45. The Three Gears Of Sustainable Success with AMY LENIUS

Confidence doesn’t magically appear after you hit a goal. It gets built when you start trusting your own follow-through again. My first-ever guest joins us for a grounded, real-talk conversation on personal development that connects directly to evidence-based wellness and sustainable behaviour change. I’m joined by Amy Lenius, a personal development and success coach and Director of Group Coaching at Next Level University, to break down what success looks like when it’s defined from the inside out. 

• self-belief as self-efficacy built through action and recovery  
• the “delusion gap” between identity statements and daily proof  
• bouncing back faster by using past hard seasons as evidence  
• state, prove, self-assign as a simple daily self-belief practice  
• self-worth as the internal game behind boundaries and social courage  
• five self-worth levers: promises, boundaries, social courage, investing, comparison  
• why people pleasing breaks connection and authenticity over time  
• boundaries versus rules, focusing on what we control  
• choosing fulfillment over fleeting happiness when building an aligned life  

If this hits home, subscribe, share this with a friend who’s rebuilding their confidence and leave a review so more Canadians ;) can find the show.

Amy Lenius' Website

Follow Amy on Instgram @amylenius

A free Facebook community dedicated to daily growth and self-awareness: https://www.facebook.com/groups/thenextlevelnation

Transcript

Welcome And Why This Show Exists

SPEAKER_01 0:00

What's up? Welcome back to Vito with Alita. This is a podcast about evidence-based wellness for real life. I'm Alita and I'm here to talk about fitness, health, mindset, and building a strong and sustainable life. But doing so without extremes, guilt, or perfectionism. If you care about your health, but you also want a life that you can actually live, you're definitely in the right place. Now before we jump in, I just want to say thank you for being here. It genuinely means a lot that you choose to spend your time listening. And I don't take that lightly. If you've been enjoying the show, following the podcast really helps it grow and lets me know that you're enjoying what you're listening to. And it will actually help more people find these conversations, which means I can keep bringing you new episodes every single week. All right, let's get into today's episode.

Meet Amy And Her Story

SPEAKER_01 1:22

Today is a doozy because we have our first ever guest episode. Yes, I performed a little interview with our guest speaker today, Amy Linneas. And Amy, I think, was a wonderful person to bring onto the podcast because she is a personal development and success coach, uh, speaker, and director of group coaching at Next Level University. She helps people define success from the inside out so that the life they are building actually feels fulfilling. And her work is rooted in self-worth, self-belief, and consistency. Things that we talk about a lot on the show. And she believes that when these things are in place, growth becomes sustainable and fulfillment stops feeling out of reach. Over the past nine years, Amy has spoken on stages in the health, healing, and personal development space. And she now serves as the MC and a speaker for the next level live and has been featured on over 200 podcasts, having real conversations about what it actually takes to grow. We're gonna get right into it, and I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did. Alright, so hey Amy, thank you so much for joining me. I I'm so excited about this conversation. And I think just to give our listeners a good idea of who I'm talking to, I think my first will start it off by giving us a little intro about yourself, what you do, and go ahead, the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Sure. Thank you so much, first of all, for having me. I'm so excited to be here. Just from our little preamble and things, I can tell we're gonna have a really, really good conversation today. So I'm excited. Like you said, my name is Amy Lennius. I partner with a company called Next Level University, and it was founded by two incredibly heart-driven and integrous men down in the States. And I say down in the States because I myself am up north in Canada. And that has been Are you where?

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yes, I'm in Toronto. I didn't realize you were in Canada. I know. How about you?

SPEAKER_00 3:38

Oh wow. I'm not far from you at all. So if you were to put a dot between Toronto and Ottawa, I'm like in a teeny tiny town in the middle.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Oh wow, no way. So that's so that's so cool. Sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but I was just like, we didn't cover that ground.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

We did not. I love when I get to hop on a show with a fellow Canadian. It's not very often, actually. I know but it's great.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

I love it too.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, same. Okay. Anyway, please, please keep going. We are in Canada, you and I. I'm actually originally from outwest. I grew up in British Columbia and we came here four years ago, about the same time I partnered with Next Level University. So there's a huge amount of transition in my life over the last four years. But what we do and what I do now is I speak and coach on professional development for the sake of your version, your individual version of success. But uh that's not where I started. I have a background in anatomy and physiology. I used to do my initial public speaking career and things started in women's health and talking about natural wellness for women. And that led into coaching for women and things, which led me into all of the, you know, little steps that took me to where I am now. But even the women's health aspect of it came from, and the love for anatomy and physiology came from being sick myself growing up. So if we're looking back, I feel like that's where it really all started. My my love for learning, for finding the ability to do hard things, to be consistent and to really understand the power of knowledge and teaching others. I think it all stems from that. And I've been able to grow and and expand into what it is I do now. Like I said, with next level university, which I do deeply feel is my forever home. Because I feel like they and us all together are doing really important and needed work in the world. And so I am very, very grateful to be in the position that I am in now.

SPEAKER_01 5:46

Oh, that's so awesome. Thank you. Thank you for sharing all that. I honestly, it resonates with me when you, or it's actually interesting, I should say, when you talk about the different things that led you to where you are today. Because I talk about that a bit on my podcast where it's like there's sometimes when you're in the thick of it, you don't realize that it's all gonna come together and culminate into this beautiful thing, and then you're just like, What's happening? And that's where really it's important to think about okay, my journey is my own. You can't really compare it, right? And I think that's that's such an important thing to remember. Now

The Three Gears Of Success

SPEAKER_01 6:28

I know in your work, I think um you've talked about kind of the three gears of success. So like self-worth, self-belief, and consistency. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but can you explain how they kind of work together, the importance of them? Is there one that's more important than the other? Sort of your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

Yeah, absolutely. So this is something that all came together with this newer partnership with within Next Level University. They taught me the difference between self-belief and self-worth. And then collectively we came up with frameworks around consistency and things. But when I look back at my life, again, hindsight's always 20-20, I can see that I myself grew high self-belief through challenge and overcoming challenge and things. I had really low self-worth, and we'll talk about that a bit. And but I did have the ability to be consistent in things that I had belief and certainty in. And when I look back at the people I was trying to help before I had that knowledge, I can see that that is what was missing. Self-belief, self-worth, consistency are through lines in any success journey. If you're struggling with any kind of journey to success, whether that be health, wealth, your quality of life, your love life, relationships, and things, self-belief, self-worth, and consistency all come in and play a role. So regardless of what the journey is, these are fundamental principles that can be working for you or against you in all of them. Now, self-belief is self-efficacy. Self-belief is your belief in yourself that you can create an outcome. With enough time and effort, you can build something, create something, get the result. Now, this doesn't mean that you know everything. This doesn't mean you know how to do everything. It doesn't mean you set a goal and you automatically know how to get it. This means you have the belief that you can learn and implement what you learn. You can ask for help and implement what they tell you to do. It doesn't mean you're all alone, you have to know how to do it yourself, which I think people get lost in a little bit. Doesn't mean you know all the things, but it does mean that you believe in yourself to figure out what you need to figure out, who you need to talk to, what you need to learn to create a result. And so in our community, we see a lot of people with high self-belief. I myself was one of them. You build self-belief through action, through overcoming. And if you had to put, you know, the gold star on which one is the most important or to build first, it is self-belief. Because if you believe you can build more self-worth, if you believe you can do what it takes to be consistent, then you are set up for success more to do those things. And self-belief, even when you look at the frameworks around self-worth and in and in consistency, it shows up in both of them. And so if we wanted to start there, self-belief is a through line of all success. So you learning to become someone who believes that they are capable of getting the result with enough time and effort.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Right. I think that was so beautifully put that like self-belief is truly the driver. If you don't think you can do it, then no one can probably like no one can convince you almost, right? But the thing that comes to mind when thinking about this, as somebody who had to go through this period of despite everything going on, like I still have to believe that I'm gonna get to my goal. When do

Delusion Versus Proof Through Action

SPEAKER_01 10:14

you draw the line that you're becoming a little bit like delusional, like you're lying to yourself? Because I know sometimes, you know, what if I'm just saying, like, I think I'm the best, but like you're just lying to yourself? Like, how do you think we can try to distinguish between the two? What are some things we can look for? You know, like especially when things aren't going your way. Yeah, you know, that's what I'm interested in. How do I know I'm not just crazy?

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Uh well, I mean, at least it's crazy in a good way. Exactly. Yes, yes. Yeah, it's a kind of crazy that will work for you. So you gotta be a little bit crazy sometimes, right? I think so. I think so. I think we all need a little bit of especially in that direction, right? We however the first thing that came to mind is to analyze the gap between the thought and the actions that prove it. So if you do have that belief of I am going to get this done, I am going to become this person, I am actually really, really great, is there is there a big gap where your actions show and say otherwise, then I would put it into delusion versus versus fact. Whereas if the gap between the actions you you prove to yourself by the actions you do every day that proves to yourself that you have that identity, that's what I wanted to say there, is uh is smaller, then that that's a better place to be because that delusion bubble can get popped really easily if it's too big. And it can break your reality too too detrimentally. Right. Especially if you have low self-belief. People who have high self-belief have the ability to have a bigger gap. We have the capacity and the capability for it. But when you have low self-belief, you really need to keep that gap small because it's it feels easier to inflate and create the gap rather than take the action that's gonna build the truth in that identity. So it really depends on who you're talking to and who you're working with when you're building that within someone. But yeah, I think people who have high self-belief are able to talk that way, think that way, because they know that they can do the actions to prove it at some point if they need to.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

Right. That's so interesting. And I think something else that comes to mind is also what does like or how do you know that you have high self-belief? So, what do I mean by that is I'm someone who I think I have high self-belief, but sometimes when things are not going my way, like that almost not goes down the drain, but you know, it tends to get a little bit knocked down. How do you categorize someone high self-belief versus low self-belief? What are we looking for?

SPEAKER_00 13:08

Yeah, so one that's so that's so normal and so human, even if you have self like high self-belief, it's so normal to still have those lower days where you're like, ah, dang. High self-belief people don't stay there very long, though.

unknown 13:24

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:24

That's how you can tell. They can have the pity party, and I actually think that's really, really important. I think it's important to acknowledge that you're having a moment, that that thing didn't work out, it sucked, you feel like crap today, whatever that is. I think it's really important to have the pity party. If you have low self-belief, it's hard to get yourself out. If you have high self-belief, you can get yourself out. You get yourself out pretty quickly, pretty easily, based on how high your self-belief is, because you understand that this is just a low moment. And you've been in low moments before, and you have the capabilities based on what you've proven to yourself in the past to get yourself out of another low moment. It's it's really, really important for people to look at the past and see the patterns of getting out of situations or surviving situations or making it through the other side, even if it sucked really hard. It's so important to see, oh, but I got out the other side, because that builds self-belief in you. And it affirms into your identity that here's another hard season, but I've been in a hard season before, even if it looked different, felt different, was different. I have proof that over time I can do what it takes to get myself out.

SPEAKER_01 14:44

That's yeah, that really resonates with me because I'm somebody who I've always advocated for, let's say, like journaling, or if you don't want to call it journaling, like logging your life, I guess. Something to look back on. And as I've sort of tried to increase my own self-belief, that's exactly what I did. I would literally had a list and was like, Alita, Times, you've you know said no. I was trying to be less of a people pleaser. Times you said no and the world didn't end, and then I had like a list, and it's like, oh, there you go. Right? So it's it's cool, it's it's nice to kind of hear, and it's it's funny because I heard another thing about how successful people usually the one thing they're really good at good at is like bouncing back. So you had a bad morning, it's okay, it doesn't have to ruin the rest of your day. Had a bad meeting, it's okay. You have another good one coming up, and just always being in that bouncing back mindset, I think, is really important. So yeah, that's definitely I agree. Like that's definitely a good way to look at what's self-belief or a good way to define it, I guess. And let's say I'm sorry, go ahead, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:56

I was just gonna say, and as you grow that muscle, it becomes easier and easier to do, and you can grow that muscle of building self-belief. What used to be a bad month can be a bad couple weeks now. And look at you bounce back faster. Those bad couple weeks now is down to a week this next time, and then it's down to a couple days, then it's down to a day, and then it's down to a morning, like you said. But that takes time, it takes intention, and you can get there, but you have to put the work in to do it, and it's such worthy work to do because then you do become someone who has that more success-driven skill of bouncing back, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:35

That's so true, and then just tracking those small improvements over time so you really know that you are you are building like that muscle, like you said.

The State Prove Self-Assign Method

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Now, for somebody listening who's like, okay, I think I find myself in the lower category of self-belief. How can I what can I do? Like, what are some practical steps I can kind of do to get myself in that higher self-belief category?

SPEAKER_00 17:00

Oh, I love this. I love that you're advocating for your listeners right now and getting them some tangible takeaway and action. That's so important. You are an excellent host for your people. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. So building self-belief, you know, we're we're, you know, you and I are speaking the language of people who have high self-belief. I can tell you have high self-belief. And if this is something that maybe doesn't resonate with you as you're listening, this language is like, I don't speak that way. I don't talk to myself that way. I don't believe things like that. That is okay. Alita and I were not born with a certain level of high self-belief. We've built it. And you are not born with a certain level of self-belief. You can build it. And to build it, we I'm a big, big advocate for daily action because daily action is something we can do that's small, that's gonna compound over time and is really sustainable to do. And so a daily action for building self-belief is a simple, doesn't mean it's easy every day, but it's a simple formula of state, prove, self-assign. One is state, say you're going to do something. Yeah, say you're gonna do something. Okay. Okay. Two is prove. Prove that you can get it done. Do the action, do the thing. Three is self-assign, which is a self-acknowledgement, a celebration of, hey, I did the thing I said I was going to do. The more promises you keep to yourself, the more self-belief you are going to build. The more promises you break, the lower your self-belief and self-worth is going to be.

SPEAKER_02 18:32

Right.

SPEAKER_00 18:35

This is why I love to do lists. Write your top three things down every day. Top three things. That's you stating. You write it down, that's you stating what you're going to do. Do the things on the list. They don't have to be perfect, they don't have to be, you know, done to the best of your ability because life is crazy and very reactive on the day-to-day, especially if you have variables like pets and kids and other people in your life, household. And there's so many things. There's so many things that can go off the rails. Still do it and trust that you can't do it well all the time. Right? Have a half-assed check the box version. That's okay. And then as you cross it off, that is your moment to say, hey, I did the thing I said I was going to do. Nice. Yay me. Whatever it is. Some people are very overt celebrators and have a little moment. I'm a subtle being. I like to just be like, ah, nice. I did the thing. Okay. And then you move on. Just go. And that. Those are small things that you can do every day that you can do on things that you're already doing. If you have a low self-belief, challenge your brain to do this process into the things you're already doing. And your brain's going to fight you so hard and being like, but this is just stuff you have to do. This is stuff you should be doing regardless. Good. Fight your brain on that and be like, yeah, but today I'm consciously doing it with intention because I said I'm going to. And it's really important that I get it done. And it's actually really valuable for my family that I do this laundry. So I'm going to write it down, get it done, and then give myself a moment of nice, I did it. I got it done today. Even if you didn't fully fold it and put it away, is it washed? Is it somewhat done? Amazing check.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Right. Yes, I love, I'm a giant advocate for small, actionable steps, especially like I talk a lot about if you want to, I don't know, ramp up your fitness. Let's say, how do you start? You just start by putting on your shoes or you walk out the door. And then eventually that's sort of how you build the momentum and you kind of go, you know, you improve from there and make the goal bigger and bigger as you achieve it every single day. So I absolutely love that and totally agree. And yeah, now that I think about it, I think it is definitely how I think I got to a point where I'm like, yeah, Alita, like you got your back, you're okay. And it also reminds me of building systems, like setting yourself up to actually show up for yourself. So if I told myself, oh, I wanna, I wanna wear specific, like I wanna look nice to to work tomorrow, putting your clothes out the net the night before, so you make sure you get up and you're not too tired thinking about what to wear, just little things like that. I think really that's very true. I think those small actions will compound over time and really make you realize, like, wow, I've come so far.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Which is

Self-Worth And The People-Pleasing Trap

SPEAKER_00 21:26

yeah, and the more you do that and set up your systems and set yourself up for success, the more you're actually feeding into your self-worth as well. You're showing yourself that you are worthy of someone who can keep the promises they make to themselves every day. You are worth doing that. You are worth putting the time and effort in of setting up your clothes the night before, even though you're tired and you would love to make that tomorrow use problem. You know that you're worth it to do it the day before. That's that like bleeds into something. Self-worth, which is really, really beautiful because they are so correlated, but yet self-worth is the internal game. If self-belief is the external results, self-worth is the internal game of who do I, you know, tie my boat to on this journey? Are they, are they good for my goals? Or am I dimming and being small around them? Am I lacking social courage? Do I not hold boundaries? Do I not hold the standards I need to to get the results along the way? So if you have high self-belief, that's great. But if you have low self-worth, you are doing things to hinder your progress just in a different way. It's it's that internal lack of social courage, lack of investing in yourself, you know, comparing to a detriment instead of inspiration and you know, proof that things can be done. It's it's that it's it's in a symbiotic relationship with self-belief. It's a they feed each other, and the base of self-worth is keeping the promises you make to yourself with it, which is basically self-belief. This I said I'm gonna do something, I did it. Nice.

SPEAKER_01 23:10

Right. So in your experience working with different people, and now I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe call out women. Maybe I'm wrong to do so, but I feel like sometimes do you find that women try to solve a self-worth problem by doing things like I don't know, some new workout or nutrition plan, some next productivity system, having an endless to-do list, trying to prove like their self-worth? Is that something that you've seen that resonates with you at all? Or am I just talking cuckoo?

SPEAKER_00 23:50

No, it's both. I have myself been a product of that, and I see so many women are a product of that, and that is very societal. It's very pushed on us from a young age that you're a valuable woman based on your adaptability, based on how you appease, based on how you serve others, and honestly, based on your looks. It's external validation brings you self-worth. Is she a good woman? Well, is she a good mom? Is she a good wife? Is she a good community member? Is she a good daughter? Is she a good PAC member? Does she do good things for other people? That's what we're subjected to from a very, very, very young age. And so women learning to turn their self-worth from the outside in to the inside out is a game changer. It is such a superpower and it is so challenging to do, but it is so worth it. It is so worth it to do because then you get to decide do I gain value from myself by being a good mother? I get to decide if my worth is gets to shine through motherhood and things. And I do. That's a deep one for me. That's a deep one that ties into my self-worth, but not based on what others think of my motherhood, what I think of it.

SPEAKER_01 25:20

Right.

unknown 25:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:22

It's a really good example. Not based on, I mean, even now. So I've been on the lens of because I came into this space with high self-belief. Obviously, and we still always want to keep building that. All of these are never-ending journeys. You can always get a little bit better, a little bit deeper. And so for the last four, three for sure years, my lens has been self-worth because I had high self-belief and very low self-worth, especially when it came to boundaries and social courage. Those two go together. Oh my god, we do. I am the ultimate people pleaser. I will do anything and then be anything you need me to be so that you are comfortable, feel cared for, feel loved, and so that you don't take love away from me is the underlying I'm both fold like origami. So I am absolutely what shape do you need me to be today? And so I am on this journey of learning social courage, of learning who I am and who I'm not from that lens, right? And self-belief, I always kind of knew who I was and stuff. So it's kind of hard to talk about separately. There are, they are together, but they are very separate. And so, even different things like playing around with different clothing options, different colors, different things. That's me leaning into another layer of who am I, who am I not? Is this me hiding? Was this me trying to play small and not be seen? Is this belief that this color makes me look this way? Is that even mine? Or was that projected onto me? Like this, I'm talking about really superficial examples because that's where I'm at. But we dove like it was deeper stuff first, which sounds counterintuitive, but it makes sense when you when you do the work. But you st it still takes really, really small steps first. Always. Always. It it starts with you having social courage and holding boundaries with people who aren't super close to you. It's easier to do it with people who aren't as close to you because they if they get miffed about it, it's not a big deal. You're like, well, you're not that important to me, anyways. But if you start setting boundaries and having social courage and things with a parent, with a spouse, and they're used to you being a different way, a self-sacrificing martyr. And all of a sudden you start saying, actually, no, I don't, I don't think that's funny, turns out. And now they're like, oh my gosh. And it's not that they're necessarily trying to be, you know, malicious towards you. They're just used to you being a certain way, and they're used to benefiting from you being a certain way. So when you start to shift that, even though it is way more healthy for you and eventually for them and the people around you, it's a hard journey because it's it's it changes your relationships. We we call it lonely land. It has a label in our world for a reason. And if you can make it through loneliness as you transition from who you needed to be for others to who you actually are, again, it's such worthwhile work. It's not easy, but it is so worth it.

SPEAKER_01 28:33

It's so true because you know, by you being a people pleaser and not showing up authentically, the people who that you hang out with even know who they're hanging out with, or like at the end of the day, doing the work and actually presenting yourself the way that you authentically are will be better, like you mentioned for the long run. It's like, okay, I actually genuinely like you as a person and not this random mirage of I don't know, whatever you're presenting that day, right? That's very interesting. I love the it is something I'm working on as well, and especially the saying no or like saying what I'm really thinking type of situation. And I'm interested to hear about some of the deeper work that you did before getting to the more superficial, like you mentioned, like the clothing or pieces of jewelry or whatever. What what are some of the things that you worked on before you were like, okay, I'm ready to kind of move on to the to the next step?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yeah, absolutely. So for me, my biggest one of the five pieces of self-worth that you can work on, I'll label them quickly so you can hopefully identify yourself, listener, and you, Alita, which one you struggle with the most because that's where we always want to start. Okay. So keeping the promises you make to yourself, holding boundaries with yourself and others, social courage, aka being your authentic self, which is a whole journey because you have to actually discover who that is. Lots of us don't know. Investing in yourself and keep comparison. What is your relationship with comparison? So I was decent at keeping the promises I made to myself where I had high self-belief. I have high self-belief in certain things, but like over the last few years, let's see, fitness. Fitness, I didn't have a lot of high self-belief in because I have really I come from a space of chronic illness. My inflammation kicks up if I'm not paying attention, and I can just like debilitate myself by doing things that I know I shouldn't go from zero to ten in, but my personality likes to do that. So I've had to learn to go from zero to one, right? Then to two. Right now, because I've learned to do that, I can I've been consistent in fitness for almost four years. But it's again just those little little journeys. Thank you. And we can talk about that when it comes like from the consistency lens and things and why that is. But so keeping the promises myself, I was decent at boundaries, terrible. Didn't even know what they were. Not a clue. Couldn't have told you. Social courage, the worst. I'm just whoever you need me to be. Investing in myself, there I have always thrived. I have never had a problem putting time, effort, and money into myself. Ish. There are certain things that I still struggle to like invest in myself in if I feel like there's this old narrative that it's gonna take away from someone else. But I always like my education, I can invest, I invested in courses, in in all sorts, all the time, all the time. That was never a problem for me. So I could invest in myself. And I I actually never struggled too hard with comparison. That wasn't one for me either. So mine were social courage and boundaries, didn't know what boundaries were and had no social courage. So that's where I started. And social courage looked like I mean, me learning to be my authentic self and not agree or disagree with others based on different things. So, like little, little opportunities would come up. Like we're a part of a homeschool group, this beautiful little community of people. And all of these amazing women in this group, they're all into gardening and they talk about it all the time. And they would constantly ask me, Oh, Amy, are you gonna do a garden this year? This, this, and this. And I'd be like, Oh, yeah, maybe I'll do this, this, and this. And finally, now I can say, Well, now they know not to even ask me, but initially it was like, No, no, I'm not gonna plant a garden this year. I don't have time, right? I don't have time, I don't know how, nor do I have the care to know how. Like, there's a small version of me that wishes I had a huge garden and all the time in the world to just like cultivate and nourish these plants. I don't because I have this career and I homeschool my kids and I love this job so much that that's where my extra time and energy goes into. When I am, you know, I the homeschooling my family, being a mother, a wife, those things are my my center. So those things come first. And and all the extra time and effort I have is this. It's this career that I am building this beautiful foundation for so that as my kids need me less, I can come up in this more and more and more because I love it. No, I'm not gardening. And I took me forever to say that. When I first met one of these women, she asked me if I wanted to go horseback riding with her. And I was like, I want to be this person's friend. Absolutely, I'll go horseback riding with you. I freaking hate horses. Oh, no way. Yeah. Like, I don't get it. I'm not scared of horses. I can be around them. They seem to like me. I can hop on one, but I just the least amount of joy. I ended up with a bruise on my thigh, like the size of a mango. And then the next time she asked me, I had done a bunch of this work. No, right? And I had done a bunch of this work. I said, actually, Monica, I despise horseback riding. And she was like, that's what we're doing to people. We cannot sustain who we actually are not. And so eventually we break the connection between people because they're like, Who are you? What do you mean you don't like horseback riding? That's like how we bonded. And I'm like, no, I fucking hated it. Like, nope.

SPEAKER_01 34:37

I was lying to you, actually.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

I'm lying.

unknown 34:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:41

So it's little moments like that. It's little moments like that. And I've had to learn that, oh my gosh, even though I don't garden the way all of these amazing women do, I am still accepted in this space. I didn't die. I am okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:56

There you go. Yeah. They still call you up.

unknown 35:02

Right?

SPEAKER_00 35:03

They'll laugh and they'll joke and they'll be like, Amy, how are your few planters going? Because I do a little bit. I have like some flowers and I love having fresh mint and basil. So I have a small pot that I can barely keep alive. So they'll just ask me about that. It's perfect. Beautiful. They'll beat you where you are, right? Exactly. Exactly. Those are little opportunities. It's not the big moments, it's the little ones where you can start to recognize and start to hold this authentic version of yourself. I kept telling myself a story that, yeah, eventually I'm gonna have the time to garden like these amazing women. No, I'm not. Right. No, I'm not. I just don't want to be a good one. I was telling myself a story, and I was being who they I thought they would like more. It's not sustainable. So there's a little example right there. And

Boundaries Are Actions Not Demands

SPEAKER_00 35:56

even I see a lot of people on the internet right now, you know, and people are losing their marbles about something. This person didn't respect my boundaries. I told them they couldn't do this, and they couldn't do this, and they did it anyways. It's like well, yeah. That's not a boundary. You're setting a rule. Rules try and control and dictate other people. We can't control other people at all. As much as we would love to try, we can't. We can influence, we have a certain amount of influence over a certain amount of people, but that is it. We cannot control other people. The only thing you have true control over, this is your circle of control, this is it. It's what you say, think, do, feel, believe. That's it. And then you have a small little outer ring of who you have influence over, and then everything else is what you don't have control over. And so when you're in a situation and you're in an argument with someone, let's say, and they start escalating it, they're yelling at you, they're calling you names, and you say, Hey, Bob, you can't talk to me that way. Stop it, knock it off, don't speak to me that way, they kind of still can. They kind of still can't. Yeah, yeah. They can they can keep yelling. What are you gonna go do? Put your hand over their their mouth and hope that they stop. Like, no. The the real boundary is hey, Bob, if you continue to yell at me and speak to me that way and call me names, I'm going to leave this conversation. So you're giving them a chance to change their behavior. But here's the hard part. When they don't, for the sake of your self-worth that you're consciously trying to grow now that you've heard this conversation, you need to leave. And it's hard. Right. It's really hard because you have all these fears of, well, if I walk away, what if we never come back to this conversation? What if, you know, the now this this result doesn't happen? Like we're really good at projecting about what's going to happen if we don't stay and fight in this conversation. It doesn't matter anymore. And that's really, really hard for people who struggle with boundaries. There's a certain personality type out there that lets it's like, yeah, just walk away. What are you doing? Of course. People who don't struggle with boundaries don't even think about it. No, they're like, of course. Oh my gosh, kick this person out of your house and out of your life. They don't need to be there. And then there's people like me, like, oh my gosh, but I want them to love me.

unknown 38:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 38:36

It's too very opposed to it. No, that's right. Yeah. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 38:40

Thinking about like a lot of things. So that's probably why it's really Go ahead.

SPEAKER_00 38:44

No, sorry, go ahead. Well, it's just it's really challenging to speak on podcasts per se, because you're trying to speak on a macro. You're trying to speak to as many people as possible and have it make sense. Whereas when you're speaking one-on-one, if I know that you're scared of losing love and you struggle with boundaries, I'm teaching you something different. Whereas if you already know how to hold boundaries, you actually probably struggle with hyper-independence, and we need to have some vulnerability and open those up a little bit. And so, depending on which one is you and which one resonates, that's why I like to say all five first, because you might not see yourself in my story. You actually really might struggle with comparison and investing in yourself. And those are two really important areas of self-worth. I was just giving you my story, my example. How can you focus in on the one that is your biggest struggle? And I think that's where you were going of the five there.

SPEAKER_01 39:36

Yeah, I was going to say it's interesting to hear that how different people can like struggle with the different out of the five, because I also have, I think, a boundary issue, but my second one I would say would be more comparison rather than like the social uh interaction of it. So I'm someone who struggled a lot and still sometimes do struggle with comparison and just reminding myself of things like if I feel jealous, it's maybe because it's something I would like to look into, or it's something I actually want, or it's something I care about, or reminding myself of okay, I see the final picture, but I don't know what it took to get there, or it didn't take, or all these things come to mind, right? So it's interesting to hear about the five, and I really hope people resonate with at least one of the five. I think it's important to really pinpoint because I always say if you want to try to improve or solve something, how do you know where to start? Well, you have to identify like what you're what you're trying to improve in the first place, right?

SPEAKER_00 40:40

So no, that's very yeah. I love this awareness first and then acceptance. Actually, like I had to accept that I was a social coward and didn't know how to hold boundaries whatsoever. And I had to accept what that had cost me and what that had done so far in my life, so that once I was aware of it, and then you have acceptance around it, you can do better integral work within it.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Right. I think something that comes to mind is I always try to talk about wanting to improve yourself out of love or out of because you are worth improving, but then I think there's a fine line between okay, I'm caring for myself or I'm trying to fix myself because it's just not working. What do you think are some of the differences we might see in someone who is caring for themselves and is like improving out of love or just fixing out of like hate or out of just I don't know, it's needing external validation or whatever the wrong type of reasons to want to improve.

SPEAKER_00 41:55

That ties so deeply into what I just said about the challenge of speaking from the macro into a micro situation. So there are a certain group of people who can and should change out of hate. Which I know it's not good to say no one wants to hear that because that's not what you hear on the internet, that's not the sexy thing to say. But if if you have lost so much in your life and you are in a place where things are terrible for you because of the choices you made, you need to hate that a little bit. You need to get mad about it. You need to get mad at the idea of that that is where you have gotten yourself. And to get mad at the idea that that is where, again, you have gotten yourself. Not the victim mindset you want to take in it, not the villain mindset you want to take in it where it was others' fault or others' things. You have to sit with the fact that it's okay and you get mad at yourself. There is a certain group of people who can get mad at themselves and need to to actually make change. So sometimes it's okay.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00 43:18

Yeah, the people who can't handle that are the are the people who go into victim and don't believe that they can change. If you like give them that kind of language, they actually become more of a victim. They become more of, oh my gosh, I really can't do anything about this. I am the problem. I can't change, and there's nothing I can do about it. And now I'm even more overwhelmed and I'm not going to make a difference in my own life. So you can't lose that language with those people. You're doing harm.

unknown 43:48

Right.

SPEAKER_00 43:49

So it's really, really important who you're sticking into. So it's like self awareness is a superpower. What language actually motivates you? If you have really high self belief and You are someone who believes in your competency, your capability. And when you do something that is less than your standards, you can get mad at yourself and pull yourself out of that. Absolutely. That's totally fine. You should hear how Alan talks to himself. He's our CEO. Um, he's our like he's our computer engineer, business major, CEO, runs our company, is just the best leader I have ever been exposed to, honestly. Right. And he talks to himself like you would be like, Oh, don't talk to yourself like that. Oh my gosh, you need to love yourself. He does. Yeah, he does. He loves himself so much, and he is so driven and so this that he can talk to himself that way because that does motivate him. It doesn't shut him down.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

Right.

unknown 44:44

Right.

SPEAKER_00 44:44

Whereas other people, it shuts them down. So you have to be really, really conscious of that. And then there's the love aspect, which is also tough. If you start telling someone who really doesn't love themselves, hey, just love yourself, do it from a loving place, do it for yourself because you love yourself. Their brains instantly like, F you, I don't love myself. I'm not going to do that. To go from self-loathing to self-love is a massive journey. It takes a lot. To go from self-loathing to neutrality also takes a lot, but it's along the way. And I think that that is a more manageable step to take and language to use for people who can't ever imagine what it would be like to like or love themselves. And so it really depends on the individual. It's like when you tell people who have really low self-belief and really struggle with their ability to be valuable and add value and be a certain way. Oh, just give yourself affirmations. I want you to look at yourself in the mirror every day and be like, you are successful. You are happy. You are beautiful. They're gonna go into that mirror and say, I'm successful. I'm beautiful. I'm in the back of their brains, like, oh my God, no, you're not. Shut up. Right, right. That's not helpful. That's not helpful. What you do is, and then, but then there's some people where that works for them. You can do that to them because deep down they believe that about themselves and they just need to hear it more. Right. The people who struggle with the affirmations and things, they need to have language and action together. So you need to help them understand that, hey, I am becoming a person who is successful. And then you have them match action with that belief every day. What action do I have that proves that that is true? So that every day when my brain says, but you're not successful, but you say, Yeah, but I'm becoming successful, look at the proof that I have in the actions that I am taking. It's bad. It's these unsexy little nuances and fundamentals versus that kind of like toxic positivity, the things we love to see on the internet. There's a gap.

SPEAKER_01 47:07

I love that you highlight the gap because just I think with anything, like my mind right away went to just like health or fitness or nutrition. There is no one size fits all, like at all. And it's funny to see that also apply to something like wanting to improve your self-belief, your self-worth, your your self-love, like all that. Of course it applies, right? But sometimes I think we don't think about it. And when we are looking online, and the majority are saying, yeah, just do this one thing and it's all gonna be solved, it's really helpful to hear that it's okay if it's doesn't apply to you. And it's actually okay to be angry with yourself if you're not meeting a standard you set for yourself. So I think it's very refreshing and and vital to to talk about. So thanks

Alignment Fulfillment And Final Takeaways

SPEAKER_01 47:53

for sharing. I think um something that also came to mind is this conversation really makes me think about living a life in alignment. So a lot of work when people do self-work and really getting to know themselves, I know that at least for me, the ultimate goal is to be living a life that you're aligned with. What are some things someone can look for to know that they are on the right direction to that? Like maybe my life is not 100% aligned at the moment, but how do I know I'm in the right direction? What are some things I can pick up on?

SPEAKER_00 48:31

Yeah, you can't know if you're living in alignment if you don't know yourself. If you know yourself, if you know what your core values are, and you start to learn to live from those and create and build from those, it's very different than just going out and hoping something sticks. Or having a version of success projected onto you and you being told, hey, if you just check these boxes, you're gonna come out the end fulfilled, happy, and successful. Maybe not. Maybe that person did. But, you know, one medicine that cures a patient can kill another. That's basically what we've just been talking about. There is no one size fits all for everything. Now, there are principles. There are principles of fitness and nutrition, there are fundamentals to success, mindset, work, and things, but how they are applied and like implemented in real life looks different for the individual. Right. I think we need more of, like, like you said, more of that kind of discussion and that that kind of language because there are there's fundamentals and there's principles, there's success principles that make sense through any journey. Like I said, self-belief. We said that right in the beginning. Self-belief is vital through any version of success, any journey, mental, physical, emotional, any of it. Success, all of it. So knowing yourself. What actually makes you happy, not what made your parents happy. What actually makes you feel worthy and valuable, not what society tells you because you're a woman. If you start understanding yourself at a deeper level and start building from the inside out, that's when you start to feel aligned, even when stuff feels hard. I think that's another thing that gets tossed around too much that day is oh, like these days, oh, if it's hard and there's resistance, it's not for you. No, that's not true. Some of the best stuff that you I'm sure you can all think of in your life was hard and there was resistance to it. But because you moved through that hard and you pushed through that resistance and you did what you needed to in a moment, you got the result and it was so worth it. So just because you're living in alignment doesn't mean you're gonna have a day, or it doesn't mean you're always gonna be motivated. It doesn't mean it's always gonna feel good. But if you zoom out, it looks and feels great. It might not feel good in a day, it might not feel good in a moment. But even like on my hardest days right now, if I zoom out, I'm the most fulfilled and successful I've ever been. And I've had some pretty wild days lately. But it's because I'm doing the hard things, stuff that it takes to have the life that when I zoom out, it feels fulfilling, abundant, aligned, and all of the things. But it takes some crazy days to have that kind of life. And there is moments, there's moments for peace and flow and feeling good and all of those things. And I actually deeply believe it's important to have moments like that sprinkled throughout your day and know what those things are that do that for you. It's really, really important. But it's also really important to do stuff that's hard. It really is. And to be the kind of person who understands, like we talked a lot about self-worth. Self-worth is the ultimate poster child of discomfort now for greatness later. Social discomfort now. Sorry, ladies, I actually don't give a crap about gardening. Social discomfort now for self-respect, self-worth, and authentic relationships later. Worth it. Right, you gotta think long term.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 52:27

Yeah. It's race-aligned discomfort.

SPEAKER_01 52:31

Yeah, no, it's it's very interesting to hear about it's honestly also just about consistency. And it's just it's funny because I think the more self-work you kind of do and the more work you put in. It's funny, I think the more harder days you kind of get. Ironically, I don't know if that's just me, but it I feel like the more you're working on it and stuff, the more challenges are gonna be thrown in your way to make sure you continue to grow, to make sure you're actually still doing the work. So it's it's ironic. You think as you start getting to know yourself and living a good life, you're actually gonna live like an easy life. But if anything, I think it's more like pop, pop, challenges, left, right. Can you take it on? Yes. But at the end of the day, it's like you said, I think you end up being more fulfilled.

SPEAKER_00 53:17

So yeah, that's why I like the word fulfillment. I was just gonna say that's why I like the word. I like the word fulfillment because it's it's rarely the easier thing that makes you fulfilled. Happy, happy in a moment, happiness is very superficial, it's very fleeting. You can be happy in a moment. A pint of ice cream makes me happy, absolutely. But if I did that every day, I wouldn't be fulfilled. That would be a poor choice. So fulfillment is is different. Fulfillment gives it a different lens, it allows permission for the harder choice if you choose to be fulfilled after just superficially and or over superficially happy. Okay, that's it. I'll get off my soapbox.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

No, don't worry. I love that we sort of brought that in the fulfillment versus happiness. It like a little light bulb clicked in my head. I'm like, yes, the aim here is fulfillment. Because if the aim's happiness, then is there really an aim? It's always like a moving target, right? What made me happy yesterday is not gonna be the same as tomorrow. And yeah, I just wanted to thank you, Amy, for bringing together self-beliefs, self-efficacy, self-love, all of the very core concepts and the importance of actually doing that inner work because I I'm a believer that if you do that inner work, it will shine in every aspect of your life, whether that's work, health, relationships. And thank you for bringing that to light for this wonderful conversation. And I think a way to sort of wrap it up is I'm gonna ask now that you obviously have 2020 vision in hindsight, what is one thing you wish you could tell yourself when you first sort of started this beautiful journey of yours?

SPEAKER_00 55:12

Oh yeah, to to understand myself better. I, if I could change anything, could go back, and that's always a duality to say because obviously I wouldn't be here and have the lessons and the knowledge that I do. I do acknowledge that, like I understand that. Right, but to go back and inject self-worth sooner would be the one.

SPEAKER_01 55:35

I love that. Yep, that's awesome. Amy, thank you so so much for your time. I've the time went by so fast. We I think we need to have another conversation because I've learned so much from you today, and I'm so thankful that we we got the talk. And thank you for bringing such valuable info to the show. I'm so grateful. So thanks.

SPEAKER_00 55:59

Thank you for such a beautiful flow of conversation and great questions and pulling out valuable how-tos and tangible things for your audience. I can tell you really care about them. So thank you so much for this. And I would love to come back anytime.

SPEAKER_01 56:14

Oh, you're always welcome.