We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Holly Baker a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Holly, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
When I was in 7th grade, I decided to try to do hurdles in track. I was terrified, but how hard could it be? What scared me the most was everyone else’s reactions. All my friends said, they couldn’t do that. Then they painted this horrible picture of all the ways to injury yourself. I was motivated by the idea of being one of the few girls to do it though and I didn’t want to be overly competitive with my friends. This allowed me to be in a different race than them and then cheer them on. I just had to be brave. I jumped my first hurdle and realize how motivating my fear was. I cleared the hurdle easily. So, then I added a second one. I cleared both easily. Suddenly I was doing a 100 meters of hurdles with ease. To me, this is imposter syndrome. When I enter a new event or thing in my life it’s generally surrounded by fear. What if I fall, how will it affect my relationships, and am I worthy of winning? So, I generally start my dipping my toe. Then adding another layer to it. Once I realize I was successful then I can go all in. I had a really bad fall once in hurdles, but my support system always reminded me of all the successful runs I had. How many times did I not fall. What could I learn from why I fell? I can evaluate it and then make better decisions in the future. I know imposter syndrome is different for everyone, but for me it’s easier to breakthrough my initial fear. Jump the first hurdle. Now, identifying the hurdle is a different challenge sometimes. I just have to embrace my fear as an energy instead of using it as unmovable structure.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I own 3 Grooming Salons and work full time with my husband who also grooms. I recently started my competitive career in grooming and have been on this incredible journey. I now travel the entire U.S and will be looking to go abroad this year for grooming competitions. I compete now only in breed profile trims, which means I make poodles look like breed standard for example, but I am very focused on my creative grooming career. For years I have been doing coat carvings and color on pets. It started as a joke by carving names and such on dogs to make the owners laugh, then finishing shaving them down. Now I do beautiful designs and I compete in a category called Extreme Creative Grooming. This is where I cut images into dog coat, color it, hairspray, and airbrush it to make it look like a moving canvas. It brings so much joy to people who see it and the dogs love the additional love and affection they receive from folks meeting them! This year is especially exciting in my career as I just launched my first podcast called Tails from a Pawcrastinator and I joined a few groom teams to represent other companies! I am speaking at grooming shows and my social media accounts have been picking up larger audiences. This allows me to spread knowledge and education, but also entertains others.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
Three things that made the largest impact in my journey is definitely my faith. For me it’s a skill in regards to keeping me centered and focused on what is important. The second is listening skills. I am a natural talker, so I have to work very hard at active listening. My brain is already coming up with a response sometimes and I have to actively quiet myself to listen to the other person. Lastly, integrity is what keeps the opportunities coming. What you do when no one is looking is more important than when you have the audience. So many times we want the crowd or a special someone to recognize our hard work or efforts. It’s not always that way. Staying true to your integrity will always provide amazing opportunities. The right people will see it in the right time.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
It’s easy to look at the whole picture and come to the wrong conclusions. When information comes flying in, my brain will begin to come up with solutions as soon as I hear it to resolve the problems or issues. When it comes in faster than I can process is when I start to become irritable or short fused. For me, I have ADHD and things like that can put me in a negative place and make feel super overwhelmed. A few things that help me is to STOP and pray. My faith helps center me. The second thing is to find a moment if possible and write it all down. No matter how big or small the thought or task is. It cannot live in my head rent free. I evict all my thoughts onto a planner. I then organize them but what I view as critical vs important. If everything is critical than nothing is important. Lastly, I consider who do I have in my support group that can assist me with these tasks. Once I am through these steps, then I take action. Taking action allows me feel in control, but not everyone will feel this way. This is how I overcome feeling overwhelmed.
Contact Info:
- Website: Groommyfriend.com
- Instagram: @PetStylist_Holly
- Facebook: Holly Baker
- Linkedin: Holly Baker
- Youtube: @PetStylist_Holly
- Other: TikTok @PetStylist_Holly
Image Credits
@Pet Photography (these pictures state it on the photo
