The Body Image Revolution
Raw, unfiltered conversations about what it really takes to love your reflection, feel sexy in your skin, and build a legacy of radical self-love for yourself and future generations - without the toxic positivity or any of the BS.
Hosted by body confidence coach and boudoir photographer, Rebecca Sigala.
The Body Image Revolution
Public Speaking & Body Confidence With Helen Gottstein
In this episode, I’m joined by the incredible Helen Gottstein—TEDx mentor, keynote coach, and founder of Loud and Clear Training. She sharpens public speaking skills for corporate teams, so they get impact, investments and applause.
We dive into the deep overlap between our worlds; Talk about our inner critic, imposter syndrome, the fear of being “too much,” and the moments that spark transformation—on the mic and in the mirror.
If you’re someone who wants to show up more boldly—in your business, your body, or your voice—this conversation is for you.
Learn more about Helen by visiting her website: https://www.loudandcleartraining.com/
DOORS NOW OPEN → The Glow Up [Free 4-Day Virtual Experience to go from clashing with your inner critic to feeling sexy AF and radiating main character energy.
Save your seat here: https://rebeccasigalacoaching.com/the-glow-up
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Hello, my loves Welcome back to The Body Image Revolution. Today, I'm so excited to have a special guest, Helen Gottstein the creator of Loud and Clear Training, and a TEDx mentor and keynote coach. I was invited recently to be part of an incredible event with Helen. She was hosting a panel that I had the honor of being on, and we had so much fun. As soon as we started talking, we just clicked instantly. Even though we've known each other for years, we hadn't seen each other in person very often, and we connected over our shared values around feminism and women just taking up more space in the world. I knew at that point that we'd be doing something together. And that's exactly how this conversation was born. This episode really captures the idea that we teach what we need and that every woman, no matter who she is, has an inner critic. It's just part of being human. And leaning into that authenticity and vulnerability is what makes us so powerful at what we do. But before we dive in, I want to remind you that The Glow Up starts on Sunday. It's a four day experience with me that is completely free, completely virtual, and it's going to help you work on a ton of things that Helen and I actually talk about in this episode, like letting go of the brain chatter, being more present in your body and stepping into your power for yourself, for your family, and beyond. So to save your spot. Just take a moment right now, head to the show notes and sign up. It just takes a minute or less, and then on Sunday, we'll start glowing up together. It's going to be so much fun. And in the meantime, I hope you enjoy this conversation. I have so many questions. Firstly, I'd love for you to share with the listeners what you do, And I'd love to hear a little bit about your journey because I think when thinking of you and the career that you do, someone would automatically think, wow, she's so confident, she's so self-assured in herself to be able to have your career and the longevity of it and the way that you put yourself out there. So I'm really curious to hear the intersection between your career, and your own self-image. So please share, please share what you do and let's get into it.
Helen Gottstein:I love your introduction because it's both very, very warm and it also brings an element of your own professional perspective, and I, really appreciate that. People come to me when they want to grow their public speaking skills when they've got something, which is holding them back. If it's mindset, if it's skills, if it's a combination of the two, and it's impacting their confidence and their power so that when they get up to speak, they're not as effective as they wanna be, or they don't even get up to speak, they hold themselves back. So I have a business called Loud and Clear Training that I've been running for over 10 years. Where I'm now in a position where I work with household name companies helping their marketing teams or their R&D teams or research scientists at world renowned research institutions, get their ideas across, get investments, get applause, get satisfaction, rather than the awful feeling of beating yourself up till 4:00 AM because you didn't nail it.'cause you've missed out an opportunity like that. So I have a really, really great time. I have the tremendous privilege of working with an enormous range of clients, including people in the cybersecurity space, where every day I'm like, I did not know that. Oh, I did not know that. Wow, I did not know that. And I will say that my driving principles in coming into this business were formed from two, like two major motivations brought me here. One was about 10 years ago, I saw an article on some social media platform that said women today get some 3% of the available capital funds from, venture capital firms.
Rebecca Sigala:Wow.
Helen Gottstein:Three 3%. Three. Trois. 3% of money goes to women-led initiatives and 97% goes to men led initiatives. And when I look at that, I look around me and I'm like, when I look at the women in my life, do I think that they are 3% as capable, as creative, as full of initiative, as hardworking as 97% of the men I know and I'm like. Yeah, not so much. It could be that there are other factors coming this way maybe. So I thought if I can make some kind of contribution to getting more women heard more, demonstrating their expertise and getting more money, grow, sister friends, I'm in, I'm in means. And the other thing was that I carried with me a tremendous fear of public speaking. Now people look at me, oh Helen, yeah, you're so confident you're yada. And I'm like, we must differentiate between, for example, an actor who knows their lines and has received direction from a director and has practiced and so they know how to work, walk out onto stage. Yeah. And someone who is talking about themselves in ways they feel comfortable. And it's the second where you bringing something of yourself, where you, the vulnerability. The vulnerability where something of you is exposed. That's, that feels far, far harder for so many of us. And I'm in that space. So in part, like so many of us, our businesses relate to our own personal needs and our own personal challenges, and I'm okay with saying I continue to learn. I'm continuing to get better. I'm continuing to strive to feel more comfortable and capable and free in sharing what it is that I have to know. Yeah, babe, you nailed it in terms of your opening question.
Rebecca Sigala:Thanks, Helen. I so relate to that. I always think we teach what we need, and it is really interesting that we're kind of both in fields where other people would perceive it as, oh, she's, she helps people with public speaking and she helps people with their body confidence. Of course, they're confident in themselves. They must be so confident, and actually in order to be good at what you do, you have to actually go through your own internal process so that you can really understand the process that your client's going through. If I never struggled with my body confidence, I would be half as good at what I do. I don't even know if I'd be able to do it.
Helen Gottstein:Yeah, exactly. I think that is such an accurate understanding that it's perhaps the sharpness of your personal experience and mind that brings us to a particular focus particular, drive in relation to the spheres in which we both work. And that's why I asked you if I could be a guest on your podcast Exactly. Because of that. Because I understood that part of your work is mindset. Just like part of my work is mindset and the way we perceive ourselves impacts us no matter what part of self we're expressing.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, yeah. When I think about public speaking, I think of it as one of the universally scary things that most people do not want to do. Is that your experience of it, that not very many people are willing to get up and be in front of a room like that.
Helen Gottstein:I think that when I think about your area of expertise, I think that getting your photograph taken is one of the most difficult things.
Rebecca Sigala:Whoa,
Helen Gottstein:it is. I, I've just paid to have two entire sets of headshots done and I hate them all.
Rebecca Sigala:Oh my gosh. Come to my studio, Helen. We've gotta that
Helen Gottstein:babe. And you come to a public speaking training course. it's so painful often for us to hear ourselves and for us to see ourselves when we're speaking in public. And to see photographs of ourselves where we are frozen in time, especially women who are often working so much harder to put out energy, to engage an audience, to bring them in. We work so much harder with our faces. We're so much more expressing. Yeah. The amount.
Rebecca Sigala:Wow. It's so true. They're so deeply connected. Even thinking of my own experience growing up, it was like I'm scared to see myself in a video or in pictures and I don't wanna hear my voice. I remember that from a very, very young age. Did you have that experience? What was it like for you growing up? Did you like to be the center stage? Did you like attention? Is this something that you grew into? Is it something that you had to overcome? Well,
Helen Gottstein:so babe, we're really going deep on this one, so, oh yeah, you didn't know what you were getting yourself into. Oh, funny. I had no idea. Oh, is that the time? I really must go? Six minutes. Oh yeah. Time. I've got no time. We're done. That's it. Oh, we're done. Oh, lovely to chat. Bye. So I have like so many of us, we have different forces at work within our psyche. I grew up knowing I wasn't cute and I wasn't pretty, and I was actually on the, like further down the pretty spectrum. Mm-hmm. I was more towards the new end of the spectrum than I was towards the P end of the spectrum. So that was one thing. And then the other thing was that I grew up in a household which valued funny. So I grew up knowing if I could be funny, I could bring it in, I could get attention, I could get positive feedback. So I would be valuable here and be valuable. So, gosh, that really, that really struck a chord. Yeah. Rebecca, oh, Helen, The idea of experiencing myself as being valuable is primary to all of us. Right. We all crave recognition and appreciations primary to being a social creature. Yes. Biological. Yeah. It's a biological need. It's programmed into our survival and, you know, core blueprints. Yeah,
yeah.
Helen Gottstein:Like hardcore, the cellular level. And I got that recognition by being funny. So I often would be you know, making a lot of noise to get attention, but not in a way that necessarily reinforced positive self image. I'm the queen of this, of the quick self deprecatory remark. it's a skillset that I refined for years. if I were to ask you, how did you come to a space where you were able to overcome that or are you able to overcome that for yourself, Rebecca? Mm-hmm. Seeing yourself, hearing yourself, I mean, my gosh, you've got a podcast.
Rebecca Sigala:I know, I mean, I, I think about it a lot because when I was younger, I have this very vivid memory of going to speech therapy because I couldn't say my Rs, and my name is Rebecca, so I pronounced my name Rebecca, that was the extent of it. And I was so embarrassed and I didn't wanna speak in front of people. And hearing my voice was awful. And to think of the fact that I have a podcast that reaches hundreds of countries and thousands of people all around the world is absolutely incredible. And I often get complimented on the sound of my voice, which is such a beautiful, a beautiful thing. And I'm like, all right, I will take that compliment. Right. It is really, it's really, really special. I don't think that I went out on a mission to, become confident in public speaking or to become confident in the way that I sound. I think that it was a byproduct of the other work that I was doing. And even when I talk about the beginning stages of my business, I don't know if you have a similar story, but I didn't necessarily get into the work that I do because I thought of the deeper elements of it, initially. It was like, yeah, I love photography, of course I wanna help women feel beautiful, but I didn't necessarily realize. Wow. this is my purpose. this is what I'm on this earth to do and I really wanna help women transform the way they see themselves. That came with time and experience.
Helen Gottstein:And for you as well, was there some kind of initial moment where you understood that this was a, a pain that you carried, that that's what drove you to establish your own work?
Rebecca Sigala:Right. I think that's what I was trying to say is that I don't think I initially realized that, I mean, very quickly I realized maybe in the first couple years,'cause I started my business about 12 years ago. So it's definitely been a journey. And in the beginning it really was more for these creative elements of it and I think I very naturally created environments where women felt safe and comfortable, but I didn't necessarily think, oh, I was teased as a kid and now I want to remedy that and help other women. It was a process that I was still going through for myself, and I didn't realize how powerful this work could actually be initially, but it, it didn't take too long to realize that.
Helen Gottstein:Yeah. Beautiful. Like before you mentioned the voice work that you had to do and how that links to a fear of public speaking, and now here you are on a podcast and I was more asking, and what about the physical side of it? Ah, what initial impetus for becoming an expert in boudoir photography? Like, was that because of, and you raised it now because you perhaps were teased as a child about how you looked or how you presented or something about your physical self. Yeah.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. I was teased about my appearance, about my body, being chubby. I was called fat. I was called a fat Jewish pig. I definitely always felt on the outside of things, which I don't think is a uncommon experience for people in this world.
Helen Gottstein:Kids are so cruel. Kids are cruel, are so cruel, and they enjoy being cruel. They understand the psychological torture. They're unleashing and they enjoy it. It's an pure, thrilling experience of power. It's a
Rebecca Sigala:That's interesting. Probably also'cause they, they wanna fit in.
Helen Gottstein:Yeah. But then how that embeds in ourselves into such deep holding around shame. Rebecca, I would like to ask you on behalf of Zillions, and this is a unsubstantiated statistic, but I'm gonna quote it nevertheless. Zillions of people just like myself who feel that headshot are so very, very hard. I mentioned I've just done two lots and hate them all. One after the line'em all up and put'em in the trash. Awful. what recommendations can you make to somebody like me and those like me who hate being in pictures? I don't know whether to smile. Yeah. Look worse. Should I not smile? Do I look cold if I don't smile? Talk to me about the mindset of a good.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah, I mean, that is, that's a really good question. there's a couple things that I've realized over the years that help a woman or help a human look at a picture of themself and like what they see. Number one, they need to look at it and think, yeah, this is me. And sometimes I'll have my clients, you know, they'll be like, I can't believe it's me. But deep down they're like, yeah, I do know that's me. It does feel aligned with who I am and how I see myself, how I want to be seen. So there is a certain element of this can't be, so far off from how I see myself. there needs to be an alignment there. And also I bring my clients through a process before the actual. Boudoir session. I used to do headshots, but now I don't do headshots so much anymore. Once in a while I will, like, if you came to my studio, I definitely take your headshots.
Helen Gottstein:Just just a minute. Bring it over right
Rebecca Sigala:now. Bring your head. It's not an AI thing, Helen. Well, how do you take it? Take, take it. But really bringing people through a process of understanding them a little bit more. Because you could come to my studio and I know that I'm good at what I do, and I could take a beautiful shot, but that doesn't necessarily mean that you would like it. So I think that the preparation beforehand is important to understand who you are, the things you like about yourself, the way that you look, the things that you might be a little bit more insecure about. Why? Sometimes we get into it. Like if it's a boudoir session, then of course, I bring them through a whole healing experience beforehand where we do coaching and I help them change the way they see themselves. But just for something simple, like a headshot, I might not do coaching, but I do wanna understand how you see yourself, how you see your physical appearance, and how you wanna show up. So even just having that connection, being real with someone, beforehand, I think creates that safe space where you can show up as yourself and you're like, oh, this photographer knows me. She's got me, I trust her. I trust myself in this situation. And also to have a fun experience because you look back on a picture when you felt uncomfortable, when you didn't know what to do, when the photographer was annoying, when you had your period, when you had a bad day, and you're not gonna love the picture because it automatically reminds you of that experience. So there's a few different things that are in the mix, but I think number one, feeling like it's you trusting yourself, trusting the photographer, having a good experience and being real.
Helen Gottstein:What can somebody like me do in order to amplify my trust in myself and amplify my trust in the photographer? I worked with two people who are great professionals. Yeah. It's their work. They are great. The problem was not necessarily the photographer, but more perhaps the subject of love. Photographs as in wa wa at me and this, this whole face that I was bringing along.
Mm.
Helen Gottstein:is there a suggestion that you could make to me and the other people who are listening to you right now that would help me, us turn up better and be, I don't know, more relaxed, more warm, more self-compassionate, more trusting in the moment. It's So Helen Hallen, what would you say if someone said that about public speaking?. Okay. I would say this. It's a great, it's a fair, it's fair.
Rebecca Sigala:I'm really curious because I think it's probably a very similar answer.
Helen Gottstein:it is. And yet it's it, like the answer may be well simple and easy to describe. Far harder to deliver in real life. The principles this we prepare, we prepare to be spontaneous. We prepare for our keynote, we prepare for our important meeting. we prepare by thinking through who is the audience, what are the goals of my presentation?
Mm-hmm.
Helen Gottstein:Map the process from delivering an idea in my mind to the minds of the audience in a way which will resonate with them and achieve the goal, which I ultimately wish to, uh, achieve, is the outcome of my presentation today. So that's like the intellectual process that I'm,
Rebecca Sigala:I'm non, there's something about, and tell me if I'm sorry for interrupting. There's something about the mind chatter, right? That I'm sure you work with your clients with that prevents them from showing up as themselves, being able to present confidently and clearly and just have fun with it. And we get stuck in this mind chatter loop when I'm photographing someone I know when they're in their head, I see it. I'm like, snap out of it girl. Like, I see you, you know? Like, let's get here, let's get present. Is that something that you work with with your clients?
Helen Gottstein:So the word you just used was be present. As soon as we imagine. And bring ourselves to be present. We stop projecting our fears onto the audience. They're gonna judge me. They're gonna hate me. they already think I'm failing. And we just get present with, these are the gifts that I bring. This is the content that I have to share. I'm ready. I've done my homework. What I have, I will just endeavor to be present. The more present we are, the better we breathe, the calmer we speak and the more self-compassion we can practice. It makes us more effective at interviewing people.
Mm-hmm.
Helen Gottstein:Responsive. When we are being interviewed, it's all the things. The more relaxed we are. The more intelligent we become. Yes, because we're literally freeing up brain space, brain calories to be focused on the task at hand rather than using part of our mental capacity to worry. What do they think? What are they saying? What do they, are they,
Rebecca Sigala:it's like our brain goes into almost survival mode when we're in that brain chatter. And when you're in survival mode, you can't be as intelligent and creative and freethinking. you're stuck on that pimple on your face or what you're thinking about what other people are thinking of you. And that really blocks so much creative intellectual flow.
Helen Gottstein:It does. From Daniel Goldman's book, Emotional intelligence, he brings a piece of research that explains why people who've done hours of really good preparation for tests. Perform poorly. It's because part of the time that they're doing the test, they're worried about failing rather than simply being present. And I love that you recognize it when your subject has left the room.
Rebecca Sigala:Oh yeah.
Helen Gottstein:Mentally, emotionally, and then your response is to say, Alo, excuse me. scuzi Come back, come back, come back. You're gone, you've gone.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. I mean, I see the work that I do like the intimate photography sessions that I do as embodiment work, because that's really what it is, is being able to, I mean, you can do all the mindset stuff and have all the beliefs and things like that, but if you don't have a place to actually show up and become that and to, to feel it in your bones, Then it's very difficult to actually integrate. I can imagine. I mean, at least for me, my own experience of public speaking, it's like doing it again and again and again and again. Still not feeling totally comfortable with it. But each time feeling a little bit more, sorry to go back to this and please, if you don't wanna talk about this, please let me know. But with this like idea that you had growing up, that you weren't the pretty one and that that wasn't the value that you were bringing, the funniness is what you would bring, did that come up for you when you started public speaking? was that part of the brain chatter in your mind that you had to let go of, of the way that you looked or how other people would perceive you?
Helen Gottstein:I think that, when we build a business around a central problem, that we have. A challenge, a deep seated challenge from childhood that we seek to overcome and heal. Yes. Something that never completely or truly goes away. We carry it around like a monkey on our backs.
Mm. And
Helen Gottstein:it can be a smaller monkey, it can be a bigger monkey. It can right vary in size from day to day and from moment to moment. What I have endeavored to do for myself and for my clients is bring ideas and consciousness and offer again and again, the opportunity for self-compassion and self-love, and perhaps that's what your work and mine truly has in common in that
Rebecca Sigala:hundred percent.
Helen Gottstein:When we free ourselves from what you call the monkey chatter from the noise that we carry around a fear of judgment and shame and the anxiety around not belonging and rejection, and how we fought to bring ourselves back within the fold. When we practice self-compassion effectively and we say it's enough, or maybe it's, it's just like whatever it is, this is where I am right now. This is what I, it is what it is. Yeah, and it's not amazing. It'll never be amazing. I preach that the goal is not to be perfect. Perfect. Is unattainable. Perfect. Is AI fake, synthetic skin etched in Yeah, it's a non-living creature. It's a non-living thing. It's a fabrication made by a machine.
Rebecca Sigala:it's interesting'cause one of my approaches, and maybe we differ on this, which is totally fine, but one of my approaches with body image specifically is to not resign to it is what it is. But I think maybe in a little bit of a different way where when we talk about like beauty standards and diet culture and things like that, I always say it's not important to fit into the beauty standards. It's not important for other people to perceive you a certain way. But it is important to be able to look in the mirror and say, I see myself in a beautiful light. And it can get more amazing. You can see yourself differently. Yeah. You, don't have to resign to, I'm just not the pretty one.
Helen Gottstein:So for me, perhaps because we both. Start at different, starting points in our own journeys and the pressures that we experience because of our different backgrounds and the points we're at in our life journeys. For me, the understanding that the goal is not perfection. The goal is acceptance. The goal is releasing fear. The goal is doing your best, and then just knowing you've always got where to go. you can always, right.
Rebecca Sigala:you like the idea of having a bit of more of neutrality around it where it's just, it's not good. It's not bad, it just is.
Helen Gottstein:Yeah. Because I find that that's the thing that frees people to release some of the mental chatter. Yeah. The pressure that people put on themselves is wicked.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. Yeah. It's so intense. Hmm. do you see like. I could imagine people going through a process of becoming more comfortable speaking in front of others and that transforming something very deep inside of them.
Helen Gottstein:Yeah, it happens. People get jobs. People sign up for keynotes. People volunteer to do live translation where they've never done it before because an opportunity came up. Speak at conferences, apply, build businesses, change streams, like people do crazy stuff when they, yeah. To access their power and understand their expertise and accept that they don't have to be perfect. For me, it resonates.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. Is letting go of the perfectionism. That's the devil. It's that devil
Helen Gottstein:or saying, look at my body. it's never gonna look like, it's never enough. It's never thin enough, long enough, tall enough, light enough, pale enough, dark enough. All the things. Small enough, large enough. Yeah, yeah. You are never gonna, it's never, because guess what?
Rebecca Sigala:It's just you. It's just you. Yeah. But it's not just body, it's also, it's everything. We do that with everything. Yeah. We do. We do. We do. Wow. We do. Wow. that's so cool. I'm like imagining a process of a woman going through, I don't know, one of your courses or working with you one-on-one. And you know, when I talk about using your voice and taking up space, like that's exactly what it is. That's exactly the work that you do.
Helen Gottstein:There is such an intimate connection we know between the mind and body. So it feels like a natural collaboration between you and I and that this conversation really resonates deeply with me that the way we perceive our bodies in space is so much reflection of our mindset and the way we share what's inside our hearts and our minds, and our vision, and our expertise, and our ideas and our capacities is also so deeply embedded in how we perceive ourselves. it's really a pleasure to speak with you today, Rebecca.
Rebecca Sigala:Same. Same. this is something that really deeply, of course, resonates with me. It's the heart of the work that I do. So many different ways that we could go from here.
Helen Gottstein:I follow somebody on social media called, Rainier, the supernatural coach. He's a fitness, coach who's on a platform called Pop Sugar, and he is hilarious. He's a super, super tall African American who is, wildly flamboyant. He sweats like a machine. he starts to exercise and like, yeah, my shirts wet. What about yours? He's just like, really so much self love, so much self-compassion. And he says this all the time. He says, Every time we work out, it's an opportunity to practice self-compassion.
Mm. You're
Helen Gottstein:gonna fall over, you're gonna practice this, you're gonna fall over. Now, what goes through your mind when you wobble? What goes through your mind when you can't do an extra push up or you can't do a single push? What goes through your mind? If you are moving, you are winning. And that's what I wanna take for myself today and what I
Rebecca Sigala:absolutely.
Helen Gottstein:Who follow Rebecca Sigala, and you are right to, if you are moving, you are winning. If you are moving towards self-compassion, you are winning. If you're moving, yeah, speaking out, you are winning.
Rebecca Sigala:Well, because that's the thing. we think that being hard on ourselves or having strict self-discipline is the thing that's going to keep us moving forward. But actually that's the thing that keeps us stuck because when we are being a perfectionist, we're being hard on ourselves. We stay in these thought loops and we second guess ourselves. And things take so much longer and it's harder to make decisions and we can't express ourselves fully and then we stay stuck. So yes, we need the structure and we need discipline, but we also need that compassion and we need that love and that understanding and together, that's how we move forward.
Helen Gottstein:I love the word you used before and it makes me think about your business as embodying self-compassion. Yeah, I love that about your work.
Rebecca Sigala:Thank you so much. Thank you. I'm curious, do you work mostly with women? You talk a lot on social media about helping women specifically, being a feminist, and a lot of just topics and issues around that. I'm curious, has that come out of your work or is it something that you've always been passionate about?
Helen Gottstein:I think that we all read texts which shape us at fundamental junctures in our lives. And for me, it was the Female Eunuch by Jermaine Greer. Mm. And changed my understanding of women's bodies in space, in the planet, and the space that we occupy. Freedom of movement, freedom of occupation, freedom of expression, freedom of, mm-hmm. Emotion, all of these things. We assume that they're equal and yet they're deeply gendered. So that reading really impacts and has shaped my value set and my whole personal journey. And I'm a straight woman who loves an amazing man. I'm, you know, not a misandrist. I love men. I work with men all the time. I adore men. I'm particularly committed to helping to equal the playing field in some small way.
That's
Rebecca Sigala:doing what I do. But right now I, did you grow up with those values or did you grow up in more of like a traditional?
Helen Gottstein:My dad was the one who, you know, worked full time and my mom returned to work when I was seven. So I had both parents who worked, but You know, there was one person who cooked in the house. it was not my dad. I have to say, in honor of my father's cooking abilities. He made amazing scrambled eggs. To this day, he's always scrambled
Rebecca Sigala:eggs or, or you on the grill, right?
Helen Gottstein:You gotta sit back. Okay. Do not, do not touch that pan. This is, this is a holy fact of my life. It's one of the guiding principles. My father's scramble coming from Australia. wow. Wow. A different level of quality. A league of its own. Definitely, definitely more traditional. But, you know, they both drove, they both worked. there were lots of ways in which, the household was equal, even though my dad was like the financial engine of,
Rebecca Sigala:mm-hmm. Yeah. Why do you ask? I think it's just, it's interesting how our, values evolve over time and so much of what I've become passionate about has been through my experience in my work.
Yeah. And
Rebecca Sigala:so sometimes I'm curious like, is this something that you, started with, something that was deeply ingrained in you or you had an experience with a client or many clients realizing, wow, this is so important. This is what I want to bring to the world. This is the message that I want to impart. The legacy that I wanna leave
Helen Gottstein:my experience over and over again is that more women talk in terms of debilitating lack of self-confidence than my male clients.
Rebecca Sigala:Oh, I'm curious about that. is there a huge gap there?
Helen Gottstein:Gap. Ga, gahaap how big can we make this word? Golf.
Rebecca Sigala:Whoa. Why is that? I mean, you think it's cultural?
Helen Gottstein:Uh, yes. How long? How long do I have? Yeah.
Rebecca Sigala:Oh, wow. I mean, when I think about like body image, for example, yes, women definitely struggle with it more, but men also have it, I feel like they're not able to talk about it as much, or that's not accepted to share their, their body insecurities. While, for a woman, it's very accepted and that's half of what people are talking about in the world. So I'm curious if, do you think that there are confidence things that men are just like, okay, I'm just not gonna think about that and I'm gonna push forward, or it really is that they're more confident in themselves.
Helen Gottstein:I think from the age when we had stories read to us, the images and the characters, and the storyline of children's books through to the vast majority of cinema, through the vast majority of role descriptions and on and on and on. Uh, forgive me, the men are capable. They're the heroes. They're the who rides in on a white horse in shining armor. Who is that? Who? who fights the dragon?
Rebecca Sigala:So true.
Helen Gottstein:Passivity as opposed to being active in creating outcomes that we desire, shape things to such an extent that today, if 10 years ago women led startups, got 3% of the money available from venture capital firms today, that has dropped to 1.7. The way that bias is embedded in every aspect of our lives cannot be overstated. Yeah. It's only recently that seat belts in cars coming off the manufacturing line were tested both on male bodies and female bodies. You know, until recently, the seat belts in Volvo cars, were they, you said, well, we are testing for female bodies. They put a smaller man in the passenger seat. It's. most medications today are tested on men's bodies and not on female bodies pain medications are not prescribed for women in the same ways that pain medications are prescribed for men. Women get smaller doses of pain medication after open heart operations than men. It's just, wow. It is at every level from the medical, from the investment, from the money that is poured into facilitating poor self-esteem by women so that we'll buy more makeup. Yeah, diet products, skin cream, hair, color,
Rebecca Sigala:everything.
Helen Gottstein:Everything, every part of a woman's body has come under attack. Our nails. How many men do you know, spend real money getting their nails done in order to look like they're taking care of themselves?
Rebecca Sigala:Mm. That they're presentable.
Helen Gottstein:Tiny example. Ridiculous. Yeah, but that's such a girl thing. Is it? Why is that? Why is that? And, and, and so for me, it's not surprising that there is a,
Rebecca Sigala:just the huge confidence gap that
Helen Gottstein:Yeah.
Rebecca Sigala:when a woman comes to you, what do you think is the biggest fear that people have?
Helen Gottstein:I think that everyone's story is different. The fundamental fear, it always comes back to shame, shame and fear of rejection and
Rebecca Sigala:yeah,
Helen Gottstein:there's so much. Can we swear on your podcast, Rebecca? Yes, absolutely. Well hedge my, hedge it a little bit. I'll say There's so much shit that we carry around
so
Rebecca Sigala:much, so much.
Helen Gottstein:It's
Rebecca Sigala:fear of rejection. Like literally, that biological fear of being kicked out of the tribe. Oh yeah. pushed out of the cave tomatoes thrown at you in the front, like Right. Wow. So Let's say that there's someone here who's listening and they, perhaps they're an entrepreneur or a leader or in their career, it would be beneficial for them to get out there, use their voice, speak, whether that's on social media or in person, but they do have that fear that maybe they're just not gonna come across the way that they want, that they can't do it, that they're not a good public speaker. of course, work with you, but what are some practical tips or mindsets that they could implement to start feeling more confident today?
Helen Gottstein:The very first thing is perhaps experiment with starting small. You don't have to go from zero to a hundred. You don't have to go from zero to giving a keynote at an industry relevant event for 45 minutes on the main stage. In that, you can start by being determined to speak up more at your next meeting and speaking up more. Could be something as small or big for you as saying to someone else. Good point. Mm-hmm. Or, I love that, Zoe. Or Cheers Simon, well said. Something small. It's a piggyback. It's a boost. It amplifies somebody else. This can be as significant as delivering something. I would also say get ready. Few of us are as effective when we choose to speak on the spot as we are when we get ready for a moment. So if you're in a meeting, you got an agenda item, which is, you know, important to you, which you know is something you'd like to give voice on, then take a moment and ask yourself, what is the one big idea that I wanna convey? The one thing. And then you might choose to practice saying it out loud. Now, this sounds really crazy, but often what happens when we put a lot of words down on a piece of paper is we think, oh, look at all these brilliant words on paper. Look at all these smart things I've written. Oh, I'm so articulate and powerful. Yeah. And then when we can speak, there's a vast gulf between the pieces of the language that are on the page and what we can say out loud, because writing and speaking are completely different intellectual activities. Right?
Rebecca Sigala:Oh, totally. I love writing and speaking is something that I've always been nervous about.
Helen Gottstein:It's a different part of self. It's a different level of delivery. So don't just think in pictures or images that you've written down. Practice saying it out loud. ChatGPT can be your best friend.
Rebecca Sigala:I love how that's how this conversation ends
Helen Gottstein:Yeah. But, for the moment, ChatGPT and other, large language models are, while they're gathering information on us, every time we ask them a question, we are nevertheless still able to control the output, which serves our own purposes. Yes. We can
Rebecca Sigala:use it in a very positive way
Helen Gottstein:for our own purposes. So you can ask chatGPT. What might be the, 10 most commonly asked questions in relation to this? And then think of your answer in relation to any of those questions, but don't think of it. Say it because if you say it out loud one time, when you come to do it, you won't use those words, but the neurological pathways will have been built and you will deliver it better than you would than if you never spoke it out loud.
Rebecca Sigala:wow. Do you often get women saying things like, well, why does my opinion matter? Or why should I be the one to talk about these things? Or are people already coming to you like I'm the expert in this field And of course I would be the one to share these things.
Helen Gottstein:So I think someone who is deeply rooted in why me, is someone who will not necessarily seek out the services of somebody like myself, but mm-hmm.
Rebecca Sigala:Right? They're already in a certain place where they're like, all right, let's go. I want to, I want to express myself fully.
Helen Gottstein:I work with, people are often already good, who wanna be better, who wanna be excellent, got it aiming for outstanding. But if somebody's still in the space of like, why me? I don't have anything to contribute. I'm like, that's cool. Not everybody has to speak in public. You don't have to. Not everyone. Yeah. But you also adopt the position of why not me? Why not you, you look
Rebecca Sigala:beautiful.
Helen Gottstein:Are you the dumbest person in the room? Is, does your opinion matter less? Are you the dumbest person in the room, person in the room? Will say, absolutely. I've got nothing. I don't Scratch the surface of most of the people here. Is the person who's speaking the most for the longest and always first, are they the person whose opinion is the most qualified to speak? Yeah. Let it go. Why not you? Why not you? You don't have an obligation to be the only voice in the room, but you have an obligation to be a voice. That's why you're there.
Rebecca Sigala:Yeah. Yeah. This is inspiring me because I feel like I am. I'm one of those people that is in that place where I'm so passionate about what I do and I have a podcast and of course I'm always talking about things, but I'm always looking for ways To more clearly share my message that will resonate with more people because I care so deeply about it and I want people who are meant to hear it, to really hear it, and for them to understand it. So I'm like, Ooh, maybe this is something that I wanna kind of explore a little bit for myself. With pleasure. With pleasure. It's amazing. So you'll help me with that. You'll come to my studio for head shots. It'll be
Helen Gottstein:great. We could play. We could totally play. Rebecca, thank you so much for welcoming me to You
Rebecca Sigala:are welcome
Helen Gottstein:to your space today.
Rebecca Sigala:Helen, if people want to work with you or they wanna improve their public speaking skills, What kind of things do you have to offer right now? Where can people find you?
Helen Gottstein:Every few months, I offer a course called She Speaks Loud and Clear, which is a six session course for women, small group. Really powerful, really intensive for women who are ready to upgrade their public speaking. power and confidence. That's one. I work with teams. I'm an MC. I deliver keynotes on getting heard. Team training so that everybody gets on the same message. That's why I work with some really wonderful, wonderful organizations. And the best place to reach me is on my website Loud and Clear Training, or you can find me as Helen Gottstein, which is a funny coincidence'cause that's my name on LinkedIn. I'm on LinkedIn a lot. So Helen Gottstein with two Ts, T for T, Helen Gottstein, that's where I am.
Rebecca Sigala:Beautiful. Thank you so much. I will put the links in the show notes and Thank you so much for being here and for all of your insights and for the practical implementation of this. I'm sure that people will get so much out of this.
Helen Gottstein:Rebecca. Thank you so much. It's really been a lot of fun. I've had a really great time talking with you about things we both care about deeply.
Rebecca Sigala:we'll have to do it again sometime soon. I
Helen Gottstein:look forward to it. Bye for now.
Rebecca Sigala:Bye bye, Helen.