Empowering Women in Business – Marta Spirk on Mindset, Balance, and Growth

Are your gifts, what have you always been drawn to? It's really starts with that self-awareness because that's what's going to carry you through when that client asks for a refund or you get rejected immediately, what do you do in those hard times or you don't have a spouse or family, it's really that mindset piece. Welcome back to super entrepreneurs podcast, the show where we dive into the minds of high-performing entrepreneurs, innovators, and world-class leaders. If you're someone who's always looking to grow, push limits, think and do bigger, this is where you want to be. Today we have with us Martha Spirk. Martha was born and raised in Brazil. She is also the host of empowered women podcast, woman podcast, TEDx speaker, a speaking coach, a professional singer, and the author of the empowered woman, the ultimate roadmap to business success, Martha, it's a pleasure to have you here. And now thank you for coming on our show. Yeah, my pleasure. You came at a very young age, I believe around 14, that multiculturalism, does that help you in business? So I didn't come when I was 14. I started teaching English in Brazil when I was 14. So I'm dreaming of it already, but I didn't come until actually 23. That's when I got married, husband and I moved, but yeah, always passionate about the language and the culture for sure. So how does that empower you to help women, especially we're having that diverse background? Yeah. I think I always say that if I had, I stayed in Brazil, I probably wouldn't be doing what I am doing right now or even accomplish what I have done. It took me stepping out of my comfort zone and what I had down there, the connections, the community with my family and kind of starting from scratch to be doing what I'm doing. And for many people, they already have the connections and they're not taking advantage of that. So I think my story of saying, Hey, I'm not even from here. English is not even my first language. And I'm doing this. You can do it too. Yeah, exactly. When you put yourself out there, in reality, that's what you're doing. You're just telling them that, Hey, listen, I'm doing it. There's no difference. You can do it as well. It just needs that mindset. It just needs that inspiration to actually take action and not hold yourself back. So that's why it's so exciting to have you on the show and for you to even go on other shows to spread this message because more and more people will see you, even the ones that are holding back, obviously they're going to want to go ahead and do something with this vision they may hold. You're a mom triplets and, and you're entrepreneur and you're helping other people get what they want. That's a big task. Is there anything challenging that happens with that type of dynamics, running a business and having that responsibility? Has that provided any kind of challenges that you face maybe on a regular basis that you actually found a way to overcome? Oh yeah, absolutely. With being a parent, being a mom, it comes, the challenges come because it's finding a way to use your time and to set boundaries of when you're going to be working, when you're going to be dedicating to family. And I think for me with having triplets, it's a triple challenge because of them being the same age. There's lots of things that come along with that. Now they're older, they're nine. So the challenges evolve and they change, but they are still there. I think in the beginning, a lot of it was while they were at home was finding the time, I actually started my business when they were nine months old. And that was one of the challenges too, was conveying to them the importance for me of starting something new that was seemingly unrelated to my former career in languages and what I had been doing before, but I really helped them to mentor, to encourage, to empower exactly what you had said, helping people achieve what they want. I think that's the main line message for me is I've always thought of myself as the person that thinks why not me and instill that in people so that they will pursue their gifts and their dreams. Then I feel like I've done my job in a pretty good job. But I think the biggest challenge is the time, time management, again, setting the boundaries of, I don't, and that's the biggest challenge with being an entrepreneur is that you can work all the time if you so choose to. And it's in your mind and it's what's the next content I'm going to create or who's the next person I'm going to network with and then learning to operate from a space of abundance and not the FOMO of, I need to be at all the events. I need to talk to all of the people and being like, no, I will talk to these people and that is enough, trust that you're doing enough and that you will get the results out of that, but also being strategic, we can't just hope, wish, and pray, we got to take action. So it's finding that balance. And that's what I've been working on throughout the last almost eight years of having this coaching business is where should I focus my attention and my time to get the most results? And this is the ongoing work process, I think. Yeah. And I want to just start by saying that being a mother is probably one of the most sacred and important roles anyone could do, but the entrepreneurship is something as the kids get older, it's great to start doing as a, even as a side hustle in the beginning and turn it into something because kids do grow up and that's those skills that you gain, the patience that you gain, bringing, developing children and that relationship, that skill is very important. I feel, especially in coaching. And I think that's why female coaches are much better in my book. I just, I just from experience and what I've looked in is that, I don't know. I just find that there's that motherly touch to it when you're coaching and it makes a difference in that communication with your students or your clients that allows them to open up more, more easily. Yeah, definitely. I think the skills definitely are transferable and they do overlap. I always say, if you really want to know what you're made of, get married, have kids, start a business. You're getting several years, hold up, held up in front of you, showing you your weaknesses, the things you get to work on. Yeah. And FOMO is a real thing. It's an issue. I used to suffer with it a lot when I was possessed by my ego and I was like, Oh, I have to, I have to go to the right. I'm going to miss out. I got to do this. And I was just hustling. I was just going everything, network, this and that. And I was 14, 16 hours a day and I was working. But then finally, when everything fell apart and that's when I realized that, wait a minute, I was doing all that. And nothing really happened. I was destroying my health. I was destroying my mood, the relationships, what's going on. So that shift from outside to inside changed everything because when you create that calmness, then now you look at the world completely different, you start feeling like, Oh, I'm not going to miss out. If I miss this, it's going to be more. If you zoom out on your life as the whole, everything is happening for you at the end of the day, in the grand scheme of things. Yeah. A hundred percent. Yeah. So, so the empowered woman, can you share any specific strategy entrepreneurs, especially women entrepreneurs could potentially utilize starting today? Yeah. So when I share in my book actually goes hand in hand with what you were just saying, it's that inner. Process. Many people are like, give me the tools, give me the steps and I'll go, I'll start calling and I'll start posting and I'll, you gotta do those things. Don't get me wrong. Yes. But what energy? But yeah. With what energy many times we may not even have the motivation or the strength to carry through activities for not working on the way we see ourselves and ourself and it starts with that self-awareness and that's what I start with in the book. I say, that's the foundation for business building and many people may not get your email list. Yeah. Sure. But before, you know, are your gifts, what have you always been drawn to? It's really starts with that self-awareness because that's, what's going to carry you through when that client asks for a refund or you get What do you do in those hard times? Or you don't have a spouse or family. It's really that mindset piece and it starts with self-awareness. I also talk about self-empowerment, meaning paying attention to the things that have gone well. We usually tend to focus on all the negative comments, right? The things that didn't work and how awful of a person you are. Instead, what has gone well, what did you accomplish? And sometimes not even business related. Maybe it's something that you accomplished in your family or in your education, reminding yourself of positive things is very key and will encourage you to then forward and think, well, where do I want to go then? What do I want to do? But from a place of just what you were saying, the energy of, I know who I am. I know I can do hard things. So now I will set out and move forward. Yeah. There's such great information there that a lot of people miss out, especially get it wrong about mindset because so many people out there speaking about mindset and even people that haven't gone through any transformation, they're also speaking about it. And I was one of them, right? Back in 2018, I was posting positive quotes and I was posting all this stuff. And I was like, yeah, I'm positive, dude. I have a great mindset. Well, it was a mess internally, especially in the subconscious level. That's if you don't make the subconscious conscious, then you don't know what's happening. It's all automatic. You don't realize until you become self-aware and you start noticing these things. Holy, that's what I'm doing. Especially when you elevate your internal world, you start noticing it. When you become more self-aware, you start noticing all these things in you. Initially you ignore it. You just tough, right? Being self-aware or finding out these things, it's not easy. But when you start doing it with playing with it and you start discovering these things and you start seeing connecting the dots, how they're holding you back and you start understanding how you can replace them. There's because there's, it's like a code. You can just replace the code. It's not that simple, obviously, but you still need to work on it, but that's the process and you change it. And all of a sudden there's a new world. The perception changes about that thing. So what you're seeing here is crucial for entrepreneurs to understand that what we're talking about. When we talk about mindset, it's not just positive thinking. It is, I'm sorry. It's so much more deeper and it never ends. It never ends. I thought every time I would go through a transformation is, Oh yes, I made it. And then I would keep working on a daily basis because that's my focus. And then you go a little bit further and then you realize, Oh my God, again, this is it then, but it is infinite. Once you go through a few transformations, it's infinite. And that's a part of the shift too, is accepting that it's embracing. I'm never going to arrive. That's why I'm alive. I get to keep going and find these other things about myself and decide if they're serving me or if they're not serving me and like you said, replacing them with something else. Yeah. Martha, am I pronouncing her name correctly? Martha? Martha. Yeah. If you were to say it. Martha. Did I say it right? Martha. Martha, like Martha self-love you speak about. And that's so special to me. Excuse me. Sorry. So self-love is very important to me. And when I started getting into that expression of having that relationship with self, and that only happens when you start looking, becoming self-aware. When you start developing that love, it's automatically shifts to start seeing that love in everything else and everyone else, except obviously if there's somebody that you're dealing with that's very difficult, you get derailed, it's obvious. Other people can have an effect on you, but overall it amplifies in time. If you zoom out and you just look, you start feeling that love and that love starts coming out in other people. And I'm part of some communities, some very vibrant community, engaged communities, but you'll notice that there's this tension with others. And this tension I feel comes from the fact of not having that self, enough self-love, because you have enough self-love, it creates empathy and understanding for a lot other people. So can you share some practical exercise, exercises or habits that entrepreneurs, business owners can incorporate immediately when watching this episode? Yeah, just piggybacking on what you said about you find this tension. And I think this tension is actually a result of resentment because we're wanting to receive that love from people, like demanding, like I'm entitled to this. Why aren't you recognizing me? And the reason that is because you don't, you're not giving it to yourself. So it's never going to be enough because it starts with you. Once you start seeing yourself magically, almost people are giving it to you, but it's because it doesn't matter now. It's bonus because you're already giving it to yourself. So I think it really starts with that self-awareness. You can't really love somebody that you don't know with the exception of babies or puppies. We love them right away. But anybody that you get to know more, you get to like them more. I think we've all experienced this. There was a colleague or similar guys at first. You're like, Ooh, I don't think so. I'm not drawn to you. And then you get to know them. You start liking them and liking their quirks. And even to start thinking that they're more physically appealing than they were in the beginning, because you start really falling in love with that person. Guess what? It changes. This can happen with you. So in that time, slow down, like what you were saying to slow down and think, Hey. Who am I? What are the things that light me up? Why am I this way? How is this different from somebody else in my life? Or how is it similar from somebody else in my life? I think that's one of the practices again, is I'm a total geek for assessments and evaluation. So I've done all of them, like the Enneagram disc, all of these Myers-Briggs. I think they can really give you some good insight into who you are and that it's a good thing that you're this way, right? When I first started my business, I was like, I am triplets. Why am I doing this? Cause I have people in my life asking me this as well. And then I second guessing and questioning myself. Why do I have this drive and this need turns out this is built in my personality. I am wired this way and some people are wired differently and that's why we compliment each other. We need this variety. So it starts there. And like I said, the other step really is brag to yourself. It's, it may be hard to brag to others and say, celebrate with me. This is what I accomplished, which I think it's a good practice, especially for entrepreneurs that builds, but I do that right. Why not celebrate with me? I don't concentrate on what their feedback is going to be or what they're going to say or what they care. Like I used to, I wouldn't share these guys to be able to say, what are they going to think? Well, what if they don't celebrate me? What if they don't like me? They probably don't like me. They're not going to like this. That kind of stuff. It was draining, man. Yeah. The whole inner chatter. Working on that really helps so that you don't care what people think and you move forward. But then it's thinking about the things that did go right. Again, I'm going to say it's part of the way we're built to for us to help us protect ourselves and grow. But now that we're evolved humans and there are no lions chasing us around, we get to focus on the positive things. What did I do today that I'm really proud of? What did I do last year? That I'm really proud of. In fact, that's a great exercise that I do every end of year. Some people look at your finances short, but then look at what did I do this month or the last 12 months? That was awesome. Oh, I met with tech before I went on that vacation. Fill yourself up with positive things and especially that self-pride. Yeah, no, it was great. I like the fact that the way that you start feeling about each moment shifts from being a means to an end for me the next moment, okay, what do I have to do? Where do I have to go? Who do I have to talk to? Who do I have to call? Instead of that, when we start feeling that love, just love in general. If you just have love in general, in your heart, just having that feeling of love, you vibrate with love. And I know if the 2017 Shahid heard me say this, you'd probably slap me, but yeah, but this is a new me, it's something very powerful that words can't explain. When you have love in your heart, it just puts the jazz in your step and how you were talking about, that's how we were built. One of the major things that I discovered in my transformations is that I feel that is not a hundred percent accurate. Why? Because you could change it because it's a subconscious programming. So if you don't have love, you can insert love. If you get FOMO, you can just shift it. You could turn it around. If you're not calling enough people in a day, you can turn that around. You can make it very effortless, effortless action. But just like a computer, less like a software, if you don't like something, you can replace it to a process. And that, that realization, when you do one or two of those, that's when you realize, Oh my God, I'm freaking powerful, man. I can do things with my life. Yeah. It can be like a switch and it's an understanding that you have that power to change it. Yeah, you are. And you're, can you mentor me quickly on, on speaking? You heard me speak so far. You're the voice in your head must have been criticizing here and there. I would love to hear some feedback or any kind of pointers to help me or help anybody else in the audience to speak better when they're doing videos, when you're promoting their business. Is there anything that you could recommend for me to improve? I think you have great energy. That's very important because nobody wants to watch or listen to somebody boring. So I appreciate your animation, but also the tone of your voice. And in terms of being a guest and you being a host, being interactive, asking questions, following up on what people are saying, I think you're doing a great job. So thanks for that. Oh, thank you so much, Martha. Yeah. Right. Good. I got it right. That's awesome. When you go for a TEDx talk, you could do all this work, but when this moment happens, when you're about to go on stage, for example, to speak, how do you mentally prepare yourself? How do you energize yourself to make sure that you present well, or do you focus on that at all? You just focus on your energy and you just go and you just be who Martha is or some kind of mental prep, some other kind of rituals before you go on the stage. Can you share? Yeah, of course. And the same applies to when I'm about to step on stage to perform. Breath is really important. So your adrenaline is going to be super high. Your heart's going to be beating super fast. And breath is one of the best tools to get set. I love it. Work with your heart beats and all of that. In terms of the content, refreshing the content, depending on how much time you have, and I love doing some self-coaching again with I've done this before. Maybe not exactly, maybe not this exact scenario, but I've done hard things before, especially when I'm about to perform. I tell myself I'm an artist. I am forced to do this. Affirmation. So auto-suggestion. Exactly. So telling yourself those things really helps as well. And just remember to have fun because fear and accept are pretty much the same thing. Just use the positive spin on it instead. Yeah, no, that's great. Great advice. So before we end this, can you do your breathing ritual and sing us something? Oh my gosh. Yes, definitely. Let's go. So we're going to watch you do the actual breathing. You're going to mentor us on the breathing. And then you're going to just sing us a little bit of something live. Sounds good. There are different types of breathing techniques, but I think what doesn't fail is just taking a big, deep breath and taking your time, both in the inhale and the exhale and breathing through your belly. That's very important. Not just the chest. You can actually get a lot more air in if you fill your belly first and then move up to the chest. And that's good for singing too, because you're supposed to be using your diaphragm. So let's do it. One more. Doing it with you. But I'm not going to sing. I'm going to mute myself. All right. What should I sing? One of my originals that's available everywhere. Spotify, Apple music is called you are enough. And that's a great affirmation. That's just the beginning. Great. Amazing. Thank you so much for that. I know I put you on a spot, but you're a mindset enthusiast. So, you know, how important out of our comfort zone is. So we're just practicing that, but it was great. Thank you so much for sharing that. Thank you. Thank you for putting me on the spot. I always say, ask me to sing, ask me to speak. I won't say no. Yeah. I just like to put myself in the fire and just figure things out. Just be resourceful. It was great that you even shared your voice, beautiful voice. Even the content is good. The whole song, we recommend everyone to check it out. Martha already mentioned this on Spotify. So it's easy access. I just want to say thank you, Martha, for coming on our show, sharing your voice and empowering women out there. And helping them get out of their comfort zone. So I do from my heart, wish you all the best.