ļ»æTranscription
00:00:02
Hello and welcome to the Champagne Lounge. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Champagne Lounge podcast. Today I'm joined by one of my most fabulous best buddies, Samantha Leith. Welcome to the show. Thank you for having me.
00:00:19
My pleasure to be here. I'm so excited to have you on the show because you are honestly one of the most fabulous, most talented friends or women in the world. Actually, I'm going to say I'm going to put that on you because I know that you don't like me to talk about things in that way. But for me, my love, you've got such a breadth of experience and talent and expertise, and I know you've got a fabulous story as to how you have got to where you are today in your business. So a little bit of background for people that don't know who you are.
00:00:49
Who are you, what did you do and how did you get to where you are today? Oh, wow, such a big question. Thank you for asking. I often joke about how I've done anything in life by saying I'm a Gemini. I know that's the most ridiculous answer to anything, and I'm not actually into astrology in that bigger way, but it's an easy way of saying I'm just one of those people that is flexible and can get in and do different things and change and go with where the tide's going kind of thing.
00:01:24
So I started life as a professional singer, and I would call myself more a performer than a singer because the actual structure of singing and the technique of it, yeah, not so good at that stuff, but get me on a stage and I can perform the shamizzle out of anybody. And then I went down a road of going, well, I don't want to be a broke musician living in a sharehouse with my TV on a milk crate. So I became an accountant because that's what a Gemini would do. They would sing in nightclubs and they would do accounting. So logical, and that led me to being a little bit into systemization.
00:02:04
And then I started coaching from that moment and speaking, and I always actually wanted to speak primarily about personal development, but I had this hang up that because I was overweight and I wasn't perfect, I couldn't then talk about personal development because only perfect people could tell you how to live your life.
00:02:29
The most ridiculous excuse ever. But as soon as I started doing it and sharing my life journey not being perfect, a whole other world opened up to me. So now I do a bit of speaking, bit of singing, bit of coaching, and it's just a bit of a Gemini life, really, and it's very fabulous. And full of color. In terms of you doing the coaching, how did you get over that negative talk in your head?
00:02:56
Because I know a lot of people listening, starting any form of business putting themselves out there. There's always that negativity of, well, I'm not good enough, I don't know enough yet, I don't look the right way. How did you push past that? I pushed past it knowing that the people that I wanted to help me when I was doing anything, I only wanted to work with people who weren't perfect. So if I only wanted to work with people that had a story or they I've got my glasses on today and we were just talking before you hit record about my gray hair.
00:03:29
I don't want to cover that I'm not perfect. And I resonated working with people to coach me and to work with me on other areas of my business that weren't perfect. So I was like, if I want that, maybe other people want to work with people who aren't perfect. And there's no such thing as perfect. No, there's no such thing as perfect.
00:03:49
You took it right out of my mouth. And in terms of how you've then taken that process and that thought and that fact of nothing's perfect and it's okay not to be perfect, how have you built that into doing personal and professional development differently? Great question. I do bring the entertainment aspect into it a lot, and there's no holes barred. I talk about there's not many topics that I won't delve into with people, and I just show up and I don't follow a particular nuts and bolts of having to tick boxes with what I coach people on.
00:04:26
It really is what other people need me to help them with from usually the basis of confidence is the focal point of most of the coaching I did. And to do that, I had to kind of look at how I showed up on stage and as a person, as a mother, as a business person, being confident naturally and unpacked it and reverse engineered it. And that's how I help people. And I love that you can talk very like I suppose it's taken a lot, though, for you to get to the confidence levels that you're at now in terms of being able to well, you've always been a performer, you said earlier, but the confidence levels to get up and put your hand at anything. So when someone's coming to work with you, where do you start with that confidence coaching or that confidence sort of firelighting, as that were?
00:05:16
If someone's out listening right now going, well, this is all well and good, but I don't like getting up on stage, I don't like singing and dancing. I don't like being the center for attention. That's not what confidence is, is it? No, absolutely not what confidence is. I'll often ask people to go back in time and not like past life stuff, but to go back in time to a moment where they felt comfortable.
00:05:43
And I think the basis of a lot of confidence is comfort. People do think confidence and charisma are showmanship and it's all the sparkles and the razzle dazzle and things. And for me, yes, that's part of who I am, but that's not what my confidence is based on. It really is those moments in life where you remember feeling at home almost, and it may have been one day you might have cooked the perfect poached egg, which I'm really not good at, so I don't know why I bought that one up. You had that moment where you cooked that egg and it was perfect.
00:06:24
I am pretty good at poached eggs. Omelets are the struggle. I'm not, I'll eat yours. But you know what I mean. We all have those moments where it might have been an essay you wrote in school and you finished it and you were like, oh, I got that.
00:06:41
And if we can go back into how you felt in those moments, we can then unpack and go, I need to bring a little bit of this into my life now to help me feel more confident.
00:06:57
And I love how you've then said it's, the comfort in confidence, it's those things that you can harness and bring into making it feel that little bit more comfortable. And would you say that in doing that, though, some might argue that practice makes it perfect, right? Like, practice means that you're going to get more confident, more comfortable in doing anything. Do you subscribe to that notion as well? 100%.
00:07:23
And one of the things I like to say to my clients is, be it until you are it. So I don't like fake it till you make it, but by embodying teeny, tiny little things that will help you feel more confident in a particular area, you own it a little bit more every time you do it. And so by the act of being it will, then at some point you'll be like, it's actually not an effort now to be that I am it.
00:07:58
I love that. And along the journey of you stepping into this power and stepping into where you are now in your business, I'm sure there's been some ups and downs along the way. Where has the power of having people around you, whether it's a community, whether it's one or two people, where has the support factor come in for you in growing your business and your confidence to get where you are now in business today? Oh, it's huge. And for an extrovert like myself, it's even more important and it's on every level.
00:08:32
So even like during COVID for example, I had a great and you were part of my network, a great support network of people. We would catch up on zooms and do things and I would work out in my gym, in my garage and text a friend and go, I've done this and still had this connection with people. However, now that we're on the other side of that and I'm out and about more and talking to people again. Even we didn't even phone people as much during COVID for some reason, I don't know why. It was all just this zoom world.
00:09:07
And on the other side of that, I'm like, I'm enjoying picking up the phone and calling a friend and working with a coach again and getting a group of buddies, my girlfriends, together and going, okay, one of us has this problem, let's brainstorm it and work on it. And even I've started going to the gym again, and I've got a perfectly set up gym in my garage, which I could work out in every day. But that act of going out and going into a class with other people and feeling that energy and that community support, even though I don't know who these people are, they don't know who I am, but I feel supported by this other group of people that are in the gym and we're all getting sweaty together. I'm like, we need it. It's been so missed.
00:09:51
So back goes the subscription and I'm off to the gym.
00:09:56
I love that because you've sort of almost got that support from people that know you, but also the support from people that don't, and you don't know them from Adam. Why do you think that that is? For me, community can be anything, right? Like going into a cafe and having a smile from someone that you'll never see again, and that just brightens your day moving forward. So why do you think that you can get the support from both strangers and friends?
00:10:25
And it almost have similar sort of impacts on your life and your confidence and your happiness in what you're doing? I think it's about being seen, and I think we can feel seen from someone who's very, very close to us on a friendship or familial level. We can feel seen by a coach, we can feel seen from a social media post from a complete stranger. But they say something that resonates with us and it can make us go like, they get me. They know me even though they don't.
00:10:59
And we can feel seen when someone smiles at us at the grocery shop or goes, Excuse me, darling, your tags hanging out, that can make you feel really connected, and it's a perfect act of confidence. One of the exercises I get all my clients to do is speak to a stranger, literally in a checkout line, say hi to someone, because we need that. We need connection. We're human beings. We need to we're heart centered beings.
00:11:29
We need that connection. And without that connection, our confidence goes boo bong. Completely. It's like there even if you're an introvert, we need it. The Champagne Lounge isn't just a podcast.
00:11:46
It's an instant digital community for ambitious businessmen and entrepreneurs like you, wanting more connection, community and celebration. So wherever you are in the world, whatever stage of business you're at, if you're looking for that ultimate female cheer squad of like minded women head over to thechampainlounge.com to come and join us.
00:12:08
It is those little pieces that happen in everyday scenarios. So like if you're sat right now listening to the podcast and going, well, I've worked from home for the whole week, or I haven't been out and about, go out, smile at strangers when you're walking down the road, like smile, say hello. It's actually almost one of those things that surprises you when you do it. I don't know about you, Sam, but when I started practicing the art of just smiling at strangers or putting my phone down, it was a really weird feeling. Sitting in cafes going, well, I'm just going to look at people around know, and I felt so strange in thinking, well, maybe I should just scroll on my phone like everybody else while I'm waiting for my friend to join me.
00:12:51
But actually, once I've pushed past that fear of will everyone look at me for doing things differently? Or this feels really strange. The whole world opened up and now the smiles and the happiness and the joy in cafes and everyday scenarios is there all the time. You hit the nail on the head, put this down. Anywhere you are, the less you can be connected to.
00:13:17
A device connects you more with other people, which connects you more to yourself. And confidence. You can't be confident without being connected to yourself. And if you're constantly checking in on something or scrolling or we don't need to walk, listening, I won't say listening to a podcast because obviously we want everyone to listen to this podcast. We don't need to be connected to something 24/7.
00:13:40
It stops us feeling natural in many ways because it's like our third person. Because remember, there's two as me, I'm a Gemini, so it's like my phone is my third person. And we talk differently on our phone, we text differently. It's an extension of who we are. And if we can put that away, we're more in touch with who we are and then we're more in touch with other people and then we're more connected.
00:14:01
And a win win. It's a complete win win. I mean, I started at the beginning of this year being more conscious in the fact that I'm not going to use my phone and listen to music and have headphones in when I'm on walks, which I know. The art of listening to podcasts, for me, that's in the car, right? That's driving stuff in the car.
00:14:20
But if I'm walking, I deliberately don't wear them. And that happened for two reasons and it sparked with my dog, Bailey. It's his time, like, I'm going to walk him. It's his time at the park. He deserves my attention.
00:14:31
As we're on this walk, I started treating it in the sense of I want to be present for him because this is his exciting part of the day that he gets to spend with me one on one, walking out. So it kind of flipped it. And that may sound a little bit cuckoo to people who are listening, but that, for me, made me more present with him, with walking, with meeting the people and saying hello in the cafe, with just being more present and aware of my thoughts. So that when I start the day, I've got clarity and I'm clear of all the fuzz that I probably would have piled on more if I'd been listening to music connected from the get go, from getting up or listening to podcasts. That adds more stuff to my to do list in my brain.
00:15:12
And you'll be more confident, you'll be more creative. There's so many benefits to connecting with yourself more and we just don't do it enough. I keep my episodes for about 2025 minutes for the joy of people listening in bite sized ways. What are the top two or three things that someone could instigate today, if not tomorrow? To spark confidence in themselves, but also to be more present.
00:15:40
And you can't say, Just put the phone down, because we've already talked that one through.
00:15:45
I'll go with the speak to a stranger. Like, spark a conversation with somebody is a really good one. Help somebody. And the act of helping someone when they haven't asked for it, and it might be someone in your neighborhood is going through a rough time and you drop over an extra meal you've cooked, or you see someone walking their dog and they don't have a poo bag, give them a poo bag. Doesn't matter what it is.
00:16:12
But that act of actually helping someone will boost your confidence. Smile more. There's a great line in the musical Hamilton talk less, smile more. And it's like, that's a big one. Listen and listen to people.
00:16:27
Dress. Dress better. Yeah. Make it. Make an effort.
00:16:32
I'm not talking about you have to put on a big fancy face and high heels and all that kind of stuff, but if you have an opportunity to not just be comfortable and I talk about confidence and comfort, but this is a different vein of comfort, I guess. But if you're just throwing on your leggings and a jumper to go and do something, don't make an effort. Just that tiny little extra bit of effort. If you do that today, you'll feel more confident when you get home tonight. And it's easy.
00:17:03
I love that, and I can attest to that one, too. It does make a huge difference, being able to look at your wardrobe, put something on that makes you feel fabulous. I was talking to someone the other day on the show around, and I can't quite remember who it was, but the premise of the conversation was around. So what have you got in your wardrobe that you literally put on and just makes you feel really sluggish? And they were like, oh, I've probably got heaps of stuff.
00:17:27
Well, get rid of it. Get rid of the stuff that makes you feel crappy when you put it on. And fill your wardrobe with joy and bright colors and things that make you feel fantastic when you put them on and they can be comfortable. I love this jumper that I'm wearing now if you're watching it on the video. Bright pink, lots of animals, brings me joy, brings me smiles every day.
00:17:48
So I cannot attest enough to wearing something that makes you feel fantastic. And once you start thinking about that, you'll actually notice it in other people. And you'll be having a conversation with someone and you'll be like, oh, there's just this energy about them. And you look down and there's a big hole in the T shirt. And you're like, Why do you still have that T shirt?
00:18:15
Why are you wearing that out? If it's your old favorite, wear it in the garden, but it's still not going to make you feel great. No, agreed. I had a T shirt and it said something along, like, walk to your own beat or something along the front of it. And I wore it and wore it and wore it, and I loved wearing it, tucking into big tutu skirts and wearing it with jeans and wore it all the time.
00:18:36
And then it got that dreaded hole in it. It's got to go. It was it. There was no other way of dealing with it other than that T shirt's. Got to leave because I can't even start tucking it into things to hide the hole.
00:18:51
Even doing that made me feel guilty of there's still a hole in this. And what you could have done if you really liked the front picture of it or something, is cut it out and put it in a frame. I did think about that. But no, I decided that I didn't need that. I didn't need that in my world.
00:19:08
So, Sam, I don't let anyone leave the podcast without answering a couple of quick, fiery questions. First one, how do you celebrate success in your business? We are very good at jumping on to the next thing, the next shiny thing, the next goal. How do you make sure that you celebrate the milestones and the achievements that you're doing along the way? I stop.
00:19:33
So if something great has happened in my business, you said it perfectly like we do, we jump to the next thing. So if something like, every time I get a new client, I'm like and I stop and I think about it, it's not just great, tick, gone, let's go. Like, that reflection point, I think, is really important. And there's a few handful of people in my life that I'll tell things that are happening really well in my life, and I'll celebrate with them. And that's where that community comes in.
00:20:03
So importantly, and I will be known to celebrate with the OD glass of champagne or a piece of chocolate. I don't think we'd be besties if we didn't do that. Right. No. Mind you, it's only the OD glass of champagne.
00:20:17
The even ones don't count. Yeah, I love that. And you're obviously on this podcast, my love, because you are in the Champagne Lounge. You're a proud member of the community that we've built as a cheer squad for women everywhere. What do you love about the community and why did you join us?
00:20:37
I wanted to be part of something that you were doing, because, in the words of Marie Kondo, you spark joy. And I think you bring joy to everything you do. And knowing you as I have, away from the business world and developing a friendship, you always have a great community around you. You always have very smart, funny range of people in your life. And if you could bring that into an online community, I wanted to be part of it because I just know it's going to grow and there's going to be more of us.
00:21:13
And as we've touched on a few times today, we just need it. We need community. We don't necessarily need I'm going to say we don't necessarily need another course, which is ironic because I do teach in my membership. But we need people. And the Champagne Lodge is about people and we need people.
00:21:32
We need people. We need connection. We need people. Yeah, we do. Thank you.
00:21:37
Thank you so much. That was so, like, maybe all the feels there when he said I sparked joy. So it's not just it's the clothes, Sam. It's the clothes. I put them on.
00:21:45
They bring me joy. I pass it know, I nearly wore. My champagne earrings today and then I went, no, she might be wearing hers. Mine are just over there. They're just over there.
00:21:58
Samantha, thank you so much for coming on the show. I've had an absolute blast talking with you and I'll make sure that all the notes socials and what you teach online is going to be in the show notes. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for having me.
00:22:15
Thanks for listening to the Champagne Lounge podcast. If you'd love to be part of our thriving global community, head over to thechampainlounge.com to join us.
