Episode 85: The Courage to Reinvent Yourself (Even When You're Scared)

Episode Summary

Most people believe their identity is fixed. Their career defines them. Their past defines them. Their fears define what they can and cannot become.

That belief quietly traps people in roles, careers, and lives that no longer fit.

In this episode, Coach Mo sits down with motivational speaker and coach Bobbi Barrington, who shares the personal journey of reinventing her life in her 60s. Bobbi discusses the difference between external change and the deeper mindset transition required to break free from limiting beliefs.

The conversation dives into fear, emotional regulation, identity, and the courage required to step into the unknown. Bobbi challenges listeners to question the “I am” stories they carry and recognize that personal transformation is possible at any stage of life.

The message is simple: the biggest prison most people live in is the one created by their own thinking.

Key Takeaways

Identity Is Often a Story We Never Question
Many people operate on autopilot, accepting labels about who they are instead of examining whether those identities still serve them.

External Change Is the Easy Part
Changing careers, environments, or roles is often simpler than doing the internal work required to rewrite your beliefs.

Fear Is Usually Emotional, Not Situational
Most people are not afraid of failure. They are afraid of the emotional experience that might come with it.

Your Past Is Evidence of Capability
People often overlook the skills, resilience, and accomplishments they've already demonstrated.

Courage Is Acting While Fear Is Still Present
Fear does not disappear when you pursue growth. The key is learning to move forward anyway.

Transcript

Meet Bobbi: Reinvention At Sixty

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Welcome to the Let's Pick up Mallet on my channel. When high achievers start performing and start transforming. I'm coaching Mike, starting from my core energy leadership coach, founder of the inner women and creator of the Swan Framework. And red. And when I'm here, you train your mindset. Challenge your limit and turn coaching into purpose. Subscribe now and join me on YouTube at Swann Coaching. So let's get your reps in. Welcome to another episode of the Let's Think About It podcast. I'm your host, Coach Mo. And I'm here with another amazing guest. And her name is Bobby Barrington. Bobby, what's good?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Coach Mo, everything is good. And everything is good because we get to choose. We get to choose that life is good.

SPEAKER_02 1:20

And that's my choice. That's nice. That's nice. Where are you checking in from?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

I'm in Australia. I'm calling from the beautiful Sunshine Coast in Queensland, and it's summer here, and I'm loving it.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Man, that's awesome. You're the second person over the past couple of weeks that's came on the show that's from Australia. I think there's a magnet with me to attract you guys onto my show. What are your thoughts about that?

SPEAKER_01 1:53

I can't argue with you there, Mo. Like the world is full of people and we are very similar. Like your audience, like to be able to be tuned into you and your messages. Like it's not a national thing, it's a human thing. And that's why I'm here because we are talking the same sorts of things, and we are human beings with the same sorts of problems. Just happens to be an ocean between us. That's all.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

So tell my audience who you are, what you do, and the type of value that you bring.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Yeah, so my name's Bobby B O W I. That's to get that clear, Bobby Barrington. I am a motivational speaker, I am a coach, and I am reinventing everything in my life in my 60s. And when I say reinvention, I am also up front a trans woman. And so I have changed everything about my gender, everything about my mindset, everything about my who I am in the world, how I show up in the world, move to a new city, an example of possibility of how we humans can change everything in such a short time with a decision. And one of the things that I really talk about is getting out of boxes. And there are many metaphors for boxes, like prison cells, prisons of our own making, that kind of thing, like belief systems that keep us stuck in a quote unquote reality. And I changed it all. And I moved from a life of feeling stuck and lost and frightened and unfulfilled to who I have become today. And I have never been happier, more fulfilled, more excited, not because of what's happened outside of me, because of income or money in the bank or stuff, but because of me and the personal growth and the personal journey that I have been on in myself. And it's an example of what's possible. Like we are incredible us humans. We there's nothing we can't do if we put our minds to it. Trouble is we don't put our minds to it, we don't believe. And so my speaking is all about shifting beliefs, helping people to create better tell better stories, give better meanings, like question what we think, what we do, how we act, what we believe, because none of it is cast in stone. And it's through that uh awareness and uh curiosity that we can start to like unlock the grip on to a reality or a truth that we think is that's it. But is it maybe there is another reality that we can create and one that is more serves us better and create different outcomes? Yeah, so I am so passionate about this because I feel like a dream come true. I've died and gone to heaven, and look, here I am talking to you. And and I can't keep it to myself, but it's for all of us.

Two Transitions: Body And Mind

SPEAKER_02 5:26

Thank you for sharing that. This podcast is about thinking about it and taking some deep dives in one of the things that you just shared. You transitioned, right? I'm curious on what's coming into my mind because when I talk a lot about when it comes to leaders, we carry limiting beliefs, self-doubts, all of this mental constraints in our mind, and we believe it to be true. So I can't imagine what your journey has been like from going from male to female in that transition. But help us understand the mindset and the aspect of you knowing that there's something different inside you about your body and that thing, in that process. How was the courage like really generated for you to take those necessary steps to fulfill what you describe as your destiny in that transition? What was that mental process like for you?

Questioning I Am Statements

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Great question. In fact, the mental process is still ongoing. And so I I say that I've had two transitions. One is in like the body and my appearance and how I show up in the world, and the other is in my mindset, right? Yeah. The physical transition that was like a project plan. That was the easy bit. Like I used to be project manager, you know, I can do the Gantt charts and the critical paths and all that kind of thing. So, what is the path to follow to change your thing? And people think that's the big transition, but that's the little transition. That was the easy one and it's done. And I walk out in the street and I'm a chick. End of story. In a parallel path, I was also a person who wanted more, who wanted to matter, who wanted to do something important on this planet. And I'd always wanted to be an entrepreneur, and I ended up stuck in a career that was so unfulfilling. Like I trained as an accountant because I'm people pleasing because of my father, and I ended up spending 40 years doing a career in accountancy and finance and software implementation and project management. And they did not fulfill me, they did not light me up. I wanted more, and I kept looking for more, and I kept trying different things, but I grew up with a scarcity mindset like finding safety in I was uh introverted, I didn't want to stand out, I didn't want to be seen or attract attention. So these were conditioned aspects of my character that were not my authenticity. And like my transition, like it's like it blows my mind. My transition in gender was simultaneous with my transition in finding my own truth in terms of who I was as a human being and how I showed up in the world. And like I did the Myers Bright test, it says how much of an extrovert or introvert you are thing, and turns out I'm 91% extrovert. So here I am, six foot tall with purple hair, standing on stages, being seen, speaking a truth, which was not who I was. When we talk about these I am statements, I am introverted, I am not a good speaker, I am like all of this stuff, that's the stuff I want to question. Like your audience will have their own lists of I am this, I am that, I am the other. And all of those are up for question. All of those, they can either liberate you or trap you. And that's what I want to, that's what I want to shine lights on. Not for me. My my journey as a trans woman, it's irrelevant. It's just my story as a human being. What I'm interested in is what is going on in other people's heads about who they are, who they can be, and does it light them up?

Universal Transitions And Courage

SPEAKER_02 9:55

I brought that question up because everyone is going through some sort of transition, right? Absolutely. It may not be to the extent of an identity transition, but it's some sort of transition that they're going through. I talk a lot about that punk ass inner critic that's in our head that makes us play very small in these limiting beliefs, these assumptions that are consistently present in our head that that creates avoidance in being our true selves, exemplifying our true worth to the world. And so the reason I asked that question, because when you're talking about shifting identities or genders at that level, I think that's the ultimate mental transition that one has to make. So I think your story and how do that kind of click for you, I think it's valuable because so many people carry their own stories, but they don't necessarily know how to shift out of that story into the true worth and value of what they're actually seeking. And they don't even know what that potentially is for themselves. So that's the basis of why I asked that question. And so as I broke it down like that, what's going through your mind?

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Yeah, like this question of identity, like transitioning identity. Like we are all transitioning every day, and I have no monopoly on transition. All of us are. It took a lot of courage, like going to a doctor and saying, I go, I'm not happy with this body that I have, and then get shamed by that. And like all of us who are on journeys of exploration, we are beginners at that journey when we start. And for a trans person to go out into public and you're a beginner on that journey of transition, that takes so much courage to do. But so does it for somebody who their parents want them to be a lawyer, and they say, Yeah, I want to be a boat builder. That takes as much courage to come out. That coming out process that takes a massive amount of courage.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

Yeah. Absolutely. I agree with you 1000%, because there's so many different aspects of what people are carrying that they need that courage to step out of their comfort zone. Maybe it's public speaking, maybe it's leaving a promising, successful career to become an entrepreneur. They're carrying this disconnect from that role, and they feel that there's just something more inside them that they have to explore. It might be entrepreneurship, right? That takes a lot of courage to walk away from an eight-figure, seven-figure, six-figure job to start a new business, right? It takes a level of courage because it's outside of that person's comfort zone. So when you being yourself being a public speaker, what is that message to help people get out of their comfort zone to create resiliency, to generate that courage to move forward?

Remembering Past Wins To Face Fear

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah, a great question. So most of us, when we are sitting where we are in our lives, and we look at look backwards at the past and all of the things we've accomplished, and all of the things we've done, and all of the skills that we've acquired when we look back and we tend to diminish those. We tend to devalue them. Like I did that thing, but it's no biggie, like that skill, it's easy for me now. And you look forward at the future and you think, holy shit, that is so big for me, and I'm so frightened. And the emotions come up about, like you were saying, like you've you've given up on this, you've you're not doing that job anymore. And what if I fail at it? What if I suck at it? What if I lose at it? What are the consequences of that? And those emotions are so massive. But what I want to remind people is that we have done this before. We have accomplished this, we have taken these steps, and we didn't die, and we and stuff happened, and there is just like learning that we've gone, and the future is the same. The future is just now has not happened yet. And yeah, people forget that oh my god, I did do that. I and I want to keep reminding people about what they didn't do, what they can do, what they have accomplished. Sometimes I ask people, name five successful things that you've done in your life, and they can't do it. Why not? Because they make the bar so high that the success has to be solving the problem in Palestine or like curing all disease in the like they make it so big, and yet here we are as humans, we are just a litany of successes, and people forget that.

SPEAKER_02 16:08

And I want to remind them so what's the messaging and your key messaging in your speaking engagements that you work with clients on?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

My my key self-belief like that's where we sit. We sit in a world like right now, there is such a lot of crap going on in the world. And people are fearful for their jobs, fearful for their futures, fearful about AI, fearful about this career that I've built over 30 years, and it can disappear in a heartbeat because of some software that's taken over. This is the fear that people have. And will I cope? Will I be good enough? Will I be able to provide for my family in this new paradigm? Kind of thing. And and I want to remind people that they've done it before, and that all the fear is the emotion, like when you know, like this Roosevelt thing about all we have to fear is fear itself. I never understood that till quite recently, and now I do. And now I know that it's that emotion that scares us the most because most of us haven't been taught how to handle emotion, how to deal with the things that come up in it in our lives. We get conditioned to suppress them, to ignore them, to medicate them, to distract ourselves from them, but not to sit in them, not to face them and learn what they have to teach us. So that's the fear. The fear is of the emotion of what's going to happen and how will I cope. And it doesn't have to be like that. Because emotions, they're just feelings. We're meant to feel them, not walk away from them.

Feeling Emotions Versus Suppressing Them

Culture, Gender Norms, And Yearning

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Does that make sense? Just being beings, as you say, you naturally adapt to your culture, the environments that you're associated with. And within those environments that you're associated with, there's different habits, right? Some of those habits might be men are not to allow, are not allowed to share their emotions. You need to suppress those emotions because if you share these emotions, you're considered to be weak, and you're not the man that you're supposed to be in leading a household, whatever the case might be. They put these gender identities on women as well, right? So you naturally carry that being in the world as we mature and grow into our professions and our roles in society. We carry these norms, we carry these beliefs, and it's on autopilot, right? Some of us have been developed where we show our emotions, we know how to speak through our emotions. Some of us has been developed as a way that you suppress those emotions and you don't talk about your emotions, right? But then there's this peace inside of us. There's something inside of us that's yearning to come out. It's in all of us. It's something that's yearning to come out, right? And it really takes awareness to understand what is that yearning that's trying to come out, the courage and the willingness to explore what that yearning is. Part of the problem is we're in the society where it's all about external. So we worry if I explore this, how would I be judged externally? To explore this externally, there's more fear, right? If I explore this externally, there's going to be a certain judgment of self. And that is scary as hell. And I would rather suppress my yearning to be great than put myself out there and potentially be judged. So we carry this, I like to describe it as this ball of glow inside of us that's just waiting to explode out. We continue to suppress it because of the fear in how we'll be judged externally. That's in all of us, though. I say in all of us, in different little parts of our lives, that we carry certain judgments and how we would be perceived in the external world, not as a whole being, but certain sections of our being we hesitate to share because of how we project ourselves and being judged.

Nervous System Regulation And Boundaries

Childhood Stories And Taking Responsibility

SPEAKER_01 21:02

What are your thoughts about that? So, this culture, this environment, it's so sneaky, it's so hidden. Like I have evolved a new train of thought. Now, I spoke about getting out of boxes earlier, and those boxes, one of them I'm contemplating at the moment is the whole box of womanhood. What does it mean to be a woman? What does it mean to be a man? And what does that how does that affect how you show up? The whole constraint, you know, about what it is. I am a man, therefore I am this, that, and the other. I am a woman, therefore, this means that, blah, blah, blah. I want to question all of that. So I think this is a massive vein of inquiry. But your other the other part to your question was about having this. Glowing ball having this part to us that we don't want to express for fear. Right. So when you speak about the fear of that is such a beautiful invitation to contemplate what is happening within yourself. So when I spoke about facing towards your emotions, I actually have a process that I go to. Like we feel emotions in our bodies. If you've got this glowing ball and you want to express it in the world, and maybe you feel in your chest or in your abdomen or something like that, you feel that is your body signaling to you, your nervous system signaling to you that is an unsafe thing that is not safe for you. And that is a feeling in your body that we have the capacity to go into, to learn from, to process through and out of our systems. So there are ways of actually creating more nervous system equanimity in our bodies about this thing, right? When I say I have transitioned to become this woman who is not just female, but also so strong, so powerful, so emotionally regulated, that has been a process. That has been a process of constantly going into my emotions, questioning them through a process and learning through them and getting stronger and stronger in my capacity to hold boundaries, in my capacity to widen the gap between stimulus and response. Something happens I choose to respond because I have a regulated nervous system that is not reacting, is not going into fight, flight, freeze kind of thing like that. And that process, like I have gone so far into me, into like my childhood hurts, my childhood traumas. Like I said that I was an introvert. I was an introvert to stay safe. I was an introvert because showing up emotionally, I learned as an unsafe thing in my childhood. And I have since learned as an adult that doesn't have to be my truth anymore. And the scary thing is that every single one of us has got childhood stories of some description running in our heads, including the people who run our countries, manage our businesses. They are all little hurt hurt little boys, hurt little girls running around inside. And it doesn't have to be like that. Like when you express this glowing thing that you're frightened about sharing with the world, what a beautiful access point to ask yourself what is that triggered in me? What is the core wound? What is the payoff that I'm getting? And it's usually around giving your power away, being the victim, blaming, not taking responsibility for your own life and your own emotions. And what is that costing me? It's costing you like that glowing ball. God mo like what is it costing the world for you not to express that glowing ball of epicness that is waiting to be shared with humanity? And it's just because of the emotional regulation that is keeping that locked inside, and that is what is like with 99% of I don't know, most people, they also have these talents and passions and desires and businesses and art and creativity that's locks inside because of what someone else might think, because of the emotions of what might happen if I fail at it, or something like that. And it's just the emotional management, just the emotions, and we can learn.

SPEAKER_02 26:15

Yeah, thank you for sharing.

SPEAKER_01 26:17

So this is nothing to do with gender, this is all in time all to do with mindset, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:23

Absolutely, absolutely. And we took a deeper dive into that, and that's what let's think about it is all about. As we get ready to wrap up out of here, any final thoughts that you would like to share?

SPEAKER_01 26:36

Oh God, Mo, we are more powerful than we know, we are more capable than we ever give ourselves credit. Our capacity to expand is limitless as human beings, and yet we limit ourselves through our thinking, through our emotional and nervous system regulation, through giving our power away to what someone thinks, or am I good enough? Am I worthy? And all of these limiting beliefs that we have about ourselves, and they do not have to be limiting beliefs because there are ways of expanding ourselves. And I feel I feel so liberated just in such a short time because of the work that I've done on myself and my capacity to even have this conversation with you, because this was not me. It was not me.

SPEAKER_02 27:30

That's great. And congratulations to you, generating that courage within self to move forward and achieve that new identity, that new endeavor for self, because that's what this is all about. Is like, how do we tap into self, that piece of us that's yearning for more? How do we tap into that and move forward without the fear? It takes a lot of self-regulation, regulating self in order to be able to do that. It really starts with the self-awareness, right? One of the, as we close out here, I talk a lot about swag, self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grit. And everything starts with understanding self, that self-awareness piece. When you can grab a hold of that and put a lot of consciousness on how what those yearning pieces inside of you are calling for and exploring it and creating more awareness around what that needs to be in order to fulfill it, that generates an opportunity to understand your why. And with why and purpose, it creates actions, actionable steps, because you know what your purpose is, and knowing that purpose, you know what steps you naturally need to take. And with those steps, right, that's what your courage generates. That's the grid.

Final Takeaways On Power And Growth

SPEAKER_01 29:03

And that's why I'm just gonna say two things to that. We will never be without fear. So the thing is to do it scared, just do it scared, feel the fear and do it anyway. The fear is always gonna do that because new level, new devil, or new level, same devil, but just bigger kind of thing. So forget that fear is gonna go away, just learn to manage the fear.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

That's a good point because the fear can put you in action mode too. It can put you in action mode to press through. Yeah, so I gotta check out. I appreciate this conversation. This was awesome. Thank you, Bobby, for coming on. It was great, and I'll catch you next time.

SPEAKER_01 29:50

It was so good, Mo. Really appreciate that. I hope people can find me in your show notes, and I love your talk today.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

That's another rep in the inner arena. You didn't just listen, you leveled up your swag. Self-awareness, why power, aligned action, and grit. If this hit home, share it, subscribe to the Let's Think About It podcast, and lock in with me on YouTube at Swag Coaching. Until next time, stay aware, lead with your why, act in alignment, and keep your grid strong.