435: The Thing You Almost Said

On this week’s episode of The Art of Living Big, Betsy shares some big news and while doing so, notices her reflex to downplay this news that makes her proud and happy, almost so that it can be smaller. Are you editing your feelings? Are you minimizing your accomplishments to make them more comfortable around others? Betsy shares steps to recognize when we are doing this and advises us how we can turn it around. Also, stay tuned near the end for the announcement of the 2nd retreat!

Transcript:

 Welcome to The Art of Living Big, where we explore how to live intentionally and with more joy. I’m Betsy Pake, your host, master, coach, and creator of the Navigate Method. Here to help you listen in to your true desires, elevate your standards, and live life to the fullest. Now, let’s go live big.

Hi, everybody. Welcome to the show today. I have had a really busy week. Tomorrow… Well, I’m recording this on a Wednesday. You guys’ll hear it on Thursday. And tomorrow I’m gonna be on NBC. So I did this last year, and I’m recording a couple episodes, doing something live for them for their noontime show.

You know how, how cities have, like, their local Atlanta station and then they have, like, a little local show? Whatever. It’s still very exciting, and I’m trying to pick out my outfits, so, that’s my big personal update that I’m doing. But I, I have had this conversation, and in fact, I’ve had this same conversation a couple times with a couple different friends, and I think it kinda came up initially because we were talking about this NBC thing.

I know that it’s not- Well, I, I’m about to say something, and what I’m about to say is the exact thing that I’m trying to teach you not to do. Okay? So I noticed that when I was talking about it, I was explaining that, you know, I recognize it’s, it’s not like I’m on Oprah. It’s, it’s the local daytime Atlanta show.

Do you see how I tried to make that seem less? Smaller? Just, like, a little bit not as big of a deal? ‘Cause I don’t wanna feel like it’s a great big deal. It’s not that big of a deal. But also, it is, and it’s really fun, and it’s, like, a cool thing that I’m so grateful to be able to do. And I love the host of the show.

She’s so fricking cool. And last year when I was on, it was so fun, and it was nice to get the video and to have it for my website, and I’m talking about two different topics, you know, in related to our, our work here. And it, seems exciting. I love to talk about it. We’re gonna talk about when you drop your kids off at college and you have nothing to say to your husband on the way home.

And for a recorded episode for later, we’re gonna record a segment on why women are turning to AI. So conversations I really wanna have. So why am I trying to make it smaller? Why am I doing that? And I was talking to this other friend of mine, and we were just, like, catching up, and same kinda thing, and she was talking about some things she was doing and some big trips she was doing, and she tried to make ’em seem a little bit smaller.

And a lot of the women that I know are entrepreneurs, because I’ve met them through entrepreneurial groups, and they’re all really successful. Like, I look up to them so much. And this one friend was talking about how she … how much money she makes and what her goal is for the year and some struggles that she was having.

And I noticed that she was trying to- Like, uh, dummy it down a little bit, you know? And it was just the two of us. Like, we’re on the same page. We both want her to be wildly successful. And, you know, when she noticed that she’s around people who have less successful businesses or maybe make less money than she does, that she does things to try to make her life sound smaller than it is.

She’s not lying, but she’s just not saying it all. She’s, like, editing. You know, trimming down the things she’s getting to do or saying, you know, “It’s not that big of a deal, it’s not Oprah.” I mean, the same things I’m talking about, and it’s so fascinating to me, like, why we do that. And even here when I’m trying to tell you about this and teach you something about it, w- I only te- I always am talking, I am…

If you have been here a little while, you know this, but if you’re new here, I am with you on the journey, so I am teaching stuff as I’m learning it or things that I have learned along the way. But this is something that is continuing to come up, and I think a lot of us do this in little and small ways.

So I wanna talk to you, and I want you to think about the last time that you, like, almost said something and then you didn’t. And not, I don’t mean something mean, but not something you’d regret, but something that was true. And, you know, maybe it was about how you actually feel about your, about your marriage.

Maybe it was about how much money you make or how much you want to make. Maybe it was somebody asking you how you’ve been, and you had a real answer that was, like, right there in your mouth like marbles and you wanted to say it. But instead, you’re like, “You know, it’s been busy. The summer’s busy.” You edited it.

Edited? Yeah. You edited it in, like, a nanosecond, and it w- it probably happened so fast that you didn’t even experience that as a decision. And, and, you know, it was an unconscious decision, not really a conscious choice. And the thing that I want you to notice about that is that you didn’t edit it bec- I’ll never get used to saying that word.

You didn’t edit it because it wasn’t true. You did it because of how it might sound, and that’s a, different thing entirely So I think we have a word for this. We call it humility. You know, don’t brag, don’t make people uncomfortable, read the room, you know, be, be gracious. Nobody likes a woman who takes up too much space, you know?

And look, you know, there is a real version of humility. There is. It’s the thing that keeps you, you curious. It’s knowing that you might be wrong. It’s, it’s not needing to be the center of every room that you walk into. It is a version that is good in that. And so I don’t wanna argue against humility as I just described it.

But somewhere along the way, a second thing got handed to us that we call humility, and that second thing isn’t about being curious or being open to being wrong. It’s about being small. It is a version of you that says, “Whatever you have, don’t say it out loud. Whatever it is you want, keep it to yourself.

And whatever you are carrying, carry it in a way that doesn’t inconvenience anybody.” And that’s not actually humility. That’s, I don’t know, some really heavy form of management. And so I wanna ask you to ask yourself who exactly is that managing? And here’s how I’ve come to think about it, and I’ve been sitting on this one for a little while.

If you guys have been here, you’ve heard me talk about how I read that book,, it’s called The Seven Deadly Sins and the Price Women Pay to Be Good. And in that, she talks about the seven deadly sins, how we think those are tied to the Bible, but they’re not. It’s actually tied to the patriarchy, and they are a way to keep us in check, to keep us in line. So a woman who makes herself small is a woman who is easier to be around.

She’s easier to be married to. She’s easier to employ. She’s easier to have as a sister or a mother or a friend. She doesn’t disrupt anything, and she takes up exactly the amount of space that’s already been allotted to her and, and doesn’t ask for anything more than that. And that is really useful. It’s, it’s just not useful to her.

But it is useful because think about what actually happens when you downplay your life to make someone else comfortable. Nobody gets richer. Nobody gets happier. You know, the, the person that’s sitting there across from you doesn’t feel better about their situation because you shrank yours.

All that happens is now there are two people in the room being smaller than they are, because if you stayed big, would they grow to meet you? You didn’t give anybody anything. You just, you just modeled something. And if you have daughters or nieces or younger women that watch you, you know, they, they learned it, too.

They learn it quick. We learned it quick, right? And you don’t have to actually name it or, like, say a thing about it. We pick it up And here’s what I want you to think about this, because a lot of you listening are in the middle of a decision about your marriage, right? Some of you have been in the middle of that decision for years.

I like to think I’m not alone. When I was in indecision for years and years, and years. But I want you to consider that this same habit is running inside that too. So I want you to think about how you talk about your marriage, like to your friends or to your sister or, you know, even, like in your own head when you’re just, like, going for a walk or you’re in the car all alone.

Like, do you say it like it is? Or do you tell it in a way that sounds reasonable? Because there is a really particular thing that I think we do, and I hear it all the time, is that she will describe something that is genuinely painful, and then she’ll immediately follow it up with, “Oh, but he’s a good dad.

But it’s not like he’s a bad guy. But I’m sure I’m not easier to live with either, you know? I know a lot of people have it worse.” And, you know, I, I mean, every single one of those things might be true. I think that’s what makes this little pattern so sneaky. Because if you watch what the words are actually doing, it’s, it’s taking the thing that you just said and shrinking it back down to a size that doesn’t require anybody to do anything about it, including you.

And that is the same, same reflex, you know? It’s the same move. Now, I know a lot of you are, are deeply fair people, and you’d hate to be unfair about a man or a job or whatever that you have spent decades with. I get that But I wanna offer the idea that being accurate is a different job than being fair.

And you can be super fair and be wildly inaccurate about you. You know, people describe to me all the time, like, so many years of loneliness, so many years of frustration. I remember in my own marriage, that was how I would describe it. That was the biggest word I would use, is I mean, insanely frustrated.

I could not understand why what felt like very simple asks were n- being completely disregarded. Like, it, it just seemed, it was, like, m- crazy-making. And I hear other women saying the same thing. They will describe years of loneliness, and then spend the next, you know, four paragraphs out of their mouth making sure that he still sounds okay, that they have been fair.

Then, and, you know, we tell a lot of stories in which our loneliness was, or our frustration was just, like, a detail in the story, but how he appears becomes, like, the whole point of the thing. Again, I wanna be really careful how I say this, ’cause I’m not saying we need to be unfair, and I’m not saying everything’s all his fault.

I’m not saying that. I’m saying that the softener that you’re doing isn’t kindness to him. He’s not even here when we’re talking. The softener is for you. It’s for you to make sure that what you said doesn’t sound like too much. And so here’s kind of the question that I have been asking myself as I tell the story about how I’m not gonna be on Oprah.

And I wanna offer it to you. What would I be saying right now if I weren’t worried about how it sounded? That’s, that’s it. That’s the whole thing What would I be saying right now if I wasn’t worried about how it sounded? Not what’s the right answer, not, like, what would a good woman say. What would I say if I didn’t seem like I

thought I was too much? I don’t want people to think I think too much of myself or that I’m so great. That is, like, such a thing, right? So just strip out the part of me that’s monitoring this whole thing, and what is left? And I’ll tell you what I’ve noticed when I do this, is that the answer comes really fast.

It, it’s n- it’s, it’s really obvious to me. It’s sitting right there, just, like, a half an inch below, below my voice box. And the sentence that I was about to say, which tells you something really important, which is we already know. We’re not confused. I’m not confused And even as I’m, I wanna say, like, I’m not confused about being on NBC tomorrow.

It’s so fun. What a cool thing. There was a version of me 10 years ago that would have dreamed of this, to dream of picking out my outfits, you know? Like, how fun. I know from last time when I was on, we got millions of views. Like, that’s amazing marketing. Like, why would I try and make that sound less? And it is a habit.

So it doesn’t always feel like it’s suppression. It feels like I’m being humble. It feels like being mature, right? I’m not making this too big of a deal. It’s no big deal And so how do you know if you’re being, like, I don’t know, uh, genuinely gracious or if you’re just shrinking? ‘Cause I think they look the same from, like, the other side of the table, you know?

And here’s what I found. There are some things that we can check, and we can check them super quick, okay? So I want you to notice the speed. So real consideration takes a beat. Like, you think about the person, you think about the moment, and you make a choice. Shrinking is instant. It happens before the thought.

So it, happens really, really quick. It wasn’t a decision. It never came into your consciousness. It was a reflex, okay? So real consideration is I’m talking to somebody, and I’m like, “I know they just lost their job, so I’m not gonna talk about how I just got a raise.” Like, I’m gonna just… Right?

That’s real consideration. Now, doing it shrinking is when you are talking to somebody who’s doing great, and you’re like, “Oh, yeah, it’s no big deal. I mean, I got a little raise, but whatever. Everybody got one.” Do you see what I mean? You notice a little difference, right? Here’s the second thing, is you’re gonna notice how you feel afterwards.

When you have been genuinely kind, you feel good about it, right? They just lost their job. I’m not gonna talk about how I just got a raise. You know? Maybe you feel a little proud of yourself. But when you make yourself small, you feel something else. You feel kinda flat. Sometimes I feel a little tired, I’ll notice, and there’s sort of, like, ugh, I wish I didn’t do that, and that feeling, I think, is the data, right?

It’s the feeling of, like, there’s a room I could walk into, but I’m not gonna walk into it because I don’t wanna look like I wanna be in the room. So silly. And then number three is, like, who’s more comfortable in this? Like, real, like, graciousness, I’m gonna call it, it, it usually costs you something small, and it gives somebody something that’s really real, you know?

Shrinking costs you something real, and nobody cares. Nobody gives you anything. So if you look at the room afterwards and you’re like, “Nobody benefited. Nobody benefits from me saying, ‘Well, it’s not Oprah.'” Like, nobody cares. You guys will… You’ll get off this podcast, and you’ll never think about how I’m on NBC again ’cause who…

‘Cause you don’t… You know what I mean? ‘Cause you got your own life. So it’s not me being humble. It’s me being safe or not wanting to seem too big or like I’m, like I think I’m d- so great instead of just owning this is a really cool, fun thing I get to do, and there’s no shame in that. And it isn’t Oprah, that’s true, but you don’t get to Oprah until you get to this.

It’s on the way. I don’t know. Is it on the way? It- you know where I’m on the way to Drew Barrymore? That’s where we’re headed, folk. If I could be on The Drew Barrymore Show, I just want her to sit on my lap while we talk. That’s what I want. So I’m not gonna go tell you to, like, announce your new raise and your new salary over a giant dinner party.

That’s not what I’m saying, but I think you need to catch it. You just need to, to notice it. You don’t have to even fix it, just notice the moment where you were about to say something that was true and something reached in and sort of changed the dials a little bit, and notice how many times a day it happens.

Most of the time, I think… I think this is accurate, most women would be shocked at how many times they do it. In little ways you will shrink yourself. It might be with your husband. It might be with coworkers. It might be with yourself. You’re just talking to yourself and you do it. So just let yourself know the answer.

Just let that exist because I don’t think we can make real decisions about our life using this edited information, and if the only version of your life that you have ever said out loud is the version that was pre-approved for everybody else to be comfortable with, then you have been trying to decide something enormous based on like a, a, like a kernel of it that you have created for somebody else.

Like, no wonder life feels like it’s a slog, and no wonder we’re not getting where we wanna go. Don’t you think, honestly, if I was declaring I wanted to be on The Drew Barrymore Show and I was just talking about it all the time, like thinking about it in my own life and allowing it to be available to me, don’t you think if I was owning internally the fact that I’m gonna get to practice and be on NBC and do live, live TV, like that’s freaking cool.

Atlanta’s a big market Like, don’t you think that would help me? And everything, if you’ve been here a while, everything you know about our brains and how our brains work, and how we actually create, don’t you think me owning it would help me to see a possibility in the future where the next thing I wanted would be available to me?

Where the stretch didn’t seem that big. Because I’m creating a bigger space between me and Drew Barrymore by making this seem really small. If I made it seem bigger, the gap would close. Do you see what I mean? So I want you to think about where you’re doing this, where you’re keeping yourself from the next level of things that you want in an effort to be attainable in this version of you, in an effort to be eaten.

Do you know what I mean by that? I don’t know why that’s the word coming to me, but it, to be absorbed, you know? You don’t wanna be too big of a chunk. Nobody’ll be able to chew it. So you try to make it really tiny. You’re not too much. You never, ever have been too much. You just learned early that by being a little bit less, you were safer, and you got so good at it That you forgot that it was a skill that you were taught and not a fact about who you are.

So when you can start to do that, that is how I think you live a big life. All right, one last thing before we go. Punta Cana. We’re going to Punta Cana, you guys, January 21st to the 25th. We’re going to Zelle Punta Cana, Dominican Republic. The tickets are gonna go on sale one week from Friday, so September 10th, tickets will go on sale.

It’s gonna be so fun. You don’t wanna miss it. If you were at the previous retreat or you’re inside one of my programs, you’re gonna get pre-sale stuff, so you could get a ticket early. We’ve got some special stuff for the first 10 people that come in. We’ve got special swag bags. You’re gonna get to work with me before the event, and we are going to design a life that you really love.

So if you’re not on my mail list, please check. Get on my mail list. Just go to my website. All the way down at the bottom, just add your name and add yourself to the mail list. If you don’t wanna be on my mail list, that’s okay, too. You can just check next Friday, and I will post about it in my stories on Instagram, and we’ll do a post in the feed probably, too.

So join us, join us. You don’t have to have ever worked with me before. It’s so, it’s so fun, and I’m telling you, last time we all connected. I mean, everybody stayed an extra day. It was so fun. So I definitely want you there. You’re included. Don’t shrink it down. All right. I love you guys so much. I will see you next week.

Thanks for joining me on The Art of Living Big. I hope today’s episode sparked something within you, maybe pushed you to dream a little bit bigger and live a little larger. Don’t forget to subscribe. Leave us a review and share this podcast with someone you know who might need a little inspiration today.

You can find me over on Instagram at Betsy Pake and on my YouTube channel. Remember, the world is vast. Your potential is endless, and your life, it’s yours to shape. Until next time, keep reaching, keep exploring, and keep living big.