Jacqueline: [00:00:00] We all want to be better versions of ourselves. So what does that look like? And I can answer that. I can ask you what does that look like if you are being a better version of you?

Harpreet: [00:00:29] What's up, everybody? Welcome to the artists Data Science podcast, the only self development podcast for Data scientists. You're going to learn from and be inspired by the people, ideas and conversations that'll encourage creativity and innovation in yourself so that you can do the same for others. I also host open office hours. You can register to attend by going to bitly.com/adsoh. I look forward to seeing you all there. Let's ride this beat out into another awesome episode and don't forget to subscribe to the show and leave a five star review. Our guest today knows that the best coaches and teachers understand the real issues and know how to help you overcome obstacles, her superpower is being a passionate champion for fearlessness, having a deep understanding of the issues that hold people back from achieving their full potential. She works with people to strip away the bullshit that clouds their minds and limits their ability to achieve their goals. Her Fearless at Work program produces leaders at organizations like Oracle, Pabst Brewing Company, Legal Zoom, Wilbur Ellis, who are leveling up not only their individual performance but their organization success as well. We're going to be drawing [00:02:00] from her 30 plus years of experience and the personal development field and get some actionable advice that will help us stay curious, push boundaries and burst through excuses to achieve results. So please help me in welcoming our guests today, author of The Fearless Factor at Work, Jacqueline Wells. Jacqueline, thank you so much for taking time out of your schedule to be on the show today. I really appreciate having you here.

Jacqueline: [00:02:26] Well, it's great to be here, Harpreet. I really appreciate the invitation. And I'm looking forward to our conversation. And thank you for the great introduction. I appreciate that.

Harpreet: [00:02:34] It's absolutely my pleasure. And I can't wait to dig into your book and talk more about your story in your life. So speaking of your story and your life, why don't you talk to us a little bit about where you grew up and what was it like there?

Jacqueline: [00:02:50] So I grew up in the the wilds of Scotland, and I've been in the States a long time now. But I grew up in the Port of Edinburgh and where I grew up was very working class. My father worked at the docks and we didn't have very much. And my household was pretty much a mess, as many households can be. And I had to what I call growing up in the school of hard knocks. I mean, that was really the early part of my life. It was filled with all kinds of things that created a lot of fear and, you know, mostly through violence and emotional abuse. So there was a lot of obstacles that I had to get past in my early part of my life that I think was really fundamental to why I do the work that I do now, because I really had to learn how to move ahead very fast. I left school when I was 15 and I left home when I was 16 and I moved from Edinburgh to London. And I've had this thing for the early part of my life where I would move places and I didn't know anybody. I didn't have any [00:04:00] money. I didn't have a job. I didn't have a place to live. But somehow I managed to make it work. And there was a pattern of that for several times when I moved from London eventually to San Francisco, the same thing.

Jacqueline: [00:04:12] I didn't know anybody, didn't have a job, wasn't legally supposed to work here anyway. And, you know, had to kind of figure that out. But the early life was definitely I like to say we're never given anything that we can't handle. OK, now, a lot of people say that's nonsense. You know, I didn't ask for this, but I certainly can look at my hourly stuff and go, I didn't ask for it, which is true. But the challenge of it was to get to the other side of it. And that's what really was became a life's journey. So when people say to me, why fear? I go because I'm intimately connected to it. I understand what fear can do to you. And mostly it's a mind game because fear is an emotion and it's how we relate to it. You know, the journey was, as I said, Edinburgh, London, San Francisco. Then I moved to L.A. for quite a few years and got married, had a family and already had kids before then. That's a whole other story. I mean, there's a litany here, so I'm just giving you the broad strokes. But we moved to I moved to L.A. and lived there for for quite a while.

Jacqueline: [00:05:19] And I took up writing and singing and martial arts and really immersed myself in a whole bunch of creative stuff, which was very powerful and very transformative. I also went through my own psychotherapy and other things and had coaching, which was a great boost. Then we moved to Paris and again, same story. I didn't know anybody from New City, didn't even speak the language. So, you know, you have to adjust. You have to deal with the obstacles to deal with the challenges, dealing with the fear and the insecurity, all that good stuff. So we're five years there. And then I moved to Amsterdam. And again, when you're a couple of people but you got to build a new community, you got to get going again. You got [00:06:00] to figure it all out. And then after that, we moved to New York and New York was, again, do something different. But what was really interesting about New York, it was the time when I started this business of coaching, and it was because I've been in. To really dove in because I had had so much experience and people really wanted to know who I was and you know, what it was all about, so I wrote my first book, The Fearless Factor. This is actually it was my second book.

Jacqueline: [00:06:32] The first book was written as a novel When the Crossings set in Scotland for the second book, The Fearless Factor was a way of a really kind of getting myself established as somebody who had something to say about the subject of fear. And it became the foundation for my coaching practice, for my speaking career, from my retreats, for all the stuff that I'd done. And then over the last 15 years, more and more immersed in the world of leadership and helping primarily middle managers and entrepreneurs really understand what they were doing to get in their own way. Because what I like to say about being fearless is it's not the absence of fear. It's our courage to take the next step and then the next step and then the next step. And that's, of course, how we transform. And then we move to California about maybe eight, nine years ago now. And last year, I came out with the fearless factor at work. And since then, I've kind of done a big pivot to be more entrenched in the fuels factor at work. So there's the whole scope of an I don't know if that's what you were looking for, but that's that's the story from start to finish, at least till now, not the finish. I got a lot more years than me.

Harpreet: [00:07:41] Oh, definitely a lot more years. And that's definitely want to hear that, because as I was reading through the fearless factor at work and you guys will see copious notes taking copious notes taken here, just reading through, like your life story, I was just shocked that, oh my God, I can't believe you went through all that that stuff. And now here [00:08:00] you are, just helping other people like that. That's not a position that most people who go through that stuff end up in later in life. So what did you think life was going to look like when you were fifteen, sixteen, leaving home for the first time? What did you think your future would would be?

Jacqueline: [00:08:17] It wasn't very rosy. I'll be honest with you. I did a lot of self doubt and very low self esteem. And I you know, whilst I might have dreamed about being a writer or being a singer or one of these creative arts, because what I discovered was I am a very, very creative individual, it wouldn't have occurred to me if I could have had a lens that said, you know, let's go forward many decades and I'll show you exactly what you're going to end up doing. I would have said you're out of your mind. There's no way it's going to happen that way. I mean, an awful lot of mistakes and it involved other people. And so, you know, there was a lot of cleaning up to do along the way as well. So at the age of 15 or 16, I absolutely could never have predicted that at this point in my life, even at any stage of my life, the things I've done in my lifetime, you know, just moving from Edinburgh to London in itself was a big deal. And in fact, I hitchhiked, you know, so there wasn't a whole lot of resources and there wasn't a lot behind me either. You know, there was no family going, yeah, go, girl.

Jacqueline: [00:09:25] You know, there was a family going with them. Are you thinking, you know, so a lot of it was just about that inner drive in me. And I think any successful person will talk to that inner drive, the motivation that you feel that no matter what, you're going to survive. And I always knew it was going to survive. I just didn't know how. But I could look at my brother, for instance. He ended up in jail. You know, he he really didn't have much of a life at all. He had a huge chip on his shoulder and, you know, basically [00:10:00] screwed up along the way. Well, I screwed up, but I figured out how to get to the other side of it, but not without help. And that's where I think your point made earlier in our conversation, the coaching piece is really critical. And if it's not a coach, it has to be a mentor or someone who cares that can give you the guidance necessary. Because I had people in my life who said, don't go this way, go that way. And I would listen and I would go that way and things would change. And I think that's that's a big piece right there.

Harpreet: [00:10:33] As a huge I mean, I kind of I grew up in some rough circumstances as well, mostly just inflicted on myself by myself, just doing stupid stuff. And I look at a lot of my cousins who are not in good positions. You know, some of them are in jail. And some of the friends that I grew up with in high school, you know, couple of them are locked up. A couple of them are dead. They're a handful of them are doing well. And just like my core group of friends, we happen to have our heads on straight. And even though we're stupid and still doing stupid stuff, we managed to get out of it. And I just think about how much easier things could have been if I had positive role models not to say that, you know, my parents weren't positive role models or my uncles weren't positive role models. It's just it wasn't that mentor kind of dynamic there. And that's super, super important. I definitely wish it was something I had grown up. I think I would have saved 12, 13 years of just stupidity.

Jacqueline: [00:11:31] But here's the thing about the woulda, coulda, shoulda stuff. Do you any good? Yeah. In fact, the strength comes from what did you learn as you went through these things? I mean, I gave my first child up for adoption when she was I was 20 years old and I got pregnant when I was 19 and I didn't even know who the father was. So, you know, talk about stupidity. I mean, you're just leaving yourself wide open. So I give her up for adoption. That was hard. And it was definitely [00:12:00] a milestone and a challenge in my life. And then I married and I that didn't work out so well either for the first time around. And we had another child. And then there was a whole other history with that one because she ended up with his father, not with me. And so, you know, there were so many steps along the way. When you look back and you go, yeah, you could have done that differently. But I tell you at this stage of the game, because you and I thank you for the compliment you gave earlier, which is, you know, all of the hard things I had to do feel like they were the tests of what what can you do with this? How can you help other people get past their own stuff? Because when I'm on the platform or when I'm speaking on podcasts like this, people listen and they go, I don't know how you did that. And frankly, I don't know how I did it either. All I know is that I just kept showing up day after day. And it's the old thing of the Zen thing of, you know, you fall down, get up, fall down seven times, get up again.

Jacqueline: [00:13:04] You know, you just you persevere. And I think that's that's a big thing. You know, when I was doing martial arts, I came up with a real clear understanding of what it takes to succeed, because if you're in a fight, you better be engaged in that fight. Otherwise you're going to get broken bones or worse, you know. So what I found first and foremost with martial arts, it's a meditation. You've got to be 100 percent present to what's going on. But there are six things that I discovered in martial arts that I write about and I encourage people to think about. Number one is commitment. Make a commitment to you, make a commitment to whatever journey you're going to be on and to be focused, focused on your goals, focus on where you think you're going and focused on what you've got to offer along the way. [00:14:00] Third one is discipline. You got to have thousands of hours of discipline in order to perform on the drop of a hat. Then you got to have follow through. Beyond follow through this consistency and beyond consistency, there's perseverance and here's where they are, most people fall down, myself included, from time to time, follow through and consistency. You can have the commitment, the focus and the discipline. But if you don't have follow through and consistency, you'll continue to struggle. And the perseverance thing is. Yeah, how long do you want to just put up with stuff before you're ready to say enough already?

Harpreet: [00:14:39] So for the people out there who are struggling, myself included, with follow through and consistency, what do we have to do to overcome that? Is is it a matter of self talk? Is it like how how do we overcome this? Because it's challenging and it's this challenging the two hardest pieces of any change.

Jacqueline: [00:14:57] But it's exactly right. And, you know, a lot of it's habits, you know, what are the behaviors that are driving the actions? And so if you're easily distracted and if you like bright, shiny objects, which I definitely do, I have to train myself to focus and Data guys. So so let's talk about that for a second. I used to hate looking at spreadsheets right up until very recently. Spreadsheets for me were like, you know, too much information. Can't sort it out. I don't want to know big, broad strokes. I'm great at that. I have what's called a driver mentality. So I'm a big picture person and I know how to dove into stuff. Even if I don't have all the information, I'll figure it out as I go along. But what I've discovered is that by using spreadsheets and being organized around the data that I have to deal with in order to run my business, and I'm not just keeping up in my head anymore. Life is a lot easier. It's a lot easier. And [00:16:00] you can see for yourself what it is you're dealing with now. Your audience is like, well, duh, you know, we already know that. But for those who are easily distracted, you know, it's about building those habits that allow you to keep showing up the same way and having systems. I mean, I've always said you've got to have processes and systems. But again, because I'm a creative, I tend to go, well, just figure it out as they go along. Well, that that'll get you only so far. So that's the focus and the follow through and the consistency piece. And I'm like a moving train. I'm like, OK, been there, done that. Just keep moving. But the follow through piece says, no, you've got to step back sometimes and reconnect to whatever that is. You can't just be a moving stream like you're part of the social media. It's got to be a way to handle that. So that's the best advice I would give on the follow through and the consistency piece. Is that helpful?

Harpreet: [00:17:02] Yeah, definitely. And I mean, the bit about creating systems for yourself to help facilitate the consistency, that's definitely helpful. And for people listening out there who might not understand what we mean by systems, it's essentially just automating battery life, just making it easier for you to do these things that they become habits. Right. Like, for example, if you want to get into the habit of, say, journaling, then a system in place could be just making sure you have your keyboard cleared off from your desk and just a pen and a journal right there. So what's the first thing you see every morning? Would that constitute a system?

Jacqueline: [00:17:40] Oh, for sure. I mean, I'd journal regularly, I'd keep a gratitude journal. And I write it not every day, but almost every day. I have a page. I just give myself a page. And it's not a big notebook. It's a small notebook, but it sits on the kitchen table. And when I go down there in the morning for my cup of tea, that's the first [00:18:00] thing I do is write in my journal and try to keep up with that. So there's a small system right there. Another system is a checklist. You know, are you when you start your day, do you have a clear idea of what you're looking at? Are you looking at your calendar or you're looking at a journal that you might be keeping? Are you looking at your emails? You know, what is the system you're using to run through that piece and then the checklist, if you like? For instance, if you're going to be running your podcast. One of the things that I need to be attending to in order to set it up and then to follow up with what's next, and you've probably done that, otherwise you wouldn't be running it successfully. So there's another system right there. So the checklist piece becomes a real easy one and then you're not keeping it in your hand. You're just, you know, did I do this? Did I do that? Blah, blah, blah. You know, you can keep a journal of all the things you've done during the day. I mean, right now I'm involved in a time sheet challenge, which is I have to every 15 minutes, you know, keep a record of what I'm doing and then be able to analyze it at the end of the week to say. Where are the gaps? What have you not been doing this week and where have you been? Some time away. So, you know, and we're all very good at that, too, because there's a lot of distractions on the Internet. I mean, you can hang out in LinkedIn or Facebook and suddenly there's an hour gone by. Well, what did I get done? Nothing.

Harpreet: [00:19:29] Now they got this new thing called clubhouse, which is just another way to keep you out.

Jacqueline: [00:19:33] Yeah, that's a that's a whole other thing right there, Ivon Clubhouse. But every time I see these notifications, like, turn it off

Harpreet: [00:19:42] And, you know, everything we talked about now systems, it's they're not like pulleys and levers and crazy things that it's simple. Right. You can make it easy for yourself. It's just simple. And this the checklist stuff. So every every week I print out a piece of paper that just Monday through Friday what I want to get [00:20:00] done that day and that's it. And that's a little system, just analog system. And I got the daybook right here. So keeping track what I'm doing and it's helpful. So we talked about these steps that you outlined. I think underpinning all of this is. You have to have some level of self-awareness. So talk to us about this. You talk about this early on in your book as well. So give us a definition of what self-awareness is and why is that so important as the first step in any change process?

Jacqueline: [00:20:34] So getting to know yourself is really what self-awareness is. And it's knowing the strengths and weaknesses, knowing where your blind spots are, figuring out, you know, what it is that's driving you, what's motivating you to move forward in life, and also knowing what is it getting in the way. And it's a lot of it is about being honest with yourself. So many times we have this illusion about who we think we are. But you haven't really found the evidence to back it up. I do these behavioral assessments for people in organizations where we actually measure what kind of behaviors are active in the individual. And what I find with that is a real eye opener is a 360. So you've got your own idea of who you are and then you get feedback from others. So when you see your own map and then you look at the map that came in from the other people that frequently not the same thing. And frequently we we do ourselves a disservice because if you don't know who you are, then you'll think much worse of yourself than you are. I mean, let's face it, negative thinking is a lot easier for many people than positive thinking because that's what they're used to, you know, and it's what I call the yada yada radio.

Jacqueline: [00:21:54] So if I'm aware that my yada yada radio is on the wrong channel and then I need [00:22:00] to change that up, it's a process that is going to take me time. I have to constantly question, you know, am I hearing the truth? Am I telling myself the truth? So when we talk about fear, for instance, which is my favorite subject for a lot of reasons, you know, fear is an emotion and most people take it as real. You know, it's a piece fear is based on what happened in the past, might also be happening in the future when, in fact, we are we're in a position right now to change it. So if you're self-aware and you know that to be true and by the way, fear, if you don't have any empirical evidence, is just a story. So the story of the past, the story of the future, and what do you want to attach to that? So if the fears are about my future is going to be terrible, I'm going to lose my job. I'm not going to have health care. I'm not going to have any money, blah, blah, blah. And that's a common story that runs through people's heads.

Jacqueline: [00:23:03] If you can't prove it, if you have non-trivial evidence, then it's just stuff you make up. But the point being about self awareness is I know this to be true. I know that I can go there. I also know that I have the power to change the story. So changing the story of like, you know, all of the craziness that I grew up with and all of these life experiences that for a lot of people would be like, hell, no, I'm not going there, you know? But at the same time, I could look at it and go, Yeah. So what did you learn from that? And again, that self-awareness. Yeah, I know what I learned. I know what I don't want. And I know more about what I do want. And I know that I'm capable of going where I want to go. Whereas an early part of my life, I didn't know myself well enough. So I would say I'm not capable. I can't go there. And, you know, I don't have what the goods. [00:24:00] Well, that's not true. That's not true. So you're your self awareness is really about searching for the truth of who you are.

Harpreet: [00:24:09] And that's not you know, it takes effort. You have to put in work to get there. It's not like, OK, I know my name and Social Security number. I'm self aware. No, it's a lot more than that. Right.

Jacqueline: [00:24:20] And it's it's not a there's no end point to this, by the way. You know, it's like if you say to somebody, who are you? They'll define themselves by their job. Well, define themselves by their status in the family. They'll define themself by how much money is in the bank, you know, but none of that is who you really are. Who is the authentic you. And a lot of my program is about how do I help you discover the authenticity of who you are, what you bring to the world as we all the gifts, we all have strengths. We all have stuff we can develop. And let's face it, we're always in development. And I will be learning about who I am until the day I die, and then there'll be another transition, whatever that is.

Harpreet: [00:25:07] So that's like a practice that we can, you know, the listeners at home can take away with them to help increase their self awareness. Is it just maybe sitting and reflecting on a few key questions or maybe writing about these few key questions? And if so, what are two to three questions we can start pondering right now to get us further along on that path of self-awareness?

Jacqueline: [00:25:31] So your point is well made about questions. I would say stay open and curious and stay out of judgment. This is really, really big. We're very quick to judge ourselves and we're very quick to judge other people. So staying out of judgment is a real peace in itself and it takes a lot of effort to stay out of judgment. So I would say self reflection, absolutely. That's how we become self [00:26:00] aware through self reflection, asking yourself the hard questions. Now, as you know from looking at my book, I have a section called Deep Dove. And at the end of every section, you've got a series of questions. So if we're looking at self awareness as one of these pieces to think about going forward, I would go to the end of the section and say, OK, so becoming self aware. Let's take a look at that for a second and let's look at the things that we have some questions for. Would I rather be right or would rather be understood how many people go through life? Absolutely wanting to be right. And I know I did in the early part of my life, I could never admit I was wrong because if I admitted I was wrong, then I was definitely not a strong person, which, of course, is the exact opposite of what is going on here, because a big piece of being self-aware is vulnerability of being able to say, I don't know.

Jacqueline: [00:27:04] It's hard to be a know it all, and that's all people go through life wanting to be a know it all. To what degree I'm aware of others emotions, needs and concerns. How can you get outside of yourself and really be conscious of your impact on other people? Because that's a big one, too. What is your impact on other people? I was a big control freak for years. Still am to some degree because you never quite outgrow the whole thing. But control is a way of feeling safe. And so if I'm in control a lot of the time, I'm not really thinking about what other people need. I'm thinking about what I need. So being able to step outside of yourself becomes a real big piece. And how would I want to be treated if I shared my feelings? Now, there's a big one right there sharing your feelings. Do I really want to admit that [00:28:00] I don't know what I'm doing? I really want to admit that I'm not feeling great. I mean, how many people when you say how are you in their automatic responses are fine. Yeah, well, let's scratch the surface of that one. Really? Well, you know, got all this stuff going on, my approach to that at this stage of my life is I'd like to complain, but there's nobody listening, so why bother? You know, and that's a piece right there.

Harpreet: [00:28:25] These are such that simple questions, but they're super hard to answer. Trust me, I've spent you know, I've been through some of these deep bags and I spent some time in the journal writing through them like, damn. And these are not easy questions to answer. They're so simple and yet we like it. The words strung together so simple. And you put pen to paper and start trying to write them out like shit, man, this is not

Jacqueline: [00:28:48] Even a why because you're in your own way. Yeah. You're in your own way, if you would, just to step out of the, you know, the judgmental piece about, well, how do I keep this down? Is it the right or the wrong way? I mean, I have people programs to say to me, I don't know what the right answer is. No, there's no right answer, but simply an answer that speaks to you. And that's really all that matters. Does it speak to you if you feel like you've dug deep enough on your answer or if you have and then give it another go and see? And maybe there's something in the answer you've given that you can take to the next level and then the next level on the next level, until you start to get some real clarity on it. It's like you didn't build your business just because you had one idea. You've had dozens of ideas and some of these ideas panned out and some of them didn't. And so you start to learn that. Another big question that's in the book, and I think it's a really important question for everyone to ask themselves, who do I want to be? In five years or 10 years from now. What do you want to do, because, you know, the jobs are plenty [00:30:00] out there, you can do all kinds of stuff, but what do you want to be? That's a self-aware question. You know, we all want to be better versions of ourselves. So what does that look like? And I can answer that. I can ask you, what does that look like if you were being a better version of you?

Harpreet: [00:30:21] Yeah, and that's a good point about how people are always looking for, like, the right answer. And I think a significant portion of my audience obviously were math geeks, were scientist, and we're so used to having the right answer that we just look in the back of the textbook and we can check if what we did was right. You can't do that in your life. There's no like solution manual to life. They can go check the way you did something, whatever it was there only I don't know, man. So you also talk about four types of self-aware people or for like almost like characters of self-awareness. I was wondering if we could I could if you could just touch on those four characters for us.

Jacqueline: [00:30:58] So the four characters that we're talking about, you've got your introverts, you've got your extroverts. I think this is where you're going. You also have people who are a combination of introvert, an extrovert. So introverts clearly are people who don't like to put themselves out there and get noticed, OK, but they have their own strengths. There's a book out there called Quiet, which is written primarily for introverts. And if anyone's listening to this, they should check it out. The author's name is not coming to me at this point in the day, but it's easy to find. So the introverts do a lot of self reflection, but frequently they get caught up in the look, the look of, you know, this is who I am because you're not expressing it now. Extroverts can be the opposite way. They can be all over the place and they're spewing stuff out there without any thought about what's the impact it's having on other people. So if you're into self reflection on that level, you [00:32:00] might want to dial it back a few and take a look at yourself. That way, the ambivalence you get, the combination of, you know, like I'm an ambivalent I can be extremely extroverted in my conversations and very lively, but I need to go regroup. I need to pull in. I need time for self reflection. I need time for me to think about what's going on in my world. And I have to tell you right now, the fourth one is escaping me. So I don't know if you remember it,

Harpreet: [00:32:32] But not my head. But those descriptions are the ones I was talking about and the name of the authors, Susan Keane. I just looked it up. But believe it or not, I'm like a pretty hard core introvert. Like, for example, this week I've got three interviews. This week I'm interviewing you, David, Benjamin, Jonathan Vacay, like some cool people talking to them, also teaching classes, holding office hours. And I know that come Saturday or Sunday, man, I'm just going to be burnt out. And that was like that for me just recently. I was going through some severe burnout. And it's just because it's just all this energy expenditure outwards and didn't have enough time to sit quietly and recharge and reflect. And it took about a week of just chilling out a little bit

Jacqueline: [00:33:16] To yeah, it's really, really important for introverts to recharge, you know, because the world will keep sucking, you know, they'll keep sucking until there's nothing left, you know, if you let it. So I will go into big gatherings, but after a short period of time, I need to get the hell out of there because I just need to be able to to go on somewhere. It's like you got a big conference and, you know, people are on all day, why don't you come to the bar and have a drink? Hell no. I'm going to my room. Yes, it's cool. Yeah. Yeah. I'll see you in a couple of hours when I've had a chance to just go. So [00:34:00] I get that one completely. Yeah.

Harpreet: [00:34:03] So you also talk about this framework in the book very early on called The Vital Framework. Yes. Walk us into this.

Jacqueline: [00:34:10] So Vital was an acronym I created based on what I saw as primary leadership skills, which is vision, insights, trust, appreciation and legacy. And you note that I cover a lot of those in the book. The vision piece is really important. As a leader, you must know where you are going. If you don't know where you're going, you can't possibly lead others there. But more importantly, you must know yourself where you're going. You know, what do I want in the world? There's a big one for the individual, you know. Where do you think you're going now? People in organizations. One of the things I'll say is, is your vision aligned with your organization? Because it is not it's not going to be a good match. So the vision piece is really important. The insights piece comes from knowing yourself, knowing. Well, your behavior is doing, knowing how you show up at your best, knowing how you show up at your worst, looking at your values, are you aligned with your values? Values are really, really important in a lot of people. Don't pay enough attention to that piece. When you're not living aligned with your values. Life feels like it's constantly off. So if you look at your fundamental values, so for me, it's about creativity and family and transparency. Yes, just three of them. And there's usually about five to seven. But if I'm not living aligned with that, I'm going to feel off. I'm going to feel really ill. And your behavior will also show up as not aligned as well. So the insights piece is really good [00:36:00] to look at.

Jacqueline: [00:36:01] And then there's a trust piece. Fear is our inability to trust that we can handle whatever it is that comes our way, trust. Trust yourself trusting others. Now, for those of us who grow up where we didn't trust, I didn't trust my family of origin because I never knew from one minute to the next where where it was going to come from. So I grew up not trusting myself. Now, when you don't trust yourself, you get in a lot of trouble with that because you don't trust your decision making. You don't trust that you know exactly what's good for you. And, you know, you've made mistakes in your life. You've done stupid stuff. A lot of that came out of I wasn't trusting myself enough, not trusting myself to build my business to the degree that I want to perhaps vision on it that I can do that. A lot of people get caught up in their competency. Can I trust that I'm competent enough to be able to do that? How many people play small when they have a whole lot more to offer because they don't trust themselves and then the trusting of others? If you're in leadership, you want to build trust with your team members. You've got to be able to trust them that, you know, they're going to say what they'll do, what they say they will do. You trust that they're working in your own or your best interest, as well as their own best interests, and of course, that applies to you, too, then the appreciation thing, we don't give enough compliments in the world.

Jacqueline: [00:37:40] Not enough people tell you you're doing a good job, especially in the workplace, it's just, well, you get paid for it, so get on with it. Don't complain. Yeah, isn't that the truth? Instead of which if you got some recognition and people said you're doing a great job, how can I help you do an even better job? What do you think would happen there? And [00:38:00] then there's the other side of it when people give you a compliment to be able to accept it. People used to give me compliments and I'd have to make up a big story about why I deserved it or didn't deserve it until some wise woman said to me, There's only two words you need to say on a compliment. Thank you. And the story, you don't have to do a story, so receiving compliments and receiving recognition, the giving and receiving of it are really important in life. We all want to feel valued. We all want to be seen and heard. So there's the appreciation. And then the legacy piece is simply about what are you doing in your life? That leaves something to be remembered. You know, I mean, we all want to do that. I mean, I've written these three books now. If I did nothing else, at least I've created something for people to appreciate and get something from. So what's your legacy? What would you like your legacy to be? And again, to that question I asked earlier, who do you want to be in the long run? Would you want to be?

Harpreet: [00:39:05] Yeah, I love that framework. And who do you want to be, question man? That's the difficult one as well. It's not what, it's who. That's different, right. That's completely different question. So let's do this. Let's take a deep dove into fear. Let's talk. You know, we talked about a little bit, but let's clearly define it for the audience. Like, what is fear and what purpose does this serve?

Jacqueline: [00:39:29] Fear is an emotion, No one. It's a feeling it's that not in the stomach, it's the sweaty palms, it's the brain going absolutely bonkers with all kinds of negative thinking, with all kinds of of dramatic things that could be wrong with you. So fear is an emotion. No. One now. It's like anger or sadness or happiness, joy, satisfaction. These are all emotions. OK, so [00:40:00] you get to choose when you're in fear. Do I want to go with that or do I want to find another route out of here? OK, so again, I mentioned earlier, when you're sitting in fear, ask yourself a very simple question. Is it true? Do I have evidence that whatever I'm fearful of is actually going to happen now unless you've got a gun pointing at you or, you know, something about to sail off a cliff? You know, these are very real fears, no question. But most of the time, that's not where we're dwelling with that subject. So we talk about facing and facing your fears. What is the acronym? Something about being real again is the end of the day for me. Someone my brain is a little tired, but never mind. The point being is think about it from that point of view. It fears a story. A story is predicated on what happened before might happen again. Or it's predicated on where I'm sitting right now out there could be worse. OK, so if you want to live in that space, you know, what can I say? Go for it if that's where you want to be. But most people don't want to be there. It's an uncomfortable place to be, but change is uncomfortable.

Jacqueline: [00:41:26] And the piece about fear and change is I don't know what that's going to look like. Well, is it going to look any better than what you've got right now? I don't know. All right. Are you willing to take a risk? And I like to say I got an acronym for Risk, which is Respect for intention and show courage, because being fearless is the courage to take the next step and just keep taking that one step at a time. So fear is something that we are all very, very cognizant of. We [00:42:00] understand it very, very well, but you have to make a choice. And when people say to me, I don't have a choice, I know, OK, just made a choice. You choose to live in that space, because the way I frame it is this present moment is our only reality. I can touch it. I can feel it. I can be there with you. But what we spoke about even three minutes ago, two minutes ago, is already in the annals of memory. Well, that we recorded on your podcast and we're about to talk about in five minutes from now has not arrived yet. So this is it. This is our reality, this present moment. Now we talk about mindfulness training and that's what it's all about, is bringing you into this present moment. What are you noticing? What is it that you're feeling, what is it you're thinking about? And if all I can think about is things going wrong, what are you missing? What opportunity are you missing by being elsewhere? Than being here right now, so there's there's a multidimensional piece to this.

Jacqueline: [00:43:15] You know, it's not just about the emotions, it's about your spiritual wellbeing, too, you know, because if I'm wasting an awful lot of energy and I've done it worrying about stuff or not showing up completely because I'm feeling I'm not capable, I'm not competent, I'm not good enough, which is really fundamental to fear. By the way, if you scratch the surface of people in their fears, it comes down to that fundamental piece of feeling. Not good enough. And when I challenge my clients with that, do you really feel like you're not good enough because everybody wants to go? Well, no, of course not. That's not true. So why are you behaving like you are? Why are you behaving like [00:44:00] you're a useless piece of whatever? You know, because embedded in your brain, there are messages that you got from somebody else that are not not your voice. By the way, when you hear a lot of negative voices, they're not our voices. They were planted there originally by somebody else who in some way or another told you you weren't good enough. Whether it's a parent or a teacher or a boss doesn't matter. You carry that message with yourself. So, again, ask yourself, is it true? That's fundamental to fear right there, and there's been tons of stuff written on on the psychology of fear, it's a primitive emotion. It's about fight or flight, but it's always triggered by that emotion of overwhelm, of not being in control. So and then allow it to fester, it gets bigger,

Harpreet: [00:44:57] So it's like, yes, sucky emotion, like probably one of the worst. But what purpose does this serve? Like how is this

Jacqueline: [00:45:04] Like why is it that we it doesn't matter if we look back to the evolution of man. It was it served as a way of keeping you safe. And that's really what fear is designed for, to keep you safe. In this day and age, we have, especially in the western world, I can't speak for the global world, but certainly here in the western world, first world countries, we have most of the time uptown problems. OK, although there are pockets of our society where fear is real, they live in ghettos, they live in neighborhoods where there is a lot of danger. I lived in New York City for years. I lived in Harlem. That was a whole bunch of bullshit going on around me. But I just you know, I've had enough experience in my life where you just kind of take it in stride, you know? But that was murders down the block and that was [00:46:00] drug abuse and all kinds of things. So on a certain level, for groups of people, fear is real, physically threatened, emotionally threatened and so on and so forth. Yeah, I get it. But the audience that we're speaking to, for the most part, we're uptightness, yeah, we established a certain degree of comfort in our lives. Yeah, and it's not a big deal.

Harpreet: [00:46:29] It was the most of fear that we're living with. It's like we're causing it on our own with these stories that we're playing in our in our mind. So how can we then wrestle that fear? How can we wrestle it to push us from behind rather than stand in front of us?

Jacqueline: [00:46:45] So let me ask you, what's a fear of your

Harpreet: [00:46:48] Fear of mine? Man, I've got to the biggest fear of mine is that all the effort that I put into doing things will not pay off in the way that I want it to pay off, that I will have sunk time and put time into this thing, whatever this thing is that I'm building or trying to achieve, and then it'll just all be for nothing.

Jacqueline: [00:47:09] Ok, so that's a nice story you just told yourself, isn't it? Mm hmm. Where are you when you tell that story?

Harpreet: [00:47:17] Moments of weakness. Despair.

Jacqueline: [00:47:21] Yeah, but where are you in time when you tell that story? Oh, in

Harpreet: [00:47:26] A future that's not here.

Jacqueline: [00:47:28] That's right. So what do you want to create? I mean, you've done enough of these podcast interviews now to know that you probably had a great response. Right. People love listening to you and listening to your guests. You have very soothing tone about you, which is it's great. You know, it's very much a radio voice, if you like. It's very, very some. So you've had a lot of feedback from people who've left comments on your podcast about love the conversation, love the insights that gained blah, blah, [00:48:00] blah. OK, there's a legacy piece right there. You create transcriptions of all of your podcasts. So people don't have to just listen. I can read it and they can print it out and they can take it away. OK, so if you were to do transcripts of of a lot of your podcasts and take them as a whole, you could find that there are gems inside of these conversations. You could probably write a book with with all the insights and stuff you've gained over the years. So there's that piece there. So that story you just told yourself, this is all going to be a complete waste of time. It's up to you. It's not up to anybody else. So if you're looking at it in terms of, yeah, I'm building this right now and I have no idea how is going to pan out in the long run, but I love what I'm doing. And so I'm going to keep doing it until I can't be bothered with it anymore, in which case I'll move on to something else. That's a whole different story, isn't it?

Harpreet: [00:48:58] It is. It's it's interesting. Like for me in my case, like the one of the other stories I tell myself is that all of my efforts will be rewarded with new skills learned or new insights gained. So it's like I've got diametrically opposed by the story that I tell myself to empower myself versus try to tell myself. And I'm fearful. It's the same story, but in verses of each other, if that makes sense.

Jacqueline: [00:49:20] Right. So here's the thing about the brain, and we touched on that earlier. The brain doesn't really distinguish between positive and negative. It's impulse. So when you think about impulse in the brain, you want to put the positive impulse in there, you want to put the positive spin on side of things. Again, you got a choice. I can go one way or I can go another. Well, if I go the positive way, won't life be a little bit happier, more joyous when I feel like I've got something significant here. I mean, you've invested an enormous amount of time and no resources as well [00:50:00] to do what you're doing. And of course, you want it to work out. So if in the long run, you know, this is just one chapter of whatever it is you plan on doing going forward and new ideas will come to you on what you want to do with it. That's a bit better than than sitting there fearful about it's not going to do me any favors in the long run. I might all just end up going to shit.

Harpreet: [00:50:29] Yeah. And I mean, I think baked into that kind of story, that fearful story that I have is something I, I deal with quite often. And in talking to my audience, I know that they struggle with as well as just this dreaded imposter syndrome, which I was happy to see addressed in your book. So let's go ahead and talk about that for a little bit, because I think it leads nicely into that. So talk to us about what is imposter syndrome and what causes this to happen.

Jacqueline: [00:50:58] Imposter syndrome, frankly, is insecurity, pure and simple. You know, imposter syndrome has been around since the 1980s when two professors at a university in Georgia to a psychologist analyze this whole process of feeling like, you know, somebody is going to find out eventually. I'm just faking it. So it's a disbelief in your own credibility. And what you've earned. Going forward, you know, I mean, we talk about, you know, growth mindset versus fixed mindset, you know, I'm not a growth minded person. You're always looking for new opportunities to learn stuff. Now, people who have imposter syndrome frequently are always learning. They're always learning. It's like I've got to keep getting another certificate. I've got to keep getting another credential, whatever the case may be. And then you get so far up the ladder and you're just waiting for somebody to come and find out that I'm really not who you say you are. But [00:52:00] once that that's the internal dialog of me saying I'm not good enough. So you struggle with that. And I was just reading someone who's a very prominent CEO, a black woman who had taken several serious roles and had taken this company to multi, multi millions of dollars. But she struggled with imposter syndrome, too. And yet from the outside, everybody looking at her would go, you have rocked it.

Jacqueline: [00:52:30] You have totally. So what is that little person inside of you that's going? Yeah, you know, they're just going to find I'm faking it till I make it. Well, we're all faking it till we make it, frankly, and that's part of the thing, and I had to I'm there's no question that people say you're really good at what you do. And I would go, wow, I'm just being me, you know? But at the same time, I would be like, I need to kind of prove myself. And there's another big piece about impostor syndrome. You spent a lot of time trying to prove yourself, and I did that for a long time. I mean, I wrote the fuels factor in the initial stages simply because I needed the credibility piece, because I started my coaching career with nothing more than a good idea. I knew that I wanted to teach women in mid-life how to step out of their own way. So I wrote the fearless factor as a way of saying, I'm credentialled. I know what I'm doing. That was a way of proving it to myself at the time. Now, I don't have that going on. Is this answering your questions?

Harpreet: [00:53:34] Yeah, that actually leads to my next question is like, do we need to prove to ourselves anything or do we need to convince ourselves that were good enough or do we need to prove to herself that we're good enough? Is that something that we should.

Jacqueline: [00:53:46] Well, here's here's the thing about proving to yourself. It you know, I want to test myself. When I did martial arts, I was always challenging myself in the fights [00:54:00] and in the training. And they were pretty intense. I mean, I took private karate lessons for a while because I wanted to be good at what I do. And I'm a hundred and fifty percenter and I have a feeling you are to you never do anything half assed. You're either all in or you're not in at all. That's my philosophy. I'm all in or I'm not in. All in at all. And so the need to prove to myself that I'm capable. I grew up in a household where I was told I would never amount to much, and I believed that for a long time. So I had a lot to prove to me. And now at this stage of my life, I'm like, yeah, I challenge you to tell me I'm not good enough. So I want you to think I'm not capable. But I'm constantly learning. I'm constantly wanting to know more and want to improve upon who I am and what I do.

Jacqueline: [00:54:55] And that will never change. That's part of my personality. But I don't need to prove anything to anybody because if I'm trying to prove myself to someone else, I'm putting them in a superior position. And making them better than me. Now, I'm not saying that I'm better than anybody, because I certainly would never take that point of view, but what I'm saying is we all put our pants on the same way. And so with that in mind, we each have our skills and our talents, our strengths are weaknesses. And we all have blindspots. And if we look at each other in terms of human beings just getting by, figuring out how to live life, well, puts us on an equal footing. You know, you might have more money than me. You might have more status than me and might have a bigger house than me. I don't give a crap. I know that I'm a human being and a decent human being. And that's all I care about. Am I a decent human being?

Harpreet: [00:55:59] How much [00:56:00] do you think, like the comparison effect has to feed into imposter syndrome? Like, oh, this person, you know, they achieved this. They've done that. And I haven't got there yet. Oh my God. It must not be the real thing if this person.

Jacqueline: [00:56:12] Well, here's the thing about comparing yourself to other people. And I see this a lot and people have highly competitive mindsets. When you compare yourself to others, you're stripping yourself of your own power because you're constantly trying to measure up to somebody else's standards. And Oscar Wilde, many a couple of centuries ago, I think at this stage, he said, be yourself. Everyone else is taken. And so the idea if we can spin back to the self awareness piece again, if I know who I am, if I know what it is that I bring to the world, what the contribution is from me, for essence of me, that's all I need to know. I don't want to be Oprah Winfrey. Oprah Winfrey is Oprah Winfrey. I can't put myself in somebody else's shoes. I can only walk in my own shoes. And that is a privilege. I like to say that's a great quote by Joseph Campbell, who was a very famous mythologist. You probably know. He said, the privilege of a lifetime as being who you are. I'm not going to repeat that because it's really important. The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are. And when I heard that maybe 10, 15, 20 years ago, I don't know, it's been a while. I was like, that's what we're going for. It's a privilege to know who you are and it's a privilege to bring your whole self to the world. Because it's a gift. And you need to share that gift and you're sharing your gift, you're doing these podcasts, having these great conversations [00:58:00] with different people, I love doing this, too. It's great. It's a conversation. Is it going to bring me any business? I don't know. You know, and I'm not driven by that happens. But, you know, there it is. But the fact that I can contribute and I can give you something that matters and you give me something that matters, and we're having this conversation that's really all that matters.

Harpreet: [00:58:26] I thank you very much. Appreciate that. And that the audience is going to appreciate that as well, because that's something that's rapid, I think, in in our field for Data science. A lot of us are just going through this imposter syndrome stuff. And I think it has to do with comparing ourselves to other people instead of just recognizing that, hey, these are my tools, these are my strengths, and I don't have to be a know it all. I should be learning it all, not a no at all. And as a know it all, adopt that growth mindset and just improve just a little bit, just a fraction every day adds up over the course of a year, like I wish I knew about this growth mindset thing, you know, like I'm thirty eight now. I learned about the growth mindset, I think when I was 35 and I think I've been a fixed mindset guy for this long. I just had a baby. He's nine months old now and are definitely going to like button him like the children books and still those growth mindset lessons in him at a very young age, just giving him the tools and belief systems that I didn't have grown up so that he's better equipped to just deal with life.

Jacqueline: [00:59:28] Um, yeah. And that's the gift that we give from our life experience. I mean, I've got four kids and we have on his mind now. So I've got a son, he's got a daughter and we have two daughters together. And I know how much work I put in to making myself a better human being so that I could be a better parent to those four children. And they're all adults. Now, you're older than you are at this point. Some [01:00:00] of them anyway. But, you know, I, I was you know, I was thirty five when I first started waking up, you know, and I mean that sincerely. I was thirty five years old when I was like, OK girl, you're pregnant for the third time and I think you better figure out how to make this work. So that was really the beginning of the journey to be where I am today. But they're all grown up now and they're all kickass individuals. So good job.

Harpreet: [01:00:27] It's a good way to put it waking up. I like that. And I'm glad they're able to wake up for free kids. And I definitely feel the same way. It's like I'm investing all this time, learning stuff and in books just to have them around the house. Just so when he starts reading, there's just books here for him, like all sorts of empowering beliefs and stuff that he can instill and install into his own psyche and just be that much more or better.

Jacqueline: [01:00:51] So here's the thing about parenting. You're a role model, you know, and as I said earlier, I had a terrible role models. But do you want to be a positive role model? And my kids will look at me and they'll go, you know, she's amazing. She just does all the stuff. You know, we never really talk about it. But I know that's how they feel about it, you know? And that's that's that's amazing to me, you know, because if I go back and you read some of the stories in my book. Yeah. It wasn't an easy task to do this. Well, and yeah, I mean, my my one of my kids, when we'd have big screaming matches when she was a teenager, she'd look at me afterwards and she'd go, that's another five years of therapy around me. And I would say, OK, fair enough, you got it until like twenty four and then after that you pay for it yourself. So you got to have a sense of humor about this shit because you're doomed.

Harpreet: [01:01:48] Yeah that's true. That's true. So man, there's so many other questions I asked. You know, we're getting longer on time so will begin to wrap it up. We'll we'll do my final last formal question before we get [01:02:00] into the random round. Then we'll go ahead and do the round and round here. So it's one hundred years in the future. What do you want to be remembered for?

Jacqueline: [01:02:10] Making a difference. My mission in life is to change the world one person at a time. If in one hundred years from now somebody remembers that I said something that made a difference or I wrote something that made a difference, and maybe they're using quotes from my books. That's really all I could say about that one.

Harpreet: [01:02:34] So I will tell you that I have taken two questions from your deep dives, and I've over the last few interviews I've had, I've included them as part of my random round questions just because I like them so much. And the first one here is, in your opinion, what do most people think within the first few seconds when they meet you for the first time? Pretty sure I took that one from you.

Jacqueline: [01:02:58] When people meet me for the first time, they usually see someone who has a lot of energy, a lot of passion and fairly likable. Yeah.

Harpreet: [01:03:09] Do you think you have to achieve something in order to be worth something? No. And was that

Jacqueline: [01:03:17] The reason for that is, you know, just show up and be a decent human being? I mean, accomplishments are great, but, you know, it's a it's a self driven thing, the accomplishments, you know, and of course, of my accomplishments have made an impact on society as a whole or any member of a community. That's terrific. But most importantly, to show up. And I'm a decent human being, one that people want to get to know that feel some warmth in my presence. The answer to that is that's enough. And that really is enough right there.

Harpreet: [01:03:56] I love it. What are you currently reading?

Jacqueline: [01:04:00] Currently [01:04:00] reading a good question, I'm not sure. Oh, yeah, I am. I'm reading a novel at the moment. It's about the column in the GenY and it's about a Jewish thing about Gollum's, which is these manifestations of people that are created out of thin air, frankly. And then the genie who both arrive in New York City and they have to hide their. Their presence, because nobody would understand it, you know, the genie comes out of an old tin can, so, you know, it's an interesting novel. And in terms of business books right now, I haven't had an opportunity. I didn't I didn't actually fit for success. I just read that the other day by someone who is running a fitness empire, actually, and his name is Nick Shaw. And it's called Fit for Success. So I'm going to give his book a plug today. He's in a group that I belong to, and it covers a lot of the stuff that we just talked about. But from the point of view of fitness, one of the things I didn't mention to you is I'm a cross athlete at this point in time. And so fitness is really, really important to me. And for success next year, definitely need

Harpreet: [01:05:17] Some to check both of those out. What song do you have on repeat?

Jacqueline: [01:05:21] What song do I have on repeat? I was listening to the Ramones this morning. Ramones? Yeah.

Harpreet: [01:05:28] Is that twenty four hours ago.

Jacqueline: [01:05:32] Yeah, exactly. I gotta be sedated but sometimes I feel that way. I need to turn it off. Yeah but I'm still stuck me. The 70s and 80s music. Yeah. I had to get my workout music going.

Harpreet: [01:05:53] I think that type of music as well. So we are going to jump into the random question generator here. All [01:06:00] right. And the first question. What is one of the great values that guides your life?

Jacqueline: [01:06:08] Family, I have spent a great deal of life in motherhood, and I think family is is one of the great values for me. It comes back to that a lot of the time, you know, am I doing the best for for them and can they be proud of me? So that's a value, I would say.

Harpreet: [01:06:30] What story does your family always tell about you?

Jacqueline: [01:06:34] She likes to get drunk in an earlier time in my life, not so much the holidays, but they have drunk stories to tell. Your mother gets a little bit out there sometimes.

Harpreet: [01:06:49] Speaking of mother, what's the best thing you got from one of your parents?

Jacqueline: [01:06:54] Resilience. Yeah, my mother had this extraordinary ability to just get up and get on with it, no matter how hard it was.

Harpreet: [01:07:02] We'll do one more here. What's your favorite book

Jacqueline: [01:07:06] Right now, Lord of the Rings comes to mind. Oh, nice. It's a great book.

Harpreet: [01:07:12] I've only seen the movies, the book just looks too daunting for me, a massive

Jacqueline: [01:07:17] Ais full of great stories, great stories, great characters.

Harpreet: [01:07:23] Jacklin How can people connect with you? Where can they find you online?

Jacqueline: [01:07:27] And they can find me at my website at the fearless Specter Dotcom, The Fear Factor dot com. And there's a whole bunch of resources and stuff on there, but feel free to reach out, say Harp. You know, there's download some of my stuff and put me out, put yourself on the email list and I'll keep you in touch with what I'm doing

Harpreet: [01:07:50] And be grateful people are interested in your coaching platform. What's that all about?

Jacqueline: [01:07:55] Right now, I'm running a six week program for senior professional women [01:08:00] and it's developing. It's a small cohort of six to eight people, no more. And it's an intensive six week change program that really does bring you into self awareness and improving your communication skills and building your authenticity, as well as looking at how you influence and support. So there's a lot there. You get three hours of individual coaching, you get six hours of work work as well. So it's a pretty intensive program. But the next cohort starts March 16. Yeah, if anybody's interested. Again, the details are on the website is by application only because I like to make sure that we've got a good peer group so that people feel supported.

Harpreet: [01:08:44] Definitely this will be releasing well after March 16th, but the information will be on the website. So if there's

Jacqueline: [01:08:50] Enough, yeah, there's there's always going to be a new cohort going forward. I tried to run them every six weeks, six to eight weeks. So definitely check out the website for the latest one, if that's just awesome.

Harpreet: [01:09:03] I'll be sure to link that into the passion of Jack. And thank you so much for taking time out your schedule to be on the show today. I appreciate you coming by.

Jacqueline: [01:09:10] I have so enjoyed our conversation. Harp, thanks so much for having me. Be great.