Communicating with Confidence with Katrina Blowers

I have such a special treat for you on the podcast today. I’m joined by the incredible Katrina Blowers, an award winning newsreader on Australia’s Channel 7, a speaker, mentor and host of the Claiming Your Confidence podcast. The media industry might be a lot of smoke and mirrors, but this girl is the real deal and knows what it takes to have true confidence.

Well known for her work in the radio and television industry, Katrina also has a passion for teaching people the power of authentic confidence, providing one-on-one coaching to help others tell their own stories. Understanding that we all have a media platform at our disposal, Katrina also runs a workshop empowering young people to master mindful and authentic use of social media.

In this episode, Katrina talks about her life growing up knowing exactly what she wanted to do and how she never really thought about confidence until she was going through a divorce and experienced a panic attack on live television. She talks about that experience and how it led her to question everything she thought she knew about confidence.

Katrina shares about her journey to recovery following the panic attack, the anxiety that followed and the game changing discovery of meditation. We talk about not getting swept up in the narrative surrounding our thoughts and how she managed to keep going when her whole world was blowing up.

We talk about why so many women struggle with imposter syndrome and don’t believe in the power of their own stories but that every person has something powerful to share. Katrina talks about how she works with other people to build their confidence, that no one has it all together but that we can learn from each other’s experiences.

TOPICS I MENTION AND WHERE TO FIND THEM:

[3:10]: How a fire was lit inside Katrina at the age of 7 when she discovered what a journalist was and knew that’s what she wanted to do

[5:00]: Katrina’s career path which started at the age of 12, her experience in radio and her role as TV news host in Brisbane

[6:30]: How Katraina never even thought about confidence until she was going through a divorce and experienced a panic attack reading the news, which caused her to question everything she thought she knew.

[9:10]: How Katrina’s parents raised her with tough love which she resented for a long time, but in hindsight realises that it was amazing training for being resilient, resourceful and determined

[11:30]: Katrina talks about how her mother’s standards for doing things well caused her to be a perfectionist but that she has learned that not everything can be perfect.

[12:30]: Katrina’s experience co-hosting a popular breakfast radio show with Merrick and Rosso and how after 6 years, she realised that journalism was her true calling and took a gap year to go travelling

[14:20]: How Katrina’s boss told her she was making the biggest mistake of her career by leaving the network, which inspired her book about travelling the world, asking the big questions and following your intuition

[15:30]: How the decision to leave was also because Katrina wanted to have children but she wasn’t ovulating because her body was so exhausted from the hours she was working

[16:30]: Katrina’s husband was a big driver for her taking a break but everyone else was telling her she was making a mistake

[17:30]: Life has seasons and sometimes you pass up opportunities but it makes space for new opportunities that you never see coming

[18:45]: Katrina talks about how she used to get into character for her on air persona but that it all became too much when she had her panic attack. 

[21:30]: How the real work came after the panic attack to fight the anxiety about having another one and discovered that she had to relearn everything she knew about confidence

[22:15]: Pretty please leave me a review!

[23:30]: How Katrina’s whole life had changed because of the divorce and work was no longer a safe haven because doing her job was now a source of anxiety

[24:15]: How Katrina kept her panic attack quiet at first because she was ashamed and didn’t want to jeopardize her job. She did a lot of research and uncovered that it was normal to feel anxiety when you’re doing something outside your comfort zone.

[26:20]: Katrina started looking into meditation and breathing techniques to get into her parasympathetic nervous system. She began a 30 day anxiety challenge which started out with 2 minutes a day to gain control over the anxiety.

[27:25]: How the game changer for Katrina has been creating space between her thoughts, not getting swept up in the story about her thoughts. She now meditates 20 minutes a day.

[28:40]: “The show must go on” mentality in TV, how a lot of it is smoke and mirrors and that Katrina is now being who she really is when reading the news. True confidence, not constructed.

[30:30]: How Katrina said yes to every speaking opportunity during her recovery which led to the opportunity of doing a corporate workshop and 1-1 coaching to teach people techniques for confidence on camera

[33:20]: How people can look at Katrina and think she wouldn’t have any reason to be nervous but that telling her story enables other women to know they can be confident too

[35:00]: How media press conferences are a great opportunity to strengthen the muscle of speaking up and that a lot of women reveal their imposter syndrome through they way they intonate their voice, asking a question instead of making a statement

[37:30]: How the biggest problem is that women don’t believe in the power of their own stories and they doubt their worth and validity. Katrina works with women to develop 3 stories from their lives to be able to share in different contexts

[30:00]: How Katrina’s experience in journalism has taught her what people resonate with and that she is able to convert her knowledge to help people tell their own stories

[41:00]: All the bad stuff makes us who we are and we can use it to change things for the better

[42:00]: Katrina’s podcast where she talks to people in high profile positions about what goes on behind the scenes and how no one has it all together

[43:15]: How your why has to be bigger than you are 

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