Ep. 65 - Finding Your Worth Beyond Societal Expectations: Conversation with Career & Confidence Coach, Ken Li

What do you do when you're 5 years into a Ph.D. program in a field you know is not meant for you?

In this episode, I talk to Career & Confidence Coach, Ken Li, who spent his formative years being groomed for a life in the sciences. From math camps in the summers to undergrad at Cornell University where he received degrees in chemistry and biochemistry, his relentless pursuit of academic achievement resulted in crippling depression that ultimately led him to drop out of his biochemistry Ph.D. program at Purdue University during his fifth and final year because he realized science wasn't a fit.

After taking a career aptitude test, Ken pivoted to public relations where he excelled the next 20 years.

Though outwardly successful, Ken was in inner turmoil. Desperate to prove himself after dropping out of his Ph.D. program, he spent his time in PR, in the words of Brené Brown, "hustling for his worthiness."

It wasn't until he happened to meet a life coach in his 40s that he realized what he wanted most in life was to follow a path that felt true to him.

In 2020, Ken became a certified life coach with The Life Coach School. His mission? To help those with similar stories get to the place where they feel safe to truly decide their next steps in life.

If you've ever felt you were following someone else's path, not your own; if you've ever felt the crippling effects of impostor syndrome and depression; if you've ever questioned your worthiness or wondered if it was okay to want something different, join Ken and I for this vulnerable, candid conversation about the pain of perfectionism and the incredible consequences of living in fear of other people's opinions -- until you realize the approval you've been longing for all along is your own.

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Ken Li
Career & Confidence Coach
Website: https://donthatethejob.com/
Email: kenli@donthatethejob.com

Can life coaching really change your life? Read Ken's e-book on LinkedIn.

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FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 2 IS LIFE COACHING DAY.

"I truly believe this work has the power to transform people's lives," he said. "But you need to experience coaching to appreciate it."

That's why Ken Li, Denita Bremer, Denon Alderson, and I are offering free coaching sessions on this day. We want people to experience the power of owning what they truly want in life. To book your free call, reach out to any one of us below:

Ken Li - Career & Confidence Coach

Denita Bremer - Shame & Trauma Coach for LDS women

Denon Alderson - Soul Cheerleader (Actively Choose Your Life)

Kari Watterson - Thoughtwork and Self-Belief coach

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Cited in this episode / Recommended:

Before You Blame Your Job, Do This First: Wash Your Dirty Windows by Ken Li

Positive Intelligence (Shirzad Chamine)
 
The Gap and the Gain by Dan Sullivan with Benjamin Hardy, Ph.D.

Being Happy by Andrew Matthews 

What Should I Do With My Life?  by Po Bronson

The Mind-Made Prison by Mateo Tabatabai

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the End of the Day podcast with Keri Watterson. This is episode 65. Hey everyone, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you so much for joining me. I really think you are going to enjoy today's episode.

Speaker 1: 0:34

Today I have on my conversation with my good friend and coach colleague, ken Lee. Now, ken is a career and confidence coach. He joined the coaching industry after spending 20 years in public relations. The reason why I wanted to have Ken on is because I find his story so compelling, and I think that you will find value in it too. I believe that when we can see ourselves and our struggles in somebody else's journey and then we see that person thriving in ways that we wish for ourselves, I think that's when we start believing and hoping that maybe what we want is also possible for us. I think you will find that in Ken's story.

Speaker 1: 1:21

Ken talks about what it's like when you feel like you spent your entire life going down a path that somebody else directed for you, or trying to live up to others' expectations, trying not to disappoint somebody, and then, when you feel like you have disappointed people, trying to make up for it by hustling for your wordliness and really burning yourself out and doing things that you know, as you're doing them feel totally out of alignment with how you actually want to be and how you actually want to be living your life. We talk about fear of criticism, perfectionism, people pleasing and just the incredible fallout that comes from when you feel like you are overworking to try to prove your worth to somebody else, at the same time abandoning yourself and impacting those around you. I hope you enjoy this conversation with Ken. One of the reasons why I have Ken on this show as well is because he approached me. He said I really want people to experience the power of life coaching and in order to do so, ken made up a holiday called Free Life Coaching Day, february 2nd 2024, and I'm all on board with two other coaches to offer free life coaching on that day so people can jump in. Maybe, if they've been on the fence, jump in and experience a free life coaching session.

Speaker 1: 2:47

Sometimes, just one powerful conversation is enough to shift things up for you, give you hope again and inspire you to look into what this thing is called life coaching, so that you can stop suffering as much as you are, stop people pleasing and start looking inward to see what it is that can help you live the life that you actually want to be living. So stay tuned for details. I'll have links in the show notes on how you can take advantage of these free coaching sessions on February 2nd. Or, if February 2nd doesn't work for you, reach out to us and we'll schedule a time that works so that you can take advantage of a free coaching session as well. All right, my friends, stay tuned and enjoy this conversation. Hi Ken, thank you so much for joining me on my podcast.

Speaker 3: 3:39

I'm glad to be here, Kerry. We've known each other for a short while, but it's been a blast.

Speaker 1: 3:44

You know, we actually have a funny story about how you and I met, and it actually feels like almost kismet, like we were meant to meet in very roundabout ways, but I'm very glad that I did, and I think it just speaks to the fact that when there are people that are kind of meant to meet, they do, and so if I could just tell that story really quickly.

Speaker 1: 4:10

What I would love to do, though, then, is introduce you to my audience and just really kind of get into how you became a life coach, the power of life coaching for you, how it's changed your life, and also why is such a passion for you now to do this work, because you've had a couple pivots, and so, yeah, I would love to do that. But, funnily enough, you and I first met because I joined a self-improvement book club, and the book club that was or the book that was being talked about was Essentialism by Greg McEwen, and I'm like whoa, I've just been reading and studying that book. It's been very impactful to me. So I signed up, and there you were, and there was one other person, and then, after that, you just said, hey, can we talk? Would you like to talk after the conversation? And the rest is history. Isn't that crazy.

Speaker 3: 5:14

That is crazy. Yeah, I was wondering if this is going to be a ha ha funny, funny thing. It's certainly right, there's different definitions of ha ha and this was certainly was a coincidence, but, if I agree with you, it certainly was meant to be. I ended up reading that book because somebody on one of my groups recommended it and I wasn't going to even read it. But since she did, I said, okay, somebody wants to talk about this book, let me go figure it out. And then, and then she disappeared. She was my book club co host, oh really, and you didn't see her at all. Right, you just saw me. A guy cake up or whatever showed up and you. And so there we were, and co host didn't show up. I accidentally found this book and the whole point of that was not to read the book but to meet Carrie.

Speaker 1: 6:09

So what the heck? Yes, I love it, okay. Well, anyway, yes, it's been a pleasure knowing you the last couple months, and one thing that I actually was really drawn to you, though the reason why I wanted to have you on the podcast was I find that there are certain people that are so passionate about what they do, and it's number one inspiring. It helps me up my game and also it helps me also remember why we do what we do, and I think for us to tap into that every once in a while is so important, because we all all of us coaches started somewhere, and it was a situation that that impacted us so deeply, and coaching came.

Speaker 1: 6:56

Coaching came into our lives and impacted us so deeply, and that's what made us decide that we wanted to be able to help others so that they could experience the same things, and I'm wondering what that was for you, if you don't mind sharing, and, interestingly enough, when I was reading some of your articles, I came across an article that you wrote on medium. It had to do with dirty windows, and as I read it, I thought it was. I thought it was brilliantly written, first of all, but it also allowed me to see a different side of you. That actually kind of gave me more understanding of why you coach the way that you do as well, and we can talk about that later. But would you mind sharing the story of the dirty windows?

Speaker 3: 7:43

The concept of dirty windows. It was a story told to me at church from the pulpit by a church leader, and the church leader was relaying this story to make a moral point. But he begins with a woman looking outside of her window and the neighbor is hung up dirty laundry. And she's like, oh my gosh, who would ever hang up dirty laundry? That's crazy. And this happened day after day. She would look outside of her window and outside the window was laundry that was dirty, until one day she's like, hallelujah, my neighbor finally figured it out the clothes were clean, which is the way it should be hanging up clean laundry and she broke the news to her husband. And her husband said how to break his own news to her, which was that that morning he had cleaned their windows. So that's the reveal. Here is, this entire time the neighbor have been hanging up clean laundry, clean clothes, clean linens, and the only reason the person the woman looking out the window saw them as dirty is because she had dirty windows.

Speaker 3: 9:05

And the point I make there is that the world around you could be as perfect as it can be. Since I'm a career coach, I talk about the perfect job, and when you think about the perfect job. You're wondering. You know what does that look like? It starts with the perfect boss. Company culture is great, your colleagues are great, everything around you, salary, all that. But if all that is great and you have dirty windows meaning you see things in a way that isn't serving you, it's dirty then life isn't going to be the way you see things, it's going to color the way you feel. And so I was using that analogy of dirty windows to set up the rest of my story of how I saw my career. And it wasn't because my, the people around me and the company weren't great. I myself had challenges I had to deal with. And that kind of goes to what you're saying, carrie, about my passion for coaching, because for all of us, coaching has helped us out of a difficult spot and in my case, coaching helped me see my dirty windows.

Speaker 1: 10:18

Yeah, and I thought that was so brilliantly stated. I I've heard different ways to describe how we, how we view our lives is so important, right, and a lot of times we don't even know, like in your article, you say, a lot of times we're not even aware that we are looking through dirty windows. And so if we I mean we can keep using that metaphor but if we really think about it for you, because you are actually you started off in academia, right, you started off going to grad school and I think you said is it biochemistry? Biochemistry? Okay, correct, yeah, so you started off there. You're going for a PhD, right?

Speaker 3: 11:04

Yeah.

Speaker 3: 11:04

I was at Cornell University. I graduated with a degree in chemistry and biochemistry, which seems like it was faded, because my dad is a chemist, my mom is a biologist, so biochemistry kind of natural right, a natural byproduct of the genetics. And from that point on, once I got my chemistry and biochemistry degree, I went to graduate school at Purdue University and it was in my fifth year that I got really depressed because I realized this isn't the right field for me. So that's yeah. That's where I began. My career trajectory was as a biochemist and then I dropped out and entered public relations. I took a career test and public relations more suited my personality. The lab was isolating, it was kind of boring for me, and PR is all about variety and it's all about people and that's more who I am.

Speaker 1: 12:17

I would agree.

Speaker 3: 12:19

And so that takes you up to the public relations. But even in public relations, as we mentioned the outset I had dirty windows, and that started in my science field. It's like, once you have a dirty window, as you said, you're not aware of it, right? If you clean it yourself or with the help of a life coach, then it's going to stay with you. It's not magically going to unclean itself or clean itself.

Speaker 1: 12:43

Yes, and I think that's such a good point, because when you don't realize what's out there, what could be possible, like that you could have a different experience of life.

Speaker 1: 12:58

You live with this idea that whatever you have, however you're experiencing life is the way that you might always experience life Right. And so it's almost like when you hear the quotes, for example in Sanity's, doing the same thing over again, expecting different results, there comes a point where you do get depressed and I wonder if it's the depression is because you are looking into the future and you can't imagine it being the same. You can't imagine continuing on the way that you've been, but yet you don't see how a different future is possible, whether that's emotionally, etc. One thing I just wanted to just really quickly say I just wanted to acknowledge the fact that that took a lot of courage to go through undergrad. I mean, you went to Cornell and you got a complex degree I'll just say Right. And then you went to grad school at Purdue and you said you were in your fifth year, right, is that right?

Speaker 3: 13:55

Yeah, that's when you're supposed to actually graduate with your doctorate.

Speaker 1: 13:58

I mean, so you went and did all that and then to be able to say that takes tremendous courage, to be able to say this is not right for me, or to have somebody help you see how miserable you were and that life actually doesn't have to be that way. Right, if something is creating so much suffering for you that you don't have to choose to continue on that path. And I see a lot of people that because of what is that? The sunk cost fallacy, right? They feel like they have invested so much time in something and then so they keep on going, not realizing that there is. You could always make another decision and go a different route.

Speaker 3: 14:38

Yeah, there's a couple of things I could add in here, and I appreciate you calling it courage, and that's something that I might be able to see as courage. I'd love to get your input on that. One is at that decision point. My mom did say get your master's degree, and that would have been something where you've made the investment and you should continue to ride that out and get some sort of payoff. My dad said just be happy.

Speaker 3: 15:15

Well, when he said be happy, he actually sent me a book, because he's a man of very few words but a lot of impact and he always gives me his advice and books. And this was a cartoon book that's still in print and I read it and it gave me more satisfaction than following my mom's advice. And I say all this not discounting my mom's advice. I appreciate that. The question I have for myself is about the courage part, because I think I felt forced to make a decision to leave because I actually had just gotten married, and so my beautiful wife was saying, oh, I'm going to marry this husband who's going to get a biochemistry degree, and we're going to have a happy, stable life. We get married, I drop out of grad school and I start becoming a travel lodge clerk at Purdue University, which does not make it makes minimum wage.

Speaker 1: 16:11

Oh, travel lodge.

Speaker 3: 16:13

Yeah, travel lodge a hotel, it's not the Ritz, Okay, yeah. So in another story I don't know if you read the story about the Dirtary Windows there's a story of Howard left graduate school and I did not leave graduate school in a way. That is a way that I would do it again. I guess it's part of who I am, but I was getting depressed in graduate school and what you should do and should I understand that word might have some interesting connotation to it, but what I should have done is talk to my professor and saying this is not for me and can we come up with a plan to get out of it? To me, that would have been courageous, I guess, is to have that kind of conversation, that courageous and difficult conversation. What I did was not ever go back to lab again. I just left because I could not take lab anymore and I spent the rest of my Purdue career avoiding my boss.

Speaker 3: 17:23

Like a real quick story that I like telling my wife at least once a year around the holidays because there's snow on the ground, Is there is a road that I that goes right by my boss's house and I take it, and I was so fearful of him seeing my car and what he thought of me, that as he was shoveling snow, I turned on my brights and I was hoping to blind him. Not hoping to blind him because he's an old man and he's going to be made peace after that. So but that's so. I felt I left in fear. I felt I acted as a coward and that actually affected me in my public relations career because I was always trying to make up for my I thought were my deficiencies as a scientist. I always felt less than everybody was smarter than me. And then I'm out. I felt like I had to prove that I and make up for my past failures. So I just a little bit more color there in that transition point.

Speaker 1: 18:33

Well, first of all, thank you for sharing that, and I put you on the spot. And what I honestly appreciate about that story is number one, the honesty with which you share it, because you know that there are lots and lots of people out in the world that have some story that it's like a skeleton in their closet type of thing. I mean, we all do, I do certainly right, but the thing is it's a skeleton until you're able to walk through your own process of feeling, coming to terms with things and actually looking to see what drove that part of you that was so fearful. Right, and to me it's. That's how we know, because we've had those types of experiences how we can feel the pain of that and the impact of that and how many years it takes. It took we carried that with us and then the fallout from that. We know how that is. So if there are people going through that, we want to be able to help them, like in ways so that they don't have to go through all that. And I feel like and maybe you know not sure what your thoughts are when we're going through it, it feels horrible so much self judgment, self loathing, shame, whatever everything that we pile on top of it. It can be crippling.

Speaker 1: 20:00

When we I went to therapy and then I got my, I had coaching myself, etc. And my own self study, you know, did the same. You went through a certification process and you did. You had your own path as well, with your own coaches. What would you tell that person? What would you tell yourself back then? Who would you have told yourself back then? Who was so fearful?

Speaker 3: 20:25

I kept my letter of dismissal from Dr Rodwell and I use that against myself for the longest time saying, well, it caused me great pain and it caused me a pain at the same time. It was kind of like negative motivation that I used in my next job in public relations. Negative motivation in the beginning feels like it's gonna work as you're moving ahead at a very rapid pace. But that feel burns out pretty quickly and for me it turned into overworking and to the point where I would work on the weekend and I would miss my best friends. One of my best friends weddings.

Speaker 1: 21:19

I saw that.

Speaker 3: 21:20

Yeah, I felt like I had to prove myself as a capable person. So I think now I've come full circle, full of compassion to my past self and almost a step I felt like has helped me become who I am today, because you have to work through whatever comes up for you in terms of your fears, your lack, all that you have to face, and so I just wanna thank that person for, as you said at the time, it feels like crap. Yeah, we're going through that crap and just say that you did the best you could with what you knew and what you grew up with. Because I arrived at that point, because I always felt like I was steered into that direction of science. And so when I say he did, pascal did the best he could, because ever since, I mean in fifth grade, I was going to math and science camps and my mom, who I'm bless her heart, I mean I love her, but she would in the summertime, give me a 500 page laboratory protocol that she copied.

Speaker 3: 22:45

So she took the time to copy 500 pages of lab protocol and I read it during the summer times in high school, so that, and so I'm like I give all the credit to that Ken, who did that? Who did something that is like if you were to say, fish, go, walk up Mount Everest. That is what that person did. Oh, wow, yeah, that's such a great visual yes Cause, when I did eventually took my career test leaving science.

Speaker 3: 23:19

It's like the career you should not do. Ken science, oh my goodness. Okay, Wow, I'm an anti-science.

Speaker 1: 23:26

I'm an anti-science.

Speaker 3: 23:28

I'm an anti-scientist. Scientists have something called investigative ability, the power of observation.

Speaker 1: 23:40

Well, I don't know, I feel like that sounds. I feel like that sounds like you, but maybe you're like more of an emotional scientist.

Speaker 3: 23:46

Yeah, not a psycho, I mean more of a, yeah, psychological scientist.

Speaker 1: 23:49

Yeah, yeah, I see that definitely.

Speaker 3: 23:51

Exactly, exactly.

Speaker 1: 23:53

Cause I feel like that's one of your gifts is the receiving, the observing of somebody else quietly, and then like being able to, just from a place of calm, but like lasering in being able to just kind of like gently, ask questions to help people kind of bring things up.

Speaker 3: 24:12

As opposed to investigating molecules.

Speaker 1: 24:17

Who didn't want to be investigating, right? Well, thank you for sharing that. And I would just like to say, as a mom, before I came to this work as a mom, oh, my goodness, the things that I, you know, the things that I asked like my oldest to do, my oldest and I have a much healthier, a beautiful relationship. We just got off the phone with her. She's in South Korea right now, but there was a time when I was like I thought to be a certain. A good mother was to have my child check the boxes that were meant to be, and there wasn't epiphany.

Speaker 1: 25:02

When I started doing my own work, I was like, whoa, I better, I'm gonna work on me first. And it was because I recognized in me there was the desire to do good, was there, I was parenting in the way that I thought was the way that I good parents were supposed to parent, you know, and so I. You know, I know that and she knows as well. But at the same time, it was one of those things where I'm like I would actually like to be a different type of parent and that was a choice that I wanted to make for myself, but it was definitely like I needed her to be a certain way so that I could feel like I was being the good parent.

Speaker 1: 25:40

And when a coach said that to me, I was like, well, wait, what? That's not actually what I wanted. I thought I was doing this for her and so questions like that to me were those types of invaluable things that somebody else was able to kind of point out to me in a way. That wasn't shaming, but it was like an awareness we thought we were doing the best that we could for our kids. This is what we actually wanted, but in hindsight it was actually what I wanted to feel, so it was just very helpful. But I wanted to thank you for sharing that story about grad school, and to me I think the work of coaching shows us is like back then, when we really think about the truth of what was happening to Ken, what would you say was going on?

Speaker 3: 26:35

In grad school.

Speaker 1: 26:36

Yes.

Speaker 3: 26:37

I mean, looking back now, I would say that in grad school I was seated with the idea that to succeed, I would need to get straight A's. That's just. That's taught by almost every parent every educational institution in the world maybe not every, but I think at least in my world. Get straight A's, you're gonna be a scientist, and those were the expectations that I grew up with, and then, once I felt short of those expectations, I didn't feel good, I didn't feel worthy, I didn't feel capable, and so I think that led to my depression. What I didn't know was and again, this is nothing. This is where I have to be kind to my past self. Why didn't I speak up sooner for myself? And I'm not gonna use that against myself, I'm just that's.

Speaker 3: 27:48

One thing we, as coaches, want people to do is to be able to be who they are, and I think as a child, you follow the parent and then you eventually follow your peers, but they shape a lot of what you do, and so I just think that's natural, that's normal A child. Before they get their own legs to walk on, they follow the lead of others. Some people are able to make that transition and some people just follow the path, and so I was following a path that was intended for me, and in some cases, that's great right. You have parents who are doctors and their children are doctors because they love being a doctor Right.

Speaker 1: 28:35

Right.

Speaker 3: 28:36

Or it could be smoking a parent could smoke and the kid could smoke, just because that's what they grew up with. So I think what was happening for me was I was following a path that was not in my own design, and now I realize that.

Speaker 1: 28:56

Yeah, and you know, number one, I feel like that is the story of so many people, right, we have this. Actually, I think it's the story of all of us. We have this wake up call, right, and it's like wait a second, who's life am I living? And there's a lot of emotions that come up from there, lots of emotions that can come up and it keep us even further stuck. But then there comes a point where it almost becomes to me an awareness of a skill set that maybe we didn't have Right, and so for me as well, it was.

Speaker 1: 29:29

Can I experience very distressing emotions and can I help myself through those periods of time? Or what skills do I need to learn so that I am able to recognize that I can ask myself what it is that I want to do? What is that skill set that says did you know that you even get to decide what you wanna do? And then do you know that when you make decisions, that other people might be disappointed, and did you know that that's actually okay? And how do you then navigate yourself forward To keep on the path that you wanna go?

Speaker 1: 30:02

Those are types of things, types of questions, that I first learned through different like coaching podcasts in different books, and it made me. It's just, all of a sudden there was a sense of awareness that there was a different way that we could have been experiencing in living our lives. And if that's the case, how do I keep doing that? It was like a skill set that I didn't even know existed. You know how they say like we never really were taught these kinds of things, through no fault of other people, because they weren't really taught those things. So for coaching, this is the type of work that I think is so powerful in how we can help other people is to identify the skill sets that they may feel like they're lacking, so that they're able to go the direction that actually they would like to go. What are your thoughts? So I went from science to PR. It was a pure.

Speaker 3: 30:56

It was a boutique agency, which means it was a small company and they didn't have much time for training. And so from there I went to another agency where I was a director coming in, and so it was quite a big leap from where I was to where I was going. And I hired a mentor and the mentor was a mentor and I was a mentor, and I was a mentor, and I was a mentor, and I was a mentor and the mentor was going to teach me the skills of public relations that I never got trained at my first PR job. But nobody teaches you the skills of what confidence I'll use the word confidence here, for example that kind of soft skill people don't even know that's a skill.

Speaker 3: 31:47

Yeah, and the mentor, so the mentor knew about me relations. Now they talk about AI, but you're talking about life skills, and then you also talk about or off the. Before the call. We talked about the safety, and so another attribute that I think is important of a life coach is to offer that safety. To be vulnerable, and often you can't get this from friends or family. I think they offer the opposite of safety, and that's called judgment. Sure, I have a way you should live your life, Carrie.

Speaker 1: 32:32

Yeah, I'm familiar as a mom.

Speaker 3: 32:34

Right, right. You gave your story like mother to oldest daughter. This is the way you should live, and that's the way you should live because it'll make me feel better.

Speaker 1: 32:44

It'll make me feel like I did a good job as a mom. Exactly, yeah.

Speaker 3: 32:49

So yeah, I think I guess what I'm getting around to is I tried, I didn't. I tried to get PR skills but never even thought about getting life skills. And then when you try to get life skills, there are people trying to do that and you could go to your mentor, you could go to a friend or family member, but that's not a safe place to get those skills, because I think safety comes first. And then then, once you have safety, you could be a little bit more vulnerable and talk and have those conversations where then you get to start peeling back and figuring out some of the ways that you've been holding back on yourself. So I get that's kind of my answer.

Speaker 1: 33:46

You know, and I think you raise a really good point, because there is that quote that says wherever you go, there, you are right. And so the things that you do not address, the skills that you don't learn at certain stages of your life, the way that you respond in certain situations, you'll just keep carrying that with you and it's almost like it's you know. We're all very familiar with what our self-sabotaging behaviors are and I think that coaching allows us to develop the awareness that there are ways that we can actually help ourselves not perpetuate that hamster wheel cycle of self-sabotaging. You raised some really good points earlier about hustling for your own worthiness by, you know, because of the experience that you had in grad school, trying to make up for it at the PR jobs. You know I recently, you know, had heard about like having a corrective experience, trying to go back to a situation that wasn't that great and then trying to then recreate that situation in some way so that you can be then successful. And so for me, when you were talking about that, you know, going to the PR jobs and saying, okay, now I'm actually going to prove myself here, you know, and then doing the overworking so that then you can, you know, then you can prove that this is something that you could do without having actually the foundational skills, the emotional skills, to help you actually have a different type of experience instead of repeating the same experience. I'm very familiar with it.

Speaker 1: 35:34

I sell yes, so so, for example, if we were to talk about, if we were to talk about go back to the dirty windows I know you listed several things that I think are universal. So many people could relate. One of the things I believe that you mentioned the dirty window part you were kind enough to share on a medium article with people so that they could recognize that it's, I mean, normalize it for people, and one of them was you couldn't listen to people's praise. You couldn't listen to that and that resonated so deeply with me. We understand you and I know there's undertones to that right and what was, what was? Do you think? I know lots of people out there, very high achieving people. They feel like an imposter, even though they're producing.

Speaker 3: 36:26

Yeah, yeah, that's a good window to bring up. Remember. I've always had really good bosses and I mentioned that outside you could have the perfect job, including a perfect boss, and these were amazing bosses. One told me I was the heartbeat of the company, or the heartbeat of the culture. That is, to me, the highest praise. If you think a company functions, its profitability is depending on its culture At least I do, because it's only as powerful I mean, it's only as good as the people who run the company or who operate the company. To be the heartbeat is the highest kind of praise and I did feel good.

Speaker 3: 37:12

I should say that I always like thank you, eric or thank you Steve, thank you Marat and Jeff. These are people my last company, cg Life, and I believed that they knew what they were saying to be true, that they were being genuine with their words, and that's why I could appreciate it. But I didn't take it to heart because I didn't believe it, that I deserved it. I'll actually reference a book called the Gap and the Game. I don't even need to reference that book. But if you look at the gap, you compare yourself to some imagined ideal and in this case I was comparing myself to everybody else, like my writing is not as good as everybody else's, because everybody is. I was surrounded by journalists both people who I work with every day because I'm a PR person, and also just surrounded by excellent writers, like really, really top-notch writers. They work for NPR, for example.

Speaker 1: 38:23

Oh my gosh, those are top-notch writers, yeah all at the Atlantic.

Speaker 3: 38:27

All the really, you know, like riveting. Yes, and so that's what the game is. You look at you, compare yourself to the best. How can you hope to succeed when you do that? And so that's what I did. I constantly benchmarked my own abilities, comparing my worst to everybody else's best, and no wonder your window is going to be two inches thick with mud.

Speaker 1: 39:00

Yes, if you throw it away, yes, and if you think, unless somebody can tell you all the praise, give you all the praise but if you don't believe it yourself, you know, then there is still that sense of now I've gotten this praise, now I have to live up to the praise, you know, and also you don't believe it, and so you can see that it's almost like there is the goalpost keep moving, and you're the one that keeps moving it, moving them, and what helped you? Like, if you were looking back at it now, why do you think that you were unable to accept the praise?

Speaker 3: 39:59

Yeah, I, you're right. I didn't believe in myself.

Speaker 3: 40:06

I didn't have the skills, the awareness I do now as a life coach and having taught those skills, what I would do now differently is the I talked about the gap, I didn't talk about the gain, and so if I were to go backwards into those shoes, the gain aspect is what Dan Sullivan and Benjamin Hardy say. The author of the book is always measure backwards. So if the gap is comparing yourself to some idealized version, some perfect specimen I use the example of writing the gain is to see how far you yourself have come. Yes, and I would have said, ken, look how far you've come. Yeah, not always liked writing, I've always written letters. But the effort I put into writing I mean I remember the SAT you and I had to take that carry they don't? The kids these days don't have to take the SAT anymore.

Speaker 1: 41:21

Oh, they don't, oh wow.

Speaker 3: 41:22

Okay, yeah, there was a test for standard and written English called the TSWE. I did terrible on that. My grammar was awful and so that doesn't help, but I focused on grammar. I listened to Grammar Girl that's a great podcast. I drilled myself on grammar. I drilled constantly, read Stephen King, who writes books on writing, and I was talking to freelancers got mentors in writing and in Uptr writing to the point where my clients wanted me to write for them specifically. Why didn't I look at that, Kerry? Right, I don't know. No, I would look at that now. I do look at that now and it's paid off, I think. And so, going from where I began not doing well in the SAT grammar section and being worried about my writing to someone who's really efforted themselves to doing fine and in fact in public relations you're actually valued one third or one half is your writing they're paying you for to ghostwrite for them. So that's what I would have said to get out of that is, look at, kind of a glass half full.

Speaker 1: 43:00

Yes, and I think what you describe and I think that's the brilliance of the way that they describe the gap in the game. I mean, they're talking about growth mindset, right, growth mindset versus fixed mindset, and I think one of the things that I think is so striking about that is many of us don't necessarily recognize that it's a choice, and that was one of the turning points for me in my life, in my journey, because every time you're talking about like when you talked about your self-evaluations that you had to do at the PR firm and that you basically like grilled yourself and your boss said rewrite this, I'm trying to promote it, right, and I was like. I remember one time when I worked at the law office the self-evaluations like I grilled myself and the partner at the firm in this meeting during the evaluation was like, looked at it and she said you really do torture yourself, don't you, carrie? And I was so surprised I thought I was just being honest, you know Right right.

Speaker 1: 44:00

But, to be honest with you, when she said that, for one tiny moment I felt seen. Yeah, I was like it did feel like torture being inside your own head, and I feel like the work of coaching helps us actually tear down so many of our harmful beliefs that we can't just seem to let go about ourselves, and allows us to get to the point where we can actually find peace in our mind and in our bodies, we can actually be ourselves and find comfortable in our own skin, you know.

Speaker 3: 44:40

I like what you said because I think it's the truth. When you wrote that self-deprecating review and maybe that's putting it lightly is you felt you were being honest. Oh yeah, it wasn't self-deprecating.

Speaker 1: 44:53

I honestly thought that was the truth, like these are things I need to do and I should have done it, and I don't know why I didn't do it, but I'm going to really try hard now to do it. I mean, I don't think there was anything really positive and that's the thing is that I'm not going to be honest.

Speaker 3: 45:09

The thing is, what is story? The confusion between fact and story. Yes, you, when you wrote that review, when you said you were being honest, you thought you were listing a bunch of facts.

Speaker 1: 45:22

Yes, good point.

Speaker 3: 45:23

In reality, there are a bunch of opinions colored by your perception of yourself.

Speaker 1: 45:27

Yes, there are a bunch of self-judgements, for sure.

Speaker 3: 45:30

And we as people often confuse the two Right Just where I think a coach can come in and question those things and help you understand. Almost everything is actually a story and very few things are facts.

Speaker 1: 45:51

Yes, and I actually do think that the reason why people don't necessarily do that until they're asked to do that and encouraged to do that separate fact from story is because it's almost like they need someone to give them permission to put down some of these stories that they've been carrying and that it is okay to do so.

Speaker 3: 46:22

And that's when you felt seen. Mm-hmm.

Speaker 1: 46:29

So if you were to move on to you talked about also perfectionism and you thought the perfectionism actually was just a high standard, right, and you thought everybody should. It's kind of like a sense of like not self-righteousness, but just like the sense of like somebody once told me like you know, carrie, we don't need 110% all the time, we actually actually your 80% is fine. And I was like I was actually like I was kind of like devastated because I'm like I don't even know what that means, not because I'm like so amazing, but I'm like if I could do 80, I would have been probably doing that all right, but I don't know how that works, I don't know what it looks like and it was exhausting. And for somebody to say 80% would have been fine and you don't know what that looks like, but yet you're exhausted. It felt like, you know, it definitely felt rooted in a mental thing I knew it was been a mental issue versus trying to, you know, meet a career benchmark or anything like that, you know.

Speaker 3: 47:45

Yeah, I the number one. So I recruited for our company, especially on the PR team, but also for interns, and I gave the classic what's your biggest strengths, what are your biggest weaknesses? Usually, what are your biggest weaknesses in? The number one biggest weakness Because they thought they were so smart, uh-huh right, say, oh, I could be a perfectionist. Yes, that's right.

Speaker 1: 48:10

Oh, I used to. I used to do that job. I used to do that too.

Speaker 3: 48:15

But what if they really knew what they were saying? They might not actually say that. And what their perfectionism is? What I think it mostly is is being afraid of what other people think, being judged by others. Yes, when you talk about my medium article.

Speaker 3: 48:37

And what happened was my boss asked me to do an assignment and he split this assignment it was just a basic competitor research and gave it to each team member. You take a competitor, you take a competitor. You take a competitor, find out what has been written about them, what is their positioning in the marketplace, and dirty. So then five other people went out and I was the last person that handed my assignment because I needed to find oh, they do this, and then that leads me to that. And then I have to. Why do I have to get it so right? Because I was scared if the boss saw something where I didn't get it. You know, even at the slightest flaw, I felt like I would be judged for it. Yes, so to me it's FOPO fear of other people's opinions. Okay, yeah, yeah, fopo. And so I thought that was the root of my perfection. But it's either other people judging you you're afraid of that, or you're judging yourself, or some combination.

Speaker 1: 49:42

Yes, I never heard of FOPO but I love it and I might adopt it. But you know what's so interesting that what you just said actually was you not wanting. If you miss something or if you said something wrong, or you know, if somebody else happened to bring up a good idea that wasn't in your thing, you know this fear of then. Yet your belief actually or your impression of yourself maybe also is diminished because you feel like whatever you needed validation from was you know. Whatever you needed them to say about you was what validated you. You know your identity when you think about what led you to actually get help for, like, actually get a coach. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 50:30

Yeah, what was the tipping point for you that led you to actually make that decision and to reach out to somebody?

Speaker 3: 50:43

I love to give you a clever answer to that. I will tell you it was a moment of serendipity and so it was probably a moment that was meant to be and I still think an interesting story. So I want to give that story to you and your listeners. I walked into live coaching quite by accident. I received communication from one of my clients on the public relations that one of our pieces did not reflect something that an industry expert would how they would write which makes sense to me. I'm not an expert in clinical trials.

Speaker 3: 51:20

That's not my field, but I took it to heart because we want to serve our clients and we want to do good by them. So what I did was I reached out to somebody in that space the clinical trial space, excuse me, I mean a very adjacent space and I said in the clinical trial space, who can I talk to to help me become more expert in this area? And that person, who I will forever thank because he led me to what I'm about to share with you, gave me three names. I interviewed all three people, all experts in the field. The third one happened to be someone I started collaborating with to write the next piece for the client who complained, let's say, and then, quite by accident, she told me she was a life coach. Wow.

Speaker 3: 52:11

I did not know what a life coach was. I knew at that point I was not happy at my job and I'll give some reasons why. I joined public relations at a point in my life where I actually needed income because I had just gotten married and it was a better fit than my previous career of science, but it didn't make it still the right fit. What I liked about it was the creativity you need to work with people, the variety of different projects all those things that appealed to me. And then there's other things that didn't appeal to me. For example, you have to pitch journalists about why this makes a great story Not my favorite thing to do Writing. Something I struggled with all my life was writing. I have perfectionist tendencies and when you start writing, you can edit a lot forever in fact and you're smiling on the camera because you understand?

Speaker 1: 53:19

Yes, I'm familiar.

Speaker 3: 53:20

An infinite loop of iterations and communications not my strong point. I never thought I was a communicator. I like people but I don't like necessarily communicating. So anyway, there were things where I didn't fit public relations to meet my interests, my passion or my skill set. But I may do for 14 years in the career of public relations Until I couldn't make do anymore. I didn't find any more growth opportunities. I was now a senior director of public relations at a life sciences company, so using my science degree in communications. But I had nowhere else to grow at that point. And then the last thing is I didn't know what to do after that, Like, okay, now I'm in public relations after science. What comes after public relations? There's no easy answer to that. And I've gone through one pivot already. I've read the books, I took the tests again. What's funny is when I look back at my personality and see what comes up, I somehow skipped where it said life coach.

Speaker 1: 54:43

Oh really, it said life coach on there.

Speaker 3: 54:45

Life coach on my ENFP, and life comes up for ENFP as well as public relations. But I still wouldn't have known what that meant. Like what's a life coach, Right? No clue what a life coach, so I probably still would have glossed over it and I probably, if I even knew what a life coach was, I wouldn't have believed myself capable of being a life coach. So until I got coaching cleared my mindset and the last hurdle for me to become a life coach just to continue the story was I don't think I could be a life coach and my life coach me through that, because I had some thoughts that didn't serve me, self-limiting thoughts and she coached me through them and that gave me permission to be a life coach.

Speaker 1: 55:33

Oh, isn't that amazing it is. Thank you for sharing that. 14 years in the PR firm, and it wasn't I mean, you were working out of Chicago, weren't you?

Speaker 3: 55:44

Yeah, I was six years at a consumer agency where they said oh, Kenza, ex-scientists, they didn't care. Like Hershey's didn't care. Blockbuster Worldcom If you recognize any of these old companies that have, since most of them have GM, Anyway, a car company doesn't care if I work in a science field. So I was still a little bit of an odd duck. I was working with these companies and then in 2006, I switched over to a life sciences company where, ah, I could take public relations, which I just gained with my science background, to become a life sciences communications person.

Speaker 1: 56:19

Yes, wow, okay.

Speaker 3: 56:21

Wow, I'm sorry, 20 years in PR. So six years, wow, dome, eight or Hill and Nolton it became Hill and Nolton and then 14 years at CG life, and so that's 20 year PR career.

Speaker 1: 56:35

So what's interesting about that is, I think nowadays everybody just knows, everybody just trusts that they're not going to be in the same career for their entire lives Right, and so so to me it's kind of what I hear other clients say as well. There comes to a point where you feel like you're ready for additional growth outside of what you're doing. You're ready to explore what else there is. If you have one life, how else would you actually like to? What actually else might you like to do? So that's interesting.

Speaker 3: 57:10

Your clients say that right, Because that's I think that's room for conversation. Because my clients say I think my clients want to stay in the same mind, you stay in the same career, and the reason that they're leaving is because there's like a toxic work environment or there's a narcissistic boss, or like for me there was no more growth opportunities, Like I could do my job with my eyes closed. But a lot of them, at least my clients want to stay in the same field, the ones that do pivot. We do also talk, but they're forced to pivot because they've been laid off and they want to. They want to. They think they can maybe pick up a new skill set and earn the same kind of money that they did in the old job, but they can't be hired in the old career because, for the example, this guy moved to Canada. It's just not the same biotech scene as it is in San Francisco. But are you saying, Kerry, that your clients are actually seeking, like new careers because they want to grow, Because that is?

Speaker 1: 58:22

beautiful. It all depends, and what's so interesting is the conversation around that in the beginning of our time together. It looks much different than the conversation around that at the end of our time together and depending on who that person is and what their struggles were with their present position, the answer could be different. So somebody could have thought it was. I love the title of that medium piece. It was like before you think it's your job or before you blame your job, right.

Speaker 3: 58:50

Do this.

Speaker 1: 58:51

Yeah, do this first, because sometimes the work, the inner work, and just really having that space to be able to see what's really going on within themselves, that they're projecting onto the experience of their work life After we start doing some work together and this is probably what you see in yours as well they actually start seeing that they have much more influence over the experience that they're having presently than they thought they did. And if that was the case, then how could they work on themselves? Because maybe they did want their job, maybe they didn't want to uproot, make a pivot, and so it was almost as if now I have options. Before it's like I got to leave this job, but now it's like hold on, if I'm not triggered because I'm thinking they're triggering me or external things are triggering me, all of a sudden I can work on myself, get myself to a place where I can actually decide for myself what I'd like to do, because there's no sense of urgency of having to leave a place that feels like it's unsurvivable.

Speaker 1: 1:00:10

Some people, when they get to the end, they're like I actually have been holding myself back forever and I was scared because I've been in this field for so long. What would my parents say I've got these degrees or etc. Whatever they tell themselves as well. And now they're like I can handle what other people say and yes, there's always going to be something that comes up and it's not like I'm going to have a magical existence over there with no negativity. But I do understand now. Actually I can think well outside of what I ever thought possible before.

Speaker 3: 1:00:52

That reminds me of my clients who actually was actively looking into Leavers job and gotten promoted and the title change and we worked on. You say you like your company, you like the people. Why are you looking outside of your company? It's like, well, I could get more money outside of my company, I could get a title change. And we started investigating could you do the same thing at your current company? Could you talk to your bosses?

Speaker 3: 1:01:27

And for some reason that was very hard for him because he didn't believe that he could speak to his bosses and stand for his truth in a way that would convince his bosses that he deserved these things. But once we cleared kind of those feelings he had about himself, then he was able to go to the bosses and get the same pay, get the title increased Because, as you say, you have options is how you put it. So he had the options to stay or to leave. And since he loved his company, he loved his colleagues and he loved everything about it with the same pay and title increase, why not stay? He just needed a little confidence boost, I mean.

Speaker 1: 1:02:18

I think you just highlighted and touched on something that I really think is the cornerstone of this work. It can be very easy to get lost in what this work actually is, but at the end of the day, it's us being able to get to that point of remembrance that we have the ability to direct our lives much more than we think, and when we forget that, it's usually because we started believing thoughts.

Speaker 3: 1:02:49

Yeah, clients are very good Once you show them that they're very good those as we referred to earlier in this conversation at least a lot of my clients just they see it immediately and then they figure things out. So I think that, as we as coaches, if we can, just most of the time, hey, did you, did you notice that they do see? In fact, they sometimes see it faster than I do, which is the whole point. I want them to see it.

Speaker 1: 1:03:19

Yes, because their brain gets to work.

Speaker 3: 1:03:22

We don't want.

Speaker 1: 1:03:22

The whole purpose of coaching is we know at some point down the line, we want them to be able to use their brain so that they feel like they can trust themselves, no matter what situation they're in.

Speaker 1: 1:03:40

Right yeah, to be able to navigate the situation at hand and come to a place of like true choice. You mentioned earlier in our conversation when you were talking about how you felt at grad school. You said when I felt short of expectations, I didn't feel good, worthy, and it led you into a depression. And the reason I bring that up is because I think that's a universal thing for a lot of people. They don't want to let people down. They sense that there is a level of expectation and maybe that they're not meeting it, or they think that other people think they're not meeting or they know they're not. Yeah.

Speaker 1: 1:04:26

And it can lead to depression. Right. Back then and knowing what you know now in terms of expectation as a coach coaching clients, I know how I would enter that in terms of coaching. How would you help someone with that?

Speaker 3: 1:04:53

In terms of coaching approach, we tend to help them understand where maybe their thoughts aren't serving them and to understand that that's what's happening. First of all, this is what you're thinking. It's leading you to this particular conclusion. How do you feel about that In this case, in terms of feeling less than because you're not meeting expectations. What they need to understand and hopefully what I would lead them to, it has nothing to do with your capability and your self-worth.

Speaker 3: 1:05:43

And you gave me a beautiful quote which is why it's rummaging around from my phone because you watched out to me about Elizabeth Bennet. That is appropriate, and Elizabeth Bennet is the object of interest of Darcy in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Now, what Elizabeth Bennet is talking about in this quote is that she's not as good as other people, as other women. Actually, she's not as good as other women at playing this instrument, and that's okay, because I just haven't practiced and they've practiced at this, and it has nothing to do with my capability, and that is what I want my client to know. Do not confuse when you don't reach expectations, that it reflects on you as a person, that you are that person, right, just like Elizabeth Bennet understood that, and then she also understood. Oh, maybe if I practiced I'd be as good as them, and she's assured of that. So thank you for letting me use a Pride and Prejudice quote.

Speaker 1: 1:06:54

Oh my gosh, we got a Pride and Prejudice quote. She was so progressive.

Speaker 3: 1:07:00

She was.

Speaker 1: 1:07:00

I swear we need to have a Jane Austen fan club Book club. Oh my gosh.

Speaker 1: 1:07:09

We can share that specific quote because, honestly, when you really think about it, I love how you brought those two together. I mean, jokes aside, yeah, yeah, that quote actually says it all Exactly. It's accepting Nope, I'm not as good, and also because I didn't practice. And also I believe if I did practice, I could be just as good. I mean, that actually ties in very nicely with something else that you had mentioned earlier, which was this feeling of when you talked about your bosses at the PR firm and how, when they praised you, you didn't believe it. Not because you believe that they believed it, because, knowing their character, you knew that it was genuine from them, but you said you didn't believe it because you didn't think you deserved it. And I cannot tell you.

Speaker 1: 1:08:05

I would say, every conversation I had with the client during the time of coaching, there will come up this idea of deserving and worthiness, and what I find so fascinating about that is, in the beginning of our conversation, a lot of conversation around worthiness, but as we near the end of our journey, I'm like, hey, we haven't talked about worthiness in a while which. And they're like oh, you're right, maybe. I'm like, no, no, no, that's a good thing. This is how this works. The more that you start doing this work on yourself and you start tearing down all the thoughts and, like you just said so well, you're able to decouple things like expectation, meeting or not, from capability, from worthiness, from deservingness of praise those things are all so differentiated and separate. But when we're not aware of how our thoughts can just kind of mesh all together and we think this is truth, like I'm doing this ball in my hand, I forgot sometimes.

Speaker 3: 1:09:18

She's holding her hands together.

Speaker 1: 1:09:21

Like tightly not tight ball, we can't get to the part where we can separate out. Oh, you're right, I didn't need expectations. Okay, what do I need to improve? Let's take a look. How do I need to skill myself up? Or maybe there is something that I would like to stand up for myself and say actually, blah, blah, blah. Right, as opposed to, this is a moral feeling on my part. This defines me as a person, and it makes that very hard to recover. Anything where your personhood is at stake, your worthiness as a stake, as a person, it feels very high stakes, and so I love that. That's how you would help them. You would help them like decouple that immediately.

Speaker 3: 1:10:11

Yeah, this might be a good time to share with your listeners the PQ test. Yes. Yes, the difference between when your clients start with you, carrie, and when they end with you is because they've adopted a more positive mindset.

Speaker 1: 1:10:33

Yes, could you explain for the listeners just describe them.

Speaker 3: 1:10:38

Yeah, I look at a positive mindset is when you have your brain that looks at obstacles as opportunities, which actually is. If you look at the Chinese characters for crisis, it's broken up into problem and opportunity, which is really beautiful. Yes.

Speaker 3: 1:11:12

Because adversity can be your period of greatest growth. And somebody with a positive mindset or high PQ, which is a numerical measure of this type of positive mindset of your brain working for you, looks at challenges and looks at how you can use them to grow. And somebody with a low PQ your brain is working against you A lot of time. What you do when you have a low PQ is you find things, people, circumstances to blame. The weather, it's raining low PQ. I was going to play tennis today. Screw it, I can't do that. I'm going to go to sleep. Somebody with high PQ it's raining same exact circumstance I'm going to learn how to cook or make a croissant.

Speaker 3: 1:12:12

Yeah, your three day croissants, yeah exactly A three day croissant, as you know, and use it as opportunity to pivot, to figure out how can I still use this time, maybe not to play tennis, because I can't do that. I'm not going to blame the weather, I'm going to say I get to do something else now. So the positive intelligence test you can google that, shorzad Shameen, develop that, and you get a numerical score. And for any listener out there, if you get below I think it's 75, maybe you should talk to Kerry, because your mindset is maybe not where it could be. And what I believe, and you tell me what you believe, is, before you make any type of decision, it's really good to come up with it from a clean mindset, a clear, positive mindset, and then you can make decisions in a way that are going to serve you.

Speaker 1: 1:13:13

You know I had heard about positive intelligence and it's kind of like EQ, emotional intelligence, and there is a BQ, body intelligence.

Speaker 1: 1:13:24

I did not know that until recently, but it makes more sense now that there's more somatic awareness, polyvagal theory, all that stuff with nervous system.

Speaker 1: 1:13:31

But when you mentioned positive intelligence to me, I appreciated the fact that it was actually a tool for awareness building, not like a judgment, but it almost helps you see in real time how you can help yourself and it's almost a way for you to be like well, no wonder why I feel so depressed or no wonder why I feel like I can't. I'm taking three steps forward and five steps back in my growth progress, let's just say, even in personal growth, right, or anything or anything. It just helps you almost see if, for example, if out of 100, your score is 45, you will be able to see, oh, no wonder there is still a good majority of my thoughts that are actually working against me. And now that I know this, there's something I can improve there. I can actually have a place I can help myself and leverage, versus feeling like you have a whole book you know store of personal growth books and you feel like you need all the help, right.

Speaker 3: 1:14:36

Yeah, I mean, you could just, you know, it's a great analogy you make and it's like a thermometer. You're worried like I'm feeling sick, and then you take that thermometer, you get your temperature and you see it's 103, there's some validation there, right? I really am sick. Now what can I do about that?

Speaker 1: 1:14:57

Yes, and I think the thing about the positive intelligence that you mentioned was they actually normalize and try to really really simplify for people how to help themselves move forward. I think that one of his main points was the personal growth space is really loud. It can feel like everybody's telling you something and might be conflicting, and so I think for you to offer that positive intelligence, is that something that you offer for your clients or that you work with sometimes?

Speaker 3: 1:15:32

depending. It's a really good tool for clients. When they come in, I offer that test that they can just take off on their own time, send me their score and for them, to them and throughout our coaching sessions, be able to look back at where they came and then benchmark how far they've come.

Speaker 1: 1:15:55

I think it's brilliant.

Speaker 3: 1:15:56

It gives them a sense of gratification, Like I am improving. It's not just you telling me, Ken, or me sensing it. This number is going up.

Speaker 1: 1:16:09

Yes, and also it gives language around the tools that they can use to help themselves. So, for example, the way that it works is in terms of the 10 saboteurs. We all know about self-sabotaging, what our personal self-sabotaging patterns are, and, with positive intelligence, they actually break it down into the 10 most common saboteurs and with a description about what it looks like and then how to help yourself. And then also, what is the other part, the five sage? Yeah, and that is the component, or that is the part, that helps you return to that part of you that has access to the part of your brain that can make the decisions that you want to make from a place of clarity, right, and from a place of choice, and we can't do that when we're in an activated state, maybe within one of the saboteurs. Is that right? So it's clearly a brain science thing. It's neuroscience and psychology, right.

Speaker 3: 1:17:15

Yeah, I mean, if we talked about dirty windows, those would be the dirt, would be the saboteurs. The biggest one is the judge, which we all have. It's the master saboteur, which we talked about earlier. When we feel less than that's the judge saboteur, saying you're insufficient, you're inadequate. This is the reason you should feel shameful about yourself.

Speaker 3: 1:17:40

And then the sage and there's five different sage superheroes is like having a different glasses, different perspectives, different lenses that allow you to see more powerfully how to deal with life. One of them, for example, is just the power of curiosity, which I love. Yeah, that you can use curiosity to help you just ask, ask how to dig deeper into situations and not form a judgment. It kind of so kind of stops judgment just by because you're asking why is this happening? In a way, that's not personal, but just let me quickly give an example of that because I don't think I'm clearly conveying. It's one of my most favorite sage things.

Speaker 3: 1:18:39

I had to coach in front of 50 other coaches and so I had some sort of the judge was hitting me pretty hard, like who are you to coach in front of 50 other coaches? Why would they ever listen to you? So kind of that FOPO. I talked about earlier your other people's opinions, which is kind of weird because judges are the most than judges. Coaches are some of the most compassionate people, right, and here I am worried about them judging me as I coach in front of them when I activate my curiosity superpower. It was more about how can I use this as an opportunity to learn, what can I learn from this opportunity, and that got me excited. So that kind of is an example of curiosity as a sage to kind of combat the saboteur, which in this case one of them, was the judges.

Speaker 1: 1:19:33

Oh, yes, I love it, and I think what I love most about it is because humans are creative beings. They are also. They think. Their brains think in pictures, and so with when you have thousands and thousands of thoughts going in your head, it is very helpful to have a framework, like saboteurs and the sages, that you can cut through the noise and reach for something. When you're in activated state, because our brains think in images and pictures, it is easy to see how, if you're reaching for the curiosity superhero sage, how that can help. It's like it's a heuristic your brain knows immediately what's going to happen when you reach for that, versus staying in the judgment, and so I love how that you bring that together and I think it's such a powerful tool.

Speaker 1: 1:20:25

I don't use it for my clients, but since I've spoken to you about it, I can definitely see how powerful it is for them. I mean, they just go online, they can take the test themselves, they can check that. You guys can look at the benchmarks and just see just number one areas of improvement, because sometimes this work is invisible work. It can feel hard, especially when life happens. You're going to have the ups and downs, which is the whole point of this work is to be able to work through them through multiple cycles of ups and downs, so that they can implement the tools, so that they can handle these things and feel like they can experience life differently because they have new sets of tools.

Speaker 1: 1:21:03

But I love that you brought that up and I think what I'm hearing you say also is that part of what you help your clients do, especially with decoupling the story with the actual facts of what's happening is offering them tools that they can use during those times so that they can recognize that they actually have the ability, like you said, capability and capacity to navigate that experience differently. They don't have to wait for anybody else to be different. You don't have to wait for a boss to be different or a colleague to be different or a situation to be different. They could actually help themselves, even start having a different experience so that they can bring more clarity to it, by working within themselves and noticing what's going on inside their brain, but also inside their body, their reactivity, etc. And trying to be able to look at things from a different way.

Speaker 3: 1:22:01

Yeah, that's a really good way to illustrate that to a client is to go through the model. And I don't know if we have the time to talk about the model, but in the very top of the model is something called a circumstance. These are the facts of your life and this is why most clients think they have a problem. So Coaching in front of 50 people would be a circumstance I just mentioned right, that's the C line of the model, in which I said I'm going to coach, there's going to be 50 other people watching me, and what do I think about that? I'm scared, they're going to judge me. And what I tell the client or, in this case, myself, if I self-coach it's not that you're going to be in front of 50 coaches. That's the problem.

Speaker 3: 1:23:17

That's typically what we humans tend to blame is the circumstance. Oh my gosh, 50 people are going to be watching me. The problem is how you think about that or how you interpret this story. Is that they're going to judge me. That would be the T line or the thought line, and so those two parts of the model are a great way to separate story from fact. It's never the facts which is I'm coaching in front of 50 people. It's the story I'm making that mean the T line that they're going to judge me. So I hope that was an example of teasing out story from fact. And yes, that is a very powerful tool, the model that Brook Castillo teaches in the Life Coach School.

Speaker 1: 1:24:09

Yes, that was life changing for me too, exactly.

Speaker 3: 1:24:12

And so that is something you can even just doing. That can sometimes loosen some a client's brain and they go oh you're right, it is the way I'm thinking about it. It's not about me being in front of 50 coaches. It's because of this is how I think, feel about these things that the real problem yes.

Speaker 1: 1:24:37

And I love that you pointed that out, because that's just awareness building for the client. They have an awareness of what's actually happening and there's room for them to work there. Then If it was like 50 people, that's a big problem.

Speaker 3: 1:24:52

It's actually outside your control. Those are things outside your control, but there is something you can't control and that is what's happening in your brain.

Speaker 1: 1:25:02

Exactly, and so, when you really think about it, what you're also offering your clients is, technically, you and I, we don't really offer anything like new Right. What we're doing is we're just reminding them of the capability they already have in their brain and to be able to use their brain differently. Instead of like for me, I used to consider my brain as like an enemy combatant. I'm not actually not really even being dramatic about it. I was my brain. I was at war with my brain and it felt like an exhausting place to be, and what we're actually offering are tools to be able to help people actually calm the brain and recognize that there is no war there. It's just a skill set that you don't yet have.

Speaker 1: 1:25:57

And if you have that skill set, so you're not reactive to everything, so that when you notice an emotion, you're not just responding based on your emotion. You're able to recognize the emotion and wonder what might have been causing that. And it's always going to be something within our brain, something with you know. It's always going to be related to a thought. And to me, honestly, as somebody who was depressed a lot and felt insecure a lot, if I created my own insecurity and if I created my own depression and I want to say that very loosely and carefully. I understand there's a difference between clinical depression, right where you. You know I don't want to minimize anything, but at the same time I think we can all agree that we do make ourselves have lots of emotions based on the thoughts that we think. But when I realize that my feelings actually are a result of my thinking and once I'm aware of what I'm thinking, I get to decide if that's what I want to keep thinking the world just opens up right.

Speaker 3: 1:27:01

Yeah, I, one of the most powerful things that coach can do is separate you from your thoughts. I think it's called psychological distance. It's a realization that you as a person, as a, as a being, are not your thoughts, and understanding that allows you more control than in understanding that you can start picking these thoughts that make the most sense to you Once the coach has helped you separate yourself from your thoughts, like oh, this, these thoughts are having these, this impact on me. I could, as you said, choose to continue to hold on to that thought, but the coach will show you how that's leading you to be stuck or angry or, in your case, depressed. But if you are not your thoughts, then you don't need to continue to choose that, as you mentioned.

Speaker 1: 1:27:56

Yeah, that's such a almost like a philosophical existential thing that once you get it, it's so, it's life changing. But unless you hear it and want to receive that, you know what I mean. Yeah, Because I feel like some people like, oh yeah, yeah, I get it, but then it's only when they want, they want to see the truth of that, that they are not their thoughts, and then they do see the truth of that. It's like then there's like a formula that is possible to be in play there. So I almost and I think that's the awareness work that you're talking about in the beginning is that's why it's so important, and I think I know that one of the in your medium article you said the first step toward change is awareness, and I wonder if awareness is even the fact that are you aware of what you're thinking and are you aware that your thinking is creating something, and are you aware that you get to choose all of that?

Speaker 3: 1:28:56

Yeah, Often, I would imagine, we are not aware of what we're thinking. When I was getting coached for the first time when I was at my public relations job and I was depressed using it in the way that we're described emotional state of being very, very, very, very sad.

Speaker 3: 1:29:19

And my coach, I think was very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very, very very. Prepare for the next video is first, is awareness All right? So, first off, you know, back in the New York Times we put down a okay awesome photo to get to know our designers, and when we were creating an interview from the web website in the state O54 awards ceremony, first place lazy to me it was as real as this shirt or as this window, and so I just wanted to clarify what I think of as awareness case. And the awareness is not just that you have this understanding that in my case, I'm lazy, but what the coach was trying to get me to see is that is not a fact.

Speaker 1: 1:30:17

Yes, oh, such a good point. Yes, yes, yes, that's the almost the whole point, right? Right.

Speaker 3: 1:30:24

Yes, and so this is just to help cement this. The reason I had because she investigated further the reason I had that story was because I went to a doctor and I was thinking I had some sort of asthma, because I have always had troubles breathing, and the doctor ran me through tests lung tests, spirometry tests and I said so what's the diagnosis, doc? And he just said, well, it's because you're lazy. Oh, I took that to heart and I took that as a fact, and so you're kind of going, oh, almost like I would think that that's ridiculous, right, but this is what we do.

Speaker 3: 1:31:11

Yeah, I think we take all this input and a lot of the input could be from our parents or authority figures and they become cemented as facts in our lives. So, a coach, I think there's a book called Mine Main Prison which is a great kind of visual, for this is that when we have these statements become thoughts, they become beliefs right, repeat them enough and it becomes these bars over mental prison cell. And then, once we realize that those are not facts, those are thoughts, you can imagine how this, these prison bars, start melting away and you're freed, did you?

Speaker 1: 1:31:55

send me that picture before, because I feel like it's a book. Oh, okay.

Speaker 3: 1:32:04

Matteo, somebody or other.

Speaker 1: 1:32:06

Oh, interesting. I wrote that down Because that sounds fascinating, because that's exactly the visual that I feel, like many people feel, and I appreciate the fact that you brought it back full circle to. Actually, a lot of this work is challenging the words that we use every day subconsciously, like that we're not even aware of, like I'm lazy. Or I used to just constantly tell myself that I'm a hot mess, and anytime I forgot my car keys I'm a hot mess. Anytime anything happened I'm a hot mess. And would it be surprising if you, if I told you that I believed I was a hot mess? Of course I did, because I told myself that all the time. So it's almost even not just even the words which is important to for somebody else to pick up, because you're the one saying it all the time. You don't know.

Speaker 3: 1:32:53

So it's helpful to yeah you help.

Speaker 1: 1:32:55

It's helpful to have somebody else say wait, a second, hold on, let's put a pin in what you just said, because we want to just go right back to telling you our whole story about why we're wrong. And the coach is like, let's back up. Yeah, that's. You said I'm lazy, and then everything else stemmed from there. You do this, you do realize, yeah, that that's actually not a thing and we can come back and talk about that. But it's so helpful because otherwise we'll just keep going, you know.

Speaker 1: 1:33:21

But the other thing also is then recognizing what you then, even after you're aware of the word that you keep repeating to yourself, until you recognize that the way beliefs become beliefs is because their thoughts that you keep repeating and that if you keep repeating, you're choosing to then repeat certain things. And once you're aware that you're like, why would I ever do that? Let me, let me work on that part it almost becomes. Then it's all part of almost like the scientific process of behavior change. That's why we love atomic habits by James Clear, because it's why it's so popular, because he talks about that. Even I, the way that I also include it is the way that you talk to yourself as a habit right, and so the ability to help break things down piece by piece like fact fiction. This is the truth of what's happening, this is what's causing you so much suffering and introducing things like did you know? Pain, of course, is inevitable, as that Buddhist saying goes, but the suffering part is the story that you add to it. And this is all optional, right. We can't even work on this until you stop adding all this on, and so some of those things, it's just actually. I'd love to know what your thoughts are. But I think then, this personal growth work, this coaching work for the client, even though it feels maybe not that great, it actually becomes fun.

Speaker 1: 1:34:58

That's where I like to keep trying to come back to. This is actually so fun sometimes in hindsight, but still.

Speaker 3: 1:35:07

That is a great question. I you know, my first instinct is when I was first getting coached it was not fun, I was depressed. No, and you?

Speaker 1: 1:35:20

know yes.

Speaker 3: 1:35:22

And I and I and it's much more fun being a coach, and it's funner now. So maybe it's kind of like what you were saying earlier when you're inclined the beginning of the journey versus the end of the journey.

Speaker 1: 1:35:34

Yes, and I'm glad you put that disclaimer for respect there, because when I was starting, if somebody told me it was fun, I probably would have walked out. So I appreciate that. You're right, there's always perspective.

Speaker 3: 1:35:46

Is my is my screen frozen.

Speaker 1: 1:35:48

What's going? On.

Speaker 3: 1:35:50

Okay, there we go. Okay, Because I was doing this little punch in the face.

Speaker 1: 1:35:54

Oh it was bleeping out for violence, okay.

Speaker 3: 1:35:57

Right, it was. It must have self-censored me, yeah, but yeah, I think you're, you're. You're how far we've come that carried right, yes.

Speaker 3: 1:36:06

And when it was all the things that we've talked about the fact versus fiction or story, positive intelligence, having that mindset of somebody who sees obstacles as opportunities we can more readily appreciate and do that now. Yes, and we could in the beginning. But that and it is fun now. Like Ken Lee today would say, it is fun getting coached, partly because I know what the coach is doing as a coach. But but even if I know what the coach is doing, you're getting breakthroughs and transformations, multiple ones, in a single session. And you're right, I'm. I'm often in my coaching sessions like you're right, holy crap, and you just feel this lightness of oh yeah, maybe that's fun I don't know what the right word is for that, but it's like yeah.

Speaker 3: 1:37:10

Fascinating.

Speaker 1: 1:37:12

Yes, I mean. I mean it actually just happened to me on the the call with the other coaches the other day. I said something and they pointed something out to me and I said what the heck Thank you for pointing. I mean seriously. I mean it's the same thing that I tell clients. So, like, look at that word that you're saying.

Speaker 1: 1:37:26

Like I said something about oversharing and and when person stopped me and said isn't that interesting that your brain wants to use that word Because you're doing something scary, of course it's going to say, oh, if I say the word oversharing, she's going to freak out and not do it again. I'm like what the heck I mean? But it made so much sense and it gave me a context for what my body was going through that felt so uncomfortable. But now that I was aware that made so much sense, well, I'm going to keep going. I'll keep trying to grow this way, even though my brain wants to offer me thoughts like certain things that make me say, well, I, you know, want to retreat. Of course it's trying to protect me.

Speaker 3: 1:38:01

But that's a quick little example of coaching. Because they didn't say like it's okay to overshare or you're not oversharing, right? They're not prescribing some sort of vice or judging you. They're like, oh, isn't that curious, they are oversharing, and then you kind of they left you to decide what that meant. Yes, the beautiful moment of coaching.

Speaker 1: 1:38:23

I think it's almost like the insight. I was like you. It's like you can literally I literally was grateful for that, because it did actually give me context as to what actually was going on. So I think I think the point that maybe we were trying to make, or I was trying to make in the beginning, and I'm glad you did clarify, when you first start this work, we're at low spots and our clients come to us at very low spots, right, or they come to us because they're frustrated and I actually what I would like to do is to kind of close this and wrap this up is maybe ask you how your clients come to you, like maybe some of a few things that you've noticed working with the clientele that you do, what types of things they come to you with, and maybe this would actually be a great place to say for you who do you coach, who are people that you work?

Speaker 3: 1:39:28

with. So I'm a career coach and I serve people much like myself, and that would be people who are stuck in their careers. Often what that means is they're leaving or thinking about leaving a job. And you can imagine or at least I can imagine if we make an analogy to a marriage or long term relationship, divorcing, separation. Those are very weighty problems, concerns that should not be taken lightly and likely if you're at the point of dissolution. You have gone through hell to get to that point. So then they look to life coaching when they're leaving a job, and it could be now.

Speaker 3: 1:40:24

Why they're leaving could be all sorts of reasons, right? I had one client who had a narcissistic boss, another who had an unsupported boss, just never like never gave her pay raises, for example, didn't listen when she said I want to do this and he ignored her. The problem with leaving, even if you have, it's like, oh well, if you can imagine a spouse and there's like we sometimes blame one partner like the other person's abusing you, why aren't you just leaving? And that could be the same thing in a workplace. When it's a toxic workplace, it's like people don't understand why don't you just leave. And that's because the future is uncertain, and there's one thing humans don't want to deal with is uncertainty. They want certainty, they want safety, and so the safety of a toxic workplace is more comfortable than what's out there.

Speaker 3: 1:41:28

So I needed to help navigate them through this transition point to make the best decision, typically on whether to leave or stay. So that's a lot of my work. Are people making this kind of transition? I guess the other one would be if they're at a job and they're not feeling like they're getting growth opportunities or they're not being recognized, but they know they're not getting recognized because they have low self confidence, like I don't know how to speak up. I people please, right, I just do things other people tell me to, and all this is stymie their growth, their ability to move forward in their careers or their jobs. So those are some of the people I serve different points of being stuck in their careers.

Speaker 1: 1:42:21

Yeah, that's a big intersection, big turning point in their lives, and so I can see how, for you, you're absolutely right. They're coming to you from a place that will require them to feel very comfortable with you Because, ultimately, what you're trying to do right is to help them get to the place where they can feel like they're making the decision they want to, not the thing that they feel like they have to or they don't have a choice even right.

Speaker 3: 1:42:53

Yeah, I think a lot of these people have been traumatized If you can imagine an abusive boss that is going to do work on your mind and body and so I'm glad you brought that up, because I think safety is paramount. I need to be able to offer this safe, supportive, non-judgmental place where they feel like they can be themselves and unload whatever else they need to unload. So I think a coach can do that better than family members, better than friends, who often, unfortunately, use your own weaknesses against you. Like, why don't you do that? You know they just. Yeah, we coaches offer non-judgmental space. Don't we carry yeah?

Speaker 1: 1:43:45

I was going to say. I think that's why you often hear it called like a container.

Speaker 1: 1:43:49

When I first heard it that I didn't quite understand what it meant, but when you think about a container, if you're inside the container, it's the safe space there. That's what it's meant to be to allow you to unpack things, to allow you actually to speak the truth of what's actually going on, what you're feeling, and then to even speak out loud for the possibly the first time ever, what you actually would like to do. If you were able to zoom out into the future and then, without judgment, without the past history of having lived with you, watched you, etc. Maybe from people that are close to you, you have somebody else that is able to hold that space of hope because they're coming from a place of their own brains, with their own limiting thoughts, and we're coming from a place of saying, actually, we're actually holding what you want also is possible as well.

Speaker 3: 1:44:38

Right, it's from a place, exactly, yeah, I think when they come to us, no one believes them, especially themselves. Yes, so we as clients, as coaches, at least I believe we want to be our clients greatest advocates, because sometimes our clients will need to hold on to our belief in them until they can stand on their own two feet.

Speaker 1: 1:45:04

I think you had shared that with me and I think that is actually so true. I know people have done that for me For sure. There is nothing quite like the power of somebody seeing something in you and hope for your future that you can't yet see in yourself, but also trusting that that person can help you get there. There's a difference between somebody believing something in you and you can't see in yourself but you don't see a path. There's no path there that you can see, and then it feels even more painful sometimes to be honest with you. But if somebody is holding space for you because number one, maybe they've gone through similar things for sure. Or, if anything, they know how the brain works against itself and they can see you doing it very, very clearly, even though you think you're just speaking the truth, there's something to be said for knowing that somebody understands how brains work and they're not going to let you, let your own brain hold you back from what you want.

Speaker 3: 1:46:06

Yeah, I think, all these things holding space, being an advocate, and lastly, I would just say we're not here to give advice, not here. I shouldn't speak for you, but as a coach, I think the best wisdom comes from you and my job is just to help. You see that.

Speaker 1: 1:46:27

Well, Ken has so many more questions to ask you, but I know this has been very long. Thank you so much for being on with sharing your time, sharing your stories, sharing your wisdom. I'd love to be able to have you back to do some of these other questions that I know that you could provide such insight for our audience as well. But in the meantime, though, if somebody wanted to get in touch with you, if somebody wanted to know more about you and what you do, where would you recommend would be the best place for them to find you and then to contact you?

Speaker 3: 1:47:05

I think it would be just put into your browser, don'thatethegiobcom.

Speaker 1: 1:47:11

That's right, that is your website.

Speaker 3: 1:47:12

I thought you were joking and I'm like wait no that's your website. Don't hate the job Ken Lee K-E-N-L-I don't hate the job. No, yeah, no, apostrophe. Kenlee at donhatethegiobcom and they'll be able to learn more about me and be able to contact me, but thank you for asking.

Speaker 1: 1:47:32

Okay, that sounds awesome. All right, ken. Well, thank you so much for being on. I appreciate you so much, not only as a coach colleague, but as just a human in general. Definitely been a blessing in my life. So thank you so much.

Speaker 3: 1:47:45

And vice versa. It's been great being here with you, kerry. Thank you, thank you.

Speaker 1: 1:48:09

Can I have a question for you? Are you more at ease? You just like starting off and then we just kind of talk like you do it.

Speaker 3: 1:48:17

Oh right, yeah that's how we're going to open this thing. I think we have opening statements and then one of us is going to have to decide and we can decide as we do it in real time who's going to go first right 10, 9.

Speaker 3: 1:48:31

And then we have some closing statements. In the opening statement we should probably discuss who's actually going to outline what we're talking about. And you might not even be in congruency about what we're talking about, and that doesn't matter, right? Like we both think it's top five issues that clients come to us with, right, and at least I think so. What I realized is like I wrote the five issues and then I wrote a solution like how I actually coach them. I realized we actually have another podcast for that, like our top favorite concepts. But if we bleed over into that, that's fine, right? That's what I mean. If we're not completely in congruence and we don't stick to the issues and you kind of say, well, the way I dealt with it, that's great too. And then we have a closing statement is kind of how I saw the podcast. How do you see the podcast?

Speaker 1: 1:49:26

Yes, I was thinking that we were talking about the life coaching concepts that, like changed our lives. Oh, that's what you thought we were talking about. I was just laughing. I was like, oh, wow, okay, but I mean, that's either way, that's great, and both of them have. Sorry, my bad.

Speaker 3: 1:49:46

No, no, not nobody's bad, because we just have to adjust in real time.

Speaker 1: 1:49:53

We could just talk, go into, based on what you've seen. Yeah what are the top. You know what are the top five things that people come to you with, and then I could just add a few things or whatever, and that way, that way you can just kind of keep your Okay, okay.

Speaker 3: 1:50:06

Yep. All right. Nice pivot Kerry.

Speaker 1: 1:50:13

All right, may you feel safe and may I feel safe Ready.