00:08 Hi, I am 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 create 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're ready to become a masterful leader, then this podcast was made for you. So let's get started.00:46 Hey, what's going on, dear leader, let's have a heart to heart conversation today. It's one way at this moment, but I expect for you to reach out to me over on LinkedIn as soon as this is over because you and I need to have a heart to heart right here, right now. There are so many women leaders, my clients in particular, that are hiding in plain sight. They are hiding in plain sight. What does that even look like? They're in the boardroom sitting there quietly or biting their tongue, trying not to say something, trying not to give their opinions, their expert opinions. They are sitting there in plain sight because of something that they're making mean about their worthiness. This happens all the time, and if you are in this situation right now where you are feeling muted, where you are feeling like you have to bite your tongue to speak, where you're feeling like you can't really be in the room, but have to be in the room where you want to hide from the world, it is okay, this is transitory.02:02 Once it starts becoming chronic and it's now becoming this habituated thing in your mind and in your body and your nervous system, then we got to get some coaching on this. But if it's temporary for you right now, cool, but if it's not, that's not cool and you and I need to get some coaching in. Listen, a lot of us are making other people's behaviors and their words and their actions towards us. We are making all of that mean something about our self worth. Deep down, we think that it's because of something wrong with us that we're not enough, and we make it mean that because we're not enough, we're never going to be loved, we're never going to be liked, we're never going to belong. It always comes back to self-worth. I heard an amazing woman, Jamie Kern Lima, the founder of IT cosmetics, who sold it cosmetics to L'Oreal for 1.2 billion.03:08 My friends, she was on a podcast with Ed Millet, big fan of his, I'm a big fan of hers, and she has a book coming out until next year, 2024, and it is called Worthy. And she's talking about how all this success and fulfillment that we create for ourselves is never enough. It doesn't feel enough because we finally gather enough self-confidence, go take the action and then you'll go achieve the goal or go get that degree or go start that business or go get married and go have the children. All these goals that we have for ourselves. So we muster up enough self-confidence to take all this forward momentum, forward action until we finally accomplish these goals. But what she has said in this podcast episode with Ed Millet, she says, all that may matter may make a difference in the moment, but long-term sustainability isn't there because it falls back on our self worthiness.04:17 Where are you on your self worth? Listen, I am a woman of ambition. I am relentless with my goals. Let me tell you something. I am super focused. I am almost consumed by this work because I love it and because I know I'm impacting the world some way, somehow, little or big, I'm doing something to move this industry forward, this field of study, this leadership development for women leaders industry, I'm doing something. I wholeheartedly believe in that, and every day I have to take action and I have to. On most days, my friends I have to muster up is unnatural to me. I don't know about you, but I mean you really think about it. Is it natural for you? Have you had to build this up or is it wavering? Does it waver? Does it wax and wing depending on the context? Because it is unnatural for me and I am okay with that.05:26 I'm not a dude who was raised being told that I could do anything and everything I wanted. Hell no. I wasn't raised with all of these societal expectations that I am aggressive and confident and powerful and brilliant. No, my culture told me otherwise. Society has told me otherwise. My poor dear parents told me otherwise. So I don't have that innate ability to be confident 24 hours a day. That's unnatural for me. I don't know about you, I don't know about you, but I don't know anybody who's like that or maybe a dude, but I don't know any woman, especially my clients that have that natural 24 7 self-confidence, this energy of self-confidence, this air of I know everything and I can do everything. No, hell no. I don't know anyone like this. I am someone who has to have her goals right in front of her face, and I have to remember my why, and I have to remember why I have these convictions and why I feel so passionately about women in the pipeline of leadership.06:36 I have to remind myself every day because society and my culture and some people around me trying to keep me from moving forward, trying to keep me from serving women leaders, it is continuous. It is a bombardment of messaging that I get every single day. Now it is up to me to be self-aware and to realize what energies, what powers, which people are working against me. And so when I wake up every day, I look at my goals for the day, which are connected to my annual goals, which are then also connected to my five year, my 10 year goals and so forth. I look at what I have in front of me for the day and I have to conjure up the thoughts, the emotions and action plan to move me forward in the direction of serving my community and serving my people. I have to be reminded.07:39 I have taken that upon myself because I want to stay in the energy of self-confidence. I want to stay focused on what is important to me, and I do have to muster up some days, muster up the energy to take forward action because I've been programmed otherwise. I've been conditioned otherwise and as much work my friends as I do on myself awareness on my personal and professional development, I still have to do this work. And I am not ashamed to say I have to work on this every single day. And so here we are, women leaders, you and I, we set forth on these paths. We choose to raise our hands. We say, yes, please, I'm ready. Get me in there. I want to be the next leader in this department. I want to lead this region. I want to step forth on this journey into the C-suite.08:34 Get me in there. So we are the ones who raises. We raise our hands and we don't care who's watching. We don't care if you're going to tell us no, we're so excited and we get enough self-confidence to apply or to ask for those promotions or to leave our organizations for another wonderful opportunity in another company. We muster up the self-confidence to go and take forward action so that we can accomplish these beautiful goals. Tell me, dear leader, was that not you? Is that not you today? Because this is what's important to understand. We muster up the self-confidence so that we can go and get a taste of what our dreams tastes like, right? The deliciousness, the yumminess of our goals being accomplished, that we go and take this forward action. But we have to do the self-confidence work to do that. And then we finally land those jobs, those positions, the pay increases.09:44 We finally accomplish that goal of a PhD, of a law degree, of a medical degree. We finally create the family that we have been longing for all of our lives, the children, the babies, the community, the neighborhood we live in. We make these conscious decisions so that we can go and fulfill these beautiful dreams and then come to find out that that's not enough. Because self-confidence is not sustainable. It is unnatural. And so when that happens, Jamie Kern Lima, this author, and again the founder creator of it cosmetics, says, the reason why you are unfulfilled is because you have been mustering up all that self-confidence. But what we should have been working on was the foundation of self-worth, self-worth. My mind, just like I swear, I swear to you, my mind exploded for a moment. I had to rewind and listen to her again, and I had to rewind and listen to her again.10:55 And then the next time I took out a pen and paper and had to write down her words because this is exactly how I feel. She has described my life. She has described my goal life, my ambitious life. She's described why nothing has been fulfilling. And maybe it was a short-term fulfillment. But then after that I'm going, well, what's next? Okay, what's next? Let's go. Next goal, next mountain to climb. Where else are we going? And I used to tell myself, there's something wrong with you, Denise. There is nothing wrong with you for wanting more. So when the world, my family, my culture, my community would say more, Denise, you want more? Why are you so greedy? How could you be so selfish? Isn't this enough for you? Don't you think I would push back and say, there is nothing wrong with me. I want more.11:53 I want more. And there I was defending this big void in my soul, this big void in my heart. Like, okay, so now I have perspective on why there is this constant void. Why I want more. Why deserve more? Well, okay, first of all, you're worthy, my friend. You are worthy to want more, to desire more. But let's focus on building the self-worth right here. This is the foundation work. Fine. You know how to conjure up self-confidence? Fantastic. Because self-confidence is outward motion. It is moving forward. People are witnessing. You have an evidence list. Dang right. She's got all these accomplishments, right? It's outside. It's outside looking in. This time we're looking from the inside out as we do the self-worth work. That's it. That's it, my friends. It's the self-worth. Now, let's look at self worthiness worthy. You being worthy. Listen, we are inherently worthy of love, of safety, of abundance.13:14 We are worthy because we exist. Now, for some of you, you're probably going, wait, wait, wait. What? Listen, listen, my dear friend, you are inherently worthy of everything that your heart desires. You deserve to be happy. You deserve to be successful. You deserve to love where you lead. You are worthy of all of these things. Now, I'm telling you this, but it is up to you whether you're open to receiving this information, right? Because that's all I do. All week, every week I come to you and I tell you that you could be better, you could do better, you can have more. You can have the love, you can have the joy. You can have it all no matter who you are. But it's up to you to take that into believe it for yourself. That's really the crux of it all, is you believing that you are worthy because you simply exist.14:12 So many of us have been raised to believe that we are nothing, that we mean nothing, that we don't contribute to anything that we have no purpose. Now, I am someone who was raised in a Catholic home. It was embedded in me as a Catholic school girl. Listen, I even got my PhD from a Catholic university. That was intentional. It was full circle moment for me. I believe in God. I believe that I was created in the image of God. Now, for those of you who are saying, but Denise, you're a scientist, what are you talking about? Religion. Listen, my relationship with God is very personal. I don't normally talk about it with folks unless you're in my inner circle, unless you're one of my clients. But I want for you to know that whatever it is that you believe in, open your heart to believing that you were created inherently worthy of all that you desire in this lifetime.15:16 And I know society has said otherwise to certain groups of folks. I know that your culture has told you otherwise. I am a culture of Mexican-American. I am a Mexicana who was raised in the United States, and I am someone who has had one foot in the US patriarchal system and the other foot in the Paton system. So listen, I have a very interesting perspective on worthiness from two very different countries, from two very different cultures. Not only was I bombarded with those messages right from society, but I was also bombarded with the message of being a woman and being a Mexican woman. And what did that mean in this country, in the United States? What did it mean for me, for my future, for my family? What were my expectations? So I wasn't allowed to think of my own expectations. I wasn't allowed to have my own expectations.16:21 And that's I think for most people. I think it's for most people, our well-intended parents, I'd like to think, and our culture and our society, they did the best they could. But listen, here we are now grown ass women and we are questioning still our worthiness. This is continuous work, my friend. It is never ending. So while you've been mustering up self-confidence to take action towards a goal, we've been doing it the wrong way. We start with the foundation work of our self-worth. It's to be reminded that we are worthy, inherently worthy. We don't have to prove this to anybody. We don't have to defend ourselves to anybody. We are worthy. And now we go and take action, and now we get to create fulfilling lives knowing that we, because we are worthy of it all, we can go take seamless action, or at least what it seems like seamless action.17:21 Because we've done the worthiness work, and this my friends, is what I want for you to remember today. You are worthy since society has told us that because we're women, because we're women of color, because we're in the pipeline of leadership, that we are not enough. Yeah, it's explicit and implicit. Open your eyes. Open your ears. Open your heart. You will see it everywhere. Evidence is everywhere that we are made to believe that we are not enough. If you don't believe me, go pick up this amazing book from Isabel Wilkerson. It is called Caste. This is an incredible book that I have read over and over again. It talks about putting people in hierarchy based on their race and their gender, that people view us based on our race and our gender, and they determine whether we are worthy or not, and that I call bullshit.18:19 So go pick up this book if you don't believe me. And also stay tuned for Jamie Kern Lima's book called Worthy. It's not out until February, 2024, but go pre-order it because it is going to be phenomenal. She's phenomenal. And in the meantime, we can work on your worthiness together. We can do coaching on this. Come into the Masters of Leadership Institute. We will work privately together so that we can explore this concept further and we can put some pragmatic steps in motion together so that you can start working on your self-worth. Alright, cheerleader, I'm going to stop yelling now. Hey, go hit me up over on LinkedIn at Dr. Denise Simpson. I'm so looking forward to hearing about your insights. Tell me what you thought about this episode. I'm here to support you. You're not alone in this, my dear leader. All right. I want to wish you a fantastic rest of your day, and I can't wait to serve you on our next episode. Take good care. Bye. Hey, leader, do you want weekly leadership tips, coaching and training straight to your email inbox? Yeah, I thought so. Head over to dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Again, that's dr denise simpson.com/leadership. Just submit your name and your email address and we'll get started right away. I look forward to serving you inside your email inbox. See you soon.
