Latest / Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby / Are Your Looks Defining Your Worth? How to Build Confidence Beyond Appearance | Happiness | E559

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Are Your Looks Defining Your Worth? How to Build Confidence Beyond Appearance | Happiness | E559 · Love, Happiness and Success with Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby

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  Speaker 1: and success, y'all. That's how it's done.
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  Speaker 2: Now on with the show. The least interesting thing about
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  Speaker 2: me is the body I woke up in. It doesn't
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  Speaker 2: really say as much about me as you might want
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  Speaker 2: it to.
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  Speaker 3: What if your body, the way that you look, is
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  Speaker 3: actually the least interesting.
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  Speaker 1: Thing about you? You know, we are all socialized. We
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  Speaker 1: spend years getting tricked into believing that our worth comes
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  Speaker 1: from looking a certain way or being attractive enough or
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  Speaker 1: conforming to someone else's idea of what's beautiful or interesting
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  Speaker 1: or pretty. And that is so much weight to carry.
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  Speaker 1: And it also hides the truth of how interesting and
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  Speaker 1: amazing you are.
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  Speaker 2: Society can begin to connect meaning to perception, to what
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  Speaker 2: we perceive, to physical characteristics. And then we can start
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  Speaker 2: to act a particular way very quickly, right? Milliseconds sometimes
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  Speaker 2: before our higher processing is even able to get involved
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  Speaker 2: and make these assumptions. And sometimes really bad things can happen.
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  Speaker 1: It's hard to break out of that, particularly when we're
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  Speaker 1: living in a culture that in many ways rewards it.
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  Speaker 1: So today we are talking about how to break free
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  Speaker 1: from this pressure to make your appearance conform to someone
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  Speaker 1: else's standard and derive a lot of self-worth from that
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  Speaker 1: so that you can reconnect with the parts of yourself
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  Speaker 1: that really matter and feel genuinely good about.
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  Speaker 2: Who you are. The awareness is the piece that I
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  Speaker 2: just want to bring in this book. I want people
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  Speaker 2: to just realize that what they see isn't necessarily If this.
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  Speaker 1: Is your first time tuning in, I'm so glad you're
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  Speaker 1: here with me today. I'm your host, Dr. Lisa Marie Bobby,
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  Speaker 1: here with you every single week to support your growth, love, happiness,
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  Speaker 1: and success. My background is that I'm a psychologist. I'm
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  Speaker 1: also a licensed marriage and family therapist and a board
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  Speaker 1: certified coach. So it is very important to me that
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  Speaker 1: we are talking to real deal, authentic, trustworthy experts who
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  Speaker 1: know what they're talking about and who are coming into
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  Speaker 1: this with a very generous spirit so that you are
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  Speaker 1: getting actionable takeaways from every single episode. Of course, we
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  Speaker 1: are here making these for you, but I also have
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  Speaker 1: a favor to ask. I'd love it if you wanted
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  Speaker 1: to keep in touch with me. So like, subscribe, however
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: we want to stay in touch. But also think about
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: who in your life needs to hear this message and
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  Speaker 1: who else could benefit from some of the wisdom that
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  Speaker 1: you might take on board today. So for today's conversation,
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  Speaker 1: we have so much in store. Let's get into it
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  Speaker 1: because we're here with a very special friend, my colleague, Dr.
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  Speaker 1: Allison Powell Hicks.
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  Speaker 2: Dr.
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  Speaker 1: Allie, she is a mental health expert with a PhD
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  Speaker 1: from Loma Linda. She teaches psychology at Cal State. She's
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  Speaker 1: the founder of Do Consulting Group, spent many years on television.
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  Speaker 1: hosting shows on Discovery Plus and the OWN Network. And
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  Speaker 1: more recently, she is the author of a fascinating and
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  Speaker 1: I believe very important new book called The Problem with Pretty.
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  Speaker 1: And Dr. Ali, I am so happy to be visiting
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  Speaker 1: with you today. Thank you for being here.
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  Speaker 2: Girl, you make me sound so much better than how
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  Speaker 2: I can make myself sound. Thank you so much. I'm
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  Speaker 2: great to be here.
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  Speaker 1: You're kind of rad. Well, thank you. But honestly, though,
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  Speaker 1: I'm such a fan. As soon as I met you
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  Speaker 1: and learned more about your work and also the mission
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  Speaker 1: behind The Problem with Pretty, I was like, oh, my goodness.
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  Speaker 1: So why don't we just start there? Why don't you
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  Speaker 1: take us into this work, The Problem with Pretty? I'd
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  Speaker 1: love to know where it came from and have to
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  Speaker 1: ask if you guys are listening or watching this on YouTube,
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  Speaker 1: you already know that Dr. Allison Powell Hicks is like
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  Speaker 1: the most beautiful human in the history of the world.
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  Speaker 1: So is there a relationship there, Dr. Allie, the problem
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  Speaker 1: with pretty, like just part of it come from your
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  Speaker 1: own experiences as being a unusually beautiful human.
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  Speaker 2: I will say probably. Cause I think everything comes out
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  Speaker 2: of our experiences in the world.
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  Speaker 4: Right. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: Um, It came, I would say, mostly out of me
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  Speaker 2: feeling un-beautiful, not beautiful, ugly for most of my life.
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  Speaker 2: I think that's more probably where it came from.
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  Speaker 1: Really?
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Honestly, that personally surprises me to hear because I got
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  Speaker 1: to meet you in person at APA and was like,
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  Speaker 1: oh my gosh, she's gorgeous. And then I obviously realized
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  Speaker 1: how intelligent and interesting you are, but you're very pretty.
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  Speaker 1: Not to be weird. So you didn't feel pretty.
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  Speaker 4: No.
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  Speaker 2: And I think that's also something that's interesting about the
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  Speaker 2: way beauty is internalized by each individual person. That the
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  Speaker 2: outside observer can see one thing, but the person actually
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  Speaker 2: having this like emic experience, right? The experience of self,
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  Speaker 2: the phenomenological experience of being in your own body can
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  Speaker 2: experience something very different. And that is something that intrigues me.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: That's something that intrigued me. And I honestly have much
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  Speaker 2: more basic reasons, basic reasons. But I wanted to be
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  Speaker 2: a fashion designer. I just wanted to design. I wanted
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  Speaker 2: to design interiors.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I wanted to make things pretty. And my parents were like,
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  Speaker 2: you got to get a Ph.D. in something. And oh, yeah.
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  Speaker 2: So I studied psychology and I was talking to my
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  Speaker 2: dad about it. I was like, I don't want to
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  Speaker 2: be serious. Why do I have to be this serious person?
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  Speaker 2: And he was like, well, why don't you study the
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  Speaker 2: psychology of fashion? And so I did some research, did
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  Speaker 2: a little lip search, dove into the research and saw
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  Speaker 2: that there was a space for me in studying cosmetic
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  Speaker 2: surgery and studying how women connect to themselves. And then
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  Speaker 2: I found some feminist theories, specifically objectified consciousness theories, and
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  Speaker 2: was like, oh, wait, there's a there there. Like there's
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  Speaker 2: something to the way in which Society treats us, which
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  Speaker 2: shapes the way that we function. So that's why to
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  Speaker 2: your question, I say, I'm sure that parts of my
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  Speaker 2: life have been altered based on the way that I
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  Speaker 2: look to others. There's no way to deny that. There's
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  Speaker 2: no way to like, you're an attractive woman. I'm an
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  Speaker 2: attractive woman. So when we move through the world, doors
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  Speaker 2: open differently. People respond differently and there's no denying that.
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  Speaker 2: But I didn't necessarily feel stunning my whole life I
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  Speaker 2: think now I feel much more in love with myself,
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  Speaker 2: much more in love with my body, my everything, my spirit,
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  Speaker 2: my essence, my character, all the things. And we'll probably
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  Speaker 2: get to talking a little bit more about that later
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  Speaker 2: in the ways in which like I help my clients
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  Speaker 2: kind of like love multiple parts of them. But yeah,
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  Speaker 2: but to start out, I definitely didn't think I was
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  Speaker 2: like the hottest girl in the world. I knew that
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  Speaker 2: there was something going on, but I didn't know exactly what.
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  Speaker 1: So interesting. Well, and I just love the way that
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  Speaker 1: you have really, you know, shined a light of psychology,
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  Speaker 1: psychological science to this phenomenon. And I also am just
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  Speaker 1: so intrigued now to hear more about your relationship with
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  Speaker 1: art and design. So interior design, looking at your background,
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  Speaker 1: you stood up a minute ago and I was like, oh,
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  Speaker 1: your office is just so incredibly beautiful.
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  Speaker 3: No, really.
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  Speaker 1: I'm like tying it into fashion. But like what's fascinating
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  Speaker 1: to me is that these things can mean a lot
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  Speaker 1: to to us. We can have a connection to the
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  Speaker 1: appearance of our environment or our clothing or ourselves, but
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  Speaker 1: they also mean things to other people. There's like a
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  Speaker 1: information transfer that comes from the way that things look.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I used to work in branding for years. My consulting
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  Speaker 2: firm initially was focused on branding, neuroaesthetics, neuromarketing, the way
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  Speaker 2: in which the things we see shape the ways people think,
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  Speaker 2: shape the ways people feel. Whether you're one of those
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  Speaker 2: people who believe that thoughts come before feelings or feelings
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  Speaker 2: come before thoughts. I say it almost doesn't matter because
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  Speaker 2: they come very in close succession. So one shapes the other,
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  Speaker 2: the other shapes the other. But color theory, for example,
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  Speaker 2: when you're building a brand and you want to convey
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  Speaker 2: loyalty or fidelity, those brands tend to be blue, right?
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  Speaker 2: Blue flowers, not for no reason, right? When you want
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  Speaker 2: to convey softness and etherealness, otherworldliness, you use pastels, things
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  Speaker 2: like pinks, pastel purples, pastel greens, pastel blues, right? There's
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  Speaker 2: a particular way in which our ancestors felt calmed, and we,
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  Speaker 2: through the power of epigenetics, you know, how the ways
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  Speaker 2: in which we, so epigenetics is a study of how
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  Speaker 2: the things that we do, the environments we find ourselves in,
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  Speaker 2: the traumas we experience, the joys we experience, the ways
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  Speaker 2: in which we eat, the ways, the climates we grow
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  Speaker 2: up in, reshape and activate or deactivate, kind of say
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  Speaker 2: it in a really blunt way. different genes in our
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  Speaker 2: body and how our children and their children and their
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  Speaker 2: children inherit those altered genes from us. And there's a
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  Speaker 2: lot of evidence to prove it. There's a lot of
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  Speaker 2: evidence probably to disprove it too, but it is kind
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  Speaker 2: of where science is now.
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  Speaker 4: And it.
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  Speaker 2: Has shaped the way we feel in particular environments and
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  Speaker 2: in the presence of particular colors and particular forms and shapes.
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  Speaker 2: And in the book, I talk a lot about the
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  Speaker 2: history of beauty, the evolution of beauty, and the ways
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  Speaker 2: in which it has historically kind of shaped our ancestors
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  Speaker 2: and how it makes us feel in the moment. The hormones,
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  Speaker 2: we release dopamine, for example, when we're in the presence
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  Speaker 2: of beautiful people, beautiful places, beautiful constructs or designs, art, architecture, right?
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  Speaker 2: There's particular emotions that are evoked when you stand at
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  Speaker 2: the foot of a huge structure. You know, you're at
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  Speaker 2: the Empire State Building and you just look up and
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  Speaker 2: you're just like, hmm.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, or like cathedrals a thousand years ago. They were
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  Speaker 1: creating an environmental experience that supported this experience of a
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  Speaker 1: connection with God. And so this design, it means something. Colors, right?
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  Speaker 1: We're drawn to things that can create a mood, a feeling.
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  Speaker 1: It can transmit information about us to other people through sight.
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  Speaker 1: But the book is called The Problem. with pretty. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that is the intriguing part. And, and take
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  Speaker 1: us deeper into this. I mean, um, all of these
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  Speaker 1: things are true and there's so much good that comes
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  Speaker 1: from intentional design, but when it comes to people and
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  Speaker 1: our concept of pretty, I'm thinking probably, especially for women,
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  Speaker 1: but also, you know, other gender identifying people can probably
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  Speaker 1: be experienced this as well. It can get more complicated.
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  Speaker 2: Absolutely. And, um, and when people initially kind of like
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  Speaker 2: look at the book, they pick it up. They think
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  Speaker 2: it's primarily about like, um, the problems that pretty people
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  Speaker 2: experience as they move through the world. Right.
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  Speaker 1: Like, Oh, what's pretty people.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. The poor pretty girl.
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  Speaker 3: Oh no.
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  Speaker 2: And I look at it a little differently. Right. Also
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  Speaker 2: intersectionally as how society. So I make a case in
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  Speaker 2: the book that society and evolution intertwine. Hmm. And they form.
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  Speaker 2: and reform one another. You know, humans are born with
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  Speaker 2: very little knowledge, you know, like different types of animals
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  Speaker 2: are born. They know how to walk. They know how
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  Speaker 2: to feed. They know how to do so many things
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  Speaker 2: within like three weeks of being here. They're basically adults
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  Speaker 2: hunting and doing what they need to do.
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  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: But human babies are very different, right? It takes us
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  Speaker 2: almost 26 years to really get like our full faculties
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  Speaker 2: about us. And the first seven years you learn around
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  Speaker 2: 75% of the things you're ever going to know.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 1: I didn't realize that.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Interesting.
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  Speaker 2: I mean, and maybe I need to look at the
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  Speaker 2: data again to make sure. But this was a nice
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  Speaker 2: old stat from grad school.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not going to pop quiz you. That's interesting to
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  Speaker 1: think that there's so much. Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: I love a pop quiz because I always, I think
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  Speaker 2: science moves forward and none of us, you know, I
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  Speaker 2: believe in epistemic humility and we all have to acknowledge
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  Speaker 2: that like things change. But that is something that I,
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  Speaker 2: a stat that I like. because it shows the importance
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  Speaker 2: of culture. Because culture is one of the primary things
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  Speaker 2: we as humans have to learn because of the importance
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  Speaker 2: of our frontal lobe, because of the importance of how
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  Speaker 2: humans survive through relationships, right? And so being a part
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  Speaker 2: and an active participant in your culture will secure your safety,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: will secure your longevity. I didn't build this house that
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  Speaker 2: I live in. There's roadwork going on outside to make
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  Speaker 2: sure that we have water and electricity and all the
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  Speaker 2: things that we need. I had nothing to do with that.
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  Speaker 2: I'm not out there doing that work. Somebody else is.
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  Speaker 2: And we all have to work to co-create this environment
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  Speaker 2: that we find ourselves in because that's how humans thrive.
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  Speaker 2: And so we have to learn all of these lessons.
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  Speaker 2: And so what studies have shown us is that when
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  Speaker 2: we actually factually perceive beauty, so my eyeballs, your eyeballs,
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  Speaker 2: looking at your background, I see like a teal moving
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  Speaker 2: into like a purple.
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  Speaker 3: Right.
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  Speaker 2: And I think we could potentially agree on that, but,
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  Speaker 2: our perception is altered. Our actual physical perception is altered
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  Speaker 2: by society and our pre-existing experiences due to like top-down processing.
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  Speaker 2: So I even talk about like Black Lives Matter, for example,
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  Speaker 2: when there was, you know, when we were having these
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  Speaker 2: conversations about police brutality and men and women being killed
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  Speaker 2: unjustfully by police officers. That is what really triggered me
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  Speaker 2: to want to make sure that I broke this because
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  Speaker 2: pre-existing beliefs about what is connected in a society to
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  Speaker 2: a particular phenotype. So if that phenotype is skin color, gender, features,
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  Speaker 2: hair texture. So society can begin to connect meaning to perception,
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  Speaker 2: to what we perceive, physical characteristics. And then we can
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  Speaker 2: start to act a particular way very quickly, milliseconds sometimes,
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  Speaker 2: before our higher processing is even able to get involved
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  Speaker 2: And make these assumptions. And sometimes really bad things can happen. Absolutely.
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  Speaker 2: To other people or to us. And I think that
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  Speaker 2: jump and that leap is the problem with pretty.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 2: And it is that.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: But also like, you know, going back to the beginning
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  Speaker 1: of what you were saying, like how hardwired it is
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  Speaker 1: into our human physiology around beauty. The way things look
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  Speaker 1: and the snap judgments and what you're saying is that
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  Speaker 1: if people aren't aware that's happening, there could be many
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  Speaker 1: things inferred that are not true that can lead to
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  Speaker 1: really devastating consequences.
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  Speaker 2: Exactly. That's like the perfect way to say it is
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  Speaker 2: that the awareness is the piece that I just want
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  Speaker 2: to bring in this book. I want people to just
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  Speaker 2: realize that what they see isn't necessarily what it is.
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  Speaker 2: And is it necessarily the truth? Just be able to
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  Speaker 2: challenge yourself for a second. And I do use an
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  Speaker 2: example in the book. There's a man named Jerry Nave.
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  Speaker 2: And so I used to be a wedding planner. Really?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for like two years.
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  Speaker 1: I bet you were really good at it. They were beautiful,
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: I bet.
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  Speaker 2: I loved it. I would get back to it if
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: it wasn't so stressful. But I had a blast. But
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: and so I would go to the, I was always
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: at the Flower District. And then I started throwing parties
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and I go to these huge events and stuff. So
• 16:42
  Speaker 2: the Flower District here in LA, you got to be
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: there like three in the morning.
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  Speaker 3: Okay.
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  Speaker 2: It is like, it is a thing. They bring all
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: these flowers in from England or wherever they get these
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: flowers from. And you got to be there first so
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  Speaker 2: you can get the good stuff. And there was this
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  Speaker 2: man who was unhoused and who would beg in the
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: street right outside the flower district. And I would see
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  Speaker 2: him all the time. And he had a facial deformity
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  Speaker 2: where he was missing an eye, part of his nose
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: and part of like his face like on one side.
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  Speaker 2: And then a hand, part of his hand on the
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: same side. I didn't know what was going on, but
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  Speaker 2: I had always been like kind of like, you know,
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  Speaker 2: was he sick? What was going on? You know, and
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: so I never really interacted. And years and years go
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  Speaker 2: by and now we're like in the pandemic and we're
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: all at home. And I start watching Soft White Underbelly.
• 17:27
  Speaker 2: You familiar with that platform?
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  Speaker 1: No, I didn't.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah. They interview folks who are living in the streets, unhoused,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: people who maybe have substance abuse things. And they interview
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  Speaker 2: a lot of different types of people that are maybe
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  Speaker 2: more vulnerable. Oh, it's very good interviews. And they happened
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: to interview him. And I was like, huh, I know
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: this guy.
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: I've seen this guy.
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: And it turns out he was a mechanic. And he
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: was trying to get home on the bus and somebody
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: came up to him with a gun and shot him.
• 17:55
  Speaker 2: He tried to block. It was a shotgun. And he
• 17:58
  Speaker 2: was very drastically injured as a result. And so any
• 18:04
  Speaker 2: assumption that I had made was not that. I did
• 18:07
  Speaker 2: not assume that. Right. And I'm a person who's aware.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: I'm a person who reads. I'm a person who, you know,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: at the time I wasn't studying beauty like I am now,
• 18:16
  Speaker 2: but I'm a person who considered herself aware. And, and
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: so they're talking about how he was in a coma
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: and when he woke up, he didn't want to be
• 18:22
  Speaker 2: a burden on his family. So he chose to be unhoused. And, um,
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: and he had a family that cared for him ostensibly.
• 18:32
  Speaker 2: That was the assumption. I don't know for a fact,
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: but I mean, it seems as if he did and
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: he made a decision and he had passed away. And
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: that's why they were like re-airing this episode. And it
• 18:41
  Speaker 2: just hit me so hard. And I was like, I
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: had written this whole story about this man in my
• 18:49
  Speaker 2: head and I was freaking wrong. Absolutely wrong. And if
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: I could be wrong about that, how many of us
• 18:57
  Speaker 2: can be wrong? Every day, all day long. Oh, yeah.
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: But see, this is such a powerful example of the
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: way that things look turns into all these assumptions and
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: stories and biases and things that we believe that have
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: no basis in reality. And then, and so then when
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: it comes to, okay, let me organize a question for
• 19:23
  Speaker 1: you in my head, because like there, there are two
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: competing ideas right now. And one is how does this
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: impact people who are perceived as attractive by others? How,
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: how does assumptions that people make about who they are
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: based on how they look What does that do? But
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: then the other side, because I think probably fair to say,
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: there are a lot more people who are attractive in
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: their own way and not the most beautiful person in
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: the room. And so to have these like rare, gorgeous
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: creatures wandering around and everybody else like looking at that,
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: what does that do to people who would never identify as,
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: as being considered attracted by others? Yeah. So I know
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: that's like five questions.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: In one, but like perfect. Thanks.
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: Thank you.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: On one hand we have halo effect, right? So halo
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: effect is the first way, the way in which you're
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: introduced to someone, the first thing you kind of notice
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: about them, if it is positive or negative, it maintains
• 20:29
  Speaker 2: your perspective on them and tints the way you see
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: them in the future. So if that person is attractive
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: based on your, your culture, your society, your experiences that
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: can tint the way you see them for the future.
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: So you could assume more positive things about them. So
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: when we have a positive halo effect on us, people, Like,
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: for example, people who are seen as attractive make more
• 20:50
  Speaker 2: money over the course of their lifetimes. They are given
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: more jobs. They get jobs maybe a little bit more quicker,
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: more often. They tend to be married. They tend to
• 21:01
  Speaker 2: get in relationships. But there is a caveat that there's
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: a certain level of attractiveness once you hit that, you know,
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: there's that normal curve. You're one to two standard deviations.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: But once you get three to four standard deviations. The
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: bell curve. You become so attractive that you actually become
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: a kind of like evolutionary psychologist, say basically a genetic
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: risk that you could be such an outlier that maybe
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: something's going on with your genes or maybe you will
• 21:27
  Speaker 2: be swooped up by another partner and you're like at
• 21:30
  Speaker 2: risk of cheating. And so sometimes you do hear like
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: these like supermodels. who are like talking about how it's
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: harder for them to sometimes get dates and people don't
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: approach them and people don't talk to them. They make
• 21:40
  Speaker 2: the assumption that they're mean. So there is that phenomena
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: on the outer edges. Being seen as attractive within your
• 21:46
  Speaker 2: community is a positive thing that can give you more
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: rights and benefits and the benefit of the doubt. There's
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: a study where like people who see attractive, more attractive
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: people stuck on the side of the road are more
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: likely to pull over. So you're more likely to get help.
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: And so if being attractive in society, oh, also before
• 22:04
  Speaker 2: I get to that, Like even in school, it impacts
• 22:06
  Speaker 2: us from a very early age. People hold pretty babies longer.
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: They smile at them more. They say more positive things
• 22:13
  Speaker 2: to them. They pay them more attention. Prettier kids in
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: school tend to get called on more by the teacher.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: They're given the benefit of the doubt. If they do
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: something they're not supposed to do, they're not immediately punished.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: They're not immediately put in detention. There's more steps that
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: kind of play in the way. People, they're assumed to
• 22:28
  Speaker 2: be smarter. They're assumed to be more social. And sometimes
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: they end up being more social. They end up, kids, adolescents, teenagers,
• 22:34
  Speaker 2: you know, into early 20s, teens and 20s end up
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: having sexual experiences a little earlier because they have more
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: access to potential partners. And if the benefit of being
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: attractive is like, let's say like a plus eight, the
• 22:47
  Speaker 2: negativity and the damage of being seen as unattractive is
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: like a negative 12.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: I'm going to pause you right there, Dr. Ali. We
• 22:56
  Speaker 1: need to take a super quick break. I am riveted, though,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: on what you're saying, which is that you're not imagining it.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: There are actually so many advantages that come from the
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: way that people look, which is just the roll of
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: the dice. Also, by the way, a lot of times
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: it's incredibly unfair. Yeah. outcomes, also developmental trajectories, and there
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: are disadvantages if you're not that. So hold that thought.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: We're going to go deeper into that on the other side.
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: Friends, we're back with Dr. Allison Powell Hicks, Dr. Allie,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: talking about her fascinating new book, The Problem with Pretty.
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: So Dr. Allie, before we had to take our quick break,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: you were talking about all the advantages that people who
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: are physically attractive, according to the paradigms of their culture,
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: have so many privileges as they move through the world.
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: And you were about to tell us about the experiences
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: of people who are not attractive. Take us into that.
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: So there's very real dangers in society of not being
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: seen as attractive. And I think a jarring example of
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: that here in the United States was the ugly laws.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: You heard of those?
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: No. Yeah.
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: There were laws called the ugly laws in the like 17, 1800s. And, um,
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: I don't know the exact, I can't remember the exact
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: date right now. And they actually ended in like, I
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: think the last ugly law was in like 1972 in
• 24:48
  Speaker 2: San Francisco. They started in San Francisco and basically it
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: was a law against begging, public begging. And they were
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: saying that like, if you were somehow not formed in
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: the exact same way society wanted you to be formed,
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: if you're missing limbs or if you had deformities, they
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: did not want you to be seen in public. And
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: so these people would have to live, be inside and
• 25:09
  Speaker 2: be cared for by members of their family. And this
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: is where we kind of get this like this concept
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: of like this, this European ghost in the attic, you know,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: looking out the window because you have people who are
• 25:21
  Speaker 2: being relegated into these back rooms and back corners of
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: their homes or state hospitals or places like that, because
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: there was basically this impression like at the time that
• 25:32
  Speaker 2: like people could be harmed. by the shock of seeing
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: other people that didn't look the way that they wanted
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: them to. Lots of thoughts about pregnant women and how
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: they would give birth to babies that weren't healthy if
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: they were scared by animals and stuff. It was a
• 25:47
  Speaker 2: lot of weird stuff they were going through. And so
• 25:49
  Speaker 2: these laws were put in place that actually changed the
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: ways in which people who were deformed or who had
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: handicaps or disabilities, rather obvious disabilities, could move throughout the country.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: And impacted, obviously, their ability to make money, their ability
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: to have freedom, liberation, the pursuit of happiness, all the
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: things that we all benefit from. And so that's a
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: way in which we see that people were very much
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: so impacted by nothing that would actually harm anyone. Just
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: this uncomfortability, right? And then there's also laws that are different,
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: but somewhat related. The Tinian laws in Louisiana. So Tinian
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: laws were specifically foisted upon Women of the diaspora, African-American women,
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: Creole women, women that were ex-slaves or in any other way,
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: shape or form of African ancestry in Louisiana. And they
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: were told by the community that they couldn't show their
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: hair in public. So they were forced to wear these
• 26:45
  Speaker 2: rags around their heads called tignons. But basically, the women
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: were like, we're still going to be fly. Don't you worry.
• 26:51
  Speaker 2: And they got like fabrics made of gold, like gold
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: and filigree and designs and tassels. And they would add
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: pins and hats on top of these pieces of fabric
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: that they were required to wear. And it got so popular, basically,
• 27:04
  Speaker 2: that the Queen of France started wearing them. This was
• 27:08
  Speaker 2: Napoleon's wife. That is awesome.
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: It became the rage.
• 27:14
  Speaker 2: But it was this idea that your hair somehow makes
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: us either uncomfortable or we can signal your status. based
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: on a signal that we see, right? And so you
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: be having this like ethnic history, this phenotype that we
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: can see. We want you to cover it. We want
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: to be able to say, this is how we choose
• 27:32
  Speaker 2: for you to look. And then my third point, there
• 27:36
  Speaker 2: was this longitudinal study in Wisconsin, well-known study, and some
• 27:41
  Speaker 2: team decided to go in and look through a yearbook,
• 27:44
  Speaker 2: 1957 yearbook. And they ranked everyone in the yearbook based
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: on how attractive they were, which I'm like, y'all are creative.
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: Top attractive, middle attractive, and at least attractive. And then
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: they looked for them. And the study found that people
• 27:59
  Speaker 2: in the lowest attractiveness group, as compared to the average
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: attractive people, actually lived a year to two years less. Interesting.
• 28:08
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 28:08
  Speaker 2: So it could be for a number of different reasons,
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: but some of their theories were that those folks weren't
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: cared for as much. You go to the hospital and
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: people don't maybe listen to what you have to say
• 28:18
  Speaker 2: as well as they would somebody else. And so that
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: shows how there's through a number of different interactions, a
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: person's life can be very negatively impacted if they do
• 28:29
  Speaker 2: not align with the cultural norms of the society.
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: Right. Absolutely. Thank you so much for sharing these studies,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: by the way. I was not familiar with any of
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: them and they are so interesting, but okay. So, you know,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: What's coming up for me now, I think that there
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: has been a lot made about the influence of social
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: media on young people and certainly like adolescents and adolescent girls.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: And I think that.
• 28:56
  Speaker 4: It's easy to blame the power of social media for
• 29:01
  Speaker 4: young girls being very focused on their physical appearance and
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: clothes and the way they look and camera filters and go.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: Into cosmetic surgery. We can go to dieting, like all
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: these different, like I need to change my body to
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: be more conventionally attractive in this world. And the level
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: of anxiety and energy that goes into that, that can
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: turn into eating disorders and body morphia and all kinds
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: of different things. But like what you're saying though, is
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: that almost there's this drive because on some level, A
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: desire to be in this privileged category in some ways
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: that people sort of instinctively know that. and feel this anxiety,
• 29:41
  Speaker 1: this urgency, this desire to be. And that creates problems.
• 29:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that duality is hard. The knowing that
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: there is an inherent benefit, right? We're not crazy for
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: paying attention to this. That's one of the things I
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: like to help people understand. Like, nothing's wrong with you
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: for saying, like, I want to be in control of
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: my body and change the ways that I look in
• 30:05
  Speaker 2: a particular space, right? I'm not anti-cosmetic surgery. I'm not anti-self-care.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: I'm pro things that help you realize your worth. I'm
• 30:15
  Speaker 2: not a fan of people believing that there's one way
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: to be and that they could do something dangerous to
• 30:24
  Speaker 2: get that. So I think, you know, Naomi Wolf talked
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: about how beauty for women is currency in her book,
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: The Beauty Myth. And she's not wrong. And so, and
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: that's a reality that we exist in. And hopefully through
• 30:40
  Speaker 2: some level of awareness, through some level of kind of introspection,
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: we can begin as a society to shape, reshape that,
• 30:45
  Speaker 2: to shift it, right? Because like I talked about earlier,
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: society helps to shape, evolution helps to shape society. And
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: guess what? We're all in society. And so we have
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: an opportunity here, but we do notice that beauty, uh,
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: beauty trends change over time.
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: And I talk about that too. So if you're like,
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: you know, I grew up in the eighties and nineties
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: and one of the trends then no, but butts didn't exist.
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: No one wanted a butt, but I know the Kate
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: boss thing with a cigarette.
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: I was nobody wanted a butt. I don't even have
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: a big butt, but I had too big of a butt.
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:21
  Speaker 2: It was insane. And I'm not known for having a butt, but, um,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: But then we see now in these past, like, 2010s
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: to 2020s, butts were very much so an indicator of beauty.
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: And we had women getting implants and BBLs and injections
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: and all types of procedures so that they could align
• 31:39
  Speaker 2: with the norm. And now we are actually starting to
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: see people reversing the BBLs. People are, you know, doing, like,
• 31:46
  Speaker 2: getting rid of some of the fat in those areas
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: so they can, like, look a different way. And now
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: we're entering this trend of stronger, not smaller. Yeah. I'm
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: not sure if you've heard about this, but that's kind
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: of where we are. And so if we get too
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: caught up in this rigid idea of what beauty is,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: we will find ourselves having a pivot. And so that's
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: why I align with having a personal style, having a
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: personal identity, right? Because our identity is more like than
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: you said, like the body we woke up in. I
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: just woke up in this. You woke up in that.
• 32:21
  Speaker 2: We didn't choose any of this. I mean, some spiritual
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: people believe we did. But like we, I tell people
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: all the time, the least interesting thing about me is
• 32:30
  Speaker 2: the body I woke up in. It doesn't really say
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: as much about me as you might want it to. And,
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: and in appearances can be deceiving. And so I'm not
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: telling anyone not to care because I do think it
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: can also be socially advantageous. If you are in need
• 32:46
  Speaker 2: of something and you know, you know, putting on a
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: pencil skirt and a business jacket is going to get
• 32:51
  Speaker 2: you that job so that you and your family can eat.
• 32:53
  Speaker 2: Put on the pencil skirt and the business jacket.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, do it.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: But then go back to living your actual truth when
• 32:58
  Speaker 2: you come to work every other day.
• 32:59
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 33:00
  Speaker 2: And but I think so. I think that there's a
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: duality that is, I think, hard to live with.
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: Where does personal agency like hit up against society's restricting
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: expectations of us physically?
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: Well, let's talk more about that part if we could.
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: So I know Dr. Ali, you do so many different things,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: which is part of what I think makes you so interesting.
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: We know that you're.
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: Teaching and I know that you're doing the TV work
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: and books, but I know you're also a coaching psychologist,
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: which I love. You're frequently working with people in order
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: to help them develop themselves and create transformation in their lives.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: And I'm wondering if you'd be able to share a story,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: maybe de-identified, but you know, something that you've experienced with
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: a client or maybe in your own life where some
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: of these ideas that we're talking about on a more
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: academic level, like what does it look like inside someone
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: who is caught in the crosshairs of these different convergences
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: that you're talking about right now, right? Like appearance and
• 34:06
  Speaker 1: perception and norms and the way things change. The way
• 34:11
  Speaker 1: they feel about themselves versus the way others feel about them.
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: What does this do to you?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I can speak in generalities about it because I've seen
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: a number of women and my own. I'm a woman.
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: I've also lived this. And I think what it does
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: is it begins to seep into our unconscious and tell
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: us what we are worth and what we can reach for.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: And I've seen it limit women's expectations of what they
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: can get. And that's in regard to a lot of
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: different things. Career-wise, there might not be this overt, you're
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: not pretty enough for this job, right? There's no, we
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: don't currently, you know, it's not the 1960s. We don't
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: currently have like physical expectations of like what a woman
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: should look like to get a job, but it's more
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: insidious now. It's kind of just built into the ways
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: in which we develop our self-esteem. And our self-esteem tells
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: us how big we can be, how much space we
• 35:05
  Speaker 2: can take up, the ways in which we can talk
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: about ourselves, the ways in which we can confront people,
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: that whole space at the table thing, you know, like
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: teaching women to have a voice at the table at
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: work and say like, oh no, this is horrible. I
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: ain't doing that. Personally, I feel like my mom would
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: hate to see this, but I tell people I'm raised
• 35:21
  Speaker 2: by wolves. All the women in my family are very dominant.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And my mom was married. My dad and her were
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: married for years and years and years until the day
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: he passed away and madly in love. And she is
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: a woman that is very self-possessed, does not cower to anyone.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: And she also happens to be stunningly gorgeous, like stunningly gorgeous.
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: And so I learned from a very female-driven family because
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: also my grandmother's family was very female-led and back in
• 35:48
  Speaker 2: her mother was a very dominant woman and they were
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: all married. So it wasn't like they were single women
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: who were moving around saying, I hate men. They were
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: women who were worshipped by the men in their lives
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: and also took up space. And so I can personally
• 36:02
  Speaker 2: see how taking up space can be helpful and how
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: a lot of my clients have a harder time with that.
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: And so it's about teaching them how to take up
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: space no matter where they are, how they look, you know,
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: whether you're in your ideal body, because who's really in
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: our ideal body ever? We always find a way.
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: There's always something. Right.
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: And how do we learn to appreciate, accept, to even
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: at some point love? Because I think we can't always
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: move from really deeply, having a deep disdain for something
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: to having an overwhelming love. Like, it's not like just
• 36:35
  Speaker 2: say a few affirmations and all of a sudden the
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: next day, oh, I love myself. I'm great. You know,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: it's just, right?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: But I think with the heart of what I'm hearing
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: you say is that there's really a lot of work
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: that we can all do to almost create some space
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: between who the world thinks that we are and who
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: we want to believe that we are and that that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: relationship that we have with ourselves and feeling like It
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: is okay to maybe it's take up space or to
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: feel worthy or to go after things and not necessarily
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: have what other people have decided about you already. Be
• 37:13
  Speaker 1: part of your story to the same degree. Is that
• 37:16
  Speaker 1: the right way to say it?
• 37:17
  Speaker 2: I love that.
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: I absolutely love that. Be part of your own story.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: That's it. Create who you are. I was doing a
• 37:25
  Speaker 2: little dive this morning into the differences between emic and etic.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: And when we're studying populations or groups, emic is the
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: way the group sees themselves. And etic is the way
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: in which a researcher or an outside group would, the
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: values and the things that they would say about that group.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: And I'm working to make it more personal, right? Emic,
• 37:45
  Speaker 2: how do I emically personally see my identity? And how
• 37:49
  Speaker 2: do others then begin to make judgment on me from
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: their perspective? And I actually used to do, when I
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: worked inpatient with these little two-year-olds to like 12-year-olds. I know.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: They're like the cutest little population, but that's so sad.
• 38:06
  Speaker 2: I would have them do, I would like run groups
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: all the time. And there were always art groups. And
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: I had this one group I would run where I
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: would have them draw an image of themselves, how they
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: saw themselves on one side of the paper. And then
• 38:17
  Speaker 2: how they think other people saw them on the other.
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: Ooh, that's a good one.
• 38:23
  Speaker 2: And you have five-year-olds, eight-year-olds, making these profound statements with
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: just in showing the difference between how they see themselves.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: They're like, maybe they see themselves as, as really nice,
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: but then they flip it over and they have like
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: devil horns and they have bad, the teeth that are,
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: you know, the, the, the demon scary teeth. And, or
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: you have kids who see themselves as being that way,
• 38:46
  Speaker 2: but others maybe see them as being a more positive or,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: and it really begins to help you see how, external expectations,
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: we have more of an awareness than we think about
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: what we think people think of us. And physical appearance
• 39:02
  Speaker 2: plays a bigger role in that than we think, because
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: it really, people begin to really think it defines a
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: lot of us. Like even with the, you know, I'm
• 39:09
  Speaker 2: not going to get too deep into it because girl,
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: I'm over it. The Lindsay Clancy trial, right? People are
• 39:13
  Speaker 2: like measuring the distance between her husband's eyes and saying like, Oh,
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: he must be guilt.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: What?
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 39:19
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: And the bumps on his skull are fascinating. Okay.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: I thought we had gotten away from phrenology, but we're
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: right into it. And there are a lot of people
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: on social media who do talk about these. types of
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: things as being indicators of attractiveness. Canthal tilt. People are
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: all talking about canthal tilt. The tilt on your eyes.
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: And men are getting in on it. Now there's this
• 39:42
  Speaker 2: group of looks maxers. I think I'm no longer on
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: point with the question that you asked, but looks maxers.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: These young boys who are changing their appearance and trying
• 39:50
  Speaker 2: to do all this so they can get girls and
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: not have to do the hard thing, which is chitchat, talk,
• 39:55
  Speaker 2: get to know, and actually build a relationship. But just
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: like being so attractive that women are just going to
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: throw themselves at them.
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: So we're seeing ourselves at an interesting intersection right now.
• 40:03
  Speaker 1: This is so fascinating. So we need to take another
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: quick break. And on the other side, I would absolutely
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: love to get your insight. Two different perspectives again.
• 40:16
  Speaker 2: Somebody.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: listening to this who wants to feel good about themselves,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: wants to feel beautiful to themselves, and is aware that
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: maybe they've placed too much power in the hands of
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: others when it comes to how they feel about themselves.
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: Part of that, right? But also, I could imagine that
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: there's another type of friend with us right now here, Dr. Ali,
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: who you know, maybe a mom of a teenage girl
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: or who is in a relationship with someone, sees them
• 40:49
  Speaker 1: going down this rabbit hole, that belief around, if only
• 40:55
  Speaker 1: I was a certain weight, if only my skin looked differently,
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: if only blah, blah, blah, and are chasing that in
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: a scary way. Think of the look smashers, boys are
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: smashing themselves in the face with a hammer. I mean,
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: like there can be so much crazy here. Can we
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: talk about like what to do with those two different
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: things when we come back?
• 41:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 41:34
  Speaker 1: Friends, we're back with Dr. Allison Powell Hicks, the Dr. Ali,
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: author of the new book, The Problem with Pretty. And
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: this has been such a fascinating conversation. I mean, evolutionary biology, history, culture.
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: But what we've been talking about lately on the other
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: side of this break is what starts to happen on
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: the inside when people buy into the story of who
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: they need to be in an unhealthy way. So while
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: there is basis in reality for there being privileges that
• 42:11
  Speaker 1: come with being attractive, there's such a dark side when
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: we get so caught up in this that we lose
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: contact with ourselves. And so just before the break, I
• 42:20
  Speaker 1: got you to promise that you would take us into
• 42:23
  Speaker 1: your perspective on this and what you might say first
• 42:26
  Speaker 1: to someone who's realizing that I've given too much power away.
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: I think one, we sit in the reality that our
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: bodies are not our identities and it's hard initially to
• 42:40
  Speaker 2: separate the two, but I do look at, and this
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: might sound a little spiritual, but I do look at
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: my body as a vessel.
• 42:47
  Speaker 1: Yeah. I love that idea.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: I am something for me that kind of lives in
• 42:52
  Speaker 2: my head and around me. There's these theories of consciousness
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: and I do talk to a different, a good degree
• 42:58
  Speaker 2: about consciousness in the book, Consciousness kind of lives around
• 43:02
  Speaker 2: us and that we may potentially co-create it with the universe.
• 43:06
  Speaker 2: There are some theories out there. There are like 400
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: theories of consciousness. But I think having a healthy level
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: of separation from that can be helpful. And one of
• 43:16
  Speaker 2: the things that I talk about with my clients in
• 43:17
  Speaker 2: particular is the importance of diversifying your self-esteem.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: That much like a bank account, you wouldn't invest all
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: of your money into one stock, right? Because what if
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: something happens to Apple? Now everything you've owned is gone.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: You want to make sure you've invested in multiple things.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: And so your self-esteem can't only be residing in your
• 43:35
  Speaker 2: physical appearance. Because one thing about physical appearance is it changes.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: It changes. Yeah.
• 43:42
  Speaker 2: If you live long enough, you will not look the
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: same as when you were born.
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: Period.
• 43:45
  Speaker 2: Point blank.
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: So, you know, and then for women, you know, pregnancy, hormonally,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: I don't look the same on a Monday to a Friday,
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: you know? So it's so many things that can happen
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: that can change your size, that can change your, you know,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: the clarity of your skin, that can change all these
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: types of things. And so we can't place our entire
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: sense of our identity in something that we know inevitably
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: will look different. Right.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: You're not standing on solid ground. The phrase is coming
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: up for me right now. So I, I had many
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: different spiritual influences in my life growing up and culturally Catholic,
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: at least. And there was one phrase that would come,
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: I think it was around, was it Palm Sunday, Ash Wednesday,
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: one of those, but they, I know, I think it
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: is Ash Wednesday. You could tell I'm like extraordinarily good
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: at being Catholic, right? But they, there's this little ash
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: smudge they would put on you. And the priest would say,
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: from dust you come, to dust you will return. And
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: exactly this message that your body is temporary, whether you're
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: stardust or mud, whatever, like in any pinnacle of beauty
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: you may achieve, nothing gold can stay, pony boy. And
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: to get like too attached to that is not a
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: long-term plan. It's not.
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: And we believe in most, I believe, I mean, I
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: study a lot of religions, by no means a expert
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: in all things spiritual, but Most spiritual beliefs that humans
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: hold on to espouse that we are spirit, that we are,
• 45:19
  Speaker 2: you know, like, you know, in the body, in the Bible,
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: it talks about rock, who is, which is the spirit
• 45:23
  Speaker 2: that is breathed into Adam by Yahweh God. And we
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: are that, that essence that leaves this body at some point.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: And so I encourage clients, you know, that's what we
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: work on.
• 45:39
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: The characters. The knowledge, the information, why are we here?
• 45:44
  Speaker 2: You know, whatever your beliefs about life are, what is
• 45:47
  Speaker 2: your purpose while living? You are more of an, again,
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: just a collection of body parts. And if we really
• 45:52
  Speaker 2: want to break it down even more crassly, the way
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: that we look at beauty now is really in the
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: eyes of what makes men erect. And I'm more than something,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: because the minute you stop making men aroused is the
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: minute you're no longer attractive, right?
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Pretty much.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: So I am not that. That's not my purpose for
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: being on this planet. I don't exist exclusively to make
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: sure men feel good and excited when I walk by.
• 46:17
  Speaker 2: I'm so much more than that. And just reminding people that,
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: you know, we've connected intimacy and love to physical appearance,
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: but there's plenty of people who look all kinds of
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: ways who find beautifully intimate, vulnerable, and meaningful love relationships, right?
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: It's not only connected to a particular phenotype. And then
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: in my research, because it's like, well, then what do
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: we do? How do we do this, right? How do
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: we do this beyond things? In my research, I found
• 46:44
  Speaker 2: that the higher... And I studied initially Black women and
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: white women. And then for my dissertation, I went on
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: to just study and drill down into African-American women and
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: Black women. And what I found was that African-American women
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: had a higher sense of perceived body control as measured
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: by the objectified consciousness scale. And what that said to
• 47:04
  Speaker 2: me was.
• 47:06
  Speaker 2: That we felt we could change our bodies, or at
• 47:09
  Speaker 2: least we had the perception that we could change our bodies.
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: And so in my dissertation, I drilled down and I said, well,
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: let's look at ethnic identity. Does that play a role?
• 47:18
  Speaker 2: And so I found the higher woman's ethnic identity, the
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: more in control she felt of her body. Perceived control
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: is the indicator that you might not actually be able
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: to be three inches taller, but the perception that you
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: could change your body from one state to another, change
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: your hair, change your size, change your health, change whatever,
• 47:38
  Speaker 2: was there. And it's a positively valenced experience, right? Feeling
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: control of your body. And so in the later stages
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: of my book, I talk about how do we reclaim beauty?
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: How do we take it back from the clutches of
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: men trying to tell us that we are only to
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: exist for their pleasure? And so one of the ways
• 47:57
  Speaker 2: I do that is by encouraging people to become historians
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: of their life and their history and their lineage and
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: their family and understand, like, if someone talks about my nose,
• 48:06
  Speaker 2: for example, this is my great-grandfather's nose. That's where I
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: got it. Strong, proud, got a little hump there. This
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: is his nose. And my grandfather had this nose. And
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: my mom kind of, her little different, kind of has
• 48:18
  Speaker 2: this nose. And you don't get to talk about my great-great-grandfather.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: You don't get, what do you mean? And who were
• 48:26
  Speaker 2: these people? What did they do? What were their likes,
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: their dislikes? And like for me, I'm a museum person,
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: so I make a lot of museum metaphors out of
• 48:34
  Speaker 2: the book. And I sit in the reality that I'm
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: a walking museum of my lineage, of all the millions
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: of people that came before me. They all did everything
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: that they did so they could coalesce into my existence
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: right now. And that to me is very fundamentally affirming
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: and places a purpose and a value in me beyond anything.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: just merely existing for the sake of existing. Um, and
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: so that's one way that I talk about, like how
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: we kind of like get beyond this mere surface, because
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: obviously it makes a difference. I'm not going to gaslight
• 49:07
  Speaker 2: anybody and say it doesn't. Um, but there's more to it.
• 49:10
  Speaker 2: There's more to life than that. And so I have people,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: I kind of like do some, like, I guess the
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: term like ancestor acknowledgement, veneration, writing letters to the people
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: that came before you at you know telling them off
• 49:21
  Speaker 2: if necessary or thanking them.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: That's so good though because it's it's really a biological
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: genetic legacy and to really understand your physical form as
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: being you know the the point going through time right
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: now that is a manifestation of all that legacy and
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: to have gratitude for it or anger, whatever. But like,
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: you know, this is my literal embodiment of my people.
• 49:52
  Speaker 1: And to reconnect with that is a way of having
• 49:58
  Speaker 1: this identity and this experience of yourself that is not
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: dependent on what other people believe you.
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: Exactly. Like there was this beautiful series of posts around
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: the Olympics where they had women athletes who were all
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: saying like, this is my body and it's perfect for me.
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: It's perfect for what I need. And it's all these
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: different types of bodies.
• 50:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: Women in the Olympics that are, you know, starting at
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: like four foot nine, going all the way up to
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: six foot five, six foot six, you know, all of
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: these different sizes, different shapes, different everything. And they're saying like, yeah,
• 50:29
  Speaker 2: I am suddenly gorgeous. Like there's this one woman, I
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: can't think of her name right now, but she plays
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: rugby and she is a taller woman. She is a
• 50:36
  Speaker 2: stronger woman. And she is stunningly gorgeous. And her body
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: does what she needs it to do. And she loves it.
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: And she's tall and she wears heels. Because that's one
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: of the things, like a lot of our friends that
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: are taller, you know, you're like, well, you don't want
• 50:49
  Speaker 2: to be taller than a man. You've got to wear
• 50:51
  Speaker 2: flat shoes.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: I don't know. Yeah. That's great. But to really own it. But,
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: you know, as we're talking too, I'm thinking of, you
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: might have heard this, especially if like exploring the psychology
• 51:04
  Speaker 1: of fashion design, but there's a, Coco Chanel is rumored
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: to have said that people don't even start to get
• 51:12
  Speaker 1: interesting until they're 40. Listen, I agree. And there's like
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: this whole other, you know, like starting to get older
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: and like, you know, because now I can see younger
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: women or younger men and they're objectively beautiful, like they're beautiful, skinny, blah, blah, blah.
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: And they're not, they haven't been around long enough yet
• 51:31
  Speaker 1: to form a point of view or to like I
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, kind of, there's an interestingness. It is like
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: this whole other layer on top of people as they
• 51:41
  Speaker 1: develop that I feel like is so important.
• 51:44
  Speaker 2: And I feel, I call that glamour.
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: Glamour, okay.
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: There's a difference between glamour and beauty. Beauty is what
• 51:50
  Speaker 2: you're born with. You show up, bone structure, eyes, face, whatever, right?
• 51:54
  Speaker 2: Glamour is what you put on it. It's the styling.
• 51:57
  Speaker 2: It's the coloring. It's the type of makeup. It's the
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: way you carry yourself, right? When I was in my 20s,
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: I made a vested point. to become a socialite. So
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: what I did was I studied socialites and I said,
• 52:09
  Speaker 2: what do they do that's different? So I studied all
• 52:11
  Speaker 2: types of people you could consider socialites from courtesans to
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: the girls in New York and Studio 54.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: When are you going to write that book?
• 52:20
  Speaker 2: My 20s were crazy. I also lived by the 48
• 52:22
  Speaker 2: laws of power for a year to see if I
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: could become a sociopath. It did not work.
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: How'd that go?
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: I am not a sociopath. I know for a fact.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: I care about people deeply. But you tried.
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: Deeply.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: I tried. I tried so hard. Didn't work. And so
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: we can change the way people perceive us. Because again,
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: perception is co-created with our environment, with our culture. We
• 52:47
  Speaker 2: can reshape the way people see the things that we do.
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: And so we can add this glamour, this affectation, this wisdom, right?
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: So when it comes to like being in, you know,
• 52:58
  Speaker 2: because I've been in my 20s, I've been in my 30s,
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: and now I'm just starting these 40s off. They started
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: a little jarring for me. But you've got to think
• 53:06
  Speaker 2: you just get your frontal lobe at like 25, 26. Yeah.
• 53:07
  Speaker 2: So before 25, 26, you're in a lot more chaos.
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: It's harder for you to kind of see through to
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: the other side of things. Like a larva. You're in
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: a larval stage. You're learning. And let's be real. Those
• 53:17
  Speaker 2: first eight years, you don't remember much of anything.
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: No.
• 53:20
  Speaker 2: The first eight years of your life, first, you know,
• 53:23
  Speaker 2: 20 years, you're just kind of like trying to make it.
• 53:25
  Speaker 2: Then in your 20s, you're starting to find your rhythm.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: You're starting to figure out your edges. What do I like?
• 53:29
  Speaker 2: What do I not like? Let me try this out.
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: Let me try that out. You're exiting college or you're
• 53:34
  Speaker 2: entering into your first time career, internships, all these types
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: of things. You're doing everything for the first time. In paganism,
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: they call that, that's the maiden phase. You have the
• 53:46
  Speaker 2: triarchic structure of a woman's life. You're in your maiden phase.
• 53:49
  Speaker 2: Everything is new. Everything is fresh. You're an ingenue to
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: even yourself. Then you enter, I think, in your like thirties, forties,
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: this mother stage doesn't have to be actual physical motherhood,
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: but it is this stage where now you've done things
• 54:03
  Speaker 2: a few times, right? Like I'm not up in arms
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: about a lot of things. Cause I'm like, I've seen
• 54:07
  Speaker 2: all these trends at least three to four times.
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: Pants are big again.
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 54:13
  Speaker 2: I'm like, y'all can catch me in 15 years. The
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: trend will come back to me. So I'm just going
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: to stay here until the trend loops back.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: I'm going to wait right here in my skinny jeans.
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: It's going to come back around.
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: Okay. Can I tell you I've thrown away zero pair
• 54:26
  Speaker 2: of skinny jeans? I love them.
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: So fun.
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: I've thrown away zero.
• 54:31
  Speaker 2: They're all in my closet.
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: And so it's like, it'll come back, right? Because you
• 54:34
  Speaker 2: kind of been there. And then like, I think Einstein
• 54:37
  Speaker 2: even said like cognitively on an intellectual level, you don't
• 54:40
  Speaker 2: really learn anything until you're 80s. That's when you start
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: to be like, oh, This is kind of making sense
• 54:47
  Speaker 2: because now you've seen things seven times.
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: Well, you have a neural network.
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: And I'm waiting for that. I'm excited.
• 54:57
  Speaker 1: This is such a good conversation.
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Thank you. Dr.
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Ali, this has been such a pleasure. I could just
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: talk to you all day long. I want to be
• 55:04
  Speaker 1: respectful of your time. I know we need to wrap
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: this up. But this has been just such a fascinating
• 55:09
  Speaker 1: conversation and a fascinating book, you guys. We've been talking
• 55:12
  Speaker 1: about a problem with pretty women.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: With Dr.
• 55:15
  Speaker 1: Allison Powell Hicks. And so, Dr. Allie, somebody wants more
• 55:19
  Speaker 1: of this in their lives. Obviously, they can get the
• 55:22
  Speaker 1: book everywhere, I'm guessing. But where do they connect with you?
• 55:25
  Speaker 1: I mean, you have such a fascinating point of view.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: You're such a wealth of information.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much.
• 55:30
  Speaker 1: Where does somebody connect with you?
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: You can come to my website at allisonhicks.com. Okay, it's
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: spelled wild. Everyone girds yourselves. A-L-L-Y-C-I-N, Allison, A-L-L-Y-C-I-N, Hicks, H-I-C-K-S.com.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: You can also find me at Alison Hicks on Instagram
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: and at dr.ally, A-L-L-Y on TikTok. I definitely have a
• 55:54
  Speaker 2: coaching business. And so that's also my website. You can
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: look into that. And I consult with corporations as well
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: on these issues. You do.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: And so I'm guessing like guest speaking as part of
• 56:05
  Speaker 1: what you do, coming into organizations and talking about how
• 56:08
  Speaker 1: to manage some of this on a larger scale.
• 56:11
  Speaker 2: As to relationships. dynamics between employees. And, um, and now I'm, uh,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: getting ready to start doing some more beauty, like beauty
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: research again for opening back up. That is fair. And
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: that's the very exciting. You're hearing this first.
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: You broke the news. Well, I cannot wait to stay,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to keep up with you and to see where you're
• 56:31
  Speaker 1: just this brilliant mind and all this curiosity takes you next.
• 56:35
  Speaker 1: And whenever you want to come back and talk about
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: it on love, happiness, and success, we are.
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: Here for it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: Thank you very much.
• 56:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you. What an inspiring conversation that Dr. Ali, she
• 56:58
  Speaker 1: is such a gem. I love talking to her and
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: I hope that it was an interesting conversation for you too.
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: But more than anything, I really hope that it helped
• 57:09
  Speaker 1: you see some things differently and you know, that kind
• 57:13
  Speaker 1: of cut through this fantasy, this trick that we're all
• 57:17
  Speaker 1: tricked into believing, right? That how we look really, really,
• 57:20
  Speaker 1: really matters. I think that society can treat us differently
• 57:25
  Speaker 1: depending on how we look, but there's so much power
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: that comes from, even if you want to recognize that,
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: disconnecting how you feel about yourself from that narrative. Because
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: the reality is that you were never meant to spend
• 57:43
  Speaker 1: your whole life chasing someone else's definition of beautiful, especially
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: at the expense of the things that you know to
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: be important and true. I mean, appearance matters in the
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: world we live in. We're all impacted by the messages
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: around us. But being able to distance yourself from that
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: and understand that you are so much more than the
• 58:07
  Speaker 1: body you woke up in, to use Dr. Ali's term,
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: That is really, really empowering. And so, hey, if you're
• 58:13
  Speaker 1: listening to this and realizing that there are parts of
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: yourself that you want to connect with more deeply, whether
• 58:22
  Speaker 1: it is confidence, relationships, healing old patterns, or just getting
• 58:27
  Speaker 1: more clear about who you are and what makes you
• 58:31
  Speaker 1: interesting and amazing, no matter what your body looks like,
• 58:35
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of support for you through my practice,
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: Growing Self. It is what we do. Every clinician that
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: I work with is a very experienced, fully licensed therapist
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: who can do mental health stuff, but honestly, they operate
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: in a coaching psychology space. So coaching is the approach
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: that we use when someone is not coming in necessarily
• 58:58
  Speaker 1: needing treatment for a psychiatric condition, but really wanting to
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: do the kind of work that we're talking about today,
• 59:06
  Speaker 1: answering questions like, Who am I? What do I care about? about?
• 59:10
  Speaker 1: Where am I now? And where do I want to
• 59:14
  Speaker 1: go within myself, within my life, in my relationships, in
• 59:17
  Speaker 1: my career? And most importantly, how do I make that happen?
• 59:23
  Speaker 1: because that requires more than insight, more than talking. Ideas
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: are fantastic. Self-awareness is wonderful. And that's the first step,
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: but then we need to pair it with a what's next.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: And that is what happens in coaching, which is different
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: sometimes than what happens in therapy. And so that's what
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: the clinicians that I work with specialize in. And so
• 59:44
  Speaker 1: if that experience sounds interesting or exciting or helpful for you,
• 59:48
  Speaker 1: we have so many opportunities. If you would like to
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: work with one of our very experienced team clinicians. The
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: way that starts is by coming to growingself.com to schedule
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: a free consultation. You can meet with a clinician of
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: your choice, you know, talk about what's going on, see
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: if it feels like a good fit, see if they're
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: the right person to help you. And if so, move forward.
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: We really want you to see how it feels before
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: you decide. And we also have another really exciting situation
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: that I'm so proud of. I have begun over the
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: last couple of years training other therapists in coaching psychology
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: and helping them become formally credentialed as board certified coaches.
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 1: And because therapists, again, they do not learn these competencies.
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: They're really different and they're important. And so that is
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: a mission of mine. And as part of that, we
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 1: have created a training experience for them that includes an
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: eight week long practicum opportunities to work with real clients
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: through growing self, through our unstuck in eight weeks program.
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: So this is a limited engagement of eight sessions where
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: you're connected with a therapist who is doing our advanced
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: coach training. And here's the wild part. So therapists that coach,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 1: they are like unicorns and they're oftentimes they command premium rates,
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 1: like oftentimes two or three times what you pay for
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: therapy because the outcomes are really what people are signing
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: on for. However, in this unstuck in eight weeks offer,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 1: you get eight sessions of one-on-one coaching with a licensed therapist,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: very powerful, very productive, very deep for $ 49 a session.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: I know it's wild. So if you are interested in
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 1: learning more about that offer, you're welcome to come and
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: check that out as well. Growingself.com forward slash grow. You
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 1: can learn more about this program, see if it feels
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: right for you. And if so, you can either enroll
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: or get on the wait list. The one thing is
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: we only do this five times a year and space
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: is really limited. So I hope that when you're hearing this,
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: we're still able to serve you through this program, growingself.com
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 1: forward slash grow. But again, we do it five times
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 1: a year. So if you missed this round, put yourself
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: on the wait list. And then you'll be notified when
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 1: the next opportunity becomes available.
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 2: All right, my friend.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 1: Thanks again so much for spending this time today with
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 1: me and Dr. Allie. And I will be back in
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 1: touch very soon with another episode of Love, Happiness, and Success.