260 Holly Worton ~ How Stretching Yourself In All Areas Helps Your Business

Today’s Guest

Table of Contents

I’m back again, with another solo episode! Today’s episode is inspired by my kickboxing summer course, which I just returned from. It was a massive stretch for me (I had lots of fears going into it, which I talk about on the show) and I came out of it feeling so proud of myself. In this episode, I talk about how stretching ourselves in all areas of our lives can benefit our business.

Listen to this episode

What You’ll Learn

How to stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone in all areas of your life
How you can stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone with the stories you tell in your content
Why it’s so important to say yes to new opportunities (and to stay alert so that we actually see them when they come our way)
Why every little bit counts, even the baby steps (they all add up!)
Things you can do today to start stretch yourself

Things I Discussed

Connect With Holly

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Transcript

The transcript for this episode can also be downloaded here (no opt-in required).

Holly: Hello and welcome to the Business Mindset Podcast, episode 260. This is your host Holly Worton and I am back with another solo episode.

Today, I am going to talk about the importance of stretching yourself, and this is inspired by recent activities that I just experienced over the weekend; today is Monday, the Monday before this goes live, and I have just gotten back, and I am feeling really excited about what I achieved over the weekend. So, I wanted to share this story with you and kind of expand on it and tell you how I think you could benefit from doing the same kind of thing that I just did.

Go Solo Podcast

But, before we get into this episode, I wanted to mention a podcast that I was recently a guest on, it is called: Go Solo, Live, so it is about women travelling solo and I really, really, enjoyed this podcast, because I do love travel and I love as you know walking alone, and I love travel alone. And it was a fun podcast to be on and it was a great conversation to have. And if you like travelling alone, or not, but especially if you like travelling alone, I highly recommend that you check this podcast out. If you go to: http://HollyWorton.com/gosolo, that will redirect you to the podcast itself and you can listen to Go Solo, Live. The host Jennifer is amazing she has got great energy, I really, really, enjoyed our conversation and we talked about solo walking, we talked about mindset, we talked about travel, all kinds of good stuff. So, head over to: http://HollyWorrton.com/GoSolo, and you will be redirected to that episode.

Now, hopefully, I will be able to get the code to get that into my feed, so you might be able to see it here, but if you don’t, that’s where you can find it.

What are you reading?

Now, before I get into the meat of this episode, I also wanted to ask you: what are you reading? Is it anything good? I asked this in the Facebook group a few days ago, and it was really interesting to see what people were reading. I asked it on Twitter, didn’t get a lot of responses and I kind of was prompted to ask this question because I had just finished reading The Art of Asking, by Amanda Palmer, and I really, really, liked the book. She tells a ton of personal stories in a kind of jumbled, disjointed way, but they all fit together, and they are all really useful in illustrating how good, and sometimes not so good, at asking people for help. Really, she is quite good at it, even though she tells some stories about times when she hasn’t been good at it. But I think there are a lot of stories in there that are useful to creative entrepreneurs and all kinds of business owners. I think it can be really, really, challenging for a lot of us to ask for help. I, myself, am included in that, I am not usually good at asking for help and often not good at accepting help when it is offered to me.

Now, I have done some mindset work on this, and I have gotten better at it, and I don’t think that it is a really big issues however I think it is something that we can all benefit from and I really, really, enjoyed hearing her stories and her multiple examples of how she has created such a strong community around her music, and her art, and the things that she creates and how she has built those relationships over the years – she really was a pioneer in terms of creating a community around internet marketing and using Kickstarter and Patreon, and I really, really, really, enjoyed this book. So, it is the Art of Asking by Amanda Palmer. If you read it let me know what you thought, I think it is absolutely fantastic, really, really, useful for all of us.

Today’s episode

So, getting into today’s episode. what was this experience that I just had? I had my kickboxing summer course over the weekend.

So, I mentioned this in the Facebook group, and I was really hesitant to mention it because I felt like: who cares what I am doing? Even though I do try to share stories with you about, kind of about what’s going on in my life outside of business, but for some reason I was kind of hesitant to post it, and yet I felt like I needed to post it, and now I think I have understood why. So, to give you some background on this, so I am a brown belt in kickboxing now, and the gradings to go up to brown-white, to brown-black, are no longer a one-day, two-and-a-half-hour thing, they are two-day full-on weekend event, full of fitness and kickboxing and that kind of thing. So, it is very different from what I am used to, and I had so many fears going into this. I was afraid because it was a big event, there were 59 people there, it was not just my school, and people who I knew, it was people from kind of our sister school. It was full-on, it was five hours on Saturday, eight hours on Sunday, of fitness and kickboxing, which is something that my energy levels are still not fantastic, I have an under-active thyroid, and I am not as active as I would like to be, and that is partly because I just don’t have the energy sometimes, when I get to the end of an hour’s kickboxing class and I am exhausted.

So, I was really, really, scared of not being able to make it through this summer course, but also being the worst person there. I think I was definitely the oldest person there, and mostly people were…there were some children, lots of teenagers, not that many, I think there were two other women in their forties – so, lots of young, fit people. That triggers these fears and these scary memories I have of being in PE in high school and being the worst person because high school always involved ball sports and I am terrified of flying balls, which I now know probably comes from my autism. But at the time I just thought I was horrible at sports and horrible at physical activities and horrible at fitness and horrible at all things exercise. So, it triggers those old kinds of traumas from school, and I was so scared going into this thing, and when I got the email that detailed all the stuff that we were doing I sent it to my husband and he said: wow, I am just tired from looking at that! And I was looking at it thinking: how am I ever going to get through this, it is summer, the weather is really, really, hot, how am I going to do this?

Well, I am so glad I did it, because I did it. We started out with a really high-intensity interval training on Saturday, we went into self-defence, we did some bag work, it was really just a lot of fitness and kickboxing stuff from 1pm to 6pm, so five hours. Sunday, we got there, again it was an eight-hour thing, we started out with a run, which was supposed to go through this vineyard that is near where I live, but there was an event there, so we ended up going up Box Hill which is this crazy, steep, hill, where I live; and it was just hour-upon-hour of kick-boxing and fitness stuff. So, today, my body just aches, everything hurts, I am really tired, but I feel so good, because I was so scared of this thing, and I did it and I didn’t even do it to grade, I did it because I wanted to see what the summer course was like, because I will be grading on the winter course at the end of the year. So, I was just kind of there for fun, I guess! It was so intense, it was really hot, yesterday I think I drank five litres of water, I was sweating non-stop for eight hours, it was hard, it was very challenging, and it took me well outside my comfort zone. But, I did it, I completed it, I feel so good today. I feel really, really, good about it, I feel old about myself and I feel like I stretched the boundaries of my comfort zone even more. And this is an example of physical fitness, because I seem to be stretching myself in that arena quite a bit lately, but I think that any time we stretch our comfort zone in any direction, in any way, it helps stretch our comfort zone for business as well. And sometimes it is easier to stretch ourselves in other areas of life, and then business becomes easier; and obviously I am a big fan of doing mindset work on this stuff to make it even easier, and I did loads of mindset stuff before this last weekend, because I was really scared about going, I had a lot of stuff that I was worried about, but I did it. So, summer course, super-challenging,

If you are in the Facebook group I think you probably know that I also went on a wild camping course, that was actually just two weeks ago, and that I was really scared about, I was afraid of being the slowest person. We were going backpacking in South Wales, which I knew was a lot hillier than what I am used to, so I was afraid of being the slowest person and climbing the hills and I was afraid of carrying a heavy backpack; and I was afraid, again, of basically being the slowest, least fit, person in the group. And the reality is, I was. It was a small group, it was just the guide, other guy and me and they were both kind of more used to this backpacking thing than I was, but I wasn’t that far behind, and it wasn’t a problem, and it wasn’t like I was holding them up. I was carrying a much bigger pack than I am used to, a much heavier pack, I was going up much bigger hills than I am used to, I was hiking for long times, again it was super-hot, super-sunny, really challenging conditions to be out physically but I felt so good when I got back, because again I had stretched myself, I had tackled bigger hills, I had carried weight, I had gone and done this with people that I didn’t know – I had never met those two guys before. I went wild camping, which I had always wanted to do, and I always hesitated to do because I didn’t know how to do it, I didn’t know what gear to bring, and I learned so much. And, I came back from that weekend really feeling kind of like a new person, I almost felt like I had kind of busted through some blocks up to a new level of being, kind of peeled off some layers of fear and crap – and I really felt different on the Monday coming back from that.

A couple of weeks before that I did the Wey South Path, the little trail that is the topic of my next walking book, which is going to come out, I did that in two days instead of three days. It is a 35-mile trial, so not too bad splitting it up into two days. I had always done it in three days and it was perfectly fine, splitting it up into two days was a big challenge, again, the weather was really hot, really sunny – it was very, very challenging. I almost quit at one point on the second day. I was looking at the map trying to find ways to get off the trail and get to a train station, so I could get home, because I just wasn’t enjoying it but then I pushed through and I completed it and I felt really, really, proud of myself because I had stretched myself and I was tired and had blisters and I was hot but again I felt really proud of myself. So, pushing yourself if you are feeling inclined to do so, in physical stuff, and challenging yourself physically can be really, really, a good way of stretching the boundaries of your comfort zone and helping you with your business. It is not like a logical step, like: Well, I am going to walk this trail, and then my business will be easier. But, we all have fears and blocks and limiting beliefs related to business, and how we run business, and the things that we want to do and the goals we want to achieve. I really do believe that anything we can do to stretch the boundaries, or the limits of our comfort zone will help us in all aspects of our lives.

Why is it important to stretch ourselves?

And now that I have told you these stories I feel like I need to get into why do we want to stretch ourselves? Why do we want to expand our comfort zone? It is a basic personal growth concept,

If you are listening to this podcast I am going to assume that you are into personal growth because otherwise I am probably really boring to you, because that is all I talk about, but if you are into personal growth you will benefit from stretching yourself outside of your comfort zone or stretching your comfort zone. It can help you be more flexible, make different decisions, take new paths, try new things; it is going to help you to do different things; it is going to help you to take bigger actions, scarier actions. It is going to help you do those things that previously you thought: Oh, I don’t know I can do that! But, you will give it a try, you will be more likely to give it a try, because you have tried other things in the past, that were more scary. It will help you to be creative because stretching the limits, and stretching the boundaries of your comfort zone, will help you to think outside your normal limits of thinking, and be more creative and create more things and different things and new things and do things in a different way. It might help you change your prices, if that’s something you have been struggling with. Joanna Hennon and I just did a very recent podcast episode on pricing: Is your pricing too high? Some people’s pricing is too low, I would say most people’s pricing is too low. But there are a lot of things, whether you think your pricing is too high or too low, it is really, really, well-received podcast episode. That’s number 257, and it just came out a couple of weeks ago. So, if you have been thinking about changing your prices, listen to that podcast, but also that’s a stretch outside your comfort zone. And taking these steps, outside your comfort zone, can also help you overcome your fears in general. Again, stretching yourself in your personal life can most definitely help you stretch yourself in your business life. And, a lot of times, achieving our goals requires us to take actions outside our comfort zone, so the more you can do this, the easier it gets in all areas of your life.

So, thinking about business stuff, you can stretch yourself in terms of the content you create, the stories you tell. My books have all been a stretch outside my comfort zone. I have written seven books, I am about to release number eight in the next month or so, and they have all been scary, because I told a lot of personal stories, especially with the walking books. I shared a lot of vulnerability about the challenges that I experienced walking, particularly my first long distance trail, the South Downs Way, it was really, really, hard and it was scary to tackle that story, but I knew I had to tell it, so I could help other people who were maybe thinking about doing a similar walk but were too scared to do so. And do I have some bad reviews of that book? Yeah, I have got two one-star reviews (that I know of, there might be more!) that was really, really, horrible it hurt when I read it, but oh well, that’s two bad reviews, the number of people who have written to me to tell me how much the book helped them, how much it inspired them, that’s more than two. So, I feel like it is worth putting up with the two shitty comments, or bad reviews, in order to help the people that I am here to help. Whether that’s through walking stuff, outdoor stuff, nature stuff, or business mindset stuff, but it is scary to open up and tell those stories, it is scary to be vulnerable, but that’s what opens us up to other connections and that’s why I do it.

When I did that podcast with Joanna Hennon, a couple of months ago, about the house, episode 253, that was really scary, and now loads of people are asking me about the house, are there any updates? No, there are not. And I feel, ugh, when I have to say: no, no updates, just practical actions, working on the mindset stuff; and so, it was vulnerable to put that out there, it was scary to put that out there, I feel like I really opened up a lot in that episode, but it was really, really, useful to people. I have had really good feedback about that episode. So, it can be big stuff, to open up and be vulnerable and to tell personal stories. Same thing with my podcast episode with Jo Casey that we did, about transition and business, that was 246, from last year, where I was talking about: how do you tell whether you are afraid of something or whether you are out of alignment? And I was talking about the changes that I wanted to happen in my business, but I wasn’t really sure what they were, and that was scary to share about the messy middle, it was scary to talk about how I knew things were changing in my business, but I didn’t know what that looked like. I don’t have all the answers, I don’t have all the answers to my business, I don’t have all the answers to my life, and it is scary to open up and tell these stories, on the podcast, on the blog, in the Facebook group, to my email list, whatever; but it is important because it shows people that I have these problems that other people have too. And I think it can be so, so, valuable to learn from other people’s stories, which is why I do it, even if it is uncomfortable.

There was that podcast episode that I did with Shelby Forsythia and that was a scary, scary episode, it was an episode on her show and you can find it if you look back, it is a bonus episode, and I told a lot of my story that I hadn’t put online before. And I was so scared when that episode came out, I felt sick and I almost emailed her and said: can you take it down? and of course I didn’t because I felt like that would be unprofessional and thought I should just deal with it. As time went on, I grew more comfortable with it, it is a story that is part of my life, and it is part of who I am, and it is part of what made me who I am today, and I think it is useful to have out there, I think it is useful for people to hear who may have experienced similar things. So, one way that you can stretch yourself is by being more open, being more vulnerable with your content, and the stories you tell when you write your content, when you write your blog posts, or your books, if you record a podcast or a video.

I am looking right now at starting to create second editions of my business mindset books, because I really want to dig deeper and expand them. One of the things that I didn’t do as much of is, as I would like to have, is tell more stories about me, tell more stories about my limiting beliefs, my fears, and how they affected me, because I think people can connect with that. I have come a long way and I talked about this in last week’s episode, and I think it is not only is it important to acknowledge how far we have come, but it is important to share those stories of before, so that people can see how far you have come, they can see what things were like before, and what things are like now for you. I think that is really, really, useful, so I look forward to including more of those things in my second editions of my business books.

Another way you can stretch yourself is to say yes to opportunities, so saying yes to interviews when people email you to say: will you be a guest on my podcast? Will you be a guest on my video show? Even if you have never heard of the person before. I very rarely will say no to someone who wants to interview me, I will say no to tele-summits, because I don’t really love those. But interviews, yeah, I love doing interviews, I love speaking to new people. Yet it is scary, if I don’t know the person I can listen to a few episodes of their podcast, but still, I haven’t connected personally with the person and that kind of happens on the interview, so it can be scary, but it is absolutely worth doing. I know people who want to get themselves out there to new audiences, who want to be interviewed on other people’s podcasts, and they don’t, and sometimes people tell me: oh, it just doesn’t feel aligned, it doesn’t feel right. And I just think: really, are you sure, or is it that you are just scared? And even if you are scared you can still say yes to these experiences. You can say yes and do the research, listen to their episodes, gather the information you need to have about this person to have a meaningful conversation and exchange with them on the interview, but say yes to opportunities, even if they are scary.

Years ago, when I joined Toastmasters back in 2011, that was one of the biggest things that took me outside of my comfort zone, I was terrified of public speaking, but I was constantly putting myself forward for all the different roles you have in a Toastmasters meeting, because I wanted to force myself outside my comfort zone and that year was a massive year of growth for me, very much in part due to Toastmasters which I am very, very, thankful for. And if you don’t know what Toastmasters, it is a public speaking ‘club’ where you go, and you learn how to do public speaking, both prepared speeches and impromptu speeches and it is really well-structured in the sense that everyone has really clear boundaries on how long to speak, and they will help you stay on track with timing and it is just really, really, well done, I really enjoyed it and it was absolutely life-changing for me.

So, that’s one way you can step outside of your comfort zone: saying yes to opportunities when people ask you to volunteer for something, or you can put yourself forward to volunteer for something which is maybe a step outside of your comfort zone. For example, the Druid organisation that I belong to recently had its summer gathering at the start of June, and I was asked by two separate people to take part in two separate ceremonies. I had never been to the summer gathering, or the winter gathering, and I was new, I was just started with this Druid order last December. I felt new, and I felt green and I felt unsure about participating in the ceremonies, there was one on Saturday, there was one on Sunday morning at Stonehenge, but I said yes to both because I thought: there is a reason that I am being asked to do this. And yes, it was scary, everyone else had been and taken part in these ceremonies many times before, but I got so much more out of it by participating in it, it it added an extra layer to the experience, and particularly the sunrise ceremony at Stonehenge, it was such a beautiful experience. And I am so happy to have been asked to take part in it, I really, really, enjoyed the experience of it. I was scared of it, but I said yes.

So, saying yes to opportunities when they come your way, and keeping your eyes open so you are aware of opportunities when they come your way, because opportunities don’t always present themselves as an email saying: hey, do you want to take part in this thing, yes or no? Sometimes it is a conversation with someone, they are asking for help with something, and a week later you might realise: oh, that’s something I could have helped them with, that kind of thing is something you need to be aware of. Keep your eyes open, see what opportunities are coming your way for collaborations, for helping people out, for getting yourself out there, every little bit counts, every baby step counts and this is the important thing about stretching yourself, and expanding your comfort zone, every baby step counts no matter how small. You don’t have to go to a two-day summer course in kickboxing and spend 13 hours doing tons of fitness stuff, the first time I stretched myself at kickboxing was the day I showed up for the first class – I was terrified. The next time I stretched myself was when I signed up to do this fight, it was like a local kind of fight club event that we did, I was a white belt still, I signed up to compete, the woman that I was supposed to be fighting dropped out at the last minute, I had to fight this boy that I didn’t even know, I was terrified, and I did it and I felt amazing.

So, every little step counts. Every baby step counts. Every baby step counts in every area of your life. So, don’t feel like you constantly have to be pushing yourself only in the arena of business and anything that you do in your personal life doesn’t count, that’s absolutely not true. Everything you do, every step you take outside of your comfort zone to stretch yourself in any way, helps you stretch your comfort zone in business. I think I have said that 15 times over the course of the last half hour!

So, I hope you understood that message and I encourage you to right now, when this episode is over, think about one thing you could do to stretch yourself outside of your comfort zone and do something new and different. So, what is something that you could try new, what is something new that you could learn, what is something different you could learn, maybe a different way of doing things?

Is there somewhere new that you could go to, travel, even if it is a restaurant – anything. What is something new, or different, you could do or learn or experience, because it is all about the experiences. It is these new experiences, different experiences, that scare us, and stretch us outside of our comfort zone, that help us expand our business comfort zone. And I know that last example was kind of weird, going to a new restaurant, but maybe there is a kind of food that you always were afraid of trying, I don’t know? Some people aren’t very adventurous with food, so do whatever you can do to do something that maybe scares you a bit, maybe you have been a little hesitant to do it, do it, write it down now. I am sure as I have been asking these questions something has popped into your head. Do it. Block out the time in your calendar and make it happen; because if we want to grow as business owners, if we want to expand our business mindset, if we want to grow as people, as individuals, it is so important to keep stretching ourselves. And, again, baby steps count, you don’t have to jump from your comfort zone into your panic zone. On the contrary, all you need to do is just step into that stretch zone, and all the baby steps count. Anything you can do, it adds up, and it changes your life in massive ways.

So, that’s all for now. And I hope you found this episode interesting and useful.

Please let me know what you thought, you can email me at [email protected] or you can find me at Facebook, Twitter or Instagram and get in touch.

I would also love to see you in the FacebookGroup so if you head over to http://HollyWorton.com/Group you can join me there.

And, thank you so much for listening, if you enjoyed this episode please leave a quick review on Apple podcasts, or iTunes, it would mean the world to me. Remember to visit: http://HollyWorton.com/260 for the show notes on this episode.

260: Holly Worton ~ How Stretching Yourself In All Areas Helps Your Business