Andrea: You're listening to the Time to Level Up Podcast. I'm your host, business life coach, Andrea Liebross. I help women in business commit to their own growth personally and professionally. Each week, I'll bring you strategies to help you think clearly, gain confidence, make your time productive, turn every obstacle into an opportunity, and finally overcome the overwhelm so that you can make money and manage life. Let's create a plan so you have a profitable business, successful career, and best of all, live with unapologetic ambition. Are you ready to drop the drama and figure out the how in order to reach your goals? You're in the right place. It's Time to Level Up. Let's do this.
Hey, Time to Level Up listeners. Welcome back to the podcast. I hope you're having a great week. I am recording today a podcast with one of my amazing clients. I haven't done this in a while, a client interview or client success story, but I'm going to do one today because I think Mehvish's story—remember everybody has a story—is something that many, many people can relate to regardless of their age or where they are in their career or lifetime, what life stage they're at because the things that we worked on together over the six months that we were working together were really bigger overall concepts that we were able to dive into by using real-life examples as they were happening in her life.
We would get on a call, I would give her my usual question, what are we celebrating and she would give me the update and then I would say what's going on that's difficult and she would give me the update. Through discussion or through coaching of those challenges, we were able to accomplish a lot.
Mehvish, hi. How are you today?
Mehvish: Hey, Andrea. I'm great. Thanks for having me on.
Andrea: I'm thrilled to have you. Tell everybody that's listening where you are, what you're doing, give them a little bio.
Mehvish: Sure, yeah. My name is Mehvish. I'm currently living in Washington, DC. I work at the Department of Defense as a contract specialist and I just finished my graduate degree at Georgetown University in The Security Studies Program. I'm from Lakewood, New York, a small town south of Buffalo. I went to boarding school in Connecticut and I finished my undergraduate at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia. My fun fact is I love going to SoulCycle.
Andrea: Yeah, and you've been doing more of that.
Mehvish: For sure.
Andrea: Yeah. Because I remember that was one of the first things we talked about, how you're like, “I need to go to SoulCycle more. Why am I not going? What's my problem?”
Mehvish: It's like my therapy and my church and everything all in one.
Andrea: All mixed into one. Tell me, what do you think brought you to coaching on day one? I have my own theories but I want to know, think back to that day what was going through your head at that point? Where were you?
Mehvish: I was just finishing my grad degree at Georgetown.
Andrea: I think you're about to hand in the final paper.
Mehvish: Exactly. I was about to hand in my final exams and I was in this in-between place where I had a job that was great but I wanted to do something that I was really, really passionate about that was applicable to my master's degree. At the same time, I felt like I was falling behind professionally compared to other people my age or maybe my perception of other people my age and what they were doing. I felt that I wasn't meeting the expectations I had set for myself or that others had of me or that I perceived others had of me.
My mom is actually a client of yours and she had nothing but great things to say. She knew that I was in this in-between place where I was struggling to figure out what I wanted to do next, my confidence had taken a hit, and she said, “I think you should talk to Andrea.” I said, “Okay, I'm down to try anything that'll make me feel better.”
Andrea: That's interesting. Really, you wanted to feel better. That is it. I heard you say you felt like professionally you wanted to feel better, I'm going to go back to the SoulCycle, I know that you wanted to feel better about your own health and wellness, not that it was falling apart but you wanted to devote some brain power. I would think at the end of graduate school it would fall apart in a sense.
Mehvish: Yes, absolutely.
Andrea: Yeah. I know you wanted to feel better financially or just like you had a better grip on things, relationships, maybe you have to talk about that.
Mehvish: Absolutely.
Andrea: Yeah. There were all these facets of life that weren't broken really but you just wanted to feel better about them.
Mehvish: Exactly. I wanted to feel more like I was in the driver's seat of all of them.
Andrea: Tell me now, here we are like six months, seven months later, what has changed for you in the way you feel? On a daily basis, how are things different?
Mehvish: Well, first of all, I think my mood has just totally improved because I'm no longer in this place where I'm feeling sorry for myself. It's more of a feeling of control over my life and like I am the creator of whatever I choose. I think just that shift in mindset has been huge.
The other thing that has been really important for me is separating my professional value from my personal worth and value. That has been a huge, huge game changer for me. I am a very Type A person where I would say before a lot of what I would define my own self-worth as was derived from what I could achieve academically and professionally. Now, I think I focus more on first of all I'm worthy by just being me and second of all there are a bunch of other things aside from what's on my resume that make me worthy and wonderful.
Andrea: Yeah, and that makes you you.
Mehvish: Absolutely.
Andrea: Yeah. I think when we first started working together, you had 100 marbles, 90 of them you were putting towards your professional sense of self, the direction you were going professionally, all the marbles were going in there, and all of your self-worth. But I think we've created a shift for you in how you think about yourself.
Right before I started recording the podcast, Mehvish shared with me that since we've last talked in the last three days, she got a new job offer. Share with everybody what you said to me, but what didn't change when you got the offer.
Mehvish: It's interesting. What didn't change is how I felt about who I am as a human being from my own worthiness perspective. It was a great professional win but it didn't change that I was happy with who I am, if that makes sense. There wasn’t a shift there. Of course, I was happy but it didn't make me all of a sudden “Mehvish is a greater human being because she got this job offer.”
Andrea: Yes. I think so many times, we as humans place value on outside accolades or outside evidence to calculate our value versus internal evidence. I know you've been going through this because you've applied to a bunch of jobs since we've been working together and there were times where you're like, “I can't believe I didn't get that job offer.” You just felt, again, like, “Am I behind? Did I do something wrong?” But it's interesting that you've gotten to a place where that's really not a factor anymore. Let's talk a little bit about the word confidence. Tell me your thoughts on confidence.
Mehvish: Well, I feel like for me, I've learned to derive my confidence from my self-worth. I think that was the biggest portion of it is loving myself for who I am. It has allowed me to be more confident rather than relying on, kind of what we were talking about earlier, the outer factors of validation that might come across on a daily basis. It's more of like, “I'm confident in who I am without someone else telling me ‘Hey, good job, here's a pat on the back.’”
Andrea: I think before, or a lot of times, humans, just human nature is, “Oh, well, I didn't get that other job offer, I didn't get job number one so I don't have the confidence to apply to job number two.” The experiences either fuel our confidence or take away from our confidence. It's hard to be in the neutral place of being confident all the time.
Mehvish: I think it would be hard for anyone to be in that neutral place but if you start from the foundation of loving yourself rather than being harsh on yourself, you're taking away your own worst enemy to your confidence which is your own brain essentially.
Andrea: Yes. Yeah, you are taking away your own worst enemy, I like that. That's totally true. We talked a little bit about professional, let's switch over and talk a little bit about what's going on in your personal life. Are you willing to share with the audience what has happened since we started working together?
Mehvish: Yeah. Absolutely. Since we started working together, I've gotten engaged, which is wonderful, to the best man on earth. He's fabulous, amazing, and so supportive. That has been a huge milestone, something I'm really excited about in that aspect of my life. Trying to think what else personally.
Andrea: Let's go back to the engagement piece of it though. How do you see yourself in this relationship? How do you see yourself showing up for your fiance now?
Mehvish: It's interesting because we can't be there for someone else if we're not there for ourselves at the same time. By respecting and loving myself, I'm also respecting and loving him.
Andrea: Oh, I like that too. By respecting and loving myself, I'm also respecting and loving him. Cool. Keep going. Tell me more.
Mehvish: Yeah. I think the other thing is quality of time versus quantity of time. We can spend hours with a single human and have done nothing meaningful with them but we could spend an hour with someone and make that a really meaningful hour.
We've been focusing on that meaningful time together and also doing things and going on adventures that challenge our relationship and strengthen our relationship in different ways. We just planned an overseas trip that we're going on in September and I'm really excited for the different challenges we'll face but also the amount of fun and quality time we'll have as well.
Andrea: I'm excited for you going on that trip. I know you and I talked a couple times about how you can create whatever you want to create. If you want to feel a certain way, you have the power to feel a certain way. Something doesn't have to happen, you don't have to do something to feel it, it's all created in your thinking. But your thinking gives you a feeling, perhaps adventure, which leads to taking the action of planning a trip.
Mehvish: It's all about what mindset you have, to allow yourself to create.
Andrea: Yeah. You know you guys have fun going to the symphony and just getting dressed up. You're doing that because that's the experience you want to create for yourself.
Mehvish: Absolutely. I feel like both he and I have together created the life that we want and we look at each other sometimes and say, “Wow, we're living our little kid dream lives over here.” It's such a good feeling. I was thinking about this the other day, there's always the idea of talking to your past self, and your past self who's like this little kid is like, “Did we do everything that we said we were going to do?” You're like, “Yeah, we did and we're really happy.”
Andrea: You did. You just made me think of something else, you've said to me a couple times now that you are just letting things evolve versus trying to push things to happen. What do you think changed in your mind to make that switch? Because six months ago you were trying to make things happen.
Mehvish: Absolutely. That is a miserable place to be because you can't push the river.
Andrea: Yeah. I like that, you can't push the river.
Mehvish: Yeah. I can't take credit for that, that’s something my mom says. But when you try to force something to happen, that either it's not the time or the stars haven't aligned the way they should in your own mind or maybe there's something else out there for you, you end up really miserable because you're not in control, so to speak.
If you just let things evolve, you find yourself, I feel happier because you're not trying to control something and more at ease and at peace with what's going on and happily surprised after the fact. Because you weren't trying to control it from the beginning so when you receive whatever you receive, you have that, “Oh, wait, that's really cool, yeah.”
Andrea: Yeah. That happened to you when you're trying to pick your wedding venue, didn't it?
Mehvish: Yes, absolutely. I think just talking about expectations of other people or what we perceive they are, when we were initially looking at wedding venues, I know I had a perception of what other people expected of me based on something I made up in my own head about this image that I wanted to project.
Then as we were going through the process and we dug down deep into it and I dug deep within myself, turns out the wedding venue for me is my parents’ backyard because it aligns with my core values of family, community, and love. That's not to say that something isn't for someone else but for me, you always talk about why do you want that dig deep here and forget the expectations, I feel like that was definitely a huge part of that process and figuring that out.
Andrea: That question like “Why?” I ask that a lot, don't I? Why do you want to do that? It's a powerful one.
Mehvish: It is. You also don't stop when I give you the first answer which is like the cookie cutter like, “Well, of course, that's why I want to do that.” You push me to go further and dig really deep and it's uncomfortable in a good way.
Andrea: I'm just going to go back to SoulCycle, like why do you want to go to SoulCycle? I know I pushed you on this and you gave me some “to be healthy” answer, which is part of it but there's other things too.
Mehvish: Of course, it's fun. It’s the community, it's fun, I like being there, the vibe is great. It doesn't have to be, “Oh, it's good for my mental health and my body,” there are other things.
Andrea: Yeah. I remember pushing you on that. Why do you want to go to SoulCycle? We had a list on your refrigerator for a little while.
Mehvish: Yeah. I have a list of things I appreciate about myself which are not derived from any professional aspect of my life necessarily but just who I am as Mehvish, and then I have a list of optional fun activities or optional productive activities coming up with a definition of what is productive and what is not productive. There are things from like cleaning the house, which is productive and necessary, but also watching TV because sometimes it's just productive to let your brain have a break for a second.
Andrea: Yeah. We had this whole discussion about “I'm not being productive enough,” that was the topic I think, that was what you said to me, “I'm not being productive enough.” What we realized is that there are other ways to be productive besides producing some final product or making something happen.
I guess you could say watching TV, what you're making happen is your body relaxing and your mind turning off which is productive. That was a really fun thing that I think I should do with more clients now that you say that. But again, that takes some real self-awareness. You had to really become aware of what you were thinking was productive, your definition of productive.
Mehvish: Absolutely. I'll give you an example. It was my day off this past Friday. I went to SoulCycle in the morning, that was very productive, that's on the list. Then I also got back in bed afterwards and rested because that was also productive. Then I went and got my nails done because that was productive self-care. Of course, in between then I did other things but productive can be fun too, it doesn't have to be miserable.
Andrea: Yes. Productive does not have to be miserable, how can we make it fun? Because I think we talked a lot about writing, like writing books and chapters and papers, that's not the only definition of productive.
Mehvish: No. I think when you said make it fun, there are so many things that if we just thought about them from a fun perspective, it would be a lot more manageable and easier to deal with. For example, my fiancee's apartment building had a clothing moth issue and I was super freaked out and annoyed about it but we said—we didn't say this out loud to each other—but in our heads I think we were both like, “How can we make this fun?”
We actually made it fun cleaning the whole house and he was being silly and putting on ski goggles to spray down the furniture. We made it fun despite it being terrible. You have to find those ways to enjoy life.
Andrea: I love it. I love it. That's pretty funny. I'm picturing the scene too.
Mehvish: It's great.
Andrea: What would you say to someone who feels like they are not necessarily happy with the direction they're moving in, thinking they're behind, feeling like you're not living up to other people's expectations or your own? What advice would you have for them?
Mehvish: First, I would say that therapy is a great thing because a lot of times, some of that stuff is very deep-seated. That, for sure. But then for someone who is feeling that way, I would say you first have to reassess what's going on in your own brain, in your mind. If you say, “I feel like I'm falling behind. I feel like I'm not getting ahead,” those are all your own thoughts that’s not truth. They don't necessarily have any basis in reality in comparison to what's happening around you.
When it comes to expectations of other people, I think the most important thing is to remember your life is for you and not someone else. It's not for the people who came before you or the people who are existing around you. Of course, be a good human being and steward of the world, but your life is for you and it's not to live up to the expectations of other people. Don't take on other people's expectations of you as expectations of yourself.
Andrea: Oh. I like that. But you first have to clear out your head and figure out whose expectations are whose.
Mehvish: Yes, exactly.
Andrea: Because I think that took a little work.
Mehvish: Yeah, it's like you have to dust off the cobwebs and say, “Well, where did this expectation come from? How did I attach myself to it?” so then you can deface it, chop it down.
Andrea: Right. Because expectations are really just thoughts, they're not truths. But I think you were thinking about them in the beginning as truth, like this is the way it's supposed to go.
Mehvish: Yeah. What's interesting is I think I see a lot of overlaps. I think we've talked about I have obsessive compulsive disorder and I went through a lot of cognitive behavioral therapy where the whole thing is you're not your thoughts and your thoughts are just little ideas in your head that have no basis in reality necessarily.
Then taking that same concept and applying it to coaching in less of like a medical sense but more in a like life professional, personal sense, there's definitely some overlap there. I saw this on Instagram or something, your thoughts are just like conspiracies about yourself, they don't mean anything.
Andrea: Since you've done therapy and coaching, how would you describe the difference?
Mehvish: I would say that therapy is much more about assessing certain traumas or patterns of behavior you have that might be more derived from a psychological or psychiatric perspective, and where coaching is for someone who's taking that next step and doesn't need that medical, psychiatric, or psychological support necessarily but is working to shift their mindset in a different way, more focused specifically on professional, academic, and higher-level personal goals.
Andrea: Is it fair to say that coaching is very future-focused whereas therapy is understanding a little bit of the past and where you're coming from?
Mehvish: Absolutely. Coaching is definitely focused on the future and how to create that future. I would say therapy is a little more, to your point, addressing the past and working through it in a healing process of the past and how you move forward from that. But coaching is much more like, “How do I create what I want going forward?”
Andrea: I love it. We're going to stop there, “How do I create what I want moving forward?” If you are listening and you want to create something moving forward, I would love to have a conversation with you. I bet Mehvish would even have a conversation with you about her experiences.
It has been a pleasure chatting with you. I am going to put in the show notes actually a link to an article that was published about Mehvish so you are going to get a really good sense of who she is in that article if you head to the show notes. If you want to talk about coaching, if you want to create the life you want, to gain some confidence, to think about yourself as just you and not what other people think of you or not what happens to you, I'm all in. I'm all in on that. All right, my friends, today is the day for you to level up. We don't have to wait any longer. See you next week.
Thanks for listening to the Time to Level Up Podcast with me, your host, Andrea Liebross. If you know someone who could benefit from listening to this episode, I encourage you to take a screenshot and share it with them. Okay. Now, what about you? You've listened to the podcast, and if you now know that you're ready to upgrade your life, upgrade your business, upgrade you, then stop being only a listener and start being a liver living that upgraded life. Head over to my website and schedule a call. Right there on that call, we'll start changing the way you think and act so that you can have the freedom to achieve the impossible in life and business, and have the resources to do it. You deserve an upgrade. Let's do it.