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to treat you a certain way.

You did that. They didn’t do that. You did. And when you realize that it both sucks on one level because you can’t blame everybody else. And on the other hand, for somebody that wants to be in control, it’s very liberating. Because what it means is it means that. You can’t directly change somebody else. They’ve got to do the work themselves. But you can behave in a way that makes it easier and more enjoyable for other people to be around you.

And what is interesting is that you’re afraid of the judgment and you’re a little bit resentful of what you see, which is everybody’s now come back around because everything’s easy. But if you were to change your story about it, to be. Everybody has come back around because I’m finally myself. And I only became successful when I stopped lying and I started just being transparent and acting like myself. What do you see in what I just said? I never thought of it that way.

Not even close. Not even close. When you lie, you create barriers between you and other people. I think about my past a lot and how lying in particular damaged my long term friendships. I have still, you know, lots of Facebook friends. And if I go back to Michigan and there’s people in town that are still there and I see them out of Lake Michigan wing Stan have beer, chit chat and all that stuff, but there is no relationship there.

I have one close friend from high school. I destroyed the intimacy and the connection with most people because I was a liar. And it’s not even that they knew I was a liar. It’s that I was such a chameleon that I don’t even feel connected to anybody from that part in my life. Does that feel familiar? Really familiar. And then I got to college and same thing. I had two very serious relationships with really awesome guys, but I was a serial liar.

I have one very close friend from college who knew what I was struggling with, like that one true friend knows all along. What you’re dealing with. And that’s why the relationship stands the test of time, because they always got the real you know, everybody else got the chameleon. And it’s only now that I am myself. That I have these extremely deep relationships, and it’s not because I’m successful at all. It’s because I I’m giving people the opportunity to know me.

Yeah. Like, I bet with your sisters in particular, you were like a gigantic screw you. Tell me what’s going on. Oh, yeah. That’s exactly how it was.

And what is it like for you if you’re around people that are like, get out of here. I’m not listening to you. Do you want to hang out with them now? No, I. They’re like poison. I don’t. I tried so hard, right, Tug? I find that I’m isolating myself and I’m almost becoming more so. When I was young, I was. I was. Yeah, I was out there. I was. Yeah.

Look at me. Look at me. And now I’m so much more introverted. So much more introverted. And I tell myself it’s because I’m I’m really being picky and choosy of who I put myself. Yeah. Like the environment I put myself around and trying to stay away from from negative situations, negative people, things like that. But it’s it’s made me a much more introverted person. Is that a good thing or do you miss, like, the social piece of life?

Both I’m always very, very in my own head, so I really, really enjoy that, you know, being introverted a little bit. But it’s really lonely. Yeah, it’s super lonely a lot. Yeah. So I choose to work from home, even like my office is five minutes away. And I have a bunch of people in my office I really love and care about and most face time with. But I choose to stay home. Why one, I am more productive now when I’m there just wanting to remove myself from all that just bullshit drama that people think is important.

That just is not important at all here.

Right. I mean, bullshit drama is not important at all. But there’s something that you said just a couple moments ago. You said that you are super lonely. A lot. And some people do work better at home. But in your case, I think you’re isolating on purpose and you’re doing it because of patterns from the past and feeling as though you can’t control what people think at work. So you don’t even want to show up there. Now, in order to deal with this, let’s circle back to something that you said earlier.

A huge trigger for you are moments when you feel like things are about to go out of control. You don’t like that feeling at all. Most of us hate it. So why do you tell me about a moment when you were younger, when you didn’t have control?

I would be put into these specialty, like learning yet in reading, you know, reading and writing classes. But you resented what? Yeah, for sure. But what I would really in trouble. Yes. Tell me why I would really, really get in trouble. Yes. We used to do this thing called popcorn reading. Are you familiar with that?

Is that where you treat a set of word and incentive? Yeah. So you have your textbook and you know, there’s 10 paragraphs and you popcorn read. Meaning what? I call on you. And yeah. So the teacher will say, yeah, Mel, you read the first paragraph. You read the first paragraph.

And then you pick who goes next. OK. That was like then because I was a class clown. Yeah. And that was I was getting attention. That’s when that would backfire on me. So there were times where if I knew we were going to be doing like doing like reading out loud, anything like that. Also not in the bathroom. Yeah. Right. So, you know, I always find an excuse to leave the room. And I remember we were I was in a class and yeah.

I was picked to go. And that was it was terrifying because, you know, I couldn’t read very well to begin with. And then, you know, having to read through and just stumbling over every word and that it’s like everyone’s attention is directly like on me. All right. Let’s talk about this moment. Say you’re sitting in class, you realize, oh, my God, we’re about to pop corn read. You know what happens in your body when you have that immediate realization that you’re about to lose control because you’re not picking when you’re called on.

Yeah. And you’re about to be judged by everybody because you can’t do this very well. What do you feel, Pitt? Does your heart start to race? Do you immediately like what happens in your body personally?

Stomach drops, heart rate comes up like sweaty palms, thinking, how do I get myself out of this? In hindsight, I’m like, I’ve got very poor reading and writing ability. And then once people started to realize that you’re only put in that situation once, once or twice before that other people pick up on that and then they purposely pick you. Right. Because I was funny. That’s right. It wasn’t funny. No, no, it wasn’t funny to me.

Right. But what happens for all of us is that when you have a couple experiences that are repeated like that, you start to have a visceral response to situations where your feeling out of control and where you’re feeling like you might be judged and the desire to remove yourself is an interesting one that I think ties into something that’s going on now that we’re going to get back to going back to the popcorn incident. So I was called on and then, yeah, the teacher would say, all right, Casey, you know, this is your paragraph.

And I would just hold no. I was like, no, I’m not reading and I don’t care what you say. And this turned into like a like all the students were like, oh, no, like what is going to happen? It was like a very intense, like moment. And I remember I can either read or I can blow this thing up and like create a situation where we’re not going to get back to reading this book. And I remember that I just went off on a teacher and what I say.

Do you remember I was yelling. Yeah. Right in the middle of the class. Yeah. And all had he dragged me out of the room, he wasn’t going to allow me to confront him in front of all the students. I remember it. Yeah. He pulled me out of the room and there were a bunch of people in the hallway and they witnessed us going back and forth. But I was not going to put, like, allow myself to put in that situation.

You have a defense mechanism that’s hard. Wire to get out when that lack of control is triggered. Yeah, and that’s a really important thing.

And to know that it starts with a stomach drop and it starts with, like, your heart racing. And then there’s a moment where you pull the chute, so to speak, and you’re out. Yeah, that’s a really critical thing for you to understand about yourself, because it’s all triggered by lack of control.

Yeah. Can you think of another moment that stood out for you? Yeah.

So we’re there. We’re at our graduation. I didn’t want to go to my graduation. I don’t blame you, but I know like my mom, my dad, their child, they were like super probably like, oh my gosh. Like, you’ve made it. You like you are going, you know. Yeah. So we’re sitting there and the principal, you know, of our school is up there. And, you know, he was talking about all the people that they really thought were going to exceed and do really big things.

And yeah, they their futures were so bright. And I remember he said he goes and then we had some people that didn’t quite think we’re gonna make it. And then he named dropped me. It was me and one other kid and he named drops me. And I just I remember I was like, get me out of like this is why I didn’t want to like this was the last school moment that I had. And it turned out to be terrible.

So, yeah. And I couldn’t leave. No, I didn’t. I sucked it up.

There’s something that I want you to understand, Casey, the same epiphany that you had about your sisters, meaning maybe it’s not them, it’s you. Mm hmm. I’m not saying what the principal did was right. I think I understand the intent, especially on the part of an educator, that it was sort of literally like in a weird way, a compliment. In a weird way, you put the spotlight on yourself as a way to deflect from the learning disability and to take control.

And you hate it when other people put the spotlight on you. Yeah. Hate it. And if you heard of the term impostor, senator, I think you fed it to a T..

It’s just a term that’s very helpful and understanding moments in your life where you don’t feel like you belong in your current life. You feel like you’re an impostor in it. It’s almost like you relate to yourself as if you’re still that kid that’s in high school.

And you’re not fully present in your body in this moment, owning the shift that you intentionally created. And not only how you treat people, how you think about yourself and the successes that you’ve felt. And so you go through your life and you don’t truly feel a sense of ownership about what you’ve created for yourself.

Mm hmm. Does that feel like it?

Yeah, 100 percent.

I’ve been able to do a lot of things that people didn’t expect from me. So one of my biggest fears is keeping that momentum and not allowing people’s thoughts and expectations of me to come true. So the fear of proving people right that had those poor expectations of me. Yeah. Growing up throughout my life, you still care. I think the imposter thing might have less to do with the amount of success you’ve created and more to do with the fact that you still question whether or not you’re a phony.

You still wonder, am I being me? I don’t even know who the hell I am because I was this way in high school and I was this way in my 20s. And what am I supposed to be like? I think you’re you’ve never been in a situation where you feel fully at ease with who you are and where you are.

And that’s the only thing that’s holding you back. You have imposter syndrome because you haven’t embraced fully who you have become.

It’s my new favorite. What did you get? What just happened? I mean, it’s just like like how did I miss that? Because you’re in it. You know, when you’re outside of somebody else’s experience, you can see the patterns that keep showing up that you can’t see. And you either react or you don’t. And the things that you react on become the patterns that I start to explore. And the pattern that we’re looking at is how does fear trigger you?

You act it out. You behaved in ways that maybe weren’t even you. So here’s what here’s the other thing that’s really awesome, is that there’s a lot of research that suggests that the majority of us begin our lives with one personality and over the course of our lives, completely change. And what I want to know, how old are you? Twenty eight. So who do you want to be? Let’s because. Because we got the old piece.

And I do think it would be worth your time to have somebody tell you. Well, this is you know, you have dyslexia too. There. There you go. You got it seemed like. Wow. I was one of those kids that had just I couldn’t fucking read. I mean, imagine what it must have been like for me.

No, I know that. But is it what is it about of having someone else tell me that? I know that. You know that. You know that that’s true. Yeah, 100 percent. OK. I think that you need to retell the story then. Mm hmm. So instead of it being I got pulled out of and I got put into and I was the class clown, I think you can tell it in a way that is much less traumatic.

You ready? Yeah, something like this. I had undiagnosed dyslexia growing up. I couldn’t read at all. And the school never diagnosed it. They put me in special education classes. I never got any of the specialized tutoring for it. And I’m shocked I made it through high school. And on another level, thank God I had it. Because you’re good at business because of it. You know, the other thing that I wanted to say about it is that you’ve come through the other side.

You get to decide who you are. And so I want you to think about. And then let’s list some of the things about who are you? What kind of person are you? You get to say, I’m honest, authentic, genuine. Anything else fun? Yeah. Caring, loving, great. As much as I can. Great.

Being very aware when I’m not so honest, caring, fun, hardworking, successful. When you have imposter syndrome. You question whether or not you are those things. And what I want you to do because you’re big. The big fear for you is a loss of control is anytime somebody comments or says something that to you triggers. Am I honest? Am I hard working? Am I successful? Am I genuine? Am I fun? That’s when you’re gonna have to say or come up with something where you’re like, absolutely.

I am like, oh, I the next time somebody comments like, Dude, are you drunk? What the hell is going on? And you feel your stomach drop or you feel your heart race. That’s fear getting triggered. That’s the loss of control. That’s the old wound of being found out or feeling like a fraud. And it’s that moment where you get to decide, well, wait a minute, the class clown just got triggered. I’m the 28 year old successful real estate agent.

This is exactly why I’m here. So what are you gonna do when you go back home with these light bulbs? One of the things that I’m really excited for is so much of what we talked about today. I haven’t ever talked about. But I know that sharing my story, especially until a large platform to be authentic, you have to own the story. Yeah. So I’m really excited to go home and to continue to own the story and change a little bit of how I tell that story.

Great. Like you just said. Yeah. I was a class clown on that title. Yeah. Yeah. I’ve never thought about it like that. I hope that that’s how people begin to think about it. No, it’s how you how I think I need to think about it. Remember, if your fear is losing control. Remember that the only thing that you can control is what you say and what you do. And if you own and have no drama, our embarrassment or shame about what happened in high school, no one else will have it either.

Yeah. Don’t be ashamed and embarrassed about who you were. Be in awe of the fact that you survived it. Be proud of the fact that you made it through. Be amazed that you were as resilient and as creative and as resourceful as you were. Bring that fun and that levity to it. Because being too serious about it and hiding it, it gives it too much power. When you own the story in a different way, it becomes something powerful for you.

Yeah. Not done to you. Yeah. Yeah. Makes sense. So tell me, what have you learned today? I learned that who I was does not dictate who I am and who I’m becoming and that I grew through this process and I changed. And it was an everyone else’s opinions and how they perceived who I am, but that all the change came for me and I need to own that. What I’m flipping is owning who I was when I was young and people’s perceptions of me and flipping that to a different story.

It’s the same story, but telling it different.

Casey just said, one of my all time favorite lines that I think I’ve ever heard anybody say who I was does not dictate who I am and who I’m becoming.

I must say that again, I want you to wrap your arms and your brain around this. Who I was. Does not dictate who I am and who I’m becoming.

And then he added in the second piece, all the change came for me. And I need to own that.

And so do you. So do you.

You need to own that to all the change is going to come from you own it. All right. I’m done. We’re out. No, I’m just kidding. I’m just kidding.

All right. That right there. If you follow those two pieces of advice, who I was does not dictate who I am and who I’m becoming.

And all the change comes from me. I need to own it. That’s all you need to know.

But in order to live by those two powerful statements, let’s unpack what we learned from Casey. There are six really awesome things that you’re going to be able to apply to your life. The first takeaway, of course, is that in order to get control of your life, you have to first understand what you do when you feel afraid. As I’ve said now three times before, and I’m get to keep on saying it, because this is the key takeaway.

There is a pattern that you may not even realize that you have. And every single time that you’re afraid, you do the exact same thing and it’s become so automatic.

It’s now a habit. And once you see this pattern that’s triggered by fear, you then have the power to change the pattern. And if you change your response to fear, you’re going to get control of your life.

Now, for Casey, he was terrified of being judged and he was scared of being put in a situation where he’s going to get called out. Now, once you know what you’re afraid of.

Ask yourself, well, what do I do when I feel afraid? So now that we know that Casey is scared of being in situations where he could be called out, what does he do?

Well, as a result of his fears, he tries to manage what people think about him. And most importantly, he avoids situations where he feels he could be put on the spot. The hardest thing in the world for most of us is to just be ourselves and not try so darn hard to fit in.

That’s why I love this story with Casey, because it highlights something that may not seem like a big deal, but if you’ve ever had an experience where you were separated from your friend group or you were separated from your family or you were separated from a tribe of people that you thought you belong to.

Or like Casey, you were called out publicly for being different. It can impact you for the rest of your lifetime.

And in order for you to start to live your life and be fully yourself, you’re going to have to understand how the experience of being separated is triggering you to do things in your adult life.

And that brings us to the next takeaway, which is about recognizing that there may have been moments where you were separated from the pack and those moments can have a much deeper impact on you than you probably realize.

Remember how Casey said he just so wanted to be normal and fit in? I think every kid feels that way. But I want to remind you of exactly what he said in the coaching session about this.

For me, it’s tough because you so bad want to be just normal like all the other kids. Right. So any time that you’re pulled aside and put into special anything, it’s it’s really challenging because I knew, you know, so I’d say, well, how come I’m not like all the other kids. Right. But that was the biggest day. That was one of the biggest challenges, is just being put in these special classes and not, you know, not being and walking into those classes.

Right. So seeing all my friends, you know, in the hallways and then they’re like, oh, well, we’re going to English. Well, I’m going to English here.

I’m just going to a different one. You know, hearing him say because you so bad want to be just normal like all the other kids, right? That is that hard wired thing in you, that survival mechanism. You want to be part of something. And he’s right. It is really challenging. And as kids, we have so many defining moments, not just at home in situations like Heather described, where the home life is really tense and her parents were always on edge and that impacted her, but especially in school with your peers getting cut from the team.

I can be one of the hardest things that you face because you’re no longer part of a team or worse, you’re no longer considered one of the jocks. And those rejections were you’re separated. They had hard because we define ourselves based on our friend groups and our associations and teams and tribes.

And people certainly do it with political parties now. And that association being part of a group that can become your entire identity.

You’re a theater kid or you’re part of the popular crowd or you’re not part of the popular crowd or you’re a town, you’re a brainiac. And if you have a positive association with the group that you feel you belong to, that’s fantastic. But if you have a negative one like Casey did, that he was stuck with the people who aren’t smart.

You can carry that forward for the rest of your life. And that’s a problem. Remember Helen Rose’s session, we talked about people who see the opportunities, they see the Bengals on the table or they see excuses and obstacles. They see the long line.

Well, I think you can also become the kind of person that either sees places where you fit in and belong or you start to see the world as a place where you don’t. And if you feel like you don’t belong, you can start to see the entire world that way. And it’s important to get a hold of this and flesh it out now, because if you feel like you’re about to be the one who’s going to be thinned from the herd, you know, like in one of those wildlife specials where the pack runs to the right, there’s one poor deer running straight now.

Oh, my gosh. It’s terrifying.

It’s terrifying when you’re the one that’s standing alone.

You’ll do anything to find the pack. You’ll do anything to fit in. And, you know, there are moments in your life where you’re going to feel that way. And it can be scary. And it’s why we avoid it like the plague.

In fact, this phenomenon, this need to feel like you belong because it makes you feel safe. It’s one of the reasons why a lot of you avoid networking, especially if you have any kind of social anxiety or introversion because you have no idea what’s going to happen when you walk into a big networking reception. You’re alone.

You don’t have any control over who you’re going to meet or how people are going to react to you. And so it can threaten your sense of personal control. It can magnify the fact that you don’t belong. And so walking into that networking event, it’s a moment for you where you realize you’re on your own. And that can be very disruptive. Even going to the gym alone can be confronting for this reason because you’re so aware that you’re on your own.

And we just want to belong. We want to fit in here. You look around, oh, there’s the weight lifting crowd. I don’t belong over there. Oh, there’s the people running on the treadmills. I don’t know. There’s the group fitness people. I know all those are the people that have the mat routine that are doing the berp is OK. Where do I fit in. Where. I mean, we see it everywhere and most of us develop a strategy that becomes our default in order to try to fit in to whatever group or whatever situation we’re walking into.

And in Casey’s case, in order to fit in, he became the class clown and a liar to survive high school. Here he is explaining it. So how did you cope with it? What was the thing you did? Yeah. In order to cope so back in the day, which is so strange, is I’m pretty complete opposite now. I was definitely the class clown like, you know, trying to get attention. I pathological liar. I would lie about everything just like.

Yeah, sorry. I’m laughing now. I was too. Yeah. But it was because, you know, because I didn’t want. Yeah. I do want to go. I want people to focus on that. Right. So I wanted to create something else that became the focus.

Yeah, it was classic deflection for Casey, for me. You know, I’m laughing, but it’s no joke. I had a huge lying problem in high school because I hated myself and I did not like the person that I was. So I thought in order to fit in, I would just lie. I would figure out what is it that other people want to hear? What is it that this group’s about? What is it that that groups about?

And I would lie in order to be a part of it.

Look, if you don’t feel like you belong as Casey did, you’re going to do one of two things. You’re either going to begin to change your behavior and mold it so that you do fit in or you’re going to create a story in your head that you don’t belong anywhere. And you’re gonna start to see the world as a place where you’ve got no place that you belong here and start to feel incredibly lonely and isolated. It’s in those moments when you feel like you don’t belong.

Walking into a networking meeting, walking into the gym, it might even be sitting at a table at a holiday meal with your family and seeing all the ways in which you don’t belong. I’m here to tell you this is an old story. This is fear triggering you. This is something fundamental where you decided that you don’t fit in. And now you’re seeing ways all over the place where that’s true. And in order to get control of your life, you’re going to need to change your response to this fear that you don’t fit in, this belief that you don’t fit in.

To help you do that, there are more exercises in the workbook that you can walk through. And there are prompts in there they’re going to help you identify.

OK, what were the moments that made you feel that you don’t belong? When did that start to happen? And more importantly. Because I know it triggered fear. What did you do to manage the fear?

Because we got to change your response to the fear that you don’t fit in so you can start to catch yourself, take control of your body and redirect your thoughts before you head down the old path.

Now, let’s talk about the third takeaway, and it’s all about how you handle learning differences, whether they are learning differences that you have or learning differences that your son or daughter may have. And especially since I know so many of your parents. I want to take a moment to talk about kids who struggle with learning style differences, especially if you didn’t fit neatly into some box that the school wanted to put you in.

And as you know, this is personal for me, having had a son that has dyslexia, having dealt with dyslexia myself. I know how challenging it can be.

And Casey, certainly explain this to you about how bothered and upset he was that he had absolutely no control over what other people said about him.

He told me he wanted to control what people were thinking. He wanted to control how they viewed him. Here he is in the coaching session describing it. Tough because, right? Like I said, you just want so bad to not be picked out. Yeah. Not to point it out, if I was gonna be pointed out any way, I’d wanted to be on my own terms and not by the terms that I was. I didn’t have any problem being different.

That wasn’t the problem. But it was when I didn’t have any control. That’s when it was really tough.

That’s a really important distinction because he used the big word we’d been talking about this entire time control.

I didn’t have any problem being different. See, I don’t think any of us do if we feel it’s a strength. The problem, as he said, was that I didn’t have control over it. And that’s what triggered the fear. See, he wasn’t dealing with being different.

It was the fear that he felt when he got separated. It was the fear that he felt in those moments when he felt like, holy cow, I’m about to lose control of what’s gonna happen in this classroom.

And one really important thing to understand is that when you are labeled something, it’s applied by other people. So when you are told that you’re going in that classroom, somebody else is in control of what’s happening to you. And Casey didn’t want to be labeled a certain thing.

But in our conversation, I encouraged him, even though he knows that he’s dealing with a learning difference to go get a formal diagnosis.

It’s really powerful to seek a diagnosis because when you seek it out, you’re in control of the process of figuring out what’s going on.

It’s really powerful to have a neuro psych report worked up on you. And if you’re struggling with reading, writing, focusing, processing information, if you’ve the ability to do this, I cannot recommend this strongly enough because a diagnosis about how you learn and how you think is going to give you tremendous relief.

It’s actually going to give you control. And it was a really important realization for me.

I got diagnosed later in life with ADHD and mild dyslexia.

And it was so liberating because I finally understood the issues I had been struggling with for decades. See, a diagnosis makes a difference because it gives you a map to the patterns.

It shows you and reveals to you all of the things that you’re doing, which then empowers you, because now that you have the answer to how it is that you think and process information, you can actually understand the patterns, the struggles and the behaviors that you might not have been able to see before. And it also then gives you the ability to solve any issues that you face because you know what you’re dealing with. You’re not stupid. You just don’t have neural pathways that have developed.

You’re not slow. Your brain just solves problems a different way, which means once you know what you’re dealing with, you can actively find resources to help you better understand yourself, your brain, or if you’re a parent, you can understand and take control of the resources that your child needs.

It’s really that simple. The other thing that’s super cool is once you know what you’re dealing with, it’s so easy to see the advantages of having a learning difference. You know, our son Oakley also has dyslexia. In addition to dyslexia is dysgraphia. ADHD has some challenges with executive functioning and speed of processing. And we lived through so many emotional years watching our son struggle with self-doubt.

Coaching Casey was an interesting experience for me because I felt like I was talking to a grown up version of my son, hearing the story of what it was like for Casey to go in one direction to the classroom for the kids that needed extra resources versus where his friends were going. Oakley is described the exact same story. And we faced years of struggles where he felt nothing but self-doubt and he felt like the one that wasn’t smart. And he questions his self-worth.

And he felt out of control at school and he felt like he couldn’t do anything. He felt so different than everybody else.

And you know what?

It took five years and a couple schools to finally find a really great environment for having a learning difference. Yes, a thousand percent. It can be a big struggle in school, but to tell you some. It is an advantage in life. It’s an advantage to learn differently because your learning style, if you learn differently. It forces you to be a creative thinker and a problem solver.

You see things that other people can’t see because your brain works differently. Genau reported 25 percent of CEOs of dyslexic. So are half the judges on Shark Tank. My friend Daymond John, Kevin O’Leary, Barbara Corcoran all have dyslexia and they’ve all said it’s made them better entrepreneurs.

I’ll tell you, I feel the exact same way about my. I look at things so differently because of the dyslexia. Plus, here’s another thing that’s cool.

You’re learning difference can make you more resilient in the long run.

It can be a real struggle when you’re a kid because you spend so many hours a day being asked to do things that your brain can’t actually do. But what happens is you get used to failing and you get used to trying over and over, and you get used to understanding that you’ve got to work a little bit harder than everybody else. You’ve got to work a little bit differently than everybody else. And that is going to pay dividends in your adult life.

So if you’re a parent of a child with a learning difference, I have some advice. Number one, and this is the most important and perhaps the hardest. You must be the safe place for them when they get home. School is so hard for anyone with a learning difference. And the reason why it’s hard is because you have to pay attention harder than everybody else.

All day long. So when you come home after a day in school, you are emotionally and mentally wiped out. In fact, I mentioned this in Rose’s session, that when you have to hold it together in the outside world, when you walk in the front door of your house, you want it to be a safe place to let it all hang out. And so what I want you to do if you have a kid with a learning difference is understand that every single day is as intellectually taxing as taking the essay tease.

You have to pay attention in order to perform. And so you got to be the safe place for them to have the meltdown because they’ve been holding it together all day long.

Second, super important for you to always praise the effort they’re putting in. Now, we talked about this in depth and Heather’s session. The growth versus the fixed mindset. And this is a lifeline for somebody with a learning difference like Casey, myself or Oakley.

If you have a learning difference, you already believe you’re not smart and nobody can convince you that you’re smart.

And I’m gonna tell you why. Because you sit all day in a classroom where all you see is evidence that everybody else is smarter than you. They’re faster than you. I’ll never forget Oakley coming home and saying after I his teacher asked the question, Mom, all the hands go up and I’m still thinking.

Or the other day when he came home said, why does everybody know all the states?

And I can only remember 11 of them.

So your job, the school’s job, it should be to reinforce the idea that everybody learns differently. But if you put in the effort and you practice, you can get better at anything over time. Super important to reward the work and focus on creating a growth mindset. Third, please be their advocate. There are tutors, services, online videos, lots of resources that will empower you and hand you the tools that you need in order to help your son or daughter build the skills that they need to adapt.

But more importantly, be their advocate for doing more of what they’re good at.

You know, just because they don’t like school and they’re not that great at it doesn’t mean they’re not going to be successful.

All the research points to the fact that you will be more successful if you focus on the things that you enjoy and that you’re good at.

You know, there’s a reason why our son loves video games and musical theater. It’s because it’s the one thing in his life that is better than all his peers. And it comes naturally. It comes easily. And by the way, it doesn’t require reading and writing. It requires performing, which is really good. That’s why he wants to do it all the time. So you know what? We let him. We let him. And fourth, remember, it’ll get better.

Yes, dyslexia, any kind of learning difference. It can be a struggle during the school year. But trust me when I say it is an advantage in the long run, it will pay dividends in your adult life. And I promise it will get better. Now, the fourth take away, the fourth takeaway is about the difference between being introverted versus isolating yourself, being introverted is a personality trait. And the best way to describe somebody who considers themselves to be introverted is that it’s about energy.

Actually, when you’re around other people or you’re in the spotlight. It drains you. That’s how, you know, you’re more introverted, that it drains you to be the focus.

It drains you to be around other people. It doesn’t mean you don’t like other people. It doesn’t mean you can’t be around other people. It just means that you’ve got to protect your energy because being around other people or having to project yourself as the center of attention. It’s extremely draining.

So introverts need to be alone in order to refuel. That’s all that it means. And if you’re introverted, embrace it.

I think we live in a society where the world praises people who are bold and extroverted and outspoken.

But the truth is, the research shows that people that are introverted are better leaders. I tend to have a bit of both sides. I can talk, talk, talk, talk, talk on a stage and I can perform and I get energized by being around people. But the truth is, when I’m done, I collapse. I need to go home. I need to sleep. And I also hate big parties. I hate small talk. I hate networking.

It drains the heck out of me. So I’m got a little bit of both, which is also pretty common. But what Casey is talking about in his coaching session is different than being an introvert.

You see, when we were talking, I picked up on the fact that he is in real estate and he doesn’t go into the office.

And so I wanted to tease out whether or not he’s just introverted and people drain him or if he was doing something that I don’t want you to do, which is isolating himself. Check this out. I find that I’m isolating myself and I’m almost becoming more so. When I was young, I was. I was yeah, I was out there. I was. Yeah. Look at me. Look at me. And now I’m so much more introverted, so much more introverted.

And I tell myself it’s because I’m I’m really being picky and choosy of who I put myself. Yeah. Like the environment I put myself around and trying to stay away from from negative situations. Negative people, things like that. But it’s it’s made me a much more introverted person.

Is that a good thing or do you miss, like, the social piece of life. Both I. I’m always very, very in my own head. So I really, really enjoy that. You know, in term, you know, being introverted a little bit. But it’s really lonely. Yeah. Super lonely a lot. Yeah. So I choose to work from home quite even like my office is five minutes away. And I have a bunch of people in my office I really love and care about and love spending time with.

But I choose to stay home now.

Take away number five is about imposter syndrome. Typically when you hear about imposter syndrome, it’s usually in regard to a professional setting. And it’s the idea that you feel like people are going to find out that you don’t know what you’re doing. You know, you’re new to the real estate business and you feel like an imposter because you’ve only sold a couple houses.

You’re new to practicing law and you feel like an imposter. You’re new to dating.

And you’re newly divorced and single and you feel sort of like an imposter at this thing and that somebody is going to find out that you’re a fraud and imposter syndrome happens because you’re trying something new and you’re learning. And that makes you feel a little uncomfortable. And every time you do something for the first time, you’re probably going to feel like an imposter. Just remind yourself, hey, you’re learning. You’re gonna feel a little bit like a fraud when something is new.

But if you keep showing up, you’re gonna get the skills. You’re going to get your footing. And next thing you know, you’re going to not feel like an imposter at all.

You’re going to feel like an old pro at this. Now, Casey has an interesting twist on imposter syndrome. He feels like an imposter in his own life. I want you to take a listen to this moment in the coaching session where he admits this. I think I don’t think so good. But in turn, extant. Right. But it’s when there are so many little lies out there, that’s when it becomes really hard to manage. It would just they came naturally.

I was just full shit, like desperate to fit in and desperate not to be judged. You know, I want to connect with everybody. Did you ever falling out with friends over. Yes, and now the challenge now is sometimes like, is he full of shit because he’s still full of shit? You know, it’s interesting is he doesn’t know that anybody is actually saying this. He’s changed so much. He feels like nobody from his past is going to see that change.

And so he himself is feeling like an imposter in his new life.

Now, this can happen for you if you’ve lost a ton of weight. So maybe you used to weigh 300 plus pounds or more and now you are much, much, much lighter on the scale.

You feel healthier. You still relate to yourself as a person that is overweight.

And so you think, oh, my gosh, am I really a thin person, monna? Or maybe you change your relationship status and you went from marriage, divorce, or maybe you became sober and now you feel like an impostor in your own life because you spent so many years drinking. And you wonder, do people believe I’m sober? Do they believe that I’m going to stay sober? And so you start to question it. Or maybe like me, you became a much nicer, kinder person as you got older.

You’ve changed and you’ve worked so hard and you’ve earned that change.

But there’s something inside of you that still holds on to the old you.

This can also happen, by the way, if you launched a business and went bankrupt and now you’re on another one and you’re constantly worried, OK.

Am I successful? Am I.

This is not that other people are questioning the new you. You’re the one that’s questioning the new you.

Something’s still tugs at you asking. Deep inside, are you still that overweight person? Are you still the alcoholic or he’s the person that doesn’t have control of their life.

You’re not yet able to claim your new identity because you held on to the old one for so long.

And it’s especially poignant this moment when you meet people from your past who remind you of your past. There’s a reason why a lot of people have anxiety about going to a high school or college reunion. One reason is because you’re not proud of where you are and you’re kind of embarrassed about where you’re at at this moment in your life.

But the other reason is the kind of imposter syndrome that Casey has, which is you’ve changed so much and you’ve worked so hard that you almost can’t believe it.

And so walking into a situation where people only know you from the old, you can raise this inside yourself. And, you know, there’s some interesting research around this. It’s about the in-between space where, you know, you’re not the old version of you yet. You haven’t fully embraced the new version of you. It’s called authenticity limbo. And Casey is living with this type of imposter syndrome. He’s proud of what he’s accomplished, but he’s still not fully embracing what he’s been able to do.

And there’s a part of him that still feels like he doesn’t deserve the success he’s made for himself. But somehow he didn’t create it, that it’s luck, that it’s this. So part of Casey still feels kind of like that class clown who is evolution is he’s still full of shit. Is he still lying?

He’s living with an identity crisis. So what can you do about this kind of imposter syndrome? Well, the biggest revelation for Casey is the one that you need to absorb.

If you’re dealing with this and it’s all about owning the change that you’ve created here he is talking about it today.

I learned that who I was does not dictate who I am and who I’m becoming and that I grew through this process and I changed. And it wasn’t everyone else’s opinions and how they perceived who I am, but that all the change came from me and I need to own that.

All the change came for me and I need to own that. I love that so much. You know, this does not escape me either. Not at all. I just recently saw some people that I was very friendly with.

Like 15 years ago. And I’m a totally different person now. And it was right there in my face. Am I a different person? Do they see me as a different person? Wow. How do I even communicate? How much change? I’ll tell you. You don’t do it through words. You do it through your actions. I said it in the beginning of his takeaways, and I’m going to repeat it again right now. Who I was does not dictate who I am or who I’m becoming.

And all the change came for me and I need to own that. If you follow these two lines, your life will change. And when you run into people from your past, remember, it’s not what you say about the change. It’s what you demonstrate. It’s how you act. That’s what speaks volumes about who you are now.

And you know, what’s the biggest fix for Imposture Center on your story? You can fess up to whatever you know. How you were back in the day. What a liar you were, how insecure you were, how jealous you whatever.

But demonstrate who you are now. And that brings us to the next take away, the final takeaway from Casey is that when you own your story, it changes how your mind views things. When you share your stories with others, you take ownership over it, no matter what happened in the past. Do not run away from it. Do not be embarrassed by it. Own it. Even the stuff that you’re not proud of. I wasn’t perfect. Darn right I wasn’t.

I became the class clown because I had dyslexia and I couldn’t read. All true. And that was pretty effective.

Let me tell you, when you tell your story in a way that empowers you, it allows you to take control of the narrative. You know, one of the most empowering things that ever happened to me is when I fully, publicly owned that I have suffered from anxiety for decades. And when I fully, publicly own the things that anxiety drove me to do that I’m not proud of. I’m not excusing the behavior that I’m not proud of. But by explaining it and owning it, I have compassion and understanding for myself.

And it also allows me to close the book on that chapter and to step more powerfully in the one that I’m in now. When you tell your story in a way that empowers you, it allows you to take control of the narrative. And what people tend to do instead is we hide.

I get it. You’re embarrassed by shame. You didn’t pass. So am I. But don’t hold on to it. Well, you don’t realize is the more that you do that, the more power the past has over you right now, the bigger the stories get in your mind. And the whole time you keep that story inside yourself, afraid that people are gonna find out that you almost got divorced or that you cheated on your husband or that you had anxiety or that you had depression or that you struggle with bipolar that may be alive in high school, or maybe you were a jerk in high school or whatever it may be.

When you own your story, you take that power of judgment away from everybody.

What do they have to judge you on? You’ve told your story on it. You’re the one in the driver’s seat steering the wheel. Now you have control. This is how you take control. You stop hiding. And our brains are wired for stories.

The research shows that reconstructing our personal story narratives very healing.

As Bernie Brown says, when we deny the story.

It defines us when we own the story. We can write a brave new ending. Every single time Casey owns his story, I was a liar. I was a class clown. I was humiliated because I had a learning difference. When he owns it, he diminishes the power of the fear that’s in his head and he gets back control. And I want you to do the same thing. So how does Casey feel about owning the story now? You can hear from him directly.

One of the things I’m really excited for is so much of what we talked about today. I haven’t ever talked about. But I know that sharing my story, special handle, large platform in order to own your story. I mean, to be authentic, you have to own the story. Yeah. So I’m really excited to go home and to continue to own the story and change a little bit of how I tell that story.

That’s right. Change it so that you own it. That’s right. Incredible. So let me recap the six takeaways from Casey’s coaching session. First, we always start with this. Follow your fear and understand what you do when you feel afraid in order to get control of your life. You must first understand what you do when you feel afraid. Casey is terrified of being judge and he’s scared of being put in a situation where he’s going to get called out.

So he tries to manage what people think about him and avoid situations in which he feels put on the spot.

If you change your response to fear, you will get control of your life. Second, the moments of being separated from the pack, from your tribe, from your friend group, it triggers us to feel like we don’t belong. It makes feel unsafe. It makes you feel like you’re threatened.

And as a result, we often create a story about ourselves. A character that we develop in order to try to fit in and to feel like we do belong.

So notice if, like Casey, you have a class clown in you or you are a liar, you do things whenever you start to feel a little threatened in order to fit in. Third, if you are a loved one, has a learning difference. Go get a diagnosis, understand it. See the patterns and be proactive about getting the resources and tools that you need.

And finally, remember, in the short term, it’s a struggle in the long term. It is an advantage, particularly when you take the time to reinforce a growth mindset. And if you want a refresher on the growth mindset, we covered it extensively and Heather’s coaching session. Fourth, there’s a major difference between being introverted and choosing to isolate yourself, isolating yourself is something you do to control other people’s perceptions of you. But it is a form of fake control.

If you’re isolating yourself, stop it. That is fear that is driving you. And in order to get control of your life, you have to change your response.

Fifth, impostor syndrome isn’t just when you’re trying something new and you feel like a fraud. It’s also when you feel like an impostor in your own life. You’ve changed.

But people still see the old you. It’s important to acknowledge the changes.

And that brings me to the final takeaway.

Own your story. It changes how your mind views things. It changes how you view things no matter what happened. I want you to own it. When you tell your story in a way that empowers you, it allows you to take control of the narrative of your life and of the direction of your future when you own your story. You take the power away from anyone else and you give yourself control. This next session is for anyone who feels that they can’t be themselves at work.

You’re going to meet a woman who had the kind of childhood where her mother was constantly disappointed and her mom would react at everything by yelling, which left her afraid of speaking up because it would upset her mother. And so consequently, she became terrified of getting in trouble in every area of her life. She developed a pattern that a lot of people do. It’s called being a chameleon. She blends in. She doesn’t speak up.

She does everything she can to avoid conflict. And it’s become a habit. And it’s having a very negative impact on her career, on her enjoyment of work and on her ability to advocate for herself and express her ideas. If you have trouble speaking up at work or being yourself around your boss or your colleagues or you act like a chameleon in order to fit in, there’s a tremendous number of takeaways that are going to help you change your response to situations that trigger you that are contained in this coaching session. And by the