Stop Identifying With the Scared Version of You (Listener Q&A)

little bit of guidance. Um, we have to admit we don't know all the answers. I know. I'm about to say I'm no expert in all of these things, but we'll do our best to relay uh life lessons and personal experiences around how we navigate these things. Yes, I love that. But before we start, how was your weekend? Very relaxing, thank you. It was. Does that mean your How's your mental health today? Out of 10, I'd say I'm an eight, 8.5. Plus, I also made the time to have a surf this morning. Uhhuh. Uh, I fell on my last wave, so I had to paddle out because I never come in on a wave that I fall on because that means I'm probably going to fall. Well, according to my old coach, Adam Watt, who was a world champion kickboxer, he said, "Never come in on a wave that you fall on because the next wave you go and catch on the next session, you'll fall on." Is that true, though? Because I feel like you debunked you had to get rid of that belief. I did, but I chose I chose to invest in it today because you just wanted another way back out. It was such a beautiful morning. So, it was very self-serving belief today. Great. How was your weekend? Yeah, it was really good. Um, we had a workshop with one of our biggest clients, Colonial First State, on Friday. So, I was a bit burnt out actually. Um, not in a bad way, just I needed a rest day. Um, so I rested. Oh. And then, and what does resting look like? Look like for you? being still, having a sauna, reading, staying off social media, being out in the garden, playing with Benji, and then I had a beautiful lunch with my family in the Hunter Valley. Lovely. Which was so nice. And it was so funny cuz my mom got is the booker and she does all the research. She's the queen of organizing. Yeah. And cuz I was in a really relaxed state and almost like I felt like a tidal wave could hit me and I wouldn't care. I was just so tired and I just wanted to be looked after. And we got to this restaurant and it was empty at 1:00 in the valley in the Hunter Valley which on a Saturday or Sunday. Saturday, which indicates indicates a pretty bad restaurant maybe. Just something's wrong. Something's wrong. And we were sitting there and about 20 minutes later, my mom rings me. Both of her GPS's had failed, including my stepdads. And I heard them in the car and I could hear Siri talking to them. I heard chat talking to my stepdad and I heard it going turn around, turn around. So, we took that as an omen, right, to leave the venue. I mean, by that stage, it was 1:30 and they were almost packing up at that stage cuz no one would come in. No one would come in. Did you order anything? No, we didn't even get out of the car. Well, how do you know the restaurant was empty? Could see it. Oh, yeah. So, I'm a big believer in the universe gives you these signals. Listen to them. And then we ended up going to one of my all-time greats. Shout out Cafe Enzo in the Hunter Valley. It was so nice. Your favorites. Yeah, it was so good. So, yeah, I feel refreshed and revitalized and so I'm ready to go. So, next time your mom books a place, she better look up the directions to get there first. No, I think just let me book the restaurants. Of course, I'll take back control. Thank you.

about how um that business he's invested in like he grew up it was his parents business then it became his business. It was his identity and now that he's lost well he's sold the business he feels like he's lost his identity. So when it comes to identifying with the fear-based version, it's really a choice about what are you focusing your attention on, don't you think? Well, when have you lost your identity? Oh, millions of times. When I firstly when I won the world title because I gained a whole new identity. Oh, world champion. Yeah. So, that was a positive one. Or was it negative? Well, it was scary. Yeah. So, it was a fear-based success story because I feared success because I I had judged successful people as being arrogant, obnoxious that, you know, stand on these ivory towers and look down on everybody and spray champagne on each other. Well, spraying champagne on themselves because that's what I ended up having to do. But uh and then I was also worried that I could go from being like this jovial smartass to now everything I say is considered to be serious because all of a sudden I'm in a position of importance. I'm in a position of influence, a position of power. So what I say has a lot more gravitas than it used to. So now I can't be the smartass. I can't be cheeky. You didn't get that memo. There were times. You didn't listen to that one, did you? There were times when I did get the memo. Yes, there was a couple of friends who's like, "All right, gig. Pull your freaking head out of your ass and stop

I asked someone of this recently in one of our workshops. Um he was talking about he was afraid to put his hand up in an environment where he didn't feel like he belonged. Um only because he was the junior in the room and he was going around in circles around you know it's hierarchal and I shouldn't speak up and I can't take this. Like there was a lot of can'ts and shouldn't. And I said, "Do you remember a time in your life where you were rejected for having an opinion?" And he just sat back. Do you remember that look he gave us? He was like, "God, I do remember that. I was actually outcast at school." Yeah. For being different. I'm like, "Well, there it is." So my first question is like, "Who are you trying to be versus who are you?" um I know when I lost my job and I was no longer test from virgin and I no longer had all of the labels and identities that I had. That was one of the scariest moments of my life. Yeah. Um having to rebuild from nothing. Were you aware of what you were focusing on at that time? Yeah, of course. I was focusing on everything I didn't have. Um but when you're when you're in that position, it's all you can see. Yeah. Yeah, when you're in it all you can see is it. It's hard to focus on anything other than that. So, first sit in it and go, "Okay, this is it. Now what?" But you know the other thing I realized is I had never taken audit stock take reflection on who I wanted to be. Ah, right. You did that for me. I did that for you. Yeah. So, I did it Well, I did it to myself. Hence why we're sitting here. Tada. Um and I of I feel like in these circumstances like he doesn't have any other identity that he knows or has modeled off. Um so who are you? Who do you want to be is my first question to that. Yes. So your story just ignited another spark of thought in my mind about when I was chairman of Surfing Australia and a business contract came across my desk because we were building a new high performance center and it was a construction contract and they just write these things so convoluted so you feel dumb and you don't really know what you're doing. And I rang uh one of our board directors who is in the in that industry in the construction industry. And I rang Don and I just said, "I just feel so stupid. I feel so dumb." And I was bordering on crying because I just felt so defeated by this particular thing. He's like, "Oh, Lane, don't worry about it. That's why they do that. They want you to feel that way. So stop identifying as that and reassure, you know, be reassured that that's actually it's normal, but it's not who you are. It's who they want you to be." And that's a really fine distinction about taking your ownership of who you want to be, like you were saying, as opposed to allowing other people to dictate to you who you are. Are you smart? Are you dumb? Are you fat? Are you thin? Are you ugly? Are you Yeah. There's so many labels and so many identities that are cast upon us or projected upon us that we feel so overwhelmed that we don't choose. Yeah. So, we just choose the one that's easiest. And quite often the one that's easiest is the one that's most self-deprecating or self-sabotaging. Yeah. And so our advice to the there was quite a few like a number of people who said this. I always say to myself is what is fear trying to tell me? Yeah. Like what am I trying to protect myself from? Because it if we allow it to have an opinion, it informs our next choice. But if you don't need to listen to that opinion, right? It's like listening to the itty bitty shitty committee.

you can put fear back in its place because like you said if you don't give a voice to fear then it it it will drive you or it becomes your voice. But if you give fear a voice you become you create an awareness of it. You create a relationship with it and then you can dance with it as opposed to just fearing fear. Yeah. And doing it anyway. And doing it anyway. Yeah. But fearing fear and being suppressed by it versus dancing with the fear and going, "Oh, I know you. You're a familiar voice. If you're the itty bitty shitty committee that jumps onto my shoulder, especially when I'm depleted, overwhelmed, overworked, exhausted, feeling unsafe. Oh, that's my default mechanism. Okay, thank you, fear. Thank you for letting me know that I need to be wary. I need to be conscious. Like standing on a 50- foot wave and saying, "No, don't don't die. Don't do this. Thank you, fear. I appreciate you, but I'm doing this anyway." Nice. So the other thing I did listening to, so awareness is acknowledging fear.

about it, I wrote an identity of who I knew I was and who I knew I wanted to be. I looked for different people who I took different bits from. Like, I love that about you and like all positive. Like, so I started to reframe everything that I was looking at to like positive people. And then I acted from that place like what would she do today until I became her. So, what were those things? What what were the identity pieces that you drew on for example? There was so many like it was give me your top three. Well, first of all, I wanted to start a business and as someone who'd worked in a corporate life who had like so much corporate training, a finance department, an IT department, safety and numbers, an ongoing salary. I was became a business owner and I didn't even have a business yet, but it was like what do I do? How do I structure my days? How do I live? what kind of business do I want to create? And it was definitely one of purpose and impact. Um, so that was a big one. So I had to redefine my identity because I knew that I would never work in corporate again. I did don't have the Well, you knew you didn't want to ever work in Yeah. It was just it it was not even a it wasn't even an option. I knew I had an hour a day. Yeah. Like mine. So Okay. So, so that was a that was a really big one. So for your friend who doesn't know who he is without a job, my advice only speaking from experience not expertise um is what is the new identity he's creating? Yeah. Like who does he want to like surround himself with people who have sold their business and have had success in that spot and what did they do? What did they learn? And that would be my absolute advice to him. Yeah. And and sit in the discomfort of not knowing. Yeah. Yeah. And the discomfort of feeling lost. Yeah. But we can't grow to what we don't know. Yeah. Exactly. We have to we have to decide. Yeah. What are we growing into? What are we growing into? So, yeah, that was a big one. So, well, you gave me your top one. You got one more. I asked for three. Uh, health and fitness. I was someone who slammed myself. Um, extreme diets, extreme exercise, extreme binge eating, extreme binge drinking for fun. I never did it alone, but that still wasn't serving me. um supplements, whatever it was just to be healthy. Whereas I wanted to be a balanced and consistent healthy human. So what does that look like? That's, you know, yoga instead of HIT and like honoring my body, eating more protein or not starving myself. It was just about creating consistency from a balanced person and resting when and resting when I needed to and starting to actually love and appreciate my body for who it was, not who it wasn't. So, that was another big identity shift for me and one that I constantly have to remind myself every day um of that so I don't go into self-sabotaging sort of self-deprecating mindsets. What does a self-sabotur look like in your world? You're fat, you're ugly, you need to train, hurry up, and um you've only done one bit of exercise, do two, you haven't done physio today, you need to book it in like on and on and on. Just constant head noise, constant head noise. A lot of therapy to undo that. Um, and where it came from. Where did it come from? Shame. Yep. A lot of shame of myself. And that if I didn't look or be a certain person, then nobody would love me. Where'd that come from? Oh, I think there's so many elements of where that comes from. Like I grew up with Victoria's Secret agent, Victoria Secret agents, models, the magazine industry, the schoolyard. Um, I was a childhood actress. I remember standing in front of a panel of people and I had to do a spin. They'd look at my hands. They'd look at my hair and they'd talk to each other about why I should or shouldn't get that job. Yeah. There's so many there's so many inputs that design who we become. And part of this unraveling of self is deciding who you want to be and not being not listening to those voices. Yeah. Wow. You're really throwing it at me today. Oh, just offering you some moments of clarity. Yeah. I'm just wondering, has anyone done a uh done a documentary or followed the lives of toddlers and tiaras? Like, what have they turned into? I wonder. I do wonder. These five-year-olds that have become beauty queens. Yeah. How have they grown or what have they grown into? Well, if you know someone who's a toddler and tiara, please put them onto a wakeup call. We want to we want to we want to get you on. We want to hear. Yeah. Good and bad. Cuz I every it is it is everything is meaning making. Yes. So the meaning I put around it is I had a lot of shame around my body. Yes. Some people could have exactly that same experience and love their body. Love their body. Yeah. Birth was a big one that I rewrote my story around my body around trust and love. How much changes and grows. Yeah. morphs and trusting it in we all had to trust your body because there was a chance it may have ended your life. So yeah, the the trust and faith and um wholeheartedness you put into that to deliver Benji naturally was phenomenal. Yeah. And that's probably the third identity shift that happened post all of this work was um mother motherhood. Who do I want to be? How do I want to show up? How do I want to mother him? How do I want to be a stepmother? Like, so that is a very intentional because I realized the more I focused on what I didn't want to be was who I was turning into. It's what you become. Yeah. So that was another big intentional shift in my life is and that starts with walking through every doorway. How do I want to show up? Who do I want to be in this room? Starts with intention. Yeah. Yeah. So that's a good question. Beautiful intentional mother. I saw this thing on Instagram the 30 seconds. I was on it yesterday. Yeah. And it was this um little baby penguin on fire with with its mother penguin just standing there and it's like, you know, literally on fire. And then the mother penguin just wraps its little arms around it. And then the baby penguin goes that is that's emotional regulation. That is it. And it's being sitting in that discomfort when you're already tired, wired, fried, you know that they just need a hug. And so do you. Yeah. And so do you. Yeah. Yeah.

love do now? What does love choose in this moment? Because fear um dissolves love. And one of the quickest ways to dissolve fear is through play. Yeah. Is through curiosity and play. So what does love do now? Let's get playful with it. Yeah. What do you What did you tell your friend? What was the advice you gave him? I said it's I'll call you back. No, I said it's going to take time and ride the emotional waves that you're on. Um because every day is going to feel different. Every moment is going to feel different because thoughts will trigger the emotions. And he is giving himself a hard time and then accepting and then beating himself up and then questioning and then worrying. So I just reassured him that you're on the right path and uh you've chosen this now. So lean all in. uh there's no use, you know, reflecting back on the on the past and wanting it to be different. So, and his dad's 93. He said, you know, if I had my his dad said to him, if I had my time again, I wouldn't work as hard. Number one, top five regrets of the dying, I wish I didn't work so hard. Yeah. To me, can you call him and say, "What is the life you want?" Yeah. Okay. I'll text him. I know honestly it will be freedom. Yeah. So, what does a free person do? Because he sold his business for freedom, right? Uh and money. And he doesn't need any more money. Yeah. So he wants to be free. Yes. So what does that look like? What does that look like? Yeah. All right. Okay. That's good. I I'll do that. Yeah. We'll we'll come back to your dream team.

to all of the other world champions before you became one? Well, comparison always makes you feel inadequate. I wish I realized that when I was in my 20s because as you asked, how did I compare myself? I compared myself through my ability or inability um my body and my um strength. So capacity to withstand feedback uh withstand uh conditions you know surf certain conditions. So the comparison analysis led me down moments of self-sabotage and then the confidence that I built on that was very fragile very brittle foundations because it was built on arrogance not pure confidence. So it's like haha better than you go. What did you notice in other world champions that how did they silence their inner critic? because we all have it. It's just keeping us safe, loved, stuck in a box. Yes. So, they surrounded themselves with a good dream team. I noticed that all the world champions before me had coaches or mentors that they toured with because the women's tour in the 90s was such a such a misogynistic, sexist show that had very little financial support. So, we all had to bunk in together and travel together. And so we never really had privacy or um moments of solitude. It was just like we're all on top of each other all the time. That is crazy. Can you just give like the top five um like situations you had to deal with? I love the first one I want to kick you off with that just hit me like a wave was that if the surf was bad, the guys would say, "The surf is Send the girls out." Yep. That went on for years. It still actually occurs sometimes. So there's this mentality that the guys believe that they deserve better conditions than us because they're better surfers. So therefore, when the conditions turn to let's send the girls out. No one watches the girls anyway. No one cares that they're surfing. They don't have sponsors and they're not worth watching because look how bad they are. Duh. Because look at the conditions we're in. Yeah. I mean, you can you can't surf very well in very bad conditions. What was number two? Number two was the slumber parties we used to have around the world. So, we used to travel to this place in uh southwest of France called Lacanau. And there was this woman called Manique who had I believe a three-bedroom house and then a giant open plan lounge room. So, the girls that got in first got one of the bedrooms and if they were nice enough, they would share a bedroom with you. Otherwise, we had mattresses on the floor in the lounge room. Wow. And that was the same in Tahiti. Where were the guys staying? They were staying They would have their own apartments or their own houses because they could afford to. We're paying 10 French. No, probably. Yeah. 10 bucks a night. Whatever that worked out in French Franks back then. Um or francs. Got a lot of quissants. No. No. Especially when you're gluten-free and lactose intolerant. Okay. So, so the slumber parties were were interesting. And and in Tahiti, uh people would bill at their houses, so we had open plan lounge rooms to sleep in as well. That is insane. Number three. Um I'm only going to give you three because we could do this all day. Um, number three. Oh god, I don't know which to tell. Uh, pay equity. Oh gosh, everyone knows that one though, right? Yeah. Pay equity. I don't know if everybody knows how bad it was. I mean, so when I joined the tour in 1990, the prize purse for the women's events was a total of uh $20,000 and the men's was $100,000. And the the argument was that it was um there were more men on tour than there were women and that the men had greater depth and so therefore they deserved more spots. I feel that the one of the the worst scenarios was the way that the composition of the board. So the ASP board of directors had about I don't know 20 directors on it and I'd say 80% of them were made up of the marketing managers from all the sponsors. So it was a pretty dysfunctional way that the board was made up. And then there was four surfer reps. So there used to be two women and two men. Then it got broken down to two surfer reps and the women lost their vote because there were more men on tour than women. So we had to if we wanted anything changed or addressed, we had to um present that back to the guys and then trust that the guys would represent our voice at the board table. Wow. That is so extreme. Yeah, it was insane. and they they prided themselves on that. So, and and then when I sat because I was the director of the women's tour while I was competing and winning world titles and I sat on the board for of the 19 years I was on tour, I spent 15 years around the table and the amount of times I asked for improvements, increases, changes and firstly firstly I was always doing it for the future of women surfing but it was always perceived as being self-s serving. So the girls I would cancel events because they were in really suboptimal conditions. Like in Hawaii they took our event from one of the most prime surf spots and put us in one of the shittiest point breaks you can imagine up at Turtle Bay. And I canceled that event because it was giving the the organizers an excuse not to have us. Look, you got an event like be happy. I'm like this is ridiculous. As long as you hold us here, you don't have to hold us at Sunset Beach. and sunsets amazing wave and it's amazing for women surfing to be able to go there and challenge themselves. So I'm just really grateful that that's changed. The women get to surf in exactly the same waves as the guys. They exer they earn exactly the same amount of money for winning um and performing and they have uh an increased amount of allocation for women on tour today. So, it's just it's such a different world and I'm so grateful that all the that we went through that my predecessors and me and my peers and that generation battled for has amounted to or resulted in the changes that we see today. Oh, LB, I just want to credit you because like you won the Dawn Award this year and no one like in those small snippets, you don't actually understand why. Like I live and breathe my time with you and I never I don't get that from you that often. That's true. I feel like and back to this question around negative self-talk comparison and the itty bitty shitty committee. If you really had the environment to say well this or you and give up or play the card of everyone's against me. So you really had to silence the inner critic, silence the external critic and perform on a world stage. That's a massive credit to you.

of myself going, "How come all the girls get to go surfing and I have to sit in this boardroom for the next two days?" Like, this is not fair. But you know what? It's the choice that I've made. I've chosen to be here. So, I get to change the scenario as opposed to I have to. I get to. Yeah. That's that classic. And then I am. And then I am. There were obviously times when I was I literally stood up in the boardroom one afternoon and stomped my feet because I was so fed up. Like the penguin. Yeah. Like the penguin. Yep. I was on fire and no one gave me a hug. So, I had to go self soothe after that. But honestly, I remember it was in 2002 and it was a 4-day board meeting and they saved the women's scenario for the last hour of the board meeting. So, I had to sit through I mean, they could have at least given me the first hour and then I didn't really need to be there because I didn't have a vote anyway. But, I got to present our challenges. And right as I was about to start, one of the guys from Bibong stood up and went, "Um, do you think you can speed this up because the men's final about to start, I wanted to be that. I was I became that penguin." [bleep] They're like, "Whoa, she's emotional." Yeah. Crazy today. Woo! Get out of lane's way. Annoying as hell. And did you get your voice heard? Didn't change anything. No. Yeah. No. Slow over time. Slow over time. and uh knowing that ultimately my objective was to change the landscape of women surfing to leave it in a better place to ensure that the next generation didn't have to endure the battles that my generation enjoyed and to perhaps level out the playing field. It took until 2018. So that's when they announced pay equity and that's when I felt that all the battles that I fought were worth it. That is so good. So the way I like to position it is have the courage to plant a seed and water it to grow a tree that you'll never have the chance to sit under. Yeah. And there's one thing that fear when you shine a light on fear, it can't kills the seed. Kills the seed. Yeah. It kills the seeds of growth. Yeah. So our advice to anyone going through negative self-talk and comparison is understand your why. Yes. Come back to your why. Um, get a great I am mantra that helps you anchor in yourself. So, what was your I am in that? Cool. So, you went from I I have to fight I get to. Yeah. So, you went I have to fight this fight. Yes. To I get to I get to change the landscape and then I am and I am I am I am well I am in a position of influence and I am going to make a difference. I am going to make a difference because I really want to. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I take that into everyday life is if I'm tired and I don't want to do something, I quickly go, I have to, you know, show up at this event. I get to impact lives and now I am. Yeah. So, that was we kind of sidestepped there. We got to two questions and we might we'll do a part two. Okay, why not? Um, but thank you LB because nothing changes people more than a human story. Um, there's so much advice that rolls around, but in my life and my opinion, your stories have really helped me shape my new identity. They've helped me believe in myself greater than I could ever imagine. A thank you. They've helped me shortcut some of the tools um that I already knew, but I didn't know how to put them into practice, and you really helped me in that. A and most of all is I want people to feel that when you silence that itty shitty itty bitty shitty itty bitty shitty committee and you find a sense of who you are and who you want to be and you love that person when you look at them in the mirror that is the greatest gift that you could ever have and you gave that to me. A so please use this advice today and use it in your world cuz once that itty bitty shitty committee is silenced and you start to living a more authentic and loving place, life becomes rich and beautiful and you make really positive change whether it's in women surfing or just being a mom because all of your gifts and your purpose lay within. They're not outside of you. They're within you. Yeah. So having someone in your life that can help bring those to the four and shine a light on your innate gifts and your beauty and your talents and the things that you can share u make this world a better place and you make my world a better place. So thank you. So I just wanted to add one more thing to the itty bitty shitty committee and the and the fear is it's always there. Yeah. Yeah. It never goes away. No, it's always there. So it does get softer though. It gets softer but it does it just continuously exists and it exists for a reason. But it's it's also there for a season. So just uh just ride those emotional waves and know that one day you're going to be feeling unbeatable and the next day perhaps your confidence and your self-belief will be wavering and that's called being a human being. The biggest mistake that we can make is is identify with the wavering. Just acknowledge it. Yeah, I'm feeling a little bit gentle today. So take it gently and give yourself that was my advice to my mate who just sold his business is give yourself some compassion and some grace and be kind to yourself. Walk with grace dream team. Thank you so much for listening in today. If this episode resonated with you or someone that's going through identity, negative self-talk or just needing a bit of a boost, please share it with them. It helps us create more impact which is why we do what we do. So from us to you, thank you Dream Team. Have a good week. Doodles.