Taming the Inner Critic

Kim Boudreau Smith: Our inner critic is like a sleeping guard that never sleeps. We’ve trained it to jump off. So, do we need the inner critic or we’re walking down on dark alley and there’s danger and oh my god, danger, danger, danger. Yeah, we do need that. But do we need the inner critic when we are checking our work making sure that’s the right diagnosis or the correct script for the glasses and stuff like that? As opposed to doing we really heighten that and then we’re second guessing everything that we do every time we see a patient like that?

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Hey, This is Bethany Fishbein. I am the CEO of the Power Practice and host of the Power Hour Optometry Podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you make New Year’s resolutions, and I make New Year’s resolutions, sometimes forget about them by the third week of January but I make them and if you make them and if one of yours has to do with getting to that next level of success, then you absolutely want to keep listening. My guest today is Kim Boudreau Smith. And Kim is a leadership and speaking coach who works with high-achieving and ambitious women to Tame their inner critic heighten their confidence and overcome their imposter syndrome. We’re not going to talk about how I know her we’ll just go with a friend of her friend because I don’t have any of those things. But Kim, I’m just kidding. Thank you so much for being here and agreeing to do this with me.

Kim Boudreau Smith: Yeah! Thanks for inviting me, Bethany. I’m so looking forward to this.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Me too. So just talk for a minute about how you got into the line of work that you’re in. Like, Where did you start that you decided this is what you wanted to give the world?

Kim Boudreau Smith: That is a long story there. You know, I’m that girl that when I was younger, I used to orchestrate like Mother May I and hopscotches and with all the neighborhood kids and race them and bet them every time and they would lose every single time well, because I would orchestrate things I would have a very loud voice even though I was a very shy child or had a very loud voice and my father or someone in my household, open the front door and go “Kim you’re so bossy, be quiet, tone it down!” That’s where all of this began. And so by the time I reached my years after high school, I really took on speaking and thinking and living how I thought the world wanted me to be how I felt my parents would accept me, the jobs I had, the amount of money I made, the titles that really loved me. So then there was that. And at one point I had an internet radio station and I was running it 24/7 365 eat me out alive. Even though I had a full team involved and had it for six years and sold it to a client while I was still making a profit. And I was told “Have a seat. Just be quiet just for a couple of months. Just relax” and I’m like recovering perfectionist that does not roll with me. So I ended up taking my voice and I started writing. And then I wrote blogs and then the blog led me to a lot of the work that I was doing here in person I’ve gained in and out of communication certifications, everything that I’ve learned and seen, for example, Toastmasters, nothing gets Toastmasters, what they did, I could pull away and go create something better. You’ll fill the holes that they were missing, but it always comes back to the power of that inner critic that mindset. So many women want confidence when they walk into rooms, but on the inside, they’re a chaotic mess. And the mindset is chiming up way too loud. And I used to be one of those women.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: There’s so many questions and I have in so many directions that I can take this but one thing that’s interesting is that you chose to do this work with women. And then you mentioned women again. And I’ve had this conversation with one of my associates. Do men really not have this inner critic or do they just do a better job of hiding it and not talking so much about it? 

Kim Boudreau Smith: Men have this and I do work with men, but I know to stay in my lane and market to women because guess how I get to the men? Through the women. And I did that with my fitness business as well. I trained women. Those women were like, “Could you come train my husband? or my CEO? Oh, my boss is looking.” So I do work with men and men have this too. It doesn’t show up differently than women. You know, it all depends upon what they’re going through. I think every woman shows up differently and it just depends upon what we’re going through. Men do battle that inner critic. I think some minute better or just walking in the room and going you know, forget this and I’m just gonna I’m gonna do it anyways. I don’t care what’s chiming in my head. I’ve seen with men, just a little bit of an impostor syndrome, but boy, I see men play small. I mean, I’ve been very hugely successful than minimizing their successes, which is part of that inner critic.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: So step backwards for a minute and just talk about what this inner critic is like. You hear thrown around you hear impostor syndrome. As somebody who has created a career out of dealing with this, what’s your definition?

Kim Boudreau Smith: Well, here’s my somewhat an analogy of the inner critic and a little bit of humorous but it really lands. I believe the inner critic is the conductor of the orchestra that is going on up in our heads. And depending upon the circumstances, we’ve given her carte blanche to run our life and she controls we don’t manage the inner critic like we meet, she controls us. So it could be something like “Oh, I’m walking in to give a 16-minute keynote at Ford Motor Company.” And by the way, I live here in Detroit and that would not be far off because the big three are right here in my backyard. And my inner critic could go “Oh, I’m woken up. Let’s go on in. I’m going to point to a trombone section and make it really loud lack of self-worth and confidence and bring that up. I want to go over here to the drums and make those play really loud. And that would be second guessing going small. And ooh, imposter syndrome. That’s my analogy of the inner critic is she or he is the conductor. All those impostor syndrome, lack of self-worth comparison, second-guessing, doubting ourselves and she just knows what to play when we are walking into the situation because we’ve trained her we’ve taught her.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: In our work, we see that not just with women but with men also. We see it with young doctors starting out who are working with patients for the first time, and maybe a patient will question them. I mean, I used to get it earlier in my career. I would walk in and the first thing the patient would say “how old are you? Are you old enough to be my doctor? You’re so cute.” And, you know, part of me misses those days, but it’s hard, right? It feels like you’re starting out with a patient who’s already not confident in whatever you’re going to say next. And so, what do you see people do to start to compensate for those feelings and try to get control back? Is that what’s happening?

Kim Boudreau Smith: What I see, and like you said, this can happen men or women and if you’re on it’s interesting how that other person, their perspective and what they are perceiving when you’re a young physician walking in early on in your career, and they say, how are you old enough to be my doctor? Well, unless you are Sheldon from Big Bang Theory, then you must have blown through your PhD with three PhDs by the age of you know, on Big Bang Theory, but nine years old, he was in high school. It’s interesting, the society’s perception and what we take on so when we do take on those thoughts and allow the inner critic to get bigger and bigger inside our head, I see a lot of things. I see people go to the other side and go small and shrink down. Lose that confidence. And then I see the other side where they can get really big and get loud, vocal, edgy, inversion, angry, aggressive because they’re allowing other people’s thoughts, societal impressions to take us on. So we buy into those thoughts, which hence, I’m not enough in here I just went through school and you’re a physician. I’m not enough because a person said, I don’t look old enough. So we do take those on and I see so many different variations of what people do with it.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: You’re really right that this is very much in the head of the person who’s hearing it. Like the patient who’s saying something. Now 25 years later on the other side, it is not unusual for me to be at an appointment and a young physician to walk out and for them to look really close to my son’s age that I try not to let it come out of my mouth but like, “Wow! How old are you? Did you just get out of school?” Like, all I’m saying is you look young. I’m just asking I’m not saying you’re a bad doctor, I don’t have confidence. You’re not qualified to treat me. I’m not saying any of those things. I’m saying, if anything, I’m saying I’m old. You could be my son, right? The person saying it isn’t necessarily mean anything, but all of the mental pride comes from the head of the person hearing it, which I can also understand because I have that too. So either shrinking back or getting loud and boisterous. Neither of those is really the path to taking great care of that patient. How do you how do you stop and realize or do something different? Like what are you supposed to do there? 

Kim Boudreau Smith: Well, first of all, the name of my business is “Her Bold Voice” and to me the boldest voice can either be our transparent, authentic voice, the voice that your listeners are hearing right now and both you and I are our external, our physical, vocal voice. And the other big voice if we allow it is that internal dialogue that’s going off in our head and that’s where we need to become stronger. And having an internal dialogue of being able to have things ready to go when that inner critic starts chiming up. Because if we don’t address it, and by the way, we can’t kick the inner critic to the curb, and we cannot out scream that inner critic for those of you who are listening that have raised kids, you cannot out scream a teenager. Try not screaming inner critic. It’s just gonna get bigger and bigger, louder, and then I hear so many people I want to kick it to the curb perfectly. We don’t need to be doing any of that with our inner critic. We just need to learn how to manage that and one of the things I’ll use myself as an example is what I like to do when my inner critic is really chiming up because I don’t want it so loud. I start going down a rabbit hole because that rabbit hole is dark, damp, deep and it’s lonely. And that’s where it can really get out of control for me as a lot of times, I’ll pause, and say what do I need right now? I mean, what really truly is really going on here and it might be what I’m working on the situation I’m in and I need to remove myself. I gotta get out because if I stay in it, it’s going to get louder and then also, you know, forms of like meditations. And meditation can be, you know, I’m in Michigan, you’re in Philadelphia, we have to live in cold weather. I get out and I go for walks that cold weather, clears my brain clears that inner critic. You know, that could be a form of meditation. There’s gotta be the implementation of not just self-care. And listen, I’m not against self-care, like massages, manicures pedicures, I’m down for a mall. But going deeper than self-care getting into some soulful care. And it’s learning how to dialogue with that inner critic going hey, I got this or, you know, I don’t know what’s going on. I need to pause now or wait a minute. I’ve got these other tools. I need to pull them out because I’m hearing this it’s getting too loud. 

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: So this work to do this is from what you’re describing, more ongoing and something that you really have to take a timeout and focus on more than something that you can access at the moment. Because if somebody walks into that exam room and the patient says “oh my gosh, how old are you? You’re not old enough to be my doctor. You’re so cute.” You can’t be like, Listen, I’m going to go meditate and have a pedicure and be right back. Right? So, talk in the moment.

Kim Boudreau Smith: So when we are doing that self-care on that so carefully and really working on ourselves that when you’re in that improv impromptu moment, it doesn’t knock us off our feet when we do hear someone say “gosh, you’re awfully young and really did you go to medical school? Hey, you really got to meet my doctor what’s going on here?” and whatever that other person is saying. But what we are doing is our own self-work like that our confidence doesn’t get thrown over something simple like that. A lot of times when we’re strong enough as opposed to buying in and feeding into the under credit, we can come back around with a humorous comment, which could bring that patient to some self-actualization of what they just said. And they may just say, I didn’t mean you weren’t not qualified because of your age, I was just curious you know, I got a son your age and how old are you? And it could clear some air off even more so that when is early on physicians, you know, doctors opening up our practices and things like that. We’re not walking out and carrying that baggage all day. And then it goes into the next day. And it shows up differently on the third day and the fourth day, then it’s like on 20 years, I’m finally confident. No, let’s begin with it in the moment. But it does take work. And you’re right, a little bit you know, if a patient says hey timeout, I gotta go get a pedicure and I gotta go but no, but when we are doing this internal work, then we can emit, drop that dime on a moment so to speak, pivot when something comes at us like that. I mean come on, you’re in the business where you’re dealing with customer care, and once customers are not satisfied, something like that could be so piercing. If we have not done self-internal work and care for ourselves, I don’t know about you, that could take me down a hole that would be very difficult to get back on.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: It absolutely happened. We’ve talked in previous episodes on the podcast before about people recently since COVID. Whether or not it’s related, just being a little bit closer to the edge than normal. And you don’t know what’s happened in their day leading up to that point, but something small can set them off in a much bigger way than you would expect it to. And I think we’ve all been in our offices when a patient lashes out. And sometimes it’s at you more often at the office staff. They’re not trained to deal with it. So all of a sudden, you know, you’ve got your receptionist crying in the bathroom, you’ve got somebody comforting her and you’re the one face-to-face with that patient and it is hard to know what to say in those moments to defuse the situation and at the same time feel like you said the right thing you are in a doormat. Like you’ve got to be able to live with yourself afterward. Is there practice for stuff like that? 

Kim Boudreau Smith: Oh, heck yes. There’s such things as role-playing for things like that as well. Those are some, I don’t like to call those some tough conversations. Those are some fear some tough conversations that we need to be equipped especially when you’re dealing with the public to be equipped for and if you’re the practice owner, aka the physician, of course, it’s gonna fall onto the shoulders of the doctor. And you know, and you have receptionist, office managers or whatever, that is just not equipped, especially if it came out though. Everyone’s emotions are going sky-high. But yes, there are plenty of things that you can do to prepare for things like that. You can’t prepare for word-per-word verbatim. But there are tools like role-playing and what happens if and scenarios to make us stronger. So that when we do enter those tough conversations, we’re not second-guessing going. Did I say the right thing? Do I say the wrong thing? What’s going on? What’s not going on? And this is a consumer and the consumers right? Well, I beg to differ. Not every consumer is always right but we do need to make them feel like they’re validated and not necessarily always. Right. So there’s it’s a skill, it’s a learning skill.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Can you share a tool that would be something that someone could practice to use with conflict or that type of situation?

Kim Boudreau Smith: Yes, I love the curiosity here. So when you put a hat on, so to speak, metaphorically speaking, getting into curiosity with that other person, because we all take on biases and judgments like what the heck is going on with that person, as opposed to what the heck is going on to the person simply looking at her and say, you know, gosh, Mrs. Smith, could you please tell me what is going on? Let them air sometimes that diffuses those emotions and brings it down and keep going with curiosity. What are the curiosity questions? And by the way, this just happened to me recently. I had purchased some lingerie and got home and cut all the tags off did not wear it, and went to put it on didn’t fit and the tags are cut off. And I went back into the store and I said look, I know your policy. But what can we do here? I mean, this was expensive stuff. I mean, what can we work out here? And she said don’t worry about it. Bring the stuff and we’ll work something out. I brought this stuff in and she looks at me and she goes “So the tags are gone, why are you standing here? and I said because she told me we could work something out here and she said I would never would have said that. And then she went over to the racks and start pulling many more things and I want to tell you all she needed to do and I’m not expecting this woman to give her store away. I’m not at all. You could have went over to the sale rack, grabbed a pair of underwear that you’re selling for $50, and thrown on a pair of $20 socks and I’m going to tell you something, Bethany. You would have rocked me like there was no tomorrow would have been like Christmas day. Now didn’t make up for the difference of what I’ve originally paid for what I bought. No, but I’ll tell you what you would have rocked my world. And it’s learning how to just get into that curiosity. Try and get to what’s going on. What triggered that person and how to defuse that? We enter those conversations. We both do people want to go out it. You’ve got emotions, you’ve got the right or wrong. It’s just mainly being curious. What’s going on? What happened Mrs. Smith share with me.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: It’s interesting that we’re talking about learning to tame and learning to get out of situations where the inner critic gets too strong or too loud. How do we get into these situations where does it come from? Because somewhere along the way, we must have learned to have, when is that?

Kim Boudreau Smith: I believe and I’m not a neuroscientist or anything like that or research around all of this, but I believe a lot of this stuff comes back when we’re young like elementary school, we start picking up societal impressions, teachers impressions, other kids impressions, and we start bringing it out. I’m wearing a lot of stuff that we hear. So we carry it through. And it’s like we’re feeding the inner critic by simply saying, Okay, this is what I heard this person say to me, so I’m not enough. So then she goes, alright, let’s start feeding you that I’m not enough as you become a teenager, a young adult into adulthood, and it could be something else of Gosh, I’ve never mount up to being a good student because all you pull off are C’s, I mean, let’s get down to it’s just a letter and I know our education system is based upon letters but it’s a letter and is that really true, that we wouldn’t amount up to anything because we’re pulling C’s as opposed to straight A’s based upon whose opinions. You know, and we were and we take that on, and I believe that starts really early childhood.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: I’ve heard that as a parent like you gave the example just in your introduction of having a voice as a child and being out there organizing sports and getting the kids in your neighborhood into a game and then being told, quiet down, you’re so bossy. And it’s interesting, you wonder if a boy child would have been praised for that same behavior. Look at you, you’re fixing to be the football captain someday. As I’m thinking about it, that may be where some of the gender differences come from. Do you think so? 

Kim Boudreau Smith: Yeah, I think gender differences have been around for centuries and centuries. I think we have come far with the gender differences. We have a lot more work to do with gender differences and equity, leveling, playing fields, and things like that. But you know, I can remember growing up you never saw a boy playing a doll. Are you kidding me? They had trucks in the backyard. microphones that were in the front yard with the dolls. No, I mean, now there’s dolls for boys. boys play with dolls. boys wear pink. I mean, Ralph Lauren pink is really and you know, when you have girls playing with army things and stuff like that, so I do believe we have come to a long way and I believe that generations are raising children differently. But we do have a lot of work to go and I think that is where a lot of that we picked up when we were younger. I’m a girl, I’m supposed to be wearing pink fluffy stuff. I’m supposed to sit a certain way or show up a certain way. We’re and I’m not supposed to get dirty whereas boys get to go roll in the dirt. You know, I mean, that’s what my childhood was like. So there were a lot of differences. The gender differences now and I’m not gonna reveal my age, but when I was younger, there were a lot of gender differences.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: is there advice that you would give to someone or to one of your clients now? On raising small people how to try and limit how much of this you’re installing in them?

Kim Boudreau Smith: Oh boy, that’s a good question. Even I’m not a parent. I think parents have gotten a lot more open with allowing children to be who they want to be, without removing for an example. Oh, no, your boy you can’t play with dolls you’ve got to play with trucks or no your boy you can’t go and have ballet lessons when there’s some amazing professional, professional men, professional dancers. I see a lot of parents doing that better. I think though. A job as a parent, no matter how much positive and encouraging and confidence building you do with kids, kids are kids, I mean, they leave your house to go to school. You know, there’s teachers, there’s children. I think there’s a lot of things parents can do. What’s putting electronics down, talk to your kids make sure you’re all eating dinner at the same time providing that they’re not off running to soccer when they’re older and things like that. Just really getting in eye to eye contact with the kids and really teaching the kids that this is not all the carroll to life is when they get out and start going to school and things like that. I remember the female singer Pink. Her daughter went to school and it’s a couple of years ago and her daughter likes to wear pants and she likes to wear like suits when she goes with her mom for these awards. And she’s blonde hair and beautiful. But there are some kids one day that said, you know why do you always look like a boy when you come to school and there was like, almost a little bit on the verge of bullying going on. And Pink, she goes first thing what I want to do as a mother, I want to go on there and I want to beat their butts. Ok, and she’s not going to because they’re kids, right? But it’s how do you pull that child out of that? So they don’t buy into I can never wear a suit again to one of my mother’s awards because I’m so afraid people are going to view me as being a boy. In fact, one of the things her daughter did do shortly after was that she cut her hair very short. It’s gone out now, this was a few years ago. But I can only imagine this as a parent when your kids are coming home telling you that someone said this about me and how do you unravel that? And so they don’t take that on and feed that inner critic.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: And that’s part of what all this is this idea that this inner critic is buying into things that other people have said that aren’t necessarily true. Or even if they are true don’t need to have the value that your psyche assigns to them. So now as an adult, sometimes it’s obvious, like, sometimes you know, that’s what it is. Right? That feeling of I shouldn’t be here. Nobody wants to listen to me. What do you look for to recognize when those thoughts are false impressions from that inner critic, versus reasonable caution? You know what I’m saying? You need some of that feedback loop of thinking as a doctor. You need that voice. inside your head that says, Are you sure that’s the right diagnosis? What if it’s wrong? Some fear makes you careful and better, but some it’s just ridiculous. How do you tell what to listen to and what to ignore? 

Kim Boudreau Smith: Well you know, inner critic is like a sleeping guard that never sleeps? We’ve trained it to jump off. So do we need the inner critic when we’re walking down on dark alley and there’s danger and oh my god danger, danger, danger? Yeah, we do need that. But do we need the inner critic when we are checking our work and making sure that’s the right diagnosis or the correct script for the glasses and stuff like that as opposed to do we really heightened and then we’re second guessing everything that we do every time we see a patient like that and you know, I just noticed myself this whole time I’ve put myself into this doctor arena and I said we and I’m not a doctor. So I love being in this doctor’s arena. But it’s how do you decipher when to really embrace. Well, that inner critic is nasty when it starts getting bullish what’s coming at you and taking you down. And getting really edgy, and loud and nasty. It’s gone too far. It has gone way too far. To the point that I could possibly see a physician second-guessing themselves every time they see a patient. Come on. I know you guys have been in the business, and some of you are just starting into practices, some of seasoned that has been around thats aged, that’s time are there’s going to be a time where I need to maybe recheck this but it’s checking in and going and my second guessing myself because I’m second guessing myself because my inner critic is chiming in or am I just checking this just to check and cross my T’s one more time because I wasn’t quite sure on the exam or wasn’t quite sure on this. That’s how we decipher how that is popping up. But boy when their critic starts getting nasty, Hey you loser, you better be checking every time you see a patient, you’re down the wrong slope there. That’s nastiness that we are allowed that your inner critic. When the inner critic is pumped up to create that fear in our lives. This is my opinion. We’re more doing things based upon from a fear standpoint. We are out of alignment. We can make desperate decisions based upon fearful desperate things. And that’s not a healthy place to be.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: We talk a lot with clients and other podcasts about leadership work. And that’s where actually I’m having these conversations. I feel like more with people than in the exam room patient care, like the exam room stuff, that’s me from a while ago, but the leadership stuff is real too because as a leader, you need to be able to have those hard conversations and you need to tell somebody coming in late every day is a problem. And the reasonable or unreasonable fear. They’re gonna hate me they’re gonna talk about me later, they might even quit, they might make up a fake name and leave a one-star review, they might put most of it is they might not like me.

Kim Boudreau Smith: That was a big one. I had to unravel because I heard you know, you open up your mouth and you’re bossy, you have a big mouth, Kim. You’re bossy, tone it down. So going into my early adult when I was in Corporate America, I was so careful what I said and how I set it, for that fear of I would sound bossy, or excuse me for saying, but bitchy or, you know, I wouldn’t be liked and I would say the wrong thing and oh my god, I wouldn’t be upsetting people and I lived like that for many years, Bethany. And I’ll tell you what made me really sick because of all the stress and the undesired feelings that I wasn’t getting my true words or to my true voice out there. I was actually faking it and you know, trying to monopolize which way do I go based upon what room I’m in. It’s just not the way to live. And you’re right. You’re having those tough conversations as a boss, as an owner. You’re coming into work every day. It’s just not working out. You know, first of all, number one, what’s going on? Number two, what do we need to do to change this? Especially if you don’t want to fire the employee on the spot. What a lot of leaders I see doing is they keep that going. And then they walk out and go, god, I’ve got this employee I don’t really want them to leave but they’re coming in late and they’re toxic. We’re walking around eggshells. That’s the kind of climate that is being created by that leader.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: Absolutely. So how do you learn to get out of that, right, same thing? Well, you’re five minutes late. We can – I can go get a pedicure. Like how do you learn to be the person that you want to be in that situation? Because I think along with the inner critic, people also have some kind of inner role model. Maybe there’s a better name for it. But you’ve got this like, what would ideal me do? What would the best leader in the world this great boss I used to have why I’ve always held in high regard? What would they do in this situation? So as much as you have somebody telling you if you do what you want, bad things could happen. You also have this angel on the other shoulder or whatever saying, here’s the answer. It’s right here. Do you agree with that?

Kim Boudreau Smith: Believe the inner critic can start playing both sides. Here’s the bad one on one shoulder and here’s the angel on the other shoulder and again, there’s so many books out there, you know, Radical Candour. You and I’ve talked about Kim Scott and Radical Candour and how to be compassionate and have these fair staring conversations. Again, I love beginning with curiosity, because when you go out with curiosity, and I don’t mean What the hell is going on, I mean, going in with curiosity, defusing a situation that could already be fused in lowers those emotions within that person. What’s up what is going on? I mean, you could have an employee that is a very good employee, that shows up 5-10 minutes late and have no idea it’s because I’m having a heck of a time getting my kiddo out the door to school and then my purse, I am having a hard time and you may not know none of this. And I’m gonna say that that is okay. Because you do have a business to run. But then now that you know, maybe there’s more curiosity to get involved with, and how do you maybe come together? How do we provide support so that you’re you know, I mean, if eight o’clock starting time is eight o’clock and you got employees walking in at eight o’clock on the nose, you’re late in my world, that’s late. So that means they need to be walking in 10-15 minutes before the eight o’clock start time, get their coats off, get their boots off, get settled, and get their cup of coffee, whatever it is that they’re going to do, get their desks set up. So when you learn more about especially the employee on the employee side, maybe there’s some structural things that can be set up to support if the employee is worth you, pouring into them. The problem is we don’t know what’s going on in people’s backgrounds. Because we’re told you don’t show that side of you. You don’t bring that stuff to work that you’re in the midst of a divorce, or your car broke down. That’s a weakness. You don’t show that, but yet, it shows up in other ways, whether it’s our body language, being late, or falling short on the job. We all have that stuff. But what we lack is the curiosity of going into these conversations and just finding out and even if after you find out what’s going on with this employee, they may not be the right employee, and then it’s time for a change.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: There’s layers of inner critic in there too, because I think so many of us now learned from bosses of a different generation. Who would hear you say, you know, maybe they have a divorce going on at home? Or whatever they say, how would you even know it’s their responsibility to leave that at the door? And it’s a very different expectation now that a boss should approach that with curiosity and learn about that situation and understand how it’s affecting someone’s ability to work and how you can help them get through it. I’m thinking about the first practice I worked in out of school and the boss there never would have not only would he have not wanted to know any of that he would have criticized me for wanting to know that, like, told me that that was very wrong way to lead. You don’t need to know these people they just need to do their jobs was kind of that philosophy. But it’s different times now. So just to put things in a little bit of perspective. Reassure me one more time everybody’s got this inner critic. It’s not just women. It’s not just me thinking this.

Kim Boudreau Smith: Yes, we all have it. I mean, it’s like saying, I’m walking around without my head today. You know, I mean, literally. We all have an inner critic. Some people have louder inner critics than others. Some people have been enlightened and do wonderful inner personal growth work so that inner critic is not as loud and turned on so much all the time. In some people are still trying to learn how to manage and work their way through that. But we all have an inner critic.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: And that deep growth work that people do any kind of meditation, pedicures, or is it specific types of learning? What are the skills that you’re trying to gain there? 

Kim Boudreau Smith: Well, first of all, that looks different for everybody. I mean, I can go out and take an outdoor five-mile walk and be in a form of meditation and be completely aware because I don’t want to get run over by a car or you know, get hit by a car. There’s so many different things. To do to help tone down the inner critic. One of the things is a gratitude journal, every day, just being grateful lists three to five things that you’re grateful for. Now, in the beginning, if you’ve never done something like that, it might be difficult to get to five. So start with three and be grateful and also I’m a bit one in celebrating, because we are such a society of Go Go Go rush rush rush, don’t pause, or slow down or anything like that. So because we don’t celebrate what it is. Wow! I’m a parent and I don’t have a child owner’s manual here and I’m learning as I go along. And sure I messed up but I’ll tell you what, yesterday I rocked it with a great conversation with my kid is celebrating as well. That helps keep the inner critic quiet and small.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: So these are things that just make you feel good or they kind of force you to emphasize the positive so it balances out the negative stuff that you’re hearing.

Kim Boudreau Smith: It’s simple tools to remove yourself from the negative because the inner critic is the negative, and pause and really take a look at yourself and how magnificent you are. When the inner critic is chiming in. We start venting we get into spins. Sometimes we don’t see what’s right in front of us. And that spin can take a sit down to a negative spiral. And that’s where the inner critic is just thriving like crazy and like winning the war. Yeah, let’s get her going. You know, those gratitude journals really soften. Especially if some anxiety is gone. It really softens that so we can start managing that inner critic. I mean, one of the things that sometimes I do on my inner critic is really to be able to come away and come back and revisit and go oh, that was funny and laugh at myself. That was funny, that’s what I was telling myself that was hilarious. They could be something so simple, the job that we’ve given an inner critic to do is a couple weeks ago, I was sending out emails for a leadership roundtable that are supposed to be live here in person in Detroit area. I want you to know Bethany, took me two hours before I press send on those invitations because I was thinking to myself, no one’s gonna come. Everyone’s gonna say no, that’s an inner critic, trying to keep me safe and small until finally I push away and go, really? that’s crazy, I’m not that horrible of a person. Take a deep breath and what’s the worst can possibly happen? They say no, well, I’m not gonna die and press the send button. it’s been able to bring yourself to the awareness of this is silly, I mean this is not true, it’s being told. We are not that.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: And recognizing that in that moment, and being able to push that down is a worthy skill to work on and lets you take action that maybe in the past you wouldn’t have right there’s people that would have heard that message of nobody’s gonna come and they would have said you know what, you’re right. Maybe nobody’s gonna come forget this seminar. I’m just gonna go watch TV.  And being able to learn that skill to push that down lets people be better Doctors, better leaders and better selves. So thank you, Kim, for sharing all of this. If people want to hear more from you or learn more about what you’re doing, where is the best place to find you.

Kim Boudreau Smith: You can just hop on over to my website at https://kimbsmith.com/ . I also hang out on LinkedIn as well and you can find me over there Kim Boudreau Smith.

Dr. Bethany Fishbein: All right, thank you so much. And for people wanting to learn more about taking your practice to the next level. You can always contact us on our website https://powerpractice.com/ Thank you so much for listening.