Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Radical Confidence with Lisa Bilyeu

Episode Date: July 20, 2022

On this episode of “The Language of Love,” I am joined by Lisa Bilyeu. Lisa is the cofounder of Quest Nutrition, a billion-dollar corporation which produces health-conscious meals and snacks. She is also the President of “Impact Theory” and the host of “Women of Impact,” a web series you can find on YouTube or listen to online. On her show, Lisa interviews women who have overcome massive difficulties and tragedies in order to make their dreams come true. I adore Lisa’s new book “Radical Confidence,” and I have recommended it to so many of my girlfriends. If you haven’t read it yet, be sure and grab a copy, because it is truly transformative and inspirational. Whether you are struggling to feel confident in your career, in your romantic life, or just in general, her book will inspire you to live authentically and chase after your wildest dreams. On this episode, I talk with Lisa about what inspired her to write this book and what she wants readers to take from it. You will learn: • How to overcome disappointment and keep showing up, even when you aren’t seeing the results you desire • How to stop ‘acting from your trigger’ and instead lead your emotions, rather than being led by them • How to create a game plan that is practical and solution-based, so that you don’t get stuck in a cloud of anger or bitterness I found this episode so inspiring and full of really actionable advice that you can begin applying to your life right now. If you’re in the need of a boost of motivation, this episode is for you! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love.

I'm so excited about this language of love conversation with Lisa Bilyeu. Now, she is the co-founder of a billion-dollar company, Quest Nutrition, and the president of Impact Theory. And she's also the host of Women of Impact, which is a show that features women who have overcome odds and all sorts of issues in life to really thrive and live in their genius and in massive success. And we talk about her new book. It's called Radical Confidence, 10 No BS Lessons on Becoming the Hero of Your Own Life. Great title, right? So she is that. She's no BS. She's hilarious. She's full of confidence. But she also shares

the secrets to confidence and also her backstory that she really was not someone that came into adulthood feeling a lot of confidence. I do hold her feet to the fire a little bit, as you'll see, but she was a good sport about it. And I think I made her think, as you know, I have a tendency to do, but I learned so much from her and I hope you will too. If you like this, make sure to let me know, because I'm here to help you learn to love and be loved better. So radical self-confidence. I have so many things to ask you about. I love the book and I love how practical it is. I know that's your MO. It is practical. I have so many things to ask you about, but let's start with the obvious question. And I know you spend a whole book defining this, but how do you define radical

confidence? Radical confidence came about when people would see where I started. So that I was a stay-at-home wife for eight years I was very supportive I was traditional Greek Orthodox woman so I was really staying home supporting my husband and then in my evolution started Quest Nutrition billion dollar company and people see me now and the thing I got asked a lot is where do you get your confidence from Lisa I want your confidence I have no idea who they're talking about because if you heard how negative the voice is in my head it surprised me that people perceived me as confident and so originally just shocked me and then afterwards I was like what are they seeing because I don't see yeah and I realized it was they just see me moving forward they see me taking

action they see me stepping in front of the camera they see me getting on stage they see me do all these uncomfortable things and so they think it's confidence but what I realize is they're seeing radical confidence which means I'm absolutely scared shitless I'm totally inadequate for what I'm about to do. I am insecure. I don't actually believe that I'm good enough, but I still take the step forward. Why? Where does that come from? I think it came from, so I didn't ask what I wanted in life. Like when I started to, when I got married and I settled in the life that I thought I was going to have, I never asked for more. And I think a big part of it is growing up as Greek Orthodox, you're told a certain story. And that story is that your end goal is to be married. That was

literally the messaging yeah to be the wife and so my grandmother very traditional i was a kid i would scrape my knee and she'd come running over you know i'm crying she'd be like oh it's okay it's okay you're gonna be okay by the time you get married like that was her it was like constant conditioning in all these subtle and not so subtle ways yes and she was almost like it came from a beautiful place like she was really truly trying to consult her value system exactly now being a kid though you're taking all these subliminal messages that you then eventually grow up to believe oh this is where i'm supposed to be so a i didn't question it b i dismissed my own unhappiness and i think a big part of how i dismissed my unhappiness was i used gratitude

originally to be like but lisa you know how grateful are you you know like every time i assessed is this really my life is this really what i wanted in life i would use gratitude to to get me through. And how can I be, how can I be dissatisfied? Look at all I have. Right. And originally I think actually it can be a beautiful thing, right? If so, if you're in that victim mentality where like, woe is me, I can't believe this is my life. Or you're struggling with major depression. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Gratitude can pull you out, right? It can give you a different perspective of things. And so the first couple of years, because me and my husband, our goal at the time, we're just going to make enough money to make movies. That was our goal. So I was like,

I'll be a stay-at-home wife for a couple of years. It won't be that long for the greater good. How many people do you know, especially women, that will sacrifice for the greater good and they'll keep sacrificing? Way longer than they signed up to do it. Yes. And then what you realize is you sacrificed for everybody else except for your own dreams. Yeah, because we're never, I mean, a good woman, no matter what your cultural background is, if you were over 30, let's just say, and maybe even if you're younger than 30,

you were conditioned to put yourself last on the totem pole. Exactly. And then you get the validation, the external validation that actually is like the velvet handcuffs. So the validation is, oh my God, you're such a great wife. Oh, you're so wonderful. Like, isn't Tom lucky? And so what that does is it makes you feel proud. And so you now sink your identity into the external validation. Any shift, any change means a change in your identity, which then has the echo effect of, oh my God, when am I going to get the validation? So now you start to think, where am I going to feel worth? Where am I going to get my self-worth from? Because for so long, I haven't looked inwards. I've looked outside of myself.

And I want to, I'm going to get to the can of worms, opening that can of worms for sure. I'm excited to talk about that. But I think you said two things that are so important to highlight. One is what I call sort of spiritual bypassing, right? Or emotional bypassing. I'm going to gratitude it away. I'm going to tap it away. I'm going to, you know, but not really deal with the source. It's like putting Band-Aids on, right?

And so you just kept putting Band-Aids on. And the other, which you and I have talked about on your podcast, is this idea of sourcing our value outside ourselves, right? Right. And so often we're taught as humans to do that in our society, but certainly as women. So what I'm so curious about, because you're kind of saying like for me, my value, I'd been raised to see my value outside myself as the wife or the help need or whatever that is. And as I was struggling with my frustration, part of what kept me stuck was without that externalized validation that I'm worthy, where is it going to come from? So for you, because I know there's

been a huge shift from them, which is what the story in the book is about, and it's very revealing. You talk about a lot of your struggles. What was the turning point for you? Because you and I have talked about how in all the places in our lives we're stuck, the pain of being stuck eventually becomes greater than the fear of getting unstuck and what that might mean, right? So what was that tipping point for you? This is another reason why I wrote the book, because I started to realize, I'm sure you have too, you've spoken to so many incredible people and a lot of people's success stories

come from the fact that they hit rock bottom. It becomes, well, I had nothing else to lose. And they had a huge tragedy. Right. And so that becomes like, I'm on my knees, so there's nowhere else to go, so I may as well take this chance. I may as well make this shift.

I may as well make this change in my life because there's no other fear. I've hit rock bottom, to your point, right? Where it's like, it has to be so desperate to pull yourself out for you to make a change. I was really thinking, what about so many women, especially who are like me, who live in purgatory of the mundane? I love that. I meant to ask you about that.

Just say that. Purgatory of the mundane is a state of, describe that, because I think so many people live in that. Yeah, it's, you haven't hit rock bottom. So you're in this purgatory and your life isn't bad enough. It's just mundane enough where you end up stuck. And so you're like, well, it could be worse, right? And so the gratitude piece, as I started to get uncomfortable with, is this really my life, right? Because the first couple of years, you kind of do it for the greater good.

And then that whisper comes in like, is this really what you asked for? So it's like that whisper starts to come in. And so I really started to assess, is this the life I want? And every time I was doing that, I was saying to myself, but Lisa, how ungrateful are you? I started to use the gratitude piece that was actually quite a great thing for me. It was a great tool to use in those dark moments. it now became the exact staple that kept me there and so it was how and it was shame shame yeah how ungrateful are you to do to want more lisa the shame of like oh god like i'm really unhappy

but i feel kind of sure you have no right to be was the story yes of course you did yes exactly also i think that so many of us believe that if we've got something good going over here that we have no right to ask for other things that are great it's like well i've got a happy marriage so can I really ask for a better career yes yes ask for it all so for me though I was in the purgatory of the mundane for eight years and it wasn't until my husband came home so it ended up being we were going to do it for one or two years we're just going to try and make enough money that one of your two years turned into eight years and making enough money to make movies turned into making enough money so how many of us have a goal have a vision that over time evolves

changes and now you've got a behavior a certain lifestyle that actually when you look back you're like i didn't this wasn't what i you know this is what i signed up signed up for exactly but now which we were talking about in my podcast with you is that but then it becomes you pot committed it's like well i've spent six years as a stay-at-home wife and we're thinking it just is going to take another year is this really where i bail and so now you become pot committed in that yeah in that the misery of eight years me and my husband chasing money neither of us were happy we then made the statement we have to make a change and at the time his business partners were also miserable so they decided the change was going to be let's start a new company

that's predicated on a passion and a mission instead of predicated on just money right and so that's a good start it's a good start exactly so that idea was a protein bar yeah and so my husband comes home and he's like babe we're no longer going to chase money like this is going make me happy and then i start thinking as a good greek wife well that's all that i need i just need my husband my man to be happy yeah and then i'll be happy so even with that i went in going of course babe like that makes total sense oh my god i wish i had a wife like you it was the scramble of right where you just become stuck you don't see a way out you see maybe a light at the end of the time even if it's like a little dot in the distance and you're like

okay, maybe I can do that. And so I said, cool. As a good supportive wife, how can I help? And so it's like, well, it's a startup company. We just need you to ship a couple of bars from the living room floor. We just need you to come to the rental kitchen once a week and we'll cut them and make them by hand and rolling pins. And so I was like, oh, I'm a good group wife. I can do that. What I didn't expect is that the company would grow at 57,000%. Oh my God. 57,000%. Yeah. So we went from zero to a billion dollar company in five years. Oh my gosh. I went from being a good supportive Greek wife that was shipping bars off my living room floor one day. So then all of a sudden I'm at the post office with a big garbage bag over my shoulder. And the next thing I know,

the UPS guys come in to pick up the bars and it just grew so quickly. And then you have this huge shipping machine that you're running and organizing. Yeah. Now I had zero experience. All along the way, I was like, I'm just helping my husband. And it got to a point where the company grew so much that there was this pivotal moment where I was either going to be like now I either need to hire someone underneath me for my department or I go back to being a housewife and then I hire someone to replace me because we'd grown so much at that point I had realized what I was made of yeah I realized that I'd pushed myself I'd done it myself I figured that shit out I mean it's complicated to figure out all those shipping logistics and yeah even to

the point though that i because i thought and i think a lot of people do i'll wait to have the confidence before i start this to change my life i am waiting for the confidence and i thought the same but the reason why i wrote this book and i called it radical confidence is if you see the steps that i took i had zero confidence i had zero skill sets because i don't think that radical confidence is about blind belief yeah right it's about saying oh i now have to the ups guy comes and he says you know what i can pick up a lot more bars if you put it on the palette and i'm like all right, thanks, mate. And I'm like, what the hell is a pallet? So I run back to my computer, type into freaking Google, what on earth is a pallet? Where do I get one from? How do I get

it by tomorrow? And before I know it, I figure it out. It turns up, I put the boxes on and the UPS guys comes the next day and he's like, oh, well done. And I'm like, thanks. You know, like, no problem. Yeah. But what you're talking about, I think is two things is that the confidence is in your ability to figure it out. Correct. And it is also, and I know you call it sort of this willingness to fail. And that's to me, I mean, I've always said that to my kids, that that's the definition of bravery is not that you're not scared shitless, but I mean, I don't say shitless, but that you do it anyway. And the confidence I think for you, and you show this again and again, because you found yourself in these pivotal choice points, right? With the

shipping department and then you move to production and then you keep having to just figure it all out and you just kept saying yeah okay and then figured it out exactly and I think that that's where so many of us will stop yeah right where it's like this is scary the voice in my head which I call the ego is actually there to protect us right they say you can't do it you're not good enough right it's the ego because it doesn't want you to fail to be embarrassed or to feel the shame or anything that comes along with it doesn't like change that much right yeah so it's trying to keep you where you are which it perceives as being safe yes right and so when you try anything new all the thoughts come flooding in and so you fear the failure because you think that that's going to

mean something about who you are that you are a failure and what I realized was failure does mean something about you but not what you think we think it means that's who I am I am a failure but what it actually means is you're someone that cares enough about your life to take a chance to try. And it's that mentality, that idea that allows us to start shifting into who we are today and look forward to being, to go after the person we want to be. Going back to that question that you asked, I think the key for people to get started is say, what is the identity you currently have right now? And then right next to it, I want you to answer, make it binary, yes or no, your gut instinct. When I ask this question, I want people to immediately write it down.

does it excite you so my identity was being the great wife does it excite me hell no I didn't ask myself the question yeah I didn't ask myself the question and so that then aligns go and so when you have the answer it then gives you an indication that oh I am now tying myself to an identity that doesn't fulfill me yes and then you can break it out why what is that validation you're getting and so for me the real key to uncutting myself further in my entire life after that was really saying what is the identity that I can use that can help me propel me forward even when I'm scared even when I'm failing even when that negative voice is coming in my head telling me I shouldn't do it what is the identity I can adopt to keep me going and it was being the learner yes yes because

now give me any situation Lisa you fell on your face and embarrassed yourself and failed miserably if I have the identity of the learner, I'm like, great. Great. I'm learned. Yes. If I go to walk into a room, which was very, very true early on, I walked into a room, all men with years and years and years of business experience are over me. The imposter syndrome comes flooding in, which makes you not want to enter the room, which makes you feel insecure. Or not want to open your mouth. Yes. But now with the identity of the learner, how do you think I feel when I'm walking into that room? Yes. So then you're really willing to fail. And I think so many of us and anyone who's ever, if you talk to anybody, I mean, Oprah talks about this all the time, too. Any successful person

will tell you that the only way you can be successful is if you are unequivocally willing to fail. Yeah. And you have to embrace failure and expect failure. And I love that idea of just really shifting to embrace failure through the lens of being a learner, because that's really what you're talking about, is that you change the lens that you were looking at your experience through and that changes everything exactly and then let's let's admit not everyone's going to succeed right if you don't succeed are you able to take those failures day in and day out without the loss of enthusiasm yeah because the success isn't guaranteed so the only thing that is is the struggle and the journey yeah so are you freaking loving it yeah is it exciting yeah is

it exciting and you found that journey and the way you describe it you can tell that it was exciting It was flying by the seat of your pants a lot of the time, but you were learning and you were figuring out and it was exciting. And I think one of the things that I want to also ask you about, which is related to kind of asking yourself these questions of, am I happy? Am I excited with my identity? One of the things that I love about you and the way you describe it and the way you wrote it in your book is that you by nature, I can tell, are a problem solver, right?

And so you're very practical and you like to break things down and you like to ask yourself questions and then say, OK, even with your health crises that I know you talk about in the book. And I love this so much because I'm always telling women, especially you have to be your own health advocate. You have to ask the questions you have to ask to get the blood work. You know, you I want to ask you about this journey in a minute, but it's also how you broke it down, right?

Like, okay, this, my stomach's not feeling good. What would happen if I tried this? Well, what would happen if I tried this? Well, what would, you know, you systemat, you have systems. I do. Right? You're very systematic about figuring things out. And that makes you a great advice giver, right?

Because you can show us about how to create those systems. But what if you're not someone who naturally thinks that way? Like, I think this comes, this is one of your gifts. This comes really naturally to you. that's fascinating because as you were saying it's like it does feel like it comes naturally now but as you were saying I was like that doesn't actually align with who I felt like I was and so when you were talking I was really trying to like peel it apart and I think the key for me is I'm actually as a kid I don't think I was naturally like that and I felt all my feelings I think as

I got older I realized my feelings can absolutely lead me astray and what I mean is and there's a chapter I call in my book is you know gain emotional sobriety yeah I love that term emotional sobriety because it's like sometimes right where you're like you're really mad or you're really frustrated just like when you have too many shots of alcohol the next day sometimes you're like oh that really wasn't me you know I shouldn't you're acting from your trigger exactly yeah so I used to act from my trigger all the time because I was so insecure yeah and so what I realized I think as I grew older is that I've got a choice right you talk about that as well you're like you have a choice. I can either let my emotions steer me or I can come up with ways to bypass it. And I don't

actually mean bypass it by ignoring them. I'm always the person that feel your feels, but don't trust them all the time. And so how do you do both? And so for me, big solution was come up with tactics and things that you can do that are so practical that now it becomes binary. Because let's say I wake up tomorrow and I feel really bad about myself. Let's say a video went out and didn't do well and everyone hated it and it got more so let's just go really extreme right the next day i wake up and of course i'm only human i feel stung i feel like oh like disappointed i feel upset how the hell do i keep showing up how do i make sure that my emotions don't get in the way it's like see lisa i told you you shouldn't have got in front of the camera let's just forget the

whole thing yes i am a thousand percent naturally like that and then i go does that mentality serve me yes or no and I realized it didn't so I go how do I bypass or at least make sure that I don't allow my emotions to steer me and it became come up with game plans so if it's getting in front of the camera what is your binary things you're going to do in your game plan that each moment you wake up and you go did you do it yes or no there's no excuses there's no like well I felt badly about myself no no no did you step in front of the camera yes or no did you press record yes or no So all of my practicalities, I think, really did come from me realizing, oh, this is actually a great strategy so that I can keep showing up, not dismissing my feelings, but taking them on, assessing them, and then keep moving forward. Right. And with practicalities. But all of that said, and I know you talk about that you weren't that, I don't remember exactly how you put it, but it didn't come across that you were that into school or that you saw yourself as very smart.

but you're really smart and you have the ability to naturally, I don't care whether you did this before when you were younger or not, you have the ability to naturally come up with solutions that many people wouldn't come up with necessarily, even if they weren't stuck in their emotions, right? Like it just, they're not, not coming up with it because they're caught up in their anger or fear. They're just literally like, okay, so what's the solution, right? And I think one of the things that you talk about in the book is sort of, I forget how you put it, but it's this idea of really thinking outside the box. Yes.

And sometimes the solutions aren't even found in the circumstance you're in. Yeah. And thank you. I love it when people push me to break it down because I'm so about tactics that it's super important. I think the big key is to say, what is the goal? First of all, have to assess what is the goal and it has to be so concrete it can't be lofty it can't be like up in near things like all right so let's say in the next six months by july 27th right so you actually give yourself a concrete date my goal is to send out a thousand emails to uh 20 prospects that are going to convert at two percent right and so it just goes like make a goal binary Because now, make it very concrete.

Because now it's, you wake up, did you do it? Yes or no? Now, that all can only be done, though, if you actually believe in yourself. The power of freaking belief. The idea of when you first faced with anything, what are the words that you tell yourself? Is it, I can't, it's impossible, I have no idea. Or do you say, I have no idea yet. It may seem impossible, but I will figure it out.

it all becomes like literally the difference between someone that doesn't get started and then even me is just the idea of oh maybe i can yeah it's that it's not again it's not the blind belief that i'm gonna freaking crush it it's not the blind belief that i've got everything sorted it's just the belief that i will be able to figure it out over time yeah one way or another you'll figure it out yes and it's that idea that to me starts you from outside the box because now it's like oh i'll figure it out i have no idea how yeah so now it's almost like and now you've got a blank canvas yes so starting with that blank canvas is going to be imperative believing that you're going to figure it out but understanding it may take moments of falling on your face to

get back up and learn from it and then it takes let's say the goal so the example i give in the book is on my first day i built our shipping department i'm miserable i make the first change into a production department and so our CMO turns to me and the very first day on the very first moment I join I start okay I'm going to build the studio he's like and we need this kitchen set you've got like fifteen thousand dollars and hey we need it in two weeks and he just turned around and walked off and so I was like I'm sorry yeah a I just figured out how to build a shipping department b I like had to figure out all along the way and it wasn't out of expertise it was out of just fear of losing my house and then fear of looking stupid right like that was actually my

motivation back then he didn't question it he didn't ask lisa can you do it right and i think that that was the first key of the power of belief of that because i didn't have an out yeah i was like oh crap well i better think about this yeah and i think that a lot of us going back to your question is we see this big end thing yeah so you go studio set two weeks budget oh my god now i studied filmmaking but not once did i ever take a set building class so i have zero experience over here so you have this big grand goal that i have no idea what i'm doing but i believe in myself that i can figure it out so step one i've got that and now it's how on earth do i do it go back to basics it's a kitchen who sells freaking kitchens on the cheap because i only had fifteen

thousand dollars i was like okay ikea ikea you have to ask the question yeah to then come up with the answer and the next inspired step exactly yeah so it goes okay to your point i got the kitchen now what's the next inspired step well it's a set so that means it has to be attached to walls how do i get a wall right and then like what does a kitchen look like oh god a kitchen's got windows crap where am i going to get windows so i actually drive to home depot and i look at the windows and i'm like all right this seems like the right size let's put this on the set and i literally buy it put it in my car you didn't have to build all this right no but then you have to design it and figure out how to make it work yes so it's like okay I've got the set okay I've

got a window and now I need someone to actually build it yeah so then the builder comes in and he says to me oh I don't know Lisa this is going to tip over because I wanted it on wheels and I wanted it to be the two walls that were joining yeah so in thinking through a movable set exactly so I thought well this is a leased studio so I need to be able to move the set and I was like well I'm freaking out how to move the set all right let's just put on wheels I know they exist because I've seen other TV sets before. So I was like, so I think wills would work. And then like, you just have them joining here

with a little latch. And so I showed them the contract and the contract was like, yeah, Lisa, this is going to topple over. These are the moments where so many of us take an expert's opinion as fact. Yeah. We're like, okay, we're screwed.

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yes now is going to make me look for a way to get it done and that's exactly what i did you find a way so well first of all i remember having been on the tv set years before yeah so i was like okay well i know that there's got wheels and i know that there's like a big base but the guy's saying it's going to freaking topple over well what do i know about things that topple over and i was like the shelves the shelves when you put a shelf you put like a little bracket uh-huh because because of the counterweight yeah so i was like well would that work on if it's vertical so i literally drew this draw this little diagram and i'm sitting there with a contractor because i wouldn't take no as an option i was just throwing out and i was like well this like

throwing shit out there to see what would stick yeah yeah it wasn't that i knew what i was doing in that you go back and forward you start to go oh well I'm not going to accept no as an answer so there's got to be a solution yeah we're still going to keep going dude like I'm not going to stop because I know it can be done yeah and so because of that we just went back and forward I do this little diagram he's like well yeah actually that could work if you put the bracket here and I to this day the set's still standing and I still got the diagram that I did now people may perceive that as being really smart I honestly don't and there's a part of me that really wants the pushback when you said you're really smart. I know that's interesting because you, I can tell

you're really smart and not that someone else can't achieve what you've achieved, but you are. But anyway, go ahead. Oh, well, thank you. It's obviously a great compliment because my whole life and let's talk about triggers for a second here. My whole life, my trigger was feeling dumb. I know. And so feeling dumb makes me want to counteract it because that feeling of dumb really doesn't sit well with me. As I got older and as I realized that I could, whether I showed up or not was up to me. Whether I pushed myself was up to me. Whether who I am today, do I really believe that should dictate who I can become? No. And so while I may not even think I'm smart today or I have the skill set today, I so believe that I will figure it out. It might take me four years

to figure it out. But I believe that I will figure it out. And part of that means having to fall on your face. Part of that means having to be wrong. Part of that means having to feel lost and then find my way again. And guess what? Smart people do all of that, right? Because smart people aren't right all the time. So true. I actually, in fact, that's actually really interesting because I perceive smart as being naturally gifted in being able to be a whiz at anything. That's a crap of shit if I ever heard one. I'm sorry, but it is. As I was saying it, I was like, this is bullshit, Lisa. the words are actually coming out of my mouth it's so funny though how our minds give us a belief system and then as i even said it out loud i was like that's not right but you and i've talked

about that that until you put those things on the table and say them out loud they are in there yeah you know and that's actually the thing i think why i'm actually also comfortable in being open about my triggers because i have recognized it doesn't serve me i have recognized that if it was actually true would i actually be where i am but at the same time here's a little insight to the duality that that i face on a daily with my own mindset feeling stupid does drive me yeah feeling stupid does make me figure things out because it's so uncomfortable because i was teased for being in a special quote-unquote class being mildly dyslexic still getting my b's and my d's mixed up it creates an anxiety in me that actually propels me forward you know what you're reminding

me of this girlfriend of mine who's a really who's a very prolific poet that's her job and she was really really going through a very dark time and depression and her doctor had talked to her about going to therapy and or medication and she said to me i am afraid that if i am no longer depressed i won't be able to do poetry like i see the two as connected now how crazy does that sound to you when I say that it sounds crazy but I kind of understand but it's also okay let's talk about your thing we're gonna have a little therapy session I love this show okay so your story is yes the only way that I am going to drive through the resistance and keep solving problems and keep having radical confidence and acting from that place is if I believe if I have to prove I'm not

stupid? It's more kind of. There's some nuances there. So it's like, oh, Lisa, you are so not adequate to do this. Like you have no skill set. You have no knowledge. Like there's nothing in your background that should say you'd be able to do this. Right. But that's not saying you're stupid. No, but there are certain things where someone will say something and I'm like, I don't understand. But you're right. It's not that I'm stupid, but it is that I have to overcome an obstacle. And that obstacle is something that I never would overcome when I was a kid. And so I thought that that dictated who I was. And I think so many of us with a fixed mindset think, right, who we are today means this is who we are. exactly but but I want I'm not gonna let you off the hook because I don't I what you're saying right to say to yourself okay this is an obstacle and I'm not someone who lets obstacles stop me

yeah and I am someone who can figure shit out and I may not figure it out right away and I might fail a lot I'm a learner and I'm gonna figure it out right yes where does the story that you need to prove you're not or that little girl who's been told she's not smart right yes where does that have to fit into it? Why do you have such resistance? What's your story that if you embrace the fact that you're smart, that that other part will go away? The drive to try and fail? Maybe. Maybe it's the drive. But why does your drive have to come from the attachment to the story that you're... That's actually very interesting. I don't think it has to. I think it has served me. And I think that if it becomes detrimental to my self-esteem, but it actually

doesn't. Are you sure? Because I didn't like how uncomfortable you got when I was saying you were smart. And you think that's detrimental to my self-esteem? I don't know. I just think that not honoring something beautiful that you are is a shame. Yeah, that's interesting. I don't mind embracing it. It makes me feel good. But letting go of that old story, to your point, has served me. Yeah. And I've seen so many people in my life where a story really crushes them. The story they hold makes them feel worse about themselves. And it immobilizes them. I am almost very constant, which is why I'm actually, it's easy for me to say out loud my trigger because I'm very comfortable with it. Well, you're a natural ass kicker. If someone tells you you can't do

something, you're going to prove them wrong. That's your personality. So it makes a lot of sense to me that that would be where a lot of your motivation came from. And so the drive inside me, I've actually cultivated. I see where it gets me. I've done the internal work to make sure that my trigger isn't detrimental to my self-esteem. It doesn't invalidate me. And so right now you're seeing me as the person who has assessed that this mindset has done me well. It doesn't hold me back and so I don't know if I am interested in letting it go but I would love to hear your thoughts on that yeah that's what I'm curious about why you're not if I said to you my guess is you think I'm smart I hope you do I do yes okay so but not naturally I think that you work

hard at it I don't know how many people are naturally I maybe that's just essentially this is interesting discussion I don't think of anyone is like oh you're just gifted like you look at let's say Serena Williams it makes me wear mad when people are just you're naturally gifted you freaking hard that woman worked and to dismiss her as being naturally talented i think takes away all the work that she's done and then that's a bad message to a younger girl who wants to be serena williams so what's the parallel between that and me telling you you're smart that other people perceive it as being a natural talent and that they're like well i'm not smart so i can't do what lisa does but for me to emphasize guys you have no idea how i don't feel smart not only did

I not feel smart growing up I was put in a special class I get my b's and my d's mixed up I um mildly dislike all these things that come with part of your identity is the one who has gotten over being stupid yes right and that's okay I mean I see why that's important for people to understand right but that's separate than your identity as someone who is intrinsically really smart that doesn't mean that you know everything in the world or you're the most educated person or the most learned person or could talk about politics and physics and you know i'm not that's different than that's being educated in certain things all right here you go that's different than being smart now you're really pointing out it's you're right i've absolutely equated educated with smart

and anytime someone asks me a geographic question a math question an economy i like free so much and then i'm just like oh god i have no idea what they're talking about i don't like i'm stupid yeah like it goes into what i'm clearly not naturally smart is what i tell myself when that happens that's not true new from nespresso blend wellness into your coffee routine with the coffee plus range infused with functional benefits choose the coffee you love with added b vitamins like coffee plus b12 to help support immune function and coffee plus b6 to keep your day moving or go with the flow and choose ginseng delight our new double espresso with ginseng extract whatever lies ahead don't change your morning let your morning change you discover coffee plus on

espresso.com you're not naturally educated because you had learning differences that limited your capacity to be educated in the environments you were educated in to attain the knowledge and integrate it and regurgitate it. Right. That was limited because of your learning differences, but that has nothing to do. I mean, I can tell you as a mom of three boys with ADHD and dyslexia and learning differences, these kids, I'm not just saying this because they're my kids. They're really smart. They're intuitive. They're insightful. They can problem solve. They can learn things when it's delivered to them in a way that they can digest. Right. They're not going to learn by reading a book because that takes much longer than it does their peers but they listen

to the book and they'll remember everything they heard right that's smart so yeah maybe it's our definition and under or perspective of what that word brings to the table maybe and then that goes to like language on what other people use and that is interesting because every time someone says that to me i always push back i know that's what's so interesting to me you're really committed to not being smart yeah and I think it yeah I think it really is because I don't want people to think that it's not possible for them and all the struggles I've gone through to overcome the self-narrative of it doesn't define who you are I think can be beautiful and I think that that's partly it as well is that I don't want to diminish that message right or even you as the

deliverer of that message because I know that was your identity but I'm just saying that that's not the truth and so do you then perceive this because you picked up on it right you even said like you got uncomfortable when i said smart yeah is that like a big thing like if someone's complimenting and the other person just keeps pushing back like i'm actually really fascinated to know like is that a sign of usually often but i think what's interesting to me about you is this aspect of it that we're not that you're not you're kind of in resistance around i am you're right which is that you are attached I'm paraphrasing the story I'm not saying it's your story obviously but there's this story in there that feels to me like the only way that I can

succeed and keep doing this amazing radical confidence thing is if I am pushing against being stupid and if I don't have that story if I don't have that story I will no longer have this identity of this woman on the cover of the book which quite frankly isn't true it's a crack of shit but that is you're attached to that you're right you're right a thousand percent and part of that is that i'm attached to the identity of the person that may not know but can figure it out well that's and so i think that holding on to that when i face something that i don't know before it used to be like the big alarm bells right it was the if you admit that you don't understand this lisa you're going to be made fun of the kids are going to tease you you're going

to be put in a special class like all of that that comes with yeah so i have lent into oh my god i don't know this but i can learn yes and that has allowed me to be open but that makes you smart But it's not even that. You're still skirting around it. There is an attachment to the idea that without that identity, I will no longer be me. You just hit the nail on the head. A thousand percent. Yeah. So just something to chew on. I mean, I'm not saying we're going to solve that right now, but I'm just telling you that I think it's an investment in that story as your source of motivation. Yes. And that's not true. Your source of motivation is I can learn. Right. But what's happening when your source of motivation is I got to prove I'm not I got to prove to myself

and everyone else I'm not stupid is that you're creating a tension that doesn't need to be here rather than I am someone who can figure shit out. And that has nothing to do with being smart, stupid or anything else. Right. I am someone who can figure something out. And here's another experience showing that but there is a very deep attachment that i don't think serves you personally i don't know you know i'm just no i want you to tell me all the freaking truth there is a story around intelligence that you're really attached to that isn't self-loving right it's like going to the gym and exercising because you are convinced you're a fat pig right that is not gonna be as good for your body and as good for your heart and as good for your

soul or as sustainable and successful as someone who is going to the gym to care for their body and be the healthiest version of themselves they can be oh i'm silent for a reason that gym analogy hit me because that was me i used to go to the gym and beat myself up lisa you ate the extra sugar-free popsicle yesterday you better freaking run on this treadmill for an hour to burn off those calories that really freaking hit me holy smokes woman i like need a second to really sit with that because that's so like this is why i love doing this stuff it's like oh my god i've just learned something about me because i'm all about growth like i truly i have a north star and that north star is how can you improve on a daily basis you talk about the growth

mindset, which I think is so important and such a beautiful part of you. It's all of you. I mean, that's everything, right? But it's also this, you're not alone in people, in being someone who is motivated through shame, right? But that's fundamentally what we're talking about, right? And I am just proposing that life can become even more amazing. And I think your tummy will become a lot better if your motivation is not coming from shame because the story is which a lot of us have is that the motivation i don't even know what motivation not from shame looks like is can you even be motivated without shame as your motivator right but you absolutely can but your story is that you can't oh my god this is huge for me girl this is huge i'm like just

literally in my own head right now thinking about everything that you said I'm like wow that's so true I am the person in metaphorically the gym and it's the person that looks them themselves in the mirror after the gym's like I look freaking amazing and so this negative mindset is actually getting me to look freaking sharp and so what if I lose this negative motivation you're so right oh my god and that's true but what is that negative motivation doing to you it may be creating the external results, right? But what is it doing internally to you? It's never dawned on me that it was doing something negative health-wise because I've so, I analyze pretty much everything. I try to be very self-aware. That's the sort of thing I'm always going back in like, does this? And so

even with going back in with the self-awareness piece on the, does this serve me? I've always been like, oh yeah, it does serve me because look at where I've been. Yeah, look at the results. Yeah, it's never dawned on me that it was not serving me in ways that I didn't even acknowledge to like my health. What is happening in your stomach is shame, the pain and the clenching. And I am not worthy of digesting. This is shame. Obviously what you eat and all those other things are important too, but you're already doing all of that. But there is a inherent in what, you know, think about, just put it outside yourself for a minute. Think about your best friend or your husband or anyone who you really love who is living in shame and it's out there

and you can see it right it's not inside and quiet you can see what it does to them right I never thought of it as shame though which is interesting because it has such fabulous results you know it looks externally you can create the same results with shame it's just a lot more painful right yeah it's not the one and it's harder to sustain and it's lower frequency and it comes with agitation right so just like you said there's a part of you that already is here right it's only when i said you're smart that that bubble came up to the surface yeah the rest of you knows i'm a learner that's my motivation yeah i'm not afraid to fail that's my motivation and this excites me and so i'm gonna do it because i'm not afraid to fail because i know i can figure it out

and I don't mind falling on my face yeah and that's actually a really important distinction then because I think of smart as being oh this thing over here I know how to do it it's so funny it's like I'm not saying what I'm like Lisa stop talking stop talking it's good to say it out loud because that's what you're telling yourself unconsciously in your head yeah and what I love about this is I even said like I think of myself as being very self-aware yeah and I do assess you're feeling like this why are you feeling right so i can backtrack i know exactly why i feel stupid i can tell you where it comes from i can tell you my childhood i can tell you how it manifested because i got older i felt like i then my story is is that lisa you are someone

that was able to overcome it and so isn't that freaking powerful and so holding on to the power of that i was seeing the positive in it yeah that's there are and you are that but there's a slight distinction. You are someone who overcame the story that she's stupid, not being stupid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's two very different things. And you can still be the one that overcame the story of being stupid, realized that she's not stupid. She was just not supported enough in the ways that she needed, like most people our age weren't, right? And that had so many gifts in it because it drove you with that desire to prove otherwise, to discover this whole life and create this whole life for yourself. But it's not serving you to hold on to that,

to believe that that is the story that either defines you and or motivates you, because I'm not so worried about it defining your past. What I'm worried about is that being the source of your motivation moving forward. Thousand percent. Because, yeah, I don't actually worry like as I'm just like love i've embraced every like my past in all you know good bad the ugly i've embraced it i address it i look at how that's you know manifest into who i am today and usually when people ask the question like if you could go back to your old self what would you change or what would you do differently and my answer always is nothing yeah because i really do want and i do believe that everything in my past has accumulated to be who you see Lisa right now today but I'm

always future facing as well to say well who you are today Lisa does that serve the things that you're trying to do in the future whether it be a beautiful relationship with your husband build a business or just self-care yeah the self-care part really hit me when you said it because I was like well I don't if this is a source of something that is getting in my way of self-care then again that clearly doesn't serve me which now makes me want to address it and think of a strategy going back to like how smart you are a strategy so that i can like i think i feel the next book coming radical brilliance

and the subtitle is even if you don't feel like it yeah that's amazing but i think really like even if I say to you right now Lisa you are really smart right yeah my guess is this all clenches up right that tells you something that's fear I can feel my stomach clenching up because I'm too empathic right I'm feeling your my stomach is clenching with your stomach so I know that there's a real attachment to that even though you intellectually talking this through know it's crazy there's a part of you that is attached to that shame story right and the body shame story and i know you talk about in the book and i had a very similar mother i think you called her borderline anorexic yeah right my mother was a dexatrim every day you know that appetite suppressant which i

guess was a form of speed i don't even know but they called it sold it over the counter it was an appetite suppressant and she used to say you know a little anorexia never hurt anyone like she, so I get you on the body stuff. I get you on the shame as a motivator. I get how complicated it is, but I don't think it's a coincidence. And I know I'm not talking about anything you don't talk about in your book with your issues with, you know, it's difficult to eat. You have so much pain. You have so many digestive issues that you're still trying to get to the core of. And for, I'm not a doctor, a physical, you know, a medical doctor, but I feel in every cell of my body right now, I'm just going to say it, that this shame around the way in which you beat yourself

up, your attachment to doing that in order to create a good life for yourself is what's keeping you sick. And once that changes and you're willing to release the shame and recognize that it doesn't serve you and it's not the source of your motivation, all that clenching will release. Wow. Well, I'm a results kind of person. So that result sounds amazing. But joke, no joke, I really do go, I absolutely want to get my health back on track, like to be 100%. And I've just suffered for the last six years. And I do under, you know, stress and things like that have made such a difference and like kind of changing my lifestyle. Self-care, making sure that I take a whole day off. I literally switch my phone off. That was massive for me, where no one could

interrupt me because I just felt like I was always showing up for other people and I was never showing up for myself and so I've got massive growth and change in health but I'm still not a hundred percent and so I love the honesty I love the hey you're doing this wrong because now I'm like cool let me give it a shot like because I'm so goal oriented and I'm so like how do I get to a hundred percent health I love everything you're saying like everything is just like oh my god now I actually can try something yeah and I can try and work on that part of me Because I have, again, going back to, I've always just put this like, oh, this really serves you. Because I have really thought about, do I try and work on this or not?

And I've just always come to the conclusion that it's helped me. And I think you start by addressing the fear and challenging that part that without that, who would I be? Without that, how would I motivate? And you'll realize, because you're smart, that that's just an old story that you've integrated in order to find the gifts. And it's served you well, but it's not serving you now. or anymore and you've done a tremendous amount of all the right things to make your medical issues better right but they're still not better completely better right they still hold you back they still make it hard to feed your to nourish yourself you know and how can you nourish

yourself if you are someone who's filled with shame and that's their source of motivation so they're going to tap it if that's your source of motivation you're going to tap into that shame regularly right so someone who's constantly tapped into their shame even on a very unconscious level does shame want to nourish itself does shame want to expand does shame relax no the opposite shame doesn't deserve anything oh god this is freaking amazing i mean like you know i talk about so much in the book about the emotions about how we think about ourselves about making sure that you don't get the external validation that you build it within yourself and and I even say in the book like so the last chapter I didn't do this in the end but

the last chapter I really when I first did my first draft I basically put rinse and repeat because I was like just so everyone knows I'm never done yeah like my growth and I think that that's beautiful and I think that that's important to say that you're never done that you are an evolving person if you're not done you're dead yeah exactly and that's the thing what would you rather be right I think I'd rather never be done and so I really actually and this actually goes back to me leaning into the things that serve me versus in the past, you saying that something's like, hey, look, you need to work on this in the past would have been like, oh, that means I'm bad. That means I'm wrong. That means I'm terrible. Let me run away. But in my evolution, in the

lessons that I teach about in the book to be the hero of your own life is so that literally I could sit here with you easily and you could be like, oh, Lisa, this is a terrible strategy. And I'm like, tell me more. You're not triggered. You're you've got the growth mindset. And none of this has anything. I mean, you have accomplished more than most people will accomplish in their whole lives. And you spell out a roadmap for people on how to do that. Right. So by me challenging you is not to say you aren't someone who doesn't have a million things to teach us. Right. I have a million shadows myself. I think I'm a pretty good expert in my field and people should listen to me. But that doesn't mean that I'm some guru on a mountaintop without my own shit still going on, you know, and it may not be the shit that I'm talking to you about.

Right. There's all these other areas where I do have I've really learned and grown and my training and everything else. But then there's still those shadow parts of us. But that's why I love this, because to me, when I wrote the book, I wanted to show the shadows. Yeah. Going back to even your very first question you asked me, why did I write the book and call it Radical Confidence? is because it was so important to me to expose all the messiness that is us as humans, us as women, us as wives, mothers, business partners, daughters, friends, like all the messiness that comes with everything that really is us, our emotions, our baggage, our history.

And so this has been one of my most famous interviews because it has been a beautiful example of the fact that I never want anyone to think that I'm perfect, I've got my shit together. and I love being able to show in real time how we can embrace growth and how we can embrace challenges and things that don't serve us. It's something you've really given me like insight now into what can I do differently next? How do I show up differently? How can I use this to serve me? How do I get better at this and then let go of the things that don't serve me is precisely why I love this game of life. Yeah that's what it's all about and I think it's I think all of the

just ditto. I think that's so powerful and so beautiful. And it's part of why you have so much to teach, right? That growth mindset and how brilliant and smart you are. Thank you. I just took it. Because you, that systematic mindset of yours, you really break it down and you break down what worked and it all come, you know, at its core, I think it really is about the way that you get out of your own way, the way that you get to the point where you're willing to try being willing to fail. Right. But every step of the way you're demonstrating that regardless, I'm just going to jump in with both feet and I can figure it out. It may take me a while. I'm going to fuck up, but I can figure it out. And, you know, in the beginning of my career,

I was really young. I think when I finished my PhD, I was 26. And I remember working with couples and I was really good. I'm not good at many things, but I am like a savant when it comes to relationships. I just am. I think there are lots of reasons for it. And a lot of them are based in trauma with being my parents, therapists and whatever else. But I'm really, really good at that. And I always have been. And these couples would come in who were in their 50s and I was 26 And they're like, what the hell do you have to teach me about relationships? My mantra from the time I remember I was in college because I was always young for what I was doing was just pretend you're hot shit until you become hot shit. That's what I would say to myself. Just pretend you're hot shit until you become hot shit.

And I would stand up on stage in front of all of these doctors is like a 26 year old and just be like, fuck you. I'm hot shit, even though I was scared poopless. Right. so it's this radical confidence I'd never thought of it that way but that's really what it comes every single person who has been successful in what they want to do never felt confident in the beginning you know yeah we all are scared we all feel out of our depth we all struggle with imposter syndrome when we try something new and being willing to try anyway is really the confidence so true and then just that the word imposter syndrome there's so many messages online now and it's like oh no you shouldn't have imposter syndrome so I get asked and I'm like I honestly

don't care if imposter syndrome holds you back don't have imposter syndrome don't do it if it actually helps you walk into the room then do it it's like we I think we hold a lot of meaning to certain things yeah that can hold us back like the word stupid yeah and it's how that lands right yeah because I would even challenge you I think this is a larger thing with you right because I would even challenge you on the imposter syndrome. If the imposter syndrome produces the results you want, that's not enough. If the imposter syndrome produces the results you want and doesn't cost you physically or emotionally, then it's worth it. I love the little caveat. I'm going to use that from now on. Yeah. Because that it's not enough that it works, right? Because a kid is

going to behave if they get the shit beaten out of them every time they don't behave but is that really serving the child you're getting the results you want but is that really serving the child's self-worth their body their energy their their being no but it works that was so your freaking analogy is like really hitting me hard so true wow there you go this was an interview i know this was this was like a personal least again you've ever pre-session I think you're amazing I'm so grateful for who you are and what you do in the world and for the book radical confidence I think it's a great roadmap especially even for younger women who have like you know are really ready to step into their dreams and for any age who's wanting to

redefine their life I just am really excited for it so congratulations and thank you for having me on and just like this has really been so wonderful for me like again I really hope it's come across to your audience on just how beautiful i think it can be for us never to think that we are always perfect or that we have it all together and that if we can embrace that we are an evolving person always then i think it like it really like once upon a time i never would have been able to have this conversation with you let alone in front of the cameras i would have had a heart attack if we tried this five years ago like literally i would have like frozen and so i actually hope also that's a great example of people how you can evolve how you can have the hard discussions how

you can have one conversation at one part of your life and feel like this is a detriment to your self-esteem and who you are and yet years down the line if you work on your mindset if you work on yourself that you can actually now have that same type of conversation with utter beauty and be able to see the immense tremendous value that that has brought and so you've left me with a lot to think out and i'm really literally like opened a new door for me to explore well will you keep me posted on that you discover i'm excited absolutely and i think you're absolutely right the growth mindset when people ask what they're looking for in a relationship what do i most need or to be have a successful life one of the keys to radical confidence is that growth mindset and yeah that's

exactly what who you are which i love so thank you thank you for being here Don't you wish you could just hit skip on the worst parts of your life? You know, the same way you can skip an ad. I get it. I'm Siyaya and I live in Ice Cove. I've made some questionable decisions that didn't end up the way I planned. And today, I'm still figuring it out. Somehow, things usually get worse before they get better.

Apparently, that's how I roll. So bundle up and come along for the bumpy ride. Stream a new episode of North of North Tuesdays on CBC Gem. For 50 years, Canadians have wondered what the names of IKEA furniture mean. Like Natopa, the guardrail for children's beds. Natopa means giving your favorite person room to grow. It means their safety and your piece of... No. In Swedish, Natopa means night monkey.

Mom! He's back! IKEA. 50 years of Swedishness at home. Look, he's wearing little pajamas. So cute.