Brilliance is an expression of a person becoming personally and professionally free from fear, failure, and frustration. Founder of The Walls Speak, Robbie Walls, joins Juliet Clark in this episode to explain why she believes that women must go for more and release their brilliance. She talks about the point she realized that what she is doing is out of alignment with who she wanted to become, later on inspiring women to pursue what it is they want. Don’t skip this conversation to gain some insights that will inspire you to embrace fear and activate courage.

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Empowering Women To Release Their Inner Brilliance From Fear, Failure, And Frustration With Robbie Walls

We have another extraordinary guest who’s going to tell us a good story about how she got from where she was to where she is now. Before we go there, I want to remind you to go over and take the Promote, Profit, Publish Quiz. You can find it at www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com. Also, go over and check out our YouTube channel at Superbrand Publishing, and subscribe. Our guest is Robbie Walls and she is the founder of The Walls Speak. She’s the author of 180* Momentum and the coauthor in The Power Of The Platform. She’s a success coach, a speaker, a teacher, and empowers women to embrace fear and activate courage.

She teaches women to stretch and go for more and draw out their talent to release their inner brilliance. I feel like we all need that now. This brilliance is an expression of who they are becoming personally and professionally. If you haven’t figured it out yet as a woman, it’s all interconnected because we have to try to achieve this thing called balance, which doesn’t exist. She spent fifteen years teaching school and while writing on the chalkboard one day, Robbie stopped mid-sentence, turned to her classroom, and said, “I’m done,” just like a mom does pretty much every day to her kids. She suddenly realized that what she was doing was out of alignment with who she wanted to become. Welcome, Robbie. It’s great to have you.

Thank you so much. I am excited to be here.

What grade did you teach?

Fourth grade.

It’s not like the terrible ones yet. I always point out to my friends that pretty much every middle school teacher we know has a drinking problem.

Middle school is a totally different beast. You have to be called. I taught it and I said, “Not for me.”

When you say called, do you mean you have to suffer from low self-esteem to be able to take on a challenge like that? You cannot possibly love yourself and be a middle school teacher. The teachers are great.

Teachers are great but the middle school, those are special teachers. I am 100% serious when I say they have to be called because those kids are finding themselves and they are on a different brainwave and it’s okay, but they are totally different.

When we have middle-school children, we thrive on sending them to school because we don’t understand them either. It’s such a miserable age for kids. That’s why it’s so bad for teachers. Congratulations. At least the fourth graders are still like they’re into their parents. They’re not rebelling yet. They do what they’re told.

They do what they’re told, however, they are tricky little keisters too. That whole story about me saying, “I’m done,” that is a true story and true talk. Emily and Hayden were fighting. My back was turned. I’m on the chalkboard, we were doing Math, and it was raining outside. Emily does not like rain. She gets scared. Hayden started to tease her and in the midst of this teasing, he pulled her hair and they started going at it. I turned around and said, “I am done.” Emily turned around and she said, “I’m done too.” I will not ever forget that. She said, “I’m ready to go home.” She had a meltdown. I was done. The class was an uproar. It was the time that I knew that I had to shift. I will not ever forget Emily and Hayden at that moment.

You have a compelling story about why you were shifting. You ended up a widow pretty young. Can you tell us about that?

My husband was in the military and very healthy. He served in the Gulf War twice and he was a Scud-buster. He was one of the big dogs over there in Iraq. I had three small children and he decided to get out of the army. When he got out of the army, that first year, getting acclimated to the civil world and we were in Connecticut. We had been traveling and moving a lot, but at this particular time, we had moved from Connecticut to Kentucky. He worked for General Electric as one of their general managers of New York, Connecticut and he had that region. Within that region, we found out that he had started getting sick and we didn’t know what was going on.

Inner Brilliance: To be resilient, we don’t have to know what is ahead of us. We just have to walk in it, and whatever it is, for now, you have to adapt.

They were treating him for allergies and giving them allergy medicine. One day he called me. He was in the emergency room and had this huge tumor on his chest. He lived for six months and within that time span, leaving me with three small children. I was only 32 years old when he did pass away. It was quite devastating. I had three small little munchkins with me at the age of 32. I had lived this whole military life, military wife, and it was quite devastating. At that time, I knew I had to pivot quickly and start doing things differently from being that military wife or from being the wife that always was there for him and he was a provider. I was teaching, but not with the three small kids. That’s how that whole story happened. I found myself through the pain, but through that pain, I also grew up. You’re 32, you’ve been around, but you haven’t been around until you go through something like this at such a young age.

That was a pivotal moment for you and you own some teaching centers now, but you have this coaching gig as well. Tell us about how that all happened.

I went back to school and got my Master’s degree in Communications and wanted to expand it some more. I went to coaching school, got a coaching certificate, and began to talk to women about owning their power within. That’s what I found within myself is the power, the power that I have to release out to the world my voice, and to have the courage to do that. Within that courage, I began researching courage, researching how to build programs, how to build systems. My first business was an alpaca business. I love animals. That was pretty successful.

When 2008 came around and the economy went down, that went down as well. I started another business. I started the travel business, and then I had my coaching business. I did both of those and did a little bit of long-term teaching as well. That was that whole bubble there. I started to expand and started doing more. As we speak, I now own a Sylvan Learning Center. I’m still in education, still love teaching, still loved kids, but now I’m an owner and tutoring is what I love to do. That’s where I am. I’ve written a couple of books and I have a podcast too. I have the Bold Girl Biz Podcast.

I started that during the whole pandemic. I talk about resilience because I feel that my whole life has been very resilient and I have come through a lot. I want to help women because everybody has a different path. A path leads to a path, but your path is for you. Sometimes people don’t know how to connect with their path. They either resist it, suppress it, they go through all these emotional problems that they’re facing and I don’t know how to deal with it. I am that person to help you to move out, to pivot, and to keep moving forward towards your dreams, towards your goals, and towards why, because life happens for all of us.

Resilience seems to be a big buzzword too with COVID because I feel like there are the people who are going about their everyday life, they wear a mask, but they are like, “This is the flu and that’s it.” There are people who are afraid of it and it polarized us. When we talk about resilience, isn’t it about your ability to take ownership of your feelings and be responsible for where you’re going versus victimhood?

I’m going to put a word in front of that and that’s called adaptive resilience. That’s what separates me from the whole resilient thing because you do have to adapt to what is going on now. We don’t know. Everybody’s like, “This is crazy.” They don’t know what to do, but it’s personalized for everyone. To have adaptive resilience, you don’t know what’s going to happen, but you have to adapt to it. That’s what the whole world has done, is to adapt to it, and then we move towards whatever it is that we are supposed to do in the protective realm of this mask and people that have not worn a mask. Being respective and adaptive is altogether. One whole being resilient.

The mask wasn’t a very good example of it. I’ve noticed during this pandemic, there are three types of businesspeople. We’ve noticed that people that weren’t online before are struggling because this is not something you learn in a day or a week or a month. For a lot of us, it took us 2 to 3 years to perfect and start making money from it. There are those people who have thrived in this environment that already had that set-up. Some of the resilience, in that case, is having the ability to shift and not throwing up your hands and saying, “Is this is going to happen now?”

There are studies out there now where there’s so much suppression because of Zoom. Zoom fatigue is real. Zoom fatigue and all of the suppression around the news and life. To be resilient in that, we don’t have to know what is ahead of us. We have to walk in it and whatever it is for now, you have to adapt to it. There are some people who shut down. They’re in their house and don’t want to go out. Fear has gripped their whole being. I know two people that will not step out because of fear, because of this pandemic, because of family members that have passed away. It’s very real. To adapt to it, that’s something that you have to do because there’s no other way around it. It is what it is.

I don’t mean to sound callous here about not stepping out, but in 2016, my mother died from the flu and I think you have to, “That’s okay. It happens.” One of the perspectives I have on what’s going on is that there is a certain age group. They are susceptible and we have to accept that. I can’t be mad because mom got the flu. We have to be cognizant of, “Is our fear rational in these cases?” I remember back in 2008, the financial meltdown. I was in real estate back then and one of our real estate coaches quit watching the news. It was amazing the difference in our sales when I was watching the news and I was fearful, I was like, “Nobody has money.” I had all these preconceived notions because they were fear-based. I stopped it and the sales went back up. I didn’t have a belief to lock into. I feel like we’re in that place now as well. You can research.

I heard you say belief, and that’s a big thing because all the things that we’re hearing, once we believe it, it’s attached to us. That becomes that fear, and then you said, “Once I let it go, I started getting sales again.” You let that go. That is so major. That was the problem that you solved instantly. It was intuitive to you that, “I got to let this go. I can’t.”

Back then, I’m one of those people if you tell me I can’t do it, I flip you off and then say, “Watch me.” I started a business in 2010 and everybody back then, “You can’t start a business. There’s no economy.” The lesson in that though is I’ve remembered that about 2008, and I quit watching the news. I turned it off. Whoever’s going to be the president is going to be president. Whoever dies from COVID is going to die from COVID. It’s independent of me. The lesson is you not only have to break that belief but then when you start getting caught up in it, you have to catch yourself and let it go again. Would you agree with that?

That’s so good because, as you said, “Catch it and then let it go.” You’re one person and you can’t change anything. You’re doing the right thing by whatever you want to do. Wear your mask, hand sanitize, do whatever. That’s what we’re doing now to stay protected and taking the correct supplements. Whatever intuitively you feel for your body that you need is key. Nothing’s fear-based around that.

You hit on my pet peeve in all of this. In all this fear-mongering, you said supplements. I don’t hear them telling people, “Go out and walk, exercise, cut back, lose weight, get healthy, take supplements.” It’s just fear. That’s where I get that you have to take responsibility for where you’re at and do what’s necessary to keep yourself healthy but in a healthy way. When we’re talking about fear-mongering, I don’t get why they’re not telling people these things like that. “You’re high risk and you can’t ever change that.” That’s not true.

What drives the media? Fear. We have the Housewives of Atlanta. Everybody wants chaos because it drives the drama. Driving drama drives money, drives whatever. That’s where that’s coming from.

One of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills used to be a client of mine and she’s a mess. They must look for a mess when they produce a show like that. How messy are you? Do they really? What a mess.

If we take out the whole word fear, it’s loosely used, but it is so real. If we walk by the path that we know to be true to us, we don’t have to have any fear. Do what you’re supposed to do. If it happens, then deal with it at that time. Know what to do. Everybody should have a plan. I have a plan. Having fear around this, staying up all night, not sleeping, always thinking about it. Let’s just live.

Tell us about Bold Girl Biz. What are you doing with women with Bold Girl Biz?

From failure to fearless, that is my jam. What I do is interview women who have gone through failure. Would that be anyone out there?

I fail more. I have to tell you a quick story. Somebody was at our house and one of my kids came home and he was whining about something he failed at. I looked at him and said, “Get over yourself. You’re going to fail every day of your life.” When I left with my friend, she’s like, “Do you think that’s something inspirational you should’ve told your child?” I was like, “It’s the truth.”

Not only it’s it the truth, but it’s also something to wake you up. That’s what I teach. Through failure, there’s always fruit in it. I interview women entrepreneurs who have businesses, who have gone through some tough times, things that are a failure, but it’s funny in it. I am colorful. I’m funny. I want to know what’s funny and what’s fun in your failure because I know that that’s the fruit, and then we learn from that. These are all the lessons learned from all entrepreneurs about failure, about how they built their business, how they overcome it, and where they are now. It’s a powerful interview with women and all of the lessons learned that we can take as entrepreneurs and grow from that.

There are many lessons like, “Which failure do you choose?” You’re right about the fruit part because even when you’re in the midst of it, I don’t know how many times, I have stopped mid-day. I failed at something. I’ve walked out the door, gone for a walk and I’m like, “Screw it. I’m quitting. I’m going to find a job.” I sleep on it. I wake up in the morning and I go, “Not so much a job. A job not sound like anything I want.” There are those points where you get frustrated, but there comes to the word resilience again. You have to be able to pick yourself up and say, “I can do this and I can be fearless about it.”

Let’s talk about the word frustration. That whole big word frustration is a gift. I know that you won’t think about it as a gift, but I want you to shift your mind differently because frustration is a gift. When I say gift, I mean, it is there for you in your frustration, in that moment of the feeling the, “I’m sick of this. I’m giving up.” That is the lesson that you need to stop, look and see what God is telling you, what the universe is telling you because that is a failure and there is something to be said about frustration.

Inner Brilliance: Life changes, life shifts, and to recognize that is key.

I think a lot of frustration is you can’t control what’s going on. If you can acknowledge that and say, “Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen and I can let this go.” We’re doing a lot of letting go now. A lot of times, there’s somebody else involved, you can’t control. Instead of persuading people to come to your side, if you let it go, most of the time they end up coming and doing exactly what you want them to do.

That’s the walk. Once they see you doing it and they know that they need to come forward. I don’t want to say me too, but it’s intuitively destined for them to go ahead and do exactly what you’re going to want them to do. It’s inevitable.

You need to write a book about letting go of the F words. We’ve had like fearless, frustration, and failure.

That word fearless is what I want to instill in women to have that confidence, peace, peace to have courage. It’s all about who you are. When I work with my clients, I work with the who, because sometimes we can build our ladder up on the wrong building. When that happens, we’re not who we are. I know that when I was teaching back years ago when that happened to me, I had served that time. I’ve gone to school, I’ve done the teaching part. At that moment, I didn’t want it anymore. Life changes, life shifts, and to recognize that is key. We start finding out who we are and who we’re going to become. “This is the path.” A path leads to a path and everyone has a different path. I help you to find out who you are. My favorite movie of all time is The Wizard Of Oz.

I have a favorite saying from it. “You’ve always had the power, dear. You just didn’t know how to use it.”

Glinda said, “I couldn’t tell you. You had to find it out to prepare yourself.” That is my favorite too. The whole movie is what I have based my life upon. I see myself as Dorothy because all you have to do is find out who you are and that’s the power. She always had the power. All of them had the power. Here we have The Wizard of Oz. When they were all around the green glow and all then they asked the wizard, “Who are you?” He goes, “I am the great and powerful Oz. Who are you?” He asked that question. It does start with the who. “Who we are becoming?” My voice and your voice needs to go out to the world. We all have a gift and have a talent that needs to be shared out with the world.

Where can we find you, Robbie? I’m sure people are going to want to reach out and find out how to be less fearless.

I have moved everything to digital. You can text the word Bold to 55312. That’s where you can find me. You can also find me at RobbieSpeaks.com. Give me a text at (314) 277-3222. You can’t miss those twos. There’s power in two.

I’ve never seen anybody do that thing you do with the, “Background. No background. I’m invisible. I’m visible.” Thank you so much for being on the show. It’s been a pleasure.

Thank you so much for having me.

Important Links

• www.PromoteProfitPublishQuiz.com
• Superbrand Publishing – YouTube
• Robbie Walls – LinkedIn
• Bold Girl Biz Podcast – Apple Podcasts
• RobbieSpeaks.com

About Robbie Walls

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