I Am That Content Creator Podcast

Ep#103 One Step Forward: Why Your Excuses Are Holding You Back

• Kristen Werner & Mia Steel • Season 1 • Episode 103

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It's the PASSION PANTS RANT....

Ever find yourself standing at the bottom of a metaphorical hill, overwhelmed by all the reasons why you can't or shouldn't climb it? That's exactly where transformation begins.

Looking through voice notes from 2015 after being made redundant, Kristen discovered a powerful through-line in my life's work that remains unchanged a decade later. The message is simple yet profound: when faced with a challenge, you have a black and white decision to make. You either take that step forward or you don't. You jump or you stay put.

What struck me most was how this fundamental belief has guided every aspect of my journey from corporate designer to business owner. After signing for a vineyard and facing redundancy a month later, I had to decide: return to a job I hated or leap into entrepreneurship. The decision to climb that hill to get uncomfortable, invest in myself, and build something from scratch changed everything.

This isn't about demanding perfection. It's about understanding that one step forward is infinitely more valuable than standing still making excuses. The women in my Evolution program didn't join because they knew they'd succeed. They jumped because they knew they had to try, despite past disappointments and fears.

My rowing coach once told me something I'll never forget: "You don't demand anything of anybody. You just step up and they step up with you." That's the philosophy behind everything I do. I won't challenge you to do something I haven't done myself, but I will absolutely push you to recognise your own capacity for growth.

So here's my Passion Pants Rant for you today: Whatever you're procrastinating on, whatever you're telling yourself you're not good enough to accomplish—take that first step. The view from halfway up the hill is already better than the bottom.

Ready to climb? Let's go.

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Speaker 1:

Welcome to the Rogue Passion Pants download drop. That is this cheeky little podcast that Mia and I are just going to drop left, right and center. When we get a download, we're going to download it, we're going to upload it on the podcast and give you a little bit of inspiration. But for me, these are my passion pants rants that's what they're going to be called, because, hell, when I get passionate, I get passionate. So let's go Buckle up. We're going rogue again and by rogue we want to create these bite size, delicious pieces of inspiration for you. That are downloads that Mia and I are going to get. We get downloads all the time. We put them into TikToks. I don't know if you see the TikToks, but we decided we've got this incredible platform here on the podcast that you take time out of your life to listen to, and we hope that when you listen to them, they are your pieces of inspiration, they are your pieces of information that can change the way you do, something that you can implement straight away, and then you can just get the fuck going into what you need to do.

Speaker 1:

So I'm Kristen Werner and this today is my little download. That happened because I was driving home and I've been looking through my voice notes on my phone that are legit 2015. I think it was my first voice note after I got made redundant. I'm going through these voice notes because, holy shit, the inspiration, just the downloads that I was putting in here, what was going through at the time during my redundancy, which is kind of that key turning point for me, because that's where starting my own business, my own online business, my consultancy business. There's so many things that happened in that pivotal moment and listening to these voice notes is reminding me of how pivotal that was to where I am right now. And this is why I'm so passionate about you, understanding your why because the through line, the thread through all of these voice notes holy fuck, it remains the same, and that's what I want to share with you is the fact that this is the same, like it's me, it's raw, it's real. I'm going to bring these to you.

Speaker 1:

And today I was driving home and we've got a hill to our house. It's literally Louds Hill is the name of the road, so it's got a hill that heads towards my home and I remember driving home one time making this voice note and looking at this hill, and I used to run this hill and then beyond that hill it's a dead end. And then beyond there it goes up this huge kind of hilltop and it's incredible. And when we first moved here, I used to run that hill and I have my certificate for in personal training, because I also did that after I was made redundant. Because I'm so passionate about coaching people to get shit fucking done, like I'm not here to sit around and be like, no, you don't have to do it, it's fine, do it the easy way. No, fuck that, do the thing. And so I'm really passionate about moving your body for mental health, and it just takes one step. One step is all it can take to get that little bit closer to what you want.

Speaker 1:

And I remember doing this download and I'll never forget it because I drove in and I looked up that hill and it was I'd come home from a networking meeting that I'd been at all day and I came home from I'd taken on a position as a business manager in a creative business and so I was doing a lot of networking and going out to different businesses and speaking to them and it was, you know, it was a great job at the time and I remember coming home from that and I was a bit exhausted and I was like I just why can't people do the fucking thing? Like what is that? And I was trying to kind of unpack it all in my mind and and I was also building a business at the time called the Own it Project, which is all about helping young women around their resilience and their, you know, moving for mental health. And this whole idea of your mindset is so much stronger than you'll ever understand and as soon as you can get your head and your mindset right, shit happens and that's you know. This was what that project was about. And I'm driving up and I'm driving up this road and I'm doing a voice note. And I just remembered just then, as I was coming home from the shopping, I was like I did a voice note about this. So I've pulled over at home, I'm in my driveway for crying out loud. I've not even gone inside to get the podcast gear. This is download time. Anyway, I've found this particular recording, voice recording which I'm going to drop next so that you can hear and understand where I was at, what I was thinking and the message that I still use to this fucking day, because I believe that when it comes to taking action in your business, when it comes to doing hard shit, there is a place that you can sit and you can sit there and you can feel uncomfortable and you can put every excuse in your path and you can just keep piling the excuses on and keep piling everything on.

Speaker 1:

But to me it's a black and white decision you move or you don't move. You jump or you don't jump. If you don't jump, that is fine, that's fine. I don't care if you jump or not. I don't care if you move or not, that's not my problem. My thing is, if you want that, bad enough. And in your eyes you see up there, you see the vision, you know you're meant for more, you know you were put on this fucking earth to do something more, something bigger, something better, and you don't fucking jump and you don't move and you sit in this space of oh me, I can't do it, it's too hard, I'm not going to achieve it. Nobody cares about what I say, nobody cares about what I think. You can sit there Like that's cool, that's okay. But if you are willing to jump and you are willing to jump alongside me, and if you want to jump into evolution. That's where we're jumping fucking hard and we're fast and we are there.

Speaker 1:

And the women that are in evolution now, fuck, did they jump? Because half of them are scared shitless that this won't work for them, because they have been reminded time and time again in their adventures online, when they've invested in themselves and they've jumped and they've done things, it technically quote unquote has not worked for them. I call bullshit on that, because they wouldn't be where they are if they hadn't taken that jump to get there. So each little step is not a failure. Each step is the start of something much fucking bigger, and what I was reminded when I drove home was that message that I left back in 2015, the same message I'm about to drop here that I absolutely, fundamentally, foundationally, believe in, and that is I'm not. I'm just going to drop it and then I'm going to come back to it. I'm going to do a little rewindy bit because I want you to hear it, because I believe that this is still, to this day, what I wholly solely believe in.

Speaker 1:

Some really, really exciting things are happening, and I've said it many times before, but I truly believe that things happen. For a reason. There's some part of me that I think always had this in me to work with people, to inspire and to get out of them the best of who they are. The Own it Project is growing every single day and it's so incredibly exciting to see how it's unfolding. There is a long, long way to go, but I absolutely believe that there is not a project out there that works with young women to understand who they are, to give them the tools to understand who they are, to change their own, to understand who they are, to change their own world. You have a decision to make in life and it can be fairly black and white. You either do or you don't. And one part of the audit project is we want to work with young girls to help them make those decisions and prove to them that they are the ones that make those decisions. And and how do you actually, how do you have those tools to make those decisions and what do those tools look like and how do you identify them?

Speaker 1:

And the simplest thing is and I think this one really rang true when I said it to somebody is there's going to be parts of the Own it project which is about a boot camp and, for example, we can all be at the bottom of a hill and I can tell you, right, run the hardest up that top of the hill. Now you can say to me I can't do it, or I can't run, or I don't want to, that's fine, that's your choice. You don't have to, you can stay at the bottom of the hill while everybody else switches onto their mindset of determination and strength and courage to do it, to try and achieve it, to think you know what, if I get halfway up that hill and I can't make it, that's all right, because at least I tried, at least I'm still not down the bottom pretending that I can't get up there because I'm too scared to give it a shot. Now, in my eyes, that is a decision, the decision to go and challenge yourself and potentially fall down and stop because it's hard for you to make it up the top, but you keep going or you make the choice to stay at the bottom and not even give it a shot. Now, to me, it is that black and white, helping you build those tools, that you stand at the bottom of the hill and I say to you, okay, let's do this, let's run up that hill, and you turn and you say, oh, I can't do it, or I don't want to, or what if I can't make it or I'm not fit enough? And then we make a decision, and that decision is to give it a red hot. Go and see how you go. So you give it a go and you either make it and you get to the top and you turn around and think, wow, that was awesome, what a great decision. Or you get halfway and think, oh, bugger, I didn't quite get there. And then you keep going. You still get to the end, but you know what. What your mind now tells you is next time you are get to the end, but you know what.

Speaker 1:

What your mind now tells you is next time you are challenged with that hill, you are going to try and make it again, because your mind beat you the first time and it said, oh, we might not be able to do it and potentially you stopped halfway. And you know what. That is absolutely okay, because the lesson you learn right there in that moment is the lesson that builds you strength, the lesson that when you get to the top, you realize how good that feeling was to get to the top with everyone else, to celebrate, look down at that hill and think, yeah, I owned that hill, but without deciding to take that challenge and learn about yourself and push yourself, you don't know what that feeling's like and therefore you're stuck back at the start, where you're missing out on all that great experience that's happening at the top and halfway through. So next time you are faced with a decision, next time you're faced with something you don't think you can do, stop, think about it and, if it feels right, give it a shot. And if you fall down halfway, that is fine. But think in that moment when you fall down, okay, I'm going to keep going, because that end result is what really teaches you some really important life lessons.

Speaker 1:

So fast forward 10 years, I'm still sitting in the same driveway of the house that we purchased. Just after I was made no, just before I was made redundant this house, I'd signed the dotted line and literally like a month later, I was made redundant, and so we were looking down the barrel of owning a fucking vineyard on one wage and how the fuck we were going to do that. And so I was faced with that challenge, and it was either go back to work to a job you fucking hated and do things that you don't want to do anymore and find something that's, you know, not really that great, because nobody does actually pay graphic designers very much money. I was just lucky to land in a corporate world and a corporate space and build myself from there. So I had to make a decision. It was ride or die. For me, it was climb that fucking hill, take that step, invest in yourself, start your own business, get really fucking uncomfortable and do the damn thing. And then you get to work from home, you get to do the vineyard, help your husband with the vineyard, make that happen as well as building your business and your dream. And that's exactly what I fucking did. And so that little that I explained still remains exactly the fucking same.

Speaker 1:

If I am ever feeling stuck, uncomfortable, or jump or don't jump, I think of myself at the bottom of a hill and I think of myself at. I could either stay here and complain about being at the bottom of this hill oh it's hard, it's too much, I'm not going to make it, I'm going to be tired, I'm going to get uncomfortable, my fucking hips hurt, my knees hurt, I'm not good enough. Blah, blah, blah. All of those things can come out, or I can just buckle the fuck down which I want you to do and go. Fuck it. I'm going to go, I'm going to see how far I get and I'm pushing and I'm running and my heart is pumping and my legs are killing me and I'm thinking to myself I'm not going to be able to do this, I can't do this. And all of a sudden I stop and I turn around and I go fucking hell, you've got halfway up this hill. You've got halfway.

Speaker 1:

Imagine if you take a big fucking breath and you slow down and you refocus and you look at that top of that hill and you take another step and another step, and another step, and all of a sudden you are running and you are moving towards the top of that hill. And then you fucking get there and you stop and you look around. And you don't look around and go oh, I'm such a loser I can't believe I did that. It's so pathetic of me. No, you fucking look around and you look at the bottom of that hill and you say to yourself shit, I just said I can't do this and I've done it. I've done it, and it may take you a week, a month, six months to get to the top of that fucking hill, but every time you try and take one more step and take one more step, and take one more step and go back and do it again.

Speaker 1:

You are building resilience, you are building courage, you are building determination, you are building the passion to get to the top. You need to start doing that in your business. You need to bank on yourself. Nobody else, no one, is going to get you to the top of that fucking hill. Will we be there to support you? Fuck yeah, If you want to jump, and you want to jump into evolution, into our yearly container, with these amazing women that jumped, we've got your hand.

Speaker 1:

When you get to quarter of the way and you go, I got to do it. Guess who's going to be like, fucking, let's go. Guess he's going to stop. You say, turn around, look where you were five minutes ago. Now, look where you are Now. Let's take three more steps. Now look back and see where you were. That's the kind of program this is. This is the mission that I endeavor to do with every single person I coach, every single person that I surround myself with. It's making sure that when you say I can't do it. I am the one that says, yes, you can, let's figure out how. And I love that. That voice message from 2015 remains the exact same message that I am passionate about now, and I know that I will forever be that passionate about this message.

Speaker 1:

If I look back at my through line, I look back at my life, I remember my when I was at rowing. I used to row, I was the stroke of the second eight and I remember that our coach at the time, the head of rowing we did a rowing race. We came in, we absolutely killed it. It was incredible. And he came in and he just put me aside and he said to me he said you know, amazing race, kristen, like you guys were stroking at coming through at like 28 to 32, and that may mean nothing to you and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

When you stroke a boat, especially towards the final end of the race, the rate that you are going in a boat can be 38 to 40, like really high, like bang, bang, bang, bang bang, because you just need to keep that boat moving, the momentum moving and the speed moving. You don't have time to stop. When you slow down, the rate that you are doing to 28 to 32, that is pure fucking power. That is like it's a bit of a slog, but it's a big, heavy, long slog. But the power you get when you can be consistent at that rate for that length of time is fucking insane. And he pulled me aside and he said you were rating about. It was like 28 or 32. 32 was like my high point.

Speaker 1:

He was like you were rating about then and he said but what I watched is every single girl in that boat followed you. They backed you. You fucking commanded that. That is the rate you were going and they trusted you. And he said I've never seen in my entire coaching career anybody command a group like you do, and you do it in a way that you will be an exceptional leader one day, because you don't demand anything of anybody. You just step up and they step up with you, get emotional, fuck.

Speaker 1:

And that's something that, as a fucking 16 year old, said, oh, I would have been 17 or nearly 18 then. I still remember that. I still remember that because that message has lived with me forever, that I won't demand that you do something that you don't want to do, but I will step up to the plate and I will lead in a manner that if I'm prepared to do it, fuck you can too. And if I'm not prepared to do it and I'm not prepared to take the risk and I'm not prepared to put myself out on the line, I don't expect you to do it at all. But if I'm going to challenge you on something as a coach and a mentor and it makes you feel uncomfortable, don't think that I haven't done it, because I would not challenge you if I had not challenged myself in that way and know that it's possible to take that risk, to take that next step.

Speaker 1:

So, as I drop this little bomb of rogueness inside the podcast, I hope that today's inspiration for you is to politely shut the fuck up and do the damn thing is to jump. Whatever it is that you are sitting on right now, that you are procrastinating on that you are telling yourself you are not good enough to do. Fuck that shit. Do it. Take one step, because one step is much fucking closer than none. One step is closer than standing still. Two steps closer, three steps closer you get madrift. That is my passion. Pants rant. Maybe this is what these episodes will be called, because this is the kind of stuff that I want you to hear, when it drops in for me, that you can fucking do this and I will be there whenever you need. And Mia and I have created something inside Evolution, inside the Content Hive that we've got you. So let's fucking go, let's jump. Okay, bye, all right, love you long time Bye.