Why do I downplay my achievements? The discomfort of owning your success

Felice AylingWell, my response is always, Well, who else am I supposed to be full of? If we think about ourselves as all of the space inside of us that we take up, if we are not allowed to take up all of that space and we leave space for something else, other people will fill it. And other people will fill it with their projection of what they want us to be.

Carly Osman-HolmeI want to start this conversation with something that I think is becoming increasingly important, particularly given what's happening in the world of work. Job security feels increasingly perilous. The idea you can put your head down, work hard, be good at what you do, and trust that someone will notice is becoming harder and harder to rely on. Whether you're employed, self employed, running a business, or thinking about doing something completely differently, I think we're all going to have to get much better at putting ourselves out there. Talking about what we're good at, building relationships, being visible. Making sure people know who we are and what we bring to the table. For women, so much of what we've been taught throughout our lives seems to work directly against this. Don't be too loud, don't show off, don't be difficult, don't come across as arrogant, you mustplicate. Don't you dare make anyone feel uncomfortable. Be nice, stay in your lane. You have to make sure that you tick all the boxes before you put your hand up. Then we wonder why it feels so bloody hard to put ourselves forward. Today I'm speaking to Felice Ayling, founder of Loud Women, about the ways we learn to make ourselves smaller, what that might be costing us and how we start unlearning some of those behaviours. Felice, welcome to Weren't We Talking About This. And before we get into what I think is gonna be a really interesting topic about holding ourselves back, people pleasing and everything in between, tell us about who you are and also how have you got to this point because it wasn't something that happened overnight. It was something that you have been working on for years. Yes.

Felice AylingThat's right. Um Felice, founder of Loud Women. So I exist to help female founders to promote their business online with confidence, with just a little touch of audacity, which I think is really important. And on the flip side of that, I also ensure that women are prepared to deal with any negativity online because, you know, let's face it, there's a ton of it. I talk a lot about the online misogyny that women face, um, how to deal with it, as well as being in the comment section of other women's posts. To help them navigate it when it happens. So I've been doing that for five years. So before that, I was a, you know, a corporate badass. Um, I was in marketing for more than 20 years. I rose through the ranks. On paper, it was very successful. You know, I had the job title and the salary and the nice life and the holidays and all of that kind of stuff. And by the time I left, I think I was just like a little bit dead inside from having to play that game. I didn't realize how much. until I left. And I generally thought because of my marketing experience that it would be a cinch to market myself and, you know, make a ton of money being a consultant. And it turns out this not so easy. It's really easy to tell other people how to show up than to do it yourself. And so I had to go on this kind of journey of reconnecting to who I was and finding that all of the the corners and the edges that I'd smoothed down in order to succeed in corporate were the missing pieces. That was stopping me from building my business. You know, there's a exposing those to the harsh light of day was somewhat terrifying. But I found that it was those things that connected people to me in a way that my expertise and experience and awards were never going to do. So, you know, in that journey, I then decided that, you know, I met a lot of women and realized that this is a huge, huge issue for so many female founders. And so I combined the mindset and the confidence learning

Felice Aylingor and the unlearning with the marketing, the practical marketing support as a kind of double whammy. But it took two years, I think two years in my business before I started showing up the way I wanted to. And that was, I think, two and a half years ago, I was languishing around a thousand followers, like lucky if I got double digit on my content. And fast forward to now, two and a half years later, I've got nearly 20,000 followers across my social media platforms. I think I two point six million impressions on my post in this in the last twelve months. Ninety percent of all of my clients come from online

Felice Aylingand and I've built somewhat of a reputation for being slightly annoying combative feminist online.

Carly Osman-HolmeFelice, I wanna start about being liked and this concept of being liked. I would probably call myself a recovering people pleaser, but probably leaning towards I'm I have a lot of people-pleasing tendencies. Where have we got this idea from that being liked is more important than following our dreams, saying what we want, or essentially being ourselves?

Felice AylingOkay. It's good. It's such a good question. Like, where does it originate from? I'm gonna so I'm gonna start off by saying there's plenty of people out there who who have no people pleasing tendencies, who have never been discouraged from being themselves. Um and so if they're listening to this, like kudos to you guys, uh the rest of us. it actually starts before we even learn how to speak or walk or have autonomous thought. And it just, you know, not to be like the one that just brings in the patriarchy straight away, but It's all down to these kind of these gender roles that we have reinforced on us from a really young age. If you think about I've I know I've witnessed it, the research suggests there's plenty of research out there from people smart far smarter than me. But we see it in the way little girls are treated compared to little boys when they exhibit the same kind of behavior. So little girls, toddlers, you know, sort of four or five years old, as soon as they exhibit any kind of leadership.

Felice AylingAbout as bossy or pushy, if they tie try and take control of situations, if they have big ideas and they share them, they you know, the parents will look at each other and think, you're gonna have trouble with that one. She knows what she wants, doesn't it? And she you know, she's gonna be a handful. And so immediately when kids are little, we give them this message that when they are expressing themselves or excited or have big dreams, that they are too much, that's too much. You know, this idea of sort of showing off, girls show off. We don't g really give boys the same labels as we do little girls. So it starts really young. It starts really early. But you know, when you look at the research that's come out recently about women with ADHD, little girls actually have been misdiagnosed or undiagnosed because they're so good at masking. And part of that is they are conditioned from a very young age

Felice Aylingand into very narrow roles. And they do very well at that because they follow the rules and they understand how they're supposed to behave if they want good outcomes. So It starts really young and it really just travels through with us through our teenage years and into our adulthood. The idea of being likable is rated far higher for women than it is for men. And

Felice Aylingthere's been some really groundbreaking studies that have looked at this. There was one that came out in 2014 and they analyzed the employee feedback, their annual appraisals, and they took a whole bunch, whole cross-section of feedback forms and they looked across a whole bunch of tech organizations. And when they looked at those that contained critique like critical feedback, negative feedback about their personality, of the women that they looked at, 74% of the female employees had received some kind of negative personal critique using words like abrasive or bossy or or aggressive. When they looked at the the sample of male employees, only 2%. 2%. received any kind of negative feedback about their behavior and their personality compared to 76% of the women. So unless people want to argue that actually 76% of women across organizations just behave really badly and only two percent of men do, which we know isn't true, there's bias built into the system and the way we expect women to behave.

Carly Osman-HolmeReally glad you brought up the words here because words really matter. So if I look back over the course of my career, I've been called bossy, I've been called been called empathetic, I've been called weak, I've been called too much, I've been called a whole manner of things, and they're often very contradictory. And I want to sit here from a moment and Explore these words and the meaning we put behind them. I was once told that I didn't have enough gravitas for a particular role, and that's the reason why I didn't get a job. And I let that word dictate, I'd say, probably the next two, three years. And it didn't matter that I didn't actually want that job at all. And it didn't matter that I went on to subsequent interviews and they said, my gosh, you're such a charismatic leader. You're brilliant, you'd be perfect. So basically described the traits of having gravitas. But for some reason I had fixated on this word and made that my sole passion to kind of flip this. So what are your thoughts? Like how can we get better at I suppose not listening to the words that are planted and extract what we need to know, but not the things that will ultimately shield us and stop us being the best version of ourselves?

Felice AylingIt's such a tough question to answer. And do you know what that word for the people listening? There's going to be so many women that were like, it's told exactly the same thing. This word gravitas, and this is what we do is that we we create this, you know, we have these words that mean something specific, but they're also generic enough that people don't have to give you specific feedback. And so what a lot of women find is that the goalposts then keep moving. They can just label you as somebody that doesn't have enough gravitas, or they'll say personal brand. Or you need to have developed, you know, your your reputation internally. But it's very difficult to measure. You can't really put a KPI because that's somebody else's judgment. And if that person has inherent bias and they are looking at your behaviors differently, the chances are you will never be able to meet whatever standard they have in their in their heads because you're not performing that behavior as they expect a woman to and in what way that's different to how they treat the men. Because you'll have exactly the same behaviors in male and female leaders, but only one will be labeled as not having that gravitas as being aggressive or pushy or bossy. You know, there are huge companies built by incredibly toxic men. And everyone just says he's incredible, he's a leader, he's a visionary.

Felice AylingAnd they bypass any personality flaws or behaviors and make excuses. But for women, they are expected to be likable. and nice and kind and caring while also driven and make the tough decisions. So it's in a lot of instances, it's difficult to win because ultimately the judgment lays in the hands of somebody else. So, but there's a big difference between understanding how the game is played and taking that feedback on personally, which is why it's really important for women to do their own reading and to understand where the behaviors come from, where the bias comes from. Because it does then provide a bit of a shield for you. That every piece of feedback that's given to you actually a lot of it has nothing to do with you. It's nothing that you can do, nothing that you can change. It is because somebody else is looking at you with a biased lens. But understanding how to show up to get what you want is a very different thing than saying, There's something wrong with me. I need to change. And a lot of what is thrown at women in under the guise of helping them to succeed or or grow or or get to where they want to be is rooted in this idea that women are broken, that we're somehow not getting opportunities and we're not getting that promotion because we're not ambitious enough or we're not driven enough. We don't know how to ask for the the promotion. We don't know how to ask for the pay rise. So you you know, we just get bombarded with these messages of don't say this, say this and wear this and stand like this. And this is how you should enter a room. This is how you do a handshake. This idea that they're trying to set women up just to be small men. And if we just do what the men do, we'll get what the men get, which obviously completely ignores the fact that actually it's not that we don't know how to ask, it's that we don't get what we ask for as often as men do. So the game is rigged. We have to understand that. And then we decide how we play it. We decide how we move through the game. Women are not victims, I will say that. Having a game rigged against us. does not make us victims. And it's really important that we don't fall into a victim mindset. There are a lot of organizations, a lot of companies where you won't find as much and some that you are. But I think part of it is is having a really realistic understanding of what your talents and your skills are and having that rooted in that self belief and that quiet confidence. And try not to let that be impacted by what's being said to you or what's happening around you and being able to have that kind of filter up. Sometimes we, you know, we obviously need to be able to take feedback on board, but if it doesn't feel right or if it doesn't feel we can't just be an open book for other people to write on.

Carly Osman-HolmeI love the way that you've just said you've got to know the rules of the game. So I I'm a big believer. In order to break the rules, you have to know the rules. And I love this kind of kind of get to analogy of really understanding, yes, it's rigged against us, but we have power to do something. So I'd love to kind of start the next part of there by thinking, what can we do? So you've talked about there about knowing your worth. You've talked about identity, the value, everything that you bring. So how can someone who's within a business or working on their own look at the rules and say, Okay, how do I find a different way of showing up? How do I do I make this work for me? Have you got any tips and advice there?

Felice AylingYeah, so it's different. Um it's different if you're employed than if you're self employed. The rules are different. Um and I'll talk a little bit more about self employed because that is my primary focus, my primary audience. I I left corporate just over five years ago. A hell of a lot of women have left corporate. You know, it's called the Great breakup, it's been documented since 2020. Women are leaving corporate in their droves because of the fact that they are tired of playing the game and trying to make it work. So there's a lot more women entrepreneurs, a lot more women founded businesses, which is just brilliant to see. When it comes to even building a business and being in that entrepreneurial space, it's still very much written by and controlled by by men and what benefits men. And you'll even see that in small ways with the way that women show up on spaces like LinkedIn. You know, there's just so many men who are very willing to and very very eager to police women and the way they show up on LinkedIn as if as if they wrote the rules. You know, LinkedIn is for this, LinkedIn is for that. It's not f you know, that's not what we that's not what we've agreed. LinkedIn is for. Um they do love to police the way women show up and what they choose to talk about. But you know, we see that in terms of who wins the contract and how women are judged on stage and how they're judged for what they're wearing and we can't just let women exist within their expertise in any space. But again, a lot of it comes down to, you know, within the entrepreneurial space, actually breaking the rules is really good because by the time, you know, when we're we're thinking about the our ideas, our innovations, the way we run our businesses, the way we get attention and visibility, if we only ever stick with the tried and tested stuff. we fade into the background with everybody else. So actually being different, standing out, having a clear differentiator, having a really clear, distinct voice is hugely beneficial if you're trying to build something that relies on other people, you know, congregating around you or building audiences. So breaking the rules is sometimes the only way to do it. Um, as long as you know, but again, it's understanding the rules so that you know how to break them. You know, being being okay with failure. Is also really important if you want to break the rules. Because if you're taking a path that's not that well trodden, who may be the trailblazer, you may be the canary in the coal mine. So being prepared and comfortable with failing and learning is a really important part of sort of breaking the rules and forging your own path that works for you and works for the way you want to be and the way you want to show up.

Felice AylingBut I think The only reason why we're doing what we're doing though is because there's generations of women before us who broke the rules and decided not to play the game. So we are that generation now for our grandkids or great grandkids. So I think the rule breakers are the we need those women. We need those people. Break 'em. Break often.

Carly Osman-Holmeyou get comfortable with breaking the rules because I think conceptually this makes absolute sense. But there's also this fear about, cancel culture. so many times that I've put something mildly controversial on LinkedIn or on other platform and then panicked. I've had a full-body convulsion thinking I'm gonna get torn down, I'm gonna get torn to shreds, but nothing's happened. But yet in my mind I've made this and when I speak to People, particularly women, a lot of them are feeling the same kind of thing. I I'm scared, I'm being scared of being torn down. And I d I think we need to also realize that that's a very real thing. We see it all the time with female celebrities, female people i in places of power, being scrutinized, being torn down, being kind of ripped to shreds. But the likelihood is you or me or or people listening, that's not going to be our experience. So how do we get past that fear and just fucking do it?

Felice AylingThe first time is always the hardest one. It's the the that first time that you've gone out there and said something, it's always the hardest. The rest after that get a little bit easier, but it's still, yeah, it it does create some anxiety showing up and and and not even necessarily saying anything controversial, but just being really confident in the thing that you say. Sometimes even just sharing something. A viewpoint or a or a point of expertise. If we're constantly thinking, well, somebody else knows more than me, somebody else is going to come in and tell me that I'm wrong, or I don't know enough yet, or I'm not the expert yet. That comparison can make us falter and not want to, you know, put a kind of stake in the ground and say, This is what I know. Even though we have like really valuable information, do pass on to other people. So yeah, the first time's always the hardest. Doing it alone is also terrifying. Being brave in community is so much easier. than doing it by yourself. The reality is most people that you meet online will either ignore you completely or be nice to you. That's statistically speaking and the reality. Any risk of negativity is tiny in comparison to the positive feedback that we that we get. You know, I I get some trolling, but it is, I'd say, less than 5% of all of the interactions that I have online. They're kind of doozies and I'm then but even then I take them and I I make content out of them and I use them to grow my own visibility, which just feels like a um a nice sort of Uno reverse. And makes me feel good about that. But yes, I think the idea that it's and it's and it's either people are gonna troll me and just be nasty to me, somebody's gonna tell me I'm wrong, call me out publicly, I'm gonna get something wrong, and that's it, you know, my life will be over. and I think with the with the straight trolling, again, have community. Build community and do it together, build it in safety. It's really important for women. Have other women around you that will have your back and just a space to go. when you've posted something scary or just other people to sense check you or or look over stuff. But again, if you're asking for other people's feedback, make sure that they are not people who themselves shrink because they will encourage you to. So never be the loudest person in the room. Always find yourself a friend who is louder than you are. uh Ask

Felice Aylingacquiring. people when you're asking for feedback and you're asking people for opinion, ask people that you consider to be brave and who also do not shrink. And show up as themselves. So they don't advise you to. But it's still a funny thing because people do they don't really want us being out here being controversial or direct or confident. There's still this idea around women, even women who are at the top of their game, that they should still remain humble and not acknowledge their own expertise or achievements. And pol you know, women police other women. you know, just as much as as men do. So it it does require a lot of bravery to to share your honest thoughts, opinions, to claim your achievements without then minimizing them or trying to explain them away. To, you know, to be somebody who says, I'm really good at this and I can help people. To do this without, you know, even just things like, but I've got a great team and my team do a lot of that. Or, you know, I was just kind of lucky. I just kind of felt, you know, women that have really successful businesses ago, I was just kind of lucky. It was just like timing. So we are, we are conditioned to kind of downplay the things that we can do. And so it takes a lot of bravery and courage to reject that and say, No, I'm gonna go out there and I'm gonna tell people how brilliant I am at this thing, because I am brilliant at it. And a lot of that comes down to that kind of self validation and not

Felice Aylingother people to acknowledge that we are good at things. There are some things that are just objectively true. And it's really important that we are able to distinguish between what is objectively true and what is somebody else's opinion of us. And I always say that those people's opinions of you, if they are not feeding you, financing you or you, their opinion is literally none of your business.

Carly Osman-HolmeI love that. I might put those three F's on a post-it note on my computer to remind me every day. But I'm so glad you brought up that point about minimizing your achievements because I think this is something that I do and many women in my life do. It's that it's just a thing, I'm just doing this little thing on the side, or it's just this. And it's got to the point where I often forget my long successful career history. Because what I'm doing now is something slightly different. But I I'd love to get your views on something that I've found myself doing recently, which is putting something out in the world, then getting some incredibly positive feedback and then shrinking into like basically digging a hole and hiding myself. I got someone posted something on LinkedIn about some work I'd done. I don't think I've actually acknowledged her response because it has triggered something in me. And I'm wondering if that is I don't possibly have the authority or I don't believe I'm good enough. Or there's probably something in there at a deep psychological level. Is this something you see a lot showing up? Yes.

Felice AylingYeah. Yes. And and I there's something I one of the things I do in one of my workshops that I run um is I I talk to, you know, I'd I say to the women, I say, you know, you're in this this is because this is everything. You know, you've just I say to women somebody compliments you on your on your top. They compliment you know, compliment you on to go, my god, I love that top, that's really nice. Like, where'd you get it? How do we respond? we'll say something like, Or is it was only we'll we'll we'll say that it was only this or I just threw it, you know, oh this like I just threw this on. do you really like it? We we really struggle as women to just say thank you for compliments. Um somebody says you did a you did an amazing job on that pitch, you did an amazing job on that client. We really struggle to just go Thanks, I appreciate that. There's just this this instinct that kicks in. That we want to go, yeah, but I had a lot of help. Or actually, you so and so did a lot of that work as well. Or it doesn't sit comfortably with us to just say, thanks, I appreciate it. And then I challenge I challenge the women and say, and how comfortable would it feel to just to say, yes, I thank you, I agree. And most of the women I speak to when I say that, I go, Never. I'd never I'd never say that. Because

Felice AylingResponse. again, it's about the next thing to follow up. Do you know there's that episode that has that clip it mean, girls? when she sits down and she goes, You're actually really pretty. And she goes, Thank you. And she's like, so you agree. You think you're really pretty. And that's the moment. It perfectly, perfectly captures it. That when we compliment women, often it's seen as as we're bestowing some kind of gift onto them. And so the appropriate response is is gratitude or play it down. You know, the trope of the woman who's hot but doesn't know it. The trope of the woman who is brilliant but again doesn't see it. So she's stressed and anxious all the time. This idea that women are almost like these fragile, incapable creatures who are unaware of their own gifts, unaware of their own success. And the world then bestows it upon women. But we have to wait for it to be acknowledged by somebody else before we can claim it. And even then, it's important that we're very humble in the way we accept it because don't want to be appear full of yourself. Don't want to be appear to be too self confident or self obsessed. So it's it's just like an instinct that kicks in. And I think when it's acknowledged publicly, it's even harder to accept because then other people are looking. And I wonder and I think there's this view that then people have that intention is turned to you. And it's like, what if that that attention you are then found lacking by these other people who perhaps don't agree with her assessment or don't agree with her. So there's a whole mess of stuff that comes up. But I think the biggest one is probably the humility and the being humble and the being grateful. that other people bestow this upon us. And if you think back, like for if for those of us that were in corporate for a long time, this was exactly the the way that we worked. We w we waited for other people to tell us that we'd done a good job. We waited for other people to tell us and we were ready for a promotion. The idea that us of us walking into our our boss's office or our line manager's office and saying, I'm ready for this promotion and here are all the reasons why probably wouldn't have been met with a positive

Felice AylingBecause of simply because of the fact that we'd asked for it. Who does she think she is? We get that a lot, don't we?

Carly Osman-HolmeWe do. You said something. There was a word in there which was full of yourself. Yes. How do we reclaim that? Because I've had this heard this term come up a few times of she's so full of herself, but someone starting to go, but I am full of myself. How do we reclaim that, take back that control and be proudly I'm full of myself and full of the achievements, my dreams, my desires, and proudly own it. What is it going to take from going from where we're here, which is apologetic, it's humble, it's I'm as good as you tell me I am. Two, I'm gonna step into my own power.

Felice AylingYeah. Well my response is always, well, who else am I supposed to be full of? If we think about ourselves as all of the space inside of us that we take up, if we are not allowed to take up all of that space and we leave space for something else, other people will fill it. And other people will fill it with their projection over what they want us to be. And that's when, you know, we we end up feeling like we're performing for people, you know, the approval of strangers on the internet maybe, or colleagues or bosses, often people that we don't even like and respect anyway. And we know that we're better than them. We could do a better job than them. But if we don't fill ourselves up with who we are, we leave space for other people to fill it. And other people's intentions will be self-serving, won't be for the benefit of us. And I think this idea of women self abandoning for the sake of others, to make others comfortable, you know, keep the peace, don't rock the boat, you know, make sure everybody's happy.

Felice AylingI think they is where we are being imprinted on and it's squashing out the autonomous person underneath. It's squashing out our hopes, our dreams, our personality, things we feel strongly about, things that we want to change, the impact that we can have, the money we can earn, pushing all of that out so that we become a person that other people can approve of. But what we have to realize as women is that that person actually is an impossible standard. We will not be approved of by anybody, most people. We certainly won't be liked by everyone. That's, you know, and and to try and go through life without having anybody dislike you is a fruitless and thankless task. you will never achieve it because there is no agreement as to what a good woman is. So if that is your goal, to be a good woman and liked by everyone and seen as capable and competent and, you know, and be able to have space for who you see yourself to be, you will you will have a very frustrating life. So I think the idea of being full of yourself, you should absolutely fill yourself up with who you are and not leave any space for somebody else to tell you who you are.

Felice AylingThat may mean that you have to lose some people from your life. That may mean that promotion at that company might not be forthcoming, but there might be an opportunity at another one that is more forthcoming who like you because you showed up as who you are. And again, you know, we we talk about this idea of, you know, we think about the people that don't like us. I know we talked about this analogy. And again, I I asked my I asked when I'm on workshops, I asked my clients this. So given the example of, you know, you've just run a workshop for 20 people and you get the feedback forms and 19 of them say they loved it, brilliant, and one says they didn't like it, didn't enjoy it. And I was like, which one are you laying in bed at night thinking about? And even worse, which one are you thinking about when you come to deliver that session again? Are you rewriting it? Are you changing it based on that one negative feedback? And we do this all the time. I work with specifically with women around how they are promoting their business online. And, you know, one one piece of negative feedback, one trolling comment can be all it takes to completely shift the way that woman then continues to show up and speak about her business and her service. Because that's who she's thinking about the next time she comes to write something.

Carly Osman-Holmethink this can last with you for a long time. Like someone said to me something probably four years ago and I still think about it again and again and it has rocked me. It stopped me doing it. I'd say it's actually cost my business a lot of money because it changed the way I operated. And it's only now that I've started to recognise it in clawing myself back. There was as you were talking though, there was something that you were saying about knowing what you're full of. But I do think we're in this place where so many people have been conditioned within the environments that they've been in to actually shrink them stuff, self-doubt. Where would you start with that self-knowing and actually sitting down and figuring out what do you believe in? What are your values? What do you stand for? What what makes that magical you? Because I do think we've got to a place where A lot of us have dulled ourselves and shrunk ourselves and actually subtly taken on the opinions of others because that's the safer thing to do. Where do you

Felice Aylingand play. start. I think that's going to be different for everyone. I think there's definitely it's it's it's to that journey of kind of well, I say rediscovery, but for a lot of women, they n it's not a rediscovery because they never, you know, they don't have a time in their life where they did have that space and freedom and and they understood who they are. A lot of women, you know, there's a lot of women hitting parameters and going, right, this is it now. I'm not I'm not doing this forever. But I think Is try is testing things out, playing

Felice Aylingfor is really, really important. Giving yourself permission to try things and change your mind, to get things wrong. As long as you're not an absolute dog shit of a person, um, you know, and you're not out here being racist or homophobic, people are pretty forgiving. And so give yourself permission to get things wrong, give yourself permission to share parts of you and learn, you know, from the feedback. Create safe spaces. with you know c community with other women, really important. Even if it's just a few, you know, a few of you together, you know, try things on for

Felice AylingSee you fit. And then the other thing is is go down the rabbit hole of of content and research and stories. Speak to or listen to other women who have been where you are and felt what you're feeling and see how they navigated it. I think that's something really important for women to to have language to describe how they're feeling. There's something about that, isn't there? When you're when you're feeling something's just not quite right and you stumble across something, you read something, you hear something, and they describe exactly how you're feeling. And all of a sudden you go, That's it. That's how I feel. Um and it can be it can be quite isolating, I think, because you sometimes you look around and you look if you look on social media, Instagram, you know, you can be convinced that everybody in the world has their entire lives together and everyone knows what they're doing and you know, and you're the only one that's struggling. But you know, in reality, most people are. Most people have insecurities. But I think saying no is really important, reconnecting with your body so that you you can sense when your body's saying no, even when your mouth wants to say yes, because you're busy people pleasing. But yeah, but you may have to lose some people from your life. That's that's probably one of the toughest ones. Because when a woman stops abandoning and being for everybody else, the people that benefited from her being abandoning herself for their sake might not want to stick around. That's fine. But I think a l what a lot of people don't talk about is the people you gain. The people you gain when you start to show up and be more yourself. And share your strong share your strong opinions, even if they're not fully formed, and speak out on things that are really important to you. You attract different people. And you attract people who see you,

Felice Aylinglike you, love you, enjoy being around you when you're not masking or pretending to be somebody. And that is incredibly freeing and nourishing for the soul when you have people. who have connected with you in your more truer state, there's something about those relationships and those friendships that are completely different and they fill you up and inspire you as opposed to draining you um or keeping you small.

Carly Osman-HolmeHow do you find those people?

Felice AylingIt's by by putting yourself out there. So online is a great space. Online's a great space for connecting people over shared values. You do sometimes have to go searching for the first few. But the great, great thing about the algorithms is once you start intentionally putting yourself in certain spaces, it very quickly picks up on what you want to see and it will it'll put more in front of you. But I think just be critical about everything that you see, everything that you watch, everything that you read. You know, when things are put in front of you, be curious. That's the biggest thing. You know, curiosity, it can be very easy to just dismiss things as You know, that's bad, that's good, that's terrible. But yeah, be curious about when you respond to things, when you react to things, where that reaction's coming from. You know, dig into topics, go and read books, listen to podcasts. If somebody's talking about a piece of research, go find that piece of research and read it for yourself. You see you can draw your own conclusions. But I think um, yeah, online spaces, real life as well, but online it's going to be easier for you to find the exact people that you want to connect with. Um But yeah, being open and sharing the things that are important to you. One of the things I started doing what I started

Felice Aylingneed. sharing on social media is I started on TikTok. So I had an account that didn't have my face or my name attached to it. So it was like a safe, safe place for me to play. And I started, you know, just watching content and then commenting and then looking at who else was commenting and then following those people. You know, I just started to fill my feed

Felice AylingA A lot of women. with people that challenged me, inspired me, me look at things differently. And and that was a huge help because then you that then starts to feed itself and it brings more people into your space. And so that gives you a way to connect, you know, connect with people. You know, Michelle, who's now one of my closest friends, we met Because I was doing a piece on the corporate hangover and I'd I'd just been sort of learning about it and and going through it myself and recognizing all of the conditioning that I'd been through in corporate and how that was impacting my ability to promote myself in my business. And I just thought this is interesting to me. I want to go down the rabbit hole. I don't fully understand it, but you know, I want to speak to other women who felt like this. And there were a

Felice Aylingtold exactly the same story that I did. And I think in one of those conversations, somebody connected me with to Michelle because she was just, you know, she'd just published the book on Good Girl deprogramming. And, you know, we met and we hit it off. And we're running a retreat next week together. We've got um 11 women coming to spend the week with us up in Durham. We host a podcast every Friday. We've done so many things together. We speak every single day. And she's somebody I never would have met had I not gone down that road, had I not explored that, I would probably still be just selling strategic marketing to big businesses in corporate, you know, coming home every day, just going, that was exhausting. So and it and it feeds itself as well. I think the as you start to explore who you are and you do it out loud a little bit, it can then that feedback loop comes back and it brings you into spaces that perhaps you wouldn't have been in before. creates opportunities for you to access things that perhaps you hadn't have thought of before. And so it can end up taking you down a path that you didn't imagine until you got there.

Carly Osman-HolmeLove that. It's that real openness and curiosity and just and going one thing to the other. And you don't have to have this plan all worked out. You don't have to have this big inclusion. It's just being open to exploring the next step and the next step and the next step. And and what I'm hearing from you as well is don't be afraid of just reaching out to someone saying, Can we talk? seeing this because to your point we made at the beginning, people will either ignore you or they'll be nice to you. So you've got really nothing to lose here.

Felice AylingExactly. And I think, you know, if you've if you say you're on LinkedIn and somebody's written something that you're like, my God, this person is like just as passionate about this thing as I am. And you you drop into their into their mess. And this you do this all the time and and women do this to me all the time. They're like, my God, I love your post. Do you want to be friends? Can we be LinkedIn friends? And then we'll have a coffee and we'll go, Should we talk about this? I think we should talk about this. And we're just, you know, and and you never know what comes out of these moments. So I think be willing to be willing to put yourself out there, and which I know is not incredibly helpful. for people who really struggle with the rejection sensitivity, you know, the idea of just putting themselves out there. But I think when when you are connecting with people over something you feel really passionate about, I think that's a lot easier. Um and can be a really nice way of moving forward of just, you know, finding that overlap of topic that somebody else is really, really passionate about and they speak about it with the same kind of intensity and passion that you do. And connecting with people over that can be a much easier way in. than just turning up to an event or, you know, trying to connect with people on,

Felice Aylingyou know, the business or it's like a networking thing. So I think finding immersing yourself in the world of the thing that you're you really love and that you're really interested in and using that as a way to then find people who have things in common and have values in common with you. And then yeah, be finding community as well. Excuse me. Finding community that feels like you belong can't just be any community. 'Cause the communities come in all shapes and sizes. So yeah, finding community where you have people who, you know, share your outlook and women that have done the work or at least a little bit further ahead. Cause you'll find those women are the ones that have been through that, that feeling of I don't know who I am or what I want. And have come out the other side. More often than not, you'll find those women incredibly willing to spend time with women who are on the path. Absolutely.

Carly Osman-HolmeYeah.

Felice AylingThat idea of like reaching back. And bringing w women with you. Because when you meet women like that, they do you'll you'll you'll find, you know, they will just evangelize how totally worth it it all is and how they wish they'd done it sooner. And a lot of women will then make it their mission to to help other women to re reconnect to who they are because they want everybody to feel as good as they feel. So yeah. Was that the question? Did I answer the question?

Carly Osman-HolmeJim. That was absolutely the perfect perfect. I felt like we just went, no, that was absolutely perfect. And I think it is that just get out your own way because I like I look back on my life and everything that I have loved and everything I've done has been on the other side of shit, I'm a bit scared of doing this. And honestly, when you were talking about other women evangelizing the dream and and pulling you with you, that has been exactly my experience. So I promise anyone listening who is in that, I want to do something, I don't know how, I feel a bit sick. Just to start and you will find it snowballs and and people open up their worlds to you.

Felice AylingYeah, it's it's it's this is why I s always say like this you bang on about community, but community is so important. We need other people to help regulate us because sometimes that fear is is you know, your body's way of going, This is a bit of a dick move, I wouldn't do it. You know, so it is sometimes important to listen to that voice. But, you know, nine times out of ten, you know, is that saying, isn't it, that everything you want, you know, is on the other side of fear. Sometimes the best things you'll do will be preceded by the biggest bucket. And you'll hear this from a lot of women that that, you know, are out here and are doing things that have turned out to be a success. So they didn't know they were going to be a success when they did it. Um, you know, it's sometimes easy to look at women, other women look up to women and think, you know, they've well, they've made a success of it. You know, they were lucky they had something I didn't. They didn't know it was going to work out when they did it. They most of them will say it was just it weighed everything up. I felt did everything I could, felt as ready as possible. But in the end, it was just a big fuck it, let's do it. And you gotta close your eyes sometimes and hit hit publish and then have a safe space to run to when all you wanna do is go back and delete everything that you've just said.

Carly Osman-HolmeLike, follow and subscribe to Why Aren't We Talking About This? I can't promise what I'm going to cover in next week's episode, but I can promise it will be something that has been playing on my mind as I've laid there overthinking life at 3am.