Episode 353: Triggers, Growth, and Confidence: The Mindset Shift You Need
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
If you've ever felt imposter syndrome or self-doubt creeping in before taking a big leap, you're not alone. In this episode, Erin shares her real-time experience of navigating fear and uncertainty before leading a major training. She breaks down how high achievers—whether entrepreneurs, practitioners, or anyone pushing their limits—can reframe fear as a sign of growth rather than a setback. You'll learn how to identify limiting beliefs, recognize emotional triggers, and take action despite self-doubt. Plus, Erin shares the #1 subconscious growth limiter that most people don’t even realize is holding them back.
This episode also includes insights from a live call with FNA students and grads, diving deep into the mindset shifts needed to build confidence, make bold decisions, and grow both personally and professionally. If you've ever asked yourself, Can I really do this?, Erin gives you the tools and real-life examples to prove that you can—and why betting on yourself is the key to success.
In This Episode:
The Gap & The Gain - why every high ambitious person (whether you are an entrepreneur, practitioner or not) needs to know [07:14]
The #1 way to grow confidence with ANYTHING [12:35]
How to ID your unique limiting beliefs, self doubts and fears [17:40]
How I navigated a little snafu - and spoiler alert! It wasn’t with ease and grace! [20:01]
How to ID a trigger in real time - and what the phrase “If it’s hysterical, it’s historical” means [25:47]
And stay til the end because I share with you the #1 subconscious growth limiter that most people aren’t even aware of [28:39]
Resources mentioned:
Funk’tional Nutrition Academy™ (Next cohort starts in April of 2025)
Organifi supplement powder (save 20% on your order with code FUNK)
LMNT Electrolyte Replenishing powder (Use code FUNK get a free sample pack with any purchase!)
Qualia Senolytic (get up to 50% off and an extra 15% off your first purchase with link + code FUNKS)
Bon Charge (Use code FUNK to save 15%)
Kion Aminos (Get 20% off monthly orders and 10% off one time orders)
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Erin Holt [00:00:00]:
I'm Erin Holt and this is the Functional Nutrition Podcast where we lean into intuitive functional medicine. We look at how diet, our environment, our emotions and our beliefs all affect our physical health. This podcast is your full bodied, well rounded resource. I've got over a decade of clinical experience and because of that I've got a major bone to pick with diet, culture and the conventional healthcare model. They're both failing so many of us. But functional medicine isn't the fantasy that it's made out to be either. We've got some work to do and that's why creating a new model is my life's work. I believe in the ripple effect, so I founded the Functional Nutrition Academy, a school in mentorship for practitioners who want to do the same.
Erin Holt [00:00:45]:
This show is for you. If you're looking for new ways of thinking about your health and you're ready to be an active participant in your own healing. Please keep in mind this podcast is created for educational purposes only and should never be used as a replacement for medical diagnosis or treatment. I would love for you to follow the show, rate, review and share because you never know whose life you might change and of course keep coming back for more. Hello my friends. So last week I came on and I talked to you about imposter syndrome and I recorded it while I was feeling it before I did a big scary thing or old what felt to me like a big scary thing. I did a four day live training in real time to 150 practitioners. Woof.
Erin Holt [00:01:30]:
So I shared some of the self doubts that were bubbling up for me and also how I was navigating myself through them. And then recently right after the training I did a debrief in one of our FNA calls with FNA students and grads and I talked about being on the other side of the training. And so I'm going to share part of that call with you here today A because I just want to close the loop on how the training went, but B because this is a conversation that I have a feeling a lot of highly ambitious people can benefit from. And I know that I have a lot of highly ambitious people that listen to the show. So I'm going to talk about the gap in the gain and why every highly ambitious person, whether you are an entrepreneur, a practitioner or not, they need to know this like you need to know this to feel joy in your life. I'm going to talk about the number one way to grow confidence with anything. Doesn't matter what you're doing. This is the way to do it.
Erin Holt [00:02:23]:
I'm also going to talk about how to identify your unique limiting beliefs, your self doubts and fears, how to know when you're operating from a limiting belief versus something else. And then how I navigated a little bit of a snafu on the heels of the training and spoiler alert, it wasn't with ease and grace. That is not how I handled it. Not with ease and grace. So we'll talk about that. And then finally, how to identify a trigger in real time. And what the phrase, if it's hysterical, it's historical means. And be sure to stay till the end because I will be sharing with you the number one subconscious growth limiter that most people aren't even aware of.
Erin Holt [00:03:02]:
So subconscious means below your conscious awareness growth limiter means if you carry this around, it will limit your growth. So let's make you aware of it now, especially if you want to grow in any capacity. And I just want to quickly mention that this is the last week to join us for our spring cohort of fna. What I'm about to share with you is only a little bit of a taste of what we do in fna. It is a fully comprehensive program designed to help practitioners apply real world case studies, get expert mentorship and follow a proven framework to build a thriving functional medicine practice. And you have us there cheering you on, not just as mentors, but cheerleaders every step of the way. So this is your final invitation to join us. And now here's the show today.
Erin Holt [00:03:47]:
Before we get into questions, I'm going to share a story with you. I'm going to talk for a little bit longer than I normally do in these classes because I have a goal and an intention. And that goal, intention, is that you can come back to this conversation when you need a little reminder, when you need a little boost, because we all do. And I want this to serve as that thing when you need it. It might be right now. You might need to hear this message right now and maybe you don't, but in the future you probably will. So I want you to remember this and come back to this. So I've been talking a lot about self doubt and imposter syndrome.
Erin Holt [00:04:25]:
Some of you guys have been having private DM chats with it. I don't know if there's like collective thing coming up or, or what, but it's certainly been fresh on my mind. So I've been talking about it a lot more and I personally felt it a lot leading up to the training. I know I shared that in the training and I have felt some iteration of imposter syndrome a lot, usually on the precipice of growth. So because I've experienced a lot, I don't pathologize it. I don't make it mean something is wrong. I've had enough experience to know that it is a positive sign of growth. And that's what I talked about on the podcast today.
Erin Holt [00:04:59]:
And I shared some tools that I personally use to work myself through it. And that, you guys, is a superpower. The ability to sit with feelings of self doubt and do the thing anyway is a superpower. And that superpower is one that many of you possess. Even if you don't realize it, you do. I've seen it in a lot of you. Sometimes we're using these classes to process through some of that self doubt. So I just want you to take a moment to acknowledge that for yourself.
Erin Holt [00:05:32]:
As people who are here for our own growth and evolution, or like highly ambitious, we don't usually take the time to acknowledge ourselves. I mean, and I'm speaking from experience, this is not a call out. This is just speaking from my own experience too. We're like, onto the next, onto the next, on to the next. And we have to take the moments to recognize what we have done. I think I've told you guys about the book, the Gap and the gain and the big premise. They're looking at highly successful people and they're not just using money as a metric of success or, you know, personal gain or business growth as a metric of success, but people who have success and also enjoy their life. Like joy is a marker of success too.
Erin Holt [00:06:12]:
And the chief difference between people who have success and feel happiness and feel joy without excess is that they have the ability to look at the gain over the gap. So the gain is, oh my gosh, that's where I used to be and this is where I am. Look how far I've come versus this is where I am now. And this is where I want to be. Look how far I have to go. And so we have to take the time to do that. And we can still want more for ourselves, we can still desire more for ourselves. But it's like one foot in gratitude, one foot in desire, one foot and oh, look how much I've already done.
Erin Holt [00:06:42]:
Look how much I've already accomplished. Look how far I've come. One foot in that and one foot in growth. We have to do both, otherwise we will miss our entire lives. And I've certainly caught myself in patches of that. So don't do that. Recognize that you do have this superpower within you, which is to feel the doubt and do it anyway. Because a lot of people, maybe most, in the battle between their dreams and their doubt, they will let their doubt win.
Erin Holt [00:07:14]:
So in the battle between what is on their heart to do in their life versus self doubt, most people will choose self doubt. Most people will let their doubt win. So you guys are all FNA students or grads here. And I've said this before, but I'm going to repeat it. Do you want to know the number one thing that we read on F and A applications? There's one consistent theme that comes up in 90% of applications and that is imposter syndrome. People will literally use the word imposter syndrome. Many of you did, many of your applications said that exact phrase. And it's like, can I really do this? Imposter syndrome is like, can I really do this? Last year during open enrollment, we're in open enrollment now.
Erin Holt [00:07:59]:
So this is why this is kind of top of top of mind for me. So I hosted a like a Q&A call, just like a open discussion. And the people that showed up had questions. None of the questions were about price. None of the questions were about time investment. None of the questions were about the curriculum. No logistical questions. Every single question was fear based.
Erin Holt [00:08:18]:
Can I really do this? It was all self doubt. And what we see all of the time, you guys see it too, I am sure, is that people will argue for the reasons why not to do something more than they will argue for the reasons why to do something. And that is how we can become really, really good letting self doubt run the show. But here's what happens when we do that. When we make choices from a place of self doubt, all we do is reinforce more of that self doubt. We cannot grow confidence. So what's like the opposite of imposter syndrome confidence? People say, I have the imposter syndrome. I want the confidence. That is the big thing that we see all the time consistently here. But we cannot grow confidence if we're always making choices from a place of self doubt. That's not how it works. Action is what crystallizes change. Taking steps forward is what crystallizes change. So we have to make new decisions if we want to see new reality, if we want to gain that confidence.
Erin Holt [00:11:23]:
So we all know this. A program like F and A requires you to bet on yourself in a way that perhaps you've never bet on yourself before.There is a significant investment, money and time and energy. So like three significant investments. But it's not just the investment, it's what the investment represents that can sometimes hold people back. So they will say I know this is the program to get me where I want to go, I know that and then whatever comes after that but is basically a list of limiting beliefs, self doubts and fears. And this is true for everybody, everywhere with everything. By the way, this is not a critique on FNA applicants. It's just happens to be top of mind right now. So I'm using that as an example.
Erin Holt [00:12:08]:
But we all do this. So last week for example, my goal was to have 150 practitioners in last week's training. So when I was writing down my goal. I want 150 practitioners in this training. But. So I write down the goal, I write down the thing that I want to call in and then my mind goes, but here's all the reasons why it can't happen. So everything that comes after that. But was a list of my limiting beliefs, my self doubts, my fears.
Erin Holt [00:12:35]:
So it's my job to work through all of that to get the 150 practitioners into the training, which we did. We did that, but it came with like a whole sidecar of self doubt. So I had to feel that and do the thing Anyway, so I bring all of this up today because you were all there in that place of imposter syndrome and self doubt, if not all of you, like a solid 90% of you, at least a solid 90%, you felt the fear, you felt the doubt, all the imposter syndrome stuff crept up and you did it anyway. And I want you in this moment right now, to anchor that in. Like, take a snapshot of that feeling. Capture that feeling. Because you can hearken back to this feeling the next time you feel imposter syndrome, self doubt or fears trying to run the show. Because if you are growing, you will feel those things.
Erin Holt [00:13:28]:
That's just part of the growth, babe. That's it. No, it comes with the territory. And it's not a set it and forget it. I forget who I was talking. I think it was Abby who I was talking to. I said something on Instagram stories. It's not this.
Erin Holt [00:13:43]:
Like, once I arrive, then I'll never feel this way again. Like, we do that to ourselves. Our brain kind of like trick us into thinking that once I arrive, then I'll never feel this way again. But actually, in my experience, at least, the opposite is true. You'll probably feel it more bigger, bolder, more intense with the growth. The fears get bigger. You just get more skillful at navigating them. You just get more skillful at not letting them hold you back.
Erin Holt [00:14:10]:
So when you're faced with the next inevitable fear, self doubt or imposter syndrome, acknowledge the times that you have felt it before and navigated yourself through it. Because that, for me, is what gives me the confidence to go full steam ahead. So today I'm answering eight questions that got submitted. They're all business questions. All of them, Every single one. Why? Because you are all out there running businesses like you're running private practices. You're seeing clients, you're helping clients heal. You're creating a ripple effect out there in the world.
Erin Holt [00:14:43]:
Do you ever stop and like, look around and think like, holy shit, this is amazing. Like, look what I've created, look what I've built for myself. Like, look at this. Look at all the doubts and the fears and the limiting beliefs that I've had to overcome to get here. If you've done it once, you can do it again. The other reason that I'm going a little hard on this right now is because everything that I just said applies to all of your clients too. Right? All of that. Like, put a one in the chat if you agree before someone signs on to work with us for our one on one services.
Erin Holt [00:15:21]:
There's so much fear and self doubt that bubbles up to the surface so much. And we talked about this on last week's training. You can only go so far with your clients as you've been willing and able to go yourself. So when you skillfully overcome your own fears and doubts, you can now help someone else navigate through theirs. Like you have the machinery to do it. Oh, Elise is here. I didn't even see you, Elise. I gotta shout out because if you guys stayed, if you were on day four of the training and you stayed to the end, I shouted out, Elise.
Erin Holt [00:15:50]:
And I chose her because I knew she was gonna be on the live call. She's an FNA mentor and I knew she wouldn't mind me like calling her out and putting her on blast like that. But I pretty much copy and pasted the words that she shared in her application. Like these are were her limiting beliefs. And then it's like. And cut to look at what she's doing now. I feel like we should have a class. Just like everybody takes out their application and we just go through it and just look through it.
Erin Holt [00:16:13]:
It would be so fun. But anyway, I really want you guys to really, really spend some time focusing on the gain. Like how much you've done. It doesn't matter that you're not where you want to be. You have to focus on how much you've already done too. Okay. Because that's a big deal. The other thing that I want to share with you because in these classes, I promise to be honest and transparent about everything.
Erin Holt [00:16:40]:
I recorded today's podcast, the one that got aired today, I recorded that a week ago before I actually posted the training. So I want to do like a little debrief with all of you as well. A little post mortem, if you will. So I was teaching the training and many of you were there and I was really practicing anchoring in the expansion. So just the stuff that I talked to you about. I was like, aaron, snapshot this. Like, because I'm so, like, onto the next, onto the next, onto the next. I'm like, don't do that to yourself.
Erin Holt [00:17:06]:
Like, be here in this moment. Feel the expansion of it. I was so. I know I said this already on the call, but I was so amazed and, like, proud of all of you guys that were there and in the chat and sharing your experience and answering questions like pros. Like, I was just like, wow. Like, I felt so proud to be part of this community. It was just such a good feeling and I really, really, really let myself feel that. We closed out the day and I was like, the four day training, I was feeling so good, like flying so high, and then, then there was a little snafu.
Erin Holt [00:17:40]:
And so again, I promise to be honest and transparent with you and it's so easy to share the wins, but I want to share the snags too. Because if I don't, when you hit a snag, you're going to internalize it as like, oh, something's wrong with me. No, snags are part of the journey, especially when we're doing something altogether new. This four day training was something altogether new. We've never, my team and I have never put something like this together. We were still working, working out the kinks together. So what happened is we taught the training and throughout the training, I was like, if you have questions, if there's any open loops, post in the Facebook group. Post your questions in the Facebook group.
Erin Holt [00:18:15]:
So there's no questions in the Facebook group. And then we were going to do this one bonus Q&A. So purchase of this program was for live classes. So we delivered that and then we're like, we're going to do this bonus Q&A in case people have questions. Like, I want people to have the opportunity to ask their questions. And we posted something in the Facebook group, like a call for questions. I mentioned it on the last call and there was no question. There's no one.
Erin Holt [00:18:41]:
I think there was one question posted in the Facebook group the entire time. So I was like, I guess people don't have questions, so we'll just go ahead and cancel the Q&A. Because it's really, really, really, really hard to host a Q&A when there's no cues. Like, it's really hard. I've already said all of my words. You know, I have been talking nonstop all week. I don't know what else there is to say. So we canceled the Q&A and I posted in the Facebook group that we canceled the Q&A.
Erin Holt [00:19:05]:
The issue is that it wasn't effectively communicated throughout the entire team. So we had emails pre scheduled to go out and we didn't cancel those emails. So 30 minutes before the last live call, the bonus call, everyone got an email being like, Aaron's going live in 30. And so people showed up. As you would expect, people showed up in the Facebook group and I was like, doing another project, like totally onto something else. Doing another project. And maybe like around 2pm I go into the Facebook group and I was like, oh my God. People showed up for this call.
Erin Holt [00:19:38]:
Like they didn't get the memo. In fact, they got a memo that there was a live call. And I freaked out. Like, full blown freak out, meltdown all the way. I panicked. I felt so awful. I reached out to my team and I was like, oh my God, we have to do damage control. Luckily, I now have a number two name is Abby and she's wonderful.
Erin Holt [00:20:01]:
And I'm the emotional one and she's the like, let's look at the facts one, which is really great. It's really nice to have that yin and yang, okay? And she's like, there's one kind of gloomy Gus in the group. There's one person who is like, not stoked. One person. She's like, that's one person out of 150. She's like, is this a crisis? I don't like we want to do right by everybody, of course, but she's like, is this a crisis? She's like, when I hear damage control, there's a fire that needs to be put out. Is there a fire? And I was like, okay.
Erin Holt [00:22:57]:
By the way, one thing we're going to get into in today's questions is looking at the data, looking at the numbers, looking at the metrics, looking at the facts when we're deep in our emotions. I'm not always great with this because I'm a Pisces. Like, I'm always emotional. When we're deep in our emotions, we have to sometimes look at the facts because that helps to pull us back to neutrality and see things more clearly. As you all know, it's very hard to see things clearly when you're deep in your emotions. And I was like, full blown Chicken Little. Like, the sky is falling. And Abby's like, no, the sky's like totally still intact. We're good. We're good here.
Erin Holt [00:23:29]:
But the reason that I'm bringing this up is because we do this to ourselves. And there's this, there's this line. I'm curious if you've heard it. If it's hysterical, it's historical. Have you guys ever heard that before? Isn't that so good? So what that means is if the emotional reaction that you're feeling is disproportionate to the actual event, it's usually sitting on some type of wound. It's a trigger. So a present trigger is often activating something from the past. A present day situation is activating something unresolved from our past.
Erin Holt [00:24:05]:
So those triggers, it's called the amygdala hijack. It like actually puts our body in a fight or flight response. But what's being threatened isn't our servant, excuse me, our survival. It's not life or death, but something about our identity is being threatened. So like biochemically it feels like life or death, like our survival is in question, but it's really some aspect of your identity. And our identity is based on and built on our core beliefs. And those core beliefs can sometimes be limiting. And oftentimes those core beliefs can be formed around wounds.
Erin Holt [00:24:38]:
So one of mine is a little vulnerable to share, but I will share it because I don't think I'm alone in this. One of my corest, deepest wounds slash beliefs is no matter how hard I work, it's never enough. No matter how much I give, it's never enough. You know it's a core wound when it makes you feel like you're going to vomit when you say it. Type A1 in the chat. Type A2 in the chat. So we've already done once. Type A2 in the chat.
Erin Holt [00:25:05]:
If you relate to that at all. Not everybody feels that way for sure, but some of us do. And we like, drag it around. We drag it around, like in like a rucksack through the mud. Okay, so I'm not alone in this. A lot of you guys have that one too. Lucky us. What a recipe for burnout.
Erin Holt [00:25:23]:
Do you guys also have adrenal dysfunction? Just asking. Asking for a friend. I don't know. Do you? Do you? A little bit. Do you tempt to have low cortisol, low secretory IGA by chance? Okay, so that's what I was experiencing internally. I gave my all and I truly did, you guys, I like, I like, left it out all in the field. Is that the saying? I don't know. Like, I gave it my all and it, like, wasn't good enough is how I felt in that moment.
Erin Holt [00:25:47]:
So here's the deal and here's why I'm telling you this. Triggers, when we feel that way, they can be such a profound learning opportunity and such an opportunity for growth and healing if we choose to let them, if we choose to see them that way. In business and in life, they will come up. These things present themselves to show us what needs to be held, what needs to be supported, what needs to be looked at, what needs to be cleared in order to support and stabilize the growth that we're after. And I believe this is the primary difference between people who can call things in, like, manifest things, call in their dreams, in those who can actually keep it. Because some people are really good at calling things in, but then it just, like, slips away. Like, Stand through the Hourglass, it just slips away. And in January, in one of our intuition classes, we talked about this a little bit.
Erin Holt [00:26:44]:
We want to call things in and have capacity to hold it. At the same time, we want to call things in and. And have that lamina propria to anchor things. A functional medicine joke. I do. So stupid. Okay, so I, I do, do, do believe that when we are on a growth path, we get presented with opportunities. And, you know, whoever's pulling the strings up there, I don't know, is it the universe? I don't know.
Erin Holt [00:27:14]:
Whatever you believe in, I do believe that they, the powers that be, maybe it's our higher self present us with opportunities, but they don't always feel like opportunities, do they? They don't. These are the moments that we're like, oh, my God, is this a failure? Does this mean I'm failing? So I was like, I shouldn't have done this. This was a mistake, and I'm never going to do this again. That's where I went. I somersaulted right into that. But that's what I had to, like, check myself. And just last week on the podcast, or today is published, I shared a mantra in that mantra, ironically enough, was, don't let the criticism speak louder than the love. And I got countless DMs, countless feedback with participants saying how wonderful, how impactful that training was.
Erin Holt [00:28:01]:
And for a moment there, I let that little snafu overshadow everything. I totally, for a little while there, let that one snafu override the entire experience of the whole thing. And so these are the moments that we have to reframe because we want to be like, why is this happening? Like, why is this happening to me? But we have to reframe it and see it as, why is this happening for me? Because that showed me, oh, my God, this core wound still exists. It's still there. It's still active. Like, I have to sit with this. I do some, like, parts work, some inner healing, inner child healing. Like, that's usually how I like, sit with my own wounds.
Erin Holt [00:28:39]:
I had to do that, right? That was the big ask. And I have to do that so that when we grow and expand, that growth is stabilized. And the last thing I will say here is that if we feel like we can't handle the problems as they present themselves now, we won't be able to handle the bigger things that come with growth. And so this can be a subconscious growth limiter. This can subconsciously block us from our goals and from our next steps. If we treat every problem in front of us as like, so overwhelming and so insurmountable, your subconscious is going to be like, well, she can't deal with this now. How the heck are they going to be able to deal with the bigger problems further on down the road with this growth? So that was a lot. I usually don't talk for this long, but I did want to share all of that with you because I was afraid that if I didn't say it today, it wouldn't come out.
Erin Holt [00:29:27]:
And I do feel like this is big stuff for those of us who are navigating. Big stuff. Big. Thanks for joining me for this episode of the Functional Nutrition Podcast. If you got something from today's show, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, share with a friend, and keep coming back for more. Take care of you.