Are you ready to join me on a journey of self discovery and empowerment? I'm Catherine Cooper, your host for the Mind, Body, and Boudoir podcast, and I'm here to help you strengthen your inner and outer love and worth. As a hairstylist turned boudoir photographer, I've helped countless women celebrate their bodies through intimate photos. But my mission goes beyond that. I want to teach you the formula to fix your mind, mindset and outer appearance so that you can become the woman of your dreams. Join me for inspiring conversations and expert insights that will leave you feeling uplifted and ready to take on the world. Hi. Welcome to the Mind Body and Boudoir Podcast with your host, Catherine Cooper. If you're watching on YouTube, it's Katherine Cooper TV. If you listen on wherever you get your podcast, that it is Mindbody and Boudoir, and I am your host, like I said, Catherine Cooper. So welcome. I am just going to be honest. I've been attempting this since the end of December. I had this huge plan set in place. You know, I had all these topics. I was going to put all this stuff together. Everything was going to be perfect. And I was going to have my first episode for the new year 2023, launched the very first week in January. Well, today is February 13, the day before Valentine's Day, and I am attempting to record the very first episode. I decided the perfect topic for this would be how fear can stop you. I'm going to be looking down at my notes because I decided I'm not going to put a lot of thought into this. I've done a lot of research oh, my gosh. I've done a lot of research and looking up topics and topics that people want to hear, topics that people love and how to structure them, how to outline them. I've even went as far as let me take a speech class, let me take a speaking class, I want to speak properly when I'm on camera, all of that. And that brings me to my first topic, which is fear. It's those kind of I need to be perfect things that stop you. I wrote down a few bullet points. I literally just tossed this down and wrote it down within, like, a matter of minutes, like, I think maybe about four minutes. And I just decided I would just talk about these things and just to keep myself from rambling on and on, because I'm very passionate about helping women, helping anyone, honestly push past things that you can't see in the future, things that you just do not have a confirmation of knowing if the shit will turn out right or not. I'm very confident in not confident, but I'm just very passionate about helping people. Women in particular do that because these are things that have held me back all these years. I can stand here now and I can say it. I don't have some big degree, and I went to college for knowing how the mind works and all of that. This is just real life shit that I have been through. I'm a mother of five children. I'm the oldest of five. There's been so many things that I don't have anyone in my background, in my past, in my family that has ever done anything like this. Right now, standing in front of you, sitting in front of you and listening to you in your car. Or if you're looking at this on YouTube right now, I have a boudoir photography business that does really well. We make six figures every year with my boudoir photography business. And I recently opened up a permanent makeup studio, which is going to really help. As I'm talking about fear and just trying things, taking a chance on things, and not letting fear stop you. But I stand here and say that I'm very proud of every single move that I made, every single move that I made. And I've learned that fear is no joke. Fear is no joke. But if you can just strengthen yourself to push past it. When I say push past it, you will pass it. You'll pass that particular fear. But then there's another one that will arrive and then another, and then another, and it will make you feel like, what am I doing? Like I cannot keep doing this. I say that because those are the kind of fears that pop up for me as I was starting my boudoir photography business. And I pushed past those things and here I am right now. Do I face fears when it comes to this business? Absolutely. 100%. I'm pretty sure I'll never stop having a fear when it comes to this business. And so as time has went on, I'm just kind of like, now I know how to recognize it. Now I'm aware of it. I know what it looks like now. But each time it becomes more and more intense or there's a different fear that pops up that makes me say, oh my gosh, really? So that's what I want to talk about today. So the first thing I wrote down was what is fear? And in my opinion, this is just how I define fear. It's that thing that's inside you that says, I don't know, you may get hurt. I don't want you to look like a fool. I don't think you should go. That's how the fear talks to me. Do you know anyone that has done this before? Is this going to make sense? Are you going to end up hurt? Are you going to waste your time because you have so many other things that are way more important, right? Way more important. Like let's take care of my family, let's take care of my children. Let's take care of my significant other. Let's take care of my husband, let's take care of my mother. Or I just got a promotion at this job. I may making a little bit more money now. It's those things that fear is just like, well, at least you know what the outcome. You know what this is. It's in your face. You know what, you see this. But the things that you don't know because we're so accustomed to. Okay, we know how this is going to turn out. I know this job hired me. I know that I'm making 50,000 a year with this job, so I know what it's going to look like. I know they hired me, and I'm supposed to work 8 hours, 40 hours a week. I know what that looks like. I'm good. I can plan out my life because I know what that looks like. Versus if you decide you want to open up your own business, you don't know what the hell that looks like. How many hours am I going to work? How much money am I going to make? That shit is scary when you're so accustomed to things already laid out for you. So that's how I see fear. I heard something on the because I listened to a lot of motivational videos and things like that. So they define fear as false evidence appearing real. That's so true. False evidence appearing real. It seems so real at the time when you're thinking about it, but it's so false, and it's so much better on the other side of that. It's something way bigger and better than, oh, but this job promised me 50,000 a year so I can plan the life around that. So you're planning your life around this job, telling you you can make 50 60,000 a year, and so that's what you plan your life around. Versus, man, I really want more. Admitting to yourself, I really want more, but this job isn't going to give it to me. But because I'm too afraid to try things for myself, I'm just going to have to work my life around this job. Honey, let me tell you something. Life is so much more than that. This is my opinion, this entire podcast, and I'm saying this is my opinion. These are my experiences in life. I tell you things based on my experiences in life. There is so much more than that. Unless you're the type of person that feels like that's all I want, if that's what you want. Damn right. Absolutely. You doing exactly what you need to do, if that's all you want. Me, I'm the type of person where I don't want that. And there's a lot of people that I come in contact with who don't want that either. There's just so much more to life than letting someone else dictate or determine this job is telling you, okay, I can only give you 50,000. So let's just say okay, because that's what I would do. I'm the business owner. I'm telling you that my budget says 50,000 for you to take care of this piece, to take care of this task. When it comes to my business, I know that when you take care of this task for me, it allows me to live the life of my dreams. It will go very far for me. The sky is the limit for me. But my budget says that I can give you 50,000 to complete these tasks for me because I need to make sure that I can have the life that I want. And so you allow me to put you will not allow me. So you're okay with that because I made you the promise. I'm bold enough to say I can take the risk. I can take the risk of giving you 50,000. Even if my business only makes 100,000 a year, I can take the risk and give you 50,000. This is just an example now, okay, for all you tax people out there, for all you accounting people out there, but I can take the risk and give you 50,000 of my 100,000 because I know the task that you do. I've qualified you and said that you can complete the task I need that's going to to bring me so much more. So in a couple of years, I'm going to be making way more than 100,000. But you still at 50,000. Or what I can do is if you're really loyal and you're amazing for me, then I can bump up your salary. I can give you a raise, no problem. I can make sure I take care of. But it's never going to be as much as I make, if that makes any sense. Okay? So this is how I see fear. There's some fear. Like I say, there's different levels of fear. There's different types of fear. There's different situations of fear. So the example that I came up with is, okay, I want to start a business, because that's the area I know. I want to start a business. There's other area that I know, but this is the one that I'm very familiar with. So I want to start a business. So that's a solo fear, because you have this idea, I want to start a business. You're a little afraid. You know why? Because no one around you has really done it before. You really don't know much about it. You don't have a lot of money. Also. You just have so many other things to do, okay? Like I mentioned earlier, you just have so many things to do. You have the kids, you have the husband. You have your job, and you love what you do. You have your job. They pay you a decent amount. There's more than you ever made before. You probably make more money than anyone in your family currently, and you're very happy. And I know this because this is what I did, okay? I was a supervisor for the hair salons inside of Walmart. They gave me a company car. They gave me a company credit card. We went to China. They paid for every single trip. We went to China. Stayed in beautiful hotels. We walked the Great Wall. We went up the damn Great Wall, which I didn't go all the way up the goddamn thing because I'm scared of heights, but I was able to do all those wonderful things. This was the best job I'd ever had, but I was miserable. I created my entire life around this job. The salary that I made, I created my entire life. And let me just tell you how much I was making at the time. It was $30,000, probably $35,000. This was the most money that I had ever made with a job. And then it was. Made to be so beautiful and amazing. You know why? Because we went to China. We went to Canada. I don't have to drive my car. I have the company car. Anytime I need to put gas in it, I use their credit card anytime I need to catch a hotel somewhere, anytime I need to grab something to eat. I'm not using my money. I'm using their money. So, yeah, this was the life. At least it appeared that way. The people around me, it was the life, honey. But I was miserable. Yes, I was excited at first because I come from a very poor background. So it was the most money that I'd ever made, and it was very exciting. Everyone around me was just extremely happy for me. And for a while, I made myself believe I was happy. And then I realized I wasn't. I never saw my family. I really never saw my family. I had a supervisor that would require me to stay at hotels when I didn't even have to, but because she required it, I had to go. I never forget the time where she required me to stay at a hotel. And I got up enough guts to stand up for myself and say, I can get up and drive. I can get up and drive and meet you all at this store the next day. Because I think we had to be at a store that was about an hour and a half away from where I lived. And I'm like, Look, I really need to be with my kids. I can just get up and drive in the morning. She wanted us to stay at this hotel. I got up and I drove the next morning and made it on time with no problem. And she still treated me like shit. She still treated me like shit because she felt like I needed to do exactly what she said. And in most jobs, you can't even do that. You can't even do that. You can't just stand up for yourself and say, look, I don't need to stay at the damn hotel. I'll just be there in the morning. I can drive the hour and a half and get there on time. Most jobs will say, no, the hell you won't. You better get your ass at this hotel and spend the night and get up and arrive at this store with the rest of us. No, like, you have no choice. So, yeah, that's what happened. But like I said, she treated me like shit the entire time. Okay, so anyway, that's what I mean by, oh, well, I just have so many other things to do because I'm dedicated to this job, because his job is wonderful, I love it, and I'm able to provide and do all these things. I feel like we just get clouded with that kind of stuff. We get clouded and then we look up and we realize, no, I really want more. I really want more. And we don't even realize and understand that it's okay to have more. It's okay to have whatever you want, but nobody is going to hand it to you. No one is going to hand it to you, not even that job. You still have to get up and come in and clock in and work those hours in order to get what it is that you asking for. So if you're going to put all your time in like that, why not go after it for yourself? But anyway, I'll preach about that towards the end. Okay? So I call that the subtle fear, right? Like, I want to start this business because I'm really not fully living the life that I want, so I want to start this business very passionate about doing this, but I don't know. So I'm going to go ahead and just look into it. I'm going to push past this little subtle fear and just try it anyway. I can just probably work it on the weekends and go to work, do my job during the week. Everything will be fine. It's not a big risk involved. But then the big fear comes in. That's what I call it, the big fear, because you go for it. You do it, you set aside some time, and you start this on the weekend. But then the big fear kicks in. After you go for it, you hit a roadblock. You realize that it was more than what you thought, it was more than what you envisioned. Because let's just say that, I don't know, you want to make T shirts and you're like, oh, hell, that's nothing. I can just. You know, get the font, you know, pick out the font that I want. You know, just go buy a few little T shirts from Walmart or something like that. And then I just iron them on there or whatever it is that you do. I don't know how the T shirt business goes. So for all of you out there that does that, please understand, I do not know what the process is. This is just me making an example. So you go out there and you do that because that's the easy part, right? Go buying the material, figuring out where you're going to purchase your shirts from, picking out your fonts. What am I going to say on these T shirts? That's the easy part. You spend your money and you buy the equipment for it. Cool. I'm so excited. I pushed past my fear and I actually took action, which is really good. I took action and I did it. I said my weekends were going to be used to do this and I did it. So I'm two weeks in now. I've gotten my material. All my supplies have come from Amazon. I'm good. But then, like I say, that real fear kicks in because then you're like, oh, wait, so how am I going to sell these? I mean, my friends did tell me when I told them I was going to start a business, my friends did tell me that they were super excited for me. So for sure they're going to be my first client because I know how excited they are for me. So, yeah, they're going to be my first clients. I'm in this thing. I'm ready. I'm ready to roll. But then you make these T shirts that you have in mind. You all happy about it. And then as soon as you tell and then you go through, okay, well, you know what? I don't know. I'm just going to charge I'm going to charge $50 a shirt. And then you tell your friends, well, which shirt do you want, girl? I'm in business now. Which shirt do you want? I have it in blue. I have it in green. I have it in black. I'm even thinking about adding hoodies later on down the line. Which one do you want? And then a friend is like, oh, girl, I'm so proud of you. How much are they? $50. Well, call me back on Friday when I get paid. And let me see, because, girl, did I tell you the other day that I had to get that my baby ran out of Pampers, and I'm just so tired of buying these expensive diapers from Target. So I just decided that, you know what? I'm just going to take my paycheck and just buy them in book. So I spent so much of my money on that. And then, by the way, girl, my car note is due and all that because these friends, they start telling you now you need their support. Oh, my gosh. They start telling you all this stuff, all these issues, okay? You didn't ask for all of that. You did not ask for all that. But they start telling you all this stuff, girl, and this light bill was due. I can't believe they could take up a whole damn hour of your time trying to tell you the reason why they cannot buy a $50 shirt from you, okay? So after you attempting and reaching out to all of your friends who come up with all these damn excuses why they can't buy from you I'm speaking from experience here, okay? All these friends that tell you that they can't buy from you, then now you get discouraged. Now that fear is kicking in because you're like, okay, well, if I can't sell to my family and friends, who can I sell to? I don't know anything about sales. Who can I sell to? What am I supposed to do? Now those family and friends are looking at you and saying, yeah, her and her little business. But I don't even want to go the route of, well, you know what? I'm just going to go there anyway. Some of those friends, that's when you really realize who your real friends are, because some of those friends are sitting back. And upset with you because you actually took the move to say, I'm going to take weekends off, invest in myself and try this business. They're sitting back looking at you saying, waiting on you to fall from that. I'm sorry, but they are waiting on you to fall from that. You know why? Because it's something they want to do also. They're fearful and they don't want to do it. But you pushed past that little subtle fear and you made it work. So now they can't buy from you. You can't you, your family, nor friends can purchase from you. And you are terrified because how do you make it work? So then I'm just going to come up with an example here. So then you go on to Facebook and you go on to Instagram and you put a little flyer out there and you just say, hey, I just want you all to know I'm making T shirts. Now, for those of you that are bold enough to actually go out, put it out there. I was going to say maybe show up live on camera and just tell people, hey, look, these are the t shirts that I made. Some people are too fearful to even do that. So you put a little post up on Facebook and you show a little picture of your t shirts and you're just like, yeah, I'm making T shirts now. Anybody interested? You have a birthday party or something like that. And then a few people on Facebook actually reach out and you get that win, as you should. A few people on Facebook actually reach out and say, yeah, my daughter, I don't know. We're all going somewhere. And I would like for me and I would like to get a shirt for myself and my husband and my daughter. I want to look alike as we're going to an event or whatever, I don't know. And then you were like super duper excited. Like, okay, so you're pushing past. That what I consider big fear. You didn't let the fact that your friends and family didn't buy from you discourage you, even though it was a hard pill to. But you didn't let that stop you. So you went ahead and just said, let me just put a post out, and you got a win. Someone reached out to you and said, yes, I would love to buy from you. Okay? And let's just say a few more people do it. And you feel like, yes, this is good. I can do this. I can go with this. All right. So then the next stage I call is the huge fear. You push past that, but now you've run out of money because maybe, let's just say maybe some new beginners feel like, let me take your order with no deposit, nothing like that, and I'm going to go ahead and invest in the materials and do all this stuff on my own. You just make sure you come back in and pick up your order. That's how a lot of new entrepreneurs do it and end up losing because they may not come back in and pick it up. They have no obligation. They don't have anything. They haven't invested anything in you to say they want to come back and pick it up. So you sitting here, you working on it. For all you know, they wanted it rushed, and as soon as they got off the phone with you, they went looking for someone else that could do it and maybe get it to them faster. But then they forgot to call you and tell you that that they found someone else. You know why they forgot? Because they didn't put any money down. They're not thinking about that. They're not purposely trying to do you wrong, but this is just how it works. They're not thinking about that. So then they go through, basically. So at the end of the day, you put all this money and invested in it, and they don't come through. So now you have all these orders sitting here. That is just a loss at this point. So you run out of money. You may have to over time over time of doing that, you may not have enough money to continue. You may have to put it down, put it to the side, because. You've invested money that has come from your $50,000 a week, $50,000 a year, $56,000 a year job, and now you're like, okay, I can't continue to do this because I have bills that are due. So you may have to stop. You may have to stop. You may have to close. Okay, tell me that ain't some damn fear because because that friend that was sitting back waiting on you to close, now, she over here happy. You can get on the phone with her. She's going to talk your ear off. You all going to be so good. But while you were in business, you could barely get a phone call out of her. But now, since you closed shop, now she's talking to you all the time, and she's telling you, oh, don't worry about it. It'll be okay. At least you got this wonderful, amazing job to fall back on. You can do this. And you're like, you know that's your friend, because that's how friends do it. Because it's your first business, and people have saw you fail. At least that's the way you see it. People have saw you fail, and you've had to close down on what you truly dreamed and wanted to do. Now, this is what I call extreme fear. Because to me, this is the part, I guess, like Oprah, she says it really good, what she says. She sit down and she'll think and ask herself, what is my next best move? What is the next right move? What is the next right move? To make this to me is that time where you sit down and you ask yourself, what is my next right move? Because if your move is this just didn't work for me. I feel so ashamed. I feel so ashamed. I put time with my kids to the side. They have games going on. They have all this different stuff going on at school. And things like that. And my husband and I, we normally do date night on the weekend, date weekends and all that. And I've pushed all that to the side in hopes that I can start this business. And it just simply didn't work out. The way I wanted it to. And I'm just ashamed because when you get ready to start a business or. Do anything that you want to go after that's different from what the people. Around you do, you just simply not. Going to have support like that. That's just how it goes. You just simply won't have support like that. It doesn't mean there's anything wrong with. The people around you. Nothing wrong with the people around you. It's just that they're not in your head. They cannot see things the way you see it. And if you expect them to see. It the way you see it, you really will never move. So you sit back and you tell. Yourself, I'm just so ashamed. You just let that shame and that guilt just kick your ass. And this, to me, is the most important decision that you make, because you make that decision to say, I'm just going to put this stuff up. I'm either going to sell it or it's just going to sit in that room and collect dust. And my numbers were kind of dropping at work because I was so focused on my business. And I really need to the supervisor is on me because he's asking me to, hey, I don't know what's going on. You need to pick these numbers up. So I'm in jeopardy of losing the one thing that I'm sure and certain of, right. And most people will go that route. Most people will say, I need to pay attention to the job I have. I know that I make a really good I make a decent living with this. Need to pay attention to that, because this right here, I don't know what this will lead to. I know this job is here. When in reality, you don't know that that job is there. You don't know because the owner of that job, he's taking the risk that you just gave up on. He's taking the risk. That you are afraid to do because he's taking that risk to keep producing these T shirts and keep going seeking and learning and figuring out how to get clients and how to make sales and pushing past when people don't buy. He's taking that risk and he can get past it. And when things get to a point to where he feels like, okay, well, we need to cut back and and redo things, he's not going to lose. You are because he's going to cut you. But you don't see it that way. You feel like, well, at least this job, I know exactly what I'm going to get. Layoff doesn't even cross your mind? I know exactly what I'm getting with this job, so let me just stop playing around with this little business that I have. Let me stay focused and do what I have to do. And that's where you remain for years, if you're lucky, for years. Because eventually you just say, to hell with it. Or they do lay you off and you say, okay, you know what, I'm going for it. Or you just sit there and you accept it for life. Because I do know people that do that as well. Or what you can do is you can say, okay, let me sit back, let me analyze this and let me maybe take a course or find a mentor or take a class. Do something to where I can figure out how to move things forward. Because if you stop and you ask yourself, okay, well, let me think of successful businesses in my area, not in my area, but in this niche that I considered like T shirt. I'm just going to keep using T shirts. For example. Let me just find successful T shirt businesses and let me look at their business and let me reach out to people and see who would be willing to train and help me learn how to do that versus giving up because you need to be comfortable. You know, that fear is just too much. It's just too much. So you need to be comfortable going out and saying, you know what? This it can be better. I know it can be better. It's just going to take some time. It's just going to take some time. And that's another thing. Most people want instant gratification, that this is going to work. That's what most people want. We want that with everything, right? We want that with business. We want that. When it comes to losing weight, we want that. When it comes to cooking healthier, we want that. When it comes to we want that. When it comes to others. We want our kids to make really good grades in school, but then you have that one that's struggling, and maybe you get a tutor to help them out or they stay after school, but you want you want it to be instant. You don't understand that. It takes time. So anyway, I don't want to get off track, but the reason why I say that is because that's how I think. That's how I think. And that's what helps me push past fear, I tell myself. So that's what happened when it came to my photography business. I started this business I kind of started in college. I went back to school. I went to a community college not too far from where I live, and I started taking photography classes. And then I was really supposed to be taking business class, business classes. But my advisor, and I forgot his name, such a sweetheart just asked me to go ahead and take just one class that I really loved. And so that's how I ended up taking photography. And then after that, I just dropped out of college because I knew that's what I wanted to do. I just said forget it. I don't have to go through and take all these business classes. I know I want to do photography. And so what I did was I decided what type of photography I wanted to do, and I went. In on finding the people that already had a business that looked like what I wanted, I dove deep into learning how to do it. I would just not give up on it. Because for me, you have to have that reason why you can't give up. It has to be greater than anything. That reason why you just simply can't give up. There's so many women out I hear so many people out here, so many women out here that feel like, okay, well, my husband is providing everything for me. Then I also have this $50,000 a year job. Everything's good. Like I'm good. Why would I feel like I need to put myself through all that stress and opening up a business and all that? So there's nothing for me to give that up until one day you realize my husband is not going to be here forever. Whether either that comes to your head or a real harsh reality hits you and shows you that he's not going to be there forever, maybe his job, maybe he loses his job. Maybe you lose your job and you realize that comfort zone, that false sense of security that you have now is a reality and it's in your face. So anyway, that's how I see things. For me, what makes me keep fighting and keep going forward is the fact that I know there is nobody to pick my ass up. There is no one there to pick me up and say, hey, I'm going to make sure you have everything that you need. You don't have to do anything. A lot is good. I don't have, like, this rich uncle or anything like that. That's like, hey, when I die, I'm going to make sure you taken care of, okay? And then here I am, sitting around waiting. Anyway, my point no, I'm just kidding. But what I'm saying is that I don't have. I know the kind of life that I dream of, and to me, it's worth going after it versus letting the fear tell me or making me stop, if that makes any sense to me. Going after the life that I want. Because I don't care what anyone says. Money is the root of all evil. Oh, my gosh. That was pushed into our head. That was preached in church. You heard it constantly. Now that I've gotten older, I feel like, no, the lack of money is the root to all evil. The lack of I'm not going to say all evil, but it's the lack of money, because people would do some desperate shit when they need money. I feel like this. You don't wrong anyone when it comes to the things that you need. No, you work your ass off to get things that you need and that you want. But I feel no matter what you're going through in life, money will make it a lot easier. Because if you're going to be sad, you're going to be depressed about something. If you're going through heartbreak, you're going through just anything, any health reason, any kind of life change you're going through. Not having any money makes it even worse. I don't care what anyone says. To sit here and just say, and even when it comes to some jobs, let you get sick, get sick or have to take off for some reason and not get paid for it, to me, that's more scary. I'm so damn fearful of that. That the fear of moving forward and not knowing what the future is going to be like. The fear of that, I can deal with that. I can handle that. The fear of thinking I'm comfortable and just letting life pass me by, that's the fucking fear. I don't want that's. That keeps me going. That's the fear that keeps me pushing forward. I'm going to end this. I hope I haven't rambled too much because I 100% did not outline this podcast or anything like that, but that's how I feel and that's the reason why I do what I do. I hope that this podcast can continue to encourage and inspire women to understand that there is nothing like having a love husband and a wonderful job is good because there are some women that don't even have jobs and their husbands just take care of them. And that's wonderful. That's amazing. Nowhere, nowhere is it guaranteed that that's going to be how the rest of your life is going to be. Shit changes. That's the one guarantee you got. Shit changes. And you will be crazy not to think about the fact this stuff changes. You'll be crazy not to make sure that you have a plan B or a backup plan, but anyway, we'll talk about backup plans maybe in another episode. But that's just simply how I feel. And I hope that this has inspired someone to say, you know what? I'm going to go for it. I'm going to go for it no matter what. I'm not going to give up on it. I may reschedule my days when I work on it. I may watch the amount of money that I invest right away or whatever it is, but damn sure better believe I'm not going to give up on it. So I hope I've inspired someone. And that's it. I'm out of here. I will see you guys in the next episode.