Mindset, Motivation and Beating the Reaper with Dr. Sariya Saabye

Have you ever felt like you're drowning in the noise of life's challenges and expectations? Join us as we welcome the incredible Dr. Sariya Saabye, who shares her powerful story of overcoming struggles as a high performer and finding clarity through minimalism. This inspiring episode reminds us that we are not alone in our feelings and experiences and teaches us how to turn down the noise in our heads to focus on our dreams.

Listen in as Sariya opens up about her journey from being an overachiever at a young age to battling severe depression and disordered eating. Discover how she found solace in the stripped-down approach to ultra marathon running and used this passion to inspire others. Learn about her experience of leaving her husband for three months to live in an abandoned nunnery, which provided her with the clarity and focus she needed to accomplish her goals.

Finally, we'll explore the shared experience of imposter syndrome and how to overcome it by focusing on our unique gifts. We'll discuss the importance of pushing out of our comfort zones through small daily challenges to experience personal growth and find our true gifts. Together, let's work towards building a community of world changers as we take inspiration from Sariya's incredible wisdom and experiences. So, are you ready to find your purpose and overcome life's challenges?




https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-sariya-saabye-0557718a/

Go check out all of our episodes on our website: https://womeninthearena.net/


If you are ready to tell your story or want to refer someone, please email me at audra@womeninthearena.net

***Last thing- I'd love to interview the following women:

• Joan Jett
• Dolly Parton
• Viola Davis
• Ina Garten

Maybe you can help me get there****


Thank you all for supporting this show and all of the Women in the Arena!!

Transcript

Audra : Before we get started, i'd like to take a moment to thank the sponsor of today's show, Dr Michelle Sands. Dr Sands is the creator of Glow Natural Wellness and Fixed Hormones, and she has a healthy hormone club that offers monthly bioidentical hormone replacement therapy delivered to your home. What sets her apart from other programs is she provides access to physicians for you to ask questions and get support. She also provides routine testing to monitor and adjust your hormones as needed. In addition, she has a free hormone class to help you understand more about your hormones. You can sign up for this class at https://www.glownaturalwellness.com/bhrt-webinar-optin/?ref=arena.
Thank you again, Dr Michelle Sands, for your support.

Audra: Welcome in everyone and thank you so much for being with me again this week. You know I have the pleasure of being able to meet the most amazing, unique women all around the world, and sometimes they come to me, and that's the case with today's guest. I'm joined by Dr Saria Sabay. She has an amazing and incredible story. First of all, let me give you a little bit background on her.

Audra: She is a keynote speaker. Her specialty is strategy. She's an entrepreneur. She's a barefoot ultra marathoner Guys, let that part just sink in. She runs around barefoot for hundreds of miles. That in and of itself is impressive. She's also a former competitive acrobat. She's committed her life into helping high performers to focus, turn down the noise that is going on in your head, and you all know that it's there. It all keeps you up at night, but she has trained hundreds of people to turn down that noise, focus and live the dream that they've been wanting to live. It is both my pleasure and my honor to introduce to you Dr Saria Sabay Saria. Thank you so much for being here and welcome to the show.

Sariya: Thank you so much, Audra. I'm super excited to be here.

Audra: I'm so happy you're here. I'm so happy that you reached out to me and connected to me. That's one of the amazing things about the internet You can connect with people all over the world that you wouldn't likely run in the same circles. That's the case with you and I is that you happen to see a couple of posts that I have done on social media and you reached out to me and said I think I might have something to say. I appreciate you doing that and being vulnerable and willing to sign up to basically appear on my show Vulnerably Naked. Thank you for volunteering to do that.

Sariya: Absolutely. I love what you're doing and you've had some amazing women on your show. What you're doing is trying to help other people and I think one of the amazing things about you is that you are so open and you're constantly trying to grow yourself. I love connecting with those kinds of people. Like you said, i've devoted my life to helping others with struggles that I've gone through. If what you're doing can help that and I can be a part of that, that's an honor for me.

Audra: I am glad you're here and I want to talk about your story. Let's set the stage with that as to who you are and what has led you to the spot that you are in today.

Sariya: Absolutely. My background is very eclectic. I was an overachiever from the get-go, from the word go, and I started tumbling at a very early age. By the time I was a senior in high school, i took on every challenge I could get. That's how I wanted to get attention. Nothing was ever good enough, so I just pushed harder, always pushed harder. By the time I was a senior in high school, among many, many other things, i was a straight A student and I was chosen for the world team as a power tumbler.

Sariya: I looked to the outside world like this amazing, i had all these accomplishments. I look like I had it all. I had a lot, but what people did not know, what nobody knew, was that I was struggling with severe depression and suicidal thoughts and disordered eating. You can imagine, as an acrobat I spent seven days a week in a leotard and there's no hiding any of that. Honestly, it's more about control and my life was so overwhelming to me. I think the disordered eating, more than anything, was about just trying to find some semblance of control. I didn't sleep. It was a really tough time. I thought I was alone in that. I've since learned I'm very much not alone in that. The people who are achieving the most. A lot of times are the people who are in those dark places that nobody knows about. They're very good at hiding it.

Audra: Well, you are in an audience full of good company, because I think a lot of my audience, because the majority of them are women and the majority of my audience is in this age group of 45 to 55. We all have these similar stories and feelings that you're expressing here of it's never good enough. I have to keep pushing myself. I need to keep pushing myself and we hide it. Well, we are all great actresses and it is It's important that you are sharing this. It's just reaffirming that we are absolutely positively, not alone in these feelings And we don't have to be So. You are saying that you, you were a Very young age, teenager, early 20s, being this highly competitive Athlete doing power tumbling, and then, for those of us that don't entirely know what power power tumbling is, i'm pretty sure it's those amazing explosive passes that you see Running across the mat.

Audra: You got it, those girls that fly two stories off the mat. That was you, that was me. That in and of itself is amazing, because that is always exciting and And incredible to watch. And you're saying that you were. You were performing at this extremely high level, but you were still feeling like it wasn't enough On any level in your, in your life is what I'm hearing.

Sariya: Oh, a hundred percent, yeah. And I again, i was a straight-A student at the time and you know I had all these things going for me and so I got out of high school and I just Just always chasing that next high, that next thing tumbling was a huge high, of course. So I got out of high school and like, well, now what's the next thing? just keep moving, for keep pushing. So I chose one of the hardest programs I could find physical therapy at the time. It was a master's degree program, but I saw the direction it was going. It was going towards a doctorate and I'm like, well, let's do that. We got to be the best right. So I got my doctorate in physical therapy And something happened that started me on a minimalist journey during that time was pretty incredible.

Sariya: My favorite professor, Dr Jack Bennett in college, was a runner, marathoner and he encouraged us all and shouldn't say encouraged, he downright pushed us all into doing a marathon relay. My class and I thought, jack, you're nuts, i love you, but you're crazy, because I'm four foot nine and I am a power tumbler. I'm a powerhouse 110%. I'm built for power, like this. Body is not built for Endurance, anything. But he was very persuasive and you know I don't like disappointing people.

Sariya: You know I always want to please, so we're gonna do that. So I did it and I made it through that marathon relay and I was Expectedly horrible, horrible, just everything hurt. I had knee pain. I've never had knee pain. I was a world-class power tumbler. I never once had knee pain or foot pain and I had both just hamstring around the block. Just It was insane to me. But I'm like, okay, well, that's because of my build, it's. I'm just not built to be an endurance runner. But I'm a glutton for punishment And, again, i don't like failing at things. So I thought, well, let's keep doing this and I'll just get better at it. I was a PT, so I knew all the things to do. I knew how to read the research.

Sariya: So I spent the next five years just deep diving on everything that I could find in terms of running and What I could do and what what I should do. So I did all the right exercises, i ate all the right foods and Did the right stretches and I wore the right orthotics and the right shoes and everything. And it kept getting worse and worse and worse, until I couldn't run a mile without. I could barely walk afterwards. I couldn't walk down stairs. It was horrible.

Sariya: And then something changed. I love to speak about leadership and minimalist mindset. I believe that is the best way to get to the elimination of the overwhelming distraction. So I started looking at the stats on injury for runners recreational runners and it's about 80% every year. Well, they were all doing what I was doing and I was injured. So I was right on target for what I was pushing for. I was just pushing for the wrong thing. So I thought what can I do if I'm doing what, what these people are doing, and 80% are injured? I need to make a big switch.

Sariya: So, in disgust, one day I went down. I got on my treadmill, i took off my shoes. I didn't do any of my stretches, i didn't do anything. I took off my shoes and I thought I'm just gonna strip this back down a complete basics, i'm not gonna stress about it. I got on my treadmill and I ran and I had no pain. For the first time in five years I had no pain and it was insane to me. That started me on a journey that was. It was incredible.

Sariya: So that was five years. I had only gotten worse at running. So within three months of This, of starting the barefoot running. I came in second in my first ever trail half marathon. Then, a couple months after that, i was recruited to go to Boston and start the Spaulding National Running Center with them, with Harvard University, and Teach others how to correct their form and do these barefoot techniques. It was, it was really crazy to me here. I had struggled and I wanted to find every patient I have I had ever treated in the last five years and be like I am so sorry I told you all the wrong things I still want to find. My former patients are listening.

Audra: Those first five years I apologize I learned Yeah, you know, what I think was so amazing about that, this, this lesson, this life lesson that you have just described to us, is that you thought you were doing all the right things, but you thought you were doing all the right things for other people. It wasn't until you stopped and listened to that very quiet little voice. It was like try something different. Maybe you're not other people, maybe you don't perform like other people do. Do it your way and see what happens. That, for me, is a very wide, very large exclamation point of the part of your story is that you figured out how to listen to yourself rather than all of the so-called experts.

Sariya: Yep, and I was among those so-called experts and I'd be the first to tell you I was so incredibly wrong. I do feel bad about the patients that I did not treat well because of that, but you're right, We do that. There's always this standard that we're chasing, this ideal, this stereotype, I think, of success that we're chasing, and it's often not one that we designed ourselves, that we sat back and said is this the path that I should be on? It's kind of bred into us in school, in our culture, our society, our families, our friends, our mentors. This is this thing that we should be chasing, whether it's a job or a degree, or even a marriage and a family, the 2.5 kids and the house and the suburbia.

Sariya: None of those things are bad. It's just. minimalism is about being really, really intentional and stepping back and saying is this the right thing for me? Is this what I should be pursuing? Like you said, being okay with stepping back and bucking maybe what everybody else is doing. Mark Twain has this wonderful quote. He says anytime I find myself on the side of the majority, it's time to pause and reflect.

Audra: Good quote, very good quote, and you're so correct in all of these demands and all of this expectation that has been set for us through tradition and not necessarily by ourselves, especially for women, because I have often spoken about there's all these competing messages that are directed towards women about what you should do and what you shouldn't do, and they're very often in conflict, and so it's exhausting and overwhelming. You're saying that it's not until you scaled everything back and just listened to what your body was trying to tell you that you found success. Like I said, that's a lesson in life, not just a lesson in running.

Sariya: Absolutely So I called the Burn the Ships exercise. So I had this whole fleet, this whole army of ships that I had built up, and it wasn't working for me. So I literally burned the whole fleet down to nothing and started over. And we can do that in any area of life and it's scary because you've put a ton of effort into this fleet of ships that you have built up. Whatever that fleet of ships is. Maybe you're an entrepreneur. I work with a lot of entrepreneurs who have 20 different businesses and 500 ideas, and all their ideas are phenomenal. But you can't be amazing at 500 ideas at once. You can't. So burning it all down and starting from the beginning when you give people permission to do that, it's amazing. You see their posture change, you see everything change and it's like a weight that's been lifted and you see them get clarity All of a sudden. When they just in their minds, stop everything and start over, they get very clear on what it is they could and should be doing.

Audra: So how did you parlay this life experience into the work that you do now?

Sariya: So it kind of just kept evolving. When I went to Boston, it was really interesting experience, because the clinic that I was going to help start wasn't even constructed. I had two directors that I reported to, and either one was out of the country and the other was on medical leave. I didn't know anyone and they put me up in a dorm that actually was an old, abandoned nunnery.

Audra: That was a lot of fun.

Sariya: Oh my gosh. Yeah, i had two truths and a lie and I always throw that one in there that I left my husband for three months to live in an abandoned nunnery and people are like, oh, that's like. Nope, that's true. So, but when I had one room, i didn't know anybody. I had a plate, a bowl, a spoon, and I had one of everything. I just had enough to live and I had one job and that was to get this clinic up and going And my running.

Sariya: So I did that, i ran and I got the clinic up and going and I got into this ultra circuit up there and it is incredible what you can accomplish when you don't have all the other distractions. So that was another lesson to me. It's like this is insane. You know, i have all this time to run and I'm building this business and I don't know what the heck is I'm doing. I'm, but I can figure it out because I have, i can focus, i can focus. I don't have all these other things on my plate. And then I got into this ultra circuit up there too, and again it just pulled back to simplicity. Like they weren't getting medals, like at the end of the races they would do potlucks instead of the big sponsorships and that kind of thing. They would tie potato chips on their ankles and they'd say there's my timing chips really crazy stuff. And it was so stripped down.

Sariya: And I worked with a lot of again in Boston a lot of high performers, Boston Marathoners, lots of doctors, a Harvard track team. You know all these people. You know Boston is a Mecca for everything. You know academia, pharmaceuticals, science, M.I.T is there. You know everything is all about achievement.

Sariya: And as I started talking to these people and getting to hear their stories and through my work, i thought there's a lot more to this and there's a much broader reach for this. So I started I was speaking a lot about barefoot running at the time and then I transitioned into speaking about the leadership principles and working with people on that. I worked with Flying Walendas doing handstands on the high wire and you really really can't lose focus doing that Overwhelming distraction or not an option. You know I've worked with Cirque du Soleil performers. I worked with entrepreneurs who had businesses that they'd kind of blown up and were just absorbing their lives and it just kind of kept snowballing and scaling from there And I just I love it. I love speaking to people about this kind of thing and seeing what they can achieve, so you stumbled into your purpose and your passion based on your own life experience.

Audra: Absolutely, you took your own life and used the blueprint because you're like, well, you know, if I am this crazy type, a high achieving person and I say that with love because I identify as that statement and it's a, it's a weird space, it is a weird headspace that you do to yourself.

Audra: I'm just so impressed that you had the clarity to go. Oh well, you know, if I'm in this headspace, maybe I'm not alone here, Maybe I've got, maybe I've got friends, maybe I've got company and maybe, just maybe, my experience might be be helpful for them to help quiet down the noise. So what's one of the exercises that you do to help calm all all of that exterior response that's out there, There's and there's so much, there's so much stimulation out there and it's very loud all the time. Yes, How do you quiet all that enough so you can hear what you're really supposed to be listening?

Sariya: to. So there are a lot of strategies that I teach and that I use, and I try to find things that work for different people and I keep it as simple as possible. So one of the biggest things for me was I took on, i do the barefoot, ultra running and all these different things, and mindset is always the biggest thing. So if our headspace is right, then there's just. I feel like there's really no limit to what we can achieve, and it's all about the headspace and you know, the body will quit long before the mind will. So I had set my sights on this race and it is. It's called the MR340, the Missouri River 340 miles, so it is the longest nonstop boat race in the world.

Sariya: And I thought, well, i want to do that. I had never been in a kayak before, but I thought let's do 340 miles in a kayak and then I could do it with partners And I thought I want to do it solo, let's do it solo. I don't know what I'm doing, but you know what I'm going to commit and then we're going to figure it out, you know. So I signed up for the race and then I thought so another thing you know with with the ultra mindset and that really is helpful is just thinking what's the next step, because the big picture can be really overwhelming. So I knew the first step to get to that end goal was just to sign up. And then it was like, oh shoot, there are a million things I need to do. What's the next step? Okay, well, i got to buy a boat. We should buy a boat. I'm going to need a boat for this thing. So that's kind of how I kept doing it. They say how to eat an elephant one bite at a time. I don't know why anybody's eating elephants, but that's what they say. So with this I don't know if you know anything about kayaking, but I thought, well, this will be great And I'll just, i'll learn to load it up on my car and I'll take it out and we'll paddle and it'll be awesome. It's not like that. It's a 17 and a half foot kayak And this thing is massive. I couldn't even lift the thing by myself, much less load it by myself. And then you take it to the river. What? when you put in and then you paddle a while, you can't. Just there's no car there when you get. So you can't. Just, it's not a one man show. You got to set up a shuttle. It's a whole operation. It was not what I had anticipated.

Sariya: So it became very obvious very quickly that I didn't have time to really train for this thing in the boat. I knew the biggest thing I needed to do was to work on my mindset and what could help me through this race. Physically, i knew I could withstand it Maybe not thrive, but I could withstand it. But mentally, how was I going to do that? So, especially when I couldn't train, there is this boat called the Reaper in the MR340. And the Reaper follows along their time points And if you don't make it to the time point before the Reaper, then you're out. You're out of the race.

Sariya: So the whole goal of the race for me became about beating the Reaper. I developed one question, and I teach I love teaching this to people is to find one question that will define how you approach a goal. So for me, my question that drove everything I did in life leading up to this race was will this help me beat the Reaper If I eat that candy bar? is that going to help me beat the Reaper If I stay up an extra two hours and binge watch Netflix instead of getting my sleep. Is that going to help me beat the Reaper? If I listen to this podcast, if I have this conversation with this negative person versus this positive person, will that help me beat the Reaper? Anything if I spend my money in this place? So everything that I did became about. Will it help me beat the Reaper? 

Audra: You this physical checkpoint as a way to train your mind and calm down all the noise and answer that one simple question Exactly And for you it's will this help me beat the Reaper? And when you introduced me to that concept when we first met, i started to think on that and thought well, what's my one question to help calm everything down? And my one question that I came up with is will this help me get me one step closer to my goal? And that helps quiet all the noise. It's suddenly very interesting how clear everything becomes when you dial it down to that very simple, singular question. So I don't know if that makes me a minimalist. Maybe it just makes me a really good and fast learner.

Sariya: I love it.

Audra: That has been a significant shift for me personally, just by that one simple question. Because, like you, i have all kinds of chaos going on in my life at any given time And it's all really, really loud. And I have this same philosophy of life of if I want to do something, i just figure out, i'll just go do it. Because the other thing I asked myself is how hard could it be? And, quite frankly, i don't usually figure out how hard it can be until I'm in the middle of it. Yes, and then I'm like well, i'm halfway here, i might as well finish, because I'm in the middle of it and there's no reason to go back now. That's typically how I live my life. I don't understand my limits ever.

Sariya: I think that's wonderful.

Audra: It never occurs to me how hard it could be until I'm in the middle of it and go, well, yeah, this is pretty darn hard, but here I am. And so how that has actually helped me focus and not panic in the middle of it because there is that moment of oh, this is really hard, maybe I finally found my limit, but that simple question has helped calm down that panic and go okay, i just need to take the next step, that's it. So is that how you have been coaching some of your clients on whatever their reaper is?

Sariya: Exactly That is. that's by far. if I have to do something quick and simple, and it's. you know, if I'm not doing it, if I do a workshop, we'll go deeper and I have more strategies. But if there's one takeaway, it is figure out what your biggest goal is in life. And I coach, i love coaching people and helping them figure out what that is. But then you form that one question. it's just a yes or no question that you can just call quickly to your mind and just guide every aspect of your life. So I spent four hours in a kayak before I did the race, and two of those were with an amazing coach and which I firmly believe in And in those two hours I learned more than I would have on my own in five years. I finished the race with four hours to spare And I was one of only 35 women solos that did it.

Audra: First of all, that's amazing. Second of all, I'm sure you found out the answer of how hard could this be in the middle of that race.

Sariya : Well, it's funny you talk about that, you know, because I will. I don't. I don't get scared, like you said, until I'm really it's too late to turn around. So we, we're, we drive up there. My husband was my crew. We get there and I'm excited the whole way. My kids decorated my car and everything for me.

Sariya: And we're driving up there And we had to stop three times because I don't know how to tie the darn boat to my car. So, like we see other people and they're doing the 340, i'm like Hey, and they're like waving at me And I'm like, oh, three, 40, i'm thumbs up And they're like, no, your boat. They're pointing at the roof and it's sliding off. I'm like, oh, shoot. So we had to pull over three times. I'm such an amateur, such an amateur. And we get there, but I'm still excited. We pull up and I see all these people who really obviously know what they're doing And I was like, oh, i shouldn't be here. What am I going to do? It's too late. Now I'm here, so you take the next step. You take the next step, put the paddle in the water another time until you're there.

Audra: Sorry, i interrupted you and you said something really profound. You paddled in the water.

Sariya: I said you just it's, it's it's ultra running mindset again. So you don't focus on the finish, because that's really overwhelming. There's science behind that, it's very overwhelming and it'll actually tear you down. You focus on taking the next step, taking the next step, taking the next step And on the three, 40, it's the same thing. The first day it's high excitement. Everybody's trying to get to that first checkpoint. It's the hardest one And there's tons of people around.

Sariya: Second day I took off and I was alone, absolutely alone, and I thought did I go the wrong way? Am I paddling back? I had no idea, but I was completely alone And I had paddled all night and all day the day before And it was very mentally. That was the most mentally challenging day, being completely alone on the river. I just said, okay, we're just going to put the paddle in the water again and again, and again. And eventually there will be people. It has to work out like that. So just keep putting the paddle in the water, just keep putting it.

Sariya: A paddle in water again and again, even when you don't see anybody around you. Even when you don't see anybody around, even when the booze attacked you Oh, my gosh, the, what A booze. Oh, if this is a whole big thing, so we call it peekabooey. So the buoys are there to guide the barges but they get tethered down So they get pulled under the water and you don't know they're there. So it's like completely still water.

Sariya: And this happened to me while I was alone And multiple times. And you're paddling And then the buoy pops up out of the water like a shark And like it comes at your boat. It's insane And you're freaking out. You're doing the squirrel in the middle of the road thing And you paddle past it and you turn around and it's gone And the water's still. It is the freakiest thing on the planet And I'm alone. I'm completely alone. I don't know what the heck's going on. Just like did I just hallucinate that? I don't know. You just keep putting your paddle in the water. Yeah, every year the buoys they've destroyed people's boats before and taken them out of the race. So that's super fun, which I found out later, like.

Audra: I said, it's a good thing that you don't know what you don't know, because then you would be terrified. If you thought about it too much, then you may not do it.

Sariya: Well, and here's the thing that could have destroyed my boat. I was all alone, i didn't know what was going to happen. But you deal with that situation in the moment And you're alone. You don't have anybody to bail you out. If you did, you might look to that person to bail you out. I'm not saying it's great to be alone, but what I'm saying is we don't give ourselves enough credit. You're scared to do something because you think, oh, this thing might happen. Well, maybe it will. But people I found are pretty darn clutch under pressure. If they're in a situation and they don't have somebody waiting to bail them out, their IQs shoot way up And they figure it out. And you keep going.

Audra: Isn't that kind of the theme For most women that I know and a lot of the women that I've met. we have this philosophy of I don't know what's coming at me, i'll figure it out. I always figure it out. I always have an idea, and some of them are actually good. I mean, that's what I usually say. I'm like you know what? I have all kinds of ideas. I'm not sure what percentage of them are good. Right, one of them will work.

Audra: Yes, and what? this race that you're telling me about and the part of you being alone. what imagery came to mind for me as you were explaining this is that maybe you were alone because you were running your own race and that everybody was behind you or hadn't even gotten off the starting blocks or was still trying to figure out where their boat was. But here you were alone, just doing it, not knowing where you were, not knowing if you were in the beginning of the pack, the end of the back, middle of the back. maybe you were lost and you had these attacking boos coming at you, but you handled it. And at the end, not only did you finish, you finished early.

Audra: So from that story I'm seeing all these correlations to how you can apply that to your life. Obviously, we know how you did that. You came this incredible business coach that helps people not just in their businesses but in their personal lives. So none of that surprises me. But what I'd like to know is what, along this journey, has surprised you, taking you off board and went Oh, i didn't expect that So much, so, so much.

Sariya: So I am a big fan of well, I am a coach, So I'm a big fan of coaching, so I have coaches and I do masterminds and I really try to surround myself with people who are going to sharpen me as well as me sharpen them. That's huge. I will never have arrived and I will never have it all figured out, so I like to go into these things very, very open. One of the things that has surprised me big time is so I was sitting in a mastermind one time and this man sitting next to me I didn't know him coming in. I knew most of the other people in the group. I didn't know him. He was a billionaire.

Sariya: As he's sitting next to me, he's talking about these things and I'm like Holy smokes, like just insane in terms of business, insane Personal life not the greatest, but insane in terms of business And I'm sitting there feeling like I shouldn't be sitting next to this guy. He, what business do I have sitting next? How can I possibly, what do I have to contribute to this guy who's a billionaire and just brilliant in business? And sitting in that room with these kinds of people? and as this happened over and over again, is the imposter syndrome. We call it imposter syndrome And that's exactly what it is. What do I have to offer this person? They're so much, they're so beyond me. What could I possibly give this person? I'm not qualified to be in this role. I'm not qualified to sit here and tell anybody anything. I'm not good enough. It all comes back to that same thing I'm not good enough.

Sariya: What I learned sitting in that room was the same words were coming out of everyone else's mouths And these are all people that you would, you would just aspire to be. You know, and they all feel the same way. That has been shocking to me. I thought that was just me. I thought, once you got to that level, you knew things and you knew. You knew things, you were confident. And they're not everybody's in the same boat Everybody. Oh, back to the Reaper. And we're puns. Everybody's in the same boat. We are, we're all in that boat trying to beat the Reaper, all of us.

Audra: When you succeed at the highest level, it doesn't all magically go away. I thought it did.

Sariya: I thought it did. And no, and that was honestly the first mastermind I was ever brought into as a mentor of mine brought me in because I was, i was putting together a three day event and I was like nobody's going to come, nobody's going to buy tickets for this thing. Why would anybody come? and you know who am I. Who am I, you know, and I already had a pretty impressive resume on paper. I look, i look really darn good, right, and he was like come, this mastermind, and it was crazy. That was the first. That was the first I had of it.

Sariya: And you know, another person in there was putting together a three day event as well And he was. He's sitting there and he's like he's really high level real estate investor, done it for decades. People seek him out And he's like nobody's going to come to this event. I don't even know if I want to put it on. I'm like, oh my gosh, it's like listening to me and this guy, everybody wants to come to this guy's event. He's going to make hundreds of thousands of dollars and he has so much to offer. That was a shock to me. But so, if anybody out there is listening to this podcast, imposter syndrome is not only real. Unless you are completely delusional, you will experience it at some point. It's only those people who are delusional and think they know everything and they've arrived, and I honestly have yet to meet someone like that, who really thinks that you are not alone, you're in, really everybody is in your company.

Audra: So what do you think the antidote to that is?

Sariya: Oh, i think the antidote is understanding your area of gifting, and that's another thing I love to coach people on. There's not one person on this planet. I'm a Christian and that's where I come from. My faith is big to me and I truly believe that, whether you believe in God or not, everyone I hope everyone would agree that everyone has an area of gifting, everyone. Some are kind of more obvious than others, some are more subtle and quiet. Everyone's got one.

Sariya: So it's when you start trying to shove yourself into an area that you aren't gifted and you don't belong, that's when things start going sideways. So I talk a lot about the 80-20 principle. So a lot of us focus on trying to fix the things that we're not good at, trying to get better at the things that we're not good at, and sometimes that's necessary. But what I found often in business, athletics, everything else if we focus 80% of our efforts on the 20% that we are amazing at, our outputs just skyrocket. If we just outsource or delegate or eliminate that's my favorite eliminate the things that we don't need. I had worked with an entrepreneur and he had a small business, but he was pulling in $100,000 a month, which is phenomenal, right, but he was working himself into the ground. He had a small army of contractors and he had two full-time employees who really weren't pulling their weight, basically not through any fault of their own. He had not set them up really well for success. This guy. What he had was he had marketing down to a science. He had this one area of his business where he was so stinking good but he wanted more. He wanted to grow. So he started diving into these other areas and expending a ton of time, effort, energy, resources in all these other areas and they weren't paying off. He was like this needs to get better and this needs to get better. I said what if we stop? What if we stop with all that? I helped him look at where all of his sales were coming from. We tracked the genesis of every single sale and it all boiled down to his marketing and in that source I said if we focus on this one spot and forget all the rest? So his sales went from 100,000 a month to 500,000 a month. 80% of that was profit, back to the 80, 20, it's everywhere And he was able to scale back to 20 hours a week and complete flexibility of his time and his schedule and it just by focusing on that area where he had it down, and forgetting the rest. I mean, maybe if he'd put enough effort in the right people in that other spot, but he didn't need to.

Sariya: So you know, it's kind of the same with me. I'm not so great at math. I don't do math. I have a calculator on my phone. It's super handy, that's wonderful.

Sariya: I know where I'm strong and that's Imposter syndrome is still very much with me, but I'm aware of it. But when I focus where I'm good and I know where I'm not, that's where I can overcome it. That's where I say, yeah, i know I have something contribute here and I'm using my purpose and my area of gifting to help others. And it's very obvious and things flow so much easier when I stop fighting it and stop saying, oh, these things aren't Even replies to relationships.

Sariya: You know, you can look at relationships and say, okay, well, i know I'm not against therapy at all, but I know couples who spent years in therapy and they're like, oh, we just got to fix this thing, we got to fix this thing.

Sariya: I had a couple and I talked with them and I said, well, what if you just focus When you guys really happy when you guys just What do you love? And they were like well, we love what we do with this thing together. We're just, you know, we're goofy and we're joking and we just feel really close. They said what if you forget about all this other stuff, all of it, all these problems that you're having, not to ignore them, but just focus. Shift your focus to these things where you feel really connected and really great. Oddly enough, those other things kind of solve themselves when they did that. So it applies to everything focusing on those areas where you are strong and good and gifted and the things that are working, and really optimize and maximize those and give yourself permission to let the rest go, or at least not focus on it for a while.

Audra: And how do you use those gifts in new and innovative ways and outside the comfort zone? Because you've made a career of pushing yourself outside your comfort zone And I have found, especially in the last three years, that all the magic happens just right outside your comfort zone. You don't even have to go far, it just right outside of it all of a sudden just the only way to describe it is magic. So what do you think about that of using the gifts in a way that you haven't done before.

Sariya: Absolutely, i could not agree with you more. I love the way you just described that. I think you know just outside the end of your comfort zone is magic. I think that's beautiful and I think it's completely, completely fitting. I was a clinical PT for 15 years and it's not a bad thing, but I always felt like it wasn't quite where I belonged. You know it wasn't. There was something else I was supposed to do, if that makes sense, yeah, it's scary. The second I started comfort zones kill progress. They just do. They just do. So I think, even if you do small challenges. I loved him, ferris, so he has these comfort zone challenges So he'll talk about if you're out in public, you have to get somebody's phone number.

Sariya: You don't need to call that person, it doesn't even matter if it's, you can tell that person. You know. You don't even have to give me a real phone number. I just I'd like to get your number and whatever you know, just things like that Comfort zone challenges. He even talks about lying down in a line at a restaurant on the floor.

Sariya: Just, i'm not not recommending that, but just little things each day to push yourself out of your comfort zone. If it's something you'd say I would never do. That. So my, my LLC actually call fall the white rabbit, because it kind of signifies that to me. So you've got Alice sitting there, very prim and proper, doing what she's supposed to do, and and then this white rabbit goes running by and she's so intrigued by that white rabbit And she has two choices She can sit there and she can do what she's supposed to, or she can fall that rabbit and see, see where the rabbit hole goes. I think that's I think that's a good thing is is following that white rabbit within reason. Again, if it, if it meets your criteria and I have strategies that I love to teach people to filter, filter those questions to see if that is a white rabbit that you should chase or if that's a white rabbit that's going to lead you to a prison in Taiwan or something you know.

Audra: Yeah, let's not do that, and there's one more. One more comment on comfort zones is because I I actually learned something in the last week or two and it came from the most unexpected place And it came from my 22 year old daughter. And here's the story, and it's and I'll make it. I'll make it quick. I've told many people that my daughter is getting married and I had been putting off going and finding my dress And I just the whole process of shopping is just not fun for me. It's just I don't enjoy shopping. I don't. I'd rather order it online and call it a day.

Audra: So I had to go shopping and made sure that I took my daughter and her maid of honor, because I had just one goal I do not want to look like a matronly, frumpy mother of the bride. I don't. I want to look amazing. I, i want to look like that. People say she's the mom. That's why I wanted to look. I also wanted this.

Audra: I have this idea that my husband's, like you know what? you're more beautiful today than you were when I married you 28 years ago, whatever the case may be. So I took her. I took them both with me and I was. I was showing them all these dresses and they said no, i'm like well, that I mean, and they were all, i would say, a little bit more prim than than I really wanted. But that's where I, unfortunately, that's where I see myself, which is insane, but that's why I see myself. These girls picked out this dress, that is, this slinky, form fitting dress. that's a little it's it's. It shows a little cleavage, little, not a lot, just a little respectable amount, and I was like respectable cleavage.

Audra: And they're like just try it on This, this is what you need to wear. I'm like, okay, and I put it on in the dressing room and I'm like, huh, hmm, that's interesting. I walk out and there the dressing room was was packed. I walked out, everyone that was in the dressing room stopped and looked at me. One woman even walked up to me and said your butt looks fantastic in that dress.

Sariya: Yes.

Audra: And I was like, really, i was like girls. I guess this is the dress, And the whole point of this story is that one. I was willing to step outside my comfort zone and have somebody pick this for me because they saw me as something different than I saw myself, and that was a huge lesson for me. That, and back to that imposter syndrome, is that? who do you think you are wearing that slinky dress? Right, you know? what they thought is that, mom, you're beautiful, you've worked really hard, you're in the gym all the time. This is how we see you, and so that was a huge, huge lesson for me. That how I think I am may be way less than how the other people around you think I think that's.

Sariya: I love that. I think that's most of us, and one of the things that one of the things that I do is and this was something that, again, a mentor had taught me to do which I teach other people to do is to, if you're not sure where your area of gifting is, to reach out to 15 different people and they should be from all different walks, people who've known you forever, people who are family, friends, coworkers, people who haven't known you very long at all, and ask them what am I good at? Where do I have value? What do you think? And see what they say, and it could be shocking. So I've done that And on my vision board in my office, i have on the wall quotes from what people have said about me and things that helped guide me to what I'm doing, to remind me how other people are seeing me, who have worked with me, who have been around me, who have known me for you know, in different scenarios, and they all say the same things, which is interesting, and I've found this with we've done this with many people now and I've found this with everybody.

Sariya: People say pretty much the same thing. So that's a nice exercise to do is to ask people those things And people will be. you know. make sure it's people who are going to be honest with you. You don't need. you don't need the BS to. that's not helpful.

Audra: You don't need the fluff.

Sariya: Exactly, exactly.

Audra: This has been an amazing conversation. I promised you I would only take an hour of your time because I know that you are crazy busy, so I want to step back from the mic just a moment and give you 30 seconds to speak directly to the audience with whatever you'd like to say Awesome.

Sariya: Well, yeah, thank you so much for everything. I love talking. I could talk to you all day If anyone wants to reach out to me and discuss anything. You know I'm a keynote speaker, strategist coach. You can find me at booking at sariasabicom. You could definitely reach out to me if there's any questions that you have about anything you heard today. I am also writing a book this year, so that will be coming out And I would love to get anybody on the list for that as well. My mission is to help as many people as I can, and I am so excited to be part of this community. Thank you.

Audra:  Thank you so much for being here, thank you for agreeing to be vulnerable and emotionally naked in front of everybody, and thank you for the work that you do. I am thrilled that world changers are starting to figure out who each other are, and let's band together and let's do it.

Sariya: Absolutely Thank you for the work that you do. It's awesome.

Audra: I'm trying to give voice to as many women that will stand still long enough for me to put a microphone in front of them.

Sariya: I love it.

Audra: Thank you for being willing to do that, and I want to thank all of you for being here, and we'll see you again next time.