​MindHack

#087 Tama Kieves: A Harvard Lawyer's Radical Path to True Fulfillment

• Cody McLain • Episode 87

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What if everything you've been told about success is actually holding you back? In this eye-opening conversation with Harvard-trained lawyer turned spiritual entrepreneur Tama Kieves, we unveil why "being practical" might be the most impractical decision you'll ever make for your happiness.

Feeling empty at the peak of achievement isn't just common—it's a wake-up call. Tama reveals the counterintuitive truth that 68% of high achievers report feeling trapped in their success, and shares her radical approach to breaking free from conventional thinking. Her provocative advice to "stop being so damn practical" isn't just bold—it's backed by Yale neuroscience showing how embracing uncertainty actually supercharges creativity by 53%.

From rewriting limiting beliefs to accessing your hidden genius, this episode delivers transformative insights for anyone who's ever felt successful yet unfulfilled. Discover why your unconventional desires aren't frivolous—they're the encoded roadmap to your most authentic life.

ℹ️ About the Guest

Tama Kieves is a Harvard Law School graduate who left her legal career to help others discover and pursue their true calling. She shares daily inspiration for unconventional achievers on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube @TamaKieves. Her latest book, Learning to Trust Yourself, explores how limiting beliefs can shape our reality—and how to overcome them. Her work has been featured in a TEDx talk and highlighted by publications like Oprah Magazine.

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[00:00:00] Tama Kieves: Stop being so damn practical. Stop being so realistic or practical because practicality is often coming from your limited mind. And I'm interested in what your transformational mind, your innovative mind, your creative mind might say.

[00:00:25] CODY: Welcome to the Mind Hack Podcast, where we explore the psychology of self-improvement and mindset to help you live a happier and more fulfilled life. I'm your host Cody McClain, and today we're diving into a provocative question. What if the traditional path to success is actually holding us back? Our guest is Tom Kes, whose TEDx Talk You Can't Plan in inspired life has challenged thousands to rethink their approach to success.

[00:00:54] CODY: As a Harvard Law School honor graduate, she left a prestigious legal career to pursue an [00:01:00] approach that would optimize for fulfillment and not just success. Her message that true security comes from authenticity, not conformity, resonates deeply today when 68% of high achievers report feeling trapped in their success through Ted.

[00:01:20] CODY: Bestselling books and upcoming work. Learning to trust yourself, Thomas shows us how uncertainty and joy can become catalysts for breakthrough success. Whether you're questioning your own path or seeking deeper fulfillment, today's conversation promises to both be challenging and transformative. So without further ado, please welcome Tam.

[00:01:46] CODY: I'm so glad to be here. Thank you. And as we were talking prior to me hitting record, I loved the fact that there is a lot that I have to share in relation to my own success. And [00:02:00] it's something I worked really, really hard to achieve and I was able to build a very successful business and, and I was able to sell it, uh, be featured on Forbes and all these other magazines and stuff.

[00:02:11] CODY: And yet at the pinnacle of my career, I felt this sort of emptiness. And it wasn't what I expected to feel. Can you share some insight as to, to what I was feeling and so many other people experience 

[00:02:26] Tama Kieves: what you just described was exactly my turning point, aha moment, you know, of, uh, I'll, I'll back up a little bit just to, uh, give some backstory of when I was younger, I knew that I, I dreamed of being a writer.

[00:02:40] Tama Kieves: That was a thing that lit me up. But I grew up in Brooklyn, New York to an Orthodox Jewish family, and I was told, you know, you're gonna write, you're gonna solve, you know, and so there was no go for your dreams talk. And so, like many of us, like many achievers, I thought, okay, what hoops do I have to jump through to get the [00:03:00] A?

[00:03:00] Tama Kieves: What hoops do I have to jump through to be successful? And so. I went to law school and Harvard Law School and Honors at Harvard Law School. I was on partnership track at a major love firm, and I had that same exact moment that you're talking about because just as the world was saying, oh, you're so successful, it's all working out for you.

[00:03:17] Tama Kieves: I felt scared. I felt really scared because I felt this emptiness of thinking, oh my God, I have what you're supposed to have and I don't feel okay. There's something that doesn't feel right here. And thank God a friend of mine at the time said something amazing and he said, um, think about it. If you've been this successful doing something you don't even love, what could you do with what you love to do?

[00:03:44] Tama Kieves: And that for me, opened my mind to think, you know, look, I'd again, I'd been such a hoop jumper and you know, the, the expected path. And it was my wake up call to really start exploring. Wall lights me up. What do I really want in this life? You know, instead [00:04:00] of what other people think is success, what's gonna be successful for me?

[00:04:03] Tama Kieves: And so that's what 

[00:04:03] CODY: began my entire career. And so you write about how our conventional definition of success can become a cage. And I've, I've experienced that and I know that there's this, this famous quote by Jim Carrey that, you know, I wish everybody could be famous for a day so that they could, they could know it's not really what it seems to, to feel like.

[00:04:24] CODY: And I wonder, can we even give this message to people who haven't achieved success? What can we help shift in society and those who are listening? Because if somebody isn't, isn't successful yet, and they want money and fame, then they're still gonna go for that, right? Uh, of course, as you said, it's, it's easy to say it's not gonna help you feel happy, and it's so common that the idea, you know, that the fame and, and money, we all know that people who win the lottery aren't necessarily happier than other people.

[00:04:55] CODY: How can we shape our expectations? What can we do differently? 

[00:04:59] Tama Kieves: I love [00:05:00] this question. I really think that there's a paradigm shift emerging. I really do. I think that there's a necessary paradigm shift emerging. It's kind of what we were talking a little bit about before the interview of. That we're taught that a certain level of success or a certain look of success, a certain image of success is what's going to do it all for you.

[00:05:21] Tama Kieves: And yet there are so many studies and there are so many people like you, you know, or like me, that have hit a certain level and realized, well, how come I don't feel okay, or I felt okay for three seconds of, and I think what what's going on is I think we are now challenged. To go deeper. I deeply believe that everybody has creative genius in them.

[00:05:43] Tama Kieves: I believe they have gifts in them. I believe that they are answers to problems in this world. I believe we are all here to transform ourselves and to transform the world. And to do that, we have to think outside the blocks. We have to, you know, that's why I wrote learning to trust yourself is I'm [00:06:00] always interested in maverick thinkers, achievers, brilliant people, and I.

[00:06:05] Tama Kieves: Brilliant people have been following this narrow little path, and it's never going to work. Like I said, it's created almost as the booby prize is the thing of you'll get the money, you'll get the whatever, and then you think you'll feel okay, but when you're doing what you're really, really meant to do, you're already okay.

[00:06:25] Tama Kieves: You know it, you are, you are alive. There's a light in your eyes, there's, there's energy in you, right? And so. To your point about, well, how do you convince people who you know haven't had a certain level of success? It's almost like, you know, it's like somebody saying to somebody who's not in relationship, oh, it's not everything and you still have to work on yourself.

[00:06:44] Tama Kieves: And it's like, oh, easy for you to say, you know, you have that right. I think that it proves itself. I think that more of us are starting to realize life is short. There is so much uncertainty in this world right now. Even if you wanna do traditional success. [00:07:00] It doesn't even work the way it used to. I think we're all being led to an unconventional way of thinking.

[00:07:06] Tama Kieves: Um, and that unconventional way of thinking is trusting ourselves, is listening to what's in you that's only in you. Like really doing the experiment of what really lights me up, not what I'm told should light me up, not what I'm told would be the right path, but what really lights me up in this moment and, and learning new ways to think where it might not even be.

[00:07:29] Tama Kieves: One big answer forever. It's just gonna be micro steps, you know, it's going to be experiments and playing, but I think it's the best question we could be ever talking about. I really do think there's a paradigm shift of going from external validation to inner meaning to a light that can't be taken away, to a sense of peace, to a grounding, to a ooh, this for this aca moment, uh, that it can't be taken away.

[00:07:54] CODY: It seems so common now where we have things like, uh, like overachiever syndrome, or you [00:08:00] might call it gifted kid burnout. And art of it stems from, uh, society and, uh, parental pressures that, you know, cause that say that, okay, you're gonna be a lawyer, you're gonna be a doctor. And then they, they do what their parents want, right?

[00:08:14] CODY: And they don't necessarily do what they want to do. So then they find themselves with say, like a doctorate or a law degree, and you find that it's not as fulfilling as you would've hoped. And so when you work with people, uh, or you hear stories of people who feel trapped. What, what do you tell them? I mean, what's like the first step if they feel that they're in their career, but they, they've already invested so much towards this path, but they don't feel happy, what, what advice do you give to them?

[00:08:44] Tama Kieves: First of all, it is, like I said, it is that wake up call and it's a good thing. You know, it's painful and nobody likes pain, but like for me, that incredible level of pain I felt. Me change my life, [00:09:00] made me change my thinking, made me open up to something I was not open to. So in that way. That pain is a, a strange gift, right?

[00:09:09] Tama Kieves: But it is, it's almost like your, your spirit, your soul, whatever the heck it is. Your intelligence saying, uh, this isn't working right? But I do wanna reassure people. I'm not saying everybody needs to leave a job. I'm not saying everybody needs to, oh, you went to medical school and you know, you're, you're deep in now.

[00:09:26] Tama Kieves: Oh, too bad. You have to leave it all. I'm not ever, ever saying that there's a thousand ways to do this. There's a right way to do it, and the right way is your way. So that like when I work with people individually, I never have a cookie cutter plan for people. For me, it's always deeply listening to that person and it's forming a relationship with that person, and this is something you can do for yourself.

[00:09:52] Tama Kieves: By the way, it's really starting to learn how to listen to yourself at the deepest level. [00:10:00] And I'll talk about that in one, one second. But I think the, the main thing though is that you don't have to do everything. You could do a step. So for instance, let's say, you know, I'm just saying the doctor, doctor's listening to this and thinking, oh God, I'm screwed.

[00:10:13] Tama Kieves: You know, it's like I did this and it's like. There's something you might do on the side just to play with it, just to experiment, you know? Just to say, wow, I've always really wanted to teach, so I'm just gonna look into that. You know? Or, I've always wanted to play piano, so I'm just gonna start playing piano.

[00:10:28] Tama Kieves: It doesn't have to be black and white. It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Sometimes when you do anything you love or you follow a hunch, its you with yourself. And when you're reconnected with your real self. You are thinking more optimally, you are thinking more resourcefully, you are thinking more intelligently.

[00:10:49] Tama Kieves: You are no longer thinking in fear. Things that we love to do, things that light us up, give us back our higher resources and then, you know, other steps to [00:11:00] take. So the great news about this is there's no limits. The, the not so great news is that, you know, there's a individ individualized path that we're gonna find, but.

[00:11:09] Tama Kieves: It's not all or nothing, right? So that's the first thing I'd say. And the first thing I'd say is like, find something you love or something that lights you up right now, which sometimes can be hard when we're in pain. You know, sometimes if we're in pain, the first thing we need to do is do nothing, right?

[00:11:25] Tama Kieves: As overachievers is like, ah, you know, anathema of death. But you know, sometimes the first, first step is to rest. 

[00:11:33] CODY: I'm curious, what's the most transformational or, or is there an experience of somebody that you've witnessed who has kind of undergone this attempt to redefine what success means to them?

[00:11:45] CODY: What was their journey? If you can think of anybody? 

[00:11:48] Tama Kieves: There are so many different people I've worked with and a lot of times, you know, it's interesting because, you know, in the media we want the sexy story of. And then they started a business and made a million dollars and it only took three [00:12:00] seconds, you know, and they did my one step technique, right.

[00:12:03] Tama Kieves: But very often what I've found is that the real shift for somebody was an inner shift was the shift of feeling grounded, excited. I, you know, I'm thinking of, uh, one of my clients, uh, you know, who is also a lawyer, became a minister. You know, and something completely Ivy League, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you know, it just like complete paradigm shift did other things as well.

[00:12:28] Tama Kieves: But again, the real shift isn't even externally what they did as much as internally who they became, this man is on fire. He is alive in such a different way, and he's creative and he's writing books and he's doing all kinds of things and. And the same thing for myself. It's like in a billion years, I did not see myself having the career I have.

[00:12:50] Tama Kieves: All I knew was that I wanted to write. That's all I knew. I had no idea. Coaching wasn't even a profession back then. Right. You know, I had no [00:13:00] idea that I was going to be this transformational speaker and reach all kinds of individuals and. Be on stages and lead retreats and all of that, like in a million years.

[00:13:11] Tama Kieves: And I, I never anticipated that or to even be talking about an inner life. It is very funny to me that my book, learning to trust yourself is about trusting yourself because I never trusted myself, but which just like was the thing that I struggled with. But you know, there's that adage of you're here, you know, you teach what you need to learn.

[00:13:32] Tama Kieves: Uh, and so I think the greatest transformation that happens, I. Is not only what we do, but it's going beyond what we thought was reality. You know? So for example, you know, in in my life it was, you know, I've, I learned if you're creative, you don't make money, you know, oh great, you're gonna write poems.

[00:13:52] Tama Kieves: You're never, you're never gonna make a living, right? But what you learn on this path is that it's transformative and that one thing leads to [00:14:00] another, leads to another, leads to another. So somebody might start off with one thing, like, I'll just give that example of. I started off writing poetry, which was like, oh my god.

[00:14:08] Tama Kieves: The least lucrative, craziest thing I could have ever, you know, it was horrifying to me. But you don't get to choose what you love. It chooses you. But what happened was, as I was writing poetry, I realized, oh, I wanted to write essays about career transition, about transformation. 'cause. I was terrified and there were no self-help books that were helping me because they were so simplistic sometimes, you know?

[00:14:32] Tama Kieves: So I started writing these poetic essays about career transformation and then I realized, wow, I wanna be a, around other creative people and achievers and maverick souls. And so I started to support group for me. Then people said, wow, you know, you're really good at this. You should start teaching. And then, so I started teaching classes and then people asked me to work with them individually.

[00:14:51] Tama Kieves: And I didn't even know, you know, before this was before coaching was even a career. And it was like, I don't know, is that, if that's legal, but they have money and I [00:15:00] don't, so I'm gonna call it legal. So literally one thing led to another, led to another, led to another. It's still going on. And so that's why, again, we think of these shifts as like a black and white thing.

[00:15:14] Tama Kieves: They went from this to that, but it's this ongoing dynamic engagement with life. And what stops overachiever so often is we're looking at those first steps and thinking, well, that's stupid, or that wouldn't go anywhere. We have this voice of realism in our heads, right? We have this voice of what's realistic.

[00:15:36] Tama Kieves: I'm gonna challenge everybody who's listening right now. If you get nothing else out of this, I'm just gonna ask everybody. Stop being so damn practical. Stop. Stop being so realistic or practical, because practicality is often coming from your limited mind. And I'm interested in what your transformational mind, your innovative mind, your creative mind might say.

[00:15:58] Tama Kieves: So I think one of the biggest [00:16:00] things you can do in what we're talking about is stop listening to the old conventions, the old ideas of what would be successful and how you have to make it. 

[00:16:09] CODY: So much of what you said is true, and even if we achieve the success that we were initially looking for, a lot of that success was based on, on society telling us what success means, and so to redefine success, I.

[00:16:24] CODY: And to trust ourselves. That is a big leap for a lot of people because you're taking that trust about what you should be aiming for from what everybody else says is success. And you're having to listen to yourself and ask yourself, what is success? And that could be one of the scariest things for people to ask themselves.

[00:16:42] CODY: So how do we go about putting that trust in ourselves? 

[00:16:46] Tama Kieves: That's such a good question because. I think you nailed it, especially as achievers, like we've been saying, we're really good at jumping through the next hoop and jumping through the next hoop, and how high do I have to go and tell me [00:17:00] what to do, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna nail it, I'm gonna do this.

[00:17:02] Tama Kieves: But it's all external, right? And so when you get us alone and you say, okay, but what do you love? What do you want? I, for me, I had a blank face. I, I had a blank. You know, like, I have no idea what I want because I know what I'm supposed to want. I know what the right answer is. I was smart in school. I learned, okay, what does the teacher wanna hear?

[00:17:23] Tama Kieves: I'm gonna tell him that I'm gonna get my A right. And all of a sudden if, if that spotlight is on you of saying you could do anything in this lifetime and you can do anything in this lifetime and you can do anything in this lifetime. What do you want? Most of us freeze, right? Most of us go empty. So I remember I saw a therapist when I first was leaving law and I was seeing a therapist at the time and he kept saying, you know, what do you love to do?

[00:17:51] Tama Kieves: You know, or something like that. And, and I kept saying, I don't know what I want from life. I have no idea what I want. And he said something like, well, you know, you said [00:18:00] you'd like to write. And I'm like, well, yeah, but what am I gonna do with my life? And I just like completely discounted that it was not even on the table for me.

[00:18:08] Tama Kieves: And then it just got so expensive to not listen to myself. You know? It got really expensive to say over and over. I don't know. I don't know. So to answer your question, I think there's two major things we do, and this is actually what learning to trust yourself is all about. It really is about cultivating a different kind of relationship with yourself.

[00:18:28] Tama Kieves: It's really learning how to cultivate a self-advocating relationship rather than a self-critical relationship, right? Self-advocating relationship instead of a self-critical one where you're, God forbid, encouraging yourself. You're, God forbid, giving yourself space. You're, God forbid getting, you're being your own coach.

[00:18:46] Tama Kieves: You're getting on your own side. You're saying, buddy, you can do this right. So that's the, that's the first thing, and that's huge. Right? Uh, because most of us, I think, have learned, or, or we believe that if we're kind to ourselves, all of them, we're gonna get [00:19:00] lazy, we're gonna be indulgent. We're, you know, it's a slippery slope, but it's the exact opposite.

[00:19:04] Tama Kieves: When we're really kind to ourselves, we liberate other abilities. You know, like I'm, I'm a creative person for a living. It's like I have to be self-affirming or self advocating. To be able to create, right? To be able to allow new ideas to come to me. The second thing I wanna say, for most of us, it's the, the relationship.

[00:19:22] Tama Kieves: And I think the second thing would be really experimenting. Just playing, right? Which we didn't learn because we're achievers and we, you know, who had time for that? We just went for the gold, right? We just, we, I did what anybody else told me. I did what the teacher wanted, not what I wanted. So play or experimentation.

[00:19:43] Tama Kieves: It's a way of like doing some internal research of, like I said, what really lights me up? What, where do I feel? And when I say what lights me up, I'm gonna ask you or anyone else listening, where do I feel most me? Where do I feel whole? [00:20:00] Where do I feel like, wow, all pistons are firing? You know, of what kinds of things because like you and I were talking before and I thought it was such a good discussion about that success might not even be the things we get from it.

[00:20:13] Tama Kieves: It might be the actual doing of it. So, you know, of course I want success. Of course I do. And I achieve it still by doing what I love. Right? But, you know, I now know in, let's say, writing a book, it's no longer about, ooh. And then I'll publish it and lots of people will read it and I'll be famous. Yeah, that's fun.

[00:20:33] Tama Kieves: But I write a book because it's healing me, it's transforming me, it's the right use of me. Uh, if I'm on a desert island alone, I'm gonna write a book. Because it's, it's what engages my mind because what's so exciting about doing what we're meant to do is we get to meet who we really are. We get to engage different brain cells, and all of us are so much more than we think we are.

[00:20:58] Tama Kieves: We're so much more. [00:21:00] That's why I'm so excited about the paradigm shift that's happening because the success we think of as traditional is so limiting compared to who we really can be. The answers we can bring to this world, the things that we're meant to really do, to start redefining success is the right use of you.

[00:21:17] Tama Kieves: Like I define wild success is doing the right thing with my time on earth. This is my time on earth. I wanna do the right thing with my time on earth. So those are the few things I would suggest. 

[00:21:27] CODY: And when you talk about writing, writing for yourself. There's this idea that authors are the experts. And from what I've learned, a lot of authors are writing for themselves.

[00:21:39] CODY: They're writing because they want to help themselves on this subject. And I've met and talked to writers who, uh, write about procrastination. You know, they, they, they are the go-to people on knowing how to procrastinate, and yet they still procrastinate. Uh, so I like that. In some ways it's healing yourself, as you say.

[00:21:58] CODY: And this [00:22:00] idea of, we all tend to, to treat ourselves so negatively, but we should really talk to ourselves as if we're a friend, right? And we should ask ourselves, well, what would I tell a friend if they were in this situation? And when we, when we hold onto this negativity of, of we're not doing this, we're not doing that, but we don't realize that, that we're holding our brain is kind of like exerting a certain amount of energy holding onto this hate.

[00:22:26] CODY: That kind of stops us from freeing that space up to think about other things. So I think those are very important points in helping us to, to reshape this perspective. 

[00:22:37] Tama Kieves: Absolutely. You know, I, I, one of the things I always teach clients, and I, and I probably speak about it in all my books as well. Is that you will never, ever, ever hear the voice of a genius in you.

[00:22:49] Tama Kieves: And we all have a genius in different ways and forms. We will never hear the voice of genius while we're listening to the voice of self criticism. While we're listening to the voice of [00:23:00] self-criticism, we're never here a genius. And what's really insidious is that sometimes criticism can again sound like being realistic.

[00:23:07] Tama Kieves: Well, you're just too old. Oh, you're too young. Oh, you don't have enough money. Oh, you don't have enough moxie. Oh you don't. Whatever it is, right? Like we think we're being realistic, but it's really self-critical. And literally we are blocking the deeper intelligence within us. So I often tell my clients, you know, you are often listening to a voice that you think is intelligent, but it's actually blocking your highest intelligence.

[00:23:31] Tama Kieves: You know, something deeper inside you. And as to those authors who write to heal themselves, I think for all of us, we're answers to something in this world. There's something we wanna figure out. There's something we need to do. There's something within us that makes it right for us to give our gift in this world.

[00:23:50] Tama Kieves: And. For me, I wouldn't trust an expert who wasn't doing their own work, who didn't struggle with the same thing. You know, like if I've gone to a relationship [00:24:00] counselor or something and they're telling me like, oh, I never have problems. It's like, well then I can't relate to you. Like, you know, like, you have nothing to teach me because I don't have your brain.

[00:24:09] Tama Kieves: I wanna know the person who's as weird as me, who is as neurotic as me, and they got out of it and they got out of that paper bag. That's the person I'm gonna trust. And, and I know like in all my books, I'm very, very honest and I'm very, I tell my own stories and I tell my own thought processes and I know it's what readers have really appreciated, you know, of that they appreciate like, oh my God, I thought I was the only person who thought like this because they.

[00:24:33] Tama Kieves: I think we're kind of sick of having the external answers again, of the five easy steps and the right way to blah, blah, blah. Where again, there's an instant, a genius in each of us, and there's a path inside each of us, and there are steps inside each of us, but we're looking outside externally instead of looking how to find it internally.

[00:24:55] Tama Kieves: And that is such a paradigm shift because it's gonna involve a dipper [00:25:00] relationship with ourselves where we start to trust ourselves even when the world gets wacky, even when there's. Topsy-turvy changes in the world. We're starting to trust an intelligence within us that leads us, whatever that is, right?

[00:25:14] Tama Kieves: That we all have great instincts if we follow them. So I'm excited about 

[00:25:19] CODY: it. It reminded me that we all want somebody to tell us what to do. In some ways it's like a form of lazy thinking that is type of our species is that we're trying to exert the minimal amount of energy possible. And it's why we default to being on the couch rather than running.

[00:25:35] CODY: Your body's trying to conserve energy and yet when we, uh, face the situation, we have to question how are we going to push ourselves in a way that is going to allow us to reshape what. Helps make us happy. And when I, when I sold my company, I was like going right back into it. I was trying to build another company and I ended up wasting a lot of money.

[00:25:59] CODY: It didn't [00:26:00] go anywhere. And after that, I realized, well, instead of just trying to jump back into trying to have this desire to have another successful company, let me pause and ask what do I really need and how can I slow down? 

[00:26:14] Tama Kieves: I loved what you were saying. You immediately had that kneejerk reaction when you sold your company.

[00:26:19] Tama Kieves: Like, okay, I gotta create another company. And then what you really learned was, wow, I need to pause. You know? And again, for most of us, if we're going to create a completely different kind of life, something that feels very different, we have to take different kinds of steps, right? We have to make different kinds of choices than we've made before.

[00:26:41] Tama Kieves: I think everybody falls into what you just said of that, you know, we're so afraid of that, Paula, we're so afraid of that. And again, it comes back down to the relationship we have with ourselves. So I'll give you an example, right? A negative self-talk, right? Be might be like, oh my God, you're doing nothing.

[00:26:59] Tama Kieves: You're [00:27:00] a waste of time. You know, you've fallen off the radar. Now this is the beginning of the end. You're, you're no one. You're nothing. People are gonna say, what are you doing these days? And you don't even know what to say. Right? So that's the negative self-talk. The other possibility is I have the guts and I have the courage to take some time in life to finally feel out what's true for me and to reflect and to experiment, and to be led from within instinctively rather than from my limited understandings.

[00:27:30] Tama Kieves: I have the guts to do this in my life, and even if I do something that quote didn't go somewhere, I'm gonna learn from that. That's gonna be information for me. I get one life. I wanna know myself. I wanna give myself that. Like again, we, we have such fears in our culture of if you're not doing anything, but so much of the work I do with people has nothing to do with the steps they take.

[00:27:56] Tama Kieves: It's the undoing. It's not doing, it's the [00:28:00] undoing of beliefs they have that are in the way. They have a belief that's in the way of their success and they have old stories or old beliefs, and I. If I can help somebody change the beliefs in their life, bam, everything else is liberated. That's all that matters.

[00:28:17] Tama Kieves: We are running around with these old stories and fears. There's no way to have a complete authentic success 

[00:28:23] CODY: with an old mindset. That's part of the reason why I started this podcast. Like when I was young, I thought I was stupid. I thought I would never achieve anything in life. It felt like I had all these things that I had to overcome from poverty, losing my parents, and I, I had to push myself to overcome these things.

[00:28:41] CODY: There was a part where I had a little bit of success with a business. I was able to make money support myself, and I was like, wow, I didn't know I could do this. And then I asked, well, what else can I do? And then I, I realized, well, you know, I've al always wanted to pick up photography. So then I, I started traveling to, to outside countries and I ended up taking these beautiful pictures.[00:29:00] 

[00:29:00] CODY: I was like, wow, I didn't believe I could take these, these amazing photographs and learn as much as I did. What else do I want to do? Oh, you know, I always want to fly an airplane and say, you know what? Six months later I got, I got my pilot's license and all of these kind of continue to add to my own memory of my own experience in that we all tend to have this, this feeling that, well, I'm not, this, I'm not smart enough.

[00:29:22] CODY: I'm not that. Then you stop yourself before you even get started. And that's one of my main messages that I want to continue to share to others is there's everybody who's had success today, they've experienced this level of self-doubt, a feeling like they, they can't do that. And when you realize that's just a mental obstacle, that is a way of thinking that you don't have to think, then it opens up a whole new world of possibility.

[00:29:50] Tama Kieves: Oh, that's phenomenal. And that's such a great story. That's really a very powerful story and, and sometimes it's how we even [00:30:00] make our limitations. Into gifts, right? Like your story is even more powerful because you grew up poor or because you had, you know, tragedy early on, right? And that you could still accomplish so much.

[00:30:13] Tama Kieves: Somebody else really needs to hear that, that like, oh my God, my mindset's been in the way. One of the things I teach in, um, learning to trust yourself is exactly what we're talking about, which is. We are not seeing reality. We're seeing our beliefs, right? We're not. We're not really even seeing what's possible.

[00:30:32] Tama Kieves: In reality, we're seeing our beliefs about reality. That's always what's going on. So if we start owning our perspective, we start changing everything. And I started working with a belief I had, which was, I never get what I want. Like I had this like sad story inside of me that would always go, I never get what I want.

[00:30:49] Tama Kieves: See. And it would come up all the time, like a client would cancel. Oh, see, I'm not, I'm not gonna get what I want. Uh, or speaking engagement when you come. Oh, see, I'm not, I never get what I want. I [00:31:00] never, it would always come up. I finally started looking at that and first of all, I realized how ridiculous it was to say, never get what I want.

[00:31:08] Tama Kieves: I got five books published. You know, it's like I, those are things I wanted, or on simple levels. I got a purple pen. I wanted, you know, I, you can't say I never get what I want. I, I have a dentist who doesn't make fun of me 'cause I use my water pick once a year. You know, of there are things I got that I wanted and so like.

[00:31:27] Tama Kieves: It was pervasive, this belief, right, that I never forget what I want. The thing about the mind is if you have a belief, it will find the evidence in your life to support the belief. It will show you the evidence, it will block out everything else. It will block out, you know, that's why I always, when I'm working with creative people that say, oh, creative people don't make money.

[00:31:49] Tama Kieves: They're looking at the starving artists, and I'm like, well, what about this creative person who just, you know, started their own company and it went public, right? So again, we're blocking out reality with these [00:32:00] beliefs. Um, I'll just tell a very quick story, um, because it was, for me, the, the story that changed it for me was I started looking at like where that belief came from inside myself.

[00:32:09] Tama Kieves: And it was when I was a little kid. I was walking with my mother in a department store and I saw these red shoes and it's like, oh my God, I want those red shoes. Like, oh my God, please. You know? And my mother was like, normally a very practical woman, and like, you don't need red shoes, you know, get the green Elf shoes, you know?

[00:32:26] Tama Kieves: But that day she got the red shoes for me, and it was amazing. I got what I wanted and I was so excited. And then she lost the bag. She lost the bag with the shoes. And so I formed this belief that said, see, I never get what I want. Right? And when I started looking at it, I realized. It was a child's interpretation, right?

[00:32:44] Tama Kieves: I was disappointed. You know, like, oh, I didn't get those, those shoes. So then I created this belief forever. I'm never gonna get what I want just because of one disappointment. I made it global, like I'm never gonna get what I want. And the amazing thing about this story is I talked to my mother years [00:33:00] later and she told me, what are you even talking about?

[00:33:03] Tama Kieves: You got those shoes? And I'm like, no, but you lost them. And she said, yeah. And we went back and picked them up from the department store and. What it made me realize was I didn't remember reality. I remembered my belief and we are all doing that, right? Like I blocked out real, I got those shoes, but I didn't even remember that I remembered the feeling or the belief.

[00:33:27] Tama Kieves: And so if somebody's listening, I want you to think about what story you're telling yourself. 'cause it's a story. And you will see everything that matches your story, but it still doesn't make it true. We can start opening up to different mindsets and stories. 

[00:33:40] CODY: That reminds me of this study that was done on when people travel and asking them how they remembered their travel experience.

[00:33:49] CODY: And it turns out that when we go on a vacation, we tend to remember the highest high or the lowest low, and that's how we remember that [00:34:00] vacation. So in your case of like the purse, it seems that you had the strongest emotion and feeling like that you never get what you want. And that's what you remembered, and then you just multiply that over your life and you can be filled with tons and tons of these negative beliefs about yourself and what you said about the purse.

[00:34:22] CODY: I never get what I want. That in psychology is called overgeneralization. That's part of CBT therapy, cognitive behavior therapy. I've personally found that very effective. And so if you're somebody that has these tendencies towards negative thought, uh, whether it's black and white thinking it's either true or not true, uh, there's this great app I love.

[00:34:45] CODY: It's called Free CBT on iOS App Store, and it's a free app that helps you to rethink. These negative thoughts about yourself, because that's one of the most important things that I think we can do in order to overcome these [00:35:00] mental barriers that prevent us from achieving this success that we desire.

[00:35:05] Tama Kieves: Absolutely. That's great. And that's amazing too, right, that we we're remembering highs and lows, but like there's a million a thousand other options. And the more we open up our mindset, the more we literally walk in a different world, we literally have different options. Just like, just like what you said, you know, you started realizing, well, I always wanted to fly a plane and I can, I always wanted to do photography, and I 

[00:35:27] CODY: can, I believe in your book, uh, thriving Through Uncertainty, you end up making this claim that uncertainty isn't just something to manage, but it can actually be a powerful force for transformation.

[00:35:43] CODY: Could you expand on this when we hit 

[00:35:46] Tama Kieves: uncertainty, and by the way, who doesn't in this world? So when, where, when do you get to opt out of that? Right. When we hit uncertainty, it's really this choice point of who are you going to be? Are you going to [00:36:00] choose in your life now from your fear or from your weakness?

[00:36:04] Tama Kieves: Or are you going to choose from your strength? Are you gonna choose from your love, you know, of like, it really is this transformative choice. And you know, like I, I know I'm an entrepreneur and I. There's a million things that go on in fluctuations, ups and downs, and in order to have this stamina to face that kind of uncertainty or the uncertainty in anything, the uncertainty in a.

[00:36:28] Tama Kieves: Diagnosis you might have, or an uncertainty in a relationship. The uncertainty in any creative endeavor, right of, to really stay true to that, to not back down or not go there because it's uncertain to really have the stamina with it. Again, it comes back down to that identity shift of starting to realize maybe I'm not my smaller self, maybe I'm not this little self, maybe I'm not this.

[00:36:55] Tama Kieves: Ordinary self. Maybe there's something larger in me. One of the things that's [00:37:00] addicted me to this path is when I started becoming creative, like when I started writing, like something happened for me, it was like, this feels different. This feels different than anything else I do. And it introduced me to other cognitive abilities, and it introduced me to inspiration where you are connected to more and.

[00:37:22] Tama Kieves: It made me realize, wow, I am not just what I think I am. I am not just this limited self. When I am in the service of something that's bigger, something that's truer for me, something that's authentic to me, I tap other abilities, and most of us won't even dare this until we hit uncertainty. It's almost like until you hit uncertainty and like all your familiar tools aren't working.

[00:37:47] Tama Kieves: Force strange striving when they're not working, you have to tap something else and that's when the genius begins. Right. You know, for me it's spirituality also, you know, like for some people it might be [00:38:00] spirituality for other people that may, they may not relate to that. Uh, for me it's, you know, connecting with an inner connection, whatever you call it, you know, um, that there's something else.

[00:38:09] Tama Kieves: There's a different kind of intelligence available. If you follow it, right, but for all of us, we're so much more capable than we think. There's so much more that we're able to do, and most of us hit it in uncertainty because we don't know what else to do. It's, it's that moment where, okay, I can't get the usual way anymore.

[00:38:28] Tama Kieves: All my tools aren't working. I'm spinning my wheels, and so I have to open to something. Believe me, I am so resistant to change. You know, I'm telling you this, but like I'm the most resistant person to change. Like I came to these things dragging my feet, and if somebody had mentioned like spirituality or things like that to me, I would've rolled my eyes.

[00:38:49] Tama Kieves: I would've been like, oh my God, get that crap away from me. But when I was hurting enough, it's like, fine, I will try any damn thing if it works. And for me. This is working like nothing else I've ever [00:39:00] experienced. 

[00:39:00] CODY: And to back that up, Yale had a neuroscience where they did neuroscience research in 2023, and they showed that when you embrace uncertainty, it actually activates brain regions associated with creativity and innovation, increasing problem solving by up to 53%.

[00:39:16] CODY: And so I think what you, what you were saying is that when you, when we face this uncertainty, a lot of us tend to freeze. We have that fight or flight. We feel fear, you know, we, we naturally feel fear towards the unknown, and yet when we can embrace this discomfort, that means we're growing. We're doing something that's allowing ourselves to go on this path and not feel stagnant.

[00:39:42] CODY: And so to reframe that is probably one of the most important things that we can ever do. 'cause every entrepreneur, every person who's had success, has faced uncertainty over and over again. And they chose to embrace it rather than push it away. 

[00:39:59] Tama Kieves: Yes. [00:40:00] Well said. Really phenomenal point. And, you know, and it, and it also again, comes down to that relationship with ourselves.

[00:40:06] Tama Kieves: Uh. How you're identifying it, right? Because if you're not putting this pressure on yourself, like, oh my God, this is the meaning of my life and now I'm gonna fail, uncertainty is this blank slate, right? And so like all our beliefs start coming up, right? All our projections, I. There are people who you know, actively embrace uncertainty, like go for some hike into the wilderness or go climb Mount Everest or go, go spelunking, or God knows what, you know.

[00:40:32] Tama Kieves: I am not an adventure person, so I don't do these things, but there are people who, for them that's fun. It's gleeful, it's wonderful because they're not like putting this pressure on themselves that I have to make this happen. It's more like they have an inmate sense that. I'll know what to do. I wanna be tested.

[00:40:51] Tama Kieves: I wanna interact with life, right? And so what if we made it fun? What if we somehow made it like I'm here to [00:41:00] engage with life? And that a lot of times when old things aren't working, it's because I'm growing. It's not because I'm failing, it's not because I'm broken. It's because now I'm being asked to grow into a fuller capacity.

[00:41:15] CODY: How do we go beyond this feeling of uncertainty? So, so say that we, we face uncertainty and it's like it, this is still a continual process, right? It's not just we, we face this uncertainty, we embrace it, we have success, and everything's different. This is an ongoing process. Um, so I know for me personally, I meditate every day for 20 minutes, which might seem, uh, crazy to a lot of people.

[00:41:40] CODY: But I think when you find time to sit with your own thoughts with yourself. Then you're able to feel or or understand how you're feeling if you're feeling a fear towards something. I can, I can go into that further. So are there any other strategies or methodologies or philosophies that I know it's a [00:42:00] broad question that you've found to be helpful and allowing people to continually trust themselves and face that uncertainty.

[00:42:08] Tama Kieves: Absolutely. And I love that you brought up meditation and you know, like I know some people might, like you said, think it's crazy to do that. I think it's crazy not to do it. I don't know how people are getting through this life without investigating the quality of their own minds and their own thoughts.

[00:42:22] Tama Kieves: And so, uh. There's a million different methodologies. Um, actually I was gonna give a free gift anyway, so I'll just talk, uh, uh, you know, to this community. I'll just talk about it because it's exactly what we're talking about here. I have a technique that I've personally used forever. Uh, it is the thing that has helped me more than anything.

[00:42:40] Tama Kieves: I've taught it to thousands of my clients of, it's called the Inspired Self Dialogues, and it's really about how to. Undo fear or negativity. So it's a form of meditation, but it's more through writing. It's a process, and so I did a video on it. If anybody wants it, you could get it at [00:43:00] tekes.com/best-tool, and it's free.

[00:43:02] Tama Kieves: Um, tekes.com. T-A-M-A-K. I'm thinking, how do I spell my name? T-A-M-A-K-I-E-V-E s.com/best tool. Basically what it is, it's just. It's a way to interrupt fear in the moment. It's a way to interrupt old thinking in the moment and to really, I keep saying that there's this other inner voice, this other voice of positive, strong self advocating.

[00:43:28] Tama Kieves: It's a way to connect to that, right? But. Whatever people use. I think there's a gazillion things out there, right? And I think it's the most important experiment that you will ever do in your lifetime, is to find what works for you. I wanna take charge of this mind again. As achievers, we have very, very powerful minds.

[00:43:49] Tama Kieves: Let's use them. Let's harness them. Let's harness them and be independent and to learn how to think for ourselves and decide what you really want in this lifetime, and to get on your own [00:44:00] side to do it. And I think spirituality in any form, in whatever form works for different people. I actually teach a Course in Miracles.

[00:44:07] Tama Kieves: It's a, it's a spiritual program that's about living in love instead of fear. It's an international program. Many people are familiar with it. That's been another tool for me, just like learning to listen to. A deeper voice than my surface old thinking. Right. But meditation's a huge one. 

[00:44:23] CODY: I would typically ask as we wrap up to what's the one message that you want listeners to take away?

[00:44:29] CODY: But I think you answered that. I think the one message I'd 

[00:44:31] Tama Kieves: want people to say, first of all, I want you to learn to trust yourself. But I think the main thing I'd wanna say, and I'll just say it quickly 'cause I know we're probably running out of time, is. The desires that you have or the dreams that you have, or the ideas that you have, don't ever think they're frivolous.

[00:44:47] Tama Kieves: Don't ever think that. Don't discount them like, oh, I just wanna stop and walk on a beach. Don't discount that. Right? Or, I wanna do photography. Don't discount that like that. You know, we're taught to think our desires are [00:45:00] frivolous, but I just want you to imagine and to know there's already a code within you.

[00:45:05] Tama Kieves: There's instructions within you. There's something within you that is going to lead you to where you need to be. To me now, more than ever, it is the most important thing that we could ever do. Is to follow those desires, follow those hunches, and to keep following, like you said, I, which I thought was brilliant.

[00:45:23] Tama Kieves: This isn't a one, A one and done thing, right? This isn't like this is a practice, this is a life practice. This is a muscle we use. This is a, this is something we activate forever. So I think. All of us who are listening, we have gifts to give this world, and we are, we are needed at this time. And so, and the gift could even just be your peace of mind, God forbid.

[00:45:46] Tama Kieves: Right? It could just be you having comfort and being kind to another human being. Don't discount your desires 

[00:45:53] CODY: so much. True. And what you said from following our desires to making sure that we don't have to [00:46:00] necessarily choose between success. We can have that authentic happiness if we focus on that first, success can follow.

[00:46:08] CODY: And they're, they're actually really interconnected in this kind of way. So Tomma, thank you for sharing your wisdom and experience. And I know that you just published a book called Learning to Trust Yourself. 

[00:46:19] Tama Kieves: Yeah, I know. It's just coming out right now, so I'm excited about it. And 

[00:46:23] CODY: where else should listeners go if they want to connect with you?

[00:46:26] Tama Kieves: Well, first of all, I do wanna say with learning to trust yourself, uh, if you get the book, there are so many free resources in the book itself. There's a, I have a trust pack in there where it's videos and it's, uh, it's different classes that you get for free and it's meditations that you get for free. So just in the book itself, there's a free companion that, um, I, I hope you'll get, but it, the book just came out, so I'm like wildly excited about it.

[00:46:49] Tama Kieves: tkes.com. Uh, like I said, go get the free tool, uh, slash best tool because that will get you that free training. It's [00:47:00] really short, it's quick, it's fun, but it also will get you signed up for, we do these fortune cookies like once a week. I do a burst of inspiration in your bin box. They're super quick. It also lets you know where I'm speaking, you know, if I'm speaking in your area or different programs that I'm doing online.

[00:47:16] Tama Kieves: So just there's all kinds of resources that you get plugged into because we have created a global community of people who are living from inspiration instead of fear. And I would love if anybody's inspired. I want you with us because this is a practice and we need to be around other people who think the same and choose the same and create a different world.

[00:47:35] Tama Kieves: So. Thank you so much, and I'm on social media every day as well. Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, all of it. So join me there as well. 

[00:47:44] CODY: As always, all that will be in the show notes, so thank you everybody for tuning into another episode of Mind Hack. Until next time, remember that your greatest security might just lie and trusting your authentic path.

[00:47:57] CODY: This is Cody McClain signing out.[00:48:00] 

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