Speaker 1: Just stop even asking yourself the question are you ready?
Speaker 1: It's kind of the wrong question. The question is what
Speaker 1: do I feel called to do? And what information is
Speaker 1: life giving me about what I'm ready for? Welcome to
Speaker 1: the one you feed Throughout time. Great thinkers have recognized
Speaker 1: the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is Tara More, an expert
Speaker 1: on women's leadership and well being. She helps women play
Speaker 1: Bigger in sharing their voices and bringing forward their ideas
Speaker 1: and work and in life. Tara is the author of
Speaker 1: Playing Big, Practical Wisdom for women who want to Speak, Up,
Speaker 1: Create and Lead. Her book was named best Book of
Speaker 1: the Year by Apple's Eyebooks and is now available in paperback.
Speaker 1: Me and here's the interview with Tara mar Hi. Tara,
Speaker 1: welcome to the show. Thanks, thanks so much for having me.
Speaker 1: I'm happy to have you on. You have a book
Speaker 1: called Playing Big, which is just released in paperback recently
Speaker 1: and has been very successful. And it's really about being
Speaker 1: willing to live in a larger space than we have before.
Speaker 1: And and the book is primarily directed to women. Most
Speaker 1: of your coaching is done with women, but as I
Speaker 1: was reading it, I saw parallels with all sorts of
Speaker 1: things we talked to on the show, and so I'm
Speaker 1: excited to get into it a little bit more. I'm
Speaker 1: so excited to be here. And yes, we here from
Speaker 1: a lot of men who have read the book. I
Speaker 1: think the ideas are applicable to everyone. I've focused a
Speaker 1: lot of my work on helping women, but the concepts
Speaker 1: are certainly universal. Absolutely, We'll get into the book a
Speaker 1: little bit more in a minute, but let's start like
Speaker 1: we always do, with the parable. There is a grandmother
Speaker 1: who is talking with her granddaughter and she says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about
Speaker 1: it for a second, and she looks up at her
Speaker 1: grandmother and she says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And
Speaker 1: the grandmother says, the one you feed. So would like
Speaker 1: to start off by asking you what that paarabul means
Speaker 1: to you in your life and in the work that
Speaker 1: you do. I love the paraball and it reminded me
Speaker 1: of a blog post I wrote years ago called what
Speaker 1: are you Pouring in? What are you pouring into your day?
Speaker 1: What are you pouring into your life? And the post
Speaker 1: was really about me remembering that in order to feel
Speaker 1: good in my life, and in order to show up
Speaker 1: in my relationships the way I want to, in order
Speaker 1: to feel like I'm doing my best in my work,
Speaker 1: I can't just kind of live blank slide hoping that
Speaker 1: that will happen. I have to pour a lot of
Speaker 1: inputs into my life that let me do that. And
Speaker 1: for me, that's writing, it's prayer. It's uh doing lots
Speaker 1: of creative things. It's certain kind of reflective practices where
Speaker 1: I'm checking in with myself against my gold and what
Speaker 1: feels and integrity to me. Um And I think, you know,
Speaker 1: I think, to me, this is what the whole personal
Speaker 1: growth world is about. It's about saying, hey, there's so
Speaker 1: much flexibility in who we become and how life can
Speaker 1: shape us. And we have a tremendous amount of power
Speaker 1: in terms of what we do each day and where
Speaker 1: we focus our attention. Um, that affects who we become
Speaker 1: and therefore how we impact our world and the people
Speaker 1: around us. I really like that idea of what you
Speaker 1: pour in. I mean, for me, the parable a lot
Speaker 1: of it was really very much that idea that it's
Speaker 1: so easy to go on autopilot and just sort of
Speaker 1: coast through our days, or I mean, coast isn't even
Speaker 1: the right word right, where a lot of us are scrambling,
Speaker 1: but we're not, at least for myself, I'm not stopping
Speaker 1: and making sure I'm putting good inputs into my life,
Speaker 1: that I'm that I'm doing the things that matter, that
Speaker 1: I'm consistent, and just that I'm really being thoughtful and
Speaker 1: conscious about about what I do. Yeah. And then the
Speaker 1: other piece is I think it's such a relevant parable
Speaker 1: in our social realm and our communal realm too, because
Speaker 1: it's not only what wolf do you feed in yourself
Speaker 1: that matters, but what are you feeding in others? And
Speaker 1: recognizing that when we encounter people who seem like they're
Speaker 1: acting like a bad wolf, probably it's because what has
Speaker 1: been fed in their environment is the bad wolf, and
Speaker 1: having some wisdom and compassion around that. I had such
Speaker 1: a classic example of that the other day. So I
Speaker 1: was at work and there was somebody there who started
Speaker 1: working there a few months ago, and and I just
Speaker 1: was up till up till yesterday. I've been like, well,
Speaker 1: they're just they seem kind of aloof and you know,
Speaker 1: kind of stuck up there, just you know, they're just
Speaker 1: don't they just don't seem very friendly. And then I
Speaker 1: saw the person and the thought occurred to me. I'm
Speaker 1: glad the thought occurred to me before what's about to
Speaker 1: happen next, because I at least I'm not completely ashamed.
Speaker 1: But I saw the person and I thought maybe they're
Speaker 1: just sad. And and then so that was very strange
Speaker 1: because I hadn't had that thought about this person before.
Speaker 1: And then about an hour and a half later, I
Speaker 1: was sitting there and this person came up and sat
Speaker 1: down not too far from me, next to somebody else,
Speaker 1: and started telling this person, I mean I couldn't help
Speaker 1: but over here about problems in their relationship and how
Speaker 1: heavy it's been weighing on them. And it was just
Speaker 1: another reminder to me of like, I'm judging somebody without
Speaker 1: knowing anything about it. And you know, if you go
Speaker 1: in with the intention of there probably a good person
Speaker 1: who's either shy like you are, or uncomfortable or something's wrong.
Speaker 1: I'm always pleasantly surprised by people. Yes, yeah, And then
Speaker 1: you notice things because you're you're asking that question and
Speaker 1: looking at in that way, you see something that you
Speaker 1: wouldn't pick up on if you were caught up in
Speaker 1: your own story and your own projections exactly. So a
Speaker 1: lot of what you focus on, particularly early in the
Speaker 1: book is the voices that happened inside of us um.
Speaker 1: I often think that another you know, great way to
Speaker 1: think of the parable for me is that the positive
Speaker 1: voices in my head or the good wolf, and all
Speaker 1: those negative voices are my bad wolf. Now you refer
Speaker 1: to them as our inner critic and our inner mentor
Speaker 1: can you tell me a little bit more about the
Speaker 1: inner critic. I think we all probably know this person
Speaker 1: pretty well in our heads, but it's be helpful if
Speaker 1: you could elaborate, right and well, it's interesting because of
Speaker 1: course we all know that we have an inner critic,
Speaker 1: and we know we have these certain self doubts, but
Speaker 1: we actually don't typically in our culture, really pull the
Speaker 1: camera lens back and take some time to look at
Speaker 1: what is that voice. And we don't have a very
Speaker 1: good collective understanding of what I call inner critic one
Speaker 1: on one, which I think every human being needs. So
Speaker 1: the basic idea is inner critic is the voice in
Speaker 1: your head that's saying things to you about yourself, talking
Speaker 1: to you about yourself in a way that you wouldn't
Speaker 1: intend to talk to someone that you really love. And
Speaker 1: there's a lot of common qualities of the inner critic
Speaker 1: voice that can help us start to recognize it. It
Speaker 1: tends to be very black and white thinker, so thinks
Speaker 1: about things in very binary terms. The inner critic doesn't
Speaker 1: usually see the gray in us sort of the complexity
Speaker 1: of any situations. You're going to be horrible at that,
Speaker 1: You're going to make a fool of yourself, you're not
Speaker 1: qualified for that. Um. It tends to be very repetitive
Speaker 1: and have kind of a broken record quality. It's the
Speaker 1: voice for many of us. It's the voice of you're
Speaker 1: not ready yet, which can sound like a very rational,
Speaker 1: even an evolved inner personal growth savvy person's version of
Speaker 1: the inner critic. And then it shows up an interesting
Speaker 1: gendered ways too. For women, it will speak up more
Speaker 1: around the things that are associated with masculinity in our culture.
Speaker 1: So you're not good at math, you're not good at negotiating, Um,
Speaker 1: you're not good at technical stuff or scientific stuff. For men, interestingly,
Speaker 1: the research suggests it shows up more like, well, you're
Speaker 1: not good at that emotional stuff. You're not good at
Speaker 1: things that are about communication. If you look at the
Speaker 1: population as a whole. Um. And and my philosophy is
Speaker 1: not that we need to overcome having an inner critic
Speaker 1: or move beyond having self doubt. There's so much encouraging
Speaker 1: us to become more confident. And I don't think that
Speaker 1: that's actionable advice. You say, don't argue with the inner critic, right,
Speaker 1: don't argue with the inner critic, because that will Actually,
Speaker 1: the inner critic voice is like one of those people
Speaker 1: in your life that loves to get you caught up
Speaker 1: in the argument, and if you get into an argument
Speaker 1: with them, you know, you start to get kind of
Speaker 1: you lose track of what you're arguing about, and you
Speaker 1: waste a ton of time and you just feel horrible after.
Speaker 1: That's how it is to argue with your inner critic,
Speaker 1: because your inner critic is an expression of a manifestation
Speaker 1: of your safety instinct. So the part of you that
Speaker 1: never wants to fail, never wants to risk criticism, doesn't
Speaker 1: want to stand out from the crowd, that part of
Speaker 1: you has to figure out its best strategy to keep
Speaker 1: you in your comfort zone and keep you in the
Speaker 1: status quo and raising its hand and saying, hi, please
Speaker 1: stay in the status quo. You would just say no
Speaker 1: to that, and so it uses a more sophisticated argument
Speaker 1: like you're about to make a fool of yourself. You're
Speaker 1: not qualified for that. That's the kind of argument that's
Speaker 1: likely to scare us into staying stock. So, since that's
Speaker 1: the cause of it, if we argue with it, it
Speaker 1: just keeps coming up. With a new line, a new line,
Speaker 1: new line. It doesn't care what's true, what's not true.
Speaker 1: It'll just try and keep us distracted in the argument.
Speaker 1: So I believe we have to learn to witness the
Speaker 1: voice and get comfortable with it, but not take direction
Speaker 1: from it. So is that basically the heart of how
Speaker 1: to how to deal with it? Because you also say
Speaker 1: it's not about learning to be more confident, but coming
Speaker 1: into a new relationship with our self doubt. So is
Speaker 1: that new relationship with our self doubt? Sort? I recognize
Speaker 1: it's there, Thanks for the input, but this is what
Speaker 1: we're going to do, yes, and knowing that it's going
Speaker 1: to speak up most loudly and most vocally when you
Speaker 1: are on your right track in your life, because that's
Speaker 1: when you feel the most vulnerable, when you're sharing your gifts,
Speaker 1: when you're speaking up about something you're passionate about, when
Speaker 1: you're following a calling. So it's a practice of one
Speaker 1: getting familiar enough with your inner critics so you know
Speaker 1: when it's talking, which is really hard because it sounds
Speaker 1: really like the voice of reason when it's talking to
Speaker 1: each of us. And then naming it and noticing it,
Speaker 1: and there's some other fun tools you can use, like
Speaker 1: creating a character that personifies it, or envisioning it leaving
Speaker 1: the room. Those can be nice add ons. But the
Speaker 1: basis is I'm able to recognize it in shorter and
Speaker 1: shorter time frames, name it for what it is, and
Speaker 1: then have a process where I can take direction from
Speaker 1: another part of myself, which gives us to the good welf,
Speaker 1: not from this part. So before we go into your
Speaker 1: inner mentor another question about the inner critics. So the
Speaker 1: inner critic that we're talking about in this at least
Speaker 1: is as we're describing it, tends to be very rational.
Speaker 1: You know, you're just not really good at that, You're not.
Speaker 1: But is this the same voice that can also be
Speaker 1: very harsh, can be you know, people have body image issues.
Speaker 1: Is that all the same source or or do those
Speaker 1: things diverge at a certain point. Because you've said that
Speaker 1: the inner critic is not pathological, and I don't believe
Speaker 1: it's pathological in the sense that we don't need to
Speaker 1: find a bad experience we had in childhood to explain
Speaker 1: why we have self doubt. Having worked now with like
Speaker 1: people all around the world, all different levels of success, ages, gender,
Speaker 1: it's universal and it shows up when we're at the
Speaker 1: edge of our comfort zone or some some possible form
Speaker 1: of vulnerability, the kind that the good Wolf would like
Speaker 1: us to risk so that we can get some fulfillment.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I would say that the inner critic can,
Speaker 1: you know, take on a lot of different forms. But
Speaker 1: like for me, it's the same voice that saying, no, tire,
Speaker 1: you cannot go on that television show until you lose
Speaker 1: ten pounds or you're gonna you know, it's going to
Speaker 1: be just excruciating to watch yourself. And that might be
Speaker 1: the same voice that, in a much more sophisticated tone,
Speaker 1: is saying, you know, why don't you wait three more
Speaker 1: months before submitting an article to that publication. It would
Speaker 1: probably be better if you could add this and this
Speaker 1: credential when you write the email. Same thing. It's just like,
Speaker 1: please don't let me ever be criticized or fail. It's
Speaker 1: really what that voice is saying underneath. M h m
Speaker 1: hm m m m me. And here's the rest of
Speaker 1: the interview with Tara more So, let's talk about the
Speaker 1: inner mentor then. So this is sort of back to
Speaker 1: the analogy. This is the good yes, So the inner mentor,
Speaker 1: it's one of my favorite things to talk about because
Speaker 1: I can honestly say that I have watched it be
Speaker 1: life changing as a as a tool, as a presence
Speaker 1: in people's lives for thousands of people. And I don't
Speaker 1: know anything that as easily and efficiently connects people to
Speaker 1: their highest best selves. So that's my my pitch for it.
Speaker 1: And what it is is the vision of yourself twenty
Speaker 1: or thirty years out into the future. But if I
Speaker 1: were to say to you right now, like, hey, so
Speaker 1: you know, who do you think you'll be thirty years
Speaker 1: in the future, that wouldn't be your inter mentor. That
Speaker 1: would be some combination of your egos, hopes, and your fears.
Speaker 1: And so we get Yeah, we get to the inter
Speaker 1: mentor through a long longest you know, twenty minutes or so,
Speaker 1: visualization and meditation, so people really get out of their
Speaker 1: everyday conscious mind and you don't make up what your
Speaker 1: interr mentor is. You really discover it. And and for
Speaker 1: everyone something shows up that is from a deeper place
Speaker 1: about not only who they're becoming, but that figure that
Speaker 1: shows up isn't just an older version of them, it's
Speaker 1: also like a more authentic version of them, and they're
Speaker 1: sort of inner wise woman or their inner wise man.
Speaker 1: And then once they get a sense of that person
Speaker 1: and that that it's really like an archetype almost, that
Speaker 1: is their highest self, their most essential self. They can
Speaker 1: consult with that figure like a mentor. And so let's say, oh,
Speaker 1: my boss, you know, just dump this project on my
Speaker 1: plate that is so overwhelming and I but if I respond,
Speaker 1: I'm going to you know, they'm going to be seen
Speaker 1: is not committed. If I say I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it, we'll say, okay, what would your interr mentor
Speaker 1: do in this situation? And we might even have that
Speaker 1: person and close their eyes and reconnect that person and
Speaker 1: really check in how would they handle it? And unfailingly,
Speaker 1: every time there's an answer that kind of surprises the
Speaker 1: person they wouldn't have thought of it on their own.
Speaker 1: It immediately feels resonant um and they have a way forward.
Speaker 1: It's a really really amazing tool. And so once you've
Speaker 1: gone as you mentioned, you go through the visualization and
Speaker 1: you make first contact with the inner mentor, then is
Speaker 1: it sort of you're able to reach that person in
Speaker 1: a in a faster, more consistent way after that, or
Speaker 1: is it you kind of go through the whole process
Speaker 1: every time. You don't have to go through the whole
Speaker 1: process every time. So then people often that first visit
Speaker 1: we do sort of an extended conversation with your inner
Speaker 1: mentor um, and then a lot of people will have
Speaker 1: a vivid enough sense that they can then sort of
Speaker 1: just check in, even just sort of thinking of it
Speaker 1: for a second. Oh yeah, what would you do? What
Speaker 1: would she do? And sometimes you know, if they're failing
Speaker 1: off balance or what ever, the situation is particularly tough,
Speaker 1: it might take like, okay, let's just really close our
Speaker 1: eyes for ten seconds and imagine we're going back to
Speaker 1: their house and sitting down. But it is much quicker
Speaker 1: and more accessible. Excellent. You have a question that you use,
Speaker 1: which is a great question. That is one that we
Speaker 1: explore often about the idea of the fact that we're
Speaker 1: telling ourselves stories in our head. But your question that
Speaker 1: you think is worth asking is what am I making
Speaker 1: this mean? Yeah? Yeah, and I don't. I'm certainly not
Speaker 1: the creator of that question. I'm sure it crossed my
Speaker 1: path in the coaching world, but I think it is
Speaker 1: a super helpful question. Um that could be you know,
Speaker 1: I I started a blog and no one's reading it.
Speaker 1: What am I making that mean? Have I made that
Speaker 1: mean that I'm a bad writer? Have I made that
Speaker 1: mean that no one's interested in my story? It might
Speaker 1: mean those things. It might also mean like your blog
Speaker 1: hasn't gotten enough exposure yet, or you've been targeting the
Speaker 1: wrong audience and a lot of time lines. What the
Speaker 1: truth of the matter is is a lot less personal
Speaker 1: and a lot less you know what our inner critic
Speaker 1: would think it is than what we're assuming. Yep, yep,
Speaker 1: we're we're obviously taking effect and then putting quite a
Speaker 1: bit of interpretation into it. The fact is your blog
Speaker 1: has been read by eighteen people today. The interpretation of
Speaker 1: that is is kind of wide open. Yeah, And I
Speaker 1: always think back to that idea that often when children's
Speaker 1: parents go through a divorce, the child will feel responsible,
Speaker 1: like they somehow caused the divorce, and they can even
Speaker 1: make up in a particular story like oh, because I
Speaker 1: didn't clean my room enough, I caused my parents to
Speaker 1: break up. And what amazes me so much about that
Speaker 1: phenomenon is that it's actually as painful as it would
Speaker 1: be for a child to feel that they caused the
Speaker 1: breakup of the family. That's less painful to them then
Speaker 1: the the story that they had no control over what happened.
Speaker 1: And we do this as adults all the time. It's
Speaker 1: more comfortable for us to say if only I had
Speaker 1: done this or that, and to and to take blame
Speaker 1: on ourselves and have the inner critic story, then to
Speaker 1: sometimes recognize what we can't control and how many factors
Speaker 1: are really at play and so on. Yeah, I'm always
Speaker 1: interested when people choose the self blame route and when
Speaker 1: people choose the other blame route, whereas there's sort of
Speaker 1: a middle ground between those two things, which a lot
Speaker 1: of is exactly what you said, which is a lot
Speaker 1: of life is um in a very frightening way, sometimes
Speaker 1: out of our control, right right, Yeah, And what is
Speaker 1: in our control? You know, I always I like to
Speaker 1: think of that, it's what's on our side of the street.
Speaker 1: And you can there's a lot to do on your
Speaker 1: side of the street, usually to clean up your side,
Speaker 1: But there is another side of the street to there.
Speaker 1: There sure is, And and thankfully the way we choose
Speaker 1: to react and process and interpret all those things is
Speaker 1: on our side of the street. Right. So you discuss
Speaker 1: the fact that a lot of women are hiding. You
Speaker 1: call them hiding strategies. What what are hiding strategies? And
Speaker 1: maybe you could highlight a couple of the top ones
Speaker 1: that come to mind. Yeah, yeah, and I would be
Speaker 1: curious to hear how how prevalent you think these are
Speaker 1: among men as well? Uh so hiding strategies. So this
Speaker 1: was I started to see this pattern in my coaching
Speaker 1: practice of I was coaching you know, brilliant women, educated,
Speaker 1: successful in their careers, and and a lot of them
Speaker 1: were hiding their gifts or stalling on their dreams and
Speaker 1: their goals, even though from my perspective, you know, it
Speaker 1: seemed obvious to me and many people around them or
Speaker 1: you could totally pull this off like they were capable,
Speaker 1: But they didn't feel that way. And because again are
Speaker 1: the way our fear operates and our inner critics operates
Speaker 1: as kind of sneaky sometimes and sophisticated. Um, they didn't
Speaker 1: feel consciously afraid or or even self doubting. Sometimes they
Speaker 1: came up with these hiding strategies that allowed them to
Speaker 1: hide and to stall on playing bigger, but to convince
Speaker 1: themselves they were moving forward as diligently as they could.
Speaker 1: So a couple examples. So one of them is what
Speaker 1: I called this before that and this before that are
Speaker 1: the beliefs that we have about the order that things
Speaker 1: need to happen in. So we come up with a
Speaker 1: story like, well, I really want to launch leave my
Speaker 1: job and launch my business. But to launch my business,
Speaker 1: I need a website for my business. But to have
Speaker 1: a website, I need a great web designer, and that
Speaker 1: costs five thousand dollars, So first I need to get
Speaker 1: the rate, like and we come up with a long story, right,
Speaker 1: that's this before that. Hiding strategy another one that I
Speaker 1: think is probably particularly common for women because the data suggests,
Speaker 1: you know, women are getting much more education now and
Speaker 1: men um as adults that women are often feel they
Speaker 1: need another degree or another certification to do what they
Speaker 1: want to do. And I can't tell you the level
Speaker 1: of ridiculousness of examples of this. I've seen, like a
Speaker 1: woman saying, you know, well, I want to teach um
Speaker 1: teens yoga, but I'm only certified. I've certified as an
Speaker 1: adult yoga instructor, and I've taught teens as a high
Speaker 1: school teacher for twenty years, but I'm not certified as
Speaker 1: a teen yoga instructor you know where, so and and
Speaker 1: that's I think that the gender piece there. It's not
Speaker 1: at all to blame women for that, but there is
Speaker 1: there's a real overlap between how girls are socialized and
Speaker 1: then the mode that we expect students to be in,
Speaker 1: which is like listen to the authority figure and take
Speaker 1: in all their information and then give it back. So
Speaker 1: there's a there's a connection there. Another hiding strategy is
Speaker 1: curating other people's voices instead of sharing your own voice.
Speaker 1: And of course there's nothing wrong with curating other people's voices.
Speaker 1: There are lots of important projects that do that. But sometimes, um,
Speaker 1: someone will really have something to say on a topic
Speaker 1: and that's why they're drawn to it, but it feels
Speaker 1: too scary to share their point of view and experience,
Speaker 1: so then they go create a big project curating you know,
Speaker 1: fifty great thinkers on this topic, and they somehow managed
Speaker 1: to forget the whole time to say their own point
Speaker 1: of view. That those are a few of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, I recognize a lot of those. I've been
Speaker 1: in entrepreneurial cultures, uh startups since I was very early
Speaker 1: in my career, and I never went to college. So
Speaker 1: I've kind of learned to get over most of those
Speaker 1: because in an entrepreneurial situation, you're never really ready. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the that's the that's the lesson that I think
Speaker 1: most people could get is if you if you wait
Speaker 1: until you think you're ready or you really feel ready,
Speaker 1: you're probably never going to start. Yes, I'm a huge
Speaker 1: advocate it. You should just stop even asking yourself the
Speaker 1: question are you ready? It's kind of the wrong question.
Speaker 1: The question is what do I feel called to do?
Speaker 1: And what information is life giving me about what I'm
Speaker 1: ready for. You know, when I first started doing media
Speaker 1: um associated with my writing um I, a publicist had
Speaker 1: approached me because she had read some work I liked
Speaker 1: and she was like, we've got to get this out there.
Speaker 1: And so she said, Tara, like, here's how it's going
Speaker 1: to be. We're gonna do some local media and then
Speaker 1: we're going to do regional and then when you have
Speaker 1: all that, then will do national. So I'm like, okay, great, Well,
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened, but something happened, and like
Speaker 1: literally two weeks later, she emailed me like, great, your
Speaker 1: booked on the Today Show and I literally, Thank goodness,
Speaker 1: I happened to be in a store at the moment
Speaker 1: that had chairs in front of the dressing room, Like
Speaker 1: I could not stand. I was so panicked and nervous,
Speaker 1: um and was sure I wasn't ready, like I haven't
Speaker 1: honed my message enough and I'm not media trained, and um,
Speaker 1: this show isn't the right fit it. And then I
Speaker 1: kind of had to say, like, let's actually let the
Speaker 1: Today Show producers decide if you're ready. And that might
Speaker 1: sound passive, but to me, that's been such a helpful principle,
Speaker 1: Like if life opened the door and the opportunity comes,
Speaker 1: let's trust life to know what you're ready for and
Speaker 1: not have to separately assess that in your head. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: I think it's that that gets a little bit to
Speaker 1: that idea of imposter syndrome. And I had a conversation
Speaker 1: with a guy today that I do some work with,
Speaker 1: and he lives in India and he's got some great
Speaker 1: opportunities that are that are happening to him right now,
Speaker 1: and he's he's in these meetings and he's doing these
Speaker 1: different things, and he's saying, but I didn't go to Yale,
Speaker 1: and I didn't go to and I said, but you're
Speaker 1: in the room, like you didn't get in that room
Speaker 1: by accident, Like you earned being in that room. And
Speaker 1: and don't don't judge yourself out of it. You know,
Speaker 1: you there's a reason that they're inviting you to these things.
Speaker 1: There's a reason you're getting these internships. And the person
Speaker 1: who went to Yale is sitting there going, well, they
Speaker 1: just went for this thing on my resume, and I
Speaker 1: imposter syndrome my way into Yale. You know, I mean,
Speaker 1: that's the funny thing. It's like I get to see
Speaker 1: that the old old people think they're too old to
Speaker 1: do it, the young people think they're too young to
Speaker 1: do it. It's like because again the inner critic, I
Speaker 1: call it the objection rolodex, because the inner critic was
Speaker 1: just like, well we didn't go for that card. Let
Speaker 1: me pull the next one up. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: trying everything I can think of. Ye Now, you have
Speaker 1: a great approach for dealing with hiding that I really like.
Speaker 1: And you call it the leap. Yeah, So, because how
Speaker 1: how do we get out of this hiding? You know,
Speaker 1: I think you do need that foundational inner work of
Speaker 1: inner critic or inter mentor you can't go straight to
Speaker 1: leaping because you just won't leap. So you need some
Speaker 1: kind of inner tools of how do I even quiet
Speaker 1: a little bit, that voice of self doubt and so on.
Speaker 1: But then when it's you know, when you have that,
Speaker 1: you can really start to get into action and move
Speaker 1: out of hiding. And a leap is I have six
Speaker 1: or six criteria for a leap um it's not just
Speaker 1: anything that makes you feel wild and crazy, and which
Speaker 1: I'm constantly misunderstood is that there's six criteria. Chris is
Speaker 1: on his way to leap right now, I think maybe
Speaker 1: based on that, okay, So it's something that relates to
Speaker 1: your playing bigger, whatever that means to you. It's an
Speaker 1: action that are a project that you can finish and
Speaker 1: under two weeks it gets your adrenaline flowing. So it's
Speaker 1: got a can take you out of your comfort zone.
Speaker 1: And it's something that has a learning question at its heart.
Speaker 1: And this is one of the kind of hardest ones
Speaker 1: for people to understand what that means. It means that
Speaker 1: there's something you want to learn through doing the leap.
Speaker 1: You might want to learn. Do I really like memoir
Speaker 1: writing as much as I think I'm going to or UM.
Speaker 1: If you're going out on a fundraising meeting, maybe the
Speaker 1: learning question is are the investors for this company who
Speaker 1: I think they're going to be. But there's a specific
Speaker 1: question you highlighted that you can gather data on UM
Speaker 1: by doing the leap. And and then another key part
Speaker 1: is it's not something that's done in isolation. It's something
Speaker 1: that brings your work into contact with the people that
Speaker 1: you want to influence or reach. Uh So, writing your
Speaker 1: mission statement is not a leap, but writing your mission
Speaker 1: statement and sharing it with a few potential board members
Speaker 1: to get their feedbacks al drafting you know, the next
Speaker 1: five blog posts not a leap, but drafting and publishing
Speaker 1: is a leap. So on UM. So the idea is
Speaker 1: you're moving into action really quickly. You're doing a messy
Speaker 1: version of something that will probably feel quite out of
Speaker 1: control and ikey to you, but you're getting yourself into action.
Speaker 1: And the you know, it has great practical benefits because
Speaker 1: you learn and you get into action, and it has
Speaker 1: great emotional benefits because it really forces you to really
Speaker 1: confront whatever fears have been keeping you hiding. I love
Speaker 1: all the things you've wrapped around that because there's really
Speaker 1: no substitute for actually doing something versus analyzing, thinking about,
Speaker 1: contemplating m versus an action that you can take that
Speaker 1: moves things forward and you gather some real data on
Speaker 1: what's happening. Yeah, And it's it's very um paradoxical in
Speaker 1: a way because as we all avoid doing this, like,
Speaker 1: you know, instead of just sending off that one book
Speaker 1: chapter two, you know, someone to read, we like spend
Speaker 1: years reorganizing our table of content, you know, Like we
Speaker 1: do that because it feels safer. But I always find
Speaker 1: as much as people avoid those leads, once they take them,
Speaker 1: they always right to me and they're like, that was
Speaker 1: so much fun, you know, And now I'm talking to
Speaker 1: the people that I wanted to be talking about that,
Speaker 1: and I'm so energized. So it actually feels really good
Speaker 1: once we get over the initial fear. So one of
Speaker 1: the things I wanted to talk about in the book,
Speaker 1: you talk about a thing that I think we all
Speaker 1: have a lot of challenges with, and that is how
Speaker 1: to make a change, which a lot of us know
Speaker 1: how to do, but how do we stay with that change?
Speaker 1: So we've made a change, how do we keep it
Speaker 1: going well? This is so important, right because it is
Speaker 1: where most of our efforts fall short. And my approach
Speaker 1: with this it actually comes out of my own experience
Speaker 1: with food and eating and sugar, which I come from
Speaker 1: a family of sugar addicts. I grew up in overweight kid. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, no one I am related to can has
Speaker 1: any control over what happens when they come into contact
Speaker 1: with sugar and uh. And at a certain point in
Speaker 1: my life, I you know, really have thought I had
Speaker 1: suffered too much with this and gave up sugar successfully
Speaker 1: and a lot of refined carbohydrates that I also my
Speaker 1: body couldn't really handle and didn't eat them, um for
Speaker 1: over a decade. It's now, with a brief hiatus of
Speaker 1: pregnancy when I was extremely ill really needed to eat crackers.
Speaker 1: It's probably about twelve or thirteen years now, Um, yeah,
Speaker 1: thirteen years. Uh. And so people would always, you know,
Speaker 1: if I was at a party and they'd like, oh,
Speaker 1: I don't eat sugar. And then they'd say, well, how
Speaker 1: what do you mean did you like give it up
Speaker 1: for New Year's And I'd say no, I haven't had it,
Speaker 1: you know, in seven years. And I'd be like, what,
Speaker 1: I I don't have the willpower for that, and I
Speaker 1: always felt it was so important look them straight in
Speaker 1: the eye and say the truth, which is this has
Speaker 1: nothing to do with willpower. And it was such a
Speaker 1: powerful learning for me because so many times in my
Speaker 1: life I had tried to change my eating or my
Speaker 1: weight through willpower and always failed miserably. And in the end,
Speaker 1: what allowed me to make that change sustainably really was
Speaker 1: almost the opposite of willpower. It was setting up my
Speaker 1: life and my routines and the supports of my life
Speaker 1: in such a way that that change became truly doable.
Speaker 1: And that meant different things at different points. So in
Speaker 1: the beginning it was more dramatic, like I have to
Speaker 1: nap a lot more because I used to use sugar
Speaker 1: for energy, and so now I'm finding I'm actually exhausted
Speaker 1: by four pm if I don't have you know, sugar
Speaker 1: at my disposal, or I'm going to take these things
Speaker 1: out of my house. And then it became, you know,
Speaker 1: much more um, much more kind of mellow so courts
Speaker 1: as I got more used to that new way of living.
Speaker 1: But what that evolved into for me is any time
Speaker 1: we want to make a sustainable change, anytime I want
Speaker 1: to make a sustainable change. I now don't think about
Speaker 1: am I going to rally myself up and am I
Speaker 1: going to get my ship together? You know? Nope, It's
Speaker 1: more like, how do I design what I call a
Speaker 1: success architecture that is going to support me? And that
Speaker 1: would include who are my champions going to be people
Speaker 1: cheering me on? What is my source of accountability? Um?
Speaker 1: What are the small pieces that I've broken this down
Speaker 1: into the small milestones and thinking of my steps in
Speaker 1: that way? Um? What kind of spiritual energy can I
Speaker 1: draw on here? Like? What what do I feel I'm
Speaker 1: in partnership with in doing this that's larger than me?
Speaker 1: How do I make what I want to do the default?
Speaker 1: There's seven or eight things that are to me, like
Speaker 1: the possible elements, and then you can make your own
Speaker 1: recipe from those elements of what you need for that
Speaker 1: success architecture. Yeah, the data is really overwhelming in that
Speaker 1: idea of setting up external support for things. The main
Speaker 1: thing I work with people on coaching on is behavior change,
Speaker 1: and it's amazing how much we do think it's a
Speaker 1: willpower or a discipline thing. I like the term that
Speaker 1: you use. They're making things structural in your life. There's
Speaker 1: there's some study that shows that the more factors of
Speaker 1: influence that you bring in and there's five or six
Speaker 1: different kinds, your chances of being successful just like double
Speaker 1: every time. Yeah, and this goes back to right, I mean,
Speaker 1: it's the ultimate what are you feeding in your life? What?
Speaker 1: What are you supporting and getting away from? I'm not
Speaker 1: sure if it's aren't just our human fantasy that we
Speaker 1: have control, or if it's our American individualism thing that
Speaker 1: makes us think, you know, we should be able to
Speaker 1: say I will it. I wrote it down in my
Speaker 1: New Year's goal is therefore it will happen. But you know,
Speaker 1: that's just not how we're my sense is not how
Speaker 1: we're wired. And in the book I share, there's a
Speaker 1: stat from the American Side Logical Association that people Americans
Speaker 1: reported they feel their number one reason that they're not
Speaker 1: meeting their goals as lack of willpower. And so we
Speaker 1: need to look at that. If everyone thinks that they
Speaker 1: individually lack the willpower they're supposed to have, that means
Speaker 1: there's probably something um illusory about our expectation of what
Speaker 1: willpower is supposed to be able to do. For us. Yep.
Speaker 1: You you referenced Kelly McGonagall in your book. She's got
Speaker 1: great writing on it. Um. We had Carrie Patterson on
Speaker 1: the show who wrote a book called Influencers, which has
Speaker 1: a lot of this information switch by the Heath Brothers.
Speaker 1: I mean, there's a lot of stuff out here. We
Speaker 1: had b J. Fog on the show, and there's a
Speaker 1: lot of studies and a lot of things out there
Speaker 1: about how building habits and behavior change is. It's an
Speaker 1: art and a science, but there's a lot of clear
Speaker 1: things that we can do because willpower is ultimately kind
Speaker 1: of like a mood, and moods, just by their very nature,
Speaker 1: fluctuate a great deal. I love that willpowers like, that's great.
Speaker 1: One of the last things I want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: It's related to this idea of willpower and discipline, and
Speaker 1: um you talk about in a similar section of the book.
Speaker 1: But I just think it's so so important and I
Speaker 1: love the idea which you said the self criticism is
Speaker 1: associated with less motivation and worse self control. But we
Speaker 1: tend to think that the way we get things done
Speaker 1: is to be really hard on ourselves. Yeah. Yeah, And
Speaker 1: it's interesting because every time I go and teach a
Speaker 1: workshop or give a lecture about the inner critic. One
Speaker 1: of the first questions I get is from someone who says,
Speaker 1: but what if your inner critic is like your best ally?
Speaker 1: And then they'll talk about how through their life they've
Speaker 1: done better work because of that voice that says, you know,
Speaker 1: that wasn't good enough for that's gonna you need to
Speaker 1: double check it again, and and all of that. And
Speaker 1: I can relate to that, and you know, going through
Speaker 1: parts of my career and school being very fueled with
Speaker 1: the fear of messing up, and that was my motivator.
Speaker 1: The problem with that, there's a few problems with it.
Speaker 1: One is if you have stress hormones flooding through your
Speaker 1: body as a source of motivation for your great work,
Speaker 1: that over time is going to have a really bad
Speaker 1: impact on your health. This is not what our friend
Speaker 1: Kelly McGonagall would would deem the good stress. This is like, right,
Speaker 1: the fear of like and the belief that I am
Speaker 1: screwing it up, where I'm about to screw it up
Speaker 1: and I have to do a bunch of things to
Speaker 1: not not screw it up. But the bigger issue to
Speaker 1: me is that that kind of inner critic, being tough
Speaker 1: on yourself. That doesn't actually motivate you to do your
Speaker 1: most important, glorious work. Like what the inner critic motivates
Speaker 1: you to do. What being hard on yourself motivates you
Speaker 1: to do is work. A few hours later, you know,
Speaker 1: read that document again and make a bunch of changes
Speaker 1: you just decided in that moment are needed, even though
Speaker 1: you've done it ten times already. Um, you know think
Speaker 1: that you need to go fix this in that about
Speaker 1: yourself before you do a B or C. So it's
Speaker 1: never going to motivate you to do the most important
Speaker 1: moves in your career, which would be the I'm speaking
Speaker 1: up even though I don't feel ready. I'm doing this
Speaker 1: thing that I was asked to do, even though I
Speaker 1: can't believe I'm qualified and taking a risk and sharing
Speaker 1: creative work in the world. I'm saying something on this
Speaker 1: topic even though no one else in the room is
Speaker 1: talking about it the way I'm thinking about it. That's
Speaker 1: where we get to share our individual gifts. That's where
Speaker 1: we get to move our world beyond the status quo
Speaker 1: and help it move forward. And that is not a
Speaker 1: kind of expression into the world that being hard on
Speaker 1: yourself will ever help you move toward it, will move
Speaker 1: you away from it. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And even
Speaker 1: with things that we think it will help us with,
Speaker 1: like motivation and basic self control, a lot of the
Speaker 1: studies she seemed to show that that being extremely self
Speaker 1: critical and heart on ourselves actually is less effective than
Speaker 1: being encouraging and supportive to ourselves for sure. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you so much for taking the time to come on
Speaker 1: the show. I really enjoyed the book. Will have links
Speaker 1: in our show notes to your book and a lot
Speaker 1: of your writing online. So thank you, Thanks so much
Speaker 1: for having me, and thanks everyone who is listening today. Okay,
Speaker 1: take care, Okay, bye bye. Y'all can learn more about
Speaker 1: this podcast and terror more at one new feed dot
Speaker 1: net slash terror, and don't forget to visit me at
Speaker 1: chris Is Barbecue Tofu. This is Chris Soul proprietor