This is a self-coaching method that I came up with that's really, really flexible, and I hope you agree.
Show Notes
I'm so excited about today's show because I've wanted to share this with you. I call it the R.E.L.E.A.S.E. Method.
This is a self-coaching method that I came up with that's really, really flexible, and I hope you agree. It's helped me get clarity and provided me with a framework for making decisions.
In the R.E.L.E.A.S.E Method, I reflect, evaluate, talk about leaning in and just kind of lingering, and spend time learning how to feel. Check it out!
- The RELEASE Method - 7 steps to releasing your biggest sales blocks + attracting your next client
Other resources
- Black Girl Business Bar: My 2021 in review and 2022 goals
- The Black Girl Business Bar Facebook community
- Book a clarity call with Khalida
More on Khalida
Khalida DuBose is a business mentor specializing in sales strategy. As a previous crowdfunding coach, she supported more than a thousand crowdfunding campaigns and project creators in their quest to bring their dreams, passions, and ideas to the world. Now, she focuses on helping women of color who are early-stage online business owners as they navigate the entrepreneurial journey. For more information on Khalida, visit khalidadubose.com. Follow Khalida on Instagram @khalida.dubose. You can email her at khalida@blackgirlbusinessbar.com.
The Black Girl Business Bar is produced by Zuri Berry (@ZMCPodcasts). Music by Vincent Tone and Die Hard Productions.
Creators & Guests
What is The Black Girl Business Bar?
The Black Girl Business Bar Podcast is for Black entrepreneurial women who crave practical information to implement in their businesses and careers. They want tips and tactics that work and they want on-the-go mentorship that will make a difference in their businesses, projects, and lives.
Hosted by business coach and crowdfunding expert Khalida DuBose, the Black Girl Business Bar is all about letting Black women know what's possible for them in their entrepreneurial journey.
Alrighty, friends. My first gift to you in 2022 is to share my Release Method. This method is a tool that has really helped me to slow down and get intentional about what I want, instead of going through one spiral after another, in my business. It can also be used in your personal life.
Welcome to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. I'm your host Khalida DuBose. This podcast is all about helping you as a woman of color, increase your sales, overcome your mindset blocks and giving you the practical information that you need to thrive in your business and your life. Today, I'm going to talk to you about one of my favorite tools that I use to coach myself through any resistance or any tough periods in my business and in my life.
So I am so excited about today's show because I have been wanting to share this information with you. I've been wanting to share this tool that I have with you for such a long time. And it's finally here. Today's theme is really about mindset and I'm going to share with you just a little self-coaching method that I came up with that's really, really flexible in my opinion. And now you'll have access to it.
So after you listen to this show, make sure you click on the link in the show notes so that you can get access to what I'm talking about. And what that's going to look like is I am going to be coaching you through this method via video audio. So can't wait to hop into it.
All right. So to give you a little bit of background, last year 2021, I was spiraling a lot for about a period of two to three months in my business. Okay, so before I even finish that sentence. If you have not listened to my episode from last week where I go through a review of my 2021. And then I tell you what my goals are in 2022, make sure you check that episode out because it kind of gives you an idea of how my year shaped up. It shaped up pretty well. But I wanted to share this with you because we're at the start of the new year and I think that sometimes that can cause us a little bit of anxiousness when people are putting their goals out there, when people were telling you like how well they did, and they're showing you all the highlight reels and you're like, oh, why am I not making it? So this is when spirals start to happen. Okay.
But when I say spiraling, what I mean by that is I was just constantly second-guessing myself. I was comparing myself, not really my physical self, but like my messaging, my content, I felt stuck sometimes. I felt like am I doing the right thing? Right? I would just really, wasn't trusting myself and I kept looking for answers everywhere. Right. So I found myself going back into this place where I was looking for answers everywhere, which is kind of crazy because I had left that place and was feeling really good. And then all of a sudden, I like found myself in this place. Except it didn't happen all of a sudden. It happened slowly because I was not really being good with my mindset practices and figuring out like what I needed to do to keep my mindset healthy. Right. So we need to have practices. And I think I've talked about it on this podcast before, but we need to have practices that not only can we use on a consistent basis so that we kind of ward off the, you know, that kind of dropping off of a cliff and spiraling down. And then you find yourself like so far down and you have to like dig yourself out of that hole. But we also need to have. You know, mindset, practices and tools that we can go to when we do find ourselves like, oops, I stepped off the cliff a little bit, right?
Not really a little bit. You can't really stop, but you get my point.
Um, when you just kind of feel like you're inching towards that unhealthy place in your mind, you know, and this happens to us. In the middle of growth, when we get to the next level, if we're healing from something, it can be really easy to slip back, right?
So I had all the support that I needed and I found myself slipping back and I was like, okay, what is going on with me? At one point I just felt like I had enough. I was kind of getting sick of myself. I was going to my coaches, we were talking and it just didn't feel like we were making any leeway. I couldn't hear what she was saying. And I, I feel like I manage it outwardly pretty well, but internally I just felt like I was all over the place. And I knew something was up. Right. So I was like, okay, I'm going to have to take some responsibility for this and figure it out. And so I decided to meditate, you know, like just really lean into some of the tools that I had learned when I was in trauma therapy, like the breathing techniques.
So I had been using the Headspace app since about 2017, 2018. And I learned some techniques from that app around doing body scans, types of breathing that you can do, how you should meditate.
And so I sat down, I didn't sit down with an app or anything, but I just decided to sit down and just calm myself. I was really kind of frustrated with myself for looking for answers outside of myself and everything like that. And so I decided that I was going to allow my voice to be the loudest in my own head instead of listening to everybody else in searching for answers.
So I did that for about a period of a week and I noticed so much clarity, right? I'm not exaggerating when I say this, I just noticed so much clarity.
So one of the things I think that I did right in that instance was making a decision, right? Like a solid decision that like, I don't want everybody else's voice to be in my head. I've opened myself up. I'm giving my power away by like looking at what everybody else has been comparing it to myself and then putting myself down. I want my voice to be the loudest. I want to hear what my intuition is telling me. I have a lot of experience. I have clients I'm coaching them on some of the same stuff. I need to ground myself.
And I needed to like work with my spirit, right. So I found myself at the end of that, you know, period with like so much clarity and just my mood, like, went from probablya five to like a 12. I just felt so good. And all of a sudden, I was like in session with my coach, just like having realization after realization, after realization. And I just remember like seeing her face she's like, what's going on here? You know?
I was just so excited because all of a sudden these ideas were coming to me. It's like ideas that I had, but they weren't clear. They were like really fuzzy. They felt really unsafe. And then all of a sudden it just felt like I was like, oh, I could crush that. Oh yeah, I could do that. Or, oh yeah that would be so simple. Or no, that's not the right way for me to go. Like, everything just felt so clear. Sorry. I'm like snapping.
And so I could feel like sharply in my gut that I just had good ideas or that this was the next step for me to take. And, and so at this point I'm like, whoa, what just happened here? Right. And what happened was, I had finally like kind of lifted that fog. I had finally gotten a little bit of clarity. And so that, that really felt good to me.
And so I took notice of that and I started journaling about it because at that point I was feeling super confident. Like I said, about my content. I was giving myself permission to do things. You know, and it dawned on me that like, I'm finally relaxed enough. You know, I finally kind of calmed down enough. I've given myself the space in my own head, instead of listening to everybody else and trying to find something outside of myself. And I really want to pay attention to this.
So I got to work and I started writing down, like, what are the things that I have done? Like what's making me feel this way. So essentially I started asking myself like some really important questions. Right? Asking myself a deeper question. Then the next question, the next question, just writing it down. Like I have pages and pages and pages in my journal of just so much writing. And I got to this point where I realized what my spiral was actually about. And what it was about was it didn't feel aligned to me to be in a position where I'm taking clients, I'm helping them, I literally go through this with my clients. I ask them question after question to help them get to what's going on with them. Because we know the most important. And then I wasn't doing that myself.
So I think for myself personally, when that happens, when I know that I'm like out of alignment with what I know I'm supposed to be doing, whether that's a practice or something, and I don't like the word supposed to. I knew that I really wasn't just doing the work with myself. I was kind of getting lazy a little bit with myself and just letting my attention go everywhere else.
And so that's what my spiral is about. I was essentially just feeling like a little bit let down that I wasn't like keeping up my practices and you know, what's going on. So it was a really good lesson in just making sure I like maintain those practices because they're there for a reason.
So I had three real, key realizations at this point. So number one, I figured out through all my journaling and like how I felt in the meditation, that I had all the answers that I needed inside of me.
And again, no duh because I always tell my clients this. We have the answers inside of us and like, it's my job actually, to help pull them out of you.
Number two, I could use this tool. I.E. my self-coaching, which at the time I didn't realize it was self-coaching, but I could use this for clarity anytime I needed it. It's not that I don't have to go to somebody. I don't have to schedule an appointment. I don't have to wait. I don't have to pay for it. I can sit down with myself. And the only thing I'm using is time. Right? I can sit down with myself. I can take some quiet, get into an environment that I need to be in, and I can sit with myself and ask questions.
And I had this belief, even though I had to strengthen the belief over time, but I had this belief, this initial belief that I would always have the perfect answer for that time. That I could go and just ask myself the questions and dig deep enough and then I would get closer and closer to the perfect answer. And at the time it would be the perfect answer.
And then the third thing that was a realization for me, was getting clear, is where it all starts. And then I take the aligned actions. So instead of just doing something because it looks like it's working for somebody else, or just going to the next thing because it's what you think you're supposed to do. You know that word, there we go again. Or this is what I should do. Right? It's instead of getting clear before you force yourself to take those aligned actions.
Okay, so story time over. At least that point I want to do to kind of have a background on like what led me to thinking through this process. So what I'm not gonna do in this podcast is give you like the whole release method and like walk you through it piece by piece. Right? I want you to do that on your own. I've recorded videos where I sit there, we breathe together for a few minutes, and then I talk about what you should write down. And that's just one scenario of let's have you sit here and let's have you write. And I gave you the prompts.
In the show notes, you can click on the link and it's going to have you opt in and then you are going to have these videos emailed to you. And along with it, I've created a workbook so that you can kind of keep your notes organized. My recommendation is that you print this workbook off and you take some time each day and you spend about 20 minutes with yourself over the period of five days. And you just practice this kind of self-coaching using this tool.
Especially those of you out there who are like, really, like, I'm not into the woo woo stuff. I want the cold, hard strategy. I don't believe in mindset stuff. Like if that's you, that's where your edge is. That's where you need to kind of step into a little bit more so that you can start getting the results that you want.
If you're like completely against the mindset stuff. You know, you're not going to get there alone with just strategy. If you're completely against the strategy stuff and you just only want to do mindset work, you're not going to get there with some actual action steps. Right? So there has to be a balance.
Okay, and this is just, of course, one tool, one modality, but I'm sharing this with you because I think that it's flexible and you can try it out my way, and then you can choose to figure out what's working for you and how this translates best for you.
So I call this the Release Method because it was just a fun acronym because I was kind of releasing all that stress when I was going through this. I was releasing all that, like everybody else's voice and you know, all of the mental anguish I was putting myself through by like looking at what everybody else is doing or trying to figure things out. Trying to take steps before I'm even aligned or before I'm even clear. Right? Everything starts with the clarity. That's my model. Everything starts with clarity. Be clear first before you take steps. In this Release Method, I reflect, I evaluate, I talk about leaning in and just kind of lingering, learning how to feel. Our bodies have so much information from us, but we are so disconnected. Our heads and our bodies are just so disconnected. Right. I talk about gathering evidence. You guys know, I love to talk about gathering evidence. I talk about asking powerful questions. That's the best thing we can do for ourselves.
So let's say you go through this release method and you're like, okay. Yeah, I see. Okay. I see what she's saying.
And it takes you like 90 minutes right. Now, of course, the first time you go through this, it's going to be broken up in days for you so that you can kind of just go through it. You have a little bit of prompts. But what I like to do is after a while, you know, after the first time after the first time you do this, you'll have it there. You'll have the workbook. You can print it again and you can sit down once a month and you could do this, if you're making bigger decisions in your business. Or you could take some time each day and go through it, it really is up to you. Right. Very flexible.
And so sometimes I just will journal on powerful questions that I need to ask myself. Because I don't need to go through the whole thing at that moment. So for instance, if there's a time where I want to ask myself some powerful questions around content, then I can sit and ask myself questions and dig deeper and keep asking questions and keep get to the root of it until I can really feel okay my body's having a reaction, yet my guts telling me that this is the real question I needed to ask. From that point I can decide to strategize. How do I want to implement that? Then what tactics do I want to take? You know, what's the strategy here? What's the tactic or do I want to leave my strategy in place and do I want to add this tactic or swap this one out? And then I just execute on whatever those steps were.
So, yep, we ask powerful questions and then we strategize based on the information that we get from those powerful questions.
Because that's in our strategy, that's where we have aligned actions. So these actions we're not just pulling them out of the sky. And then we execute on those things. Right? We actually take the steps to do it, and we're consistent in what we do. And we keep showing up for what we do.
That's it in a nutshell, right? Like I said, I don't want to get into everything. I'm not going to get into like different scenarios, because it might not make sense for you. I want you to think about this on your own and really think about like, do you already have a method where you kind of self-coach yourself? Do you already have a habit of journaling? If you do, this would probably be easier for you. If you don't, that's cool too. You know, we, we're always here to learn something new.
So I'm going to walk you through the step-by-step directions in the video. I have a workbook for you. And what I really want you to do is just make it your own.
At first I thought, you know, should I share this? It's kind of long, you know, you have to go through all these steps. But yes, I want to share this with you because I think it's important. And I explain why each piece is important and I'm sure I will continue to refine this over time, but it's been really helpful for me.
And again, I want you to go and listen to last week's episode, where I talk about my review of 2021, and then my goals for this year. And, in a nutshell, this is how I get to my goals. This is how I've been able to accomplish a lot of what I accomplished by just bringing myself back to a point where I'm like getting clear, I'm coaching myself, I'm getting through mindset stuff.
All right. So I hope this was helpful for you. I want you guys to reach out to me, let me know how it's working for you. I would love to answer any questions that you might have, love to know, like what stood out for you and what resonated with you, okay?
You can also visit me over on Instagram, tag me if you're ever doing the workbook, take a picture, tag me, let me know. I love, love, love to celebrate with you guys. I love to see you growing. So, yeah, tag me over there.
All right, friends. Thank you so much for hanging out and listening to the Black Girl Business Bar podcast. If you haven't already hit that follow or subscribe button, so you never miss an episode. If you found today's episode helpful or had any ah-ha moments, I would love it if you would share it with me by rating or reviewing the podcast or reaching out to me personally at khalida@blackgirlbusinessbar.com.
As always friends we're dropping episodes every Tuesday, and we can't wait to see you back then.