Ep. 73: Increase Your Bottom Line by Becoming the Boss of Your Brain (Guest Diann Wingert host of The Driven Woman Podcast)
SHOW NOTES:
Follow or Contact Diann Wingert: Website - Instagram - Linkedin
The Driven Woman Podcast: Website - Facebook Group
Growing Beyond Your Upper Limits - Goal Setting
Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (book) by Carol Dweck, Ph.D.
Get the Balance Right Episodes Referenced:
Episode 41: How to Get Shiny Object Syndrome Under Control (Guest Amber Hawley)
Episode 57: Rewrite Your Money Story to Build Wealth (Guest Michelle Arpin Begina)
Episode 58: Reframe Your Money Mindset to Make More Money in Your Business
CONTACT HEATHER:
Contact Heather: Instagram - LinkedIn
Get the Balance Right Coaching: Website
Book a Discovery Call (via Zoom) - Click Here
Heather & Get the Balance Right - Link Tree
Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website - Facebook
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We are joined by Diann Wingert, who is a “no BS” therapist turned mindset coach and the host of The Driven Woman Podcast. Diann helps women, with busy brains get focused. We discuss how intelligent, motivated women tend to get in their own way of success and struggle as entrepreneurs, due to their overactive brain.
As entrepreneurs, we can be our harshest critic. However, if we can be the boss of our brains, we can stop the negative chatter and start creating the business and income we deserve. If you've struggled with limiting thoughts, ADHD, shiny object syndrome or imposter complex, then get ready to take control of your grey matter.
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From the Episode:
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Diann Wingert Welcome to Get the Balance Right Podcast.”
Diann Wingert: “Girl... I have been counting down the days for this.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I am so excited. You were a super stalker of mine. Can you explain what that was about?”
Diann Wingert: “Well, I suppose I should be embarrassed, but since I'm not here, come the details. I found you. Line then I saw it at your podcast.
Then I found out you were in Portland, my newly adopted city that I've hardly been able to explore. Thanks to COVID. And when I found it, you were also going to be at the She Podcasts live conference with me last month. And you had pink hair. It was inevitable that I would find you. I wouldn't force you to talk to me.
And here we are.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Awesome. That is so very cool. And I'm so glad that you tracked me down because now I know you and your podcast. It's incredible. You are the host of the driven women podcast, a therapist by training and a coach by choice. And according to your LinkedIn page and your website, I want to get this right.
You help brilliant women with busy brains, get focused, fired up and flame retardant. Okay. I'd love to break all of this down. What is all that?”
Diann Wingert: “First of all, it's all true. And no one was harmed in the writing of any of that propaganda. The reality is I was a shrink for a long time. I was a really good one.
I crawled up the food chain in public mental health until I was the clinical director of a large agency. And then I had the good fortune to end. Working for a CEO that was both incompetent and unethical, which made me a big, old fucking threat. I ended up having a year of harassment, seeing an attorney, finding out that as a middle age, middle-class white lady.
I was not part of any protected category and that I should just quit. I decided to start my own private practice, which I ran for about seven years. And during that time, I realized a couple of things. One, everybody has problems. Everybody and the problems of people who are basically high functioning enough to see a therapist in private practice in Pasadena, California are different than the problems of the people that I saw in community mental health.
But a lot of it was the thoughts they were thinking about themselves, about their potential and about what they were capable of doing in the world. And most of the time, by my humble opinion, it was all just mental fuckery that made no sense at all. The funny thing is, especially with women, we get very attached to those thoughts about ourselves.
We're so used to thinking them that they continue to show up on the speed dial in our heads, unquestioned. And we live as though they're true. That started to really really get to me because I started to imagine how much more feminine power could be unleashed in the world. If somebody, maybe me could help these bold brilliant bad-ass women get the hell out of their own way.
I did two years of coach training and certification, and I realized the group that I most wanted to work with, is female entrepreneurs, especially the ones with busy brains who are very creative and tend to be when I called driven and distracted, because there's a whole lot of talent and creativity in that group, but much of it gets squandered because they're not focused and they don't believe in themselves.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “On your website, there's a big lean towards ADHD. Are you in that category as well? Or you just like to help women that are high functioning ADHD, or how do you define that?”
Diann Wingert: “Super astute question? As a matter of fact, I have ADHD. I lovingly passed it on to all three of my children before I realized I had it, but I didn't think I qualified.
I should be more embarrassed of this than I am a stocking you at the conference, but. I actually did my master's thesis on whether ADHD persists into adulthood. In the early nineties, I was training at UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute. And at that time, they thought ADHD only happens to little boys and they outgrow it by the time they're in their adolescents.
I was meeting the parents of these kids and thinking, uh, excuse me. I don't think this goes. And I finally got my official diagnosis just five years ago. So yes, I have ADHD. And by the way, most entrepreneurs have ADHD traits. The difference is the ones who actually have a diagnosis, have some level of impairment in some area of their life.
But most people who become entrepreneurs have these traits, which I find fascinating. And if they get too much in their way, there are things that they can do medication or no to get themselves out of that way. But most people who have ADHD don't even know it and won't even know it. They just know they're different.
And by the way, Here's a little hint for you. One of the things I look for with women is they change their hair color a lot and usually in colors not found in nature. Hmm.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Interesting. Well, that's very interesting. Well, I would say that I am not, I've never been to. For ADHD, but I love checklists and reading documents and reading books and all that.
Anyways, let's move on to the topic. What holds us back as entrepreneurs, despite the fact that we are driven and if we're a person that's motivated, Then I'm assuming that laziness is not one of the traits. Is it fear? Is it sort of like an umbrella of fear that is affecting us? Or what is it exactly?”
Diann Wingert: “This is such a good question. There are people who are natural born entrepreneurs. When I say natural born entrepreneurs, I basically mean these people are unemployable. They can't stay in a job. They either get easily frustrated, easily bored, or they question authority to the point where they're either going to be shown the door or they're going to quit so frequently that they're just going to have to find another route early.
The ones that I tend to work with are the ones who have done everything humanly possible to conform to the norm in either corporate academic or nonprofit settings. What that means is being employed, teaches us to follow rules, teaches us whatever the boss says or the corporation or the manual that's the right way.
And that's the way you're supposed to do it. People that deviate from those norms are concerned. Problems, you might get written up. You might even get penalized or even fired, but creative people are not very good at conforming to the norm. Those of us who believed or were told or believed the indoctrination of our culture, that the path to success is to have a good career.
Good job with benefits and you just stay the course, but for creative folk, that's fricking torture. Even though we may be very driven and very motivated work, very hard, have an excellent work ethic and be the smartest person in the room. We may still not succeed, partly because we bring with us, entrepreneurship those thoughts. And those beliefs from that cultural conditioning, I like to say, what made you employee of the year is going to fuck you up when you're the boss, because you aren't going to have someone telling you what to do approving of you when you do it in the approved of way and showing you alternatives when that doesn't work.
So a lot of are dependent on external reinforcement, external direction, external approval, external permission when none of that is available to us because we now have to bring it. This can be a really painful adjustment. What made you successful is. Learning. What motivated you? What inspired you? What drove you?
What literally propelled you forward? It can no longer be the boss's heel on your neck or the threat of losing your livelihood, because that's just not going to work in.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Being an entrepreneur is such a lonely road. At times, you can get completely in your head trying to move forward on a project. Or if you're thinking about a new offer, I know that I get completely stuck in my head.
And I've found that working in masterminds and working with coaches has been a great way to force myself to get outside of that. And just take action. Going back to the idea of fear though, I would imagine that fear is.”
Diann Wingert: “We want to take action. We need to take risks. That's how we learn, but what stops us is oftentimes what's going on in our heads.
And frankly, what's mostly going on in our heads is a replay of the same thoughts and beliefs that have. Circling around and around, around ever since we were little kids. When I like to say we were born with basically empty brains that are like an empty field of fertile soil. You don't know what's going to get planted in there.
If you happen to be lucky enough to have parents that were really aware and understood how vulnerable that young child is, they would only tell you positive things, encouraging things, inspiring things, but most parents are impact. Like all the humans, they say things like if you'd only just try harder, why can't you sit still?
Your sister doesn't have these problems. Well, one of them had to turn out them. Parents just say these careless things. Sometimes they even say mean things because they think they're going to inspire you to rise to the challenge. It's just as likely to make you give up then in there. But the issue is this, whatever we think about ourselves, I'm smart.
I'm strong. I'm beautiful. I'm a loser. I'm whatever. We've been thinking. Those things from very, very early in life. The brain creates physical structures that are just like replay buttons. When you open up your eyes in the morning, this same old thoughts are always going to be there. No matter how hard you're trying to move ahead now, unless you are doing some serious personal work. You have a therapist, you have a coach, you have a mentor who is challenging those thoughts. They will pull you back every time. Here's how fear works. Fear is basically what's the natural result of any time you even think of stepping outside your comfort zone. Because your brain doesn't give a shit.
If you're happy or satisfied or fulfilling your potential, your brain just wants you to survive. If you are alive, whatever you've been doing up until now is survival grade shit. Your brain wants you to stay right there. You think you want to become an entrepreneur. You think you want to launch a new program.
You think you want to raise your prices. Your brain is going to fire up. Some thoughts, like, no you, for sure. Going to. Like you will die and it'll be humiliating and everyone's gonna dance on your corpse. So you're like, oh, okay. I guess I better just stay where I am. Where did these thoughts come from?
Everybody has 'em. But if you don't question them, you will swallow them whole without even chewing and you'll stay right where you are. That's just how it works. There's no mystery to it. I always say human beings only have two problems. One, they're always thinking two. They always believe themselves. Ooh.
It really comes down to that. So if you question your thoughts, especially fear and think, okay. Like I love to, I love to negotiate. I, at one point I thought it might, might want to be an attorney. So I like to like get into it with my thoughts. So my brain will say, Hey, let's launch this new program you've been thinking about for a few months.
No, that's probably not a good idea. Really? Why not? Well, because maybe no one was. Okay. That might happen, but what if they do? Yeah, but they won't. Okay. Well, where's your data. So once you get into that, you're already sort of disabling the fear a little bit because when you are in the fear, your heart speeds up, your breathing gets shallow.
You start feeling that kind of panicky feeling you get into fight or flight that is not the place to negotiate from, with your brain, which is behaving like a fricking terrorist. You have to be calm. For that kind of conversation. Does that make sense?”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yeah, totally makes sense. And it kind of reminds me of like the whole idea of imposter syndrome people.
I mean, that's something people toss around a lot. You're the one that's trained in this. So I'm just going to take a stab at this, but it seems like the people who have imposter syndrome the most are the ones that probably shouldn't have. Like, they're the ones that are trained in things, but are always thinking, like, if I only had an, I know this from my own, my own city, like if I only had this extra degree, if I only had this one more certification, if I only take this one more course, then I'll be ready.
What are your thoughts on all of those kinds of things?”
Diann Wingert: “You go to the head of the class? My friend, a plus, because the reality is the people who are most inclined to think of those fraudy feelings, what we call imposter complex on. The smartest, the most highly credentialed, the most highly educated, the most well-read.
People that are bona fide dumb asses always think more highly of themselves than they should. It's the people I'm sure you've noticed people who are really smart and really capable and really have something to contribute. Always are riddled with self doubt. Even the most talented people in performing arts people who've been singing for large sums of money in front of large groups of people for decades.
Still throw up before every performance. It's a normal thing. To question ourselves is normal to have doubt is normal. To have those fraudy feelings I go, do I know enough? And who am I to say this? Let me tell you a little story. A few years ago, I went to a conference and I met a woman in my field who was just barely out of grad school, just barely.
I didn't even think the ink was dry on her degree. And she very confidently introduced her. As an expert in XYZ. And I thought, well, it was kind of ballsy. I mean, I'd been doing it for 30 years. I don't consider myself an expert. And I thought, Hmm. And it was the beginning of my realization that the term expert is thrown around by people who actually aren't.
For the people who are the most highly qualified, we tend to be cautious using terms like that. So the moral of the story here is if you have fraudy feelings, if you question your credentials, your qualifications, and whether you're ready or not to be doing what you're doing, it means. Proceed. If you, if you have that kind of doubt, it means you're frankly overqualified in times of wasting.
So get out there and get busy. If you don't have those thoughts, you probably need more time.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That's so funny that you said that because I have come across people that call themselves financial experts. And then when I look at their background, I'm like, well, wait, I don't think that you should be using that terminology, but I guess expert is not legally defined in finance so they can get away with it.
Okay. I have to ask you about this because primarily my audience is females. It feels like your audience is mostly females. The whole gender thing. I don't want to be stereotypical about gender, but it seems like women have a tendency to have imposter syndrome more than men, or maybe it's something to do with their upbringing.
Or do you find that women specifically have more of an issue with.”
Diann Wingert: “That has been my experience. And I'm actually grateful that you brought up the gender conversation because gender is a very hot topic right now. It's a fascinating one. I'm grateful that we are talking about as much as we are. I think it feels very threatening to a lot of people, but to be clear, even though I called my show, the driven woman and I market to women. I also have clients, and I do occasionally work with men. It's really not about the gender. What it is about is how we have been socially conditioned from an early age to behave based on what others expect of us girls, because there's a lot more communication between the logical and emotional hemispheres of the brain.
Females tend to be much easier to condition to societal norms. If you're a girl you're not supposed to be opinionated, you're not supposed to be direct. You're not supposed to be loud. You're not supposed to have big Dick energy or a big voice. And so that didn't go so well for me. I had to do a lot of compressing of myself once I let myself out of the box.
And started unchecking. A lot of those socially approved categories. That's when I started coming into my creativity and my true power. And I just want to help other women get there faster because we're all being subjected to the same brainwashing.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I think, as you’re describing all that, it was reminding me how female bosses that I've had and other women that I've known who have been bosses.
They get labeled bitches, bitches all the time. Instead of just being like a strong leader now, suddenly their bitches.”
Diann Wingert: “I'm talking about one of the things I love coaching on is how to have boundaries in business without feeling like a bitch, because we're told women are supposed to just give, give, give over deliver, and to be a good team member to be valued at work, you should sacrifice yourself.
You should be open to exploitation. Fuck that, no, hard no.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Not only is it that we are bitches, but maybe we're on our period. That's the other one.”
Diann Wingert: “I'm glad you're laughing because I just think I've read a lot about women and gender conditioning and confidence. I have a daughter. I have nieces, I have seen young girls be very confident and bold and ambitious and competitive. And, but right around puberty, they start to shrink. Oh, they start to shrink because at that stage, if they're straight, they start to value whether boys like them.
And a lot of boys just don't like a bossy girl, turns out.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “All right, I'm going to go back to the whole ADHD thing. I don't believe that I have ADHD, although I do color my hair quite often, but I am guilty of shiny object syndrome.”
Diann Wingert: “It's the same thing, Heather.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Okay. Alright. Okay.”
Diann Wingert: “Deep breath, deeper. I'm not trying to diagnose you.
I gave up the right to diagnose when I left the state of California and hung up my therapist credentials. Here's the difference? I think a lot of people wonder if they have ADHD. The traits are not what makes the diagnosis. A lot of people have these traits, the low threshold for attention, easily bored, impulsive, distractible.
Lots of creativity likes to be on the move lights to do many things at once. Funny, charming, outgoing, those are traits. You do not qualify for a diagnosis unless those traits cause you impairment. And I think in entrepreneurship, there's a very good fit between these traits and risk taking resiliency, following trends.
Trying new things. The more challenging things are like being on time and managing the number of things you have going at once being distractible and so forth. Those are things that you can learn how to manage. So the ADHD diagnosis is when there's a significant level of impairment that prevents you from being able to leverage those traits.
That's why, and you asked me if I work with more high functioning people with add traits and that, that applies.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Okay. That's okay. That makes sense. Yeah. I'm trying to think about myself in what you're describing it to use my sister as example, but she's gotten really into artwork and she is totally ADHD, but she is able to sit there for hours immersed in what she's doing.”
Diann Wingert: “This is a myth. People think if you have ADHD, you can't sit. So then they think of this person, who's a bouncy ball, but then they can sit for fuck ever. Here's why our brains are wired for interest. Not important. If we're interested, if we're fascinated, if we're curious, literally I have gotten so deep in the weeds on something that was.
Captivating me that I was late to pick up my kids from childcare. Hell, I forgot. I had kids. I was just like, so, so focused. And then I'm like, my phone is blowing up. I'm like who's bothering me. Daycare center, five minutes per kid, per minute, penalizing after 6:00 PM. This is called hyperfocus. And if you know how to direct it, it is a super power.
If you don't know how to manage it, you can, hyperfocus on YouTube and you know, days go by and you got nothing to show for yourself.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Wow. You're blowing my mind there. That's very interesting. Wow. Okay. So let's go deeper now into the, the topic. So say somebody, they are a driven entrepreneurial. But they're still being held back.
What are some things that they can do about it? When we mentioned coaching and mentoring, can they just do affirmations? Like what else can they do?”
Diann Wingert: “There's a lot of things that people can do for themselves. There's a free app called think up, think up. And I recommend that to all my clients. Who've got some stinking thinking going on upstairs.
I'm like, we've got to take out the head trash before you can install some better thoughts. So if you say mean things to yourself, which many people do think up is a brilliant free app. You don't need the paid version, just the free version. You literally record. A small handful of affirmations in your own voice.
That's important because a lot of people will try to read affirmations or they will, it'll be recorded in someone else's voice. Listen, think of it this way. You're talking to yourself in that same voice all the damn time. So the power of this app is you record well managed thoughts. Like you can do anything.
You set your mind. There is no failure, only feedback, like whatever you want to start thinking like you are as ready as you need. Your ideal clients are waiting for this product. Like whatever it is, practice thinking, those thoughts say out loud, along with listening to the recording, I have my clients do it like in the morning when they're getting ready for work and in the evening when they're winding down, because you're in a more relaxed, receptive state where you're less likely.
Push back against this kind of thought. So affirmations do work. They've been around a long time. They're still around because they forgot to work. So that's one thing you can do. I think having other people in your life who are like-minded in like brain is really, really important. I mean, one of the reasons why I wanted to meet you is that I, I need to make new friends.
Portland with cool people, but people who are doing the kinds of things that you're doing so that you don't always feel like an outsider and an outlier that is really important. We have always known we were different. And if we are living in isolation and working in isolation and trying to manage our mood, energy and motivation on the daily, without input from other people like us who are slogging away, It's really hard.
You're like pushing a boulder uphill. So I'd say recruit some people into your life, even if you don't see them in person. The third thing we absolutely need to bake into our existence is accountability. It's one of the reasons why so many of us fall on our frickin’ faces when we leave corporate, because there's no boss anymore.
And it's like, well, I'm not really feeling it this morning. You know, I know should have a morning routine, but I think I'm more of an afternoon or maybe an evening person. You just get in these shitty habits and there isn't anybody to write you up or even give you the side-eye. You're just going to do it anyway.
But I think if you have an accountability group online or even one friend that is also trying to level. And be more productive, be more focused, be more visible, whatever your targets are, make an agreement with them because most of us humans are obligers and the obligers will let themselves down all the time, but they don't like letting other people down, leverage that by forming a pact with this other person.
It's like why people are successful when they have someone to meet at the gym, like a personal trainer, as opposed to a Peloton in their garage. Nobody cares if you do it, nobody knows if you do it. And very few people will do things when there's no accountability. So if you need it, get it free.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yeah. I love that.
But also people could work with you. That's an option and you also have some really great freebies online. Tell us about some of those things that you offer. How people can work with you.”
Diann Wingert: “Well, up until now, for the last few years, I've only been working with people one-on-one and I'm getting ready to start offering a group membership in early 20, 22, because there's a lot more people who need help than those that can afford to work with someone like myself.
One-on-one so that is coming soon. And if you have any interest in that, You should follow me on Instagram at coach Diann Wingert. You can follow me on the driven woman podcast and in the show notes of any episode, you can get on a waitlist to be notified about the group program, which will be much more accessible and affordable, and also allows you to leverage that group support, because I think one of the things that kills most of us as entrepreneurs is.
This feeling that we're, we're doing this all by ourselves. And even if you're working by yourself for yourself, you do not have to be isolated. That is the choice. You might need to push yourself a little bit, but you can't be passive, like listening to podcasts. They're wonderful. I love them. You love them.
We are both podcasters. We know how much good they do in the world, but it's fundamentally passive. If someone just listens, if we really want to move the needle. If you want to get focused, fired up and flame retardant, you've got to get to the point where you're taking action and chances are that is going to require some level of accountability.
Someone else has to. Now that you want to move your game piece, because if it's just you on you, most of us just keep coming up with all kinds of excuses that we think are reasons because we've been telling ourselves those things for so long that it seems to be. In fact, I would say most people are so used to believing their own bullshit.
They could probably pass a lie detector test, but none of it's true and it's very effective at holding us back. But it's the creative people in the world that move society forward that show us that things can be different. So I think we owe it to mankind to get our shit out there.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I love the idea of this group program, because not only is it a support system, but it also, I mean, if you're a driven entrepreneur, I think it's also a motivator.
Like you see how other people are showing up. You're like, damn, I'm not going to come to this meeting and not have my stuff together. So it seems like, you know, I mean, I'm a kind of competitive I'll admit. So I would feel that, you know, like, okay, I got to show up ready. If everybody else is doing the same.”
Diann Wingert: “We are all living most of our lives online now, but you can get the community. You can get the inspiration, the motivation, the support, knowing that you need it and have been no shame about it whatsoever. If it's not my group, find another one. Don't do this by yourself. There's no reason for entrepreneurship to be so lonely because that just makes it much harder than it needs.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Yeah, amen to that. When I first started my entrepreneurial journey, I started by myself and I was so in my head. And you don't really know until you start to work with other people. Not only is it just motivating, but also it helps you spitball ideas like, oh yeah. I hadn't thought about. And you got to get out there and just be with people.
You can't just live in isolation, being an entrepreneur. And especially during COVID where we're by ourselves at home, it's even worse.”
Diann Wingert: “A podcast interview I did recently with a money coach, this person, like so many millennials went into a fuck ton of debt financing, a first-class education, and then graduated at the height of the recession.
Couldn't get a good job. Went into more debt, got depressed, the whole thing. Anyway, she ended up having to pivot, create a new career. If it wasn't for the fact that she was in an online group where she found out some guy was doing the exact same work that she's doing for way more money, it was like, wait, what?
Wait, hold on. You're getting paid. What? And he was very generous and said, yeah, like these are the people. That I work with. I do the same thing you do, but because I'm targeting a different client who values this kind of skill and will happily pay you X dollars for it, instead of you scrambling around for these jobs, literally changed her life for the better, just like that.
She never would have known that if she hadn't been in a group, she would have just came to. Scratching and pecking, you know, because you know what you know, and most of us have no idea what else is possible until we see someone else doing it, having it, being it. And then it's like, oh, wow. If she can do it, what am I waiting for?
That's where things get very exciting. And I love that.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That’s really cool. And I love the idea that it had to do with pricing too, because that is again an area where not to be so gender specific, but, and we talked about this a lot on the show is that. We'll have a tendency to underprice themselves.
So that is a great way. Like if you're in a group with somebody and they're pricing themselves at a different price point level, then it will give you kind of like the, oh yeah, I can do that too.”
Diann Wingert: “You might not even know it's an option if it wasn't for that. Yeah, exactly.
And how it tends to be more of a female thing that we have difficulty with pricing.
I find that most women. Are thinking they put their themselves in the mind of their potential client and think they can't afford, this is a common thought or what are they going to think of me for charging this? They're probably going to think you must be fucking worth it. That's what I'm thinking. But in the therapy trade, even when someone has a private practice, so you're not having any of the benefits.
Group pricing. It's just you, you gotta pay your taxes and your rent and you're self-employed you understand this? It's very common for people to ask. If you have a sliding scale and a sliding scale in a psychotherapy practice is well, okay. So this is your rate or your fee, but that's a little steep for me.
So. How low will you slide? And I regularly saw other therapist when asked their fee, let's say their fee is $150. They would say, well, my fee, my full fee is $150, but I also have a sliding fee scale. And sometimes people are just asking you, what is your feet? And before the other person could even say, okay, I think I could swing.
Um, or I need to talk to my partner or whatever the, the response would be. They are already saying, but I could, I could work with you for less if that's too much. And I'm like, just wait a second. Maybe they weren't even going there. It's something that I think women maybe are conditioned or we are so concerned about being rejected or what other people might think.
They might think we're greedy. I think that we think too highly of ourselves. I mean, we might think if we have a high fee that makes us a bitch or, and so women will cut themselves down. And I think, and this is something I like to talk about a lot is that I see all these posts on social media, all these memes, and a lot of people think they're trying to empower women by saying, no, your work.
Honey. If you're talking to business women, you are only confusing them with that rhetoric. I say, if you are an entrepreneur, know your value do not get confused with worth. Worth is not negotiable worth is your worth. As a human being, you are precious. You are priceless. You are unique. There is no bargaining.
Value is different and value depends on what market niche you're in. And that's what my, my podcast guests realized that she was at a certain level of value based on the niche. When she moved to a different niche, the value conversation evolved, not something she knew about. You have to wipe away all of this confusion and about what am I worth this?
I remember the day I had a client say, I want to give you a race. You are charging way too little for what you do. And I was like, what's up? I thought it was some kind of a trick. She said, I have worked with many people, none, or at your caliber, you are not charging nearly enough. And this is when I was working face-to-face she wrote me a check for double what I had been receiving.
And she said, this is your new rate. I think this is fascinating, Heather, because it came from her. It was like, she gave me permission to charge more. I would like to think I could have figured that on my own, but I think it usually takes someone else that you respect to give you permission and to encourage you to take that step.
And once you do, your perception of yourself can start to evolve.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I think this has comes full circle with the whole imposter syndrome, because if you don't really feel that you have that value, then you're always going to undercharge or just, like you said, that whole value, like that conversation.
When you do the sales, tell them how much your offer is. And then before they have answered, you’ve given them a discount.”
Diann Wingert: “No, just stop. Say the price and then shut the fuck up. Don't pretend you're a mind reader because we all think it's just, just this, the way human beings are. We think everyone thinks like us, even though there is plenty of.
To the contrary, but when it comes to buying decisions, most of us default to fear and ignorance. And I think it's a really important thing that both you and I do to help women get over some of that nonsense.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That's awesome. Diann, this has been so great. I've had so much fun talking to you. Do you have any downloads you want to share with people?”
Diann Wingert: “I'm working, that's something special tailored to this conversation that we've been having, so you can link to it in your show notes.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Awesome. Well, thank you so much. It has been so great having you on the show.”
Diann Wingert: “And I look forward to having you as a guest on the driven woman very soon.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Very soon. Yes. Thank you.”
