Shadé Zahrai: The Dangerous Mindset Secretly Holding Entrepreneurs Back | Mental Wealth Series | E3

21:35Hala Taha:I just open it up, search what I need, see the real reviews, check availability, and book an in-person or video visit instantly, most of the time that same day. At this point, ZocDoc is quite literally the way that I handle all of my healthcare needs, and I love that I get to see all the doctors that I visited, and it's just saved in my profile, and it's like my go-to place to understand what are the doctors that I've seen in every city so that I can just go back to the same doctor so they have my information. So stop putting off these doctor's appointments and go to ZocDoc.com slash profiting to find and instantly book a doctor that you love today.

22:10Hala Taha:That's Z-O-C-D-O-C.com slash profiting. ZocDoc.com slash profiting. Again, that's ZocDoc.com slash profiting. And thanks to ZocDoc for supporting this message. So one last question on your backstory. And I really love that you were saying like, you did speaking engagements for free. You dabbled in a lot of different career experiences. You didn't just stay in one field. You ended up getting into psychology. At some point you were in law, you were in banking, all these different things. And I talk about skill stacking a lot on the show because it's something that I really believe in. And I think a lot of young people, they are under this mentality that they should be paid right out of college.

22:46Hala Taha:And they're not really serious about acquiring skills. And for me, that seems like a really big problem because I'm somebody who's been working since I was 15, having all these different jobs, getting all these experiences. And I think that's what made me a really successful entrepreneur, like from the start of me starting a company. It's because I had all these experiences and I worked for free for a long time in many different instances. I worked at a radio station for free for three years, right? And so I'm with you, also did speaking engagements for free because you need to build up skills somehow.

23:16Hala Taha:And sometimes you get compensated with experience and knowledge and know-how. So talk to us about how all these different experiences that you had 10 years leading up to you being an entrepreneur actually enabled you for success once you did start your business. There's, as you said, there's this fallacy that I've gone to college, I'm going to get a job and be paid really well. And then that's just my career. I'll just, I'll be recognized for the hard work that I do and it will come to me. And we know that's not reality. And so you call it skill stacking? Is that the term you gave? Yeah, skill stacking.

23:48We call it a career multipliers. So it's this idea that, and we use the analogy of a lock. So you know when you travel and you have those locks and they have the dials on them and you set the dials and usually they come with three dials, if I'm not mistaken. There's a reason why they come with three and not two or one, because one dial is way too easy for someone to crack. It's one in nine or one in 10 if you count zero. Two, again, way too easy. Once you get to three, it's more complicated. Now, in the same way, when it comes to thinking about your career and when I was thinking about what my journey is going to look like.

24:18If I had a really linear path, it would be like having a career, I mean, a lock for my luggage, really valuable luggage with just one lock on it. And guess what? There are a lot of other people out there with just one lock on their little career luggage as well. I'm not any different to anyone else. So the question I was asking myself is how can I have these career multipliers that allow me to acquire these skills that are different? because every skill set you develop, as you say, comes together and converges into this really beautiful, unique package that you offer and no one else does. And that's why I often tell people, the more varied your background, the more value you add, because you come from things from a different perspective.

25:01You're able to question things, challenge the status quo rather than just accepting. And the worst thing you can say is, it's always been done this way, or that's just what we've always done. It's the worst thing you can say. it kills creativity, kills innovation. So on my journey, there were so many things I did. I also spent time as a professional dancer while I was at university, which taught me the value of having a goal and working really hard to achieve that goal and pushing your body, but also playing to your strengths. I'm not flexible. And so my dance partner and I, we were like, we're not going to try and compete on flexibility.

25:34Let's compete on what we do really well, which is turn patterns, which is really unique choreography. If we tried to compete on the thing I was not good at, we would have just failed. It would have been miserable, probably torn a muscle. So again, finding out what you're good at, giving yourself the experiences, as you say, volunteering for things, doing them for free. Now, of course, there comes a time when you make that transition point. You can't just do things for free forever. Hala, you probably have experiences where people still reach out and say, Hala, will you come and speak to this audience?

26:02You'll get exposure.

26:04Hala Taha:Yeah. No pay, but exposure, you know, you've got to... You just always level up, you know, you've got to start from somewhere. Exactly. But thinking about your career as how can I create these multipliers? What else can I do? And then reminding yourself that no matter what you've done, there's always a lesson or an insight you can gain. My legal experience taught me the value of having an attention to detail. It also taught me that I don't like confrontation. I like to work through things in a really harmonious way. You know, someone could say, well, that's because you're female. I disagree. I think part of it is also just my nature, how I am.

26:39And so I learned in a legal environment that that is not for me because of that quality that I really value. And I have brought that people orientation to everything that I do. There's so many ways that even the biggest wastes of time or the failures that we had, you know, they're not even failures because we learn the most only though if we choose to seek out and mine the experience for the lesson. Hmm.

27:02Hala Taha:I really, really love this lock analogy. And it reminds me of preparing for this AI revolution that's going on. It's what makes us uniquely human, the fact that we can have all these different experiences and knowledge in different areas. And that way, your job security is a lot safer in the future because you're a unique person with a unique set of skills. And you can design a business that really is optimized for those skills that you've acquired over your career. So I love this advice. Okay, let's get back to your TikTok. So you ended up blowing up on TikTok. You then took an omni-channel approach and started your following on Instagram, which is really impressive.

27:42Hala Taha:LinkedIn, which is really impressive. From my understanding, you were actually pretty nervous to be behind a camera or it wasn't really natural to you. How did you overcome that? Because now you've got incredible stage presence and you're exuding confidence. So how did you overcome that? I just did it. So if I think back even to my speaking career, I loved speaking, but I was so nervous doing it. I would freeze up. My whole body would be taken over by stress and anxiety. But I loved it. So I thought, how am I going to get over this fear? Well, I'm just going to do it. I'm going to put myself in that position where I desensitize myself to those emotions.

28:21It's basically like if you think about ice baths, the way people are doing it now. I haven't done it myself. Have you ever been in an ice bath?

28:27Hala Taha:What is it? Ice bath? An ice bath. Yeah. Sorry, ice bath. Yeah. I've done cold showers. I had Wim Hof on the show. So like, I know all about it, but I never did it. Yeah, I haven't done it either. But the idea is you're desensitizing your body and desensitizing that stress reaction to remind yourself that, hey, it's okay, I've got this. So you're almost overriding this natural biological instinct that you have with control. And it's remarkable. The benefits are remarkable, as you know, The same thing was for me when it came to speaking. I needed to put myself in that position enough times that I no longer reacted to those butterflies in my stomach as though I was about to vomit.

29:05And I started to think, well, actually, no, this gives me energy that allows me to project further. This gives me the care factor that I need to do a really good job. So it allowed me to redefine it, but I had to do it. And that's why for me doing the free things up front was really great because the standard was much lower in terms of what people were expecting and what I was expecting of myself. It was free. So I started small, did them for free, built it up. Same thing applied with video. So when it came to doing video at that time, I was still comfortable to be on stage. I'd done it enough times that I didn't have that fear.

29:37But video is totally different. For some reason, for me, I couldn't cross that bridge to just feel comfortable with it. I think it's because you record it and then you watch it back and you're so vulnerable. I also knew that, you know, when you post a video online, so if we move into the psychology space, when we look at cognition research and the psychology research, we make a first impression about someone in milliseconds, so quickly. And it's based on how that person looks, their demeanor, their facial expressions, even the initial tone of their voice, their body language, all of these things.

30:14And typically we judge people on two things when we first meet them. Warmth. Do I like this person? Do I trust this person? And then secondarily, competence. Do I respect this person? Do I believe what they're saying? Do I believe that they are capable and competent? So we make these assessments. Now, when you're sharing static posts, it's much easier to demonstrate competence because it's words on a page. The warmth factor might come through in how relatable you are in your wording, but it's a very different level to when you're putting a video out because people are seeing you. They're seeing your face, hearing your voice, making these assessments about your micro expressions and then making an assessment as to whether they like you or not and whether they respect you or not.

30:59It happens very quickly. And so, of course, on the one side, it gives video so much power because people really quickly know whether they like you or not. So the people that choose to follow, they're in it for the long haul. They're loyal fans. Not all of them. There's always, I think, 5 % of people who follow because they just want to troll or hate, you know, all love to them. They're going through their own challenges. But generally, that's what we find happening. So I was at that turning point where I needed to get comfortable on video. I just did it. Before I did the 40 videos, I'd started creating just a few short videos for LinkedIn.

31:34Really short, helping employees, mainly within the work environment. How can they navigate work from home? How can they navigate challenges with their teams, etc? I did maybe three of them. And they were not very good. Like they were really not very good. That's completely objectively not very good. bad quality setup. I had a little microphone. The lighting was okay, but not very good. But then I recorded these 40 videos. I just put myself in a position where I said, look, whenever we start something new, it's going to be a little shitty. And that's okay. Embrace the shitty because then you have all this room to grow from shitty.

32:11It's actually better sometimes to start low because then you can only go up from here. One of the things I've found since many years now down the track is sometimes I'll create a really great piece of content. And Hala, let me know if you've experienced this really beautiful piece of content. You share it and you think, how am I going to top that? And I will hold off for a couple of days rather than posting regularly because I'm thinking, well, I've just posted something beautiful. How do I mean? Anyway, these things, these stories that we tell ourselves. But for me, just getting comfortable with it required me to actually do it and then detach myself from the outcome.

32:45Hala Taha:Yeah, it's really good advice and it's really inspiring. And I think something else that you did that was really smart. I have a social media agency and I'm a huge LinkedIn influencer. And the way that I stood out on LinkedIn was talking about something that nobody was talking about, which was podcasting, right? And I stood out, nobody was talking about it. Everybody in the beginning would tell me, you know, this is not Facebook. Why are you posting this? And but it helped me succeed because I stood out. And like you, at a time when everybody was just doing dances on TikTok, you were putting out this like educational content and probably really helped you succeed because you decided to stick out.

33:23Hala Taha:So my next question in terms of building your personal brand is when you decided to branch off from TikTok and take this omni-channel approach, did you actually study the platforms or was your content just so good that like you just put out your videos everywhere and it just seemed to work no matter what platform you put it on? Back then it was it was such a genuine intent. It was really just, hey, if this helps one person, fantastic, because we were coming at it from zero. Like we had nothing to lose. So I just posted and I didn't even know what time to be posting. I didn't even know initially that I was meant to be putting captions on to make them more accessible.

33:55All of these things I just posted. I think you're right, though. We got onto that platform when it was emerging, when there were not many people doing the style of video that we were doing, the talking head, helping people style video. And so that was really unique and people resonated really strongly. And now it's exploded, which is wonderful. we then obviously had this omni-channel view where we're like okay well let's take that content and just put it on the other platforms took me a really long time to get it onto Instagram though because Instagram was my you know people knew me on Instagram and so there's this oh what are they

34:29Hala Taha:gonna think they're gonna cringe you know I think there's always this transition point when you're going from where you are now and all the people that know you where you are to where you want to be. And it's almost like the people that know you now are actually not the people that you necessarily want in your community in terms of who you want to be, because they're in a different world. But making that transition is really hard. So for Instagram, it took a lot longer to get onto there, but the response was really positive. The hardest for me was getting onto LinkedIn, though, sharing this content on LinkedIn, because LinkedIn was my prized corporate contacts, you know leaders of companies I'd worked with and general managers and and I felt so much scrutiny in terms of what will they think of me once we were doing really well though on TikTok and Instagram I thought you know what I don't really care I actually I don't really care and there are people who have chosen to leave people in that initial network that I worked with who have chosen to leave that platform leave the connection or unfriend or whatever it's called on LinkedIn because my content doesn't resonate with them which is totally okay because I want people who resonate with my content to be in my communities.

35:37So yeah, there was an interesting transition. You just have to do it.

35:41Hala Taha:Yeah, that's awesome. Congratulations on all your success. Thank you. And you too as well. What a remarkable story. Thank you. So let's talk about psychology. I know that your expertise is really high performance for employees, for entrepreneurs, overcoming self-deception, like self-doubt, mind pits, inner critics. And being an entrepreneur is hard, right? and you've talked about the importance of having the right mindset and you talk about these common pitfalls we all encounter in this journey of entrepreneurship. You call them mind pits. Can you explain what these mind pits are and the three common mind pits that entrepreneurs face?

36:18So we were coming across a lot of people, whether it was through the Fortune 500 we were working with, but also in the entrepreneurial community. And we were hearing this common frustration that they were underperforming. And we wanted to figure out what is it that differentiates those who are super high performing and really happy from those who feel like they're underperforming? They have these amazing goals, but they're not getting there. And we recognize that there are some cognitive differences, differences in how people approach things. And so our business and part of my PhD research is looking into this cognitive difference.

36:49And fundamentally, it comes down to how people approach their goals. I mean, there's a lot to it, but I'm going to start just with the how people approach their goals piece. So we discovered these mind pits, which people resonate with. They've either been in one or been in all of them. And there are three, as you mentioned. So the first one that we identified is where someone and a lot of people who are lurking on social media, they're in this space. I imagine a lot of people who follow in your community are also in this space. They have these amazing goals. They want to run these amazing businesses and have these followings on social media and do all these great things.

37:22And they're researching and consuming and telling themselves that they will feel ready at some point, but they're not taking action. So they're stuck right at the beginning. We call it failure to launch. They're not launching. And when we look at decades worth of research, there's one very common overarching theme. What do you think it is? Perfection. Perfection. And it's overthinking. It's believing that you must be perfect. Otherwise, people will judge you. People will criticize you. What if I fail? What will that do to me? this overthinking that is fueled by perfection leads to complete stagnation.

37:57Now, when we think about the brain, the brain is wired to magnify what we focus on. It's an evolutionary survival mechanism that we have, which is designed to keep us alive, negativity bias. However, when it comes to our goals and what we want to achieve, if we listen to that voice in our head, it will convince us that, well, we might fail, the risk is too high, don't do it. And so we wait, we hold back. So this is failure to launch. Now, if anyone listening is in failure to launch, there's one really simple and it's almost so simple. It's almost counterintuitive. Really simple approach that comes from the research on goals.

38:33Peter Golwitzer is the expert, the researcher, psychologist who's looked into this. And it's really simple. Those who are able to take action on their goals, they do three things, which is captured in something called a goal intention. they just specify when they're going to get started where they're going to do it and what they're going to do and they usually have a phrase of at in i will so they actually set themselves a goal and then you must take action don't let perfect get in the way of good enough for now remember embrace the good enough for now doesn't mean that's where it's always going to be that's you getting started you want to start in an environment where you know you can grow and you can develop.

39:14I want to just quickly tell you, Hala, my first or I think my second ever video on TikTok. So my first one, I was doing one of those voice, you know, like where you do someone else's voice, you take the audio and you just mime it. And then I had some messages about career and confidence pop up. That was my first one. My second one was a viral dance. So I thought that I had to create a dance in order to get any kind of cut through on that platform. And then thankfully, I learned, didn't need to do that. But the point is, I just did it. I knew that it was only going to go up from there. So you just got to get started.

39:48That's mindset number one, failure to launch. And I know I've been in this sometimes. I mean, I have wanted to do some things for so long and I keep convincing myself, oh, not yet, not yet. I think one of the greatest antidotes to growth is not yet. I mean, it's good that it has the word yet in it because growth mindset, it means it may come, but not yet is you giving yourself an out. So find something and just do it. Mind pit one, failure to launch. Now, mind pit two is a really interesting one. So we discovered this initially. I was having an interaction with this gentleman. This was back in Australia, and he was a highly talented young man.

40:28He was one year from finishing his PhD research. So he'd spent, I think, three or four years doing rigorous research and experiencing the world of academia. But then he came to me for some guidance. I was coaching him and he said that he was going to drop out. And then he also shared that he'd half finished his master's, his second master's, which was an MBA, to pursue the PhD. So he hadn't finished that either. And it seemed like he was just not able to see things through. He wasn't getting anywhere with all these part-completed commitments and he was treading water. So he was exhausting himself without going anywhere.

41:01And this is the second mind pit. We call it treading water. This is where people have so many goals and they're so excitable that they will start something and then get bored and then try something else and then go somewhere else and sign up for a business mastermind and never finish it and get a course and maybe do one lesson and 50 million self-help books and they've read one chapter. It's this kind of behavior of too many things that you want to do that you don't take action. So the reason why we get stuck here, have you ever been in this one? I don't fall into the first two buckets. I fall into the last one.

41:31Oh, got it. Okay. That one's coming. That's coming. so this one it's driven by self-doubt where you're questioning is this the right thing for me should i be doing this maybe i should do that you also you know boredom comes when you've been doing something for a while the initial dopamine hit tends to wane and so you think well this is not as exciting as i thought it would be let me try something else and then hey that's really exciting initially because new is always exciting yay dopamine hit and then it fades so you never commit 100%. Now, here's a really interesting thing. This gentleman I was speaking to, he did end up quitting his PhD.

42:07He dropped out. I don't know how someone does that after four years, but he did. And he started a charity working with underprivileged youth. And he's still doing that five years later. And he is extremely fulfilled and he's found his purpose. So what we discovered is that when a lot of people are in this pit, it's actually not that you can't commit. It's just that you're doing the wrong things and you are doing too many things. You need to just ask yourself, what is the most important thing for me to do right now? And so a really simple approach here is to remind yourself of the meaning of what you're doing and make sure that it aligns with who you want to be.

42:41And there's two quick tips I want to share here. The first one is in 18, no, in 1987, different century, 1987, there were these two researchers, Valacher and Wagner. And they proposed a way to understand how we interpret and think about our actions. And so basically there's a range. So we have a low level identification where we focus on the how of an action, the mechanism. So Hala, right now we're sitting and talking. That's the low level mechanism. The high level is where you emphasize the why of the action. It's the purpose, the goal of the action. So it's empowering entrepreneurs with tools to improve and transform their lives.

43:18That's the why. It's so important. We know this, right? We need to tap into the why in order to feel that motivation, but also to make sure that what we're doing is the right thing. So I encourage anyone who might be in this bucket or in this category, hone into the high level meaning. There's always a low level meaning. What's the high level meaning? And then the second very, very quick tip is some people in this state, because they don't have the motivation, the moment something challenging comes their way, they crumble. And they just say, oh, not for me. I'm going to try something else. And so we encourage you to do something called a premortem.

43:55A premortem is a concept in the project management world. It's also called inversion. It's a really simple technique. You proactively think about all the things that could go wrong, all the obstacles that could get in your way, and then you troubleshoot before they happen. What will you do? You develop something called an implementation intention. It's your coping plan, if then. Now, fascinatingly, the research from Peter Golwitzer tells us if you develop an implementation intention, you're going to be three times more likely to achieve your goal simply by having your if then plan. So if I start to lose motivation, then I will remind myself of my purpose and then reach out to my mentor.

44:35If something else, then I'll do something else. Really simple. So that's for our second mind pit.

44:41Hala Taha:Let me ask you one follow-up question about this one. Because I think treading water is actually really, really dangerous for people's careers. I have a lot of friends that fall into this bucket. And what happens is that they never become very successful or make a lot of money because they don't have the discipline to focus and just get good at something. Even if it's temporary. Even if you work at something for four years and then you decide to quit, that's okay. But if you never actually get anything done, you just end up just going in circles, going in circles, and really never actually creating a career for yourself.

45:13Hala Taha:and even experiences because you don't get far enough to really get skills. So I just want to call out that if you feel like you're falling in this bucket, you need to understand that focus is so important to actually grow skills and make money later on. And I think that, you know, finding how to have that discipline, finding your why, finding your purpose, and really sticking to something, even if you don't necessarily like it for a little bit, just to gain the skills is really important. Totally. There was this beautiful quote. I can't remember who said it, but it's, more is lost through indecision than the wrong decision.

45:45Sometimes you just need to make a decision, commit to it. And even if, as you say, even if after a number of years, you realize, hey, it doesn't light my fire anymore. You still had that journey of growth. You've still learned new skills. You've skilled stacked, as you'd say. Yeah. Right. You've developed those career

45:59Hala Taha:multipliers because you chose to take that path. Okay. Number three. Okay. Number three. So this is the one holler that you're in and I am in it. And I think a lot of people are in it. it's the inability to be still. You keep pushing without giving yourself a break. You feel guilty when you stop working. You reach a goal, get to that destination, and then you immediately input the next one into your GPS, right? It's never enough for you. So it's not that you have a discipline problem at all. You have iron discipline. You're just not able to see that actually your work and you are not one and the same, that there is a distinction between what you're producing and your self-worth.

46:36We call it destination obsession. You're addicted to achievement. It's also the reason why a lot of people will get to the end of their day, busy work day. They're in bed. They know they should be sleeping, but actually they're lying there scrolling on their devices. It's called revenge bedtime procrastination. And the reason why we do it, when we have really busy daytime lives, and a lot of that is self-imposed, we might be bringing on a lot of that to ourselves. That moment right before bed is the only moment of personal control that we have. And we know that the sooner that we sleep, the sooner tomorrow arrives, and then we have to get back to doing it all again.

47:13So we want to try and hold on to that as long as we can. And then we sleep later because we're on social media. So revenge, bedtime, procrastination. This is also the realm of productivity guilt. You stop working. Hala, do you feel guilty when you actually stop working?

47:28Hala Taha:Yeah, I've gotten better at it. But yes, for sure. For a long time, I couldn't even not work weekends because I feel guilty about it. Yeah. And is that, were you like that when you were an employee or only when you became an entrepreneur? Both, but more so when I was an entrepreneur. It's really interesting. I felt exactly the same thing. And for me, a big part of it is when I worked in the corporate space, I would, you know, you work and then you get your salary. It goes hand in hand. So work and money come together. When you're an entrepreneur, it doesn't necessarily go like that. You can design your work in such a way that it's not time for money.

48:08I mean, that's what you want to do, right? It's not time for money. You don't have to be working ridiculous hours. But a lot of us do it because in our brain, we have this belief that if I'm making money, then I must be working. And if I make more money, then I just must work more. It's almost it's gone the other way. And it's very confusing for us. And it's one of these things that drives this productivity orientation. So in this position, the best thing you can do if you're here, and Hala, I'd love to ask you what you've done because you said you're getting better at it. Actually, before I even share my tip, what have you done that has really been effective for you?

48:45Hala Taha:I think that I understood that I needed to temporarily put everything into my business for about four years where I just really worked 16 hour days, worked through every weekend, really put my relationships. I still cared about my relationships, but I deprioritized that and really prioritized my career. And then there came a certain point where I achieved a level of success and I was able to train more team members. I have a big team where I just felt like, okay, like weekends are off limits now. And I just started setting these boundaries. Still work really late oftentimes, but I give myself the opportunity to have like no meeting Wednesdays.

49:23Hala Taha:And then sometimes I can go like get a facial or do get my nails done or do whatever I want. I go on vacations all the time now. So it's just, I just basically realized that that sacrifice was temporary. And I no longer needed to do that anymore. And, you know, there's just different phases of your life. I think it's important to sacrifice at some point to get to where you want to go, but you can't do that forever. it's not healthy. Absolutely. And it's beautiful that you have created a life now that gives you the freedom. You knew that you needed to put in the four years. And then unlike a lot of people who would get to the end of the four years and think, well, I just I want to just keep going because I was able to do it and maybe I can take my business to even higher level.

50:03And it's this myth again that we're living where we think we must just always be connected and always on. But you've created that boundary, which is so important. And that's essentially when it comes to this pit, this mind pit, this cognitive space that we're stuck in, there's no magic pill that's going to make it go away other than setting a boundary with yourself. Because people in this pit are really good at getting things done, right? They're very good at getting things done. And so because we make time for what we prioritize, we actually need to prioritize the breaks, prioritize the weekends off, the days off to go and get the facial or whatever that is, and then make them meaningful.

50:41So again, if we look at that high level, low level meaning, The low level is I'm taking a day off work. The high level meaning is I'm taking this day to rejuvenate, to become my best self, to build up my internal stores of energy so I can be my best for my team to lead my business and go harder. So it's having that, the meaning behind your breaks. And then even just starting really small, going for a walk, disconnecting from tech. So I think we are so connected to our devices and it's just getting worse. I mean, with AI, it's a wonderful thing, but I think also it's going to make us even more tethered.

51:17Hopefully we'll get to a point where technology actually does alleviate a lot of the daily grind. Currently, it's done a lot to help it, but it's also, again, made us completely connected. I was having a conversation with Professor Pierce Steele, who's one of the foremost researchers in the realm of procrastination. And he said this beautiful line. And he said, we're amusing ourselves to death on social media with all of these extra things that we're occupying ourselves with. And I completely agree. And I think we're also killing our creativity by working so hard for so long. Taking these breaks helps.

51:52I mean, how do you feel after you have your no meetings or your no work Wednesdays or, you know, the days where you go and invest in yourself? How do you feel when you come back?

51:58Hala Taha:Totally re-energize. Completely. I mean, like, and you as an entrepreneur, especially if you have employees, you're responsible for the energy of the company. So before, when I was just working, working, working, working, like that made everybody anxious, you know, and now it's just more calm, understanding, relaxed. And I think that that improves the energy management of the company overall, too. It completely does. And there are flow on effects to performance and engagement. And it's interesting when we look at, again, a lot of the psychology around the effect of a leader, there's something called trait affective presence.

52:30which I call, well, I mean, the researchers called it like a psychological vibe. It's essentially how people feel when they're in your presence, but also when they're just thinking about you. And you can be someone who they feel energized by when they're around and when they're thinking of or de-energized by. And so as a leader, as an entrepreneur, as a business owner, it's so important that you do what you need to do to be that source of positive energy. Because again, as you said, emotions are contagious. If you're feeling anxious, if you're working so hard, people are going to feel it no matter how much you try and hide it.

53:02So I just want to quickly mention for anyone listening, if you're really interested to learn a little bit more about these mind pits and do a little self-assessment to determine which mind pit you might be stuck in, I have created a special resource which you can download at shadezerai.com slash mind pits. So it's S-H-A-D-E-Z-A-H-R-A-I dot com slash mind pits, which is M-I-N-D-P-I-T-S. And then you'll be able to figure out which one you're in. Although you probably know, Hala, you knew. I knew which one I was definitely in.

53:31Hala Taha:Yeah, if you guys want that quiz, I'll stick it in the show notes for you to make it really, really easy.

53:39Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, spring is here. And I want you to be real. Have you already fallen off your healthy eating habits? I didn't. And it's all thanks to Huel. That's H-U-E-L. It was actually my entrepreneur friends that put me out to Huel. For them, the benefits were clear, fast, inexpensive, and healthy. These are hardcore entrepreneurs that don't want to be bothered to think about what they eat for every meal. But they're also super fit and they care about their health. Their formula was one complete meal a day handled by Huel, their black edition ready to drink, which is 27 vitamins and minerals and 35 grams of protein.

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55:21Hala Taha:That's H-U-E-L.com slash Y-A-P 15, Huel.com slash YAP15. New customers only. Thank you to Huel for partnering and supporting our show.

55:33Hala Taha:What's up, YAP gang? You know, starting a business sounds exciting until you realize that suddenly you're the marketer, designer, tech support, and operations team all at once. and that can get overwhelming fast. And that's why for a lot of people, the hardest part isn't the idea, it's getting started. That's where Shopify comes in. Shopify is the commerce platform behind millions of businesses worldwide and about 10 % of all e-commerce in the US, from notable brands to people just starting out. It helps you do everything in one place. You can build a store with ready-to-use templates, use AI tools to write product descriptions and headlines, and run email and social campaigns without juggling a dozen platforms.

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56:42Hala Taha:Yeah, fam, have you ever had a message you meant to reply to and then just didn't? It happens to the best of us. And in business, that adds up fast. Because when somebody is ready to talk, speed can secure the deal. That's why today's episode is brought to you by Quo, spelled Q-U-O, the smarter way to run your business communications. I've seen this firsthand with my clients. Suddenly, a lot of our clients don't want Slack or cool automations. They just want to text and get a fast response. They want to go back to basics. And if we don't make that easy for them, we become the bottleneck. So we decided to switch to Quo.

57:18Hala Taha:Now we use one shared business number. Every call and text goes to the whole team. Everybody sees the thread and anyone can respond and nothing gets lost. No bottlenecks. No, I'll get back to this later. Just fast, clean communication. How clients actually want it. It's a simple shift that removes one of the easiest ways to quietly lose revenue. Money is on the line, Yap Fam. always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free plus get 20 % off your first six months when you go to quo.com slash profiting. That's Q-U-O.com slash profiting. Quo.com slash profiting. So let's move on to inner critics. You say that inner critics are basically a sub-personality that some of us develop.

57:58Hala Taha:They're basically demons to us and they shine a spotlight on our weaknesses. So let's go through these quickfire style. I'm going to list them off. You tell me what it is and then let's talk about afterwards how we can overcome them. Sounds good. So the first one is the classic judge. The classic judge is that voice in your head that judges you for what you did, what you didn't do, what you should have done. It's just you can't do anything right by the classic judge. So the default critical voice, classic judge. The victim. The victim is the voice in our heads that leads us to feel completely powerless.

58:34Who am I to do anything differently? who am I to make a change? You're focusing on things outside of your control. The victim also leads you not to take any responsibility for anything. Generally, you don't, you can't identify that you have a victim because it won't let you. But other people in your life will think, oh yes, okay, that I can see that in you. So it's one of those that has a double, double edge. You don't notice it in yourself, but other people do. The protector. The protector, we call it the, yeah, the misguided protector, its role is to try and keep you safe from harm. Now, the harm that it's perceiving is the risk of criticism or judgment or failure.

59:12It highlights all the risks. And the thing is, when you listen to the protector, it does keep you safe, but you're also stuck because it paralyzes you from taking action. It magnifies everything that could go wrong to try and prevent you from putting yourself in a position where you might experience some kind of pain or rejection. So it's well-intentioned but misguided. The neglector. The neglector is the one that convinces you that you are not worthy of care. Your needs don't need to be met. You don't deserve to set a boundary. You need to make sure everyone else is happy with you. Otherwise, you're worthless.

59:52So it leads you to neglect your needs in preference of everyone else's. You're a constant giver. And the last one is the ringmaster. The ringmaster is the one that drives our destination obsession, that third mind pit. It's the one that pushes us and tells us we have not done enough. We don't deserve a break. It pushes us relentlessly to just keep going. Okay.

1:00:17Hala Taha:And then how would we, instead of having an inner demon, start to develop an inner coach and overcome all of these inner critics? So the first thing to do is become aware that we have these critical voices. My PhD research is looking at self-talk as a construct. And when you think about self-talk, it's the voice in your head, the thoughts that you have. There's a spectrum. So on one side, we have self-regulatory thoughts like, oh, maybe you should go to the gym tomorrow because you haven't gone for the last three days. It's guiding you. It's not criticizing you or judging you. On the other end of the spectrum, we have the critical voice, which says, you better go to the gym tomorrow because you're lazy and fat and you know all of these it's judging it's criticizing you need to recognize that these inner critical voices we call them inner deceivers i had a tedx talk about this early last year and it ended up being the top 10 most watched tedx of the year so people really resonate the inner critical voice it's there to try and help us it's well-intentioned it's just completely misguided so acknowledge that you have this part of yourself.

1:01:22But then remind yourself you don't have to obey it. You can listen to it, because if you try and deny it, we know what happens when you try to avoid your thoughts. They just pop back in and come up at inconvenient times, like when you're trying to get to sleep, or at 3 a.m. when you wake up, and it's reminding you of all the things you've done wrong. It's there. Acknowledge it, but don't obey it. Flip your thinking around and say, okay, what is this trying to protect me from? Is there any real harm? And then what can I do instead? what resources do I have available to me to help me? So Hala, in your case, you needed Heather Monaghan, who was your client at the time, to give you the push to get out.

1:01:56That's one way that you then stop listening to these voices that you would have had in your mind. For me, I needed Faisal. So for some people, it might be I'm going to seek someone who believes in me to remind me when I'm hearing these voices that, hey, I am of value. I am worthy. It might be, okay, I'm going to start really small. So there's very little risk of anything really going wrong. And then just gearing yourself to action. So become aware of it, acknowledge that you don't have to obey it, and then gear yourself towards action because these critics will often prevent you from taking the right action.

1:02:27They take you down the wrong path. So then ask yourself, what is the right action here? What do I need to do?

1:02:32Hala Taha:And then find a way to do it. It's great advice. And I know that the ringmaster also has to do with imposter syndrome because it basically reminds you that you're a fraud, you're undeserving of success. So I'd love to move on to the topic of imposter syndrome. We've all heard of this term, but how would you specifically define it? So imposter syndrome is that voice in your head that convinces you that you're a fraud, you're undeserving of success, and leads you to attribute your success to others, luck, or timing. And the important part about imposter syndrome is that you have to have a track record of success.

1:03:11So if you don't have a track record of success and you have these voices, then it's not considered imposter syndrome. That's probably just inner criticism. But if you have a track record of success and there's something in you telling you you don't deserve to be where you are because you didn't earn it, that's imposter syndrome. Now, really interestingly, with imposter syndrome, when we look at how it was initially discovered, so in the 70s, there were studies that were done. Initially, it was just with women. It was in a population of women. And they found that 70 % of them experienced this imposter feeling.

1:03:44Now, the researchers back then described it as an imposter phenomenon, not imposter syndrome, just a phenomenon of feeling like an imposter. Somewhere along the way, this feeling was, it was, what's the word? It was made to be a syndrome, which is not, it's obviously, we know it's not medically correct. It was pathologized, turned into a syndrome, and now it becomes this really negative thing that a lot of people will use as a crutch to prevent them from taking action. I can't do that because I have imposter syndrome. I can't say anything in that meeting. I have imposter syndrome. So it becomes an excuse that people will use to prevent them from taking action.

1:04:25What I always say when it comes to imposter syndrome is a really simple, beautiful reframe. It's the moment that you start to think, I don't deserve to be here. Instantly flip your mindset to what an incredible opportunity I have to learn. Regardless or not of whether I believe I deserve to be here or not, I am here. I have a ticket to the party. So I'm not not going to go to the party. I'm going to go to the party and have the time of my life and learn as much as I can from these people I'm with. I experienced this feeling of being an imposter when I'm in the academic community. Because I'm now in the PhD program, I'm learning.

1:05:01I'm in that learning phase, working with people who have been in the industry for 30 years. They are absolute experts in their specific area of research. It's very easy for me to think, well, who am I? I don't belong here. And I remind myself, this is amazing. I can learn from these people. So simple reframe, a big part of it is just how we're approaching it and the narrative that we're telling ourselves.

1:05:23Hala Taha:I love that. And I know that you also experienced imposter syndrome when you were in your law career. So what advice would you give to young Sade right now? The advice I would give is actually advice that was given to me when I moved into the banking and finance space. It is stop fixating on everything you don't know how to do, everything that you don't know yet, and everything that you don't believe you're good at. Stop doing that. shift your focus to actually what you bring what are the qualities that you bring and if you don't know how to do you know back then there were a lot of things I didn't know how to do you know basic case research and all of these things but there were qualities I brought like my growth mindset my curiosity my desire to learn and meet people and understand I brought that with me and I needed to remind myself of that because it's those qualities that are transferable regardless of what industry you're in, regardless of what you're doing.

1:06:18So even if you feel like an imposter, you can still bring those qualities and then learn what you need to learn until you feel like you belong there. That's the advice I would have given myself.

1:06:29Hala Taha:And I know that you say that self-love is an antidote to imposter syndrome. So what is self-love exactly? So I like to think of it as self-acceptance. And self-acceptance means I accept who I am. I accept my inherent worthiness. And if someone else doesn't agree with me or doesn't approve of me, that is not a reflection of who I am as a person. I don't need to take that to heart. So when it comes to imposter syndrome, we are doubting our worthiness. I am not worthy to be here. And so we need to remind ourselves, actually, I am as a person. I am just inherently worthy, regardless of where I am.

1:07:08Really interestingly, just on this, when we look at the mind pits or when we look at where people generally get stuck, it's predominantly for one of four reasons. And these four things that I'll take you through very quickly, they converge to create something called our core self-evaluations, which is how we see ourself, the core of who we are, our self-image. And what researchers have done over the last 50 years, social scientists from all over the world have explored what's really going on and identified these four things. And the way that I describe them is like this. The first one is if you're finding it challenging in life, if you're not taking action, if you're stuck in a mind pit, the first reason is that you don't accept yourself.

1:07:48So you have a low self-esteem. You don't fundamentally accept that you are worthy or you deserve success. And so you'll hold yourself back. If it's not that, it's that you fundamentally don't believe that you have what it takes in terms of your capabilities. I don't know how to do this. I won't be able to achieve the goal. And that's to do with self-efficacy. Self-efficacy is that belief that you have what it takes to achieve your goals. If it's not that, the third one is that you have what's called an external locus of control. You're focusing on things that you have no control over. And that's preventing you from taking action.

1:08:23That's why you're experiencing the challenge. The fourth one is that you are unable to manage your emotions. So you're either so filled with anxiety about what the outcome would be if you take action, or you're just not able to manage the feelings of overwhelm that you get when you're thinking about all your goals. Generally, it comes down to one of these four things. And it all comes down to how we see ourselves. So I'd say those four things actually come in because you can have self-love, you can have self-acceptance, but if you're really struggling emotionally, it's going to get in the way.

1:08:54You're going to feel like an imposter and then that's going to derail you because you'll have that anxiety influx, the cortisol will run, you won't be able to think, and it'll impact your performance. So I always say these are the four, like the antidotes or the four laws of confidence, if you like, right? Self-acceptance, self-efficacy, believe in your capabilities, focus on what's within your control, and take steps to manage your emotional state. The best piece of advice I could give.

1:09:22Hala Taha:It's great. So you mentioned confidence, And so let's move into that direction. How do you think we can project more confidence at work? What are your top tips? So with confidence at work, it's such a big topic. And I remember talking about it a lot because I picked up on this when I was in the workplace. It seemed like those who were confident were assumed to be better at their jobs. And they would often be the ones to get promoted and to accelerate their career trajectory because they exuded confidence. They weren't necessarily more competent than other people, but they were seen. And so there's this correlation between confidence and competence.

1:09:58So when it comes to how we look more confident, because the fact is, you know, when we think about what I said earlier, that when people meet us for the first time, they're making a judgment about whether they like us through warmth and whether they respect us through competence. And competence is demonstrated through confidence. How confident do you look? How confident do you sound? So really simple. The very first technique or very simple piece of advice I'd give or guidance. what's your posture? We spend so long looking down at our devices that we're developing, all of us are developing this slight hunch, which is not helpful for confidence.

1:10:34Also, really interestingly, there was this wonderful research that was done with Amy Cuddy's team. What they did is they put people in a room and they either had a phone to look at or an iPad or a computer screen, big one. So if you think about the postures they were taking on, people on the phone were hunched over, the iPad was sort of more neutral and the computer screen, they had a more expansive posture. They found that people who were sitting behind the computer screen ended up taking action more than the other two groups. And it's actually entirely because of the posture, not because of what they were doing.

1:11:05So your posture not only impacts how others see you, but how you feel. So that's the first one. The second one, which I find really interesting, is, you know, when you're around someone and they're just walking really slowly, they're kind of dawdling. And then you see someone else and they know where they're going. they have a mission they are getting there i mean who looks more confident the one yeah the faster person so long as they're not you know knocking people over and looking ridiculous generally when you're walking if you want to exude more confidence have a purpose and walk with purpose as opposed to sort of dawdling around so that that was really interesting there's some work that's done on looking at biological cues and how people walk and and how that converts into perceived confidence and they found that walking slightly faster can really help.

1:11:51And then smiling. Really simple. Smiling conveys confidence because if you lack confidence, your body will tell you not to smile. So if you see someone not smiling, the brain automatically goes, oh, they're not telling the truth or something's up there. When I used to be in the dance world, I used to teach. And when I was teaching, if I were teaching in front of, let's say I was teaching with other world champions or again, imposter syndrome, because I wasn't one, but I was in that environment, I would always smile. I would just adopt a huge smile, even if I wasn't feeling it. And I would start to feel that confidence trickle into the rest of my body because of how people would respond to me.

1:12:27So smiling is really powerful.

1:12:30Hala Taha:Really great tips. And I know that a lot of people don't just struggle with confidence, especially introverts. They struggle with showing their smarts and competence at work. So can you talk to us about how we can actually seem smarter. We're all probably smart in our own way, but a lot of us don't know how to exude this smartness to other people. So what are the things that we can do? Yeah, there's a few tips. I'll give you three. I think the first one, though, prefacing it all, is to remind everybody that we don't live in a world yet where true merit is acknowledged and recognized. It's actually based on how you look and the relationships you have and all these other things.

1:13:10I always encourage people to yearn for the day when we live in a world where people are acknowledged for what they bring. But in any case, until we get there, very simple tips. The first one to exude more confidence, especially if you're an introvert and that competence factor, you got to be speaking up in meetings. And this is really difficult for introverts. I am an introvert. In meetings, I would struggle so much. If you're an introvert, you might feel this way. Even before I would raise my hand. So the moment my brain had the signal of, oh, I have an idea or I have a question, hadn't even done anything with my body, but my entire body would start to sabotage.

1:13:48My heart would pump. My throat would constrict and I hadn't done anything yet. So I had this whole thing going on inside of me and yet no one would know it. So as an introvert, really important to speak up because you need to be visible. And in meetings, that's when people are seeing who is engaged. And unfortunately, visibility is linked with perceptions of engagement. So simply see if there is a way that you can share something right at the beginning of the meeting. You might even get in touch with the person beforehand and say, I have something I'd like to share. Can you, as the host, can you pass over to me or put me in the agenda?

1:14:20That's really easy. You can share something relevant to the meeting. It can be an interesting insight that you read, an article you came across you want to let everyone know about. Whatever it is, share something at the beginning and then try and share something right at the end. Doesn't even have to be of value. It can just be, that was a great meeting, everyone. Looking forward to the next one. There's something called the primacy and recency effect in psychology, where we're more likely to remember something that happens at the beginning and the end of a session. So if you're speaking at the beginning and the end, even if you don't say much in the middle, people are more likely to remember you.

1:14:53So that's one of them. The next one is, if you really want to elevate your competence. This is something that not enough people do. You want to capture and document. There's two ways you can document. Document whenever someone gives you a task. So we all know what it's like, whether you're a leader in a company or you're an entrepreneur, you give someone in your team a task and it's due in a week and then you forget about it. And then they send you an email and like, here's the thing. And you can't even remember what you asked them to do. So you have to go in there. And so what you can do proactively, if you're that person who was given that task, you send an update, maybe halfway through the week.

1:15:30Hi, quick update on what's going on. Here's what you asked me to do. Remind the person, they will thank you for it. Here's what you asked me to do. Here is where I'm up to. Here are the roadblocks I've faced and how I've overcome them. And if I had more time, this is what I would do differently. Or this is the help that I need from you. So you can update the person. And then when it's due, you do the same thing. Here is what you asked me to do. Here is what I did. Here are the challenges that I came across. Here's what I would do differently if I could do it again. You're being really proactive.

1:15:59Whether or not that person reads it, you're getting into the habit of capturing a progress report for yourself. You have it documented because how many times have you received something from someone and you say, well, that's actually not what I asked you to do. Or you deliver something to someone and they say, that's not what you asked me to do. And you're thinking, yes, it is. I've got it written in my notes. When you document it and send them an email, it's there. It's written, it's evidence. So that's the first one. The second one is every Friday, incorporate something called a weekly win. Send an email to your, and this is specifically if you're a team member, whether you're working in a company, a big one or a small one, but send a weekly win email on a Friday to your manager and just let them know, this is what I have achieved this week.

1:16:46This is how I contributed to the team. And these are my plans for next week. It can be very short, a couple of bullets for each of them, but you are reminding that person of the contribution that you're making without you physically having to say anything. And this is also wonderful when it comes to visibility, because that person is going to be across what you're doing. Now, if you're a business owner and an introvert, I mean, Hala, I'd love your perspective. My perspective is I tell people if I'm going to be the quietest person in the room because I'm an introvert, I tell people, hey, everyone, I'm an introvert.

1:17:17You might not hear from me much, but I'm still processing. and I might reach out to some of you afterwards to ask some follow-up questions. People actually don't mind when you're really open and honest.

1:17:27Hala Taha:Yeah, I'm like extroverted. If anything, like I have a problem like not speaking up and that would always be my negative feedback is that you talk too much in meetings. So I have the opposite issue. If anything, I try my best to help introverts and call on them proactively. We do things like daily updates every day and Slack and huddles every morning and things like this. So there's little things that we can do to make sure, especially because I've got teammates in countries like the Philippines and they like as a culture really struggle with like speaking up at work and stuff like that. So I really try to help them through that process.

1:18:03That's beautiful.

1:18:05Hala Taha:Yeah. So, all right, we are winding down here. As we close out the interview, curious to understand if there's any high performance hacks that we didn't cover that you feel like might be especially important for my audience to hear. One of the ones I love is the incredible power of something which has been found to be even more effective than a shot of coffee. Can you guess what it is? Any ideas? Sleep? It's sleep, but it's naps. It's actually taking naps. I mean, sleep is super important as well. But in terms of during the day, sleep, taking these short naps, meaning 15 minutes, the research is very, very clear, 15 to 20 minutes maximum.

1:18:46Beyond that, you start to enter cycles of sleep and that's actually detrimental. Having a little nap earlier in the day is better for creativity. Later in the day is more physically restorative. 15 minutes, set your alarm on your phone and just close your eyes. It's incredible what this can do for your energy. So that's one of them. The other one is the power of walking, especially when it comes to creativity. So we know that walking can help with focus, with reducing procrastination and increasing your energy when you come back in after you've been outside and you're the important thing with walking though and I've made this mistake don't take your device and if you do don't read emails while you're walking that just default you know it destroys the entire benefit actually look at nature around you look at the trees look at the clouds it's called soft fascination and it has these beautiful restorative powers in the brain But the other thing is there was a study in 2014 from a, it was a Stanford researcher.

1:19:45And what she found was that when people went out for a walk and looked at nature around them and then came back in, they had more creativity. Their levels of creativity were significantly higher than those who were inside. And it actually persisted for a long time once they were back in and working. So if you've hit a creative block, which we all do, if you've hit that point of diminishing returns where you're just exhausted or you're procrastinating, just get outside for a walk. It's remarkably simple, but the research absolutely confirms, the science confirms it is going to be so beneficial for you.

1:20:18Hala Taha:That's great. Naps and walks. I had Daniel Pink on the show and he taught us about something called the nappuccino. Oh, I love that. Have you heard of that? I haven't heard it, but I love it. You drink coffee and then you take a 15 or 20 minute nap and then you get the boost from the caffeine. Caffeine kicks in in 15, 20 minutes, Plus you get the boost from the nap and he calls it a nappuccino. That's brilliant. I love it. It's a double whammy. That's fantastic. All right. So we end the interview with two questions that we always ask all of our guests. The first one is what is one actionable thing our young and profiters can do to become more profitable tomorrow?

1:20:53This is beautiful. So in terms of profit, I think the first thing is you need to define what that looks like for you. And of course, we can talk about money, but I'm not going to talk about money. For me, profiting is how do you live a more fulfilling life where you are constantly growing? So the one thing you can do today, the biggest or the greatest piece of advice I can give you is create your to be list. What this means is write down a list of things that you aspire to be so that you're super clear on that. To be generous, to be loving, to be kind, to be someone who challenges the status quo, to be someone who makes a difference and has an impact.

1:21:27Write this down. And then every decision that you make, make sure it aligns with that to-be list. It becomes your filter system. And this is how you can make sure you're living a profitable life that is aligned with greater fulfillment and the person that you aspire to be.

1:21:42Hala Taha:And what is your secret to profiting in life? And you already know this, but profiting doesn't have to be just money. My secret to profiting in life would be to be grateful for every step of the way, every learning, every challenging situation you have, every moment of suffering, because suffering is what makes us stronger. Suffering, when we can change our perspective on suffering, this is what gives us that beautiful quality of being human. And it's the hardest thing to be appreciative and grateful during times of suffering. But if you can acknowledge how it's shaping you into a stronger and more refined version of you, then nothing is too much trouble and there is always time.

1:22:21Hala Taha:hmm that's fantastic advice Sade it was so wonderful to have you on the show where can everybody learn more about you and everything that you do I would say come on to social media Instagram TikTok YouTube you can jump actually I do have a career training that might be helpful for anyone who is in the career space it's the SadeZarai.com slash see you know what I actually don't know it off by heart I'll share it with you Hala to put in the show notes I'll put in the that would be wonderful actually I think you can get it from the home page if you just go SadeZarai.com You'll find it there. But please reach out.

1:22:51And I'd love to hear if anyone really resonated with something in this, in my beautiful conversation with Hala, let me know. It's always lovely to see what people connected with.

1:23:01Hala Taha:Awesome. Well, you're super impressive. You dropped so much knowledge bombs in this interview. I feel like people learned a lot and were truly inspired by your story. So thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you, Hala. I had so much fun. I really appreciate being here. Yap gang, what I love about this conversation with Sade is she makes one thing so clear. Sometimes the biggest thing holding you back is not your strategy, your business model, or your work ethic. It's the voice in your head. For entrepreneurs, that voice can sound like perfectionism, imposter syndrome, productivity guilt, or the belief that you have to keep pushing nonstop to prove your worth.

1:23:38Hala Taha:But as Sade reminds us, you don't have to obey every thought that you have. You can pause, question that thought, and rewrite the script. So here's your week three challenge. Go to yapmedia.com slash mentalwealth and open the Taming the Inner Critics worksheet. Write down the exact thought that keeps coming up for you. Is it the classic judge telling you that nothing is good enough? The protector keeping you safe but stuck? The neglector telling you that your needs don't matter? Or the ringmaster pushing you to work, achieve, and never, ever rest. Name it, write it down, then rewrite that voice into an inner coach.

1:24:14Hala Taha:Turn I'm not ready into I can start small. Turn I don't deserve this into I deserve all the good things that life has to offer. Because mental wealth is not just about thinking positively, it's about building a mindset that helps you grow instead of one that keeps you trapped. So yeah, fam, I want you to take the challenge, do the worksheet, and come back for week four, where we'll wrap up the series with Dr. Benjamin Hardy. He's my all-time favorite guest of Yap. I love his work. He is so brilliant. And he's going to teach us all about his amazing concept of future self. See you next time.