“As women we are constantly fed messages by society of don’t be ‘too much.’ Be confident but not too confident. Be smart but not too smart. Be visible but not too visible. This is why being the fullest version of you is so damn uncomfortable. You are breaking massive amounts of messages fed to you daily to be anything but yourself.”

Visibility is a common struggle for women, especially for me and many of my clients.  

Although we want to do big things in the world to live our fully expressed lives as our most authentic selves, when it’s time to actually get visible to go live that life, it can feel not just uncomfortable, but downright like we’re dying.

This is NORMAL. There are common blocks we have to overcome as women in order to have comfort with visibility.  

JOIN ME ON THE SHOW TODAY AS I TALK THROUGH THE BLOCKS THAT MAY BE STOPPING YOU FROM BEING MORE VISIBLE IN YOUR LIFE. I’LL BE TALKING THROUGH:

• Why your summer months are the prime time for you to get visible on your life
• How to maximize your visibility so you can make massive movement on your goals
• Why it’s important to rest and recharge as you’re more visible
• What happens during your summer months of becoming more visible that shows the work you did and didn’t do during your other months of the year (and how to create more of the good feelings)

..and so much more.

Tune in at the top of the page and let’s get YOU visible in your life!

POST EPISODE RESOURCES:

Full Transcript

The Importance of Rest

Episode 122: GET VISIBLE

This is the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast with Lindsay Preston Episode 122, Get
Visible.
[music]
Welcome to the Become an Unstoppable Woman podcast, the show for goal-getting, fearfacing women for kicking ass by creating change. I’m your host, Lindsay Preston. I’m a wife,
mom of two, and a multi-certified life coach to women all over the world. I’ve lived
through enough in life to know that easier doesn’t always equate to better. jWe can’t fear
the fire, we must learn to become it. On this show, I’ll teach you how to do just that. Join
me as I challenge you to become even more of the strong, resilient, and powerful woman
you were meant to be. Let’s do this.
[music]
Hi, there, Ms. Unstoppable, welcome to another episode of this show. Always so grateful to
have you. Today, we’re going to be talking about how to get visible in your life. Visibility is
a common struggle for a lot of women, especially a lot of women that I coach. It used to be
a very common struggle for me as well, but we are in a season right now or many of us are
in a season right now that is considered our summer months. If you’re an avid listener of
the show or you’re a client of mine, you know that every year, we’re like nature and we go
through seasons. Just like there’s fall, winter, spring, and summer, our bodies go through
that as well. We talked about in some of the other episodes what it feels like to be in your
fall, what it feels like to be in your winter and in your spring, and now, we’re wrapping it
up with what it feels like to be in your summer. I’ve been releasing these episodes over the
past year as we’ve been in that season. Now, here in the States, and I’m in Texas, it’s
definitely summertime, especially and this episode is going live in July. We’re just now
approaching summer here in Texas as I record this in mid-June. Here in Texas, it’s
definitely summer.
Now you may be on the other side of the world. I know I have clients in Australia and New
Zealand who they’re obviously experiencing their winter so come back to this episode
when it is your summer. Also, too, I want to throw out there just because nature may be in
that season doesn’t mean that’s the season for you. I know, for example, somebody who
the fall season feels like her summer, that just feels like her time when she is shining the
most. Just in case, too, you didn’t hear my episode where I talk about the different seasons
and what it feels like, let’s do a brief recap. In this summer since we’ll talk about that
today, this is when you feel like you want to be out there the most. You feel like the best
of the best of you. You want to be connecting and engaging and putting yourself out there
and networking. You’re just wanting to be as visible as possible. This, too, is typically when
you feel the best during the year so you’re feeling those really yummy emotions like joy
and gratitude and peace, and you’re likely having a lot of fun in your life. Then you
transition into fall, and fall is fun too, but you don’t have as much energy. You’re starting
to want to in essence be more in a cocoon a little bit. You’re just slowing down. You’re still
having fun and you’re still putting yourself out there, but the energy just isn’t something
that you can maintain that you had in your summer months.
Then you go into winter. In your winter, you’re fully in that cocoon and you’re shutting in
different layers just like an oak tree that we have here in Texas, I have some on my yard of
shutting the leaves and the acorns, and you’re there in essence. You’re doing a lot of inner
work typically during those months I call, cut your clutter. You’re cutting your external
clutter typically and even your internal clutter of getting rid of all that stuff that’s no
longer serving you. It feels that way too. It’s like, “Oh, what is all this crap that’s coming
out for me?” A lot of people, they even experience a seasonal depression during those
months. They’re just feeling funky. Then you transition into spring when you’re starting to
get some energy, but you’re still cleaning out some stuff. You’re wanting to be a little bit
more visible, but again, it’s not this high energy that you feel in the summer months. For
me, I experience the seasons just like they do here in Texas. When it’s June, July, and
August, I’m in my summer. September, October, November, I’m in my fall. December,
January, February, I’m in my winter. March, April, May, I’m in my spring.
I think, too, this goes back to– This may seem woo-woo to some of you, but my birthday.
My birthday is in August. The week of my birthday is typically one of the hottest weeks
here in Texas. That’s when I just really feel like I’m in full bloom during that week. Then
immediately after that, it’s like I start to wilt almost a little bit. I start to get tired, and I
transition into my fall. I know who I’m thinking of who feels like she blooms in the fall her
birthday is in the fall. I have somebody else who says she really feels like she blooms in
the winter and her birthday is in the winter. Again, I don’t know if there’s a connection
there. Even though this is a concept many people follow, it’s also a concept that this is just
one that’s intuitively come to me over the past years over me setting goals. I’ve talked
about these in other episodes that there were many years in my life when I would just
hustle and grind and hit the goals and do the things, and I would be exhausted. I would
really question why can’t I keep the same momentum throughout the year? Why is it just
during my summer months I feel the best? Why do I feel so shitty in the winter too? I felt
really shitty in the winter. I wondered what was wrong with me. Then as time went on and
I started to study myself more and more, especially after I did coaching work as a client, I
was like, “Oh, this is just the seasons of life.”
I heard Lara Casey say once, and Lara Casey is the creator of a product called Powersheets
from a company called Cultivate What Matters, and she’s a big gardener. She said, “You
know we’re not supposed to bloom all year long.” I was like, “Yes, that’s totally right. Yes.”
She really tied it back to produce and flowers and nature. She’s like, “Listen, we all have
our seasons.” It just got my wheels turning to be able to come up with this concept. Again,
today, we’re talking about getting visible and being very visible during your summer
months. Whenever that is for you, this is the time to listen to this episode. I mentioned
earlier visibility is a very common struggle for women, myself included, and there for a
long time, I had to do a lot of intentional work around visibility. I still do in some ways, to
be honest. As I consistently say, new level, new devil, right? Is where I’m at right now, I
feel very comfortable in the visibility that I’m doing, but just a few months ago, I didn’t. I
was putting myself out there more on social media. I was saying things that– Just a few
months ago here on the podcast, I had a bonus episode on February where I talked about
my five best and worst choices.
Some of my worst choices were very vulnerable for me to share, and the visibility of that
was something I had to do a lot of intentional workarounds. Again, it’s I’m constantly
working on this even though right now it feels really comfortable. A lot of why we struggle
with this it goes back to, for a lot of women, patriarchal trauma. You may remember the
episode we did with Valerie Rein, many, many episodes, I refer to it often, called Patriarchy
Stress Disorder. She’s heavily done this research in her practice in regards to how the
patriarchy has affected women, not just women today but how epigenetics has then
transferred that trauma in our DNA from our mothers and our grandmothers and so on.
Even though logically we may say, “Okay, I’m really going to step out at work,” or, “I’m
going to step out on social media,” or, “I’m just going to say these new bold things and be
different than everyone around me,” even though logically we’re like, “Okay, we’re safe
here. Everything’s fine.” Maybe some people have ruffled feathers around it, there’s this
deep sense of lack of security and almost like this feeling of death that comes with it.
Again, that comes back to for many, many, many years, it was not safe for a woman to be
seen. If you think about even the 1800s when women would stand up for themselves, they
were beheaded and drowned and hanged. That kind of trauma some research has shown
has been passed in our DNA believe it or not, which is crazy to think about. It also makes
so much sense. I really encourage you to listen to that episode, too, as a complement to
this one if you haven’t and/or read Dr. Valerie Rein’s book called Patriarchy Stress Disorder.
It was eye-opening for me because just a few years ago being visible was so
uncomfortable for me. This would’ve been 2019 or late 2019, I believe no, late 2019, and I
was getting to a place where I had just come back from maternity leave from having my
son, my business, I got my feet wet for a couple of months. I was like, “Okay, I’m ready to
pump it up.” It was just so hard for me to get visible. I’m like, “What the fuck is going on
with me? Why can’t I just get visible? I know this is just a marketing game, what is going
on?” I stumbled upon Dr. Valerie Rein’s work. I was just mind blown. I was like, “This is it.” I
was able to make some simple shifts from her book and then interviewing her, that opened
the door for me.
Just know that’s part of the game is that it goes back to, it’s not safe to be seen and that
feeling of, oh my gosh, I feel like, I’m going to be killed in this process. Comes back to
some epigenetic trauma that has been passed down to you and to likely some trauma in
your own life. Think about it for many women, myself included, even when I was a young
teenager, if not a tween, I was getting catcalls all the time and honked at. Somebody
would be like, “Well, lucky you.” When I was a tween or teen, that shit scared me, but it was
like, Ooh, it goes back to what we call little t-trauma of any time something happens and
you feel like you can’t fully be the expression of who you are. You in essence collapse and
you don’t feel safe to shine. Those little things started to impact how my brain allowed me
to feel safe and being visible. Because a lot of times, we don’t dress to get attention, we
just dress the way we dress. I remember what I was wearing, many times I was called. It
was just shorts and a t-shirt on a summer day. It’s so funny because men think it’s a
compliment and yes, it can be a compliment and that’s where the brain is such a funky
thing.
If you’re just in the right head space for that, you don’t internalize that and make it mean
something in your brain. Again, when you’re– I was probably 12-years-old when this
started. I talk about often the childhood brain is highly emotional. All these weird things
were just wired in there to little subtle things. It wasn’t like, I knew that that stuff really
bothered me. It just made me uncomfortable. You know what I’m talking about, right?
When you’re around somebody and they just make you uncomfortable. A lot of times when
I talk to clients, they’re like the creepy grandpa. Unfortunately and horribly, many of my
clients were actually sexually abused by their grandfathers, which we could go on a whole
another topic about that. That’s disgusting, next-level patriarchal bullshit. Those are the
things that hinder us from fully being visible.
I’m coming to mind of a client that, I’m actually working with right now, similar thing, her
grandfather abused her. She owns a company and many employees at her company. She
was like, “Why can’t I fully step into this role as CEO? Why can’t I just fully embody this?
I’m constantly questioning myself. I don’t really want to be visible, I just want to be behind
the scenes and the operations.” As we’ve gone in and we’ve worked through this school of
her really owning her power and being this leader as a CEO of a Tech company too, which
is really cool.
She’s been able to shift a lot of things and some of that came back to some of this trauma
she experienced and patriarchal trauma. For her to be able to be more visible. Start to ask
yourself what may be in your brain in your past for you, that’s hindering you from being
visible? I know I’m working with another client right now who is launching a business and
she’s had these money goals and it’s just not been hit. She has not been putting herself
out there. Every month I’m like, “You said you were going to do these things, what’s the
deal?” We’ve been really trying to hit at what is going on for you to not want to go out and
be visible. Finally, just as I coached her and she said, I finally found the thing, Lindsay. I
found the thing that was the cherry or the big thing that really has stopped me from
wanting to be visible and we were on a group call. I didn’t really get to get into it with her,
but you could even just tell in her whole demeanor, her energy changed. Her coloring was
different, the way she carried herself was different. The way she thought about herself was
different, the actions she’s taken this week is different.
It makes a really big difference for you to go in there and find that trauma potentially of
what’s causing you to not feel safe to be seen. Now, sometimes people won’t have any
trauma with that, sometimes it’s truly just limiting beliefs is what we call it. If you think
about society, society tends to want to put women in this box of be quiet, be pretty but not
too pretty, be visible but not too visible, be all the things. We have to be one thing, but we
can’t be too much of that. We constantly are fed this message of don’t be too much. Being
visible does require for a lot of people in a lot of different industries to really break that
barrier and say, “I’m going to step out even more and do these things.” Be it social media
or doing interviews or just owning the role of whatever role they have at that company.
Because a lot of women too, they’re really breaking the glass ceiling of, I’m the first
woman in the C-suite or I’m the first woman, like for example, I’m thinking of another
client, she works in IT, where there’s very few women in IT and especially very few women
of color. She’s constantly breaking barriers in that realm. Part of that, she’s dealing with
some bullshit along the way of managers not giving her work that’s challenging. Not
giving her enough work, belittling her of what we’ve been coached on or been coaching
through.
She really has had to put herself out there and be very brave and courageous to stand up
for herself. Not alone is visibility of like, “No, this isn’t good enough.” I really could go back
to speaking your truth, which we talk about often on this show.
Just know those are the things that are likely going on that make you uncomfortable with
visibility, but you may be at a season right now where you’re like, Yes, I’m ready to be
visible, I am ready to connect and network and engage, I’m ready to put myself out there,
I’m ready to be seen.” As I shared earlier, I’m in that season right now and I will say that
this season of your summer season, whenever that falls for you does show what work
you’ve been doing the other months behind the scenes. Especially in your winter and fall
months of you cleaning up things in your mindset and doing again that internal work. It
really gets to shine these next few months. If you’ve been doing that work, great, you get
to go maximize that and really put yourself out there. Two, it’s also going to show holes in
the work. I’ll give you an example in my own life is I’ve been doing a ton of work in my
coaching around me as a leader, me as a business owner, what kind of coach I’m moving
into more and more and more and so, me being visible right now in my business feels very
comfortable and very easy.
Now, where I don’t feel so comfortable in my visibility is with my husband, we have not
been doing all the work per se in our marriage. Now we can blame it on COVID, we had a
two-year-old home, almost all day there, so date nights went out the door and all of the
things. To be honest, we’re recovering from some burnout in many ways and so, me really
wanting to be visible with him right now, I know intuitively I really want to do it. In my
body, I’m like, “Oh, I really want to go have fun with him and be out there with him and do
this cool stuff with him.” Then yet we didn’t really do the work the past few months and so
we’re just really trying to rebuild a connection with one another and some things are
coming up for us as we go through that. Again, it’s showing where my work is, but it’s also
showing where I did my work and now I can maximize on that work.
As I keep saying summer season is your prime time to get out there and shine. Start just
looking at any opportunity you can have to shine. Maybe that’s doing networking events,
maybe that’s teaching certain things that maybe you’ve shied away from. Maybe it’s just
connecting with friends and family.
Summertime too typically is a time when we go on vacations and we spend more time
with our loved ones. I’m about to go on a two-week vacation, we’re going to Hawaii for
two weeks, we’re spending time with family as we’re there. I’m completely disconnecting
from work and really just soaking in the goodness because this season too, you feel those
amazing, yummy feelings. You feel the joy and the gratitude. Again, it really shows the
work you’ve been doing behind the scenes to feel those feelings. I remember many years
ago when I was in college, even though I have the same flow every year. My summer
months, were my prime time, I remember one summer specifically, I didn’t go home that
summer.
I stayed where my college town was with some friends and it was my first summer to not
have my parents. We had so much fun. We partied and we stayed at the pool and granted
we had jobs, but it was like waiting tables and doing a little babysitting and some other
things and so we just really lived it up. I will tell you, I hadn’t done any of the internal
work that I now do every year. While that was really fun for a 20, 21-year-old, maybe even
19 at the time. Holy shit, I was young. Now it’s such a deeper joy and a deeper gratitude
and just a more confident, grounded way of being visible. That’s why I’m so glad that every
year I truly maximize every season of doing things like the winter season of shedding and
really leaning into my feelings and do all that nitty-gritty, not sexy work. Is typically what
we look at it as so that now I can feel this beautiful summer upswing in essence. Please,
please, please go all out. Really think about how you can go all out during the summer
months.
Where I’m at right now too, is like, “How much marketing can I do right now?” I’m even
about to hit 100 episode reviews on the podcast, might even be past that by the time this
goes live. I’m thinking about what can I do special for all my podcasts reviewers? What can
I do special for my list? What can I do special for my clients? And, really just putting a lot
of value in my value bank, because I have so much energy right now and I want to be so
visible and I feel so good.
Now I will say, don’t burn yourself out during these months. I don’t know about you, but
there have been a couple of times in the summer months where I just go, go, go, go, go, go,
go. Another summer that’s coming to mind when I keep thinking about college is I think it
was between my freshman and sophomore years of college. I did come home and I did not
want to be home at all. Because think about it, you have all this freedom and flexibility
when you go to college. Then you come home it’s an energy suck. Me and my friends, we
just took as many jobs as possible and even volunteer jobs. Oh my gosh, we just got to do
something to not be at our parents’ house. I burned myself out so bad that summer, where
I was just so tired. I’ve learned since then, especially as I’ve really started to understand
the seasons and how the summer works is that go to rest and restore and recharge so that
when I am visible, the best of me is being shown. Because I’m already energetically in this
space where the best of me just naturally is coming out easier. Whereas more in like,
especially my winter months, I have to really do some mindset work to just put myself out
there more to really showcase the best of me. Now I want to do that relaxation and
recharging and resting work so that when I am doing these events, I’m really maximizing
my energy. I’m not in this frantic energy.
I’m in this very grounded, but very, as I keep saying authentic energy, that’s just very
attracted to people. It’s funny too because in my business the summer months and even
the fall months are my busiest time by far every single year. That just goes back to me and
how I feel in the summer months. I’m putting myself out there, and then it just trickles into
the fall of the work that I do in the summer. I need to really sit and look at the stats, but I
do most of my business in these next few months. Yes, it’s really cool, right?
What else do I want to say about visibility? The last thing I think I really just want to touch
on here is to just really feel the good stuff. This is the time to integrate the new version of
you. Especially if you’ve done that work in the fall and winter, and even the spring months
of some of that internal work, now you’re showcasing this next version of you. I talk about
my coaching process, you have the 1.0 version of you, and the 2.0, and the 3.0, and so on.
It’s kind of like the Apple phone or when you have any technology, and it downloads new
versions. This is your new version and so live it up.
If I’m thinking about my life, I wanted to go to Hawaii for two weeks, I’ve never taken a
two-week vacation ever. Then to be in Hawaii for two weeks, feels like a dream. It’s the
first time in my seven years of business, I’m not going to do any work because I have an
assistant. Rachel, who’s amazing. Who’s going to answer all the things for me. My clients
know I’m leaving and I’ve really done the work this past year to be able to create that. Not
just financially, but within my business and within myself to be able to hold abundance for
that.
I’m also this summer having a live event with some of my clients. I’ve had to do a lot of
intentional work behind the scenes, especially in the winter and in the spring to really be
able to wrap my head around that I’m going to be meeting some of my beloved clients in
person. I’ve been working with and actually hug them and do all the things because I’ve
never done that in seven years with my clients. Just to really see myself leading them over
the weekend and the exercises I’m going to take them through and holding space for them
to celebrate them. We’re going to do this amazing dinner one night and just really
embodying that new version of myself, and now it’s here. It’s like, “Wow, this is so cool.
Now I’m this next version of who I am. I’m just going to live it up in essence and feel this
good stuff and really integrate that this is just who I am now.”
I’m just a woman that goes on vacation for two weeks in Hawaii. I’m a woman who has
these live events, and I’m a woman who charges what I charge. That was the big thing I
did last year in the summer was I upped my prices a lot and I changed my coaching
package. It’s so funny, I remember the first time I pitched it to somebody, and she said,
“Yes,” it was like my whole being changed. Was like, “Holy shit, oh my God, I’m a totally
new level.” It was just so fun these months. Just enjoy it, really enjoy it. It’s so funny too
because I talk about sometimes on the show that I have a coaching program called Living
the Dream, it’s for my ongoing clients. This past year has been the first year that we’ve had
it. It started in August. Actually, I think we started September 1st, and then it’s wrapping
up at the end of August this year. I realized that it’s really a nine-month program. It’s not
really a 12-month program. Next year, what we’re going to do is we’re going to start it,
September 1st still, and then we’re going to go through the end of May. They’ll still get
support in June, July, and August just to continue to integrate the work that we’ve done. I
really want them out there and shining and just having fun.
I’m just there as support to integrate all the work they’ve been doing behind the scenes as
they step into that new version of themselves. I hope this episode was helpful for you
today. I love recording these season episodes, and now that we have them all, we’re going
to put a special page up on my website for them so that you can find them. We’ll link it in
the show notes for you to go find that page if you ever want to go listen to these season
episodes. Because I think they’re a great reminder to listen to every single year as you
enter the season of like, “Okay, what am I doing this season? How can I really maximize
the energy that I’m feeling inside of me and around me?”
All right. Thank you, my friends, for tuning into this show. Of course, if you haven’t left a
review for the show, please go do so especially if you’re on Apple podcasts, it just takes a
couple of minutes. After you leave the review, you can go submit a picture of that review
to the Lincoln show notes, to get the free podcast’s book. That podcast book details all the
top 100 episodes of the show, and it’s a study guide for each episode. You can learn very
quickly and easily about how can I strategically shift my career? How can I get over
disappointments? How can I process sadness, all of those things?
It’s just on a one-page summary, so you can do step-by-step easy takeaways so you can
implement that in your life. It’s free, all you need to do is just go leave a review for the
show. If you’re not listening on Apple podcasts, go over to my Facebook business page and
leave a review there. You can just search for me, Lindsay Preston, over on Facebook, and
you’ll see my picture and just click on it and leave a review. Then, of course, take a picture
and submit it to that link in the show notes. All right, my friend, I’ll see you next time on
the show. Bye.

[music]

Hey there, Miss Unstoppable. Thanks so much for tuning into this episode. If you enjoyed
it, share it with a friend. Send them a picture of this episode via text, via email, share it on
social media, I’m sure they would be so appreciative to know these strategies and tips on
how to accomplish your dreams. If you are ready to guarantee you’re going to accomplish
your goals and dreams, then it’s time to start coaching with me.
In my nine-month simple success coaching system, I am going to walk you every single
step of the way to ensure that you get the goals and dreams that you want. The first step is
to apply for a free 60-minute consult call. Just go to LindsayEpreston.com/apply to get
started. As always, my friend, remember, you’re only as unstoppable as you believe you can
be, so believe in yourself. You got this.