Piece Of Mind Podcast
Welcome to Piece of Mind, where we piece together the parts of your mind to help you live a life that’s authentic, unapologetic, and absolutely fulfilling.
I’m your host Ashley Badman, a mindset coach and psychology student, here to guide you through the world of subconscious re-programming, relationships, belief systems, and patterns.
This isn’t your typical mindset podcast. We’re diving deep into the core of who you are, tackling everything from self-sabotage and people-pleasing to attachment styles and beyond. We’ll uncover the deeper shit that makes you who you are, so you can grow, evolve, and build a life you’re obsessed with.
Expect a mix of evidence-based insights, energetic shifts, and a touch of chaos as we explore how to heal, optimize, and re-program your life.
This podcast is for those who refuse to settle, who are committed to living life fully and getting the best for themselves.
Get ready for straight talk, practical strategies, and a few surprises along the way. If you’re ready to stop hiding from yourself and start living unapologetically, you’re in the right place. Tune in and let’s get into it.
Piece Of Mind Podcast
Ep 07: Kyra Le Sech On Navigating Pressure Like a Pro
Ready to learn how to crush it under pressure without burning out?
In this episode I’m chatting with Kyra—a high-performance coach who knows all about balancing the good stress from the bad.
We’re breaking down what makes pressure helpful (and what doesn’t), how self-trust and positive self-talk play a huge role, and why high achievers, especially women, face unique challenges.
We’ll keep it real and relatable, diving into everything from stress addiction and burnout to navigating tough spots with compassion and a little humor.
You’ll walk away with practical tips to thrive, plus a few laughs from our playful chat about celebrity crushes and dream travel spots.
Grab your favorite drink and tune in—this one's packed with value and good vibes!
Follow Kyra on Instagram.
Welcome to Peace of Mind the podcast. This is all about piecing together the parts of your mind so that you can live a life that is authentic, unapologetic and actually fulfilling. I'm your host, ashley Badman, and I'm here to help you get real with yourself, embrace who you truly are and unleash your fullest potential. Get ready for a no bullshit, straight talk and a little chaos, because I'm here to give you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. So let's go. Hello, my loves, and welcome back to another episode of the Peace of Mind podcast.
Speaker 1:Today's episode is packed with insights, depth and so much value. I'm sitting down with Kyra, who is a high-performance coach with a psychology degree, who's really just mastered the art of thriving under pressure. We dive into the real impact of stress, breaking down the fine line between good pressure and the kind that really just pulls you down, and Kyra shares how the ego sneaks into our self-reflection and why self-trust is crucial for performance and the power of self-affirmation in staying grounded. We even touch on flow states, mental health, and why traditional therapy sometimes just isn't enough. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by pressure or want to unlock your fullest potential, this episode is going to be a must listen. Let's get into it. Hello, kyra, and welcome to the podcast. I'm so excited that you are here today, as always whenever I have a guest on. We have had a little bit of a riff before we even got into it.
Speaker 1:I'm like I'm going to have to hit record or I'm going to keep you here all day, because Kyra is a very interesting person and she has so many insane and incredible insights and that is why I have her on the podcast, because I think we can all take away so much from her knowledge and what she has to offer. So I'm very excited you're here. Would you be happy to introduce yourself, which is, I just said, it's the worst fucking question, like tell me a bit about yourself and it's like I don't know. But can you introduce yourself for people that are listening, that are like I've never met you, I don't follow you, I don't know who you are. Give us a bit of an insight into who you are and what it is that you do.
Speaker 2:Of course, thank you for having me. So my name is Kyra. I am a high performance, slash mindset, slash transformation coach Haven't said a little word yet because I just like helping women and humans just really optimize their performance, but really do it in a way that's based on psychology research and in a way that they can have everything they desire in life. It's not just I need to perform or I'll die. So I don't really like the term, like specifically mindset, because I feel like it's so much deeper and so much more than that. But I am a coach, essentially, and an educator, so I do run workshops, I do public speaking. I love I work in psychological research. So I studied psychology and I just love working with people who are ambitious, in a nutshell, people who want more. That's essentially who I work with.
Speaker 1:I love that. I love that you already went straight to the top of like, oh, you're not going to die. I'm like that. This is my person, because I say that all the time. I'm like if you're not going to die, you're going to be okay. But when I did skydiving I was like there's a real possibility I could actually die, so that's a little bit scary.
Speaker 1:I am really keen to have this conversation with you.
Speaker 1:The reason I really wanted you to come on is because I've seen you doing a lot of chats and a lot of information on your social media and things like that around pressure, on around you know high achievers, specifically in relation to women and all of those different things. So I really wanted you to come and talk about what pressure is, how we deal with pressure, how we can better cope with pressure, specifically, I guess, for people who they do want to achieve things in their life. They do want to get out there and live their purpose or however we want to say that they want to feel like they're accomplishing what they want to accomplish. But a lot of the times, the things that can hold us back in that I would assume you would say, is, you know, stress. If we get really, really overwhelmed, we get really, really stressed, it's going to impact how we show up and how we perform and all those different things. So I love your insight on pressure and if you could talk a little bit about what pressure is from your insights, yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:So I guess the way I see pressure is pressure essentially is defined as something that makes the importance of performing kind of increase. That's essentially what it is in a nutshell, and pressure is not bad, it just is, and you can never escape it in life. It's going to be in everything that we do, and I think pressure is a good thing. It's interesting. So when we think of pressure, a lot of the time our perspective on pressure is dictated based on our previous experiences with pressure, but also we make it mean something based on what we associate the outcomes of it with. So, when it comes to pressure in performing, if we associate pressure with I'm going to fail, people are going to judge me, people are going to criticize me, whatever the things are, then we're obviously going to have a negative perception of pressure. Whereas if we see pressure as oh, this is, I'm so lucky to have this pressure, I'm so lucky to be in this position, to have pressure on me to perform, or I can use this pressure to perform better, like this is motivating me, this is pushing me, you're going to have a more positive perspective of pressure, and so it's not the pressure that is the problem, it's what we make the pressure mean, based on our prior experiences and our assumptions of the future, and so this is the same across the board.
Speaker 2:Whether you're an elite athlete, whether you're a mom, whether you're like in the workforce, whatever it is, pressure is always going to be workforce. Whatever it is, pressure is always going to be. You're not, you don't dislike the pressure. You dislike that pressure is going to make you feel a certain way if you don't perform. So you're making all these assumptions and that's what's going to be harming your performance and making you feel stressed and overwhelmed. Because stress isn't bad, like you've got good and bad stress, but stress is just. It's just something that it's like an energy. It can move us in a certain way, but when we don't live in the present and we're always worrying about the future or worrying about the past, that's what makes it bad, because you're not in the present, if that makes sense. You're kind of just scattered all over the place. So pressure can be good if you learn how to use it in a way and change your perspective on it.
Speaker 1:Okay, this is super interesting. Something you said there which I would love for you to expand on as well is you said stress is not bad, and I think that for majority of like everyday people, when they hear the word stress, they think it's bad. Like stress is bad, it means you're overwhelmed, it means it's something challenging, and a lot of the things that we hear are how do we relieve stress or how do we reduce stress? So, in your opinion, how can you kind of tell us how stress can be good and how we can actually benefit from having stress in our life?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sure. So I guess, when we think about stress from a biological level, when we experience stress which can be triggered through physical, something physical or through something psychological that induces that sense of stress, we get physiological changes in our body. So our adrenaline might go up, you might feel like butterflies in your stomach, that's your digestive system slowing down, you might get the shakes, you might feel short of breath, depending. Obviously that's obviously like a higher level of stress. But the things that are happening in our body when we experience stress, all that's happening is your body's like shit. I need to prepare so that you can perform the best you can. I need to give you adrenaline so that you can perform the best you can. I need to slow down your digestive system so that you have more energy to perform whatever you're doing. And so, from a physiological level, we're supposed to have a stress response. It's built into our system to help us perform, to help us be better.
Speaker 2:However, because in today's society you don't just experience stress, perform, and then your stress goes back to the homeostasis level, because we have the ability to think thoughts and because we get stuck in these loops and you have social media and you've got stress at work and stress at home. We're living in a high stress environment, and when you live at that high stress physiologically, that's what's going to cause fatigue and burnout and all sorts of health issues and perpetuate the negative thoughts as well. Because, as I said, when we experience stress, we get that physiological change in our body that's almost like a drug, and so our body becomes addicted to that physiological response. And so I've learned this recently. I thought this was so interesting.
Speaker 2:If you have either grown up or lived in a prolonged thing of stress for a long time and you start to like kind of rest more or start to try manage your stress a little bit better, and you start to like kind of rest more or start to try manage your stress a little bit better, you might start to experience intrusive thoughts, like really like not nice intrusive thoughts because it's your body's way of trying to get you back to that stress thing. It's like addicted to the stress hormone. So it's like let's think about the worst possible thing in the world to make you feel stressed because we need a hit of those stress hormones.
Speaker 1:It's so interesting, but so seen right now yeah no one can see my face because obviously we're on a podcast but my face is just sitting there like I feel targeted by this conversation. I act, but I think that that is not the like what I thought was going to come from that question, which I am so glad that it did, because I I think that is such a relevant thing to bring up, because I feel very seen by that and I'm sure other people listening feel very seen by that. But it is a very hard thing to admit that you could possibly be addicted to your own stress and get to a point in your life where you are causing your life to be so much more stressful and that's literally me. So I share a lot about my childhood and my upbringing and toxic relationships and stuff like that, and I was living under a constant state of stress. And then I entered this really beautiful relationship with Dave and you know I left the police and started running my own business and all these amazing things and I found myself doing that.
Speaker 1:I was like I found myself catastrophizing. I found myself having really negative thoughts about myself or really negative thoughts about what if this happens and my business fails and I have no money, or what if Dave cheats on me and leaves me and just thinking things that aren't actually going to happen? There is no evidence that they, even there is a possibility of them happening. But those thoughts, those intrusive thoughts it feels almost really impossible to escape those thoughts. They feel so real, they feel so true and they, if they, impact your stress levels, they impact your well-being and your happiness.
Speaker 1:So for someone, then, that feels like they have grown up with a lot of stress or had a lot of stress in their life and now may find themselves being addicted to stress and having these intrusive thoughts, what advice would you give someone that is kind of going through that? And I know you mentioned something before about being more present. I think that's super relevant in this as well. But, yeah, what would you say to someone who was like that's, that's literally me, I cause the stress I, and I used to say I'm addicted to the chaos, like that used to be my? Yeah, I'm addicted to the chaos and I would create chaos in my life, which obviously is not ideal for happiness yeah what would you say to someone that does that?
Speaker 2:I would say the first step to anything is obviously being aware, so being aware of how we are contributing to our own stress or aware of, potentially, like even, what we're gaining from it. So I think a lot of the time, if we do live in high stress environments, like even me, I notice it a lot that if I, when I reflect on myself, if I am experiencing a lot of stress and I feel quite overwhelmed and burnt out, I get so much sympathy and connection, attention, validation, which is beautiful, like I'm so grateful to have the support networks I do in my life, but I'm also like I know human psychology and I know that fundamentally we want connection, we want sympathy, we want to feel validated, and so this is an unhealthy way for me to get that validation. So not only am I trying to create something to get validation outside of myself, but I'm not giving it, I'm not like learning how to give myself the validation and connection. I'm actually creating unhealthy environments to get it from other people, and so I guess the thing that I would say would be awareness. So, looking at where are you maybe like, even if you just go like hypothetically, where am I maybe contributing to my stress? You can kind of bypass that ego defense, get aware of it and see like what situations. And then, even if you start understanding and having that self-compassion because when we go into self-punishment, so if you start shaming yourself, like, oh my gosh, I'm the worst person ever I like put myself in these situations, I'm the problem then you're feeding the stress, like you're making yourself more stressed. So the answer is not self-punishment and going into shame, it's looking at the shame and going. This is really interesting. How can I practice self-compassion in this moment and realize, oh, I actually just want connection, cool, how can I actually create more connection in my life in a more healthy way? And then, when you start creating the change and start trying to shift your behavior, behavior change is simple. It's not easy but it is simple. You just have to look at, okay, what's reinforcing the negative behavior? Cool, I want connection. So to change my behavior, I need to find something to reinforce the new behavior. So connection. So how can I create connection in a new environment in a more healthy way? How can I set up my habits, my life, so that it reinforces that and I have less? I have like more barriers to the stress response? So it's going to look different for everyone.
Speaker 2:I think for me, like the biggest thing for me I got addicted to working, and so I would wake up at like 5am and I would go straight on my laptop and start working, because I did feel quite clear headed in the morning.
Speaker 2:Then I would work through and then at lunchtime I'd have a break for like an hour and then I'd go back and I'd work through till like six or seven and I wouldn't like I went a long period of time where I was barely exercising because I was like, let me just get through this little part of my business and once it's fully set up and running, then I'll go do the good habits, then I'll start exercising.
Speaker 2:And so I got addicted to this. I burnt out because I was just working all the time, I wasn't looking after myself, and so for me it was like acknowledging okay, this is contributing to my stress and burnout, so I need to start exercising, I need to start doing things to manage my stress myself, so that I'm not going to burn out and I'm actually going to look after myself. So I feel like it's a bit of trial and error, but it's really about getting awareness and understanding that this is a biological program Like this is how human beings are programmed. There's nothing wrong or bad. You just have to look at it and then start to see how you can make little shifts and little changes to reduce that stress.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think what you said there is the most important is just being able to have compassion for yourself, because of course, it makes sense that we're going to avoid looking at our role in something. Say, we are the ones that are addicted to the stress, or we are the ones making decisions that are making our life more stressful or harder for ourselves. Why would we ever want to look at that if we know it's going to be met with horrible, horrible thoughts and horrible words?
Speaker 1:like you're so stupid, why can't you just do better saying all these things to yourself? Of course you're going to avoid that like the plague because that doesn't feel good for you, but when you can actually just see things, I guess, from a lens of there is a reason that I'm doing this, and I may not know the reason, I may not know where this has come from, but I know that there is a reason that I'm doing this, and I may not know the reason. I may not know where this has come from, but I know that there is a reason because, as humans, we don't just like poof. I'm just like this.
Speaker 1:All of a sudden we are the way that we are for a reason from our own experiences and things like that, and I think that really helped me be able to have compassion for myself rather than be like why do I always be addicted to my stress, why do I always do this, why do I always do this, rather than doing that, which is really me, just shaming myself, saying basically what's wrong with me, why can't I?
Speaker 1:be, better, do better. Why can't I be different? I think what really helped me was understanding well the reason that I self-sabotage, the reason I'm a perfectionist, the reason that I am in fight or flight all the time or picking fights with my partner is because of X, y, z, because I experienced this in my childhood or I experienced this in past relationships, and these are protective mechanisms. I'm doing these things because I think that I'm keeping myself safe from you know, whatever, whatever I'm fearing, whatever wound is there. But when you can have that compassion of like, oh, I actually just am the way that I am for a reason, there's nothing actually wrong with me. I'm human and all of us have picked up these beliefs or patterns that don't serve us along the way. And when we can see it with that compassion, we can actually create that positive change and create change in that healthy direction. So I really love that.
Speaker 1:Something else you said which I would love you to expand on a little bit more and, as I said before we jumped on, I'm like I don't have like the way that I do the podcast is like I don't have like a set, like these are the questions that you're going to answer and this is how we have to go through things, mate.
Speaker 1:I'm too chaotic for that. I love the flow of conversation. I think if you are too rigid and this can be a life lesson as well if we're too rigid in life, we may miss some really beautiful opportunities, and I think it's the same with this. If we have these rigid questions, I may miss a beautiful opportunity for you to say something and maybe like whoa, okay, let's go back there and let's expand on that. So I love the flow of that, but something that you said which maybe makes it hard for you, because you're like where is this going? You said something about, um, being kind to yourself, or the way that you worded the question of of asking yourself what role do I play in this? You said that you worded it a specific way so that you didn't have your ego present.
Speaker 2:Can you?
Speaker 1:tell me a little bit more about the way you worded that, the question of why you asked yourself it that way and where an ego can possibly stop you from learning more about yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course.
Speaker 2:So if we think about the ego as our concept of self, it's very protective of us. So when we go through self-reflection, there's two things with this. It's very hard for us sometimes to self-reflect and be honest with ourselves, because emotion is more strong and salient than the thought, and so if you have a lot of guilt, shame, embarrassment, anger, sadness, behind the belief, the thought, the thing you're looking at, the emotion is going to feel heavier and outweigh the thought, and so it's going to be quite hard to look at, and so you'll probably you'll either not see it and it'll be subconscious, or it'll just be difficult for you to see because your ego is trying to protect you from seeing something that's going to upset you. So essentially, the way that I get around that defensive mechanism is if you were to say, like hypothetically, if I was to look at this always, like when you sidetrack with chat GPT, you're obviously not allowed to ask it anything illegal or ask anything but if you say hypothetically, it used to bypass it. Like hypothetically, like let me find that.
Speaker 1:Now what illegal questions are you asking?
Speaker 2:chat gpt kyra I saw it on tiktok. Someone was like, um, how do I build a bomb? And then, hypothetically, how do I build a bomb? And it said it and I was like that's wild, they've bypassed, they've changed it now. But at first they were like what if chat gpt is like helping people commit crimes? But they found that the way to bypass it was by saying hypothetically but I think they've changed it now so you can't do it, obviously.
Speaker 1:But I'm blown by that. What do you mean? That is so, it's not it's kind of funny, but it's not funny people like hypothetically how would? I bury your body. How?
Speaker 2:How would I describe it? I know Exactly it's wild.
Speaker 1:I love that, that is insane. Wow, wow. So I do it.
Speaker 2:I do it, I use it. What do I have to use it for? When I'm practicing with my students that are studying psychology, I create fake case studies for them sometimes, but CHAT-GPT sometimes won't analyze the case study because it's like not a medical professional. So I'll say like, hypothetically, if you were diagnosing and treating this patient, what disorder would they have? Just so that I can make sure it's like on, like they're similar anyway but um yeah, it's super interesting.
Speaker 2:But the same thing happens with that ego defense. If you say like, or even like hypothetically, if I was to stop, stop procrastinating right now, what would I do? What would the first thing I would do be? And often you'll get an answer a lot easier because you don't have that same defense wall up so you can do it with anything, really Anything, where you're struggling to. I just try it, just chuck in hypothetically whenever and see how your brain fills in the gaps. It's really interesting.
Speaker 1:I find that really interesting. See how your brain fills in the gaps, it's really interesting. I find that really interesting and also like it's kind of funny in a way of like how we work as humans, like we're just so silly, like aren't we just so silly if I ask myself, why am I procrastinating? I'm like I'm so stupid, I'm so this, and it's like hypothetically, I'm like oh, this is why I know it.
Speaker 2:I know it's so funny, it's so interesting. Like human beings it's just. I find it so interesting how we're programmed and like our different mechanisms and stuff. It's like a computer program. It's just like learning how to bypass it. We are just GPT.
Speaker 1:We are just GPT.
Speaker 2:Literally.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's actually so interesting. I love that as an analogy as well. I think, like I love like analogies and I feel like it makes it so interesting to learn things. I'm like a child, but I feel like we're all like children, like the easiest and simple way to learn something is obviously we're going to want to go down that route because we don't want to over complicate things.
Speaker 1:But I actually love that analogy of like how you ask a question and it's so true, even like, even if you think of that in the context of relationships, if you're in a in a relationship with somebody, you could ask the same question two different ways and you're going to get a very different response because you can activate that kind of I guess, ego barrier with your partner. If you ask a question in a specific way that makes them feel that well, now I need to be defensive and now I need to justify and I feel attacked. Their ego is going to come up. You could ask the same question in a different way and word it differently, and now it becomes an open conversation and something that you can actually chat about, work through. So it's kind of like the same as that with ourselves and those conversations with ourselves. Do you? Would you think that, like even just, we're talking to a partner?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, definitely I feel like, and also like reflecting on, because often the biggest problems in relationships come from miscommunication and, uh, the biggest, like some of the biggest problems in relationships come from miscommunication, and the biggest, like some of the biggest problems that break down marriages and relationships is money and household duties, and it's often just the communication, miscommunications between the two not being on the same page. And then often, when it comes to like defensive mechanisms in relationships, it's like things like stonewalling, where you just put up a stone if you imagine someone putting up a stone wall and just like not letting you in, there's things and that that kind of builds conflict and that can build resentment and it kind of goes from there. It all stems from communication. If you can communicate your feelings and communicate properly, then your relationship will just be so much more healthy and happier because you're not, you don't have that ego defense in the way yeah, I could not agree more and it's like even bringing that back to the communication we have with ourselves.
Speaker 1:At the end of the day, we're building a relationship with ourselves. The most important relationship we have is with ourselves and it's the one we don't focus on and we don't pay enough attention of how we communicate to ourselves and how we talk to ourselves and all of those different things. But it 100% relates in a relationship and I think with what you said there is really powerful as well, because I truly believe, like when I could work on communication within myself and my own inner dialogue and understanding my beliefs and my patterns and why I am the on communication within myself and my own inner dialogue and understanding my beliefs and my patterns and why I am the way that I am and all of those different things, everything that we've basically talked about, even looking into where my ego shows up and all those things, it honestly allowed me to communicate my relationship a whole lot like, so differently I can't even begin to express how differently I communicate with Dave now but also vice versa, because I understand that he is a different human to me, like I have my beliefs and I have my way of communicating and I had the shit that I had to work through and all of the, I guess, unhealthy patterns and blah, blah, blah blah. But so does he because he is also a human being and it's it allowed me to understand him a lot better and have compassion for him in his reactions. If he would get defensive or justify, I could see more clearly well, that's his ego and why would that be showing up and getting really curious? And then we could actually talk about that. We could actually talk about why his ego was showing up, why he felt he had to defend himself.
Speaker 1:Like it gets me, like I get so passionate about it, because I think that those are the two like two most important things in your life really are. The relationship you have with yourself is incredibly important, but if you're choosing to spend your whole entire life with another human being, that becomes one of the most important relationships in your life because it impacts your happiness, your wellbeing, your health. I read a study the other day, or a book from a study I can't even remember, but it basically said if you were in an unhealthy relationship, it can lower your life expectancy by eight years, which is like if that's not important, like some like from Michigan University, I can't really remember, but I was like, oh my god, like I'm so glad I'm not in my toxic relationship anymore.
Speaker 1:I'd be freaking dead, die really early, but it's like it's, so it's it's crazy.
Speaker 1:I've taken you on like a completely different path. But to bring and pressure I think it all relates to that anyway. And bringing it back to the whole good pressure, good stress, bad pressure, bad stress how would you say we can recognize that? So how do we know what is good pressure and pressure that we need and stress that we need, and how do we recognize, well, this isn't actually good for me and healthy for me? This is the one where I have to do exactly what you just said the self-awareness, the ego barriers, all those things. But how do I acknowledge, well, I actually need some pressure and I need some stress? And what does that look like for us?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I mean, when it comes to pressure, what dictates it as in our head, as good or bad, is firstly, the cost and probability of failure. So, whatever it is you need to do, whatever the pressure is to perform, whatever the cost of failure. So if I fail, this is the cost. So if I fail at this thing, and also when you think of failure, sometimes we think of it as there's like, let's say, you're in the workforce and you have a project. If I fail that project, you might assume I'm going to lose my job. But then there could be truth to that if I fail this project, I will lose my job. There's two very different scenarios there. So it's important we're not making assumptions about failure, but really looking what is the objective cost of the failure and then what is the probability of the failure? So do I? And then that links to the second part, which is do I have the resources and skills required to perform at this level? I think that's probably where a lot of the stress comes is the self-doubt like maybe I don't have the skills to perform, and that can be really interesting, because that's sometimes it is hard to know, because sometimes we are in an unknown position where we do take a pay, like a increase in our job position, or we take a pay rise or we take on a new client or whatever it is, that it is in the unknown and we're like, like we should be able to get the result, but what if we don't? That's the what ifs, I think, is what causes that stress and that can increase the anxiety about the cost and probability of failure. And so, determining whether or not it's like good pressure or bad pressure, it really depends on the objective things of the situation, but it's like, I would say, 90% our interpretation of our ability to handle the pressure. So the thing that comes in here is, first of all, people can achieve way more than they can imagine.
Speaker 2:Like I think people significantly underestimate their abilities as a protective mechanism and so often pressure can be the thing to push you, to get you to perform at a higher level. You almost have to have that self-trust. That it's okay. But I would say the biggest thing is thinking about what is the outcome of the situation. Like for me and I know we spoke about this briefly before you're not going to, if you're not going to, die, if you're not going to, like put yourself in danger. Is it really, like, is it really objectively that bad if you fail? Like, can we just try, use the pressure as an opportunity?
Speaker 2:So there's there's different mindsets. There's stress is enhancing mindset. So this is the mindset someone has when they're like okay, I've got pressure, I'm grateful for this pressure. This pressure can help me perform, it's preparing me, the stress is preparing me to perform. Then you've got stress is reducing mindset, which is stress is crumbling me. I'm shaking because I'm not good at what I do. I'm nervous. I see it a lot when it comes to, say, public speaking. Sometimes I'll be short of breath before I public speak and I'm like oh cool, thanks, brain, thanks for trying to get me prepared to speak. Other people would be like oh, I can't speak because I'm not good at public speaking, and blah, blah, blah. So it's like your interpretation of it is largely what dictates whether or not stress and pressure is good or bad. That's the majority of it.
Speaker 1:I feel like you're just calling me out so much in this podcast. Why don't you have me?
Speaker 2:on here.
Speaker 1:No, I'm kidding, but that's me like I am so terrified which is funny because people like you're hosting a podcast and you're on social media all the time like public speaking makes me want to vomit. And that's another thing as well, like how my body deals with stress, which I know. You mentioned some of the physiological things before, but like my body and I don't know if anyone else listening to this can relate I literally like this is gonna sound so vulgar, but I literally need to shit myself. Like I'm not even kidding. I go to the toilet like seven times and my body is like evacuated. It's like my body literally thinks it's preparing for death and I'm like, okay, you're just doing public speaking, like why are you preparing for death? But that's what my body literally thinks it's preparing for death. And I'm like, okay, you're just doing public speaking Like why are you?
Speaker 1:preparing for death. But that's what my body does. It's really hard to. Obviously that's really uncomfortable, right? Feeling the stress or something or the anxiety of something that you're about to do. That makes you nervous. So for me that would be public speaking it's not really a nice feeling Feeling sick to the stomach and feeling nerves and feeling what if I fail and what if this happens and what it's. It's not a great feeling. So I think that, yes, it would make sense for majority of people to be like fuck that, I don't want to feel that.
Speaker 1:But obviously on the other side of that is is our growth. It is us showing ourselves that we are capable of more than we think. But a lot of the time we don't kind of get through that stress and get through that pressure because we're telling ourselves it's bad, it's wrong, now I can't do this. It means that I'm not capable, that I'm too nervous, all of those different things. So we never give ourselves the evidence of like, wow, I can actually do these things and I feel it as well. So when I get those nerves and I push through and I do the thing anyway, the feeling afterwards is like, oh my God, I can do it, I'm so capable, like you, you, you are almost showing yourself wow, I can achieve more than I think, even with all of those fears, even with all of those nerves. And it's like what you said before which I think is really powerful for everyone, is that you know you can. You can achieve so much more than you think.
Speaker 1:That majority of the time, we are lessening what we think our capabilities and our abilities are as a protective mechanism. And when you said that, I thought it was brilliant because it's like well, what are you protecting yourself from then? Because it can seem obvious Well, I want to achieve this and I want to make more money, I want to have a successful business or a successful relationship. Why would I protect myself from the very things that I'm trying to achieve? It's like you're not protecting yourself from those things. You're protecting yourself from the what ifs, if they don't happen, or the things that you have to do, that are uncomfortable to get those things or to achieve those things, the fear of failure, the fear of being judged, the fear of looking silly, all of those. So you're like I need to protect myself. So you do that.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I just thought that whole, the whole thing was really interesting. I wrote something down because I was like this is also me, can you then be? Which is? This is what I do. I feel addicted to the pressure, in the sense of like I will find myself doing things very last minute, even though I have, I know I had a lot of time to do them, because I'm like I work better under pressure, I'm more creative under pressure, I get things done under pressure. Like what is that? Why do we do that?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So if we think about a flow state, so when we're in a state of flow is when, essentially, we're kind of fully encompassed in something. It's very enjoyable, it's very doable. There's one theory that suggests that to reach a state of flow it's got to be the perfect balance between stress and ability. And so for me personally, when I was at uni because I got, I spent a lot of time getting really really good at writing assignments, because I was like I spent a lot of time getting really really good at writing assignments, because I was like I'm going to have to write so many of them, I might as well learn how to do it that writing assignments was easy to me. Reading, research, doing that. It was very easy because I did it so much and I love doing it, I would spend ages learning about it that I didn't have any motivation to do my assignments until like 24 hours before they were due. Because when I learned this theory, it's because my ability, my skill, ability to do it didn't like reach that level of perfect balance with stress until the stress was because it was due in 24 hours and so that pushed me into hyper focus and then I was I it Like I loved being under pressure and I loved being in that thing Cause I love being under pressure, like I thrive under pressure, and I have always been in a high pressure environment since I worked in corporate and I just love it.
Speaker 2:I think I love the clarity I feel like I get and the focus and the flow and the, the drive I get. It's very kind of, um, it's like having like a cold shower. I don't know how to explain it. I love it, but I've had to train myself to love it through positive self-talk and putting myself in the uncomfortable situations. But I would say that's probably could be what's happening.
Speaker 2:It's like that skill, ability and stress, but then at the same time, if you leave the stress to be too high, so once you pass that perfect level and the stress is then too high, it's chaos and it's it's horrible and you'll like, you'll break down and it'll be awful because the stress is too much than the skill. That's when you get the self doubt, the self-sabotage, the procrastination, all these things. So it's a very delicate game to play, so you have to be very careful with it. But that could potentially be why we push ourselves into that. It could also be like an addiction to the stress or trying to prove. I've had students before I've tutored that would do their assignments last minute to prove they weren't good enough or that they weren't smart enough to get it done so that's what I was gonna say.
Speaker 1:I feel like this is why I think with like psychology, human behavior, it's always like person by person. So when you're listening to conversations like this, I think it is important to remind yourself of like it is person by person, for for some people it it can be like Kyra, for example I love thrive off the stress. I love the stress, I love doing things with not much time to go, because the stress, I guess it allows you to perform better, in that sense of when you wait for that stress to happen. But for somebody else, it could be their way of trying to confirm to themselves that their fears are valid, that I actually can't get this done or I'm not smart. So if you're so stressed, you're leaving an assignment to the last minute and then you're like this is so hard, I can't do this. You've just confirmed to yourself that you're not smart in your mind.
Speaker 1:So I think it's different for everybody, and that's why self awareness is so crucial. Are you doing it because you thrive in pressure? Or are you doing it because you're trying to confirm all of these unconscious beliefs that I'm not good enough, I'm not capable, I'm not smart enough and really only you can like if you're listening, only you can know that. Or you can obviously work with someone like Cara or whatever, like myself and have that reflected to you because, like you were saying before, sometimes we will block that from ourselves, we will block our beliefs, and then we will continue to confirm them with our actions and behaviors and have no fucking idea that we're doing it. So I love that you gave a couple of options there, because I think that, yeah, I think it's so valid that it's different for everyone.
Speaker 1:I think I'm like for me, I think that I'm a little bit of both. I think I do perform better under pressure, like if I think if I start doing an assignment really really far out, I'm like like I'm not. I just don't feel like it's like it's, it's not good, it's not like I'm not, like wow, I have so much to say, and then when I leave it to like a week before, I'm like research, like I just feel like I do better, but I also know that I have a tendency to put myself under so much pressure to confirm beliefs or as a way of self sabotaging, because self-sabotaging is definitely a pattern that's been very present for me.
Speaker 1:Something that you said there I think I found very interesting is that when you said how you deal with pressure so well is focusing on your positive talk and you've said positive talk, you've said assumptions and predictions and things like that, so that's something that I read of yours you put up a piece of content, and it was when I was doing my first empirical report, which I was like I am so terrible at this, which I think like partly I was trying to confirm my beliefs, that I was shit at it, but you put something out that shifted my perspective whilst doing that assignment and it really helped me.
Speaker 1:And it was that if you assume that you're already not good at the thing, you assume that you're already going to fail, that pressure is going to feel bad, it's going to feel like overwhelming and stressful, but if you can see that pressure is like, yeah, okay, I feel like I don't really I haven't done this before, I don't know what I'm doing, but I feel like there's a possibility that I could be really good at this or that I am going to submit this on time, or just changing my outlook.
Speaker 1:It shifted so fucking much for me doing that assignment. Like every time I went into doing it, instead of being like I'm dumb, I'm stupid, I can't do this, I was like I could pass this, I could actually do well at this, and like how good is that going to feel? And that pressure was still there, the stress was still there, but my perspective and my, the way I spoke to myself about it, I shifted completely and I ended up getting 100% in that assignment. I don't know if that's why, but I feel like it played a really big role in being why. So for you, how much does your perception and assumptions, assuming things and positive talk play a role in being able to handle pressure and stress?
Speaker 2:It makes a huge, huge, huge, huge impact. It's probably the biggest thing if we think about our brains as like little tiny computers, we are taking in so much information from our senses at any one point and it's going through filters of our prior experiences through our reticular activating system in our brain. It. It gets filtered through that, and so the way that we perceive the world is dictated based on our thoughts, our beliefs, our past, et cetera, and so the way to kind of shift that filter is to tell it what to look for. So if you can imagine you're doing something that's really hard or you're under pressure, if you tell yourself it's the same as, like if you think you can or you can't, you're correct. As soon as you say I'm not good enough or this is too hard, your brain is going to filter your perception through that and look for information to confirm that belief.
Speaker 2:If you then change your language and you say I actually might be able to do this, like how can I do this? Or hypothetically, if I was really good at this, what would I do, you know? Or just like I can do this. I believe in myself. You know the biggest thing I say when I speak because I don't when I do public speaking. I don't write speeches or have notes ever, because I hate them. Who are?
Speaker 1:you like I love doing assignments I don't write scripts for speeches like I'm like, can you be in my brain? Like I need a little bit of you oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, the reason why I do all of that what same thing with everything I do, whether it's assignments, public speaking, everything I do all of that. Same thing with everything I do, whether it's assignments, public speaking, everything I do I always just say I trust myself, I trust myself, I trust myself always and so that is why I can do anything. And because when I go to public speak say I'm speaking on pressure for example, I did a few workshops on pressure I will say in my head like I trust myself, so I know that, even if I don't know what I'm going to speak about right now, when I get up there, I trust because I know the content, I know the information. I'll just speak and I know how to speak, you know. So trusting myself is what I say to handle pressure and stress the best.
Speaker 2:And I think it can be hard at first, because sometimes you don't have evidence to trust yourself. You just have to trust in your capacity that it's possible for you to do it. Then you'll start to build evidence that you can do it and then it'll get stronger and stronger and stronger and then you just have that self-trust within you and self-trust is confidence. So that's what it takes, I guess, to kind of build that confidence in something is you have to kind of go first and just have a little bit of trust that it's going to work and that you're going to be okay. But that is what's going to dictate.
Speaker 2:If I was to say, if I was to go up and speak and say like, oh, I'm so scared, I'm not good enough, I don't know the content, my brain's going to be like, okay, cool, let's run that program. You don't know the content, you're going to stumble, you're not going to know what to say. If I say I trust myself, I know the content, the brain's going to access that area of my brain and be like okay, cool, we know what we're doing.
Speaker 1:Holy shit, I feel like where are we at 39 minutes? I feel like I need to snip this out and 39 minutes and listen to that whenever you need, because that was incredibly powerful. I think that it's incredibly powerful because it really shows people that your ability to do what you want to do is really just within you. It's how you speak to yourself. You have the capability and the ability to do whatever the fuck you want. You just have to tell yourself that you can, that you can do that. You have to actually back yourself and the whole self-trusting and confidence, like self-trust, is everything. And it brings it right back to what we're saying before that relationship that you have with yourself is everything. How you speak to yourself is everything. How you trust yourself and communicate with yourself is everything to what you currently have and what you currently don't have in your life and what you want to achieve and what you're stopping yourself from achieving.
Speaker 1:So I am like that was incredibly powerful and it's also just the whole confidence thing. Like you just said, then you're not always going to have the evidence that you can trust yourself and sometimes, on the contrary, a lot of people have the evidence that they can't trust themselves because so many times they've self-sabotaged or they've not done the thing or whatever it is so that self-trust is maybe just not quite there for you. But self-trust is something that you can build, just like trust in another person. You don't trust someone the first time that you meet them and maybe you don't open up to them, but you build that over time and you can build that within yourself. So, but also I'm very, very envious of your ability to just go do speeches and like I don't need a script and like I'm gonna do it 24 hours before you're that's so funny.
Speaker 2:I actually I actually fully kind of gaslighted myself into getting good at public speaking, because when I was in high school I hated speaking in groups, I hated public speaking. I was always told that I mumbled like in group settings, like even just with friends. I struggled a lot with like speeches and stuff at school. But I saw this inspirational speaker. He came to the school and did this thing and I felt like really inspired by it and I was like I had I've known since I was a child that I wanted to create impact and help people, because I knew how privileged I was, because I grew up traveling the world, and so I was like I need to learn how to public speak, because if I want to impact more people, I need to do it at large scales where I can speak to large groups of people. So I was probably in grade 11 at the time and I was working at an aquatic center and I started like kind of gaslighting myself a little bit and being like I love public speaking, I'm so good at public speaking, I love public speaking. I'm so good at like affirmations, but because affirmations work but you have to have emotion behind them. So even if you don't believe them.
Speaker 2:I didn't believe I was a good public speaker, but I hoped that I would become a good public speaker. So when you have a high frequency emotion like love, gratitude, hope behind the affirmation, they rewire your brain. So I said that over and over and over again. Then, in grade 12, or just after I graduated, the people at my work were like oh, would you like to public speak at our next conference? And I immediately was like I love public speaking, I'll speak, yes. And so I ended up speaking and I didn't have any nerves, I wasn't anxious. I, my brain was just like we've got this. I, we trust ourselves, we're good at public speaking, we love public speaking. And then I got up and I did, I enjoyed it, and then I just kind of went from there and that was would have been 2016.
Speaker 2:So like eight years ago, wow and so yeah, I fully just like convinced myself and I was like this is like how powerful our brains are, so it definitely, it definitely works. You just have to go first that is holy shit you are.
Speaker 1:You're an incredible person. The fact is, well, thank you. From such a young age now, I'm like I. The more I'm hearing you speak, I'm like, what the fuck? Why don't we should have said this earlier? You're so amazing, okay.
Speaker 1:But like the fact that you knew from such a young age that you were going to grow up to have impact on other people like that was your dream to impact other people's lives I think that that is really special to know from such a young age what you want to do. I definitely did not know what I wanted to do, so hats off to you for that. And also just the well, I have the privilege of the life that I've lived. To be able to inspire other people, I think is incredible, and you are doing it Like. That just goes to show that whole story.
Speaker 1:If we can tell ourselves that we can do something. It's not just like oh my God, airy fairy affirmations, ha ha ha. Like hearing from someone who was like no, it actually rewires your brain. I think is really powerful to people to be like. It's not just you know, an affirmation card and someone on social media who's an influence telling you to say nice things to yourself like it actually. It actually has the ability to change your whole life, and I think that looking at your assumptions as well, I think is really important. Assuming I'm going to a fail, assuming that this isn't going to work, assuming, assuming, assuming and people can live their whole life based on assumptions, which is pretty crazy. I think our brain is that powerful. Why can't I say powerful today In the other direction of like, if we can live based on our negative assumptions as well? So we have to be aware of where we're doing that Absolutely incredible.
Speaker 1:You have inspired me so much to just do more public speaking because that's my goal and I'm actually so scared Like I'm going to, like I'm going to re-listen to this podcast myself, my own podcast and be like Kyra said. Kyra said that we're doing this Another thing that I wanted to talk to you about. So you did a post the other day on social media and I thought it was really interesting and I was like, oh, I'm going to get her to speak about that on here. I'm going to read it out and then I'm going to tell you what I want you to expand on. So this is, you know, the post. You did it yourself, but it says I find it interesting that in psychology and research we know that humans are driven towards self-actualization, yet there is nothing built into society to help people achieve that. We treat sickness and mental health, but coaching is a scam in quotation marks despite it being one of the only things that can help someone achieve self-actualization. So my first question is can you tell everyone what self-actualization is?
Speaker 2:Yep. So if we look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which kind of is like the pyramid from physiological needs, like we need food, water, shelter, etc. All the way through from like connection, love, belonging, and at the top is self-actualization, so it's kind of conceptualized in a few different ways, but self-actualization is living our highest version of ourself, becoming the person that is fulfilled, that loves what they do, that you know, achieves everything that we kind of desire in a way that's fulfilling. It's that realization that we've kind of done it. I heard something that I liked and it was like you kind of can feel that sense of self-actualization if you're like if I died tomorrow, I would be so happy and grateful with the life I've lived and what I have and what I've impacted.
Speaker 2:And it's debated as to whether or not you can get to self-actualization, like if you come back down or if you kind of stay up there. But I believe that we kind of are constantly ebbing and flowing. Self-actualization for me is really like, as human beings, the bottom of the triangle is survival, is I need to eat, I need to drink, I need to go to work. That's the bottom. There's so much above that there's connection, belonging, relationship, self-esteem, then self-actualization, like becoming the highest, best possible version of ourself. Yet when at all in our life do we get told that like? No one knows that dude, like do how many people as human beings know you're supposed to be going for your biggest goals and dreams in life? That's literally your existence is, for You're supposed to be getting to the stage where you're pursuing greatness and growth, but we don't. Because it's not built into society and in fact I feel like it keeps us stuck at like level one or two where we're just in survival mode all the time.
Speaker 2:And it's argued that this is because you can't progress to the next level without fulfilling the need. So if you feel like you're in scarcity or you struggle to eat, struggle to make money, struggle to feel safe, it's going to be hard for you to get self-actualization. So they just treat the bottom level. They're like okay, let's just treat the illness. But I feel like the way that society is kind of set up, it's all about fear, disease, illness, and we very rarely go into actual purpose. And how do we get to self-actualization and how do we actually heal rather than seeing like? I think there's a time and a place for traditional psychotherapists, talk therapy psychologists. But where is the like let's heal, and then what's after that? Why is it just let's take medication for our whole life? You know, I just feel like the way that society is built, it's built to kind of keep us stuck and it's just not very. I just don't understand how we don't have things built into society when this is humans' literal purpose in life. You know, it annoys me.
Speaker 1:I can tell I'm like I am loving the passion I don't know if you guys can hear it, because I can see you, so I can see your expression and things like that but I hope people can hear that in your voice of just how extremely passionate you are about that. I love that whole passion coming from you and I 1000% agree and I think, and what you said about coaching and stuff like that, we'll touch on that but it is so true I feel like as a society we're quite reactive, like we wait, like when people get sick then we give them medication. You know what I mean? We're not very proactive in people learning how to really look after themselves and learning how to pursue their passions and learning how to understand themselves and learning how to heal and then move forward. People, even in, like the self-development space, can get very stuck in the healing and the healing and the healing and the healing and needing to fix things and it's like but what do you actually want to be doing? What do you want to be achieving? Like, what are the things that you want to be accomplishing in your life? What's blocking you? How can we work through that? And then how can we work on you getting there.
Speaker 1:It's like where is that normalized? Where are people doing that? And I feel like for me I've been in the coaching space for five years so I feel like in my little bubble, in my little world, that is a very normalized thing. Like those are conversations that I'm having all of the time with people, those are having in the spaces that I run and with clients and things like that. But in the everyday world it's like no one's talking about that, no one's talking about your purpose, and people see, oh, that's like lame or woohoo.
Speaker 1:And it's like that's literally why you're here. You're here to discover yourself and who you are and accept yourself and understand what. What are you bringing to the world, what is powerful about you, what are your strengths, what are you here here to do and what fills up your cup? Because I feel like when you be your most authentic self and when you start really making decisions in your life that feel like you are living to your, your purpose and what you're here to do, you feel so fulfilled, like you feel I don't know it's it's hard to really describe, but I'm like the passion for me. Just then there was something else. I was going to ask you about that because I was like no, there's more, there's more, I need to know.
Speaker 1:You said that we treat um like the like coaching like a scam and things like that. But it's the thing that helps people to self-actualization. Can you talk about that a little bit more? Why do you think we treat coaching as a scam? You obviously went and did your whole psychology degree and have decided not to fully become like a psychologist. You want, want to do coaching instead. Why is that? Why do you believe in in in coaching and its inability to help people?
Speaker 2:I believe that the reason why I think coaching is perceived as a scam is because it's an unregulated industry. So you've got someone can be qualified as a coach after a two-day workshop or two years of studying. There's no way to really know that much. It's quite hard to regulate because there's no regulations, and so I understand why people think it's a scam. I totally I get it and also like if you see the ads where it's like seven dollars to become a life coach, of course people are gonna think it's a scam because there's like it just looks like everyone and anyone can do it and whilst it's good that there's like people can become it, it's so much more than that.
Speaker 2:You and I understand the scam part, I think as well. Like the way that we're kind of built into society. It's like lawyers, doctors, psychologists. It's kind of associated with long study at university, long time practice, all these things. I personally didn't want to become a psychologist because I don't like the rigid, like I don't like how rigid it is and I don't agree with some of the, I guess, the structures and the policies surrounding it. For me personally, like I work with a lot of women who have experienced significant trauma or who have been through the therapy system, have seen psychologists and I just feel like sometimes not everyone, but the typical talk therapy is not the best thing for majority of people and I just feel like when they come to me they're sick of being treated like a victim, like they were victimized at one point, one point in their life does not mean that they have to be treated as a victim their entire life. And I just feel like sometimes the traditional therapy system can make them feel like they are, whereas coaching there's a lot more room for, I guess, different modalities and different things. I do believe that coaches in general, if working with people, should have more education than average. I do think that it's great that there's an opportunity to help people and more. And do you know, in Adelaide, I think, canberra at the moment it's a two-year waiting list to see a psychologist and people are struggling with things like trauma, depression, anxiety, and half of them probably can't even afford to see one because they're so expensive. And then what they get in and they see someone for one hour every couple of weeks, for how long? For years? Like you know, I just feel like the whole system is pretty crap and it needs to be improved upon.
Speaker 2:I like building connection with my clients. I love being like besties with them and texting them and sharing my experiences with them and being emotionally vulnerable in myself. You can't do that as a psychologist or as a therapist. There's very clear rules on what you can and you can't do. And, like I, like my clients being able to call me or text me when they need me, because they heal so fast, because they have like a person there. You know like people just want connection and support.
Speaker 2:I personally, when I was looking at cycle like working with psychologists and stuff. I just like it never felt like a relationship, it always felt like a transaction and I personally didn't like it. And so I found other people who also didn't like it. And I work in psychological research. I work with a lot of psychologists, love them, some of them are absolutely amazing, and I will have clients come to me and I'll say, actually I think you need to see a psychologist. So it's different for everyone, but for me personally, I think coaching is starting to grow and become something that can create so much impact on other humans because there's just so much more room for personalized support, you know, uh.
Speaker 1:So that's kind of in a nutshell wow, I agree with everything you just said and obviously you've done your psychology degree and I'm doing my psychology degree so far behind, but I'm getting there and I'm doing it and I never want to become a psychologist either and I think that that's hard for people to understand, like you did your psychology degree, but you're not a psychologist and and yeah, it's kind of hard because with psychology you have to go on and do like years and years and years of more of study to actually get the label psychologist.
Speaker 1:But you have completed a psychology degree and you're very much. I guess that inspiration for me in it's very similar path. I don't really desire to become a psychologist where I sit down in a room with someone once every couple of weeks, like that just doesn't feel, that doesn't light me up at all, like the thought of that makes me I would rather stab myself in the eye, not because I don't want to help people, but I just don't think that does help people and I am very much the same I love connection.
Speaker 1:I love being able to share parts of myself. I love being able to build really, really solid connection with my clients, where I just think it creates such a safe space. And I've also done psychology. So when I was leaving the police and I was like depressed and anxious and all those different things, I tried to see a psychologist and it felt clinical. It felt like this person doesn't. And this isn't to say that psychology is bad. This was my personal experience but it just felt like she didn't care, like it was just like an hour, like, and I just talked the whole time.
Speaker 1:She kind of and like asked me a couple questions and then I left being like sad, like I was sadder because I just brought up all of this shit that made me feel sad and I just felt like I wasn't getting anywhere and then I couldn't get in with her for another three weeks.
Speaker 1:So then I'd kind of like forget what I said to her the weeks before, and it was just. I just found it really hard to allow myself to heal in that kind of environment and I just feel like it's so like small scale, like I'm the same as you. I want to do like talks and I want to have bigger audiences, because I feel like your impact can be bigger that way and when can be bigger that way. And when I do have clients, I want to be able to. I want to be able to message to them, I want to be able to jump on a call with them, you know, once a week. I want them to be able to fucking voice messaging me when they want to celebrate something and I can be like oh my god, like.
Speaker 1:Or when they're like I'm finding it really hard, like and being able to talk through it in that moment. I think it is incredibly, incredibly powerful. But I also agree with you in that the coaching industry is so unregulated and I think that, unfortunately, that becomes then like on the, the consumer, the person who's purchasing, to just do your research, ask the person what their qualifications are, being a little bit diligent, and if they're like, oh, I did this, like seven dollar life coach course, yeah, you want to go through, like, so just ask the questions, um, but yeah, I, I agree, and like, I didn't know that information about you know psychology, the, the wait list and the wait times I think that's absolutely heartbreaking because there would be so many people that do need that help. But, yeah, I think that that was really insightful and really powerful and I love seeing how passionate like you were.
Speaker 1:Like it's almost like you were fired up. There was like some fucking anger behind that. Oh, I'm passionate about a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 2:I love that I have to get you on the podcast again.
Speaker 1:I'm passionate about a lot of stuff like that.
Speaker 1:I love that I have to get you on the podcast again. I will, like I need to see more of that fire. Come and bring, like, whatever you're passionate about on here. We will wrap it up. I think that was a really powerful conversation. Obviously, to summarize for everyone, there is topics on pressure, stress, self-actualization, self-trust, how you speak to yourself, how you can rewire your brain to actually benefit your life and actually get you to where you want to be. I think there are actually this like this was like a fucking masterclass or something that I think there are so many things that people can take away from this that are beneficial in their everyday life. So, thank you so much.
Speaker 1:I do have a little bit of a fun couple of questions to ask you, so I like to do when I have guests on a little bit of a fun couple of questions to ask you. So I like to do when I have guests on a little bit of a rapid fire question at the end just for fun, and I don't tell you the questions because I want you to have to answer on the spot. So we're gonna do that. The first question is death row meal. If you were in death row, what would be your last meal?
Speaker 2:um, oh my god. No, I feel like the first thing that's coming to mind is yochi, because I love yochi, you know, like the frozen yogurt with like. Um, oh my god, it's so good and it's got like the different you're like please someone's my frozen yogurt no, it's so good. Have you had yochi oh?
Speaker 1:I didn't even know what it was. I was about to ask oh my, gosh, you are missing out.
Speaker 2:Well, it's like a frozen yogurt place but they have like really bougie toppings, so like they always change, but they have like um, they have cookie dough, all sorts of stuff, but I like the, the, I guess, indulgent ones. It's like cookie dough, they've got like hot cookie cake, they've got like hot brownies, biscoff cheesecake, all sorts of like treats.
Speaker 1:I love having all the toppings. It's so good. I love it.
Speaker 2:So um, yeah, I don't know it's coming to mind, but I also haven't had Yochi in a few months. So I feel like that's why I'm thinking about it, because I'm like, oh, I'm just gonna go you're gonna have to go get it after this podcast.
Speaker 1:That's great, okay. I know next question who is your celebrity crush, boy and girl? Boy Chris Hemsworth that was so quick, like I'm oh yeah, it's my only one.
Speaker 2:I actually don't have any others.
Speaker 1:I actually went to Byron because my sister has a place in Byron and I was just like I just really want to see Chris Hemsworth. So we like it's so funny because she knows that I'm like I'm just such a loser when it comes to like famous people. I don't even know why, like I just have photos on my phone with like so many NRL players, because when I see them in real life I'm like I'll get a photo I don't even know who they are.
Speaker 1:I don't even know them Like I don't know what, any of the things that I do and I just send it to my whole family and I'm like look who I saw. I even saw them at the airport one time. Do you know those two guys, the uninspired? I saw them once at the airport and I asked them for a photo and I sent it to my sister. Like I literally whoever I see that like is slightly famous or like even just on social media famous. I will get a fucking photo with them, I will embarrass my whole family like, and I will go and ask for a photo, the one I got with the uninspired unemployed.
Speaker 1:He was so cooked like he was. Like it was early in the morning at the airport and it's like I think you have done multiple drugs overnight. It was so funny I was like this is really not a really flattering photo for you, um, but I do it all the time. It's all like Carrie. You know Carrie, um, she does the beanies for brain cancer. She was on the oh yeah, yeah, yeah photo with her.
Speaker 1:Like I'm just I photo with Del Woodrum, um, like Hamish and Andy, like I just I don't know what it is for me seeing famous people, but I just see them and I just ask them for photos. So I really wanted to see Chris Hemsworth, so I made my sister take me to the cafe that he goes to. That is such a stalker move and I was like, let's just go there and have a coffee, like, and I was so hoping he would be there and I didn't end up seeing him. And then I got home and that night I saw an article and it was Chris Hemsworth at Byron Bay Beach with his kids, and me and my sister were at that beach like a couple of hours beforehand and I sent it to her. I'm like I am so dirty right now like I think I might, I think I would pass out, like I think that that's too celebrity for me and I would just faint on the ground and he'd have to carry me or something and it'd just be like okay that's great, okay, girl girl, girl girl.
Speaker 2:Uh, girl, um, let me think. I mean I feel like at the moment Serena Carpenter, because I've been listening to her music and I love her.
Speaker 1:She is so attractive. I love her.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and she's just like, I don't know. I just like her. She's very like, I don't know. I just like her like the soft feminine. I feel like I don't see many celebrities doing that as much anymore. I don't know, I just like the whole vibe of her at the moment and I love her music same.
Speaker 1:I love her outfits as well. And she's so tiny. Why is she so small? Yeah, she just like, seems really cute, I don't know yeah, she really does. Okay, I see that. I love that. I think that, yeah, I see that she is, she is, she is stunning, she is gorgeous. I think my most popular one on the podcast for females has been Margot Robbie.
Speaker 1:That's been like true, so many people she is kind of similar vibe, very like the feminine, the pretty, like a very feminine vibe. Okay, what is my, what's my last question? I've like lost track, thinking of all of these attractive people. Okay, the last question is if you could live anywhere in the world, live there, where would you live?
Speaker 2:I feel like I mean I kind of feel like I could live anywhere in the world and I choose Gold Coast. I mean I have been to like 40, 38 countries and Gold Coast, australia. I can't like. I love other places. Vanuatu would be my next pick. That's my favorite country in the world, but to live there's nothing better than the Gold Coast in my opinion.
Speaker 1:I love that and you live there, so you're living in your dream location. Are you from the?
Speaker 2:Gold Coast.
Speaker 1:Where were you from or you traveled?
Speaker 2:A long conversation. I was born in South Africa, then I moved to England, then I moved to Thailand and New Zealand and Australia and then I traveled around the world. In between that what?
Speaker 1:why are we hearing this an hour into the podcast, like that is so fascinating. What do you mean? I didn't even know that that is so interesting, so you like when did you like? So you were born in South Africa, did you say? When did you live there?
Speaker 2:like how old I was a baby, so my mum's whole family is from South Africa on that side, so I was born in South Africa. Uh, we left when I was about six months and then we lived in England where my dad's family's from. Then we lived in England for a bit, then we moved to Thailand and I lived in Phuket for and then we kind of in between that for a couple of years we traveled around Southeast Asia. So I've been probably like everywhere there, like Cambodia, philippines, everything. Can I?
Speaker 1:ask you a question. Yeah, when I started primary school you don't have to if you don't want, but like I'm interested to know, then if you were born there, move there, move, blah, blah, blah. What do your parents do like? What would? What did they?
Speaker 2:do when you're growing up. What was their job? What do they do now? I'm fascinated. So my mom was 25 when she had me. Dad was like 28, so they were young, um, and they just wanted to travel. My dad's a surfer, so they just wanted to travel and they just took me with them. So they mom's always worked in a bank, she's worked in finance, dad's a carpenter, so dad could just do carpentry from anywhere around the world. Mom taught english when we were traveling. She homeschooled me for, like when I was in like preschool, kindergarten kind of thing, I started primary school in thailand and she was teaching there and then, when I was about six, we moved to New Zealand. Mom went back to the bank. Dad did carpentry. So, yeah, they didn't do anything big and fancy, it was just fascinating to me.
Speaker 1:Damn it, I could do a whole nother fucking conversation with you. Damn it, that is so cool. Like, what cool do you have a relationship with your parents now? Like, are you close with them?
Speaker 2:do you have a relationship with your parents?
Speaker 1:now like, are you close with them? Yeah, they live like two k's away from me with my brother's child. I feel like I have so many questions now.
Speaker 2:Do you have two little brothers?
Speaker 1:oh my god, your family sounds like an absolute vibe.
Speaker 1:I'm like interesting or something like I want. That is so interesting and also I want to do that with my kids. Like I just want to like travel around and take my kids to different countries and homeschool them. That would be my dream. And see, this is probably one of those things that I'm like oh, you know, you don't know anyone that does that. You probably can't do that, and blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Am I, am I gonna learn? Am I telling myself what I can and can't do and not teaching my brain that I can do it, because that did you like as a child? Then, okay, my last question, guys, sorry, it's just interesting as a child, like when you look back at that, or even just in that, are you happy that you did that, like the home school, the traveling, or do you wish that you had like a like a school that you went to and a town that you lived in, like what as a child? Tell me, because I have kids and I'm like I sometimes sometimes worry, I'm like if, like moving them around, like how did that impact you? Do you think?
Speaker 2:I mean, I think I don't think there's anything negative or bad about it. To be honest, I think, like you, only know what you know, so I don't know any different. But I remember because I traveled through such third world countries at some point and I was often like they had like never, or rarely sometimes seen like a white child, like it was wild and it was very. I remember one time we arrived at an island and I had this toy doll that I carried with me everywhere and we were unloading off the boat and my dad just like throws the doll and they start screaming, they're running over, like thinking it's a real baby. And like I just remember because I've seen so much of the world at such a young age and I've I've seen how little people have but also how happy and grateful they are. Like that's my whole perception of the world is very different, I would say, than other people, because I the reason why I said I wanted to help people for so long as soon as I went into normal society. Like I remember in primary school not understanding why people were so caught up in crushes and like their emotions, and I remember people in high school struggling with anxiety and depression and being like, do you realize, like, how much you have? Do you realize like you, literally you can go to the grocery shop and you can buy anything you want? Like I don't think people realize, like, how much they actually have? And so I knew that I was so fascinated. I remember, when I was like 12, being so fascinated like how do these people, how are they so depressed and anxious when they literally have everything they could possibly imagine in the world? And there's people who have nothing and they're so happy, like the brain just fascinated me from that point and I was it. Just that's what pushed me into this work is my experience traveling and the compassion and empathy I developed through that and through connecting with so many different kinds of people. And also, like, when I was in these little communities, like I said, because we were visiting, we would often help, we would donate, we would like help people Like that's what I've.
Speaker 2:The common theme of my life has been helping people. I've always thought like I've always kind of been treated as someone that is, like almost people, like I've kind of I remember being little and people being like thank you so much, thank you so much. I kind of have always seen myself as someone that helps someone. You know, I feel like it kind of just formed me into this person, like of course I'm going to help people, like there's no other option, and so I genuinely can't think of anything negative from growing up and experiencing that.
Speaker 2:When it comes to, say, relationships and moving schools a few times, I feel like there's nothing negative in that. I always made friends very quickly. I feel like I got good at making friends quickly, which helps me. Today I feel like I'm very resilient. Generally because of all these different things I've experienced, I really can't think of a single negative thing. I feel like it'd be more negative going through the traditional system, seeing how normal it is to have anxiety, depression and be non like not have much resilience in today's society wow, okay, so you've sold me, I'm gonna be booking my, I'm be traveling with my kids now, so like that, that is wow.
Speaker 1:I could have a whole conversation with you on that, because do you know what you were really? You were giving, um, like the vibe I was getting from you was really really reminding me of. And now I'm going to be so annoyed because I can't remember his name, but he does the. Is it the gratitude project or q resilience project? Resilience project, the resilience project. You remind me so much of him and he is. I love him.
Speaker 1:Like his whole message, his whole, what he dedicates his life to, I think is really powerful. And you can tell he's not in the business of helping people just to make money, which I think is another problem with the coaching industry of where people think it is like just for people to make money, which is a whole other thing. But there is some truth to that as well. But he is just someone who is so genuine in his desire to help people and he went and worked overseas and same thing, saw what people were grateful for and just having like a shoe and cutting out the toes and being grateful that you have a fucking shoe, whereas, like it's just not like that here. So that reminds me of that so much and I think that you have so much to give. You have so much to give the world, so much incredible insight and your genuine passion to just help people and to make a difference.
Speaker 1:I think I wish there were more people like you, because it is really. It is really inspiring and empowering just to hear your genuine care for other people and for society and for the world and the impact and the difference that you want to make and, yeah, I think it is really cool. So I'm grateful that you got to come on and talk about all of this. I'm grateful that everyone gets to listen to this and hear from you, for them to be able to find you, which I encourage everyone to go follow. Kyra, am I saying your name right? Have I said your name wrong the whole time?
Speaker 2:Is that correct? No, that's fine.
Speaker 2:I just had like a really panicked moment, moment of like fuck have I haven't even asked her if that's how you pronounce her name? How does everyone find you and what are you currently working on? Yep, so my instagram is just at kyra lasex. You're welcome to come follow me if you listen to it. Please message me. I love talking. I honestly could yap for days, so just message me. I'm happy to. I just love talking to humans.
Speaker 2:Um, I'm currently working on really just I love creating huge transformations. So my program, the Powerful Woman I'm working on that at the moment. The launch will be coming very, very soon. It'll be starting 1st of December and I'm just I can't even explain how excited I am. I just love creating things. That it's just like the transformations I've already seen within this program just blow my mind every day. So I just love it so much and I'm so grateful I get to be in that society. And then I also am working in research. So I work in childhood maltreatment and research in that area as well. So I'm working towards that to do my PhD you are.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? I'm working to do my PhD and I'm like, oh my god, I can't do first year report. Help me. I was there once too, I feel like you're just like I was. You're very good at that. You're very good at what you do.
Speaker 2:I've never run out of time, but I didn't even tell you about when I was at. When I was first at uni and I couldn't handle the pressure, I had a panic attack. I had to go. An ambulance came, I went paralysed and then, cause I couldn't perform, I freaked out. I totally forgot to tell you.
Speaker 1:Are you kidding me right now? We've just had a whole conversation about pressure and this is the moment I just need to stop. You crack me up so much. Who cares? I don't care, it's my podcast. Go as long as it wants, please tell us. I think that I'm like, I'm genuinely interested. You went in an ambulance from the pressure of uni. This makes me feel so validated right now in like how stressed I'm feeling.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's a lot, honestly. So I was studying business, I was doing a master's in business admin and I was like an MBA and I I essentially had an assignment that was due and I thought I could get an extension but I couldn't and I it got declined and so I had like three hours to write like a 2,000 word assignment. I knew it wasn't going to happen and I was paying because I was a New Zealand citizen. I couldn't get fee help. So I was paying because I was a New Zealand citizen, I couldn't get fee help. So I was paying for the subjects myself on like payment plans and if I failed the subject it was another $4,000 to do it again. Anyway, so I obviously like the cost and probability of failure. If we think about that cost of failure actual monetary cost and time yeah, and then probability pretty high, high.
Speaker 2:I've got three hours, you know, and it kind of at the same time I'd been going through burnout because I was managing a team of like 30 people and starting a swimwear business and studying I've always done way too much at once, but anyway and so I was up from like 4 am to 8 pm a day working and I felt great. I was like I love this, this is fun. My body not so much, and so I had had migraines at that point, on and off for a while, and so when this happened and I realized I couldn't get the extension, I started having a panic attack. I didn't know it was a panic attack because I'd never had one, but I started freaking out, I couldn't breathe, no one was home, and so I started hyperventilating and then my hand, like I, started getting paralyzed. So I had to like I kind of like dropped down to the floor and my hands like you can't see them, but my hands like went in this weird shape and I was literally had to like dial triple zero with, like my messed up hands, and then I called the ambulance she's doing like claw head fun
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, like claw hands, and I was like lying on the tiles, couldn't breathe, was literally paralyzed, and I called my mom, who lived like a k down the road, and anyway. So my parents came. I thought I was dying, I thought I was having a brain aneurysm, didn't know it was a panic attack. The ambulance people came. They ended up just monitoring me for ages. I didn't have to go away in the ambulance. They said I could go to the hospital. But I was like, oh, I'm fine, because they told me it was a panic attack.
Speaker 2:After then I did get recurrent panic attacks, but because I learned, like because I knew it was a panic attack, then I knew how to soothe myself and regulate. I can still feel like, because you sometimes you can't have a predisposition to get panic disorder. So I after that, like whenever I have phobias or anything I can feel, if I'm starting to trigger a panic attack, I can pull myself back, I'm fine. But the fact that, like getting a bad grade or failing a subject, was enough to make me paralyzed. I was like this is crazy, like I, if I go, I ended up switching to psychology, to study psychology instead, and I was like I'm not like I, I want to perform, I want to do really well, but not at the expense of my health, and so that's why I invested in tutors.
Speaker 2:I learned how to do everything, because I was like there's no way I'm putting like I'm doing that to myself again, and so, anyway, and now I love pressure and I can handle pressure. I don't get panic attacks. Everything's different but it was very, very, very hard at that time holy shit, that isn't so.
Speaker 1:When I asked you, when can pressure be bad, that was probably a really great example.
Speaker 2:I totally forgot, I just like wasn't in my head. I forget that. It happens like sometimes I think back at my life and I'm like I feel like so much has happened. It's wild and I'm like 26 we need to come back for another episode.
Speaker 1:I feel like I would love to come back on. I feel like everyone would love you for you to come back on, because it's been such a good chat and I feel like there is so much more to talk about. It's like this is what happened within an hour and 20 minutes. This is what happens when you get people that can't fucking stop talking. They just talk. I'm like I have three last questions and another one and another.
Speaker 1:I think I've asked you 10 questions since that time because it's just it's fascinating and I think it's so interesting and I I also just feel incredibly grateful for the opportunity to have conversations with people like yourself and be able to put it on a podcast. Like I don't want to rush it or cut it short, because I'm like I genuinely feel grateful for this opportunity to get to talk to you and ask you questions and I feel like anyone who gets to listen to this like how cool is it to get insight into people's lives and people's minds and opinions? I think we are so grateful to have that available to us. So I'm more than happy for you to like talk and talk and talk and talk, because I gained so much from other people's experiences and all of those different things. So thank you so much for sharing that with us and thank you so much for coming onto the podcast. I really really do appreciate it.
Speaker 1:Go follow Kyra, go look at what she's working on and what she's doing, because you will get so much value from it. Always. She is just such a such a hard worker and so good at what she does and so caring in what she does, so anyone who gets to work with her will definitely definitely benefit from that, and thank you so much for for taking the time to be here today thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2:I loved it.