The WHY Of Contribute: Building Up Your Confidence With Brianne Ligori

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Welcome to beyond you'd why podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually help you discover and then live your why. You see, we believe that knowing your why, that driving force behind every decision you make and every action you take, is the essential first step to really knowing yourself. It allows you to move forward faster and have a bigger impact. If you're already a fan of the show, then you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we introduce you to somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. This show will be more powerful for you if you've already discovered your why. If you still need to do that, head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. It'll only take you about five minutes. Now let's meet today's guest.

Welcome to beyond you'd why Podcast, where we go beyond just talking about your why and actually helping you discover and then live your why. So if you're a regular listener, you know that every week we talk about one of the nine whys and then we bring on somebody with that why so you can see how their why has played out in their life. And so this week we're going to be talking about the why of contribute to contribute to a greater cause, add value, have an impact in the lives of others. So if this is your why, then you want to be part of a greater cause, something that is bigger than yourself. You don't necessarily want to be the face of the cause, but you want to contribute to it in a meaningful way. You love to support others and you relish successes that contribute to the greater good of the team. You see group victories as personal victories. You are often behind the scenes looking for ways to make the world better. You make a reliable and committed teammate and you often act as the glue that holds everyone else together. You use your time, money, energy, resources and connections to add value to other people and organizations. So today I've got a great guest for you. Her name is Brianne Liguori and she lives and leads from the heart. She believes that everybody can and should live a life of purpose and joy. In her writing and coaching, Brianne is focused on a worldview of infinite possibilities and and relentless pursuit of purpose. She sets an inspiring example by standing firmly for living according to her inner truth. Choosing Joy, Brianne bravely set aside her dazzling corporate career to follow her bliss, sharing purpose driven choices with the world. Brianne worked in the corporate world for many years where she raised the bar in varying roles in sales, marketing and training. Her desire to help people grow and learn led her to a professional coaching certification through ICF and Certified Training and Development designation. Through coaching and training, Brianne has left an indelible mark on people by igniting their sense of purpose. But her more significant legacy is to build new coaches. She put her designation to work in her corporate world by creating an internal coaching certification program, thereby empowering other leaders to leave their mark. Going even deeper, Brianne embraced her emerging passions to touch people more profoundly and launched two new businesses. Brianne co founded the Leader Coach Intensive, a coach certification program specifically targeting developing leaders of the future. Brianne is also poised to launch a comprehensive learning program to accompany her inspiring book Claim youm TGI Today, you can be in awe of how Brianne lives her life with passion and joy, or you can jump into her safe hands and learn how to live yours that way. Brianne, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much. I am so excited to be here. Gary.

Well, that was a mouthful. So we have got a lot to unpack.

We sure do.

So tell everybody. Where are you at right now? Where did you grow up? Take us back into your childhood and give us a sense of what you were like when you were younger.

Yes. So I am currently in Paris, Ontario. So for anybody who doesn't know where that is, it's about an hour outside of Toronto in Canada. And I grew up in Brantford, so, you know, just down the road from here. A really great family, amazing parents, really close bond with my mom, still do of course today athletics. So totally goes with a profile of contribute again. So I was a competitive swimmer up until university. I did racing, but I also did synchronized swimming later in high school. So lots of fun with that. But for me as a child looking back, I was always sort of labeled as that shy, quiet child. And looking at me now, I would never really think of myself as that. So it's interesting how that path has kind of unfolded from seeing myself as shy because that's what I was kind of told I was. So I started to become that to now really just, you know, living my true authentic self, which is super far away from being shy and having lots of fun just getting out there and speaking to people all over the world.

So when did you have that revelation that, hey, maybe I'm not shy, I'm different than what I've been told I was?

Yeah, it's actually quite interesting. It was one specific moment and this wasn't until actually after I had My kids, So I have 10 year old twins. So this goes back to when they were just babies. And I had a really fantastic manager at the time I was in the pharmaceutical industry. Her name was Mano. And I remember coming back after maternity leave going, I feel like there's something else. Like I want to do something more than my current job. And I remember approaching Mano and saying, hey, Mano, I want to try something different, but I'm too shy and quiet to do any of the leadership roles that are available. And she said, whoa, whoa, whoa, put the brakes on. You are not shy. You need to build confidence. And that is exactly what we did together. She supported me to build my confidence, so I was comfortable in starting to step into some of those leadership roles. And that is when I started to kind of get my stride. So I owe so much of where I am today to Mano and I'm so grateful and I know she knows that and. But that was the moment. Sometimes just these one moment can make such a difference in our lives.

So you graduated high school, went off to you guys call it university.

Yeah.

And what did you study in university?

So I ended up studying kinesiology and health science. One of those kind of girls that didn't feel like I fit in any of the boxes. Like back in the 90s, it was like you went to school to be a lawyer or a teacher or a doctor. And for me, I had no clue what I wanted to do. I never really kind of felt like I fit into any of those things. Being a leader wasn't really on the list, like at all. So I had no clue that came later in life. So I took something that looked like it looked good on paper. Ah, kinesiology and health science. That sounds cool. I think that might please people. So I took that program, but honestly, like, it wasn't in my heart. And because of that, I kind of sucked at it. Like, I got kicked out of my program first year, had to take the full rest of those four years to get back into the program with my cumulative average so I could graduate from that program. And I got that, which was great. But man, it was a grind because it just wasn't really who I was. But I didn't know that at the time to be able to kind of label that. I just felt like something was off or wrong. I didn't feel myself then. I've learned a lot through that experience, that's for sure.

So for the regular listeners that know about the yos, your why, how and what, right before we Started, I had Brianne take her yos, the full yos. So we knew her why, how, and what. And so Brianne's why is to contribute to a greater cause. Like we talked about. How she does that is by challenging the status quo and thinking outside the box. And ultimately what she brings is a better way to move forward. And so when you were talking about, I just don't fit, I don't ever. I always felt like a fish out of water. I didn't feel like I knew what direction to go. That is so in line with the why of challenge. Right. With in your case, the how of challenge. Because you don't. Right. You don't think the same as everybody else. You weren't born to fit in. You were born to stand out and trying to fit in. What was that like for you to try to be shy, to try to be the one that fits in?

Oh, it was painful. I think that I really didn't get to the place until I was in my 30s, late 30s now, going into my 40s, where I'm, like, truly in myself. But for so many years, like, I just wasn't sure what it was, to be honest. Like, everything looked okay from the outside. I was in the cool crowd, invited to parties and all those things. But when I was doing all of those things and the things that you're supposed to do, like the rite of passage things, like I was like, felt almost sick to your stomach. Like, you're just. But what's wrong with me? You start thinking there's something wrong with you. So really knowing some of these deeper pieces around the why is so helpful, and it's putting a lot of the pieces of the puzzle together for me now.

And so, okay, so then you went into. You graduated with kinesiology and health science.

Yeah.

And then where did you go from there?

Well, I did what everyone you would think I would do coming out of kinesiology. I became a gym manager. What else do you expect? Right? Because again, it was expected of me. And I hated it. I hated every minute of it. It was just terrible. Like, going around the club and talking to all these people I didn't know. And it just was not for me. But through that, I actually met a really great woman named Paula. And she owned an insurance brokerage. And she said, why the heck are you doing this, Brianne? Like, come and work for me. Come and do sales. So then I ended up going to work for Paula at her insurance brokerage, and I was a sales rep for a couple of years with her. Didn't love insurance. Like didn't quite feel right there. But I really love the connection with people that I was having and starting to gain my confidence in that area. So through that I ended up getting an opportunity at a medical device company. It's actually was Bayer at the time. And so I went and worked with them. And then really that was the start of my 17 year corporate career in pharmaceuticals in so many different roles. I really had a blast. I had so much fun. Like, I didn't leave that because I hated it. I left it because I was being pulled towards something different. But it really, that's where I started to get my stride because I was able to really show up as who I was to try leadership roles to. Again, back to my why help people? Like, I was leading teams, I was training coaches to be better at what they're doing and now it's so it's all making sense now.

Isn't that weird?

Yeah.

So it was fun because you weren't in a box. Fun because you weren't told what you had to do. Fun because you could choose or what made it fun for you.

I think it was fun because it was always a challenge. So I had 10 different roles in those 17 years. Looking back at my career. So I was jumping every year and a half to two years to a new opportunity so that I could learn something new, try new skills. I grabbed those skills and then I'd go to the next thing and I'd apply them there. I'd learn some new stuff, make some things better and go to the next.

And so then you started coaching and then what called you?

So what sort of sparked me leaving the business is that I had this one particular role and it was a coach training role. So I created a coach training program for the entire organization. All of the managers at one of the pharma companies that I was working with. And through that I actually met my current business partner on my coach training business. Her name is Belinda Clemenson and I hired her in to help me build this program. Honestly, sparks flew like we just connected like no tomorrow. We had fun because we were creating, we were creating this amazing program that had never been created before. It was like unchartered territory. And then as we started to roll this out to the organization, to the leadership team, people were like, holy crap, you guys are good at this. Wow. You should make a business out of this. And at the time, I was still very much in my ego where I was like, no, no, I need to climb the corporate ladder. I need to go to the next role. So I wasn't ready. I kind of said yeah, maybe one day. But over maybe a three or four year period it kept coming back. So people just kept bringing this up and kept saying, you need to kind of start your own business. And then the ultimate moment where I made the choice was when one of the women's leadership groups that Belinda and I were leading at the time said we want to become certified coaches and we want to learn from you guys. They didn't give us a choice. Like it was like this is happening. So Belinda and I looked at each other and we said okay. And then we started building it. We started piloting the program while I was still of course at my full time job. As if I didn't have enough to do with two kids and a full time job that I'd start a couple of businesses on the side. So we built that and then I actually left my corporate job last May.

Love it. And what's the name of your company now?

So the one organization is called the Leader Coach Intensive. So at that program we actually train people to either become certified coaches or we go into organizations to help their leaders just become more coach like because that is really the leadership of the future is coaching.

And so what type of coaching is involved in leader coaching? Like what do you do, what do you work with them on?

So we actually develop their coaching skills. So we don't actually necessarily do a bunch of executive coaching with them. If they want that we can we actually pull in other people to do that work. Now we are actually training them to become coaches and build their coaching skills. So of course they can help their team to be better. Again connected to my why that contribute is really supporting people to be better leaders, to be more human in their leadership. So rather than the old traditional hierarchy, right of I'm the leader, I'm up here, you're down here. It's helping bringing them more to a human, to human level because that's where connection is going to happen. It's not going to happen when I'm up here and you're here and I'm scared of you. It's when I feel like we're side by side walking this path together. We may have different roles that that's okay, but it's we're humans in this together. So that's what we're supporting people to do in that business.

I love it. And so then you develop. Well, on the note of what you were talking about there, as far as your why is concerned Another way that I've heard people talk about the why of contribute is to be that pebble that causes the wave or the ripple effect that goes on and on in the lives of others. Right. So you're that little pebble that's helping create this bigger and bigger impact, and that's how you maximize your impact, Right?

Yeah. That's a great way to look at it.

Yeah. And so then you develop the. And I don't even know if I said it correctly. The TGI today. Is that correct?

Yeah. So my book is called Claiming youg TGI Today. So that's my other business. What was I thinking, launching two businesses at once? But for some reason, I thought I could do it.

Lots of fun. So I ended up starting to write this book almost about four years ago now. And the way this kind of happened is I was starting to see, myself included, the world, really, in this state of what I call tgif. We live in a TGIF society where everybody is wishing for the next thing. So totally cool to love Fridays. We all do. But it's when it's more than Fridays, when we're looking for that next promotion, that next house, that next relationship. Sometimes people even say, I can't wait till retirement. I'll be happy then. And sometimes that's 10 years away or 20 years away. So people are looking for happiness in the future. That's what I was really noticing, rather than actually finding it today. And so my book is a journey to help people shift from trying to find joy in the future to actually finding it today. Because we never know if the future will be there for us. Hmm. Yeah.

And how do you define joy?

This is such a good question. Actually, somebody asked me that recently. Like, she said to me, what do you think the difference between happiness and joy is? And I started to really dive into that because I thought that was such a great question. And I feel like happiness is. It's in those. Those small moments. So I get that promotion. Okay. I feel happy for a moment. You know, I went out for a great meal with my family. I feel happy in that moment, but I feel like joy is a deeper feeling. Joy is something where we don't have to feel happy in a moment to feel joyous. Joy is about really, for me, knowing who you are, what you want, and being able to live a life that is aligned with that. That is joy to me.

Ah. So living in alignment with. With what?

With who you are. Like, what really matters to you at a core.

Interesting. We talk a lot about living in line, you know, living in alignment with your why? Because that's when you have passion for what you do. That's when you love what you're doing. Like, in your case, you're living right now in alignment with your why of contributing to other people's success. And that brings you joy. Right. That's the lane that which. That's the lane where you feel at your best. Right. Have the most energy, love it. Every day. We'll do it for free. Probably have many times.

Oh, yeah.

Exactly. I did thousands and thousands of why discoveries for free. Because it was a better way.

Right.

Couldn't stop myself. Right. It's kind of what you can't stop yourself from doing.

Yeah, yeah. It's those things that just. It's almost like time stands still in those moments. Right. It doesn't feel like work because it's just you have that passion for it.

So how do you go about helping people to find their joy?

So the journey in my book is all based on my TGI Today formula. So the TGI Today formula is purpose plus people plus pace, and it sits on a foundation of the power of choice. So when I was doing a lot of my discovery work around this and a lot of my pilot projects and all of this, we dove into the factors that really came together to bring people joy, and these were the main ones that kept coming up as a theme. So purpose, of course, we know that that's pretty much connected with your why. Right? It's what am I here on Earth to achieve? What really lights my fire in my belly? People surrounding ourselves with people that are going to lift us up, support us to find joy, support us to meet our goals rather than dragging us down, draining our energy, and then pace. Living at a pace that is right for you. And this is one that I am finding is probably the biggest opportunity for most people. Our lives are busy, right? Like, working often, caretaking for people. We often have a partner that we're supporting as well, maybe aging parents, all sorts of different things. And in life, we feel like we have to be everything to everybody, and it can be really hard to keep up with the pace and the demands. So that's another really key factor that we look at in the book. And then all of that is dependent on the power of choice. So if something in your purpose, your people, or your pace is not lining up with your joy, you have the power of choice to do something different so that you can really design a life that you love. Hmm.

You mean it's up to me. Are you kidding me?

Up to you.

What the heck? It was up to somebody else.

Yeah. Nope. It's all in here. It's all in your control.

So if you're not getting the results that you thought you should, thought you could, thought you would, you can actually change that.

You can use your power of choice. And I think a lot of times people don't really realize that. We don't, we didn't really get taught that in school. It was always somebody else's model. We were being taught in school. So we didn't really grow up in that way. I think things are changing now. I'm seeing that with my kids. It's really shifted to a lot more internal. But the thing is, when we chase this TGIF life, a lot of the things that we're seeing as success sit outside of ourselves. The next job title, how much money I'm going to have, the relationship I might get, what people think of me, all of those things, those actually sit outside of ourselves. So if we want to shift that inside, we need to really relook at how we define success. That was a huge eye opening moment for me through this journey. For me, I was defining a lot of my success on all of those great jobs I had and all of those titles that I had could have been part of the reason why I was always moving and shaking in the corporate world. For me, I realized I needed to shift success to really mean knowing myself, knowing who I am, knowing my why, knowing my purpose, knowing what I care about, what lights my fire in my belly. And when I know those things, then I can make choices to live by that. And that to me is success.

So how do you help someone define success? That seems like a really challenging thing to do because we all have our experiences or our parents or our, you know, what we thought it was. And how do you go about taking somebody to help them define success? Because it sounds like that's a very important starting point.

Yeah, it really is. I actually lead workshops to help teams and organizations to really define this. And I use actually the framework of my formula. So I take a dive into each of the phases. So purpose, people, pace and of course power of choice. And we start to look at that for each individual, what that really means and we use questions. I'm a coach so you're going to notice when you see my book, it is all reflection questions. It is a book that you do. So really defining success is about taking the time to dedicate to self reflection what I see in the world and I see this myself when I get busy, is that we don't take the time to self reflect, to really pay attention to the things around us and to our inner voice because we are so busy. There is so much noise in our lives. So it is about dedicating time to. It doesn't need to be hours and hours and hours. It can be five minutes here, 10 minutes there. Whatever works for that individual. And that's actually how I designed my book, in small bite sized chunks because I found myself as a busy working mom that I didn't have hours to devote. But I know I needed to make a choice, to invest, to dive deep on what is success to me when.

You'Re talking about taking time to dedicate to yourself. And it doesn't have to be a lot of time. What do you do in that time? So let's say I've dedicated the next 10 minutes to myself. What do I do in that 10 minutes?

So there's different things you can do. So one of the things that I do, I get quiet because I really believe that we can't make room for new things to come through if our head is really noisy with other things. All of the things that we should do and our to do list and all of that. So for me, when I go for a walk, I don't take music, I don't take podcasts. I'm literally just with myself. And that's actually where I get the most creative ideas and insights. And wow, I really love doing that. Today I should do more of that. And it allows me to start to pay attention to what I call in my book, breadcrumbs. It's those little tiny signs and clues, those gut feelings, those things that keep happening. Kind of like my journey with the coaching program, it allows us to tune into those. So the first thing I would do is I would say tune in. Tune into almost like that gap between the noise of your day because that is where the inspiration is going to come through.

Yeah. It's so easy to get schedule every minute of your day full.

Yeah.

Funny. I even have scheduled in thinking time and half the time I still don't even do it.

I know. It's the first thing that goes, right? It's the first thing that goes when we get busy and overwhelmed. I totally hear you on that.

Yeah, well, take the thinking time and I'll do something during that. Yeah, like even tomorrow. I'm looking at it right now. Something's gotten put on half of my thinking time so it's easy to bypass it and Then get in the rat race and stay in the rat race.

It sure is. It sure is. So that's what I recommend is start with 5 minutes, start with 10 minutes. Until people get into a habit of it because to block an hour or two sometimes can be overwhelming to think, okay, where am I going to put all my meetings around that? So starting small is for me always the best way as a coach that I would work with some of the people on.

So what has getting out of the corporate world and into the coaching world and into the TGI today brought for you? How has that changed The Brienne from 10 years ago to the Brienne today?

I think my leg is on. Like, when I see myself speaking to you, it's like I am overjoyed. Like you can't take the smile off my face. Like I can speak freely and be myself and feel like that is right where. When I was in my corporate job, I was often very prim and proper and felt like I had to impress the powers that be and maybe do things that didn't feel 100% aligned with myself and deliver a message in a specific way that was more robotic because it wasn't my. My true self. And now I'm just able to just fully let loose and be comfortable and be in the moment and I, you know, it's just a completely different feeling until you experience. It's hard to describe. And I'm sure you're in this place as well, doing the work that you love.

And maybe, maybe it would be interesting to see a video of you dancing 15 years ago and dancing today.

Yes. Oh, totally different person. I would be like, so square and like, awkward. Or today I just let it all.

Hang out, let it go. That's awesome, Brianne. So last question for you. What's the best piece of advice you've ever given or the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

The one that's coming up for me lately is around not feeling like you have to know it all today or that you have to have the answers figured out. I think there's a lot of pressure on us when we're in our younger years. Like, even I see it with my kids coming out of high school. Eventually I remember feeling like I needed to know exactly what I was going to do and I realized that is not the case at all. Would I have imagined that I was going to be an author back when I was 18 years old? Not a chance. So I really believe that we need to allow each step to unfold and trust that exactly what's meant to happen will happen. If we lean in to what matters to us, to our passions, and really following that, success will naturally happen for us. And to just allow that and not get too attached to anything, I love that.

That's awesome. So, Brianne, if there are people that are listening that just loved your energy and loved what you're doing and want to connect with you, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you?

So my website, brianneliguori.com or you can follow me on Instagram at brianneliguori.

So maybe spell that for everybody.

Sure thing. So it's B R I A N N E L I G O R I.

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for taking the time to be here today. I've enjoyed your energy. I've enjoyed learning about joy and how you've brought that to your life. So thank you so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me, Gary.

So it's time for our new segment, guess the why. And for this segment, I want to use Johnny Depp. He's been in the news lately. He's got a big trial going on right now, and we've seen him in lots of different movies. And I'm kind of wondering, you know, what would be Johnny Depp's why? What do you think his why is? Because I think his why is to challenge the status quo, to think differently, to not follow the rules, to do it his own way, to get outside the box, to not do what is typical. And you see that in his marriage. You see that in what's coming out in the trial. If you've read much about it and you see that in the movies and the parts that he's taken. So I believe his why is to challenge the status quo and think differently. And so I want to thank you for listening. If you've not yet discovered your why, you can do so@yinstitute.com you can use the code PODCAST50 and get it at half price. And if you love the beyond your why podcast, please don't forget to subscribe. Leave us a review on rating on whatever platform you're using so that we can bring the why and the yos to more people. So thanks for being here today and I look forward to seeing you next week.

I really hope you enjoyed today's episode and that through today's guest, you heard how important it is to know your why and how impactful it can be in your life and the lives of those around you. Be sure to head over to whyinstitute.com and discover your why today. Remember, the more you know about yourself, the more you'll know about others. I'm Dr. Gary Sanchez, and I'll see you on the next episode.