Sometimes life is very messy. You just cannot give anything. You must preserve the little energy you have. I was there a while back. The last thing I wanted to do is to give back. And I was asked to mentor for the Entrepreneurs Organization where my husband Gary is on the board of Directors. He ran the mentoring program. And I really didn’t want to. To get out of it, I said there is really one person I would consider mentoring and that is Alice. You are in luck Gary said, she only wants to be mentored by you. Ok then…
Little did I know that she didn’t think she deserved a mentor like me. I mean we are talking about a woman who is a force. She raised millions, she keeps building climbing gyms like it’s nothing. Everyone loves her, she’s a mom of two, engaged in organizations and community driven. How can someone like that suffer from imposter syndrome?
Well, truth is, she’s been abandoned twice by her mother. The both of us got trauma with our moms. But what she does better than anyone, myself included, she knows her wound and she has learned to tell the story the way it no longer hinders her.
That is what I told another friend today over peppermint tea at the fancy hotel in Santa Monica. It is not that you do not have the wounds. It is that you have the wound and you do not let it write your narrative any longer. Easier said than done, so how do you do it?
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She Was Abandoned Twice and Still Built an Empire
Alice Kao was dropped off alone in America at fourteen. No parents. A little cash, an apartment near a school. The voice in her head has been running the same message since she was three years old standing in a doorway watching her mother walk away with two large suitcases without turning around. You are not good enough. You are not smart enough. They are going to find out. And then they will leave.
That voice did not stop her from building Sender One Climbing into six locations. It did not stop her from raising millions of dollars from over 100 community investors after countless no’s. It did not stop her from standing on stages in front of 900 people. And it is still there every single morning. The wound never healed. She just stopped letting it drive.
If you have listened to any of the podcasts on the Business Growth Architect Show: Founders of the Future you will recognize a few recurring themes. Trauma, including the core wound, believing in hustle culture until it almost kills you, transformation themes when you realize that there must be something better out there for you than this, fear of the void or messy middle and the look backward in how you made it through the good, bad and the ugly.
We are very proud to announce that we are on the podcast service Goodpods now at number 12 in Business Growth and we just entered the top 100 in Spirituality. Who would have thought this is even possible with a show about business growth?
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The Race to Mediocrity Is Already Lost
Today during my peppermint teatime, I found myself explaining what I really believe is happening right now. Many of us who have received this call or calling to step it up are finishing this cycle, whatever number this cycle has for you. And you are sitting so uncomfortably in the in-between space. Disgusted really by what you see on the outside. The language in politics, the smears, the comments. AI generated rage and clickbait. The race to mediocrity. The illusion that a half-baked AI tool can replace people who are creative and can think or predict the future. That somehow you are now able to be more computer-like and function 24/7 over-optimized.
Seriously, what else are you going to optimize? I had this realization a while back on a hike. My inner voice said, it’s the same number of steps. The other voice said, geez you are getting slower.
Next, I took the Apple Watch off. What difference does it make if it is my personal best? What does it do for me to know if my sleep was not ideal? Is it not enough if I feel good? Do I really need to feel guilty every time a fabulously rich piece of Swiss chocolate makes it into my mouth? Do I have to be the leanest, meanest, smartest, best, richest, and most optimized? Let’s not get started on a nice plate of pasta or eating a potato (gasp!!!)
The movement against this learned narcissism is already in full flow. ‘Look at me’ is done. We know you bought the Instagram followers. We know you are using AI even though you say you do not. We know you outsourced your lead gen even though you insist I am talking to you. I call BS. You thought more is better because that’s what they told us. It turns out more is a disaster.
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The Discrepancy That Kills Us
Moments like the one I described in a previous newsletter where you sit in a plane and recognize that you are no better than them, or your own mother who has put up this perfect version of oneself for the world to admire while it destroys you and everything that matters. This is what kills us. Metaphorically and literally. That is what keeps us up at night. The discrepancy between how we want to be seen and who we are. Because we cannot own this version of ourselves because we can’t measure up to our own image.
The truth of our own imperfection hits us between the eyes and forces us to our knees. They will find out. I am too old, I most certainly have cellulitis by now and those extra Fire fifteen pounds are hanging very stubbornly around my midsection. No amount of Spanx or Botox or plastic surgery can hide the facts. I am a woman of a certain age. Why do we have such a hard time embracing that our lives go in stages? That we advance from one to the other. That it simply means we are moving ahead as planned.
Frankly, and forgive me here if I step on anyone’s toes, while I appreciate the effort, Madonna, Heidi Klum, Jennifer Lopez — many of those once celebrated sirens look awfully out of place competing with someone my daughter’s age. The story we tell ourselves is what? We must hold on to the original story and cannot rewrite a new one?
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The Old Stories Are Not Working for Anyone
Let me in on a secret here. The old stories are not working for anyone. I know this as a fact. I am The Growth Architect. The original one. It’s my registered trademark, glad to see it’s catching on. In my work I see hearts cracking open. Multi-millionaires begging for five hours of consecutive sleep after they optimized the optimization methodology. And I see things falling apart, followed by a whole lot of transformation. Because it is time for you to rewrite your story. And it starts with what you are telling yourself and then your willingness to do the inside work.
Alice did not wake up one morning healed. She woke up one morning and made a choice. The voice was still there. The wound was still there. But she decided that she was the one at the keyboard. Not the story. Not the three-year-old standing in the doorway. The abandoned teenager. The heartbroken adult. Her. Every single day she examines the stories her mind generates on waking, recognizes which ones belong to the original wound, and makes a deliberate choice about what she is going to build from what is there.
That is self-authorship. And it is the most underrated skill a founder can develop. Listen to her full interview on the podcast
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Transformation Is Always an Inside Job
Unless what you do is rooted in purpose and intention, how are you ever going to be believable? If it is not – you are chasing status. You are not growing into yourself. Then you feel like you live a lie and have to always worry about being found out. That is where imposter syndrome comes from. It is a misalignment.
The world is in the middle of a massive transformation. And you must — and this is not a suggestion — you must change before it does so that you can drive the change and not be caught in it. The founders who will shape this future are not the ones who optimized the hardest. They are the ones who did the inside work. Who stopped letting the wound be the narrator. Who learned, like Alice, to pick up the pen every single morning and decide what the story means today.
The wound does not have to heal before you build. It just cannot be the one driving.
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A Closing Reflection
What story have you permitted to run as your source of truth? Is it true? Can you change the narrative and accept the wound but not what meaning it has? What would change?
Let’s grow,
Beate.
P.S. Interested in more of my Founder of the Future concepts? Where we discuss the cycle change and share what you want to do to get ready for creating the future after the bullies are done breaking things? Join me in The Forge Masterclass at YourBusinessMC.com