Second Guessing Yourself

Kris Plachy: Let's talk about second guessing yourself. You ready? Here we go.

Hey, welcome. I'm Kris Plachy. Thank you for joining The Leadership Is Feminine Podcast. I'm honored that you're here. I coach female entrepreneurs on how to lead and manage people, and also how to lead and manage a life and a business and a self that you love.

In order to create a business that you love and a business that can thrive without you, you have to invest in who you are. We spend a lot of time talking about the mechanics of running a company and all of them are important, some more so than others, some more so than others at different times in your life. So, you know, I am always thoughtful that, that we all are in different points when we intersect with one another.

My hope is that when you tune in here, you are at that place where you're ready to accept a different version of yourself for how you show up as a leader, which means that you know you have your own growth to think about. I also love to work with women who like to challenge themselves into a new version, who like to sort of think about what's possible if they change their mind and challenge what truths they believe.

So this podcast is actually right out of the annals of the Voxer. I have a client that I talk to through Voxer, and she's in France. So wink, wink to you. You know who you are. And she asked me specifically if I would talk about this. And so I thought, you know what? I will, because it's reallyquite aligned with what I've been doing and talking to you about here and also to so many of my clients.

So, as you know, the name of this podcast is Leadership Is Feminine, and again, right now, this week I'm doing another Leadership is Feminine Formula live event. We had so much interest last time we had over 500 people register for it. This time we have well over 800, which is super fun. So I'm just enjoying the opportunity to share a new way of thinking with more and more women. So I'm glad that all of you are here.

But what Mrs. France inquired about was second guessing yourself. So she made a decision to handle a circumstance in her business and with someone that was involved with her business. And after she made the decision, she questioned it. And she started to sort of dismiss her own intuition, her own knowing, her own belief in herself because women are unfortunately, quite programmed to do that.

We don't even know that that's true, but I invite you to spend a little time when you're out in the world and watch how many times people question you. "Are you sure about that? Is that, I don't know if that's the way it is. That really, yeah. I mean, I guess if you say so, do you think that was a good idea? I don't know. I don't know if I would agree. Wow. Did you think that through?" Right. There's a lot of interesting, or honestly, the other way that just shows up is kind of this, "No, no, no, no. It's this way". Very dismissive.

Or my favorite, my kids and I joke about, you know, it's not a joking matter, but you know, being gas lit like, "No mom. That never was like that". I got so mad at them one day. I'm like, "Everybody's gaslighting me. I know". We were, we were trying to find a steamer. It was homecoming and we, I was trying to find the fricking steamer to steam my daughter's shirt, and I could not, for the life of me find the steamer. And so I was asking all my family, "Where, have you seen the steamer?" "The steamer? We've never had a steamer. I don't, I don't think we've ever had a steamer. I don't know. I, I've never seen it." And I was losing my mind because I'm like, listen to me. We had a steamer, but we just moved. And you know how that goes. Well, it turns out it went to the hotel that I did my client engagement or my client appreciation event, and it's been at this hotel the entire time, so I felt better.

Okay. But this is what happens in general to women, much more so than men, right? Men are not questioned the way that women are, and I don't really find this like, "Ooh, let's blame people and be mad at them for it." I, that's not my jam. It's more just like, "Well, that's kind of the way it is", and we have to notice it.

And what I want you to do in this little exercise, is to notice how many times people sort of question you or doubt you or just assume no, you don't know what you're doing, and then what do you do? Do you agree with them? Do you question them? Do you say, no, I know what I know, what do you do?

And even if you assert that you feel good about what you know, do you still feel like that pang of guilt or like doubt or embarrassment or vulnerability? So my client said, In this Voxer message, she said, "You know, men don't deal with that the same way. They really don't. They don't second guess themselves like we do."

And so it got me thinking about second guessing, and I know for sure that's something that I do. I think we all sort of do it and we have to kind of work through it. I have these bursts of total, like I, I call them downloads, right? Like you get this complete download of insight and idea and perspective, and you can see it soup to nuts. You can see the whole thing come together, like exactly what it's supposed to look like. And as soon as I breathe it into the air and I say it to someone else and I feel, and I watch their body react to it, I immediately pull back. And my coach observed this in me and she told me that she thinks this might actually be a thing that I do that I didn't even realize I do.

Because the truth of the matter is I have a lot of really big ideas and I feel like I scare people with what I wanna do and what I think is possible. And so as soon as I have like this idea, I get this notion and I can see it and I'm excited about it. And I say it, even if I hint at it and I watch how people respond, I immediately think, "Oh, that's dumb. That's a bad idea." I did this when I was in my last job job.

I wrote a proposal for a coaching team. I wrote the whole thing. I worked on it for weeks. I hadn't really been asked for it, but the timing was really good because of the need. And so I wrote this whole proposal. And I gave it to the evp, who would've been in charge of it. I sent it to her in an email. I saw her the next day and I ran up to her in this big conference we were in, and I said, "You can just delete that email. Don't worry about it. I don't know what I was thinking. You could just delete it." I completely questioned my decision to make that assertion that I could literally create an entire department in a $4 billion business , but I did, and I ended up creating it because she did not question it. She advocated for it. Right. Even when I didn't.

So what do we do? What do we do ladies? Those of us who have all these big, beautiful ideas in the world who are afraid of our own dreams and untrusting of our own knowing? And because I'm in this pool with you and I'm doing this work with you, I have really one answer.

So what happened in my call with my client was, my Vox, I should say, was I said to her, first of all, you did way more than I would've. Second of all, you did all you needed to do. Let it go. It's no longer yours. It doesn't belong to you anymore. You made your choice. You made a decision. It belongs to this other person now. It doesn't belong to you. Move along. You did the best you could knowing what you know. And I think based on my perspective, you did more than most.

And what I know she appreciated was that she felt like I heard her and I gave her permission to let it go. So what we need most, my sweet, wonderful friends listening is we need other women who won't hold us to our small selves, who won't pull us back into ourselves. We need women who will promote us to our big self, who will acknowledge we did a hard thing and we did enough, and who will help us see there's nothing to second guess here. You did a beautiful job. We need those women in our lives. I need those women in my life.

But there's a lot of women who aren't women like that. There's a lot of women who unintentionally want you to stay smaller than you are. Will question your decisions because they didn't make the same one. So as a team, can we all agree? Let's hold each other to the best version of ourselves, and let's also plan that when we make a decision, and sometimes the bigger the decision, the stronger the blow back in our own mind, that we're gonna have blow back. We're gonna have our own vulnerability hangover. We're gonna have our own decision fear hangover. We're gonna worry about what other people think about our decision. We're gonna worry about what other people think about us because of our decision. We're gonna make it mean all sorts of things if they don't agree, if they don't respond, if they don't go along, if they resist, we're gonna make it mean all sorts of things. We're gonna make it mean the decision was bad, that you were bad, that you don't know what you're doing.

We're gonna do all of that because we're triggered. We are in habit to do that, and the only way to not have that be a habit is to keep doing it and choose another way. We have to make that decision first. So you've gotta have other women in your team. You need a coach. I don't know how people function without one. I really don't. Once you've had an amazing coach, your life is never the same. I'm really, really honored that I have worked with some women for years because they just, it's just such a trusted relationship, and that's all it is. I care so deeply for the women that I work with, and I believe they care deeply for me, but we don't live in each other's lives.

So the objectivity there is pure, but I know enough, which is fun to be really, really helpful, I think. You've gotta have a team of women who want to hold you to that higher level version of yourself who will say to you, "Yeah, I know that decision was probably really hard for you. I'm so glad that you made it that way. I think you did the best that you could. The decision has been made. Move along. Don't carry this with you. Don't worry about everybody else's thoughts about it." That's the part we have to work through. I

t's the part of you that is sensitive. It's the part of you that is loving. It's the part of you that is people pleasing. It's the part of you that is nurturing and wants everybody to feel good, but it doesn't have any place here. So when we question our decisions, it's because we're making newer decisions on shaky little legs and we don't have a lot of confidence in ourselves or in the result.

We also somehow think that everybody should agree with us, and that's just a lie, y'all. That's not what leadership's about. Everybody liking you and everybody agreeing with you. So that sensitive part of you that is your superpower, helps you read a room. It helps you connect with people, helps you know what's going on before you know what's going on. All of that is really, really valuable. But then it's misplaced when you get all up in people's business because they don't like a decision that you made, or you think they don't like a decision that you made, and that is none of your business, my friend. Okay?

So we're gonna second guess. Let's just know that's gonna happen and we're gonna have a really great team of women around us who are gonna help us rally and we're gonna allow all that stuff to come up, "You're terrible. They, they don't like you". Uhhuh, all of that's true. But you know what? My role here is done. I made the decision what other people do with it is their business not mine, and we're gonna move along. Right? You can do that. Making decisions for a living, which is what I know you do, you're bound to second guess a couple of them.

But just because you do doesn't mean you're not strong. Doesn't mean you're not confident, just means that you're making a decision about something that might be kind of on shaky legs, and that's why you need support. So get some. Join How To CEO. Allegedly, we're pretty good at it there. I'm so glad that you all tuned in today. Thank you for being here. Talk to you again next time.

Hey, entrepreneur, you started that gorgeous business of yours to do some really good in the world. You probably didn't start your business to manage people. But here you are having to figure out how to manage people to get work done, and maybe it's not going so well.

So head on over to krisplachy.com/howtoceo, and let's talk about how we can help you learn how to lead, manage, hire, fire, and all the things so that you can build a team that expands on your amazing dream.