Episode 310 | Naphtali Roberts of Business Coach For Creatives.
Today Dannie and Caitlyn are talking with Naphtali Roberts of Business Coach For Creatives. .
We believe in accessible content and that anyone who wants to learn from this content should be able to. In order to support this, we’ve had every episode of Season 4 transcribed. The transcriptions are available at the bottom of every episode blog post.
SHOW HIGHLIGHTS:
How to thrive in your side hustle as an emotional person.
Reigning in the want to fix too many things to the point of it being detrimental to you and your side hustle.
The real and true power of journaling and goal setting.
Combating the negative self-narratives we tell ourselves.
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Episode Transcript
Caitlyn Allen: [00:00:21] Hey everyone. Welcome back to the side hustle gal podcast. We are so excited to be here today with Naphtali Roberts, uh, she is a business coach for creatives and I'm so excited to chat with her. Naphtali, can you tell us a little bit more about you.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:00:38] I would love to. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, so as you mentioned, I am a business coach and strategist with creatives, and it can be creatives in any way. I always like to clarify like creative is who you are in your heart. You could be doing multiple different things for to make the money, but I worked specifically with creatives at heart who are looking to make money consistently doing what they love without the hustle, bustle, burnout, all of those things.
That makes it so you stop making money doing what you love and you stopped being the person who want to be. So that is what I do. I am also a mom to three children, seven and under and wife to a creative entrepreneur and a lover of really great coffee. So if you get me talking about coffee and all things like why you should drink certain types of coffee, we may be here all day. That's who I am.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:01:40] That's awesome. Actually fun fact, you can get, um, coffee here in Ajo. So I live down in the middle of the desert in Ajo, Arizona. Um, we have two places here in town that actually. God, what is it called? Not not burn. Uh, uh, if you burn the coffee, right, it's not, that's not great. Um, they roast their own coffee. We have two roasters here in town.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:02:09] That's awesome. We, so my husband and I, we just own it. We're coffee snobs. Like, um, we, there's very few things in our life. We are snobby about coffee and hotels maybe, or our two. Um, and we just own it. We're just like, yes. We realize it's not what everyone needs to drink.
We think they should, but. Um, and so we actually have a roaster down in San Diego. We live in Burbank, but California, but we love their coffee. And so we actually. Get our coffee delivered from them, like their beans. Cause we like, we're the people that like do the like grinding everyday and then we French press because like, then my husband can test the water temperature because it affects how the coffee makes. So, um, yeah. So that's us. But I actually, I'm going to have to check that out. Maybe they deliver. I like trying new roasts and beans and all the things. So.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:03:01] Oh, I'll have to get your address afterwards and I'll just send you send you bag of beans.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:03:05] Oh, totally. Take that all about trying new coffee.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:03:11] Okay, Dannie.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:03:14] I was going to say, please be nice to me because I just bought really like nice single origin coffee, but it's Amazon fresh brand, so like, I don't know.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:03:24] No, you know what? It's single origin, which I love. That's one of the other reasons we get our coffee from seventies coffee down in San Diego at single origin and I that big important thing to me.
And so I love it. I'm not going to judge you if you said, okay, I was on a podcast and I love this lady, dear friend. I was on a podcast and the first time we ever met, and. I was like, Oh, you love good coffee too, what you drink? And she said, Folgers. And I literally, yeah, that look that you just did. No one listening can see.
But almost spitting your coffee out was like, uh, what? Uh, I don't know how to respond.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:04:05] And she's just like a self proclaimed coffee snob that drank Folgers.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:04:09] Yes.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:04:10] That's so cute.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:04:13] No. What's hilarious is the people I live with, he's like, I only like certain kinds of coffee, and then it's yuban and I'm like, I can't with you. All right. So now that we've talked about coffee, that's, that's always fun and let's be honest guys, we all need to stay caffeinated cause we are busy. I would love to hear more about, um, what coaching means to you. I feel like right now a lot of side hustlers are claiming to be coaches pretending to be coaches.
Or are actually VA's and just think that they're coaching people through how to like start a process, but they're not actually coaches. If that's my, uh, my rant.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:04:59] Great great question. So I'll give you a little history about me and that it definitely makes it so that I really do define it. That I am a coach, I'm a strategist as well, and I really do believe in the marrying of those two and that's what makes me unique. Um, so many, many moons ago. I'll actually just go back to my childhood. I am a fourth generation business owner, and so I really grew up around the business. Um, everybody else talks about sports at the table. We were not a sporty family, um, but we were a business strategist family.
And so. When other people talked about who was going to the Superbowl, we talked about why that business was setting up their location there because they were never going to see it succeed there. So that was just kind of the environment in which my brain was grown. But as in many of our families, some people are told they're supposed to be the thing that the family does and some people are not.
I was not. And I am a very big feeling sort of person, always been who I am, kind of the emotional black sheep of my family, have a great relationship with them, but like they do not. Really get my feelings. And so I took the path that any big feeler would feel, and I became a therapist. And so I spent a lot of years working with people on their goals and how to figure them out and really learning how the mind works in relationship to that.
But on the back side of that, I was always like, I don't understand why people say it's so hard to own a business. Like I was like, it's just so easy, like you should just do it now. It was the beautiful combo of the right left brain that I got going on. Anyways, flash forward, had kids stopped working, tried to be a stay at home mom.
About two and a half years in, husband sat me down, said. Darling wife, you hate this. I fought him. He said, no, seriously, like you are not the person I married. I don't need you to make money, but I need you to go back to being you. So you either have to go get a job or you need to start a business. I don't care which figure out your stuff.
And after some fighting because I don't like to be told what to do. I realized that he was correct and I was like, huh, okay. So I'll figure out how to start a business. So long story endless, started that business on part time so that I could still like hang out with my kids when I wanted to. And kind of like a side hustle business, like work really minimally like 10 to 12 hours a week.
So really low and very much on my own Hyman. Within that and still when I kept seeing was like, Oh, I'm getting all these people in therapy, and really what is under it is that they're running their business, not so great, and I could coach them through this. I can like, and why are their kids coming to therapy?
Oh, they're coming to therapy because their parents are burnt out because they're running their business based on really. Reactive strategy. Um, so this kinda kept going through my head and as a therapist, I cannot talk to you about business strategy. That is not within my scope of practice. So I was faced with the dilemma, okay, do I keep seeing people for $170 an hour when really let I know they need is just business strategy?
In their parents. So after many, debates with myself, because no one else cared what I did, I was like, I'm, I'm going to coach people on this cause like this is actually going to get to the heart of the problem. And so not with people I see in therapy, anyone in the state licensing board, it's a very, very different business.
I do not have. Crossover here, but I was like, I'm going to do this. And so really I've been able to use those skills that I learned within my years doing therapy to understand what people need to do to be motivated and to gain an understanding. And then I used my very long interaction with building businesses that I actually thrive and I married them together. And that's how we get to today.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:09:00] I love this so much. First of all, because I'm also an emotional person. I probably cry in one-on-ones with my manager at least once a month. Yeah. My manager is also like not an emotional man, and so you watch him like visibly get uncomfortable
Naphtali Roberts: [00:09:25] It's just feelings, they just are there.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:09:28] Yup. And like as the sole Latina woman on the team, it's also vaguely that like black women are angry and Latina women cry thing.
Um, but anyway, what I wanted to say is I love this intersection of. Therapy and business strategy because in a lot of ways what you're doing is career development for the entrepreneur, which is very therapy adjacent and like very like a well use purpose for your skills. And I'm curious in. In this space.
You also run a business yourself, so you also have your own experience. We catch yourself wanting to like fix too many things, and how do you rein it in? And the reason I ask this question is because a lot of us get our fingers in too many pies and there's probably some lessons we can learn from how you . Let's take a step back.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:10:36] Yeah. Oh my gosh. Um, and you know, it's a constant, a constant process, um, to really know like, okay, well, like what is within what I'm supposed to do? And for me it really has been understanding. So I to reign that in half to understand what my mission and then what, what that mission is like that key, like for example, this morning.
I have had a week where I just the to do list has felt bigger then maybe other weeks. Um, I have not had time to analyze why that is. I just can say that it is this week. Um, and it's Friday and I was like, uh, I'm not living the piece that I want. To live. That was my intention for the week, was to be peaceful.
I was like, I'm not really doing that. So this morning I journaled and I was recognizing. Using that. I was trying to be too many things for too many people. And so I really had to, I, I, I'm trying this new practice, um, where I write out every single morning my mission, like it's already happened and I had done some, like.
Oh, I'm reached my goals. I writing my to do list. I like, I've already done it, that stuff. But really this idea of writing my mission out, like I've it's already happened. Like, so for me this year, his mission is to, um, impact. 50 creative entrepreneurs and help them thrive in their lives, in their businesses.
That, so this morning I wrote that out and then I said, and what do I not believe? Why do I not believe that's possible? And I like did that. And I recognized the, some of the things that I'm getting my hands in are actions to try to prove to myself that I'm worth doing this or probably to prove to myself that I'm capable of doing it.
So when I was able to go through my to do list. That I, it's self-imposed. I was like, Oh, some of these things I actually don't need to do. They're not actually within the scope of the agreements I've made with clients. They're not within the day to day needs of my business. They're my actions that I'm trying to decide, prove my fears, and so I really believe that.
When we as entrepreneurs, whether we're side hustling, full timing, it like doing one thing at a time, whatever we're doing, we got to look at the, the thoughts that are driving our actions because most of the time when we're doing too much, it's because we're scared that or not enough, and then we do more than we need to do.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:13:05] That's so good. I feel like a lot of the actions we take in our business, and Dannie can attest, the, the startup of side hustles can be a coping mechanism, so to say for sure, things that have potentially gone wrong or you're not feeling sufficient in a certain area, so you start building your business. Um, I feel like we tell ourselves these.
Narratives that aren't always true. Um, and then we get stuck in those mindsets. And so that's, that's just. That's gold right there because it's so true. Um, what are, I mean, I guess you're, you're a therapist, but you're also a business coach. Do you have any strategies for helping rewrite a narrative? Like, I don't have enough money or I'll never make enough money?
Naphtali Roberts: [00:13:58] Yeah. Yeah. So I really love, I love self coaching, that idea. Um, I dunno if you guys have done it or anyone ever talk you through like that process, but it really is like looking at, okay, what am I believing? So like just call it out. Um, our, our brains. I love neuroscience. Um, and so like, and I love that.
Like, as a coach, I get to like geek out about neuroscience all the time. Um, and so our brains, like, it's funny, anything we say within our brains or brain believes, um, our brains are not actually tuned in enough to like, recognize the difference between reality and distortion. Um, and so we can use that for our benefit, but if we're not careful, that derails us.
And so. When I recognize , it should only when I recognize I'm feeling something, especially those feelings that don't actually feel like they're within me. I don't know if anyone else has ever felt like that. You're like, so I'm. Physically anxious. Right now my heart is racing. I have not had massive amounts of coffee, so I know it's not that checked in with myself on the coffee consumption or whatever, your caffeine boost of choice.
Um, and then I'm like, so what? So what I've literally say is like, okay, I feel the tension. My heart is fluttering. My stomach's kind of that wobbly feeling that generally means I'm anxious, but my thoughts. What I believe are not anxious right now. But usually what I realized is I've already bought into a narrative so it believes so true.
I don't even notice that it's there. And so I have to say like, okay, so what? What am I believing right now? money is a really powerful one, right? We all have more money narratives. Um, and my husband is a very typical creative freelancer, gig to gig sort of person. And so we have had and continue to have journeys with money because never in our.
Entire marriage. Have we known exactly where the next paycheck's coming from? Like we know now the ebbs and flows, but even those changes, this last year has been . Nothing has been the normal pattern. And so for me, I've had to recognize, okay, what is my money narrative right now? My money narrative right now is his job isn't stable, so I have to magically create all the money to fill in the gaps.
Wow. That's a lot of power. Like a lot of pressure I put on myself. That wasn't actually true. So I had to recognize, and I still have to recognize, Oh, this feeling is happening. What is this feeling? Oh, I'm telling myself, no one, I'm on the brink of disaster and everything's going to go bad. Even though we've lived this way for nine years and we have never not, been able to keep living where we're living. We've never not been able to feed our children, but I believe my life is going to end. Hello person in the background. Um, and then we, so then what happens is like, I am like . okay. That's my narrative. So how am I gonna self coach myself through this?
So this is the lie I'm believing. This is the feeling associated to this. This is what I normally do. I run around like a chicken with my head cut off. So if I want to change running around like a chicken with my head cut off chain filling with anxiety, I got to change the beliefs. We have to recognize what the belief is.
And then just honestly, this sounds so simple, but this is how our brain works. If I tell myself the new belief, my brain can't actually tell if that's true or not. So if I just practice saying it, it actually changes the thought pattern. So many times all of us say this to ourself, we say, I don't believe that yet.
I can't say that. I have to know what's true. Here's the thing. Our brain will never believe it until we start saying to ourself, consistently, our brain looks for danger. It it's just wired that way. It's not wired to think good. So we have to practice thinking well and healthy. In order to do it because we will never magically believe it's going to happen if we don't just practice it.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:18:03] Okay. So my follow up question is do you believe in using mantras, and if so, can you give us a couple of your favorites?
Naphtali Roberts: [00:18:14] I do believe in using them now. I want to take the stance that I believe in using them because science supports them because they help us rewire our brain. So whether you think, Oh, I'm in the idea of manifestation or not, this is a practice you can use.
Like it is not necessarily, some people would go to like, Oh, it's so spiritual and I'm not woo and I'm not, woo hoo either. I am. Pretty sane space with a little bit of what other people see as Woo that I believe is scientifically supported. So, um, I just always like to call that out because sometimes people get tripped up by it just because of that and they throw it out.
So some of my favorite mantras really have to go with my core beliefs. So I have to know, like, my core belief is. I'm not going to be okay. And so I have to come up with a plan, and the plan always is me. And that leads to all sorts of sorts of unhealthy things. So for me, I have to say, , I know what I need to do today and I'm going to do that, and I am, or I'll say I am safe, or I'll say,
There's never been a time that we, I literally say there's never been a time that we haven't been able to feed ourselves, feed our children, whatever that fear is, call it out and then just say the opposite. Mmm. There isn't like a magical, like these three words are going to make things better. It's just usually the opposite of whatever you're scared of.
So figure out what you're scared of and then just say the opposite.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:19:47] So I'm super curious for someone who has never had a good understanding of doing this, somehow has the ability to talk myself out of these affirming statements. Then what would you recommend?
Naphtali Roberts: [00:20:05] So you're gonna, you're gonna. Record yourself saying one, it doesn't matter, it's the, it's whatever one you need.
So let's say, tell me, tell me something you get scared of. Tell me something you feel this is easier if we just do it
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:20:19] I didn't do any talking myself out of it.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:20:22] You trying to think of one right now? Yes. God.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:20:28] I will pay off my debt this year.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:20:31] Okay, so, and you don't believe as possible .
Caitlyn Allen: [00:20:33] girl bye. That's an easy one. Come on. Do something that you know that you feel strongly about.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:20:40] If I leave Google, my identity changes completely.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:20:45] There you go. Okay. Okay. And okay, I'm going to ask another question cause it's going to help us What type of identity, like your identity of success, your identity of security. What does the identity,
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:20:57] no, like my actual identity cause I identify as a Googler. Okay. The same way that I identify as having Brown hair and green eyes.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:21:08] And being a, if you're not a Googler, what would that mean about you?
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:21:12] I probably still have a similar job. It's just not at Google.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:21:16] I know, but what would it mean about you if someone is not a Googler, what does that mean about them?
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:21:22] They're an ex Googler and something must be wrong with them because they left Google.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:21:27] Okay. So your, your belief then is if I leave Google, I means there's something wrong with me.
It means I can't hack it. I can't cut it. I couldn't do it. So the thing that you have to change, the thing you have to believe your mantra is, I, you know what, it's defining what that thing is. So it's, you know, I. when I leave Google. Yeah, I am. Justice successful when I leave Google. I will still be capable. It doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me when, so find that thing.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:22:02] I love this. This is gone from podcasts episode to therapy, but I like it.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:22:08] Coaching. I'm not doing therapy, but it is reworking how your brain, it is reworking how your brain works. I have to clarify that I'm not doing therapy. Um, so yeah.
So, okay. So when you do that, so what you're going to say, because we have to practice our thoughts, right? So it takes about 67 to 72, depending on the research days to change a thought, to change a simple thought in our brain, we actually have to practice saying it so. There's a couple of things you can do.
You can record yourself saying that new thought and then you put an alarm on your phone and you listen to it. Like when you wake up in the morning, yeah, right before you go to bed, and maybe like after you take a walk or her go on a run or do some sort of like activity jump up and down at your desk.
That's because that's when our brain is the most flexible. And so you're going to, you're going to say that to yourself. You're going to listen to yourself saying it now. You're also going to listen to yourself saying it when you're doing the anxious things that are making it so you're not actually leaving Google even when you want to, and then you just keep doing it.
You keep listening to yourself saying it. Maybe you write it out sometimes because like our brain actually does better when we write things. So that's what you do. It really is making the pattern of like really believing it. Now. I think that that thought is still probably a little high level. I think there's probably a fear under that, and that's maybe, you know, we'll work that you like, you ask yourself like, okay, wait, what am I actually believing this below that?
Um, and that's the more powerful thought to change. Um. Being that we are an era and I'm not going to like push you. If I was coaching you, I would push you to go deeper, but you know you're having all your listeners hear you. So I'm not going to like tell you to Matt in that place.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:24:03] That is just so good and so helpful for many of us because I know that there are so many beliefs, and I know I've done a lot of work this past these past few years in my emotions because I'm.
Like the opposite of Danny. I don't like showing my emotions. Yes, I cry, but it's never with other people. Um, or it's rarely with other people. Um, and I don't like identifying emotions. I would much rather just do business and do business, and that's it. Um, and I think for me, a lot of. The things that have been easiest for me is just sitting down.
And when I'm feeling a certain way, being like, okay, what word? What emotion am I actually feeling? Because I use the word frustrated so often in my vocabulary with my friends, with my family. Um, but they're like, Caitlyn, you can't always just be feeling frustrated. What is that actual feeling? Um, and really starting to identify how you're feeling because then. Nobody else can change how you're feeling besides you.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:25:09] Yeah.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:25:09] So if you can identify it, you can say, okay, here's the feeling. Why am I feeling this way and what can I do to not feel this way? And. It's so empowering because it gives you your power back. You now are in control of the thoughts that surround how you're feeling.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:25:28] Yeah. Well, and our feelings are just our feelings, right? Like there they are. They're value neutral, like, and I don't as a very. Feelings oriented person. I don't want to say that in a shaming way. They're not there. They are what they are. What drives us are our beliefs and our beliefs, our thoughts combined with our feelings, and we can change those by changing the thought.
We don't have to change our feelings. We have to change the belief and the thought.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:25:56] Oh, that's so good. Okay. So I think my last question, cause I know we have to wrap up soon. Um, what, what do you feel is something like, if you could shout to the whole world, like one thing that you want all entrepreneurs to know or to do what, what would you. What would be that thing that you share?
Naphtali Roberts: [00:26:18] Stop doing all the things.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:26:22] Yes,
Caitlyn Allen: [00:26:24] yes. I'm over here. Amen. handsing.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:26:26] Amen amen. Um, I'm dancing. Uh, so yeah. And what I mean by that. Is know what your mission is, know what your longterm goals and goals are different than to do lists. So stop telling me your goal is your to do less, because like that's not going to get you anywhere but busy and overwhelmed and overworked and have a mission.
It's can tweak or missions aren't set in stone, but have a mission and then only do. The things that take you towards that. Now I hear that and I have been at points in my life where I'm like, well, I have to like, you know, wipe my kids' butts. How does that fit in my mission? Okay. There's still life that happens that I'm aware of that I'm just talking about when you set your intentions for the day, when you look at your to do list for the day, literally.
is that thing is posting on social media that day actually getting you towards your goal? I don't know. Maybe. Maybe not. I don't believe, and never ever have I seen a thriving creative or a thriving business center that is doing all the things, because what they're doing is actually doing the things that get them their goal.
So you have to know your goal. You'll have to know your priorities and then you have to know. So I have three pillars of being a thriving creative, and that's priorities, processes, and consistency. And without those, even if you have two, you have harmful situations. So no. Those three things. Ask your strategies.
Do these things fit within this strategy? There's so many great strategies for building your side hustle and then transferring that into full time income if you want it and all of that. But they're all a bunch of BS if they don't actually work with your life and your business. And so you have to have a filter to make those decisions. So stop doing all the things.
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:28:26] That's honestly so good. And boy, Oh boy, did I need to hear. So thank you. And I also just want to say thank you for really strong and vulnerable episode. I think we've had a really strong conversation today, and I want to now, so I know that the audience wants to know where can we follow along with you on social media?
Naphtali Roberts: [00:28:48] So my two favorite places to hang out is one Instagram. I'm Naphtali, N, a. P. H. T. a. L. I. A. Roberts. Find me, look me up. Easy to find. And then I also, if you do decide, grab yourself as a creative hearted person who is looking to thrive. I want to invite you to the on-purpose creatives. Facebook community.
I hang out there all the time and we really do talk about these things and we support each other because we live in a world where we're told to do all the things we're told we're bad or yucky or not gonna make it or not. And so I've built a community where we don't accept that and we just talk about, okay, how do we do whatever we want?
Do what we love. And then do it in a way that we thrive. So I want to invite you guys to hang out there. I'm on both of those plastic forms, pretty connected the people there .
Dannie Lynn Fountain: [00:29:49] love it. We're going to have both of those in the show notes below, so if you want to come hang out, you just can head down, click the links and hang out.
Caitlyn Allen: [00:29:58] Yes, thank you so much for being here.
Naphtali Roberts: [00:30:01] Thank you guys.