PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
PowerLiving with Kimberlee Langford
Healing the High Performer: Self-Mastery, Leadership, and Sustainable Impact
What if your best performance isn’t about doing more, but about doing what actually aligns with who you are? Kimberleesits down with executive performance strategist and two-time TEDx speaker Jennifer Watson to unpack how high achievers can lead powerfully without burning out—and why the hardest work is often the inner work. From athletics to clinical practice to entrepreneurship, Jennifer maps the hidden cost of people-pleasing and perfectionism, then lays out a saner path: self-mastery, clear intent, and communication that lands.
We dig into the difference between performing for applause and performing for impact, and why intent can turn a hard conversation into a clean one. Jennifer shares how depression can cling to achievement when worth is tethered to results—and how somatic tools, cognitive remapping, and consistent accountability help the body learn a new baseline. We also explore why transforming yourself precedes transforming culture, how regulated leaders co-regulate rooms, and practical ways to reset your operating system: shorter focus cycles, honest boundaries, steadier asks, and recovery by design.
You’ll hear three stubborn myths that quietly sabotage leaders—“more hours equals better results,” “harder work means faster success,” and “performance equals worth”—and how to break each one. Expect tangible takeaways for healthcare and mission-driven professionals, plus a powerful anchor question: What do you want to be known for? Use it to reframe your day, your pace, and your legacy. If you’re ready to trade exhaustion for alignment and make your impact with a calmer nervous system and a clearer voice, this conversation will meet you where you are—and nudge you forward.
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Power Living with Kimberly Langford, where inspiration meets empowerment. Kimberly is a nurse executive, leadership coach, Reiki Master, and your guide on this journey to whole person wellness.
SPEAKER_01:Hey, hey, friends, it's Kimberly here, and I am super jazzed to have Jennifer Watson on the podcast today. Jennifer comes to us uh from South Carolina. She used to be from Colorado, but she is uh TEDx speaker two times, if I if I remember right. She is a uh a top executive performance strategist. And her claim to fame is helping people embrace new uh and time tested, I suppose, but philosophies to help uh improve their performance. I don't know who is not into improved performance, but yeah, welcome, Jennifer. I'm so glad to be able to share some time with you.
SPEAKER_00:Oh man, I'm so excited to be here, Kimberly. I love talking about this stuff and just ways that people really giving themselves to the world, really leading something they believe in. But how do we do it better? How do we do it where we feel well in the process? I don't think you have to sacrifice one for the other. And I do believe there's a new way of looking how to do it that is much more powerful, especially in the world we live in now, that's so accelerated and we don't have to be lost in the noise. So I'm excited to be here and hopefully share some goodies to you guys.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, yay! Well, gosh, why don't we start, if you wouldn't mind, uh sharing with us a little bit about your journey? How did you come from we were talking about that a little bit right before uh we started recording, but um a little bit about the journey to how did you find yourself to be at this at this place where you're teaching, you're really sharing wisdom with others. How do I perform better? Um, how did you get to that space?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, I've always been one, a high performer. I've always wanted to, whatever I was working on personally, you know, as a student, as an athlete, I was a two-time All-American at Wisconsin Madison, you know, to become a business owner, to becoming a healer, a physical therapist, to now what I do as a performance strategist and speaker, I've always been a person that wants to see how high I can go as a human being. How can I get to that next level to do whatever I'm doing? And that includes an impact. And a lot of people that are drawn to work with me are at that space, like, you know, going to that next level of greatness, whatever that looks like for them. But for me, even more than being a high performer, one of my honestly can really, if I'm totally vulnerable about this, one of my greatest fears, even as a kid, was what will I be known for? And what I mean is when I leave this earth, because even as a kid, I was in this like, what do I want to be known for that I impacted the world for? That I gave to a person to a group of people that when I leave, I can say, that was my calling. That was my calling to impact in that way. My biggest fear is that when I was younger, and still I got some of this stuff. Like, am I doing the right thing? Am I going down the right path to do the impact I desired? And the reason why I bring that up with performance is because I was afraid of that and I wasn't sure if my way was the right way, because a lot of times it was different than most people. I started just doing things for doing sake to perform well. And I was just kind of circling the drain and just again performing well, but I felt like it wasn't streamlined into something that was aligned with me. I was people pleasing, I was perfection, perfecting things for other people's accolades. So performance became this kind of you know, way to put a little bit of a band-aid on not understanding what my worth was or more importantly, what my value was to be for the world. And I just didn't get it. And it got to the point where I was performing for performing sake, but not knowing where I was impacting. And I had to finally sit back and go, one, I feel like junk. Okay, I'm a healthcare provider. That was my first profession.
SPEAKER_01:You guys I'm not healthy.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And I went from being, you know, a track athlete, very fit, obviously, you guys know from physical therapy to doing more integrative work, nutrition, you know, cognitive remapping, mind, body, soul work, and my practice. And I'm sitting there tanking, like in my practice. And I'm am I impacting the way I want to? One. And if I am, why did I feel so crummy doing it? Why is performing? And that's what made me step back and it started my whole journey with not only changing the way within which I was impacting and the way within which I was connecting with my clients, my patients, my team, but looking at performance differently. And when I started unwinding how performance could be done in a healthier way, and not the way I was doing it for accolades or just doing it because I just didn't know what else to do, but really settle in and know what performance was about. One, number two, what did I really want to do? What was my blueprint that I wanted to leave on the world? And thus I could make the blueprint for my business. And when I started looking at both those things, rewiring what performance truly is in a more higher space, then rewiring what do I really want to do to give impact in this world? And by the way, you guys have had seven lives like a cat. Every few years I evolve to how I want to impact at a higher level, but it's still aligned, it still feels my confidence. And that journey has allowed me to now do what I do of helping other high-performing leaders first and foremost heal old patterns, old stories or behaviors, the internal psychology that's limiting what they want to impact, to how to perform well in a place that feels vital and not for performance sake, but for impact sake. And third, how do you influence at a higher level by articulating both verbal and nonverbal spaces in any environment, whether it's a pleasant environment or not pleasant environment? And I truly believe you guys, when you can move through those spaces I just mentioned, performance, leadership, and impact get super, super easy.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Well, I think uh what I'm hearing is really that that if you want to become a high-level performer in whatever your industry is, or even just in your personal life, right? It really is an inside job.
SPEAKER_00:Sure, for sure. And you know, there's more, you know, I'm gonna say leadership, you know, everybody has their different definition, and I will say this leadership at its highest level is high-level self-mastery.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:High-level aware of where your literature is at and really refining, and then getting the right tools often requires often consulting or coaching. We can't always see everything when we're on the inside of the bottle, but high, high level of self-awareness and high, high level of self-mastery. And when you do that, and when you often get help with that, everything on the outside gets really easy because you're perceiving things better. You're perceiving things from a healthier space, you're able to articulate from a healthier space because you're healthier, mind, body, soul, you're able to impact with something that feels aligned instead of listening to everybody else, because trust me, you're gonna be influenced by things you don't want to do if you're not internally grounded in what you believe is good, true, and right and what is healthy for you. So when you start with the internal psychology of the mind and the body, the external psychology and the leadership and the performance with your team and articulating well your message and how you can create impact gets very, very easy. So, yes, no matter who works with me, but honestly, it's not about who works with me. For any good leader, whether I work with you or not, it's really understanding what's going on here. What do we still need to refine so you can show up as a healed leader and articulate and perform, not for performance trade sake, but for your impact, for the people you want to lead, because they need your best, best self. That's and I'll just say that bottom line, they need that from a cellular level. And the cellular level is you going in cellularly to actually move it through and whatever that looks like in support, physical, mentally, emotional, spiritual, and aligning accordingly.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it seems to me like uh another foundational principle, if you will, is really getting crystal clear on to your point. What is your purpose? When you mention your intent, what is your intent? I really uh from my point of view, I think everything does start with intent because you can do all the things wrong, but with the right intent, and you you you there's a good chance you're gonna come out okay, but you can do everything right and have the wrong intent and have a disaster.
SPEAKER_00:That's where the internal psychology piece comes to, you guys. Sometimes it's not always having to have a coach or did you do sometimes just asking the most powerful questions. Like if you're gonna go online and rip on someone in a nice way, what is your intent? You know, is it for good or not? Like you could say this with any level. And if we pause, and that brings up a really another valid point, Kimberly. Like a lot of the stuff I work on with clients, whatever framework I'm using, whether I'm having you speak in a more complex, layered, tough conversation, or you're just trying to make a decision about whether you should do something or not, it's these subtle questions that you're asking too, these powerful questions that if you pause for two or three minutes, it can take you from making a really bad mistake or take you into a space that's more aligned with goodness and truth. Now, I want to be very clear, it doesn't mean that you're not gonna do something aligned and it's gonna end up being a shizzy show and so it's gonna be rejected. That's not what I mean. But you're gonna have a lot less emotional turmoil from your side when you choose things that are aligned with you, when you choose things that are for the good for everybody involved, then you articulate in a certain way, whether it's reacted to in a good way or bad way to your team, to your client, to social media, is then on them. If you can at least sleep at night knowing you did your thing to move through the space that you needed to move through to hire yourself to a higher place, speak in a way and project in a way and decide in a way that's from that space of goodness, then you can go to bed at night knowing you did a good job, no matter how it's perceived or not. So at the end of the day, that still goes back to the internal psychology and this heel space that people need to be. And then this is where performance, and we talk about that, what that actually looks like in a leadership role, because leadership first starts with self-mastery, articulating and influencing, then it starts with performance of about getting you and others to do the same.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, it's interesting because in some of your some of your talks, you know, I've heard you talk a lot about, and you've mentioned it here a lot about the healing and uh about depression. And and a lot of times people don't, people on the outside, uh, they look at folks who are high high achievers, right? And I rem I still remember being at lunch with a group and we were talking to one of the leaders there, and one of the gals at the table said, Oh, you're so lucky, right? So people look at high people who are high performing and they just think they just came out of the womb being this really high performing magical person. But uh oftentimes to your point, uh, you know, people progress and sweat. And and to your point, people pleasing is a big part of that. How do I, how do I, you know, look for that metric and outshine? And then to your point, we wake up one day and we realize that we are not healthy and we're not happy. And what the heck have I been, you know, working so hard for? So if you wouldn't mind, share a little bit about free for you. What was the in what was that shift? What was that internal uh where was that aha moment? And where do you typically find as you as you work with with with folks? What do you find as that common thread where people go, uh, I really I have this, I want this, but oh yeah. What what was that shift for you?
SPEAKER_00:You know, that's such a you know, such a great question. There's a lot of different ways we can go with this, but I'm gonna say this to all of you that are high performers that have depression anxiety, and you're just performing, you're doing well, and you're just getting tanked, and you're like, why do I have depression first? Or walked over, right? They're passed up for a promotion, or yeah. And you're working hard. And a lot of times, you know, we have shame around that we're upset that we worked hard and we didn't get acknowledged and got promoted, or we worked hard and we did win, like the athletes, and they're solving depression. A lot of reasons, you guys, whatever that case is, whether you just didn't get the promotion, you worked your butt off, or you worked your butt off, like in sports used to get that, and I did perform well and I still had depression and anxiety. A lot of this comes from you guys, what we just said at the beginning, it has a lot to do with better questions and sometimes getting a coach of what performance means to you. Because if performance means to you getting accolades, if performance means to you that you look like your number one all the time, if performance to you means love because you're getting acknowledged and attention. That was my thing, you guys. That's where my depression came from. I couldn't get enough right, I couldn't perform enough medals and I still felt unworthy. I was a dopamine hit to offset that I felt I wasn't loved. I wasn't worthy. It's a family dynamic I had when I was a kid. And by the way, I had a beautiful family, but just the ways that I went through some things, I felt like I had to perform to be loved. I felt like I had to perform to get acknowledged and seen, and that perpetuated work for a while until it didn't. And I finally couldn't do enough right and even win enough to not have that depression. So in many ways, as an athlete, I was very mentally tough getting up and winning, but on the other side, flip side is that. And then you have the others too that work really hard, don't get the promotion. Again, what is really triggering you? Is it because you're not getting the acknowledgement that you feel like you're not being seen for your value? Or is it that you feel that it's really about worth? Is it about when I'm not seen, I don't feel loved? Is it really about the promotion? So it's really digging deeper, you guys. On both of those situations, I'm gonna encourage all of you. Sometimes coaching is necessary to kind of not only pull out some things you're not seeing, get frameworks to rewire you to have a different relationship with performance, but just by asking a question first and foremost with both those instances, that's where I started. You're asking for the inflection point. It's like, this isn't normal that I am winning and I'm depressed. This isn't normal that I work my butt off and I'm getting so triggered and spiraling because I didn't get the promotion. I mean, that happens. Why? What is what does this mean? So when you start asking the question first and foremost, you'll find the ooh. And then what you can do is start healing your relationship performance where it's more about I'm here to serve at my highest capacity, everyone here, whether I win or whether I get the promotion or not. And guess what happens? You ultimately end up winning and ultimately end up getting the promotion when you start changing your internal psychology to performance. That's the biggest thing, you guys. Start with the big question. They feel yucky at first. You might be like, ooh, it's because of worth. I thought I was really confident. Like you have to journal with again. Sometimes you're gonna need frameworks because you've been doing it so long and patterning that you might need that, but still just pausing long enough to ask that question and sitting with the answer, even if it's hard, because that guess what, you guys, neuropsychology. If you don't run from the answer, and even if it's hard to hear why you're getting triggered in both of those cases, the body is starting to see that it's safe to process it and look at it differently. Run away, and the cycle continues. The second point I'm gonna make with this, everyone, is you know, on top of I had to change my relationship with performance, and that's why I had depression. You guys really listen to that and getting a powerful question. You can find out the real answer there. It's not really about them, it's about you, and that's a powerful thing. Number two, which I'm gonna really say, everyone, you know, I had to look at, I held on to depression for a while too. You guys, did you hear that? I held on to it. It's what I knew to deal with my lack of joy with what I was performing and what I was how I was contributing. So I started actually almost staying in depression. And you guys, people get addicted, air quo. I mean, to healing, to healing, because it's still a space where depression was connected to performance, and it's all my body. You guys listen, it's all my body new. So remember, your body only knows what's safe by what it knows is sane. Okay. So I realized that, okay, I'm ready to change my relationship to performance and lead where I'm not people pleasing, where I'm not trying to get accolades, but I realized I had to do deep neural remote rewiring, somatic work. You guys can get into what that is, to rewire my body to see it's safe not to be depressed anymore. It's safe not to care that my boss hired me to the new position or I won that race or not. You guys, I've spoken on stages that I've knocked out of the park and other stages went flop. And because of my new relationship. And they're still here. Yes, and because of my new relationship performance, I was able to let that go and take the lessons and not pummel myself because I also learned that I was already healed instead of going back to, oh, I'm gonna get depressed. I was pulling back sometimes into my natural reaction where I go into depression and a pause. I'm like, wait a minute, that says you guys, you see what I'm saying here. This is like twofold on what I'm saying on performance and leading yourself better. Yeah. Performance means to you, and then you got to decide from that space what are you holding on to that's a crutch to keep you there. For me, it was depression, and I had to get rid of addictive healing and actually do the real healing and this make um allow my system to believe it could not be depressed and healthy, to believe it could perform without getting accolades. And you guys, it was so freeing. And guess what happened as a healed leader? I could actually lead more from an anchored, calm space. I could articulate with my team more, I could actually expect something from them without grabbing onto the outcomes. I could actually articulate in a way that was more powerful because that wasn't wishy-wash in the background. It comes out in your speech, you guys, if you're wishy-wash. Absolutely. Ultimately, at the end of the day, you guys, it clears out the noise. You can get really grounded on your blueprint of the impact you really want to make. And then when crap comes to you, you're so anchored in, you're so anchored in who you are and why you want it. Nothing bothers you long term. Did you mean not short term? We all get long term, you get it. You move back and get out of depression, use some tools. I use tools with clients all the time, you guys, to shift your state when you get triggered from old patterns, old ways of looking at performing and leading. I get them every day, guys. You're a high performer leading a cause, problems every day that are trigger old patterns. But if you understand what's happening, you could shift it quickly. You guys, your body wants to serve you. It has no ulterior motives. So take these two points I've made around performance. It's gonna change your life on how you show up as a leader, but ultimately you can do this in so many areas of your life. It's gonna change you to a higher level of self-mastery, period.
SPEAKER_01:Relationships on well, you know, and it's interesting because you make it sound really easy, right? And I think a lot of us have gone through doing that in our work, and you're right, it's not easy and it's not a short process for sure. And, you know, I do think sometimes that work, matter of fact, I was talking with a colleague the other day, and I said, you know, your brain is not a place that you want to go into by yourself. So don't go, don't go in alone. And I think that's where, you know, I think the coaching, a coaching paradigm, having a qualified coach, not just somebody with a quick, you know, uh bubblegum certificate, right? Got it out of a bubblegum machine, somebody who's been there, who's done the work and actually has the skills to bring forward. It can make such a difference between decades of you trying to figure out on your own, and when you have that trusted colleague, uh, a coach who can reflect back and maybe look from a place of positive regard, right? Challenge some of those assumptions that you see. That's what I'm saying, too.
SPEAKER_00:You guys, most of you on here maybe had wellness, personal leadership, development. Most people I work with have done the work. But what she just said is true is is there's a really beautiful way and a respectful array of challenging you, of mirroring what you're saying that is not allowing you to squeeze out of it. And that's a beautiful thing. One, number two, you're not always you thinking everything. You guys, I'm a healthcare provider, I've been in business for 17 plus years. I still have a wellness coach, I still have a business coach. You can't say everything when you're on set of the bottom. And then the third place, I'll say, you guys, it's really easy to slide out of committing to a new behavior, a new pattern when it's just you and you. Because all you're doing is just you and you. So it changes the psychology in the brain that I have to show up and talk to Kimberly, whether I'm this or not. And then the final piece, I'm gonna say this, you guys, when you're doing this type of work, is it's never over. We're always involving in what she just said. It's actually really easy, but it's also really hard. And the hard part is man, the emotional navigation, the rewiring that once you put in the simple steps, the hard part is allowing the body to rewire. Think of like getting ready for a marathon. You guys always like to bring physical examples, like you're getting ready for a marathon, so you're ready beyond that line, you run 26.2 miles in three months, four months, and you start a plan, and it does not feel good, you guys. You know this. Anyone that's ever done anything physically challenging, but you believe that if you keep rewiring and optimizing your cardiovascular and your muscular strength, you will be ready. You guys, I'm gonna say the same thing with the mental, emotional, and internal psychology of self-mastery. It is simple steps, a hundred percent, but it's not easy to do on your own when you go through absolutely challenged to go to that next level, just like your body does. You guys, I've been coached my entire life and was an athlete for so long, and I always wondered, I was always stupefied once I got out of college, like, why do we not have coaches continuing even when we get into the real world? We're always learning. And as we all know, I mean, Tony Robbins around, but we just now, in the last probably 10 years, it's just coaching is taken off because people understand that the psychology behind that. It's simple stuff, but it's hard to navigate this when your body alone, when your body wants to go back to what it knows. Your nervous system will fight you every day of the week in twice on Sunday for its old same self. It is your job to get on the mat every day in super self-awareness, to super self-mastery with someone to come alongside you that loves you enough to challenge you, that loves you enough to allow you to see it differently, and allows you enough or loves you enough to understand that hey, consistency is key, accountability is key. And I'm gonna tell you right now, oh yeah, no matter how I know Kimberly, I would not be where I'm at today in my relationships, my money, my business, and for sure my impact if I didn't have the mint people.
SPEAKER_01:Amen to that. There's a saying that comes to mind as I'm listening to you, as above, so below, right? I often think about you know, the patients, a home health nurse, I did that for many years, and I would tell these folks when the PT comes, make sure you do because and you they never do it on their own, right? And it's always so hard when the PT comes. But when PT comes, they get so much more out of their exercise because you work harder for the PT. It's the same thing, especially initially, and I think too, because sometimes I think we know ourselves and it sounds kind of corny, but sometimes we really don't know ourselves as well. Maybe we know on the inside things that we keep quiet from the world, but there's a real aha moment when you you think you know yourself, but then you hear back some from people that you know, love, and trust you, and that maybe a little further upon the path that can reflect back to you what they're seeing from what you're putting out.
SPEAKER_00:Well, there's a difference between knowing thyself and knowing thyself. And what I mean is, you guys, I can give Kimberly my elevator pitch. In fact, I kind of did that right before we got on. What I do, but if we start talking more, then she's like, but who are you? I mean, that's where she was going. That's what we're talking about, knowing thyself, you guys. We're not talking about what you do.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, and isn't it liberating? Yes, I mean when you really know and it's congruent with what other people know, it's the same.
SPEAKER_00:Yes, and people tell you if you look at frequency, the highest thing to trust from a person is guess what? Their highest truth. So when they're acting who they really are, whether someone is conscious of it or not, you are drawn to them. And guess how much does that help when we're in conversations politically, religiously, maybe financially, in a conversation where we differ, and a person is standing in their truth, shaky or not, articulating with kindness, and the other person's doing the same. When we're doing that, you guys, we're in our highest truth. Oh, yeah. Do you think that this is a skill, you guys? I teach how to stay in your truth. And people are like, I stay in my truth. Do you? Are you honest and truthful with people micro level and macro level? I'm saying from your kid to who you work with. This is what I'm talking about, internal mastery, you guys. I'm not just talking about the generic fluff stuff that we talk about in front of people they maybe never see again. Like, what are you doing at a cellular level to get to a higher level? Do you guys hear that? What are you doing at a cellular level to get to that higher level? And when you're just the small little tweaks, you guys, it's just like the ship when you when you shift the the direction of the ship just a little bit, like one degree. Totally change the the end of another country, right? So I will say that, everyone. You know, even if you feel like you're pretty mentally well, your resilient performance is pretty good, ask the question first. We just talked about that. Get super honest, you guys. Pause enough for your brain to give you an answer. It always knows what's best for you. The body does too, and allow some of the yuck to come. And then you'll be surprised the next steps that'll be given to you, whether it is a coach, whether it be I need to stay in boundaries with my truth, whether I need to say this shaky, but I'm gonna go to my colleague and tell her that this was not something that is agreeable with me. You know, whatever it is, you can't I might mess it up, but it's gonna be okay. Right. You guys, you're never by the way, I think this goes without saying, but I'm gonna say it because I think all of you high performance need to hear it. I don't care if you're practicing to get better in tough conversations or you're going out to get better at a 5K race, you're never gonna have a good day every day. You're probably gonna screw it up, you're probably gonna have a bad race, you're probably gonna have a bad conversation. You guys, I teach speaking and how to influence well, and I still screw it up. Ask my family. You know, but my point is we're humbly learning, but when you're willing to open the door of self-mastery at a much deeper level, you guys, it's required of you. We're in a day and age that your general elevator pitch is not gonna work and they want something deeper from you. We're in a day and age where there's things are coming at us faster than ever, and you gotta know how to get this stuff, reverse it, and shift it out quickly so you can show up more powerfully. Things are coming at us, more problems than ever. And if you don't know how to move them through and get back here, and then impact in your strategy, in your words, and who you have on your team and the community around you, it's game over or game on. It depends on where you're where you're willing to go. And this is the easy stuff, you guys, it's the simple stuff, but the hard work is actually doing it, right?
SPEAKER_01:But what about, you know, as as somebody who influences leaders across industries, across the country? What would you when we talk about, you know, because it's one thing to work on yourself as a leader, it's a totally it, it's a it's a step up when you go to scaling that transformation across a team. Yes, right. So let me if if it's a valid question, what do you think is harder? Is it harder to transform yourself as a leader, or is it really shifting the culture of an organization?
SPEAKER_00:How it's absolutely harder to transform yourself, but that's also should be empowering you guys.
SPEAKER_01:It should be a prerequisite as well, right?
SPEAKER_00:I I've worked with teams and I've worked one-on-one leaders and teens, and you guys, it's the trickle-down effect. Everything I do with the team when I we have the leader actually in this more healed, stable state gets so much easier. Yeah, to reverse engineer and start with the team. You guys, I usually always start with the individual and and go to team because when you do that, everything unconsciously is already starting to permeate them. You guys, as we know, we learn more by watching and hearing than we do by someone telling us. Absolutely. And they also, you guys, research shows this that as human beings, when we're in the same room together, we start mirroring each other unconsciously, whether it be in words, whether it be in our behavior, whether it be how we posture ourselves. You guys, I teach and I'm I'm actually certified in neurolinguistic processing. And we talk about words and posturing and tone, unconsciously open safety in a room, optimize the inteen culture and ability to get on the That and have honest conversations, get through problem solving. Like this is all real. So my point is when I work with you individual leaders on some of these things we're talking about: articulation, healing self, catching triggers, reacting or acting, not reacting accordingly, they feel it, they intake it whether they realize it or not. So when you start putting them into their own self-mastery, they get it before they get it, if that makes sense, everybody.
SPEAKER_01:That's why they say, right? The fish stinks from the head.
SPEAKER_00:All right, yeah. So to me, it's empowering you guys because 100 people versus one person, when you do one person and then you can influence masses, you guys, you know, whether you believe in the Bible or not, you know, I will say Jesus probably showed to be one of the best leaders. I'm just gonna say that. Why? Because he knew how to individually, he had individual conversations all the time to help people rewire. He did it with his 12 disciples, and guess what they did? Yeah to the masses that started changing things, you guys. And I mean this, you guys, and again, whether you believe it's just a you know fictional story or non-fiction, it's a great book of leadership of how you start with psychology of self and refining people one-on-one, and then having those 12 people go out then with their new articulated, healed self. And look what happened, you guys. The rest is history. So understand, understand of nothing from this. No matter if it's performance you're struggling with, leading, communicating better. Jennifer, I do think I have a problem. I kind of have it figured out, but I'm not fully sure. Like, just sit with it, reach out to me if you have more questions, if you need more support. We're here to keep you healthy, maintain health, heal thyself so you can help others heal. Because when we do that, it doesn't matter what you lead everyone, you actually move into a space of transformation. You move into a space that you're supposed to be in while you're here on this limited time on earth. It's a long time or not, we're here for limited time, you guys. It's gonna run out.
SPEAKER_01:It's time to I love what you said too, because there is a place where once you've done that inner work, it's you don't even have to, is it's not something you have to push. You do magnetize the right you're on that frequency mentioned frequency before earlier. So let me ask you this question. What would you say from your work with people across industries, um, maybe especially in healthcare, wink wink, but what do you see as some of the most common myths about uh performance or leadership or success? What are some of those false paradigms that sometimes people tend to cling to that maybe might not serve them?
SPEAKER_00:Well, you know, it's interesting. It's often not coming always from the leader outwardly, but it's an internal psychology that you're bleeding. You know, we can blame you know our business or leaders, like they're expecting this for performance, but often it comes from art, what is a relationship with performance. And it's usually this it's what we believe about performance. The common myth is I have to break my back every day, work 12 hours versus their six to put a little feather in my cap and say that I'm performing better than you. Which acts by the way, healthcare providers, you probably all know this, but I'm gonna say it our body and brain don't perform well working 12 hours straight. Amen. Yeah, throughout the day, physically, emotionally, spiritually, go into that. I teach a whole course on flow state performance, but again, that is one myth. We don't have to go into all the ways to change that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, we can talk about that around pizza and root beer, sister.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. Yeah, but there I you know, I actually was on another podcast where we just talked about flow state performance and tools to kind of move into that. That's one of them. So, you guys, that's a huge myth that we have to work 12 hours today the rest of our life to be good at what we want and do the impact. That is absolutely not that's a revenue device. That's a device to think part of this, too. That I'm gonna say some of these myths that I'm saying, I'm naming the top three. That's one of them. You may get it here, you guys. I'm circling my head. You may get it here. But what did I say earlier about performance? Your body doesn't get it if you're still doing it. So you may say to me, Yeah, I know that myth, Jennifer, 12 hours a day. You're right, uh you're right with the body needing time and space to heal and rejuvenate, but I'm still doing it. If you're still doing it, that's the internal psychology. So the first one is really probably that. The second is you feel that the harder you work, the harder you perform, and the quality of your performance is going to be directly correlated to how much you get toward your goal, toward success. And it's gonna happen faster, or it's gonna happen in more higher levels than other people. That is not true, you guys. Not true. Sometimes you're gonna perform and it's turtle snow, turtle slow, excuse me, to go to that next level for a variety of reasons, which we probably don't have time to talk about today, or you're doing it and you're performing and you do get it knocking out of the park and you're getting all the sales calls and you're getting all the clients. You guys, the reason for that is there's layering to healing, and there's also layering to doing something and getting this the fruit from it. It's just like when you plant a tree, it doesn't grow for like the first five years externally. We have to get away from that. That the more I work, the higher quality I get, I'm gonna get the promotion or I'm gonna get the seven figure before everybody else does. You guys, less is more, you'll get there faster that way. What we just said with the first one. But number two, and intact without a heart attack. Yes. And number two, we have to disconnect that we think working high performance sustainable at a time is gonna get you faster results. Sometimes it will, sometimes it won't. The third part is which is the big one, everyone, around performance. Performance does not equal your worth. That is a myth, you guys. And you know what? Psychology, some of you say, I know that, but again, heart, do you know it? So many of my high performers connect worth or um value to how it ends up with their high performance. It goes back to my reason of why I struggle with high performance. Those are the top three myths, you guys. We work on that. There's a lot of tools out there to get you and break you free of those patterns to get you in a new relationship. But those are the three major myths that even if you get it here and you don't get it in your body, you will keep doing performance to get accolades for worth your worth. You'll keep doing 12-hour days and you'll keep thinking that you're gonna get there faster when you don't, depression. You guys, these three, sit with each of them tonight, each of you. I'll end with that. Sit with them tonight. Which one resonates with you? And start asking yourself deeper questions. If you need to reach out to me, figure out some frameworks so you can start getting you into a healthier state of performance because we need each of you. I do work with a lot of wellness providers, we need you healed so you can go out there and heal others. And if you're struggling with these myths, you guys, it's okay. I did, I have. And when I started breaking free of them, is when everything changed over here, as far as success, lifestyle, the impact that now I know God has allowed me to make.
SPEAKER_01:Amen. You can't put a price tag on that impact. I, you know, it's interesting because I, as we wrap up here, I see that show up sometimes because you know, people want something, they're not quite sure how to get it. So what they end up doing is they hold things to a lot of things that I teach in my nurse leadership program is that the hard thing that you have to let go of is, you know, I can't share and I can't develop another leader because then they're gonna replace me. Uh, I'm not gonna be needed if I and the the the challenge I always uh bring up is well, if you're not developing your replacement, where are you gonna go? Or is this where you want to sit for your whole life? You don't want anything more? What is to your point earlier, going back to what is your what is your end game? Or as Stephen Covey talked about, start with the end in mind. Where do you want to, to your point? I love that question. What do you want to be known for? At the end of your life, what do you want people to say about you? Yeah, she she met her metrics, or holy cow, she totally changed uh the course of of my life because of her impact.
SPEAKER_00:And I will say this when you when you look at like what is the point I'm here, what is the impact I'm supposed to create when you start with that in game, guess what starts happening? You start looking at differently, you start looking at healing differently, you start looking at the way that you um schedule your day. You guys sit with that, and that gives me chills when I say that because out of anything in this life, you guys, yes, love, family, connection. You know, there's so much to us being humans. But at the end of the day, we all want to know when we leave this earth that we contributed. Whether my twin, by the way, an identical twin, she's a stay-at-home mom. Her biggest impact, she's like, I want to make is I want to be the best mom in the world and show other moms how to do it well. I'm like, wait, like that would be that doesn't mean that my mom's out there that entrepreneurs, you know, you don't want to be a good mom. But what I'm saying is whether it be a personal, professional devil, both you guys use your own blueprint. But when you have that in mind, you look at all these problems and all these steps and the way you schedule things differently. You do, and I'm telling you, that'd probably be the biggest question you can ask yourself tonight. Pause in the yak if some things come up, journal about it, reach out to me because I coach people like this all the time. Because I want you to get it faster, not faster as in success. I want to be very clear, even though that'll probably happen indirectly. Faster, just be in a state of not torment and pain and burnout, and be in a state of I'm where I'm at, I'm happy where I'm at, and also where I'm going, and detaching from how that looks. And when you can do that, you guys, you actually win this game called life.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah, that's a good feeling when your life has the has purpose and you feel that absolutely. I I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed our conversation. Let me ask you this, uh Jennifer. If people want to know more about you and your services, if they want to know, gosh, I really love the stuff she talked about. How do I get to work with her or how do I connect with her? How do I learn more about her? How do they do that?
SPEAKER_00:Absolutely. So I'm the most active on LinkedIn. That's at Jenj-EN hashtag or dash Watson. There's a lot of Jennifer Watson that's on LinkedIn, so I have to do a Jen Dash Watson. Go ahead and look me up. I answer my own DMs. I'm also active on Instagram at the Jennifer Watson. But you can check out my website at Jen Watson as well. Make it easy for you guys across the board. But I'd love to chat with any of you if any of you are desiring more work or have questions on this episode. I want to make sure you get it so you can move on to that next space in a more powerful way.
SPEAKER_01:I love that. Thank you so much. And that's how we met, by the way. It was LinkedIn, right? It's funny how we tend to find each other. Like mice tend to find each other. Jen, I can't thank you enough. The time that you spent and sharing your expertise, your knowledge uh with us. Thank you so much. Really, really a pleasure to chat with.
SPEAKER_00:I this feeds my soul as much as I hope it feeds theirs. Thank you so much for having me today.