00:08 Hi, I'm Denise Simpson, a master life and leadership coach who helps women step into their authentic and feminine power. So they can lead like visionaries influence with grace and a legacy of contribution and service. You'll hear about real leadership clients with real problems, navigating their success in life, business, and career. If you are ready to become a masterful leader, then this podcast was made for you. So let's get started.
00:47 Welcome my friend. I'm so happy you're here. I have a really cool show for you today because there's something really, really interesting happening in my family right now. So by the time this episode airs, my husband will be on the ground in Poland, serving refugees. My husband spent over 32 years in the army, special forces, green beret ranger, all the things. Okay. I mean, seriously, all the things. And this is a human who is so humble in his wisdom, in his education, in, in all of the accolades that he has received, this man will give you his shirt off his back. He's a true humanitarian and very, very brave. This is a man who made a decision and he and I had a five minute conversation, uh, asking me if he could go into Poland and help the Ukrainian refugees right now. And five minutes is all it took.
01:50 And I saw how important this was. And he is someone who is brave. He, he, he's not courageous. He's beyond courage, right? Courage is when you have fear and you go for it. Anyway, bravery is now embedded at the unconscious level because of so many experiences that he has put himself through where courage has now become solidified in his brain. And it turned into bravery. So bravery is an automatic respond and a lot of those long term soldiers, long term, lifetime military people like my husband, 32 plus years in the, in the, in the military, he is embedded with this neurology of bravery. And so five minutes later, after some, some crying, a few tears, you know, he gets to work. He starts reaching out to every single one of his contacts in his, his network. And, you know, got in contact with organizations and other, other, um, people who are headed over there together to help these people in need.
03:10 And it's so wonderful to see his resourcefulness in this way. He is a leader who in times of crisis, because his brain is so conditioned in this way, he is able to see solutions. He's able to pinpoint solutions to different problems, to multiple layers of problems. And so I couldn't help, but put together an episode for us. Talk about that as us leaders, many of us women leaders, and I'm not gonna generalize all of us and put us all in a box, but what I have seen and what I have experienced in serving women leaders is this perfectionistic tendency to do things right, for many reasons. I mean, let's, let's think about all of the bias and the prejudice and the discrimination against women, the sexism, the misogyny, all of the things, and even racism. Of course, if you're a double minority like me, a female, who's Mexican, that's, that's a double whammy. We are treated in a way sometimes, explicitly, and sometimes implicitly to hold our opinions, to hold our convictions back. We are conditioned to believe that we are not enough, that we are lucky to be in a leadership position. And that what got us to these positions was because the organization needed to meet a DEI effort, diversity, equity, and inclusion effort or quota.
04:54 And so here we are with all of these limiting beliefs, all these things, holding us back, keeping us from being sovereign leaders. We are so wrapped around our own limiting beliefs that we can't see for ourselves that we deserve to be in these positions. That we're well good enough to be here, representing our people. You know, this is one of the primary reasons why women have perfectionistic tendencies. Now let's look at perfectionism. Perfectionism, I believe are a set of actions or behaviors that a leader takes, but what's driving those actions. It could be an emotion of fear, could be an emotion of scarcity. One of fraudulent being an imposter, right? These could be the driving emotions that have us taking action in this perfectionistic way. Things have to be right. We have to look over this document a million times. You second, guess what you've shared in a report.
06:07 You second, guess the directive you gave your employee, you start questioning. I should have said this. I should have said that I should have stood up for myself and all the I other actions that you take so that you won't be found out so that they won't question your judgment so that they won't second. Guess whether you earned this spot, this is what is so interesting about our brains. We have created stories, very damaging stories around the limiting beliefs that we have. So we have a limiting belief that was anchored or created in some experience. A very interesting, probably a negative experience. And now it's part of your neurology. And so these are the thoughts you keep thinking about that have now cemented in your brain. Then the brain starts making up stories, a around these limiting beliefs, it will create stories to keep us safe and to protect us and to keep us in the cave.
07:08 It'll say things like, you know, you got this position, cuz it was a fluke. You know that right? Don't you see everybody else in this room. Wow, they're better than you must have been a fluke, but okay, you're here now. So you gotta submit that report. Remember you're a fluke. So in order to prove, you're not a fluke, you're gonna have to do some extra work. You're gonna have to make sure that this document is perfect. Before you submit this to your CEO, the brain is going to do what it to do to keep you safe because of the beliefs that are driving the brain, you understand this is big. The brain is conditioned to do whatever your beliefs are telling it to do. That's so fascinating. And it's so important to understand, because this now gives you all of the control, right? This gives us the control to change our beliefs so that when we are taking action from these new improved, healthier, more powerful belief systems, the brain is gonna do exactly what these beliefs are telling it to do.
08:22 This is the best news ever, because you can change a belief. You can disrupt the neurology and this is what we're doing really, basically in every single one of our episodes together, helping you disrupt neurology so that you can choose belief systems that are going to ultimately serve you. That're going to be empowering you to take action from very positive emotions, like power, like authority, like confidence and many other positive emotions. We have to remember that our emotions drive our actions. This is neurology. My friends, I'm not making this up. This is the most simplistic way I can explain why we do anything. It's because of the emotions we either are feeling at that moment. Or we take action because we think to feel a different way at the end. Right? And so if you're taking action from an emotion of fear, because you don't wanna be found out because you think you're a fluke because you need to be perfect in every single way so that you're not judged or questioned, right. The results you're creating is just cementing that in your a neurology like, yep. See, I did it perfectly and okay. I saved myself another day in this position, which just tells your brain that you run on fear and that you run on these negative emotions. And so we need to break the emotional habit of this. So it's IM important to take a close look at your actions, the actions that you're taking and the emotion that's driving the action.
10:05 So we look at perfectionism as a set of behaviors, right? Well, let's now look at resourcefulness in the same way. So when you are resourceful, you're taking action or behavior from perhaps a place of abundance, expansion of opportunity of service. That's resourcefulness. My friends, you're taking action from these very empowering emotions. These actions and behaviors are going to produce a very positive result. And those actions may look like calling every single person on, on your contact list or expanding your network a little further or reaching out to someone that you've never spoken to, but know that they can help you in your effort. This is what action looks like when you're taking it from an energy of resourcefulness. So perfectionism versus resourcefulness to very different results that we create all because of the actions and behaviors we take from these very interesting sets of emotions.
11:19 So to recap, if we're looking at perfectionistic tendencies, we're looking at emotions like fear, like scarcity, like fr like feeling like a, an imposter versus resourcefulness, when you're feeling abundant, expansion opportunity being iner to your people or to others, to very, very different sets of emotions that are creating different results. I mean, when you're resourceful, your brain is open to looking for solutions. It is ready to fine tune to pinpoint, to target solutions to these problems. Whereas perfectionism is very narrow in scope. It's driven by that heaviness, that negativity of fear or whatever else, toxic negative emotion and that you're feeling. And the result is more of the same, more of fear, more of feeling like a fraud, more of the imposter syndrome. So two very different ways of leading you can lead through the lens of opportunity or you can lead through the lens of narrowness of the, the near of constrain. And so my plea to you is to take a closer look at your perfectionistic tendencies. Are you on that side of the spectrum or are you on the side of resourcefulness? Are you in between and what is it that you need to change? What do you wanna change? If anything, do you want to be more resourceful in times of crisis in times of chaos in the organization? Or do you wanna stay linear and constrained in perfectionism?
13:14 You know, know something it's so interesting about the vast differences between perfectionism and, and resourcefulness is that I think perfectionism is such a selfish self-centered way of looking at your role as a leader versus resource. You're looking at who you're serving. You're looking at opportunity to serve them at a higher level, to serve your people in the way they deserve to be served, to serve your organization by opening yourself up in your brain to solutions. So you see how one is very constrained inward versus one that's expansive and outward. So if you take anything away from this episode today is that constraint versus expansion self-centered versus service to others. So let me leave you with a very inspiring story out of you. There is a Ukrainian brewery owner who loved his business, loved creating beers for his patrons in this small community. And he realized that he needed to do so to support the Ukrainian people and helping them defend themselves.
14:44 He was not part of the military, but he was very resolute in defending his country against the Russians. And what he decided to do was to gather his employees and all of the materials, all of the equipment that is used in his brewery to make OV cocktails. This is a FA fire bomb. This is, you know, it's a homemade bomb basically. And he is doing this assembly manufacturing line so that everybody in the surrounding community that he has served for so long and loves so much to come and gather their OV cocktails and take 'em back to their, their residences and defend themselves if they need to, if the time comes where the Russians are knocking at their door. And I thought, my goodness, how resourceful is this human? He said, I can't do anything else for my country. I can't go and pick up a rifle.
15:53 I can't go and defend in that way. But what I'm going to do is use all of these resources to help solve a problem for my people. The people that I love so much, and this is the energy and this spirit that I'm talking about coming from a place of service from expect from abundance, training your brain, to look at solutions, not failures and how it's not going to work out. Remember the brain is, is usually negative in this way, but for good reason, it wants to protect you. And so this is your opportunity to condition your, to reset these beliefs, to create new ones so that you can therefore lead in a more impactful way. That's what leadership is about. It's about finding solutions to the problems that your people or your organization has, but how are you going to do that when you're stuck in perfect tendencies?
16:57 And if you wanna change that, then we need to look at the beliefs that you currently have around perfectionism and start building new belief systems so that you can show up expansive, abundant, and ready to serve your people in a resourceful way. So choose wisely, dear leader, perfectionism or resourcefulness, you can't have both. All right. Hey, head over to Instagram at Dr. Denise Simpson DME, let me know about your resourcefulness as a leader. I wanna get to know you. I wanna hear how you show up as a leader and how I can support you. All right, my friend, I will check in with you next week. Have a great week. Take good care.
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