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What you’ll learn in this episode:
We talk a lot in business about strategy, scaling, and systems…
But what if one of the biggest things limiting your growth has nothing to do with your business, and everything to do with how you show up in your relationships, decisions, and communication?
In this episode, I sit down with people-pleasing expert and Master Coach Sara Fisk to unpack the hidden patterns that keep so many high-achieving women stuck in overthinking, resentment, anxiety, and self-abandonment.
We explore why people pleasing is far deeper than simply “wanting others to like you”. And how it often stems from an internal safety system that was installed long before you ever had conscious awareness of it.
If you’ve ever struggled to say what you really think, avoided hard conversations, replayed interactions in your head for hours, or felt exhausted from constantly managing everyone else’s expectations… this conversation will hit home.
Because the truth is:
You cannot build a fully aligned business – or life – when you’re disconnected from yourself.
During this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why people pleasing is actually a subconscious safety response—not simply “wanting to be liked”
- The hidden signs you may be people pleasing (even if you don’t realize you are)
- How self-abandonment shows up physically, emotionally, and relationally in your life
- Why avoiding discomfort is quietly costing you time, energy, confidence, and connection
- How learning to communicate honestly can transform your relationships, leadership, and freedom
Mentioned in this episode:
Free Guide from Sara Fisk: How to Have Difficult Conversations
Listen to Sara’s podcast: The Ex Good Girl Podcast
Work/Connect with me:
Jessica Miller (00:01.992) Hello, Sara. Welcome to the It’s Your Offer podcast. I’m so happy to have you here.
Sara Fisk (00:06.527) I am so excited to be here.
Jessica Miller (00:08.444) This is gonna be such an awesome conversation. I love your work. I think, as I was saying before we started recording, I think this is really top of mind right now for people. So I’m excited to talk to you about you, your business, all the things. For our listeners, tell them a little bit about you, your story, how you got to this place, and about your business.
Sara Fisk (00:29.838) Well, in 2018, I was kind of thinking about what I wanted to be when I grow up. I’m 52, so, you know, this is about time I started thinking about that. I had stayed home with kids. I have five children. I, at one point, was homeschooling them and really leaning into kind of what I thought I wanted to be doing. And then they all decided to go back to school. And I had an opportunity to make a decision. And a friend of mine who
I was leaning toward marriage and family therapy and she said, have you ever heard about coaching? I’m like, yeah, like soccer coaching, little league coaching. And she’s like, no, no, no, no. And so she introduced me to coaching and I just fell in love with it. And so I spent a bunch of time getting certified and getting trained and then kind of hit the ground
running, decided first that I wanted to be a weight loss coach because what better way to force myself to lose weight than to tell the entire world I’m a weight loss coach. And then when that didn’t work because you can’t force yourself successfully, you can’t willpower your way into something successfully for very long, I ended up in a master coach training program
and we had to design a project that kind of showcased what we had learned as master coaches. And I designed a program a hundred percent around what will make them like me, my trainers, right? What will make them think that I’m a good master coach and that they should certify me and that they should really think, you know, Sara’s amazing. And it failed like spectacularly. I really wish that I
Jessica Miller (02:08.488) Boom.
Sara Fisk (02:22.52) could go back and now watch that video session where they were all just looking at me like, Sara, what is this? What is going on here? What’s happening? Because I had no idea that that was people pleasing. Because I grew up in a very high demand religious environment where doing what everybody wanted you to do and jumping through all the hoops that they put in front of you, that was how you were a good
religious person. And so I was like, what do you mean? I’m like grabbing all the brass rings. I’m doing all the tricks. I’m tap dancing like I’m supposed to be tap dancing for you. And it was in that moment when one of the coaches just said, Sara, what is happening right now? What’s going on? I was like, well, dang, I don’t know. And that’s when I realized, oh my gosh, this is people pleasing. And so
Jessica Miller (02:52.998) Yeah, right.
Jessica Miller (03:19.656) Mm-hmm.
Sara Fisk (03:20.718) I pivoted and wrote a six-week program for myself, how to stop people pleasing. I thought six weeks, we’ll have this thing beaten — six weeks easy. I was nothing if not confident in people pleasing. But so six weeks turned into eight weeks turned into three months. And I kept taking cohorts of women through this program,
making it better, refining it. And so now that’s what I do full time. I run a group coaching program. I used to call it Stop People Pleasing. And I now call it Connected because I really want to push toward what we’re creating instead of what we’re just stopping. But the heart of it is if you are a — especially someone who is a woman who is socialized with patriarchy and the good girl rules, and this applies to men too. So I don’t mean to just
speak exclusively to women, but it shows up a little different. You have an internal guidance system that was installed in you very, very early that is designed to please the people around you. And it gets in the way of how connected and vulnerable and intimate we can be in our relationships. It gets in the way of how honest we can be. It gets in the way of us fully realizing
even who we are as humans and what we want. And so I hope every coach feels this the way I feel about my offer about theirs, because I just think it is one of the most essential pieces of work that any human can do is to separate themselves — what they want, what they need — from the expectations and the desires and the pressure that was put on them since they were little.
Jessica Miller (05:13.638) Hmm.
Sara Fisk (05:16.524) to really separate that out, to know themselves deeply, to love and appreciate themselves. And then to be able to have relationships that feel that same way, where they’re fully loved and fully known and seen. Because so many of us are existing in relationships where we don’t feel like we are fully seen and we can really say what’s on our mind or we’ll threaten the relationship.
Jessica Miller (05:41.294) Yes, oh my gosh. So first of all, I cannot believe that about the Master Coach training and what great coaches will call you on it and see it, you know, and ask you what’s going on there. So you could come to this place where you’re like, actually, this is totally out of alignment.
Sara Fisk (05:49.602) Yeah. Yeah.
Sara Fisk (05:59.511) Yeah, yeah, it was so painful, but it’s one of those painful moments where I’m so grateful because, if they had gone along with it, and so often we do this, right? Like we’ve seen someone else putting on a little performance and it doesn’t feel quite right. We’re just like, yeah, okay, okay. And we don’t say anything. And I’m not saying it’s always appropriate to, but I’m really grateful that they made it so uncomfortable and that they refused to kind of play along with me.
Jessica Miller (06:25.22) Yes, yes, to your point, what a gift for that. And it’s funny because to your point, like we’re all doing this to each other. We’re doing this to ourselves. We’re doing this when we’re sitting there and if there’s the elephant in the room and no one’s calling it, you know what I mean? All those things where we’re censoring it and holding ourselves back. And to your point, these are such deep things. Like they’re running.
They’re running in the background. It’s just like who you are, quote unquote. It’s running in the background and you don’t even see it half the time because you’re so used to just performing, right? This is who I am, quote unquote. That’s how I show up in the world.
Sara Fisk (07:05.932) Yeah, 100%. So many women, when we start this work, they say things like, oh my gosh, I never realized there’s this like quiet hum of anxiety, always, or this resentment, this loneliness, right? These emotions that just become part of the wallpaper of our lives because we just — they’ve been there so long, we don’t know, but they are having an effect on the quality of our relationships.
Jessica Miller (07:16.657) Yes.
Jessica Miller (07:35.09) Totally. So how would somebody know or uncover if they’re people pleasing?
Sara Fisk (07:41.999) It’s my favorite question and it is a hundred percent based on their internal experience. From the outside, you actually can’t tell if something is people pleasing or not because the awareness has to be of why am I doing this? What’s the motivation? What do I think will happen if I don’t do this? And then internally being
Jessica Miller (07:53.5) Mm-hmm.
Sara Fisk (08:11.454) aware enough to be able to interrogate, okay, what are my reasons? Why am I showing up this way? What am I feeling? What’s the state of my body and my nervous system right now? And then do I feel any kind of threat if I don’t do this? They’re not gonna like me. They’re gonna think X of me, right? There’s gonna be some kind of repercussions. And so it really has to do with examining your internal reasons and fears and motivations.
Jessica Miller (08:25.02) Mmm.
Sara Fisk (08:40.098) And that’s how you know because from the outside, you really can’t tell.
Jessica Miller (08:44.578) Mm-hmm. And do you feel like — I always use like your body as a compass — do you think it’s the feeling that tips you off to it, to say like, okay, I’m in the situation and I always feel this discomfort. What is going on here? Or is it the thought first? Like what do you think?
Sara Fisk (09:02.126) It’s mostly the feeling because the thoughts are subconscious and part of the interesting thing about people pleasing and compliance and fawning is that they serve kind of different purposes, but they start so young before you even have an awareness of your conscious thought, of a story that you’re telling yourself. I mean, that story is in there.
Jessica Miller (09:04.594) Hmm.
Sara Fisk (09:29.314) and it is running, but it’s the tightness in your chest. It’s the nausea in your stomach. It’s the way that words kind of get stuck right there in your throat. It’s the way that you kind of feel a little sick, a little queasy, a little anxious. That internal experience is what your body is using to tell you something’s wrong here. Something doesn’t feel good. Something isn’t right. We don’t like this something. But we’re so used to that.
We just kind of gloss over it and keep going out of habit a lot of the time, but also out of just not knowing what else to do instead.
Jessica Miller (10:06.152) Totally. I know for me, and the reason I was asking that is because I noticed at some point, and I thought it was like stage fright, sort of, that I was like shaking. It was like a physical shake, and I’m thinking, what the hell is going on here? You know? It could be like you and I talking here. It would show up. And I didn’t understand what was going on. But what I realized is that it’s like your body’s telling you first that you are creating
Sara Fisk (10:16.749) Yes.
Jessica Miller (10:35.452) this very — I hate to use the word like contrived, but — contrived situation based on what you think the response is gonna be. So you’re choosing your words and you’re afraid of what the result is gonna be in all these pieces. And I think a lot of that for me personally came from this place of like believing — I’m the oldest child, oldest of four. There’s all that conditioning.
And then this idea like I’m from New York, I’m Italian, I’m bossy, I’m gonna like bulldoze people over. I tend to be like very direct. And I was afraid that people were gonna get angry and pissed off at me. So I would hedge and I would hedge very specifically and I would like watch what they’re doing and I would do this thing. And it was freaking exhausting, so exhausting. But to your point that you just made, I was like,
Who else do I be? Because I know this person, you know? And it was very weird to even untangle that.
Sara Fisk (11:42.713) I want to go back for just a second to the word contrived because it does feel like once you see it, you’re like, this is a performance. This is something that I do because I need to feel safe and I need to feel like there’s a possibility of connection or belonging or at least at the minimum safety in this situation with this person, with this group.
Jessica Miller (11:52.306) Yep.
Sara Fisk (12:11.062) I think some of the messaging that we’re hearing lately — I mean, somebody forwarded me an Adam Grant little clip where he talks about people pleasers as liars. And I was like, I really do not like that because it is like contrived. I don’t think it’s a bad word. I think it’s accurate. But I think what we need to keep in mind is that all of that, the performance
Jessica Miller (12:24.464) Ooooo.
Sara Fisk (12:38.99) the contrivedness of it, right, is for safety. And we don’t know how to feel safe and connected and like we belong and have a place without worrying about meeting what we think the expectations are. And so I say that specifically as often as I can because so many people that I talk to beat themselves up. Like, why am I like this? I’m a 45-year-old, 52-year-old, you know, 63-year-old
person now, why the hell can’t I just say what is on my mind or why can’t I just do this? And it’s because that internal safety-seeking system that’s existed since you were a baby, right? Unless we update that system on purpose, it doesn’t update by itself. And so many of us are in adult-size bodies still feeling like we’re going to get in trouble.
Jessica Miller (13:27.375) Yes.
Jessica Miller (13:34.13) Totally.
Sara Fisk (13:34.189) which is a very adolescent, young-child thing to feel, right? But that should be a clue that, I am not in this situation as my wise adult self who has a lot of skills and resources. This is like the eight-year-old version of me that is scared and that is worried about getting in trouble or getting rejected or getting kicked out. And so I really do not like it when people pleasers are
Jessica Miller (13:38.777) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (13:57.5) Mm-hmm.
Sara Fisk (14:03.886) talked about, you know, as liars or manipulators or controllers, because it’s not for the sake of the manipulation, it’s so we can feel safe and feel like we have a place to belong.
Jessica Miller (14:14.736) Yeah, and to that point, it’s not coming from your conscious brain because as an adult, when you say it, you’re like, logically, this makes no sense. Like, I’m not going to die if Sara doesn’t like me on this call. Like, you get it. But from a very deep subconscious place, that’s where it’s surfacing. And to your point about being scared, it is terrifying. It is terrifying. And I remember even like taking it out so many notches.
I would be with friends, I grew up in a very Catholic household, we didn’t talk about sex or drugs, all the bad words. And I would be with friends of mine who are much more liberal and they would come from much more open and liberal spaces. And the things that they would tell me, I was like, we don’t talk about those things. But I remember the vulnerability, feeling that, how scared I was to
express those things or share those things with my friends, even though they were sharing these things with me. So my brain is like, this is safe and it’s normal. But then there’s this place of like, what if you share the wrong thing and you’re like a weirdo? You know what I mean? Like all of that hedging that happens in that space, but just being blown away by how scary it felt to share a part of myself that was who I am. It could be anything. It could be like the stupid thing you did the other day that you’re ashamed of.
and just being real about it without the worry of the repercussion, even in a space where these people love you and they’re your friends.
Sara Fisk (15:47.225) That’s such a common tension, right? Like how much of myself can I bring to this? Whatever it is, whether it’s an intimate partner, marriage, boyfriend, girlfriend relationship, whether it’s a friendship, that tension between like relationship and honesty, like wanting to please or wanting to be accepted and who I really feel like I am. And I just really quickly —
Jessica Miller (15:54.171) Yes.
Jessica Miller (16:05.222) Yes.
Sara Fisk (16:14.668) that starts when we are like babies because we have to have the care of bigger, more capable adults, right? We don’t survive without it. And so this system of watching other people, watching for what they want — I mean, if you’ve ever been in a room with a baby and the baby smiles, what does everybody do? Everybody goes nuts, right? Like, oh my gosh, she’s smiling! And then baby’s like, they liked that.
Jessica Miller (16:35.27) Yeah, reacts. Right.
Yes. Yep.
Sara Fisk (16:41.846) and baby does it again. And so that is the first — and it’s actually a beautifully essential part of our survival because we want to take care of babies who are smiling, right? We want to give them food, we want to snuggle them, we want to… And then as they grow up, what happens? There’s just more adults to pay attention to. And so they’re looking around at the coach and at the priest and at the librarian. What does she want? What does he want?
Jessica Miller (16:54.02) Right.
Sara Fisk (17:07.894) and they’re giving them that in exchange for being taken care of. And so we have to do that. And I like to say being a people pleaser is not optional. It happens, it’s essential that we please the adults who we need to take care of us. The only problem is that no one ever tells us, you know, at a certain point in your life, you can take care of yourself and you don’t depend on these adults in the same way.
Jessica Miller (17:12.69) Totally.
Jessica Miller (17:30.503) Hmm.
Sara Fisk (17:36.911) We always need belonging and love and vulnerability and intimacy and connection, but we don’t need them to feed us or take care of us. And so we never update the system. And so we just keep going, worrying about what they think of us, will they love us? And sometimes we can work through some of that on our own, but unless there’s a conscious decision of like, now I am really gonna find out who I am.
I’m really gonna find out what I want, what I need, and I’m going to begin to separate me from all of the expectations and what everybody else wants so that I can really feel connected to an authentic version of myself. That’s not taught. That’s actually not even really encouraged in a lot of places. Yeah, because most of the time, we like our women compliant and accommodating and nice.
Jessica Miller (18:05.702) Hmm.
Jessica Miller (18:25.052) We don’t even talk about it. Yeah.
Jessica Miller (18:35.368) And I think to add on to that, we like it for ourselves because it’s what we’re used to. Like being not liked or having the friction is super uncomfortable. It brings up all the drama about, to your point, being tossed out of the tribe and like left behind and alone. And that’s terrifying for people.
Sara Fisk (18:54.19) I think it’s one of the most fascinating things to talk about because you can just see how it shows up everywhere from like the barista who’s handing you your coffee and they got it wrong and you’re like, I don’t want to make him feel bad. So a lot of times I’ll just drink whatever they gave me, right? To like your most intimate, important relationships — where I remember that there was a time when I really felt some distance with my husband.
Jessica Miller (19:02.351) Everywhere.
Jessica Miller (19:09.384) Mm-hmm.
Sara Fisk (19:23.788) And like, gosh, if he really knew like who I am and what I want, would he still love me? Would he want to know this part of me? And feeling nervous about that.
Jessica Miller (19:29.937) Yes.
Jessica Miller (19:37.83) I was just talking about that to a friend the other day. And I was saying something to the effect of when I show up feeling like I’m being ugly, and it’s not even like I’m physically looking ugly, but I’m like being an ugly person, like I will not be enough for him to love that part of me. And it was such a conscious, like, awareness where logically, I mean, I’ve been through this and I see it.
But it’s still, it’s like that neural pathway is right there and it shows up and you really do have to be onto yourself and get support with it, which I think brings me to this idea of like, how do you help people work through this? Like talk a little bit about your framework or what you’ve seen as your tools that have helped people move through this.
Sara Fisk (20:26.926) So the first thing that we do in the group coaching program is I help them understand how did we get to be the way we are. Because all of that judgment that people have for themselves really is the first thing that we need to start dealing with because you cannot judge yourself into better behavior with long-term success, right? You can’t criticize — I mean, we’ve tried, right? And in some cases,
Jessica Miller (20:51.336) Mm.
You’re right. Every which way.
Sara Fisk (20:56.546) Yeah, in some cases it works short term, but in the second half of our lives, and I’m going to say anytime between like 30 on, not that that’s the second half of your life, but we really want to start building our lives from love and connection and acceptance and appreciation and graciousness for who we are, not for this is wrong with me and it needs to be fixed.
Jessica Miller (21:24.712) Hmm.
Sara Fisk (21:25.504) We spend a couple weeks, like, how is it that I learned to people please this way? What other effects has that had? Because what it does is it has the effect of everybody just goes, oh my gosh, that makes so much sense. That makes so much sense. And I can stop judging it because it makes sense. And it making sense doesn’t mean we’re gonna stay here and it’s fine. It means that we can stop
Jessica Miller (21:41.874) Yeah.
Sara Fisk (21:52.941) the internal self-doubt and judging and criticizing and we can just get to work with the second part of this, which is what are the skills that I need so that I don’t fall into these patterns anymore? And it is a very skills-based curriculum, like how to know what I want. I have so many people who come into the group and they’re like, I don’t even know.
Jessica Miller (22:15.1) Hmm.
Sara Fisk (22:19.5) I don’t even know, do I like pineapple pizza or have I just always ordered it because that’s what my kids want, right? And so how to connect to my inner sense of what I want and then how to trust that, how to stop overthinking about all my decisions, how to have my own back, and then building toward what I think are the kind of the crowning skill — how to have any conversation that I need to have.
Jessica Miller (22:19.527) Yes.
Jessica Miller (22:23.046) Right.
Sara Fisk (22:49.368) how to have conflict that is honest, that is respectful, that is kind, and that moves our relationship, whatever it is, whether you’re my coworker or my best girlfriend, right? It moves our relationship forward toward more understanding of each other and more connection.
Jessica Miller (23:09.17) That is so awesome. I think, yes, to all those things. I think you have trouble arguing with your logical brain. When your brain sees it, they’re like, there’s the data. And if they see it enough — to your point, seeing it once is not going to undo all of those things — seeing it repeatedly starts to really change your brain. And it doesn’t mean that you’re not going to ever think these things again. But at some point, you can’t argue with the data anymore. And I think it’s really, really important.
And then I wonder too, with the skills piece — yes, I mean, here’s what you can do to actually fix this or make it better. And let me show you the bouncing ball and here’s how it works. But then I wonder if also there’s the space, like you holding the space for people. Like they’re not doing it alone. They’re now in this container with you so that when their brain shows up again and they’re like, why the hell am I doing this again, Sara? Like you’re like, let’s work through that. And you can coach them through those pieces.
I wonder if the container is also a big part of that safety and working through it.
Sara Fisk (24:14.638) That was one of the things that changed the most in all those iterations that I talked about since creating the course in that Master Coach Training Program. I really just thought in the beginning, this is just, I just need the correct information. And like the first — I don’t know, I think it was six weeks — was just like information, information, information, information, and then nothing would change.
And so then like, okay, we need some more coaching and we need some more feedback. We need to learn how to evaluate like, okay, I tried this thing. It didn’t work, but I’m not sure why it didn’t work. And so eventually we got to what I have today, which is six months. Every first week is a teaching week. And then we have a coaching week because you need some time to take that skill that I taught you. You need to take it out on the road in your own life.
Jessica Miller (25:05.192) Mmm.
Sara Fisk (25:11.65) You need to have a couple of repetitions with it, because then you come back and you’re like, okay, I tried this, did not go well. I tried this and it worked great. And so we evaluate, I give you feedback and coaching, and then you have another week to go do it again with all of that feedback and evaluation under your belt. And that’s how these skills actually become yours, because we have to have some practice time. And so that part of the container was really intentional.
And then the second part of the container that I didn’t realize would be so significant is that it’s one thing to have a coach and you talk back and forth with that coach and that coach kind of looks at you with this unconditional positive regard. But it’s another thing to be in a group because that’s where that safety and connection and desire to belong really shows up.
And so when we can learn to take up space in a group, especially of women, right? So many of us have like mean-girl wounds and ways in which girls in particular can be pretty vicious sometimes. Yeah. And so to heal and to have that opportunity to see like love and acceptance from other women, to see, oh my gosh, I’m not the only one dealing with this.
Jessica Miller (26:18.92) Yeah, brutal to each other. Yeah.
Sara Fisk (26:38.666) She’s having this happen in this way and she’s having this happen. And so you can learn by getting directly coached and then also just by listening to the experiences of everyone else. It is one of the most beautiful aspects of the group is the way that the encouragement and the connection comes from all the other participants in a way that it’s just amazing.
Jessica Miller (27:00.432) Yeah, I love that so much. I say all the time, like there is nothing like being around people who get it and get you. Like it’s that safe space. And also the beauty of being in a space where people might have totally different opinions than you do and they still love you. Like it really is that moment where you are who you are and you’re not lynched and it is okay. You know what I mean? Because it is, it’s…
And we’ve all been on social media and all the things. I mean, you could say the threats are real as far as the reaction that people can give you to any sort of thing, what your favorite color is. There’s an argument for that. You know what I mean? And knowing that you have your own back and it’s gonna be okay. And there’s people there to support you, which is huge.
Sara Fisk (27:48.097) It really has been one of the most transformational things that I’ve — it has been the most transformational thing that I’ve ever done for myself. And I have women who come through and they repeat the program. They keep going and doing it because once you feel the ability to have any conversation you need to have, like I can sit down and talk with anyone about anything.
in a way that feels safe and good for me. And that to me is freedom. That to me is really the joy of having skills and having like the inner sturdiness to be able to have those conversations. I will never be stuck in a dynamic or relationship that doesn’t work for me. And I can always find connection and vulnerability and…
Jessica Miller (28:23.122) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (28:37.032) serve you.
Sara Fisk (28:43.734) more love with people that I want that with. I don’t have to sit on the sidelines just kind of wanting it. I can have it.
Jessica Miller (28:49.282) Yes, that’s so amazing. Share some of the things that you’ve seen. Because to your point, this work is really life changing. So what are some of those results you’ve seen people able to do once they’ve done this kind of work? Is there anything that sticks out to you for some of your clients?
Sara Fisk (29:06.944) Yeah. A couple of the ones that I love to talk most about — one of my clients, her name is Jen, and she runs a family business where she brought her daughter in to take over the business. But then she noticed that there was a lot of tension between the mother-daughter element of their relationship and the boss-employee dynamic. And so she did what a lot of moms would do. She just
started staying later, she started kind of cleaning up her daughter’s unacceptable work. And the daughter took that as like, I guess mom’s got it, right? And so Jen, when she means to be like creating her exit strategy, passing this off to her daughter, finds herself working longer, staying later, worrying on the weekends about like, what’s gonna happen. And it was because she couldn’t — didn’t have the skills.
Jessica Miller (29:52.251) Yeah.
Jessica Miller (29:57.095) Yeah.
Sara Fisk (30:03.778) to sit down and say, listen, honey, we have two separate relationships and I need to define them for you very clearly so that you understand the difference. And so that when we’re at work, this happens and when we’re at home, this happens. And so she was working toward that and at the same time had a lot of like resentment toward her daughter because this was how she was supposed to like work less and eventually retire. And so dealing with that
Jessica Miller (30:25.202) Sure.
Jessica Miller (30:28.817) Right.
Sara Fisk (30:32.598) resentment and that inner, you know, the tension that she was feeling — that was Jen’s work to do on her own. And she and I did that together because there is some responsibility that needs to be taken for — so if this is going on for me, some of this is my work to do on my own. And some of this is the work that I do with someone else, right? A conversation I have with them. So.
After she felt like she could understand that vulnerability — or excuse me, that resentment — and deal with that so that it didn’t come out in her conversations with her, she had had a couple of conversations that kind of ended up feeling really passive-aggressive and kind of angry. So once we worked through some of that resentment, then she worked on how do I have this conversation? And
Jessica Miller (31:26.417) Yeah.
Sara Fisk (31:27.126) she had it in increments. It wasn’t all at once. It rarely is. Sometimes it is. But then she was able to actually implement her exit strategy, which is you’re going to start working more, daughter, and I’m going to start working less as I hand these things off to you. And so it was the difference for her between like ruining a relationship with a daughter over a family business and being able to begin her exit strategy as she really had planned on doing.
Jessica Miller (31:50.984) Sure.
Jessica Miller (31:57.21) Yeah, and we have all heard horror stories around that, right? Your business is suffering and now your family relationship has suffered and it’s just a disaster.
Sara Fisk (32:06.968) And that’s what was happening, right? There was a lot of tension. There was a lot of unspoken, you know, issues and problems. And so it really made a huge difference for her.
Jessica Miller (32:16.772) Mm-hmm. Yeah, not to mention the effect on the business — to your point, her like retiring or letting that go faster. So she’s gaining all that time back. I mean, the list goes on and on and on around how powerful that is and how deep it is.
Sara Fisk (32:33.336) There’s one other — so when we’re talking about communication, there’s clarity, which is really kind of where Jen needed to do some work, like being very clear. This is what I expect from you. This is what I need to have happen. This is the schedule. These are the metrics that I need you to meet. And there’s another bucket, which is vulnerability. And
I have another client who is a project manager for a huge engineering firm. She manages teams of people. She can be very clear. She can be very direct. And she was very lonely in her marriage because she was so capable and so driven that she had kind of convinced everyone around her that she didn’t need anything because she was good. She was fine. She could handle it. And so her adult children didn’t — there wasn’t a —
there wasn’t the connection that she wanted. And with her husband, he had just kind of started traveling on his own because she was still working and he had retired. And so she was terrified to show her adult children how much she really missed them, how much she wanted to have more interaction with them because she’d always been kind of this capable, really strong woman.
And she thought, are they gonna think of me if I say like, I miss you — that feels so like, ugh, I don’t know how to say that. And her husband — like, I really wanna spend more time with you, not less time with you, I want to share these dreams I’ve had with you. And so the work of whether it’s getting more clear or getting more vulnerable, the same skill underneath is, can I handle my own discomfort?
Jessica Miller (34:21.894) Yes.
Sara Fisk (34:22.67) as I have these conversations? Do I have the inner sturdiness to start the conversation and then not eject when it gets uncomfortable? Like, nevermind, forget it, forget I brought it up. It’s not a big deal, I’m fine. Can I really stay in it all the way until the end where I’ve said what I needed to say and now can I handle what the other person does? And so it’s a very
it’s a really nuanced, kind of complex thing, but broken down into bite-sized skills week after week, it becomes very doable.
Jessica Miller (34:57.924) Yeah, I love the simplicity of your model. And I think you just hit something that is so important that I think people do not understand that they are bumping up against. And frankly, if we could do nothing else but learn to master this, our whole life would be like blown in an amazing way. It’s this idea of discomfort. Like how uncomfortable — and of course, we hear this all the time, right? It’s like it sounds so cliche, but like how uncomfortable are you willing to get
to get what you want and be okay with that. Because at the end of the day, if you really boil it down, the only experience that matters to you is your own, right? A lot of times we think it’s about everybody else, but really it’s about what we’re gonna tell ourselves about what someone else is saying, how we’re gonna feel based on what’s happening in the situation. It’s all about us, you know what I mean? And that discomfort is really, really powerful. Really powerful.
Sara Fisk (35:44.91) It.
Jessica Miller (35:57.286) And we don’t even know. We’re just avoiding it like hell all over the place, right? And we don’t even understand that the only way is through. Otherwise, you make your world so small to be only in the one tiny corner where you think there’s no discomfort. And then that’s excruciating. So you never avoid it, right?
Sara Fisk (36:01.71) That’s right. That’s right.
Sara Fisk (36:15.736) Right, one of my favorite ways to kind of quantify the discomfort is this. I just ask the people that I talk to, I want you to just give me a guess how many hours a day your brain is ruminating on conversations you haven’t had yet, replaying conversations you already had that you wish you had said differently — why didn’t I say that? Why didn’t I do that? Waking up
in the middle of the night because you’re stressed about some dynamic in a relationship somewhere that’s not going well. Rehearsing conversations like, I could say it this way, what if they do that? And for most women, it’s between three to five hours a day. And it’s not that they’re sitting in a chair just stewing, they’re driving to work, they’re driving carpool, whatever. But it’s that part of their brain is somewhere else worrying about something that is
Jessica Miller (36:57.052) I bet.
Sara Fisk (37:11.374) in the past or going to happen in the future. And so when you do the math between three to five hours — I mean, on the low end, three hours a day — that’s 1,095 hours a year.
Jessica Miller (37:25.46) Oh my God.
Sara Fisk (37:26.882) that you are just hemorrhaging this energy and brain space and time, and those are your actual limited resources, right? Everything else we can somehow get more of, but time — that’s it. And so when you think about all the time that you’re wasting, that’s part of this tax, right? When you don’t have these skills. But the other part of it, and this is the part that makes me a little more sad, is
Jessica Miller (37:36.85) Yep.
Jessica Miller (37:42.426) Mm-hmm.
Sara Fisk (37:56.533) what do you not have the time and energy to build? Because that 1,095 hours on the low end is just kind of leaking out all the time. You don’t have the energy to build the life you actually want to be living, the relationships you actually want — you don’t have the time or the opportunity to see, is this friendship something that could become really meaningful for me? You just kind of keep
Jessica Miller (37:58.984) That’s right. That’s right.
Sara Fisk (38:25.166) going, losing all that time.
Jessica Miller (38:26.344) Yeah, the opportunity cost is huge. It is huge. And the other thing about this, I’m sure you’ve seen this too, Sara, is it is so sneaky. It’s so sneaky. This used to show up in my life when I would replay the messages that I would leave people. So I would leave a WhatsApp and I’d be like, I’m just gonna leave this two-minute message for Sara about something that was uncomfortable. Maybe someone was telling me something and I was like,
I don’t really think about that, but I don’t want to piss them off because this is like a you know hot topic or whatever, so I’d leave this message and then I would be like, okay, what did I say? I would go back and listen to it and then a lot of times I would delete it and re-record it, so now a two-minute message became a four-minute message, when I re-listen to it became actually now a ten-minute message because the re-record was four minutes — you know, I would do that. I would do that with my podcast too till finally I had to push through the discomfort of like,
Nope, you are sending this thing, you are hitting send, and you are moving on. It was unbelievable. The mind drama of all that and the quantification of it — to your point — was huge. Huge, huge, huge.
Sara Fisk (39:37.121) It is such a loss. It is such a loss. I tell women, you’re like, no wonder we are so exhausted. That’s just playing all the time, taking up and using all this energy. And I think that the most common thing I hear women say is, I just want to know who I really am. And I want to live a life that feels really chosen and authentic to me.
Jessica Miller (39:44.017) Yes!
Sara Fisk (40:06.07) And that’s the thing that you never get to when all of that time and energy is really just still focused on making other people happy, which is what we’re programmed to do. So that makes sense. But when we talk about like the time, the years passing — that’s the thing that I just, if I could have one wish for women is that they could know that that is possible, that it is possible for them to
Jessica Miller (40:23.496) Ugh.
Jessica Miller (40:32.53) Yes.
Sara Fisk (40:35.404) come to know who they really are, to live the life they really want, and to have really deeply connected, loving relationships.
Jessica Miller (40:42.202) Yes, totally. And I think the other thing that I want to also say about this is it is really hard to see your own brain. I mean, I think the whole idea of being problem-aware enough that you know you’re feeling it like something is off — you need to trust that intuitive piece because it’s telling you something. And then being brave enough and choosing yourself to be able to go get the support that you need, because this is the kind of work that I find that you can do
on your own to a certain extent. But because these things are so sneaky and because we’re so good at rationalizing it and because we’re so used to just being in the things that we’re in, you do need someone to help you do that. And that’s been my experience anyway — when someone else is not carrying all your BS, they’re not worried about hurting your feelings, they’re really asking you to understand what’s going on there and then giving you the tools to get through it. That has been a complete game changer.
Sara Fisk (41:40.089) There’s just a part of ourselves that we’re blind to, right? Because we don’t see it as separate from us. So when I’m in a conversation with one of my friends, let me just give you an example. This is several years ago now. I had a friend ask to meet for coffee. I chose a place from a couple of places next to her. And then when she came in and sat down, the first thing she did was complain about how hard it was to find parking, because it was a busy spot.
Jessica Miller (41:43.29) Right, exactly.
Sara Fisk (42:09.952) And instantly I was like, dang it, I chose the wrong spot. I’m in trouble. Like she’s mad, I’m in trouble. And so unless I’m aware that that is happening, unless I have a coach who can walk me through, okay, so she sat down and then she said what, and then what did you feel? I would miss that whole thing. And I would not know how to take care of that. I would not know how to actually work with the part of me that feels like it’s getting in trouble.
Jessica Miller (42:26.962) Mm-hmm.
Jessica Miller (42:33.532) Yes.
Jessica Miller (42:39.121) Yep.
Sara Fisk (42:39.592) that I can reassure it — honey, you’re not in trouble like this, you are an adult, it’s okay, adults don’t get in trouble, she’s upset about something else that you know has nothing to do with you, you didn’t put all those cars there, you did it right — so unless you have someone showing you how to do that, you’re just — it’s so practiced and it’s so subconscious that it just feels uncomfortable and you try to distract yourself so that you don’t feel it and you can get on with your conversation.
Jessica Miller (42:51.44) Right. Yeah.
Jessica Miller (43:03.836) Yes.
Yeah, and that’s what I mean about the sneaky things because that kind of stuff shows up all the time. Even before that, like the mind drama around which restaurant to pick because you want it to be the right restaurant and you want it to be easy to get to and she’s going to love it and all that stuff that you don’t even know is like playing on repeat underneath those things. So it’s like moving a mountain just to book a damn restaurant for lunch. Energetically, you know, really high.
Sara Fisk (43:17.966) Yeah.
Sara Fisk (43:24.046) 100%. Yes, 100%.
Sara Fisk (43:32.354) Yeah, the stakes feel really, really high when you feel like the relationship is at risk here if I don’t do everything right.
Jessica Miller (43:40.304) Yes, yes. Oh my gosh. Like, amen to that. Sara, this is so amazing. I know people are gonna want to find you. Where in the interwebs can they go to find you, find your work? Where should they go?
Sara Fisk (43:54.22) My website is sarafisk — F-I-S-K — dot coach. And I’m on Instagram. That’s where you’re going to find a lot of my, you know, the reels and kind of where I spend some time developing ideas. And I also have a podcast called the Ex Good Girl podcast. And that’s a little bit of a longer form way to talk about why I do what I do and some of the ways that I think we can be working on this if we want to start on our own.
Jessica Miller (44:22.396) And I just want to say that I really liked that podcast. And not to go off on a tangent, but years ago, that’s how I found Sara. For everybody listening to this, somebody shared her podcast episode with me. And that’s how I found her. And then fast forward to, I don’t know, three months ago, I was like, hey, didn’t you have a podcast? She’s like, that’s it, so definitely check out her podcast. Sara, thank you so much for coming on. This was so awesome. And I love talking about this stuff because I think it’s super important.
Sara Fisk (44:43.758) Thank you.
Jessica Miller (44:50.972) I really appreciate you being here.
Sara Fisk (44:52.79) Me too. Thanks for the opportunity.
Jessica Miller (44:54.952) And for everybody listening, we’ll see you all next week. Have a great one.
