Mindful self compassion as a tool for business owners
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Running a business often reveals things to us that we didn't even know about ourselves. We are forced to look at our patterns and growth edges, what is holding us back from our goals, and who we are as a leader. In this tension, it is critical that we are able to get curious about how we can move forward differently and not fall back into old habits. This is where mindful self compassion comes in.
In this episode, Kristen Genzano (she/her), shares the pillars of mindful self compassion and how we can use it as a tool for both growth and greater ease.
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Here’s what you’ll hear about in this episode…
3:59: Investing in therapy if you're getting in your own way as a business owner
12:30: How mindful self compassion helps us sit with tension long enough to create growth
17:27: What is mindful self compassion?
18:32: Shame, perfectionism and neurodivergence in business owners
26:07: Being a better boss to yourself with mindful self compassion
29:08: The three pillars of mindful self compassion and examples
36:39: Where is the value of having a business coach and a therapist?
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Links + resources referenced in this episode
Transcript
Brooke Monaghan: 0:42
Hello and welcome back to another episode of Make your Business Work For You. I am Brooke Monaghan. I use she and her pronouns. Today's episode is long awaited. I'm chatting with Kristin Genzano, who also uses she and her pronouns. She's a therapist and the owner of North Star Therapy Collective, and Kristen and I have been talking honestly maybe for years at this point about recording an episode together. Back when I had my other podcast that I was running, we kept talking about doing it and never did, and we really wanted to talk about why therapy is so important for business owners. And I'm finally getting Kristen on here to talk about this, as well as mindful self-compassion, as a tool for us to sit in the resistance and discomfort that arises when we are on the precipice of growth. And I know that for you, as somebody who listens to podcasts like this one, you probably know full well that growth is uncomfortable. We want it and we also don't love what it takes out of us. So if you're looking for a way to make that a little bit easier and stick with it, I think that today's episode will be really helpful for you. Kristen is also going to be running our free January workshop in Fruition Growth Network. This one will be on mindful self-compassion, and we would love to have you there so you can head to join fruition. com to create your free account and then head to the community events tab to register for all of the upcoming events you want to come to. The contributor workshops like this one were intended to and eventually will be part of a paid membership. And, to be honest with y'all, my capacity has been so limited right now that I have decided to put off launching that paid membership and just make these things free so I can get as many people through the door checking out what we have going on. So take advantage of that and come to our free workshops. Again, you can head to join fruition. com, create a free account. Once you're in there, you're going to go to the community events tab and also check out what else we have going on in there, you can ask questions for expert contributors. That's where you can submit questions for the show. I'm in there responding to questions, so come and hang out with us, and we also have a few other support options that are available right now and you can check those out on our website, join fruition. com as well, including Bloom, which is a small group coaching space that I run. You can coach with me right now for under $100 a month y'all, and that group is tiny because I have done just about zero marketing around it, so I'm just dropping that here. You want to get in before I actually do a launch of the thing, I would love to have you. Okay, without further ado, here's my conversation with Kristen. I hope that you enjoy. So you and I have talked a bit about this concept of. Actually, I think that we've been talking for like over a year at this point about why you need to come on the show when I was running my other podcast to talk about therapy as an essential tool for business owners. This is something that I believe in fully and I think that like, in fact, I was just talking with a friend the other day about how I'm, like if you can only invest in one thing as a business owner, like if you feel like you are getting in your own way and you can only invest in one thing make it a therapist because it's going to help you deal with, like the things that are coming up in your business are not just coming up in your business, right? And one of the things that we talked about recently was that I feel like a lot of the programming that people find themselves in to help them with their businesses is actually kind of like a way to avoid having to do some of the deeper, harder stuff that comes up in therapy, and I'm wondering if, like you, would share some of your thoughts on that.
Kristen Genzano: 4:47
As I say that, yeah, I mean I smile because I think you're right on. I think we do this in so many areas of our lives, right, we often look for ways to kind of quasi deal with the issues. It's like what can I do over here that might kind of make the deeper thing feel better, without actually addressing the deeper thing. And the challenge that comes up, I think, around that, is that we end up maybe maybe investing in like I'll just use like self improvement as an example investing in like 20 different self improvement courses, because we're not actually getting to the root thing. That's there. I have this phrase that I learned, kind of like the subtle aggression of self improvement, and it's like we just kind of looking, keep looking for the thing to solve the deeper issue without going yeah, does that make sense?
Brooke Monaghan: 5:35
Oh, it sure does. I'm like we're already here, huh, yeah, I mean, I hear this, and what comes to mind for me is this feeling that if we could just if we could just do self improvement the right way, then maybe all this stuff wouldn't feel so hard. Like that would be the answer to making things not feel hard, if we could just figure out how to I don't know like manage our mindset in just the right way, and that that might take the hard out of it. And what I have found to be true is that actually it's learning how to be with the hard stuff. That is really the that's ultimately going to be on your side, Like eventually you're going to find yourself in a place where you're going to be like oh, there's no escaping the fact that this shit is hard, which is why therapy.
Kristen Genzano: 6:32
Well, and Brooke, I think you're totally hitting on something really important, like it's the learning to be with the hard stuff, and I think that's why we don't know how to be with the hard stuff and so that's why we look to these other things to try to supplement and try to like give us a way through without going through. And I think therapy if you're able to find, like, the right therapist for you, that you're able to learn that skill of being with yourself in the difficulty, whatever that is for you, because it's different for all of us.
Brooke Monaghan: 6:59
As we're having this conversation, I'm realizing I'm like this. So much of what we're saying is so obvious to me and I'm wondering if it would help to kind of back some things up for a second, because what I witness happen over and over again is that and this is why I care about entrepreneurship, right? Like I don't care about entrepreneurship and small business ownership because I want to help people grow massive companies that's never been my reason for being here. The reason why I care about it is because of the people who find their way into it, and typically what I find is that the people who find me and my work so probably the people listening hello, listener, probably you, are people who traditional work environments didn't work for them. For one reason or another. It feels really soul sucking to be in a traditional work environment, and there's so many reasons why that could be, and so many of us decided that if we could just work for ourselves, then we wouldn't have to deal with all of these things that are coming up. And then what we find as we're working for ourselves actually oh shit, it's still there. The same things kind of rear their heads, and one of the things that rears its head is that we end up I'm saying we, because I know this is not just me at this point. I know from talking to so many business owners that this is a thing, that so many of us do, that and it's totally understandable that we end up starting our own businesses and then we end up holding ourselves to the same kinds of expectations that our shittiest bosses did. We also find that so many of the things that we were craving probably pointed to something deeper than just that we wanted the freedom of working for ourselves. Like it pointed to some maybe deeper need, and just starting a business is actually not an easy fix. No, not at all, not at all. It's really hard, anyway. So, as I'm saying all of that, what's coming up for you, I kind of want to just open the conversation there and see what thread you want to pull on.
Kristen Genzano: 9:00
Well, first of all, I feel seen and attacked, but in a good way, I mean, called out maybe is a better word, because I can really personally relate as a business owner to what you're saying about being in these traditional work environments and the various things that just didn't work for me. And so, okay, let me step over here and start my own business as a way of getting away from these things and then finding those same things showing up, maybe in a different way, but in my business. And so, yeah, there's this kind of parallel that I feel like you're highlighting about these ways that we maybe again try to kind of like sidestep the deeper work and it's not the I'm not saying that as a criticism. Like I think this is a really human thing to do.
Brooke Monaghan: 9:47
Yeah, and also I will say that, like it's, we're not going to change traditional work environments. Like nor do I think that that's the labor that a lot of people who I work with I would not advise them to try to invest their labor in changing their work setting. Get the fuck out of there. Like I'm for it.
Kristen Genzano: 10:06
Right. Totally, yeah, yeah. But then it's that question of like okay, when all that shit starts showing up again over here, now what?
Brooke Monaghan: 10:17
What do we do? And so what I witness happen oftentimes and this is kind of the reason why I had the other podcast that I used to have, which was called Transcend Your Dichotomy. For anybody who's new here, hi. I started talking a lot about this concept of like, how we start to feel like there's how we actually want to function and how we actually want to show up in the world, and then we have this other version of us that we're holding ourselves to, who we should be, who, what the responsible version of us would do. That part, that where we hold ourselves just threw my pen, where we hold ourselves to ourselves, to those. That standard to me is where we start actually replicating some of the things that we maybe learned somewhere along the way. Right, and those, those patterns that are not actually working for us, I think, start to show up and we start feeling that divide. And I'm wondering from you, I know that. So one of the things that I really wanted to talk to you about was this concept of mindful self compassion, and it sounds like one of the tools that you're saying could kind of help with that, because I think that so much of the work is learning how to be with yourself and then also be like building the capacity to be in the tension of understanding yourself and being with yourself and what you need and also moving toward growth, like so fucking, like hard. It is so hard and mindful self compassion, it sounds like, is a tool that could be really helpful in that that maybe we don't realize as part of what we're. I think a lot of us are trying to learn when we go through some of the business programming that's out there, from this kind of corner of, I'm going to say, the coaching space that is trying to teach us how to be with ourselves and be with our businesses at the same time and maybe not getting to those root issues.
Kristen Genzano: 12:24
Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you bringing up mindful self compassion. I definitely want to talk about that. But can I jump on something else you said first?
Brooke Monaghan:
Please.
Kristen Genzano:
So you use the word tension, and I'm so glad you did, because that's exactly what I was thinking of when you were talking about this kind of like desire that we have for ourselves and then the kind of old way of operating or the learned way of operating, the reinforced way of operating, and in my mind's eye, I just was picturing those two pulling like you know, sort of like taffy or something like pulling in opposite directions, and that tension that arises out of that that pull. And I had a therapist many years ago who who taught me that it's like from that tension that something new arises. Yes, it's from that tension where growth happens. Yes, and so it's again like not the idea of trying to get around that tension that's actually holding in that tension long enough for that new thing to emerge. And I think that's kind of what what you're, you're bringing up mindful self compassion, like how do that gives us maybe an opportunity to learn how to hold that tension long enough.
Brooke Monaghan: 13:27
I agree.
Kristen Genzano:
For that new thing to emerge.
Brooke Monaghan:
I agree, and I'm hearing you say that and I'm like thinking about all of the times honestly, just over the past month, week, maybe 24 hours honestly but I've been like, why is this so hard? Because I certainly have learned that like and of course it comes up in business, but it's, with everything right. That really the thing that I'm interested in in my life, like, to me, one of the things that makes life worth living is like moving toward a different version of things that actually does feel supportive for me, that allows me to be who I actually am but that also allows me to I don't know like survive, and deal with some of the systems around me and right, and, and yeah, when you were saying it's from that tension that something new arises or that growth happens, it's like that's where we can imagine a different way of doing things and that's where we don't actually have to choose between what we were told we had to do in that work environment that didn't work, and just kind of throwing our hands up and being like, well, I'm not going to do any of that because that doesn't work for me and I'm just going to follow what feels good in this moment, knowing that, like, the systems are not actually set up for to reward that, and so somewhere along, and also that, like that's just a starting point and we don't actually most of us find, after going down that road for a minute, that actually that's not it either. Right, we need to imagine like a new possibility, a new way forward. No one else is imagining it for us, so we have to do it. It only comes from being willing to sit in that tension and it's really uncomfortable and I think that this brings things full circle and I wonder what you think about this. But I think that a lot of what I see people trying to do in their businesses is figure out a way to make that tension not exist. Figure out a way to like. Give me the right answer for what I can do. That isn't what I was told the right answer was, because I know that wasn't working for me. But give me the right answer of what I can do that will help me kind of help make this easier and simpler and for me to not have to sit in this tension and discomfort.
Kristen Genzano: 15:41
Yeah, I mean I know as a business owner myself, that I am often by myself looking for that answer. I'm like, okay, if it's not that, how do I get around this in a different way? Absolutely, because it's so like to your point, so fucking uncomfortable to sit in that, in that place of tension and that place of figuring it out, I think, for yourself, like on your own. Maybe not on your own, I mean, we do this in community but like figuring it out for yourself, which might probably look different from the person next to you, on either side of you, even if you have similar values, even if you have a similar business. Your way is your way. And I mean now my brain goes like we're talking about like self actualization, like we're talking about like fully moving into your full autonomy and authority and not looking to anybody else for answers.
Brooke Monaghan: 16:30
Let's talk a bit about the mindful self compassion piece, because this is something that I really want to get into with folks and this is something that I think you're going to be speaking to a bit in Fruition in January. So for folks who are listening, who are like, oh, I need to go further down this road, or how do I sit in that tension, where do you see mindful self compassion coming into this as a tool to help people be with themselves and with their business at the same time and the hard things that are coming up, and kind of? I see this almost as a way of breaking this cycle of just trying to find a way out of it and then finding yourself right back in the same place. Totally, yeah, absolutely. It's almost like a tool for making this into that spiral staircase, versus just that feeling of going around in circles.
Kristen Genzano: 17:20
Yes, yes, I love that image too, like how do we shift this to that spiral staircase where there's growth, there's movement, instead of just a merry-go-round right? So mindful self compassion is a. I think of it as a course because there are two originators, Kristin Neff and Chris Germer, who are Kristin Neff is a mindful self compassion, she's a self compassion researcher and Chris Germer is a clinical psychologist and a mindfulness practitioner, and the two of them connected to develop out of her research and his clinical practice to develop a course that is not a substitute for therapy, but it's an adjunct to therapy. I think of it as like a skills building course almost, where you learn, you're sort of introduced to mindfulness and you're introduced to compassion and the way that to sort of intertwine with each other, and then throughout the typical course is eight weeks long and throughout that course you learn actual skills of how to bring well what self compassion is and then how to bring self compassion to your experience in the moment when you're in exactly one of these kinds of situations. There's two things that I think are really, really important to business owners, and I'm going to generalize a little bit here. Disclaimer, I know all business owners are not the same, but I think a lot of business owners are maybe on the perfectionistic, overachieving side, potentially, and possibly actually data suggests this as well that there's a lot of neurodivergence with business owners, and so these two things are two of the most well researched kind of areas that self compassion serves as an anecdote to. And this is because these two things are often highly correlated with shame. Perfectionism and shame, neurodivergence and shame and there's different reasons why, but there's a high correlation there. I'm going to pause because your face suggests aha or some kind of moment happening.
Brooke Monaghan: 19:14
You want to know that. Okay. So somebody who is neurodivergent and is currently working through perfectionism in a big way I was actually given a pass from my therapist last Tuesday to give my perfectionism journal a break because it came in on Sunday in the mail and by Tuesday when I saw my therapist, I was a good bit into it, taking a very perfectionist approach to trying to work through it and get it done and fixed, and was like told her that I had been swearing at it and I felt personally attacked by it and I kept opening it and answering a few questions and slamming it closed and she was like, maybe take it easy on the journal. And I'm like, but you told me to get the journal and you told me that I had to right. So as somebody who is very much a perfectionist and I'm finding out more and more about myself that this is like so it's like one of the very first experiences that I can remember is being in that perfectionism as survival kind of places. As like a very small kid and is also neurodivergent. One of the first times that I ever went to therapy, my therapist was like I wanna get more into where all this shame is coming from and I was like what are you talking about? Shame? I am a. At the time, I had like listened to every podcast episode that Brené Brown ever did. I had like listened to the audio version of like so many of her books. I was like addicted to a person who was researching shame and it never once dawned on me that that was actually going on. For me, it was like totally not on my radar. So that's why my face is doing that. Because you were like explaining something to me where I'm like wait a second, this is a thing that happens and you know, we think we know ourselves. Anyways, that's what's coming up.
Kristen Genzano: 21:12
Yeah well, thank you for sharing that. I appreciate it very much and I think yeah, I mean I think so the shame piece is so central to these two experiences that, like that you're sharing and that I can relate to you. I mean, absolutely, I identify as a perfectionist and I'm neurodivergent. So, you know, I have personal experience around these two pieces too, and the thing that self compassion does is it asks us to treat ourselves the way we would treat a friend, to offer ourselves the same level of kindness and compassion that we would give a friend in the same situation. And when you're a perfectionist again, I don't wanna just focus on perfectionism because you know this isn't just about that issue, but because I do think it is so prevalent, not just for business owners, but just as a product of our society when you're a perfectionist, you start to you often start to think that I should exist in this world in a way that is, it's not human right, it's perfect. Humans are naturally imperfect, and so we hold ourselves to these standards that are unattainable, and then, when we don't attain them, we're hard on ourselves and we don't know how to be with ourselves in that discomfort of not attaining the standard that we think we have to attain. And so, again, with self compassion, we learn the skill of okay. Well, what would I say? What would I say to Brooke if she came to me and said XYZ is happening? Okay, I would be so kind and understanding to Brooke, and yet I'm over here criticizing the hell out of myself for this. So how can I start to bring that same level of grace and kindness to myself that I would offer Brooke? Right, it sounds easy. It's not easy in practice, it's so not easy.
Brooke Monaghan: 23:04
It's so not easy, yeah, and I'm wondering. There's like so many things that are coming up for me. The first thing is, as I am myself working on untangling this perfectionism, what the first thing that I realized is that I'm ashamed of being alive. At its root, I'm ashamed of being in a human form. The fact that I'm a human being, you know, like that itself is like I should not exist as a human being. I should be. My therapist was calling me fairy Jesus, that I should be like this little fairy that operates as Jesus, like that's like the --
Kristen Genzano: 23:43
Love your therapist, by the way. These are great.
Brooke Monaghan: 23:44
Yeah she's awesome. That's the standard that I hold myself to right. So, as you're saying that it's just, I just want to say like I'm hearing what you're saying is like kind of mind blowing to me, because it took me, however many years to get to that point, of recognizing that myself. Is there a link? Do you think between neurodivergence and perfectionism? That, as somebody who's neurodivergent, perfectionism would become a thing that you would look to as like a way of kind of learning how to survive in these, in a neurotypical environment?
Kristen Genzano: 24:19
Yeah, I think so. I don't. I don't. I can't point to any data to support that. I don't know the research on that, but I think sort of from my own experience and from my clinical work I can say that that absolutely seems like a logical connection that perfectionism can develop as a coping mechanism really for being neurodivergent in a, in a neurotypical world.
Brooke Monaghan: 24:42
Yeah.
Kristen Genzano: 24:42
Absolutely yeah.
Brooke Monaghan: 24:43
And I would think also like okay, so we're talking about a lot about neurodivergence, but I think also like about people who in other ways dominant culture is not on their side.
Kristen Genzano: 24:56
Yes, I'm so glad you're bringing that in. Absolutely, because yes, we're talking about neurodivergence but we're talking about people who are just sort of not in that big center kind of you know. You think of the bell curve, that that sort of mainstream, and I think, yeah, absolutely it makes sense to me that perfectionism could develop out of being on those extremes.
Brooke Monaghan: 25:18
Being marginalized in some way.
Kristen Genzano: 25:21
Marginalized, exactly yeah. Yeah, and then the shame that comes with perfectionism and or the shame that can come with being marginalized yeah, because that's another layer.
Brooke Monaghan: 25:31
Shit, Kristen, fuck, I'm like I had such a plan for this conversation and now it's happening. As I'm just like processing in real time, I'm like, yeah, of course people who are marginalized are going to be feel ashamed of existing and hold themselves to a standard of not being human. Of course, of course, of course, and probably. I've listened to 17 podcast episodes on this exact topic. This has been explained to me and right now it is finally making sense in my body. Hi, everybody, this is me processing in real time. Okay, so mindful self compassion, if we're coming back to this, yeah, first thing that I want to say is, as you were talking about treating yourself, the way that you would treat a friend, one of the things that also came up for me is like, how about this concept of like when we are in that traditional work environment and we see the way that management or whatever treats people and we think, oh well, if I were in charge, I would do these things right? And then you start running your own business and you are like a bigger asshole to yourself than your boss ever was. So, suddenly we're back in that. Oh, but when it's for me, I don't actually behave that way. Yeah, when it's toward me, I actually hold myself to a completely inhuman standard. and so anybody who's like oh, I'm actually not a very good boss to myself, hi, mindful self-compassion is f At least I think, does that feel f yea.
Kristen Genzano: 27:09
Absolutely yeah, without a doubt, because then, if you have the opportunity to develop those skills to be with yourself in a more compassionate way, then you can start being the boss to yourself that you wish you had, instead of a bigger asshole than the one you actually had.
Brooke Monaghan: 27:21
Totally.
Kristen Genzano: 27:22
Totally.
Brooke Monaghan: 27:24
And so the direction of actual growth opportunities versus what the story or the narrative that you're very used to functioning on, which is like this you shouldn't even be a human being. Why is this so hard for you? Right, like perfectionism is going to always, in my experience, point you toward try harder, be better, push through.
Kristen Genzano:
do more. Yeah.
Brooke Monaghan
Mindful self-compassion, to me, allows us to look at ourselves. I would think and be like oh no, here's what's actually going on here and the actual place, the actual opportunity for growth is in this thing, not in that I should just be less human.
Kristen Genzano: 28:09
Yes, and I'm so glad you're bringing that up because it points to a really important component of mindful self-compassion, which is one of the things we teach, I think, for a couple of weeks throughout the course, and this is common humanity. It's like a pillar of mindful self-compassion, and what common humanity says is that, like this, is a common human experience. So what I'm experiencing even though I'm telling myself I shouldn't be experiencing it pretty much anyone in this situation would be experiencing the same thing, and so I'm actually connected to others. I'm actually, I can be kind to myself, because this is, this is what it means to be human, rather than again, how do I push myself through this and avoid this common human experience, avoid this discomfort that is natural in this situation?
Brooke Monaghan: 28:56
Oh Kristen, I'm groaning in irritation with the fact that it's not just as easy as just pushing through it, avoiding Mm-hmm. Would it be helpful to talk about some of the other pillars of mindful self-compassion?
Kristen Genzano: 29:12
So the three pillars of mindful self-compassion are mindfulness, self-kindness and common humanity. So and I'll just sort of say a quick thing about each piece we get into it so much more as you learn the skills in the course. But mindfulness is important, is like one of the pillars, because what it does is allows us the distance, it allows us this observance opportunity. So it allows us some space between what's happening and what our mind is basically telling us, to observe that there's a, that there's something happening. Right, you have to be aware that there's something happening before we can do something about it. Practicing and learning how to be mindful gives us that skill to observe what's happening in the moment.
Brooke Monaghan: 29:55
So, for example, it might be, mindfulness would probably be the thing that would allow us to go oh, this is actually perfectionism that's showing up right now. I'm expecting myself to reach the standard that's actually not human.
Kristen Genzano: 30:12
exactly. There's an example that I often use, like because sometimes it's easier to think about towards someone else, right? So if you are walking down the street and there's someone who' s injured themselves and they're on the sidewalk and they've fallen, you have to have the presence of mind to be aware enough and notice that there's someone on the sidewalk who's injured before you can do something to offer support or to take action, to be kind.
Brooke Monaghan: 30:41
Yeah.
Kristen Genzano: 30:41
And so that's, you know again, kind of a different way of exemplifying, like, what the mindfulness piece is important about. We have to be present enough to notice that there's something happening, yeah. And then self-kindness is a little bit more self-explanatory. We are much more skilled most of us are much more skilled, naturally at being kind to others. So you see that person on the sidewalk and maybe the kind act is to go over and see are you okay do you need something? Right, right, so self-kindness is that developing that skill of like okay, what do I need in this moment For your example? Like, oh, I'm noticing that maybe this is perfectionism. What do I need in this moment? What would I do for a friend, what would I offer someone else? That's of that spirit of kindness. And then common humanity is kind of what I was just saying a moment ago about this idea of anybody in this situation would be experiencing this kind of feeling. And can I instead be connected to others through this experience rather than self-shaming and self-isolating? Thinking that, oh, this is just something wrong with me. So we kind of weave those three things in together and that's where we get mindful self-compassion.
Brooke Monaghan: 31:57
Yeah, yeah, I'm thinking about this piece of how we are connected to other people through this common humanity piece in this business context, because what I watch so many people do is they get the mindfulness piece where they start recognizing patterns or recognizing what they're doing, a thing they start to think about, maybe the self-kindness piece, what they need, and then they feel like they should hide that from people, like in a okay, do you know what I mean?
Kristen Genzano: 32:35
Yeah, it's really touched my heart.
Brooke Monaghan: 32:37
Yeah, and if I, but also I need to balance this with my external appearance of my business and how I function and I need to look like I have everything together and I'm wondering about I don't know. But as you're bringing this up, what's happening in my brain right now is I'm thinking about how we might be able to use that common humanity piece as the thing to sort of close the loop on this and help some of the people, help some of that friction that arises in the I'm witnessing myself. I know what I need and everyone's going to think this about me if I give myself that.
Kristen Genzano: 33:11
Totally, yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about just an example from my own life of like last year I took some time off because I needed a break, but there was a whole thing around like what's the perception? Like what are other people going to think about me doing this thing? That was the self-compassionate thing to do. But it's like that. I wanted to avoid it because if I think it's the piece that you're bringing up, like what are other people going to think if I actually do the thing? That is the self-compassionate thing. Right, and I love this question you're posing of like how does common humanity fold into that? Such a good question, Brooke. I think common humanity invites us to really really look at ourselves I mean it feels redundant to say, but really really look at ourselves as human and give ourselves that permission to not live up to the expectations that we think other people hold, to not live up to these false ideals.
Brooke Monaghan: 34:05
I think that one of the things that I'm realizing too is and you know this because we've worked together before, but I talk all the time about how we find ourselves teaching the things that we need to learn so often, and so for a lot of the people that I work with, especially people who work in a coaching kind of context what I notice is that some of the biggest growth opportunities probably the biggest growth opportunities come about when folks recognize that this is an opportunity to live their work. So don't not just teach it to other people, not just say that it's true, not just make quote cards about it and put it on your Instagram, but, when it comes down to it, to actually give yourself the gift of allowing it for yourself and practicing that and being in the tension that naturally arises when you say I trust in what I'm putting forward as my work in the world enough that I'm going to actually do it and I want and I think that it comes up a lot when folks are doing these first two pillars. This is me working as we're, this is me working this out as we're talking, but it's like right, it's like noticing the pattern, it's the being kind to yourself. I think the common humanity piece might be in this. So many other people are also experiencing what I am experiencing in this moment, and this is an opportunity to sort of be brave enough to show people. So it's leadership.
Kristen Genzano: 35:33
It's leadership. I was just thinking that, as you were saying it, yep, the common humanity piece is recognizing that I'm not the only one in the world who is having this experience. It's kind of a little bit uncomfortable because it's like an awareness of like Okay, I'm not special, I'm not the only one who is feeling this way in this type of a situation. The leadership, I think, is the next piece and that thing. So I'm going to actually take care of myself and and and let that be okay, I'm not going to hide it.
Brooke Monaghan: 36:03
And it's so fucking disruptive
Kristen Genzano:
yeah absolutely.
Brooke Monaghan
To the way that most people live their lives to do that like to yeah, so okay, so you're going to be teaching a bit in Fruition in January about this concept. So for folks who are listening, who are like, oh shit, like me come and join us and we'll go a little bit more in depth together. Is there anything more that you want to make sure that we maybe didn't touch on that you really wanted to make sure people hear from you today.
Kristen Genzano: 36:40
I guess I'm curious for you as a business coach. Where do you see the value in having a business coach and a therapist? Oh yeah, yeah.
Brooke Monaghan: 36:50
Can you tell me that? Because I get those questions sometimes yeah, okay, tell me. To me my role as a business coach is to help people understand what parts of their help people kind of parse out, like what is an actual business and strategy issue that can be solved through some sort of shift in the business, and then what is coming from an internal thing and is deeper, and to sort of help point people in the right direction. For the most part, doing the work that it's going to take to shift those patterns is not really my skill set. I can hold space for people to talk about what's going on for them and reflect it back to them, but you're going to have to take that somewhere else. Yeah, right, to really address it, right? It's really common that I find that. So, for example, money stories come up all the time. Someone might come to me and say I want to get my business to this point where I'm making this much money. Then we start looking at okay, what services do you want to offer? What's your pricing like, what's your capacity? Let's do the math Either you're going to have to charge more or you're going to have to work more, or we're going to have to change the structure of your business or the way that the offers work, or set up a different business model. Whatever it might be right, Ultimately what we end up getting to is the work that really needs to be done is very uncomfortable, because there's a story there around money, around worthiness, around what you're able to ask for, around. If you make that much money, what does it mean about you? Are you abandoning the people who need you most? What are the people in your, about out earning your parents. Out earning parents is like a huge thing, right? Great, Now we know some of the threads to pull and you can now actually address this problem by going and dealing with that, instead of running around in circles trying to change your business over and over again and push harder and then wondering what's wrong with you, that you're doing all the things right and you're still not getting your business to the point that it needs to go right. It's like a coach a business coach, I think, depending on the type of coach that you work with. I think in the best that we can offer is to help folks get more clear on what's actually going on in the business and parse out what's a systems and strategy issue, what's an implementation issue, what's an issue to address in the business and then what's an issue to address in yourself. You need to have a place to actually address that stuff in yourself, though, because just knowing that it's a pattern and then listening to podcast episodes is not going to do it.
Kristen Genzano: 39:35
Yeah. Yeah Right. I appreciate that so much. It makes me think about something I've just been kind of chewing on kind of as we've been leading up to this conversation, which is this real kind of I think idea that when you're an entrepreneur, when you're a business owner, that relationship that exists, you're in relationship with your business and so the same way that interpersonal relationships, family relationships, any kind of relationships kind of illuminate deeper issues for us or illuminate problem areas or stuck points or cycles, the business does the same thing. And I think that's what you're saying. Business coaching actually kind of maybe unintentionally helps to bring up, like shine a light on some of these things that then you can kind of take to therapy and say, okay, I need to dig in here, and then hopefully you have some self compassion skills to hold you and support you through therapy.
Brooke Monaghan: 40:34
Yeah, or to at the very least, notice some of those things that are coming up for as maybe a pattern or maybe something that has a deeper root to explore elsewhere, and notice that and sit with it long enough to let to oh my gosh, I almost just quoted fucking Haley Williams how classic, because I'm obsessed with Haley Williams. Hi, everybody, Paramore, hi, still long enough to listen to yourself, like, sit with it long enough to have some understanding about what it actually is. Yeah, right, I think about, like you know, your parents barging in and when you're a kid and telling you, like, why are you doing this? I, we talked about this a bunch of times, right, and you so badly want to be like because of this. This is what's actually going on. Let me explain myself to you, right, and I think and not having the opportunity to do that To me, mindful self compassion, or at least what you've explained about it so far, or the self kindness piece of it, I guess can be that thing that allows you to sit there long enough to be curious about it. Just be curious about it and where it's coming up and have a little bit more understanding, and then that's going to point you in the right direction of what you actually have to do next you know, and maybe it's therapy and it probably is everybody.
Kristen Genzano: 41:51
Oh, I appreciate you so much.
Brooke Monaghan: 41:55
Kristen, this is so fun. I'm really glad we finally did this and I am so excited for you to teach this in Fruition in January. It's so needed and I'm just really grateful to have you be a part of it.
Kristen Genzano: 42:09
Thank you, Brooke. I'm grateful for everything you do and for the opportunity to have this conversation and to teach in January. It's going to be a good time yeah, as good as learning self compassion can be.
Brooke Monaghan: 42:20
It'll be good, we'll do it together. It's the kind of discomfort that hopefully, if you're listening, you're willing to be in with us. The good kind of discomfort, yeah.
Kristen Genzano: 42:29
Join us.