Sheila Wilkinson - A Conversation About Expectations - Talking to Cool People w/ Jason Frazell

Episode Transcript
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Jason Frazell (00:13):
Everybody, my guest today is second time guest
Sheila M.
Wilkinson for that's the lasttime we're going to use the M.
That's how she is here on ourrecording platform.
Sheila is first of all, a friendand she is a human friend.
We were joking about she's ahuman.
She's a friend, good friend.
We know each other through areally cool community in terms
of what she does.
She's a coach.

(00:33):
She's an author.
She is a speaker.
She is a licensed clinicalsocial worker and she's a
practicing attorney.
In the state of New Orleans, orin the city of New Orleans, the
state of Louisiana.

Sheila Wilkenson (00:44):
No, New Orleans is its own third world
country.
New

Orleans is.
I was, I was good at geography.
I know this.
State of Louisiana, which NewOrleans is based inside of.
Sheila, so good to have you backagain.
I say you're becoming one of mySaturday Night Live people.
You've been on multiple timesnow.
And I thought we would kick offfor the audience and share what
you shared with me in terms ofthe card that you drew.
And I believe over 200 episodesof the first person.

(01:09):
to show me a card you drew forthe episode.
So what did you draw for ustoday?

Yeah.
So I have this deck of cards.
It's called thriver cards and aclient actually gifted these to
me a couple of years ago.
They're handmade and the card isshould is an asshole.

Should is an asshole.
So everybody, which is my

favorite, which is my favorite saying of
all time.
Should is an asshole.
Should is an

asshole for everybody listening.
Sheila actually has a real card.
It looks like a playing card.
She held it up to the camera.
It actually says shit as anasshole.
Those parts are very cool.

Yes.
I will take a picture of it Soyou can include it as bonus
content on

bonus content that this is this is the paywall
content It's very expensive Butmaybe for the listeners we'll do
it.
I asked her to share that for areason We're going to talk about
a topic All of us deal with allthe time.
I would say every waking minute,this is a topic that we have.
It's something that Sheila workswith her clients with.

(02:05):
It's something she speaks about.
It's something she's verypassionate about.
And I know that you've had to doyour work to get to the point
where you are around this topicas well.
And that topic is ex,expectations, expectations.
We're going to talk about thedifferent types of expectations.
We're going to talk about thenefarious, the nefarious part of

(02:26):
expectations, the good partabout it, and We're going to
have some practical things here.
Some, some things you can do.
Yeah.
If any of this resonates withyou, and I can guarantee it's
going to resonate with you.
So everybody's listening, goingexpectations.
They're going to go, Oh yeah, Igot a lot of those on me.
Or I have a lot of those atother people.
We're going to talk about allthose.
So Sheila.
Welcome back.

Oh, well, thanks for having me back.
I love being a repeat offender.

Repeat offender.

But with joy and love, come on man.
Joy and love,

repeat offender.
Yeah, I'm a repeat offender

of love.

Repeat offender of love and joy.
Yeah, just came up with that on

the spot.
I love it.

Yeah, we're gonna, we're gonna do a lot of
improv here too.
So Sheila, I think where I'dlove to kick it, kick this off
for all of us is to talk aboutThe four types of expectations.

Sure.

And before we do that, I don't, I leave this to
you.
Do we need to defineexpectations in the context that
we're talking about it today andthen what the four types are?
Yeah.
So I will,

I will do that.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I'm glad to be back.
Thanks for having me back.
And I'm really excited to talkto you about expectations
because that's like the thing Icould talk about all day long
because remember, Shud's anasshole.
So expectations are messages.
They are lessons that we havelearned throughout our entire

(03:46):
life.
They are things that we don'teven know that we have learned,
but that we've integrated andConsolidated and somehow have
internalized them for good forworse for yuck.
And so when we're thinking aboutexpectations, most people say,

(04:06):
yeah, I have a lot ofexpectations on me, but we
rarely think about theexpectations that we have of
others.
Instead, we think aboutexpectations that we have of
others as a frustration andannoyance and aggravation, being
angry, being bitter, beingdisappointed in others, not
realizing that those are alsoexpectations.
So there are four types ofexpectations.

(04:27):
These are my, obviously, thereare more subcategories of
expectations, but these are thefour major ones that I'm dealing
with on a day to day basis withclients and with myself, with
family, with friends.
So the first kind of expectationare expectations that we have of
ourselves, and I'll tell you thefour and then we'll go back
through them.

Yeah, please.

And then we can talk about them individually
how you like.
So the first type ofexpectations, like I said are
expectations we have ofourselves.
The second type of expectationsthat we have are expectations
that we have of others.
The third type of expectationsthat we have are expectations
that others have of us.
And then the fourth kind ofexpectations, which are my

(05:08):
personal favorite,

these are the best.

These are the best are the expectations that
we think others have of us.
Which aren't real spoiler alert.
So going back.
So I gave you the definition ofan expectation of my definition
of an expectation.
It's a message.
It's a lesson that we've learnedthat we've internalized the

(05:30):
expectations that we have ofourselves.
My experience for myself andwith my clients has been that
the expectations that we have.
aren't actually ours to beginwith.
They are societies.
Yeah.
They're societies.
They are our parentsexpectations of themselves that
were never fulfilled.

(05:51):
And therefore they made thoseexpectations become our
expectations to live vicariouslythrough us.
Expectations, these lessons thatwe've learned from the media and
social media, depending ondepending on your generation as
you listen and your friends andyour family and, you know,
advertising and the clothes thatyou put on and the stores and,

(06:14):
you know, all of the things thatcome to you.
As you are human being a humanout in the world, and they start
from the moment that you'reborn, right?
Because even before I would evenargue before you're born,
because when you develop theability to hear right in the
womb, someone's whispering toyou and talking to you before

(06:37):
you've even taken your firstbreath, right?
And so Expectations are allaround us and it can be as
something as simple as when youwere seven years old, you were
walking down the street andsomebody says, Oh man, I love
those shoes that you're wearing.
And you, you know, you get alittle, yeah, I love these shoes
too.
Thank you.
And somewhere something goesboop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

(06:58):
And clicks into your brain as along term memory, as a lesson
learned that the only way astranger will notice you is if
you have nice shoes on.

And

it's so innocuous that you don't even
realize that that is a lessonthat you've learned that you got
that attention and thentherefore you you have a you
have a shoe habit.
Yeah, you're in your 40s andyou've got a room for your
shoes, right?

I feel seen.
And so, yeah, you feel seen.
I don't have a, I don't have afull room, but I do have some
shoes.
Not a full room, thank God.
I definitely

have less shoes than my, than my partner
does.
That's very true.
Well, Sheila,

Sheila, I want, if we could pause for a minute,
I just, I want to bottom linesomething here is the way I
understand it is a lot of the,what we would call the category
ones, expectations we have inourselves.

Yes.

Either stem from, or are actually not expectations
we have in ourselves.
They're learned from eithercategory three.
Or potentially Category 4.

Yes.

And for us, and we're going to talk about at the
end of this, some tangible waysthat you can work through this
for yourself is around this, butthat's a, to me, that's really
fascinating that the, a lot ofthe things that we put on
ourselves, I think most of usknow this intellectually, but
we're not present to, I'm, I'mspeak for myself.

Correct.

Yeah, of course.
I know there's all sorts ofthings that are told me every
day, but I, but I, I internalizethat as, Oh, this is what I need
to do because it's how I feelabout it.

Right.

Fascinating.

And you've been taught to feel a certain
way about certain things.
So if you think, okay, well, Ineed to, you know, I'm going to,
I need to wake up every morningat 6am so I can go work out even
though you're dead tired and youwant to go to sleep.
Why do you have that expectationof yourself?
Where did you learn?
The only time you can work outis at 6am.

(08:51):
And where did you also learnthat sleep is not.
As important as working out.
Right.
Like you can't, you can't sleepis the most important thing you
can do for your body and yourhealth.
But somewhere you learned thatthat wasn't the case.
That's an expectation that thedon't get me started about anti

(09:11):
fat bias, but like, just thesociety has taught us that we're
supposed to go, go, go and beproductive and work out every
day and burn those calories.
And like, that already is notactually an expectation.
Yeah.
Maybe that you actually have ofyourself.
It's something that you learned.
So there's a question of whetherthat is actually real or not.
And then we'll talk about thepractical piece.

(09:33):
I think at the end, we'll comearound with an expectation, you
know, kind of a little exercisefor your, for your listeners.

She look, I want to, I want to, yeah, let's go.
We'll come back on an exercise.
I want to get your take andspeaking for yourself.
And I'll probably have someexamples from my life too.
Where this is not, like, theexpectation on herself is not a,
not necessarily a good or a badthing, but I'm curious about
today, here in 2024, your lifenow, you've done a lot of work,

(10:03):
personal development work, andthis is something you talk to
others about, what are someexpectations that you know are
truly something you put onyourself?
Like, do you know as, and I'm,I'm thinking of some of the
things that, the way I filterthat, is if there was no
external influences, would Istill believe it to be true, or
would I still want it?

Yes.

So what are, and let's, we'll riff on this and
I'll share a couple that came upfor me, but what about, what
about for you?

I think, I think the way you've just
described it and defined it foryourself is as accurate and
concise as you can.
Yeah.
For me, so we'll talk about anexpectation, an expectation that
I, that I gave up.
So I like to joke that I gave upLent for Lent.
Because I didn't like the, theidea that for 40 days I

(10:49):
sacrifice something as if I werehumbling myself because I was
expected to do so as if Iweren't already sacrificing and
or humbling myself.
So one year I was just like, I'mgiving up lint for lint.
That didn't mean that I don'tsacrifice, right?
But it meant that I shifted theexpectations that I had of

(11:10):
myself during that time.
I was never a person that said,I'm going to give up chocolate.
I'm going to give up caffeine orwhat.
I didn't do that.
What I did was give of myself toothers.
more than I normally did inthose 40 days.
And so made myself moreavailable, held space for
people, volunteered more.
I did that kind of stuff forLent.

(11:30):
And I said, you know what, thisis silly.
Why am I only doing this 40 daysout of a year?
Like, I want to do this everyday.
This is what I expect frommyself, from my, from my own
values, my own, my own corevalues.
So now I have two goals everyday.
One, to make a stranger laugh,and two, to be a better person
today than I was yesterday.

(11:50):
Those are very clearexpectations that I have of
myself, and how I want to showup in the world, the impact that
I want to have, and to bring joyto somebody else's day.
Maybe might need that joy.
Yeah.
And so that's an, that's anexample of how there was an
expectation on me.
And I took the power back in thecontrol and said, no, I, I, yes,

(12:12):
I agree with this.
And also, I don't want to justdo this for 40 days out of the
year.
I want to do this every day.
And I want to give of myself andbe present with people every
single day.
How can I do that?
And I said,

tools.
That's beautiful.
Can I share, can I share twothings that came up for me as
we're talking about this?

Yeah.

I'm asking you, like, I need your permission.
Maybe there's an ex, maybethere's an onset expectation
here.
Oh boy.
Maybe there was?

Yeah.
I mean, you're, man.

Sheila, am I supposed to be asking for
permission?

Jason, how do you feel about this one?

Just kidding.
No, so, so, and there's a lot ofthings for me, but two things
that came up for me is One, tohave fun every day.
Nobody's ever told me that'ssomething I need to do.
As a matter of fact, that's notalways viewed as, by society.
Doesn't mean that I have a tonof fun every day things happen.
This has not been a fun week, afun week for me for a variety of
things as we've been talkingabout.
But to do something fun formyself every day.

(13:07):
Pick up the guitar, read a funnynews article, play a video game,
whatever the thing is, laugh.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the other one, and thesecond one that definitely came
up for me is to do some sort ofcreative thought or something
creative, however small it maybe.
For me, a lot of times that'splaying my guitar and playing
something that's improvised, butother times that might be like

(13:28):
writing something that'sinteresting.
And nobody's ever told me that Ineed to do those things.
And those are two things likeI'm To me, it's like the coach
training program I would do.
Those are the things I'mcommitted to outside of what,
because my wife's not, my wife,if I walk in, my wife's not,
Hey, did you have fun today?
And did you do anything creativeat night at 10 o'clock when you
go to bed?
Like, she's not no expectationfrom her.

(13:48):
And there's a lot of, there'salso a lot of like, as a parent,
there's a lot of things that Ijust expect of myself.
And yes, those are societal aswell.
Yes.
And they're aligned to my corevalues of being that.
whether or not society said thatfrom like a more moral and
integrity perspective.
So it's really interesting.
And I wanted to say all thatbecause there are things that we

(14:08):
have expectations of ourselvesaround that are beautiful and
it's what makes us each unique.
And that as we talk about allfour of these categories,
there's no right or wrong withany of this.
It's just ways to look at it sothat you can be more aware.
So you can make, to me, what'simportant here and you and I as
both coaches is you buildawareness.
You can make choices instead ofbeing beholden to the way it's

(14:30):
always gone.
So yeah, that's what I had foraround that.

Yeah.
And you, and you, and to talkabout awareness, you know,
intuitively, instinctively, weknow what we want.
Right.
Yes.
We know what we expect ofourselves and we know what we
expect of others intuitivelyinstinctively.
The question is, are you awarethat that's an expectation and
we'll talk about the other threeright but are you aware that
that's an expectation and haveyou communicated that that's an

(14:54):
expectation because.
Should as an asshole, right?
Like I should do better.
I should work out more.
I should eat healthier.
I should work more, whatever itis, right?
Where does that come from?
And does that actually belong toyou?
Because it probably doesn'tbelong to you at all.
And so, you know, talk about,you know, raising kids and

(15:14):
things, you know, my, so I lostmy parents when I was young.
My dad died when I was 12 and mymom, when I was 16 and I raised
my sister who's eight yearsyounger than I am.
And.
It was always expected that Iwould help my, my, my mom out
with her.
And when When my, my sister wasborn a year or two after that,

(15:39):
both of my parents werediagnosed with HIV.
And so I really kind of becamethat person who took over, you
know, really a majority of thecare from a day to day
perspective, you know,supporting my mother.
She didn't tell me that sheexpected that of me.
I thought she expected that ofme, which we'll talk about,

(15:59):
right?
But And, but I also expected itof myself because I was raised
in the church.
I was raised in the expectationthat if you can help someone you
do without regard for how thattakes from you and these are a
lot of things to unlearn over,you know, Over four, four plus

(16:19):
decades, right?
We won't, we'll just say four,we'll say four plus decades.

There's an expectation on this podcast
episode that we don't need tofully out Sheila's age.
I've said my age in this podcastmany times.

I feel, you

know, somewhere between this and that.
Yeah.

Yeah.
So anyway, so just, but just tosay, you know, it's, it's, It's,
it's one thing.
So to go back to, to the, youknow, intuitive instinctive, now
we're in an age of quoteunquote, right?
This like enlightenment, thisintellectual age where we're
thinking about things and we'retrying to make sense of things
in our brains and we'vedisconnected from our bodies.

(16:58):
So you actually said it, yousaid, you know, how can I
reconnect my, like my feelingsto what's actually happening in
my day to day?
I'm paraphrasing you.
Right.
But this is essentially what Ireceived from you.
Yeah.
And And that's an expectationthat you have of yourself to do
that, but we don't call it that.
We just kind of go through lifeand have our mind make up these

(17:18):
narratives and these storiesabout why we should be doing
things and what expectations wehave of ourselves to always show
up or to always pick up peopleat the airport or always, always
whatever.
And always say yes, even thoughwe really desperately our bodies
scraping.
No.
Yeah.

So yeah.

Expectations we have of ourselves.

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Yeah.
So second one.
Expectations we put on others.
I can't think of anything thatI, any expectations I have on
anybody else, but maybe that'ssomething that comes up for
others.
No, I'm just as a marriedperson, I'm like, Oh my God,
there's so many.

Yes.

Yeah.
So let's talk about these.
Let's talk about the things weput on others.

Yeah.
So expectations that we have ofothers.
So the first one wasexpectations we have of
ourselves, right?
So we're going to flip thescript a little bit and the
expect second is theexpectations that we have of
others.
So the expectations that we haveof others, we might not even
realize that we have.
Of them.
And so you mentioned the Detroitthe Detroit talk, which is, you

(18:56):
know, part of why we're havingthis conversation now, because

it's

this framework of expectations.
A friend of mine, I was, I don'tknow, in my very early twenties
and I was having a not greatnight and We had gone to dinner,
really stressed out about mypartner, not my current one my
previous one, my most previousone, actually.
And I was really stressed out.
I was feeling betrayed.

(19:19):
I was feeling really justfrustrated and angry and bitter.
And I was getting out of the carand he said to me, he was like,
Hey, Sheila.
And I kind of, you know, kind ofleaned back in and he goes, when
we expect of others, what weexpect of ourselves, we'll
always find pain.

And

in that moment, everything changed for
me because I realized that I hadexpectations of my partner that
I didn't actually communicateand I was upset that that my
partner was not acting,thinking, feeling, behaving the
way I would.

(19:58):
And.
That night changed for me inthat I realized that I hadn't
communicated it.
I needed to give my partner achance to have communicated it
to them, right?
And then, then whatever happenshappens.
And so the expectations that wehave of others are about us
recognizing that we have anexpectation of someone else to

(20:23):
put the dirty dishes in the, inthe dishwasher, not directly in
the sink or to take out thetrash because you don't like
going out.
Side after dark because you'reafraid that somebody's gonna rip
you off the street, right?
Like whatever, whatever the,whatever the maybe completely
irrational reason might be, ifwe don't communicate that that

(20:43):
is a thing that we expect ofthem, then they can't ever
fulfill that.
Like meet that expectation.
They can't exceed theexpectation.
They can't reject theexpectation and they can't
negotiate the expectation.
And so what happens, and I seethis a lot, especially with
married couples, right.
What I see a lot in businessowners too, especially business

(21:04):
partners, people who are ownbusinesses together and they're
on two different planes.
I'm like, have you talked aboutthese expectations?
They're like, well, no.
And I'm like, let's start there.

Yeah.
Let's, let's communicate.

Let's communicate.
Right.
And it's, but it's, it's aboutbeing explicit and specific
about what exactly you need.
Yes.
It's scary.
Yes.
It's risky.
Yes.
They might be upset.
And we, as a society haveconditioned people to not upset

(21:40):
other people, except the onlything that can come really truly
can come from communicating yourexpectations is your own piece,
which is the only thing you cancontrol about having said what
you needed from somebody andwhether they, whether they did
it or didn't do it is adifferent story.

(22:00):
But the expectations that youhave of others are a big place
where if you're notcommunicating them, you're going
to find frustration andannoyance and aggravation and
bitterness and anger anddisappointment.
But literally all you have to dois communicate it to them and
then have a conversation aboutit.
And if they're not a person thatyou think you can have a

(22:20):
conversation with, or they'renot going to be willing to
receive that, then that alreadytells you information.
So we don't shift theexpectations we have of
ourselves to subsume ourselvesor subvert ourselves because
someone else isn't able to riseto that occasion, you know,

my assertion would be that category number
two.
Is where most of therelationship breakdowns happen
in life.
I'm just, I'm thinking verytight personal conversation.
Things, but also things likepolitics and we're like, you
know, you watch these largegroups like I'm just thinking

(22:58):
like UN things and all thesethings where people just can't
agree.
It's because there's all theseunsaid expectations that how
people are going to operate thatthey don't.
That's brilliant.
So my encouragement for theaudience here would be, have you
communi like the actualquestion, we're going to get
into some tactics a little bitin a little bit, but like, have
you communicated those things orare you actually aware of them?

(23:18):
Thank you.
And this kind of goes to, thisgoes to another one of these,
but I'm thinking for myself as amarried person, how do I think
my spouse should be acting likeI saw my parents?
operate.
Oh, well, my mom did this, mydad did this, and this is how
they focused in their marriageor did this or didn't do this.

(23:38):
So then isn't that how marriageis?
And then that becomes like, Oh,my expectation where I don't
even know that this is anexpectation.
So that's brilliant.
So now we have, that's

an expectation of yourself that you didn't even
know that you learned.

No, I learned, right.
And an expectation

of, of your spouse that you didn't even know
that you learned to have thatexpectation.

Yep.
And as two married people.
Our spouses come in withdifferent expectations because
they have seen things modeleddifferently.
So that leads us to number threenow, which is expectations
others have of us.

So in the same way that we have, so in the same
way that we have expectations ofothers, people, other people,
all kinds of people, includingstrangers on the street that you
have no previous relationshipwith.
Also have expectations of us andin the same way that we want to

(24:36):
be explicit and specific andclear.
about communicating ourexpectations that we have of
others.
Other people will not be that.
Other people will not beexplicit.
I mean, unless they're me, theywon't be explicit or clear or,
or so specific that, you know,without a doubt, yes, I can

(24:57):
absolutely do that.
Or, nah, I can do this, but Ican't do this.
And can we do this instead?
Or like that negotiation piece,right?
Those four things that I wastalking about.
And so, This is the same butit's just flipped on its head
and that now the burden still sothe burdens on you to be aware
that you have expectations ofyourself the burden is also on

(25:18):
you to be aware that you haveexpectations of others and that
you've communicated them or notand now the burden still remains
on you which is I know it's aheavy burden to bear but once
you get into the habit of ofclarifying and asking for
clarification.
It's easy.
It's like second nature.
Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap.
It will just come and it willfeel so good.

(25:39):
So with this third, you have to,the burden's on you.
The responsibility is on you toask for clarity, specific and
explicit expectations thatanother person has of you.
So think about now some of thesethings.
society teaches us, right?
Like you go into a classroom.

(26:01):
If you're not the teacher, yousit at a chair or a desk and you
look towards the front of theroom, right?
We've been taught that, butmaybe I don't want you to do
that.
Maybe when you come into theroom, I want you to talk to not
sit down, but talk to someoneelse who's already in the room

(26:22):
with you.
You wouldn't know that unless Iexplicitly said that.
I had that expectation of you,right?
The same thing for theexpectations that others have of
us.
If we don't know that we'reexpected to talk to the other
people in the room and not justpick a chair, we're going to do
what we've been taught to dowithout even questioning that

(26:45):
that's actually the expectation.
And so it's on us to ask forclarification and specifics and
explicit, explicit informationabout the thing that's expected
of us.
Otherwise, the other people willget annoyed with us because

(27:05):
They'll say in their brains, Idon't understand why he's not
putting the sink, you know,putting the dish in the sink or
whatever.
Right.
But if I don't know, then Ican't help.
But it's also on me to make surethat I understand what the
expectations of myself are right

now.

Yes, they have some responsibility and
clarifying and telling us but.
They're not going to unless theyknow that they're supposed to,
which means that you have toteach them.
Now, you know, this, y'all, youcannot unknow what you know.
Now go spread.
Yeah, just go spread the word,spread

the good word, spread the

good word.
And, and so that that thirdpiece is a flip to that.
And so, and it leads into thefourth kind.
Yeah.
And that is the expectationsthat we think that others have
of us.
And so that third type ofexpectation is a flip, right, to
that second kind.

(28:00):
But the third piece leads usinto the fourth kind of
expectations, which is theexpectations that we think And
so those number one, these aremy favorite,

these are amazing, these are my Sheila, I,
if you would just write, let'snot even say the suspense, give
us the example that I heard youspeak about, because that room
full of people about theairport.
The, the, the room of people wewere with, everybody's like, Oh,
how that makes perfect.
It's like, it makes such sensebecause we've all been there.
So let's start with the reallife example of where this shows

(28:37):
up.
Sure.
One, one example.

Yeah.
One example of how expectationsthat we think others have of us.
So in the Detroit talk, we hadthe example that I gave was
about picking people up at theairport and how, you know, So
let's say you're like, okay, myaunt's always coming into town.
I'm going to pick her up fromthe airport.
That'd be really nice for her.
But she never actually asks youto pick her up, but you're just

(29:01):
like, she's coming into town.
I'm going to go get her.
Of course, I'm going to go gether.
That's an expectation you haveof yourself.
Yeah.
But she's never actually askedyou to actually come and pick
her up at the airport.
Okay.
No problem.
And then at some point.
You realize that she's startingto come in during the day,
right, and you've got clientsand you're like, okay, I can
cancel this client or I can gopick up my aunt.

(29:22):
I'm just not gonna pick up myaunts at the airport.
So no problem, couple times goby, no problem.
But every time you see thataunt, she makes a little jab
about how you don't pick her upfrom the airport

anymore.
I'm sure this doesn't resonatefor anybody in their family.
I have no idea.
No, no, never.

Yeah.
Yeah.
And so what happens is that thataunt got used to and expected
you to pick her up at theairport every single time
because you always did that,even though she didn't ask you
to do it.
And not having ever been askedto do it, you thought, well,
maybe this isn't something Ineed to do right now.

(30:03):
I have other things that I needto take care of.
And therefore you shifted theexpectations you have of
yourself, which then kind ofsnowballed out of the
expectations that you thoughtothers had of you that the
expectation you thought thatyour aunt had of you to pick her
up at the airport.
And then you see her at familyevents and she makes little jabs

(30:24):
about how you never see heranymore.
You never pick her up from theairport and you think to
yourself, well, you, you don'task me to pick you up at the
airport.
And also, You know, you can, youcan ask me for that, but if I
don't know you need it, thenI'm, I can't just give you all
of the time just because, andthat kind of stuff comes up all
of the time

where then,

but usually it comes up because there's an
argument about the thing thatwent unsaid.

Yeah.

So with that aunt, she never asked you to
pick her up.
You just always did it becauseyou thought she wanted you to,
or you actually wanted towhatever the situation was.
And when you stopped because youweren't being explicitly asked,
then that is where the troublebegins because there was an
unspoken expectation about whatthe actions of each person were

(31:15):
going to be.
And when one person.
basically breaches thatagreement.
Yeah.
Talk about in a contractualterms, like this implied
contract that you have that whenshe comes into town, but maybe
you're always the person whopicks people up from the
airport.
I know I was always the personyou're coming into my town.
Number one, I'm going to pickyou up at the airport.
Number two, I'm going to feedyou before I bring you to the

(31:39):
place where you're going tosleep.
Yeah.
Which may or may not be at myhouse, by the way.
And I was always that person.
You know, how many times I wasrunning out to the airport every
week.
Lord have mercy.
Like I was going to the airportthree or four times a week
picking people up, never beingasked to be for people to pick
up.
I would just offer it.

(31:59):
And at some point I was like, Ican't keep doing this.
So I just stopped and it causedsome issues with people who
were, who became used to mepicking them up every four or
five months when they came intotown.
And I just stopped showing up.
I just said, you know, Gladyou're coming into town.

(32:19):
Let's catch up when you gethere.
And they're like, Oh, you're notpicking me up.
I'm like, I'm not going to beable to do that.
But it wasn't until they'relike, Oh, I guess I'll have to
figure it out.
I mean, and then there was apoint where I was like, well,
I'll just call you a cab.
That is not my responsibility toget.
someone from point A to point B.
But these were expectations Ihad of myself about hospitality

(32:40):
and, and hosting and, and caringfor people and showing them,
showing them what to avoid andwhere not to go and what to eat
and what not to eat.
And all of this stuff was allmixed up, but that was an
expectation that I thoughtothers had of me to begin with,
to begin with they, if theynever asked me to go to the

(33:01):
airport and pick them up.
Why did I go and pick them up ifI wasn't asked to do so?

Yeah

And then what happens is when we do things
without being asked to do themwe create the unspoken
expectation and we create thisThis like push pull of our time
and our talent and our energyand our treasure because people
expect those things of usbecause we've done them before.

(33:34):
And this is, you know, andright, obviously as a coach,
these are issues, but as anattorney, I'm also dealing with
these issues with businessowners who are going outside of
the scope of their contract, whodon't have a contract to begin
with, or don't define the scopein their contract.
Don't get me started.
And, and so.
Helping to articulate what theactual expectation is and a lot

(33:58):
of times when I'm, when I'mworking to build these contracts
packages with small businessowners, they're like, well, you
know, we should do this and thisand this.
And I'm like, should is anasshole.
Number one.
Number two, why do you think youneed to do that?
Well, that's what they expect.
Do they actually expect thatfrom you?
Well, I've always done it.
That's not the question.
The question

is,

do they expect that of you?
Have you asked them?
Because 99 percent of the time,if you, if you ask the person,
Hey, do you, do you, do youactually need me to pick you up
at the airport?
And they'll be like, no, baby,you're fine.
Just you, I'll see you.
I'll see you this weekend at theparty.
And I love you.

(34:40):
And thanks for, you know,thinking, even thinking about
me, people don't expect that ofyou.
You think that they expect thatof you, and then you get
yourself into these situationswhere then communication breaks
down, relationships break down,and then you, you create cluster
of problems that spiral out ofcontrol and sever relationships

(35:02):
simply because you haven't had aconversation about it.

Yeah, brilliant.
I, I had this funny image of youat the holidays and people are
opening their opening their,their gift from Sheila and
they're like an uber gift card.
What an interesting gift.
What are you sending me amessage that I want to go back
to the first categoryexpectations we put in
ourselves.

(35:25):
And the same scenario, it mightbe as simple as this.
I love to have people feelwelcome as soon as they arrive
in my city.
I love to see the look on theirface.
I love to give people a hug assoon as I can.
Then the expectation is, whatare you committed to?
Oh, I picked them up not becauseI have to, because I, because I
truly want to.
I miss this person.
I love them.

(35:46):
I want to take them to eatbecause I'm proud of where I
live.
Like you live in a great placefor food.
And that's the differencebetween, oh, this is the way it
should be.
Or I'm thinking for me, thisexample would be the way I was
raised.
And there's nothing, like, and Iam somebody who would likely
pick people up, yeah, but youshow up for other people.
Your family comes into town, youpick them up they don't need to

(36:07):
be paid.
They've already, so, like, forme, the way this would show up
would be, well, they've alreadypaid for a plane ticket.
We sure, certainly shouldn't putany more financial, financial,
it's the least we could do.
They've taken their time, theirenergy in there, but we don't,
but you know, like, Most peopledon't talk about it that way.
The least we could, they willsay that, but what we're
actually saying is, well,they've sacrificed.

(36:27):
So now I need to sacrifice.
Like, that's what I'm hearingand all that.
So that's a brilliant fourthplace.
And I think we're going to goback now and we're going to talk
about ways to take a look ateach of these things in a way.
And one of the things I said toyou before we started recording
is let's give everybody somepractical ways to look at these.
Cause this.

(36:48):
It's like almost everything elsein coaching.
It's wonderful insights, but ifyou don't do anything with it,
it's just going to keep goingthe same way.
Sheila, before we go back and wego through some practical and
pragmatic ways that people cantake a look at these in their
life and create change if that'swhat they want.

Yeah.

It is our expectation they will do so, but
that's just Sheila and I'sexpectation.

But it is explicit.

It is explicit, but I would also say if you're,
if you're with us here listeningto Sheila and I right now, You
probably have an expectation.
You're going to get some valuefrom this podcast as well.
Before we do that, let's talkabout the skepticism that I know
comes with this topic fromothers.
You know, some, some, some ofthese things come up for me
where I, I even look at thesecategories and go, I can make an

(37:33):
excuse here.
I can make an excuse there.
That person doesn't get me orlike that person, family
history, whatever it is.
So what are some of the thingsthat people will push back on
when you're coaching them aroundthis and, and.
In any direction you want.
This can be like from as anattorney, as somebody that's
more on a personal level,family, friends, anything you

(37:54):
want to share with us aroundskepticism people have.

Yeah, I mean, I think people are skeptical
that it can be that easy forone.

Yeah, because they have an expectation that
nothing is Nothing worth

having is, is, is easy.
That you have to work reallyhard in order to get the thing
that you believe you deserve tohave, which is speaking

into my soul.
Sheila.
This is a, this is a long heldexpectation on myself and
probably what, what nobody'sever said to me.

Yeah.
Well, I mean, but societyteaches us that, that we have to
work hard, right?
In order to be worthy or to havevalue, yeah, or to be productive
or to, you know, put out intothe universe, whatever.
The other piece of theskepticism that I see often is
that They don't often at thebeginning, my clients don't,

(38:47):
they don't believe that theproblem is them.
They believe that the problem iseveryone else, except you can't
control everyone else.
You can only control yourself.
Jason scoffs.

Yeah.
Hilarious.
I could get troll people.
No, not at all.

Well, I mean, you know, this intellectually
intellectually is not theproblem.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, you said this earlier,right?
Like intellectually, it's notthe problem.
We are all smart enough andbright enough.
Mostly to understand thatintellectually to understand
what's happening and what'sbeing said, but emotionally, and
this is where the skepticismcomes from, is the emotional

(39:29):
piece of the resistance to doingthe thing, because that
skepticism is usually aroundfear of rejection, fear of
abandonment, fear of losingtheir job, fear of losing their
partner, fear of pissing offtheir parents, fear of that
fear, right?
See you next week.
And for me, when I'm looking on,I'm like working with somebody

(39:52):
and I'm looking at what's goingon and I'm listening to what
they're saying.
I'm also paying attention towhat they're not saying.
And so in, in the situation ofan expectation that they have of
themselves, I'll say, okay,where did you learn that?
Like, let's back up at just aminute.
So you just said that you, thatyou, you expect yourself to pick

(40:15):
everybody up from the airport.
Right.
And this is a personal thing,but, or, you know, I expect to.
work more than my 40 hours aweek of a salaried position in
order to excel.
It's like, okay, where did youlearn that?
Well, what do you mean?
Where did I learn that?
I learned, I mean, it's, that'snormal.

(40:36):
It's reality.
Like that's your reality.
So, but what does it actuallymean?
Like, where did it come from?
And they're always, a littlestumped and then they'll push
back and they'll be like, well,I mean this is how I was raised.
And this is that we've beentold, you know, I was always

(40:56):
told that I should always domore, don't do less and never do
the bare minimum.
And if you're, you know, halfassing something, then somehow
that that's not enough and youshouldn't half ass things.
And I'm like, right.
But your half assing is somebodyelse's a hundred percent.

Totally

right.
But there's an expectation thatyou acquired somewhere that
makes you believe that you haveto do that.
Where did you learn that?
And once you keep going deeperand deeper, the resistance comes
off.
And they realize, Oh, I justobserved that in my parents as

(41:35):
entrepreneurs or as workaholicsand they were never home.
So I thought, well, if I'm goingto put out value and provide for
my kids, I also need to workthat hard.
And therefore you just do itwithout even thinking about it.
You know, a lot of my clientsare overachievers, type A's,
people pleasers or recoveringpeople pleasers, reforms, people

(41:57):
pleasers who.
Go the extra mile.
They're highly driven, highlyefficient, effective, mostly C
suite attorneys and regulatedprofessionals, licensed
professionals, certifiedprofessionals of all kinds of
industries.
But they're dealing with the,these expectations around the

(42:21):
industries that they're in, inaddition to the expectations
inside of their family oforigin.
And also inside of their, theirfriends and their circles.
And so when you're, when you're,I was going to say cutting down
an expectation, when you'reculling down your expectations,

(42:41):
I think both work, cutting andculling.
It's not just affecting you.
It's potentially affecting otherpeople in each of those circles
that you run in.
And so the resistance, theskepticism is like, well, I
can't actually say that I can'tactually communicate that I

(43:01):
can't actually ask the questionof what they expect of me,
because if I do, they're goingto tell me what they expect of
me.
And it's probably going to bemore.
Then I can give them and I say,well, chances are that's not
true.
You're already working 80 hoursa week.
They're probably not going totell you to work more, right?
They might.
And if they do, we will crossthat bridge when we come to it,

(43:24):
finding you another J O B.
Right.

Yeah.

But it comes up in that they, it seems That
doing like taking the step toclarify the expectation will the
skepticism comes from theperceived upheaval that will
happen by simply having theconversation and there are ways

(43:48):
for us to frame and script thatrequest in a way that feels safe
and secure and where you're notputting yourself on the line and
everything that you've workedfor and, you know, So there's
ways to do that in a way thatmakes you feel comfortable,
right?
It's like when I'm settingprices with clients, right?

(44:09):
They're like, well, nobody'sgoing to pay that.
I'm like, how do you know that?
How do you know that they're notgoing to pay that?
Well, like, well, that's justlike a lot of money.
Well, Yes, but still you haven'tanswered the question.
Why do you know, like, whatmakes you think that they won't
pay that right?
And at the end of the day youhave to be comfortable with the
words coming out of your mouthWhich requires not only the the

(44:32):
mental intellectual awareness ofwhat you're feeling and what's
going on in the situation butalso the emotional piece of
Okay, what am I feeling?
Why am I feeling that?
And You You know, a lot ofpeople just say, push through
fear, just push through fear,just, just push through.
Don't just pretend the fear isnot there.
No.

(44:52):
Like my perspective is no, donot push through fear.
The fear is there for a reason.
The fear is there to keep yousafe and secure.
That is your primal body goingtiger.
Let's not go down that darkalley.
So, but there's information inthat.
Okay.
What are you afraid of?

(45:13):
Well, I'm afraid that I'm goingto lose my job.
If I say I, I really need to beat home more with my family.
I need to do a hybrid workenvironment one day a week for
four hours, right?
That's so scary.
The thought of being insecure,but how you frame it and how you

(45:34):
bring it to your boss or, youknow, to your managing partner
or whomever, right.
We'll demonstrate.
For them, that you take itseriously, and that you have
high expectations of yourself,and they already probably have
high expectations of you becausethey know that you have high
expectations of yourself.

So

the skepticism that comes is really in the
resistance to upsetting thestatus quo.

Yeah.

Except the status quo is the thing that's
keeping you frustrated, annoyed,aggravated, bitter, angry,
disappointed, depressed,anxious, burned out, bored,
broken, right?
The status quo is that I callthat I call the status quo, the
swamp monster.
I'm from South Louisiana.
We got monsters down here,

swamp monsters, the

swamp monster is when you go to take a step
out of that muddy, yucky water.
The Swamp Monastery is like, no,stay here.
I want you to just stay herewith me.
It's so easy to go back into themuck.
It's more comfortable.
But once you don't have thatmuck, you can run around,
frolicking and you know, runamok.

Run amok.
And

just, I wonder if that's the, Do you think
that's the, no, cause I know amuck is an Inuit word.
Anyway, that's, we're not goingdown that rabbit hole right now.
Sheila just had a click, clicky'all of the roots of words.
I love the roots of words.
I love knowing the roots ofwords.
So anyway, so to your, to yourquestion about the skepticism,
sometimes it's that easy.

(47:07):
It is actually that easy of justsaying, Jason, I'm not going to
be able to pick up the kidstoday because I need to run an
errand for a family member.
And can you pick up the kids?

Yeah.
You could

be like, yeah, of course.
Right.

Yeah.

Sure.
I pick up the kids.
Right.
Whatever.
As opposed to not sayinganything at all and trying to do
it all.
Yeah.

Yeah.

It's not even necessarily asking for help.
It's just clarifyingexpectations you have of
yourself and what you're capableof doing.
And people around you love you.
They want to support you.

Yeah, they

care about you.
And if you're in a position anda job and a job, I call a job
that doesn't care about a jobthat doesn't care about you.
I call it a job, right?
That's just a job.

Yeah, it's just a job.

If you're in that kind of environment, you're
going to know right away thatyour expectations are never
going to be met.
And therefore you should.
Go do something else, right?
And, you know, working withpeople in transition.
This often when people arecoming to me is because they're
transitioning from one, onespace to another.
They're going on FMLA leave, orthey're going on Matt leave, or

(48:18):
they're coming back from leave,or they're coming back from
vacation.
And they're like, all right, Ihad two weeks.
How do I keep this?
Feeling of goodness and joy andhaving taken a vacation and not
wait a whole another year.
What does that look like?
Right?
Those kinds of conversations andit's all expectations.
I mean, it's boundaries and it'sdecision making, but it's also

(48:39):
mostly expectations.

Yeah, I want to give the audience a real life
example of this, and I'm goingto externally process this and
talk this out in real time, andthen we're going to give some
things.
So this happened for you and Ihere, and we obviously know each
other, you've been on the showbefore, we know each other in
other contexts.
We came on to record and Irecord in a platform called
Riverside.
So I have, so I have anexpectation of others of guests.

(49:07):
They're going to show up onRiverside.
It's just an expectation.
They're going to do it.
And that's fine and normal.
I mean,

it's your process.
I'll follow

it.
Right.
Yes.
It's your process.
It's my process.
And we were talking and yousaid, Hey, can we turn captions
on?
You are somebody who knows theask for what they need.
And you like to have captionswhen you're doing podcasts and
other things.
Yeah.
And.
Some people might go, well, it'smy process.
We're going to do it my way.
But here's the funny thing.

(49:34):
And I was thinking through this,the expectation I have on myself
is actually, I want my guests tobe as comfortable and have
everything they need to have agreat conversation.
That is my expectation I have onmyself.
And I have never expressed thatto others.
And so there's a gap in mysaying to others, to guess, Hey,
would you like to use somethingdifferent?
Because maybe it, and for this,the feature was captions.

(49:56):
It's probably the main thing inpodcasting.
You like to have captions infront of you.
And you were kind enough to say,Hey, that'd be really useful to
me.
And you asked for what you need.
And that was actually anexpectation that Not only did I
like giving, but it's actually,it's actually in my wheelhouse
of expectations.
I have myself as a podcast guestand as a friend and everything
else.

(50:16):
And I was like, so fascinatedbecause most people would be in
category four there.
I think they go, Oh, well, this,this host does things on
Riverside and this is where herecords his podcast.
And therefore we're going to doit here.
Even if it's not the bestsolution for me and expectation

(50:37):
that I never, and a gap in my,Number two, we did that.
So that was just like a funlittle, fun little way.
I was like, I was like all theselittle things that played out
between us and that interactionin a really positive way.
Those are all expectations thatwe have of ourselves, of others
and all that.
And I know that you have anexpectation of yourself of to be
a great podcast guest.

Right.

And so you were able to say, Hey, you know what?
I could use captions because Ijust know I do better with that.

That was like

a fun little example.

Yeah.
And, and then to you, thank youfor this.
I appreciate that you you'vesaid this and sort of explained
it from your perspective too,because for me, so I was, I was
a late diagnosis, auditoryprocessing disorder.
And so what that means is thatmy brain doesn't process verbal.
input as quickly as itprocesses, read, write

(51:27):
kinesthetic input.

And

so I, the captions for me are about me
being able to be present for youas a podcast, a podcast guest,
but also for you as a friend.
And also I have an expectationof myself to ask for what I need
and I'm still learning.
More than a decade later afterbeing diagnosed to still

(51:52):
continue to ask because therewas definitely and I'll I mean,
to be perfectly transparent withyou, when I saw it was
Riverside, I thought, Okay, Idon't think the last time that I
that I was a guest on someone'sshow and they use Riverside,
they didn't have captions.

And, https (52:08):
otter.
ai I don't, I don't want to, Idon't, I just want us to record.
I don't want there to be anyawkwardness.
And in that moment, I didn'tadvocate for myself.
And so this time when I loggedinto Riverside, I was like, Oh,
Oh, this again.
And

I said,

but maybe, and I was looking around and I was
pressing all the buttons.
Cause I'm thought, okay, maybeRiverside has added captions by
now because, you know,accessibility.
Right.
And so But I couldn't find it.
And I said, you know, can weturn the captions on?
And you were like, no, but youdidn't you didn't just say, Oh,
we don't have captions.
Jason, you went a step furtherand said, there are no captions

(52:48):
on Riverside.
I don't see an option.
Let's switch to zoom.
At that moment.
I could have said no, no, no,it's fine.

Even though it's not really as fine as you would
say it's

right, correct.
And that would have been anexpectation that I had been
taught to be a people pleaserand to not put people out.
But in reality to you, itdoesn't matter whether it's zoom
or it's Riverside.

You're putting me a lot.
You're putting me out a lotmore.
By not getting everything youneed to have a great
conversation on my podcast.
That's way worse for me.

And these kinds, so this is expectations
in action, right?
We don't call them expectations.
We just say, okay, that was kindof a frustrating situation, but
we don't look at them deepenough to say, okay, where was I
coming from?
Where were they coming from?
Did they communicate that?
Am I actually coming up with astory about what I think they
want from me?

(53:41):
Because that fourth kind ofexpectation, that's where all
the mud and the yuck and the uhkand one of my favorites is why
it's my favorite, because onceyou untangle that, your life can
be so incredibly different.
Yeah.
Like night and freaking day.
Yeah.
With a simple conversation thattakes three minutes.

(54:02):
Yeah.
It will resolve that.
You wouldn't even believe theamount of anguish and anxiety
and depression that a simpleconversation will, will just by,
and also just by having theconversation, number one, but
two, framing it through the lensof expectations to say, you know
what I expect of myself thatwhen we meet and we have these

(54:27):
coffee dates that I wait for youbefore you, I wait for you To
arrive before I buy my coffee.
But it occurs to me that maybeyou might not want me to wait
because every time you come intothe coffee shop, you go, you
didn't get a coffee yet?
And I go, no, no, I'm going toget it now.

(54:49):
Let me help.
You know, what do you want?
Right?
That exchange isn't alreadyshows that there was something
there that needs to beaddressed.
And now I don't feel guiltyabout getting my cappuccino
before you arrive.
And when you show up, you getyour cappuccino and we have our
nice little coffee date andeverybody's fine.
Right?

But Sheila, I want to say.
The, what I love about lookingat this topic in this way is
that three of the four, we getto own our own stuff,

correct?

We get to own our own stuff.
We can never own people's other,other people's expectations of
us.
We can ask so we can dosomething about it.
And we're going to transitionhere as we start to wrap up
around what are some thingspeople could do.
But I just, I love what you saidabout how we put it on other
people, but really we get to ownour own thing.
Hey, I realize I have anexpectation of blank.

(55:41):
Does that align with yourexpectation in our relationship?
Oh, I realize that it's reallyimportant to me to this.
Is that important to you?
And when you can have that, Icall that an elevated
conversation.
And from a place of mutualrespect of like, we actually
want this to be even better thanit already is.
So brilliant.
So we're going to go throughthese now because I know you
have things.
Sure.

(56:01):
For each of these.
Like practically, people go,hey, this sounds amazing.
I would be shocked if anybodylistening would go, this doesn't
sound like a better way to live.
What's the next thing peopleshould do?
Yeah.

And

how can they put this into practice?

Yeah, I mean, I think it's actually fairly
easy, right?
These are, I always kind of workfrom a place, especially with
clients, but also with myself,because remember, one of my
daily goals is to be a betterperson today than I was
yesterday.
That requires me to reflect onhow did today go?
And look, I'm not like a, a fiveminute journal or whatever.

(56:34):
I can do this stuff in my head.
Like, I don't need to write itdown.
Right.
But just to be thinking, Oh, Icould have handled that better.
Okay.
What could I have done?
Well, I really would havepreferred if I'd done X, Y, and
Z instead.
Okay.
But do I actually need to do X,Y, and Z?
Am I actually putting myselfout?
Do they expect that from me?

(56:54):
Like having that dialogue insideor monologue inside my brain?
Yeah.
Or I'm self coaching.
Yeah.
So a big part of this, Ofgetting to the root of a
frustrating, annoying,aggravating, angering, you know,
situation is just realizing thatyou're having number one,

(57:15):
realize that you're having thatfeeling to begin with the
frustration, the anger, thedisappointment, the bitterness.
And maybe it's because you'redoing everything that you think
others expect of you.
Right?
But no one's ever actually toldyou that they expect that of
you.
And, and these work, this, thisscenario will, this, these exam
these instructions that I'llgive, they apply to all of them,

(57:37):
but usually something's going onin that fourth one, yeah?
But if they never tell you that,then you probably creating your
own misery, right?
Like you're probably creatingyour own frustration without
even realizing it.
So part of it is the awareness.
Whether it's picking up peoplefrom the airport every time they
come into town or, you know,taking that call from your

(57:59):
client or your boss at 7 a.
m.
right after you wake up.
Right.
So if you think about afrustrating situation that's
going on in your life right nowthe first thing that you should
think about.
And you can, you know, justwrite these down or pause and
grab some paper and pen.
We'll put

these in the show notes too because I know these
are going to be short andtangible and I think you
probably have some leave behindstoo that we can.

Yeah, yeah, that's great.
So the first, yeah, I have amini course on managing
expectations, with like aworkbook and everything.
So the first thing is whoseexpectations was the frustrating
situation about?
Right.
Like, was it your expectation orsomeone else's expectation?
And to your point of.

(58:43):
You can't control other people'sexpectations.
You can only ask forclarification.
You can own your own.
So it's becoming aware.
Whose expectation is thisfrustrating, annoying,
aggravating, whatever situationabout?
Mine or someone else's?
Because remember, when we expectof others, what we expect of
ourselves, we will always findpain.
This is why you get annoyed withroad rage and people who are

(59:05):
swinging around you and notusing their blinker and turning
right from the left lane,whatever.
So whose expectations was thefrustrating situation about?
Was it yours or someone else's?
And you might know that rightaway, but I'd just also caution
you to remember that there mightbe some layers.
So it's okay to go a littledeeper than what seems like on

(59:28):
the surface.
The second thing is then saying,okay, well, whoever those
expectations belong to, havethose expectations been
explicitly and expresslycommunicated.
If not, you can do that.
You can explicitly and expresslycommunicate it, or you can ask

(59:50):
for that explicit and expresscommunication of what the
expectation is, or better yet,If you realize that actually
it's an expectation that youthink others have of you, then
you can just let it go becausethose are fake.
Those are assumptions and as myfather taught me very young, you

(01:00:11):
know what happens when weassume?

Jason Frazell (01:00:14):
You make an ass out of you and me.

Sheila Wilkenson (01:00:15):
Make an ass out of you and me, right?
Yeah.
And should as an asshole, yeah?
And so you can communicate it.
Ask for the communication, askfor the clarification, or better
yet, if no one's actually eversaid anything to you about the
thing, just let it go.
Just please, let it go.

(01:00:36):
Like, don't go looking fortrouble.
Don't go looking for trouble,right?
Like, oh, do you expect this ofme?
Well, now that you say it, Iactually do expect it of you.

Like, damn it, more work,

right?
But remember, just becausesomebody clarifies an
expectation to you doesn't meanyou have to accept it.

Yeah.
You

can choose to negotiate it.
You can choose to reject it.
You can choose to exceed it.
And you can choose to fulfillit, but you have the choice then
just because they have theexpectation, you choose how you
interact with that expectationor don't engage or don't.
Because when we expect ofothers, what we expect of
ourselves, we're always going tofind pain and that works both

(01:01:19):
ways.
It's not just us.
It's other people with us aswell.
Right.

Yeah.
That we

can control what pain we voluntarily take on
and it doesn't take much to letit go.
Like it can be gone in threeminutes.

So if

that's the case, let it go.
Let it go.

Brilliant conversation as always, Sheila.
I want to, first of all, let'stalk about where people can
connect with you.
All of where everything Sheila'sabout to say is going to go in
the show notes as well, but Iknow you have a variety of free
resources, low cost resourcesaround this, because I know this
is a, this is a topic that youare passionate about and And

(01:01:57):
honestly, this would make so theworld, this would just make the
world a better place if we wereable to have these elevated
conversations.
Sheila, how can people connectwith you and learn more about
this and all the other thingsyou are up to?

Yeah.
I mean, most of my work is in.
is in three areas, right?
Setting, helping people resetexpectations, helping people set
boundaries that stick.
And then the third is helpingpeople make decisions that feel
good, right?
So I have resources for each ofthese kinds of things.
And so, as I said earlier, youknow, the decisions, making

(01:02:29):
decisions is about boundaries.
It's about expectations, butexpectations are like the, the
root of all, they're the root ofall the frustration, right?
And so I hang out on Instagram.
I'm an Instagram girl.
I never thought that I would saythat out loud, but here I am
saying it again.
A new

expectation you have on yourself.

It's, it's the weirdest thing I'm telling you.
Yeah.

Yeah.

So Instagram is a good place to connect with
me just to like kind of get inmy circle and get my vibe.
Yeah.
And I mean, obviously you've gotmy vibe now, but I'm actually
really a lot of fun if I do sayso myself.
I like it.
I like how you're like,

you're like, despite how this podcast
interview went, I'm actually alot of fun.

I am fine.
No, Sheila's very fine.

I got to test Sheila.
You've been, you've been smart.
This whole topic is can be quiteserious and you've been smiling
for most of it.

Yeah.
It's also fun.

Yeah, you want to smile

the best.
So Instagram is a great place,but honestly, if like you want
to have a conversation or youwant to just want to learn a
little more about how you canlearn about yourself, whether
that's with me or on your own, Ihave self study stuff.
I have one on one stuff at groupstuff is my website, Sheila
Wilkinson.
com super simple.
And then we'll make sure thatgoes into the show notes.

(01:03:39):
But if you actually want toconnect with me and just like
get in my.
In my circle, in my aura.
Yeah.
In my energy.
Instagram is a great place to dothat.
LinkedIn is also a perfectlyfine place to do that.
It's a little more fun onInstagram, but yeah, of course,
but I do share the sameinformation across both
platforms.
So you're gonna, you're gonnaget it.

(01:04:00):
Yeah.
The only thing that I will sayis that I don't connect with
people.
On LinkedIn that I don'tpersonally know or have had a
conversation with.
So if you send me a note onLinkedIn, I want you to say, I
heard you on Jason's podcast.

Yeah, absolutely.

And I want to talk about blah, blah, whatever.
And then I will write you backand say, thanks for reaching
out.
Like, let's talk about a coupleof things.
And we'll have a conversation tomake sure that being in each
other's network is the right fitfor both of us.
This is a clear expectation thatI was going to say,

what a great modeling of expectation.
Number two,

I got to practice what I teach, man.

Totally.
That's so good.
I will say that as also anexpectation.
If anybody ever says, Hey, Iheard.
Heard you and Sheila talking onyour podcast.
I just want to connect.
I will connect with you 100percent of the time.
Yep.
If it's spam or some random,like we both, we're both human
and we both live in the UnitedStates.
We should connect.
Right,

right.
Right.
Yeah.
That's not, that's not gonna getme because I'm, I curate spaces.
I curate, communities.
And I want to make sure that mypeople are protected the same
way that I want to, you know,your people to be protected.
So that's a good place.
But if you're interested ingoing a little deeper about the

(01:05:12):
mini like expectations, I have alittle mini course that has a
workbook and a video that willwalk you through some of the
things that are going on in yourlife right now.
And you kind of get help youget.
your kind of brain wrappedaround it in a more objective
way when you're looking at it onthe paper.
Yeah.
And so we'll make sure that weput that course link into the

(01:05:33):
show notes as well.
And yeah, I've got scripts aboutsetting boundaries, copy and
paste stuff to put in youremails to make people go away
and leave you alone.

Sheila says to do this.

I look, this is exactly the thing.
So to your point, your questionearlier, you said, you know, I
didn't know I needed permission.
You have permission, you have mypermission and you can say,
well, Sheila said that I shoulddo

this.

That's why my podcast is what would Sheila
say?
Because what would Sheila say?
She would say, just do what youwant to do.
Be who you want to be.
Let it go.

Brilliant.
My friend, as always, thank youso much for your time, your
wisdom, your energy.
So glad we could make thishappen.
And I can't wait to get this outto everybody to listen to
everybody right in.
If you have anything and.
We'll catch you again soon.
Sheila, we're, we're moving youtowards starting it live.
Five time jacket status.
We're getting there.
Three more to go.
Talk soon.

Speaker (01:06:24):
Thanks for listening to another episode of Talking to
Cool People with Jason Frizzell.
If you enjoyed today's episode,please tell your friends, follow
us on Instagram and Facebook,and give us a shout out, or take
a moment to leave a review oniTunes.
If something from today'sepisode piqued your interest and
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(01:06:47):
com.
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Sheila Wilkinson - A Conversation About Expectations

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Sheila Wilkinson - A Conversation About Expectations