121. Empowering Mindset with Katie Crooks

We have a super cool episode for you in this one with hypnotherapist Katie Crooks. She brings a wealth of insights on overcoming self-sabotage and imposter syndrome, empowering listeners to tap into their true potential.

Stay tuned to the end when Katie blows our mind with the significance of the word "try" and why Julie is determined to eliminate it from her vocabulary.

What Katie is reading: A New Earth - Eskhart Tolle and Secrets of a Millionaire Mindset - T Harv Eker

SPECIAL GUEST: KATIE CROOKS is a multi-talented singer, performer, and voice coach with over 20 years of experience. She has transitioned into hypnotherapy to help artists overcome the limitations and blockages in their vocal performances. Follow Katie on Instagram

YOUR HOST

Julie Flynn is an experienced independent financial adviser and financial coach. Justice and equality drive Julie. Which is why she’s spent years studying and researching how stress affects our financial decision making.

Julie is best known for her work with women who have lost their partner and coaching financial services business who want to implement fair and transparent charges.
Ebb & Flow Financial Coaching | Bree Wealth & Tax | Instagram

CO-HOSTS
Emily Pool is a Financial Planner and Will Writer. She is passionate about empowering people to invest their wealth (pensions and savings) sustainably and in line with their personal values.

Michelle Lambell  started her career in financial services as a Stockbroker in 1999 undertaking both advisory and discretionary investment management. Today she is a Chartered Financial Planner, specialising in retirement planning advice, pensions and investments and a Certified Financial Coach. 

Sara Walker is a financial planner and financial coach with 33 years’ experience in financial services. She wants all women to feel financially confident and uses her professional and life experiences to support and educate women over 40 so they in turn feel able to support and be role models for the younger women in their lives.

Jennifer O'Neil is a mortgage and protection specialist and director of Athena Mortgages. Having been in the industry since 2014 Jennifer decided to set up a company in 2020 that suited her core values as a broker – integrity, service, honesty and continuous improvement.
LinkedIn | Instagram | Facebook

Transcript

Welcome back to this episode of the Women and Money Cafe. Now today, Michelle and myself, I've got a guest with us. We need to thank one of the listeners for this guest, Jileen. Jileen was sitting in, I think it was Charles de Gaulle Airport a month or two back. And she got chatting to this Women, and she messaged me straight afterwards saying, you need to have her on the podcast. 

Julie [00:00:42]:

And I'm delighted today to have Katie Crooks, the artist hypnotherapist, with us today. So hi there, Katie. Thanks for joining us.

Katie Crooks [00:00:50]:

Hello. Good to be here.

Julie [00:00:53]:

Alright. So this is exciting. And, Michelle, thank you for being with me today as well. No. You're welcome. It's lovely as always. Alright. So Jolene dropped me a message by just singing your praises, Katie.

Julie [00:01:04]:

And then you and I were messaging back and forth about all the kind of things that you do and the work that you do. And I was like, oh, wow. This sounds so cool. And then before we started recording, Michelle I were talking about some of the things you specialise in. And the 2 things that came up were, impostor syndrome and self sabotage. To which our response was, oh, that's great. We can do both of them. So I hope, like, over the next 30 minutes or so, you're going to share with us some of your pearls of wisdom.

Julie [00:01:34]:

But just to get us started, tell us a little bit more about yourself, Katie.

Katie Crooks [00:01:38]:

Lambell, I started out as a singer, performer, dancer, actor, and realized pretty much from day 1 that my soul was calling me to be a voice coach. And so I taught voice and singing for 20 years. And the whole time, I was watching these artists just sabotage their voices in the studio, in the rehearsal studio, actors in rehearsal, and in my own performance because I ran a swing band up until quite recently. Still love getting on stage and singing and performing myself. And I saw so much limitation on people's voices, and I became really interested in things like how trauma was affecting people's physical voices that I started to go deeper into what was actually causing people's blockage on themselves. And then I started to, I just I had to go deeper. So that's why I became a hypnotherapist.

Julie [00:02:33]:

Okay. Now I know you mentioned this when we were messaging. And one of the things that popped into my head was, oh, I want to know more about this. Because I know that some of the conversations we've had in the past in the podcast, we did an episode Money asking for a pay rise and just handling difficult situations. I thought, I wonder how our voice is affecting our success or lack of success in this area. So can you tell me a little bit more about how people self sabotage with their voice?

Katie Crooks [00:03:04]:

Oh my gosh. Well, rewind to about 250,000 years ago and if you if you I know. Go with me on this Money. Trust my bonkers way. If you actually imagine we were hanging out in caves or mud huts or something when we all started out evolving on the African plains and we survived by being with our tribe, right? And if we weren't in a tribe, our chances of survival were much, much lower. We'd probably get chased through the jungle, through by a tiger or something like that or attacked by another tribe. And so we did everything in our power, We evolved to do everything in our power to stay with the tribe. And so if we got up in front of the tribe by the campfire and sang our song or spoke our piece and we were rejected, we risked death.

Katie Crooks [00:03:58]:

And that's why the nervous system goes into that fight flight response quite frequently when we're about to use our voice, when we're about to speak up and say, I don't like this, I want a pay rise, or I don't like what that leader said. Our nervous system is still trying to do what it was doing 250,000 years ago to keep us alive. And so it's not the fear is not rational. It's completely, it's our amygdala in our brain. It only knows 2 settings. Either I'm safe or I'm going to die. It only knows those. And so that's why it shuts the voice down to stop you effectively dying.

Katie Crooks [00:04:39]:

That's how dramatic it is.

Julie [00:04:41]:

Wow. My tiny moment has just been blown.

Katie Crooks [00:04:48]:

Yeah, it's huge. Public speaking and using your voice is up there with fear of death in terms of the things that Poole, clients Cafe for, to come for sessions for?

Julie [00:05:03]:

Oh, you have you have literally just blown my mind because I'm trying to think back.

Katie Crooks [00:05:06]:

Yeah. But years ago, I

Julie [00:05:08]:

had a job where I had to give lots of presentations and I had zero experience of this, and it was utterly terrifying. So, yeah, you might as well have put a saber toothed tiger in the room.

Katie Crooks [00:05:17]:

Right.

Julie [00:05:18]:

Yeah, and what I can distinctly remember doing is forgetting to breathe Until about 3 minutes in at which point I realized okay And the other thing I can remember doing is there was a word that I would use repeatedly to the point where it's probably quite annoying. I don't know. It was like a comfort word.

Katie Crooks [00:05:41]:

What? Like?

Julie [00:05:43]:

Okay is my word.

Katie Crooks [00:05:45]:

Okay. Yeah.

Julie [00:05:45]:

I know every listener is going to be listening out for how many times I say okay in a podcast.

Michelle [00:05:52]:

So am I, by the way.

Katie Crooks [00:05:53]:

Yeah. Yes. Yep. Filler words. Filler words are there to comfort you and to fill the space when we're not comfortable with the silence, but the silence is actually where the most powerful places Julie, because when you allow silence, you allow what you've said to land And the listeners go, oh, okay. And they feel safe with you.

Julie [00:06:23]:

Yeah. That's all. Coach. If I don't feel safe, I'm going to be asking okay all the time because I'm looking, like, for reassurance, but I'm given a presentation. They're not meant to be talking back at me.

Katie Crooks [00:06:32]:

Oh, good point. Okay.

Julie [00:06:35]:

Well, I think it's this is just really interesting this whole what's going on in our brains when we're doing things like this. So when we Flynn ourselves in a situation where we have to speak up for something, or we or we feel the need to speak up, and what's going what's going on underneath?

Katie Crooks [00:06:55]:

Yeah. Well, you add on to that. All of the times you were probably told as a child, don't ask for Money. Be quiet. Don't be noisy. Ask nicely if you want that thing. No. You can't have that.

Katie Crooks [00:07:10]:

Oh, I'm not made of money. Money doesn't grow on trees. What else are we programmed as children to believe? Oh, yeah. Money's dirty. I know a lot of people who subconsciously let go or make terrible investments because they have a subconscious belief that money is dirty, money is the root of all evil. We're programmed with all these belief systems constantly, and, well, as children particularly, and what we have to do is unpick those belief systems that we had that we've had playing as records in our brain for 30, 40, 50 odd years. Did I go off on a tangent then? I'm ADHD. I go on some epic tangents.

Julie [00:07:50]:

Oh, no. No. We like a tangent. I didn't think that was a tangent, but we're no strangers for tangent. No. Okay. Great. Yeah.

Julie [00:07:59]:

I'm just curious then, when we find ourselves in a situation, and let's use the example of, say, asking for a pay rise or asking about promotion. What's going on physiologically with us before we actually start to open our mouths?

Katie Crooks [00:08:17]:

Yeah. A number of things happen when the when the body goes. I mean this is assuming we haven't done the subconscious work and healed the subconscious belief systems. So if we know you're safe, then the parasympathetic nervous system is activated and that's the one that is rest and digest but if you're in the ah, being chased by a sabre tooth tiger, that's the activated, sympathetic nervous system. When we are in that space a number of things happen, usually sweaty palms. We start either we just don't breathe like you described or we'd breathe higher up here. Another thing that happens, and this is my past life as a voice coach coming out now because I'm full hypnotherapist now, but all that voice background, our larynx, our voice box will often go a lot higher because it's getting ready to yell an emergency which is in the musical theatre we call it belting. That high belt sound which is great on stage if you want to go to the western stage.

Katie Crooks [00:09:20]:

Not great when you're in the boardroom or when you won't ask for a pay rise. So our abs kick in, they often grip. Our psoas muscle contracts which is the muscle, in our muscles in our core which are all about the fight flight system that, responses. Basically, your system is getting ready to run away or get into a fight because that's what our primal selves are doing. So yeah. We can't think straight because when we go into that high stressed state, our brainwaves, they're not in the relaxed alpha brainwave state which is a nice day dreamy state. In that state, you get your best ideas, you can think clearly, you can remember stuff that you, you know, couldn't usually remember, you can remember your lines, your text, your presentation easily when you're in alpha brainwaves, but when we're stressed, we can't get into that in the zone state very easily. The brain's too busy just doing the basic minimum to stay alive.

Katie Crooks [00:10:28]:

Does that make sense?

Julie [00:10:29]:

It does. It does. So you know what my next question is going to be. How do I stop it doing that so that I can be totally chilled? And by the way, I am so rough the 15 grand pay rise.

Katie Crooks [00:10:44]:

Yes. Well, there are there are a number of things that you, I think, that happen. And in my experience, and this is why I tend to work with clients longer than just one off sessions, Is but it's amazing what you can change with when you start working with your unconscious, your subconscious mind. What you need to do is, one, is to train your nervous system to be calm in those Money. But what you really need to do, I believe, is actually heal or shift or clear the subconscious beliefs that are telling you can't have that pay rise. And this is where we get into the subconscious programming side because up until about the age of 7 or so, some people say 9 in different responses, different things, but kind of around the age of 7. Our brainwaves are basically in theta which is a deeply relaxed state. I'll explain the brainwaves for a moment.

Katie Crooks [00:11:45]:

So we've got alpha, sorry, beta, alpha, theta, and delta. Delta is sleep and beta is highly alert, focused, conscious, aware. When you go into alpha or theta, these 2 in the middle, that's when you're daydreaming or you're deeply relaxed and that's when you have your best ideas and so on. Now when we're children, the brain hasn't developed to have the top bit, the beta bit developed yet. So we don't have the ability to bat away those beliefs that people gave us. So for Lambell, if imagine, let's say you're 4 years old and you've put up your hand in class and the primary school teacher has or you've said something like given an answer to the question and the teacher has slammed you down and said, no. That was wrong. You're really silly or that was a stupid thing to say.

Katie Crooks [00:12:43]:

And what that does is it sews a tiny neural pathway in the brain of that 4 year old and a few neurons stick together and create this little dirt track. And what happens then is if there are a few more occasions where, let's say, a kid in the playground goes, oh, you sound stupid when you sing or a sibling says, shut up, or a parent says, oh, be quiet. I can't concentrate. I'm trying to do a Zoom call or whatever it is. Then that compounds and it strengthens the neural pathways in the brain. And neurons that fire together wire together and it becomes a belief system. I refer to belief systems as BS, because they are, they're BS, they're stories, they're not truth. They really are a load of bullshit.

Katie Crooks [00:13:29]:

They're not truth. They're just stories that you've told yourself based on a number of experiences that have compounded to give you these stories that you've been carrying around. But these are not actually your stories, they're not your truth. Your truth is someone who is expressive, gifted in certain things, has curiosity, creativity. I think we're all born with creativity. So any person who says, oh, I'm not creative', I think that's b s because we all have to think creatively even if it's to get creative when we build a spreadsheet. I really think that because I've seen that. So we grow up with all these belief systems and then we believe that that's the truth.

Katie Crooks [00:14:08]:

And so then Women we get to our boss and we start to say, can I have the pay rise? We don't have conscious idea that we don't consciously know that we've got this old subconscious program running because it probably happened when we were so young. We probably don't remember. But there's this old neural pathway, these old neural pathways which by now have become 6 lane motorways in our brain that say don't speak up, don't speak up. You'll get ridiculed. You'll get shamed. You'll get slammed down and for women it's even more because we've not been programmed as much until quite recently to ask for money or to want more to say, no I'm going to put my stake in the ground and say actually I am worth this. I deserve this pay rise. And so we are consciously trying to speak up and say it, but everything about our subconscious is saying no, that's not you.

Katie Crooks [00:15:03]:

I'm on these old pathways, these motorways in my brain. And so it's very, very difficult to use the conscious part of your brain to push through those belief systems because the conscious part of your brain is only 5%. Your subconscious runs 95% of the show. It runs how you breathe, how you move, your tone of voice impulsively. The fact that I've just tensed up my left shoulder and I wasn't conscious of it until I saw myself in the video. You know? We unconsciously do so many things. That was a lot of me talking.

Julie [00:15:39]:

No. It was absolutely brilliant. I like this concept of the motorways. My last therapist used to refer to it as sheep trails, but that could be because she was from the Highlands. Yeah. Well, yeah. No. It is.

Julie [00:15:50]:

It's a bloody motorway now. So, Michelle, I'm just curious as you're listening to Katie talk, there's, like we were saying, like, we've signed up for this whole self sabotage thing, haven't we? Imposter syndrome. What are your thoughts? Going through your head as you listen to Katie talk?

Michelle [00:16:04]:

Well, I just listened to Katie sort of actually describe probably my head, really, to be fair. With the motorways and everything and actually because public speaking is something that I Julie knows how I feel about public speaking. Something I am not good at doing or confident with doing. It took a lot of coercion, I think, to even get me to be on a video on here. So

Julie [00:16:28]:

Well, good on you.

Michelle [00:16:30]:

It's getting past it. Yeah. It's getting past it. But, actually, I've always been really interested in the subconscious and why my subconscious does what

Julie [00:16:40]:

it does because it has

Michelle [00:16:41]:

a lot to answer for, to be fair. So it's Right. It's just fascinating.

Julie [00:16:46]:

I just find and that's

Michelle [00:16:47]:

why I was speechless. When you said about the first example about, you know, so to keep yourself alive, I've never thought of it like that.

Katie Crooks [00:16:54]:

No. It's basic survival systems because your subconscious is always going to do everything in its power to do what it thinks is your highest and greatest good. So if your subconscious, unconscious, I use those 2 words interchangeably, if your unconscious mind believes it's helping you by not letting you ask for the pay rise, it's going to keep making you stop using your voice. But, and this is a massive but, it doesn't have to be like that. You know? I think a lot of people, one of my favourite phrases is a lot of people argue in favour of the problem. They keep compounding the problem by talking about why it isn't working and, oh, I have this subconscious belief and then talking it talking it through. But actually, I say don't talk it through too much because all you're doing is strengthening those sheep tracks. You're strengthening the motorways.

Katie Crooks [00:17:42]:

What you've got to do is start to really start to move into a new identity, the new version of you and release those old stories, those old belief systems from your subconscious. So every time that you decide, no, I'm choosing a new story, I'm not going to talk about that old belief system, I'm going to talk about who I choose to be. Identity is really important for the subconscious. I am someone who loves speaking up more and more every day. If you say that, your brain has just created a little Money new neurological pathway. And the more you interrupt your flow of story of talking about the old b s, the more you put a roadblock in front of that old sheep track, and your brain will naturally start to create new neural pathways, new sheep tracks that actually are ones that you want. So that's why I'm such a big advocate for going into hypnosis using hypnotherapy because you're deprogramming, you're de hypnotizing yourself of these old stories, these kind of webs of belief systems that have been stuck on you that are not actually you, they're not your truth. Your truth underneath it is way more amazing than that.

Katie Crooks [00:18:49]:

So when you actually deprogram yourself, you take these things off, almost like old costumes you've been wearing that aren't yours, then you can start standing up and saying, this is what I want. Oh, by the way, as a hypnotherapist, I understand that this the brain works in metaphor and analogy, imagery, weird wacky stuff, you know, rainbows and unicorns and all sorts of cool stuff. So if I start talking about things in metaphor, I know it's because you might not consciously understand it, but your unconscious mind totally gets it because that's its language.

Julie [00:19:25]:

I'm not I actually don't find this at all weird because I'm thinking about a coach that I worked with that uses NLP and EFT. Yeah. Oh, she's rocking.

Katie Crooks [00:19:34]:

Amazing.

Julie [00:19:35]:

Women of the crazy stuff she's had me coming out with.

Katie Crooks [00:19:38]:

Oh, yeah.

Julie [00:19:39]:

She's just like, so what is it? Well, it's an orange ball in one hand, and what's in the other hand? There's a little grey spiky thing and

Katie Crooks [00:19:46]:

Right. Yeah. That's exactly it. Oh, you give me tingles when you say that. That. Yeah. Subconscious is just it's our intuition. It's our gut feeling.

Katie Crooks [00:19:56]:

You know that that full body feeling that says, right. This is a yes. This is what I want in my career. And it's only the ego mind that tries to keep us small and say, oh no. Don't do that or what will people think? But there's this inner knowing that I want this thing and it's a full body yes And that you can feel it intuitively. And the more you work with people in this context, the more you actually get really good at feeling and sensing what's actually right for you and what your brain is telling you is totally off. So you're negotiating with your subconscious with this work. You're not forcing it to believe something it doesn't want to believe.

Katie Crooks [00:20:34]:

You're actually working with it and negotiating with your unconscious mind to create those new neural pathways. Alright.

Julie [00:20:41]:

So trying to put this into context then because I can think of numerous occasions where I've just felt some I've just felt something. I just know that something has to happen in my core. And it's then once I start thinking about it, that the problems occur. So I know something. And then once I start thinking about it, that's when I start to find problems of getting my own way. So is this kind of the self sabotage pattern beginning?

Katie Crooks [00:21:12]:

Well, I see it 2 ways. How can I put this? I see it as in the conscious mind likes you you'll have a subconscious, an idea, an instinct, a thought. Oh, yeah. That feels really good. And then the conscious mind, the critical part of the brain wants to shred it and say, no. That's not going to work. That's a rubbish idea. Blah blah blah.

Katie Crooks [00:21:33]:

The, you know, the voices. But I also think if you have a record playing in your unconscious mind that was given to you by a, you know, primary school teacher or a caregiver, then that can also be a program that you need to change. So there's the conscious interference. And when you go deeper, you can actually discover what the record is that's been playing in your mind that's been saying, no. You can't have that. And then you can actually change the record by going deeper, deeper into a more relaxed state where you can allow your unconscious to open up and then and have these changes. Does that answer the question? It has.

Julie [00:22:13]:

It does. I'm curious, Michelle, because obviously, everybody now knows that I'll overuse the word okay when I'm feeling insecure. I think it's only her that you share. Is there any of the records that are playing in your head that you feel comfortable sharing with us?

Michelle [00:22:32]:

There's definitely they're speaking to more than 1 or 2 people. You know, I can probably do the sweaty palm bit feeling rather nauseous and not. And definitely not breathing comes into mind. And I tend to play with my hands a lot, and I don't quite know what to do with myself because I don't think everyone's looking at me. They all wonder what the hell I'm talking about. Do I need to just shut up or should I just carry on? And I and then I end up in this sort of circular state of what am I doing? You know? And then they and that's the next time I go, I'm not doing that again.

Katie Crooks [00:23:08]:

Oh, Yeah. And yet you have so much more to give. Do you know what? Subconscious beliefs slip under the radar until they come up for us ready to clear. I found 1 last week. That this is a slight tangent, but it is relevant because just to prove that these subconscious belief systems, we find them and go, oh, I didn't realize you were there, little fucker. What were you doing there? So I went to, a few weeks ago I went to see a hypnotherapist because I wanted to get into my pre lockdown wardrobe. I've got a gorgeous wardrobe full of lovely clothes that I used to wear with my swing band. And when I was singing on stage, Money of them have been fitting, right now.

Katie Crooks [00:23:54]:

So I thought, okay. I want to lose that stone and get back to where I was. And the first thing I had to release, subconscious Julie, was, well, you're doing alright. You don't need to. And then I went, actually, no. No. Fuck it. I'm going to claim this one.

Katie Crooks [00:24:05]:

Actually, I do want to release this. So that was the first thing I had to work with. And then I had a hypnotherapy session and I discovered right down there in my unconscious mind that I had been wearing this extra just this little layer of extra front that I didn't need and I knew full well I didn't need it to be carrying it around. It wasn't loads, just a bit, in order to stay just that little bit invisible so I didn't get unwarranted comments from men. I was unconsciously hiding from getting, you know, those kind of comments that we as women have witnessed. I was protecting myself. When I changed that, what happened in that hypnotherapy session is my conscious mind and my subconscious mind sort of went zzzz. They don't actually make that sound but in my head they do.

Katie Crooks [00:25:04]:

And, like, the 2 and 2 came together and my brain went, oh, well, I now I know that I can start to actually release those extra pounds, which is what I've been doing, and it's been working really successfully. And I haven't been depriving myself. I haven't been I but what I realized, and this is the irony of it, is that I currently have a programme out which we started yesterday actually called 'fearlessly visible' And I show people how they can clear the subconscious programmes which have been limiting their voice and their self expression and their ability to be seen and be heard. And there I was with this undercurrent subconscious programming that I had been hiding. I had been hiding my own visibility by wearing a few extra layers of fat cells that I just didn't really need to be carrying around. Wow. Blew my mind. So of course naturally me being me, I went on Instagram and did a live about it and talked about it and said hey guys, still working on my own shit.

Julie [00:26:04]:

Dude, look Thank you for sharing that with us, Katie, because I think that's really in the spirit of the podcast because we're all about owning up to all the things that we're not perfect at. We don't have all our money shared together. And so it's really reassuring when people turn up as guests and they're like, you know what? This is what I'm really good at. This is something I'm still working on.

Katie Crooks [00:26:25]:

Yeah. Yeah. And it can change. And that's the thing. It can change. You know? So money story and this is where, wow, I'm on a soapbox about that because I've dealt with a lot of money stories where I learned that things like parents saying, no you can't have that toy, money doesn't grow on trees, I'm not made of money, you can't have everything you want, That creates all these neural pathways in our brain that then we unconsciously go for jobs that aren't as high paid as they as we deserve because there's this old program running in our brain that doesn't need to be there. And I discovered someone I know, a person who knows someone I know, let's say that, for confidentiality, would make a lot of Money, but then lose it. They would they would and they were in very much stuck in this lack mindset with Money.

Katie Crooks [00:27:18]:

And it turns out when they actually uncovered it, that it was a belief that, oh, that money's dirty. Mhmm. And I want to get I want to get rid of it. So even though I can make it, they would just naturally get rid of it. And it was a belief system. They were probably told as a child, oh, don't pick up that that coin on the ground because it's filthy. Or maybe it was something else, like, oh, those nasty cartoons and, and programs okay. Take, super not see.

Katie Crooks [00:27:56]:

Spiderman and Peter Parker's grandfather. He says a line in in one of the films. It's something like, well, we may be poor, but we're kind. Oh. Right? So what that's doing is it's saying, oh, you can either be kind and poor or rich and a baddie. What a load of BS. I've learned now, and here's a really Poole powerful reframe for everyone. I learnt this from, a brilliant, entrepreneur called, Scott Alford in the US.

Katie Crooks [00:28:33]:

And this is brutal but it's Emily, really powerful. You oh, gosh. This is going to sound really horrendous. I'm going to say it anyway. You don't see. Ah, I feel like a bad person. No. But I'm a good person because I'm teaching something really helpful here.

Katie Crooks [00:28:48]:

You don't see the names of poor people on the donations list of a new hospital wing. What I mean by that is you cannot make yourself poor enough to help other to help poor people. When you say, I'm earning money in order to lift the world up, that's completely different from saying I want to make money because I'm, you know, oh but then I can't make money because that makes me the bad guy. Actually, what if choosing to be abundant in your life makes you the good, not guy, person, the good one instead?

Julie [00:29:26]:

I like that.

Katie Crooks [00:29:27]:

I do.

Julie [00:29:29]:

Okay. So, as that re framing. It says, detaching it away from, like, money as the bad people.

Katie Crooks [00:29:38]:

Yeah.

Julie [00:29:38]:

But money is money is a means that I can do good in the world.

Katie Crooks [00:29:42]:

Yes. Because your subconscious mind will never let you become something you despise. So if you go around, despising or judging people who earn lots of money, you're telling your subconscious mind, oh, I'm not one of those people.

Michelle [00:29:58]:

But with the best spell

Julie [00:29:59]:

in the world, Katie, I still don't like bankers. And if that's my subconscious mind preventing me from ever being a banker, I'm cool with that.

Katie Crooks [00:30:10]:

Yeah. Cool. Absolutely. Yeah. So here's the thing. Money and bankers are 2 separate things. You can love money but still have a problem with bankers. Do you see where I think a lot of people have been putting the yeah.

Katie Crooks [00:30:29]:

And also, and I'm constantly saying this to myself, you know, if I have a launch that hasn't gone how exactly I want it to go and I've been too attached to the outcome and selling from the wrong energy and then and blah blah blah, I'll always say to myself, well, there's always new ways to make money. There's always a new way and so, yeah, I'm just consistently saying that to my subconscious mind, there's always great ways to make Money, there's always valuable ways to make money where I'm giving something of value to the world' and, yeah, money flows.

Julie [00:31:03]:

Okay. I think one of the other things I wanted to ask you to talk to is a little bit about because I think we we've kind of covered self sabotaging and the different ways that might pop up. And I know that from chatting with the listeners and just in our own circles, another popular topic that comes up time and time again is imposter syndrome. Oh, I've wondered what your thoughts were on that.

Katie Crooks [00:31:31]:

Well, such a good such a juicy topic. How many times do you think you learned in your life and particularly childhood that you didn't you weren't quite good enough to be there. For example, didn't make it into the school play or didn't make it into the top set in maths, or did make it to the top set in maths and then went to senior school and found yourself actually not as good as the top kid in school or went to university and discovered that you were brilliant at everything until a certain point and actually you just turned out to be media so we get these lessons, this just drip feeding us so frequently of not good enough, not good enough, or not enough or I have to be better and I'm going to own up and say when I was a voice speech and singing teacher,

Julie [00:32:27]:

I was

Katie Crooks [00:32:27]:

teaching unbelievably good professionals who were now on the Westend stage and I'm so proud of them and it was great to be doing that. But I used to be so fixated on what could improve with them that I forgot to actually just say, well, yeah, of course you're good enough. You're at one of the top drama schools in the country and you work hard. You deserve to be here. And so but I didn't realise that at the time because I wasn't conscious like I am now as an inter therapist. But I saw so much of this, this I'm not good enough, this imposter syndrome and even more so in the Women. And I think it's because so often Women and girls are encouraged to be more cautious when they climb the climbing frame and boys are told, be the superhero, go on, you can do it, and girls are told, oh, be careful, don't mess your dress up. I mean I was told that a lot, you know, don't climb that tree, oh you're a bit of a tomboy if you climb the tree And so I a lot of that programming had sunk in that makes us feel well, doesn't I'm going to rephrase that.

Katie Crooks [00:33:32]:

Nothing can make you feel anything. That we perceive as giving us a feeling of not enoughness, and it's a subconscious program. And actually everyone gets imposter syndrome at every level. I've seen people win big TV competitions and get the gigs and be going out to stadiums to see to perform in front of thousands of people and will be on the phone in the, what's it, tour bus, you know, and we'll be doing a hypno session and we'll be working on releasing this fear of being good enough. And then they'll go on stage and smash their performance. It's crazy.

Julie [00:34:16]:

Right. I find that interesting that everybody has this at some point. Yeah. Alright. So, Michelle, it's not just you and me. No. We haven't got a duopoly on it.

Katie Crooks [00:34:29]:

Hey. You know, I've had to I've had to deal with a lot of imposter syndrome as I've moved out of the identity of being a struggling artist into the identity of being a self employed, a highly capable self employed person and now into the identity of business owner and I'm just shifting, I'm just looking into shifting from being a sole trader into being a, see I'm still learning about this Flynn.

Julie [00:34:56]:

Limited company.

Michelle [00:34:57]:

You know?

Katie Crooks [00:34:57]:

Thank you. Limited company. I'm looking into chart thank you. So charging VAT and things like that. And so I've had to really step up and say, you know what? And I've had to tell my nervous system, I can hold more. You can hold more. You're safe holding more. Because, you know, the 1st time I asked for a certain price point, my heart was going, like, just boom, boom, boom.

Katie Crooks [00:35:16]:

What if they say no? And I went, well, what if they do say no? You're not going to die.

Julie [00:35:24]:

You know?

Katie Crooks [00:35:25]:

You got food, you got food in the fridge. No one's going to die. There's no sabre tooth tiger.

Julie [00:35:30]:

There isn't. Isn't it remarkable that they haven't been around for a while, but we all keep being prepared for them?

Katie Crooks [00:35:39]:

Bizarre. Very interesting.

Julie [00:35:41]:

Not real tigers, which do actually exist. So I'm just curious, Michelle. This imposter syndrome thing, has it ever has it ever popped into your head? Yes. As you know.

Michelle [00:35:56]:

And I think you'd actually made me think of a conversation I had with someone, that I work with, and we were talking about setting hourly rates and how you sort of price for work and things. And I can remember him saying to me and I said, well, I can't charge that because that's just too high that, you know, I can't do that, so I'll charge that. And he said, well, why can't you sort of charge that figure? I said, because I'm telling people Emily what they already know. And he sort of looked at me and he said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, if I can know it and understand it, well, then they can because clearly, you know, I'm not no more special than anyone else. So Oh. You know, they can and he just looked at me and he went, you have no idea. And just walked off and left me. And I was just sort of sat there like Yeah.

Michelle [00:36:45]:

Oh. But where shall I price it? You went, I'm not even having the conversation with you now. I'm just going to walk away from you because I can't believe you just said that to

Katie Crooks [00:36:52]:

me. Yeah. And can you hear how that's just the conscious mind trying to argue and make sense of what's going on? Because there's this underlying belief that somehow you're not good enough or not allowed to own your abilities.

Michelle [00:37:10]:

And it's I think as you said, you know, if someone says no, they say no. And actually, that's okay. People can say no. And, you know, I I'm also the nature. You don't want to upset anybody. So I don't want them to say no. I want them to say yes. So you have this kind of ongoing battle, I presume, don't you, that you're trying to please different parts of your Money, which is why I find the mind actually sometimes really annoying, but it's just It's

Katie Crooks [00:37:37]:

just trying to help. The mind is just trying to help. But, you know, what you've picked up a really important piece there, this people pleasing, trying to make others pleased, be pleasing, and be nice. And so often we're brought up to be sweet. Be nice. Use our voices nicely. Be nice. Play nicely.

Katie Crooks [00:37:54]:

Be nice children. And we then we learn, oh, I have to be nice. I have to be pleasing. I can't be assertive. I can't, you know, because I might I might piss someone off. But the truth is no matter what you do in life, you're going to piss someone off. Yep. You know? Not everyone some people I've got blue hair by the way.

Katie Crooks [00:38:13]:

You know? Some people love my blue hair, and some people probably can't stand it. Either way, it's actually nothing to do with me. Wow. That's so important. It's never to do with you. Yeah.

Julie [00:38:26]:

No. That's been Katie, it's been so fascinating chatting with you. And I think, I did say I was going to share. One of the things I noticed on your website, I just want to read out for the listeners because there's a lot in this. And on your website, it says, because when you know that you are valid and worthy of being heard, you go from, I don't think I can do this to I love this and can't wait to share it with the world. And I just think how many times in a day do we all say to ourselves, I don't think I can do this. Oh. I know that I say it a lot in my head throughout the day, and I don't think it's just me.

Julie [00:39:09]:

And if we What if you

Katie Crooks [00:39:11]:

yeah. Yeah. Stop the story.

Julie [00:39:12]:

Uh-huh. If we replace that with I love this and I can't wait to share it with the world, would how different would life be?

Katie Crooks [00:39:20]:

Oh, how abundant would how would you feel in yourself, in your skin? All of this stuff comes down to self worth, self belief, self confidence. When you have this deep inner knowing that you are valuable, that your voice is valid, that you are truly valuable, then you won't take things personally anymore. You'll never take a no personally and you'll recognize that, successful business owners have just failed more times. They've just got to get there And that's okay. And then nothing you don't take anything personally when you know you are valid and valuable.

Julie [00:40:01]:

Oh, wow. Successful business owners are just people that have failed more times. I absolutely bloody love that. It's like taking away the shame of failure.

Katie Crooks [00:40:10]:

Right. Yeah. Now I cannot remember who I learned that. I heard someone say it, who repeated it from someone, who said it from Women. It's one of those whispers thing. So I can't I cannot credit who said that, but it wasn't me. I heard it somewhere, and it just blew my mind.

Michelle [00:40:28]:

Oh, that's very powerful. Very powerful reframe.

Katie Crooks [00:40:32]:

Yeah. Alright.

Julie [00:40:33]:

Well, just as we draw things to a close here, I'm just wondering, Michelle, if you've got any sort of last reflections that you want to share with the listeners.

Michelle [00:40:42]:

I just well, I think you have kind of blown my mind to be fair, Katie, because you kind of sort of talked about things in a different way from what you see in books and what you usually hear and actually understanding it a bit more about the motorways and, you know, the sabre tooth tigers. I think it changes it and actually helps you to understand it more. So no. It's been it's been brilliant because I'm going to go away now and think about all the times that I've done things and what could I do.

Katie Crooks [00:41:06]:

Yeah. Yes. More importantly, what can I do instead now? Yep. Yeah. That's the thing. Stop the story. Stop the track and create a new one.

Julie [00:41:15]:

I think one of the things for me as well is just you haven't explained the brainwaves. I'm like, oh, I want to try and get myself from that theta wave Money a little bit more. Is that where I want to be? Do I want to be in theta?

Katie Crooks [00:41:27]:

The tilt one. I love Theta is just yummy, gorgeous place to be. By the way, 2 things. 1, going into hypnosis is normal. We do it all day every day. It's daydreaming. It's just so natural. 1st, everyone can be hypnotized.

Katie Crooks [00:41:42]:

And if they can't if they say they can't, they're actually lying because we go into that state just before we go into sleep. So that's the first thing. The second tip I'm going to give you is remove the word try from that sentence.

Julie [00:41:54]:

Oh, I'm going to go into theta state more often.

Katie Crooks [00:41:58]:

Yes. Because the brain registers try to fail. So if you say to a child, try and jump over that puddle, they're more likely to fail than if you say to the child, focus on jumping over that puddle.

Julie [00:42:12]:

Wow. I need to get rid of the hard try from my vocabulary.

Katie Crooks [00:42:19]:

Ah, it can be useful. So I'll often say during hypnotherapy sessions and if anyone's listening or they're driving, please just switch this off for just 3 seconds, and you put it on again later. I will often say to clients when they've got their eyes closed, okay. Now try and open your eyes. The harder you try, the more they want to stay closed. And every single time for thousands of sessions, every time they've kept their eyes closed and they haven't been able to open it because the brain registers the word tries to fail. So if you're saying, right, I'm going to try and ask for a pay rise, just take the word I'm going to ask for a pay rise.

Julie [00:43:00]:

Okay. That is that is absolutely brilliant. The tips have been immense. I love it. I love it. I love it. Okay. So, Katie, one of the things we tend to do at the end of an interview when we've had a guest on is we we'll ask them a question, just to give us a little feel, a little bit more for you.

Julie [00:43:17]:

So we are curious, as are our listeners, as to what you've been reading recently.

Katie Crooks [00:43:24]:

Well, can I have 2?

Julie [00:43:26]:

You can have 2 because you gave us so many tips, you can have 2 books.

Katie Crooks [00:43:30]:

Oh thank you very much. Well the one I've been reading recently is Harv Esker’s Secrets of the Millionaire Mind because he helps you understand the subconscious programs that you may have been running and Money exercises you can do to change it. Now, being a hypnotherapist I personally are taking every tip in the book and saying, right. I'm going to work on this with my hypnotherapist. I want to go deep and actually go right in and heal it right at the root of the problem. And he talks about it in a way that just makes he's quite straight talking. It makes just makes so much sense. So that's my money book and I am actually rereading this because I actually read it on my hypnotherapy training which is much Money, spiritual as Eckhart Tolle's a New Earth'.

Katie Crooks [00:44:20]:

I love this book so much. And, I don't know what it was, but when I read this the first time, something mysterious happened. Something shifted in me. And I stopped worrying about the future. I stopped fixating on the past. I started to really be in the now. His other book's called the power of now. I personally prefer this one to start with but you know, they're both great.

Katie Crooks [00:44:46]:

It brought me into now and suddenly I started to get more client sign ups. As things started to shift, I wasn't putting all of my mental energy into what it was not going to work. And I just started to own being present more. And so actually, interestingly, this created quite a big shift in me into more success. And it's a very conceptual book. Yeah. A New Earth, Awakening to Your Life's Purpose by Eckhart Tolle.

Julie [00:45:19]:

Fantastic. Right. Thank you very much for that. And so if any the if anybody's been listening and they want to find out a little bit more about what you do, what's the best way for them to connect with you?

Katie Crooks [00:45:30]:

Best way is on Instagram. If they're on Instagram, the artist's hypnotherapist. And don't be put off by the fact that I work with artists. Artists, I work with celebrities and creatives, mostly, but I've been on a journey of entrepreneurialism and business and I there's so much that I, well, have to talk about on this subtopic. And if you're not on Instagram, then katiecrooks.com.

Julie [00:45:59]:

Okay. But I will make sure to put note links to all of that in the show notes. Katie, just thank you so much for being a fabulous guest and sharing all your hints and tips with us.

Katie Crooks [00:46:08]:

Absolutely pleasure. Thank you so much. You 2 are both amazing.

Julie [00:46:12]:

We think you're pretty cool too, don't we?

Michelle [00:46:14]:

Yeah. We do. Definitely. It's been it's been fabulous actually quite, you know, really makes you think.

Katie Crooks [00:46:20]:

Good. That's, yeah, that's absolutely my intention. I just we got to get the word out that that I know it sounds very so boxy, but you can change. You don't start with the beliefs.

Julie [00:46:31]:

Well, the note the note I've written down is just be mindful of how I use the word try.

Katie Crooks [00:46:36]:

Yes. If That's the one takeaway.

Julie [00:46:39]:

Uh-huh. It's written down really big and then I've drawn a square around it and decorated the outside of it. Yeah. Yeah. Alright. Look. Thank you very much to both of you. And thank you listeners for listening.

Julie [00:46:50]:

And until next time, please do take care of yourselves.