“Embodying Big Prize Energy” with Andrea Owen

Andrea Owen: I learned a lot of things from roller derby. I would go to roller derby bouts and thought it would be the coolest thing ever to join.

But at the time I was in my early and mid thirties, I had two babies at home and I thought. no way I made up all these excuses as to why I couldn’t go, and I, I realized like, do I wanna have this be my story in 20 years when my daughter asks like. I noticed you’re interested in roller derby. Why didn’t you ever play? And I told her that I was afraid to join. So that was one of the things I learned. You have to actually go after it.

Tami Simon: In this episode of Insights at the Edge, I’m with Andrea Owen, author, global keynote speaker, professional certified life coach who specializes in working with high achieving women. Her books include, make Some Noise, how to Stop Feeling Like SHIT. Her books have sold more than 300,000 copies and have been translated into 19 languages.

And with sounds true, Andrea Owen has created an audio immersion workshop. It’s called Getting Damn Good At Life. I think of Andrea as a damn good coach. One of the damn goodest. Coaches I’ve ever met, and I’m so pleased to be able to let you know that she’s released now a new book, which sounds true. It’s called Live Like You Give a Damn 25 Bold Moves to get honest.

Face the hard stuff, and show up for yourself. Andrea, welcome.

Andrea Owen: Thank you so much for having me on. I know I said this last time I was here, but for people who don’t know, uh, this is my second time here. But not my second time with Sounds True. It’s many times over because Sounds True was the first company that I ordered personal growth materials from. So back in, I think it was around 2006, my life had just fallen apart.

I still, I got your paper catalogs and I would hover over it and decide, do I want Caroline, Mrs. Work or um, Angela’s Arian like. Just these amazing thought leaders of the time. And this was back when we had MP threes and, and I just, it is such a full circle moment again, um, to be having this conversation with you.

So thank you for starting Sounds True and being a pioneer in this industry and for having me as one of your authors.

Tami Simon: Well, and you just made me think of a new tagline. Sounds true for when your life is falling apart. And you know, interestingly though, you are someone who writes brilliantly about. When your life is falling apart and when you’re down, how to get back up. And I actually think that’s a, an interesting place for us to start.

And if we can, I wanna start talking about this falling down, getting back up by you describing to us your career in roller. Derby. I know you retired from that more than a decade ago, but what you learned from roller derby about falling down and getting back up.

Andrea Owen: I, I a lot of things from roller derby. One, the, this isn’t about falling down and getting back up, or I guess it could be if you, if you wanna look at it through that lens was just the, just the action of going and. Talking to the people to try out. So Roller Derby had its resurgence in the early two thousands, and I was watching intently and I would go to roller derby bouts and thought it would be the coolest thing ever to, to join.

But at the time I was in my early and mid thirties, I had two babies at home and I thought. no way I’ll get hurt. I’m not, definitely not as cool as these other, with these women. I, I made up all these excuses as to why I couldn’t go, and I, I realized like, do I wanna have this be my story in 20 years when my daughter asks like. I noticed you’re interested in roller derby. Why didn’t you ever play? And I told her that I was afraid to join. So that was one of the things I learned. You have to actually go after it. But falling down and getting up I is is one of those things that, um, is inevitable in, in roller like, like most sports, like you’re gonna get. You know you’re gonna be on the ground. And one of the things I loved about roller derby is that for safety reasons, they have rules about how long you can stay on the track flat. Like you have to get up within a certain

Tami Simon: Right.

Andrea Owen: of seconds or else. They blow a whistle and stop because they realize you’re hurt. And so I thought it was interesting that they had this rule about it, about the, the amount of time you get to be on the ground. And I don’t think that we should relate that literally to personal growth. Like there’s, there’s one thing, a set amount of time that you, you’re gonna be in this setback. But, um, that’s one of the things I learned is that like, oh, okay, I can, uh, you know, have a time limit about something and just like know that I’m going to get up and that if I don’t. a real emergency that like, that is the time to ask for help. And, and I just, I love, I mean, sports metaphors, we could go on all day about that, but that was just one of the many things I learned.

Tami Simon: Well, you know, it’s interesting that you talked about this notion of, you know, your. Down on the ground, how long are you gonna give yourself? Because when I went through a difficult period, I had people from the outside saying, okay, time’s up. And I said, you know, I used, you know, one of the curse words, uh, in, in response to them because there was something important about that period that I needed to.

Name and dare I say, grieve, and I wonder what your advice is besides that. You need to reach out for help, which I think makes a whole lot of sense. But how else do we identify what what’s actually needed when we’re down on the ground?

Andrea Owen: I think first and foremost, just compassion for ourselves that it’s okay that we’re there. Um, I don’t. I don’t know that we yet have gotten to a place culturally where we have given people enough space, time, energy support their falling down moments. And I, I think that sometimes we can be the hardest on ourselves.

It’s not the people around us. It, it’s our own mind that that’s telling our memories or conditioning really, that’s telling us. It’s time to get up. I mean, if you think about in, in most corporate America spaces, they give us three days off for bereavement and it’s expected that we come back to work and that all is well, you know, generally speaking. And it, it’s just one of those things where I believe that it starts with ourselves and giving ourselves the grace and compassion to be able to be down as long as we think that we need to before we look to other people to make that decision for us.

Tami Simon: This theme of trusting your own inner authority and trusting yourself, it runs throughout all of the 25 invitations. Bold. Invitations, bold moves. You know, I have to say, I, uh, I printed out the chapter headlines and looking at them. I could stare at any one of these and it would be a teaching just to drop into it.

Any one of them. I’m gonna share, uh, some of, uh, the chapter headlines and then we’re gonna go into them. You will disappoint people. Always bet on and choose yourself. Keep your side of the street clean. You will be handed a shit sandwich. There’s more. There’s a lot. Uh, why don’t we go right to, you will be handed a shit sandwich.

Because I really liked this particular chapter because I think what you pointed to was somehow that many of us have an expectation that this we won’t be.

Andrea Owen: Right.

Tami Simon: Did that in life. That’s not, or if it does happen, I did something wrong. Right. And what you’re, you seem to point out as the premise is that we were actually made for this, for these kinds of things.

So how did you come to that assertion?

Andrea Owen: You know, now, I don’t know if I’ve made this connection until just now, the way that you put that, and I love that. I love learning things about myself through interviews where people are asking about my work. Like one of my favorite things ever. So thank you. My, my mom is a very, very direct person and she, uh, that is. You’ll be handed a shit sandwich Is, is for sure. And I may have heard that from her along the way, being, being raised by her. Um, but it’s, it’s one of those things where I believe that transparency is the best gift we can give people. Uh, and it’s different from honesty because honesty is when. You ask me a question and I give you an honest answer, transparency is when the question doesn’t even need to be asked. You automatically come and tell me the information about something. You know, kind of like proactively knowing that I’m going to wonder about it. And so that’s how I look at this is. I think that in personal growth spaces, sometimes we can get caught up in the, um, the notion in, in regard to positive thinking and trying to look at the bright side that have faith and the net will appear and you know, you will be. You, you know, bet even things like that, that I say, like, bet on yourself and, and you know, always, always bet on yourself. And it’s like, yes, all of those are true. And at the same time, life hurts sometimes we are going to be dealt situations and circumstances that we didn’t see coming that we certainly don’t like, that we don’t know how we are going to get out of it.

And so that whole chapter is a, is me saying it’s a guarantee that you are going to fall on your face. And so if, if that’s a known, like how do you want, how do you wanna handle that? I just, I, yeah, I, I just, I don’t, I’ve been in this industry for the wellness industry for 20 years, the personal empowerment space for, for 17 years.

And it’s still makes me frustrated to hear advice that it, that doesn’t look at the reality that, that life is sometimes going to throw us for a loop and it’s. to be proactive about your coping mechanisms and support systems and things like that.

Tami Simon: Leap and the net might not appear.

Andrea Owen: Sometimes it doesn’t appear I, yeah, I can’t, I have two teenagers and I tell them that sometimes, like, I cannot promise you that the net will appear. I can’t promise you that I will get there fast enough that, that the, and put the net there for you. I can’t promise you that sometimes I’m, I’m gonna purposely not have a net there for you so that you can, can learn things the hard way.

But yeah, that’s, that’s life.

Tami Simon: Now. Always bet on yourself. You said, oh, that’s something, uh, you’ll hear from me and it’s one of the chapters, and tell us what you mean by that.

Andrea Owen: I came to a conclusion late. It was, gosh, I was probably in my late. I just turned 50 this year, and so it probably around my late forties where I realized I don’t know if I have ever, I. Been in a place in my life where I have consistently been able to bet on myself. In other words, like where I trust myself, I trust my own intuition, I trust my own resilience. ’cause that’s a big one. I don’t know if, if I’ve bet on myself, I, I, I was pretty sure that I had put my. in other people’s baskets. Even if I had sworn that I would never do that again, like I was still kind of putting my happiness and my joy and my fulfillment, my purpose, even into other people’s hands and hoping that they, they did a great job with it and was. Disappointed over and over again. and, and really it, I, I just was faced with that question of do I bet on myself? And if I do, what on earth does that, does that look like? And it, what the conclusion I came to, it was just these everyday deci decisions that I make and, and truly knowing that at the end of the day, if my partner left me, if my, my marriage fell apart, if my, my, you know, if my dog wasn’t here anymore, and like, would I. able to count on myself and really trust my inner wisdom and, and these types of things. And, um, it’s, it’s not like a doom and gloom, you can only trust yourself, don’t trust anybody else. It’s not like that at all, but it’s like, I, I should be the go-to person to trust in terms of what’s next for me and things like that.

So that’s, that’s sort of what I mean by by betting on yourself.

Tami Simon: Now I wanna talk more about that in, in, in two different ways. One way is when you say, you know, if my dog wasn’t here, if my partner wasn’t here, if I lost this, I would still have my own kind of inner resources. And I think, well, would I? Have the ability, do I have the confidence that I can go through the heartbreak of those losses and what gives that kind of inner, I guess it’s a kind of confidence, and I know you teach and write about confidence, the confidence to go through the heartbreak Hell.

Andrea Owen: I the word that, and, and it, and it might just be semantics, but to me it’s a, it’s trust. It’s trusting in yourself and it’s the, what I just mentioned, it’s trusting in my own resilience. So I, I see this a decent amount in, in the clients that I, that I coach, is that it’s typically. When we’re afraid to do something, like say you’re in a, a partnership that intuitively you know that it’s probably come to an end and you are, or, or maybe you, you either need to break up or have a really hard conversation with your partner.

One of those two, both comfortable situations and so you might avoid, avoid procrastinate. You know, find ways to, to not, reasons not to do it. And, and essentially the way that I look at that is it’s not that we’re really afraid of having the conversation, like maybe we are, like, we don’t know what to say, but it, it’s, it’s more so that we’re afraid of what’s on the other side.

We’re afraid of the emotional impact on ourselves, that the conversation might. We’re afraid of the emotional impact it might create with our partner, and then we’re gonna have to deal with that, or we’re afraid that we won’t be able to recover from that emotional. A trigger that happens or from the decision that comes from that because, it’s usually like an unconscious thing, you know, it’s like we’re not sitting there consciously thinking like, oh, it’s, I’m really worried about how I’m gonna after this.

Like, nervous system Sure. Is tracking it even if your brain isn’t. So all that to say. If you could take some time for people listening, like take some time to think like, do you trust your own resilience? Do you trust that you, that you have the support system around you or your own coping skills and ways to support yourself?

Do you trust that you have enough of that inside of you in order to get through a difficult scenario? And like that was the question that I asked myself and I was like. I don’t think that that, by the way, it’s a hazard being a life coach. ’cause we’re always like asking ourself these existential questions. But, but I, I realized, I’m like, I don’t think I trust my own resilience even though I’ve been through other hard things before. Like, I don’t know if my nervous system is on board. I was on board with that. So that’s, that was the work I personally had to do. So that’s some food for thought for the listeners there.

Tami Simon: Well, let’s go into it a little bit more because you. Speak publicly about how the dissolution of your second marriage happened not that long ago. How did you come to trust your own resilience through that process? What did you have to do or encounter or develop so that you could come out the other side and be here now talking to me about it in the past tense.

Andrea Owen: You know what it was? I had one of, and this typically doesn’t happen to me, but I did, I had a moment. Um, usually for me, my big life lessons come over time, slowly but surely. And this time I was in a breath work class and. The facilitator, it was, um, you know, she was like, it was like in a studio and she had one of those like studio microphones and she was just kind of doing these very sort of life coaching mantras and things like that.

And I was, I was paying attention, but I was very much in my body and, and having a really great breath work experience. And there was one thing that she said that stuck with me and just so powerful in the moment. And she said, there’s so much available to me. And I was like, what if? What if that’s true?

What if I believed that about myself, that there is so much available to me? What would so much be. And it could be anything really. And, and, and it was just that, that moment of hearing, that affirmation, that one statement, that one powerful statement it staying with me and just sort of looping, there’s so much available to me.

There’s so much available to me. And so I just adopted it as my own mantra and then started to look for evidence that that was true. And really when that happened, I started to realize that. I have a history of self abandonment and that history of, of. everyone before me was based on the fact that I did not trust that I could bet on myself.

I did not trust my own resilience. And while all that came down to trusting that there was so much available to me, so trying to make a, a, a long circle connection here, and hopefully it’s, it’s coming through clearly, but it was, it really came down to that is believing that there was so much available to me and making that statement what I needed it to be.

Tami Simon: From that statement, how did that inform your actions? Like how did that actually change you?

Andrea Owen: I decided that, um, I, I, I asked myself the question again ’cause I’m a coach and I, I, I ask a lot of questions. I asked myself like, okay, so if there was so much available to me, if I knew that. would I do differently in my life? Like what would I change? And one of the answers that I came to was I would really start trusting own body.

And what was happening around the time, like not long before I left, maybe about a year before I left my marriage, was that I got sick. Um. What was later diagnosed 18 months later. Uh, an autoimmune condition. A chronic autoimmune condition, but it was also right around the time perimenopause was starting for me.

I was in my mid forties also, the pandemic was in full swing, so I didn’t know if my symptoms were from those two major circumstances, and, and, but my intuition was telling me. Something is wrong with my, with my physical body. Something is out of alignment. Um, and it was, my body was trying to talk to me and so that was one of the things that came out of me.

Just that statement of there is so much available to me if I look at it as there’s so much information available to me. are so many clues available to me. My body was trying to tell me, girl, you need to leave your marriage. This is, it’s making you sick. And it was the self abandonment piece. It wasn’t my ex-husband that was making me sick.

It wasn’t even his behavior that was making me sick. It was me. It was me not listening to the fact that this is the end of our chapter. We had a beautiful marriage at one time, and now it’s time to end. That was what I was refusing. To hear because I didn’t trust myself, and so that’s, that’s really what what I realized was available to me was my own wisdom.

Tami Simon: You are someone that I feel so comfortable talking to and excited to speak with, and as we’re talking about. Really trusting your life, trusting yourself. I wanna share with you that in a confessional spirit, but not too confessional, I’m not gonna take too long, but that one of the things I’ve been working with is just being okay with my natural energy, which is a lot.

It’s intense. It doesn’t always fit in in situations. And can I? Actually wholly 100% trusted, even if it appears to be not what is reflected to me normally in the status quo in different situations like that and how that liberates so much. When I do, and I’d love to hear you talk more about that in a sense of trust.

How we trust how we are before we try to fit into anything.

Andrea Owen: Yeah. I think that for many of us, especially those who, who, who, you know, hang out in these circles of, of personal growth and spirituality and just kind of overall wellness, we, I, I, I believe that. I call US seekers, you know, like we’re seeking, um, like bigger answers to bigger questions and things like that. And I, I think that most of us will get to a place in our life exactly like you described, where, where you’re kind of questioning how your own judgment against yourself and, and in this case, like your own energy or maybe it’s. People are kind of questioning their own personality and how they fit in and things like that.

And I, I, I believe that, and I’m, I’m gonna kind of answer this question maybe in a roundabout sort of way. I believe that that is, like I was just saying, like that is our, our inner wisdom speaking to us in sometimes quiet ways at first. And, and it’s just this, this whole notion of. Getting to a place where you can feel whole or, or I also use the word complete when I’m talking about this because one word might not resonate with, with some, with someone, but I, I, I do, I believe that we’re. That most of us at the end of the day are looking for a handful of things. Things like feeling alive, feeling whole or complete, and what you just described, I would put in that category of, of really accepting your entire personality as is. And, um, if I could offer this one sort of anecdote to that relates so much to what. You were just saying is that, um, one of the beautiful things that came out of the, the ending of my second marriage was, um, a really great marriage counselor. And I’ve seen many, and, and I’ve been married twice, so I’ve seen many a therapist and many a, a, a couple’s counselor and, and he asked us a lot of. Really great, powerful questions. And one of the questions that he asked was about 10 months into, to our, our journey, he a he asked me, Andrea, would you be able to accept your husband, I won’t say his name, um, exactly as he is without changing at all. You know, his behavior, you know, you guys have been seeing me for 10 months.

Like, would you be willing to do that? Just completely accept him for, for who he is. And I said, absolutely. Everyone deserves that dignity to, to be accepted as they are. And if I do that, which I would love to do, I don’t think I can be in this marriage anymore. And it was such an awkward moment, you know, and sad moment.

But I was, I was. Admitting something that was very true to me that I had never admitted out loud is that everyone, including my then husband, deserves to show up as their most authentic self in. All of their glory. And, and sometimes that means that you’re not a fit for other people. And sometimes those people, you are married to them.

And so, um, I I, I tell that story to, to hope, hopefully make you realize that like, um, people realize that like it’s okay to, to lean in and if, and if it’s something that feels like it’s calling to you, I would definitely answer that call.

Tami Simon: when we started, Andrea, we talked about your previous, you were Veronica vain, that was your name when you were a roller.

How’d you come up with that name for your roller derby career?

Andrea Owen: I, well, I love an alliteration, and I, um, I, I was the one on the team that always had really great hair and makeup done, and

Tami Simon: Yes.

Andrea Owen: and, and I would, I would say that I would say whatever my derby name is, she’s going to be conceited. And so it’s V-V-A-I-N. And so Veronica Vain was born.

Tami Simon: Right. So I, I, I, I love these sports. Metaphors and, and it’s really more than a, a, a metaphor for those of us who like to play sports. It’s something we enjoy and learn from. And one of your chapters is rush the net, and you talk about how with your father, this was something you learned when you were a kid playing tennis.

Tell us what the lessons are from rushing the tennis net.

Andrea Owen: So my dad was an avid sports person. He was an athlete, and he was also a very. Sensitive soul who was born in 1936 and that, you know, it was not widely accepted to be a man and be such a sensitive soul. But one thing that he, he did was he was my tennis coach growing up. I grew up on the tennis court and, uh, he, he mostly taught me, and, and one of the things that he, he, he also taught me how to have a very firm handshake and how important that was the ti. The title chapter originally was going to be rush the net and have a firm handshake, but it didn’t, it didn’t flow very well. And so I took that part out. But he did teach me to rush the net and, and in singles tennis, many players use it as a strategy to intimidate their opponent. And it’s also. much a risk to, to do that because you’re leaving space open behind you. And, um, it’s an aggressive strategy. And so my dad taught it to me in a way to, and I was very young at the time, and, and not an aggressive girl, but it was, it was his way to show me that taking. You can get used to it. And that that can be your own strategy. And, and whether it’s to, you know. Send a social cue that you are confident even when you’re not feeling confident, kind of a, a little bit of a fake it till you make it type of game, or if it’s just to get into the habit of risk taking to realize that, okay, sometimes the net won’t appear. Unless I’m running face first into it on the tennis court. ’cause I rushed the net a little bit too hard. But, but like that you can recover. And I, and I thank him for that. Like I thank him for teaching me a strategy that, that was scary at the time and at such a young age to practice it over and over again. And to also have it go wrong and realize like, all right, you just keep trying, but you could like make this your thing. Like if you keep practicing and keep practicing. So then I ended up writing a chapter about it in the book.

Tami Simon: Well, and you write action. Creates the confidence. Confidence doesn’t come first. Action does. And you know I mentioned that I call you the damn good coach, and I’ve heard this from a couple of the damn good coaches I know. They always emphasize, what are the actions you’re gonna take, Tammy? What’s the action?

What’s the action report on the action? So I wonder if you could say more about that. How come? Action. Like just rush the net first.

Andrea Owen: I wish everyone listening like, I wish this wasn’t the case. You know, where we had to actually do the thing. Like in the book, I say, in order to change your life, you have to change your life. And what I mean by that is, is take action. And, uh, it, it’s, it’s. can be one of those places that really keeps people stuck.

I call it the point of no return. When, when you know that you wanna change, like you see the behavior that you don’t like, and also you, you might see the steps that you have to take ahead of you, or maybe you don’t know what they are, but you know it’s some kind of action and you’re either too scared or you don’t know what the action is, so you’re kind of stuck.

I call it this. of no return, or I also call it like a wobbly bridge that you’re on where you’re just like waiting and people can stay stuck there forever. And, and I don’t want that for, for anybody. Like, yes, it’s part of the journey, but don’t stay stuck there. And. We are, I think, just misinformed if we believe that confidence is gained just through reading the book or that you’re born with it, or that you can borrow some from someone else.

And, and yes, you can be motivated by other people and, and learn about the, the brain science from books and things like that, but I. Save you some time and tell you that the books and the research shows that confidence comes from experience like that is the main way that we gain most of our confidence and, and really, like if we’re gonna talk about brains, like our brain and our nervous system needs the evidence that, not necessarily that it’s gonna work out. But again, it comes back to that like, how resilient are you? Can you get back up after you have either made the wrong decision or even like been humiliated and, and things that are more emotionally, uh, jarring? And so, um, yes, rushing the net is, is also about taking action and, and that is. The thing, and again, ooh, I wish it was easier, but it is the thing that allows us to gain the confidence that we need to keep going or do additional things that are scary or make us afraid, as well as just like keep the momentum up and like prove to us like, okay, we’re not gonna die.

It might feel like it, but we’re not gonna die we do this scary thing.

Tami Simon: Can you share with us a scary thing that you did recently that you said, just rush the net, Andrea.

Andrea Owen: Yeah. Oh yeah. I fell in love again. Like that was scary. And um, that was, it was such a. Funny moment too because, you know, I had left my marriage a, a couple, a couple hours. I waited a little bit longer, um, for the to dry a couple of years prior. Um, and really got to a place where I, I was, I am good by myself for, for a while. Um, and just wasn’t, was really kinda at that place, you know, how. People post divorce or post breakup often say like, oh, I’m working on me like I truly was. And I, I, you know, even got a new book idea in that place. And, and my intention for that whole time was really, what if I don’t self abandon? What if I just lean in to all of me and I dated? For fun and gathered a lot of data, if you will, just like learning about myself. Like I don’t, I don’t even know a lot of things about myself that I should know about myself. And then honestly accidentally met someone who also was not looking, um, for a relationship. And we met each other and had so much chemistry and we both kind of looked at each other and we’re like, um, okay, this is not expected, but do you wanna do this?

And do you wanna do it with like a lot of intention? were both like, yes. You know, like, do you wanna do this? Very consciously, this relationship? Like we, we both just turned 50, like yes. And so that was a, that was a point in my life where it was, it was scary. But also my yes, was very much rooted in my own inner wisdom.

My intuition was also nodding its head and saying like, I don’t know how this is gonna turn out. It might. Not work out, but it’s gonna be super fun and you’re gonna learn a lot in the beginning. Like that’s what my intuition was saying. And also just, um, it was rooted in a place of detachment, which is something that I’ve never experienced before in. Really any relationship, even in my, my female friendships, like the, the whole concept of, of detachment, which is a whole nother conversation that we can have. But that was something that I intentionally walked into as I did this, as I said yes to this scary thing.

Tami Simon: Well, briefly tell me what you mean by it and how you knew you had a level of detachment in this new relationship.

Andrea Owen: previously, uh, I fell into sort of the, um, traditional. Social conditioning that is handed to a lot of girls and, and women of, you know, it is, it is a high priority for me to be picked. you know. By a man, and that is my path. And if I can make that happen, then I will be rewarded with, you know, acceptance from society with, um, you know, tax benefits, but also, you know, like this is how it’s supposed to be.

And I, I tried that and I, I focused on that and, and. I got married the first time and, and it didn’t work out and I was devastated for, for years and had trauma from that. And then I tried it again and, and it, and it did work out. And we had a beautiful marriage. And until we didn’t, until we just really grew apart. And, and that was also very sad and, and not quite as devastating because I had grown and evolved. And, but in both of those. Long relationships. I realized that I was attached to how, not, not necessarily even like how the relationship turned out, but I was attached to how this person viewed me. My partner viewed me, how they felt about me, and then thus how the relationship was.

I equated those things to my worth and to who I was as a human. Was I a good enough woman? Well, let’s turn to my partner and ask them like that. That’s what, and I was, I was attached to that. I was attached to being picked, like as a, as a partner and like as a human. And I was attached to, um, the. The consequences of their feelings for me. And that is no way to live. And I think that a lot of us do that without even knowing. And, and I knew that when I left the second marriage, this second long relationship I had been in was that my greatest gift to a future partner and to myself was to walk into the relationship working on detachment. I don’t know if we ever get to a place where we are completely and fully detached, but I think that, um. More specifically, the work is about not attaching our worth to either the outcome of the relationship to the health of the relationship, to the way that our partner feels about us, to the way that we’re viewed by other people for having the relationship, things like that. Um, that is what detachment is to me.

Tami Simon: In. Live like you give a damn, you bring up this phrase that I’d never heard before. Big prize energy. You can live with big prize energy. And as you’re talking, it’s reminding me of that. And I really liked that and was feeling into it. In terms of what I was saying to you previously about being okay, basically with my.

Uh, I, you know, I feel like it’s my weirdness or whatever, but just being okay with being me, that what if I actually viewed myself with this big prize energy? And as you’re talking about even approaching a new relationship as a quote unquote, big prize. So tell us what you mean by that.

Andrea Owen: Oh my gosh. I, I really went back and forth. I, I write about a lot of vulnerable things, Tammy, and for some reason writing about that felt so vulnerable because it

Tami Simon: Uh, even as I said it, I felt kind of exposed, like, really, Tammy, you’re gonna tell everybody you’re the big prize? Like, no, it was embarrassed for me that I picked it up and that it was important to me and now I’m talking, you know, but I also found it, um, empowering.

Andrea Owen: Okay, good. Thank you. Um, it was, it was something that came to me when I realized it was that same thing that I was just telling you, like when I started to realize how much I had self abandoned in my, my past relationships and, and I, I actually, there’s a ps there’s a decent amount of self abandonment work in, um. In, um, getting damn good at life, which is the audio program. I did, I did with Sounds True, but I realized that I had a history of self abandoning and that I, and I also wasn’t, I’m like, I’m fine if I don’t have a partner. Like I’ll, I’ll live just with my kids part-time and, and some

Tami Simon: Andrea, I’m gonna inter interrupt you for one second because you know when I hear that history of self abandoning, I kind of think I know what you mean, but I’m not a hundred percent sure.

Andrea Owen: Okay.

Tami Simon: If you could also just say what you mean by that word. I know that word has come into the vocabulary now, and, but I, I’m not a hundred percent sure I know what you mean.

Andrea Owen: It’s what I, I love when people expand on self-help jargon that people might not know what that means. Self-abandonment is when we, um, it’s, it’s interchangeably often used with the word codependency and so it’s, it’s when we essentially walk away from ourselves in order to walk towards. Someone else. So when we put other people’s needs before our own, when we, um, make it a priority to make other people have a more convenient life, a more comfortable life at the expense of our selves, and so we are self abandoning when we are not setting boundaries. We’re self abandoning when we feel resentment and refuse to have a conversation. With the person that we’re feeling resentment about for, you know, for whatever reason. Um, when we stay in relationships that we know aren’t good for us, when we allow ourselves to, when we’re people pleasing, um, that’s self abandonment.

Tami Simon: Alright. Okay, so you were saying about this big prize energy that you realized you had a history of engaging in self abandoning behaviors.

Andrea Owen: And sneaky self abandonment. Like I, I had come a long way, like I was, I was pretty good at setting boundaries at that point, but I was still. I was still self abandoned, ma, in, in many ways. And so when I left my marriage, I decided, okay, what would it, what would it mean for me to show up? ’cause I’m similar to you.

I have a lot of energy. I’ve been, I’ve been told many times, turn the volume down, can you calm down? Can you stop squirming so much? Like, can you not laugh so loud? Like, you know, can, um, just, just the overall feeling of, of. Uncomfortableness

Tami Simon: appropriate.

Andrea Owen: right. Can you ever, you know, like keep your voice down and so. I thought, okay, if I looked at myself as a prize because I wanted a stretch goal? ’cause it’s one thing to just like, what if I just accepted myself as it is? And I, I, I wanna take it one step further. so I said like, okay, what would feel like a stretch? It would feel like a stretch to walk around feeling like I am a prize and just, and knowing that I’m a prize and that it is a privilege for me to give you my time.

It is a privilege. For, for you to get my energy and attention. Like what if I. What if I believed that, would I show up differently for me? The answer is yes. I, I made a Spotify playlist of, that’s called Big Prize Energy with like embarrassing songs like Pour Some Sugar on Me. Like I went like in on big prize energy.

I started buying clothes that like my 15-year-old self. Wanted to wear that. Never did. ’cause she was worried about standing out too much in high school I started doing things that it was it, I felt like I finally was just saying yes to the voice that always wanted to be extra and. I never had done that before.

I, I, I never even joined musical theater because I, even though I wanted so desperately to hang out with those people, I joined the cheerleading squad instead because I felt like that was more fitting for me and like when all I wanted to do was just like, be goofy with the musical theater kids. So it’s like I felt like I was in my musical theater kid era and. Truly, that’s when I started to feel alive and it was scary. I, I’m not gonna say that it was super easy, it was very scary at times and, and messy and also awkward as I’m kind of like learning to ease into this new version of myself. But it was, some could say a little bit of a midlife crisis. I call it big prize energy and tomato, tomato.

Tami Simon: Okay, someone’s listening and they go, you know, I’m 51% with you, with being this big prize energy myself in my life, but there’s this other part of me, the rest of me that’s like, oh, now you’re gonna be vain. I mean, Andrea was willing to be Veronica vain, but I don’t wanna be perceived as being kind of all, all up in myself and how great I am or what are the, whatever the other reasons are people may, uh, recoil.

From this notion, what, what, how do they sort that out to come into an authentic alignment with big prize energy?

Andrea Owen: So, well, first I would tell people to get clear on what big prize energy would look like to them, so. Uh, maybe a better question to ask would be if you take your personality, your, your natural personality and you turned up the volume. I don’t know, a couple notches. What would, what would that look like?

What would you be doing differently? What would you lean, what, what would you lean into more of that you’re already doing? what would you say yes to that you normally say no to? What would you say no to that you normally say yes to if you were turning up the volume on your inherent personality or maybe your aspired values, things like that. And, um. I love what you, I love the narrative example that you gave because that is exactly what I was telling myself. nobody wants a middle aged white lady to be walking around like she owns the place. Like how, how embarrassing. Like, I, I need to act like a woman, you know, my age should act and so. Luckily for me, um, I have an advantage because I have many years as a coach, and so I do what I did and I started coaching myself. And there was something that you said that, that I’m gonna, um, point to. ’cause I think it’s such a common thing that our, where our negative self tacos is, you said something like, oh, people are, I don’t wanna be perceived as

Tami Simon: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Andrea Owen: and same.

I don’t, I, the protective mechanism in me does absolutely does not want to. Be seen as somebody who walks around with big prize energy. And so that’s when I know I’m onto something because I’m also trained and certified in around shame work. In, in, um, Brene Brown’s methodology, Dr. Brene Brown’s a, a, a well-known researcher around the topics of, of shame and courage. And one of the things that I teach is this concept of how shame is essentially running our lives because we are unconsciously. Scanning for ways that we do not wanna be perceived by other people. I show up to, I showed up to this interview already with a list of ways. I don’t wanna be perceived by you and by your producer here on the show.

I wanna be perceived as reliable and professional, and. Well-spoken and thoughtful and smart and all these things. And, and I also have a list of ways I do not wanna be perceived by you. I don’t wanna be perceived as, um, as silly and too goofy and, um, or frivolous and not paying attention and, and all these ways.

And so in every role of our life. We have this list of, of unwanted ways that we don’t wanna, the ways that we don’t wanna be seen by other people, and ways that we do wanna be seen by other people, whether we know them or not, they’re running the show. That that dictates how I show up. And it also dictates how I don’t show up. So if I do not wanna be perceived a certain way, gonna usually try to avoid it. So I, I. I went into detail there because my hope is that people can look at these different roles in their life, whether it’s their, you know, business owner or, um, partner, parent, whatever it is, and, and look at the ways that they don’t wanna be perceived by other people, because A, we don’t have any control over that, And b inevitably. It is going to happen. You’re going to be perceived in a way that you don’t want to be because people judge, all do and people make mistakes and so the sooner you can realize, oh, I don’t wanna be perceived in that way, and then get curious about that, why do I not be wanna be perceived as somebody who’s conceited or arrogant?

Well, because our culture tells us. No one will, no one will love me if I’m perceived as full of myself or, or arrogant. And so it’s, it’s the ability to just get curious about why you think a certain way, why you have app, you know, you’re apprehensive about things and don’t judge yourself and just sort of like, pull on the thread of questions. And that’s what brings me to my answers and, and book titles. So hopefully, hopefully it’s helpful to other people too.

Tami Simon: All right. There are two more big topics I wanna talk to you about, so I hope we have time to get there. Here’s the first one. I’ve mentioned a couple times how highly I think of you as a damn good coach, and the fact is, and now this gets a little more complex, I don’t think that highly in general of the coaching profession.

As a profession, I know that, I know you have a sort of sense of humor about it and you have a viewpoint of it, but before we go any further, why don’t you think that highly of it as a profession?

Andrea Owen: I, I go back and forth with, I really feel like it needs more, um, I don’t know if it’s licensing or just some kind of a, a better governing board to protect people, to protect clients.

Tami Simon: Right?

Andrea Owen: It’s

Tami Simon: Okay.

Andrea Owen: In its infancy and we don’t have that as

Tami Simon: Right. Okay. And I think my reason is because, uh, there’s just such a wide range of caliber. There are some coaches who are really extraordinarily and helpful and, uh, are as good as any deep end psychologist or spiritual mentor that I’ve worked with for real. And then there’s a whole lot across the spectrum and it’s like, oh my God, really?

This person thinks they have something they can. You know, tell other people, oh my God, I can’t stand it. Okay. So what do you think, if you were just to say, make someone an extraordinary coach, what are the qualities or what’s the vantage the, the eyeglasses they need to be wearing to be such.

Andrea Owen: I think, well, training number one, I, I believe in training. I think that if someone’s hiring a coach, that coach should be trained. Coaching is, uh, not just a skill, but I, I believe it’s an art and I think that, um. A lot of experience is always helpful. Um, so, so that’s number one. But I think that what makes someone a really great coach is kind of what we were just talking about is, is detachment.

So my job as a coach is to not have an agenda. In other words, if you are my client and you bring to me a specific goal, I might think like, oh, I have the perfect way that Tammy can make this goal happen and get the results that she wants. And. That’s not my job. My job is not to tell you how to do it. Not even really to give you a framework, even if you ask me.

That’s consulting if you, if you know, if you want someone to, or, or training. My job is to just ask you questions to remind you that you are naturally creative, resourceful, and whole, and hold this space while you. Think through those questions to come to your own conclusions. It, I might offer observations along the way and, and things like that, but I, but my job is really just to be curious.

So, so what makes a great coach is like if they can have their own sort of, and it may not be an inherent quality, it may be something that they learned, but just to have that. almost fierce curiosity for all things and do their best to not have an agenda, not have any judgment about their curiosity, but also follow their intuition.

It is, that’s why I say it’s like a skill and an art, it’s a balance. And so, um, and it helps I think if you, if you hire someone that has similar life experience to what you have, I know that that matters to some people just from a relatability standpoint. But that’s my 2 cents on that.

Tami Simon: I like it. And you know, at the beginning of your book live, like you give a damn, you say to people, you’re free to do whatever you want, including not listen to anything that I’m saying here to do whatever. Like you are a free being. Don’t do a thing. Don’t wanna take a risk. Don’t take a risk. And you know, when I noticed when you started that way, I was like, oh, Andrea’s not.

Going to tell me what to do. She’s not ta. She’s empowering me actually right here in the beginning to follow what I think is best. I like her. I like this book right at the jump. How did that come to you to start that way?

Andrea Owen: I think probably because this is my fourth book. And I get, and I, and I know I’ve heard the feedback from people about how they read self-help books, if they read the entire self-help book, how it helps them or how it doesn’t help them. And so I think that when. Introductions are always very important to me, partly because like, this is probably the first thing that people are gonna read and I, I wanted to from the get go to make sure that people understood that they have the power in their own hands to make their own life decisions and listen to themselves.

Tami Simon: Okay. And there’s one last invitation, bold move that I want us to talk about. And you know, it’s not that this section was funny and it’s not that it was the kind of thing that I necessarily, you know, will talk about with other people, but it was really meaningful to me and it’s towards the beginning of the book.

Learn to parent yourself and you say, you know, it took me however many years to recognize that basically I was just gonna have to do this. Nobody else was going to do it for me. I had to fill in these gaps. So explain what you mean by accepting the fact that we each need to provide this parenting for ourselves.

Andrea Owen: I think the reason I wanted to include this topic in this book is because I think for many of us, we get to a place where we look back on how we were parented and whether it was. You know, quote unquote good or bad, and it’s, you know, hard to categorize. I, I understand that, but I think that it comes to a point where we, if we’re trying to reconcile behavior, especially from, from one of our parents or both of our parents, there comes a place where, um, we, and especially like if the parent has passed that we have to accept that the. Parent is the way that they are and will likely not change. And kind of like, how am I gonna handle this if they continue the way that they are or if I never get any acknowledgement or apology and things like that because many times we, it, it’s easier, less painful for us to hold out, hope that they will change. That we will someday get the parent that we always wanted and that, that we truly deserve. And so I think that when you get to that place where you, um, where you accept that person for all that they are, and I think that that can be a very painful place. And there’s a lot of grief there. Um, again, ’cause it feels easier to hold out, hope that they’ll change.

And so when you get to that place, and, and I got to that place and my parents were wonderful in so many ways, but no parent is perfect. And so to, to accept that I, I am not gonna get the things that I, that I would hoped that I would get is that I had to, um, not that I had to. Bring them into my life myself and re and, you know, work on reparenting myself, but also that I, I had this opportunity like to look at it more as of an opportunity for growth and it was also incredibly painful.

So it’s one of those moments where two seemingly opposite truths are true. It’s painful to admit that you’re probably not gonna get what it is that you want, and also go through the work and look at it as an opportunity.

Tami Simon: Andrea, you’re someone I could talk to for even longer, and I hope we get the chance again. Andrea Owen, author of the new book with Sounds True, live Like You Give a Damn 25 Bold Moves to get Honest. Face the hard stuff and show up for yourself. She’s also created with SoundsTrue the audio series, getting damn Good at Life.

Thank you so much.

Andrea Owen: Thank you so much for having me, and thank you for listening everybody. Bye-bye.