Katherine Flechaus- What’s Really Holding You Back Isn’t Skill - It’s Belief And, You Can Fix It!

I think the biggest distinction is that these are perceived as personalities, but they're behaviors. And so these things form the way we think about the world. And these behaviors we see that we call people pleasing and codependency and perfectionism. They're there for a reason.

They worked for a while. and then they stop working and they start actually being a problem, right? Hey there and welcome to From the Ground Up show, the show where we encourage and inspire the next generation of free thinking leaders by telling the stories of those that have been there, done that and are still getting it done. Building a life that they love with their hearts, their hands and their hustle.

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Those five-star reviews really help promote us in the algorithms. So today I am joined by Katherine Flechaus I think I got that right. She is another expert, not in a specific blue collar or non-traditional field, but someone who can help those of us that are. Katherine spent 30 years working in the world of clinical mental health and focusing on behavioral change.

Over that career, she noticed a pattern where high achieving people found themselves blocked not by ability or talent, but a core belief. This insight has become Aligned Core Life Coaching and the Safeguard Profile, a framework that identifies the six protective patterns most likely to limit high achieving people in their career, leadership, relationships. Katherine is a licensed clinical social worker and life and leadership coach whose work goes deeper than mindset shifts or confidence tactics.

She works at the level of belief itself, which is why the change her clients make tends to actually hold. So Katherine, thank you for joining us. Here, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

we will dive right in. We like to start every show just getting to know you a little bit and and learn a little bit more about your background. So do you mind telling us a little bit about your childhood and what life was like growing up and how that led you to the career that you've had? Sure.

Well, I came from a small farming community outside of Syracuse, New York. My family was not farmers. My father was a civil engineer. My mother was a nurse, so pretty traditional roles.

But grew up in a farming community, small town values. And so my life was really formed around that idea of hard work. My father, when he wasn't working, was building. He built our house.

He's a carpenter. And raising six kids, I was one of six, was number three of six. There were always chores. We had this huge garden that was somewhat considered a small farm.

And everyone had their expectations of what they were supposed to do. And we canned our food and froze our food and all that stuff. So I grew up with those really. kind of traditional values.

And I actually started my college career as a photographer because, you I was the best photographer in that little tiny community, which didn't say much, um went off to college and, you know, was suddenly a very small fish in a very big pond. So what seemed to make sense of what was available to me at that school was social work. I was a natural, people pleaser, I was a natural, you know, mentor and, you know, keeping everything going, right? With six people in a house, six kids in a house, you you learn to live in chaos, you learn to deal with crisis.

My father was also a volunteer fireman for over 40 years, became a paramedic. So, you know, healthcare was always something in our family. So through social work, I went into medical social work. worked in a small hospital, discharge planning, which is helping people, know, mostly elderly who already go home, but you know, what do they need?

Do they need a walker? Do they need a cane? Do know all that stuff they need? Do they need a nurse to come in and visit?

And what I saw through that was seeing the end of more of the end of the lifespan. And so could I, you know, have a better intervention if I could intervene? and work with people earlier, before they had these medical crisis, before they had these medical complications. And so I went back at my master's in social work, in counseling, in family, in children and families.

So then I started working at the community mental health level, again, in a small community, because I raised my kids in a small community outside of Rochester. working with people who came from all walks of life. There were farmers, there were teachers, there were executives, were people all over. A lot of tragedy, a lot of kids with abuse issues.

So the work was hard, but it was meaningful. Moved my way into leadership through a small, again, love working with small organizations. a local, it was an was an unsecure detention facility for teenage kids, but it was this beautiful open campus with these beautiful brick buildings that had been built probably back in the 30s. So I was I was coming into this very old program, Seeped in Tradition.

of taking care of kids when the county was looking to really shake things up and make things different. So it was really fascinating to work with people who had been doing this work for years and didn't see the need to do it any differently, right? The same old way, we've always done it this way. So that was very challenging and...

very exciting to help build that program and to bring some new, to figure out that balance of where do you honor the tradition and where do you bring in the new? And that was with childcare staff. There was a fully running school on the program. So you're working with teachers.

You were coordinating with the guys in buildings and grounds because boy, you better be friends with them if you needed things to get done. So it was nice, multidisciplinary work. And then, like what happens with county funding, priorities shifted. If you're familiar with Rochester, it's a big Eastman Kodak company.

So manufacturing, Eastman Kodak makes film. They made the film, they make movie film, they gave up the digital camera that they invented. So the economy went down. What was Eastman Kodak property was probably a small town in and of itself.

A lot of manufacturing, people started losing their jobs. Eastman closed down so there wasn't as much revenue. So that started to affect downstream. So on Christmas Eve, I was laid off.

And so my husband and I decided this might be a good time to reinvent ourselves. We moved to Florida to get out of the Western New York cold. And I landed in dialysis social work. It's purely unplanned, but I was running out of unemployment.

I needed to take a job. And they told me that this is the kind of work where you're going to be here for six months and you're going to love it and stay, or you're going to leave. And it took me 12 years to leave. So love the work, love the people.

If you want to meet some really hardworking, devoted, amazing people who have incredible resilience, dialysis patients are that. They go for this medical treatment three times a day, three times a week, every week. But what happened there was the small program that I was helping to grow, because again, love my small. you know, intimate programs got bought out by one of the big guys.

And that was a big corporate structure. So that's when I decided to maybe get back to my roots of, of counseling and meeting, you know, not just healthcare, but, everybody. And so I opened my own private practice because I was tired of, I was tired of working for other people. I was tired of my, everything that I was building getting pulled out from under me for, for nothing that I had done.

Right? So I started a private mental health business three years ago. One of the few good things you can say that came out of COVID is telehealth. Because now you can connect with people wherever they are.

You connect with them in their homes. They don't have to have the struggle of finding a babysitter for the kid and getting in the car and driving and you you just log on like you and I are doing right now. have a session. And as I was working with those people, mostly women, because women are mostly the ones who seek out therapy, just a stat, I started to notice this pattern that you were talking about in the introduction that people, they're not reacting and having these outbursts or having these struggles because they have a personality flaw, right?

These are reactions that were learned from childhood. And having worked through that whole continuum of the lifespan, you know, I started to see the connections. you know, maybe you grew up in a household where, you know, money was scarce. And so you began to be very cautious about money and about decisions related to money and about jobs that you took, because there had to be security.

You know, or you grew up in a house like I did where there were so many kids, that you had to be a parent earlier in life than you should have been, right? And so these things form the way we think about the world. And that reaction to how you deal with that are these behaviors we see that we call people pleasing and codependency and perfectionism. They're there for a reason.

They worked for a while. and then they stop working and they start actually being a problem, right? When you're constantly doing for everyone at work, when you're the one, the go-to for everybody and nobody's the go-to for you, that becomes a problem. Women are socialized to minimize themselves.

Be a nice girl, be a good girl. Men are socialized to be the provider, to be the strong one. Don't let your feelings show. which is why we don't see a lot of men in therapy.

And all these things impact on us, right? And it's not a judgment, it's just a reality. And so in seeing that and in working in mental health where there are very specific rules, right? You have to be licensed in the state where you meet with people.

People have to meet a certain criteria. So they have to have a diagnosis to be in mental health. A lot of the people I was seeing didn't need to fit those criteria. Those criteria are important and they're needed in mental health work, not minimizing it at all.

And that's where I got into coaching, because coaching allows me to meet you in Wyoming when I live in Illinois, because there aren't those limits. And so my work is really about just helping people stop stigmatizing these words, these ways of being. just start having a little grace with yourself and appreciating where you came from, how you got here, and then how, you know, that now you can do, you can choose to do things different. The things that, uh, yeah, the, the coping mechanisms that kept you safe or kept you alive as a kid become the barriers, uh, in your career and as an adult.

So. Right, I mean, it happened to me. I was taught to be nice, be kind, don't promote yourself too much, right? And so I watched promotions go to other people.

My career stagnated for years before I realized, oh, you know what? I can do this. I do have the skills. So I've been there, done that myself, which also would help me recognize these patterns.

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top materials, the best prices, and only the best service, and ask them about their customer incentive trips. Well, I know you talked a little bit about the transition from originally studying photography and moving into social work. Was there something that, I mean, was that really just an opportunity or kind of the path of least resistance or was there something that really gave you a motivation and a passion for that field I think it was, I think I probably should have started in social work, to be honest, because that's really where my passion lies and working with people.

ah It was convenient that the college I was at offered a social work program because that is the thing that made the most sense to me, working with people and, and the desire to work in healthcare because again, there was so much exposure to health and helping others and maybe got a little too much into the adrenaline junkie crisis intervention stuff. But yeah, I think it was probably the path that I was supposed to be on. Great. That's awesome that you found that fairly early on.

um You said you've been running your own business for three years now. I know there's a lot more we're going to get to and talk about, but we talk a lot about business and entrepreneurship on this show. Can you tell us a little bit of the story of getting that business off the ground and maybe the struggles or the wins that you faced along the way? It was fairly easy to get started in mental health because there are frameworks available to get referrals, to get people to you, right?

You get on boards with insurance companies and they recommend you. There's platforms like Psychology Today where you put up your profile and people can find you. And I was working from home, so not a lot of overhead. But getting into the coaching business, That's a whole different beast when it comes to marketing.

And that is where I struggle is selling myself, getting out there and saying, look at me, look at me on social media, because there's so many people on social media. So I took what I thought, I took a business coaching course specifically for counselors getting into coaching, thinking I was going to learn business, which I did. But we all kind of agreed at the end of the program that we probably learned more about ourselves than we learned about business. Because it was really challenging all those feelings you have, like imposter syndrome.

Can I really do this? Do I really know what I'm doing? Are people really going to pay me money to talk to me? Can I really build a business?

The things I had to learn about business and about marketing and about gosh, all the technical stuff that comes with it, how to use all this automated systems and was completely overwhelming. And on top of that, in the midst of that intensive program of only four months, I lost an aunt and an uncle. So throw a couple of funerals in there and it's really enough to bring you to your knees, but somehow you just keep going, you get up. and you say, can I get done today?

Yeah, I think that's something that a lot of our listeners can probably relate to. Many of us are, we're in the trades and we got really good at a trade but knew nothing about business and are trying to figure it out as we go. um you think just knowing this stuff should be enough. But there's that whole other world of business organization that's a challenge.

Yeah. So it sounds like, I hope I'm not reading too much into this, but you never had a real strong desire to be self-employed or be an entrepreneur until quite recently. And it was more out of the frustrations of being jerked around as you had in your career rather than a drive to own or run your own business. Is that accurate?

Yeah. I mean, I always thought, wouldn't it be fun to run a, you know, I always said a floral shop, you know, I always wanted to be a florist. Love flowers. em But that was, that was always my, I told a supervisor once when I started talking about being a florist, know that I'm burning out and you got to jump in and save me.

So no, I never really had thought seriously about my own business because I was just, I always saw myself as a cog in the wheel, somebody who, you know, just helped things move along and advocated for patient rights because that was, you know, that's so important. in a world of medicine where, you know, doctors are the professionals, you know, they're the specialists, and we forget how to, you know, how to treat people like people. And so I was very, you know, I was very dedicated to these programs that I worked for, because they had, they met me where I was at with my belief system.

And then corporate takes over, or, you know, funding gets lost. And so it doesn't matter how amazing the the program's mission is. If there's no money for it, there's no money for it. So, you my career went up and then it went down and then it went up and then it went down.

I thought, you know, if I'm going to go up and down, I might as well go up and down on my own. Well, it sounds like you wrestled with and walked through maybe many of the same struggles that you work with your clients on through your coaching business. Would you mind taking a couple minutes and maybe kind of using yourself as a case study and walking through what some of those blocks or challenges were and what kind of work you did to push through that? Yeah.

One of my biggest blocks was what we term as imposter syndrome, right? Like I can't possibly know enough to do. Everyone knew more. And then actually working in the medical field where the focus was on the doctors and the nurses, social workers were always that down.

down the rung, actually unintentionally reinforced that belief system that you really were just a small part. Everyone else knew more. Everyone got the claim and the fame. And having to actually stop and listen to people that were complimenting me and being able to own that, like, you're really good at what you do.

You really know what you're doing. we really enjoy working with you. Those things because again, one of six, Irish Catholic, make yourself small, blend in, don't stand out. I brought all that stuff with me into my career.

And so it didn't matter externally how well I was doing, internally I still didn't believe it. And so it took... it took these hits, these big transitions to make me look at myself and say, you I can do this. I can do things.

I have more skills than I give myself credit for. And some of it was just having to understand that. So you understand that so when that thought comes up, which it does, it still does. Some days I look at the computer and I'm like, What am I doing here?

I don't know what to do on social media. I have to remind myself that that's just a thought from before, from who I was trained to be. I can learn all this stuff. I have a message that's worth getting out there.

And so once I started to connect those dots, like this was the old message running in the background. But this is the current, right? This is real. Right now, I can be anybody I want to be.

There's nobody telling me I need to be small but myself. And so that's the kind of stuff that I started to connect with. ah And working with other people, sometimes you have light bulb moments with yourself as you're having a conversation with someone and you're helping them through a situation. like, Oh, okay.

Let's take our own advice. Physician heal thyself. Yeah. man.

I have that experience as a parent quite frequently. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes, kids can bring it to your knees.

Yeah. What was the part of launching your business that was the scariest? What was maybe the most intimidating? the money, the money that had to go into the investment into the coaching program, the marketing.

Because again, here are old messages. I grew up, my father worked, my mother stayed home, there were six mouths to feed. So we lived on a very lean budget. so parting with money is hard.

parting with a lot of money is hard without being able to see the return on the investment. And I think that's maybe one of the things in hindsight that kept me from thinking about being an entrepreneur is because when you worked for someone else, you had a guaranteed paycheck. Back in the day, you used to have guaranteed healthcare. You had paid time off.

You had that financial structure and safety net. And so I think that was probably the scariest thing and still is. Interesting. Yeah, I think that's probably common to a lot of people as well.

It's hard to make that big of a bet on yourself. um Well, you've worked quite a long career in a lot of different facets of health care and mental health and just in a lot of different corporate structures and environments. Is there an opinion that you once held strongly that you've changed your mind about because of one of the experiences you've had? You know, probably the biggest thing, I just wrote a post about this uh a little while ago was that, you know, when you're young and you're naive and you're in school and they tell you this stuff and so you leave thinking you know everything, right?

And then you meet people and you realize that if you don't honor their story, they're not gonna listen to you. You you are the expert in the subject matter, but they're the experts in themselves. And so I think the biggest shift that I made was from thinking that I was the expert and knew everything and knew best to partnership. Because also, you know, being that expert in knowing everything, it leads you to do everything for everybody, right?

So. then not only do you burn out, but you take away their power by not teaching them how to take care of themselves or honoring how they take care of themselves. So I think that has been my biggest shift to own what's mine, which is the expertise I have and to honor every person that I talk to, that they have their own story and that this work isn't one size fits all. You can't group people.

All people with depression are like this, or all dialysis people are there because they didn't take care of their health. You can't do that black and white thinking. So I think that's been my biggest shift from expert to partner. There's some real wisdom there that's applicable in a lot of industries and probably to just almost everyone.

Yeah, that's great. Yeah. I mean, you see it with people you work with. You see it with, you know, the best bosses aren't the ones who are telling you what you're not doing right, you know, and telling, you know, reinforcing how good they are.

They're the ones that are nurturing you and bringing you along. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome.

So if you could go back to uh maybe when you were first entering college, I know you've been through a, you've been through a lot of ups and downs and good experiences and poor experiences. Would you choose the same career track again, or would you choose to go a different route earlier? You know, I would like to say that I would take a different route that made more money. But you know what, I don't think I would.

I think that this is my calling. I think that there are new opportunities for the kids out there that are getting into the mental health psychiatry area. There's things like corporate. What do they call it?

Like corporate management, behavior management, like how do systems work? Like a corporation is a system, like a family is a system and how it works. So there are some interesting avenues that I might have gotten into, but I think I would have just still been drawn to this field. Corporate psychology, that's the word I'm trying to come up with.

Yeah. you mentioned, you really like kind of small work environments, um, small towns, small communities, small businesses. you've also worked in, large corporate environments that you didn't like. And, and now kind of as an entrepreneur or self-employed, Are there any lessons that you could share of maybe who thrives best in which environment or pros and cons of the various environments that you've worked in?

Yeah, because people thrive in corporate environments. For me, was the smaller environments gave me the feeling of real contribution. You know, that I was doing something to contribute to the mission. And in corporate organizations, I didn't have that feeling.

I felt like I was one of many. And I don't know if that's my small town roots or not, but I think it depends on how you interact in that environment. So if you feel like you're contributing and contributing for someone who is say an accountant in a big corporation may feel very different than someone who's more in the human services. And I think if you have supervisors who are making you feel like you're part of the program, that your work is meaningful and that they don't take credit for your work, but they pass your work along.

I think those are good corporate environments to work in. But there's definitely toxic work environments. And I think that maybe that's more where I landed. you know, where everybody was struggling to get to the next promotion, to get to the next position.

And so, you you weren't really worried about the people who worked for you. You were worried about what was next. But I think that the women I've worked with in corporate who are really happy are the women who are enjoying mentoring. And...

So they're mentoring those behind them and they're being mentored by those above them so that they feel like there's a career path. Yeah. That's great. I, yeah, it's what works best for everyone as long as you know why you're there.

that's good. What has been your best resource to grow as a person and in your career? Do you have any resources that you go back to again and again? mentors.

I think that when I was working at that juvenile detention facility, right towards the end, I had this fantastic supervisor who was a great mentor and I've actually checked in with her throughout the years. I think that mentoring is so important, that just to talk to people who have been where you've been. and want to see the best in you. As far as business, you can read the books, you can learn the styles, but having someone to actually talk you through the real stuff, when the stuff gets hard.

think that's been my my best leadership and I don't yet have that from a business point of view. You know I have great people from a people point of view so that would be a fantastic find. Someone who understands the business area of things I don't. Yeah.

All the things that us practitioners have to learn when we start a business. All right. Well, I know you spend a lot of time working with and talking about patterns that high achieving people develop to stay safe. And those patterns eventually end up working against them.

Can you walk us through, I think you mentioned there's six patterns that you've kind of identified. Can you walk us through what those six are and what they would look like in someone's life? Maybe how to identify if that's something you're struggling with. so what they, what they look like on the outside is, um, either overachieving, right?

So this strong desire to be the best person in the room. and that's because you, you were raised to believe, that you had to be the best, right? You have to get A's, you have to be the best athlete, you know, you have to get the the college scholarship, right? That kind of pressure to be good.

That's what I call a qualifier, that someone who has to continually prove themselves. Nobody else around them anymore is asking them to prove themselves, but they're still going from this idea, right? I mean, if you were an athlete and you had that coach that just constantly drove you to perfection or that parent who had wanted to be an athlete, and go to college, but that wasn't in their cards. There's probably the most common is the harmony keeper.

That's the person who keeps everything going smoothly, right? I'm a harmony keeper. I knew how to manage a family of eight, know, keep everybody going, keep everybody happy, know when to push, know when to pull back, you That's the person who's taking on more of the emotional load in a group. And then you have the refiner who is someone who everything has to be perfect because something happened in the past when things didn't go well if you weren't perfect.

And it's not so much perfect yourself as a person, but like the work that you produce has to be perfect. This is the person who may be rewriting an email six times before they send it. And then after they send it, they're worried that it's going to be taken the wrong way, right? Or they're the person who's missing deadlines because they're finishing something, right?

It's not quite done right. It's not quite perfect. And so that's what that person kind of looks like. Those are those safeguards.

Those are the behaviors, that overdoing, that second guessing, that... uh checking for the fifth time. uh That's a safeguard pattern. There's the...

um so, sorry, I don't mean to interrupt too badly here, but the refiner and the overachiever seem close, but maybe you just hit that fine distinction is the, the overachiever is probably the one who gets it done early. The refiner is the one who gets it done at the last second because they used every moment they could to make it perfect. So, okay. And the difference being like the internal message, right?

Because the overachiever is the one who has to keep proving that they are the best in the room, right? Because if they're not, they're doing something wrong, right? Where the refiner, the perfectionist is worried that their work isn't good enough. And if it's not good enough, you know, people will think they don't belong there.

So one is about needing to be the best and one is about kind of believing that the work will prove that you're the best. If that makes sense. are little nuances. Right.

Right. Right. And then we, you know, we talked about the, you know, the person with financial, you know, struggles growing up or I see this with some of my clients where their parents just weren't the best with money and that impacted the family. And so they are so over cautious about financial decisions they make.

This is the person you might notice who can't make a decision. Like, I'm not sure. Let me think about this. me check this resource.

Let me check this website. And you're like, just make a decision already. Because if you make the wrong decision, it costs, right? It costs financially.

It costs reputation. So those are some of the things. And that's where they come from, right? They come from learning that mistakes have big consequences.

And the problem is a lot of these messages came when we were so much younger that developmentally, we didn't have the autonomy or the you know, the brain functioning to look at this like we would as adults, right? So this little thing worked, you know. You know, my dad came home angry and tired because he worked a 12 hour shift, you know. So I learned that if I was just really quiet and didn't say anything to irritate him, the day went well, you know.

And so then we bring that into all of our interactions with people. Let me just. Let me be quiet, let me not trigger anything, believing as a child that it was actually your fault if dad got upset or if mom got upset, you know, because you didn't have the ability to see, they're just tired, they've worked a 12 hour shift, they've got a couple hours, they're going back to another 12 hour shift, you know. You didn't have the ability to have that compassion because our brains just aren't wired that way at that age.

So do you have a kind of a title or a name for that financially cautious person? That financially cautious person is the qualifier. Yeah, because they're always qualifying their decisions, they're always making sure that everything is in order. Try that person, try to get that person to make a decision about a job change, right?

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shop/fromthegroundupshow Again, that was athletefresh.shop/fromthegroundupshow Okay. So we got the overachiever, the harmony keeper, the refiner, the qualifier. is kind of like the people pleaser, but their people pleasing comes from, again, this idea that they...

they're responsible for other people's behaviors. So sort of like that, you know, dad who, you know, who is tired and frustrated. And so they think that, y'all, it must be my fault that they're doing this. It's my responsibility to keep them happy.

But they're all very similar. And again, like we talked about, there's nuances between each of them that are slightly different. And that's why there's six categories. And they overlap.

The categories overlap. Like you have one that might be a primary, but then... you have other ones that are there too. So some of that overlapping is because you've had multiple experiences, you know?

And your beliefs are reinforced in different ways. You know, like maybe you're that kid who felt like they had to keep everything calm at home, right? And then you go to school and you meet the mean girl. and the mean girl's giving you a hard time all the time, right?

So that just reinforces that I have to be nice and I have to be quiet, right? And I have to be accommodating. And that's how these things get reinforced over time because it worked once and then it worked another time. But now that you're an adult, it's not working because what it's actually doing is creating more work, more tension, know, more load that you carry.

Yeah. So I think we've hit, uh, we've hit five of them. got the overachiever, the harmony keeper, the refiner, the qualifier, that the people pleaser that kind of carries the responsibility for what other people are feeling. What would be that sixth category?

the credibility keeper. That's the person who has to, it's similar to the other ones, right? But to them, it's about reputation. Like if I'm not the best, then people will think badly of me and then I won't be successful.

And that comes from, you know, situations where you were, you were forced to be the best. You were the one who had to get all the A's. You were the one, so similar to the athlete, but you would bring shame if you didn't get these things. Where the athlete is more internally motivated to be the best, be the best, be the best.

The credibility person is it's about the connection to reputation. Like if I don't get A's, I'll embarrass my parents. And then my parents will be embarrassed in the community, you know, if I act out at school and, you know, my parents will be embarrassed. You know, small town schools, small town communities, right?

Everybody knows everything about everybody, right? And so this concept of, you know, keeping the family reputation safe is kind of where that person comes from, the credibility keeper. because it's about the credibility of themselves and how that influences the other people around them. Well, as you talked about each one of those, there's a friend or a family member or something that kind of immediately jumped to mind and um those are pretty evident.

I know, you know, the last few years, it seems like everybody has some sort of a personality test, the Enneagram, the Myers-Briggs, the uh various versions of the four different personality types. How are your six? people types kind of distinct or how do they relate to maybe some of those other personality tests or personality categories. Because I think the biggest distinction is that these are perceived as personalities, but they're behaviors.

And so what the importance for me is to connect it to a behavior, because a behavior isn't a flaw, right? When you take a personality test, it's like good or bad, right? Like I'm a good person or a bad person. That enneagram is...

People love it, I find it hard to break down. There's so many moving parts to that. But the biggest thing is that these are behaviors, these aren't personality flaws, these aren't personality traits, these are adaptive strategies. And you just haven't realized that you don't need them anymore, right?

That I'm in a new environment. You know, like for myself, as I was going through my career, I didn't need... to keep people pleasing because all that did was hold me back, right? But when you use the term people pleaser, that puts an identity on you that then is a lot to carry.

Where if you look strictly at the behavior, that's out here. That's an extension of us. That's decision that we make, something that we do, and it can be undone. We can choose to do things differently.

And so that's really... what I want people to understand is that these aren't flaws, these aren't personality traits. These are just adaptive behaviors that happened along the way. ah empowerment to be able to face them or do something about it.

It's not just who you are the way you are, but it's a behavior that you can be in control of. Okay. right. And that's why my work in coaching is a little different is because a lot of people, there's so many good self-help books out there, but there's so many self-help books out there that do this, do that, right?

Look in the mirror and say some mantras about yourself. I mean, I tried that, but until I connected back to why I didn't. why I believed those things about myself, that mantra was just, you know, icing on the cake. It didn't do anything, right?

It didn't change anything. Once I could connect back, oh, this is why, you know, I was told to be a good girl and be quiet and, you know, be soft spoken. Then I can say, okay, so now when I'm feeling like, should I speak up or shouldn't I speak up, you know, in a meeting, I can connect. with that and be like, okay, that was then.

I get why I'm reacting that way, but this is a whole different situation. So then the strategies become helpful. Talk yourself into, what I tell a lot of people, the best thing to do is to remember the exception to the rule, like that time that you nailed it in a meeting or a presentation or. a sales call or something and just really relive that because the brain remembers that.

And so that starts all these neural pathways that we have running around in our brains thinking differently. And it's like remembering it is like being there again. And then the self-confidence comes back. You're like, I did that.

That wasn't a, I'm going to tell myself that I'm going to be great in this meeting. Right? That's a mantra, right? I'm going to do well.

This is, I already did it. I already have the skills in me to do it. And that's so much more empowering. Yeah.

that's good. That's a good turn right there. So I know you mentioned, you know, a lot of these are behaviors that were learned in childhood. were effective coping mechanisms in our, families or school environment as kids that we've just latched onto and won't let go of.

As a parent, if I see one of these patterns, developing in one of my kids is there's something that I can do to try to head that off or give them some resources to help before it follows them into their career. Sure. The biggest thing is to talk about it. Talk about what you're seeing.

So if you have a child that's coming home saying, I'm dumb, I'm not smart, I don't know this, they're in a sports team where they're feeling like they're not good enough, talk to them about it. What's going on? Why do you think that way? Because again, you want to connect the thought.

What thought did they pick up along the way? You know, is it not the right thing for them to be doing? You know, maybe they're in football because that's what everyone's supposed to do, but they hate football, you know, but they're trying to fit in. So all it's really doing is reinforcing that that's not the right choice for them.

And then it's making them feel bad about themselves. know, kids in school, if if you feel like they're starting to take on the personality of some of their friends, right? Because developmentally, that's what kids are supposed to do in adolescence, right? They're supposed to lean more into their friends to begin to get an idea of independence, but you can lean into the wrong friends, right?

So talking to them about... what's going on. your friend said this. Why does your friend think that?

Why do you believe that? You know, just having real honest conversations gives them another way to think about something. And that's really, that's bringing light to it, right? Without shame.

And this is what I tell my clients all the time. You know, we're not going back in the past to find blame or shame. We're just observers. We're just looking, right?

And that's what you want to do with your kids. You know, there's no shame about how you're feeling, but why are you feeling that way? And then what can we do together or what do you need to do yourself about? Yeah.

Okay. That's good stuff. As a parent with young kids, I especially appreciate that. Right, because kids are so influenced by their peers.

You you put them on a boss, they come back hours later, you have no idea what's happened to them, right? You assume they're at school learning, but it's more than book learning that happens in school, as we all know, who have survived school, you know? So asking questions. When they have, you know, when they're standing strong about a certain opinion, why?

you know, where does that come from? You know, is it because your friends say you have to, or is it because you really believe it? If you really believe it, why do you believe it? And so is it a positive core belief, or is it a limiting core belief?

Because there's both. Okay. And I know uh you mentioned it earlier, especially a lot of our audience, men in particular, that they're not real big on therapy. They're not real big on talking about themselves or their problems.

And even a lot of them kind of push back on coaching. What do you have to say to somebody that struggles with, you know, asking for help, somebody that struggles with looking towards coaching to grow? always like to start off asking people what their experiences were and what stereotypes they bring to it, right? Because if you've had a bad experience with a therapist or a coach, I mean, let's face it, like everybody, you know, there's a bad mechanic, there's a bad therapist, right?

Or there's not the right connect for you. um So I like to understand what their history was around that. And a lot, for a lot of people, it's you know, it's cultural. We don't take our problems outside of the family, right?

Everything stays in the family. And then to really help them understand that this is just a conversation, right? That coaching and therapy, it's about a conversation. It's not about, like I said before, it's not about me being the expert in telling you what you're doing wrong, right?

Because we learn to cope with life. Sometimes we do it well, sometimes we don't do it so well, right? Anger is anger. You can be angry about something.

It's how you express that anger that either gets you in trouble or doesn't, right? So let's talk about how you express yourself and is that working for you? So really try to take the pathology out of it, right? That this isn't about finding what's wrong with you.

It's about finding your skills. finding your strengths, and then figuring out how to connect those with the changes that you want to make. Okay. that's good.

I know in our world today, seems like probably because you mentioned some of the benefits of kind of doing coaching rather than therapy, probably because of those same benefits that were there for you starting your business. There's a lot of people that don't have the qualifications, don't have a background, don't have a career as a therapist as you do, or don't have the business experience that are putting themselves out there as coaches and I'm sure we've all been contacted by or gotten the sales pitch from the coaches that really didn't know anything.

What advice would you have for somebody trying to select a qualified coach or a worthwhile coach versus somebody that's going to waste their time and waste their money? Yeah, it's actually something we talk about. It's called a trust recession because there's so many people out there selling things that they don't know anything about. ah And so everybody's weary, you know?

So you wanna know that the person that you're talking to has some experience in the issue that you want to work on, right? So, you know, if you want to... If you want to grow your business, you want to talk to someone who's grown businesses, who knows the ins and outs of business, right? I wouldn't be the right person to help you grow your business.

And like I said, I'm still learning that stuff, but I would be the right person to help you get past your limiting beliefs about why you think you can't run a successful business. So knowing which one you want. And what is the experience? There are some great coaching programs out there.

you know, if the person doesn't have a mental health background, do they have a certification from a legitimate coaching organization? Because they're legitimate coaching organizations, you know, or did someone just put up a shingle because, hey, you I'm good at my job, so I can be good at talking to other people. And so once you know what the qualifications are, what the person can bring to the table, is it a good fit? As you're talking to them, never buy before you have a conversation.

And that was a problem in the mental health world, is you were assigned a therapist, and if you didn't connect with that person, you were considered a problematic patient. What if that person just wasn't a good fit for you? You know, not everybody's a good fit for me. And so to be able to have that ability to select, talk to people, talk to a couple of different people, see what their approach is, see if you feel like you connect with them or if you don't.

If you don't connect, that's again, not a failing of you or necessarily a failing of the coach or the therapist. It's just not the right person for you. Gotcha. Right?

Because we, you can, I say, you know, you can be in love with somebody, but it doesn't mean that they're your person or that person can be a really nice person, but they're not your person, you know? And that's the kind of thing you want with a coach. It has to be your person. It has to be a person you can connect with.

Okay. And so for the person out there that, you know, I think at the beginning of that, you really highlighted, does that coach have to offer what you're looking for? If there's somebody who's maybe bumping up against one of these belief barriers that you deal with and they can't identify that, they know there's something holding them back, but they're just looking to move forward. what advice would you have for that person to kind of dial this in or, or get hooked up with the right coach or, figure out what kind of resource they need.

I would say if you're interested in coaching, then like I said before, it's a little bit harder to find coaches because there's not like a national directory. There's not these directories. But going on Facebook, going on LinkedIn, going and searching for people because then you can see them in action. before you even pick up the phone to call, right?

ah You can see what they're writing, you can see what they're talking about. And then if you're not really ready yet, the best thing to do is to ask yourself some questions. Like take the time to pause and ask myself, why am I feeling this way? Like if the feeling is, I don't have enough.

experience to start my own business, let's say, because we're talking about entrepreneurs. Make yourself a list. Is that what's true about that? What's not true about that?

Right. To see if and then and then test the things that you think are true. Is it true? Like, OK, I don't have enough experience in business.

Can you get that business experience somewhere? You know, can can you take a class? Can you? connect with somebody in the public and then challenge the ones that aren't really true.

Right? that's not really true. That's one of those limiting beliefs. So then you start your brain thinking that way, like always challenging the thought, is it true or is it not true?

Have I always believed it, but is it true? That's the kind of self work you can do. Awesome. Well, I know you said that these patterns show up throughout income levels and backgrounds.

What does this look like for someone who has built some success just from hard work and gotten it out? It looks like, why do you feel like you're still gutting it out? Right? Have you been able to enjoy your success?

Right? Or do you still think, you know, what's the next thing you're afraid is going to happen? Right? Like, at any time, this is going to be taken away from me.

Or, you know, I really don't know enough. You know, what what makes you feel? Because sometimes you're just gutting it out because you have to write. It takes time.

Right? And building a business takes time. So are you giving yourself enough time or are you coming from this fundamental belief that it can't happen? It can't happen for me.

It happens for other people. You know, that's kind of another belief. So ask yourself why. Why are you still gutting it out at this point?

And that's going to help you separate between the reality Okay, it's only been a couple months, you know, you're not possibly going to have enough business yet. Or is it because I just really, I wake up in them all night anxious because, you know, I don't know something, I missed something, I should have done something, you know, listen for the should have's, you know, I should have done this, I should have done that. I should have said this. Those should have's kind of start to indicate a belief.

Well, um, yeah, if you don't mind, maybe we'd take a couple of minutes as you're talking here, I'm kind of walking through some of my own personal experiences. I definitely fall into that, uh, overachiever category. I just feel like I always have something to prove or have to keep proving my worth. have a hard time just being and being accepted as I am.

And, uh, looking back over my career. running the business I just sold. yeah, I definitely fell into that, you know, just working hard and had to keep working hard. And I think the fear was hard work and getting it out in the beginning when I had to was what got me to where I was.

And that if I ever stopped that level of hard work, it would all go away. So someone with those tendencies, someone kind of sitting in that position I was in, what advice would you have or what would the coaching process look like? Well, we would start by trying to understand like, why do you feel like you have to be the best? You know, where did that come from for you?

How far back in your life can you remember feeling that way? You know, because once you can connect to that, then that starts to inform all these other decisions you've made because that's what you believe. So, you know, if... If failure meant that it would, you know, that people would say, see, I told you so you weren't good enough to do that.

Right. Then this fear of being found out, right, that you really aren't good enough lingers. And so you put all this energy into making sure that you are good enough and that this is successful because you're going to prove that person or those people wrong. Right.

But the success may have nothing to do with you, right? If the market crashes, that's not about your, you you're not being good enough. So you have to be able to separate that, you know, what is my ability to run a business and what are the factors that I can't control for, right? And then you start to understand that, okay, this is about, you know, I feel like I have to prove something.

Do I? Now I'm an adult, you know, do I have to prove to that, you know, bully back in high school or that coach who said I wasn't good enough or that teacher who said I would never make anything of myself? You know, do I really have to prove to them or do I know that I did my best? Because failure is a part of life, right?

Did I learn from it? Did I grow from it? You know, And so understanding those things, understanding where that's coming from helps you to let it go. So, okay, maybe, you know, what if my business hadn't been successful, right?

Was it truly because of anything I did or, you know, was it the market? Was it the timing? You know, if you were, you know, a realtor in the, during the crash, right? Oh who lost, you know, lost everything and it wasn't anything to do with them.

The market fell out of the economy, right? And then the other thing that I see for people like you is you never take the time to enjoy your success because you're so worried about keeping it going, right? So it's important to stop. And again, these are messages we're given.

Don't promote yourself, you know, don't. Don't be that person who's always talking about themselves, right? But take time to enjoy your success, even if you do it quietly, you know, just you. You know, wow, I did this.

Look at where my business is, you know? And you made a business big enough that you could sell it and somebody else wanted to buy it, you know? I did that and I should take some time to revel in that. Because that's not conceit.

That's just... appreciating that all that energy you put into that. But we look at it sometimes from societies being you know conceded, you know being boastful. That's just honesty.

That is just I did this you know. I'm not throwing it in somebody else's face. That's boastful right. But look at me.

Look what I did. Go me. We're not good at that. And we need to be.

And I hear uh a lot of the stories when we dive into kind of the mental health world and even some of the things you alluded to, it seems like there's a preponderance of them, a majority of them that tend to come from the parents or family. At least just for my personal experience when I look back. Uh, my parents were just wonderful. I think a lot of the baggage I carry did not come from my, my parents or my family.

They were very encouraging, but as uh a young person, I fit in better with the adults and, maybe got some recognition or praise from the adults in my life, and had a hard, harder time connecting with my peers. And so I think that's where a lot of the overachieving, part came from was. trying to prove to my peers the same thing that was being recognized by the adults in my life. Is that something that's common or does that play a role?

Is it more common for those behaviors to be built at home and in the home environment or is that peer environment as significant? think the peer environment, think, you they kind of, you you can have a good home environment. And if you have difficult peers, or you have difficulty connecting with peers, you know, they, because they carry so much weight in how we think about ourselves, what we believe about ourselves, that's such a powerful time. And there's this social expectation, right?

You're in school, you're supposed to be getting along with everyone, you're supposed to have a friend group, you're supposed to be able to connect. But you grow up in a small community, maybe you haven't found your tribe yet, right? Because you're there because your parents are there, but maybe you're really interested in computers and everyone else wants to learn how to work on their car, you know? ah you're a guy who wants to be an artist, but you're supposed to be on the football team.

That's where peer influence can be so powerful. So I think it doesn't always come from the home. It comes from so many different areas. And again, if your parents never didn't know because you didn't talk to them about it, how could they help guide you through those questions you had?

Yeah. Because God forbid we talked to our parents when we were teenagers, they don't know anything. Well, I appreciate that because that was something that struggled or I struggled with a little bit diving into some of my own proclivities and um just personality was everybody I talked to, they could trace kind of their faults or their personality back to their home. And that never made sense to me.

The things I struggled with were not things that I learned at home. It was more, um you know, the friend group or the peers. So awesome. They're very powerful.

Yeah. So I know you talked about, you know, one of your proclivities or something you tend towards is to be the person that pleases everybody, holds everything together, just kind of takes the weight of all of it on your shoulders. What is the cost of a life lived that way? What is the result if we don't address that and deal with it?

burnout, depression, lack of satisfaction in life, this sort of resentment that I never get to do anything for me, nothing's ever about me. And then you start to resent the people around you who act that way because I wanna say you allowed them to act that way because that sounds judgmental, but because this is the way you operated, right? people began to see you that way. she's the person I can go to.

Oh, she's the go-to. If I go to her and ask her, she'll fix it. She'll make it all better because you do it. So you're reinforcing this is the way people see you.

And so for me, I burned out of jobs that I just kept doing because you couldn't not do it, but I gave so much. And I lost perspective of where does work and family start? And I see this a lot with people building businesses, moving up in their careers. So you gotta be able to keep that balance because once you lose the balance, you can lose relationships, you can lose yourself.

There's a very high cost to it. And it happens so gradually. That old... adage about the frog that you slowly warm the water up and it'll boil, right?

That's what this is like. It's like a slowly boiling until your frog soup. Yeah. Well, it sounds like a big piece for almost all of the six categories here is really coming to grips with what you can and can't control and not overreaching your sphere of control.

Do you have any tips for kind of identifying the things that we try to carry that are outside of our control or ignoring the things that... uh are within our control that we should be leveraging. Yeah, you know, it's so simple, but ask yourself why? Like, why do I feel like this is my responsibility?

Why do I feel like this is mine to fix? Right? Because sometimes it is yours to fix, right? So you wanna, you always wanna separate out, right?

this really isn't, you know, take, you know, parenting, for example, you know, we wanna fix everything. We want our kids to have a perfect life and not have any harm come their way. But when they're coming to you with a problem and your instinct is to fix it, ask yourself, do I need to? What am I taking away from him or her by fixing it for them?

If someone asks you to do something, Is it mine to like, do I have to do it? We see this a lot. This is where it gets complicated. The sandwich generation, right?

Where we're taking care of our parents, right? And they need something. Where do you draw the line between what do I do and what don't I do? That's a different situation, right?

Because your parents need you. They need you to do something. They need you to take them to the doctor or something. But if a friend is coming to you to ask you to move them for like the eighth time in their life and you're busy that weekend, is it really my responsibility?

Who else can help? Who else can fix that situation? So understanding the difference between, is this really my responsibility? And if it is, how much responsibility do I need to take and how much do I need to give to the person, right?

And, no, this really isn't mine. This is gonna make me feel better to do this thing because it's gonna make me look better, right? But I'm gonna be angry about it the whole time, right? And I'm gonna be mad.

So, where's the win there, right? Yeah. asking the why, it's such a simple question, but why? Why do I think this is mine?

Why do I think this is my responsibility? And if the answer is no, it's not, then that's where the hard work starts of changing the way you've always interacted with other people. I'm sorry, I can't now. My kid's got a ball game I've got to be at, practicing, and that's where coaching.

comes in is helping you to practice to prepare for those situations. Because it's easy to say, I don't want to do that anymore. It's hard to stop doing that anymore. Yeah.

There's uh a, podcaster that I listened to that, frequently says choose guilt over resentment. That it's better to feel guilty about not doing something you feel like you should than to do something and resent doing it. Yeah. Right, because one of those two is going to come out.

Right. And you can learn how to deal with the guilt. Because again, you connect it back to other things and you teach your brain that I don't have to. I don't have to carry guilt.

Yeah, yeah, it's not yours to carry to begin with most of the time. So great. Well, I know you've worked a lot with women, mostly because the men just don't always reach out for help. these six patterns that you've identified, are there some that are more prevalent with men or women?

Or do they? manifest differently, typically with women versus men. You know, not so much differently. um lot of men that I work with are people pleasers, right?

They think that they have to be the one to keep the peace. I think you would probably see, you know, a bit more of the qualifier type person in men because that's about, you know, men are socialized. Like we said, to be the breadwinner, to be the achiever, a sign of my ability to care for my family is that if my wife chooses to, she can stay home. But now I'm the sole breadwinner.

Now I have all this pressure to bring the income in. And where does that come from? Does that come from being told throughout life that that's what your job is? Does that come from?

this need to prove that you're the best of the best, and that those tend to be the way men are socialized. Okay. All right. But perfectionism comes in there too, because again, that's a way of controlling the outcome.

If I make sure that everything is perfect, then everything will be okay. Yeah. It seems like a lot of these just come back again and again and again to control in one mechanism or another. It's probably as, you know, as kids, there's the chaos we live in, the world feels out of control and we develop these behaviors that feel like a level of control really when they aren't.

Like you said, the people pleasing kid trying to make dad happy when he's just in a bad mood, it has nothing to do with them. right, right, right. But it is all about a sense of control and how we control the world and how we understand the world around us at whatever age that was. Yeah, interesting.

Yeah, it's interesting stuff. Well, this is my favorite question I ask of every guest. Are you a person of a particular faith tradition? And if so, how has that shaped your career and your work?

I've actually had a very sad religious experience. the Catholic priest that we went to forever, you know, was on suspicious, sudden leave for a long period of time. And then we went to another church where it was a more affluent community and we were the farm kids, so we were never accepted. So I kind of drifted away from the church.

But while I was working at the hospital, I met an amazing priest and nun who worked there, two beautiful human beings, but they didn't have parishes. And as an adult, you know, we tried some churches and the pastor was asked to leave because he was having an affair with a married woman in the congregation. So we've just kind of floated away from trying to find, you know, was like disappointment after disappointment. But regardless of that, and having had those experiences, I understand how important religion is to people.

And so I always honor that in the work I do. If that is something that's important to you, then we need to use that as one of your strengths. although I may not follow any particular religion. I'm not going to in any way undermine anybody else's religion.

If that works for you, let's figure out how to use that as a strength. It can be, you know, beautiful community for people. It can give a lot of internal strength. So that's kind of the way I look at religion in this work.

Okay. Is there somebody that you'd like to see on the show, somebody you know or know of that has a really interesting story or an interesting business that you'd like to learn more about? you know, I should talk to my brother-in-law who's just selling, and it's going to be awful that I don't know the name of the company. cause he's, his father started the business and, and he took it over.

they sell cow milking machines. I don't know. There's a name for it. but it's the machinery, you know, people are not out there milking cows by hand anymore.

Yeah. um And he just got a contract on his business to hopefully sell. He might be very interesting person to talk to that journey of taking on his father's business. And then his boys just have different interests.

They're in teaching and nursing. so there was no one to pass the business on to. Yeah, well that would be quite fascinating. I love unusual businesses that people just don't think of.

So um yeah, if you don't mind sending an email or making an introduction, that would be fantastic. Well, our last question, I ask most of our guests. I know this is a little bit out of your wheelhouse, but we'll let you throw in your opinion. If you have a job to do and need a cordless tool, do you have a preference as to which brand you use?

Is it Ryobi? It's the yellow one with the power packs, right? and DeWalt is usually associated with yellow, but Ryobi is another brand as well. Okay.

because we have the whole garage is full of Ryobi because it's also, it's great. It's all, you just, this battery goes with that battery, goes with that battery. You can use it all. Yeah, so, and my father taught me how to use tools, so.

Good deal. Good deal. Is there something that we're missing here? I just think the important thing that we've talked about is that it doesn't matter what kind of job you have or where you're living.

We all have this common human experience of we're just trying to figure out how the world works. And sometimes we get it right and sometimes we're a little off. and we need a little readjusting. It's like a car maintenance, right?

Sometimes you need to tune up. if some of our listeners are wanting to reach out to you or take advantage of some of your resources and engage you as a coach, what's going to be the best way to get in touch with you? way is probably through my website which is aligned core life coaching.com because you can through there you can or hello at aligned core life coaching is my email you could email me directly or schedule a time just to chat I always like to to offer like I said time for people to talk first you don't just have to sign up you know let's have a conversation let's see what's going on and then decide if it's right for you or not That's great.

Well, I'll make sure we include that link in the show notes. So if the listeners want to engage with you, they can just click that link and touch base with you there. man, it's been a pleasure chatting with you. I really appreciate you taking the time to come on the show.

yeah, I appreciate your honest questions. Yeah, good And thank you guys for joining us again here on From the Ground Up Show. Again, if you would do me a favor, like, share, follow, subscribe on whatever platform you're listening on. Do the same on social media.

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