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Booth: Today on the Carolina Women's Collective Podcast, I am joined by Nada Nasserdeen. Nada Nasserdeen is the founder and CEO of Rise up for you. She's a leadership and career confidence coach, a TEDx motivational speaker and bestselling author. She has shared the stage with such icons as Tony Robbins and has been featured by media outlets such as Apple TV and Bloomberg.
Welcome to the podcast today. Such an honor to have you here.
Nada: Thank you so much. It's an honor to be here. I'm excited to share with you today, Booth and [00:01:00] your audience.
Booth: Fantastic. Well, I'm gonna focus on confidence today since that is your expertise and so many struggle with confidence, the imposter syndrome, and so I know this episode is going to bring so much value to our listeners.
Nada: Thank you. Yeah, I, it's one of my favorite topics to talk about actually.
Booth: Fantastic. Well good. 'cause I'm gonna ask you lots of good questions. Um, first off, women are notorious for being people pleasers and perfectionists. Tell us why those traits can actually hinder growth and success.
Nada: Yeah, that's a great question.
so yes, you are right that men also have some of these challenges, but predominantly we see it in women, the people pleasing concept and the perfectionist mindset. And both my team and I, we work with clients all over the world every single day. And we see, in particular with women. There's this [00:02:00] people pleasing syndrome, and part of it is because they're a nurturing individual, right?
They wanna take care of people. We wanna take care of people, we wanna make sure that they feel good. But when we get into people pleasing mode, there's typically a deeper challenge that we're feeling from our belief system where we feel like we wanna make sure they like us, so we have a hard time saying no, because we wanna be seen in the best positive light.
The problem is, is that when we people please, and we don't say no, it slowly crushes our confidence because we end up losing capacity to take care of ourselves, right? We end up putting ourselves last because we continue to say yes to everybody else, and that is just not sustainable. And so many women, for example, they struggle with burnout.
They struggle with being completely out of capacity to take care of their family, to take care of their home, to take care of themselves, and they just say yes because they wanna make sure people like them, and they also wanna make sure that they're putting their best foot forward and actually does the opposite.
It breaks their healthy [00:03:00] boundaries, and I always say that. Self-care is actually service. So when you are able to say no to people, because you have to make sure that you can take care of yourself, you're able to serve at a higher capacity. And if you're not able to say no to individuals and you keep saying yes, it's like your bucket is gonna be completely empty.
You have no water left to give. So when it comes to people pleasing, that's a really big challenge we see with women. The other challenge we see is perfectionist mindset, and I'll sum it up in one simple phrase that I always say. Perfectionist mindset prevents you from your potential because it creates procrastination.
I. So I say that I like that a lot. Perfectionist mindset. Yeah. It prevents you from your potential because it creates procrastination. And so when we feel like we need to be perfect, we never get the thing done. I work with a lot of women that like wanna write a book, for example, or build that side hustle, whatever it is [00:04:00] that they wanna do.
They wanna ask for promotion and because they don't think it's perfect, they never get to it. They never get to the book launch, they never get to the side hustle. They never get to asking the question to the leader because they need it to be perfect. And then a year will go by at two. Two years will go by and they'll actually come back and say.
Okay, I'm ready. And I'm like, it took you two years, right? To two years, you know, of going backwards because you just needed it to be perfect versus progress. I always say it's not about perfectionism, it's about progress. It's okay to, to get things out there and then modify them as you go. And I'm, I'm sure you're familiar with the statistic from Helen and Packard.
That men will apply for a job when they only have 60% of the knowledge, and women won't apply until they have 100%. So our male counterparts are like a D is good, right? Because 60% in our school system is a D and we as women are like, no, I need it a plus. Before I could even take action. [00:05:00] And I actually saw this in action before I even built the company booth.
I used to be an executive. And I remember after about five years, I resigned from the company to go onto a new opportunity and there was a woman that was perfect for the executive role within the company. And I remember I went to her and I was like, you are perfect to take my spot. It would be like a $40,000 pay raise.
So you would go from just like middle level, straight up to the executive, you'd be right at the C-suite. And she said, no, not because of any reason, not because she didn't want to be a leader, because she said, I don't think I'm ready, and I'm the one that's hiring. I'm like, no, no, I'm, I'm hiring you. You got the job.
I just need you to say yes. She didn't think she was ready, so she denied the opportunity. And then as a company, we were forced to look outside and then we brought in a man externally.
Booth: I love the procrastination thing because I felt like you were talking directly to me on, on some things on that, so I [00:06:00] needed to hear that today.
and as someone myself, I worked in a male dominated field for almost two decades, and I often felt like I was walking on eggshells to find that fine line between expressing myself and being labeled the B word. Yeah, so what is the difference between being confident and being the B word, and how can you better exude confidence without crossing that line to the B label?
Nada: That's a really great question. We actually, right before I hopped on with the booth, we were doing a session for our success academy on assertive versus aggressive communication. And so here, here's what I'll say. You can never be overly confident. I hear this all the time. It's the too confident and like the true definition of confidence is a self-belief in oneself.
It is a faith and [00:07:00] certainty in one. I would never tell anybody that they have too much self-belief or too much faith in who they are. Okay? But what we do do is overcompensation. And so when somebody is overcompensating either in their communication or their skill, then it, it's actually, again, it's overcompensation and a lack of self-awareness.
Now, when it comes to communication. It's 50 50, I'll say. So half the time somebody might label you aggressively, not because you're too confident, but because they don't know the definition of aggressive versus assertive communication. Right. So there's a lot of leaders, men, women, it doesn't matter who they are, that are very passive in their communication or they're passive aggressive.
Those are the top two styles of communication. And so when there is somebody that's assertive like you booth or assertive like me, that's not afraid to say no and set healthy boundaries and communicate in a clear and direct way. [00:08:00] It scares them. It's a lot for them. And then they label you aggressive. But if you were to look at the aggressive definition of communication, aggressive is dominating, controlling, insulting, putting people down, calling them names, screaming.
I have never ever done that in my life when it comes to communication, and I've been labeled aggressive communicator, and I always have to reframe and say, I understand it might feel aggressive to you, but did any of these things occur? And they say, well, no. And I say, well then I'd like to introduce you to assertive communication, which is me being able to express myself in a professional clear manner that I understand could be uncomfortable sometimes.
And I think it's really important to, to see the difference. And sometimes women do get labeled incorrectly because people just aren't used to the clarity and the being able to set healthy boundaries. In particular from women. And I always tell, uh, you know, the women that I work with and the [00:09:00] clients don't be afraid to express the difference between the two.
I recently had to do this with one of my own team members, right? They said, Hey, this was aggressive. And I said, okay, let's break this down. Let's break this down. Let's look at it. Let's look at our training deck. 'cause we actually have this in our training deck. And then they said, oh, it's not really aggressive.
And I said, no. And then we talked about it and she said, I'm actually like really adverse to conflict. And when somebody's able to communicate clearly, like it makes me uncomfortable, and I was like, and I completely understand that. And I said, but I really wanna make sure that as we move forward, that we're using the right terminology with individuals because we wanna make sure that people aren't playing small because of a lack of understanding of what it means to communicate clearly.
I.
Booth: I love that there's so much perception in that, and then you can, you can take it when you're, you're the recipient of the communication as well, how you perceive things and not to maybe be [00:10:00] offended, but know that someone's just being matter of fact and, you know, assertive but not aggressive. So
Nada: Absolutely you can be very clear and you can be very kind, you know, assertive language.
It's okay to say. Unfortunately, this is not working. This is what I would like to see moving forward A, B, C, and D, in order to make sure we hit those benchmarks. I'd like to have a meeting next week. Many individuals, we'd be like, oh my gosh, I'm in trouble. And it's like, no, that's just clear communication.
These things aren't working. Let's do this moving forward. Let's have a meeting next week. But it's really more of a communication thing that people often mislabel.
Booth: I like that. That's,
that was a great explanation So you have six pillars that you have, um, kind of created in your work that you say are necessary to master success.
And from reading them, I took self-worth as being kind of the most important. One of the six. [00:11:00] Yes. And you give your parents a lot of credit. They sounded like wonderful people. By the way, in your book you had me in tears. So you give your parents a lot of credit for the way you view your own self-worth because of the way they raised you and instilled that belief throughout your childhood.
However, there are a lot of people, even 40 plus year old adults that have low self-worth because they were raised by parents that did the opposite of yours. What are some of your tips or advice for those people to start to change their mindset about their self-worth?
Nada: Yeah, that's a really great question, and thank you for bringing my parents into this conversation because I always love to honor them and really express that everything that I am today is really because of their parenting.
But they didn't, have a ton of money. My mom actually didn't even have a college degree, but what they knew is that my brothers and [00:12:00] I growing up were gonna be constantly put down by other people and society and our first, you know, partner romantically and the leaders. And so at a very young age, they started to cultivate that mindset of, you can do be anything that you want to be, but you have to love yourself first.
And so the, the challenge is, is that. Every single person is born with confidence that the challenge is, is that the second you are born, it's instantly impacted by your environment. Some of us are born into environments that are very uplifting. Like myself, they had amazing parents, and so they have like one step ahead when it comes to the confidence game because their whole childhood, that's the narrative that they've been taught.
Other individuals are born into an environment that's not so kind. Maybe they have parents that push them down or teachers or you know, leaders at a young age that constantly call them names and tell them that they're not enough. And then that becomes the tape that they play as they continue to get older.
Because you [00:13:00] have to remember that by the, you know, between two to 14 years old. Is like the most dominant time for child adolescents for brain development. And so if during those years that 12 year gap individuals aren't taught a healthy mindset pattern as kids, it becomes ingrained in them and it's much more difficult.
To take back as you get older. And so that's why I'm, I'm really big on parenting at that age. And so if you are, you know, 30, 40, 50, and 60, and that was your tape growing up as a child, a lot of the beliefs that you have are subconscious and they're hindering you versus serving you. They're sabotaging you versus serving you.
But the great news is Booth, just like you kind of alluded to, we can rewrite that. Okay, and neuroscientists show us that our brain has these neuro pathways, and we can readjust those neuro pathways through simple tools like journaling, coaching ourselves, [00:14:00] building self-awareness, asking ourselves why we have these.
Thoughts and then reframe them in a way that can serve us versus sabotage us. Now, the key is not to get rid of, you know, self-doubt or negative thoughts because we all have them, including myself. But the key is to be able to find that thought or that limiting belief, and then manage it so that it doesn't sabotage us.
So for, I'll give you like a personal example. Uh, the, the first book that you see, the Rise Up for You book that you read, I pushed that out right away. I didn't wait for it to be perfect. Okay, now there was a part of me that was like, oh, like it's not perfect and I am sure we need to like put it through the copyright again and have people, you know, edit it and you know, do a grammar check and all these things.
Then I was able to say, okay, Nada Nasserdeen, the same conversation we had earlier, booth. It doesn't need to be perfect. We can pro, we can progress the book. Like we can do another version or edit it or whatever. Just push it out. And I did. And even till today, there's still a little grammar [00:15:00] mistakes that I catch that I'm like, oh my gosh.
But it didn't stomp me from putting the book out. And the book is a number one, was a number one bestseller. And so the most important strategy I would say for somebody that's struggling with these limiting beliefs is what we call the four Bs to reverse engineering. And I'll break it down quickly. The first is to build self-awareness, to catch your belief.
So what is the limiting belief that I currently have? We all have a ton of them, but I just want you to identify one that is very real for today. Like is there any belief that's limiting you? So somebody might. I say, well, yeah, I wanna write, I wanna get my book out. And I'm like sitting on it. I haven't done it yet.
Or, you know, I want to ask my leader for promotion, or I wanna scale my business. I wanna launch my business, but I haven't done it. What's the limiting belief? Right behind that. The second thing is the backstory. Where does that belief come from? Because the majority of our [00:16:00] beliefs were put onto us by other individuals that also struggled with self-confidence, that projected their fear onto you.
Now, most people don't do it maliciously. It's very natural for us to be like, oh, you can't do that. Or you can, you know, I was a performer. That was the first career I ever had. The amount of people that said, you've, it's too hard to be a performer. You're not gonna make any money. Most people aren't successful.
They didn't mean it in a bad way. That's just what they truly think and feel. And so we have to figure out where does that belief come from and who gave it to us? How did it get into our head? And that can take a while for some people. Some people know it right away. Some people are able to say, oh, Bobby Jane gave it to me in high school when she bullied me.
And ever since then, I've never felt enough. We're, we're able to identify it. The third B, which is the most important, is the behavior. What's the behavior that's happening in you that is sabotaging you, that's not serving you? See, I always [00:17:00] know how people feel about themselves simply by their behaviors, and they don't even know it, but I see them behave and I can say, okay, there's some, there's some struggles there mentally because of the behavior that you're displaying.
This might be constantly saying yes to the point of hitting burnout. This might be not raising your hand in a meeting, even though I can tell you have something to say. This could be knowing that you wanna launch that passion project, but then six months goes by and you're still procrastinating and making excuses around it.
See, every single thing has a behavior attached to it. And we wanna be able to identify why. So when somebody comes to us, for example, and they say, I really struggle with managing my time, or I really struggle with making time for myself. And I say, well, let's, let's break down the belief around this. And once we do that, then they're able to shift the behavior.
So the last B is called the breaking, and that's being able to identify how we [00:18:00] rewrite the belief, how we break the belief so that we can shift the behavior in a positive way for you. I highly recommend that every time you have a limiting belief. Go through these four Bs, right? What's the limiting belief?
What's the backstory? What's the behavior and how do we break it? It you're, you're essentially coaching yourself. You're asking yourself the questions that I, as a coach would ask you.
Booth: That is a great way to break it down and give a process to start recognizing and addressing it and fixing it. So that was super.
Now we we're just talking about parenting and we're just talking about your first book. So. In that book, there is a part where you talk about a time you were traveling in Scandinavia. Yes. And you noticed the human connection that children were having with their parents and that the children did not have screens.
Yes. You further went on to talk about the comparison game [00:19:00] that social media has created and how our self-worth has largely become dependent on likes and comments. Tell us why this can be such a dangerous narrative for our self-worth and confidence and what you saw differently in Scandinavia with the lack of screens, with the, with children.
Nada: Yeah, and, and it's interesting because when I went to Scandinavia, I went after my, my mother passed af after I, you know, my second parent had passed. And I was really on this journey to understand what does it mean to build a life that you're proud of. And what are the skills and the things that we need in order to build that kind of life.
Now, through all that research, I've been able to identify that the soft skills, which we teach today are really the critical skills that make up your success. But it's also about building an ecosystem around you that helps you become the whole human being, not just the professional, okay? Because the person is the professional and the professional is the person, [00:20:00] and so on this journey.
I did see in Scandinavia, they are the happiest countries in the world. So if you look at the top five countries in the HAP world Happiness report, the last 10 years it's been the Scandinavian countries. It's been Denmark, Sweden, Finland, all at the top. And so I specifically went there to see why, what are they doing?
And family is one thing that's very, very important for them. And being able to maintain that human connection. Now the problem in today's world, especially in North America, we see it a lot in the United States of America. We see it a lot in predominantly first world countries, Canada, is that we are using too much screen time and there's a lot of reasons why this is not healthy for you.
Number one, you retention rate goes down as an individual because the screen time is moving so fast. That now individuals can no longer just have normal conversations because after eight seconds, they've already are [00:21:00] bored, right? Because there's overstimulation coming from devices. The second thing is the comparison gain.
You gotta remember that a lot of social media is not real, or it's filtered or it's cut. Especially in today's world, it's AI generated and so many individuals are comparing themselves to something that's not, let's not humanistic, and then we lose confidence. We feel down about ourselves, we get into like a state of depression because we think we need to be what we see on the screen.
And most of the time it's not real. Now, if you have high self-confidence, then sometimes that's an okay thing because comparison fuels you. So for me, when I see things on social media. Uh, because of my confidence, I'm able to say, well, I can do that, and then it fuels me to go do it. Most people cannot.
It's the opposite. It makes them feel bad about themselves, but we have to remember that what we're seeing for the most part is completely filtered. And the the [00:22:00] third thing that I would say is the consumption. When we have so much consumption and stimulation from the waves of the screen. It puts us in reactive mode versus a response mode.
So that's why there's so many people I just read, um, a study the other day because we were talking about. This in one of our trainees, almost 60% of individuals are on autopilot day in and day out, 60%. So that means that the majority of individuals every single day, they're just in an autopilot mode, in a reactive mode versus a present active mode where they can be, um, really fully present and have the capacity for the people and the children and the family that's around them.
All of those things impact our mental health. It's not a coincidence that ever since technology has really ramped up that our young adults have had more depression, more anxiety, more stress, more suicide than we have ever seen in our life, in our [00:23:00] lifetime. And that's because they're comparing themselves to things that aren't real.
Parenting is no longer just parenting. Like back in my day booth, I had my parents influence and my teachers. Right now, today, parents have to compete with whatever's on social media. They have to compete with what's on YouTube. And so it's like there's a whole other level that's raising your children that can really impact their mental health and wellbeing as a citizen, as they get older.
Booth: Agree. I, as a mom of a, of a teenager, like there's just so much thrown at them. it can be overwhelming for sure. One of my favorite quotes that. You said repeatedly, not just in your book, but the quote is, the greatest tragedy is wasted human potential. Tell us your thought process behind that quote.
Nada: Thank you. yeah, I, I don't even know where that came from. I i's my quote, but I'm trying to remember how it just came out of me. I just know that a [00:24:00] lot of people ask me, booth, why do I do what I do? And ever since I was a young girl, even before I started this company, I've always been that friend that said, if I can do it, you can do it.
Like just put your best foot forward, even when I was in high school. And so I actually really feel a lot of pain when I see that the majority of people are not pushing their potential simply just because they don't feel like they're enough. It's not because they don't have the skills, it's not because they don't have the resources, it's simply because they don't love themselves enough and they don't feel enough as a person.
And that just breaks my heart and my team and I, every year we do research booth, 83% of the professionals that we work with, and we assess four to 5,000 a year. Okay, so this isn't small numbers. Four to 5,000 professionals that we ask every year. 83% say that their number one challenge is self-confidence, and it just breaks my heart because I think.[00:25:00]
How much better would the world be if more of us loved ourselves and took care of ourselves and, you know, followed our dreams and took the action that we wanted to take and went after what, what we wanted? Because we truly believed that we were enough. And so I remember one day thinking like. Dad, this is just such a tragedy.
Such a tragedy. And out of that came the quote, the greatest tragedy today is wasted human potential. Because most of us live in a mindset of, I'm not enough. That
Booth: is so great. And so many people think that and they just, they're, they're limiting themselves. It's the limited belief. It all comes, it all comes full circle.
So we were talking just a minute ago about the overcoming the perfectionist mindset. We were talking about action, and you believe action is key to reaching that full potential that we were just talking about.
Nada: Yeah.
Booth: For me, I, I'm a planner, but planning without action is merely just showing interest [00:26:00] in doing something.
Right. So tell us why the actual commitment showing up, taking action is the key.
Nada: Um, John Asraf, if anyone's familiar, I did an interview with him, uh, I think when I say like a couple years ago now, and he said something that I borrow all the time because it just, the way he said it was perfect. And you alluded to it, booth, it's, there's a difference between interest and committed.
Interest is a thought. Hey, I'm interested in that guy. I'm interested in that girl. Committed requires action and consistency. Committed is, okay, I'm going to do something to make sure I can get the result. Many individuals live in an interested state of mind. We need to get into a commitment state of mind, but it goes back to the four Bs that we talk about because action is a behavior and so many of us never take the action because of the beliefs that we have in our head.
Well, what if I do this? What if I fail? What if people make fun of me? What if I put that [00:27:00] video out on social media and it doesn't sound good? And it only gets one? Like, and so because of the beliefs that we have in our mind, it cripples us from taking the action, right? I always say that between action and the belief is the resistance.
There's a res, there's a wall of resistance that comes up in order to take action, and that resistance is usually our thought process and our patterns. And so in order for us to truly be successful in all areas of our life. Action is where the activation happens. That's where your life gets to that next level.
And if we don't ever take the action, I always say that all your knowledge goes to waste. I say you can have all the degrees in the world, you can have all the knowledge, you can be the smartest person in the room. You can have the best business in the room, but if you aren't taking action to put it out there, all of that greatness is just gonna sit on the shelf.
And eventually it's gonna get dusty, and it's gonna rot away. And it will, it will not serve you.
Booth: And I love where you said [00:28:00] consistency in that being consistent with those actions, that's it just builds and builds and it just keeps getting better. So women, I'm gonna go back to kind of women alone on this one.
Women tend to allow their emotions to get in the way of their decision making. Tell us why self-awareness is so important and how women can kind of. Become more self aware and then be more thoughtful with their decision making.
Nada: Yeah, absolutely. So this is really where emotional and social intelligence come into play.
So, um, I, I kind of wanna break this down from a male and a female perspective, if you'll allow me to booth. Absolutely. Emotional intelligence is the number one skill we need to cultivate as individuals. Every organization, every professional should, should tap into it. And it's the number one program that we have here at the company now, men and women.
Show that emotional intelligence that they are better in some areas than [00:29:00] others. So for example, men are pretty strong when it comes to self-confidence, which is in the first pillar of emotional intelligence. Okay? Women tend to struggle there. Men typically struggle in the third pillar of emotional intelligence, which is, uh, empathy.
Right. Empathy and being more service oriented. Men typically struggle there. Women tend to be pretty good in being able to show empathy and and active listening. I'm generalizing, obviously based off of research, right? But this is what we see. We see that men are stronger in some areas. Women are stronger in other areas, but overall, we should all be building our emotional and social intelligence, which basically allows us to figure out.
When should I use emotion? When should I use a logic and how do I manage it so that it serves the entire situation versus, um, creates tension, disruption, um, and problems in a situation? So when it comes to emotional intelligence, self-awareness is [00:30:00] the very first pillar booth, as you mentioned, because we can't, we can't work with others.
We can't manage ourselves if we don't even know what to change and what's happening. 95% of leaders think they're self-aware. Only 10% actually are. So many of us have blind spots. We don't know how we're showing up. We don't even know what the emotion is that we're feeling. If I were to ask somebody to label their emotion, they would say, well, I'm upset.
And I would say, well, there's not a lot of information in that. Can you tell me more? They wouldn't be able to. We have over a hundred feelings, and so the more self-awareness we build, the more we're able to say. I feel upset because I'm frustrated by the meeting that we just had. In that meeting. I felt that I was ignored.
I felt that I was negated, and I felt that my voice was not heard, and I'm really upset by that. Awesome. Now I know what to do from here, because you communicated in a way that was self-aware, that was clear, and that had vocabulary to the [00:31:00] emotions, and many individuals struggle with that. So self-awareness is really that first step of how do I feel?
What is it that I'm feeling? Am I showing up the way I think I am? So is my perception of myself accurate in the world that's around me? And do I have the self-confidence to believe in myself? Those three are all in the first pillar of self-awareness.
Booth: That was, that was really, really great. 'cause a lot of times it kind of goes back to that perception that we talked about.
You perceive things wrong and then your emotion because of that is the incorrect one to have for the situation. So.
Nada: Yeah, and it's, it's not even that it's incorrect. It's that it's go back, it goes back to the communication, the passive communication is that we've made an assumption. And so we're creating these feelings based off of what we think is happening versus off of what is really happening.
And so emotional intelligence would be, I'm feeling this way right now. Can we have [00:32:00] a conversation around like what's really happening and get information and clarity. And then from there, your emotions are either gonna say, okay, cool. Yeah, that's not what I thought it was. I, I was getting all frustrated and, and now I understand and I've been able to deescalate the situation.
When we don't have that vocabulary and we don't have assertive communication, this is where we start to go in a, in a whirlwind, in a spiral, I call it. And then we have an emotion, we have a trigger, we have a behavior, and then we have an emotion, and then a behavior, an emotion, and a behavior. And before you know it, you've said these things, you've done these things, and then you're like, oh, why did I do that?
I, yeah. Then the regret comes in. But it all
Booth: goes back to that assertive Yes. Communication. Yeah, absolutely. So women also tend to lean into consumerism and consumption of that consumerism in a way to feel accepted. How can they break free of that mindset and [00:33:00] recognize they are enough, simply as they are.
Nada: Yeah, I, I, I'll take it back to the first strategy, the four Bs, because consumerism, we call it enough, is a behavior, right? And you kind of alluded to it, it's a behavior attached to some kind of belief that they have, that they need to maybe show up in a certain way or they want people to see them in a certain way.
And so the question is, if you find yourself over consuming and consuming things that you really don't need, the question is why. So going back to like, what's the belief that's attached to the behavior of consistently consuming, if you say, well, it just makes me feel great, well then why does it make you feel great?
We gotta really get to the core of it because enough is, is also the same. There's two types of eism. There's enough when it comes to consumerism, where we have found that people will buy and buy and buy and buy and buy to fill something to fill a gap. But the more they buy. The more they struggle because [00:34:00] they realize that they're not filling a gap, but they're just continuing to build a bunch of junk and stuff.
And it's the same thing that happens from a mental perspective. Enough is, is when we keep trying to seek external validation, but no matter how much external validation we get, we still don't feel enough. Right? And so there's this enough is concept. And so I really encourage women. And men that if you find yourself consuming, buying a bunch of stuff and doing all these things, ask yourself why.
What's the reasoning behind it? Are you trying to look good in front of individuals? Did you come from a background where you were less fortunate and now you have money? And so there's a scarcity mindset, you know? So those are the questions that we need to be asking ourselves. Those are great questions
Booth: to ask yourself and do a little inward reflection on, and it's gonna kind of lead into this one.
So optimism is obviously a great trait to have for building confidence, but you [00:35:00] talk about how you need to make sure it's realistic. So how do you align the optimism with the realism?
Nada: Yeah, that's a really great, I call that toxic positivity when we're constantly, and we've seen it a lot in the past few years of like, everything's amazing.
Be positive, be positive, but that's, that's not real and it's not authentic. So realistic optimism is being able to see the sun in a challenging situation, but not ignoring the challenge itself. So it's being able to say. This is really challenging. Here's the obstacle. Here's the things that we see that can hinder our success or whatever the situation is, but we can move through it.
Here's how we can move through it, or let's work together to solve it. So I'm not ignoring the fact that it's a challenge, right? I'm not gaslighting the challenge, right? A lot of times people gaslight the challenge, like everything's amazing, everything's, and they pretend that it doesn't exist, versus being able to say, Hey, this, it does exist.
This is a crappy [00:36:00] situation, and. We are resilient. We can get through this. Let's stay positive. Let's find solutions and let's move forward. That's the optimist, the optimism that we want. We want that not only as a person, but we also want that as an organization and with our teams.
Booth: So we constantly hear the word purpose.
It's, it's everywhere. It's kind of one of those trendy buzzwords. And you prefer the word meaning. So what do you define as the difference between the buzzword purpose and meaning?
Nada: I love this question because everybody has purpose. Everyone has purpose. The question is whether or not that person thinks there's meaning in the purpose.
Okay? So I'll give you a simple example. Let's say you have an uh, an executive assistant at a company, right? That individual has purpose. The purpose is for you to be the executive assistant of the company to help with admin tasks, support, whatever that is. But that executive [00:37:00] assistant might say, well, I don't have purpose.
And you would say, no, you actually do have purpose, but the purpose that you have doesn't provide meaning to you. And those are two very different things. And so we've heard for so long, I need purpose. I need purpose, I need purpose. But the actuality is that the. Person needs to find meaning in what they're doing.
That's what they need to find. But we all have purpose. It's just a matter of whether or not it means something to you and whether or not you feel like you're thriving and fulfilling in that particular function.
Booth: And that meaning is gonna be different for everyone. So you have to define what's yours.
Nada: Yeah, absolutely.
Booth: So in your first book, you reference one of my all time favorite quotes, and I say it all the time and I've used it in some of my own speaking engagements and things. It's by Jim Rohn and it's, you are the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Why do you think the people we are closest to make [00:38:00] such a difference in our lives?
Nada: Yeah, I, I kind of compare it to social media. I know we talked about it a little bit earlier, but people carry energy and people are actually one of the top confidence crushers or confidence enhancers, depending on what kind of energy and who they are. So if you have people around you that are putting you down that don't really want you to be successful, that have negative energy, that are constantly in a victim mindset, that energy is gonna pour into you and you will become that.
Have you ever sat with somebody or a friend or gone to lunch with somebody and after you met with them and had lunch, you were completely drained? And you thought, oh my gosh, I am exhausted. And not in a good way, not because you had fun, but just because it was so mentally draining and energetically draining, right?
The vampire suckers . And so it's important, especially if you're trying to build confidence, especially if you're trying to get to the next level in your life and push your [00:39:00] potential. That you surround yourself with people that are also moving in that same direction, that you're surrounded by people that want to see you succeed, that believe in you, that are not gonna hold you back.
That also have a growth mindset because you become what you are around. And if you're in that negative space, that's what you will play to. I always say it takes just as much energy to play small as it does to play big, but if we have a lot of people around us that are playing small, we eventually will stay there.
Booth: Absolutely. I, I've always loved that one, so I loved your explanation of it. So, one last question You encourage people to build a life they are proud of. You said that was one of the reasons behind your Scandinavia trip. Yes. And that, that life is dependent on how someone feels and thinks about themselves and, and all of those things.
What is your last encouragement? I know you love golden nuggets, so what is your golden nugget for our listeners to take away on building a life they [00:40:00] are proud of?
Nada: Yeah. Building a life that you are proud of. I'm a firm believer that you absolutely can have it all. You can have a life. I always say that's happy, healthy, wealthy, sexy and wiser.
You know, whatever you want it to be, you can have that life. But at the end of the day, it's up to us to take our power back, to make those decisions, and to help nurture the life that we wanna build and the life that we wanna become. At the end of the day, the person is the professional, and the professional is the person.
And in order to truly build a life that you are proud of. You have to cultivate all aspects of yourself. That's your self worth, your career, your romantic relationships, the community and family that you have around you, your health, this body that you're in, and the money you can have it all. It is completely possible.
I.
Booth: I love that. Fantastic. I'm gonna use a little buzzword again. live our best lives. But it is so, true, and this has been such a fantastic interview. I've made little notes as we've been [00:41:00] talking, just so fantastic. So many takeaways for our listeners on their self-worth and their confidence.
I will link your website to your books and your coaching and all of those things in the show notes for our listeners to go get. More information and be able to connect with you, but thank you so much for your time today.
Nada: Absolutely. I appreciate it, blue. Thank you so much and hopefully I'll hear from all of you.
Send me a little message on LinkedIn or Instagram. I do my own social media, so I'll follow back up. Okay, sounds great. Thanks again. Have a great afternoon. [00:42:00]