Episode 62- Permission to get it wrong
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Mel: [00:00:00] Welcome to Permission to be Human, the podcast. I'm your host Mel Findlater mother, coach, and curator of Permission to be Human, the company and community. If you're a mom, know a mom, or want to be a mom, and you crave getting out in the world to make a difference, then you're in the right place. This is a space for moms like you to connect with yourself, your purpose, and your big audacious dreams.
Because when you feel your best, you can better you, your family, and the wider world. Let's do this.
All right. Today, we are going to do another solo episode on a topic that has really come up a lot in my life lately. And that is around. Giving ourselves permission to get it. Wrong.
And I know. That's hard. Right? [00:01:00] We've been trained as women so often to get everything right. To be the perfectionist, to. Do it all the way we're supposed to do it right. And the risk of this when we are.
Trying to build the lives that we really want. And we are trying to. Lean into that big audacious dream that we really want to make happen is that we don't get started because we're thinking so big and we're so concerned that something will go wrong. And if we think really big. In terms of like what it will all look like and.
What it will feel like.
And we just think so big. From the positive angle, then we can also find ourselves thinking big from what could go wrong. Right. So, What if. Just for a moment, we make things a [00:02:00] little bit smaller and give ourselves permission. To let it go wrong. So. I'm going to talk a little bit today about. A mentality that many people in the tech side of things, tech businesses use, and it's called lean startup.
And I am not an expert in this, but I love the concept, the general concept of it. To get us moving and to learn quickly. Right. And the whole idea is that we.
Make small. Action.
Make those mistakes, learn from them, do that over and over and over and over again. And then when we get our big audacious dream that we've been thinking about, but maybe it's shifted or maybe the values and vision are still there, but the how is completely different to what we thought it was going to be. So that's what we're going to be chatting about today. So lean [00:03:00] startup is a methodology.
Like I said, used often in the business world, especially the tech side of things. Developed by Eric Ries. And the emphasis is. The importance of testing ideas quickly. Learning from their failures. And like I said before,
Getting that feedback and making the changes that we need to change. So the thing is that by doing this, we minimize the risk that we are taking. So we fail small instead of failing big. We make those mistakes, we get it wrong and that's okay. We learn and we do it again.
So. They use a word. In this call, the minimal. Minimum viable product. And really using these feedback loops to figure out what we're going to do next.
I think that this sounds amazing. And I have been trying to use [00:04:00] it in all of my work for the last, I don't know, 15 years ago. Or so to be honest, That being said. I find it very difficult to do because I am a big audacious dreamer. Right. And I think some of you might be as well. So I'm going to give a personal example of this. I have been thinking about having an in person program. To celebrate the women and mothers around me in my local community. I've been thinking about this since I moved here four years ago. Like iterating in my head, what's going to happen and getting that clarity and to be fair, also waiting for the season of my life to come where I'm able to actually step into it. So.
Finally. You know, four years later, I'm looking at it and going, huh? Okay, Mel, you're going to make this happen. So I have this idea for a courage club. I'm going to put it out there. I'm also going to have a virtual version of this eventually. [00:05:00] And I can't tell you exactly what it's going to look like, but what I can tell you is this we're going to lean into the courage. We're going to fit, you know, we're going to lean into what self-efficacy is.
So courage is the action of doing something. Even when we're scared, like being scared and doing it anyways. Right.
And I know that I want to work. In a way where people.
Can build this courage. We can build those neural pathways. We can build, like, if we think about it, like a piece of floss in our brain, our courage is feeling, you know, not so great, but every time we do the smallest little action. We create. Uh, thicker and thicker string and a rope. And, you know, it gets, it gets thicker.
And suddenly we find ourselves being courageous all the time and things become actually a little less scary and our confidence grows, which is slightly different. That's the ability that we know we can handle, whatever comes our way. [00:06:00] Right. So I've had this idea to build this community of, of women who. Go out there and do courageous acts. And I have been thinking about how to do that.
And I keep thinking these big dreams, these big ways of doing it, let's have a year long program. Let's have this. And honestly, I'm getting to the point now where I'm finally going, Mel, what's your minimum viable project. Right. And I keep narrowing it down and down and down. Another example is in my local community.
I would love to have a coworking space for mothers to come and have some childminding, right next door in the same building for, you know, a couple hours or. Between one and four hours. And they can send a hammock and read a book or work on their laptop, finishing something that they need to do, build up their business, build on their dreams, whatever it is. And I'm like, we have to do it five days a week, eight hours a day.
And then I, every time I speak about it to someone they're like, well, you know, what's a smaller version of [00:07:00] this. And then I have to question myself again, what's a smaller version of this. What's a smaller version of this just to simply. Test the idea that that's what people want and need. Right. And once, you know, that's what people want to need.
It's about testing the location and about testing the times and you know, so many things that we need to test within there. And it's through making it smaller and smaller, which is a challenge. For me, as I say, and I think for many. But that is how I will get it wrong and then eventually get it right. So I really want to give you permission today to get it wrong as well. To think through what your big dream is, Lao your spouse, yourself, that space to dream and get that vision, get excited about it.
And then take a step like a hundred steps back. The one tiny little action you can take to test. What this idea is whether someone wants it, [00:08:00] whether you want it. Right. If we want to. So if I want to go buy a house on an acreage next to the water, how about I go and find some land next to the water and make sure and go to it every day and see if that's enough. See if I actually like it. Right. We can do this in every single thing in our lives. But we have to give ourselves permission. To get it wrong.
Right. So. Start small.
Let yourself fail. Don't take it personally, have compassion. Think okay. What iteration of this do I use for the next time? I'm going to try. You might feel again. You might get it wrong again and do it many, many times, but learn from each time, really take like the numbers down of whatever it is. Or, you know, the emotion depending on what it is that you're you're [00:09:00] testing, but go out there. Take those small little laughable steps as I tend to call them. Like, if you're going to walk out Mount Everest, put your shoes by the door. Right. And then. See what happens. I believe in you, you can totally, totally do this. And. You got this? Right.
So I encourage you to think through maybe something you've done recently, where you did get something wrong and to challenge your brain by saying, oh, actually like. Did the worst case scenario happened in that? It probably didn't. And then, you know, teach yourself to take those steps going forward. So that's me.
Thanks so much for being here. We'll speak soon.
You know when you have that dream or that idea and you hold it really tight and you don't really want to share it with anyone until you have it [00:10:00] just right until you are absolutely assured that it is exactly what you want it to be but you also know deep down inside that it is unlikely to get perfect it is unlikely to get to exactly where you want it to be unless you share it with others.
It's when we share it with other people that we get the energy and the momentum. It is when we get feedback. It is when we start to iterate inside of our own minds. We need to get it out of our bodies and into the world in some sort of way. And talking to someone who will cheer you on is exactly The first step.
Now, if you can't think of anybody in your life that you would love to share your dream with in this raw stage where you're not gonna get the words right and you're worried that they're gonna come back to you and be, yeah, but, or ooh, what if? [00:11:00] Don't share with those people. If you can't think of who to share it with, then I want to be that person for you.
Totally complimentary, I am launching the Dream Haven and it is a simple message back and forth concept where you tell me your dream and I cheer you on and tell you exactly how amazing I think it is. I can be that safe space for you and your dreams to grow into whatever they're going to grow. It's going to grow.
totally complimentary. It remains your dream, not mine. And I would absolutely love and be honored by being that person who gets to hear it first. So head on over to permissiontobehuman. ca slash the dash dream dash haven. And let's get this going. Because your dream deserves to be out there in the world.
It could be a project. It could be a business. It could be the change that you really want to see in the world. It could [00:12:00] be an adventure that you really want to go on. You got this. Let's hear about it. Again, all you have to do is head on over to permissiontobehuman. ca slash the dash dream dash haven and put your details in and you'll get a video personalized back from me inviting you to take our next step.
Speaker 2: That is it, folks. This has been Mel Findlater on Permission to Be Human, the podcast, and I am so glad that you have joined us here today and hope that you have taken away some tidbits that will help you go away, connect with your big audacious dream, and make that massive impact in the world that you are dying to make.
If you liked today's episode, please, please, please Like it, share it. Think of one person. Think of one person that you think would also like it and send it on over to them. Let's get this out there and [00:13:00] more moms feeling like themselves. Inspired, Dreaming big and out there. Please do head on over to find me on Facebook with permission to be human or Instagram or you can even Off me an email and say hello.
Have permission to be human always at gmail. com say hello and let me know that you listened. What did you like about it? I would love to hear if you didn't like it. I don't really want to know. Just kidding. You can share that if you want. I would love to know, however, who you are. Let's connect. Let's find out what you want more of.
I want to hear from you and I want to make it what would be useful to you. As always, remember that you have permission to dream big, permission to feel big, and permission to be you. You have complete and [00:14:00] full permission to be human. For real, you
do.