February 17, 2025 • 44 mins
What if your actions labelled as self-sabotage are actually choices waiting to be altered? Join us for a transformative conversation with Dawn Ledet, the self-trust coach, as she unpacks her journey from self-doubt to self-mastery. Dawn shares her innovative techniques from the Self-Trust Lab and the Self-Trust Executive, offering listeners a fresh perspective on overcoming imposter syndrome and reprogramming negative self-talk. This episode promises to shift your mindset on self-trust, highlighting how tuning into your inner voice can be the cornerstone of personal and professional success.
Ever wondered why you procrastinate? Fear of failure—or even success—might be the hidden culprit. Dawn and I dissect the traditional notion of self-sabotage, challenging you to see it as a gateway to growth, not a roadblock. Through insightful dialogues, we explore the importance of self-talk, explaining how changing the narrative from judgmental to curious can unlock a new realm of creativity and wisdom. Learn practical strategies to foster a supportive internal dialogue, helping you transform generational scripts and deep-seated beliefs into empowering affirmations.
Picture a life less cluttered by digital noise. That's what a "consumption fast" can offer, as Dawn explains through her personal three-year journey. We delve into the benefits of stepping back from constant media consumption to discover a deeper connection with ourselves. Embrace the transformative power of digital detox, and learn how to maintain a healthy relationship with technology without sacrificing the newfound sense of tranquillity.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Donna Eade (00:00):
You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast,
the place to be to grow andstreamline your business.
I'm your host, donna Eade.
Let's jump into the show.
Welcome back to the podcast,everybody.
I am so excited to have youhere today and even more excited
(00:23):
to bring you a guest.
So we have been a little low onguests coming into the new year
, all of my own fault.
In the back end there, westarted the new year with a
lovely guest, cam.
If you want to go back andlisten to her episode.
She was the accountant, buttoday I have got Dawn with me.
Hello, dawn, welcome to theshow.
Dawn Ledet (00:45):
I am so excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
I'm grateful to be here withyou and your audience.
Donna Eade (00:51):
Introduce yourself to my audience.
Tell them a little bit aboutwho you are, what it is that you
do and a little something aboutyour life.
Dawn Ledet (01:08):
Oh sure, okay.
Well, I am Dawn Lede.
I am known as the self-trustcoach and I help small business
owners and entrepreneurs andbusiness leaders master the one
thing that impacts everythingand that is self-trust.
And, like many people, we cometo our expertise by often not
being very good at thatexpertise.
At some point in our life andfor me, it was this big aha
(01:31):
moment, and I love to share howvery proud I was of myself
during this realization, becauseit was very funny I literally
sold my car.
I was an executive in thehospitality industry for two
decades and I had this brilliantidea in my mind to sell my car,
to force myself to walk to andfrom work two miles because I
(01:55):
live in a city, and that meantthat I would need to get to work
at a normal time, not too early, and leave work at a normal
time, not too late, and I wouldbe moving my body.
I'm like this is so brilliant.
Yeah, all of this done, I'mgoing to work normal hours, I'm
not going to bring work home andI'm going to be moving my body
(02:16):
more, getting more exercise.
Well, one of those proud walks,I was like thinking how smart I
was.
It dawned on me, and when I saydawn on me, I really mean it
slaps me in the head like a tonof bricks that to mind
throughout my whole life ofdecisions and indecisions and
(02:49):
actions and inactions that I hadtaken and not taking, and they
all brought to light one thingthat I was seriously lacking in
self-trust and I couldn't unseethat and it just sent me on a
path of really one.
It was a lot of noticing, whichwas quite painful in the
(03:11):
beginning, but then starting tosee how it applied, because I
was still very successful andI'm not someone that someone
would regularly look at and saythat you have a confidence issue
or you have low self-esteem,and so we can often equate a
lack of self-trust with thosethings like being truly negative
(03:34):
to ourselves and really likebeing shy or inward.
And I didn't identify with anyof that.
And when I started seeing howself-trust is even more
noticeable, whether we have itor not, in the achievement of
big goals, and how we could fixthat and how I did the work on
myself, I knew I had to get thatout there and help other people
(03:56):
yeah, that's so good, so good.
Donna Eade (03:59):
So how do you work with people now?
Dawn Ledet (04:04):
so I have two ways that people work with me.
I have the self trust lab,which is a proven framework.
We call it the three E successmethod.
That teaches you the thrillsthree skills it takes to achieve
anything, how to fuel thosethree skills with self-trust.
And there's an like it takesyou through setting the goal.
(04:25):
It's new ways of doing thingsthat we've all done, but fueled
by self-trust, in a way thatsupports us instead of having
ourselves drag ourselves acrossthe finish line.
And coaching comes along withthat, which is the most
important piece, if you ask me.
And then I also have theself-trust executive, which is a
(04:47):
more high level, detailed,bespoke way of working together
that is closer knit, more handson.
Donna Eade (04:56):
Brilliant, amazing.
So what we're going to talk toabout today is more along the
lines of self-sabotage,self-talk and how that all
relates into self-trust.
So you're definitely the expertto talk to about this, and what
I was thinking while you weretalking there is how that
actually self-trust is a keycomponent, I would think, in how
(05:20):
we help ourselves overcome thedreaded imposter syndrome, slash
phenomenon, whichever wordyou're going to use.
But this is something that ishuge with my audience.
It's something that we'vetalked about a lot with my
guests.
Um, when I've talked about, um,their biggest mindset block
imposter syndrome comes up againand again and again, and I
think a lot of that is that lackof self-trust.
(05:44):
And I want to sort of pull thatback also to something that you
were saying before we hopped onto record this episode, where
we were talking about you havinga complete break from consuming
anything so that you could bewith yourself, and I think
imposter syndrome comes a lotfrom the external voices and how
(06:08):
we kind of handle that versusour inner trust.
What are your thoughts about?
Dawn Ledet (06:13):
that 100%.
I mean, I have a challenge withlabels, the same as with
self-sabotage, the same as withcalling it imposter syndrome.
But because when we place thaton ourselves, sometimes we just
lay it there and we're like,okay, that's it, that's our
truth.
There's no growth from there.
But I also know that I call itthe lobby we live in.
(06:39):
The lobby noise in our mind andthat's our external voices that
we hear from friends and familyand experts and critics outside
of us.
And then there's it's pairedwith our own doubts and
insecurities and fears andthat's that loud, like really
picture yourself in a loud, busylobby and you can't help but
(07:01):
like overhear it, but it's kindof jumble and it's just like
feeding.
Yeah, well, through the lobbythere's this door and on the
other side of it are all youranswers, it's your inner wisdom,
it's your intuition and we haveto spend time with it.
(07:21):
So that's where my consumptionfast came from was to clear out
because often we get into thatlobby and we're like no thanks,
and we just leave, we go out theother door or we try and drown
it out with music, movies, shows.
You know something else more,outside voices actually, which
just can compound it.
(07:43):
But it does give us a littlebit of an escape and there's
nothing wrong with those things.
But that's our general is.
We either live in the lobby andthat's like when we're really
in anxiety and fueling ourinsecurities and doubts and
fears and questioning andcomparing, or we like duck and
leave.
But the invitation is to gothrough.
It is to invite silence andgive yourself, like you can
(08:08):
literally visualize walking intothe door, if you will, and
starting to make that a practice, whether it's for 30 seconds in
the beginning when you do it orminutes at a time, but starting
to make friends with that andnot judging yourself for how it
goes, not making it a problem ifyou're like this is hard or I'm
afraid of what I'm gonna find.
(08:29):
That's generally what I hear,but the only thing to fear that
you're gonna find is in thelobby, because what's through is
your truth and your truth isnever gonna tell you terrible
things yeah, yeah, oh, that's sogood, that's so good.
Donna Eade (08:46):
Oh, there's a lot to unpack there.
But I want us to bring it backto the business side of things,
because a lot of the well,pretty much my entire audience
are business owners, and I thinkwhen we are looking at our
self-trust in our businesses, itcan be quite difficult for us,
especially if it's somethingthat we've not done before and
(09:09):
given the time of year we're atwe're sort of towards the end of
February now and we've alreadyhad almost two months of the
year, which is crazy to thinkabout.
But a lot of us set goals inJanuary and if we were to be
honest with ourselves and sitthere and look back at them now,
some of us will be going oh,I'm already behind off the mark,
(09:33):
missed the mark completely or,even worse, I've completely
forgotten what my goals were,that I set at the beginning of
January.
And we start telling ourselvesall these things like I'm
sabotaging myself, like I'veliterally why didn't I just do x
, y and z?
And you have got a bit of a adifferent view on self-sabotage,
being blamed for missing goals.
(09:53):
So let's talk about that.
Um, self-sabotage and goals,yeah.
Dawn Ledet (10:01):
I shun a lot of labels.
So it's I.
There are millions.
There are amazing people Ishouldn't say millions.
There are several reallyamazing gifted experts out there
that talk about self sabotageand what they say is right.
But what happens with those ofus that aren't experts in
(10:21):
self-sabotage?
We take that label, we put iton ourselves and we use it as a
reason why we don't do things.
Oh, I, just I self-sabotage andthere's no growth in that.
There's no way to move forward,because now we've just decided
I'm someone who self-sabotages.
So what I'd like to invitepeople to do is to recognize
(10:41):
that the truth is, you made achoice and this is not an
invitation for judgment.
It's an invitation to connect.
Actually, we're not trying tocreate more disconnect.
We're actually trying to leanin and say the reason why I'm
not further along on my goal isbecause I chose not to do X, y,
z.
Now I can look at.
If I'm not going to judge that,I can say let me look at why,
(11:05):
and does why even matter?
Or do I just want to startright now and choose differently
?
Because our greatest power isour power to choose, and what a
privilege I mean.
This is why you don't need tojudge that you haven't worked on
it yet or that you've losttrack on it or that you've even
forgotten about it, is becausewhat a privilege it is that we
(11:29):
can choose to make goals andthen we can choose to pursue
them or not.
We don't have to, yeah.
And so, owning that privilegeand knowing like I just didn't
choose to do these steps, nowI'm going to decide.
Do I want to choose differently?
Did I choose not to because Ijust didn't set myself up for
(11:53):
success?
Let me see what that would looklike now.
That's the difference in thegift of not labeling it as just
self-sabotage and owning it as achoice that we can change.
Donna Eade (12:02):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that it's.
It's really interesting whenyou say it like that.
It's almost like when we giveourselves a label.
We're just giving ourselves anexcuse and actually we need to
just strip back to the whys.
And you said, why might notmatter, and I think a lot of
times what can be behind the whyis a fear, whether it's fear of
(12:23):
failure or fear of success thatit's often a fear that just
makes all of the back end of ourwebsite is much more
interesting to do.
I'll just get on with that, or,you know, you just start
procrastinating with differentthings because it prevents us
from from doing what is scaringus, and I think that's that's
that can be part of it.
(12:43):
But another part that we cantalk about is the language that
we use, because I thinkoftentimes people sort of get on
that self-hate train, like asif we haven't got enough going
on in that lobby with everybodyelse's criticisms board.
(13:05):
We take it to heart, we take itpersonally and then we start
filtering that into our ownself-talk and all of a sudden
we're and you know the analogyhas been used a lot with people
who are trying to lose weight ishow do you talk to yourself in
a mirror?
Start talking to yourself likeyou would your best friend,
because would you ever turnaround to your best friend and
say, oh my god, you lookabsolutely hideous in that and
you can't possibly go outwearing that dress and things
(13:27):
like that?
So self-talk is really, reallypowerful and it feels like it's
an impossible thing to change,like it is ground in from very
young.
A lot of times I literallywatched you'll love this.
It was an episode of Say yes tothe Dress and there was a mother
(13:49):
in there who turned around.
Her daughter was used to be asort of a model, so used to have
a model physique.
She is now what I would say isa regular, regular looking girl
size, and her mum turned aroundand said she needs a wedding
dress with sleeves because weneed to hide her chunky arms.
Now the woman, the bride shewas actually fiercely
(14:14):
self-confident and she was justlike I'm just in a different
phase of my life right now andI'm going to enjoy it.
You know, it doesn't matterwhat I weigh, which I was.
It was so refreshing and I wasjust so happy for her that she
felt that way.
But then it cut to a clip ofher mum turning around and say,
well, my mum's still goes on tome about my weight and I'm like,
oh so it's a self-cycle thingthat you're just continuing with
(14:36):
your own daughter.
Do you not hear the words thatare coming out your mouth?
So it can be generational, thisself-talk that we like.
It's just pounded in.
So is there a way we can changeit?
Dawn Ledet (14:49):
absolutely, we can 100% change it.
Now to your point.
There are we and I talk aboutthis in my book, master your
Inner Dialogue.
There are origins for our innerdialogue.
So there's the origin, whichcan come from one, just just our
if you're familiar with themotivational triad just our
brains wiring.
(15:10):
There's a part of us that'swired to seek comfort, avoid
pain and conserve energy.
So there's that piece.
Some of our inner dialoguecomes from that makeup, that
wiring.
Some of our inner dialoguecomes from rules that we either
adopted, were created in a wayto create safety for ourselves.
(15:33):
Sometimes they're veryinteresting as we get older, but
as kids maybe we had to createshrinking because that protected
us in some way.
So there's many ways that ourorigin, different types of
origins whether we create it,adopt it or it's part of that
motivational triad affect ourinner dialogue.
(15:53):
That leads to the lens we aregenerally operating from.
And if we want to simplify lens, there's lots of different ways
to look at our lens and what itlooks like.
But if we boil it down to thesimplest, it's like a lens of
belief in ourselves or a lens ofdisbelief in ourselves, to the
(16:20):
tone that you hear your innerdialogue in.
And the tone is where I reallylove to start.
We can explore because, justlike the why, it's not that the
why doesn't matter, it's justsometimes we can get caught up
digging into why and miss out onmoving forward and just
creating connection.
We can do both.
But so I just like to let youknow that when you ask why,
(16:44):
sometimes the answer is just assimple as because I chose to or
because I didn't know better, orbecause that's the best I had
at the time, and it's perfectlyfine to answer it that way.
But the tone of our innerdialogue is fascinating.
I want to tell all of you,whatever you hear your tone and
if you hear you screwed that upor why is this so hard for me,
(17:08):
and you're hearing that in thistone of like judgment, daggers
of criticism or victim mentality, I have great news for you your
inner dialogue actually doesn'thave a tone.
We assign one, we all do, butwhat that means is we can take
it off or change it.
So I just encourage yousometimes to hear that you know
(17:32):
why is this so hard for me.
If I don't hear that as ajudgment and I hear like why is
this so hard for me?
From curiosity.
I'm like, oh, let's look atthis.
How can I make this easier formyself?
Or do I just want to hire itout?
It just there's answers to it.
So when we hear somethingthrough the tone of judgment and
(17:54):
criticism, it literally shutsdown our wisdom.
We just miss out.
It's like the door closes tothe inner room and we can't
access.
All the times that we were ableto do hard things and how we
know how to get through and howit's not a problem to delegate
so that we can focus on thingsthat we already know how to do
(18:15):
or or that we want to grow in orthat match our genius.
So that's a really good placeto start is changing that tone,
and sometimes I have clients whowill just turn it into a robot
so that you can really hear itobjectively, or some people give
it an accent because that'sjust fun.
So starting to play with thattone can really make a
(18:36):
difference in how you engagewith your inner dialogue.
Donna Eade (18:41):
Yeah, what would you say to people who don't hear it
?
Because you know, there's athing it's a medical issue that
there are people out there thatcannot picture things in their
heads.
And I think there is alsopeople out there that don't
necessarily hear the voices, andnot because they're not there,
(19:02):
but because they're not tunedinto them.
So instead of hearing thevoices, they're observing the
action.
So, for example, somebody whofinds it, you know, absolutely
nerve wracking to go into anetworking event and on their
own they might hide to thecorners of the room, look down
(19:22):
at their phone like not beingengaged.
So there's no self-talk therefor them.
They just walk into the roomand that's how they behave.
But behind that is I'm scared ofinteracting with, I'm scared of
rejection.
I, you know there's some sortof inner talk there that has
told them that they're not goingto perform well in this
environment and their actionsare showing it.
(19:43):
But they're not necessarily.
It's almost like it's justautomated.
So they're not necessarilyhearing.
Oh god, you can't do this.
They just go in and they behavethe way they've always behaved.
So somebody's not actuallyhearing their inner talk.
What would you say to them?
Like if, if, if, they're a wayof them tuning into it.
Dawn Ledet (20:01):
Start the conversation truly it's start
the conversation if you're nothearing it, because that's what
it is.
It's happening subconsciously,or or it's there and you've
drowned it out for so long thatyou just aren't attuned to it.
So we have to, um, startengaging in the conversation.
So maybe you start it like hey,hon, why are we scared?
Like why are we here to be inthe corner?
(20:24):
And so maybe you start it likehey, hon, why are we scared?
Like why are we here to be inthe corner?
And if not, let's look at howcan I support myself through
this?
Because, going back to likewhat you were saying with the
goals, and so part of it isowning our choices not to.
But then the other piece is howwe manage discomfort and what
we're sharing.
In this analogy of someonegoing into a networking event,
(20:46):
there's discomfort.
Yes, behind that discomfort isoften fear.
Really, that's what it allboils down to is, most of the
time is fear, fear of something,fear of failure, fear of
embarrassment, fear ofhumiliation.
So what we want to do is get intouch with that and create
eight comforts that support usmoving forward.
(21:09):
So I write about creating acomfort plan because our default
comforts are the things that weend up judging ourselves for,
like standing in the cornerinstead of engaging, turning on
Netflix, scrolling throughsocial media, you know, just
giving up going to eat somethingor get something to drink.
(21:29):
Comforts in themselves aren'twrong, but if they're pulling
you away from what you want,then they are comforts that
aren't very comfortable to yourlong-term success.
They don't actually work foryou and you end up judging
yourself and going down a cycle.
So engaging in thatconversation and giving yourself
(21:52):
comforts, honoring yes, this isuncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable because it'snew, or because I have a fear,
or because I just don't knowwhat to expect, and that's okay.
Donna Eade (22:10):
How can I take care of myself and do it anyway, yeah
, which reminds me of thatfantastic book Feel the Fear and
Do it Anyway.
I think it's a book that we allshould read.
So we've started thisconversation with our inner
dialogue that is berating us andputting us down and scaring the
life out of us.
I mean, some of us must have afantastic inner dialogue that
are actually really supportiveof us and you know, if you're
one of those people, come andintroduce yourself to me
(22:33):
sometime.
I'd really like to have aconversation.
But you say that we can changethis inner dialogue.
But you say that we can changethis inner dialogue.
So what are some tips that wecan give the listeners on how
they can start to change thosescripts that they have,
especially when they're suchingrained scripts that might be
generational, that might havebeen there for a very long time,
(22:54):
that we've just like convincedourselves there's no opportunity
, we're just useless at whateverit is.
How can we start to actuallychange those scripts?
What can we do it?
Dawn Ledet (23:04):
can be as simple as instead of even changing the
script, it's just changing yourrelationship.
You have with that, thosescripts, and I love what you
said about like some peopledon't recognize that.
They're braiding.
I didn't recognize it as that.
It can often be much subtler.
It can come in questions likethe most like.
(23:26):
It seems like such an easyquestion what if I get it wrong?
Like that's, like it's possible.
Whenever I start on a new goal,it's like what if I get it
wrong?
But if I hear it withoutanswering it, my brain is really
good at going to find evidence.
All of our brains love to proveus right.
We love to answer questions andwe love to prove ourselves
(23:46):
right.
So if we don't answer a, whatif I get it wrong?
With an actual answer, ourbrain goes and starts looking
for all the ways we could get itwrong and then it starts
bringing you other questions ofdoubt.
It starts feeding that.
So one practical tip is toanswer the questions that
present to us.
So what if I get it wrong?
(24:08):
Could be as simple as we don'thave to paint rainbows and
daisies and make it like lie toourselves.
We want to be really honest.
We're creating self-trust bycreating a safe space within to
be really honest, to rollthrough the challenges, to have
our own back through thedifficult.
But we don't want to createmore disconnect.
(24:28):
We want to create moreconnections so that we have a
unified front to thosechallenges and hard, because the
challenges and hard come.
We don't have to create themand we do so much better when we
have a united front towards it.
So we want to answer thosequestions very truthfully, like
what if I get it wrong Couldjust be I could and I could get
it right and I'm so ready tofind out which.
(24:50):
Yeah, like that is the way wecan start to improve our
self-talk in two ways answeringthe questions that present
instead of letting our defaultbrain go and answer them, and
also paying attention to thetone.
If you hear it with criticism,something, any statement could
(25:11):
be really subtle.
sometimes it's like passive,aggressive or passiveness mine's
definitely passive, aggressiveright I, and so just answer
those questions and also payattention to the tone.
If it comes across as criticalor passive, aggressive, repeat
it to yourself or even write itdown and look at it just for the
(25:34):
words.
This actually works with otherpeople too.
I always tell people if youhave teenagers, it's really nice
to just erase the tone.
People, too.
I always tell people, if youhave teenagers, it's really nice
to just erase the tone.
It's it's a practice, but whenyou just hear the words, you
react in a way that supports you, and that's what it's all about
.
When you start believing thatthat tone is representative of
either a truth, like we'rebuying into the judgment that I
(25:58):
could get it wrong and that's aproblem, instead of I could get
it wrong, sometimes I get thingswrong yeah not a problem yeah,
oh, brilliant, so good, so good.
Donna Eade (26:09):
I think it's an absolutely fascinating topic
because I think it's one thatreally affects everybody in
their everyday lives and it's abig thing.
But I think it's something wedon't give enough time to, and
in our businesses especially.
You know, I've always saidthat's why I have this mindset.
Part of this podcast is becauseyou could have all of the right
(26:31):
funnels in place, all of theright systems, all of the right
connections, but if your innerself is saying you're going to
fail, but if your inner self issaying you're going to fail,
you're never going to make it,who do you think you are?
And all of that kind of stuff,it doesn't matter, it's never
going to work.
Because you're telling yourselfit's not going to work all the
(26:53):
time.
Dawn Ledet (27:00):
It becomes this battle and some of us do get
there Like, anyway, it's just sopainful and it takes longer and
it's so exhausting.
That's what burnout looks like.
It's like we're draggingourself and pushing ourself and
punishing ourselves across thefinish line, when it could be
this.
I keep saying united front, butthat's the way I really look at
it.
That's why I sort of don't likethe self-sabotage talk is
(27:21):
because it paints us asdifferent pieces that are
against us, and so I often liketo invite you to have a lens of
all of me is for me, becausewhen all of me is for me, even
with if my thoughts offer me, mybrain offers me like that was
stupid, I'm gonna be like yeah,girl, it was, and this is what
(27:46):
I've learned from it.
Donna Eade (27:47):
It's totally fine yeah, yeah, brilliant, brilliant
, oh.
This was actually one of thewords I had sentences that I had
on my vision board last yearwas everything that is for me
will find me.
Um, so I loved, I love that alittle bit, okay.
So, moving on from that, we'regoing to dive into, we're going
to talk about you a little bitnow, dawn.
(28:08):
Um.
So I always like to ask myguests this question because,
like I said, mindset is a bigpart of this podcast and I think
it only serves others when wecan share our own journeys and
show people that you're not theonly one going through this or
dealing with these things, likewe've all got our baggage to
(28:29):
bear.
Um, so, dawn, what's been thebiggest mindset block that
you've had to deal with in yourbusiness so far and what did you
do to overcome it, or what areyou doing to overcome it?
Dawn Ledet (28:45):
yes, well, the biggest thing was really
quieting some of those externalvoices.
There's amazing experts outthere and they're all brilliant,
but then they can contradict,they can compliment in a way,
but it can become confusing, andI had to quiet that and also
(29:05):
decide that my voice was worthlistening to, and that took some
time.
That was why I did thatconsumption fast, because I
needed to reconnect and I wasseeing parts of me as against me
and it just felt like aconstant battle and I'd done it
(29:26):
for 20 years successfully, andso that was tough to tease out
and to create this united frontin a way that's not only honored
, that I am worth listening tomyself and I can help others as
well.
But the biggest, I would say,statement I don't know if anyone
(29:48):
else will will recognize thisone, but the one that would come
up for me that was very sneakybecause I thought it was just
kind of funny.
I would say, like what's wrongwith me?
Like what's wrong with meAnytime I would do something.
That was just a little bit of amistake Like what's wrong with
(30:09):
me, and it didn't feel terriblefor me to say it.
Nice, but I recognized after alot still, having done this work
.
It was still coming up and Istarted then noticing like, okay
, I'm asking this question andI'm not answering it, and my
brain's going to go.
Look for things to tell me, toshow me.
(30:30):
Here you go, here's what'swrong with you.
Remember when you didn't dothis 20 years ago?
and remember yesterday when thishappened, and, hey, you know
what that means about yourfuture, because that's what it
does yeah and so I started byanswering it with everything and
nothing, because that also mademe laugh, but the truth is
that's still not the right thing.
(30:50):
I do not encourage youraudience to answer it with
nothing, because the true answeris nothing.
Nothing is wrong with any of us.
We have a perfectly workinghuman brain that likes to prove
us right, and so what we want todo is give it things to prove
right that support us in ourgrowth and moving forward, and
(31:13):
so it's a true answer to thatquestion.
If anyone listening has, it isnothing, and you can always
answer it with that.
And now that is my answer.
Donna Eade (31:22):
That's beautiful and I just love the fact that it
was like completely goes back towhat you were saying in the
beginning about tone.
It's like your brain doesn'trecognize tone.
So it's like you were joking,like what's wrong with me?
In fact, I did it today.
I was with a colleague on um,uh, on teams, and I was saying
something to her and I was like,yeah, I've just been working on
(31:43):
that um, um, and I had it rightin front of me and I couldn't
think of the words.
And she was like, oh yeah, Iknow it.
I was like what on earth's wrongwith me, like you know, and it
was joking, but exactly what yousaid didn't answer the question
.
The brain goes and just findsthe answers for you.
So it doesn't matter whetheryou're joking or not, and it's
like the brain's so intelligentbut then so stupid at the same
(32:05):
time.
You know, it's like the braincan't tell the difference
between reality and non-reality.
So if you tell it one thing,it's going to believe it.
So it's it's like it's crazyhow that works.
But I, I love that.
That was so beautiful that itcame back to tone.
Um, tell us a little bit moreabout this consumption fast.
What did that look like for you?
Dawn Ledet (32:24):
well, I am embarrassed to say that this
consumption fast was supposed tobe for three months and it
lasted three years, but it was.
It a really so much beauty cameout of it and I'll share why I
wanted to do it was to.
It was around the time that Irecognized truly this is
(32:46):
obviously over three years agonow where I recognized that I
needed to access my own innerwisdom.
I wanted to tune in and getthrough the lobby and I needed.
I wasn't even really in thelobby, I was outside, listening
to all the experts and all thevoices and all the friends and
the family, and they're amazing.
(33:07):
Nothing against any of them,but I wanted to.
It was my goal, as someone whowas becoming an expert in
self-trust, to access my owninner wisdom and to see what
that meant and what it lookedlike.
So the consumption bass for mewas not listening to podcasts,
not reading books, um, notwatching tv, listening to only
(33:34):
certain types of music and notall the time, because I would
have I don't know if peopleidentify with this, but I would
have a TV on in every room justto have the noise going on, a
podcast, probably in my ears, anaudible book beside the bed
Like it was a constant barrageof consumption, and so I went to
(33:56):
true silence, and it made aworld of difference.
Donna Eade (34:02):
Wow, that is.
And I mean we are now in aworld of just consumption,
consumption, consumption.
And when I think back to youknow, when I was a child we had
four TV channels here in the UKand that was it.
And so it was reading or one ofthose four channels or the
(34:26):
radio, and that was all we had.
And now it's almost like well,partly because of our phones, I
suppose, is you can now readbooks on your phone, you can
listen to books on your phone,you can watch TV on your phone,
you can listen to music on yourphone, so you can do everything
from this one device that isliterally glued to everybody's
hand 24-7, 24-7, 365.
(34:48):
, so therefore it's just alwaysthere.
And interesting that a school inbirmingham has recently I think
it was birmingham has recentlygiven their students the
opportunity to give up theirphone while they're at school.
So they've created these likelockers for each classroom.
(35:10):
They're just sort of big boxeswith foam inserts and the
students come in first thing inthe morning, they go to their
classes locker, they put theirphone into one of these foam
inserts and they get locked awayfor the day, and then they come
back at the end of the day andget them, and there was a
documentary on another school, Ithink it was same sort of area
(35:33):
where they actually just gave uptheir phones for an entire
month, so didn't have to evenhave them at home, and the
difference it made to thechildren was phenomenal.
So I can well believe that whatyou did was an amazing
experience, and I feel like weshould all like we talk about
doing digital detoxes and thingslike that, little things where
(35:55):
we don't do X, y, z, but I thinkto go back to a, to a time
where everything's not at ourfingertips and we just slow down
a little bit, can only do goodfor our brains.
So I love that you did this andI love that three months turned
into three that three monthsturned into three.
Dawn Ledet (36:17):
That's how amazing it was.
There was a lot to listen towithin my brain for one, but
also just started connecting tobecause, like you said, it's so
over consumption, we get so usedto it.
And so just being able to takewalks without music or words in
my ears and noticing the soundsof nature, and paying attention
(36:39):
to other people giggle or youknow it just you connect into
yourself and to the universe,yeah, in a way, but you don't
exactly absolutely.
Donna Eade (36:52):
So now that you have come back, were there things
that you put in place before youstarted to consume again, sort
of any rules that you put inplace to not lead you back to
the stuck to your phone 24,seven and or how has it been
(37:13):
coming back into that world?
Dawn Ledet (37:22):
How has it been coming back into that world?
How have you managed it andsort of looked after yourself to
make sure that you're notlosing that wonderful peaceful
time?
You had probably a year, maybesix months, but six months to a
year more than it probablyneeded to be, because I
developed a fear that there wasa risk to that connection and
(37:47):
that access to my inner wisdomby bringing in outside voices
and outside noise.
And at some point I recognizedthat that was the fear and I
realized that what was happeningis I had attributed that also
in a way to connecting.
Like I wasn't connecting withpeople that mattered to me that
(38:12):
were online, because that wouldmean me spending more time
online.
So, like our brains love to dothe all or nothing, I had sort
of slipped into the all ornothing and I knew it was time
to introduce the and back in.
So when you ask about rules, Ididn't set any.
I just trusted that I was goingto find the balance that worked
(38:41):
for me and so far I have.
And if I noticed that I amspending a little too much time,
say I'll watch a show and it'slike oh, I watched like three
episodes of that show last night, I'd be like, okay, maybe I
want to limit that to two, ormaybe that's cool on a Saturday,
but while I'm cleaning cause Ioften am multitasking, as many
of us do I'm not actually payingattention.
But so that is part of it isjust recognizing and knowing,
(39:04):
like as I, as I bring things in,seeing if, if I'm starting to
do it a little bit more than Imight want to, might just be
what I need right now.
It doesn't have to be all ornothing and it doesn't have to
be either.
Um, you know this, three hoursis the limit.
I don't want to set those kindsof boundaries.
Donna Eade (39:25):
I love that.
Do you know what I love?
I love that you've just broughtit full circle, because this is
just taking me back to your allor nothing with your car and
walking to work.
You know so, you, you, you atthat time turned around and said
why am I making it such a bigthing that I've got to do to
make myself do this?
It doesn't need to be that way,and you've just proved that it
(39:47):
doesn't need to be that way withthis fast.
You took the fast, you.
You didn't consume anything,but you're able to balance it
now that you've come back, and Ithink it is always good to kind
of have those sort of hardstops.
So having that break and sayinglike I'm doing nothing because
I want to reset and then comingback to it is, is also a good
(40:08):
thing.
So I love that such brilliantconversation.
Thank you so much, dawn.
Yeah, really appreciate it.
I'm gonna go through ourquickfire round and then I know
that you've got a very specialseven day challenge to talk
about.
So let's do my quickfirequestions and then I'll let you
talk about your challenge.
So the first question is whatis the podcast that you enjoy
listening to the most?
Now you're back to consuming abit right, so we've four.
Dawn Ledet (40:31):
I used to listen to love your life.
It's Jennifer Bailey.
It's like a law of attractionpodcast, but I just love her
vibe and so I'm catching up onsome of hers and that's been
really fun.
Donna Eade (40:44):
Brilliant and the book that's made the biggest
impact on your life so far.
Dawn Ledet (40:49):
Easily, probably with the exception of your own,
absolutely.
It's called the Game of Lifeand how to Play.
Play it.
It's this short book by a woman.
She wrote it, I think, in the1800s, but it's changed the way
I saw so many things in lifefantastic, okay, one to put on
the reading list.
Donna Eade (41:09):
And then what's your go-to snack if you're in a
hurry almonds or a spoon ofpeanut butter always.
I love it when people saypeanut butter, peanut butter is
my favorite.
And then what is your ultimateme time thing to do?
Dawn Ledet (41:25):
oh, I love to put on music and bake bread love bread
.
Donna Eade (41:31):
That that sounds like an amazing Saturday
afternoon thing to do.
Dawn Ledet (41:36):
It hits all the senses Beautiful smells.
You're getting your hands indough.
You have this sound.
It's great.
Donna Eade (41:44):
Brilliant Love that.
Okay.
Thank you so much for answeringthose questions.
Now tell everybody about yourseven-day challenge that they
can get hold of.
Dawn Ledet (41:52):
Yes, if you just want to reconnect with your
self-trust, know kind of thatyou have it, because many of us
like to say we don't, I can'ttrust myself as a common phrase,
I can't trust myself aroundthis food, I can't trust myself
to work out, I can't trust.
And I want to tell you that youabsolutely can.
So come to my seven dayself-trust boost series.
(42:16):
It will take you moments,literally moments a day.
It's just an email series, anemail a day for seven days, to
reconnect you to your self-trustand to start seeing how you can
apply it to the three things ittakes to achieve anything, and
that's make decisions, followthrough and have your own back.
And you can find that at theself-trust coachcom.
Donna Eade (42:38):
Brilliant.
I will have the link for you inthe show notes, guys, along
with how to connect with Dawn.
Um, thank you so much again,dawn, for coming on today.
It's been a fabulousconversation.
Oh, it's been such an honor.
Okay, guys, I want to make surethat you have your tickets for
my in-person event on the 3rd ofApril.
So if you haven't yet got them,go to donnaecom forward slash
(43:00):
birthday event and grab yourtickets.
If there are any early birdtickets left, you will be able
to grab those.
So make sure you head over.
I would love to see you inperson and get to do all of this
kind of thing in real life withyou.
So make sure you do that, and Iwill be back next week with a
solo episode.
So I'll see you then.
(43:20):
Bye for now.
You're listening to the Mindset in Action podcast,
the place to be to grow andstreamline your business.
I'm your host, donna Eade.
Let's jump into the show.
Welcome back to the podcast,everybody.
I am so excited to have youhere today and even more excited
(00:23):
to bring you a guest.
So we have been a little low onguests coming into the new year
, all of my own fault.
In the back end there, westarted the new year with a
lovely guest, cam.
If you want to go back andlisten to her episode.
She was the accountant, buttoday I have got Dawn with me.
Hello, dawn, welcome to theshow.
Dawn Ledet (00:45):
I am so excited to be here.
Thank you for having me.
I'm grateful to be here withyou and your audience.
Donna Eade (00:51):
Introduce yourself to my audience.
Tell them a little bit aboutwho you are, what it is that you
do and a little something aboutyour life.
Dawn Ledet (01:08):
Oh sure, okay.
Well, I am Dawn Lede.
I am known as the self-trustcoach and I help small business
owners and entrepreneurs andbusiness leaders master the one
thing that impacts everythingand that is self-trust.
And, like many people, we cometo our expertise by often not
being very good at thatexpertise.
At some point in our life andfor me, it was this big aha
(01:31):
moment, and I love to share howvery proud I was of myself
during this realization, becauseit was very funny I literally
sold my car.
I was an executive in thehospitality industry for two
decades and I had this brilliantidea in my mind to sell my car,
to force myself to walk to andfrom work two miles because I
(01:55):
live in a city, and that meantthat I would need to get to work
at a normal time, not too early, and leave work at a normal
time, not too late, and I wouldbe moving my body.
I'm like this is so brilliant.
Yeah, all of this done, I'mgoing to work normal hours, I'm
not going to bring work home andI'm going to be moving my body
(02:16):
more, getting more exercise.
Well, one of those proud walks,I was like thinking how smart I
was.
It dawned on me, and when I saydawn on me, I really mean it
slaps me in the head like a tonof bricks that to mind
throughout my whole life ofdecisions and indecisions and
(02:49):
actions and inactions that I hadtaken and not taking, and they
all brought to light one thingthat I was seriously lacking in
self-trust and I couldn't unseethat and it just sent me on a
path of really one.
It was a lot of noticing, whichwas quite painful in the
(03:11):
beginning, but then starting tosee how it applied, because I
was still very successful andI'm not someone that someone
would regularly look at and saythat you have a confidence issue
or you have low self-esteem,and so we can often equate a
lack of self-trust with thosethings like being truly negative
(03:34):
to ourselves and really likebeing shy or inward.
And I didn't identify with anyof that.
And when I started seeing howself-trust is even more
noticeable, whether we have itor not, in the achievement of
big goals, and how we could fixthat and how I did the work on
myself, I knew I had to get thatout there and help other people
(03:56):
yeah, that's so good, so good.
Donna Eade (03:59):
So how do you work with people now?
Dawn Ledet (04:04):
so I have two ways that people work with me.
I have the self trust lab,which is a proven framework.
We call it the three E successmethod.
That teaches you the thrillsthree skills it takes to achieve
anything, how to fuel thosethree skills with self-trust.
And there's an like it takesyou through setting the goal.
(04:25):
It's new ways of doing thingsthat we've all done, but fueled
by self-trust, in a way thatsupports us instead of having
ourselves drag ourselves acrossthe finish line.
And coaching comes along withthat, which is the most
important piece, if you ask me.
And then I also have theself-trust executive, which is a
(04:47):
more high level, detailed,bespoke way of working together
that is closer knit, more handson.
Donna Eade (04:56):
Brilliant, amazing.
So what we're going to talk toabout today is more along the
lines of self-sabotage,self-talk and how that all
relates into self-trust.
So you're definitely the expertto talk to about this, and what
I was thinking while you weretalking there is how that
actually self-trust is a keycomponent, I would think, in how
(05:20):
we help ourselves overcome thedreaded imposter syndrome, slash
phenomenon, whichever wordyou're going to use.
But this is something that ishuge with my audience.
It's something that we'vetalked about a lot with my
guests.
Um, when I've talked about, um,their biggest mindset block
imposter syndrome comes up againand again and again, and I
think a lot of that is that lackof self-trust.
(05:44):
And I want to sort of pull thatback also to something that you
were saying before we hopped onto record this episode, where
we were talking about you havinga complete break from consuming
anything so that you could bewith yourself, and I think
imposter syndrome comes a lotfrom the external voices and how
(06:08):
we kind of handle that versusour inner trust.
What are your thoughts about?
Dawn Ledet (06:13):
that 100%.
I mean, I have a challenge withlabels, the same as with
self-sabotage, the same as withcalling it imposter syndrome.
But because when we place thaton ourselves, sometimes we just
lay it there and we're like,okay, that's it, that's our
truth.
There's no growth from there.
But I also know that I call itthe lobby we live in.
(06:39):
The lobby noise in our mind andthat's our external voices that
we hear from friends and familyand experts and critics outside
of us.
And then there's it's pairedwith our own doubts and
insecurities and fears andthat's that loud, like really
picture yourself in a loud, busylobby and you can't help but
(07:01):
like overhear it, but it's kindof jumble and it's just like
feeding.
Yeah, well, through the lobbythere's this door and on the
other side of it are all youranswers, it's your inner wisdom,
it's your intuition and we haveto spend time with it.
(07:21):
So that's where my consumptionfast came from was to clear out
because often we get into thatlobby and we're like no thanks,
and we just leave, we go out theother door or we try and drown
it out with music, movies, shows.
You know something else more,outside voices actually, which
just can compound it.
(07:43):
But it does give us a littlebit of an escape and there's
nothing wrong with those things.
But that's our general is.
We either live in the lobby andthat's like when we're really
in anxiety and fueling ourinsecurities and doubts and
fears and questioning andcomparing, or we like duck and
leave.
But the invitation is to gothrough.
It is to invite silence andgive yourself, like you can
(08:08):
literally visualize walking intothe door, if you will, and
starting to make that a practice, whether it's for 30 seconds in
the beginning when you do it orminutes at a time, but starting
to make friends with that andnot judging yourself for how it
goes, not making it a problem ifyou're like this is hard or I'm
afraid of what I'm gonna find.
(08:29):
That's generally what I hear,but the only thing to fear that
you're gonna find is in thelobby, because what's through is
your truth and your truth isnever gonna tell you terrible
things yeah, yeah, oh, that's sogood, that's so good.
Donna Eade (08:46):
Oh, there's a lot to unpack there.
But I want us to bring it backto the business side of things,
because a lot of the well,pretty much my entire audience
are business owners, and I thinkwhen we are looking at our
self-trust in our businesses, itcan be quite difficult for us,
especially if it's somethingthat we've not done before and
(09:09):
given the time of year we're atwe're sort of towards the end of
February now and we've alreadyhad almost two months of the
year, which is crazy to thinkabout.
But a lot of us set goals inJanuary and if we were to be
honest with ourselves and sitthere and look back at them now,
some of us will be going oh,I'm already behind off the mark,
(09:33):
missed the mark completely or,even worse, I've completely
forgotten what my goals were,that I set at the beginning of
January.
And we start telling ourselvesall these things like I'm
sabotaging myself, like I'veliterally why didn't I just do x
, y and z?
And you have got a bit of a adifferent view on self-sabotage,
being blamed for missing goals.
(09:53):
So let's talk about that.
Um, self-sabotage and goals,yeah.
Dawn Ledet (10:01):
I shun a lot of labels.
So it's I.
There are millions.
There are amazing people Ishouldn't say millions.
There are several reallyamazing gifted experts out there
that talk about self sabotageand what they say is right.
But what happens with those ofus that aren't experts in
(10:21):
self-sabotage?
We take that label, we put iton ourselves and we use it as a
reason why we don't do things.
Oh, I, just I self-sabotage andthere's no growth in that.
There's no way to move forward,because now we've just decided
I'm someone who self-sabotages.
So what I'd like to invitepeople to do is to recognize
(10:41):
that the truth is, you made achoice and this is not an
invitation for judgment.
It's an invitation to connect.
Actually, we're not trying tocreate more disconnect.
We're actually trying to leanin and say the reason why I'm
not further along on my goal isbecause I chose not to do X, y,
z.
Now I can look at.
If I'm not going to judge that,I can say let me look at why,
(11:05):
and does why even matter?
Or do I just want to startright now and choose differently
?
Because our greatest power isour power to choose, and what a
privilege I mean.
This is why you don't need tojudge that you haven't worked on
it yet or that you've losttrack on it or that you've even
forgotten about it, is becausewhat a privilege it is that we
(11:29):
can choose to make goals andthen we can choose to pursue
them or not.
We don't have to, yeah.
And so, owning that privilegeand knowing like I just didn't
choose to do these steps, nowI'm going to decide.
Do I want to choose differently?
Did I choose not to because Ijust didn't set myself up for
(11:53):
success?
Let me see what that would looklike now.
That's the difference in thegift of not labeling it as just
self-sabotage and owning it as achoice that we can change.
Donna Eade (12:02):
Yeah, I love that.
I love that it's.
It's really interesting whenyou say it like that.
It's almost like when we giveourselves a label.
We're just giving ourselves anexcuse and actually we need to
just strip back to the whys.
And you said, why might notmatter, and I think a lot of
times what can be behind the whyis a fear, whether it's fear of
(12:23):
failure or fear of success thatit's often a fear that just
makes all of the back end of ourwebsite is much more
interesting to do.
I'll just get on with that, or,you know, you just start
procrastinating with differentthings because it prevents us
from from doing what is scaringus, and I think that's that's
that can be part of it.
(12:43):
But another part that we cantalk about is the language that
we use, because I thinkoftentimes people sort of get on
that self-hate train, like asif we haven't got enough going
on in that lobby with everybodyelse's criticisms board.
(13:05):
We take it to heart, we take itpersonally and then we start
filtering that into our ownself-talk and all of a sudden
we're and you know the analogyhas been used a lot with people
who are trying to lose weight ishow do you talk to yourself in
a mirror?
Start talking to yourself likeyou would your best friend,
because would you ever turnaround to your best friend and
say, oh my god, you lookabsolutely hideous in that and
you can't possibly go outwearing that dress and things
(13:27):
like that?
So self-talk is really, reallypowerful and it feels like it's
an impossible thing to change,like it is ground in from very
young.
A lot of times I literallywatched you'll love this.
It was an episode of Say yes tothe Dress and there was a mother
(13:49):
in there who turned around.
Her daughter was used to be asort of a model, so used to have
a model physique.
She is now what I would say isa regular, regular looking girl
size, and her mum turned aroundand said she needs a wedding
dress with sleeves because weneed to hide her chunky arms.
Now the woman, the bride shewas actually fiercely
(14:14):
self-confident and she was justlike I'm just in a different
phase of my life right now andI'm going to enjoy it.
You know, it doesn't matterwhat I weigh, which I was.
It was so refreshing and I wasjust so happy for her that she
felt that way.
But then it cut to a clip ofher mum turning around and say,
well, my mum's still goes on tome about my weight and I'm like,
oh so it's a self-cycle thingthat you're just continuing with
(14:36):
your own daughter.
Do you not hear the words thatare coming out your mouth?
So it can be generational, thisself-talk that we like.
It's just pounded in.
So is there a way we can changeit?
Dawn Ledet (14:49):
absolutely, we can 100% change it.
Now to your point.
There are we and I talk aboutthis in my book, master your
Inner Dialogue.
There are origins for our innerdialogue.
So there's the origin, whichcan come from one, just just our
if you're familiar with themotivational triad just our
brains wiring.
(15:10):
There's a part of us that'swired to seek comfort, avoid
pain and conserve energy.
So there's that piece.
Some of our inner dialoguecomes from that makeup, that
wiring.
Some of our inner dialoguecomes from rules that we either
adopted, were created in a wayto create safety for ourselves.
(15:33):
Sometimes they're veryinteresting as we get older, but
as kids maybe we had to createshrinking because that protected
us in some way.
So there's many ways that ourorigin, different types of
origins whether we create it,adopt it or it's part of that
motivational triad affect ourinner dialogue.
(15:53):
That leads to the lens we aregenerally operating from.
And if we want to simplify lens, there's lots of different ways
to look at our lens and what itlooks like.
But if we boil it down to thesimplest, it's like a lens of
belief in ourselves or a lens ofdisbelief in ourselves, to the
(16:20):
tone that you hear your innerdialogue in.
And the tone is where I reallylove to start.
We can explore because, justlike the why, it's not that the
why doesn't matter, it's justsometimes we can get caught up
digging into why and miss out onmoving forward and just
creating connection.
We can do both.
But so I just like to let youknow that when you ask why,
(16:44):
sometimes the answer is just assimple as because I chose to or
because I didn't know better, orbecause that's the best I had
at the time, and it's perfectlyfine to answer it that way.
But the tone of our innerdialogue is fascinating.
I want to tell all of you,whatever you hear your tone and
if you hear you screwed that upor why is this so hard for me,
(17:08):
and you're hearing that in thistone of like judgment, daggers
of criticism or victim mentality, I have great news for you your
inner dialogue actually doesn'thave a tone.
We assign one, we all do, butwhat that means is we can take
it off or change it.
So I just encourage yousometimes to hear that you know
(17:32):
why is this so hard for me.
If I don't hear that as ajudgment and I hear like why is
this so hard for me?
From curiosity.
I'm like, oh, let's look atthis.
How can I make this easier formyself?
Or do I just want to hire itout?
It just there's answers to it.
So when we hear somethingthrough the tone of judgment and
(17:54):
criticism, it literally shutsdown our wisdom.
We just miss out.
It's like the door closes tothe inner room and we can't
access.
All the times that we were ableto do hard things and how we
know how to get through and howit's not a problem to delegate
so that we can focus on thingsthat we already know how to do
(18:15):
or or that we want to grow in orthat match our genius.
So that's a really good placeto start is changing that tone,
and sometimes I have clients whowill just turn it into a robot
so that you can really hear itobjectively, or some people give
it an accent because that'sjust fun.
So starting to play with thattone can really make a
(18:36):
difference in how you engagewith your inner dialogue.
Donna Eade (18:41):
Yeah, what would you say to people who don't hear it
?
Because you know, there's athing it's a medical issue that
there are people out there thatcannot picture things in their
heads.
And I think there is alsopeople out there that don't
necessarily hear the voices, andnot because they're not there,
(19:02):
but because they're not tunedinto them.
So instead of hearing thevoices, they're observing the
action.
So, for example, somebody whofinds it, you know, absolutely
nerve wracking to go into anetworking event and on their
own they might hide to thecorners of the room, look down
(19:22):
at their phone like not beingengaged.
So there's no self-talk therefor them.
They just walk into the roomand that's how they behave.
But behind that is I'm scared ofinteracting with, I'm scared of
rejection.
I, you know there's some sortof inner talk there that has
told them that they're not goingto perform well in this
environment and their actionsare showing it.
(19:43):
But they're not necessarily.
It's almost like it's justautomated.
So they're not necessarilyhearing.
Oh god, you can't do this.
They just go in and they behavethe way they've always behaved.
So somebody's not actuallyhearing their inner talk.
What would you say to them?
Like if, if, if, they're a wayof them tuning into it.
Dawn Ledet (20:01):
Start the conversation truly it's start
the conversation if you're nothearing it, because that's what
it is.
It's happening subconsciously,or or it's there and you've
drowned it out for so long thatyou just aren't attuned to it.
So we have to, um, startengaging in the conversation.
So maybe you start it like hey,hon, why are we scared?
Like why are we here to be inthe corner?
(20:24):
And so maybe you start it likehey, hon, why are we scared?
Like why are we here to be inthe corner?
And if not, let's look at howcan I support myself through
this?
Because, going back to likewhat you were saying with the
goals, and so part of it isowning our choices not to.
But then the other piece is howwe manage discomfort and what
we're sharing.
In this analogy of someonegoing into a networking event,
(20:46):
there's discomfort.
Yes, behind that discomfort isoften fear.
Really, that's what it allboils down to is, most of the
time is fear, fear of something,fear of failure, fear of
embarrassment, fear ofhumiliation.
So what we want to do is get intouch with that and create
eight comforts that support usmoving forward.
(21:09):
So I write about creating acomfort plan because our default
comforts are the things that weend up judging ourselves for,
like standing in the cornerinstead of engaging, turning on
Netflix, scrolling throughsocial media, you know, just
giving up going to eat somethingor get something to drink.
(21:29):
Comforts in themselves aren'twrong, but if they're pulling
you away from what you want,then they are comforts that
aren't very comfortable to yourlong-term success.
They don't actually work foryou and you end up judging
yourself and going down a cycle.
So engaging in thatconversation and giving yourself
(21:52):
comforts, honoring yes, this isuncomfortable.
It's uncomfortable because it'snew, or because I have a fear,
or because I just don't knowwhat to expect, and that's okay.
Donna Eade (22:10):
How can I take care of myself and do it anyway, yeah
, which reminds me of thatfantastic book Feel the Fear and
Do it Anyway.
I think it's a book that we allshould read.
So we've started thisconversation with our inner
dialogue that is berating us andputting us down and scaring the
life out of us.
I mean, some of us must have afantastic inner dialogue that
are actually really supportiveof us and you know, if you're
one of those people, come andintroduce yourself to me
(22:33):
sometime.
I'd really like to have aconversation.
But you say that we can changethis inner dialogue.
But you say that we can changethis inner dialogue.
So what are some tips that wecan give the listeners on how
they can start to change thosescripts that they have,
especially when they're suchingrained scripts that might be
generational, that might havebeen there for a very long time,
(22:54):
that we've just like convincedourselves there's no opportunity
, we're just useless at whateverit is.
How can we start to actuallychange those scripts?
What can we do it?
Dawn Ledet (23:04):
can be as simple as instead of even changing the
script, it's just changing yourrelationship.
You have with that, thosescripts, and I love what you
said about like some peopledon't recognize that.
They're braiding.
I didn't recognize it as that.
It can often be much subtler.
It can come in questions likethe most like.
(23:26):
It seems like such an easyquestion what if I get it wrong?
Like that's, like it's possible.
Whenever I start on a new goal,it's like what if I get it
wrong?
But if I hear it withoutanswering it, my brain is really
good at going to find evidence.
All of our brains love to proveus right.
We love to answer questions andwe love to prove ourselves
(23:46):
right.
So if we don't answer a, whatif I get it wrong?
With an actual answer, ourbrain goes and starts looking
for all the ways we could get itwrong and then it starts
bringing you other questions ofdoubt.
It starts feeding that.
So one practical tip is toanswer the questions that
present to us.
So what if I get it wrong?
(24:08):
Could be as simple as we don'thave to paint rainbows and
daisies and make it like lie toourselves.
We want to be really honest.
We're creating self-trust bycreating a safe space within to
be really honest, to rollthrough the challenges, to have
our own back through thedifficult.
But we don't want to createmore disconnect.
(24:28):
We want to create moreconnections so that we have a
unified front to thosechallenges and hard, because the
challenges and hard come.
We don't have to create themand we do so much better when we
have a united front towards it.
So we want to answer thosequestions very truthfully, like
what if I get it wrong Couldjust be I could and I could get
it right and I'm so ready tofind out which.
(24:50):
Yeah, like that is the way wecan start to improve our
self-talk in two ways answeringthe questions that present
instead of letting our defaultbrain go and answer them, and
also paying attention to thetone.
If you hear it with criticism,something, any statement could
(25:11):
be really subtle.
sometimes it's like passive,aggressive or passiveness mine's
definitely passive, aggressiveright I, and so just answer
those questions and also payattention to the tone.
If it comes across as criticalor passive, aggressive, repeat
it to yourself or even write itdown and look at it just for the
(25:34):
words.
This actually works with otherpeople too.
I always tell people if youhave teenagers, it's really nice
to just erase the tone.
People, too.
I always tell people, if youhave teenagers, it's really nice
to just erase the tone.
It's it's a practice, but whenyou just hear the words, you
react in a way that supports you, and that's what it's all about
.
When you start believing thatthat tone is representative of
either a truth, like we'rebuying into the judgment that I
(25:58):
could get it wrong and that's aproblem, instead of I could get
it wrong, sometimes I get thingswrong yeah not a problem yeah,
oh, brilliant, so good, so good.
Donna Eade (26:09):
I think it's an absolutely fascinating topic
because I think it's one thatreally affects everybody in
their everyday lives and it's abig thing.
But I think it's something wedon't give enough time to, and
in our businesses especially.
You know, I've always saidthat's why I have this mindset.
Part of this podcast is becauseyou could have all of the right
(26:31):
funnels in place, all of theright systems, all of the right
connections, but if your innerself is saying you're going to
fail, but if your inner self issaying you're going to fail,
you're never going to make it,who do you think you are?
And all of that kind of stuff,it doesn't matter, it's never
going to work.
Because you're telling yourselfit's not going to work all the
(26:53):
time.
Dawn Ledet (27:00):
It becomes this battle and some of us do get
there Like, anyway, it's just sopainful and it takes longer and
it's so exhausting.
That's what burnout looks like.
It's like we're draggingourself and pushing ourself and
punishing ourselves across thefinish line, when it could be
this.
I keep saying united front, butthat's the way I really look at
it.
That's why I sort of don't likethe self-sabotage talk is
(27:21):
because it paints us asdifferent pieces that are
against us, and so I often liketo invite you to have a lens of
all of me is for me, becausewhen all of me is for me, even
with if my thoughts offer me, mybrain offers me like that was
stupid, I'm gonna be like yeah,girl, it was, and this is what
(27:46):
I've learned from it.
Donna Eade (27:47):
It's totally fine yeah, yeah, brilliant, brilliant
, oh.
This was actually one of thewords I had sentences that I had
on my vision board last yearwas everything that is for me
will find me.
Um, so I loved, I love that alittle bit, okay.
So, moving on from that, we'regoing to dive into, we're going
to talk about you a little bitnow, dawn.
(28:08):
Um.
So I always like to ask myguests this question because,
like I said, mindset is a bigpart of this podcast and I think
it only serves others when wecan share our own journeys and
show people that you're not theonly one going through this or
dealing with these things, likewe've all got our baggage to
(28:29):
bear.
Um, so, dawn, what's been thebiggest mindset block that
you've had to deal with in yourbusiness so far and what did you
do to overcome it, or what areyou doing to overcome it?
Dawn Ledet (28:45):
yes, well, the biggest thing was really
quieting some of those externalvoices.
There's amazing experts outthere and they're all brilliant,
but then they can contradict,they can compliment in a way,
but it can become confusing, andI had to quiet that and also
(29:05):
decide that my voice was worthlistening to, and that took some
time.
That was why I did thatconsumption fast, because I
needed to reconnect and I wasseeing parts of me as against me
and it just felt like aconstant battle and I'd done it
(29:26):
for 20 years successfully, andso that was tough to tease out
and to create this united frontin a way that's not only honored
, that I am worth listening tomyself and I can help others as
well.
But the biggest, I would say,statement I don't know if anyone
(29:48):
else will will recognize thisone, but the one that would come
up for me that was very sneakybecause I thought it was just
kind of funny.
I would say, like what's wrongwith me?
Like what's wrong with meAnytime I would do something.
That was just a little bit of amistake Like what's wrong with
(30:09):
me, and it didn't feel terriblefor me to say it.
Nice, but I recognized after alot still, having done this work
.
It was still coming up and Istarted then noticing like, okay
, I'm asking this question andI'm not answering it, and my
brain's going to go.
Look for things to tell me, toshow me.
(30:30):
Here you go, here's what'swrong with you.
Remember when you didn't dothis 20 years ago?
and remember yesterday when thishappened, and, hey, you know
what that means about yourfuture, because that's what it
does yeah and so I started byanswering it with everything and
nothing, because that also mademe laugh, but the truth is
that's still not the right thing.
(30:50):
I do not encourage youraudience to answer it with
nothing, because the true answeris nothing.
Nothing is wrong with any of us.
We have a perfectly workinghuman brain that likes to prove
us right, and so what we want todo is give it things to prove
right that support us in ourgrowth and moving forward, and
(31:13):
so it's a true answer to thatquestion.
If anyone listening has, it isnothing, and you can always
answer it with that.
And now that is my answer.
Donna Eade (31:22):
That's beautiful and I just love the fact that it
was like completely goes back towhat you were saying in the
beginning about tone.
It's like your brain doesn'trecognize tone.
So it's like you were joking,like what's wrong with me?
In fact, I did it today.
I was with a colleague on um,uh, on teams, and I was saying
something to her and I was like,yeah, I've just been working on
(31:43):
that um, um, and I had it rightin front of me and I couldn't
think of the words.
And she was like, oh yeah, Iknow it.
I was like what on earth's wrongwith me, like you know, and it
was joking, but exactly what yousaid didn't answer the question
.
The brain goes and just findsthe answers for you.
So it doesn't matter whetheryou're joking or not, and it's
like the brain's so intelligentbut then so stupid at the same
(32:05):
time.
You know, it's like the braincan't tell the difference
between reality and non-reality.
So if you tell it one thing,it's going to believe it.
So it's it's like it's crazyhow that works.
But I, I love that.
That was so beautiful that itcame back to tone.
Um, tell us a little bit moreabout this consumption fast.
What did that look like for you?
Dawn Ledet (32:24):
well, I am embarrassed to say that this
consumption fast was supposed tobe for three months and it
lasted three years, but it was.
It a really so much beauty cameout of it and I'll share why I
wanted to do it was to.
It was around the time that Irecognized truly this is
(32:46):
obviously over three years agonow where I recognized that I
needed to access my own innerwisdom.
I wanted to tune in and getthrough the lobby and I needed.
I wasn't even really in thelobby, I was outside, listening
to all the experts and all thevoices and all the friends and
the family, and they're amazing.
(33:07):
Nothing against any of them,but I wanted to.
It was my goal, as someone whowas becoming an expert in
self-trust, to access my owninner wisdom and to see what
that meant and what it lookedlike.
So the consumption bass for mewas not listening to podcasts,
not reading books, um, notwatching tv, listening to only
(33:34):
certain types of music and notall the time, because I would
have I don't know if peopleidentify with this, but I would
have a TV on in every room justto have the noise going on, a
podcast, probably in my ears, anaudible book beside the bed
Like it was a constant barrageof consumption, and so I went to
(33:56):
true silence, and it made aworld of difference.
Donna Eade (34:02):
Wow, that is.
And I mean we are now in aworld of just consumption,
consumption, consumption.
And when I think back to youknow, when I was a child we had
four TV channels here in the UKand that was it.
And so it was reading or one ofthose four channels or the
(34:26):
radio, and that was all we had.
And now it's almost like well,partly because of our phones, I
suppose, is you can now readbooks on your phone, you can
listen to books on your phone,you can watch TV on your phone,
you can listen to music on yourphone, so you can do everything
from this one device that isliterally glued to everybody's
hand 24-7, 24-7, 365.
(34:48):
, so therefore it's just alwaysthere.
And interesting that a school inbirmingham has recently I think
it was birmingham has recentlygiven their students the
opportunity to give up theirphone while they're at school.
So they've created these likelockers for each classroom.
(35:10):
They're just sort of big boxeswith foam inserts and the
students come in first thing inthe morning, they go to their
classes locker, they put theirphone into one of these foam
inserts and they get locked awayfor the day, and then they come
back at the end of the day andget them, and there was a
documentary on another school, Ithink it was same sort of area
(35:33):
where they actually just gave uptheir phones for an entire
month, so didn't have to evenhave them at home, and the
difference it made to thechildren was phenomenal.
So I can well believe that whatyou did was an amazing
experience, and I feel like weshould all like we talk about
doing digital detoxes and thingslike that, little things where
(35:55):
we don't do X, y, z, but I thinkto go back to a, to a time
where everything's not at ourfingertips and we just slow down
a little bit, can only do goodfor our brains.
So I love that you did this andI love that three months turned
into three that three monthsturned into three.
Dawn Ledet (36:17):
That's how amazing it was.
There was a lot to listen towithin my brain for one, but
also just started connecting tobecause, like you said, it's so
over consumption, we get so usedto it.
And so just being able to takewalks without music or words in
my ears and noticing the soundsof nature, and paying attention
(36:39):
to other people giggle or youknow it just you connect into
yourself and to the universe,yeah, in a way, but you don't
exactly absolutely.
Donna Eade (36:52):
So now that you have come back, were there things
that you put in place before youstarted to consume again, sort
of any rules that you put inplace to not lead you back to
the stuck to your phone 24,seven and or how has it been
(37:13):
coming back into that world?
Dawn Ledet (37:22):
How has it been coming back into that world?
How have you managed it andsort of looked after yourself to
make sure that you're notlosing that wonderful peaceful
time?
You had probably a year, maybesix months, but six months to a
year more than it probablyneeded to be, because I
developed a fear that there wasa risk to that connection and
(37:47):
that access to my inner wisdomby bringing in outside voices
and outside noise.
And at some point I recognizedthat that was the fear and I
realized that what was happeningis I had attributed that also
in a way to connecting.
Like I wasn't connecting withpeople that mattered to me that
(38:12):
were online, because that wouldmean me spending more time
online.
So, like our brains love to dothe all or nothing, I had sort
of slipped into the all ornothing and I knew it was time
to introduce the and back in.
So when you ask about rules, Ididn't set any.
I just trusted that I was goingto find the balance that worked
(38:41):
for me and so far I have.
And if I noticed that I amspending a little too much time,
say I'll watch a show and it'slike oh, I watched like three
episodes of that show last night, I'd be like, okay, maybe I
want to limit that to two, ormaybe that's cool on a Saturday,
but while I'm cleaning cause Ioften am multitasking, as many
of us do I'm not actually payingattention.
But so that is part of it isjust recognizing and knowing,
(39:04):
like as I, as I bring things in,seeing if, if I'm starting to
do it a little bit more than Imight want to, might just be
what I need right now.
It doesn't have to be all ornothing and it doesn't have to
be either.
Um, you know this, three hoursis the limit.
I don't want to set those kindsof boundaries.
Donna Eade (39:25):
I love that.
Do you know what I love?
I love that you've just broughtit full circle, because this is
just taking me back to your allor nothing with your car and
walking to work.
You know so, you, you, you atthat time turned around and said
why am I making it such a bigthing that I've got to do to
make myself do this?
It doesn't need to be that way,and you've just proved that it
(39:47):
doesn't need to be that way withthis fast.
You took the fast, you.
You didn't consume anything,but you're able to balance it
now that you've come back, and Ithink it is always good to kind
of have those sort of hardstops.
So having that break and sayinglike I'm doing nothing because
I want to reset and then comingback to it is, is also a good
(40:08):
thing.
So I love that such brilliantconversation.
Thank you so much, dawn.
Yeah, really appreciate it.
I'm gonna go through ourquickfire round and then I know
that you've got a very specialseven day challenge to talk
about.
So let's do my quickfirequestions and then I'll let you
talk about your challenge.
So the first question is whatis the podcast that you enjoy
listening to the most?
Now you're back to consuming abit right, so we've four.
Dawn Ledet (40:31):
I used to listen to love your life.
It's Jennifer Bailey.
It's like a law of attractionpodcast, but I just love her
vibe and so I'm catching up onsome of hers and that's been
really fun.
Donna Eade (40:44):
Brilliant and the book that's made the biggest
impact on your life so far.
Dawn Ledet (40:49):
Easily, probably with the exception of your own,
absolutely.
It's called the Game of Lifeand how to Play.
Play it.
It's this short book by a woman.
She wrote it, I think, in the1800s, but it's changed the way
I saw so many things in lifefantastic, okay, one to put on
the reading list.
Donna Eade (41:09):
And then what's your go-to snack if you're in a
hurry almonds or a spoon ofpeanut butter always.
I love it when people saypeanut butter, peanut butter is
my favorite.
And then what is your ultimateme time thing to do?
Dawn Ledet (41:25):
oh, I love to put on music and bake bread love bread
.
Donna Eade (41:31):
That that sounds like an amazing Saturday
afternoon thing to do.
Dawn Ledet (41:36):
It hits all the senses Beautiful smells.
You're getting your hands indough.
You have this sound.
It's great.
Donna Eade (41:44):
Brilliant Love that.
Okay.
Thank you so much for answeringthose questions.
Now tell everybody about yourseven-day challenge that they
can get hold of.
Dawn Ledet (41:52):
Yes, if you just want to reconnect with your
self-trust, know kind of thatyou have it, because many of us
like to say we don't, I can'ttrust myself as a common phrase,
I can't trust myself aroundthis food, I can't trust myself
to work out, I can't trust.
And I want to tell you that youabsolutely can.
So come to my seven dayself-trust boost series.
(42:16):
It will take you moments,literally moments a day.
It's just an email series, anemail a day for seven days, to
reconnect you to your self-trustand to start seeing how you can
apply it to the three things ittakes to achieve anything, and
that's make decisions, followthrough and have your own back.
And you can find that at theself-trust coachcom.
Donna Eade (42:38):
Brilliant.
I will have the link for you inthe show notes, guys, along
with how to connect with Dawn.
Um, thank you so much again,dawn, for coming on today.
It's been a fabulousconversation.
Oh, it's been such an honor.
Okay, guys, I want to make surethat you have your tickets for
my in-person event on the 3rd ofApril.
So if you haven't yet got them,go to donnaecom forward slash
(43:00):
birthday event and grab yourtickets.
If there are any early birdtickets left, you will be able
to grab those.
So make sure you head over.
I would love to see you inperson and get to do all of this
kind of thing in real life withyou.
So make sure you do that, and Iwill be back next week with a
solo episode.
So I'll see you then.
(43:20):
Bye for now.
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