Latest / Daily Influence / 784. How to Stop People-Pleasing, Build Confidence, and Lead Authentically with Dr. Liz DuBois Erskine

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784. How to Stop People-Pleasing, Build Confidence, and Lead Authentically with Dr. Liz DuBois Erskine · Daily Influence

• 0:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Daily Influence, your daily dose of positive influence.
• 0:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Brian Smith founder of IA Business Advisors and co-author of the Iain team series.
• 0:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Each day we share stories and insights to help you find be and build your influence in a positive and responsible way.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm Greg Clino, partner at IE Business Advisors, and co-host of Daily Influence.
• 0:32
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• 0:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence, I'm Greg Collino.
• 0:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Before we dive in, I want to share a quick note.
• 0:53
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• 1:05
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• 1:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And now let's move in today's conversation where we'll continue exploring the ideas, actions and influence that helps us lead and live with greater influence.
• 1:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today's guest brings a powerful and refreshing perspective on leadership, influence, and what it really takes to succeed without burning out in the process.
• 1:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Liz Dubra Erskine is a PhD, conflict analyst, and executive coach who works with high performers to break free from people pleasing, self-sabotage, and fear of judgment.
• 1:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: with a background that includes organizations like Disney, I Heart Radio and a reputation for a direct zero BS approach.
• 2:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Liz helps leaders show up with clarity, confidence, and true executive presence, especially in environments where they may feel underestimated or overlooked.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: If you've ever felt the pressure to prove yourself, overextend or tie your worth to how hard you're working, this conversation is going to challenge and empower you in the right ways.
• 2:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Liz, I am so glad to have you here.
• 2:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Welcome to Daily Influence.
• 2:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: Thank you for having me.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Liz, let's start with your journey.
• 2:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: You've built a career around conflict, leadership, and helping people stop self-sabotaging.
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: What experiences shaped your perspective on influence and led you to this work?
• 2:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my God, that's such a broad question.
• 2:48
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think the angle that I'll take it from is like the most common one that I talk about.
• 2:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when I was 15, I was raped.
• 2:58
  [SPEAKER_02]: and it was by a boyfriend, it was in the context of a dating relationship, it was like everything about it was deep rape.
• 3:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: And back in the days, we had words for that, but they weren't like public, right?
• 3:12
  [SPEAKER_02]: The idea of something being a rape that wasn't like a boogie man that jumped out in the middle of the night, right?
• 3:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like let's just talk about the fact that that was like racialized as well, right?
• 3:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like it raped looking very specific certain way and if you didn't have that happen, then you weren't raped.
• 3:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I didn't disclose my experience to anyone, the guy that had done it, knew he had done it.
• 3:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a kid in our like 10th grade speech into the class who made a poster about date rape and we both read it and we're like,
• 3:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: we aired.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it was this very interesting experience because this was my first like relationship relationship to the extent that you can have one winner 15.
• 3:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and it was completely coercive control.
• 4:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: It was just, um, you know, like it was like dating a meat grinder that myself confidence gap there was just this experience of having all of this stuff that I loved and cared about just made fun of and minimized, um,
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: I used to be really into theater, I was such a drama nerd.
• 4:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was, like, for the time I was in second grade and had saw my best friends, brother in the Wizard of Oz.
• 4:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I wanted to be a nice, cool musical.
• 4:36
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it was like a very big deal where we grew up.
• 4:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: They did really, really good stage production.
• 4:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I was like in my first high school musical and I came out after the show and my boyfriend was standing there and I asked, how was it, and he put his thumbs down
• 4:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: like Sturgat is tongue and I quit drama.
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: I stopped being in drama after that.
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just had like so many different instances of things that I loved that I chose to let go of because I felt like the relationship was more important and that set out to be a template for a lot of things in my life for very long time.
• 5:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, I gained about a hundred pounds after that experience in the two years following.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and just had a very stereotypical experience in terms of replicating, um, I don't want to say dangerous relationships, but.
• 5:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: coercive relationships with men that just made me like I felt like crap in the context of these situations.
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: I just really, really felt like crap in college.
• 5:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: I know right after college.
• 5:49
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sorry, right after college.
• 5:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: I met someone who brought me to my first 12 step meeting and she helps me find a sponsor and start to address some underlying addictive tendencies that I have
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I lost all that 100 pounds in the same weekend that I hit my magical size 4, I'm 5, 11, if you're not watching this, I like to think I'm very pretty.
• 6:14
  [SPEAKER_02]: I like was getting modeling offers and stuff like that and all the feelings of not wanting men to look at my body.
• 6:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: slammed on to me because now I was very visible right I was very stereotypically attractive I had men and photographers and like just all the six like visibility right and in that I just like lost my crap about this experience that I'd had back in high school of just like oh my gosh
• 6:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is what happened and this is why I mean all this way and this is all of these things that had led me to feel like I wasn't enough and was on worthy and so I started Started doing therapy and Had support through my 12-step program had support of really close friends
• 7:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I got better and I got married to my the person who I'm not divorced from, but he was a great guy still.
• 7:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: He was good guy then good guy now.
• 7:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: And like had a really beautiful relationship.
• 7:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: We have a beautiful son and life just got so different when I started being okay with who I am.
• 7:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I went and got a master's degree and then I went and got a PhD.
• 7:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: And from there in the process of the pandemic kicking up started working full time as an executive coach and a divorce coach and I still do that work now.
• 7:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: That foundation is so important because it often shapes not just what we do but how we sew up for others and
• 7:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing your story with us.
• 7:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Can you share a specific moment where you saw your work create a meaningful ship for someone where they moved from self-doubt or burnout into more confident, a line version of themselves?
• 8:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, I just had this experience like 20 minutes ago.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: I saw myself.
• 8:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was my clients.
• 8:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Gosh, this is me being a little conceited.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: My clients get really, really, really good results.
• 8:19
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and I just had my second session with this person.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, and like without going into very detailed specific straight, just had my second session with this person and they have had this underlying issue going on since they were eight or nine years old, and, um, yeah, really young, right?
• 8:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, what happens to us in childhood defines so much of what happens the rest of our lives, right?
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Um, so, um, they'd had this specific thing going on and they hadn't wanted to address
• 8:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: 90 minutes into the session.
• 8:54
  [SPEAKER_02]: We are having a lot of tears and then by like the almost two hour mark because I'll stay on it if people are really in it.
• 9:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: We had a plan.
• 9:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: There was a two-do list in place.
• 9:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: There were action items right and so we had gone on this whole arc of, oh my god, this thing that happened to me when I was young, played a really pivotal role in this conflict that I have right now and this is the
• 9:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: now we have a plan and we're going to do the things.
• 9:23
  [SPEAKER_02]: So it can move really fast.
• 9:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: This was just the second session I've had with this person.
• 9:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: Wow that's amazing that it can move so quickly and it sounds like not only are you having a positive influence on that person but they're having a positive influence on you too.
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: A hundred percent I will walk out of my my offices in my house and I will walk out of my office and into the living room and like dance and jump around
• 9:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, that's sweet.
• 9:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, a lot of high performers struggle with people pleasing and fear of judgment.
• 9:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: From your experience, what's really driving behind that behavior and what's the cost when leaders don't address it?
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_02]: What a good question.
• 10:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: With under-to-safety.
• 10:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: So when we were cavemen, right, when we were cavemen,
• 10:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hunting willy mammoths was really, really hard to do all by yourself, right?
• 10:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: Protecting yourself from Saber II Tiger.
• 10:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: That is a group project, right?
• 10:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: Hunter and Gathering group projects, Tending the fires while other people will go and get the food and protect the things that's group project, right?
• 10:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we evolutionary anthropologists have summarized that we evolved in packs of about 200 people that that's kind of like our real sweet spot in terms of social connection and evolution.
• 10:42
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so we've got these packs of about 200 people right and think of like 200 people that's less than half of my high school, right?
• 10:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: This is like a,
• 10:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Relatively small handful of people, so you think about like going elementary school first grade up to 9th grade 10th grade 12th grade graduating The same group with people, 200, 300, 400 kids think about how like Intimately you knew all the shit right like the kid that peed her pants on the second day of school right like whatever These like things follow you through your lifetime.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_02]: Now think about like the intimacy of living in a in a tribe like that right where
• 11:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know everybody's business and all the things and if you were too weird or too bad or you did the wrong thing or you just couldn't fit in and you got booted out of the tribe, how are you going to survive?
• 11:37
  [SPEAKER_02]: There's saber-tooth tigers, there's wool like mammoths, you got to hunt together, who's going to tend to fire it right, and so on in nervous system level, we really, really, really have not, like we have iPhones and Mac books and, you know, Tesla's and all the things, but really from a biology standpoint, we're not that much different.
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: Then we were when we viewed survival as something that was a group project, and so now,
• 12:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: When we worry and we people please and we try to get other people to validate us and we want the input and advice of other people even when we already know the answer right all of that comes back to safety we're just searching to reinforce that we're part of the tribe.
• 12:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, that makes so much sense, but when someone recognizes that, the next question becomes, what do I actually do about it?
• 12:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's great.
• 12:25
  [SPEAKER_02]: Sounds nice.
• 12:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Okay.
• 12:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: So, I think there's a couple practical steps.
• 12:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: One is make sure you have a good drive.
• 12:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So online communities have made it possible for you to have access to anyone at any time who has any interest.
• 12:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: So if you are into, you know, left toe painting, like I'm sure you can go on Facebook and find people that's like the toe painting community of the United States of wherever.
• 12:53
  [SPEAKER_02]: There are so many different special interest groups that I don't mean in the politics sense of groups that special
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: to realize and cater to people with different interests, that it's possible to go find your tribe online without, you know, without putting on pants, right?
• 13:09
  [SPEAKER_02]: You can sit in your living room and literally go find people that will change your life because you've surrounded yourself with other people that can validate back to you, that your ideas are.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: Maybe not great.
• 13:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: They can help you evolve them, right?
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: That your ideas are good, bad, you know, need to be evolved, that your interests are valid, right?
• 13:31
  [SPEAKER_02]: That you, okay, well, you want to make paintings just with your left toes.
• 13:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: That's weird to everybody else, but here it's normal, and we'll show you how to do it well, and we're going to be your friends.
• 13:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: So find your tribe, great, make sure that you're surrounded by people that are the right people.
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: And then the second thing is doing the work and I suggest doing this with a therapist or a coach.
• 13:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: Doing the work of really understanding why you don't feel like you have validation in your life right now, where is that coming from, what sort of roots of that can get on tangled so that you can feel really safe validating yourself.
• 14:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's such a powerful starting point being it's so tangible people can just act on it right away.
• 14:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, 100% you talk about executive presence, especially in male dominated spaces.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are a couple of specific behaviors or habits leaders can adopt to strengthen their presence and influence without feeling like they have to change who they are.
• 14:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my god, so I have a great story.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: So I was part of a networking group, the historical networking group, been around forever.
• 14:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I started a women's networking group.
• 14:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's called Ladies Who Lunch.
• 14:46
  [SPEAKER_02]: get to come out every fourth Friday in the month and where we're a fancy, frilly dress should do wish.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_02]: And we just go out to lunch and it's women business leaders from all over my area come and we just eat lunch together and hang out and share information because women, women talking to women and all women setting as a magical thing.
• 15:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Magical magical magical so I had started this thing and it's it's taken off and it's become
• 15:11
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I'm at this male dominated, like almost exclusively male organization, and we have having lunch, we're meeting over lunch.
• 15:21
  [SPEAKER_02]: And one of the older gentlemen in the group is it runs really old, what if the oldest gentleman in the script pulls me aside and it goes, would you want to turn ladies who lunch into a subsidiary of this larger international organization
• 15:40
  [SPEAKER_02]: I was like, well, what does that mean?
• 15:41
  [SPEAKER_02]: You go, well, that means that it becomes this organization, but just like a branch of it.
• 15:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: And I was like, I turned to him and I said, under no circumstances, what I let in all women's networking group, like fall into the hands of an all men's networking group.
• 15:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: What are you talking about?
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_02]: And this group, the Supreme Court had had to get involved in order to get women to be allowed to be part of it.
• 16:10
  [SPEAKER_02]: understanding what your values are and having humor about situations can really get you far in terms of making light of the fact that there's still spaces, not where women aren't allowed.
• 16:26
  [SPEAKER_02]: I think I would be really hard-pressed to find a space where women weren't allowed to be anymore,
• 16:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's, there's still spaces where women are not seen as leaders, right?
• 16:45
  [SPEAKER_02]: They're seen as participants, but not leaders.
• 16:47
  [SPEAKER_02]: And that's what I want to break down.
• 16:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love that.
• 16:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that story.
• 16:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: And good for you for extending your ground.
• 16:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: So did you take that ladies lunch and turn it into a business and spread that?
• 17:05
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, it's not a business.
• 17:07
  [SPEAKER_02]: For me, I started it because I started it in response to this other networking group.
• 17:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Actually, I was like, I want to space where just women can be friends and like, let our hair down and wherever we want.
• 17:20
  [SPEAKER_02]: I mean, I don't work freely dresses when I'm out networking.
• 17:24
  [SPEAKER_02]: I do on the weekends, but I was like, I want to wear it like a...
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: And my husband bought me this beautiful blue dress for something.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: I don't remember where oh, it was for Mother's Day.
• 17:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: And it's got all this like white brick a pack and little little cherries on it.
• 17:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: It's like light blue with red cherries and it's it's like.
• 17:43
  [SPEAKER_02]: Not a dress I would wear to a networking lunch, but I'm like, I want to have a networking lunch where I can dress exactly how I want.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: So with ladies who lunch, I started a bit mostly because I was like, I just want to place where I can meet a bunch of other friends.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, not like business associates.
• 17:59
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like, I want to meet other friends I want to meet.
• 18:01
  [SPEAKER_02]: Other friends and the big thing that I have in common with people is like, one, I'm a parent or two, I'm in recovery or three, I own a business.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let's figure out how to meet more of those three I own a business people.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so it's not something that everyone I like monetize, it's free.
• 18:22
  [SPEAKER_02]: And yeah, it's just like a great feeder for me to have other people come into my life.
• 18:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's great.
• 18:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Thank you for sharing that and helping us close for our listeners who want to lead with more intention and create a positive impact, but may feel stuck or unsure where to start.
• 18:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: What's one specific action they can take to step into more responsible confident influence?
• 18:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: Figure out the thing that you like to do the most and then figure out how to share it with people, right?
• 18:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like there's things that we can be really confident about and then like if you were to ask me how to change a tire, I know how to change a tire like I can't I change a tire.
• 19:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yes, right, but like I don't have a lot of confidence about it because it's not a thing that's like my area of expertise, right?
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_02]: And so I always say to people, I'm really, really, really good at three things and beyond that, I'm like pretty much a ditch and my husband and I were hanging out with friends over the weekend and that came up.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I don't say that in like a self-deprecating way like I I am super super great at three things and beyond that I like don't push myself to have like a lot of confidence because I'm just like I don't have anything to prove I don't need anybody to validate anything
• 19:56
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm good right and when you know what you're great at and you can like share that joyfully with the world the rest of it you don't you don't need to feel amazing about because nobody's asking you to be perfect.
• 20:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that is so true.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Liz, what a powerful conversation.
• 20:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: If there's one thing to take away for today is how we show up matters.
• 20:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's not just for our own success, but for the people we lead and we work with and influence every day.
• 20:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, influence isn't about doing more or pushing harder.
• 20:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's identifying what we're good at.
• 20:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's being intentional with our actions and our mindset and the standards that we set.
• 20:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Dr. Losevart, listeners want to get in touch with you.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: What is the best way to do so?
• 20:39
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh, just go to my website is coachdoctorwith.com.
• 20:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, we'll put that information as soon as thank you so much for joining us and sharing your stories and advice.
• 20:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm so grateful for you.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Oh my gosh, thanks for having me.
• 20:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And to our listeners, thank you for joining us for another episode of Daily Influence.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: If today's conversation was useful, please share with those in your area of influence to help spread the positivity.
• 21:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: As you move through your week, ask yourself, where might I be overextending?
• 21:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: And where can I lead with more clarity and confidence instead?
• 21:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Start with one small shift and watch it make an impact.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Remember small actions create big impact, keep showing up, leading, and growing one due to time.
• 21:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Until next time, stay inspired and keep having a positive, responsible influence.
• 21:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bye-bye.