Conventional wisdom says the keys to entrepreneurial success lie in cultivating problem-solving, communication, and leadership skills. But what if I told you that the secret to success starts with your mindset? Many women entrepreneurs play small in their business because of limiting beliefs like, “you’re not enough.” It’s time to break free from those limiting beliefs and embrace your authentic, empowered self. In this enlightening episode, I sit down with Kamini Wood, a multi-talented entrepreneur, author, podcaster, and certified life coach, to explore how we can overcome the barriers holding us back.

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“Awareness is only part of the way there. It’s that doorway to change. Once we become aware of it, it’s really up to us to then decide what… given my values of today and what’s true about me today, what is it that I actually want to live into?” – Kamini Wood

As the founder and CEO of Live Joy Your Way and creator of the Authentic Me method, Kamini helps high achievers overcome anxiety, stress, perfectionism, and more by empowering them to release trauma and rediscover their true selves. As we navigate the complexities of entrepreneurship and personal growth, Kamini offers invaluable insights on recognizing and overcoming limiting beliefs.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

• How to identify hidden limiting beliefs that may be sabotaging your business growth
• The importance of setting healthy boundaries as a form of self-care and relationship-building
• Practical techniques for cultivating self-compassion and mindfulness in your daily life
• Strategies to overcome perfectionism and take action in your business

Key insights include:

• Why curiosity is a powerful tool for personal growth and resilience
• The role of gratitude in building optimism and bouncing back from challenges
• How to reframe past experiences and create empowering new narratives
• The importance of understanding your values and needs to live authentically

Kamini also introduces us to her Authentic Me method, a powerful approach to helping individuals uncover their true selves by aligning with their core values and needs. This method offers a fresh perspective on personal development and entrepreneurial success.

Whether you’re struggling with imposter syndrome, perfectionism, or simply feeling stuck in your business, this conversation offers practical strategies and compassionate guidance to help you break through. Tune in to start your journey towards becoming the authentic, empowered entrepreneur you were meant to be!
Resources:

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Need support? Go to engagewithgloria.com to schedule a call.

Connect with Kamini

Website: kaminiwood.com

Instagram & Facebook: @itsauthenticme

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TRANSCRIPT

Compassion and Curiosity: The Keys to Entrepreneurial Success

Episode Transcript – Live Love Engage Podcast
Host: Gloria Grace
Guest: Kamini Wood

Episode Introduction

Gloria Grace: Namaste. Tired of playing small in your business because you’ve got this inner voice telling you that you’re not enough? Well, our guest today is going to explain how you can break through the barriers holding you back so you can finally embrace the authentic, empowered entrepreneur or professional that you were born to be.

Before we get to her, and it’s going to be awesome, I want to welcome you to Live Love Engage, especially if this is your first time joining us. I am Gloria Grace, the founder of Align to Shine Academy, and I empower women over 50 to step into their highest potential with clarity and confidence.

Meet Today’s Guest: Kamini Wood

My guest today is Kamini Wood, and she is a multi-hyphenate person. She’s an entrepreneur, an author, a podcaster, and certified life coach who specializes in helping high achievers overcome:

• Anxiety
• Stress
• Perfectionism
• ADHD
• Toxic relationships

As the founder and CEO of Live Joy Your Way and the creator of the Authentic Me method, Kamini empowers individuals to break free from limiting beliefs, release trauma, and rediscover their authentic selves. This is actually Kamini’s second appearance on Live Love Engage, so I want to officially welcome you back to our podcast.

Kamini Wood: Thank you for having me back. I’m excited to be here with you.

Recognizing Limiting Beliefs in Business

Gloria: Limiting beliefs often lead to things like imposter syndrome for entrepreneurs in particular, but it’s not always easy to recognize those things. How can we realize that maybe that’s why we’re sabotaging our business growth? We might have beliefs that we aren’t even really aware of that could be causing that type of behavior.

Kamini: That’s such a great question, because I do think that oftentimes we are operating with stories, narratives, and limiting beliefs that we just don’t know are there. We’ve never taken time to actually evaluate what are the things that we’re saying to ourselves and where are those things coming from.

Common Entrepreneurial Limiting Beliefs

Especially as entrepreneurs, starting my business, there were a lot of limiting beliefs around:

• Could I do it?
• Am I enough to do it?
• Am I smart enough?
• Am I savvy enough?
• Am I committed enough?

There’s all of the “enough” limiting beliefs.

The Power of Curious Questions

For many of us, what we have to do is start asking ourselves deeper questions. If we notice that our inner critic is constantly nitpicking, or we notice certain patterns that we’re seeing over and over again, we need to start asking more curious questions:

• Where is that stemming from?
• Where is the belief or storyline coming from?
• What is that story?

Once we’re able to identify and become aware of what that belief is or what the narrative is, then we have an opportunity to ask ourselves: “What do I want to do about this?”

Awareness is only part of the way there—it’s that doorway to change. Once we become aware of it, it’s really up to us to decide what we want to do. Given my values of today and what’s true about me today, what is it that I actually want to live into? Do I want to keep living into this old story?

The Origins of Limiting Beliefs

Gloria: Where do some of these limiting beliefs come from? I had limiting beliefs around money, and when I started digging into it, I was surprised where these things came from.

Kamini: I have found that oftentimes the limiting beliefs that we have are deep-rooted and they’re from:

Childhood Sources

• Some experience or message we received in childhood
• Cultural upbringing
• Familial upbringing
• Societal influences

Adult Experiences

However, it’s not just limited to when we were younger. A lot of us also have acquired certain limiting beliefs throughout our life. They come from either:

• Messages we receive
• Experiences we go through and we make them mean something

That perpetuates the story or the limiting belief.

The Power of Reinterpretation

Gloria: I made up a story about something that happened to me when I was a kid. Going through a personal development workshop, I was journaling and all of a sudden it dawned on me: What if I totally misinterpreted the reaction that I had experienced? What if instead of them criticizing me, they were actually bragging about it?

It totally rocked my world because I had just made up this story for years—like 50 years at that point. Our brains are amazing, but sometimes they over-rotate.

Releasing and Reframing Limiting Beliefs

Gloria: Once we’ve identified those beliefs, how can we start to either release them or reframe them so that we’re able to start living that life that we want to lead?

Kamini: Really, for me, what it comes down to is a couple of things:

1. Focus on Present Truth

Ask: What’s actually true about me at this current stage of my life? At the age that I’m at here and now, what’s actually true? Oftentimes if we’re dealing with limiting beliefs, we’re dealing with an old story from a younger time period.

2. Connect with Your Values

Lean into your own core values around what is meaningful to you. When you’re thinking about these limiting beliefs and you’ve identified them, you know what’s actually true about you, and you’re aware of your values.

3. Take Values-Based Action

Now you can start taking action. The frame that I move into is: Now that I know what’s actually true about me today, and I know these things drive me, what is the values-based action I’m going to take?

That’s how we start moving through the limiting belief and rewriting whatever that narrative is. We have the ownership to do that, but we have to figure out what is actually meaningful to us and then figure out what action we want to take based on that.

Rewriting Your Story

Gloria: We can actually rewrite the stories, even the story that happened in the past that formed that limiting belief. You could just make up a new ending and create one that’s empowering, because the brain doesn’t know any better.

Kamini: Absolutely. In those periods where we had that story or meaning that we made, we get to say, “And what else?” It’s not toxic positivity—we’re not saying let’s just pretend. It’s more like, “I can look at this differently.”

This is also how we can learn to work through and heal from trauma. Trauma is not the event—it’s how we responded to it. If we keep reliving the same event the same way, we’re not actually healing from the trauma. Instead, we start building up the ability to look at the trauma with a different lens.

Dealing with Recurring Painful Memories

Gloria: I woke up in the middle of the night and started replaying my sister’s last day when she passed away. I was like, why am I doing this? I’ve already healed, forgiven myself, and let go. Brain, stop. Even though I’ve done a lot of work on myself, stuff still comes up from time to time.

Kamini: I think that’s so true. Sometimes we’ve done the work, we have healed, we’ve continued to move forward, and yet those things can still pop back up. What you just said—we try to say “brain, stop”—and it’s almost like we start shaming ourselves for being human and having these things come back up.

A Curious Approach to Painful Memories

Instead, it’s like: “Oh, that’s really curious. I wonder what part of me has been activated and what does that part need to hear?”

The way through it for me is to talk to that part:

• What are you trying to communicate?
• What is it that I might need to hear right now?
• What might that part need to hear?

Instead of going down the shaming rabbit hole of “I’ve healed from this, why is this coming back up?” which is very shaming, it’s: “Okay, interesting. What is this part about? Why would this part be bringing her back into my memory bank? What does it need to hear right now?”

The Importance of Healthy Boundaries

Gloria: Let’s talk about boundaries. I had a phone call from someone, and I was like, I’m not answering it this morning. I’m busy right now. In the past, I would answer the phone immediately.

Why Boundaries Matter

Kamini: I had to learn this myself. I am a people pleaser by nature, so my giving and over-giving was something I had to grow through. Learning what boundaries are and why they’re important seemed foreign to me.

What I learned about boundaries is they are actually the way to build healthier relationships because we’re communicating what works for us and what doesn’t. Having boundaries for ourselves allows us to do self-care so that when we’re showing up in relationships or in life in general, we’re coming from a full and complete place rather than from a depleted place.

For me, boundaries have really become reframed as self-care as well as a power move to build better, healthier relationships.

Practical Boundary Examples

From a personal perspective, being a mom of five, I’ve had to learn to set boundaries around what I can and can’t do. I was constantly trying to give and give and give.

Examples include:

• Instead of saying yes immediately, taking time to say “let me think about that” or “let me check my schedule”
• Putting a boundary with myself—not immediately saying yes but giving myself time to pause and think
• Asking: Does this actually fit? Can I actually add this to my plate?

As an entrepreneur, being able to say yes or no to phone calls. I get inundated with people trying to sell me their services. When I first started out, I felt bad that I needed to say no. Now I recognize it’s not bad or wrong for me to take my time to figure out who I’m willing to potentially say yes to versus who I’m going to pass on.

Understanding Self-Compassion

Gloria: Setting boundaries is an example of self-compassion. What’s your definition of that, and why is it important to practice?

Kamini: I love talking about self-compassion—it’s my bread and butter. I was so hard on myself, I didn’t even know what self-compassion meant. I would automatically go into judgment.

The Three Components of Self-Compassion

1. Kindness Over Judgment

Self-compassion is kindness over judgment. It’s recognizing that maybe something didn’t go the way we wanted or expected. But instead of going into judgment mode or letting the inner critic beat us up, it’s acknowledging: “That didn’t go the way I wanted it to. These are the things I can take away from it, or this is what I learned.”

2. Common Humanity

The concept that I’m not in this alone. Other people have had similar experiences—maybe not the same experience because we all experience things differently. But it’s okay to lean on other people and talk about it. We don’t have to feel isolated or feel that we’re weird or there’s something wrong with us because we’re dealing with some challenge.

3. Mindfulness

Coming to the here and now, this present moment. Being a high achiever myself, it was constantly about “what’s next, what’s next.” Mindfulness really comes back to: Where am I, right here, right now, rather than constantly living into the future or ruminating about the past.

Practical Mindfulness Techniques

Gloria: What practices do you follow or recommend to cultivate mindfulness?

Kamini: I am a person that doesn’t like big, long, drawn-out practices. I needed to have them in small bite-sized pieces that I can fit throughout my day.

Simple Mindfulness Practices

Box Breathing

In between clients, I’ll take a couple of minutes to do my box breathing.

Five Senses Check-In

Being a high achiever, I also deal with anxiety, so I’ve learned to build a different relationship with my anxiety. Instead of going into shaming, I notice: “Wow, I’m feeling anxious or worked up.” So I’ll dial into my five senses.

The 5-4-3-2-1 Technique:

• 5 things I can hear right at this moment
• 4 different things I can see from where I’m sitting
• 3 things I can touch around me
• 2 things I can smell
• 1 taste I can taste in my mouth

By going from sense to sense, you’re really tuning into one thing at a time and giving your brain something to focus on besides all the thoughts it might have been having before. You’re coming into this moment right here.

The Authentic Me Method

Gloria: Talk to me about this Authentic Me method that you created.

Kamini: I developed the name Authentic Me because I was focused on learning to let go of external validation and really saying, “This is who I am.” I developed this to support people in finding who they are authentically.

The Three Pillars

1. Values

Getting very familiar with what are your individual values.

2. Needs

What are your individual needs? So many of us don’t actually ever name what it is that we need—not just in relationship, but in general:

• What do I need in work and professional life?
• What do I need in my relationships?
• What do I need in my health and wellness?
• What do I need in my financial world?

3. Limiting Beliefs

Working through those limiting beliefs.

Once you have these three pillars of really figuring out who you are as an individual person, then you can break down where you might be feeling stuck and work through setting goals and aspirations from that perspective.

Overcoming Perfectionism

Gloria: How can someone who thinks things have to be perfect before they launch—like getting that website just right—let go of that limiting belief?

Kamini: It’s definitely a limiting belief and easier said than done. I want to acknowledge that.

Strategies for Perfectionism

Start Small

Find smaller things that you’re willing to say, “This is good enough for me to try.” If you’re starting out and the website feels too big, what is something smaller potentially? Then work your way up to the thing that feels really scary.

Name Your Fears

We have to name what we’re afraid of. What are we scared of? If the website isn’t perfect, what is the worst thing that could happen?

When we answer that question, the worst thing probably is missing some sales. But what will you do then? You’ll fix the things that you catch. So we don’t have to wait for it to be perfect. We can launch what we have now and continue working on it.

Sometimes our perfectionist mind gets stuck thinking it has to be a certain way before we launch, but really it’s a living thing. You can continue to work on it even while it’s been launched.

Building Resilience Without Falling into Old Patterns

Gloria: How can we cultivate resilience without falling back into old patterns?

Kamini: There are several things we can work on to build resilience:

Key Resilience Strategies

1. Self-Compassion

Really leaning into kindness over judgment.

2. Curiosity

Get more curious with what’s happening versus judgment. “This is interesting. What can I learn from this?”

3. Finding the Right Thing

Looking for the right thing even in challenging times. Not toxic positivity, but can I find something I can actually have even an ounce of gratitude for, even in the most challenging moments? That reminds us there’s still something we can continue to build off of.

4. Gratitude Practice

It has been shown that if we can build a gratitude practice, we end up building that optimistic outlook muscle. When we’re thinking about resilience—how we can bounce back from challenges—being able to build our resilience comes down to having gratitude and appreciation, no matter what’s happening around us.

Gloria: I always make sure that before I go to bed at night, I’m listing at least three things that I’m grateful for. Even in days that have been more challenging, that gratitude practice is a game changer because it really does shift from our negativity bias.

Current Curiosities and Future Directions

Gloria: What are you curious about right now?

Kamini: I’m curious about lots of different things:

Professional Curiosities

• The next iteration of how I add in trauma-informed approaches
• Bringing trauma-informed talks into parenting and the school system
• Continuing to evolve—I’m always curious about people and understanding how emotions are data packets

Personal Curiosities

As a parent, I’m curious what’s going to evolve for my kids as the older ones move into adulthood, and I still have my younger couple here at home with me.

Key Takeaways for Entrepreneurs

Kamini: The biggest thing, especially for those who are entrepreneurs or starting out, is really leaning into kindness over judgment. Also recognizing when those limiting beliefs are holding you back and not shaming yourself for those limiting beliefs, but just deciding that you’re ready to change the story. That’s a huge power move.

Gloria: Sometimes we’re not even aware of those conversations we’re having with ourselves. It takes having an outside person to be able to hear it because we have these blinders on. Negative self-talk can become so habitual that we don’t hear it anymore.

Connect with Kamini Wood

Website: KaminiWood.com
Social Media: Facebook and Instagram @itsauthenticme

Closing Thoughts

Thank you for joining us on Live Love Engage. If you received value from this episode, be sure to subscribe on your favorite platform. Until we meet again, I encourage you to go out and live fully, love deeply, and engage authentically.

This transcript has been edited for length and clarity while maintaining the authentic voice and key insights from both speakers.