Carla Manly: Committing To A Meaningful Life

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Thanks for joining us listeners for learning fromothers.com and joining us from Santa Rosa, California, dr. Carla Marie Manly, a clinical psychologist and wellness expert based in Sonoma County, California. She’s passionate about helping others create more satisfying joy filled lives and with an approach based on self awareness and mindfulness practices.

Dr. Manly guides, others in a stepwise fashion towards healthier and happier ways of being. Thanks for joining us doctor. My pleasure. Thanks for having me. And a lot of things that we can touch on that I think, you know, based on your background will be really good for our entrepreneurial audience. And you know, some of that will tie into you have an upcoming book, right?

Julia fear from fear. Yes. With familiar from her. That’s right. Yeah. Um, tell us a little bit about your book and then we’ll kind of go from there. Great. So a former life I was in the investment world and found, have this wake up call about my life being rather stuck and I was making money, but I wasn’t.

Fulfilled. Wasn’t very happy. And so I decided to go back to school to earn my doctorate, Britain clinical psychology, which was a childhood dream. And I had subsequently had previously earned my master’s in counseling. So in the course of my doctoral program, I really wanted to understand why it was that I accepted an unfulfilling life.

So long. And I realized that it came from a place of fear trying to please others trying to do the right thing. So what I did is I did a quantitative and qualitative analysis of how fear works in our lives. Um, a particular kind of fear that is normally unconscious and doesn’t. Service like fear of getting bit by a tiger.

It’s not a practical fear. It’s not a rational fear. And so I crystallized all of that. Did my dissertation on that topic, continue doing research. And that’s how joy from fear came, came into being it’s a personal experience as well as exciting of clients and this 700 plus, um, People that I engaged in quantitative and qualitative and yeah.

Analysis with. And so joy from feeder offers really sound simple tools for moving out of the places in your life where you’re stuck, whether it’s in the business realm or the personal realm. Right. And finding ways to look at the fear, learn the messages. It’s not about conquering fear. It’s not about forgetting fear or running away from fear.

It’s actually about using the messages within fear to create a more fulfilling life. Yeah. I mean, fear, fear has to be healthy and, you know, to a certain extent to, to help drive, um, you know, passion and aspirations. Now, you had mentioned that, you know, a lot of in your personal experience, your fear came from.

Pleasing others. I think you mentioned. So in, in the, in the world, what’s, let’s take that in a business per se, from a business perspective. Do you think that people, um, you know, with our audience being largely entrepreneurs, so many people have these dreams of, you know, social media glorifies, the entrepreneurial lifestyle.

So we’ll just, we’ll just roll with that stereotypical lifestyle for a minute. Now, everybody, you know, a lot of people want to pursue that. Lifestyle, but they don’t. And I think a lot of that is probably from fear now in your experiences, that fear, um, you know, you said, uh, afraid of pleasing others. Do you think the fear is more based on other people’s opinions of an individual or the opinions of themselves that kind of holds them back?

Really good question, Damon. And it depends, it depends on the person. It’s not a one or the other. It’s often a mix. So for somebody who now, I don’t know a lot of people who are raised in environments, where they were told you should be a doctor, you should be a lawyer. You should be an entrepreneur, right?

So those messages become instilled in the psyche and in the heart. And people might plod along in life, trying to do. To please somebody else as well, somebody can have, um, a conscious or unconscious expectation of what they see in their lives and let, let that drive them. Okay. And the fear of not succeeding.

In that realm rather than sometimes stepping back and saying, wait, is this what I really want to do? Is this, do I you’re right. Being an entrepreneur glorified, it’s often glorified and people don’t realize how much work is behind the scenes. A lot of work and you, you know, the entrepreneur is the boss and the buck stops with you.

And so, so sometimes I hope I’m answering your question. If not, let me know. But sometimes yeah, it’s fear imposed by others. Sometimes it’s a rational fear such as able to make your house payment or your apartment rent, right. There were those, those fears that come in and sometimes it’s a fear of, of not have instilled in yourself that you think you should do.

I should be making six figures by the time I, you know, 20 or 25 or 30, whatever that is. And those are fears that if, you know, come in through the back door of your mind now with the people that you’ve worked with, is there a common characteristic within those people that is more attributed to the people that do have a breakthrough versus they don’t have a breakthrough and they kind of get stuck.

Yes. Yes. I would say that the big, there, there are probably, you know, two or three factors that make the difference. One is the post person who has the perseverance, perseverance. I mean, you have to have that quality. You can have all the passion, all the wishes in the world. And there’s this mantra out there that I’m going to manifest.

Right. I’m getting to manifest the future. I want absolutely go for it. But the idea has to be followed by the perseverance, the perseverance and the hard work. So I call those my wish groups versus my perseverance groups. Right. And which ones you can wish. Oh, you want, but it has to be followed by that.

It’s the perseverance artwork. The other category I see are the people who aren’t focused. Where they might have the perseverance, they might have the drive. But in fact, I was working with a client like this yesterday, where just getting the focus, getting the goals set, and then the micro goals underneath that is really, really hard because yeah, there’s a lot of energy going out, but it’s scattered different directions.

And so those are probably the two primary. The two primary ones that I see different between success and not very successful. Now, the people that you mentioned are, are, have a lack of focus. Is it D is that lack of focus more? Do you more see that on the personality side or what you hear referred to as drowning and opportunity and they take on too much?

It generally Damon comes from, um, not having the right skills, right? So you can have someone who is not focused personality wise. Right. I work with clients who have add and ADHD. You know, adults who are do are really great business people, but without a list. Governing their day. And then there are people who are very focused naturally.

So yes, I think there are certain characteristics, um, that. Lead us to being, you know, generally more focused, you know, some people were in that group and then some personality characteristics. They’re just a little more scattered, but if you learn that about yourself, learn that that’s part of your personality.

Um, and know that, Hey, I need to be guided by lists. I need to set goals every day and have all of these little goals to push that forward. I think that’s, what’s really important as personality and more of a skill of knowing how your personality will best respond. Yeah. Yeah. You know, there, there’s a common topic amongst, um, you know, entrepreneur groups that I participate in online.

And it seems what you’re touching on is one of those topics lately where it’s, you know, manage your energy and your personality more than your time necessarily. So, you know, if you have a certain process that works best for you, or if you’re more productive in the morning versus the evening, then, then schedule your.

Your tasks and, um, your goals based around, um, you know, what makes you most efficient? And so you don’t have to stick to the nine to five model, you know? Exactly. And that’s. What is so important as learning that you have. I have these, there are all these tips out there. Right? And you read tips for this and tips for that.

Somebody tries the tips. They’re not tips that work for their personality style, then they feel defeated or stupid or, or, or as though they’re somehow defective. Yeah. Where really it’s about finding the right fit. For the tools that you want. You know, I don’t know if you have a toolbox, my husband loves his pool.

Right. And we all have tools that work best for us. So if we know that whether it’s the kitchen or the garage or whatever it is, it’s the same in the business world, you need to personalize your toolkit. So it’s almost like, um, you know, it’s worth experimenting a little. And, and being okay with things that don’t work because it’ll help you find the things that do work.

Absolutely. Um, it’s really about doing exactly that and then continuing on, because what works for Tom might not work for Sarah and what works for Sarah might not work for, you know, bell. So, but we tend to do that. We tend to compare ourselves consciously and unconsciously, especially with so much media around us that we forget.

Well, what’s working for this person. Maybe I need to take two elements from that. Try them on and if they work, do it and do more of it. Yeah. And that’s what I tell people, move into experiment. If it works for you, do more of it. If it’s not working and for you, give it a try, don’t give up right away. And then if you ultimately say, Hey, this isn’t working for me.

I’m not the kind of person who, who responds to, you know, A daytimer I know a lot of people who still go paper and love their day-timers. Right. And that works for them. So continue to do what works for you and continue to Excel . And with, with new tools. So you had mentioned that you kind of had a shift in your career prior to the profession that you’re in now.

And so you took a moment and looked at where you were at in life and said, you know, I don’t think this is where I want to be. So it seems like a common thread with, with people to find happiness in life is. Kind of hitting one of those breaking points. And, and so it’s interesting to see how, you know, how dramatic of a shift people can make in, in what they thought they wanted and then, and ended up being way happier and something totally different.

Now, in your shift, was there a very definitive moment or was it kind of a culmination of, uh, different events? For me, it was about going into an industry. Away from what I wanted to do. So what I always wanted to do was to be a psychologist. My family had different expectations for me, including law school.

Right. So I try to stint in Hastings and just realized it wasn’t for me, went back, entered a master’s program. Got my degree in. Psychology in counseling psychology. My father, you know, Oh no, that it’s not good enough for you come to work for the family business. And it was good. I didn’t like it. Um, but it was good because it was financially helpful.

Right. But then there was that day where I thought, okay, I’ve done this enough. I can’t do it. And I really asked people to look at that in the selves when they reach this point that says, I can’t do this anymore, or I don’t want to do this anymore. The payoff isn’t there. And so I wish I would wish for everyone that they don’t have to go through any black period.

Like I did, where you’re just doing what you need to be done to, you know, Have enough money for a house or take care of the kids or whatever it is. But for many people, that’s the case, right? You’re married. You have kids, things like that. You can’t jump off into LA LA land. Right? Me when that day came for me, I still work full time.

I continued to work full time through my doctoral program, but it was because I had enough passion and that must voice say, you know, the type of two voices, you can’t do this anymore. You hate this. Right. Literally, you know, hate just don’t don’t like it. And a lot of people come to that place, but then you have to have the must.

That drive to follow the other direction. So for me, I had to, and I see this with a lot of people where the shift isn’t overnight, it might take you five, in my case, you know, another five years of education and then all the work, right? So it was a slow, it was, but you ha, if you have the passion behind it and you have the drive behind it, you keep your eye on the ball.

And so for entrepreneurs, it’s the same thing. You might want your business to be an overnight success, but overnight successes usually as, you know, have a lot of years behind. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so veterans, and I think that’s, if, if people realize that, that if you’re doing a career shift that you might look, and again, we compare ourselves so often to other people.

And if you realize that. That you might be being hard on yourself because you’re comparing yourself to somebody else instead of following your goal and putting your effort. And so if it takes you two years, five years, 10 years, 15 years, whatever it takes you at the end, you’re going to be left with your pride in knowing that you accomplished, that must that voice inside of you that says, I must do this.

Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah, no, it reminds me of this quote. I got up here on this other screen, um, you know, Jim Carrey, the comedian, he he’s been really interesting to fall in the last couple of years. It seems like he’s had a real self awareness and, um, he had a quote, I’ll read it here. It says, I think everybody should get rich and famous and do everything they ever dreamed of so they can see that it’s not the answer.

And I, I think that’s a, uh, a good, uh, a supportive quote to what you were saying. Um, You know that it’s not always the financial goals. Aren’t always the ultimate end all. No, they’re not Damon. And I can tell you, in my lifetime, I’ve known a lot of extremely wealthy people. And I can tell you that 95% of those extremely wealthy people are not happy.

Money. Isn’t the answer. The journey is the answer, the love along the way, the joy along the way. That’s, to me, that’s the difference. and research shows that, right. That money only to that certain level, the level of being able to feel safe. Safe enough to make your house payment safe enough to make your apartment rent, whatever it is, safe, safe enough for medical care and food on the table.

And after that money doesn’t make you happy. Yeah. You know, it’s, it’s been interesting. Cause I feel like I’ve been, um, going through one of the, these, um, Many versions of Jim Carrey, self awareness in the last couple of years. And you know, when I first started my company years ago as a, uh, earlier mid 20 year old, I had all the hungry entrepreneur aspirations where I wanted all the money in the world.

And then now, now that I’m in my mid thirties and kids now, I only want as much as little money, as much as little money as needed to maintain a lifestyle. And then just spend time with my family. I don’t want all the money in the world. I want just enough to do what I want and not have to worry about money, but then also not have to chase it.

Exactly. And to me, that’s balance because if we get out of balance, it sounds like you’ve found your balance point. And sometimes whether we’re in yoga or whatever, right. We don’t get the balance right away. We have to work at it and find out where our sweet spot is. Sounds like you’re hitting your sweet spot or have hit your sweet spot.

Yeah. And I think it’s important for people to be aware that that sweet spot varies. Right. You know, it’s different for everybody. And that kind of goes back to what we were saying earlier about experimenting and finding what you do. And don’t like, and find out what sweet spot is and is not correct. For you for your particular situation and being okay with that, the experimentation, and you were saying, you know, how many years it took you to get to that place?

And now you’re in your mid thirties and saying, okay, it’s taken all this time. And you know, at one point, you know, I wanted to have all the money in the world and realize. But that might not be necessary for you. The, um, risk reward isn’t necessarily when you’re sacrificing daily, happiness time away from your kids in pursuit of what having it.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know what, what I find interesting when, when we were talking offline, you talked about, um, you know, your journey has been anything but linear and I like where you say it kind of started, you said I began writing as soon as I could hold a pencil. That’s beginning of my lifelong glug love of books and writing.

And I knew I wanted to be a psychologist. Lucy of Charlie Brown fame was my role model. Um, I always love hearing. It’s always interesting how. Things in childhood, even though they’re indirect worry at the time, they don’t have any direct relation to where you’re at, you know, as you fast forward in life.

But it’s funny how these little things, uh, play a pivotal role later. At least when you look back and reflect, it seems like they were some sort of indicator. And so I thought that was interesting, Lucy from Charlie Brown, um, you know, it was one of those moments in your life. Absolutely. And I see that with so many of my clients, especially the ones who are you, you see it a lot with, um, when somebody is stuck with a psychological issue, right.

A depression, something like that. Often their roots in early childhood. Our early childhood does affect us, but looking at the entrepreneurial spirit, right. And the business spirit and the career and the vocation, I really believe, um, there’s an author, James Hellman who wrote about this, about the idea that we have this acorn within us.

When we’re young and the acorn, I believe is that, is that sense? That childlike sense. That’s not been told you can’t you shouldn’t, you must send, right. It’s that little child who has a sense of who they want to be. The policemen, the fire fighter, the Baker, the garbage man and whatever it is. And too often, Dictates from parents, well-meaning teachers, you know, other big figures in our lifetimes, tell us what we, where we should be going.

And so we lose touch with that acorn spirit, that little seed that, that somehow knew what we wanted. Yeah. And I think too often we forget that and then pursue a career that might do really great at paying the bills, but the sacrifice to the spirit, to the sense of passion, the sense of why am I alive? I work with so many millennials who feel that they have no meaning in their life.

That there is somehow lost that they have the items and material things, but they don’t. And a lot of my millennials are coming back to a sense of what you could call spirituality. Right. Which is what’s important to me. What’s important to my spirit being happy, my essence being happy. And that fits really well with the entrepreneurial spirit, because a true entrepreneur will be following that inner spark that says, this is my gift.

This is my passion. And I wouldn’t create this exhibit to the world and I’ll make some money doing it so I can pay my bills. Right now, you, you specifically mentioned millennials in the different demographics that you’ve worked with. Do millennials stand out as having, um, you know, a shift in the causes of their fears?

Um, is, is there something significantly different about millennials versus other demographics? Um, I get chills when you say that, because I really have noticed that my millennials, I love working with all populations. But millennials, there’s something really special about them. One might think, you know, and you read all, Oh, they grew up in titled.

They grew up getting everything and not being hard workers. My millennials are so fun to work with because they are increasingly. Introspective. They think out of the box, they are getting in, at least the ones I work at, then they’re drawn to me and I’m drawn to them because there’s a sense of interest in what makes them tick.

There’s this real, a really strong sense of wanting to know who they are, whether it’s in relationships. Or in what their vocation, what their calling is. And I see that as being much more pronounced with millennials than say the people who come to me in their fifties and sixties who are looking at it almost in a backwards glance way.

Like I wish I had, I wish I had, and millennials are getting ahead of the curve and they’re not afraid of psychotherapy. Some of them are right. But a lot of them have broken through the stigma and they’re proud to be coming. They don’t care. They refer their friends and say, you know, Hey, I’m seeing this great psychologist just got to see her.

She’s changing my world. And you don’t see that with older generations. And, um, with the, the young generation, you know, The younger ones below the millennials. I’m not sure, you know, it’s not my forte to work with children yet. Um, I do know that the children I work with are also coming into it in a more, even though it’s a small part of, of who I work with, they are coming into.

Psychotherapy with a sense of it’s okay to be doing this. In fact, it might be necessary. It makes me feel better about myself. And that’s the piece. A lot of the younger kids are developing anxiety and depression, um, and issues like that at much earlier ages. So millennials definitely stand out. So it sounds like millennials, um, maybe a little more open minded.

What do you think is what’s the cause of the difference between, um, baby boomers and millennials being openminded or, or the older generations not being as, as open-minded. Well, I think if you look at it historically and that, you know, psychotherapy starting with Freud fairly new to our world, right. You know, not very old that the idea of entering psychotherapy and when psychotherapy originated, think Freud, think Carl Young, um, It was only very sick people, you know, the unwell, the, um, schizophrenia or the hysterics, uh, who were being sent into psychotherapy.

So as with any thing that’s new on the horizon, then there’s sometimes resistance to it. And so we moved from Freud noon and into Carl Rogers and I’m skipping a lot of really great therapists, but then into the fifties where the people who sought therapy, they were the depressed women. They were the alcoholics and you hit the medicine in the cabinet and you really weren’t getting psychotherapy.

In many cases, you were getting. Pharmaceutical treatment. So then we move into the sixties where there was exploration of all sorts, including therapy and lots of drug exploration and all of that. So psychotherapy then by the baby boomers, they were dipping the toes in the water of psychotherapy. They started normalizing it yet.

There was still a lot of resistance and there is today. A lot of stigma around psychotherapy. So I believe the generations before the millennials were slowly laying the groundwork for psychotherapy to be something that is normal. That is as important as doing any other part of self care. And so I think the millennials are taking advantage of the foundation that previous generations, um, set up.

But I also think a piece about the millennials is that they’re, they’re smarter. There’s somehow a little bit. Why is there as far as, um, Being connected body, mind, spirit kind of connection. And again, I think a lot of the work was, was laid by former generations, but there it’s a, Hey, I’m going to do it my way.

I’m going to think outside the box. And that’s one of the parts I love, they don’t millennials. Don’t do. And to think, for example, Hey, I have to have a wedding ring on my finger in order to. Children that sort of, I’m not going to do the way my parents did it and not letting other people tell me what’s right or wrong.

Of course I do work with a lot of millennials who are still breaking out of that, which is the biggest model is helping them, that they get to things touching back. We are learning to personalize everything. Including if you need psychotherapy or if you want psychotherapy, a lot of my millennials come to see me even after they’ve, um, kind of fine tune their issues and they’ll come, they’ll come back for a session just to talk, talk about something or figure out why their personal growth has, you know, toad, something like that.

You don’t see that so much with, with baby boomers. With the baby boomers. Is there, you said a lot of them will kind of look back and reflection instead of, you know, towards the future. Is there, is there a common theme of, of regrets or missed opportunities that seems to come up amongst them?

I would say yes. And a lot of the, um, maybe even worse that I work with all of in their parents’ footsteps, doing what they were expected to do. Get married, marry the right woman, marry the right man, you know, be the homemaker or the, the career person, whatever, whatever they thought was the right thing to do, then they wake up.

This is Carl Young’s midlife crisis, age 45. Right. Which can happen in any time in life. That’s just the, uh, the age that was, has been kind of picked as the midlife crisis. People wake up one day and say, wait a second. I’m not. Happy I have, you know, the kids, I have the house, I have the car, I have the job, but I’m not happy.

And so instead of waiting until that’s why, you know, the guy buys his Ferrari at age 50, or the girl goes out and has the woman goes out and has the affair, right? Because the kids are now older. The home is either okay, most empty or empty. They’re looking at their partner and saying, I don’t really like you very much.

I don’t really know you very well. And that’s so common. And so they’ve been going it in different directions all these years, the glue that was holding them together, where it was often the children and the financial obligation. So they had to have teamwork. And now they’re, they don’t. Know each other very well, or like each other very well.

So that’s what I see with a lot of baby boomers and they realize that they’re not very happy, whereas millennials are trying to take care of that in their late twenties. I have some in there, you know, mid twenties, late twenties, thirties, they’re stopping and saying, wait a second. This does not feel good to me.

I’m thinking of a particular client whose husband wants her to be a stay at home. They have plenty of money. All of that’s taken care of. And she came to me desperately unhappy and said, you know, I don’t, why am I so unhappy? I have all of this stuff. Yeah. And we worked through it, work through or third here.

She wants to be creative. He wants to be doing her own business, you know, raising the kids at the same time, but doing a creative type of business, which we know we kind of honed in on what it is, but in fact there are two branches to it and that’s what she wants. He doesn’t want to be taken care of. Yeah.

I think it’s important for people to have a sense of purpose and, or, you know, contributing to society. So they feel like. They are an individual person and not, not just the wife and not just the mom, but themselves for men too, to not just be the person whose life is limited to being the breadwinner. I have some millennials where they’re doing role swapping, you know, what was about to get married.

And they know that when they have children, she’s the breadwinner. He’s going to be the stay at home dad. And they’re comfortable with that. And isn’t that beautiful. That they’re both confident enough to know. And their sense of self is strong enough to know, to get to get away from society is dictates of who should be the bread and say, Hey, I’m a more relaxed person.

I enjoy kids more. I’ll stay at home. Um, she’s she would go crazy staying at home. And so she’s going to be the breadwinner. Isn’t that? Perfect. They’re, you know, my, my kids have been on this Netflix kick, uh, of a daddy daycare lately. So like every day, but steady daycare for the last week. And, and I think that what you just illustrated reminds me of a scene in the movie where the gentleman, um, are putting together a daycare and they put flyers around and then these, um, then it, then it’s opening day and these women bring their kids to the front of the line.

And then the women go. Wait, you guys are really man, you guys are staying, you guys are the ones doing the daycare. We thought it was just a clever name. And so it’s funny because the movie looks at the stereotypes from both sides. So it was interesting. And I think that is a really good way of putting it that when we start looking at the stereotypes and realizing we don’t, if the stereotype suits us, I feel free live that way.

But if it’s not suiting, you. Don’t do it find a way to do it in a way that feels right to you, our lives, our social world, and to live somebody else’s life just doesn’t make sense. You, you had started, you just started talking about, um, the couple that you’re working with about how they’re kind of switching roles.

Are there any other breakthroughs that have really stood out with people that you’ve worked with? Well, they’re not my only couple that are doing roll swamps. Right. So I have a couple, but they’re the most recent one and they’re really precious about it. They’re just very opening and. At ease about it.

Another one is a woman who was in the business world and she husband, we’re getting a little farther and farther apart and the kids were suffering, you know, really starting to clean to her and have issues. And so they decided to start a home based business. And so she’s using her significant business and entrepreneurial skills and it’s, it’s not been a linear, linear journey, right?

It’s that it’s had, it’s had its challenges, but they’re ultimately much happier. And the kids are much happier because the kids. Are settled now, they feel loved. They don’t feel like they’re seeing mom as a ghost coming home and kissing them once they’re asleep. So shifts like that. But, um, I think it’s again about creating balance and if you’re.

In not to be judgemental, but you know, if you’re choosing to have children and to realize that part of having children is having a parent or parental type thing, fear them, otherwise there’s a constant sense of guilt conscious or unconscious. The parent is saying, yeah, I’m doing all of this over here, but Oh, I’m completely messed up over here.

Yeah. When you get that balance, even if it’s that male staying home, I am doing, I am supporting my children in this way. So between, you know, Personal world and, you know, work life, Alex knew earlier. You’d mentioned how millennials are saying, you know, maybe I don’t necessarily have to be married to have kids.

Um, so when it comes to relationships and sexuality and empowerment and all these shifts in society in. In the personal realm. Um, are you seeing that correlate to any, um, shifts in the corporate world? You know, the, the business world, like these personal decisions impacting. Yeah, professional results.

I wish I could say that I have already seen a significant shift because of the me too movement. Um, that’s one, one area. And what I do realize from that is my female clients are more acutely aware of their rights. And their responsibility to bring up, um, sexual harassment issues. And so I see that as a big shift in the workplace, right.

Where there’s an increased sense of, Oh, I can do this without getting in trouble. Let me flip it for a second too. It’s interesting to me, I’m working with somebody who has a female boss because men get. The, um, bad reputation being the bullies and the harassers, there are a significant amount of unkind women out there too.

Sometimes get a little irritated that the focus has put more. Yes, historically it is more men. Right. But we can’t lose sight of the fact that women can be policed too, and they can be terrible bullies. Right. And they have a lot of power at work over other women. Right. And so this particular client has a boss who she’s terrified and the boss, you know, again, I’m hearing it from the client’s perspective, manipulates her and does, you know, power drips on her yet, because if it were a man, she’d go straight to HR and say, I’m being bullied yet.

It’s a woman and she’s not as comfortable because she’s afraid of getting fired. She’s afraid of being told she’s too sensitive or imagining things. Right. And so I think that that’s one area where I am, and she’s not my only client who’s like that. I have worked with a number where there is a female boss who’s being difficult.

I also work with plenty who have wonderful female and a male bosses. So I think that that’s one piece. I do think that our more accepting environment. Has allowed. I have clients who are gay, who, um, where, you know, 10, 15, 20 years ago, it might’ve been a limiter for them, or they would have had to keep, keep it under wraps no more.

Yeah. Clients, um, even have, you know, trans clients that is a population and it’s still really marginalized where there’s a lot of fear, a lot of terror about country out. So I think except for that population, Um, the, the trans population, I do think that there is a lot more acceptance and you have to remember I’m in Sonoma County, California, and a lot of liberal attitudes in my area.

So it might be more accepting than in other areas of the country, but, um, that there was an interesting comment that, uh, another guest on the show made, uh, recently, and it seems like. Social media comes up a lot in a lot of these conversations lately. And we were talking about the good and the bad of social media.

And I think a lot of the baddest self-explanatory, um, you know, people can, can be disrespectful and trolls and all that. But what was interesting when this gets talked about the age of accountability was that it’s also presenting opportunities and, and acting as an amplifier. So you talked about the me too movement, and so social media can be an amplifier to bring out.

The inherent good in people or the bad in people. And, and, um, I think the way we started talking about it is it’s almost like, um, Darwinism, like social media will let you, uh, you bring out the good in you and, and help you share your story and help. Help give you a platform to help other people or, or it’ll do the Darwinism side.

And if you’re not the kindest person, then it’s going to help accelerate your, uh, downfall. I, I agree. There’s another piece in there and I hundred percent agree. I also think there’s another piece. That’s really about personal responsibility and personal accountability that is often missed, which is rather than jumping on somebody else’s bandwagon, right.

To really slow it down and know that your voice matters. But before your voice become, it is a responsibility to do a lot of internal rage. Reflection so that you’re not coming from a place of reactivity and jumping on a bandwagon just to have something to jump on and something to do, even if it’s positive.

Right. But to really be able to articulate if only to yourself that you’ve looked at the pros, that you’ve looked at the cons of both sides and so that you have a sense of standing in your own truth, other than somebody else’s. You know, proforma truth. It is your truth. And that’s the step that I think some people miss is the really important stuff of internal reflection so that you can tweak get so that you feel like it’s a hundred percent you, whatever you’re putting out there.

So I think that’s a piece that sometimes is sadly missed it because you really have to slow down to do it and you have to use your brain. To, to really come into that place. My dad used to tell me, growing up thinking is the hardest thing there is. That’s why so few people engage in it, right? And so some people accuse other, you know, me or other people of overthinking.

I think that it’s important to slow down and really think. And that way, if somebody challenges you on something you don’t need to say, well, he said, or she said, it’s about, Hey, what I said, this is what’s right for me. I can allow you to have your view. And I’m so strong in my view that I am also entitled to my view.

Yeah. And I think that’s so important. And it’s something that I see millennials doing. A little more than other generations. They’re personalizing it. They’re doing that necessary self reflection as a part of life.

But, you know, the ones I know they’re really tend to be very self-reflected, it’s just beautiful to work with. So it sounds like they’re, they’re a little more, um, you know, there’s a stronger sense of confidence where they’re more willing to stand alone in, in those decisions and opinions. Yes, I, yes, you’ve got it.

Exactly. And it’s, I think it’s hard. One it’s not, and some of it might be because, so social media, right. Or the media at large, there’s so much information out there that if you’re able to sit through it, Like you’re putting it through a colander and let come out, you know, the stuff that doesn’t work for you and then have what’s left, what does work for you and let that stick and inform you.

And so I get amazed at the vast amount of information that there, that millennials are able to digest and metabolize. Yeah. I mean, there there’s, there’s a, there’s an unlimited amount of information that’s out there that will support. Whatever your opinion is whether it’s right or wrong. So I think it’s, like you said, it’s important to take a step back and, and have a, a neutral perspective to really see, because you can feed yourself full of whatever information you want, whether it’s accurate or not.

And that’s why I like that colander image. It’s you let it, and, but it’s that part? Um, That is so important. You know, coming back to choosing your vocation, you might have all this stuff thrown in your colander of life, but it’s important to sift through it, to find out what’s right for you. Same with our opinions.

And I believe that older generations were taught, you know, the, the old dictate children should be seen and not heard. Right. So you were taught to take in information and then just accept it, whether it was about religion or what a teacher said or what the doctor said. And now people are saying, wait a second.

That’s great information, but it’s wonderful, but I get to digest it and I get to keep searching for information so I can find out. And that’s what I think is best for Andrea on the entrepreneurial level, right? Is yes, all of this might work for other people, but what works for me in the business world, what makes me the most effective me?

What let’s meet. And then I think that’s so important because that’s what taps into your passion. And that’s where the work comes from is when we have, when we were igniting our passion. See, I get so excited about, I know you can, you can. Yeah. I mean, you can see it come through. It’s nice. Um, I’m, uh, I’m going to take this as an opportunity to ask you, um, you know, there there’s been a topic that’s come up before that I’ve asked guest opinions on, but you have a professional opinion that I’m going to ask you on.

So we talked about social media and fears and there’s. In bandwagons. And it seems like with social media, um, every, everybody has, they have a platform now and whether. They should take advantage of that or not, or there, or whatever problem they want to ran about whatever soapbox they want to get is they, they they’d have these platforms now to make it as big as they want, whether it’s a big issue or not.

And so, um, where this, my question is about evolution of the mind. And so what I’ve talked about with guests in the past is it seems like everybody needs something to complain about. Or something to be nervous about or something to fear and, and one store. I don’t remember where I heard it and it was a while ago, but one theory was the reason why people need to complain or need to jump on bandwagons is because psychologically we’ve always had to have w we’ve had to fear something.

Are we going to be eaten by the tiger? Um, and, and now that those physical fears about survival. Don’t exist as much as they used to are our mind, hasn’t evolved quick enough to suppress the necessity to have fears. And so now we always have to jump on and complain about something that would, I don’t know if I communicated that properly, but hopefully if you understand what I’m, because I address it largely.

In my book, joy from fear that primitive part of the brain that is looking, and we have to learn exact exactly what you’re saying. We learn to differentiate between a physical threat and an irrational, you know, a physical threat, irrational threat, and an irrational threat. If we let the mind that was once focused.

And, and I, I follow that theory. I’ve heard that theory before. The reason I don’t know necessarily subscribed to it is this, our ancestors weren’t under constant physical threat, right. There were many people who were peaceful people, you know, planes, people, Island, people, right. Where there wasn’t a sense of physical threat.

All the time and their, their cultures could be largely peaceful. Right. And they knew when the threat would be present possibly at night, the rest of the day. And they had their warrior standing guard. And, you know, I was with the Mussai the summer in, when I did a trip to Kenya and Tanzania and the, their Mussai warriors.

Right. They had. Threats all around them. That’s why they’re the most, I word it. There’s some of the most gentle, beautiful, peaceful people I have ever met. And so I don’t think that if, if you follow that idea that now we must have something to worry about. We must have something to worry about. A, I think that what’s happened is that we do actually have a lot to worry about and that people have learned because we no longer wake up and this, so this is my theory on it.

That in the past, we had very specific worries. It was the tiger that might get us. It was the, you know, invader in the middle of the night who might come and burn down the cabin or whatever it was. Right. But other than that, we, we, we, our ancestors lived in a fairly safe, well, they weren’t on the constant look out for toxic water, toxic air toxic.

Um, Toxic food. I mean, you know, you scan list to see which is the latest organic food that, you know, may or may not have chemicals and, or the nonorganic foods. So I believe, and I addressed this in my book where there was a time 50 years ago where people were put to bed with lullabies. 20 years ago, lullabies bedtime stories.

That’s still happening. Thank you, millennials. Because a lot of my millennials love doing that. I just love hearing that yet. Now. Um, people are putting themselves to bed with. New stories. I can’t, I can’t bear to have the news on it’s so negative. It’s so we, and throughout the day, the newspaper headlines, negativity looking out for this you’re on social media.

You’re being told what you, aren’t, what you should look like. You should look like that. You should be this way. You should buy this. You should buy that. We are filled with constant messages. Of not being good enough of not being safe. You turn the TV on and there’s so many commercials about what medicine you need.

And the side effect is blindness, death, sterility, you know, whatever it is. Oh my gosh. You know, it’s enough to meet you here. So I think our brains are now getting towards here. And wired to be more fearful than ever. And there’s a lie in neurobiology called hubs law and what you it’s called head’s law, use it or lose it.

Right. So if the, if the neuronal pathways are being used for. Um, peaceful thoughts, calming thoughts, calming thoughts. They’ll get right more and more hardwired if we’re using ways for fearful thoughts, fearful thoughts, fearful thoughts, anxiety, that’s they get more hardwired. It’s a lot of neurobiology.

Whenever you use more will get hardwired, whatever you don’t use, we’ll get pruned away, so to speak. So I think, yeah, but that’s why people who meditate. People who do yoga, people who do calming exercises, they’re strengthening the calm neural pathways, which were more similar to our ancestors, right?

People who are, hardwiring the worry pathways, listening to a lot of social media, a lot of news engaging in a lot of negative conversation. That’s all choice. Right there, their choices as to behavior. And so that’s my answer. I think that we are still able to, to choose how I know we’re able to choose how we think.

Sure. Okay. And to rewire it, to think calm, plots, to take time outs, to meditate. And, um, it’s not that I can’t get into a worried mindset myself yet. I get acutely aware of it. And when it’s happening, I take a time out. Even a 32nd time out. They do my little calming mantras and I go on with my day. But because we live in a world where everything is rushed, you know, we’re in a line, grocery storm are mad because the person in front of us has 14 items that, gosh, darn it.

They should only have 12. Right? So it’s that? I think we, we are wiring ourselves sometimes to be for an attic. Yeah. Yeah. It’s funny. That’s funny how irritable people get, uh, the S the smaller it is, the bigger, the reaction. Sometimes it seems well, um, we’re going to wrap it up here in a moment. Um, and I wanted to give you the opportunity to talk more about your book.

Um, what do you hope readers can take away from your book?

Psychotherapy is expensive. One of the most, one of the biggest reasons I wrote it is for somebody who can’t afford psychotherapy, somebody who is somewhat stable in their life, right. Has some psychological awareness already. And so that they can do an evaluation. Of their life to find out what is working, what is not working and joy from fear really allows for the personalization.

I’m talking to you about a lot of tips and tools in there to find out what’s working for you and what’s not working for you that way. I dictate what somebody else dictates, but what works for Damon, what works for, you know, Tom, what works for whomever, right? And so. I, and then for people who are already in therapy and want to use it as an adjunctive therapy, for people who are just experiencing issues with possibly their children or their homeless, I’ve heard people are suffering from anxiety, a lot of stress and want to get to the bottom of it.

That’s the purpose of my book to help people find out what’s not working in their lives. Make it through it create a better life. And then to amplify what is working in their lives without worrying about what somebody else thinks or is telling them to do. But again, personalizing it so they can fine tune their life.

And that’s my hope that I can help people find, not wait until their fifties or sixties or seventies and our Lord God, you know, I wish I had had a better life, but this book will give somebody the power to do that. Now that’s why it’s so unique because it gives you the tools in it to do exactly what I’m talking about.

And it’s really did a lot of research for it. And, um, So that the stats are there for people want to look in the back and find the supporting research and the supporting documentation, but it’s written in a very user friendly way with a client examples. And the idea too is so that people who a lot of people who are suffering from anxiety, depression, PTSD, which is PTSD, is so much more common than people realize.

So they don’t feel alone. I want every person who picks up that book to be able to see themselves somewhere in the pages and know I’m not alone, I’m not defective. There are other people like me, right. You know, out in the world, if that person can do it. So can I, that’s what, that’s my prayer. That’s my hope for the book.

Yeah, it does seem, does it seem like this, these type of topics are being brought more to the forefront and that awareness is nice to see. So now, um, as, as we, as we wrap up, how do, how do, how does our audience find out more information about your book? What’s your website? What’s, what’s your contact information that you want to put out there?

Website dr. Carla, C a R L a manly.com drCarlaManly.com. Um, so you can find me at that website. I’m Facebook site, dr.Carla Manly. I’m on Twitter, Instagram, um, LinkedIn, dr. Carla Marie Manly. So that’s me. My publisher is familiar as publishing. They are an incredible publisher. And for people who have children, they also have a lot of extremely beautiful children’s books.

So it’s F a fam I L U. L U S M I L I U S. Yeah. They’re a great publisher. Beautiful to work with very, um, family oriented publisher, very soul oriented publisher and intelligent. It’s an intelligent group of people that I work with. So it’s like, I don’t hear too often, at least from my experience, people that, um, are in love with their publisher.

So that’s good to hear. Well, dr. Carla Marie manly. Um, I have to like, I’m obligated to say go millennials. Yeah, millennial. And, um, as we wrap up, the last thing I’m gonna ask you is we surprise our guests with a random question generator. So I push the button over here. And your question is what is your biggest fear?

What is my biggest fear. That’s a good question. Given my area, my biggest fear. I’ll tell you what my biggest fear is. Um, not being allowed to die when I want to die. I don’t want to, I saw both of my parents age makes me sad. And they, my dad was especially strong, man, you know? Humility was not his forte.

Right. But at the end of his life, he didn’t want to go. And, and so he died in the very hard way, in a way that I don’t believe he would have really wanted if he had been, had the cognitive capacity. And so I hope our culture gets to a point where we can choose. I want to live and live well. Every year of my life and at the point where I can no longer contribute to society where I am no longer able to be active, I never want to retire.

I want to be able to leave the planet, whether that’s at 79 or 80, or whenever that is, I don’t want to cost the planet money. I don’t want to keep myself alive at the expense of other people or costly interventions. I don’t see the use of that. And so I think that’s probably my biggest fear is I want to be able to go and I want to go.

We’ll leave satisfied. It sounds like. Yeah. Well, on that note, we’ll leave it at that. I appreciate it. Carla manly. Thank you for your time. Take good care. Thanks so much. Thank you.