Building Clarity, Confidence & Courage with Dr. Heather Penny

Jennifer Norman:
Hello beautiful humans. Welcome to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast, your source for hope, healing, happiness and humanity. My name is Jennifer Norman. I'm the founder of The Human Beauty Movement and your host. This podcast is here to guide you on your journey of self love, empowerment, soul alignment and joy. With each episode, I invite beautiful humans from all corners of the globe to join me for open conversations about their life lessons and the important work that they are doing to help heal humankind. Take a moment now to subscribe to this podcast so you don't miss an episode. I'm so glad you're here, joining me for today's show.

Jennifer Norman:
Have you ever found yourself searching for more clarity, more confidence, or the courage to take that next bit big step? If so, then you are in for a treat. Today we're diving into a conversation that has the potential to completely transform the way you approach your life, leadership and relationships. Joining us today is the remarkable Dr. Heather Penny. A leadership coach, trusted advisor, celebrated teacher, engaging speaker, author and fellow podcast host, Heather has spent years guiding individuals to uncover their unique strengths and and step into their best Life. With a PhD in Human Services and an MA in Educational Leadership, her global experience in consulting and coaching has helped countless people discover clarity in their purpose, confidence in their abilities, and the courage to pursue their dreams. In this episode, we'll explore Heather's 3C living framework, which emphasizes the power of clarity, confidence and courage in reaching your fullest potential. Whether you're a CEO, a stay at home parent, or someone in between, this conversation is packed with practical insights to help you lead with authenticity and joy, both professionally and personally.

Jennifer Norman:
So what's in it for you? By the end of this episode, you'll gain real tools to embrace who you truly are, build unwavering confidence, and make decisions that align with your values. Let's welcome Dr. Heather Penny to the show. Welcome, Heather.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Thank. Thank you, Jennifer. So good to be here. And please feel free to call me Heather.

Jennifer Norman:
I sure will. Well, Heather, let's get right down to business and talk about your 3C living framework.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Let's jump in.

Jennifer Norman:
Clarity, confidence and courage. Please break down this model for our listeners and explain why these three elements are so essential for personal growth and leadership.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Well, there's so many styles of coaching out there and I like people to feel like they've got some really quick handles on how I coach and really how we learn and grow as humans. So I've used the three words clarity, confidence and courage. And I also believe that everybody holds it within them. It's not my clarity, Jennifer. It's your clarity. So when I'm working with you, I want to make sure. Are you getting Heather's clarity? Are you getting Jennifer's clarity? I want to make sure you're getting Jennifer's clarity. So I believe everybody holds this within them.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And just to put it in a nutshell, clarity is really about slowing down and just knowing what you know and saying it out loud. I mean, honoring what it is that you instinctively and intuitively know. That's the clarity piece. And then the confidence piece is really about what you believe. We can actually build our confidence or we can sabotage it. Most of us kind of know that. But isn't it exciting to know how to do it, to build it and when we're sabotaging it? So it's all about beliefs. And then the last piece is about courage.

Dr. Heather Penny:
This is the one that I'm like, oh, this is about action. You can have all the clarity in the world, all the confidence in the world, but if you're not taking forward movement action steps and you're not taking the accountability and the commitment to really see at that, then where are you really going to get traction and move forward in life? So I just use these three words to really help you kind of get a handle on if you want long term sustainability growth and you want it to go down deep into your soul and you want to be a better person, you want to really take a look at this perfect trifecta of what does it mean to increase your clarity, build your confidence and engage your courage.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh my gosh. Now almost everybody struggles with these three things on a daily basis. I mean, even people who are really, really strong are going to have self doubts or they're going to feel a lack of focus. So let's break this down even further and talk about clarity first because I can tell you there are many times in my life where I'm like, everything is cloudy, not clear. How in the world am I going to get clarity? And you talked about slowing down. Why is it that slowing down helps us to build clarity?

Dr. Heather Penny:
Well, I found this out when I hired my own coach, you know, and I joke all my books I really wrote for me coach, it was me working out all my stuff. And then honestly, when I started finding results and traction and success, of course I wanted to share that. But I want to say everything that I do and I offer is either personally I've experienced it or it's research based. It's what other people are telling me. I'm a qualitative researcher and that's What I focused on in my doctorate is how we spiral up versus how we spiral down. So I think to start with clarity, I love using this allegory because when we have a story, it sticks with us. And so all my clients know this story. And anyone who works with me when I do keynotes, I tell this story.

Dr. Heather Penny:
But it's a very simple story about this little girl and she's been given a bracelet. She loves this bracelet. It makes her feel loved and cherished. And what happens is she runs and plays on her tire swing. She feels free and everything is wonderful for her. But over the years, she gets more and more bracelets till pretty soon her bracelets go all the way up to her shoulders and she can no longer what she loves jumping on her tire swing. It's not until she spends time under the stars that she hears a voice on the wind that says, take off your bracelets. And then she's left with a decision.

Dr. Heather Penny:
That's how I end the book. It's a picture book I have on Amazon. But it's also this allegory that I took in through my chapter book on the life you're made for. But all my clients get it. And the cool thing is, is that when I do it with little kids or I do it, adults story transcends all the different age groups. So they literally will say to me, I need to figure out my bracelets right now. I think I've got too many on it now. Giving them language around the clarity of where they need it.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And of course I'm always going to tell them because I work with so many powerhouses and high achievers and all my fingers are pointing back. I want to say, yeah, when's the last time you jumped on your tire swing? And they like to say, what does that have to do with anything? I go, because that's where we get our clarity. And all the studies and research shows it. If you can slow down, do what you love, whether it's going for a hike or gardening or sitting down with a good book, whatever it is that you're loving to do, that's what I call your tire swing. That's where we get our clarity and that's where it starts rising up. It feels so counterintuitive though, in my high fast culture that I work with and the people that I work with, they're all expecting me to say, do more and hustle more. And when I say now, you actually gotta slow down. And that's why my book, the life you're made for, I've opened up the very first.

Dr. Heather Penny:
There's 18 chapters in it. The very first chapter, it's a permission slip to yourself. And the first chapter is called Restorative Rest. Being able to give yourself the permission to rest. You're not even gonna wanna read the next 17 chapters if you don't really get this concept. We talk about clarity, it's all about restorative rest. And I use it with the context of it's about mind, body, heart, spirit. It's not just about getting eight hours of sleep every night.

Jennifer Norman:
Very good, Very good. Now you're exactly right. Because we live in a society where hustle culture, performing, being productive, being busy, a lot of people are finding themselves disempowered. They're letting their lives run them rather than running their lives. And then they're wondering why they feel overwhelmed, they're wondering why everything seems to be racing and swirling and there's this anxiousness epidemic, all of these things. And so giving yourself permission to rest, to slow down, to give yourself time, I know a lot of people will say, huh, lucky for you to have the time to be able to slow down. I have kids, I have a family, I've got a job, I'm working all of these hours, I don't have time for myself. What does that even look like? They don't even know what that means.

Jennifer Norman:
Can you help provide a little guidance for how somebody is supposed to, with busy, busy lives, have rest?

Dr. Heather Penny:
Yes. Well, I will start with typically when people either come to me or pick up my book, it's not like their lives are awesome and amazing. It's usually something isn't working. So I will start with that. That usually, that I have some little window of opportunity that says, your life's not quite working. Let's stop and slow down and really investigate it. So usually people are open to another idea in another way because if it were working, they'd keep doing it. And so I'd really try and honor and respect that and just say, yeah, if your life's not working for you, here's what I'd love for you all to just stop and really pay attention to the voices that are telling you to keep going and keep pushing.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Whether it's old childhood voices of an old parent or teacher or coach maybe haunting you, or whether it's a current day voice of a boss or a spouse or something like this, being able to slow down, really pay attention to where that push is coming from allows you to get the clarity to say, wait a minute, I think I get to listen to a new voice. And I want to say, I'm that voice that says, slow down. Trust yourself. You will begin to see that you hold all the clarity within you. Now, this allegory gives you just a framework for how to start talking about a conversation that many of us don't know how to have. So instead of asking, how do I keep up? Which is a terrible question to ask, we're going to start asking, how do I get to start assessing these bracelets? Because I'm starting to feel victimized by my own life. And this is a common feeling for hot level success people. It's the shadow side of success.

Dr. Heather Penny:
We don't know how to talk about the shadow side of success. We know how to talk about what. Everything feels terrible. We don't know how to talk about, like, my life's amazing, but why am I not happy? Yeah, you probably said yes to too many things, and that's your bracelet. And then I'm like, in P.S. when's the last time you got on your tire swing? And when they go, what's that? We've got our work cut out for us. Then when they start working with me, it's not about if. It's about, okay, I'm trying to develop my cadence for that tire swing.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I'm trying to develop, which I call an active rest. And then I'm trying to develop that time under the stars where I can hear the voice on the wind that reminds me who I am, my true self. That's what I call your contemplative rest. Those are two really important forms of rest. So you can see where I'm going with this, Jennifer. I actually had to educate North America of, hey, guys, we all need to slow down and rest. And this really hit me when I was doing a keynote. There's about 250 people in the room.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And I was talking, I literally got interrupted. And I talk about this in my book. This woman raised her hand and says, what do you mean by rest? And that was about 10 years ago. And I thought, I didn't realize I had to define this, but I'm realizing I have to define this. Because they're like, they're acting like, oh, thank God I got seven hours of sleep. That counts, right? Heather? And I go, that's physical rest. Like, good job. But we now have mental rest.

Dr. Heather Penny:
We have spiritual rest. We have emotional rest. Our world has a tremendous amount of fatigue. The latest research I heard was, we're making 30,000 decisions a day. Think about that. Are really high power players. And they're like, I don't know why I'm so tired. I go, might it be your bracelets? Might it be the fact that we haven't visit the tire swing? So, learning what that means to you and going back to your original question, I have literally had to negotiate.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I remember a mother with three little toddlers. I had to negotiate with her three minutes a day, not even consecutive. One minute in the morning, one minute at lunch in the evening. I felt like I was negotiating like an act of Congress here. But we got her to at least concede. Okay, I can give that. Yeah. So I want to just tell anyone.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I'm like, start wherever you need to. I work with that type of client and I also work with these high level multimillion dollar companies where they really can't drop the ball. But I'm just saying every human can figure out where they can find their place to restore. And even I'm just thinking of a recent example of a CEO I'm working with and he goes, okay, I'm going to work 15 minutes a day. I'm going to go out and I'm going to stand in nature. He's got a beautiful nature reserve near him. I'm like, perfect, that's your tire swig. Go for it.

Dr. Heather Penny:
So I think learning how to ask that question, you can start staying curious with yourself. And the question shifts from how do I keep up, which is terrible question that keeps us stressed, to how do I honor my bracelets? How do I really respect the tire swing? What's the cadence of where I want to visit the tire swing? And by the way, have I even checked the bracelets I'm wearing if I even still want to wear some of these? And it's that this is the tricky tension of adulting. Bracelets are neither good nor bad. It's about understanding which ones we've maybe outgrown or that was handed to us or we no longer want, or we just said yes because we're terrified of not people, you know, not disappointing. We're in that people pleasing stage. All these things, learning how to grow your own inner clarity, that's where everything starts. And it starts with rest.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. I find that there is so much irony in the way that culture has evolved over time, in that there are so many things that have developed and have been created that are supposed to save us time and provide us more convenience. Yet what we find ourselves is quickening the pace of life and getting to a place where it's like, okay, well, I've saved Myself time, I need to fill it with something else. And so we never really get off of this hamster wheel. And I'm wondering if also, it's as if the pace of life is starting to stretch down in age where young people even now are finding themselves overwhelmed. I mean, even in as early as elementary school, we find that there is stress, depression, and poor kids have to go into therapy because of a lot of scheduling overload or mental anxieties and the whatnot.

Jennifer Norman:
At what point do we think that these bracelets become shackles? Because I think over time, like as we're developing, there is joy and curiosity in childhood and there is this yearning for exploring and for developing and creating and bringing on these bracelets and discovering what we love and what we know. And then over time, it's like, whoa. All of a sudden I'm overburdened with this. How do we know when that point is?

Dr. Heather Penny:
Wow, that's the million dollar question. Great question. But I'm so glad you're asking it because that's what I asked in my research. So when I look back at my doctor, it was a qualitative study. I liter reading article after article on women transitioning from school to work and how they were spiraling down and we were losing them. They were specifically focusing on the high intellect girls. My background is an educator and researcher. I was teaching university level at the time.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And then I had my daughter. This research was terrifying me. And then at the end of every article, it was saying, more research is needed, more research is needed. So my research started out with saying, you know what? I'm not going to study the negative side of this. I'm going to study the positive side of this. We're hearing that we are spiraling down as a society. We know this, we don't need any more proof for this. And alarmingly so, it started younger and younger and I was focusing initially with the female population.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I didn't realize at the end of it all this is a humanity issue. So at the end of that, what I did is I asked all of these individuals, I said, would you reflect back? You had to be between your ages of 30 and 50. Will you reflect back and tell me what caused you to spiral up? I wanted to hear that. So all of my work came out of this idea of learning how to balance their bracelets. Nobody wants to read my dissertation, so I wanted to put it in an allegory where I'm going to go. This is actually research based. They learned how to start asking the questions. So here's what I'm excited about, Jennifer, is if we can get our girls and our boys to begin to start asking these questions at 8 years old.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Mom, I think I've got too many bracelets. Mom, dad, I just need to get on my tire swing. My hope is this is an intervention conversation to start younger. Because what we're doing to these young children is we are saying, what bracelets? Just get out there, do it, get it done. And then they're pushing more and more. And unfortunately, you know, I grew up before the Internet, so I had a little bit more of a perspective and container and boundaries on things. I'm watching my own kids who are now 20 and 22, watching what they are having to navigate, and I'm trying to support them in it. But I'm like, I don't want to help you manage this whole global world that is now at your doorstep.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I want to help you manage your own internal life of your bracelets, your tire swings and your time under the stars. Let's grow that conversation. And so I believe everything starts from within. It's just we weren't giving our young children or our adults basically humanity. We're not giving them the conversation they need to have with themselves. And then out of that will flow with your parents if you're younger, or what will flow with your colleagues as you're older. Everything starts with the internal dialogue that we're having. Really, this is my hope, Jennifer, to start a global movement that will help people start asking this...

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, you and me both.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Good. Let's.

Jennifer Norman:
The issue is that there is so much noise, there is so much pressure and there is so much external media coming at us on a daily basis. So many messages, so many things that we are looking to for identity and trying these things on and wondering if they are us. And so it becomes harder and harder for us to have those moments to say, well, who am I? What really brings me joy? What do I love? Rather than like, if I do this, then my mom and dad will be really proud of me or if I go in this route, then I will receive those accolades and the validation. So much of our decisions are driven by that kind of quote, unquote success. Rather than really feeling like, where is my tire swing? What you know, what is my joy? What is my soul yearning for? And yeah, it's kind of the key to unlocking that happiness and that self fulfillment and that place of thriving. And to your point, people who get to the top of the ladder and then look down and Find that they're completely lonely or unhappy. That's usually what the path has been for them. I believe they haven't really been able to live out their joy all the way through.

Jennifer Norman:
Some people have and it's amazing and it should be congratulated because it's not easy. But many, many, many of us are in this place where we end up feeling a little bit lost and having that lack of, of clarity and having that time to really rest the right way in all multi dimensional aspects can definitely be a first method of doing that. And a lot of people use meditation and other forms, journaling, et cetera, to get back to themselves and to try to shut out the noise of the world for a little bit.

Dr. Heather Penny:
The performance path has a expiration date. So in my work, I cringe if people think of me as a performance coach because I would say, yes, you will get high performance after working with me. But not because I'm focusing on your performance. I'm focusing on your identity formation. I believe that there is a hole, the shape of you in this world that the world desperately is hungry and needing for. So you want to have a very strong clarity of who you are as an individual and what you're offering. And by the way, it changes. You have clarity.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Maybe at 24, I'm now 54, but I'm like, you think my clarity is the same from 24 to 54? It's a very different clarity of my purpose in this world. And yet we don't slow down long enough. So think about Jennifer. If you came to me and I'm like, well, how do you get more? How do you be more successful? How do you do more? It would actually be crippling you and sabotaging the very essence of what you actually need. And that's my point exactly that you're making, which is performance path. It has an expiration date for every human. I've worked with thousands now to know I've worked with the most successful people that you would not think, wow, they've got it all together. No, they're going home crying after work, or they're really frustrated with their life, or they're very unfulfilled, or they're struggling with depression and they're asking questions like, this was what I was told was going to be the end game.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I wore all the bracelets, I did everything they told me to do. And I'm like, yeah, but you stopped visiting the tire swing and wait a minute, you stop choosing your own bracelets. It's all about self Empowerment and clarity about yourself and really how you're evolving and maybe where you want to change your mind, involve in a new direction. It's a completely different way of thinking, particularly in our North American culture.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. In Japan they call it the ikigai. And I really embrace that very, very much. It's like your, your soul's path to what your fulfillment will be.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Say that again. What is it called?

Jennifer Norman:
Ikigai. I K I G A I. Your ikigai.

Dr. Heather Penny:
See, we don't have a word for that in our culture. I'm sorry, Keep going.

Jennifer Norman:
It's your life's work, but it's based upon you and your individual passions and what you have to offer. It's beautiful and it's something that the blue zones in the world actually identify with and it leads to longevity and just true, true happiness. These are the places that are absolutely for thriving is because most of the people there have found their ikigai and they live in that. And it doesn't mean being a gazillionaire. It doesn't mean having. Doing a million different things and all of that. It really is just a true satisfaction and gratitude and feeling like their whole work, their whole life is living out in purpose, which is beautiful.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I just got chills. I love that. Thank you.

Jennifer Norman:
That's when you know it's right.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Yeah. Ikigai. You know, I'm gonna go be googling that and get dropped down to my research hole on that one.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, I've done workshops on ikigai.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I love it.

Jennifer Norman:
Let's talk about building confidence, because it can be also very challenging. It's like, okay, well, finding clarity is one thing, but then confidence to really truly shine and be myself. Especially if you've experienced many failures or setbacks in life. So what kind of advice would you give to somebody who is trying to regain trust in themselves, particularly after a major disappointment?

Dr. Heather Penny:
Okay, so confidence is all about the beliefs. And I think again, an example is going to help your listeners the best. I'm thinking about a really high level CEO that I worked with and this is a common issue. They have to do a lot of public speaking and some of them are really comfortable with it and some of them are not. And I don't know if you guys have seen the studies on that. I think it rates above being eaten by a shark. The people, terror. So that's what I get to work with and walk into because they're like, oh my gosh, I'm terrified.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Now think about if I was only performance driven, where I just wanted them to get up there. I could tell them how to do. I mean, I'm a communication professor. I know how to do communication. And I could tell them how to give a great keynote, and they'd probably do pretty well. I care about the internal identity formation, so I just slowed it down. I looked at this CEO and I asked him, I was like, well, help me understand why your confidence is like, this is around speaking. And I could tell he was like, well, I just want you to give me, like, five ways to get a speech and how to get up there.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And I'm like, I am not because it's not sustainable. I want to understand your beliefs around this, and beliefs are intricately connected to your confidence level. And so he was told several times in different organizations, you don't know how to speak very well, and you're not really good at it. And I said, well, you want to know are my observations. I've been working with you for six months. I said, you're a very articulate communicator, but my hunch is that you're pretty internal. And so you need some think time to get your thoughts in order. He was like, oh, I didn't think about that way.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Then we began to work together, and he began to realize, I think differently and I need a different way to present and get my clarity, and then I'll be able to get up there and present. But the belief, what I call a false belief that was blocking him was, I am a bad communicator. It didn't matter how much I worked with him and told him all these tips and techniques about communication. If he's still believing that the whole time, he's never going to be successful. And let me put it this way, he's never going to be authentically successful. He might learn how to pose and fake it, which we can all do. But my hope is that, no, you're authentically feel confident about how you get up there. Once we dealt with that false belief, I said, okay, now it's time to turn into true belief.

Dr. Heather Penny:
That's always the trickiest. I always say, kind of stuff feels too good to be true, so let's reach for that. And he goes, all right, I'm an authentic communicator, and I get to trust myself. I said, that's an awesome true belief. We're not sitting there trying to say we're the next Tony Robbins, or we're not trying to do all this other stuff. You know, we're saying something that feels good for us that you can reach on to you chew on that. You work on that for five minutes a day, put on a post it. I call them true belief cards.

Dr. Heather Penny:
You keep it in front of you. Now it begins to shift and out of that you begin to stay curious of how do I get to be engaged with this true belief we have. And then I'm getting ready now. I'm like, okay, let's work on your speech. He goes, I don't need it. I didn't even to work on his speech. And now he's been speaking all over the world for the last three years. And I was then ready for the performance part of like, okay, now let's get you ready to get up there.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And he goes, I don't need to do it. He got up and gave the most amazing keynote. And it all stemmed from his false belief, which was I'm, I'm a bad communicator and here's all the reasons why to wow. I'm open to the fact that maybe I am a really good communicator and I get to find my authentic voice in it. So as we did worked on that internal work, all the other stuff fell into place which I find with a lot of high performing players. I'm not going to give you the five tips and techniques. Lot of things I'm going to say I have them, I do have them in my arsenal if we need them. But I also am really, really wanting to focus on long term sustainable change where your identity formation is kicking in and you're feeling like you're getting up there as your true sense of self.

Jennifer Norman:
Wow.

Dr. Heather Penny:
That's the essence of confidence.

Jennifer Norman:
It's amazing how some people are able to find that early in life and just really just know who they are and what they're meant for and are able to really just shine in that path so beautifully. Whereas others, including myself, had no clue for the longest time and found themselves like you can feel it in your body when you're not confident. It's like that restriction. It's like you're scared or you're worried about what other people will think of you. And it's because you haven't had a real solid confirmation of your identity or an awareness of who you are and how you're going to show up in the world. And it's very visible when you hear people speak. There are times where you'll see somebody who's gotten like the MBA and they get up there and they're filled with business jargon and they try to put on that front like really Just trying to put on a showcase case of what their expertise is. And then somebody else gets up there and they might be somebody who's been in music or rock star, and they just get up and they talk from the heart.

Jennifer Norman:
And it's so much more engaging, so much more real, and so much more compelling. And it comes across as very authentic. In a story, that person does such a better job of connecting because they know who they are and they're really able to not worry about themselves and put up this veneer. And it's truly beautiful when somebody is able to find that. And so how are some of the ways that you're able to get people, aside from the example or that you provided, that is helping somebody to create a script for themselves about communication, but really understanding their identity? How do you get there?

Dr. Heather Penny:
Well, I will say I think it's really hard. I think this is just a kind, compassionate comment. I want to say to all your listeners, it's really hard to do by yourself. I've hired so many beautiful people in my life. Coaches, counselors, spiritual directors. I have a team around me and I want to say it's been the lifeline to help me accelerate my growth. And I want to encourage people. Don't be afraid to reach out.

Dr. Heather Penny:
If we could do it on our own, we would. Personally speaking, when I opened my company 15 years ago, moving out of academia, starting my own coaching company, I'm like, what am I thinking? The false beliefs that came at me, they always come in when we're doing these vulnerable risk things. Then I'm going back to school, financing all my own doctorate. I have no academia institution behind me, and I'm going to do it on a research project that I want to do it on. And I'm like, I don't even know how I'm going to pay this back. I mean, there were so many faith things going on for me and the false beliefs that were creeping in. I hired a coach to help me hold on to my true beliefs, my inner circle. I have a wonderful husband, my kids, they've been cheering me on for years.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I've got amazing friends. And I'm like, this is a false belief I'm trying to reject. Here's the true belief I'm trying to hang on to. So I had the clarity of how I even asked people to support me in my inner circle. So I do want to encourage people. Don't go it alone. It's too hard. And I'm just thinking of yesterday, I'm talking to a client and I've been working with him for years, Love him.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Amazing individual. And this individual was on the phone with me, and she wants to move into a whole different direction in her life, but she's feeling guilty that she wants it. Oh, yeah. So I'm listening really hard as a coach. What am I listening for? I'm listening for the false beliefs. And finally I said, you're being given this amazing opportunity. How do you feel about it? And she's like, I feel really guilty that I want it. I go, okay, there we go.

Dr. Heather Penny:
You can see how that's going to block you. And let's talk about this belief. And so I want to be really clear. I don't call it a false belief out of respect to anyone I'm working with. I mean, that's for you to decide. Is this a false belief or true belief? But I want to be really clear with your listeners. There's an easy way to understand if it's a false belief. There's three things.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Is it disconnecting you from your sense of self? Is it disconnecting you from your sense of purpose, your higher purpose in this world? Or even, like, if some of you have a faith, a divine presence, is it disconnecting you from your sense of others? There's three things. So if it's basically isolating you and keeping you from your purpose, it's probably a false belief. So, yeah, isn't that powerful? And so, so powerful. But she couldn't hear by herself. And P.S. I couldn't hear it by myself. I'm a coach. I did this for a living.

Dr. Heather Penny:
My world blew up in a really cool way, like the shadow side of success. But you know how much false beliefs keep swirling in. I literally ran. I think I got a counselor, coach, and a spiritual director all at once. And I said, I got a lot happening here. And it's accessing these false beliefs that I thought had gone dormant or that I thought I had conquered. Well, yeah, I was able to do it with a nice little reach of 20 clients.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Now that I've got a global reach and I'm books and everything else and speaking, they all resurfaced, and I got to really deal with those little suckers again. But I realized, wow, they were coming at me from different angles. Yeah, who do you think you are speaking to a group of a thousand people? What makes you think you can get on a webinar and speak to a nationwide group? I mean, I can feel all of these coming in. And I go, okay, I'm going to need to pull in my troops here. So I think I just want to encourage people. I'm just trying to pull back the veil going, this is why I do what I, I do. I'm trying to live as authentically as possible and remind people that they come when you least expect it. And it's okay to reach out, but I want to say, stay in the driver's seat.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Don't hand off your power to anyone else. If you're working with anyone that wants to try and direct you or become your guru or mentor, something like this that almost feels like it's losing your sense of self, don't give into that. Work with people that are going to say, I believe in you and I believe what you have inside of you. And I'm going to sit here and be a sounding board. And you know what? I think I'm hearing a belief here that might be stopping you. The work I do now with clients. She was listening to it and we both started laughing. I'm like, yeah, I don't think I need to say this is a false belief holding you back, right? She laughed.

Dr. Heather Penny:
She goes, no, I get it, I get it. And I said, it's going. You actually want this advancement in this promotion, but you have this deep seated false belief that you don't deserve it. So what are we going to do to reconcile that? She goes, I already know what I need to do. You've coached me on this, Heather. I'm going to reach for a true belief. And I'm like, great. How are you going to ground yourself in it? Great.

Dr. Heather Penny:
What are the practices you're going to do around it? Great, I'll talk to you next week. So people know what they need to do, but it really starts with, are you identifying the belief that's holding you back? And now what are you going to do to engage it and shift it so it'll serve you? And again, this is a really respectful process, but it's the hardest part. We come up with our false beliefs pretty quick. It's the true belief. It gets really hard and it's something that it's wobbly and it's shaky, but I liken it to lifting weights. Okay, it's one pound weight. Start with one pound. Next week you're going to put on three pounds.

Dr. Heather Penny:
It's a mental exercise you're doing till pretty soon you don't need that anymore. You don't need that true belief. And I'm so sorry, but probably another false belief will be creeping up. So it's like it's a mind thought pattern that we start doing and honoring and staying curious with. Is there something holding me back? There's always something that we can kind of take a look at in our personal life or our professional life. And I just want to honor the fact that when you're ready to look at it, you actually, you can be empowered to do something about it.

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, that's amazing. And I know that when you are lacking confidence, it becomes a little bit easier to give your power away, to say, well, my boss knows best, my parents know best, my friend who is making a lot more money than me knows best. And so if they're going to give me advice, well, then I should just listen to it because they know better than I do. But. But no, you actually know better than you do. But it is helpful to have objective people and a positive and a helpful support group, shall I say, that is going to be honest with you. It's almost like when I was younger and I used to do dance. If I were to do something without a mirror or without a coach, a guide or trainer, an instructor telling me that I'm doing it right or wrong, I would be flailing around in space.

Jennifer Norman:
But having a mirror to be able to reflect, oh, my arm is in the wrong position. No, I'm doing this incorrectly. We are not in sync. Like, you need to have those objectives points to be able to showcase back to you how you are. And it's not easy to see in yourself because you're embodied in it. You're living it. And what Heather is saying is exactly right. Having whether it's a coach, a therapist, a spiritual counselor, somebody in your corner that is going to be objectively helpful for you to be able to shine that mirror up and say, this is what I see.

Jennifer Norman:
This is how I see your unique genius. This doesn't seem like it's the right path for you. You somebody that can be like, is this really true? Is this inhibiting you from who you really are, from your relationships, how you want your purpose in your life to be? All of those things that are serving you? It's phenomenal. And I think that it's worth every cent for those of you who are worried about what the cost might be, because it will allow you to be directed in a path that is going to be truest to you and which will be the most fulfilling for you throughout your life, which is brilliant.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Yeah. And you'll have the skill set to know what to do when the false beliefs come up. Many of us. And that's the term spiraling down that we're really dealing with in our society. It's. And it's becoming a. And they're calling it a social epidemic because we don't know what to do about it. And we're inundated with information.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I would like to start inundating us with information that actually helps us spiral up. And I think that's why. And I loved your metaphor about the dance. The more we can use story metaphor and allegory, people grab onto it. And I was literally picturing it. And my daughter was in dance too, and I thought, can you imagine doing all these ballet moves? But you're. You don't have no mirror and you have. Nobody in the room instructed you.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I mean, seriously, what kind dancer are we gonna be?

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah, yeah.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Same thing with life. It's a great metaphor you just used.

Jennifer Norman:
Yeah. That's why people are using video so that they can be like, oh, like, even though with the golf swing, it's like, oh, that's what I'm doing. Like, you're not even aware that you're doing it. But then little by little, you can get yourself into a course correction, which is really helpful. And sometimes building that confidence, it takes skill. Building it takes really a lot of work in order to get there. But once you start getting those wins behind you, you can get to that place where, yeah, I can do it. And you start belie believing more in yourself and getting that fortification.

Jennifer Norman:
So now my next question is, what do you think is the difference between confidence and courage? Because you've distinctly separated those two. How is courage seen as. Sometimes people will say, well, you either have courage or you don't. But how do you think that people cultivate courage? And how is it different than confidence?

Dr. Heather Penny:
Yeah, well, of course, there's so many ways to describe it, but the work that I do and how I do 3C living and leading, it's very clear in my. My mind. And again, I'm going to use another metaphor because it's going to help everyone, and it's in my book, the life you're made for. So all these metaphors in there. But think about the fact that you are going to go up in a plane and you want to do a skydive. You've got the clarity of where you're going to go. You've got the great pilot with there. You might be jumping on your own solo.

Dr. Heather Penny:
You might be jumping with someone else, but you got that clarity going on. You've got your true beliefs of, I can do this, this Is scary. I'm going to do this. Got your confidence really working for you right there. You get up there, you see the jump zone. The instructor starts saying, jump, jump, jump. And you are gripping the side of the plane out of fear, panic. You're already laughing, Jennifer, because you know where I'm going with this.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And the plane lands and you never took the jump. That's the essence of courage. And I want to say, please don't jump without a parachute. Please don't jump without a good instructor. That's silly courage. That's foolish courage.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Wisdom courage is about saying, yeah, train for the jump. Get the right instructor, get the right pilot, get the right plane, get the education you need of what altitude you're jumping at. And for heaven's sakes, put on a parachute. That's your clarity and confidence working for you. Now jump. And this is what I have to say. These are some of my low risk adverse people that are.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And if they've got a lot on the line, so I don't want to minimize it, but I'm like, sometimes a team of 150 people or sometimes it's millions of dollars. And I'm like, I get it. I totally get it. I don't mean to minimize this, but I'm telling you, we've been working on your clarity and it's spot on. We've been working on your confidence and it's spot on. It's time to jump. It's your courage. So there's a lot of reckless jumping in our world right now.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And I think maybe it's the mother in me, the teacher in me, I don't know. But I'm like, oh, oh, please stop. Oh, no, wait a minute. You don't have your parachute on. I think to lead with courage can be a little destructive and scary and unnerving. I feel like I want to encourage people, lead with your clarity and your confidence. Your courage will come. Just don't avoid the courage piece.

Dr. Heather Penny:
And you want it really built on the clarity and the confidence because that's where your jump is going to be set up for success. That's where courage is going to move you into the next level.

Jennifer Norman:
Some people would say that courage has to do with a bit of daring. Brene Brown would say daring greatly. And it's interesting that with courage, a lot of people also say being scared, but doing it anyway. And to me, I think that the amygdala was. It had evolved over millennia for reasons, and it was to keep us alive. To your point, don't jump. Without a parachute. Yet there does come a point where if you want to expand and if you really want to test your mettle and really develop, develop some life outside that comfort zone.

Jennifer Norman:
It does take edging out. It does take edging out in a safe way, but knowing that you're going to be the better for it. I was laughing before because I remember when I went skydiving, I felt that same exact way, but it was almost like that moment where you just can't think about it. Like, your logic gets past you. And so when you're like, don't do anything reckless or anything, like, there gets to a point where at that moment of deciding what to do, you just have to. It's going for it. And then once you do that, then afterwards, I became a little bit of an adrenaline junkie. I started cliff diving and gliding and doing all these crazy things.

Dr. Heather Penny:
You're one of those.

Jennifer Norman:
And I was like, yeah, well, that was a period of my life a while ago. But I decided that I was going to try to do these because I deliberately wanted to get my body somatically out of this feeling of comfort and safety all the time, so that in other areas of my life, I would feel more courageous. And it did help. It did help me to feel like if I can do that, if I can get over my fear of jumping out of a plane, I can do anything. And so that helped me to build a belief I can do anything. So I would encourage that. But again, of course, there is different levels of risk that everybody is willing to take and can and should take, I'd imagine, in their own life.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Yeah. To your point, though, Jennifer, you had your clarity around what you needed, and that's what I honor. You had your confidence. You were grappling with your beliefs. I honor that. And now your courage piece, you knew you just got to do it. And that's why I'm gonna say. Yeah.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Once your clarity and confidence is in line, you do have to just, like, close your eyes and do it. You do have to embrace the scary. I'm not gonna say it's easy now. You didn't sit there and go, I'm totally fine now. I got my parachute and the pilot. I know what I'm doing. I sat in the par-. You know, I sat in the class.

Dr. Heather Penny:
I'm fine. No, there was still fear involved. But you did it with wisdom, and you did it with your own clarity and your confidence. And so finding what that looks like for everybody, that's the piece that I really try and honor and say. Yeah. What do you need to do to overcome this block in your life?

Jennifer Norman:
Oh, yeah. So now, Heather, I know that you do coaching. You actually have an E course online. You have books. Tell us how people can find you and how would be best to work with you.

Dr. Heather Penny:
So first off is just heatherpenny.com. I have a ton on there. I give a lot away. I have podcasts I love. It's called the life you're made for. But you can access all my books, podcasts, my weekly coaching email that I send out, sign up for that. That's just a really easy, quick way to get a hold of me. If you want more of, like, keynotes, workshops, conferences, your team working with me, C suite teams working with me, you go ahead and just fill out a little...

Dr. Heather Penny:
There's a little tab on my website to fill out and say, yeah, I want more. And then we get ahold of you, and I've got a team that helps kind of navigate that conversation.

Jennifer Norman:
Excellent. So now, as one parting thought, what would be one piece of advice that you would hope listeners would walk away from after today's conversation?

Dr. Heather Penny:
I would hope that everyone feels inspired. Two things. First one is you hold your own clarity, confidence, and courage within you. The second thing is you don't have to go it alone. I hope that's what everyone hears when they walk away, that they hold that within them. And then I guess I'd love to give your audience a gift. I have an e-course that goes along with my life you're made for.

Dr. Heather Penny:
But I'd love to give your audience a gift and give them a code where they can access my e-course with my book and the coaching companion journal if they'd like that.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you. That is amazing.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Sure. So just you have to go check out and you're getting ready to pay. Put in the code: HP stands for Heather Penny. HPFRIEND. Put that in the code. Yeah. And you can put that in your show notes, but I would love to give that to your audience.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Just encourage everybody. You got this, and it walks you through. So you feel like you. You have me as a coach in your coach corner. I'm so full right now. I cannot work with a lot of individual clients, but that's why I put it out there so that people feel like they have access to me and have access to having that personal feeling of having a coach in your corner.

Jennifer Norman:
Dr. Heather Penny, everyone. Thank you so much, Heather, for being part of the show today. Such words of wisdom. I appreciate you so much for the work that you are doing.

Dr. Heather Penny:
Thank you Jennifer.

Jennifer Norman:
Thank you for listening to The Human Beauty Movement Podcast. Be sure to follow, follow rate and review us wherever you stream podcasts The Human Beauty Movement is a community based platform that cultivates the beauty of humankind. Check out our workshops, find us on social media, and share our inspiration with all the beautiful humans in your life. Learn more at thehumanbeautymovement.com. Thank you so much for being a beautiful human.