From Correctional Officer To Successful Online Entrepreneur – Overcoming Fears and Achieving Success With Nicole Holland

The Lime Life Show

In today’s episode of #ELITLL I'm talking with the Founder & Owner of InterviewsThatConvert.com Nicole Holland about her journey from correctional officer to successful online Entrepreneur.

Listen in as she also shares a few tips to help you grow your business, overcome your self-doubts, and achieve the success you working towards.

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[00:02:45] Nicole – It’s been a pretty wild ride. I’ve done all kinds of different things, like a lot of entrepreneurs have, square peg round hole kind of thing where you try and fit into a job or a box for a while, and then you’re pulling out your hair and you’re like, “Oh, I got to move on.”” For most of my life, I did that. I would just get really bored really fast, and so my journey has kind of been everywhere. I was born in Canada, and then I grew up down in Maryland, and I lived overseas in Germany. I’ve done all kinds of different things. I’ve moved all around.

[00:03:30] Nicole – At this point right now, I have been an online entrepreneur for about two years now. That came about when I just had this miserable job. I hated my job. I was a correctional officer, so by a lot of people’s standards, that was a respectable job. I could’ve retired with a pension and punched a clock and gone home, and that would be what a lot of people think is an ideal situation, but for me it was really killing me.

[00:04:03] Nicole – (As a correctional Officer) The things that I was seeing, the things that I was feeling every day were taking their toll. I got really, really sick. I was just miserable and decided that I didn’t want to live that way, so I gave it up and decided that even though I didn’t know what the heck I was going to do, I was again a correctional officer, so I was a ghost. I didn’t have any online presence. I didn’t even like the Internet.

[00:04:34] Nicole – When you’re working with rapists and murderers every day, you’re not looking to advertise where you’re living or what you’re doing. I jumped in with both feet and said, “All right, if I’m going to do this and I want to make money and I want to live the life that I dream of living and I want to do it on my terms, then I’m going to have to get really uncomfortable and I’m going to have to learn a lot really, really fast.” That is what I did.

[00:05:00] Nicole – I built up a platform, I would say an authority platform, being the connector and the advisor to entrepreneurs and Wantrepreneurs all over the world through my online summit that you mentioned before, and later on through my podcast, the Business Building Rock Stars Show, and along the way with some programs and other resources that I’ve created.

[00:05:30] Nicole – Now I’ve really listened to my audience. I’ve listened to my clients. I’ve listened to my friends, and I’ve listened to my biggest advocates. I love podcasting, and now my business really, really revolves around this thing that we call podcasting.

[00:05:46] Corey – Nicole, to say that’s a pretty wild and crazy and inspiring story about determination, perseverance does little justice for where you’ve been and where you’re at right now.

[00:06:00] Corey – Now that we have a little bit better understanding of who you are and what your story is, can you share with us some of the types of fear, self-doubt, and mental hurdles that you’ve learned to overcome within your own business and entrepreneurial career to achieve the success that you have today?

[00:06:24] Nicole – (Speaking on those fears and self-doubts) You never know what it’s going to be because you think you overcome something, and then something else hits you.

[00:06:30] I think personal development is an ongoing thing. I think one of the big things was having been in this space around people’s pain and misery and victim mentality and also feeling so stuck, having to be in a situation, or not having to be but choosing to be, but feeling like I have to be in a situation where I’m seeing things that go against what I believe is acceptable for so long and just really feeling beat down and tolerating a lot of things that don’t feel good. I think that was my biggest hurdle jumping in to entrepreneurship was just the awareness that, wait a minute, life does not have to be like this.

[00:07:30] Nicole – I do not have to be miserable. I do not have to be unhappy. I do not have to be in pain. There is another way, and by golly I’m going to find it. That was kind of that first step. I had real fear, right? I was being threatened for my life at times by really bad people who didn’t have any concern for other people’s life.

[00:07:55] Nicole – It was a really, really big thing for me to make myself a public person, to come out online, to do my first video. I think we all have our own insecurities about how we sound or how we look or what we say or is it good enough, and all that judgment that we’re used to getting. Even though we can easily say, “Oh, I don’t care,” the truth is we do. We do care. We want to be liked. We want to be loved. That’s human nature.

[00:08:28] Nicole – I think on top of that, just with my own personal dynamic with where I was coming from, that added piece of, “Is somebody going to come after me? Is somebody going to hurt me because they have some grudge against me? Do I really want to be public or is that dangerous?” All that stuff. Little by little, I just acknowledged those fears and said they’re valid.

[00:09:00] Despite all of the many real and valid fears Nicole faced, her resounding response continued to be, “I don’t want to live like this. I don’t want to live in fear.”

KEY TAKE AWAY: Regardless of where you currently are or where you’ve previously been there will come a point where you must choose to either overcome your fear or allow your fear to overcome you.

As you listen to Nicole’s story, especially during the time she was first starting you there were so many valid fears she experienced. Yet regardless of those fears she knew that if she wanted to her dreams and live a life worthy of who who she was meant to be that she would have to tackle those fears head on to achieve her goals and EARN the life she wanted to live.

KEY TAKE AWAY: When you get to those moments of doubt, like what Nicole is talking about, whether it’s a social fear or even fear of your life and you ask yourself, “Should I or should I not do it?” in your mind, what is one of the determining things that actually gets you over that hump so to speak to actually step out of your comfort zone and do the thing that you know is in your heart or in your mind to do, that you know is going to contribute to your success, but maybe because of that fear and self-doubt is kind of holding you back? What do you do to get over that in those moments?

[00:11:00] Nicole talks about what she does when she gets to those moments where she has “Should I or should I not do it?” For Nicole, the answer boils down to really just checking in with herself when she gets those insecurities or experiences those fears. [ 00:13:00] Nicole – What’s really catapulted me to the position that I’m in now in such a short period of time is because I never want that icky story. That’s the story that my insecurities may have for me, but when I’m just aware of it and I go, “Wait, is that true? Is that what I want?” it’s never the truth and it’s never what I want, and I always overcome it because I choose to.

KEY TAKE AWAY: There’s no easy road to success, the only way you overcome is by choosing too.

[00:14:35] Nicole – “The thing about fear is it’s always there to support you…”

KEY TAKE AWAY: Your FEAR will always be there to talk you out of what you truly want – DON’T LET IT AND DON’T GIVE IN.

[00:16:05] Corey talks about the one question he always asks himself to determine whether he should or should not do something. He asks himself, “When I turn 80 years old, am I going to look back and say, Man, I wish I’d have done that”? Because in the moment, you can feel, “Hey, I may look a little silly here,” and that may be a fear in that moment, but I think a lot of times when you compare it to the end result of when you’re 80 years old and you look back, it’s kind of like that initial fear is inconsequential to that fear of being 80 and looking back and saying, “Man, I really missed the mark there. I wish I had done that, I wish I had pursued that, I wish I hadn’t give up”.

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ASK AN EXPERT:

[00:14:35] Moving into our ask an expert section Nicole uses her experience and expertise to share with us how we can leverage a systems mindset and approach to simplify, templatize, and accelerate our success and growth to achieve a life that we want within business.

[00:19:58] Nicole, walks us through a quick example in your her life of how she recognized where she could create some type of system or template that helped make her life a lot simpler from a business standpoint.

[00:22:15] Nicole talks with us about our overall brand strategy and why we should, “get comfortable being vulnerable”.

[00:28:30] Nicole talks about the right way and the wrong ways Entrepreneurs starting out should ask for or find help.

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FINAL 5 THOUGHTS OF THE DAY:

[00:29:45] – What does good leadership mean to you and in your eyes what does it look like? “It looks like and means somebody walking their talk.”

[00:30:00] – Who are your favorite people to follow on-line and why?

A: “I get inspired by so many people, and I just love so many people. I can’t even come up with somebody right now. There are so many people for so many different things.” “It’s the authenticity and the truth in that they’ve been there, they’ve done it, and that they’re sharing openly. I can say, for example, one of my go-to guys for course building is Danny Iny. He’s amazing, and also for the way he demonstrates what he teaches in his own beingness. He’s not just telling people what to do, he is living it. It’s just so amazing to not only hear his advice, but watch it in action and be able to be a part of it. Dorie Clark is another person. John Corcoran. I could go on and on all day. It just depends on the topic, but there are so, so many people who inspire me through their living their talk, walking their talk.”

[00:32:10] – What tools either on-line or off-line do yo use to help you continually learn and grow both in your personal and business life?

A: - Zoom.us – that’s my virtual office. I do everything there, from interviews to meetings to helping people with tech issues. I don’t have a brick-and-mortar office, so that’s where I meet with people, zoom.us.

- Acuity Scheduling is basically my receptionist. Acuity is basically a robot that I’ve set up that takes care of all of my appointments. Process Street, like I said before, that’s where I put my different processes in, and that’s where my team members can also collaborate with me and do pieces of the different projects.

- Canva, I would not be able to do graphics without Canva.

- MeetEdgar for automated and scheduled social media posting.

[00:33:15] – What does success mean to you and in your eyes what does it look like?

A: To me, success means joy, happiness, and peace. What that looks like is a smile, is a laugh, is ease, is flow, is just allowing.

[00:33:50] – What strategies, tactics, or changes have you implemented in your own life that have helped contribute to and accelerate your own business or professional growth?

A: Acceptance and awareness. Just allowing myself to be where I’m at and being aware of how I got here and being aware of what I want and being aware of he steps needed to get there and accepting that whatever comes my way is for me, never against me.

Cheers!

Corey

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