#73 When Self-Doubt Speaks
Kelly shares a more recent story of the breadcrumb trail leading her to face self-doubt and imposter syndrome head on. Will she finally embody her Word of the Year and Step-Up?
Have you ever said no to an opportunity because you didn’t feel ready - or good enough?
Where has the breadcrumb trail tried to lead you, but you hesitated to follow?
Are you noticing the signs, the nudges, the synchronicities - or are they slipping past unnoticed?
What do you do when self-doubt speaks?
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Read the Transcript for this Episode below:
Episode 73 of the Project Me Podcast. Hi, I'm Kelly P, and this podcast is designed to be an entertaining, inspirational, personal growth journey. Each episode goes in a mostly chronological order as a piece together, the books, modalities, people, and experiences that have fallen onto my life path exactly when I needed them, and how often I resisted the very things I needed the most.
Or didn't see the gifts contained in the challenges until later. By sharing my stories, I hope to inspire you to reflect on your life path. What are the seeming coincidences that have led you to where you are today? What are the hidden gifts within your challenges and what magic is out there waiting for you as you let go of resistance and follow your own breadcrumb trail?
At the end of each short episode, there's an opportunity. For you to breathe and reflect on how my story relates to your own life, you can find more inspiration on my website, kellypietrangeli.com. Hello, lovely listener. It's been a little while. The podcast took a bit of an unplanned pause these last few months when life was full behind the scenes.
I've just wrapped up my Spring Soul Connections retreat, and I'm finally coming up for air. It was such a beautiful experience, and when two returning guests back for their third retreat told me it was the best one yet, well, that really landed in my heart. They said they could feel how much I've evolved personally, and that felt incredibly affirming.
That moment got me thinking about how much we can grow often without even realizing it. We're so close to our own inner journey that it's easy to miss the signs of how far we've come, and let's be honest, self-doubt can cloud our vision. Even during the retreat, as I guided others through their breakthroughs, I had a few moments of questioning myself.
You know, is this landing? Is this the right thing to be doing right now? Are they getting anything out of this? The inner voice still shows up from time to time, but here's the thing. Self-doubt doesn't mean you're on the wrong path. In fact, it often shows up right when you're about to expand. Today I wanna share a story of how self-doubt and imposter syndrome can turn up when you least expect it, and how to move through it and how not to let it hold you back from sharing your gifts or stepping into your next chapter.
Here we go, episode 73. It was January, 2025 and I was working outta my home office in Ibiza. I'd chosen January 11, 1, 1, 1. As the launch day for my Rainbow Journey program. I was in full flow with getting videos made and everything uploaded to the online platform. But throughout all of this, I kept getting what's up, messages from my friend Katya, asking when could I speak about some kind of proposition she had for me.
I felt bad putting her off, but I literally had no bandwidth left for anything except this deadline. Finally, a few days later, I came up for air and I gave her a call. It's always lovely to catch up with Katia. We met in the most bizarre way about 12 years ago. Another friend Fiona had been staying at my house in Madrid.
I. Fiona went out one evening and the next morning she was still asleep. When I dropped the kids off at school and came home to work, I was deep in concentration at my desk when suddenly a complete stranger appeared in my home office causing me to jump outta my skin. It was a stunningly beautiful young woman I'd never seen in my life.
It was just the unexpected shock of it. She turned out to be Katia. A friend of Fiona who'd helped Fiona to get back to my house after drinking way too much instead of waiting her for her friend to wake up and introduce her to meet like a normal person would Katia crept down the stairs silently and just appeared in my office with a huge smile on her face.
That's Katia always full of surprises. I couldn't help but become friends with her. She had a teenage son and twin daughters who became friends with my teenage son, max Kati and I are almost birthday twins ourselves with our birthdays just one day apart. She's in Leo. I'm in Virgo, and we both carry the qualities of being on the cusp of both signs.
Her being more of the brave Leo Lions than me. You see, Katia is a professional stunt woman. Often sending me photos and videos of her latest crazy projects. You know, being set on fire, falling outta buildings, hanging from a bridge, totally fearless woman. Whenever I need to be brave in life, I always say I'm channeling my inner catia, fierce, fearless, daring, and badass, but at the same time, feminine, intuitive, and soulful.
So that's who Katya is. But I have to say that since she moved to Marbella on the coast of Spain, we haven't seen each other in ages. So in January when I finally called her back, she gave me a video tour of her new apartment, showed me her sea views. I turned my camera to my sea views, Neha, and we marveled at how blessed we both are.
Then she started telling me about her new job, working as the activities director of a company who support retired people to live healthy active lives while feeling a part of a lively community. She spoke of the company building actual retirement communities for older people who wanna live out their next chapters in sunny Spain, surrounded by others rather than growing old in the same house they'd raised their kids in, often in cold, wet climates that don't suit their health or their wellbeing.
I was like, man, Kaia, I said back when I turned 50 that if I have another whole 50 years left of life, I want the next half to be healthy. Happy, exciting and fun. I loved how excited she was about her new work, and to be honest, I totally forgot that she had some kind of a proposal from me until she started telling me about a conference she was helping to organize for this company.
She told me it was scheduled to take place on March 15 in Estia on the Costa Del Soul. Started talking about the guest speakers coming in to speak on longevity health finances for those age 55 plus. And it suddenly dawned on me, she's gonna ask me to speak at this damn conference. But no, she wasn't. It turns out she was asking me to present the conference, as in be the mc moderator of the whole thing.
And I said, Kaia, listen, I'm flattered, but there are professionals out there who do this for a living. You need a professional. But she insisted that she had a vision and she could only see me doing this. She said, please hold off from answering. I'm going to email you all the information she asked me to please.
Just read through it and then get back to her. Sure. I thought I'll read it to be polite, but there is no way I am doing this. You see, I did the whole public speaking journey and it was a journey back in 2018. I shared that story in a podcast episode called Finding My Voice. And after doing public speaking for a couple years, I decided the online world is for me.
Give me a virtual zoom room over a stage and a live audience any day. In fact, only a couple of weeks earlier in my business mastermind, my visibility coach Vicki Knights, had brought up public speaking as a great way to grow our businesses. And I told my group, yeah, been there, done that, and I know it works.
I mean, I launched my online membership off the back of hosting my own event in London. It was called Project Me Live, but it's too nerve wracking and not worth the anxiety and loss of sleep. Public speaking is not for me. Door closed. Well, it just so happened that the same day as I had that invitation from Katia, I had my first one-on-one coaching call with Laura Davis of I beat the retreats.
I joined her six month program around amplifying myself as a facilitator of powerful women's circles and retreats. I'm a forever learner and I love programs that help me in my work and are also deep personal development experiences for me. At the very end of that call with Laura, we were about to hang up when I suddenly thought to tell her about this conference and how I was about to say no to it because of wanting to avoid the inevitable anxieties at that moment, something on my vision board caught my attention outta my peripheral vision.
I picked up my vision board. I showed it to Laura through the camera, and I said My word of the year from the previous year is step up. And in that moment, I realized that in 2024, I didn't really have any major opportunities to step up much. And now here it was a new year, January of 25, I'd chosen a new word embodied.
And now this opportunity to step up had presented itself to me. It was almost like saying, wait a minute, you didn't wrap things up from last year, and could it be a mere coincidence that Lara was there the very same day as I got this offer offering to support me in embodying this? You know, I told her my new word is embodiment and she's like, okay, we can do some somatic work for you to embody this, to work through your resistances.
I was still not very convinced I even wanted to do this mc job. I. I'll, I'll wait and see the, the, the proposal that Kaia sends me. So I held off and a couple days later Katia sent the email through with lots of links and information about the company, silver Spring, their partnerships, the keynote speaker for the event who, someone who like me, they believe dancing is the secret to a happy life.
She also included a photo of the conference venue and she pointed out that the seating is all in my brand colors. Red and orange. I'll admit that did feel like a positive sign of encouragement from the universe. She also included a link to the Seaside Resort Hotel I'd be put up in for two nights, and it looked very dreamy, I'll admit.
But after reading about the professionalism of this event, the speakers flying in the state-of-the-art visuals and equipment, I went back to my original reaction. They needed to hire a professional, not me. Very sweet of Katya to think of me, but how disappointed would her bosses be that she hired a friend rather than a professional presenter?
I was flying to Madrid the following day and I decided I'd call Katya and politely and graciously decline the next day. So it's the next day. I land in Madrid and I got a message from Katia, you are in Madrid. She'd see my little Instagram story showing the beautiful view from my plane window as I'd landed.
Turns out she was boarding a plane from Marbella to Madrid with Alejandro, right? Then he's the founder of Silver Spring. She'd been telling him all about me. They wanted to meet me for a drink that evening. They would even come to my neighborhood straight from the airport. Oh my God. Ah, if you have ever read the book, the Surrender Experiment, you'll know that sometimes you have to surrender your resistances and be open to what's trying to unfold.
For sure. It was beyond any mere coincidence that we were all flying into the same city at the same time. Okay. I'd meet him, he'd see for himself that I wasn't, wasn't the right one for this, and then Katya would leave me alone. We met up, we had mocktails at a bar in my hood, and I got to hear more about Silverspring and the ethos and the vision, which I loved.
I got to share that my own mother has moved to ante in Spain. To live in a sunny climate, meet new people and keep active after retirement. Life is anything but boring for her. And I do wish this for more people, for their health, their happiness, their longevity. I was very aligned with everything that was being said.
Alejandro was so interesting that I ended up texting my husband Luca and encouraged him to walk over and join us for some tapas. And then because the meetup went on a little longer, I discovered something. This mc presenting role was far beyond what I'd understood. I'd need to zoom, meet with every speaker to get to know them so I could prepare questions to ask them live on stage at this conference.
He wanted me to hold them in conversation on their topics, not just introduce them and then go and sit down and enjoy each talk. Oh my God. I guess it was all a part of the divine plan that Luca would be with me at this meetup too. Because as we walked back to our apartment afterwards, he said, you should definitely do this.
And that's when I admitted to him, I didn't feel qualified. All my insecurities came to the surface. I realized I didn't feel intelligent enough. These guest speakers would all be so smart. I didn't even finish university. I don't even listen to the kind of podcast these people speak on. I was absolutely out of my league to hold conversations with these guys.
Luca said, you can totally do this and you'll do an amazing job. You just need to prepare. You have two months, you've got this. Well, let's see if Alejandro even liked me. Maybe he'll tell Kati himself that they need to consider other options. Praying inside that he would find someone better and I'd be officially off the hook.
But then a message came through from Katia. Alejandro liked you a lot. I'm happy we found time to be very spontaneous and meet up. He saw that you are a professional and you have experience with events, a sense of humor to deal with situations and people, communication skills, complete understanding of the event and what we do, and presence, image, and perfect English.
Obviously, he wants to know your conditions and fee. Yikes. This is where a gigantic case of imposter syndrome kicked in. Great. I'd come across as too confident in that easy tapas bar setting. You see, they played some Abba Track way too loud and I'd put a stop to it immediately in a kind and funny way, sorry to all Abba fans listen, but there's a time and a place and there's definitely, it was not yet.
So now because of how easy and natural and fun I was at the Topes bar, this is how he thought I'd be up on stage. I was inwardly freaking out. I get anxious before events, even hosting Christmas lunch. And if I said yes to this, I'd have two months of sleepless nights ahead of me. I pulled a tarot card from my light Sears deck for some guidance.
Ugh, the Aid of Swords, a woman bound and blindfolded. She's unable to see possibilities. She's feeling overwhelmed by negative thoughts and self-imposed limitations. Yep, she was me. Limited by my own mind and absolutely nothing else. Others could see me doing this, but I just couldn't. That card forced me to explore my limiting beliefs to journal like mad to do some EFT tapping to unravel the stories I was telling myself about my intelligence.
I suddenly remembered the word I'd written on a rock and thrown into Vera a few months earlier. Self-doubt. I knew I was ready to release it. This whole speaking proposition was forcing me into another leap in personal growth to step up rather than retreat back. I continued to draw one tarot card per day, and they were all spot on.
It was incredible, like an ongoing conversation with my higher self and with the divine showing me my shadow side and how much my mind was trying to run the show. Then one day I drew the Star card. This is a yes card, a clear message to stop worrying. Just let go surrender to the divine order of the cosmos and trust that all will unfold as it needs to.
The star is about shining your own inner light, the very essence of who you are. The next day I drew the nine of cups. This put like a warm hug and assurance that all is well. My wishes are coming true, and what I want is on its way to me and a reminder to drop my stress, be present, and enjoy life's blessings.
And then the next day, the page of fire. It said, have courage. Take action. Express yourself in the world, conquer every obstacle. This card indicates a level of success that can only be achieved when courage is deployed. I can't tell you how much this light Sears Tarot deck is like having a best friend coach by your side telling you just what you need to hear and what you need to know when you're getting in your own way.
I have built a lovely relationship with these cards ever since having Tarot by Patty as a podcast guest last year. Listen to that episode, if you wanna hear more about this deck and might me drawing a car today the next day. Hi Drew, the Wheel of Fortune. It showed divine fortune synchronicities. It was about chance meetings following the Breadcrumb trail.
It literally said that, my God, that's the tagline of this podcast, and it's how I live my life. I suddenly saw it, like I was just too in it to see it, and I saw that Wheel of Life message about following the Breadcrumb Trail, and I saw, oh my God, the Breadcrumb Trail is being laid out for me to follow here.
I have no choice but to say yes to this opportunity. So I began typing out my email to outline my conditions and fee all travel expenses, two nights at that resort for myself and one guest. But how much to charge was my fee. I figured, well, if I don't charge them much, they could always say they got what they paid for if I wasn't very good.
Less pressure on me for sure. I started typing 800, 800 Euros. I, I really wasn't sure. I had my next business mastermind group Zoom with Vicki Knights that day. Maybe I'd bring it up there if there was time. Well, I was in the hot seat that day, so I went ahead. I told them about the conference, how busy I was with my other work, and my line of thinking around if I do it, I'm not gonna charge very much, but I'll just see it more as a growth opportunity.
And to my surprise, they weren't having any of it. They said that my energy and enthusiasm, that alone is worth a lot. They reminded me of how much work I had ahead of me to organize the calls with all the speakers ahead of the event preparing, then traveling time. The event itself they like, they were like breaking it all down for me.
They each shared that. They totally saw me doing it and gave me the biggest confidence boost imaginable. As for the fee. One of them gave a great example. She said, when a builder is super busy and doesn't have much time and they're asked for a quote on a job, they just give you an F off fee, like it's gonna cost you this much or F off.
And that made me laugh so much, but like I got it, put a fee on it that will make it so worth my while to step up the total opposite of what I've been about to do and charging very little and then not feeling like I have to blow their socks off. So I got off that call. I struck while the iron was hot. I typed up my proposal and when it came to the price, I just closed my eyes.
I took a deep breath. We hadn't talked in the group about exactly what I should say, so I just closed my eyes and I found my fingers typing 5K as my fee, not 800, but 5K. I went ahead and pressed send. And I felt a rush of excitement. I mean, if they said no, then F off. I'm off the hook. And if they say yes, whoa, I will step up and I'll be worth it.
I got a reply. Alejandro needs to show my speaker's reel to others at the company. Huh? Well, I'm not a professional speaker, so I obviously don't have a speaker's reel to highlight all my speaking gigs. But with all this newfound confidence like surging through me, I calmly gathered all I could find. I had a great video created for Project Me Live, which showed me presenting Plus on my YouTube channel.
I found one of me presenting a story to a live audience back in 2018. I went into Canva and I created a lovely PDF montage of photos of me speaking at my book launch party and at various workshops I sent it along with an email. I said, at the heart of my speaking style is my energy and enthusiasm, which I bring to every stage I step onto.
However I completely understand, if you prefer to consider speakers with more recent, readily available reels, there are professionals who focus solely on speaking engagements, and I have no doubt they could do a fantastic job as well. Please let me know if you'd like to move forward with me as your mc, and I'll be happy to clear my schedule accordingly.
And I sent that off and. They said yes. It had only been a couple of weeks since Katya's first call, and yet I felt like I'd been through some kind of advanced personal growth portal where I was forced through to a higher level in such a short space of time. And I've been hearing about this happening on a global scale every month I listen to the Lee Harris energy update, check it out on YouTube.
Lee Harris does this recording on the first of every month where he reads into the energy of what's going on, and he's been talking about these energy upgrades where we can expedite our growth without having to have a dark net of the soul or go through some major ordeal or trauma. The stars are simply aligning for huge and fast upgrades, and I feel like that's what happened to me in those two weeks.
I moved through self-doubt, insecurities and old stories, ready to be released and transmuted into confidence and courage to embody my Leo the Lion qualities to channel my inner Kaia, and to learn to see myself through the eyes of others. Because I'm sure you'd like to hear how the conference itself went.
Did I rock it? Did I prove myself worthy? Well, the conference didn't happen all along. I'd been pretty amazed that they were pulling this together in under two months. Most events of a much longer lead time to organize and fill the audience. And the organizers realized they needed a lot more time. They apologized profusely.
And they'll reach out when they have a new date, and I was not at all disappointed. I'd gotten the whole personal and professional boost needed and eradicated my longstanding limiting beliefs that could have been a lot of therapy and coaching and healing to get to this place. I love it when things work out.
Dear listener, relax your forehead. Take a long, slow, deep breath in and let it out with a sigh. Let's take my story and turn it into something useful for your journey. Have you ever said no to an opportunity because you didn't feel ready or good enough? Where has the Breadcrumb Trail tried to lead you, but you hesitated to follow?
Are you noticing the signs, the nudges, the synchronicities, or are they simply slipping past unnoticed? What do you do when self-doubt speaks? Do you have a support team? People who remind you of who you really are even when you forget? Here's the truth. Self-doubt visits all of us. No one is immune, so don't ever assume someone got to where they are because they never felt it.
The difference is they didn't let it stop them. Neither should you.
Thank you for listening to the Project Me Podcast. For more burst of positivity to your inbox, subscribe to my soulful love notes@kellypetangelie.com. There on my website, you'll also find out more about me and my offerings. If you'd like to surround yourself with women who fully support your journey, come and join Soul Explorers.
It's my online community and I'd really love to meet and support you there. Please subscribe and review this podcast if you enjoyed it. I used to get lovely notifications of new reviews on Apple Podcast and I don't know if they've stopped sending them or if there haven't been any new reviews, so try it so that I know, like write a review and then like tell me that you did it so I can look and see if it's showing up for me.
You can also do a screenshot now and you can post it to your stories. My handle is Kelly, project me Until next time. Open your mind, open your heart, and stay curious. We all need some space in our lives for the magical and unknown.