#52 - Kim Witten: Yarn Over-thinking, create succes with the help of coaching, mentoring and craft

My coach, Kim Witten, teaches us the difference between coaching, mentoring and therapy. Then, we move on to topics such as the struggle we creatives have balancing structure and freedom (for our craft), and also have an enlightening conversation about “imposter syndrome”. Kim shares a comforting perspective and cites the two psychologists who coined the term in the 1970’s.

Enjoy this incredible conversation with Kim Witten, transformational coach, for the first episode of A Smaller Life in the new year.

Take your own “JWC” Ja, Wol Community pledge to grow in our skills and make better choices for the environment, living creatures and ourselves. Visit www.community.ja-wol.com

Find the main takeaways and some GREAT GOODIES from Kim on the episode page.

 You know me as a guide, mentor and teacher, but I've also set off on a new adventure, coaching. Coaching gets a bad rep sometimes, but when it's done right, it can be really transformational. As part of my coaching education, I'll soon need to do real coaching sessions. And it could be a really great opportunity for you to experience it at no or low cost. If you've ever been curious about working with me in this way, now's the time. Just send me an email: info@ja-wol.com

This episode was sponsored by Ja, Wol. I promote my own services and products in my podcast rather than working with sponsors. I will share the odd-discount for things I fully support and use.

Transcript

Saskia de Feijter: 0:04

Hi, my name is Saskia. I've got over a decade of experience in running a small business in the needle craft industry. I'm obsessed with the healing magic of crafting and the power of community. dreaming big about a world where we rely on value based businesses, the kindness economy, and where we can fully say, Fuck fast fashion. A smaller life aims to inspire you to look at your wardrobe differently. Where do you buy? How do you use your clothes? And can you make some of it yourself? We learn from experts in the needlecraft textile and creative industry big names and small about what it's actually like to run a small business. I'm educated in marketing and photography and learn to do everything else on the job selling pets and and product design, teaching and running a needlecraft school. As a small business owner, you're in charge of everything branding, marketing, selling, promoting and cleaning the loo emotional talks with sellers about wins and woes, product and design conscious decision making, why we do it, how we do it, and what we need to become the future of fashion without burning the help apps. And I'm determined to lift our Cena for the world to notice so they can step away from fast fashion. Today I'm talking to Kim Witten. Kim is a transformational coach and is actually also my coach. We've been working together for a while now. And she's taught me so much things that I think that you should really know too. But of course, this is a podcast, it's not a coaching session. But you will see that if an hour of talking to him, you can get a lot of really valuable tools, things that you can use in the upcoming year to just have a different outlook on what your year will be or things you might do in 2023. So Kim and I, we talk a lot and we also chat over the phone. So we are really accustomed to, to chatting. And I kind of forgot to really introduce her in the interview. Because we really just dove right in. So um, he or she is Kim Watson. She's awesome. Take a pen piece of paper, get some notes, because it's going to be amazing. So, Kim, you're here with me? Not in studio, not here in my room. But you are aware.

Kim Witten: 2:47

I'm in Manchester in the UK, although I do not sound like it. Where did you come from? came from California originally moved to the UK about 12 years ago.

Saskia de Feijter: 2:57

Cool. And what is it that you do?

Kim Witten: 3:02

I am a transformational coach. And I'm also a research consultant. I've had many different career paths. And I consider myself what's called a multi passionate creative. So I've done many different things hopped around many jobs. And I finally in the past year and a half left my corporate job where I was a customer experience manager and UX researcher, user experience researcher and made the leap into starting my own business as a coach helping creatives.

Saskia de Feijter: 3:31

That's interesting because you you say you you have many, many interests. And now you're a coach that to me that's like almost the holy grail of where you want to get this a head full of information. And coach to me sounds like I got it figured out?

Kim Witten: 3:47

I do not.

Saskia de Feijter: 3:51

You do not. But you do have a pretty cool toolbox with knowledge and things you can share with people to help them what would you say is your the main thing that you help people with?

Kim Witten: 4:04

So probably the main area is overcoming overthinking. But that can take many forms and mean many different things that many people, not everybody identifies as an overthinker. But really it's about managing your mind managing your thoughts, your feelings, everything you need to design your life in a way that works for you so that you have the time and energy to get your ideas heard. Be creative, reach your potential, make an impact, all of the things that you want to do in your life. And people might be starting from different places. So they might be starting from burnout and they need to get out of a bad situation or they need to be taking better self care or working through some some particular challenges. Or they may be further along on the journey and they're thinking about okay, what's my vision and how do I increase my capacity and how do I reach these goals may be a mix of the two You that's generally where where I kind of meet up with people and we go on a journey together.

Saskia de Feijter: 5:06

Yeah. How would you define overthinking?

Kim Witten: 5:10

So overthinking is typically thought that is usually really hyper focused. And it might be productive, but it's not necessarily serving you well. So I compare overthinking a lot with deep thinking or expert thinking. And the there it's the same skill set. But overthinking is driven by a anxiety mindset and a scarcity mindset. So this thinking that there might not be enough for this didn't go well, or I have to make this impression, or I have to get this right or do this thing. Where as deep thinking or expert thinking or other forms of more productive thought, are driven by a curiosity mindset, or an abundance mindset. Again, same skill set. So all the over thinkers, I know, they're amazing at focusing on probably the wrong details, right, they can get into the zone, but you know, their thinking and maybe ruminating about past situations, rather than on the problems that they really want to be solving. Right? Or there's something in the way they're good at researching and maybe digging into something. But it's not maybe the right things that are pushing their business forward.

Saskia de Feijter: 6:23

I was such an eye opener when I read some articles that you wrote about this. By the way, subscribe to Kim's newsletter, it's it's full of goals, you need to be on that list. Huge fan, but the overthinking. What kind of people are your clients? What kind of people come to you to get over that? And you said, there's two phases to places where they could be but is it a type of person is it typically

Kim Witten: 6:52

it's creatives. So there's a time it's it's creatives product people, also people who are creative in the tech space. So I've got I have several clients who are developers, maybe in web three, and crypto all the way to maybe the other end of the spectrum, people in the nonprofit space people in the physical hand crafts, we've got product people, marketing people, typically a lot of creatives, but a wide variety of people in the creative space. And some people who are looking for work, I help people, I've got a couple people that I help who are CEOs in the nonprofit space, all along the journey. So really, really anybody if if you're wanting to make an impact, and you're wanting to reach your potential, and you know, you've got ideas in there, but maybe you need focus or clarity about what you should be doing. That's, that's my jam.

Saskia de Feijter: 7:53

Yeah, I think that like really hits or rings true with a lot of creative people having a head full of ideas and like, trying to find direction and organizing everything. Turn it the other way around. How do you relax because creative people probably know really well how to step away from the headspace and going into their bodies in their in their hands and crafting things, especially people that are listening at this moment. Do you do any crafts?

Kim Witten: 8:28

I do do crafts. And I'm so glad you asked. Yeah, I've picked up many graphs over the years of I think probably the longest standing craft is knitting. So I've been doing that ever since I was I think I was nine years old when I was on a train with my mom. And there was somebody across the street from us who was knitting, and she just taught me how to knit on a train. Wow. And then I've been knitting ever since

Saskia de Feijter: 8:54

I didn't know that story. That's yeah, it

Kim Witten: 8:57

was really fun. It made such an impression on me. And I was just fascinated by the needles and what she was doing and yeah, so that I've picked up, you know, crochet and recently sewing, which in the past I've tried sewing, but it was much too fiddly. It's like things that I find. And this is probably an neurodiversity thing, which I have many clients who are neurodivergent it's one of those things where I have a real aversion to following directions or rules. Adherence is not one of my top strengths. It's my top weakness. And as we've learned through strength journeys, we don't really want to invest a whole lot of energy into bringing our weaknesses up. We want to leverage our strengths. There's kind of a upper limit on how good our weaknesses can get and if they're going to drain our energy it's not worth it.

Saskia de Feijter: 9:48

Yeah, cuz I have to kind of explain a little bit because when when you work with game you also do a little bit of a journey into finding out what your weaknesses and strengths are and then using the those things as you just said, to help you grow in your mission, basically,

Kim Witten: 10:05

yeah, and thanks for clarifying that, when you're playing to your strengths, you're getting more energy and your work is more fun. And you're increasing your motivation. Overall, if you're doing things that are draining your energy and not relying on your strengths, you're bringing yourself down. And that could be you know, people are asking things of you, or you're just not aware of, you know, what things you might want to be leading into, and what things are actually draining your energy. So yeah, I've found that adhering to rules has been a real challenge. For me all throughout my life, there's a little bit of a rebellious streak. But there's also a requires a level of sustained concentration that I can find in other places, but not when it comes to following a recipe, or complex pattern. But I'm learning and I'm leveraging the strengths and I'm getting better at it. So sewing has been one of those things that have kind of challenged me to figure out how to follow the rules and how to do things the correct way.

Saskia de Feijter: 11:02

So interesting, because as a craft teacher, I don't currently teach but that's just my identity. Whenever I talk to people that craft, I cannot help myself, if they have a question to start, like fully teaching. But as a teacher, there's a lot of how should I define that? There's a lot of patterns you see in people, things that come back with different people, a lack of confidence, people that have not learned new skills in ages and are struggling so much with the process of learning new things, because they haven't done it in a while. And they have such high expectations of themselves. It was something I always thought was super inspiring and interesting. And now as I'm hearing you talk about this, I'm thinking so are you when you are in the process of learning a new skill like sewing? Are you coaching yourself?

Kim Witten: 12:00

Yes. What does that look like? It looks like noticing your thoughts, I think that is the biggest thing is noticing your thoughts, noticing what's happening in your body, if you're feeling frustration rise, or if your concentration is breaking, and then just telling yourself what you need to hear, right? I think self coaching is the key. And I think working with a coach is you learn how to have better voices in your head more productive, they're all your voices, but kind of having your own back and being able to coach yourself through any situation, things will still be hard things will still be frustrating, you'll still have periods of low energy or setbacks, or whatever. But it's increasing your resilience. So you know what you need to manage yourself through it.

Saskia de Feijter: 12:52

From my personal experience, I actually wrote down the sentence on this in preparation to the interview. And I wrote down coaching teaches me a new language. It's like a guide. It's always in your heads, or I actually wrote down a matriarch. But like, like somebody that is full of wisdom is in your head and always offering you a few points and reminders to help you navigate and you refer to that voice as it's your voice. I think I'm just in the process a little bit too much still. So I still hear somebody else saying this to be. But I think it's a process of making it your own and going from coaching into self coaching. Do you think?

Kim Witten: 13:36

Yeah, I think there's definitely something to that. And maybe I'll offer this and see if it lands for you. Maybe it's about claiming it as your own, because it's already in your head.

Saskia de Feijter: 13:48

It's true. It's definitely just when we go back to the crafting, when somebody teaches you the moves, you are copying their moves. But after a while, they become different from those moves because you making them your own. And as somebody that's just stick with a knitting metaphor if somebody is teaching you to knit continental style, but after a few years, like wait, wait, wait, there's another way to do this. Let's try this. And that really, really clicks with you much more than that becomes your way of doing it. There's not a wrong way or right way, just the way that matches you. In a better way.

Kim Witten: 14:27

Yeah, I think there's definitely something to that. Because even from the first time you do that, do the knitting technique. It's your hands, but it becomes more and more your style and integrated with who you are. And that's why with coaching, you never want to tell somebody how to do something or what to do or give advice because people know better what's best for them. You're just lifting them to be able to see to try and figure out and surfacing what Have those solutions for them might be. So with going back to the knitting metaphor, it's like, you're first learning the technique. And you're you're actually teaching. So you're showing people techniques, and you're giving them the tools, the resources, the process for doing that. And so they're just learning the rote mechanics at first, but then they're evolving and figuring out their style. I was just reminded of, you know, I was saying earlier about learning to knit on the train, I didn't learn continental style, I learned the, I don't know, what's the name for the other style?

Saskia de Feijter: 15:34

Well, it's, I think the picking and the throwing, and flicking is the easiest way to explain it. And there's also probably people listening that don't even knit. So we're talking about the way first where in what hands, you're holding your yarn. And then the way you wrapping it around your needle, there's actually loads of different styles and ways to do it. People talk about it being the fastest, the more efficient, or whatever,

Kim Witten: 16:00

we've been having that conversation quite a bit lately. And so I first started, you know, with the yarn in my right hand, and then several years ago, I switched the yarn on my left. And then now having these conversations with you. And you go into an I love this impromptu teaching mode, where I learned this, like this world opens up of these possibilities of things that I'd never even knew was ways you could do things. And then all of a sudden, I have your voice, your influence is now shaping the way that I think about things. So kind of going back to what we were talking about earlier. It's like those voices. And now I have yours in my head going, Oh, I could do the Portuguese flicking style. Next time, I run into that challenge that I always run into of doing this certain type of ribbing that I hate, but you love and I go up. There's, there's a person out there who loves it, who's very knowledgeable about what she's doing. And I get curious. I'm like, Why does she love it? How is that fast for her? Because it's very slow for me.

Saskia de Feijter: 17:01

Yeah, but this is what I think is interesting that this comes back to having students you in this case, that are in the right state of mind for the right type of information are open and willing to to get that information. And another parallel with coaching versus mentoring or teaching, we'll get into that later. Is Where are you in your journey? And how much advice can you handle? Or are you still in the place where you need just need all the information? And choose from that? Or are you at the point that I've got all the information, but I'm struggling with how to incorporate the knowledge on a day to day basis? I think this works in crafting and coaching.

Kim Witten: 17:51

Absolutely. I think there's parallels among all of these things. And that's, that's why I love being a coach because it's like I get to do all these careers in a sense, I get to see all the metaphors and help people and dip into their worlds and go oh, okay, what's, what's the arena that you're that you're working in? And I think with crafting as well. But metaphors go in the other direction. We can always find a metaphor or an example in the crafting community for any challenge that we're, we're kind of puzzling through in our heads. And those metaphors help us see and unlock a way of thinking, especially if you're stuck.

Saskia de Feijter: 19:29

Hi, there, it's just me, I hope you are enjoying the interview. I just wanted to talk to you directly for a second. I've been recording the podcast for two years now. And I hope I've been giving you lots of value and some inspiration. If you are ready to give back. I have a few ways you can do that. You can go to www dot Yeah, hyphen bowl.com and subscribe to my newsletter. You can become an active member of our yovel online community and work at your sustainable wardrobe, or get mentoring for your small business in our BBB B C program. And if you want to support more anonymously in the background, you can do that by becoming a patron of the show for the value of one cup of coffee each month. It's just a small thank you and it makes it possible for me to continue to talk to interesting people and share their secrets with you go to www dot Yeah, hyphen vol.com and find everything you need there. Thanks. Yeah, definitely. I'm reading a book. Let me just find it. It's Have you heard of Sharon, Blackie? No, I

Kim Witten: 20:44

don't think I

Saskia de Feijter: 20:46

heard it on the podcast. And this book is called if women rose rooted and it's a The title is a journey to authenticity. and belonging. And she talks about stories of mainly Celtic community and how women had a very important role their women and their role in society and starting to regain their space and their place and holding up society. And she uses craft so much as a metaphor in this book. It's always about spinning and weaving and, and stitching together. And sometimes I feel like that's a little bit. To me, it feels corny to do that. But it's so true, though. Like, it just makes sense. So, I'm always so interested in the difference between coaching, teaching, mentoring, and even consulting. And beyond that therapy. We've talked about it, but can you explain a little bit because I think there's so many coaches, so many different kinds of coaches, and not always do they get a good rap? Because no, I think sometimes coaches are the new yoga teachers. Yes. They're everywhere.

Kim Witten: 22:01

Yeah, yeah, there are. And there's a whole range of just to give a little peek on my side of it as a coach and I met an accredited through the international coaching Federation, as well as the MCC. But coaching on the whole is an unregulated industry. But as a coach who's gone through training and certification, I follow code of ethics. There are people on both sides of that there are people that have put in 1000s of hours, and are truly leading the field about what coaching is. And then there are people that are in the kind of almost MLM pyramid scheme that are preying on people who are in a vulnerable position and not good at all. And what I get as a coach, I get a lot of LinkedIn requests, and people who are business coaches who helped coaches grow their coaching business, which is, to many levels of Mehtab. I just don't want to, and this is why I like I want to get back to the coaching community. But I also want to look outward. And but going back to your question about coaching, mentoring therapy, there's a few different kind of lenses that we can look at this through. One would be the purpose, like, what's the goal of each now with coaching, you're looking to help somebody where they are to achieve some goal in the future. Generally, there's variations on all of these things. With mentoring, you're helping somebody get to an inspired state. And usually you're lending your expertise to do that you have experience in something that they may want to have or hear from you to help them get where they need to go. I often joke, but it's kind of tongue in cheek here about therapy. Coaching is like therapy, but for the future. So in therapy, which is a licensed regulated industry, and that's a great thing. With therapy, you're kind of going into the past, and you're unpacking things and you're working through something to help you with your present and your future. Coaching might go into the past a little, but only to provide context, we might go into it if you know both, both people in the conversation are comfortable with that. But we weren't, we're not going to live there. We're not going to work through the past issues, we're not going to stay there or unpack it. We're just going to use it as context of like, how did you get here? What have you done in the past that's helped you, or, you know, has impacted you in some way to help you understand how to move forward? Yeah,

Saskia de Feijter: 24:40

that makes a lot of sense. Thanks a lot. Because I asked you before in one of our sessions, or actually no, I asked it, I think it was just a message to and you provided me with a lot of information, which made a lot of sense because I am teaching small businesses, and am I teaching Am I coaching What am I doing? One of my values is to be transparent and to be honest and open about everything I do. And I didn't want to go in like a field which is not my field I want to present myself and the things I do and the help I offer in an honest way. So I ended up saying I am more of a mentor. I am more of somebody with a lot of experience and in a specific niche. And so the specific things you can do in this field to grow your business. I know a lot of that stuff. But sometimes you you might need a coach or an additional Coach and an additional therapist. It's different needs and also different tools. This is where I want to kind of go into more of a I think it's a really big question but let's see where we go love it. So we're going to the end of the year. And I know all around us and everything we read everything we see it's all about the world and how fucked up it is. Indeed, I think last week I or two weeks ago, I had a pivotal moment where I really decided I'm the kind of person where my glass is half full. I'm not going to be on the side of apathy, I want to be positive, no matter if people think it's naivety. That's my overthinking, I go to the place where I think that positivity is naivety. I don't believe that anymore. I decided I'm going to be positive, future forward. So with that setting, I was wondering, what can we do as makers and sellers in this industry? How can we kind of have a self coaching small toolkit to go into the next year? What are some thoughts? Or questions we can answer? Before we step into the new year, I

Kim Witten: 27:01

think the biggest thing that that we can do is knowing ourselves, the more we know ourselves, where our limitations are, what we want, I think want is a big one, want in the sense of kind of almost like need, like what do we want our future to look like, but also want as in like desire, like, what is it that I crave or longing for and, and developing goals around all of that, I invite people to do this exercise called the 100. Wants exercise, where you make a list of 100 things that you want, and then you do a couple things with it afterwards, which is really key. But even just doing that small thing of just sitting down and making a list, what is 100 things I want, and it can be anything, the first 10 or 20 might be kind of easy, the middle chunk is pretty hard might take some time to do this over sessions, you know, different settings, you might have ideas that occur to you. And then the last stretch is pretty hard. But having all of your wants, kind of in a list side by side, we don't often look at things that way. And so then being able to categorize them, and categorizing them allows you to see, you know, are these health goals or are these physical, tangible things, and you might surprise yourself with what you find. So that can help shape what your goals are for the following year, or quarter or whatever time period you want. You might also find that some of your wants are outdated, and you want to let go of them. But I think knowing yourself and doing those different types of activities to learn more about yourself, learning your values, your strengths, seeing how they show up in different things. But then another big piece, and I know we've worked together on this, and it's really fun work is getting this through line. And what I mean by that is understanding your vision, what is the world that you wish to see for yourself and others from your vision, you then can create your mission? What is my work to be done in this world to create that vision? Once you have that piece kind of defined, this will always be changing and evolving as well, then you can look at your strategy. Okay, how am I going to go about this? You know, what approach am I going to take to fulfill the mission. And once you have that kind of pin down a little bit of like the things you will and won't do the approaches you will and won't take your work becomes really clear. So that's your roadmap, what is the actual work to be done here? What are the tasks, and then you can start planning at that more granular level, you know, your week or your even your month, you can go a little bit bigger, like week and day, and even then the hour, okay, what do I need to do this hour? And if something else comes up, does that fit into my plan? You know, if there's an invitation to do something, or a project that you might like to take on, you can then just check it against the vision mission strategy roadmap, does this fit into what I'm doing? And if it doesn't, then you can very easily say no to it. Hopefully, there might be other factors to consider. But you'll know if it's aligning to your values, if it's aligning to that, that guide of what you want for yourself and your future.

Saskia de Feijter: 30:15

Yeah, as you're talking and as I've been going through the work that I've already done, when it comes to this, how far I've come in comparison to when we just started working together. There's one word that comes up a lot like overwhelm. It's more efficiently because I've read Brene Brown, and I think it's called stress more than it is overwhelmed. But this is a word that's kind of embedded in me over the last few years. And this is actually why I'm doing now what I'm doing to take a lot of that overwhelm away from small business owners that have families or are caregivers for other people in their sort. surroundings and have so much to do and on their hands. And it is so much and they have this head full of creativity and ideas. And they know that they need to write this newsletter. And they know that they need to do some work around their brands, but it's just so much. And then when you sometimes talk to them, and you say, well, you can make a plan. And you can have at the end this thing where you can refer to and go back to and have like an anchor. But then sometimes creatives kind of going into the negative space for a little bit at this moment, then sometimes they say, I don't want to plan a plan is too restrictive. I'm creative, I want to feel I want to be in the moment. And I want to, and this is one part of it. And sometimes it translates to, I can't have a plan. It's too much. I don't have time, whenever I go into my studio, I just do whatever's in front of me. Because I need to do this, this, this and this and this. We need to plan do we do we need a plan?

Kim Witten: 32:00

We need a plan that is right sized, and right shaped for us. Some people need a lot of structure, some people need a little bit. Nobody needs none. Like we need some rails to our existence, so that we can wish Down the Rails, we need to create something but that ideally will create some rails that are very easy for us to I'm thinking of like roller coaster rails. easy for us to slide down. You know, a plan is not a set of constraints or things that box us in. It's more like a roller coaster, that you've set it up for yourself, and then you just slide down it. Ideally,

Saskia de Feijter: 32:44

what do you say when people go? Yeah, but and that's a recurring thing when people say yes, but yes, but that's when

Kim Witten: 32:54

I get really curious. I'm like, Okay, what is going on? There's something there's some resistance there. Yeah. And I want to know what the resistance it's about, there's something that's uncomfortable. And discomfort is okay, that's where the growth is. But if we hold it as information, I want to get curious about it. And I want to go okay, what's that telling you? There's something there about your structure or your day or how you're going about it? That is not working for you. Maybe it's distinguishing between two different types of discomfort as well. You know, two different types of resistance. It's like, Are you resisting it and feeling uncomfortable? Because it's growth? And that's good? Or is it? Maybe the unproductive kind where you're rebelling against something? Or it's too challenging? When things are too challenging? We feel overwhelmed. And that's almost like the the sensor gets tripped. And we're like, nope, too much hands off. Yeah, do that.

Saskia de Feijter: 33:51

Yeah. And that's when you need smaller chunks.

Kim Witten: 33:54

Yes, yeah. Breaking it down to smaller chunks. But I love what you said about the structure versus the freedom. Because I think that is very common with creatives. And I know, it's something that I myself have struggled with a lot. These are my, like two of my core values. I love things being structured and organized and very neat and tidy, Tetris, you know, a calendar with all the blocks, color coded whatever. I also love, freedom and rebellion and being the counterpoint and not following the recipe not having rules, and even refuting the roles. And a coach I worked with at the time said to me, you know, what, if it's not possible for these values, or any of your values to be in conflict, how might that be true? And I've been puzzling on that question for years now. And it shows up in all sorts of interesting ways. One is my calendar. So I want a calendar that tells me how to do things where you know what I need to do, and I want it to be very organized, but I also want it to be open and free and give me the creative, you know, I want to look at it and think ah, and so I've just been working with myself, and with a coach and other people that have helped me to try things out and try to find that balance for me. So going back to your question about a plan. It's trying things and finding out what's going to work best for you so that you have enough structure so that you can be creative and open and free.

Saskia de Feijter: 35:22

As you're talking. I'm thinking about the people that are in the business circle right now. One of which I shall not name any names, but she knows who she is. She has a great system that she calls a loose leaf system, where I also like very much have a bullet journal and wanting everything in place but also needing my brain needs. I can see how other people work differently but you can still learn skills that can help you because this bullet journaling is something that I didn't do before and didn't match my personality. So I thought, but it's the best thing that happened to me. Not the best, you arcing right back at you Veva. You know, like sometimes you feel so much resistance for something that doesn't fit your personality you think or talking about things like social media, should I engage with it or not? One of the things that I've learned this, there's so many ways that you can decide to do something like that or not. And the main question is, is it helpful? And what is the one that you always

Kim Witten: 36:31

say? You can do anything you want, as long as you like your reasons?

Saskia de Feijter: 36:36

That's the one. Yeah, I love that one. One of the things that came up is also, I don't know the right words for it, but it starts with imposter.

Kim Witten: 36:47

Oh, favorite topic. Wow. Okay. Yeah, I relate to this idea of imposter syndrome. And I'm saying that with finger air quotes, but I also hate the term. And I think the term is very problematic. So I might refer to it as impostor ism, or it was originally called imposter phenomenon by the two clinical psychologists. So this emerged from a paper in 1978. By these two clinical psychologists called Clancy and IMEs Dr. Clancy and Dr. Holmes, they were looking at women in the workplace, and they coined this term imposter phenomenon. Like many things in academia, the phrase gets borrowed and changed and then takes on a whole new meaning when it ends up out in the world. But with imposter phenomenon, or impostor ism, I think the phrase itself says a lot about how how we see it. And in the shortest, simplest terms, I don't believe that you're an imposter and there is no syndrome. And when we start kind of pathologizing, this and calling it a syndrome, the metaphor embedded in that is this idea that other people are normal, other people are fine. But there's something wrong with us, we have a syndrome, and we need a fix, and we need a cure. But what's often the case is that we're actually operating in a society that might be a sick system of sorts, there might be people who are not treating us well, or who are gaslighting us or, you know, maybe the situation just doesn't work out well for you. Or you might be This especially happens to people in minority groups where, you know, there's just a lack of understanding of maybe what your needs are. And so what we end up doing is saying, oh, yeah, they're fine. They must be right. They're telling me something. We're normalizing their behavior and pathologizing. Our own perhaps.

Saskia de Feijter: 38:47

Yeah, I think this is really good to hear for a lot of people. And I hope listeners really take this to heart and viewing themselves in a different way. And just opening up this conversation, this comes up for me a lot and doing a lot of work with and around it to get it kind of out of my system doing a lot better. Ironically, one of the moments when it comes up is is actually actually at this moment, I started stuttering even because Kim is my coach. And before I would say I coach small business owners, I don't actually coach I know right now, it's there's some coaching in there. But it's it's more of a as I said before, it's more of a guiding and mentoring, then this question of who am I to teach others when I need to coach myself is something that should really be normalized in a way because we all need, as said before, our coaches, our trainers, our teachers, wouldn't you think of it this way, it would mean that I could never do a workshop in crafts. Because I'm supposed to be professional craftsperson. That doesn't make sense because I don't know everything about crafts. I just know, a big part of it. But not everything I recently learned to do gold embroidery with Charlotte gum. This is something I've never done before I know how to hold the needle. It's easier for me to learn because I have this back catalogue in my muscle memory. And I think it's the same way with teaching and coaching and mentoring. I think I would love it if people had more access to this kind of help. And I know it's not for everybody in terms of if they have the budget to do it. When it comes to time. I'm already like, no, no, no, really, if you make time to do these things, and you probably can just turn off Instagram And there is your one hour of coaching a week. And you will have some time left. I mean, it's true, isn't it? Yeah, I'm going off on attention a little bit, but also when it comes to investing in yourself and in your business, and do you have any ideas about that is something you want to say about this?

Kim Witten: 41:13

Yeah. Well, two things come to mind as you were sharing all of this. Thank you for being so candid and honest about the experience. You're leading a community of people you have all these experiences. Yet, you're saying, Yeah, I need to feel these things. These feelings are absolutely real. And we're all there. So two things one, the thing we have impostor syndrome, impostor ism, is there's this deep irony in it is that you have to have experiences or you have to have earned something, you have to be standing somewhere to feel like you don't deserve to be there.

Saskia de Feijter: 41:51

Yeah, the more you know, the more you don't know.

Kim Witten: 41:54

Yeah, yeah. And so like, nobody's feeling impostor ism, about having done nothing. Like that's not, that's not how that works. It's like, you've gotten yourself to some place, and then you're like, oh, I don't deserve to be here. So what that means is, you've done either one of two things, you either do deserve to be there, right? You've earned it. Or you're so clever, that you tricked everybody into thinking that you deserve to be there. Both are pretty awesome. And you just get to decide.

Saskia de Feijter: 42:27

I think I'm the latter.

Kim Witten: 42:30

That's super crafty.

Saskia de Feijter: 42:32

So it's such a fun way of looking at it.

Kim Witten: 42:34

Yeah, you know, it helps to have those other perspectives. So you can kind of like hold it a little bit more lightly and go, Oh, I see what's going on there. So the other thing I was thinking when you were describing all of this, is this idea, this, this concept of having a personal board of directors. And it's this idea that you can have people in your life that fulfill all sorts of different roles. And like a nonprofit board or, you know, a company board, a board of directors helps you the person in charge, you kind of stay in check and provides that circle of support around you. So that could be having a friend who's a cheerleader for you, it could be having a mentor, it could be having a trainer, it could be having a therapist, it could be having a coach, it could be having all of these things, you know, a person that guides you, it could be a parent, it can be a friend, it doesn't always have to be paid. Sometimes it's helpful, sometimes you want to make that investment in yourself, because you want to follow a program or a course or a person who has the experiences or tools that you want to learn from and guide you. But having as many people around to that can fill those different roles without being overwhelming all at once. You don't want to have like eight different, you know, helpers, that are just overwhelming your time and calendar. But you know, enough that you have different people that you can go to for different things in that it all coexist together to support you in different ways, because you might need things at different times. And that's how the coach, mentor all of that can kind of fit into the same space.

Saskia de Feijter: 44:09

Yeah, yeah. So what I'm thinking, you know, is for a program I did three years ago, I was in an accountability group. And this is a group now of five people that we've now met each other twice in real life, and we live across Europe, and we are have become really good friends. And we are each other's cheerleaders, it's turned from a little bit of a business vibe, more into a personal vibe, because not everyone is pursuing their business goals as much anymore. But it's been super valuable. And the same thing is happening with my first group in the business circle that have now their own accountability group that have worked sessions together, where they really cheer each other on to do some work. And they say, let's just get together online and get this newsletter out. It's amazing, because obviously, you invest in something with money, but you get so much value back. And it extends so much beyond the time where you do invest the money and keeps coming back and keeps offering more. So

Kim Witten: 45:17

that's incredible, because that's also evidence that you're fulfilling your mission, that you're creating vision of the world do you want that these people are now going off and developing their own things and spreading their own messages for a more sustainable world? You know, they're saying fuck fast fashion in their own ways. And you know, you've taught them the tools to do that. And they're now teaching those tools to others are using it to create something you know, that they wouldn't have imagined.

Saskia de Feijter: 45:48

Yeah, that's really cool to hear you say that. While we're on the topic, I want to invite Want you to go over to www dot j a hyphen w o l.com/pages/businesses. Don't forget the w's they're important. If you're interested in doing this kind of work within, let's say, 12 weeks, the next DVB C cohort is happening soon. And you can sign up to get updates or get some more information. And as I'm always saying, you are welcome to email me with questions, I'd even be happy to answer any of your questions on a short call as well. Trust the process, do it messy. And sometimes it's important to have people around you kind of hold up that mirror, even with if you are indeed leaving a community or whatever, it just human, you still get a little bit insecure sometimes. And sometimes it's the other way around. You're like, Ah, I'm acing this. In all honesty, I feel really excited about this new program with the business circle. I'm like, Oh, this is exactly what I needed five years ago, and I'm sure people will love it. But I have to get to that point where people will actually love it so that people don't have to take my word for it. Right. And that's a lot of investment, a lot of energy and fight your own limiting beliefs and your own foster ism. And it's hard hard work. But when once you get there, you're like, Yeah, man.

Kim Witten: 47:29

Yeah. Yeah. It's the whole bag of emotions, right? Look at that bag. And it's like, some days, it's like you pull out Oh, it's insecurity today. Yay. I'm on the struggle bus, you know, and then other days, you're like, Okay, I'm totally on top of the world, I'm gonna be really productive. I'm gonna go do these zillion things and not even overthink it one bit.

Saskia de Feijter: 47:49

Yeah. And sometimes you also surprise yourself, you get out of bed, you're like off this day is not gonna man to anything. And then you're like, bam, bam, bam, like doing all the things. And so what I wanted to say is that I work with women or female identifying people mostly. And what I love about that is there is so much space for each other's feelings and emotions. And that is such a big part of being an entrepreneur or being a maker of sorts. If that space is not there, you cannot fully be yourself. And I think one of those safe spaces that you create together with a coach or people that you guide is so important. And there anything you want to share on what are good conditions to start working with your goals, or as to round off this thing. And going back to stepping into the new year. What's a good starting point?

Kim Witten: 48:46

Yeah, I think there's a lot of things you said, in a good way, just in this last moment, but also even earlier on in the conversation, that's really about all of us just being human. Yeah, we don't have this all figured out. And it's co created. And you know, even what you were saying really early on about, like the embodied nature of crafting and like physical crafting, and being in touch with your body. And so it occurred to me that I'm on this journey of kind of understanding my own emotions, my own feelings, kind of doing more embodied work connecting with my body, I definitely as somebody who helps over thinkers, as a lifelong over thinker, I've spent so much time in my head. And so this idea of, let's say, knitting, and that being really in touch with your body and embodied work, for me, it's more of a kind of mediated way of connecting body to thought, working with my clients as well, or just even having conversations like this conversation, that's helping me on that journey of being able to create a space where people are free to be emotionally vulnerable, or more in touch with their emotions, their body understanding, you know, this thought that's happening in my head. What are the feelings associated with that? Where do I feel that in my body, you know, what do I need to do about that, if anything, all of that, we don't need to be experts. At any point of this. We just need to be there. We just need to show up and try to create that space. It's not going to work with everybody. It's not going to work all the time. The space could change. But as much as I'm trying to help people, they're helping me as well. In both crafting and thought work, and all of that.

Saskia de Feijter: 50:41

Oh, I love that. That that that should be the ending. Just going to add this little piece. How about if you're listening, whether you're a maker or a crafter or A seller of crafts or materials, if you feel so inclined, what if the next time you start creating even if you're just making a pen of soup, think about what you would want for the next year and think about what Kim said with 100 Things you want, you can have you lists next to you. That could be a starting point for opening up your mindset for the coming year and seeing how you can be your awesome self and be extraordinary. This was such a cool conversation. I think Kim and I are masters of metaphors. I love how we kind of weaved and knitted this whole topic of coaching, mentoring and choosing what you want and need for your life. Kim's newsletter is called hold that thought and you can subscribe to her newsletter on Whitson dot Kim slash subscribe is very generous for her to share all these kinds of tools. If you want to go to the website, it's Vitton dot Kim w i t t e n dot k i m slash business circle. So like every time we do an episode, I think it is so important that if you got any value from this, if you feel inspired, please share that with somebody else. Do not go back to the day today and not pass it on in one way or form. I'm not talking about you giving me heaps of money. I'm just talking about taking what you've learned and talking to other people about it. Share some good news around you because that's really important infect other people with doing good things in the world. I believe that the ripple effect really is a thing it works it's there and be the cool you that you are and go on and share a smaller life is the animals completely free way for makers and sellers to learn how to be part of a healthier take on clothes and fashion. Yeah, well offers an online community where they can connect and inspire each other monthly topics with challenges for makers and coaching and support for sellers. We will move the needle for more information go to J A hyphen w o l.com Yellow