Overcoming Fear

Always, instead of looking at the full picture of it, I always say like, okay, I started out doing this particular thing that I was really good at or that I enjoyed doing. And so I don't look to the left or to the right and worry about how big it's got. I just continue to focus on that little thing that I was doing that got me there to begin with. Welcome to the Thrive Her podcast.

I'm your host, Amy Sanders. I'm a fitness and wellness pro, mom, stepmom, second wife, and master certified life coach. I'm here to help you manage your mind so you can uncover the most potent version of yourself and create a thriving life you love. Welcome back, everyone.

Amy Sanders here. And today we are talking about how to overcome your fear. A lot of times women are afraid to pursue their dreams. And we also put ourself into roles that may or may not serve us.

And so I have Dr. A with me. She is a pro and oh my gosh, so many things, highly educated. And I'm actually going to let you tell your story about how you came.

I'm like, I could be telling them, but it's going to be so much better from you. She has multiple projects she's working on. She's a professor. She is a columnist.

She's a motivational speaker. I mean, I could like keep going, but let's just have you introduce yourself. And talk a little bit about how you've come along your journey up to this point. Wow.

Well, first of all, thank you so much for having me, Amy. My name is Dr. A and I am the founder of Grounded Jeremiah 2911. And I'm actually, as you mentioned, a professor as well as an advice columnist for a local newspaper.

And to be honest, I think I got my start, uh, mainly from being a professor and for years teaching my students, oh, you can go out there. Start. Start those businesses, chase your dreams. And then after a few years, I kind of realized, like, I didn't have any receipts.

You know what I mean? It was like, I was telling them they could go and chase their dreams, but I didn't have, I hadn't started a business. I hadn't put a book out there. I hadn't done anything.

So it kind of started out as me kind of having, you know, a small project of maybe wanting to write some books and everything. And it kind of just took off from there. Yeah. I love it though.

Cause you're like, wait, I am telling them to do the thing that I actually am. I'm not doing. I can give them the whole gamut of how to start their business, how to research, how to do everything. And then I'm thinking like, well, why don't I have anything?

And then it just kind of hit me one day. Like, why haven't you started a business? Like, why haven't you pursued anything? So I think that me stepping out and starting my publishing company was kind of like a little small part of like, okay, let me start a business.

I know I want to write a book. I'm going to self publish it. And I also want to, you know, follow that up with publishing other women authors as well. Yeah.

Good to know. Actually. Good to know. I have my own little project going on right now that I haven't even talked about.

I guess I just announced it here, but that's good to know. So how long ago was it? Was it, you also suffered a series of illnesses in 2017. Is that kind of what catapulted all of this?

Yeah, that was actually like the catalyst. I think that in 2017, I had gone to a funeral and I realized it was a 25 year old girl. And I realized that. She had done more in her 25 years than I had the courage to do in all of my, I don't even want to say how many years, but almost twice as much as her.

And then in that moment, I kind of felt like after I returned home from that funeral, I felt like, you know what, I'm really going to step out there and I'm just going to do it. And that's exactly what I did. And doors begin to open. Yeah.

I love that you say that doors begin to open because they actually do. I'm a huge believer on you start stepping out of that fear. I mean, the fear is going to be there, right? You have to push through the fear, but when you push through the fear, doors open up.

Things happen for you. Like, it's like the path is there, but you do have to start putting on your shoes and walking down the path to see where it takes you. It's absolutely true. I think that I knew kind of that I wanted to write like years before.

And I think I had allowed like a relative or someone to tell me like, oh, it's a stupid idea. Don't do it. And when I did publish my book. My book is actually 13 Friends to Avoid by Ava Knows.

I was so nervous about publishing it under Dr. A that I went under a pseudonym because I felt if I failed, nobody would know, you know, kind of thing. And Ava, Ava is my initials, Alita Vanessa Ashford is, you know, so it's kind of like, you know, I just kind of wrote under that name and that book became a column. And that actually started the whole catalyst of me being a motivational speaker.

And kind of also led. And to me being able to find Grounded Jeremiah 2911. Yeah. So interesting though, because you did the thing that was a little bit scary.

The other people told you that maybe you couldn't do like writing the book, but then even still you let that fear come in between you owning your brand of Dr. A. Like you are a doctor, you have the education, you've done the things and you went under. Ava Knows, right.

Dr. A. I was, I was out with Ava Knows for two years. I was out with Ava Knows for two years.

And friends and family, nobody even knew that it was out there. It was in the newspaper every week. I was responding to, the column is Ask Ava. And I was responding to letters and doing all kinds of stuff.

And nobody even knew that it was me for like two years. So I think the biggest fear was just failing. I didn't, when I first started out, because I had people tell me like, hey, you're a professor. Why do you want to write books?

Nobody reads books. So I believe, you know, some of these weren't like. Close family members and friends, you know, so you, you can, it's easy to become, you know, enthralled in what people say it really is. And I, and I had such a fear, like they were like, Hey, you got a great career as a professor.

Like, why do you want to go and write like books? And, you know, that's, you know, that's so corny and I believe them, but I knew inside that I felt like it was something I wanted to do. So I decided to do it under a different name so that if it failed, then nobody would know with me, but it took off. It actually took off.

And where the brand Dr. A came from was the fact that I started getting contacted about book signings and speaking engagements. And I really felt like I wanted Ava Knows to be anonymous, you know, so it became increasingly difficult to try to hide my identity under Ava Knows. And I didn't feel like Ava Knows should have identity or color.

I felt like Ava Knows was a brand, you know, it was a brand of books geared towards young women. And, and I didn't want it to have a persona, you know, so that's where the Dr. A brand came from. Basically Dr.

A is the one that shows up to the book signing and the seminars and expos and things like that. And so representing Ava Knows. Yeah. I love it.

Okay. So tell me, you speak a lot about overcoming fear and helping women more step into that power. Let's talk about that. When you started pursuing your dreams and you had all that fear, how did you navigate that?

And how would you? What would you say to the woman who's like, I want to, but I don't know that I'm worthy. I don't know if it's okay. You know, let's just talk about it.

You know what? That's very honest. You know, I, for me, it was to the point where I think what Ava Knows it helped because nobody knew, you know what I mean? So there was a little, it was anonymous.

So you think about like, you know, you can fall, nobody's looking, nobody's watching. So that part of it helped, but when it became Dr. A and most recently grounded, that one is more visible. Right.

So for me, when I get in those moments, it's just kind of this attitude of like, it's now and never like, girl, if you don't do it, who's going to do it for you, you know? And I think it's one of those grab the bull by the horns kind of things. And you just step out there and do it. And I just, I think that's the thing that gets me like every time grounded reaches new heights.

I always get this fear of like, fear of like, oh my goodness, we had 20 women. Now we're like approaching 10,000 women. Like, what am I going to do? And it's like a, that solid voice that just says, well, if not you, then who, you know?

Yeah. And I always look at where I came from with it. And, and then always, instead of looking at the full picture of it, I always say like, okay, I started out doing this particular thing that I was really good at or that I enjoyed doing. And so I don't look to the left or to the right and worry about how big it's gotten.

I just continue to focus on that little thing that I was doing that got me there to begin with. Just even the why, like, okay. So I'm doing this, this is where my passion is. And this is what I want to say.

And that's more important. And that's what I want to tell the audience right now is what you have to say. And that little desire that is inside of you, it is trying to speak, but you have to listen, right? It wants out, it wants to like be unleashed and you have to say, okay, you know what?

I'm listening and I'm going to do this because we get so scared of being visible that we end up helping less people because of that fear. Like look at Dr. A right now. She's like, Hey, what in the heck am I going to do with 10,000 women now?

But you're doing it and you're doing it anyway. And it all, like everything is figureoutable, but how amazing is it that you have impacted that many people plus more? I mean, you don't know how many people you've impacted, but you just did it. You're like, okay, I just have to do it.

So if you're listening to this and you're like, oh, I don't know. I've always had this dream. I'm not going to do it right now because I'm still a young mom, or I'm not going to do it because I'm. Yeah.

I'm not going to do it because I'm supporting my partner or I'm not going to do it. Like, forget about that. Like, don't wait because you're turning away from your true self. You're turning away from that voice.

That's like saying, come on, let's go. We want more, you know? And that's what you did. You're like, okay, yeah, I have this career, but also I want to be a published author.

Yeah, absolutely. I did not realize that there was a whole nother life waiting on me, you know, and now sitting here, what I would tell your listeners. Listeners is I'm more afraid of what would have become of me had I not. Wow.

Yeah. I mean, what would I, I can't even imagine, like, I mean, I had a great life. I went to work. I did everything that, you know, went to school, went to work, did all these things, had a family, but there was a whole part of me that was unfulfilled of desires that I had that I feel like for years I suppressed either because fear of stepping out there and doing it or listening to other people.

Amen. Mic drop your soul. Like, you know, what's best for you and it's trying to speak to you, but you have to listen. Like what would your life have been like if you just didn't, it just be status quo.

It's like all of these things. And I love what you said about the path being there. It's like just that one step. And I want to be clear on this too.

The book did not come out before the newspaper. It was actually like, I was writing the book. And I felt like, let me start a blog and kind of give some advice because I felt when the book came out, nobody would buy a book if they didn't know where I was. So I kind of started this blog on all the different social media pages and everything and a local newspaper picked it up.

Wow. So by the time I went to my first book signing, my book sold out because I had already been in the newspaper for like over a year. So let me ask you this. Did you feel like you knew what you were doing right out of the gate?

Like you're like, this is what I'm going to do. No. No, ma'am. And one of the things that I will say is that while I was waiting, as I say, waiting and writing, I was also learning.

Like I was, I didn't start out saying I wanted to own a publishing company. I absolutely did not. When I was in the process of trying to get my book published, I kind of ran into a lot of shady stuff out there. And I just kind of spent that year researching and I decided, you know what?

I'm going to want other books and I'm going to want to help other women. So I want to start my own. I want to start my own publishing company, which by the way, is called incessant publishing and incessant means without ceasing. So that's all that, that really meant something to me and spoke to me.

Yeah. Without ceasing. Yeah. I love it.

And that's the key though, is we don't know what this path is actually going to look like. You just have to just take one step in front of the other and be like, I don't know how this is going to work out, but everything is figureoutable and I don't know who I'm going to touch. But I do know. That I have something that I want to share.

And as long as you know that that is enough, like, okay, so I have this thing. I want to share, share it. You're going to get judged. People are going to tell you that you can't do it.

They're going to say, you're going to fail like all of those things. But if you are thinking about it, that's enough. Yeah. I think that Ava knows is a great brand, but I also learned through this journey that people like Dr.

A2. Dr. A2. Is going to have some books come out, you know, and I'm, I'm not giving up on Ava knows brand, but I learned that I don't regret being anonymous, but I also learned that I'm enough.

I'm enough, you know, and maybe that's what I need to do at the time to, uh, get my confidence or, you know, get the courage to get out there. And I got out there, but now I learned that Dr. A is enough. Yeah.

We're all enough. We were actually born enough. Like we came out of the womb. Enough.

I like to talk about dogs because dogs, I love dogs, but they don't really do anything, but give love and they come out and we love them anyway. And babies too, right? Like, so we just like love them and we don't expect anything out of them. We just are happy with the way they are.

Babies, dogs, but somehow things change to where we put all these expectations on people and on ourselves and all, and all these limits. And all these fears when really we're worthy and enough just as we are, but then we get to decide how we show up. We get to decide what we do with what we have and we all have different talents and things. So I love that.

You're like, guess what? Dr. A can have a voice too. She's going to have books too.

And she's created other things and it's you. That is who you are. It's you. Yeah.

And I can remember someone talking to me about. Like the whole Ava knows thing. And they were kind of putting the Ava knows down because I'm a Christian and the book didn't have any scriptures and things like that. But first of all, I'm a Christian and my book wasn't written for the person that knew God.

It was written more for the young women who didn't, you know what I mean? Practice the living, so to speak. But the thing about Ava knows is it is because of Ava knows that when the Dr. A brand launched that people followed it and that it grew.

And I also feel that Ava knows was the lead up to grounded as well, that I had already had a platform. And so when I announced that a seminar for Ava knows a couple of years ago, I announced that I was going to be creating grounded people. People came out and joined grounded because I was there about Ava knows. Yeah.

So let's also talk about like your path to success. I don't want to discount all your education and your teaching and everything that you're doing, because that is also a big part of your life. Yeah. Okay.

Wait, was it 2017 to present moment now where all this has transpassed or was it before that? It was before that. I mean, I, I, I, I mean, if you, if we're talking about like the success of Ava knows and all that, yeah, I would say two 2017 was when I stepped out there and decided I was going to do something, but I had had my, like you said, my education, all that before that. Yeah.

All that was before. So you were doing that. But the big pivot of you being like, Oh yeah. Oh wait.

I'm listening to 17, 2017. So I wanted to want to talk to you. to bring that to light as well, because a lot of people are like, well, you know, maybe I can't be successful or I don't have time, or maybe it is going to take too long or I've missed the boat. And I'm like, you had a whole career before you were already successful within your career and stuff before you now pivoted and added this into your life.

And now you're successful doing all of it in 2017 was not that long ago. Wow. When you say it like that. Yeah.

I mean, it was, we like to think about, oh, but that took her so long or I, you know, I can never get to where she's at. I'm like, if you guys think about it in years, in just a number of years, 2017 to 2022, what is that? Five? Yeah.

Five years. Yeah. And look at what kind of impact you have been able to make over the course. Of five years.

You know what, when you say it like that, someone had given me a little box of cards that year. And the one of the first ones I picked up said a year from now, you'll wish you had started today. And I can remember that thinking and always kind of meditating on that. And, and it's so true.

And I, and I was like, okay, you start by starting. I just kind of started writing. And even when I sat down, I didn't know what I was going to write about, but I had gone through so, so many different things with friends and that I was like, you know what, I want to write about something I know about. I got some really shady friends and my, my, there was, I wrote that one without a lot of effort, 13 friends to avoid, you know, and it just came all out and it was, it was amazing.

But, you know, the feeling of seeing the column in a paper, even now that's what's behind me. The first, uh, the, I framed the first newspaper that actually that printed there. Um, but yeah, seeing my stuff in the paper, even with the little logo and everything, that was amazing. But I don't know if you knew this part, but when COVID hit the newspaper worked with me to create the tax, the Dr.

A column, and they allowed me to go around to local central Florida businesses to highlight some of the women who were struggling during COVID. And that was amazing. Yeah. The influence that you can have once you start stepping into your power and owning your voice is unbelievable.

And that's what you've done. That is what you've done. So I want to just acknowledge that and tell other people that you can too. It's totally, it's totally achievable.

So what would you tell the woman who is afraid, but wants to just do it, just do it, just do it. You owe it to yourself. You have but one life, get out and live it. I love it.

And what, before we wrap up, I also wanted to talk a little bit about protecting your energy because when you do add more, I know I just opened up a whole new can of worms, but when you step out into this space, a lot of times we get really scared of the fear of like rejection of failure of all the things, all of the drama comes up and there are going to be the naysayers. We've already hit on this a little bit, but how do you protect your energy and keep going? That is something that I have been talking a lot about on my platform and not even just in that part of dealing with like the rejection and the fear, but I noticed that the more I accomplish and the bigger some of these projects get that I get a lot of people coming out of the woodwork. And I realized that like a couple of weeks ago, I just became just drained.

And I realized that sometimes when you put the energy out there, you don't always get that energy back. So I started to kind of protect myself. And so for me, protecting my energy is like, there's a lot of people that are going to try to attach themselves to you that are really not trying to do anything. I learned that really quickly and you would tire yourself out trying to make things happen for other people.

The thing that I learned about that, if it's somebody else's dream or something that they really want to do, you would never need to strong on them, arm them into doing that. Okay. So I was really spending a considerable amount of energy trying to help other people realize their dreams and things like that. And I had to really stop that, you know, like it's a, it's enough to be motivated or inspired by people, but you just can't pull people and you know, people have to want to walk to their destiny.

You know what I mean? So that's one way I protect my energy. And another way is that I realized that even your life is a process, you know, so I don't allow myself to get down when things don't go a certain way. I kind of feel like everything right now, even in this moment, as I grow, it's all a training ground for something greater, even the failures.

So don't be afraid of that. Yeah. Failures are never failures. It's such a good point because it's just a way to learn how to not do something.

Yeah. Nothing is wasted. Nothing. You just are learning and you're growing.

And as long as you're learning and growing, you're moving forward. It's when we start to learn how to be stagnant, but actually that's when like the unhappiness and all the other stuff comes up. Like, but if you're moving forward, just figuring out another way to do something, then you're going to make it, you're going to be successful. It's inevitable.

Amen to that. You have to believe that. Yeah. Okay.

So what is one more little nugget of wisdom you can leave with our audience? And also I don't want to miss you also talking about what ground it is. We've hit on it, but we haven't, we haven't even talked about it. So those things let's talk about grounded first and then you can leave a nugget of wisdom.

Yeah. Sure. Now grounded was actually created during COVID. Like I said, it was like right towards the end where I wanted to do something faith-based and I didn't really feel that being that Dr.

A was more of a business consulting, motivational speaker type of thing. And then Ava knows wasn't really a faith-based brand, you know? So I really felt strongly that I needed to do something and it started out kind of, you know, I really pushed it. During the beginning of COVID and it started out just with 20 women and this incubator of helping them as a marketing professor and keep that in mind, marketing business professor, helping them rebrand themselves to be able to do better online or transition their businesses to going online after everything closed down.

And so it just kind of grew from there. Like they told their friends, you know, our largest following is in a town called Bolivar, Missouri. Yeah. We ended up, I guess, as a lady there named Sarah Swerge and she runs a ministry called Thrive and she was one of the first people that came on my podcast.

And that was another thing that I noticed on Grounded. I didn't start out thinking we were going to have a podcast. I didn't start out thinking that we have a book that's coming out at the end of this year, a Grounded anthology featuring our women who want to be first-time authors. So that's been a project that we've been working on all year.

That's going to be published under my company, by the way. But yes, amazing. But when we started out, I did not think that we would need a podcast and all of that, but we had some of our women that were small business owners and ministry leaders that some of the larger platforms would not interview them or would not give them any shine or recognition because they felt they were too small. So we basically built our own seat at the table.

Basically, we have our own podcast. We have billboards in Orlando. We don't need you big people. And now we have people coming to us, you know?

So we, we basically are a bunch of women that all over, I can say the world now, we're in other countries. We have representation like in the UK. I can't even name, you have to go to our website, but it just kind of grew and we help each other and we support each other. And these are, everybody is not there as a business owner or ministry leader, but we do have a large following.

But a lot of the women who feed to this population are business owners, ministry leaders, artists, authors. They come in, they share their nuggets. So if, if you're a preacher, preach. If you know about real estate, teach us about real estate.

If you work out, teach us how to take care of our bodies and that everybody just kind of bring what they have to the page in the private group mainly. And it just kind of goes out from there and it has been amazing. What an amazing contribution that adds to so many people's lives too. I love it from all walks of life.

So what are we doing? I think the biggest thing about that every time I get discouraged on grounded and how big it's getting, I had someone on the private group the other day, they gave a testimony about how, they feel that they didn't have a church and they felt that grounded was like their church. And we do have, we have a ministry on their unveiled silhouettes or it's coach Kimmy J. She actually kind of brings a weekly message for us.

So it kind of is, we have someone that brings the weekly message. We have another lady, Anna Woods, who's our grief specialist, and we're coming into the holidays right now. So Anna educates us weekly about grief. You know, we have a gospel artist.

Her name's Moji. She comes out. Every Monday and do a little worship type of service where she sings and give a weekly message and things. And so there's all of these different ministries that come out and be into grounded week after week.

So it kind of is kind of like a church church that wasn't planned to be a church. No, it was like, bring your friend, everybody come. It's just, it's just amazing. All walks of life, all races, all just from everywhere.

Just amazing. Okay. So how do people find it? We will also have this in the show notes, but right here, how do people find it?

We're at grounded Jeremiah 29, 11 on Facebook and Instagram. And you can also go to our website, which is grounded Jeremiah, 29, 11. com. Perfect.

Okay. And last little nugget of wisdom you want to share with our audience today? The last nugget of wisdom is I would say, just have faith and believe in yourself that you are capable of more than you think. A hundred percent.

She said it, guys. We've just talked about her story. I love your story. I love everything that you're doing and how many people you are touching.

And so thank you for spending your time with us and guys, you can do whatever it is that your heart desires. You just have to move through that fear. I've said it before. I'm going to say it again.

The cave you fear holds the treasure you seek. You have to go in, you have to go into that cave and see what happens because guess what? Fear is just an emotion. You're actually not going to die from it.

And neither is your family. Like you'll be fine. So with that, we are wrapping up. We will see you guys next week.

Thank you for tuning in. And thank you so much, Dr. A for being on with us. It was an honor.

Thank you. I'll see you guys. Bye. Hey, if you enjoyed listening to this podcast, then you've got to come check out my signature program at Thrive Camp.

This is where we do real coaching and inner work transformation. I teach you how to do it. Apply the strategies and mindset tools we talk about here on the podcast so you can unlock your true potential and create the life you love. For more info, go to amysanders.

co forward slash thrive dash camp. Again, that's amysanders. co forward slash thrive dash camp. Let's get to work and thrive together.