 Well, thank you for joining us today, Gia Halada. We want to start with what does living with boldness mean to you? Okay, guys. So, well, to answer that question, I think first, it's very important that we need to distinguish the difference between confidence and boldness, because it's actually a very big difference. With confidence, we're going to understand that it means not being scared, right? So because you know that you can deal with problems successfully, so there is nothing to be scared about, and that is confidence. But boldness, and there are different elements to it, means keeping on even when you are scared, like a soldier, right? It's under fire, and a soldier is scared, but it keeps on fighting. And this is one of the elements for boldness, this action ability. It requires for you to act on it. The second element for boldness is the lifestyle, right? You choose daily, like for example, what you wear, and when it comes to boldness, it's exactly the same. You choose daily how you show up, like is the consistency, right? That makes you bold, is the consistency of the little things, that's when you go to the gym, if you hit the gym only once, well, you're not going to get the body, but it's the consistency of the little things that you do that actually get you to be bold. And the third element will be the mindset, right? The mindset of the bold is that that thing that will determine the relationship that you have with everything and really everyone around you. Boldness will speak to my relationship, for example, of what I fear. It will speak to my relationships of what I think about who I am. The mindset, for example, of a victim is very different than the mindset of a warrior. And really this entails about what it really means leaving with boldness, and when it comes to relationships, of course, it matters and has a very, very big importance, both of them. Confidence and boldness. So do you have to be confident to become bold? Confidence is a metric of boldness, right? So if we understand like confidence is this repetitive actions that we can take in order to become confident, and the more times that you are confident, right, then the more likely you are to be able to be bold. So if you jump in a small fence several times and then you decide that, okay, I'm really confident about this, then more likely you are to jump in a fire loop and have the courage to actually go there, right? So they're really correlated, they're metrics for each other, and that's a beautiful part of it because you do not need to be brave or courageous to be bold, you can still be chicken-scared, but it's just about showing up. Now you mentioned working on this daily as a practice and showing up boldly. What are some things that you do on a daily basis that allows you to express that boldness? In my case, well, I am a single mom of two, and one of the ways that I really practice boldness is about teaching my kids not to need me, and this is very, very scary to really learn myself or teach myself to raise my kids in a way that they would not require me or be codependent of me. So every day we have like monsters where they are learned how to be self-sufficient, and this is my way also of letting them go in a way. For example, my daughter was just in a skiing trip because, yeah, where we live is a little bit of snow, and she said, Mom, I'm not going to miss you before she left. I was like, okay, that's lovely. I said, why aren't you going to miss me? And she's like, because I have me, and I will have fun, and this really hurt me. And of course, at the same time, I was so proud because I realized that really unconditional love and raising kids that will have that self-compassion and that confidence to be on their own requires for you to let go, and yeah, every day is like that. There's so much to get to tear up over that comment, right, the moving for, the being brave, the not missing you. I mean, there's a lot of contradiction and excitement there for your children. And from a parenting angle, the idea of letting your children get comfortable without you is a scary thought, especially in the states here where most parents are helicopter and lawnmower parents. Have you heard this term lawnmower parents, Helena? No. So this concept actually was introduced to us, an interview we were on. And the idea of a helicopter parent is obviously a parent who has a close watchful eye over their kids, making sure that they have tabs on everything their kids are doing. A lawnmower parent actually gets ahead of the problem. So the lawnmower parent foresees an issue and mows it over before their child actually has to encounter that issue. So trying to create this level of comfort for their children, so they foresee, oh, this is going to be a difficult subject. So they'll go talk to the professor before the class even starts to protect their children. So this concept of lawnmower parent of over protection, almost bubble wrapping your children so they can't build that self-sufficiency and that resiliency that's necessary to become an adult. That's absolutely right. And I think it really is that core of authenticity. And I think that's a lot of our problems when it comes to relationships or even success that we do not get an opportunity sometimes to really get to know ourselves. So especially for children or for any person who has some confidence issues. Sometimes we're just overthinking so much and not being able to trust who we are. But that's a lot because sometimes we just do not spend enough time with ourselves. Helena, one of the things you mentioned about how you were adding boldness to yourself and then or living a lifestyle of boldness. What steps are you able to give your children so they can envelop some of these ideas and strengthen these ideas? One of the things that I have seen over the years with my kids and others has to do with decision making. Like, for example, I do see how some of my my friends that have male kids, they have no problem taking decisions is what do you want? And then it will be like, I want this. And with girls, they have a problem deciding. They have a problem really asking themselves what it is that they want is like they we are wired to please others or to have this much more collective approach to to to life. And so when when it comes to my girls, I yeah, it's about really allowing them to hear themselves to hear their bodies and and to listen to themselves what it is that they want and to be able to speak up and say, even if no is is the answer. They are allowed to say no to me if they do not agree. They're not allowed at home. For example, they're not allowed to say, I can't. This is bad. Oh, that's great. Yeah. So there's like, no, I need help. They can say I need help or they need to try to figure out and really be able to explain to themselves really what is going on. Because saying, I don't know, it's very, very simple. But yeah, so this would be some of the things that that help us to to raise them decision making knowing what they want is so important. Now, this month's theme is relationships. And we have some questions from our listeners and fans to get to in a second. But just looking at our romantic relationships, our professional relationships and even our platonic relationships, what do you think stands in the way of people bringing boldness to their relationships? That is always a good question. I think is the fear of of being yourself in one hand side to because you just don't know, I work with a very young, for example, target group. So I work with a lot of companies and companies that have very like working with millennials. And I see day to day that this guys are not very knowing what their strengths are, what they really want. They're just talking about impact, but they don't really know how that looks like. And it's very difficult to satisfy what the company is searching and at the same time be themselves. So I think that not knowing it's difficult to let's say like this. It's very difficult to promote a product that you do not know. It's very difficult to show up in your fullness. If you have no idea of what you stand for, you'll fall for everything, what you're good at, what you dislike. You will just keep continue following a leader who unfortunately every day we see more and more that we have more young more and more younger managers that are standing for leaders who are not very able to lead and get out of the best out of their people. So not being able to fully show up as your most authentic self stance and the way of boldness and any relationship because you will always be calculating what it means for you to be your most authentic self. And if you have some self love or self confidence of self compassion issues, you will, I think, always be protecting other people from your true self. That's scary. And working with a lot of millennials, obviously this concept of a quarter life crisis of feeling a little bit lost, feeling like you've checked some boxes, but you can't find your purpose. You feel in the corporate environment that you're in that you're really struggling to be bold. What are some advice, what is some advice you give those millennials in particular to help them show up more at work and determine a lot of this stuff that we just talked about? You know what it's great that it seems that now companies and great leadership starts to really understand the need for focusing on our most important asset, which is our people and creating that space for people to listen to themselves. And I think the best advice that I can give millennials or or baby movers or anybody is to spend time with ourselves is really asking ourselves what what is our state to school as listening to podcasts, just being an endless student, hanging out with it, with the right people. There's so many things we're over, we're oversaturated with good habits, but it's just really, I think the first step is to accepting that you can be better, that your dreams, you have them because there's a chance that you might achieve them, that that something comes up to your life and is because there are opportunities and you really need to want to to pursue them when it comes to your company, always asking for help. I know a lot of HR, amazing human resources departments that are offering lots of wonderful opportunities and chances for especially millennials to try to help them figure out what are they really good at? I think what is the scary about working with millennials is that they think that they need to follow on the steps of older generations, like where we come from, where we need to be hustling and working so hard all the time in order to feel that we deserve something, and then we need to be exhausted and that stress is a cinnamon or a or a metric for for hierarchy and not understanding that what comes easy for us is already a strength, right? What comes easy for us, it means that we are, we have been giving those gifts and we should just elaborate on that. So there's, there's, I think we should just change our focus and millennials or anybody should just take the time for themselves to really get to know what they're really awesome at, because we all are very good at to things. And that's a wonderful start. There's lots of information out there available. I think a lot of us struggle with that exact thing where we're looking at social media, we're looking externally at what everyone else is doing, we're paying attention to everyone else's strengths and weaknesses. We don't really carve out time for self reflection. You know, this is one of the exercises we have in our week long bootcamp where we ask them to sit down and write out their values. And this writing exercise can be difficult for a number of people. We even incorporated it in our free challenge group, the art of charm.com slash challenge, where you can join the Facebook group and we have these challenges all around this, the self reflection to figure out, well, what is it that I value? And a lot of times those values will come from our strengths, but if we're not spending any time doing that, we're just paying attention to what everyone else is doing, comparing ourselves to everyone else's movie highlight reel. It's difficult for us to then show up and be bold. Absolutely. And people forget that they're so focused on all the things that we don't have that they forget that what we already have will compensate. All our strengths will compensate for our weaknesses. And this is this is a much, much more nurturing relationship with ourselves, which at the end is the most important relationship of all. I love that. We got a question here through Instagram. Hey, all, I often feel more comfortable and even attract lower value people into my life. I understand we shouldn't spend so much time with these people, but I also feel obligated to in a way. We're all on this journey and maybe they need more uplifting people to get them started. How much time spent is too much? And is it selfish to leave them as low value without helping them learn high value behaviors? Thanks heaps loves the love the podcast and love the podcast about relationships lately. A little bit of a tongue twister there. So this idea that we talk about a lot on the show is dealing with negative people whose values don't align and who can even be borderline toxic who are looking to knock you off your path of growth and self development. What would be your response to our listener in dealing with low value people? You know what, guys? I really think that, of course, I can imagine that you and a lot of us might feel at some point the responsibility of uplifting, especially if you have some of this as one of your life's purpose. But what I have seen is that the best way that you help other people is really just being a role model and inspiring people from that place, you know, is if there is something to feel obliged about should be you just being your very best that you can possibly be and your most authentic self. So yeah, you want to uplift them. Go ahead of lift people by letting them know it can be better. Share your story. Share your testimony. Show them your scars and let them know that that you what you learned from them. Because at the end it's all about people will get inspired much more by you showing them that it is possible. And and I would be honestly also very careful with this energy of empires because also we find people that are just finding they have this chronic complaint syndrome and they just like it. So but if it's something someone that the naturally has that opportunity, I think we can inspire others so much more by by our example. Absolutely. I think actions always speak louder than words. And for everyone else, I know the path that I had to go on in order to find self discovery and self development and I had to exhaust everything that I knew in order to say, OK, I don't have those answers. And and I had to admit to myself that there was a lot of flaw going on only to find out just how how much. Right. If you haven't started your place of self acceptance and understanding your strengths and weaknesses so that you can become more bold, then when someone comes at you and gives you some criticism or feedback, it's going to fall on deaf ears. It's not going to get through. But when we are taking actions to improve ourselves and people see that difference, feel that difference around us, they can become inspired. And that's why you look at the greatest leaders. They lead from the front. They're in there and they are inspiring. It's not their words alone that are allowing the people to follow them. And when you're living well and the people around you, you know, when they get to that place and that's when they're like, OK, please, please teach me. Now, how much time is too much time spent on these energy vampires? And this is why we're so big on journaling and self reflection. You know, we talked to start the show about how people just don't have time to really think about these things. If you start a journaling practice and at the end of every day, you're writing down your thoughts, feelings, what went well, where you can improve with a little bit of self feedback, self criticism and some feedback. What we found is that you can become a better judge of just how devastating these energy vampires can be. If you have, let's say, you spend a night out with a friend who's like this, who's very low value, who's very catastrophizing and knocks you off your game and you come home and you don't really think about it. You wake up the next day and oh, they hit you up. They're available. They have time for you. You can fall into this trap of being constantly surrounded by this negativity and start absorbing these norms without realizing it. But if you take time every single day to orient yourself around what have I accomplished? What am I proud of? And how am I feeling today? You can actually start to gauge just the impact that these low value behaviors that other people around you are exhibiting have on your life. What I would say is when we start taking some time to reflect on people's actions and behaviors towards us, if you find that this is a pattern where over and over you leave feeling empty, you leave feeling hurt, you're frustrated, you're angry over something, then you need to start separating yourself from that person and spending less time with that person. Obviously, we're not trying to write everyone out of our lives and we're not trying to make snap judgments and be cruel or critical of people, but this is a pattern that we need to break. And if you can't recognize the pattern because you're not being thoughtful, then you're gonna be on a slippery slope. Totally, I honestly think that your feelings are working as your guiding compass and we need to learn how to trust that. Sometimes we get so caught up in our thoughts and in our head and we forget that all the wisdom that we need, it's already there and we need to trust our intuition and if you leave somebody's company and you're feeling depleted or empty, well maybe there's something to check there and evaluate about who we are really spending time with and maybe being much more selective about it. I exactly, I couldn't agree more. So Robert emailed us this question. When communicating, I feel that I try to be high value by giving attention, acknowledgement and acceptance. I even follow the eye contact touching that you guys talk about on the show to show contact and connectedness. I wanna be more authentic but I don't know how. How can I be more authentic in my relationships? And I feel like this goes hand in hand with being bold. Totally, what I've seen is that every new skill really takes practice to develop and all the stuff that you guys are teaching in your boot camps is repetition as the mother of all skill and this is so important why we should just continue hanging on with the right people and just saturating yourself with wisdom and knowledge. And I don't think, I really think that for example, toddlers don't really think that walking is in any way natural until really they develop the skill. So my recommendation would be really just practice and the more that you practice, you will come up with later on your own repertoire until it is natural, right? But when you are learning it, it's obvious that it will feel unnatural until you give it your most authentic touch to it and it becomes part of yourself. In this case, I think I definitely high five our Roberts here for wanting to display more high value behavior. And it should be like that. This speaks to his caring and sensitivity and he should just continue trying to do it until it's easy and it comes out without really thinking about it. Right, when we're tackling a skill that we've either struggled with or never done before, it's always gonna feel unnatural. And that process of working through that is the intent matters more than the way that you feel. So if your intent is to be more connected, to be more authentic, to actually show acceptance, acknowledgement and give some attention to someone, that is exactly the path that we need to be on to stay authentic. If your intent is, oh, I wanna impress this person, I want them to view me in a certain way and it's not coming from a place of your own self-compassion, then you're gonna begin to be inauthentic. But the process of all of this stuff that we cover in the show is always gonna lead us to feel a little unnatural at the start because unfortunately we've built up some patterns and habits even that are working against us and breaking those are gonna take a little bit more effort than what we normally do in our comfort zone. For myself, and getting involved in this stuff many moons ago, for me it was seeing the smiles on the other people that I was dealing with, coming at them with a new set of behaviors that was gonna be adding value. And it was always seeing the smiles of the other people that I was interacting with, but also the joy that I was having being able to develop these new habits and routines and behaviors and seeing the joy that they were delivering to others. And for myself, when I first got into self-development, the job that I had at the time was bartending. And what was fun about that is I had an opportunity to measure sort of these behaviors and how they were becoming off in other people. The response to them. And the response through the monetarily, through the tips that I was making every night by incorporating new ideas of giving value, a different compliment, a genuine compliment versus a superficial compliment. Like, oh, and because of these this idea of becoming a social scientist allowed me to have every day to be so much fun that I was like, I'm having so much fun here that I just wanted to continue doing that. So anytime that you're able to lean into your happiness and the happiness that you're bringing to others is an opportunity for you to feel good about what you're doing and continue on those habits until that you become, they become so ingrained that that's not who you are. And I know a lot of the clients we work with, they're not used to self-disclosure. They're not used to sharing their thoughts and feelings about things. They tend to be agreeable by nature. They want other people to like them. So they're afraid of ruffling some feathers. And that is where we fall into this inauthenticity trap. Being authentic is self-disclosing. Letting the other people know your thoughts and feelings, your emotions, what you're going through, being a little vulnerable, that's how we can show up and be authentic. We're inauthentic when we are just agreeing with people about internally that's not our emotions, internally that's not how we're feeling. That's where that inauthenticity comes into play. Another thing that I had noticed upon making these changes in my life was everything went from being frustrating to really easy. And I was like, how can this be? There's like now a cheat code that I enacted now. And there was like, how can it be so easy? But there was no doubt for me like, this is so easy. I'm gonna continue this way because the other way was much more difficult. And I was driving myself crazy. But I can imagine that for some people though, they could feel as if, wait a minute, am I getting over on people? No, you're now rolling with the grain rather than against it. And some of that self-disclosure and fear around it is because of the way that our parents have treated us when we disclosed our thoughts and feelings, our friends, our classmates growing up has been imprinted on us where we may have thought or felt some way and we got dismissed. We were told to shut up and not share. So over time we've built up this wall of, oh, I don't wanna share these things, but it is the sharing of those and the vulnerability that makes us authentic. And what I actually think is also that it's important that we understand that boldness comes in so many different aspects to all of us. But bold is bold for some of us is going to be asking for somebody's number for some of us is going to be something absolutely different. And we need to just remember that it's about showing up and the learning really just happens when you actually decide to show up. That is where the growth will really happen. And when it stops being scary after times that you are doing it, at least your responsibility is just to show up. And if you show up then, okay, whether it worked out or not, you get a point for that. We got a question here from Simon in Australia. He's dealing with some grief and anxiety because his best mate who knows everything about him is moving overseas for a few years. Now, I've always had difficulty making new friends because of my social anxiety. And now I feel a little lonely. And even though I have a loving partner, I feel stuck. How can I build some new friendships and some happiness while I'm processing the grief over my friend leaving? PS, you guys have really been helping me through some tough times. I just wanted to say your podcast has really made a difference in my life and it's inspired me to try some new creative ideas. I'm excited to hear what you think. Wow. Okay, Simon, I totally get what you're going through because being an expert myself, I have had to go through that many times. So I feel with you. And I would like maybe to tell Simon an appeal to him and his situation from two different angles. I think one part is what is the story that he's telling himself? This is very important for all of us because the stories play really on the back of our minds on some sort of like alter replay and are so important. Is the stories different? Talking about bonus and relationships. What he will be experiencing will be different if this story is my best friend is leaving me or my best friend is looking forward for a few years of an adventure overseas, right? So the question would be, is the story that I'm telling myself empowering or much more powerless? So I think that is very important. How he is interpreting what it's happening and that would be the first thing that I think will be important to really consider just to watch this story. And the other angle, I guess, well, grief is hard. And I think it's important that we just remember that grief is really a process and it just has different stages for what Simon is sharing with us is that he's really at the beginning. I understand that he's at the beginning. So right now it's a lot of shock and a lot of denial. And this will pass really, it will just pass and will bring other stages which as difficult as they might be, they're really essential to his growth until he accepts it and sees things in a different light. But being bold is being able to treat yourself kindly, having self-compassion, having a lot of understanding giving yourself hundreds of chances. And maybe one day he's missing his friend very, very much and maybe other days he's feeling strong and powerful. I think it's important to remember that also and from a perspective, anxiety is fear for the future, right? So it's normal that Simon is feeling like that for the idea of leaving or needing to leave his friend. And the best way is really to stay in the present. Like you guys just mentioned journaling is a beautiful practice that allows us to stay. It's that's really me time. So he created that friendship together which makes him also a very wonderful person too. And I think that is important in that process. So if his friend has not left yet, perhaps celebrating his friendship would be a beautiful way to honor it. So he can come back to those memories when times are hard. But I do think that it's important that he knows that everything will pass. And it's just a process that will get him stronger. That's it. And also let Simon know that, you know, it is fantastic that he's been able to have this connection with this person and that's gonna be one of many throughout his life that he's going to have. And as for myself as I've gotten older, those relationships only get better as you get older. You get better as a person to be able to add value to those relationships. And it's, we live in a world now that all he has to do is get on his laptop and he's gonna be able to see his buddy from no matter where he is and hear about his buddy's experiences rather easily. So not the fret. I would also say, you know, now this is an opportunity for him to grow personally and spend some time. Obviously he's been spending time with his buddy. Spend that time learning something, pursuing a new skill or a hobby or an interest, going to a meetup group, learning cooking, taking on a new language, all of these opportunities from exercise to hobbies to passions, when we actually go after them and go after them fully, we find that there's tons of opportunity within them to socialize. Whether it's taking a cooking class, you're gonna find other people who are passionate about learning, whether it's signing up for improv and working on your sense of humor or signing up for Toastmasters and doing public speaking, you're gonna find other people who enjoy the same things as you and you now have an opportunity to channel this energy and time into your own personal growth. Yeah, pick one new thing that you'll be doing every week. Yeah, and dedicate some time to it. The other thing that I wanna say is every single person that's been through this, whether it's moving to a new town or going through a breakup or having someone move away, you don't often give yourself enough time to make that new connection. These things do take some time. It's not gonna happen overnight. He's not gonna have another best friend fall into his lap, but by putting himself out there every single week, making sure that he's taking every opportunity can to be more social every single week, you're gonna find that more people are open and willing to these new relationships than you were able to see before because you were in your comfort zone. You weren't looking for friends or social opportunities because you already had one. When we start to open our eyes to all these other new social opportunities, we realize that there are tons of people looking to become your best friend. Sean sent us this question. He says, hey guys, my ex-girlfriend was my best friend and I miss her. I was the one who made the decision to end the relationship, but I really wanted us to be able to remain friends. It's been over a year and we've spoken a few times, but she was very distant. Here's my question. Can exes ever be friends again? Is it selfish for me to want this? And can I break the ice and rebuild the friendship? If so, how? So a lot to unpack here, but love to hear your perspective. Can exes be friends again? Wow. That's a good question. Yeah, please tune into the YouTube. Sean, you can see her reaction on video to that question. Well, honestly, what I'm curious is, I mean, if he took the decision to change the setup of the relationship must have been for a very, very good reason. And I think at the same time when he decided to take that decision, somehow it changes the rules also for her to go, both of them, to have the opportunity to go back to themselves. I think it's important just to ask Sean, if the decision that he wanted was going to allow him to become the person that he wanted to become when he took that particular decision. And then an aspect, let's say, about focus. So if we cannot focus in too many things at the same time, the question would be, what is he focusing on at the moment? If he is focusing on wanting to save this relationship or because at the same time, if she's also focused in wanting to grow herself, perhaps her decision of not staying with the relationship, it would be important to reflect upon. I could imagine that the primary focus which he had at the moment of taking that decision was to feel good. And I really think that we do not pay enough attention to how we feel and we should pay more attention and make how we feel a priority. So in this case, the question would be if seeking and forcing a relationship, because this is a question, is he forcing and pushing something that might not be the most natural and is not bringing him joy? What would be the best thing that he can do for himself? What would be the most fearless and compassionate thing that he can do for himself? I think you hit the nail on the head. I think exes can be friends, but if you're making the decision to end a relationship, you have no ability to then make the decision to restart that relationship. You've sent a clear signal to the other person that there's not interest there in a very real way of breaking up a relationship, a romantic relationship. And even though you felt this connection as friends, there's a healing process that maybe you've gone through because you were able to make the decision, but a lot of times the person who's been broken up with that decision comes out of the blue and they may not have healed and moved on as fast as you would like. The other thing that he talks about is is this selfish for me to want this? And it is selfish for you to want this. It is unfair. And a lot of times this is where mixed signals and mixed messages come into play. Yes. I would wanna know how has he reached out to her when he says she's been distant? Because if he's reached out to her to just spend time one-on-one, he could be sending a signal that he wants to get back together romantically and she's already moved on and maybe seeing someone or has that option completely off the table. So one, we have to be clear with our intention to reset the relationship. And part of that I think this mixed messaging really comes into play that forces the other person to feel distant. The second thing is in that breakup, there may have been some self-reflection on her part where she's been out of character around him and she hasn't been able to be bold or be herself and she doesn't feel that jumping back into this relationship and jumping back together in a friendship is gonna create that space for her. I think breaking the ice, the easiest way that I've found that allows this platform or opportunity for a relationship to maybe resprout and regrow is to offer an invite to a group setting that's clearly platonic. So that the message is clear that I want you in my larger social group, it's going to be a group setting so I'm not cornering you, I'm not putting all this pressure on you having to show up and maybe think it's a date or think that I wanna rekindle a flame and let her respond and that's it. Let her make the decision to enter your life. Don't force this decision back on her, especially when you were so clear in breaking things off. Yeah, I find it rather rude. Yeah, and it is selfish to just assume that because you had this great connection and even though you don't have these romantic feelings that she now has to play in the box that you've built for her. All right, Max writes us, Hey, AJ and Johnny, been listening to the show and implementing for a couple of years now and it's completely transformed my life from social circle to women, great job. Thank you guys so much. Recently, I've come across some new challenges and if it fits your theme, we'd love to have you comment. Number one, my social calendar is totally booked out about two weeks in advance thanks to the show. Being introverted, I sometimes find myself completely exhausted by this and craving time alone. Is it okay to say no to social events in favor of me time? Will it damage the relationships that I've worked so hard to build? Well, obviously, if you're feeling exhausted and you're not able to show up, your friends are gonna feel that in their relationship too. Absolutely. So we can't burn the candle at both ends and we don't wanna burn ourselves out. Obviously, when friends wanna spend time with us or we're building relationships, we wanna be present. We wanna be fully there, not thinking about, oh, I didn't get enough sleep last night, I'm exhausted, why am I here? Can I also tell Max congratulations on your quality problems you now have? Yeah, these are some high quality problems. That is great and I love this for Max. And of course he's gonna be a little bit worried because this is all brand new and now he has the social life that he's wanted and he's able to create it. He doesn't wanna lose that and that's completely understandable. But as you mentioned, we wanna show up to these functions with a big smile and lots of energy. And so if you're tired, it's okay. Those people will be there and you're gonna have to pick and choose your battles. Do you feel the same way that you need to recharge from time to time from being so bold? Totally, guys, honestly, it goes really back to that. The most important relationship is with ourselves and we tend to overthink on taking action to do what is right and better for us, for the fear of what others might think. So what is important is self love or self compassion is really attending to your own needs first and being bold is saying yes to things and no to things, having yourself first. And being honest. I get that. I took on a bit too much this week. I'm getting slammed with work. I'm going to take the night off. Thank you for the invite. I don't know too many high value people who are gonna judge you negatively for that sort of no. If you ghost, you say you're gonna show up and you don't show up or you do show up and you're not there, you're not fully present, that's actually gonna do more damage to the relationship. Sending that text always helps. For myself, when I have shows, I know who's on the RSVP list. I know who's supposed to be coming out. And when I get that text that you just mentioned, hey, I've been busy or hey, I got an early morning. I would love to be there. I'm gonna catch your next one. Like that text goes a long way. Yeah, it helps quite a bit. It shows there's some thought there. Second question he has. I've been dating this girl for two months now. Hooray, congratulations Max. Occasionally when we go out, we have an energy mismatch. One of us has had a great day and the other one is totally wiped or even worse in a bad mood. I do my best to respond to her emotional bids, but after an hour or two, I simply don't want to anymore. Should I cut the date short to handle my own needs or is it a requirement of relationships to push through even when you don't feel like it? Ooh, now we're talking romance here. It's difficult, right? I think, honestly, it's not true to all, but in many relationships, when one partner is not feeling good and the other one is, the one who is normally not feeling good typically will want the other one to live a love with them. Like, I want you to understand me for which you would need to lower your energy and mood to meet them there. And that is difficult place to love a girlfriend, I guess in the case for Max. If you need to lower yourself to her energy, it will make it difficult to properly care for her because he's mentioning about caring for her needs. I think it's so much easier to love your girlfriend from a place where you are feeling bold and strong and it's easier to really to be caring without compromising your state and really the best way to attend for her needs is you doing yourself, you doing you, you doing yourself awesome and see when she wants to actually go up and meet you there, right? Because people need to care so much more about how they feel and you guys in past episodes, we're talking about how happiness is just contagious. So maybe instead of him lowering down to her, she needs to come up and meet him there. And to that point, not only is happiness contagious, unhappiness is contagious, it works both ways, right? So we can amplify a negative mood in someone else if we're projecting all of that onto them. I think, again, two months in, we're in the honeymoon phase. I understand you wanna spend a lot of time together, but carving out some space for yourself seems like a running theme here for Max. He's putting everything on overdrive. We appreciate that you're taking everything, you're learning and you're trying all these new things. But if you don't recharge your own battery, if you don't pay attention to that self-compassion and that internal dialogue, you're gonna be doing damage not only to your social life, but also to the people that really you care about and you might be doing it in ways and sabotaging that you're not even realizing by bringing that lack of energy, that lack of presence and that bad mood into the relationship. I think people need to be more honest. I know when I, much like that friend, if my friend says, hey, I'm not feeling so well, I appreciate that honesty. I don't wanna drag my friend out and he's not feeling well and then I don't get to see him again next week because now he's sick. Same thing with the women in your life. Like if you know that you can't be fully present, if you know that you're gonna be in a foul mood because you didn't get enough sleep and maybe you went out too much over the last week on all these social events you have going on, that's actually gonna do more damage to the relationship than trying your best to keep or spawned these emotional bids and drive all this energy and commotion into the relationship that's just not there. I think in general, in the early stages of a relationship, I try my best to keep the cadence of positive and being happy and healthy for that person and being fully present. That goes a lot further than just showing up to show up or feeling like you have to spend time with this person because you really like them. All right, Elsie sent us this through the articharm.com slash questions. If you got questions you wanna hear answered, head on over there and submit them. This is a two-parter. Man, this week we got a lot of two-parters. We got a lot of two-parters. I know a lot of people who seem to like me but I don't really have close friends. I consider myself kinda awkward but I always hear through the grapevine that people think I'm pretty cool. That's great but it would be even better if somehow I could tap into that in order to feel comfortable reaching out to more people to exude that energy that I'd like to be around. Do you have any suggestions for how exactly to do this? So dealing with some internal confidence issues here and feeling awkward, even labeling yourself awkward is obviously some self-sabotage. Totally and this is the story that we were talking about. So if she is seeing herself as awkward then she will be consistent to that story and she will only be coming across and doing what awkward people do and that perhaps requires a redefinition of what she wants because she says she looks up for people that have a different kind of behavior. So maybe she just needs to redefine what it is that she really wants to pursue and awkward person in the story will be consistent. So maybe a different kind of story, maybe a powerful woman. I remember having a coachee that defined herself as a good girl and she had some issues at work telling people no and she worked very hard and she saw that she couldn't really get people to see her in the light of the strong woman that she was and then later on she realized that, you know what? It's just good girls don't say no and she was acting and behaving consistent to the story that she had of herself. So when it comes to boldness and relationship to herself perhaps I think what will help Elsie is is to take some time for herself and redefine and have the clarity of what she wants to come across. First of all, that she has a relationship with herself. So when she goes out there and really tries to put things out there because at the end I think all of Joy is really at the edge, all growth. Yeah, growth, it's also out there in the edge but yeah, perhaps this awkwardness is not gonna help her. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, right? She's leaving these interactions and thinking to herself right away, that was awkward or trying to find the awkward moment and now it's become this story and narrative. I would challenge her to leave those interactions and ask herself what was so cool about that? What was so great about the other person and take the focus off of what she defines as awkward because one thing we see on video work in our boot camps all the time is our internal dialogue and our internal perception of what is reality is often flawed, is often way off the mark. So on video work a lot of our clients will feel really super awkward and feel really forced and go oh my God, I can't even imagine what that's gonna look like when we play back the video. And then we play back the video and they look cool, they look comfortable, they look calm and it's totally at odds with what they're feeling internally. So if the story is I'm awkward and immediately after these interactions she's thinking okay, what was awkward about that? Well now we're in this awkward feedback loop. So changing the questions you ask yourself is gonna allow your mind to start looking for maybe new perceptions of reality. She already seems that she made already a decision about herself, right? So if we're looking neurologically this that particular activating system which will be very consistent to that decision that she took of herself. So she took the decision that she's awkward then the brain is only going to show her how inadequate and awkward she is, right? So she needs to start making different decisions about what she wants because also neurologically she can only be able to see those opportunities based on her request as opposed to maybe other decisions that she can start saying. So she needs to change that script to something much more empowering and inspiring that is gonna make her feel powerful. It's definitely gonna take some time and when we were talking about laying out those values perhaps one of the values that she can aim for is one I believe you mentioned one of power. I like bold has been the word of this podcast which is wonderful that she could start to lean into which is gonna have to make those changes and perhaps putting in those values to give her an opportunity to do that. The other thing is the more intelligent or aware we are the more things we have to be aware about and you could look at people who tend to be not so intelligent or just be very ignorant of things and they're able to be very social they're able to comfortable because they don't have this awareness and it's like a lot of this is you're overthinking these things. Perhaps you should take your focus off of all the negative to the positive as you were saying it Jay. Yeah and I would just say if in your gut you're feeling awkward, like this is awkward in this moment the one thing that we can do very quickly to break that thought pattern is to simply change your body language. In those moments where we're feeling awkward we're tending to turn internally our focus is on our inner voice and what happens is we close off our body language we lose that smile and expression on our face and all of a sudden it amplifies this feeling that we're having on the inside. So in those moments where maybe you're feeling this is awkward, this isn't going well rolling your shoulders back, uncrossing your arms making good eye contact to someone and putting a smile on will often work not only to change how you're feeling internally but send the signal to the other person that I'm enjoying this interaction even if maybe you're struggling a little bit inside. Now on to Elsie's second part. I'm a woman but I've always felt more comfortable chatting and getting to know guys. In a room full of people I'd probably end up befriending a bunch of dudes and shyly smiling at women from afar. This might be deeper than you can get to but if you have any suggestions I'd be interested in hearing them. Thanks, if it matters at all I am married and I have an awesome boy. I think I also felt more confident among males and I think it might be relevant to explain really that confidence is built on itself. It's part of confidence comes from practicing skills over and over until the body and mind respond correctly without conscious thought. This is what we call this muscle memory and successful experience in this case for her will build its confidence and confidence will build successful experiences. First if already she has a better self perception and she's much more caring and authentic because sometimes it's also a lot of anxiety to show up at a place when you are not very sure of who you are and trying to be somebody else. The easiest thing for us should be to be ourselves. And in that line then with women as a woman myself I can understand that because we are very conscious about what other women also might think about us and women with women we might and we tend to be quite hard especially in this society where is demanding from women that we are the greatest moms and the greatest professionals and the greatest cooks, the greatest lovers the greatest entrepreneurs, the greatest friends the greatest, you know and we need to make it look flawless, easy. And as a woman I can really feel with Elsie and I think what it's important is that she feels good with and she decides to show up with whatever God gave her with whichever cards she decided to show up with because you cannot fake sweat, right? And if she decides to show up in her own integrity, right? It will be much more powerful than trying to be what society expects her to be. And in that line is I think it's important to talk about perfectionism because many of us especially as a former perfectionist I have to say that being a woman in this time guys that's super hard. Really it's really difficult to be a woman and pretend that we are really that perfect. And in a line on this spectrum we need to understand that the opposite of perfectionism is actually authenticity. I think Elsie should as many of us every day it's about really showing up with what we have and deciding maybe that day to sit with at the women's table and show herself as the beautiful self because I really think that yeah that not only people see her as cool she must be really, really cool. So she needs to start believing it. I definitely hear that and I feel obviously being married, having a boy there's a lot less pressure on whether or not these men like her have interest because she's already taken in her mind so it's taken a lot of the pressure off of these interactions with men where exactly that judgment from women there is a lot of discomfort that she's feeling. Now what she talks about is I would shyly smile at women from afar and maybe not walk over and introduce myself. And I totally get that but this takes some practice and the one thing that we talk about in our programs is this idea of a party bubble. The most difficult approach is going to be the person that's standing across the room from you because you're gonna have to walk over there you're gonna have to deal with your inner monologue you're gonna think about all the things you could say and shouldn't say and do, et cetera. What I would focus on to get the practice and get the experience talking to more women is situating myself in a higher traffic area where the refreshments are at the event where everyone seems to be congregating and just put my focus on the people that are standing next to me. So the lady to her left, the lady across from her, the lady to her right, all we're doing is looking for the easiest interactions where all we have to do is put a smile, make eye contact and say, hey, you look like you're having fun I wanted to introduce myself, I'm Elsie. Instead of trying to walk all the way across the room to that woman who she's maybe thinking is judging her and having this internal dialogue place yourself where the action is and look for the easier opportunities to get exactly that, that experience just talking, showing up and being present in conversation with women and over time having this experience, having this exposure therapy which scientifically has proven to help us overcome these anxieties and phobias and internal dialogue we are gonna find that, hey, there are some warm responses from women, there are some women who ask me for my phone number, ask me to go out to lunch with them and all of a sudden that judgment that we're placing on ourself is gonna dissipate and that anxiety is gonna dissipate with it. One of the things I wanna say here also is I wanna congratulate Elsie in finding a spot in herself that she can get better at, right? That's the first thing is like, I can get better at this I wanna get better at that, fantastic, you're there. So think about going out and as you were talking about being in a more high traffic area but also not thinking that the next time you go out you need to run the room and meet all the ladies that are in there but that you're gonna meet two new people this time or the next social engagement you're gonna go out you're gonna meet, you're gonna speak to three new people and it's those small wins that'll allow you within a short time to now be the person who's gonna be speaking to a lot. The other thing is if you know that you're really good at chatting up guys then walk up to mixed groups of people, talk to the guy first and then introduce yourself to the women. You don't have to just walk up to the ladies who are interacting in their small group or the one woman who's standing on her own. Play to your strengths but definitely work to get more experience talking to women. I think that is a very valuable exercise and as you heard, all of a sudden we're gonna realize that a lot of the judgment we are placing on ourselves internally is really not how we're being perceived or the way that they're feeling and you're gonna make some great friends out of it. Another way that it could be helpful for Elsie or for anybody in this situation is not only at this kind of scenario but like every day, one of the exercises that I like to give my customers the most is that every time they're gonna say hello to somebody else you know how this dialogue comes like hey, how are you? Oh, I'm fine, how are you? So right before you ask the other person how they are you are supposed to tell them something about you in anything that might give you that moment of feeling of course a little bit weird but allowing yourself to sit with that and saying something about you, something that you're proud of or anything for that matter. So before you ask that other person, you say, you know what, I'm great. I'm gonna hit the gym and I'm very concerned about this trainer loves to kick my butt but yeah, very excited, how are you? And those little moments, those little seconds can be precious in building your confidence to try more and more and more. And later on, yeah for sure to have the courage to engage into a much more bigger and powerful conversation. Ricardo asks us how do I know if my social circle genuinely supports me? They say I have their complete support but how can I know that's legitimate and not just talk? Well, there's certainly always gonna tell you that, aren't they? Right, and unfortunately the only way to really know if they truly have your back is in those darker moments where we have some conflict, we have some issues. But there's a couple of modes here. There's three, one is keep hindering you from the things you wanna do. One, two, not getting in your way. And three, supporting. So, you know, there's three things we wanna be looking at. Right, if they're hindering you, if you can't be vulnerable around them, you don't wanna share any of your flaws or weaknesses with them. We gotta get them out of our group. If they will be there regardless, maybe not offering support, they're not working to hinder but maybe they're not fully present, they can stay around. I don't think there's anything damaging there. I think a lot of times people really just don't know how to support. We see it all the time, but they're there, they gotta smile on, but they're, they don't. And support comes in a lot of different fashions, right? Absolutely. Support doesn't just have to be over signals, it can be listening, it can be fully present, it can be offering them to just spend a little bit more time together. Inviting you places are all ways that we can show support without these overt acts that I think a lot of people tie to this idea of support. Yeah, I think everyone's looking for a group of cheerleaders to the wherever they go, they're rah, rah, sisk, boom, bah. My follow-up question for Ricardo would be why are you so concerned about the support, right? Let's start to trust our gut here. If you're feeling completely unsupported, there probably is some fire behind that smoke. We have an intuition, we have a gut feeling about people that a lot of times we overthink and don't pay close enough attention to. Every time that I've felt unsupported, that ping of unsupported in my stomach, like, oh, I don't know about this, it's genuinely been right, it's generally been right. So I think a lot of times we try to tune out that and then we second guess ourselves. Hey, you wanna find out if they support you? Start doing stuff. Yeah, start taking action in the areas that you wanna improve, the self-development path that you're on. The other thing that I wanna say is, and we started the episode with this, right? Action speak louder than words. Are you a supportive friend? Are you being fully present? Are you listening to them? Or are you maybe being a little selfish and tuning them out in their times of need? If we focus on showing the support that we'd like in return, that reciprocity usually happens, right? The golden rule, treat your friends, give them the support that you're looking for, and typically it'll start to show back towards you. Another thing that I think would be important to consider is, is supporters really hold you accountable. And even when they might not really understand your full vision, if you worship your vision and you share with them what it is that you wanna do, they will hold you accountable and make sure that you're pursuing those things. They will not stand in front of your way, but they would definitely make sure that you are on track with what you have committed yourself to be in your personal growth and vision. Last question of the day. This one's about long distance relationships from Karina. Hey guys, I'm a big fan of the AOC podcast ever since I discovered it a couple months ago, especially the concept of emotional bids. It's really resonated with me and now I'm looking out for these emotional clues in my environment, as well as giving them to the people I wanna build stronger relationships with. But here is my question. For over a decade, I've lived abroad and was only able to see my family and childhood friends once or twice a year. I'm really bad at keeping in touch over long distances, which has resulted in estranged and emotionally distant relationships back home. To repair these relationships, which are very important to me, I moved back to Germany and thankfully was able to rekindle some of these relationships and deepen them due to me being physically close and able to see them regularly and even being a part of their day-to-day life. Now almost a year later, these relationships are good, but I'm realizing that the friendships I made abroad are now suffering and I'm still bad at being close over distance. Do you have suggestions how to keep these relationships alive and close without seeing each other often? Have you developed habits to keep strong relationships with the people back home or in New York? Really looking forward to your reply and upcoming shows about pop and your upcoming podcast about relationships this month. Many wishes Karina. I feel like you have some experience here being an expat yourself. Totally and I really can relate to Karina. I think what it's important to see here is for Karina to really ask herself what is behind the need of keeping all those relationships alive? I can definitely see the need of needing to go back home and rekindle some relationships for sure, especially family relationships are so important and they also help us grow. And at the same time, it's important to remember that not all relationships are meant to stay. Definitely I can imagine that in her trips, myself included, we meet a lot of people that have like a special purpose. Along the way, we meet a lot of people that whose relationship will teach us something at that particular time in our lives. And at the same time, it is normal that when you're working on yourself, you're gonna outgrow people, you're gonna outgrow relationships. And the people who perhaps you hanged out before with this new growth and personal development, they might not be the right people to stay in your life. So I think it's important that Karina can also be more selective and understanding about that some people's life spam in terms of relationships are kind of do. I totally agree with that. I think trying to keep every single relationship you've had in your life intact is a lot of pressure to put on yourself and listen, relationships are two-way streets. So if you're trying your best and you feel that the relationship is still moving emotionally distant, you kind of have to ask yourself, well, is this person valuing the relationship as much as I am? Now, what I have done that has helped me tremendously because I have struggled with this as well. I've wanted to keep close ties with my friends back in Michigan and the friends we made in New York City and even the friends in LA who are spread throughout the city and now some are traveling is carving out time and literally putting it in my calendar, a reminder that this is time to reach out to your family members and this is time to reach out to your friends. Now, that time I try my best to obviously coordinate with their time zone and I'm doing the reaching out not over social media and not even over just an email which is very impersonal but I'm actually picking up the phone and FaceTiming and calling people and trying my best to interact with them in real time and that effort, sometimes I get voicemails, sometimes I get, hey, I'm not available, I'm busy at this moment but putting that space on my calendar has at least raised it to a conscious level so it's something that I can consciously every week make that decision of now's a good time to call my aunt, this is a busy week, I can't follow this calendar note, I can't go ahead with this reminder, I'm gonna wait till next week but having that prompt on a weekly basis has allowed me to put myself in a better position to keep those relationships afloat. Oh, I really agree, I have nothing to add to that. And sometimes it's difficult when we're busy and it sounds like Elsie's got a lot of stuff going on, she's working on herself, she's working on emotional bids and I would say with that, make a list of everyone back home and make a list of everyone abroad that you really value and see when is the last time I reached out to them, when is the last time I put some effort and if you take some time on a weekly basis to go through that list and reach out to those people in a coordinated fashion, you're gonna find that a lot of these relationships that you've deemed as estranged or emotionally distant are not that at all. I mean, I have friends in New York that we literally hadn't talked to each other in a year and finally we connected and it was like nothing had passed, like oh, instantly. There are those relationships and of course there's the ones where you have it spoken to someone in a while and you reach out to them and then you are on different planets. Right, and that's okay too. Absolutely. We don't have to beat ourselves up for that. I think Karina, you're putting a lot of blame and a lot of heartache on yourself only. If we're putting in the effort and it's not being returned than to our point earlier, maybe we've grown distant and there are relationships that will last a lifetime and there are relationships that are good for certain phases and certain locations of our lives. I think it's important that she thinks on those relationships that really come across as unconditional, right? And those relationships that will be unconditional will survive anything and she needs to trust that those that she will be feeding and that will be also interested in keeping up with her will be the right relationships for her own growth and development. I love it. Thank you so much for joining us today, Helena. Where can our listeners find out more about you and even work with you? Well, if there is somebody out there who needs a pep, a hug, a positive reinforcement, some courage and confidence, they can find me in giahelena.com and also at livingwithbonus.com to come for some bootcamps or some workshops and getting to know yourself and really be at your very, very best every day with a lot of love and self-compassion. That's every day to show up. Well, thank you so much. Stay warm in Vienna this winter and we'll be seeing you in the summer when it warms up and hopefully is in the super bloom. Indeed, the world needs a lot of the art of charm also in these areas. Thank you very much. Thank you.