Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep197-stop-waiting-for-validation
He walks into a live elevator pitch calm while forty founders around him are shaking, then admits he still doesn't give himself enough credit to believe he can win.
Adam W. Barney spent 20 years in global advertising and technology, managing more than $100 million in paid media, before leaving corporate to coach founders and executives through the transition points where what used to workno longer does. He's the host of Is Anything Real? and the author of Make Your Own Glass Half Full. Underneath two layoffs, a resignation decided on a flight home, and a gold key he hasn't won yet is one question: who gets to decide whatyou're allowed to believe about yourself?
In This Episode, We Explore:

• Capable as a Cage: why being the one who can untangle anything works right up until it starts costing you.
• The Next Honest Step: Adam's working definition of self-trust, and why it has nothing to do with certainty.
• Regret Minimization: the two-years-ahead question that made staying in corporate the choice he'd regret more.
• Control vs. Agency: what losing his mother to ALS taught him about choosing his next honest move inside what life handed him.
• Wanting the Win: why iterating and wanting to win were never opposites, and what it costs to let results decide which one you're allowed.

• Discernment Over Permission: why feedback can sharpen how you serve, but no one outside you can hand you self-trust.

Episode Chapters:
00:00 Meet Adam W. Barney
04:59 When being capable becomes acage
11:23 Two layoffs as identity moments
15:09 The resignation on a plane andregret minimization
16:44 Waiting for one more piece ofevidence
27:15 Losing his mom to ALS: control vs.agency
35:41 The elevator pitch and why notwant to win
42:48 Transition is information, andwhere to find Adam
Connect with Adam W. Barney:
Instagram: @adamwbarney

Website: https://www.adamwbarney.com/

Podcast: Is Anything Real?

Book: Make Your Own Glass Half Full

Newsletter: Plugged In Leadership
Join the Conversation:
This one is for the coach who keeps telling people she's entering the launch, the pitch, or the price increase "just to learn," because wanting to win out loud would mean believing she could before anyone confirmed it.
Where are you standing?
Know where your Floor is firm.
Know where it's still moving with results.
Know where to work next.
Three minutes.
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/where-are-you-standing

Read the full episode breakdown + show notes:https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep196-ambition-as-protection

What if the thing driving your success is also the thing keeping you from experiencing it?

Anu Verma is a trauma recovery specialist and founder of Victim 2 Victor who spent years mistaking her own overachievement for ambition, when it was really a survival pattern in disguise.

This episode isn't about trauma itself. It'sabout what happens when old protective strategies quietly follow us into leadership, business, and success, and how convincingly they can pass as drive.

In This Episode, We Explore:

• The Protective Ego: why the ego forms as a genuine response to being hurt, and isn't the enemy it's made out to be
• Strength Redirected: how the same strength that helps someone survive trauma can turn into 70 to 80 hour weeks and a success that doesn't match what'shappening inside
• Impact Without Definition: the difference between being impacted by something and being defined by it
• Alignment Over Achievement: the self-reflective questions Anu now asks before saying yes to any opportunity
• Forgiveness as Release: why forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, not a favor you extend to someone else
  

Episode Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and today's theme
01:00 Who Anu helps and the origin of Victim 2 Victor
03:00 The ego as protection, not a flaw
09:00 Self-trust, toxic relationships, and outsourced decisions
17:00 The ceiling that wasn't revenue: chasing external validation
20:00 Noticing action as a response to uncertainty
26:00 The self-reflective questions that check for alignment
32:00 Forgiveness and how leaders begin operating differently

Connect with Anu Verma:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/victim2victor_anuverma/
Website: https://victim2victor.uk/
Additional resource: Author of Victim 2 Victor, and host the Victim2Victor Podcast

Join the Conversation:
This one is for the person whose achievements keep landing without the relief they expected, who suspects the striving might be protection instead of ambition, and hasn't said that out loud yet.

Where Are You Standing?
Before more strategy, motivation, or effort, know where you're standing in relation to your Floor, the foundation you're building your business from.
The free assessment takes three minutes and shows you where your Floor is firm, where it may still be moving with your results, and where to work next.
Know where you're standing. Then know where to work.
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/begin

Do your results keep putting things back up for a vote?
The offer doesn't work quickly enough, and suddenly you're questioning the business. The response is quieter than you expected, and what you decided was possible starts feeling negotiable again.

The Floor: Your Build is where we stop that cycle. Fix the Who and the Whether in place, so every result can teach you more about the How without sending you back to reconsider everything you already decided.
Fix the Floor with The Floor: Your Build

Read the fullepisode breakdown + show notes:
https://www.theselftrustcoach.com/blog/ep195-self-trust-in-hard-seasons

Self-trust doesn't keep the hard season from arriving. It gives you something to come back to once you're inside it.
Jodi Lynn Karpes is the founder of GreenQueen PR, with 25 years of PR experience and client relationships that lasted a decade or more. She thought a difficult landing was someone else's story. Then it was hers, and what she did next is a real picture of self-trust practiced while the season is still in progress.

In This Episode, We Explore:
• The Grief Nobody Named: what changed when Jodi stopped asking what was wrong with her and recognized she was grieving.
• Environment vs. Self-Blame: how she could see the environment was the problem and still point the blame at herself.
• The Thirty-Minute Decision: what it took to go from carrying a decision to making the call on a Monday morning.
• Holding a Decision vs. Acting on It: why the discomfort of an unacted decision was the signal to take the first bite.
• Affirmations You Can Believe: why sentences you don't believe override you,and what Jodi used instead.
• Integrity as Self-Trust: turning down a client she needed because it was the wrong fit.

Episode Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and Jodi's introduction
01:02 Arriving in the US and what sheexpected
02:46 Naming the grief
04:15 Self-blame and a toxic work environment
09:25 The wake-up call and the decision to leave
11:45 Now what: rebuilding without a safety net
15:15 What self-trust feels like on an ordinary day
18:30 The tools that actually worked
24:30 GreenQueen PR and her ideal client
27:30 Closing reflection

Connect with Jodi Lynn Karpes:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/greenqueen_pr
Website: https://www.greenqueenpr.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jodilynnkarpes/

Join the Conversation:
If you're in a season you didn't plan for, in a role or situation that costs you more than it gives, and you've been asking what's wrong with you instead of what's actually happening, this one was made for you.

Where are you standing?
Know where your Floor is firm.
Know where it's still moving with results.
Know where to work next.
Three minutes.
theselftrustcoach.com/where-are-you-standing