Getting Naked: The Podcast - Beginning Again | Valerie Bertinelli | Getting Naked: The Podcast

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

In this episode of Getting Naked: The Podcast, host Valerie welcomes Malika Begin, a leadership consultant and CEO, to discuss the messy but powerful process of personal and professional transformation. Together, they explore how women can shed outdated identities, rethink self-doubt as a tool for growth, and step into their inherent power by dropping their masks and embracing self-awareness over a constant chase for confidence.

Hi, everybody. Welcome. Before we get into today's episode, I just want to give you a quick reminder that we have the full reveal coming up at the end, and the full reveal is for Valerie's Place members only. So if you'd like to become a member of Valerie's Place, just head on over to Valerie's Place.com or to where you like to download your apps, and you can download Valerie's Place. And then you can get the full reveal, and you also get a first look at all of these podcasts before they go up on YouTube and Spotify. All right, let's get into it. I have a really fun recipe for you today. You saw how easy that was. Look at all that flavor we packed into chicken breasts. Love the flavor of maple syrup, especially for these kind of muffins.

I see all of your comments. I swear I do. You are wondering, where's my show? This is so dang delicious. Smells divine. That's a jalapeno popper. Oh my god. It's so good!

Yes, I'm back and I am cooking for all of you. All right, Sophie. What are we reheating today? Welcome to Nal Vow's cooking. Guess what we're gonna make right now. We're alive. Hi, everybody. How are you? You have to go to Valerie's Place. That's where you can see our book group, this podcast. That's where you can go for all the cooking that you want to see.

Oh, yes. I've missed cooking for you. I'm glad I finally get to do it again. I'm dancing. That's how good it is. So head to Valerie's Place.com and go ahead and sign up. You guys are the original members, and I can't thank you enough. It's happy time. We are here. Welcome back to Getting Naked. And you know on this show that we like to talk a lot about, stripping away the BS, right? We like to be as authentic as possible. I'm still wondering what that

actually means. I don't know what authentic is. I feel like I'm being my most authentic self, but we always have, you know, some sort of mask here and there. But I want to just let go of all the expectations. I want to get real about who we actually are. You guys send me questions about that. I love all of it. We're going to talk a little bit about transformation today. So my guest today is Malika Began. She is the fact. Founder and CEO of Begin Development, and she spends her days helping major organizations, CEOs, and high-powered leaders navigate massive change. Okay.

But here is why I have her sitting across from me today. Malika has realized a simple, beautiful truth in her work. Organizational change doesn't start with a spreadsheet or a board meeting. It starts with a single person having the courage to grow. Oh, boy, yes, do I agree with that. So whether you're a Fortune 500 executive newly divorced or empty. nester or looking at a blank canvas at 65. The rules of reinventing yourself are exactly the same. We're going to talk about why we wear masks, how to stop people pleasing until we're numb.

Oh, boy, do I need to talk to Malika and why you don't actually need confidence to change your life. And you really don't. Malika, welcome to the show. Thank you. It's so nice to have you here. Oh, good. This is the kind of conversation I want to have all the time. Good, good. I love this kind of conversation because I feel even at my age, I'm learning so many new things about how to stop people pleasing. And it's so, so hard because I've been doing it for so many years because I'm now trying to find the weight of people pleasing. And also, I just like being nice to people.

And I like people to feel good around me. So what's the difference? Oh, I mean, the difference is the awareness that you just said that you have. And it doesn't mean that your behavior changes right away. But just that first awareness that it's even happening, that you do that, that you have those patterns. I know you've done a lot of self-exploration figuring out why you do that.

And you see that pattern in your life over and over. And some of those patterns work for you really well. And then they don't. Or maybe they never worked. And it's just time to change them. And it's really hard for people to identify that. And then even when we do identify that sometimes, we still can't make the change because change is so difficult. And is it possible to make the change?

Like I feel like there's a certain way that I feel that feels icky. when I'm people pleasing. But there's another way that I feel that feels good and giving and I feel more whole when I'm making somebody feel good. Is that the difference? I mean, I think that's part of the journey of figuring out what is authentic to you, what is part of your values, what is truly Valerie and how people experience you and how you want them to experience your warmth and your kindness and the way you communicate

and all the things that have been built into your life to make you you. and then figure out what's not working for me, what's draining me? What actually do I walk away from it? I have that little thing in the back of my head saying, I really, you know, when you want to send the text and be like, I wish I hadn't said that, or I wish I'd shown up stronger, or I just want to apologize for the way I showed up. And when I'm coaching clients, we talk a lot about how you move through the world.

Are you moving through the world the way you want to move through the world? Do you feel good about how you move through the world? Because it's very action-oriented, but behind all of that is exactly the introspection that you're doing, to ask yourself in all of those micro moments and not overload, but the micro moments that you want to ask about, did I feel good about that? Do I want to change? Is this serving me now in this stage of life? Were you ever a people pleaser? I still am a people pleaser. I mean, that's the big joke about being a coach or an executive coach or leading these big initiatives. I'm from Lincoln, Nebraska.

I mean, the Midwest, right? Okay, go big red. The Midwest is the nicest place on earth, right? I'm married, a true Californian. I love taking him in the kids home and it's like culture shock is real in America, right? You don't think that when you come out here and I came out here to work in Hollywood and I was like, it's not going to be that different. It's so different. And it's so lovely to go home and to feel what has been put into me from my grandparents, the culture, the people, where I grew up, I'm really proud of it. And it does not always serve me in my goals. Oh, really? The people pleasing. Yeah, I want to be this powerful businesswoman who can walk into a room. with charisma and show up. And oftentimes I have to give people really hard feedback. I have to

dive into conflict. And people say, right? You must love conflict. You've made a degree of conflict and you're doing so much conflict with these organizations. And I said, that's probably what makes me good at it is that I do not like it. I'm conflict avoidant. I still struggle to do it in my personal relationships. I am a constant work and process in this progress, this area, because I'm actually not naturally good at it at all. I'm actually really bad at it. How do you practice to be maybe not even good at conflict resolution, but how do you take the first step to say, because we all know that conflict is coming. I hope it's not conflict. I hope I can resolve this. So, but taking the first step toward conflict resolution is so challenging. Where does that first step come from?

for me, I think you really have to believe in why the conflict is necessary. So not seeing conflict is this negative thing like, well, I have to do it because it's my job or the conflict's really going to hurt someone's feelings, but I have to tell them because everybody else is mad. So I either make one person mad or the whole team mad, like you're forced into conflict in leadership positions sometimes. For me, the unlock has been a reframe of thinking about conflict as kindness. So if I am willing to say, look, this meeting is going to be so boring without conflict. One of the Patrick Lincione ideas, and I love a lot of his work, is that a movie should be as exciting as a board meeting. They're about two hours long, and which one do you think is more exciting? The movie or a board

meeting, it's like easy question. And that usually means that there's some drama lacking. There's some conflict lacking. And so that's a very specific example of like the room that that would happen in. But another example one-on-one is that if we're working to, you know, if we're working to together and you really want to see me grow and you have a piece of feedback for me that you know really annoys everyone else, but you don't want to tell me because you're so kind and you don't want to see the heartbreak on my face when I realize what a jerk I've been being to people or how people experienced me differently than I think they experienced me. But a couple of years later, I might come back to you and say, Valerie, I really needed that

piece of feedback. It really changed things for me. I couldn't grow in my leadership role until that moment. And I went home and I was mad at you and I thought she shouldn't have said that. that was so rude, and the people-pleasing part of you might have heard a little bit, but it was life-changing. That is the transformation for me, because you gave me the gift of feedback. And it might have been rooted in conflict,

but it was actually a huge blessing and gift in my life because I was stuck in a pattern that didn't help me move powerfully through the world. And you helped me unlock it because you were willing to go through the conflict. Yeah, I, like, how do you feel and turning it around? because I, sometimes I feel like I'm not getting, like people don't want to tell me their experience with me because they don't want to hurt my feelings. But I'm like, please don't kiss my ass. If I've done something wrong, I need to know. Like I was late this morning and I'm sorry.

But, you know, these guys are, oh, it's nothing, it's nothing. No, it's not nothing. I was late and I apologize for it. And I hate being late. But if there's anything deeper or bigger than that, I want to be told. in the kindest way possible, that it's, and I think the problem has to be fixable. I think that's the biggest thing. You know that it's a fixable problem.

So how do you feel when you get feedback or from a conflict that you may not have expected coming? How do you react to that? Well. And have you ever gotten it? Yes. Yes. And sometimes the person delivering that feedback is more skilled. They have more artistry and their EQ and their personal relations skills.

so sometimes I can receive it a little more easily. And sometimes I think that person was a real jerk. They could have said that to me in a much nicer way, or I feel offended, or I feel mad at them. Most of the time, and because I'm an org development person, I'm thinking in systems. And so when you're asking, how do we get more of that feedback? I want that feedback.

The first story I tell, it's a very early story. I think I was in first grade, and I was a soccer player. I played this is what got me out to California. I played soccer at a college, and it got me close to. enough for an internship in Hollywood. But when you're five, you can see, like, okay, there's all these girls. They're playing on the field. The girls that weren't very good, the coach is saying to them, you're doing great. Keep it up. I'm so proud of you for just being on the field. You're wonderful. And then there were like two or three girls, you could tell. They were way better than everyone

else. And he was yelling at them. He was like, you need to get there faster. I see the potential in you. You've got speed and footwork. You need to be doing these drills. I really think you. could go far in the sport or maybe in another sport, but athletics is a skill and you're going to need to work to be great at it. And when I saw those two different coaching styles, I just, little, a little kid, right? We're picking up these signals all the time. I was like, oh, I want to be with the best. I want him yelling at me so that I'm being coached better. I want the best coaching so that I can be the best at whatever I'm doing. And I think about that mentality now when people yell at me or give me feedback I don't like or say something even critical or harsh,

I think, well, I didn't want to be the kid who was participation award. We're just glad you're here. Well, let's be clear. Yelling is never okay. Well, I mean, I don't want anybody ever yelling at me. If you have something to say to me, say it calmly and I'll listen. But if you yell at me, immediately I'm going to judge you. Well, different people.

You know, on the sideline, have you seen these amazing college women's coaches who are telling them, you need to get your head in the game and you need to be intense. That's the kind of yelling, I mean. Yes, yes. No one wants anyone yelling at their little girls on the soccer field. No, no, I'm talking about personal conflict in a personal relationship. If someone starts yelling at you, you're not going to take their criticism. Oh, absolutely.

And that's what I mean, the artistry of feedback and the artistry of criticism or something that might be seen as a negative that you can fix and improve on. There are definitely EQ skills. I am not a fan of saying, like, Radical Candor is a book I love. of. Radical candor? Radical candor. And it's all about, it's like a matrix of giving really clear feedback and how feedback is a gift. Clear being the concise word. Yeah. Kind feedback, though. It's not given without compassion. You don't get to throw up your hands and be like, well, I gave you the feedback because you were really bad at that. It's not a past to be a jerk. It's not a past to say mean

things to people. That's not healthy conflict resolution. Right. Agreed. Totally agree. I have a really fun recipe for you today. You saw how easy that was. Look at all that flavor we packed into chicken breasts. I love the flavor of maple syrup, especially for these kind of muffins. I see all of your comments. I swear I do. You are wondering, where's my show?

This is so dang delicious. Smells divine. That's a jalapeno popper. Oh my god. It's so good! Yes, I'm back and I am cooking for all of you. All right, Sophie. What are we reheating today?

Welcome to Nal Vow's cooking. Guess what we're gonna make right now. alive. Hi, everybody. How are you? You have to go to Valerie's Place. That's where you can see our book group, this podcast. That's where you can go for all the cooking that you want to see. Oh, yes. I've missed cooking for you. I'm glad I finally get to do it again. I'm dancing. That's how good it is. So head to Valerie's Place.com and go ahead and sign up. You guys are the original members and I can't thank you enough. It's happy time. You're a parent? I'm a parent. Three boys. Three boys. Oh, my goodness. Boy house all day. I love a boy house. I have one boy house. I have one

Yes. But he's not a boy anymore. He's 35 years old. I've got to stop that. He's an adult, a grown adult. So how we manage conflict or anything is always situational, right? Whether it's an executive or we're busy parents. If everyone, I think everyone is kind of secretly asking the same question, can I be myself here?

Can I really be that overused word authentic? Can I let down my guard and be myself? Why are we all so afraid to show up without our armor on? And I don't even know what, I'm not sure I know what it looks like without my armor on any longer. Yeah. I'm with such high achieving, high successful, highly successful people all the time. And I can see they have that desire, myself included, but those masks have served us. Those masks can help you, you know, get where you want to go.

has always helped me if I'm having a really bad day and all I want to do is stay in bed and cry, but I have a schedule that I have to live up to. So I have to put that smile on my face and get out and do my job. And when I go home, I can cry again. So I wear the mask for the day because I have shit to do. Yeah. But I don't, I, I also know when to give myself time to grieve something that I need to grieve, but I'm not going to bring it to work with me. I think that kind of mask is okay, as long as we don't rely on it forever and we still have to work through this stuff. But that's not being authentic. That sounds like a good boundary to me, an awareness of like time and place.

Like we can be our full selves in all of our spaces, but we can also decide how we want to show up, like what's appropriate for at home when we pull the covers over our head and what's appropriate on a podcast or giving a keynote or running a podcast. Right, right. And I think that is wise. I think that kind of social training that we have helps us relate to people. I think it can help us relate to people. I think that people could be really overwhelmed with a big personality, like myself.

I've had to learn, like, sometimes it is kind for me to tone that down. Yeah, I've learned the same thing. And you think in your 20s, I'm not going to tone it down for anyone because they can just experience me however they want to. This is me, dabmit. And there is a time and place for that. Absolutely. I'm not, I will never advocate for a woman to make herself. smaller or quieter or littler. But I do think that my wise self, I'm in my 40s now, I show up

differently than I did in my 20s. And I carry my 20-year-old self and my 30-year-old self and all those versions with me. But I have a little more awareness now that somebody who might be a little overwhelmed by a really loud Nebraska coming in the room, talking, that might be a lot. That may not be, if my goal is connection, and I think that is a key in those different environments that you're asking about, what's your goal? Right. I think our goal is always connection. And if that means tamping down. And I hesitate to say that because I think you're absolutely right. It's about your goal, right? Right. So it's just because we all have so many different versions of ourselves. And that's not a bad thing. We have feelings. Feelings come and go. We have curiosities.

We have like there are times where I don't want to talk at all. Like I could sit in my house all weekend and not say a word except to my animals. And I'm okay with that. Yeah. But I, um, I've actually fantasized about going to monastery for a week and just seeing if I literally can not speak for a week. I have not done one of these, but I've heard of these silent retreats that are transformational for people and I always think I'm going to do that someday. And right. I can't go an hour without speaking. I don't either. Okay. You know, you know the right one. Okay. Oh, the last two hours, Max. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But I mean, I can do that at home. I do. up talking to myself or to my animals a little bit. But I guess the key word here is connection.

So you're not really tamping down your personality. You're just, for lack of a better word, reading the room and not trying to fit in, but just being another facet of who you are. Yeah. Showing up more fully yourself. I'm watching that exploration in your book, right? You're asking, who am I? Who do I want to be? How can I show up as my most authentic, full self. And that doesn't necessarily mean being loud all the time. That doesn't mean, like, big and loud is not necessarily better. And it's not me all the time. Yeah. I can be incredibly quiet and reflective and zen. So, you know, which Valerie shows up. I don't, I don't know. I mean, I think. The Valerie that wants to make connection. Yeah. They're all Valerie. Right. Right. And so in those moments,

as we get older, we ask this more and more. And I think we shed. more of the things that held us back from bringing our fullness to the table. And that's what I'm an advocate of people bringing that fullness and being a little less concerned with how people experience that necessarily, but being clear about what you want. Like, what am I going to be proud of to show up in front of my children? What am I going to be proud of as a legacy? What am I trying to build? And who do I want to build it with? And so it's not a people pleasing. I think you said something very key to that I want to go back to very quickly is that it's not your concern what someone else thinks of you. Like, it's none of my business what someone else thinks of me.

It's not your concern what someone else thinks of you in that room. How do you feel about yourself is the most important thing? Yes. Are you moving through the world with the character and the integrity that you want to? And do you like how you're showing up for people? So it's not just a people-pleasing, like, did everyone get what they needed from me today? It's, uh, I've got things to do. And the world needs me fully alive, fully awake, contributing what I'm here to do. And there's not that much time to do it. And so I want to do it to the best of my ability with the most awareness, with the most tools, the best version of myself I can be. And making the most connections I can make. I think I know the older I get, the more I feel drawn to making real connections

with people, making real connections in a community, making real connections so that people feel seen and heard. And that's not me trying to people please them. It's trying, I want people to feel like they're important because they are. Every single person in this world is important. And I think a lot of us feel less than in a room with someone with a bigger personality because they, they were like, wow, but you don't have to always be the big personality. Just being yourself is enough, being heard, being seen. But then there's something that also goes to, I feel this less and less a lot, although my anxiety might tell me something differently. And before doing my podcast, I always get a little bit anxious the night before.

There's this imposter syndrome. Like, who the hell do you think you are trying to tell people, teach people how to be their best most authentic self? You're just learning yourself, Val. So, you know, who the fuck do you think you are? But getting rid of that, like how the imposter syndrome, just like, I just like, I, No one's going to believe me anyway, so whatnot. I just like, no, do it. Do you deal with imposter syndrome at all?

Yes, and I want to push back on it being a syndrome. Like in 1978, scientists studied it mainly women, I think all women, actually, and they named it imposter syndrome. Why women? Right? You're like, thank you. They won't study menopause, but they'll study imposter syndrome. So every woman I know, and I have a lot of conversations with women about their power, and that's a word that I like to use

and a lot of women recoil. They're like, I don't want to talk about power. Because we're told not to be powerful. Yes, and I was like, you are powerful. You're powerful already. And it doesn't mean that you're the loudest person in the room like we're talking about. Power sometimes is very quiet and it may not be even the person with the biggest title in the room. You watch, who are people following?

There's given power like you're the CEO and then there's personal power. And you're like, wow, that assistant walked in the room and owned it. And she's been here for six months. Like, that is personal power. So when it comes to imposter syndrome, what they studied is that women usually feel like they need more competency. And if they haven't done the job more, they're not qualified for it in a workspace. Or if I haven't studied enough, then I'm not going to be able to tell anybody how to do this. Yeah, I'm not smart enough.

I'm not experienced enough. I don't have what it takes to do this. There's somebody else that would be much better at it than I am. And the truth is, you have everything you need to do in a qualified position. I'm not saying you should be a surgeon or anything if you haven't got a med school. No, no. But so often... I haven't even played one on TV.

So women especially miss opportunities all the time because they think that they need 100% of the skills and men will take the job with like 60% of the skills and say, I'll learn the rest on the job. Women are learning to do that. There's nothing wrong with that. You are being asked to do... Because you're going to learn more on the job than you would know going in. And your experience up to this point is exactly what this company is looking for in this role. You have the energy, you have the people's skills, you have the connection,

like you're already where you need to be to step into this role. And so maybe that imposter syndrome is self-doubt or lack of confidence or lack of skills. And I would much rather have a conversation about that. Like how do you get those tools and skills? How do you get the experience that you need? How do you recognize when that little voice in the back of your head is not serving you? It's not, you need the pump up talk from the girlfriend right now. You do not need the voice saying like, I don't know if you look right today or I don't know if you have the right skills for this.

I don't know if you've done your homework and you're like, I have done my homework. I am ready for this opportunity. I've been waiting for this and I didn't even know it. Let's go. Yeah, yeah. I think we tend to lessen ourselves because we want to be so perfect at what we're about to embark on. Yes. But that doesn't leave any room for learning because everything changes.

Nothing stays the same. There's so many things to learn as you're in the job. Yes. That you wouldn't know just by reading a book. Absolutely. And we need that from people. I need to see that from the leaders ahead of me that they had some humility and they had some curiosity. And they said, I'm good, but I'm not great yet.

I'm still a work in progress. I'm moving toward it. I love someone that will admit to that. I love someone that will always admit to always wanting to learn and being happy to learn and not knowing everything. It's the ones that always say, no, I know it all. Like, I'm going on. Red flag. Yeah, a huge red flag.

You write that confidence rises and falls, but self-awareness will always stay. Oh, God, that's so good. Because I always, I mean, I think as you listen to this, I think you always like apply these kind of things to yourself, like your self-confidence that can rise and that can fall. But do you know yourself? Do you have your own self-awareness? And I've definitely had days where my confidence was like super in the toilet. Of course.

I've got enough rest or I just feel like I'm not. prepared. You might just eat a snack. I might just be hungry. But I always know, I'm pretty damn sure I know who I am. So why should we stop chasing confidence? And I think I know the answer to this, but I want to hear yours, and just start chasing curiosity, one of my favorite words, curious. Well, IQ can't necessarily be grown. But EQ, emotional intelligence, can absolutely be grown. Daniel Goldman does a great job of explaining this in his book about how plasticity works and how we can actually grow our brain. That is still something that we can do throughout our entire life. Which helps in trauma recovery. We need to know that all the synapses in our brain that got stunted

because of trauma in our lives can also be reconnected. So I think that's a very helpful thing for people to know as well. The brain is very malleable. Very, very. And if we really understood that, I think we'd put a lot more time into learning and development. We would go, oh, this is a superpower that I could have. It's just waiting there for me to take it. And it's going to benefit people's lives. It's going to make the world better. It's going to help me be a better community member.

Like, there's way too many benefits to not pursue this life of learning. Yeah. And so when you think about confidence that way, it comes with competence and reps. And that means that if you're not out of your comfort zone, if you're not feeling a little scared and like, I might be out of my depth here. Every day, Malika. Yes. You need. And that's beautiful because your confidence gains with each rep you do.

And you talk about this, how you did something hard. And you go, I didn't know if I could do that. But I look back and I'm like, I don't even know if I could do that again. But I did that. I made that happen. And I never thought that somebody like me would, I still, I will never run a marathon. That's what I think I could never run. I will never run in Boston.

Yeah. And there's so many things that people do that just shape them in that confidence. that experience about running the marathon is actually visiting all of the children and all of the people in cancer care at the Dana Farber Cancer situation. So I just, that's what I remember seeing all the people. I barely remember getting up Hell Hill, but I remember the faces on all of those beautiful children. So that's what I get to take away from it. Yeah. And now you're shaped with this experience.

And if you're in another hard experience, you say, I ran a marathon. Oh, I can do this. I can do hard things. I can't. You know, and it's amazing. every time I think people do need to give themselves credits. Like, I went through a really hard time, and I got through it. Here I am.

I got through 100% of the hard times I never thought I was going to get through. It's true. You will get through it. It may take longer than you want it to take. It may be a lot harder and get harder before it gets better, but you'll get through it. Yeah. Confidence comes through sports and theater and music and art. and public speaking and Mahjong.

All the things that we can do anything. All the things we keep taking out of school, those are the things that help our brain explore other parts of our brain. Yes, we need to learn science and we need to learn math and we need to learn English and we need to learn all of those skills. But we need home-ec, we need shop class, we need drama, we need art, we need music, we need all of those things for our brain. I think that, and if we can't get it in school, I encourage people to get it.

it in any way that they can. And that's the great thing about online. You can look up almost anything. The world we live in right now, I mean, the education is at our fingertips. There's nothing you can't learn. I'm convinced there's nothing you can't learn on YouTube. The information is there for our taking. If we're willing to put the time in. Yes. So how do we, there's, this is the thing that stops a lot of people, that inner voicing. You can't do it. You're not smart enough. I don't even bother. It's too hard. You know, how do you quiet that inner voice? there are different mental models and people have different ways of awareness. I'll just share with you my personal favorite mental model and I was a theater kid and so

you and tell me if you've already heard this, but you imagine a stage and you think through all the different people that you've been in your life. There's lots of characters on the stage. So on my stage there's little Malika with my parents probably about five or six years old, like full of life and abundance in the world is my oyster. there's Malika in sports. She's up there. There's Hollywood Malika. There's mom Malika. There's CEO Malika. All these different versions of me through my whole life. And in a moment like that, when you hear the voice, I think about that stage visually and who's stepping up front? Is it the 20-year-old

insecure Malika saying, I don't know if you'll make it. You don't even know anyone in Hollywood. You don't belong here. These are not your people. Like, you don't know anything about film and television. Or whatever that insecurity is, like, who is giving you that voice? And I still love that character on the stage, but I can say to her, you can step aside. You're not the center star right now. And that wise self is confident. The Malika wise self that I want to be has confidence and knows, well, if I don't know it yet, I'm going to learn it.

I just haven't learned it yet. I haven't learned how to do this. And so I can bring that character that I want to front and center of the stage. And I'm not asking the other characters. I'm not saying, you have no place in my life anymore. I've grown past you. I'm not asking them to exit the stage. They built you who you are.

I love them. They are my favorite. I want them there. They have a place on the stage, but they do not get to be front and center in the spotlight. I can say to them, I love you.

You've had your time. Please step to the back. You're in the chorus right now. You are not the lead. The lead that I need right now is going to get rid of that little voice and say, you might mess this up. You may fail spectacularly.

We will live through it. It would be fun, though. Do you want to live a small, boring life? No, you do not. Okay, let's take some risks. Yeah. That's what you're going to do. This episode is brought to you by Activia.

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Okay, let's talk later. Yeah. Even if you go in with that 100% confident, like, I'm so good at this, I'm going to nail it, you still might blow it. That's usually when I do blow it if I think, oh, I got this, I got this. That's usually the time that I will blow it. Same. If I think, and I'm boring too, I'll just say, if I go in,

with a client and I think this is not complicated. I can help them. I've done this a hundred times. I always drive home thinking, I did not help them as much as I thought I could. I feel disappointed and I wish I'd shown up with a little more energy and a little more curiosity and a little more humility about like their unique situation because it doesn't matter if I've led this session 100, 200, 500 times. I haven't let it with them. I don't know who they are. I don't know who this CEO and this leader is. So if I don't go in with a little bit of fear, trepidation, I'm probably not going to be the best facilitator, the best org development leader that day. That's true. Sometimes that fear is just a nice little extra energy oomph. Yes, it gives me an edge.

I love that fear. Or nervousness. It's an energy. It fuels me. And usually if I get the anxiety, I'll think, okay, instead of using this anxiety as something fear-based, what if I use this anxiety and say, I'm so excited, I get to do this. Yes. And you can talk yourself into. being excited when the anxiety starts to like overwhelm you. That's right. What if that anxiety or feeling that you have in your stomach is actually what's fueling you? Yeah. What if that is your superpower energy for the day? Yeah. It's going to make you spectacular. Yes. Now I want to talk about this the begin now journal. Yes. Really quickly because I love a good journal. I know you're a big journaler. Love love. And this is really terrific. So you've got quotes, which I love, and nice

big sheets of paper with little tiny prompts, which I think are so important. So like what I'm grateful for today, 10 goals I'm working toward, but nothing has to be filled in. And you didn't give the date. You could put whatever date you want because you and I are of the same mind. You don't have to journal every day. No, because then you feel like a failure. Yeah.

And it feels like a job. Yeah. Right. No. You just journal when you're feeling the most like, I think I need to get this off my chest. Or it's something positive that I want to remember. Or I was telling Malika earlier that I have so many different journals. I have a journal for codependency.

I have a journal for specific ways that I like to get through certain situations. I have a journal just purely for anger. I have a journal for really inspirational quotes. So I would encourage you to just like just pick up this. And it will start you on your journal journey. It is really, can you tell me why you came up with this and how? Okay. So it's not just an empty, like, which can be wonderful.

You're showing these different types of journals. This is specifically, and I won't see a goal-setting journal because you're actually not really setting goals in it. But my clients don't love goal-setting. These high-powered, very successful people know. I don't either because I always feel it's a set up for failure. I'm never going to reach that goal. Or if I do reach that goal, then what? Yeah.

Or I've reached so many goals. Do I really need to do this process? And so I think, well, here's, I'll say, here's why it's. works for me. Here's why I think it might work for you. And in the beginning, it's got some things that I really love to do. You could do this at a restaurant and a napkin. I'll say, let's just get clear about what you want and what you don't want. You draw a circle, want in the middle. You write all the things that you want. It could be your whole life or it could be about planning a party. It could be anything. You write all the things. Like, for me, I don't want inflammation. I don't want a long

commute. I don't want broken relationships. There's like a whole list of things I don't want in my life. And in the middle. Now, how would you turn that into a positive? So then in the middle, I write what I do want. Okay. I want strength. I want a strong marriage. I want to be an engaged, creative mom. I want to take great trips with my family. I want lots of female friendships. And so just the process of writing those two things down before you start any process gets you clear. Okay, this is what I'm moving toward and this is what I'm moving away from. And then you go into a process, I have them do, and I have it in here that you write a 10-year vision for yourself. Oh, wow. And it doesn't, it could be super specific about what you smell, what you hear,

how you feel, where you wake up, what it looks like outside, what the temperature is. And it doesn't have to be like, here's all the things I own and everything I have and exactly what my life looks like. It could just be a snapshot. I woke up. I put on my favorite slippers. I got a cup of coffee. This is a day 10 years from now. This is what happened. Absolutely. And that's, I'm going to try that journal prompt. This is what makes goal setting amazing because then you start to go, like the process that I have in here that leads you, the daily process. And lots of people do different versions of this, but you write the things you're grateful for in the beginning. You write 10 things you're moving toward, and my things are big. They're like, I run a successful business. I have a great

relationship with my husband. I am a creative engaged mom. That's something that I write, not every day, but often. And then at the bottom, I just write one that I'm moving toward. Because I can't keep all those plates spinning in one day. I'm so many things to so many people. that would be completely overwhelming. So I might just say, today I'm working on my business. Today I'm working on planning a great vacation for the family. Today I'm working on a PhD or learning a development. I'm going to read 100 pages of my book. Of a book I want to get done. Absolutely. So it's simple. But I just, oh, God, why does my brain go here, though? Because this 10-year thing I really love, and I'm going to use it as a journal prompt when I get home in the next few days. But then I just realized what my day would not have in it 10 years from now. Like none of the animals that I have right now will be alive in 10 years. Yeah. And like, how do I? Oh, that hurts.

I know. Yeah. You might write, I'm surrounded by pets that I adore. You know, like, what would that be? It won't be the pets that I know now, but oh my God, I can't imagine my life will not have Batman or Luna in it in 10 years. And you're expressing a completely appropriate response of loss. With change comes loss. Yeah.

And in 10 years, things will be different. different and you will lose some of the things that you really love right now. And do you know why I love that process? Why? It makes you go home and say, I love my life right now. Yes. I have Luna. I have what I want in my life. I have Batman. I have Henry. I have Bubba and Bo. Yes. Okay. Yeah. It helps you have more appreciation and gratitude for what you have right now. Thank you for turning that around. Thank you so much. All right. We're going to pause right here. And I want to thank everyone for listening to Getting Naked the podcast. So thanks for being here. But for those of you that are members of Valerie's Place, just hold on for a little while longer for the full reveal. You're going to get that.

And if you're not a Valerie's Place member, you can go to Valerie's Place.com and sign up or download the app wherever you like to download your apps. Okay. I have a really fun recipe for you today. You saw how easy that was. Look at all that flavor we packed into chicken breasts. I love the flavor of maple syrup, especially for these kind of muffins. I see all of your comments. I swear I do. You are wondering, where's my shell? This is so dang delicious. Smells divine. That's a jalapeno popper.

Oh my god. It's so good! Yes, I'm back and I am cooking for all of you. All right, Sophie, what are we reheating today? Welcome to Nal Vals cooking. Guess what we're gonna make right now. We're alive, hi everybody. How are you?

You have to go to Valerie's Place. That's where you can see our book group, this podcast. That's where you can go for all the cooking that you want to see. Oh, yes. I've missed cooking for you. I'm glad I finally get to do it again. I'm dancing.

That's how good it is. So head to Valerie's place.com and go ahead and sign up. You guys are the original members, and I can't thank you enough. It's happy time. Yeah.