Brave Moves: Confidence, Mindset & Business Growth for Women Entrepreneurs

Are you trying to behave in a certain way to maximize outside approval? In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins unpacks why perfectionism isn't a high standard — it's a rejection of your true self, and a symptom of chasing an outside standard instead of trusting the inner perfection that already exists within you.

Julie breaks down the difference between the perfectionist voice, obsessed with how things look to others, and the self-trusting voice, guided by inner authenticity and self-worth. She explores why striving for outer perfection is a recipe for misery and powerlessness, how perfectionism quietly spreads to our expectations of those around us, and what it actually looks like to live a self-directed life rather than an approval-driven one.

If you've ever felt like nothing you do is ever quite enough, this episode offers a research-informed, deeply practical reframe on perfectionism, self-worth, and authenticity,  plus a free tool to help you find where outer-approval perfectionism might be shrinking your voice.

In this episode:

• Why perfectionism is an outside standard, not a high standard
• The link between perfectionism and authenticity
• Two internal voices: outer approval vs. inner trust
• Why perfectionism leads to misery and powerlessness
• How perfectionism spreads to the people around you
• Moving from approval-driven to self-directed living
• This week's Brave Move + free Thought Leadership Assessment

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

Have you ever noticed how your posture changes depending on who's in the room? In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins breaks down why posture is one of the most honest indicators of self-worth, self-trust, and confidence — and why it has almost nothing to do with how you look.

Julie explores how body language shifts across different relationships and circumstances, why the posture we hold when no one's watching reveals our true relationship with ourselves, and how shrinking physically often mirrors shrinking in our voice, visibility, and thought leadership. She connects the dots between body language, self-worth, and personal branding, showing how the same nervous-system pattern that makes us slouch around an intimidating boss also makes us downplay our expertise, hedge our message, and give away our authority.

This episode is a practical, research-informed look at nonverbal confidence cues and how to reclaim your presence — starting with your body.

In this episode:

• Why posture shifts depending on who's in the room
• Posture as a mirror of your relationship with yourself
• The link between body language and self-worth
• How physical "shrinking" shows up in your visibility and voice
• Why the body leads, and confidence follows
• This week's Brave Move + free Thought Leadership Assessment

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

Most people believe confidence is something waiting for them on the other side of success: after the launch, the sale, the promotion, the win. In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins breaks down why that belief is backward, using Albert Bandura's landmark research in psychology on fear and self-efficacy to show how confidence is actually built, not found.

Julie unpacks the real difference between confidence and self-trust, and shares the three specific things that build lasting self-trust: keeping small promises, developing proof of integrity, and learning proof of recovery, a concept rooted in Martin Seligman's research on resilience and learned optimism. She also breaks down why taking risks only works when they're sized, limited, and diversified, and why selling is never about tactics; it's about credibility.

If you've ever felt like confidence is just out of reach, this episode gives you a practical, research-backed path to build it starting today, plus a free assessment to help you find your own credibility gap and next brave move.

In this episode:

• Why confidence isn't a feeling you wait for
• The Bandura fear study and what it reveals about self-efficacy
• Confidence vs. self-trust — the critical difference
• The 3 pillars of self-trust: kept promises, proof of integrity, proof of recovery
• How to size, limit, and diversify risk
• Why selling is about credibility, not tactics
• This week's Brave Move + free Thought Leadership Assessment

Take the Free Thought Leadership Assessment Here

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

Many of us carry a quiet, painful belief we've never said out loud: that we were loved conditionally, by a parent, a partner, or both. In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins unpacks what unconditional love actually is (hint: it's not the absence of boundaries), why so few of us experienced it fully, and why that pain was never proof that something was wrong with us.

Julie shares a personal story about her own experience with conditional love, then walks through why the deepest, most reliable unconditional love you'll ever find has to start inside your own being. This episode closes with a Tiny Habits-based Brave Move Challenge anchored to something you already do every day: catching your own reflection in the mirror.

If you've spent your life trying to earn love through performance, achievement, or being easy to be around, this episode is your invitation to stop waiting for someone else to hand you your worth.

Key Takeaways

• Unconditional love isn't the absence of boundaries — it's a felt sense that your essence, not your performance, is good and lovable.
• If you experienced conditional love growing up, the pain you carry isn't proof something is wrong with you. It's proof something was limited in the love you were given.
• Truly unconditional love is rare to find fully from another person — the most reliable source of it is the relationship you build with yourself.
• Self-love isn't a personality trait some people have, and others don't. It's a practice you can build in small, repeatable moments.

Brave Move Challenge (Tiny Habits Edition)

After I see my reflection in the mirror, I will pause for three seconds and say one true, kind thing to myself about my essence — not my appearance. Small, repeatable, anchored to something you already do every day.

Quotable Moments

• "The pain wasn't proof that something was wrong with you. The pain was proof that something was wrong with the love you were given."
• "You cannot outsource this one."
• "Unconditional love is a felt sense, deep in your body, that your essence is good."

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

Being liked and being loved are not the same thing, and for years Julie DeLucca-Collins confused the two. In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie unpacks the real root of people-pleasing: not kindness, but fear. Drawing from her own corporate career, where being "the reliable one" quietly became her entire sense of self-worth, Julie breaks down why people-pleasing keeps your goodness trapped outside of you, in the hands of a jury that never stops deliberating.

You'll learn the one question that can start untangling people-pleasing patterns in real time, why approval-seeking behavior can never actually deliver the peace it promises, and how to begin separating genuine generosity from fear-based giving. This episode closes with a practical, three-second Brave Move Challenge you can start using today.

If you've ever felt exhausted from being "the good one," this episode is your permission slip to stop auditioning for a role you never needed in the first place.

Key Takeaways

People-pleasing and genuine kindness look identical from the outside but come from opposite places on the inside: fear versus fullness.

• When your sense of worth depends on other people's approval, you never actually own your own goodness — you rent it, one compliment at a time.
• Everyone judging your "goodness" is operating from their own history, moods, and bad days — which means their opinion was never a reliable verdict on you.
• Noticing the pattern in real time is the first step to changing it. You can't shift what you haven't caught.

Brave Move Challenge

Before saying yes to something this week, pause for three seconds and ask: "Am I doing this because I want to, or because I need them to think I'm good?" Just notice the answer. That's the whole assignment.

Quotable Moments

• "Being liked and being loved are not the same thing."
• "Love gives from fullness. People-pleasing gives from fear."
• "You've made your worth dependent on a jury that never stops deliberating."
• "Your goodness was never up for a vote."

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie takes listeners back to the beginning of her confidence journey and shares the story behind why confidence became such a meaningful part of her life and work.

After realizing that some listeners may be joining the Brave Moves journey mid-story, Julie opens the door to her own origin story. She reads from the first chapter of her book, Confident You: Simple Habits to Live the Life You Have Imagined, sharing a vulnerable and memorable junior high moment that shaped how she understood confidence, insecurity, shame, and self-worth.

This episode is not really about gym class, mean girls, or an unfortunate see-through bra situation in the Miami heat, although yes, that story makes an appearance. It is about how early moments can define us, how confidence can be misunderstood, and how women often learn to perform confidence before they truly feel it.

Julie reflects on growing up in a family of strong women, learning the value of leadership, and eventually discovering that confidence is not something you either have or do not have. Confidence is something you practice, build, and return to one small brave move at a time.

This episode is an invitation to stop seeing confidence as a personality trait and start seeing it as a habit, a result, and a pathway back to who you really are.

In This Episode

Julie shares:

•  Why she wanted to give listeners the “first book” of the Brave Moves story 
•  A vulnerable story from her book Confident You
•  How an awkward junior high moment shaped her confidence for years 
•  Why so many women are taught to be good, quiet, pleasing, and mold-fitting 
•  The difference between acting confident and becoming confident 
•  Why confidence is built through action, not perfection 
•  How strong women, mentors, and trailblazers helped shape her mission 
•  Why she wrote Confident You for women, her nieces, and anyone needing a reminder of what is possible 

Key Takeaway

Confidence is not something you are magically born with. It is something you build through small choices, honest reflection, and brave moves that help you become more of who you were meant to be.

Memorable Quote

“Confidence is a result rather than an action.”

Call to Action

Think about one early story that shaped how you see yourself. Is it still serving you, or is it time to write a new chapter?

And this week, make one brave move that helps you become the confident you.

You can get a copy of my book here

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

Fear is contagious; we all know that. But courage is contagious too. In this episode, Julie explores what it really means to live courageously, not as one big heroic moment, but as a quiet, repeated way of showing up. She breaks down why courage isn't a highlight reel, and why the hardest part of courageous living is letting go of the outcome entirely.

In This Episode:

• Why fear spreads fast in a room, and why courage spreads just as fast
• The myth of courage as a one-time, heroic, cinematic moment
• What everyday courage actually looks like: pricing, boundaries, hard conversations, showing up
• Why courageous living means letting go of the outcome
• A simple Brave Move Challenge to practice courage today

Key Takeaway

Courage that only shows up in big moments isn't courage; it's adrenaline. Real courage is a way of life, built through small, unglamorous, repeated choices.

Brave Move Challenge

Notice what you're spreading today, fear or courage, and to whom. Then choose one small, honest, non-heroic moment to do the steady thing, and let go of how it turns out.

Quotable Moments

• "Fear moves fast. It doesn't need permission; it just spreads."
• "Courageous living means we also let go of the outcome."
• "Be the courage in the room."

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

Inspired by a powerful quote from Karen Salmansohn, "If you stay too long in a bad situation, you forget it's a bad situation and get comfortable. Meanwhile, the best years of your life will pass you by," this episode explores how we quietly settle into situations, jobs, relationships, and business models that stopped serving us long ago. Julie breaks down why comfortable and good are not the same thing, and challenges listeners to name what they've stopped noticing.

In This Episode:

• The Karen Salmansohn quote that inspired this episode, and why it hits so hard
• How bad situations slowly become "normal" without us realizing it
• Why comfortable is not the same as good
• The real cost of staying too long, and it's not drama, it's time
• A simple Brave Move Challenge to help you see your situation clearly again

Key Takeaway

Comfortable just means your nervous system stopped flagging the problem. It doesn't mean the situation is right for you.

Brave Move Challenge

Name one situation you've gotten too comfortable in. Write it down. You don't need a five-year plan today, just the honesty to see it clearly again.

Quotable Moments

• "Comfortable and good are not the same word."
• "Comfortable just means your nervous system stopped flagging it."
• "It's not that bad becomes the sentence that keeps people stuck the longest."

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

A video of a German Shepherd sunning himself on a balcony, until one small shift sent him slipping between the rails, sparks this week's Brave Move. His owner happened to glance out at exactly the right moment and pulled him to safety. In this episode, Julie unpacks why the real brave move wasn't the rescue, it was the noticing, and why the people around us who "look fine" may be hanging on more than we realize.

In This Episode:

• The Instagram video that inspired this episode, and why one small shift changed everything
• Why "no news is good news" isn't always true
• The people in our lives who look like they have it together, and why that's not the full story
• A simple, real challenge to check in on someone today

Key Takeaway

You never know who's hanging on quietly. Being brave sometimes just means paying attention.

Brave Move Challenge

Think of one person who "looks fine" but you haven't really checked in on in a while. Reach out today, a text, a call, a voice memo. Let them know why you're thinking of them.

Quotable Moments

• "Nobody's going to bark. Nobody's going to send up a flare."
• "The brave move in this story wasn't the rescue. It was the noticing."
• "You never know who's hanging on."

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...

What if the most empowering thing someone could say to you started with the words "everything is your fault?"

In this episode of Brave Moves, Julie DeLucca-Collins opens with a statement that might make you want to close the app — and then spends the rest of the episode turning it into the most liberating idea you've heard all year.

This is an episode about radical responsibility. About the quiet ways we hand over our power without realizing it. About the difference between fault, which looks backward and keeps you stuck, and responsibility, which looks forward and puts you back in motion.

Julie introduces the CEO of Your Life framework: the mindset shift that separates people who feel like life is happening to them from people who know they are the ones making it happen. You'll learn the four things great CEOs do consistently, the small language patterns that signal you've given the wheel away, and the one question that will immediately return your power in any situation.

If you have ever caught yourself saying "I don't have time," "that's just how I am," or "it's their fault" — this episode is for you.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why "everything is your fault" is actually a statement of empowerment, not blame
• The difference between fault and responsibility, and why it changes everything
• How to apply the CEO of Your Life framework to your decisions and habits
• The small language patterns that signal you've given up your power
• The one question to ask yourself when you feel stuck or reactive
• The four habits of people who lead their lives with intention

Mentioned in this episode: The CEO of Your Life framework; the concept of radical responsibility and response-ability.

Episode Description (short, for Spotify/Apple preview text)

Everything that is happening in your life is your fault. Stay with me. This episode is about radical responsibility, the CEO of Your Life mindset, and why owning your role in everything is the fastest path to actually changing it.

Key Takeaways

• Fault looks backward and assigns blame. Responsibility looks forward and creates motion.
• You are the CEO of your life — not the intern waiting for direction, not the passenger hoping someone else takes the wheel.
• We give our power away quietly: "I don't have time," "I can't afford it," "that's just how I am."
• Response-ability is your ability to respond. You cannot control what happens, but you always control your response.
• The one question that returns your power in any situation: What is my role in this?
• CEOs make decisions, review results honestly, invest in themselves, and take the long view.

Brave Move Today

This week, catch yourself giving the wheel away. When you hear yourself say "I can't," "I don't have time," "that's just how I am," or "it's their fault," pause. Ask: What is my role in this? What is one thing I can do differently? You don't have to fix everything. Just take back the wheel.

If you loved this episode, text me and let me know what you though.

Support the show

For more about the Recalibrate Retreat, visit my website.

Get $150 off your FACTOR Meal Plan. 

Brave Moves is a daily confidence and personal growth podcast for ambitious women, women entrepreneurs, and leaders who are ready to overcome self-doubt, build resilience, and take bold action in business and life. Each short, practical episode blends mindset science, decision-making psychology, and real-life stories to help you strengthen your confidence, rewire negative thought patterns, and create meaningful forward momentum.

If you are navigating career pivots, burnout, reinvention, or leadership growth, Brave Moves gives you the tools to think differently, act bravely, and design a future aligned with your values and vision. Because confidence isn’t something you’re born with. It’s something you build, one brave move at a time.

Liked this episode? Share it with your midlife woman, entrepreneur friends!

Love this show? Let us know how we helped you increase your confidence by leaving a review.

If you’re looking for support to grow your business faster, be positioned as an authority in your industry, and impact the masses, schedule a call to explore if you’d be a good fit for one of my coaching p...