91. Stop Letting Uncertainty Hijack Your Leadership
How many opportunities have you delayed because you couldn’t guarantee the outcome? Promotions, projects, business decisions, or investments can all feel risky when the path isn’t clear. And instead of moving… you wait. Not because you’re incapable, but because your brain has decided uncertainty equals danger.
In this episode, I share why uncertainty is where meaningful leadership lives. I discuss how trying to engineer for certainty can lead to self-sabotage, delayed decisions, and missed opportunities. Using examples from my own career and my coaching clients’ careers, you’ll hear how women can give themselves the space to take imperfect action, embrace unknowns, and build confidence through repeated practice with uncertainty.
You’ll learn how to stop letting uncertainty hijack your leadership, how to reframe unknown outcomes as information rather than danger, and how to trust yourself to act decisively even when you can’t control the outcome. This episode shows you how to turn uncertainty into a leadership advantage, build your command energy, and make choices that expand your authority, presence, and influence in any room.
Interested in working with me? Book a free 1:1 consultation here!
What You’ll Learn from this Episode:
Why uncertainty is where meaningful leadership lives.
How to give yourself the space to embrace uncertainty.
Why repeated practice with uncertainty builds your self-trust.
How to reframe unknown outcomes as information rather than threats.
How to trust yourself to act decisively even when you can’t control the outcome.
Mindset shifts to turn uncertainty into a leadership advantage.
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Full Episode Transcript:
What if the biggest thing holding you back isn't fear? It's your relationship with uncertainty. Think about it. How many incredible opportunities have you delayed because you couldn't guarantee the outcome? You wanted to know. Will I get the promotion? Will they say yes? Will this business work? Will this investment pay off? Will I make the wrong decision? So instead of moving, you waited. Not because you were lazy, not because you were lacking capability. But because your brain decided uncertainty meant danger.
But here's what I've learned after coaching hundreds of high achieving women. Uncertainty isn't dangerous. It's where every meaningful leadership opportunity lives. And if you've spent your life engineering for certainty before you act, you'll be spending your life waiting. Especially if you're a woman leading in rooms that weren't built for you. Today, I want to help you completely change your relationship with uncertainty. Because I don't think uncertainty is something to avoid. I think it's an invitation, an invitation to trust yourself, an invitation to lead, an invitation to build command energy.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Alright, hey podcast listeners, welcome. This is episode 91. I'm so excited to have you here with me. I have been really grappling with uncertainty lately in my life and in my business. And I know you've probably heard these other podcast episodes if you've been listening one by one, there's a theme of uncertainty. And this time I want to talk about self sabotage as well because I believe a lot of women out there are self sabotaging by waiting and by trying to engineer for certainty.
I have to say, it's what I've been doing. I've been waiting. I keep planning things and being strategic. And so I'm catching myself. I'm just a few steps ahead of you in this game, but I'm noticing myself even as an entrepreneur that I am engineering for certainty. How much I want certainty. And guess what's happening in the meantime as I'm engineering for certainty. People are out there sharing their thoughts, their ideas, half baked into the world with their energy with their frequency. And they are getting people to pay attention, right? The more I am focused on uncertainty and focused on trying to engineer for certainty, the less I'm out there in the world making things happen, taking imperfect action. And it's where we end up sabotaging ourselves, right? When we hold back, when we keep thinking there's a right way or a right answer.
So, I want to share that this first happened when I was in corporate. And listen, I have been researching and reading about women leadership things way before I became a coach. But I had to share with you because it is that thing that happens that people tell you, hey, this is going to happen to you. And you're like, no, it's not going to happen because I know. Logically I know. It's like when you're giving birth and people all tell you about how difficult breastfeeding is and how emotional it is and how difficult it is. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I got it. I read all the books. I know what I think I'm going to feel. I'm going to be able to not feel those things because I'm going to be way ahead of myself.
But guess what? When you're experiencing it, you're like, oh my gosh, this is what people are talking about. These are the thoughts that I have no control over. These are the thoughts that I feel the emotions are coming, all of the things are happening and everything that people said was going to happen is actually happening even though logically I was like, I know what's happening so this shouldn't be happening to me. But the reality is it's an experience. Life is an experience and we cannot engineer for certainty, right? You're going to experience things.
So, my work related episode happened when they created a new job. My actual, my leadership team created a new role. And I was the front runner. My CEO was like, this is, he didn't say it quite like I've created this role for you, but it was literally like, hey, there's going to be a merging of portfolios and my portfolio was the biggest of the two. And one person is going to be the finance leader of both portfolios. And so it was very, very highly likely that it would be me since I was already in charge of the biggest part of the portfolio. So it was sort of my thing to lose.
But here's what happened. I remember that HR sent me the job description. And I did what so many women do and what I read about them doing, right? You read the thing and you're like, oh my gosh, can I really do this role? I don't have 100% of the qualifications. And listen, I actually told my C suite team, hey, this is a thing. Women feel like they need to have 100% of the qualifications instead of just 60% whereas men who actually go for things they just need 60%. So I already knew this. I knew going into this reading this that I might have these thoughts. And I did and I couldn't believe it and I was like, oh my gosh, it's happening to me. I'm questioning myself, I feel unstable, I feel that uncertainty.
And then the cherry on top, my CEO at the time was like, hey, if you really go for this role, which I think he already knew I was going to go for this role because I was ambitious and there was no way I wasn't going to go for this role. He said something in passing like, you might not be able to take two week vacations if you get this role. So, I remember being totally triggered by it. Oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to live the life that I want if I go for this role. I'm not going to be able to do the thing that I've loved, which is travel. And I remember going straight to HR who was my friend and I was like, listen, this is what the CEO said to me. And now I'm questioning myself. And he was like, stop it. Stop it right there. He just told me, hey, this is not happening. You are not talking yourself out of not doing this role. This role was created for you. And he was speaking of course as a friend. He's not an HR in this specific occasion. He was just my friend.
And he was like, you're going to go interview for this role and you're going to make it work. And don't worry about the CEO. The CEO doesn't like people to take vacation. The CEO is obsessed with work. The CEO never takes any vacation. So my HR person was European so he was like, hey, that's just who he is. We don't need to change that. You just need to apply for the role. So I just remember thinking, oh, this is so normal. This is how women sabotage themselves. We talk ourselves out of things because of the uncertainty, because of the fear that's coming up. And the fear of getting rejected, maybe not getting the role.
In this case, I was pretty sure I was going to go for this role and 100% get it. But I had this moment, right? This moment where I was questioning myself. And I was so grateful to have people in my corner that could say, hey, listen. Don't let your brain spin you. Don't let yourself go on a ride because you feel uncertain in this moment.
And so it was really helpful for me to come back to it. And this week I've actually coached a couple of people on this very same scenario. So, I have a client. Let's call her Kelly. She is a superstar. She is so good and what I've been really coaching her on is not waiting for certainty and going out there and disrupting things and shaking things up and asking for what she needs and going to senior leaders with discernment and rapport and letting them know what she needed to do the thing that they hired her to do. Instead of waiting because so many people just want to wait, right? And we think that if we wait then something will happen or we'll feel better. So our brains go to all of these places where we're looking for certainty.
So I've been really focusing with her of, hey, if people are asking you to apply for jobs and it feels like a good fit, go for it. There's nothing to lose. You go, you interview, you figure it out, you learn about what's available. And so she's been very bold and I've been super proud of her because she's been on this interview train, these people have reached out to her. She has multiple offers sort of bubbling at the table. Well, I wouldn't say they're offers yet. They're more like a lot of engagement. And I think this is important because when you have a lot of engagement, you can become very discerning and you can be very clear on what you want and value yourself, right?
I'll give you another sort of example because I think it'll drive the point home. When I was dating, when I would just date one person, I would zero in and obsess about this one person. And I would just trying to make it work, right? So it's just like, oh, there's this one person in front of me. This is the relationship. I'm going to put all my eggs in one basket. This is the thing. And it actually made me act really weird. I actually became very controlling, I became very jealous, I became kind of very obsessed about the relationship instead of being kind of grounded and centered and clear and discerning and seeing that there's multiple choices.
So, I actually did a different dating strategy later on because I realized and I read this book. The book is, we'll quote it in here because I think it's a super great book. It's called The Four Man Plan. And it's basically about dating multiple men at once, dating multiple people, engaging in that activity of dating so that you're not obsessed over one person. And you're not so much looking for the answer and so focused on engineering for the certainty, right? The thing that's going to work. It was more about being present. It was more about self discovery. It was more about having lots of options. And I learned so much about myself having so many options and being grounded in myself and seeing that I was valuable because I was just going on lots of different dates with different people.
And I wasn't obsessed with certainty. Like, oh, are we going to be boyfriend and girlfriend? Is this going to be my future husband? Blah, blah, blah. I was just like, am I enjoying my experience? Do I like this person? Can I ask them more questions? And it just became more of a thing about engagement versus certainty, right? And I was more open to the fact that there was a lot of possibilities open. And I was open. I was open to discovering what this was.
And so when I was dating from this standpoint, I started noticing myself being less obsessed. And so when we're in that energy, when we're more present to what we want and there's a lot of different opportunities open to us, we as people that are discerning what's best for us feel more abundant in our decision making. Although, it does feel a little scary, when somebody makes you an offer or when things are getting more serious because you're like, oh my gosh, is this bad? Because there's something going to change.
So with my client, I'll go back to my client's example. She was actually getting courted by many companies. And she still is. She's actually in the process. But she wrote me this email and it was super urgent. She was like, what am I going to do? They want me to come to final round interviews. And I was like, this is great, this is fabulous news. Of course, that was in my head. But I was like, she's making this mean something bad. I just need to get curious with her.
So I had asked her, what do you think's going to go wrong? And she's like, well, what if I get this offer and the other offer that I actually really want isn't going to come. And then I take this offer over that offer. And we actually went on and coached on this because again, this is where I see myself and a lot of other high achieving women sabotage themselves. Instead of going all in for what you want and being honest and being curious and letting people know just what's so and not feeling like somebody can put a gun to your head, right?
I think part of the uncertainty is fear that somehow we are going to kill other opportunities in the future, right? We kind of close in and have this more idea that as if the uncertainty and the pressure is going to bring an outcome that's bad. It's sometimes when my clients are like, should I go interview for that job? And I'm like, yes, why wouldn't you? And it's the fear of the emotions and the uncertainty coming up basically that causes people to not want to explore. And there's one of doing it from a discerning place and saying, actually, I'm not looking to leave at this moment and I don't want to use the energy and I'm fine with that, right? There's another of, I actually am excited. I do want to see what's out there. But the uncertainty is making me feel uncertain. And when my brain feels uncertain, my body feels like it's danger and this is dangerous.
So as I actually we focused and looked at all of these things, right? It was like, okay, there's certainty in one area. Somebody is moving the offer ahead. Somebody wants you to fly somewhere for final round interviews. Another person has been offering you something for a while, but there's nothing on paper, right? These are just all facts and data. And how can we use this? But her mind was really focused on what if I chose the wrong opportunity? What if another opportunity comes and I'm already focused on this. And by the way, I was like, listen, if another opportunity comes up in the future that is a C suite level opportunity, people will understand why you left. I think that there's a lot of things that happen to us as well because as women, we're always thinking about the bigger picture and we're thinking about legacy and we're thinking about giving back.
But this is where we have to slow ourselves down because we need to make decisions after decisions and choices after choices by trusting ourselves. One choice at a time with the data that we have at hand. And so I really helped her to slow down and show her that she's not stuck because she didn't lack any options. And actually, this is the moment where a lot of women self sabotage. When they feel the uncertainty, when they feel the pressure and then they were like, I'm out, right?
Instead, I was like, we need to follow through. If you get an offer, if you say no to an offer, that's still saying no, but you've got to follow through and see what the offer even is. And guess what? On this other side, if this person actually has an offer, it's just going to make you look even better knowing that you have this other offer. And now it becomes a leverage point, a new offer where they have no idea what your salary is, right?
So I want you to slow down because our brains, your brain loves certainty. Thousands of years ago, that's what kept us alive. If something was unfamiliar, it might actually kill us, right? So our brain is oftentimes wanting to go after predictability versus power. But today, your brain reacts almost exactly the same way. To speak up in a meeting, your brain is going to go to something might go terribly wrong. Negotiating your salary, starting a business, leaving a relationship, making an investment, having a difficult conversation. Your nervous system doesn't distinguish between uncertainty and danger very well.
But here's the problem. Leadership requires walking into rooms where the outcome isn't guaranteed. No executive knows exactly how a strategy will play out. No entrepreneur knows exactly what will happen. No parent knows exactly what decision is right. And no woman has broken barriers had certainty doing it. She had something much more valuable, self trust.
And I think we've been asking the wrong question. Instead of how do I become more certain, I want you to ask yourself, how do I become someone who can handle uncertainty? That is a completely different goal. Learning how to be with the uncertainty, knowing all along the way you have a choice. All along the way you can get more data. All along the way you can use your curiosity. And that is the thing that's so powerful. This is the shift to stop trying to predict, to start preparing yourself for the outcomes.
Most women spend so much energy trying to control the outcomes. Instead, build the woman within yourself who can handle any outcome, that you are bigger than any circumstance that's coming your way. That you bring the certainty to any uncertain situation. That you are the prize, that you are the valuable one in all of this.
Here's another shift for you. Treat uncertainty as information, not instructions. Just because you don't know, doesn't mean don't go. Uncertainty is simply telling you this hasn't happened yet. That's very different than this is a bad decision. Don't let your feelings become your facts. And here's the third one. Replace certainty with self trust. I have my back.
This has become one of my favorite questions. Instead of asking what if this doesn't work, ask yourself, do I trust myself to figure out if it doesn't? Because what you can choose to do, no matter what happens at the end of the day, you can always choose to be proud of yourself, to be on your own side, to trust yourself. To say to yourself, I use the data I had at hand and that was the decision I made. And I can understand that and I have my own back in that decision. Now look, if there's more data, if you're learning from this experience, that's fine. But you get to be the person who decides here and now.
I was actually coaching another client too on a lawsuit that she's part of and she's full of uncertainty and really fearful of what the outcome might be. But I said, listen, you made a choice. You've made a choice to stand up for yourself. You've made a choice that what happened was unjust and you're going to put this company to a higher standard, to account for this, to take responsibility. You get to feel certainty within yourself because of the choice you made. You get to feel proud of yourself because you decided this is important enough to put your time, energy, and money into.
And you get to decide right here, right now, that this is 100% the right choice for you. Right? That you don't have to wait for the outcome. The outcome is just an outcome, right? But your choice to move ahead on why you want to do this is more powerful. You can bring certainty to this uncertain situation by saying, this is worth it no matter the outcome. This is going to be great for me no matter what happens. Even if I fail, I'm going to learn about this.
This is what happens to me too. I come up with an offer. I invite people into it. I don't know what's going to happen, but I decide I'm going to learn something from this. And I bring the certainty to the uncertain circumstance, the thing that I'm playing with. And just like my client that I was telling you about, listen, she has an offer from a company that's coming. The other company is like, hey, these people seem serious. Let's hurry it up and get something to her, right? She's really using and leveraging these opportunities for her advantage versus waiting, waiting for the perfect scenario.
She is the disruptive force in all of this. And she is requiring other people to bring certainty because she's like, hey, I've got something that's pretty certain right now. These people like what I have to offer. I'm very certain that I'm getting clearer and clearer on my message and why I would come here. And here's the facts. What else do you have to offer? So that you're not scared of the pressure that comes your way. If the pressure comes, you learn how to be with the pressure and to release the valve for yourself. You learn to trust yourself over and over again when you put yourself into uncertain situations. You build this stronger authority within yourself because you are actually practicing the muscle of self trust.
If you're waiting on the sidelines hoping that you're going to trust yourself more, well, guess what? You're not practicing your muscles. You're basically sitting outside of the gym watching other people actually in the gym taking the reps, building their self trust muscles. You want to build self trust, you want to be able to take on more uncertainty, you've got to put yourself out there and learn how to build those muscles. This is why I tell women to stop waiting because the more you wait, the more you don't build that self trust muscle.
And in this world where you are expanding, in this world where you are showing up in spaces that were never built for you, this is the muscle that will take you there. This is the muscle that you can decide is going to bring you the certainty, the safety within your body that you want, right? It's not that external certainty or outcome. We never know. But we get to decide who we're going to become in that moment. And to learn to trust ourselves and take care of ourselves all the way through, have our own backs.
So, that was the three shifts. Shift number one, stop trying to predict, start preparing yourself. Uncertainty is going to happen and you embracing that is shift number one. Shift number two. Treat uncertainty as information. This is just information. It's nothing more than information. It's not dangerous. It's just data. And shift number three is asking yourself instead of what if this doesn't work, ask yourself, do I trust myself to figure it out if it doesn't? That is the bigger question. That is the important question.
I want to leave you with this. Every major turning point in my life, leaving corporate, starting my own business, giving my TEDx talk, becoming a mother, building Command, which is my leadership accelerator. Every one of them began with uncertainty. Not certainty, uncertainty, unknowns, fear. If I waited until I knew exactly how everything would unfold and work out, none of it would exist. The life you're hoping for, the career you're hoping for, the relationship you're hoping for, the woman you're becoming lives on the other side of uncertainty. Not because uncertainty is dangerous, but because uncertainty is where growth lives.
So, this week, when uncertainty shows up, don't immediately ask, how do I get rid of this feeling? Instead, ask, what if this uncertainty is inviting me to become the next version of myself? Because leadership isn't about eliminating uncertainty. It's about leading yourself through it. And that is command. That's learning to command yourself and not allowing your emotions or your fears or uncertainty dictate what's going to happen to you. You decide you are in command of yourself.
If this episode resonated with you, share it with another woman who's waiting for certainty before she moves. And remember, the future doesn't belong to women who have all the answers. It belongs to women who trust themselves enough to take the next step before they do. All right. Go out there, embrace that uncertainty, understand it, use it as data. Don't allow it to just have you self sabotage or stop yourself. This is where your power lives. I want to hear from you. Feel free to DM me, email me directly. You know where to catch me. I'd love to hear how this episode and others are hitting you. All right. Have a beautiful day. Bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
But here's what I've learned after coaching hundreds of high achieving women. Uncertainty isn't dangerous. It's where every meaningful leadership opportunity lives. And if you've spent your life engineering for certainty before you act, you'll be spending your life waiting. Especially if you're a woman leading in rooms that weren't built for you. Today, I want to help you completely change your relationship with uncertainty. Because I don't think uncertainty is something to avoid. I think it's an invitation, an invitation to trust yourself, an invitation to lead, an invitation to build command energy.
Welcome to The Balanced Leader, hosted by Yann Dang, a Leadership and Life Coach with over 20 years of corporate experience. Drawing from her journey as a former global finance leader and second-generation immigrant, Yann understands the unique challenges women face in male-dominated workplaces.
Each episode offers insights on balancing masculine and feminine energies, mastering soft skills and building emotional intelligence. Join us to transform frustration into empowerment and unlock your authentic leadership potential.
Alright, hey podcast listeners, welcome. This is episode 91. I'm so excited to have you here with me. I have been really grappling with uncertainty lately in my life and in my business. And I know you've probably heard these other podcast episodes if you've been listening one by one, there's a theme of uncertainty. And this time I want to talk about self sabotage as well because I believe a lot of women out there are self sabotaging by waiting and by trying to engineer for certainty.
I have to say, it's what I've been doing. I've been waiting. I keep planning things and being strategic. And so I'm catching myself. I'm just a few steps ahead of you in this game, but I'm noticing myself even as an entrepreneur that I am engineering for certainty. How much I want certainty. And guess what's happening in the meantime as I'm engineering for certainty. People are out there sharing their thoughts, their ideas, half baked into the world with their energy with their frequency. And they are getting people to pay attention, right? The more I am focused on uncertainty and focused on trying to engineer for certainty, the less I'm out there in the world making things happen, taking imperfect action. And it's where we end up sabotaging ourselves, right? When we hold back, when we keep thinking there's a right way or a right answer.
So, I want to share that this first happened when I was in corporate. And listen, I have been researching and reading about women leadership things way before I became a coach. But I had to share with you because it is that thing that happens that people tell you, hey, this is going to happen to you. And you're like, no, it's not going to happen because I know. Logically I know. It's like when you're giving birth and people all tell you about how difficult breastfeeding is and how emotional it is and how difficult it is. And you're like, yeah, yeah, I got it. I read all the books. I know what I think I'm going to feel. I'm going to be able to not feel those things because I'm going to be way ahead of myself.
But guess what? When you're experiencing it, you're like, oh my gosh, this is what people are talking about. These are the thoughts that I have no control over. These are the thoughts that I feel the emotions are coming, all of the things are happening and everything that people said was going to happen is actually happening even though logically I was like, I know what's happening so this shouldn't be happening to me. But the reality is it's an experience. Life is an experience and we cannot engineer for certainty, right? You're going to experience things.
So, my work related episode happened when they created a new job. My actual, my leadership team created a new role. And I was the front runner. My CEO was like, this is, he didn't say it quite like I've created this role for you, but it was literally like, hey, there's going to be a merging of portfolios and my portfolio was the biggest of the two. And one person is going to be the finance leader of both portfolios. And so it was very, very highly likely that it would be me since I was already in charge of the biggest part of the portfolio. So it was sort of my thing to lose.
But here's what happened. I remember that HR sent me the job description. And I did what so many women do and what I read about them doing, right? You read the thing and you're like, oh my gosh, can I really do this role? I don't have 100% of the qualifications. And listen, I actually told my C suite team, hey, this is a thing. Women feel like they need to have 100% of the qualifications instead of just 60% whereas men who actually go for things they just need 60%. So I already knew this. I knew going into this reading this that I might have these thoughts. And I did and I couldn't believe it and I was like, oh my gosh, it's happening to me. I'm questioning myself, I feel unstable, I feel that uncertainty.
And then the cherry on top, my CEO at the time was like, hey, if you really go for this role, which I think he already knew I was going to go for this role because I was ambitious and there was no way I wasn't going to go for this role. He said something in passing like, you might not be able to take two week vacations if you get this role. So, I remember being totally triggered by it. Oh my gosh, I'm not going to be able to live the life that I want if I go for this role. I'm not going to be able to do the thing that I've loved, which is travel. And I remember going straight to HR who was my friend and I was like, listen, this is what the CEO said to me. And now I'm questioning myself. And he was like, stop it. Stop it right there. He just told me, hey, this is not happening. You are not talking yourself out of not doing this role. This role was created for you. And he was speaking of course as a friend. He's not an HR in this specific occasion. He was just my friend.
And he was like, you're going to go interview for this role and you're going to make it work. And don't worry about the CEO. The CEO doesn't like people to take vacation. The CEO is obsessed with work. The CEO never takes any vacation. So my HR person was European so he was like, hey, that's just who he is. We don't need to change that. You just need to apply for the role. So I just remember thinking, oh, this is so normal. This is how women sabotage themselves. We talk ourselves out of things because of the uncertainty, because of the fear that's coming up. And the fear of getting rejected, maybe not getting the role.
In this case, I was pretty sure I was going to go for this role and 100% get it. But I had this moment, right? This moment where I was questioning myself. And I was so grateful to have people in my corner that could say, hey, listen. Don't let your brain spin you. Don't let yourself go on a ride because you feel uncertain in this moment.
And so it was really helpful for me to come back to it. And this week I've actually coached a couple of people on this very same scenario. So, I have a client. Let's call her Kelly. She is a superstar. She is so good and what I've been really coaching her on is not waiting for certainty and going out there and disrupting things and shaking things up and asking for what she needs and going to senior leaders with discernment and rapport and letting them know what she needed to do the thing that they hired her to do. Instead of waiting because so many people just want to wait, right? And we think that if we wait then something will happen or we'll feel better. So our brains go to all of these places where we're looking for certainty.
So I've been really focusing with her of, hey, if people are asking you to apply for jobs and it feels like a good fit, go for it. There's nothing to lose. You go, you interview, you figure it out, you learn about what's available. And so she's been very bold and I've been super proud of her because she's been on this interview train, these people have reached out to her. She has multiple offers sort of bubbling at the table. Well, I wouldn't say they're offers yet. They're more like a lot of engagement. And I think this is important because when you have a lot of engagement, you can become very discerning and you can be very clear on what you want and value yourself, right?
I'll give you another sort of example because I think it'll drive the point home. When I was dating, when I would just date one person, I would zero in and obsess about this one person. And I would just trying to make it work, right? So it's just like, oh, there's this one person in front of me. This is the relationship. I'm going to put all my eggs in one basket. This is the thing. And it actually made me act really weird. I actually became very controlling, I became very jealous, I became kind of very obsessed about the relationship instead of being kind of grounded and centered and clear and discerning and seeing that there's multiple choices.
So, I actually did a different dating strategy later on because I realized and I read this book. The book is, we'll quote it in here because I think it's a super great book. It's called The Four Man Plan. And it's basically about dating multiple men at once, dating multiple people, engaging in that activity of dating so that you're not obsessed over one person. And you're not so much looking for the answer and so focused on engineering for the certainty, right? The thing that's going to work. It was more about being present. It was more about self discovery. It was more about having lots of options. And I learned so much about myself having so many options and being grounded in myself and seeing that I was valuable because I was just going on lots of different dates with different people.
And I wasn't obsessed with certainty. Like, oh, are we going to be boyfriend and girlfriend? Is this going to be my future husband? Blah, blah, blah. I was just like, am I enjoying my experience? Do I like this person? Can I ask them more questions? And it just became more of a thing about engagement versus certainty, right? And I was more open to the fact that there was a lot of possibilities open. And I was open. I was open to discovering what this was.
And so when I was dating from this standpoint, I started noticing myself being less obsessed. And so when we're in that energy, when we're more present to what we want and there's a lot of different opportunities open to us, we as people that are discerning what's best for us feel more abundant in our decision making. Although, it does feel a little scary, when somebody makes you an offer or when things are getting more serious because you're like, oh my gosh, is this bad? Because there's something going to change.
So with my client, I'll go back to my client's example. She was actually getting courted by many companies. And she still is. She's actually in the process. But she wrote me this email and it was super urgent. She was like, what am I going to do? They want me to come to final round interviews. And I was like, this is great, this is fabulous news. Of course, that was in my head. But I was like, she's making this mean something bad. I just need to get curious with her.
So I had asked her, what do you think's going to go wrong? And she's like, well, what if I get this offer and the other offer that I actually really want isn't going to come. And then I take this offer over that offer. And we actually went on and coached on this because again, this is where I see myself and a lot of other high achieving women sabotage themselves. Instead of going all in for what you want and being honest and being curious and letting people know just what's so and not feeling like somebody can put a gun to your head, right?
I think part of the uncertainty is fear that somehow we are going to kill other opportunities in the future, right? We kind of close in and have this more idea that as if the uncertainty and the pressure is going to bring an outcome that's bad. It's sometimes when my clients are like, should I go interview for that job? And I'm like, yes, why wouldn't you? And it's the fear of the emotions and the uncertainty coming up basically that causes people to not want to explore. And there's one of doing it from a discerning place and saying, actually, I'm not looking to leave at this moment and I don't want to use the energy and I'm fine with that, right? There's another of, I actually am excited. I do want to see what's out there. But the uncertainty is making me feel uncertain. And when my brain feels uncertain, my body feels like it's danger and this is dangerous.
So as I actually we focused and looked at all of these things, right? It was like, okay, there's certainty in one area. Somebody is moving the offer ahead. Somebody wants you to fly somewhere for final round interviews. Another person has been offering you something for a while, but there's nothing on paper, right? These are just all facts and data. And how can we use this? But her mind was really focused on what if I chose the wrong opportunity? What if another opportunity comes and I'm already focused on this. And by the way, I was like, listen, if another opportunity comes up in the future that is a C suite level opportunity, people will understand why you left. I think that there's a lot of things that happen to us as well because as women, we're always thinking about the bigger picture and we're thinking about legacy and we're thinking about giving back.
But this is where we have to slow ourselves down because we need to make decisions after decisions and choices after choices by trusting ourselves. One choice at a time with the data that we have at hand. And so I really helped her to slow down and show her that she's not stuck because she didn't lack any options. And actually, this is the moment where a lot of women self sabotage. When they feel the uncertainty, when they feel the pressure and then they were like, I'm out, right?
Instead, I was like, we need to follow through. If you get an offer, if you say no to an offer, that's still saying no, but you've got to follow through and see what the offer even is. And guess what? On this other side, if this person actually has an offer, it's just going to make you look even better knowing that you have this other offer. And now it becomes a leverage point, a new offer where they have no idea what your salary is, right?
So I want you to slow down because our brains, your brain loves certainty. Thousands of years ago, that's what kept us alive. If something was unfamiliar, it might actually kill us, right? So our brain is oftentimes wanting to go after predictability versus power. But today, your brain reacts almost exactly the same way. To speak up in a meeting, your brain is going to go to something might go terribly wrong. Negotiating your salary, starting a business, leaving a relationship, making an investment, having a difficult conversation. Your nervous system doesn't distinguish between uncertainty and danger very well.
But here's the problem. Leadership requires walking into rooms where the outcome isn't guaranteed. No executive knows exactly how a strategy will play out. No entrepreneur knows exactly what will happen. No parent knows exactly what decision is right. And no woman has broken barriers had certainty doing it. She had something much more valuable, self trust.
And I think we've been asking the wrong question. Instead of how do I become more certain, I want you to ask yourself, how do I become someone who can handle uncertainty? That is a completely different goal. Learning how to be with the uncertainty, knowing all along the way you have a choice. All along the way you can get more data. All along the way you can use your curiosity. And that is the thing that's so powerful. This is the shift to stop trying to predict, to start preparing yourself for the outcomes.
Most women spend so much energy trying to control the outcomes. Instead, build the woman within yourself who can handle any outcome, that you are bigger than any circumstance that's coming your way. That you bring the certainty to any uncertain situation. That you are the prize, that you are the valuable one in all of this.
Here's another shift for you. Treat uncertainty as information, not instructions. Just because you don't know, doesn't mean don't go. Uncertainty is simply telling you this hasn't happened yet. That's very different than this is a bad decision. Don't let your feelings become your facts. And here's the third one. Replace certainty with self trust. I have my back.
This has become one of my favorite questions. Instead of asking what if this doesn't work, ask yourself, do I trust myself to figure out if it doesn't? Because what you can choose to do, no matter what happens at the end of the day, you can always choose to be proud of yourself, to be on your own side, to trust yourself. To say to yourself, I use the data I had at hand and that was the decision I made. And I can understand that and I have my own back in that decision. Now look, if there's more data, if you're learning from this experience, that's fine. But you get to be the person who decides here and now.
I was actually coaching another client too on a lawsuit that she's part of and she's full of uncertainty and really fearful of what the outcome might be. But I said, listen, you made a choice. You've made a choice to stand up for yourself. You've made a choice that what happened was unjust and you're going to put this company to a higher standard, to account for this, to take responsibility. You get to feel certainty within yourself because of the choice you made. You get to feel proud of yourself because you decided this is important enough to put your time, energy, and money into.
And you get to decide right here, right now, that this is 100% the right choice for you. Right? That you don't have to wait for the outcome. The outcome is just an outcome, right? But your choice to move ahead on why you want to do this is more powerful. You can bring certainty to this uncertain situation by saying, this is worth it no matter the outcome. This is going to be great for me no matter what happens. Even if I fail, I'm going to learn about this.
This is what happens to me too. I come up with an offer. I invite people into it. I don't know what's going to happen, but I decide I'm going to learn something from this. And I bring the certainty to the uncertain circumstance, the thing that I'm playing with. And just like my client that I was telling you about, listen, she has an offer from a company that's coming. The other company is like, hey, these people seem serious. Let's hurry it up and get something to her, right? She's really using and leveraging these opportunities for her advantage versus waiting, waiting for the perfect scenario.
She is the disruptive force in all of this. And she is requiring other people to bring certainty because she's like, hey, I've got something that's pretty certain right now. These people like what I have to offer. I'm very certain that I'm getting clearer and clearer on my message and why I would come here. And here's the facts. What else do you have to offer? So that you're not scared of the pressure that comes your way. If the pressure comes, you learn how to be with the pressure and to release the valve for yourself. You learn to trust yourself over and over again when you put yourself into uncertain situations. You build this stronger authority within yourself because you are actually practicing the muscle of self trust.
If you're waiting on the sidelines hoping that you're going to trust yourself more, well, guess what? You're not practicing your muscles. You're basically sitting outside of the gym watching other people actually in the gym taking the reps, building their self trust muscles. You want to build self trust, you want to be able to take on more uncertainty, you've got to put yourself out there and learn how to build those muscles. This is why I tell women to stop waiting because the more you wait, the more you don't build that self trust muscle.
And in this world where you are expanding, in this world where you are showing up in spaces that were never built for you, this is the muscle that will take you there. This is the muscle that you can decide is going to bring you the certainty, the safety within your body that you want, right? It's not that external certainty or outcome. We never know. But we get to decide who we're going to become in that moment. And to learn to trust ourselves and take care of ourselves all the way through, have our own backs.
So, that was the three shifts. Shift number one, stop trying to predict, start preparing yourself. Uncertainty is going to happen and you embracing that is shift number one. Shift number two. Treat uncertainty as information. This is just information. It's nothing more than information. It's not dangerous. It's just data. And shift number three is asking yourself instead of what if this doesn't work, ask yourself, do I trust myself to figure it out if it doesn't? That is the bigger question. That is the important question.
I want to leave you with this. Every major turning point in my life, leaving corporate, starting my own business, giving my TEDx talk, becoming a mother, building Command, which is my leadership accelerator. Every one of them began with uncertainty. Not certainty, uncertainty, unknowns, fear. If I waited until I knew exactly how everything would unfold and work out, none of it would exist. The life you're hoping for, the career you're hoping for, the relationship you're hoping for, the woman you're becoming lives on the other side of uncertainty. Not because uncertainty is dangerous, but because uncertainty is where growth lives.
So, this week, when uncertainty shows up, don't immediately ask, how do I get rid of this feeling? Instead, ask, what if this uncertainty is inviting me to become the next version of myself? Because leadership isn't about eliminating uncertainty. It's about leading yourself through it. And that is command. That's learning to command yourself and not allowing your emotions or your fears or uncertainty dictate what's going to happen to you. You decide you are in command of yourself.
If this episode resonated with you, share it with another woman who's waiting for certainty before she moves. And remember, the future doesn't belong to women who have all the answers. It belongs to women who trust themselves enough to take the next step before they do. All right. Go out there, embrace that uncertainty, understand it, use it as data. Don't allow it to just have you self sabotage or stop yourself. This is where your power lives. I want to hear from you. Feel free to DM me, email me directly. You know where to catch me. I'd love to hear how this episode and others are hitting you. All right. Have a beautiful day. Bye.
Thank you for being a part of The Balanced Leader community. We hope you found today's episode inspiring and actionable. For more resources and to connect with Yann, visit us at aspire-coaching.co. Until next time, keep leading with confidence and purpose.
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