BEING HER with Margarita Nazarenko - 179: Stop Being the Good Girl. Become BOSSY.

Episode Date: August 23, 2026

Watch Detach: My 3 day intensive masterclass.They called you bossy. They called you demanding. They called you difficult.Good.In this episode Margarita makes the full case for being self led, why women are trained from childhood to outsource their own lives toother people's comfort, and why the burnout, brain fog and confusion so many women are feeling right now is coming from one place.You have stopped leading yourself.In this episode:1. Self led women know what they want and are not afraid to say it2. We are taught as little girls that being easy is rewarded3. Being self led is not controlling others it is running your own life4. Indecisiveness is one of the most expensive things you can do to yourself5. Confidence looks bossy when people are not used to it6. Women apologize before they even finish the thought7. The fear is not of being bossy it is the fear of rejection8. Every successful woman has been called bossy at some point9. Someone is always steering your life if it is not you10. What would you do if nobody was watching and nobody caredIf you say I do not mind so often you have forgotten what you do mind, if you apologize before you even finish the thought, or if you feel like you are living someone else's version of your life, this one is for you bossy girl.Being Her is your no filter space for woman empowerment, relationship advice, confidence, feminine energy, and living life completely on your own terms.Love you lots like jelly tots xxSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Demanding bossy little rat. Today, I'm going to do what I feel like doing. I am going to do what I feel like doing. A lot of women have a problem doing what they feel like doing. I feel like lying here. Permission granted to just lie here. Okay, listen, the life I lead is so hyper busy that someone in my last comment section for the last podcast,

said, your thyroid looks wack, you need to check it. I wouldn't be surprised, baby girl. I just have fat-neckedness. I've had my thyroid checked many times. It is just fat-nec-nickness, nakedness as in like any C-K-E-D. But the thing about it is, I would not be surprised if my thyroid was functioning on some kind of other level. Because I've been thinking about women in society and what we're programmed to be and how it doesn't suffer. us. We talked about rushing through life. We talked about soft life. We talked about being unbothered and leading your own life. But I think there is a conversation to be had about being self-led, okay? And in the modern world, it can be interpreted a lot as bossy. She's just so

bossy. She's just so like demanding, demanding bossy little rat. And the idea about being called bossy or being called demanding is that we've been trained in society as we've been talking about that it is a bad thing and I've had an encounter with that whole situation recently because I've had so much on my plate and I feel like it's my fault because I have not delegated tasks properly because I wanted to appear likable more than I wanted to be functional right I feel like girls don't get trained at a leadership. That's a really big conversation. Like, be a leader, take a seat at the table, be a boss girl, be a boss babe.

I think that is now coming quite naturally to us. I think what we are scared to take in life is the driver's seat. I see myself doing this constantly. I want to be more likable even as a boss, especially as a boss, than I do, or as a friend. or as a partner, I'm going to Los Angeles soon. I'm not going to tell you when, but I am going soon. And I've been looking at hotels. And I found myself constantly referring as normal as it seems to my husband and be like,

do you like this hotel? Do you like this hotel? Does everybody like this hotel? What is Margarita like? Everybody. What does Margarita like? Nobody knows because we're not asking me. Like, we are often so led by other people and their whims and their happiness is that

the idea of being self-led and sitting down and meditating on the fact of what it is you like is a very strange notion. We know that nobody calls little boys bossy. I've raised a son and I'm raising a daughter. By raised, I mean he's six, so he's out of the little toddlerhood. Everybody calls my daughter bossy because she is and I mean that in the best way. She is very self-led. She knows what she wants. My son is a demanding type of character, but nobody ever called him bossy, okay? People could call him like a natural leader, not my son specifically, but that's what they call boys who are bossy, right? They say, he's in charge, he knows what he wants, he's a go-getter. But I think when girls are told that they are bossy, it is said with a negative streak through

the name. And I think it takes away from the nature of women being self-led and knowing what they want. So we get a drive to accommodate. We get a drive to accommodate because I know this in my life. When things are peaceful, it is easier for me. I've talked to my mom about this at nauseam where she says, why do you serve the needs of other people above your own? It will be even down to people that, you know, work for me in my home,

my business, everybody. I'm like, oh, I try and gauge. some kind of algorithm like the Terminator, what it is they want, as opposed to what it is I want. Not because I'm afraid of necessarily being called Bossy, I mean bossy is just a term, right? But I'm afraid of being perceived. This is what I thought. I thought I was afraid of being perceived as that, but it is wrong. In psychology, a human being needs several things, right?

The two things every human needs is to belong on one side. and autonomy and freedom and to run their own life on the other side. So when I was having this conversation with my mom, she was like, oh, you just want to be likable. And that is not true. It is not that I want to be likable. It is the fact that my need to belong is higher or used to be higher. I'm now working through it than my need to run my own life. Psychologists call these two opposing factors related, right?

You cannot belong at the same time as running your own life seamlessly, right? And what girls have to trade in from early childhood is if they're going to belong, they trade that in for running their own life. And I did that very well as a child. I've talked to you guys about this before, but I come from a background when my mom immigrated and she had to do quite a lot of like hard things. In terms of by hard, I mean be 28 years old, moved to a new country. And watching her do it, I didn't want to add more to her plate. So I still have this instinct to not add more to people's plates. I feel that I have enough power and skills in order to make people feel accommodated and happy.

And my irk, even in friendships and in all aspects, is to give them on a silver platter, the ability to feel comfortable over my need for autonomy, right? And this podcast is about getting your autonomy back, because you have an ancient wisdom and a knowledge about what it is. is you want. The burnout we're seeing in women, the confusion that we're seeing in women, the autoimmunes we're seeing in women, the constant dermatitis for no reason that we're seeing in women, is because we are not self-led enough. I want you to put on your bossy boots and your bossy pants and not just girl boss this thing. Forget the girl boss that we've been taking a seat at the

table, but girl boss this life, we're going to make our own meal decisions, we're going to make our decisions without guilt, right? And we're going to do this thing. I think the conversation about bossiness usually starts with minor preferences that we don't see. And you've got to watch in everyday language how fast you sand off your preferences. I'd like to eat here. I'd like to be bought flowers for my birthday. I don't like that. And our reflex and my reflex is always to say, I don't mind or it's fine or whatever you want. I've learned to do it so much over life that I say it as I mean it. Like I literally mean it because the price for me to think of what I want, and I describe this

to my mom, is more painful like cognitively and in my life than just going along with it. Okay. But the more you dumb down your preferences and you erase yourself, the less you know yourself and the less you become somebody to be admired and. revered, right? There's a psychological phenomenon that psychologists found that women often say if that's okay or I don't mind at the end of sentences. The most interesting way to see if you say that is when somebody asks you something, you will always qualify it with if that's okay or I don't mind or something along that nature. You are trying to belong more than you are trying to lead yourself.

Point number three is I think women mistake leadership and being self-led and having all and deciding what it is they want to do for control. And I've talked a lot in my book Unbothered and here on this podcast about control being a false scenario in which, let's say you have a partner who might not be doing the right thing by you or they might be disrespecting you somehow. The illusion of control that you have is that, let's say, he goes out late and you berate him for it, that you can actually control his behavior in a way that it's not going to hurt you. or you can control him in a way that to look at his phone, let's say, if you think he's disrespecting you behind your back or cheating or something like that. And the dichotomy of control is that you cannot control someone's bad behavior out of them, right? And in so doing, you're forgetting yourself and putting yourself on the back burner. That is the whole codependency issue.

A codependent will even neglect to brush their teeth to get up in the morning. She says from her bed, but listen, I know usually podcasts like that. This is a new trial. If you're watching this, I am lying in my bed. Who cares, right? But they will not brush 30, they will not get on with their lives because they are trying to hide under the guise of control.

That is the only comfort that they have. And by that they are buying the exact thing we're talking about here. And that is the delusion of fitting in. They would rather fit in with somebody who hurts them. They would rather be together with someone that hurts them. And people say online, know, just dump him, just don't be with him. He's terrible for you.

They can't hear that because they're codependent. They're like that fish that sticks on the belly of the shark because all that person wants is to belong to that person. What we confuse being bossy or self-led to be is not controlling people. We think that refusing to control your own life and control your own preferences and outsource your life to other people's preferences, women who are who are, who are, are codependent often like to be easygoing and not be called bossy to ease the friction between them and their person they love because they don't want to be seen as someone who's dominant.

They don't want to be seen as someone who's like, you must obey me at all costs. But this is not what it is. Controlling others is trying to run their life. That is what it is. Controlling others is trying to run their life. Self-led living and a bossy-ass bitch is about running. your own life. I'm going to go and book the hotel that I want to stay at. And I don't even know what hotel I want to stay at because I don't ask myself these questions because I always

position myself with what do other people want to do. And this is the whole thing about healing anxious attachment, right, that there's layers to it. I was doing an interview the other day and somebody asks me like, how unbothered are you? And truly hand on heart to the interview where I said, fully unbothered in terms of that kind of like boy chasing. Does he like me? Does he not like me like I could not give two flying squirrel butts about that, but there's layers to it, right? Family, there's layers to it. There is that people pleasing that goes down to the deep core of who you were as a child to the point where you don't hear yourself. Like, I have very strong tastes like what I like. This bedhead here, these she, it's this cool shirt I'm wearing. It is a very cool shirt. Okay,

it says lucky in Chinese. My husband's half Chinese, boom. I have strong tastes because it never cost me anything. You see, as a child, it never cost me anything to have strong tastes. I like this thing. It never cost me anything. But to have preferences, it cost me something and you need to think about what cost you something and what you need to bring back into your life because, bless my mom, I love her so much, but she always has strong preferences. So to me, I would never choose a place where we'd go to because she would like a certain table at a certain place and do the certain thing. And I just kind of blend it into the background and now even with hotels when I said I'm just going to go and choose the hotel I want. And to a lot of you, this might sound like minutiae and stupid, but there's levels to it, right, of

being a woman who knows herself, which is deeply attractive, by the way, if you're still in searches of a partner that's so attractive to know yourself, right? There's a dial in every person called the Locus of Control. Do you believe you steer your life or do you believe life just happens to you. And I'm trying to employ you to understand that you are the captain of your ship. Everything you do, you are capable of. You can do hard things. Self-led is moving the internal dial from things just happen to I decide things.

And another question that interviewer asked is you often talk to women as if it's women's fault, the way that society is and the way that life is. and no, I am trying to dial your locus of control to yourself as opposed to just things happen and others because it gives you power. It is a superpower to believe that you are the cause and effect of things that happen. You are the person that causes the dial to shift. It gives you, may it be false or not so false, the idea that you can make change and make things happen. Because me talking to men is like a hippo teaching squirrels how to be you know squirrels.

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That's W-A-Y-F-A-I-R.com. Wayfair, every style, every home. Number four, I read in a book about psychology that a part of mental load and this brain fog that women get is indecisiveness. One of the things I'm going to cut out by in 2026 and I promise you in January 2027, it's not even going to be a thing, but indecisiveness is gone. going out the window, buy-bye, baby, because that cognitive load when you already have a life that you are running and you're leading is too expensive. A lot of women spend enormous, enormous, huge amounts of time trying to make sure that everyone's happy and accommodated, right, in every single way and avoiding that slight bit of disappointment in someone's face from my issue with

the hotels, like, who cares? Bossy women simply make decisions. decisions and sometimes that's the kindest way to be on yourself and on your system. And bossy women sometimes burn a bridge and that's okay. Bossy women just decide and then pick up the pieces afterwards but people think oh no no no move slowly make decisions slowly all this stuff. It costs you too much. Yeah. You're burning too much energy trying to accommodate everyone. A bossy woman just picks one one thing and she keeps it stepping. half the time it's much more merciful on your psychology, on everyone else, on you asking people, what do they think, on you trying to accommodate people, right?

So I'll just have a name for invisible jobs that you're doing, and that's the mental load or the cognitive load or the anticipation load as well. We're always tracking, deciding, and trust me, you know how men say, oh, she doesn't do anything or, you know, because she's a stay-at-home mom, or whatever it is that stupid people, say online. They don't witness your cognitive and mental load because they don't carry it. They just decide because they never got called bossy as a little boy. They just decided. And you are also running away from making a bad decision. You don't want to make a bad decision and then be blamed, right? Number five, confidence looks bossy when people aren't used to it.

Okay, and it is not your fault to place. It's not your job to play small for other people. If you're young, confidence can be read as arrogance or bossiness. If you're attractive, if you're female, if you're any myriad of these things, people often interpret your certainty, your responsibility, your autonomy as arrogance. And you could say you're going to play that down. I got called arrogant a few times when I was in my 20s and I really play down my personality. there was an issue with a staff, a member of staff in my company and somebody said, you're just too nice to people, you're just pussy footing around constantly. And I said, I got used to doing that because when I was younger, everything I did said in every air I breathed, every piece of air I breathed, was seen as bossy or arrogant. So I learned to play this kind of like jovial type of character in order to not offend, lest I offend. The gap is not.

to like be a complete bulldozer it's to not succumb and change your character just for people's expectations we judge people the hardest when they break a mold so when someone's young female or attractive right if a woman being like that violates certain standards it's very hard for our cognitive brain to think about it is just off script if you're like some bombastic bossy businessman and that kind of fits the script. But if you want to be a woman who makes history and if you want to do interesting things and if you want to do amazing things,

you're going to have to sit with the discomfort of being self-led because if you don't steer your ship, it's going to be very, very hard to do anything. When it comes to basics, I am kind of picky because I wear them every day. I want things that feel good, hold their shape, and actually look put together at the same time. I know that's a big ask.

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Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada and the UK too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E.com slash being her. Interesting. Number six. Women often apologize before they even had the thought. They say things like, sorry, this might sound stupid. Sorry, this might sound silly.

I'm probably wrong, but I message like that all the time to play down my self-ledness and my autonomy. Yeah. And that's not manners, baby girl. That is you trying to wipe your bossiness away. It's a toll you pay for starting every idea with an apology is that you're also not convincing to people when it matters. That's not how you start businesses and that's not how winning's done, okay?

And I always used to think that, am I like that because it's an insecurity? Again, a debate I had with my mom and it's not. It's an awareness of how I'm perceived and a trial in order to cushion my personality, right? women they apologize because they're trained to do it because it's a safety blanket it's almost like having a parachute before you jump it's almost like how dogs roll over and show you their belly to say that they're not dangerous we as women do that too in order to become more digestible to the world i say how about we don't do it and see what happens i think number seven point number seven is the fear isn't of being like this bossy woman who no one likes i think the fear is the fear is the fear of The fear is if you go your own way or if you like your own things, people won't like you, they won't choose you, they won't invite you, you'll be ill talked of in the village, and you will be alone. Bossie is often just another word to say, I stopped asking people for permission. You have to let people find you, your own people will find you, you're not going to be alone, people will find you, everyone has a tribe.

people, women, are scared to be unlovable because they're scared to be alone. Okay? And it's also a fear of authorship, of having your own thoughts and your own mind and your own ideas that will be judged by other people. I understand that because in this world, if one learns that every time they grab the wheel and they steer, they get punished for it and it's easier to go in the background. But you don't understand the secret punishment. that you get for not being autonomous and not being self-led is that you never get the life you want and you end up living out other people's lives. And that is a far greater price than having a slap on the wrist sometimes when you make the wrong decision. Number eight, I think you must

understand that every bossy woman, every, I wasn't meant to say bossy, but I was meant to say successful woman has been called bossy or unpleasant or been talked badly about business owners, mothers, teachers, and I talked about this at the start of my career when I started speaking about this. Feminine energy is sometimes bossy. Like being a mum is actually quite masculine energy. You're directional. You tell people what to do. If you're a teacher, a mother, a CEO, a boss, women who lead are almost always described in those terms.

I've been called it. I'm sure if you have ever been successful in anything, you've been called it. it's not even about people thinking that about you, it's just what you will be called. It is the price of success being called difficult, being called all these things. It's part of the toll. I would wear it as a badge of honor, honestly, if I was a business owner. Number nine, and this is very important. And this is for a lot of girls who grew up in cultures that they kind of have to follow what

their parents say. And you need to understand that someone has to drive your life. if that is not you who is it. You have to look around you and understand who you're handing the keys to. If it's a partner you chose, let's just say, and you really love your husband and you really respect him or church or God or whoever it is that you, let's say, respect, then there is no problem handing over the keys and you do you. But if it's society, your mother, your father, your friends, the damn Instagram algorithm,

it's steering you and you will get the life that they are choosing for you. because space and vacuums get filled very quickly. So if you're not steering your life, they will be doing it. And it's rarely going to be with your interest at heart. Your parents might think they're doing the best thing for you. Your friends might think they're doing the best thing for you, but they don't go to bed with you at night, and they're not going to be looking after you, okay?

The decision to be self-led is a rebellion against those kind of societal norms. The external dial versus the internal dial is another. the term in psychology of how is it that you get steered in the world? What is your North Star? Yeah? Because if you're delegating your decision making and your lifestyle choices to a partner or, like I said, someone has got good intentions for you, great. But if it's to serve other people's purposes, then it is a bad idea and you need to really

understand that it's going to get you in a bit of a pickle. Yeah. If nobody ever punished you for making your decisions or being unaccommodating or being all these things, I want you to ask yourself what you would do with your life. What would you naturally do with your life? What would be the thing that you would naturally want to do? What is your small act of rebellion of your bossy bitch behavior? Like what is it that you want to do? I want you to finish listening to this podcast, go away and really sink into what it is you would do if nobody was watching and nobody cared because truly no one is watching. Isn't that exciting?