Why Hiding Your Trauma Makes You a Weaker Leader (and How to Break the Cycle)

And a lady, she came in and she was a coach for women, and she did retreats. And when she sat down with me, she goes, I feel like an imposter. And I said, why? And she says, because I help these women, and I know I'm a good coach and I'm helping them, but I will never tell them my story. Oh, I've had so much trauma. And she says, if I start to talk about it, I'll break down. And she says, and nobody wants coach breaking down crying, telling them their problems, right? So she says, I hide it. I push it down. I just don't want to deal with it. And she says, but it doesn't mean I'm not a good coach. And I said, I would agree. I mean, that doesn't matter. I says, but imagine how that next level, you got another gear. Yeah. And I said, so let's get that trauma cleared up so that you can perform at your highest level. That's why we called our program the Inspired Performance Program. It's not about trauma, it's about performance. So let's get you to your next level. So anyway, I took her through the program. She had really crushing trauma. I mean, some really serious stuff. And I met her three months later, and she said to me, she says, you're going to love this story. She says, I was doing a retreat, and I was talking to all the women, and I'm going, and as I'm talking, I'm going, I'm talking about my trauma. And she says, and they were loving it. And she goes, it really made me realize how much they needed to hear that, how I started to heal. And so she says, I didn't break down. I wasn't falling apart. You know, I was able to deal with it and talk to them. And they would then started to open up more. She says, so I became a much better coach.

Absolutely beautiful. I do a lot around communication and being able to, like that example you gave, being open to people, talk about, be your authentic self, and, you know, it. Sometimes I cringe at hearing, but it's so much of that communication and being open and vulnerable and to share and just effectively communicate. Like thinking about your daughter, too, and. And how much, you know, having held on to. And not communicating. So how do you. How do you look at communication and how much of that is involved, I guess.

And, oh, it's so important. So I have a whole series of audios after they go through the program talking about how to become a better communicator. So I just wrote my Fourth book called Don't Mess With My DNA. And the idea behind is to talk to parents. If you want to have a great life for your child, create safety in your home. And it's all about communication. How do you communicate with your children? How do you communicate with your spouse? Not only your children, your spouse.

Spouse. Because they. They observe that. And to yourself, how you communicate to your. To yourself about your body or how you think.

I. I remember my dad. I mean, he was. He taught me so much. 1. I think I was 15, 16. And obviously I never yelled at my mom or never he. That wouldn't have been allowed anyway. But I remember I said to my mom, she said something, and I made this flippant remark, like, okay, yeah, whatever, right? And I didn't know my dad was right around the corner. And as I walked around, he was there. And this is what he said to me. He says, she may be your mother, but she's my wife, and I don't allow anybody to be rude to her. Now, don't ever do that again. What a message. How to treat women.

What a message. Yeah.

And then that wasn't me yelling, raising my voice, swearing. It was just rude, right? You respect your mother because she's my wife, and I don't want anybody to disrespect her. So that kind of language, always being surrounded by it and the way he treated us as children. I mean, both my mother and father would discipline us if we did something wrong, but it was never in anger. It was like, you made a mistake, here's the consequences. And my dad always said, you can disagree with anything I say as long as you're respectful. If you're not respectful, the conversation's over. He would end it. So if you wanted to communicate, you better do it with respect, because you're not getting his attention unless you do. And I don't. I don't even remember ever being disrespectful to him. The only thing I ever did. And I. Oh, I felt so bad afterwards. And it was always one of those things that bothered me because my brother, who was the oldest, he was 10 years older than me. He was the natural child. My sister was adopted as well. But I remember I wanted something, and my parents said no. And I said to my mother, I said, well, you'd probably do it for your natural son. As soon as I said it, it was just like, that was so wr.

Right?

And then I heard. So my mom told my dad, and I heard my dad come in, and he's going, why Would he say that we've never treated him any differently. And I was just like, did I hurt them?

Right.

That was so wrong. Right. But again, it's experiences. Right. Learning. But my dad didn't yell at me. Right. They didn't say, you know, how dare you. Right. They just took it and, you know, took that on themselves. But never blame me.

Yeah.

But again, that's that communication. Right.

Communication. So huge.

Yeah.

The key to all of it, I feel like, is communication. Every success, every connection, every disconnection. Yeah.

And even in. And I'm sure this is what you do in your 180 method as well. It's about how we're communicating with them so that they can hear the message.

Yes. Yeah.

And so the words you choose, everything that you're doing are so impactful.

Yes.

And just saying the wrong word can really send a. A different message.

Right. And to the point of, like, your. Your wife's example of her upbringing and that experience that she had, like you were communicating maybe the right words or even in a particular tone, but the perception of how she was encoding the message based upon her own experience and filter is, you know, it's like, that's another reason why it's so important that we do this healing work so that you can hear what's actually being said versus the what you're encoding a message to be based upon your own perception of it. Because we could. Even the word love, like, there's the content and the context of words. So the content is, you know, how you would define what love means. But there's all sorts of different types of love and the definition of it. But then you throw in context of tone and tempo, and, you know, somebody could be saying, I love you, and it's like, well, dude, really? Versus I love you.

Right.

Like, okay, I get it.

Yeah.

Communication. There's so many intricacies to it. And yes, one of the fundamental pieces of the 180 is, I call it the communication solution. How to actually be able to communicate through the sender and the receiver.

I talk about the words in the music. So the music could be saying, I love you, but the words aren't saying that. So you think you're communicating by saying I love you, but the words you chose. Right. Are received differently. And the words that you chose, you may have meant them one way, but if they have experience. Right. That that word was hurtful and you don't understand why they just got upset when you said something. Well, they had been hurt once before, many times before with that type of language or those types of words, right? Like, I give an example is you could see your spouse struggling with something, and you start to laugh and you go, oh, my gosh, you look so cute when you struggle like that. But that was an insult by a parent, right? And so now they immediately take the hurt in because they filter through what they know about that particular sentence or language. And I give an example in the book that when my wife was growing up, I mean, obviously she had very traumatic childhood with a very angry father. Lots of stuff going on in the household. So she's 6 years old, and a lot of it comes between those early ages, you know, four to seven, even all the way back to zero. So she gets invited to a tea party by some of the mothers in the neighborhood. They invite all the little girls to this tea party. So her grandmother dresses her all up, and she's telling me this story. She's in her 20s, and she's sobbing, telling me this story. This is before I had this program developed. And she said to me, says, I get to the party, and one of the mothers, when I come in, she looks at me and she goes, oh, my gosh, Bridget, you're going to be such a heartbreaker when you grow up. And all the other mothers are like, oh, my gosh, yes, definitely, Bridget's going to be a heartbreaker. She said she got sick to her stomach and went home. What she heard was, you're going to hurt people. You're going to break people's hearts. She doesn't know that they're complimenting her because she doesn't know that language. And so I talk when I say to parents, be careful of the words you choose, because a child's growing up with no life experience, and they're going to interpret that. And so on the funny side, I give it when I was growing up, and I still remember this is. My mother would say she used to use this term all the time. It's difficult to make ends meet. And I honestly believe, Alejandra, that they were having a problem with meat. I couldn't understand what this problem with meat is. Like, you can't make the meat meat. Like, how is. How's that work? And I never asked. I wouldn't question it, because I'm just like, okay, we're having a problem with meat in this house. I have no idea what the problem is. But again, it's just the language. So I don't know that she's talking about. Financially, it's tough to make, you know, the ends meet. So why that language is so important is if you can illustrate with the best of intentions. Now, that wasn't traumatic to me. It was just confusing. But it could have easily been traumatic if they used the wrong words.

Yeah.

Be very careful the words you choose, even with your partner.

Absolutely.

You don't know how that word could affect them.

No. And we're so programmed and used to not sharing. I'm asking a question of I'm giving some meaning, or I'm interpreting that word into this certain way. Could you explain that further for me like that, how beautiful and healthy that would be if you could just verbalize how something is being interpreted or landing instead of taking it personally and using some kind of avoiding mechanism.

Yeah. I use. When people ask me that, what do I do in that kind of situation? I say, here's some really powerful words I say. Say something like this. I can see you're upset. Can you help me to understand what I did to upset you? Because what you're saying is, I'm accepting that I've upset you. Help me understand what I did because I want to fix it. I don't want to upset you. So you're not blaming them for getting upset. You're saying, help me understand.

Right. You're taking ownership of that as opposed.

To, why are you upset with me? But then they become defensive.

Yes.

Because it's like you're attacking me.

Yeah, yeah. The. The why question is very defense. Yeah. Driven. It really does bring out those defense modes when you ask a why question.

Or a question where you're trying to get a yes out of somebody you know. Have you heard of I'm a member of Genius Network. Have you ever heard of Genius?

I have, yes.

Yeah. One of the members there, his name's Chris Voss. Chris Voss is the. Or was, I guess, a hostage negotiator for the FBI. And he has so many great little terms. And so I was flying to the Genius Network two weeks ago, and another gentleman, a Genius member, we were both flying on the same flight. And so he said, what seat are you in? And what seat am I in? We were one apart. So he said, well, maybe we can get the person in one of the seats to move. So he said, let's use the Chris Voss approach. Right. And he. And it works so easily. So the approach was. He came up to the person sitting in the seat beside him and he says, I don't know if this is a crazy idea. He starts off so immediately. What's the person thinking? They've got some crazy idea.

He says, my. My friend is sitting in this seat and you're in the seat beside me. Would it be crazy if I asked if it's possible to switch seats? And what do they say? You're not saying yes, they're just saying no. It's not crazy.

Yeah.

They're not having to say yes and go, oh, no, no, that's crazy.

Yeah, but it's that kind of language, right, that it just sort of takes, you know, just. I love that kind of stuff.

I do, too. It's so great. Yeah.

That's what he always says. Never ask him a question they have to say yes to. Right?

Yeah.

It's always like, would there be an issue, you know, if I asked you this, or would it be an issue? Always getting them to go into the opposite as opposed. When people say they have to say yes, they're immediately saying, how do I get hurt in this? How am I becoming vulnerable by saying yes?

Right. How am I not safe in it?

But when you get them to think the other way is, you're just asking, would this be a problem to do?

Yeah.

No. Oh, good.