The Courage Gap – Overcoming fear and self-doubt to take bold action in your business and life.

Episode Host: Henry Lopez is a serial entrepreneur, small business coach, and the host of this episode of The How of Business podcast show – dedicated to helping you start, run and grow your small business.

---

Resources:

Books mentioned in this episode:
[We receive commissions for purchases made through these links (more info)].

• The Courage Gap: 5 Steps to Braver Action by Margie Warrell PhD
• The Courage Quiz

Other Podcast Episodes:

You can find other episodes of The How of Business podcast, the best small business podcast, on our Archives page.

Sponsor:

This episode of The How of Business podcast is sponsored by Legal Deal Makers (by Sterrett Law).

Buying or selling a small business is a big deal. The contracts, the negotiations, the due diligence—it’s a lot to handle, and one mistake could cost you. Small business owners need legal expertise they can trust, without paying big law firm prices.

That’s where Legal Dealmakers come in. They specialize in mergers and acquisitions – helping small business owners navigate the complexities of buying and selling businesses. With Legal Dealmakers, you get a big city experience with small town prices. From drafting airtight agreements to negotiating terms that protect your interests, they ensure you’re covered every step of the way.

Don’t go through this process alone. Let Legal Dealmakers guide you through your next business transaction with confidence.

Schedule a free consultation today at LegalDealmakers.com, and let’s make your deal a success.

We have received compensation from this sponsor partner. We only accept sponsorships from companies who we believe provide products and services that are valuable for small business owners.

Transcript:

The following is a full transcript of this episode. This transcript was produced by an automated system and may contain some typos.

Henry Lopez (00:15):

Welcome to this episode of The How of Business. This is Henry Lopez. My guest today is Margie Warrell. Margie, welcome to the show.

Margie Warrell (00:22):

Great to be with you, Henry.

Henry Lopez (00:24):

Yeah, we’re going to have an interesting conversation. The questions or question that we’re going to try to address is, do you tend to hold off on making a change or taking a chance, like maybe with starting your first business or with your existing business and going to that next level of growth, whether it’s personally or in your small business. Do you worry about stagnation? Do you worry about the leaving potential on the table? Do you worry about the fear of failure? All of those things that are very common that keep us from making a change or taking that next step perhaps to start a business. Well, Dr. Margie Warrell is with me today to explain how the biggest problems, as she explains, don’t stem from what we cannot do. They stem from not doing all that we can do. And so we’re going to explore that, especially as it relates to her book, the Courage Gap.

Henry Lopez (01:18):

But you can find all of the how business resources, including the show notes page for this episode. And to learn more about my one-on-one and group coaching programs, just go to the how of business.com. I also would encourage you to please consider supporting this podcast on Patreon and subscribe wherever you might be listening so you don’t miss any new episodes. Let me tell you more about Margie and then we’ll get into it from the Outback in Australia. As you’ll soon notice from our accident to Fortune 500 boardrooms, NASA and the US Congress, Dr. Margie Worl insights on leading change, navigating risk, and cultivating courage in ourselves and others have made her a global authority in leadership development, a bestselling author, global speaker, leadership coach and women’s leadership advocate, Magie bridges head and heart to empower people to make better decisions and take bolder action. She is the host of the Live Brave podcast, so she has her own podcast, the Live Brave podcast, and the book that we’re referring to is her sixth book, the Courage Gap, and it just hit the shelves, and you can find it on Amazon. It just came out here this January, 2025. Margie lives in the Washington DC area. Once again, Margie Worl, welcome to the show.

Margie Warrell (02:39):

Great to be with you.

Henry Lopez (02:40):

Absolutely. Well, I always like to start at kind of how you got to where you are today. We could spend hours on that, but briefly share to me the very interesting story of how you ended up here. What was your career initially out of university? I’m curious.

Margie Warrell (02:56):

Yes. So I studied in university and went and joined the corporate world, big multinational corporations, and did that for several years. But in my early thirties, I wanted autonomy and flexibility. I had four children in five years, so that explains that. I also wanted to do what really lit me up, and I didn’t want to be bogged down doing a lot of stuff that didn’t. And I felt that creating, building my own business was really the best pathway for me. And I’ve been doing that for a long time with a brief interlude a few years ago where I went back into corporate for a few years. Interesting. Which was a tremendous experience, and I don’t regret it for a second. I was the senior partner in board CEO succession at Korn Ferry and had three and a half years there. I learned a lot, I grew a lot. I valued some of the camaraderie, et cetera. But in the end, for all the same reasons why I had my own business before I decided that I needed to exit and go back to running my own show again, which has brought me to talk to you today.

Henry Lopez (04:09):

Yeah, yeah. So it is interesting because I similarly have had that situation where I went back briefly, what did it accentuate for you as to why you must be a business owner, why you must be the boss?

Margie Warrell (04:22):

Because life is too short to be doing things that suck the life out of you. And I felt like my biggest strengths were neither rewarded nor valued fully. And I know this is a personal aspect of this, but about 18 months ago, or my mom passed away actually nearly two years ago now, and it highlighted for me sometimes death does this, my own mortality. And I just remember getting really clear, I’m going to look back one day when I’m 85 and I know I’m going to say, Hey, you stayed there too long. You got the value, you got the learning, and now you’re starting to languish.

Speaker 4 (05:07):

And

Margie Warrell (05:08):

I just knew I had to leave. So that’s it. I’m pretty purpose driven, Henry, and I really want to feel like I’m using my strengths and talents in a way that makes a real impact. Obviously makes money, but also makes an impact. And I just knew I wasn’t going to get to do that where I was.

Henry Lopez (05:27):

Understood, understood. Going back to when you did leave the corporate world, how long had you been in the corporate world at that point in time?

Margie Warrell (05:34):

About a decade.

Henry Lopez (05:35):

Okay. Thinking back to then, and I know you’re conscious of this and I’m sure part of it, it covers in the book, but when you think back to then what was holding you back from going out on your own, what was the fear that you had back then?

Margie Warrell (05:50):

I didn’t know what I was doing. I had no idea about how do you start operate a business from the basics of registering a business name through to accounts to the marketing, to just the whole shebang of a small business. And so that fear of just the unknown, just literally the unknown, and of course all of it’s, but at the time there’s just a lot you don’t know. You’re like, I don’t even know where to start. But in the end, I just dove in and I mangled my way through it and slowly figured it out. And I think my experience is so many people who do want to make a change, they might feel a little bit, I was just a few years ago where I felt like I’m not hating where I am. I’m just not loving it, that there is this fear of the unknown and there’s something nice about the certainty of a regular salary. It’s nice every two weeks to get X dollars put in your account and it’s uncomfortable walking away from that.

Henry Lopez (07:03):

And I think also where of course indoctrinated into wanting that or chasing that. The point you make though about I didn’t know how to do it. I think that that is something that commonly we can hide behind. Oh, once I learn how to do that, once I get more education, once I take this course or sign up for this program. And I think we have a tendency to hide behind that. The reality is that very few people know what they’re doing when they first get started. Yes, you got to learn. Yes, you got to get some help, but then you just got to learn on the job. Well, not on the job, but on the ownership.

Henry Lopez (07:37):

Just got to do it at the end of the day, right?

Margie Warrell (07:39):

Yeah. But there is so many awesome resources out there you can tap into. And honestly, now we’ve got pop it into chat, GBT, you probably get a whole lot of information. But back when I was, it was still dial in, what is it? Analog, like wifi. You could literally take five minutes to get one browser up. So I look back and go, there was the ability to access the resources, there was more barriers to it. Now the barriers go down and down and there are so many people you can tap into. And my experience with entrepreneurs is other entrepreneurs always want to support those who are just starting out.

Henry Lopez (08:19):

Yeah, no, brilliant. That’s exactly right. When I started my first business in 1991, there was no internet. So I remember physically having to go to the Chamber of Commerce to collect data and demographics and then put together. It was just so cumbersome. And now to your point, I’m thinking about a related business to start. So I’ve just been using chat CBT to kind of guide me through the process and build out this idea. It’s amazing the resources that we have available. Nonetheless, that fear comes into play, and that’s what we’re going to talk about, having the courage to move forward nonetheless. So the book that we’re going to refer to again is called the Courage Gap. I always ask this question of authors, why did you write it and who is it for? Ideally,

Margie Warrell (09:02):

It is for anyone who is not okay with living a life of immaculate mediocrity is for anyone who wants to live a bigger life than the one they’re living wants to pursue something that’s exciting but also scary. It’s not necessarily people who are entrepreneurs, sometimes people who may be working within an organization and they really want to level up and just go to the next level and the next level, the next level. But for anyone who’s feeling some level of hesitation,

Margie Warrell (09:37):

Kind of know they’re holding back. They know that they are not putting it all on the table, or maybe they are and they’re terrified and they sometimes find themselves paralyzed. But it is this gap, this notion of a courage gap is that often there is a gap between what we are capable of doing and what we’re actually doing between what we know we could do. You know what? You could step forward and start this business venture, but you’re holding back and procrastinating and rationalizing and wait until you have a perfect plan. And it’s keeping you from taking the very actions you are wholly capable of taking. And that’s why I wrote this book to help people step forward toward what it is they most want despite the fact that there are risks and they might fall short at times, but that action is ultimately the ultimate antidote to fear.

Henry Lopez (10:29):

Have you found, or in your opinion, do you think that this challenge of this gap that we face, is it a human thing? I mean, is it something, do you think it’s just part of our makeup as human beings or where do you think it comes from?

Margie Warrell (10:46):

We are wired for safety. We are wired for certainty. The certainty of income is also something we, we are wired for control to control everything. We want to feel like we’ve got all our ducks lined up in a row. So all of those neurological tendencies which come from the deep survival instincts, that’s what has assured the survival of us as a species. The problem is our brains haven’t changed much in 60,000 years, and so we sometimes feel like we’re going to die if we do something that would just kill me. I failed. I would just die. No, you wouldn’t. You would not. But

Henry Lopez (11:22):

It can feel. But that triggering that emotion though, that used to mean I might die, right?

Margie Warrell (11:27):

Charact, physiological, and not just an emotion, but physiologically, people can be like sick. You feel like I know at times I felt like a Mack truck is parked on my chest to this, but real. That’s just fear doing what fear does. It’s not rational, it’s not logical, and it’s very short-term focused.

Henry Lopez (11:50):

So I want to jump forward to the framework that you put in the book. I think it might be good to talk about that. So would you introduce that, the five step framework to braver action as you call it? Can you introduce that at a high level?

Margie Warrell (12:03):

Yeah, absolutely. Well, there are five key principles that really leverage the key ways that we can change behavior, which is cognitive, like what we’re telling ourselves, how we’re thinking behaviWarrell, what we are doing, and physiological happy shows up in our body. And so levering those key principles based on research, I came up with five key steps, depth, and I’m happy to go through them, but just quickly focus on what you want, not on what you fear, which is really about your intention, putting your intention on what you want, because often it’s focused on what we don’t want. Secondly, rescripting, the narratives that we are living in that keep us stuck or stressed, selling ourselves short. And that is so much about our belief systems because all behavior is belief driven. The third breathe in courage is about resetting fear at the ground level. Often it embeds in our bodies and we walk around really anxious about everything and nothing. And it helps us connect into the presence of courage that lives within us. It is absolutely within us and tapping into that and also building a support network around us of people who also involved in us. The fourth is stepping into discomfort and making peace with being uncomfortable as the admission price for you to achieve whatever it is you most want and to change the things you don’t want.

Margie Warrell (13:38):

And breaking that down into looking at it through an experimental lens of just give yourself permission to try things even though you’re not a hundred percent sure. And the fifth step is find the treasure when you trip. And that is all about learning and growing. Even when we mess up and fail and fall short because we are human, we a hundred percent are going to fail and fall short and get it wrong. And sometimes our inner wimp wins out, and sometimes our best efforts just don’t land what we want. And often we fail to learn the lessons. We over ize our failure and we shame ourselves or we brush it away, deflect it, blame it on other people, both of which fail to serve us because we don’t learn the lessons and we aren’t able to pick ourselves back up and go, okay, now what is it I need to do that little bit wiser than before.

Henry Lopez (14:36):

Let’s talk about that for a little bit. Mortgage, it’s such a key part of it. I think that, and we hear this in business, or at least it’s become popular in more recent times, failure is good. You learn from failure, fail fast, all that kind of stuff. The reality is though we hate to fail, I hate to fail. And even though I know all of this and I’m aware of how you learn through failure, it’s still incredibly painful. So there’s a part of me that tells myself that, but then there’s another part say, yeah, but you don’t want to fail. So how do you reconcile those two things? How do you help people reconcile those emotions? If I’m making sense?

Margie Warrell (15:16):

Yeah. I don’t like to fail either Henry and find me someone who likes to fail, likes it, like goes, goes, whoa, that’s great fun.

Margie Warrell (15:25):

No one likes it. And the goal is clearly not to fail, but there is so many. If you look at incredibly successful entrepreneurs, I mean, let’s just talk Jeff Bezos, right? He says he makes decisions based on 70% of the information he’d like to have, which pretty much statistically means you’re guaranteed not to get your ideal outcome. You’re launching a product, you’re tweaking a system, you are recoding something, it’s not going to get an ideal outcome. But because you’re embracing failure as part and parcel of what it takes to iterate and improve on what you’re doing, you’re failing regularly, obviously fast. But here’s the thing, when we hate to fail often, it’s not so much the failure itself, it’s what we make it mean about us. I am not good enough. I’m not worthy. I’m a bit of a loser. I’m not as successful, smart, as clever, as entrepreneurial as insert Steve Bezos, someone else. What will people say? Oh my gosh, I’m going to make a fool of myself. It’s why we often can be even less willing to fail as we become more successful. It’s like the more successful you are, the more your identity often is rooted in how good you are.

Henry Lopez (16:48):

You’re a successful business owner

Margie Warrell (16:50):

And Hey, I’m Henry. I’ve been an entrepreneur for 30 years. Last thing you want to do is have some failure right now. I’m like, no, I want to be the winner. I had the failures in my twenties and thirties,

Margie Warrell (16:59):

And so much of it is about resetting our relationship with failure so we don’t over personalize it, but that we mine the lessons it holds. And I actually just recently ran a program for a group of entrepreneurs in Washington DC and one of the guys that was there said, Margie, I hear everything you say and I know that you have to fail, but my last venture was really, really painful. He said, sure, I lost money, but I thought I had a really solid plan. I thought I had done the work. I thought I had the right people and partners and distribution set up and product testing, beta testing. We had a good go to market strategy. He said, and you know what? One little thing here and one little thing there, and multiple little things all came together and it failed and he lost money. Ouch. But he said,

Henry Lopez (18:00):

And it shook his confidence. It sounds like

Margie Warrell (18:02):

It really rocked his confidence. And he said, so don’t think I haven’t had failures. He said, I’ve had ’em, but man, I’m really, really reticent about going back out there and doing something else. He said,

Margie Warrell (18:16):

The thought of working for someone, he said, honestly, I’d rather shoot myself in the foot, but I’m really nervous and I’m really, I’m so gun shy on this. And I said, let’s just call him Steve. Steve, who you are now is not the same guy you were two years ago. You’ve been humbled, you’ve learned some lessons. Whatever you do moving forward, you are more informed. You can see now in hindsight, a few gaps, things you didn’t think to do, people you didn’t trust that maybe you should have. People you did trust that honestly, you look in hindsight, and maybe you should have verified. I’ll guarantee you, if we sat down and did a full postmortem, we would find a bunch of things.

Henry Lopez (19:09):

There were yellow flags along the way that you

Margie Warrell (19:11):

Chose to rationalize, overcome. Yeah. Funny you say that, Margie, I had this intuitive feel about someone and he said, and my wife said, and he said, and I pushed forward because he was a good guy to kind of have on my kind of team because he came with some pedigree that won some trust and got us some money from investors. And he said, but I had a funny feeling on him. And that was one of the things, trusting his gut on people, and he kind of didn’t trust his gut on this. Somebody he went with what kind of looked good and sounded good. And so I said, there is an example. And we just didn’t even scratch the surface of the learning there was for him. And so for anyone several years back, I actually got to meet Richard Branson, another entrepreneur,

Speaker 4 (20:02):

Wonderful.

Margie Warrell (20:03):

And we talked about, I actually was asked to interview him for a group of entrepreneurs that gathered on his private island, Necker Island in the British Virgin Islands. And what people often forget when you look at a Richard Branson or other people that are really successful is not everything they tried turned to gold. No. Now there’s some people you can look at them and go, well, they look like they’re doing steep Bezos, whatever, mask, whatever. They’re not doing too badly. And I wrote about this in the courage gap. Like Henry Ford, he had this massive, huge failure just before he went and founded. Then Ford Motor Company, Branson, he, Virgin Kohler, they did the massive publicity campaign. He came into Times Square on a crane, hanging in the air, all of that stuff like him using publicity as free marketing for the stunt and it all. And it was this huge, huge public failure. And he said afterwards, he said, yeah, to lick his wounds because that wasn’t, his image is that massive failure as entrepreneurial endeavor, he said, but we spent a lot of time looking, we’re like, we do not want this failure to go to waste. And he said, I was so clear I would not be defined by this failure. I would be defined by how I was going to define myself, by how much I learned from it

Margie Warrell (21:30):

The actions we took after it. And that would be worthy of the failure I made, the future actions. I made that failure one that was really worthy of what I did with it. And so I do think, yeah, failure hurts. I don’t like, I’ve had failed endeavors too. And honestly, same thing as the guy Steve, trusting people I shouldn’t have trusted. And then when I had the gut, I’m like, you know what? I don’t think this is working. Continuing on with the losing proposition. So

Henry Lopez (22:00):

Because that’s such a hard thing though for business owners to determine, listen, I talk about this often. If the business model is broken more time is not going to necessarily fix it If something foundationally fundamentally is wrong, you’ve got to stop, pivot or get out. But it’s hard to do because that is that admission of failure. This didn’t work.

Margie Warrell (22:21):

It’s why I disagree with that quote by Churchill.

Henry Lopez (22:26):

Yes,

Margie Warrell (22:26):

Which I understand. Never,

Henry Lopez (22:27):

Never, never give up.

Margie Warrell (22:28):

Said yes. Yes. And there was another one, courage is holding on a minute longer. I sometimes think courage is actually saying, no,

Henry Lopez (22:37):

No,

Margie Warrell (22:38):

Yeah, we’re quitting this. It’s not working. It is that, and it is that. And just recognizing, and I often write about the biases that derail us and those blind spots, and one of them is that sunk cost bias, which is continuing to invest in a losing proposition because of what you’ve invested into it, because you poured your money into it. It’s hard. You two years hard decision your life into it. You’ve got other people to invest in it. People you knew, people you love, family members, and you’re like, I’ve got to make this a success. I’ve got to, I’ve got to. And you keep on and you keep on. And if you’re in a hole, stop digging is the first thing. At least do an assessment here. Just step back before you invest more because every day you continue investing in something that’s not working is a day that you are not investing in something that could,

Henry Lopez (23:37):

Yeah, it’s an opportunity cost of nothing else, right?

Henry Lopez (24:53):

I want to come back to a point here, which you’ve kind of addressed for me, but one of the challenges also is you talked about retelling that story, not taking it personally, however, you got to balance that against accountability, personal accountability, and I think you’ve spoken to that is how do you respond to that? But talk to me a little bit more there. How do you help people if on the one hand that failure, I shouldn’t take it personally, but at the same time I don’t want to point fingers, it was my failure. How do I not allow myself then to not take it personally and have it drain me and keep me from moving forward again?

Margie Warrell (25:35):

Yeah. Well, I think that’s the over personalizing it. And I want to just say here, I think it’s so important. If you want to be an entrepreneur, man, you got to know how to pick yourself back up if you don’t pick.

Henry Lopez (25:49):

I think that is the key measure of an entrepreneur, right?

Margie Warrell (25:51):

If you don’t

Henry Lopez (25:51):

Know, if you don’t have that, then you need to go back to the corporate world until you do develop it. Yeah.

Margie Warrell (25:57):

If you do not have the tools, the psychological, mental tools to pick yourself back up, when you don’t get a good outcome, when you fail, when you make a mistake, a poor investment choice, et cetera, then you really are not going to be successful because you’ve got to be risking wrong steps all the time to get the right steps.

Margie Warrell (26:22):

And so firstly, lemme just say here, failure is an event, not a person. And often we internalize it and we treat our failures as our identity. I’ll also say this, which some people don’t like, particularly when they’re really successful, you are also not your successes. Your worth as a human isn’t because you have built a billion dollar business and it’s also not because you failed or you lost a million dollar business. Who you are is innately worthy. You’ve got to start from that place that my worth is not defined. And let’s face it, we all have egos and a lot of us get caught up in our whole identity as our stature, our status, our bank account, our wins, our the award we got as entrepreneur of the year 30 under 30, 30, 50 under 50, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But I think soon as your identity rests on all of those accolades and that, that’s a problem, man, you are in a very vulnerable place all the time.

Henry Lopez (27:33):

But it’s so hard, Margie, because that society, that’s how society keeps score, at least our society in the United States nonetheless.

Margie Warrell (27:40):

Yeah. You know what? And so you’ve got to have a measure for success that enables you to keep picking yourself up and moving forward even when you don’t get the wins. Exactly. And so just coming back to the failure piece and not over personalizing it, Marty Seligman, out of up Upen said, it’s the way we explain our failures and a couple of key things. Failure isn’t permanent. I tried something in this moment in time and I failed at it. My business failed, my strategy failed. My marriage failed. Something failed. But yes, but this doesn’t mean I’m a failure. It just doesn’t mean I couldn’t have a successful business in the future or a successful relationship, or I can’t manage my money better in the future, but at this moment in time, this hasn’t worked. So it’s not permanent and it’s also not personal that who I am, isn’t it?

Margie Warrell (28:30):

So how can you explain your failure? This is something I’ve experienced now and framing it with language as temporary and as the event. And so I’ve had many times where I have failed to do what? I had a failed effort. I didn’t get the outcome I want. I failed as I failed as a person. Last night, I was grumpy at my husband. He said, Hey, that was rude. I said, I apologize, that was rude. I did not manage my emotions very well. I’m sorry. And I’m going to do better. And you can fail as a business owner, you can fail as a boss. It’s like own it, apologize, clean it up, do better. And that’s how we grow. But I think this concept around failure, the thing is, if you are willing to give yourself permission to fail, as you move forward to your bold vision that’s backed with a big why, that gives you meaning, then you can’t failure if you’re measuring yourself by your effort and how much you’re applying the learning as you go along.

Henry Lopez (29:34):

Exactly. Yeah. I call that enjoying the journey. And that’s something that I tried to learn better for myself a few businesses ago because I found myself, it was a business that we had started, a new concept we had started, and I found myself immediately leaning towards, well, the only way we’re going to have success here is if we have 200 units and we’re doing this much in revenue. And I said, wait a second, those things might happen. I’m going to work towards them, but the wins are going to be that I’ve created this, that I have the opportunity to do so the things I’m going to learn along the way. So enjoying the journey is what I call it. A couple of the things though, to bring in here that I want to get your thoughts on, I have come to learn and accept that sometimes we need a little bit of luck sometimes.

Henry Lopez (30:14):

Sometimes it is out of our control. Something happens. Covid being a major event that happened that we could not have predict, right? I opened a business in the middle of Covid, so we got to realize that sometimes we need a little bit of a break. And if we don’t get that, that’s okay. It’s not that I’m an unlucky person, it’s just that was one of the factors. Now, I can’t point the finger entirely to that but’s part of it. And the other thing that I always say is, listen, if people much smarter than me with significantly more resources, room fills of PhD can make mistakes, who am I to think I can’t make mistakes or have failures along the way?

Margie Warrell (30:51):

Yeah, absolutely. And honestly, a mistake is okay, as long as you’re learning from it.

Henry Lopez (30:57):

Exactly. The key, have to learn from it.

Margie Warrell (31:00):

There’s a difference between living the same year 20 times and 20 years of learning. And let’s face it, we’ve all met people who just came to just keep going around and doing the same thing. But to your point on luck, yes, of course some people find themselves in situations that are just unlucky. You opened a restaurant in March, 2020, we could go on and on. Sometimes it works the other way. But I would also say this, luck isn’t just about chance. It’s not just some people just got lucky. There is a lot to be said for the mindset that we are bringing and the work ethic that we are bringing and the number of shots that we are taking.

Henry Lopez (31:48):

You’ve got to put yourself in the way of luck.

Margie Warrell (31:50):

You’ve got

Henry Lopez (31:51):

To. Whereas you got to put yourself out there, otherwise you won’t get lucky. Right,

Margie Warrell (31:53):

Exactly. I actually wrote a Forbes column on this, just this St. Patrick’s Day about exactly that. What do you need to do to put yourself in the places where you can strike it? Lucky. And I know for me over the years when I’ve got lucky, I did a hundred, I took a hundred shots, I showed up at a hundred events, I put myself out there a hundred times and missed risk rejection, a thousand all these times. And a ton of them didn’t land anything. And every now and again, one, not the ones I always necessarily put so much work into, but sometimes the adjacent ones, like the ones that I hadn’t, but I still did something, and that one turned into something amazing. And I’m like, who knew it would be that one? But I was doing, I planted a hundred and the ones that went into the prime soil, some of them didn’t take off at all, but it’s the one over here, man, that one keeps just dropping the a hundred dollars bills on my feet still. And I’m like, huh, but you just don’t always know.

Margie Warrell (32:55):

So I would just say to people, the more shots you take, there is a certain level of statistics in this. The more shots you take, the more chance you’re going to get one in. Right?

Henry Lopez (33:05):

Agreed, agreed. Alright, let me rephrase it this way. The whole fear thing and the courage gap, because it’s often how people will explain it. The imposter syndrome, I suffer from it. Everybody does. In small business in particular, it might be you’ve got to now do sales or you’ve got to do a speech or you’ve got to do whatever, or you’ve got to be something that you don’t feel like you’re prepared for. How do you apply the framework or other tools to help in particular small business owners overcome that paralyzing imposter syndrome that can creep in?

Margie Warrell (33:41):

If you think about imposter syndrome, which is essentially this low grade lingering fear, anxiety, that at some point people are going to realize we don’t know as much as they thought

Henry Lopez (33:56):

You’re a fraud,

Margie Warrell (33:56):

We’re less worthy than they thought. We don’t deserve to have the success. We are, yes, we’re a fraud. It’s fear driven. It is totally coming from that place of us not being able to internalize our own value and success and worth. And we focus so much on what we don’t know and what we haven’t done versus what we do know and have done, or how other people gave us a helping hand versus that we worked our butts off and that’s why we’re here. And so to anyone who struggles or ever has that, I want you to know you are not alone. And the good news is it is not the domain of low achievers. People who don’t aspire to do anything with themselves don’t struggle with imposter syndrome.

Henry Lopez (34:41):

Good point. Good point. Say that again, because I think that’s so key, right? That

Margie Warrell (34:44):

Imposter syndrome is not the domain of low achievers. It is the domain of high achievers. So if you ever have those thoughts of someone’s going to cotton onto the fact that I’m not as good as they thought, just know that you are in the company of extraordinary people, extraordinary people, the best in the business of acting in science in every realm, those who have also had moments of imposter syndrome. And the key is not to let the fear of being found out keep you from going to the very places onto the center stages, behind the microphones owns where your fear doesn’t want you to be, where you are exposed. In fact, go exactly to where you are exposed, have to go further out on the limb because that is how you overcome it over time. I actually just today, ironically, was at the US Capitol where I ran a leadership program for congressional chiefs.

Margie Warrell (35:50):

I grew up on a small dairy farm in rural Australia, a long way from the capital of the United States of America. And as I was walking in there, and I’ve done these now for a couple of years, I have the same little voice that pipes up on my head that says, when are they going to realize that you just this girl from the country that isn’t know that much? You’re not that smart. And yet, here I am, and I’m like, well make my connect. The mission is bigger than the fear I’m here to serve and to help these people lead better, make better decisions. And that’s why I’m here. Whether or not there’s things I don’t know is beside the point. There’s stuff I do know and there’s a mission.

Henry Lopez (36:30):

I do know when you have a point of view and a perspective and an experience that you’re sharing and that has value.

Margie Warrell (36:36):

And that’s what I would encourage every entrepreneur to focus on, focus on what you are there to do, the impact you want to make, the people you want to serve, the information you want to share. It’s your ego that’s getting you all scared and nervous and everything. What do people think of me? I hope they think this. I hope they don’t think that. You know what? Take the focus off yourself and put it on what inspired you down this path In the beginning, you love to add value in this way. You are passionate about whatever it is you passionate about. Building widgets, decorating cakes. For me, it’s like helping people step fully into their own gifts and brilliance and make the impact they’re capable of making. And so whatever it is, put your focus on that. And I think when we get it off ourselves and self-interest, which is where our fear is in this self-protective mode, and put it onto what’s the impact we want to make, and yeah, would you like to make a sale out of it? Sure, of course you would, and that’s okay. But focus on the impact you want to make. Because my experience is when we’re focused on maximizing our impact, and we do that with humility, but also with passion and commitment and courage, we ultimately meet with success and we find ourself in lots of places where good fortune comes our way.

Henry Lopez (37:58):

Agreed. Agreed. And the point you made about humility, I think is important because if I will take that approach of I’m not coming in here trying to pretend to be the all know all, maybe I am, but if I will come with it with that sense of humility, I’m not putting myself in front of you as someone who knows it all. I have my knowledge, I have my experiences that I’m going to share with you, but I’m open to the fact that you might ask me a question that I don’t know the answer to, and that’s okay. That’s okay. That doesn’t expose me as a fraud. And it’s okay to accept that. I’m assuming this part of what you’re talking about here goes back to that first step in the framework on focus on what you want, right In parts.

Margie Warrell (38:37):

Yes.

Henry Lopez (38:38):

Yep.

Margie Warrell (38:38):

It also is in that re-scripting

Margie Warrell (38:41):

Because often the story we’re telling ourself like, I’m not good enough. When are people are going to realize it’s like for me, but for you, I, I’m wholly worthy of being here. I have everything it takes to figure this out. I don’t need to know all the answers, but I have everything it takes to figure it out as I go along. That’s a different narrative. That’s a very different mindset than I have to know exactly what I’m doing before I start. So rescript, what makes you more scared and less brave? What’s siphoning your confidence? And so the story you’re telling yourself, because all behavior is belief driven, like I said earlier. So what is it that you would need to believe for you to launch, to grow, to scale the kind of business that excites you and inspires you and makes an impact for others too?

Henry Lopez (39:35):

Before we move, I want to go back to then, I think it was breathe in courage. What was the third step?

Margie Warrell (39:39):

Yeah, that is breathing courage.

Henry Lopez (39:41):

So explain that to me again. So if we follow in this example, a business owner who’s struggling with making a decision or to get started in their business or to take an opportunity to grow or to put themselves out there and start doing sales, how does it apply there in that context? Give me an example if you would,

Margie Warrell (39:55):

Mark. Yeah. You’re about to go into, do a sales pitch. You’re about to pitch your business, your wares, whatever, and you’re feeling really nervous. In fact, you’re feeling kind of, you’ve got that sick feeling in your belly, and you know that when you get a bit stressed, you talk too fast or you don’t show up as your best when you’re super nervous and stressed. And so I would say just, if nothing else, just take a breath. Just stop and take the deepest breath you’ve taken all day.

Henry Lopez (40:25):

So it’s literal and figurative at the same time.

Margie Warrell (40:27):

Yeah, literally breathe and then breathe in courage, breathe out, fear. But that literally helps to reset your nervous system. It’s called a nervous system for a reason. It is a nervous system and fear lives in our bodies. It’s a physical thing. It’s not just in our head. So sometimes it’s like we just get wound up, and if you are really wound up and you’re about to go into a meeting, you’re not going to go into that meeting in the same way. So one, focus on what you want. I want to add a lot of value. Two, tell yourself I’m here. I have everything it takes to add a lot of value, and I totally deserve to be here, and people need what I have to share. I know I can help solve their problems. That’s the

Henry Lopez (41:06):

Key. Yeah. I know I

Margie Warrell (41:06):

Have value to share. Three, take a breath, put your shoulders back. Stand tall. Did you know that when you stand tall, I can just put your shoulders back and how you hold yourself, you’re literally your physiology. Our brain is interpreting our posture, how we’re holding ourselves, even putting a little smile on your face. I’m not saying look like a clown, but just put a little quiet, confident smile on your face that signals to your brain. I got this. And people who practice what’s called postural expansiveness, they found this at the Kellogg School of Business, it literally shifts their own perception of themselves. They feel more agency and more powerful, but it also shifts how other people perceive them.

Margie Warrell (41:52):

And if you are walking into a meeting and you’re trying to sell me something and you’re a little clunky and awkward and everything, I’m like, okay, this guy’s a little clunky and he is just stuttered over 25 words. Okay. But if you walk in and you can just look me in the eye and give me a good handshake and give me a smile and say, Hey, great to meet you, and you’re comfortable in yourself, and you’re just standing there in a way that’s like this person, they own their space, that’s going to put me at ease.

Henry Lopez (42:20):

Absolutely. Yeah. One of the things that I’ve done, sometimes it depends on the scenario. Even Margie is say, listen, I’ll be honest with you, I’m a little nervous here because this is important for me and I have a lot of value to share. And sometimes it disarms it if we just accept it, whether we verbalize that or not, yeah, it is okay to be nervous here. That’s okay, but how am I going to deal with it? And so the physiological process of breathing and having the right body posture signals differently to us and to the other person. Okay. Brilliant, brilliant. Thanks for sharing all of that. We can go on for hours and hours. The book, again, is called The Courage Gap, but it’s available now. I highly recommend it. You also have some other resources on your website. I think a courage quiz, you had referred to it. Tell me about that briefly, and where do I find that?

Margie Warrell (43:07):

Yeah, great. Head over to my website, margiewarrell.com, and yeah, my name so hard, https://margiewarrell.com/thecouragegap/. Obviously you’ll see lots of information there about my new book, but there is also a courage quiz there, and I encourage you. Yeah, take that quiz takes, honestly, it’ll be about five minutes max. You’ll get a whole little report back and scoring. And the reason I created it is sometimes people think of fear as like, oh, I’m not afraid because we think of it as knee shaking trepidation, but sometimes it can show up in our reticence to have the brave conversation. Sometimes it can show up in us being too agreeable or too humble. It can show up in different ways. So I try and help you identify what are your courage gaps? So as you read through the book, you’re like, yeah, these are the areas where actually fear is holding me back in a way that I didn’t even realize.

Henry Lopez (44:06):

Got it. And by understanding it and acknowledging it, I’ve always found that helps me to act anyway, to have the courage to move forward anyway.

Margie Warrell (44:16):

Yeah. Well, you can’t, despite the fear it, you know what? You can’t fix it if you don’t even see it. And so we’ve often got blind spots. So it’s helping people identify those blind spots.

Henry Lopez (44:25):

Excellent. Alright, I’ll have a link to that as well on the show notes page. If you’re not where you can write that down and can always find that on the show notes page for this episode at the how of business.com. Alright, Magie, we will wrap it up here. What’s one thing you want us to take away? If I’m someone who’s thinking about starting a small business or an existing small business owner that’s dealing with all of these things as we all do, what’s one key takeaway from this conversation that we had?

Margie Warrell (44:51):

Give yourself permission not to have all the answers, but to figure things out as you move forward. And when you’re dealing with a lot of disruption and uncertainty and change, it’s okay. Just take a pause to reassess what’s the best step forward, but don’t stay in that place because even in the midst of uncertainty, it is forward momentum that’s giving you feedback, that’s putting you in a better position down the road. So action is ultimately the very best antidote to uncertainty and to fear. And most of all, finally, I would simply say just trust yourself that you are capable of a lot more than you think and back yourself and not your doubts.

Henry Lopez (45:37):

Beautifully said in all three of those points very quickly, not having all the answers. I think that’s something we can easily hide behind, especially if we’re looking to start our first business. Oh, I just don’t know enough about that. I don’t know enough about the accounting, I don’t know about, you could either get the help or bring in someone to help you with that, or of course you got to do some level of learning, but nobody is a hundred percent at any of those things when they first start their business. So you have to move forward and then moving forward that we talked about before, you’re only going to get lucky if you’re doing something, if you’re in the field of play. Otherwise, nothing will happen if you don’t take action. Yeah,

Margie Warrell (46:12):

Life rewards, action.

Henry Lopez (46:13):

So brilliant. Brilliant. Alright, where do you want us to go again to learn more?

Margie Warrell (46:18):

Yeah, just head over to https://margiewarrell.com. I’m also on social media, so if you’re on LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, just Twitter, connect, whatever x connect with me there. I love staying in touch and just continuing to share videos and inspiration to help you show up with the courage that you need to show up with to be successful as an entrepreneur.

Henry Lopez (46:40):

Agreed. Agreed. Margie, thanks so much for being with me today, sharing all of this knowledge and information. And again, for the book, thanks for being with me today.

Margie Warrell (46:50):

My pleasure. Thanks for having me.

Henry Lopez (46:51):

This is Henry Lopez. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the How of Business Podcast. I release episodes every Monday morning, and you can find the podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts, including my YouTube channel, the How of Business YouTube Channel, and at my website, the How of business.com. Thanks for listening.