Episode 38: You Don’t Need Their Support

You’re listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer Podcast, episode 38. Today, we’re talking all about how you don’t need other people’s support. You ready? Let’s go.

Welcome to The Less Stressed Lawyer, the only podcast that teaches you how to manage your mind so you can live a life with less stress and far more fulfillment. If you’re a lawyer who’s over the overwhelm and tired of trying to hustle your way to happiness, you’re in the right place. Now, here’s your host, lawyer turned life coach, Olivia Vizachero.

Hi, my friends. How we doing today? I hope all is well for you. Things are going super well for me too.

I’m prepping for the upcoming holiday for Thanksgiving, and right now I’m kind of bopping around the U.S. I just left Phoenix. I went to Phoenix for this life coaching event called Life Coach Live, with my coaching school, the Life Coach School. And man, let me tell you, it was incredible.

I always think that you’re either a conference person or you’re not a conference person. I am definitely a conference person. This is why I host my own live events twice a year with the Less Stressed Lawyer Mastermind. I just love being there in person. You get to meet everyone, make new friends, get to reconnect with the old friends that you’ve made if you’ve gone to previous events with them, which that’s what this was for me, it was a big reunion.

And my cousin Emily came with me this time, so I got to introduce her to a ton of my friends in the coaching industry, which was just really great. We had so much fun, and we learned a ton. I got to see my coach, Brooke Castillo, coach at a really expert level. So it was super inspirational. And after Phoenix, I hopped on over to California, where I’m here to connect with a good friend of mine who’s also a coach. We’re going to go to dinner. And then, I’m going to fly back home and celebrate Thanksgiving.

Now, I’ve done a couple long episodes recently, so I’m going to keep today’s really short and sweet. But while I was in Phoenix, a lot of people there who weren’t coaches yet, they made the decision to become certified life coaches. And it really made me think of when I made that decision several years ago, back in 2018. And I actually made a little bit of a speech at a luncheon while I was in Phoenix, to talk to the people who had just made that decision about what their experience might be like when they come back home. Because when you’re at a conference, you’re really hyped up. You’re just riding the adrenaline. You’re in this immersive environment, and it’s so inspiring, you’re really motivated.

And then, you go home, back to your regular life. And you’re going to tell people that you’re making probably a significant change. Now, you could, of course, get certified to be a coach and not do anything with it, but most of these people want to do what I did, which is to change careers and run a business. And when I made that decision, my parents were not the most supportive people. And we joke about it now, my parents are really lovely and we’re really close. So they tell everyone, they shout it from a rooftop, they’re like, “We were not on board with her decision to quit Big Law and make this change.”

But one of the things that I had to come to terms with when I did make that decision to get certified and ultimately leave the practice of law to start this business, was that I was going to have to do it without their support. And I’m not talking financial support, and I didn’t get that either, but I didn’t need that. I’m talking about the emotional support that comes from making a really big change in your life and wanting other people to co-sign it, wanting them to be on board, wanting them to support you, wanting them to cheer you on. They were not doing that when I decided to make the jump.

And for a little while, I’ll be really honest with you, I was very frustrated and really hurt that they didn’t believe in me, that they weren’t being supportive, that they didn’t have my back. And of course, think about the model, think about how you show up in your relationships when you’re frustrated and hurt and discouraged, not good. So this really impacted my relationship with my parents for a couple years, while I was getting this business off of the ground.

Like I said, now that I’m successful at it, they have no problem with it. They’re really supportive. They’re definitely on board. But in the beginning, before I had successful results from making this shift, they were really nervous for me, so it showed. They acted nervous, they acted worried, they acted scared. Now, for a while, I tried to convince them to be supportive. And I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to convince someone else to be supportive, but it was not effective. I promise you, it did not work.

So I kind of stewed in my frustration and disappointment for a little while. But then I coached myself and I finally got to the point where I recognized I didn’t need their support. The only person who had to support my dream and my vision was me. And when other people make big changes in their lives, I always want them to know that. I always want them to know that you don’t need their support, whoever they is in your life.

Maybe it’s your parents, maybe it’s your spouse, maybe it’s your siblings, maybe it’s your friends, whatever the case is, you don’t need their support to make a change. So if there’s some change that you want to make in your life right now, and you’re hesitating because people aren’t behind you, they’re not supporting you, they don’t have your back, and you’re really frustrated and disappointed and hurt, just like I was, I want you to know you don’t need them to support you.

Now, would it be nice to have their support? Sure, of course. Yes, it would probably be lovely, but you don’t need it, all right? It’s not their job to believe in you. They probably have a hard enough time believing in themselves. The only person who needs to believe in you is you.

One of the guiding core principles of my life these days is that I never take advice or seek advice from anyone who has not done what I am looking to do. So in this example, neither of my parents had ever quit their jobs and gotten certified as a coach and started a coaching business. And my dad, he is a business owner, but he didn’t start his business from scratch. He works in a family business.

Now, he runs it exceptionally, but the startup thing is a little bit different. So even that, he’s successfully run a business, but he didn’t start it. So to listen to them and have their beliefs inform what I’m capable of, that’s a recipe for disaster, simply because they don’t know. They don’t know how to start a business. They don’t know how to make that big type of change. They’ve never done it.

And if you are contemplating making a change and you are listening to people who also haven’t done it, you’re probably going to experience something that is really similar to this process that I went through, where people don’t support you, they don’t have your back, they’re giving you all of their limiting beliefs, all of their fears, all of their worries. They’re probably telling you that you’re crazy and that you can’t do it and that it won’t work and that it’s a bad idea.

And they’re doing this from a place of love, for sure. My parents love me. I had a very prestigious job that they didn’t have to go to every day. So easy for them to say that I shouldn’t leave it. It looked really good on paper. They thought it provided a lot of financial security. And I stopped believing that it did, because I knew that running this business would provide me with more financial security. But again, they weren’t in the circles that I was in. They weren’t consuming the content that I was consuming. They weren’t listening to the coaches and the entrepreneurs that I was listening to. So of course, they lacked belief. Of course, your people will lack belief too, whatever change that you are contemplating making.

If you are craving someone else’s support, you do not need it. Like I said, the only person who needs to believe in you is you. Make that your business. I want you to take that on as your full-time job. You don’t need their support. You can and will be just fine without it. I want you to believe in yourself and what you are doing enough for both of you, enough for you, and enough for them. Build your beliefs so strong that it’s unwavering, impenetrable, impervious, resolute.

A few years ago, when my business was starting to get a little bit of traction, but I wasn’t really making any money yet, my dad called me and he floated this idea by me, to start a side hustle. And in his mind, it was such a safer bet than the business that I was running because he understood it. The side hustle was to create a tangible product that I would sell on the internet. And he was so excited about it because in his mind, it was the safer, more secure choice. And he offered to support me doing that. He offered to back me financially. He offered to do all of this stuff.

And I remember I really felt the momentum in my business at that time. I knew that I was just a few weeks away from starting to make money as a life coach and to get things going in my business, be off to the races, so to speak. And he called me twice. He was so enthusiastic, and I finally realized, I was like, “Oh, he believes in this side gig so much more than in what I’m doing.” And I just asked him that. I was like, “You don’t think what I’m doing is going to work, do you?” And he was really lovely. He was honest. He’s like, “No, I don’t think it’s going to work, and I don’t understand it at all.”

And I just took a deep breath. I felt so calm at the time. I didn’t get frustrated. I wasn’t disappointed or discouraged or hurt. And I just dropped into my own belief. And I studied myself, and I said, “I’m going to believe in this enough for the both of us. I’m going to believe in me enough for the both of us. I’m going to believe in what I’m creating enough for the both of us.” And I did. I let him be worried. I let him misunderstand and not understand what I was doing.

So there’s going to be people who don’t believe in what you are doing. They’re going to think that you’re doing it wrong. They’re going to think that you’re making a mistake, that you’re being foolish or irresponsible, and all of that is okay. You don’t need their support. You don’t need them to understand you. You don’t need them to cosign anything that you do. You get to believe in what you’re doing, the decisions you’re making, the path that you’re forging enough for the both of you.

You get to believe for you, and you get to believe for them. And what I want to offer you is that when you pursue something relentlessly like I have with this business, and you make it a success, which you will if you do not quit, and you gag and go, and you keep showing up, doing all the things, evaluating, taking action, auditing, and adapting, all the things that I teach you, if you keep doing that, you will be successful.

And when people see your success, they co-sign it then. They get on board then. And it makes sense, because then they don’t have to worry about you. So they get to drop their worry and their fear and their limiting beliefs, and then they get to support you. So the support is really just delayed. People will come around, I promise you. Success speaks volumes. But in the beginning, you’re going to have to do it without their support. And that’s 100% okay.

With that in mind, I want you to go out and do big things. You can do it scared, you can do it unsupported. The only person who needs to have your back is you. All right, my friends, have a beautiful week. I will talk to you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening to The Less Stressed Lawyer podcast. If you want more info about Olivia Vizachero or the show’s notes and resources from today’s episode, visit www.TheLessStressedLawyer.com