Overcoming Self-Doubt and Building Confidence with Angela Masciulli

Feeling stuck in self-doubt as a mom and business owner? This episode is your confidence boost! Today I sit down with Angela Masciulli, a confidence coach who's been there. We'll tackle the nagging voice of self-doubt head-on and share powerful strategies to build rock-solid confidence. 

Learn how to silence your inner critic, embrace your unique strengths, and stop comparing yourself to others. Angela reveals simple yet effective techniques to transform your mindset and shows you how to cultivate lasting confidence like a muscle. Whether you're doubting your business skills or struggling with mom guilt, this chat will leave you feeling empowered and ready to crush your goals. Tune in for a dose of real talk and practical tips to help you become the confident mompreneur you're meant to be!

Topics covered in this episode:

• Balancing business ownership and motherhood.
• The importance of self-connection and self-acceptance for entrepreneurs.
• Overcoming self-doubt and negative self-talk.
• Redefining what confidence means individually.
• The impact of childhood experiences and trauma on confidence.
• Energy work and Reiki as tools for self-development

CONNECT WITH ANGELA:
https://www.instagram.com/angela.masciulli/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/angela-masciulli/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCq9TMRrlnyJ5AjTm3kyru2A
https://www.facebook.com/mombusinesscoach
https://www.pinterest.com/MomBusinessCoach/

RESOURCES FROM ALYSON:

The Kid-Proof Business Checklist
https://alysoncaffrey.com/checklist

Maternity Leave Planning Guide
https://www.mastermaternityleave.com/guide

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Are you juggling the challenges of running a business while raising your little ones? Do you crave more ease in balancing your professional ambitions with the demands of parenthood? Well, sit tight, you're in the right place. I'm your host, alison Caffrey, and I understand the growing pains that come with building a business while nurturing a growing household. Think of this as a soft spot to land when you feel like your ambitions are starting to become just a little overwhelming. Welcome to Growing Pains.

Speaker 2: 0:37

Hey and welcome back to the Growing Pains podcast. I'm your host, alison Caffrey, and today I sit down with Angela Mishuli. She is the host of the Good Enough Mompreneur podcast. I was actually on a few months back and she has become such a great friend and confidant in this thing called business ownership and motherhood. Angela had started her own travel agency to support families who are going to Disney World. It's such a fun, fun job. She actually supported us in going to take our family to Disney a few months ago and this was such an incredible conversation with Angela, just all around building confidence and being in a position to feel really confident about your decisions among all of the noise and all the things that are happening. So Angela has been a coach to women business owners all around confidence for a really long time and she's actually getting Reiki certified as well. And so Angela's been a coach to women business owners all around confidence for a really long time and she's actually getting Reiki certified as well. And so Angela's got a lot of irons in the fire, like a lot of our mamas on the show do, and I just really love.

Speaker 2: 1:34

I said on the show that Angela just has this like really calming presence and she really, I think, supports a lot of the people that she works with to just feel a little bit more confident, feel a little bit more calm people that she works with to just feel a little bit more confident, feel a little bit more calm, and so I hope she brings that to you in this episode. I can't wait for you guys to hear it and I'll see you inside, angela. Welcome. Welcome to Growing Pains. How are you doing?

Speaker 3: 2:03

Hi, allison, I'm so well. It's so great to see you again. We have like a long history. I feel like I you know you were a guest on my podcast and I'm one of those people that just loves to keep in touch. You've done so much. I love watching you grow. You've become an author, and so I love. Thanks for having me on.

Speaker 2: 2:17

Thank you and also my goodness, you're like making me blush over here. I've so enjoyed staying in touch with you as well, and that was our initial kind of connection point was me coming onto your show, and then over the years we've like linked up and been able to keep touching base, and you even gave me some pointers and things on my trip to Disney with the kids recently, so that was super exciting.

Speaker 2: 2:42

But for our listeners, Angela, I want them to know you like I know you. So tell everybody a little bit about your business and a little bit about the family that you have at home.

Speaker 3: 2:53

Yeah, so I am a well, we also connect because we were both military spouses.

Speaker 1: 3:00

And so there's always this connection there.

Speaker 3: 3:03

I love that. And so my husband retired from the Air Force gosh about seven years now and so it was a really big reset in our life and I had been an entrepreneur. And then, during the pandemic after 2020, my daughters were able to get serious about dance again, and so I realized I needed to make a shift in the businesses that I ran, and so I started a travel business, because for years, I had been the point person for so many friends and family and I was like I really love this, I really know a lot about it, and so maybe I'll do this and in doing that, I love serving my travel clients. But I also realized, like moms were like who do you think you are Like what? You've been in the legal industry for 20 plus years. Why would you make this shift? What the heck? And how do you start a business? So I started coaching moms on how to start a business, and then I was in a podcast workshop and I won a scholarship to learn how to podcast. So I realized I really was feeling pulled to serve moms who wanted to learn how to start a business and feel good enough to be able to do that as well as learn the logistics.

Speaker 3: 4:27

And then a little, I don't know, maybe about a year ago, I had a really high profile guest on the podcast and I was just kind of like what would I do to deserve to have you on the podcast? And she was very kind and at the end she was just like Angela, you need to own this Like. And so it made me stop and go. You know what she's right. She's totally right, and in all of the business coaches or business clients that I've worked with, ultimately you can teach people about business, no problem, but it's about the confidence to implement what you're learning.

Speaker 3: 5:09

That is really truly the crux for most people, especially women. And so I set out on a journey to become a certified confidence coach, because I realized I was struggling with my confidence and my sense of self-worth to have a guest and I needed to work on elevating my ability to receive that. I mean, that's why we're in business, that's why we have podcasts, to grow them and to connect with more and more people, and so obviously I had some work to do to be able to do that and so I set out to do that. So now I do confidence coaching as well as business coaching for moms, and you know I serve a select number of travel clients, so yeah, and you just run an awesome podcast.

Speaker 2: 6:02

Yeah, and you just run an awesome podcast.

Speaker 3: 6:04

That too, Right? Oh, thank you. I mean we're, we were rated number. We're in the top 10 of mompreneur podcasts, rated by feed spot, but we're also in the top 10% of all podcasts, which is crazy to me.

Speaker 2: 6:18

It's so wild. Right, it really is. You know, we've experienced some really cool organic growth with growing pains, because we don't really do anything to advertise we don't have advertisers. We don't, it really is. You know, we've experienced some really cool organic growth with Growing Pains because we don't really do anything to advertise we don't have advertisers.

Speaker 2: 6:27

We don't monetize on the show at all and it's funny Like I was meeting with my producer a couple of weeks ago and she was like this is going great and I was like awesome, people must love these conversations. I'm like I love having them. Yeah, so it's so incredible really hit a market of people that I truly do believe are underserved, like mompreneurs. I think there are not a lot of resources out there for us doing things differently, and maybe that does speak to the confidence level of some of these women. Like, do you find that to be true? Is that the fact that we're just kind of so different from our you know our counterparts in motherhood, right, like moms who might either stay at home with their kiddos or are traditionally employed, do you feel like mompreneurs are just kind of a little left on our own?

Speaker 3: 7:09

Yeah, I think, yeah, it is so different, and I've had women actually tell me I was told that if I wanted to be serious about my business, I had to hire a nanny, and so not only do we have different you know situations than other entrepreneurs, we're constantly being kind of given these messages that we can't be just who we are and be successful and do what we want to do and also be the parent that we want to be at the same time? Want to do and also be the parent that we want to be at the same time, and so I think we're struggling with figuring that out. That's why it's so magical to have these conversations because, you know, I'm guessing that there's a lot of nodding going on right now with listeners because we just it's really isolating because so many of us are online entrepreneurs, just because that gives us the flexibility to kind of do the things that we need to do with our families, and so parenting is isolating, being an online entrepreneur is isolating, and and so we're dealing with that as well.

Speaker 2: 8:22

Yeah, Honestly, I didn't even think about the isolation piece, because it is true, Like working in a home office by yourself, even if you have a remote team like I have 12 people on my team that I'm talking with all the time but it still doesn't, you know, have the same kind of weight of having, you know, a true kind of community or or an in-person feel. Angela, I love your take on confidence and I think your story and transformation are extremely beautiful and you're so inspiring in that way. Talk to me about the role of confidence as a mompreneur, Like why is that so important?

Speaker 3: 8:57

Well, it's so important. Number one because, you know, when I start working with clients, we have to dig deep into not only our own individual idea of what confidence is, but we have to dig deep into the story we're telling ourself about our confidence. And so many of us don't have a growth mindset about confidence. We think it's you're born with it or you're not, or you've had a set of circumstances in your life where you've been allowed to be confident and it's nurtured, or you haven't, and so like for me.

Speaker 3: 9:34

I worked in an industry where being an extrovert, being kind of having that masculine presence, was really modeled for me in leadership and quote unquote success, and that just wasn't authentic to me, like I can't even do that if I tried. I am, you know, a quiet introvert who sits and listens and observes and you know, and so I really just honestly, for a long time didn't think the things that I felt called to do were even possible or even an option for me, because I thought that I wouldn't be perceived as confident because I'm not extroverted, that I'm not loud, that I'm not somebody that's going to tell you what you need to do and what you need to think and lead you in that kind of that bro masculine kind of way, and so I had to change my own confidence story. But it is so important because I had spent thousands on coaches and courses and all the things and I'm like this is great. I noticed that all of the top creators in their products were skipping over this. They would tell you temporary things One of the top personal development speakers.

Speaker 3: 11:01

You know her take on confidence is it's just the willingness to try. That's part of it. There's so much more and I think we just keep trying these temporary band-aids and, especially as moms and women, we beat ourselves up when we can't do what we perceive as being confident or it doesn't last. And so really learning how to create long lasting confidence that you cultivate like a muscle, like you work out yeah, you have to work out that confidence muscle.

Speaker 2: 11:43

I'm into that and honestly it's interesting. So I'm curious your take on this, Angela Sure, Because I believe that confidence in our male counterparts might be a little bit simpler, because they get the same hormone cocktail every single day. How is that different for women? Because I know personally, depending on my panel throughout the month, of whatever hormones I'm getting for that day, I will wake up and be like I got this, I can crush this workout and go do all the things I feel really productive. And then there are some days I'll be at where I'm just like what am I doing here? I'm faking it Like I don't know what I'm doing.

Speaker 3: 12:18

Right, no, well, yeah, I think we we have kind of more of a masculine toxic. We have kind of more of a masculine toxic productivity society that kind of reinforces that. But I think what I personally see and feel, and what was true for me, is the conditioning to take care of everybody else before myself, because ultimately it's my opinion that confidence is number one a disconnect with self. If you're looking to everybody else, like I did for so long, to give me the external validation, whether it was my next degree or my next certification or my next accomplishment or my next title or the next client, right, you know, that was my sense of self-worth.

Speaker 3: 13:09

And why wasn't I happy? Why, you know why were was I doing all of the things and had all of the external reasons to be successful and confident, but I didn't. I was disconnected with what I truly wanted. I didn't know how to cultivate that. With what I truly wanted, I didn't know how to cultivate that. So, in addition to societal messages that you have to be productive all of the time, regardless of where you are in your cycle or how you're feeling, or how your kids are feeling and how your family's going, that, combined with a disconnect with self and your self-worth, man. We have a lot of hurdles to overcome.

Speaker 2: 13:56

I know it sounds like a lot, so for those of us admittedly as well me I'm like oh man, am I confident? Am I connected with self? What's the first thing we can do if we're like, okay, I don't feel confident with self? What's the first thing we can do if we're like, okay, I don't feel confident? I feel like whenever I am, whether it's like in your business or even as a mom, like I remember I really struggled early postpartum. I was like I don't know what I'm doing. Who trusted me to go home with this baby? I was like I just need, and I was really searching for external validation. A lot of it came from family members, friends from online, right Like on social media. Good moms do this, they have tidy households, they have their hair done, and so I was constantly in a state of comparison. But what can someone do if they really find that they're lacking confidence and they feel like it comes from, yeah, just like a lack of connection with who they are?

Speaker 3: 14:47

Right. Well, I think the number one thing that you really need to ask yourself and is you know, what do you consider to be confident? But what are those things that you perceive that are going to give you that validation, and why? Because we really have to get to the root. We do an assessment of where it is that you're feeling that lack of confidence and we talk about, like, how do you handle you know, setbacks and why? And is it that fifth grade science fair that you didn't win? Is it you know the conversations with, maybe your parents or your friends or situations? And really ultimately asking yourself what do you want? Who, what type of mom do you want to be? And so we live in such a busy society where we just do not take time to be still and listen to what we want. Want X, because they're so used to taking care of their kids or their family or their parents or whatever, that they really just lose the disconnect with the ability to even do that.

Speaker 2: 16:19

Yeah, I imagine that confidence to some because it does for me often feels like bragging a little bit right, like if you're, if you're like I'm so confident I could solve this problem for you, and that comes across in a way that feels like it's like, well, how dare you Like who? Who do you think you are? And so I think sometimes, especially as women, we tend to dull that edge right Of really presenting confidently because we want to be I don't know seen and not heard, or we want to, we really want to kind of dull that like braggadocious part of our brain. And so what is that about? Like our people that are confident, I don't know, are they, are they, are they bragging? How? How does that present? And I think you got around that with the definition of confidence. But, like, how does one define what confidence is to them? Right, well, you?

Speaker 3: 17:13

have to get to the heart of that. I mean, that's a wonderful thing that you just said and that's something that so many women struggle with and I think I've struggled with too, because we're taught not to outshine anybody else. We're taught to be pleasing and not cause issues and to be kind. But I honestly don't think that I've met any of my male counterparts to have any problem telling you anything about any success that they have achieved. I you know it's really interesting when I go to podcast events. It's like you really just see this really interesting dynamic between female podcasters and the male podcasters and yeah, I think it's. It's just really about identifying what do you think that is holding you back.

Speaker 3: 18:09

And I have four self-doubt traps that I go over with clients. I don't know if you want to talk about that, but you know that's a really good way to get to the thing the story that you're telling yourself that may not be true and helping you rewrite that story, because we just believe things like that. Like, did somebody come to you and say, allison, don't brag, don't outshine anybody? And you know you signed it on a paper. It's no, we just just kind of co-sign these things in our lives that we just don't realize are driving. They're in the driver's seat, not us.

Speaker 2: 18:58

I have a coach who tells a really interesting story. He calls it the humble heart surgeon and he says he asks this to like tons of different types of audiences kids, adults, business owners, financial advisors, like whoever he asks this to like tons of different types of audiences kids, you know, adults, business owners, financial advisors, like whoever he's talking to. And he said you know, if you encounter, you know you need heart surgery, and you encounter two heart surgeons. And the first is the humble heart surgeon and he says hey, listen, you know we have a pretty good success rate. My team is, you know, they're really nice people and they're going to do the very best job that they can on your surgery. And would you like us to do your surgery?

Speaker 2: 19:31

And the second heart surgeon comes in and he says listen, I am very successful at what I do. I am certain that we will get this result for you and I know without a shadow of a doubt that my team is the best in the world and they can handle this surgery. Which one are you going to pick? And it has nothing to do with them bragging. It has everything to do with just the level of confidence that they display when they're solving that problem for you. And so I think that there are areas of our life where we might be dulling, like you know, our light or our shine when it actually doesn't serve right, like that heart surgeon, the humble one. He might've been great at what he did, right, it might've been an excellent team of surgeons and at the end of the day they didn't get to do the thing that they were placed on the world you know, in the world to do, because of confidence alone.

Speaker 3: 20:25

Yeah, I mean getting back to the comparison.

Speaker 3: 20:28

It's like we think too that everybody else hasn't figured out and we don't give ourselves credit for what knowledge and abilities we do have. I so love talking to moms about the skills that they think that they have to start or grow a business, and they just skip over the things that are easy or innate to them because they think like, oh, it doesn't really matter. And so once we begin to kind of own that and create a resume for ourselves of what we really can do and offer our clients and I do this thing where we read it as if it's somebody else and I love that it is it's really powerful when you, you, it gets to the heart of that issue where we don't want to like brag about ourselves but read it as if it's about somebody else, and then you start ingesting oh wow, you know, that's me and those are really great things that I did or can do. And so I think when we kind of get out of our own way as much as possible, I think that should ultimately be the goal, yeah.

Speaker 2: 21:46

Oh, totally, you know it's interesting to. Another book I was reading I think it came out last year is Mind your Mindset by Michael Hyatt, and he wrote it with his daughter, who I think is the CEO of his company now, and he was talking about the thoughts that enter into your brain, like the natural thoughts about yourself specifically, and he's like I don't know anything that has entered into my brain, at least that has naturally occurred. That has been a positive and helpful thought about me, and he was like I almost need to train my thoughts to be able to tell myself self-affirming and even kind, kind stories about who I am and how I serve. Do you see that with moms?

Speaker 3: 22:32

Oh, oh, my gosh, it's horrible, it's like it is, and it's like we say things to ourselves that we wouldn't even say to anybody else. Yet for some reason, we feel like it's okay to kind of bully ourselves in that way, and that is another time when it's also really powerful to say it out loud. When you hear those comments creeping in and you say it out loud, it stings a little bit more, and so that's what I always encourage people to do is not only keep track of the things that you're saying to yourself, because they're there for a reason and they have a root somewhere, but learning to say them to yourself. And what's really powerful is when you begin to track those and you write them in pencil and then later on we go and we erase them and we replace them with truths.

Speaker 3: 23:29

So that's a little exercise for any listeners who are struggling with that really severe inner critic, which you know, one of the self-doubt traps that you just being hypercritical of the unknown and what other people are going to say about you or to you. And so I go through a fear setting exercise. You know, when somebody really struggles with that, we look at, okay, what's the worst could happen? And if those things happened, what, how could you fix it? Or who are the people who could support you. And when you go through that, you kind of realize and inoculate that hyper hypercritical voice.

Speaker 2: 24:18

I appreciate that. I'm going to definitely keep that activity top of mind. I'm a big time journaler. I do think that that's so helpful to get some of those thoughts out of your brain and make sure that they have. I mean they're not. Get some of those thoughts out of your brain and make sure that they have. I mean they're not. That's the thing I think about.

Speaker 2: 24:33

Just emotions in general, or confidence, is that it's not bad, right? It's not bad that you're not confident, right, that's not necessarily negative. It's just something that you can build, right. It's like a muscle, right, it's similar. I love how you positioned that, because I think, like there are super like muscular people out there who've got a lot of muscles and a lot of confidence, but my muscles they kind of work for my situation, like I don't pick up anything too heavy, except for my kids sometimes and they're like jumping on me and, like you know, I love that you put it that way, because I think, especially too when we start to think about thoughts, right, like sometimes thoughts come into our brain and they're just that, they're just thoughts. You can write them down, you can like just be like oh, that's there, that was the thought I had, and then if you would create a place for those to go that don't like necessarily interfere, I do think that's really helpful.

Speaker 3: 25:23

Yeah, being more aware of your thoughts is very powerful, just of your thoughts, is very powerful, just. I think that that is more powerful. And actually what you should do, instead of just stuffing them because they're there for a reason and so that's what I really try to get to the heart of is like, how did they get there? When did that kind of show up and kind of talking through that? And we don't think about those things. They've just been there and I think that 90% of our 16,000 plus thoughts a day are just primarily the same thoughts we had the day before. So if you don't actively replace those with new thoughts or realize that you can control them, you're going to keep recreating the same life. And if you're somebody who doesn't want to be in the same place now or, you know, this time, next year or years ahead, you know, learning how to write a new story in your head is just so important.

Speaker 2: 26:40

I'm literally reading Think and Grow Rich right now, and so this whole like thoughts are things is like very much my like filter through which I'm seeing life. Do you have a social work or psychology background Like do I. Yeah, wondering like how you got into this.

Speaker 3: 26:58

I've. Actually part of my confidence journey was realizing how much childhood drama affected my lack of confidence. I just thought, oh, that was just something that happened in my past and I and actually you know a lot of people who experience trauma try to out achieve their trauma. They keep going and keep going and to kind of feel like what happened to them, and so I realized that was very much part of my story as well. So I am in a year long trauma therapy group and work with therapists to just rewrite that story. So I definitely bring that.

Speaker 3: 27:48

You know I've had a history of family that dealt with mental illness and so that's something I definitely feel like we can't ignore how much that affects us because I think we just want to not deal with it or we don't realize. You know, we are until the age of like seven, taking in all of the things around us and our family and we're catching all the ways that we should handle things in life and you know, if you don't start examining those and really truly understanding and being aware of like your behaviors, yeah, really affects you.

Speaker 2: 28:32

I'm sure it's so interesting, honestly, the power of the mind and all of the things that affect it. You're also getting Reiki certified, correct I am. When did that?

Speaker 3: 28:44

come about Earlier. So, yeah, and I realized so part of confidence, part of my confidence journey has been radical self-acceptance. Right, it's all getting like more and more connected to yourself and who you are and what you're here to share with the world and what your gifts are, not what somebody tells you your gifts are. So I have always been somebody who's highly sensitive to other people's energy. I'll have a podcast interview with somebody that I know like things are awry in their world and it will throw off my day.

Speaker 3: 29:23

And so I'm a person, just like I met my husband and I was like, oh, I'm going to marry him.

Speaker 3: 29:30

I mean, I, I just, you know, I've known when pets are going to pass away and things like that, and so it's something that I've kind of stuffed and hidden and I don't talk about or I only talk about with certain people, and so I understood that this was a part, this is a gift of mine, and so, yeah, it's something that enables me to serve my clients. It helps me serve other people because I get a sense of what they need and where they want to go, especially in travel and things. So, yeah, I signed up to become a Reiki one practitioner and so I'm learning how to cultivate my energy. We all have a biosphere of energy. We're all energetic beings. We're all connected, whether we want to, you know, believe in that or not, but we are. So it's so exciting for me to be able to start to cultivate and awaken this kind of healing ability that is dormant in us all, and so it's just going to help me not only be my better self, but but serve my clients better too.

Speaker 2: 30:51

That is so amazing. I imagine that it is, um, I don't know, maybe just tough to share with people when you have, um feelings that you yourself don't understand right, that you're like, well, why? Why do I have these feelings when I interact with certain people? And so, honestly, angela, I want to honor you for being brave and still sharing, because some of us probably have those gifts inside of us too and we're like, well, we don't, you know. You know we don't know what this is going to be, or we don't feel fully confident in this yet. So we play it close to the chest, but I'm inspired by you for going out and trying.

Speaker 3: 31:29

Oh, thank you for saying that. Yeah, and it's not easy. I've had so many experiences and I just kind of like I won't say something to somebody about the like internal nudge I have, or you know, and you still gotta play it with your audience. But I think ultimately we never serve ourselves when we kind of do the stuffing that we're so used to and we kind of just play it safe and copacetic for everybody else around us.

Speaker 2: 32:02

My gosh, I love this. Okay, so cultivate your confidence, work it like a muscle, don't play it safe, and try to connect as much as you possibly can with yourself and get to know yourself radically. I love all the things we talked about, angela, this was amazing. Where can folks follow along with your confidence journey?

Speaker 3: 32:22

and everything you're doing. Yeah, I mean, my last name is super, you know tricky to spell and pronounce and all the things. So the best place to go is mombusinesscoachcom and you can find ways to connect with me on social media. You can check out what I do, and so I have a summer sanity workshop that I put together to. You can sign up for the free replay in the workbook, because I kept running into moms that were dreading the summer and I used to do that and I don't want moms to dread the summer. I have a 17 year old. We are lucky if we get 18 summers and so we shouldn't dread them. We should set our intentions, understand, trust ourselves and know that we can figure it out, and that's part of confidence. We could be a confident mom and a confident entrepreneur. We can do all the things.

Speaker 2: 33:15

My goodness, Honestly, I need you in my ear most days to help breed this confidence. I have no doubt that anybody listening to this episode feels lighter and more confident walking away from this conversation. Thank you so much for taking the time to share and for all those resources. I'll make sure that they're linked in below.

Speaker 3: 33:33

Yeah, awesome. Thank you, Allison.

Speaker 2: 33:38

Thank you so much for tuning into today's episode of Growing Pains. I know that you have so many things vying for your attention right now, so I am so grateful that you just spent the last hour or so with me. So I hear all the time from mompreneurs Allie, allie. What systems do I need to have in place in order to thrive in business and in parenthood? If you go over to alisoncaffreycom checklist, you can grab my kid proof business checklist and it will get you started in the right direction around making sure that you build a business that doesn't steal all of the time away from your family. If you loved today's episode, I would be so, so, so honored if you would leave a review on the podcast. It helps us reach even more incredible mompreneurs just like you and give them the resources they need to be wildly successful in business and wildly present at home with their families. Thanks so much again and I'll see you next time.