When You Stop Waiting to be Ready (with Chantée Christian)

Most of us spend far too much time waiting: Waiting until we're more confident. Until we know exactly what we're doing. Until we feel ready.

The problem? The feeling of readiness usually arrives after we take the first step, not before.

In this episode of The Potentialist Podcast, I sit down with Chantée Christian, best-selling author and founder of the Conscious Leadership Summit, to explore why growth begins when we stop hiding, start showing up and take action before we have all the answers.

Drawing from her own journey from working behind the scenes to becoming a visible leader, Chantée shares how discomfort, authenticity and meaningful connections open doors you never imagined.

Listen in and discover:

• Why waiting to feel ready may be preventing you from pursuing opportunities that matter

• How one small act of courage can create ripple effects far beyond what you expect

• How to recognize when an idea, dream or opportunity is calling you forward

If you've been sitting on an idea, hesitating to make a connection or wondering whether you're qualified enough, experienced enough or ready enough, this episode is your invitation to take the next step.

Your potential doesn’t unlock when you finally feel ready.

It unlocks when you begin.

Transcript

Dr. Lee Koles: Hello everyone. Welcome to the Potentialist podcast. I'm your host Dr. Lee Koles. I'm an industrial organizational psychologist, Gallup Clifton strength coach, and certified life coach. And I am so excited to be here with you today because your potential is my passion. In today's episode, we are going to dig into the power of connections. And not just that, but also in putting yourself out there. And my incredible guest is the queen of putting herself out there. I'd like you to meet Chantée Christian.

Chantée Christian: Hello.

Dr. Lee Koles: Hi, Chantée.

Chantée Christian: Hi. Thank you for having me.

Dr. Lee Koles: Oh, it is such a pleasure. Okay, you’ve got to hear about Chantée. Chantée is a three-time best-selling author, award-winning podcast host, and the founder of My Best Shift, where she helps leaders align strategy with self-awareness to lead with intention, clarity, and authenticity. Chantée also is the founder of CC Media, the publishing imprint behind the best-selling book Awareness Put Me On, and the soon-to-be released book—hopefully upcoming bestseller—Leading from Within. So, welcome to the podcast, Chantée.

Chantée Christian: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Lee.

Dr. Lee Koles: Yes. So, okay, I got to share our origin story here because I love it. And for those of you who are listening, it's going to give you a taste of the light that is Chantée. So, I was watching a pre-recorded coaching skills strategy webinar and I think that webinar was about five years old at the time when I was watching it. So, four or five years old. Okay. So, it had been around for a while. And one of the featured coaches on the webinar was, you guessed it, Chantée. And so I finished the webinar and I thought, well, that person seemed cool. I wonder what she's up to right now. And so I do what I do, which is get on LinkedIn. My friend LinkedIn, and Chantée was there. So I sent her a connection request. I just said something like, "Hi, Chantée. I just finished watching this webinar that you were on and this video and I really enjoyed it and I'd love to have you as part of my LinkedIn network".

Chantée Christian: Yep. And sounds right.

Dr. Lee Koles: Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, most people would have just clicked the accept button—if at all—and moved on, but not Chantée. Chantée, what did you do?

Chantée Christian: Well, I did click the accept button. Well, first I was like, well, who is this person? But usually I know when people are at a certain part of the program because they're like, "Oh, I saw you." And I'm like, "You saw me." And so when I saw your response, I remembered what it was like to be in that place. And so to hear that people don't respond—it might take some time to respond—but the people that don't respond, I think that they do the world a disservice. And I know we're going to talk about a little bit of that later, but what I did was I responded, right? I was like, "Hey, how are you doing? Where are you at in your journey?" Because I was curious. And you told me and you were like, "I'd be happy to chat." And I was like, "Okay, here's my calendar. Schedule some time and let's chat".

Dr. Lee Koles: Yeah. Well, and I have to give you the credit. We were going back and forth over LinkedIn Messenger for a while. And Chantée, you said, "You know, why don't we just meet over Zoom". So, we did and we scheduled it, got together, and as I expected, Chantée was even more engaging in person than she was over LinkedIn messaging and she was so full of great advice and warm and kind and genuine. And so, before we signed off, I asked a question. I just said, "How can I support you?"

Chantée Christian: I remember that. And I was planning 2025 CLS which is the Conscious Leadership Summit and I said just share the word, let people know that it's happening. And you were like, "Okay, say less," and next thing I know you were there.

Dr. Lee Koles: Yeah. I thought, you know, the conference was in Washington DC, my old hometown. And then it also turned out I was going to be in DC because I was going to be giving a talk in DC literally that same time frame and I thought I just want to do this and also like I had so much fun talking to you over Zoom. I thought, what else—if I go to a conference that this woman has organized and put together, what is going to be opening up for me and what am I going to learn and who am I going to meet? And it was fabulous. It was the inaugural conscious leadership conference and it was a smash success and thank you so much for doing that. It was just so much fun. I learned a lot, met some really cool people and you as my listeners, I want to connect you to these, to Chantée and these voices and ideas as well.

Chantée Christian: I love this and you know, I don't think I've smiled this hard and blushed this much because my goodness, I appreciate it and I receive it. Because I think that it's so important for us to be what we need to people. There's so many times that I've sent a request to someone and they don't respond and I'm like, you know, but I don't take it personally. However, it's also like you could respond. And just the thing is is if you don't respond, you will never know what could have happened. You will never know who you could have met, what you could have learned, how your brain could be cracked open in an amazing, beautiful way.

I think that we do ourselves a disservice when we think too highly of ourselves to respond to people. One of my favorite books that I read or listen to sometimes both at least twice a year is The Four Agreements. And one of those things in The Four Agreements is don't take things personally, right? Because anything could be happening in people's lives and all the things. And when you're the people, you got to be conscious of: You put yourself out there, which means you then have to go and do the thing that keeps the people wanting to know who you are and engaging with you and learning from you and not just being too busy to respond. I'll accept because I want to grow my network. Well, growing my network to me is more of a genuine place. I want to know the people that are in my network. I don't want to just say, "Oh yeah, they sent me a request. I accepted it." Nah, because I might not want to be associated with you in that way, and vice versa, right? I'm not everyone's cup of tea. Sometimes I'm somebody's whiskey. It just it's a thing, you know? And so, I think that it's really important for people who decide to be public-facing to do the service for the public and not for ourselves.

And so, it's rare that I don't respond. Now, I might be delayed, but it's rare that I don't respond because I want to know who you are. I want to know what drew you to me because I believe that we attract who we are, not what we want. And if that's the truth, then there's something in you that's in me and vice versa. And so I want to know what it is because it's something and I want to get to know you more. I want to understand it so that then we can understand how we can work in each other's lives in a way that is conducive for the network.

Dr. Lee Koles: Yeah. And you, you know, in terms of putting yourself out there, like it takes a bit of a push to actually not just hit the accept button, but then to put a little note out there that is giving a little bit of yourself. And in this world, sometimes it feels like we're very exposed. Maybe it's on social media, there's just more risk maybe that we feel in putting our true selves out there. Can you talk to me about how you work this through and think it through?

Chantée Christian: Oh my goodness. Me, my coach, and my therapist work really hard on this. And I say that from a perspective of I've spent two decades essentially supporting the federal government and in spaces where I couldn't really talk about the projects that I worked on and the work that I did. And so when I left that world, to be open to people knowing what I was doing and how I was doing it felt very wrong for all intended purposes. It felt like I shouldn't be doing this. Like I'm going to get in trouble soon. I don't like it here. And then I realized, well, who are you getting in trouble with? I had to decide what was more important to me: what I was used to from a sheltered perspective or this new me that I was starting to create. And when I thought about that, it was like, okay, well, how much do I share?

Because as an only child, who was I sharing my business with? No one. And so it was like, it was some things that have been conditioned to not necessarily silence, but if you have been in my circle and in my world, you know some things, but even like my really really closest friends would probably be like, "I didn't even know". And so it was like, well, how much of me do I want to share with the public? I feel like every book I write, I tell a little bit more. And so that first book really, as you said earlier, like cracked it open for me where I exposed some things that people just didn't know because I hadn't let them in to know.

So when they read Leading Through the Pandemic, they were like, "I had no idea". And I was like, "Why would you?" However, I realized that there were so many people that either were going through it, had gone through it, or were in it. And when I realized that my silence wasn't of support of the people that were going through it or that were in it in the moment, then I had to make a decision of which was more important to me, right? And part of that was getting really comfortable with the fact that my purpose had nothing to do with my comfort out there in the world and on social.

Dr. Lee Koles: I love that: "my purpose had nothing to do with my comfort". Sometimes you have to push yourself into areas of discomfort. That's a signal that you're growing, that you're doing something new, and it's not going to feel comfortable when you do that.

Chantée Christian: It is not. It is going to feel the opposite of comfort. It is going to feel like pain. You're going to have all the reasons why not to do it, except for the one reason why you're supposed to be doing it. The one reason that makes your heart sing when you do it.

Dr. Lee Koles: How do you know when you've discovered a reason to go through that discomfort?

Chantée Christian: When you can't stop thinking about it. Like before I make a big purchase, right? I am a person where certain things I'll spend money on without blinking an eye, but if once it gets over a certain dollar amount, not only do I blink eyes, I’ve pulled out a spreadsheet, I've done a comparison. I feel like it's the same, right? When it's playing in the back of your mind, when you're starting to see signs and people are saying things like, "Oh, I've been thinking about that," and it won't let you go. That's when you know. That's when you know that you are going to have to release it and go to it or it's just going to keep showing its way to you until you say, "Okay, let me do it".

Dr. Lee Koles: Right. So, if you keep thinking about it, can't stop thinking about it, that means it's being pushed towards you for a reason and it's not going to go away unless you step through the discomfort and go for it.

Chantée Christian: Absolutely. No shadow of a doubt.

Dr. Lee Koles: Now, Chantée, what about those of us who feel like we're not perfect enough or we don't want to push ourselves out there because what if we make a mistake? What if people are judging us? What if we're not good enough?

Chantée Christian: That's good. So there are two women who are authors and leaders who I love because of their vulnerability, their honesty, and their transparency. One is Brené Brown. Two, Mel Robbins. I also love that woman because what they do is they let you know that they're not perfect. Even though they're experts in a thing, they're still working through the thing. And so I would love for people to be able to understand that having courage to take the step does not equal perfection, right? And trust me, as a recovering type A, I know that is like you've lost your mind to say that it doesn't have to be perfect, but when you think about it, nothing's perfect. And so it's not the perfection that we need. We need you.

I think that a term that I hear a lot of people say is, "Well, if I don't have it together, how can I tell other people to have it together?" Because we teach better than we do. And that doesn't mean that you're not a few steps ahead of where they are. You can help them for where they are. A lot of the times lessons that we go through aren't for us. They're for other people and we have to go through them in order to be able to have the empathy, to be able to have the understanding, and to be able to hold space. And if we hadn't gone through the thing or if we hadn't been thinking that maybe I'm not worthy, maybe I'm not the one, right? We've all done it. I've done it a million times. Starting my podcast, starting our business, all the things. I'm like, "Oh, who's coming? No one wants to hear that".

Dr. Lee Koles: Yeah. No, I love what you said and I'm just going to repeat it: "Having the courage to take the step does not equal perfection". In fact, perfect is boring. It’s actually unrelatable because it's not human. As humans, we make mistakes. We don't do everything right. We have strengths, we have weaknesses as well. And just being able to show some vulnerability makes you more relatable as a person.

Chantée Christian: Yeah. And it's what the world needs right now, right? We need people who are relatable, who have been through some things and are willing to share the thing—and not after they've made it to the other side and saying, "Oh, let me give you five good tips." Your tips are great, however, I want to know how did you apply these tips. I want to know that it works for you because I see me in you, and I feel like we need so much more of that.

Dr. Lee Koles: So much more of that. So, I want to also call some attention to something that you wrote to me when we were talking about this podcast and you said, "The world doesn't need a perfect version of you. It needs the real you. That's how we shift from just existing to truly being". You said your story, your voice, and your presence matters. The world needs you. So what can people do when they are feeling like they want to connect, they want to put themselves out there, but they're feeling those feelings of discomfort, of doubt, of judgment of themselves? Do you have any steps that they could take to get to that next level?

Chantée Christian: I'm actually working on a new framework around SHIFT. So, I created My Best Shift, which is my flagship business, in June of 2020. It was in the midst of a very long night on June 18th where my now-creative director and I were sitting in my house during the shutdown with every lamp we could collect in the house to record me talking about Juneteenth. I kept hearing my dad say, "You can't complain about something you're not willing to go make a change and go do something about." And I was like, "Okay, fine. I don't have anything else to do." So I said, "Let's do this recording". And as we were sitting on the couch editing the video, I kept saying I really want to change the name of the current company, because it was Perspectro. And I was like, "People keep messing it up." I was like, "Something about shift..." and she said to me—and I'll never forget this—"Taye, I really think that this is your shift. You are taking a turn into stepping into the light where you're usually the one in the background".

And I heard her, but it was something else that I heard in that. And I was like, "My Best Shift. Yes. That's what we're going to call the company". And she was right. That video kicked off five years of things that were never on my bingo card. It was a lot of me stepping out and being wildly uncomfortable because this wasn't what I had seen as my plan. Remember I told you I'm recovering type A? So, I had a list. And I also really wanted to make sure that I wasn't abandoning what my original plan was just because I didn't like where I was in the moment.

Dr. Lee Koles: You know, type A to think, "I put this I set up this plan, I have my list, I got to keep going straight. I can't shift to the side because does that mean I'm failing? Does that mean I'm giving up?"

Chantée Christian: Yeah. And I think that we don't do that enough. I feel like we don't take a true account of what's working, what's no longer working. How do I feel about the thing that I'm having the resistance toward? What am I telling myself about me and this thing? How true is that? If I were to decide to do just one thing that was a step toward it, what would that look like? That's essentially what the SHIFT method is: signaling awareness, recognizing those points of fatigue or misalignment, and recognizing something might not be working here.

Dr. Lee Koles: And I love what you just said: think about what you're telling yourself and then ask yourself, is this true? Because so often we just believe that voice in our head. Just even taking the step to ask yourself, "Is that true?" If I were to ask a hundred people, would they say, "Oh, yes, that's true"? And if there are even one out of a hundred that's not saying that, then it isn't true.

Chantée Christian: It's not true. And then what you said about just one step. That video was my one step. It was my one step that planted a seed in me that I honestly hadn't even considered. I hadn't even considered it because it was nowhere on my map. But I knew what I was doing wasn't working, and that was no longer my truth.

Mark Twain had a quote. He said that there are two times in your life that are essentially the best times. One, when you're born, and two, when you find out why. I feel like there's a third, though. And the third is when you have the courage to walk out the why. Because there are so many people that leave this earth with all of these amazing dreams and aspirations because they were too afraid to walk out their why.

Dr. Lee Koles: "Walk out the why". And that's also what you said about stepping out from the shadows into the light. So, this is the Potentialist podcast. When you think of potential, what does that mean to you?

Chantée Christian: It seems unlimited! When I think about potential, it isn't about capability. It isn't about assets. It's literally about how big are you willing to dream and then what are you willing to do to live out that dream? So the potential is the dream, and then the unlocking it is the small steps that you're willing to take to live it out—walking out the why.

Dr. Lee Koles: Oh, Chantée, such good stuff. Don't you all want to go to a conference that Chantée organizes and puts together and runs?

Chantée Christian: We're going to have some dates out soon for 2026. We're going to have some dates out soon.

Dr. Lee Koles: Oh, I love it. So, Chantée, I know that I love having my friends become friends. And so, all the listeners here, they're my friends. I want them to get to know you. How can people best get a hold of you or learn more about you and My Best Shift?

Chantée Christian: You can find me on LinkedIn. Wildly enough, I am the only Chantée L. Christian spelled that way. So, you can find me on LinkedIn. You can also find me on Instagram with My Best Shift (SH_I_F_T_LLC) and you will find me there along with all of the amazing things that we have going on. It's connected to the Conscious Leadership Summit, my TV show—all of my pages are connected.

Dr. Lee Koles: Oh, I am so excited for all of us to hang out together some more. And thank you everyone for joining us on the Potentialist podcast. I look forward to getting together again soon. But until then, please be good to yourself and know that I've got your back.