#1 Limiting Beliefs That Hold Women Back: It's all or nothing!

This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama, end entitlement, and transform your world place. I'm Sy Wakeman. Hello everyone, I am so excited about today because I and a great friend, Dr. Sasha Shulkat, are here today, and we've decided to get together. We both have our own businesses, our own audiences, but we are getting together because we are becoming great friends and one of the things we like to jam on is how women leaders hold themselves back, like how their thinking limits their success and happiness, and we aren't talking about it. And you and I talk about it a lot, but we want everybody to be talking about it to expose these distortions people get into in their thinking so they can be happier or successful. So thanks for coming on.

Well, thanks for having me. I think that you and I kind of had this idea one night when we were having what I see as like a leadership Therapy session.

Yes. Out on the pontoon boat.

Out on the pontoon boat. Riding around. And we just started talking about how we have these common misconceptions that we can just put on repeat in our brain.

Absolutely.

And it's an internal stop that oftentimes is an obstruction that just stops us from moving forward. And we thought, why not share this with both of our audiences?

Yeah, and it gets so lonely because part of the weird thing about these weird thoughts is that I can get myself believing I'm the only person in the world that has these. I can look at everybody's outsides and how pulled together they are and how amazing they look and how successful they are and feel like I'm the only one who crashed the party without an invitation. Like, I feel like I'm the only one who has these. And I think what we bonded over is, I mean, you have this successful, wonderful career. You have this incredible side hustle of, you know, your— Brave Enough. Brave Enough, your support of women in medicine. And, you know, I'm owner of a growing business that people ask me how I ended up here. I still don't know, pretty accidentally. But we have great success, we have so much joy in our lives, we have everything to just, you know, pinch us, life is good. And yet, it's not because we were, you know, destined for that. I mean, we have fought our way there. Right. And my point is, is when I hear other people talking about these thoughts, I feel so much less lonely, and they have so much less power over me, because I'm like, oh my gosh, everybody that I know of that's successful also struggles with, you know, thinking that just isn't in their best interest. Well,

and it's interesting that when you and I get together, it's not the— we don't sit around and talk about all our success. What do we talk about? We talk about the things that we're struggling with. Yeah. We talk about the things, and we kind of are peer coaching each other to really help each of us overcome things. And, you know, it was such a comfort to me when I meet, you know, Cy Wakeman. I have this story of Cy Wakeman in my mind. You know, she's this uber-successful speaker. She travels all over the world. She has an amazing business, and she She has all this knowledge and research on ego, so surely she doesn't struggle with any of the things that I'm struggling with, right? But when I find out that we share some struggles, or I share my struggle with you and you say, well, actually, that exact thing happened to me, and this is what I did to overcome it, that's when you actually get closer to someone, right? You really do. It's not when we sit around and talk about all our success. It's when we actually sit around and talk about our struggles.

Yeah, our fear. That's what intimacy is all about. Like, I can be vulnerable and show you that. And what is so funny about that is you talk about your And I think we're going to talk a lot about the stories that women have that keep us apart, because my image of you, it's like, you know, newly tenured faculty, amazing success. I think you're the youngest female tenured faculty at your organization, right? Is it?

Definitely in the Department of English.

In the department, yes, yes, yes. And it's like, but I had heard of you before I knew you, and it was just like phenom out there. And, you know, so it's so funny that we're both sitting together meeting for the first couple of times, both of us so nervous to be together and fearing the exact same things that are untrue. Which for me, when I talk about ego, is all about stop believing everything you think. You know, your ego— Yeah, yeah. If you need to just check in when you're feeling stressed, figure out what you're thinking or believing, because if you're stressed, it's probably untrue. And bring it out to the light of day. Like, check yourself. Do a reality check. And I just think it's fun that once we got to talking, it freed us up. And I'm just hoping it'll free people up. So we sat down just a few minutes ago and we figured out like we want to do some time, kind of a series with like some of the common ones. And I would be interested in the comments if we don't hit one of the common ones. I would love for you guys to write us and say, what about this one?

Definitely.

And then we can get back together and just keep outing these common belief systems that, that keep us back. And I think everyone has these. You do too.

I agree.

But I think as women, we're so good at keeping our own Like, we're so good at overgiving to everybody else and not mentioning the fact that we're kind of drowning. Like, it's like— Yes. And so I think even though this is for everybody, we're gonna focus on women because I think it doesn't seem as safe for us to, like, bring this out in the open.

And I think one of the reasons too is that we, in both of our work, have found that women are often very isolated. Yeah. And they may— you may be in a room full of people, and yet you go home at night and feel incredibly alone in your struggle. struggles, and these thoughts just percolate. And so I know, like, when, when I met you, I had a story of you in my mind, and I was like, I got to be this way so she's gonna like me and she's not gonna see ego, or all these things, you know? And, um, I think it's really important though that one of the reasons we wanted to do this and focus on women in this series is because we want to bring that kind of collective community forward in both of our communities.

Yeah. And so, and It is lonely. And I think it's weird, especially if you're— well, I suppose it's for all women. I'll speak from my experience. But it's like I am successful in my business, and when I go home, I tend to get into more of traditional roles. And so it's like, I think in— if my marriage were more traditional, I think that I would have, you know, a bit more support without asking for it. And I kind of have a story, if you have to ask for it, it doesn't count, right? Yes. It's like people should just know. And what I mean by that, without being cryptic, is it's like when I come home, I don't sit and debrief about my day with people I love. I go immediately into mom mode, cooking mode, laundry mode. And I don't know that other people come home and go immediately into that second shift, right? Right, yeah. And so I don't want to sound stereotypical, because I realize it's such a spectrum anymore. But I think in my life, it's like when my husband comes home, it's like, let's talk about his day. And even while I'm trying to support him, I'm like, I got laundry to do. I got meals to cook, I got groceries to get, who needs picked up, you know?

Well, there's so much to do as a woman, and I think that the outside society, the cues that we pick up, is that we are supposed to be able to do it all. We are supposed to be able to go to work, you know, looking perfect, with perfect hair, and, you know, after we've spent an hour at the gym, and do our jobs, and then we're supposed to come home, and we're supposed to go right into taking care of Maybe it's an ailing parent. Maybe it's a child. Maybe it's a neighbor. Or a needy friend.

Like, I think if you're a woman, if you don't— if you choose not to have kids, or you don't have kids because, you know, that's not a possibility, like, we adopt things, whether it's like a needy— have a needy friend. Like, you know, it's like— because I don't know that some of my friends who have chosen either not to couple up, or chosen not to have kids, or weren't able to have kids, they have the same— it's just a different—

It is. It is. It's totally different.

Something fills the vacuum unless you're good at that. Yes. And I mean, how many times—

Do you drive home, and I found myself sitting in the car, and I'm like, I got to get out of the car now. I got to find my zen and my energy to go do round 2.

Yeah.

Right?

Yeah.

And there's really no space to go internal and think about, wow, okay, how was my day today? What went good? What went wrong? You kind of almost have to just kind of internally do that with yourself, because we're so isolated.

We are isolated. And when we're isolated, I think that our mind collects really skewed data, because there are times where I could have the biggest success of my week on a certain day, and what I'm focusing on is how I've chronically disappointed everyone else in my life, right? Mm-hmm. It's like, I remember before I really got a handle on some of these thoughts, I remember feeling this feeling where I would go to bed with the sense that I've chronically disappointed most of the people important to me. And I hated that feeling of this, like, chronic disappointment. Like, you know, Mom, you're late to my soccer game. I'm like, well, I did this great thing for somebody else. And there just wasn't a way to please everybody. And that's when it hit me. It's like the goal of people pleasing is the problem. I had tried to figure out how can I be more to please everybody? And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. I got to question like the whole process of people pleasing.

So that's a thought distortion that you're describing.

Exactly. So talk about thought distortions, because that's what we're going to get into.

Yeah, so I think that part of the growth that I have really been trying to dive into in my own life is recognizing when I have thoughts that I learned something wrong. That was like a eureka moment when someone told me things that you have actually learned your whole life, you— some of them are wrong.

It's time to question them.

And it's time to question them. Thoughts that you've created about yourself, stories that you've told yourself, and we're gonna go through several of them in this series. For example, all or nothing. Let's start with that one.

That's a great one.

Let's start with that one. This is a very common thought distortion that we, especially women, buy into. And what the all-or-nothing thought distortion is, is it's this thought of like we have to be perfect. So if we make a mistake, we have these values. Like say one of our values is we're gonna keep a promise to ourself about our health. Okay, I'm just using health as an example, 'cause I don't know a woman out there that doesn't try to be healthier and isn't always striving to be healthier. And we make this, you know, kind of all-or-nothing approach to our health, and we say, okay, I'm gonna be really healthy this week, and I'm gonna go to the gym, 5 times, okay? So the line is drawn in the sand.

Usually a very aggressive line.

A very aggressive line, because this is what we do.

It's like violence, and it's like self-violence. People are like, instead of like, I'm gonna try and walk once this week, they're like, I am going to the gym 5 times. Exactly,

yeah. And so we make this all or nothing in our brain, and then we get to, you know, say we go 3 days, and then things fall apart. We have a child that gets sick. We have a project that all of a sudden our boss throws at us. We have something that comes up. A family member gets ill, or Or something happens, our car breaks down, and it's called life because that's reality. And we can't get to the gym the 4th day. So what do we do? Instead of, you know, giving ourselves self-compassion, we start, you know, going into more negative behaviors. Well, I haven't gone to the gym, now I'm just gonna drink a whole bottle of wine tonight because I'm not gonna get up and go in the morning 'cause I can't. So I have broken this promise to myself because I set an unrealistic all or nothing, and then it feeds this negative loop of—

And now I can't start again till Monday 'cause I don't know why, script during the week, I have this weird thing where it's like, oh, well then we have to wait till Monday.

Yeah, and what we also don't recognize is when we break a promise to ourselves about something silly like going to the gym, it has downstream effects for other promises. So then we— it starts this negative feedback loop in our brain.

Yeah, we don't trust ourselves, right?

We don't trust ourselves, we don't believe that we're worthy of keeping promises to ourselves, so then we start doing other negative behaviors and we just kind of buy into this all-or-nothing. I mean, does this make sense to you? I know you've had—

Totally, no, it really, it really does, and I think that for me, this was one that came up early in my life that I had to really question. I think everybody needs to tune into when they're stressed, tune into what they're thinking, because it's time to curate our own lives and quit just accepting what we're thinking as truth. It's probably something else somebody gave us, and if you believe it, great, but choose it. And so curate your life and curate your beliefs. So when I tuned into this pretty early on, it had to do with perfectionism, and it had to do with somewhere I got the message that I was loved for what I did well, for being a, like, not just a good girl, but like a perfect girl. Like, I got all A's, and I had brothers that maybe got C's and D's. And when they would bring home C's and D's, my parents would be like, oh my gosh, you didn't get F's, because they weren't— they didn't love school, right? And I would bring home all A's and like one B and a, you know, a quarter, and they'd be like, what happened in social studies? And so there's got to be this And so it got to this point where I over-rotated on over-functioning, where I— and other people may have struggled with something, I made sure I did not. Other people, you know, found an assignment hard, I made sure I did not. And so it got to this point of all or nothing that, for me, I didn't even try things I didn't know I'd already be good at. And so that took a lot of richness out of my life, where people are like, why don't you try kayaking? And I'm like, well, I'm pretty sure I won't be perfect at it, and so I'm just not gonna get on that learning curve. Yeah. For me, all or nothing really set in then, but I still find it in my life, like when I'm writing. I really want my first draft to be my final draft, right? And so when you write a book, you have about 20 people that have their eyes on it, and they're making suggestions. And for me, it's like, fine, I just won't write a book. I've written 3, I'm done. Like, I don't even want to try again. Right. And it's this intolerance of being able to stay with the moment of not being perfect. And that's when I get into all or nothing. It's like I have a low tolerance for being less than perfect, which is total lack of self-compassion. I don't know if that makes sense, but—

Yes, yes. And it's interesting because if you saw me not giving myself compassion, or not giving myself— if you saw me falling into this all-or-nothing mindset, as my friend, the first thing you would do is say, Sasha, like, chill out. Take a step back. Look at the objective— look at yourself objectively here. You're being really hard on yourself, Sash, right? Like, that's how you would talk to me. But that's not how we talk to ourselves.

So true.

And so, for me, the way that I am able to kind of break that cycle of all or nothing, I love what you said about curating your life, is, you know, do I, how would Sy talk to me? Like, how would my best friend talk to me about this all or nothing? She'd probably first tell me, make more realistic goals for yourself. Don't set 5 times as your goal to be, to go to the gym. Change the way that you are setting goals for yourself to be more realistic. And give yourself an expectation of grace.

Yeah, grace is so important, because self-compassion, I get that. But a lot of times, I want to hold myself to high standards. And so self-compassion comes a little hard. I'm going to just admit it. Grace, to me, seems like something everyone deserves, like even including me. Like, compassion is like, well, if I'm too compassionate on myself, I'll get soft. And I want to achieve, like, the things I want to achieve. But grace—

Which is funny to me, like, hearing you say that about yourself, because you're this, like, crazy, high achiever. And it's so funny to me that you would ever think that, like, someday tomorrow you're gonna wake up and you're just gonna, like, you're gonna become, like, a beach mom and, like, which is kind of my biggest— anything, you know what I mean? It's hysterical.

My biggest fear is, like, not having things, like, scheduled. What I'm learning this year about myself when I don't have things scheduled, because I have been curating my life, and I'm in danger of having, like, these beautiful moments at our place in Mexico where I just really have nothing scheduled. I think I've been so violent in my scheduling and my goals because I don't trust myself that if I just had like a couple days off, that I wouldn't just like become a complete beach bum, like, blithe on society. Which again, I think this all or nothing is about extremes. And when you're in low self, when you're in your most primitive part of your brain, that part of the brain I call ego to the people that follow me, your ego loves either or. Mm-hmm. It loves all or nothing, because it's an unwinnable game. And so you don't try anything, you just stay safe. Like, when I first realized this all or nothing thing is that I was in college, and there was a lot of girls that, in my mind, were just stunningly beautiful, and I wasn't one. And so, I used righteousness as a way to not even have to get vulnerable and be amongst people. So, I got really righteous in my 20s, and I'm like, well, I came to college not to find a husband. I came to, like, study and help the world. And if you look underneath that righteousness, which, if you're righteous in some way, I would invite you to do this. You look underneath that righteousness. I didn't feel like I measured up to, you know, some of the female students that were around me that were like pledging for sororities. So I just made up a story like sororities were bad. And now I know all these people that were in sororities I love, and it was a great experience for them. And I just kind of like, it's like, well, I can't be as pretty as them, so I'm gonna drop out entirely. You're telling yourself that too. I'm not even gonna compete. And I find that In places in my life, this all or nothing, it's not after the fact I get all or nothing. For me, it's before the fact. And it keeps— if I'm not careful, it keeps me from doing some brave things. So one of the things I've done to overcome it is I have given myself an assignment to do one brave thing a week. Now— I love that. This is really different because a lot of people are like, Sy, you set too high goals. And you know what? You know what, give me something to study and a report to write. That's not a vulnerable goal. That's a high goal, but that's not a vulnerable goal. So I'm really good at doing what I do.

Ooh, I love that.

But vulnerable goals, and that's part of how we met. So one of my brave things to do was reach out to more women I admire or accept invitations. So you might not remember this, but you reached out to me like a year ago, and I went, oh, not gonna start that fire. Like, I have plenty of friends. I have 2 I don't need any more connections in the world. So, and then this year I just said I'm gonna do one brave thing a week. And one of the brave things was when a friend, a mutual friend of ours, Angela, connected us. And I'm like, that's gonna be my one brave thing this week. And I reached out and then it— and stayed with it. And so that's how I get out of all or nothing, is I get myself to do one brave thing a week that I'm pretty sure I won't be very good at, but I just gotta get in the mess. I love that. I love that. So yours is like a little afterwards, all or nothing. Mine too, but a lot of mine is before.

And I think that it's the whole concept of perfectionism that can be so paralyzing. That's what you're describing.

That's what I'm describing. And that concept is an external concept that we've adopted internally. And that's where I think all these limiting beliefs come from. But we've got to be really careful, because when I am miserable, it's usually I'm trying to please somebody else or live by some standard somebody else handed to me. And the ultimate freedom is to be able to curate your own life. Like, all or nothing— this is kind of a funny one. My first marriage, although my first husband, awesome guy, long after 20 years of marriage, we're divorced. Somebody said to me, well, tell me the story. Like, what, what made— what helped you decide, like, you would marry him? Like, what helped you decide to say yes?

Right.

Honest to God truth, I'm thinking, huh, he proposed in And this is what happened. I didn't even ask me. I went, well, he chose me. So that's kind of all or nothing. I'm like, you know, I didn't have a lot of dates in high school or college. I didn't have a lot of relationships. I always felt like kind of the bridesmaid, not the bride. I always felt like I was kind of the girl people didn't want to date, which, if you look at my thinking, I co-created that, right? Totally. And so I was co-creating this reality. And so when we started dating, a super nice guy and bright and kind and loving, there's no reason not to say yes. But it was just funny to me that my real answer to why I said yes to being married, I never asked me. I'm just like, well, he asked.

Yeah.

And so what I've started to do is really notice with these brave things is the brave thing I pick is something I want to do, not that the world expects me to do. And that makes it the most vulnerable. Yes. Because it breaks 2 rules. It breaks the rule of I could be vulnerable and imperfect, And it breaks the other rule that I've adopted, which is it maybe isn't what I should be doing.

Right.

It's kind of naughty to do that.

Right, right. Okay, and I love this because I think this is where women can really help other women break this all-or-nothing thought process. Because how often do we see someone really struggling with something, but we're too afraid to offer like a word of encouragement and wisdom. And I think that we hold back. Like, we can see the reality of the situation. We can see objectively that this woman is maybe being really hard on herself, or maybe she's letting that perfection, like, stop her from taking a step forward. I mean, how many times have you heard women say, like, oh, I can't go on that because I can't— I don't want to put on a swimsuit in front of people. I mean, isn't that crazy? That is crazy. I mean, or I don't want to go on this trip because I don't deserve What they're really saying is like, I can't go on a girls' trip, because I just don't deserve that time. Like, that's too selfish. I have all these things to do. What they're really saying is they don't see themselves as being worthy. Worthy. It's like all or nothing. And I know for me, there's been times where other women have really kind of come into my life to help me curate my life, certainly, and to say like, you know, like you have done this for me. I mean, I have leaned on you for wisdom in building my side business about like, can I do this, can I do that? And you're like, well, why wouldn't you be able to do that? I would love to be able to do that, but I don't see the possibility, and you've really been able to give that to me. So I think that part of being brave enough is just being brave to kind of share wisdom and kind of help one another as women. Chances are that woman probably needs to hear some encouragement and probably needs to hear a little brave. You know, bravery is contagious.

It is.

You know, courage is contagious. kind of step outside of our little isolation in our silo, and we're like, oh, what would she think of me if I encouraged her, I sent her a note of encouragement, or I asked her if, you know, I can help her to get any— in any way? Like, we're so afraid as women of being criticized or judged that we just hold back what may be an answer for someone else.

Totally. Or rejected. It's almost our own low confidence in how would we know? Like, a lot of times we don't encourage others because we're like, well, Well, I— that seems hard. I don't know what—

Right, right.

You know, a couple of things that I think are so appropriate, and I appreciate— it's fun to know I had that effect in your life because you've helped me so much, is a lot of times when I'm with dear friends and they get into this either/or, all-or-nothing thinking, the most powerful word in the universe in those moments is the and. And the and, not to be used like, oh, we really can do it all and we can have it all. It's, where is the and? How could we change the question to include and? So it's like a lot of people are like, well, I either want to do this or that, and I can't do both. And the answer is probably, you're right, you probably couldn't do both. But where's the and in this of what you could do and enjoy that would meet all these needs? Like, where's the and? And so I think and's a powerful word if it's not used to pile on.

And that's exactly where you have helped me is, you know, For those people that follow me, I'm a very busy physician who has— loves my academic practice. I also have this, you know, my life passion is to empower and encourage women in medicine. And you have really helped me question my own, kind of curate my life, saying, well, why can't— what is and? What does doing both of those things look for you? It doesn't matter that anyone has not done that before. You— it's up to you to kind of figure out and curate that path.

And I think sometimes the best thing we can do for friends is help them lower their standards. So I was with somebody over the weekend, and they are a fantastic maker. They're not a crafter, they're a maker. The stuff they make is unbelievable. And she's like, oh my gosh, you know, my dream is to, you know, be more online, and— but I don't really know how to edit, and I don't really have the camera set up. And I'm like, Lower your standards. Just use your iPhone to, like, tape this thing and throw it out there. And just even teaching her, and then I'm like, and people probably would like that more, because I don't wanna watch a tutorial on how to make a project. I'll never make that project, but I would watch somebody, like, I'm like, how was that done? Right. And so it's a lot of times, I think it's, we tend, 'cause we all have high standards, to fall for the, yeah, that probably won't work right now. But sometimes as friends, We need to help people lower their standards, because as successful women, our standards are not the world's standards. Like, we took their standards and piled on like a whole other level of frosting.

Yes, we did. And it's funny, because most of the time, what we're actually doing is adding to that all or nothing. We may think that like we're not, but if we continue down this line of perfectionism, and what we're doing is we're just piling on more responsibility, more roles for us to be, when in reality, if we kind of lower the threshold and defining— that allows us to define our own success in a much more obtainable way. Yeah. And it gives us the freedom to kind of pause and pivot, which we're gonna talk about—

In a little bit.

Yeah, in a little bit.

How to be good enough. I think as friends, it's like if we wanna get out of the distorted thinking and support each other, we have to really call the question in when it comes for all or nothing. Like, forget all or nothing. Like, what's enough? And what's progress, not perfection, which is one of my favorite lines. Like, oh my gosh, she went to the gym 3 times. Yes. That's such progress. And let's move out of perfection. And I think my temptation at times is to tell people, like, oh, you should do this. Like, I'm kind of a fixer. And I have to remind myself to just help manage the energy. If somebody's into why they can't, just to ask them, but how— what if you could? What would be your endgame, and like, how could you do that given your current reality? It's like, well, I have little kids. Given you have little kids, how could you do that? And I think that brings the and in without ignoring reality, because a lot of us don't pursue our dreams because we think the only way to get our dreams accomplished is to leave reality. And we somehow on some level know that reality is reality.

Yeah.

And that it's only a dream because it can't happen in reality. And I don't even like the word dream. When people are like, well, my dream is to, you know, move into this space and do great work. It's like, stop calling it a dream. A dream means we have to fall asleep and ignore our life, you know. Have it be something I want, a desire, a need, a want.

I love that, you know, that's more like what you were talking about, curating your life.

Absolutely. And I notice a little bit of gender differences. I don't hear a lot of males. And again, I know that I don't even like that stereotype anymore because gender is such a, you know, we all need to self-identify, but a lot A lot of traditionally stereotyped men don't go, oh, I have a dream of opening up my own business. Said no male ever. But women are like, oh, I have a dream. And even that dream doesn't give ourselves permission to actually even want it. Like, I have a dream, but I know I can probably never do it. It's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What do you want different in your life? And let's talk about how you can get there.

Yeah, and that ties into this all-or-nothing, like, well, if I ever achieve my dream, Then I'll be happy. Then I'll be happy, right? Like, that's the end goal of all or nothing. And it's so interesting, 'cause I know in my own life, I'm like, what if this year I was given, like, a diagnosis, okay, that my life was gonna end in 6 months? What would I do? Would I be happy right now? Would I be in the moment? Would I be happy? It's a big question. Or would I constantly be thinking this all or nothing? Well, I didn't achieve this, I didn't achieve that. And you know, it's messy. I bet if you were to break down your career and your career path, You know, it's very easy for people to look at you and say, oh, she has all these things, she has everything going for her, but it was a messy path to get there, right? So messy. And it was, if you really judged your career based on like this idea of perfection, and you looked back, you probably wouldn't have met your goal, you know what I mean? So I think we have to really get in the moment, and that's what the beauty of kind of ditching that all or nothing does, is that self-compassion and grace gives you, allows you to be okay today. So it allows you on Wednesday night when your week falls apart and you can't get to the gym for 4 and 5 to go, you know what, I just did an awesome thing. I went to the gym 3 days this week. It allows you to be in that moment today and be okay with today.

Or taking care of yourself can be, I'm exhausted, I'm gonna go— I'm not going to take care of myself. I'm not going, I'm choosing not to go to the gym. We don't weight our choices, one, as a victim, where it's like, oh, I didn't get to the gym today, and now I gotta beat up on myself. It's like, no, you looked at your life, and you chose to go home and, you know, relax. Yeah. You know, so many times when we look at where people end up, and people do this too, part of distorted thinking is they rewrite their own history. And so you end up, maybe I end up as like a writer, and I go back, if I'm not careful, and I give people the impression like, oh yeah, when I was young, I just always knew I wanted to be a writer. Like, people think fill in their whole history. And Mary Catherine Bateson, who's a wonderful anthropologist, Margaret Mead's daughter, Dr. Craig Bateson's daughter, she wrote this old— she wrote this book, it wasn't old when she wrote it, I love it, I read it every few years, called Composing a Life.

Ooh, I've never read it.

And what she says, and she points out, that many, many successful people, they have a melody in their life. Like, I did always kind of think suffering's pretty optional. I'd see people in pain, and I'd just wonder, like, are they just believing their own thinking? Like, it doesn't seem real to me. They have a melody, but their whole life is spent composing harmonies for that. That melody comes out in different ways. Like, if you just imagine you're composing this beautiful piece of music called life, you have that melody, and you revisit it, and it gets stronger, and there's, you know, different breaks in movements. Yeah. But it's just a red thread. It's not a straight path. And I think that's what we could bring a lot of grace into our lives and get more tolerance for. It's just, it's messy. And when I get into all or nothing, just me, maybe think about embracing the mess, that it's an illusion to think that this is a straight path. It's illusion to think that I can always or never be doing something. For me, I would just call it— what I do in my self-talk is I go, you know what, I'm really making myself suffer. I'm going to rejoin the human race. And so that's what I do when I'm like, ooh, Cy Wakeman has left the human race and has become mythic and godlike, which are my expectations. Like, I'm just going to rejoin the human race. Because it's It's less lonely there. It's less lonely to have messiness in your life and just be like, girl, I'm tired and I'm scared and I'm gonna do this anyway, and if it fails, at least I'll still have my same 3 friends I had when I started this.

I love this. So basically what you and I have kind of summarized is when we find ourselves in that thought distortion of all or nothing, the first thing is just identify it. Understand that that's what is— we're coming from a place of ego.

Yeah, and your ego's playing you right now. If you don't question that,

And the second thing is to really embrace self-compassion or grace, whichever one speaks to you more. We also talked about setting very realistic goals for yourself. And also being that friend, if you see another woman struggling, being brave enough to reach out and maybe guide her back to what— setting realistic goals, sharing your wisdom, and then curating your life, which I love. I love how you described that. That's so powerful.

Curating your life and curating it with a focus on how I could, given my reality, because that is just a dream if you're ignoring reality and saying, someday I will. Mm-hmm. And the tragedy in the all or nothing is that your perfectionism will keep you safe, but it will keep you from experimenting, and it will keep you from the information that will give you a nod towards what you could do next. And a lot of people sit back and think about what they could do next, but this all or nothing keeps us out of playing with something long enough being curious long enough and being in the mess long enough to really understand more about what we're called to do in this world. I love that.

I love it.

So all or nothing, folks. Check yourself, check your girlfriends. Let's help each other get out of our perfectionism. This is the No Ego Podcast, where we ditch the drama and integrity. Entitlement and Transform Your Worldplace. I'm Cy Wakeman.