87. Being the CEO of Your Life: Developing Leadership Skills, Taking Ownership, + Support Systems feat. Sarah Hernholm

Feb 15

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Today's guest is Sarah Hernholm—a former elementary school teacher turned entrepreneur and the founder of WIT. WIT (Whatever It Takes) works with t(w)eens around the world who are interested in using their voice and ideas to launch businesses, non-profits, and/or social movements. WIT also focuses on helping t(w)eens develop emotional intelligence, soft skills, and an entrepreneurial mindset. Sarah and I discuss why leadership skills are crucial for teens to develop, how age and work ethic are not mutually exclusive, the first steps to taking ownership of your life, how your interactions with others reflect how you treat yourself, the importance of understanding your values, and creating a support system!

Sarah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/miss_wit/

Sarah's Website: https://www.11tipsfordoingwit.com/

Doing WIT: https://www.doingwit.org/

This week's DBT Skill is Radical Acceptance! Learn more here: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/532480355939004416/

SHOP GUEST RECOMMENDATIONS: https://amzn.to/3A69GOC

Episode Sponsors

🛋This week's episode is sponsored by Teen Counseling. Teen Counseling is an online therapy program with over 14,000 licensed therapists in their network offering support with depression, anxiety, relationships, trauma, and more via text, talk, and video counseling. Head to teencounseling.com/shepersisted to find a therapist today!

🍓This week's episode is brought to you by Sakara. Sakara is a nutrition company that focuses on overall wellness, starting with what you eat. Use code XOSADIE at checkout for 20% off your first order!

About She Persisted (formerly Nevertheless, She Persisted)

After a year and a half of intensive treatment for severe depression and anxiety, 18-year-old Sadie recounts her journey by interviewing family members, professionals, and fellow teens to offer self-improvement tips, DBT education, and personal experiences. She Persisted is the reminder that someone else has been there too and your inspiration to live your life worth living.

a note: this is an automated transcription so please ignore any accidental misspellings!

Sadie: Welcome to she persisted. I'm your host Sadie Sutton. Every Friday, I post interviews about mental health, dialectical behavioral therapy and teenage life. These episodes break down my mental health journey, teach skills to help you cope with life and showcase testimonials from individuals, including teens, just like you, whether you've struggled yourself or just want to improve your mental fitness.

This podcast is your inspiration to live a life you love and keep persisting this week on cheap, persistent.

Sarah: I just feel. You shouldn't have to wait until you're older to develop leadership skills and to develop and to learn how to like lead, be a leader in your own life. That's like this idea of like being the CEO of your own life is very important to me to teach because I think young people sit a little passive and think that life is just happening to them.

And they're being forced to go to school and I have to do this and they have to do that, but that's a very. That's a very low vibration way to be in the world. If you think that like your day is full of things that like you have to do, and when you don't have a lot of choice. So I try to show them the shift of like taking the ownership, showing that you have a lot of chances to, to advocate for yourself to lead, to be in the driver's seat of your own

Sadie: life.

DBT skill is the radical acceptance scale. When I think of becoming the CEO of your life, the DBT skill that comes to mind is radical acceptance. It is definitely not an easy skill to master, but it is so profound and it's really at the core of dialectical behavioral therapy. And it's one of my favorite skills. So what is radical acceptance? Radical means all the way.

Completely, totally 100%. It's accepting with your mind, your heart and your body. It's when you stop fighting reality. It's when you let go of those negative emotions surrounding something, not going the way you want it to, and you let go of bitterness.

When things do not go your way. So, what are you accepting? You are accepting reality as it is, which is the fact about the past and the present. Even if you don't necessarily like. You are accepting that there are limitations on the future for everyone, but you only need to accept the realistic limitations.

You're accepting that everything has a cause including events in situations that cause pain and suffering. And lastly that life can be worth living even with painful events in it. So why do we accept reality? The first reason is that rejecting reality doesn't change reality. It really just causes us more pain and more suffering.

To fight against that. The second reason is that changing reality requires first accepting that reality is as it is. And then what steps you can take to shift that the third thing is that pain can't be avoided. It's a nature's way of signaling to us that something's wrong. Something's out of alignment.

So denying that that pain is there, isn't going to get us anywhere. And that leads right into the fourth reason, which is that rejecting reality can turn pain into suffering.

So to kind of make that distinction pain is not avoidable, but suffering is. And rejecting reality turns that pain into suffering. The fifth reason is that refusing to accept reality can keep you stuck and unhappiness, bitterness, anger, sadness, shame, and other painful emotions.

Six acceptance may lead to sadness, but in most cases, a deep calmness follows. And lastly, the way past, what you're struggling with is through there's no around there. So like side to shortcut that we're going to take. And so when you refuse to accept that struggle and misery is involved in taking that path through, you're just going backwards and you're staying in the struggle.

So again, radical acceptance, complete 100% acceptance of reality. It's kind of like a peaceful opening ness of like, I might not like this, but this is what it is and that's okay. And then you're able to move forward. You're able to get out of those painful emotions and continue on with your life.

Hello. Hello. And welcome back to she. Persisted. I am so excited to have you here today. We have an amazing interview with Sarah Hern home. She is the founder of wit we we will get more into that in a moment. But I realized last night I woke up in the middle of the night. And I was like, wait a minute. It's Valentine's day. It marks four days to the date that I started my journey at McClain and my parents. And I flew across the country. And it was really like a huge turning point in my mental health journey.

It was the beginning of the end of my suffering. It was. For the first time ever in my entire life started investing in myself, trusting others enough to help me wanting to get better and wanting a life for myself, which was a huge shift from where I was at. And so I started my journey at McLean, suicidally, depressed, struggling with self-harm and such dysfunctional relationships and being so depressed.

So hopeless. So anxiety, Britain. Really at my lowest of lows. And 14 weeks later, I left and I was starting to build a life that I loved and that I looked forward to. And I was no longer plagued by this depression and anxiety and suicidality. And so it was four months of intense growth and it changed my life.

It saved my life. If you are considering treatment, I'll put a link in the show notes below, because I think it's just a great resource to be aware of, even if you're like. Doesn't even relate to you at all. If you hear someone that's like considering treatment our research thing, I can't speak highly enough of it.

So if you ever need to pass along recommendation three it's McLean hospital, it's in the show notes, but today's episode is an amazing one. So in line with me beginning my treatment journey, because it is about taking ownership of your life. It is about being the CEO of your life. It is about being a discerning individual. When it comes to the habits you're engaging and who you're surrounding yourself with what values you're living your life by.

This is just an amazing conversation with so much value and insight I connected with. Well, and we were talking about doing a podcast swap and she gave me the tough love that I needed at the moment, which was like, you need to hold yourself to a higher standard from a work perspective, from a podcast perspective, with how you're investing your time.

And I needed that at that moment. And to, to know that like what I was doing with balancing, everything was not sustainable and that something needed to shift and that my time and my talent was valuable. After that conversation. I knew I had to have her on GP assisted. I knew I had to share her story and her value with you guys as well.

And this conversation does not disappoint. So like I said, today's guest is Sarah Hern home. She is a former elementary school teacher and she is now an entrepreneur. She is the founder of. Which stands for whatever it takes. And she works with tweens around the world who are interested in using their voices and ideas to launch businesses non-profits and or school movements.

So they focus on helping tweens and teens develop emotional intelligence skills, that entrepreneurial mindset. Um, and that's exactly what we dive into this discussion. We talked about why leadership skills are so crucial for teens to develop how age and worth ethic are not mutually exclusive.

Exactly how you can start to take ownership of your life and so much more so with that, let's dive into it. I hope you enjoy as always, if you do make sure to leave a review on apple podcasts and Spotify share with a friend or a family member posts on social media. And the other thing I wanted to mention.

All of the video for sheep resistant episodes are on my YouTube channel, which is in the show notes. So if you're listening to this and you're like, I'd rather watch this on video, check out the link in the show notes, head over to YouTube and watch us having this conversation. So with that being said, let's dive in, Well, thank you so much, Sarah, for joining me today on to persistent. I'm so excited to have you on the show. I don't know if you realize what you helped me so much when we connected initially. And so I knew that you'd be able to help so many other people through the podcast.

And so I'm just so honored to have you on the show. Thank you for having me. Of course. So I want to start by hearing your journey and hearing about how you came to working with teens, being a mental health advocate, advocating so much for teens and what how life brought you to that.

Sarah: Well, I mean, I'm, I'm a lot older than you, so it's been quite a journey.

So if there's like specific parts of the journey that you want me to touch on, because I just think it's really important for people to understand even those listening that life is just not linear. There's a lot of twists and turns. I mean, I've had a career in television and film. I was a school teacher at one point, and now I've been running my organization for.

Over 10 years. So there's a lot of life that's happened to this point. So my life was not one that I went to college and then I started this career that I've been, I've been, I've stayed in for, for many years. So it's been a lot of twists and turns to get where I am. And uh, that said it all makes sense to be where I am, which is really fun about life and fun about getting older is that sometimes.

When you're in something you just cannot understand why you have to go through it or why things are happening, how they're happening, but it's fun when you get some, get some miles on you and get some years that you can go. Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah. That makes sense. So lots of twists and turns got me worried.

Sadie: Yeah, no, I remember the exact same thing with my mental health journey. It wasn't until like I had the emotional distance and being a couple of years out of it where I was like, okay, I understand why these things happen. I understand why now it has like this innate sense of purpose and meat. And I'm so passionate about mental health because I struggled myself and that wouldn't be there unless I'd gone through that journey.

But in the moment I was like, There is literally no reason for which I am experiencing this. This is terrible. This is awful. So hindsight is 2020. So why did you start doing what I know that you, you had another career beforehand. Did you notice a gap in the market where you, like, I wish I had this as a teen.

What happened there that inspired you?

Sarah: So the, the catalyst for starting wit whatever it takes, which is the nonprofit business, nonprofit organization that I start, that I run. It was a layoff. So I think that's also really important for people to, I was laid off three years or four years in a row as a school teacher due to budget cuts.

And the last year of layoff, it was it was time to kind of reflect about. What am I doing? This? This cycle is really unhealthy for me to be working really hard at a job and being really great at it. And then being at the mercy of a system that's broken. And I think everybody would agree that the education system is broken.

Some might think more severely than others, but I've never met anybody who thinks that education system is like really stellar perfect in our country. Right. So I just had this feeling which maybe other people can relate to where you go, wait a second. I don't like feeling that I'm at the mercy of somebody else.

I don't like that feeling. And I just sat with that. And then I asked myself a really important question. I know exactly where I was, it was on a walk and this by the bay and where I live in San Diego. And I said, if you know, you could wake up tomorrow and do anything, what would it be? And my answer came very easily.

It wasn't like, I want to say that to everybody that it wasn't like. The skies parted and all of a sudden, I, you know, it was just a very simple, just. I thought that came to me in response to that question that I pose to myself. And the answer was that I wanted to help young people be of service to others, because I had seen how much that had transformed the kids in my classroom.

When we were doing service projects, when we were showing up for other people, I saw an increase in self-confidence. I saw an increase in knowledge. And what I mean by that is. We would take on big projects. Like we took on hurricane Katrina happen when I was a school teacher and I was teaching fourth grade was my first year of teaching fourth teaching.

I love those kids. I'm still in touch with many of them today, which is such a blessing. And. They wanted to help and they wanted to do something. And, you know, one of the things that we, that they did was they decided they adopt the library that had been destroyed and they wanted to do a book drive and then they wanted to mail the books out.

But we had to raise money for the postage, for the book boxes, but there's a lot of math that goes into realizing how much things are going to cost and what kind of boxes we should use. And so we would do these service projects while also addressing academic standards. But of course, as we all know, when learning is fun, we, we usually retain the information more and to see are the young people in my classroom, then get written about newspapers because of the work that they were doing and seeing their competence increase.

I just thought, I wonder if I could do that at a bigger scale. And the first idea was to go back to my roots and TV and film and pitch as a TV show of kids giving back and. ABC said, go get footage of that. And so I went to a school and I started filming footage of different service projects, talent shows that led to raising money, to build a water well in Africa, on and on and on.

And here we are over 10 years later with lots of pivots and our business model and no TV show but a documentary in progress. But I've been saying that for years now. So we'll see if that ever comes to fruition, but. That was really it like just the looking at being, not liking my current, my situation.

And I'm, I'm really big. I don't like people that just whine about stuff and don't do anything about it. Like that's a, that's a deal breaker for me in dating and pretty much a deal breaker for me and friendships. Like if all you're doing is bitching about something over and over and over again and not taking action on it.

Like, that's just, that's not how I am. So I just was, I was uncomfortable. I didn't like what was happening to me. I sat with that. I got pissed. I felt all my feelings. Then I was like, well, what would you do if you could do anything? And then I got my answer and then I made the choice to. I mean, I was laid off, but they might've brought me back in the fall, but I collected unemployment.

And during this, that summer, I just worked on this business idea and obviously never went back to that career. And now I'm, you know, I've been doing what I've been doing for over a decade.

Sadie: Wow. So I want to talk to you about leadership and I think it's pretty unique that you are so passionate about giving teams leadership skills.

I feel like there's really like a narrative. Okay. Like once you're an adult, you'll learn leadership. It's something that comes along further down the line. But your leader is like an every single day in life. Like whether you're doing like a group project or you are starting a business or something like that, it's a very important skill.

So I wanted to get your perspective on that of why you think it's so important for teams to establish leadership skills early on in life?

Sarah: Well, it could be because I see such poor adult leadership. Right. This is true. I mean, remember I'm older than you, so, and I'm running a company where I need to hire and fire people, so I can tell you what I see come through the door and what's been developed and what's not been developed.

And that, so that's really great for me to be able to go, oh my gosh, like this trend that I'm seeing and people coming into the job market is like, you know, is, is not good. How can we address that with our younger demographic to help make sure that they're not like that when they, when they're in, when they're entering the job market.

So that, that's why it's important to me because. These people will eventually be running companies and I could have hired them. I mean, I'm, I'm more inclined to hire my current teenagers than I am to hire most young adults. And that's true. And people will know that if they fact check this because I do paid internships at wit I hire people.

I don't think age is a good determinant on whether or not. You have like good work ethic. I mean, I think young people just need to get, they didn't the young people just need to get more experience working. And that's,

Sadie: I haven't been in like the corporate cycle for like 20 or 30 years.

Like that itself does something to the work ethic. Like you have that innate passion and drive and kids.

Sarah: And I also, I just think sometimes the way the school system is set up, it's that. The administration and the teacher is here and the student is here and so higher, you know, that, you know, and, and the child is lower.

And so the leader is opposed to this person that has the power, the higher part, which is a teacher and the admin. But I really try to tell my young people, you actually have the power. You're the customer in your school. Like you are the customer you are without you. That school does not get funding.

That's what doesn't get donors at school. Doesn't get recognition for great sat scores, or getting into top colleges. They need you. And so. Knowing that it doesn't mean that you act cocky or arrogant, but know that you should be studying, you should be advocating for yourself. You shouldn't be taking on you should be building programs and clubs that give you a chance to make change in your school or put you in leadership roles to use your voice.

It's sometimes what happens is though there's like this kids will be like, oh yeah, you're right. And so then they want to like, go fight the system, right? Because that's also like very age appropriate as a teenager to like fight a system. But we know that we don't get ahead. If we come in guns blazing, right?

Like we just like, know that that's not how things work, but if you come in, like with a clear plan or with good ideas and thought, I'm not saying that every administration will listen to them because they don't, I've seen them been around for years. So they don't, but there's other ways to get your word out the word out too, about getting the kind of things that you want to see change in education, using different platforms and different press.

But I just feel like you shouldn't have to wait until you're older. To develop leadership skills and to develop and to learn how to like lead, be a leader in your own life. That's like this idea of like being the CEO of your own life is very important to me to teach because I think young people sit a little passive and think that life is just happening to them.

And they're being forced to go to school and I have to do this and they have to that, but that's a very. That's a very low vibration way to wouldn't be in the world. If you think that like your day is full of things that like you have to do, and when you don't have a lot of choice. So I try to show them the shift of like taking the ownership, showing that you have a lot of chances to to advocate for yourself to lead, to be in the driver's seat of your own life.

That's important.

Sadie: I love that.

This week's episode is brought to you by teen counseling. We talked to about it in the intro, but mental health treatment and therapy were a game changer for me when I was struggling with severe depression and anxiety.

That was what really pulled me out of my low and enabled me to take ownership of my life, to use skills, to improve my life, to build healthy relationships in so many different. So what teen counseling is, is it is a branch of better help specifically for teenagers. It's an online therapy program with over 14 licensed therapists within the network.

And they offer support on things like anxiety, depression, relationships, trauma, and more all via talk text in video counseling. So what you're going to do is you're going to go to teen counseling.com/she persisted. And you're going to fill out a quick survey about what you're hoping to work on. So maybe that school stress, maybe that's time management, maybe it's family relationships, whatever it is, you fill it out on the survey and they use the survey to match you with a therapist that meets your needs. From there. You'll go ahead and enter a parent's email for consent for treatment.

And none of the information that you share on the survey is shared with your parent that is purely to match you with the right therapist. And they send a pretty nondescript email to your parents saying Sadie or whatever your name is, is hoping to work with a therapist from teen counseling. Please click the link below to learn more and give consent.

And I sent the email to my. I tried it. You guys don't worry. And none of your information is disclosed. That confidentiality is protected. So this is an amazing resource. And because it's talk text and video, you can have a therapist really meets you where you're at and what level of support you're looking for.

You don't have to deal with waiting on a waiting list for months or weeks to meet with a therapist in person. You don't have to deal with going into the office for the first time and navigating that awkwardness. I've been there. I understand. So this is just a great solution all around. So. To start your therapy journey today had to teen counseling.com says she persisted

So you talked about being the CEO of your own life. It's a loaded question. I tend to ask a lot of those on the podcast, but if you could give like a really quick masterclass on like two or three skills that you think are crucial to that in a way that a teenager can apply that in their life.

And what would that be? If you're someone's like, I want to take more ownership. I have no idea where to start. Where do they get.

Sarah: I think the first thing would be to take inventory or reflect on where you see the victim mindset showing up in your life. So, I mean, I think even like looking at your language, right.

So how do you talk about your day? How do you talk about your life? How do you, so let's just take the. The big flex. Oh my God. I'm acting like I'm like a kid using like the term. It's not a flat

Sadie: graphic.

Sarah: Not very, it's like a joke. Cause I like don't I don't, I don't need to try to be cool. Like they can be cool.

I'm just helping them out. But like when people think it's like a full X to say how busy they are and how tired they are. Oh, I hate

Sadie: when they like, oh my God, I had so much. I'm like, I couldn't sleep. I'm so tired. I'm so

Sarah: tired. I'm like, I'm so tired. It's like I was up all night. So what I hear is like, wow, you have really bad time management skills and a really poor self care routine.

I don't hear. Oh my God. You're just so amazing. And you're so cool. I don't. And so. That is it, that's an, that's an example of, to me not being a CEO of your own life, a CEO would never show up to the board room saying how tired they were and how overwhelmed they were. That's not a power move. So. Like it's saying, like, where are you saying using language that you think is showing that you're like, cool or you have a full light?

I don't know how to, I don't know the best terminology for it, but it's this idea of going like CEOs don't talk like that. CEO's go. It's really important that I'm able to show up for myself first and then my, my, the mission and the team. So where, like I tell somebody, be the CEO of your own life in terms of your health.

I mean, if people are out like you're in college, I mean, I mean, I, well, I mean, we're not gonna be delusional. We know high schoolers drank, but If you're out binge drinking, if you're out like literally late and you're doing this things like, okay, whatever, like you're allowed to do those kinds of things.

I mean, legally, hopefully whatever, but I mean, it's, it's like, that's not a healthy choice for your body and for your mind, if you're trying to be somebody or you're using language, see here's the deal is I'm getting a little. Just bear with me here. Here's the deal, your, your words and your actions have to line up.

If you really want to just live a life. That's like pretty amazing. Meaning if you're talking about wanting to be like running your own company or being the head of this or working for this thing or doing, like being in these like really like mover and shaker positions and you're eventually in the world.

But your actions on a daily basis and weekly basis are ones of somebody who are that looked like they be the behavior of somebody who's okay. Living a mediocre life and being more average, then you're going to have a problem they're going to it. And so my thing is like, just lining it up and maybe you don't have to have some big drastic overhaul, but it can be like small.

It can be small changes. Thinking about the things that you've been saying in your brain over and over again, maybe it sounds like you keep telling yourself that you're going to eat healthier, or you're going to wake up earlier, or you're going to work out three times a week, whatever your thing is, but you don't do it.

That's not a CEO. The CEO will do it. So pick one thing that you, everybody knows. The one thing that they're almost so sick and tired of telling themselves that they're going to do and they haven't done it. Pick that thing. Execute it, incorporate it into your life for a month and then pick another thing and just slowly start lining it up.

It could be as easy as I tell myself that I'm going to drink, you know, we're going to, I'm going to drink two, three bottles of water a day, and then maybe, yeah. And then you say that you never do it. Maybe today's the day you just drink the damn wall. I just drank the water day. So you can get that off of your list that you not keeping your own word to yourself is, is not, does not do good things to your body and to your soul.

If you are continuously breaking your rule, breaking your word to yourself. That's not a good move.

Sadie: No, you're not prioritizing your relationship. You're not respecting yourself. You're not believing that you're worth doing that. And I think two things that re the, what you're saying really made me think of one is like the idea that if you're not progressing or regressing, and if you're like, okay, I want to live this dream life someday.

Well, you're on the trajectory, so you're right. Purposely going in the opposite direction by having bad habits, making bad decisions, or you're slowly working towards that point. And you're like, yeah, maybe drinking my three bottles of water everyday doesn't seem like it. But if you're dehydrated and you can't put any effort into anything, like you're going in the opposite direction.

And another thing that I really like that I think goes along with this is the idea that like every moment is an opportunity to recommit to your goals. If you think we get really stuck in the mindset that like, oh, I didn't do my workout today. I'll just start next week. Or I didn't drink my water today, whatever, but every single moment is an opportunity to recommit to this either larger goal or the smaller goal and continue to get on that trajectory towards what you're aiming for a hundred

Sarah: percent.

I mean, at what we have is 11 tips for doing. One of them is it's a choice and there's really, you have so many chances to make choices. Like, let's say you have said that you're going to work out today and you haven't, but you really could do a 10 minute hit workout in your room. You can break a sweat in 10 minutes if you're doing a hit workout.

And so it's just. Doing those things following through. And I think that, I think if I could teach young, especially to young women, because I think something that I struggled when I was younger and as a teenager and as a young adult, is that a lot of the work that I was doing or the things that I was trying to do to make myself better.

I thought I could motivate myself to do those things through like negative self-talk. It was almost like I would bully myself into doing those things or shame myself into doing those things. Or if I didn't do something, I was like really hard on myself. And so then I'd like punish myself the next day with something.

And I wish I would've learned younger that that's not a sustainable behavior and not a loving choice. It, it, it, the, the, the fucked up thing is that sometimes it actually can get you results. But it doesn't, what's so hard about it, but they're not, long-term sustainable. What is, is radically loving yourself and accepting yourself through those things and really working on the positive self-talk and my girls will sometimes like laugh because I'll say like, oh yeah, look in the mirror sometimes and be like, Like, you know, it's been a rough one, but like you got it.

Like you can do it like good job. Like I will like do positive. It's not an, a, my fake, it's very honest for me, but that, wasn't how I used to be. I would actually like look at myself and be very hard on myself and think that if I. If I would just the heart, like the harder I was, then the more I would improve.

And I, when I share this with the young people I work with, I say, you have to think about it in terms of, have you ever experienced or ever seen someone get bullied into. More love for themselves and better behavior. It doesn't oh, it's a tick tock trend right now. Oh,

Sadie: what is that? Yeah, it's like so basically it's oh my gosh.

I wish I could remember the sound it's like only love hurts. Like this, I think is the sound and it shows someone like really unhappy before, and then they do have this whole transfer. It's like a breakup kind of thing. So I guess that's not really like bullying, bullying. But it's like that really negative experience and that like really negative relationship that like builds that growth.

But then I agree with you that like, when things are built out of that and like negative space, it's not long lasting, it's not sustainable. I guess if you're in like the after part and you're like, I hate being treated this way, I'm going to treat myself differently. And then you like have this radical self-love that allows you to have this personal growth.

I think that is totally valid and could be really sustainable. Yeah.

Sarah: You also see young people, old people. It doesn't matter. I don't think age has anything to do with it, but women wanting romantic partners to show up in ways for them and talk to them in ways that they don't show up for themselves or talk to themselves, which is really interesting to dive into and to just like take take you know, observe that.

Women will want their romantic partner to do all these things for them, and then say all of these things to them, but in the quiet of their own home and in their own soul, they're not showing up for themselves like that. And they're not speaking to themselves like that. And so then they put all their like power into this other human.

And then you see a really toxic codependent, unhealthy relationships happening with young women starting in high school. I mean, I see it all the time. I mean, I see it all the

Sadie: time. High school relationships are very toxic. I don't think we talk about that enough. They are not a good

Sarah: time. I mean, there's and the thing is, I mean, like I said, it being older, I mean, I look back and I go sheesh, like those, those relationships and those experiences in high school and in college, they do form a lot of.

But they do make an impact. So you really want to like handle what's happening so that you can tell you Harriet immediately

Sadie: very Arab decades ASAP. No, it's, it's totally, totally true. I completely agree. I want to hear your perspective on the connection between this, like, self-love this radical, self-acceptance this, this self-esteem and leadership, entrepreneurship, how you're showing up as others view you, do you think there's a connection there? If so, what are the step does one have to come before the other, what do you see in yourself or with the girls you're working with?

Sarah: Well, yeah, I do. I mean, will hurt people, hurt people, so we know that.

So if you're hurting and not in a level of like self love and self acceptance, the chances are, you're probably hurting other people. You're, you're probably projecting that pain that you're feeling that you're not addressing onto other people. We see this happen all the time. I've been a recipient of this.

I've told this story many times, but there was a girl that hosted an Instagram live, the teenage girl, that was just, she was just tearing me apart and talking about how ugly I am and like all these different things. And, and other teen girls reached out to me and said, did you know that they're like she had you on as the guest?

No, she was upset because of. She didn't, we, I invited her on our podcast and she knows, she knows, showed me and then told me that, I mean, the date of the recording. And she said, when I reached out to her, she didn't get back to me for like a couple of days. And then when she reached out to me, she said, you don't have a high high, and you didn't have a high enough follower account for me to make it worth my time.

And so I use that as a teachable moment in my community and went live on, on, on my Instagram. And I said, Here's a deal. This is why that's a really bad choice to like, to, to be, to stand somebody up based on a follower account. Like we put so much pressure and so much leverage on like, how many followers do they have do that, but that's not how you really like build a business.

That's not, I mean, anyway, I used it as a teachable moment. And then I got so many people writing me and saying, oh my gosh, I totally appreciate thank you for saying this. I feel so much pressure with this like follower account, whatever. And while I didn't mention the girl's name, I did share her DM and people could see her profile pic and they knew who it was.

I didn't really care. I mean, I feel like it, if you, like, I don't know that you don't get to put people on blast and then not take it yourself. I don't, I don't agree with that. Like, if you're going to like talk smack about somebody, then they can have a chance. Respond and her response. And then what she did was she went on a live and then just like went to just pick me apart, physically and everything.

So let's find, I mean, whatever. The funny thing was that I actually, the teens reached out to me and told me this was happening. And so I logged on and I watched it. That's kind of how funny it was. It was like, I actually like watched somebody like tearing me apart. But what I knew for sure was that girl was hurting because hurt people, hurt people.

And that. She was embarrassed I'm sure. And she probably like regretted that she had done what she did. But that my purpose was not to like, I, it was more just to say like, people there's so much there's pressure on this, like follower count and how you treat people matters. There's like the energy that you put out there comes back to you and disregarding somebody because of the follower count or, Hey, you can choose not if I didn't want to come on your podcast this morning, I could have messaged you and said, I've changed my mind.

I don't want to go, but you don't stand somebody up. You don't like, how do you sit. And wait for it. Like, that's not good. We had

Sadie: audio issues the first time and I emailed you and I was like, I am so sorry. I've had the apple store tried to get a new cord. Like I didn't just like, I let you know. And it's that, that courtesy, like, regardless, like you've committed and then there's a time commitment you have to honor.

Like, it's just, you don't just. Disappear into thin air. And of course things happen. Like if there's like a huge emergency and you follow up and I'm like, you're like, I'm so sorry.

Sarah: I understand. That's actually, I was concerned that maybe something happened to her. Right. So then, but then I saw her posting on her Instagram.

So I knew she was like fine, but long we got off on a tractor, but I would show my point for that story was. Somebody who hosts alive. And the whole focus is to hurt them and to insult them and to pick apart their body and all of that is hurting. So we know that people that are healed don't do that.

People that are loved themselves and working on themselves, don't do that. And so the connection, I don't know if that's like a really, that was a really good example, but I even, I let's put it back on me and say, In my life. Okay. When let's take, when I see some, sometimes I'm in a space for I'm very, I'm feeling very good with where I am in my work and my business.

And it's very easy for me to celebrate other people sometimes. I feel really insecure and I feel like I'm not enough. And I feel like I haven't done enough. And I feel like which should be bigger and better and further along in all of these things. And I feel, I feel insecure. Well, what does that look like?

What happens then? I can sometimes like, see people's success and I feel jealous and I feel, and my, then I start like, although never publicly, because I'm intelligent and I'm, I know not to do that. But I'll hear my inner voice being like, yeah, but I like know that she's like, blah, blah, blah, or at least shit.

And I'm like, oh, when I do that, it's my alerts to go, oh Sarah, what do you need to heal? Like what's going on? Because you're usually really good at being able to like lift somebody else up or advocate for their success or share their story and be like, check out my friend. She's doing this and, or it'll okay.

So that's how it can look like in business. Or I can feel like really good at. Romantic life. And then it's easy for me to celebrate other people in theirs, or if I'm feeling like that area of my life is stagnant or doesn't look how I want, I can start scrolling on Instagram and start feeling really jealous

Sadie: think, oh my God.

That's so, yeah, they're

Sarah: probably like, oh yeah, you think it's probably good, but it's probably like really bad behind that. It's like, oh my God. So that's I use that that's my gauge is like, am I able. W to do what is really is how I love to walk in the world, which is to celebrate other people, lift other people up while also feeling really good about my place in the world.

That is where I to that's how I like to flow. If I, if I'm, if I'm feeling jealous or if I'm feeling insecure, it shows up as jealous. And so, and then it shows up as me kind of like

Sadie: it's primary and secondary emotions. I literally released an episode on Monday all about this, and it was like a doozy. It was a lot of information thrown at people, but I touched on that.

Exactly. And people don't know to look for those things. Like they don't know that like they're feeling jealousy, something else could be happening internally that they haven't processed through. Yeah. I

Sarah: mean, somebody else can be pretty and you can be pretty. And somebody else could be

Sadie: assessing the scarcity versus abundance.

Like, and then when I'm the same way, like I remember at the beginning of the podcast, when I had like two reviews, the idea of writing someone, a review that had the same number of reviews for as me I'd take, oh, no. Like, because then they'll have more reviews than I do. Whereas now I'm like, I do not care if they have 30,000 more reviews than me.

If I think they're doing a great thing, I read a review and it's like that scarcity versus abundance thing. And it's like, when you're insecure, you really do think like, As scarce amount of success that can be like divvied up among people. And then when you're like feeling good, you're like, no, there's enough to go around for everyone.

Sarah: And I think I wish the education system, because that's why I come back that a lot, because that is where our children are spending the most of their day, eight hours, 10 hours a day in a system. And this education system, we're not doing the best job, equipping them with tools around developing their emotional intelligence.

And just building a toolbox because we're beating it down that like grades, grades, grades, APS, whatever, whatever. But where is the, where is the toolkit to understand and be able to talk about these kinds of things you're feeling this way, because the competition is so intense in high school for like getting into the school, which is such bullshit.

It's just such bullshit. But whatever. Okay. So get that. If they were to teach. Abundant mindset. And that you can trust that, you know, life will unfold in a way that serves you at your highest good well, well, I think that people make a lot of money off of our kids being stressed out. You spend more money on test prep.

You spend spend more money on tutors. You spend more money on like private coaches. You do all of these different things. When they're stressed. If they were like learning how to regulate, maybe they'd be, maybe people wouldn't make as much money off of them. So I just don't believe. I do not believe that all this talk about supporting our youth mental health is a really fully ground is really fully true.

I would operate very differently if they, if it was,

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we talked in the beginning about how having like distance from. Struggle brings a lot of insight of, you could give a teenager one piece of advice, like looking back on your teenage years, working with teens now, having that insight of being an adult, what would you say?

Sarah: He used to get asked that question a lot. I'd be asked and the kids built this business years ago wit called It was called the 16 year old. So I'll think it was, it was about like, they'd go around and ask people the question, celebrities, everybody. What advice would you give your 16 year old self?

And my, my answer used to be, he's not worth it because I was very boy crazy in high school. And I spent a lot of time worrying about what he and insert, whatever boys name, you know, based on where it, what school I was at, of work. I was doing. What he was thinking about me and then letting that determine how I felt about myself and I, I still would give that advice because I still see people bull is still see boys and girls.

Putting way too much weight into what somebody else thinks about them and letting that, that letting their opinion then decide how they feel about themselves. So I would definitely be like, he's not worth it. She's not worth it. Anybody, whether it's like the girl that's bullying you or the guy that you, whatever, it's like, they're just, as people are like not worth it because they're not really going to be in your life later on because you're in this like weird world for this time and in your life and this chapter of your life, where you're forced to be around people.

I don't, I'm not forced to be around anybody truly. I mean, I'm really not because I run my own business. If I don't want to work with you, I just don't work with you. You know? But it's like, you're forced to be in the hallways. You're forced to be on there all of a sudden, like you're assigned to a group project together and you're like, great.

So there's a lot of like things where you just want to say like, oh my God, just get through it. Just get through it because it gets better. For sure. The other thing I would say is I know it's so cliche. Cause I don't know how I could have learned it. Cause I know people were helping you with this, but like loving myself and because people thought I was people thought I was different than I was, I was a popular girl. So I think people thought I had some certain things. I kind of figure it out that I didn't and I was very insecure.

I struggled with an eating disorder. I also. Was a very social person. And I, I mean, it just, there's a lot of things that I was dealing with in high school. I went to three different high schools, went to a college prep school and then a public school for a hot second. And then to boarding school was bullied at boarding school the first semester, pretty bad.

And So I also would want to, I also say to myself, like I was really, really strong and resilient in ways that I shouldn't have had to be. So if anything, I would say to my 16 year old self. You should have pushed back more on those adults in that administration that were not showing up for you and not taking care of you, you should have pushed harder.

Cause that, that is their job having been. And now that I'm an adult and I've worked in education, I'm disgusted by some of the choices that school administrations made during my, during my struggle. Because when you're younger, you don't understand. The adult perspective, I'm the adults and it's horrific how adults do not show up for young people, because I see everything, I see it all now.

And I'm like, wait a second. A child came to you and say that I came to them. And your response was that like, I would never do that as an advocate and as a teacher and as an adult. So I think to the young people out there that feel like the people that the adults aren't. Listening or showing up for you.

I really understand that I've been there and you deserve better for sure.

Sadie: Yeah, no, I remember the exact same thing and there's a lot of parallels between our high school experiences. I also did three different high schools. One was a private school. One was a boarding school and one was public school.

Sarah: Wow. That's a huge similarity. Isn't that

Sadie: crazy? Mine was a treatment boarding school was not a fun time, also in a different way. But I remember the same experience with high high school administrations and trying to get support and not feeling it. I had this one really good friend my freshman year. I was at, I was attracting the energy.

I put out all my friends were like severely suicidal was not a good friend group going on. And I remember him telling me that he had like attempted to commit suicide and he had like continual plans going on. And I remember going to a guidance counselor and going to a teacher and being like, this is not okay.

Like he needs to be in a hospital like today. And they brought in the parents and the parents were like, no, we don't think that's the right step. And no further steps were taken. So why was there. Knowing that this kid might not be there tomorrow. And he was deeply unhappy and deeply unsafe. And there was no, no support given there was no further steps.

And I was like, what's going to happen. They're like, we don't know. Like we can't tell you we can't support you. And this was a school. It was a private school with immense amounts of funding. It wasn't like a, a public school where there's like 30,000 kids. And so it was, it was a really interesting experience.

And one that I look back on and it's like, kitchen have to shoulder that burden. They shouldn't have to deal with being someone else's like treatment coordinator and being the sole person that is aware that someone's struggling to that degree.

Sarah: What's interesting that what I hear in that story is that really sticks that really sticks out to me is that's, that does happen 100% that a teen will tell another team something, and you do feel that right? Like that's very common. And then the team goes to the PR goes to the. Counselor, the teacher, the teacher, the principal, which in itself

Sadie: is scary because like, then the relationship is like put on the rocks and they're like, I don't trust you, but you're like, I'm really scared.

Like I shouldn't have to deal with this. I need to go to an adult. So like that in itself is like a big step that's being

Sarah: taken. But that's normal. That is what happens. I mean, that's happening today right now as we're recording this, that's the kids going through that. And then you go and you report, and then they bring the parents and all of that, and they're dealing with that and they tell you like what we know, we can't really help him right now.

We'll figure it out. But you know, it's super missing in that whole story is where was the adult that pulled you aside and said. Let's process what you just went through, let's process, you hearing that information and then having to summit, you know, gather that courage to go say something. And how are you feeling knowing that like actions not going to be taken, like, we don't want you to carry this.

It's like, let's let's process what you had to do. Like where is that support? Because that's a lot for a young person, even in any human to go through. And I just feel like. We need space. We just need places and tool for bolts and, and we need to put the funding towards counseling in a way. I mean, it's just, there's so much I could say about the systems, but I feel like even in you sharing that, it's like you are not also taken care of because obviously the focus was on this child who had expressed what he had shared with you.

But you also kit, that's a weight that you have carried when you have to be the B you're monitoring. You're doing that. And I did that a lot. I would did that a lot. Growing up is I would be the person that would like fi you know, be around these people that were struggling. And then I would take on their things and I would lose myself in it.

And I would just, and. People would say to me, just stop getting involved or like, leave it alone. It's not your business, but that's not who I was. And he realized

Sadie: life and death. Like what person would just be like, Hm, sorry. Don't tell me that. I'm not interested like it,

Sarah: but we take on a lot. I mean, now it makes sense because of the work that I do, it was, and it was very normal for me.

It was part of my personality to care, to be empathic, to see that. Like you, I, the vibe attracts the tribe. Right. And I was not in the healthiest place. I probably was not attracting the healthy

Sadie: vibes attracted were done.

Sarah: I know.

Sadie: Yeah. No, it's, it's definitely very interesting. And it's yeah, no, it's something I felt very strongly about after I left the therapeutic boarding school, I was like, I want a new school.

I want a fresh start going back to my old school where I had attracted this tribe. That was. Like this older version of me where I was really struggling and then I suddenly was stable and I was happy and I had things to look forward to, and I felt really good about my mental health. And I was like, I want a new group of friends that I can attract with this new vibe and not be back in this invite.

That doesn't fit anymore. And I think that's something that teens, a lot of the times, like, don't feel like they can do, like, again, it's that very like victim mindset or you can't be the CEO of your life. You can't make new relationships. You can't make these changes because it doesn't feel like you have a lot of autonomy, but you can.

No, one's telling you, like you have to be friends with the same people since preschool. They, no one's saying that like, maybe society is like, well, that's normal, but you don't have to. And so there's a lot of power. That you hold, you just have to realize it and take ownership.

Sarah: Yeah. And it's, yeah, I definitely agree with other people for reasons and seasons and lifetimes, for sure.

And when you change yourself, you know, when you have your own, when you are changing, then it makes sense that you would want to be around different, different people. I think something else that I'd want young people or people that are listening to pay attention to around this, like CEO concept is. Pay attention.

If you have people in your life that when you're happy or you feel good about yourself, they don't really like that. So if you, I don't know why this happens a lot with women, but if it, like, if you feel good about yourself, if you're like, if you like, like your body or you just like, whatever whatever's going on and you kind of put that out and you don't chime in, when other women are putting themselves down, they don't really like that.

So there's

Sadie: that scene in main girls for they're all standing in front of the mirror and they're like, all the girls are like saying like how ugly they are and the Katie, the one who's like their new friend, like, doesn't say anything. Why aren't you saying something? And then she like adds on and they're like responding positively.

And she's like, what is happening here? Because they're all just attacking this girl in front of the mirror, but it's like that, that whole mark of their friendship. And it's like, what is happening there? I

Sarah: get clear. If you want to be a CEO, you're building a, you're building a business. Okay. You're building a brand.

Let's say you're building a brand. Then you got to get clear on your values and what my top three values are faith, freedom and family. So everything, those are the things that I value the most. So everything goes into those buckets or they don't, and we don't do it get clear. And then the people that I attract their values should line up to that, because that would just make sense.

So I think getting clear on your values, getting clear on your mission statement, I would be really fun. Host a thing on this, like getting young people to what that means to like, create your own mission statement in your life to create your own values and then live, live accordingly. And it's risky because you're probably going to have people leave your life, but then it makes room for the right people to come into.

Sadie: Yeah, but if you're like building a business of your life, you're hiring team members, hiring quotes. So you have to be critical about who you're allowing into your life. You have to make sure that they align with your values, that they're fulfilling their responsibilities, that you are fulfilling your responsibilities in relation to them.

And so you have to kind of hold yourself up to that standard. You have to believe that you matter enough to care that much about your life.

Sarah: And I would even say, instead of thinking it about, you have to be critical, just be discerning. I think discernment is, we don't talk about that enough about being discerning about what you consume, like who you follow on Instagram, what you watch on television or Netflix or stream, and like who you spend your time with think about.

If you are at the age that you can drink. I mean, I just feel like I have to like put this caveat in there, but now, but I'm also not stupid. But you think about like, are there people that only connect with you over when you drink like that? All the memories that you have with them are people that when they're drinking, when you're drinking or when you're doing something that's like not your highest vibration then, is there any friendship there?

Is there any romantic relationship there? Is there any depth there? If you remove the thing, whether it's completely. Whether it's, you know, participating in substances to like an abusive yeah. Like whatever the thing is, the commiserating the D is, do they only talk about hating their body? Yeah. Like whatever these things are.

And then if you remove it, like, do you guys have, is there any there, there, and if there's not like you, you get one shot at this life, like, and I mean, truly we get one shot. You've got to look around and be like the top five people you spend your time. Are you cool with that? Because if you are that what their dominant personality traits are, yours, top five people, are you liking it?

If not. Pause and like restructure the team restructure the sea level.

Sadie: Absolutely. I couldn't agree more. Well, there's so much great advice in this episode that I know so many teens are going to find helpful. So many things they can implement, which is something that I love sharing on the podcast, because it's not just these abstract conversations.

It's like, okay, now you go to implement the things, restructure your. Your top five are those the values you're in alignment with? What's the mission statement. So thank you so much, Sarah, for joining me today. Thank you for coming on cheaper assisted. Where can people find.

Sarah: Well, you can find me on Instagram at miss M I S S underscore wit wit.

From there you can kind of find all the other things that I do because there's a link link there to everything. I'd love to connect with you and, and hear what you got from this episode. And also if there's things that I just, I feel like this is a bigger conversation. I'd love to hear people chime in on just.

How, what it looks like to be a CEO in their life and how many they're already doing things. Because I think that would also inspire people to here. If you're already kind of making those moves in your life, share with people how you're doing it, because remember I'm older than all of you. Most of you, I'm sure listening.

And so it's really helpful when. Peer-to-peer share how they're doing it. And the real time in a high school setting in a college setting, it's easy. I'm not going to, it's easier for me to implement these things because of the life that I've built, you know, and where my life is right now, but help each other do these things because they will end up really helping you when you get somebody.

Sadie: This clip will be on an Instagram. Real. This is what you're watching right now. So write it in the comments. We want to know what it is. There you go. I love it. Well, thank you again. I'm so glad we got to do this and I, I can't wait for the second half of this swap. Thanks for having me.

In case you skipped the end.

Sarah and I had an amazing discussion talking about becoming the CEO of your life. We discuss why leadership skills are crucial for teens. Develop how age and work ethic are not mutually exclusive. The first steps you should take to take ownership of your life, how your interactions with others reflect how you treat yourself.

The importance of having a strong mission statement when it comes to how you're leading your life and building support systems. If you enjoyed this week's episode, make sure to share it with a friend or a family member, share it on social media and tag me at she persisted podcast. I will repost and give you a little shout out, but yeah.

Thank you so much for tuning in. Thank you for listening. Thank you for downloading. Thank you for the support. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next week.

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