What Happens When Women Stop Optimizing and Start Listening

You've checked all the boxes. Built the career. Achieved the goals. Kept everything moving.

So why does it still feel like something is missing?

In this episode of Success to Soul, Dr. Tanya Prewitt-White sits down with leadership coach, therapist, former world champion athlete, and author Whitney Otto for a powerful conversation about burnout, overachievement, self-worth, and the hidden cost of constantly optimizing every area of life.

Together, they explore why so many high-achieving women feel exhausted despite their success, how perfectionism and productivity can disconnect us from ourselves, and what happens when we stop trying to fix ourselves and start listening to what we truly need.

If you've ever felt trapped in the cycle of doing more, achieving more, and still wondering if it's enough, this episode offers a refreshing perspective on success, wellbeing, joy, and sustainable leadership.

Because the goal isn't to become a better machine.

It's to become more fully yourself.

Connect with Whitney Otto

Website: https://whitneyottocoaching.com
LinkedIn: Whitney Otto
Substack: Chief Energy Officer

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

It's a little on paper, but it's accepted on the inside. If it even hasn't brought you the happiness you expected. If there's a quiet little voice that keeps asking, is this really all there is? Then this podcast is for you. Here's your host, executive coach, and guide for high-achieving women, Dr. Tanya Fruitt White.

SPEAKER_02 0:29

Welcome to Success to Soul. I'm your host, Dr. Tanya. If you're new here to our community, welcome. This is the podcast where we know success without soul is not success at all. And I couldn't be more excited to have you listen in on my conversation with my colleague and friend, Whitney Otto. She's a leadership coach, therapist, former world champion athlete, and honestly one of the most thoughtful voices I've encountered on sustainable success and well-being. She's a professional certified coach through the International Coaching Federation, and she spent her career helping executives elevate performance, strengthen their collaboration, and lead effectively without sacrificing themselves in the process. She's the host of the On-Train podcast, where she explored with our colleague what it means to navigate life beyond the scripts that we've been given. She's also the co-author of Body Image Inside Out, a book that challenges conventional thinking about body image and self-worth. What I have to say I appreciate most about Whitney is that she isn't interested in helping people simply do more. She's interested in helping them live and lead from a place of greater clarity, wholeness, and intention. So welcome to our podcast. All right, Whitney. I am so excited. Welcome to the podcast. How are you doing today? I'm on your podcast. We did this before when you were on my podcast. This is so fun. I know. So fun. And I still remember telling you that no, I'm not having a podcast. I'll just show up on other people's. And here I am. No, I don't have a podcast, and I just show up on other people's. I love it. I love it. Well, Whitney, you have so many accolades and so many experiences. But before we get started today, I want to ask you a fun question. Yes. What is something about you that folks, women wouldn't learn about you or know about you if they didn't go to your website, social media, or Substack? But what is something fun about you that people don't know?

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I would say we'll see. Sometimes I think it's obvious and sometimes I think it's not obvious, but I definitely have a hippie side, right? Like I definitely have a like, you know, you should smudge after that meeting. Like what's happening on the full moon? Like, I definitely have my like speed dial friend who's an astrologer. And you know, the older I get, the stronger the hippier side gets. Like last night I was gardening till like 10 p.m. and just loving every minute of it. So I love evening gardening. I think it's like underrated, but you know, it's not too hot. Nobody's bothering you. Evening gardening.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Evening gardening. I don't garden at all, and I'm a daughter of florists, so there you have it.

SPEAKER_01 3:26

You haven't hit my age. You hit this age, and suddenly you're like, birds, gardening, genealogy.

SPEAKER_02 3:35

What's happened to me? So wonderful. Well, I love it. Well, I'm excited for our conversation because we both spend our days with very similar women, high achieving, thoughtful, ambitious women who are incredibly successful by most measures. And then we often, like we've talked about, are exhausted by all the invisible pressures that they're carrying. And so we live in this culture that nearly every leader is trying to optimize something: performance, productivity, revenue, health, leadership, all these things. And yet we know that most senior leaders are feeling burnt out. They don't feel like they're maybe getting the gains that they wanted from all this optimization. So one of the things I've appreciated about you and me in our conversations is that neither of us believe that women need another planner, another productivity hack. And so, what happens when women stop trying to optimize themselves and start listening to themselves?

SPEAKER_01 4:31

Well, okay. What happens when we stop trying to optimize ourselves? So I would say, I would add, what happens if we listen to ourselves before we optimize ourselves? Right? Because I think optimization has become like a knee-jerk reaction to something not going well, right? You know, for example, like a client who I spoke with this morning, who the last time I talked with her six weeks ago, was trying to create an exercise habit, still hasn't created the exercise habit. So what would normally happen if I wasn't sitting there, she would say, like, I need to be more motivated. I need to optimize my schedule so that I can exercise. And what I say is, no, we are not doing that. We are not centering your motivation as the linchpin for this experience happening or not happening. What we need to do is clear enough space so that this can happen with some sense of ease. You don't need to squish another thing in. You need to get rid of things to make this happen. And then you're gonna run some experiments and see if it's worth it, see how it's benefiting you, see if there's motivation to keep focusing on it, keep making prioritizing it, right? And once we can get that to happen, then it will take over a little bit more on their own. But they're, you know, they're at the bottom of the list and everything else comes before them, and that's a habit, right? So we need to shift the habit. So I think if I were to answer your question, I would love for us to start to have a habit of listening to ourselves when we have the urge to optimize. We can still optimize, we can still choose to do it, but what if we listen to ourselves first and said, what is really needed here? What is going on in this context? Why do I keep trying to optimize this part of my life? Why does it keep failing? So just to get curious before we optimize, and I have way more to say about that. Oh my gosh, I love this.

SPEAKER_02 6:37

So I'm thinking about tangibly when I'm working with clients and we have this conversation that actually most women don't have to do more. We need to do less in finding that space that you're talking about. And then when I'm talking with women, which I imagine you too, there's some resistance of when I say, like, what can you do first for yourself? How can we take some things off our plate? And then women generally tell me, I don't know what to take off. I don't know what I can take off. And I actually feel guilty for putting myself first. So what happens then?

SPEAKER_01 7:11

So one of the things I often do is create, like just say, like, what are your values? Like, what are your values in life, right? And inevitably it's, you know, I have a value of providing for my family, I have a value around success or ambition, I have a value around spending time with friends and family, I have value around health, I have value around taking care of my kids. And I always make them separate out like the operations of kids and the connection time with kids because I think they're two very different things and require different things. Generally, the partner is at like the bottom of the list, right before you know their exercise or self-care. But I ask them to kind of come up with those things, and I ask them to say, like, what is the order they're currently in, and then I ask them to say when you're at the bottom of the list and when you don't get to yourself, like what happens to the quality of how you show up to all these other things, right? So just bringing some curiosity to it, bringing cure, how is it going when you have a list in that order, right? That's one place I often start just in a very tangible way. And then the other thing is I just get really curious if that whatever those habits are, whatever those mindsets are, I feel guilty if I prioritize myself. You know, everything will fall apart if I don't keep doing it this way. And I just get curious there and figure out how that part is trying to help them, when it started, what it really believes. And when we give those old strategies some a lot of our focus and attention, we can learn so much about where they came from and how they may or may not be serving us anymore. Because we have a lot of outdated things running on autopilot, don't we?

SPEAKER_02 9:01

100%. We sometimes are living lives that we didn't consciously choose or habits we didn't consciously choose that we maybe inherited, we were had to do to survive professionally earlier in our career, and we didn't thoughtfully, intentionally move forward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

I mean, it's just like, you know, today I've had two people where, you know, they're going from being a senior manager to a partner, you know, now they've got to think strategically, they've got to delegate more, they've got to show up very differently at work in order to be successful. But they've got this habit of the doer, do it as fast as I can, turn it around as fast as I can, cross it off the list. Like that part's been running the show and been really successful. But if that part keeps running the show, they won't be successful because they've got an entirely different role right now. Right. So they've got to develop new habits and mindsets. And I just think it's it's the same thing for us, like just in the larger picture of life. Like just take stock. Like, what are the habits and strategies running the show? And are they getting us what we want and where we want to go? I want to hear how you handle the clients that are like, I can't, I can't prioritize myself or take anything off the list.

SPEAKER_02 10:12

Yeah, one of the things like you, I'll ask what they value, and then I'll ask them to open their calendar. And, you know, they might say their family, they might say their partner, whatever they say, and then I'll ask to see their calendar, and they're like, wait, what? And I have a firm belief that we can say we value one thing and we can live different lives. And so it's this moment to show myself included, like I've had disconnects, right? And so let's say someone's saying, like, oh, I have my partner's coming last. And it's like, well, where's your partner on your calendar? They're like, oh, my partner doesn't get on my calendar. And I said, Okay, well, if we value that relationship, we need to find time to put him, her, or them on the calendar. So that is one of the strategies that I'll use is let's see your calendar. And what are we telling the world? What are we telling the people around us, our family, our children, our colleagues, our clients, if we put ourselves last? We're telling our people around us that we don't matter. Right.

SPEAKER_01 11:17

And I love the calendar piece. I'm bringing more and more and more. I'm like, get out your calendar, let's do this right now, you know, if you're really serious about it, right? But one of the things I just get really curious about with clients is like if you have a hard time making this change, let's be curious about why. Because you're people pleaser, you're perfectionist, you're, you know, I can't center myself. Whatever you're, I've got to do 20 things by noon, or I don't feel like I'm worthwhile. Whatever those parts are strategies that are having a hard time quitting, like easing off, there's probably a good reason. And so let's like support them in this, right? It's like if you can't quit smoking, then let's help you quit smoking, not just be like, well, try harder, you know.

SPEAKER_02 12:04

Yeah, I think about a lot of times we honor how it served us. I think one of the things for overachievement, yeah, it served us to a point, then it became unsustainable. And so we're all like, okay, I can't keep this up. It served us honoring that, and then intentionally making choices of where we want to go. And I'm a big one on just small shifts. You know, we're not gonna make huge shifts overnight, small shifts, and how countercultural some of this can be.

SPEAKER_01 12:31

I remember recently sitting with a client who like had the best performance year yet, you know, young kids. She'd been optimizing, optimizing, optimizing, optimizing, and had done it, right? Like she was able to show up, do all the things as a mom, she was able to kill it at work, and but she's like, but this doesn't feel good. Like it's just so so scrunched. So she wanted to go to part-time, but when she actually made that shift, she was like, I am breaking so many rules, right? I am breaking so many rules that I have been bought into and that I've been living by, and this is feels really scary. I mean, she ended up doing it anyway, but my point is those rules we feel them, we have honored them, and you know, maybe prioritizing ourselves might be breaking a lot of rules, and it might feel just like quitting smoking. My college coach always used to say when he was trying to help us like change all of our technique, he's like, It's gonna feel bad. It's like quitting smoking. But it is kind of a great analogy, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:39

It makes me think of I have a client who said, Okay, I'm starting to cut back on my professional time and all these accolades. And she said, I miss all the affirmations. She said, I was getting so many accolades and being seen for all of my productivity, all the things I was achieving, and it's stopping. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 14:00

I always say, Yeah, your like doer is gonna have to give up a lot of dopamine hits from like you can't cross the list off, can't get a pat on the back, can't, right? That's a maturing of your leadership abilities.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Yeah. One of the things we I talk about a lot with clients is who are you without your success? Right? So at that soul level, who are you? All right, so we can become obsessed, right? As high achieving women, we can become obsessed with optimization. And you know, with all this, we've talked about before it being a way to control, right? To control or feel a sense of control, right?

SPEAKER_01 14:40

It you know, this feels overwhelming. Oh, wait, if I just get better at managing my schedule or if I stop scrolling on my Instagram, then I'm gonna get half hour back and then everything's gonna be fine, right? That we feel a sense of control at the center of optimization that I think is important to name.

SPEAKER_02 14:59

So, what is actually happening? If it's a perception of control, what do you think is actually happening when we are on this cycle of optimizing and becoming more effective and efficient and better systems? I always hear I need better systems. And I'm like, women, we have lots of systems, like we're running things.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

Well, it's always a case-by-case basis, right? You know, as Lauren Tashman, our colleague of one time, always used to say, like, it depends, right? So, you know, for one of my colleagues, one of my clients right now, we're helping her create a daily preview ritual where she just pauses and looks at her day. We're helping her create a half hour where she goes through her email and categorizes things to help her minimize that list that's running in her head and to free up more of that mental space, right? So she's optimizing her schedule in a way that is deeply serving her nervous system, her well-being, and her performance, right? So in that case, like I think that's a healthy optimization. I've got another client who has been miserable for years and she just keeps getting more and more and more and more work piled on her. And so we just keep optimizing this and we fix that and we finagle this. And you know, the last time we had uh we met, I said, like, if we didn't optimize this, if we didn't try and fix you, what would you end up feeling? She's like, Oh, I would have to be really mad at leadership and really disappointed and pissed off and like sad, right? So in her case, continuing to fix herself or try to fix herself was keeping her from having to feel how hopeless the situation really felt to her. So, what do you think about the kind of there's a spectrum here, and not all optimization is good and not all optimization is bad, but sometimes the spirit of the optimization is what we need to look at, which goes to your original question. You know, what if we learn to listen to ourselves?

SPEAKER_02 17:06

Yeah. I mean, this is deep and this is real. I think that optimization is part of capitalism, right? It's like more, more, more, more is better. And so then we become like machines. If I get more efficient, then I'll have more time. Well, then we have more time, it gets what you're explaining with your client, then we don't have more freedom. We're just ending up a lot of people get more work, you know. It's like the curse of the competent sometimes. And if we become so effective and so efficient, I find for women in particular, then more is put on their plates and more is put on their plate. So I think a little bit of it is the capitalistic nature of productivity. And so, in many ways, when women in particular are saying, like, no, I need to listen to myself first, this doesn't feel sustainable. I think we have to honor that we're pushing back against not only organizations systems, we're pushing back against culture, and that that is very real. So it's a very brave thing to do.

SPEAKER_01 18:10

So we're talking about countercultural moves. Let's get some science on our side, shall we? So let's talk about Dr. Lori Santos, the Yale psychologist, cognitive scientist, professor, the host of the Happiness Lab. And she is also credited with having Yale's most popular course, The Psychology of the Good Life. So her research, what it shows is that we are actually what she says that we miswant, right? Our brains are not good at predicting what will actually bring us satisfaction, and we overestimate the emotional payoff of achievement, and we underestimate the cost of the relentless chase, right? I'm certainly finding this in my own life and working with my clients. And our research is constantly pointing to the things that we actually can't optimize: genuine connection, presence, flow states, acts of kindness, gratitude, and rest. Science. Boom.

unknown 19:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:14

And a lot of those things we need like gratitude, rest, right?

SPEAKER_01 19:18

Relationships. You can't do that when you're in the hustle, right? When you're in a hustle state, like it's harder to access those feelings, those states, and to feel like they're a priority, right?

SPEAKER_02 19:33

Yeah. And when I think about those behaviors, those states, that is presence. Those things are presence. And so it makes me go a little bit further and think about optimization. In fact, it is really hard to be completely present when we're optimizing. Or I think about a client telling me, I'm tired of outsourcing my life. Yeah, I'm really effective, but I'm outsourcing my life. And it's hard to be present. And I think most of us want these moments where we also have some presence to be alive, to just enjoy being alive. I was on a call with a CEO and they shared, I just want more joy.

SPEAKER_01 20:16

And what are the conditions under which joy can even exist? Right? If you said open your calendar, is there any room for joy? What would they have said? Like, how likely are you to experience joy in the next three weeks based on your calendar?

unknown 20:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Yeah. And so then do we intentionally structure in joy? You know, it makes me think about where have we gotten as a society when we have to put joy into our calendar? That's real. That's real. And how we choose to individually and collectively move forward. Because I think a lot of women, in particular, in professional life, are reassessing how much all this productivity is costing us.

SPEAKER_01 21:00

Right. And we can optimize our productivity and we can optimize our life. Right. And I think those would be very different conversations.

SPEAKER_02 21:10

Oh, can we talk about optimizing our life? How do you help clients optimize their life?

SPEAKER_01 21:15

Well, first of all, I think you need to have a friend who has is like well in their 50s because their hormonal component is different and they don't care about the same things. A lot of the shins of I like I think everybody needs someone in their life who is like good at focusing on like whatever it is you want more of, have a friend in your life who's good at that. Right? Like have a friend that doesn't have for me. Like I have a couple friends who don't have Instagram, and I'm usually like, well, that's stupid. But then sometimes I'm like, maybe that's a really good idea. So I don't know. I always find that helpful to have people in my life when I'm watching how They live and they don't do this optimizing thing, and what happens, right? So I think that's a good place to start. Where would you start?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

One of the things I start with is every morning I literally think about what is gonna bring me joy and I prioritize that. And I think a lot of times we think they're gonna be these really big things. And for me, it's like, oh, I wanna sit down, read my devotional and journal. Other mornings it's like I just want to get up 10 minutes early and have a coffee by myself and sit on my porch. You know, I think that is one of the things is a lot of times, myself included, and clients think that we have to do these big, big things to have more joy in our life. I have friends who bring me so much joy, and I'm like, we need to get together. Like, I just need to sit at a coffee shop or restaurant or at my house. I just need to sit and be in your presence because we don't talk about anything professional, we just talk about life, we laugh, we talk about our families, and I think that is the piece of just every day I'm thinking about how can I be pursuing joy? It's a pursuit, and it's here right now, and so that's one of the things I I also think about what brings me bliss? How can I do more of that?

SPEAKER_01 23:13

And a lot of your definition of joy sounds like it's joy and sort of peace are a little like they're sort of woven together.

SPEAKER_02 23:22

Yeah, for sure. Probably bliss. I think of you know, when I think of joy and peace, I think bliss are these moments of like ecstasy in every day. Um, and I work with clients and I have them right to their bliss. And what is always fascinating is even with the most high-achieving women, the bliss is never, you know, the next promotion, the next bonus, the next org, you know, re-org. It's never those things, it's these really, really simple things. And so that is counter to optimization, right?

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yes. So I think what we need to call out is this the belief that so many of us have been sold that joy will come with the next title, joy will come with the next success, joy will come with, you know, more people liking my Substack, right? That built into these external success measures is joy. And I think that's part of what's gotten us off track. It might give us success, it might give us satisfaction, it might give us all sorts of things, but we should take stock in how much we are actually getting from it that we are craving.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

Mm-hmm. 100%. And the counteractivity to that is clients writing down their fears, and their fears come from the things about like losing a job, right? Being laid off, not making enough, not having enough in retirement, which is so, so interesting.

SPEAKER_01 24:52

Right. Yeah, I have had a client recently, we had the conversation. She said, you know, I have watched a couple colleagues in the next decade from mine die because this job is so stressful. And I don't want to be one of them. So this stress habit of mine, I need to figure out how, you know, I have this stress response to these things at work, and I really want to change them, right? Because I could say, Oh, I just need to get to retirement, but I've watched people not even get there.

SPEAKER_02 25:25

Yeah. And then not be able to enjoy it. Even if they are living, right?

SPEAKER_01 25:30

Not be able to go on the trips and or not enjoy it because you don't know, you haven't built a joy muscle. And now you get to retirement and you're like, I'm lost without structure, without work. I mean, that transition to retirement is can be really challenging for a lot of people, right? Because you lose your identity, you lose your structure, you lose your community. So I guess what I'm saying about that is like if we had work lives where we didn't have to let go of all of those things for success, we would be building those muscles for when we don't have the work in our lives.

SPEAKER_02 26:07

Yeah. So this is what's coming up for me as I'm thinking about the resistance that myself included a hat or that I work with clients on, is the resistance of if I'm not hustling this hard, I can't then support the lifestyle I have, or I can't get to retirement. If I'm not hustling, that, you know, in very real terms, that is something that I think comes up for a lot of us when we're trying to create more space or clients wanting to retire earlier. Like I'm committed to retiring at 60 or 55, whatever the number might be. And then that fear comes up because the joy muscle, right? And then the reality of finances.

SPEAKER_01 26:45

So this is why I started the Substack Chief Energy Officer, right? That we are all are the steward of our own energy. And I think so, going back to our whole habits, going back to sort of how we react in these hustle cultures, very often we are wasting a lot of mental energy in the way we approach things. And what you do and what I do is help people expend less energy to get the same results. So no one's saying quit your job. No one's saying don't try and be successful. But there are ways you can go about it that create more satisfaction, that allow a little more room for presence, that leave you still very successful. So I think that's also what we need to name. We're not talking about people all migrating to tiny houses and giving up their mortgages. You know, we're just talking about the reality of performance psychology is that it's helping people be successful and expend less of that stress energy by changing some habits and shifting around some priorities. Because you see, and I see that when we do prioritize ourselves, we don't always sacrifice the performance. No, we get better. Yes! Counter How do you optimize your performance? You put your own needs in the mix, higher on the values ladder. And guess what? You get more joy, you don't lose the end result.

SPEAKER_02 28:23

Yeah, yeah. One of the things I talk about a lot with women is what if we didn't give 125% to work?

unknown 28:32

Right.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

You know, this idea of that sometimes you at 50% is better than someone else's 100%, and that's okay for that day, right? We're not trying to win a 50-meter dash. Yeah, we're like on a life marathon, and so it's a little bit having this grace with ourselves that every day doesn't have to be an amazing performance or we finish everything on our list, and so that's the reset, right? For sure.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

We don't have to over-effort, overperform, over-optimize, right? Because if we're overdoing, then we need to over-optimize to get to the doing. So it goes back to optimizing is a fantastic thing when it's coming from a spirit that is aligned with your values and your own well-being. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:23

And I sometimes forward think with clients, and I'll say, you know, if you were 80 or 90, you look back, what would you be telling your 40, 50, 60 year old self? Like, what would you want them to know? And just like sit with that. And what's fascinating is a lot of times women know immediately, like, oh, go for it. Oh, slow down. Like, there's no pause a lot of times when we do that too. And so it's that goes back to the originally, like, okay, like just ask yourself before you start optimizing, ask yourself what it is that you really want. How do you want to move in your own life? Oh, so can I do a hard transition and be really honest with everyone? So, the hard transition, when we were chatting about optimization and all of these things, we started talking about how we also optimize our own bodies. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And so I'm gonna tell this story, right? You and I were chatting, and I had shared that someone took a picture of me at my son's birthday party, and it was the first time in a long time after two kids all that, and I saw on my backside. And I said, I had mom shorts and I let myself go.

SPEAKER_01 30:33

You said when you looked at that picture, you said, Oh, I thought, oh my gosh, I've let myself go.

SPEAKER_02 30:39

Yeah, that was my immediate thought. And so then we were talking about this and the ways that we are optimizing not only our time, our productivity, as women, we are also socialized to optimize our youthfulness, right? Our our physiques, and not only the financial cost, but does this ever come up with you? I know, well, you're the author of you know, Inside Out. Yeah. And just what kind of work do you do with women when it also comes to optimizing our bodies?

SPEAKER_01 31:12

Well, in my coaching sessions, it doesn't come up that much, but I have a whole body of work from writing the book, Body Image Inside Out, a revolutionary approach to body image healing, because I came to executive coaching from a background in counseling. And I've been doing some work recently around this. And I think, you know, the way I've helped my clients respond to bad body image moments is sort of the same as what we were talking about here. It's like, oh, what's prompting me to want to optimize? What's prompting me to want to like fix my body or improve my body? Like, where is this coming from, right? Like, if I don't, I won't be acceptable. You know, no one's gonna hire me. Like, what is that all about? And being curious about what's fueling that and how often we get sent on an optimizing either our body's or our career's journey when there's something more about our feeling state that's driving it, right? So, you know, these bad body image moments, you know, that they often come out of feeling vulnerable, feeling overwhelmed, feeling like a relationship isn't going well. That we think, oh, well, if I just fix this area of my life, this will improve things, right? Because our bodies, our work calendars feel like it's in our control. So, but you know, you and I had that conversation. I thought a lot about that term, like I've let myself go. And I was thinking, God, we pay so much money to go to a retreat to let ourselves go, right? To like surrender, to be blissfully, whatever. But then it's like the worst thing you could possibly say to a woman. And I've been thinking about this a lot, particularly. I have a daughter who's like 14, right? Entering these years. And I was thinking, like, just as an experiment, that I'm challenging myself to have what I'm calling the ugly summer. Meaning, like, I'm, you know, I look in the mirror, I'm like, oh God, look at those lip lines, Whitney. What are you gonna do about that? And then I'm like Googling, how do you get little lip lines, right? Like, oh, geez, that sounds painful or expensive, whatever. Just for the summer, I'm gonna look at the lip lines or the whatever, the whatever, the whatever, and be like, I'm not gonna think about you. You're not gonna take up mental space in my head. I'm not gonna make a plan for you. I am not optimizing my aging. I'm just gonna have an ugly summer. And obviously, like, it's not like I want to look ugly this summer, but it's just sort of my endearing term to sort of step into it and be like, I'm not gonna think about it for three months and see what that feels like. Because it does take up a lot of space.

SPEAKER_02 33:52

Yeah, yeah. Oh, it's real. I've thought about our conversation a lot too. I mean, I got my hair highlighted and I'm like, oh, it looks so much better. And I'm like, does anybody else even notice? Or is this just like my own, right? Is this my own thoughts about my appearance? And I've been thinking a lot about the financial, the mental load, but also the financial load that as women Yes, and I'm not saying that I don't care about how I look.

SPEAKER_01 34:18

I'm not saying that because I do, and I do think it's associated with, you know, it's not nothing, but I want to run the experiment of be freeing myself from the mental and emotional burden of it and just see what that's like. So maybe I have like one month where I care about it and one month where I don't, and see where I end up, right? But it's just like this stuff takes up a lot of space and it prompts like a negative response to optimize, right? Like, oh, look at that. Oh, now I have to optimize, right? So if I just took the optimization out of it, it's like, oh, look at that. Okay, moving on.

SPEAKER_02 34:58

Yeah, it makes me not that I'm a fan of Mark Zuckerberg, but I remember reading that he wears the same thing every day, right? So he doesn't have to think about it. I remember reading that and being like, oh, well, that would be really nice, but how do I do that as a woman? And then I met a woman at my dental office, and she wears the same blouse every day. She looks stunning, and she's like, I just wash it. It's a beautiful green blouse. She's like, I have different versions, but I know what I'm wearing, and it's just less thought. And I was like, You rock, you rock.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

I have a shirt that I wear when I don't know what to wear. Ooh. This is a shirt that I wear when I don't know what to wear. Because it's just like so right down the middle.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

You know?

unknown 35:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

No, I love that. I love that. The other thing that was coming up for me, Whitney, as we were chatting, I was starting to think about clients that I've worked with who are in their mid to late 50s and they start talking about the ageism that they experience as a woman, that they don't they perceive men as they get older, they're seen as more wise and capable. But for women, it's the opposite. And it makes me think about this tension like I really want to hold space, that there's no right or wrong way to move. You know, everyone's gonna choose not at all. We're all gonna choose something different. Yes, and that's the beauty of all of this, but it it does make me think of a woman who's like, I have to optimize to stay in the game. Yeah, and I want to stay in the game, and I love staying in the game, and you know, there are different tensions that women have to navigate.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

So, you know, I think that it goes back to this and like listen and right. So that woman is like, I have to do all of these things to stay in the game, and I want to stay in the game, so I'm choosing that. And somebody could hold space for her to go, well, but how do you feel about that? Right? What would you do if you didn't have to stay in the game? Like, what would you choose? What would that feel like to just hold space for somebody to be curious about that and to share their feelings and for that woman themselves to just have room for that? Again, not saying you won't choose to do it, but just I mean, I do this a lot with all the anti-aging stuff. I'm like, I don't want to say yes from a spirit of like I have to, or like nobody will ever talk to me again, right? But oh, if you did that, like how would that feel? You know, would that be hard on you? You know, what's the impact of this thing? And are you kind of like pushing yourself towards it in this really you know, not on your own side spirit, or are you like, are you a teammate with yourself as you go through this process? And I think that's what I care about. Like, do you feel like you're a teammate with yourself versus like a very old habit of like just buck up and do it because it's what you gotta do to get done, right? That's what I think we can avoid and still play the game, do the things, blah, blah, blah. It's the spirit behind it.

SPEAKER_02 37:57

Sure. It makes me immediately think of when you say this is when I ask clients, like, what is it that you want? And clients sometimes will cry and they'll say, like, I don't even know.

unknown 38:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:10

Right? I don't even know. And it's like, okay, well, let's like you said earlier, let's get curious on this and get to understand it. So, Whitney, for a woman listening today and she decides she wanted to step off this optimization wheel just even a little bit, even briefly, where would you encourage her to start today?

SPEAKER_01 38:29

Well, I would just encourage her to pause what you know when the optimization thought enters, like, oh, I need to optimize my closet, or oh, I need to optimize my whatever email template, whatever it is. Oh, what is driving that? What am I wanting out of that? Right? What is that getting me to just become more aware of the optimizing tendencies and seeing if there's if oh all my optimizing tendencies are about, you know, making more time for myself to have some quiet time, but I never actually do. Oh, that's so interesting, right? Or all my optimizing are about, you know, being more pleasing to other people. Oh, isn't that interesting? Just be curious about it. Almost like it's almost like track it, right? Like if you had an aura ring to track your optimization, like what would it tell you about yourself? So, not saying do it or don't do it, but just bring more curiosity to it. And then I'm such a firm believer in running experiments, right? Like, like I'm running an experiment of not optimizing one thing for the summer. Like, could you take a week off from optimizing one thing and just see how it feels? What would you suggest your audience do?

SPEAKER_02 39:46

Oh, what would I suggest? I think it's getting clear on, you know, I think some optimization works for folks and some doesn't. And it's just a really simple question is what does my soul want? What does my soul want?

SPEAKER_01 40:01

And how is optimization helping me get more of what my soul wants?

SPEAKER_02 40:04

Yeah, and if optimization is, then okay, you're on the right track. So it's not a critique of wait, we do need to optimize some levels in our lives, but where can I just be? Where am I just enough? And I think that is often where I would start. It is, you know, what is working, what's not working, and what do you want? And if we start from there and we can just put in a little bit more of what sets your own soul on fire a little bit every day, I believe in the compound effect. I do genuinely believe that we can feel different in three months just by giving ourselves a little bit more time from all over optimizing.

SPEAKER_01 40:45

So if we squish our two answers together, what we would get is when you feel the urge to optimize, just stop and ask, what does my soul most want? That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_02 40:57

That's it. I love it. I love it. Well, Whitney, thank you so much for being here. How can our listeners get in touch with you? What are some offerings that listeners can get engaged with, get to know you better, and support you?

SPEAKER_01 41:12

So I'm on LinkedIn. I've got a website, WhitneyAutocoaching.com. I've got a Substack Chief Energy Officer for High Performing Women looking to engage in conversations just like this. What's gonna get you the most energy, but also keep you connected to your spirit, to your soul, to your own presence? So weekly free posts, and we've got at the beginning of July a transformation, ideal self transformation party, because very often our ideal self is the one that's the optimizer, is the one that's the should or. And very often our soul resides a little more with our aligned self. So we're gonna have a party to kind of meet other ideal selves and then help shift their job descriptions. So there's more room for our aligned self. And again, I'm doing this with wanting you to stay a high performer. I don't want you to move to a tiny house and become a hippie who smudges and only does moon ceremonies. I want you to stay the badass you are. But I think that when we let our ideal selves stop working so hard and our aligned selves run the show a little bit more, we actually get more of that presence, we get more of that connection to self and we can remain a high performer. So that transformation party is free. This July 1st, it is from 12 to 1:15 Eastern Standard Time.

SPEAKER_02 42:35

And you can sign up just by being a member of the substack. Amazing. All right. Well, I'm gonna be there. I can't wait. And thank you again, Whitney, and everyone listening. We'll see you next time. And if no one's told you today, you're more than enough. You're enough! Woo! More than enough.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

So that's it for today's episode of Success to Soul. Head on over to Apple Podcasts or wherever you listen and subscribe to the show. One lucky listener every single week that posts a review on Apple Podcasts or iTunes will win a chance to win a grand prize drawing of a value with $10,000 with Dr. Tanya herself. Be sure to visit SuccessToSoul.com to pick up a copy of your free gift. You can ask her any question you like in your voice, and she'll answer you back personally in her voice. Then join us on the next episode.