54. Stop Caring About What Others Think to Grow Your Business
How long do you spend agonizing over social media posts, repeatedly overthinking, rewriting, and starting over before hitting publish? Caring too much about what others think creates silent roadblocks in your business, and this pattern doesn’t just slow you down - it can completely derail your business growth.
Through my work with mom entrepreneurs, I've discovered that many of us aren't actually held back by a lack of skills or expertise. Instead, we delay taking action because we're overly concerned with others' opinions. This is especially true for moms who face unique pressures around societal expectations, family dynamics, and the balance between business and motherhood.
In this episode, I share practical tools to help you identify whose opinions truly matter and how to release the grip of judgment that's holding you back. I reveal the evolutionary and societal reasons behind our people-pleasing tendencies, plus actionable strategies to make decisions from a place of alignment rather than approval-seeking.
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What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
How to identify whose opinions actually matter in your business decisions.
Why our brains are wired to seek social approval and how to work with this tendency.
How caring about others' opinions impacts your business growth.
3 practical tools to break free from approval-seeking behavior.
The real cost of letting others' opinions water down your unique value.
Listen to the Full Episode:
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Olivia
Full Episode Transcript:
How many hours did you spend on your last social media post? I want you to be honest. Was it 20 minutes of writing and two hours of overthinking? For me, it used to take days, literally days, to share anything about my business online. I'd write, rewrite, delete, start over, ask three friends if it sounded okay. And then finally hit publish while holding my breath. Because I was just terrified of what others might think.
And as Patrice Washington brilliantly put it, and I've talked about before, sometimes you don't need another marketing trick, you just need to know why you're hiding. And today, I'm going to be pulling back the curtain on one of the biggest silent business killers for mom entrepreneurs: caring too much about other people's opinions.
If you've ever watered down your message, delayed launching something, or spent hours crafting the perfect email, this episode will give you back time, energy, and confidence in all things business.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Here we are in episode 54, and I actually can't believe it's taken me this long to tackle this topic. It's a sneaky obstacle that we may not even realize is happening. We may make decisions sometimes that aren't really aligned with us or our values. And then we aren't sure quite what happened. It isn't until we pause and really consider the motivation for our actions that we can see this obstacle more clearly. And that's what this episode, and really this podcast, is all about: bringing light to some of the obstacles that moms face when starting a business that they sometimes don't even know are happening.
We can avoid taking action and think that it's because we don't have the skills or expertise, but really we aren't taking action because we care about other people's opinions. This is pervasive, especially for moms. And today, we're going to talk about why other people's opinions can become roadblocks to our business success.
Throughout the episode, you're going to be able to uncover where in your life and business you aren't taking action because you might be worried about what other people think about you. And that awareness itself is going to be so powerful and life-changing. But as we do on this podcast, I'm also going to share easy, actionable tools for you to care a little less about what other people are thinking.
I'll give you a list of people whose opinions matter, and the rest, we'll talk about tools to be able to practice silencing them so you can get out of your own way and keep taking action. This is not only a topic and skill that's so important in our businesses, it's also a tremendously helpful skill in our personal lives as moms and caregivers. There are a lot of people with opinions, and very few of those opinions matter.
Okay? So, let's dive in. First, I want to talk about why the heck we care so much, okay? Because if you're like me, you know that in all facets of life, caring about other people's opinions is a complete drain. It's impossible to make everyone happy. And yet, more often than not, we set out to do that, and there is a cost, which I'll talk about in a minute.
The cost is truly tangible and is definitely part of the reason that you may not be seeing the results you want in your life and business. So here's the thing, like most things that end up being really annoying and inconvenient in the 21st century with our brains, there is an evolutionary purpose for why this happens. Just like how our brain tries to protect us from doing anything new in an effort to keep us safe, we are also wired to care what other people think. Because it has been beneficial for our survival to seek social approval. Okay? Historically, rejection from the tribe, as humans, was dangerous, as one can imagine.
Honestly, even today, rejection from our families or friends also feels dangerous. It may not be literally life-threatening in terms of being hunted, but in a lot of ways, it is life-threatening to feel completely alone. So acceptance and belonging are important to us. And our brain, it thinks of this as a survival mechanism.
But then there's also this deeper socialization of women and mothers specifically. And I probably don't even have to state this lived experience because you all know it so intimately. It's the cultural conditioning to be a people-pleaser. It's the smile and nod instead of making a situation uncomfortable. It's the expectations for us to be polite. It's saying yes to things we don't have the time or energy for. Like cooking separate meals for each member of our family instead of just one family meal. Okay? And my least favorite is apologizing for things that aren't my fault. I know we've all been there. You get it.
We are all living it. Society has drilled this perfect mom persona into us, and it's exhausting. The other thing I'll mention about when talking about why we care so much about other people's opinions is because everything we do, we do because we want to feel a certain way. I talked about feelings a lot on this podcast. And this is why. They are at the core of everything we do and don't do.
So when we are caring about what other people think, it's because approval and validation feel good, and criticism and disapproval feel bad. Okay? We want to feel that dopamine hit of approval, and we want to try to avoid the pangs of criticism. And this is a huge part of taking action or not taking action in our business.
A perfect example of this is a conversation that I just had with one of my mompreneur friends right before jumping into this recording. And it was too serendipitous not to share. She's a business coach, and she also does energy work. And she just recently started doing these sessions that are called Reiki for the spirit of your business. And it's basically energy work for your business, which helps to reveal places that there are blocks. And she also helps, you know, you figure out what's stalling your business. And it sounds so awesome and valuable, and I don't even know anything about energy work. But stick with me here, even if you're in that same boat and have never heard of Reiki before.
Her name is Olivia, and I will put a link to her work in the show notes. So you can go to Jenna.Coach/54 to check out her stuff. But we were chatting about our businesses, and I asked her what she found out for herself around the energy work that she has done on her own business. And she said that the biggest block was promotion and being visible in the business. And when I asked her why, she said simply because of her mom and sister. And she said that when she left corporate to become a life coach, they had a lot of judgments about that. They didn't understand why she would give up a very successful corporate career for this thing that they didn't really understand or never heard of, right? Life coaching.
And she said they eventually came around to it and have now accepted it and support her. But now her business has shifted into energy work, and she knows that they will have judgments and snide remarks about it. And she knows that this wanting to avoid the criticism has kept her from promoting this amazing new offering in her business.
She wants to avoid the judgment and criticism because it doesn't feel good, especially when it comes from people she cares about. Caring what they thought of her and the energy work within the business has kept her from taking meaningful action.
Now, Olivia has done her own work on this so that she has been more often showing up and taking action more confidently in her business. But also, one of the tools that I'm going to share that helps us to take action even when people we love and care about aren't fully supportive will be covered. So stay tuned if Olivia's story resonates.
Before we do that, though, it's really important to see how other people's opinions may also be holding you and your business back. Because depending on how deeply we care, it will impact our business decisions. It impacts small decisions, like whether to publish a post or whether to tell that friend about the business idea when they ask what we've been up to. Small decisions to really big decisions, like not starting a business at all, because we're worried about what our extended family will think of us leaving a cushy corporate job to do something we've been dreaming about, right? Like Olivia's story.
Making decisions is one of the hardest elements of entrepreneurship. It's also one of the hardest elements of life. Okay? My husband and I struggle with a simple decision on where to eat takeout. And as parents, we all are making hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions every day. Decision fatigue is real. It takes a lot of energy to make decisions, and it takes a whole lot more energy when we are worrying about too many opinions in each matter.
Whether you make decisions fast or slow, you will inevitably make decisions slower when you are considering other people's opinions. And this can lead to decision paralysis. And decision paralysis basically means you're just not making decisions. You're just thinking about making decisions. And that, my friend, is the land of no action. Okay?
If you're spending all your time deliberating on decisions based on what is most acceptable or what other people want or how they will react, that means you are not actually taking action and doing it, you're just thinking about it.
Another thing that happens in our business is that our vision becomes clouded, and our business starts to evolve not based on what we want to build, but on what will receive the least amount of judgment. Okay? It starts to water down your unique value, which is so important. It's also just exhausting, which I talked about earlier. We want to be in the business of using our energy in really productive ways. And the mental load of managing other's perceptions is wasted energy.
And on this note real quick, I mentioned this before, but it's wasted partly because we can't please everyone. But also because our brains are complicated. I've seen enough brains at work in myself and my clients to know that it's very hard to know exactly what we are thinking at any given moment. And those thoughts are ever-evolving and shifting. So, we could do everything, quote, right to control what someone else thinks of us, but it will always be fleeting because our thoughts and opinions as humans are always changing. And one of the biggest costs on our business is that we don't take action because we're afraid what other people might think.
I just coached a client the other day who said it's easier for her to talk about her business to strangers than it is to talk to friends and family. And when I asked her why, she said because she's afraid of what they'll think of her since she has to see them again and again, right? They're a part of her life. And I shared a really helpful tool with her and shift that I'll talk about in a minute. But what's important is that she wasn't telling people in her life about what she was doing. And how can we build a business if no one knows about it?
I'll also briefly mention that there are unique challenges that us moms, especially moms leaving corporate, may experience as it pertains to judgment and other people's opinions, which include family opinions about time away from children, maybe our spouse or partner concerns about financial stability, maybe former colleagues' judgment about downshifting or giving up or shifting out of corporate. And maybe other moms' assumptions about your priorities. And again, even with all these scenarios where judgment may fester, I still want you to decide whose opinion matters. Maybe that mom group is throwing shade because they secretly want to start their own business but haven't created the time. Maybe their opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.
So before I hop into the tools, I do just want to share another more personal story about how this showed up in my own business. And I think I've talked about this before, but early on in my business, I remember a very clear time when considering other people's opinions too strongly was detrimental.
So, when I initially left corporate, I stayed within the corporate sphere and coached leaders to prevent burnout in organizations. It's how my business started, and I was fairly vocal on social media platforms and obviously with friends and family, sharing resources and speaking at workshops, all the things to be visible, right?
And when I became a mom, not only did I realize how amazing moms are and the community of moms, but I realized that most corporate organizations weren't designed for moms. I was lucky enough to be pregnant with a number of friends who were in corporate, and my heart literally broke as they shared with me the difficulties of their return-to-work experience. And truly the ongoing struggles with mixing motherhood and their career. And I quickly realized that helping leaders stay in corporate was not aligned. And instead, I wanted to give moms options, right? The option to leave corporate and make money on their own terms, just as I had.
But here's where other people's opinions came in. I kept thinking to myself, what would people think of me that I was changing course? I had been talking about preventing burnout for so long. Would I look flaky if I just started talking about helping moms build businesses? It took me months to take action on this business pivot. It also took me so many coaching sessions. Not only was I slow to make decisions, I spent so much time deliberating on what to say and how to say it. Instead of investing time and energy in revenue-producing activities. Right? I was skirting around the communication and wasting precious time.
And here's the thing about this example, because this reframe will probably help a lot of you in this general topic. No one is actually paying attention. Those that are, are literally barely paying attention. No one has time to keep up with all of your posts and emails and exactly what you're doing in your business. But the fact that I cared so much about what they would think about my business pivot stopped me dead in my tracks. Right? It was so hard to take action because I was so afraid of what the internet would think.
So I want to share a couple of tools with you that will help you literally break free from caring so much about what other people think. The first is a simple inventory of asking yourself whose opinion matters and to keep that list in a safe place.
Earlier I talked about how other people's opinions water down our business. And I want to change that a little to say some people's opinions water down the business. You need to identify whose opinions matter. I highly recommend leaning on mentors and experts for helping to shape your business. Decide for you and your business whose opinions matter.
For me, my husband's opinion does matter. I've probably decided that because he's always supported me and believed in me, especially in moments when I'm lacking belief in myself. But I will say, sometimes he has opinions on what I should be doing in the business. And let's just say I don't listen. There are times when his opinion matters less. His opinion matters, but only so far.
So identify who your people are, the ones that matter. Make sure it's people who support you. Don't make this hard on yourself. We always want to make things harder. If your father has always wanted you to be a lawyer and doesn't understand why you would throw it all away to start a wellness business that helps lawyers prevent burnout, then maybe don't add your dad to the list of opinions that truly matter. Okay?
On the list, I'm thinking a couple of mentors and maybe one or two family members or friends. The other category on this list would be maybe ideal customers. So notice I say ideal customers. Lots of people will have opinions about your product or service, but if it's not your ideal client, those opinions really don't matter. If you created a product that serves moms, let's say you created a process that instantly freeze-dries pumped breast milk so that it can be easily transported during work travel. And a man with no children says to you, "That's a stupid idea. There's no market for that." His opinion really doesn't matter.
I want you to create boundaries around who gets input on what types of decisions and try to limit how often you seek validation from people who are not on your opinions who matter list. And I see this all the time in myself and my clients where we talk to people looking for validation and it backfires. We get questions from those people and then we make it mean that it's not a good idea or, you know, that we aren't on track and that prevents us from taking action or seeing our ourselves as successful.
The next tool I want to talk about is considering your future self. And I want you to think about what your future successful self would advise. And I want you to make sure that opinion does matter. So how to make decisions from your future self's wisdom rather than your current fears. At the end of the day, your opinion is the one that matters most. You know more about what's best for you and your family. And I'm confident that it's your future self's opinion that matters more than your present self. Your future self is older, wiser, and will either look back and be proud of the actions you took in spite of other people's opinions, or they'll feel a bit of regret that they were influenced negatively by those opinions.
A quick exercise that you can do is write a letter to your present self from your future successful self. So imagine future you who did not let people's opinions hold her back. Imagine she's writing a letter of advice to your current self around what you could and should be doing in your business.
The third tool I want to talk about, it's one that I absolutely love, and it's from a woman named Byron Katie. And I just love her work in general. So I definitely recommend going to the show notes and checking her out, Jenna.Coach/54. She says there's three types of business. There's your business, other people's business, and God or the universe's business. And you should only be worried about your business. Okay? Let other people's opinions be their business. And God's business is basically things like the weather that we can't control.
So, if you see yourself getting caught up in worrying about what people will think, you can check yourself and say, "Nope, not my business." I love reminding myself to only worry about my own business. This is especially true when there are people in my life that are sharing stories or scenarios that I want to interject and steer them and get involved, you know, steer them in the right direction. But I know it'll only damage the relationship and be exhausting for me. I know we've all been there. We've taken on too much responsibility for other people's actions.
A quick little “not my business” takes some of the weight off of us. So as we wrap up today, I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine waking up tomorrow and making every single business decision based purely on what serves your clients best and what aligns with your values. No second guessing, no watering down your message, no hiding your expertise, just pure aligned action.
The truth is the longer you stay in business, the more you realize that the most successful entrepreneurs aren't the ones with perfect content or universal approval. They're the ones who consistently show up, share their message, and serve their people while everyone else was still perfecting their Instagram caption.
Remember those tools we discussed, okay? Identify whose opinion truly matters and take every other opinion with a grain of salt. I want you to start making decisions from your future self's perspective and even write yourself a letter from your future self, advising your current self on what to do in your life and business. Okay? There's so much wisdom there that you can unlock. And I want you to stay in your own business mentality. If it's other people's business, if it's other people's opinions, don't get involved. Only worry about your own business. And 'business' is not literal business, it's like life and business, right?
These aren't just nice ideas, right? They're the practical difference between a business that thrives and one that remains stuck in the planning stages forever. Your voice, your expertise, your business, they all matter. They matter far more than the fleeting opinions of people who aren't your ideal clients anyway.
So this week, I want to challenge you to release the grip that other people's opinions have on your business decisions. Because the world needs what only you can offer. And it can't receive that gift if you're hiding it. Choose one area of your business where you know you've been holding back because of what other people might think. Maybe it's raising your prices, maybe it's being more authentic on social media, maybe it's finally launching that program you've been planning for. Maybe it's just talking to friends and family about your business.
Whatever it is, I want you to take one concrete action in that area this week, something that scares you a little bit, something where you're not sure what other people will think. And take that action not after you've perfected it, this week, just as it is. And then come share it with me. Send me an email, DM me on Instagram. I guarantee you'll inspire other mom entrepreneurs to do the same.
Remember, every time you choose action over approval seeking, you're not just building your business more and more. You're modeling for everyone around you and your children what it looks like to live bravely. And that might be the most important work you do all week.
All right, mama. Until next time, keep taking action that matters and care a little less about what other people think. You got this.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
And as Patrice Washington brilliantly put it, and I've talked about before, sometimes you don't need another marketing trick, you just need to know why you're hiding. And today, I'm going to be pulling back the curtain on one of the biggest silent business killers for mom entrepreneurs: caring too much about other people's opinions.
If you've ever watered down your message, delayed launching something, or spent hours crafting the perfect email, this episode will give you back time, energy, and confidence in all things business.
Welcome to How to Quit Your Job, the podcast for moms ready to ditch the nine-to-five and build a life and business they love. I’m your host, Jenna Rykiel. Let’s go.
Hi, mom friends. Here we are in episode 54, and I actually can't believe it's taken me this long to tackle this topic. It's a sneaky obstacle that we may not even realize is happening. We may make decisions sometimes that aren't really aligned with us or our values. And then we aren't sure quite what happened. It isn't until we pause and really consider the motivation for our actions that we can see this obstacle more clearly. And that's what this episode, and really this podcast, is all about: bringing light to some of the obstacles that moms face when starting a business that they sometimes don't even know are happening.
We can avoid taking action and think that it's because we don't have the skills or expertise, but really we aren't taking action because we care about other people's opinions. This is pervasive, especially for moms. And today, we're going to talk about why other people's opinions can become roadblocks to our business success.
Throughout the episode, you're going to be able to uncover where in your life and business you aren't taking action because you might be worried about what other people think about you. And that awareness itself is going to be so powerful and life-changing. But as we do on this podcast, I'm also going to share easy, actionable tools for you to care a little less about what other people are thinking.
I'll give you a list of people whose opinions matter, and the rest, we'll talk about tools to be able to practice silencing them so you can get out of your own way and keep taking action. This is not only a topic and skill that's so important in our businesses, it's also a tremendously helpful skill in our personal lives as moms and caregivers. There are a lot of people with opinions, and very few of those opinions matter.
Okay? So, let's dive in. First, I want to talk about why the heck we care so much, okay? Because if you're like me, you know that in all facets of life, caring about other people's opinions is a complete drain. It's impossible to make everyone happy. And yet, more often than not, we set out to do that, and there is a cost, which I'll talk about in a minute.
The cost is truly tangible and is definitely part of the reason that you may not be seeing the results you want in your life and business. So here's the thing, like most things that end up being really annoying and inconvenient in the 21st century with our brains, there is an evolutionary purpose for why this happens. Just like how our brain tries to protect us from doing anything new in an effort to keep us safe, we are also wired to care what other people think. Because it has been beneficial for our survival to seek social approval. Okay? Historically, rejection from the tribe, as humans, was dangerous, as one can imagine.
Honestly, even today, rejection from our families or friends also feels dangerous. It may not be literally life-threatening in terms of being hunted, but in a lot of ways, it is life-threatening to feel completely alone. So acceptance and belonging are important to us. And our brain, it thinks of this as a survival mechanism.
But then there's also this deeper socialization of women and mothers specifically. And I probably don't even have to state this lived experience because you all know it so intimately. It's the cultural conditioning to be a people-pleaser. It's the smile and nod instead of making a situation uncomfortable. It's the expectations for us to be polite. It's saying yes to things we don't have the time or energy for. Like cooking separate meals for each member of our family instead of just one family meal. Okay? And my least favorite is apologizing for things that aren't my fault. I know we've all been there. You get it.
We are all living it. Society has drilled this perfect mom persona into us, and it's exhausting. The other thing I'll mention about when talking about why we care so much about other people's opinions is because everything we do, we do because we want to feel a certain way. I talked about feelings a lot on this podcast. And this is why. They are at the core of everything we do and don't do.
So when we are caring about what other people think, it's because approval and validation feel good, and criticism and disapproval feel bad. Okay? We want to feel that dopamine hit of approval, and we want to try to avoid the pangs of criticism. And this is a huge part of taking action or not taking action in our business.
A perfect example of this is a conversation that I just had with one of my mompreneur friends right before jumping into this recording. And it was too serendipitous not to share. She's a business coach, and she also does energy work. And she just recently started doing these sessions that are called Reiki for the spirit of your business. And it's basically energy work for your business, which helps to reveal places that there are blocks. And she also helps, you know, you figure out what's stalling your business. And it sounds so awesome and valuable, and I don't even know anything about energy work. But stick with me here, even if you're in that same boat and have never heard of Reiki before.
Her name is Olivia, and I will put a link to her work in the show notes. So you can go to Jenna.Coach/54 to check out her stuff. But we were chatting about our businesses, and I asked her what she found out for herself around the energy work that she has done on her own business. And she said that the biggest block was promotion and being visible in the business. And when I asked her why, she said simply because of her mom and sister. And she said that when she left corporate to become a life coach, they had a lot of judgments about that. They didn't understand why she would give up a very successful corporate career for this thing that they didn't really understand or never heard of, right? Life coaching.
And she said they eventually came around to it and have now accepted it and support her. But now her business has shifted into energy work, and she knows that they will have judgments and snide remarks about it. And she knows that this wanting to avoid the criticism has kept her from promoting this amazing new offering in her business.
She wants to avoid the judgment and criticism because it doesn't feel good, especially when it comes from people she cares about. Caring what they thought of her and the energy work within the business has kept her from taking meaningful action.
Now, Olivia has done her own work on this so that she has been more often showing up and taking action more confidently in her business. But also, one of the tools that I'm going to share that helps us to take action even when people we love and care about aren't fully supportive will be covered. So stay tuned if Olivia's story resonates.
Before we do that, though, it's really important to see how other people's opinions may also be holding you and your business back. Because depending on how deeply we care, it will impact our business decisions. It impacts small decisions, like whether to publish a post or whether to tell that friend about the business idea when they ask what we've been up to. Small decisions to really big decisions, like not starting a business at all, because we're worried about what our extended family will think of us leaving a cushy corporate job to do something we've been dreaming about, right? Like Olivia's story.
Making decisions is one of the hardest elements of entrepreneurship. It's also one of the hardest elements of life. Okay? My husband and I struggle with a simple decision on where to eat takeout. And as parents, we all are making hundreds, if not thousands, of decisions every day. Decision fatigue is real. It takes a lot of energy to make decisions, and it takes a whole lot more energy when we are worrying about too many opinions in each matter.
Whether you make decisions fast or slow, you will inevitably make decisions slower when you are considering other people's opinions. And this can lead to decision paralysis. And decision paralysis basically means you're just not making decisions. You're just thinking about making decisions. And that, my friend, is the land of no action. Okay?
If you're spending all your time deliberating on decisions based on what is most acceptable or what other people want or how they will react, that means you are not actually taking action and doing it, you're just thinking about it.
Another thing that happens in our business is that our vision becomes clouded, and our business starts to evolve not based on what we want to build, but on what will receive the least amount of judgment. Okay? It starts to water down your unique value, which is so important. It's also just exhausting, which I talked about earlier. We want to be in the business of using our energy in really productive ways. And the mental load of managing other's perceptions is wasted energy.
And on this note real quick, I mentioned this before, but it's wasted partly because we can't please everyone. But also because our brains are complicated. I've seen enough brains at work in myself and my clients to know that it's very hard to know exactly what we are thinking at any given moment. And those thoughts are ever-evolving and shifting. So, we could do everything, quote, right to control what someone else thinks of us, but it will always be fleeting because our thoughts and opinions as humans are always changing. And one of the biggest costs on our business is that we don't take action because we're afraid what other people might think.
I just coached a client the other day who said it's easier for her to talk about her business to strangers than it is to talk to friends and family. And when I asked her why, she said because she's afraid of what they'll think of her since she has to see them again and again, right? They're a part of her life. And I shared a really helpful tool with her and shift that I'll talk about in a minute. But what's important is that she wasn't telling people in her life about what she was doing. And how can we build a business if no one knows about it?
I'll also briefly mention that there are unique challenges that us moms, especially moms leaving corporate, may experience as it pertains to judgment and other people's opinions, which include family opinions about time away from children, maybe our spouse or partner concerns about financial stability, maybe former colleagues' judgment about downshifting or giving up or shifting out of corporate. And maybe other moms' assumptions about your priorities. And again, even with all these scenarios where judgment may fester, I still want you to decide whose opinion matters. Maybe that mom group is throwing shade because they secretly want to start their own business but haven't created the time. Maybe their opinion should be taken with a grain of salt.
So before I hop into the tools, I do just want to share another more personal story about how this showed up in my own business. And I think I've talked about this before, but early on in my business, I remember a very clear time when considering other people's opinions too strongly was detrimental.
So, when I initially left corporate, I stayed within the corporate sphere and coached leaders to prevent burnout in organizations. It's how my business started, and I was fairly vocal on social media platforms and obviously with friends and family, sharing resources and speaking at workshops, all the things to be visible, right?
And when I became a mom, not only did I realize how amazing moms are and the community of moms, but I realized that most corporate organizations weren't designed for moms. I was lucky enough to be pregnant with a number of friends who were in corporate, and my heart literally broke as they shared with me the difficulties of their return-to-work experience. And truly the ongoing struggles with mixing motherhood and their career. And I quickly realized that helping leaders stay in corporate was not aligned. And instead, I wanted to give moms options, right? The option to leave corporate and make money on their own terms, just as I had.
But here's where other people's opinions came in. I kept thinking to myself, what would people think of me that I was changing course? I had been talking about preventing burnout for so long. Would I look flaky if I just started talking about helping moms build businesses? It took me months to take action on this business pivot. It also took me so many coaching sessions. Not only was I slow to make decisions, I spent so much time deliberating on what to say and how to say it. Instead of investing time and energy in revenue-producing activities. Right? I was skirting around the communication and wasting precious time.
And here's the thing about this example, because this reframe will probably help a lot of you in this general topic. No one is actually paying attention. Those that are, are literally barely paying attention. No one has time to keep up with all of your posts and emails and exactly what you're doing in your business. But the fact that I cared so much about what they would think about my business pivot stopped me dead in my tracks. Right? It was so hard to take action because I was so afraid of what the internet would think.
So I want to share a couple of tools with you that will help you literally break free from caring so much about what other people think. The first is a simple inventory of asking yourself whose opinion matters and to keep that list in a safe place.
Earlier I talked about how other people's opinions water down our business. And I want to change that a little to say some people's opinions water down the business. You need to identify whose opinions matter. I highly recommend leaning on mentors and experts for helping to shape your business. Decide for you and your business whose opinions matter.
For me, my husband's opinion does matter. I've probably decided that because he's always supported me and believed in me, especially in moments when I'm lacking belief in myself. But I will say, sometimes he has opinions on what I should be doing in the business. And let's just say I don't listen. There are times when his opinion matters less. His opinion matters, but only so far.
So identify who your people are, the ones that matter. Make sure it's people who support you. Don't make this hard on yourself. We always want to make things harder. If your father has always wanted you to be a lawyer and doesn't understand why you would throw it all away to start a wellness business that helps lawyers prevent burnout, then maybe don't add your dad to the list of opinions that truly matter. Okay?
On the list, I'm thinking a couple of mentors and maybe one or two family members or friends. The other category on this list would be maybe ideal customers. So notice I say ideal customers. Lots of people will have opinions about your product or service, but if it's not your ideal client, those opinions really don't matter. If you created a product that serves moms, let's say you created a process that instantly freeze-dries pumped breast milk so that it can be easily transported during work travel. And a man with no children says to you, "That's a stupid idea. There's no market for that." His opinion really doesn't matter.
I want you to create boundaries around who gets input on what types of decisions and try to limit how often you seek validation from people who are not on your opinions who matter list. And I see this all the time in myself and my clients where we talk to people looking for validation and it backfires. We get questions from those people and then we make it mean that it's not a good idea or, you know, that we aren't on track and that prevents us from taking action or seeing our ourselves as successful.
The next tool I want to talk about is considering your future self. And I want you to think about what your future successful self would advise. And I want you to make sure that opinion does matter. So how to make decisions from your future self's wisdom rather than your current fears. At the end of the day, your opinion is the one that matters most. You know more about what's best for you and your family. And I'm confident that it's your future self's opinion that matters more than your present self. Your future self is older, wiser, and will either look back and be proud of the actions you took in spite of other people's opinions, or they'll feel a bit of regret that they were influenced negatively by those opinions.
A quick exercise that you can do is write a letter to your present self from your future successful self. So imagine future you who did not let people's opinions hold her back. Imagine she's writing a letter of advice to your current self around what you could and should be doing in your business.
The third tool I want to talk about, it's one that I absolutely love, and it's from a woman named Byron Katie. And I just love her work in general. So I definitely recommend going to the show notes and checking her out, Jenna.Coach/54. She says there's three types of business. There's your business, other people's business, and God or the universe's business. And you should only be worried about your business. Okay? Let other people's opinions be their business. And God's business is basically things like the weather that we can't control.
So, if you see yourself getting caught up in worrying about what people will think, you can check yourself and say, "Nope, not my business." I love reminding myself to only worry about my own business. This is especially true when there are people in my life that are sharing stories or scenarios that I want to interject and steer them and get involved, you know, steer them in the right direction. But I know it'll only damage the relationship and be exhausting for me. I know we've all been there. We've taken on too much responsibility for other people's actions.
A quick little “not my business” takes some of the weight off of us. So as we wrap up today, I want you to imagine something with me. Imagine waking up tomorrow and making every single business decision based purely on what serves your clients best and what aligns with your values. No second guessing, no watering down your message, no hiding your expertise, just pure aligned action.
The truth is the longer you stay in business, the more you realize that the most successful entrepreneurs aren't the ones with perfect content or universal approval. They're the ones who consistently show up, share their message, and serve their people while everyone else was still perfecting their Instagram caption.
Remember those tools we discussed, okay? Identify whose opinion truly matters and take every other opinion with a grain of salt. I want you to start making decisions from your future self's perspective and even write yourself a letter from your future self, advising your current self on what to do in your life and business. Okay? There's so much wisdom there that you can unlock. And I want you to stay in your own business mentality. If it's other people's business, if it's other people's opinions, don't get involved. Only worry about your own business. And 'business' is not literal business, it's like life and business, right?
These aren't just nice ideas, right? They're the practical difference between a business that thrives and one that remains stuck in the planning stages forever. Your voice, your expertise, your business, they all matter. They matter far more than the fleeting opinions of people who aren't your ideal clients anyway.
So this week, I want to challenge you to release the grip that other people's opinions have on your business decisions. Because the world needs what only you can offer. And it can't receive that gift if you're hiding it. Choose one area of your business where you know you've been holding back because of what other people might think. Maybe it's raising your prices, maybe it's being more authentic on social media, maybe it's finally launching that program you've been planning for. Maybe it's just talking to friends and family about your business.
Whatever it is, I want you to take one concrete action in that area this week, something that scares you a little bit, something where you're not sure what other people will think. And take that action not after you've perfected it, this week, just as it is. And then come share it with me. Send me an email, DM me on Instagram. I guarantee you'll inspire other mom entrepreneurs to do the same.
Remember, every time you choose action over approval seeking, you're not just building your business more and more. You're modeling for everyone around you and your children what it looks like to live bravely. And that might be the most important work you do all week.
All right, mama. Until next time, keep taking action that matters and care a little less about what other people think. You got this.
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of How to Quit Your Job: A Mom’s Guide to Creating a Life and Business You Love. If you want to learn more about how I can help you stop making excuses and start making moves, head on over to www.jenna.coach. I’ll see you next week.
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