Meet the Collective: Overcoming doubts with Ela Wassell

At one time or another we all have our inner critics, undermining our confidence, but how do we deal with them?
My guest, Ela Wassell of Truly Boldly You, advocates for acknowledging them, since it is though understanding these voices that we can manage them, an approach that can empower individuals to embrace their authentic selves, free from perfectionism and people-pleasing tendencies.
In this episode Ela also encourages us to seek external support when starting a small business, whether in the form of practical help, mentoring or emotional support, by learning how to ask for help gracefully as well as to appreciate those who give that support.
Ela has trained and is licensed in a number of time and energy management systems that she shares through one-on-one coaching and workshops, focusing on empowering women leaders to have an impact without burnout.

Ela and Truly Boldly You at creativityfound.co.uk
CreativityFound.co.uk

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Researched, edited and produced by Claire Waite Brown
Music: Day Trips by Ketsa Undercover / Ketsa Creative Commons License Free Music Archive - Ketsa - Day Trips
Artworks: Emily Portnoi emilyportnoi.co.uk
Photo: Ella Pallet

Buy arts and crafts techniques books, plus books by some of my podcast guests, from the Creativity Found bookshop 

Want to join an award-winning community for creative small businesses? Visit creativityfound.co.uk/joinus to find out how. 

Chapters

• 3:32 Empowerment Coaching for Creatives
• 6:32 Managing Perfectionism and Self-Doubt
• 8:34 The Importance of Support in Business
• 10:38 Recognizing and Accepting Help
• 17:10 Workshops and One-on-One Coaching
• 19:31 The Value of Community in Creativity
• 21:48 The Benefits of Joining the Creativity Found Collective

Transcript

0:30

With people who are creative, I'm sure they experience a lot of little pesky voices in their head, like, oh, that's not quite perfect enough, let me perfect it a little bit more. Or inner critic having a go at them, who do you think you are, who is going to buy your stuff. So I help people to quieten those voices a little bit down. That was a very different time in my life, because I was no longer a professional woman who was going to conferences for teachers, and presenting at those conferences, and hanging out and having this professional buzz. I was Maja's mom at Monkey Music, and that's how people knew me, they didn't even know Ela. So I felt like my life is now nappies, milk, and talking about teething remedies. When we manage our time, when we manage our energy, we can give more of us to those that we love. Not what's left of us, but what we've got, and we prioritise better. Hi, Claire here. Creating this show inspired me to take the Creativity Found mission further. As well as sharing inspirational stories of people who have embraced their creativity in adulthood, I wanted to actually help people do this for themselves, and to support artists and crafters who share their creative knowledge with adults through their classes, kits and supplies. Creativityfound.co.uk and the Creativity Found Collective were born. You can visit creativityfound.co.uk to find ways to learn printmaking, try embroidery, get touchy-feely with clay, make your own kilt, start weaving, learn to paint and so much more. And the wonderful teachers and makers featured on the website are members of the Creativity Found Collective. We also have business support enterprises as members who help others grow their businesses. In this episode of the Creativity Found Podcast, adapted from a live video posted on the Creativity Found YouTube channel and in the Creativity Found Facebook group, I chat with one of our members about what they do and how they can help you. And if you would like to join our merry band, simply visit creativityfound.co.uk and I'll see you soon. There we go. We're now live on Facebook and we are live on YouTube too. Fabulous. Hi, Ella. How are you? Hi, Claire. I'm good. Thank you. How are you? Yeah, I'm very well. Are you back in work mode, having been... Where have you been? Mallorca. Yeah. I know. I really needed some sunshine. And coming here and looking at the rain outside today is a little bit you. But we came back on Monday and Tuesday I had already client sessions. I was networking yesterday. I had my own coaching session yesterday and a client as well. So it was really, yeah, good. Ela, start by telling us, please, how you can help creative small business owners to thrive and grow. Oh, wow, where do I begin? I'm an empowerment coach, and I help busy professional women to achieve what they want to achieve without burning themselves out. And I do that through coaching, running workshops, doing talks. And the main sort of outcome for people is getting more confidence. But also, with people who are creative, I'm sure they experience a lot of little pesky voices in their head, like, Oh, that's not quite perfect enough. Let me perfect it a little bit more. Or inner critic, having a go at them. Who do you think you are? Who is going to buy your stuff? All these sort of little voices that we all have. So I help people to quieten those voices a little bit down. And I'm not saying completely get rid of them, because I heard people giving advice like, Oh, when you hear your inner critic, just blast the music and just don't listen to them. You know, you know what's gonna happen when if you don't listen to your inner critic, and you don't give it your little attention, they are going to get like a Glastonbury sort of level of kit, and they will be shouting even louder. And that's because they are scared for you. Those parts are there, because they want the best for you. And they are scared, they are fear driven, they don't want you to fail, they don't want you to be embarrassed, they don't want you to experience shame, they don't want you to experience rejection. So I help people to manage those voices in your head in a way that is compassionate, you know, just like, Oh, I hear you. So tell me what are you worried about? Oh, if you put it out there, people will see it, people will put negative comments under your Instagram, all that, you know, as I all right, I hear you. So giving this voice a little bit of space to tell what they are worried about. And then reassuring them, like thanking them, acknowledging, Oh, I hear you're really worried about it. But you know what, I'm not a little girl anymore. I'm a grown up woman who can manage negative comments, who can manage negative feedback, who can manage anything that comes, because I'm not a little girl anymore, because they came up when we were little, they came in childhood, those voices, you know, so I could do a whole lecture on that. But those, those are like my main tool to empower people to manage those voices in their head. And then with them, the pure essence of you shows up who you really are, because we let those parts, the perfectionist thing, people please, Oh, my goodness, people, please, we let them drive unconsciously our life and show up from those parts rather than who we truly are. By the way, my business is called truly boldly you. So it's being truly yourself, being bold, being authentic, being you. It's about my clients. It's about them showing up the way they authentically are. Yeah, I really understand that. It's funny because recent recently, I think even this week with some of the recordings I've done, some of the editing I've done, people pleasing has come up a lot. Of course, imposter syndrome comes up a lot. I like the way that you talk about it as it's not the absolute enemy and you give it like it has a use. It's there for a use and you just need to control it. It's the positive and negative sides, you know. It's nice to have them at say 20% so they keep us in check, you know, because if you put something that's totally not up to you, they keep us in check. But let's not let them overwrite our lives. So just checking with them. And when we listen to those worries, we can actually check actually, is it good enough or not? What do I think, you know, and you can listen to that part or not listen to that part. Okay. And I sometimes consciously take my my perfectionist sits over here, you know, like on this side of me. And I remember getting a invitation to be a speaker at the event for women in Oxfordshire. And I was being introduced to people who never met me. So I usually be like typing emails. Also, I don't know if anybody noticed English is not my first language. So I'm extra worried about my grammar, my, you know, wording. So in those situations, I turn my perfectionist up and say, okay, come sit on my lap and let's write this reply together. Let's dot all the I's and cross all the T's and do it perfectly together. So there is use of them like this needs to be perfect. So come and collaborate with me, my dear perfectionist. Let's do it. But sometimes perfectionist can hinder us. They can. Procrastination is driven by perfectionists, you know, just like it's not perfect now, so I'm not going to do it or I'm spending too much time on choosing the right fonts, choosing the right colors, all that, you know, so just knowing and managing those voices. Yeah. Yeah. And why do you think it's important for you to be there and other people to be there to give that support? Because oftentimes, somebody starting their own small business will feel like they have to do everything and they have to be in control of everything. But I don't necessarily think that's a very helpful response. So why do you think it's important to have some outside support? We all have only 24 hours a day, okay? And why do something that you might not be very good at, that the VA can do for you, that you can spend time creating things, doing what you're good at, what drives you, you know? So it's a fine balance because there are things that I enjoy doing and the things that I don't, I will ask someone to do them for me. That's the shortest answer I can give you. It saves us time and energy. Yeah, no, I completely agree. I came up with a good idea of something I want to do in the future, but I don't want to do the research, so I'm going to pay my daughter to do it. I could do that job, but I'll put it off as well because I don't want to do it. I'll put it off and then the whole project might never happen. Yeah. And people sometimes think that they need to look for professional to do it. But actually, look at who is in your network, including your family, including your neighbors, including your friends, who can for you, you know, paid or unpaid, because you love them, they love you so much that they might offer to do it for free or as an exchange, energy exchange, value exchange, because we don't know what gaps do we have in our network. Okay, we don't know even who we have in our network. So going through different areas of your life, and what kind of support you might need, and it includes you know, practical help, like people who can do it for me, like, you know, your research, that's practical help. Okay, advisory roles, mentoring, coaching, accountability, bodies, you know, that's crucial emotional support, like there are different categories, and who can fit in it. And sometimes we don't even notice how like, when I did that exercise that I'll be sharing, I noticed that my husband features heavily in lots of areas. And I was like, Oh, my God, so it's important to appreciate some people in our life, people who support us, and show them some appreciation. And also, we can see that, oh, so and so offered to do that for me. And I never took them up on it, you know, I said no, or I was embarrassed to accept. So I'll be also teaching how to gracefully accept help, and how to gracefully ask for help, you know, not from the beginning, oh, you know, if you could do it for me, because I that's weak, that's not powerful, that's not empowered. But asking from the energy of another thing I use is power types, powerful archetypes of women, you know, and one of them is Queen and there's nothing weak about Queen. And if you come from energy of the Queen, knowing that it's not about you, Queen is never about herself, you know, unless she's overexpressed, that's a tyrant sort of energy. I'm talking about benevolent, well-meaning Queen who deeply cares about her realm. And when she asks, she knows that it's not about her, it's about furthering the mission and the vision she's on, you know, furthering the mission of her business, furthering the mission of her family, whatever it is, she knows it's not about her, it's about the vision. Did you always want to do that kind of thing and be connected with communities? I mean, connection is one of my top values. So that's important for me. When I was a teenager, I didn't know I'd be a coach, you know, I always wanted to be a teacher. So I think it's like, next door. I love teaching and the talks I deliver is part of those. But I used to be a teacher of English, believe it or not, back in Poland. So I taught English as a foreign language. Then when I came to this country, which I thought would be just for a summer, and then I loved Oxford and I stayed, and then I met my husband. Now I'm here indefinitely. So I was teaching English in Oxford as well at language schools there. I had a short stint in primary schools, and I think that was just to prepare me for the pandemic and homeschooling. In that time, I nailed phonics and did that with my children. But then I was teaching English, I was teaching adults. teaching people from all over the world. I loved the Brazilians, Koreans, you know, Saudi Arabia, like people from all over the world were coming to Oxford to learn English. That was the lovely pre-pandemic times. And then I had my children. And I remember that was a very different time in my life because I was no longer a professional woman who was going to conferences for teachers and presenting at those conferences and hanging out and having this professional buzz. I was Maja's mom at Monkey Music, and that's how people knew me. They didn't even know Ela. So I felt like my life is now nappies, milk and talking about teething remedies, you know, that's how I felt. And then I saw this advert on Facebook that said one woman conference, a conference for every professional woman. And there was this yearning in me to be there, to be in that professional environment where I'll be a woman, a professional woman. And so I signed up for that conference. It was a conference by organization called One of Many. And after I've signed up, obviously, I started getting their marketing, you know, and I signed up to one of the programs, which was around time and energy management. And there I discovered those powerful archetypes of women. I was like, oh my goodness, I've got the choice how I show up. You know, I can be victim or I can be bitchy and, you know, angry. I can come from energy of the queen come and that's enough, you know, Lego Duplo for now. Let's go to bed with my children, for example, you know, so just that's where that's the easy trigger to lose your cool, you know, so. After doing that, because I saw the value of those powerful, powerful tools, like they were really life changing for me. There were like several tools that I'm now qualified and licensed to share. So after doing that, for example, because every woman should know this stuff, I'll tell my NCT friends about it, I tell my colleagues about it. And then I got an email, hey, we are recruiting the next cohort of coaches, is it something you'd be interested in? And I was like, yeah, where do I sign, you know, and I just started my journey on getting qualified as a coach. So I did a year long training with them, with practice sessions. Then I kept going with my growing my coaching skills with ICF, International Federation of Coaching. And then I discovered other modalities like voice dialogue, you know, which is that part, the perfectionist, the pleaser, the inner critic, the pusher, all of them, you know, so I'm a certified facilitator for voice dialogue. And I was really, felt really aligned with their mission. Their mission is to empower and equip million grassroots women leaders, so they can have an impact without burnout. And I was like, yes, I'm up for that. That's what I want to do as well. Because I strongly, strongly supports that, that when there are women in organizations, in leadership positions, higher up there on the boards, everybody benefits, the employees benefit, the local communities benefit because we are more wired to be compassionate and help and share our resources. So I want to see more women out there being successful and doing things the more feminine, peacemaking way. Yeah, not the outright, as you said earlier, this is bad, this is good, it's more organic than that. How do you logistically actually do that? So you do one-to-ones, you've talked briefly about events, so tell me a bit about how you do it. So I have one-to-one sessions with my clients, most of them are on like a 12-month contract twice a month because that's sort of nice gap between sessions when they can implement whatever they came up in the session with. And I also run events because those tools are so amazing, you know, I love to share them. So I run workshops, one is Flourish, which is about harnessing those powerful archetypes of women. And the other one is time and energy management for busy women. And this is basically all these tools that help us spin less plates or fewer plates, sorry, English. So just, you know, manage ourselves a little bit better because when we do that, and why is it so important? I don't think people appreciate how important it is because when we manage our time, when we manage our energy, we can give more of us to those that we love. Not what's left of us to our family and loved ones, but what we've got and we prioritise better. And that helps us lead happier, happier lives, have happier families, happier relationships with our family, but also with our colleagues because we are less triggered. I've noticed that whenever I lose my cool and get into a shouty mama mode is because I've been rushed and pressured and I need to not be, not behave in a way that I'm proud of. So managing that and having, or also when you are tired, haven't slept enough, we are hungry. Oh goodness. You know, so just having all that. So in this workshop, I will not only be sharing amazing, amazing life changing tools, but also a bit of a mindset work, a bit of techniques for boundary settings. And it doesn't mean to say no to everyone and everything, you know, it's just be more strategic about it and how to do it elegantly that we don't offend people and we still keep the relationships, but we are in integrity with ourselves and we say no, or not this week, not this year, not this month. Yeah, I think that is a really difficult one for some people to get to grips with. When we did first meet, you did a small snippet of that teaching at the event we were at and it really, really resonated with me. Tell me, well, no, we're going to, we're going to sing my, we're going to sing my praises now. What have you, we both go out. We do a lot of networking. I'm very, very into connection and I know you are as well. What have you found beneficial about joining the Creativity Found Collective? Because you, there's just a couple of you at the moment that are supportive on the outside. So you're not teaching your art or craft, but you are supporting other small businesses. But generally, what have you found interesting about joining this collective? So what pulled me first was the creativity, because I don't know if you know about me, I have hundreds of hobbies and I can do acrylic painting and paint, mixing paints and things. It's amazing. So the creative part of it, you know, just like, Oh, that would be nice. And I love going to like, I went to a jewelry workshop once, you know, and just, so I love crafts. I love doing something, you know, and I've been doing cross stitching, painting, drawing watercolors. So that's what pulled me to it initially. What I didn't expect, Claire, was how super, super supportive you are of the members of the community. Like, I'm almost ashamed that I'm not showing up as much as I would like to. Like you created the whole page, you created a whole mini page for my workshop and shared it without me even knowing, without even asking, without even sending you a copy or anything. You just grabbed it from my landing page, made it your, you know, your version of it, put it on the website. And I feel like I should coach you about charging more for the membership, you know, because that's really, that's very rare, Claire. That's very rare, that level of generosity that you give. That's what I love about it, you know, and, and you're everywhere and you're super, super supportive of your members without even going much into like the meetings and things. Just what I see from outside. Amazing. Thank you. Oh, thank you. Well, I'm pleased. Yes. Also super important. I believe lots of people who do are creative, like they're artists, they're doing their own crafty things. That can be a very lonely place to be because it's you and your studio, you know, so having this community of your buddies who are on the same sort of journey with different sort of flavours of that journey, because someone might be writing, someone might be painting, someone might be creating things, practical things for sale. So having somewhere to go and meet other humans and, and connect and share experiences and learn from each other and get support and be able to be vulnerable as well and seek support. I think that's super valuable and rare. Oh, thank you. Yeah, that's lovely. And that's exactly all the kind of things that I and hope that members do get out of it. So that's really lovely to hear. Thank you, Ella. So I'm just going to say a few things before I click off. We are live streaming using Riverside, which is the recording platform that I also use for all of my podcast episodes. The quality is brilliant. They have editing in there that you can use as well. I use it for videos and things for some of the editing, not the deep, deep editing, but it is really, really easy to use. So if you're interested in live streaming or starting a podcast for yourself, there's a link to Riverside in the description here. There's also a link for Buzzsprout because they are the wonderful people who host my podcast. You can find a link to Ella's page at creativityfound.co.uk also in the description. And you can also find a link to join our lovely collective. So thank you so much, Ella. That was brilliant. And I and some other lucky people will see you later as well. Thanks so much for listening to Creativity Found. I hope you enjoyed this episode and gained some value from it. If you did, perhaps you'd like to contribute a small monetary sign of appreciation, either by becoming a regular supporter from as little as $3 per month using the link in the show notes. Or if you're listening on a value for value enabled app, such as Fountain, TrueFans or Podverse, feel free to send a few sats my way. I also occasionally promote products that I personally use. So please use the affiliate link where relevant if you are buying from those fine companies. Thanks so much. I really appreciate it.