Be Freaking Awesome Podcast

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You second-guess the email. Then the decision. Then the version of you who made it. Somewhere along the way you stopped believing your own judgment, and now every choice feels like a risk you can't afford. Here's what nobody tells you: self-trust was never about being right.

This week Sami and Angela dig into the belief "I don't trust myself," one of the seven core beliefs behind Angela's Invisible Edge work, and one that grew out of a talk Sami gave at this year's Women in Tech conference about how to build self-trust and why it leads to better innovation. They talk about what self-trust actually is (and isn't), how it erodes through a single event or through a slow series of small ones, and why perfectionism and overwork are two of its loudest warning lights. Angela's jello metaphor gives you a picture of how trust sets over time, and Sami's story about trees that fall over without wind gives you a reason to let the hard things happen. In this episode, we dig into:

• Relief from believing you have to be right to trust yourself
• A way to take the next step even when you don't have all the answers
• A new way to see the harsh voice in your head as the thing eroding your trust
• Permission to keep trusting your judgment after someone hurts you
• Small, low-stakes ways to start rebuilding self-trust this week

Angela explains that self-trust is not being right all the time or having perfect confidence, it's a deep knowing that you can handle it when you're wrong (not if, when). Sami describes what it looks like from the inside: not having all the answers but knowing who to ask, flying by the seat of your pants and trusting you'll survive the fall, and sometimes stepping away for 90 seconds of deep breathing before coming back to the conversation. They talk about repair and why the first relationship to repair is the one with yourself, and Angela asks the question that stings: which is worse, how you talk to yourself or how your critics talk to you? Sami shares what her therapist recently asked her (what if your discernment was right and someone still hurt you?) and how she's working to get that from head knowledge to heart knowledge. Angela brings the image of a 12-year-old version of you grabbing the wheel when things feel dangerous, and a reminder that doing your best on a tired day still counts.

Here's what you get to walk away with: you can doubt yourself and still trust yourself. A bad outcome does not prove bad judgment. You don't need a perfect plan, just enough trust to survive the attempt, and you can start with something as small as deciding to eat breakfast. And on the days you need it, you're invited to borrow Sami and Angela's belief in you.

If you've been waiting to feel certain before you move, press play now. You might find out you don't need to.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Sami's Women in Tech conference talk on building self-trust and innovation (link needed, the conference was not named in the episode and could not be verified online)
• Biosphere 2 (the enclosed-dome experiment where full-grown trees fell over without wind): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere_2

Related episodes:

• EP245 What Your Social Media Feed Says About How You Feel About Yourself
• EP229 Making Friends with The Younger Version of You
• EP224 Guilt That Helps and Guilt That Haunts
• EP94 The Seven Core Beliefs Part 2: I Trust Myself, I Have What it Takes, I Belong, and I am Enough

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You pick up your phone to check one thing. Twenty minutes later you're a little more tired, a little more behind, and somehow lonelier than when you started. Nobody told you the scroll would do that. Maybe it didn't. Maybe it just showed you something that was already there.

This week Sami and Angela get very literal and talk about social media itself: how they actually use it, how much time they actually spend on it, and how to have a healthier relationship with it without deleting everything and moving to a cabin. Sami shares what happened during her family's week-long technology fast, when she kept opening an app she had blocked on purpose without even noticing. Angela explains why, after 18 years in marketing, she thinks of social media as work, and why she reminds herself that if something is free, you are the product. They also get into the highlight reel problem, how to stop comparing your behind-the-scenes to everyone else's best moments, and what your feed might be telling you about the beliefs you're already carrying. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to keep social media in your life without letting it run your life
• One question that interrupts the mindless scroll: who is making money from me feeling this way?
• Relief from measuring your real life against everyone else's highlight reel
• A new way to see your feed as a mirror that shows which belief is loudest right now
• A two-tap switch that gives you a feed of just your people

Sami tells the story of opening Instagram three times in a row during her tech fast before realizing the app was blocked and she was the one reaching for it. Angela shares that her most-used app is a Tetris-style block game (20 hours last week, and she calls it her sleep hygiene technique), and her "if you don't like the cake coming out of the oven, check the ingredients" rule for what she lets into her life. Sami talks about a friend whose Disney World photos looked perfect while the trip itself was one of the hardest of her life. Angela shares what she tells a client who wished she had a big friend group, what happened when she posted openly about a vacation argument, and the study that found limiting social media to 10 minutes a day for three weeks cut loneliness and depression in college students. Sami closes with a pet peeve about two little words ("I saw") that she would like everyone to retire.

Here's what you get to walk away with: you don't have to quit to feel better, and you're not weak for losing time to the scroll. If a feed leaves you feeling less than, that's information, not a verdict. It may be pointing at an "I'm not enough" or an "I don't belong" that's worth looking at. And Angela previews next week's belief, "I don't trust myself," so stay tuned.

If you've ever closed the app feeling worse than when you opened it, press play before your next scroll.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Anxious Generation by Jonathan Haidt: https://www.anxiousgeneration.com/book
• The Next Right Thing by Emily P. Freeman: https://emilypfreeman.com/next-right-thing-book/
• Study on limiting social media and loneliness and depression, Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology (2018): https://guilfordjournals.com/doi/10.1521/jscp.2018.37.10.751
• Gary Ware's Friday Funnies (link needed, could not verify online)

Related episodes:

• EP244 How to Tell What's Covertly Running Your Life
• EP243 How a Bad Day in Seventh Grade Still Runs Your Life
• EP71 Embracing Life’s Seasons: Finding Joy and Living a “Freaking Awesome” Life
• EP74 Are we really an average of the five people we spend the most time with?

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You had the idea. You felt the words forming. And then you watched the moment pass while you waited to see which way the room was leaning. Afterward you told yourself it was timing. It wasn't timing. Something much older was deciding for you.

Last week Sami and Angela talked about why the word "beliefs" doesn't quite land, even though the patterns underneath it are running the show. This week they get practical. They walk through the seven belief themes that tend to show up at work, from people pleasing and imposter syndrome to perfectionism and never feeling like you can rest, using the self-assessment Sami built for a team training. Angela's dirt road image (grooves that turn into ruts when the weather gets bad) gives you a way to see why you keep sliding back into the same patterns. In this episode, we dig into:

• Language for the quiet feeling behind people pleasing, imposter syndrome, and perfectionism
• Clarity on the difference between feeling worthy and feeling valuable
• Permission to carry one belief at work and a completely different one at home
• A new way to see why you stay quiet in meetings (it is rarely just one reason)
• A self-assessment you can download to see which patterns are loudest for you

Sami walks through what each theme sounds like on an ordinary Tuesday: avoiding the conversation you know will create tension, downplaying praise with "it was really the team, guys," saying yes when you're already at capacity, delaying a decision until you feel certain, checking with everyone before a call that's yours to make, and spending more time perfecting work than sharing it. Angela explains why worthy and valuable are not the same thing (one is that you're breathing, the other is your contribution), why "I'm not capable" became "I don't have what it takes," and how "even if they reject me, I belong to me" changed the way she walks into a room. They also share the real networking opener, and it takes about ten seconds.

Here's what you get to walk away with: you are not the only one with this running in the background, and these patterns may have served you well for a long time. Awareness is a good start. The behavior people see is only the outward expression, and the motivation underneath is internal, which means it's work you're invited to do but nobody can do for you. And nobody else gets to decide you're unlovable or that you don't belong.

If you've ever left a meeting replaying what you didn't say, press play now. You might finally find out why.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Invisible Edge: What Fuels Your Success Might Be What Limits It by Angela Belford: https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/
• The belief self-assessment (download it from the podcast page at bfreakingawesome.com) (direct link needed, could not verify online): https://bfreakingawesome.com

Related episodes:

• EP243 How a Bad Day in Seventh Grade Still Runs Your Life
• EP208 Stop Waiting for Permission to Belong
• EP239 What If Belonging Is a Decision and Not a Feeling

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You don't think you have limiting beliefs. Most people don't. You're not walking around consciously telling yourself you're not enough, or that nobody can be trusted, or that you have to do everything alone. But ask what happens the second you make a mistake. What's the voice in your head? Is it kind? Or does it tear you apart? That's the tell.

This week Sami and Angela get into why the term "limiting beliefs" doesn't actually land with most people, even though the patterns underneath it are running the show for almost everyone. They talk about the reticular activating system, why the opposite of perfectionism isn't mediocrity, how a single moment in childhood can send two people down completely different paths, and why you can't force healing before you actually have the capacity for it. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to not recognize the term "limiting belief" and still have one quietly running the show
• A different way to hear the voice in your head after you mess something up
• Why the opposite of perfectionism isn't mediocrity, it's kindness at an appropriate standard
• Clarity on why you can't just will yourself to heal before you're actually ready
• Freedom from believing your current stress response is just "how life is"

Angela walks through her favorite example of how these patterns actually form: two kids get laughed at in seventh grade, and one decides never to raise a hand again while the other becomes a stand-up comic, same event, completely different meaning attached to it. She also breaks down how a simple missed carton of milk can spiral into a full blown fight depending on what belief is quietly running underneath it. And Sami gets vulnerable about a genuinely hard week in therapy, the difference between how she handled conflict nine years ago versus now, and the metaphor that's carried her through it, a canoe on the river of life, where you can only clear the log directly in front of you.

Here's the permission this episode hands you: you don't have to already believe you have limiting beliefs to have real freedom waiting for you. You just have to get curious about the voice in your head after a mistake. And if you're in a season where you're tired, short, or running on a low tank because you're finally doing the work, that's not falling behind. That's proof it's the right time.

If you've ever caught yourself "shoulding" on yourself, telling yourself you should have handled something sooner, or that you shouldn't feel the way you feel, this episode is for you. Press play now. You don't have to fix every log in the river today. Just the one in front of you.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Be Freaking Awesome by Angela Belford — https://bfreakingawesome.com/product/be-freaking-awesome/
• Traveling Light: Free Yourself from the Crap in Your Head by Angela Belford — https://www.amazon.com/Traveling-Light-Free-Yourself-Crap/dp/0999186221
• The Invisible Edge: What Fuels Your Success Might Be What Limits It by Angela Belford — https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You know the feeling. Someone says one thing in a meeting and you're still pacing the hallway twenty minutes later. Your family leaves their socks on the floor for the hundredth time and suddenly it feels like a referendum on whether they respect you. You snap, you spiral, you rehearse the argument in the shower. And afterward you wonder, was any of that actually worth it?

This week Sami and Angela get into what emotional resilience actually looks like day to day, not the version where nothing ever bothers you, but the version where you know how to reset and how to tell which fights are actually yours to fight. They talk through the rule of five, a decision tool Sami taught at a Family Business Forum that people are still using months later (their spouses too), what it means to hold onto your own remote control, and the real difference between picking a battle and setting a boundary. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to stop treating every disagreement like it's life or death
• A simple filter for deciding if something is actually worth your energy
• Why letting go of a fight isn't the same as letting someone treat you badly
• A different way to think about who's really holding the remote control to your mood
• Clarity on the difference between boundaries you set with yourself and battles you pick with other people

Angela shares how she's evolved from needing everyone around her to meet her own standard of excellence to a hard-won "not my circus, not my monkeys," plus the sock-picking-up story from Loving What Is that reshaped how she thinks about arguing with reality. Sami gets vulnerable about a genuinely rocky year in her marriage, and how she turned a painful, high-stakes conversation with her husband into a plain math equation instead of a fight, here's what changed, here's what's fixed, here's the one thing that's actually still flexible. And Angela talks about the battles she does choose to pick, the ones tied to justice and to people who can't advocate for themselves yet.

Here's the permission this episode hands you: you don't have to fight everything to be strong, and letting something go doesn't mean you're a pushover. You get to decide what deserves twenty minutes of pacing and what doesn't. You get to hold a standard for how you're treated without raging at anyone to enforce it. That's not coldness. That's resilience.

If you've been exhausted by your own reactions lately, or you're standing at the edge of a conversation you've been avoiding because you're not sure it's worth the conflict, this episode gives you an actual filter to run it through. Press play now. You don't have to hand over your remote control to figure this out.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Loving What Is by Byron Katie — https://thework.com/loving-what-is-revised-edition/

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You already know the feeling. The conversation you keep rehearsing in the shower. The ask you keep almost sending. The version of yourself you keep not quite showing. You tell yourself you're waiting until you know how it'll go. But you're not actually waiting for information. You're waiting to feel safe. And that's a very different thing.

This week Sami and Angela pull apart something they've been circling for years and finally have a name for: our brains aren't wired to make us happy, they're wired to make accurate predictions. Certainty isn't a personality quirk, it's a survival mechanism, and understanding that changes how you work with your own fear of the unknown, your resistance to hard conversations, and the risk you keep talking yourself out of taking. They get into conflict resilience, nervous system regulation, why courage only shows up when you're not certain, and a visualization technique that trains your brain the same way physical practice does. In this episode, we dig into:

• Why your body treats “I don't know what happens next” as a survival threat, not a character flaw
• Permission to feel terrified and call it courage anyway
• A simple reframe for worst-case-scenario thinking that actually calms your nervous system down
• Why the harshest voice in an uncertain moment is usually your own, not anyone else's
• A visualization practice Angela used to manifest a car at 23 that works on much bigger things too

Angela tells the story of a client who had to have a hard conversation with a family member about buying the family business, and how role-playing the worst version of that conversation in advance let his body learn it could survive it before he ever had it for real. Sami shares the moment they accidentally cracked open someone's whole self-worth question with one offhand question, and unpacks the “what's the most unrealistic worst case, now what's the realistic worst case” reframe they use with clients. And Angela gets specific about the visualization work that got her the Mary Kay car at 23, the same mental rehearsal she now teaches clients to use for conversations they're dreading, not just goals they're chasing.

Here's the permission this episode hands you: you don't have to feel certain you'll survive something to have the courage to do it. You just have to be willing to find out. Growth doesn't require you to already know the outcome, it requires you to trust that you've survived one hundred percent of everything you've faced so far, which, if you're listening to this right now, you have. Some growth is a gentle uphill walk. Some of it is scaling a wall. Both count.

If you've been sitting at the edge of a hard conversation, a big ask, or a version of yourself you haven't let anyone see yet, waiting to feel ready first, this is the episode that tells you why you're stuck and what to do about it. Press play now. Your nervous system doesn't need certainty. It just needs proof it can survive.

Mentioned in this episode:

• Be Freaking Awesome by Angela Belford — https://bfreakingawesome.com/product/be-freaking-awesome/

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You know the feeling of finally setting a boundary and immediately regretting how good it feels, mixed with the guilt of knowing someone you love is annoyed with you over it. Or maybe you've never let yourself get there, because disappointing people you love has always felt like the one thing you're not allowed to do.

This week Sami brings a book to the table she hasn't been able to stop talking about since she read it, The Courage to Be Disliked, and it cracks open the difference between two schools of psychological thought that quietly shape how most of us explain our own lives. Freud's theory says you are who you are because of what happened to you. Adler's theory says you are who you are because of what you're moving toward, the goals underneath your behavior right now. It sounds academic until you feel how much weight it takes off, or how much responsibility it hands back to you, depending on the day. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to let your past explain you without letting it define what happens next
• A new way to think about why a hard childhood trained you instead of ruining you
• Clarity on the difference between the goal you think you're chasing and the one you're actually chasing
• Language for setting a boundary that will disappoint people who are used to you always saying yes
• A simple daily question that shifts you from chasing everyone's approval to chasing your own

Angela traces her own theory in real time, from living in four different family situations and attending eight schools by second grade, to deciding that becoming excellent at making friends, reading people, and living an unmistakably good life was the best answer she had for anyone who'd ever hurt her. She and Sami test Adler's harder claim, that every problem is fundamentally an interpersonal problem, against something as personal as feeling inferior and something as heavy as hunger. Angela also shares a conversation with a friend who grew up the way she did, about giving your own kids a safety net neither of you ever had, and why that deserves to feel good instead of guilty. And Sami gets honest about the moment she realized Be Freaking Awesome had technically already met her stated goal of bringing in income, without that goal actually being the real one, and how naming the true goal underneath it changed her motivation overnight. She also shares the very current example of finally telling her extended family she's done being the one who plans every trip, and choosing peace over everyone's approval.

If you've spent years explaining yourself by what happened to you, this conversation offers a gentler and more useful question: what are you actually trying to become? And if disappointing someone you love has felt like proof you did something wrong, this episode makes the case that it might just be proof you finally started living for your own approval instead of everyone else's.

Press play on this one, especially if you're in the middle of deciding whether to keep doing something out of habit, or to finally name what you actually want instead.

Related Episodes

• EP236 — When the People Who Loved the Old You Don't Like the New You: Angela references this one directly in the episode. Same throughline, continued: growing into a new version of yourself will cost you some relationships, and that's survivable.
• EP211 — Disappointing Met Expectations: The other side of Sami's realization this week. What happens when you technically hit your stated goal and it still feels hollow, because it was never actually the real goal.
• EP148 — Setting Personal Boundaries: The fuller toolkit behind Sami's decision to stop being the default planner for her family's trip.

Mentioned in this episode:

• The Courage to Be Disliked by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga — https://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Courage-to-Be-Disliked/Ichiro-Kishimi/9781668065969
• Bessel van der Kolk, quoted on trauma in this episode, author of The Body Keeps the Score — https://www.besselvanderkolk.com/resources/the-body-keeps-the-score
• Byron Katie, The Work and Loving What Is — https://thework.com/loving-what-is-revised-edition/
• Angela's book, The Invisible Edge, referenced as a comparable leadership fable — https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You're tired of being the one who plans the get-together, sends the first text, remembers the birthday. Some weeks you wonder if anyone would even notice if you just stopped.

Sami and Angela almost didn't record this episode. They'd both been independently reading books this week, one on persuasion, one on ritual, and when they sat down to debrief with each other before the show, they realized both books had landed in the exact same place. So this week is a little different: a real-time debrief on what they're each thinking about right now, and how it all keeps circling back to one word. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to stop keeping score of who reached out last
• A new way to think about why shaming someone for their opinion rarely changes it
• Language for setting a boundary with a friend who wants more than you have to give
• Why unresolved abandonment can make “everyone eventually leaves” feel like proof instead of fear
• A simple decision that changes whether you walk into a room like a guest or a host

Angela shares the speech she gave as she stepped into the presidency of the League of Women Voters of Arkansas, built around joy as an act of rebellion, radical nonpartisanship, and belonging, and traces it back to a moment with Bob Goff around a fire pit, and to her own TED Talk on community as the solution to homelessness. Sami digs into the book How Minds Change and a conversation with a friend who believes people with the wrong opinions should be shamed until they come around, and shares research on why that approach almost never works, including the story of a 9/11 “truther” who only left the group once he found belonging somewhere else. Angela's own book, A Time to Gather, has her thinking about ritual and celebration as the original technology of community, and Kendra Adachi's opening and closing ceremonies for each season come up as a simple way to build more of that into ordinary life. And Sami tells the harder story underneath all of it: a friend who accused her of being a bad friend for not reaching out, during a season when Sami had two small kids, a miscarriage, a high-risk pregnancy, and COVID pneumonia, and had nothing left to give.

If you've ever been the one who's tired of initiating, or the one who got blamed for a friendship going quiet during the hardest season of your life, this conversation gives you permission to set that boundary without deciding you're a bad friend. And if belonging still feels like something other people hand out, Angela's host energy exercise is a simple, repeatable way to just decide it for yourself instead.

Press play on this one. Whether you're the initiator who's running low, or the one waiting to feel like you belong before you show up fully, there's something here for you.

Related Episodes

• EP208 — Guest Energy vs. Host Energy: The concept Angela revisits and deepens in this episode, now applied to walking into a room of strangers as the new League of Women Voters president instead of a networking event.
• EP104 — Abandonment and the “I Belong” Belief: The direct backstory for Angela's line that unresolved abandonment wounds make it harder to trust people and easier to believe you don't belong.
• EP63 — Why Friendship Matters for Longevity: The “five people you spend the most time with” episode Sami references directly in this one. Start here for the fuller take on proximity and friendship tiers.

Mentioned in this episode:

• How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion by David McRaney — https://www.davidmcraney.com/howmindschangehome
• A Time to Gather: How Ritual Created the World, and How It Can Save Us by Bruce Feiler — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/738772/a-time-to-gather-by-bruce-feiler/
• The Small and the Mighty by Sharon McMahon — https://sharonmcmahon.com/book
• The Lazy Genius Way by Kendra Adachi — https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/608850/the-lazy-genius-way-by-kendra-adachi/
• Angela's TED Talk, CommUNITY Is the Solution to Homelessness — https://www.ted.com/talks/angela_belford_community_is_the_solution_to_homelessness
• Angela's book, The Invisible Edge — https://bfreakingawesome.com/the-invisible-edge-preorder/

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].

Send us Fan Mail

You've got a story you've been sitting on, the one that feels too small, too messy, or too “someone's already talked about this” to bother sharing. What if that's exactly the one worth telling?

Sami and Angela get into why storytelling matters this week, and it's not the pep talk you'd expect. The story you tell about what happened to you shapes who you become more than the event itself does. Sharing your story helps you actually notice your own growth instead of only fixating on how far you still have to go. And hearing that somebody else survived something similar can be the exact thing that breaks someone else's sense of being alone in it. In this episode, we dig into:

• Permission to tell a story even if you think everyone's already heard some version of it
• Why the story you tell about what happened to you matters more than the thing itself
• A simple weekly practice for noticing your own growth before you forget it happened
• Language for supporting a friend's hard day without turning it into a competition
• Why listening to your kid's tiny stories now is what earns you their big ones later

Angela and Sami debate Freudian versus Adlerian psychology by way of the book The Courage to Be Disliked, then unpack the “two-ounce cup, forty-four-ounce cup” metaphor for meeting people where their actual capacity is instead of turning pain into a contest. Somewhere in the middle of it all, Sami's four-year-old decides that lipstick means it's meeting time, and the logic somehow checks out.

If you've ever held a story back because you assumed it wasn't dramatic enough to matter, this episode makes the case that sharing it isn't bragging or oversharing. It's connection. And recognizing your own growth, instead of only measuring the gap between here and your goal, is its own reward.

Press play on this one, and then go tell somebody one of your stories. Even the small ones.

Related Episodes

• EP191 — Own Your Story, Build Your Brand (with Sara Losey): the episode Angela and Sami reference by name in this one, the deeper dive into storytelling as both a connection tool and a business skill.
• EP144 — Replacing Limiting Beliefs: for more on the idea that the story you tell yourself about what happened matters more than the event itself, this episode unpacks the mechanics behind it.
• EP64 — The Belonging Belief ("I Belong"): the flip side of this week's third reason for storytelling, why hearing that someone else survived something similar is often what breaks the feeling of being alone in it.

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

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You've said what you need. You've been clear. And now you're just... waiting. Watching to see if anything actually changes. Sound familiar?

This week picks up where last week left off. If growth can make the people around you uncomfortable, what do you do when you're the one waiting on somebody else, a spouse, a business partner, a friend, to do their own growing? Sami and Angela dig into the messy, undefined stretch between naming a need and having it met, and what to actually do with yourself while you wait. In this episode, we dig into:

• Two questions to ask yourself when you're stuck in the “wait and see” phase (one of which isn't “what do you want”)
• Why the hardest part of change isn't the first apology, it's the eighteenth one
• A working definition of boundaries that has nothing to do with controlling anyone else's behavior
• Permission to take a break from a friendship without a dramatic goodbye
• A reminder that patience during this waiting period is doing more work than it feels like it is

Angela tells the real, thirteen-year-old story of telling her husband she had healed as far as she could inside their marriage, and how it took him months (and his first pair of bifocals) to actually decide to change for himself instead of for her. Sami brings in the “start, stop, continue” framework from her team-building workshops as a practical tool for anyone stuck on the question “what do you actually want.”

If you're in the middle of this waiting room right now, this episode gives you a way to track whether the gap between an old pattern showing up and someone catching themselves is actually shrinking, and permission to hang on a little longer if it is, or let a relationship go quiet without setting it on fire if it isn't.

Press play on this one if you're stuck watching to see whether someone else is actually going to change. You don't have to have the answer today, you just need to know what you're watching for.

Related Episodes

• EP236 — When the People Who Loved the Old You Don't Like the New You: last week's conversation on what happens once you start changing; this week picks up the other side, what to do while you're waiting on somebody else to.
• EP215 — The Let Them Theory (Mel Robbins): the episode this conversation directly builds on. That one is the “let them” half. This one is the “let me” half.
• EP56 — Marriage Advice & Conflict Resolution: for more on the day-to-day mechanics of navigating a strained marriage, this is the deeper dive.
• EP148 — Setting Personal Boundaries: the practical follow-up once you've figured out your own answer to “if this continues, what will I do.”

***

In this new 6-week program, designed to get you ready for all of your end of the year conversations, Sami teaches you how to notice what’s happening in your body, spot your patterns, and stay steady when conversations heat up. Then you practice your real conversations together in a live Conversation Lab every week.

• Starts Nov 2
• $100, only 12 seats
• Doors close Mon, Nov 2 at 12PM CT.

Grab your seat: bfreakingawesome.com/betterconvos

***

Support the show

Sign up at bfreakingawesome.com to get the latest news, insights, and episodes straight to your inbox.

Follow Be Freaking Awesome on Facebook, LinkedIn, Youtube, and Instagram.

Let us know what questions you want to be answered and discussed by emailing us at [email protected].