Bonus Episode: My Interview on how to stop overwhelm for good

This week's episode is an in-depth look at overwhelm in the workplace. Tune in to hear Erin interviewed by coach Natalie Fisher on her podcast, How to Land a Six-Figure Job and Thrive.

Learn the critical difference between genuine work challenges and mindset-driven feelings of inadequacy, and discover how mental noise and anxiety can warp your perception of competency. This episode provides practical examples and strategies to help you move out of overwhelm and excel with confidence.

We're eager to hear from. you.  Reach out with your queries or topics at: [e-mail].

Free Coaching Guide:
erinmfoley.com/freeguide

Find information on working with Erin at:
ErinMFoley.com

Other related links:
Podcast website with transcripts
ErinMFoley.buzzsprout.com
Information on working with Natalie Fisher at:
nataliefisher.ca

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, I hope you're having a great week so
far.
I am dropping in to share withyou an interview episode.
I was interviewed by coach andpodcaster Natalie Fisher.
We had an in-depth conversationover on her podcast, which is
called how to Get a Six-FigureJob you Love and Thrive.
We dove in to explore overwhelmat work.

(00:22):
We looked at the root causes,the most effective strategies to
get you out of it.
We shared experiences from ourown lives, from our clients'
lives.
It is a great juicy episode.
I encourage you to listen tocheck out Natalie.
As always, I'll be back withmore great info for you.
I hope you enjoy.

(00:42):
I'll be back with more greatinfo for you.
I hope you enjoy.

Speaker 2 (00:49):
Hello, hello everyone .
I'm super excited to be heretoday with Erin Foley, who is a
coach and a speaker, and I wasinspired to bring her onto the
podcast today because she'sgoing to be sharing about a
topic that a lot of peoplestruggle with overwhelm.
I'm sure all of us can relateto this topic, and I'm really
excited to ask her a fewquestions about how she helps
her clients deal with it and howshe deals with it, and to help

(01:12):
me deal with it too.
Erin, why don't you tell us alittle bit about yourself and
then I'll get into our juicyquestions?

Speaker 1 (01:19):
for today, For sure, Hi, thank you so much for having
me on.
I'm Erin Foley.
I have a PhD in organizationalcommunication.
I was a professor for a lot ofyears and I transitioned into
coaching.
So for the past nine or soyears I've been coaching mostly
people in a new job.

(01:39):
Sometimes they've been promoted, sometimes they've like
switched roles entirely.
But I also do get clients whohave been in their job for a
couple of years but areexperiencing a lot of the same
struggles, which is, you know,struggling with imposter mindset
, feeling overwhelmed,questioning their competence,
self-doubt, perfectionism all ofthat.

(02:01):
It tends to rear its headreally, really intensely when
people are new, which is why alot of my work focuses on that.
But some people carry itthroughout their whole career
and are in it even years intotheir job.
So that is my work.

Speaker 2 (02:17):
Absolutely.
That's exactly what a lot ofpeople that I coach they get
their job.
They're basically exactly whatyou said word for word.
It's like struggling with thosethings.
I just had one questionorganizational communication.
What is that?
I'm like I haven't heard ofthat degree before.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
Yeah, so it's within the communication department.
I mean, I specifically wasfocusing on a lot of gender
issues, a lot of communicationin the workplace, work processes
, what's effective, a lot ofqualitative studying.
Honestly, it was great atpreparing me to be able to like
read studies, understand science, what works, positive

(03:00):
psychology, all of that.
But I was just so bored withall the academic.
I wanted to like have my handson people and have my hands on
making like tangible ways inwhich these things would shift.
So my organizationalcommunication, my coach training
and I kind of brought themtogether and now use that to
help me coach.
I feel kind of removed fromthat PhD because it's been so

(03:21):
long, but yeah, it definitelyset me up to understand
organizational life andorganizational communication in
a really clear way.

Speaker 2 (03:29):
Cool, yeah, that caught my attention.
I was like, yeah, all right,let's dig in.
So tell me about the mainproblems that you see people
like struggling with as soon asthey get into a new job.
What might the main problems be?

Speaker 1 (03:45):
Yeah, so I see people who.
Well, first of all, I want tobe clear that sometimes the way
the problem presents itself isdifferent from what the problem
is.
So a lot of times my clientsthink they're having a problem
with their competency, theirability to prioritize.

(04:08):
Sometimes they think, oh, Ijust don't have the capacity for
this new role, and so oftenthey will find me while they're
sort of Googling all of thosethings or they're just feeling
this like huge sense ofoverwhelm.
And what I talk about in mywork is what's happening from a
mindset perspective.

(04:28):
So there's the actual work thatyou need to be doing and
learning and adjusting to, andthen there's the mindset
overwhelm that can directlyimpact our relationship to this
new work.
So a lot of my clients have aton of what I call mental noise
and they've started this new job.

(04:49):
Their brain is yelling at themall day and all night and it's
telling them that they made it.
First of all, it's usuallytelling them that they made a
mistake and they should neverleft their previous job.
You know, lots of times theykind of felt like they had a
mastery over the job they werein and so they've started this
new thing and now, all of asudden they're like I've made a

(05:10):
terrible mistake, I'm going tofail, I'm not going to learn all
of this, I'm not going to beable to perform well, and it
just translates into tons andtons of anxiety.
And so what I really look at ishelping people move through.
First, I have to kind of showpeople that the mindset
overwhelm is actually impactingtheir anxiety the most.

(05:31):
That it's oftentimes not eventhe amount of work or the work
itself.
It's what your brain is makingyour relationship to that work
mean.
And so it's.
It's tricky, but it's likethey're so close to it that
usually, as soon as I start totalk about it, they're like oh
my God, that's me, that's whatmy brain's doing.

(05:51):
It's on overdrive all the time.

Speaker 2 (05:52):
Do you have like an example that you could point to,
maybe from a client orsomething like that, to kind of
solidify what you're, what youmean?

Speaker 1 (06:00):
Yeah, like they'll come.
Most of my clients will come inand just say I don't think I'm
learning fast enough, I don'tthink I am going to be able to
perform.
I can't stop thinking about it.
I will ask them what feedbackthey've gotten so far.
Oftentimes they'll say theysaid I'm doing fine, but I can

(06:26):
see that I'm really.
I don't know enough to do thisand I don't think I'm going to
be able to succeed.
I'm thinking about it all thetime.
I'm thinking about it afterwork.
I'm not sleeping as well as Iwas before and I just like feel
like I'm in this constant fightor flight.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, and then that's where the anxiety comes from.

Speaker 1 (06:47):
Yes, 100%.
And so they often think it'scoming from a true lack of
competency or experience, whenit's actually coming from the
mental noise itself.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
Yeah, and, as I would say, the thoughts.
So those sentences like I don'tknow enough, I'm not going to
be able to do this, and thoseare just sentences that are not
reality.
It's just, especially becauseyou said, the feedback they got
is not even nobody else issaying that to them.

Speaker 1 (07:14):
They're thinking and so there is sort of a disconnect
from that.
And, yeah, it's interesting.
It's like I like to think aboutit as like, like you said,
sentences, like it's all ofthese opinions that your brain

(07:35):
has in that moment that are very, very, very strong.
And sometimes they're so strongthat my clients will be like I
can see why someone else mighthave imposter mindset, but I
actually am right about thisdiscrepancy, so the brain will
fight really, really hard for it.

Speaker 2 (07:54):
For sure, and I think what you're talking about is
the difference between a factand something someone said, like
their boss said, oh, you're notperforming versus just their
opinion I can't perform, I'm notgoing to be able to perform,
like and those those things.

Speaker 1 (08:11):
People think that they're basically stating facts,
when they're saying that yes,and our perception gets very,
very, very skewed when we are insomething new or in this
anxiety state like our abilityto be neutral or to be able to
see it objectively decreasessubstantially.
And so all of a sudden you'reseeing all these things and it's
like I describe it as afunhouse mirror.

(08:31):
It's like you can't quite seeanything clearly.
Your ability to assess yourself, expectations, if you're really
a good fit for the job, it allsort of decreases pretty quickly
for the job.
It all sort of decreases prettyquickly and you're walking
around in sometimes a little bitof delusion.
Sometimes there are actualthings that knowledge gaps that

(08:53):
I can talk about, that might bemissing.
But there's also this sense ofbeing really just connected from
your competencies and yourcapabilities in a way that
creates like you've put on apair of glasses where you're
seeing everything around you alittle bit off.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
Yeah, for sure, which leads me into like the segue of
like why, why do you thinkpeople are disconnected from
what's really going on?
Why do you think this is whathappens when we enter a new
situation?

Speaker 1 (09:24):
Yeah, this is a good question and a lot of people
will ask me this and a lot ofpeople are kind of fixated on
like why do I have this?
Like why am I always in thissort of mindset where I'm
questioning my competency andcapabilities despite the fact
that I might be performing well?
And there can be, for sure,there can be patterns in our
past that sort of lay thegroundwork for it.

(09:46):
So there are certain types offamily structures or pressures,
sometimes trauma, that cancreate a way of relating to
yourself and your knowledge andyour competency and failure.
And I do talk about that in mycoaching and make some of those
connections.
Sometimes it's nothing intense,like sometimes people just

(10:07):
became like a high performer orgot really good at something and
sort of wrapped their identityinto that and then became so
connected to that that it becamereally hard to not feel
competent because they felt sosecure in that competency, which
is kind of what my story wasOnce I found this sort of route

(10:30):
for my academics and it kind ofall clicked and I was like, oh,
I'm really good at this and Igot a lot of positive feedback
for it.
It's like my identity got reallywrapped in that, and then that
imposter mindset and thatperfectionism and those
expectations all started toreally shift, and I would say
that's when my relationship toperformance and achievement and

(10:52):
failure changed.
So what I kind of boil it downto there's lots of sort of
reasons why it exists from likea rational perspective, which is
you're disconnecting from yourskills, and what really happens

(11:12):
when people enter something newis they often can't see the
difference between their corecompetencies and all the new
information that they're havingto take in and learn from the
company and the role, and sothey lose total, they get
totally disconnected from theircore competencies and they're

(11:33):
like spinning in this new spacewhere they're learning all these
new things and they're suddenlyfeeling like I don't actually
know anything, and so they can'tsee that there's like
reasonable gaps in theirknowledge that are normal and
expected, and so they start tomesh the two together and then
they start to panic.

Speaker 2 (11:52):
Yeah, there's some really important things you
mentioned there about thestudent mentality versus real
life mentality, where real lifedoesn't work like school.

Speaker 1 (12:00):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
You can't get A pluses on everything all the
time.
And you're not supposed to andyou have to try and learn and
that's all normal and you know,any company who doesn't accept
that isn't a good place to beanyway.
Yeah, um, but yeah, and youkind of reminded me of like,
when I made a jump fromindividual contributor to
manager and I was, I had allthose same feelings.
I was like, well, I don't knowhow, like how to manage people.

(12:22):
I don't know.
I don't know how, like how tomanage people.
I don't know this, I don't knowthat.
And then I went immediately tojust reading a bunch of books.
I'm like the first book calledfirst time manager and then a
lot of it kind of explained whatyou had said in the first
chapter.

Speaker 1 (12:35):
So it's like, yeah, this is normal, you're not
supposed to know all this yet,yeah, and that's super common
for my clients where, if theyhave shifted into management or
you know, they're managing likemultiple teams.
Sometimes I'll have likeproject managers or product

(12:56):
managers who are managingmultiple teams and those teams
have very specific expertise andtheir job requires them to kind
of move through lots ofdifferent things to keep the
project moving forward or theproduct moving forward, and they
will start to really confusetheir core competencies with the
competencies of the teams andthen they kind of create this

(13:17):
skewed expectation forthemselves and they can get very
lost in that.

Speaker 2 (13:21):
Or they think they have to be able to do everything
that their team can do Totallyand they're not supposed to yeah
100%.
So unrealistic expectations isone of the biggest things that
causes this anxiety.

Speaker 1 (13:33):
I'm seeing as a theme yes, yes, and so that's the
second thing that I see the most, which is skewed expectations,
and their expectations are veryoften inconsistent with the
company's and much lessforgiving than the company's
expectations.
Sometimes I get clients thatare in like really, really

(13:54):
intense companies with highexpectations.
That can happen also, but forthe most part they're in a role
where, like people are givingthem some time and space to
learn.
They're expecting that there'sgoing to be an adjustment period
.
But my client will be really inlike a perfectionistic
mentality.

(14:14):
Some people think, and peopleoften get skewed by
perfectionism and they thinklike it's the person who's like
super detailed and, you know,always gets an A on everything
and it can be.
But perfectionists are alsopeople that are so afraid of
failing that they will only workat things where they know they

(14:36):
can achieve and perform well andthey're like overly concerned
with protecting themselves fromother people's feedback.
So there's like such an intensefear of getting negative
feedback and they're alwaystrying to control for that.
So a lot of my clients I findthat their expectations are
coming from that underlyingmindset issue and so they're

(14:58):
trying to hold theseexpectations for themselves of
like I need to perform reallywell.
Sometimes it's.
I need to get an A immediatelyand then sometimes it's like I
need to like make sure I don'tfail, I don't get any negative
feedback, I'm not perceived in acertain way and I need to have
this really intense expectationso that I keep myself safe from

(15:20):
all those external things that Ithink I can't deal with.
Yeah, and I can see that beinga blocker for moving ahead in a

(15:44):
lot of ways zone and stay withthings that I felt like I knew I
could master or were alreadymastered.
And then I'd see other peopleand I would be like I feel like
I could do what they're doing,but I didn't want to sit in the
discomfort of doing it.
Yeah, but like not immediately,right away, without any errors

(16:06):
but I could definitely do it ifI had a chance and a few tries.
Exactly Like they're not moretalented than me or they don't
have some underlying thing thatI don't think I could get, but
they definitely seemed braverthan I did and they seemed like
they were able to have a senseof resilience to that process
and that's part of what reallypushed me to look more closely

(16:29):
at my own positioning and theway in which I'd moved through
my career in academics and then,as I was business building and
doing all of that, I was sort ofhitting up against the
difficulty of trying to stay inthis sort of perfectionistic,
don't fail mindset, which wasnot effective and was not
helping me move forward, whichwas not effective and was not

(16:50):
helping me move forward.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
And so, moving on, how dopeople try to deal with this if
they don't have support andthey're left to their own
devices and they're sitting inthis problem?

Speaker 1 (17:03):
What do?

Speaker 2 (17:03):
people usually see people doing.

Speaker 1 (17:05):
Yeah, a lot of the people I work with, I mean, by
the time they've come to me,usually they're burning out a
little bit.
They're feeling like a burnoutin two ways.
One is, I see, burnout of justbeing new, like they're so
overwhelmed and they're soexhausted already and they might
be two weeks in or a month inor, you know, three months in

(17:28):
and this is because they'retaking too much time to work on
extra hours to try to absorb allthe knowledge.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Yeah, yeah, they're overworking and overthinking.

Speaker 1 (17:37):
They'll be like I'm spending so much time on every
email, I'm trying to learn allof the things.
A lot of times they'll be likethey're also thinking about, and
sometimes even doing,additional trainings, like I
realize I need to get a trainingon this.
I realize I need to get atraining on this, I need to take
a program on this, and sosometimes you know the amount of

(17:59):
clients that say to me I'mgoing to join Toastmasters.
Like everybody gets in andthinks like oh my God, my
speaking and my presentationskills, they're not strong
enough.
I need to join Toastmastersright away.
And I'm always like let's justhang on for a second before you
start diving into more and moreand more things.
So there's this desire to learnit quickly and like close some

(18:25):
competency gap that they'reseeing.
I see some of my clients who arelike trying to positively
affirm themselves into believing, and so they'll be like I know
I can do it.
I know I can do it, I'm smartenough.
Like they're doing all the sortof bumper sticker slogans to
try to feel good enough.

(18:46):
You know they'll say to me likeI've I've often felt like I'm
not good enough, but I know I'mgood enough and I've worked on
this and their brain isstruggling because there are
reasonable gaps, there arethings that need to be learned,
there is a level of discomfortand you're almost trying to talk
yourself out of it, and so thebrain doesn't buy it and so it

(19:06):
just comes back stronger.
So they just will findthemselves like looping through
this, trying to do this positiveaffirmation, and then it not
sticking, and then them goingback into the anxiety.
Yeah, the other thing I saidbumper sticker slogans.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
That's exactly it.
It's like when you say thebumper sticker slogan and then
your brain says, believe it,believe it, yeah, right, like it
doesn't work.
It doesn't really believe it,yeah.

Speaker 1 (19:30):
It doesn't.
It's so general, the intentionsare fine, it's not like.
You know, I'm always like.
It's not like I think you'regoing to hurt yourself by saying
I'm good enough.
It's just often it's just tooremoved from what's happening
and your brain's looking forsomething that's more grounded
and that addresses what you'refeeling in a way that actually

(19:53):
is believable, has evidence and,you know, just feels more clear
.

Speaker 2 (19:59):
Which is totally doable, which I'm sure you'll
get to in one of the futurequestions, because we're
building up to that.

Speaker 1 (20:05):
Yeah, it's very doable.
The other thing I see a lot islike people swinging.
Like some people will be in alot of resentment when they come
to me, like they're swingingbetween this company's not doing
anything, they're not trainingme, they're not helping me,
they're setting me up to fail.
And then on the flip sidethey're just in a ton of

(20:26):
negative self-talk, like Ishould know this, I should be
more competent than this, Ishould be able to handle this.
And they'll sort of swing backand forth between themselves and
the company and just be inresentment, which frequently
will leave people to leave thejob.
Or when they come to me,they're almost out.
They'll say like I'mconsidering leaving, I've

(20:47):
thought about leaving or I don'twant to leave, but I can see
that it's coming for me if Idon't rein this in?

Speaker 2 (20:54):
Yeah, I've seen that happening too, and it's like
that thinking day in and day outis what creates that ultimate
result of ending up leaving thejob, and then, when they go to
another job, they're going tohave to deal with much of the
same challenges.

Speaker 1 (21:10):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (21:11):
So it's not the job, it is the mindset that they hold
yes, which is good news,because then we can fix it, we
can work around it.

Speaker 1 (21:19):
Yeah, and the mindset often can skew you from
understanding the differencebetween a job that's not a good
fit for you and a job that justneeds you to stretch your
mindset and your confidence.
And there is a difference.
But it's very cloudy when themindset is spinning.
You really can't see or evenassess a fit of a job very well
until you clean that up.

Speaker 2 (21:41):
Yeah.
Do you have any examples aboutthat, like a job that might.
I'm thinking like there couldbe somebody who makes like a
huge jump, like and thisprobably wouldn't happen, but
like, say, you go from like anindividual contributor to a CEO
or something.
It's like, yeah, that would bea huge jump and that like you
might not be ready for that,versus if you're going into a, a
jump that just your brain justfeels like it's really big, but

(22:03):
really you do have everythingyou need.

Speaker 1 (22:05):
Yeah, all the time.
So like I see people and evenwith the fit, like I have a
couple of clients that are insales and up but also I could
see that there was a sense ofexhaustion and boredom that was

(22:35):
coming from a mismatch in skillsthe, the focusing on developing
the team versus getting toclose the sale, versus fighting
for you know that, the, themoney at the end or the

(22:56):
incentive it was like his realdeep motivation and strengths
really was most aligned withselling, not sort of coaching
people or managing people, andultimately he decided to go back
into a sales position.
And then I had another clientwho was in a managing sales role
, who had been a top salesperformer, who was having a huge
confidence crisis because ofjust the leap of suddenly

(23:18):
managing this team.
But he was just in a confidencecrisis, like he for sure, it
was a great fit, he had lots ofskills that were going to, that
felt good to him once he wasconfident enough to like relax
into it.
And so he has since not onlybeen in that position but since
we've been working together,he's been promoted to a step
above that.
So you know these things are.

(23:40):
I think what's hard aboutcareers is like it's messy, like
sometimes it's the right fit,sometimes it's not.
Sometimes it was a leap thatwas like big, too fast, which
can happen.
It's more rare from myexperience, because usually the
company itself can assess ifit's too big of a leap for you.

(24:01):
You have to trust to someextent that they are able to see
what do you need and what doyou have.
But occasionally I will seesomeone who, like just turned up
the water way too hot too fastand that is why they're not
performing well.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, that happened to me, actually.
I got promoted into a job andthen I failed at it and then now
, hindsight, looking back, I waslike, oh, I didn't have the
tools, I didn't have theknowledge there's no way I could
have succeeded at that.

Speaker 1 (24:27):
Yes, which can definitely happen, especially if
a company is a little bitremoved from understanding what
it even needs.
And then it's not until theperson's in the role that the
company's figuring out what therole needs and you're figuring
out what it needs.
So it's like pulling all thosepieces apart can be messy, and I
think people sort of getoverwhelmed and then they start

(24:47):
meshing all the things togetherand they just can't see clearly
what needs to be adjusted.

Speaker 2 (24:54):
Yeah, and I think those are two perfect examples
of people moving up in salesLike it might be right fit for
one person and maybe not for theother, and that's totally
individual to them and theirpersonalities and what they want
and how they see their future.
And sometimes you got to takethe leap to know that that's not
what was a fit right, exactly.

Speaker 1 (25:14):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:15):
Great example.
Thanks, I'm glad I asked forthat.
So next, going forward.
Why do you think it doesn'twork to do it this other way?
And ultimately, in one to threeyears down the road, if someone
continues to be in this commonthought process that they like
the default?
It sounds like this is defaultto a lot of people.
So if you're listening andyou're resonating with this,

(25:36):
you're not alone.
It's just like how our brainswork.
One to three years down the road, what state is that person's
career going to be in?
Or what's going to happen ifthey continue that thought
process without kind of gettingredirected in?

Speaker 1 (25:49):
the way that we're talking about.
Yeah, I see I definitely see alot of burnout from it, which is
will often be the people whomaybe aren't new but are
experiencing a lot of burnout,and they're experiencing burnout
for the same reasons that theperson who's in the new job is
experiencing burnout.
They just cannot sustain thispattern of trying to learn all

(26:13):
the things, overperform, perfectall of the things.
So I definitely see people kindof stuck in a burnout pattern
and what gets tricky about it isthat someone, when they're new,
will come in and they have somuch anxiety and such high
expectations about how wellthey're supposed to do and how
quickly they're supposed tolearn it and they start saying

(26:33):
yes to everything and they startpushing themselves in ways that
aren't sustainable to show upwith like great results and your
company's never going to notlove your great results.
Like you can work 12, 15 hours aday and produce these things
and people will for sure giveyou positive feedback for it and

(26:55):
they're not going to sort ofintervene usually and be like,
hey, it feels like maybe you'regoing in too hard and that
you're going to burn out orthey're just going to be happy
with the results that you'regiving.
So I always tell people likeyou create an expectation that
you then cannot maintain, and sopeople start expecting that of

(27:16):
you.
They expect the yeses, theyexpect you to be stepping in all
the time or doing the thingsthat other people don't want to
do, whatever it is.
And then you have this intensefear of like if I don't keep
myself at this pace, I'm notgoing to get that intense
positive feedback, and then I'mgoing to feel like I'm failing.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Yeah, I think it's kind of like sprinting, like you
get in a new job and thenyou're like right, it's like a
sprint is not sustainable.

Speaker 1 (27:42):
A sprint is not sustainable.
That's such a good line.
That's exactly right.

Speaker 2 (27:47):
Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
And yeah, and yeah, a client ofmine is coming to mind and we
were in our call and she's likeI got to get off.
Right after I get off the call,I got to do this and this.
I'm just like what time is itthere?
I'm like are you not stoppingwork today?
What's going on?
And she's like, yeah, I know Ishould, but I have to get this
done.
And so it's like she wasn'teven noticing that that's where

(28:11):
her mind was so focused.
And it's like and it comes froma good intention Like you want
to do a great job, you want tobe like the best, but it's, in
the end, it's not for the best,it's because, like you said,
it's not sustainable?

Speaker 1 (28:20):
Yeah, it's not sustainable and you're sprinting
and sprinting and theneventually, your body will give
out.
I also often tell people thatit's like dating and you want to
show up in a job.
You of course, want to show upas your best self, but they've
hired you right, not someoneelse, not someone with a

(28:42):
different skillset.
You are the skillset and youare dating.
You're dating them.
You're trying to assess is whatthis role needs what I bring to
the table, or does it needsomething different?
Is this the right setting forme to be thriving in?
And when you get in, this likesprinting, overcompensating,
trying to show up and pretendyou know things that you don't
know you are it's like dating,where you show up and you're

(29:04):
like I love football and I loveall the things that you love,
and then, three months down theline, you're like I love
football and I love all thethings that you love, and then,
three months down the line,you're like, I hate football,
and I've pretended to be thisperson that I'm not, yeah, and
then you're just tired.
And then you're tired and you'rerealizing down the road that
it's not a fit.
So I like to try to help peoplesort of slow down, perform

(29:24):
sustainably and connect to whatthey're bringing to the table
and to get comfortable with whatthey don't know and to be
honest about what the role needsand doesn't need and be honest
with themselves that they'reassessing this as much as
they're being assessed.

Speaker 2 (29:40):
That's so good, and I love the dating analogy too,
because I went through the wholejourney of getting out of a bad
relationship and getting into anew one and knowing that in the
new one I wasn't going to showup as anything other than who I
was.
But you still want to be, youknow, honest but respectful.
And so then you know he'd belike I want to watch this show
and I'd be like I really likeyou, but I don't like that show.

Speaker 1 (29:57):
Yeah exactly.
It's not my or like in theworkplace, it's like I really
love this job and what I'm doing, but that's not my strength.
Something like that, right?
Yes, it's so important becausewe do get into this pattern of
like trying to compensate forwho we are a lot instead of
leaning into who we are.
And I think when we're tryingto compensate for who we are,

(30:18):
we're in constant anxiety anddiscomfort.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
That's what causes it .
Yeah, for sure.
And it can be hard to like saythose things out loud at first,
but then you start just kind ofbeing like okay, they're either
going to accept me or you knowI'm going to get what I.
I'm either going to figure outthat this is the right place for
me or not.
But it's for the best if I justsay what's real for me.
Yes, but it's hard.

Speaker 1 (30:40):
I get it.
Yeah, it's very hard, it feelsunsafe for some people, but it
is so freeing.
Which leads me to the patternthat I see often when people
don't get space from this.
They will sometimes job hop, sothey'll leave the job, they'll

(31:01):
go to another one and they hitthe same blocks, or they will
finally adjust to the job aftera year or longer, and then they
sort of will stay put likethey'll stop risk taking,
they'll stop taking on newchallenges because they don't
want to experience that level ofanxiety or burnout again, and
so it sort of makes them pull inand not keep moving forward

(31:22):
with what they actually want.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, it's like staying safe.

Speaker 1 (31:26):
Totally.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
The price you pay.
You, you stay safe, and thenyou don't.
You don't move forward, butthen you also?
Don't have the discomfort.
So it's like you choose thekind of discomfort you want to
have exactly because if you'restaying safe, you're not.
You're like there's a part ofyou, like you said.
Like I could do that, I coulddo more, right?
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (31:44):
and sometimes it's fine to stay safe, and sometimes
I'm like, yeah, you don't haveto do anything you don't want to
do, but it's fine to stay safe.
And sometimes I'm like, yeah,you don't have to do anything
you don't want to do.
But it's also like when you arestaying safe but you're longing
for the thing on the other side.
That's when you know thatpushing your safety is probably
what you're really wanting.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yeah, and that's why coaching is so valuable, because
it can help you talk throughthese things, so that you can be
like I know what I want now andI know why.
Otherwise, you just don'tquestion yeah, all right.
Moving on to the next question,so what are some alternative
options, different ways, usefulways to think about this that
will create a new pattern andcause more focused and effective

(32:22):
behavior in the job?
So now we're getting to themeaty stuff, where we're going
to talk about some solutions andsome things that you do and put
into practice.
if you've been resonating so far, so what you?

Speaker 1 (32:33):
got, yeah, so there's lots of different tools and
different things that I use inmy coaching.
I think when I sort of zoomback and look at what ultimately
all those different tools anddifferent approaches are using,
it's disrupting that mindsetpattern in some way, and when I
disrupt it, sometimes we're justsort of letting it go and

(32:55):
sometimes it's shifting to seeit in a totally different light.
And the other thing that Ioften see that is so necessary
is learning how to neutralizeand depersonalize your work
experience, which can be verytricky because it is a space
where performance meetsacceptance.

(33:19):
It's like you're walking into agroup of humans.
You are a human.
You're designed and built towant belonging and acceptance.
Plus you're literally beingevaluated on your performance.
Plus that evaluation isattached to money, which is
attached to food, water andshelter.
So it gets dialed up veryquickly in the brain and people

(33:43):
lose the ability to neutralizeor depersonalize, and so the
brain can go into so much dramaabout things that are happening,
where sometimes you'reliterally pulling in a past
trauma or complicatedrelationship with a parent or a
teacher from your past or I willsee this all the time and it's

(34:03):
being projected all over peopleat work, often onto, like bosses
and other people.
So it's learning how to reallyneutralize, learning how to fit
in the discomfort of not knowingand having to learn the new
thing, and learning how to likebuild your resilience around the
failure and the mistakes, andjust that feeling of I you know

(34:28):
I'm not totally clear andcomfortable and there's a level
of uncertainty around what I'vetaken on.
So that's sort of the bigpicture of what it is that I'm
trying to do.
I'm trying to not I'm trying todeal with the truth of where
people are, so like I'm notthere to be, like let's just

(34:48):
push you to pretend like youknow what you're doing Right,
Like I'm here to look at whatare you really feeling and
what's really going on, what'sbehind that and how can we
disrupt that and how can we getyour brain to see things that
it's not seeing.
Sometimes I describe it with myclients as they're in like a

(35:10):
corner of the room and they'rereally really close to that
corner and they've lostperspective completely and I
have to pull them out, like onesession at a time, until they
can see the whole room andsuddenly things literally look
different.
So it's not like they're tryingto talk their brain into seeing
it different or they're tryingto, like, convince themselves to

(35:32):
feel different.
So it's not like they're tryingto talk their brain into seeing
it different or they're tryingto convince themselves to feel
different.
They actually can see it in amore neutral, depersonalized way
.
They see themselves in adifferent way.
They see the way that theyconnect to their work in a
different way.
So the goal is always todisrupt it in a way that is
grounded in real things and realexperiences and get you to

(35:52):
experience those differently.

Speaker 2 (35:54):
Okay, let's take an example, For example, like I
thought, of this.
So say, your boss sayssomething to you like you hand
in some work, and they say, oh,that's not what I expected.
Yeah, I could be like a triggerfor a lot of people and that's
something that could totally beneutralized and depersonalized
but yes well most of the time betaken on like and all that,

(36:14):
like trauma from other bosses orother teachers, will come in
and and like, you'll all of asudden start feeling not good
enough, when the sentence wasn'tmeant to make you not feel good
enough, it was just a sentenceof like oh, that's not what I
thought yeah, hand in right.

Speaker 1 (36:29):
Yeah, so I have actually two episodes on this in
my podcast and that sort ofwalk you through, but I'll give
you the cliff notes of it.
When you're getting negativefeedback, the first practice
that I try to have people do is,before it even happens, I want
to get you into an understandingof what skills you're willing

(36:51):
to push on and like do you wantto evolve your professional
skills?
Do you want to evolve theskills that you're bringing in?
What are the skills that youdon't know?
Like getting your brain alreadyprimed to understand that it's
normal to be getting feedbackbefore anyone even gives it to

(37:12):
you, because sometimes peoplewill get the feedback and their
expectation of getting negativefeedback is that, like I should
never get it, I should alreadyknow how to do all these things.
So I like to try to set you up.
Sometimes will change the wayyou experience it, sometimes it
won't.
It just depends on how far inyou are.
And then I always say, once youget the negative feedback, the
first thing you need to do isnot deal with it for 24 hours,

(37:36):
if you can, because the firstinitial reaction will be like
primitive, especially if youhaven't gotten a lot of feedback
, negative feedback in yourcareer, and you don't have a lot
of practice with that, it willjust immediately go into a
primitive response of like fear,of like feeling rejected, and
it just becomes irrational.
And so I mean, and sometimes inthat phase, like if I'm in that

(38:00):
24 hour phase which that phasefor me now is probably a couple
hours like I can get out of itpretty fast now, but even in
that first couple hours I letmyself be in the primitive phase
.
I sometimes will find myselfarguing it in detail and like in
my brain I'm in like totaldefense mode and I sort of let

(38:21):
that drain out of me becauseit's like it's just freaking out
and I let it have like a fulltemper tantrum about it.
Then I want to get you to amore neutral space about that
feedback and this is when youwant to start looking at like if
I took all my drama out of myhead about this workplace, if I

(38:43):
took away these ideas that theyshould be training me better or
that they're setting me up tofail, or I should have known
that, if you quiet all thatdrama and you just look at that
sentence, you can start toassess what's like a generous
interpretation of the sentencethat they gave you, so I can't

(39:05):
remember what was the feedbackyou said.

Speaker 2 (39:07):
Oh, that's not what I expected.
Like you hand in some work andthey say that's not what I
expected.
Okay, that's not what Iexpected.
Like you hand in some work andthey say that's not what I
expected.

Speaker 1 (39:12):
Okay, so that's not what I expected.
So your job then becomes likewhat's a very rational, generous
interpretation of this.
So part of how you can get tothat quickly is to be like if
your best friend gave you thatfeedback on the same assignment.
What would you feel like shemeant?

Speaker 2 (39:32):
And what happens.
I would feel I would take it atface value.
I guess I'd be like oh, whatdid you think?
What did you think or what didyou expect?

Speaker 1 (39:38):
Yeah, yeah, totally.
And the difference is, withyour best friend, you have like
a level of trust and you feellike they want you to succeed,
and so you can just interpret itat face value without getting
it all mucked up that puts it insuch a perfect perspective,
Because for me I would be likeoh, I'm sorry, I guess we
weren't on the same page.

Speaker 2 (39:59):
Can you elaborate and tell me?
It would be so easy to have aresponse to that that wasn't
defensive, it would just be likeoh, what do you mean Exactly?

Speaker 1 (40:08):
And what happens when it's your new boss especially
is your brain is attaching alevel of distrust, a fear of
judgment, all of those things.
So when it gets that feedback,it's like it's in the middle of
a pile of junk in your head, andso you will.
Often it's almost like the, thething we do when we're driving.

(40:29):
We're like if autopilot yeah, no, I'm the idea of like if
someone cuts us off when we'redriving, we give like the worst
interpretation of who they areand why they cut us off, whereas
, like if we cut someone off,we're like you know, oops, like
I made a mistake, it was awhoopsie.
You know, I'm a responsibledriver.
We just have we tend like, forwhatever reason, behind the

(40:51):
wheel.
I feel like we kind of all turninto these monsters who can't
see people as like humans.

Speaker 2 (40:56):
That's like my partner.
He's like the nicest person inthe world.
He gets behind the wheel andit's like, oh, what happened?

Speaker 1 (41:02):
to you and everything feels intentional, like
everybody tends to think, likeeveryone's trying to
intentionally drive rude.

Speaker 2 (41:10):
So everyone's a bad driver.

Speaker 1 (41:12):
Yeah, and I think we kind of do that with the
managers.
Like we tend to think whenthey're giving us that feedback,
we give a lot of very sort ofnegative assessments of them and
who they are and why they mightbe offering this feedback can
drop into the best friend mode.
It will sometimes give you theability to at least see it more

(41:33):
clearly and try to understandwhere they're coming from and
try to understand what you wantto take from that.
But the other thing that I feellike so good you just have to
remember to get there.
I know.

Speaker 2 (41:42):
Like you said, the primitive response is what comes
first.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
And it's normal for it to come first and it can also
be helpful, like this isliterally what I do in coaching,
because sometimes, sometimesI'm I'm in something that I just
cannot get myself out of.
Like I can't see out of theforest.
I have to call my coach orsomeone else to like move me
through it, because I'm in thecorner and I I can't back up,

(42:06):
and that's also normal, likethere's nothing wrong with you,
because that happens.
It's just a very intensesituation with stakes that your
brain is seeing as high stakesand a lot of fear, and so it's
like we have a strong grip on itwhen that's happening.
The other thing that Iencourage people to look at this
can be harder, but this is, youknow, the like sort of next

(42:27):
level of it is what you'remaking the feedback mean about
your career, the job and yourcompetencies.

Speaker 2 (42:36):
Yeah, and about you as like a person yes, yeah, and
yeah, we could make it mean somany things Like someone could
make that mean easily, like oh,you're not, you didn't try hard
enough or you didn't do a goodjob of interpreting what I said.
Or like just so many yeah, andthat's what the brain is so good
at doing is like giving you,like you said, the worst case
scenario, and it would have areally long list of what that

(42:59):
could mean Totally.

Speaker 1 (43:02):
Yeah, and so you want to like.
Part of what I want to help youdo is pull back from that and
be really careful of making itmean something extreme, that
this feedback doesn't mean yourboss doesn't think you're
competent.
It doesn't mean you can'tsucceed in this role.
It doesn't mean you're notgoing to be successful in X

(43:23):
right.
It might just mean theyexpected one thing, you expected
another and your expectationswere mismatched.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
Yeah, and maybe you didn't have a piece of
information that you find outlater it wasn't your fault and
like, yeah, all these otherthings are open.
So that's yeah, and that's sogreat.
Where where we have coaching tokind of open up all these other
possibilities.
I have this one coach who wouldsay to me what are, what is, 10
other things this could mean.
And then it made me think I'mlike okay.

Speaker 1 (43:52):
And your brain is, it will fight it.
It will often fight wanting tocome up with those other things,
because the other fear part isso strong that it's like it
wants to argue for somethingthat's pretty specific.

Speaker 2 (44:04):
Yeah, cause it's easy to come up with 10 awful things
that it means yes, very easy.
All right.
So was that we're still on theuseful, more useful ways to
create new patterns.
Was there?

Speaker 1 (44:16):
anything.
Yeah, I can give anotherexample of that if you want.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
So the first one was neutralize and depersonalize,
and we kind of gave someexamples and then yes, I just
wanted to check that therewasn't anything else from that.
I think there might be.

Speaker 1 (44:28):
Yeah, well, the new, the neutralizing and
depersonalizing is, you know,helping you.
There's a lot of like shamethat people come in with and I
see, like I see shame sneak intothis, where they literally feel
shame around what they don'tknow.

(44:49):
So they will.
It gets.
It can get messy and muckybecause it can be connected to
you know things in childhood orsometimes it's people had one
bad job experience or theirprevious manager or a previous
experience with feedback whereit sort of created a bit of

(45:10):
shame around it.
And so I see people come in andthey start to feel deep shame
around like all the things thatI don't know.
Since I've stepped in.

Speaker 2 (45:23):
Yeah, yeah.
I relate to that and somethingthat's helped my clients has
been the thought that I wasgiven was you don't know what
you don't know, you can't.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
Exactly.

Speaker 2 (45:32):
You can't know what you don't know, and that's not
your fault.

Speaker 1 (45:35):
Yes, which is great and true, and what I want to do
is like literally go to the nextlevel on that.
And so, in order to get yourbrain to literally
operationalize what you justsaid, I will ask my clients to

(45:56):
get clearly connected to theircompetencies and the knowledge
gaps, so, like if we're startingthis new job and they're in it
and they're spinning and they'rein this shame spiral, I will
start to look at the corecompetencies that they're
entering with, like why were youhired?
What did you do at your lastjob?

(46:17):
What are the skills you'vedeveloped throughout your career
?
And all of them soft skills andhard skills, because sometimes
people only get connected totheir hard skills and they lose
connection to all those softskills which are equally as
important, sometimes moreimportant, in certain roles.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Very underrated those soft skills.

Speaker 1 (46:32):
Very underrated, so we literally need to list them
out and you need to see them onpaper in front of you, and then
we look at what are theknowledge gaps and the thing
that I like to do is break thosedown into what's the company
knowledge that you need to learn, the systems that you need to

(46:53):
learn and the people slashculture that you need to learn,
because these are the threegivens.
If you leave your company andgo to a different one, you 100%
have a knowledge gap in thesethree areas, always.

Speaker 2 (47:09):
Anybody.
Anybody no matter how smartthey are.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Exactly, and a lot of people can't see this and they
forget about this, and so whenthey see the two columns in
front of them, they can see thatyou've opted in to not knowing
the company knowledge, theknowledge of the systems and the
culture when you took the job.

(47:33):
That is just what happens whenwe take a job, so we want to get
them out of the shame byshowing them like this is
totally normal and it isoverwhelming, because oftentimes
there's a lot of things incompany knowledge, there's a lot
with systems.
Sometimes our core competenciescannot be applied until we

(47:54):
close this knowledge gap of thecompany and the systems and the
people, which can feel verydisorienting for people, and so
I sometimes will have to helpthem slow down enough to see the
reason why you feel like youcan't use these core
competencies yet is because theydon't make sense to use until
you've closed some of this gap,and then we look at if there's

(48:17):
any professional skill gaps thatneed to be developed.
So it's like the person whowent from sales to management
there's going to be some corecompetencies that are going to
have to be developed in terms ofcoaching people and giving
feedback, and so it can reallyhelp to pull it all apart so the
brain can see like the sentence.
I should know that makes nosense.

Speaker 2 (48:40):
Yeah, yeah, it really doesn't.
And then seeing which ones arethe ones to work on, because,
like you said, everybody wantsto take like all these different
trainings and a lot of them arenot needed.
Like I was thinking, yeah, whenI moved into management, I read
that first time manager book andthat was huge, just like, like
as a first step, right, yeah,and so just, and that, like

(49:02):
doing that would have beenbetter than me trying to learn
all the things that my team wasworking on and like get
technical and like things thatthey were really good at so that
I could manage them.
Like that made no sense.
It made more sense for me tofocus my time on learning how to
be a manager and coaching andteaching and helping a team
thrive, right, so I can see howthat could often get like.
And that's where I'm guessingyou would point your clients in

(49:25):
that direction when they're kindof cause I've had clients like
that too.
They think, oh, I need to learnwhat they're doing, I need to
get really expert at thattechnical thing, and it's like,
well, who said you need to knoweverything they do?
Like you're not doing theirjobs for them?

Speaker 1 (49:37):
Yeah, and sometimes I have to show them how they can
move through to the resultwithout being lost in the
technical weeds.

Speaker 2 (49:47):
And that's possible Like you don't have to know it
to get to the result Exactly.

Speaker 1 (49:51):
Exactly Because people can get so lost in the
mindset and so lost in thisfeeling of incompetency that
they literally stop.
They get lost along the way andit's almost like they're
heading towards the wrong thingand they forgot that they're
supposed to be heading towardsthis house and they're going
towards a different one.

Speaker 2 (50:09):
Yeah, and they're like oh yeah, I'll get to that
other one after, but first I'vegot to stop here.
It's like you actually don'thave to.
Yeah, awesome, yeah, so tell uswhy these these ways work
better.

Speaker 1 (50:22):
Yeah, I think it's.
I think the key that has been,you know, the game changer for
me in my life is the specificity.
So, like I think beforecoaching I tried to.
Anytime I was trying to workmyself through something, it was
always kind of from this feelgood, high view of it instead of

(50:45):
actually getting into andmoving through a real scenario
like exactly why my feelings gotso hurt by that friend and what
I made it mean.
And I think the biggest thingthat happens when you're doing
that is like when I'm coachingpeople, I can often see the

(51:07):
context from which it was born,so like something from their
past that's probably showing uphere, and then the correlation
that people are creating.
So it's like it's like somebodyis anxious about not achieving
at the job and when I keepdigging I'll realize, oh, sally

(51:29):
thinks that if this job doesn'tfit, that she's not going to
make it as a designer.
And people often can't see thatthey're making it that strong
of a correlation.
They just are so in, they're onthe hamster wheel like no, it
has to work, it has to work, ithas to work.
And so I think that when youcan get into specificity, you

(51:51):
can get into things that yourbrain's making it mean you're
really getting at the root.
You're getting at assumptionsthat you have about yourself and
about the world and about whatthe outcome of this means that
often really need to bechallenged.
They need space and they needto be looked at.
And so I think what I loveabout coaching so much for my

(52:11):
own life is that when I'mself-coaching or getting coached
, I can see the third layer thatI can't see when I'm hanging
out on top just spinning in it.

Speaker 2 (52:22):
Yeah, and also you said assumptions.
I was like I think assumptionsis just spinning in it.
Yeah, and also you saidassumptions.
I was like I think assumptionsis like interchangeable with
beliefs Completely.
So I'm going to say beliefs,that I'm just like yeah, we're
just making all theseassumptions is what we believe.
So that was kind of a lightbulb moment for me.

Speaker 1 (52:35):
I'm like, because the beliefs is kind of an overused
word that people are like yeah,yeah, yeah, it's so overused and
it's not clear of what thatmeans for people sometimes.
But yeah, assumptions aboutourselves, assumptions about the
job, assumptions about ourcapabilities, assumptions about
other people, that whole thingbecomes the recipe for just
spinning and suffering.

Speaker 2 (52:53):
Yeah, and it's also it kind of takes the coachy
voice out of it, which I like,because it's like if I were to
ask somebody, well, what do youassume, that person means, yeah,
that's it kind of is a betterquestion to ask for many reasons
because it's a more relatableword, like you can know right
away.
It's like if I'm saying whatare you making that mean?
They'd be like well, I don'tknow, I'm not making it mean

(53:15):
anything.
Right, like assuming.
That means like is is just amore yeah Cause I think we often
I as a coach, get coach, getinto that coach speak, and so
that was just a really goodlight bulb moment there,
replacing that word for beliefs,for assumptions.
I love it.
All right, so what skills doyou think are needed to put
these into practice, to putthese things into practice that

(53:36):
you've taught us today?

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Yeah, I think you have to First.
I think there's just theawareness phase, which is like
getting clear that this iswhat's going on right and
understanding that you're movingthrough the world like this,
understanding that you might bestuck in a perception that's not
totally objective or neutral.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
And being willing to be wrong about the perception.

Speaker 1 (53:58):
You have to be willing to know that there is
possibly a perception shift thatis doable and can happen.
And then I think it is reallyfiguring out the best ways to
neutralize and slow down.
People have to slow down tomove through this.

(54:19):
So part of like people oftenask me in my consults like what
do you do in coaching, and I'mlike part of what I'm doing is
slowing you and your brain downbecause it moves through these
assumptions so quickly that itjust keeps spinning in them.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
Yeah, and it needs to be disrupted.

Speaker 1 (54:35):
Question them.
Yeah, yes, and it needs.
It's almost like meditative.
Meditative, it's like you areslowing down and really looking
at the fear, the anxiety, thesituation, what happened in that
situation, what deeper fearsthat's bringing up, and then

(55:00):
neutralizing that in some way ordisrupting that in some way.
And you can do some of theexercises that I've given you
here.
You know you can use writing tomove yourself through these
things.
I think that it's understandingthat most of us don't know how
to do it and we've not beentaught how to do it.
And it's not something that weshould just know how to do,

(55:21):
mm-hmm, should just know how todo Like.
I think people have anassumption that I should just be
confident, or I shouldn't beexperiencing this much anxiety
at this stage in my career, or Ishould just be able to connect
to my competencies and I'm likeI mean, you're like a human
being with a human brain whichis pretty messy and you're

(55:41):
getting thrown into all thesedifferent situations, with a
human brain which is prettymessy and you're getting thrown
into all these differentsituations.
The fact that any of us canmove through careers without
coaches, therapists, supportsystems is bonkers, because it's
tough.
It's a tough space to movethrough, and so I think you want
to be aware and you want tolike understand that developing

(56:04):
that mindset is a skill, in thesame way that your professional
skills were.

Speaker 2 (56:09):
So well said.
Yeah, I totally agree, and it's.
It's becoming more, more normalnow for people to have coaches
for their career, but it's notstill not everybody has one,
which is, I think, why our workis not done yet We've got a long
way to go but because you'reabsolutely right with that.
And so biggest challenges,biggest challenges people might

(56:30):
have, putting these new ideasinto practice.

Speaker 1 (56:33):
I think the biggest is just this feeling that you
should already know, so youdon't consciously develop it.
I think the other biggestchallenge is that you're
convinced that it's yourcompetency and you just keep
solving for that.
So you keep doing everythingyou can to try to solve for the
competency.
I just need another training, Ijust need another thing.
I just need to switch to a jobwhere I am more confident.

(56:54):
I think that really keepspeople from just addressing
what's actually going on.

Speaker 2 (57:02):
Yeah, absolutely.
And then you end up movingabsolutely and then you end up
burning out, like you said, andthen you end up in that cycle of
burnout.
So this goes into what wouldhappen in one to three years if
you keep going down that path.
So one thing is burnout thatcycle.
How does that feel if you justkeep doing that?
I don't know if you've been inthat cycle for a while before

(57:26):
you found coaching or if youknow clients who have been, but
could you describe how thatwould, what that would look like
if you've been?
in a profile so people canlisten and hear.

Speaker 1 (57:34):
Yeah, it looks like people who tend to have work
patterns that are built oncycles of anxiety performing and
then relief, and then anxietyperforming, relief.
There's no sense of like, calmor status, deep satisfaction
with the achievements.
It's more like oh cool, like I,I've kept the facade or I've, I

(57:59):
haven't been caught not knowingor I haven't been caught
failing.

Speaker 2 (58:02):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (58:04):
So you're just trying to like maintain the status quo
of quote, knowing what you'redoing, versus feeling like a
calm confidence that you areconnected to your skills,
connected to your capabilitiesand willing to learn the things
that you need to learn.
So it definitely like it's muchless satisfying, like you don't

(58:25):
really feel satisfied in thejob.
You kind of feel like you'realways chasing something and
then you just have thistemporary relief where you crash
out after you've like done thething and then you start all
over again.

Speaker 2 (58:35):
Yeah, like you've been approved.
If you did a presentation, itwent well.
You're like oh okay, I canrelax now.
And then you're like and thenyou get the next thing and you
go.
So it's like it's like aconstant underlying anxiety.
Basically.

Speaker 1 (58:46):
Yes, yeah, constant underlying anxiety.
Temporary relief for a second,and then it just spins back
again.

Speaker 2 (58:51):
Yeah, and then also, I think a lot of people probably
don't know that what you'redescribing is possible like
having a peaceful, deeplysatisfying, and I feel like for
me that comes from being able tomake mistakes, knowing it's
okay if I fail, knowing that youknow we're all human and like
making mistakes publicly andhaving me not die Like it comes
from that, for me at least.

Speaker 1 (59:12):
Yes, yeah, it's the same for me.
I feel like I'm I'm now aperson who it's not that I never
have anxiety or never haveimposter syndrome, Of course
like if I'm leveling up, if I'mdoing something that I haven't
done before, that's pretty far.
It's like a bit of a push forme.
Immediately my brain will startoffering me kind of

(59:38):
rationalizations for why it'stoo far, it's too outside of my
competency.
I know it so well now, havingworked with it, that I have a
sense of being removed from itand like I almost am amused by
it.
It will come up and I'm like,oh, that's interesting, it's
doing it again, but I'm notbuying into it.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
Yeah, it's like you can expect it, because you've
leveled up enough times to knowokay, yep, this is what the
brain does, let's go yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:00:00):
So I feel kind of removed from the thoughts and a
little bit removed from theanxiety, like I'm watching it
from the outside and I can getspace from it pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
And basically you've done the neutralizing,
depersonalizing step.

Speaker 1 (01:00:16):
Yes, yes, A hundred percent, which helps me take
more risks.
It's like how I was able tobuild my business.
Yeah, it helps me feel okay.
I feel just so much lessreactive to things if something
doesn't work out or if you know,I get some piece of feedback or
something I don't know how todo and it's like my relationship

(01:00:37):
to like performance anxiety isjust different.
It's like I might feel anxiousgoing into something, feel like,
oh, I'm not going to know whatI'm talking about or I'm not
going to know, but just sort ofbeing like, oh, I always feel
this way and being able to sortof tolerate that level of
pressure in a way that removesit pretty quickly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:57):
Yeah, and then yeah, being able to have the
discomfort, sit in thediscomfort, as you had noted,
sit in it and know that failingis okay and that's what
resilience is, completely.

Speaker 1 (01:01:10):
Yeah, my self-expectations are very
different than they used to be,and what's interesting to know
is my achievement's even higher.
So I think a lot of peoplethink that it would be the other
way around.
Like, well, if I don't expectall these things and I'm not
super hard on myself and I'm notgoing to be able to like be a
high achiever, I'm like, oh no,no, no, I'm a higher achiever
now than then.

(01:01:31):
It's more, it's more fun.

Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
Yeah, and putting it really easily, it's like saying
that you're going to get up andrun a hundred miles every
morning or something and thenfailing at that every day yeah,
it's not, it's not sustainable,and then like that's exhausting.
Versus saying I'm gonna get upand I'm gonna run a mile and
then I'm gonna do a little bitmore and a little bit more, and
then I'm gonna feel reallyaccomplished and I'm gonna feel
good about that.
Yeah, versus failing at tryingto do this big, like all these

(01:01:57):
trainings all at once and likeso, yeah, it makes perfect sense
, and it's great to hear yourexample of it too, so that
people can be like, because Ithink it's hard for people to
realize that this is possiblefor them, right?
If they've been living in aconstant anxiety state for a
really long time.
They're like oh no, this isjust how I am.

Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
I completely was that person.
I mean, I thought everyone feltsome level of self doubt the
way I felt it, or I thought itwas normal, or I thought my
perception of myself as likekind of sneaking in or getting
by on my personality, or maybeI'm just likable, or maybe I
thought that was justobjectively true.

(01:02:35):
So I really was verydisconnected from understanding
that I had this deeperself-doubt that was exhausting
me and that I wasn't reallyconnected to my capabilities or
connected to a healthy way oflearning and evolving.
It was like someone lifted aveil and I was like, oh my God,

(01:02:56):
I see myself in the whole worlddifferently.
So it was like extremelylife-changing for me and it
really it pulled the rug outfrom under me because I was so
in it that I had no concept thatI was even in it.

Speaker 2 (01:03:09):
Yeah, I feel like that's what coaching does.
It kind of shows people thatit's like putting up a mirror,
like being like, yeah, this iswhat's really going on, totally
Amazing.
Okay, well, that's all I had.
We've gone.
This has been a long episode.
It's amazing.
It's like it's going to be amasterclass in so many things.
I'm so excited.
Was there anything else youwanted to add that I didn't ask
you about?

Speaker 1 (01:03:30):
I don't think so.
All of that is really a greatsynopsis of a lot of the main
things that come up for people.
Anybody wants more informationon, like, moving through that
overwhelm, yeah, and they wantto like self-coach.
I have a guide on my websitethat you can get for free if you

(01:03:51):
hop over there and it willliterally, you know, take you
through a pdf that will help youself-coach your way through
neutralizing something, um, andif you feel like you need
one-on-one support and you wantto do some coaching, feel free
to grab a consultation.
You can find everything at erinm as in mindset foleycom.
So it's erin m foleycom awesome, amazing.

Speaker 2 (01:04:14):
Well, we'll put that in the show notes of my podcast
and it's been great having youand interviewing you and I've
learned a lot and I could tellthat you're an amazing coach
just by how you answer thesequestions and how you go through
and and I already knew that,but it was awesome.
I'm so glad and yeah, it's beenso great.
Yeah, maybe we'll do anotherone sometime.

Speaker 1 (01:04:36):
Yes, thank you so much for having me.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:39):
Yeah, no problem at all Okay.