I didn't.

Didn't have a goal to become the call center

manager.

And so as soon as the newness wore off of that role, it didn't matter that I was making $90

an hour.

It didn't matter that I could drive to work

with my sister who lived next door and we could carpool.

It didn't matter that I was working 24 hours a week and had full benefits.

On paper, I had hit gold.

I was making 90 an hour to answer telephones

and doing four sixes for 24 hours a week and full benefits, health benefits for my whole

family.

It was what I had wanted,

and yet I was dying.

There was so much tension because I knew that was not where I was supposed to be.

And the fact that on paper it looks so good made it worse.

Right?

Tension's the signal.

And the tension I was feeling was just knowing

that this is not what God in the universe had in store for me.

I was not created, informed to go have a life that looked good on paper,

that wouldn't allow me to grow or to make an impact or to have any kind of creativity.

And I think that for someone like me, creativity, growth and opportunity is.

It has to be woven into anything that I do or I can't do it.

And I think that just beginning to know what your tension signals are,

how you feel about major parts of your life.

A lot of times when we are working with our clients, we are asking them to tell us their

vision and their dream.

And one of the best tools we can do is to talk about exponential growth versus gradual

growth.

Growth is wonderful.

But exponential growth means that you change one thought, and you're able to 10x something.

So you change one thought about money, and you're able to charge 10 times more.

You change your thought about impact, and you're able to have 10 times more.

You change your thought about being visible, and you're able to be visible to 10 times more

people.

And that can seemingly happen overnight because of the way that you think about it.

And it is our role as a professional life coach to open that up for people.

And people say, you know, I.

I've been heavy since high school.

I would happy, happy if I was just like a size

14 and my BMI was XYZ.

Like, I would just be content.

And that's totally fine if that's the goal.

And you could say, well, if we could wave a

magic wand, it was just as easy to get to something else.

Like, what would be your.

What would be your favorite? Like, what would make you feel like your body,

your temple was exactly how you wanted it to be?

And they'd say, well, that's easy.

X, Y, Z.

It's like, okay, well, if it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter which one we choose.

If we're.

We're placing an order to the universe, if

we're declaring what we want,

do we want to declare, like, the one that is medium or the one that is a 10?

And a lot of times our clients had never been asked that.

And in fact, they might even feel a lot of tension around saying something like that

outside.

So it's just something to be aware of.

And when we begin to not play small, the biggest hit comes on our identity.

And identity is one of those things that we're rooted in.

It is how we make meaning of the world that we're in.

And our identity is always shifting.

One of the biggest identity shifts you probably ever had was going from nursing

student to nurse,

or going from single to married,

or from going to not a parent to a parent,

from a. A worker to an entrepreneur?

These are big identity shifts.

When we lose our parents, when our kids move out of our house.

Like, these are huge identity transitions that, for the most part,

are difficult on human beings to tolerate.

So there's a part of us that has all these

identity shifts that happen without our permission.

Because they're just the way that life is.

And then you've got a coach asking you to, hey, let's.

Let's shake up your identity right here, right now in relation to your work or in relation to

your health or in relation to your career.

And it feels the same.

The body doesn't know the difference.

So a lot of times,

nothing external changes immediately.

You just begin trusting yourself more,

and you start to.

You've done this a few times,

by the way.

If you've created yourself to be different a few times, then you have this muscle where you

realize, like, whatever you want in your life that you want to create or that you want to

do,

it's on the other side of an identity that you step into.

And I have seen people who get really good at stepping into identities.

I would say that Shelby and I are excellent at stepping into new identities.

We tend to jump into them and then figure out how to swim.

And it's part of the reason why we've had success when other people didn't.

It wasn't because we were more magical or we were smarter or we were harder working or that

we had confidence.

It was,

we just trusted that we could change our identities so that we could become the version

that could do the thing that we wanted to do.

And from that place, decisions come from who you are,

not by what you want.

So when your identity shifts to, for example,

a hundred thousand dollars a year nurse coach versus a $50,000 a year nurse coach, well, a

hundred thousand dollars a year nurse coaches, they make different decisions.

And the $50,000 a year nurse coach can decide to start making decisions as if they're a

hundred thousand dollars a year nurse coach.

And right now, in the stage of business that we're in and at the stage of growth that we're

in, every decision I make is not, is this the right decision for the company we have now?

It's, is this the right decision for the company that's 10 times as large and has 10

times as much impact?

So I have to step into that identity of like, oh, I'm.

I'm this in relation to this.

So what would she do? How would she tackle this problem?

How would she create this result?

And it's kind of creepy because we are having to override these limiting beliefs, these

tapes of limiting beliefs.

And every time you expand or you begin to play

big,

these limiting beliefs will float back up to the surface that you thought you had dealt

with.

So at every stage of expansion, a wave of painful or traumatic or limiting, like Things

that had happened to you before will surface up again that you thought you had dealt with

in relation to this new expansion.

So no wonder we don't do this.

No wonder our ego's so smart.

And it's like, hey, why don't you just pick, like a medium goal?

Or why don't you just go for.

For this thing that's more reasonable or

reliable or responsible? And quite frankly, our culture and sometimes

our family of origin almost frowns on playing big.

That it's almost woven into, like, not being moral or that there's something wrong with, or

like, what's wrong with you that you can't just be satisfied with X, Y, Z,

or you have a great job, you're a nurse, or you're a nurse practitioner.

Like, why would you want to go do this crazy thing that you don't even know is going to

work?

Like, how irresponsible is it for you to go do this thing?

And so we are at odds with a lot of forces around us when we decide that we want to step

into playing big.

Here's another thing, too.

Alignment creates energy.

Alignment.

When you are doing what you're supposed to be

doing at the time that you're supposed to be doing it, oriented in the direction that

you're supposed to be oriented,

it is not.

You don't need a whole lot of discipline

because you have so much **** energy that it is easy to move, it is easy to do, it is easy

to be.

When you're out of alignment, it is really difficult because you don't have energy.

Energy follows alignment.

Misalignment is exhausting.

Burnout is misalignment.

Misalignment feels like if you were a glass of water and filled with beautiful, amazing

water.

Misalignment is micro holes all over the glass.

And you're constantly leaking energy.

And so it's really difficult to get momentum.

It's difficult to see new perspectives.

It's very difficult to begin to think about playing big or expanding your glass when

you're misaligned.

And this is why people look and feel different

when they step into something aligned.

You've all seen people who left marriages that were misaligned.

And while it was a difficult transition,

the people who leave these marriages don't their faces look different, their bodies look

different, they talk different, they walk different.

Because they are not misaligned.

I know you've seen this.

Or somebody who has decided to go all in on

their faith, and they just seem to walk around with more light or more expansion or more

magnetism.

Or somebody who finally gets their dream job and they're doing exactly what they've always

wanted to do.

You can sense it secretly.

We all desire to have a life that feels like

that.

And while life is not meant to feel that good all the time, it just isn't.

I think that what I'm asking you to do in this podcast is to evaluate where you are aligned

and then ask yourself for the willingness to expand that and to play bigger.

Here's a few other things that alignment does.

Alignment creates clarity,

clear,

calm and momentum.

And sometimes alignment, you're clear on your

next right step, but all the rest of them are fuzzy.

That's okay,

but you become clear.

Like, it's really difficult to move when you

don't know where you're supposed to move and how you're supposed to get there.

And so a lot of times we just stay in ambiguity.

We just stay there.

We're like, well, I'm not sure what I want to

do in my career, so I'm just going to think about it and do nothing for years.

Or I know I need to start exercising, but I'm just not sure what I want to do.

So I'm just going to think about exercising for seven months,

right? So it's like when we're clear, like when we

know what it is that we're walking towards, it's easier to walk.

And alignment doesn't remove effort, it removes friction.

And I have seen this in business over and over again.

When the dam breaks and all of your work pays off and you get an alignment and things start

working,

it is like clients fall out of the **** sky.

It is like somebody turned on something and it

is miraculous to experience.

Having experienced it a few times now, maybe three or four times,

you know it because things seem easier.

Here's another concept I wanted to play with.

Playing small is protection.

And playing small is helpful.

And I want to honor the role of playing small and honor the role that it served.

But I also want us to recognize when it really is time to move beyond it.

Because playing small protected us at one point.

It helped us survive, it helped us belong and helped us stay safe.

It helped our nervous system.

But eventually that protection, that self protection becomes limitation and growth.

All growth, by the way,

requires uncertainty.

You have to be able to deal with that uncertainty.

And here's the thing.

Every nursing shift you've ever showed up to,

you are uncertain what you're going to have.

You don't know what patients are going to come

in.

You don't know how Many people are going to

call out that day.

There is always uncertainty in the world.

Our brain just categorizes as like, some

uncertainty is okay and some uncertainty is not right.

Isn't that funny?

It's like some uncertainty, not a big deal, but other kinds of uncertainty sound the

alarms.

This is unacceptable.

We gotta do whatever we gotta do to get certainty.

This happens with money.

This happens with.

I see this so often when people are

contemplating moving and they.

They're in that state of, like, when they're

moving houses or they're gonna do a. Yeah, they're moving geographically that they can't

relax until they're in their house.

And so that's true, right? It. There's uncertainty when you don't know

how it's gonna feel when you get into your new house,

but there's a version of you that's just good at uncertainty.

And there's a lot of tools to help us do this.

A lot of has to come comes down to nervous

system regulation.

So when growth requires tolerating uncertainty, your life expands in proportion

to the truth that you're willing to live.

And that's hard because we have to have truth about our lives, about what we tolerate, about

what we want.

We have to have truth and clarity.

And then we have to say, that's scary.

That seems uncertain, and I'm up for it.

All right, so I'm gonna give you just a quick mental model to remember while you are

contemplating this.

So first it's realization.

You realize, hey, in this certain area of my life, I have been playing small.

And then you begin to get some awareness around that of like, oh, yeah, I see where

this came from.

This probably came from my mom or this came

from my dad, or this is just the way our family's always done it, or this is just what

I always thought I would do.

Like, I am aware of why I've been playing small.

It's because of this.

And then next it becomes the identity shift.

Well, it's not like, what do I need to do?

It's who do I need to be?

Who do I need to be for this limiting belief, for this place in my life that I play small to

change.

And then we move into some kind of alignment and our energy begins to return.

And then with that extra energy, we expand into.

So we see it, we feel it,

trust it,

follow it,

and we become it.

And the cool thing about playing big when you're used to playing small is that if you

can do it one time, and for many of you listening to this right now, this is the one

time.

This is the first time, truly,

like, this nurse coach thing could be the first time that you do this.

And so it doesn't even matter the outcome because, like, how excited are you that you

even get a chance to.

To do this?

And so here's the thing.

Once you've done it one time,

your ego goes, oh,

I can do that again.

That can't be that hard.

And all successful entrepreneurs have this,

because as an entrepreneur, there's always new, there's always uncertainty.

Your certainty has to come inside, from inside of you, not externally.

As an entrepreneur, there is no universe that you will know for sure that you have a

paycheck for the next 12 months.

There's no universe.

Now, you can create savings, you can create opportunities so that you have contingency

plans.

Like, you can still create safety,

but you can't predict.

And what's funny is we can't predict if we

have a job in 12 months.

Our brain says it's safe,

but the safety comes from knowing, like, I can figure it out.

I can figure it out.

If I get fired, I can figure it out.

If my business changes, I can figure it out.

The certainty comes from within us,

and we have to rest on that certainty,

because if we can find certainty within us, then it allows us to deal with external

certainty, which is required to play big.

All right, so I want to do a quick thought exercise here.

And if you can take a moment, just pause in your day.

If you're listening to this, if you're driving, don't close your eyes, but if you

can,

just close your eyes.

And I want you to imagine that you pop up out of your life and you are above your whole

life, and you're seeing every part of it with absolute clarity.

And you've got a journal in front of you and a magical pen.

And my voice is basically telling you that you are the author.

You have this magical pen.

You have complete, clear perspective of your life, all parts,

absolute clarity.

And whatever your pen puts into your journal will be reality,

anything.

What are you writing?

What are you re authoring?

What words are coming down onto the paper.

That's an amazing place to start.

I found myself playing small just recently,

and it was.

I giggled about it.

It's why I'm doing this podcast today, because it can be insidious.

We forget how powerful we are,

especially depending on your spiritual background.

If the universe or God or our creator or this unseen force that we work with in the world,

if there is a way that we can be used for good.

Do you think that it's going to be safe and certain,

or do you think it's going to be big and uncertain?

Likely big and uncertain.

So I find the human beings that can master the skill that this podcast talks about get to be

used for bigger things because they're an instrument that can create things that are big

and not just small.

All right, I'm going to keep this podcast short and tight.

Today.

I want you to imagine what you wrote on that piece of paper as the next space that you get

to play with this model in.

So it is realization,

awareness.

Who do you need to become?

Identity shift.

Your energy will return, and you will expand into that new reality.

All right, guys, have a great rest of your day, and I will see you next week.