49 | Feels gross to self-advocate? There is a better way

Well, hello there and welcome to this week's episode on feeling feeling confident to self-advocate.

I'm going to teach you the seven energy levels of self-advocacy.

The 7 levels is a wonderful framework to explore professional confidence and especially in the context of self promotion.

So this episode is a longer one because I do go through all the different energy levels to set up the framework.

Then on the next episode, I'm going to use the framework to talk about how to show up as ourselves when we fear being called out or being judged for being self-promotional.

Enjoy!

xo
Liz

PS don't forget to apply for the Mastermind program. Applications are open for another 2 weeks!

if you're in spaces where there isn't trust and generally people don't feel safe when you can show up with that energy, it gets noticed in a way that like it spreads warmth to others. So it really gets noticed and it really gets appreciated. And it gets appreciated by the people who matter the ones who need that, the ones who are looking for that light.

So this is part of that being that shining star.

well, Hey there, I'm Liz St. Jean, and this is the RISE in Your Nine to Five podcast, where I help sensitive high performers who want to have meaningful and fulfilling careers, making an impact in the world. It's where strategy meets intuition to become a better leader with more joy, less stress and endless impact.

So let's break free from perfectionism, imposter thoughts, and that inner rule keeper that keeps you in a career comfort zone. It's time to become unapologetically you. And step into the life you were meant to live. We're going to talk presence, productivity, and having it all. Or as my four-year-old would say, we're going to take over the world.

So let's get to it.

Well, hello there and welcome to this week's episode. So this is another two part episode, although not quite the same as we did last week. What I'm doing for this episode and next episode is we're going to be talking about feeling confident, showing up to self-advocate and feeling confident, showing up as ourselves. So what I'm, what I've done is I have pulled a portion of one of my workshops that I run, where I teach about something called the seven energy levels.

And the seven energy levels. That is the main modality that I was trained in as a coach, it's called energy leadership.

And it really is a wonderful framework to explore professional confidence and especially in the context of self promotion. So this episode today, it is a bit of a longer one because I do go through all the different energy levels and it is going to set us up for this framework

And then on the next episode, what I'm going to do, it's a much shorter episode, but after listening to this, you'll have the framework for us to talk about how do we show up as ourselves when we really fear. And we're worried about being called out or being judged for being self-promotional, you know, it's the th that fear that we have of what will people think about us? So listen to this one first and then go onto the next one where I'm going to walk you through how to think about that, how to show up as yourself, even when you have that fear of being judged. And especially that fear of being called out for being too self promotional.

And one quick shameless plug. You have probably seen my emails or my posts. And heard on some of the last episodes. I do have a mastermind open for enrollment right now. It's open for, uh, at the time of the recording for another two weeks. So if you hear this, if you want to check it out, Uh, you can go to the mint ambition.com/mastermind to learn all about it or flip me any notes, reply to any of my emails. If you have any questions about it, there's no hard feelings. If he want to ask a question and you decide to not join, that is perfectly fine.

For now enjoy this recording of the seven energy levels of self-efficacy. And then come back for the next episode, where I go into more depth around the fear of being judged and the fear of showing our true selves and being called out for being self-promotional. Okay. Enjoy.

So step number one about shining your own star. And it's all about showing up with powerful energy and powerful energy that's built on strength and the reasons it's so important is that how we show up. So when I use the word energy, what I mean is having a combination of the thoughts we're having the emotions, we're feeling, the actions we're taking.

When we combine all those three together, that's the energy, that's our presence. And. Even if we try to show up a certain way, if we are truly whatever, we're truly feeling that kind of seeps out of us, other humans, other people that we're around, they can sense it. Even if they're not aware they've got, they've got their own spidey senses so they can feel it.

They can sense it. And this is why shining your own star so that you're showing up with a shining presence. Not, not sort of trying to, trying to, trying to think about truly feeling that shine. That's what people will notice. Even if they don't even say it, they will notice it. I promise. Okay. So that's why it's, it's critical.

Absolutely critical for showing up and being seen as a leader. Even if you're, even if you don't identify as like an extrovert, you know, the one who takes up all the space in a room, it's the energy, it's the energy and how you show up that can, that makes you be seen as a leader. And what happens. It's what ends up happening is we have something called an inner critic.

All humans have this, it's louder for some people than others. We have this little, excuse me, inner critic that kind of whispers at us, or kind of chatters at us. And that's, what's leading to self doubt and worry more so than what's actually happening around us. It's that little messenger inside of our head and the messages they're telling us that leads to the self doubt.

And on the flip side, we also have an inner mentor. It's just for a lot of us. For a lot of times, the inner mentor is kind of quiet or quieter than the inner critic. And when we listened to the inner mentor, that's what leads to self-assurance that w that's what leads to poise. That's what leads to that really confident energy.

And here's a little thing. When you feel poised, when you're listening to that inner mentor, you don't need as many tactics to get as much done. Right? We're always kind of searching like, oh, well, how can I get this done faster? What's a hack. What's a tip. When we feel confident, things, just, things are easier because what happens or not spending as much mental energy on that inner critic, chatter that's what's happening.

That's why things are easier. There's this like mental energy spend that we, that we use when we're listening to the inner critic. Versus when we listen to the inner mentor, it's like, they give us energy. They're giving us mental and emotional energy. So I want you to think, and if you want to jump in the chat as well you can let me know, you know, or think about it to yourself, you know, on a scale of one to 10, how often do you listen to your inner mentor and feel that poised energy?

That one never like it's, it's such a whisper, such a faint whisper. You really don't hear it or all the way to 10, like all the time, you've got an inner mentor talking to you all the time. So let me know when the chat between one to 10, where do you fall as we're doing that, we can also talk about where powerful energy comes from, and it comes from a foundation of strength and.

What, what I'm talking about strengths. I always mean the strengths that make you unique. What are your strengths? What are your talents? And when you come from a place of your own strength and really embracing yourself for who you are and what makes you unique and special, that gives you power to self-advocate.

Even if you're getting unfair feedback, even if you're getting unhelpful feedback, because here's a real thing that I see a lot of the time is that sometimes we get criticisms for, or weaknesses that we can work on that are actually their strengths that are either overused. Or misunderstood or potentially just not even appreciated.

So I'll give you a really good example of a client I worked with. So Samantha, not her real name, she's a lawyer. And she started working with me because her senior management told her she was too quiet. Like literally, they, you were physically, literally too quiet. You need to be louder. And because of that, she actually held back a lot because she knew she had this inner critic telling her that she's been told she's too quiet right now.

The funny thing was she was a lawyer and she did very well. Like she had no problems in the courtroom. It was her senior, the senior partnership that was telling her in the partnership and the firm she needed to be louder. So. We started working together. And what she did instead is she started embracing that strength of being a calm, quiet listener.

She realized, no, this is who I am. I am calm. I am quiet. I'm a great listener. And because of that, she embraced that and felt very confident, just became grounded and confident in herself, went from not speaking up 50% of the time to feeling confident, to speak up and advocate for herself a hundred percent of the time where she wanted to.

And she took control. So. Yeah. So it just having a comment here as a fantastic, really great reflection here, someone pointing out, they're just hearing about this inner mentor and going back and forth feeling wow, like in a safe space, going to attend and not feeling safe a 500%. If we're not feeling safe, so easy to let, like the inner critic voice comes up and the inner mentor comes down.

And when we feel safe, that inner mentor comes up. So not a trick, a tip for anyone who has, this is being aware of it and is a little bit more of an advanced strategy. But what I'd recommend is really get used to literally how your body feels and how emotionally you feel, how your body feels when you're at that 10.

And so when you're in places that don't feel safe, Imagine how that feels to feel safe, to have that 10. And this is part of the control and it is an ongoing work, right? Like this, isn't a really, quite actually quite a more advanced strategy that I'm just sharing on the fly on the cuff here, but it's worth working on to get to a place where even if you're not in a safe space, based on how other people are acting, if you can still find that place inside of yourself, like find that, that, that warmth and passion inside of yourself, it gives you so much control and it allows you to be in control no matter what's happening outside and around you.

So thank you for sharing that. So I want you to consider as well, think about what types of unhelpful feedback you've gotten, maybe unfair or criticisms that were actually based on your strengths and maybe you were misunderstood, or maybe it wasn't appreciated from someone else's perspective. You know, a lot of people have experienced this.

So it does happen to you just know that you are not alone. This is actually much more common than we think. So continuing on with that powerful energy and actually kind of reflects back to that more event space. I was just speaking about when you show up with that powerful energy, like no matter what's happening around you, when you can show up with powerful energy, it shines through and it gets noticed.

And I would actually say in a, in a, if you're in spaces where there isn't trust and generally people don't feel safe when you can show up with that energy, it gets noticed in a way that like it spreads warmth to others. So it really gets noticed and it really gets appreciated. And it gets appreciated by the people who matter the ones who need that, the ones who are looking for that light.

So this is part of that being that shining star. Now I always love this expression or this quote from Albert Einstein about energy cannot be created or destroyed. It can only be changed from one form to another. And I always bring this up because when it comes to emotions, we have almost at a societal level have been conditioned to think that negative emotions are bad, right?

Sad is bad. Angry is bad, those are bad emotions. And so we just try to not have them. We just, we don't, we just try to flip a switch and just not feel sad or not feel angry or, or even get into this like Metta kind of spiral of beating ourselves up for having negative emotions. This quote, kind of points out when it comes to energy, we can't just sort of wish it away and wish it wasn't.

There, there is a process and it needs to happen. And part of this is even like a compassion piece for ourselves to experience emotion and to be okay with it. And the main reason I mentioned it is because I'm going to talk now about these seven energy levels. This is the energy leadership framework, and there are seven energy levels in it.

And there is no good or bad energy level. There is no good or bad energy level. They just grow progressively more powerful. So for you go from level one to level seven, I'm going to go through them with you. They, there there's nothing wrong. Inherently level one is just not as powerful as the higher energy level.

It's just more powerful to process and experience the energy levels. And part of the reason is, and actually this goes back to that, you know, off the cuff and advanced training I gave, the more you process it, the more you let yourself experience it and just observe yourself the easier it is for you to be able to choose the energy level that you want to show up in that one that you is going to best serve you in the moment.

So seven energy levels. Can we go through them somewhat quickly here? And then I'm going through each of them one at a time. So level one is we call her a victim energy level two is our fighter energy. Three is manager energy. For his caretaker, five is Explorer. Six is intuitive and seven is Zen.

So let's look at each of these. So energy level one is the victim energy. Like I said, there's no good or bad, but as I also said, the lower energies are less powerful. So victim energy, those are any time you've ever felt like I just can't do this anymore. I just, I can't adult anymore. Have you ever said that thought you said like, I just, I just need a, I just need a break or I'm going to pull the covers up.

I just want to stay in bed all day. We've all been there. We've all had it. Absolutely part of the human experience. And at this energy level, when it comes to self-advocacy. It's all about avoidance. We don't, we don't self-advocate at this level, there's almost, there's almost zero power, especially when it comes to self-advocacy here.

And this is also we're second guessing and beating ourselves up. That's where this lives as well. And this energy level one and the difficulty is that we just try to pretend we don't like it. We try to pretend it. And we want to get used to is under, is processing it and understanding it and getting used to what it feels like so that you can choose how to shift into another energy level.

And the second energy level that you might want to shift to, and let's explore is what's called the fighter energy level. Sometimes it's called warrior energy. And this is when there's any conflict. When you feel conflict, when you resist, when you argue any time that you've truly in your bones known that you're right.

And they are very wrong. That is level two. And there's no good or bad energy level though. This can be real. This is more powerful, right? This will actually spring into action versus level one. Don't have much action. It'll get you pushing back against ideas or decisions that you know are really bad ideas.

It can spur you to it. And so self-advocacy at this energy level is when you feel like you're going to roll up your sleeves and fight for yourself, you're going to fight for yourself. You might even be fighting for others for general advocacy, right? You think it was social justice movements, but for self-advocacy, this is when you're willing to fight for yourself.

Okay. The challenge with both of these energy levels actually is that they're called what's their what's called catabolic energy levels. And catabolic means breaking down energy, the energy that breaks down. And so even this energy level, too, even though it can get you into action, the challenge is if you spend a lot of time here, it can be really hard on your system, both your mental, emotional, even your physical system, essentially the sends off different chemicals into your body.

That over time can actually physically start breaking things down. There's some fantastic, some phenomenal research happening these days about the mind body connection and what can happen. And that's the challenge with level two. You know, if you think about kind of like a stereotypical manager, you know, like the, the old white guy who's yelling all the time and then has a heart attack.

That's the, what? That's like the extreme version of a level two challenge. And then the other piece too, is that even though showing up with this energy a little can be kind of momentarily motivating to others, right? This can actually fire people up, right? Think about like smash the patriarchy, right?

Those kinds of languaging, that can be motivating, but it can be so draining over time. It is very difficult on your psyche, on your body to stay in level two energy level. So that's why some people often end up here at energy level three, which I have, which I call the manager energy level. This is the energy level where you're making things work.

You're managing. You can handle the things you are, you know, when there's a problem, you can solve it and you don't let any, you don't let things get you down. You're able to make it. You're able to make it work. You don't need to fight anymore. You can just, you can make it work. But this is also an energy level of denial and tolerating and rationalizing.

So this like this, oops, got a little bit too far there. You know, think about it. Have, are you in a situation that you've been tolerating for too long? You know, a lot of us can get kind of stuck here in level three tolerating situations. And so what this looks like for self-advocacy is, is two things actually in one way, it's that you just kind of rationalize why you didn't get something that you maybe should have fought for, maybe could have fought for.

Okay. You kind of rationalize it and you let it go. You can imagine you're not going to let it get you down. Okay. Level three self-advocacy though also looks like this is actually where that kind of a little bit of a gross tinge comes in because level three is all about, I w I'm going to win. I'm going to get what I want.

And I don't, I don't kind of care what happens to anyone else. Like, I don't mind if you win as well. That's great. That's totally great. I'm not going to take away from you, but I'm not focused on that. I'm going to get what I want. So level three self-advocacy is not focused on others. And so that's why for a lot of us, we actually ended up bouncing them back to level one and not doing anything, or just bouncing into sell into rationalizing, because it feels uncomfortable to do something purely for our.

Okay. So why don't you to think about it or drop in the chat? Because what I see is often people getting stuck in either of those three. So I'd love to hear for you in the chat, where do you get stuck when it comes to self-advocacy? Do you get stuck at the victim level? Do you get stuck at the fighter level or do you get stuck more, maybe more at the manager level?

So let me know in the chat, which, which one really resonates for you in terms of getting stuck? And I said, wait for those to come through, it's also talk about some more powerful energy levels. So energy level four is when we start moving into what's called anabolic energy, anabolic energy, and what anabolic energy is anabolic means to build, to grow, to build up.

And so with this energy there's things become as we go into these ones, four or five, six, and seven things become easier. They become lighter and it, because we're growing and we're growing for many different things in level four in particular, we're often growing for others as that caregiver energy.

It's when we're showing up with empathy, when we show up for compassion, when we're showing up for service and we often do it for others, right? If you're here because you often do these, this for others, you probably have a lot of level for advocating for others. Now self-advocacy at level four. What that would look like is self-love self-compassion you advocate out of love for yourself and it can almost feel like it's very easy here to slip into fighter mode for yourself.

Like, well, I deserve it kind of fighter energy, but the love energy. If you're, if you're fault, if you're with me here, you can feel the difference of like I'm doing this because I, I just serve it from a loving place, from a compassionate place. And it feels very different and it's experienced very differently by other people.

Now what's interesting. You might also show up for self-advocacy and level four out of gratitude for yourself. You could do it out of gratitude for others or out of service for others, but from that place of love again, so level two and level four, they are heart kind of energies. And so they will come from the heart.

And so sometimes you can even like flip flop between them just to remember four is from the heart. Two is from like the gut, the fire for us from the heart. Okay. Now level five. And I'm hearing in the chat here. Totally always do this for others a hundred percent and that's, and then it's a, it's a real skill then to do it for yourself out of.

There's a level of five, you know, I said two and four were from the heart, but we'll five going back to the head three and five are in your head, not in your head, but they're, they're kind of head-based energies or mental model energies. This is an Explorer energy often it's also referred to as innovative energy.

So this energy level in general is anytime you felt really enthusiastic and confident about the opportunities around you, even you can see opportunity where other people are like, or having the level one experience, you can see opportunity like in failure or in problem that you're seeing, you're seeing what can be done.

And you're feeling enthusiastic about. So self oops, that doesn't work jumping ahead. And self-advocacy at level five is often very strategic and it's very collaborative. You're looking for new opportunities where everyone will win. So remember that level three, I was saying kind of feels a bit gross because you're only looking out for yourself.

That's why it feels a bit gross, level five. You are looking out for yourself and you're looking out for others as well. Truly, truly looking out for everyone and seeing opportunity. It's also an energy level for self-advocacy that you would be willing to walk away from something. If everyone doesn't win, if you're not going to, if you're not going to win, if the others people involved, aren't going to win you would walk away and you would walk away truly like not feeling bitter.

You're not going to feel that any anger or victim, you just feel like, oh, that's not going to work. Like for maybe you're going for, I'm asking for a salary increase. And they, they can't really want through who knows what's happening on their side, but you don't get it. And you truly feel a level five, you should really be like, okay.

That I totally understand. And you might go out and look for another position that has a salary you're looking for, not from a place of bitterness, not from a place of anger, just from a place of, well, I can walk away from this. No problem. Absolutely no hard feelings. It's a very much no hard feelings.

Truly no hard feelings, energy. So energy level six is our intuitive energy. And this is where you get into somebody like that, that wou corporate speak of like synergy and buzz. And it is a bit like a little, you know, a little bit rude. Now I have an econ background. I like spreadsheets, but I'm, I'm getting used to the move myself as well, over, over the years of being a coach.

And what I always think about is I always think about those times when you are with a group of people and especially when we were back doing it in person. But you know, when you felt that buzz in the air, because everyone was just feeding off of each other's energy you ever had that, that is level six.

Okay. Level six is about connection with others, complete connection feeding off of each other's energies. So level six, self-advocacy when you're showing up with self-advocacy level six, you're showing up in a way that that also builds connection, that builds connections. You're following your intuition.

You're in a place where you actually see it as everyone winning, we're all going to win and you probably have, and you see me smiling here a bit, right? You have that kind of, that, that, that joy, and that, that love from level four, but elevated to a place of connection. So I I'll even give you one of my own examples in doing, in doing these workshops.

And I had, I was promoting them, right. Self promotion, and, you know, I'm as much part of this community as anyone else. Like, I, I, I struggle with that self promotion. I can get caught into that level of feeling like that level three, feeling like a little bit gross. And for me, how, what I do is I write.

Instead of staying there. I love slipping into levels that can coming at it through a level six place. Oh wow. This is going to build so much connection. We're going to increase connections in the community. I'm going to meet new people in this community and it's going to be so wonderful and it just feels different for yourself.

And it feels different for the people around you when you're showing up at that energy level. Okay. So the final energy level, level seven, we actually don't spend a lot of time here. Most of us, we kind of pop into it or we kind of borrow from it. It's a Zen energy level. And you know, you're having this energy level when you are completely relaxed, nothing phases, you, nothing phases you at all.

You just kind of, you're just, you're experiencing life and you're you're you, you get, you get to be human, right? Those kinds of moments. And you're in the flow of things. And the benefit of it is that you can, from this energy level, you can tap into other energy levels. So that's where this can be really powerful is the ability to slip into level seven, to then choose another energy level without any drama, without any judgment.

Okay. The challenge with level seven, especially from self-advocacy, but for other pieces is because nothing phases you. If you're, if you're in this level seven, you might not actually take any action. And it's very different than the level one or level three non-action this is just like a it's all good.

No, non-action so that's why we just tap into it. Let me show you another story. But one of my students, Amber, and so what she did was she was able to achieve by working together and working, especially on these energy levels, she was able, she was getting clear, but where she wanted her career to go leading herself, she was setting boundaries and she got a promotion out of it and felt good as she was doing it.

So I want you to think about that, you know, what would be different if you were self-advocating from that one of those higher energy levels, maybe even a couple of them, but what would be different if you're showing up in that way, level four or five, six, even seven, perhaps, but what would be different if you were showing up in that way?

Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Now, before you go, make sure you click to follow the show this way you don't have to go looking for the latest episode. I'll come to you. Just click the plus button or the follow, and you'll get the latest episode fresh off the press. Thanks again. And remember that you are amazing. Now, get out there and RISE.