What Happens When You Stop Pushing and Start Feeling: Emotional Awareness as a Leadership Skill | Ep. 273

Do you have to feel confident before you take action or does confidence come because you took action first? Today I'm joined by Jody Phifer, certified midlife coach for women and founder of Thrive With Intention, for a conversation about courage, confidence, identity, and why trying something new can feel especially vulnerable in midlife. Because here's the strange thing about this season: in some ways, we care so much less about what other people think. We've lived. We've learned. We've already survived a whole lot. At the same time, the bigger decisions can somehow feel even scarier. By midlife, we've built careers, relationships, identities, routines, and lives that feel established. Stepping into something new can disrupt that stability. We may have more evidence that we're capable, but we can also feel like we have more to lose. Jody and I talk about what happens when you're used to being good at what you do and suddenly find yourself inexperienced again. We talk about imposter syndrome, self-promotion, starting something new later in life, and why courage often looks less like feeling fearless and more like getting comfortable being uncomfortable. Jody also shares a powerful exercise for building confidence: create an evidence list. Look back over your life and write down the things you've done, survived, learned, figured out, and accomplished. Then when the next scary thing comes along, you have evidence that you've moved through uncertainty before. We also explore the tension that becomes especially real in midlife: wanting to savor the small, ordinary moments while also realizing that we don't have unlimited time to keep putting off the big things we want. So maybe confidence doesn't have to come first. Maybe you take one step. Then another. And somewhere along the way, the evidence begins to accumulate. It's not too late. You're not too old. And it's okay if the next thing you want requires you to be uncomfortable for a while. Connect with Jody:

What happens when you're already really good at a lot of things... and suddenly you're a beginner again? Y'all, I've been feeling this one personally. Lately, I've been stepping into several new things, including working with a nutritionist and a stylist, and both have asked me to learn, trust, experiment, and let go of being the person who already knows exactly what she's doing. And that can feel surprisingly vulnerable. Especially when you've spent years building mastery. This month, we're talking about courage, and today we're digging into the courage required to step into something new. Because if you're pursuing a goal that is truly thrilling, important, and daunting, there's a pretty good chance you're eventually going to reach a point where you don't know exactly what you're doing. That doesn't necessarily mean you've chosen the wrong goal. It might mean you've chosen a worthy one. In this episode, we're talking about why being a beginner can feel especially uncomfortable in midlife, how self-efficacy influences the goals we're willing to pursue, and why capable people can sometimes become trapped inside the things they already know they're good at. We'll also talk about vulnerability, mastery, recognition, and the temporary discomfort that comes with giving up the identity of being the expert in the room. And I'm sharing a few questions that can help when you're stepping into something new:

You've probably heard that courage isn't the absence of fear. But here's the part we don't talk about enough: courage isn't a personality trait either. It isn't something you either have or you don't. It isn't reserved for people who run into burning buildings, make headlines, or do things the rest of us would immediately label heroic. Courage is something you practice. And if you've ever set a goal that scared you and taken a step toward it anyway, you've already practiced it. This month, we're exploring courage, goal setting, and identity, and in this episode I'm digging into what courage actually is, why fear doesn't disqualify you from being courageous, and why the risks we face aren't always as equal as we pretend they are. We'll talk about the difference between general courage and personal courage, why something that feels terrifying to you might seem completely ordinary to someone else, and how every time you move through fear successfully, you collect evidence that you can do it again. I'm also looking at courage through the lens of gender. Women are often described as less confident or more risk-averse, but the research tells a more complicated story. Sometimes we underestimate ourselves. Sometimes we've spent years miscalibrating our own abilities. But sometimes we're accurately identifying a social cost that is genuinely higher for us. That matters when we think about ambition, asking for what we want, taking risks, and even the size of the goals we're willing to set. So we're also talking about self-efficacy, why the way you assess your own ability affects the goals you pursue, and a few tools that can help you act when fear is standing between you and something you care about. We'll explore WOOP, implementation intentions, fear-setting, and why self-compassion after failure doesn't make you less driven.You don't have to wait until you feel courageous. You practice courage by acting while you're afraid. So here's the question we're going to keep exploring this month: What is the goal you already know you want, and what fear has been standing behind it? Join Simply Bold: https://www.plangoalplan.com/simplybold Connect with me:

What do you do when you've created a ritual, tried it a few times, and it just isn't sticking? Maybe the answer isn't to try harder. Y'all, life has been a little bit of crazy town around here lately. Back-to-school schedules, early morning rehearsals, sick kids, health stuff, travel, speaking engagements, work, and all the beautiful opportunities I've been dreaming about for years are happening at the same time. And through all of it, I've been holding onto my rituals. But a conversation with one of my clients recently made me realize something: We don't show up in exactly the same state every day. And if our current state changes, the state we're trying to move toward might change too. So why would we expect one ritual to work every single time? In this episode, I'm introducing the idea of a ritual menu: a small collection of rituals you can choose from depending on what you actually need in that moment. Instead of immediately deciding what your perfect ritual should look like, I want you to experiment. Spend some time asking yourself two questions: What is my current state? And what is my desired state? Pay attention. Collect some data. Look for the patterns that emerge. You might discover that you don't need one perfect end-of-the-workday ritual. You need three or four options that help you move from where you are to where you want to be. Because the best ritual isn't necessarily the most beautiful, elaborate, or perfectly consistent one. The best ritual is the ritual you'll actually do. As we wrap up this month of exploring rituals, I hope you'll keep experimenting, keep playing, and give yourself permission to create practices that work with your real life instead of demanding that your real life conform to them. And if you've been living in crazy town lately too, I hope your rituals are helping you hold on loosely, hurry slowly, and grit gently. Join Simply Bold: https://www.plangoalplan.com/simplybold Connect with me:

What if the moments that matter most aren't the ones you planned for? Maybe it's the cup of tea at the end of the day. The question your kid asks right before the light goes out. The breath you take before doing something hard. The few minutes you spend with your planner before the day begins. This month, we've been talking all about rituals: what they are, what they're not, and how they can help us move through our lives with more intention. But today, I want to talk about where rituals actually live. And for most of us, that's right in the middle of an ordinary Tuesday. When you're doing big things, ordinary moments can start to feel like obstacles to get through. Breakfast becomes a logistics problem. The commute becomes dead time. Bedtime becomes another task to complete. You move from work to home to family without ever really marking where one role ended and another began. And eventually, you can look up and realize you've been moving through your life without really being present for it. In this episode, we're exploring how rituals can help us meet those ordinary moments differently. I'm sharing three places where a simple ritual can be especially powerful: the beginning of your work, the transitions between your roles, and the end of your day. We'll also talk about savoring, why rituals can help make time more visible, and how repeated ordinary moments can accumulate meaning over time. The goal isn't to cram more rituals into your already full life. It's to notice what's already there and decide which moments deserve more of your attention. So instead of asking, “When will I have time for more meaningful moments?” I want you to ask a different question: What ordinary moment in my life deserves more of my presence? You don't need a retreat, a perfect morning, or a clear calendar. You need one ordinary moment you already have and a decision to meet it differently. Join Simply Bold: https://www.plangoalplan.com/simplybold Connect with me: