July 15, 2025 • 23 mins
Episode 93: Your Inner Advocate a new podcast name same host and content
Rebranding to 'Your Inner Advocate': Transforming the inner critic building the Inner Advocate
In this episode, Kimen Peterson announces the rebranding of his podcast from 'Conversations with Kmen' to 'Your Inner Advocate.' He shares the pivotal moments and personal battles that led to this transformation, including struggles with a loud and overwhelming inner critic during his youth. Kimen describes his journey of overcoming self-criticism through techniques like singing, inspired by Tony Robbins' work in neurolinguistics, and insights from Eckhart Tolle's book 'The Power of Now.' He introduces the concept of the 'inner advocate,' which involves challenging the negative inner voice intentionally to build a more positive mindset. The goal of the rebrand is to inspire listeners to develop and strengthen their own inner advocates, ultimately making a positive impact on their lives and the lives of others.
00:00 Introduction and Podcast Rebranding Announcement
01:06 The Importance of a Podcast Name
02:04 Understanding the Inner Critic
03:09 Personal Struggles with the Inner Critic
04:47 Discovering the Power of Singing
09:12 The Concept of the Inner Advocate
18:21 Rebranding to 'Your Inner Advocate'
23:05 Conclusion and Future Vision
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:03):
Hello everyone.
So Conversations with Kmen is going to gothrough a rebrand in the next few weeks,
and it's interesting because I'd beentalking to somebody about, about, about
this kind of thing, like about the name.
(00:26):
Of your podcast and like, what doesthat say and how does that work?
So there's a person in my life whohas a really amazing marketing company
who does a lot of really great things.
And the truth is, I'm not trying to marketto become, I'm not trying to do it for
money or, or tangible things like that.
I'm not, that's.
(00:47):
Never really had too much interestin, in putting my efforts towards
grain, gaining financial gain.
Um, not to say that I'm against that.
If it happens, that's fine.
It's, but it's not my prime motivator.
My prime motivator is making adifference and expanding my reach.
And this person was saying.
(01:09):
, because they see me in my manualtherapy practice and , they're
like, oh, , Kimen , because I seeyou, because I know you, because we
have these inspiring conversations.
I totally get conversations withKimen exactly what's going on.
It's really cool.
But he said, , if I took a look at,if I took a look at just the name
in a list of podcasts, it wouldn'treally give me a context or an
(01:33):
understanding of what you're up to.
And so we started talking about it andit's like we're thinking about like
reframe and this and that and the ideasaround like creating names of podcasts.
They need to be short and succinctand to the point and maybe
unique , and just, I was trippingover this, that and the next thing.
(01:59):
And then it's funny, I wasn't eventhinking about it when it happened.
And one of my athletes, who I havesome really inspiring conversations.
We talk about the inner critic a lot.
That negative inner voice, thatthought process,, it's protecting
you by keeping you small.
It's trying to prevent you from stickingyour nose out a little bit too far.
(02:22):
So you, you could probably, becauseat some point in your life, . You'd
gone outside of your comfort zone.
You've been hurt.
So now for now on that, or you'vebeen embarrassed or something.
And that inner critic would basicallysaid, I'm never letting that happen again.
And anytime you got.
(02:44):
Close to pushing past who your identity.
. That's why sometimes they call the innercritic the ego, or sense of i the identity
because it has this picture of who youare and it's in this little box, right?
And anytime you tryto escape from that box,
(03:04):
, it's gonna throw fear atyou and tell you can't.
And I know that.
I had an extreme experience withthis when I was younger, that my
inner critic was so loud and soconsistent and so overwhelming.
I.
And I didn't even have a cluethat my inner critic was not me.
(03:27):
I, it like the, that inner dialogueis an aspect of you, but it's not you.
It's not overreaching you.
But I believe that was me.
And I know there was a long time Iwas at this war with myself like.
And it was like, you suck.
You're a loser.
You're a loser.
You're never gonna makenobody loves you nothing.
You are never gonna amount to anything.
(03:49):
You are literally justdisplacing a certain amount of
air and one day you will die.
And then you'll no longerdisplace that much air.
And that was like literally,that was my value, my worth.
And so I was in thisincredible battle in my mind.
But what I didn't realize is I wasagreeing with the inner critic and
(04:10):
fighting for it, and it would get so loudas I'm building it up, that literally
I would speak it out loud at times.
And it was showing me like it was takingme down these paths where I was so.
Not worth anything that Ineeded to be completely isolated
(04:31):
from other human beings.
And like literally, I couldn't talkin front of people and I could barely
talk to people because it was so loud.
And then, it'sinteresting, in my twenties.
One day I was just so tired oflistening to this inner critic that
I started singing out loud and itwas like something like when the moon
(04:54):
hits your, I like a big pizza pie.
That's a more, and I, and it's, andI realized that when I was singing,
I couldn't hear this inner dialogue.
And I'm like, oh yeah.
So I became this person who wassang all the time, everywhere.
I went as loud as I could, and Ididn't care if I was embarrassed.
(05:15):
I just kept on singingbecause singing was freedom.
For me at that time, Tony Robbins, dida lot of stuff in neurolinguistics, and
neurolinguistics has this idea, theycall it a pattern break, if you're
going through this hardwired pattern ofnegativity and you can break that pattern.
For me, it was singing then.
(05:39):
I hadn't figured this out, part out yet.
Then you could probablyput something in there.
Something positive, something that wastaking you in the direction, but I, I
didn't really get there at that point.
So I, I think one of the first booksI read that really introduced this
idea of this inner critic as notthat inner dialogue is this ego
(06:02):
sense of identity as not being me.
I must have been lateteens, early twenties.
. Eckhart Toll, , the power of now,and I was reading , this passage
and he said, yeah, that innervoice, that negative inner voice.
(06:22):
And I'm like, my brain goes, what?
Inner voice?
And I look on the page and he says, yeah,the one that just said what inner voice?
I'm like, whoa.
But then when he started talkingabout it, I'd already had , this
understanding that inner negative.
Voice, the thing that created like, andbuilt up anxiety and worry and fear.
(06:44):
I, I already had this intuition, thisidea that this wasn't actually me.
I was starting to get to this pointand this book just broke it wide open.
So I'm not my inner dialogue andthen what I am, oh, what am I.
And through the years, differentcourses and things, I remember
(07:05):
one of the courses I did,
they said that inner dialoguethat you could just say to it,
thank you for sharing and go anddo what you needed to do anyway.
So I learned to do that, withsaying, , thank you for sharing.
But I'm gonna do it anyway.
And over time, I started to get alittle better at, , challenging it
(07:32):
and sometimes trying to putin more positive things.
But one of the things that reallystruck me was in this last year.
Coming back from a bit of a hipinjury from my 10 K race and then
slowly building, and I'm reallyfinding that training for running is
(07:55):
a lot of fuel for podcast episodes.
And I think it's because you're outthere doing something hard and maybe
your body's not ready, like whenI was injured, but I know what I
need to do and I need to hold back.
And just sitting back andobserving how the brain goes with
(08:17):
that and how it works with that
and enhancing patients and Yeah.
And the fear would come upthat, is this ever gonna go away?
And then we would go, . Okay.
So, three months ago I couldn'trun and I was in pain all the time.
(08:37):
And if I sat down, , anytimeI was seated, it hurt.
Yeah, now there's some discomfort duringa run, but it clears up by the next day.
So I learned to start building theevidence against the inner critic, that
negative dialogue, and I would buildit up and build it up and build it up.
(09:00):
And then sometimes I'd be running anda song would come on, and one of the
songs I put on my playlist is I'm notgiving up and I'm not giving up as a
powerful awakening to my inner advocate.
Now I know I haven't mentionedthe inner advocate yet.
I gotta get the context for that,but I'm not giving up is this
(09:21):
thought process that I have now.
That for many years, I, at times Iindulged and agreed with and really
pepped up the inner critic and repeatedwhat it said at myself to myself, almost
(09:43):
like self-deprecating and self-loathingand just being really cruel to me.
And this song tells me something that, itshows me how far I've come because over
the years of doing battle with that oftelling it, thank you for sharing about
(10:07):
overcoming it, about starting to becomemy own cheerleader, gathering evidence
against what it says and building it up.
I realized that.
When I give up, when I allow theinner critic to run my life, to
limit me, that is giving up for me.
(10:31):
And the truth is, I'm not giving up.
And why am I not giving up?
It's like anything.
When I started this, my self-help, , myrecreation, my burst out into life,
my, my why, have you ever heard that?
If you have a powerful enoughwhy it can overcome any how?
(10:53):
My why for building this positive innervoice is to learn it to the nth degree
so I can share it and teach it to others.
(11:14):
Because if all the struggleswe go through in life,
if we don't learn from them and use whatwe've learned to help another person,
where's the value in going through that?
And that's my why.
I wanna learn this so well and finda way to communicate this with people
(11:39):
I don't even know on this planet.
And help them build their inner advocate.
Hmm.
That's inspiring.
That's something that'llget me outta bed every day.
That's something that'll keep me likegiggling through a Sunday after my
long run as I'm sitting here, likeendlessly recording episodes that I don't
(12:00):
know how many people will ever hear.
'cause the truth is I just wantto help one person, one person
every day, and the rest is gravy.
So getting back to the contextand this inner positive voice.
(12:20):
So a few weeks before this, uh,one of my athletes came and, and
introduced me to this concept.
I'd been working on a couple episodes,things, things were coming up really
interesting, like, um, so I'm, I wasdoing hard, really hard intervals,
and I was on the last interval, lastreally hard 800, last 400 meters.
(12:40):
And, and my inner criticsgoing, it's too hard.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
And this, this is what inspired.
The brain will try to giveup long before the body does.
Now, I know some elite athletesthat their bodies will, they've
trained to pass the brain so muchthat their body sometimes blows up
(13:03):
before the brain does, which is wow.
Like I am so inspired by the I, Iactually would love to get to the
point where that was possible for me.
I'd just rather notfall when that happens.
And so I, I was considering thisthought that the brain will try to
give up long before the body does.
So as I'm doing this, as I'mpushing, I've got 400 meters to go.
(13:27):
Uh, it just for context, 400meters is once around an official
track all the way around.
Um, 400 meters is alsoone quarter of a mile.
I think four to 1600 metersis a mile, I believe.
So I'm, I'm thinking about the brainwill give up long before the body does.
(13:54):
So I decide to take this literally,and I check in with my legs
'cause they're pumping hard.
I'm like, I'm you guys tired?
Can you guys keep on going and likethe legs were Yeah, yeah, we're fine.
We're fine.
Okay.
Awesome.
I'm checking in with my hips.
Are, are you hurting?
Are you tight?
It's like, can you keep on moving?
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, fine, fine.
(14:15):
I can go.
I can go.
And my breath, are youcompletely outta breath?
Are you gonna pass out?
Is it okay?
And like, yeah, no, we're doing fine.
And I'm like, can we go faster?
And everybody goes, yep.
And then we go faster.
And then later on in this build, I, Iremember there's this one spot, like
(14:36):
typically I'll do an out and backon this path called the Greenway.
And when I get to 33rd Avenue.
It's, it's a pedestrian flashy light andit's, uh, up and downhill and people just
race their cars up and down this thing.
So I do not wanna getflattened by a car ever.
So I really slowed down as Icome up to it to check both
(14:58):
ways, hit the light, and then.
It's, it's slightly uphill, andthen there's uphill right after it.
And the consistent thing that happensin here is like when I'm trying
to, like, I slow right down, I losemomentum, and then I start speeding up.
And as I'm getting acrossthis intersection, my inner
critic goes, it's too hard.
I can't do it.
You can't do it.
(15:18):
I'm, it's too hard.
And I've been working so hard and like.
Being positive.
And this one morning, so I'm comingacross this and I'm waiting for
the inner critic to like pipe up.
'cause it always does.
And suddenly I hear this positive voice.
Keep going, you got this.
I'm like, what the, what was that?
(15:39):
Like, holy crap, crap.
I have never ever heard apositive voice in my head.
It's the first time.
So anyway, um.
Not too long after that, one of myathletes came back and she's in, uh,
she's a DD one beach volleyball player,uh, at a state, uh, school in the
(16:00):
States, and they have a lot of moneyfor like, support and, and stuff.
So she's working with a,um, uh, a performance coach,
uh, sports psychologist.
And he was talking to her aboutlike the inner critic one day, and
she's like, yeah, yeah, I know.
I, I know all about the inner critic.
(16:21):
And he is like, have you heardabout the inner advocate?
And she goes, whoa, whoa.
What's that?
And she's like, she said, the first thingI thought is, Kim's gotta hear about this.
'cause like, just lovethat inner advocate.
Is that possible?
Is this a thing?
So she comes in and shegoes, the inner advocate.
I'm like, what?
What is that?
Oh my God.
(16:42):
Tell me more.
Tell me more.
And it's like the inner advocate.
You know how the innercritic is automatic?
It just, it just blurtsout negative stuff.
It's, it is time to protect you, butit's like it's blurting out and you
don't have real control over the inneradvocate, or, sorry, the inner critic.
You have no control over that.
The inner advocate is simply when youinternally challenge the inner critic,
(17:09):
and that's it.
It's simple as that.
It's a deliberate thing that you do.
It's intentional.
The inner critic comes on.
You come on with the inner advocate.
And the crazy thing is like once youstart working on it and working on
it and building it and building it,
(17:32):
you're building your inner advocate.
And just imagine it when not, I'mnot gonna say if, when you get to
the point where, rather than hearinga negative voice in your head.
A positive voice blurts outsomething that you want to hear,
(17:54):
like you can imagine.
When I first heard the word, the wordsinner advocate put together, it was like
suddenly there was a name to this thing.
The hair stood up on the back of my head.
Have you ever noticed when youhear a real truth, something that's
like so poignant and truthful?
(18:14):
That there's a, a bodywide reaction to it.
That was it.
So I've decided that what I want torebrand the podcast to is gonna be
simply called Your Inner Advocate, apodcast by Kimen Peterson, formally
(18:35):
conversations with Kim, and, and theidea is a multitude, multiple things.
I would love to inspire people to buildtheir own inner advocate, to understand
that they, they can, to challenge theinner critic in those moments when their
inner critic is trying to hold them back.
(18:57):
I mean, I've even had experience ofthis, like there's this team I work
with and they were away at a race andone of the athletes was, had a problem
probably with their leg or theirknee, and they were really worried.
And one of the other athletes came along,said, oh, oh, your knee's bothering you.
Yeah.
She's like, is it moving?
'cause like I always say, listen, ifif pain is moving, I, I'm not worried.
(19:22):
It was when it's staying inthe same place, I'm concerned,
but moving pain is okay.
And, and the girl was, yeah, yeah, it'sbeen moving from here to here to here.
And they're like, whatdoes Kmen say about that?
She said, oh yeah.
And that just took the anxiety down.
So your inner advocate is not onlylike teaching you how I've learned
to be an inner advocate and how,how you can create your own inner
(19:47):
advocate and live your life with that.
It's also maybe some of the thingsI say, maybe they'll pop into
your head in the right moment.
Like one of my other athletes, Iwas working with them and they're
just this incredible human being.
They were, they decided that the, um,they were, they were a middle distance
(20:11):
runner, like 1500, and they realized thatwhat their big dream was to represent
Canada on a team, but they know, knewthat the, the depth of the women in
the 1500 was so deep that it would bereally difficult for them to make it.
So they, they looked into their life andthey found, uh, a multisport event that
they had a few of the things that wouldreally help and they just went out and
(20:37):
like found coaches and likededicated their whole life
to creating this direction.
They go in and I remember theywere working with the best fencing
coach in Canada probably, and.
Everybody that this person came in contactwith was so inspired and was enrolled
in the possibility of who they are.
(20:59):
And they were what they were up tothat everybody wanted to be a part
of it and wanted to want, wantedto like do something to like, yeah.
To move it forward.
And so this amazing coach came toher and said, listen, okay, so for
now on when I have a cancellation ofa one-on-one session, 'cause she was
doing group, group lessons and fencing.
(21:21):
When I have a cancellation, I'mgonna offer it to you pro bono.
And she was telling me about thisone, one moment where she just had
a horrible, horrible group session.
She's getting her buttkicked by these young guys.
And it's like she's shaking her headabout this and she's frustrated and
she's gonna go and the coach comesover and goes, Hey listen, I've
(21:43):
got a space for a private lesson.
Come on, let's go.
And.
In her head, all she wanted to dowas just say no and quit and go home.
And then she thought toherself, what would Kmen say?
And she said yes, and she tookthe lesson and it really helped.
(22:05):
So if I could be that for a few peopleon this planet and maybe teach it
well enough that some of you takeit on and go, well, you know, that's
pretty good Kmen, but like, have youthought about this or this or this?
Let's take it to this next level.
Like, I've got a, I can takethe, I can use what you started
and create something bigger.
(22:27):
And I'm like, whoa,that would be inspiring.
It's like one of, uh, one of the athletesI work with, she's also a scientist
and she always says that in sciencewe're working on all these little cues
and these little questions, right?
And we're working, working, workingon these little questions, working
to hopefully lay the foundation forsomebody to answer the Big Q. And
(22:51):
it may not be us that get to everanswer the Big Q, but at least.
And even, even our littlecube might be wrong, but that
might inspire the right thing.
And that's science.
So for me, this has become my whyNow, not only do I wanna really
develop my inner advocate and learn,learn through the process, and then
(23:18):
by trial and error, I wanna teach theprocess of building an inner advocate.
So in the next few weeks we'll berebranding Conversations to Kimen to your
Inner Advocate podcast by Kimen Petersen,
. I hope you keep listening.
Hello everyone.
So Conversations with Kmen is going to gothrough a rebrand in the next few weeks,
and it's interesting because I'd beentalking to somebody about, about, about
this kind of thing, like about the name.
(00:26):
Of your podcast and like, what doesthat say and how does that work?
So there's a person in my life whohas a really amazing marketing company
who does a lot of really great things.
And the truth is, I'm not trying to marketto become, I'm not trying to do it for
money or, or tangible things like that.
I'm not, that's.
(00:47):
Never really had too much interestin, in putting my efforts towards
grain, gaining financial gain.
Um, not to say that I'm against that.
If it happens, that's fine.
It's, but it's not my prime motivator.
My prime motivator is making adifference and expanding my reach.
And this person was saying.
(01:09):
, because they see me in my manualtherapy practice and , they're
like, oh, , Kimen , because I seeyou, because I know you, because we
have these inspiring conversations.
I totally get conversations withKimen exactly what's going on.
It's really cool.
But he said, , if I took a look at,if I took a look at just the name
in a list of podcasts, it wouldn'treally give me a context or an
(01:33):
understanding of what you're up to.
And so we started talking about it andit's like we're thinking about like
reframe and this and that and the ideasaround like creating names of podcasts.
They need to be short and succinctand to the point and maybe
unique , and just, I was trippingover this, that and the next thing.
(01:59):
And then it's funny, I wasn't eventhinking about it when it happened.
And one of my athletes, who I havesome really inspiring conversations.
We talk about the inner critic a lot.
That negative inner voice, thatthought process,, it's protecting
you by keeping you small.
It's trying to prevent you from stickingyour nose out a little bit too far.
(02:22):
So you, you could probably, becauseat some point in your life, . You'd
gone outside of your comfort zone.
You've been hurt.
So now for now on that, or you'vebeen embarrassed or something.
And that inner critic would basicallysaid, I'm never letting that happen again.
And anytime you got.
(02:44):
Close to pushing past who your identity.
. That's why sometimes they call the innercritic the ego, or sense of i the identity
because it has this picture of who youare and it's in this little box, right?
And anytime you tryto escape from that box,
(03:04):
, it's gonna throw fear atyou and tell you can't.
And I know that.
I had an extreme experience withthis when I was younger, that my
inner critic was so loud and soconsistent and so overwhelming.
I.
And I didn't even have a cluethat my inner critic was not me.
(03:27):
I, it like the, that inner dialogueis an aspect of you, but it's not you.
It's not overreaching you.
But I believe that was me.
And I know there was a long time Iwas at this war with myself like.
And it was like, you suck.
You're a loser.
You're a loser.
You're never gonna makenobody loves you nothing.
You are never gonna amount to anything.
(03:49):
You are literally justdisplacing a certain amount of
air and one day you will die.
And then you'll no longerdisplace that much air.
And that was like literally,that was my value, my worth.
And so I was in thisincredible battle in my mind.
But what I didn't realize is I wasagreeing with the inner critic and
(04:10):
fighting for it, and it would get so loudas I'm building it up, that literally
I would speak it out loud at times.
And it was showing me like it was takingme down these paths where I was so.
Not worth anything that Ineeded to be completely isolated
(04:31):
from other human beings.
And like literally, I couldn't talkin front of people and I could barely
talk to people because it was so loud.
And then, it'sinteresting, in my twenties.
One day I was just so tired oflistening to this inner critic that
I started singing out loud and itwas like something like when the moon
(04:54):
hits your, I like a big pizza pie.
That's a more, and I, and it's, andI realized that when I was singing,
I couldn't hear this inner dialogue.
And I'm like, oh yeah.
So I became this person who wassang all the time, everywhere.
I went as loud as I could, and Ididn't care if I was embarrassed.
(05:15):
I just kept on singingbecause singing was freedom.
For me at that time, Tony Robbins, dida lot of stuff in neurolinguistics, and
neurolinguistics has this idea, theycall it a pattern break, if you're
going through this hardwired pattern ofnegativity and you can break that pattern.
For me, it was singing then.
(05:39):
I hadn't figured this out, part out yet.
Then you could probablyput something in there.
Something positive, something that wastaking you in the direction, but I, I
didn't really get there at that point.
So I, I think one of the first booksI read that really introduced this
idea of this inner critic as notthat inner dialogue is this ego
(06:02):
sense of identity as not being me.
I must have been lateteens, early twenties.
. Eckhart Toll, , the power of now,and I was reading , this passage
and he said, yeah, that innervoice, that negative inner voice.
(06:22):
And I'm like, my brain goes, what?
Inner voice?
And I look on the page and he says, yeah,the one that just said what inner voice?
I'm like, whoa.
But then when he started talkingabout it, I'd already had , this
understanding that inner negative.
Voice, the thing that created like, andbuilt up anxiety and worry and fear.
(06:44):
I, I already had this intuition, thisidea that this wasn't actually me.
I was starting to get to this pointand this book just broke it wide open.
So I'm not my inner dialogue andthen what I am, oh, what am I.
And through the years, differentcourses and things, I remember
(07:05):
one of the courses I did,
they said that inner dialoguethat you could just say to it,
thank you for sharing and go anddo what you needed to do anyway.
So I learned to do that, withsaying, , thank you for sharing.
But I'm gonna do it anyway.
And over time, I started to get alittle better at, , challenging it
(07:32):
and sometimes trying to putin more positive things.
But one of the things that reallystruck me was in this last year.
Coming back from a bit of a hipinjury from my 10 K race and then
slowly building, and I'm reallyfinding that training for running is
(07:55):
a lot of fuel for podcast episodes.
And I think it's because you're outthere doing something hard and maybe
your body's not ready, like whenI was injured, but I know what I
need to do and I need to hold back.
And just sitting back andobserving how the brain goes with
(08:17):
that and how it works with that
and enhancing patients and Yeah.
And the fear would come upthat, is this ever gonna go away?
And then we would go, . Okay.
So, three months ago I couldn'trun and I was in pain all the time.
(08:37):
And if I sat down, , anytimeI was seated, it hurt.
Yeah, now there's some discomfort duringa run, but it clears up by the next day.
So I learned to start building theevidence against the inner critic, that
negative dialogue, and I would buildit up and build it up and build it up.
(09:00):
And then sometimes I'd be running anda song would come on, and one of the
songs I put on my playlist is I'm notgiving up and I'm not giving up as a
powerful awakening to my inner advocate.
Now I know I haven't mentionedthe inner advocate yet.
I gotta get the context for that,but I'm not giving up is this
(09:21):
thought process that I have now.
That for many years, I, at times Iindulged and agreed with and really
pepped up the inner critic and repeatedwhat it said at myself to myself, almost
(09:43):
like self-deprecating and self-loathingand just being really cruel to me.
And this song tells me something that, itshows me how far I've come because over
the years of doing battle with that oftelling it, thank you for sharing about
(10:07):
overcoming it, about starting to becomemy own cheerleader, gathering evidence
against what it says and building it up.
I realized that.
When I give up, when I allow theinner critic to run my life, to
limit me, that is giving up for me.
(10:31):
And the truth is, I'm not giving up.
And why am I not giving up?
It's like anything.
When I started this, my self-help, , myrecreation, my burst out into life,
my, my why, have you ever heard that?
If you have a powerful enoughwhy it can overcome any how?
(10:53):
My why for building this positive innervoice is to learn it to the nth degree
so I can share it and teach it to others.
(11:14):
Because if all the struggleswe go through in life,
if we don't learn from them and use whatwe've learned to help another person,
where's the value in going through that?
And that's my why.
I wanna learn this so well and finda way to communicate this with people
(11:39):
I don't even know on this planet.
And help them build their inner advocate.
Hmm.
That's inspiring.
That's something that'llget me outta bed every day.
That's something that'll keep me likegiggling through a Sunday after my
long run as I'm sitting here, likeendlessly recording episodes that I don't
(12:00):
know how many people will ever hear.
'cause the truth is I just wantto help one person, one person
every day, and the rest is gravy.
So getting back to the contextand this inner positive voice.
(12:20):
So a few weeks before this, uh,one of my athletes came and, and
introduced me to this concept.
I'd been working on a couple episodes,things, things were coming up really
interesting, like, um, so I'm, I wasdoing hard, really hard intervals,
and I was on the last interval, lastreally hard 800, last 400 meters.
(12:40):
And, and my inner criticsgoing, it's too hard.
I can't do it.
I can't do it.
And this, this is what inspired.
The brain will try to giveup long before the body does.
Now, I know some elite athletesthat their bodies will, they've
trained to pass the brain so muchthat their body sometimes blows up
(13:03):
before the brain does, which is wow.
Like I am so inspired by the I, Iactually would love to get to the
point where that was possible for me.
I'd just rather notfall when that happens.
And so I, I was considering thisthought that the brain will try to
give up long before the body does.
So as I'm doing this, as I'mpushing, I've got 400 meters to go.
(13:27):
Uh, it just for context, 400meters is once around an official
track all the way around.
Um, 400 meters is alsoone quarter of a mile.
I think four to 1600 metersis a mile, I believe.
So I'm, I'm thinking about the brainwill give up long before the body does.
(13:54):
So I decide to take this literally,and I check in with my legs
'cause they're pumping hard.
I'm like, I'm you guys tired?
Can you guys keep on going and likethe legs were Yeah, yeah, we're fine.
We're fine.
Okay.
Awesome.
I'm checking in with my hips.
Are, are you hurting?
Are you tight?
It's like, can you keep on moving?
And I'm like, yeah, yeah, fine, fine.
(14:15):
I can go.
I can go.
And my breath, are youcompletely outta breath?
Are you gonna pass out?
Is it okay?
And like, yeah, no, we're doing fine.
And I'm like, can we go faster?
And everybody goes, yep.
And then we go faster.
And then later on in this build, I, Iremember there's this one spot, like
(14:36):
typically I'll do an out and backon this path called the Greenway.
And when I get to 33rd Avenue.
It's, it's a pedestrian flashy light andit's, uh, up and downhill and people just
race their cars up and down this thing.
So I do not wanna getflattened by a car ever.
So I really slowed down as Icome up to it to check both
(14:58):
ways, hit the light, and then.
It's, it's slightly uphill, andthen there's uphill right after it.
And the consistent thing that happensin here is like when I'm trying
to, like, I slow right down, I losemomentum, and then I start speeding up.
And as I'm getting acrossthis intersection, my inner
critic goes, it's too hard.
I can't do it.
You can't do it.
(15:18):
I'm, it's too hard.
And I've been working so hard and like.
Being positive.
And this one morning, so I'm comingacross this and I'm waiting for
the inner critic to like pipe up.
'cause it always does.
And suddenly I hear this positive voice.
Keep going, you got this.
I'm like, what the, what was that?
(15:39):
Like, holy crap, crap.
I have never ever heard apositive voice in my head.
It's the first time.
So anyway, um.
Not too long after that, one of myathletes came back and she's in, uh,
she's a DD one beach volleyball player,uh, at a state, uh, school in the
(16:00):
States, and they have a lot of moneyfor like, support and, and stuff.
So she's working with a,um, uh, a performance coach,
uh, sports psychologist.
And he was talking to her aboutlike the inner critic one day, and
she's like, yeah, yeah, I know.
I, I know all about the inner critic.
(16:21):
And he is like, have you heardabout the inner advocate?
And she goes, whoa, whoa.
What's that?
And she's like, she said, the first thingI thought is, Kim's gotta hear about this.
'cause like, just lovethat inner advocate.
Is that possible?
Is this a thing?
So she comes in and shegoes, the inner advocate.
I'm like, what?
What is that?
Oh my God.
(16:42):
Tell me more.
Tell me more.
And it's like the inner advocate.
You know how the innercritic is automatic?
It just, it just blurtsout negative stuff.
It's, it is time to protect you, butit's like it's blurting out and you
don't have real control over the inneradvocate, or, sorry, the inner critic.
You have no control over that.
The inner advocate is simply when youinternally challenge the inner critic,
(17:09):
and that's it.
It's simple as that.
It's a deliberate thing that you do.
It's intentional.
The inner critic comes on.
You come on with the inner advocate.
And the crazy thing is like once youstart working on it and working on
it and building it and building it,
(17:32):
you're building your inner advocate.
And just imagine it when not, I'mnot gonna say if, when you get to
the point where, rather than hearinga negative voice in your head.
A positive voice blurts outsomething that you want to hear,
(17:54):
like you can imagine.
When I first heard the word, the wordsinner advocate put together, it was like
suddenly there was a name to this thing.
The hair stood up on the back of my head.
Have you ever noticed when youhear a real truth, something that's
like so poignant and truthful?
(18:14):
That there's a, a bodywide reaction to it.
That was it.
So I've decided that what I want torebrand the podcast to is gonna be
simply called Your Inner Advocate, apodcast by Kimen Peterson, formally
(18:35):
conversations with Kim, and, and theidea is a multitude, multiple things.
I would love to inspire people to buildtheir own inner advocate, to understand
that they, they can, to challenge theinner critic in those moments when their
inner critic is trying to hold them back.
(18:57):
I mean, I've even had experience ofthis, like there's this team I work
with and they were away at a race andone of the athletes was, had a problem
probably with their leg or theirknee, and they were really worried.
And one of the other athletes came along,said, oh, oh, your knee's bothering you.
Yeah.
She's like, is it moving?
'cause like I always say, listen, ifif pain is moving, I, I'm not worried.
(19:22):
It was when it's staying inthe same place, I'm concerned,
but moving pain is okay.
And, and the girl was, yeah, yeah, it'sbeen moving from here to here to here.
And they're like, whatdoes Kmen say about that?
She said, oh yeah.
And that just took the anxiety down.
So your inner advocate is not onlylike teaching you how I've learned
to be an inner advocate and how,how you can create your own inner
(19:47):
advocate and live your life with that.
It's also maybe some of the thingsI say, maybe they'll pop into
your head in the right moment.
Like one of my other athletes, Iwas working with them and they're
just this incredible human being.
They were, they decided that the, um,they were, they were a middle distance
(20:11):
runner, like 1500, and they realized thatwhat their big dream was to represent
Canada on a team, but they know, knewthat the, the depth of the women in
the 1500 was so deep that it would bereally difficult for them to make it.
So they, they looked into their life andthey found, uh, a multisport event that
they had a few of the things that wouldreally help and they just went out and
(20:37):
like found coaches and likededicated their whole life
to creating this direction.
They go in and I remember theywere working with the best fencing
coach in Canada probably, and.
Everybody that this person came in contactwith was so inspired and was enrolled
in the possibility of who they are.
(20:59):
And they were what they were up tothat everybody wanted to be a part
of it and wanted to want, wantedto like do something to like, yeah.
To move it forward.
And so this amazing coach came toher and said, listen, okay, so for
now on when I have a cancellation ofa one-on-one session, 'cause she was
doing group, group lessons and fencing.
(21:21):
When I have a cancellation, I'mgonna offer it to you pro bono.
And she was telling me about thisone, one moment where she just had
a horrible, horrible group session.
She's getting her buttkicked by these young guys.
And it's like she's shaking her headabout this and she's frustrated and
she's gonna go and the coach comesover and goes, Hey listen, I've
(21:43):
got a space for a private lesson.
Come on, let's go.
And.
In her head, all she wanted to dowas just say no and quit and go home.
And then she thought toherself, what would Kmen say?
And she said yes, and she tookthe lesson and it really helped.
(22:05):
So if I could be that for a few peopleon this planet and maybe teach it
well enough that some of you takeit on and go, well, you know, that's
pretty good Kmen, but like, have youthought about this or this or this?
Let's take it to this next level.
Like, I've got a, I can takethe, I can use what you started
and create something bigger.
(22:27):
And I'm like, whoa,that would be inspiring.
It's like one of, uh, one of the athletesI work with, she's also a scientist
and she always says that in sciencewe're working on all these little cues
and these little questions, right?
And we're working, working, workingon these little questions, working
to hopefully lay the foundation forsomebody to answer the Big Q. And
(22:51):
it may not be us that get to everanswer the Big Q, but at least.
And even, even our littlecube might be wrong, but that
might inspire the right thing.
And that's science.
So for me, this has become my whyNow, not only do I wanna really
develop my inner advocate and learn,learn through the process, and then
(23:18):
by trial and error, I wanna teach theprocess of building an inner advocate.
So in the next few weeks we'll berebranding Conversations to Kimen to your
Inner Advocate podcast by Kimen Petersen,
. I hope you keep listening.
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