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Do you spend a lot of your time trying to convince other people that you’re good enough? That you’re worthy? That your ideas are good? That you’re worth the investment? That you are lovable and likable?

How you show up when you truly believe that you are likable and worthy.I did that myself for many years. But over time, I have realized that I was trying to convince the wrong people.

It’s so common, especially when we’re going after something big, to feel the need to justify ourselves and convince others of what we’re doing. But the truth is, trying to convince other people that what you want to do is right is not going to make them believe you. What you need to do is convince yourself.

Join me on the podcast this week as I share how I spent too much of my life trying to convince other people, when the only person I really needed to convince was myself. Once you can see the energy that you show up with when you don’t truly believe in yourself, you’ll be amazed at how much peace and joy is waiting for you when you can move past needing others to believe you are worthy.

We had an amazing response to the Week of Calm that we did a few weeks ago, and because I want to help as many people as possible navigate this crazy time with elegance and grace, I’ve decided to leave it open for the time being. So, if you need a little more calm in your life, come join us. 

What You Will Discover:

  • Why, for so long, I felt the need to justify my decisions to other people in my life.
  • The kind of energy I was bringing when trying to convince other people of my decisions.
  • Why, if you can convince yourself you are worthy, you’ll never need to convince others.
  • The reason we look to other people to agree with our opinions.
  • How you show up when you truly believe that you are likable and worthy.

 

Featured on the Show:

Episode Transcript:

Let me ask you something. Do you spend a lot of your time trying to convince other people that you’re good enough, that you’re worthy, that your ideas are good, that you’re worth the investment, that you are lovable and likable? Yeah, I did that too, for many, many years.

And then I realized that I was trying to convince the wrong people. Who really needed convincing was myself.

Bonjour, and welcome to The French Kiss Life Podcast, where personal development meets style. I’m Tonya Leigh, certified master life coach and the hostess of this party, where we explore how to live artfully and well. Each week, I’ll be sharing inspiring stories, practical tips, and timeless wisdom on how to elevate the quality of your everyday and celebrate along the way. Let’s dive into today’s episode.

Hey, beautiful friends. I’m coming to you from my podcast studio, also known as my camper, parked in the woods by my house. One of the things that I really do appreciate about myself is that I can be happy almost anywhere.

Now, do I love the beautiful hotels? Do I love beautiful clothes? Do I love the luxurious things in life? Absolutely. But I don’t need those things to make me happy. In fact, appreciating the simple pleasures of life makes me the happiest. And if you didn’t check out last week’s podcast, you must. It’s all about appreciating life’s simple pleasures.

And then, when you create from that place, you’re not creating because you think over there is going to be better. You’re creating just because you want to and because it’s fun, and that you know, no matter where you are in your life, you can create your own joy. And life just becomes so ridiculously fun when you are in that state of being.

One of the things that I did want to let you all know about is that we have had so many amazing comments and feedback about the Week of Calm that we did, I don’t know, was it a few weeks ago? I think so. And we’ve decided to leave that up because I want to support as many people as possible right now in creating more calm in our lives because it just seems like the world’s gone crazy.

But the world’s always been a little bit crazy, have you noticed? It’s just heightened right now because we’re all in it at the same time. So, if you are feeling stressed, if you are feeling worried, if you are feeling anxious, go check out the Week of Calm. It’s five days where I teach you the tools that have helped me create calm, not only right now.

But any time in life where my brain starts to go a little crazy and tries to convince me that the world is ending or something terrible is about to happen and I start freaking out, I use these tools to bring be back to the truth. And the truth is, it’s okay. It always has been and it always will be. It’s just, our brains get a little confused sometimes.

So, if you are needing more calm in your life, head over to frenchkisslife.com/calm and as soon as you sign up, we will send you an email where you can access the five days’ worth of classes on creating more calm.

It is time for a Community Spotlight. This is the part of the show where I get to highlight someone in the community who has benefitted from the French Kiss Lifestyle. And today’s spotlight is on Elianne W. from Norway.

Here’s what she wrote, “Best podcast ever. I stumbled upon this podcast randomly three weeks ago and gave it a chance because I was bored. That was the best thing I’ve ever done. Now I cannot get enough of French Kiss podcasts and listen to probably three episodes every day and have also forced the ladies in my life to also give it a chance, and we’re all hooked. Tonya’s wisdom is exactly what I needed in my life, without knowing it. In three weeks, I’ve learned more about myself than I ever have and I’ve started to see every day as a special occasion. I have also gone from self-loathing and hopelessness to actually facing my insecurities and loving myself and my life as it is at the same time, as I now see the world as a menu book. I’m now so full of hopes and dreams again after I’ve spent the last years convincing myself I’m being unrealistic and naïve for believing life has a lot to offer me. Anyway, thank you, Tonya. In the future, I will join the French Kiss Life community. Best regards.”

Well, Elianne, thank you so much for that beautiful review. And isn’t it fun to know that life can be our playground and we can order up whatever we want? It doesn’t mean we’re not going to fall down, scrape our knees, maybe break an ankle. But we can still have fun playing the game of life.

And I really do believe that the secret is to live as if your prayers have already been answered. So, whatever you think you’re going to have over there, bring the feeling of that into the life you have right now.

Now, listen, if you enjoy this podcast and you have not left me a review, what in the world? Head over to iTunes or Stitcher and let me know how The French Kiss Life Podcast is impacting your life, and maybe I will feature you in an upcoming Community Spotlight.

Last week, I shared a post on Instagram and Facebook that received so much feedback. And some of you were asking me, “Have you done an episode on his topic or would you consider doing one?” Well, this episode is for you. But I wanted to read what I wrote.

I called it The Wasted Energy of Convincing People, “In business and life, I see people trying to convince others. We want to convince people to believe what we believe; that we’re good enough, that we’re likable, that our ideas are good, that what we have to offer is of value.

Have you ever asked yourself why you need to convince others? Usually, it’s because we’re not convinced ourselves. We need that external validation. But it’s not other people’s job to like you, to tell you that you’re good enough, to believe in your ideas or to believe in what you have to offer. That’s your job.

And this is good news because, when you’re convinced of your beauty, your power, your worth, your creativity, your vision, and your beliefs, you will shine brightly. And that shine will repel some and attract others. And you just get to keep on being you because you’ve convinced yourself.”

Now, I don’t know about y’all, but I know for me, I spent so many of my years trying to convince other people. I have so many examples of this. I remember, when I first started my business, I wanted to invest in a mastermind. And it was a lot of money.

It was more money than I’d ever even spent on a car. And even though I was going to be the one paying for it, I needed to convince my ex-husband why. And I thought about that question, like, why did I need him to believe in this idea? And it was because I wasn’t fully certain. I had not fully bought in. I did not fully believe that, number one, I was worth the investment, and number two, that I could create results from that investment.

So, think about it. Here I was coming to him with an energy of insecurity, with an energy of disbelief in myself and expecting him to believe in me. It doesn’t work that way. People can sense energy. And so, again, I was trying to convince the wrong person.

In that situation, I needed to do the work to convince myself that I can make this happen, that I was worth the investment, that I was going to take that investment and grow it. That was the real work; not me over here trying to convince somebody else, but me doing the work of convincing myself.

I have so many examples of how I wasted my energy trying to convince other people. Another really great example is trying to convince my strong southern momma to see the world the way I see it. Do you know how many arguments we’ve had over it?

I love what Tony Robbins says, “Would you rather be right or happy?” And a lot of people will choose to be right over being happy, and it cost us so much peace. And for my mom, it’s like, why do I need her to feel the way I feel or think how I think about the world?

And it’s always because, on some level, we’re wanting to feel better. We’re wanting to feel validated. And we’re wanting confirmation for our beliefs and our opinions and our ideas. But in the wanting of all of that from other people, we end up pushing other people away.

We end up creating the very result we don’t want. I want to be so close to my mother. But every time I try to convince her that’s he should think like me and she should see the world the way I see it, I end up pushing her away, which is actually the opposite of what I want with my mother.

Fortunately, I stopped doing this years ago. I realized, I don’t need to convince my mother of anything. I need to convince myself of what I believe and stand fully in that and let her believe what she believes and we can just coexist together with different beliefs.

It’s such a more beautiful way to be with people. Another way this used to show up in my life is that I wanted to convince people that I was likable. So, imagine me walking into a roomful of strangers thinking I need to convince people to like me. I acted like a crazy person.

What desperate energy to be showing up in a room thinking, “I need to convince you to like me. So, let me tell you all of the reasons why you should like me, why I’m actually really funny.” Like, it’s such a terrible energy to try to attract people to you. And yet, that’s how I thought I was supposed to be doing it.

What I needed to be doing was convincing myself that I was likable. Because when you’re convinced that you’re likable, you don’t need other people to like you. You just get to like you. And again, it’s so much more fun to be around people when you’re not trying to convince them that you’re a good person and that they should like you.

I just decided, years ago, I was done convincing people of anything. You get to think what you want to think of me. You get to believe what you want to believe. I’m just going to keep on being me. Whenever I feel that tendency to convince other people, I know I need to go in and do the work to convince myself of something.

The word convince means to believe firmly in the truth of something. I want you to think about that. What are you spending your precious energy trying to convince other people of? And what within you doesn’t believe firmly in it yourself? And what if you just cut them out of the equation and you just practiced believing firmly in it, convincing yourself?

Last week, I realized how far I’ve come around this. So, what happened is I’ve been contemplating making a big investment in the company and I was thinking about the old me; the before me, the before me that needed to convince other people that I was doing the right thing. Why? Because I didn’t believe in it yet.

And so, the old me would have gone out and asked about 20 different people, “What do you think I should do? Is this a good idea? This is what I’m thinking about doing.” Of, of course, everybody’s going to have a different opinion. And so, I would have been really confused and probably would not have done anything.

But I didn’t ask anyone. I told people what I was doing. I ran it by my team, said, “Hey, this is what I’m doing.” I met with my CFO and I didn’t ask him, “Do you think this is a good idea?” I said, “Hey, listen, this is what I want to do. Help me figure out how to make it happen.”

I told Glen what I was doing, and of course, in usual Glen fashion, he starts playing devil’s advocate. Now, the old me would have freaked out because I would have started believing him and trusting him over myself. But you see, I had already done the internal work.

I had already convinced myself that this is an incredible idea and that I’m going to make it work no matter what and that it’s going to be totally worth the investment. So, of course, when he was playing devil’s advocate and telling me all of the reasons why it may not work and why it’s not a good idea right now, it was fine. I didn’t need to convince him. I let him have his own opinion and I kept mine because I liked mine better.

Now too long ago, I was running a Facebook ad for my Week of Calm and I said – I can’t remember the exact wording, but it started off with, “We’re living in fascinating times, aren’t we?” And there were some women who were super-upset that I used the word fascinating.

But those of you who have done my programs, you know that’s one of my favorite words because fascination is something that gets your attention. And we definitely are living in a time that has gotten all of our attention, right? But the old me, the one that needed to convince everybody of everything, would have tried to win those people over.

I would have tried to convince them of why I used that word, why they should think it’s okay. I don’t do that anymore. I’m like, they get to be upset with me. They get to disagree with my word choice. That is okay. I’ve convinced myself that that is the word that feels right for me. I don’t need to prove anything to anyone. I don’t need to convince anyone of anything. I just need to convince myself.

I had a woman on an ad about a year ago and she was like, “You are such a southern bleach-blonde bimbo.” And I was like, “Well, she’s sort of right. I am bleached and I am southern and I’ve probably been a bimbo in the past.” But I didn’t try to win her over.

I didn’t try to convince her, “Hey, but you don’t really know me. If you really knew me, you may like me.” No. I’m not going to chase after people anymore. I spent so many years of my life doing that and trying to convince people that I was worthy of their time and their attention and their love.

And let me tell you, it was the most miserable years of my life. What I really needed to be doing was loving myself and confirming my own worth so that I didn’t need that validation from everybody else.

One of my dear friends Angela Loria once said, “The prize never chases.” Really think about that, “The prize never chases.” And to me, convincing is chasing energy. You’re trying to chase down people’s validation. You’re trying to chase down their attention. You’re trying to chase down their belief in you.

But you’re a prize. You don’t need to chase. And if people want to leave your world, you need to let them and trust that other people are going to come in. If people don’t believe like you, that’s okay. You don’t need to convince them. You just need to believe in your own beliefs.

You need to practice believing in yourself and your dreams and your worth because, when you’ve convinced yourself, you’ll find that you don’t need to convince anyone of anything. Whenever you’re trying to convince other people, it’s because you’re looking for that external validation. And I want you to practice bringing it inhouse and trusting that the right people are going to come into your life.

And the more you are aligned with you, meaning you’ve convinced yourself of who you are, where you’re going, what you value, what you love, and you’re owning all of that unapologetically and not explaining it to anyone, not trying to convince people of it, you just get to shine brightly. And the brighter you shine, the more you’re going to attract certain people into your life and the more you’re going to repel certain people, and that’s okay.

I think about the Coastguard. When they go out to rescue a boat that has capsized, they bring their helicopter and they hove rover the top of the boat. And they look down and they realize, “There’s a lot of people in this water; more than there is space in the helicopter. Who are we going to save?”

But do you know what their motto is? Save the ones that are swimming towards the boat. A lot of y’all are trying to convince people that are swimming away from the boat. Stop. Just be you and convince yourself and trust that the right people are going to swim towards you.

Life is too short to waste it on convincing other people. I want you to use that energy to practice convincing yourself. And again, when you do that, you’re going to feel so aligned. You’ve convinced yourself of what you believe, who you are, what you value, your lovability, your likability, your worth, what you have to offer, and you will let go of needing to convince anyone of that.

You’ll stop looking at your Instagram likes for validation. You’ll stop asking everyone about their opinion. You’ll stop walking into rooms wanting to be liked. You’ll stop creating unnecessary arguments over politics, creating more division in the world. You’ll stop trying to convince people to stay who want to leave. and that. My friend, is true freedom.

So, I want you to think about who you’ve been trying to convince in your life to see the world or you in a different way. And how’s that been working out? Probably not so well. And what I you could just let people think and believe what they want to think and believe and you decide on purpose what you want to think and believe about yourself in the world.

That’s when you’re going to shine so bright. And there are going to be people that start swimming towards you, and not because you’ve convinced them of anything, but because you have convinced yourself and you are shining so brightly that they are magnetized towards you.

And yes, there will be some people that are swimming in the opposite direction. And my challenge to you is to let them swim away. Because when you have convinced yourself of your own worth, your own value, your own ideas, your own belief in yourself, you don't need anyone else to offer that to you. And you certainly don’t need to waste your energy convincing someone ever again.

It is time for J’adore, the part of the show where I get to share something that I love with you. And today’s J’adore is one that I wish I didn’t have to share actually.

So, over the last year, it’s been really interesting, especially late at night when I pick up a book or my Kindle and I start to read and things aren’t the way they used to be, folks. I’m having to hold things way out to see, and even then, sometimes it’s a little blurry.

But it’s interesting, it’s not like that all of the time. It’s like my eyesight is a little confused. It’s like a midlife crisis. It doesn’t really know what it wants to do. So, I have started wearing reading glasses on occasion.

And if I’m going to wear reading glasses, you better bet they’re going to be cute reading glasses. Now, I’m sure I can go to CVS and pick up some and they will work. But again, aesthetics is everything to me. So, I was actually meeting with this woman who I’m going to be working with and she had on the most adorable reading glasses.

And she was like, “Yeah, Oprah gave these to me.” And I was like, “What?” And she was like, “Yeah, Oprah gave these to me and they’re, like, glasses that she wears.” And so, I went on and I’m like, “Let me see what these glasses are.”

And I don’t even know what brand she has. But I found some on Amazon that are Oprah-inspired and I bought two pairs. I bought a pair in black and then a pair in leopard. And the best part… $15. That’s right, just $15.

Now, I know I could go to the local CVS and get them probably cheaper, but they don’t’ have reading glasses at the drug store like these. Trust me, I have looked. And they come in every magnification up to – is it a 4.0? Is that what we say in reading glass world?

I am currently at a 1.0, and I hope to stay there for a while. But yeah, they go all the way up to a 4.0 and they’re so super-cute. So, if you are looking for some good reading glasses, just head over to frenchkisslife.com/readingglasses and you can check out the pair that I bought. Have a beautiful week, everyone. I look forward to seeing you in the next episode. Cheers.

If you enjoyed this episode and you want to dive even deeper into the French Kiss Lifestyle, let’s start with a makeover; a mindset makeover. You can download my free training, The Three Mindset Makeovers Every Woman Needs, by visiting frenchkisslife.com/mindset. Because, after all, mindset is the new black.

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