This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 077 / Best Of 2021

Episode Date: December 22, 2021

We released our 77th episode today, as we celebrate TWO YEARS of the “This Is Woman’s Work” podcast! In honor of this milestone, we put together our favorite snippets of the Top 5 most listened to episodes of 2021, and are thrilled to share them with you… I also share some of the behind the scenes stories on each episode, and some insights into my journey in podcasting. Wishing you joy, success, health, and unlimited confidence this holiday season! To learn more about Nicole and her work please visit: www.nicolekalil.com

I am Nicole Kalil and I'm more than a little excited to be bringing you a best of 2021 podcast. Yes, you heard that right. We are putting together our favorite snippets of the top five most listened to episodes of the This Is Woman's Work podcast from the shit show of a year we call 2021. Better in many ways than its predecessor 2020, but I think most of us would agree that it just didn't live up to its potential. Kind of like season two of Yellowstone for me so far, but I'm going to still give it a chance. And because this episode represents two full years of podcasting and is our 77th episode, seven is my favorite number, by the way, I had every intention of bringing you something incredible, of trying to weave

one overarching theme through all of the top five episodes, taking you on a journey with some twists and surprises, and then tying it all together with some profound insight at the end. And then I got COVID. So I'm doing what all women would do when their husband is super sick and in bed for over a week and their kid is quarantined at home, but you can't be near them or touch them because you're also sick, but not with as bad of symptoms. You know what I'm doing? I'm making it work. And I'd like to take a second and applaud and celebrate and honor every single one of you who did that this year. It wasn't perfect. Maybe it didn't turn out like you hoped or expected, but you made it work. You are a goddamn warrior in my mind. You may never get the medal

you deserve, but I see you. And at the risk of being super cheesy, I'm proud of you. I hope you take a minute to feel proud of yourself too, and to recognize all the ways you did your best in the face of so many challenges. So in that spirit of making it work, I bring you the five most listened to episodes of 2021. And I'll share a couple insights, a couple behind the scenes things that you never know just by listening to the episodes. And a loose theme I recognized in preparing for this across all of the episodes. And that's the theme of confidence. Not surprising. Maybe it's there, or maybe it's because I see confidence everywhere I look. I'm not sure. I'll let you decide. So let's dive in. The fifth most listened to episode features the only repeat

guest I've had in the two years of the This Is Woman's Work podcast. It also happened almost by accident. To put this in perspective, Nikki on my team, who is the true champion of this show, researches, schedules, preps, edits, chooses, and releases all of our episodes. All I really do is write the content and show up and hit record. So quickly, please join me in giving Nikki

the standing ovation she deserves for all of her great work. Yes, I do have a party air horn in my office and it gets used only when absolutely needed. So anyway, Lisa Kelman and I were on a coaching call and I was sharing my own feelings of languishing and some of the struggles I was hearing from the women that I coach. And as we were talking, I realized we had a topic everyone needed to hear. So I asked her if we could record it. And as I listen to it now, I hear nothing but confidence in its call for us to live authentically and make choices, communicate boundaries, and be in relationship with our

friends and families while honoring our feelings and our experiences. It requires confidence to do all of those things. So here it is, the least prepared, most spontaneous episode of the year coming in at number five, languishing and re-entry with my coach, Lisa Kalman. It's episode 58, if you want to listen to it in its entirety. So one of the things, I wrote a blog about this, is in terms of re-entry, one of the points I made was two things. Number one was honor your feelings and experience.

Like, be okay with your feelings and experience. And I even use that example. If going to your mom's house for gathering, whether it was, you know, Easter and now coming up Memorial day, whatever it is with, you know, 15 people, plus all the kids seems overwhelming to you, then either duck out early, find another way. Or if your girlfriends are finally getting together and going to a crowded bar at happy hour, rather than, you know, say, well, can we take a walk on the beach? Like there is an opportunity to notice what is going to resonate with my internal well-being right now. And you may get there, you may get to the fun, big barbecues, you may not, but really to honor your feelings and experience. So that's, that's number one.

And, and maybe a secondary part, Lisa, would you agree is okay, honor them, but communicate them and choose vulnerability and transparency and honesty. You know, I can say that now because I didn't, I, you know, I think if those things are coming up for us, it's an opportunity to share like, Hey, I'm nervous about this, or I loved this about the last year and I'm afraid of losing it, or I'm excited about this, but nervous about that, whatever it might be for us, it's just an opportunity to yet again, communicate. Yeah, absolutely. Definitely. And to, you know, as we've all we've talked about throughout many podcasts is to be personally responsible for your, whatever you're experiencing, and then communicate it from a place of responsibility rather than any kind of upset or blame.

And the other piece around what you're saying is that to take stock of who you resonate with. One of the things I've noticed over the last year with COVID is all of us had to consciously choose who we were connecting with, whether we were connecting by Zoom or whether we made our little pod of people that we felt okay physically being with. We consciously chose what relationships to be connected to and to nourish. And we consciously chose what to maybe not nourish. And so as we reenter, you know, in reentry, really notice who you resonate with. Stay connected to those relationships that have nourished you and you feel you are nourishing to them.

And then it's really okay to let other relationships fall away. It doesn't mean you're not a nice person. Doesn't mean you're not kind. person. It doesn't mean you're not kind. It doesn't mean you don't say happy birthday. But there was a parsing out that occurred naturally that may serve people as they move forward. I want to take a quick second to also say thank you to Lisa for being somebody who is always in service to others

and nourishes me every single time I need it. Okay, on to the fourth most listened to episode, which comes as no surprise to me. It's episode number 69 on imposter syndrome with Dr. Tega Edwin. The behind the scenes on this is that I learned about Tega and her great work when we were both featured as keynote speakers for a women's event, but I'd already found another speaker on imposter syndrome, so I figured we'd release the best of the two or possibly save one for later. Quick side note on this. I'm glad I'm not the final decider of which episodes get released

because we do record 30 to 40% more episodes than we actually release. And this is only going to get harder for us as we move into 2022 because we're moving to every other week podcast episodes. So I am excited to bring you the best, most relevant 26 podcasts next year, but we'll likely record 40-ish episodes to get those to you. So anyways, we recorded both episodes on imposter syndrome and we were blown away by both. So we decided to release them back to back and double down on what I believe to be the opposite of confidence. Tega does a phenomenal job defining imposter syndrome here, but if you haven't had the chance, I'd highly encourage you to listen to both episodes because every time we allow ourselves to

feel and stay in our imposter syndrome, whether it be at work or in our lives, we're allowing ourselves to separate from our own confidence. It's time to stop externalizing everything that goes right and internalizing everything that goes wrong because confidence is when you know who you are, own who you're not, and choose to embrace all of it. I like to define imposter syndrome as a pattern of thinking where you don't believe you are as competent as other people believe you to be or perceive you to be, right? So it's a state where you constantly doubt yourself, you doubt your successes, you doubt your ability to perform in a role or even complete a task despite evidence to the contrary. And I think that's the key thing, right, is that even when there's evidence to the contrary, you still constantly doubt yourself.

And it can certainly impact negatively impact you and your career in a number of ways. I love how you frame that. It's so important. It's despite the evidence to the contrary, right? It's that constant focus on the fears and doubts outside of what might be normal. So let's talk about that a little bit. When is it real or, and I put in air quotes, normal, and when is it just complete crap, right? So like, if I'm brand new to a job, or I just got a promotion, I would think it'd be fairly normal to have some doubts or to have some things that you might not be totally competent in yet, or that you need to learn or whatever. So that's not what we're talking about when we talk about imposter syndrome, or is it?

No, it definitely is not. And you're right. You know, and that's why I said it's been bastardized a little bit because when you start something new, especially if it's something you haven't done before, if you don't feel, you know, a certain level of butterflies in your stomach, then something's, something's off somewhere. It's what you were saying in the introduction, right? Are you overcompensating? Are you walking in with too much confidence where you're not really judging yourself, right? Like we all, there's just a little inkling of doubt. Yes, you might be confident in your ability to perform, but I think there's that anxiety of just what is, it sounds like the first day of school, right?

Like what is today going to be like? That is normal. And as you're getting your feet wet, as you're trying to understand an organization, your role, your responsibilities, it's natural to fumble a little bit, to feel like, oh, am I doing the right thing? Am I moving in the right way? And what happens is over time, as you start getting feedback, whether it's from yourself internally or externally, as you start getting feedback that you are on the right track, and you start to sort of firm up in the fact that you know what you're doing, and then you keep moving and keep growing in your career. Which means if we listen to that definition, at multiple stages, whether you are fresh from undergrad, fresh from grad, you know, first year, five year, 10 year, as you get new opportunities, those feelings of,

oh, do I know what I'm doing, will come up. And those are absolutely normal. Impostor syndrome, on the other hand, and so the, one of the landmarks that I like to point out for it is when you find that you regularly externalize success while internalizing mistakes and failures, that's a sign that you struggle with imposter syndrome. And so what I say is, for example, if someone you did, so that's that same new job scenario, right? You started the job and then, okay, the anxiety was there a little bit, but then as you start going on, maybe your manager says, oh, great job on that presentation today. Or a teammate says, oh, I really like how you did that report. And every time those come in, you're like, oh, I just threw that together. Oh, that, no, it wasn't me. The

team helped. Like you, you push away success. And then when together. Oh, that, no, it wasn't me. The team helped. You push away success. And then when something goes wrong, when they say, oh, that client call didn't go the way we wanted it to, you go back and you're self-flagellating. It's, oh my gosh, I'm terrible. I made a mistake. They know I'm not supposed to be here. This is all terribly, horribly wrong. Is this every time something goes wrong, it's you. You are the problem. And every time something goes right, something, some stroke of luck, chance, somebody else was the reason for your successes. That's a landmark that you struggle with imposter syndrome, because it's this idea that you live in this constant state of being found out. You believe that you don't belong where you are. And people are going to one day look up and realize they made a mistake giving you this

opportunity, which means that every time something goes wrong, it's evidence of that belief you have that you're going to be found out. And every time something goes right, it's, oh, that couldn't possibly be true because I'm not supposed to be here and they're going to find me out. Coming in the third spot is an episode that's near and dear to my heart for many reasons. I'd never met this guest before we showed up to record, and I ended up with not only what I consider great content for a podcast episode, but also someone I now consider a friend. She showed up to talk about a very tough topic with

an open heart, a giving spirit, and a willingness to dive deep. And now I know that's pretty much how she shows up to everything. I had tears in my eyes many times during this recording. And as Susan shared, not only her story, but a masterclass in confidence, as she modeled for us all of what it is to trust yourself, believe in your purpose, and hang in there knowing it'll get better during our most tough and painful times. She also offers up a definition of self-care that I can totally get behind. Here is Susan Trippi on mindset, resilience, and divorce on episode number 47. As women, I think we're taught and conditioned a lot to deflect our emotions and deny our emotions and to be less, quote, emotional. I think that's bullshit. And I think, you know, we need to recognize that there's power in emotions.

We've been given this full range and breadth and scope of experience and emotions for a reason. And what I have learned over the past couple of years is that, one, emotions are a gateway to understanding deeper levels of ourselves in terms of self-awareness. And self-awareness is an incredibly important part of self-care. The deeper elements, what I call the soul, the work of the soul part of self-care. And so as I was making conscious choices to experience and honor and validate the emotions, I'm doing two things. One, if we deflect it and deny it, it still gets stored in our body somewhere. It's not going away and it's going to manifest

in other ways, whether that's back pain or migraines or tension or irritability. So honoring this and feeling it, sitting with it, feeling with it, not getting stuck in it, but identifying what's underneath it helps to, one, release it from our body. We're no longer holding on to the toxic part of storing it. We're releasing it. But for me, I recognize that, for example, there's power in it when you learn how to channel your emotions. So when I was first going through separation and divorce, and moving to a new community, and then five weeks later, this COVID thing hits and life shuts down. There was a lot of fear in my life at that time. And for several weeks, I just felt this sense of overwhelm and recognized, okay, I'm heading into a bad place. So let me, let's stop. Let's take a moment. Let's assess this. And so I started

looking into, okay, where is this fear coming from what's really underneath this and through the process of journaling through the process of walking i like to walk a lot and and reflect and center and calm the chatter in my mind when i walk and so through the process of doing both of those things i recognize what's underneath this fear for me is concern about my financial security, concern about the ability to maintain and make a new life as a single woman who now has zero income, right? And very little assets to draw upon. And then there's fear around, can I do this? Can I make this happen? Am I good enough? You know, all of those conversations. And so then once I started

identifying what's underneath the fear, then I was able to do two things. The first, I'm able to develop an action plan. Okay, if I'm concerned that I won't be able to generate the revenue I need to sustain and maintain a new life for myself, what are three things I can do right now? To look for a job, to earn income, to resource, you know, so then I start building an action step for each one of those fears. And then I developed affirmations that countered the negative self-talk that was happening in relation to those fears. And then every morning I would review that list of affirmations. A huge thank you to Susan for her courage and her transparency,

which the guest of our second most listened to episode of the year also has in spades. In New York Times bestseller, Dr. Shefali joined me not only to talk about her book, but also how we can begin to set aside those lies we've been told, the lies we've bought into about what it is to be a woman so that we can awaken to our own truest self. I shared already that she was number five on my top 20 bucket list of podcast guests, people I wished and hoped I could get on at some point in time. But what I haven't shared is that when we recorded the podcast, she offered to do an Instagram live with me a couple of weeks later. I of course said yes. And then that would be amazing and was super grateful. And then once we were off the recording, I proceeded to freak the

fuck out because friends, I had only ever done one Instagram live before that and somebody else had set it up. So I had literally no idea what I was doing. In addition to the fears around how one logistically does an Instagram live, I was also freaking out about whether or not anyone would actually show up. I mean, I have 3000 followers ish on Instagram compared to Dr. Shefali's 500,000. And I would be mortified if only like eight people showed up. So in a lesson for myself in confidence, I chose confidence, even though I wasn't feeling it. I took that risk. I said yes and trusted that I would figure it out. And I got into action. So we did a test run on Instagram live and I showed up with no audio. Like nobody could hear me. It was mortifying.

Luckily there was only about 10-ish people on, but we kind of had to figure that out before the real event. I texted and called anyone that I felt comfortable asking a favor and asked that they would set aside a time and join us. I spent a few minutes wishing a meteor would strike my house. So I had a legitimate reason to bow out

and the day of, I figured out, I don't actually even have enough light to do an Instagram live in my office because we had moved into a new house and the room literally has no lights in it. And so my ring light that I use during the day when sun is shining through the windows was not going to work at 8 PM. So I grabbed every lamp, every light, every candle that I could get my hands on and literally lit my office up for the event. And I did it. And the technology worked for the most part. And over 200 people showed up. Thank God. Thank you to all those people who delivered on that favor. And I sweated my ass off every single second of that Instagram live, but I did it. So here to talk about how we can each have our own radical awakening

is Dr. Shefali on episode 56. A radical awakening to me means two very specific things. The first one is the awakening that occurs when we realize that we have been living a conditioned self, a self that has been conditioned. So it could or may not be the authentic self. So when we wake up to that, and I think everyone at some point of their life wakes up to this, to the idea that, oh my goodness, I've been living my father's expectation or my mother's dream or culture's way of being, or who am I? Oh, I've just been following along the prescription list. So that awakening is the first awakening when you realize that the culture has been conditioning you and most of it was unnecessary or was a lie. And then the second awakening is when you realize that you are co-creating that continued oppression. And that is the most radical awakening when you

begin to see yourself as an active co-creator of your own suffering. And therefore you hold the key to the liberation. And I wrote this book because I just, I went through both of them. You know, I went through the first awakening when I was in my early twenties, but I wasn't yet ready to take the key to my own liberation. And my second awakening in my mid forties, probably exactly 22 years later, and realized that I had

not finished the first part, because there has to be this understanding of how we now co-create our patterns. So I'm in my mid-40s, and everything that you're saying resonates with me. I would say I'm in progress of that. So how did we lose our authentic self? You gave a few examples, but how did we lose it and how do we recover it? Yeah, it's so typical to lose it because we're all conditioned by unconscious parents for the most part who themselves are living in fear and shame. So they raise us to live in fear and shame and to seek approval from the outside. So when children are raised, and that's why I do a lot of work in conscious parenting, when children are raised to seek

constant approval and validation on the outside, they begin to puppeteer themselves to meet the expectations that they imagine would give them love and worth. So they keep being puppeteer themselves to meet the expectations that they imagine would give them love and worth so they keep being puppeteered and with each turn of the puppet they turn further and further away from their authentic self and then the entire life becomes a comedy show or a tragedy really of playing that false self and the the more you're false, the more you recruit other people to continue playing the false self. And then it's a theater of madness. And then maybe if you're lucky, you have enough pain in your life and you wake up and you realize you've been living an illusion. And then you begin the real journey to reclaim yourself. I think the greatest way to begin this path is

through, you know, making a pledge to yourself that you're not going to be inauthentic as much as you can. So if you want to say no, you're going to say no. If you want to not answer the phone, you're not going to answer the phone. If you need time out, you're going to ask for it. You're not going to bullshit and pretend as if you don't have needs or don't have requirements, but you're going to also not expect other people to know your needs and requirements. You're going to make conditions occur where you give it to yourself. So if person X is not treating you with love, you're not going to berate person X. You're going to move on to person Y who treats you with love. You're no longer going to fight reality, but you're going to create your own reality. And we have that power. So women need to see timetable. They get to be the leaders of that. And I think we've so been cut off from giving ourselves that power that we allow others

to steer the ship and then we're just going along. And now we're in our 60s, not knowing how we got here. Which brings us to the most listened to episode of 2021. An episode that I didn't think you would actually hear, an episode that I didn't think I'd actually record until I did it. I've shared just about everything about my fear and failures in the episode itself, but what you don't know is the morning it was released, I hid. I hid about 35,000 feet in the air as I was on a flight to meet three of my best friends for a much needed girls trip. I figured if I'd royally screwed up by sharing my failures, at least I'd

have my tribe to support me and to drink with heavily. I didn't listen to the episode or check my emails or go on social media. I gave myself space for 24 hours to just let it be out there and to be afraid, honestly, that I'd ruined any credibility I might've already had. But what really happened was all the worst case scenarios I'd made up in my mind were just that, things I'd made up that existed only in my own head. The reality is when I opened those emails, I had handfuls of messages from people thanking me for sharing my story, for being real, and that let me know I wasn't alone. I had texts and calls of support, and lo and behold, slowly, with time, my failures have turned into my fuel and into more confidence. It doesn't make it suck any less when I'm in it,

but I've had another piece of evidence that the best thing to do in any moment where I'm feeling failure or that I screwed up or that I made a mistake or that there's something wrong with me, the best thing to do is to trust myself, to put one foot in front of the other toward what really matters. And a reminder again, that both failure and action builds confidence. So here's our most listened to episode of 2021, episode number 41 on failure, on my failure. One of the things that I've learned from my coach, Lisa Kalman, is that failure is neutral. And so what might seem like a big failure to me, you might be listening and going, God, that's not that bad. This is what I've got going on. Or you might be listening and going, there is no way in hell I could overcome that or anything in between. But how you see it as it relates to

my failure isn't really that important. What matters is how I choose to see my failure. And I know from practice and from logic and from coaching and teaching that I have a choice to look at failure differently. I have a choice to look at it as an opportunity. I have a choice to look at it as a lesson. I have a choice to look at it as an opportunity. I have a choice to look at it as a lesson. I have a choice to look at it as the universe or God's way of redirecting me. And I'm not sure what this means yet, but here's what I can do. Here's what I can say. First, I've recognized that some of my failures this year have occurred because I stopped playing to my strengths and I started focusing on things that other people said mattered or that I made up that mattered. social media, my marketing team, which is their job, so I love that they're doing this, have really encouraged me to focus on social media as a strategy. I started really focusing on the amount of followers I had because I figured the more followers I had, the more people who knew

about the course or the podcast. And of course, then the more people who would sign up. I started thinking about people like Jenna Kutcher or Amy Porterfield or people who have these amazing online presences and have done really great with online courses. And I started using them as my guide. And there's nothing wrong with that. Learning from uber successful people and following in their footsteps and taking their advice,

there's nothing wrong with that. But what was problematic is I lost myself in it. I stopped playing to my strengths and I stopped asking myself why. What was it that I really wanted? And so all of this has really forced me to check back in with myself. What is it that I want? Well, nowhere on my list of things that I want is being a social media influencer.

That is not a desire of mine. I don't care about having millions of followers. In fact, I don't want that. I would prefer not to do that. I have no desire to live my life and build my business on social media. Now, it is a strategy, but the problem was I made it the strategy and I lost myself in it. So there you have it, friends, our five most listened to

episodes, which in all fairness puts our most recently released episodes at a total disadvantage. So make sure you catch up if you haven't already, because some of my favorites of the year are ones that just came out. Two years, 77 episodes on our podcasting journey, and my number one feeling is that of gratitude. This podcast has become a huge passion for both my team and I, and every listen, every download, every review, email, text, anything that says that our podcast is making an impact, that makes a difference, that it's relevant to you, is the highlight of our day. So thank you for joining us on this journey to redefine what it means, what it feels and looks like to be doing woman's work. You are the decider. You're the only you there ever was and ever will be, and that makes you

fucking magical. So plan big plans, dream big dreams, risk big risks, and know that I am cheering for you every step of the way. My love to you and yours, and I wish you joy, success, health, and unlimited confidence as we head into the new year. Let's both take care of ourselves and get after what matters because that is woman's work.