Hot Smart Rich with Maggie Sellers Reum - Lucky Girl Syndrome: The 4 Traits That Shape Your Self-Worth! Dr. Shade Zahrai ​

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Confidence coach & behavioral researcher, Dr. Shadé Zahrai, reveals 4 mindset shifts to stop self-doubt, build confidence, and own any room! Why do some women walk in and get taken seriously instantly, while others overthink every move, over-apologise, and shrink themselves at work?  Maggie and Dr. Shadé unpack the hidden habits holding ambitious women back, the psychology behind “Lucky Girl Syndrome,” and why high-achieving women still struggle with self-worth. From speaking with authority to asking for more at work, this conversation is a masterclass in becoming the woman who stops second-guessing herself and starts being seen, heard, and respected! Timestamps: 00:00:00 Intro 00:01:55 What a Confidence Expert Does 00:03:56 The Truth About Self-Doubt 00:09:37 The 4 Traits Shaping Self-Worth 00:12:15 Change Your Personality in 6 Weeks 00:13:44 Is Personality Born or Built? 00:16:08 4 Signs You Don’t Accept Yourself 00:19:12 Why Successful People Feel Inadequate 00:21:43 Why Failure Feels Personal 00:23:31 Rewire Your Fear of Failure 00:25:37 The Michael Phelps Mindset Trick 00:28:22 The 3-Step Failure Recovery Framework 00:30:50 Why High Achievers Fear Failure 00:33:01 A Simple Tool for Pressure 00:34:35 The Trait That Builds Confidence 00:36:50 Why Confidence Follows Action 00:38:19 The “Impossible Problem” Story 00:40:27 Ad Break 00:41:30 Why “Delusion” Can Build Success 00:45:35 Rejection Therapy Explained 00:47:17 The Third Trait: Taking Control 00:49:02 Why You Feel Stuck 00:52:40 Stop Saying “You Should” 00:54:14 What To Say Instead 00:56:37 How To Ask For A Raise 00:57:28 How To Stop Being Ignored 01:00:31 Stop Over-Apologising 01:02:28 2 Ways To Control Emotion 01:04:01 Quick Confidence Tricks 01:08:42 How To Walk In Confidently 01:10:55 Nail Your Promotion Conversation 01:16:18 Women in Male-Dominated Workplaces 01:18:57 Why Women Undermine Women 01:26:29 Why One Size Doesn’t Work 01:28:10 You Can’t Please Everyone 01:29:13 Where To Find The Book 01:29:46 Last Thing On Your Credit Card? 01:29:55 Most Expensive Card Purchase? 01:30:12 Most Confident Person You’ve Met? 01:30:34 Books Or Podcasts? 01:30:38 Where Inspiration Comes From 01:31:18 This Season Of Life 01:32:09 Her HSR Love Note 01:32:40 Where To Find Shadé ⸻ Sponsors: Stan: Learn more at https://stanley.stan.store?ref=maggie_sellers&utm_source=podcast&utm_medium=youtube ⸻ Dr. Shadé Zahrai, is globally recognized behavioral researcher, scholar-practitioner, and award-winning peak performance educator to Fortune 100s. An ex-Lawyer armed with a background in psychology, an MBA, and a PhD in organizational behavior, she’s one of the leading voices on confidence and performance, and her new bestselling book, Big Trust: Rewire Self-Doubt, Find Your Confidence, Fuel Success, is transforming the lives of tens of thousands of people all over the world.  Latest Book, Big Trust:  https://www.amazon.com/Big-Trust-Self-Doubt-Confidence-Success/dp/0063378159/ Follow Dr. Shadé Zahrai www.instagram.com/shadezahrai ⸻ Hot Smart Rich: Your Business & Culture Gossip For ambitious women wanting to own the room, gain power, and build wealth. Subscribe to the Hot Smart Rich newsletter: https://hotsmartrich.com/subscribe  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hotsmartrich/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@hotsmartrich Maggie Sellers Reum: Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/maggiesellersreum/ Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@maggiesellersreum LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sellersmaggie/ Locker: https://www.wantlocker.com/users/maggiesellers ShopMy: https://shopmy.us/maggiesellers Amazon Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/maggiesellers Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Plans start at just $12 a month. Learn more at tellus.com slash online security. No one can prevent all cybercrime or identity theft. Conditions apply. People who are really uber successful, they're utterly miserable. When you fail, do you take it personally? Not anymore, but that is through thousands of dollars of therapy. There was one simple switch of two words that completely changed my life.

It was, you are the queen of self-esteem. I know the pain that comes with second-guessing yourself. You're over-apologizing, especially for women, one of the greatest arenas where we hold ourselves back is professional. I'm like deeply critical of myself. I actually think that like I can be a waste of space. I feel like that one mistake is going to completely destroy my life. I could not believe that more people were not aware of it.

If we can strengthen these four things, everything in life changes. It's that full unequivocal trust in yourself. Can you put your hand at the back of your neck? And feel around for a little lump. That in itself can make you feel like you have a greater control over the situation. You're a woman who wants a job promotion. motion. The first thing you want to do before you even consider the negotiation is... Hi, Angels. Did you know that subscribing to our channel is free? And it's the simplest

way that you can support our show and help us grow. If you do this, we can bring you even more of the content and the guests that you love. All you have to do is just hit the subscribe button below. So please, if you wouldn't mind, subscribe to the channel and thank you. In case you missed it, you're allowed to be hot, smart, and rich. So let's get into it. Dr. Shadeh, are you ready to get hot smart rich? I'm so ready. You are the queen of self-esteem, self-confidence. This is going to be like probably one of the most raw interviews I ever do. But for someone that is just hearing about you for the first time, how would you contextualize what is that you do? I am absolutely obsessed with uncovering what is holding people back. And what is it that those who were able to just propel

forward, what is it that they do differently than the rest of us? They are not superhuman. They are human just like us. They have insecurities. They have fears. They have imposter syndrome. They have things that are, again, gnawing at them, but there's also something else that they have that allows them to just move forward anyway. And so what I'd love for this conversation to explore is what is it that they have and are doing differently so that the rest of us can do it too. Did you become fascinated by this from personal experience, or was this something that you saw very close people around you struggling with, and it inspired you to get on a journey? Both. I have lived many, many years with a significant amount of self-doubt. I know the pain that comes with second-guessing

yourself in a meeting, so you don't say what you were wanting to say, and then someone else around the meeting room says it, and you know that you could have said it just as well, but you didn't back yourself. I know what it's like to not negotiate because you feel like you're unworthy, but then you end up doing a job that you become resentful for because you haven't demonstrated that, hey, I'm a value and I should be compensated for that. I know the pain of just shrinking yourself to make other people feel comfortable. And then it was only when I realized that so many other people, especially women, are facing these things. It wasn't just me. I wasn't alone.

And then when I transitioned into the role of actually helping other people, that didn't mean I got rid of my doubt, but when I was able to help them recognize what their doubts were and move forward, I then applied what was working for them to what I was doing myself. And then that's when I became absolutely obsessed with helping people through this journey. Because it's very much a personal one and one that I have seen completely transformed people's lives. It's amazing. You know, I always say self-trust is the ultimate amplifier of everything good in your life.

And it is an incredible unlock that you can experience. What has always fascinated me about my mind is in certain moments, I have no fear. I won't go for things. I will just trust myself. I will just trust the process. And I will be okay with the outcome because I've enjoyed it. And then at other times, I'm like deeply critical of myself. I deeply actually think that like I can be a waste of space or I am not good enough to do things. Why is sometimes I'm like so okay with failing, so okay with the process. And other times I feel like that one mistake or that one self-doubt is going to completely destroy my life. It could very much come down to what actually drives self-doubt.

So a lot of the time, the mistake that we make about self-doubt, and this has been happening for decades, we make the mistake that self-doubt is this big blob of worry, insecurity, fear, and then we think, okay, there's one blob, so it must be the same for us in every single situation, and there must be one solution for every single situation. But what we know is that's a fundamentally flawed way of looking at it, and yet that's how so many people approach their lives. And what happens is when they then try the tools and the techniques and the strategies, and then they find that they're not working for them,

it's because they're in this mentality of, okay, one blob of self-doubt, therefore there must be one solution, and when it doesn't work, they become disheartened. But the reason why it's often not working is that it's not just one blob of self-doubt. We can tease it apart. Let me take you through some of the research on this because it's fascinating. and then we can look at your experiences a lot deeper. So I'm going to share a study that I share all the time, known as the scar experiment.

So a researcher around the 70s, 80s, Robert Cleck from Dartmouth, he brought people together and he drew a scar on one group's face. So the other group had no scar. One group had a big scar on their face. They were allowed to see themselves in a mirror. And then he sent all the groups out to have conversations with strangers. Now, he did this with them individually, so they're not doing it as a group. They're going out individually and having conversations.

They come back in and they have to report how they felt the conversation went. The group that had the scar drawn on their face and they'd seen, okay, I've got this visible scar, they reported feeling that their conversation partner was tense, it was uncomfortable, they felt judged because of the scar. The other group thought it was a fine conversation. Now, that in itself would be an interesting study on discrimination, prejudice, that that was not the point of the study. If I take you back a little bit, right before the first of the first, participants with the scar were sent out, the researcher said, okay, let me apply some

moisturizing cream so that the scar doesn't crack. Let's set it. But what they did is actually remove the scar entirely. So there is no scar on their face. They believe there is a scar on their face. They expect other people to judge them because of that scar on their face, and that is what they experienced. But there was never any scar. And I find this so incredibly powerful because what it's telling us is what's called expectation bias. So we don't experience the world as it is. We experience it as we expect it to be. And so we need to be thinking to ourselves,

what kind of scars do we have deep within us that are coming out or manifesting because it's affecting what we're paying attention to? It's affecting what we expect, and that's affecting how we show up, how we interpret other people's behavior, and then it reinforces whatever belief we had about ourselves. So this is the realm of self-image.

Okay, so how we see ourselves the scars that we have. Now if we then look at, okay, why is it that some situations bother you so much and lead you to hold back and overthink and yet others are fine, it'll come down to some element of your self-image. But the thing with self-image is it's really big and difficult to define. That was going to be about my questions, because you mentioned self-trust, self-image, self-esteem and I'm like, what is the difference between all of them? But the one example that came up for me that I have a personal relationship with was I had a really bad hormonal acne when I was

in my 20s. And that was new for me. I had never dealt with acne. And I remember the impact of what it felt like going into a meeting with people and feeling like I was judged because I was 25. I was trying to move up in the work world. And here I was probably my own self-image, the way that I thought other people were perceiving me was more negative than I think people probably were because when I'm in a meeting with someone now with hormonal acne, I'm not judging what's in here. Self image to me would be what I am attributing that person's perception of me, but it actually is nothing to do with their perception of me. It's what I believe it to be. Correct. It's entirely to do with how you see yourself and it's entirely subjective. And then when we actually tease it apart, this is where we get

to a really interesting space. And this is where our research sits and where a lot of the fascinating research on self-image sits. So self-image is this reflection of how we see ourselves. But what shapes your self-image? And this is where if we look at over 100 years of research in organizational behavior. Now I say organizational behavior because it's in the context of workplaces, which I think is really relevant for all of us because we spend a lot of our lives at work. And especially for women, one of the greatest arenas where we hold ourselves back is, professionally. I mean, there are lots of other arenas too, but it's often in business at work in our careers. So it's in that context. What these researchers found is there are actually four

personality traits that combine to create how you see yourself, your self-image. The first one is self-esteem, which is your sense of worthiness. Am I worthy? The second is what's called self-efficacy, which is your belief that you can set a goal and achieve the goal. So you have the skills and the abilities and the capability, or you can learn them. The third one is what's called locus of control, which relates to where you feel the control is in your life. Do you feel like you have control, that you can influence things? Or do you feel like you're powerless and everyone else makes decisions for you and it's all out of your hands? And then the fourth is emotional stability or neuroticism, depending on which you have, are you more emotionally stable or not? Now, these four

things combined to shape how we see ourselves, and how we see ourselves determines whether or not we experience doubt and what that doubt looks like. So I want to ask you this, Maggie. We, okay, we were, when we were sharing this, because I, when I came across this in the research, I could not believe that more people were not aware of it. It is mind-blowing. These four things, if we can strengthen these four things, everything in life changes. What do you think someone says when you're telling them about personality traits and you say these are your personality traits that shape how you see yourself.

What is a resistance that they might have? Can you give me an example of that? Like say a personality trait to me. It's something that is stable across your lifetime. So it develops in the earliest years of your life and then it pretty much stays the same all the way to the end. Have you ever come across someone

who will use the excuse of, well, that's just who I am? That's just the kind of person I am. Totally. And I think it's funny because you know that saying like you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Yeah. And I think people use age as an excuse of like, well, I'm older. Like I'm not changing.

And I'm so grateful to have grown up with a mother who's so focused on personal development and like continuing to evolve herself that that has just never been my mindset. If I can, I will not surround myself with people like that. And I think that comes with privilege of like being my own boss, getting. to employ people, having the freedom to choose what relationship dynamics I participate in, because that is also a contagious behavior, I believe. Is that correct? Yes. We are influenced by the people we surround ourselves with. It's called social facilitation and also just social contagion. So I'm glad that you're aware of it and I'm glad that you choose not to surround yourself with that because it's a reflection of a fixed mindset. I am fixed. This is who I am. And so we realized

we need to change the language that we use. And we're We need to shift people away from personality because, yes, personality is very stable and fixed, and people will go, well, that's just who I am. I can't change. And then that's obviously contagious. But what is fascinating over the last five or so years, new research has found that, well, actually, you can change your personality. You can fundamentally change a personality.

You just have to choose to intervene and choose an aspect that you want to change. And so part of my PhD research over the last five years was, can we, help someone develop the trait that allows them to rise above that self-criticism. No, it's there. The self-doubt is there, but they take action anyway. They move forward. And we found, yes, you can in six weeks. In as little as six weeks, you can fundamentally change your personality.

If you have anyone in your life who was saying, well, you can't teach an old dog new tricks, say to them, look, according to science, yes, you can. You can. It's so interesting because actually I got a message from a girl from my high school. So the really important part to read is the one that's highlighted in red. But it's from an amazing woman who was an exchange student, didn't speak great English as she was coming to the school. So she's been listening to the podcast and she had said something like, you know, it's too bad that there was such a barrier between my English and my German because I think looking at you now, we have a very similar personality and then read what she said in the red box. I always thought that the way you approach teachers

with your own strong opinions and so much confidence but never without respect was very smart. And I just thought that was interesting because I think we hear a lot about childhood. And if I think back to who I was as a child, it was that. It was a very confident, very strong opinionated, but like always really respectful.

I have never been tied to my opinions. And like I don't know if that's something I was born with, that's something I learned. But ever since I found out that you were coming on the show and I got that message, I was like literally yesterday. I was kind of fascinated with this idea of like who we are when we're children. And then what ends up impacting those personality traits that we can then apparently end up changing in six weeks? Is that a nature or is that a nurture thing? So who we are and our personality is definitely a combination of nature and nurture. There are some personality traits that we are born with, like openness to experience. So this is why you might

have, let's say you have two twins that are 18 months, so they've just started walking. One of them has a higher degree of openness to experience, and that little toddler is off exploring and doing things and getting dirty, and the other one is stuck to mum's leg or dad's leg. Same environment, same parenting, even same internal environment in the womb, and yet they have a different wiring for what their personality is like. But then also, so we are a certain way, based on biology, but then the environment that we're in, the support that we're given, the nurturing that we're given,

whether we're given freedom to explore or we're told careful, careful, careful, careful all the time, this will shape our risk tolerance. If you're around a parent, a helicopter parent, as they call them, and they're constantly highlighting risks, oh, careful, you're going to fall off that, don't touch that. You never learn what you're capable of, and you always default to, is this safe?

Is this safe? What are the risks here? And then that can become a deeply ingrained trait that you then carry with you for the rest of your life. So it's definitely both of them. What is beautiful about what this research is telling us is that regardless of where you are, you can change. And so if I come back to these personality traits

and then how we thought, okay, we're not going to refer to them as personality traits because people go, oh, I can't change who I am. So we thought, okay, how do we convert these into the trainable part, the part that we can really develop to ultimately strengthen these traits, make them more positive. And that's where we came up with this framework of the four A's, which I write about in Big Trust, which just came out really recently. So the idea is there are four attributes, and I'll take you through them,

and then we'll use that to come back to your story. I love it. About why some situations hold you back and fill you with doubt, and others you're fine. So the first one, which relates to that personality trait of self-esteem, is the trainable attribute of self-acceptance. Do you actually accept who you are at your core? Now, it helps to know what this looks like when you don't.

Let me share with you the four of the most common ways that we see that reflects that someone doesn't accept who they are. The first one is what we call the pressure to prove. So because you don't accept who you are, you feel like you have to constantly prove that you are valuable, that you are worthy through achievements, through goals, through titles, through money. And the thing is, you tell yourself, when I get there,

then I will feel like I'm enough. And then you get there, and you think, oh, well, I don't feel like I'm enough. What's the next goal? And you're perpetually chasing this, and it never comes. The second one is the likeability trap. So when you don't accept yourself, you outsource your worth to other people.

You need them to like you, because if they like you, maybe you will like yourself. And then maybe you can accept yourself. But then what happens is you lose yourself in the process because you're saying yes, when you may no, you're over apologizing. You are bending over backwards to be what everyone else needs you to be and expects you to be. And then at one point you think, who am I, if not just trying to please everybody? The third one is the shrinking syndrome where because you don't accept yourself, a failure becomes a reflection that you are a failure. Well, that's how you see it.

So it's not that you fail, it's that you are the failure. You are not enough, you're inadequate. And because the risk is so high off failure, you then shrink. An opportunity comes and you make up excuses as to why you're not ready. It's not for you. Shrinking syndrome. And then the fourth one is called the Schadenfreude cycle, which is a German term. And it's that pleasure that some people get when they see other people fail.

Yes, there are a lot of people out there like this. It's basically complaining and highlighting other people's flaws to make themselves feel better. It's a form of bullying. and it often comes from a deep lack of self-acceptance. Are these the keyboard warriors? Yes, you often find them. So anyone who is extremely vocal in their criticism of others, especially the keyboard warriors,

it's often coming from a deep place of emotional lack. I am not enough, therefore I must pull everybody else down, so I feel like I have a little bit more power. Do I want to be honest about which one I am, the one that I resonated with, achievements? Mm-hmm. I really value my self-worth. on my achievements.

When you fail, do you take it personally and become very self-critical? Not anymore, but that is through thousands of dollars of therapy. Okay, we are talking thousands of dollars, and it's interesting because, and years of therapy. There was one simple switch of two words that completely changed my life. It was, am I, am I, am I to I am. I am enough. I am powerful, where I was always questioning before. Am I powerful?

Am I good enough? Am I pretty enough? Am I this enough? And it took, still not 100% there, but it took probably five years of intensive therapy to switch those two words in my brain when I start to ask myself, am I, am, am I am, to I am. And it was so tied to my achievements my whole life. It was like the praise came when achievements came. So I didn't know how to give myself that.

affirmation when I was just being Maggie. It was when I was being Maggie achieving something great. Is that a typical thing that you see in successful, ambitious, high-powered people that's typically tied to achievements? We generally find people who are really uber successful, are driven by a feeling of not being enough, and that burning desire to prove themselves to themselves and to everybody else is often what fuels a lot of that achievement. But then we We also know that that's fueling the dissatisfaction as well. They're miserable. They're utterly miserable.

And it's heartbreaking because these people could otherwise lead such fulfilling lives, but because they're so attached to proving that I am worthy, the am I, am I, am I? They're never worthy and they're reinforcing that I'm not enough with every single achievement that they're reaching. And also the other thing that we often see is because they're so fixated on, am I, am I, am I? They're leaving everybody behind.

They're not spending time with their families or investing in their loved ones. They're prioritizing this, I Must Get There, and then they're sacrificing so much on the journey. There's so much collateral damage. And it's often only until they get to the end of their careers where they think, what was it all for? Or they're nearing the end of their lives,

and they have a regret. I wish I spent more time with my family. I wish I led a life that was more aligned with the type of person that I wanted to be rather than trying to prove myself to everybody. So we definitely see that. And the fact that you have gone on this journey, and as you said, it took years and took a lot of money

and took the support of a professional. So what this demonstrates is you've fundamentally changed the personality trait associated with acceptance. You've increased your self-esteem because now you no longer attach your identity to the failure or the inadequacy. You just see it. I mean, how do you deal with failure?

What is the thought process that goes through your head? I really have lived my life. life with owning narratives. Like, I believe if you own a narrative and you can talk about things, it is so healthy. Like, I think this is a generational thing that I've seen as well where a lot of the time with even parents or parents, friends of mine, like, it's always sweep it under the rug. Like, don't talk about it because it's a failure. It's something that you don't want to. Whereas my mentality has always been like, own it. Like, own the narrative because then it's just able to be a part of your story. And I always tell people this that like are failing.

And I'm like, without failure, you have no story. You have. nothing interesting about you. Like, I don't want someone in this chair who's just had the easiest thing ever. So I think now it's a little different. And it's interesting because actually something that you said, you said it's normal in the early stages of a career to conform. The more successful that you get, it's a lot harder to actually take those risks because you have a bigger pedestal to fall off of. And I definitely feel that to a certain extent. Because now that there's eyeballs on this and, like, even the pressure I put on this, it was watching Alyssa Lou's Olympian performance when she won gold, where she was smiling,

she was having the best time. And I was like, this is supposed to be fucking fun. Yes. Let's remind ourselves of that. It's like that's kind of my way of moving through failure. But I can tell that there's a little bit of like, but now more people are watching. Like, what if this whole world that I've built fails? And I think I would be lying if I sat here and said, like,

I would just shrug it off and be fun and this is supposed to be fun. There would definitely be a part of my self-worth that would be tied to a failure of that magnitude. So I guess in terms of changing that personality trait, how would I go about that? So when it comes to failure, so much of failure has nothing to do with the failure and everything to do with two things, what we make it mean about us and what we make it mean about what other people will say about us. there's such a focus on, oh no, people will see, what will they say? And it's because of what's going on in the brain when it comes to failure. So if we look at how we've evolved as humans, belonging is a survival advantage.

When we feel like we belong or when we do belong, when we did belong in a tribe, it meant we were more likely to survive. We had support. We had food. We had everything that we needed to ensure or increase our chances of survival. So rejection was terrible. And so we have evolved to prioritize belonging to keep ourselves alive. So when it comes to something like failure, we perceive what other people will say as a form of social rejection. And researchers back in the early 2000s at UCLA were looking at what goes on in the brain when we experience social rejection.

And they found that the same parts of the brain activate when we face social rejection as when we face physical pain. So physical pain and social rejection are activating the same underlying neural pathways. What does that mean to us? That means that the risk of failure and judgment and rejection and criticism from others hurts on a neurobiological level. And so what does the brain want to do? Protect you from that. And that's why we have a mind that will try to magnify everything that could go wrong.

Because it's trying to amplify, okay, these are all the risks that could happen, the failure, the rejection, etc. so that we actually don't try, because if we don't try, then we can't fail, then we still belong. And yes, okay, it succeeds in keeping us safe, but that's when we stay stuck. So to your point, if you don't fail, you don't have a good story. It all comes down to how you're interpreting and making sense of that failure. In fact, let me share a story about Michael Phelps. So Michael Phelps is one of the greatest swimmers of all time, world champion.

and his coach said that he had this remarkable ability to visualize. But that's very common. A lot of sports people will do that. But his coach said, no, no, it wasn't just visualizing success. He would actually visualize everything that could go wrong. Everything unexpected that could happen. Goggle snapping, cramp in the middle of the race, slipping on the starting block. And he would do that so that he could then also visualize what he would do if that were to happen.

So we had a recovery plan. And in that moment, that meant that he was a. able to visualize, okay, this could happen, that could happen, but I'm fine. I'm prepared. I know how to handle it. That's called inversion thinking or a premortem. Before you come to take any risk, ask yourself, and a lot of people will say, no, you should never allow room in your mind for everything that could go wrong because you might will it into existence. But when we look at evidence, actually, it's a far more pragmatic thing to do. What are all the things that could go wrong? actually write them down.

And then the important second step, you have to do the second step, is what would I do if this happens? How will I respond? And then actually visualize yourself doing that. This increases actually the second attribute, which we'll move to, which this is kind of acceptance, the first one, we'll move to the second soon. But it increases the second one, which is called agency, which is the belief that, hey, I can do this.

I don't need to fear this because no matter what happens, it's not going to be a failure because I know what to do if it happens, right? Now, going back to Michael Phelps, his strategy worked really well for him in 2008. He made it to the finals of the butterfly. 200-meter butterfly? Can you do butterfly? No, I can't do butterfly.

Me too. I do like two in the number one of the nine. So, hats up to him. He's in the finals of the 200-meter butterfly. He dives into the Olympic pool. Within 25 meters, one of the worst things that can happen happens, his goggles completely fill up with water. He cannot see a thing. Now, most Olympians at that point would quickly empty them, but he didn't because he had been there before in his mind.

He defaulted to his mental training, and he just kept swimming. And in an interview afterwards, this is what he shared, he said, I swam blind for 175 meters out of a 200 fly. I won gold and broke a world record. He won gold and broke a world record without being able to see, and it's because he had been there before. He didn't allow what his body naturally would have done in that situation, which is tense up, which is, you know, hyperventilate, become fully anxious.

He didn't need that to happen because he knew what to do. That's the premortem, anticipate. That allows you to just take the risk and not worry so much about how it's going to work out or whether it's going to succeed or fail. Then let's say you fail. Something goes terribly. Let's say he didn't, you know, his goggles, filled up with water and he did empty them. What I encourage people to do is this post-mortem,

which is, okay, what happened? Let's be really objective here. Factually, what happened? What is the criticism that I'm telling myself and how am I attacking myself right now? What am I telling myself? What's the story that I've created? So you're contrasting fact and story. The third step is, okay, what is an excellent statement that I can repeat to myself that acknowledges something didn't go well, but I'm going to learn from it and be better and more excellent next time. So a quick little example, let's say you go into a meeting with a client, and admittedly you didn't really prepare as well as you should have, but you go into the meeting and the client asks you a question and you don't know what to say.

And then it messes up and the client is berating you because you should have been better prepared. Meeting ends. What happens? You become very self-critical. Oh, no, we're going to lose the client. Oh, I was terrible. I don't deserve this job. I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to lose this client's business, whatever it is. You pause. You go, what is this three-step process? Okay, what objectively happened? Well, I didn't prepare. I came unprepared to a meeting. I couldn't answer the client's question. Clients not happy. Objective factual. Second step, well, what is the story that I'm telling myself? I'm telling myself that this is terrible. I'm going to lose my job. The client's going to leave.

Okay, what is the excellent statement? Okay, well, I have learned that I need to spend more than half an hour and I need to have a response if a client asked me a question and I don't know how to answer it. For example, that's a great question. We haven't considered that. I'll look into it and I'll get back to you via email after the meeting. You just have a default, which you would have had if you've done your premortem. And then you ask yourself, okay, well, what can I do now? Is there anything I can do? Well, let me follow up with an email to the client. Let me give them a call. Let me do a little bit of extra work that I should have done before to set it to them. So that's a really simple way of making sure that you're anticipating if a failure might happen to try and mitigate it, reduce the chances it'll happen.

And then if it happens, you then work through that process. And you're being so pragmatic about it that it doesn't even give you time to start getting into the self-criticism. You just move into, okay, what can I do? When you experience a failure or something that doesn't go to plan, what's your process? It really depends on the situation, I got to say. and how high the stakes are. Like, I think it actually will relate to the first aid that you were talking about with acceptance.

And because I tie a lot of my things to achievement and what I think I want to achieve and what that perception will be to feel enough, if the stakes are that high, it can be really toxic, the thoughts that come to my head when there is a failure. But if it's something like what you're talking about, I was like, I can't even relate to that.

You know what I mean? But so I think it depends on that first A. It depends on the acceptance part. Whether you fundamentally accept yourself. And you said you've done work over however many years. And so what's that process that you work through if something is a failure? I would say I'm a pretty self-critical person regardless, but only on things I care about. I love that.

I have that. Like, if I care about it, I'm very self-critical. I've learned to let go of a lot of things that I used to care about, but when it's something I care about, I just would say I'm very critical. And I'm not solution-oriented the way that I think that my sister or my business partner is where like when she experiences a failure, she's like, okay, like we'll figure it out. Whereas I'm like, no, like this is horrific. I can't believe that like this has even happened. Like, how did we let it get to this point? And I think that also goes back to like I was an athlete growing up.

And so I am used to like reps and repetition and like doing things and being great. And like I hold myself to such a high standard that not that it doesn't happen often, but I do succeed. And so when it doesn't happen, the fall is so severe. Whereas I watch my sister be able to handle stress, you know, mistakes, upset a lot more rationally than I think. I am, but it doesn't happen that often. And when it does, it's just extreme. And it's because you really care. Yeah. So you've identified it's something you really, really care about. Yeah. A really simple little tool, which I find is very helpful when it's something you care about, is to grab a piece of paper, split it up into two. And you do this in the moment,

either immediately before you're doing something or after something has happened and it's gone wrong. You split it into, and on the left, you write careless. And on the right, you write, care more. Now, with the care less list, you're basically writing down what are the things that you need to care less about. There are always going to be things that you care about because naturally you care about the thing, but there might be things that you need to care less about like what they will think of me right now. What this person is doing next. Things that are outside of our control, you write them down. And then you move to your care more list. And this is where you get to really drilled down on why is it that you care about this thing so much? And how do you remind yourself

of really what's important here? Is it being of impact? Is it being of value contributing? Is it taking the business to the next level? Well, why is that important? And you get really clear, it's almost like your why, but more granular. You write down the things that you want to care more about. So you're still capturing everything, giving it an outlet, but you can be really, again, pragmatic. What are the things that are not going to help me right now? And what actually do I need to shift my focus to. Now, I think this is so beautiful because you've touched on so many things here which link into the other attributes. So let's, should we move on to the second? Because you've touched on the third. But I'm going to go to the second.

Second one is agency, which links to the personality trait of self-efficacy, which is the belief that you have the skills and abilities to get the job done, whatever the job is. And even if you don't have the skills and abilities, you can learn. So it's very much that belief or trust in yourself, specifically from the perspective of competence. When it comes to agency, I'm going to guess you have quite a high degree of agency. And that could be another reason why in certain situations you feel fine because you 100% back yourself, because you back your skills, because you've got the evidence of history. And that's where it comes. If you have a strong degree of agency, you have a track record of achievement. You might compare yourself to others, but it's

usually from the perspective of, cool, look at what they're doing. How do I do that too? And you don't wait to feel ready. You just, you try. When someone struggles with agency, we see a lot of imposter syndrome. So we see people, especially women, who have achieved amazing things. They objectively have a track record because you have to have a track record if you're going to feel like an imposter based on the definition of what this means. If you're going to feel like an imposter, you've done the work. You've got the accolades. You've built the businesses. You've got the job. whatever it is, but you feel like you don't deserve it. You feel like other people think you're smarter or more capable or more competent than you are. And so that does one of two things.

Either you overcompensate, again, to try and prove that you deserve to be where you are. So you take on more, you overcommit, you do way more than everybody else, or you hold back because you convince yourself that you're not deserving, you're the imposter, and it's better to stay gray. So we see that. We also see a lot of comparison. So if people are comparing themselves to others but not feeling like you, which is empowered, look at what they've done, I can do that too. They compare themselves and feel inadequate. I don't have as much skill as that person.

How come that person is so good at communicating and I'm not? And it feeds into this cycle of inadequacy. So it's that negative comparison loop. The third area we see is people wait to feel ready. They wait till they feel confident before taking action. But here's what's really interesting. If I were to ask you, Maggie, what is the opposite of self-doubt? What would you say it is?

Confidence. And when we ask 100 people on the street, 97 of them will say confidence. And then if I were to interrogate what that confidence looks like and feels like, people essentially are describing a feeling of certainty. It's a feeling of certainty. Yes, I am confident because I am kind of certain with how I'm going to perform and how it's going to go. but that feeling of certainty actually only comes after you've done something because you have to do it to get a proof point and evidence piece of, hey, I can do this. And so if that feeling of confidence actually comes after you take action,

that feeling people are waiting for is never going to come, and they keep themselves stuck, they keep waiting, they keep planning and preparing and procrastinating, and they say, no, I'll know when the timing is right, because they're waiting for that feeling. So if confidence comes after, and the reason why it comes after is because When you take the action, your brain gets a proof point of, hey, I can do this. I have the skill and ability, which increases your self-efficacy, which is that trait of, hey, I can achieve the goal, which then boost that feeling of confidence, and then you're more likely to do it again.

So that comes after, so then something else comes first. We know the action has to come first, but there's something before that. The belief. It's the belief. It's the self-trust. It's trusting in yourself specifically the, hey, I can do this. Okay, quick story. I want to share a story about George?

George was a graduate statistics or he was a student doing graduate level statistics. And he was running late to one of his classes. He's running, running, running, finally makes it. He creeps into the room trying to be really obscure and he goes and he sits down. And he notices behind the professor is a whiteboard. And on that whiteboard, there are. two equations, statistical equations written down. So he thinks, okay, this must be homework. Let me write it down. I'll work on it after class. Class ends. He goes home. He starts working

on these problems. These are the hardest problems he has ever had to work with, and he figures he must have missed something at the beginning of the class. But he persists, he keeps going, he keeps working at it. Finally, he solves them, and he hands them into his professor, and he says, I'm sorry they were late. The professor is stunned, because these were not, homework problems. The professor had written these up as examples of unsolvable problems, things that were impossible. He was demonstrating to his class that not everything is solvable. These were impossible. And yet George had no idea. He thought it was homework. He worked at it and he solved them. And this is a real story of George Bernard Danzig, who went on to

revolutionize the world of mathematics, linear mathematics. And he's now a Stanford professor. And what is so interesting is what he said many years later. He said, you know, if I had gone into their class early and found out that these were actually impossible, I would have been discouraged, I never would have tried, and that would have been that. They would have remained unsolvable. And so this is such a beautiful reminder that what is impossible is only impossible, often because we tell ourselves it is impossible. We decide that we're not going to succeed, and therefore we don't try, and therefore we create that reality for ourselves. It becomes self-fulfilling. And so when it comes to agency and this belief in our abilities,

the moment you decide that you can't do something is the moment you've lost the game, because you won't try. And so that's why this one is so important, this trust that you can figure it out, which relates to agency. Have you ever created a piece of content that's ready to go live? You've written the caption. But instead of hitting publish, your finger just hovers. And then you don't.

You just don't put it live. Well, I've done that more times than I can count. When I first started posting content, I found publishing to be the worst part. But through the years of posting every single day, I learned that if you're waiting to feel confident enough before you start posting, then you're going to be waiting forever. Because confidence actually comes once you hit publish. My partners at Stan built their AI coach, Stanley, to help you and other creators show up consistently.

Stanley pulls from your own content. It learns your voice. and helps you turn your thoughts into posts that you can publish every single day. You don't need to be perfect to start. You just actually need to start and then keep going. And Stanley will help you do that. So search Stanley now. You can learn more at stanley.

Dot stan dot store. I read this in the research I was doing on you. You said the more successful people are, the less that they think that they know. And it really shocked me because I was thinking of this at the beginning of this year. when I first started angel investing, like I had no idea what I was doing. And I thought that like every single company was going to be a billion dollar. And now that I've been doing this for a few years, like I'm so much more overly critical of things and so much it's so much harder to win me to do an investment because I've just seen everything that can go wrong. And it's not actually tied to acceptance because like I know that there's a failure rate like man out of 10 times will fail. It's not that. I think it's just that the more knowledge that I've had. has actually convinced me of how much harder things are, whereas this delusion that I had when I first started this naivity was actually my superpower. And I think so many people listening to this

that are in their early 20s, like there's this huge, have you seen this TikTok trend like lucky girl syndrome or like being delusional? Yes. And I think there's a lot of criticism towards that specifically for men. But I actually think there's so much power in that for women to like be delusional. Because if I think about how I've grown this business even over the last four years, like, it was pure delusion at the beginning. And if I had known what I know now, I don't think I would have done it. And so I can't actually say that that agency sometimes is related to acceptance. Sometimes it's related to experience and knowing what I know now and how hard it is. Sometimes when you know less, you end up putting yourself in a situation that if you knew more you wouldn't have.

Like George. Like George and like you back then, right? So sometimes knowledge can be a curse. And awareness can be a curse. And interestingly, there's a correlation. The more intelligent you are, the more overthinking you usually get stuck in because you're very aware of all the risks of all the things that could go wrong. Michael Phelps. Michael Phelps.

And so that's why it's so important to have these tools so that we're not unintentionally pulling ourselves out of the race before it's even begun. We're just more aware of, okay, well, these are the things that could go wrong, but I know what I'm going to do if they happen. So I'm just going to do it anyway. And it's interesting that this Lucky Girl syndrome is criticized by many men. I mean, my experience has been that, interestingly,

when we look purely at the research on self-image and we look at how men and women either differ or don't. We find there's actually not a huge difference between the raw results that we get. You would expect? And some studies will say, no, women are much more self-critical, but when we look at meta-analyses, which means like hundreds and hundreds of studies, and we're pulling all the data together and looking at the differences,

there's not a huge difference. Yet, my experience with women has been that women are more likely to wait until everything is perfect, until they have all the answers up front, until they can be certain of an outcome, which means that they're holding back while other people are just going and trying. And that other person might have tried 10 times, failed eight times, but succeeded twice while you're still there planning and preparing. Which also then brings us to the next piece,

which is how do you get better at dealing with rejection? And things not going well. You get better at it by doing it. When you do it and you live through that, and hey, this didn't work, but I'm okay, I'm going to try again. Again, you get that proof point, that evidence piece of, okay, I can try, it didn't work out, but I don't need to internalize that, I can keep going and keep trying and developing and getting better. And really, I think that's the marked difference between someone who is truly successful in life and someone who shrinks themselves, is that.

Can you just get back up and try again? And of course, you might need to fill a gap. You might need to get support. You might need additional resources. But you get back up and you give it another go. There's something called rejection therapy. Have you heard of this? I do this all the time.

So what are some examples of how you would do this? So when I graduated college, I had no idea what I wanted to do. And someone was like, you should go into sales because you're going to get the best rejection therapy. And I was like, what is that? And I had to make 100 cold calls a day. And I was getting hung up on left, right and center. Like, it was just the most humbling. experience of my life. And I remember just feeling like, okay, this sucks, but I'm learning

something new every single time. And I still think with today, even with, this is a stupid small example, but something that I think people can relate to. I ask for a discount, almost every store I go into. And this was also very controversial on social media, which I'm not sure why. I called it like the HSR discount. And I'm buying a pair of jeans and I'm like, can I get 15% off today? And the store cloak usually looks at me and is like, and why? And I say, I don't know. I just am asking if I can get 15% off today. I say nine times they say no. And then one time they say yeah. And that rejection of getting an uncomfortable ask of like, can I have 15% off of your jeans today is bizarre for people. That's already awkward. And then you usually get rejected,

except for the time that it matters and you don't. And it's really helped me be okay with one uncomfortable conversation. So I used to be a huge people pleaser. I would always be like operating the room just being hyper vigilant because that was what I needed to do when I was a child and like literally just making sure that everyone was okay in the room. So it made me okay with not being a people pleaser. And it made me okay with reduction therapy.

I love that. That's brilliant. And you know what's beautiful about this? It leads us into the third pillar or the third attribute. Which is? which is autonomy, which relates. So autonomy is the way that you shift your locus of control inwards, because locus of control is the personality trait.

And so what you're doing here is you're taking control of a situation. You're taking steps knowing that it's going to be uncomfortable, but you will be okay. And you're focusing on the controllables. And then one time out of the ten was a success. And you would never have known that. So autonomy relates to, are you making choices in your life? Do you feel like you're calling the shots? Yes.

Exactly. And what you have demonstrated not only with this, but actually through everything in your career, is that you have never once allowed yourself, and I say allowed yourself because it's very easy to do this. You've never allowed yourself to feel powerless. There were situations that I was in very uncomfortable dynamics. Like I don't have an American citizenship. I'm on a visa to work here.

So like there would be a time where my visa was tied to an employer and it was a really toxic situation. And like I felt as though it was like a very stressful situation but never powerless. Like my focus once I knew that was an unsalbigible situation turned to like, how am I going to figure this out? There has to be a way. So I would say that I would be lying if it was like a hundred percent. But it would only be like an hour or two because I think everyone, I'm a human. Totally.

Everyone can feel a little bit like victimness, yes. But it's at least for me, how quickly can I get out of that to like be solution oriented? Yes, exactly. And so when we're noticing that victimization come in, which means our autonomy is being undermined, what we think is why me? Why is it always so hard for me? And when we start going down that route, what we see when we look at brain scans of people is when they're in that, it's a very much a default way of thinking.

And we see more activation in the threat detection centers. in the emotion centers the brain, the fear centers. And so what that does, in addition to making us feel terrible and anxious and insecure, we also start to remember all the other times in our lives, even if it was just a few, when we were also victimized in the past. And then suddenly we get stuck in these four habits. So we see four really common habits when it comes to people who have low autonomy. The first is they complain.

So let's say you were not able to get out of this within an hour or two and you got stuck in it. you would probably start complaining to other people. It's a very natural response when we don't feel like we have control to complain because it makes us feel like at least I have some control over the fact that I can complain. And it gives us a little bit of autonomy back. But when you're complaining about anything, it's actually activating the same part of the brain that were activated when that first thing happened. And so you're reliving it in vivid detail

and wondering why you can't shake it because you keep reliving it. So there's that element. And then actually when people complain, they attract other complainers. And then they start reinforcing. Oh, that's so terrible. Well, guess what happened to me? Oh, that's so terrible. And then they repel anyone that can help them. The second one is blame. There's a lot of blame that comes with low autonomy. Life is so hard for me. It's because of you. It's because of you. It's because my parents never did this. It's because the system. And we see a lot of, again, throwing away of that power by blaming everybody else.

We see a lot of frustration and resentment. Resentment of people who seem to to have an easier life. And then we see, you might have experienced this, do you know anyone in your life who will keep repeating the same story of how they've been hurt in the past? And like the first two or three times, you are there with them, you have empathy, you're holding space. By the 30th time, you realize, okay, this person's keeping them stuck.

They're keeping themselves in this cycle of, why me? That's the fourth sign that we see with low autonomy. And you have this ability to move out of why me, or why is this happening, into how can I deal with this? What can I do? And that's the simplest shift you can make from why me to what now. Is that a personality trait that you can learn? Yes. And how do you do that?

So firstly, it comes down to becoming aware of your attention. So attention is a superpower. If you can control your attention, superpower. Remember what I said about how when we're looking at brain scans, the default part of the brain is active, which is the fear center, the threat detection center, you're thinking of all the negatives. That's because you haven't consciously taken control of your thoughts. When you consciously take control of your thoughts, which means using your conscious mind and shifting to what now, even that in itself, which is asking yourself, okay, what now?

That requires conscious control. You're re-engaging the prefrontal regions of your brain. So it's amazing. The brain is the hardware. The mind is the software. You can change the software, which then changes the hardware. When you change what your mind is thinking, okay, what now? What can I do?

It re-engages the prefrontal regions of the hardware, the brain, and suddenly you get more blood flowing to the part of the brain that you need for rationality and logic and decision-making and solution-finding. Now the other thing that happens here a lot is that when you're stuck in that state, there's a lot of shoulds. No one really likes to be told what they should do. And when we have someone say that to us, we often have a very strong visceral reaction. This is another TikTok friend.

A lot of women in heterosexual relationships, when they are upset, they don't necessarily want their partner, their male partner, to give them a solution. I just want to be heard. And I laugh sometimes because I can relate so deeply to that where I have a problem. And my husband, who is so rational, so logical, like is just giving me a solution. And I almost propel him and, like, make him the problem when really all. I need. And I don't know if this is a gender sex thing where it's like, I just need someone to console me, not give me a solution. So I'm laughing because I feel like I see that all the time on TikTok specifically with heterosexual relationships where there's like a male and there's a

female and the male is like, hug me. Hug me. Just tell me a sin of you a guy. And it often happens because in moments of pressure, men default to high autonomy. How can I fix this? And women just need emotional. Regulation. So really a simple tip for anyone who's listening to this and is thinking, oh, I'm the fixer. We call it the LPB question. So when someone needs help, instead of going in and trying to fix it,

you say, hey, what do you need for me? How can I best support you? Do you need L a listening ear? P, a problem solver, or be a brainstorm partner. And let that other person tell you. Now, if they don't know, just give them a hug. And whatever the person that is how? having the solutions being thrown on you, how do you tell the person that's the fixer?

Like, I just need this without offending them. You'd say, thank you so much for caring. I can see how much you care. What would be most helpful for me right now is this. Is that something you can give me? You just tell them. And that is a sign of autonomy because you were demonstrating, hey, I'm taking control. I'm doing something.

I'm focusing on what I can do. Now, another really interesting communication piece that comes up when it comes to autonomy is, let's say, so we see this play out all the time, I see this play out with my husband and I as well, you're at home and your husband comes home late. And you say to them, another late night, huh? Now what you meant to say was, oh, I've missed you, I want to spend more time with you, give me a hug. But instead, what came out was another late night, huh? And then they respond to that, feeling like you're not valuing them and the hard work they're putting in. And then it makes you irritable and frustrated, and then something that could have been resolved with, hey, I miss you,

let's organize a date night soon, becomes, well, I need my space, stop talking to me, and it becomes this issue. And it all comes down to how direct we are with our communication or whether we expect the other person to read between the lines. When we look at a lot of the research, women struggle more with assertive communication, partly because of how we are, how we've been raised, all the social conditioning, but also because for a lot of us, we just prefer to be agreeable and make sure everyone's happy. And so we don't say anything that's direct just in case we make someone unhappy. But what that can lead us to do is say something and insinuate something and hope that if I say another late night, my husband will say, oh, yes, it's been another late night,

let's have a date night soon, but they don't make the connection. And it just causes all sorts of problems. If we can get better at demonstrating autonomy in the moment, which means I'm focusing on what I can control, which is me communicating what I need and not expecting the other person to understand what I'm saying without even saying it. So what does it look like? Tell them what you need, what you'd like to see. Don't frame it as a I need you too. We don't respond well to that, but how about we did this because this is how it benefit? it's both of us. It's really simple. And it also works in the workplace. If you were to go to your boss and say, hey, I want a raise, often it doesn't go so well. Why? You would frame it as,

okay, how about we discuss my career progress? Because I have been demonstrating that I've been going above and beyond. In fact, here is my, you know, the outline of the last six months of how I've really delivered. It would be wonderful to have a conversation about my compensation because I genuinely believe in economic justice and it would be right to get a compensation that's reflecting what I'm contributing. When's a good time to discuss that? As opposed to, oh, I've been working really hard. Look at how I've been going above and beyond and expecting them to know that what you're asking for is recognition or pay increase or whatever it is. We have to get better at just asking. I think a big part of HSR is like helping women step into the hottest, smartest,

richest part of their life and owning it and feeling okay with it. And I think it's such a bigger explanation, but part of that is even like gaining confidence, right? Owning a room. If someone is listening to this that cannot relate, what are they doing to reframe their entire life to achieve what they know they want? They just don't yet maybe believe that it's possible for them. And this is where we get into the realm of narrative re-identification, which is just a fancy way of saying you can edit your story. You can edit your narrative. It doesn't mean you're changing the facts. In fact, a lot of the research shows that the most powerful impact comes from changing the meaning that you attribute to those facts.

So if you are someone who feels like you've been wrongly hurt in the past, you've been discriminated against, life has been unfair, you've failed, you are not enough. It starts with interrogating the story that you're telling. Going back into your history and actually writing it down. So writing it down can be such a valuable practice. Write down the key moments in your life and career. And then the next stage is, so that's kind of what is current state. The next stage is what is the story that you're telling yourself about these situations? Well, everyone always talks over me in meetings, which means that my voice is not valuable.

And I'm not enough. That could be a story that you're telling yourself. The next stage is, okay, well, what is the story I'd prefer to be telling about myself? Well, I would prefer to tell a story that's, you know, people listen to me. And I have a voice that is valued and I have value to contribute. That's the story I want to share. Okay, so then how do you change the story where objectively people are talking over you? How do you change that without changing the facts?

Rather than people always talk over me, you would go, I've noticed that people tend to talk over me when I'm speaking. What can I do to change that? How can I speak a little bit clearer, a little bit slower, with a little bit more impact? How can I change the framing of that message? How can I change how I'm showing up into the room even before I speak to prime people to pay attention? That's how you're taking a story. You're not changing the fact, but you're changing the meaning you've attributed to them. It's not people don't listen because I'm not of value.

It's, okay, objectively, sometimes people don't listen. How do I reclaim control? Instead of why me? What next? What will I do differently next time? And when you do that, you start tweaking, you start showing up with a little bit more courage, you start showing up dressing a different way. People will start to respond to you differently, which gives you that evidence that, hey, I can start changing this story and then rewriting the story that I'm creating from here onwards. And that's this process of narrative re-identification.

Again, I go into so much more detail in the book to help people really unpack the narrative that they're sharing. But the beauty of that is that when you start showing up in different ways, using different language, dropping the shoulds or the, you know, over-apologizing is something that women do so often. You just drop the over-apology. Okay, simple one for anyone listening who over-apologizes. You don't want to take up space and you feel like you are genuinely inconveniencing the world around you. Shift from apology to gratitude. It's so simple.

Instead of, sorry, I'm talking so much. Thank you so much for listening. I just communicated exactly the same thing. See how it came across different, even in the way that I communicated it? I didn't highlight inadequacy. I highlighted the other person's quality. Thank you for listening. Instead of, sorry, I'm taking so long,

thank you so much for your patience while I clear this up. It's so simple, and these are ways, again, of increasing by, or rather, leaning on autonomy, to also increase yourself acceptance. Because you're not reiterating, sorry for waiting, sorry for listening, sorry if I'm talking so much, which again lowers your status. You're lifting your status, reminding yourself, hey, I'm allowed to exist. I am of value and valuable here. And you're elevating other people. So these are really simple little strategies you can use to help. And the beauty of all of this, in fact, I'm going to share with everyone right now. If you do want to figure out

what your doubt profile is, there is an online quiz that we've created. It's based on a psychometrically validated tool. And it's, if you go to doubt, profile.com. Doubtprofile.com, you can actually do it there. It's totally free. It takes anywhere from one to three minutes, and you'll get a little personalized report showing you what your doubt profile looks like. But the beauty of understanding these four drivers of doubt and trust, so when they're strong,

they drive yourself trust, which we call big trust, which is the title of the book. When they're weak, that's where self-doubt attacks. And you can lean on one to strengthen the others. Like in this example, we're talking about leaning on autonomy, taking action, changing that story, and that then increases our acceptance. So they kind of will feed into each other. Okay, when I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community.

Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my out of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams. Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IGPrivatewealth.com. Amazon presents Jeff versus Taco Truck Salsa, whether it's Verde, Roja, or the orange one.

For Jeff, trying any salsa is like playing Russian roulette with a flamethrower. Luckily, Jeff saved with Amazon and stocked up on antacids, ginger tea, and milk. Habaniero, more like Habinier, yes. Save the Everyday with Amazon. What was the last one? So the last one was about emotions. It's entirely about emotions. We call it adaptability,

and it's the ability to respond and adapt to whatever you feel. Because, you know, we like to think that we're rational beings, but we're not. We are emotional beings who rationalize our decisions. We are hugely emotional. We make decisions based on emotion. all the time. And so if we can get better at responding to those emotions, not accepting them at face value, letting them be, but also asking ourselves, what is this emotion trying to tell me?

And then working with it, rather than resisting it, everything in life becomes easier. Everything in life. I'm going to share two very simple tips for anyone listening when it comes to emotions, because what we need to understand is that your thoughts feed your emotions, which then shape how you show up, what your body is doing, which then reinforces your emotions and your thoughts and everything just feeds each other. In the same way your emotions can feed your thoughts and in the same way your body, your physiology, can feed your thoughts and your emotions. Okay, so that was a little complicated. Really simply, I'm going to share something that is called the opposite action strategy. Maggie, when you're feeling insecure,

What does your body tend to do? Shrink. Shrink. Why does it do that? You don't want to be seen. You want to obscure yourself to protect yourself. So you shrink. And then how do you typically feel? Do you feel empowered when you've shrunk?

No. Not at all. So it reinforces there is some kind of danger here. I need to protect myself. The simplest thing you can do, we've heard it all the time. Sit upright, expansive posture. But there is something really interesting here. I wanted to understand what is it about the upright posture

that actually changes the way that we feel. And so researchers very recently published a paper just last year, and they found that there's one, it's called a mediator in the research. There's something that's happening that is actually not to do with your shoulders. I always thought it was shoulders. It's not to do with your shoulders or your back. It's to do with something else. Everyone watching and listening, can you put your hand at the back of your neck and feel around for a little lump? The base of your spine, the bone.

Exactly. Hopefully you don't have any other lumps. If you do, please go get it checked out. Now, I want you to just tilt your head all the way down, chin to chest. and you're going to feel that bone. Now bring it back to resting. And one more time, bring it down and then bring it back to resting. So that little bone there, when your neck and your chest are elongated,

that activity there, it's called neck flexion. And it's that distance between your chin and your chest that shapes how you feel. So before you're, and it's actually just a good stretch, so encourage everyone to do it. Before you're going into anything high stakes, you're going into an interview, a pitch, a meeting, you're doing anything that matters that you care about? Don't even worry about upright posture. Just ask, what is my chin and chest doing? How do I elongate that chin to chest ratio? That in itself can make you feel more empowered, feel like you have a greater control over the situation. You're also getting more oxygen in just by virtue of your body being more upright. So that's the first thing. Pay attention

to your physiology. The other one is if you were to grab a pen, like let's say we had a pen, A lot of people mumble when they're nervous or insecure. Something that we encourage everyone to do, to increase their pronunciation and enunciation and articulation. Grab a pen stick in between your teeth like this. Okay. Now, what you want to do is grab a paragraph from any book, and with the pen between your teeth,

you read the paragraph. I'm just going to read one line so you can see. Stepping outside your comfort zone doesn't mean you become immunized to hair. Now, I don't know if you understood. It was stepping outside your comfort zone doesn't mean you become immunized to pain. Now, the idea is that you want to focus on pronouncing your words. You're activating and exercising your facial muscles. And then once you do that for about a minute, read a paragraph.

Don't get a pen as thick as your finger. What I did was too thick, get something a little thinner. But you're activating parts of your face. When you then remove that pen and keep reading, you will find that your words are so much easier to be understood. And a big part of how people respond to us is how well they receive the message that we're sharing, how well they can understand it. If you can get better at pronouncing, people are going to listen to you more. You're going to have more impact in that meeting, in that pitch. And then based on how they respond to you, that also shapes or reinforces how you see yourself.

So that's one tip unrelated to emotions, but I thought while we have the pen, I might as well share it. It's a really good one I do at any time I'm presenting on a stage, doing a Zoom call, whatever. it is, really valuable. The second one is leave that pen in there for a little bit longer. Now, Maggie, if you have a pen like this for 30 seconds, you're going to start to feel a little bit happier. You're actually activating parts of your face that are activated and the muscles are activated when you are actually happy. And it's this biological feedback loop, this facial feedback loop. When we're stressed or anxious, what usually happens with our face? Oh my gosh, my mom goes, stop going like this. I have Botox right now, so I can't, but you know what I mean?

We frown, we scowl, everything comes down, which reinforces how we feel. If you can just grab a pen and stick it between your teeth, now really interestingly, there have been some research on people who have had Botox. I'm going to say, so Dr. Sororio, you're telling me I can get Botas. So no comment on it. But according to the research, when you don't have the ability to frown, you don't experience that constant reiteration or the rumination of the negative emotion because your face is not demonstrating that.

When we walk into a rim and you see someone who has this distance, who's looking excited, Like, is that someone who is naturally a confident person that you would want to associate yourself with? Maybe more so than someone who's kind of sitting like this, looking frowning, doesn't look like they're having a good time? 100%. We like to associate with people who make us feel alive. And if someone is frowning or slouching, that person doesn't even look alive. So we're not going to approach them at the networking event.

We're not going to go and speak to them because it looks like they're trying to escape. We're going to resonate with people who make us feel alive. They're making the eye contact. They look like they want to chat. If you want to be someone who other people want to approach, make yourself look approachable. You asked a question, Maggie, that does that mean, if someone is demonstrating all those things,

they walk into the room, they've got the distance, does that mean that they are naturally authentically confident? No, it doesn't automatically mean that they are. It means that they are exhibiting the behaviors of someone who is confident, and you can learn them. It doesn't mean that you feel that way yet. But it's better to do it, to learn it, and to do it, and then the feeling can catch up later.

So how do you recommend someone walks into a room to own the room? The first step you take into that room should be one of, I would call it, grounded charisma. What does that mean? A lot of people enter a room and they're kind of fumbling and they're struggling with the door handle and have your shoulders oriented towards your audience? Do a little mental check of, okay, what kind of door is this? Do I need two hands? Do I need one hand?

How do I take just one step as opposed to shuffling? Again, these are not necessarily for other people. These are for you. The more gravitas you have when you enter a room, the better you're going to feel. The other thing is don't look at the ground. Don't look at the ground. We look at the ground for two reasons.

One, we might feel insecure and it's easier rather than making eye contact to look at the ground. The other thing, which is important for us, ladies, we often wear heels, high ones. And so we look at the ground so we don't fall. We don't realize what's happening when you're looking at the ground, what's happening to your chin to chest ratio. It's dropping.

And so by virtue of just making sure we're looking where we're going, we might unintentionally reinforce more of an insecure state, which doesn't feel great. Also, we just entered the room looking at the ground, so we're not having that impact on other people. So it's tricky with women because we need to be very conscious of what we're wearing. Now, the other thing is called enclosed cognition. Show up to rooms, not as the person you can,

currently are, but the person who belongs in that room. What does that mean? That means, let's say your, actually, can you give me an example? What is an example of something that someone may be facing? They're going to speak to a group of people. What might that be? Let's think about the HsR Angel who wants a job promotion. Okay. And is going in to negotiate with their boss. Okay. So the first thing you want to do before you even consider the negotiation is what do the people at the level I want to get to, what do they wear? What do they actually wear? So a little bit of background for everyone. I worked in corporate for 10 years. I did four years in the legal industry and then six-ish, seven-ish in banking and finance. It was an overlap. There was one person on the floor who was

incredibly talented and also extremely flamboyant in what she wore. Now, I was in meeting rooms. I was in a senior leadership. It was a strategic role, so a senior strategic role, and I was in the room with the executive team. And they would often talk about this person, but not for her talent or her deliverables. They would talk about what she was wearing. Did you see the earrings she was wearing today? Did you see the shoes she was wearing? These are grown adults around a table pointing out what someone was wearing. It shouldn't have been happening. I was too inexperienced to do anything to change the conversation, but it gave me an important lesson, which was, you don't want to be wearing anything that detracts from what you're actually delivering. So yes, be authentic,

dress for yourself, but not in a way that's going to make you stand out and make that overpower what you're actually trying to be known for. So in her case, she was not able to progress because they weren't talking about her work. They were talking about her earrings. So do think about in the environment that you're in. Now, if we're talking about a startup, it's a very different situation. If you're in a corporate organization, which generally has a culture of how people dress, have a look at how people at that level dress, show up to rooms, communicate, and then embody that now. Play that role now. Not in a negative fake way, but in a, hey, I believe I can be that and I'm going to become that even before I have the role or have the

conversation for the promotion, whatever it is. So when you enter that room, you're already in the mindset of, I have this job already. I'm the person you need. It gives you this, again, this kind of grounded confidence of, hey, yes, I believe in myself 100%. I trust, I have big trust that I can show up and be that person. Now I just need to demonstrate it in what I say, which is the hard part. And so let's cover that piece. How do you then demonstrate it in what you say? If we go back to these four attributes of self-trust, which is what we've been talking about this whole time. We call it big trust. It's that full, unequivocal trust in yourself. The first one, you need to remind yourself, I am worthy of this role. I'm absolutely worthy of this role. That's

acceptance. Agency, I can do this wrong. I have the skills and abilities. And the fact is, a lot of people will not be able to answer that with a yes, because they've never done it before. So then you say, I know I have the skills and ability to learn what I need to do to do the role. The autonomy factor is, okay, there are going to be a lot of things outside of my control, but I'm going to focus on what I can control at all moments. And then the fourth was emotional stability. Okay, before I go into this meeting, I'm going to do my deep breathing. I'm going to ground myself.

The physiological sigh is one of the simplest ways to ground yourself in the moment. It's extremely, it's been researched so many times. It's two breaths. So one big breath in through the nose. Then another quick one to completely fill your lungs. So two inhales, and then you hold, and then you slowly exhale through the mouth. And you can do this in a number of cycles.

And it just instantly signals to yourself, hey, I'm calm. And it's because it's doing something to the lungs. There's a lot of signs behind why it works. But you basically ground yourself before you get in there, and that's tapping into emotional stability. Now then the whole conversation is another piece entirely. You want to make sure through agency, which is a second pillar. I'm like pointing at the first one.

Agency is the second pillar. So you'd go, okay, what do I need? to do to perform well in this interview, which means I need to prepare for it, maybe role play it, I need to be able to demonstrate really confidently that I have a track record that demonstrates that I can do this thing. And let's say that there is, it's a position that has a lot of things you've never done before. And they highlight that, hey Maggie, you haven't done this. How would you respond, Maggie, if someone highlights that, okay, you're going for this promotion, you actually haven't done this, this and this.

Shoday, I am so delusional. I would be like, I can do it. Just watch me. Watch me. And that's the level of self-trust that we need. And then to demonstrate that confidence to the person that's interviewing you, you would say, you're absolutely right.

I haven't done that. But here is what I have done. And here are the skills that I would bring to allow me to learn whatever I need to learn to get this done. And in fact, you know what? I see my non-experience as even more beneficial and valuable because it means I'm going to be asking questions about how everything is done

and not just accepting things at face value. That curiosity is going to allow me to get in here hit the ground running and in 90 days I will be able to do X, Y, Z, this is my 90 day plan. You give them so much. That's where they're looking for. They're just looking for confidence. You don't have to have done everything before. It's just demonstrating, I believe I can do it, and here's why you should believe that I can do it too. So the cool thing about these four attributes that we've been talking about. When someone is excessively high on one of them, it becomes a negative. So if someone is excessively high on self-acceptance, and gosh, I know so many of these people working in the corporate world, especially in positions of leadership. I was just able to say

the men talking about the women with the earrings is one, why I'm starting this business. And two, is exactly who you're talking about. You know what's terrible, though? It wasn't just men talking about this woman with the earrings. It was women as well. Why do women do that? There are a few theories as to why this happens. I'll share two of them. One of them is that a lot of women feel like they have had to work so hard to get to where they are, especially in male-dominated spaces, that they just become a part of the problem. Because they've worked so hard so they feel like they need to make it difficult for everyone else. Part of that is also that there are so few positions for women that they feel like they need to protect them because anyone else could be a

threat. So that's one. The other one is some women feel like they have to become like men in order to be accepted as part of the group so that they maintain their status in that team. And this is where we see a lot of women, especially early on, earlier on in their careers, they feel like they have to change who they are in how they show up to emulate more of these. masculine qualities? Because we've heard so many stories about how you can have the same behavior demonstrated by a man and a woman. The same objective behavior. And the man will be called, wow, what an incredible visionary leadership material. The woman will be called arrogant and bossy. And this is really well documented in the literature. So we need to acknowledge, unfortunately,

we don't live in a just world yet. And until then, we need to be strategic about how we get ahead. but that doesn't mean that we need to then become the very things that we're trying to stand up against. You can still bring your values, your integrity and your, you know, I was going to say softness, not as a negative thing, but I think a lot of women do excel in being softer in how they communicate. It doesn't mean weak. It doesn't mean ineffective. Still getting to the same outcome.

It's just acknowledging that, hey, I'm talking to a human and not a corporate drone or a robot. I'm going to treat you like a human. And unfortunately we call it soft, but it's, I think it's a beautiful thing. I see that as the ability to have empathy and perspective taking and actually can be highly, highly strategic. It can also be very manipulative if you choose to use it in that way. But when we use it for positive, that's what allows you to be an incredible people person. Well, this is partly the reason of HSR because when I was even investing, I would be in rooms where these men are trying to buy these medical ascetics clinics. And God forbid, you go and unlike a teeth cleaning, you say you're going to a Botox appointment

or you're getting a facial and you need to work from home for three days. And there is like a complete double standard when these people are trying to buy these businesses up in private equity. But like the person that's working at the firm can't actually bring that femininity to work, can't bring who they are to work. And so I think it's one of those things where it's like it takes time and it takes real societal change of like when women come into power, come into money, they have to share that with other women that are also trying to come up. But I've seen this time and time again.

It's terrible. Well, it doesn't happen. And I'm wondering if there's anything that people like me that are reading your book or people that are listening to this can do in order to like disarm those women that have the ability to like make a change or do something different. Or is just one of those things where it's like delayed gratification and having to play the long game until like the power dynamic and money dynamic shifts a little bit. It's a really good question. I think it's a little bit of both. I'm of the belief that, and we see this, especially when you have leaders who are older and they become very firm in their ways. I think part of that is a fear of uncertainty. And because for,

a very long time in their career, things were a certain way, and now they're changing. And they see that as a threat. And they resist change. And then they often try and just lock in. And that can be, anyone can experience that. And that takes time. That just requires a new generational shift because often in a company, unless you have someone directly saying to them, hey, you need to change, which often doesn't happen because they hold a lot of power because of, you know, by virtue of their position, you just have to wait for things to shift. But I think when it comes to being in a company and having women at the top who perhaps are not helping the plight of women, the first thing I would encourage you to do as a woman is be the person you would like other women to

emulate. So demonstrate what that looks like. Now, I do want to say something to women everywhere. So I was delivering a session once to women, a group of women, and one of the questions was, I feel like I have to code switch constantly at work. And I actually didn't understand the term of code switching. So I asked her to explain and she said, well, I feel like when I'm talking to this group, I have to kind of change who I am. And if I work into a group of men, I have to change who I am. And I said, is that a bad thing? And she kind of looked at me because she was asking it as if it's a bad question. I just want to be myself and authentic. And I said, until we live in a different workplace, strategic code switching is actually one of the best things you can do. Again,

we don't live in an environment yet that we want to be. So if you're going to be, so if you're going and delivering a pitch to a group of male investors, you want to communicate in a way that they are going to respond positively, which might mean slightly shifting the way that you communicate. I think of it in this way. I think of it like, let's say, Maggie, that you're in Tokyo, you're learning Japanese. You go and speak to someone and you're practicing your Japanese. Now, if that person who knows your learning whipped out the quickest Japanese you've ever heard in your life, you're probably going to flounder. But if that person had emotional intelligence, they would probably slow down how quickly they were speaking to make sure that you were understanding, right?

This is what we do when we want the other person to understand us, and you would be so thankful to that person. The same thing applies in the world of work. You can tweak how you're speaking, depending on who you're speaking to, and it doesn't mean you're being inauthentic. It doesn't mean you're being fake. It means you're being strategic and smart. And that's something that I did. If I went into a room full of men and started the conversation with five minutes of connecting talk, how are you?

How are your kids? How is the weekend? That would not go down well. Yet I knew when I was speaking to a team of women, many of them really appreciated that. So that's what I would do for them. So you fine tune your approach to better attend the audience that you're speaking to. And so that's just something to keep in mind. You don't have to feel like, oh, but then I'm being fake.

No, you're being very strategic and smart. Let me ask you this. If you were speaking to a room full of women, would your approach be different to if you were then speaking to a room full of older men? I think I'm the worst person to ask this question because fundamentally this is the whole goal of Hot Smart Rich. I'll remember when I first started, there was a guy that I used to do deal flow with. and he worked at one of the biggest, like, family offices meets private equity funds now. And I had this amazing deal and I wanted to send it to him. And he was like, you just can't send it using at hotsmartridge.com.

And I remember being like, wait what? Like, I was so taken aback by it. And I was so deeply offended. And I remember just being like, watch me. And I agree with you a lot in a lot of ways. But I do think that the world is shifting where it's like the creator economy is finally giving women the ability to have a currency that we haven't had before. And I think even for Stephen, who invested in me, who's the second biggest podcast in the world, the reason he invested was because

of Hot Smart Rich, how polarizing it is, how easy it is to grab someone's attention for better or for worse because of the name that we work in. And I'll give you an example. I spoke at Duke University. I was invited to speak at an actual class. And I'd only ever spoken at, you know, clubs of Wharton or of Columbia, which is amazing. But like, this is what people are paying tuition to go and actually listen to. And I started the class. And when someone would ask me a question, I would say, what's your birthday? And they would answer. And some people were really into it because we would bond and they'd be like, I'm also a Gemini. And some people would be like, oh, I'm a scroprud. I'm like, oh, you must get a bad rep. And then some people were like, I could tell

a little bit turned off by it or were just like really reserved. And they do a a postmortem after the class after every single guest lecturer goes. And the professor called me after, she's a good friend of mine. And she was like, it was really interesting. Like a lot of people were a little bit critical about like why you started it with birthdays. And she explained to them that she knows me. And I do it to build rapport. And I do it so that like I'm not nervous answering the question and they're not nervous asking the question. And it's actually a way to build a commonality, which is like sales 101. So when I learn from rejection therapy. And it's, If you had asked me, would you do that same thing with a man?

I think I would lie if I said 100% of the time. But I also don't think that I wouldn't. And we actually just kind of made fun of it the other week in a little TikTok that we did because I do ask a lot of people their birthdays, whether you're a man, whether you're a woman. Maybe one-on-one I'd feel more comfortable doing that. But in a group, maybe not. but I say all of that because I think that there's nuance to everything, right? There's nuance to every single situation.

And I'm interested with everything that we've talked about tonight. Like, what is the nuance that people do have to keep in mind while they're listening to this, while they're reading your book? Because everyone is so different. I love that you do that, by the way. I think it's brilliant. Do you? Yes, because, well, okay, let me ask you one question. If you were to walk into a pitch meeting and you knew that there were, so it's all about, again, nuance.

You were speaking to students. So you were the one that they were looking up to and you were setting the standard. And this actually goes back to what we were talking about before about, what can we do as women. If you're in a position where people are looking up to you, you're in a leadership position, you've started a business, you're succeeding. You set the standard for what other people will then expect and consider, hey, this is how we do things. you can create a culture. If you're in a position

where you're trying to convince people with a greater status than you because they hold decision-making power, that's where the nuance comes in. Totally. That's where the code switching comes in. Until you get there, you get your seat on the table,

that's when you can then start to shift the culture. Completely agree. And I think this is what goes back to like I always said it's points on the board. When I had my first job, it's so funny now I build my career off of my voice. Like my literal,

my manager told me, you will never go anywhere based on the sound of your voice, the inflection that goes up at the end. Wow. You sound so much more stupid than you actually are. And that is, again, the beginnings of Hot Smart Rich. And even to this day, a lot of the criticism I get is like she sounds like such a valley girl. I can't stand her vocal fry. But I think it actually is disarming to a lot of people.

And I think that's another big lesson I've had of putting myself out there now is like you can't be for everyone. No, not at all. I think when you, and I've heard this said before, when you try and be for everyone, you end up being for no one. And when you try and be for everyone, who are you for yourself? That means you're molding who you are to try and meet the expectations of people that most of them you don't know, that are not important. And you sacrifice yourself in the process. So huge, well done to you for your journey and not allowing the voices out there, there are so many voices out there, to try and dim your light. You have created a path where you're inspiring and empowering so many women all around the world to embrace who they are and to be unapologetic about that.

And we need more of that. Well, I'm so grateful that you came on because you did such an amazing job of furthering that mission. And it takes women like you who, again, like, come together with what we're trying to do to really change perceptions. I can't wait for everyone to read your book. I really want to ask you a few things. Where can people find the book? Okay. The book is available now.

It's published. It's at all bookstores around the world. You can get it, obviously, from Amazon. What I encourage you to do, even if you don't get the book, do the quiz. Because again, it's totally free. It's in the beginning of the book, but we made it free. Doubtprofile.com. You can go and do it there.

It's just 12 questions. It gives you the breakdown of where are you on all the four of them? What's so interesting is sometimes I will have people who are very accomplished do theirs thinking that they're going to be fine on all of them. They're going to be, you know, strong on all. And it comes back in there actually deeply. Well, they say they're embarrassed. You should never be embarrassed.

This is a starting point. It's self-awareness. And then you get to choose what you do next. I love that. Can we finish with some rapid fire? Yeah, of course. Let's do it. What is the last thing you put on your credit card?

Lunch at the hotel, because I came up from San Diego today. What is the last most expensive thing you put on your credit card? Ooh. A haircut? I mean, you have the best hair in the world, so... It's okay. The haircut. Who is the most confident person you've ever met?

My husband. Is that what attracted you to him? Yes. But it's not the kind of confidence that some people's confidence feels belittling to others. He has such incredibly grounded confidence that I find so magnetic. So it was, yeah, it'd be him for sure. Wow. Would you rather read a book or listen to a podcast?

Read a book. Where is the best place you go for inspiration? Where do I go for inspiration in here and in here? In fact, something I'm trying to do more of. I know this is rapid fire, but I'm going to expand on this little bit. I have for so long tried to outsource inspiration, trying to seek it outside of me. And I find that I might feel inspired, but then I don't take action on it. So I'm now in that era of how do I find the inspiration within me,

which means creating space to meditate, to be mindful, to be with myself, and then find that because that's when I then take action on it. And I create or I do something that's a contribution. so actually I'm here and here. Love that. Yeah. If you had to title this season of your life, what would it be called? Expansion.

That was fast. Expansion. You know why? I had a podcast recently and I was asked, what is one word that describes this moment in your life? And I said, clouds. I was really tired that day. And I had been looking at the clouds earlier that day. So it popped to my mind and I felt really silly.

I had to then justify it. The idea is like clouds, like expanding and changing and evolve. But when I said it, his face gave it away. He was thinking, who are you and why you're on this job? Do you a PhD? Yeah, seriously. Are you really a doctor? So, expunge.

Okay. And this is the last one, which I feel like I don't think I'll ever find a better person to ask this question to. No pressure. Uh-oh. So I do these things on Instagram called HsR love notes. That's like a reframe of my brain. So you could think of it as like an affirmation, but I call them love notes. If you could tell yourself one Hsr love note for the rest of your life,

What would it be? Ooh, okay. One, like something short. Yeah. So my love note would be an unusual one. It would be, you are of greatest value when you're being of value. So find ways to do that, and you will always feel valuable.

I told you there was no employer that I could ask about that. I had to think about that one, though. I'm so grateful that you came here. Where can people find you? Online, social media. We create a lot of content. You know, if you found value in this, I encourage you to check out the book.

because we go into so much more detail, do that online quiz, datprofile.com. We've just gotten back into long form content, so you can find us on your favorite platform. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for having me. And thank you for your openness and vulnerability too. And for everything you're creating, it's an empire. Thank you.