49 | Shameless Leadership: Taking Up Space With Sara Dean

What does it take to lead shamelessly and unapologetically? 

Sara Dean—executive coach, keynote speaker, and host of the Shameless Leadership Podcast—joins Jenn Cassetta to share how women can take up space, stand in their power, and lead with confidence. Sara shares her journey from fitness coaching to becoming a top women’s leadership expert, revealing how shameless leadership, core values, and vulnerability create stronger, more connected leaders. She also teaches women how to take up space, stand in their power, and lead without apology. You’ll walk away with practical strategies to overcome self-doubt, reframe negative self-talk, and unlock your full potential as a strong woman leader.

Learn more about Sara Dean:

• Sara’s Podcast Shameless Leadership = https://saradean.com/podcast/
• Sara Dean’s Website = https://saradean.com/

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

So when we think about how we approach anyone on any given day, we have no idea what their life was like 10 minutes before we interacted with them. Let alone if they're a someone who's been carrying a marginalized identity their whole life. And so if you're talking to, if it's a male talking to a female, if it's a white woman talking to a black woman, if it's a cis person talking to a trans person, or if it's someone who like, you know, who's going through infertility or who just lost a parent or who has some sort of other like current trauma in their life, we just don't know what people are carrying. And that was a turning point for me in recognizing that when people didn't know what I was carrying, I also don't know what other people are carrying.

SPEAKER_01 0:40

Hi there, I'm Jen Cassetta, your chief badass three officer. If you're feeling drained, hesitant, stuck in self-doubt, or you just have a case of the vlogs, the Art of Badass 3 podcast is here to help you unleash your Wojo once and for all. We'll provide you with tips, techniques, and real-life examples of how you can kick heads in all areas of your life. You'll learn how to flex your mental muscles, rise above fears, and turn setbacks into superpowers. So let's enter the dojo and let's get to work. Welcome everyone to the Art of Badassory Podcast. I'm Jen Cassetta, your chief badasstery officer. And today I have a very special guest. Her name is Sarah Dean. And I'm going to tell you a little bit about Sarah first. Sarah Dean is a dynamic keynote speaker, certified facilitator, and executive coach who has spent over two decades revolutionizing how women approach leadership and personal growth. By masterfully blending behavioral science with practical wisdom, she guides clients to dismantle self-limiting beliefs, challenge cultural conditioning, and tap into their innate power of intuitive leadership. Sarah has spoken for and coached leaders at Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Starbucks, So Seattle. And Sarah currently hosts the Shameless Leadership Podcast, which is rated in the top 1% of all podcasters worldwide. I also just read that she's up to her 900th episode. Wow, goal. And on top of all that, Sarah's currently attaining her master's in organizational leadership at Gonzaga University. Welcome to the show, Sarah.

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited. I love getting the mic flipped on me. And so it's always fun when someone else gets to ask the questions.

SPEAKER_01 2:31

I had to look it up because I was like, I was on Sarah's podcast when my book first came out a couple of years ago. I was number 737. Oh my gosh. Of 900. Of 900. I think we're up at 960 now.

SPEAKER_00 2:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

And I noticed the name changed. So when I was on the podcast, and for many years, it was called the Shameless Moms Podcast. So what made you switch to shameless leadership?

SPEAKER_00 2:56

Yeah, I've noticed over so I've been in I've been self-employed and building my own businesses for 22 years now. And I've noticed that I tend to bring people along with me to join me in whatever season of life I am in at the time. And so when I launched the Shameless Mom Academy podcast, it was because I was a mom. Becoming a mom was sent me into a full-blown identity crisis that lasted like three years. I was like, who am I anymore? As I evolved as a mom and learned about myself and rebuilt my identity into who I was becoming in this new role and all the kind of caveats that come with that new life. I became more and more interested in helping moms achieve certain things. And what often happened in my work with moms was that they would challenge themselves to take on new roles, challenge themselves professionally, start their own businesses. Like they were just going and achieving more and more things, which got me really interested in helping women become stronger leaders. And so I was organically over time just talking more and more about leadership. And then I decided to go back to school and get my master's. Once I was in school getting my master's degree in organizational leadership, every podcast episode, I'm talking about leadership stuff. I was like, I feel like this isn't really the shame from the Academy anymore. Like it, but it's becoming, it's just organically morphing on its own. And so at a certain point, I was like, I think it's time we rebrand. We did that. Episode 900 was the threshold where we rebranded into shameless leadership, which is the show today. And it's been really fun to have new focus, but a focus that was always there. It's just evolved into something a little more niche and more specialized.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

I appreciate it because you've also opened the door to more women because I remember when I was on your show, I was like, I'm not a mom. Am I okay to be on this show?

SPEAKER_00 4:44

And you were like, Yeah, and so many of the people who follow and listen are moms, and I still work with more moms than non-moms, but at the same time, I wanted to be able to broaden the work to a larger landscape of women.

SPEAKER_01 4:56

Awesome. I know that we have so much in common, and I've been on your newsletter list, so I'm just like, oh yes. And you started in fitness just like I did 20 something, maybe almost 30 years ago, is it?

SPEAKER_00 5:10

Or I started in 2003, was when I got my got I went back to school and got a two-year degree and certification as a personal trainer.

SPEAKER_01 5:19

Yeah, 2002 for me. So right around the same exact time. Can you walk us through your background and how eventually you got into women's leadership?

SPEAKER_00 5:29

Yeah. So I started out as a personal trainer in 2003, got finished a two-year degree program and got my certification. At the time, and I'm curious if you had a similar experience. At the time, my choices were to go work for like an LA fitness golds gym kind of situation for $1250 an hour as a trainer, or go out on my own. And at the time, personal trainers who were independent contractors or doing their own thing could make 60, 65 bucks an hour. So to me, this was like a total no-brainer. I'm like, obviously, I'm gonna get 60 to 65 dollars an hour instead of 1250. So that sent me on this path of accidentally starting my own business. I was not at all interested in being an entrepreneur and didn't identify as a business owner for a number of years. But over time, as I grew in that capacity as a personal trainer, I did more and more things in terms of evolving my role, doing a lot of group work, doing a lot of larger scale programs for women in fitness and eventually opening my own place and my own studio. And so at a certain point, I started realizing like, oh, I guess I'm an entrepreneur. I guess I'm like also this other piece of my identity. And I started going to conferences for fitness business owners. And all of a sudden I was like, oh, I this is a thing. I'm a CEO. Nobody told me, but I am a CEO. And so that became a really exciting season of recognizing, oh, I'm building something here beyond just being a trainer. And so I did that for 15 years. Over the course of my last few years in the fitness industry, a few things were happening simultaneously. One thing was that I was increasingly aware of the bro culture and training in terms of I was in business coaching groups that were 30 dudes and three or to five females. And everything we were learning about marketing your fitness business was how to basically have to take advantage of really vulnerable women based on their pain points about their body. So there was all these things happening where I was like, this doesn't feel right. And then I started looking at like just the industry around me, how it had been built upon built by men really capitalizing on women's insecurities. Wow. The whole like really starting to get a stronger sense of diet culture, what that had looked like in my life, what how I was then perpetuating it and what I was building, and that started to feel really out of alignment. Then I had a son.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Before you even go on, can I can we dig into that a little bit? Yeah. I feel you. My journey was a little different. So I never owned my own space, but I was a martial artist. I said, How can I earn some money doing this too? And someone just suggested go to teach at this boutique gym kickboxing, right? So I went to this little boutique gym in the West Village, and they said, Why don't you become a certified personal trainer? So literally it was accidental as well for me.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:27

And you're right, I realized that I could make so much more on my own. And this one woman invited me to her home. And from she lived, she was displaced by 9-11. She lived literally across the street from the World Trade Center. So she was staying down at the Ritz-Carlton. And once I started training her in that gym, all of a sudden more and more people started hiring me. So I built my business accidentally as well. I'm looking back, and did you watch the documentary on the biggest loser?

SPEAKER_00 8:58

I have not watched it. I've read about it. I haven't watched it yet. Okay. I know I would be horrified. I've watched the show for years, so I'm horrified by my memories of it.

SPEAKER_01 9:07

I have to admit something gross that I was online wrapped around the block trying to get on that show as a personal trainer. Oh my gosh. I was like, this is it. Yeah. I want to be on that show. Obviously, I didn't, but years later, I wound up on a reality TV show as a weight loss expert. And so watching this documentary, the show was very different and it wasn't like as intense and hopefully no one was mean. I think it was very we were nurturing to our clients, but at the same time, it did make me feel a lot of feelings. Yeah. How complicit was I in this diet culture, etc. So I'm so glad you had that eye-opening witnessing it.

SPEAKER_00 9:48

Yeah. And I feel like it's one of those things, like we start to see things and hear things, and then you're like, okay, now that I'm seeing this, I can't unsee it or I can't know it. So what am I gonna do about it? It was my livelihood. So I'm like, what am I gonna do? Like I feel like I've built something that's not aligned with my core values, which felt really confusing. And at the time that kind of this kind of peaked after my son was born. Prior to my son being born, I had a program specifically for moms called Six Week Pregnancy Weight Loss, which was a program a six-week program to lose all your baby weight. Yeah. And then I had a baby, and I was like, who the hell do I think I am telling as a non-mom selling a program to tell women how to lose weight, all their baby weight in six weeks? And I like took down the program, I took down the website. I was like, oh, I'm horrified by my former self. And then over the course of like his first couple of years of life, I still had my gym and I loved what I built and I loved the community. I'm still in touch with many of the people. They still are like, we like we lament, oh, we missync fitness. But I tried to rebrand things and I tried to be like, okay, instead of doing weight loss programs, now we're gonna do strength building programs. And people were still like, but what about weigh-ins? But what about measurements, but what about before and after pictures? I didn't, if people want those things fine, I didn't want to be the person providing those things anymore. I didn't want that to be how I was making money. As I was navigating all of that, I realized that I had in my mind, I had built a business around helping women shrink their bodies. And what I really wanted to be doing, my intention was really to help women take up space. And I had created this inverse relationship with my intention and my impact. And so I was like, okay, I want to create something else that helps women take up space. And so that was really the birth of the shameless mom academy. It was, it was not a health and fitness thing. It was not about how to lose weight, get smaller, anything related to that. It was about how to take up space by owning your worth and speaking up for yourself and being a leader of your life and going after what you want to go after and all those kinds of things. So that was the transition. And about a year into having the show the podcast, I ended up selling my gym, going all in on the show and building a business around the show.

SPEAKER_01 12:03

Sounds like a radical realignment. Yes, totally. When so anyone out there listening is like thinking about your core values. So you mentioned your core values. How do we even know what those are? How do you have a process?

SPEAKER_00 12:19

I do. I figured you. I do have a good friend of mine does a lot of similar work to me. She's a therapist, but does a lot of also business coaching, life coaching stuff. I went to an event that she ran during this season of navigating this business shift. And she gave us little slips of paper with like 50 little slips of paper with the different values written on each one. And she was like, I want you to narrow this down from 50 to five. Pick your top five core values. And she gave us like an hour to do this. And so everyone in the room is doing it, and we're working in groups or with a partner trying to figure it out. We're talking it through, like we're taking it very seriously. And I get down to six. And I'm like, I literally can't go lower than six. And she's no, like, you have to five is an absolute. She's like, you can have less than five, but you can't have more than five. I'm crying. Like these are so important to me. And they used to be on a poster right here. It was kindness, love, security, success. What were the other ones? Compassion, I think. And maybe that was it. I think that was it. In going through that process, and so now I take people through that process all the time when I do it similarly, a little bit different. But I uh so I have a list of core values that you can find online if you just Google Brene Brown core values. It's a list of core values from that Brene Brown has put together, and I give that to people as an exercise, and it's a list of probably 80 or so core values. Go through and just start whittling it down over time and take as much time as you can make it fast, you can make it take three weeks to do it, whatever amount of time it takes. But getting down to that top three to five, and then once you have those core values, then those are the values through which you make decisions. When I'm taking action or making decisions in my life, what do I want to be my guiding lights? And so that's a way to think through which ones, because there's when you look at a list of 80 values, it's hard to be like, I'm gonna cross off like respect. And because of course we value respect, but it's like, what are the guideposts that I really want to be my guiding lights in decision making and action taking in this season? And I also think that different times can we can shift and evolve. And so I think in this season, that's an important distinction. Cause again, my values back when I wanted to be on the biggest loser are probably different. And mine have changed in 2020. I kind of went through it again, looking at okay, what are they now? And since then, what are they now? And I annually look through like, what are they now? And some of them always carry over, and then others shift as I evolve as the world changes, as our concept around language changes, like different words carry weight differently, as we see.

SPEAKER_01 14:54

Yes, big bond, a big evolution in language from one year to the next, huge, and words matter so much. Yeah, Sarah and I were talking right before we hit record. I don't know when this is gonna air yet, but there was a big thing that happened yesterday, and the discourse on social media has just been like mind-blowing, so polarizing. And I'm just like, wow, words matter so much, what we say. And I do love having three to five core values that could be like a filter. When you're talking about it, I was just like picturing them like a filter, which then, like you said, I can make my decisions, I can speak my messaging through those filters and making sure that they're a lot in alignment with them. So I might do that exercise this weekend. Thank you, Sarah. It's a really lovely exercise.

SPEAKER_00 15:44

Yeah. But yeah. And then it also can become when you go to make a decision, when you're thinking about, oh, should I do this or should I do that? And especially when it comes to something ethical, you can look at those values and be like, if I'm a person who values these things, then then what does that mean I'm called to do right now? I think about that all the time when it comes to am I gonna speak up on this? Am I gonna make a big deal about this? Am I gonna challenge someone on this? And I'm like, if I'm a person that values these things, then yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

Which is why I noticed your messaging a lot lately, because you've been sharing a lot of things, a lot of things that we have in common, but also just a lot of personal, vulnerable things. And I'm now I can see what allows you to do that with such bravery and courage. For example, you were just talking about going having hip pain for how many years and finally figuring out three and a half years and what hip and back pain.

SPEAKER_00 16:41

I've discovered that I have three bulging discs and one herdiated disc and some a tear in there somewhere, and like all these things, and yeah, yeah, good times.

SPEAKER_01 16:50

What would you say? Well, living with chronic pain, it's a lot, it's a lot for sure. So I feel your pain. But the other thing that I just want to go back to is reminding folks on this podcast, they know they've heard me say it over and over, but a black belt and badassery is someone who overcomes big challenges in their life and not just moves through them, but then helps others with that new strength or lessons that they learn, etc. And I really feel like you're a great example of that. What would you say in the path to being a coach for women in leadership was one of those maybe defining moments or aha moments or big challenge that you've been through that you can now share about that will help others?

SPEAKER_00 17:37

Yeah. I had a situation, so back still as a gym owner, I was teaching classes every day, but I was teaching 6 a.m. classes multiple mornings a week, which was like the pain of my existence. I wouldn't do it. And it was like the most everyone wanted six, people wanted 5 a.m. classes. Like they were just like the more the middle of the night we could make it, the better. And I was just like dying. And so I would get up at 4:40 in the morning to go teach these 6 a.m. classes. The crew was amazing, like they brought the energy, but the getting out of bed and getting there. We uh at that time, this would have been like 2010-ish. My husband and I decided we were gonna start trying to get pregnant. And as we were going through this, like the first nine months, we're trying ever. This is also like I'm a person, like literally not one time did not have involve contraception in my reproductive lifestyle. Okay, I was like, I will never get pregnant, there will never be an unplanned pregnancy. So then I decided to try to get pregnant, and like the universe is like, jokes on you, sisters. We're trying to get pregnant, and every month, as a like high achieving person, every month I'm tracking like all of the things. My doctor, I had a naturopath, midwife doctor. So she's like, take your temperature every morning, which I had been doing for a year, check your cervical mucus, all these things that were weird and whatever. And so I was like, This is gonna happen on the first try because first of all, I get an A plus on everything, and second of all, I have been like preparing myself for a year with all my tracking of my data. So we start trying to get pregnant and like nothing's happening. So we get almost a year in, and we finally, the doctor's okay, let's do some additional testing. And so we start getting information that's this is not gonna happen naturally for you. And here's some other things we can try. And so we end up on this like long course of infertility. And during that season, I didn't tell anyone what we were going through because I was also 35, I was over 35. So all my friends had already had children. They're all asking me all the time when I'm gonna get pregnant. My mom is asking me, like, I just didn't want to answer any questions. So I told no one what we were going through. I had two friends that knew, but other than that, like my clients didn't know, my mom didn't know, nothing, doing all this fertility stuff. And I'm still having to show up at the gym at the crack of dawn. And what started happening is that I would get up in the morning and I would be taking my temperature, taking ovulation tests, taking pregnancy tests. And I would, so I was always getting some sort of information in the morning and then having to show up at work. Right. And so I would get to the gym, I would be like sitting at my dining room table crying into my like coffee and toast about just got my period, we're not pregnant again, like this to whatever confirmation that things aren't working. And then I go to the gym and I'm like, okay, everybody, let's go. And like my boldest, brightest, like cheeriest self. And it felt like I had to live this double life where I was like grief stricken in my real life, and then the peppy cheerleader in my work life. And we eventually got pregnant after a couple of years, and we got the outcome we were looking for. But I realized in that season that there are so many people who are walking through life, care like holding space for two really separate identities and no one knows. And so when we think about how we approach anyone on any given day, we have no idea what their life was like 10 minutes before we interacted with them. Let alone if they're a someone who's been carrying a marginalized identity their whole life. And so if you're talking to, if it's a male talking to a female, if it's a white woman talking to a black woman, if it's a cis person talking to a trans person, or if it's someone who like, you know, who's going through infertility or who just lost a parent or who has some sort of other like current trauma in their life, we just don't know what people are carrying. And that was a turning point for me and recognizing that when people didn't know what I was carrying, I also don't know what other people are carrying. I also really grappled with do I share the, do I talk about once we got pregnant, I felt okay, I could share what this has been like, which felt very vulnerable because we kept it so private. I eventually did start sharing. And when I started, the I put up a post on Facebook at one point about going through all this infertility stuff. And the DMs that I got from people who I had known for like decades in some cases, who were like, oh my gosh, me too. It took us X amount of years, it took us 10 years, it took us this, it took us that. I was blown away by the women who had been in very similar situations to me, who I had no idea. So that for me was a really big turning point in recognizing that when we share vulnerability, that we invite in connection. So there were two pieces to that that were really transformational for me.

SPEAKER_01 22:21

Wow. First of all, thank you for sharing. And yeah, I think about that all the time. There was a time in my life where I had a couple miscarriages. I had a terrible loss that I still haven't really shared what that was like. But I just remember, yeah, like showing up to an event, getting on a plane and teaching self-defense. Like I have a picture of myself like on the floor kicking. And two days before I had this massive loss, and I'm teaching self-defense. Right. It was nobody knows. Nobody knows. It's weird. You feel weird. So weird. It's so weird. And then I think about women that so that's like life of an entrepreneur, right? I can hide at home, but then when I have to be on, I'm on. But imagine having to show up to an office every single day while you're battling something like that that's so private. How do women do it?

SPEAKER_00 23:16

Yeah. How do I mean this is what I think this is what women do. We're conditioned to overfunction. I want to say we were born for this. We weren't born for this. We were socialized into this. No one should be born to overfunction to this degree. Women are socialized to overfunction to this degree. And I would say it's women, it's black women more than white women. So we're conditioned to overfunction, and that's how we do it. That's how we get through it. And so we do what we have to do to get through a situation. We don't really give ourselves that much credit or grace for how taxing it was, and we just keep going.

SPEAKER_01 23:48

Is this so talk to me about that with your client base? Like, what are the major challenges women at high levels of leadership are dealing with today that you see most, I would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:59

I actually just put a post up yesterday about some of the things that I'm seeing consistently with my women clients. The post was specifically about sexism coming from well-intentioned men. And I get a little nervous sometimes when I talk about this stuff on LinkedIn because when I go into work with teams and inside organizations, I'm working with the whole spectrum of gender. I am never going in thinking, I'm gonna tell those men what's up. Like they need to learn a lesson. Like it's never that way at all. I do not believe in operating from a place of shame and pointing fingers and anything like that. But I also think we have to understand like the difference. What are the things that are actually happening? Like we have to look at it, we have to be objective about it, we have to like really own and honor like what is the reality here. So some of the things I keep seeing in my executive coaching clients is repeating themes around women in spaces where they're continually being interrupted, talked over, dismissed, talked down to, like joked around with in weird inappropriate ways, excluded from conversations, pretty feministic. And men who really think I'm not one of those guys. And yet it's still happening. And so again, it's like well-intentioned men who really think like we're a strong, quote unquote diverse team here. And they haven't done some of that deeper work to understand how some of their cultural conditioning has led to certain biases that make women really uncomfortable or that minimize women when they're in the same room. Do you have any good examples? So one of the yes. So I have a couple of clients right now from two different angles. So one of my clients, it's I'm thinking of one client in particular, but this is a common scenario, a handful of clients, who have been working toward a promotion of sorts. And a female client with a male boss who sits on a team of mostly other male leaders. And my client has been told we are positioning you to be next in line for whatever XYZ promotion. And while you're waiting for that, here's what we need you to do: putting my client in a position of overproving themselves, which sometimes needs to happen for a few months. Show what you're capable of. This is going on three years, and this is for multiple clients of mine. Most of you been in these roles, being told they're next up for something and over-functioning, over-delivering, over-proving. And to these guys who are like, yeah, that looks pretty good. We'll just let's just keep doing this and stringing them along. And in the process of that, when they're sitting in meetings, they because they don't have the next up title yet, they're not being acknowledged for their work or their contributions. They're being dismissed when they challenge ideas. So that's the there's that angle.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

And then what I find, sorry, they're expected to do more work and not get paid anymore. Anyhow, so yeah, my client was her boss got fired. She had to take on all of their work when they left, thinking that she's getting the promotion. And then they just said, Oh no, we're getting rid of that role. So she's left doing all no promotion, no title, and now she has to decide whether she's even gonna stay or not. And most of my clients are like that are very capable by not acknowledging them with title promotion and words, even.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

And I'm seeing from the other end where my clients who are in leadership roles, my female clients who are in leadership roles, and have to give feedback to underperforming males, like the inability of underperforming males to accept feedback is like astonishing. And this is that's a big generalization. That does not mean everyone, but it's a consistent theme that has come up with a handful of clients where the women on their team are very like, oh, I got it, and I want to try harder. I'm gonna really work on it. And there's a couple of men who are just like, yeah, I'm already doing that. And they're like defensive, deflective, they can't take feedback. They will take that feedback and go to a male superior and talk to them about it instead of it's like dismissing that this came from their direct boss, and instead they're like wanting to go seek exception with a male leader, and yeah, so I'm seeing it from both ends. Yeah. From people who I think they have women's backs.

SPEAKER_01 28:40

Interesting. Okay. So how do you help these women go through different? Obviously, each situation is different, and I'm sure you're coaching people in different ways, but you do have something called the shameless leadership pathway. Yeah. Is that something that you walk people through? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:57

So, my what I see my role in, my role as is helping women really see objectively like what's happening around them. Because a lot of times, especially when I'm working with women in tech and they're one of very few women in the room or on the team, they have they have blown off a lot of poor behavior. And they're like, oh, like I'm sure they didn't mean that, or oh, it wasn't that big of a deal. Like they've just blown things off over time and minimized it, not recognizing like the compounding effect of poor behavior. And so when we're working together, I'm helping them look at what is yours to own, what is not yours to own, how is your value being diminished or not seen, how are you being exploited in certain ways, what are the costs of the current situation or the current dynamic? And what are the benefits of the current situation and dynamic? And I think it's important to look at both. And so sometimes the benefits are like, okay, I'm the primary breadrunner for my family, we are getting benefits, like stability, security, like those are huge benefits. And so I never want to minimize and say to a woman, like, you should just up and quit. What are the, if those are the benefits, what are the costs? And are those costs sustainable? Is there a pathway through those costs or to change those costs over time so that their impact is less negative? In that process, what I'm also helping women do is recognize where they've been in terms of what they've accomplished over the course of their life, personally and professionally, and how that positions them to go after the next thing that they want, whether that's within their current organization, current role, or somewhere else. And in the process of doing that, they're working through my shameless leadership pathway. So at the bottom of the pathway, it's really looking internally and looking at where are you, how do you, what's your internal talk? How do you communicate with yourself on the inside? Are you your own bully? Or are you your own coach where you're lifting yourself up and encouraging yourself to be the best that you can be? And you're really owning, I'm really good at some things and I'm gonna go do my best at those things. Or are you constantly just embracing like inner critic and imposter syndrome and shrinking in your own roles and capabilities? The next level from there is looking at based on that internal voice and the internal work that you're doing, how does that impact how you externally communicate and externally impact or externally engage with others? If I'm constantly talking to myself like I'm a piece of crap, then when I engage with others, I'm probably gonna be pretty timid, apologetic, not stand up for myself, not be a great self-advocate. If I'm strong inside and I believe in my ability and I know that I have high value, then when I go to communicate with others and engage with others, I'm probably doing a much better job of being a self-advocate, letting people know my strengths, letting people know my boundaries was the second level. Then the third level is how are you calling people to come with you or engaging in your work and in the world in a way that people are attracted to? Oh, like that's someone I want to follow and I want to be walk alongside and I want to be in collaboration with. And so starting to look at leadership then, like what are the things that you're doing that supports the people around you where they're like, I want to be on that person's team. And then at the top is how are you, when you are bringing people with you, how are you cultivating leadership in them? And so, how are you growing them in their leadership skills and helping them see how they can do work through the pathway the same way that you have? And so we're working through a cycle of generating new leaders who will then generate more new leaders in a positive way.

SPEAKER_01 32:26

I love that. And very similar to there are similarities to the Art of Badass 3 framework. How we talk to ourselves is a huge one. But then at that black belt level is all about being a leader that helps other people rise. And that is what we need more of in this world more than ever, which is why I think we need more women in leadership in general. World would be a better place. I honestly think there'll be less war, less greedy corporations out to please their shareholders, and the planet will be better off.

SPEAKER_00 33:00

Like we're we'll all be better off. True. Yeah, like when leadership is not about me getting to the top, but it's about how I'm bringing people with me to the top.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

It's so different. Thank you for the work that you do. What's one small tip you can give to listeners right now, from your coaching, from the pathway, that they can implement like today to become a better leader?

SPEAKER_00 33:25

I would say the one thing for today would be the next time you are feeling doubt, feeling self-doubt. Oh, I don't know if I can do that, or should I speak up, or am I the right person for this? Whenever you're feeling that doubt, I want you to think about if your best friend or sister came to you, or if your child came to you, what would you say to them in that moment? And then how can you say that to yourself? Because often within when it's us, we're like, I'm not gonna say anything, I'm not the right person, or this other person's more qualified. But if it was like our best friend or our sister or kid coming to us, we'd be like, go for it. There's nothing you can't do. And I've I believe in you so much. And those are the things we don't say to ourselves. And so, how can you speak to yourself in that as the way that you would coach anyone that you deeply cared for? Be your inner coach.

SPEAKER_01 34:13

Yeah. But an awesome, nurturing, loving, fabulous coach. Yeah. But it's funny, and I know it's a whole other topic we don't have to get into, but reparenting, and and that's what I what came up for me when you said that. Uh and sometimes in my meditations lately, I've been picturing my younger self, like the years where teenage years where I was just like definitely not standing in my power. Like definitely not. And I just talked to her. And I'm like, Jen, you got this, it's gonna be fine. And I just or I just picture myself hugging her and holding her. And I'm like, it's like really powerful. So that's my tip for the day. Try that on. I love it. Yeah, picture your youngest self when you're feeling like most vulnerable and just give her a hug. Sarah, with that said, I think that's a perfect way to wrap up this episode. But before we go, I have four rapid fire questions for you. Are you ready?

unknown 35:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 35:09

Easy to do. I'm ready. Okay. Number one, what was your favorite food as a kid? Macaroni and cheese. Kraft. Not homemade. Of course. Total sense. Number two, if you can have a drink with anyone, alive or dead, what who's the person and what's in your cup?

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Michelle Obama. We are drinking a glass of red wine. Awesome. I see it.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Reading her book, becoming, I love that. Yes, I love that. And speaking of number three, what's your favorite self-help personal growth book?

SPEAKER_00 35:45

I have a few, but the one that I always point everyone to is Shonda Rhymes' Year of Yes, which I've read multiple times, I've listened to the audio multiple times, I've led book clubs with it multiple times. Really? And Shonda Rhymes is the writer, producer, master behind Grey's Anatomy and multiple shows. But she wrote a book called Year of Yes a number of years ago now, but it's about her year of saying yes to everything. And it is it's so funny, but also heartfelt. And it also calls you to take action and get out of your comfort zone and do the things that you don't want to do. And it's like everything from getting on the floor and playing with your kids. And she's, I know you don't want to get on the floor and play with your kids. Nobody wants to. Like it's a total pain. You'd much rather do anything else. But you say yes for five minutes, and it's that along those lines to like saying yes to getting to go meet Oprah and really big scale things.

SPEAKER_01 36:36

So she has a whole chapter on badassery. I read it and I was like, oh, she that word too. I loved it.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Yeah, she's amazing.

SPEAKER_01 36:43

And last but not least, what's your favorite hype song?

SPEAKER_00 36:47

Ooh, Sia Unstoppable is one of them. Love it. There's a few of them, but that's one perfect used for a lot of things. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Oh, amazing. Sarah, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing with everyone. And everyone out there, I just meant to say this in the beginning because I'm heading towards 50 episodes now. I don't know which number this is going to be, but it's going to be really close. And I just want to thank you. I just want to really thank you from my heart for being here, for reading my emails, for being along for the journey. I'm really deeply appreciative of all of you and for all my guests that come and share. So thank you for being here. Make sure you subscribe if you haven't. If you're willing, go ahead and leave me a review because I love to hear from you all. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00 37:32

Fellow podcaster reviews go a really long way. So I'm like, yes, leave all the reviews for.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Thank you for saying that. And let us know what you're going to do with that one thing today. Thank you so much for tuning in. I love you. And we'll see you next time on the Art of Badassery.