Growth is on the Other Side of Your Comfort Zone with Nancy Pickard

Today's guest Nancy Pickard shares with us how growth is on the other side of your comfort zone and the juice is in the journey. Getting comfortable being uncomfortable is the key to stepping outside your comfort zone.

Nancy Pickard is a Certified Integrative Coach through The Ford Institute for Transformational Training and the Levin Life Coach Academy. She is certified as a Breakthrough Shadow Coach, Boundary, Worthy, Reinvention, Empowered Parent Coach, Courage Coach, Healing Your Heart Coach, Holistic Lifestyle Coach and Bigger Better Braver Coaching. She is the author of the international best seller, Bigger Better Braver: Conquer your Fears, Embrace your Courage, Transform your Life.

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Hi, I'm Jennifer! Empowering You to Be You! I help clients discover their own truths, gain self-empowerment and in-turn transform their lives, Body, Mind and Spirit.

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Transcript

0:59

Welcome to Empowered Within a Soul Quenching transformational podcast that will set your soul on fire through candid and inspiring conversations. Leading experts, celebrities, healers, and I share our journeys of how we've overcome challenges to living an empowered life from within. I'm your host, Jennifer Pilates. Welcome to another episode of Empowered Within. Hi there, and welcome to the show. I am so excited to have with us today, Nancy Picard, international bestselling author of Bigger, better Braver. Welcome to the show, Nancy. Thanks for having me. Oh, I'm so excited to have you. So let's first start with, tell us a little bit about your. Well, I'm a master integrative life coach and the author of my international bestselling book and everything kind of goes back to. I was married for 26 years. I owned a personal training gym. Life was beautiful. I had two sons and I loved everything about my life. And then my marriage imploded. My husband had just a typical major midlife crisis where he wanted a new life. He wanted a new younger wife. And, my whole life imploded and I did not have the tools. I wasn't prepared and I just fell apart and, took me a really long time to pick myself up and move on, and I eventually gave up my gym and then moved to Colorado and I started the journey back to South really is what happened. I didn't really know. That I had been so other referenced, meaning my self-worth was definitely pinned to how my ex-husband saw me. So when he no longer wanted me, then there must be something wrong with me, and it took me a really long time to remember who I was and to actually change the way I valued myself and saw that self-worth is an inside job. And not an outside job. So I would say that's the biggest transformation for me. That is really huge. And what helped you along the way to know to finally turn inward versus outward? Well, it's really all about my coaching journey. So 11 years ago, when I actually had been in another very serious relationship and engaged and living together, and that broke, I realized, wow, the universe is definitely trying to tell me something. Like I can't just have this bad picker, you know, and, there has to be more to it and I need to learn the lesson. So I actually hired a Healing Your Heart Coach, which. the first certification I even wanted to be getting for myself. And then, so I coached for a year with this woman and she just really showed me, you know, where my emphasis was and what my shadow beliefs were and how I needed to just change the way I was viewing so many things. I've been on this path for maybe 11 years now. I have, you know, a multitude of certifications and each one opens me up more and gives me more tools, not just to help my clients, but to really navigate my own life and my own relationships, and my own beliefs in setting healthy boundaries and learning how to make myself a priority so that I then, make other people a priority that is so important and such an incredible message that everyone definitely needs to hear. So tell me more. What brought you to and really attracted you to a Healing Heart Coach? A Healing Your Heart Coaches is basically a coach that helps you get over. Loss from a divorce, loss from, losing a partner, a child, anything, that your heart is broken and you need healing. The reason why that work is so important and powerful is that it, it very early takes the emphasis off of you thinking you're the victim in the story and letting you see how you co-created. your relationship, even if it was just the beliefs and the unconscious commitments and the unconscious beliefs that you have about love and life and yourself that attracted that person into your life. The beauty of the work is that once you stop being the victim in your story, you can start to do the work. You can accept and surrender to where you are and what's happening and why it's happening, and that everything happens for a reason. And everything happens for the evolution of your soul. And so you can, that's the starting point now, and until you get out of being in the victim mentality, you can't do. you know, you're so stuck there and you're so stuck looking at the other side of the street for blame and also how they're living versus how you are living and everything. You, it's, there's like a codependence that you need to break off of and you need to break that comic chord. I mean, I was married 26 years. I never envisioned my life being different and. Where I sit now, I would not be half the woman I am if I was still married to my ex-husband. and always making him the priority and building him up. And life was always about making sure he shined and you know, blah, blah, blah. Right, right, right. And you know, that's such a common theme. You hear that from a lot of women. How does someone get past the victim mode? When we see ourself as, as the victim, we're really stuck and all of the drama and all of the emotion is around that. And so when you can start to see that it's happening for you and not to you and that you had a part in it, even if it doesn't look like you did. So for me, I saw that I over loved him. I made life boring for him because he, there was no chase. for some reason, as he got older, he needed that chase. So for him to say, you know, I'm gonna love somebody someday the way you love me, I wanted to say to him, you know, you're a narcissist and you aren't capable of loving somebody the way I love you. But you know, it also made me see that I was doing too much. I was overtaking responsibility for everything in our relationship. And when you do. the other person undertakes responsibility. You know, there's, there's only so much responsibility. So if you overtake, then the other person is undertaking. And I just, I think life just got boring for him. And I, he put me and I was part of what became boring, so I had to relearn that. I had a part in the demise of our relationship, even if I thought I was being the most loving and the most everything you could possibly be, that I had a role in why it wasn't working. And so that allowed me to stop being the victim in my story. And so that's what people need to do. They need to just be able to look beyond what the other person is doing and. what was your part? It doesn't have to look the same, but you do have a part in it and you don't want to keep making the same mistakes. You know, I do all of this relationship work with clients and I tell them, you know, you are the common denominator in all of your relationships, so start to do the work on you so that you show up differently so you can attract somebody differently. A different person that meets the person you've become, not the person you were. That's huge. What would you say to that person that says, okay, I'm ready. Like this so resonates. With me, Nancy, I no longer wanna be in victim mode, but I'm afraid I don't know where to. I always tell my clients to stop dating for a couple of months and let's just clean up what's going on for you. Learn that there's a new paradigm for love and relationships. It does not have to look like the way you grew up thinking it needed to. So let's look at what your, fairytale relationship beliefs were from childhood. that are really not supporting the adult relationship you're trying to get into. So I help people uncover the shadow beliefs, the beliefs that are in their subconscious that they're not aware of, that are keeping them plain small, that are keeping them attracting the wrong people. So let's say you have a childhood belief that you're not worthy or that you're, you know, you're not lov. or that, your needs will never be met. Well, if any of those beliefs or core beliefs that are buried inside you, you are gonna manifest that. If you are unlovable, you're gonna attract men into your life or women or whatever you're attracting that are gonna prove you, right? You're not lovable or you attract non-com. People because you believe love is never gonna work out, or I'm never gonna be in a good relationship. It all comes back to what those core beliefs are that we need to uncover so that we can change them and show yourself that it doesn't need to be that way. And now give yourself new empowering beliefs that are gonna support a new relationship and a new paradigm for what your relationship needs to look. I love that. I feel like everyone's gonna say, okay, Nancy, we're signing up today. right? Yes. Well, lemme ask you this. Yeah. Let's take it one step further and go, okay, for the person that goes, well wait, okay, maybe I felt abandoned, or maybe I felt unworthy. Well, can't I just manifest? Like how do I get to that subconscious area? How do we replace that? How do you do that with. I take them through an internal process, and that process is in my book. So Shadow beliefs, processes, they help you, you know, see where in your life are things not working. So like if you said to me, I say I want, but the reality. I can help you see the thing you're more committed to, and it's, we always get that first commitment. So like if you said to me, I say I wanna be in a committed, loving relationship, but what I'm experiencing is always finding something wrong with the guy and dropping him before he drops me or what I'm experiences always looking for what's wrong instead of what's right or what I'm experiencing is. always finding a reason not to date. Well then the thing you are more committed to is keeping your heart safe or plain small or you know, any of those kinds of scenarios that are actually taking you away from the thing you say you want. You say you, you know, I say I wanna lose 10 pounds, but what I'm experiencing is having dessert every. Well then what you're more committed to is, you know, short-term gratification, feeding a wound than you are getting the thing you want. So I help people see that what they say they want and what their actions are showing are not the same thing. And then we can change it. We can do the work around the thing they were more committed to, and then get rid of that and give themselves a new empowering commitment that. be in alignment with what their wise adult self really does want. That sounds amazing. Now you talk about using fear as a driving force for change. That sounds a little scary to me, Nancy. I'm just gonna say, I'm gonna put on my seatbelt right now. Cause I'm like, oh, here we go. Okay. Well I actually think it's really true. So anything you're afraid to do. is basically a sign from the universe that's exactly what you need to do. That growth is on the other side of you just stepping in. So for example, I wrote the book, that was a scary thing, but once I stepped in and I did it, I now am that person. And then I did the audible and that was like, oh my God, I have such an funny accent, and how am I gonna do this? and then I did it, and now I am that person. And then I was asked to, um, there's a company called Gen Connect You that does, it's a platform for women and it's courses for women, and they asked me to build a course for them. And so of course my first imposter syndrome is thought is they must think I'm better than I am or I can't do that, or I'm not big enough for that, or blah blah. The moment I stepped in, I then became the person who built the course. And now I am that. Now I am a course, builder. And so I take all of those things as just a sign that my inner child is saying, don't do that. Don't do that. Warning, warning, warning. But it's really hurt, wanting to play small. because our brains want what? What? It knows not necessarily what's best for us. It's called cognitive dissonance. Our brain only likes what it knows. It doesn't wanna expend any more calories than it needs to trying something new. So our brain and our ego actually tries to keep us plain small. So all you have to do is hear the. Recognize it as a fear. Fear of success, fear of failure, fear of looking stupid, fear of not being enough, but in my mind, not doing the thing is already not succeeding, is already failing, is already not showing up. So it's the false fear. Just step in, right? Just jump. No, it makes complete. Absolutely. So for the person who goes, okay, I'm with you Nancy, we've done the work, I'm ready to go. How do I now learn to set healthy boundaries in my relationship so that I don't go back to how I used to be or those old habits. How do we do that? Good question. So setting healthy boundaries is getting clear on what you will and will not tolerate, and what you will, will not. what works for you. And it's about putting your needs first. And I know that's a really, that sounds, oh my God, you're so selfish. And how can you do that? But there's a balance between selfish and selfless. And when you're selfless, you're not even in the room like you are not, your needs are not being. and when your needs are not being met or you don't express your needs, they eventually come out sideways. It's like a beach ball that you try to push in the water and you suppress your needs and you suppress your needs, and all of a sudden they come flying out of the water like the ball does and you explode. And everyone's looking at you like, well, where did that come from? Like I, I just asked this one question, but it's basically that your needs were never being met and eventually, Even though nobody knows your needs, because you've never made them a priority, now you feel like the wounded victim that nobody ever takes care of you. Nobody cares about your you. So, so the work is to love yourself, to recognize what you will and will not tolerate, and to learn how to ask for what you need in a very loving, cherishing. I feel X. When you do Y, would you be willing to do Z? You know, I feel disappointed when you don't call me every day. Would you be willing to just call me every day, or I feel disrespected when you talk over me in a Zoom? would you be willing to wait till I'm done talking? So it's sort of, you're asking for what you need in a way where you're making yourself a priority without making the other person wrong. Cuz you're putting it on you. This is what I need. Like somebody else might not need that. So it's learning how to speak in a cherishing way, you know, there's nothing. that harshness will do for you that soft power won't do better. So it's learning how to ask for what you need by making yourself a priority and honestly knowing you're worthy of making yourself a priority. That's huge. It's, it's the big part. How do, it's the big part, right? And that is a huge part. And how do you help your clients get to that part? Because that's key, right? Like that's everything. Mm-hmm. right there. Mm-hmm. How do you get people there? it's sort of like a two-pronged thing. So one is that because they have to do action steps every week for me, that they pick not me. I mean, if I'm being honest, I might like sway a little in there. But you know, it's for them to decide. And when they start to have to follow through with what they say they're gonna. and stay in alignment with what they say they're gonna do. They actually start to love themselves more because they start to trust themselves more. Now, how many times have we said we're gonna lose 10 pounds, or we're gonna stop drinking, or we're gonna meditate every day, or we're gonna, you know, not fight with somebody. You know, we tell ourselves things all the time and then we don't follow through Half the time, we don't even remember two weeks later that we had even said we were gonna. But when you actually do start to stay in alignment with the things that you say you're gonna do, that builds self-love, that builds self-trust, that builds confidence. Every time we try something, a tiny little step, every time you do that, you're adding to your own self-confidence. So it's a step by step process to learn to trust and love yourself, and then the self-worth follow. so that was one part. I think you asked me a second part to that question though. I can't remember. That was perfect though. Okay. You did hit it though, because it was really just, okay, how do you get your clients there? Yeah. You know, so that's how Oh, I know, I know what I was gonna say. The other part is that it's really interesting, but when they start to set, they actually become like a boundary badass They're like, oh my God, I'm so good at this. And when they start to see that, like the other person's is going to hear them, and you know, people in general want to give you what you want if they can. But they have to know what it is. So when people start to set boundaries, they start to see that, wow, it's working. and then they said more and more because they see that asking for what you want in a cherishing way gets you what you want, a lot of it's just fear. Fear of the other person's reaction, oh, they're not gonna love me anymore. Oh, and which goes back to a belief. So if you have a belief, I need to be perfect to be loved. I need to control everything to be loved. I need to take care of others to be loved. I need to twist myself up in a pretzel to be digestible to other people. If these are your core beliefs that you're not even aware of, setting boundaries will be really hard for you. So first, you have to uncover those beliefs so that then you're free to set healthy boundaries. And that's where you come in to help people get to that subconscious mm-hmm. level. Mm-hmm. to pull out that onion of what doesn't belong there to help replace that with what does belong there. Exactly. It's layer after layer after layer. I love that. It is so important. I've been doing subconscious work for so long and it's amazing. And your work is so amazing with what you're doing with clients on that. thank you. Yeah, it's really, you know, people, at one time I heard people, somebody say that, religious people are people who are afraid to go to hell. And spiritual people are people who have already been there. And the thing that's interesting about that is that you've basically, you have to have had some drama in your life to re. that there's work that needs to be done. Isn't that the truth? And you Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like every empathic spiritual person listening to this podcast right now is like they put down their glass, they're sitting up to, I hear your girlfriend. Yeah, right. I hear you. I'm like, oh, let me pull out my worksheet of Right, exactly. Mm-hmm. Exactly. And. I feel like when you do that inner work, you are standing color, you love yourself more. You've, moved yourself. It's like being a Super Mario, you know that game. You've moved yourself to a higher level, truly, and then you're living so much healthier all around. Yeah. I agree. So tell me back to your book Bigger. Better Braver. Where did the title come from? Well, that's really a funny story. So I came up with so many titles and I had a girlfriend who's a book agent in my. partner. He's a lawyer, but he's also a writer. And I had my publicist and my publisher, and every single one I came up with, they would say, put it on the list. Just put it on the list. Like nobody liked the same one. And they told me to stop thinking about it for a couple of months. And then one night I sat up in the middle of the night and I said, bigger, better, braver. And my boyfriend said, oh, I love. Then the next day, I called my girlfriend and I called my publish. Everyone loved it. And then the tagline conquer your fears, embrace your courage and transform your life. That took a lot more work, but the bigger, better, braver, like just, it was a download from the universe, and I know it was because everyone loved it immediately. And, We just went with it and I love it. I love it. I absolutely love it. It's actually something that I say quite a lot of times, like, God will always bring you out bigger, brave or stronger. You know, like I'm just al it's so, it's so true and I love the power behind that. Within your words and within your writing, that is so important. Over the years, through your experience personally and professionally, what has been your biggest aha moment in doing this? I think that I had banked my self-worth on somebody else. You know, there's three different ways. There's three wrong ways of feeling worthy. One is, I'm worthy because somebody else thinks I'm worthy. The other is, I'm worthy because of things that I have. I'm worthy cuz I drive a Porsche or I live in a big house. You know, there's a lot of people whose self-worth is around their things or around their accomplishments. I'm worthy because I'm a lawyer. I'm worthy cuz I got a raise. I'm worthy because I'm an international bestselling, author. Those are all things. Not where you should be getting yourself worth. You are worthy because you're put on this earth and you breathe. That's it. And then when you stay in alignment with who you are and your goals and your vision and your moral ethics and everything that's important to you, that's what builds your self worth. It's an inside job. And mine was an outside job and I feel that's so. Right. That's so atypical of our society and how it has been driven for not only years, but what feels like decades. Decades, yes. Well, yeah, for sure. You're doing an incredible service of helping to switch that mindset in men and women and and children all over, to really bring back that self-worth, self-value. Empowerment within, which then is the ripple effect to the next person, to the next person. So that hopefully we should all be having really great loving relationships very soon. Yeah. That's that. That would be great hope. Let's all be more relational. Yes, for sure. That would, and also it's really important to teach that to our children. So stop saying, oh. You're such a good athlete, or you won that game, or blah, blah, blah. But I like to say to my grandchildren, you know, what did you do today that was bigger, better breather? You know, what did you do that you were afraid to do, but you did it anyway? And that's the thing. that you show them how proud you are. I'm so proud that you tried that and even if you didn't do well, that's okay because now it's a stepping stone. Now let's try it again but I'm so proud of you for trying something you were afraid to do. That's where the work is. I agree with you. It really is. And it's so important to start with the kids. They're everything. Everything I know. And it's important to start with ourselves too, because after all, you know, we've all been going about this little ass backwards. So it's about time that we start doing that for ourselves. I agree. And that, and also that our kids mirror us. Mm-hmm. you know, like I, I can remember telling all my clients during the pandemic, your kids are gonna take their cues from you. They're gonna mirror how you're handling this. How are you pivoting? You know, how are you making your life different? and moving in a good direction, even though things are different or not looking out the way you thought they would, how can you pivot? How resilient can you be? That's what we wanna teach our children. So important. Well, we are getting to this time in the show where I asked this one question, are you ready, Yes, I am. What is one thing that no one knows about Nancy? oh gosh. I'm such an open book. What is one thing, oh boy, that nobody knows? Well, I mean, I guess, you know, we all have our own insecurities. Mine are always around like my body, you know, not loving my body enough, but, well, people know that about me. What did Jennifer, you, you, I've got, you talked me. I've got you though. I know what I want you to share. Okay. What did you do when you were 61? Oh, okay. Well, I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro, the truth is I climbed Mount Kilimanjaro because I wanted to prove to myself that I still. I'd always been an athlete and now I was like, I actually decided to do it at 60, but I ended up doing it like three weeks after I was, after I turned 61. But it was like I needed to keep validating myself so that we all have that wounded child and we all have that voice that says we're not enough. And climbing Mount Kija was my way of proving to. that I had it and I was enough. That is beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. That's so important. Thanks for helping me there, You are so welcome. That's what I'm here for. Oh my goodness. Nancy, will you share with our community where they can best get in contact with you? The best way to get in contact with me is My website, Nancy Picard life coach.com, because everything is there. You know, there's a free chapter to my book. There's a bunch of freebies. All my podcasts, like your podcast will be on there and. All my different coaching modalities and how to sign up for a free call. Cause they do a free call with everybody. Wonderful. And all of Nancy's contact information will be over in the show notes on jennifer pilates.com as we close out the show today. Nancy, what lasting piece of inspiration would you like to leave with us today? You gotta get off the couch. You know, the last person in the race still beats the person on the couch, so. Step in the moment. You step in all of the drama and the anxiety dissipates the moment you step in. Beautiful. Thank you so much, Nancy, for being on the show today, for making this happen, for sharing your incredible insights and knowledge. I'm just so honored to have you here. Thank you so much. Thank you. It was such a pleasure. All right, well, as we say, until next time, may you live an empowered life from within. Thank you so much for tuning into another episode. Please remember to rate, review, and subscribe to Empowered Within with Jennifer Pilates. Your feedback is important. It helps me to connect with you and gives me insight into who you are and what you're enjoying about the show. For today's show, notes and discount codes from today's. Head over to jennifer pilates.com. Until next time, may you live an empowered life from within.