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Shine On Success
Welcome to "Shine On Success," the podcast dedicated to exploring the journeys, challenges, and triumphs of today's entrepreneurs. Each episode from your host, Dionne Malush is crafted to inspire, educate, and empower you, whether you're just starting out or are a seasoned business owner.
Shine On Success
Fearless Success: Overcoming Obstacles and Personal Growth
Join us for an empowering episode featuring Kari Jo Patterson, a visionary entrepreneur and esthetician business mentor who has achieved remarkable success by overcoming her fears and turning them into powerful catalysts for growth. Kari Jo shares her journey from starting with a $4,000 loan to building two highly profitable businesses and venturing into real estate, achieving ultimate time freedom and financial independence.
In this inspiring conversation, Kari Jo discusses the role of fear in personal and professional development, offering valuable insights on how to transform fear into a driving force for success. Learn about her unique approach to conquering fear, the importance of mentors, and actionable steps to push through challenges.
Discover how Kari Jo uses her experiences to mentor others, helping them achieve their own success. This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to overcome their fears, embrace courage, and take actionable steps toward a fulfilling and successful life.
Tune in and get ready to be inspired and empowered to face your fears and achieve your dreams!
Connect with Kari Jo here:
Website: www.KariJoPatterson.com
Instagram: @Kari.Jo.Patterson
Email: info@esthelaunchacademy.com
Connect with Dionne Malush
- Instagram: @dionnerealtyonepgh
- LinkedIN: /in/dionnemalush
- Website: www.dionnemalush.com
- Facebook: /dmalush
- LinkTree: https://linktr.ee/dionnemalush
Welcome everyone to today's session. I'm thrilled to introduce our esteemed guest, keri Jo Patterson. Keri is a visionary entrepreneur and esthetician business mentor who has not only built two highly profitable businesses from the ground up, but also ventured into real estate, achieving the ultimate time freedom and financial independence. Her journey is a testament to overcoming challenges and achieving remarkable success. Before we dive into her inspiring story, let me ask you this have you ever felt held back by fear, despite knowing that you have the potential for greatness? Today, carrie will share her insights on how to conquer those fears and transform them into powerful catalysts for personal and professional growth.
Speaker 1:So get ready to be inspired and empowered as we explore the art of overcoming obstacles and embracing success. Welcome, Carrie Jo. How are you doing today?
Speaker 2:Good, I'm doing so good. Thank you so much for having me on my podcast, or not on your podcast? On your podcast, how about?
Speaker 1:our podcast. I love it. I'm so excited. I was reading about you and I'm just so excited to have you on, because it sounds like you've been through a lot in your life and you're pushing through to the other side and that's basically what this is all about. So, yes, tell us a little bit about you and what you're doing.
Speaker 2:Well, so a little bit about me, as I started off as an esthetician and I went into aesthetic truly because I honestly didn't think that I would ever be successful at anything. You know, I had siblings that were so successful and straight A students and I was like, well, I can't do that, you know, so I gotta figure something else out. So I went into aesthetics and I started a company and I honestly didn't think it would be successful. I was just like I took it all alone for like $4,000. And I was like, well, if I can just pay back the $4,000, then it won't be a complete failure. And I didn't even expect to be successful in my journey. But I ended up growing a very successful business. I ended up going into real estate, doing some Airbnbs and and through it all I kind of came to realize, know, I've learned so much. I just want to give it back and teach other people what I learned so that they can have the same success or more because you can push through it, right.
Speaker 1:I mean, we're all capable of it. It's just it's hard.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so hard like being in a pressure cooker. You know, I don't think any of us get out of this life without wounds. We all get them, and that's just how we deal with them.
Speaker 1:That's a great way of looking at it a pressure cooker. I never really thought about it that way. So thanks for giving me that image, because now I'll be thinking about that as my days are going crazy. I'm like, yeah, I'm stuck in this pressure cooker, get me out of here. One thing you talk about is being fearless. So you know you've been through your life and you're pushed through to the other side, but that doesn't mean that what's going to be perfect every day. Right, we go through it. We still have days that are hard and you know I feel like in my own life it's a roller coaster. You know you go through this all the time. So what role does fear play in your personal growth and why do we let it hold us?
Speaker 2:back One of the things when I was working on growing. I'm really big into mentors. First, yes, I love mentors, they just help so much. And my last mentor that I had we were talking about all the things that I accomplished and he said to me he's like, carrie, you know, I feel like what I hear and I don't even know if you know this about yourself is you seem to be really fearless in making really hard, large decisions that would otherwise hold people back from making. And he's like do you know that about yourself? And also, do you even feel fear? I was like, oh my gosh, absolutely Like I don't know anyone who doesn't feel fear. Oh my gosh, absolutely Like I don't know anyone who doesn't feel fear.
Speaker 2:And I think what drives my success is that I do feel fear. And most people, when they start feeling fear, they let it pull them back. But fear has become my greatest empowerment to. You know, I was one of those kids growing up where, you know, if your mom said don't go do this, I would go and do it. When I start to feel fear, I feel like it's caging me in and it's holding me back and I hate it. So I do whatever it is that I'm afraid of, because I don't ever want to feel held back by something I love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when you look at it that way, how do you define fear?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I talk a lot to my clients. We go over fear a lot because it really it's our everyday life, and one of the biggest ways to overcome and conquer fear is we really have to look at, like, what is the definition of fear? Like, the definition of fear, when you look it up, it's a belief that something can cause you pain or hurt you, right, but, like, what I love about that is that saying it's a belief, so we have control over what we believe and so if we change our internal dialogue, we can really start overcoming it. You know, back in the day, thousands of years ago, we had fear and it was for a purpose, right, we needed fear in order to survive. We needed it to to find a shelter. We needed it to find us food. We had like it's what made us survive.
Speaker 2:But if you look in today's, like modern society, there really isn't a whole lot we have to be afraid of. You know what I mean. What we're afraid of is we're afraid of feeling the emotion of fear, right, so we're afraid of posting some that post on Instagram because we're afraid what people might think of us. We're afraid to start something new because, again, was someone going to think about us. You know what I mean. We fear the emotion we are going to feel when we think of it. That way, I mean you can handle an emotion. Sure, it's handable. Like you felt emotions your whole entire life and you've made it this far, you can deal with whatever emotion is to come up. So if we kind of look at like, well, what is it that I'm afraid to fill if this goes wrong, am I going to be sad? Am I going to be disappointed? Well, can you deal with being sad and disappointed for a little bit?
Speaker 1:well, yeah, I can you know, if you don't let it define you and if you don't live in it all day and all night, right, if you can, you can be in there for a little while, but you just got to push back out. I'm a firm believer that faith is the opposite of fear, and you can't think positive and negative at the same time. So there's that push right. If you're fearing something and you have faith, yeah, gonna push you through.
Speaker 2:Yes, Like I always say, the antidote to fear is action. When you are feeling fear, you have to like. You can overcome it by doing an actionable step.
Speaker 1:So let's look at it on a business side. How can embracing fear help us move forward in life and business?
Speaker 2:Most of the time in business and probably even in our personal life. Right, we all know what's holding us back. We know what it is that we need to do in order to get to that next level. We don't really need to ask anybody because deep down we know I think you have to and we just fear doing it, whatever it is. If we really want to achieve like that next level of success, whatever that is to you, or you have to acknowledge that you have fear around it.
Speaker 2:One time I am I took my daughter to a therapist one time because she kind of gets really bad anxiety and she kind of freezes up and the therapist taught me like the most incredible thing in the entire world and it's changed how I think of fear and everything. And what happened is he says when you say to yourself I can't, like literally the word I can't and studies show like it will make your brain, it freezes in that fear flight response. Okay, mechanism of your brain, right. So when you say I can't, your brain for the next 10 minutes. Your brain cannot be logical, it cannot be creative, it cannot think any solutions to any problems, right, for 10 minutes. Your brain is completely locked down into the survival of like fear flight response.
Speaker 2:So when we start thinking of like doing something and it is scary, and we're like I can't do that, when we say I can't, you literally have to pause for 10 minutes. You cannot think of anything else because your brain is not logical, it's going to have no logical, it's just going to think of all the reasons why in a cell it's not going to work. You can't do it and it will continue going on a list. And so I think what you need to do is, when you come across something you're like you're getting fearful and maybe you do say OK, you have to acknowledge and be like OK, brain, I hear you, you're doing what you're supposed to do, you're supposed to protect me.
Speaker 2:You know and acknowledge that it's doing what it's supposed to be doing and you know what, for the next 10 minutes I'm not going to think about this and you go do anything else and let your brain then back into the part of the side of your brain where it is creative, because the answer to all of our problems is that creative side has to come and come up with ideas, and we can't do that when we're stuck in our fear zone. So we just have to give it time and go do something else, anything else, and then all of a sudden, 10 minutes later, your brain will start coming up with ideas again and you'll be able to solve the problem and you'll be able to take that first step of whatever it is that you're wanting to do. And you just do a tiny baby step and it just continues to compound.
Speaker 1:I love that because I'm very creative and I know that our listeners have heard this story before, but my dad passed away 10 months ago, so I think that I've been more creative since he's passed, as I'm trying to push that fear and it makes sense when you're talking to me today why I'm doing all of the things that I'm doing is to push that fear of the loss of him out of my mind, right in my heart. But I can't. I mean, I know it's still in there, but I am trying hard to push through it and, you know, most days I'm doing pretty good, but I also feel like I'm masking it a little bit, you know, because it was horrible and it's horrible to love someone so much and have them die. It's just, it sucks, but I'm proof positive that you can push through it, yeah, so that makes a lot of sense. Thank you for sharing that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that with me. I grief is like one of the hardest places, I think, for the brain to be stuck in. It's really hard and it takes so much time to like move out of that. Oh, I'm really sorry for your loss, thank you.
Speaker 1:Me too, I'm really. I knew he was sick, but I never thought he was gonna die. You know, I thought he was gonna push through it and you know, even yesterday I just kept thinking, like I keep doing all this stuff to fill my head with things, you know, and I really haven't grieved properly, I don't think.
Speaker 2:But luckily I know all of this stuff and I know about personal development.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure if I didn't know where I would be today you know so, thankfully, I know how to pick myself back up every day, and you just got to keep studying. It's work. Doing this is work, working for myself all the time, right. Something else happened when he passed. I feel my sense of fear is lessened so much. I used to be so afraid of things. One thing what people thought of me and I'm to that point where someone said what other people think of you is none of your business, and so I'm really focused on that.
Speaker 1:I'm not really, it doesn't really matter if someone sees me in a way that I'm not happy with it. I'm not happy with it doesn't matter, because I'm not afraid anymore of that. I'm not afraid to die Like I used to be feared of that, Like I'd have a pain. I'd be like oh, I'm having a heart attack. No, I'm not, I'm just driving myself crazy about it. You know, I feel different. I mean, I know that I'm a different person. I'm not the same and there's some things that probably aren't as good, but there's some things that are better.
Speaker 1:You know that I can look at myself and think I got through one of the hardest things in my whole life and I would think about it and worry about it. Every time the phone rang I'd be jumping 50 feet, you know. Is that the call? Is this the call? Like, why is my mom calling me in the middle of the day? And you know so, fear is tough, it's difficult. So I'm glad we're talking about it, and I know that the next thing I want to ask you about is developing courage in facing fear. So you know, can you share a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Yes, I believe that courage completely comes from facing fears. It's kind of like a snowball effect, Like you have to be able. The more that you face your fear, the more you develop that courage. I like to use the analogy. I used to do martial arts all the time. I was really big into it. I like wanted to fight in the ring. People are like what?
Speaker 1:You can't so pretty. That doesn't make sense.
Speaker 2:What they do, though in martial arts, you know, they always like, say, take a self-defense class, and you can take a self-defense class, and if you take it once that's great, but, like, when you are actually in a situation where it's life-threatening, you will not remember what it is that you're supposed to do. You think that you will, because your adrenaline is so high. In fact, like you know the scenes on tv where, like somebody's chasing after them and they have their car keys and they're trying to put their car keys in the door, but they can't get right, they're struggling just to do simple tasks. That literally does happen, because when you are in that you know zone, that fear flight, your small muscles don't work, your big ones do, like your arms, and so it's hard to use your fingers. But like, using your big muscles, like your arms and your legs, like that, that's where all the energy is in.
Speaker 2:So, anyways, when you're training in MMA, you train over and over, and what happens is when you get hit in the face, most people not everyone, but like most people the first time they get hit in the face they freeze because they've, like, they've never been hit before, they don't know. You know what I mean. And so before you go on the ring you have to spar and you have to get hit a bunch of times in the face because you want to develop that like immediate instead of freezing when you get hit hit. You have to develop that muscle reaction to immediately respond instead. When I first started, you know, training MMA, I was like, oh, I thought for sure, if I got hit I would immediately respond. But I didn't, I froze you did, you did.
Speaker 2:There's like I totally did I was like I had no idea what to do. But I've been training for like two years and like I just was like wow, you know what I mean. Like you do it over and over again, and so eventually it was like you got hit and it was like okay, respond, I respond through it. I feel like when you're dealing with trying to, you know, grow your courage, it's almost like a muscle where you have to train it over and over again so it just responds. So like you can't. Where people are like I don't want to feel fear and they run away from it, you have to kind of lean into it and embrace, feeling it, so that your courage does end up growing, so that then the next big thing comes, you have enough courage to face it. You just automatically go.
Speaker 1:Right, because you've been through that part. Yeah, totally. Lessons learned from a little marsh park I love it and I think you just can't be that girl like you're, so pretty and so sweet, you never know. Don't mess with her on the street, say everyone.
Speaker 2:I will say it's so funny for anyone who is looking to build confidence. There is nothing that built my confidence more than going to martial arts, and it's because there's just something that comes in, an empowerment that comes when you feel like you can protect yourself. You feel like you can almost do anything. I used to go to bed and I used to be so scared at night if my husband was working, and then I started doing martial arts and then I started being like, oh you know what, if someone breaks into my house, you're not going to know what hits them. I don't know why I picked the wrong house.
Speaker 1:You picked the wrong house, yeah.
Speaker 2:Anyone who wants to really develop confidence. I highly suggest martial arts. I definitely. I actually took it myself when I was younger, so I do, I do, yeah.
Speaker 1:I do feel like whenever you're practicing or moving, you just feel so strong and you know, I'm 56 and I know that I'm like I'm small because I lost some weight, I'm real little and I'm thinking I can't hurt anyone, but I mean I can if I need to. You know there's definitely ways to do that. But yeah, that's so cool. I love that story.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about how we transform the relationship with fear to empower ourselves every day. What does that look like for you when I start feeling fear and I do feel fear. We got to do all the things that we were talking about we've got to, like, embrace it Do you know what I mean? And be like, okay, and I'm going to talk business. You know, like I was afraid my business isn't going to work out. You know what I mean. I'm not going to have that.
Speaker 2:When I start going down that train of mind, I think it's so important Just lean in and embrace it and fill it and be like, okay again. I hear you, brain, I'm going to listen, like I know what you're trying to do, you're trying to keep me safe, and then again, wait 10 minutes, create that actionable step and then go and do that and it will literally. The first time is going to be really hard, but it gets easier each time because you start knowing exactly when you're feeling it and so eventually you're like oh, it's just fear, Okay, I don't need to worry about that. But I think the biggest thing is we can say, like you got to try to overcome fear, but sometimes fear is going to overcome us. Do you know what I mean.
Speaker 2:And as much as we try, I think we, when we do let fear come into our life and we do have the failure from like every failure I've ever had, is because it was fear driven. I having a really hard conversation with an employee, whatever it is, it has always been fear driven and it's always ended in a bad situation for myself. And I think we just have to also acknowledge, like when we get there, like that it's okay. You know what I mean. Like I made a bad decision, I listened to my fear, but I now know never to do that again Makes sense. Lesson learned yeah.
Speaker 1:So I read a little bit on your website about mornings are your inspiration. What does that mean? Do you have a morning routine that you do every day? What's? It like for you in the morning.
Speaker 2:Well, I always well, on Mondays I have Monday hour one. I don't know if you so what I do is, every Monday, the very first hour, is I write down all the things that I have to do that week like an incredible long page, and just brain dump it. Because when we keep things in our brain, it almost like it takes up space. You know what I mean. So when we are with our kids, we're not really with our kids because we're sitting here thinking of all the things that we can't forget to do later that day, and so I like to brain dump everything that I need to get done for the whole entire week on this piece of paper so I can clear up space in my brain, and then I go and schedule it into my planner and I do it first. Before I do that, I pick, you know, the three things that are the most important value wise, and I schedule like those first.
Speaker 2:When I built my first company, I value my family so much, but I let success it in the way and I loved success and so I just it became like a snowball effect and so, like success always came first in everything, there's like this saying you know that there's a price for success. Success and there is, and I let my values come in second place and it really affected, you know, my relationships and so I decided the second time I was building a company I was never going to do that ever again that I was going to put my values in very first, so that I'm always like focused and I don't ever regret anything. And then I plan everything around my values and so, like I will schedule my time with my family or I will schedule my date with my husband on my friend's or my friends, whatever it it is, but I plan around that and that is like ultimately my favorite. It's like my brain dumping session and anything else. Do you live better now? Yes, so much better. I feel more productive. I can accomplish so much more.
Speaker 2:I read this book called the ruthlessless Elimination of Hurry. I don't know if you've ever read it. I cannot tell anyone to read this enough. Like this book changed my life, but it talks about how the world is just. We just live in a constant state of hurry. It's just so much. And after I read this book, it just completely changed my thought process about what is important and what I need to focus on most importantly, which is our relationships. You know, like you know, we can always make more money, we can always do things like that, but we can't ever get our time back, especially with, like our family members.
Speaker 1:we sure can't and that's great advice for everyone. So ruthless elimination is everyone. So Ruthless Elimination is the book of this.
Speaker 2:Ruthless Elimination of Hurry. And it is so good guys Like I 10 out of 10.
Speaker 1:So my last question for you is about what actions can we take to change our response to fear and use it as a catalyst for growth.
Speaker 2:I think we need to take time to like really learn about fear. In order to conquer something, you really got to learn about it and take the time to research and read books on fear. The more knowledge is power, so the more power that we have about why we react the way we do, we're going to be able to overcome things quicker.
Speaker 1:That's important because time does run out on us, so if we spend our whole life in fear, we're not going to have the greatest time. I appreciate you so much for being on, so thanks for joining me and sharing your tales of fear and helping us to push through it. It's so important for everyone. How can listeners get ahold of you?
Speaker 2:So you can find me on Instagram. My handle is Carrie period Joe period Patterson, and that's where I spend most of my time. Unfortunately, it's a lot of work, but that's where I'm at.
Speaker 1:I get it. I get it. I mean it's funny because social media is now work. It was fun one time, but now it's work. I've spent less time scrolling than I do working on social media To our audience. How will you take the lessons shared today and apply them to your own life, own life? Remember, fear can either be a stumbling block or a stepping stone. It's up to you to decide. So, thank you again for being on and until next time, keep pushing forward, embrace your fears and striving for success. Thank you very much, Carrie Jo. I appreciate your time today.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
