The Invisible Saboteurs | Jule Kim | The Sean Trace Show

I sat in a hospital waiting room recently, alone and facing a biopsy, and all I could think was how much I wanted someone to just hold my hand. It is a vulnerable admission, but it is the heart of the conversation I had with executive coach Jule Kim on this episode of The Sean Trace Show. 

We dig into the adulting myth—the idea that being a grown-up just means paying bills and sucking it up while our internal world remains a total wreck. Jule shares her powerful story of growing up as a neurodivergent Korean kid in 1980s Alabama, feeling like a permanent outsider, and how those early experiences created the invisible saboteurs that drive our behavior today. We talk about the unmet needs we all carry, from my own daughter’s fear of losing her specialness to the way we obsessively try to control our surroundings when we feel unsafe. This episode is a deep dive into why we have to stop putting concealer over our emotional wounds and finally pop the zit of our secret fears so we can actually move forward. It is about the heavy lifting of the internal world that our parents’ generation never taught us how to do, and why identifying your hidden triggers is the only way to truly lead yourself and others.

Looking back at your own childhood unmet needs—like the need for safety, validation, or being seen—which one do you think is still driving your adult decisions today, and how does it show up when you are stressed?

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

But just like in a nutshell, unmet needs are the things that are driving you. I call them like the invisible saboteurs. These are the things that will keep you from doing what you know you need to do. So for example, I remember I used to have this client. And sometimes I will teach people how to do their sales calls because sales calls are very similar to coaching calls. And there's a certain approach to it. You want to ask questions. It's also similar to being a good podcast host like yourself. So I think the last time you and I spoke about how it's like, gosh, dang, like if you listen back to your recording, like why didn't I pick up on that thread? Like, why didn't I go deeper here? It's very similar. So I had one client where she really needed help with her sales calls, and she kept saying, How do I get better more leads? How do I get better leads? And I asked her, How many inquiries are you getting? She's getting a shit ton. Like I had already helped her with her SEO. She was like ranking in the top three spots for photography. She was getting a ton of inquiries, but she wasn't converting. She was converting less than one out of 10. It's probably more like one out of 15 or one out of 20 because she was so terrible at the sales calls. So she gives me some of the recordings. I listen, and the first thing I notice is she's talking 85 to 90% of the time on these calls. And I was like, what on earth are you doing? And she's like, I don't know, like, like, isn't that what I'm supposed to do? I'm supposed to like show all of my credentials and, you know, show her like how good I am. And I was like, well, how are you ever gonna understand like what that client, what that potential client might need from you if you're so busy yapping your mouth like 24-7? Like you've literally asked her like no questions. So here's the thing. I had given her this feedback like five times. There were at least five calls I gave her this feedback. And yet every call, she kept doing the same thing. I think the best I ever saw her lower her volume of like talking was 70%. She was still she was still speaking 70% of the time. So that's what I mean. When you have an unmet need, it will cause you to do things, even though you've been given direction to do something else. You cannot follow those directions.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Welcome back, everyone, to the Sean Trace Show. I'm your host, Sean Trace, and I have an awesome guest with me today. It's a return guest, but not on this podcast. Um last time we were on a different podcast talking content. But today we're talking about kind of more of your your special like thing that you love to talk about, coaching and life and all that good stuff. Can you introduce yourself to people, tell them who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Yep. Thank you so much for having me, Sean. Hello, everyone. My name is Jules Kim. I am an executive coach for women who lead, especially women who are people of color or immigrants. And my whole specialty revolves around probably my background growing up Korean and Alabama. Not the most fun background. I think I've felt like an outsider for most of my life. And also being neurodivergent doesn't help.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

That's interesting. I didn't know you had grown up in Alabama. And and and you know, that must have been a very interesting experience for you. How did that shape you?

SPEAKER_02 3:23

Well, it was being an outsider on so many levels. So I was born and raised for the first 18 years of my life. It was very literally white and black. Like the population there was, I believe, something like 60% white and 40% black. And I went and looked at the census data for back then. This is, you know, the 80s to the 90s. And every other race was just clumped into this other category. And the other category was something like 0.01% of the population back then. And I think I just remember feeling like I stuck out like a sore thumb because I did. You know, I would literally be one of two Asian kids in the entire school everywhere I went. Kids would run up to me and they would do that, you know, ching chong, like in pulling their eyes out to the corners. And, you know, kids, they don't know any better, but it it didn't help. Like I just felt like a freak my entire life. And then I think I also grew up really afraid of authority. Like it was just, it was so I don't know how to put it. Like I felt like I was walking on eggshells all the time. So if a teacher looked at me funny, then I was like I was terrified. Because I was telling one of my friends today, actually, that it's probably the neurodivergent in me where it never once occurred to me that if I got in trouble at school, that I didn't have to tell my parents at home and they would have no way of knowing. But literally every time I got into trouble, I would come home and tell my parents and then I would get my ass beat. So it was like a lot of dynamics there. And then on top of that, you have the immigrant experience, which I think a lot of us have, where my parents were like, you can't just be better than your peers. You have to be five times better because this is how you prove that you deserve to be here.

SPEAKER_00 5:17

Wow. Living in um a different place where you are not matching the status quo is always interesting. I saw it for my daughter yesterday. My daughter's built just like me. She is tall and lean. Like that's a family gene thing that we have. We are lanky people. And uh she was at school yesterday, and one of the teachers came up to her and was like, just started berating her. You're too skinny, you need to eat more. You're too skinny, you need to eat more. And then she looked up at me and she's like, she's really healthy in shape. She does sports, she does athletics, she does mui thai, and she's not overly skinny, she's totally normal BMI. And even if it was like the the way it's done, but my point being is like when people are not matching that that picture of what is normal, like authority figures don't know how to handle that at times, you know. And for my daughter, it expressed itself as being berated, you know, in the bathroom. And it's so interesting to hear your experience because, man, growing up isn't easy in and of itself. And we all have like literally, it's like you think back, you gave me a list of questions for um uh to to to think about, like three of my most traumatic events. And I started looking at those and I think back about them. And some of them were like when I was a little kid, you know, and those those little things, and there's some that I shut out. Like my mom sent me a picture of my favorite dog. Um, and like my mom was like, uh, oh, this is your dog. And then your dog died a week after we came back from this big trip to London. And I was just like, I didn't even remember that. And I love that pup, you know, and that I remember other things. Like I was downstairs, I these are not things I talk to you about. Uh, but like when we went downstairs, my my wife was waiting for me and my daughter to come home and she had our poodle down there. And I was like, no, don't bring poodles near the street, they're stupid. I remember my poodle getting hit and dying in front of me. And I was just like, oh yeah, that happened. We have all of these things that we hold on to and we don't necessarily know how to process. And just this week, I had an event that I don't know if you can see stitches here. I uh was uh I had a little skin thing that was irregular color. I went to the doctor and they're like, all right, let's biopsy that. And I had to go through that yesterday morning. And no one talks about how to handle these things in life and how to go and check things, how to be adulting. And even, you know, where am I going with this? Life's not easy. And you know, we have all these events that come along, and we're sitting there supposed to go, and now you navigate it. And yeah, I'd love to hear more about your coaching, how you look at that, and how you why why did you ask me about those three traumatic events? I'd love to know, because then I can share more about them and we can figure out where to go from that.

SPEAKER_02 8:31

You're like, there must have been a reason for you to force it. Oh man, yeah, I I promise there is a reason. So there's so much in what you just said, and I think the part where at the very end you said we're supposed to adult, right? Do this adulting thing. And I think with the age that you and I are at, because we're pretty similar in age, right? I'm 45 or 46, I think, 47 maybe. And yeah, so our parents being in that particular generation, the whole idea of adulting is like you're supposed to do things, right? That means pay your bills, get a job, be successful, whatever that means. But there's nothing of the internal world being addressed. And I think with where I'm at in life, and everything I've learned with psychology, especially, is it is incredibly hard to have only the actions and never address any of the inside stuff. So this is why I love seeing movies out there like Inside Out. I don't know if you've seen that. I haven't seen it.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

I love Inside Out. God, that movie makes me cry every single time.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

I know it's on my list to watch, but I haven't watched it yet. But every time, yeah, my clients will tell me, they're like, oh my God, you have to watch this. It's like you're in the movie. And I'm like, uh, okay, I I believe you. And it's only recently that I think the idea that what is lurking in your head, like the thoughts you have and the feelings you have, are connected to the actions you take, right? That you are this one whole total being. Whereas I think in the generation of our parents, it was very much a dichotomy. Here's what you do. This is you being the responsible adult. And then everything else, you just put that shit away. Like you just like I remember my ex's mother, she literally said, I didn't want to hear any of his stuff. Like my ex, I didn't want to hear it. I just wanted him to fold it up nice and neat and put it in his pocket. She literally said those words to me.

SPEAKER_00 10:37

Oh my God. But you know, one of the things too, and this is an interesting thing. I remember I had for the longest time, I don't know how what happened, but for the longest time I had food allergies. And suddenly they went away this last year. And I'm able to eat more normal. It's literally one of the craziest, wonderful things that happened to me. I don't know what happened, but over time they just faded. And it wasn't like I always had them. I had gotten really sick, and then afterwards I had this, my immune system was just kind of freaking out. But when I went to one of the hospitals in Southeast Asia, um they looked at me and they're like, Yeah, we don't deal with food allergies. And I was like, why not? And they said, Well, that's kind of like a a rich people problem. Like, you know, we're just like, like, what the what the her the doctor's point was, it's like people are trying to survive and like just they'll eat what they've got. Like, we don't deal with that here because people are just trying to stay fed. And I was just like, that literally makes no sense to me. I'm sure there's people that have food allergies, but like the emotional space was not always there. And I'm in, I remember I had a uh a great grandma that I got to spend some time with when I was a kid. She was an interesting lady, but she was like one of those people who lived through the depression, lived through the depression, lived through two world wars, and she was just tough as nails, you know, and she did not prom like process all that emotional stuff. There was no time to process that emotional stuff. It was just shoved it down, you know. And if yeah, I'm sure if I had talked to her about my feelings on something, she would have looked at me and just like said, you know, toughen up, son, or something like that, you know. It was it wasn't there. There was not that.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

Yeah. Uh it's probably some version of suck it up buttercup, you know. I think I told my parents, my dad, that I had chronic depression. I've had bouts of depression multiple times in my life. It's no surprise because suicide runs through both sides of my family, both on his side and my mother's side. So I remember telling my dad, this was just like a couple years ago, I three years ago-ish. And his response was, you just gotta pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Like you just gotta like toughen up and like overcome this. And I was like, what the fuck do you think I'm trying to do, man? Do you think I want to feel this shitty like all the time? And yeah, it's it is challenging. And I think in that moment I could feel the rage like rising up, and then I had to check myself because I was like, oh, he is not a person that I can talk to about this. And that touches upon why I asked you to dig into your past and pull up these memories. Because I gave you this thing to read on unmet needs. So what did you think about it when you read that stuff?

SPEAKER_00 13:39

Honestly, um I didn't realize I had so many unmet needs. I didn't realize that emotionally I was caring so much. The other day I was talking to ah, sorry, I'll I'll I'll I'll probably break down a couple times. I was talking to one of my workers. Uh he sits right there, one of my graphic design, like special effects motion graphic kids. He's a cool guy, but he's definitely, definitely, definitely on the spectrum. He is a sweetheart, he is all over the place, and I'm not a psychologist, I shouldn't be diagnosing anyone, but he's awesome and he's one of my favorite people in the world, but he is beyond socially awkward, and he jokes with me. He does Mickey Mouse voices whenever something makes him uncomfortable. I kid you not. He's just like, I don't know why I did that today when my and I'm like, and I just and I I love him. I was like, Andrew, do you do know that you do special voices when you get uncomfortable? He's like, I didn't realize I did that. I was like, you do, it's pretty cool. I I appreciate you for it. I don't judge it, man. I just think that that's interesting. He's like, wow. And the other day, and I just we joke around a lot just because life is easier when you're having fun and laughing. And one day he's like, You do this, but you didn't do that with me. You didn't ask how my day was. I was like, Andrew, how is your day? He's like, I'm having a tough day. And I said, What happened? He said, My uncle died this weekend. And I got quiet for a second, and I was like, What do you need, man? Like, what do you need right now? Do you need a hug? Do you need someone to talk to? And he's like, I could use a hug. And I was like, All right, bring it in. And you know, and I just gave him a hug. And he sat down afterwards and he's like, I really needed that. I remember there's um a guy named uh Nasser, Ish, he goes by Ish, and uh Ish is one of my friends from LA, and Ish is a wild dude because he knows everyone. Like, I wouldn't be surprised if you know Ish. There's this guy in LA, big tall guy, and Ish gives the most soul-warming hugs that you'll ever meet. Like, you'll go up and see this person, and you know, I every time I see him, I'm just like, how's it going? And I just feel like I am in the brace of the divine masculine when he gives me this hug. It is so heartwarming, and I never realized why, but the last time I saw my dad, he gave me this hug, and I said, There it is. That's that's what I've been seeking. And it's those unmet needs that you have that you don't realize that that they linger there, and uh, you know, it's it's tough because yesterday, as I was sitting in that hospital by myself and waiting to go in and get a biopsy done, and I was just thinking, you know, I wish my parents were with me. I wish I had someone holding my hand. And yet, like, I'm sure that my mom, with whatever she's going through right now with her challenges, she wish there was someone there holding her hand. We all have these unmet needs, and we're not talking about them. And uh, you know, I that was why, even though you had me read that, and I just went down this rabbit hole. And, you know, as everything I'd look at, I framed through a reference point of my of being a dad and how I can be a better dad. And I'm sitting there thinking about how does this apply to my daughter? You know, last night I were trying to get the most stressful thing of my life right now is not getting my skin checked, not work. It's training my daughter on getting her contacts in. And I'm still having to help her do it. And it's traumatic for both her and me. And we're trying to figure out the path to making it easier. But I'm going like this, and she's just like flinching. I'm like, you gotta relax into it. And she's like, I am, as her whole body repulses from having something touches her eye. And as I'm telling her, you just have to relax. And she's like, but how? But how? You know, that's not the natural response to having something shoved in your eye, you know, and it's like you, you know, the version comes, suck it up, buttercup. And so I I I'm sitting there looking at how can we meet people's needs? How can I meet my own needs, you know? So yeah, super interesting.

SPEAKER_02 18:17

Oh man, I I can only imagine like listening to what you shared with your person who works with you, you know, whose uncle passed away. I could already feel the tears coming to my eyes. I think you're never a different person, or like you're never the same person after you have experienced loss, you know. And there's a special challenge, or maybe I should just say it's a different challenge that I think men also face, because there's strange societal and cultural norms that don't allow a lot of space for men to have emotions. And therefore, if you're not even allowed to have emotions, how do you acknowledge or identify and recognize your emotions and therefore give yourself the space so you can process them? And that's really what this whole thing is about with unmet needs. And the reaction that you just shared with like looking at the list and being like, oh my God, I have so many unmet needs, that's always the reaction I get from my clients too. And it's it's interesting because I think the exercise says like you want to go through and pick 20. And from there, you want to narrow down to 10. And from there you want to narrow down to four. So, like if someone is listening to us right now, they can go and just like even pull up like a list of values or needs and start from there, like just look at a list of words and see kind of what pops out at you. But just like in a nutshell, unmet needs are the things that are driving you. I call them like the invisible saboteurs. These are the things that will keep you from doing what you know you need to do. So, for example, I remember I used to have this client. And sometimes I will teach people how to do their sales calls because sales calls are very similar to coaching calls, and there's a certain approach to it. You want to ask questions. It's also similar to being a good podcast host like yourself. So I think the last time you and I spoke about how it's like, gosh, dang, like if you listen back to your recording, like why didn't I pick up on that thread? Like, why didn't I go deeper here? It's very similar. So I had one client where she really needed help with her sales calls, and she kept saying, How do I get bet more leads? How do I get better leads? And I asked her, How many inquiries are you getting? She's getting a shit ton. Like I had already helped her with her SEO. She was like ranking in the top three spots for photography. She was getting a ton of inquiries, but she wasn't converting. She was converting less than one out of 10. It's probably more like one out of 15 or one out of 20 because she was so terrible at the sales calls. So she gives me some of the recordings. I listen, and the first thing I notice is she is talking 85 to 90% of the time on these calls. And I was like, what on earth are you doing? And she's like, I don't know, like, isn't that what I'm supposed to do? I'm supposed to like show all of my credentials and you know, show her like how good I am. And I was like, Well, how the fuck are you ever gonna understand like what that client, what that potential client might need from you if you're so busy yapping your mouth like 24-7? Like you've literally asked her like no questions. And and even like if somebody said, I really I want really fun pictures, and she just goes, Yep. And I'm like, Do you know what fun pictures means? What what does fun mean to that person? And she's like, I don't know this. I was like, but you didn't ask them that. I was like, maybe you should go and ask them. So here's the thing I had given her this feedback like five times. There were at least five calls I gave her this feedback. Back. And yet every call, she kept doing the same thing. I think the best I ever saw her lower her volume of like talking was 70%. She was still she was still speaking 70% of the time. So that's what I mean. When you have an unmet need, it will cause you to do things, even though you've been given direction to do something else. You cannot follow those directions.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

Yeah. That's so powerful because, like I think to the times in my life where or just interactions with people that are like the just jatty jaddie jatty, or when I'm stressed. And let me give a better example. Going back to the contact example, my daughter, um, when we start doing the whole contact thing every night in our routine, she gets hyper obsessive with checking the contact. She needs, I need to look at it. I need to see it right now. And I'm like, but you just looked at it two seconds ago. You just looked at it. But the she's trying to control, she needs control, she needs this feeling of control, which is why I told her, I said, Ilani, we're not doing this. I'm not the one who's gonna be putting your contacts in. So tonight we're going back to the to the uh to the uh the iHospital, and they're gonna train her on how to do it herself because her real need is a sense of control. And like right there, she's hyper-obsessing unclean. Well, if she's the one putting them in, she can obsess on it. She can sit there, and I use the word obsess, but she's just really checking it because she doesn't want to have a hair in there. She had an experience where a little tiny piece of dust or something got on it and it really didn't feel good. And so I think one of the things that I just am struck by is we don't know what those unmet needs are and how they're expressing themselves in our lives. But I promise you, the people around you are seeing the expressions of that. I promise you, the people around you are picking up on, like, wow, what's going on with this? And I see it with um the poor dog. I have a border collie, and uh I rescued him here in Vietnam. First of all, border collie should not be in Vietnam. It's a hot country, they have long coats, and there's no sheep in Vietnam. There's not places for them to run and go and herd and do all these things that a border collie was like designed to do. So my border collie has this innate need to herd, keep the flock together, and there's no flock. And so the closest thing my border collie has are all of my family and my employees. So whenever they come in the house, like my border collie is like, finally, like, I feel peace now. Like he sits on the stairs, he watches people upstairs, he watches people downstairs, and he controls the flock. But because he still has all this internal angst when everyone goes home for the day, he starts licking his paws obsessively. And it's just because there's there's no outlet for that, this need to protect, to to herd. And like that border call is not sitting there going, right now, why do I have this internal need to herd? It's just this thing he feels, but the expressions are very obvious to the people around, to things around. I and I think that so many people we have those expressions, but we have no idea what's going on.

SPEAKER_02 25:31

Yeah. And I think it's because most of us, unless we come from some sort of psychology background, we're usually going to react to just the symptoms that we're seeing in front of us, right? So, like with you, with your daughter, and she's trying to put the contact in her eye, and you're like, just relax, and she's very clearly not relaxed. And you know, and you just said it, right? It's like we all have this visceral fear of something touching our eyeballs until we learn to get over that. So I think in your daughter's case, it's like you're you're not gonna just relax until it's almost like popping a pimple. This I don't know why. All of my all of my metaphors are like very bodily function oriented, but it is like popping a pimple. That's awesome. You want the person to drag out the thing that they're secretly afraid of. So with your daughter in the context, and I remember this trauma as well. It's like, what do you think is gonna happen if you somehow do it wrong? And you wanna get that person to spill their guts. Every single possible thing that they think is gonna go wrong. And here's where it gets really hard is most people, especially the older they are, children, they don't have this as much. They can be more forthcoming, but adults especially, they will first respond with the intellectual rational layer. Well, nothing's gonna happen. And so, well, that's bullshit because you are not acting as if nothing is gonna happen. If that were true, you would have already put the contact in your eye. So for her, it may be revisiting, like having something, you know, touch her eyeball, or she just doesn't like it. But the other thing, too, that you mentioned with your daughter is the need to control. That could be it. But I find that with most people, what they think are the needs, it's more like the table legs holding up the table surface. And so it may be a table leg, right? The need to control just may be actually how she satisfies the need for safety.

SPEAKER_00 27:34

It's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 27:35

Of some kind.

SPEAKER_00 27:36

Well, you and that is I I do think you're you're you're hitting the the ham, like the nail in the head. I'm a hammer on the head, hitting the nail on the head there because whenever my wife and I, we have what one child, and I don't necessarily foresee just because of my wife's career, you know, singer, and she's it taking the time off to have a baby would be very hard. And she's having this career resurgence, which I'm a hundred percent for. But we've talked in the past about would you um, you know, she wanted to have another kid for a long time, and again, I'm not it doesn't look like it's in the cards, but neither here nor there. What I'm talking about is my daughter, though. My daughters, any time that that would ever were ever mentioned, just a nerve, like absolute meltdown. She just was like, just like no, and we would, I I I think why? And she said a couple of times, she says, I had a dream where you guys had another kid and you threw me out the window. And I was just like, first of all, that's not happening. Second of all, you know, you're special. She's like, but I wouldn't be special anymore. Now I'm special. And you know, and I think that what you're saying though is it's the same thing as the contact, it's this unmet need uh about that, you know. So it's wild like that, that she's not aware of that, but it's expressing itself. My sister is an interesting one as well. Like my sister's adopted, but she had so many of these um challenges growing up that she had no idea where they came from. And my parents adopted her at one day old. She was like literally, it just day after my mom worked in the hospital. They said we have a baby here, you know. We know you and your husband have been looking to adopt. And she's like, Yes, just 100% yes. And the the wild thing is, is yet there were so many insecurities that were expressed throughout her life about feeling inadequate, feeling unwanted. And she's like, I have no idea where this is coming from. And later on in life, she worked through it. Um, but you know, again, it's just, I think there's so much going on that like you, like you said, we're seeing what we think is is the thing. It's just one part of the equation. How do you get how do you go deeper then? You know, that that's my question. How do we go deeper? What are the other legs? What are the other things? Because you said there's the first thing. What else? What else is there?

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Well, I think the easiest way would be to actually work through one of the examples, right? Like one of these memories that you've already dug up. Uh, but before we move on to that, what Eilani uh Ilani has expressed, incredibly common with children. And I think there, see, this is where I see a lot of parents with their kids, the natural reaction is to reassure, right? It's like, no, that would never happen. And instead, I would be curious to see if you or any parent listening to this would go in the opposite direction. How would that happen? Why would we throw you out the window? So again, it's kind of like that popping the pimple thing. Is you want to try and drag out like the secret fears. So they're gonna say something, and then I'm gonna give you my ultra secret coaches tool. It's like so fancy. You're just gonna keep saying and then what? So your daughter will say something. Well, maybe I'm not nice to the baby, and then you're gonna throw me out. Okay. You're not nice to the baby, and then what? And then she's gonna say something. So you just keep drilling down, just and then what? And see where that leads you. Yeah. So it's it's it's an interesting thing because I know that with people in general, we have an instinctive reaction to reassure, but a lot of times it's almost like just putting concealer over the zit. You want to pop the zit, not like cover it up.

SPEAKER_00 31:42

Yeah, right. It's interesting too because um I I think that we are sometimes people are afraid of going deeper, you know? And one of the things too that is interesting to me is that um when you start digging around in there and uncovering the stuff, um there's two things. One, you actually have something you can work with, you actually have something that you can deal with, and you know, and that it was interesting. I used to go to these this one place for how to phrase this. It was kind of like a a group therapy workshop place, and we all would go there and we would talk about traumas and things that had gone on, and you'd talk to a coach, and there was one guy who had an injury and he brought his crutch. He would walk with it, and then one year he finally admitted, I don't need this anymore. And so people around him were like, Well, why do you bring it? And he says, Because I'm scared not to. I'm scared that I might slip and my knee goes out again. He says, I'm scared that if I don't have this, and so you know what was interesting is that the the coach challenged him to leave the crutch at home one day and and see where he felt with that. And I mean, I don't know if that was the right advice, but it was interesting because when you start looking deeper, you start sometimes we realize that that thing we're carrying, it doesn't have to be there. And, you know, we don't have to hold on to that, but yet it becomes a part of our identity, you know? And that's another thing that it's it's tough to let go of that and to to work at that.

SPEAKER_02 33:41

Yeah, totally. It's I think it's really linked to our biology, because we are naturally attuned to more of the negative experiences in our history than we are to the positive. So this is why what is that type of marketing called? Like the urgency, but like the loss type of marketing always works better on people than for like a benefit. So if you position this thing as you're gonna lose out on the deal, people will buy more than if you say, hey, you're gonna like have this other thing that you're gonna gain. It's it's a weird thing about human nature, like human psychology. I find it super fascinating. But that is just how most of us operate. I think I read a statistic somewhere that it was like 90% of people are more motivated by loss than they are by gain. So, you know, it's the incredible majority of us. But okay, so if we look at your examples, like is it okay to kind of go into one of your examples now? So out of the four, yeah, out of the four that you've brought up, which one holds the most emotional weight for you?

SPEAKER_00 34:52

Man, I'm thinking right now, and I'm thinking about there's only two that are popping up in mind right now. And I I had said a bunch, but the when I think about it, the one that man, I don't know. I think that when I was young, I had this event where I snuck off with a little girl, and I was a I mean, I wasn't more than seven, eight, and the girl was seven eight, and we went off and kissed in my backyard, and my sister came up and saw it. And like she said, I'm gonna tell mom and dad, I'm gonna tell mom and dad. And I mean, when I think about it right now, it I don't understand why it was so traumatic. But there was this fear about getting in trouble, fear about getting uh doing the wrong thing. And then for years, I was so afraid of getting in trouble in life that I felt just absolutely frozen for so much of my adult life, even. I just have been frozen about doing things because I'm worried about doing the wrong thing and I get in trouble. I was worried about, yeah, don't take time off from work because you might get in trouble. Don't um don't make any waves in this, don't post anything controversial, you know. Uh I have very strong beliefs about many things. And yet I I I stick to the middle of the road on all my podcasts because I don't want to upset anyone, you know, and also I I recognize too that maybe I don't want to alienate people, might be part of it, but I I just I sit there and I, you know, go middle of the road on everything. But really, when I'm around my family, like man, I spout off all my ideas and I, you know, I I sit there very strongly, lean into stuff when I'm around my wife or daughter. I'll go off on certain things that I think are are things that I you know believe strongly in. But it's interesting too because you know, that event pops up because it was interesting. My sister, and I love her to pieces, but you know, it's normal kid dynamics, but she she held that over my head for many years. And I remember it was once we were adults, and she was like, I remember she tried to play that card. I didn't, you know, uh, she hadn't done this in like 15 years, but I was 24 and she was like 28 or something. And she was like, I'll tell mom and dad about that event. And I looked at her and I said and I laughed, and I just laughed. And then she kind of smiled, this like little, hmm. And I was like, it doesn't work anymore. And she says, Yeah, it doesn't work anymore. And it was interesting because the whole game was up at that point in time, you know, but it was like we both laughed about the game, but it was still there, like all of that programming, all of that stuff was still inside. And I mean, and other events that I talked about had a string back into that, you know, uh multiple of the other events, and that's why this one pops up because you know, I talked about doing something in class and getting in trouble for that, writing a note that my professor was upset it with, you know, not my professor, my teacher. And then having someone, an event where I had a very traumatic event around um, you know, someone I was dating and I found something in their purse that was freaky, you know, those also were somewhere I'm gonna get in trouble vibes. So I think this is the kind of a a core. And then what I'm realizing is probably not a core, it's probably something deeper going on too, you know.

SPEAKER_02 38:48

That's that's really interesting. Yeah. I I think for most people, you'll have sort of an inciting incident like this, like event zero. And it manifests as the feeling of getting in trouble, but then it is the question of what does getting in trouble mean for you? You not today, but you back then.

SPEAKER_00 39:11

I was worried that they were just going to like it was like similar to my daughter's thing. I was worried that I would be rejected, and I mean, or pushed out of the pack, pushed out of the the safety net, you know.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

And that sounds like a very like adult Sean thing to say. So you, the seven-year-old Sean, was probably feeling like in a lot like like a murky soup of feelings. So I think my guess is you back then would have been like they wouldn't like me anymore or something. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_00 39:43

I think so. And this sounds weird, but I had an awareness that I was like the favorite child as a kid. Like I was definitely, I did great in school. I was always getting top marks, and I think that there was along the lines of I won't be, I won't be the the leader, I won't be the number one anymore, you know? And that was all in my head. My brother and sister excelled in their own ways, but I felt like I was I was the important one. And I I know that sounds horrible when I say it now, but to seven-year-old Sean, that's what it was. That's how I felt, you know? So I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 40:27

I wouldn't actually discount that because as children, we pick up on certain dynamics, and we're not always correct, but sometimes we are. So perhaps you enjoyed a particular kind of status in your family because you did perform while in school and you did these other things. So I have a question. Was your sister adopted before you were born or after you were born?

SPEAKER_00 40:51

Before I was born.

SPEAKER_02 40:53

Okay. See, that explains a lot with how she acted with you because I think you mentioned there was always a sense of competition with you, right?

SPEAKER_00 41:02

Definitely. Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_02 41:05

Okay, so not too dissimilar from your daughter's reaction to the idea of you having another child, except with your sister, the position probably felt even more precarious because well, this is me assuming she knew she was adopted. Did she know?

SPEAKER_00 41:22

She didn't. That's the wild part, but it's still I that that insecurity very much was still there.

SPEAKER_01 41:31

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

So my hypothesis is that kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for. And we are perceptive, right? Like kids are perceptive beyond what we even fathom. So it could be that your sister knew something was different about her, even if no one ever told her she was adopted. I wouldn't be surprised.

SPEAKER_01 41:57

I 100% agree.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

Yeah. And then the competition with you, I think, makes sense. So with you always being worried that you were going to get in trouble, and then perhaps losing status, what you perceived to be status, whether that was real or not, like that's immaterial. You as a child thought that was real, and therefore you were reacting as if it were real. And so I guess if I ask you, if your sister, right, actually did the worst thing possible, what would that have been in that situation?

SPEAKER_00 42:32

In that situation, for me at that time, it was tell my parents, and then suddenly I'm not the favorite. I'm not, you know, mommy's special little kid anymore.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Are you the youngest?

SPEAKER_00 42:47

I'm the middle child.

SPEAKER_02 42:48

Okay, the middle child. Okay. So she tells your parents, and I think this is where it gets a little tricky because you're pulling on a memory for from so long ago. I bet that there's some part of you where you kind of skip to losing the status, but there's like a whole middle part that you're glossing over, right? Your sister tells your parents, and then what is the immediate first thing that happens? How do they react?

SPEAKER_00 43:18

I mean, in my mind, I think that I the best thing I could think was like they get angry, they get sad, they feel disappointed. I mean, I I don't know. But maybe I don't I think that it's just like this not happiness with me and disapproval. I hate that feeling. Even now, I hate that feeling of someone not approving of me.

SPEAKER_01 43:44

What is that?

SPEAKER_00 43:47

When I um I don't know. When I go in and I invite people onto my podcast, um, I handle like, eh, no, I'm not into it. Uh it's not my vibe. It's so easy to get those messages. But when someone gets judgmental of me, it really is tough. And I react with getting frustrated and angry. I was like, you just all you gotta do is say no. You don't have to be mean. You don't have to be judgmental. You don't have to be all that. But it just that idea of being judged, of uh of having that that energy thrown at you, you know, it's really tough.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

How much of that did you feel as a child?

SPEAKER_00 44:37

How much of that did I feel as a child? I don't think I felt seen as a child. I think that um even though I was the one that was doing things right and always like my sister overshadowed everything. She got a lot of attention, but she got it by being wild, by being naughty, by being louder, by and I felt like I was playing catch up. She felt unseen because she felt like I was favored, and I felt unseen because she was being naughty. And I mean, I don't even remember what she would do. Now when I think about some of it was pretty funny. But like at that time, it was just chaos, you know, and I felt unseen after those moments. The poor great grandma that I mentioned, my sister hid in her closet making cat noises. And so she climbed up in the top of the closet. And I remember that specifically. It was right around the same time that I got in trouble. And uh and I saw her get in a lot of trouble for that. And I just was like, I don't need that type of trouble. I don't need that type of of mom and dad coming down on me.

SPEAKER_02 45:54

That was gonna be the other guess I had. So you've mentioned two things. I've seen in my clients that a lot of times the fear that they're holding is not even because they've experienced it so much themselves, it's because they've seen it happen to somebody else in their family. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Right.

SPEAKER_02 46:14

So here it's with your sister from acting out, and then you saw whatever repercussions happen to her. But then I think you actually just mentioned what your maybe one of your unmet needs here here is. You said I felt not seen.

SPEAKER_00 46:31

Right? I think that is it. I did feel unseen. I didn't know how to get the attention. I didn't know how to get the validation that was what I really wanted. And, you know, the only validation that was there was the validation that was, you know, uh the only validation being given that I was seen was validation for getting in trouble. But I still didn't want to get that validation. So that's why I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 47:01

What do you mean by validation for getting in trouble?

SPEAKER_00 47:07

The validation for getting in trouble was that she was seen. Whether, you know, it's like that what was it, the in media, whether it be the Kardashians or anyone else, it like the story is whether you're getting good press or bad press, you're still getting press, you know, and I think that's a huge like thing in the internet these days is people will do stupid stuff just because they know they're gonna get seen. And you know, at some point in time, it it's attention is attention, you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:41

So I think that we are talking about two slightly different things, even if other people will use the terms interchangeably. So there is acting out to get attention, but I think especially what you shared with the disapproval and the judgment piece, like you know, if somebody comes onto your pod and they react in all sorts of unpleasant ways, you feeling disapproval, but I think that probably traces to being unseen as well. Because this person is judging you to a degree and they're not even giving you a fair chance on seeing what it is that you bring to the table or even this incredible gift that you were offering them by having them on your platform. Like that's not a small thing at all.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

And I think the thing that's a challenge for me there is that I believe that I create value, but you know, and I'm I think there is a different thing here. Like the uh I had two years where I was applying for jobs and I couldn't find one. And it started to make me question do I have value? You know, I was like, I think that I have a lot of value, but whenever I bump up against that, it makes me reactive now. And I get I don't know if that's connected to this early event, but you know, I I just fought to be seen for so long that I wonder what else I have to do to be seen, you know? It's just a challenge for me.

SPEAKER_02 49:07

I think a lot of people would relate to what you just said, especially right now. I hear this all the time. There's so many job seekers, and literally the same words coming out. It's like, what do I gotta do? Like, I'm not getting any calls, I don't get a chance. And I think that's the really hard part because if we rewind back in time to you being, you know, stay at home, period. And if you'd even just had a chance to have a conversation, how would you have felt?

SPEAKER_00 49:39

It would have been great. Um, you know, it would have been great to have a conversation because I know that when I can get, and that's one of the reasons I leaned into my podcast because I know that when I start talking to people, I have value that I present. And, you know, as a kid, I talked a lot. And I remember, you know, people would judge me for that. Like people would judge me for for being so talkative. I uh had a nickname Walter Cronkite because I would just tell everyone all these facts, and they were like, What's Walter saying right now? What's Walter doing? And uh now I'm like, dude, Walter Cronkite's probably one of the coolest people that I can think of in the inner in the uh, you know, he would sit there and read the news to people, and everyone trusted what that guy would say because he was unbiased and he would, you know, try to tell both sides of the story, which is so rare these days. But like, I remember once we were out with some family friends, and this guy turned to me and he's like, Do you shut up? And my mom got in his face for it right then. My mom's like, Don't tell my kid, don't say that to my kid. Like, you can just, you know, you can ignore him, but don't tell him, you know, do you just do you ever shut up? And I thank her for that, for standing up for me, you know, and my ability to speak. But it's interesting because I still remember that. I can still remember what his face looked like when he said it to me. It was, you know, something I remember. But again, I don't know. It it still makes it feel like I was talking because I wasn't feeling heard or seen, or maybe there was some unmet need to be like, I think that was an unmet need to always be talking, to always be trying to gain that that attention, um, you know, in in a in a positive way there. Look, I'm the smart kid. Give me some attention. I have knowledge, I have information. But I also think it was just fun for me. I just like talking about stuff, you know? It was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 51:43

As you said last time, I do have the gift of gab.

SPEAKER_02 51:48

You do. You definitely have a certain special brand of charm that I don't see very often. Like that's why I said that to you. Yeah. So I think with your gift of gab, you have it both ways, right? It is a road to being seen. And by seen, what I really mean is by being understood. This is what most people mean when they say seen, which is a little different from attention. But the gift of gab can definitely get you both, right? Attention and being seen. But then on the flip side, it's not just a mechanism for you. Like that is that seems to be like a genuine part of your personality, which is awesome. Yeah. So this is where one of the mechanisms for meeting the unmet need can have healthy consequences, right?

SPEAKER_01 52:41

Right? Uh okay.

SPEAKER_02 52:44

So maybe I I think with the that experience you just described with this man who's like, you know, do you ever like stop talking, right? Or whatever he said, that also sounds like a very early instance of somebody expressing disapproval and judgment.

SPEAKER_00 53:01

Mm-hmm. Definitely, definitely was. Very much so.

SPEAKER_02 53:06

How old were you?

SPEAKER_00 53:08

Hmm. Maybe nine, eight or eight, nine, ten. I think all these events happened around the same time, eight, nine, or ten in that region.

SPEAKER_02 53:18

Yeah, this is why I have most of my clients focus on stuff that happened between six and ten. Because that's when you're old enough for whatever happens to you to make sense of them. But what will what we will usually do is we will draw a conclusion that does not serve us for the later on. And in your case, I think you had the advantage of having your mother immediately speak up for you. So when she spoke up for you, or let's say, let's zoom into the moment right before she spoke up. And that man, you remember his face. If you go back in time and you place yourself in that Sean's shoes, what do you feel?

SPEAKER_00 54:03

If if it's me, I've I feel anger. Uh, I feel anger, but I also feel um, I don't know how you feel wounding, but I feel wounding. I feel like something just stabbed me, you know, and it's the same type of reaction I get when someone's like, Normally people say they don't want to come on my podcast, it's just like, yeah, man, I'm not not right now. But there is the occasional person who comes along and they love, love to just listen to the reasons why not. You know what? We're focusing on people who have real followings, we're focusing on people who have real metrics that uh, you know what, in in your channel just doesn't have those. And I'm just saying, okay, man, I appreciate that. You don't have to dig, you don't have to dig, you know, and it in like um it's cuts, it cuts because again, it's like I think I have value, I think that what I'm doing is of value. Um, but you know, I don't have to make everyone see that. I think that right now I might shrug it off as well. Be like, that's just your opinion, man. Um, I think that would be kind of my defense mechanism. It's just like that's kind of what I had to learn as I got older, is just like, great, you feel that way. I can appreciate that, you know, but that's not my my reality. My reality is here where I'm in my my my lane, you know.

SPEAKER_02 55:40

I think there's no denying that somebody who chooses to respond in such a dismissive and trivializing way, I don't think anybody would enjoy that. Like that's not a pleasant way to come across at all. It's like you don't have to like that, you don't have to rationalize that. And I think it's one of those things where we try to remain centered within ourselves. But at the same time, it's like, well, that's kind of not cool to say that to somebody. Like you said, they could have just said no, thank you. And then you both would have moved on with your day. But I think that's I can see what you mean by the wounding, right? Because that kind of sucks.

SPEAKER_00 56:23

Yeah. Well, I want to ask you this like as I start looking, as a person starts looking at this, where do we go? How do you find tools to to work through this? Or is it just going in and uncovering? Is that the thing that's the most powerful?

SPEAKER_02 56:39

I think that's usually the first step because most of us are blind to seeing all of this. And I could give you so many examples with myself as well. But, you know, like the typical exercise, like there's so many ways you could go about this. You could go find the worksheet online, like the same worksheet or something like it, like the one I gave you. But you want to go and dig up the memories from your past that hold weight. So if you think of this like a heat map in your mind, you know, what are the certain incidents in the past that show up a lot brighter? Like there's more emotion, there's more anger, there's more fear, something like that where it's a lot bigger than everything else. And those are always the ones that I want to zoom in on. And it's not too dissimilar from what they'll do in therapy as well, because they're trying to figure out like what are your biggest blocks or challenges. It works similarly for unmet needs. So, for example, if you and I were in session, I would take this particular situation with your sister and we would flip it both ways. Okay. So, number one is like, what were you feeling in that moment when your sister first threatened to tell your mom? Okay. So fear and then probably shame. And then I would have you list out every other emotion. So are there any uh are there any other emotions that come to top of mind like right now?

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Not really. It was mainly fear.

SPEAKER_02 58:05

Mm-hmm. Fear around consequences with your parents?

SPEAKER_00 58:10

I think so. Fear around consequences for sure.

SPEAKER_02 58:13

Mm-hmm. And from what you've shared in this podcast, is that it was getting in trouble, but then losing status and being perceived differently because you understood you had some kind of perception that your parents had of you, and you didn't want to lose that. So that's what was at risk. So that's the stakes. Now we would flip this around to what could have happened if we could go back in time and kind of redo that event, right? So imagine your adult self now going back to your seven or eight-year-old self. And what would you do in that moment?

SPEAKER_00 58:50

I'd probably just tell my younger self that it's okay. It's gonna be okay. You know, you don't have to stress so much, you know. And I know it's gonna be okay sounds really um easy to say, harder to do, but I think that's probably what I do. Just tell my younger self that it's gonna be okay. Uh, and that not to stress as much. I mean, that's oversimplify, but that's kind of what I do for my daughter. Sometimes I'll just, you know, give her a hug and say, you know what, it's all right. Last night she had a bad night with the putting the contacts in. Um, but what I pulled her over and I said, Hey, you know what? You did good. And she's like, sorry dad that I didn't do good tonight. I said, Alani, we got the contacts in. That's a win. Like, it doesn't matter what the process looked like to get there, we got to the end goal. And like, and you're you're feeling okay with them in your eyes right now? Yeah. I said, we won. You won that that little round of of it, you know. And I said, as long as we keep moving in that direction, and I think that's what I tell myself, is just like it's okay. You're doing okay. Um, you know, it might be a little scary at times, things might be a little bit um uncertain, but you you're doing okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

I'm not surprised you say that because I think at the end of the day, that is what any of us really want. We want to know that things will be okay. So to offer that plus a hug is actually really powerful. So there's multiple versions of this exercise we could do. You could go to yourself, like back in time, you know. You imagine going back in time to your younger self as who you are today, and you have that talk to little Sean, and then little Sean tells you he's so terrified of having mom and dad see him differently now, like maybe they won't love him anymore, which I suspect is really the core fear. Okay. So we would zoom in and out past like the worst possible scenarios, but then also the best possible scenarios. So the best scenario would have been what?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:12

Just told it was okay, and then it was done, and told my sister, you know, it's not that big of a deal. Because I the the the the real challenge with was her using that like to stress me out for so long. That that tool that she had in her in her belt to to kind of get at me, you know?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:36

Yeah. So maybe a best uh possible scenario could have been you told your sister, like you seven, eight-year-old Sean tells your sister, you know, I I love you, sister. I don't know why you're doing this, but it's kind of funny. And you do you, and you know, to maybe come out of the incident just as like more fun, perhaps.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:03

Greg.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:04

And and to let that go, right? To to not have the fear lingering for so long.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:09

I think so. I think that would have been way preferable to what it was, you know. If we hadn't have left that fear linger, we had to find a way through it, it would have been way easier.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:22

Of course. So that's what the process would generally look like. Like at a sorry, it's like so superficially delivered to you today.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:32

No, it's awesome. For someone listening today that they're they're they're listening and going, you know, I've got these unmet needs. What should they be doing? Where should they like what can they do in their everyday lives to kind of start addressing them? Because I know we've talked about this whole time, but you know, um, do what's the best way to kind of work through some of this stuff?

SPEAKER_02 1:02:58

I hate to say this because I think it's gonna sound self-aggrandizing, but this is one of those exercises where I see people, when they try to do it on their own, they come close, but they don't quite get there. And this is why I think working with a professional like a therapist or a coach is really your best bet. You can try to do it on your own, which I think is not a terrible idea if you're very self-aware, like you, you seem very self-aware. I think you have a higher chance. But I'm telling you, man, even when I was going through maybe my like second or third coach training pro program, and this is where Unmet Needs actually came up, and they demonstrated it on us. And I literally watched a room full of various stages of trained coaches, they all got their unmet needs wrong. So, for example, very common um story. Like there was once a woman who said she had a need for luxury. And so she had to have like the designer fashion bags and like designer everything. But when her, I guess, event zero thing came out, it really was because she grew poor. So what she confused luxury for was actually a need for security.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:23

So that's what I mean, is you'll have different things like different table legs, and you really want to get to the what is it holding up. So control confusing control for a need for safety is very common as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:38

Mm-hmm.

unknown 1:04:40

Right?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:40

People will often say they need to be liked and what they really want is to be accepted. And so you'll often find that people who are extremely committed comedic, so people who are very warm, and they'll say they have this like strong desire to be liked, it's because that has become the channel through which they have found acceptance and belonging.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:08

I saw this old house the other day up the street that it was getting repainted. And they were putting this fresh paint coat of paint on. I've I've had so many apartments that were like this. You go into the apartment, you're like, it's lovely, it's new. But then you move in, and a couple weeks later, that paint starts flaking off, and you see all of the places around the room that have problems, and yet they were covered up really nicely. And I feel like we all do a great job of covering this stuff up. And yet we have real challenges that need to be met, like real things that need to be dealt with. Otherwise, there's an underlying thing that could become bigger. It could become a problem down the road if we don't look at it, if we don't address it. And I think that if I could tell people anything in that are listening today is find the courage to do one thing, to talk to someone, to find a person that you can talk to about whatever it is you're working through, because we all need that. But I would also say find the right person to talk to, because um, you know, you might try to talk to someone and you might bump up against their own insecurities, and then they re further push back on you and reinforce the problem that's already causing you a problem. You know, maybe they're avoiding stuff too, and you mention something to them and they're like, oh yeah, dude, yeah, don't talk about that. That's bad. And she's like, oh, oh, wow, okay, yeah, I'm not gonna talk about that. And, you know, find that right person because it's so much so important to do so.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:56

Yeah. And that is actually part of this needs thing, is we carry these unmet needs, and the whole point is to get those needs met. And part of getting those needs met is to recognize who in your life is appropriate for meeting those needs. And that is not going to be everyone, just like you said. So one of the key sources of friction that we all experience is when we go to the wrong person. It's kind of like putting the wrong adapter, right? Into the like trying to put your your charger into the wrong adapter, it doesn't fit. It's it's just like that, right? There's nothing wrong with the adapter, but you need to go find the right adapter for your thing so you can get it charged.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:37

And yeah, yeah. I love that. Where can people find out more about you and the coaching that you do?

SPEAKER_02 1:07:44

You can find me on LinkedIn. Uh, I would say the coaching that I do, you'll get like a really strong taste of it if you listen to my podcast. This is how you think. I know you've listened to maybe a couple of episodes, and I do like really deep dives on these kind of topics to help people understand themselves better. And with any of what we just talked about, like just ask yourself, why are you doing this? You know, just like people who say they're tired all the time, they're burned out, and yet they can't stop working. It's usually from a sense of like a need for stability, security, but very often a need to prove oneself.