Autumn (00:00)
Welcome back to the podcast, my friends. Today we are continuing our discussion this month on approval and self-abandonment in our approval detox. Today we're continuing the discussion and talking about something that I think so many women, especially high-achieving women, quietly struggle with. And that is the difference between being liked and being known.
And I know at first blush it sounds like they should be the same thing. Like if people like me, then they obviously know me. If people approve of me, they must accept me.
If people think I'm smart, I'm kind, I'm successful, I'm helpful or funny and reliable, or maybe I'm easy to work with, then surely they see me. But the truth is that sometimes the version of us that everybody likes is the version of us that is least known.
It's our polished version, our productive version. It's the woman who anticipates everyone else's needs, who's always fine, who can always handle everything on her own.
The woman that makes no one uncomfortable. And somewhere along the way, we confuse being appreciated for what we provide to other people. We confuse that with being loved for who we are. But those are actually two very different things. And that's what we're gonna unpack today.
So let's start by unpacking the difference between the likable woman and the known woman. The woman who wants to be liked asks herself, did I say the right thing? Do they approve of me? Are they upset with me? Do they think I'm difficult? Did I disappoint them?
In contrast, the woman who allows herself to be known asks instead, am I being honest? Am I showing up as myself? Am I honoring what I actually think and feel? Am I allowing someone to have their own reaction without me trying to manage it or control it?
Those are two very different operating systems. One is based on self-trust and one is based on external validation. That is where many of us get stuck.
Because being liked can feel very safe and being known can feel very vulnerable, which can feel very uncomfortable and unsafe.
When I was working on the topic of today's episode, it got me thinking about years ago when I was teaching in a business school and teaching in a law school. And I was teaching in this law school on a subject matter that was my legal expertise. And I focused primarily in these really niche areas of the internal revenue code, the tax code, and department of labor regulations.
And even now, as a lawyer, when I meet people and I'm like, this is what kind of kind of lawyer I am. This is what kind of practice that I primarily had. People are like, that's weird. You're crazy. I don't know a lot of people that do that. It's such a weird area of law. Like, why did you get into it? Because it is a weird area of law and there aren't a lot of people that do it. I was invited pretty early in my career to start teaching at a law school and teaching in that sub subject matter area. And
I was teaching and really enjoying the teaching and connecting with the students and mentoring the students. None of that is a surprise. But I was not enjoying digging into the case law and the subject matter and the nuances of these decisions and that decision and why courts went this way in one instance and another way in another instance and getting all theoretical in this area of law. But people around me were like, wow, it's really impressive that you're teaching in this area of law. You must be really passionate.
About the work that you do. And I remember thinking, man, you get me behind closed doors. And I'll be honest with you, I think our area of law is absolutely worthless. People spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on us in this little niche expertise. And yes, if you're in trouble, it's totally worth it. But for the rest of our clients that are spending all this money on us for preventive measures and documentation, I remember just feeling like this is so dumb.
You're spending all of this money to prevent risks that are in all likelihood never going to happen. I built my entire career around convincing people that if you didn't have this document in place and this document in place, the IRS and the Department of Labor were going to rain hell down on you and your company and ruin your lives. Yes, that was a possibility, but that is something I never saw happen. Unless an employer was incredibly egregious and doing a million other things wrong, it never happened.
But that was my whole career. And now here I was in a law school teaching students about these areas of law and these little nuances and all these compliance requirements for all these employers all over the country and telling them how important it was for companies and employers to comply with these little things. And I remember thinking when people would say, like, that's so amazing, you're teaching in that area of law, you must really love it, and thinking, I actually really don't.
And like looking back now, I like teaching, I like mentoring, I like speaking, I like learning. Was I actually passionate about that area of law? The answer is absolutely not. I hated reading the case law textbook to teach on it in class. And if I could get around it and teach the class without having to read it completely, I would have done that. Absolutely. I didn't enjoy it. And so there was a real disconnect between
Me living up to this image as somebody who was loving what she was doing and seeking approval from the firm and from the leadership and from the community in that expertise, but also the legal community. There was a certain level of respect that came with teaching in this area of law. But the reality of it was I didn't care. I didn't think it mattered. I didn't think it was important. And over time I started to recognize that.
I was self abandoning in a really big way. I'd gotten myself into an area of law that deep down I didn't think mattered enough to me and it didn't move the needle enough for me to really care about it. I was living one way, seeking that approval, doing the things that everyone else wanted me to do when secretly behind closed doors, it didn't feel authentic and it didn't feel aligned. And the real me wanted to tell these students.
You're gonna spend a lot of time practicing in this area if you go down this path doing things that aren't gonna move the needle and are really not gonna protect anybody from anything that's a real risk. And you're gonna be asking people to pay thousands of dollars to do it. It didn't feel good to me at a certain point. That's how I landed where I am. But looking back, there was a lot of self-abandonment and a lot of success and validation seeking in saying yes to that type of an.
Opportunity. Yes, it was an opportunity, but it wasn't something that really aligned with my passions and my values. I put all of that aside to seek success in my professional world without regard to what that quiet little voice inside of me was saying is like, hey, you're not really enjoying this. Like you like the teaching, but you don't like what you're teaching about.
For me, that was a classic case of being seen and being respected, but not really being known. Because the people that knew me, even the people that I practiced with deep down, we would kind of have these conversations, like, yeah, I mean, yes, they're required to do this, and yes, that's what the law says, but like, what do we really like? Is the risk really there? Like, is this really gonna happen? And and we'd kind of tongue in cheek joke about it. And so those are the people that really knew me and how I
actually felt about things, but the legal community, the clients, everybody else thought they knew me and they thought they saw this passion for an area of law that that really wasn't in alignment with me. And it wasn't even really true.
I lived that way for a long time, and a lot of us do. And I'm not saying you have to be completely passionate about your work, but for me, there was a real disconnect between this image that I created and what that image was passionate about and the real me, and what the real me was actually passionate about and what she really thought about that image. And listen, there is nothing wrong with having an image, with pursuing a professional success, or with wanting to be liked.
We are wired as humans for connection. We are not designed to live in isolation. We are designed to live in community, which means biologically there is a drive to be liked, to fit in, and to get along with others. We're social creatures and belonging matters.
Research today proves this true, even more so. The research on social connection tells us that feeling accepted and connected are deeply tied to our psychological well being. So the problem isn't any of those things, it's not connection.
But the problem is when we start trading pieces of ourselves for it, for that acceptance.
This is where I want to connect today's topic back to our approval detox and self-abandonment recovery work. Because self-abandonment that's at the root of that approval seeking, it doesn't often look dramatic, like we're just completely relegating our wants and needs and being victim to everybody around us. And it doesn't always look like completely losing ourself to others. Oftentimes, self-abandonment that leads to approval seeking.
Sometimes it looks like simply saying yes when you mean no, downplaying your accomplishments so that nobody else feels uncomfortable or feels bad, changing your opinion depending upon who is in the room, avoiding conflict at all cost, or being the person that everyone comes to because you never have needs, but you're always there for their needs, so they're always coming to you, or editing your personality.
So people can digest you a little bit easier. And as I say, some of those, some some of them really rang true for me in that era when I was really all in as a subject matter expert in my area of law. And I was an expert in my area and I I did feel good having that knowledge and having that expertise. But if you got me behind closed doors, I would tell you, look, man, like
This is what the law says, but do I really think there's a risk there that's worth spending tens of thousands of dollars? More often than not, the answer was no. But if there was another room of attorneys and potential clients, my answer would be very different. Like, yes, this is really important. I think everybody needs to do this. There was no true alignment between how I actually felt about something and how I was presenting myself when I was in that expert mode.
There was definitely some self-abandonment and some approval seeking baked into how I was showing up and presenting myself to co-workers, to the firm, and to my clients versus who I really was and how I really felt behind closed doors. Maybe that's part of practicing law, is encouraging people to comply in all ways, in all times, and stressing the importance of that, even though we may not feel strongly about it. For me,
That didn't really resonate. It felt like a real misalignment that eventually led me down another path. But here's the hard truth of it all. The more committed you are.
To being liked, the less available you become to being known. Because being known requires some risk and it requires someone seeing parts of you that aren't perfectly packaged.
I think this is so important, not just in our professional lives, but in our personal lives too, because there's a lot of really interesting research around authenticity, vulnerability, and connection to other humans.
Researchers who study authenticity talk about authenticity through the lens of self-accuracy, self-consistency, self-ownership. And essentially what they're talking about and what they're studying is the ability to experience yourself as aligned with who you actually are, rather than constantly performing for others.
One study on this found that people responding to more balanced and honest self-descriptions are perceived as being more authentic and interestingly enough, also more likable versus people who exaggerate themselves or excessively minimize themselves.
Those people were seen in a different light and seen as less authentic and likable.
What is fascinating about this, and what I think it is telling us is that authenticity, it doesn't make you less lovable. It actually makes you more likable by the people around you versus trying to seek approval and be what you think people want you to be. Not only does that potentially make you less likable, but the performance itself is exhausting. Fast forward a few years into my legal career.
And I'm still having this kind of tug of war between feeling like we spend all day long telling everybody they have to do all of these very expensive things. And in the back of my mind thinking, yeah, but I've never really seen anyone get in trouble for it. And like no one really audits for that. And is this really a risk? And is it really worth the money that they're gonna spend to correct it? All of those thoughts and worries. Fast forward later in my career, and I'm starting to have real meaningful client relationships.
And I was able to show up in those relationships a little bit more authentically than kind of the robot associate that's like, we absolutely have to do these things are so very important. And yes, I know it's expensive, but the risk is just so high. As I evolved in my practice and I I developed closer relationships with my clients where I could be more authentic, I was able to say things like, Look, this is what the law requires you to do. Can I advise you not to do it? No, I cannot.
But what I can do is help you develop a value system or scale the projects that you're looking at. And if this is on the list and you've got 10 other projects, let's talk about the risk levels associated with them. And then you can decide which ones you want to tackle first and spend money on first. And I will tell you what, that type of honesty and authenticity got me better clients and better results.
Yes, I was still in an area of law that I didn't feel like really moved the needle. But when I was able to kind of embrace that and recognize, like, look, yes, you have to do this, but I think it's a low risk proposition. Maybe you could wait and see on that and attend to these other higher risk things first. Clients respected that and trusted that and trusted me more because I wasn't just trying to tell them this is absolutely important, you absolutely have to do it.
Not only was it more effective from a client retention and getting clients' perspective, but it was just less exhausting. I could finally be honest and say, look, like I can't tell you not to do this. But what I can tell you is I've never seen anyone get into trouble for that. And I haven't seen any cases where someone's gotten into trouble for that. That felt real and authentic and aligned and really allowed me to finally show up more as myself and be more real with these clients.
And the results was that it really paid off for me in my practice.
So let's talk about what is happening behind the scenes and why we kind of go through these inauthentic kind of tap dancing with the people around us. Why do we often choose being liked over being known in a true and meaningful way?
Invariably, all of us at somewhere in our journeys, we picked up some flavor of a belief that sounds like if people see the real me, they might leave. If I disappoint someone, I'll lose connection. If I need something from the people around me, then I will be a burden to them. If I'm not exceptional, I'm not valuable. Most of us have some type
Of programming and wiring around that type of a belief or an experience. And this is where childhood conditioning, attachment patterns, and family systems, and nervous system responses all come into play with how we show up in grown-up relationships. With those experiences and with those kinds of beliefs, a lot of us got really good at reading the room and predicting people's reactions.
We became experts at making ourselves acceptable to the people around us. And I'll tell you, as a woman and as the women listening, any of us that go through junior high and the hell that is teenage girls, we learn a lot of that during those years about how we're supposed to be and how to go along to get along, and how not to be an outlier.
And how to make ourselves acceptable so that we're not picked on and judged or gossiped or at the mercy of evil little teenage girls. And I think a lot of us can relate to feeling that way in junior high. And I think for myself, that's where a lot of that wiring really began. Those skills, those beliefs, that wiring, it started because it helped us. It protected us. Maybe it helped us navigate junior high or relationships, families, workplaces.
Or just situations where acceptance felt conditional? That's where those beliefs come in. They they come in because they kept us safe. So with that in mind, the question now becomes: is the strategy that helped us survive still helping us become the women or the individuals that we want to be today?
A lot of those beliefs around not wanting to push people away and trying to keep the people around me happy, I see that coming into play a lot now in my life with family and friends coming to me with legal issues that are way outside of my realm of expertise. If you listen to this episode long enough, you know that I practice in a really weird area of law. Over the last few years.
After going in-house with a large company, my practice has sort of expanded a little bit at the edges, and I'm more of a traditional kind of corporate lawyer. But the long and short of it is, I don't know anything about divorce law, I don't know anything about criminal law or real estate. I have no business doing any of that stuff. I just know enough to be dangerous. But the people pleaser in me, that little girl trying to fit in and keep everybody happy and improving, when I have family and friends that come to me wanting
legal advice in areas that I have no business giving it. There's a real tug of war that happens. And I always want to be able to say, yeah, absolutely, let me help you. And this has gotten me into so many annoying and frustrating situations in my life because what ends up happening is you say yes to one thing and then it becomes a headache and a nightmare. And then it's uncomfortable. And then because you're doing them a favor, but they're also your friend or your family, every time you see them,
That's all you talk about. So now you can never kind of take the business, the lawyer hat off. And then that resentment builds. But I'm putting on a happy face because again, I'm trying to seek approval and I'm trying to do them a solid and help them out and do them a favor and save them some money. All of those things built into self-approval and approval seeking was at play. I did that enough to recognize: hey, you really don't want to do that. And the only
Reason you're doing it is because you want people to see you as helpful, as an expert, as this like amazing and powerful lawyer. I am none of those things, right? I have my area of expertise and that's it. So nowadays, when people ask me things, if I truly don't have anything substantive to help or to add or no experience in the area, my answer is always no. And yes, it's uncomfortable.
And yes, I feel like I'm disappointing people, but that is my work to do because I know that if I say yes and try and be helpful, I'm gonna resent the project, I'm gonna resent the work, and I'm gonna resent the person for it. But more than anything, I'm gonna resent myself for not just saying no and owning it out of the gate. And so I have learned over time that there is that part of me that had a lot of belief around.
Being valued and being an expert meant I was valued. And helping people out meant I was valued and meant I was a good person. And giving free legal advice meant that I was a good friend or a good family member. None of that bullshit is true. I am a good friend. I'm a good family member. I don't have to do any of those things to prove that. And people can take it or leave it and be mad at me if they want. But in my mind, it is me protecting my authenticity and doing things.
that only I want to do and not doing things I don't want to do, but also honesty in the relationship. When you say yes, when you mean no, you're lying. And I don't want to have a project with a friend or a family member that is founded upon a lie. And that lie being, yes, I'm happy to help you, because it's not true in the moment. And so I've really worked hard to not do that anymore.
This leads me to my next point that being known often requires disappointing people. That is one of the hardest lessons of being honest and authentic. If you want people to know you and really know your heart and your real wants, you have to be willing to let them be disappointed in how you're reacting and how you're responding. Not intentionally, we're not trying to hurt people. And it's not because we don't care,
But because authenticity means that everyone is not gonna have the same opinion of you. The fully expressed version of you will not be universally liked. Really hear me when I say that. To be a full and complete human and not a robot, some people are gonna like you and some people are not gonna like you. And we have to learn to get better at that. Because honestly, that is freedom.
When we stop trying to make everybody like us and respect us and happy with us or look up to us, it's a lot easier to decide how to move forward. Because I don't have to think about everybody else. I just think about what I want. And they can take it or leave it. And I can have faith that they're either my people and they'll get it, or they're not my people, and we can both move on. It's real freedom and there's a lightness that comes from it. Because the goal of life is never supposed to be.
How can I become someone that everybody approves of? In my humble opinion, the goal is how can I become someone that I respect? In my little realm, someone that I respect is someone who is honest, even when that truth doesn't land well with everybody else.
As we bring this topic to a close for the month, I want to leave you with some reflection exercises for you to sit with, maybe journal with. Okay. So I'm gonna list them off. You can pause the podcast after each one or just plow through them and kind of take your time to chew on them throughout the day, maybe write them down on a piece of paper and just leave it somewhere where you can see it and think about it as you go about your day. Question one: Where am I performing a version of myself?
That feels easier for other people to accept.
Question two, what parts of myself do I hide because I'm afraid they will change how people see me?
Question three, where am I asking for permission to just be myself?
Question four What would I change if I trusted that the right people could handle the real me?
If this topic resonates with you and you're feeling like maybe there's more room for growth here, We are diving deeper into this topic on my premium private space, becoming her. Because becoming her is not about becoming a better version of the woman everybody already approves of. It's not about becoming more productive. It's not about becoming more polished or impressive or acceptable. It's about coming home.
To yourself. It's about recovering the parts of you that you might have abandoned because you thought they might have made you harder to love. This month on Becoming Her, we are unpacking the self-abandonment recovery project. We're talking about approval addiction, people pleasing, the good girl conditioning, nervous system patterns, and how to start rebuilding trust with yourself.
just this week on the premium side, I released an abandonment reflection workshop where you can actually explore and take an inventory of parts of your life where you may be abandoning yourself and relegating your needs to the people around you. If you're feeling like you're successful, but you're disconnected, or you're loved, but you're feeling unseen, or you're needed, but you feel exhausted because everybody needs you all the time.
This is the work that is really meant for you. And you can join by clicking on Becoming Her link in the podcast.
Today, my friends, I wanna leave you with one final thing.
The people who only love the version of you that never needs anything, never struggles, never disagrees, never takes up space, they don't actually know you. They know the version of you that learn how to earn belonging. But you were never meant to spend your life that way in earning what you were born worthy of.
You don't have to be easier to love. You simply have to become brave enough to be known authentically. I will see you next time, my friends. As always, thank you so much for listening and thanks for sharing with your friends.
