Contagious Confidence with Katie Hawkes

Episode Transcript

Julianna:

Hello and welcome to the Daring to Succeed podcast. I’m your host, Julianna Yau Yorgan, and I’m joined by Katie Hawks from the Contagious Confidence podcast.

Starting from a very young age, Katie always struggled with confidence, confidence in herself, in her relationships, body image, and even in her work. It wasn’t until 2017 when she hired a life coach that her whole world changed.

This experience led her on a journey to become the most confident version of herself, and she quickly realized she was not alone. What started as hour-long conversations with a friend during the pandemic turned into the Contagious Confidence podcast.

The goal of the podcast is to give women who struggle with confidence a place to find a community and get encouragement that they need to gain confidence in every area of their lives.

Since its start, the Contagious Confidence podcast has received thousands of downloads and has welcomed guests from all walks of life. Katie is on a mission to prove that confidence really is contagious, and she’s just getting started.

When she’s not podcasting, Katie works in marketing for an e-commerce website and enjoys every minute of it. She lives in Charlotte, North Carolina with her husband Gill, daughter Layla, and their adorable golden doodle Hank.

Welcome to the podcast.

Katie:

Thank you so much, Julianna. I love talking to you, so I’m thrilled to be here today.

Julianna:

Me too. I can’t wait to get into all your confidence topics. And so the first question I always ask my guests is, do you consider yourself more introverted, extroverted, or a bit of both?

Katie:

Well, after giving it some thought, I would say that I’m definitely an introvert.

I’m really drained after being around people and I need time to myself to recover. But I’ll be the first to introduce myself to someone, but that’s as far as my extroversion goes.

I’m the person at the party that’s in the corner talking one-on-one with someone and getting really deep into conversation. That’s where I really thrive.

And actually this past weekend, I was around a lot of people. I had a lot of things to go to and was like bopping around and I was a zombie all day on Monday. I went to bed the same time my daughter does, which is like around 9 PM. And my watch said that I slept nine hours and four minutes. So if that doesn’t scream you’re an introvert. I don’t know what that is.

Julianna:

Yeah. And that’s such a big sleep for a mama too.

Katie:

Oh yeah. Oh man. Yeah, I can’t get enough these days. I would love to sleep as long as I possibly could, but I can’t.

Julianna:

I totally get it. I love my sleep.

Katie:

Me too.

Julianna:

So what do you think is the biggest challenge for an introvert to gain and maintain confidence in their career?

Katie:

This is such a good question. And I thought about it some, and I would say being taken advantage of. I’m speaking from experience, but I have had many professional situations where I was manipulated into making other people look good.

And I think, as an introvert, I always felt that being the behind the scenes person was where I was supposed to be. And people took advantage of that. And it took a lot of learning about myself and taking a step back from situations to realize that I was being taken advantage of.

And I learned the hard way that I need to set some boundaries. And I’m so glad that I did. So after a lot of soul searching and asking myself some really hard questions, I figured out that I actually wanted to be the person in the spotlight.

I didn’t want to be the behind the scenes person. So I was choosing to stay small because I had surrounded myself with people that kept me small. So once I started setting boundaries and looking for opportunities to make myself shine, that’s when people started to notice.

Julianna:

That’s such a powerful story. And I think that happens to a lot of introverts. And I don’t pick up on gender stuff too much, because I think there are a lot of commonalities outside of that. But I do think for women, a lot of us do experience being surrounded by people who keep us small, which is just so terrible.

05:12

Yeah. Well, I mean, it really impacts our confidence. And really, you don’t realize it’s happening until you’re actually in it. And you’re like, oh, wait, but I don’t want to be the choice.

Julianna:

Yeah, I talked to another coach once who talked about how, especially if like her experience is growing up in her life, that she was always taught sort of indirectly that women needed to be small and petite and compact. So everything in her life was about drawing inwards and staying small and it wasn’t until she kind of got past that she could expand and be confident and be big and proud of it.

Katie:

Yeah, because we’re not, as women, we’re not taught that we can take up space.

Julianna:

Exactly.

Katie:

Always, like we’re always told that we need to shrink and be behind the scenes, be the nurturer.

06:09

And I actually took an executive presence course that was offered through my company. I was nominated for it. And I like that. I would say that was like the the jumping off point for me. That was I mean, I started the podcast a couple months later. And that was just like that really gave me the confidence that I needed to show up and like be 100 percent myself because I didn’t feel like I could take up space.

I didn’t feel like I could like push my chest out and like have like a very like straight posture and be like, yeah, I’m here, you know, like, this is me. I have a seat at the table. I deserve a seat at the table. I have really good thoughts that I wanna share and I wanna be heard.

Julianna

Yeah, and I think so much of the time people think that introverts don’t have anything to share because we’re so quiet. And it’s almost like they’re making the assumption because of our behavior, not because they’re not making space for us to speak up.

Katie:

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah, I think, because I think a lot of introverts listening to this will agree that you like to take everything in and observe and really think about what you’re gonna say, because we wanna add value when we can, but we don’t wanna like, our value is not being the first to say it necessarily.

So it’s very hard for introverts to feel like they have a place because there’s the extroverts that are like just gonna spew stuff out there just because that’s how they like gain their energy and they’re like, they’re thinking of things and introverts are the ones that are really gonna like make sure that what they have to say is gonna bring value and is actually like, and it–the thought process is different.

So an introvert is gonna see a situation way different than an extrovert will, because it’s just a personality thing and how your brain thinks.

Julianna:

Yeah, I see that a lot. Like I noticed that extroverts tend to think out loud. Like their actual thought process is by speaking, where I find for most introverts, it’s the opposite. We like take everything in and it’s like, okay, I need my quiet time to process all of this and then I’ll get back to you.

Katie:

Yes, yeah, that’s exactly it.

Julianna:

And did you have any moments of revelation in that executive presence course that kind of were your aha moment that, yes, I’m ready for this now?

Katie:

Uh, many, uh, because it was like exercises, like we would, um, we would have like chats and exercises that we would do and we’d give feedback to the other people in the course with us. And I remember I, I think I may have given feedback or something and I remember one of the instructors looking at me on zoom–self-conscious if had I been in a room with people, but it was over Zoom.

And I remember the instructor looking at me, because apparently she’d been looking at me for most of the time. And she said, I don’t know why I want to say this, but you are worthy. And I just lost it. Because I think I was so nervous to give my genuine thoughts and my feedback because I really didn’t feel that my thoughts were worth it. I guess I never felt heard or no one ever really took what I said to heart.

And I think I was just like jumping around the issue and she could kind of tell that I was very nervous and not very sure of myself. And that’s why it was so hard for me to give that feedback. And when she told me that, that was like my aha moment. I was like, you know what? I am worthy. I am like, I can take up space.

What I have to say is important too, just like everyone else. And I just needed to hear it from someone else because I think a lot of times as introverts, we’re so in our heads and we think like, we’ve talked about this in our conversations that we had, but it’s like, why did I say that? Why did I do that?

Like I’m going to be thinking about something I said in this interview for the rest of the day. And we just kind of like micro analyze ourselves. But at the same time, it’s like what we do have to say is important. And sometimes an introvert thing is like, oh, that sounded so wrong when I said that, but it really didn’t sound wrong. Nobody even noticed. No one even noticed until we pointed out.

Julianna:

Yeah. And if there was one tip that you could give introverts on their own journey to becoming the most confident version of themselves, what would it be?

Katie:

So my number one tip for introverts and extroverts and everyone actually is to get to know yourself. That is my number one tip because getting to know myself has unlocked so much for me. It’s been a journey and I’m still learning, like you said, and the intro like my thing is confidence is a journey and like, I’m here to remind you that you’re not alone.

That’s the whole purpose of my podcast. Um, so through having my podcast, I’ve really gotten to know myself and talking to other people like yourself. Definitely tell check out Julianna’s, um, interview on my podcast. Cause it was wonderful. It was, it was so good.

Um, but yeah, like in talking to other people and hearing about their stories and hearing about like the work that they do. I’ve really gotten to know myself and realize like who I am. And I think it also comes with age as well is the older I get, the more confident I am in myself and like who I am, because for so long I was the version of Katie that everyone expected me to be.

And I was so nervous to do anything that wasn’t expected of me because I just, I cared so much about what people thought of me. That it really limited me and a lot of the opportunities that I got and like where I went in my life because I was just, I was so scared to break out of the idea of people had of me. It was like my parents, my teachers, my friends. Like I was just so terrified to do something that wasn’t like, oh, well, that makes sense that Katie did that.

And it even like changes in my physical appearance, like getting tattoos. Everyone that I grew up with was very surprised that I got tattoos. I wanted these my whole life, but I was terrified to get it because no one expected me to get a tattoo, you know, those sorts of things. So like getting to know myself and realizing like, oh, these are actually things that I like and I enjoy and I want to pursue has opened up so many doors for me.

And I like, if you don’t know where to start, I wouldn’t start with personality tests because they, I mean, they’re like, the Enneagram was super enlightening for me figuring out like, okay, I, there’s a reason I am the way that I am. And there’s actually a lot of other people out there that are similar to me, but like how with those types of personality tests, I feel like a lot of people can use it as an excuse.

But I just kind of like, I look at it as like, okay, I’ve learned this about myself. Like, is this something that I want to improve upon? Is this something I want to be super transparent about? Like, how do I want to take this information and apply it to my life rather than using it as an excuse?

And like, I think a really good example of this is I’m a two on the Enneagram and a two is like a helper and someone that is very like loves being of service to people. And one thing that twos really struggle with is identifying their needs. They’re so good at identifying people’s needs, but it’s really hard for them to identify theirs. And so, especially in my relationship, my relationship with my husband, I was like, okay, I figured this out about myself that I’m not very good at expressing what I need.

So I’m just going to like keep talking and telling you what I’m feeling and we can figure out what’s going on here. But that was something that I was like, okay, this makes sense. I want to use this and try to like figure out how I can better operate in my life and in my relationships.

But it was, I just had to like be like, okay, I’ve learned this about myself and this is what I wanna do about it.

Julianna:

So that’s so great. And I think that’s the case for a lot of us who, we all grow up with expectations, whether they’re told to us directly or not. And, you know, I think a lot of us just don’t want to disappoint the people who are in our lives and stray from maybe some of the societal expectations that are put on us because we don’t know what it would mean if we did something different.

Katie:

Yeah, exactly. You’re so right. Yeah, and I think as introverts, that’s really, really difficult to like break out of that mindset and like really truly be ourselves because we need to take time to process things.

And we need to like, I mean, I didn’t get tattoos because I thought about it one day and went and got one the next. I thought about it for like eight years. Then I was like, okay, I’m finally ready. So we really need to take our time and do what is most comfortable for us.

Julianna:

Yeah. And I think it’s scary when you do something and people respond in a way that’s not supportive or even just the fear of them not being supportive. Like maybe they would be if you did the thing or if you said the thing. But like just the thought of, oh my God, what if I get a tattoo and everybody like…ostracizes me for it.

Katie:

Yeah. I mean, and that, you know, that happened to me. My mom was like, you know, that’s permanent. And I said, yes, I do.

Julianna:

Yes, I do know that’s permanent.

Katie:

I understand what a tattoo means. And then my dad had a different reaction because it was his, my first tattoo I ever got was my grandmother’s name and her handwriting and it was his mom and he had the sweetest reaction. He just…he got emotional.

He’s like, I, like, I’m so like, just, it’s so sweet that you want to have something on your arm that’s permanent to remember her by. And so it’s those reactions, but I had to be like, you know, I understand that it’s permanent, but this is something that I really, really want.

Julianna:

So, well, I’m glad you got them. And I love seeing them as you’re moving around on screen.

Katie:

I talk with my hand.

Julianna:

That’s okay. And is there anything else you wanted to share with our introverted listeners out there who might need a little confidence boost?

Katie:

Oh, so many things. I like, I’ve already mentioned get to know yourself, but also do things scared. I think is another piece of advice that I would give because we can get so in our heads about things and we’re like, oh, I don’t want to do this. Oh, everyone’s going to be looking at me. I’m not sure how I’m going to be perceived.

And one thing that gave me so much freedom is something my mentor said to me. And it was, you don’t own the truth of what other people are thinking. So you can only own your truth and what’s true for you, but you don’t own the truth of what other people are thinking.

Um, cause I would get so focused on how people were reacting to me, like whether it was they were on their phones when I was talking or if they were looking way or I would just get so focused on like what I thought they were thinking.

And then, and then I would lose my train of thought and I would be like, oh no. Like, is what I’m saying like right. Or are they like not paying attention? Cause I’m not like what I’m saying is not important.

And once I released that feeling of putting thoughts in everyone else’s mind, when I’m talking, I was like, wow, this is amazing. I don’t have to focus on how other people are reacting to me. Maybe they’re taking notes or on their phone, or maybe they’ve had a hard day and they’re just like having a hard time paying attention. And that was something that really so much for me is not focusing so much on how I was being perceived.

So as introverts, I think it’s important to rely more on ourselves and not put those thoughts in our mind that we think everyone else is doing. Because that will give you a lot of freedom. Like I was saying, do it scared. Maybe getting up in front of a group is really scary for you. But maybe if you have an opportunity, try it out. And if you’re like, oh, OK, this is not for me, at least we tried.

Practice steps, baby steps, like a food that you’ve never had before. And you’re just kind of nervous. You’re like, ah, I don’t know. Try it. You might actually like it. So like be willing to do things a little scared sometimes. Um, cause I think we can get super in our heads. Um, and when we do get in our heads, realize we don’t own the truth. That’s what I have to say. I’m trying to like tie it all together.

Julianna:

Yeah. No, you are doing a fantastic job of that. I was actually going to say that you’ve shared so many amazing insights with us here already, and I’m sure our listeners will get so much more out of your podcast.

Katie:

Yes. Yeah, definitely come on over and listen. I have amazing guests and I’m trying to do more solo episodes. As Juliana said, I’m a new mom, so I’m kind of navigating that whole world.

And trying to share my experience, even though it’s taking me a while, like I just did my birth story recently and it’s been six months since that happened.  But I really had to process it and then share. So yeah, definitely come over and give it a listen if you feel so inclined.

Julianna:

Yeah, I mean, some of the stories you’re sharing right now are so personal. I can imagine it took you some time to kind of, like you said, process, but also decide what you were comfortable with sharing.

Katie:

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Julianna:

Yeah. And before we go, was there anything you can give us in terms of a sneak peek of what to expect on your podcast this year?

Katie:

Oh, so I have some interviews that I’ve already done. Very, very interesting interviews.

I interviewed a doctor who wrote a book about how our minds kind of hide things that we experience and that was super interesting. I remember in preparing for that podcast, I sent her some questions I wanted to ask her. She was like, these are great questions, but we only have an hour. I was like, I could dive into these, but it’s going to take a lot longer than an hour.

Yeah, so that one’s really good. Um, and then I interviewed an author recently and that one, she wrote the radiant life project and it’s just really, really, really cool. So very excited to share that one too. Lots of good nuggets in that interview. So those are just a couple interviews that have lined up. And then  I’ve got some really juicy solo episodes coming. So that’s all I’m going to tell you there.

Julianna:

I can’t wait. And I’ll be sure to put links to your podcast in the show notes so everybody can go find you.

Katie:

Thank you so much, Julianna.

Julianna:

Well, thanks again so much for being on the podcast, Katie. It’s lovely to speak with you as always.

Katie:

Yes, absolutely. Love talking to you.

Julianna:

You might be one of our repeat guests.

Katie:

I would love to be, that would be amazing. Anytime you want to have me back, I’m here.

Julianna:

Awesome. Well, thanks everyone for listening and we’ll see you next time.