Influential Introvert: Communication Coaching for Professionals with Performance Anxiety - Vulnerability and the Deeper Life

Episode Date: May 16, 2020

You’ve heard me ask: ‘What do you stand for? And what is the conversation you want to have with the world?’    On today’s episode, we’re talking about how this conversation can change and evolve.    Joining me again is Alexis Teichmiller, Affiliate Manager at ConvertKit and host of the Deeper Life, a podcast about vulnerability, connecting with others, and showing up unapologetically in the world.   I love featuring podcasters focusing on the deeper aspects of life and that is Alexis in a very literal sense.    We discuss vulnerability, forgiveness, getting in alignment with our values, working with our feelings instead of against them, how to increase our self-awareness, and more.   It’s so easy to get stuck in a routine and lose track of what we believe in, and to not give ourselves space to reflect on whether our beliefs still ring true.   Consider this episode your opportunity to reflect on what matters to you, and whether you are becoming the person you want to be. *** Hello. I’m Sarah, your host and founder of Podcast Launch Academy. Are you ready to launch a podcast that builds your brand and business, connects you to your global community, and grows your influence? Visit sarahmikutel.com to see how we can work together. Here’s a special treat for you: Use my Buzzsprout affiliate link to sign up for their podcast media hosting and get a $20 Amazon gift certificate. I’ve gotten to know the Buzzsprout team over this last year and love their customer service so much, I moved my shows over there. sarahmikutel.com/buzzsproutDo you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free Conversation Cheat Sheet with simple formulas you can use so you can respond with clarity, whether you’re in a meeting or just talking with friends.Download it at sarahmikutel.com/blanknomore and start feeling more confident in your conversations today.

What would it look like for me to advocate for myself? Just as much as I advocate for others. Have you been wanting to start a podcast for a while now, but something's holding you back? Maybe it's fear of putting yourself out there or confusion about the technology. I'm Sarah Mikital and on podcasting step by step, I'll break down how to podcast with a little loving motivation to give you the skills and the confidence you need to finally launch that show of your dreams. Let's get started.

On this podcast, you've heard me ask, what do you stand for? And what is the conversation that you want to have with the world? Well, in today's episode, we are talking about how this conversation can change and evolve. And joining me today is Alexis Tyke Miller. She is back. You remember her from the affiliate marketing episode that was last week. She's affiliate manager at Converkit and also host of The Deeper Life. And that is a podcast about vulnerability and with others and showing up unapologetically in this world. I love featuring podcasters who are focusing on the deeper aspects of life. And that is literally what Alexis is doing with her show. We discuss vulnerability, forgiveness, getting in alignment with our values, working with our feelings instead of against them, and how to become more self-aware and more. We want to do a ton of stuff in this episode. It is so easy to get stuck in a rut and a routine and lose track of what we believe in and also to not give ourselves space to reflect on whether we still hold the same beliefs as we once did. So consider this episode your opportunity to reflect on what matters to you and whether you are becoming the person you want to be. Enjoy.

Welcome Alexis. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited. So I recently discovered the Deeper Life podcast, and I would love to know how you got into podcasting. Back in 2015, I just moved to a new city. I was working a remote job. And I'm like, I don't know any other creatives other than creatives that are on the internet. And as much as I love remote work and being able to be location independent, I also missed community. And I saw that there were so many creators creating really cool businesses that allowed them to live a laptop lifestyle. So they could travel anywhere, they could build anything,

and they weren't necessarily, you know, dependent on going into an office. And so that's when the laptop lifestyle podcast was born was, what if I could tell the stories of all these creators who are building location independent businesses. And so that's how that first podcast was born, out of the need for community and just wanting to tell this interesting story, seeing how business and entrepreneurship was shifting to online. So I did that for about three years. Yeah, and you ended it quite nicely. I really liked the fact that you had a final episode and you were saying goodbye and you were quite emotional there. So why did you decide to end that show that you cared so much about? Great question. I'm a firm believer that, you know, you can.

can't do something forever. Seth Godin talks about living life in terms of sequential projects. And everything that he does is a project. It has a beginning, a middle, and an end. And hearing him shared that with me gave me a lot of peace. I'm like, oh, you mean if there's something that I don't want to do anymore, I can just let it go and focus on something else. Wow. You know, it gave me that permission to not be chained to something that no longer really was serving me after three years of hosting the show. I really wanted to shift into a more emotional and connection-oriented show and less of a business podcast. And I think that over time, at the end of 2018, I actually unexpectedly lost one of my best friends. And I was 25 at the time,

and so was she. And it put my whole life on pause. And I realized I was focusing a lot on building a business and career and being, you know, internet famous and like working in the online marketing space, just like wanting to have this purpose and wanting to be seen. And I realized that I was putting a lot of my priorities in that path and not, you know, focusing on enriching my relationships and being connected and really checking in with my family and friends and being, like really being a human that was holistic, not just, you know, career focused Alexis, that was ambitious and has goals. and that's okay too. But that was the only thing I was focused on. And I think losing my friend

and through that grieving process really showed me how I wanted to change my life. So often, as losing people does, unfortunately, I would give anything to have her back. I would trade all the things I've learned to have her back. But at some point, I had to make meaning from the loss. And I told myself, this is what I'm going to do. I'm going to stop being said, so self-centered. I'm going to stop being so selfish. I'm going to stop being so focused on, you know, putting my priority in social media likes and like being important and who I knew and really focused on like, how can I be a better friend? How can I be a better daughter? How can I be a better girlfriend at the time and now a wife? Like, how can I be a better partner?

And those are questions I didn't really make a lot of space to ask myself. And I realized that, you know, I work for a convert kit and email marketing company. full time. My whole life was centered around business, online business, you know, the online creator industry. And here I had this podcast, really that was aligned with the same thing. And I realized I was, there was so much business content and not enough life content, not enough about like the connection piece. And so I knew that at that point and a part of my healing process through grieving, I needed, I wasn't really in a good place and I wasn't in a good place to create or offer anything of value to anyone because I was just trying to figure out my own stuff.

So I realized that coupled with, hey, this is a project and it's ending. That's okay. And so I just phased it out. I wrote a letter to my listeners and I wrote it out and read it on the show and just explained kind of where I was coming from. And so many people have resonated with that last episode. I've gotten lots of messages that was almost two years, a year and a half ago ending that show. And I still get messages from people that are like, I just listened to the last episode.

And I'm sitting here crying, thinking about all the things I am afraid to let go of in order to heal. And so, yeah, that was a very long answer. But there's a lot of layers there. Yeah, yeah. Well, I love that you took away a learning from something so tragic. Because I think so often we just get caught up in the day to day and the routine and we don't even realize what is lacking in our life. lives and what we stopped making space for. And thank you for being so honest about where you were at that point in your life. Because, yeah, I think a lot of us can not be the best friends for a while

because we get so caught up in doing what we're excited about and what we're working on. And it's like, oh, wait, you're like this business and work, that's just one facet of life. Yeah. And I don't always love the word balance, but I like the word like integration. You know, like, of course, business and my career goals and all of my ambition, that makes me who I am. That's a huge part of my personality. And I don't need to feel shame about that. But what I do need to recognize is that when that overpowers relationships and connection,

then there's a huge unalignment of like, okay, I'm not, I'm not in alignment with the things that I say I want, the person I say that I want to be. And so it kind of was that question like, and this is something that James Clear talks a lot about in his book, Atomic Habits, which I highly recommend. But he asked the question, am I becoming the person I want to become? And during that process, I was like, no, I'm not actually. Like, I'm going to stop and I'm going to actually honestly answer that. And the answer is no. And so then once you get to that point where you realize, I'm not really becoming the person that I say I want to be, then you can backtrack and say, okay, what aspects of my life feel out of

alignment. Okay, you know, this feels out of alignment or my relationship or my health. What could I do? What would life look like if I gave more energy to these things that are out of alignment? And then what would that feel like? And then kind of just ask yourself those questions and follow that mental thread. And then give yourself space to actually do those things. You've incorporated some new or different practices in your life to sort of get in touch with who you are and then stay connected with different parts of yourself. So could you share some maybe daily or just regular practices that you do in your life to stay integrated. Yeah. And I love that you said the word practice because that is with anything in life,

any characteristic that you're trying to build, any skill, it is a practice. Even just being vulnerable is a practice. It is something that you don't just check off a list and you're like, all right, I was vulnerable. That one time, it was great. And now I can move on. It is an ongoing thing that we're always learning. So for me, it's journaling. And asking myself really hard questions. So if I am emotionally triggered by something, I don't stuff it down anymore. I recognize that it's there and I'm like, hmm, where does that actually originate from? Like, I just got really irrationally angry about something or sad or I felt a little bit of shame about something. Interesting. Why? Like, where does, where did that come from? So, journaling,

in conjunction with really being in touch with how you're feeling can make you a lot more self-aware. And I think it's hard to chase down awareness if you're not willing to actually like ask yourself some pretty hard questions and recognize where you're starting from. For me, that starting point was, you know, I was grieving and I was recognizing that a lot of my priorities were out of alignment. And so I was like, okay, well, if I can just make one tiny step out of that, then I'm one step farther to becoming who I want to be. When it comes to being out of alignment, and again, like following those emotional triggers, what you can do is you can actually allow yourself to process and heal from them. But if you don't give yourself time to recognize where

they originated, it can be really hard for them to ever really go away. What is that process like of finding where they originated? What's that exploration like? For me, it's thinking back to the very first time I felt that emotion. Let's talk about jealousy. We'll go there. So there's jealousy in friendships, jealousy and relationships. There's different aspects of jealousy or envy. For me, if something comes up where something happens and I'm like, ooh, I feel a little jealous about something. Interesting. Why do I feel jealous? Just like asking yourself, that's interesting. I'm not shaming myself. I'm not saying, Alexis, you shouldn't feel this way. That's ridiculous.

It's like, interesting. Okay, why? All right, I wonder if it's connected to this one scenario where I felt jealous about XYZ. And I bet those two things are connected. And that traumatic experience where jealousy was the root, I never actually really healed from that, did I? I just, every time I felt jealous from that point on, I just pushed it down.

Or I shamed myself for feeling it. So those are some things that I do daily and regularly. And it's something that I do in practice with my husband where if something happens, I'm like, ooh, I'll literally verbally say, that was emotionally triggering for me. And they'd be like, okay, do you want to explore it with me right now or do you want to process it? And I'm like, I think I need to process it, but I'm going to get back to you because I do want to, it's almost like an internal puzzle piece of like, that's interesting. where does that originate? And it comes from this place of curiosity instead of judgment.

I'm not judging myself for the way I'm feeling. I'm just curious as to where it originated and recognizing, do I need to process and heal from something that happened a long time ago that's impacting my emotions right now? I really love what you said about just being curious about it rather than being judgmental. There's two helpful books on this if you want to just dive deeper on judgment, shame, and just being conscious of your emotions and how they're impacting you. The first one is the untethered soul. Fantastic Read. It's more spiritual-based.

And then there's a more professional business-based book called Positive Intelligence. And that goes through judgment being your main saboteur in your life. And then it goes through the other layers of internal saboteurs. And then you can kind of recognize which sabotage. Saboteurs are your worst, and which ones come most natural. And then as you become more and more aware of, oh, I'm self-sabotaging right now, you can jump yourself out of that. So those are both two books. I highly recommend that talk through like brainwork and being conscious and recognizing how negative emotions are past trauma can impact, very much impact to you today. So let's say that you,

something triggers you, you reflect on where it might have originated. and you get to that place and you're like, oh, I think it was this. How do you make peace with that so you can move on? Something I do is I ask myself if there's anything that I need to forgive. Because I think it's really hard to heal and move on if usually it's forgiving someone else or forgiving myself. So certain situations, it's forgiving others. And I'm like, you know, I can either let this continually affect me and pop, continually pop back up in situations, or I can decide to just let that go and forgive them

and move forward because they don't even remember that. I do. You know, so the forgiveness piece is pretty big, or for me, if I'm forgiving myself, which is even sometimes a harder ask, because there's so much judgment and shame wrapped up in that, I allow myself to make peace with the fact that I'm not that person anymore. So maybe I'm forgiving myself for something that happened seven years ago. I'm not the same will excess from seven years ago. So it's almost like forgiving an old friend. You know, it's like, you know, I know that you were in the healthiest place there. And I'm going to choose to forgive you, you know, where you were in that moment. And I'm going to move forward from this point on. And so I think it's just recognizing what you need to let go of.

And if conversations, verbal conversations need to be had with people, then, you know, I do recommend doing that too. It can be very healing. Just making sure that, you know, it's coming from a place of calmness and coming from a place of love and healing and not from a place of like further destruction. Because I've, you know, sometimes you go into a conversation, you're like, okay, I really need to have this resolution oriented conversation where, you know, we're going to both share our feelings. And then, you know, the conflict is going to be over. And it doesn't always go the way that you wanted to go. Because it's someone else's heart and it's someone else's emotions. And so sometimes you need to have a conversation. And sometimes I realize that, you know, I think I'm just going to decide to just let it go. Like, it's just a choice. And then I don't have to hold on to it anymore.

Tell me more about the deeper life podcast and what the why is behind that and what exactly inspired it. Yeah. So the Deeper Life podcast is actually a podcast that I thought of while I was hosting the laptop lifestyle. It's been on the back burner of my creative brain since the spring of 2018. So it's been marinating for a long time, but I just launched it April 14th of 2020. And I realized that I needed some time to heal and kind of figure out what I wanted the show to look like. but I wanted to create a safe place for people to share their stories and to really encourage people to connect with themselves and connect with other people. It's really hard to connect with others

and form really authentic, vulnerable connections if you aren't first authentic and vulnerable with yourself. So we really discuss a lot of those different topics on the podcast. And it's a mixture of interviews and solo cast with me. And it's also, a mixture of conversations with my partner and I as we discuss marriage and relationships and all the different aspects that create like a loving and safe and healthy relationship. And we talk through what we've learned after six years of being together and a lot of long distance. So it's a show about vulnerability. We talk about deep stuff. It's not always clean. It's messy and it's real and it's raw. And I was just really craving a corner of

the internet where I could just start cultivating conversations that I know people are hungry for because that's a lot of what I build on my Instagram platform and a lot of the things I already share. People are hungry for honesty. I also think this is something that unique to podcasting as well, like this sort of intimate form where you can have more meaning because you can start these conversations on social media, but that's kind of a fleeting. space. And I feel like people, and like TV and video, that's like quite mainstream often. And people don't get as deep as you could. And like that's the beauty of podcasting. Like one of the big pluses of podcasts. Like one of the reasons podcasting even started is because TV and radio was like so mainstream and not having like the depth. And it became very commercial. And then podcasters are like, we are going to create the space where we can be like. original and unique and, you know, be our true selves. Right.

And so having your podcast is the perfect place to have these conversations. I would love to hear a little bit more about what vulnerability means exactly to you. It depends on if you want the actual definition. It's being in a vulnerable place where harm could be done. Like you're putting yourself in a vulnerable position. You're stepping outside of protection where, you know, things could happen. But to me, vulnerability is being willing to show up on apologetically. in the world and not feel like you have to hide behind anything.

This is who I am. This is my personality. This is my heritage. This is the color of my skin. This is the trauma I've experienced. This is the way I laugh. This is the way I eat. Like, it's just, this is who I am.

And there's this unapologetic layer to vulnerability that can create really incredible relationships. And it allows me to walk through life feeling really full and recognizing like I don't have to, I don't have to change who I am for anyone else other than myself. Am I in evolution? Yes. Am I, do I have things I need to work on and heal and process and get better at? 100%.

But I also have this acceptance of who I am right now. And that really came to me through, you know, following vulnerability and that journey that it took me on and recognizing parts of myself I didn't like. and for a long time I didn't really like who I was. And so I had to be around people all the time or I filled myself with trips or clothes or, you know, whatever vice it might be for someone else. And it took me really being alone with myself for a long time for me to recognize that vulnerability that's in me, that softness, that kindness.

I don't have, not everything has to be so serious, but I also don't have to be so tough. You know, as a woman, for me, I have a stronger personality. And I've always been kind of labeled the B word or, oh, you're strong-headed or you're bossy or you're sassy or you're spicy or like those were all things that were said to me ever since I was young. Into high school, into college, into adulthood. Not as much now because I don't really allow people to talk to me like that. Or I'm not in circles where things like that are set. You know, I just put myself in circles where there's a lot of love and kindness. But I carried those things with me through life.

And I thought I needed to have this really hard exterior for people to take me seriously. You know, and I was in this online entrepreneurship world, and I was really young, managing an affiliate program. People would ask me, how old are you? Like, you seem like you have a lot of responsibility. Like, how old are you? And I felt like, oh, I need to act older, act mature, act tough. And honestly, I've had some of the best business relationships in the last couple of years where we're able to connect on such a friendship level with professional colleagues and people in my industry

because I'm just honest. I'm not trying to prove anything to anybody anymore. And they see that and they connect with that. And that's amazing. So I know that was a longer answer. There's a lot of layers to it. It's not just like one sentence. It's just this thing that like breathes out of me.

Well, it's a big, yeah, it's a big complex, I guess, thing, vulnerability. And I'm really interested in what you're saying about being non-apologetic because I think a lot of us, especially women, were taking steps, smaller steps to be more visible and to put ourselves out there. But it's still feeling a little bit apologetic sometimes. and wanting to get over that, but that's a big hurdle, I think, especially if you, let's say, you're doing a podcast and you have an idea, but you think, oh, it's a little bit weird. Should I put this out?

Should I not? And maybe you do, but you still feel like, I hope that, I hope I don't offend anyone. How do you break through that? Yeah. Sometimes I'll write like a really deep Instagram caption and then I'll throw my phone across the room and I'll run on the other side of the house and I'm like, ah, I'm not going to look at it for two hours. because it feels so like, you know, it feels true to you. Like, you put out a podcast episode that felt really good to you, but you're like,

am I offending someone and is someone going to take this the wrong way? And I think a couple of things here. There's a difference between sharing truth and being offensive. Like, I would never purposely be offensive to anyone. I try to walk through life some, like pretty aware of how I contribute to situations. And if I am doing my best to be a healthy, contribution, then I don't need to be so scared that I'm going to hurt someone. And the truth is, is sometimes your vulnerability will hurt people. And sometimes your story and your truth and you

being honest, it does hurt because it can hurt your family. It can hurt your friends. But it's also true to how you feel. For me, I had to recognize that sharing and being vulnerable was just to have a relationship with myself was just as important as having a relationship with someone else. And so I couldn't put one above the other. It wasn't like, okay, I can either try to please everyone else and fit in this mold where I stay quiet and I stay, you know, status quo and on the path.

I call it the path of should, all the should that we should do in our life. Or I can just say, this is, this is, is what's true to me. And I just started kind of breaking off, again, that exterior wall of like, I'm tough, and just started showing more and more of my heart. And I needed to recognize that that was really powerful for me and powerful for my relationship with myself and being proud of who I am and not hiding behind someone else's expectations of me. And so when I write or when I share on my podcast, I recognize that there are pieces of my life that I obviously can't share publicly because they'll hurt other people or the traumatic things that have happened that,

you know, for the betterment of the relationship, it's just good not to talk about it. And then there are things that are mine and of my story that I feel comfortable sharing. And there's a line there. You know, there are certain things about my life that I would never share on the internet because even though it's my version of the story, it could still hurt other people. I actually was a creative nonfiction writing minor in college. And there's a book by Anne Lamont called Bird by Bird. And we worked through all this.

I mean, creative nonfiction is you're taking your life and you're turning it into something that is creative and that someone want to read. And people in the class were sharing a lot of really traumatic things that were happening to them. And that's a part of being a nonfiction writer is you're telling it from your. point of view. Same with podcasting. Same with writing. You know, it's your point of view. And she said that the truth is, is that you will always hurt someone by your story, because your story and your version of it is not the same as someone else's. And so I had to make peace with the fact that that was just going to be true. I would never intentionally hurt someone. If that made, like, I'm never going to go out here and try to hurt anybody. But there's also that cost of, you know, I'm going to share about

growing up in a small town and the negative aspects that that had on my life and the positive aspects that had on my life. Now, some of those negatives might hurt people's feelings, but it's still my story. It's still my point of view. And I think it's separating the two. Does that make sense? Yes, it does. And also, I really liked what you said about the relationship we have with ourselves is important. We need to have respect for that relationship, which I think a lot of people don't think about, whereas we're worried about some stranger we've never met and what they're going to think. And the sad truth is we live in a world where somebody's always going to disagree. There's always going to be people who don't like us no matter what we do. And we can't worry about pleasing

those people because they will never be won over. And it's not worth our brain power or, you know, our hearts. Yeah. And I think that's like that root of a lot of the deeper life podcast. And, you know, I'm building out some courses and some coaching curriculum as I kind of ramp up my side hustle. And I recognize that so many people struggle with boundaries. And they're like, this is, and this is just because of what's in my DMs after episodes are out is, you know, I'm audio messaging people who are having struggles, setting boundaries between them and their clients or between them and a friend or, you know, recognizing like, you know, I am seeing a pattern of behavior where someone else is putting their needs consistently above mine. And I recognize that maybe I need to set a boundary here where we can both coexist and we can both find value in the relationship, but we are equal. And your needs are not more important than my needs. I can recognize that we both have needs, but you don't trump my needs. And there's a lot of

discussions about that. And it's very vulnerable to set boundaries. It's very hard to say, actually, no, I don't want to do that. Or I want to raise my rates because I need to make more money. Or I really have a, when you speak to me this way, it makes me feel X, Y, Z. Those are really hard conversations to have. And that's a part of that vulnerable life is you're recognizing that, hey, my needs and how I feel, those are important. Maybe I should start advocating for those. maybe what would it look like for me to advocate for myself as just just as much as I advocate for others I love this so what's next for the deeper life you said you're working on a few things yeah so I'm working on a course it'll be self-study and then um at a second tier there'll be

group coaching and some one-on-one coaching and some a private community that I'm putting together and always be putting content out on the podcast but that's kind of where I see things headed is is helping people with that self-connection piece so that they can deeper connect with other people. Alexis, where can we find out more about you? Yeah, you can check out the Deeper Life podcast on all podcast platforms. And I'd love to connect with you on Instagram at Alexis Tikemiller. Thank you, Alexis. Thank you.

Take some time this week to check in with what matters to you most. And to see if your message is still resonating with not only your listeners, with yourself. Thank you for listening to podcasting step by step. You are now one step closer to launching that podcast you've been dreaming about, but I want to get you even closer. I created a free guidebook for you with actionable worksheets called Eight Mistakes New Podcasters Make and How to Fix them. To find that, head on over to sarahmicatel.com slash fix. Do you ever go blank or start rambling when someone puts you on the spot? I created a free conversation sheet sheet. with simple formulas that you can use

so you can respond with clarity, whether you're in a meeting or just talking with friends. Download it at sarahygotele.com slash blank no more.