How To Become More Confident & Fear Less
When I was little girl I had no idea that my mom and dad were on a mission to make me as confident and fearless as possible.
This sounds like an awesome thing, but over the past couple years, some of the mindsets from my childhood have been called out by a few of my very wise clients. With their help I have been digging into and shifting these mindsets so I can love myself more… unconditionally.
My mom and dad divorced when I was seven, and I think that’s when my mom really began to push me to be and do more. In my seventh year of life, a lot changed for me. We went from living with my dad, which I thought was awesome, to living with my mom’s boyfriend. I could not understand why the heck she made that switch.
I was often angry with my mom for uprooting what I thought was a great life, yet I also felt like I was her only friend so I had to be there for her. I definitely felt a bit sorry for her (her childhood was NUTS - so many sad situations) but mostly I was honored that an adult would see me, a 10, 11 or 12 year old, as mature enough for conversations about adult things. I guess it wasn’t a bad thing that she shared adult things with me, which I’m sure wasn’t even half of what was going on, because I turned out to be a pretty awesome human! Being the oldest child and having a step dad who drank and swore and lied a lot, I was bound to have more adult conversations with my mom about what was going on than my little brother or sister.
My mom was with my step dad for 7 years, so he got to spend more time with me than my own dad. But I am happy to say that I have many fond memories of both my dad AND my step dad. They both taught me things and gave me experiences that made me more confident.
I was lucky to grow up in Dawson Creek BC with outdoorsy parents. Before they divorced we lived in the country and had our own private skating rink in the winter: a dugout. I don’t remember much about the 2 years we lived on that acreage, but that’s where I learned to skate. Then I was in speed skating lessons. I still can do cross overs waaaay better to the left than the right from all that skating in circles! Although the speed skating lessons stopped after one winter, I continued skating.
I remember one time we were skating at an outdoor rink in Dawson Creek with my step dad and his two boys. I was bewildered when I saw my step dad skating. I didn’t have my skates on yet and my step dad skated over and asked why. I don’t remember what I said to him, but I’ll always remember his angry look after I said it, then he skated away in a huff. It was something about how shocked I was that he could skate and how weird it was to be skating NOT with my dad, therefore I would not be skating.
Every fall, dad would load us up in the car and take us to a local school gym for the winter sports swap n’ shop. People brought their used skis and skates and winter coats and traded or sold them. It was a huge garage sale where you could buy or trade, which was my dad’s favorite thing in the world. Garage sale-ing was a staple of my childhood summer weekends with dad.
One of the many perks of being the oldest is you get new gear every year and your younger siblings get your old stuff! Even though it wasn’t brand new, I would get so excited about having new-to-me skates and skis.
Dad put us in ski lessons, and then we were off, leaving the bunny hill behind. Weekends with dad were full of activities and adventures, which was smart because the busier we were the less we fought and the more we slept!
One night when I was 7, my dad and his best friend showed up at the townhouse we had just moved to with my mom and step dad. My grandma was there too. All of a sudden my dad was inside our mudroom with my step dad and they were yelling. There was a separate door between the mudroom and the living room. My dad closed that door so he was in the tiny mudroom with my step dad. Then the thumping and banging and swearing started. My grandma herded us upstairs where the noises continued below our feet. It was all over within less than a minute I’m sure, but my 7 year old brain thought about it over and over until the memory eventually seemed like many minutes long.
My mom ran out the back door and around to the front of the townhouse where she planned to open the door to save her little boyfriend from being beat on by my much larger dad, but his friend was there to stop her. Seconds later, my dad and his friend left. My step dad’s face was bloody, and so was the mudroom.
I was not scared at all. I was excited and thrilled. It was like I was watching an old western movie in my mudroom, except there were no pistols or horses. Somehow I knew my step dad deserved it.
My sister, dad and me on Vancouver Island after he moved there when I was 13.
The next time I saw my dad I asked dad why he did that to my step dad. He simply said, “Just letting him know what happens if he ever lays a hand on any of my kids.”
In the summer dad packed up the car and we drove FOREVER to his family’s cabin in Saskatchewan. That’s where we learned to water ski - another skill I’m so glad I have today!!
We also picked a lot of leeches off ourselves at the lake. We were always in the water, so every hour there was a mandatory leech check. Some of the leeches had to be removed by dad pouring salt on them to get them to let go!
As you can see, both my mom and dad raised me to be confident and brave to try new things. My dad empowered me by making sure I knew how to ski and skate, and I haven’t even told you about swimming yet! And my mom shared her love of music with me and encouraged me to sing and perform.
My mom was always singing. We had a piano in the house and when the mood would strike her (about once a week) she would sit down to play and sing. She could play piano by ear and taught herself how to play her favourite songs. She did and still does have a beautiful voice.
When I was 8 I started piano lessons. My mom paid for me to continue taking piano lessons all the way until I graduated high school, and it was not fun at times. Often I went to my lessons without practicing since my last lesson. After four or five years with that teacher, who was probably in her seventies, I switched to a new teacher. She was more fun and about my mom’s age. She helped me learn songs that I liked so I could play and sing at church and in talent shows. I also loved singing. I tried out for a solo in my grade three Christmas concert, and I was selected. By the way, when I said I “tried out for a solo”, what happened was all of us who wanted to sing the solo stood in a group and the two teachers picked the loudest singer who was also on key.
From that day I was unstoppable as a singer. I sang in talent shows and in the school choir until middle school when there was no longer a class that involved singing (I had no interest in band class) which was when my choir teacher from elementary school started a mother daughter choir. I remember feeling some butterflies before singing in front of a room full of people when I was in elementary school, but by the time I was in grade seven, it felt natural and easy. Singing and choir was probably my biggest confidence booster and I am still enjoying the effects of those experiences today.
In Dawson Creek, elementary school went until grade six, then middle school grades 7-9, then high school. Near the end of grade seven there was an announcement one morning inviting people to perform at the year end ceremony. They mentioned singing or any musical performances. I was in. I talked three or four of my friends into singing a song I had performed at a talent show earlier that year; The Rose. It’s super easy to sing and play, but now, after many years of singing karaoke and sitting through too many people singing slow, boring karaoke songs, I cringe at the thought of us singing this song in front of a room full of grade sevens. What’s worse: a group of super talented boys who had an actual band played an upbeat, rockin’ Green Day song right before us. I wasn’t very good at reading the room back then, which helped because I don’t remember feeling awkward at all. I just hopped up there and got my girls circled around the one microphone and I put the other one by my face where I was seated at the piano and started playing. As we sang the first line, I glanced over at one of the girls and noticed in horror she wasn’t singing!! She had her head down and had taken half a step back. I wanted to give her “the look” but she was not making eye contact. Thankfully the others hung in there, we got through it, and our teachers said lots of nice things to us afterwards which made us really glad we didn’t chicken out. The girl who didn’t sing was so nervous she literally couldn’t get it together. She said she was afraid she would cry, she was so nervous. She had been my friend and fellow choir enthusiast since we were in grade four. She was in a Rotary choir with me, and we had performed this exact song at a talent show together a few months before, just the two of us.
A few years later, I experienced whatever it was that happened to her while the rest of us were singing The Rose. I started to care waaaay too much about what others thought of me. And as we all know now as adults, it’s all stuff our mind makes up. We can never know what anyone is thinking about us, and we often assume people are thinking about us when they are thinking about what they are going to have for dinner, or how devastated they will be when their cat dies. My singing and musical performances were subbed out for basketball and cheering for our high school boys basketball and hockey players. I was still a confident person, and my abilities to round up the troops and to get people to follow my lead were still there, but I used them in different ways.
My mom and step dad bought a gas station (Turbo!!) after they were together for a couple years. I begged and begged to work there and finally when I was 12, I was allowed to work with my mom or step dad. It started with pumping gas only, then they showed me how to work the cash register. Back then we used those carbon copy swipe machines for credit cards, which was easy. Debit cards weren’t a thing until I was in grade 10 or 11. I quickly gained confidence through working hard and taking initiative. I was definitely the laziest person in the world at home, actually I was a total slob, but at work I was always working. After years of hearing all my mom’s complaints about lazy and stupid employees, I was NOT going to be one. I always wanted my mom to be proud of me, and I especially loved when she praised me in front of customers. She taught me how to never look at the numbers on the till when making change so I could get really good at the only math that matters: money math. She also taught me a little money making tip: when the gas pump clicks off, try to round it to the nearest 50 cents and 7/10 times, they let you keep the 50 cents rather than bringing it back out to them.
I loved trucks. One of my favourite parts of working at the gas station was seeing and touching some really sexy 4x4 trucks. Not to mention the cute boys who drove some of them! I loved the confident feeling I got when offering to check the oil. Back then tons of men would say yes, then pop the hood, hop out and basically babysit me while I do it, or do it themselves and mansplain something about their truck’s engine to me as they did it. I didn’t care. I had offered, and I usually reminded them it was my job to do it, so be it.
When I turned 16 it took me three tries to get my licence, which was especially annoying because I had already bought a 1985 Dodge 4x4 truck. I got a crazy good deal on it. It was an awesome truck that had been owned by an old man who drove it around town once or twice a week. Around the same time I decided there should be a girls-only auto mechanics class. The idea came after I mentioned to some of the boys I worked with at the gas station that I was going to enrol in auto mechanics class and they said I shouldn’t. They said the boys would all be mean to me and I would hate it. They also said I would be the only girl and most of the work required a team and none of the boys would want me on their team. My social studies teacher was also the auto mechanics teacher. We had a chat.
A few weeks later we had the twelve girls we needed to make it a go: a girls-only auto mechanics class. We learned so much in that class. Most of us already had vehicles so we saved money by fixing our vehicles on our own in a fully equipped shop. I got to change the U-joints in my Dodge truck and change the oil, and I think some spark plugs. It was awesome.
How did I have the lady balls to canvas our school for girls who wanted to be in a girls-only mechanics class? Because my mom and dad had made sure I tried new things when I was younger and they praised the heck out of me when I hung in there and got the hang of it. Also because I loved trucks and thought I might want to be a mechanic, so I selfishly wanted my auto mechanics class experience to be a good one!
About a year later, I saw her. Shiny silver with 35 inch rubber. Short box Chevy. She was parked on the used car lot which was owned by one of my parents’ friends. I called him up. The asking price was $10,000. I offered $8000. (Thank you dad for all those garage sale wheeling and dealing skills.) He said no. We hung up. About a week later, he called me back and said he would take $8500. She was mine!!
I put my Dodge 4x4 up for sale and a friend bought it for more than I paid. I took out my first ever bank loan for the rest with my mom as co-signer. There I was, 17 and driving my dream truck. One of my best friends had recently bought her dream truck too, a 1989 Ford short box - an absolutely stunning truck, if you like Fords. At lunch time we would alternate who drove to get lunch. There were always 4 or 5 of us on either bench seat. (If the seat belt is around 2 of us, are we breaking the law?
There were five of us in my inner circle. There was definitely some drama at times: back-stabbing and lying, dating each other's exes, saying we were busy and then getting busted by the friend we ditched whose mom saw us driving around with some boys. The thing we had in common was we love to party!! In Dawson Creek, it was all about the bush parties. There were house parties too, but none of us girls were allowed to have them at our houses, so instead of waiting to get invited to a party, we made our own. In the bush.
We would drive around on Friday after school looking for pallets. We would load them into the boxes of our trucks and then stop by the gas station I worked at to let whoever was working know: Radar Love. There was a hill outside of town called Bear Mountain. At the top of the hill was Radar Lake. All around the lake there were various bush party spots. One time we were really organized and we made flyers that said Radar Love. We literally wrote Radar Love with a sharpie on many pieces of paper which we stole from the school office then put them under all the windshield wipers in the school parking lot. I can’t remember if anyone actually showed up to our party that night, but many times we saved the day when the bush party ran out of pallets and we walked over to our trucks to grab more.
After graduation I immediately moved to Vancouver because my dad said I should. He wanted me to get away from the “northern mentality”, as he called it. Thank God I listened to him. I love the north and my roots, but it wasn’t where I was meant to live my life. I am grateful for my “redneck roots”, but I felt a pull to be somewhere else and do things people in my hometown didn’t do.
Fast forward to five years ago when I started YYC Fempreneurs, and then to today, I can feel how proud 10 year old Lyndsie is.
Recently I have become aware of some mindsets that have got me this far which I no longer need. I have been working on releasing them and retraining my brain away from the go-go-go and you have to earn people’s love mentalities. These beliefs have served me well and pushed me to do things I needed to do to create the amazing, abundant life I have now. I am grateful for the way my parents raised me, and I do not believe that the message I was supposed to get was that I would receive 10x more love by performing, but that’s what I perceived.
One thing that will never change: I’m a bit of a show off. Ok, I’m a HUGE show off. I love singing karaoke and blowing my clients' minds with a tip or trick or hilarious story. I will always love performing for people and being in the spotlight to make people laugh or to share knowledge that can help them live a better life. The difference between now and 2, 3, 4, and five years ago is:
I love myself unconditionally and I have made changes to give myself the love I need and deserve.
I still have a ways to go, but who doesn’t?
Soon I’ll share with you some of the changes I’ve made and how they are enabling me to feel more nurtured, energized, at peace, and therefore of better service to my clients and all of you reading this.
What belief can you let go of, or dig into and seek to understand why you believe it?
Feel free to send me a message if you’d like to have a confidential conversation about it. I’m happy to lend an ear.
Please do not think that I am taking my foot off the gas pedal, or winding down in any way. The changes you will see in what I offer Fempreneurs will be energetic. As always, you will still see me creating new courses and events. I’ll continue sharing what other Fempreneurs in this community are creating and you will still see a new podcast episode drop every week. The difference is in my soul, in my heart, and in the way I feel about WHY I’m doing the work I love to do that comes so naturally to me.
Here’s one example of something I am doing regularly going forward to love and nurture myself: massage. I have one scheduled for next week - my first massage in four years!! I love massages. Why wasn’t I getting them? Because I didn’t feel like I needed them. Why do I feel like I need them now? Because I want more luxury and me time in my life. I know I deserve it. I love how it feels to take care of me. 10 year old Lyndsie is glad I finally figured this out.
How can you become more confident & fearless? Do these two things:
Try something new. Try to develop a new skill or say yes to an adventure.
Surround yourself with people who say YES, DO IT! And even better, surround yourself with people who are bravely taking risks too.
Meet the author Lyndsie Barrie
Lyndsie has been an instrumental part of turning mere ideas into viable businesses for many women entrepreneurs. In 2019 Lyndsie launched a marketing school and community called YYC Fempreneurs. She has gone to the next level with publishing six books educating women.
Lyndsie tirelessly shares her passion for social media marketing and promotes collaboration with like-minded women through online workshops and live events in the Calgary area. Hundreds of women have found the direction, confidence and connections they need to succeed thanks to Lyndsie and her community of Fempreneurs.
Most consider her to be a Business Coach, but she calls herself a Fempreneur Mentor.
Lyndsie’s me time happens swimming in a creek with her dog, next to a campfire sipping a cold beer, hiking or mountain biking. She loves watching her son play football and hockey. On most afternoons she can be found taking a 20 minute nap.
Learn more and connect with Lyndsie:
Website: YYCFempreneurs.com
Instagram: @yycfempreneurs
LinkedIn: YYC Fempreneurs
YouTube: Lyndsie Barrie
Facebook: YYC Fempreneurs
Note: The author, compiler and publisher do not assume and hereby disclaim any liability to any party due to these words coming from the author’s own opinion based on their experiences. This account is based on the author’s own personal experience. We assume no responsibility for errors or omissions in these articles.
