The Inner Work Nobody Shows You: Visibility, Self-Worth, and Letting Yourself Be Unhinged Online

This week on Fearlyss & Unfiltered, Alyssa is joined by Priya Patel, host of I Wish I Knew That, for a conversation about inner work, visibility, and what it actually takes to show up online as yourself. Priya shares how her journey started with something as simple as noticing her own thoughts, and how that awareness eventually led her into coaching, and into a years-long fear that her personality was too unhinged to be taken seriously in her field. Alyssa and Priya talk through what visibility really means, why "fixing" yourself isn't a prerequisite for helping others, and the moment Priya decided to stop shrinking her personality to fit a mold that was never hers to begin with.

If you've done some of the personal development work and you're still holding back from showing up fully online, this one's for you.

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personal branding, visibility coach, inner work, self-worth and business, imposter syndrome coaching, authentic personal brand, ADHD entrepreneur, reinvention, unfiltered social media, coaching certification journey

Timestamp chapter suggestions (approximate, based on transcript flow)

• 0:00 Intro and welcoming Priya Patel
• 1:00 How Priya's inner work journey actually started
• 3:00 Starting with awareness instead of tools or frameworks
• 6:00 Realizing coaching was the path
• 9:00 What clients are really feeling underneath outward success
• 10:30 Where to start if you know something's off
• 13:30 The James Clear "vote" concept and rewriting stories
• 15:00 Transition into personal branding and visibility
• 18:00 The fear of being "too unhinged" for coaching
• 21:00 Alyssa's story about hiring a coach who cursed on LinkedIn
• 24:00 Final advice and closing

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Fearless and Unfiltered. I'm your host, Alyssa Ulriud, and today's conversation is one I know so many people are craving because it's not about success that looks good on the outside and more about success that actually feels good to you inside. Today I'm sitting down with Priya Patel, host of the podcast named I Wished I Knew That Earlier. We're talking about what's really what it really looks like to build a personal brand and business while staying connected to your joy, your truth, and your humanity. So Priya, thank you for being here with us today.

SPEAKER_01 0:32

And thanks for having me on, Alyssa. I'm excited for this conversation.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Me too. And I'm so excited to hear about your journey leading up to what you do now. Because I think any coach has a clear moment when they realize that they want to make a change and they want to help other people do the same thing. So can you think back to when you started actively thinking about inner work and what it meant to you at the time?

SPEAKER_01 0:57

So when when I look at that journey, I was trying to go back to that moment. I kind of stumbled into it, if I'm being honest. Um, I think there were little moments that led me to it. I mean, a job layoff was one of them, but then I was always curious in the personal development space, and that sort of led me to conversations with different people and how my podcast started. I came across a conversation with a coach, and she was very much involved with doing the subconscious work, and that sort of piqued my curiosity in terms of another layer of doing the work. So then I kind of went down that rabbit hole very like slowly because I think when you first come across it, it's very scary to it.

SPEAKER_00 1:39

I think that makes sense. I think that's how the inner work journey typically starts for many of us. And I think the majority of the people who listen to this podcast can align with the idea of embodiment and breath work and all of that. But for those who might not be familiar, where did you start? Like what was the tool that you started with?

SPEAKER_01 1:58

So for me was a lot of I'm gonna strip it back actually. It was very simple. It was awareness. Literally just understanding what thoughts are running my show, what's happening in my mind when certain moments happen. And when I started doing that, I started journaling and I was noticing a pattern in terms of the thoughts that I was thinking. And then I was like introduced to like breath work or like this deep, it's not like normal breath work, it's like a deeper, deeper breath work. I don't know what it's called. But that's when I was introduced to that. And early in my journey, I thought it was like this one-off moment where I'll do a breath work session and then boom, I'm healed. Like I don't have to deal with anything again. But I feel like the tools were more like there to clear the cobwebs so then I could get even more awareness and clarity. So it started simple with just what's the thought in my head.

SPEAKER_00 2:55

Yeah, it's amazing how once you are aware of something and you acknowledge the thought, you almost can't unsee it or unknow it. So then you have to figure out what to do with that thought moving forward. It's so confronting and uncomfortable. It is. It'll really put you in your place very quickly. As you started to experience that and go down the path, and like you said, just awareness and breath work. When did you realize that this was something that you wanted to shift into as far as your career?

SPEAKER_01 3:27

So I think it deepened when I started doing coaching certifications. So even with coaching, it wasn't something I saw for myself, never saw myself as a coach, but somehow like breadcrumbs were laying themselves out in front of me, and it led to a couple of coaching certifications. And doing a certification is not a cute moment where you just study and like you're certified to help people. You go through your own transformation journey as well. And that was something I didn't see coming. And it went deep and fast with the inner work, especially one of the certifications I did. But then on the other side of it, it was just like a different version of myself that I got to experience. And I'm still in, I'm still everything I say, I'm still on the journey. I'm not like on the other side, I'm still very much in it. And when I went through my certification, got to see a different side of myself. That's when I was like, ooh, okay, this is something I want to help people with because I didn't have this awareness or these tools myself before I went into the certification. So then I was very deeply connected to wanting to help people with it now that I have them.

SPEAKER_00 4:36

Yeah, that's that's a really cool thought to think that you're going through it as you're getting the certification. It's like that saying where you only need to be, what is it, a couple steps ahead of somebody to help them. And I feel like people who are just a couple steps ahead of us make the best coaches. So it's awesome that you're utilizing your journey and your knowledge to now help other people. But I'm curious what it looks like for you as you're going through it, as you became more aware and you started deepening your practices. How did that shift your day-to-day? Not only in how you show up in business, but how you show up with friends and family?

SPEAKER_01 5:16

It's being very messy. Even being on a different side of it, it's still it still feels messy, and I'm still in the part where I'm figuring things out with entrepreneurship and life. So in both areas, I think you mentioned it, like once you have the awareness, it's like no going back. So the way I show up in different spaces, if I notice something is off or different in how I'm showing up, like it's confronting. Like I have to deal with it. It's not gonna run away or fizzle away. Like I have that.

SPEAKER_00 5:47

So in your one-on-one work, when your clients are coming to you, what is the thing that you notice that people are feeling on the inside, even if externally they look successful?

SPEAKER_01 5:59

So on the on the part on sort of coaching people through realigning to a version of success that they want to pursue, that's a deeper refinement that's come more recently. But in terms of what goes on in the back end, which I've worked with other clients on, is the inner work and getting clarity there. And I think what happens in that space, but also in the success space is they feel one way based on perceptions of what they think is good and what they're supposed to do. But then when they look deeper, they find like a misalignment there in terms of how they're showing up, the messaging that they're sharing, or also things that are keeping them stuck. So I think a common thing there is like things look one way on the outside, but they're very different on the inside. And it's when we go inside that things start to to shift.

SPEAKER_00 6:52

It's very relatable. If there's someone listening to this who that kind of pulled their strings a little bit and they're like, Yeah, I think I might be facing a little bit of that myself. Besides calling you and and booking a session, what's one quick thing that they can do to tune in and face that part of themselves?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

I think the biggest thing I would say is awareness is a good place to start. That was how I started on this journey. And just being curious with what thoughts come up for you, but also where the thoughts are coming from. Because when I look at thoughts that are driving my decisions or even how I define success, like it was very much things that I picked up from my external world, from society, from the community that I grew up in. Like you need a good job, you have to have this title, you have to climb the corporate ladder, you have to get married at this age, you have to have these many kids. And that's when you're gonna be successful. And I think when you start to question the thoughts that come up, you'll get to see what's yours and what isn't yours. So I think just having gentle curiosity is like a great place to start. It's easy, it's free, it's you and your thoughts. Like no one else is there to hear it. And I think that gives you like complete freedom to just be really honest with yourself.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

Love that breakdown. And the reason I asked that question, which you answered perfectly, so thank you, is because I was thinking of my own personal development journey where in the beginning you you know there's something, right? And you just don't know where to start, or you're not willing to listen to the thought, or you're not able to get quiet enough to even have that awareness. So I'm thinking of that person who, you know, everything you're saying is making sense to them. And awareness just feels like a trigger word, like, okay, how do I become aware? And you you answered that very, very effectively. So once they do listen to that thought and they think that they realize whether it's their own internal belief or something that the world just imposed on them, what next? What do you do with those thoughts? Do you just track them or how do you take them once you have the awareness and then make a change?

SPEAKER_01 9:00

That's a really good question. And I think that's somewhere I got stuck initially when I was doing my inner work, where I was like, cool, I know the story, and I'm just gonna tell myself a different story one time, and everything's gonna shift. And the thing is, it's not gonna change in one moment, it's like repeated over time. And there's this quote I go back to often, which is from James Kear's book, Atomic Habits, and he talks about how like I'm butchering the quote, but the premise of it is it's not change doesn't happen in one moment. It's constantly making a vote for the type of person that you want to be. So once you've identified the thought that you want to change, identify or pick a new story you want to tell yourself, and then start to build the evidence to install the new story. And that evidence building happens through taking action, showing yourself that you are someone who lives by this new story. And when I talk about stories, they are stories, but they're essentially referring to like beliefs that we carry around. But I call them stories because I don't think they're truths, they're things that we can shift. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

That's a great metaphor or a way to put words to it. Um, because I have been telling myself and my personal life and my business life a lot of stories lately. And to your point, I've become aware of them and I'm trying to shift the mindset from like this is a story about me and who I am, to this is a belief and this is how I confront it. And with that being said, I think this is a good way to transition to personal branding because that is the work I do is personal branding and visibility. And we talk about that all the time in the entrepreneur space. I think visibility is like the word of 2026, it seems, but I know that for people who are actively doing the work, that can feel really scary when you're going through this transition to figure out, you know, how do I show up in the world? So for you, from your personal experience, did you shift how you show up to your your clients on social media, so on and so forth, as you started to go down this path? And do you have any advice on the opposite end of that for people who are doing this work and still wanting to show up?

SPEAKER_01 11:17

I always smile when I hear the word visibility because I feel it's been my biggest, my biggest uh hurdle that I've had to climb because I've been someone who, when I stepped into coaching, stepped into entrepreneurship, visibility is a big part of it. You have to show up either with your clients, online, as you market your product, or even out however you show up, you have to show up. And I think it was I had so many stories that diminished my self-worth or sense of belief in myself to be a coach, to be an entrepreneur. And when I look at visibility, if there was if I didn't have the foundations of self-belief or self-worth, it was going to shake how I showed up. And not only from a confidence perspective, but from an authenticity perspective. I mean, we're on the call in a community or mastermind together with Paras women and the upgrade call, and visibility was one of the topics that came up last year. And I shared about how I had this fear about my unhinged personality diminishing my authority as a coach. So I had this story in my head on how coaches are supposed to show up. How I saw myself was very different to that, and I wasn't able to fit myself in that mold in my head. But when I got to understand visibility a lot more, and this happened as part of the beta program of the upgrade. So the upgrade before the upgrade. And one of the conversations we had there on visibility was understanding what visibility really is. And when I understood that, I started to make more intentional choices to shift how I showed up. So visibility isn't just about being seen, like putting yourself out there on camera, like world CV, but it's about being seen authentically as you. When I stepped in, coming back to the coaching piece, when I was showing up on social media, I struggled with visibility because I was detaching my authenticity from how I was showing up. This year, this was a change I hadn't made until very recently. So this year, moving forward, I'm choosing to be very intentional with how I show up and making sure like my pre personality is like front and center. Because I think that's the essence of a personal brand is the person. And I think I was missing that part. So yeah, visibility has been hard, but when I've understood it a bit differently, it's shifting how I'm choosing to show up moving forward.

SPEAKER_00 13:51

Yeah, I love that. I remember you mentioning wanting to bring your unhinged self. I remember that conversation because I was thinking that, yes, do it. That's the that's what performs the best on social media. That's what we all love so much. But to your point, a lot of the things that I see with my clients or is that they haven't done the inner work yet. So they don't know how they want to show up. So they can run a business and they can bring me like all of their flyers and send me their website. And as the person who's helping them build their personal brand, I'm like, okay, this is great, but I can't do anything. I can't start here. Who are you as a person? Who do you want to be seen as? And I think that goes very much into the visibility piece. And I just have to tell you, I can't wait to see your unhinged socials because, first of all, our this podcast is called I live for the unfiltered side, but I also want to tell you, I once hired a coach because of the fact that she was cursing in her social media content. And it wasn't so much like, okay, let me rephrase it. It wasn't so much that she was cursing, right? But she dropped an F bomb in a LinkedIn status. And I was like, I love that this woman is just showing up and she's not paring it down and she doesn't care. And that's who she is as a coach. And we now have a wonderful friendship with this woman. And I can say wholeheartedly that the way she shows up online is the way she shows up in person, and it's why she has built such a successful coaching container. So I'm really excited to see that version of you. I appreciate you sharing that. And it works, it works really well. Yeah, because we all, especially coming from a corporate background, which I believe you said you you came from corporate, right? Before you started coaching. Yeah. We have these like rules and ideas of how you're supposed to show up. And even when you start running your own business, there's almost like that internal dialogue of like, I can do whatever I want now, but will people accept me if I do whatever I want? And doing whatever you want on social media is there are very many different variations of that. It's the way in my mind, simply cursing. Yeah. Yeah. Like if I can see you for who you are and I like you for that, then that goes so far in business and friendship. So for a business owner who is in the process of becoming aligned, they're choosing to become more aware, they're doing the work. What is it that you would want them to hear right now to keep pushing forward?

SPEAKER_01 16:33

And that's a really good question. And I really the thing that came to mind immediately is a quote that I came across like a couple of weeks ago or was reminded of a couple of weeks ago. And it was the quote by Steve Jobs that our time on earth is so limited, so don't spend it living someone else's life. And I think that really struck a chord with me.

SPEAKER_00 16:57

Yeah, that's so powerful, truly. So, what's next for you? How can someone work with you if they're listening to this conversation and they're aligned and they're ready? What does that look like?

SPEAKER_01 17:08

So the focus or the part of coaching I enjoy in this season is like one-to-one coaching. So, yeah, if people are interested, they can just reach out and if however we align, we can go from there.

SPEAKER_00 17:21

Perfect. I will I'll link your website and your socials and all of that in the show notes so that people can find you and connect with you. But before we wrap up, I have to ask you because I asked this is the starting question that I visit with all of my clients because of what I said earlier. I can't build a brand without knowing who the person is, both how they see themselves and how they want to be seen. So, what are three words you would use to describe yourself?

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Okay. I would say funny. Like I think I'm the funniest person on earth, but I think funny would be one. I would say curious is another one. And the third one felt uncomfortable at first when I thought about it, but it feels like it aligns in this season, and that's creative.

SPEAKER_00 18:14

I love that. I I will say being funny and curious often leads to the most creativity. So I love that that was your final like anchor word. That's really exciting.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

That's so cool. I mean, one day my comedian, my my comedic career will um launch, um Alyssa, and then we might have a different conversation then. But until then, that's what we were.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

Yes. Come back for part two and tell me, tell me all of your comedic jokes when you need some comedic relief these days.

SPEAKER_01 18:45

We need it, especially with the inner work, which we're both doing right now. So yeah, I'm excited.

SPEAKER_00 18:50

Right now, yeah, for sure. Well, is there anything else that you would want the audience to take away before we go?

SPEAKER_01 18:56

No, I think I'd just say if this is if anything in this podcast episode stood out to you about doing the inner work or sparked any curiosity, I think it's to like just be kind to yourself through the process and not judge what it looks like for you because you're on your own unique journey.

SPEAKER_00 19:12

It's fantastic advice. Thank you. And thank you for being here today. I appreciate it so much. Thank you for having me on, Alyssa. Of course. Thank you all for listening to Fearless and Unfiltered. We'll see you next time.