Radical Self-Trust: Eight Ways to Build Embodied Leadership (Pt. 2)

,

build trust embody leadershipAs recently covered, the prerequisite to building trust as a leader is to cultivate a deep sense of self-trust. The most important (work) relationship you have is with yourself.

Executive presence has nothing on embodied presence. When you trust yourself, you carry yourself differently. A real leader is embodied. Trusting yourself means you move with more clarity, consistency, and congruency between your values, words, actions, and outcomes.

When you internally source your power and authority, it reflects in the quality of your presence, the willingness to take decisions, the faith in your movements, and in your adaptability and resilience amidst challenges.

As Maven Miara writes, “So why do so many women leaders struggle with self-trust? Because we’ve been conditioned to seek permission instead of power. Not anymore. Self-trust fuels confident leadership.”

Here are eight ways to build your sense of self-trust, and tips on how to apply each:

1) Know Thyself

To trust yourself, you must remain true to yourself. That means a willingness to un-know yourself and re-know who you are now. This means staying connected and listening within.

Self-awareness means recognizing the beliefs, patterns, conditioning, identities, and expectations that shape how you perceive and how you show up—yet, they are not your limitations. They are protective layers.

Beneath the layers, your essential self is always there. And wherever you are living in a way that is disconnected from who you really are, the truths of your being will be seeking to reach you.

Developing self-trust means coming back to trusting your own senses, instincts, values, preferences, perspectives, and intuition. You are able to sense what feels right to and for you and to discern what is not for you. Validating your intuition and inner knowing helps you to build self-esteem. Inner congruence reflects in your vitality.

Apply: Create moments of solitude to check-in with yourself. Keep small intentional rituals such as a five minute morning meditation. Journal to insightful questions that guide you to strip away stories and reconnect with your inner voice. Practice asking yourself what your needs or preferences are.

2) Practice Compassion and Emotional Awareness

Self-trust is also built on being connected to and responsive to your emotions and creating inner safety. Speaking to relationships, Linda and Charlie Bloom write in Psychology Today that self-trust is “having the conviction that you will be kind and respectful to yourself regardless of the outcome of your efforts.”

Self-trust requires you can trust that you will not be self-punishing when making mistakes. If the inner critic is constantly blaming and berating you, you will not feel safe to experiment and learn. If you are caught at self-protection, you will be unable to examine your experience for new insights.

Yet integrating the wisdom learned through mistakes is part of building self-trust and growing. It’s hard to do that as a non-forgiving perfectionist.

When self-criticism is usurped by self-compassion—the ability to be as understanding, supportive and encouraging as you would to someone else you deeply care about—you are able to expand as a human and leader.

Apply: When feeling triggered, breathe and check in with yourself about what you need. Ignoring your needs corrodes self-trust. Practice allowing feelings to be felt and pass through you, while garnering insight they may offer.

Create a self-gratitude journal where you acknowledge what you appreciate about yourself, challenges you’ve taken on, decisions you’re proud of, wins and successes and ways you trust yourself.

3) Be In the Present

If you lack self-trust, you are caught in past ruptures of credibility or you are worrying about the future. Sometimes, you are simply looking at the entire mountain, instead of taking each step as it comes.

Either way, you are caught in stories and removing yourself from the potent present moment. And, you are displacing your personal power instead of stepping into it exactly where it is—in the here and now.

Regret, worry, or burning out to make it work can parade as certainty and be oddly comforting. We project a false guise of certainty backwards or forwards, even if it’s unwanted: I won’t follow through or I won’t succeed or if I don’t force, it won’t happen.

The familiar story may feel safer to a tightly wound nervous system than embracing uncertainty and trusting in the moment (and yourself) to guide you and give rise to the right decisions and right actions.

As the Blooms point out, the paradox is fear and worry do not exist in the present, so being in the present is the ultimate protection.

Apply: Serious question. Have you ever thought of building your tolerance levels for being in the present moment? Without distraction? What would it would mean for you?

4) Release External Validation

At some level, when you don’t trust yourself, you will feel like an imposter not just at work, but in life. So you will be caught in seeking external approval and validation.

Chronic reassurance-seeking outsources the emotional labor of fear and anxiety and is crippling to self-trust. According to Gravitas Founder, Lisa Sun, the self-sustaining confidence of knowing your worth is most common among women over 50 years old. Tempering the urge for external reassurance certainly plays into this.

The ability to intentionally examine various angles or perspectives of an issue is a gift. Chronic second-guessing is a nightmare. When you have self-compassion, you are more willing to embrace uncertainty and make decisions, because your worth is not on the line.

Apply: Before you turn to someone else for an opinion or advice, get quiet, and ask your own. You may wish to both write the question and answer yourself. You may be surprised how much wisdom you’re sitting on.

5) Honor Your Boundaries

As Paulo Coehlo wrote, “When you say ‘yes’ to others, make sure you are not saying ‘no’ to yourself.” Author Caroline Myss talks about how ‘boundaries’ emerged into our everyday social language as we began to recognize ourselves as not only physical but also energetic beings.

Boundaries matter because self-trust requires a ‘sense of self’ to trust, and a sense of self requires discernment. When you lack integrity, you can be pulled in any direction or towards any whim, regardless of whether it’s aligned or resonant to your own inner truth.

Boundaries are not to keep others out, but to keep you whole and integral. They reflect an inner valuing and authentic contract with self. Some people even create an inner boundary with their inner critic. Your boundaries discern between what resonates and nurtures your being and what does not.

Sure, you could commit to your boss, meet every deadline, and keep every promise you’ve made to your team. But let’s say you’re entirely misplaced in this area of work and burning yourself out to do it. Will you trust yourself? Well, you may trust yourself to betray yourself.

Keeping promises to others does not alone build self-trust, if the promises violate your inner knowing or are inauthentic to you. Real self-trust and organic boundaries come from being aware enough of what your inner truths and values are, and knowing that you will not betray them.

Apply: Identify where are you saying ‘yes’ when it’s truly a ‘no’ for you. What would ‘no’ feel like? Is there anywhere in life where you are violating your own boundaries?

6) Keep Your Word With Yourself

If you habitually break your word with yourself, how can you build self-trust? Lying to yourself, even in small ways, wreaks havoc within. When you don’t believe yourself, you don’t believe in yourself. But nothing builds self-trust faster than keeping your word with self.

Keeping promises with yourself means validating what matters to you and assigning this as much importance and priority as outside demands. When you meet the commitments you make with others, but always compromise the ones you made with yourself, you are sending your cells a message: you don’t matter.

If someone treats you like you’re not important to them, do you trust them? In order to rebuild self-trust, you need to treat your word with yourself at least as importantly as you do your word with others.

Identify what is really important to you, and be transparent with yourself about it. Show up consistently to yourself in small ways, and let it build, step by step, towards momentum, results, and more self-trust.

Apply: Listen in and clarify what is important to you. Where are you ignoring this? Where are you keeping your word with self and where are you bending it? Set reasonable and achievable commitments, treat them as real, and acknowledge when you fulfill them. Be realistic.

7) Take On Risk And Challenge

If you rarely take on new challenges, explore new expressions, or take yourself out of your comfort zone, you won’t have the experiences which build more self-trust.

One risk you can take to build self-trust is to speak up in a room where you’d normally hold back. Put your weight behind the value of your voice and your perspectives, rather than asking permission to.

Expanding into new skills is a way to build self-efficacy and increase a sense of personal competence. Through putting yourself into the valuable role of beginner in unfamiliar territory, you learn you are capable and adaptable to challenges and setbacks. You may discover gifts and capacities beyond the ones you knew.

Apply: Choose one thing you are already curious about and invest in growing in that area. Check the first challenge that comes to mind—is it truly out of your comfort zone? If you’re an adrenaline junkie, a marathon may not be the challenge. Yin yoga might be.

8) Practice Accountability

When you take accountability for your own perspectives, actions, behaviors, and outcomes, you build self-trust. Accountability is a sign that you trust yourself, because when you err, you do not collapse into shame or deflect responsibility. Rather, you see the moment as an opportunity to step even more into integrity.

Even more than to others, ownership demonstrates your credibility to yourself. Not only do you hold what happened differently, you feel and experience it differently, too.

You know you have grown when you can own your part in an undesirable outcome. Or when something that would have wilted you becomes an insight from which to learn. Equally, owning your part helps you to discern what is not yours to own or internalize.

Being accountable also means a willingness to see and honestly assess the reality in front of you. Because when you do this, you can move from a place of grounded empowerment. It means being honest even when it’s hard to, including with yourself.

Apply: Notice how taking accountability, and owning your part, has helped to liberate you and for you to grow. Where in life would you like to see more clearly and take more accountability? How can you start?

BONUS: Trust in Life

Self-trust is not hyper-independence and it’s also not being a control freak.

It’s trusting yourself enough to cultivate dynamics of interdependence, because you are able to extend that trust to others who have also earned it. Connection, collaboration, and co-creation depend on this. How we trust others (or don’t trust) reflects our self-image and how much we trust ourselves. If you required others to always do exactly as you wished, you would never trust them.

If you require yourself to flawlessly do exactly as you wished, you will likely never trust yourself. From models of understanding such as Human Design, not everyone is meant to work or create or make decisions the same. What makes us effective and what fulfills us expresses differently. Being curious about how we work helps us to build trust.

But it goes even further, if you require life to always be exactly as you wish it to be, you will not trust in life. Paradoxically, self-trust requires a willingness to surrender. When you trust in something greater than yourself, call it life or universal forces or the divine, not everything comes down to you and what you alone can control.

When you value yourself, humility breeds self-trust. And the more you are able to release your grip on the wheel, and be receptive to be guided by life, the more willing you may be to trust when you know your hands belong there.

By: Aimee Hansen is a long time writer and heart coach with theglasshammer.com. Her recent work includes “This Book is a Retreat” co-written with Marianne Richmond.

If you would like to work with Aimee or any of our coaches including Nicki Gilmour our head coach and founder, please click HERE for a free, exploratory call with Nicki who can match you with the right coach for you (we have six coaches, all with different backgrounds who can help you depending on what you need).

/by

Alexandra Barth: Co-Head of Leveraged Finance, Wells Fargo

,

Alexandra Barth“After 25 years at one company, making a change can feel daunting,” says Alexandra Barth. “You know the people, the processes, and the rhythm of the work, it’s familiar and comfortable. But when the opportunity at Wells Fargo came along, it was so compelling that I knew it was the right moment to embrace a new challenge.”

After more than two decades at Deutsche Bank, rising from analyst to group head and becoming a trusted voice in leveraged finance, Barth was ready to trade comfort for possibility. Wells Fargo offered not just a new role but a new environment, one defined by ambition, energy, and a leadership team committed to building something world-class. For Barth, it was the right moment to make a change.

Today, as co-Head of Leveraged Finance, Barth’s work centers on building a market-leading leveraged finance franchise inside a platform that is already well-known, well-capitalized, and hungry to grow. “The firm has assembled some of the best people in the market into an established franchise that’s looking to become a true market leader,” she says. “It’s as entrepreneurial as you can be inside an investment bank, and that combination is exciting.”

Barth is drawn in not only by the business potential at Wells Fargo, but the culture, one where senior leaders regularly roll up their sleeves, model curiosity, and make themselves accessible.

“The senior management here is committed to making this not just a world-class, top-tier investment bank, but also interactive…It’s an inspirational culture. It’s not just senior leaders dictating from above or only connecting with you when something is needed” After 26 years in the industry, Barth describes the culture simply: “It’s been reinvigorating to be here.”

Barth’s path into finance had unconventional beginnings: she majored in government with an art history minor at Dartmouth. Originally considering a legal career, early law internships changed her mind, and after taking her brother up on a suggestion to try a 2-year analyst position at an investment bank, gain great experience, and reassess after that, she ended up finding that banking was where she wanted to be. As an analyst, she discovered how much she loved the pace, the problem-solving, and the client work that became foundational to her career.

Words of Wisdom: Focus on the Client and Use Your Voice

Barth credits an early mentor for helping shape her leadership philosophy, setting two expectations that she still carries: always focus on the client, and always use your voice. “The priority was to really listen to the client—what they’re saying, what they need—and not just present what you think will sound good or what’s best for the bank,” she recalls.

Equally important was the expectation that even the most junior person should contribute. “If you’re in a meeting or on a call, even as a junior person, you should be using your voice and bringing something to the table that is thoughtful and adds value.”

It is a lesson Barth incorporates into building her team’s culture. She wants her team thinking critically, independently, and confidently, not just processing.

“Banking can be very process-oriented for junior people,” she notes. “We want a culture at Wells Fargo where you take time to think about what you’re working on, ask questions, understand why you’re doing it. If you’re on a client call or a senior-level committee call, you should be contributing.”

To strengthen that culture of inquiry, Barth brings in external speakers, including investors, economists, and credit strategists, to give the Leveraged Finance team space to stretch intellectually. “We want people thinking critically,” she explains. “If something about a company or a credit doesn’t make sense, or you have a question, be proactive and ask.”

Even the physical layout of the office reinforces this ethos.

“It’s intentionally non-hierarchical. Analysts and associates sit around me. I have a managing director and a second-year analyst next to each other. People walk up and talk to whoever they need to. It’s very interactive, and I think that makes a difference.”

Honesty, Transparency, and Directness Fosters Client Trust

Barth’s track record with clients, often spanning decades and tens of billions in capital raised, rests on a simple principle: honesty.

“Being honest with clients about what you think is the best answer or solution for them—even when it isn’t necessarily most advantageous for you or your firm—has been core to my career.”

Barth’s approach is both candid and relentless. “You have to ask to lead things and be direct. Most importantly, you have to show why you deserve to win,” she explains. That means being deeply knowledgeable about the market, offering creative structures, and making clear that she and her team will be tireless advocates for clients.

Barth knows the business is complicated, and mistakes happen. What matters, she says, is how you handle them.

“The first thing you do after a mistake is what matters most. How you manage it, how you communicate, and how you teach your team to navigate it.”

Clients respond to her consistency and her clarity. Barth earns trust at the CEO and CFO level not because she tells them what they want to hear, but because she tells them what she believes is achievable and then delivers the results.

“I think the ability to back up what I say with the outcome has been one of the biggest drivers of my success,” she says. “That relationship of trust is what matters most.”

Building a Market-Leading Franchise and a Lasting Legacy

Barth sees extraordinary potential at Wells Fargo. “I think in almost every product in investment banking, Wells can be a market leader,” she says. Her goal is straightforward: to help build a platform that is viewed as a top five investment bank, across products and across markets.

As much of a priority is the experience of the people on her team. Whether they stay in leveraged finance long-term or go on to other roles, Barth wants their time on her team and at Wells Fargo to be meaningful. “At my prior firm, I’m still in touch with many of the former junior people, and they tell me their experience was a pillar of their success,” she says. “That’s what I want to create here.”

A Working Mother Who Still Makes Room for Art

Balancing a demanding role with family is no small undertaking, but Barth credits her career with teaching her how to prioritize.

“In banking, you always have ten things happening at once that you can’t possibly do at the same time. You learn to prioritize what’s most important and give it your full attention.”

Outside work, she reconnects with the passion she discovered years ago as an art history student, visiting museums whenever she can in New York and beyond while bringing her eight- and eleven-year-old children with her. “I try to teach them as much as I can about art and art history,” she says, a reminder that even amid a full career, there’s always room to nurture curiosity and creativity.

Barth aims to create that same sense of value and possibility for her team.

“I grew up in a group where every voice mattered, even junior analysts’. Now, after 26 years, that’s exactly the culture I want to create, where the smartest person on the team, no matter their title, feels empowered to speak up and knows their perspective is valued.”

By Jessica Robaire

/by

Words of Wisdom from Women in Leadership 2025 (Part 2)

,

Words of Wisdom 2025 part 2Part 2 of Words of Wisdom 2025 features women leaders who highlight the power of owning your identity, trusting your instincts, and creating environments where others can excel. They also speak openly about navigating visibility in male-dominated spaces, redefining success on their own terms, and choosing collaboration over competition. Their reflections remind us that leadership is not just about what you achieve, but about how you show up, what you stand for, and the communities you build along the way.

These insights paint a picture of leadership that is grounded, human, and deeply personal. And as we share their perspectives, we also look ahead to how coaching can support leaders in living these principles more fully and navigating their careers with clarity and confidence.

On Being Yourself – Truly:

“I wasn’t out in the first decade of my career at the NFL…Everyone always says, ‘Be yourself,’ but that’s easy when you look and act like the default person at an organization,” she reflects. “It’s a lot more challenging when you are a member of the gay community, or the Black community, or the Latinx community…when I felt confident enough to make the change to come out and be myself unapologetically, I started to thrive.”

Sam Rappaport, CEO Blue80

On Being Bold and Owning What Makes You Unique:

“There’s a big real estate conference I go to every year,” she says. “You queue to board the flight, and it’s just a sea of men in navy suits. I make a point of wearing something bright and own the fact that I’m not the guy in the navy suit. I’m the woman in the bright red dress. It’s an opportunity to be seen.”

She emphasizes, “Being different can make you more memorable. It’s not just about gender. You might be younger, newer, or from a different background. Whatever it is, don’t be afraid to be visible. Have confidence and own it.”

Nicola Free: Managing Director, Head of CRE, EMEA, Wells Fargo

On Fostering Growth Over Competition:

“My Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu coach always says he never hides the best parts of his game because if someone can master it in two weeks and beat him, they deserve to win.” The same philosophy, she says, applies in leadership. “Helping my associate grow, bringing her along and giving her what I can to help her succeed doesn’t threaten me; it strengthens the team, and if I ever move on, she’s ready to step in.”

Marie Bober: Chief Compliance Officer and Senior Counsel, Moelis Asset Management

On Redefining Success:

“Your career is not a ladder, it’s a landscape. Don’t be afraid to move sideways, take a leap, or build something of your own and test a hypothesis. Solving a big problem is where the real growth lies. If you opt to build a hobby business that’s fine too. Just define what success means to you.”

Sally J. Clarke: Entrepreneur and Author

On Leading Collaboratively:

“I used to wait until every idea was perfect. Now, I bring it to the table early. It invites feedback and makes the work better.”

Heather Plumski: President, Stearns Bank

On Leaning on Your Values to Navigate Challenges:

“In facing challenges or change, I always go back to the questions: Am I in the right place? Am I surrounded by the right people? Am I learning? Am I growing? When you can identify core tenets to return to and hold yourself to them, they become a guide for navigating almost anything.”

Johanna Diaz: Global Head of Alternatives Product Strategy, Goldman Sachs

On the Importance of Building Community:

“I’ve moved and started over several times. Managing those transitions successfully is only possible when you make community, when you connect with people, when you find affinity and appreciate differences. The differences are where you learn.”

Angela Cruz: Sales Effectiveness Leader, Sales Excellence, Accenture

On Effective Communication in All Directions:

“With my team that means ensuring they understand the vision, are aligned around the priorities and the mission, and are inspired to do their best work to deliver for our clients. To do that, I spend a lot of time with the team individually and in groups.”

In communicating up and out to executives, regulators, and the board, Young explains, “It’s about taking the complex and making it simple, understanding your audience, and tailoring your message with the right level of detail.”

Nicole Young: Head of CRE Portfolio Management, Wells Fargo

On Building Teams Through Talent:

“High-performing teams are not built by accident; they come from spotting potential others might overlook and giving people the chance to prove themselves. One of my best hires did not meet the checklist on paper, but I knew she had what it would take. She went on to become a star. As Steve Jobs once said, it does not make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do. My role is to create the conditions for their talent to shine.”

Deborah Overdeput: Chief Operating Officer, Innovative Systems (FinScan, Enlighten, PostLocate)

Moving Into 2026 With Intention

The experiences shared in this collection show how leadership grows when you are willing to know yourself, trust your values, and stay open to learning. Whether you are choosing to be seen, strengthening communication, empowering talent, or building community, these moments of growth rarely happen by accident. They come from intention and support.

Executive coaching provides a dedicated space to strengthen these muscles. Research shows that coaching enhances emotional intelligence, builds communication agility, and helps leaders make more grounded, aligned decisions. A coach helps you explore what matters most, see patterns you may overlook, and translate your aspirations into meaningful action.

As the year comes to a close and you prepare to enter 2026, this is an ideal moment to pause and consider where you want to focus your energy next. If these stories sparked recognition or inspired a shift in how you see your own leadership, take that as encouragement to invest in yourself. An executive coach can help you clarify your direction, accelerate your development, and step into the new year with confidence and purpose.

Book your free exploratory coaching session today and begin 2026 with intention and momentum.

/by

Q&A with Monica Marquez: Co-Founder of FlipWork, Workforce Reinvention Strategist, and widely known as the MacGyver for Agentic-Human Reinvention

,

Monica Marquez“With AI there’s constant disruption,” says Monica Marquez. “It’s about how do you get people to become very agile and comfortable with that disruption? And how do you leverage and sustain that change?”

A “MacGyver for Agentic-Human Reinvention,” Marquez does not shy away from disruption – she wholeheartedly embraces it. Previously profiled in 2021, she spoke with theglasshammer.com on the next chapter in her journey of pioneering change, as she dives into the evolving intersection of human potential and artificial intelligence.

Q: Tell us more about what you’re working on now and how your new venture, Flip Work, is helping organizations navigate this era of rapid change.

At its core, Flip Work helps organizations achieve measurable ROI from AI by focusing on human adoption. According to a 2025 MIT report, 95% of AI pilots have failed, not because of the technology itself, but because people aren’t adopting it, reinventing workflows, or using it to augment their work.

Many companies implement AI without a real plan for how people will use it. The question becomes, how do you help people shift their identities to see themselves differently in the way that they work, and in the way that they must reinvent themselves in the AI era? Because the reality is, AI is changing work faster than people can adapt.

This widening gap is what we define at FlipWork as the Exponential Divide, the moment when technology evolves faster than people can change how they work.

That has been our focus, and we’ve built a human and agentic system that helps people reinvent the way that they work, from a three-pronged approach. First, we help people reinvent themselves from a behavioral and a mindset perspective with the support of FlippyAI, which acts as a daily AI coach and change agent. Second, we reinvent workflows through Flip Lab, our 90-day reinvention sprint. Third, we reinvent workforce tools through Flip Factory, where agentic automations bring redesigned workflows to life. With AI, disruption is constant. The goal is to help people become agile and comfortable with that reality, to leverage it rather than resist it. This is how individuals become People², exponentially capable professionals who evolve at the pace of technology. That’s what Flip Work is all about.

Q: The work you’re describing sounds very much rooted in organizational development, guiding people through behavioral and mindset change. Would you say that’s part of your approach?

Yes, definitely, it’s change management, but traditional change management is no longer enough. When companies are thinking about AI adoption, they think that if they buy all the tools and give them to employees, that will be enough, but no one is really helping the people change and leverage the tools.

Recently I was at a conference talking to senior leaders at Microsoft and they told me that despite rolling out Copilot across their entire professional population, adoption is only 47%. That means that more than half of people aren’t using the tools, often because they’re waiting for permission or guidance from leadership. The impact of that is that people are going to get left behind.

Everybody is fearing that AI is going to replace jobs. The reality is that yes, it will, but we always reinvent ourselves. If we look at the past, think the dot-com era, digital cash registers, or similar technological shifts, people often said, “This is going to displace jobs.” And yes, some roles change, but people reskill and find new ways to contribute. At the end of the day, human discernment, creativity, empathy, and expertise remain essential. Our lived experience still matters in ensuring that outputs are accurate, meaningful, and impactful.

It’s about helping people reinvent themselves, recognizing what your zone of genius is, and how you augment or amplify your zone of genius with AI, and delegate the things that you don’t like to do, so that you can focus on your genius zone. This is the identity-first reinvention that FlipWork is built around.

Q: This is obviously a very exciting moment and project. What brought you here?

As a leader, I’ve always been curious and an early adopter, a pioneer. An example of that is when I was at Goldman Sachs, back in 2008, I spearheaded the Returnship Program. Later, I co-founded Beyond Barriers to accelerate career advancement for women and underrepresented talent. My mindset is always you have to disrupt yourself before you get disrupted. I’ve always operated like a MacGyver, finding resourceful ways to reinvent how work gets done. AI fits in with that because I’m very comfortable with disruption.

When I had colleagues, some of whom are now CHROs at major companies, coming to me and saying, “Our company is adopting all this AI, but I don’t even know how to leverage it. How do we roll out AI adoption for our people?” I started to see a real gap in the marketplace. It’s not just about using the tools; it’s about shifting mindsets. Many people think AI is only for coders or tech experts, and they feel it’s not for them. The truth is, you don’t have to understand how AI works; you just need to know how to use it to do your work better.

Q: What would you tell a digital native, then, entering the space in this exciting world of AI?

Digital natives may have an easier time embracing new tools, but I would be careful that it doesn’t cause creativity and diversity of thought to become lazy. Even though you’re a digital native and you may be an early adopter, you must continuously make sure that what you’re practicing doesn’t lead to intellectual atrophy, making the technology smarter and the humans less smart.

For example, you shouldn’t just be taking the output that ChatGPT or another AI tool gives you and putting it out there without utilizing your own expertise, judgement, and discernment.

One way to think about AI is as your “Artificial Intern.” You wouldn’t give an intern a task and then pass their work along to the higher-ups without checking it first. The same applies to AI. You have to coach it, refine it, review its work, and ensure what it produces reflects your expertise. You wouldn’t pass along unedited intern work to an executive, and the same rules apply with AI.

Q: You’ve long been an advocate for Latina representation in leadership and tech. As a board member for Latinas in Tech and the Association for Latino Professionals in America, how are you helping the next generation of Latino leaders prepare for this new era of work?

Supporting Latinos, Latinas, and other marginalized groups has always been a huge passion of mine, helping them accelerate their careers and expand beyond the limits of their cultural upbringing and conditioned beliefs.

What we’re finding now, though, is that some of the fear around the digital divide is widening. I was at the ALPFA conference over the summer, where we soft-launched Flip the Script, a program designed to help people start thinking about how to adopt AI. The feedback I heard was interesting in that many participants told me, “I’ve always been taught I have to work twice as hard to get half as far. If AI helps me do something in 30 minutes that used to take three days, what does that say about my worth?”

That mindset runs deep, the belief that effort and hard work equal success. But in this new era, we help people rewrite the script to say that impact equals success. AI amplifies your value; it does not diminish it. If you can use AI to achieve more in less time, you’re amplifying your impact, not diminishing your value.

For many, especially those from cultures where perseverance and grit are tied to identity, this shift is difficult. I’ve coached young Latino professionals who feel like using AI is “cheating.” They’re hesitant to embrace it because it challenges their definition of what it means to earn success.

So part of my work now is helping people rewire those conditioned beliefs—whether they’re cultural, societal, or organizational—and help people recognize that their true value lies in their expertise, discernment, empathy, and creativity, the exact human strengths that AI amplifies inside the People² model.

Interviewed by Nicki Gilmour, founder and CEO of theglasshammer.com

/by

Radical Self-Trust: The Work Relationship No One Talks About (Pt. 1)

,

radical self-trustAs a leader who wishes to inspire and empower, you will be more impactful if you earn the trust of those whom you wish to lead. For that trust to be built upon a solid foundation, you must first cultivate a deep sense of inner self-trust.

It’s an axiom for a reason. The most important relationship is the one you build with yourself, and the relationship you wish to build with others begins with you.

Trust is Relational and Earned

Let’s talk relationship dynamics. Within the organism of any organization, trust is the precursor and basis of a functioning team. When trust is absent, the team cannot effectively resolve conflict, foster commitment, create accountability, or develop and deliver to its capacity.

Well, the same is true with yourself. Without a basis of self-trust, how can you confront decisions where you feel internally divided, authentically commit, be accountable, develop, or reach your goals?

Trust is also at the crux of any close, enduring relationship. Trust is not owed to another—it is earned. Trust is relational, and self-trust is a fundamental reflection of the quality of relationship you have with yourself.

  • What is the gap between your values and your life?
  • Between your words and your actions?
  • Between your knowing and your doing?
  • Between what truly matters to you and what you give time and energy to?

If there are real gaps, and you are a self-aware person, you will know and feel it—even if you avoid knowing that you know. These gaps create leaks in self-trust. They dilute your sense of self and integrity.

Self-trust comes from living in alignment with your truths and values, and being able to admit, and even amend, where you fall out of alignment.

The Self-Trust and Confidence Loop

According to Stephen M. R. Covey, self-trust is finding yourself credible. The four cores of credibility are comprised of:

Character (who you are):

  • Intent – being straightforward in motivation with genuine care in others
  • Integrity – being honest, keeping promises, aligning action and values, willingness to do the hard thing if the right thing

Competence (what you do):

  • Capabilities – gifts, skills, knowledge, styles of approaching
  • Results – your followthrough, consistency, and outcomes

As you build self-trust, it gives rise to a feeling of self-assurance and authentic confidence, based on a grounded experience of yourself that is greater than dips in motivation and emotional fluctuations. On a shaky day, you know you’re strong at the roots.

When your act with intent, leverage your capabilities, and follow through, you accumulate self-trust and generate confidence.

The loop then reinforces itself. The behaviors that build self-trust contribute to a feeling of confidence which gives you the courage to take more actions (such as trying new things, taking on challenges and making commitments) that lead to greater self-trust.

Six Types of Relational Trust—With Yourself?

In healthy relationships, there are six different kinds of trust that can be nurtured. One category is about self-trust. But what if you treated each as important to your relationship with self? Let’s adapt them and see.

1) Emotional trust – to allow vulnerability, show up to feelings with empathy rather than judgement, and to foster deeper connection.

  • How do you allow space for your emotions? What do you try to avoid or ignore feeling? What feeling could you be more open to?
  • How strong is your inner critic versus your inner sense of compassion? Whose voice is more prominent for you?
  • How are you kind to yourself? How do you trivialize or undermine your needs? How could you be more receptive and open to yourself?

2) Instrumental trust – to consistently show up, follow through on commitments, and keep promises.

  • How do you already show up consistently for what matters to you?
  • What is one way you could easily commit to regularly showing up to something important to you? Make it achievable.
  • How do you keep your word with yourself? How do you break your word with yourself?

3) Informational trust – to be able to be truthful, transparent, clear, and honest with yourself

  • How willing are you to admit the truths you know deep down within?
  • Where in your life may you be avoiding being honest with yourself or others?
  • Where in life would you like to become clearer and more transparent? What stops you?

4) Self-trust – to honor your worth, trust your judgement and intuition, and to show up to challenges

  • From where do your source your sense of self and worth? Is there anywhere where you are still trying to win approval?
  • What are examples of trusting your discernment or intuition? Where in life have you, or are you, dismissing your intuition?
  • What challenges have you taken on? What is a growth space you’d like to step into, but have yet to?

5) Situational trust – to be able to trust and rely on self in particular contexts, based on strengths and knowledge in that space

  • In what contexts, situations, and discussions do you really trust in yourself and your capacity?
  • In what contexts, situations, and discussions do you feel disconnected from your self-trust? Why?
  • Is there a context in which you wish to improve trust in self? How could you?

6) Physical trust – to feel safe in your own presence, knowing you will respect and protect your own health and safety

  • How are you looking after your wellbeing and health as the only human in charge of that job?
  • In what ways do you compromise your wellbeing and health? How could you be more protective and caring?
  • What would it mean to show yourself more love and respect? What would change?

It’s the one relationship you’ve been in since the moment you became aware of yourself, so it’s a good question to ask: do I have a relationship of trust with myself, and how can I improve that relationship?

And if you are willing, you may find the same is true as in any relationship. Growth requires a willingness to have the real, and sometimes challenging, conversations with yourself.

But if you do, integrity becomes its own reward.

 

By: Aimee Hansen is a long time writer and heart coach with theglasshammer.com. Her recent work includes “This Book is a Retreat” co-written with Marianne Richmond.

If you would like to work with Aimee or any of our coaches including Nicki Gilmour our head coach and founder, please click HERE for a free, exploratory call with Nicki who can match you with the right coach for you (we have six coaches, all with different backgrounds who can help you depending on what you need).

/by