Something I’ve struggled with countless times during my lifetime is being misunderstood. Having people take my words and actions, even inactions, bend them and twist them in ways I didn’t intend, and sometimes in ways that paint me as being a really ill-intentioned person. Let me tell you, my husband’s ex, she was pretty masterful at doing just that.

Now for years when people misunderstood me, I would bend over backwards to explain myself. I would try and soften or reframe my words, my actions in an often vain attempt to help people see me in the light I believed I was showing up in. It mattered deeply to me that people understood me and my intentions. It still matters deeply to me.

But I’ve learned the slow and hard way that when someone has already decided what they want to believe about you, usually no amount of explaining changes it. On the flip side, the more explaining you do, the more convinced people become in misunderstanding you.

You’ve experienced that, right? When you’ve tried to put right something that someone has taken the wrong way or out of context, and no matter what you say or do, you just can’t make them see or understand where it is you’re coming from. Instead, the meaning gets even further twisted or taken even further out of context, and you simply cannot win.

So over time we begin to soften what we say and soften what we do. We shrink who we be and how we show up to avoid the potential of being misunderstood. We shape-shift ourselves to try and please the masses so that we don’t feel hurt, we don’t feel the injustice or the frustration of being framed in ways that don’t reflect or align with who we believe ourselves to be.

And one of the hardest things about showing up fully as the truest version of you with honesty and integrity in who you are without shrinking, softening, or shape-shifting yourself to please others is accepting that not everyone will understand you. In fact, some people will go out of their way to misunderstand you, and nothing you can do is ever going to change that.

So here’s the question. What do you do when someone’s mind is made up and it’s not in your favor? Well, the most liberating answer I discovered is this. You let them misunderstand you, and you let them misunderstand you well.

In today’s episode, I’m unpacking exactly what that means and why it’s one of the most powerful shifts you can make. Let’s dive in.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I’m your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you’re ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Hello and a very warm welcome to episode number 71 of this podcast. It’s surreal to me how long ago it seems like I was nervously recording the first few episodes, and here we are at episode 71. It feels like a lifetime ago, honestly, when I first hit record.

And actually surreal is an interesting choice of words for me today because I have experienced a few really quite surreal weeks, if I’m honest, which have led me to having this conversation today.

And that move came at a pretty big cost because it did mean leaving behind my family and all of my life as I knew it. But it’s a cost I do not regret paying because the last three years of my life feel like the beginning of a life that truly does make me feel so alive and so fulfilled.

I love being immersed in all kinds of cultures. I love seeing all the ways people do life. I love being reminded there are so many different possibilities. I particularly love the history that is so well preserved in Europe and found in the smallest of things when I least expect it.

My high school history teachers will probably not believe I am saying I love history right now. But when I walk over the cobblestone streets that have been laid sometimes thousands of years before me, it stirs something really deep in me about human life. Walking through the Royal Palace of Amsterdam just a couple of days ago, I was really struck by the history that had unfolded inside those walls and how it has impacted our life as we know it today.

Travel humbles me. It grounds me. It reminds me that each of us is the sum of all of us. And we all have a powerful role that we can play that future generations will one day hopefully be thankful for.

Now with my love of exploring and learning, over the past few years I have also developed a deep love of photographing and documenting my travels. And I share that with my family and friends on my personal social feeds but I post it mainly for me.

I am very much a memories kind of girl, and I actually have a goal of having a timeline memory of being someplace different in the world on every day for the whole 365 days of the year. That goal is slowly happening, and I just love seeing the memories come up of past trips over the years more often than not these days.

What has been really interesting though to me is how different people in my world have reacted to me sharing my travels. Some people just love seeing my posts and reading all of the individual commentary I give with each and every photo. They understand that travel is a big part of who I am. They love that about me and they look forward to my trips.

Others, not so much. Some people I’ve learned see my travel posts as big noting myself and my life. Which is not the truth behind why I post, but that’s choose to see it. They don’t see it as something that I simply love to do, and they don’t appreciate the reasons why it is such a big part of who I am. They don’t get it. And so they misunderstand my intentions behind sharing myself and my life in this way.

And one of the last deciding factors in me moving to Europe was actually being asked by a family member to tone my life down because of what they chose to make the things that are important to me mean about me. Travel was one of them, but pretty much my whole life was an issue. And you guessed it, no amount of explaining was able to shift their story about me and the way that I live my life.

I realized at that point that I could shrink myself even further than I had in fact been doing for decades within my family. I could live a really hollow, shallow version of my life to try and please them, but it would actually still be too much because I was already not even sharing all that much of my life. So I might as well live my fullest life possible and let those who get me come along for the ride and those who misunderstand me, misunderstand me very well.

Which brings me to why I wanted to have this conversation today.

During this last trip, another family member blocked me completely on her socials after I posted the first round of pictures. I felt pretty hurt to be honest because I know she loves to travel too, and I thought she of all people would understand the intentions of me sharing my journey.

And immediately I wanted to reach out. I wanted her to understand. To smooth things over if she felt like I was simply big noting my life. I wanted to soften my experience, to explain, to be understood.

And as much as I would really love our relationship to be different right now, I had to remind myself that I must accept being misunderstood in order to honor the version of me who I have worked so very hard to honor and show up as with integrity, with truthfulness, with transparency, and with consistency.

Because I realized that as soon as I start trying to soften who I am, to try and make who I am more comfortable for people, to try and sell them on me, I am in fact not selling myself on myself. I am abandoning my own understanding of me, of my values, of my truth, and then simply confusing the message I give out to the world about who I am.

Either I show up in my truth and the best way I know how, and trust that those who get me will get me. Or I compromise myself in an impossible attempt to have everyone get me. The question is, even if they did, who is it they are getting? Who is it they have an understanding of? Because it isn’t the real truth of me.

And so as much as I really am very, very sad at this family member feeling like she needs to block me from her life because she misunderstands why it is I post my travels, I would rather she misunderstand me very clearly and very consistently.

And by that I mean that I do not shape-shift how I show up in my world to try and change the way that she sees me. That I show up consistently as it feels aligned and true for me to do so. So that she can see consistently through her own lens who it is she wants to see in me, even if that’s not congruent with how it is I want to be seen. But at least she can know 100% and rely on Leanne showing up in this way. This is who Leanne unwaveringly is through her lens. And then she can decide, as she has, that I am not for her.

That’s honestly a really good thing and I am happy for her to choose to remove herself from what doesn’t feel aligned for her in her world. I’m sad, but at a much deeper level, the thing I champion most not just as a coach but this is a core part of who I am, is allowing everyone to have their own experience and loving that for them. Even if that means some people are no longer a part of my world in the way that I would like them to be. Even if that means feeling or being misunderstood.

You see, every time you shrink, justify or self-edit in a response to being misunderstood you actually make it so much harder for anyone, even the right people, to know who you really are. And I think so many of us do this. We tweak our tone, we pad out our words, we cut off the edges of what it is maybe that we really want to say. All in the name of being understood, accepted, and not risking being taken the wrong way.

But trying to fix misunderstandings can turn your message into mush. What started as a clear, powerful truth becomes this wobbly, over-explained, over-defended mess that even you can’t fully stand behind anymore. And ironically, the more you try to be understood, the less recognizable you become. And now, you’re not even being misunderstood, you are being misrepresented by a version of yourself that isn’t fully you.

So, if someone’s going to misunderstand you, let them at least misunderstand the truth. Let it be your actual clarity that they are walking away from, not a people pleasing cover act.

Which brings me to the other thing that’s been quite surreal for me these past few weeks.

Since my masterclass a few weeks ago now I have been very open about the feedback I’ve received. Most of it has been really positive, but some of it has been really quite surprising. Especially around the price of the offer that I made in that masterclass.

But it was so powerful for me to receive that feedback too because it made me think back to the times where I too felt really triggered by someone’s offer or someone’s pricing. And for me to think about what was behind me feeling that way.

Which is why I shared what I shared in last week’s podcast episode. How sometimes when we are invited to invest in ourselves at a much higher level than we’re used to, sometimes it can make us question our worthiness to do so.

And that can be really hard. So, sometimes instead of meeting the reflection of our worth in the mirror and making a decision to own that and change that, sometimes we try and make it about the other person because then we don’t have to feel the unworthiness that maybe their offer raised in us.

Now, I wasn’t suggesting in that podcast episode for one moment that affordability isn’t a factor. I wasn’t suggesting that my price wasn’t going to be an issue for some women. But the thing is, there are women who openly told me they simply cannot afford my offer, but they also expressed how they would love to work with me and they are very grateful for all of the value I make available for free. Some even said now I have a new goal to work towards.

And I know there would’ve been more women in my world who couldn’t afford my price, or maybe they didn’t see the value in my offer and they simply moved on from my world, or they just decided to continue to enjoy all of the free value that I offer each and every week in my podcast here and in my weekly email CREATED. They didn’t feel the need to let me know or complain about the price of my offer.

But the messages I received from women who expressed their disappointment, their objection to my price, that’s what I found unusual. I mean, I understand being disappointed when you would love to work with a coach, but you can’t afford it. I have coaches I would love to work with, and they’re not currently within my own financial capacity. But I don’t reach out to them and abuse them for charging what they charge.

So to me, when I received messages of that nature, it really suggested something so much deeper was going on beneath the surface that my pricing triggered. And when I reflected on my own past objections, on my own feelings of discomfort, on the times when I’ve looked at the price of something and thought, seriously, how can it be worth that? It was very often rooted in my own lack of feeling worthy of either spending the money on me if I had it, on investing the time maybe in me or on backing me in such a big way.

So, my podcast was really meant to be an invitation to women to reflect on where it is they might be discounting their worthiness to live a bigger, fuller life. And I received some beautiful messages from women who said that the episode really sparked a deep reflection on how they had been discounting themselves across so many parts of their lives. Which again, was the heart of my message that I wanted to share. And they got it. It landed for them.

But a couple of women, they saw it very differently. They interpreted the episode as me saying essentially, it’s not me that’s the problem, it’s you. As if I was somehow blaming these women for not being able to afford my price. And I’ll be honest, my first instinct, just like it always has been, was to jump in and explain. To clarify the intention behind what I said, to help them see what it is I really meant.

But for the very first time, I didn’t. I chose not to reply to those messages. Not because I don’t care. I do, I really do care. But because I knew that if I started trying to fix someone else’s perception of me, I would be compromising the very truth I’ve worked so hard to live and lead from.

I stand for not shrinking. I stand for not shape-shifting. I stand for not needing to sell the world on you, but for helping you finally sell yourself on you. It’s what I have worked so very hard on in my own life, and it has changed my life in extraordinary ways. And that’s why I do what I do as a coach. I want more women to say YES! to themselves and live a life that feels true.

And so, I had to decide to walk that truth in that moment. I had to let those women have their story about my podcast episode, just like I have mine. And ironically, the integrity they questioned in me would’ve been the very thing I compromised had I tried to shift their opinion of me. It would’ve compromised the very thing I teach week in, week out that everyone gets to have their own experience. And that you are not responsible for what other people make things mean in their world, and that includes what they make their experience of you mean.

What you are responsible for is you and who you choose to be in this world. What you are responsible for is whether or not you live in your own integrity. And what you are responsible for is being as clear as possible on understanding yourself and allowing some people to misunderstand you.

Now, by the way, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care about how you show up for the people in your world. But I am saying you should care more about showing up consistently and firmly in your values, in the fullness of who you are. So that your people, the people who get you and appreciate you and celebrate you for who you are, so that they get the best of you.

And if you’re going to do that, if you’re going to live with integrity, sometimes you have to let people misread you and still stand firm in your truth. Honestly, it is a win win for everyone because everyone gets a chance to filter in and out who genuinely feels aligned to be in their world.

I know it’s hard to filter out some people, especially when they are family. When you feel like they are the people who should get you, but they don’t. It’s hard to filter out people who previously have got you, but they don’t get the you who you’ve evolved into. It’s hard to let people think things about you that feel totally wrong and just hurtful or misconstrued. It feels like a waste of a relationship that could be so much more.

But if you need to water yourself down, shrink yourself and your life, be a shadow of yourself to have that relationship, I have to ask, is that really the kind of relationship you want to fill your one life with? Is that really the kind of relationship you want the people you care about to fill their life with?

Everyone is not for everyone, whether they are family or not. And not everyone is for always. Some people are for some chapters. Some people will not get the direction your story takes, just as you won’t get the direction some other people’s stories take.

Here’s a thought I want to leave you with.

What if being misunderstood by some is the key to being understood by those who matter? Most importantly, you being understood by you. And your clarity means you show up in the same truth, with the same values, with the same message to the world. And some people might not agree with you or understand you, but everyone will know exactly where you stand, and so will you.

What if you decided, you can misunderstand me, but you won’t be confused about who I am to you.

Listen, here’s what I’ve realized. I don’t need to be understood by everyone. But I do wanna be understood accurately by those who get me. And that only happens when I keep showing up in my truth clearly, consistently without bending, justifying, or shape-shifting depending on who’s watching.

Because if I start changing how I speak, how I show up, how I lead, depending on who I might lose in my world, no one actually knows what I stand for, not even me. That’s not clarity, that’s confusion. And when you confuse people, you create mistrust, even with the ones who truly do want to understand you.

So now, if someone is going to walk away, I want them to walk away from my truth. However, it is they understand my truth. I want them to walk away from a message that’s been consistent, values-driven and fully aligned. Even if it wasn’t what they wanted to hear and see in me.

That to me is being misunderstood well. They may not agree. They may choose to unsubscribe, unfollow, opt out, break, family ties. But they won’t be confused about who I am or what I stand for. However it is they choose to understand it.

And neither will the women I show up for every week. The ones who are listening, who are rising, who are saying YES! to themselves, right alongside me. They will know exactly what I stand for.

Be willing to let people misunderstand you but let them misunderstand you with full access to the truth you stood in. It’s one of the most powerful shifts you can make for you and for them.

That’s it for me this week. But before I close, I want to let you know there are only a few more days left to catch my YES! to YOU masterclass for free. So if you haven’t yet tuned in or you want to watch it again, head over to selfcreationschool.com/yestoyou and do that today. It is an immensely valuable masterclass that has the potential to change your world, but time is running out to press play on you for free.

And also applications for The YES! Factor at my special launch pricing, which is the offer that has created so much fuss these past few weeks, they are closing on the 9th of May. So, that’s only just a few days away too. If you are interested to know more about that, head to selfcreationschool.com/theyesfactor.

And if you are still thinking about saying YES! to YOU and working with me at this level, please don’t wait. Apply before the 9th of May and book yourself a YES! Session so we can meet and greet to ensure this is for you.

I will be honoring the launch price for all applications received by the close date even if your complimentary YES! Session falls after that date. And listen, I do have extended payment plans available. So, wherever you are financially, if this offer speaks to you, if you are feeling that YES! nudge, get your application in for the special launch price, and let’s chat about how we can make that happen for you.

With that, I’m signing off for the week. Of course, I’ll be here same time, same place next week, and I do look forward to your company.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what’s stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what’s standing in your way today and I’ll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That’s https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.

Something I’ve struggled with countless times during my lifetime is being misunderstood. Having people take my words and actions, even inactions, bend them and twist them in ways I didn’t intend, and sometimes in ways that paint me as being a really ill-intentioned person. Let me tell you, my husband’s ex, she was pretty masterful at doing just that.

Now for years when people misunderstood me, I would bend over backwards to explain myself. I would try and soften or reframe my words, my actions in an often vain attempt to help people see me in the light I believed I was showing up in. It mattered deeply to me that people understood me and my intentions. It still matters deeply to me.

But I’ve learned the slow and hard way that when someone has already decided what they want to believe about you, usually no amount of explaining changes it. On the flip side, the more explaining you do, the more convinced people become in misunderstanding you.

You’ve experienced that, right? When you’ve tried to put right something that someone has taken the wrong way or out of context, and no matter what you say or do, you just can’t make them see or understand where it is you’re coming from. Instead, the meaning gets even further twisted or taken even further out of context, and you simply cannot win.

So over time we begin to soften what we say and soften what we do. We shrink who we be and how we show up to avoid the potential of being misunderstood. We shape-shift ourselves to try and please the masses so that we don’t feel hurt, we don’t feel the injustice or the frustration of being framed in ways that don’t reflect or align with who we believe ourselves to be.

And one of the hardest things about showing up fully as the truest version of you with honesty and integrity in who you are without shrinking, softening, or shape-shifting yourself to please others is accepting that not everyone will understand you. In fact, some people will go out of their way to misunderstand you, and nothing you can do is ever going to change that.

So here’s the question. What do you do when someone’s mind is made up and it’s not in your favor? Well, the most liberating answer I discovered is this. You let them misunderstand you, and you let them misunderstand you well.

In today’s episode, I’m unpacking exactly what that means and why it’s one of the most powerful shifts you can make. Let’s dive in.

Welcome to The Self-Creation School podcast, for women who are ready to ditch mediocrity, step up and get more of what they want, and finally say YES! to a life that sets their soul on fire. I’m your host Leanne Letica, Self-Creation Coach, founder of The Self-Creation School AND Queen of YES!. If you’re ready to play life by your own personal rule book, and give yourself permission to say YES! to yourself and your wildest dreams, this podcast is the place for you.

Hello and a very warm welcome to episode number 71 of this podcast. It’s surreal to me how long ago it seems like I was nervously recording the first few episodes, and here we are at episode 71. It feels like a lifetime ago, honestly, when I first hit record.

And actually surreal is an interesting choice of words for me today because I have experienced a few really quite surreal weeks, if I’m honest, which have led me to having this conversation today.

And that move came at a pretty big cost because it did mean leaving behind my family and all of my life as I knew it. But it’s a cost I do not regret paying because the last three years of my life feel like the beginning of a life that truly does make me feel so alive and so fulfilled.

I love being immersed in all kinds of cultures. I love seeing all the ways people do life. I love being reminded there are so many different possibilities. I particularly love the history that is so well preserved in Europe and found in the smallest of things when I least expect it.

My high school history teachers will probably not believe I am saying I love history right now. But when I walk over the cobblestone streets that have been laid sometimes thousands of years before me, it stirs something really deep in me about human life. Walking through the Royal Palace of Amsterdam just a couple of days ago, I was really struck by the history that had unfolded inside those walls and how it has impacted our life as we know it today.

Travel humbles me. It grounds me. It reminds me that each of us is the sum of all of us. And we all have a powerful role that we can play that future generations will one day hopefully be thankful for.

Now with my love of exploring and learning, over the past few years I have also developed a deep love of photographing and documenting my travels. And I share that with my family and friends on my personal social feeds but I post it mainly for me.

I am very much a memories kind of girl, and I actually have a goal of having a timeline memory of being someplace different in the world on every day for the whole 365 days of the year. That goal is slowly happening, and I just love seeing the memories come up of past trips over the years more often than not these days.

What has been really interesting though to me is how different people in my world have reacted to me sharing my travels. Some people just love seeing my posts and reading all of the individual commentary I give with each and every photo. They understand that travel is a big part of who I am. They love that about me and they look forward to my trips.

Others, not so much. Some people I’ve learned see my travel posts as big noting myself and my life. Which is not the truth behind why I post, but that’s choose to see it. They don’t see it as something that I simply love to do, and they don’t appreciate the reasons why it is such a big part of who I am. They don’t get it. And so they misunderstand my intentions behind sharing myself and my life in this way.

And one of the last deciding factors in me moving to Europe was actually being asked by a family member to tone my life down because of what they chose to make the things that are important to me mean about me. Travel was one of them, but pretty much my whole life was an issue. And you guessed it, no amount of explaining was able to shift their story about me and the way that I live my life.

I realized at that point that I could shrink myself even further than I had in fact been doing for decades within my family. I could live a really hollow, shallow version of my life to try and please them, but it would actually still be too much because I was already not even sharing all that much of my life. So I might as well live my fullest life possible and let those who get me come along for the ride and those who misunderstand me, misunderstand me very well.

Which brings me to why I wanted to have this conversation today.

During this last trip, another family member blocked me completely on her socials after I posted the first round of pictures. I felt pretty hurt to be honest because I know she loves to travel too, and I thought she of all people would understand the intentions of me sharing my journey.

And immediately I wanted to reach out. I wanted her to understand. To smooth things over if she felt like I was simply big noting my life. I wanted to soften my experience, to explain, to be understood.

And as much as I would really love our relationship to be different right now, I had to remind myself that I must accept being misunderstood in order to honor the version of me who I have worked so very hard to honor and show up as with integrity, with truthfulness, with transparency, and with consistency.

Because I realized that as soon as I start trying to soften who I am, to try and make who I am more comfortable for people, to try and sell them on me, I am in fact not selling myself on myself. I am abandoning my own understanding of me, of my values, of my truth, and then simply confusing the message I give out to the world about who I am.

Either I show up in my truth and the best way I know how, and trust that those who get me will get me. Or I compromise myself in an impossible attempt to have everyone get me. The question is, even if they did, who is it they are getting? Who is it they have an understanding of? Because it isn’t the real truth of me.

And so as much as I really am very, very sad at this family member feeling like she needs to block me from her life because she misunderstands why it is I post my travels, I would rather she misunderstand me very clearly and very consistently.

And by that I mean that I do not shape-shift how I show up in my world to try and change the way that she sees me. That I show up consistently as it feels aligned and true for me to do so. So that she can see consistently through her own lens who it is she wants to see in me, even if that’s not congruent with how it is I want to be seen. But at least she can know 100% and rely on Leanne showing up in this way. This is who Leanne unwaveringly is through her lens. And then she can decide, as she has, that I am not for her.

That’s honestly a really good thing and I am happy for her to choose to remove herself from what doesn’t feel aligned for her in her world. I’m sad, but at a much deeper level, the thing I champion most not just as a coach but this is a core part of who I am, is allowing everyone to have their own experience and loving that for them. Even if that means some people are no longer a part of my world in the way that I would like them to be. Even if that means feeling or being misunderstood.

You see, every time you shrink, justify or self-edit in a response to being misunderstood you actually make it so much harder for anyone, even the right people, to know who you really are. And I think so many of us do this. We tweak our tone, we pad out our words, we cut off the edges of what it is maybe that we really want to say. All in the name of being understood, accepted, and not risking being taken the wrong way.

But trying to fix misunderstandings can turn your message into mush. What started as a clear, powerful truth becomes this wobbly, over-explained, over-defended mess that even you can’t fully stand behind anymore. And ironically, the more you try to be understood, the less recognizable you become. And now, you’re not even being misunderstood, you are being misrepresented by a version of yourself that isn’t fully you.

So, if someone’s going to misunderstand you, let them at least misunderstand the truth. Let it be your actual clarity that they are walking away from, not a people pleasing cover act.

Which brings me to the other thing that’s been quite surreal for me these past few weeks.

Since my masterclass a few weeks ago now I have been very open about the feedback I’ve received. Most of it has been really positive, but some of it has been really quite surprising. Especially around the price of the offer that I made in that masterclass.

But it was so powerful for me to receive that feedback too because it made me think back to the times where I too felt really triggered by someone’s offer or someone’s pricing. And for me to think about what was behind me feeling that way.

Which is why I shared what I shared in last week’s podcast episode. How sometimes when we are invited to invest in ourselves at a much higher level than we’re used to, sometimes it can make us question our worthiness to do so.

And that can be really hard. So, sometimes instead of meeting the reflection of our worth in the mirror and making a decision to own that and change that, sometimes we try and make it about the other person because then we don’t have to feel the unworthiness that maybe their offer raised in us.

Now, I wasn’t suggesting in that podcast episode for one moment that affordability isn’t a factor. I wasn’t suggesting that my price wasn’t going to be an issue for some women. But the thing is, there are women who openly told me they simply cannot afford my offer, but they also expressed how they would love to work with me and they are very grateful for all of the value I make available for free. Some even said now I have a new goal to work towards.

And I know there would’ve been more women in my world who couldn’t afford my price, or maybe they didn’t see the value in my offer and they simply moved on from my world, or they just decided to continue to enjoy all of the free value that I offer each and every week in my podcast here and in my weekly email CREATED. They didn’t feel the need to let me know or complain about the price of my offer.

But the messages I received from women who expressed their disappointment, their objection to my price, that’s what I found unusual. I mean, I understand being disappointed when you would love to work with a coach, but you can’t afford it. I have coaches I would love to work with, and they’re not currently within my own financial capacity. But I don’t reach out to them and abuse them for charging what they charge.

So to me, when I received messages of that nature, it really suggested something so much deeper was going on beneath the surface that my pricing triggered. And when I reflected on my own past objections, on my own feelings of discomfort, on the times when I’ve looked at the price of something and thought, seriously, how can it be worth that? It was very often rooted in my own lack of feeling worthy of either spending the money on me if I had it, on investing the time maybe in me or on backing me in such a big way.

So, my podcast was really meant to be an invitation to women to reflect on where it is they might be discounting their worthiness to live a bigger, fuller life. And I received some beautiful messages from women who said that the episode really sparked a deep reflection on how they had been discounting themselves across so many parts of their lives. Which again, was the heart of my message that I wanted to share. And they got it. It landed for them.

But a couple of women, they saw it very differently. They interpreted the episode as me saying essentially, it’s not me that’s the problem, it’s you. As if I was somehow blaming these women for not being able to afford my price. And I’ll be honest, my first instinct, just like it always has been, was to jump in and explain. To clarify the intention behind what I said, to help them see what it is I really meant.

But for the very first time, I didn’t. I chose not to reply to those messages. Not because I don’t care. I do, I really do care. But because I knew that if I started trying to fix someone else’s perception of me, I would be compromising the very truth I’ve worked so hard to live and lead from.

I stand for not shrinking. I stand for not shape-shifting. I stand for not needing to sell the world on you, but for helping you finally sell yourself on you. It’s what I have worked so very hard on in my own life, and it has changed my life in extraordinary ways. And that’s why I do what I do as a coach. I want more women to say YES! to themselves and live a life that feels true.

And so, I had to decide to walk that truth in that moment. I had to let those women have their story about my podcast episode, just like I have mine. And ironically, the integrity they questioned in me would’ve been the very thing I compromised had I tried to shift their opinion of me. It would’ve compromised the very thing I teach week in, week out that everyone gets to have their own experience. And that you are not responsible for what other people make things mean in their world, and that includes what they make their experience of you mean.

What you are responsible for is you and who you choose to be in this world. What you are responsible for is whether or not you live in your own integrity. And what you are responsible for is being as clear as possible on understanding yourself and allowing some people to misunderstand you.

Now, by the way, I’m not saying that you shouldn’t care about how you show up for the people in your world. But I am saying you should care more about showing up consistently and firmly in your values, in the fullness of who you are. So that your people, the people who get you and appreciate you and celebrate you for who you are, so that they get the best of you.

And if you’re going to do that, if you’re going to live with integrity, sometimes you have to let people misread you and still stand firm in your truth. Honestly, it is a win win for everyone because everyone gets a chance to filter in and out who genuinely feels aligned to be in their world.

I know it’s hard to filter out some people, especially when they are family. When you feel like they are the people who should get you, but they don’t. It’s hard to filter out people who previously have got you, but they don’t get the you who you’ve evolved into. It’s hard to let people think things about you that feel totally wrong and just hurtful or misconstrued. It feels like a waste of a relationship that could be so much more.

But if you need to water yourself down, shrink yourself and your life, be a shadow of yourself to have that relationship, I have to ask, is that really the kind of relationship you want to fill your one life with? Is that really the kind of relationship you want the people you care about to fill their life with?

Everyone is not for everyone, whether they are family or not. And not everyone is for always. Some people are for some chapters. Some people will not get the direction your story takes, just as you won’t get the direction some other people’s stories take.

Here’s a thought I want to leave you with.

What if being misunderstood by some is the key to being understood by those who matter? Most importantly, you being understood by you. And your clarity means you show up in the same truth, with the same values, with the same message to the world. And some people might not agree with you or understand you, but everyone will know exactly where you stand, and so will you.

What if you decided, you can misunderstand me, but you won’t be confused about who I am to you.

Listen, here’s what I’ve realized. I don’t need to be understood by everyone. But I do wanna be understood accurately by those who get me. And that only happens when I keep showing up in my truth clearly, consistently without bending, justifying, or shape-shifting depending on who’s watching.

Because if I start changing how I speak, how I show up, how I lead, depending on who I might lose in my world, no one actually knows what I stand for, not even me. That’s not clarity, that’s confusion. And when you confuse people, you create mistrust, even with the ones who truly do want to understand you.

So now, if someone is going to walk away, I want them to walk away from my truth. However, it is they understand my truth. I want them to walk away from a message that’s been consistent, values-driven and fully aligned. Even if it wasn’t what they wanted to hear and see in me.

That to me is being misunderstood well. They may not agree. They may choose to unsubscribe, unfollow, opt out, break, family ties. But they won’t be confused about who I am or what I stand for. However it is they choose to understand it.

And neither will the women I show up for every week. The ones who are listening, who are rising, who are saying YES! to themselves, right alongside me. They will know exactly what I stand for.

Be willing to let people misunderstand you but let them misunderstand you with full access to the truth you stood in. It’s one of the most powerful shifts you can make for you and for them.

That’s it for me this week. But before I close, I want to let you know there are only a few more days left to catch my YES! to YOU masterclass for free. So if you haven’t yet tuned in or you want to watch it again, head over to selfcreationschool.com/yestoyou and do that today. It is an immensely valuable masterclass that has the potential to change your world, but time is running out to press play on you for free.

And also applications for The YES! Factor at my special launch pricing, which is the offer that has created so much fuss these past few weeks, they are closing on the 9th of May. So, that’s only just a few days away too. If you are interested to know more about that, head to selfcreationschool.com/theyesfactor.

And if you are still thinking about saying YES! to YOU and working with me at this level, please don’t wait. Apply before the 9th of May and book yourself a YES! Session so we can meet and greet to ensure this is for you.

I will be honoring the launch price for all applications received by the close date even if your complimentary YES! Session falls after that date. And listen, I do have extended payment plans available. So, wherever you are financially, if this offer speaks to you, if you are feeling that YES! nudge, get your application in for the special launch price, and let’s chat about how we can make that happen for you.

With that, I’m signing off for the week. Of course, I’ll be here same time, same place next week, and I do look forward to your company.

Until then, be the woman who says YES!

Hey, want to know what’s stopping you from saying YES! to you and a life you love?

Head over to https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock and take my FREE 60 second quiz to find out what’s standing in your way today and I’ll send you my Self-Creation Shift process for shifting it.

That’s https://selfcreationschool.com/yesblock. I’ll see you there.