← Dream Life Club
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Sumi Krishnan
Stop criticizing yourself, stop beating yourself up. Be more like Kim Kardashian, where everybody can boo her, where she got her claim to fame by having a sex tape, yet shows up in every single room with complete confidence and is now doing good in the world because of it. What's up? Welcome back to the Dream Life Club show. My name is Sumi and I am so happy that you are here today. We're going to dive into the really juicy, juicy topic of creating confidence, expanding your capacity and creating more opportunities in your life through the power of role model identities and alter egos. So this podcast is for you if you are an ambitious woman entrepreneur looking to grow, looking to scale your business and also your life. My name is Sumi and if you don't know me, I've been an entrepreneur Since I was 19, created multiple seven figure businesses and then grew K4 solutions to multiple eight figures before selling that and starting a new career as a pop music recording artist here in la, which is of course building another small business venture in and of itself. And today I'm going to talk about what are some of the mental tricks and hacks that I use that help me tremendously? Okay? Because look, some people were born with a natural ability, a natural ability to be comfortable in any situation, to be confident, to exist without imposter syndrome, to believe in themselves, themselves, to have capacity to just continue to do what they can do every single day without fail. And if I'm honest with you, that's not me, and that's never been me. And I have often felt like that was such a handicap because I didn't possess naturally the social skills to put myself out there, to network, to go to events, to go to meetings, to have lunches and coffees and dinner with all of the people that I wanted to meet. I had so much social anxiety. I also constantly felt like I was operating so far outside my comfort zone that I was constantly in a feeling of, I'm not good enough. Who am I to do this, holding this immense feeling of, I guess you could call it imposter syndrome. And I had to develop over the years, like I didn't have a choice. I had to develop these internal and mental tricks so that I could actually show up and do the things that were being, that were expected of me, do the things that I was supposed to be doing. And I think for me, when I look back, it was a really interesting scenario. I'll take you back to who I was back in around, let's say, the late 2000s. I, I basically walked around the world with so much social anxiety. Every time I had to go to a lunch meeting or meet somebody for coffee, it didn't matter if it was a business contact or even in a social friendship scenario, I would just be filled with all of this self consciousness. I was wanting to make a good impression. I was wanting to be smart. I was wanting to say interesting things. And it was like, so much pressure on myself. Sometimes I would go to hangouts with friends and, like, prepare ahead of time. Like, things I could talk about. Like, that's kind of crazy. Like, that is kind of crazy. And at the same time, I'm sharing because I know that it's relatable. It's actually, like, not that crazy. Like, so many of us face these feelings of being uncomfortable in social settings. And I think depending on how we were brought up and our own internal programming and genetics, like, a lot of us face these things. And so, first of all, I want to normalize it if you're feeling that way, and tell you that there are certain things that I did to expand my capacity and my confidence over the years. Okay? So now when I go into social settings with friends, like, none of these things are there. Thank God for that, right? And, like, thank God for growth, which is something that I've been saying lately. Thank God for growth. Like, the me today and the me 10 years ago are 10 different people. Like, I don't even. I don't even recognize myself back then, right? Like, it's. It's not. I'm not the same person. And in fact, I've been so many different people, so many different iterations of myself as the years have gone on, right? And thank God for that. Thank God for growth. And so the first thing I want everybody listening or watching to take away is that I don't. It doesn't matter where you are right now in your. In your life, in your journey of entrepreneurship, or in your feeling of how comfortable with yourself you are or confident you are. You can change it. Okay? You can change it. And I'm going to give you some. Some ideas that you can start experimenting with. That helped me a lot, and that might help you, too. So let's take social anxiety, okay, as the first example, and I mentioned how I was back 15 years ago or so when I was in social settings and how I would second guess myself and question everything that I would say and not sure if I was being interesting enough or smart enough or could, you know, offer enough value to the conversation, right? And then what I sort of did to flip that around and one real concrete way. And this is why sometimes doing stupid things that feel like a waste of time can actually. You can actually figure out how you can learn from those things. So let me give you an example. One of my, I would say, like, guilty pleasures has been watching the Kardashians, the show, and I realized I was like, why am I so interested in the show? And actually, I was not interested in anybody's storyline except for Kim's. I was really interested in Kim's storyline. And every time she would come on the screen, especially in recent years on the show, they've been talking more about her life and documenting more about how she's doing, what she's doing. And I don't know, true or not, like, regardless of whether my impression of her is accurate or not is besides the point, right? Because of course, they're producing the show. It comes with their own slant and their own viewpoints. And, like, they want to make themselves look the best, right? They want to make themselves look good. So I. I don't even. I don't even care if, like, the representation is accurate or not. My point is that what I got from watching how they showed Kim operating and Kim thinking and what she was doing was actually really inspiring to me. So Kim is. I mean, I would say she's a really impressive business person and she's really smart about how she utilizes her platform to build her businesses and to get involved in things she cares about. And so let's see, off the top of my head, and I'm probably missing some off the top of my head, she has her skin care line. I don't remember what that's called. She has the brand Skims, which is her body contouring shapewear line. She has her believe she has a VC or private equity firm that she's a major partner in. She is starting to do movies. She's also, oh, yeah, she was in American Horror Series, acting and directing and producing apparently more movies now coming up. Her brand, Skims, got a partnership with the Team USA Gymnastics team, I think. And I'm missing so many things. And she's got four kids and is a mother now. I know everybody's gonna look at me and say, oh, yeah. But she has all this help and she's not doing it anything herself. And she's CEOs managing each one of her brands. And some of it is just her licensing her name to things. And okay, that all might be true or is true, but the idea that I'm trying to Portray is that. And she. Oh, yeah, and I forgot one major thing. She's been passionate about criminal justice reform. Right. And she's been going and they've showed her on the show, like, going and meeting all these people, going to the prisons, talking to people, and pulling whatever string she can pull to make the change that she believes is the right change for it, for the system and for the world. And so whether we believe it all or not, whether we think she's doing all she could be doing or not, it doesn't matter. She walks into every room with complete confidence. Right. I think we can all agree on that. She walks into every room with complete confidence, even though. Do you guys think that she's the smartest person in the room? No. Right. Do. Is she the most experienced in the room? No. Many would say when she's. Well, when she was first starting some of her first businesses after, she just had, like, her personal brand, she was trying to leverage that to get into products, to get into skims, shapewear. Did she have any business experience? I don't think so. Not really. So what did she offer? She actually, one could argue she didn't really offer much. Right. In fact, the world was saying she didn't offer much, that she was just famous, famous for being famous. And she had. She had a sex tape. Right. Like, one could say she didn't really offer much to any room, but she walked in there with complete confidence, and she has taken on so much. She doesn't need to do anything else right now for money. Right. She could literally just sit on a beach and do nothing for the rest of her life, yet she's still taking on so much. So there's this spirit, this hungry spirit that I see in her that she wants to continue to do more. And that is inspiring to me, that capacity. And like I said, right or wrong, or she has people managing, it doesn't matter. Like, my impression is all I'm trying to communicate here, the capacity that I see her capable of inspires me. And sometimes when I'm feeling tapped out, when I'm looking at my schedule for the week and wondering how I'm going to get it all done, when I'm having all these ideas and I'm not sure how I can execute them all, or when I'm feeling lazy and I just want to sit on the couch at the end of the day and, like, watch TV and sleep in and, like, those thoughts are tempting. It's helpful for me to think about people. One of them is Kim Kardashian. About, like, how much she does, and if she can do it, I can do it. And to go into every room with confidence, despite what experience I might have, despite what people might be saying. Saying about me. Do you guys remember at Tom Brady's roast, she got booed. There were. There were loud echoes of booze from the audience after she walked off stage and came back down. How embarrassing, right? Like, that would shatter some people. That would shatter some people. They would not be able to show up again in public. They would hide for a year or more, right? Nope, not Kim. It's like, I don't know how she really felt, but seems like it rolled off, just rolled right off of her. So that inspires me. So sometimes when I'm feeling intimidated in a room, I'm like, oh, like, be like Kim. Be like Kim. How would Kim. How would Kim act? How would just. She owns her own. She owns it. She owns it, right? And it somehow seems like no matter what people say about her, she owns it. She owns it. And guess what? She also was very strategic and smart to use her sexuality. In her case. I'm not saying that this is something to do yourself or that I want to do, but she chose to use her sexuality to help build her platform to actually do important things in the world. Right? Whereas a lot of people don't use things to serve a cause because they don't feel like that's worthy enough somehow. Right? And I'm not. I'm not making a judgment on that. But what I am saying is that she doesn't let other people's opinions affect her. And I think we could all say that's a fact. Right? And so where in your life can you find role models? It may or may not be Kim Kardashian, but find people who inspire you in. In specific ways. All of what she does does not inspire me. Right? But those things, how she get. How she somehow pulls it off and shows up in any freaking room. Like, she's a badass, right? And she doesn't let anybody or what anybody say says deter her. And she manages her schedule in a way to have the capacity to do so many different things. And so when I'm like, I said, perhaps feeling lazy on the couch, I'm like, okay, would Kim be lazy on the couch right now? Maybe, but maybe not. Maybe there's a way that I can incorporate rejuvenating activities so I don't feel like being lazy. Maybe there's a way that I need to just do some stretches on a yoga mat. In the sun instead of lying on the couch in front of the tv. Right. Like, little, small switches. Maybe there's a way where I need to, like, take a. Make use of the cold plunge and hot sauna that I signed up for at my gym. Right. Instead of feeling sore for days on end, maybe there's a way that I need to set a better boundary about my morning routine where I can get my creativity flowing and be in my own space without getting external inputs into my mind. So, I don't know. I just use people as examples, especially when I'm in rooms where I'm feeling uncomfortable. Oh, it's like a. It's like such a cool little tool, you guys. You have to use it. If you have. If you don't do it, find somebody who inspires you and. And ask yourself, whenever you're in an uncomfortable situation, how would Kim Kardashian show up right now? It sounds so freaking cheesy, but it is so powerful. All right, let me get off Kim, and tell you about another example. Kamala Harris. Such a freaking amazing role model. So inspiring in every single way. Okay? Kamala is someone who inspires me from A to Z. And the way that she stepped up into this campaign, out of nowhere, she had to put together and show up in campaign mode, right? Like she had to on the. On the. Do a 180, from being vice president to suddenly being the presidential nominee for the Democratic party in literally the most important election of our lives. Like, anybody who knows knows what's on, what's at stake in this election. And she showed up with such energy. She was prepared. She God, talk about owning the room. She owns, every stage she's on. And talk about capacity, her schedule. Can you imagine what her schedule looks like? Constantly traveling, having to show up with energy. She can't afford to look tired. She can't afford to have an off day. She can't afford to answer a question wrong. How does she muster up that energy? How does she have that capacity? So this week, I was looking at my schedule, and I was traveling to. I just got back from a girls weekend with some of my grad school girlfriends. We went to Chicago, and then the very next day, I had a trip to Austin. Next week, I have people coming and staying at my house, and we're doing two days of tv. We're recording a TV show for Crossings tv. And then. And then a couple days after that, I'm flying to Seattle, doing another two days recording for this TV show, and I'm interviewing artists who are partnering with organizations that serve a cause that they care about. Okay? So it's like Artists for Social Change, and I'm interviewing them, and so I have to be on, right? And I looked at my calendar, I looked at my schedule, and I was, like, feeling. A few days ago, I was, like, feeling automatically, like, depleted looking at just. There was a ton I had to do. And then in between all this travel, there's so much work I have to get done, and there's so many projects that I'm working on getting out the door, and so many things that I'm kind of building right now from scratch, because I'm building two brands right now from scratch and building. Building Dream Life Club and my personal brand associated with that. And I'm building my music brand Exosumi X and Sumi X as a artist. And so it's like two different universes that I'm operating in, right? It's my Sumi Krishnan brand, which is all about me inspiring and mentoring and guiding other women entrepreneurs to scale businesses. And Sumi X, which is the creative artistic expression of myself, which is making and making music that I love, that can move people, that can connect people to people, and building a fan base around that and performing, right? And booking gigs and dialing in my live show. And, like, there's so much on that side of things, and then there's so much on this side of things. We're launching the Dream Life Club Mastermind coming up soon. Stay tuned. I'll tell you about how to apply for that if you're interested. And so there's just a lot going on amidst all this travel and all this nonprofit work for this TV show for the Slants foundation that I mentioned. And for a minute, I was, like, tempted to just, like, let myself feel so exhausted and drained at the thought of, like, all this travel coming up. And the different. The switches that I had to make in my brain, right? Like, I can't just focus on one lane. I had to switch, switch, switch. I have to do that. And then I thought about Kamala Harris, and I thought about, oh, my God, how many switches do you think she has to make in her brain right? When she's working on national security issues, when she's releasing hostages from Russia and negotiating with. With 16 countries to get that done, when she's on the road traveling, speaking to big rallies, and then going to Penzi Spices in Pittsburgh and connecting with people on a one on one level, and then going back to her duties as vice president, There is so much that she has to deal with and information that she has to process and different elements of energy that she's able to bring out on a moment's notice. Right? And so when I thought about Kamala, I'm like, well, if Kamala can do this, that. If Kamala can do that, I can do this. Like, I can do this. So Sumi, figure it out. Right? And so my point in sharing all of this is it always helps to have a role model as somebody that inspires you that you can say, okay, look, this is what she's doing. If she can do that, I can do this. And how does she do that? And take elements from it and incorporate it into your work, work and your life to help you show up better with the energy that you want to show up with and to do all the things that you truly care about doing because the world needs you. The world needs your art, the world needs your work. The world needs your impact. And I am here to say that you have something of value to share with the world. I used to hide myself. I used to hide my story. I used to think that the things that I were doing were not interesting, shouldn't be shared. You know, I remember I share the story, story with a friend the other day, like when we made the Inc. 500 list. My first company made the Inc. 500 list of fastest growing companies. I shared it on social media and then I immediately panicked and I deleted it. Why did I delete it? Because I was like, oh, but it's not that impressive. We're a small company. You know, the smaller you are if you're only making 100k in revenue, for example, and then the next year you make 200k, that's you've doubled your revenue. But to double Your revenue from 10mil to 20mil is a lot harder. So we were really small when we first made that Inc. 500 list. And I was like, I like convinced myself that it wasn't that impressive because we were so small. It was easy to do, blah, blah, blah, and completely. I have done this my whole life, and you probably have too. Thought that your stories were not interesting enough, thought that your life was not important enough to share. Thought that your opinion wasn't smart enough to be heard. Right? Like, or all these things. And I just couldn't be any more passionate in this moment about empowering each and every one of you to speak up, to share your voice, to, yes, do your homework, be educated, have value. But then stop second guessing yourself, stop criticizing yourself, stop beating yourself up, be More like Kim Kardashian, where everybody can boo her, where she got her claim to fame by having a sex tape, yet shows up in every single room with complete confidence and is now doing good in the world because of it. Do you see how if she had decided she didn't have anything to offer, whatever criminal justice reform work she's working on wouldn't be done? Whatever people love about her skims brand, that product wouldn't be out there, right? Whatever inspiration she's giving me right now, and potentially, you wouldn't be happening. Like, there are ways that when you go first and you lead the way and you decide that you're gonna do the thing, you're gonna inspire generations behind you, right? And so use people that are ahead of you to inspire you to do the damn thing. So then you can inspire the people that are gonna be looking up to you or that are currently looking up to you. So that is my rant for the day. Use people's. Whatever you know about them. It doesn't have to be accurate. Use people's experiences that you see in the world to inspire you to do what you want to do. Because we need you, and we need your art, and we need your impact, and we need your contribution. And with that, I wish you a very beautiful, wonderful, rejuvenating weekend. And I will talk to you at the end of next week. Bye, guys.