Ep179 Rachel Alexandria - Why Loneliness Plagues Those at the Top

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:11:06
Rachel Alexandria
going to the other person with your mindset. More on what is achievable here of what I need. I don't need them to see my point of view.

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Rachel Alexandria
I need to change what's happening and get their buy in to make some kind of change,

00:00:19:08 - 00:00:29:04
Mike O'Neill
welcome to Get Unstuck and On Target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with competence and vision,

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Mike O'Neill
but also to achieve groundbreaking results.

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Mike O'Neill
I'm your host, Mick O'Neill. I coach top level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective

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Mike O'Neill
in each episode.

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Mike O'Neill
Join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you, providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward.

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Mike O'Neill
Let's get started.

00:01:00:21 - 00:01:33:05
Mike O'Neill
Joining me is Rachel Alexandria. Rachel helped high performers with overwhelm, people pleasing and perfectionism and other secret messes. I look forward to talking about Rachel as a former psychotherapist who is turned soul medic. She's written three books. The topics are ranging from planning for difficult conversations, taming the Inner Critic and a manual for use, an emotional freedom technique, or tapping for stress relief.

00:01:33:07 - 00:01:59:14
Mike O'Neill
That's something I know nothing about, so I'm sure we'll come back to that. She's also created a video series. She's recorded an album of meditations, and she and I had had chance to speak prior to scheduling this, and I had to ask her to speak to the idea of how can one go about carrying without carrying? Rachel, welcome.

00:01:59:16 - 00:02:03:06
Rachel Alexandria
Thank you so much, Mike. I'm so glad to be here.

00:02:03:08 - 00:02:14:10
Mike O'Neill
Yeah, I'm just listening to your voice. You had that very calming voice, about you. What led you to go first? into psychotherapy? What was that? Appeal.

00:02:14:12 - 00:02:40:05
Rachel Alexandria
Oh, boy. I you know, I had kind of wanted to pursue it in college, and I had this fear in my head. This stereotype you're doing. the show Frasier, I do. Lilith Crane was, I don't know if she was a psychoanalyst or a psychologist, but I had this fear that pursuing therapy was going to turn me into somebody who came across as cold and clinical.

00:02:40:07 - 00:03:07:04
Rachel Alexandria
Not realizing that you can do something, but do it in your own way. so years later, I was doing the admin, like just basically executive admin kind of work, which is fantastic, but not my heart's, you know, my heart song. And, I was confronted by my was burned at the time and he said, you know, you're not making great money and you don't care about what you do.

00:03:07:07 - 00:03:41:19
Rachel Alexandria
Maybe you should do something that's different in one or both of those realms. So I spent quite a bit of time just really getting honest with myself about what I felt most drawn to, and it was definitely to helping people not suffer when they don't need to. And so I went back to school again and got that masters and then doing that basically something like this ever since I was 18 years ago.

00:03:41:21 - 00:04:08:13
Mike O'Neill
You know, one thing that struck me as you work with high performers and high performers, might come to that role through all sorts of things, but you, you kind of write that we all but high performers, they too experience, overwhelm. Perhaps, people pleasing. But that perfectionism is what kind of caught my attention.

00:04:08:15 - 00:04:26:13
Mike O'Neill
let's talk about high performers. I'm going to assume that many watching or listening right now would probably describe themselves as high performers. Let's start with the positive. what lends itself to people to become high performers?

00:04:26:15 - 00:04:51:00
Rachel Alexandria
Well, what lends people like, what pushes people to become that way is, if you're you're asking a psychotherapist, I don't I think if we want to talk about the positive, what's great about high performers is they're the people that you want on the team. They're the people who get the majority of stuff done. they are they tend to be, creatives.

00:04:51:00 - 00:05:16:17
Rachel Alexandria
They tend to be more visionary. and they also know how to work when the rubber meets the road. You know, they they just see where the gaps are. They make sure the gaps are filled like they are. Yeah. They just get a lot more done than maybe the rest of people. what lends people to becoming high performers?

00:05:16:19 - 00:05:38:20
Rachel Alexandria
You know, from my background, and I'm going to say a lot of times they were parented by children. They were the child in the family who saw that maybe the adults weren't, you know, getting all their work done in some kind of fashion. they weren't they couldn't 100% trust the adults. And so they started picking up the slack.

00:05:38:22 - 00:05:58:12
Mike O'Neill
Interesting. Now, there are lots of positives with being high performers, but we've already kind of hinted at what could be, some things that high performers might, experience. I just listed the three overwhelm. People pleasing or perfectionism? Are those things you see a lot in your work?

00:05:58:14 - 00:06:23:16
Rachel Alexandria
Oh, all the time. All the time. And, you know, they kind of go together. If you're striving constantly for perfection. You probably never feel like anything is good enough. Or if you're always trying to please people you know, then you're outsourcing your validation to other people. Both of those are going to lead to overwhelm because they are never attainable.

00:06:23:17 - 00:06:30:06
Rachel Alexandria
Perfection is never really attainable, and you can never really rest when your people pleasing.

00:06:30:08 - 00:06:48:06
Mike O'Neill
So we put a label on three things, but I love the way you described it. but perhaps other secret messes I've never seen that expressed that way. I imagine it could be wide ranging, but I love this word secret. We think it's a secret. Is that.

00:06:48:08 - 00:07:10:23
Rachel Alexandria
It is. You know, usually people look at high performers from the outside and think, hey, man, they've got it all. They're they've got a job that's super important and successful and meaningful. They're making the great money. They probably have some kind of awesome family. Maybe they've got kids or they've got a partnership or a marriage. Like they dress well from the outside.

00:07:11:00 - 00:07:14:24
Rachel Alexandria
They appear to have it all together. And the secret message is,

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Rachel Alexandria
that, first of all, no one has it all together, right? But also, any time you put a lot of, like, the majority of your effort into something like career success, for example, other things will suffer. So the secret messages I see are, you know, people feeling like secretly they're jerks.

00:07:38:06 - 00:08:04:22
Rachel Alexandria
People feeling like they're not putting enough time and energy into their relationships or they feel really lonely. A lot of people are lonely at the top. That's a really common phenomenon. I think even more especially with women, because there are fewer women at the top there, fewer organizations for that. I see people, you know, feeling like, they don't know how to ask for help or they don't know how to get help.

00:08:04:22 - 00:08:27:00
Rachel Alexandria
That's actually helpful. because that's not what they've cultivated. If you've made a personality out of being good at stuff. Right. You don't tend to have lots of really supportive, emotionally intelligent community around you. You mentioned you, but you don't let them in. Yeah.

00:08:27:02 - 00:08:46:02
Mike O'Neill
you mentioned lonely at the top, and you point out that's particularly true for women, at the top, because they're perhaps fewer of them. Why is that? Why do we hear that expression? Why do we either see it or experience a greater sense of loneliness as our responsibilities grow?

00:08:46:04 - 00:09:12:02
Rachel Alexandria
Well, from what I hear from the clients I work with who are, you know, CEOs, or in general counsels that kind of thing. when they were earlier in their career, they had more peers. A lot of people develop their friendships from their coworkers. And when you start being the boss, yeah, it's just not the same. There is not a a, across the board.

00:09:12:02 - 00:09:37:14
Rachel Alexandria
Like, you can't meet people at the same level if you are a level up in terms of authority and responsibility. You may like your employees or the people who work underneath you. You may get along super well, but you can't ever crack a certain amount of the facade. You just can't. You can't. It's not. for some people, it's not trustworthy.

00:09:37:16 - 00:10:08:04
Rachel Alexandria
Or you can't trust those people to keep your confidences because it's too complicated of a dynamic. and a lot of times when people are higher up, like that, they also describe that people across the C-suite or other executives, they can't the 100% trust in the same way that they can their coworkers when they were lower level. Just because there's there's too much power, there's too many divided loyalties.

00:10:08:06 - 00:10:31:21
Rachel Alexandria
yeah. And and a lot of times, the higher up you are, the more your friends and your family don't really get it. Unless your dad was a CEO. He's not going to entirely get what it's like to be that. so there's a difference between the position, like, I mean, if you think about, let's just say the president of the United States.

00:10:31:23 - 00:11:03:08
Rachel Alexandria
You don't really want that guy to come and sit with you and cry about how hard it was to order the military to do something like that makes you feel nervous, right? As a as a just a civilian. Right. So it has to be you have to keep such a tight lid on so many of the ways that you feel or think about things, because most people can't handle it, or it's not the appropriate place to share.

00:11:03:10 - 00:11:35:15
Mike O'Neill
Regular listeners know, that this is an unscripted conversation. I'm an executive coach, and it sounds as if the type of clients I have may be similar to the clients that you support, but I'm very, very careful to stay in my lane. I am not trained in the way that you were trained. and therefore in no way do I describe my work with clients as anything likened to psychotherapy or anything along those lines.

00:11:35:17 - 00:12:06:06
Mike O'Neill
And I try to keep that line clearly established. I say that just to say that the nature of your work, you're dealing with very, these are people who are, a considerable influence. people, who have gained that for a variety of reasons, but some nothing has happened. And you made allusion to the secret message is there there may be things going on that may be secret to others.

00:12:06:06 - 00:12:20:04
Mike O'Neill
It might be secret to the person that we're kind of talking about. how do you go about when you're working with a client, and what ways do you help them uncover these things?

00:12:20:06 - 00:12:51:13
Rachel Alexandria
Well, by the time someone's coming to work with me, they usually know what the results are of their secret messages. You know, my house is a mess, or my relationship is a mess. Or, I never feel like I know what I'm doing at work, even though I'm in this high position or, you know, I don't know how to keep a lid on my intense emotions.

00:12:51:15 - 00:13:14:02
Rachel Alexandria
And so sometimes they spill out in a messy way, like they usually know. They usually know what the outward like, their inner experience of the messiness feels like. They feel out of control. They they feel like they're, you know, kind of tap dancing through fire or spinning too many plates, and one of them is going to fall, or maybe a couple of them have fallen.

00:13:14:04 - 00:13:29:12
Rachel Alexandria
So that's not usually news to them. What's often something that I help them understand is, like both where that's come from and also what they can do about it.

00:13:29:14 - 00:13:30:12
Mike O'Neill
And.

00:13:30:14 - 00:14:11:20
Rachel Alexandria
You know, a lot of times people are looking for something from the outside world to calm the storm inside. And that's not the place to start. I mean, yes, finding like a trusted person to help you work with it is a critical part. But once you have that, like, for example, validation. Who? I was just talking to a CEO today about how he's having a struggle with one of his, kind of people across the, across the board, somebody, somebody else who's in I think it's the CEO.

00:14:11:22 - 00:14:39:10
Rachel Alexandria
and I'm changing some things so it's not recognizable to anybody. Yeah. and on some level, he's getting really frustrated because he wants validation. He wants that person to understand how he's feeling and to get that mirrored back. We don't understand that all the time. We're trying to do this. We're trying to get people to acknowledge and empathize with us.

00:14:39:12 - 00:15:00:23
Rachel Alexandria
But when it's routinely a fraught conversation and you're not going to get that, you have to start with the internal validation. You have to start by seeing yourself, and then you can feel more calm when you really do that, when you really see yourself and say, yeah, self, I get it. You're right. This is true. This is what we're experiencing.

00:15:00:23 - 00:15:29:12
Rachel Alexandria
This is what's happening. Excuse me. and then going to the other person with your mindset. More on what is achievable here of what I need. I don't need them to see my point of view. I need to change what's happening and get their buy in to make some kind of change, whether or not they understand my point of view.

00:15:29:14 - 00:15:47:23
Mike O'Neill
You know, let's keep along that path. this is probably more on a personal dimension. And that is, I introduce, the expression caring without caring. and I think I understand what you mean by that. can you kind of walk us through that, please?

00:15:48:00 - 00:16:22:00
Rachel Alexandria
Sure. So, because I've done this work for a long time, when I help people connect inwardly to, to see and validate themselves, a lot of times what comes up is inner critics. All of us are sort of familiar with that voice inside that's like, hey, you're doing, you're doing a bad job, you suck, blah blah blah. and over time, working with those inner critics, with my clients, what I've come to see is there's often material in there inside of us that isn't from us.

00:16:22:02 - 00:16:46:03
Rachel Alexandria
So, for example, your inner critic can be blended with my. I'll just use me sitting still. Oh, I used to think of myself as lazy. That was a critique. I would throw it in myself. My inner critic would throw at me. But when I really got into, like, examine what was happening. The laziness thing isn't from me. That's from my parents.

00:16:46:03 - 00:17:21:21
Rachel Alexandria
That's my parents assessment of me as a teenager not wanting to do chores, which, you know, what teenager does, right? So it was a thing I had to kind of un blend. I was carrying something that didn't belong to me. And that happens with our inner criticism. But it also happens with, for those of us listening who have a lot of empathy for people who care about people who who, you know, when you see somebody having a struggle, you're kind of like, you can feel that.

00:17:21:23 - 00:17:50:24
Rachel Alexandria
we're sort of built to, in some ways, take in empathetically and absorb other people's emotions on some level. And whether you want to say that's mirror neurons in the brain or an energy thing. However you want to understand it. And like even if you just think about, oh, my sister's having a really hard time and I'm having I'm having a harder day because she's having a hard time.

00:17:50:24 - 00:18:15:11
Rachel Alexandria
And if she was suddenly to call and say, oh my God, it got all resolved, you know, the scans came back clear. We're out of the woods or we got the money and you'd be like, You feel better because the thing you were carrying has been alleviated. Problem is, we're in a complex world where we see lots of people going through hardship all the time.

00:18:15:11 - 00:18:39:21
Rachel Alexandria
People you know, personally, people you see on the news. A lot of people are struggling all the time. And we don't understand that we're carrying these weights with us all the time. So one of the things I work with people to do is learn how to care, to not be a jerk and not be callous, like none of your suffering affects me.

00:18:39:21 - 00:19:00:02
Rachel Alexandria
That's not what we're talking about. But to care, you know. Yeah, I care that that's happening to my sister. But I cannot have the burden on my shoulder as I go through every day. I have to find a place to set it down. I still care if she calls me and says it's all fixed. I'll be like, oh, thank God, that's great.

00:19:00:04 - 00:19:08:01
Rachel Alexandria
But it can't be a thing that weighs me down day in and day out.

00:19:08:03 - 00:19:43:02
Mike O'Neill
I appreciate you kind of clarifying what the I, I enjoy as, as as I'm looking at your website, as you shared what you literally list as your leadership manifesto and Matt, as read this. Sure. Lead and be loved. Listen to yourself first. Live your beliefs out loud. Speak up for what matters. Honor your commitments. Acknowledge greatness. Rest. Allow people to give to you.

00:19:43:04 - 00:20:00:01
Mike O'Neill
And let love reign. I love those. these type of things sometimes don't happen overnight. Have these expressions evolved over time or is is something that has been with you for a long time?

00:20:00:03 - 00:20:25:04
Rachel Alexandria
It's I'm sitting here being like, oh, where on my website did you even find that? Because I it's not a thing I have put forward that often for probably 5 or 6 years. I love the manifesto and I still believe in it. it came about. I honestly don't remember that. That feels like a thing. That was like I sat down and wrote it out.

00:20:25:05 - 00:20:53:15
Rachel Alexandria
I mean, I did go to the Leadership Institute of Seattle for my master's program. It was very group dynamics and leadership focused and and spoke to everything that I felt as true. So I think it comes from there. Like, what are the qualities that I want to exude as a leader that I want to see and other leaders that I want to help people find within themselves?

00:20:53:15 - 00:21:15:04
Rachel Alexandria
And it's, I use that manifesto as actually a self-assessment for folks who start work with me. Because it helps them see where, where they scale themselves as being weaker. So allowing others to give to you, you might imagine for a lot of people pleasers and perfectionists and high performers, they're generally weak on that.

00:21:16:06 - 00:21:19:00
Rachel Alexandria
And that leads to overwhelm.

00:21:19:02 - 00:21:32:07
Mike O'Neill
This will be the easiest question that you have filled it because of what you do and how you do it. But reflect on a time where either you were a client got stuck and what did it take to get unstuck?

00:21:32:09 - 00:21:44:02
Rachel Alexandria
The. I have so many examples. I want to think, a good one.

00:21:44:04 - 00:22:31:18
Rachel Alexandria
So I'll, I'll use a client experience relatively recently. she's having she was having a difficult time in her marriage and really not seeing how they could move forward because they have a fundamental, differing point of view on something that's going on. And. I am a big fan of the third way. You know, the idea that when you when you get stuck, usually you're seeing it as I can't go forward and I can't or I can't go back, you know, right between a rock and a hard place and what it takes to get out of that.

00:22:31:20 - 00:23:04:12
Rachel Alexandria
Is usually turning inward and bringing compassion. Like, I do a lot of what's called internal family systems or parts work for short, which kind of helps people work with different aspects of their personality. You know, the inner critics, the protectors, the the inner children and that kind of stuff. And a lot of times I'll be like, okay, go in and connect with this part and, you know, see what they need.

00:23:04:14 - 00:23:23:24
Rachel Alexandria
And then we kind of do a check on, how are you doing that right now? Like what's the attitude you're bringing? And a lot of times when people start they're like, I'm just kind of frustrated with this part. Like get up, do the thing, whatever. And I'm like, yeah, how well does that work when someone outside of you is coming at you this way?

00:23:24:01 - 00:23:59:18
Rachel Alexandria
And very poorly, right? You get truculent, you get stubborn, or you feel ashamed. So we have to start with compassion. Always have to start with self-compassion. This part is doing a thing for a reason, and it first wants to feel cared for and understood. So with my client and her stuckness in her relationship was like, first we need to find the part of you that is terrified and find the part of you that is angry and bring a lot of compassion at listening to those parts so that they really feel heard.

00:23:59:20 - 00:24:03:00
Rachel Alexandria
And then we'll see what happens.

00:24:03:02 - 00:24:24:11
Mike O'Neill
I heard it described in a variety of ways. You use self-compassion. Let's use your term. for those who struggle with that, at least initially. Do you have any tips for us that that helps us begin to. Move in that direction?

00:24:24:13 - 00:24:49:18
Rachel Alexandria
E yeah, I to some extent, I would say it's really hard to learn to emulate something or to be something that you have not experienced from someone else. So if you have experienced a lot of compassionate care from other people, then you might want to think about channeling that or bringing that person in your mind's eye with you.

00:24:49:18 - 00:25:20:04
Rachel Alexandria
When you connect with a part inside. But if you haven't, we only know how to do what we've been initiated into, not just taught right. Taught like being taught something is receiving the intellectual information in your mind. But having the, like vibrational, you know, the, the, somatic experience, like the nervous system experience is not something you can get out of a book.

00:25:20:06 - 00:25:47:24
Rachel Alexandria
So being with somebody who can help hold that space is really critical. Additionally, like if people want to try a tip, if you can bring that space, you just haven't known how to apply it. I recommend doing mirror work, like looking at yourself in the mirror and really just only looking in your eyes and trying to think about yourself as a young child, seeing the young because our eyes don't change.

00:25:47:24 - 00:26:09:23
Rachel Alexandria
Our eyeballs are pretty much. I believe this is true the same size when we're little kids as we are adults. So that is the thing in our face that doesn't change. If you can look in your own eyes and see the child in you and speak to that child compassionately. Super super helpful.

00:26:10:00 - 00:26:29:16
Mike O'Neill
That's great to you know, we've had a far ranging conversation thus far, but if you were to begin to, look for what are those threads that tie it together and the things that you want to make sure that our listeners have as take away what comes to mind.

00:26:29:18 - 00:26:56:16
Rachel Alexandria
And, what comes to mind for me, like the takeaway I would like to share is probably a lot of what you're carrying emotionally. the way that you feel fatigued, probably a lot of it is in yours. And if you can, like, find the place in you where things that are weighing on you aren't actually yours to resolve and set them down.

00:26:56:16 - 00:27:27:24
Rachel Alexandria
Even just temporary relief that that will be incredibly relieving. And it's not your fault that you picked them up. That's, I think, even broader message that like that I want to say to people all the time, the way that you are sure we make choices, but it's it's not your fault. You have picked up whatever habits that aren't working for you from society, from your family, like you were just doing what you were taught.

00:27:28:01 - 00:27:37:10
Rachel Alexandria
And if it's not serving you, it's not because you are bad at life. It's it's just stuff you've been taught and it's stuff that you have to unlearn or pattern differently.

00:27:37:12 - 00:27:42:14
Mike O'Neill
And anything else comes to mind you want to share.

00:27:42:16 - 00:27:54:09
Rachel Alexandria
I think that's I have so many things I could share. I don't want to overwhelm people. So what you're carrying may not be yours and it's not your fault. I think that's good.

00:27:54:11 - 00:28:16:05
Mike O'Neill
very well said. You know, Rachel, before we wrap up, I like to ask our listeners a question. And that is, do you ever wonder why people follow your lead? Is it out of obligation, or is it because they truly believe in your vision with extensive experience in H.R. Leadership and executive coaching? I've seen first hand the essence of leadership.

00:28:16:11 - 00:28:46:05
Mike O'Neill
For me, it's clarity and competence. It's about practical solutions that deliver bottom line results with a tailor, an approach that's been somewhat informed by my fortune 500 background. We're going to address those unique leadership challenges head on. So if you're ready to lead with impact, visit mitch-builders.com. Let's unlock that leadership potential and make real strides towards your goals.

00:28:46:07 - 00:29:08:11
Mike O'Neill
So until you we come back together, I want you to focus on leading in a way that it that truly inspires others to follow, not because they have to, but because they want to. Rachel, thank you so much for sharing your expertise. If listeners want to reach out and connect with you, what's the best way for them to do that?

00:29:08:13 - 00:29:20:23
Rachel Alexandria
You can find me at Rachel alexandria.com. That's probably the easiest way. And I'm on Instagram too at Rachel, our Alexandria.

00:29:21:00 - 00:29:26:06
Mike O'Neill
Now you're also on LinkedIn as well. Do you remember if it's if it's this Rachel or Rachel or Alexandria.

00:29:26:07 - 00:29:29:11
Rachel Alexandria
It's Rachel Alexandria on LinkedIn.

00:29:29:13 - 00:29:37:16
Mike O'Neill
I have it open right here in front of me, but I couldn't see it with my, My Paul dies on that. Thank you so much, Rachel.

00:29:37:18 - 00:29:40:14
Rachel Alexandria
Thank you so much for having me. Like it was a great chat.

00:29:40:16 - 00:29:50:13
Mike O'Neill
I also want to thank our subscribers for joining us, and I hope you have picked up on some quick wins from Rachel. They'll help you get unstuck and on target.

00:29:52:00 - 00:29:56:00
Mike O'Neill
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Get Unstuck and on Target.

00:29:56:02 - 00:30:16:15
Mike O'Neill
I hope you gain insights to help you lead with competence and drive your organization forward. Remember it, Bench builders. We're committed to your success, your leadership excellence, and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review rate and subscribe to keep up with our latest episode.

00:30:16:24 - 00:30:20:24
Mike O'Neill
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00:30:20:23 - 00:30:24:11
Mike O'Neill
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00:30:24:20 - 00:30:32:00
Mike O'Neill
Until next time, I encourage you to stay. Focus on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path.