For this episode of Finding My User Manual, I sat down with Liz Mosley, branding designer, podcast host, public speaker and content creator who has built a multifaceted creative business rooted in confidence, visibility and raw honesty.

Helping independent business owners feel more confident in how they show up in the world, whether through crafted visual identities or practical, accessible insights they can implement themselves, her work is grounded in the belief that creativity isn’t about perfection, it’s in the showing up, the trying of new things, and the learning as you go.

As a vocal advocate for reframing rejection and failure, Liz encourages other creatives to see them not as things to avoid but as essential parts of both the creative process and the human experience.

Here’s what she shared.

People Is Page One

When asked what would be on page one of her user manual, Liz Mosley said, “I just love people and relationships, and I’m one of those people who likes to go deep really, really quickly.”

She’s not so good with the surface-level stuff. “I want to have a deep conversation. I want to understand how you work.” And I can totally relate.

Her parents tell stories about social gatherings where they’d lose track of her, and she’d be off chatting to everybody. “I’m the classic extrovert.”

A T-Shirt That Said It All

Liz’s mum would get embarrassed because she would just go off and introduce herself to people and start giving them her opinions on everything. “I used to get in trouble at school all the time for talking too much.”

Her parents bought her a t-shirt when she was a kid, about being a really slow eater, because she talked so much. “I would take ages to eat my meals because I was too busy chatting.”

The Podcast That Made Perfect Sense

Liz Mosley started a podcast “kind of on a whim” because she likes talking to people. It’s now a huge part of her business and she’s approaching 250 episodes.

“It doesn’t take loads of energy from me. I don’t have to psych myself up for it. I don’t get super nervous or stressed about it. This is my happy place.”

Common Threads

After five years of deep conversations, what has Liz Mosley learned? “What’s really interesting to me is how many common threads come through.” Whether it’s a completely different topic, skill set, or problem, the same things keep coming up.

Ideas like whether we’re good enough, imposter syndrome, and fears around rejection. “A big theme is almost like people getting permission to just experiment, to play and to build something that works for them.”

‘Should’ Is The Killer Of Joy

One guest said something that really stuck with Liz. “She basically once said on the podcast that ‘should’ is the killer of joy.” Every time Liz thinks she probably should do this or should do that, she recognises that as the noise.

The Rejection Challenge

About three years ago, Liz invited Chris Doe to be on her podcast. “He was very nice about it, but he was like, how many downloads do you get? And he basically said no because I wasn’t getting enough downloads.”

“It was fine. No one knew about it. It wasn’t even a big deal.” But a couple of months later, she wanted to invite someone else and caught herself thinking she wasn’t going to do it because it didn’t feel good when he said no.

In that moment, a light bulb went off, and she started thinking, “How many things am I not doing?”

So she set herself a challenge to get 100 rejections in six months. “Just saying that now is laughable because it didn’t happen.” But she wanted to talk about it publicly.

“I want to normalise it. Actually, this is part of the creative process. This is what it means to be human. This is what it means to be creative.”

A Really Arsy Email

Not everyone was supportive. Liz invited someone to be on her podcast, and they sent her a rude email telling her they disagreed with what she was doing with the rejection challenge.

“Normally I think that would have made me spiral for a couple of days at least. And I think in this instance, I spiralled for a couple of hours.”

With the help of chatting to some friends, she got to the point where she was like, “No, this is really benefiting me. It doesn’t really matter what anyone else thinks about it. So I’m going to keep going.”

Recovery Is Much Quicker

What positive changes has the rejection challenge had? “Definitely the amount of time I dwell on it and spiral is much shorter.”

Liz Mosley used to tell herself really negative stories about why she was getting rejected. “They weren’t based on fact. I was just making stuff up in my head.”

Having the podcast helped. People pitch to be on it all the time, and the reasons she says ‘no’ are often that she’s booked up or she’s covered that topic recently. “It’s never that that person is horrible.”

Separating Self-Worth From Work

What’s one of the biggest challenges of her creative career? “It has been separating my self-worth and my work.” When she became less attached to the outcome because she was pursuing rejection, it became less connected to her self-worth.

“I feel so much more in control, so much more empowered. This is something that I’m choosing.”

I Am A Catastrophiser

“One of the things I really struggle with is I am like a catastrophiser, and then combined with the empath thing, what happens is I basically, in my head, live out the worst case scenario to the point where I feel the emotions very intensely.”

She remembers chatting to a therapist about it, and they said, “That’s really hard”. Liz’s response was, “What? You mean not everyone’s doing that?”

A Hundred Percent Track Record

I saw a video recently that’s been living rent-free in my head. In the video, Ricky Liorti leans forward towards the screen and says, “For someone who worries so much about whether things are going to be okay, have you realised that you’re sat here with 100% of everything else you’ve already worked out and has been okay?”

Liz felt the same. “I do have the power within me to work it out. I mean, it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s always going to be okay. But I do have the power to work it out, and I’ve got this far. Like, maybe I’m doing okay.”

The Empath Thing

Liz takes on other people’s emotions quite a lot. In the past, she says she would have carried that, let it impact how she feels, and really worried about it.

“I’m getting more confident to be like, you know what, I have the sympathy for what you’re going through, but ultimately that is your issue over there, and I’m not gonna absorb that and make it my issue.”

Seeing It In Her Daughter

Liz has always struggled to manage her emotions. “I’ve always felt big feels.” Now she sees it reflected in her daughter.

“I need to try and find some better tools for me to process my emotions so that I can share those with her.”

Messy Humans

“We stop ourselves from moving forward because we’re so scared of the not getting it right.” Especially if you’re an empath, the thought of hurting someone is like you don’t want to do that. “But also we’re just messy humans, and so we are going to hurt people.”

“We can’t control all the things that happen to us. But at some point we have a choice as to then how we’re going to react.”

Not Everyone’s Taste

“One of the things I really struggle with is people pleasing.” She’s had to come to terms with the fact that some people won’t like her. “It doesn’t mean I’m a bad person. It just means that I’m not for their taste.”

“I’ve spent so much of my life trying to make sure that everybody does like me. And that’s exhausting.”

Being in branding helped. The whole thing is about making decisions that draw in the right people and put off the wrong people. “They’ll self-select that they’re not for me. And that’s okay. In fact, that’s what should happen.”

Be Kind To Yourself

For anyone with a similar page on their user manual, Liz shared something her therapist said to her.

“She basically one time said to me, “Liz, you need to be far kinder to yourself”. And I have heard so many people say that and I never understood it. I was like, I’m nice to myself.”

But then she realised how much she was beating herself up, for not feeling good enough, like she hadn’t done enough. “And then what was happening was that was kind of spilling out to other people.”

“Stop beating yourself up. Stop giving yourself a hard time. That should work for all the things that you think you should be doing. And just look at how far you’ve come.”

“It doesn’t even have to be positive. Just, I’m all right.”

 

Listen to the full episode:

Connect with Liz Mosley

Website: lizmosley.net

Instagram: @lizmmlosley

TIkTok: @lizmmmosley

Youtube: @lizmmosley

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