E158: Breaking Free from the Prison of Perception

In this episode of Unchartered and Unfiltered — A Journey Back to You, I’m sharing the journey of a leader who was stuck in the exhausting cycle of trying to manage how people saw them. From over-explaining to emotional contortionist, they believed that if they just “got it right,” others would finally see their worth.

Spoiler alert: That’s not how it works.

One doodle of two stick figures changed everything — exposing the mental gymnastics they were doing to fit into an image that was never theirs to begin with.

Join me as we unpack:

• Why feedback feels so personal (and how to stop absorbing it like a sponge)
• The “box of questions” that changed their leadership style
• The moment they realized: “I don’t need more confidence, I need more curiosity.”
• How to stop managing perceptions and start leading with presence

This isn’t a leadership “how-to.”
 It’s a journey of letting go of what’s not yours to hold.
 Tune in and walk away with a reframe you didn’t know you needed—until now

Chapters

• 0:06 Introduction to Unchartered and Unfiltered
• 0:49 Real Talk: The Emotional Weight
• 1:38 The Whiteboard Moment: Visualizing Contortions
• 4:07 Flipping the Script on Feedback
• 7:21 From Confidence to Curiosity
• 9:02 Self-Recognition Is Non-Negotiable
• 10:27 Leadership Is How You See Yourself
• 13:34 Closing and Show Outro

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:06

Welcome to Unchartered and Unfiltered the journey back to you. I am Cynthia Jameson, your host, and this is where we break free from the noise and dive deep into what truly matters you. If you're tired of the shoulds, the expectations and the pressures to fit into a mold that doesn't serve you, you're in the right place. This isn't a podcast about easy answers or sugar-coated advice. This is your invitation to reclaim your path, embrace the unknown and become the bold, unapologetic version of yourself that's been waiting to show up. It's time to get unfiltered. Let's get started. Unfiltered, let's get started. Hello, hello and welcome back to the podcast. Today I want to just step right into it. I want to have some real talk with you. Have you ever left a meeting, replaying every single word, wondering if you said the right thing, smiled at the right time, didn't look too serious but also not too casual? Or maybe you've gotten feedback that was meant to be constructive but it hit you like a sledgehammer to the gut? If you have been there, welcome, friend. This episode is your permission slip to stop carrying what is not yours.

Speaker 1: 1:26

Today, we're going to be unpacking a leadership story that is less about job titles and more about the exhausting emotional weight of trying to manage how others see you and what happens when you stop. So I want to tell you about my client. On paper, they had it all together Title check, team check, reputation as the gets it done, person check, check, check. But underneath the surface, my client was exhausted. Every meeting felt like a performance, every silence felt like judgment, engagement. And their very first words to me, when I asked them about what their goals were for our six-month engagement they shared that they wanted to change how people see me. I want to change how people see me. How they said it. I want to change people's perception.

Speaker 1: 2:18

But here is the plot twist the work wasn't about changing how people saw them, even though they gave a lot of effort and energy into trying to do just that. The work was really about changing how they saw themselves, and there was a whole bunch of emotional gymnastics that was going on as it relates to people pleasing and in this one particular session at the beginning of our coaching journey. I will never forget this. It's etched on my mind and one of the moments that they reflected back to me was the most powerful in our work together. They were sharing how draining it felt to keep up appearances to be what everyone needed them to be.

Speaker 1: 3:02

And so I grabbed my whiteboard, which I often do needed them to be. And so I grabbed my whiteboard which I often do and I drew two stick figures, two very bad stick figures, and one was of my client and the other one was of everyone else. And then I started doodling all of the different loops and twists and contortions that my client was putting themselves through, bending over backwards, sideways, twisting themselves into shapes, just to manage how they were being perceived. And I stood back from that and I noticed we were both staring at it. That simple sketch hit my client like a gut check in the very best way, because it showed them in the most hilariously humbling way the cognitive dissonance of trying to be someone they weren't for approval. That was never guaranteed and was never going to be guaranteed, and that is when the shift began.

Speaker 1: 4:07

So up until that point, feedback for my client felt like a personal verdict, if you will. Every comment was taken as proof that they weren't doing enough. And in coaching we flipped the script on that, because feedback it's just data. If you're willing to see it that way, it can be very insightful data. It could be very insightful data. It could be very useful data. But looking at it as or what you are doing wrong isn't necessarily the best way to leverage feedback.

Speaker 1: 4:41

And I've done podcast episodes before on this. I think it's called the gift of feedback. It was early on when it was the who are you Lead Anyway, podcast. So if that's something that for you is really top of mind, find that episode, go give it a listen and then think about how could that be? Whatever it is that I'm getting as it relates to feedback, if it's data, what would I do differently? What could I do differently?

Speaker 1: 5:08

We also flipped the script on silence, because sometimes silence is just space. Silence doesn't have to mean anything bad about you. It doesn't have to mean that you have to come in and save the day. Sometimes silence is good. I think our brain likes to define silence as bad, and when our brain is predispositioned in that way, it can often have us leaning in and really finding ourselves filling in the answers, filling in the gaps, without leaving enough space and grace for other people to be able to respond.

Speaker 1: 5:49

And this brings me to one of the other scripts that we flipped, my client and I, which is around reactions. So the reactions that other people have. I'm just going to keep it short and simple. For you not yours to manage the thoughts and feelings that other people have and the reactions that they have, again, are not yours. This is something that I'm noticing with so many clients and even in my own personal life is just recognizing when we're carrying emotional weight, emotional luggage, if you will, that isn't ours. We do have an absolute responsibility and accountability to have ownership and agency of ourselves, our thoughts, our ideas, our energy, what we're putting out in the world. I mean, at the end of the day, we go to bed with ourselves, and so we have to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror and say, yeah, I lived an aligned life with my values.

Speaker 1: 6:48

Today, that that helps, at least for me, that helps me sleep at night, and so what I think is so brilliant about these reframes is my client was able to come to this conclusion that for themselves, once they flipped the script on feedback, seeing it as data silence, as space reactions not theirs to manage they said I actually don't need to be or to feel more confident. That's actually not what I need at all. What I do need is to be more curious, curious, and I just want to say like when the energy in the coaching zoom room, when my client said that was the energy of, like boom, that was the unlock for them, that was the the door that opened that from there they were able to build their own box of questions, simple but mighty questions like what do you think? How would you approach this? What does success look like for you? That box of questions, or the idea of the box of questions, became my client's new leadership toolkit. It wasn't about having the answers anymore. It wasn't creating the pressure within them to have all of the answers anymore. Instead, it was about creating space, creating the conditions for others to step up and for them, as the leader, to be able to breathe.

Speaker 1: 8:39

Now listen, none of this was a straight line. There were so many moments when my client was ready to throw in the towel. They said to me there's one of these sessions that I'm thinking about. They said, like I'm doing the work, but nothing is changing. I'm still feeling bypassed, I'm still feeling unseen. And so what we did?

Speaker 1: 9:01

We paused, we got curious and what surfaced was this belief that if they my team don't acknowledge my growth, it must not be real. And that was another crack in the armor, because the truth of the matter was recognition from other people. It's amazing, it's lovely, but self-recognition that is non-negotiable. How you recognize yourself, the internal scorecard, if you will, of how you account for yourself and what you are doing, how you are acknowledging you, that is really, really important, because one of the things that I have learned so deeply from doing this work is you cannot outsource your worth. The cost is too damn high. And we do it as humans, we do it as leaders, we do it as organizations, we do it as consumers, we do it and we really need to think about why is it that we are doing that and how can we take our own power back.

Speaker 1: 10:09

And so the shift is bit by bit for my client. They started leading differently and some examples of that they closed their laptop after hours, they stopped over explaining, they leaned into silence after questions, they trusted their own scoreboard and I just want to offer this was uncomfortable because it was unfamiliar for them. Comfortable because it was unfamiliar for them. They had a default set of patterns that had them performing, pleasing, proving, and they really had to sit with the discomfort of that and learn to have an entirely different relationship with themselves so that they could show up in these new ways having experiments, testing hypothesis, seeing what would happen, feeling the resistance, coming back and coaching through it. And I think this was so beautiful because in one of our final sessions if not the final session my client said to me and this was beautiful, I thought leadership was fixing how others saw me, me. And this was beautiful. I thought leadership was fixing how others saw me. And now I know that it's about how I see myself and that is the most beautiful like, if I use this term, like mic drop moment. I know I hear that in and around all of the time, but that's what that is is one of those moments.

Speaker 1: 11:40

And so for you, if you are nodding along, here is your reflection moment that I want to invite you into. What is the story? What story are you telling yourself when you're trying to fix how others see you? And what would change if you led with questions, not answers? What would change if you led with questions, not answers? Where do you need self-compassion more than self-criticism today, listen, leadership isn't about image polishing. It's about peeling back the layers and leading from your own truth in the way that only you can. So, friend, if you are done carrying the invisible weight of managing perceptions, if you are ready to swap emotional gymnastics for grounded leadership, I want you to know. This is the work I do and it is a journey worth taking. Coaching is not about fixing you. It is about helping you see the brilliance that's already there, just waiting for you to trust it.

Speaker 1: 12:52

When you stop managing perception, you start leading with presence. And here's the beautiful thing that happens that I'm just realizing I haven't even touched on. When you lead with presence, you live and lead and enjoy each and every moment that you are in. And when you are so busy enjoying each and every moment that you are in, guess what you're not doing? You're not thinking about the past and you're not thinking about the future. And that ego of you, yours, is silent. And that is my business case for you To stop managing perceptions and to start leading with perception, with not perception, cheapers, creepers. And I'm going to leave that in because someone needed to hear that when you stop managing perceptions, you start leading with presence. And until next time, I invite you to keep noticing, keep reflecting and, most of all, keep choosing you, because there is not another human being on the planet that has the same skills, talents, abilities, experiences, values, beliefs, assumptions, gifts than you, and if we got to miss out on that, that would be too bad. Thank you for joining me and I'll be back here, same time, same place, next week.

Speaker 1: 14:36

Welcome to Unchartered and Unfiltered the journey back to you. I am Cynthia Jameson, your host, and this is where we break free from the noise and dive deep into what truly matters you. If you're tired of the shoulds, the expectations and the pressures to fit into a mold that doesn't serve you, you're in the right place. This isn't a podcast about easy answers or sugar-coated advice about easy answers or sugar-coated advice. This is your invitation to reclaim your path, embrace the unknown and become the bold, unapologetic version of yourself that's been waiting to show up. It's time to get unfiltered. Let's get started.