Note: This is a republication of my interview with Bold Journey.
Tosca , so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
Developing my self-esteem started as soon as I was old enough to sense and experience judgement from others – which was as a child. This is because I was born looking different from everyone around me. At the deepest layer, I thought it was wrong to just simply be me.
This lifelong process has been about accepting myself in every way – my physical appearance, how I see the world, process the world, and interact with it. My inner critics formed very early in my life and I learned to live with these voices in my head, while also honoring a different part of me that had a deeper knowing of my power. This created inner conflict for years – where I found myself asking myself; what is the TRUTH and what voice do I follow?
So much of developing my self-esteem meant shutting out the noise of the messages I received – both overtly and those that came under the surface. I realized this also meant I was shutting out my feelings, and eventually took the time to process all that I buried under the surface. For so long it was a mind game with myself, but then I had to do the work to really believe my truth and my power at a cellular level. What I mean by that is I had to believe it in my body and my soul.
Part of developing my confidence meant I had to learn how to define my own success metrics and celebrate my every win – especially the ones that were only known and witnessed by me.
The next layer of learning was honoring that I deserve to be supported in my journey and being very discerning around who I let in to be my cheerleaders and confidants. Allowing myself to receive turned out to be the support my own inner-advocate needed – a far cry from the external validation I once thrived on.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I have always loved helping people, and being a cheerleader for folks to go after their dreams and celebrate themselves. Part of what I loved about the marketing career I had was that I saw marketing as a way to help folks connect their problem with the solution. I loved learning deep insights about consumers as the foundation for determining how to connect with them and create messaging that moved. And I also loved understanding a brand’s history and what made it special and able to last the test of time.
After 25 years in the corporate environment, building brands and rallying the people that worked on them, I found myself in a position in 2018 to ask myself what I truly wanted from my career. What I wanted was to help professionals to unlock their lives – to live it fully, to stand in their power and to stop playing by the rules of the status quo that are not serving them. I love helping people find true contentment in their careers and in their lives – because it was elusive to me for so long! My belief is that when people are able to do this, they are able to create healthier workplaces and be a part of reversing the toxic cultures that are so prevalent today.
The work I do today is about giving people the tools to look at the things that are causing so much frustration, disappointment and inner conflict. I do this through giving keynote talks, facilitating authentic conversations in small circles, dropping truth bombs on my podcast, The Unlock Lab (available on Spotify and Apple) as well as in my blog on my website – to name a few. I love igniting career transformations and also do this through 1:1 coaching and leadership facilitation groups for those who are ready to change their life in the most profound ways. Regardless of the size of the group, or the format of the interaction – I help people to recognize the patterns that they keep repeating so they can take one step forward on the path less traveled.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three qualities that I think are important to develop are (1) your willingness to allow yourself to FEEL (2) your commitment to OWNING what’s yours and (3) your courage to experiment with new tools.
The inner critics in our mind that negatively impact our self-esteem can lead us to avoiding how these messages make us feel. It can seem easier to go around the feelings, and latch onto ‘positive’ thoughts that we don’t actually believe in (yet). The way to the other side of harsh messages and life experiences is to move THROUGH our emotions and not around them.
When we move through our emotions, this is what gives us the ability to see the role we are playing in the relationships we have in all parts of our life. By seeing ourselves, and our source of our deepest pain more clearly we can see where we are putting this pain on others in one form or another. By owning what’s ours, we can also see where we need to hold others accountable to enable healthy, thriving and truly connected relationships.
Developing our confidence often requires looking at our life through a new lens. A new lens means we need to seek new tools to open this pathway. These tools might be a new support system, it might mean trying new creative outlets, or even new modalities for clearing our past narratives and unresolved history.
These three qualities will ultimately enable you to have a better relationships with yourself first and foremost, and then inevitably with others. To me, this is the core of what supports us to experience more inner peace, and to live a life feeling more fulfilled and fueled-up for what’s next.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
Oooooh, good question. The challenge I am currently facing is to trust and honor that my true desire is to share my thought leadership with the world. This means honoring that the way I want to build my business is by being of service, and letting that focus create the flywheel for opportunities and abundance. What I am doing in alignment with that is hiring marketing support – so that I can do what only I can do – which is excavate my thought leadership and lived experience from my heart and mind. The other big piece of this challenge is that I need to provide space and time to be with myself – which goes against conditioning of focusing sole on the “doing” and the “output”. The work of dealing with my inner critics is ongoing to say the least! Haha
For the original publication on Bold Journey, visit here.
Additional content you may be interested in:
Power Women: How to Successfully Navigate Work, Love and Life
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