Season 1, Episode 1: How to Unlock Your Limitless
We all have limitless potential. We were born blank slates, ready to have all sorts of new experiences and create our lives. But as we go on our individual journeys, we find that our thoughts, beliefs and programming can limit us. Society, well-meaning friends, rivals — all manner of things create limiting beliefs that hold us back from being what we could become. Thus, the first step toward reaching your highest potential is to break down these barriers and focus your mind on the limitless.
In the first episode of The Limitless Podcast, we lay down the three types of limits that hinder your potential. We share examples of how they manifest and what you can do to break free from them. We also introduce the goal and the idea behind the podcast — to create limitless beliefs in our listeners and help you create the life and business of your dreams. Through this episode, you'll learn that you have the power to define yourself and your endless potential.
If you want to learn how to break free from limiting narratives and ditch the hustle, this episode is for you!
Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:
Learn the three types of limits that prevent you from your highest potential.
Find out how you can break free from the limits that have gotten stuck in your mind and are standing in the way of your thriving.
Discover how you can turn your mindset towards the limitless.
Resources
Book a Sprint or become a Sprint Member at Content Planning Sprints!
Sign up for Jamie’s 3 Steps to 30 Days of Content FREE MINI-COURSE today!
Connect with Jamie on Instagram, @jamieratermann, and Twitter, @jamieratermann
Connect with Jamie on Linkedin: Jamie Ratermann
Episode Highlights
[01:55] Starting The Limitless Podcast
Jamie is a holistic business coach who helps clients reach their milestones through brand building and social media marketing.
It's nearly impossible to reach tangible outcomes without uncovering the intangible block of limiting beliefs.
We all have unlimited potential, but getting there may require some hardship.
It’s challenging to work through self-imposed limits and limits imposed by others.
The idea behind the podcast is to help replace limiting beliefs with limitless beliefs.
[03:41] #1: Societal Limits
These are the limits that tell us how women and men should behave.
Society says that women must be humble and put others first, while male strength is being an emotionless provider.
Some things people found to be virtues in the past do not apply today.
We consciously or unconsciously subscribe to stereotypes that don’t feel good to us.
We get to change these limits in our current world.
[05:09] Stereotypes on Selling
Many female clients find trouble with selling.
There’s a preconceived notion that men are the best at closing sales because sales are supposed to be manipulative.
Manipulativeness isn’t necessarily masculine, and selling can be “feminine.”
Sales can be about relationships and community instead.
[06:36] How to Break Free from Societal Limits
It can be hard to break free from societal limits because society imprinted them on us.
To work through these limits, we must understand that we define ourselves — no one else.
We have the power to redefine the rules and standards society has set in the past.
We get to be the new example and definition of what it means to be a powerful woman.
[07:52] #2: Relationship Limits
These are the limits imposed by the people surrounding you.
The biggest influences on you are the five closest people to you.
The creations and people we have around us create what we want for the future.
It becomes easy to stay where you are and not take risks because of the status quo.
[09:49] When People Set a Limit Against You
Tune in to the full episode to hear Jamie's experience of getting no support in pursuing her younger self's dream!
When people cast doubt on what your dreams are, it means they would never do it themselves.
Jamie: "When someone close to you sets a limit against you, it's not that they think you can't do it — it's simply that they would never do it. So they would never do it; they don't want someone who's close to them to do it."
They may think they’re preventing you from suffering. Alternatively, they might feel more comfortable if you stay the same.
[12:10] How to Counteract Relationship-Imposed Limits
Awareness and kindness can counteract this limit.
You’re capable of whatever you set your mind to. You will get strengthened by finding a community that will support you.
It's normal for friction to develop with your relationships when trying to do something new.
You can be the new example for the people who told you not to take a risk.
A strong belief in yourself is a must before you share the change you want to make with other people.
[14:56] #3: Self-Imposed Limits
These are limits we don't realize subconsciously or put on ourselves.
It’s the most difficult to overcome because we tend to go back to what’s comfortable.
The surprising reality: all limits are self-imposed.
Jamie: "All limits are self-imposed. We get to decide how much weight relationships and societal limits have an effect on us."
[16:06] Overcome Self-Imposed Limits; Create Limitless Beliefs
The podcast is about overcoming self-imposed limits, flipping them, and making them limitless.
A growth mindset, strategy, physical and mental health, growth, and love allow us to break free from self-imposed limits.
The true act of being limitless for Jamie is creating the podcast. It took her more than five years to finally do it because of the limiting narrative she told herself.
We don’t need to reach a predetermined version of ourselves before allowing ourselves to follow our heart’s desires.
The notion of “being ready” is undefinable.
Jamie: “It's the fallacy of being accomplished that prevents us from accomplishing all that we've ever wanted.”
[20:17] Content Planning Sprints
Jamie leads workshops in the Content Planning Sprints.
The program contains content strategy and involves community building.
It is a two-and-a-half-hour workshop that can help you create content worthy of sharing.
Content Planning Sprints are typically on Wednesdays at 10 am or 2 pm EST.
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Transcript
Jamie Ratermann: When someone close to you sets a limit against you, it's not that they think you can't do it, it's simply that they would never do it. They would never do it, they don't want someone who's close to them to do it. Either it's through preventing you from taking a risk that you might suffer from, or it's the fact that they feel more comfortable if you stay the same.
You're listening to The Limitless Podcast, where we dig into all the possibilities that exist when you lean into the big vision for your life and your business. Hi, my name is Jamie Ratterman and I am a holistic business coach, meaning I am just as invested in growing your health as I am and growing your wealth. With 11+ years in brand and social media marketing, I help rebellious entrepreneurs master marketing, embody leadership, and say “fuck it” to the hustle.
This show is here to encourage you to become radically aware of your self-imposed limits, to break free of your shoulds, and to expand your brand into a movement led by you. The way I see it, marketing is a way of spreading your mission, social media is a gift for connection, and sales are where you build your strongest relationships. Let's dig in.
Hello, I'm really excited right now. I’m just so excited. Welcome to my first ever podcast. This is the first one. Hello, lovelies! I'm just so excited. It's really exciting for me because I want to share my voice and everything I've learned, the perspectives, all the people I get to work with — I get to do it on this platform. I get to do it and share it in this way. So for me, I cannot wait to let this be the first of many episodes where I get to share all the things I want you to know about.
I know the best way to start here is to start with my why. Why in the hell did I name my podcast Limitless? What is this about? As a holistic business coach, I've helped clients through many things: growing their audience, creating content they love, badass offers that just fill them with so much passion, hitting new money milestones, becoming healthier versions of themselves. I could go on.
There's just so many things that I really love to help people with, that really starts with their business, their passion, how that feels. At its core, we can never really reach these tangible outcomes until we uncover this intangible block. That's where this idea of limits comes from. I want you to understand how this can be different for you.
I'm here to tell you that you have the potential, the possibilities, the wealth, the vision, your relationships, your power — all of these things are limitless. You have those possibilities, but to get there, we likely will have to work through some hardship. Limits imposed by others, imposed by ourselves, especially those self-imposed limits, are going to be really hard to work through, but when we do it, this energy is going to feel so different.
That is what my mantra is. We're gonna help you replace the limiting beliefs with limitless beliefs. I created this idea when I was helping my social expansion clients think about how they can expand outside of Instagram. For me, I love this concept of, “How can we actually create limitless beliefs for ourselves, instead of just subscribing to how we have to just overcome the limiting ones?
With this first episode, I thought it would be only fitting to dive into what the three types of limits are, that are preventing you from your highest potential. Easiest one to start with is societal limits, those limits that tell us what it means to be the “good girl” according to what we believe in the past.
Let's just think about some of these societal limits that are put on women. Women, you're supposed to be humble. You are seen as a good woman if you put others first before yourself. This isn't just for women either, men have it too. For men, the best way to show strength is to be an emotionless provider, which we know is not true.
Things that were okay in the past, that other people have found to be virtues, now are things that we all think we should be, and they're crap. They're not real. They're these stereotypes that we either have consciously or unconsciously subscribed to, that don't feel right to us, that don't feel good. I think what's lovely about our current world is that we get to change it.
We get to be at a place where, if we don't want to be the good girl anymore, but we want to be the badass, powerful, amazing girl, we get to define what that looks like. A part of that is releasing the societal limit. One of the best examples of this is that I have a lot of female clients who have so much trouble with selling. What it feels like to sell their products, whether that's in their DMs talking about their offers, their email, creating a sales page for what they want to do.
There's this preconceived notion that selling is best done by men because it should be manipulative. It should be a hard sell. We're greedy and we want more money than sales. How can you prey on someone's pains and challenges, so that they feel that you need them? It’s manipulative.
Selling has been that way. It's not like that comes from absolutely nowhere, but the idea that that's how selling has to continue to be, and that even the way that we're giving that as a masculine trait — that selling is some kind of masculine trait for us — it's just not true.
Social media has allowed us all to become closer in relationships. People will get to know the person they're speaking to, and know the behind-the-scenes of a product. Selling can be about relationships. Selling can be about the “feminine”, warm way of introducing yourself, having that community, having what that feels like. Within that, the act of selling can be a way that we build relationships.
This example of societal limits — these can be really hard because they are something that was imprinted upon us, whether through the media, whether through our family, whether through, in general, what was given as an opportunity to be seen as good as we were growing up — no longer has to be true about us. In that transition, in the way in which we work through that limit, we have to understand that we get to define ourselves.
Society might have given us the rules, the standards in the past, but we get to redefine it. I can tell you — using that example of selling — that the more people that I have warm relationships with, the more people I just have a simple conversation with before I might go, “You know what, you might be right for this offer,” the easier that becomes, and I never feel greedy.
I never feel greedy, knowing that these societal limits are something that we get to free ourselves of, because we get to be the new example, we get to be the new definition of what it means to be a powerful woman, a powerful entrepreneur, a badass provider.
The second one here, I feel like, is one of the harder ones. Relational or relationship limits is something that can be really difficult to work through: limits put on by the people you surround yourself with. I'm sure you've heard of the phrase or heard of the saying about how we are all influenced by the five closest people in our world.
That means that if you are around five partiers who know how to get down, who know how to dance, know how to take amazing shots of tequila, you're likely to be also someone that goes ham. You're also a little bit likely to be someone that'd be fun to party with, whatever that might be, because you surround yourself with people who are interested and want to do the things that you want to do.
That also applies to, let's say, a little more positive traits. If you want to make the most money, you want to surround yourself by five other money-making entrepreneurs — other people who are trying to reach new heights — knowing that the relationships we have around us really do create what we want for our future.
What happens is that, when you want to take a risk, when you want to do something different than what you've done in the past — let's say you're sitting in a comfort zone of, “I don't really like my job, but everybody else in my family, and my friends, works a corporate job or works in a similar type of job,” and then you decide you want to start your own business — it's gonna feel hard to jump out of that.
But what happens when you want to take a risk that your family, your five closest friends, or even your romantic partners would never take is that you just think that it's easier to stay. Easier to stay where you are in that status quo even though your intuition, all of the talents that you know you have within yourself, are telling you that you are meant for more, but your relationships don't — that's that limit.
A really good example for me within this is that I am originally from a town in Ohio that has less than 1500 people. Now I can tell you that there's so many, numerous benefits of living in such a close-knit community. In general, there's so much fun and a lot of amazing people that live in a community like that, that would do anything for each other. The caveat with being in such a small population is that it's really quite easy to stand out, and people have a tendency to not filter what their feelings are.
One instance for me was that from early on, when I was in high school, I thought I wanted to live in New York City — and thankfully now have been here for more than 10 years — and at the time, I had really close girlfriends. I played volleyball with them, I did all of these things. Of course, I have a big family. All of these things were something that I hold near and dear to me.
When I told my closest friends in high school, and even my family, common things that came up were, “I don't think you'll make it,” or “You'll be back after a few years.” It hurt. It hurt that I didn't have blind support from these people who I thought were my closest people. I also said, “Well, if they know me best, then am I able to really do that? Maybe I am not cut out for New York, if my closest friends or family don't believe that I can do it myself.”
A part of this is to understand that people aren't being mean when they decide to cast doubt on whatever your dreams are, whatever you want to do with your life. What it really means is that they wouldn’t do it themselves.
Before we go into how mean or ridiculous people might sound when they tell you, “You shouldn't do it that way,” or what it might look like, the most important thing to note in this is that, when someone close to you sets a limit against you, it's not that they think you can't do it, it's simply that they would never do it. They would never do it, they don't want someone who's close to them to do it. Either it's through preventing you from taking a risk that you might suffer from, or it's the fact that they feel more comfortable if you stay the same.
Part of that is just understanding. This type of limit is something that you can counteract quite easily through awareness and kindness. Awareness of knowing that what others think about your decisions normally has nothing — absolutely nothing — to do with you and that it's best to just send them kindness, but come back to your belief in self, knowing that you're capable of whatever you set your mind to.
You're only strengthened by finding a community that's going to say, “Yeah, you can. Of course, you can make it in New York. Of course, you can start a new business. Of course, you can go to a trip in Italy.” I have so many examples of this because when you're trying to pave a new path for yourself, when you're trying to do something brand new, you're going to find that there's going to be friction from people who you've been around for a long time.
I am someone who's evolved in a lot of ways. I mentioned that I'm from a small town, but I also went to a college where I didn't know anybody there, and that allowed me to be something different. I also moved to New York. I've had different friend groups, different pockets. I've realized that a part of that was that I'm still very close with all of those people, but there's some that — because they are on a similar path, or they're creating their own path with me — that I'm even closer to them.
These relationship limits, it's really good to understand that you can be the new example for people who may have told you not to do whatever the risk is. In particular, I actually have worked with some of my friends from high school who thought it was crazy that I was becoming an entrepreneur. [Seeing] me sticking to my belief in myself and how it would work out, they ended up watching and finding a new way to go, “I want that too.”
Relationship limits are absolutely difficult because the people we surround ourselves with will make an influence on us. We are built on community. Knowing that, when you want to make a change, you want to be really strong in your belief — in yourself — before you share it with the people around you, especially if they've never experienced what that risk is, what that jump is, to what you want to do.
At that time, when I wanted to move to New York, all I needed to do was find someone who moved to a big city and they would be like, “Yeah, it's not as hard as people say it is. It gets easier.” Knowing that that's a part of this.
Okay, finally, the beast. The beast of all limits, which are self-imposed limits. Self-imposed limits that we subconsciously don't realize that we put on ourselves can be the most difficult because we go back to what's comfortable. We have some of these things that prevent us from changing our habits, changing our routines, because we just go back to what we've done before. There's a big part of this.
Guess what, there's a surprise ending. The end of this podcast here is that I've been talking about relationship limits and societal limits, but guess what — all limits are self-imposed. We get to decide how much weight relationships and societal limits have an effect on us. We do. We have that power. We get to lean into what we believe about ourselves. We get to decide to allow things to stay the same and safe, or take risks based on our intuition and how we want to thrive.
This podcast is going to be all about how we can overcome these self-imposed limits. How we are truly limitless when we create life-giving business. Using all the ways the internet allows us to grow, and uncovering some of these subconscious limiting beliefs and flipping them into the limitless.
Mindset, strategy, health, growth, love — all of these allow us to break free of our self-imposed limits, but let me get real about a self-imposed limit of my own that stopped me from doing something I knew I wanted to do for five-plus years: it's this podcast.
It's this absolute podcast that I was sitting here going, “I know that I could talk about these things. I'm the person that really thinks through psychology, different aspects of it. I know so much and I would have such a blast being able to talk on this,” but I put myself in a box. My true act of being more limitless is creating this format to share what I know [and] learn, and the conversations I regularly have with others.
I believed that to be a podcast host, I needed to make a certain amount of money, I needed to lose 20 pounds — I will get into that, I'm sure. I don’t know where that came from. I know that I was like, “I’ve gotta look a certain way to be the host of something.” I thought I had to have a certain amount of followers — probably 10k at the time — and to be a [more] graceful and eloquent version of myself.
I thought I had to be a certain way to reward myself with something that I thought I wanted. The idea that we need to reach some silly, predetermined version of ourselves before we are allowed to do what our heart desires, but we know we're capable of what truly lights us up, it's the most infuriating thing and I fall into it all the time. So do my clients.
The idea of thinking like, “Am I ready to invest in myself? Am I ready to do the thing that I've been wanting to do for so long,” but it's knowing that “ready” is undefinable. We will say we're ready in one instance and we're not in the next, and there's no way of discerning between the two. Within this, it's the fallacy of being accomplished that prevents us from accomplishing all that we've ever wanted.
A part of this has a lot to do with Type A personalities, A-plus students. These things fall into place all the time going, “There's levels. There's a ladder to this,” when in reality, we get to choose how fast we reach the peak of what we're wanting to do.
Self-imposed limits have stopped me from applying for the job, from selling in the DMs, from making reels — which I enjoy, they're so informal, I love them so much now — from asking a guy out — that could be a fun story one day — or from going on that vacation. From creating the business I love even though I was already unhappy at a job that I was at. All of these things are limits I put on myself, and I know others put on themselves.
Within the last five years, I have been leading myself through not only uncovering what those limits are, but helping others find them as well. I want to take you along with me, as I share how I and my friends are creating more limitless beliefs in ourselves, in our businesses, and the measure of impact we can make on this world. I know wholeheartedly that I am capable of limitless possibilities and potential, and I am surrounded by people who can do the same.
That is the dedication here, that is the goal. With every episode, I want to provide to each and every one of you different ways to think about how to break free of some of the limits we put on ourselves and how we can create more limitless impact through our passions and what we want to do.
One way you can do that with me is coming to a content planning spread. I am someone who leads workshops that allow you to share your voice online in any way that you want to. I provide some content strategy, I provide some community.
Content planning spreads are two and a half hours that allow you to create content worthy of sharing that you want others to know about, that you can share your expertise, your perspective, your leadership, all of the above, and by doing that, create a really strong relationship with social that doesn't feel like that perfectionism, that doesn't feel like that comparison that we sometimes can feel.
Content planning spreads are hosted on most Wednesdays, 10 am or 2:30 pm Eastern Standard, but I'll drop it into the show notes as just one small way that you can get started on being a little more limitless, sharing your voice in a new way. Ultimately, I just wanted to say how excited I am to continue this. We'll talk soon!