Overcoming The Fear Of Being Seen With Aileen Hirsch

Some people want the spotlight, but others seem to avoid that. Once fear starts to creep in when you’re in the stage, things start to fail. In this episode, Aileen Hirsch, the Industry X Manager at Accenture, recounts how her fear of being seen affected her and the steps she made to overcome it. It was a rough year for her, experiencing anxiety while having her thought leadership out there. Aileen found that chasing the number and embodying her identity as a content creator pushed her to execute what she wanted. Don’t miss this episode because Aileen will share the path to self-mastery and self-discovery. Join Aileen Hirsch and Yanet Borrego today!

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Overcoming The Fear Of Being Seen With Aileen Hirsch

In this episode, I am super mega excited because I have a super special guest, my amazing friend. She was also my coaching client. I had the honor to coach her. Aileen Hirsch is a multi-passionate professional. She's a Latina, a mindset coach, and a speaker. She’s the Founder of Open Delta company. Her purpose is to elevate and transform the Hispanic-Latinx community and help them embody self-mastery and work through fear to achieve their fullest potential. What a beautiful mission and vision. How are you doing?

I am ecstatic. I’m so happy to be here. How are you doing, Yanet?

I'm so excited to be here. Even before we started, we were sharing our intentions to show up grounded. Both of our intentions were to have fun and serve the community. That was so powerful.

Thank you for having me. I'm excited for this conversation.

I've been thinking of bringing Aileen for the longest time. I know this is not going to be the last conversation that we share with all of you. Every time I talk to her and we have a convo is pure gold. It deserves to be shared with the world and all of you. I met Aileen when I was transitioning from my first corporation to my second one, which was from ExxonMobil to Accenture. We had a coffee because someone within ExxonMobil spoke highly of her as a leader, mentor, and professional. I was like, “I have to meet her.”

We had coffee and then exchanged some conversations while being at Accenture but we were not that close. When I quit my corporate job in 2021 to become a full-time speaker and coach, I had the honor to coach Aileen because she became my coaching client. Aileen, thank you so much for that because you were a huge part of my transition from corporate to entrepreneurship.

I want to point out two things. When we met at that coffee shop, we had never seen each other before getting introduced. You sent me a message on LinkedIn. Walking into the coffee shop, I remember us like, “Are you Yanet?” “Are you Aileen?” Instantly, I knew we had an amazing conversation. When you were about to leave Accenture and go full-time in your business, I don't know if you remember that I told you, “Give me a couple of months. I am rubbing out my Master's. I don’t have the capacity to work on myself more. I want to work with you.” A couple of months later, we started working together. It's been a beautiful journey and has blossomed into friendship and other things that I'm excited to talk about more.

You're making me remember all these details. I remember in our coffee conversation, my main concern was, “Do you think Accenture is going to be fine? I have my master practitioner of neurolinguistic programming training coming up and it's two weeks. I need to be there and take that vacation.” You just finished yours. Congrats. That's exciting.

It's full circle. I finished mine in July 2023. You described it like, “I'm going to do this. I hope Accenture is okay with it.” It was one of the most life-changing two weeks that I've ever experienced. I'm happy that I wasn't just listening to this woman who is going to be very passionate about going to this training for the next two weeks. You introduced me to that topic. It's near and dear to my heart. That has changed my life to the person that I was when we had that initial conversation at the coffee shop.

For those reading, we are talking about one of our neurolinguistic programming certifications, which is one of the main skills. We have 100 plus techniques and tools to work with our coaching clients to help them reprogram their subconscious minds so that align with their conscious desires. They can achieve results and their desired outcomes. I wanted to provide that clarity for those who don't know about NLP.

Let's go back to 2021 when we started working together. I always have this question for people. One of the things that changed my life and journey, and finding my purpose was taking the responsibility to find who I am, create and carve the path of who I want to be, AKA invest in myself. Honestly, that's not super common because what I've found out is that a lot of people are in corporate and 90% of my clients are in corporate. I was in corporate.

Often the professionals rely on the career to provide the tools for all their aspirations. With you, I saw something different because you decided to take a bet on yourself, invest in yourself as a part of your career, and also work with a coach. I was your first coach. With a coach for the first time. How was that mindset shift for you? What allowed you to ask for help and coaching?

I honestly didn't know much about what you were doing or NLP. However, going back to that point, we connected that one time. I knew that we had some connection. Even from just knowing your story, what you have been through in your path, I was like, “She gets my story.” Whether it's first gen or taking care of your parents. We had a lot of connection points that to me, instantly built rapport.

Second of all, I was at a low point in my life. I was having a rough time having a relationship with my dad. My dad has always been one of my best friends and has always been there to support me. Having that change and dynamic in my family was shaking out my world. I did not know how to deal with it in a positive way. The things that I was doing in the past weren't working. I saw this as an opportunity like, “I have no idea if Yanet's going to be able to help me but I'm going to give this a shot.” I've never invested at this level because it was weekly coaching.

Having a coaching container can be intense. That meant that not only had I had to show up every week to the call but some things happened in between. If we don't have that accountability by a coach, then there has to be some other way. I was at such a low point that anything that happened in my mind, I said to myself, “You can't get any worse because we are already at the lowest. It can’t go up from here.” That was one of the things that made me feel very comfortable with investing in a coach.

A lot of people are in partnerships and have boyfriends, husbands, fiancés, or whatever might be the case. I remember having that conversation with Rocky, who at that time we were dating, we weren't even engaged. I was like, “I need some support because I'm going through it.” I am very happy that I was very confident in saying, “I need this. How am I going to pay for it? How everything's going to work out? I have no idea.” I took the first step in knowing that the universe was going to respond to me. Piece by piece, everything started aligning and it was one of the best decisions.

I love your journey, Aileen. Here's the thing, everyone. She started with me but she has continued even after we coached together on investing in herself. Your journey reminds me of mine when I went to my first personal development event. It was Tony Robbins because I was in pain. After that, I realized that with how much value you invest in yourself, the return is infinite. You continue the journey of investing in yourself, not from a place of pain anymore but from a place of growth and evolution. What are your thoughts on that? Do you feel that way?

The return is infinite when you invest in yourself. When you continue the journey of investing in yourself, it is not from a place of pain anymore but from a place of growth and evolution.

It gave me a glimpse of, “It can be this good.” That changed my perspective of, “If it can be this good, why I have been feeling like this for so long?” It is been a spiraling effect upwards like, “I want to continue feeling good. Let's see how good it can get.” One of the biggest personal growths that I have experienced in the past, and we didn't touch in our coaching too much, was feeling worthy of love and that you can be cared for. That is a gift that I have been able to experience from a relationship standpoint. It's a privilege to be married, be in love, and have a supportive marriage.

It can get that good but we're sometimes so stuck in the old stories that unless you get a glimpse of it can be good, easy, and come naturally, it's one of those things that you're like, “Let me go after it.” It's been a beautiful journey. I found a picture of when my dad came to visit us, we went to a baseball game. It was a very casual picture of me and my dad in front of the stadium. I sent it to him and was like, “I found this. This happened a year ago.” He put it as his profile picture on WhatsApp.

I felt so blessed that I knew in 2 or 3 years, it was as bad as it can get and now it can get this good and I can have beautiful conversations with my dad. I sent him a picture and I know it meant so much to him that he even put it as his profile picture. It's those things that make your heart so happy that it's overflowing with love.

I'm so proud of you honestly. There is this pattern that I've realized with a lot of the females I coach and with myself. It's this process of forgiving our parents. Sometimes with immigrants, first gen, or second gen, our life is not comparable to others necessarily but that's what has made us who we are. I love that you went through that healing and beautiful journey. Look where you are in your relationship. It is crazy.

I saw a beautiful video that forgiving your parents means that you accept that this is the first time of them being parents. I thought it was so true. You're an only child. This is your mom's only shot of being a mother, whether good or bad, everything in between. Even though I have an older brother, this is my parents' first time being parents. Having compassion overall for you, whatever you're going through, your parents, whatever they've been going through, they did the best with the resources that they did at the time. Recognizing all patterns, how we wear, how we react, and choosing to course correct is a beautiful gift that we can have together.

That's powerful because when we forgive our parents, we let go of that energy and we have more energy to create the business or attract more abundance, happiness, and fulfillment. We have talked about coaching and some audience may be like, “I've heard about coaching but I don't know even what a coach is.”

We both are coaches. You coached with me and other coaches too. How would you describe it in simple terms? Coaching, like consulting, can be abstract for some people. You don't necessarily know what to expect in the beginning. You can only see the results from other people. How would you describe coaching? What was your transformation before and after coaching?

Coaching is a practice that you can be part of. When you are in a coaching relationship, your coach will take you as far as you'll let them with the map of the navigation that it's all about you. It's a very you-centered approach that it’s taking you step-by-step and level by level. Depending on what kind of coaching it is, it can be for yourself discovery, business coaching, or relationship coaching. There are marriage coaches. Whatever that treasure map that you're trying to find, they're going to help you get there. A lot of the time, people think, “I can do that on my own.”

That's super fair. Anyone can do anything because we have all the resources within us. Factor in the community and a coach who knows how to get your results faster. The line of work that we do is reprogramming your unconscious mind to work with your conscious mind. Unconscious is where sustainable change and all the learning happens. Embedding that into the process, we can help you get there for life. It's rewiring your brain. It's one of the most beautiful gifts that we have been able to work with. You have been working on this for I don't even know how many years.

It was 2012 when my uncle gave me my first NLP book in Spanish.

It was several years of you working on this. That is the beautiful gift of a coach. I love the concept of coaching. A lot of times, we receive coaching from our parents. Growing up, our parents were our big coaches. They try to get us to where we need to be but parents sometimes can be too nice. A coach has the beautiful gift of pushing you past your boundaries. It's getting you out of that comfort zone into the learning soul and growth zone.

Our parents are big coaches, but sometimes they can be too nice. A coach has the beautiful gift of pushing you past your boundaries.

Our parents love us. They try to keep us comfortable and nudge us a little bit but they don't nudge us enough for us to take the leap and those steps. Your coach has your best interest in mind. This is something as a coaching client that I received as a coach. That's a beautiful gift. A relationship will allow you to nurture the parts of you that you are letting yourself grow into that person. I'm an entirely different person. Taking action in a coaching relationship has been one of the biggest permissions that I've allowed myself to do because I don't think my parents have ever had coaches before.

Our parents were in survival mode. We have the pleasure, thanks to our parents, to invest in all these amazing people and tools. We’re very grateful for them. I love what you said about coaching. The beauty of a coach is that it points out your blind spots in a nurturing way. Even our parents have blind spots that they project onto us.

If you are doing coaching, you are supposed to coach the individual on how to think, not what to think. The whole purpose of coaching is to allow you to recognize that you have all the resources and answers within yourself. As Aileen mentioned, you just don't know how to get there. The coach enables you to get there and get the results you're seeking by utilizing your resourcefulness. That's a beautiful answer, Aileen.

Another thing that I love about coaching is that there are a lot of intrusive thoughts that we get when we're about to take action or have a big conversation. There's something that either you fear, doubt yourself, or have intrusive thoughts about. Our coach is not afraid to call you out on your BS. That's something that I value a lot because there have been a lot of times in my life when people are not willing to tell me the hard things because they don't want to hurt me. It makes me feel differently about them.

A coach knows that their job is to get you your results. If that means hard coaching, they're going to give you the hard coaching. They are concerned about your well-being but they're not thinking and overthinking about your feelings. The point of a coach is not worried about your feelings. If you want to worry about your feelings, go to your journal.

A coach is there to push the button that's going to make you take the next step. That is something that I used to take for granted and I thought I could do it on my own. Sometimes I can but the majority of the time, it's better to have someone tell me and I sit with those feelings and emotions that evoke something differently within me.

Most of the time, we are the ones getting in our way. We all know this. We sell ourselves short all the time. The coach is there to let you know when you're selling yourself short because he wants you to get to where you want to be in a kind and safe way but direct and assertive at the same time. Something that we worked on while we were coaching was building your amazing side coaching business while you are working in 9:00 to 5:00 business.

I remember celebrating your first two clients later on. We worked a lot on these challenges of being seen too. First of all, tell us about your journey from 9:00 to 5:00 and having a psych coaching business. What is your why? What is the purpose? What motivated you to do that? What are the biggest challenges that we are still evolving on but we work through that you have seen the most growth, like the fear of being seen?

The journey started a long time ago. I remember it being significant in college when I was doing a lot of mentoring and speaking. I was a president and very much involved in different student organizations. I always had this innate nature of serving and wanting to help people. The capacity in college was professional development, resumes, how to interview, and all of that fun stuff to where both engineers by trade, getting students engineering jobs at different companies.

The aspect of service was always within me. It motivated and excited me. It was so energetically satisfying to me. When I was introduced to coaching, I was very interested in it because this was a way not only to help in my mind like, “I'm doing all this to help people get jobs,” which granted, is what has helped my family get social upward mobility. My dad used to earn $50,000 a year. The difference that it makes, having an engineering degree in education has skyrocketed my opportunities.

Since I was in such a bad spot emotionally, as a person, I wanted to help again in a different capacity to my community. I didn't want to help people necessarily to get jobs and go from student to professional but how can we help first gens like myself, the Hispanic community, get to a better place where they're more comfortable with their identity so they show up the way that they want to show up and they can honestly love themselves?

We talk about self-love practices, bubble baths, and affirmations but those are external and they're not changing anything within us. I wanted to get the knife and start peeling the onion piece by piece like I had to do for myself so that people love themselves to the core. They could honestly find their purpose and live by what they want, what means something to them, and align either their career or what they're doing in whatever facet of their life to what lifts them inside.

I didn't know I wanted to transition into this until we started working together. You supported me through that process on steps A, B, and C until we built the program. I had clients. I went through the program. I had result-transformation stories. That was the journey from a coaching side and a business side. Where we hit the most roadblocks that’s a big part of business is marketing. When you are marketing as a coach, you are the service, the face, and the one that people want to see and learn from.

When marketing as a coach, you are the service, the face, and the one people want to see and learn from.

I had a terrible fear of being seen. I was terrified. I don't remember if I had situations where I couldn't hit record or post. I had incredible anxiety because one of the things one week was like you're going to post every X amount of times. I would create stories within my cell of why I shouldn't post, why it wasn't good enough, and why this is not good content.

We can all resonate with that. Your story is powerful. What were the stories you were telling yourself?

I was having that on repeat on why I wasn't good enough because who was I to be posting that? To me, the funniest thing is that it was just me versus me. It wasn't a comment about what someone said. It was me versus me. I have that anxiety when you have the Instagram post made and click share. I remember at one point, you were like, “You don't have to show your face. This week, you post quotes or a picture of a coffee. You don't have to show your face.” I still had the anxiety of having my thought leadership out there. It was a rough year in terms of that.

When it came to doing a panel discussion for Latinos in engineering, I had no problem getting a microphone and getting out there. When there was a speaker opportunity to speak in front of 200 students to talk about leadership and mindset, I created the presentation and delivered it. I got amazing feedback. It was specifically showing up on social media, Instagram, or something that was going to be essentially on the internet forever.

The biggest issue is that it wasn't just fear of being seen. There were a lot of underlying patterns and stories that I had been telling myself since I was four years old that were surfacing. It wasn't until we went deeper which I hadn't had the courage to do on my own to figure out that this is what's happening in your unconscious mind and it's being presented this way. Instagram is not the problem. It's all the patterns underneath. It's showing up in this way because you can't post. That's how the red flag is showing up.

I remember a conversation we had. I don't remember what prompted the conversation but it was our external validation about the likes. In my mind, I’m like, “Look at Aileen's Instagram. She had way better engagement than me. She doesn't have that issue of not receiving likes or viewers.” Part of the social media that is also intimidating for people and it has been for me is that you receive immediate feedback from the likes and viewers.

Everyone puts so much importance on the numbers. It's society's expectation to have millions of followers and likes, and all this comparison that many times is not there when you're public speaking because you're more into the being energy when you're doing it. There is so much complexity in social media and comparison. Tell me about the external validation piece of these two, which goes back to the, “I'm not enough,” and all this storytelling in our mind.

I remember a post that's still out there. I left it.

Follow Aileen on Instagram. What's your Instagram?

@AileenAime. I've been very consistent. I'm very proud.

You got the best content. You need to follow her, readers.

I put a quote and it was like a little leaf. It got very few likes. Historically, my page has been my personal thing, whether I go to conferences, with my family, Simba, my dog, or my husband. It's transitioning into my coaching content. The fact that I didn't get the response, I did a beautiful thing that we do as human beings. I made it mean something about me. That was where in my mind I went wrong. When I posted, I used to close my phone, click share, and then run away.

What Instagram and the algorithm does, it's an entirely different story. I was trying to do it and I still had this anxiety within me. When I went back, because I left it up to the technology to, whether it shows it to people or not, it wasn't showing it to people. It was low engagement, low numbers, and then I'm making it about me. The content was not good enough because I'm not good enough. It was this cycle of negative intrusive thoughts that kept coming back to me.

It wasn't until I decided to go deeper and we found out a couple of things later on. One of those things was I made it mean something about myself. That is a big shift of external validation versus why are you doing this if you're going to serve this community. How many posts has someone posted a month ago and you're barely seeing it? You love that video, that quote, or that piece of content and that person who created it is not thinking, “Is Yanet going to see it today or tomorrow?”

They're putting it out there because they know whoever's going to see it at whatever point in time is going to get value out of it. That was the big shift of chasing the numbers for my validation. It's a different focus as if I'm hosting this piece of content to serve my community. That was one of the biggest shifts that helped me find a new track that I didn't know existed because I've never been a content creator, which led me to the second point.

If you don't think your identity is to do the thing you're about to do, you're never going to be able to consistently do it. It wasn't until said to myself, “I am a coach. I am X. I am a content creator.” Embodying that identity made it so much easier for me to execute whatever I wanted to do. The identity piece was something that I thought I needed to do and push through it.

It was not very trauma-informed because there were so many other layers that needed to work on before I could embody that new identity to allow me to step into that, that made it fit easily and that it came naturally rather than brute forcing it. Those two things have allowed me to support my nervous system and mind, and be able to serve my community from a more creating energy standpoint of view, rather than just needing to do it in very much doing energy.

There are so many gold nuggets right there. The first one is this reminder of self versus serve. Instead of focusing on yourself in survival mode, which in public speaking can happen, on Instagram, or podcasts, I was laughing when you said that you would post and close the app because honestly, I've done the same thing so many times with LinkedIn. I’m like, “I'm going to close this. I don't want to see who likes it or what they say.” It's such a funny human behavior that sometimes we think that we are the only ones but we are all doing the same thing and struggling with similar things. It's so funny that you gave that specific example because I resonated so much with that.

The self versus serve, when you put the intention of, “I'm here to serve, it is not about me,” is so powerful. I also remind myself of how many restaurants have we gone to and we haven't left a single review. I've left two reviews in my life. Some people consistently leave reviews. I'm the worst at that. It doesn't mean that we didn't like it. We loved it. We just didn't leave a review.

The same thing is true with Instagram and LinkedIn. The likes don't mean much to be honest with you, as long as you're serving and your intention is from that place. It's powerful. The identity piece is such an important part because it is true. It is different saying, “I want to be a coach,” than, “I am a coach.” I remember the moment in my life when at first I felt like, “I sound so fake. I don't believe this.” There is a moment as you continue this transformational path where you start embodying and embracing that identity. That's so powerful.

When I started coaching, I already had my curriculum and program. I was coaching my first two clients. My husband, going back to the community piece, was so excited for me. He was so proud. He was in it supporting me. Anyone we interacted with, he was like, “Aileen is doing this. She's coaching, learning about this, and implementing that.” I would be next to him thinking, “This guy loves me. Why can't I speak about that myself? Why can he say, ‘Aileen's a coach. Aileen's this and that. She's doing this?’ Why can’t I do that?” That was very helpful for me in embodying that identity.

It was funny to me in hindsight. He was able to say Aileen's a coach before I could say I'm a coach. A lot of times is the other way around. You have to believe in whatever you're doing before other people can believe in you. Whatever the situation might be, it could be A or B. Until I was comfortable with saying, “I am a coach. I am a content creator. I am a CEO,” whatever the word might be for you, until that point, it's going to be a little bit harder than until you remove the layers that are blocking you from fully embodying that. It's going to feel more natural.

If the thought has come to you of this is your purpose and what you're meant to be, there's always going to be a little bit of conflict until you do it and it's going to feel easy. Following your purpose should not feel hard all the time. There are going to be periods in your business or journey that it's going to be difficult but not every single moment it's meant to feel hard. I was making it harder for myself to every single essence in the spectrum.

You touch on a very important point, which is the people that you're surrounding yourself with. Rocky, your husband, was like, “She's a coach.” He’s so uplifting, supportive, and energizing. As your coach and your future coaches, we have been like, “You can do that.” We’re supportive and energizing. I have my coach and sometimes I'm like, “I don't know if I'll be able to get to the mouth.” She's like, “You got there already.” I'm like, “Did I? Are you sure? I don't see it yet.” There will be naysayers. That's part of choosing an unconventional path and creating your path. That is normal but the people that you choose to surround yourself with are so important.

I'm going to share this story. You came up to me and wanted to show me a little bit more about a new program that you were coming up with and all the details. Since I have been through your type of coaching, I know how you operate and what you are going for. I remember that we were talking about pricing. I told you that you were undercharging. You visibly physically were so surprised. I also think that we can undersell ourselves for whatever reason. It takes people around you to see the potential of whatever you're creating or doing. Community is a must.

I love that example so much because my coach feels I still could charge more. For those out there, take advantage of what you get. Coaching is a high-ticket item. Why? It has an end date and it gets you results. The coach is your guide to get you those results. It is not an ongoing thing because the coach doesn't want you to rely on that person forever or for years. It is giving you the tools, skills, transformation, and results. It's an investment but the return is way higher. I’ve worked through my money mindset because I've been undercharged several times.

There are potential clients that you are still undercharging and they're like, “That's too much.” That's going to happen in business too. It's okay because you have to know your worth and have that self-respect to stand for what you believe and the value that you're giving. Worthiness is huge also in entrepreneurship and having your business too.

I appreciate you being one of those people who were like, “I know your value, the transformation, and your investment. You got to go up.” I trusted her. I do take every feedback seriously. In the beginning, I may feel resistance. A lot of times, I feel resistance. Part of this work is to be open, see all the angles, and do at the end what's better for the other person and yourself, and what you're doing in this world. It creates a legacy that empowers the world. That's what we are doing from within.

It starts inside out. We have been there and we are still there. Sometimes we rely so much on the external to provide us with that validation. We were talking about the likes from social media and all that stuff. Here's the thing. You can have two million followers but if you still haven't worked on the inside, you are going to still feel that you're not worthy and not enough. It's not about the numbers or the external circumstances. It's about yourself. Would you agree with that, Aileen?

I 100% agree. I have one video that took me a minute and a half to create and then I posted it. I was in a rush so I exited out because I was going from place to place. It got a lot of comments, shares, saves, and everything. Effort does not equal engagement from the platform. I've been overthinking content for so long and it's been stopping me for how many years. It reminded me of one of my other coaches who said that content is a snowflake in a sheet of snow.

Once you put one piece of content, detach from it. Don't get obsessed over one single post, video, or whatever you post. It's supposed to be part of your digital footprint per se but don't get attached to a single one. Imagine I was attaching to every single one back and forth. That's why it wasn't sustainable. It wasn't out until I created from creating energy and posted it out there from a place of servitude. I can detach from it and I know it's going to land on the page of whoever needs to hear it at the ideal time, not when I want it, an hour after I post, or whatever crazy thoughts I used to have.

Letting go of the attachment to the outcome but of control too. Surrendering to what is. You said something that made me think something else. You are right. Overthinking also gets in the way of authenticity. Overthinking, over-preparing, wanting to perform, and wanting to be seen a certain way get in the way of authenticity.

It's funny because I did an IG Live. I didn't think about it. I was emotional. I was like, “Whatever. People will see me cry.” I cry a lot. I'm a crier so I'm going to be fine. They'll know more about me. I have my Kleenex next to me. I did it from a place of authenticity. I didn't know what I was going to say while I was there but I didn't overthink it. I just did it to serve. It was one that has gotten the most engagement.

Talking about authenticity, what has been your journey to authenticity? It's a lifelong journey because even myself, I'm still transitioning from that corporate mindset where I was authentic but I still filter myself a little bit. In entrepreneurship, authenticity is where service is. Being unfiltered is what makes people feel connected versus giving a presentation in corporate where you have to be more measured and calculated in a way. What are your thoughts on that?

Authenticity leads to vulnerability. Vulnerability is being exposed and that's what people connect to. The IG Live that you were talking about was about something that we all have. We have probably a complicated relationship with our parents to some degree or another. That's why people resonated. People might know or might not know about Human Design but my Human Design is being the perfect human.

Authenticity leads to vulnerability. It's like just being exposed, and that's what people connect.

What are your numbers?

My profile is 6/2 exemplary human, which means that I am a recovery perfectionist. I've always been a high achiever. Combine those two, plus my fear of being seen, is the perfect combination of chaos. My journey on being authentic was rooted in the identity piece. I needed to be so sure of who I was about myself. Being my authentic self does not feel that someone could hurt me as it was before.

With the good, the bad, the ugly, the pretty, and everything in between, I knew that I had the capacity to love and accept myself enough. I honestly was afraid of the negative comments that could come from social media. That was one of the big fears that I had. I don't want to say fix myself because it's not like we're broken. Once I reconnected with myself and was centered in that cement pillar of identity, I honestly felt untouchable even if a piece of content was so bad.

What is bad? Those are the labels that we create ourselves.

Accepting myself for who I was in this lifetime with my curly hair, with glasses or no glasses, with my eyebrows, and my heart. Am I too passionate or not passionate enough? Whatever the mixture is, it helped me be more vulnerable. One thing that I recognized was that I could no longer do small talk.

I struggle with that too.

I did not want to talk about the weather or small things. I’m like, “What's your biggest insecurity?” It was funny because as I was transitioning into that, I was going to a recruiting event with students. I was chit-chatting with one of my friends like, “Should I go up to the students and be like, ‘What's your biggest fear,’ and talk about that?” It was so funny because I'm not going to do that in a recruiting event but I love to talk about the deepness of ourselves.

That's how we get to know ourselves and how I get to know the heart of Yanet rather than corporate Yanet with a blazer, filters, and everything built on top of it. Allowing ourselves to be authentic means that we're going to be vulnerable. The biggest thing that we can do for ourselves is to root and ground ourselves. That's who we are and that's okay. That's the gift that you bring to the world. That is what has made my life so much easier. I feel so much lighter waking up in the world. It has transformed my life.

That is so true. I was cracking up about the deep conversations because I remember going to a wedding. It was one of Cody's friends. We were taking this bus to the wedding venue and I was sitting next to one of Cody's friend's wives. She was there with her mimosa or something like that. I was like, “What's your purpose?” She looked at me like, “What are you talking about? I'm here drinking and relaxing.” Answering those deep questions, which a lot of people haven't thought about and that's okay, is going to get uncomfortable because we are not used to digging deeper. That's the work.

It's so important to face it rather than avoid it because the question will still be there. The main purpose of this life is to get to know ourselves at a deeper level so we can serve from that authentic place. I'm so excited. You're an amazing storyteller. I enjoyed your stories. I can resonate with that so much. It’s hilarious. I love it. To someone reading out there who’s like, “I want to find my purpose, go deep, and feel all these things that you are saying, Aileen and Yanet,” what would be the first step that you would recommend our audience to take towards that path of self-mastery?

The path of mastery and self-discovery starts with awareness. Awareness can be cultivated in a lot of different ways. One of the biggest things that could have helped me a little bit more was whenever I have intrusive thoughts, I record them in a way. You want to pull your iPhone notes and type in, “This happened.” I said to myself, “I'm not good enough. Who am I?” Insert whatever it is. Use your notebook if you're more of a writer. If you don't like either of those, you can do a voice note. It's going to be very powerful to hear those things out. The beauty of that is that a lot of times when you see it on paper or hear it, you can challenge it.

If I say I'm not smart enough, do you have a degree in something? Have you ever figured out a problem? What is the definition of whatever thought you're making? Once it's outside of your beautiful brain, it's so much easier to digest it and see if it's true or not. A lot of the patterns that we are unconsciously running on repeat are not true. If you have them documented in whatever way feels best for you, you're also able to see the patterns. Awareness is the foundation for starting this beautiful path. I pray and hope that for everyone, it's spiraling up like it has been for me. It helped me the most. What about you?

I love the combination of awareness and curiosity because you mentioned asking questions about it. Start getting curious. That's an amazing advice. I'm so excited that I had you on this amazing show. I hope you had a lot of fun like I did.

It's always fun to talk to you. For those who don't know, Yanet and I sent voice memos that should be episodes on their own. It's always to catch up and discuss this beautiful topic we don't like to talk small talk. We like to go deep.

We go deep quickly. I'm so grateful that our paths got crossed and connected in a way we could have never imagined. That was the start of a beautiful relationship and this amazing friendship. Thank you so much for being here. Let everyone know how can they find you. If they want to work with you or ask a question, what's your social media? What is your website? Whatever you want to give, let us know.

Find me on Instagram. My profile is @AileenAime. That's where I hang out the most. If you want to work with me, send me a DM. There's also a link so we can chat more. I am so happy to be here. This is my first of many on this show. I am so excited to help you take whatever action you need to take to the next level.

Take whatever action you need to take to the next level.

Follow Aileen. She has amazing content. Thank you so much, Aileen, for being here again and sharing all your amazing wisdom and your transformational path. I'm so honored.

Thank you.

Thank you, everyone. If you found this interview super impactful, share it with your friends and your family. That's the only way that we can continue empowering this world. Until next time.

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I want to invite you to my upcoming free and live masterclass, From Unworthy to Unstoppable. I'm going to teach you how to find the clarity, confidence, and courage to make your wildest dreams your reality. It's going to happen via Zoom on November 8th, 2023, Wednesday at 6:00 PM Central. I hope to see you there. Reserve your spot. It's free and live. Get ready to become unstoppable. I'll see you on November 8th, 2023.

Important Links

• Aileen Hirsch - Instagram
• From Unworthy to Unstoppable