EPISODE 4 — FINDING YOUR SUPERPOWER

Stop trying to succeed despite who you are.

“Welcome to Chapter Four: Finding Your Superpower.This might be one of the most important chapters for understanding who I am today.When I discovered I was dyslexic, I didn't see a superpower.I saw something to hide.I spent years trying to work around the way my brain worked rather than understanding it.Today, I see it very differently.The way I think, connect ideas, learn through experience and see things differently has shaped the founder I've become.And that's the lesson I want you to take into this chapter:What if you stopped trying to fix the part of you that's different and started learning how to use it?Your difference might not be your disadvantage.It might be your edge.Welcome to Finding Your Superpower.”

Welcome to The RED ROOM.A space for Resilient, Empowered and Driven women who are ready to have the conversations that often happen behind closed doors.

I’m Carla Chatburn — founder, franchisor, mentor, wife and mum — and after more than two decades in business, I’ve learned that success is never just about what you build.It’s about who you become while building it.Here in The RED ROOM, we talk about the real stuff here is your free IP

And that’s another conversation from The RED ROOM.

A room for Resilient, Empowered and Driven women — where we share the stories behind the success, not just the highlight reel.If something from today’s conversation stayed with you, don’t just listen to it — do something with it. https://info.confidentbeautytherapist.co.uk/

Chapter 4. Finding your superpower. In my first year of doing my certificate in education, it became clear that I was not a typical thinker. I'd been handing in my assignments, mixing up my B's and D's, my sentences didn't make sense, and every time I referenced a source, there was always a piece of the puzzle that was missing. I was writing thousand-word essays where my thinking and reasoning was just different. I'd always had a feeling that my reading and writing skills were a weakness of mine, and I just needed somebody to call me out on it.

My tutor noticed that something was up and suggested I got tested for dyslexia. When they confirmed that I was dyslexic, I felt so ashamed. I wanted to prove myself so much that I was intelligent and worthy of my position. And when I was diagnosed, I felt like a failure. Years ago, when I was at school, dyslexia wasn't something that was ever discussed. It wasn't as openly accepted as it is today. So I thought, oh my gosh, if everybody knows that I have dyslexia, they'll treat me differently. They'll bully me.

It was a knock to my confidence. And I kept it quiet and I didn't tell anyone. Again, that feeling of I'm not good enough kicked in. And I kept asking myself, why am I so different? I think my tutor could see the sheer panic on my face. She could see those questions going around in my head. I'm not good enough. So what do I do now? How do I even finish this course? So she reached out to me and gave me extra tuition and did it with such decorum and respect that I was never made to feel bad for those extra help.

Of course it was her job to do that, but in my naivety, her attention made me feel so special. I was like, oh wow, this woman is investing her time in me. She's going to help me because I haven't got a clue. It made me feel like I could do it. She showed me how to process information and how to look at different resources, how to do things in smaller chunks, and how to find a way to relate the information. I learnt a lot from her and I'm so grateful for this woman. Even giving up her time just for me.

Just because information goes in one ear and comes out the other doesn't mean that there's something wrong with me. Just means that my brain processes things differently. And it's the same for you. If you do struggle with reading and writing, or you struggle to hold on to information, it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with you. It just means that you think differently. It's your superpower. You just have to figure out how to use it. But even with her help, there were times where I doubted myself, how can I even teach somebody a skill when I have dyslexia?

Even after I graduated, for a long time afterwards I carried a lot of shame around it. I was such an independent person, I refused to be labelled, and I never wanted to be seen as different. I never allowed myself to explore dyslexia any further, not until I met my business coach. And that's something we'll talk more about in the next chapter. At this point, I was so focused on my business that my self-development stopped at this point. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to be seen as a complainer or a victim.

So for me it was a case of having to find a different way to succeed. Instead of working with my weakness, which is what I do today, I ignored it and pushed it away. But dyslexia is a part of who I am, and at that time I didn't realise how important it was to accept all parts of yourself. Burying your head in the sand is not going to help you when you are facing a challenge. It is something that you should never do, but it's what I did. Over the next decade, I denied a part of who I really was, and to be honest, it was painful.

I carried a mixture of shame feelings, of failure and childhood trauma into everything I did. I should have stopped to heal and accept myself, but I was afraid it would have stopped me from achieving my goals in business. How wrong was I? So I just parted the disability there and found different ways to move forward. What my weakness taught me. Everybody's got strengths and weaknesses. And when you identify yours, you should absolutely run with it. Whether it's a strength or a weakness, when I was diagnosed despite feeling like a failure, it also gave me a little bit more drive.

I thought, so, if this is how my brain works, how can I make it work for me? And this was something that I began to explore with my business coach later on in my career. If you face an obstacle, what can you do to make it work for you instead of against you? It will be a really, really difficult process to go through because you are exploring your weaknesses, not your strengths. But there will always be someone there to help you. Just ask for help. Ask a friend, ask a colleague, a teacher, someone you admire.

Yes, you may have a weakness, but that doesn't mean it should defeat you. If you start something, you should finish it. Use your weakness as a springboard to push you forward rather than hold you back. I wasn't good at reading or writing, but I knew I was really good at being hands-on. And I understood the world by how things felt and how I experienced things. So that's how I was going to teach my apprentices. One of the most important things that you can do is to explore your own self-awareness.

Explore how you think, how you process information. Take some free tests online. You'll find free dyslexia tests, free ADHD tests, free personality tests. I think that as being human beings, we're not taught any part of psychology in school. And it's a shame because it's so important to understand that there are other people in the world that think differently to you, and that's really normal. So go and explore why you feel like you feel and why you think like you think, and start getting some answers.

I had to find different ways of learning business without going down the traditional route. If I had, I would have failed. I really would have failed because I would have been measured against the rules and requirements that weren't right for my situation, and I probably would have blamed myself for it and even might have quit. Exploring different ways of learning and knowing that I didn't have to do things the neurotypical way freed me to find my own direction and made me feel better about my education.

For me, learning on the job was the best way of understanding how it felt and what it looked like. At the end of the day, that was the best training exercise I could have ever asked for. In a strange way, my refusal to accept dyslexia has actually helped me. But that's my journey, and I'm not saying you should ignore any part of yourself. My journey would have been a lot easier if I'd have just allowed myself to accept who I was. In a way, what I saw as my weakness actually became my superpower.

It pushed me to try it harder and better, and it sets me off in a direction that I might never had tried. If you feel you have a weakness in anything, could it actually be your superpower? Ignoring failure. For a while everything was working until I wanted to take the business in the next direction. I wanted recognition. I felt at that time I had a really unique business model. I'd worked super hard for it and I had created success that I wanted to be recognised for it. There's no shame in saying that we want recognition for our work.

In a way, I also wanted people to see that the beauty industry should be recognised too, for a real business. The people who run salons are business people who have just as many challenges and achievements as any other business in any other sector. Beauty deserves to be recognised and validated for a sector within its own economy. However, my first application for the business awards was a big flop. Instead of just accepting that failure, I reached out to the business awards coordinator and asked for some feedback.

The coordinator's feedback was very factual and extremely honest, and it gave me some really good guidance as to what it was the judges were looking for. If I read that application now, I would be really embarrassed. There was no evidence and it was just loaded with fluffy nice words. It was not professional at all, and it was very much as if a beauty therapist was spinning a story about business. I knew that my writing and reading skills were holding me back, but instead of quitting, I worked closely with my business coach to make sure that I did better next time.

It took me three years to win it, but I did it. I didn't want to be defeated. Instead of letting dyslexia stop me, I found someone who could help me overcome the challenges. Always be open to feedback, even if you don't like the answers. It gives you clarity on what's needed to be improved, and it really does improve your skills. I think if we all approach feedback like the positive experience it should be, the world would be a much nicer place. It's just how people deliver feedback that's not great.

That's where understanding different personality traits and communication styles really does help. But it's never as bad as you think. In a way you could say that my challenges when I was younger and my dyslexia gave me the fight and the drive to succeed. Up until that point, the business awards they'd never had a category for beauty and had never really been recognised for a real business. But by entering the awards and becoming part of that community, I began to change the way people thought about beauty, and it changed the way I saw myself too.

However, soon after I begin to win these awards, imposter syndrome started appearing. I never thought you could get over imposter syndrome, but I've managed to actually overcome the fear of not feeling good enough in new environments. This is because I take the approach of what's the worst that can happen? It's okay to want to go and find other types of people and communities that can help you get where you need to go, but you will need to step outside your comfort zone, and there will be times where you feel like an imposter.

But if you push past that, you will meet some incredible inspirational people and have some amazing experiences. There are people I would have never spoken to five years ago. I'd be like, oh my gosh, they're amazing at what they do. But it's not so scary. What's the worst thing that could happen? Once I went to an award ceremony, tripped up the stairs in front of hundreds of people, embarrassing yes. But is that the worst thing that could happen? I'm still here to tell the tale. I remember once absolutely dreading going to a networking event.

I felt like an imposter. I was just a beauty therapist. I think there were four women and everyone there was all male. I was so out of my comfort zone. It was absolutely unreal. I was put on this table with 10 men and we all had to do a 30-second presentation of what you do and why we're here. I had no idea that we had to do that and felt physically sick. So when it was my turn, I stood up in front of these intimidated, suited and booted men, and I said, Hi, I'm Carla. I'm a beauty therapist. Nice to meet you.

The entire 30-second presentation, that was the entire thing. You could just see the blank faces. I went bright red and I just had to play the blonde card. Because they were all in stitches, and all they talked about for the next half an hour was how to paint nails. It was awful. I'd never do it again. However, once you've experienced something like that, everything else becomes so much easier in comparison. And if I can do that and not absolutely die, then what else can I do? I think getting comfortable with putting myself in uncomfortable positions has been another superpower.

And that I've developed over the years. Because without putting myself in those awkward situations, writing terrible applications and being totally out of my depth at networking events, I would have never gotten to where I am today. When I finally accepted my dyslexia, it was like a light bulb moment. As though a massive weight had been taken off my shoulders. I'll be honest, it took me a long time, and I've only really accepted it in the last year or so. When you put yourself under that amount of stress for a long period of time, it has mental health consequences.

It wears you down. So it's really, really important that if you do feel overwhelmed or ashamed or anxious or depressed, that you find someone that can support you and that you can look for answers. Asking for help is not a weakness. If anything, it's a massive strength. I think it's pretty much impossible to learn and return every element of business. As well as staying emotionally happy and mentally healthy, you can't do it alone. Core beauty tips. Number one, value and accept who you are as a person.

And remember that you can change if you want to. You can learn how to process information differently, learn new skills, and find new ways of being. Number two, you don't know what you don't know. And at that time, I didn't know that a lot of entrepreneurs don't go down the traditional route of learning. They find different ways. If you think about it, it's quite inspirational how some of those diverse thinkers actually do what they do, and that was a game changer for me. Number three, don't take your education for granted.

I've met beauty therapists that have qualifications but have never been in a salon. I even have a friend that's got a law degree and she doesn't do anything with it. I massively admire anyone that has them skills. But if you've got those qualifications and you aren't doing anything with them, find the courage and confidence to action them. Number four, it's normal to feel out of your comfort zone. However, everyone feels like that. Don't use that feeling as an excuse to stop trying to do things that could help you.

Try and join free communities online to support you. Number five, be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. Use them both to your advantage. If you have a strength, use it to help others. If you have a weakness, find ways to work around it. Use it to springboard or get someone to help you.