Letting Go of Your Inner Bully | DFS 316

Welcome to Destin for success. I'm your

host, Jennifer Takagi, and I like to dive a little deeper

into the conversation we had last week with Malcolm Grissom,

and he was sharing about the inner bully and how we need to

detect it, detach from it, and then detox ourself from it, and

just to change it up a little bit so I don't still haul all of

his words. I'm calling this episode letting go of your inner

critic. You've heard the term before. You're your own worst

critic, and I'm here to say that is true. It is true for me, and

it's true for you, whether you've admitted it yet or not. I

did a class for the great state of Oklahoma, and there were like

30 the room held 36 so there were over 30, maybe there were

36 I don't remember, but it was a new class. I had never taught

it before, and I was very skeptical about it, like a new

thing, you're a little bit scared about a new thing, and I

was a little bit uneasy about it. Didn't really have that

confidence. Confidence comes from doing right and knowing you

can handle it. And the evaluations came in, and at the

time you could actually pick them up when you were live in

the room, and it was before everything had been automated.

And I'm looking through the evaluations, and they're all

good, they're all good, they're all good. And then this one was

so harsh, it was very harsh, and I thought, I can never teach

that class again, like I can't do it. Fast forward several

weeks. I'm teaching a different class. I've taught this class

before. I'm very confident about it. I know what stories I'm

going to tell. I know how to motivate and engage the

audience. So I'm really, I'm really happy about this class.

And I get there, and one of the leaders of the team that I'm on,

or I mean, they're on, and they've contracted with me to do

some training. She comes in to make sure the room is set up and

ready to go, which is one of the reasons I love training. For the

state, they have everything ready to go. I just have to show

up and and do my thing. And she came in and she was like, how's

it going? Is everything ready? And I said, Yep, it looks like

everything's ready to go. I said, but hey, I want to talk to

you about that training I did the other day. It was really

bad. And she was What do you mean? It was really bad? And I

said, I got that one review that was horrible. And she looked at

me and said, Jennifer, like there were over 30 people in the

room. Everybody gave you a raving review, except that one.

And I was like, I know, but it like it was really bad. And she

said, If there's only one really bad one, I just overlook it and

keep going. I'm never gonna get caught up because of one bad

evaluation. And she said, Actually, I don't even think it

was really that bad, which was super kind on her part, but

like, I was like, what I can never teach that class again.

And I was terrible was, it turns out, I taught that class, I

don't know how many more times when covid came around. That was

one of the most requested classes I had obviously like

nailed how to teach that class, but that inner voice, that inner

critic, was saying, you can't teach that class. You're not any

good at it. Pick one of these others that you're good at. Now,

that person who did the evaluation, I don't know if it

was a man or a woman, but they shared their personal insights

or feelings reactions to the class. But I took it. I took it

and ran with it, and now I'm like, even telling other people,

oh, I can't teach that class. I'm terrible at it, like I wish

they would find somebody else. As it turns out, I was the only

other person who had ever taught it, so they kept giving it to

me, but I was like, I shouldn't teach this when you're

struggling to get over all the negative thoughts in your head.

You we me, I often will find something negative about

somebody else. Like, that's the way we do it. I'm going to beat

myself up, and I'm going to beat you up too. What if we started

with others? Like, if we're not ready, really ready, to get rid

of the inner ability in us, the inner critic. I. What if we

started getting rid of it around other people, or identified when

they were doing it? I was recently in an event, and I

believe it was Ed mylett. Said, if it wasn't Ed mylett, it was

Brenda Bouchard said somebody talked down on themselves, and

their response was to say, Hey, you can't talk to yourself like

that. I respect you too much to let you talk to yourself that

way. What you respect me too much for me to speak to myself

this way. Wow, that is so powerful. That is so powerful.

So I started working at incorporating that into

conversation. So I'm talking to a friend of mine, and she says

something really negative about herself. And I was like, Hey,

wait a minute. Time out. I respect you too much to have you

speak to yourself that way. And that stopped her in her tracks.

So now I have a very heightened awareness of what I say, like we

should always be aware of what we say. We shouldn't just

flippantly say things, but it's like this special level of

awareness. So I'm thinking, if I can start noticing other people

criticizing themselves and stop that from happening, I might be

able to recognize it a little bit in myself, so I'll look for

it in other people. I'll start identifying when they're saying

it. Then I can become more aware of when I say it myself. And if

you've ever gotten my 12 minute gift.com, it's a three part

audio series. One of the first steps in that three part is wire

your brain. It's been wired for so many years, but let's go in

and rewire it differently. Let's identify those negative things

we're saying to ourselves, if we start identifying when other

people are doing it, then we can start identifying ourselves and

start making note of when we do it. What are the circumstances?

I often criticize myself the most when it's something I've

never done before, or maybe it's something I've only done a time

or two. You often don't get great at something the first

time you do it, like you can't pick up a tennis racket and be a

pro Tiger Woods playing golf. He started playing what two years

old. As soon as he could walk and hold a golf club. He

practiced for years and years and years. Yeah, he has talent.

Yes, he's a prodigy, but it takes practice. Michael Jordan,

oh, you know, did 10 bazillion practices and free throws, so it

takes a lot of practice to get better. So I criticize myself

when I can't do something quickly, easily and perfectly

the first time. And I have to wonder, is that even reasonable?

The big answer is no, it is not reasonable for me, and it's not

reasonable for you either. So when you start looking at wiring

of your brain and rewiring it, recognizing what you're saying

to yourself is like a huge step. So step one is start noticing it

in other people, then you can become more hyper aware of when

you're doing it yourself. Then the next thing, which is super

fun. And I was reminded of this just recently, and I was like,

dang, I did not really step into that. I was at a fabulous

retreat with the amazing Hillary to Caesar. You might see her all

over the social media. She's an amazing powerhouse, and she had

us all create an alter ego, a fly just dive bombed me. Where

did that come from? Sitting in my house. Sorry. But Hillary had

us all create our own Alter Ego, and with our Alter Ego, who is

she? In my case, who is she going to be? How is she going to

show up? What is she going to do to transform herself, her life

and the world? She had us give her a name. She had us decide

what kind of clothes she was going. Aware.

How's she going to speak? How is she going to own her space when

you walk into your room? How do you want to show up if you walk

in with your head down, your shoulder slumped and kind of

slink in, don't be disappointed when you leave and nobody

noticed that you were there. It's not their fault you chose

not to show up as your biggest and best self. Do you walk in,

standing up straight, chin up, looking around, making eye

contact with people, smiling, saying, hello. It is a conscious

decision. It's a conscious choice how you want to show up.

Recently, we had a little exercise in the Brenda brochards

Ultra mastermind group, and it was, I can't remember exactly

the terminology, but it was along the lines of, how do you

want people to perceive you? Wow, that's a whole different

thing. When I walk in a room, what do I want people to see?

How do I want to make them feel? And how do I want them to

perceive me and my essence and my presence and how I show up in

the world? Not only do I want to be accepted by other people, I

want to be very accepting of them. I want to be inclusive.

That's how I want to show up in the world. I want people to feel

comfortable and wanted do I achieve this with every

interaction I'm very sad to disappoint myself and possibly

disappoint you. But no, I don't, not every time. Is that a goal?

Yes, is a goal. Is that a goal? I think is worth striving for?

Yes, I do. So let's start letting go of our inner critic.

It probably wasn't as catastrophic as you think it

was. Anyway, mine wasn't. I finally told him at the state

when they would have all the evaluations be done

electronically so I wouldn't see him sometimes for weeks and

weeks after a class was done, then I didn't even remember who

was in the class or what happened at that point, and I

called and said, Hey, if you see something on an evaluation

that's really bad, would you please holler at me and let me

know I need to look at it. Because I'm not going to look at

him anymore. I'm not going to. I don't need to. I don't want to.

I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. I put my foot down. People are

gonna tell me when I really need to know something, and I'm gonna

make shifts and adjustments as it's appropriate. We cut

ourselves down too much. We hire hold ourselves to really high

standards, and we can hold ourselves to high standards as

long as we don't beat ourselves up when we don't hit the mark

every day. Give yourself some grace. There's a pretty good

chance you give other people in your life a lot of grace, a lot

of latitude. Give yourself a little bit of grace. I'm

Jennifer Takagi with destin for success, and I look forward to

connecting with you soon. You.