13. What They See vs. What We Feel

November 26, 2024

How many times a day do you consider how others perceive you versus how you perceive yourself? From the outside, you might seem confident, successful, and composed, but your inner world may tell a very different story. This episode explores the fascinating contrast between how little credit we give the affirmation from others and our obsession with believing our own negative thinking. Additionally, we cover how to embrace a new perspective–the strengths others see in us can actually help us to upgrade our self-concept–and how sharing your own “inner-world” experience with others is one of the best bridges to building deep, authentic and meaningful connections with your team, colleagues and friends.

Episode Transcript

Welcome to Visionaries Pursuit, a podcast where we explore what it takes to turn your bold and inspiring ideas into reality. I'm Carolina Zuleta. I'm a life and a business coach and your host for this podcast. I'm thrilled to have you here. Hello, hello, and welcome to episode 10 of the Visionaries Pursuit podcast.

Hello, hello, and welcome to episode 13 of the Visionaries Pursuit Podcast. As always, I'm so grateful that I get to talk with all of you every week. Recently, I was talking with a client who is the chief operating officer of a company that has more than 5, 000 employees. And as we were coaching and talking, she very casually said, Well, yeah, but I'm not the COO type.

And I laughed. She's been COO of this company for multiple years. There's over 5, 000 people that report to her in some way, shape or form. She is the only woman in the C suite in that company. And yet she sees herself as not the COO type. It got me thinking about how as human beings, there's two ways of experiencing us.

One is from the outside. How we see people that are further away from us who we don't know very much. It could be the leadership in the company we work for, the leadership in the industry we're in, or maybe it's the sister of a friend who we really admire and we see them from the distance and we believe that they got it all together.

That they're successful, that they feel confident, that they're not doubting themselves or worrying about the future. And then there's the other way of seeing people that is from the inside. And it's how we see our closest friends, our family members, where we get to understand how they think, what they believe about themselves, about the world, the emotions they're experiencing, how they're navigating through life.

And usually those two ways of seeing people are very different. And when we know people from the outside, we forget that they're also having a very human inner experience. I think the most beautiful gift that coaching has given me is the ability to see into the inner worlds of my of so many people, especially people that I admire, that I respect, and that I have seen them from a distance.

And then we start coaching and I'm like, Oh, wow, you're human like me. Because probably like all of you, I've seen people from the distance and believe, Oh, that person has it all together. They don't suffer. Their lives look easy and fun and successful, but then I get to coach them. For some reason they become my clients and then I get to see like, Oh no, they're human like me.

They sometimes doubt themselves, sometimes worry about the future, sometimes get scared. And through all these years of coaching, I've seen examples like my client who's the CEO, but doesn't believe she's the CEO type over and over again. I've seen some of my clients who are succeeding. in the eyes of the world.

Maybe they have recently, you know, launched a project that everyone is seeing and being, wow, that is so cool that they're doing that. Or maybe they received an award, or maybe they're the only person who got chosen to do something and people from the outside are really inspired by them. But because I get to coach them, I see them worrying, maybe I should be further ahead.

Or, even discounting their successes. I would sometimes will tell them, look, look at all these things that are happening. You're being interviewed in magazines, in newspapers, in podcasts. People are talking about your most recent success while their inner world is, yeah, but I'm stressing about the next project and things are not working out.

And they're discounting that moment of, of triumph, of accomplishing something amazing. And when I say that we have to. like an outer world and an inner world. I'm not talking about people who are hypocrites, right? Who, you know, we've seen it all in news that they're showing outside a persona, that they really care about something, but behind the scenes, they're not following through with that or that they really talk about family values and, uh, you know, their marriage, but really they're being unfaithful to their spouse.

I'm not talking about those cases. I'm talking about most of us who we. tend to experience life from the inside a lot more scary and vulnerable and others experience us from the outside. The truth is that our inner experience also has beautiful things, right? Especially if we've been achieving goals and getting ahead in our careers and in our life, there is a part of us that celebrates us and believe in us and, you know, cheers us on.

And we also have the doubtful part, scary part. The challenge is that from the outside, we only have the good part, right? We rarely see the doubt, the fear, the worry, the scary. Today what I want to do is ask you to take a moment and really, if you can pause this podcast here and ask yourself, what do the people that admire me, that are inspired by me, who look up to me, say about me?

How is my outer experience perceived through their lens? Maybe you are like this client of mine, the CEO of her company, and I asked her this question. How do you think all the leaders that are beneath you look up to you? What do they say about you? What do you think other women see in you when they know you're the only one, only woman in the C suite?

or that you've accomplished so much, or do you manage these huge projects and huge budgets? And she stopped and thought and was like, hmm, yeah, what do they think about me? So that's what I want you to do first. Think, the people that admire me, look up to me, celebrate me, are my fans. How do they see me?

What are all the beautiful things they see in me? And here I want to share something that happened recently with my oldest daughter Maya. So this year we decided we're going to change her to a new school, and she's been in this new school for a trimester, and I went to get her, uh, grades at school, and all the teachers had wonderful things to tell me about her.

So after that I sat down with her and I said, Maya, I just want to really acknowledge you and celebrate you because I know this trimester has been very hard. A lot of things have changed and yet you've shown that you're courageous. You've gone every day to school. You've put effort in the things that you're learning.

You've adapted. Even when things have been challenging, you haven't given up. And as I was telling her, she started changing the subject, Oh mom. And she started telling me about something else. And I could see that what I was telling her was making her very uncomfortable. So I stopped and I say, is this making you uncomfortable?

She said, yes. And I said, okay, let's try it again. Can you ground yourself, take a deep breath and open your heart and allow to receive all these beautiful things I'm seeing in you. And she looked at me and she's like, okay. And the beautiful thing is she did it. And I could see how my compliments were landing differently in her heart.

So I'm sharing this with you because I want you to do that same thing right now. Take a deep breath, open your heart and really imagine all these beautiful thoughts people have about you to land in your heart. and your head. Do not dismiss them quickly. Do not be like, Oh yeah, they're seeing this, but they don't know the truth.

They don't know that I haven't accomplished this or that I'm not as disciplined as they think. Allow yourself to receive all the compliments. You know, other people think about you. The second invitation I want to make to you is if you can take a moment and Think, what would it be like if I lived from this place?

What would my life look like if I every day believed all these beautiful things people were saying about me? If I saw myself as they see me, as strong, as confident, as powerful, as successful, as capable, as creative, as resilient, what if I lived from that place? What would be different? Some people might think, like, well, no, I can't do that.

only believe good things about me, that would make me arrogant. That would make me insufferable. Well, I disagree. I think that if you're a good person, you won't become arrogant and insufferable because you're believing good things about yourself. I think the opposite is true. When you allow yourself to truly Embrace that outer world inside you, you will become better at what you do because you will spend less time fighting your critical voice, your doubtful voice, and you will spend more time making decisions, connecting with the right people, delegating, looking towards the future, having empathy to others because you are living from a place of self belief.

I think that if you believe the highest of yourself, You will act from your highest place and therefore have the highest results. The other reason why I wanted to create this episode is because I also want to invite you to share your inner world with other people. When we become leaders, when we, there's people that are looking up to us, it's We start feeling like we have to keep our inner world more guarded.

We don't want others to see us doubting ourselves or being confused or failing. But I actually believe that when we share our inner world, We connect better to other people. When we share those vulnerable parts of us, other people feel closer to us, and we feel closer to other people. And you might think, well, no, but if they really knew how, you know, you know, fearful I am, or how much I doubt myself, they might stop respecting me.

And I have seen the opposite. Every time I have seen a powerful leader come out and share a vulnerable part of their life, Yes, there might be some critics, but the majority of people feel closer to them, respect them more, love them more, because they see themselves in them. Because they start realizing, oh, they're human like me.

There is a sculpture created by an artist called Paige Bradley. And I think right now they have one of those sculptures in London and the other one, I think it's in Palm Desert, California. You can look it up. And this sculpture depicts a naked woman sitting down with her legs crossed and her arms open.

And through all the sculpture there, there's parts that are broken, right? Like the sculpture is not all smooth. It has cracks, but inside of her there's light. So the light is coming through the cracks. I love this sculpture because I believe our light comes out through our cracks and that even when we're leaders, especially when we're leaders, and we allow others to see our vulnerability, we share the inner light we all have.

So, you know, sometimes life is very serendipitous and works in very funny ways. I have an app that, uh, is called I Am. I recommend it if you like this kind of thing that throughout the day pops up in my phone or my Apple Watch. Positive quotes, positive affirmations, and I can choose what category. So right now I'm growing my business.

So I'm having this app give me quotes about building a business, being an entrepreneur, success, right? All those things. And as I was doing the outline for this podcast, a quote popped up and I couldn't believe it because it's so related to this and it says, if I could see myself. The way others see me, I would be pretty darn proud of myself.

And that's what I want you to acknowledge today, that how many people see you would make you so proud of yourself and to really embrace that. Bottom line, adopt the best parts of your outer world as your truth and live from them every day and share your inner world with others because that's the way you share your light.

I'll see you next time.

If you're currently pursuing a big, bold idea and would love some support, let's talk. In my coaching program, I'll teach you how to manage yourself, your own thoughts and emotions. as well as your team and your money so you can turn your beautiful idea into a reality. Go now to carozuleta.com slash consult that is c a r o z u l e t a dot com slash consult and complete the form to book a complimentary call with me.

See you there!

13. What They See vs. What We Feel

Stay Connected