0:01

Stories from the Trenches,

0:01

Ali Razakos. Oh, by the way, Ali, we are not

0:07

recording the video. We're

0:07

just doing audio. Hello, welcome back to another

0:13

episode of the Sales Enablement

0:13

Society podcast, Stories from the Trenches.

0:18

The For Us, Buy Us podcast,

0:18

where we bring together enablement leaders

0:22

from all over the world.

0:22

We talk about the things that we're dealing

0:25

with on a common basis and

0:25

innovative ways that people are solving for

0:29

it. We also love to sometimes

0:29

talk about things that didn't go so well because

0:33

there's even more learning

0:33

a lot of times in those situations. Today we

0:37

have a little bit different

0:37

guest. I'd like to first of all welcome Ali

0:42

Razakos. Thank you for joining

0:42

us, Ali.

0:44

Thank you.

0:46

Ali has, and she's gonna

0:46

share more about this, a background in sales

0:51

and in sales enablement,

0:51

but her work now is as an imposter syndrome

0:56

coach for high achievers

0:56

in tech. That's

1:00

Yes.

1:00

a hot topic right now, not

1:00

just in the enablement community. So we're

1:05

really excited to have you

1:05

on, Ali, to talk about something that's frankly

1:08

pretty important to a lot

1:08

of people. But before we

1:10

Yeah.

1:10

get into it, maybe share

1:10

a little bit about yourself so everybody can

1:13

get to know you.

1:14

For sure. Yeah. Thanks for having

1:14

me. So yeah, as you mentioned, I have a background

1:19

in sales and sales enablement.

1:19

So I spent my whole career in sales, one of

1:27

those people who just kind of

1:27

found themselves there. And I found myself

1:32

at Salesforce for eight of those

1:32

years and then left Salesforce and right before

1:40

the pandemic, January 2020,

1:40

and joined a smaller company. as the head of

1:47

revenue enablement. And that

1:47

was kind of my final role in the corporate

1:53

world before I left and started

1:53

to be a coach. But that role was pivotal for

1:58

me because it came with so much

1:58

imposter syndrome and it was so glaringly obvious,

2:06

at least to me,

2:08

Mm-hmm.

2:08

how impactful it was on myself,

2:08

like my wellbeing and my mental health, but

2:14

then also just on my performance

2:14

as well. And so I am so grateful for that experience

2:22

and being in sales enablement

2:22

to have really kind of shown me the perils

2:27

of imposter syndrome. I mean,

2:27

I felt it so many other times in my career,

2:31

but being in a role I had never

2:31

had before in

2:33

Mm-hmm.

2:33

a smaller company I didn't know,

2:33

and in the middle of the pandemic,

2:37

Right,

2:37

and I'm

2:37

perfect

2:38

trying

2:38

store.

2:38

to build a function.

2:39

Yeah.

2:39

Yeah, I'm trying to put the

2:39

function that never existed before. It was

2:41

just like, oh my God, just,

2:41

you know, an atomic bomb of imposter syndrome

2:47

for me.

2:48

Yeah. Okay. All right. Well,

2:48

this is, this is going to be, um, this is gonna

2:52

be a really good episode

2:52

before we get into it though. Um, nobody gets

2:57

out without the Jimmy Kimmel

2:57

cow, Jimmy Kimmel challenge. All right. So

3:00

you're ready?

3:01

Yes.

3:02

Uh, Kimmel retires through

3:02

your amazing connections. You were offered

3:06

his show. Uh, you can have

3:06

anybody you want on as your first guest. So

3:10

who's going to be on the couch and why

3:13

So I would be remiss to not

3:13

say Oprah because she's been my girl for forever.

3:20

And I had this... I still have

3:20

it. I have this like cue card where I wrote

3:25

down my like four big life goals.

3:25

And this was, I don't know, less than 10 years,

3:32

somewhere between 10 and six

3:32

years ago or something like that. And... Three

3:38

of them I've already achieved

3:38

and the last one was to be interviewed by Oprah.

3:43

So if, you know, a twist of

3:43

fate had it that I got to interview Oprah,

3:47

same thing.

3:49

It still counts. Okay. All

3:50

Yeah,

3:50

right.

3:50

still counts. So I would be

3:50

remiss to say Oprah, but I also kind of feel

3:54

like it's a bit like a Vakapo

3:54

because, you know, she's so known. So if I

3:58

get to have one caveat answer,

3:58

I would also say Gabor Mate. who is an author

4:05

and physician who I'm obsessed

4:05

with at the moment. And he really focuses on

4:10

trauma in our society and how

4:10

his newest book is called The Myth of Normal,

4:16

right? And we

4:16

and

4:16

all wanna be normal, but how

4:16

that is completely a myth. And I would just

4:22

love to bring him to the masses.

4:22

I mean, he's already quite famous, but what

4:28

he has to say, we all need to

4:28

know. So that would be my kind of adjacent.

4:31

Okay. I just took a note

4:31

on that because I'm an avid reader. In fact,

4:36

I'm a parallel reader. I'll

4:36

normally have two or three books going on at

4:38

a time.

4:40

Yeah.

4:40

And I'm sure ADHD has nothing

4:40

to do with that either,

4:42

I was just

4:42

right?

4:43

just eating sweet.

4:44

Yeah. So for those that

4:44

are listening, we're prepping for the show.

4:49

We were talking about, and

4:49

in fact, I'll share in a second, we were talking

4:52

about imposter syndrome

4:52

that I've dealt with and the fact that I do

4:55

have ADHD and that is kind

4:55

of an interesting exasperating factor.

5:00

Yeah.

5:01

Anyway, but I wrote it down because that sounds like an amazing book. So thank you for sharing

5:03

So,

5:03

that recommendation.

5:04

fantastic.

5:05

So to bring everybody into

5:05

the loop what you and I have been talking about,

5:11

just with my personal experience

5:11

with imposter syndrome, I, like you, came from

5:17

the sales world into enablement.

5:17

I've been in the workforce longer than you

5:22

have, so I had more time

5:22

in the job. I've led sales teams for Microsoft.

5:28

One of my teams there, for

5:28

example, had a $430-some-dollar, million-dollar

5:31

quota. I led sales teams

5:31

at Intuit, HP, etc. I knew the sales world.

5:36

When I was at a company

5:36

called InContact, which was a contact center

5:42

as a service company, I

5:42

was asked to leave my job as a director over

5:46

the Eastern AEs and go figure

5:46

out how to build an employment. So I went from

5:52

Friday being a sales director

5:52

to Monday being a sales name with director.

5:55

So a little bit different

5:55

path. And one of my first things, the directives

5:59

from my EVP of sales was

5:59

to take the methodology that I'd learned as

6:03

a Microsoft leader, that

6:03

I'd use it into it and go and get certified

6:09

in customizing it for our

6:09

business, teaching it, implementing it, driving

6:13

it, option, all of that,

6:13

which is a different level than just using

6:15

it in the field as a, as

6:15

a sales leader. Um,

6:17

Sure.

6:19

I went and I did that. I

6:19

worked very hard at it and I actually really

6:23

enjoy teaching. So that

6:23

wasn't the issue, but Nonetheless, even with

6:28

years of experience in the

6:28

field with it, even with the, and I even had

6:31

one of the co-founders helping

6:31

me prepare. Right. So, I mean, everything was

6:35

aligned, but those last

6:35

couple of weeks before my first workshop, and

6:39

these were three and a half

6:39

day workshops. So they were, remember we used

6:41

to all get together for

6:41

like multi-day

6:43

Yeah.

6:43

training. Right. So, um,

6:43

those last couple of weeks leading up to it

6:47

though, I was being affected

6:47

physically. I wasn't sleeping well.

6:52

Mm.

6:52

I was just, just kept thinking.

6:52

that I was going to get up there, I was going

6:57

to forget the material,

6:57

which I've never done, but I was just convinced

7:01

it was going to happen.

7:01

People were going to see through me and it

7:04

was going to turn into a

7:04

game of stump the chump and I wasn't going

7:06

to be able to answer their

7:06

questions, all kinds of things, none of which

7:11

actually came true. Yeah,

7:11

but for about two weeks, I wasn't sleeping

7:15

well and just headaches

7:15

and that kind of thing. So that's me sharing

7:22

my experience, would love

7:22

to know. Is that common? And let's just talk

7:27

about in general what you're

7:27

seeing when you work with your clients.

7:31

Yeah, so yeah, thank you for

7:31

sharing that. And just to kind of like analyze

7:36

that story a little bit to give

7:36

us some, a jumping off point is, you know,

7:42

all facts and figures point

7:42

to the fact that you absolutely had the experience

7:49

and the training to deliver

7:49

this, you know, these workshops with, you know,

7:56

at a high quality, right? And

7:56

so, you know, so then it's not about the facts

8:02

and figures, but that's often

8:02

where we go. We're like, well, I don't understand

8:05

why I feel this way because,

8:05

you know, all of these things that I have and

8:08

I shouldn't feel this way. Which

8:08

means that it's not coming from a kind of facts

8:13

and figures place. It's coming

8:13

from a deeper place, right? So an emotional

8:17

level and probably a memory,

8:17

either conscious or subconscious,

8:21

Mm-hmm.

8:22

that is being triggered in this

8:22

moment. Because what I was hearing is like

8:27

you were trying to avoid. feeling,

8:27

you know, rejection, feeling stupid, feeling

8:33

Mm-hmm.

8:33

inadequate, looking or feeling

8:33

embarrassed, right? And those are all super

8:38

uncomfortable feelings.

8:40

Mm-hmm.

8:40

And our brain will try to prevent

8:40

us from having to feel that way because that

8:47

is programming or like that,

8:47

yeah, that was programmed in us as children.

8:53

We all had those times as children

8:53

because yeah, we just, you know. we do say

8:57

stupid things and then someone

8:57

laughs. We don't understand, we misinterpret

9:01

it or not. So we have these

9:01

kind of scary emotions that are kind of hardwired

9:07

in us that now in our adult

9:07

brains we try to avoid, right? And what's behind

9:13

all of that is a belief. And

9:13

I wanna check in with you, which typically

9:19

the belief is that I'm not enough.

9:21

Mm-hmm.

9:22

So is that what you were feeling at the time?

9:24

Yeah. Yeah. Again, despite

9:24

all kinds of evidence to the contrary, that's

9:28

The

9:28

exactly

9:28

contract.

9:29

what I was feeling. And, and,

9:30

Right.

9:30

yep.

9:32

Exactly, right? And so, you

9:32

know, in my experience, you know, myself, my

9:36

own

9:36

Mm-hmm.

9:37

experience, but now, and I was

9:37

a leader for so many of the years that I was

9:40

at Salesforce. So, you know,

9:41

Mm-hmm.

9:42

I don't know how many people

9:42

I've managed, 200 at this point, right? And

9:45

now I have clients and I, you

9:45

know, I have hundreds of those. And so all

9:48

this markets research that I've

9:48

done, I don't think I've met one person that

9:52

hasn't felt that they're not

9:52

good enough, you know, like everyone has. of

9:57

inner belief. So it begs the

9:57

question though, like is it sales? The sales

10:04

environment that's making us

10:04

feel not enough, right? Or is there some kind

10:09

of universality or some deeper

10:09

something going on that we feel not enough

10:16

and thus we were then attracted

10:16

to the sales world because it affirms what

10:22

we already believe about ourselves,

10:22

right? So a bit of like a chicken and an egg

10:27

The thing about beliefs is that

10:27

whatever we believe, we will find evidence

10:31

to support that belief, right?

10:31

Because we don't wanna make ourselves crazy.

10:35

Like we don't wanna, you know,

10:35

I doubt that we're crazy. So whatever we believe,

10:39

we'll just go find evidence

10:39

that it's true because then we'll feel sane

10:43

and okay and safe, right? So

10:43

I, you know, I am fascinated with the sales

10:50

environment, right? You know,

10:50

and sales enablement is in that environment

10:53

because you're governed by the

10:53

same rules, right? because

10:57

often reporting

10:57

of,

10:57

to sales,

10:59

of course,

10:59

even.

10:59

that was

11:00

Yeah,

11:00

me, I reported

11:00

right.

11:01

the sales.

11:01

Yeah, I always have to, yeah.

11:04

Yeah, I think that's how it

11:04

should be. But anyway, it's so fascinating

11:10

because, you know, it attracts

11:10

the people that feel not enough, right?

11:17

Mm-hmm.

11:17

Because we then now have this

11:17

opportunity, especially in sales, right? Where

11:21

it's like, you know, if we take

11:21

sales out of it for a second, how can we prove

11:27

that we're enough, right?

11:28

Mm-hmm.

11:29

I'll ask you that. How can you prove that you're enough?

11:31

hit quota overachieve. That's,

11:34

Right.

11:34

and it's pretty binary.

11:34

You either do or you don't. It doesn't really

11:37

matter, you know, what was

11:37

the old Yoda thing? You know, do not try, do

11:42

or do not. And then sales,

11:43

Yeah.

11:44

that's kind of what it is.

11:44

Nobody really cares how hard you tried. You

11:46

either hit your number or you don't hit your number.

11:49

Exactly. It's very binary and

11:49

binary is attractive because it's either yes

11:54

or it's no. There's no in between,

11:54

right? So it's like it

11:57

Mm-hmm.

11:57

feels factual. So if I can

11:59

Mm-hmm.

11:59

do it then I'm enough and if

11:59

I don't do it then I'm not enough, right? So

12:03

Mm-hmm.

12:03

let me just fucking do it and

12:03

then I'll be enough, right? And especially

12:08

in sales, too It's like there's

12:08

status that comes with it, right? And there's

12:12

money

12:12

Mm-hmm.

12:12

that comes with

12:13

Mm-hmm.

12:13

and there's power that comes

12:13

with it, right?

12:15

Mm-hmm.

12:16

Who do we believe in the world

12:16

is enough? people with money, people with power,

12:20

people that have status, right?

12:20

So sales is like this super attractive world

12:25

for people that don't feel enough

12:25

because it feels like an easy, you know, in

12:31

quotation marks, this easy place

12:31

to get the affirmation and validation that

12:38

you might be, right?

12:40

It's fair.

12:41

But like you said, it is binary.

12:41

So the problem is, is there's only ever one

12:47

winner really, you know?

12:48

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

12:49

There's not room for everyone

12:49

to be the best. There's only room for one person

12:54

to be the best. Because of that,

12:54

it feeds that inner belief in us of never feeling

13:02

enough. It's a vicious cycle to be in

13:06

sales and to not feel enough because one is

13:12

ever enough. How do we define

13:12

enoughness?

13:17

In an enablement, it seems

13:17

like we could have a further complicator because

13:21

we have, you know, when

13:21

sales are going really well and the team's

13:25

crushing it, we rarely

13:27

Yep.

13:28

get credit for that, right?

13:28

Because that's all them. But when they're not

13:31

doing well, often it's a

13:31

due to a lack of training, right? And then

13:35

everybody's looking back at us. So,

13:37

Almost

13:37

so

13:37

made

13:37

there's

13:37

it.

13:37

just that extra element.

13:37

We don't have that direct control over the

13:40

success of the sales org

13:40

that we have when we're salespeople. So.

13:45

I truly think, not to use a

13:45

dramatic word here, but I truly think sales

13:49

is quite traumatizing in itself,

13:49

right? Because

13:52

Mm-hmm.

13:52

it is so binary, it's like either

13:53

Mm-hmm.

13:53

you are or you're not, like

13:54

Mm-hmm.

13:55

ship in or ship out, right?

13:55

But sales enablement is so elusive. You never

14:03

know if you're doing well. And

14:03

it's just 10 times more traumatizing in

14:07

Okay,

14:07

that sense.

14:08

yeah.

14:08

Because you can never feel good,

14:08

really.

14:11

Yeah. Yeah.

14:12

is either they're doing well

14:12

and it's not because of you, or they're not

14:16

doing well and it's because

14:16

of you. So when am I supposed to feel good?

14:19

Yeah, yeah, right, right,

14:19

exactly. Okay.

14:23

Yeah. Yeah.

14:25

So how do we, I don't know

14:25

if upgrade's the right word, but what do we

14:29

do about it? How do we upgrade

14:29

our own operating system?

14:33

Yeah, yeah, and you know, it's

14:33

a good word to say operating system, right?

14:39

Because we

14:40

Mm-hmm.

14:40

need to think about how did

14:40

we get the current one that we have, right?

14:44

So that always leads us back

14:44

to childhood,

14:47

Okay.

14:47

which is exactly where we got

14:47

the belief around not being enough. So, you

14:54

know, as we have some fundamental

14:54

needs as humans and as kids, as children, there's

15:01

kind of two big ones that...

15:01

are in opposition to each other. And those

15:05

needs are the need for authenticity

15:05

and the need for attachment. And when I say

15:11

authenticity, what I mean by

15:11

authenticity is the need to be able to fully

15:16

express how your feelings and

15:16

what's coming up for you, right? So cry when

15:23

I'm upset and angry or I'm hurt

15:23

or laugh or yell, whatever it is, whatever

15:29

is coming up in me, I want to

15:29

be able to express that. right? The other side

15:33

of it, the other need is the

15:33

attachment, right? I think we know as humans,

15:36

like we are social animals,

15:36

we literally will die without the parent or

15:42

an adult around who are literally

15:42

babies, right? So that need is very much, very

15:50

much kind of outweighs the need

15:50

for authenticity as children because... given

15:56

an opportunity to either be

15:56

authentically ourselves and be able to express

16:00

ourselves or get the attachment

16:00

from mom and dad, I'm gonna pick attachment,

16:06

right? But what that does is

16:06

when I'm, you know, let's say throwing a tantrum

16:11

and my parent is like doing

16:11

what they've probably learned from parenting

16:16

books, which is like, sometimes

16:16

you ignore them or, you know, you tell them,

16:19

you know, to calm down, basically

16:19

stop expressing what

16:23

Right,

16:23

your

16:23

time

16:24

authentic

16:24

out. Yeah.

16:25

feelings are.

16:25

Yeah.

16:26

And so then what the child develops

16:26

is this understanding that, oh, like, it's

16:31

not okay for me to be authentic,

16:31

to be

16:34

Interesting.

16:34

myself. I need to now, like,

16:34

because I'm not good enough, right? If mommy

16:39

and daddy aren't liking this,

16:39

then it must be I'm deficient or something's

16:42

wrong with me. So in order to

16:42

keep my attachment to mommy and daddy, let

16:48

me be what they will praise

16:48

me for, right?

16:52

Mm-hmm.

16:52

And what does that become when

16:52

we're kids? You know, like... I was a dancer,

16:55

right? So if I was good at dance

16:55

or, you know, good grades in schools, like

16:59

the big one, right? Like

17:00

Mm-hmm.

17:01

being valuable in some

17:03

Mm-hmm.

17:03

way, right? Being productive

17:04

Yeah.

17:05

in some

17:05

Yeah.

17:05

way.

17:06

Yep. Yeah.

17:06

And when we're not, we then

17:06

believe we're not enough, right? So that's

17:12

originally kind of where where

17:12

it comes from. And then we take that and that

17:17

becomes our operating system.

17:17

Right. So I'm not enough unless I am being.

17:22

valuable or productive or, you

17:22

know, smiling and being happy for everyone.

17:29

Like whatever

17:30

Mm-hmm.

17:30

we encountered as children,

17:30

right, whatever the environment was as children,

17:36

were not valuable unless for

17:36

that, right? And so then we bring that into

17:40

adulthood and that is, you know,

17:40

we can see the parallel now. with sales, right?

17:45

Like, oh, maybe mommy and daddy

17:45

will love me if I'm really good at my sales

17:50

job and make lots of money and

17:50

get promoted, right? Like maybe they'll actually

17:54

finally love me, right? Because

17:54

we all develop this kind of belief that if

17:58

we're not enough, then we must

17:58

not be lovable, right? And then we go out as

18:02

adults into the world trying

18:02

to prove how enough we are so that we can finally

18:08

get the love that we never truly

18:08

felt that we got, right? Because we had to

18:13

be inauthentic to get that love.

18:17

Okay.

18:18

And so, your question is like,

18:18

what do we do about it and how do we start

18:23

upgrading our operating system?

18:23

Well, one is like getting aware of what it

18:27

currently is, which is what

18:27

I just described, right? That's pretty much

18:31

everyone in this world,

18:32

Yeah,

18:33

right?

18:33

yeah.

18:33

No, like, of course, listen,

18:33

we all, many of us had loving parents and,

18:38

quote unquote, normal childhoods,

18:38

no big traumas, right? And sometimes that's

18:44

almost like worse because then

18:44

you don't feel justified to have

18:48

Oh, it's like, what's my

18:48

problem? I had a great

18:50

exactly.

18:50

childhood.

18:51

Right.

18:51

I had a privileged childhood.

18:51

What, you know, what's my, yeah. That makes

18:54

sense.

18:54

Yeah, I want to want

18:55

That makes

18:55

to have

18:55

sense.

18:55

problems, right?

18:56

Yeah.

18:56

But but it's the problem is

18:56

like these this operating system was created

19:03

subconsciously like not in your

19:03

working memory. Like this was created like

19:07

when you were eight months old

19:07

and you know, one and a half like you're not

19:11

remembering these things. But

19:11

As a child, your brain is not fully developed.

19:16

So you can't have the capacity,

19:16

the cognitive capacity to say, oh, mommy and

19:20

daddy must just be stressed

19:20

today. They probably had a big meeting at work

19:24

or something didn't go their

19:24

way. That's why mommy's not really paying attention

19:27

to me right now, right? You

19:27

think, well, I must be.

19:31

Everything's internalized.

19:33

Yeah,

19:33

Yeah,

19:33

it must be me.

19:34

yeah, yeah.

19:35

I obviously, I'm not enough.

19:35

That's why mommy doesn't care about me, right?

19:38

So of course your mom cared

19:38

about you, of course, right? but we couldn't

19:42

interpret it that way, right?

19:42

Even if we had normal, loving, beautiful parents,

19:47

you can still have this, I'm

19:47

not good enough belief, right?

19:51

Yeah, because even beautiful,

19:51

loving parents are human. They

19:55

Oh!

19:55

have their ups and downs,

19:55

they have their flaws, they have their biases.

19:59

Of course,

19:59

Yeah. Yeah.

20:00

right? Their sort fuses, their

20:00

stress, right? You know, let's come back to

20:04

your example for a second, right?

20:04

During that time when you were, you know, to

20:09

deliver these workshops and

20:09

you weren't sleeping, did you have kids at

20:11

that time? Right.

20:12

Mm-hmm. Edit.

20:14

So, you know, were you maybe

20:14

a little bit less, you know, attentive to them

20:21

because you were so in your

20:21

own mind and so

20:23

Probably.

20:23

caught up in your own stuff,

20:23

right? Like probably.

20:25

I'm just gonna say yes.

20:25

I don't remember, but knowing how I was feeling,

20:29

I'm gonna just say yeah.

20:31

And like, and you weren't a

20:31

bad dad, you're not a bad

20:34

Yeah.

20:34

parent, right?

20:35

Yeah.

20:35

But you, it's just life, you

20:35

know,

20:37

Yeah.

20:37

like life's happening, right?

20:37

The problem to your point is like, kids personalize

20:43

everything. That's the way that

20:43

we, we understand the world is to personalize

20:48

it. Right. So, okay. So one

20:48

is like, let's realize that that's the operating

20:53

Okay,

20:53

system.

20:54

alright.

20:55

Now it's like, okay, well, what

20:55

is the operating system that I, that would

20:58

be beneficial to me? Like, what

20:58

do I want to be able to feel about myself?

21:02

Well, first and foremost, I

21:02

think we all want to feel that we already are

21:04

good enough, right? Like, if

21:04

we believed that, how would we act differently,

21:12

right? And what different behaviors

21:12

would we, you know, create in our life that

21:18

would then lead to different

21:18

outcomes and different results, right? When

21:23

you look at... most behaviors

21:23

in the world, you can kind of tie it back to,

21:28

oh, they don't think they're

21:28

good enough. That's why they're like trying

21:32

to make all this money or trying,

21:32

you know, whatever it might be. Like it's,

21:35

it usually comes back to that,

21:35

right? So if the, so then what is the belief?

21:40

So, you know, I am enough. And

21:40

that really starts with, you know, if you,

21:48

if we could just change our

21:48

beliefs, we would do it immediately. So sometimes

21:51

we need to reverse

21:52

Yeah.

21:52

engineer it.

21:53

Okay.

21:53

So... why don't we show ourselves

21:53

that we are enough in the way that we treat

22:00

ourselves? Right?

22:02

Mm-hmm.

22:03

So you know you and I were talking

22:03

before this how we all love to be our own worst

22:09

critic and almost take it as

22:09

like a point of pride. It's

22:12

Right.

22:13

like it's the same

22:13

Yeah.

22:13

pride that we have around being busy.

22:15

Right. Oh, that's another.

22:15

Yeah, you're right. I'm so busy. I don't get

22:19

any personal life. Look at me. Yeah.

22:22

Yeah,

22:22

Yeah. Another

22:22

and you're just,

22:22

topic.

22:23

and I'm like,

22:23

Yeah.

22:23

oh my god, like,

22:24

Yeah.

22:24

poor you, what do you mean? Right?

22:26

Right.

22:26

And so my clients will say that

22:26

to me all the time. Oh, no, no, I'm my own

22:29

worst critic. And I'm like,

22:29

I don't know why you're kind of happy about

22:35

it, right?

22:35

Yeah,

22:35

Like,

22:35

right, right.

22:37

because, first of all, let me

22:37

ask everyone this, has that strategy worked?

22:45

No, I mean, just speaking

22:45

for myself, no. And, and as I reflect on it,

22:50

I think it maybe comes from

22:50

a place of you can't or don't need to criticize

22:55

me because I've already

22:55

identified those

22:58

defense.

22:58

things on my own.

22:59

Yeah,

22:59

Thank you very much.

23:00

yeah,

23:00

Yeah.

23:01

yeah, yeah, I got it. I'm covered.

23:01

Yeah, you're not going to point anything out

23:05

that I already have it nitpicked

23:05

at, right?

23:08

Mm-hmm.

23:08

So it's a defense against not

23:08

wanting to seem ignorant or incompetent or

23:14

inadequate in some

23:15

Thanks for watching!

23:15

way, right? But why would we

23:15

need to defend ourselves against that if we

23:21

don't actually believe that about ourselves?

23:23

Yeah. Yeah.

23:24

Right? So it always comes back

23:24

to the belief. So if we could just change our

23:30

beliefs, we would. We would

23:30

just stop being our own worst critic. So one,

23:34

it doesn't really work, because

23:34

in the sense too is, yes, it might help you

23:38

achieve a certain thing or hit

23:38

a certain deadline, cool, right. But what I'm

23:43

assuming we all kind of want

23:43

in this world is some definition of fulfillment,

23:48

whatever that means, to be

23:50

Mm-hmm.

23:50

happy.

23:51

Mm-hmm.

23:51

And what my clients mostly say

23:51

is like, just mental peace.

23:57

Yeah.

23:57

Like to have less like chaos

23:57

in my mind of like my mind beating myself up

24:03

or like second guessing everything

24:03

or comparing myself to everyone or

24:08

Mm-hmm.

24:08

thinking that people are thinking

24:08

or judging me. Like that is so much noise,

24:14

Mm-hmm.

24:14

right? That is our own creation,

24:14

right? We're, it's not, we're not getting it

24:19

from the world. We're creating

24:19

it in ourselves. And so does being your own

24:23

worst critic lead you to more

24:23

mental peace?

24:27

You know, I learned a lesson

24:27

from a golf pro, but I think it still applies

24:33

here. And that is, you know,

24:33

I would worry about looking stupid on the golf

24:39

course. And I remember was

24:39

working with a pro once as in a teaching environment,

24:43

and he said, trust me, everyone

24:43

else on the course is obsessed about their

24:49

own games, their

24:50

Yeah.

24:50

own poor shots

24:51

So that's it

24:52

and looking

24:52

for

24:52

stupid.

24:52

the other side. Yeah.

24:53

They are not

24:53

Yeah.

24:53

looking at you, right? And

24:53

I think there's probably application for that

24:59

in life

24:59

Yeah,

25:00

in general, yes?

25:01

of course, of course,

25:02

Yeah.

25:03

right? Yeah, I love how, you

25:03

know, he's like, trust me because I literally

25:09

talk to every single one of these people here.

25:11

Yeah,

25:11

Like,

25:11

yeah, great.

25:12

they're all not paying attention

25:12

to you because there's so much paying attention

25:15

to ourselves, right? Yeah, we

25:15

have this like belief that somehow if we criticize

25:20

ourselves, that it will create

25:20

a good result, right? But... If being our own

25:29

worst critic is not creating

25:29

more mental peace, well then it's not the strategy,

25:34

you know, it's not the solution.

25:34

So something that I help clients do, which

25:38

is kind of reverse engineering

25:38

it, is like start to treat yourself, every

25:44

Mm-hmm.

25:44

aspect of yourself, your mind,

25:44

your body, you know, your health, as if you

25:50

already knew that you were enough

25:50

and that you mattered, right? So, you know,

25:55

you mentioned that... because

25:55

you were beating yourself up, then you couldn't

25:58

sleep. And you didn't elaborate,

25:58

but I'm sure that also resulted in probably

26:03

like, eating poorly or like

26:03

not leaving the house or not getting some movement

26:08

in or just poor decision-making

26:08

about yourself, right?

26:12

Yeah, because

26:12

Because

26:12

I was

26:13

you

26:13

obsessed

26:13

have to be

26:14

for

26:14

obsessed.

26:14

a short period of time. Yeah, right.

26:16

Exactly, yeah. And so then we

26:16

let ourselves go, right? We deprioritize ourselves

26:23

to prioritize the obsession,

26:23

right? And so when you deprioritize yourself,

26:29

you are internally and intrinsically

26:29

saying that you don't matter. and if you don't

26:36

matter,

26:36

Okay.

26:36

then why would you be enough?

26:36

So if we start just treating our body, our

26:43

health, our mind as if it mattered,

26:48

Mm-hmm.

26:48

our mind will start realizing,

26:48

oh wow, you matter, you know, you're enough,

26:54

Mm-hmm.

26:54

right?

26:54

Mm-hmm.

26:55

So one of the biggest like game

26:55

changers of my life has been that, like the

27:00

actual physical actions of showing

27:00

myself every day that I matter, right? Because

27:07

there's a whole slew of decisions

27:07

I could make that show myself I don't matter,

27:11

Mm-hmm.

27:11

right?

27:12

Yeah.

27:12

But now I have a belief that

27:12

I know I'm enough and I matter, so it's now

27:18

like I don't have to think about

27:18

these decisions, but in the beginning, it was

27:21

an act of like, okay, if I cared

27:21

about myself and I knew I mattered and I knew

27:26

I was enough, what would I do

27:26

today, right? And I'm like, okay, I'll make

27:31

a salad. I'll go for a walk.

27:31

I'll go to the gym. Like I'll call a friend.

27:34

You know, like that's what I

27:34

would do. What would I do if I thought I was

27:38

a piece of crap and didn't matter?

27:38

Like, well, I'd probably eat a burrito and

27:42

like sit on the couch and watch

27:42

Netflix and you know, feel

27:45

Mm-hmm.

27:45

bad about myself, right?

27:46

Mm-hmm.

27:47

So when you do those things,

27:47

you're only feeding that critic inside of you,

27:52

right? When you make decisions

27:52

that are not in favor of you, right? Like not

27:58

making you feel like you matter.

27:58

your critic is like just chopping at the bit.

28:02

It's like popcorn for the critic,

28:02

like give me more, right?

28:06

Yeah.

28:06

But when you start making decisions

28:06

in favor of your mind, so like, you know, for

28:10

example, I don't have any social

28:10

media on my phone because social media is an

28:14

attack to our minds.

28:15

Mm-hmm.

28:16

I'm a firm believer in that.

28:16

If someone wants to disprove me, I would love

28:20

for them to try.

28:21

No, I mean, I think there's

28:21

at least a dozen state legislators right now

28:25

trying to figure out how

28:25

to regulate it for children

28:27

For

28:28

because

28:28

sure. So, that's

28:29

the

28:29

what soldierhood's

28:29

evidence

28:30

had

28:30

seems

28:30

for

28:30

pretty,

28:30

them.

28:31

I think it's uncontroversial,

28:31

incontrovertible, the evidence of the damage

28:35

that it's doing to young

28:35

people, especially. So.

28:38

Well, and how are we not in

28:38

that category too?

28:42

Yeah, that's fair.

28:43

Right? Like,

28:44

Right.

28:45

we're, we also are young people

28:45

inside of us too, like we're

28:47

Mm-hmm.

28:47

just a nesting doll of all the

28:47

ages that we've ever been inside of us, right?

28:50

So,

28:51

Mm-hmm.

28:52

so yeah, like, so that's, so

28:52

something I do every day for my mind is I don't

28:56

have any social media, so that

28:56

I'm not infusing my brain with like... people

29:00

to compare myself to and bad

29:00

news and all this stuff. So already I'm putting

29:05

myself in a place where I'm

29:05

not going to feed myself terrible information

29:10

because I care about myself

29:10

and I matter, right?

29:14

Mm-hmm.

29:14

If we feed ourselves terrible

29:14

information, your brain's like, oh yeah, I

29:17

see what you're doing because

29:17

I guess we don't matter today, you know?

29:21

So I want to clarify

29:21

So

29:22

something, because you said

29:22

you don't have social media on your phone.

29:25

So it doesn't

29:25

Yes.

29:26

sound like you're completely

29:26

unplugged from social media.

29:29

Well, my business runs on LinkedIn.

29:29

So

29:31

Mm-hmm.

29:31

I do have, like LinkedIn is

29:31

the only social platform that I use and I

29:35

Okay.

29:35

only use it on my desktop. When

29:37

Okay.

29:38

I'm, if I'm on my desktop, then

29:38

I'm working and LinkedIn is my work,

29:42

So you're

29:42

right?

29:42

being intentional about it. It's

29:44

Exactly,

29:44

not your default.

29:44

yeah.

29:45

Yeah, okay.

29:46

Oh yeah, like, but there's nothing,

29:46

like my phone is basically useless. I,

29:49

Okay.

29:50

other than texting and I don't

29:50

even call people. So other than texting, it's

29:55

a camera and a texting machine

29:55

for me.

29:58

Okay, all right.

30:00

And I felt so like insane amounts

30:00

of mental peace from that. Like my brain doesn't

30:07

beat me up anymore. Whereas

30:07

when I was just passively scrolling and every...

30:12

There would just be all these

30:12

like incessant thoughts of like that I'm not

30:14

doing enough. It

30:15

Mm-hmm.

30:16

always came back to that. I'd

30:16

see someone that I used to work with and they're

30:19

like in Aruba. And my thoughts

30:19

would just start attacking me being like, why

30:23

aren't you in Aruba? You should

30:23

be on vacation. Do you make enough money to

30:26

be on vacation? Is your business

30:26

doing enough? I don't know if you're... actually

30:29

successful enough. Like it would

30:29

just be this like onslaught of thoughts

30:32

Right.

30:33

that I could not control because

30:33

I saw an image that triggered them, right?

30:38

So now if I just don't see those

30:38

images, I'm good. I feel like I am doing enough.

30:43

Sometimes ignorance is bliss.

30:43

Is that what I'm hearing?

30:46

Absolutely.

30:46

When it comes to social

30:47

Yes,

30:47

media at least. Yeah.

30:49

yes.

30:50

Okay, all right. Thank you.

30:50

Especially thank you for helping us understand

30:57

and also offering some practical

30:57

steps and things that people can do. Before

31:03

we let you go, wanna just

31:03

explore one more area. And it's a scenario

31:10

that you and I talked about.

31:10

You can go back in time. You've been given

31:12

a gift. going back in time

31:12

and having a one-on-one with yourself at any

31:17

stage in your life, right?

31:17

Just some younger version of you. But you can

31:21

only have one topic to coach

31:21

on. What do you most wish you'd known then

31:27

that

31:27

Yeah,

31:27

you'd want to talk about?

31:29

this is like a no-brainer from

31:29

my perspective. I wish that I knew about needs

31:39

and our like fundamental needs

31:39

as humans, but also our our own personal needs,

31:46

right? Especially as women,

31:46

we are very often socialized to not have needs

31:53

and to believe that our need

31:53

is to take care of other people's needs. Especially

31:58

coming from a family of people

31:58

pleasers and

32:01

Mm-hmm.

32:01

you know, that sort of world.

32:01

We often are told that we don't matter and

32:07

again coming back to like because

32:07

of the belief, we all believe

32:09

Mm-hmm.

32:09

that about ourselves, that we

32:09

don't matter and that we need to take care

32:12

of other people, right? At our

32:12

own expense. And what that does is completely

32:18

disconnects us from our needs.

32:18

And coming back to like what we all want in

32:22

life, you know, that fulfillment,

32:22

that inner peace, fulfillment and inner peace

32:28

comes when our, all of our needs

32:28

are being met. That's like literally the definition,

32:34

right?

32:34

Mm-hmm.

32:35

But if you don't know what your

32:35

needs are, how could you possibly meet them,

32:40

right? And so instead what we

32:40

do is we just trial and error. Oh, let me go

32:45

try this job. Let me go date

32:45

this guy. Let me go make that friend. Let me,

32:49

you know, you just start trialing

32:49

the world

32:51

Mm-hmm. Or

32:52

thinking

32:52

buy

32:52

that,

32:52

something.

32:52

oh,

32:53

Retail therapy.

32:53

yeah,

32:54

Yeah, yeah.

32:55

yeah, exactly. Like maybe these

32:55

things will make me happy. Maybe

32:57

Mm-hmm.

32:58

these things will make me happy.

32:58

And instead of actually going inward and, and

33:04

actually figuring out, well,

33:04

what do I truly need and care about?

33:08

Mm-hmm.

33:08

Right. And how, what are my

33:08

strategies by which I will go and fulfill those

33:13

needs? Right. So, one is like

33:13

the need for connection and community, right?

33:19

And that's gonna look, you know,

33:19

we will both have that need. It's a fundamental

33:23

need as a human, but the way

33:23

that you and I go about finding that and having

33:27

that for ourselves and what

33:27

that looks like for us is very different. But

33:31

again, the world teaches us

33:31

that it like, it looks one way and it has to,

33:35

you know, there's this one way

33:35

to do it. So, it's

33:38

that myth

33:38

back

33:39

of

33:39

to the

33:39

normal.

33:39

day. Exactly, but the normal

33:40

Yeah.

33:41

thing. So I would love to have

33:41

known that I had needs, because I'm a recovering

33:47

people pleaser, and I would

33:47

have loved to know what they are, because just

33:52

life would have been simpler if

33:54

Yeah.

33:54

I actually knew what I needed.

33:56

Thanks.

33:56

And then you can ask for what

33:56

you need too, right? So

33:58

Mm-hmm.

33:58

much of our conflict

33:59

Yeah.

34:00

between people is because we

34:00

don't know what we need, and then we don't

34:03

know how to ask for it too.

34:04

And then we get upset or

34:04

offended when they don't know and they don't

34:08

when they

34:08

do

34:08

go out

34:08

it.

34:08

and they don't give

34:09

Yeah.

34:09

it to them. Exactly,

34:09

Yeah.

34:10

right? That's

34:10

Yeah.

34:11

every conflict ever is because

34:11

of this. Because

34:13

Yeah,

34:14

you don't

34:14

makes

34:14

know what

34:14

sense.

34:14

you need and you're not asking

34:14

for it and the other person certainly doesn't

34:17

know because they're not a mind reader.

34:21

Allie, thank you. Thank

34:21

you for sharing that last piece. Thank you

34:24

again for sharing some of

34:24

the, you know, the coaching work that you're

34:27

doing and some of the techniques

34:27

and things that, that you help your clients

34:31

understand, um, and, uh,

34:31

appreciate your time being with us today.

34:36

Thank you. Yeah, thank you for having me.

34:38

I want to thank everyone

34:38

who's been listening. Again, we wouldn't be

34:42

here without your support.

34:42

Appreciate your time. Ali, I did mean to ask

34:46

you if people want to connect

34:46

with you, LinkedIn. Sounds like maybe the only

34:50

Yes,

34:51

way. I'm

34:51

the only place, yeah.

34:53

doing it. Okay, so that's

34:53

great. Well, that's gonna wrap up another episode

34:58

then, and we appreciate

34:58

your support, and we hope you'll be back in

35:03

two weeks when we'll have

35:03

another guest and another topic.