Stop Waiting for Permission: Make Your Next Move

There is no shortage of advice right now.

Everyone has a framework. A formula. A blueprint. A “proven” way to build your business, lead your team, or grow your impact. The influencer culture is loud, persuasive, and constant.

But at some point, the question becomes simple and uncomfortable:

What do you think?

In this conversation with Michele Margolin, we unpack what it means to stop waiting for permission and start leading yourself.

The Cost of Living in a Telling Culture

We are living in what Michele calls a “telling culture.”

Everyone is telling you what to think, how to run your business, what to prioritize, how to show up. And while learning from experts is valuable, something subtle happens when you rely too heavily on outside direction.

You lose the habit of checking in with yourself.

Over time, that muscle weakens. Decisions feel heavier. Confidence feels shakier. You look outward before you ever look inward.

Self-leadership begins when you notice that pattern.

You Are Your Number One Best Influencer

One of the most powerful moments in this conversation is Michele’s simple reminder:

You are your number one best influencer.

That does not mean ignoring mentors or rejecting expertise. It means refusing to outsource your thinking.

Advice is contextual. Strategies are built inside someone else’s reality. What worked for them may be brilliant, but it is still one way. Not the way.

The work is to gather insight without surrendering authorship.

Discomfort Does Not Mean You’re Wrong

One of the reasons people keep looking for permission is discomfort.

Trying something new feels risky. Growth feels uncertain. Your brain flags unfamiliar territory as unsafe.

Michele reframes this beautifully. Growth spurts feel icky. That is not a red flag. It is often a sign that you are expanding.

The danger is mislabeling discomfort as misalignment.

If every uncomfortable moment becomes proof that something is “not your truth,” you will keep pivoting. You will idea-hop. You will chase the next tactic instead of building depth.

Self-leadership requires staying with the discomfort long enough to see what it’s teaching you.

There Is No One Way to Do Something

Another truth we explore is this: there is no single correct way to build a business or lead your life.

There are patterns. There are principles. There are strategies that have worked for others.

But there is no universal prescription.

This is where experimentation becomes essential. Instead of adopting advice wholesale, you test it. You interpret it. You adjust it. You ask:

What fits?
What doesn’t?
What needs my spin on it?

Over time, you become what Michele calls a kind of “Frankenstein” of influence. You gather ideas from mentors, books, courses, and experience. Then you assemble your own philosophy.

That is authorship.

Timing Matters More Than You Think

Not all advice is wrong. Sometimes it’s simply mistimed.

What serves you at one stage of business may slow you down at another. What feels essential when you are starting may feel restrictive when you are scaling.

Part of self-leadership is recognizing your current season.

Are you building foundations?
Are you refining systems?
Are you expanding influence?

Different stages require different decisions. The maturity of your business changes what is useful.

When you stop waiting for permission, you stop looking for someone else to define your stage for you.

The Real Permission You’re Waiting For

Most people think they are waiting for clarity.

Often, they are waiting for certainty.

But certainty rarely comes first.

Clarity is built through action. Confidence is built through repetition. Authority is built through decisions.

You do not become self-led by reading about it. You become self-led by choosing. Again and again.

Choosing what to believe.
Choosing what to try.
Choosing what to leave behind.

That is the discipline.

Make Your Next Move

If you feel overwhelmed by advice, pause.

If you feel tempted to chase the next guru promise, pause.

Ask yourself what you think. Ask yourself what fits your goals, your values, your current capacity.

You do not need more permission.

You need a decision.

And when you remember that you are your number one best influencer, your next move becomes much clearer.

Chapter List:

00:00 Introduction to Self-Authorship and Empowerment

02:47 Navigating External Influences and Finding Your Voice

05:20 The Balance Between Truth and Discomfort

07:51 Learning from Experts: The Frankenstein Approach

10:38 Overcoming Overwhelm and Embracing Growth

13:31 Practical Strategies for Self-Influence

16:14 The Importance of Timing in Advice

18:59 Conclusion and Call to Action

Full Transcript:

Michele Margolin (00:00)

the influencer culture is everyone telling you what to think, how to run your business, what to eat, where to shop.

everything and so that has corrupted our own sense of being our biggest and best influencers on ourselves.

we've just lost that habit and that muscle because we're so used to people telling us how to do things.

Amanda Kaufman (00:44)

Well, hey, hey, welcome back to the Amanda Kaufman show. And I'm really excited to introduce you to my friend Michelle Margolin. She helps women crack the code on what their next moves should be and to actually do them. She's a former practicing lawyer and highly credentialed and experienced leadership coach for women. Her work centers on self leadership as authorship.

Michele Margolin (00:59)

Woo!

Amanda Kaufman (01:08)

The ability to decide and choose again and again how you want to show up and what you want to contribute. She works from a clear belief that women have far more to do, want to do, and to give than they ever have before. When those moments feel really big or overwhelming, Michelle helps women see them not as problems, but incredible opportunities to decide, choose and create what's next. Michelle, welcome back. How are you doing?

Michele Margolin (01:37)

Thank

you, Amanda, I love it. I mean, that pretty much says everything right there. So thank you for that warm and comprehensive welcome and introduction. I love being here. I always love having a great conversation with you.

some great value for everyone who's listening and lots of goodies to take away.

Amanda Kaufman (01:55)

I love it. love it. You before we hit record and we're getting started, we were kind of joking around a little bit about how important it is to maintain your vision. You know, we were talking about, sometimes you got to welcome a little fantasy, a little play into the vision. And I thought maybe we could just start our conversation there. I mean, like what makes it so important to, to really own your point of view and how you're looking at things.

Michele Margolin (02:23)

I think particularly now there's so much noise and external input coming into our nervous systems and into our brains and heads every single day that it can be disorienting. And I think now more than ever, it's really key to kind of get

get clear on your own point of view and your own North Star, so to speak, you can, that quiets down some of the external influences and helps you not only survive, but really to thrive in today's atmosphere and world.

Amanda Kaufman (03:05)

What do you suppose is making that so challenging? Because I'm hearing a lot of, I work with lot of entrepreneurs, a lot of coaches, a lot of visionaries, and I'm hearing this echo. It's so important to focus, and it's also incredibly challenging to focus. So what do you think is really standing in the way of us simply claiming that and just doing it?

Michele Margolin (03:24)

Yes.

Yes, I think that I don't know if I wrote something about this recently, because I feel strongly about this. It's such a telling culture. Right now, everyone is the influencer culture is everyone telling you what to think, how to run your business, what to eat, where to shop.

everything and so that has corrupted our own sense of being our biggest and best influencers on ourselves. What do we want? What do we want for our businesses? What do we want as entrepreneurs? What do we want for our clients? How do we want to...

Amanda Kaufman (04:02)

Hmm.

Michele Margolin (04:08)

show up in anything we do, we've just lost that habit and that muscle because we're so used to people telling us how to do things. And so it really is a practice and a discipline to just notice, okay, that's one way. Let me check in with myself and see what I think is best for my clients, for my business, for me.

And that's figuring out again, getting back in touch with your own voice and you're your number one, you are your number one best influencer.

Amanda Kaufman (04:38)

I love that number one best influencer. You know, the default way of operating like you're talking about, know, just like accepting other people's input, kind of going along with the tide. What do you think is really behind that? Because I'm seeing, you know, I agree with that. I do see it. And I also spend a lot of time with people that are very intelligent.

very hardworking, honestly, pretty self aware around the whole idea that like they should be that influencer. Like I'm sure there's people nodding along and going, that sounds really good. But for that person, like what do you think is really standing between them doing that? Why do we hang on to other people's opinions carry more weight than mine?

Michele Margolin (05:15)

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (05:22)

And how do you balance that, you know, like with showing up with influence yourself, because, you know, if you are an entrepreneur or even if you're not an entrepreneur, if you're an employee or even, you know, you could be a stay at home parent, your efficacy in the world is increasingly tied to your ability to be effective in influencing other people.

Michele Margolin (05:22)

Hmm.

Amanda Kaufman (05:46)

And I'm noticing kind of a collective opt out. You know, people are like opting out of like, I don't want I don't want to be influenced. in so doing with the opt out, then that also means a surrendering of of influence in a sense. I don't know if what I'm saying is really making sense, but I do feel this conflict in the industries, you know.

Michele Margolin (06:03)

No, it makes complete sense. I

think it makes complete sense. think that with most of the women that I've worked with, or people that I've worked with, and I'm thinking about who you work with,

What happens is we tend to kind of look to those external influences or influencers or opinions as prescriptive, like this is how you do that. And yet that's one possibility. It's only one possibility. And that's the way that that person chose to do it and it worked for them. And that may work for you and it may not.

So I think that a couple of things, I think if we can develop sort of a habit of noticing that and thinking of it as being one option and maybe trying it and experimenting with that way of doing something, but never doing that in the place of your own instinct and sense of what.

feels like you or what you want to do and how you want to do it. It's not mutually exclusive. And yeah, I think people just adopt, again, as a remedy what somebody else has done in a situation that they find to be challenging.

and they think it may be the easy way out and it never is because it's like we say as coaches, advice doesn't work because it's really from, advice doesn't work because it's about somebody else's agenda and what's worked for them and their biases and that's true with the influencers. That's that person's opinion and what's best to do in your marketing or your client work or anything.

one way of doing it and only one. And if we can sort of just notice that and say, maybe, but let me try something, let me try it, or let me try something that I think about. It's just a practice of coming back to kind of your own thoughts about it, your own experimentation, because it's all experimentation.

There is no one way to do something.

Amanda Kaufman (08:18)

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, I've noticed like in my own journey, there are certain capabilities, there are certain skill sets that I've developed. And it's, I didn't know I needed that until I got advice. But I love what you're saying about like,

If you take advice as being the whole picture, that's really where you go wrong, right? And the metaphor that came to my mind as you were talking about this is like, it's like getting information through a keyhole. You know, like you're getting, you're getting certainly something that's probably very valuable, but there's a full context on the other side of that door where that advice is coming from. And there's a full context on your side of the door of where you're receiving that information. And, you know, so for example, when I was first starting my business, I,

Wrote like a corporate employee because guess what I was a corporate employee, right? So it wasn't until I went to training where I learned about this thing called copywriting and this idea of getting into the head of the of the reader and like it broke all these rules that I had learned when I was in corporate America and But it made better sense for my new goals And if I had never been in the environment of learning to receive that advice from someone who knew a lot about copyright

Michele Margolin (09:07)

corporate.

Amanda Kaufman (09:33)

I never would have pulled on this thread to say, huh, let's explore this more. And then I have to like really deepen the skill. So one of the questions that's coming up for me is, as we're talking about like finding your truth, finding your authenticity, you know, on the other side of all coaching is a goal. We all have these goals. So how do you balance like, it's my truth, right, with the possibility.

that you still need to discover things. You still need to like learn stuff, you know, because I think one way that we tend to naturally pull back from all that noise and influence is we pull back so far that we're not receiving what we need to receive in order to develop the skills, for example, that we need to develop in order to achieve the goal that is before us. it can lead to...

nightmare scenario where you start something and then you go well this is uncomfortable not my truth you start something else and you go that's not that's uncomfortable that's not my truth and you start getting into this habit of it's not my truth and it's never my truth but the goal kind of just remains down the street so like what would you say to someone who maybe finds themselves idea-hopping a lot and then attributing you know how do you know that it's your truth versus a discomfort response

Michele Margolin (10:54)

Right, well the discomfort response is completely normal, right? Because our brains are always looking for what our brains think are unsafe or risky environments and things that are new to us or unknown to us are quote risky. And so I think number one is to kind of reinterpret discomfort. We all think discomfort bad. It's not necessarily true.

discomfort is part and parcel as I talk about with all of my clients, with any growth and any growth spurts feel pretty icky and that's okay. And so that's part of it. I think developing a new relationship and understanding of the signals that growth, the symptoms of growth that aren't always so pleasant and in

terms of your audience, some of whom you feel may be, as you say, of doing whack-a-mole with different ideas. Yes. Oh yeah, me too. 100%. Of course, 100%. You go this way and then they're like, wait, what about that? I think it's a little bit of...

Amanda Kaufman (11:52)

Put me in that audience. I definitely have that experience as well, is like just silver object chasing, right?

Michele Margolin (12:07)

you know, we say trust the process, what does that really mean? It's kind of like, you know, if you chase down an idea that feels like your truth, you'll sort of know, you know, when it's completely, when you've played it out far enough and it's time to do something else. think, I think...

you have to sort of be realistic and onto yourself. Like in other words, if you're hopping around, which we all do, you have to kind of take a look and say, maybe I'm hopping around because it got a little tricky and a little bit uncomfortable, I'm just gonna go to the next thing. But instead of deciding I'm going to stay with this discomfort and really follow it through because...

something about this feels like the best fit for me. ⁓ I don't know if that makes sense, I'm sharing. And I think that comes with a little bit of paying attention to your own instincts around things, which lie sort of like here and here instead of just here.

Amanda Kaufman (12:57)

Hmm.

Michele Margolin (13:12)

I think sometimes when you pursue certain ideas, you have some instincts around whether this really is what you want and your truth versus what somebody told you you should be doing. For example, building a business. There's a million ways you can market a business.

Amanda Kaufman (13:22)

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Michele Margolin (13:27)

And most of them won't feel like you are truth or the right way for you to go because it's just not, it's not the best fit for you. You will by, by trial and error, figure out which one is really your truth. And that's where you become your own influencer is to say, I know I'm good at blah, blah, blah. I'm going to do that instead of all these other things that the gurus and influencers have told me to do because I know.

myself and I know I'm gonna you know lean into that what I know about myself and what I know to be true for myself and that comes with some practice and repetition of that and it's trusting yourself too. Well that's the other part of the kind of external influencers is

It doesn't that's easy. Well, so and so told me to do it. That's why I'm doing it. It's a little bit shakier to say, no, I'm doing this, even though others don't never told me to do this. Right. Because some of some of what your audience and the clients I work with, some of it requires.

us to do things that, you know, aren't in keeping with what the experts say, right? Some of it is being a little bit of an outlier.

Amanda Kaufman (14:42)

Arguably a lot of it is right because if you look exactly the same as everybody else You know, that's that's kind of a 101

issue, right? Because if you're building a business in particular, you know, being memorable, having having a reason why somebody would reflect on reconnecting with you makes like a lot of sense, right? But so often we feel a lot of pressure. And you know, it's funny, because next week, I'm going to be doing a live that's going to talk about like the five big guru.

myths that quickly get discounted and not to spoil that one too much, but the thing that's tough, I've always had level of empathy for gurus, right? Because they're talking to such a broad audience and it's kind of getting back to that metaphor of the keyhole and the door. If you think about like a message that resonates with millions of people, there's going to be kernels of truth in it. You know, the thing that gets more

distinctive, I think is when you consider like your side of the door and it's like, well, what is it about that kernel of truth that I can absolutely accept? But what's missing for my context? Like what's missing for my belief system or even just like, frankly, your capacity system of the number of hours you have in the day or the energy level that you have or the the the bank account that's at your disposal, the network that you're connected with. There's certain realities that

early in my journey, I know I ignored and you know, thank you gurus for giving me those kernels to give me the permission to just kind of go like, well, wait, hang on a second. Where am I?

so entrenched in and entrained into my old way of thinking that I need to be able to bust through that. There's a lot of really great kernels I got from kernels of truth, that is from gurus. And it wasn't enough. Right. Like I needed to get specific to my particular context. And that's what I'm hearing you say is, is like there's that balance right between like, you know, priority on the self and the truth of the self, but also just like holding space for it could be painful.

Michele Margolin (16:32)

Yes.

Amanda Kaufman (16:48)

sometimes, you know, holding space for, yeah, might have to learn something new. You don't probably know everything you need to know and just like allowing for that balance it sounds like.

Michele Margolin (16:58)

Yes, totally agreed. And absolutely on the gurus, all the gurus and the and all and everyone who's an expert, there are so many experts out there in every realm of business building and coaching. And I'm sure like you, I've read and studied and

participated in lots of ongoing professional learning and development. And so it isn't ever that I'm saying, screw the experts, throw it out the window. As you just really summarize, what I'm saying is take the golden nuggets, and then I always say this to anybody, anything that I share with my clients or in my work and anything is such a Frankenstein of all these

parts from people and experts and gurus and books and my own research. It's it's a Frankenstein situation. So I could never attribute it to one influencer. The Frankenstein is me. It's my it's my, you know, pixelation of lots of different points that work fit together for me and my business and my coaching and my client. Same for you with your listeners. That's I think what we're both

saying is the practice of being open to gems and kind of core realities and truths to things that you may not know about, and then figuring out how they work for you, and putting your own spin on them. And that takes faith. Yes. Are there any

Amanda Kaufman (18:29)

Mm-hmm.

Are there any particular practices?

Yeah, I was just about to

ask, to activate that, to really actualize that. If there was one, two, or three things that people could pull into practice so that they are making sure that they're listening to themselves, and they're not giving all their power away to a guru, or really common in the coaching space to give your power away to your other coachy friends who also don't have any clients, right?

Michele Margolin (18:59)

Right, yes.

Amanda Kaufman (18:59)

⁓ Like how do

you keep that power? What are some of your favorite practices to recommend?

Michele Margolin (19:04)

Yeah, that's, that's a wonderful question to ask. And I'll answer it. It's it really comes down to a posture of taking in from the experts or even from your coaching friends or the gurus and

kind of really then engaging with whatever either the work is or the material is that you're getting or the advice or expertise and taking it, sort of taking a step back and saying, okay, what do I think about this? How does this sit with me? What does this mean to me? Do I agree with this or do I disagree with this? Because...

Everyone is just, you know, I don't mean making it up as in it's fictional, they've made up something that works for them and works for others in some ways. And it's, that's our work is to say, okay, let me look at this, take some things from it, challenge it, interpret it, and make it your own.

And I think that is the exercise, right? Whether it's a book that you read or a conversation you have with another coaching friend who says, well, you have to do blah, blah. Okay.

It's not to resist it and say, no, you don't. It's to say, let me think about that. Okay, this part makes sense to me. This doesn't. This is my point of view, which may be very different than what you just took in. And, and that's the analysis, you know, that's the way to walk yourself through it. It's really like, it's sort of a doing

an assessment in a way, what do I like from this? What can I take from it? What do I want to leave leave behind? Take what's useful and leave behind what's not take what's something that you want to do your own spin on it. slap that on ⁓ and

Amanda Kaufman (20:43)

Yeah.

Yeah.

You

know, one of the, and I so appreciate you being here and talking about this, Michelle, because, know, the overwhelm is the thing I hear the most, you know, from both established entrepreneurs and beginners. It's just, there's so much overwhelm happening these days. And one of the things that I've noticed in my own assessments as well is like everything you said, and also, sometimes it's the right advice and the wrong timing. Right. So it's like, you know, gosh, you know, when my business is bigger than I'll be able to action that.

boy, like that'll go so much faster, right? Or sometimes, you know, you get advice and it's like, that was good when I started, but now I'm at a different, you know, maturity of the business. And so the business needs something else, right? And that's okay, right? It's okay to make that not only okay, but it's also required, I think, to really own those things so that you can get the best results you possibly can.

Michele Margolin (21:38)

Yes.

Yes, and I think it's particularly helpful your use of the word sort of the mature maturity of your of all of our and your listeners, your business, whether it's in coaching or as an entrepreneur outside of coaching has to just like humans do different developmental stages, maturation stages. And, you know, we learn new things, and then we need different things. And

They feel, most of them all feel very uncomfortable. That's just the nature of growth, as we've said at the outset of this. But to your point, it isn't a static, there isn't a static experience of building a coaching business or any business. is, as you, know, lots of trial and error, different.

points of view are helpful or unhelpful or as you said the timing might be off and you may look back and say that's what Amanda meant when she said X, Y or Z right because you don't know what you don't know so they make that happens all the time where you hear something and you're like now I get it that's okay

Amanda Kaufman (22:43)

That's exactly it.

Exactly, writing, teacher appeared, right? I

love it. love it. Michelle, what's the best way for people to keep up with you?

Michele Margolin (22:56)

I love hearing from other coaches, other entrepreneurs, amazing. LinkedIn, Michelle Margolin, I'm on LinkedIn. Drop me a LinkedIn message. My website is Michelle Margolin, M-I-C-H-E-L-E, M-A-R-G-O-L-I-N dot com. And drop me a line, email. Would love to support and work with any of you.

Amanda Kaufman (23:21)

Love it. Okay, cool. And dear listener, we have included all of Michelle's links in the show notes below for an easy little tap. Thank you so much for being here, Michelle.

Michele Margolin (23:31)

it's my pleasure. love our conversations always and happy to be back. I appreciate you.

Amanda Kaufman (23:37)

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