On today’s podcast, we are joined by motivational speaker and leadership coach Jenn Lederer about how to be your authentic self in your personal and professional life. She runs the Weekly Alignment podcast, which is described as ‘your source of accidental inspiration’.

Jenn says that people often only live from their neck up and don’t connect with anything below that. They become obsessed with how people observe them but don’t observe themselves. If you learn to connect with yourself, you are able to run a business which doesn’t overwhelm you.

When you are your authentic self, you no longer have to struggle. Jenn shares her top five tips for connecting with your authentic self, with actionable steps you can take in your life right now.

On today’s podcast:

Don’t apologize for existing

Professional leadership and gender bias

‘But’ vs. ‘and’

Stop deferring your pleasure

How does it get better than this?

Communicate your boundaries

Links:

Jenn’s Facebook

Jenn’s Twitter

Jenn’s LinkedIn

Jenn’s Instagram

Jenn’s YouTube channel

Jenn’s Website

 

Don’t apologize for existing

When you bump into someone, do you say ‘sorry’ or ‘excuse me’? By saying sorry, you are subconsciously apologizing for being in that space to another person.

Allowing yourself to take up space in your personal life is key if you want to go into the world and make a difference. If you don’t believe you’re worthy, you won’t go out into the world and take up more space. There is a ripple effect on how you lead yourself and others in your personal life by using ‘excuse me’ rather than ‘sorry’.

Teams do best when everyone feels like they’re allowed and have permission to be seen and heard. If you start by saying ‘excuse me’ rather than ‘sorry’ in your professional life, it stops other people from being expected to apologize, even if an idea isn’t a great one.

Professional leadership and gender bias

If you think about male and female professionals in the workforce, it seems like there may not be an equality there for women to be able to say ‘my opinion matters’, and this is something which Jenn is very passionate about.

To overcome the gender bias in professional leadership, women need to not agree with any preconceived notion that they are less than or not worthy. If you don’t agree with it, you won’t act like it.

People around you can have as many beliefs as they want, but if you’re in a room and you know you’re worthy and add value, you will speak that way. You can’t control preconceived notions, but you can control how you react to it.

‘But’ vs. ‘and’

By using ‘but’ rather than ‘and’ when sharing an idea, you cut yourself off at the starting line and are met with ideas of why it can’t or won’t happen.

This tip is based on the improvisation rule of ‘yes and’, where if someone gives you a reality you have to build on it with ‘and’ rather than ‘but’. Using ‘but’ makes the energy and possibilities of an idea drop, so if you get into a habit of saying ‘and’ you can discern what is workable from this idea and how you build on it, rather than shutting yourself down.

By using this tip in your personal life, you will begin to notice how often your critical voice takes the lead. The path to an authentic self-begins with permission. Give yourself permission to take some space to explore who you are and how you want to show up in the world by using ‘and’.

‘And’ has a benefit in your professional life as teams work better when there’s a sense of freedom to...