Transcript of Breaking Barriers with Nada Lena Nasserdeen

Hey, I'm just going to hit you with three amazing stats that we're going to talk about deep in this conversation. 83% of people lack self-confidence. 92% of people think that they're self-aware, but they're actually not. 80% of your success is contingent on your social and emotional intelligence. In this episode, my really good friend, Nadalina Nassardine and I are going to talk through some strategies, and you are going to learn from the best of the best. Nadalina is simply the best. Buckle up and get ready. This is my good friend, Nadalina Nassardine. Nadalina, how are you doing today, dear?

Thank you so much. I'm so good. Thank you. And thank you for that intro. That was awesome. I appreciate you. Thank you.

No, no, no. I am the one that appreciates you. Natalina, on the show, I like to ask people, what's your because? That thing that's deeper than your why, your true passion, the reason you keep doing what you do. So Nadelina, today, what's your because? Why are you doing all these amazing things that you do?

Honestly, Mick, I truly believe in elevating the human condition. I believe that that's why we were put on this planet. And in all of the experiences that I've had and jobs that I've had, I believe that the way to do that is to help people build the skills that help them elevate themselves and their potential. And those are the soft skills, the skills that make up 80 % of our success. Then most of us never really learn that are a game changer when it comes to not only your professional life, but your personal life. And that's deep rooted in me. I'm obsessed with helping people reach their potential, and this is how we do it.

I love it. I want to go right there and unpack a lot of what you just talked about. I know that there are people that are watching or listening right now that when you said that, they raise their hand. They're like, That is me. And we know that Nadeleena is the guru of turning that self-doubts into powerful conviction and powerful self-master. So for the person that raised their hand, Nadeleena, that's like, Yep, she described me. What are some things that they can do? What are some of the skills that they need to start developing right now?

Well, I'll tell you this. So there's four major skills that we lead with here at our company, okay? And the first one is the most important, which is self-confidence. 83% of professionals, Mick, say their number one challenge is self-confidence. Think about that for a second, 83 %. So that means that only 17 % of the workforce and the population actually believe in their ability and are willing to bet on themselves. And so if you're listening right now, and Mick, you might have been in this position, too, think about the money, the opportunity, the things that you're leaving on the table because of a lack of self-confidence. Now, I always say that it's not your fault, because we've been taught our entire life to build what I call micro-level confidence. And I talk about this in my book. I differentiate between micro and macro-confidence. We've been taught to build micro-level confidence, which is basically a confidence in skills, in things, in elements, right? So everybody is confident in something. You might be confident in technology, in coding, in speaking, in podcasting, but we all have something that we feel good at. But we're never really taught to build the macro level confidence, a.

K. A. Self-confidence, which is an unshakable, unwavering belief in yourself despite all the chaos and the downfall that's happening around you. And this is what we saw during COVID, for example. So many amazing people, they lost their jobs, they lost their businesses, they lost their titles. The industry that they were in is no longer relevant because of AI. They came to us and they came to us and they They said, Who am I? What's my identity? What value do I bring to the world? I don't feel like I'm enough because the whole time, they've created an identity based off of microcompetence versus true deep self-confidence.

So I am writing this down. So what's the difference between microconfidence and then true self-confidence?

So microconfidence is when you feel confident in a thing, like a skill, a technical scale, right? And everybody has that. So, Mick, what's one thing that you're like, I know I'm good at this and I'm confident in it. What would you say that is? Just give me one.

Excel spreadsheets. I can do them like the back of my hand.

Okay. Excel spreadsheets. Now, let's say one day that Excel and spreadsheets completely goes away and that scale and that program, that platform is gone, okay? Now, that confidence is no longer there because that thing that you're confident in no longer exists, right? So you can't exercise it. And so what happens is that people start to identify themselves by that level of confidence. But when it goes away or when it changes or when it shifts, they no longer feel confident. And so what we really want to build is the macro confidence, which is the self-confidence, which is an inner belief that you believe you can learn, which is an inner belief that you are enough simply because you exist, which is an inner belief that failure is research to success, and you have to have both in your life. And unfortunately, not enough people have built that self-confidence. And so their belief about themselves constantly goes up and down, and it's contingent upon external validation and external things. And if that's just not sustainable.

So, again, if I'm listening, if I'm watching this, and again, not only in this head on, what's the one thing I can do right now to work on this confidence? If you said If you just did this one thing, I don't know that's very broad in general, but somebody's listening that I know needs to hear this right now.

Yes. So there's a tool that we use. And if you're okay with it, Mick, I want to share it. It's totally free. But I would say the first thing is go to riseoffree. Com and go to the free section and download the confidence quiz. Now, the reason why I say that is because there's nine elements of self-confidence. And so the first step of building self-confidence is identifying which element you need support with. Because we don't need support with all areas, we might just have one or two that we say, this is what crushes my confidence. So for example, I'll just list off a couple of them. I won't do all nine. Trusting your intuition is a confidence crusher or a confidence elevator. It can go either way. So some people will say, I'm really good at trusting my intuition. If I feel something in my stomach, I always respect myself and I listen to it. Other people say, I tend to listen to other people. I hush that intuition, and then I do things that I know I shouldn't have done, and then I feel bad about myself. So you're going to score yourself in that element.

Another area is perfectionist mindset. So some people listening might say, Oh, I really struggle with perfectionist mindset. And I've lost opportunity because of it. I lost clients because of it. I've been sitting on a book that I want to get out there for years because of it. And so that could be crushing their confidence. And other people might say, I don't have a problem with that. I would say the first thing is take the quiz and identify which out of the nine you struggle with, because then that's what we're going to tackle and that's what we're going to work on. I can tell you right now, one of the biggest confidence crushers we see with the majority of people is setting healthy boundaries. So many individuals have a hard time saying no, and they're people-pleasers. And so they do things and they say things that don't fit them because they want to be liked. And we see this in leaders across the board. We see this everywhere. And so that's one of the, I would say, most critical confidence elements that a lot of people struggle with.

Nathalina, I totally agree. I literally just had a meeting yesterday with someone, and we were talking about that same thing. Saying yes when you know that you should have said no, or even entertaining conversations or ideas that you shouldn't have, usually get you in trouble. I had to break this down and remind someone that no is a complete sentence. No can help you sleep better at night. We put ourselves in these situations, and I love that with the healthy boundaries. What are some things that some folks can do to create those healthy boundaries?

Okay, so the first thing is what we call the 4 Bs. We call it the 4 Bs to reverse engineering. So the first thing is, what's the belief around the healthy boundaries? Because we all have a belief around it. So it might be, well, I'm afraid if I say no, then I'm not going to get a promotion. That's just as an example. Or I'm afraid if I say no, people aren't going to like me. But whatever it is, you have to find what that belief is for you. It's a limiting belief. So identify the first B is the belief. What's the limiting belief? The second step to that is the backstory. Where did that belief come from? Because all of us are comprised of thousands and thousands of thousands of beliefs, and most of them don't even belong to us. They were projected onto us by other people, and then we thought we should take it on, and now we put the jacket on and we're stuffing out of this jacket. It doesn't fit us. And so that second B is what's the back story, meaning where did that belief come from? And being able to trace it back.

The third B, which is my favorite, which is often overlooked, is what's the behavior that's being caused because of the belief? Because our belief beliefs dictate our behaviors. So is the behavior causing you to say yes to everything? And so you're constantly burnt out. You don't have the capacity for your family. You don't even have the capacity for yourself. Is it creating you to constantly be stressed, to be reactive all the time, to be aggressive because you don't have time to think? So what's the behavior? And then the last B is how do we break the belief to shift the behavior? And that last B, the breaking, it's not cookie cutter. It depends on the person. This is where we coach them through how we can break it for them.

That was just a master class right there. I'm going to bottle this up for you. That is your master class. That is freaking amazing. Again, I've been a huge follower of you for a very long time, and I have my Nathalina quote site posted on my monitors and on my boards and everything. One thing that I've heard you say a million times, no exaggeration, is that your career will only grow to the extent that you do. I would love for you to break that down for the viewers and listeners. Why The continuation of development and involvement is so important in your career and in your personal life.

Yeah. Well, the reality is this. Every industry is inundated. Every industry, right? As an entrepreneur, there's There's a million people that do what you do that have a business that you have. In the workspace, there's a million people that are in your industry that do what you do. And so the difference between those that are in the top 10 % and those that are not in the top 10 %, is there a ability to continue to pivot and exercise emotional intelligence in the process. Because your success, 80 % of it is contingent upon your emotional and your social intelligence, not your technical skills. And so we got to keep growing because the world is constantly growing, right? Industries are changing. The politics change what's happening. The economy is changing. And so if you're not changing and pivoting with society and with your environment, You're going to get left behind. But most people don't recognize and realize that your emotional intelligence is the number one skill that's going to help you do that. Because emotional intelligence, it allows you the ability to adapt, to pivot, to have motivation, to have self-confidence, even when you don't know something, the confidence to learn something, exercising growth mindset, and probably most importantly, is building relationships and being able to influence.

I always say I used to be an executive, and Mick, I know you have expertise and experience in this, too. When I was an executive and I had a job opening and I needed to hire, and I would get all of these resumes, they all said the same thing. They all had the same the same degree. I'm like, Okay, these people all have the same degree. They all went to a four-year university. Their resumes all look pretty good. Okay, well, who am I going to hire? I'm going to hire the person that walks into the interview that displays emotional intelligence intelligence that knows how to communicate with influence, that has confidence, and that has the soft skills that so many of us don't take the time to learn.

I could talk about emotional intelligence all day, but you just dropped a stat that made me shake. Eighty % of your success is contingent on your social and emotional intelligence.

That's right.

Let's go deeper there. To hear it, it totally makes sense. Didn't even think about it. But it's so true. Eighty % of your success in the world has nothing to do with, can you complete an Excel spreadsheet? Especially today. I would almost say in the next 18 months, 90 % of your success is going to be dependent on that because AI is taking over most of everything that is also human-facing. Just last year, AI was behind the scenes, and it could handle everything you don't need to do with human-facing. But now AI is doing human-facing things, too. It's a little deeper. Why do people need to truly embrace that piece of social-emotion?

Yeah. Well, I'll flip the question. Why is it... I'm going to give you some stats. Why is it that 92% of the population never achieve their goals, even though they have goals.

I just spoke on that today.

Why is it that $1. 2 trillion, not billion, trillion dollars is wasted every year in American businesses because of poor communication? Why is it that 95 % of leaders think they're self-aware, but only 10 % actually are? And so 78 % of the workforce feels disengaged and not connected to their leaders. All of those things are equated to a lack of soft skills, a lack of ability to communicate, to build relationships, to influence, to empower, and to create change. And so if I were to ask somebody what their top challenges are right now in their life and their career, I guarantee you most of it is going to have to do with people. At the core of it, it's going to be related to people. It's not going to be be, Oh, I don't understand the algorithm or the technology and the coding. It's probably going to be, Gosh, I am working every day to do my job right, and Bobby Jane over here isn't pulling her weight, and I'm frustrated because we're not getting the job done. And next week, we have our meeting with our team leader, and I'm scared to be in that meeting because we're not hitting our goals.

Yeah. Absolutely. Can you tell we've heard these conversations before?

Absolutely. And that leads me right into where I wanted to go next because I'm a huge believer in culture, and I know that you are, too. To me, culture isn't what you say. Culture is what's shown. Culture is what it's felt. I know you've said a billion times that shifting toxic workplace culture should be top two priority for leaders, right? Because we all have a toxic culture. Whether you want to believe it or not, there's toxicity somewhere within what you're doing. How can people identify if they have a toxic culture? And then once they do identify, what can they do to start the shift?

Yeah, that's a really good question. And I like the fact that you said that you have a toxic culture, whether you can see it or not, because a toxic culture Isn't always like gossip. A toxic culture can be that nobody has accountability. And every year you do a leadership retreat and you write your action plan down and you all have your goals. And then at the end of the year, year after year, you never really hit them. That's also toxicity in your culture, meaning that you don't have a culture of accountability and follow through. So I would say, and this is a good point that you're mentioning, is that your values, for example, and what your company stands for, it's not a poster It's not a poster on a wall. It's not a poster on a wall. It's the metrics and it's the feeling that your team has day in and day out and how they show up day in and day out. So I would say in order to identify if you have a toxic culture, First, let's do a little test. I love assessments, right? Because they tell you the truth. If you have a set of values in your company, I highly encourage you to assess your team and ask them, Hey, what are our values?

Let's see if they even know what the values are, right? A lot of times when we work with companies, I'll ask them, Hey, do you know what your values are for your company? Most of the time, they have no idea. Or they say, Yeah, but we don't really use them. We don't really exercise them, right?

Or they give you the generic integrity, trust, communication.

What does that mean? Because everybody has a different definition of that. I would first say, assess your team around what the values are, and are they on the same page with your vision? And then the second thing I would do is just assess your team and do a climate check. We call it a climate check versus a culture check. So let's do a climate check because, again, 95 % of leaders think they're self-aware, but only 10 % actually are. And so sometimes as leaders, we think everything's amazing. And then we assess our team anonymously, and we come to find out that, oh, they're confused half the time. Their communication, they say, isn't being had, even though I feel like I'm communicating great. I think it's scary. But being able to do an assessment, both from a value perspective and a climate check for your leaders, is going to give you all the answers that you need when it comes to your culture. And listen, I've been on the other side. Before I built my company, I was an executive for an education corporation. I had 200 leaders under me when I was 27 years old, and I thought I was the most amazing leader ever.

I was like, Yeah, I'm hip. I'm 27. I'm the youngest executive. I have an open-door policy. And nobody came in and talked to me. Nobody asked me questions. I wanted to coach them, and nobody would come to me. And then somebody said, Well, you're intimidating. And I said, No, that's your belief. No, that's not true. And then another team member said, Well, you're intimidating. And I said, No, I don't think that's true. And then the third person said, You're intimidating. So then I said, Okay, three people have told me I'm intimidating. I'm going to do an anonymous survey. I was the only executive that did it. And out of 200 people, 75% said I was intimidating, not relatable, and I looked mad all the time. I cried that night, Mick. My mom was like, What's wrong? I was mortified. But it was the best thing I did because you can't change what you don't know needs changing. Amen. Even though that was hurtful feedback and I just felt like I got punched in the throat, I was happy that I understood what the challenge was, and now I was able to shift. And so I started doing things that made me more approachable, that made me more relatable.

I was really intentional about the colors that I wore. I was intentional about not using my phone while I was walking down the hallways. There's things that I did to just create a better, more nurturing environment so that they did walk through my door. And the next year, I did the assessment again, anonymously for myself. No other executive did it, but I'm like, whatever, I'm going to do it. And my My scores increased dramatically.

So, Nathalina, we're going to give a quick master class for every leader out there, because I tell people the number one thing that you can do as a leader, I don't care if you're a new leader or a tenure leader is have a feedback loop assessment. That's right. Because here's the thing, we are so unaware and have so many blind spots that we never know that one moment, that it's the first or second time that someone is engaging with us, and then their perception becomes their reality. And because they're working with other team members, now they're telling four or five other people, Hey, every time Nathalina comes out here, she's on her phone. She doesn't even make eye contact with us. She doesn't care about us. How important is it for leaders to have feedback loop assessments, 360 assessments or whatever, on them not the other way around, and more importantly, not even for your clients, because I'm not saying that client surveys aren't important. They totally are. But your internal feedback assessment in that survey is critically the most important survey you could ever have, because usually, those are the people that are doing the actual 9: 00 to 5: 00 work, the actual job anyway.

It is the most critical thing you can do as a leader. I will tell you, if you're not doing it, I encourage you ask yourself why. If you're hesitant to do it or you find resistance in doing it, again, go back to the four Bs, right? Why? What's the belief around it that you're not willing to do it? Because you got to remember that great leadership, it's not about you. It's not about you, right? And so when you're able to get the feedback and to provide that anonymous assessment about you, you are intentionally saying, I'm trying to be better, not not for me, but for you, which indirectly is going to help me be better, too. And a leader that doesn't do that, I think that subconsciously they know that they're probably doing things or not showing up in the best light, and they're not ready to get that information back.

And I'll tell you what it did for me, and I've been doing this for 12 years now. It makes my job as a leader, as a CEO, as a founder, so much easier because I can focus on what I need to deliver for my team. That's right. As senior leaders, for the senior leaders that are listening, for the entrepreneurs, the business owners that are listening or watching, you're thinking of a million things that you should or could be doing for your team. When you hear what they actually need from you, it shrinks where you need to think. Like, literally, I can focus on, Oh, I need to be more present. Oh, I need to celebrate small wins. Oh, I need to quit talking about my sales team so much in meetings and talk about operations and technology more because they want to be appreciated. That's right. Those little things.

A hundred %.

Go so far for your leadership strategy.

And you bring up a really good point because sometimes people get crippled by the what and the how. Like, okay, what do I do and how do I do it? And so when you do get feedback, you're able to hone in on specifically where you need to work, just like the confidence we talked about. You don't need to change everything. And it's not about perfection, but it's just identifying identifying the area where your team does need more. So I have a team of 20 right now with Rise Up For You, and I do a survey every year that my team does for me. And I'm able to see, and it's not perfect, they go one through 10 on different competencies. I'm able to see my team scores me pretty high when it comes to self-confidence, like being driven, motivation, being solution-oriented, coaching. I have high scores, but the scores that aren't so high are empathy and active listening. So I'm like, Oh, I got a seven on empathy, and I got a seven on active listening and being present. Okay, well, I'm not going to spend time working on my self-confidence or working on the mentorship piece because they already feel really good about it.

I'm going to spend time working on developing the empathy muscle continuously. It's always been a challenge for me to continue to work on the empathy muscle and the active listening piece.

Absolutely. Not only I could talk to you, friend, you know that. But I want to talk about now and give you the floor because right now you have a book that is out, I I'm going to say your newest, right? Yes. Let's talk about that one a little bit. And then I know in the winter, you have a second one coming out. But let's talk about the one that's releasing now.

Yes. Thank you so much. So it's a part of our empowering and educational book series. So at the Company Rise Up For You, as I mentioned, there's the four major pillars that we focus on: self-confidence, emotional intelligence, transformational leadership, and influential communication. These are the four skills that we believe every person and company should double down on. So Earlier this year, we released the Self Confidence, the Emotional Intelligence Book. It's an empowering educational book that has a ton of strategies. And we just released the Transformational Leadership Book. Now, the Transformational Leadership Book is that next level of leadership That really dives into how do you move away from being a transactional leader to a leader that creates transformation in your team? Because so many leaders... I like to use Maslow's hierarchy as the analogy. So many leaders function at the bottom of Mazel's hierarchy. At the bottom, which is just, do you feel safe and do you have resources? How many leaders do we know that just say, just checking in on you, do you feel good? Do you have everything you need? Is everything clear? Do you have the resources that you need to get the job done?

But what we really want to do is be a transformational leader where we take our team all the way to the top of the pyramid to self-actualization, which is more than just, do you feel safe? It's, how can I help you reach your potential? How do I help you become the best that you can be so that one day you can take my spot? And most leaders aren't exercising that. And so that book, Transformational Leadership, is out. And then at the end of the year is the fourth pillar, which is influential communication. That book will be launching all about the ability to influence. Every day we are communicating with our body, with our words. But the question is, are you able to drive the receiver to take action and movement based off of your communication?

I love it. I'll make sure that we have links to all of that in the show notes and descriptions. Obviously, your website. I'll make sure that people are going there. Thank you. Before I get to my quick five, before I get you out of here, for the listener, the viewer, that's ready to rise up. They're like, not only it has me fired up, I'm ready to roll. But they're afraid to invest in themselves. Because I believe that every critical step I've ever made in life, I've invested in myself. I didn't just bet on myself, I invested on myself. What's the message you have for them right now?

I'll tell you this. The greatest athletes and performers in the world, they invest in their development with coaches coaches and trainers that can see things they can't see. Similarly to you, Mick, I have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars on my own growth because you only know what you know, right? And again, in order to create change, you need to understand what needs changing. I'll go back to what I said, 92% of individuals do not accomplish their goals. If you had what it took to do it by yourself, you would have done it already. So being able to invest in yourself opens possibilities that help you reach your potential, and every person needs it, including myself and including you. So I always say the greatest tragedy is wasted human potential. Do not let that be your story.

I love it. Nadelina, I'm going to get you out of here on my quick five, my rapid fire.

Okay, right. Here we go.

Five questions. Ready?

All right.

What's a daily routine that you don't miss for yourself? Something you have to do every day.

I pray. I pray to God every day. Love it.

Your favorite stage or city you've ever spoken in?

Dubai. I love speaking in Dubai. And Las Vegas, right? Home of Las Vegas. Okay.

Some stories.

All right.

Before you go on stage or before you walk into a meeting, what's a power song for you that you want to be playing as your theme song? If not If not, Alina had a theme song, what would it be?

I don't have so much of a theme song, but the theme that I play in my head is it's not about you. Every time I go on stage or I go into a meeting, I always remind myself, get rid of the ego, and it's just like, it's not about you, it's about serving, it's about adding value.

Okay. You can have a cheap meal, anything you want.

Pizza all day long.

What topping, though?

Mush and onion.

Okay. Okay. All right. Last one. What's one leader, past or present, that inspires you endless?

It's a really good question. I always talk about my parents. Now, my parents weren't leaders of big companies. They didn't have the leadership title. But they were the greatest leaders I had in my life, also my parents. But they both passed away when I was younger, and they left the best of them with my brothers and I. Most of who we are today is because of our parents. My dad came to this country when he was 21 years old. He had $20 in his pocket, and he taught my brothers and I to turn sand into gold. Everything that my brothers and I have achieved, both personally and professionally, we've done from the ground up because our parents passed before we were old enough to really go out and do things on our own. Because of what they taught us, my brothers are very, very successful, not just professionally, but also as people. They're great people. I would say that I'm proud to look at myself in the mirror as a woman every day because of them.

That is It's not a Lena. Where can people follow and find you?

The company is Rise Up For You. You can go to riseupforyou. Com. You can also go to @riseupforyou. Youtube, LinkedIn, and Instagram is where we're at. Then I would love for you to with me personally at Neta Lena Nassherdine. Mick, I'm sure you'll put the name in the show notes. I'm very active on LinkedIn and Instagram, and I do my own social media. If you shoot me a message on LinkedIn or Instagram, I will be the one to respond to you, not a bot.

Look at that. Catalina, I appreciate you more than you know. I think we need to make this some type of quarterly segment that you and I do.

I would love that. I would love it.

We're going to make that happen then. We're going to make that happen. I appreciate you more than you know. Thank you for all that you do. Just truly appreciate the human being that you are.

Thank you so much. I appreciate you. Thank you, everyone.

You got it. For all the viewers and listeners, remember, your because is your superpower. Go unleash it. You've been plugged into Mic Unplug. Don't just listen, take action. Rate and subscribe. Follow me on social and get the full experience at michuntofficial. Com. Keep building, keep leading, and most importantly, keep dominating.