Confidence Expert Dr. Shadé Zahrai: Feel Like You’re Not Enough? THIS Proven 4 Part Framework Will Transform Your Self-Image & Build REAL Confidence

for years now. I'm a huge fan, and today I finally have her on the seat on On Purpose. Please welcome to the show, Shadai Shaday. It's so great to have you here.

how we'll be perceived. And the reason why I'm so happy we're talking about this subject and that you've dedicated your book to it is because I often think about what my life would look like if I had listened to myself doubt. And I think people think that people who've had some success in their career don't feel self doubt. And I would say I felt self doubt before I started, I felt selfed out during it, and because I still

think about the beginning, I still feel self out today, but I know what to do with it, and your book gives us a brilliant method. So I want to start off by asking you, if someone was to listen to our podcast today, what would they overcome and what skills would they build?

main drivers. And so if you're able to determine, okay, where am I on these drivers, which one is really propelling myself doubt, that allows you to then determine what you need to do to move through it. As you said, self doubt doesn't necessarily disappear with achievement. It doesn't disappear as you advanced in your career. It just scales with responsibility. But the real measure of someone's success and happiness is if they can hear the voice of self doubt and

still move forward anyway. And so what I want to help everyone listening with today is to determine which of the drivers of their self doubt is taking the driver's seat,

and then exactly what they need to do to move through it so they can get the connection they want, the success they want, the performance that they want, and create the life that they want.

But then we wanted to know, okay, specifically what is driving this and we need to bring it back to something called yourself image. Let me tell you about a study that was conducted in the seventies and it opens your mind as to the power of the self image that we have about ourselves and how that keeps repeating

throughout our lives. So in the nineteen seventies, a psychology professor by the name of Robert Kleck from Dartmouth can Hedu did this fascinating experiment where he brought people together, he split them into groups, and with one group he drew a scar on their face from their right ear to the side of their mouth. Big, ugly scar, and he let them see themselves in a hand mirror. Then

he sends the groups out to have conversation with strangers. Right, so you have one group that has this scar, another group has no scar. After the conversations, they come back and they report on how they felt the conversation went. The group with the scar overwhelmingly reported that they felt judged, it was tense. The other person was distant because of the scar. But here is where it gets really interesting.

If we rewind just a little bit, Right before the researchers sent them out into these conversations, he applied moisturizing cream to the scar, so they just see themselves in the mirror. He then applies his cream, but he doesn't tell them that he's removing the scar.

brain is wired to magnify what you focus on. So if you're going into your life, into your conversations, into your meetings, into your work, believing that you're not worthy, that you're not capable, that you don't deserve it, you're going to notice things that reinforce that, and it's only going to make you feel worse. So we know that about self image. So the first question to ask ourselves is what are these invisible scars that we are carrying

throughout our lives? How can we become more aware of them? So then my next question is great, So that's the power of self image, and self image drives our self doubt. But how do you measure self image? If I were to ask you, Jay, what do you think your self images? You might share something and then I'd ask someone else what do you think your self images? And they might share something else. We need to determine if something is measurable,

so we can determine what it is. And when we look at over fifty years worth of research, this is when we find that, yes, there's a lot of information out there, but it really comes down to just four dimensions of how we see ourselves. And when these four things come together, that shapes our self image, it shapes

how we interact with the world. Not only that these four things that actually have their base in our personality, they have been shown through meta analyses of over one hundred studies to predict our success, our job performance, our career satisfaction, how happy we are in our life, and our relationships. And it all comes down to these four things. And I could not believe it when I came across it.

So let me tell you what these four things are. Because essentially these four things drive our self image, which then drives our self doubt when they're weak. So the very very first one, the first driver of your self doubt, which shapes your self image, is what we call acceptance self acceptance. It relates to this personality trait of self esteem. So how you see yourself in terms of your value and your worth. Now, if you don't accept yourself it

shows up in four painfully familiar habits. The first one is what we call the pressure to prove you feel like you constantly have to prove yourself through your work, through your performance. You have to prove that you are of value to other people, so you seek their validation and their praise, and when you don't get it, it becomes this automatic switch and you need to win it back. That's the first The second one is what we call

the shrinking syndrome. So this is where someone might be afraid of success because they don't accept who they are, and therefore they're afraid of what will happen if something amazing happens to them, because deep down they don't feel like they deserve it, so then they try and sabotage before they get there. The third is what we call the Schaudenfreuder cycle and the shaden Freuda cycle. You may

have heard of it. It's a German term. It's that moment when you see someone else fail and you suddenly feel really good about yourself. You feel a little bit better about yourself, you enjoy other people's failures. This is a sign that you do not accept yourself. Wow, your self seem is suffering. And then the fourth pattern that we see here is of course that endless need for approval. We need other people to like us to validate us,

we might become codependent in our relationships. We say yes when we really want to say no. We wear masks and contort ourselves to better suit the people around us,

but in doing so, we lose ourselves. So that is the first and in my view, the most foundational acceptance.

I do all of those four things. That's me. Yeah, that's me. And so if someone's listening right now and just saying shadah jay, that's me. I do all four of those things. I have no idea do I have to stop doing those things? Do I have to? So I self acceptance, That is the issue that I'm having. I don't accept myself according to your four measures, where do I even begin to go? What questions should I be asking? From that point?

and the nurturing that we need. If you feel like you constantly have to earn your parents' attention or do something exciting to get them to pay attention to you, then we develop this belief that I must perform to be worthy. It can also happen later in life when a parent says to you or compares your report card your grades to a sibling, or makes you feel like you're only of value when you're winning an award or coming first in the swimming competition that you're in the race.

So we develop these really early on, and you know, we do need to acknowledge so much of who we are as a result of those early experiences. That doesn't mean we are a prisoner to that, and it doesn't mean that we should be blaming that environment and our parents and our you know, the caregivers that we had. We need to acknowledge that they were doing the best that they could with what they knew at the time.

We have this beautiful ability of taking ownership of our lives, which actually comes down to the third pillar, which we'll get to, which allows us to, as you said, become aware of these patterns so often, Jay, and if you're listening, you may find that you have not been aware of these things. And it's only when you listen to sessions like this, conversations like this, when you read a book where you suddenly start to almost self diagnose and realize, oh,

this is me. See that as a really positive thing, because you're identifying that you are part of this experience as opposed to just this is who I am. So that's a really positive thing. So what do we do if we identify Okay, I'm really struggling with acceptance. The very first thing is to acknowledge that you are not your thoughts and you are not your beliefs. Beliefs are simply just a repeated pattern of thought that has happened so many times in our brain that it becomes a default.

It's just a really really fast process neural pathway. And in the same way that a belief is formed early in our lives, we can overwrite that belief. Yes it takes time, Yes it takes a repetition, Yes it takes practice, but we have the ability to do that through conscious choice. And so the moment you start noticing that you're feeling insecure, those thoughts come into your mind. I can't do this, I don't deserve this. I'm not enough. That's the key

phrase for someone who lacks acceptance. I'm not enough. So I must prove that I'm enough. I must earn that feeling from other people. I must chase it through achievement. The moment you notice that, consciously re engage the prefrontal part of your brain. This is how you re engage attention and say to yourself, hold on, I don't need to believe that thought. I don't need to believe that belief. Remind yourself that I have value, I am of value. And one of the simplest hacks that you can use

in those moments is to stop thinking about yourself. I know that sounds really odd to say, but when we are suffering with a lack of self acceptance, it's always I me, my, How do they see me? How am I coming across? What am I doing right now? If you can to go, okay, how can I be here for them? How can I be of value? How can I be of service? How can I make this person

feel seen? That's called self forgetting, And research shows that this process of self forgetting by becoming more service oriented, helps to quiet in that incessant voice of the ego. And it's remarkable how when you tap into that suddenly you realize, Okay, I don't have to be so in my head. I want to share just a couple of really simple techniques for anyone who really does struggle with acceptance.

The first one is, if you struggle with acceptance, you are going to attach your sense of identity to your job and to your achievements and to your performance. So if things are going well professionally, if you're achieving things, if you're doing amazing things, you feel fantastic. And then something happens and it all crumbles and you fail. You take it personally, you internalize that failure. So the first and foremost thing you need to do is acknowledge you

are not your job. There is so much to you that exists outside of that in environment, which I know is really hard to do if you work, especially in a corporate organization where your entire status is determined by your job title and how well you're delivering and your promotion track record. Right, So we tend to internalize these things, but you need to consciously remind yourself through that prefrontal activation, I am not my job. I am so much more

than this. And there's a really interesting little technique we like to share. Not even a technique, it's actually a suggestion. So, Jay, there was a study that was conducted with Nobel Prize winning scientists and they looked at five hundred of them, and they found that they were three times more likely than regular scientists to have a creative hobby. Not only that, they were twenty two times more likely than regular scientists to have a hobby in the performing arts, singing, music, drama.

They many of them attribute that hobby to helping them bounce back whens didn't go to plan, and also to allowing them to make connections that other people would have been able to. And so what can we take from that? It's great, right, cool study. What can we take from that? Well, having something outside of work that we can pour ourselves into, especially something creative, because we know about the impact that

has in the brain that allows us to remind ourselves. Hey, even if I didn't do well today at work, even if I didn't achieve this thing that I wanted to, I get to go and take on that character in that play. I get to go and pick up my guitar. I get to go and paint that beautiful painting. And fascinatingly, hobbies, especially creative hobbies, have been found to increase your self esteem, which increases your sense of self acceptance. So it's a

very odd one, but I would encourage you if you struggle here, go and pick up a hobby and embrace the messiness of being a beginner.

I've got a vefew. I've got pickleball, a play it on a football or soccer when I'm back in London, I enjoy. I mean, they're not creative in artistic sense, but they're they're physical because my work's so creative. So in one sense, just these physical competitive things that allow me to be with friends connection. I love game nights, brilliant, A big fan of game nights, and so it seems like anything that's collaborative and competitive makes me feel good

because my work's so creative already. So I think I don't crave creativity, but I do crave that desire to play and be free. Something you said that resonated with me was this idea of if you performed for your parents, if you had to perform to get your parents' attention, you ended up thinking that performance equals success equals winning equals love equals worth. A lot of people are really successful today have just lived that pattern now. So in

one sense. It's also a pattern that makes people quite successful in the public eye. So the biggest performers in the world, some of them would say themselves that they were the performer in their home or their family, and they didn't realize it until they became the number one person in the world at something that that wasn't who they wanted to be. It's who they became because of it. So it can make you successful, but maybe not happy. What do you think about that?

And so for a lot of people, well, this does propel them forward, this does propel them to amazing heights. But as you said, they might reach that number one pinnacle and then they stop and think, this is not what I wanted. This is not the life that I wanted to lead. And so what we need to think about with success is two elements. Okay, there is the material success, the status, the external success, but then there is that internal feeling that really should be coming with it,

the sense of satisfaction, the sense of fulfillment. And so anyone who is driven by a lack of acceptance, what we see in a lot of really high performers is that if they're driven by this, yes they have amazing work ethic, Yes they're incredibly diligent, but they never feel satisfied. And that level of emptiness that they feel also drives them to try and seek that satisfaction from the next hit, the next achievements called the arrival fallacy. When I get there,

I will feel like I've made it. And then they get there and they think, why doesn't this feel any different? And then they set the next goal and they're perpetually seeking this state of enoughness, and then they sacrifice things on the way to get there because they're so fixated on believing when I get there everything will fall into place.

That they've sacrificed relationships, they've sacrificed time with their children, they've sacrificed family, they've sacrificed well being generally, and so yes, it may be a driver the fundamental question that we get asked about perfectionism because we have a lot of people who say, well, I set high standards and I think it's a good thing. Isn't that a good thing? The fundamental difference is what happens when you don't achieve

the standards. That determines whether it's perfectionism or it's just striving for excellence. If you beat yourself up and tell yourself, I'm a failure, I'm not enough, I'm terrible. You judge yourself. That is a sign of perfectionism. That is called maladaptive. That is a reflection of you not feeling like you're enough, so you punish yourself. Whereas if you fall short, yeah, you can feel disappointed for a while. That's fine, that's natural,

that's human. But then if you ask yourself, Okay, how do I get better? How do I learn and how do I apply what I've learned to implement it the next time I do it to get further ahead. That's called striving for excellence, And it all comes down to your approach. I also spoke to someone very recently, a highly highly successful business woman, very prolific on social media as well, and she said to me, she's driven by that sense of She described it as it's a sense

of not enoughness, but not to do with me. It's that I have so much impact I want to create that I don't feel like what I'm doing is enough. And so for her, she's driven by purpose and service. And so I said, okay, so what happens if you get to the end of the day and you don't feel like it was enough? From that perspective, and she said, I just get more fired up for the next day. And I said, does it make you reflect on you? Do you become judgmental on you? And she said no.

I said, there you go. So you can be driven by this incredible desire to serve others and to be

of value. And that's a fantastic way to still get that desire to perform and to succeed. But for the right reasons.

and more critical and more comparative. And as you were saying that, you repeated this sentence a couple of times when you were talking, you said, you are not your job. And I was thinking, your work is not your worth, and then I was thinking about just how hard wired it is. So I was looking into this, and it was about the time of the Industrial Revolution that work became so much more attached to worth. Everyone knew what role they played on the conveyor belt, there was the

division of labor. You now had everyone having titles and roles, and the question became what do you do? And everything became about title. Now, if you take it back a bit further, you've actually got everyone's last names being represented of their job. So you have Baker, Blacksmith, whatever else it may be, and that became your name, and that

was just your shop front. And so this hard wiring that we all have of our work being our worth has been hardwired for a few decades now and probably longer, but it's so hard to lose it because that's what you're measured on since you were a kid, the grades against your friends, then the college you went to and its reputation, the degree you received, and then the first

job you got. And it's almost like, as you get out of school, your job becomes the only measurable thing, like the amount you earn in your job title, because people aren't comparing like, oh, I've got seven kids, you've got three, Like that isn't really a point of contention, thank goodness, Yeah, yeah, thank goodness for sure, but that isn't really the metric, or you're not like, oh I've got you might compare like, oh I've been in religion for ten years, You've only been in one for two,

But the job feels like oh this so much money I make in this in my status. How do you operate in a world which is created for that competition and that comparison and not feel that short and for it of like, oh I feel happy when someone else is not making How do you manage both of those emotions?

you know, lawyers, doctors. Suddenly people go, oh, they pay attention. But this is just fueling this comparison that we have and this sense of not enoughness. So how do we prevent ourselves. We need to knowledge we live in this world. We're consumed by this world. It's very easy to internalize these things. And that is why these four pillars are so fundamentally important. Because we're just talking about the first one, but as I go through the rest, you'll see how

you can also use the other three to counterbalance. So a lot of people struggle with acceptance and they think, Okay, I need to get my acceptance really strong before I'll be able to move forward and succeed and be happy. Not necessarily it's a lifelong journey. You can actually lean on other attributes, so we call them the four a's, the four attributes of self trust, which reflect our self image.

You can lean on your other attributes to help you take action anyway, focus on what you need to focus on and prevent yourself getting stuck in that comparison cycle. Something that we do share though with people is if you feel like you're constantly comparing to other people and you're feeling like you're worse off, You're feeling like you're not as good as they are. Something that's really valuable is to move from comparison to what we call emulation.

Comparison is pitting two things against each other and looking for differences. Emulation is cool. Look at what that person is doing, how did they do it? And how can I emulate that? So I can do it too. So you take learnings from their journey, apply it to your own, and suddenly, rather than feeling, oh gosh, I'm so far behind, you suddenly realize, hey, if they can do it, I can do it. What's that first step I'm going to take? Yes,

So that's one step you can take. It's to really focus on, Okay, how do I stay in my lane?

went through a divorce through that. They haven't had a perfect life. They've had a lot of difficulty. Oh I didn't realize that. You know, they lost a child. Like when you actually study someone, you actually get this textured, colored, multifaceted view of someone versus the oh they're on the front cover of Forbes, or they're on the front cover of Time magazine or whatever else it may be, and then you don't get that texture. So I love that

idea of turning it into emulation. And I assume with what you're saying, that's also just a habit that every time you see something and you feel envious and you feel that feeling of being left behind, you just go okay, well, no, let me learn from it. Let me study that right.

the old ones. And what happens in those moments when you start to notice that self doubt, that inner criticism that I don't feel good enough to happening, is you're often tending to and this links to the third pillar, which we'll get to, you tend to start focusing on things outside of your control. This is why all of these four they really do. They rise and fall with each other. You start focusing on things outside of your control.

When you do that, what we notice when we look at brain scans is that there's less activity in your ventromedial prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for rationality and solution finding and logical thinking, which means that your thinking is largely driven by the emotion centers, which is why it feels so self consuming. When we're in that state, all the emotions come with it and all the negative thoughts come with it. I'm so far behind. I'm never going to be as good as them. I'm a screw up.

Whatever it is. So consciously catching yourself out is an incredibly powerful first step. And then the next step is to direct your attention. Direct your attention to what you can focus on, moving to that idea of study or emulation that in itself is re engaging those frontal regions

of the brain, which is going to help quiet in the emotion centers and allow you to take the best next step for you.

being someone else. You need to be that person, have the energy that you want to be exuding, see yourself achieving what you want to see, who you want to be right, and then show up every day as if you've already achieved. It is this remarkable thing that happens which has not been able to be measured just yet. When someone puts out to the universe, I want to achieve this, I believe I'm this, and then they start

acting in a way that is aligned with that. Things are attracted to them, opportunities come their way importantly too, though they also take the steps to put them on that path. Just on this point, I want to mention something really fascinating that comes out of the research, Something that we see a lot of people talk about online especially, is manifestation. Manifest who you want to be, be it till you become it, have the vision bought on your wall,

and I definitely think there is some power in that. Again, it has not been able to be measured as far as I'm aware, but there is another element where if you're visualizing yourself becoming something and believing you can achieve that what you're doing is changing yourself image. You're updating that blueprint. You know, we spoke about it earlier. The idea of these scars. You're allowing yourself in your mind

to create this new concept of who you are. Because if you cannot see yourself as being there, as deserving that, you will inevitably sabotage yourself as you get there. Yes, you will notice everything getting in your way, and that'll be proof that, see, I can't do this. So that's the idea of upgrading yourself image. So that's really really powerful. But then a lot of people get stuck where they just have this view of where they want to go, they're so clear on it, they're excited about it, and

then suddenly they just they flounder. And it's because of two things happening. There was a study that was published that found that when we have these beautiful positive they call them positive fantasies, these visualizations where we want to be and we feel them and we embody them, it

can actually sap your energy. Why because when we then face a roadblock or a setback, that we are completely unprepared for it, challenges that view that hey, I can get there, and suddenly we start to think, oh no, we start to anchor back on our current self image and think too hard, I'm never going to get there, I don't deserve it, I'm not capable enough, and then we retreat. So there's an important step and second step. Right,

So you need to visualize yourself getting there. But then you also and this is contrary to what a lot of people suggest, what the research suggests, what we encourage all of our students to do is be very clear on what are all the things that are going to get in the way of you getting there? Be really clear on that. A lot of people say, no, don't anticipate that, because you'll will it into existence. No, we say, be very pragmatic. What are the things that could get

in the way. One of them is, well, my own belief about myself. The other one is the people I'm around. Maybe they will prevent me from getting there. It could be boredom, it could be this obstacle, that obstacle, that set back, that failure. Write them down. But then there is an important second step. If you only write them down, you're going to enter an entire world of catastrophizing and worrying. So the next step then is to ask yourself, what

will I do if and when this happens. You create your contingency plan, your recovery plan, so that if it happens, you have your steps, You've prepared, You've essentially been there before, so you don't need to worry about spiraling into overthinking and worry and catastrophizing. You say, nope, I've been here, I've got my plan. It's called an implementation intension. And if you come up with these if then you are

going to be more likely to achieve that goal, more likely to persist when the roadblock, when the failure comes, and more likely to move towards where you want to go.

hundred families out of poverty. Join us at GiveDirectly dot org forward slash on purpose. It's so fascinating, isn't it that the human mind either imagines everything going wrong, yeah, or imagines everything going right. But then you're presenting this like medical ground of be pragmatic, be aware. If this, then that and that's the reality of life, Like that's where you're going to live. Like if you just sit there in dreamland and think of everything being perfect, we

know that's never going to happen. And also we have this tendency to just think in nightmares where well, everything's going wrong, nothing's ever going to work out, I'm not worth anything. And these we almost gravitate to these extremes because they feel safer in a way weird way. Why do we do that? Why do we gravitate to these extremes.

energy as possible. And so part of that is obviously protecting you because then if you're in a situation where you're having to deal with something terrible happening, the brain has to put in a lot more effort. So it will often magnify everything that could go wrong, because if it does that, it gives you a sense of certainty, no, this is going to happen. You're going to fail, you're going to fall short, they're going to laugh at you, they're going to reject you, and at least you know.

At least you know so that you don't do the thing, because if you do the thing and that happens, your brain's going to have to put in a lot more work to get through that. So if it can prevent you from taking that step. And we actually refer to this as what's called the misguided protector in our mind, it's that voice, it's an inner deceiver, and it's trying

to protect us, but it's misguided. But fundamentally, it will highlight everything that could go wrong, so that we don't take action because then it succeeds, then we're safe, but we're stuck. And then the other extreme, of course, is only visualizing where we want to be because again it's certainty. No, I'm guaranteed for that to happen. And then we know what happens when you hit a roadblock. Suddenly everything crumbles and then you go into the other side. Oh no,

all these things are going to go wrong. So when we recognize that this is just our brain doing what it needs to do, there's something else which is really interesting here. There is a connection between intelligence and anxiety.

People who tend to be higher on intelligent IQ ratings of IQ, they tend to be more aware of complexity, more aware of all the risks that could go wrong, which then leads them to overthink about those risks and then overthink about what could happen if those risks actually occurred, which increases anxiety, which reduces confidence and then reinforces that

initial state of awareness of the complexity. And so if you're listening to this and you feel like you're constantly overthinking and you're constantly aware of risks, it could be that you have a slightly higher than average IQ. But it's also important to know that we can break that cycle. We call it the spiral interrupt technique. When this is happening, the part of the brain that's activated is the emotion center, the threat detection center. It's trying to identify everything that

could go wrong to keep you safe. So what you can do is control your attention. Bring your attention back to what can I control right now by literally saying to yourself, this is my brain doing what it does. I am safe to act anyway. So again, simply by doing that, by consciously controlling your thoughts, you are re engaging those prefrontal regions, which reduces activity in the amygdala, in the fear centers, and allows you to have that of rationality. So then decide what's next.

that I felt sweaty palms. I could notice that I felt nervous and anxious. And I used to start to think, well, I have the skills, and I'd like, what am I doing wrong here? Like you know, and I'd overthink that, and then I'd overthinking, go, oh my god, everyone's going to see my handshaking, and then am I going to hold the card? Or like should I put it down? Or like what if my slides? And then you're overthinking it,

and it was it's what you just said. And I had a different set of words for it that I would say internally, and it was just, no, this is what happens when I care. Yeah, And what I started to realize was, oh, when I care, my body's going

to do this. And I can go and give an amazing talk anyway, but I care. That's all it's showing me. And I don't need to stop this or I don't need to get over this, or I don't need this to disappear in order for me to go out there and do what I do. And you're so right that simple moment of and it goes back to acceptance that

this is just biologically what happens when I care. Yeah, get a bit nervous and yea, my heart beats faster and all the things that and it's like, Okay, if I can reframe that, so much can happen.

out of control. Or you can say, no, no, this is my brain is just doing its job. I'm prepared, I'm ready, I'm going to be of service here. I care. I care about delivering a good outcome. And it's powerful when you recognize that.

got very good at faking it. So okay, now I'm going to share a little bit of my story. So when I was very young, the age of three or four, I had a beautiful, supportive Persian family and we'd always get together at my grandparents' house and have kebbab that my grandpa would make, and then after dinner, so I was I liked performing as a kid after dinner there would be this chance shah thereby I had bed asset, which means shah de has to dance for us, and

it was great when I was a kid. I'd get up and I'd do my little thing, and they'd watch and they'd cheer, and it was fantastic. But then as I got older, I started to enjoy it less and less. But I didn't know how to say no, and so at the age of nine or ten or twelve, I still felt like I had to perform to make people happy. This was entirely in my head. If I had communicated to them or said a boundary, I said, look, I don't feel like it, they would have been fine. My

family loved me. I didn't know, and I internalized from a young age that I am only as good as the performance I'm giving, which means making other people happy. And I have carried that with me through my entire career. In fact, one of the drivers of me doing a PhD, which was one of the hardest things I've ever done, was because of this feeling of not being enough and needing to still prove myself, which is the wrong reason

to do anything. And I will tell you this much it's done, and I still don't feel I still haven't developed that acceptance. So it's an ongoing process for me, and I'm very aware of it and I'm working on the habits to develop it. But when I entered the workforce, so I did law because I did really great in high school and I had a lot of pressure to use those grades. So it was like law, medicine engineering. I wasn't going to do meta engineering, so I did law.

I did it with psychology because I was passionate about people. But law was so difficult for me that I had to focus so much on it and I had to overcompensate because I didn't feel like I belonged. I tried to drop it after the first class, but any case, I kept with it never felt like I belonged. I was able to do really well. I got fantastic grades at the end, got a job in a top tier commercial law firm, but that feeling of this is not me, this is not for me, stuck with me, and I

was trying to fake it till I made it. So I was becoming someone different. I was speaking differently, I was showing up differently, trying to sound smart and credible, using big, fancy words to fit in. What I now know is that that can backfire. Studies have been found that when you use unnecessarily complex language where you're trying to be perceived as more credible and competent. It does the opposite, and it undermines your credibility and your competence. Simplicity,

it's all about simplicity. But I didn't know that, so I carried that through banking. I was so full of anxiety. I literally hide behind my cubicle so people couldn't give me work because if they didn't know I was there, I wouldn't basically be given it. Then I moved into banking and finance, convinced that if I moved into a different industry, I could start fresh, reinvent myself, leave the doubt behind. Do you think that happened. No, absolutely not.

Doubt doesn't work like that. I took it with me because of my self image, because I was carrying that self image around the scars I had. And again I came from a wonderfully supportive family, and still I had scars. And one of the things as I was doing research for this book is there's a lot of talk about attachment theory and those early experiences. What some people experience

is a secure attachment style when they're young. They have a supportive environment, full of love and validation and yet still as adults, they feel like they're not enough, and could be one of two reasons. It could be that you feel so indebted to your family that you feel like you need to keep performing for them to make

them proud. The second reason is that you might also have had a sibling who was challenging just by nature of their personality, and you saw that and you didn't want to be that, and so you became the opposite. You became the good kid to be that for your parents, and you just take that with you. So that was me, and then I started feeling guilty about why am I feeling this self doubt? I have no reason to, and so it became this whole big thing. Anyway, seven years

in banking and finance, I eventually found my way. I tapped into roles that I loved, learned to lean on my strengths, and I stopped trying to be like everybody else and realized, hey, I'm here because I have some value to offer. How do I tap into that value? And then so that was kind of my journey, and that I completely forgot the question that you asked me.

But that's a little bit about my how I got there, Oh, what I wanted to share is something that I used to do, which people listening might do if they struggle with acceptance. Because we want other people to be happy with us, we say yes compulsively, reflexively before we even know what we're saying yes to, So we end up taking on more work, we end up doing more than most people, We end up exhausted because we don't know

how to say no. Say no is a superpower, but it all comes down to how you say it. So something that we encourage is what's called intentional delay. All it means studies have found that if you just delay by a number of milliseconds, you make a better decision

under pressure. So what that means is if someone asks you to do something, instead of immediately yes sure and then having to spend your entire weekend at work, you would say, I would love to help let me get back to you by the end of the day to make sure I am able to or let me check my calendar and I'll get back to you within an hour. So you're doing two things. You're creating a delay and

then committing to get back to them. That process allows you some space to then ask yourself Okay, is this something that I genuinely want to do or I feel compelled to do because I don't feel like I'm enough. You run it through that little criteria, and then if it's compulsion because you don't feel like you're enough, you give them a polite decline, and if it is something you want to do, you go ahead and you do it.

That is a powerful way to remind yourself that what you need matters to and you can politely decline without affecting a relationship.

you're not good at your job. And I think we often don't talk about that second version of social rejection, which you get from standing up, setting boundaries whatever it may be, where you go. I don't think I can do that, and then someone goes, oh, I knew you didn't care, right, like a friend or whatever it may be. And that's a feeling of social rejection, which feels like a punch in the gut. It does feels like someone just stabbed you because you're like, no, I don't care.

I love you, I'm there for you, and you're like no, no, no. So so many of these things are so hardwired, Like you just said, your example is, I was listening to you speak, and I was thinking about your beautiful family who loves you, and and I get that. It's so in our head where it's like, oh, I have to dance. I've always danced, I've always made everyone laugh, I've always told jokes. I've always got good grades. I'm the good kid. I'm the hyper Labels the labels, right, and those labels,

most of us put them on ourselves. Sometimes they did come through teachers and parents. Of course, there's plenty of versions of that. Ripping off a label is not easy.

to be like, Oh, you don't want to entertain me anymore. Oh, you don't want to make.

more important for you in the long run. So it might be saying no to working late tonight is me saying yes to spending more time with my kids before dinner time, me saying yes to investing in my physical health. So there's this idea of know what your deeper yes is, so that you're not just saying no to someone, you're actually honoring something within you. But the second element these

labels that we wear. The brain loves labels because the brain lacks efficiency because it wants to operate with the least amount of metabolic energy. So it'll label things hot, cold, good, bad, true, false. And we also slap these labels in ourselves. I like to encourage people once you're aware of your labels. Now, how do you know what a label is? It's anything you put off after the words I am, I am intense, I am boring, I am unworthy, I am such a procrastinator.

These are labels. The more moment we have I am before something, we are internalizing that we're making it mean something about us and we are identifying with it. And this is really dangerous refusing with that label. So we had a client that we worked with right around the time of the pandemic. She just started a new job. She was a senior leader and she when I initially met her, I said, tell me about yourself. So she shared, she loves pickleball like you Jay. She was a mother.

She had just started this new job, and she said, and I can be intense. But when she said I can be intense, her entire face wrinkled in disgust. So I knew there was something there, and I said, what makes you use that label? So quick side note, this is just a little other tip. I avoid using the word why in any conversations, in any client meetings, the word why can be like an interrogation. People get defensive. Why j why that you suddenly get on edge. But

if you say what, what was the reason? It's so valuable. And this is effective for teamwork, This is effective for feedback, even speaking to your partner. So this little side note, But in any case, I asked her, I said, what does that label mean to you? Where does it come from? And she said, well, when I was leaving my previous role. As I was leaving, my boss said, oh, you're intense, but we'll miss you. And that label stuck. And this was a label that she'd stuck on as an adult,

but when we dug deeper, we found out. So she was one of I think seven kids in an Egyptian family. When she was a kid, she was the youngest and she had to fight for attention, so she was loud, she would scream, she was what they would call too much all the time, and so as a kid, she internalized this belief of I am too much. And so when this label got attached to her intense, it brought

back all those memories. And so if someone has a label like this, what's really important to do is to acknowledge that you don't have to necessarily rip it off. You can replace it. So with her, I said, okay, so describe your intensity to me. And she described what it meant. And I said, okay, well, I that as passion. What if you said I'm passionate? And she had this moment of recognition in her face. She said, Oh, my goodness, you are so right. I'm passionate about what I do.

I'm passionate about life. That is why I care so much. It's pure passionate, it's not intensity. And that moment of recognition fundamentally changed the meaning she'd applied to the quality that she had, and then she started showing up with that passion and owning that passion, and that was her reclaiming a label. But if you have a label like I'm boring or I'm such a procrastinator, you need to shift it into something that is growth oriented or actually positive.

So we hear I'm boring a lot from the people that we work with, and we supplore it. Yeah, when we get down to it, a lot of them will claim that they get funny enough. I have a scar. I feel like my story is boring. I don't like talking about myself too much because I genuinely don't think I have an interesting life or interesting story. So I have this I'm boring narrative. I don't know where it came from. Actually I probably do. I'm not going to share that, but God, so I when I was in

high school, my parents went through a divorce. It was amicable. I'm blessed with a truly remarkable family. It was an amicable divorce. But naturally, anyone who experiences that, you start to question could I have done anything differently? Should I have been more supportive? Should I have done this or been a better kid? And so I internalized that, and one way that that came out is not wanting to talk about it with anybody, because it's almost like if

I spoke about it, it would make it worse. So I just bottled it all up. And so from around fifteen, I stopped sharing about myself. In fact, even when I entered the workforce, I had a group of work friends and one of them broke up with me. A female friend. She broke up with our friendship because she said, I feel like I don't know anything about you, and you

know so much about me. What she was referring to in that situation was I don't like to share a lot of the negative things going on in my life. A lot of especially women, and like to connect by sharing negative things. All you think that's bad, look at what I'm going through, and that's how they bond, which in itself is not necessarily healthy. But because I wasn't sharing much about myself at all or any of that,

I wasn't able to connect with people. And so that is something that I have taken with me through my entire life, and I'm still kind of trying to shake it. But this idea of replacing a label would be Okay, so a boring label could be you'd replace it with I am thoughtful and I like to give other people time to share what they're going through. Right, So it's

not I'm boring, it's just no, I'm more thoughtful. I prefer careful deliberation, and I like things to be stable and grounded, and I like making other people feel seen. That's one way that you take a behavioral characteristic that you have and flip it into something that is not a negative, which then allows you to feel like you can build on it. What about I'm such a procrastinator.

We get a lot of these, so we share a lot of content on social media, we get a lot of people commenting and sharing, and this idea of I'm really you know, I procrastinate all the time, I can't get started. You shift from I'm a procrastinator to I'm learning to be better with my time and take action over overthinking. So you take a label and you shift it into what you want, and that's one way that you're changing that self image. You're changing it to be

what you're aspiring to work towards. And once you can see that, you're more likely to actually move towards it.

And initially many years ago, and especially when I moved to LA and you know, got invite to all sorts of events and everything, in the beginning, I would just feel like, oh, I didn't There was a part that felt I didn't belong at these events because I was surrounded by people that I grew up watching on TV and film. And then there was another side of me, more interestingly, which was, oh, I don't know how to do small talk and small talk's not my thing and

I don't know how to navigate that. And that even happened when I went into the corporate world, because after I left the monastery where we didn't do a lot of small talk, it was very difficult for me to go into corporate networking scenarios because to me, the conversation just didn't go anywhere, and at that time, I would start to think, maybe I'm boring, Maybe I have nothing to say. Oh I'm not that funny because I can't

just quip and whatever. And I'm good at building rapport one on one, but just in a group, I just didn't feel confident about it. And I started to reframe it as I'm just going to look for the one person that I can have the deepest, most beautiful conversation with. And what's amazing is wherever I go, I have to go to so many events for work or whatever is and I just found the one person that I had the most meaningful connection with. And what I found is

that just turned into loads of great friendships. And so now I never feel alone anywhere because I know someone deeply.

They're knowing a lot of people in a shallow way where I can still feel alone and disconnecting. What was helpful for me was there are certain settings where I will be boring, but there are certain settings where I'm the least boring person in the world, and I'm just looking for those And that acceptance allowed me to play to my strengths and who I want to be and what kind of conversations I want to have, And it's like, I want to get to know someone deeply. I want

to share intimate things. I want to hear things back. I want to hear about worldviews, like I'm fascinated by that. What I don't want to hear about is where's the best restaurant for dinner? I'm just not interested, Like that's not And so in that conversation, I am boring, And that's okay because I don't want to be interesting there. And so I love what you're saying because there's so much freedom when you address the truth of it and you find the part of it that is, like you said,

growth oriented, not just positive. We're not positively spinning it because that just feels fake. But it's where's the growth side of this? That's what it was for me. The growth side was go and find someone who wants the same thing as you, because then you'll have a great time.

Like I don't I don't think me going up to someone that I don't know and doesn't know me and starting up a conversation is authentic to me and who I want to be. If it happens authentically, that's amazing, but that's not authentic to me. My my authentic version is to help people feel safe and comfortable, smile, be courteous and kind, but to not be invasive, especially in

places where everyone's kind of stressed and anxious. And and so my approach has always been to talk to someone if they talk to me, to smile at someone, and if there's a you feel a sense of like I we're both looking for someone to connect to find it and recognize that ultimately everyone's feeling anxious here. So there's no one who's feeling confident and you're feeling anxious. Everyone's feeling anxious because no one knows anyone and no one

knows who to talk to. So I think for me, my self talk was trust hence beautiful title big, trust your book. Trust that you don't have to meet everyone.

This isn't your only opportunity to do sell yours. This idea of like like you know, sell yourself, hand out your business card, every like I'm like, having a meaningful connection with someone is probably more valuable than handing your business card and shaking hands with everyone in the room just so you can say you shook hands with so and so and X, Y and Z. It's like to me, it was it was reminding myself that value was deep, it was meaningful, it was purposeful, it was intentional, it

was it was mutual. The imposter syndrome part, there was definitely a lot of negative self talk at the stuff like you don't belong here, it shouldn't be in this room, like oh my god, you know, and I'd freeze a lot and just I'm not even going to say a low to that. I'm not even gonna smile because you're so stressed out. Yeah, and I think the self talk that got away that helped me get through that, I realized it wasn't self talk. It was just showing up

and sitting in that discomfort. It wasn't so there was no self talk, and I know that's going to lead to it that it was just continuing to show up feeling that discomfort, feeling that uncertainty, and recognizing that it didn't stop me from connecting, smiling, meeting being myself. And the biggest question I'd always asked myself. Actually, Trevannoah said

this to me when he came on the show. He was like, Jay, you always fel comfortable at all the things you're at, and I wouldn't sense that you don't. And I said, well, that's because I only go to things I feel I have a purpose at. And that solved everything to me, where I was like, if I know why I'm going somewhere, I can show up as my best self. If I don't know why I'm going there, and I kind of think someone thinks I should go there, or someone on my team said it would be a

good idea. Now I hate being there because I'm lost, Whereas if I know what my purpose is and why I'm standing there, great like I could be alone there, I could be everyone's best friend there, I could be anything anyway. Sorry, long answer, no brilliant answer, the nuance and complexity and not give you a you know, a throwaway.

as you said, your ability to just show up in the discomfort and acknowledge that, hey it's uncomfortable, but I'm here, I'm safe, it's fine. That makes it easier. The next time you do it, you develop what's called a tolerance for discomfort, and that leads to amazing things. And then the other thing you highlighted is that what helped you is this idea of having a purpose and this idea

of not making it about you. It was this concept of self forgetting that I'd mentioned as one of the we call it the gift of self acceptance is the ability to forget yourself and make it about other people. So you said, if I have something meaningful to share which is not about you, that's about adding something to them that allows those voices to quiet in because it's not just you doing it because you want to or you think you need to, or you think you should.

It's for their sake. So that's beautiful. And then I love how you brought in imposter syndrome, which brings us beautifully to the second pillar, which is agency. So just my way of recap, we've just covered acceptance for everyone listening, and acceptance is essentially, when your self esteem is shaky, you seek validation. You feel like you need to prove your worth. Your sense of identity is attached to what

you're producing or performing or achieving. The next way that self doubt can show up is not to do with the I'm not enough or I'm not worthy, and entirely to do with the can I actually do this thing? Do I have the skills and the ability to do it? And what we see here is a lot of people will fall into imposter syndrome.

where they were specifically looking at women. So this was high achieving women, women who had just entered the workforce, women who had PhDs and a strong track record behind them, and they felt like they didn't belong, They felt like they were frauds, They felt that they were undeserving of their success, They felt that everyone else thought that they were smarter or more capable than they really were. So there's two elements for the impost phenomenon we'll move away

from syndrome imposter phenomenon. The first element is that you feel like a fraud that other people believe you to be something you're not. And the second element is that you have to have some kind of track record behind you that allows you to feel like I don't deserve this. If you feel like an impostor and you've just started a new job, it's probably not impostor right, It's just I'm in a new environment. I need to give myself

grace to learn. When we sell I diagnosed and say, oh my gosh, I'm such an imposter, this is imposter syndrome that can lead us to withdraw even further. We use it as an excuse. So remind yourself, no, the imposter syndrome or imposter phenomenon is only when I have achieved something. I've just won this award, I've got this amazing job, and I can demonstrate that I've got all these achievements behind me, but I still don't feel I

deserve it. Yes, that is the definition of imposter phenomenon, and it is so common, not just among women, but also among men. Some studies have found that up to eighty two percent of people at some point have felt like a fraud. So if you've ever felt this way, firstly,

rest assured you're in very good company. The next thing to be aware of with imposter syndrome or phenomenon is if you feel like a fraud, Rather than hearing that voice saying you don't belong, don't speak to that person, don't speak up, flip it immediately to Wow, what an amazing opportunity I have to learn and grow? Who can I learn from? What do I need to develop here? And it's this idea of shifting from almost comparison into emulation or envy into study. Make it something action oriented

that's really powerful, and speak to someone about it. So, you know, Jason Siegal from How I Met Your Mother, he was describing on a podcast how he was when he transitioned from actor into director on Dispatches for Elsewhere. From Elsewhere, he was so full of imposter syndrome and anxiety, and he said he didn't know what to do. He was overthinking and it was becoming this big thing. So finally he calls all the crew together and in front of everyone. He says, Hey, everyone, this is my first

time doing this. Don't really know what I'm doing. If I do anything that bugs you, let me know. I'm sure we're going to have an amazing time. He called it out. He acknowledged he didn't try to be perfect, as we try to do when we feel like the impost. We try to overcompensate so people don't find us out. But he just acknowledged it. And he said it was incredibly freeing. When you call out the fear, it shrinks it. And so if you're ever feeling this way, speak to

someone about it. You'll probably find they've been there too.

of feeling that way because it's proof to me that I'm pushing myself outside of my comfort zone. I'm trying something new or expanding something where building a new business, for starting a new venture, we're creating a new service, purpose program, whatever it may be. It's like I've just never done it before. And yeah, if I keep doing everything I've always done, I don't get nervous anymore. But

that's boring to me. Yes, and that's not exciting. And so now that feeling of being uncomfortable and being nervous and being wondering whether I fit in and everything is great because it's a sign to me that I'm moving forward.

would feel. You'd feel something, no matter even if it was really small, like if I feel this is a terrible example, but because I don't cook, I can't cook to same my life. It's like if if my wife asked me to cook dinner, I would be freaking out because I want to have a clue of what to do. And it's the small it's a very small thing, like people know how to do it. It's simple. It seems like an easy risk. Yeah, now risk, yeah to some degree, yeah, exactly.

But that's the point that it's it's not even about the grandiosity of the task. It's about what's new to you and what you find difficult. And so no one can even say, oh, but that's small or that's big, big, and smaller, not the indicators of whether you feel uncomfortable. And so for someone something uncomfortable might be doing something really small, and for someone else, you might be doing something really big.

ask you, I mean, we've kind of primed it now, but if I were to ask you off the top of your head, what do you think the opposite of self doubt is?

feeling of confidence that we wait for. Actually, when we look at the literature, it does not come before we take the action. It comes after we take the action. Because the brain needs to see yourself doing the thing. It gets a proof point, it gets an evidence point, Hey I can do this. That then builds a degree of skill and competence. Hey I did it and I was okay, and I got better, which then boosts your

self efficacy, and then that creates momentum and motivation. And that is the feeling that we've a asociated with confidence.

whatever it is, you will be okay. And in order to do that, we call that the state of big trust, which is recognizing these four attributes, reminding yourself that you can strengthen them, working on strengthening them, and also knowing which one can you lean on when you might be

weaker in the others. So that's and why this ties into agency is agency is such a big part of this because if you do not believe that you can do the thing, if you don't believe that you have the skills or the ability to learn or capacity to adapt,

you will not take that step. And so you will perpetually wait to feel ready, and then you're waiting and you will often occupy yourself or distract yourself with preparation and planning and all the things that we do that we think we're being productive by doing, but they're just distracting us. It's procrastinating essentially. Yeah, we just need to take the action. So agency is recognizing, hey, I can do this. I have been here before, as in I've

been in unfamiliar situations and I was fine. How can I draw on that I have handled challenges before? How can I bring those attributes there's this fantastic story that comes from Polisher, legendary graphic designer. So in the nineteen it was nineteen ninety eight when Citybank was merging with Travelers Insurance, creating City Bank. They or City Group, they brought Polisher in to create the logo design. And so she's sitting at this meeting and they're all talking about

what they want for this logo. She grabs a napkin and she starts scribbling on this nap for a few seconds. Finally she slides the napkin over and she says, here's your logo. The table was stunned. They said, how is it possible that you created a logo in a matter of seconds. And she sat back and she said, it's done in a second. And thirty four years, it's done in a second, and every experience and everything that's in my head, this is what happens when we lack agency.

I mean, Paul is showing us what it looks like to have a strong degree of agency. When we lack agency, often what happens is we start to undervalue the skills and the strength that we've developed, because now they become easy for us. They're no longer an effort for us, and so we forget the value that they can add. We've come to e quate and I think this is a byproduct of the society that we live in. We've

come to equate effort with value. I must put in effort in order to be delivering something of value, and if it comes too easily, then it's not a value. But that's because your expertise becomes second nature to you, and then it becomes invisible to you. Not only that, it can become invisible to other people if you do something reasonably easily like this situation. How can you design this logo that they ended up paying one point five million dollars for? How can you do that in a

few seconds. You have to spend months creating this design in order for us to pay you that money. No, we need to remind ourselves that we have an incredible track record of not only hard skills and tangible achievements, but what we call essence qualities, the growth, mindset, the curiosity, the persistence, the diligence, and these are things that you develop not only at work, but importantly in life. We forget when we're at work, and this used to happen to me all the time, and it happens to so

many of the people in our programs. They start a new job and they yes, they may not be able to do the things that they need to do in the job, and then they get so down on themselves forgetting that they have all these other skills and attributes that they can be applying to help them learn what they need to learn. They can bring their growth mindset, the curiosity, their desire to learn new things, their ability

to grasp things really quickly. They can bring all of that with them, and as soon as you remind them of that, they suddenly feel so much more at ease, and it opens up their mind to learning quicker. So if anyone listening is in a position where you don't feel like you have everything that you need, everything on the job description, and you're magnifying your gaps, which is what the brain does, pause and write down. Firstly, write

down everything that you are needing to do. Write everything on the job description for the role, whatever it might be. In the middle column, what are all of the qualities that you have developed over the course of your life. And then in your third column, you're mapping your middle column to your first column. Right, So I'm going to bring my growth mindset for this one, this one and this one. I'm going to bring my diligence for here and here. I'm going to bring my ability to be

really tenacious to this, that and that. And then suddenly you've mapped out what you need to apply and how, and it's incredibly empowering and it boosts your self efficacy and your sen of agency.

of confidence, and one of them was the acknowledgment and appreciation of one's own abilities and skills.

say that. And now when I think about it, I'm like of course, it's almost like when you're halfway up a mountain, you have to look back down and say, I've walked up halfway.

to actually acknowledge. And I'd say that to everyone when I'm speaking on stage sometimes and I'm working with someone in the audience who's having a really tough time with this. Something I like to remind everyone is each and every one of you have been through something really difficult. Each and every person has been through a extreme pain, whether it was the loss of a loved one, the divorce of family members, a break up, the loss of a dream.

Everyone there is no human on the planet who hasn't been through something that for them was exceptionally difficult. And you're still here and you survived, and maybe you've even fallen in love again and have an amazing job and

have found kindness and grace within yourself. And if you don't look at that as a monument and as a marker of how far you've come, nothing will ever fill that you have to There's nothing that will ever, ever, ever ever fill that void, because if you can't notice all the hard things you've done, you will continue to ignore all the hard things you're about to do and

not even feel you're capable of them. And I love that you're giving people a practical methodology in the book and today in how to actually do that, And I agree with you, before you apply for that job, do this. Yeah, Like this is more important than putting your resume together and all of that, because before that job interview, do this.

come back to agency for a moment. So when people are applying for jobs, what's really valuable to know is that you don't have to have one hundred percent of what's on the job description, but you have to be able to demonstrate if you make it to an interview that even though you don't have everything that's there, you have other transferable skills and attributes and qualities that you will apply to learn what you need to learn. So

let me share an example with you. When I worked in banking, I applied for a very, very senior role that was probably three levels above where I was, and I was completely underqualified for it. I already had another job that had been offered to me, so I wasn't this was kind of a side piece. I wasn't side piece, No, it was it was an opportunity that you know, I would have taken if I had it, But it meant I didn't have as much pressure, so I got to

try something. So I went in there for the first round interview and it went really well, and I went back for the second round interview, which was the final one, and when I came to sit down with the head of this entire area, I sat down and he said to me, look, Shade, I need to tell you that we we're not entirely sure. And as he was finishing, I jumped in and I said, it's very clear that I don't have all the roles or all the track

record of having done this before. Yes, I don't have experience in all of these things, but let me tell you what I do bring. I have been in roles in the past where I haven't known how to do anything, and I very quickly got up to speed. I asked what I needed to ask, I learned, I excelled, and I was able to deliver In this example. I did this. In that example, I did this. I see this as being no different. Yes, I haven't been here, but I

will bring that. And in fact, I consider the fact that I don't have experience a bonus because I'm not going to do things the way everyone else does. I'm going to ask the curious questions where everyone else just takes it as a given. And do you know what he said to me? He said, I had planned for you to come in here today and me to tell you that it's not going to work out, but you've completely changed my mind. I now have confidence in you.

We'd like to offer you the role. So then I asked for some time to think about it, and I realized that actually the other one was better suited to me. But it was a lesson in how you shouldn't take yourself out of the game before the game begins.

So give them your ninety day roadmap, so you would go in there and say, okay, So my first thirty days is going to be spent getting a lay of the land, to understand how people do things, to understand the culture, and to really have more of an observational role. The second thirty days is going to be me determining what are the gaps that I need to fill the quickest. I will be taking learning programs, I'll be doing training internally,

maybe shadowing some people. Now, when we get to our final thirty days in that ninety day period, that's when I'm implementing. That's when I'm developing a strategy for what my next twelve months is going to look like that's how I'm going to ensure when I start this role, I'll be able to hit the ground running. And you just say it with so much clarity and conviction that they will be blown away.

five out of the ten things. As a woman in the example that you've just given as well for your own life, like, what can women do to not bow out before the race?

ourselves safe again at the function of the brain. So if you can say to yourself, I'm not taking myself out of this race, I'll let them take me out if they don't think I'm suited, but I'm going to put my best foot forward. I'm also going to remind myself that even if it doesn't work out, that is not a verdict on me. I'm not going to make that mean something about me. I'm just going to learn

and do better next time. When you can frame it that way and also start to get more comfortable with rejection. So there's this idea of rejection therapy. Now, the principle behind it is that if you fear something, you're going to avoid something. If you fear a spider, j you're

not going to go near spiders. But if you want to get over that phobia, what we do is the process of systematic desensitization, where first I'd show you a picture on my phone of a spider, then next I'd show you a video, Then next I'd have a spy in a cage on the other side of the room. Then it would come closer, then it would be right in front of you. Then it wouldn't be in the cage. Then it would be on your hand, and you're systematically I mean, this wouldn't all happen in a day, This

would be over a number of sessions. But you're essentially telling your brain, hey, I can feel that fear, but I'm safe. And what happens is you desensitize yourself to that fear, and so by the time you've got the spider on your hand, you're not having that massive emotional reaction anymore. Same principle applies when it comes to things like rejection. If you can put yourself in low stakes rejections where you might apply for a bunch of roles,

knowing that you'll get rejected, great, do it. And then when you get rejected, you ask yourself, Okay, am I making this mean something about myself? No, fantastic, it doesn't mean anything about me. I'm going to try again next time. The more you do this, the more you learn that it's okay. You are still you, You still have value, you can still accept yourself, you still have agency, and you can apply what you need to apply to achieve what you need to achieve. So that's one process to

think about. So any women who were listening, or even men who hold back, stop holding back, take the step. What's the worst that could happen?

coach men and women. And this is actually even before I was officially coaching. We don't even coach anymore. We don't do one to one, we do group sessions. Now will work with companies. But when I coached, and I was actually coaching, when I was still working in banking, so I would have people reach out to me colleagues, co workers, peers, leaders and asked me to coach them. I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't

know what it meant to be a coach. I had no credentials, nothing, But I loved to help, so I started helping as much as I could. And what I discovered is that the women who would reach out to me would do so because they had self doubt. They were holding themselves back. They wanted to ask for a raise, and they didn't have the courage to do so the men who reached out to me for coaching wanted to excel, they wanted to perform better, they wanted to be more productive,

they wanted to start a side business. And it was really really clear that what they were seeking helpful was very, very different. It's not that these men didn't have self doubt, but they see in that environment. It was a small sample and anecdotal entirely, but it seemed like they just wanted to get ahead and know how they could move faster, whereas these women felt like they were stuck and they needed to get unstuck. So I found that really fascinating.

I think part of it is that men typically don't like to share the doubt that they're experiencing. They see it as a weakness, whereas women we are just much more in tune with that, we acknowledge it, we share it with communicative and then also potentially there's this element around sharing at work. So this is moving slightly in a different space, but still really valuable for anyone listening.

A lot of women are branded as being emotional when they're insecure, when they have, you know, they feel a strong emotion in a meeting or something like this, Interestingly, a lot of men have very strong emotional reactions to things, but it's more anger or frustrated or stress. They don't

get labeled as emotional. So what some research has found is, if you feel like you're being labeled as emotional because maybe you've got a lot of self doubt and the insecurities coming out in that moment, say out loud and to yourself, I'm just really passionate about this. I'm acting this way because I'm so committed to seeing this through, or I'm so committed to doing a good job. By shifting from emotional to passion or commitment, it fundamentally changes

how people see you and how you see yourself. And so that's just a little tweak, a little hack that comes from the science around helping to Again, it's almost like this labeling, you're not emotional, you are just passionate, you really care deeply about this thing. And then again it allows you because you're shifting your attention to then focus on, Okay, what am I doing next? So, Jay, now I think we should go into the third pillar. Are you ready to dive through?

was always everyone else's fault. So the very first time that we met, he walked in, he was rushing, he was complaining about the weather and the traffic and the fact that it was so hot in the room. And he spoke for about five minutes, ranting. We hadn't even shook hands or sat down. He was stuck in this litany of grievances. Finally we sat down, we started speaking, and what I discovered is that Bruno has a number of common patterns. He was an endless complainer, chronic complaining

about everything. Not only that, he was very resentful to other people. He felt like everyone else had an easier life than he did. Other people's business success was easier, that he felt like he was constantly having to work harder. The third pattern was blame. Is constantly blaming other people for issues that he was responsible for. He was never

willing to take ownership. And the fourth pattern is he would keep reliving past hurts, so past times that he had been hurt by somebody, someone had double crossed him, someone had treated him poorly. He kept sharing that story. Now, initially, when you're having a conversation with someone you listen to these stories. Of course you have empathy. By the tenth time they're telling you this story, within a few months, you realize they're stuck in a cycle that is keeping

them stuck when it comes to complaining. And I'll share what the attribute is in a moment. But when it comes to complaining, we don't realize. This is a sign of a lack of self trust because we lack the trust that we have the ability to do something about the situation. So what do we do? Focus on what we cannot control and magnify it and complain about it, because it's easier to complain than to take ownership and

do something. When we keep reliving past hurts, things that have happened to us in the past, we're telling what's called a contamination story. Jay, you mentioned earlier how every single person has lived through hardship, every single person, and depending on the story that they tell themselves about that hardship. It determines how they feel about that hardship, whether they internalize that hardship and make it mean something about them, and then whether they feel empowered in their lives or

the victims. And I'll come back to that story in a moment, or the example of the hardships, because I do have a really great case study for that. But coming back to Bruno, what we discovered is that he had a very low level of what we call autonomy. He felt like he didn't have the freedom to make choices. He felt like he didn't have the ability to influence his outcomes, and that's why he fixated on everything outside of his control. This relates to what's called a locus

of control. So Jay, you have a locus. I have a locus. Everyone listening will have a locus of control, which comes from the Latin word location, which means where do you place the control in your life? Do you believe that you can control things? And I'm not talking about control everything, because we know a lot of life is uncontrollable, but do you believe that you have some degree of influence or that life is happening to you because of external forces or other people, or society or

the government. If you have an external focus, external locus, you will focus on things outside of your control. What other people think, what other people do, what other people say, what the government is doing, what the media is doing, what your neighbor is doing, what your brother is doing, the future of the past, things that you cannot control. And then how do you feel when you're focusing on those things? You feel powerless? Why? Because you are powerless.

When you have an internal locus, you acknowledge that you can influence the outcome, you can shape your path. Again, not everything is controllable, but you focus on what you do have control over your thoughts, your feelings, your interpretations, your actions. That is it. And when you focus on those things, guess what, you remarkably feel more powerful because you're focusing on things you can do. We also know

when people get stuck. So where Bruno was when he was in that external locus, we see a lot of activity in the emotion centers of the brain, very little activity in the prefrontal regions, which is what we need for rationality and solutions and logical thinking. So, if you ever find yourself feeling like you're complaining, feeling like a victim, and I'm not talking about real victims. I'm talking about

those who victimize themselves. If anyone listening ever feels that, and the reality is it can happen, especially when unfair things happen in your life. You need to tell yourself, okay, instead of why me, what now?

the language of should is very disempowering. It does one or two things that either makes us feel like we're falling short or that we're being compelled against our will. And we don't like being told what to do. It's called reactants. And when we hear a should, often it's like a part of us is telling us what to do, and we don't like it. We resist it, so we

avoid the words should. So when we move to coulds, research has found that when you use the word could instead of should, it opens up divergent thinking.

your business failed, whether your relationship has broken down. What are all the things you could do right now that allows you to feel a sense of okay, there are opportunities, there are possibilities. Here. You're also directing your attention, which reduces that emotion activation re engages your prefrontal regions. Next step, what will you do? Circle three things from your could do list and write them in your will do list, and you write I will bang bang bang, and then

you take action. You're hijacking that ruminatative part of your brain and gearing yourself towards action, reminding yourself that no matter how bad things are, you always have a choice, and you're choosing to take a step forward. So we shared all of this with Bruno and we had to go through this long process. But for Bruno, there was something else that was really affecting him, and it was this contamination story he was telling. He kept telling people

and himself, my life is so difficult. It's always been so difficult. It's always going to be so difficult, and it took a lot of time to shake that. We worked him through a process which I'll share in just a moment, but I want to share a story that we shared with Bruno and he loved it, and so I think all the listeners will appreciate this. So this is in the When was It Okay? So there's a nineteen year old boy. He's a drummer and he loves drumming. This is a true story, by the way, I'm not

making this up. He absolutely loves drumming and he's playing with his band for two years. They are working together, they're refining, they're so excited and they feel like they're just on the brink of something really phenomenal happening. It's at that moment that his manager calls him into the office and he sits down. He's not really sure why he's there, and they say to him, look, Peter, we're letting you go. We're replacing you with a different drummer.

And he wasn't even really given an explanation. Just like that, his dreams of working with this band and taking them to stardom had just crumbled, and he didn't even understand why. And they said, we're replacing with a drummer by the name of Ringo. This band was the Beatles, right before their global megastardom. They replace their drummer. Now, Peter Best goes through a depression. He starts spiraling, he becomes resentful,

he becomes suicidal. He's loading bread in the back of a delivery van while he's seeing the band that he worked with for two years on a global tour becoming icons. But today he tells a different story. He says, everything I've been through, happy and sad, good and bad, have made me who I am today. I wouldn't change any of it. He acknowledges that life would have been very different, but he chooses to tell a story that is centered

around ownership. And he chooses to focus on what he has, his beautiful wife, his wonderful kids, his grandchildren, and he even says, he goes, if you dwell on all the bad things in your life, and if you have a regret or resentment, you will become a twisted and bitter old get which is a very English thing to say, but it's so true. And he embodies this idea of the stories that we tell. So what he was referring to here is what we call, or what psychologists and

researchers call, a redemptive story. Dan McAdams has researched this for forty years and he's found there are essentially two stories that we tell. A redemptive story is one where bad things happened and we redeemed ourselves, We learned something, we grew stronger, we accepted it. A contamination story is where that story has become contaminated in your self identity, your self image. You carry those scars with you everywhere, and then you keep seeing it replayed because remember how

you're showing up. The scars that you're carrying shape your expectation, which then influences what you see through expectation.

was saying that everyone's been through hard things, and the way you flip that really powerfully, and it was subtle, was that but it's how you feel about how you got through those hard things that define how they impact you. And that is so true and powerful. Like that really

really hit me and resonated with me. I don't think I've heard it being said like that before, because, like you said, you talked about your parents' divorce, and even if it was even though it was amicable and you had a loving family, your take was what else could

I have done? So even though you've been through a hard thing, you see it as your fault in some way, or you see it as something you could have done better, and therefore thinking about that hard thing and getting through it doesn't make you feel stronger it makes you feel weak and insignificant and whatever else you would use to describe yourself, because your memory of it and your story of it is I failed. Yes, your story of it isn't. I'm still alive and it's still survived, and I'm still good.

And that is magnificent as a as a case study, because that's why people's difficult times don't inspire them, because their difficult times remind them that they're a failure. Yes, because that's the story that they built around. Yes.

then they get asked to report on the crime. And let's say there was a yellow car that was speeding by the person asking questions would say how fast do you think the red car was going? And because they're not thinking about the color of the car, they'll report a speed and then the next time they ask them, that person will say yeah, it was a red car.

start to fundamentally change the memory. You mentioned something that I love sharing about, which is the bad experiences happened to us, the unfairness, the colossal pressure that we face, the whatever it is, the heartbreak, the early death, the challenges at work, business failure. A lot of these things may lead to PTSD. If something is traumatic enough, it will lead to PTSD. And a lot of people in

their minds think traumatic experience PTSD. But did you know that there's quite a large number of people who never experience PTSD. They experience post traumatic growth. I do not talk about this enough.

I have changed this? What could I have done differently? How did I feel when that was happening? What if I were to approach it this way? They go through almost a process of self inquiry, almost like coaching themselves to try and determine, Okay, what actually happened and what was my function? And can I change my interpretation? And they use it to get better rather than become bitter. And that is a powerful reminder to us that we can reclaim that autonomy. So how do we do it?

How do we change these stories? It's a process called narrative reidentification. It comes from narrative therapy. It's been around for decades and it's been proven to be highly highly effective. It just takes time. Essentially, what you want to do is determine what is the story you're telling yourself. So in Bruno's case, his story was that my life is

more difficult than everyone else's. And when we got deeper, it's because when he was growing up, he had an older sister who was the golden child, did everything right, achieved amazing things. He was constantly compared to her, and he wasn't given freedom to make decisions because his parents had assumed that he's going to mess up. They told him this is what you do. This is because you're never going to be like her, so we will create

your path for you. So he never had a sense of autonomy, which led him to constantly focus on things outside of his control because he had nothing that he felt he could control. So we had to work through that process and this was really confronting for him because he naturally would resist, but we worked through it and he was open to it. Then the next step is, okay, Bruno, is that story serving you? Genuinely? Is it serving you? And it took him a while to acknowledge that no,

it wasn't. He doesn't want to feel that way. So then the next step is, okay, how would you rewrite this story in a way that served you? What would you tell someone else? Let's go through that process, so you essentially rewrite your story focusing on what you learned, how you grew, and how you became stronger using that curiosity. And this took a little while for him to get comfortable with that and work through it. But then every time I would ask him, tell me your story again,

tell me again, focus on what you learned. And it was remarkable seeing how he changed every part of him, changed the way he would turn up, the way he initially would spend five minutes complaining at the beginning of a session to suddenly be smiling, sitting down, ready to get going. And this is because when you re edit your narrative. Now we're not saying you change the facts. You cannot change the facts. What has happened has happened.

But studies have found that the real power comes not in changing the history, but in changing the meaning that you have applied to that, what it means for you, how you've interpreted it. And you can edit your story at any point in time, which is the most beautiful thing. And this is a process that I actually take through people through in the book and Bruno stories in there to work through it because a big part of it is okay, great, we know this, but how do you

do it? And that's essentially why I wanted to write this book, to help people have this guide to step by step work through these processes to strengthen these attributes. And when you can do that for autonomy, you suddenly feel more personally powerful.

things we can control and there's things we can't control. But when you were saying you're calling it the external locus, when your mind space is locked in the external locus, you feel powerless because you are. Yeah, and that I love that connection because if we believe we're powerless, it's

because we're finding all the evidence that we're powerless. So if I considered the weather today and your mood and my success online today as a dictation of how good I am, then I'm going to feel powerless because I actually am powerless by the three metrics that I've chosen to do it by. So it's not even that your story's inaccurate. Your story is just wrongly focused completely.

We go down these habit paths of overthinking and catastrophizing, and then we don't have to do anything about it. We don't have to take the step into discomfort, we don't have to risk the rejection or the criticism by trying the thing. There's this beautiful analogy of a cow and a bison, which I came across and I loved and I had to put it in the book, and I want to share it because it's very short, but

it's so poignant to what we're talking about. So cows and bison are very similar in terms of their animal history, very very similar to their cousins in the animal world, but they have a very very different approach to how they weather storms and challenges that they might experience, like

a physical storm. So cows have been observed to huddle together, usually under a tree, but also they generally walk away from the storm, so they'll walk with the wind and then what happens is they end up receiving the brunt of the storm when the storm eventually catches up to them. Bison, on the other hand, have been observed to walk towards the storm. They walk into the wind, which counterintuitorly means they generally pass the brunt of the storm they get

through it much quicker. So what is the insight that we learned from this, Well, there are two mindsets. There is the bison mindset, where you see the bad thing, you acknowledge the bad thing, approach the bad thing knowing that there's light on the other side, or the cow mindset. You avoid the bad thing. You run away from the bad thing. You don't want to own up to the bad thing or take ownership over it. You run away, and then it'll just get worse and worse and worse.

Some people don't like the you know, thinking of themselves as a cow, so you can think of something else, some other animal, a labord or whatever it is. But we need to be asking how do we embody more of that bison mindset? How do we just acknowledge you know, life is hard, life is really hard, and you get to choose how you're going to show up to that hard Are you going to try and avoid it? Because what we also know part of this pillar is recognizing

that the more you expose yourself to hard things. So this goes back to your story Jay about how you just embrace the discomfort and now you love it. The more you can expose yourself to discomfort. So when we're experiencing discomfort, it's the brain's way of telling us, Hey, this is uncertain. I don't like it. Go back and play it safe because then I don't have to use

as much energy. Right, But if you can acknowledge that that discomfort is often what triggers neurotrophins in the brain, which are these proteins that help us learn things and develop new pathways in the brain. And it's through discomfort that we get that way. And that's why learning something new is uncomfortable, because it's triggering parts in the brain. But the more you do that, the easier it gets, and then that initial discomfort is so much less the

next time, and then less the next time. You almost reinterpret what you feel. Hey, I feel this way because I care. I feel this way because it's excitement, not fear, and that idea of being the bison, stepping into the discomfort, putting yourself out there. A lot of people talk about luck. Oh, I'm going to share one more story with you. It from Christopher Nolan. It's such a good one.

idea that he's lucky. He says, I am not lucky. I am incredibly unlucky. But we have made a pact and a commitment that when we go out there, we shoot no matter what the weather conditions are in and that allows us to capitalize when the right weather is there. So what is the lesson that we take from this? Nolan's team has created an environment where they embrace the discomfort of not knowing what weather they're going to have. Some days it rains, some days it's sunny, some days

it's great, some days it's not. They film regardless, So they're exposing themselves to that discomfort so that when the opportunity arises like that amazing storm, they know how to handle it. They've been in similar situations. They are prepped, they are primed. And we call this earned luck. So it's not just oh my goodness, we got lucky, No, we earned that luck. We created what's his name is. There's a tech entrepreneur who calls it a luck surface area.

You can increase your luck surface area and the chances that you will receive good luck by exposure to discomfort, visibility, putting yourself out there, putting your hand up in the meeting, applying for the job that you think you're not going to get. You don't know unless you try, and that's

the sign of your autonomy. And so strengthening that attribute is so important for that state of big trust, so you can start to achieve the things you want to achieve, get the opportunities that you really seek.

to the third step. The third step is to keep your whatever you're going to say, keep it as short as possible. And the reason why I say this is because your brain is magnifying what could go wrong, because you probably haven't done this many times. It doesn't really have the proof points that you can do this and

do it well. And if you try and go out there and the first thing you want to say is a five minute monologue about you're going to fluster and lose it, and then you're going to have a negative evidence point. So keep it really short. You might validate what someone else has said. That's a great idea, Jay, or I'd like to build on what Simon said, Or Maria, can you repeat that one more time. I want to

make sure my notes have it correctly. Really low stakes, easy, you're just allowing that energy to come out once you've done that and you've got the proof point. The next step is, Okay, now I'm going to really share what I wanted to share. Ask that longer question, share my perspective. I know I can do it because I just did it before. I'm also going to breathe again. I'm going to remind myself there's no physical threat, and then I'm

going to speak. You want to make sure that you're not speaking fast, because when our emotions are in overdrive, we get nervous. We speed up our pace, which then can make people zone out or it undermines our credibility. So speak slowly, have a pause, importantly, make eye contact. That's what allows people to stay engaged. And that's how you can harness your emotion in that moment.

worth it. Let it go. But if this is something that you really need to get recognition for, you put in a lot of work, you really feel like this is important, call it out immediately. So Jay, let's say you're taking credit for my work. I would jump in. Even if I have to cut Jay off a little bit, that's fine. I'd say. What Jay's trying to explain is

that he worked on the initial proposal. I then jumped in and I worked with clients and we got the whole project going and it was a fantastic team effort and we're really proud of what we've created. You immediately jump in there, add you in. You don't say that's not right, Jay, I was involved. You guide the conversation, bring it back to the team, and then make it about the impact or the effort at the end. And that way, it's a polite way to just remind the person, Hey,

you're on notice, I was involved in this too. Now, if it keeps happening, you want to have a conversation with that person, which is hard because again, if you lack acceptance, you're also going to feel very insecure. What are they going to say? What if they're going to hate me? What if it's going to damage their relationship? Have a conversation with them in a private environment, and

you would say, hey, j I've noticed. So you make it about an observation, I've noticed that in the last three meetings when you have so it's when you when you have taken credit for the work that we've been involved in. When you I feel, I feel like my contributions are not valued or appreciated, and I would like and I would like us to be a part of

a team that recognizes each other. Okay, So when you I feel and I would like, And then what you want to do at the end is how do you feel about that or what's going on for you when you take credit for this work? Are you aware of it? Allow them to speak, and then again you're politely highlighting to them, Hey, I'm aware that you're taking my credit. It's kind of not okay, it's happened before. How are

we going to address this if it keeps happening. You would have a private conversation and say, look, if this does keep happening, I will mention it. Every meeting that comes up where you do take the credit, I will jump in and say, hey, this was me too. How do we make this work for the sake of our relationship, for the sake of our collaboration. So you want to focus on assertiveness. Tone is going to be important. You don't want them to become combative, but also giving them

an opportunity to defend themselves if they weren't aware of it. Yeah, you know, giving them the benefit of the doubt, which helps you feel like you're not going in there combative,

You're going in there with a collaborative view.

because your emotions are firing. So what will help you as the first step is the autonomy piece?

I can go work for an organization that values the skills that I already have. I can learn what I need to autonomy what am I going to focus on right now to keep moving forward? And then that adaptability, what else do I need to do to make sure that my emotions are in check? And a lot of it is reframing. So instead of saying I am anxious, because remember this idea of labeling anything that comes after

I am, we internalize it feels like it's fixed. Instead of I am anxious, I'm noticing a thought that I'm feeling anxious because this thing happened. Identify the stimulus. Instead of I am a failure, I'm noticing a thought that's telling me I'm a failure because I just lost my job.

You're creating what's called cognitive diffusion, separating yourself from the thought, reminding you you don't have to believe everything you think, which also reminds you you don't have to believe everything that your mind tells you to, and that can be really powerful I.

success by shutters A right pre order your copy. You will have it for the new year so that you can start your new year with less self doubt, find your confidence, start trusting yourself. Please pre order this book right now. As an author who knows how hard it is to write books, authors put in so much time, so much effort to put together. As you can tell, Shat is one of the most researched, most well read, and you know, comprehensive thinkers that we have like that.

It's such a brilliant tapestry of a step by step process of what people can actually apply in their lives. And so it'd mean the world to me if you go and support her book, Go and pre order it.

Pre Orders help authors a lot too, So I just want to put it out there that if you've been if you found value in today's conversation, which you'd be crazy to think you haven't, then please go and pre order the book Shadow. We end every episode with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one word or one sentence maximum, So Shadows, all right, these are your final five. Question Number one, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received?

I can see us having an amazing life together. It was basically like, look, this might be forward, but I can see us having an amazing life together. That was essentially me proposing, and then he said how do we make that happen? And that was him accepting.

shoulder to give them the opportunity. They will wait to get the promotion or get given the raise. It doesn't work like that. We don't live in that world, especially in the context of work, where studies have found that, especially in big organizations, managers don't remember at least sixty percent of what their teams do. They either don't know or don't remember, which means if your manager is not aware of what you're delivering, you need to ask for

what you want and demonstrate it by way of tangible value. Right, here's what I'm delivering, here's what I'm asking, So we have to ask. So that was wonderful advice from my mom.

The reason why that was bad advice is that sometimes we get advice. This is such a long response, sorry, but sometimes we get advice from people that they come out as if they're caring about you and they have your best interests at heart, But really it's discouragement framed as advice, as was this one. Now, little does he know, my entire career now is helping people. So I took that advice and I ran with it, and I'm so grateful for it. In that environment, that was terrible advice

to give somebody. So I think it's so important when it comes to advice, acknowledge that people are only going to tell you things based on their frame of reference, so what they would do if they were you, or they might be trying to discourage you. So you can take it if you want to, You can leave it if you want to. I want to share just one other thing. It's not a question. I think we've finished

the five questions right because I've gone over. I have one other thing that I want to share here, which is not related to these two, but I have to say it because it's so powerful and simple. What we found is when people go on the journey of growth, any journey of growth, like people who have gone through the Big trust framework and seen those transformative impacts in their lives. They get comments from those around them, like, what is the most common comment someone would say if

someone's been on this journey of growth? There's two words, any ideas.

join you on the journey. And this is really hard when it's family or loved ones or close friends. The best response in that moment, rather than allowing it to undermine your sense of self trust and doubt your choices, is two words aunt. Really three words, thanks for noticing, Thanks for noticing growth has been a priority for me. That's awesome that it's working. You flip something that would otherwise be a negative into an absolute positive, which does

two things. It makes you feel really good about it, but also from their perspective, it suddenly flips them to think, oh, maybe I can do that too. Growth has been a priority for her, Maybe I can make growth my priority. And it opens them up. It almost gives them permission to do the same. So when someone says you've changed, respond with thanks for noticing.

to fit and grow at the same time. Whereas when you are, when you're fully grown, you won't care and you'll be like, oh, okay, cool, like thank you, you know, thanks for noticing, and so yeah, no, I love that response. It's brilliant and and you're spot on that. I think. Also half the time, there's a there's a brilliant piece of wisdom called Handlan's Razor m and it says Handlon says, don't attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by

ignorance or stupidity. Beautiful And it's one of my favorite freeing I'm writing about in my book right now. It's one of my most freeing things I've come across, because our mind has this thing to turn everything everyone says to us into malice. And that person literally said it as a passing comment. They kind of thought of it for two minutes. They said something, but it wasn't that deep.

They're not obsessing over it. But we take care as like, oh my god, they think I've changed, and they don't. They hate who have become.

doesn't come a place from improving yourself. It doesn't come because otherwise we're like I've changed. Oh no, no, I'm still it's same. I'll prove it to you, like let's let's go back out to the party or whatever. And it's like, no, I don't want to do that anymore. And so I love thanks for noticing because it isn't revenge. It isn't proving yourself, It isn't validation, it isn't tell me how, it's not looking for praise and approval. It's brilliant.

acronym for what you see is all there is. And what he was describing in his book Thinking Fast and Slow is that when we have an interaction with someone, we will draw conclusions about that person and that situation from that two second interaction because what we see is all there is in that environment. But actually there is so much more that led to that situation. Maybe that person was having a really bad day. Maybe that person's relationship just broke down and you're meeting them right at

that point. Maybe they're in pain, and yet we have this one second, two second, one minute interaction. Our brain goes into what you see as all there is, and you forget that there's so much else, and this leads to what's called fundamental attribution error. Okay, so Jay, when you're driving on the street and someone cuts you off, do you usually have certain feelings towards that person who

cut you off? Of course, right, and you make certain assumptions about their personality Oh my gosh, careless, ignorant, blah blah. That's called fundamental attribution error because if you accidentally cut someone off.

going on for this person? And I love it when you're driving because I tend to get I don't get road rage, not at all, but I do find sometimes if there's a lot of traffic and I'm in a rush, I tend to get into the what you see is all there is, So if someone's rushing or speeding, I will go through and think, Okay, what are the three things that could be happening for this person. Maybe they're busting to use the toilet, or their wife has just gone into labor, or they've just heard that their kid's

been You don't know right. And it's beautiful because it just reminds you that you're not the center of the universe. It feels like you are, but you're not. And when you realize that you're not, it gives you this sense of I find it very empowering to know that we're actually part of something much bigger than just us and I me.

You're not articulate enough, You're not credible enough. I literally have to say to myself, careless, care less about what people think. And so I used to just do the careless and that was helpful. But then Faisil, my husband and business partner, he said, Okay, it's great that you've got the careless, but what are you caring more about?

That's brilliant and it's beautiful, and it's something you can use in the moment when you're about to step onto stage, when you're about to approach a stranger in a bar, when you're about to have that conversation about your pay raise, care less about the outcome, care more about making this person feel seen or demonstrating my value. It's beautiful and so simple.

And that care more careless works well there too. I'm not saying only to care about things when people say nice things about you. I think it's important to be able to listen to criticism and negativity and feedback, and of course but I think the idea of we don't. We don't receive praise with nearly as much depth as we receive criticism now, and that is a huge issue for us as humans, where we don't know how to receive a compliment, We don't know how to receive a

pattern the back. But if someone says I'm a negative to us, we know how to receive that. We will hold on to that for the rest of our lives and carry around wherever you know. Why, yeah, God, because.

deep down you don't feel that you're worthy. You're trying to appear a certain way or prove something, and so what that person says hurts so much because it is cutting it that deep wound that you have and so again it's this idea of yes, as you say, how do we acknowledge more of the positive things that come through and use that to reshape our identity, reshape our self image.

I didn't think about it. My purpose is to live a life where I'm caring about other people, and that looks like me being present for them, me serving them through the work that we do, helping them through our programs, through this book. It's fundamentally because I care about people overcoming what is holding them back, and I care about them living fulfilling and successful and meaningful lives, and so everything I do is aligned by that. What about you, Jay,

what's that? How would you define your purpose in just a few words?

And so if we can help create a more healed world, a healing world actually even more than healed, because healed means it's done, and so a healing world is a

good world. And so if we can, if I can help, if I can be useful in and of service to helping people heal in whichever area they're struggling in through people like yourselves and the wonderful experts and people come and share their stories on the show, then that, to me is the world that I want to live in, is a world is healing always because we're always going to feel pain and always going to get hurt, so then there has to be an equal focus on healing.

these principles. It truly is a masterclass. And shut in. I'm so grateful to you, so thankful that we've got to spend this time together.