Welcome to this episode of uncomplicating business. I am Sara Torpey. I am the creator of selling for weirdos, and we are going to keep talking about trust. This is the conversation we are having in 2025 because trust is sort of the magic ingredient in business, and I am more and more convinced at this, the more businesses I work with, the more time I spend in my own business. 

This is episode three in this series. Episode One was about like, why are we bothering with this? Episode Two was about all the different sort of forms of trust that we have to navigate in business and all the different ways it shows up. And today we're going to talk about sort of the step one phase of this. In this episode, we're going to talk about what it really means to start building trust in your business, like, if this is something that you know is really hard for you. 

Today's episode is about building tolerance for risk and figuring out how to function in a way that allows you to practice trust and strengthen this muscle, like in the day to day reality of your business. We're going to do practical stuff because, you know me, I like a practical thing, and it really matters that we're going to, you know, the tools matter and in the sneaky thing about trust is it's an inside out thing, right? It is something we can practice, but a lot of it happens inside of our brains, so other people won't know this is going on. 

It's like a lot of internal work. It's a lot of emotional energy and internal energy towards having to spend less energy on drama and doing things that aren't really productive, or starting and stopping and doing all the perfectionism and shiny objects and so what I want to start with today is, you know, this idea of creating a tolerance for risk, because when we trust ourselves, when we are working in trust in our businesses, we are more willing to take risks of all sorts of sizes, because we trust that we will be able to know what to do no matter what happens next. And that is really sort of, for me, the gold standard of being willing to take a risk that I A lot of times if I find myself like, oh, I don't know if I want to do that.

 The question I ask is, will I be able to manage no matter what happens next? Because when you take a risk, when you do something new, and doing new things is a risk, even if it's a tiny thing, like it's a post you wrote, it's a giant thing, like speaking on a stage or applying for something you wouldn't have normally. When you take those risks, what you're doing is sort of giving away your control of the outcome, right? And at that stage, we're in sort of trust the process land. And as a client told me last week, and she I sent an email about this the other day, and she was telling me she feels famous now, but, you know, trusting the process is hard because it is a constant thing to do, right? 

We have to practice trust. And so there are some things for me that I think help us to create the tolerance for risk that really, really allow you to take risks in ways that you know, build you up over time. Like we don't start skiing on the giant hill the first day. Not that I ski. I don't know what that's like. I avoid Winter Sports. Thanks, though. What? But we don't start, you know, your first day on a bicycle, you don't ride 26 miles, right? Your first day running, you don't run a marathon, you don't start with the hardest stuff. And sometimes that's kind of what we expect of ourselves, is it's like, well, why can't I get myself to do this thing?

 Well, it's because your trust muscle is trying to lift 70 pounds when you can only lift seven, like I had shoulder surgery in the before, before Thanksgiving, and right now it's February, and I am really, really working on doing all the things they need me to do at Pt with that one pound weight. And I feel ridiculous, but it is all I can do someday is to do 15 or 20 reps of something they're asking me to do with this ridiculous, teeny, tiny, one pound weight. But that's where my tolerance and my muscle is right now, and I'm working on that strength just like you work on that kind of muscle, and maybe the next time we talk, I'll be moved up to two pound weights. Right? But, you know, it's one thing at a time.

 So for me, number one in creating this tolerance for risk is thinking about my expectations. Right? It is just like if I'm going to take this risk and do this thing, what do I expect to happen? And in sort of knowing what my brain is thinking, because so often we only think about like the best case scenario and the worst case scenario. 

This conversation I have with my youngest child all the time, either it is going to go spectacularly and he is going to be an MLB baseball player, or he is never going to make a team again, and he is never going to play the sport. And for him, in his imagination, there is nothing in between there. It's either all success or all failure. But you and I both know that there's a million things in between there, and so the same thing happens when we go to take a risk of any size. It's writing a post where you're like, oh my gosh, either everybody's gonna think I'm the worst person on earth, or everybody's gonna love it. 

And, you know, there's about a million choices in between there, including that, like nobody was as stressed out about it as you, and they kind of went like, Yeah, that's cool. And we don't know what to do with some of those. So it's sort of managing what we imagine the expectations to be, and in understanding there are more options than we realize, and the vast like 99.9% of those options are great, right, and not going to injure us, and we aren't going to, like, melt in a puddle from we're not nothing's going to end because of it, very little of what we do as business owners, as people, is so risky that we are like risking absolute ruination. 

But our brains tell us that that is absolutely the stakes every single time you push post, and that's just not true. So taking the risk and giving yourself a second to think about your expectations and what you think the outcomes might be and what's actually possible and what is ridiculous versus not. Because sometimes I'm like, I write things in my journal sometimes where I'm like, Okay, what's the worst thing I could think that could happen about this? And I write it down, and the next thing I write is like, Dude, that's ridiculous. Like, that's not going to happen. That's bananas. And the minute I do that, I'm like, oh, okay, I'm okay. I can take this risk, right? 

The other thing that really helps in managing and creating a tolerance for risk, and I hate this one just as much as you hate it, is noticing and feeling your feelings. I know, I know. I know. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I know. And also true, because here's the thing, when you take a risk, when you do something new, you are going to be uncomfortable. That is normal. You might be anxious, you might be worried. You might be I don't know all the things, all of those feelings are just feelings, and we have them as humans, and they are part of the game. 

But the thing that happens, I think, sometimes, is we go to take a risk, and we get anxious and we get uncomfortable, and they're like, oh, man, this is not meant for me. And there are times where it's not the right thing for you, and your brain and your body are trying to tell you something, and I'm not trying to tell you to skip over that. However, I think a lot of the times, if it's like I feel anxious about pushing post on this post, pushing send on this email, when I know there is nothing life threatening in it, I think we're going to be okay. 

Sometimes we're just uncomfortable. We can feel uncomfortable and do the things, and that, for me, is a big part of what I do. When I take risks, it's like, well, this is this is going to be uncomfortable, but I'm going to do it anyways. It's kind of how I feel at Pt all the time. The physical therapist says to me, is this okay? And I say, No, but it is what it is, right? Like, what are the choices? And
you know, feel your feelings. Know what they are. Take a second to notice them and be like, Oh yeah, risks are really uncomfortable. It sucks, and keep going, but acknowledge them. 

Know that they're there, know that they're normal, and sometimes that the feelings happen after the fact. Like, how many times have you pushed post or send and thought like, Oh God, I don't know if I should have done that or applied for something and been like, I don't know that was crazy. But then that is another time to notice like, that feeling of discomfort, of apprehension, of uncertainty, right? And just be like, Oh, okay, it's really normal to be uncertain, right here. There's nothing wrong with me, right? We can normalize all of this. I you know. And actually, the next note on my list is normalize being unsure. Guys, being unsure when you take a risk is normal. This is just. Nature of taking a risk. If it was a certain thing, the outcome, it wouldn't be a risk, right? It's like trust is pre evidence. Risk is pre understanding what's going to happen. 

So if we're working in trust and we're taking risks and we're practicing, yeah, you're going to be uncertain. Yeah, that's normal. Okay, nobody, as I tell people all the time, we didn't die from this. We're okay, we're good, we're gonna keep on going. And so to be like, gosh, I feel really uncertain about this, and it's normal, like, this is something that people feel uncertain about. 

This is uncertain and it's okay. I chose to do it even though it's uncertain, is amazing. The other thing that I think is really useful to consider when you're billing building your tolerance for risk is to look for things that are Win, win situations, like you know when I try, when I play, for example, games in my Facebook group. If you try something in one of those games and you it doesn't like, create a million dollars, you still won because you played the game, right? It's a win. No matter what you do, taking the risk is the win, right? It's not about the outcome. So we can create a win, win situation with a risk, by knowing, you know, what the win actually is, by choosing to take risks where it's like, this was a really big risk I took, and the fact that I took it is a win in and of itself. And that's amazing. 

So it is. It's useful to think about what the win is and not define it by something that's out of your control. Because I don't know that people will pick me to speak at the conference. I don't know that the client will say yes. I don't know that the people I sent that email to will respond, but I know that I had to take the risk and do the thing, and I did, and that part was what was in my control, right? So the other part I think of practicing trust is decisions. I think trust is a decision that I make a million times a day. This is something you can practice. This is the beginning, right? It's belief, and it's belief is a decision, right? We decide to believe things about ourselves. I have to write. I have to read what I wrote for a second because I it was well, like organized on my paper. Decisions are a belief, and when we decide to believe, we have to remake that decision over and over and over again. 

That's what belief is. It's a decision you make over and over and over and over again to know something is true. Faith works like that, right? Or at least my version, I think that it's like I'm choosing to believe this over and over. Is the same thing. I'm choosing to trust this. I'm choosing to trust myself. It is deciding again and again that I'm willing to try and be and do this thing and trust what's going to happen. So here's the thing about trust. We were talking about it before as like this dimmer switch the sliding scale. Sometimes we're higher on the scale than not. We're never, it's not an on off. We're never out of it completely. Sometimes we're higher and lower, and sometimes it's really easy to decide, like, I trust myself right now. And sometimes it's like, wow, what am I going to do? I don't know if I can do this. And it's like, Nope, I'm going to decide. 

So one of the things that I always do when I'm having trouble deciding to trust myself is I think about the place and situations I find one in which I trust myself most, right? And actually, for me, that is a math classroom. That's going to sound crazy for some of you, but like, if you were to pick me up and drop me off in some middle school or high school algebra class, I would be able to figure it out immediately. Like I'd ask the kids where they were, I'd look in their book and I would know what to do next. It would be fine. I absolutely trust myself to be able to help those people in that situation and move forward. And it's that, like, calm, like, I got this feeling, and since I know how to feel that feeling, I can just carry it to other places where it's like, oh, I'm going to pretend that's the situation I'm in. I'm going to use that feeling to do the next thing, and that's good enough. 

So one of the things I want to give you in each of these episodes are some questions, and the questions that I think are really helpful for you know, practicing this building of trust are. Sara, where do I already trust myself? And how does that feel? It's like me in the classroom. So what is your version of that? Where is the place that you're like, No, no, I got this. I got it cold like I have no question here. How does that feel for you? How does it feel in your body? 

How does it feel in your brain? What do you do? What do you not do? And then, how do you carry that? How do I pull that feeling into new situations? Because you can feelings are feelings we know how to feel right. All we're just doing is feeling that feeling while we do something different. But I can do that. I can feel sad at the movie whenever I want. So I can feel this trust and this confidence whenever I want, right. Another question starts with kind of a statement.

 For me, the thing I remember about experts most is experts know that they don't know experts are uncertain. The people that have 100% certainty in their field and think they know everything are not experts. You know this, and I know this, but nobody knows everything that's crazy. So it's if experts are uncertain. Sometimes, you know, how do I know this to be true? How does it apply to me? Right? If it is okay for the biggest planetary scientist out there, or, you know, the head of some major company that does science, or, like the most powerful mathematician, if it's okay for them to know that they don't always know. 

How does that apply to me? How does that apply to my expertise? How does that apply to how I trust myself? Because, if they trust themselves, why can't I right? And then how do I know and notice that that I'm falling sort of low on the trust scale with myself? Like, what are the things I should see and start to pay attention to that feel like that are signs that, like, I'm just undecided, trust, where I'm kind of like, waffling around a little bit, where I where I'm not acting as if I trust myself. What are those things that I do? I know for me, I tend to use a million words when I'm five. Will do I tend to be indecisive when I'm not trust trusting myself, like, it's like, I don't know what to do next. I don't know what to do. I don't know which colors that should be. I'm like, Oh my gosh, trust, trust that you'll get it right. 

The other thing I do is I start things, lots of things, and I don't finish any of them. And so that's when I have to sit back and be like, oh, friend, time to get focused, time to resettle, time to reground yourself, time to come back to trust. So for you, when you're not in trust, what does that look and feel like and sound like? How do you start to recognize it? So that you can go back to these things that build your tolerance for risk and trust, and you can re decide to trust yourself. And those are the questions this week. So please subscribe to this. If you think this is worthwhile, please feel free to share it. People have been sharing it a lot, which has been so fun. If you want to rate or review this podcast, that'd be great. It helps other people find it. You can always watch on YouTube. 

There is a blog version of this. If you want to go to my website, which is Torpey coaching.com, in the blog and grab the questions. I will make sure they are in the blog, bulleted towards the bottom, so you can always get them there. And then, if there are things you need or want, if you want to work on trust in your business, you want to put this practice into actual practice with coaching, please reach out. I'm here to help, and I will see you next time. Next time. We're going to talk about more practicing trust, and then we're going to start to do some interviews. I'm so excited about the people that are coming. You have no idea. All right, I'll see you in two weeks.