e190 Why We Choose Safety Over Possibility, And How To Flip The Script
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[00:00:00] Welcome, welcome to Rewild Your Business. I'm your host, Gill Moakes. Thank you so much for joining me again this week as we are almost ready to step into Christmas. I'm not doing the song, don't be silly. I'm not doing the song. Ah. So coming to the end of the year, I want to. Have a bit of a mindset session with you today because as we wrap up 2025, I really want you to start next year, 2026, with a genuinely different mindset, and I always think that.
It's really worth reminding you that your mindset is a choice. You get to choose your thoughts, and the topic that I wanna talk about [00:01:00] today is really one of those mindset shifts that if you choose to make it can completely change the outcome of your business year for 2026. That is a promise. So let's dive into the episode.
Welcome to Rewild Your Business, the podcast for women doing the work, their soul intended. I'm Gill Moakes. I'm an international business coach, and I'm a guide for women doing the work that matters. Rewilding your business means cutting away what doesn't belong to allow, what does to thrive. Finding simplicity in your work.
And it's about bringing the whole of who you are to the table, whether you are building something new or finding your way back to what really matters to you. I'm so glad you're here. If you are listening to this podcast, I would likely put money on the fact that you are a [00:02:00] really good at what you do, because I know that most of the people who tune into this podcast.
Do so because they're incredibly committed to getting great results for their clients as well as building their business for themselves. But I also am willing to put money on the fact that you know that you could be making more money, you could be serving more of the right clients and building something incredible with your business, but you are not, and.
I think if I asked you why, if you were sitting here with me now and we were having coffee, and I said to you, why is it that you are so incredibly good at what you do and yet your revenue and your impacts are not at the level you want them to be at? You could probably reel off for me a list of reasons and it would probably be a [00:03:00] really good list.
Right. It's gonna have things on it like the economy. I'm working in a saturated niche. I still need to complete more training. I need better branding. I need a bigger audience. I need more time. Or my favorite, the algorithm just hates me, right? All of these things are very reasonable, really. They're very reasonable reasons that you could be putting on your list.
Very believable, and all of them. And I'm saying this with so much love for you bollocks, because the truth is, and this is what I really want us to dig into today, the biggest thing standing between you and the business you say you want is not external to you. It's here. It's between your ears where you are hearing my voice right now.
It's [00:04:00] in here. It's your mindset. It is your level of courage and your level of conviction. Those two things together, those are what are actually determining what you achieve, achieve. Not all of the external stuff that it's so much easier to blame. Right. So today we're gonna really dive into why it's so bloody hard to believe in what's possible for you and why it's so much easier to believe the negative stories around what might not be available for you and how we're gonna flip the script.
So let's go. The first thing I want us to really confront is our negative thoughts. So this is all of the thoughts that come up when we are thinking about what we really want from our life, from our business. It's the thoughts that tell us all of the reasons why it won't work, why we are not ready, or why now isn't the right [00:05:00] time, right?
And those negative thoughts tend to feel true. And there's a really, really good and quite logical reason for that. It's because those default thoughts are designed to keep us safe. So your brain. The bloody brilliant, sophisticated piece of kit that it is, has one primary job, and that is to keep you alive.
And for most of our history as humans, staying alive meant staying with the tribe, not standing out, not taking risks, not making yourself vulnerable, really towing the line. So when you think about putting yourself out there, I mean like really putting yourself out there. So maybe it's raising your prices, making bold claims about your work, positioning yourself as an expert in what you do.
Your brain starts ringing the alarm bells [00:06:00] and it starts whispering things like, you know, but what if people reject you? What if you fail publicly? What if you are actually not as good as you think you are? Right, and these aren't just thoughts. They are kind of like your brain's protection mechanisms.
It's like an internal little security system that's saying stay small, stay safe, stay with the pack. And the really clever bit. 'cause like I say, your brain is a very clever little thing. These negative thoughts come with evidence 'cause your brain is really fantastic at finding proof for why you should stay exactly where you are.
Not take the risks, not try something different, not be adventurous, et cetera, et cetera. So it's going to find evidence like, see that post only got three likes. Clearly nobody wants what you are offering. Things like, [00:07:00] look at that person's success. They've got something that you don't have. Or, remember that client who didn't renew with you.
There you go. That's the proof that you are not cut out for this. You are not good enough. And your brain is gonna collect this kind of evidence. It's like a lawyer like building a case for why. Why you should stay exactly where you are now. If you start to compare that to thoughts about what's possible for you.
Thoughts like I could absolutely have a six figure business, a seven figure business, whatever it is. I could definitely be booked out with my dream clients. I could be charging premium prices and having people saying yes to me consistently, right? Those thoughts feel different. They are going to probably feel uncertain at this point.
[00:08:00] Some of them are gonna feel like almost delusional, and here's why. Believing in possibility requires you to step into the unknown. And the unknown to your primitive brain equals danger. Always anything unknown to our brain means danger. So when you choose to believe the I can't do something, then you get to stay comfortable.
You get to avoid potential failure. You get to avoid rejection, avoid judgment, right? You get to stay in control of your small, manageable world. But here's the thing. When you believe I can do something, when you really believe it, then you have to act. You have to put yourself out there. You have to be willing to be seen, to fail, to be judged, you have to [00:09:00] risk all of the things that your brain is designed to protect you from.
So, of course the negative voice is louder. Of course, it's more convincing. It's literally trying to save your life at a really primitive level. That is what your brain is trying to do. But here is the problem. It's actually operating on this like outdated software. These are threats that your ancestors face, not you exile from the tribe, predators, starvation, right?
They're not your threats anymore, but you are carrying them with you. Your actual threats now are staying so safe that you never do the thing you are capable of. That you stay so protected that you live your entire life and die with your gifts still inside. You never actualized, but your brain doesn't know [00:10:00] that.
So it keeps you small and keeps you safe, keeps you believing in your limitations rather than your possibilities. So you can see how courage is what has to come into play to start You. Choosing different thoughts. Different thoughts to the ones that are your brain's default, right? So when it comes to building your business, and I suspect I may lose some of you now, but that's okay because I'm really passionate about this.
I believe this to be true. I've lived this and I know it to be true. You think that when it comes to building your business, you need a better strategy. You need better marketing, better positioning, more followers, a different niche, all of those things. And I'm not saying for one minute that strategy doesn't matter.
Of course it does. I literally wouldn't have a business if it didn't [00:11:00] matter because I teach business strategy. I coach around growing a business. I know what matters. But here's the thing. I could give you the most perfect, proven, guaranteed strategy in the world. And if you don't have the mindset to execute it, if you don't have the courage to show up consistently and the conviction to hold your prices, hold onto the belief that you deserve the success, then that strategy is worth nothing.
Right, and I see this with clients all the time. I can give 10 different clients the same framework, the same tools, the same level of support. What determines who gets the most success isn't who's more qualified, and it isn't who has the better [00:12:00] niche or the prettier website. It's not any of those things.
It's who has the courage to believe in themselves enough to actually do the work, to show up when it's uncomfortable to make the offers, even though they're a little bit terrified inside. To hold their ground when their brain is kind of screaming at them to retreat. The women who succeed are the ones who've learned to acknowledge the fear, maybe thank their brain for trying to protect them, acknowledge it, and then do it anyway.
Because your external conditions are almost never the real problem. You don't have an audience problem. You have a visibility problem, and that is usually rooted in the fear of judgment. You don't have a pricing problem, you have a worthiness problem, [00:13:00] and that is rooted in the fear of rejection. You don't have.
A niche problem, right? You have a commitment problem, and that is rooted in the fear of making the wrong choice. So the strategy is the easier part. The mindset is the real work. So how does courage really come into play here? And I'm talking about real courage. I'm not talking about the absence of fear.
Fearlessness isn't necessarily courage. That's actually a little bit delusional. Courage is knowing what you're frightened of, feeling that fear and then taking action anyway. That's courage that is acting courageously. So it's acknowledging that your brain is freaking out a bit, and then choosing to act in service of your vision rather than your comfort.
[00:14:00] And this is something that I've said time and time again, you can probably go back and listen to other episodes where I talk about this. Courage is a muscle. You don't just wake up one day and you're the most courageous person on the planet, right? You build it by taking one uncomfortable action at a time.
So every time that you post something that feels vulnerable, that feels. Like radical truth for you, you're building your courage muscle every time you make an offer to a potential client. When you are terrified of rejection, you're building your courage muscle. Whenever you hold your prices, when someone pushes back, you're building your courage muscle, and then that muscle keeps getting stronger.
Like any muscle. Right, and the gap between feeling the fear and taking the action [00:15:00] gets shorter. That's how you evidence that you are building your courage muscle. When that gap in time between being frightened about doing something and then actually doing it, when that time gets shorter and shorter, that's how you know you are building courage.
You don't stop feeling afraid. The fear is still there. You just get faster at moving through it. I see this in my legacy clients all the time. These are women who are building genuinely extraordinary businesses and they feel fear constantly. They're doing things that terrify them all the time. The difference is that they've built their courage muscle to the point where fear isn't a stop sign anymore.
It's just information like all of the other information that they build their business around. It's just their brain doing its job, trying to [00:16:00] keep them safe, and they have built the ability to say, yep, okay, thanks Brain. I know you're trying to protect me, but I'm doing it anyway. And every single time that you choose courage over that place of comfort, you are gathering more evidence, real evidence, not the kind that we were talking about earlier when I said, you know, like your brain sort of cherry picks negative information to keep you small, right?
You are gathering real evidence that you can do hard things. You're gathering like the real evidence that you can survive rejection. It's okay. Rejection does not kill you. You're gathering that evidence that you are capable of more than you thought you were. That possibility for you is not delusional.
It's absolutely achievable. This is how you start really building that conviction, not through just kind of surface level [00:17:00] affirmations or positive thinking, or pretending you are not scared, right? It's through action, through doing the thing that your brain is terrified of, and then surviving it and doing it again.
And again, until one day you are gonna look back and realize that you've built something extraordinary, not because all of those external conditions were perfect because you know, the market suddenly was wonderful and everyone had these massively deep pockets. Not because you eliminated fear. Because you had the courage to believe in what was possible for you, and you had the conviction to keep going when it got uncomfortable, that is what will make the difference for you.
So I want you to ask yourself a question, and I want you to answer it really, really truthfully, not the answer you think you should give. I want you to [00:18:00] answer the actual question with your actual truth. What are you committed to? Not what you say you are committed to, not what you tell yourself you want.
What does your behavior, your actual daily choices reveal that you are committed to? Because you are always committed to something. The question is what? Are you committed to building an extraordinary business or are you right now committed to staying comfortable? Are you committed to serving your clients at the highest level or are you committed to avoiding judgment at all costs?
So honestly, the question is, are you committed to your vision or are you committed to your excuses because it's gonna be one or the other? I know that sounds like I'm being a bit harsh. I'm asking you this question because this is where real [00:19:00] transformation happens when you get brutally honest about what you are actually choosing.
So every time you say, I don't have time, you're choosing something else over your business, it might be the right choice. If it's time with your family, if it's time with your kids, maybe that's the right choice for you. But if you are saying, I don't have time, and you are watching 20 hours of Netflix a week.
Gotta get truthful about what you're choosing over your business. Every time you say, I'll start whatever it is, when I feel ready. You're choosing comfort overgrowth every time you say something like, the market's not right, or, I need to do this one more training course, or, you know. It's not worth doing it now, I'm gonna wait till next year.
You're choosing to stay exactly where you are. I'm not saying this with [00:20:00] judgment. Sometimes staying where you are is the right choice. Sometimes the timing genuinely isn't right, but if you've been saying the same things for six months or a year or two years, then it is not about the conditions. It's about your commitment.
It's about your choices, and. You know, there's a cost to staying small. There's a cost to staying where you are, and it's not just about money, although that is real. Every month you are not building the business you're capable of having. That is money you are not earning. That is security. You are not creating.
It's a freedom you are not getting. But honestly, the money side of things isn't even the biggest cost. The biggest cost, in my opinion, is that every day that you choose safety over what's possible for you, you are [00:21:00] reinforcing the story that you can't. You're gathering evidence that your limitations are real.
You're training yourself to believe in the negative voice instead of the voice of possibility. And maybe you've got comfortable with that kind of shrinking. To be honest. Maybe you've convinced yourself that this is just being realistic or being responsible or waiting for the right time, but I want you to really feel this.
What will it cost you to stay exactly where you are? Not necessarily for another month, but for another year? For five years, 10 years, whatever it is. What is the cost to your bank account, to your confidence, to your radically authentic self? What's the cost to your family? What is the cost of the experiences that you can't give them?
The security you can't [00:22:00] provide? The example you are not setting. And what is the cost to your clients? What's the cost to the people who need exactly what you offer, who are searching right now for someone to help them, but who won't find you because you are playing small, right? And the real question here isn't about.
Yeah, but what if I fail? It's what if I never try? What will it cost me to never find out what I'm actually capable of? And this is something that I know having worked with so many women, the regret of not trying is so much heavier than how it feels to fail. I promise you that failure is temporary.
Regret is permanent. Ooh, I like that. Failure is temporary. Regret is permanent. Yes. Stick that on an Instagram [00:23:00] quote, tile for sure. But it's true, isn't it? It's true. We can come back from failure regretting something you never try. That's not going away. So I want you to think about how you can flip the script.
What becomes possible for you when you choose courage over comfort? What happens when you commit to your vision with the same energy that until now you've been committing to your excuses? What becomes possible for you when you decide? 'cause it's a choice to believe in what is available for you. When you stop waiting to feel ready and start building that evidence that you are capable, when you stop collecting all those reasons why it won't work and just start taking the actions that prove it can, that's when you get to build a business that [00:24:00] genuinely excites you.
That feels like the fullest expression of who you are. Not that watered down playing it safe version. That's when you get to work with the clients who light you up, the ones who pay you properly, who get fantastic results because you are finally showing up as the whole of who you are. That's when you start making the money that actually supports your life.
That gives you the choices, the choices, and the ability to say yes to the things that matter to you because your confidence that grows that way is rooted in real evidence, in action, in like the proof that you can do the hard stuff, and that's when you actually start to become the woman that you've been telling yourself you'll be when you are ready.
You don't wait to feel confident before you act. You act and the confidence follows, right? You don't wait to feel [00:25:00] brave before you show up. You show up and that bravery builds that courage. Remember, you are building it like a muscle. Honestly, to me, this is what rewilding your business really means. It's not.
About just the strategies and the tactics, even though the, you know, those do matter. It's about coming back to your essential nature, the part of you that is courageous and convicted and not willing to settle for less than what you're capable of. So I feel like this brings you to a choice point. I love a choice point.
You know, like a fork in the road where you're going to choose one path or the other one so you can listen to this episode and think, Hmm, yes, Gill, that's really interesting. And then go back to exactly what you were doing before. Back to all the comfortable beliefs, the familiar [00:26:00] excuses, back to waiting for certain external conditions to be perfect.
Or you can listen to this episode, maybe go back and listen to it again, and then decide that today, this moment is the moment that you stop choosing safety over possibility. You make a choice. That today is the day you commit to building the business you are actually capable of. If that feels like something that you are ready to do to make that choice, I'm here for you.
This is what I do. This is what I help women do, whether it's through mastery, which is right now open for enrollment, 18 weeks of. Intense work for coaches who are done playing small, who are really ready to build the business that they want. Ready to do the real work, the strategy, [00:27:00] and the mindset work.
We're starting January the 14th. Then if you are a woman who's ready to choose that courage over the comfort of where you are now, this could be the exact right step for you. If that's you, if something in this episode has lit that fire under you, go to .gillmoakes.com/mastery and sign up. Or book a call.
Let's chat. Let's talk through whether this is the right step for you right now. 'cause it isn't for everyone. I get that. It definitely isn't. It's for the coaches who are ready to stop collecting the reasons why it won't work, and start taking the actions that prove it can. That's who mastery is for. Okay?
It's for you if you are ready. If you're ready to do it. I feel like some of this episode might have been a bit uncomfortable to hear, and I think that's a good thing, honestly, because comfort is what's been keeping you [00:28:00] stuck. Being uncomfortable is where the growth lies. So you've got two voices in your head.
One tells you why you can't, and the other one whispers to you that maybe you can, and you need to choose which voice you are going to listen to. Whichever one you listen to, whichever one you act on, that is the one that keeps getting stronger every single day. You get to choose. You get to choose that courage, conviction, possibility, and I hope you will because I know what's possible for you, if you can do that.
Okay. This has been a deep one, hasn't it? Ooh, this might be a two session listener. Okay. Thank you for being here with me again. Don't forget, go to gillmoakes.com/mastery, find out what it's all about. Find out if it's the right next move for you, and then either sign up right there if you're a hell yes, or book a call with me and I'll [00:29:00] put the links to both to book a call and the links to the mastery page on my website so that you can have a look and explore what's right for you.
Okay? I'll see you back here. Same time, same place next week. Bye for now.
