Dawn Taylor| 08/04/2024

Transcript

Dawn Taylor

Hey, hey, hey, I'm your host, Dawn Taylor. Okay, one day, I'm just not even going to say that because. Hi. You know that obviously, if you're listening to my podcast. Anyways, today we are talking to Jo, the unicorn coach, and our topic is when is enough enough? And if that's right, we are probably potentially going to piss people off and we are okay with that because this is a topic that really needs to be discussed. Before we get started, let me tell you a little bit about this absolutely phenomenal human being. Jo is an experienced and passionate leader, speaker, coach, transformational trainer, mom, wife, friend, and probably way more. Not to mention, she's a best selling author of two books in seven countries. Guys, she's kind of a rock star. She's all about, like, inner work, figuring out what you need, following your dreams, helping people live and really figure out, like, that they deserve to live. She's over 17 years of experience working with fortune 100 companies like Goodyear, PepsiCo. So not just your everyday coach, not just your everyday person who hasn't lived the the life or walked the walk. She was also, she worked with a leading personal development company like called Mind Valley, which we've probably all heard of. She's coached and trained over 15,000 people, you guys, on four continents and in more than 25 countries. She's spoken in multiple universities, both in the US and internationally, and is frequently a podcast guest, where she gets to talk and hang out and share some of her knowledge. She also, because she's bored and has all the time on her hands, is the host of a TV show, Mom Fit with Jo Peters that reaches over a million views every single week. So, if you're not intimidated, I am. But this is who I managed to get as a guest on my show today. So here she goes. Welcome to the show, Jo.

Jo Peters

Thank you so much for having me. I am super excited to be here and talk about the things that nobody else talks about. And let's go to normalize that for ourselves and others.

Dawn Taylor

Right? So we had met, I mean, within the last week we talked. And for anyone listening, I interview everyone who goes on my podcast. We have like a 15 minute ahead of time to be like, what are we going to talk about? Is this the right fit? Is this a conversation that really needs to happen? And you and I both were like, oh my gosh, when is enough enough? As a society, but more importantly, from who we are as women. Right. Like, at what point is 0 do you not need the big huge job? At what point do you not need to have all these huge expectations? So let's dive into this. What is some of your background that got you to where you are and doing what you're doing?

Jo Peters

The background is that I was for a lot of time, almost a decade into that. I call it the hamster wheel, where I was all into hanging on into the society, keep asking for more, keep working more, keep reaching more and more, more, more is more. More is more. More is better. More is, um, what you want, and I start feeling that emptiness in my heart of, I had everything that society was telling me that I should have, like $4 million per year, uh, beautiful house, all that. And that was still pushing more and more and more. But I still was like, “Is this it? Like, is this really like what is going to happen in my life for the rest of my life?” And back then I was still working, um, for corporate America. And one of my mentors was at that moment, the president of Lilly in the United States asked me that question and said, “I want you to know, I want you to answer me this. And if you don't know, that's fine, but I want you to work on it. How much is enough?” He just talked about it in the financial part. But you were like, how much is enough money in your bank account for you to say, I'm good? And then I look at him and I smile and say, like, “Well, I don't know.” And he will, I will. That is the first answer that you need to ask, because if you ever wonder why me or Jeff Bezos or all these billionaire, multi-millionaires, you are like, why do they keep working? Why do they keep hustling? This is why. Because we never answered this question. And when you don't have clear what is enough and how much is enough, then it will you get in the hamster wheel of feeling that is never enough. You will always have another month. You will always have another year. And that is based on a society that is mainly designed from a patriarchal standpoint, from a male energy standpoint. I was today preparing for the show. I was listening to an audiobook. And they were saying how they are statistics on what males versus females do with power and well, and how males by their brain are designed to collect it, to accumulate it, to create generational wealth than for females is more about impact and creating community and supporting others and helping others. That is part of our DNA. And if we don't put that in the mix of really “What is enough for me?” Not in a silo, but as a whole human being as a whole female, as a whole multi passionate person that wants to be there for her kids and for her partner and for her friends and for her business or her company. Then that is when we as women, I think, get into the hamster wheel and go into burnout. And then I say, it's not possible having it all. I'm done. I'm quitting. I'm closing the company. I'm divorcing. Uh, whatever it is, that explosion of time that happened, when we get into the will of more and more and more, and we don't have that clarity of what I really want in life. And having that permission, you and me, we're talking about this to accept that it could be different than others, than what means enough for me is different than what means to you. And hey, we are going to support each other. We are going to love each other. We are going to cheer for each other. And the only thing that we're not going to do is just start comparing ourselves and doubting why what you want and what enough for you is different that what it is for me because we are freaking different people, right? 

Dawn Taylor

So, diving into this. So, Barbie movie just came out a little while ago and there is so much controversy around it. Right? And at the same time, it’s America Ferrera who did that talk about, like who we have to be as women and what has to happen. And I was talking to a friend about it and I said, you know what? Say what you will about the movie, but that is how the majority of women think, and that is really the pressure that we have put on ourselves. Let's be perfectly honest here, and I don't care if anyone is upset about that. I believe we have put that on ourselves. We have 100% put that on ourselves, right? The majority of men are not expecting those things of us. Right. And I remember the day that my husband looked to me and I was all stressed out because I was overwhelmed. And, you know, he was finally home every night for dinner. So I had to make dinner every night. And I was like, working full time. And I'm trying to take care of the house. I'm trying to take care of everything. And we had been in a situation for years where he worked out of town, so he wasn't home every night. So, I deal with the car and I deal with the oil changes, and I deal with the garbage, and I deal with the laundry, and I deal with paying the bills, and I deal with everything because he's not home a lot. And all of a sudden that shifted. And now he's home every night for dinner. And I got really angry. And I walked upstairs one day and I looked at him and I was like, “Oh, what? Now you're going to ask what's for dinner?” And he was like, “No, no, I'm actually not.” And I was like, “You know, this isn't fair. I feel like this just isn't right. And I'm working more than you are. And now I have to make dinner every night.” And he's like, “Whoever said that that was an expectation of you.” I remember looking at him and being like you. And he went, no. He's like, you can actually never cook me a meal again for the rest of your life, and it wouldn't change my love for you. He's like, you have an expectation on yourself of what dinnertime needs to look like. You have an expectation on yourself about the fact you have to make a brand new, fresh meal every day. He's like, stop. He said. Because you're torturing yourself and then getting mad at me for it. And it was such an aha moment for me of like, oh, the stuff that I talk to clients about every day, right? You and I both do. But we do have these insane expectations. And am I saying that men don't ever put these on us? No, because they do. Right. But how many of them are actually just from us? But then tying that also into like, this hustle culture that we're in. Right. We're both in this coaching industry. And I was literally just at a networking event and they were talking about like seven steps to a seven figure business. And I looked at the guy next to me that has a product, product based business with multiple locations. And I looked at him and I said, what are the chances a single person in this room ever hit seven figures? And he started laughing and he goes. “Probably pretty low.”

Jo Peters

2% for females. For women in the United States, only 2% of business owners that are female reached seven figures. 

Dawn Taylor

Right? And he started laughing. And he goes, what are you thinking? And I said, well, is it? It's interesting that it's like, oh, here's your seven steps and all the things you need to do to get there. And I said, but when I look around this room, I see moms, I see caregivers of elderly parents. I see single dads. I said, when do we give ourselves permission as a society to know that we don't actually have to hit seven figures to be considered a success? That we don't have to push, push, push, push, push that we can lower our goals. We can actually lower our goals to the point where we're sitting at a really stable, healthy level and just kind of go and we don't have to consistently be in this hustle and this drive. All the time. And he looked at me and he's like, hmm. He's like, “I'd love to see you get up and ask this room that.” And we just laughed about it, right? And the day continued and the speakers kept talking and I was thinking about it in regards to our talk today. Right. And this podcast episode. Because when is enough enough? 

Jo Peters

And I think that I think that goes into what I'm seeing and what I believe goes in two main reasonings. The first one is, um, absolutely is imposed by us. And I think that goes into what I call hashtag the good girl syndrome. And that good girl syndrome is that brainwash that we had in watching when we were two years old where our toys were kitchens and what we saw with our mothers and our grandmothers. So that good girl, just complying, of being people pleasers, of believing that our worth is attached to our performance, to what we do. And then when we take that, that culturally for generations is being how women are created, and we mix it with the huge screw up that we have right now in the business world, in the leadership world, where all that system and structure that the world run right now on was designed two, three, 400 years ago by literally white males for white males, because 400 years ago there were not business owners like you and me, see, and I think that part of that is that we are still trying to play and win that game. That is a game that never was designed for us, that never was created for us. That doesn't take into consideration all the other variables that we as females had. So, I really think that we are set for failures in the beginning, because when is enough enough? We don't even start thinking about that in a holistic perspective of what my life as a woman is. My life as a woman is not just my career. It's not just my business. I remember, uh, a conversation that I had with a client that came in a coaching session, very dysregulated. And she was like, because we were talking about five-year, ten-year vision into planning. And she was like, well, I don't have five years. And then I was listening to this, uh, coach,  very famous person saying that you should have a ten-year and make it happen in six months.  And I'm like, okay. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, I heard the speaker talk about that today. 

Jo Peters

And I would be like, mhm okay. Who else do you hear saying that? I want to ask you the same. And then she named like two more people or two more people and they were all males. And I say okay do you ever hear a woman, a woman and especially uh, maternal woman either taking care of their elderly parents or taking care of children, saying the same? And then she talked for like ten minutes and say no. So, like, do you know why? And then you're like, no. And I said, like, because those males that are saying that in stages and in courses and in groups, 99.9% of them had a wife or a mom or a maternal person that take care of everything else so they can get one focus. Just go and make it happen. 99.9% of us females don't have that privilege because we have homes, because we have parents, because we have children. So I think that is matter of us to start dropping that good girl syndrome and expectation and say, okay, first, it's going to be very clear how I want to live and why in the three main areas of my life, how I want my health and my wellness to be, how I want my relationships with my children, with my partner, with my in-laws, with my family be and then what is the level of finances that I want to have? The lifestyle that I want? For some of us, could be “I just want to be in the middle of the field raising chickens and goats. And that will make me the best, happiest person in the world.” For somebody else to be going and traveling for three months. We need to have clarity into who we are first and what makes us happy as a whole. And then from there, I start making those conceptions of “This is what enough is, this is what enough is, this is what enough is.” in those areas of our life. And then from there, I start working as an engineer backwards, re-engineer backwards from what I want backwards into. Okay, so now what I have to do, do I really need to work 100 hours if this is what I want? Uh, probably not. So we don't need to get to that point of burnout where we just as women try to send everything to hell and burn the village with us. 

Dawn Taylor

I was going to say, when women burn out, we're like, I'm going down in a flame of glory, and I'm going to burn everything in my path with me. 

Jo Peters

Someone like that, like The Hunger Games, like if I, I if I burn, you burn with us.

Dawn Taylor

Oh, 100% like you're taking down the village. Yeah, totally. I love how you worded that right. I always called it like a build back schedule. So like I had a new I have a new client starting actually tomorrow. And her and I were talking about it and I said, “So what do you want to make in your business?” And she said, “What do you mean?” And I was like, “What's your number?” “Well, no, it's about helping people.” I'm like, “No. What's your number?” She was like, “What?” I was like, “You wouldn't be doing a business or running a company if you didn't want to actually make some cash. So maybe that's not your focus and that's not why you're doing what you're doing,” I said. “But you need something tangible and measurable to know that you're hitting your goals and you're actually succeeding at it.” And she said her number. And I said, “Okay, what are your rates?” And she told me and I was like, “Cool, you're never going to hit it.” I can tell you that right now. She was like. “What?” And this is just in our consultation. And I said, “You physically can't.” Like, do the math. One plus one has to equal two. Like, you can't. You won't hit it unless you're willing to work 18 hours a day, seven days a week, because the math doesn't work. So, what are your priorities? And one of the metaphors I have to use is like - so you have like an egg carton and you have enough spots for 12 eggs. Okay. What are your priorities? What is taking up? What amount of space? Is it travel? Is it time with friends and family? Is it working out two hours a day? Is it money? What is it? You have to figure that out. Right before you set your goals, before you do any of that stuff. And I know for me that was a big one, is my goals in 2024 are way less than they were in 2023. And when I told someone that they were like, what? That doesn't even make sense. Like, why would you want to decrease your income for the next year? And I said, “No, no, no, it's not about decreasing it. I figured out my level, my numbers off where I'm comfortable with, where I'm happy with, where I can live the lifestyle I want, where I can have the retirement I want. And I can still have time for my health and still have balance and still travel and still do all of these things.” So, why am I pushing so hard for more? Because I don't actually need it. Right. 

Jo Peters

I think that is about what we were saying. And you know that because you know the number, because you are clear going back into you need to go into that feature and say, “okay, got to be clear into what enough is in my health, what enough is in my relationship, what enough is in my finances.” Because from there you come back and say, okay, so how much? What I need to do, what I need to adjust. The problem is society brainwash is giving us into that hamster wheel of oh, having more is going, is almost like I will be happy when I have money I will be happy when I be. This is the perfect sample. I will be happy when I'm a millionaire. Yeah, you can be a millionaire with $1 million or with $999 million. You are still a millionaire. So, when you're going to stop, are you going to stop at 1 million or you are going to go until 900? So, it's about that clarity. And I think that is also very important to know us and in our personalities. One of the things that I work a lot with is with archetypes and, and is so important that we honor that because the reality is depending on who we are, is going to work differently for all of us. One of my clients is super funny because she is an alchemist onto, like flow, and she was very frustrated last year with how that she was living on. Now, everybody else that was coaching her was like, well, fine. Uh, another house and get a commitment. And for a year, like the regular thing. And then she started working with me. And I was like, “What do you want?” And then she was like, “I would love to just jump from place to place.” She's been for the last seven months and had houses for the next eight months ahead, to where she's completely living in the house that she wants. And the model that is working for her is she's housesitting for these amazing houses so she doesn't pay rent. She lived there for free. She lives in beautiful houses that are hers for month to month. Will that work for me? Will not work for me. Do that work for her and make her feel completely happy. Yes. So why? She will need to jump into the wheel and say no until it's not my house. And I put a down payment and I get a mortgage for 30 years, then it's not going to be really successful. Bullshit. 

Dawn Taylor

Thank you. My husband and I had this conversation the other day and due to a bunch of circumstances, right, we're renting right now and we're not owning a house. And we were talking about it because we're like in about two years, like we've been talking about, like building a house and having an acreage. I'm having a property and all these things. We're planning this out now and we're dreaming about it. And I looked at him the other day and I was like, do we want that? And he started laughing and he's like, I don't even know if I do. Like he's like, so much of me desires that. And I want the privacy and I want this like I want all the things he's like, but I love the freedom that we could give 30 days notice tomorrow and move. Like, we could pack up our entire lives and leave, and he's like, we're not going to. We both have very solid careers here. We both love what we're doing. Like we have people, our life is here. He's like, but man, that freedom. He's like, I freaking love knowing we have it. And the amount of people that have judged us for not owning a house and made really snide remarks about it. And I'm like, but that's not my measure of success, is owning a house. And then when I tell people I'm like, actually, I've owned four properties, I've actually owned four. So I can already check that box. I've owned condos, houses, duplexes. Like I can check that box perfectly fine. And now I'm renting again. You know, I had a mentor years ago. I wasn't the right fit. He wasn't the right fit. I wasn't the right spot on my business, to be perfectly frank. Now, I could take the whole I would totally love to be his mentee, but he wasn't the right fit at the time. But one of the things that he said to me one day, because he was the guy, he was the guy with like multiple multi, multimillion million dollar companies flying in his private jet to his different plants and his different corporate headquarters all over the world. Like he was this crazy, amazing man. And I asked him I was like, “So when do you know you've made it?” And he said, “Let me give you the best advice I ever got.” And I said, “What's that?” And he goes, “Seven things. Find seven measures of success.” And he said, “And it doesn't matter what they are.” He's like, “One of my measures of success was the day that I could go home and have lunch with my wife if I felt like it. And I had that freedom. One of my measures of success was when I had the cash in my bank account to buy, like a Toyota Corolla car. Cash. He's like, not even a fancy one. Like I didn't want, like, a Lamborghini or a Ferrari like. But I could walk into a dealership. With cash and buy a car. One of them is when I could go to every single sporting event for my son. In a single month, and I wouldn't miss one of them if I chose to.” And he's like, “I'm not telling you the rest because some of them are very private.” he said. “But come up with your seven things. Your seven things that you've made it.” And you know what one of mine is? When I can turn off my alarm clock and sleep in if I want to. Right. 

Jo Peters

When I go to, well, you were saying with your husband. And then, him, I will pay you $1,000 right now that if you reach out back to him. And that is probably one of the main differences between why so burning out for us females versus males? Because they have all those measures of success.  And my dear sister, the last thing that they are thinking is how they can do all of that by themselves. Oh, they are always thinking. These are the measure of success. This is what is going to be here, okay. Who can help me with this and this and that? So, their brain works like that? Ours. Not so. We are like, these are all my measures of success and I'm going to do it all. So I'm going to still work full time in my business and then um, go to the do the game with my kid and then stay until midnight to catch up and then and then and then and then. And that is part of of that. Don't drop the ball. 

Dawn Taylor

Men don't think that way. They're so quick to hire a staff. They're so quick to delegate something there, so quick to walk away. My male clients are the ones that are like, no, it's fine at 90% if someone else is doing it, because I don't feel like putting in the extra ten and figuring it out myself. They are so quick to do that and women are like, no, I can do it. I just have to add more hours. I just have to get up earlier. I have to stay up later. I have to just find the time. I remember the first time I hired a house cleaner. My husband and I were having this argument. So we've been together 28 years. And we were probably, oh gosh, probably about five years into marriage. And so I've been about eight, nine years into our relationship. And we both worked full time. We both had crazy hours. We had so much going on. And he looked at me and he goes, “Dawn, take care of the house. I need the house to be cleaner. I can't handle the chaos and the dirt in here, and I can handle doing it on my day off like I've one day off a week. I'm not cleaning. Figure it out. I need you to take this on.” And I was like, “Yeah, cool.” I hired a cleaner that day. He didn't know. He did not know. I hired a cleaner for almost 18 months because she came when he was at work. I've said nothing. You just went into the budget. We dealt with it. He was so happy. Our house was so clean. But then I was like, “No, you didn't say I had to deal with it. You said I had to take care of it.” And maybe that's like the post aneurysm masculine side of my brain that I love so much. I was like, “No, no, no, I'm not adding one more thing to my plate. But I sure as hell will hire someone else to do it.” Right. And all of a sudden I was away on a business trip and he ended up off for a rainy day. He didn't work that day. And he's wandering around the kitchen and the door opens and the cleaner arrives and he was like, “Um, hi, lady. Who are you?” She's this woman, like in her 50s, and she's like, “I'm your house cleaner.” And he was like, “Sorry. What?” She's like, “I've been cleaning your house every Monday or every Tuesday or whatever it was for like a year and a half. Like, I have a house key.” And it was like. Okay. And I'll never forget that phone call I got right. And he was so shook but laughing so hard. And he's like, “I love that you just didn't accept it and take that. Right. And I think we need more of that. We need more of that where it's like, wait a sec, I can't do everything. Maybe I need to hire a VA to help with something. Maybe I need to hire a cleaner. Maybe I need to hire an assistant. Maybe I need to look down, look at my expectations that I have of myself. I figure out, are they mine? Are they somebody else's? Are they a coach that I've hired? Are they a parent or are they like, whose are they, and am I okay with them? 

Jo Peters

Like. I love that you put that example because I tell my my clients and my friends that like, I was talking with somebody in Puerto Rico in January and she was thinking about, again, very successful, her and her husband, working kids. And as we are being talking to the default everything. And she was talking about a housekeeper and I said like, “Hey, that is going to be the best decision of this year for you. And let me tell you something else. It's not going to only make the house better, it's going to literally improve your relationship with your husband. It's really going to improve your sexual life because it's one less stress for both of you. One last thing for you guys to argue, to fight, to discuss.” So, the best investment ever is that and I one of the things that that always because I'm up here perfectionism recovery that I see in a lot of women, including me, is part of that fear of 

dropping the ball, of delegating is “They are not going to do it as good as I do it.” So, then I have to do it all. And for the female audience that are here, if you want to hear something, that you may be pissed, but it's okay. Like I like to hear, that is what we're doing here. A lot of people complain about not having health at home, with their partners, with their kids, because yeah, we can hire and there are people that are saying, I'm just starting my business. I cannot hire yet you still have people in your house that can help you. One of the reasons why they don't help is because. Whenever you ask somebody to do something for you, and after they do it, you go back and do it again. Or told them that was not the way, this is the way. That is when you are screwing things. My standard is 100%. What will be good enough? Thinking about grades. The best grades? Hundred percent with what grade I pass the course? Do I have 50, 70, 80? And then? Can I be okay with that? Can I be okay with that? Can I ask my husband, take care of the laundry? And even if he doesn't fold the sheets and the towels like I do. What is the end goal? Is the laundry clean? Okay, let it go. Like Frozen said, “Let it go.” So then you can take care of the things that really, like you were saying, are your priorities, your freedom, the things that make you fun, because we only have 24 hours a day, I truly believe we can have it all. What we need to stop thinking that we can do is we need to stop thinking that we can do it all. We cannot do it all. That is a recipe for burnout. That is the recipe for breaking marriages. That is the recipe for creation, for depression, for meltdowns. You cannot do it all. You are not supposed to do it at all. You were supposed to live in a community that help you. Let people help you. 

Dawn Taylor

Well. And for the generations where like, we literally had a family cookbook growing up, you know, when they said, I don't know if they did this in Puerto Rico, but these who do these like fundraisers or things where it'd be like the family cookbook and everyone would pitch in their five favorite recipes and they'd make these cookbooks and sell them. It was like a thing in the 80s and 90s. So every church group had one, every sports team had one, every family had one. Like, I swear, when my mom passed away, we got rid of like 20 of them because we're like, we don't know these people, we never use these, right? But the one that was for my family literally said in it, your actions equal your worth. And we were raised, right, especially babies of the 80s and 90s, 70s. Whatever. We were raised with transactional love, where it was like, “I will love you if you perform.” That is when you'll get attention. That is when you'll get love. That is how this works. Here's the thing that is not how love works. So if that is a struggle that people have, that is something they need to heal. That is something that people need to heal desperately. And I was like, go to the show notes. You have both of our contact information. Pick one of us and heal that, right. Or find someone else. But I think that that's such a big piece of it. Is. But, if I can't do it all, then I'm not enough. Then I'm not accepted. Then I'm not loved. Then I'm a failure. Right, then I'm all of those things. And I was talking to a client this morning and she's like, she's a big challenge coming up for herself this fall. And she's like, “I'm just so terrified of failing.” And I said, “Okay, define failing.” She said, “What do you mean?” I was like, “What has to happen for you to fail?” She's like, “I don't even know.” And I said, okay, “So you do know that that is the same as me being angry every morning and being terrified or being angry every day because I didn't turn into a unicorn in my sleep.” Like I'm just so mad. Like it's that logical. I was like, you're terrified of something you don't even have a definition on that isn't even real. And she started to laugh about it. And we were having this conversation about it and I said, you know, I said, how many times in life do we not do something because we're scared to fail and we don't even know what it would mean to fail. Right. And so when we have like this transactional love that we were raised with. So now we have to provide we have to show up, we have to do all these things. I was at a the networking event I was at at lunch today. And this woman beside me, she's like, I'm so stressed out. When I asked how she was doing, she's like, I'll be honest, I'm totally stressing out today. And I was like, okay, what do you need to take off your list? Different. What do you mean? And I was like, well, stressed is just overwhelmed. So what is it you're overwhelmed with? Because overall means that we put too many things on our list, or we've allowed other people to put too many things in our list because we have unhealthy boundaries. So what are you taking off? Actually, she kind of looked at me and she was like, “Oh.” Now I was like, “So what specifically is making you feel stressed?” And she's like, “I don't even know what to make for dinner tonight.” She's like, “Dawn, it's 3:00 and I don't know what to make for dinner tonight.” And I said, “Is there a grocery store between here and home?” And she went, “Well, yeah.”  And I was like, nobody ever died from having cereal for dinner. “Buy a jug of milk and a box of cereal, slap it on the table and say, enjoy dinner.” And she started laughing and she was like, “But I can't.” I was like, “Oh, you grew up in the 80s, you know that? We ate pancakes way too many times and macaroni and cheese way too many times, a pizza pop too many times. And I said, guess what? We all survived and we're all here.” I said, maybe you need to look at your expectation that you have on yourself the standard you've set for yourself when it comes to meals, and re-evaluate if that standard still lines up with the position you're at in your life. 

Jo Peters

I love that because I love how we are getting back into the root. And that is the part of the difference between the hardware and software and that when enough is enough. What is enough? What is enough? Goes back into fixing that software. That mindset of understanding that we are worthy not because of our performance. We are worthy not because of what we do, not because what, how we act. We are worthy. When you start thinking the possibilities.

Dawn Taylor

I saw something the other day, the scientists did this thing on it, and it was in the New York Times. And it was it's like less than 0.00001% chance that you're actually on this planet. It's mind blowing that we are even born. 

Jo Peters

I like 64 million things need to happen for that specific spermatozoa to come into the egg to make you. So, when we start going from that perspective of, oh, separating our worth from what we do, separate our worth from our performance, then we start having that clarity to define those expectations, to define those healthy boundaries, to define who we want to be and to start defining, now that I know that I'm worthy and I'm enough, just because I'm breathing now is going to define what enough means on these areas in my health, in my relationships, in my finances. And then from that perspective of confidence, claim what we want, because that is the other part. From that, we were talking about the good girl syndrome and the people pleaser that affect everybody. But I truly believe that a lot more females, and that is that fear of speaking up, that fear of saying exactly what we want because that transactional love that you were saying and because we are, and this is something fascinating. When I was in Africa with the Hadza tribe that is one of the oldest of humanity. I saw this, our minds evolve a lot faster than our DNA, than our physiques and female versus male. If a male gets exposed and eliminated and everybody in the tribe took him away, the male will have a lot more chances to survive because the male, our ancestors’ males had that training and that happened to hunt and to hide. If a female does the same, a female will not last more than a week. So, that really is literally a real subconscious reptile brain survival fear of if I speak up, if I ask for what I want, if I get out of the norm, if I create my own path. The risk is they are going to exclude me. They are going to put me away. Our molecular DNA doesn't understand that now in 2024, even if everybody else is glued to you, you still are not going to die in a week. But your ancestors did and you are having that generational pressure. So it's a lot likely for us to speak slow and let it go. And don't make drama and don't speak what you think. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh, don't be too much, don't be too much. Yeah.

Jo Peters

And it's not. Don't be too much. But it's still keep going, going, going in the wheel. So is all these controversies for us that is minor of us to say enough. It starts with enough. It's enough of me trying to play a game that was not designed for me, that I will never set to win. So how many times you will play a game, any game where since the beginning, it will say “Alert!” No matter how many times you play this game, you will literally never have the chance to win the game. 

Dawn Taylor

You will lose every single time and go, yeah. 

Jo Peters

You will be like, yeah, right. Let me pick another one of the million options that are here, because I'm not going to waste my energy here, but that is what we do every day. So instead of that is. Create a new option and start believing that you are worthy of living your life on your terms, on what makes you happy now? Not What society is doing now, what the influencers in social media are doing now, what Beyonce is doing now, but what makes you happy because your uniqueness will be fulfilled and be a full soul, sparkling light to your surroundings with something that is unique for you, and it's okay for us to honor that. It could be being a full time mom dedicated to kids and having 12 kids. Bless your heart if you are one of them, because with one I almost lost my mind. For other ones, it could be running a business. For other ones, it is about us accepting that we are unique. That is not a cookie-cutting that your path, is okay, that will make you happy. It's okay for you. That is nothing wrong with you because you don't want that, or because you didn't achieve that, or because you don't have this hunger for more.

Dawn Taylor

Right. Yeah. It's so funny, I. I know you and I got so passionate when we talked in our initial 15 about this topic, because we're both like people doing, and it was like I today this woman, um, she looked over and she's like, “Oh my gosh, your ring is amazing. I wish I had a ring just like that. Like, that's the most beautiful diamond ring I've ever seen.” And I said, “Oh, 24.99 on Amazon.” And she went. “What?” And the guy sitting between us starts laughing and he goes, “Are you serious?” And I said, “Yeah, I needed a ring door to networking events because guys are creepy sometimes. And she goes, you seriously bought that on Amazon? That looks so real. I was like, oh, I'll send you the link. You should get one too. And she couldn't stop laughing. And she's like, that is amazing. And I was like, I don't need a $25,000 diamond to make me feel worthy. Right. And so for anyone listening who's thinking like, okay, so I have unrealistic standards in my life, for standards I can't meet so constantly don't feel like I'm enough. Right? One of the things that I would look at is, as like a tangible of what to do is, when was the standard set? What was the situation that happened to cause you to create the standard in the first place? Was it how you were raised? Was it a trauma? Was it marriage? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter what it is. But what was the situation that created the new standard? That then created all these expectations you've put on yourself and others. Now look at when it was set. Are you still in that position? So if you have a standard, for example, of like how clean your house has to be and your meals have to be, and how much you travel and what your body looks like, and all of these things. But it all was set when you were 19, were 20 and first living on your own, and you were single and ready to mingle and just dating. And it was all good. And now you're 35 and you have two kids or three kids and a dog and a husband, and you're volunteering for something and you have a job. Totally different recipe and you're expecting the exact same result. 

Jo Peters

I think that part of that is, and that is another one of my hypotheses on what I work in this, I call it our 

pregnancy syndrome, and that is because we give life, even if we choose to not be moms, our body is still with all the systems and all the memory to do it, and our body knows that you cannot go to labor at four months pregnant or five months pregnant, because the chances of your baby to die 

are huge. That is why our body is trying to keep it as much as possible until 40 weeks. Because as more ready to completely done is as higher the chances to live. The problem with that is we take that to everything else. So we are like, this project needs to be completely perfect before I launch it. Everything has to be done. Choose this path at 19. It needs to be like that for the rest of my life. And then we need to, probably two of the biggest lessons there are. The first one is it's okay for you to change. I actually change and adjust my vision and my goals on a yearly basis. I don't change them completely, but every year I'm like, “Okay, is this still aligned with who I am? I grow a lot in this last year, what changed? What of these serve me? What of these is not serving me? What of some of these things that I thought that I want? Now I'm realizing that I don't want.” And then  feel free to take it off. And and having that assurance that you don't need to make a plan and keep the same exact plan for 65 years. You make a plan. And one of my favorite quotes from military is “A plan is worth it and works until the war starts.” And that's it. Whatever you are deciding is going to work until you start facing things in life, and then you adjust, and then you face and then you adjust. It is a journey. It is a dance.

Dawn Taylor

It's always organic. It shifts and changes and grows and adjusts. And sometimes we don't. Right? Like we don't hit our goal that month. Well, okay. But that's because something major was happening in your life and you didn't have the capacity to put into your business that month. That's okay.

Jo Peters

And is part of that, of that flexibility of adjusting, because first you don't know what you don't know. Second, sometimes we think that we want something and when we get it and we are like, uh, or I will tell you the first time that I get, uh, for shoes, I was so excited. I was like, yes, it's going to be an upgrade. Italian handmade. Yeah. I wear the freaking shoes that were like, I don't know, $600. And I'm like, they're not that comfortable. It was okay. Instead of beating myself as an “Oh no, but you bought them. You need to wear them. But shame on you.” Or like, no, I learn. Now, I know that that brand is not good for my feet. It could be good for other feet, but not for me. It's okay. And then the other one that I think is important is it doesn't have to be perfect before you try, I always put this example on women applying for jobs. A woman will not apply for a job if she doesn't have one qualification. 

Dawn Taylor

I would have like 75. That is their dream list. 

Jo Peters

A woman that is 99% good for a job will not go because it's not 100%. The statistics show that male in the same scenario apply. And as for the reason that job, if they meet only 50% and they're like. If I'm 50% enough, I will figure out the rest. And that is some of the attitude that we need to start thinking on defining what enough is. Oh, I have 50% of this figured out. Okay, that's good enough. Let's do it. Let's start seeing it. Let's start living it. And adjusted to have that clear path of feeling worthy and understanding what enough is for us. 

Dawn Taylor

Totally. I often use the metaphor of like, you can't steer a parked car. Sometimes you just have to like, get it and start driving like, you got to start the damn car, get on the road and then figure out where you're going. But man, you can sit in that car all day and you're not going to get anywhere in your garage. Right. Just start. You have to build the momentum and just start. Because once you're going, then you see what else is out there and what's on the road. And you're like, oh my gosh, here's a shift, here's the pivot, here's something I want to do different. And here's something I love. Here's something I don't, right. But you can't just sit at home and dream. 

Jo Peters

Or wait until you have the perfect path and the perfect GPS route to maximize everything, because you're saying, you are going to stay in your garage for the rest of your life with the car in park and not even turn off. But, uh, having that, um, curiosity and I will say, going back into what you were saying of our expectations and our, conditional, transactional love, knowing that it's okay to make mistakes, that it’s okay to try something that didn't work and say, you know what? It didn't work, and let's go figure it out. That doesn't make you unlovable. That doesn't make you not enough. That doesn't make you worthy, that makes you human.

Dawn Taylor

I was just going to say it makes you human. I'm laughing because our. When we started this call, I was at this thing and I was like, no, I have tons of time to get home and find the file and find all my stuff on my computer and the bio and everything I need to do, because there's like ten minutes of setup at least prior to recording a podcast. And I'm making tea. I'm like, good to go. And then I come running downstairs, I get caught in traffic like nothing worked out the way I needed it to. I come downstairs, my computer's dead. I have to, like, plug it in and get it charging. And I show up like three minutes late and I'm like, apologies. I'm not usually chaotic, but I am right in this moment. And now I need to find all these things. And we just laughed about it. Had this totally human moment. You're like, “Oh no, you're fine, take your time.” Right. I'm calling my assistant in the middle of it being like, “Where's this file?” And Jo and I were just laughing about it because we're like, we're just human. And it's a moment and it's fun and get it back together and right. And even in that, the overwhelming feeling was like, we both gave me grace. Neither of us were judging it. Neither of us were mad about it. There was nothing like, “Oh, I suck, and I failed, and I'm embarrassed and I can't believe I did this and I'm - why are we even recording this? And now it's going to be an extra four minutes.” It was funny. We laughed about it. We joked about the fact that Jenny's amazing and we need Jenny in our lives. My assistant. Seriously, she's like the wrangler of the shit show most days. But that was this beautiful conversation that happened. And as women, we could give ourselves and give each other that grace. Right. And I think that if more people in general adopted that, to be like, “Yeah, you know what? I'm three minutes late and I don't know where anything is that I am laughing at it.” Right. Oh, and there's so many of those lessons in life like, oh, no. my new CRM decided to email every single person in my entire email list saying that they were all accepted to be on my podcast this last week. Yep. It did. All 900 people got told that they were accepted, including strangers, including people where I had, like, donated money to a fundraiser and I had their email in my CRM like it was so hilariously bad, like brand new clients that hadn't even started yet. They're like, “What? I have to tell my story on your podcast? I haven't even heard of trauma work with you yet.” And while we were freaking out, I was laughing so hard and everyone in my world is like, how are you this calm about it? And I was like, Because as technology and it screwed up and we're just going to own it and laugh about it and just put it out there. And so we did. We sent her an email to everyone being like, hey, you probably got one, right? You probably got it being like, uh, technology, forgive me for this mistake. Like, just delete the previous email unless you want to be on it and then feel free to apply. Right. But all of those moments, all of those moments where we beat ourselves up, where we feel like we failed, where we feel like we suck. Are just these beautiful moments where it's like, “No, you know what? I'm killing it at 65%.” And that is such a beautiful number. Like killing it. 

Jo Peters

Well, I will tell you back to the example of of the grades. Like, we all went to school, we all went to college. Tell me, how many people now are like, “um, tell me, what was your grades in high school? Tell me, how was your your grade on college? No, the only thing that they matter was do you pass or you didn't pass? And guess what? You have a title. So you pass.” And at this point is how much easier our life will be if we go into that part of it doesn't have to be 100%. If we pass, if we have to be 60%, 55%. I was hearing today somebody talking about politics and leaders from countries with only 52%, if they they get 52% of the population saying that is the way, they rule it. Good. And then we are here saying it has to be 100 and if not, the sky is falling apart. It's not. It's absolutely not. 

Dawn Taylor

Oh my goodness, I am loving this conversation with you. If you were to empower people with one last thing on, enough is enough. What would it be? 

Jo Peters

Embrace the things that you are not planning that happen. And knowing that the things that you don't have control over are not defining your worth. They are a mild step, mild rock towards the path and I promise you 100% of the  are the ones that going backward are going to be the hugest. That's life. That's going to be able to help you to share, is the story that you're creating. So you can learn the lesson and say, hey, you know what? A year ago, I was in this show and my baby came and I had to breastfeed and almost didn't finish the show because he was interrupting us. How I react to it, how I process it is what is going to create the journey. So, uh, 65%. It's enough, right? 

Dawn Taylor

Thank you. I want to challenge anybody and everyone listening to this today. What is one area, one area of your life that you could release, that you could release 35% in? And figure out what that new metric is. Figure out what that's going to look like for you, and how can you actually let that go knowing that it is more than enough. You still passed. You still get your gold star. You still get your sticker. You still get your points. Whatever it is, whatever it is, if you need a report card, I will send you a report card saying that you passed okay, that you have leveled up to the next level in your life. You have passed. But thank you, Jo. Thank you so much for hanging out with us today. Thank you for sharing your wisdom, your beauty, your knowledge, everything else. I hope that everybody starts following you and they reach out to you as well. People listening. Please, please, please, I hope that you take in every single word of this today and start to see in your own life where you are holding yourself back. Because enough is actually enough. Join us again in two weeks for another fun topic. Tell your friends. Share the podcast with people if you're willing. And if you want to know how to get Ahold of Jo the Unicorn Coach, check out the show notes located at the TheTaylorWay.cs for all of her contact information. Links to all of her fun stuff, everything else, and subscribe now on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts. See you guys in two weeks.