Speaker 1: In case you're just recently joining us, or however long
Speaker 1: you've been a listener of the show. You may not
Speaker 1: realize that we have years and years of incredible episodes
Speaker 1: in our archive. We've had so many wonderful guests that
Speaker 1: we've decided to hand pick one of our favorites that
Speaker 1: may be new to you, but if not, it is
Speaker 1: definitely worth another lesson. We hope you'll enjoy this episode
Speaker 1: with Tara Moore. Just stop even asking yourself the question
Speaker 1: are you ready? It's kind of the wrong question. The
Speaker 1: question is what do I feel called to do? And
Speaker 1: what information is life giving me about what I'm ready for?
Speaker 1: Welcome to the one you feed throughout time. Great tinkers
Speaker 1: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have, quotes
Speaker 1: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
Speaker 1: think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
Speaker 1: thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
Speaker 1: self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't
Speaker 1: have instead of what we do. We think things that
Speaker 1: hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
Speaker 1: just about thinking our actions matter. It takes conscious consistent
Speaker 1: and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
Speaker 1: podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
Speaker 1: the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks
Speaker 1: for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Tara More,
Speaker 1: an expert on women's leadership and well being. She helps
Speaker 1: women play Bigger in sharing their voices and bringing forward
Speaker 1: their ideas and work and in life. Tara is the
Speaker 1: author of Playing Big, Practical Wisdom for women who want
Speaker 1: to speak up, create and lead. Her book was named
Speaker 1: best Book of the Year by Apple's Eyebooks and is
Speaker 1: now available in paperback. Hi, Tara, Welcome to the show. Thanks,
Speaker 1: thanks so much for having me. I'm happy to have
Speaker 1: you on. You have a book called Plane Big, which
Speaker 1: is just released in paperback recently and has been very successful.
Speaker 1: And it's really about being willing to live in a
Speaker 1: larger space than we have before and and the book
Speaker 1: is primarily directed towards women. Most of your coaching is
Speaker 1: done with women. But as I was reading it, I
Speaker 1: saw parallels with all sorts of things we talked to
Speaker 1: on the show, and so I'm excited to get into
Speaker 1: it a little bit more. I'm so excited to be
Speaker 1: here and yes, we here from a lot of men
Speaker 1: who have read the book. I think the ideas are
Speaker 1: applicable to everyone. I've focused a lot of my work
Speaker 1: on helping women, but the concepts are certainly universal. Absolutely.
Speaker 1: We'll get into the book a little bit more in
Speaker 1: a minute, but let's start like we always do, with
Speaker 1: the parable. There is a grandmother who is talking with
Speaker 1: her granddaughter and she says, in life, there are two
Speaker 1: wolves inside of us that are always at battle. One
Speaker 1: is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and
Speaker 1: bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf,
Speaker 1: which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And
Speaker 1: the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second,
Speaker 1: and she looks up at her grandmother. She says, well, grandmother,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that paraul means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do. I love the paraball and
Speaker 1: it reminded me of a blog post I wrote years
Speaker 1: ago called what are you Pouring in? What are you
Speaker 1: pouring into your day? What are you pouring into your life?
Speaker 1: And the post was really about me remembering that in
Speaker 1: order to feel good in my life and in order
Speaker 1: to show up in my relationships the way I want to,
Speaker 1: in order to feel like I'm doing my best in
Speaker 1: my work, I can't just kind of live blank slade
Speaker 1: hoping that that will happen. I have to pour a
Speaker 1: lot of inputs into my life that let me do that.
Speaker 1: And for me, that's writing, it's prayer, it's uh doing
Speaker 1: lots of creative things. It's certain kind of reflective practices
Speaker 1: where I'm checking in with myself against my goals and
Speaker 1: what feels and integrity to me. Um. And I think,
Speaker 1: you know, I think, to me, this is what the
Speaker 1: whole personal growth world is about. It's about saying, hey,
Speaker 1: there's so much flexibility in who we become and how
Speaker 1: life can shape us. And we have a tremendous amount
Speaker 1: of power in terms of what we do each day
Speaker 1: and where we focus our attention. Um, that affects who
Speaker 1: we become and therefore how we impact our world and
Speaker 1: the people around us. I really like that idea of
Speaker 1: what you pour in. I mean, for me, the parable
Speaker 1: a lot of it was really very much that idea
Speaker 1: that it's so easy to go on autopilot and just
Speaker 1: sort of coast through our days, or I mean, coast
Speaker 1: isn't even the right word right where a lot of
Speaker 1: us are scrambling, but we're not, at least for myself,
Speaker 1: I'm not stopping and making sure I'm putting good inputs
Speaker 1: into my life, that I'm that I'm doing the things
Speaker 1: that matter, that I'm consistent, and just that I'm really
Speaker 1: being thoughtful and conscious about about what I do. Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then the other piece is I think it's such
Speaker 1: a relevant parable in our social realm and our communal
Speaker 1: realm too, because it's not only what wolf do you
Speaker 1: feed in yourself that matters, but what are you feeding
Speaker 1: in others? And recognizing that when we encounter people who
Speaker 1: seem like they're acting like a bad wolf, probably it's
Speaker 1: because what has been fed in their environment is the
Speaker 1: bad wolf, and having some wisdom and compassion around that.
Speaker 1: I had such a classic example of that the other day.
Speaker 1: So I was at work and there was somebody there
Speaker 1: who started working there a few months ago, and and
Speaker 1: I just 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 happen 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 are 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 in 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 a very black and white thinker, so
Speaker 1: thinks about things in very binary terms. The inner critic
Speaker 1: doesn't usually see the gray in us or the complexity
Speaker 1: of any situations. You're going to be horrible at that.
Speaker 1: You're gonna make a fool of yourself, you're not qualified
Speaker 1: for that. Um. It tends to be very repetitive and
Speaker 1: have kind of a broken record quality. It's the voice
Speaker 1: for many of us. It's the voice of you're not
Speaker 1: ready yet, which can sound like a very rational, even
Speaker 1: an evolved inner personal growth savvy person's version of the
Speaker 1: inner critic. And then it shows up an interesting gendered
Speaker 1: ways too. For women, it will speak up more around
Speaker 1: 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: it's 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 doubts. So is
Speaker 1: that new relationship with our self doubt sort of? H
Speaker 1: I recognize it's there, Thanks for the input, but this
Speaker 1: is what we're gonna do. Yes, and knowing that it's
Speaker 1: going to speak up most loudly and most vocally when
Speaker 1: you are on your right track in your life. Because
Speaker 1: that's when you feel the most vulnerable, when you're sharing
Speaker 1: your gifts, when you're speaking up about something you're passionate about,
Speaker 1: when you're following a calling. So it's a practice of
Speaker 1: one getting familiar enough with your inner critics so you
Speaker 1: know when it's talking, which is really hard because it
Speaker 1: sounds really like the voice of reason when it's talking
Speaker 1: to 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 realm. Those can be nice add ons. But the
Speaker 1: basis is I'm able to recognize it and sure order
Speaker 1: in shorter time frames, name it for what it is,
Speaker 1: and then have a process where I can take direction
Speaker 1: from another part of myself, which gives us to the
Speaker 1: good wealth, not from this part. So before we go
Speaker 1: into um your inner mentor another question about the inner critics.
Speaker 1: So the inner critic that we're talking about in this
Speaker 1: at least as as we're describing it, tends to be
Speaker 1: very rational. You know, you're just not really good at that,
Speaker 1: You're not, But is this the same voice that can
Speaker 1: also be very harsh, can be you know, people have
Speaker 1: body image issues. Is that all the same source or
Speaker 1: or do those things diverge at a certain point, because
Speaker 1: you said that the inner critic is not pathological, and
Speaker 1: I don't believe it's pathological in the sense that we
Speaker 1: don't need to find a bad experience we had in
Speaker 1: childhood to explain why we have self doubt. Having worked
Speaker 1: now with like people all around the world, all different
Speaker 1: levels of success, ages, gender, it's universal and it shows
Speaker 1: up when we're at the edge of our comfort zone
Speaker 1: or some some possible form of vulnerability, the kind that
Speaker 1: the good wolf would like us to risk so that
Speaker 1: we can get some fulfillment. But yeah, I would say
Speaker 1: that the inner critic can, you know, take on a
Speaker 1: lot of different forms. But like for me, it was
Speaker 1: the same voice that saying, no, Tarre, you cannot go
Speaker 1: on that television show until you lose ten pounds or
Speaker 1: you're gonna you know, it's gonna be just excruciating to
Speaker 1: watch yourself, And that that might be the same voice that,
Speaker 1: in a much more sophisticated tone, is saying, you know,
Speaker 1: why don't you wait three more months before submitting an
Speaker 1: article to that publication. It would probably be better if
Speaker 1: you could add this and this credential when you write
Speaker 1: the email same thing. It's just like, please don't let
Speaker 1: me ever be criticized or fail. It's really when that
Speaker 1: voice is saying underneath m h m hm m m m.
Speaker 1: So let's talk about the inner mentor then, So this
Speaker 1: is sort of back to the analogy. This is the
Speaker 1: good Wolf. Yes, So the inner Mentor. It's one of
Speaker 1: my favorite things to talk about because I can honestly
Speaker 1: say that I have watched it be life changing as
Speaker 1: a as a tool, as a presence in people's lives
Speaker 1: for thousands of people, and I don't know anything that
Speaker 1: as easily and efficiently connects people to their highest best selves.
Speaker 1: So that's my my pitch for it. And what it
Speaker 1: is is the vision of yourself twenty or thirty years
Speaker 1: out into the future. But if I were to say
Speaker 1: to you right now, like, hey, so you know, who
Speaker 1: do you think you'll be thirty years the future, that
Speaker 1: wouldn't be your inter mentor. That would be some combination
Speaker 1: of your egos, hopes, and your fears. And so we
Speaker 1: get Yeah, we get to the inter mentor through a long,
Speaker 1: long ish you know, twenty minutes or so visualization and meditation,
Speaker 1: so people really get out of their everyday conscious mind
Speaker 1: and you don't make up what your inter mentor is.
Speaker 1: You really discover it. And and for everyone something shows
Speaker 1: up that is from a deeper place about not only
Speaker 1: who they're becoming, but that figure that shows up isn't
Speaker 1: just an older version of them, it's also like a
Speaker 1: more authentic version of them. And they're sort of inner
Speaker 1: wise woman or their inner wise man. And then once
Speaker 1: they get a sense of that person and that that
Speaker 1: it's literally like an archetype almost, that is their highest self,
Speaker 1: their most essential self. They can consult with that it
Speaker 1: you're like a mentor. And so let's say, oh, my boss,
Speaker 1: you know, just dump this project on my plate that
Speaker 1: is so overwhelming and I but if I respond, I'm
Speaker 1: going to you know, the I'm going to be seen
Speaker 1: as not committed. If I say I don't want to
Speaker 1: do it. We'll say, okay, what would your inter mentor
Speaker 1: do in this situation? And we might even have that
Speaker 1: person close their eyes and reconnect that person and really
Speaker 1: check in how would they handle it? And unfailingly, every
Speaker 1: time there's an answer that kind of surprises the person.
Speaker 1: They wouldn't have thought of it on their own. It
Speaker 1: 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 inter 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 extend did conversation with your
Speaker 1: inner mentor um, and then a lot of people will
Speaker 1: have a vivid enough sense that they can then sort
Speaker 1: of just check in even just sort of thinking of
Speaker 1: it for a second. Oh yeah, what would you do?
Speaker 1: What would she do? And sometimes you know, if they're
Speaker 1: feeling off balance or whatever, 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 times what the truth
Speaker 1: of the matter is is a lot less personal and
Speaker 1: a lot less you know what our inner critic would
Speaker 1: think it is than what we're assuming. Yep, yep, we're
Speaker 1: we're obviously taking a fact 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 it's
Speaker 1: to break up. And what amazes me so much about
Speaker 1: that phenomenon is that it's actually as painful as it
Speaker 1: would be for a child to feel that they caused
Speaker 1: the breakup of the family. That's less painful to them
Speaker 1: then the the story that they had no control over
Speaker 1: what happened. And we do this as adults all the time.
Speaker 1: It's more comfortable for us to say if only I
Speaker 1: had done this or that, and to and to take
Speaker 1: blame on ourselves and have the inner critic story, then
Speaker 1: to sometimes recognize what we can't control and how many
Speaker 1: factors are really at play and so on. Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: always interested when people choose the self blame route and
Speaker 1: when people choose the other blame route. Whereas there's sort
Speaker 1: of a middle ground between those two things, which a
Speaker 1: lot of is exactly what you said, which is a
Speaker 1: lot of life is um in a very frightening way,
Speaker 1: sometimes out of our control, right right, yeah, And what
Speaker 1: is in our control? You know? I always I like
Speaker 1: to think of that. It's what's on our side of
Speaker 1: the street. And you can there's a lot to do
Speaker 1: on your side of the street, usually to clean up
Speaker 1: your side, But there is another side of the street
Speaker 1: to there. There sure is, and and thankfully the way
Speaker 1: we choose to react and process and interpret all those
Speaker 1: things is on our side of the street. Right. So
Speaker 1: you discuss the fact that a lot of women are hiding,
Speaker 1: you call them hiding strategies. What what are hiding strategies?
Speaker 1: And maybe you could highlight a couple of the top
Speaker 1: ones that come to mind. Yeah, yeah, and I would
Speaker 1: be curious to hear how how prevalent you think these
Speaker 1: are among man as well? Uh so, hiding strategy. So
Speaker 1: this was I started to see this pattern in my
Speaker 1: coaching 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: seems 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 than
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 team 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: just like listen to the authority figure and take in
Speaker 1: all their information and then give it back. So there's
Speaker 1: a there's a connection there. Another hiding strategy is curating
Speaker 1: other people's voices instead of sharing your own voice. And
Speaker 1: 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. And 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 of 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 publicist had approached
Speaker 1: me because she had read some work I liked, and
Speaker 1: she was like, we've got to get this out there.
Speaker 1: And so she said charl 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, You're
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 um I'm not media trained,
Speaker 1: and um, this show isn't the right fit. And then
Speaker 1: I kind of had to say, like, let's actually let
Speaker 1: the Today Show producers decide if you're ready. And that
Speaker 1: might sound passive, but to me, that's been such a
Speaker 1: helpful principle, Like if life opened the door and the
Speaker 1: opportunity comes, let's trust life to know what you're ready
Speaker 1: for and 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 did 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 say
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 car. Let
Speaker 1: me pull the next one up. It's just you know,
Speaker 1: trying everything I can think of. You have a great
Speaker 1: approach for dealing with hiding that I really like, and
Speaker 1: you call it the leap. Yeah, So, because how how
Speaker 1: do we get out of this hiding? You know, I
Speaker 1: think you do need that foundational inner work of inner
Speaker 1: critic or inter mentor you can't go straight to leaping
Speaker 1: because you just won't leap. So you need some kind
Speaker 1: of inner tools of how do I even quiet a
Speaker 1: 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 our project that you can finish and under
Speaker 1: two weeks it gets your adrenaline flowing. So it's got
Speaker 1: to kind of 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
Speaker 1: um if you're going out on a fundraising meeting, maybe
Speaker 1: the learning question is are the investors for this company
Speaker 1: who I think they're going to be? But there's a
Speaker 1: specific question you've highlighted that you can gather data on
Speaker 1: UM by doing the leap. And and then another key
Speaker 1: part is it's not something that's done in isolation. It's
Speaker 1: something that brings your work into contact with the people
Speaker 1: that you want to influence or reach. Uh So, writing
Speaker 1: your mission statement is not a leap, but writing your
Speaker 1: mission statement and sharing it with a few potential board
Speaker 1: members to get their feedback is al Drafting you know
Speaker 1: the next five blog pots not a leap, but drafting
Speaker 1: and publishing is a leap. So on UM So, the
Speaker 1: idea is you're moving into action really quickly. You're doing
Speaker 1: a messy version of something that will probably feel quite
Speaker 1: out of control and ikey to you, but you're getting
Speaker 1: yourself into action and the you know, it has great
Speaker 1: practical benefits because you learn and you get into action,
Speaker 1: and it has great emotional benefits because it really forces
Speaker 1: you to really confront whatever fears have been keeping you hiding.
Speaker 1: I love all the things you've wrapped around that, because
Speaker 1: there's really no substitute for actually doing something versus analyzing,
Speaker 1: thinking about templating, versus an action that you can take
Speaker 1: that moves things forward and you gather some real data
Speaker 1: on what's happening. Yeah, And it's it's very paradoxical in
Speaker 1: a way because we all avoid doing this, like, you know,
Speaker 1: instead of just sending off that one book chapter two,
Speaker 1: you know, someone to read, we like spend years reorganizing
Speaker 1: our table of content, you know, Like we do that
Speaker 1: because it feels safer. But I always find as much
Speaker 1: as people avoid those leads, once they take them, they
Speaker 1: always write to me and they're like, that was so
Speaker 1: much fun, you know, And now I'm talking to the
Speaker 1: people that I wanted to be talking about that, and
Speaker 1: I'm so energized. So it actually feels really good once
Speaker 1: we get over the initial fear. So one of the
Speaker 1: things I wanted to talk about in the book, you
Speaker 1: talk about a thing that I think we all have
Speaker 1: a lot of challenges with, and that is how to
Speaker 1: make a change, which a lot of us know how
Speaker 1: to do, but how do we stay with that change?
Speaker 1: So we've made a change, how do we keep it going? Well?
Speaker 1: This is so important, right because it is where most
Speaker 1: of our efforts fall short. And my approach with this
Speaker 1: it actually comes out of my own experience with food
Speaker 1: and eating and sugar which I come from a family
Speaker 1: 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 fought 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 give it up for
Speaker 1: New Year's And I'd say no, I haven't had it,
Speaker 1: you know, in seven years, and they'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, like I'm 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 or PM if I don't have you know, sugar
Speaker 1: at my disposal, um, or I'm going to take these
Speaker 1: things out of my house. And then it became you know,
Speaker 1: much more um, much more kind of mellow supports as
Speaker 1: 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 like the term that you use.
Speaker 1: They're making things structural in your life. There's there's some
Speaker 1: study that shows that the more factors of influence that
Speaker 1: you bring in and there's five or six different kinds,
Speaker 1: your chances of being successful there's like double every turn. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this goes back to right, I mean, it's the
Speaker 1: ultimate what are you feeding in your life? What? What
Speaker 1: are you supporting and getting away from. I'm not sure
Speaker 1: if it's aren't just our human fantasy that we have control,
Speaker 1: or if it's our American individualism thing that makes us think,
Speaker 1: you know, we should be able to say I will it.
Speaker 1: I wrote it down in my New Year's goal is
Speaker 1: therefore it will happen. But you know, that's just not
Speaker 1: how we're My sense is not how we're wired. And
Speaker 1: in the book I share there's a stat from the
Speaker 1: American Psychological Association that people Americans reported they feel their
Speaker 1: number one reason that they're not meeting their goals as
Speaker 1: lack of willpower, and so we need to look at that.
Speaker 1: If everyone thinks that they individually lack the willpower they're
Speaker 1: supposed to have, that means there's probably something um illusory
Speaker 1: about our expectation of what willpower is supposed to be
Speaker 1: able to do for us. Yep. You you referenced Kelly
Speaker 1: McGonagall in your book. She's got great writing on it. Um.
Speaker 1: We had Carrie Patterson on the show who wrote a
Speaker 1: book called Influencers, which has a lot of this information
Speaker 1: switch by the Heath Brothers. I mean, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff out here. We had b J. Fag on
Speaker 1: the show, and there's a lot of studies and a
Speaker 1: lot of things out there about how building habits and
Speaker 1: behavior change is. It's an art and a science, but
Speaker 1: there's a lot of clear things that we can do
Speaker 1: because willpower is ultimately kind of like a mood, and moods,
Speaker 1: just by their very nature, fluctuate a great deal. I
Speaker 1: love that willpower is like, that's great. One of the
Speaker 1: last things I want to talk about, and it's related
Speaker 1: to this idea of willpower and discipline, and um, you
Speaker 1: talk about it 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 or 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. Um. But the bigger issue
Speaker 1: to me is that that kind of inner critic, being
Speaker 1: tough on your off, that doesn't actually motivate you to
Speaker 1: do your most important, glorious work. Like what the inner
Speaker 1: critic motivates you to do. What being hard on yourself
Speaker 1: motivates you to do is work. A few hours later,
Speaker 1: you know, read that document again and make a bunch
Speaker 1: of changes you just decided in that moment are needed,
Speaker 1: even though you've done it ten times already. Um, you
Speaker 1: know think that you need to go fix this and
Speaker 1: that about yourself before you do a B or C.
Speaker 1: So it's never going to motivate you to do the
Speaker 1: most important moves in your career, which would be the
Speaker 1: I'm speaking up even though I don't feel ready. I'm
Speaker 1: doing this thing that I was asked to do, even
Speaker 1: though I can't believe I'm qualified. I'm taking a risk
Speaker 1: and sharing creative work in the world. I'm saying something
Speaker 1: on this topic even though no one else in the
Speaker 1: room is talking about it the way I'm thinking about it.
Speaker 1: That's where we get to share our individual gifts. That's
Speaker 1: where we get to move our world beyond the status
Speaker 1: quo and help it move forward. And that is not
Speaker 1: um a kind of expression into the world that being
Speaker 1: hard on yourself will ever help you move toward it
Speaker 1: will move you away from it. Yeah, that's absolutely true.
Speaker 1: And even with things that we think it will help
Speaker 1: us with, like motivation and basic self control, a lot
Speaker 1: of the studies she seemed to show that that being
Speaker 1: extremely self critical and hard on ourselves actually is less
Speaker 1: effective than being encouraging and supportive to ourselves for sure. Well,
Speaker 1: thank you so much for taking the time to come
Speaker 1: on the show. I really enjoyed the book. Will have
Speaker 1: links in our show notes to your book and a
Speaker 1: lot of your writing online. So thank you, Thanks so
Speaker 1: much for having me, and thanks everyone who is listening today. Okay,
Speaker 1: take care, Okay, bye bye. If what you just heard
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