Why You Overthink Every Conversation After It Ends ft. Shadé Zahrai

Are you somebody who's ever struggled with self-doubt? I know I have. Today I am talking with the one and only Dr. Shadei Zarii, who's probably one of the loveliest humans you'll ever get to hear. Her book is titled Big Trust. Rewire Self-Doubt, Find Your Confidence and Fuel Success. This is a book you are going to want to get. You'll find the links down in the show notes. Today we are talking all about self-doubt, the elements of it, what happens, and how to fix it, how to attack it, and how to live with it. It's an episode you're going to love. I hope you enjoy the conversation. I want to go back to when we talk about what a lot of people listening don't understand, what happens from the whatever we call that space. Creator, influencer, author, speaker, you. We find some vein that we want to plug into and go, I like this. I like talking about this kind of stuff. Now we're at a place where you have a book, you do the podcasts, you do the conversations, and especially after shows, podcast shows, or even speaking, right after it, there's this moment where, at least for me, I turn into the biggest critic of myself. I know you're going to have a lot on this. What is the science behind being your own worst critic? Where do we start? There's actually so much we could explore here. I think we need to acknowledge that any kind of doubt that we have, any kind of criticism that we experience, it's entirely natural. It's entirely human. It's a function of the brain that is wired to try and keep us safe and protect us. How that manifests in our modern day world is that we become hypercritical and we attack ourselves and we become our own worst enemy. Those people who are able to still experience that, but then detach from that voice and still take action anyway, they're the ones who succeed. It's actually super fascinating. I spent the last five years studying self-doubt, why we doubt ourselves, why we get self-critical. You got a PhD. Oh yes, exactly. One of the hardest things I've ever done. A doctor now. Organizational behavior. Organizational behavior, exactly. It's like the applied psychology within organizations and how it affects us at work. That's incredible. Job performance, career satisfaction. What we found is that for a vast majority of people, so I'm talking about 95% of people, we all have self-doubt. We have that inner critical voice, but not everyone suffers intensely as a result of it. There is something they do differently and what they do differently in layman's terms is they can detach from the voice. So basically they know it's there. They maybe engage with it a little, but then they make either a conscious or a subconscious decision to go, okay, well, it's there, but it's not a verdict on who I am. I don't have to listen to it. What action can I take? Anyway, how do I positively distract myself? How do I do something different or learn from it to then get better next time? So that's actually the main difference between those who succeed and those who really, really struggle. How interesting. It is. What I hear you saying is everybody has some amount of doubt. In fact, I'd say doubt is healthy. If you thought that everything you did was 100%, perfect, that would be more of a bigger indicator of a problem. In my mind, I like to have these personalities, not that I'm saying I have some problem with my personality. I have different, when I have different thoughts, I try to give them a personality, meaning my critic, I sometimes will just call Greg. And like if somebody is really happy, I might say Travis or like, I'm inventing names and they change, but it's this ability that I try to detach from. Greg is not all of me. He's not all of Jefferson. It's sometimes. And then that way you kind of be the director of these personalities. Like we were trying to get feedback from all of them. You're like, that's a good point. All right, Greg. Yep. I agree. You could have done that better. Okay, what we got from the... Let's move along now, Travis. What do you think about this? Yeah, exactly. Do you think that's healthy? 100%. In fact, it touches on something that's incredibly powerful in the literature, which is called psychological separation. You are separating from your thoughts. It's also called cognitive diffusion, recognizing that you don't have to believe everything you think. And by having these names, you almost personify these voices, which then helps you create the separation. So, okay, here's what's very, very interesting. When we were researching, we interviewed about 200 people to understand the nature of the voice that they hear. And so what we found is that there's not just one voice. There's not just one overarching inner critic. Like inner voice. Yes. There were actually four different archetypes, four different personas that this voice would take on. There was like a Travis, a Greg, a Sarah, and a Samantha. And so I wanted to understand, well, what are these profiles? What are these archetypes that people are hearing? So let me take you through them, and then you can tell me which one Travis was. Okay, I'm excited. And which one was it, Greg? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm telling them. So the first voice that we identified is that we call it the classic judge. It's the default voice that just judges you no matter what you did, what you didn't do, what you should have done. So this is, you know, if you're not sure which voice you have, it's generally going to be your classic judge. This is the judge is saying you should have done X. Should have done X, or why didn't you do Y, or, you know, you're worthless. It's just the concept. Whatever the choice you made is not the right one. Exactly. Okay. Classic judge. The second one, we call it the misguided protector. Now, the role of the misguided protector is to keep you safe, to keep you safe from the risk of failure, from judgment, from criticism, and how it does that is by magnifying everything that could go wrong. Oh no, there's too much risk. Oh no, this might happen, but that might happen. They might say this. And then naturally your response to that is to not take action and stay safe. In other words, this, this protector is looking at the things that could cause us harm more than the things that could bring us success. 100%. That's its primary function. Magnify everything that could go horrendously wrong and blow it out of proportion. And then it succeeds when you do not take the step. Yes. You're safe, but you're stuck. You're stagnant. So that's the misguided protector. And that's what, it's very interesting. We find that a lot of people who are high potential but hold themselves back, they do that because they experience what's called the shrinking syndrome. So when they're about to step into something incredible or an opportunity arises and they're so ready for it in terms of objective capability and skill, they make an excuse as to why it's not the right time or why they want to prepare a little bit more. They shrink themselves because the misguided protector is working overtime saying, oh no, but if you get that, if you say yes to that, this might happen. You might fail. You might this, you might that. The person who can't jump. Exactly. So they're constantly hesitating. That's the second misguided protector. So we have classic judge, misguided protector. Let's go to the third, which is what we call the ringmaster. Now I'm going to guess, Jefferson, that you resonate with this. I'm going to guess that a lot of highly driven people resonate with a very loud ringmaster. Or just being in a circus. Being in a circus, well. So the idea of a ringmaster, I always envisage it as having like the whip, right? And it's wanting the, the, the group to drive faster and drive. So the role of the ringmaster or the voice of the ringmaster is the one that says, you haven't done enough. You must keep pushing. You must keep moving. You don't deserve to take a break. And it is that voice that when you achieve something, you feel satisfied maybe for a moment. But then before you know it, you're instantly thinking, okay, well, I don't feel like I'm enough yet. What's the next big goal? Yeah, that's driven by the ringmaster. So nothing, you do satisfies it. Okay. So resonate. Maybe we're going to debrief on that later. And then that's our third. The fourth is what we call the neglector. The neglector is the voice that is really common in anyone who is in a caring type role. Or anyone who is highly, you know, has a high degree of empathy. It's that voice that makes you feel like you must neglect yourself because everyone else is more important. Is that the people pleasing type of people pleasing the codependency, the deprioritizing your wants and needs. So long as everyone else is happy, then I guess I'm acceptable. That's where it's like, I'm not good unless you're good. Exactly. I'm not valuable unless you're valuable. Yes. Kind of thing. And what it leads people to do is sacrifice their opinions, sacrifice what they truly want. Because again, if the people around them are happy, which means them often not doing and saying what they want or need, then they're keeping the peace. But then deep down, we know that that leads to this constant feeling of emptiness. And who am I and am I even of value? And then we hear, I'm not enough. I'm not worthy. So these are the four most common archetypes. Now, there is actually a fifth that I took out of the book because no one can really, well, very few people self identify with this one. And those who do have a high degree of self awareness. And so I'm going to share it in case anyone listening or watching has that level of self awareness. Because you know what? That's me. We call it the victimizer. This is that inner voice that leads you to blame other people, to constantly complain, to feel like life is so difficult for you and everyone else has it easier. And it's the why me voice. That's an exhausting voice. It's an exhausting voice not only for you, but for the people around you. And then we don't realize that it keeps us stuck because when interestingly, when we're in that state of why me, what we see when we're looking at brain scans is increased activity in the threat detection centers in the brain. So you're more aware of everything that could go wrong and what has gone wrong. And again, you're just feeding this because you're ruminating on it. And then when you complain, people also don't realize that when they complain, they are reliving a negative situation in vivid detail, which then activates the same parts of the brain, which then gears you towards negativity. Complaining makes you more likely to become a negativity magnet. Before we get going, I want to take a moment to tell you about cozy earth. Now coming up is Mother's Day. That's a big deal for y'all. And if you might be somebody who might still be looking for a Mother's Day present, let me help me help you. All right. And that is this pajama set. All right. It's made out of bamboo. It's super soft. It's a 2P set. And I can vouch for it because my mother, my mama loves it so much so that she texted me the other day, hey, any chance of running a Salem Mother's Day or do you have another discount code? I'm going to make sure she's going to get another pair. 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And then all the rest, it just feels like a jumble. Right? Is, am I following? Yeah. And do you find that when we're talking about self-doubt in particular, because obviously I like talking about communication and the people listening, probably people talking about communication, self-doubt for me always hits not before the conversation, but after the conversation. Because I can be so controlled of going into a conversation and I have it with somebody, maybe it's just that little interaction. Maybe it's a stranger who just sat by me and I kind of tried to stir up a little bit of small talk, say hi and they're not into it. And then what happens? Like I just start attacking myself of, you should have said this. Why'd you say that? Classic. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And the person who is feeling like they over spoke, like they said too much. And so all of that is comprised in this self-doubt. Why do you think it happens more so after a conversation? Like looking back at it than sometimes ahead of it? It's because when we look at how self-doubt is structured. So we often think it's just this one big blob of worry and insecurity and fear, but we can actually tease it apart into four distinct areas. And once we know which area is at play, it helps us understand why we get stuck in that after we've had a conversation. And it's obviously, it's a conversation, but it's anytime you've done something, you've taken an action, we then get stuck in that rumination. Let me take you through what the four dimensions of self-doubt are and then we can look at what each of them would be saying to you after a conversation. Okay. Okay. So the very first one relates to, so actually you touched on something interesting. You said personality. What we know looking at the research is that self-doubt is actually linked to your personality. We never understood this before. It's linked to your personality because it's entirely about how you see yourself, how you see yourself, your self-image. And self-image, when we look at a lot of the self-image research, there are four distinct personality traits that combine to create how we see ourselves, which is, wow, there's a whole science behind this. It's not just some fluffy, feel good concept. So what our research looked to do is, okay, we've got those four personality traits. What are the parts of that that we can train and strengthen in ourselves? Because what's fascinating is that you can actually change your personality. My own personality. Yeah. A lot of people think, I mean, let me ask you this. Would you think that your personality is just how it is, that's how it's always been. It was developed in the earliest years of your life, and that's just who you are? I feel like there is a core. There's a nucleus. There's a center. I can't believe I used the word nucleus. There is a center of what sprouts everything else. So there's a seed of, who am I? What's my personality? What separates me? What separates my tree from the other person's tree? Like they're not going to grow the same. But I do know that there's things in life that happen that affects how I grow. Like I think of, like we're in a place where there's lots of woods. If you have two trees growing together next to each other, they'll often like wrap around each other and continue to grow or the wrap around a branch. It's when you come in contact with something else that affects how you grow. So I definitely agree that your personality, you have this baseline identity. But I know in my life, my personality certainly changed. Like I'm not the same before I was a dad and after I was a dad. You have dad feels like I cry at every movie. I never used to do that until I kid. So you're touching on something so poignant and so perfect here. For so long, people thought that we are just who we are, right? Personality is stable. And we would hear this response from people. You've probably heard it too. Like, well, that's just who I am. Yeah. I can't change. That's just who I am. And it's a terrible excuse for people to use because it denies that we can fundamentally change. The brain can change. And what we know from personality research is that your personality can change in one of two ways. Either as you said, there's this key life moment becoming a parent. It could be a result of incredible trauma that you've experienced where you have that moment and then you start, you know, your personality intertwines with that. But the other way is just by actively choosing to change a part of it. You actively choose to intervene. Acts of will. Acts of will, exactly. And so when we look at self doubt literature and research and all of this space, we can see that, okay, self doubt is a reflection of how we see ourselves, which is related to our personality. And there are these four parts of our personality. We then wanted to say, okay, if any of us wanted to change our personality related to how we see ourselves, what's the trainable part of that? And so we refer to it as the four A's of self trust, which is the ultimate state we want to get to trusting ourselves more than listening to that doubt. Okay, so we've we've spoke about the four elements and type of personalities of self doubt. Now you're taking us to the four like mirror versions of that of what we'd want for self trust. That's where we want to be. Almost. Okay. So the four voices, in fact, we didn't determine which one was Travis and Greg. Oh, it's true. We can come back to that. Another episode, episode part two. So those four voices actually relate to the first attribute of doubt. Okay. So I mentioned five voices. Remember that the last one was the victimizer, but just we just look at the first four. They relate to the first attribute of we call it self doubt or self trust, because when that attribute is strong, that's when you have more self trust. When it's weak, you have more self doubt. Okay. This first attribute is the attribute of acceptance, self acceptance, accepting you. And that reflects, or that is the trainable part of self esteem. Your self esteem reflects to what extent you accept yourself as a worthy human being. I want to go, I want to pause that. So how would you define self esteem? Self esteem is a personality trait that fundamentally relates to the esteem in which you hold yourself. What does that mean? Do you see yourself as valuable, of value worthy, despite learning and being messy and being imperfect? Do you fundamentally see yourself as worthy? A big part of it is worthiness. So for people who go, I don't know if I have self esteem, what they're really saying is I don't know if I have value. I don't, I question whether or not I have value. And a good question to ask themselves to assess that is, who are you outside of your titles and your achievements and the validation of other people? How do you fundamentally see yourself? Are you stripped all of that away? Who am I if I am not in this occupation? Who am I if I'm not a mom or a dad? Who am I if I'm not married? Who am I if I'm single? Who, like it's the who am I if I'm not in the present? I find that that is, that's hard for a lot of people, me included, because it's, it comes and goes. There's times where like we've spoken about in this weird world, you and I have been friends for what, close to two years. Yeah. Yeah. Of it's easy to kind of get in your head and it becomes almost a, like a bad virus where you feel like I gotta do something. I need a happy pill somehow to be able to get myself into this place. And what you're telling me is one of the best things you can do is get into this mindset of acceptance where instead of here, it's here, you know, being able to accept the present moment. And the next question would be, well, how do you do that? How do you accept yourself more? And so I go through, of course, I go through more of the detail in the book, but I want to just give a top line for everyone listening and read and watching so that if you resonate with this, you have something to take. When we look at how to fundamentally accept yourself, there are lots of little techniques and strategies, but I think it really comes down to something very counterintuitive, which is forgetting yourself. What does that mean? That means forgetting that voice of ego, forgetting that I, me, my, how do people see me, how am I coming across? And actually finding little ways in your life to be of service to others. There are ways we can do this in every single environment, in every single interaction with our parents, with our kids, with our friends, with the barista at the coffee shop. It's how do I just be here for that person? The moment you ask yourself that, you're shifting your attention away from you and onto someone else. And that in itself, by being of value, that's actually how we discover our true value, because we're living it. We're not trying to prove anything to anybody. We're quietening that voice that is trying to get us to be selfish and to focus on, because one way to think about it is when you are so hyper focused on how do people see me, it's an extremely selfish perspective, because you are just looking at it from the I, me, my ego world. But when you flip into how can I be of value to this person? How can I give them what they need right now? You get out of that incessant rumination of the I, me, my, and then you move into this realm of self acceptance, because you're no longer thinking about how to prove that you're acceptable. You're just living it. Right. I mean, you may have my mind, I almost, I kind of looked off for a second because I was thinking like all the different times that even though you try and intentionally be, there's still so many moments and opportunities where I could have been other centered, like to be more service oriented to the other person. And I think about it always in terms of conversation, but sometimes it's the small little acts that aren't even really conversation. They might just be like a hello. Like I've noticed you do this. You had dinner with me and my family the other night, and you like to know everybody's name. I also think that's just some of your personality. Maybe. Yeah. But that's a way of telling somebody, hey, I see you. I recognize you. I know you're not just generic waiter or waitress. You are their name. And I think that's one way of, like you said, forgetting yourself. When I am able to be more concerned about the other person, that's in some way forgetting yourself. Do you resonate with that? Yes, 100%. It's just in that moment, how can I actively get out of my head and just be here for someone else, whatever that is, asking what their name is, whether it's giving them a smile, making eye contact for a little bit longer, not checking your phone when something buzzes. These are just little things that you can start to train in you. And it helps you create that separation from that incessant need to get the validation from the people around you to make you feel better about yourself. Because if you can be that person that makes other people feel valued, the whole game changes. The whole game changes. So that's a really beauty. We call that one of the gifts. So for each of these four attributes, we have a gift, which is more of an overarching perspective shifting. We call them more spiritual idea, but it's just about something bigger picture. So that's our kind of the antidote for self-acceptance if you struggle with it. But let's look at this from the context of conversations. If someone doesn't accept themself, when they're interacting with, let's say a loved one, that's when they become hyper attuned to, is this person okay with me? Did I say something wrong? I've noticed a slight shift in their energy right now. Is that because of me? And so everything becomes personalized. We take everything personally. I say we because I am one of these people who struggle with self-acceptance. And so I'm constantly internalizing things that are not mine to be internalized. And that level of heightened awareness can also lead us to create the very things that we fear. We suddenly become a little clingy or a little overly concerned. And then that can push people away when actually it was just, they were going through something challenging that day or their mind was elsewhere. And yet we're taking it as if it's us. Taking it personal. Exactly, personal. And I saw this in someone recently, a really good friend of mine. She was texting a friend and then didn't hear back from that friend. She saw the friend read it, but didn't hear back from that friend for a few hours. And then she was debriefing with me and talking about how that friend clearly doesn't care about her and she's got other priorities. When we figured out what was going on, the friend's phone had just run out of battery, right? Wasn't able to respond. But of course, my other friend was going through all these internal stories. And that's what they are. They are internal stories that we tell about ourselves depending on where we're struggling on these attributes. Yeah, there's so much that we could just even go into on how much we take things personally over text. Like we, we've read into other people's tone and how much timing really does play a huge factor. If you don't reply immediately versus if you do, like people, if somebody's dating and somebody says something sweet, like do you wait a moment? Cause you don't want to be like too eager. But if you wait too long, bowls in the air court, they need to contact me first. Yeah. Yeah. Then you really don't care. Or just like you were talking about with your friend, you know, if the worst is like, if you just see bubbles, and it's just waiting and then nothing, you're like, they must really be thinking about what they're going to say, what did I do? And then you're starting to internalize. Yeah. So this is all, this is all self-doubt, what we're talking about. And the antidote to this is what you're calling big trust. All right. What I want to know, what I want the listeners to hear is what does self-doubt sound like? And then what does self-trust sound like? Well, let's look at it in the context of the first attribute. Okay. So the first attribute, if you have self-doubt related to your acceptance, it is I am not enough. This is not often something that we would ever say out loud. This is more a deep belief that we would hold. True. Right? I'm not enough or I'm not worthy or, and then, you know, if we take that to the next level, it would be my friends don't care about me or this person doesn't value me. And then that becomes an automatic switch and we have a compulsive need to try and win back their approval and their affections. Or you go to the victim. Or you turn into the victim if you struggle with the third attribute, which is autonomy, which we'll get to. So it can sound in any number of ways, but it's generally the voice of the first attribute is I'm not enough, I'm not worthy. And that can manifest in I don't want to be too much for people. Oh, that's a good one. I like that. It's interesting because it's almost the inverse of that. It's I don't feel like I'm enough and therefore I don't want to be too much. I find that that's something that I see a lot of in my community or people that not only don't feel like they're enough, they feel like they're too much. Yeah. Too much for other people too much. I'm too much of a burden on others. And that too, I think, ultimately leads to that victim mindset. But tell me more of, you know, what do you what do you say to the people who feel like they're too much? So the first thing is to acknowledge if you feel like you're too much, it's because you feel like you're not enough deep down. So the reason why you feel like you're too much is because you fundamentally don't feel worthy of people's time of taking up their energy, of their attention. And again, that is a reflection of a lack of self acceptance. When you don't see yourself as worthy, you feel like other people don't. And then you feel like you're the constant burden. This can also lead people remember that for the fourth voice, which was the neglector, right? This is where you hear that voice of you don't matter. Everyone else matters more than you. And so these people can often withdraw and not seek the help that they need, the support that they need, the friends that they need to share what's going on. In fact, quick little personal story. When I was in high school, my parents got divorced. And it was amicable and it was the best it could possibly be given the circumstances. But I because I struggled with acceptance. I didn't want to talk to anyone about it because I didn't want to burden them with my problems. And so I became very reclusive in terms of sharing anything personal with anybody to the point that by the time I got to work, I had a friend who I'd you know, we'd been friends for a couple of years, she broke up with me, broke up with me as a friend saying, I feel like I know nothing about you. So I don't feel like this is a friendship. And it's because I had learned not to burden people because I never felt like I was worthy of burdening them with my problems. And so I was just internalizing it all. Maybe too much. Completely too much, not healthy. That was not healthy at all. The essence of connection is two way. It's just like mutual disclosure, you share, I share, we support each other. So that was an interesting learning for me. And that's a very real risk for anyone who struggles with acceptance. Before we get going, this is a quick ad from ZockDock. 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Stop putting off those doctor's appointments, and go to ZockDock.com slash Jefferson to find and instantly book a doctor you love today. That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash Jefferson ZockDock.com slash Jefferson. Let's keep going. So the thing that you need to start with, if you struggle with acceptance, is acknowledge that this is a very deeply held belief that you have that is reflecting a personality trait, but you can change it, and it starts with very, very small actions that reaffirm that you are of value. What does that look like? Rather than holding back in the meeting because you're afraid that what you're going to say is not going to sound perfect, just say it. Or, okay, you might... It's scary for people. Sorry, it's so hard for people. So then if, if saying it is too hard, preprepare something that you can say instead. In the back of your notebook or on your laptop, write a few questions that you can throw in at any time that you have read before, you've prepared them. That way you don't have to think on the spot of what you're going to say and how you're going to construct a sentence. It's written. And another tip we know from research that there is something called the primacy and the recency effects. So if you're in a meeting situation, if you say something near the beginning and then something again near the end, people are more likely to remember what you said and remember you contributing more than you actually did. Yes, that's... I definitely know that to be... That's something that we talk about in litigation. There you go. In trial that juries will often remember the first thing that happened and the very last thing that happened. And everything in the middle, they kind of black out too. It happens human nature. Yeah, it's easy. It's easy to kind of just get that jumble, but they'll remember what they call the opening argument, what your first few sentences are. And then they'll remember the very end, what those last few lines are. Everything else. They like put so much pressure on you. It really does. It can make a really big difference, but they'll remember the very first thing, the very last thing. So same thing in your questioning too, I think. I think that's wonderful advice of people who feel like saying, speaking up in a meeting is too much or it would be too scary for them. Have written down already the comment that you want to make, even if it's just one sentence or even if it's just one question, because one way to lower that barrier is to eliminate the variables, eliminate the things you can't control. And so to be able to offer that, I think is what a great way towards finding, is it acceptance or is it something else? So what you would be doing here is giving yourself proof points. Proof points. That you don't have to be perfect or have it all figured out in order to contribute. Yeah. And when you see yourself doing that, it starts to slowly, it takes time. You have to be doing this consistently over time, but you start to slowly shift how you see yourself, your self image. And then that allows you, once you get comfortable with that, you take the next step, which is okay. So I'm comfortable with saying something at the beginning and the end. I'm going to construct a question in the middle or share an idea, a short one. Let me see how that goes. You use it as like a little experiment. And then you do it and then you reflect afterwards and you think, so what you might do, if you struggle with acceptance, is get stuck in that rumination. Oh, I should have said this, I should have done it like this. And if you don't do anything to actively quieten that voice, it will just keep going and you will wake up at 2am with it on repeat. So what you say is, okay, what did I learn from that? And what will I do differently next time? It's super simple. It's called a post-mortem in the project management world. You look at what happened and then you just essentially develop a plan to make sure that whatever went wrong doesn't go wrong again in the future. And you're continually gearing yourself towards learning and growth. That's going towards the acts of will that we talked about instead of staying in the self-doubt zones. I want to talk real quick on the benefit of detachment of these personalities, these voices. So let's say voices and personalities represent the same thing. It's detaching the feeling from me, from Jefferson. So I experienced that a lot personally with anxiety. Anxiety hit me probably two, three years ago for the very first time. Like out of nowhere, scared me to death, had no clue and I couldn't stop it. And over time, what I've been able to do, what's helped me overcome it is I have a name for my anxiety and I have a face to it. Like this, the anxiety of Jefferson just looks super nerdy. Nerdier than I do. So I'm talking broken glasses, crazy hair, clothes are shoveled and it's like, if I can picture him talking in a voice of like, but you need to do, you don't, and he's starting to have that feeling, that sound of anxiety, it helps me to be like, I appreciate that. I hear you. Let me hear from somebody else. Brilliant. And so as long as I might be like, thank you for your time. I need you to step out of the room for a second. Go take a vacation. Yeah, let's close the door for a second and be like, okay. But that has helped me a lot in terms of what does it really mean to detach from I am not anxious. I just feel that in this moment. Do you find that when you speak to these leaders, because I know you really focus a lot on executive leadership and you speak to thousands of people all over the world, that this detachment is really a big unlock for a lot of people? The biggest unlock. It's called psychological separation. And so what you do is actually so perfect because there is a very simple strategy and it starts with acknowledging when any of these voices, when you hear them, which requires something called metacognition, which is becoming curious about your thinking. When you are not curious about your thinking, you feel like you are your thoughts and you're not able to separate. That's a good way. You are your thoughts. You are your thoughts. And so, and that's when these voices become us. So it's not, oh, I'm hearing the anxiety, it's I am the anxiety and it feels very fixed. That was terrible. It's the worst. And then it just becomes a loop. Completely. So what you can do in those moments and you actually touched on it beautifully is to recognize that these voices are actually designed to try and protect us from something. Yeah. And so if you can just say, hey, thanks, I hear you. So we would encourage people to use the voices or to recognize which of the voices is driving it to anxiety. If it's related to I haven't done enough, I need to do more. That's the voice of the ringmaster. So you would say, hey, ringmaster, thanks, I appreciate what you're doing. But no, thanks. Like I don't need you right now. So you're acknowledging and then consciously saying, I don't need that, which creates a little bit of separation. We like to use the analogy of, imagine you have a bat and that voice, that ringmaster's voice is coming towards you like the ball. You basically say thanks, but no thanks. And you whack the ball away. Just smack it. Smack it away. Right. You see it go in the distance. The idea behind this is that you're creating some kind of a visual that reminds you, hey, you don't have to accept everything. Now that can be helpful in the moment. The other thing you need to do in the moment though is called positive distraction. So let me give you an example. I had an experience kind of recently where something happened and I kept ruminating about it and it would happen whenever I was out walking because I sometimes try not to take any headphones and I just like to be present. And then of course, all the voices come in and I kept ruminating about this thing and I literally said to it, nope, classic judge, not today. Nope, not today. And I kept repeating that. And then I had to shift to something more productive. So they say distraction, distraction is terrible. You should process all your thoughts when they come. No, according to the research, if you try and process everything as it happens, it can just feel overwhelming because you're in the heat of that emotional moment. Sometimes a positive distraction is, I'm going to call a friend. I'm going to put on a song that really gets my energy up. You can take an action in that moment to just shift your state and then you come back to it later. I want to share two very, very quick tools here for anyone listening who say, oh, this is me. The first one is if you tend to worry a lot and overthink a lot, there is a fantastic research based strategy called stimulus control for worry. What does that mean? When that worry thought, that rumination, that overthinking pops up during the day, write it down. Have a notebook and a pen or put it in your phone, just capture the thought. This in itself has been shown to reduce the intensity of the emotion because you're giving it some kind of an outlet. Or write down the worry. You write down the worry. Okay. You actually write it down. So it could be, I'm going to mess up my presentation tomorrow. I'm going to mess up the interview. My husband or wife is going to this or that, whatever it is. The podcast is going to be terrible. The podcast is going to be terrible. Like you write it down and then you say, okay, I've got it captured. I'm going to worry about you during worry time. This is the second piece. Every day you set yourself maybe 10 minutes of worry time. You put it in your calendar, just not too close to bed because it might affect your sleep. You put it in your calendar. When that time comes, you set an alarm for say 10 minutes. You pull out your worry list and you allow yourself to worry. What research has shown is that it reduces the intensity of the worry. It shrinks the fear to size and the emotional intensity of trying to worry about something after you've already written it down. You just can't get back to where it was, which is great because you realize how many of your worries are just that. They are just worries that are never going to actually come true unless you allow yourself to worry about them and then you almost bring them into existence because you become like a self-fulfilling prophecy. Absolutely. That makes me think of my dad. My dad is not a worrier. Now, when he does worry, everybody in the house knows it, but he's just not a worrier. I kind of took a lot of that personality where we would come with to him or something and he would be like, well, nothing I can do about it. Can you do anything about it right now? I'd say no. He'd say, well, okay, well, that's an issue for another day. I think that is an excellent idea that I've never considered before and that is schedule your worry time, especially for the things that you can't control right now. Why allow that to take up all of your calendar or at least be the layer or the film that all of life sits on, that you just you're living on this lava bed of worry all the time. Lava bed. What a great analogy. Yeah. Actually, the science research suggests we call that the lava bed of worry and to be able to just say, actually, no, I'm going to write all this down. I'll see you later. 1pm, central standard time. Okay. I get to worry about as much as I want right now and then one time's up, going about life. It's remarkable. That really is healthy, I think. It's healthy. You know, I think we live in a world of hyperoptimization. Get better, be better, eat better, sleep better, worry less. And yes, there's a time and place for everything, but sometimes trying to avoid the thing is not actually the best approach. It's giving it a structure. Worry better. Worry better. Yeah, that's true. Gosh, I don't want to add more pressure there. But so that's really effective for anyone who tends to worry a lot. And you can do these with these voices, these personalities, these archetypes. What am I hearing? So you go, you can write it down. You say, okay, not right now. Thanks, but no thanks. The next stage would be at the end of the week, you look at your list and you say, which of these actually came true? Which ones were things that I was legitimately worrying about and then they became reality? And you'll find something like 97% of them don't come true. And even the ones that do come true, it was not as bad as you thought at all. Before we continue, I want to take a moment to tell you about dose. Now, one thing that sneaks up on a lot of people in your life, including myself, is cholesterol. Cholesterol is one of those things where we always want to target and we always want to lower it, but it's hard. And how do you do it? Often it's not just your everyday diet and exercise. It's also supplements that you take. Well, dose is something that I've been using now for probably about three months. And I love it. It's clinically backed proven cholesterol supplement. And what it does, it targets tricloserides, LDL, HDL and total cholesterol levels. And I really, as you know, I only like to talk about things, especially if it's some kind of supplement that I take. And it's all been great for us to lower my cholesterol level. And it tastes really great. And the cool thing about it is it's simple. All you have to do is take like a two ounce, just liquid form of it, and it tastes like mango. It has some ginger in it. And it's easy. I actually look forward to after I finish a meal, take a little bit of it, and it's there to support lower cholesterol levels. So if there's somebody in your life that struggles with cholesterol levels and worries about or is concerned about it, dose for cholesterol is something that I really do support because it not only tastes good, I know that it's good for me. So if you want to take a more active role in your cholesterol levels, you can go to dosedaily.co slash Jefferson or use code Jefferson for up to 35% off your first month subscription. That's dosedaily.co.co slash Jefferson. And now let's keep going. I want everybody to know you have in your book, Big Trust, which is fantastic, is you have this quiz that you can take. Yes. I took your quiz. You did. I did. I took your quiz and I sent it to you after dinner. I'm going to pull it. Okay. Oh, you actually printed it. So what? You actually printed it. I actually, believe it or not, I printed it in color. Yeah, the colors are all off though. Hey, listen. Hey, this is impressive. This is about. This is great. So what you've completed is your doubt profile, the doubt profile assessment. So you know how earlier I was talking about, there are these four drivers of self-doubt. Yes. And there are different attributes that we can strengthen and when they're weak, that's when self-doubt creeps in. Right. So far we've talked about the first attribute, which is acceptance. Okay, I'm with you on the big trust side. This is on the big trust side. So when acceptance is low, that's when self-doubt sneaks in related to that attribute. Makes sense. But then we have three others, which we will get to in more detail, but I'll quickly share what they are. Yes. And actually, let me share what this quiz gives you. So if anyone listening or watching wants to find out how much doubt you experience in your life and what is driving that doubt based on which of these four attributes is weak, you can do this quiz. It's completely free. It's at doubtprofile.com. It takes about three minutes. I mean, how long did it take you to complete? It took me 30 seconds. 30 seconds. If that, and to me, what that does is because everybody doubts, the importance of that to me, what, how I found it insightful and I know we'll talk about it, is it tells you where the doubt is coming from. Yes. And that's, that's, that's critical. Completely. Because if you don't know where it's coming from, you don't know what to do about it. And actually what we find is so many people, because they have misinterpreted what their doubt is and where it's coming from, they're trying tools and strategies that are completely ineffective. For example, so we've talked about acceptance. If you struggle with acceptance, positive affirmations, like I am enough, I am worthy, they backfire. Oh. Research shows that people who struggle with acceptance, which means lower self-esteem, when they use these positive affirmations, it makes them feel worse. And yet we're taught that, no, these are fantastic research-based tools. Unless you know which one is driving the doubt, you might then unintentionally be doing things that make you feel even worse. Okay. So that's something to be aware of. The first one, as we've covered, is acceptance. Let's move to the next three quickly, and then we're going to help Jefferson diagnose what his doubt profile looks like. Yes, please. I need lots of help. For anyone who does this online, you will get a printout of your four attributes, where they're weak, where they're strong, and then you also get a report that shows you what they look like, what they sound like, and it's interesting. Yes. It's great. Good stuff in there. Okay. It's good stuff. PhD. Oh, and this is actually based on a psychometrically validated tool, which is great too. So that's the kind of words I use all the time. Someone else did the research, and then we tweaked it so that it applies to doubt. Okay. So acceptance is your first one. That's when you don't feel like you're enough. Right. The second element of self-doubt relates specifically to the question of, can I do it? Can I actually do this thing? So it's this view of, do I have the skills and the capability to do the thing. Now, in the context of conversations, this is really interesting, because there are some people who also, in addition to maybe not feeling like they're enough, they doubt whether they have the words to coherently speak up in a meeting, or people, a lot of people who are non-native English speakers who have an accent, they struggle with their agency because they feel like people don't understand them. Right. You might have people who avoid addressing a conflict with their loved one at home. They don't want to bring it up because they don't feel like they have the words to deal with it. They don't have, we call this agency, they don't have agency in relation to addressing a conflict. Okay. And it's purely because of that doubt that they then let things fester and not take action, and then things get worse. And that's the second one. That's the second one, which is agency. It's entirely related to, yeah, can I do this? Do I have the tools, the ability, and even can I learn how to do this? That's part of it as well. So that's the second one. The third driver is autonomy. This is where that fifth voice of self-criticism comes in, the victimizer. This is where we start to feel, why me? Why is life so difficult for me? They complain all the time, they're resentful, they're frustrated, they blame everything and everyone for their problems. That's the third we call it autonomy. It's when you don't feel like you have control in your life, in your relationships. Everything's happening in your left out. Exactly. Okay. And then the fourth relates to adaptability, which is specifically emotions. Can you get a handle on your emotions? Do you trust that you can navigate the emotions that come with life? Do you trust that, okay, if I have this conversation with my husband, my wife, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, and I'm raising something quite contentious here, or it could cause a conflict, do I trust that I'm going to be able to handle the emotions that will come with it? Or am I just going to shut down and cry in the corner of the room in the fetal position? Okay. That actually drives a form of self-doubt. So these four attributes, and when any of them are weak, that then tells us where is our self-doubt coming from? Okay. Where is it being driven by? And then it gives us a roadmap in terms of, well, what do I need to do? Or how am I using others to compensate? And actually, that brings us to your profile. This is where we learn where Jefferson's self-doubt is. Yes. So let's actually explore Jefferson's doubt profile. So firstly, the first measure that we get is doubt in his life. And Jefferson's, so there's doubt heavy, which would be if you were really struggling with doubt, situational, which is where it's kind of conditional, depending on who you're with and what you're doing. You actually fall in the big trusted zone, which is what I would expect. Someone with your background, your caliber, what you've achieved, it's not hindering you. So I want to make sure, so what you're talking about is a spectrum. Spectrum, yes. These four indicators help indicate the spectrum of things. So one is, let's say, a lot of doubt, and the other is big trust. Big trust. Okay. So I'm at least in the big trust category. You're just in the big trust category. You're just there. You just made it. Which means? Which means, and this is where we need to then go a bit more granular and find out, well, let's look at each of these attributes within you and what is going on here. So your acceptance is in the hidden strength zone, which means it's not super power zone. So super power is where it's like the top that it could possibly be. Now, if anyone is at the top where it could possibly be, there's also a risk of excessive acceptance. What do you think happens when someone has excessive self acceptance or excessive self-esteem? So it's no longer healthy. It's very, very, very strong, but it's not at healthy levels. Well, two ways I could see it go. So if somebody has, thinks everything they do is great, then they're probably like, that should set some alarms that something's off. You know, I think you have to have a healthy amount of doubt. Yeah. Because otherwise you become conceited. I am better than everybody else. So we, you know, when anyone is at the super power zone, we start to interrogate and understand, but you're in the hidden strength zone, which is great. So that's a healthy zone. Thank goodness. Your agency, which is the second one, which is the belief in, you know, can I actually do this thing? Did we talk about acceptance? Am I good on acceptance? Yeah, you're good on acceptance. Hidden strength. Yeah. All right. You want to see your results as well as we go through them. Yeah. So you're good. Hidden strength. Good on the hidden strength. Your agency is actually in the hindrance zone. Oh no. So that's one up from the very lowest, which is red alert. Okay. And what that means is that that's your weakest link. So that's your agency. The third one is autonomy. You are in the hidden strength, which means you focus on what you can control. You feel personally powerful. You make things happen. And then the fourth one is adaptability, where with the exception of the anxiety that you had maybe been feeling, you generally feel like you have a handle on your emotional state. You can adapt to what comes your way and you have a degree of trust around that. Okay. Okay. So then looking at this as an archetype, your weak link is your agency. Agency. You compensate with your other three attributes, which means it hasn't really hindered you too much, but it is there and it's lingering. And so what this tells me, I mean, you probably need to tell me, but I'll tell you what I think. Doctors are right. And then you can, you can let me have a talk here. Yeah, why don't you tell me what's the diagnosis here? How bad is it? You might have a tendency because of the nature of what you do and how you've gone through a full transition over the last five years in terms of, you know, the people that you help and the visibility that you have, which is phenomenal and so well deserved. Thank you. Okay. You might find yourself comparing yourself to other people who have been doing this for a lot longer, who are maybe further ahead and you feel like there's always things that you're missing out on that you should be doing that they're doing that you're not. And so there's this part of you that feels like you're never satisfied. Okay. Yeah, that's, yeah, that's, that's really spot on. And then potentially also not a fear, but an undercurrent of am I really as good as everyone thinks that I am. Dang, Chaudhay. Okay. It's just straight coming from your results. So kudos to you for actually completing this with honesty. Yeah. Well, I want people, I want my listeners to be able to see of, I don't have it figured out either. Yeah. And that's the beautiful thing. You don't have to have it all figured out. But what you do well is you detach from the thoughts and you take action anyway. But can you tell us a little bit about what that experience is like for you? Yeah, for sure. I'll take this. I, when I look at it, you know, my, where a lot of my doubt comes from is you, you had it really right on the head. So I can definitely see the value of, of doing this quiz. Where does my doubt come from? I for sure have it from feeling like everybody else hasn't figured out and I don't in this new creator, author, speaker, whatever this is, influencer, I don't know. And so I went to law school, right? I went to college, went to law school, have law firm and I, that's what I thought I was going to do. And then I just felt like now I'm in a totally different space somewhat. And it's like going to a new school and you're the new kid and you're still trying to figure out like what classroom to go in and everybody else knows how to get there and you're still trying to figure it out, you know, in the staircase move, you're in Hogwarts. So it's like you're trying to figure out what's all going on. And so what do you do? You try and look at what everybody else is doing and then you go, oh, that looks really cool. How did they do that? I don't know. And so I think I have a lot of that comparison, that doubt that comes from there. But what helps me and what you've emphasized is coming back to that form of self-acceptance of, hey, you used to be Jefferson. You used to be yourself. That's really what you need to emphasize. And the other thing that you mentioned that is also spot on is feeling like, am I doing enough? And did I, is it, do I deserve? Is it, because in my mind, I'll never do enough to deserve. And so trying to talk to that voice, that voice can be pretty rough. Oh, that's a classic one for low agency. It's the imposter, the feeling of the imposter. Feeling like, and in fact, 82% of people have been found in some studies to feel that, to feel that I don't deserve where I am and I'll never do enough to deserve where I am. I like to see it as intellectual humility, which comes from Adam Grant. So Adam Grant talks about this a lot, how when we focus on, I mean, if you were to say, no, I deserve everything I've had, I mean, that would probably, yeah, that would be a problem, right? That would be excessive agency. So the fact that you have a degree of humility around recognizing that maybe there are other things that you could have done, or there are other people that could be where you are. So for anyone who is feeling this, anyone who feels a little bit like an imposter, what I encourage you all to do is to grab a piece of paper and split it up into three columns. In your left column, I love how you were like thinking about that, like visualizing. I was visualizing columns. I was like, okay, my paper, I'm visualizing in my head, writing it down. In the left column, I want you to write down. So Jefferson said, just be Jefferson, right? So that's the idea of what are your essence qualities? What are the things that you have developed over time? So I'm not talking about hard skills. I'm not talking about these tangible like coding and I'm talking about the quality that I wish I could code. I can whittle sticks. So you write down your essence qualities, right? The grit, the persistence, the desire to be of service, the curiosity, the growth mindset. Write them all down. In your middle column, you want to write down what are the things that you feel like you don't know how to do yet in your space, whatever it could be. And then in your third column, you're basically matching up your essence qualities with the things you don't know how to do yet. When we focus on all the things that we don't know how to do and how we have gaps and we fixate there, it becomes a lot larger than it actually is because all we focus on is what we know how to do currently, what we don't know how to do, and then we feel like we can never do it. But when you remind yourself, hold on, I have these essence qualities that can help me learn, help me put things into practice, and help me actually fill the gaps that I see here. Suddenly you realize that you don't have to have it all figured out. You just have to apply be Jefferson or be whoever you are and then make a plan and then take a step. So for the person listening right now and the person feels like everybody else hasn't figured out and I don't, what do you say to them? I'm going to say that that has a term. Of course, that's one thing I love about Shuddah. It's a term. Is that if there is something, there is some kind of term for it. Well, it was the molten lava anxiety. That was one term you came up with. That was a good one. This is called pluralistic ignorance. I knew it. Which actually, no, it's that. It is. It's actually called pluralistic ignorance where we think we're the only ones who are behind, who are struggling, everyone else has it all figured out. Do you realize that most people are thinking that same thing? They just don't verbalize it? No, no, Shuddah. I'm the only one who's thinking it. I'm the only one. The only one who's thinking it. And it's such a stubborn belief, but it's so prevalent. And when you remind yourself that it's okay to be learning and growing and figuring it out. The other thing that we do when we struggle with agency is we fixate on here and now. All I can do is what I can do now. This is where I'm at. We forget just how far we've come. I mean, Jefferson, if you were to just shift your spotlight back to five years ago, your reality would have been completely different. I mean, when did you start creating content? Three years ago. Three years ago, right? So five years ago. Three and a half. You were at a completely different level. And you back then might not have even had the ability to envisage what your life right now could have looked like. Not in a bajillion years. Which is wild. And that's the other thing. I think I like reminding people that sometimes when you ask yourself, like, what do you want to achieve for yourself? Sometimes we're not even capable of visualizing what is truly possible unless we just take the step and see where we end up. And that's what you did. So if you can shift the spotlight back and just remind yourself, look at all of these steps I've taken when I haven't known how to do it, when I was figuring it out, when I was mastering this record in my car, which now everyone does, that demonstrates so much tenacity and commitment, all these essence qualities. And it's just about drawing on them and applying them to whatever is next. Now that we've talked a lot about this, this element of big trust, what does big trust sound like? It sounds like someone who is unapologetic about who they are. It sounds like someone who speaks with a calm certainty, even if they don't have all the answers. It sounds like someone not trying to prove themselves, but believing so deeply that they are of value and have value to share that other people can't help but sense it and believe it to. And so if we look at tangibly what that looks like, they walk into a room as if they truly belong to be their meaning, their posture is raised, their gaze is out, their chin is up. Super interestingly, we hear a lot about expansive postures, the importance of having an expansive posture and then you feel more confident. I wanted to understand what is it about the expansive posture that leads to those feelings of confidence. And I found there was one study that was published last year that found there is what's called a mediator, which means like that inner mechanism between the posture and the confidence and it's the distance between your chin and your chest. Interesting. That's it's called neck flexion. When you're slouching, when you're withdrawing, when you feel insecure, yeah, sure, shoulders go, but it's actually also your head that drops. Interesting. So if you can just think, okay, what is the distance between my chin and my chest and how do I elongate it? Not by looking at the ceiling, but in a natural state, you will naturally feel more empowered and then you will, there you go, you just did it. And you will naturally convey more of that big trust energy that we're seeking. What's really interesting about that when you show up like you belong, because of something called, it's called, this idea of enclosed cognition, but the idea is when you're showing up as the person you want to be, people then respond to that. They respond more positively to that, which then makes you feel like maybe I really do deserve this. Maybe I do have a voice that is valued and then you show up more like that and then they respond. So we almost create our environment based on how we choose to show up. And again, it's that posture, it's that voice, it's that eye contact. It's also if you mess up, just say, oh, let me try that again, or that came out funny. Let me rephrase that. So many people are, I used to be so afraid of making mistakes that if you make a mistake, you just go silent. Just acknowledge it, you're human. There's so much, what I love about big trust is that it's not about being perfect. It's not about being flawless. It's about being human, recognizing that even though you're imperfect, you are still worthy, you are still capable, you are still powerful, and you can still handle anything that comes your way. So good. I'm going to ask you a question that I ask every guest at the end, and it's this, what is one conversation that has changed the direction of your life? When I worked in banking, I randomly sat next to someone and as I do, I ask for their name and I like to get to know them. And after maybe a 30 minute conversation, while we were doing work, he said to me, why are you here? Now I replied, oh, I just came to this floor because we're able to go and he goes, no, no, no, why are you working in a company in this space? You should be doing bigger things. And I knew exactly what he was talking about. And it was almost like he unlocked the cage that allowed me to recognize, hey, I can have so much more value if I go off outside of this environment, outside of my job, which was, I don't know, in strategy or something at the time, and actually create a life where I can be of service and remind myself constantly to self-forget so that was Josh, his name was Josh, I owe Josh big time, I'm still in touch with him. Oh, cool. That was my moment. That was it. Yeah. That's awesome.