Stop “Fixing” Yourself – Start Leading from Your Dark Side

What if the most powerful CEO move isn't fixing yourself, but befriending the dark side of yourself you've been hiding? In this revealing episode, I get real about the shadow side of entrepreneurship. Drawing from my own journey as a people-pleasing copywriter to a confident midlife guide, I share how our deepest wounds (control issues, perfectionism, conflict avoidance) secretly run our businesses. Instead of another self-improvement pep talk, you'll get something radical: permission to stop fixing and start feeling. Show Notes | Transcript Discover: The 4 Personal Power Archetypes—and which shadow patterns are quietly sabotaging your success Practical ways to apply the L.O.V.E. Method to transform your CEO mindset Why your "broken" parts are actually strategic advantages waiting to be embraced Ready to make peace with your shadows and lead from your whole self? Be sure to listen all the way to the end of this episode to hear a light language transmission designed to help you reconnect with what matters most. Resources: Discover your Personal Power Archetype: bit.ly/PersonalPowerQuiz Join the Soulful Women's Network: https://www.facebook.com/groups/soulfulwomensnetwork Receive daily inspirational email messages: bit.ly/LoveLightNotes Need support? Go to engagewithgloria.com to schedule a call. Connect with Connect with Live Love Engage: Send Gloria Grace a message ☕ Support the podcast ❤ Love this episode? Leave us a review and rating LinkedIn: Gloria Grace Rand Facebook: Gloria Grace Rand YouTube: Gloria Grace Rand TRANSCRIPT - Stop "Fixing" Yourself - Start Leading from Your Dark Side The Confidence Catalyst's Confession I'm curious about all of you business owners who are listening or watching to this podcast today. Who's really sitting in that CEO chair? Your highest self or your shadow self? Well, no matter how you answered that question, I've got good news for you. Because today we're going to be talking about, well, I should say, actually, we're not going to be talking about fixing what's quote unquote broken. Instead, we're going to talk about how to make friends with the parts of yourself you'd rather keep hidden. But before we get started, I want to welcome you to Live Love Engage. I am Gloria Grace, confident confidence catalyst, who's having trouble speaking today. But that's okay. Hey, you know, we're not perfect. What the heck? Let me try it again. I am Gloria Grace confidence catalyst who empowers women over 50 through my love method and energy healing to boldly live life on their terms. Operating from Shadow Self vs. Highest Self in Business So, yeah, being the CEO. Hmm. Are you the, Are you, are you operating from your highest self or is it your shadow self? You? And for me, I know I've definitely operated from that shadow self in my career as, as a business owner or entrepreneur or even just starting out as a freelance SEO copywriter. When Hiring Help Triggers Control Issues The. You know, I've talked about this on the show before and I know if you were a business owner, you've probably, probably heard this many times from lots of different people that if you want to grow your business, eventually you can't just be the sole person in your business. You need to hire help, you know, even if it's just on a part time basis. And I reached that point in my business where I realized that if I wanted to be able to continue serving my clients at a high level, that I needed to get help with managing like social media marketing, for crying out loud, and emails and all of that. And so I decided to hire a virtual assistant. Great, right? You'd think, except that I started getting very frustrated with her because she wasn't doing what I wanted her to do and she wasn't communicating with me very well. And I finally gave up and said, you know, this isn't working and I'm just not going to need your services anymore. Even though I really did need her services, the problem was not really with her. Now, first off, I should, I should have backed up and said that I had been really reluctant to hire someone for a long time because when you start your business and it's your baby, you know, you, you don't like turning over control, especially because, and, and this was Part of my issue with her is that I felt like she wasn't doing as good a job as I could do in some of these areas. And where it was take, maybe it was taking longer. I don't know. This was a long time ago now, but it was just really frustrating. I think it was mostly that she wasn't doing things the way I would have done. And because I wanted. Setting Clear Expectations: The Key to Delegation Success I have this idea of how it was supposed to be, and that's kind of a control issue. But as I said, it really wasn't her fault necessarily. She was doing what she thought was right. The problem was I didn't set expectations at the beginning. I did not give her a clear, even instruction on how I wanted things done. I didn't, you know, do like. Like nowadays I could do a nice screen capture, you know, and go through how I do things. And then I could have just given her that video and said, okay, this is how I do it. I'd like you to do it this way. Unless you have a more efficient way of doing it, which is. I'm also open to. And. And I should have said that I want to hear from you on, you know, Fridays or, you know, and so we can over what you did during the week. And then these are my plans for the following week, which the next time I decided to hire someone. That's what I did. And we had a much better relationship. Even when at one point she messed up and with something with my email, I remember, and she was so apologetic. She was so sorry. And it was like, you know, it's okay. You know, you're human, you make mistakes. We fixed it and, you know, it was okay, but we had a much better relationship because I set up expectations. And then I also, you know, made. Made peace with that part of myself that want to be in control. And I allowed her to come up with some better ways to do things, because not everybody is gonna. Somebody might have experience in an area that maybe I. I did, but she might have a more efficient way or a more efficient way that works for her. Honoring Different Working Styles and Personalities Yeah, let me. Let me clarify that because, you know, I think two people can attack a problem in a certain way, and they may think that this is the best way. Sure, it is for them. It's for their personality, and that's why it works. But somebody else would look at, say, that's crazy. I'm never going to create graphics that way. Are you insane? You know, as an example, that's going to take me too long to do. No, I'd much Rather do it this way, and because that's their personality, that's their experience, and that's how they've learned to do it, and it does work for them. So we have to be able to let go. We got to let go of that, that. That tendency to control. And where does this come from? The Roots of Control Issues and Shadow Behaviors Well, you know, wanting to be in control for me certainly came up growing up in a home where a lot of stuff was out of my control. There was a lot of family dysfunction. Growing Up with Alcoholism and Family Dysfunction You know, my dad struggled with alcoholism, and then my mom was trying to deal with that and keep. Keep a roof over her head. You know, she. She had to wound up taking a job. You know, she was working in the 70s. So we had two income families way back in the 70s. I know now it's, you know, much more common, but it wasn't necessarily that common back then. And I think one of the reasons was, is she couldn't necessarily rely on my dad. So she decided to take another, take a job. And. And some of these shadows also. So. So that's definitely one of my control issues, because I didn't. I would come home for school and not know, you know, what condition was dad going to be in, you know, and so in my life, wherever I could have control, I wanted to have control. People Pleasing and Perfectionism: The Good Girl Syndrome And that also led to other shadows that might show up in our. Not only in our personal lives, but in our business, which is things like people pleasing and perfectionism. Because also I was. I was the baby of the family. So I had. I had two older siblings. I had an older brother and an older sister. My older brother was 14 years older than me, and my sister was 10 years older than me. So really I was like truly the. The caboose, my mother liked to say in the family. So because they were so much older, and especially as I was growing up, they. My sister was a teenager. And so, you know, there's a lot of angst that goes on in those teenage years. And so I would see the fights that my sister and my mother had. My brother had joined the Navy. He left the house. He was like, I'm out of here. So I didn't even really get to know him that much as a kid, which is a great regret of mine. However, I decided that I was going to be the good girl in the family. I was going to do my best to not arouse the ire of my mother because she had a really good, quick, explosive temper, and I didn't like that. How Shadow Behaviors Show Up in Your Business So. So again, this led to things like being conflict, avoidance, and as a being in business, boy, you know, And I wrote about this in my book, Live Love, Engage how to Stop Doubting Yourself and Start Being Yourself. Because these things showed up in my business. These. These shadows that I had of, well, wanting to be in control, for one thing, but also conflict avoidance, where. Conflict Avoidance and Pricing Your Worth I know I've probably talked about this on the. On the show before, but one of my first steady clients was with a web designer for home builders, and she would have me write blog articles for her different clients....