Make 2025 Your Best Year Yet With This Ritual | Katia Verresen

One of the things that we've talked a lot about is how people will do a preemptive surrender. So there's something that they want, this is like the real goal, but then they just sort of start to take it a few notches down. And when you start to do that preemptive surrender, you're less motivated, you're definitely less inspired. And it requires too much more energy. And part of it is understanding that, for example, once you do your year in review and you notice, my gosh, when I set goals, I reach them. What I highly encourage people to do is actually to really shoot for the stars. My test is, are the eyes sparkling or not? Because if not, there's not going to be enough mojo to get there. Leadership is taking people where they never thought they could go. Right. And then second is inspiration doesn't require motivation, but both of those things require that you as an individual have inner power. And inner power is something that we all have. But we are stressed a lot. Right. We are overwhelmed a lot. And so we get disconnected. And so some of the tools that I know you're keen on us talking about is how to reconnect to that inner power so that we can be in that state of abundance and, and start to set some really powerful north stars for our teams and ourselves.

All right, welcome everyone. My guest today is Katya Verason. Katya is one of the most sought after leadership coaches in tech. Her clients include Fiji, CEO of Instacart, Kate, now the CMO of OpenAI, Deb, CEO of Ancestry, all kinds of great C suite leaders. And they all rave about how Katya has transformed their careers. And also her foundations of inner power fellowship has also been covered by Fast Company and other top outlets. So, yeah. So I'm excited to dig in with her about her techniques that you can put into practice today to achieve, you know, all your dreams. So welcome Katya.

Well, I'm so glad to be here. Yeah. We're going to anchor it at. For your audience to be able to achieve better than imagined. We're going to set that anchor.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, so I discovered you, I think last year when, you know, it was at the end of the year just like now. Right. And you had this awesome ritual to help people reflect on the current year and get ready for next year. And I remember using this ritual just like going through it myself and it definitely made me think bigger. I, I remember sending a goal to like, for example, get to a hundred thousand subscribers with my newsletter and you know, I achieved it like A month ago. So. So I have to give you some credit. Yes, yes. I have to give some credit for that.

Yes, absolutely.

Yeah. But I think it's like one of the best rituals, so maybe you can just share with our audience how it actually works.

Absolutely. I love hearing that. And I was so touched last year when you reached out and you said, I did your ritual, and it's been amazing. And now you share the results of this is what you wish for and this is what you got. New brain loop. Perfect. Yes. So you know, this ritual. My year in review. This year will be the eighth year, believe it or not. And it's really turned into a global phenomenon because at a time when people are experiencing a lot of uncertainty, there's a desire to have agency. Everything that I do is around reminding people about the power of their creative imagination, that we're born creators and that we can design for anything. This practice, this journey you go on through the year in review really makes that incredibly obvious to people. Believe it or not, it actually came to me in three dreams in three nights in 2017, and. And ever since then, it's just become this phenomenon where people look forward to it every year. And the reason it works is the following. Before I get into the parts of it, it's so many people are sort of in that trance of never enough, I'm not doing enough, or I have fomo, or am I actually living my best life, and am I aligned with my purpose and asking so many questions? And that state, I call that being beside your life. And to me, one of the saddest things is to not really embody the true movie of your life. So one of my frames is for everyone here to consider that when you look at your life, look at it as a movie, and when you're connected to your inner power and you realize that you're creating, you're actually directing the movie. And our year end review makes that super obvious. So, Peter, you know, the first part is you get to map your year. And one of the things that is important is I noticed that with high performers, they achieve their goals and then they move on. So I'm excited that you claimed your 100,000 followers, that you wanted it and you got it. And the reason that's important is because when you keep running to the next and the next and you don't claim the milestone that you reached, it's like you're always starting over and over again, and you're not benefiting from all of the creative energy that you built all the Wisdom, all the knowledge and all the experience. So put simply, the first part is you're going to take a sheet of paper and you're going to just draw the year, right? Month by month. And then you're going to pull out your calendar and your pictures on your phone, and some people have journals and notes, and month by month, you're going to check what events happened, where was I, what was going on that month. And every single time, whether I'm doing it in my coaching practice or I'm doing it in community. And this may have happened to you too, Peter, everyone goes, oh, wow, I forgot that happened. Oh, wow, I forgot that happened. Because we have recency bias, everybody thinks that their 2024 was the last four weeks. It's so much richer. And it's also important because our brain, as humans, we have a nervous system. And what it does and what our brain does is it Velcros the negative. So anything bad, we stick to it. But anything good is like Teflon and we delete it and we forget it. And so we don't have an accurate perspective of the movie of our life. But when you take a moment to pause and choose to map out your 2024 or the year you've just completed, you actually get to see the truth. I call it putting on real life glasses. We're both wearing glasses. To actually see what you actually experienced. And so that's important because many people will, you know, like you. You had a great experience. People will email me from around the world and say, in their cases, I thought I had a horrible year. I did the process, and I realized that there were gems. I realized that it was okay. And that gave me the energy to wish for even more next year. So it's a wonderful reframe, and it's a great way to see the actual movie of your life. In that first part, what is really important to grow your creative energy and to notice that you are in creator mode is, is for you to, after you've mapped it, start to notice. For example, Peter, you notice this month, a few weeks ago, you hit a hundred thousand, right? We have that. We have proof. We know that's true. When did you wish for it? Was it December of last year?

I've always wished for it, but, like, you know, definitely December last year, I actually set a goal.

You set a goal. Perfect. Exactly. So when we connect the actual reality of it with when you set the goal, you. That's called a brain loop. And what that does is it starts to wire into your brain. That when you set goals, you achieve them. And so in the first part of the year, in review, once you've mapped it out, you start to connect all the creations with all the times you set those goals. And that's when people start to realize, oh, my gosh, I'm really creating. That's that inner power. So that's the first part. Afterwards, it's nice to take a pause and reflect and look at the big picture and notice, who did I become? Because when you have a growth mindset, you change, you grow. What are the qualities that I developed? Who did I become? How did I overcome challenges? And it's really important because when we overcome challenges, there are strengths that we used. And a question that I like to ask clients, and it's a great tool, is when you notice your accomplishments, ask yourself a simple question. What part of me, what quality, my character, my strength, did I lean on to get to this result? Because that might be a quality that I want to take to my next year. This is the part where you decide, what qualities do you want to take into the new year. Then the final part is my version of goal setting, which is you imagine it's December 31, 2025. You had an amazing year, and you write that letter that says, these are all the amazing things that happened to me. And so you're creating your goals from the perspective of you've already experienced them. And that's part of letting your brain know this is what we're going for. Because our brain doesn't do to do lists or okrs. It actually uses our senses. Right. It does images, feelings, and sounds. So when you step into the movie of what you want and you capture that, you have an increased chance of actually achieving that goal. So in a nutshell, that's an overview. But for everyone here, we will definitely make sure that you get our new edition 2024, 2025, that we're launching in a little over a week. And we have a special surprise. We've updated something really cool, so I can't say more.

Yeah, I'll make sure that's linked in the description or something. Yeah, but I think. I think it's like step three is like the one that is very powerful for me because you can actually decide what you want to take into the new year. I feel like this whole thing is about. Or at least from my point of view, it's about recognizing that you did have a bunch of wins. You do have good traits. Like you said, people who are high achievers tend to focus on Negative or what I still want, and then using that recognition of the inner power to actually potentially set more aggressive goals or actually have more belief in yourself. That's what it comes down to.

Exactly. And I absolutely agree. And it's not just belief, right? Because our willpower is a little bit weak, you know, extra stress, and that falls down. But when you literally notice, you know, the movie of what you've actually created, it's no longer wishful thinking. It's like, I have been able to achieve this, right? And these. And so that's undeniable. And when it's at the forefront, it's easier to be intentional about. These are the skills I want to take forward. Absolutely. A lot of people rely on that. Here's a setting when you do a brain loop, right? It's. And this happens with a lot of individuals and teams. They're setting an aggressive goal, and they actually meet it, but they don't know how they're going to do it. Once they acknowledge that they've reached that goal, it makes it so much easier next time they want to reach even more ambitious, even more bold, even more daring. Right. But that's cemented in experience, not wishful thinking or just hustle. It's the weight of experience and knowledge that you take with you.

Do you think, like, when you go through this with clients and folks, do you think a lot of the really great things are, like, big successes or like, they have maybe, like they had, like, a failure or something bad happened to them, but they didn't give up? Like, do you think, what do people actually value?

Oh, I love that. So when you're in creator mode, you realize that there isn't failure, there's just iteration. It's very important to notice that. Right. And so it's a constant iteration. And you bring up a really good point, because often when, whether it's in my practice or in community, when we celebrate a win and I typically go, let's go back to when you set that goal or you wished for it. We'll often notice that the seed was hardship, right? There was maybe a disappointment, there was contrast, there was a big challenge. And that's what gave the motivation to. To go for this goal. And so when you start to reframe the challenges, actually challenge for me is a very positive word. But let's say hardship or difficulty. When you start to understand that pause. If this is to seed something greater for me, what might that be? How is this a jumping off point for my creativity? And that's where. And I Know, we want to talk about some of the principles of inner power, but the ability to keep yourself in a state of abundance, even when it looks like things are not going well, is what allows you to iterate to the next success. So that's actually what resilience is, is continuing to experiment and iterate and iterate towards that North Star. There's that saying of be stubborn on the North Star, but really flexible on how you get there. That's the attitude. Yes.

Yeah. Because, like, one of the. One of the things, you know, I was working at Facebook with Ikeda and other folks, and the whole time I was trying to become, like, product manager. Now I'm a product manager. But, like, back then I was trying to become a product manager.

Congratulations.

And then it took like, three years. Like, I kept on, like, getting rejected for three years, and then that in itself is like, not necessarily, like, a big accomplishment for most people. Like, it's easier for most people to become the pm, but the fact that it took me so much hardship, like, even now I feel really proud that I didn't give up. Like, that's kind of interesting reflection, and it kind of gives me confidence to do other things.

That is so wonderful. And I really want to invite you and anyone listening to realize every time you accomplish something that you wished for. Right. That you set as a goal, when we really, again, going to the real life glasses, notice that we are a series of realized dreams. It's like, Peter, you had that dream, you set that goal and you got there. As long as you keep iterating forward, you can only get there that or better. And I see this every day. So I will typically say just borrow my certainty, you know? Yeah.

And like, some of these, you know, CEOs and other folks that you coach, like, you've been coaching them for, like, over a decade, Right. Like, for a long time. And I. I think one of the core beliefs that you have is like, you know, we're all born creators. We can design for anything. So maybe a decade ago, they were just like, you know, like a manager or something. But, like, like, do. Do you think they kind of set, like, your coaching helped them set more and more big goals and they kind of achieve them, like, have that flywheel effect.

I love that you asked that question. Yes. So one of the things that I'm known for is helping people really expand their imagination and their ability to dream. I think that I've worked a lot with Jeff Pfeffer at Stanford. He and I both have an expertise in power. His is External power minus inner power. One of the things that we've talked a lot about is how people will do a preemptive surrender. There's something that they want. This is the real goal, but then they just sort of start to take it a few notches down. And when you start to do that preemptive surrender, you're less motivated, you're definitely less inspired. And it requires so much more energy. And part of it is understanding that, for example, once you do your year in review and you notice, my gosh, when I set goals, I reach them like the map will show you. And if not, it might be another goal. Right. Then what I highly encourage people to do is actually to really shoot for the stars. My test is, are the eyes sparkling or not? Because if not, there's not going to be enough mojo to get there. Right. And as a leader, when you're taking your teams in that direction, it's your job to get at least visionary leadership to get into that reality, to step into it. What is it going to feel like, look like, sound like, step into that movie. And then from that place, start to influence and inspire your team on how to get there. But a manager can do this. Right. When I started with each of them, whether it's Fiji, CMO or many others on the executive front, they were managers. Right. And then we went through the growth of their experiences.

Yeah. It's like. It's almost like. Like, it's just like writing a letter to yourself from the future. It's like you want to make sure your team understands what the future can look like if you guys do all the work and achieve all the goals.

Yes. You know, one of the things I say is two things. Leadership is taking people where they never thought they could go then. Second is inspiration doesn't require motivation. But both of those things require that you, as an individual have inner power. Inner power is something that we all have, but we are stressed a lot, we are overwhelmed a lot, and so we get disconnected. Some of the tools that I know you're keen on us talking about is how do we connect to that inner power so that we can be in that state of abundance and start to set some really powerful North Stars for our teams and ourselves.

Yeah. Can you. Can you break down the components of inner power? Like, yeah, please.

And before I do, I just kind of want to share kind of what an everyday experience could look like. Right. And then we'll go into the components. But essentially, inner power is saying. And it becomes very clear after you do your. In review it's like proof is in the pudding, right? There is a movie. You're actively creating it. Every moment you're creating an inner power is pausing and just asking, where am I at? AKA how much energy do I have? And two, what do I need so that I can direct the movie more to my liking? And I'm just going to share sort of an everyday example we probably all had. But the other day, I was on my way to the airport and we were stuck in traffic. And so what I noticed was anxiety. I was like, oh, no. Right? And then the movie in my mind is like. And if I don't do anything right, without inner power, anxiety goes up. What happens? We arrive late to the airport. I get to the TSA line, there are tons of people, everybody's grumpy. I'm rushing to the gate, I barely make it. Right? That's not inner power. Inner power is going. We're stuck in traffic. Where am I at? I'm super anxious. Okay, what do I need? I need to regulate my nervous system. Okay, Maybe I'll do a little breathing exercise. I need to increase my emotional energy. Maybe I'll listen to my favorite song. Maybe I'll watch a funny stand up. Which is literally what I did, right? My inner power goes up funny enough. It's like the. You know, the water's parted. Anyway, I got to the airport, but once I got out of the Uber and walked through the gates, I wasn't stressed. I had a lot of inner power. And so I walked and breezily through TSA and got to my gate. And that's the difference. When you go, wait, at any moment, I can pause. Where am I at? What do I need? Fill myself up and we can talk about how to do that so that I can have a different scene in my movie.

It's like everything. I wrote a book about this. It's like the. I don't know, it's thinking fast and slower. Like the two selves. Like, one self is just kind of reacting to things and the other self is like taking a step back and then observing this other self.

Yes, and absolutely. And you want to develop. So in our fellow. In our fellowship and Foundations of Inner power, one of the things that you develop is this kind observer, right? So that you can pause, that pauses everything. And some of our fellows have said that even if they pause for 30 seconds and they can't quite use a tool yet, but just the pausing for 30 seconds will reset them enough to show up differently at the meeting. And so.

Well, I love that because it makes it like very tactical, right? It's not just like, you know, like inner power, where you get it from.

It's always fitting you. But you asked me to break it down and I can break it down, then give more examples. But the simplest way, you know, I kind of think of when people remember their inner power is, is almost like remembering that they're a human being and how to work with the body instead of against the body. And so there are four levers and the first is physical energy. And I kind of hinted at it. So the first thing when you're like, where am I at? What's going on? What do I need? When people are stressed, when people are overwhelmed, when they have what people call imposter syndrome, or if they're extremely frustrated, that's actually a nervous system that's dysregulated in those moments. Checking that, intending and befriending your nervous system will instantly put you in physical abundance. That's the example I gave about the Uber and going to the airport. And that's incredibly important. And so some things that you can do for that is anything that is physical. So it could be. And I just want to take a moment to explain. My method is, I call it confetti method, which is that in just five clock time, minutes, you can shift your state. Right. It doesn't have to be a 20 minute meditation. It doesn't have to be. Have to go running for 30 minutes. It could be, I'm dancing for five minutes. We actually had a fellow notice people do audits so that they can track where they're at. And she was noticing that she had anxiety every morning at 9am and it was every morning before this strategy meeting. What did she do? Where am I at? What do I need? All she did was dance for five minutes before that meeting. The anxiety decreased. She was then put in charge of one of the three top strategies of the Fortune 100 company that's in her power. The meeting didn't have to change, the people in the meeting didn't have to change, and the topics didn't have to change. But she regulated her nervous system. Yep, power less than a song is about 3.2, 22nd, 3 minutes, 20 seconds. Like you can do it very fast. So that's physical energy. The next layer after you regulate your nervous system is your emotional energy. And the thing about emotions is they actually give us a lot of energy, but if we don't move through them, that's what creates burnout. So there are many ways and one of the tools and we could put it in the notes. I'm happy to share that is the emotions gps, where people locate themselves to go, how much emotional energy do I have? Am I at inspiration, passion, or am I down at boredom? And under anxiety, overwhelm, powerlessness. But the minute you notice where you're at, what you need to understand with emotions, which are neurochemicals, is they create a filter. They color how you see your world, right? And everyone knows this because if you have a crush, nothing has changed in your life, but everything looks amazing, right? It colors how you see your world. And so just noticing where am I at on the gps? What do I need? And for emotions, all the things that help physical energy, movement, relaxation, dancing, etc. But then we can add on anything with the senses. Scent, right? Playing with music. And one of the things, gratitude. One of the things that's phenomenal is we've had fellows, quite a few actually, when I bring up scent goes directly to our emotions. And so I've had more than one really tough negotiator put on their favorite scent before a negotiation and crush it.

Like, what kind of scent? Like, like a flowers or like incense or. Yeah.

So one of the questions I like to ask people is, what is your favorite scent? Like 10 out of 10. And it's interesting because that usually takes everybody back to their childhood. And so for one negotiator, it was jasmine. And so she just put a few drops and, you know, crushed that one. But for somebody, it was his favorite cologne and he ordered it and he's like, that's it, I'm wearing that. But the thing about inner power is the more you play with it, Like, I've had different people have like dance parties before they step into a really tough meeting and it changes the outcome of the meeting. So physical nervous system, emotional energy moving through the emotions. And I'll also give a tip, if you look at Kristen Neff's work on self compassion, treating yourself with the same kindness you treat a friend is the number one tool for grit and resilience. So an emotional energy, the ability to notice. This is really rough right now. And high performers can be really tough on themselves. But instead of doing that, treating yourself the way you treat your best friend will actually allow you to have the right chemicals circulate in your body rather than burn yourself out. And then you have more emotional energy and you can move to the next step. So that's the emotional energy. I see your eyes. You're thinking, tell me about it.

Yeah, yeah. So, like, you know, treating yourself, having compassion for yourself, and that's really important. How do you balance that between, like, you know, like, okay, you know, like, this isn't good enough. I'm gonna try harder next time. Versus, like, hey, you already tried your best. Let's, let's, like, how do you, like, continue to push yourself without being too judgmental about yourself? I guess.

I love that you asked the J word here. Judgmental, man. That comparing and judgmental are really rough on people's nervous systems. Right?

Yeah. Yeah.

So when you think about your friend and you give them advice, you really want them to succeed as well. Right. And because when we think about somebody else, we actually don't project our limiting beliefs on them as much. And so you're more likely to see solutions and outcomes that are going to be helpful. So you're more likely to say, you know what? I want to come out. You tried your best. You should be proud of what you've done. And I'm curious about this other thing. How about that?

Got it. Okay. Got it. That's interesting. Okay. Because, like, if I'm going to try to help a friend, I'm not going to judge them first.

No, absolutely not. But I'm so glad you brought this up because this is a lot of our discussions in our fellowship in terms of the amount of self judgment and being motivated by being hard on yourself. And that might have worked earlier on in life, but at the level of the game we're playing at, in order to access clarity, which means a regulated nervous system, you can't have the cortisol flying around. Right. Clarity and peace come together, and so you want to have the right chemicals circulating.

Got it. And let's talk a little bit more about emotional energy. Is it more about, let's say I'm feeling frustrated or overwhelmed. Is it more about detaching from those emotions? Why are you feeling frustrated? Maybe you shouldn't be. Or maybe, like you said, trying to get a scent or something and trying to trigger some more positive emotions.

So let's give this sequence. I love that you're asking this question because so many people are trained to suppress, which makes it worse down the line. And so abundance with emotional energy is looking at any child in your life. If you walk through a park and a playground, you're going to see people, you know, the little ones going through, like, joy and then sadness and crying and then back to joy and like, and they're actually showing what we're doing, except we suppress it. So they found that when you label the emotion, which is why the emotions. GPS is often one of people's favorite tool in the fellowship, which is where am I at? Just to help locate yourself. You're locating yourself and it lets you know, am I on empty or am I full? And I could just enhance even more. Locating is giving you information and then based on that, if you're boredom and under, you might give yourself self compassion. Wow, this is really rough. Because the self compassion gives you the space to start getting the right chemicals going and then you might play with, okay, what would give me more energy? And so after the self compassion to fill yourself back up, then you're stacking the other things that might be playing with the senses that might be really enjoyable. That might be again, I go to stand up comedy a lot. Yeah. Now to finish the sequence, once you're at clarity, then you can look at the situation and decide what you want to do about it. Right. But you need to fill yourself up before addressing the situation. And what typically happens when someone's filled up? What does that mean? That means the lens, the color is clear so they actually can see things better. So often it's like the knot kind of disappeared or it's manageable and because you have enough energy, you can actually be in relationship with the situation and handle it.

So it's about like not making like decisions when you're not, when you're running on empty because you're probably not going to make a good decision.

Oh my gosh. Thank you for bringing that up. Absolutely not. Because the quality of your decisions are going to be really based on how much energy you have. And get this, when we're in scarcity, which means nervous system dysregulated, low in the emotion scale, scarcity mindset, we perceive more threats, we don't hear human voices as well, we delete information, we. So you're definitely not going to do a good, you're not going to make the right decision. So the thing is. Pause. Where am I at? What do I need? Fill myself up, Revisit this later and you'll be amazed at how fast you can start shifting things.

Yeah, I, I've noticed that too. I've started doing all my most important work in the mornings, like when I have more because as a parent, you know, you get pretty exhausted at night. So. Yeah.

By the way, these tools are great with kids. These tools are amazing with kids. Yeah.

How does that like. Because yeah, I have like a three year old and she's like, has meltdowns all the time.

So so, so, so, exactly. And so that's letting you know, oh, her nervous system, it's normal because the brain is really small at that time. Right. And there's like so much going on that it's just letting you know, okay, the nervous system is dysregulated. What could help? So one of the practices that we've done in foundations to address the nervous system is boxed breathing. And boxed breathing is you inhale for the count of, let's say four, right. You hold for four, you exhale for four, and you hold for four. And you just do that a few times. We've had parents when their little ones are having a tantrum, simply hold them and the parent does box breathing. And what happens is because the parent's nervous system gets regulated, the little one starts to match them.

That's a really, that's a really good point because like normally the parent would just like react by raising their voice or something.

And what happens is because you get dysregulated. And so inner power is realizing. And this is a really important point. I, I often say that we're nervous systems talking to each other. And so what happens is when you decide, I'm in charge of my sense of safety and my inner power, I'm going to be where I'm, I mean, I'm religious about this, where am I at? What do I need? Then what happens is whether it's your little cutie pies or your team or anybody around, you can decide. You get to match me. Right. And so that's why, for example, leadership in the middle. In a crisis, the person that is the calmest, that has the most inner power, will make the better decisions. And if you really stand in that, you have an ability to co regulate everybody else.

Yes, Got it. That makes sense. Yeah. Like some of the non verbal cues are really important. Right. Just like your energy. Yeah. Let's talk about the mental side of things like the scarcity versus abundance mindset. And going back to your first topic of setting goals, how do you get people to recognize. Okay, I think there's a couple of things to think about here. One is your goal is just to become the CEO or something like everyone else, you're trying to climb a ladder, everyone trying to become CEO. So how do you coach your clients to recognize if that's actually what they want or not?

That's a really good point. Because when it comes to desire, you need to check, is this my desire or everybody else's?

That's right, yeah.

Right. So I'll track By again, I do the sparkling eye trick. Right. But that's a shortcut for saying, I'm tracking how much physical energy and emotional energy they have. If. When someone's talking to me about, I just had somebody do this the other day is very cool. They're talking about this goal they have and they're, this is really great. This is mission oriented and everything sounds great. And I said, yeah. And so when you step into that, like, where are you at on the emotion scale? Have you included yourself? Are you even enjoying it? And they paused and they're like, yeah, no. Okay. So then what we do is we're like, what would the movie look like when you're thriving and you're experiencing the top of the emotions GPS in this role? And that might change what the picture is going to be like. Right. But it's really about fleshing out where's my spark? What gives me energy.

Yeah. It's like, imagine you're in this role already. Is that kind of what it is like?

And then you want to. So I love that you bring this up because I find that our imagination is our superpower. I'm really on a mission to get people to reclaim that. And I find that we are. Except when we're children, we are so trained to not even touch that, even though it's our superpower. And so just like scientists run thought experiments, I think that we should all be running thought experiments. If I choose scenario A, let me step into that reality for a moment. What will it feel like, look like? Sound like six months down the line. Let me move around on that set and experience it, get all the information and then let me try a different future. Let me try a different future. We want to really claim that ability to imagine in order to explore.

Yeah, I think that's like a really good point. And like, most busy professionals don't have time to sit down. Just like, I think it's important to make time for you to sit down and try to play it out a little bit more, you know, and see.

What it looks like as you get good at it. It doesn't have to require, you know, days. Right. But that permission of I'm just running a thought experiment. And often what I have to do with clients is because people will have, you know, their belief structures and judgments. And I'll just say we're just playing. And a lot of research shows that when we play, we give ourselves permission to take greater risks and explore. But when we think it counts, we start to edit back.

Let's try to take a real example, I don't know. I don't know if you have a real example of you helping a client overcome their limiting beliefs or maybe you can help me, but do you have a good example of this?

I don't know if I have a story that could illustrate because it's not always about overcoming a limiting belief. It's always just, let me try a different one, let me try a different one. And so Leah Belsky, who had an amazing career at Coursera, was their chief revenue officer, was a fellow recently. And while we were in the fellowship, we do physical, emotional, mental, and creative energy. And while we were in one of the, in the sessions, one of the things we do in mental energy is what if? How might I try this? What if I explore that? And while we did the session, one of her intentions was to explore what she wanted to do next. And someone pinged her and said it might be interesting for OpenAI to look at education. She just thought, what if? How might I. She took that opportunity to get on a plane and went to San Francisco for a 20 minute coffee and pitch her dream job. And the reason that she says, you know, Katya, please share this story, is because it's such an example of giving yourself permission to explore using a mental energy tool such as what if? How might I? And to put yourself into a movie and really take the next logical steps for that. The thing that's really exciting about it too is in our last class in creative energy, she came on, she goes, I just pitched my dream job. And then a few months later, Bloomberg announced that she was the first GMM of education at OpenAI.

Let's do a hypothetical situation. So we're doing this podcast right now. Let's say if I didn't have any limited beliefs, I want to be one of the best podcasters in the world. I want to be like Lex Friedman or whoever. But how do you balance that kind of goal with trying to be realistic about what you can achieve next year or something? There's two different ways to do it, right? Yeah.

My way is when we do creative energy, I get into the eight elements that I identified that we go through when we're creating better than imagined. And I want to define better than imagined very simply, which is if you can imagine it, then you're just basing it still on what you already know. And when you want to create a future you fall in love with, it's going to be based on the unknown. You want to be able to suspend belief and realize there are all these possibilities out there that I can't yet reach, but they already do exist. How do I reach that goal? So let's say that you happen to have an absolute love of podcasting, and I'd love to hear more. When you project yourself into that future, what is that like? What does it feel like for you? What, that when you step into that reality, what is the experience of it for you?

Yeah, I think the core activity I love, like, talking to people like yourself, learning from yourself. So that, I think is really important, because then you can just keep repeating that over and over again and hopefully achieve more success. But in terms of what it's like, it's the same thing that we're doing right now, except hopefully I'll be a better interviewer, and then more people will be listening and engaging with us, and you have this community that kind of builds around yourself. So I think that'll be really cool.

And then what else is delightful?

What else is delightful? I mean, this is kind of like a way, you know, people talk about networking. Like, this is kind of my way of, like, actually meeting really great people and having the means that I want to have where I can actually learn from people and, like, also share what we're discussing with the rest of the world and empower other people in the world. Like, that is very delightful to me.

See? And what I'd say, Peter, is, did you notice, and for anyone watching, you'll notice that his voice shifted just a little bit when he said, empower people. And what I'm going to add is when Peter and I were talking about this, I said, peter, what is your wish for your audience? And he said, I really wish for them to be able to dream bigger. And to me. And to me, that was wonderful. And so I think that part of your North Star around this is your true wish to empower a lot of people around the world. And that's what gets you excited.

I see. So maybe less about the podcast and more about just that, empowering people around the world.

What is. What's that spark? What's that juice? And once you really anchor that and realize that is that that North Star inspires you and pulls you forward. That starts to be. That starts to be the momentum that you want.

And then it could be a podcast, could be something else. Right. Like, the path to get there is different. Yeah, yeah.

And you start to flesh it out. And so some of the things, I'll just share just a few. There are eight, but I'll just share the first four when it Comes to better than imagined. And the creative the principles that I've seen, the first is desire. And so you need to track what the desire truly is. And for a lot of people, and there's a lot of research on this, they end up, which is why there's a lot of disappointment for people is they end up doing someone else's desire, right? So you want to check what's my why very deeply. And there'll be a physiological response. The body never lies, right? That's why I do a lot with emotional energies like the body will let you know. And then second is permission. And so we have been so trained to ask for permission. Whether it's I have a dream and if it happens, will I still belong? Do I still have permission to do this? Or for most of humanity, you know, 99% of people have had to ask 1% for permission. And then also how we educate our kids, so we're still trained for permission. But what I typically say is when you look at the movie of your life and you have it end at a very satisfying life, your future is giving you all the permissions to dream big, right? If you look at this, right, so you're at 100,000, which is a goal that you set when you look back to your past, you're really excited that he really set that goal. You're like, dream for more, let's do this right? And then the third element is setting the North Star. And that's where I see people wobble a lot, where they start to compromise and that's right. Tell me what would be the most delightful, right? Let's go through the senses, because that's how our brain generates experiences, feelings, images and sounds. By the way, that's kva. That's why my business is called KVA Leadership. We want to generate experiences, right, based on our senses. And so as you flesh that out, the movie is going to get clearer and clearer to you. And then as you make decisions, it'll be clear, does it match this movie or not? That's how you know to take the step forward or not. And you're just iterating your way there, you're just iterating your way there. When you iterate, you can only get there. That's the answer.

And if you said aggressive North Stars or just like, well, I guess it's the North Stars, it's true to yourself, right? My question is, if you said aggressive North Star, if you're more ambitious, chances are you're going to maybe stumble a little bit more or not achieve your goal a little bit more.

People stumble all the time. Even with not the stumbling is about scarcity, the ability for you. This is why I go back to when people ask, how do I get out of a limiting belief? What I'll tell you is behind the scenes of all the work I do, someone only has a limiting belief when they're in scarcity. Right. So if you notice that you're taking action on something and you're really excited and then you're like, why bother? I'll never get there. That's a pause moment. And go, hold up. Where am I at? What do I need? Right. No matter the level of success of person I work with, men or women, same thing it does. Sooner or later there's going to be a. I'm powerless in this situation. So that means two things. Either I'm powerless in this situation and I notice. Oop, I just had that thought, I must be in scarcity. Let me fill myself up. Or I'm powerless in this situation and I forgot that I'm observing a movie. So I'm really more drained than I realize. Because the truth is we always have choice in how we react to stimulus. Right. So Frankel very famously explained that.

Yeah. And the best movies have like, some struggle in a way. It's not just like, you're winning all the time.

Again, that would be boring. And again, remember, it's not the struggle. It's that is allows you to be jumping off point to even more possibility.

I love this quote from Jim Carrey. Like, he said, like, you know, you can fail at what you don't really want to do, so you might as well take a chance at doing what you actually love. Exactly.

Yes.

But that's it. Okay, so let's. I feel like we cover a lot today and like, I just want to kind of wrap up and see if you have any closing words of advice for folks listening to this. Like, stuff that they can put into action right away in the new year, other than doing a ritual that we just talked about. Yeah.

Let's make sure that we also give them the Fast Company article because it has so many easy practices that you can do to stay connected to your inner power. So let's make sure that. So that they have a lot of tools and things to play with. But I would say the number one thing is as you go through your day and you realize that you're in creator mode. Pause and check. Where am I at? What do I need? And you can do really practical things. We've had People decide to not look at their phone for the first 15 minutes of their morning. And it's had huge energy results. You know, checking yourself before a meeting just so that you can fill yourself up and show up differently. One of my big recommendations is for the meetings that you can control to start them five minutes after the hour or the half hour so that during that five o' clock minutes you can fill yourself up and people find that they have more energy at the end of the day and they even have energy on the last day of the week and they have energy for when they go home and are with their kids. So those are some things. And the other thing that matters a lot because we delete the good, celebrate all the wins, celebrate the small wins, make them visible, call them out, because our brain deletes. That will bring you back to neutrality, but that will also amplify the momentum of your trajectory and the trajectory of your team. I want to. You know, Peter, you're talking a lot about limiting beliefs. I, you know, I recently just thought we just have beliefs, right? Because what happens is the beliefs we have are for this scene of the movie. And then when we want to go after a next scene, it may be different beliefs that we want. That's all it is, right? So it's like, what are the new beliefs that would be helpful? And that's why with our community we've been playing with AI and all the ways that Imagination Machine can help us. But yes, yeah, yeah, let's talk with new beliefs. Bring it.

Let's talk about how your annual ritual is being enhanced by AI. Like what is the AI component? They just.

So I'll give you the story of that is. Is I've gotten obsessed with man. I wish that there was AI when I was a kid. Like. And so I, I think it's just such an amazing imagination machine. And so the origin story is I started noticing that actually this might track with some of the questions you have, Peter. I was noticing that on Saturday mornings I would wake up with the belief which was around, huh, Like a disappointment. So my GPS was a disappointment. And I, and I would wake up that way, thought, well, that's really weird. That doesn't really match my personality. And so I thought, why don't I run an experiment with AI and so I started this thing called AI self hypnosis. And I just simply, I like to talk, to chat. So I use ChatGPT because I like the voice function. And so I just simply said create a self hypnosis story, relax my body and then tell me the story of waking up, excited for the day, full of energy, excited for the surprises that are going to happen, and that there's unexpected amazing adventures around the corner. And so it told me the story as I fell asleep. And the next morning I woke up and I was like, it's the weekend. This is amazing, by the way. I've done this and it's like I've been working out six days a week, like without even thinking about it. It's like there are all these ways. The reason, by the way it works is because of what I was alluding to earlier. As humans with our nervous system, with our bias towards the negative, we believe that bad things happening is way, way easier than good things happening. And AI doesn't have that. In addition to, we tend to repeat the same thoughts because we repeat the same thoughts. And you could think it's not a big deal, but actually when you repeat the same thoughts, you're in this trance where tomorrow looks like yesterday. And when you have a growth mindset, you don't want that. What AI can do is it can enhance possibilities that you haven't considered because it doesn't have your limiting beliefs. The other thing that we found, which is interesting, is because people don't feel judged by AI, they're much more likely to share some of the wishes and dreams they really hold dear to their heart. Then a fourth thing that we discovered in our community as we were going through these intensives is that as people were doing stories with their AI and then they would go through their day, they started experiencing in their day the very movies and stories that they'd set up with AI. And that got really weird, but it got really consistent. What we decided to do this year, because I love for people to not just hear me talk about it, but actually experience it themselves, is at the end of the year in review, we added a bonus. We created literally the Better Than Imagine fairy. And after you do your whole year in review, this is your co creative partner, your imagination machine, to go even deeper, to help you consider possibilities that you absolutely have not imagined because of your mindset and explore those and even go deeper in who did I become this year? What are the qualities that I want to take? And then based on all of that, what's my better than imagine 2025. And so that's how we're playing with it.

Okay, and where can people find the AI tool? Or like, you know, you're in review?

Yeah, absolutely. So go to our website, which is Kvaleadership and there you will send us a note, you know, sign up, and then we'll get. We'll make sure that you get the AI tool. We're going to be launching it off Spotify in a few weeks. And also we have our Foundations of Inner Power fellowship. We do three a year, and you can find the application in the brochure there as well. We also do it with teams and companies. So we just had. We've done it a few times now with different companies where we get, you know, 30 some VPs together to train them to be an abundant thinking together and connected to their inner power. And it's truly remarkable.

When is the next fellowship?

It starts February 4th.

Okay, 25. All right. I think I'm gonna have to sign up to this because I would love.

To have you, your curiosity and the way you want to create. I'm like, yeah, let's see what we can create together.

Yeah. I mean, I'm a creator, so, you know, this is perfect.

You are. That's right.

Yeah.

Yeah. And you're teaching that to your child. Yes. Yeah.

Well, I mean, I really want to thank you, Katya, for sharing some of these principles and frameworks with everyone here. I really think just from this conversation alone, I feel like I've expanded my abundance thinking a little bit. So hopefully other people listening to this feel the same way. Yeah.

Oh, that makes me so happy. Again, we're all creators, and this is our birthright, and we get to play in this way. It's the best way.

All right, Kalya, thank you.

Yeah, thank you.