How to Be Courageously You with Aransas Savas

What we need is we need healthy conflict and tension and no great creative output. No innovation has come from everybody looking at things the same way and thinking about them saying the same way ever ever in history. This is the disruptive influence podcast with Jeff Abraison where I talked to brilliant minds who are disrupting and influencing their industry in their way. Let's go. Aransas is so nice to see you again. Aransas Savas, a well-being and leadership coach, tell me everything that that means. Wow. It means that I get to help people live their best lives in all domains. So I get to work super holistically with people because I come from that school of thought that how we do one thing is how we do everything. And so when I work with folks we're really looking at their whole lives, their relationships, the way they take care of their own bodies, the way they take care of their teams as a leader. And we really explore those intersections of what helps them be their best and frankly what drains them and gets in their way. And I get to be their uber cheerleader for being their best selves in all of those areas and get a front row seat to watching them do amazing things. So when I think of you, it's a few times we've spoken right now. It's just a ray of sunshine talking to you. And to me you represent energy and you vibrate this positive energy. Have you always had that gift? How did you tune into that? And how come it's so important? Well, I mean, it's important because it is my essence. And it is my natural state. To be honest, it's not something I've cultivated or created. If you talk to people who knew me as a baby or in middle school at any stage of my life and my professional life working in a big corporate office, people would say the same thing. They would probably describe me as a ray of light. And in fact, the reason I call my brand the uplifters and I have really invested my life in celebrating the stories of uplifters is because they realized that those are the people I felt most at home with. And the people I felt a real sense of belief in their positive impact and their ability to change and shift the world. But it is it's who I am. The thing that's changed for me is that I've embraced and acknowledged it completely. And so, you know, there are plenty of times in my life when I tried to hide it, when I tried to dim my own light. And through lots of different experiences, what I finally learned is that that's exhausting. And I'd way rather just be me all times and always. And that actually not only is that more interesting, but I actually attract people who like me more. One of the things I realized early on is that we talk a lot about like true love, you know, truly being seen. And I realized all of that hinged on truth. And it meant speaking our truth and it meant showing up as our true selves. Because without being true, we cannot receive the amazing sense of knowing and acceptance that comes from being truly loved and truly known. How do people find their truth? Yeah, I mean, I think so much of it starts with challenging what we believe we need to hide. And looking at it from different lenses and you know, as you ask that question, I think the very first intersection or the first time I ever thought about this that I thought, huh, maybe the way I see the world is not the way everyone else sees the world. Why I'm telling you this, but I was Adam McDonald's in graduate school and Maham McCain was there. And Maha said, girl, I love your butt. And I had grown up in a family that felt like curves and a shapely booty or something to hide and can seal. And that it was, you know, it was really something that you should be ashamed of. And yet here was Maha celebrating it. And it was the first time in my life I ever thought, huh, maybe there are other ways to see the truths that I've been handed from my family and from my immediate community that are radically different from my own. And that's like a really maybe silly one to start with. But but it was the first time that because it was so accepted as truth in my life growing up, that any sort of shapeliness to our bodies, ironic because my family is all shapely women, that any sort of shapelyness was something you should was really bad. And really ugly. And it was so true in our family that any other perspective on it was frankly radical to me. And I have a group of the same feelings around asking for what I want and having needs. I grew up with the same feelings around experiencing anger or desire. All of these things I grew up believing were shameful and dirty. And when I say desire, I really mean like I want this. I whether it's I want this aspirational thing in my career or I want a blanket from the store. Desire of any kind was seen as shameful and something you should hide from wanting attention was seen as shameful. So many of the things that I grew up with thinking were negative and awful. And if you wanted them, it made you a bad person. We're just parts of being a human and actually all things that most humans experience. And many humans have a very different experience with. So for me, learning to express my wants and needs to embrace all sides of myself to accept my natural tendencies. And when I talk about natural tendencies, we all have them. We have different ways that we respond to things, different ways of learning. We're wildly unique. And it is only in our uniqueness that we are the same. Because you have unique ones. I have unique ones. And yet what makes us the same, we both have ones. Yeah, that's interesting way to put it is the uniqueness that makes us the same. And you know, the saying's like you're unique, just like everybody else. Right. But then there's the other saying that say we are more like than they are. We are different. And what I find interesting and jump in on this is how much we think we have to act more alike and be more alike. And it takes you a lot. And you'll tell me how you broke free from that. Because I'm not sure you mentioned it there of how you changed that mindset. You're at McDonald's. Now you know, happy meals and booties are not taboo. I mean, you know what? Happy meals were another thing my family would have said was taboo. Well, that's what you only eat real food. That's why I threw it in there. So here you are expanding your mindset. Funny thing is now it's your career, right? Expanding people's mindset. So where I'm going with that is what do you think it is about culture and society and the human psyche that makes us think we need to fit in versus standing out evolution. That wouldn't go so far back. Right? I'm going to say the same thing now, right? You know, you want you we need and historically we really needed to be a part of community. And it was a matter of survival. As a species, we were not created to survive alone. And so that sense of being wanted, being accepted, that all comes from that same place. And so yeah, we're going to want to fit in. But I think what we misunderstand and I think a lot about this is a mother of teenage daughters. So teenagers are such a fascinating study in this as little kids. They don't care about fitting in. They love everyone. They have very few preferences. They are not terribly discerning. They will eat food off the floor. They will play with whoever is on the slide as they get older. The most important thing becomes fitting in for most kids. And I have one who understands how to fit in one who really doesn't fit in. And as a result, she's come she's isolated from her peers. She's beloved by adults so she has never learned how to bend herself in part because of her natural tendencies in part because we think she's so freaking awesome and we reinforce how cool it is to just be her but she's never I think I can't even say she hasn't felt the need to bend and fit in. She's just lost frankly I think the ability to do it. She really isn't capable of being anybody but her and so I get to watch these two girls and I get to watch these their peers and one of the things I've been thinking a lot about if you know the work of Amy Cutty she talks about it strikes a lot about power in her work and she's the one who's known for power poses and one of the constructs that she explores is the difference between personal and positional power. Well middle schoolers want positional power over everything personal power is a result really a positional power. What is positional power? positional power is popularity in all the forms that it takes throughout all the different stages of our lives you know name it what you want but it's really based on you hold a place of authority in your microcosm of society. Personal power is what my other daughter has in spades she is who she is she is securing her gifts and abilities she is not going to recreate herself to others expectations and sometimes we want her to to be honest you know as her parents were like oh okay just try to like fit in but most of the time we're like that's so incredibly inspiring but it is personal power comes from within it is that sense of self-knowing and self-acceptance well I think as adults the older we get and especially as we approach midlife it is a slow progression away from valuing positional power to transitioning that influence and that admiration to personal power think about how you felt even as you went into college like people's talents weren't that interesting in middle school in high school it was really about signs of positional power what they wore who they hung out with who they sat with at lunch but as you get into college everybody says things get better will that think that's our brains starting to transition to an appreciation of personal power and so what do I do the answer to your question about how I created that sense of self-acceptance and frankly personal power is that I started to look at what are the things about myself that I'm embarrassed by ashamed of can I look at those through another lens is there a way in which actually those are strengths and skills are they giving me unique perspectives or insights with which I can lead with greater confidence and value you know and I'll use as an example when I started my work life within a corporate setting right so I went to graduate school in acting I came to New York I was going to be an actor I was like wow don't like that got a job in a corporate setting doing like really actory stuff right I was teaching presentation skills to executives so I was teaching them the stuff I learned in grad school I felt like an authority in that but then I got promoted into this role where I was supposed to be responsible for training and development for the global population then when where I was supposed to be responsible for innovating the program and the service and experience at this company and I was like excuse me I'm not qualified I don't have the abilities or the insight I think you've made a mistake well what I was confused by there at that point was that the only way I could be qualified was to have an MBA because in my mind it was just the MBAs who knew how to do business the truth is there were plenty of MBAs in that company and they were so much better at spreadsheets than I was to this day the only spreadsheets I find sexier the ones that are full of uplifters names and emails and stories but there was a lot visit uplifters dot com now the the thing though that I realized was that I understood human nature in a way that most of those people didn't I understood how to motivate people in ways that my colleagues didn't and so as long as I was trying to add value through spreadsheets I was going to feel like a fraud I was not going to be particularly helpful I was going to be slowing things down I was getting in the way with my own limited idea of how to be helpful once I turned on my gifts and my experience and let those lead I was able to have real impact and so that's what I'm talking about here and I think we do it in all domains whether it's our relationships our leadership our parenting you name it it's really about coming from a place of authenticity and letting go of some of what we think is good and right and I think there's this binary almost binary value to what people put on their natural talents abilities learned abilities etc where you think it always has to be attached to something that you can deliver that brings immediate value that brings an immediate answer that it brings an immediate ROI and when we're talking soft skills soft skills you've always had you always kind of knew I have an uncommon sense and that's what I've been celebrating about myself lately having an uncommon sense and saying I see things people don't see I say things people don't say I think things people don't think I imagine things people don't imagine I articulate things in ways people can't articulate or don't articulate I create things people can't create etc etc just something I'm celebrating much more now and once you see that and you let that lead then you can be helpful because most humans not all but most and certainly humans I interact with because I surround myself with good people they just want to be helpful nobody wants to waste their time I do research as part of my work and at this point I've studied at least 10,000 people around the question of what gives you purpose and professionally purpose really boils down to I'm helpful they say it is better to give than to receive everyone giving a gift tends to feel better than receiving one there's a reason why people who do not have to work another day in this lifetime or a thousand more lifetimes become philanthropists and don't tell me it's just for the taxes this is because they truly want to help let's unpack a few things you said first of all congrats on your daughter who will not bend I think that is a case study that is your best case study your longest standing student that's proof right there another thing I want to talk about so again this idea of uncommon sense that idea of your superpower might be celebrated more in spaces where it's not common and is not needed that's something else I'm realizing lately and the other one you said about she is beloved by adults and a thing that I'm turned on to lately is to remind people to go where you are valued and you are beloved and people get it and lately magically I mean I've had that throughout my career but lately as an entrepreneur magically if I've been having more of those conversations and you just see it in someone's eyes you're like oh they get it and even through this this microphone and this you know you're in New York area I'm in Montreal even through the screen you're actually blurry on my screen now but we are connecting right there's an energy and that's what I would tell people go where your energy is valued because you're going to find flow you're going to find alignment things are going to start connecting versus trying to convince someone versus trying to change them into someone who sees you that will never see you go ahead on that one what does that give you yes and I think it's important to do both I don't think we always are going to be in positions where we feel like we're wanting it feels really good to be wanted and valued and sometimes there are hard things we want and need to do that come with a ton of resistance I interviewed a woman yesterday who her name is Laura Kavanaugh and she was the first female commissioner in the FDNY's 157 year history she was hired because the FDNY was being sued for its treatment of women and people of color and she was brought in to fix that She was not wanted. Her way of thinking was not valued. And it's possible, though she doesn't say this explicitly, that even the people who brought her in and said, "Hey, go fix this didn't really want her to fix it," because I think they probably could have given her a lot more support in fixing it if what they actually wanted was for her to be successful. And yeah, she broke a glass ceiling. She did make significant change in many ways. She learned a ton. And I'd say there was nothing that was easy about that. And so I do think that there are going to be a lot of times in our lives. I mean, like my daughter in middle school, she's not or in high school now. She's not valued. She's not liked her skills. I mean, she's liked by the adults. But sometimes it's going to be about the impact you want to have, more than being liked and valued. So maybe we reframe it to where can you make a difference. That's it. What I think I was saying, because I have not refined that point of view yet. And I love where you're coming at this is more on probably right now in my mindset of business and building business and revenue and these ideas. And they tell you, you have to lock in your ideal customer profile. You have to say, "Who are you helping? What are you helping them with? How are you doing it?" And when some of what you do is soft skill oriented is everything you do is a lot of what I do in terms of creative communication and coaching and presentation skills training and really helping people find the right words for a brand, let's say, or find their creative confidence or creative clarity. It's hard sometimes to attach that to a number and say, you know, I can say, I can help you win more pitches, which equals, I can help you win more business. Now, I guess after the fact or in past cases, I could say, "Hey, this company's clothes rate went up by XYZ." And my point was, it's the people who can sign the checks or the people who can vouch for you or the people who can refer you. That's what I mean about they have to get it. They have to get the value, install you some people that you're going to work with might not want you there at first and the onus is on you to make those conversions. So your story touches on exactly that and to wrap it up, like I've coached people where the people hiring me knew it, saw it, they had the intuition for it. Some of the people in the group came in with their arms crossed. What's this guy going to teach us? And afterwards I got the email and we ended and said, "I came in very skeptical. That was amazing. You've changed me." So that's what I mean about the whole getting in the door. Someone has to see your value. And that's what I mean. It's just, do you think you have to hammer down that door? You might have to hammer down other doors after. But should you spend your time more finding the people that can understand your value, that get it. There's the vibe they're connecting. They see it. They don't they don't necessarily need all the numbers and the proof points in this that. They just get it. Yes, people. You got to be good at what you're doing. You need the social proof. You need the receipts. But do you agree that you should just say, "Okay, on to the next. If someone doesn't see it, should you push? Should you try to convert them or should you say there's enough buns and some people that will?" Well, I don't think we should ever push people to like us. I do think we should feel purposeful. And sometimes purpose is going to be hard and sometimes purpose is going to be easy and amazing. And I think that we have to discern on a case-by-case basis what it's worth to us. I keep thinking about Clayton Christensen as you talk and his work around jobs to be done theory. And this idea that sometimes a milkshake is serving the need, McDonald's drive through it's serving the need of killing time during your commute. Sometimes it's doing the job of creating a memorable moment with your daughter. It's the same product, but it's doing different jobs. And so I kind of think the same is true for us. What is the job to be done? And when you're trying to define an ideal customer, it's really about what is the job to be done? What needs are you meeting? And are those meeting your needs? So I have a bunch of different jobs. I work for and with a lot of different people between my coaching, my consulting, and my creative work. And each one of those does different jobs for me. And I do different jobs for them. They all come from my gifts. They all come from my talents. Some tap into one piece of my magic, others, other pieces. They all complement one another. What I learn from each one is complementary, but they are doing different jobs. I get that. I'm some lending that sink in a little bit more because I like the angle of that that you don't just have to be that one thing. A lot of people lose sight of the fact that they think they need to be the one thing. I think there needs to be clarity around one thing so that someone can say, "Aranzus is this person?" Oh, she's the best at this. Maybe one or two things. Just so they can actually have space in their mind for what your brand is. I'm going to call it a brand because we brand things very easily as humans. And then once they're through that door, you might expose them to the rest. Then they might say, "Aranz, what else can you do for me? What else can you help me with?" And then that all comes out. So I think from marketing purposes, again, I'm coming at this from the fact that even coaching, consulting, creating, or the three things I talk about doing as well, there's still a commerce aspect to it. There's still a clarity and communication aspect to it that someone has to say, "Jeff is the one you need for this. Aranzus is the one you need for that." And if you put too many out there, everyone gets confused. Absolutely. What was interesting earlier also, I had a conversation recently. It's actually another podcast thing in a release soon, where my guest was talking about people, what makes people special. Their superpower is what also makes them the most insecure. And I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure, because in my own personal example, let's say I've always had artistic talent. That's what made me stand out. Now, I never really felt insecure about it, but I guess if you unpacked it, if you're comparing it to other artists who were better in this and that, or am I good enough? I guess, at certain points, things like Imposter Syndrome come in, etc., etc. Can you give me your reaction to a statement like that again about someone's superpower? I'm going to have to sit with that one. Yeah. Yeah. I'm trying to also. I don't know that that is validated in my work in that way. I think people often don't know their superpowers, or they don't know that their superpowers are superpowers. Right. It's really easy. That's what I'm getting at. Yeah. I think we don't necessarily know, like when you talk about uncommon sense. I don't think we know what's uncommon. I, somebody the other day, I had a look at my book proposal, and I was like, "What do you think?" It's a book of stories, of uplifters. It's really exciting. I'm dying to put it in the world. What do you think?" She said, "Well, you're not selling the stories. The stories all exist in the world. You're selling your magic, which is the ability to synthesize and see the patterns and themes among these stories." I know that's my superpower. I know I'm better at seeing patterns and themes. That's why I'm a researcher. That's why I'm a great coach. That's why I'm a graded experience strategy. Everything I do comes down to that one superpower. I understand patterns and themes, especially in human behavior and needs. I wasn't making the book. I wasn't positioning the book as hinging on its value as hinging on my superpower. And she was totally right. The next two people who read the proposal said the exact same thing. That's why I finally figured out how to do it. But I forget that not everybody sees those patterns. I end weirdly and maybe this is what your other guest meant. When is it hardest for me to see patterns and themes and to use my my gift when it comes to my own life. Hey, amen. Amen. I can hear it. I can see it. I have to get distance from it to be able to see it. Can I come over and hug you now? That is like the thing. That's funny in this communication, business, in the finding patterns in people and using your heightened emotional intelligence for everyone else and saying, this is what you need and then you turn on your like, help. What do I need? But that's why most coaches and mentors have coaches and mentors. Yeah. Yeah. So to wrap up that thought, I think what it meant and I'm probably going to go back and ask her or just cut out this whole segment. We're ready for a round table, mystery guest. But what I think it might have meant is everything we said before. Maybe some people's superpowers did not conform and they said, well, I can dance a lot better than everyone. Let's just say, maybe that's what it meant. And I'm feeling secure about it because I'm a little different. Maybe I see patterns that other people don't see. And like, not all of you see that? That's strange. Maybe that's weird. That's what it might be from that angle to not knowing or finding the good in it or the special quality of it or the fact that it's a gift. I also think, I don't know why, I'm like all in the body examples today. But I remember realizing ones that not everybody looked at people's hips and butts. Now I looked at them all the time, my own and other people's because it was something to be ashamed of and to be critical of my friend, Kristi once, who has a very tiny butt and very tiny thighs. But I'm so conscious. I know she self conscious about her arms. Okay. And she said to me, something about having small arms and I was like, people think about arms. I had never looked at anyone's arms in my entire life because arms weren't an issue. And so I think that that is also a potential answer to what this is is that the things that we have the strongest value associations with are things that we pay the most attention to and therefore can be the most critical of it ourselves and others. Yeah. And the things that we don't have any value associations with, we skim over and are blind too. You've given me the title of this podcast is going to be called If's and's or butts. So we've nailed that. There's two booty stories. There's maybe even three in here. I don't know. So that's interesting. And what's what's work to do. It's where she's at. Yeah, I was Tuesday today. What's rolling around my head around that idea of uncommon sense. That's interesting because it's like, well, it depends where you are. It depends where you are. And I think I meant uncommon sense in the sense of just a love playing on words and creatives, intuitives. We have uncommon sense for things, but put in an entire room, an entire auditorium of creatives and intuitives. So very common sense in that room. I guess we're still talking creatives and intuitives are still a smaller percentage of life. You're a segment. Yeah. Overall, it is still uncommon sense. So what do you think, again, about, we talked about a bit earlier, about putting yourself in spaces to serve where, I guess this is the world, where your skill, knowledge, et cetera, again, is uncommon. And I'm just talking about this idea of contrast of not being that sore thumb, but the person who can do that thing for other persons who can't right now or help those people. I'll say it in a word. Yeah. Diversity. We in every domain are better served by diverse ways of thinking than unified ways of thinking. And no great creative output, no innovation has come from everybody looking at things the same way and thinking about them the same way ever, ever in history. Either they were external internal or both forces of tension and conflict or nothing happened. I mean, it's played out in all of the natural sciences and all of history and all of them. And every brainstorm I've ever been in to everyone. I mean, there's a certain astros there. If everyone got excited, people were understanding an idea, but if it's different than universal agreement, exactly. And it also meant maybe it's too safe. And we love to say that if we're all agreeing too early, maybe some of us are not needed and all right, who's holding back? Who is not saying something that they should be saying? I love something we talked about a couple weeks ago about play, about enjoying this game of life. Maybe I'm paraphrasing there. Tell me a little bit about the people you work with. Don't identify them. Tell me about the people you work with, the types of problems they come to you with that maybe could be solved through play, maybe could be solved by giving themselves a little bit of slack and looking at this thing we call life as a game. So I work with recovering perfectionist and I work with people who want to do good and be good. And that means they want to get things right and that desire as helpful as it can be can also be super limiting, limiting because we become afraid of learning and making mistakes, which is where most of us get the greatest creative inspiration. The big breakthroughs come from those places where we're freaking scared where we don't know all the answers. And so it looks like starting before you're ready and playing your way to understanding. And so so much of my work is rooted in the ideas of curiosity and play simply not because I'm like necessarily, you know, go do handstands to figure it out though that's good and helpful right to get right now I'm decorating my house in large part because it is good for my work. It's good for my work to be away from my desk to see different perspectives to talk to different people to spend time developing loose ties in my community. All of it's good for me professionally. It expands who I am as a person what I have to offer. This is just your way of expensing at all, isn't it? I mean, I don't hate that either, but it is. And truth really important, just like rest is important, right? So one of the things I say to people a lot is if you feel stuck, do the opposite. And so often we have a tendency to bear down and go harder on whatever we're doing this if not working. Can you give me an example? Yeah, I know I'll give you really simple ones that probably anybody can relate to. If you feel stuck sitting down all day, build times of not sitting down into your day. If you feel stuck hanging out alone, trying to figure out the problem, go find somebody to talk to about it. If you feel stuck writing things typing on a keyboard, try talking and using verbal communication and dictating to yourself. And a lot of this comes from my own work in behavior change and motivational strategy, but we get tired. You know, it's like if you're at the gym, right, and you were to just keep working the same muscle every time you go in the same way, it's going to get really fat. And your gains are going to get really fast. But think of those arms. The glutes. I was going to get some of them. I know. I was going to let you. And so what we need is we need to shake things up. And so so much of play is about how can I shake this up? How can I experiment? And what I mean by that is. In the same way that in a company, right, if you work in product development, everything is about test and learn. You do A/B test. You try it with this variable and you try it with that variable and you see which variables have impact. We do the same thing in our relationships and our professional lives and our leadership and our parenting, you name it. And I think we cheat ourselves by overthinking about how to do things. And we get so exhausted by the thinking about doing things that we can't actually do anything. And so let's assume you have a finite amount of energy. I'd rather you use it to just try anything than to think about doing the right thing. Yeah. How do you help people quiet their minds? Mostly by letting them talk. I have no clue what you're talking about. What did we talk two weeks ago? I think I thought for 58 minutes and more. 60 minutes. Let them talk. They usually know the answer. You just have to give them space to get all that out there. And then notice the patterns and observe them. And people really want to be seen and heard. But most of us have two, seven degree. We are verbal processors. Some of us do a greater degree than others. But if you're a verbal processor, you're going to need to talk it out or write it down. But we just sitting in our own heads thinking about things rarely detangles the knots. You said you've always, like your superpower is patterns in the stories that will be retold in your book. Are you finding patterns between the stories? Because I'm assuming there's not multiple stories from the same people that you are tying together. I've heard you on podcasts. You or your guests talking about that red line, right? The feel in French. They say the feel conductor and TED talks. I believe they say the red line or something similar. Is that what we're talking about when you talk about patterns? And do you have an example that comes to mind about how you've said, well, here's the pattern. I will tell you that in the stories that I'm compiling, there are some very strong through lines. So what I'm looking at is how people, women specifically, muster the courage to do big brave things. I believe we all have that courage and we've all been cultivating it. And are probably a heck of a lot more courageous than we think we are. But one of the main themes that I have heard in terms of both stumbling blocks and superpowers for those who do big brave things is exactly what we were talking about. This limiting belief that I know need to know all the answers before I can do anything. I need to have it all figured out. I need to have permission. That is one of the major things in their way. And so this idea of starting before you feel ready, playing your way to understanding. I think it's one of the huge antidotes to the stagnancy that comes from being in our heads and overthinking and feeling stuck. The other is this belief that not about like am I ready? Do I have it all figured out? But can I? With all my limitations, all of the things I don't feel capable of, can I be the one to do something? And so what I've seen in these stories is that the people who do things actually have figured out how to turn their limitations into the insights that are needed to do the thing. Expand on that a little bit. So I'll take Lisa Halverstein. She is a remarkable woman. I it's like out of 100 episodes now. It's like comparing my children to pick a favorite. But I could probably safely say it's in my top five favorite episodes. Very early on in the show, I talked to Lisa who is an activism journalist in San Diego. She works for a publication that features and focuses on the unhoused population in a city that has a true crisis of homelessness. And Lisa spends all day, every day advocating for this community, for proper and compassionate treatment of the unhoused population. And she is with them every day. One of the things that Lisa that's really interesting that makes her a really good fit for this job is not just that she's a great writer, not just that she's super passionate, not just that she's super driven and is the kind of person who loves a big carry problem, which many of our guests and stories do. But Lisa doesn't have a sense of smell. You think about it on a really foundational level. Part of what deters people from intimate engagement with other humans that are different from them that have different experiences is actually on a physical level the sense of disgust. And I use that word very intentionally because it is one of the key emotions that feeling of disgust that comes from smelling someone who doesn't have access to a shower regularly. Well, so it's caused Lisa a lot of problems throughout her life to not have a sense of smell. You can imagine the challenges that come from not having a sense of smell. But for her, it's become a super power in her work because her nose, which again evolutionarily, that was something that was developed as a survival mechanism, right, to feel the sense of disgust at bad smells of rotting odors and danger. And danger. Yep. All related. Lisa doesn't have that. And so it's given her the ability to have closer proximity to this community to really approach it all with less judgment to experience it in a different way. Or Amy Cohen from a very different lens. Amy is an amazing young woman, founder of Families for Safe Streets. She created it after her beautiful young son was hit and killed by a car in a traffic incident in New York City. Well, is that a limitation? Yes, it's a tremendous loss. It's one of the most heartbreaking and horrible things a person can experience. But it gave her an understanding of a mother's story and of what it took to fight this issue of traffic fatalities heads on from an emotional place that gave her a bit of a superpower. And so early on, all these agencies had spent decades trying to get a new traffic laws passed and had really no progress despite having big budgets behind them and big brains behind them. Once they brought Amy in to tell this really emotional story, traction started. I've gotten some really important laws passed just recently. But it's from this place of emotion and story. And so this is what I mean about turning limits into insights. It's the same thing you know, you hear in so many of these stories, probably the third major theme I will pull out for you is how to use your struggles to help others. And so certainly, Amy is a great example of that. But I could name for you 100 other women that I've interviewed who have done exactly that. And I think if you think about the most impactful people you know for the most part, that's what they've done. And so if you can ask yourself, where do I struggle? What's been really hard for me that I've figured out? It's probably going to give you a really good clue of where you're going to be you as fault somebody else. A lot of people say that you end up often helping your recently past you or your past self doesn't have to be recent. But who you were six months ago, two years ago, three years ago, ten years ago, what you've overcome, what you've learned because no one knows it as deeply and better. That's right. That's exactly right. You understand what it feels like and you understand what it creates, what it takes to create change. Yeah. And I love that part of your story where everything changed when storytelling and emotion, real emotion, or baked was baked in. We are emotional creatures, friends, who is ever listening, like that's always going to be the key. Get through the heart. You'll get the mind after, but hearts and minds should come together. But it's through the heart that we make most of our decisions. We are not logical creatures. To a certain degree, yes, we can be logical, but emotion, emotion does the trick. Yeah. Yeah. And so often, I think we want to logic our way to the answers, but what we really need is to feel our way to the answers. And changing gears slightly from what we were just talking about. I'll say that when I work with people to set really compelling, really motivating goals, I tell them not to set a goal that looks like an outcome, but that looks like a feeling for that reason. Last thing I will say in terms of the trends among these people that I think is really important to note is that none of them did it alone. I feel like we need to reinforce that going back to the very beginning of this conversation when we talk about finding our people. We all need people who multiply our courage, who help us believe in our dreams. And 201, these 100 women that I've interviewed on the show will tell you that that's what made the difference for them. They found their people. They found other people who got it who believed in them and who believed both in the problem and their ability to make change. And so I think for all of us, when we are struggling to find the energy to make a difference, we're struggling to find clarity, we probably need to look to other people, not just anyone. Not the people who tell us all the things that are wrong with it. I have one client right now who went to their family last week and was like, I have this big dream and I just signed up to make it happen. And they were like, you know, you're going to be 60 before your partner. And they came up with all the limiting reasons why you shouldn't follow your dream. I was like, yeah, those are not the people. I mean, that's not. And while they're trying to keep the ones. They're trying to keep her in their worldview. Well, yeah, exactly. They're worldview. They're experience. But if you're trying to grow, then necessarily you were trying to leave the ones you grew up with. So where do you find that community? It depends, right? You find other people wherever you were probably, you know, you go back to like, if I think about Amy Cohen, she found it through sharing her story. And I think that's what happens for most of these women as they share their story. And then other people come out of the woodwork and say, I know somebody who had that story or I felt that way too. And so that's why I believe podcasts are so valuable is because it's a place for sharing stories and creating community. It's one of the best things about social media. But it takes a lot of bravery to tell our stories and to be honest and to say, Hey, I had this problem. I had this worry. I had this struggle, whatever, but it is if we keep it locked inside us in our little tiny bubbles in our rooms, you are never going to find a person to help you solve it. Yeah, you have to be willing to put it out there and have some conversations. And there's a, like you said, there's a there's a test and learn and feel in that too. The story you just told, she told her family, okay, wrong group. That didn't feel great. Data data. That's it. It's all just data. Yeah, but but there's such a story and data and data leads to everything you talked about a little patterns. You need that data, but the data doesn't have to be ones and zeros. This is the story. We're keeping the word data. We're loving that word. We love data. We're feeling data. We love Excel spreadsheets. We love big butts. That's that's that's might stay in. So I asked most guests here, I preface this, I said, this podcast is called disruptive influence. We talked a lot about the idea of disrupting your patterns, changing, shaking things up. If you're sitting down too much, try standing up. If you're not talking a lot, talk if you're thinking too much, talk it out, write it out. These sorts of things, trying something different. I am forever. The people I have on this show like you, I find our disrupting and influencing their industry in their way. I'm going to throw in a quick little story. You and I have talked, you know, I've been searching for my thing. And recently, and I'm going to test this on you, but then I have a question because you're here. Am I supposed to test it? Recently, I was like, yeah, sure. I'm a creative communication consultant and coach. I'm a creative director. And, you know, what does that mean? What does that mean? And in the past, it was easy to define. I was a creative director. A client comes as I need idea. I need idea built. Cool. There you go. Now that it's more in the soft skills, ask personal improvement, self improvement, landscape in certain regards. That's all more on the coaching side on the consultant side. It still remains creative around messaging. In any case, long story short, I said, well, what is it? What is it? What is it? I said, dude, your podcast is named disruptive influence. You've always been a disruptive influence. And it's not new every time I say, hey, disruptive influence was written on my high school report cards, disruptive influence in class. It's only now that I'm saying, oh, that's my brand. Yeah. That's my brand because like I said, a really, that's super power. That's it. I've always been able to challenge someone on something. I've always been able to bring in a new idea, a new thought. And like, you know how, how you're supposed to have that hard moment? Hey, I've been kicked out of class. I've been kicked out of advanced programs. I've been kicked out of companies like it's not always fit in. But then as I turned it into, I'd say constructive and creative optimism because disruptive influence sounds destructive. I look it in two ways. You've got to disrupt to then influence. But I add on my disruptive influence with creative optimism. I'll always come to you with an idea, always come to you with an answer. And I think that's my value proposition is that I'm going to disrupt your thinking. I'm going to come in and give you an idea. You never thought you had. I'm going to simplify your complexity. I'm going to bring you clarity. And we're going to be able to articulate it together with feeling. That being said, thank you for letting me say that because that was cool. That's it. That felt right. So first of all, give me some feedback. Give me some feedback. And then very quickly, just tell me what has been the most disruptive thing you've seen or done in this industry? What's influenced you the most? So that's three questions. The floor is yours. And then we will say an hour. I really like where you are. And I really like the idea of disruptive influence. Check out Claude Silver from Vayner X Vayner Media to look at how she's talking about joyful optimism from a leadership perspective. I think it'll be interesting inspiration for you. Was that your recent guest? Yeah. She's good, right? Yeah. And I love what she says about air cover from Gary Vayner Tech. Right? Like I was like, well, how do you convince people that this emotional stuff is important? And she's like, I have to. I work with them. I believe. Exactly. And that's what I meant about got to go where where someone sees you. They vouch. They get you in there. Makes it a hell of a lot easier. That's it. Not everyone in the company might have bought in. That's what I meant. Gary. It's not always going to help. It's not always going to be there. Though, but yes, it makes it a lot easier. Yeah. If you can work, I mean, I've worked at places that wanted my secrets us and places that didn't. It's way more fun to work places where they want it. So yeah, I really like the idea of disruptive influence. I think what I hear you doing as you add lots more words to it is wrestling a little bit with the real essence of it and trying to make sure it sounds nice and palatable. And so I think it'd be fun for you to really sit with it as an essence before trying to distill it into something palatable. Yeah. And that's exactly the phase I'm at. The breakthrough was recent. It's when it's too wordy, you cannot explain it well. Yeah. I just think disruptive influence on its own. And that one thing you said, I'll tell you the hottest thing you said on that was it was on every report card. That's the thing. Because then we understand who you are and we automatically understand why we need it to your second question. How am I being disruptive? I think I have been radically activated. I am unusually high capacity. Somebody gave me a name plate last night. These words are amazing as a gift. And it said dreams are useless without action. I am biased towards action. I like to dream big. I actually kind of like I'm scared to dream any bigger right now because it keeps happening. I'm looking at my vision boards for the last three years and literally everything on them has happened. That's amazing. That's unreal. That's actually unreal. No, it's so real because I say I'm going to do something and then I do it. For most people is what I'm saying. Because those vision boards collect dust and for everyone listening, we are mid-December. It's going to be just January, those vision boards are getting refreshed soon, and they're going to sit there all year for most people. I get things done. My clients get things done because I buy us toward action. I just don't that's the whole experimentation thing, right? I'm just like, if I sit around and think about it, it hurts. But if I get things done, maybe still hurts, but it hurts. And it worked for God. I mean, that's interesting because your your pain reliever is the action when most people's pain is the action. And then it just makes me think of what people talk about of what are you willing to struggle for? But your struggle is more the inertia than the action. That's that's like choose your heart as they say. I talk about it a lot in terms of chronic or acute pain. Is it like kind of intense? Sometimes to say, I'm going to do this really huge thing on this self-impose deadline. Well, yeah, sometimes that's a little intense, but it's way less painful than sitting and thinking about it for a decade and feeling all the guilt and shame and self-recommination for not doing it. And the info is what's out. No, that's it. And what's the most influence on you? Listening to other women's stories. I literally created the podcast that I needed to help keep myself motivated. And so I listened to amazing women over and over and out again. Let's say I've got a hundred episodes out in the world now. A hundred episodes that I listened to each three to five times. Wow. So we're looking at about 500 hours of indoctrination into courage. And I just carry those a women around with me. And when I am feeling this way or that, I'm like, all right, how would Catherine's what's her deal with this? All right, how would so and so do how would cloud silver do this? And is that inform your line of questioning so that your tool, your toolbox is ready to rock at any time? At all times. Sneaky sneaky. I love it. I mean, we got to do what we got to do. You're not going to be the only podcaster author, etc. Who has written the book that they wish they had. X Y Z amount of time ago. I hope that's what we're all doing. That's the secret. Last word from you. It's 2025 now. By the time this episode launches, what is that one liner of advice you would give people who want to see an uplifted life or to uplift themselves in 2025? The world needs your courage. I like that. That that might be the new title of the episode. Aransas, thanks so much. Everyone check out Aransas on the socials, but go check out the uplifters podcast. You will not regret it, friends. You will not regret it. Thanks so much. Aransas. Jeff great seeing you. Super fun. Talk to you real soon. If you're enjoying disruptive influence, please like, share, subscribe and do all the things. You can also find me on LinkedIn, Jeff Abraison.