Tobi: You are listening to The Design You Podcast with Tobi Fairley, episode number 133.
Female Announcer: Welcome to The Design You Podcast, a show where interior designers and creatives learn to say no to busy and say yes to more health, wealth, and joy. Here’s your host, Tobi Fairley.
Tobi: Hey, friends. So, today is something. Today’s episode is something. Today is Tobi getting coached live on an episode. Really cool, right? So, this episode is a conversation between me and Carrie Marshall who is a fabulous life coach and who is now part of the Design You coaching team which I’m so excited about.
She’s just incredible and our members are so, so lucky to have her as am I. So, today we were going to already be talking about fear of failure or a little bit kind of the the imposter syndrome and what happened was I had a situation in my own life where I was feeling really vulnerable right before recording this episode and I said, “What if you just coach me through this?” Because it’s so easy for you guys to think that people who have successful businesses or who have successful Instagram presences and are influencers and all the things that we idolize, it’s easy for you to think we don’t struggle with anything at all.
Here’s the thing, we absolutely struggle with things all the time. The same exact things that you do. The only difference is maybe we work through it or we start to learn patterns, especially somebody like me who’s a life coach, but it’s because I’m working on it all the time. But we’re humans. You’re human, I’m human and we are going to be going through the same things whether we like it or not.
So, this episode is pretty real and pretty raw in a lot of ways and it’s Carrie coaching me through some real-life emotions and I hope you really, really love it. I hope it really connects with you and if you want to be coached by me or by Carrie then you need to get your buns in the Design You coaching program.
We recently closed the program to the public for this certain season right now. We recently decided that the program wasn’t going to be open all the time. It’s going to only open periodically a couple of times a year, but get on our waitlist, we’ll put it in the show notes, we’ll be posting it on Instagram. Get on the waitlist because you don’t want to miss the opportunity to get in there and start really changing your life.
But in the meantime, here’s Carrie coaching me and having a real in-depth conversation about what I was struggling with and I know a lot of times you’re struggling with the same thing.
Hey, Carrie, welcome to The Design You Podcast.
Carrie: I’m so excited to be here with you today, Tobi. Thanks for having me.
Tobi: This is so fun. So, for everybody who’s listening this is an exciting moment for me because Carrie just joined our team and she’s going to tell you more about her in a second. We met through The Life Coach School and we’ve been going through mastercoach training together, but this is a big deal because I haven’t had – I’ve had plenty of team members, but I’ve never had another life coach on my team that is coaching people in my programs and heck, we’re going to show you in a minute, she’s about to be coaching me.
Carrie: I was going to say we’re like going to get right into it. It’s so much fun to be able to be in your program. It’s been the best opportunity to work with your team, number one. I mean, Tobi has done an amazing job hiring the best people on the planet, I think. But then, also creating a community in Design You of phenomenal people that are really working to up-level and grow their businesses.
Tobi: Thank you for that. Well, I just watched yesterday – I sat yesterday afternoon and watched your second call for the month and it’s just so good. I was enamored, I was like all in. I was buying in to the whole thing, I was listening, and it was so good. I just have this level of joy and relief and feeling supported and feeling connected. It’s just something that I haven’t really experienced in this way before, and so I’m just so glad that you’re here.
So, before we get into what we’re going to do today which is going to be really fun. Well, maybe not fun for me.
Carrie: I was going to say, you’ll have a lot of fun, Tobi.
Tobi: You’re going to have fun. Everybody listening is going to have a great time. We’ll see how much fun I have. This will be fun to see. But before we do that, tell them about your story, a little bit, who you are, where you came from besides the fact that we met through mastercoach training.
Carrie: Yeah, absolutely. So, I have been certified through The Life Coach School as a life coach since 2018, and in my life coaching business I have really focused on coaching men. From the day that I got certified I really found that there was this need for men to have life coaching. I think that there’s not a lot of spaces for men to be vulnerable, to be open and so I decided that that’s what I wanted to do is really help men with their mindset.
It has been the best thing that I have ever done. I’ve got to meet so many wonderful people and really, I think that it has been awesome to see the difference between coaching women and coaching men because I do think that there is a difference. It’s been so much fun, but yeah, I’m always just looking for what’s the next thing?
I love talking about business. I think that I have been an entrepreneur since the time I was 6. We grew up in a family that my dad was a dentist, solo practice, and so he wasn’t only the dentist, but he was the marketer and he was the scheduler and he was all of these things and he included us which was really fun.
Movie wasn’t just movie night, but it was movie night and stuff these envelopes with the next marketing campaign.
Tobi: Cool, yeah.
Carrie: So, I’ve always loved business. I’ve always been passionate about what business looks like, how we do business. How our personal lives match our business which is where I really started to coach me. Start with business, but also talk to them about how is your personal life matching and strengthening and supporting your business?
That’s kind of a little bit about me. I have three beautiful girls, I’m married to an awesome man that I actually hired when I was a snowboard instructor so we met doing something that we both loved. So, we’re just kind of living the life and having a great time doing it.
Tobi: That is so fun. Well, I love everything about your story and I learned some things about you, but what I really like is this intersection between personal life and business that you were talking about because I think that leads us right into what we’re going to talk about today and maybe experiment with today because I often say we don’t have a business brain and a personal brain, we have one brain.
But somehow when we’re in business we want to pretend like all the personal stuff doesn’t impact us, doesn’t affect us, doesn’t apply. We want to just turn off all the personal development work. Like, don’t make me do that woo woo stuff, I just want to stay over here and do business. You can’t be successful, in my opinion, in business without tackling the other side, right?
Carrie: Yeah, I see a lot of people talk about compartmentalization and I’m always telling them, it’s a storage unit, you can only put so much in there before it spills out into somebody else’s storage unit, right? So, they do intersect and that’s why we have to really see that isn’t a work brain and a personal brain, they do. As much as you think that – maybe you’re at a 9 to 5 and you think that your drive you’re going to not talk about work, but it absolutely shows up when you come home and you’re stressed and you don’t want to – you check out, right?
Tobi: Yeah, totally. Even if you’re not sharing about it, unless you get really good at managing your mind and dealing with those emotions, even then it’s still going to seep in. But even if you’re not speaking it, it’s still there. The thoughts are there, the emotions are there, even the physical embodiment of the feelings is there, right?
Carrie: Yeah, and I think that what you just said is so important, just because you’re not speaking it doesn’t mean it’s not there because, like you said, it’s one brain, it’s functioning as one brain. Just because you’ve made a conscious decision not to do it doesn’t mean that now it’s that way in your brain. It absolutely is one brain that’s working together for your benefit or your detriment, honestly.
Tobi: Yeah, and the alternative to managing your mind and managing the personal and the business together is that a lot of us just want to cover up that stress that we’re bringing either to work from home or from work to home and we do that with behaviors that don’t really serve us: buffering, eating, drinking, shopping, anything to distract us or numb us out.
A lot of times I find, it’s true for me, I know it’s true for a lot of the people I coach and probably the same for you, the results people actually don’t like in their lives are usually more from the buffering behavior than from just dealing with the actual thing that they were covering up to begin with, right?
Carrie: Absolutely. Buffering is one of the biggest things that we see like you said of, “I don’t know how I got here. I don’t know how I have zero in my bank account. I don’t know how I have this amount of weight on.” It’s the buffering activity that has got us here instead of, like you said, just facing what it is that we’re buffering from, facing the emotion, facing the thoughts, facing the circumstances happening.
Tobi: Yeah, and looking at why maybe we’re not showing up or whatever. We’re not creating the thing we really want. Yeah, it’s so interesting. So what you and I were just chatting about before we came on which is kind of an experiment that we think we’re going to try, we’ll see how this goes. We’re going to do a combination of sort of discussion which is what the podcasts always are, but maybe even some real, live coaching, you coaching me.
Carrie: Absolutely, yeah, we’re going to get into it.
Tobi: Which is going to be really fun. So, just to set the scene here’s kind of where I am today. When we came on and you’re like, “How are you?” I’m like, “I’m making it,” and I had just done a post in our private Design You Instagram account talking about some frustration, some results I created through the COVID six months that I don’t like, put some weight back on, some other things. Then, I came straight out of that little live that I did and I open up my Instagram account, my main one, and my team who it is their job to help me post things and they had selected a picture of me to post and I didn’t like it.
Everybody is loving it. They’re like, “You look so great. You look amazing. You look wonderful.” And I’m coming from the gym already in this place of self-judgment which you and I also spoke about earlier, we see so much of this, so much. I mean, we’re all afraid other people are going to judge us, but really who’s judging us is us. We’re so hard on ourselves and we’re so mean to ourselves and so I had just come out of this video where I’m like, “I’m going to really, really focus on cutting out a few kind of behaviors,” one of which is extreme self-judgment and I went right over to my other Instagram account and I’m like, yes, immediately.
Carrie: Here’s the first thing for us is it really – and immediately, yeah.
Tobi: I was like, “Oh my hips, and I look fat, and my stomach, and my – “ like literally – and I’m like, “What’s wrong with that sweater? And why does it look like it has a stain on it? Is that the sun?” I mean, I went down a laundry list and after asking myself all of those questions of course I felt horrible, horrible, but it was such a beautiful moment for me to see, thank you, God and the universe for immediately holding me accountable to what I just finished saying to my audience. So, let’s talk about that.
Carrie: I think, Tobi, that so often people are thinking that as coaches, especially you and I, not just coaches but we’re in mastercoach training that we have it all figured out with our mindset, that you and I don’t go through these types of things as well. And so, it’s so important that people understand that there’s never a point with your mindset that you get to the finish line.
Tobi: Right, and the same with being an entrepreneur. Just because you have made however many tens of thousands of followers or you’ve made a million dollars or several or whatever doesn’t mean that you don’t feel the same fear of failure and self-judgment and worry and envy and all the things. We’re human beings. We feel all the feelings, right?
Carrie: Exactly. So, let’s kind of talk about this. When you saw that picture and all of that judgment came up, what do you think that was about? What do you think the fear or the judgment was around?
Tobi: So, let me go to this place in my head for just a second, this quiet, and y’all, this is what coaching looks like. You’re getting a bird’s ear view, right?
Carrie: Absolutely. Yeah, and this is what it is. We need to be able to process and think through things.
Tobi: I want to say it’s a really old pattern of self-judgment. The life coach in me goes, you can’t have an old thought, you can only have a current thought. So, it’s funny as life coaches because we kind of try to intellectualize ourselves out of or life coach lingo ourselves out of it and I have to come back.
So, let me think about that for a minute. The real – I mean, I guess it is the not enough, not good enough, not perfect. I don’t know. Some level of I’m not supposed to look like that.
Carrie: Okay, so let’s kind of think about that. You see the picture and you have that thought, “I’m not supposed to look like that,” what do you think that creates for you? What feeling does that create for you?
Tobi: A couple of things, and I know we want to probably get to the stronger one, but sadness, a little bit and also, I mean, I almost want to cry right now talking about it. Sadness and also like giving up. Like, I’ll never – which is again another thought, I know, but it kind of brings me to this place of yeah, I’ll never have a successful business and look the way I want to in my body at the same time.
Carrie: So, when you’re thinking that, “I’ll never get there,” and you’re feeling sad, what do you do? It sounds like one of the things that you start to do is you start to judge yourself.
Tobi: Yeah, totally. And I was in this place today because I’ve been practicing awareness around judgment really, really consistently and really leaning into self-love and this one felt so visceral and so – kind of caught me off-guard. It was a beautiful example because it wasn’t easy to go straight to self-love. I vacillated between it and then I was practicing other thoughts about myself and other – gratitude, but there was this same – I hadn’t processed the original thought which is, “I’m not supposed to look that way.”
So, it’s going back and forth almost having this internal battle of, “But you’re beautiful,” “But you’re not supposed to look that way,” “But those hips have carried you through amazing things,” “But you’re not supposed to look that way.” It felt really tiring. It felt really – it’s not frustrated. It was a different – I don’t know what the word would be that’s kind of like that sadness, not apathy exactly. It felt really like a strong emotion that was helpless. Helpless is what it was. It felt helpless.
Carrie: Okay, so from that place of when you’re judging yourself, kind of going back and forth between the thoughts about, “I’m not supposed to look that way, but this has carried me through a lot.” You’re feeling helpless. What do you think that creates for you?
Tobi: My action was – well, I almost took the picture down three times. I almost did three separate times.
Carrie: Let’s pause right there, okay? So, that thought of, “I’m not supposed to look this way,” and that urge, that desire to go and take something away so you don’t look, so that the world doesn’t see you that way, right?
Tobi: Yes, hide, hide, I wanted to hide.
Carrie: Yeah, that’s the result that you’re creating. You’re like actually going to a place where you’re hiding.
Tobi: Right. Yeah, I totally was going there and here’s what kept me from it. Number one, thankfully, I’ve assigned this job to my team members. If it was myself and I had somehow put it up I’d be like, “Get that down.” But because I asked someone else to do it I wouldn’t take it down because I thought that would be bratty and immature which is also a self-judgment if we think about it.
Carrie: I was just going to say, let’s even watch the self-judgment there, right?
Tobi: Yeah, and then the other reason was I watching the response to the picture and all these beautiful comments were there. “You look great. You look amazing. Yes, I love fall also, and I love your camo jacket.” All these beautiful things and then my brain wanted to say, “Yeah, but they don’t really think so. Yeah, that person that said you look really great probably was like, ‘Thank goodness her hips are bigger than mine.’” Like this terrible, mean girl tape running in the background.
Carrie: Tobi, I think that’s a really great place to pause and think about this because this is what our brain offers us, is it takes our own self-judgment and it reflects it on other people.
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: So, then we have thoughts about other people’s thoughts instead of just saying, “No, this is my own. These are my own thoughts. Could I actually hold this space for maybe people really believe that? Maybe that’s why they commented it, and this really is just my own judgment that’s showing up for me right now.”
Tobi: I think this is so important for everybody listening because I coach so many people and I know you do, too and we will have many, many more opportunities in Design You to coach people on this very thing and it kind of manifests like fear of failure, but when you get underneath it they say I’m afraid to be judged, but always the person judging is them, always, every single time.
Carrie: Always. Here’s the interesting fact is that if we didn’t have the judgment ourselves the thought wouldn’t even be there.
Tobi: Right.
Carrie: If you weren’t judging your own body – if you were like, “That looks great.” Someone else could have said it to you or posted and you would’ve been like, “That’s weird.” It’s because the self-judgment and that thought is already there that it becomes something that we say, “Oh, I’m so afraid of judgment.” It’s already within you if you have a fear of judgment.
Tobi: Yes, that’s so interesting and I kind of pride myself on not having fear of judgment from other people and I don’t care what people think of me, but it has been a consistent thing that I care what I think of me. I often hold myself to a really high, unsustainable standard which leads to actually the behavior and the body that I don’t want. It leads to these high, high expectations that I end up either feeling overwhelmed from or buffering to get through it, eating so I can keep working, skipping the gym so I can work.
So, it’s this cycle of judge myself, not good enough, try to prove to myself I’m good enough which, of course, never works ever.
Carrie: Right. Well, and the other thing like you just said and you mentioned so beautifully there is that oftentimes when we’re in a place of self-judgment in one area, for instance, our personal life, our body, we go to the area that we’re really good at. So, we go to our business.
Tobi: Yeah, totally.
Carrie: I see that happen a lot of people that are not taking care of themselves or they have things in their family life that aren’t going well, but they have a lot of success. They have people that look up to them. They have all of these things and so they’re like, “I’ll just unconsciously or consciously go to the place where I do get validation so that I don’t have to look at these judgments that I’m having about myself.”
Tobi: 100%, let’s stay there for a minute because there’s something really deep coming up right there. You just hit the nail on the head and I haven’t heard it said exactly that way and that is so true that any time I encounter a part of my life that I don’t love or that I don’t feel in control in – maybe I’m worried about somebody else in my life or my daughter or something that’s outside of my control my go-to place is to go to work which is where I do feel in control, I do feel really powerful and successful and I do get a lot of validation.
Carrie: Yeah, so can you see that pattern of, “This isn’t going right,” or, “I’m scared,” or, “I’m afraid, let me go to this one that there’s all of those things.” There’s the power, there’s the validation, there’s the expertise in this area. It’s that lack or the unwillingness to fill that emotion of fear or helplessness, sadness, those types –
Tobi: Yeah, totally. That’s so interesting. Recently, not too long I was being coached by someone and I said, “I have this hyper ability to focus on work for long periods of time.” She said, “You say that like that’s a good thing.” I was like, “Ooh, touché.” Then I said, “And if I’m really being honest one of the ways that I do that, one of the ways I work a ridiculous number of hours at times is only by buffering at the same time.” I did that for years.
I would work for a full day and then think, “I still have all this stuff to do,” and the way I would keep working and give myself energy or stamina would be to eat something. It doesn’t matter what the food is. It could be junk food, it could be literally grapes or watermelon, it could be lettuce, if I’m eating anything to keep working there’s a problem with what I’m doing to myself, right?
Carrie: Exactly. Yeah, that’s exactly it is what am I doing? What am I fueling this with? Am I fueling it with a buffering that’s keeping me going or am I fueling it with the thoughts, the emotions, the ability to do the work and to show up from that space?
Tobi: So interesting, and that’s what we came to in that coaching session. She said, “Not only is it not a good thing,” she’s like, “You kind of need to think about – “ and we kind of came to this place of like, “Oh, interesting. Look how I’m using food almost like a drug to keep working when I should just stop working.” I even was like, “It’ll be almost like if I was taking drugs or cocaine or something so I could keep working all night.” It’s the same behavior because the answer my body and my mind are trying to say is it’s time to stop working but I wasn’t and the reason why we just uncovered, because I feel great there. I feel important there. I feel validated there. If I’m not there I have to look at other parts of my life that I don’t necessarily feel quite the same.
Carrie: Entrepreneurs do this all the time. Like you just said, it’s like we are fueling ourselves with different things and it’s actually to our detriment. We’re not having a hard stop time where we’re going to say, “I’m going to go to my family. I’m going to go to the gym. I’m going to go and take care of myself.” It’s like, “Let’s stay here because I love to work, I know how to push hard. I know where the results – I know actually how to get those results.”
Tobi: Yes. Yeah, I was even just saying on the video that I mentioned earlier that I just did before we recorded this, I was saying in the video, “Members of Design You, you know when sometimes I ask you how something is serving you? Something that seems negative is serving you?” They’re always confused. I’m like, “Here’s a beautiful example.” When I’m blowing through my workday and I said I was going to stop at 5 or 6 o’clock and I’m still working at 9 o’clock it’s benefitting me somehow or I wouldn’t be doing it, right?
Carrie: Exactly.
Tobi: So, it’s taking a huge toll and it has a cost, it has a cost on my relationships, it has a cost on my wellness, it has a cost on my body, it has a cost on whatever, a lot of things, but –
Carrie: There’s always a payoff.
Tobi: Yeah, there’s always a payoff. So, I think that’s why this one area has seemed like the one for so many years that I couldn’t – I believed I can’t get a handle on or why can’t I be so good at everything else in my life but balancing work and life? Or taking care of my health and body while I work?
The answer is that very thing because there’s a payoff. There’s a competing desire and a payoff that’s happening. If it was just bad I would stop, right?
Carrie: Exactly.
Tobi: Which I think people – this is such a great example for people to hear because it’s so confusing when we say we want to do one thing but we keep doing something else, right?
Carrie: Yeah, and I think that working out is a really good example of this. We all know the benefits of working out and so consciously we understand that, but the payoff to work there’s something there about, “Oh, I skipped my work out because I was in flow. I was this – “
Tobi: Exactly.
Carrie: There’s a payoff of why we’re not showing up and doing the thing that we know is good for us.
Tobi: Yeah, and I think what I said in that video earlier which was a little bit of an ah-ha moment as well is what I’m noticing now that I did this during COVID for the last six months I went back into these old patterns of working instead of caring for myself the way that I would want to. So, when I was working all those months instead of working out and those other things I thought that I was getting a big benefit, the results I was creating in business, but when I look at the level of benefit, the level of the positive result of working, and the level of the negative of result on my body or my relationships or my sleep habits they’re not equal.
I got a marginal increase in working those other three or four hours a night, but I had a – in some ways a detrimental decrease in wellness, sleep, relationship connection and that kind of thing. So, it’s not like it’s an even trade. The diminishing returns of working three more hours after I’ve worked a full day versus the huge benefit of spending those three hours on something that really makes a difference in other areas are not comparable.
Carrie: Which is why with entrepreneurs we really want to be able to look at the full circle of what’s happening, business and personal life. I mean, that was such a great example, just like you said, three hours of work I did get a payoff but what was it at the cost of? What was the cost of missing a workout? Missing dinner with my family? So, all of these things that really are going to day after day make such a huge impact which is why we want to – and in Design You we talk about this, not just build the entrepreneur, but build the entrepreneur’s personal life as well.
Tobi: Yes, yes, yes, so we say we want to help you build health, wealth, and joy because if you just wealth or you just build fame, but you don’t have health and you don’t have joy what is the purpose? I was just the perfect example of when you make certain choices based on your thoughts your results can be the opposite of what you want.
So, where I am now, which is so funny that we started this conversation with, is I do at least have a higher level of awareness of my self-judgment. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t come up for me, because it did and it felt really strong and it felt really sad, and emotions were very real, but at the same time because I’ve been doing this work of learning to watch my thoughts and manage my thoughts or see what they manifest for me, see what they create, I can stand outside and be the watcher and go, “Ohh.”
While I’m judging myself I’m also watching myself judge myself and I’m also very aware that I am judging myself and I’m also very aware of the really negative emotion that judging is creating. Because it’s actually the judging that’s harming me, not the looking at the picture that my body is not a certain size. It’s the judging of self that is the sort of abusive piece of that.
Carrie: Absolutely, and that’s what we want to be able to do is as we see these things, okay, it’s not the picture, it’s not seeing the picture, it’s the thoughts that are happening because of the picture.
Tobi: Right.
Carrie: It’s the judgments that are coming and, like you said, being able to see it and not make it – like I always say, don’t add on a layer of shame on top of judgment that’s going to add to some more shame.
Tobi: Yes, exactly. So, I think that that was happening. What’s really happening for me right now which is so funny because when the picture was taken actually last fall I was smaller and weighed less than I weigh right now. So, I’m actually caught up in a story right now of how I went backwards during COVID that’s bringing up the judgment, because if I really looked at the picture – if I took a picture of me now, I would look different even than in that picture and not necessarily in what I might judge as a good way or whatever.
So, it’s just so fascinating and that’s what I think is important for people to see. It’s the circumstance, it’s what you think about it because I could also be looking at that picture right now and maybe I would be looking at it going, “Oh my gosh, you lost 50 pounds and you look amazing,” but that’s not the story I’m telling myself.
Carrie: Exactly, or even looking at the picture and thinking about the circumstance of the experience of getting those pictures taken or what was going on in your life last fall. I think that that’s so fascinating to see, like we’re talking about, a circumstance is just this picture that you have that’s been posted and then where does my brain go versus the infinite possibilities that are available for it to go?
Tobi: Right, I could’ve thought, “Oh, how fun, we’ve been wanting to post fall pictures forever of – “ or, “Oh, how neat, that brings back a beautiful memory of that afternoon we took those,” or, “I love that jacket, too. I should get that out and wear it.” There’s literally a million other thoughts besides the one that said, “Look at your hips and your tummy,” and I chose that one. This is the kind of thing we do all the time as humans. We do it all the time if we’re not aware, if we’re not practicing.
Carrie: Well, and we have to remind ourselves that that judgment comes in because of something that’s been ingrained with us which is that we’re always looking for things that are potentially going to be hurtful to us. That are actually going to – it’s like that caveman brain that we talk about. We’re really looking for things that are going to be detrimental to us, hurt us, harm us, kill us.
We don’t have a lot of things that are that way and so our brains now are in the self-judgment of seeing something like a picture and being like, “Okay, my job is to find everything that’s wrong and we’re really good at it.”
Tobi: Yeah, and to that point – I love that reminder, because I’ve known that before and I kind of forgot it. I also pride myself on fixing problems and getting all hyped up again about starting over or never feeling this way again or finally fixing this thing and my brain goes into like fixer mode and I feel really comfortable in fixer mode. That’s like my go-to place which I love that brought that up because I need to get some perspective on this because that actually would be just part of the pattern again.
Carrie: Right, and when you can tell yourself the story that you’re really good at fixing things, guess what else you’re really going to be good at.
Tobi: Finding things that need to be fixed.
Carrie: Finding things that are going to need to be fixed, finding problems.
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: So, we’re taking something that’s a belief that sounds really amazing and lovely, “I’m a fixer,” but then we have to open up and be able to say, “Well, what is the negative? What is that also creating? Oh, well, I’m really good at finding problems.”
Tobi: That is so true, and if we see ourselves complaining a lot or judging ourselves a lot, that’s exactly the headspace we’re in is finding problems, finding things that are wrong, finding things that aren’t good enough, finding things that aren’t – and we can always decide something is not good enough and I have reminded my clients, but we have to remember it myself even as coaches to say, “How do you know that if you were 20 pounds smaller than in that picture you still wouldn’t be criticizing something about yourself?” It has nothing to do with a number on a scale or a size of a pair of pants or any – a bulge or a bump or anything else because no matter if you practice this kind of self-judgment, complaining and criticizing all the time you can always find something wrong, right?
Carrie: Yeah, and I was actually just coaching a client on this today and what I was offering to her is we talk about being able to be the type of person when we get somewhere like the size of jeans that we’re wearing. We never talk about how am I going to become that person that love that space. Like you said, we’re going to get to that size of jeans and then we’re going to be like, “Well, there’s this cellulite here that now I need to get rid of.” Instead of understanding that we have to have the capacity to love what is, love that we’ve got there, love what we have. But it starts with –
Tobi: And even love where we are before we get there, right?
Carrie: Exactly. That’s what it starts with. It starts with accepting and loving where we’re at and knowing that that’s a decision that we make to go after it, get something different, but we have to start with acceptance of where we are.
Tobi: Yeah, let’s talk about that for a minute because I think what most people are afraid of of accepting or loving themselves and this is the very work I’ve been doing for about probably, maybe 60 days, 60 or 90 days, some major self-love work and I think people’s initial fear with that work is that if I love and accept myself the way I am which my brain wants to say is not good enough, not rich enough, not skinny enough, not pretty enough, not whatever enough – all the enoughs.
Carrie: All of it.
Tobi: If I love her or him now then I won’t change anything and in fact I’ll just get bigger or poorer or unhappier or whatever which is not the truth at all. But that’s what our fear is, is that if I accept something that my brain wants to think is not good enough that I’m like giving up, I’m checking out, and I’ll just be here forever or worse. So, let’s talk about that a little bit.
Carrie: The example that I like to use is to think about something that you love like an object, something that you love so, so much.
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: I got a car last year that I love. It’s just – I went from van life, I graduated from the van life –
Tobi: Yes, mommy van.
Carrie: Yes, the mom van, I got myself an SUV, I love that car so much. How do you think I take care of that car that I love so much versus the van?
Tobi: Exactly. That’s a beautiful example.
Carrie: The van that was run down, right?
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: That had all of the snacks that had ground down into –
Tobi: Like the old French fries or the Cheerios and stuff.
Carrie: Exactly. So, that’s the difference. It’s the difference between seeing that we don’t love that we try and just ignore versus something that we love, we actually take better care of it.
Tobi: Wow, that is a huge, huge ah-ha to think about because – yeah, I love this example and I love the way you said that because we think hating ourselves is going to make us workout or be thinner or be richer or be more successful or show up, but you’re right. What do you do to things, objects, people, things that you hate, you certainly don’t spend time –
Carrie: You got to take care of it.
Tobi: – taking care of them, but what do you do with things that you love? You absolutely cherish and nurture and polish up and put in a place – all of that. That’s such a good example and I don’t think I’ve heard it said exactly that way and I love that so much. So, anytime our brain wants to argue and say, “But if I accept this thing the way it is,” we have to remember that is exactly the way to get to whatever we want in the future, right?
Carrie: Exactly. If I could love myself and love my body completely, how much better do I take care of it?
Tobi: Yes, yes, yes. I mean, because how much do we judge and talk negatively to someone that we just adore?
Carrie: Exactly.
Tobi: That we have unconditional love for as well and it’s not just love, but it’s unconditional love. It’s like I love you no matter – like with our children. I mean, I think about my kids and I don’t think, “I would love you, but you grew into a larger size pants. So I now don’t love you anymore.”
Carrie: Exactly.
Tobi: Or, “I love you, but you ate that doughnut, so now I don’t love you.” Or, “I love you, but you stayed up too late, so now I don’t love you.” I mean, absolutely, of course, we don’t do that, but we’re doing that all the time with ourselves.
Carrie: We are. We’re putting a very, very conditional love on ourselves.
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: “I’ll love you when you are a certain size.”
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: Or, “I’ll love you when the business has made some accomplishment then I can show people and be excited about it,” and all of the things that go with loving something instead of thinking about starting a business. “Am I willing to post about starting out? Launching a new podcast or a course?” Instead of waiting for it to have all of the accomplishments, that’s what actually gets us there is when we can post about a new course that’s launching. That’s how people get to know about it, not after it’s already been there and done that and it’s had all of the things happen to it.
Tobi: Exactly. It’s so good, and where my brain’s going, I saw a quote that my friend, Amber Lilyestrom posted and I shared it on Instagram this morning and I think you might have even liked it and it said something like, do you remember? Something like, every person perceives you in their own way. Every person’s mind sees you in its own unique way or something to that effect.
In other words, you think you’re controlling even how the world sees you, but every single human is deciding individually. All of their judgments about you, all of their perceptions of you. So, the point of the quote was kind of like if that’s the case, if everybody is seeing you differently all the time with no control on your part then why are you not just showing up the way you want to?
Carrie: Exactly.
Tobi: I think the next step is like if everybody is already going to be perceiving you or judging you or thinking things – and judging could be positive, it doesn’t have to be a negative judgment, if they’re going to be doing whatever they’re doing based on their own thoughts, their own life, their own experience anyway then why would you choose to be mean or harsh or unkind to yourself and create suffering which is optional for you? That’s even the next step of that for me.
Carrie: It is, and it’s really being able to say, “How could I even have my own back, allow people to have their judgments and all of that, and really, really know that that’s because of their experience, their thoughts?”
Tobi: Yes.
Carrie: I can’t go and change that, but what I can and what I am responsible for is my perception of myself.
Tobi: Yes, yes, I love it. So, anything else before we go that you want to share in the realm of – I mean, we’ve talked a lot about personal, but in the realm of business? Because I think it definitely shows up when it’s time for us to put ourselves on Instagram Live or even have a photo of ourself on our website or go out and get an opportunity to speak on someone’s stage or to partner with someone, like all the ways that we hold ourselves small and back in our business is the same thing, right?
Carrie: It’s the exact same thing. We hold ourselves back because of judgments that we have, you know? Am I going to ask to be on somebody’s podcast and they’re going to say no. Well, what are we going to make that mean? What are we making a picture mean? It’s not the people that have the most beautiful pictures, it’s not the people that have accomplishment after accomplishment, it’s the people that consistently show up and say, “I’m going to do it anyways. I’m going to allow that picture to exist and I’m going to manage my own mind around it and I’m going to get back to business.”
Tobi: Right, and even being willing to see the other side of it. One of the things that was coming into my head when I was judging myself earlier was just as many people that might be saying, “She shouldn’t wear that,” or whatever, there’s that many or more people saying, “I love that she’s showing me her body. I love that she’s confident. She inspires me to show up in that way.” So, every time we hide because of some made up narrative that may or may not even be happening in the world we’re preventing ourselves from making a difference with all the people that would see it as a positive or an inspiration or that would move them to create a better version of themselves, right?
Carrie: Exactly. Well, and the biggest expense in our business and in our lives is lack of action.
Tobi: Yes, 100%.
Carrie: So, when we’re not in the space because of judgment that’s lack of action that’s happening. We’re allowing self-judgment to hold us back and it’s an expense to our lives and our businesses.
Tobi: Oh my gosh, that is so important. It’s this final little thing that we’re saying, but let’s hang there for just a second because you’re so right that that lack of action, we might call it procrastination or something else, fear of failure, whatever you call it, the lack of taking the actions that move the needle in our business is the biggest thing in-between where we currently are and where we want to be.
Carrie: Exactly.
Tobi: Yeah, so good, wow. Okay, this was so fun.
Carrie: So much fun.
Tobi: Thank you for coaching me. I love that we show people what this looks like. I love that we show people we need this, too. I love that we give people a glimpse of what they can expect if they come in Design You and they’re struggling with something because we’re there to coach them in this very same way without judgment of them.
Carrie: That’s, I think, the best part about coaching that I think that a lot of people miss is that you absolutely can get coached on anything and the coach is non-judgmental and our job is to hold space and just be able to sit with you, listen to your thoughts, and help you work through it just like we did today and I think that – I love that we did this today because it is, it’s an example of what coaching looks like.
Tobi: Yeah, me too. Thank you, and I feel so much better. I feel so much better. I love that – what I’m taking with me from this coaching session is that concept of what do we do with something we really, really love? Do we take care of that or do we not? Do we let it go? Like you said, the car, like if we really, really love a car are we just going to pull up next to someone and ding the doors and let it be filthy and never wash it? Of course not. We’re going to be out there with a rag polishing up every little spot, right?
So, that’s what I’m taking with me today is remembering – of course, I’m taking a lot of things, but that one thing really stands out to me that if I really want to care for myself at the level I say I do it can only come through that level of loving myself and that’s true for everybody. Thank you so much. Okay, everybody. I don’t even have to tell everybody – I mean, they can go find you on Instagram. You can tell them your Instagram handle so they can find you if they want to follow you, but they can also find you right here at Tobi Fairley Inc. in the Design You program.
Carrie: I was going to say, that’s the best place to find me because when we’re in the program we really get to kind of sit knee-to-knee. You get to talk to me, all of those fun things, coach, just be part of the community that is so incredible and if you’re on Instagram you can find me @driveyourthoughtscoaching.
Tobi: Love it. Thank you so much, Carrie. Thank you personally and thank you for all of the listeners who got so much out of today.
Carrie: You bet. Thanks so much for having me today.
Tobi: Okay, so did you see yourself in that? Could you relate to my self-judgment, my self-criticism, my perfectionism, all those things that were rearing their head during this coaching session and conversation with Carrie? I know the answer is yes. I know that you’re like, “Yes, Tobi, you were speaking directly to me.” You and I are cut from the same mold because that’s what we do as humans, right?
We’ve been taught that only being perfect that’s the only option, right? So, I hope this was helpful. I hope you took away some of the amazing nuggets that I took away and I hope you’ll see me back here next week with another great episode of The Design You Podcast and in the meantime, as I told you earlier, head over and get on our waitlist if you’re not already a Design You member because you want in this program where we help you uncover your own blocks and your own situations that are holding you back just like we did with me today. Okay, see you next week, guys. Bye for now.
Thank you so much for listening to The Design You Podcast. If you are ready to dig deep and do the important work we talk about here on the podcast of transforming your mindset and creating a scalable online business model there has never been a more important time than right now.
So, join me and the incredible creative entrepreneurs in my Design You Coaching Program today. You can get all the details at tobifairley.com.
