Jamie Lee Welcome to risky conversations, and why? Because everything that's worthwhile is on the other side of a risky conversation. Today, I'm thrilled to have basically my, you're, you're my sent by Sara, yeah, and Senpai is the honorific term that the Japanese use to refer to somebody who has more experience in your field. Sara Dean is a dynamic keynote speaker, certified facilitator and executive coach who has spent over two decades. See, I've about a decade. You've got
Sara Dean (she/her) two you'll be there no time.
Jamie Lee How come you don't look at though?
Sara Dean (she/her) Oh my gosh. Thank you.
Jamie Lee And she has spent over two decades revolutionary, revolutionizing how women approach leadership and personal growth by masterfully blending behavioral science with practical wisdom, she guides clients to dismantle self limiting beliefs, challenge cultural conditioning and tap into their innate power of intuitive leadership. Oh, that's great. I love that. I want to hear more about that she's known for her razor sharp insights and infectious humor. Sara tackles complex challenges with strategic finesse. Welcome to the podcast.
Sara Dean (she/her) Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to dig into all of the all the high risk stuff.
Jamie Lee Yes, let's do some high risk stuff. So speaking of high risk stuff, what has been a risky conversation? One of the most riskiest conversations you have engaged in, and why was it worth it?
Sara Dean (she/her) When I think about risky Conversations, I'm curious if there's other people listening who can relate to what I think of most is risky conversations I didn't engage in, and so , what comes to mind first is all the times I've been avoidant when I could have been riskier, and I've learned over time that I don't want to be that person, so I've really challenged myself to be more risk, more of a risk taker on conversations. But the story that comes to mind is a situation I was in professionally, , gosh, in , 2004 ish. I was working. I was a personal trainer at the time. I was working at a gym, and I was one of the newer trainers at the gym, and the owners of the gym, I loved my clients there, I loved my trainer colleagues, but the owners of this gym just had these very gruff, abrasive personalities. It was a married couple, husband and wife, and they were just they were notorious for being rude to customers and clients. They were rude to their staff, and I noticed it as soon as I started working there, and I just avoided them at all costs, I just wanted to make sure I didn't make any mistakes. I didn't make any mistakes. I didn't want to get in trouble. And one day, I was working at the front desk with and the wife owner came, and she was doing a few things on the computer, and a member of the gym came in, who came in all the time, and she came in, and she had recently renewed her membership for a whole year, and then had a job situation. Her job changed, and she was going to be, she was from Canada, and her job changed, she was going to lose her work visa, and she was going to have to go back to Canada. And so she came in, and she walked right up to the owner, and she said, Oh my gosh, so glad that you're at the front desk here. I have the situation. I want to I'm so disappointed I'm going to be leaving. I love the gym, but I'm going to be leaving, going back to Canada, and the owner would not give her a refund. So she literally, , within a week, had just bought this whole year long gym membership, and the owner was , Nope, you knew the policy when you signed up, , I'm not giving you a refund. It was so uncomfortable. I could tell the woman was on the verge of tears. I didn't know what to do. I felt I just was trying to be invisible the whole time, , I don't want the owner to see me because I don't want her to pull me in. I don't want this, the member to see me, because she's been in a lot of my classes, and , she knows me as someone who probably should speak up and say something right now, but I don't know what to say. So I was , just be invisible. So I didn't say anything in that moment, and I regretted not approaching that member later that day. So she they had this really awful exchange, and then the member kind of eventually just walked off and went to do her cardio workout. And I later thought I should have gone out and said something to her. I should have gone out and said, I'm really sorry that happened, or I felt really bad for you. Just something to acknowledge how awful it was. And I didn't do anything. And so I thought, Okay, the next time my boss says something horrible to someone, I'm gonna say something I'm not gonna sit by and I knew, knowing this woman, I'm , she's gonna say something awful to someone, probably in the pretty near future, because that was her pattern. So sure enough, two weeks later, we're in a staff meeting, and she is being really hard on the trainer. She's telling us all these things that we've been doing wrong and these things we need to fix. And it's kind of going on and on. And she keeps using my friend Janet, who's sitting next to me, as the scapegoat. And she keeps using Janet as an example of, , this is going wrong, and that's doing going wrong. And , , Janet messed it up. And I could see Janet, who had a lot going on in her personal life at the time, just feeling really emotionally overwhelmed. So I see her tearing up, and she's looking down, and just I can see her, body language, just trying to, what I was trying to do when that member had come in, , Janet's just trying to disappear into the floor. And so after that meeting, I remembered that I had said to myself, , the next time this woman does this to someone, I'm going to say something. So the next morning, I went into her office and I said, Hey, can I talk to you about the staff meeting yesterday? And she was , Oh yeah, sure. And I sat down and I said, I don't know if you noticed, but it seemed Janet was really overwhelmed by some of the things you were saying. She was on the verge of tears. She seemed really impacted. It felt kind of you were use, , kind of ganging up on her and using her as an example over and over again, and it didn't feel fair. And then I kind of just , let my voice trail off, because I was , Okay, now I'm probably gonna get fired. And the owner, she looks at me and she pauses, and she's , , maybe I should apologize to Janet. And I was , oh, okay, that would be great. And I had this moment of realizing, if you go into something in a thoughtful way, and you speak up on behalf of someone, that sometimes you can change how someone else sees a situation, or how someone else decides to take action in a certain way. And so she went and apologized to Janet. And I mean, I don't know that this boss's life changed forever, but for me, it was a moment of recognizing I can speak up and advocate for myself or for someone else, and that someone there's is potential that someone will listen. It's not just that, , you're going to get fired for saying something. So that was a it was a turning point for me, for sure, and I think about a lot now, when I am considering, , Should I say something, should I not say something? Who do I want to be? And I do want to be the person who is an advocate for myself and for others.
Jamie Lee You put your nick on the line for this.
Sara Dean (she/her) I was so fed up. I was , if I get fired, fine, I'll figure it out.
Jamie Lee You were willing to be fired to advocate on behalf of decency and on behalf of your friend. That's brave. I love it. Wow. And I'm also fascinated, how did you go from being a personal trainer in 2004 to becoming an executive coach, facilitator? I mean, you work with people at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, GitHub, I mean, all these big, incredible companies. So how did that happen? Yeah,
Sara Dean (she/her) great question. So that actually kind of ties into my story. One of the things I noticed in being a personal trainer and working almost exclusively with women, and in the Seattle area, with many women in tech and from the companies you just mentioned, is that I had clients coming to me over and over again where their primary goal in life was to shrink their body in some way. And when they would come to me and we would talk about goals, their goals weren't , I want to be strong so that I can perform this certain task. Their goal was, I just want to be smaller. I just want to be smaller. And a lot of times it was, I want to lose 30 pounds in order to go after a promotion where I'm going to be more visible in order to go on, , be able to fit into, my work clothes in a different way. And so it was, it was increasingly apparent that for so many women, shrinking their bodies was a precursor or a requirement that they'd made for themselves before they would let themselves take up more space professionally and after I had my son, I had this kind of, I don't know, awakening of sorts, where I was , i This doesn't feel ethical to me. I don't want to help women shrink their bodies anymore. If someone wants to lose weight, great, fine, they can do that, but I don't want that to be my legacy, that I help women shrink their bodies. I want my legacy to be that I help women take up space. And so I started working with women, and rather than fitness and wellness exclusive coaching, and I started getting into the realm of life coaching, which then evolved into executive coaching, and I started my podcast, which was originally called the shameless mom Academy, and our first 900 episodes were all about helping moms rebuild their identity and take up space after having kids. And that work has just increasingly become, not increasingly. I mean, it's, it's my whole brand. Now, I ended up selling my fitness business in 2018 so that I could go all in on the work that I'm doing now, because I wanted to help women take up space. I wanted to help women use their voices, I did with my boss that day. I wanted to help women stand up for themselves and their ideas and the people around them that matter most to them. And I knew that in focusing exclusively on helping women shrink their bodies, that I was actually contributing to a problem more than solving a problem.
Jamie Lee Thank you for that. And now that I'm in my squarely in my 40s, that dichotomy between shrinking your body and building strength is, so much more important than before, because this is the phase in our lives. And , this is almost always the same phase that all of the women who are gunning for promotions, they're in their late 30s, early 40s to 50s and even 60s, right? Women who are squarely in perimenopause and need to develop that bone density, the muscle strength, so that we can live a healthy, long life, and so if we prioritize shrinking ourselves, we miss out on securing a long, healthy life. So I really appreciate , everything that you've shared so far, and I'm curious about branding, because this is something that you work with your client, clients on. I honestly, can I just be totally blunt with you?
Sara Dean (she/her) Yeah,
Jamie Lee I am not a fan of the word branding.
Sara Dean (she/her) Oh say more,
Jamie Lee whatever my first association is. , , when they have cattle or livestock, yeah, right. And they take this, , scorching hot iron, and then they brand that livestock. Because this is my life. , for me, the word branding, that's what I Yeah, right. But of course, there's also corporate branding, we all know, just do it by Nike and the Apple logo. That's branding. But, , I'm really curious what your take is on this, because developing a brand, in my mind, is really about becoming known for what and what you're capable of, but I'm curious how you approach it and what it means to intentionally build a leadership brand that serves you and your professional goals tell me more about that
Sara Dean (she/her) I love that I so appreciate your perspective on that and the nuance of language. It's it's so significant in the way we kind of all interpret and internalize language in different ways. And I agree with you on when we just branding and being known for certain things can somewhat feel a facade, or we're labeling something a certain way, so that it has a certain image, so that it has a certain impact, pros and cons to that. And I think what's most important in all of that, for me is that when we are thinking about building a brand or building a legacy, or, , building an identity in our professional lives in a certain way that we're looking at, how do we want to exist in the world and do work in a way that is feel, that feels meaningful and purpose filled to us, and therefore it will build a legacy that will have impact to others. I don't necessarily believe that we need to be building something that is in service, especially as women. I don't necessarily need believe that we need to be building legacies or identities that are always in service to others as a primary goal, because women are so conditioned to be self sacrificial and self abandoning, and so I don't think when we're building a brand, or however you want to term it, I think that if we are building something, If we're building an identity around work that is meaningful to us and feels purpose filled to us, that the outcome will be that we have built a brand and that we've built a legacy that will have impact in the world in a certain way, that will benefit other people. But we don't necessarily need to do it, because the benefit to other people needs to be the primary goal. So with that said, when we look at building a personal brand, a personal leadership brand, what I think is important is that we are thinking through, who am I becoming, who am I becoming? What do I want to be known for, so that I can do the stuff that lights me up and fills me up and gives me energy, and when we think about it through that lens, there's so much opportunity to think back and think in the present and then think forward. And so when we think back, we can look at, I love talking to women about, what are the things that have developed you and impacted you by choice or by chance that have really dictated who you are today. And so looking over the course of our lives, the things that we've gone after and accomplished by choice, we've decided to do them and that we feel proud of, and we can see a through line of , how that has gotten to me to where I'm at, and then also looking at the things that happened by chance that we didn't pick, but we had to figure out and get through, and how those things have developed us, and when we look at that, sometimes it's a permission slip of recognizing, oh, because I've been in these places and done these things, I can see how I'm capable of doing other things that I haven't done yet, that I don't have skill development around, but that I am curious about or interested in, and give myself permission to step into those spaces and become an continue, continual evolution of myself. When we're thinking about that from the standpoint of developing a brand or identity or building out our leadership legacy, we can start to see that here are the traits or the characteristics I want to be developing. Here are the values that I want to be embodying. Here are the ways that I want to be making decisions or taking action, and when we're doing that in thoughtful and intentional ways, we can also be using some of those markers as filters for decision making. So if I know that I'm a leader that wants to uphold certain values or that wants to have impact in a certain way, when a decision or opportunity or multiple decisions or opportunities are in front of me, I can decide this is the one that's the right one for me right now, because I'm clear headed about who I am, who I'm becoming, where I've been, what matters most, what my values are, etc.
Jamie Lee Great. So what I'm taking away from this is it's about creating an alignment, in reaching congruence. , when we think about those corporate logos we want, , their experience, the experience of engaging in that product or with people from that company, to be congruent, to be consistent, to be aligned with what we perceive it to be. And so what I'm hearing from you is that leadership brand development is a process by which you clarify your values, your vision, your desires, your goals, so that the steps that you take to move yourself forward feels congruent with who you want to be.
Sara Dean (she/her) Yes, yes, yeah, and we're already doing this whether or not we want to be you're building a brand no matter what you people know you for things, regardless of whether or not you've chosen to be known for those things. You're building. You're always building a brand. And when we can be more intentional and strategic and recognize the power that we have in building that brand, that can really start to shift things. And I see this a lot when I'm working with women in their 30s who are have had gotten some, had some success in their career, and then they've been , Oh, I just kind of landed here. we aren't thinking about legacy when we're, , 26 years old, usually, but we get to a certain point where we're , oh, wait, I can, , do this on purpose now, and how do I want to do it, if I'm doing it on purpose, and thinking through , Okay, well, what are the things that I'm known for? Are those the things I want to continue to be known for? Or do I want to be strategically known for something else, or moving in a different direction? And so it gives us back some power around how we're building ourselves in terms of building out what we're known for and how we want to continue to have impact.
Jamie Lee Could you give us an example? Maybe a quick story, maybe whether it's from you or from a client case study where this leadership brand development really helped them make tough decisions?
Sara Dean (she/her) Sure, I'm I'm going to share a story that is from a specific client and who I will keep anonymous, but it's also, while it's specific to one client, it's also representative of many of my clients who have kind of similar stories. So I had a woman come to me. She works in a fortune 10 company in tech, and she started, we started working together almost a year ago, and she came to me and she said, I have been with my organization for six years. In the last three years I've been in this I was promoted to this current position three years ago, and I was told it would be a stepping stone to this next promotion. And so for three years, I've just been hustling and proving myself, and as women do, over proving myself and over producing and overdoing everything, and she's amazing at her job, and she gets, she gets a lot of recognition for doing great work. She said, one of the things I notice is that in my work life, I am very serious in every interaction and in meetings, because I feel I need to be really serious to show everyone that I'm , I mean business, and I can do what needs to be done. And I'm often sitting in rooms full room fulls of men, and I want them to know that, , I can do everything. But she said I'm actually a fun person, and no one I work with knows this. And she said she acknowledged that being this, very buttoned up version of herself was sucking her soul, and so she said, it's not I haven't gotten the promotion yet. What do I have to lose if I just start being this more relaxed, funny version of myself? Yeah, also, if I start cracking jokes in meetings. People are going to think this is so weird, something's wrong with me, because that's not the brand I built, . So we talked this through, and it became a very light hearted and fun conversation. And I gave her homework, and I always give my coaching clients, , what are the three things you're going to do between now and our next call? And so she was , Okay, in this next meeting that we have, I'm gonna say one funny thing. And I was , it doesn't have to be a huge production, , don't overdo it. Just , make a funny side comment. It can be in the chat, just , one little thing. So she did it, and she came back and she's , Oh my gosh, I did it. And so many people laughed, and people , messaged me afterwards and be , That was so funny, and it was so rewarding to her to just do this one little thing. So that snowballed into doing that more regularly. And then we started talking about, okay, now just instead of a little comment or a little idea, how can you share a story that engages people in a different way? So then she started going into meetings, and especially meetings with different levels of managers in the organization. And she started sharing stories. And then she was getting these messages from people from all different departments, , we, oh my gosh, we loved your story. And tell more stories. Everything that she did to step more into who she already really was, but had been kind of masking and hiding was advancing her role. And so at the end of or at the end of the beginning of summer, as we were kind of making a seasonal transition and coaching, and she was getting ready to go on this long vacation, she was talking about all the contacts that she had where she was people who are coming to her that were , when you're ready to make a move professionally, let me know I want you on my team. Wow. Changed her brand to be reflective of who she actually was. Instead of trying to be , I'm just going to try to be a male in tech, , a 32 year old male in tech, and when she wasn't a 32 year old male in tech. So I love that story, and that's something that I often have the opportunity to work with my clients on, is being more you so that you can and that helps you attract the right people and then open the doors to right opportunities. I
Jamie Lee love that. This is such a great story, great example. And as you were telling the story, I got started with coaching, by helping women negotiate their salary. And I recall in my study, I learned that humor is a very, very powerful negotiation strategy, because it's disarming. It kind of makes you feel relaxed, and we put people in a positive mood, and when people are relaxed in a positive mood, they're more likely to collaborate, they're more likely to you. Yes, right? Yes, you're more likely to leave a positive impression. People are more likely to, , negotiate with you in your favor. And so I'm not saying that your client did this, , , calculating way, but what a powerful way to improve her executive presence and create the perceived value of her contributions simply by being herself, telling stories and being memorable. Excellent. This is so good. So let's talk about imposter syndrome, because you and I both work with high performing women who are surrounded by men. You talked about your client, the 32 year old client at the fortune 10 company, surrounded by men. And often, I work with women of color too. Women of Color marginalized identities, and they feel unease. And sometimes that unease gets translated to imposter syndrome. Maybe I don't belong, maybe I haven't done enough, maybe blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, yeah, so tell us from your vantage point, what are the myths, what are the truths of imposter syndrome?
Sara Dean (she/her) Yes, I love talking about imposter syndrome. I get really excited about it. I always start by referencing an article call from the Harvard, Harvard Business Review from, I want to say, February of 2021 or 2022 by Jodi Ann bury and roshika tulsian. And the article is called, stop telling women they have imposter syndrome.
Jamie Lee Could we? Could we link that in the show notes? Please send me the link. I will absolutely send
Sara Dean (she/her) you the link. It's so brilliant, and I just have so much respect. Both Jo Dean and rushika are authors, and they both actually have books coming out this fall, and it's rishika second book. They're just incredible women doing incredible work in this space. So they talk about imposter syndrome and kind of unmasking imposter syndrome for what it really is. And so we've been conditioned that imposter syndrome is about the individual. Women have been conditioned that imposter syndrome is about me. It's about sort of defaults or defect or I'm not enough in some way, and therefore I feel not worthy and not qualified and not ready or capable. And I have this perception that all these other people are way more ready, worthy, qualified and capable than me, and the truth is, is that imposter syndrome is not about an individual person. It's not a pathology. You don't actually have a syndrome or disease or some sort of medical affliction. What you have is the product of social conditioning, and I'll get to that in just a minute. But you've been conditioned to think that it's something wrong with you, and it's actually a reflection of a broken system that was created to make sure that dominant groups have power, while non dominant groups or marginalized groups stay out of power. So the more that I feel imposter what we feel with imposter syndrome, even though it's not actually a syndrome, and it's a social construct more than an actual thing. What we feel as a result of it is very real. And who wins when I feel inadequate, older wife? You not? Yeah. So it works really well for the system. If I feel bad about myself, if I feel not qualified, not competent, not capable. The system keeps working beautifully. So there's there's people who aren't motivated to change that system because it's working great for them. They've always had power. People them have always had power. It keeps giving them opportunities. As long as there's a non dominant group that feels less than so when I think of imposter syndrome from that perspective, I suddenly, instead of feeling crap about myself, now I'm just mad. , how dare they think that they can make me feel small enough that I'm gonna not go for something so that they can keep having the power. And when we look at how women are socialized over the course of their lives, systematically socialized in a way where their self trust is eroded over and over again through developmental phases. We can see that, of course, by the time a woman gets mid, early to mid career, she has conditioned herself to have this inner critic constantly buzzing in her head as a default voice that tells her that you're not enough in all these different ways. And so that's the root of imposter syndrome. And so the question I tell people to ask themselves is, instead of thinking when you hear that imposter syndrome or inner critic creeping in, instead of thinking, what do I need to change about myself or what's wrong with me, instead ask yourself, what is the power that I want to take back? Because the power was taken with me, taken from me without my consent over the course of my life, the power was taken from me without my consent as my self trust was systematically eroded as I was conditioned as a woman or any person of a marginalized identity. Yeah, did not give permission for my power to be taken, but it has been taken. And so instead of thinking, what's wrong with me, I'm going to think, how am I going to take my power back? Because I never said yes, that anyone could take it away.
Jamie Lee Oh, this is so good. I got chills,
Sara Dean (she/her) right?
Jamie Lee How can I take my power back? Because I never consented to have it taken away from me. Yeah, I love that because, , as research shows, when we are very, very young, girls don't believe that they are less than girls don't believe that they can't, not until they get to, the sixth grade, right, right? That's when the socialization has started to seep into our brains, and it started to shape our hippocampus and a prefrontal cortex in our brains, shaping our brains. And then by the time we're adults, it just feels it's just the way it is, not because it's true, but because of habituated patterning in our brains, in our nervous system. So let's take our power back. So then my follow up question to that this is brilliant. I've also talked to women, high achieving, diligent, conscientious, really amazing women, leaders, great at their jobs. They're afraid to be mad. They're afraid to be angry because society has taught us that angry women, angry black women, Angry Asian women, angry brown women
Sara Dean (she/her) yeah, dangerous,
Jamie Lee yeah. So I want to hear from you. I'm curious how what are your thoughts on that? How do we how do we allow anger without being afraid to express anger?
Sara Dean (she/her) Yeah, yeah. This is such a huge question, and it's something I actually have two really close friends who are therapists, and we talk almost every day. We use the Marco Polo app to send video messages to each other, and we're constantly asking each other big questions, just this. It
Jamie Lee really pays to have
Sara Dean (she/her) two good friends who are a therapist, but this is something we talk about a lot, is anger and women, and again, the socialization of women. And so women aren't taught how to be angry. We're taught not to be angry, but we're taught how to be angry and we're taught to
Jamie Lee be sad. Yeah, men are taught to be angry,
Sara Dean (she/her) yes, and anger is, , one of the most primary human emotions. So, , no one gets off without anger. No one exists without anger. It's, , happiness, sadness, anger, anxiety, these are primary. There's seven, I think, top human emotions, or whatever. Those are four or five that I just listed. And so when we tell women to not be angry, it's so insulting and degrading when we don't give women the skills to be angry and learn how to manage anger as a human natural human emotion, we're doing such a disservice. And one of the things that got me started thinking about this. A year or two ago, I was talking with a girlfriend, and I was saying, I think that I have anger in me that's so deep that I don't know how to get to it, and I recognize that it would be valuable to figure out how to get to it, but I'm the mining it would take to work through everything to get to it feels so overwhelming and hard and energetic, energetically consuming and scary and vulnerable and all these things. And she said, I feel totally the opposite. She said, I feel my anger is right at the surface all the time, and so I worry that, I'm going to be in a situation where something tips me over the edge, and it's just going to come out, and it's going to be in the wrong circumstance with the wrong people, and I'm not going to be able to reel it back in time. And so we have these two really different synopsis of kind of how we view our own experience with holding anger, and we were both acknowledging , these are both not good, because this we can recognize it, but then, , what are the skills and so, I think, for every woman recognizing, what is your relationship with anger? How has anger been modeled to you by in your family system, in work environments? How has anger? How have you witnessed healthy anger versus unhealthy anger, or safe anger versus unsafe anger? So I think kind of just acknowledgement and awareness is a huge piece of it. And then looking at, what do I think my own, how does anger sit in me, and what do I want to do about that? And starting to explore. , what do you want to do about it? Does this maybe require going and finding professional help, someone who can really help me untangle this and unravel it and get to the bottom of it? Is it something that I can, , learn about on my own and figure out how to navigate? How do I want to be modeling anger to my kids? I mean, this is a big one. How do I modeling? How do I do differently for the next generation? Be, I think that recognition and then doing some decision making about how do I want to learn more about this in order to give myself better skills and learn how to manage this in a different way?
Jamie Lee I hear that it is useful and beneficial to consciously create a relationship with anger, and it could help to seek out professional help, whether that's a therapist or a coach or your mentor. This is a little bit tangential, but I am now an unofficial HRT evangelist.
Sara Dean (she/her) Oh my gosh, me too
Jamie Lee good, good. Let's make a choir between the two of us. Because just recently, I went on hormone replacement therapy, and it is a game changer, because before that, I just wasn't feeling myself. My brain wasn't as sharp, , my energy wasn't there. My sleep wasn't there. My skin was dry. My hair was dry, , there was anxiety, so many, so many problems. And as soon as I went on HRT, I felt that unnerving dissatisfaction with my life just sort of dissolve almost immediately. And I know I'm kind of weird in that way. Oh, not everyone. Okay, good, good, good. So yes to creating that relationship with anger, yes to seeking professional help if it really helps you, and also because managerial women are, , squirrely in that menopause period, we really want to think about, how do we support ourselves systematically and hormonally?
Sara Dean (she/her) Yes, yes, that's thank you so much for bringing that up. I actually just released an episode this week. So episode 955, of shameless leadership, is about starting HRT, which I started two months ago.
Jamie Lee Oh, my goodness, you and I were , on this similar half year. Okay, so
Sara Dean (she/her) funny, and I realize how much rage had been living at the six life for months, because it was , it didn't feel a slow build at a certain point, but I think it was a slow build. And then all of a sudden I was , I'm so it wasn't even anger. It was this rage that I knew was disproportionate to every situation, and so I was trying to just override it by, , pretending to have fun, being with my family in the car, going places and thinking, just , try to not be mad right now, because there's nothing to be mad about. But I still feel filled with anger and rage, so just pretend you're not feeling but it was, , so weird and irrational, and I couldn't figure it out. And then I eventually went to my doctor. I was , something is at first, I thought it was just anxiety, which I've had before, and I've had to do medication for anxiety in the past. I was , I don't know if I need medication. So we tried medication for anxiety, which did nothing. And then I was , let's look at hormones. I had literally zero estrogen. Estrogen did not register in my blood work. And she was , Oh, we are fast tracking you on HRT. And she said, it'll take, , four to six weeks to feel anything. Within 16 hours, I felt a new person,
Jamie Lee yes, yes. So speaking on that topic, for me, I really had to lean on my self trust and allowing myself to fully acknowledge how off I felt, how enraged, how depressed, even though I have my dream job and my dream life, , Dream clients and so let's talk about self trust. Because for me, getting on HRT was a journey of choosing self trust. I had to, , consciously tell myself, this feels terrible, but I am going to trust that one day I am going to be the biggest HRT success story there ever was, with zero evidence, I'm , and I just address this. Everything else will get better. I just have to trust it. And then it all turned out to be true. So we often lose self trust. And we talked about, , you articulated so well how society conditions women, girls and women to lose our self trust, and how do we get it back? Yeah, what do you think? So,
Sara Dean (she/her) as an example of the kind of the despair or the the difference and the huge dichotomy, I guess, between having self trust and not having it when we're born, we cry when we're hungry. Our body knows that we're hungry, and we cry we trust that, right? It's just this natural instinct , oh my gosh, I'm hungry or I'm uncomfortable in some way, so I'm crying. This is totally natural. I don't even have to think about it. Over the course of our lives, we're conditioned in certain ways where we're , Oh, I feel this thing, but I've somehow gotten messaging, whether implicitly or explicitly, that I shouldn't dem, I shouldn't respond in a certain way, or I should respond in a certain way. And so this might start at a really young age, where a parent or caregiver is , you should wear that these clothes and not that clothes, or you should play with these toys and not that toys. It might be with family members, where they're , , you need to give everyone a hug. And you're , I don't know, hugging that person doesn't feel right at that. It feels weird. I don't touch from them, but someone's , no, no. , give them the hug. It will make them happy. Them happy, as we are a little bit older in middle school, grade school, it's about our grade school and middle school and into high school, it's about not trusting our body. So if your body looks a certain way, it's not the right way. If you have belly fat, that you should not have belly fat. If you should always be shrinking your body. You shouldn't eat foods that are quote, unquote bad, bad foods. We should punish ourselves with exercise in order to get smaller. We should be a certain way when we go on dates. We should look a certain way to be pleasing to suitors. So this messaging is just everywhere, and sometimes it's given very explicitly. Other times, it's just messaging that we're seeing through media and other all sorts of different outlets. So as this is happening to us, we're systematically, unconsciously starting to prioritize what other people think and what other people want from us more than what we think and want from ourselves, what we think of ourselves and what we want from ourselves. So we get to a certain age, and it can be really challenging to recognize, how do I really feel in this situation, because we're thinking, How do other people want me to feel in this situation? It can be hard to recognize, what do I really want to eat? Because we're thinking, Well, what does that person want to eat? If you're a parent, if you're a mom who makes dinner every night, you for decades, might make meals thinking about what someone else wants to eat. And I literally had a client come to me at one point a few years ago, and she was , my sons both moved out of the house this year. They were , 20 and 22 and she said, I don't know what to make for dinner, because I haven't made food that I in 22 years, so I don't know what food I . And then she was , I want to paint their bedrooms. Now that they've moved out, I don't know what colors I , because every time I've made a decision about , what to paint, it's always been , What Would you all ? And I had this experience myself, or I'm in the middle of this experience myself. I'm turning 50 in November, and I started thinking through, what do I want to do for my 50th birthday? And it immediately became very stressful, because I started thinking, well, this person will want to be included, and what will they want to do, and that person will want to be included, and what will they want to do, and this family member, and should it be friends? Should it be family? Should it be both? Should people buy plane tickets? Well, they won't want to buy a plane. It started snowballing, and I realized I'm making my 50th birthday, not about me. And so what do I really want? And that's been a really hard question for me to answer, as someone who even recognizes that. This is what happens with self trust. I'm recognizing that I'm even in knowing this, in the work that I do, I still don't have it all dialed in. So in terms of what we can do about this, it's starting to it's giving ourselves opportunity to listen inward and pay really close attention to what I what you really or want in simple moments. And so the easiest example I can think of is going shopping with a friend and trying on clothes. And instead of saying to your friend, should I get the red one or the green one? Saying, I'm going to get the red one because I it better, and not being at all concerned about what your friend wants, or you and your friend are, , again, out shopping, and you're going to grab something to eat between shop, between stores. And instead of saying to your friend, what do you want? Saying, I'd really love to go get tacos and saying what you what sounds good to you in that moment. So challenging yourselves in those low stake moments, to have a preference and state it out loud without concern or self abandonment or self sacrificing to the person who's next to you. And so you can do that. in your households, you can do that in friend groups. You can do that in professional spaces in those low stake ways, so that then when the stakes become higher, you can start to recognize, how can I do this in higher stake ways, in order to, , be a self advocate, advocate for other people, , trust yourself to use your voice in other ways where it does matter more.
Jamie Lee I love that. It's building the self trusting muscle that leads to self advocacy muscle. And I think, , we were talking about how society conditions women's brains. And by doing this, I think you intentionally socialize your own brain that it's okay, it's safe, it's more fun, and actually it delights other people, when you can be decisive and be , I want the red one. I want tacos. , right, right? , people are , okay, what you want? Good. We're relieved. We're happy that you're happy. Yeah,
Sara Dean (she/her) and , no one's gonna be mad because I bought the red shirt that I better. But yeah, we're , well, maybe I should buy the shirt my friend likes better for me to wear. I mean, , it's so funny when you say it out loud, or maybe I should eat the food that my friend wants to eat. Because, , it's just when we start to, , externalize our thinking instead of internalizing our thinking, all of a sudden, we're , that sounds weird. That sounds , that sounds silly. It's we don't have to do that.
Jamie Lee Yeah, as you were telling the story of your client, I'm , Yeah, I've been there. I've been there. , wait, what does the person next to me want? What does my mom want? What does my partner right? , I'll get whatever you want. No. They're , No, just tell us what you want. I'm , Yes, oh, okay, I just want plain chicken.
Sara Dean (she/her) Yes. Oh, my favorite thing for dinner right now is telling my husband and son. I'm , you guys figure out what you want. Because what I want to have, I want to have a frozen burrito. So I'm going to have a frozen burrito. And you guys figure out whatever you're going to I gonna I want, whatever meal doesn't involve me cooking for three people.
Jamie Lee But your delight, your delight, your choice, it ripples out. It ripples out to your personal life. It ripples out to your professional life, right? I think we're talking about this because it that ripple? You feel it when you're able to have difficult conversations, when you're able to make a tough call, when you're able to leave the presentation right and direct people's attention to something that you believe in. And all starts from that self trusting muscle. What do you think about that?
Sara Dean (she/her) Yeah, it absolutely starts from self trust, and when we don't have the self trust, how you can recognize that it's missing? And I'll say this, as someone who has recognized this many times over the course of my life, is that you feel this underlying kind of gnawing or anxiety because you are constantly living for others versus living for yourself. And so you're constantly trying to figure out, , Well, what do they want, and what do they need, and how do I show up and be that version, version, what are they expecting from me? And so there's you're constantly being reactive to what you think the environment expects of you, versus being proactive about , this is me. This is who I am. This is what I'm going to do, and letting them react to you, versus you being on edge, on guard and hyper vigilant about how you should react to them. So that's , how you can start to recognize , this is a sign that I'm not trusting myself. If I'm constantly in that place of hyper vigilance, on edge, being prepared to react to others, and then starting to cue yourself differently in the ways that we talked about in terms of trying to develop that self trust.
Jamie Lee Excellent. Is there anything else I haven't yet asked that you would love to share?
Sara Dean (she/her) I don't think so. We got into so much in such a short amount of time we
Jamie Lee did. This is a great conversation. Where can
Sara Dean (she/her) I, well, I do one thing that one thing comes to mind, that yes to answer your question, when women are thinking about how to change, how they trust themselves, or how they engage with the world, or how they start to think differently, instead of being hard on yourself, or instead of listening to this and recognizing , oh my gosh, I've been doing it all wrong, start asking yourself better questions. So sometimes we just start with judgment, or trying to make , a bunch of different changes, and sometimes it can really start asking yourself new questions, better questions. So what would it feel if I did this? What are the costs of doing it this way? What way? What are the benefits of doing it this way? What ? What are what would happen if I tried this, or what do I so just asking yourself questions to get curious can open up space for new options and for you to think things through in a different way. And that's so different than our typical way of talking to ourselves, which is from a place of judgment, and you should do it this way, and you should do it that way, and more, , being our own dictators in our head. So that one of them with
Jamie Lee that, the profound thing that I'm taking away is that imposter syndrome is not a pathology, yeah. Was , right, yeah, it's not a pathology, because, you said, we're conditioned. There's a system that benefits from us not feeling as powerful. My colleague Andrea liebross says that trust starts with, , the T thought options. So you were just talking about, I have options. I can ask myself a different question, not, Oh, my God, why am I always feeling this way? And what's wrong with me? Which I have plenty asked myself that question, right? But we have thought options can be , Oh, what if it's not that I've been doing it wrong. What if my hormones are not balanced, ? What if? What if it's not me, it's the system. So I really appreciated everything that you've shared. Thank you so much for your time. Where can people go to learn more about the brilliant work you do and about shameless leadership? Podcast?
Sara Dean (she/her) Yes, so you were a guest on my show, and we had such a good conversation and a different conversation than we had today. So yes, people should go listen to the show. And so if people go to wherever you're listening to this podcast, just go do a search for shameless leadership, and it will pop right up. And people can listen to the interview with you. And then people can find me at Sara dean.com that's Sara dean.com or on LinkedIn. I loved LinkedIn fans and followers and stalkers and people in my DMs. People can go to Sara dean.com/linkedin to find me there. Those are, yeah, those are the starting places I work with people as an executive coach. I do leadership and team, team and leadership trainings and organizations and really with the focus and emphasis on helping people find their voice and amplify their voice in different ways, to go after new visibility opportunities and really develop communication confidence and thought leadership, which is just very fun and juicy work. So I love doing that within organizational settings and teams outside of my executive coaching work
Jamie Lee excellent, and I'm glad you're doing it, because we need this, , to paraphrase feminist perspective within organizations, really do. Thank you so much, Sara,
Sara Dean (she/her) thank you so much for having me. Jamie