Midlife Makeover Show features holistic business and career coach Amana AlTai

Wendy Valentine: Welcome back to the Midlife Makeover Show. I’m your host, Wendy Valentine and today we’re diving into a truly empowering topic. Stepping into your main character energy and redefining success on your own terms. Joining us is the brilliant Amana Altai. A holistic business and career coach, proud immigrant and chronic illness advocate, Amana has helped countless leaders, executives and founders connect to their brilliance and lead with authenticity. As a woman of Iraqi descent, she brings a unique perspective, often working with marginalized communities to help them honor their lived experiences while building a fulfilling life. Today, Amana will share her five step practice to step into your power and help us shift from chasing happiness to cultivating contentment in every aspect of life.

Please join me in welcoming the amazing Amana, um to the show

Please join me in welcoming the amazing Amana, to the show.

Amina Altai: Woohoo. Thank you so much for having me, Wendy. I am delighted and I think I.

Wendy Valentine: Probably messed up your first name again.

Amina Altai: Oh my gosh, don’t even worry about it, Amina. There you go. For friends listening, it’s Amina. Like I’m going to take a walk but you know, call me what you can figure out to call me. It’s fine.

Wendy Valentine: Yes. Yeah. So good to have you here.

Amina Altai: Thank you so much for having me.

Amina is a holistic career coach and has developed two autoimmune diseases

Wendy Valentine: So I was reading your about page on your website.

Amina Altai: Yes.

Wendy Valentine: and I was reading your story. So tell everyone about that moment when everything kind of shifted for you. your definition of success, like your aha moment of like, okay, something has got to give, something has got to change and I need to make some career changes here.

Amina Altai: Yes. So I had one really strong kind of pivot moment and then it sort of built since then. But I started my career in marketing and brand management and I worked in luxury goods and jewelry for a little bit and then I decided I wanted to co found a marketing agency with someone that I had gone to school with. And it was this really cool idea where one side would work with emerging female entrepreneurs and take sweat equity for working in their businesses and then the other side was traditional agency. And I did that for seven years and it was amazing. I got this front row seat to seeing all of these female, led companies grow and thrive. But I had no boundaries, was like deeply codependent and putting everybody in front of myself and I burned out and I developed two autoimmune diseases and it happened in a very dramatic fashion where I’d been feeling really unwell and I think like a lot of people I’d been to multiple different doctors, I think seven before I got a diagnosis. And one day I was Driving to a client in Connecticut and I get a call from my doctor and she says, amina, if you don’t go to the hospital now, instead of going to your client, you are days away from multiple organ failure.

Wendy Valentine: Oh my gosh.

Amina Altai: Yeah, exactly. So I had gotten so sick, was so burnt out, was so worn out. I literally had this choice of do you keep going the way that you’re going, which is clearly killing you, or do you choose another way? And so I chose another way. And the coolest thing was I basically at that point, I went back to school. I went to study nutrition, coaching, mindfulness, somatics, because I just wanted to feel better in my own life. And then when I did feel good, I was like, this is magic. I need to figure out how to teach it. And so it’s nine years since I created my own coaching practice. And my work touches on career and business mindset and well being because I really believe that we need all three of those pieces to actually thrive.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. It was interesting when I was reading, your bio and it was a holistic career coach. And I was like, I don’t think I’d ever seen that before. But it’s true. Like, why shouldn’t it be? Like, we, we kind of think of our career as something separate, something apart from us, and it’s part of our whole life. Right. I think on your. Also on your website I read, it said we spend more of our heartbeats at work than we do anywhere else. It should feel really freaking awesome.

Amina Altai: Yeah. And it should. Right? We literally spend more time in our jobs than we do with our loved ones, traveling the world on our passion projects. And we’re one person and we often feel like we have to, like, compartmentalize ourselves. But I think that’s part of what makes us sick. And that’s why I really do take a holistic approach to coaching. Because I’m, I’m one. Amina, you’re one. Wendy. You know, I can’t, I actually can’t be work Amina. And home Amina. there’s not enough energy or time for that. And so what does it look like to bring all of those pieces together to really honor ourselves and to honor our wellbeing because so many people are burnt out and sick right now. It’s like depending on what study you read, up to 80% of us are identifying as burned out. And I think because we’re not centering, our wellbeing because we’re not allowing ourselves to be the whole person.

Wendy Valentine: Do you Think some of it is by personal choice of how we choose to work or is it also even kind of what’s expected of us in the corporate world nowadays and even in certain countries and cultures? Yeah, that was a loaded question.

Amina Altai: No, but I love that loaded question. I’m so glad that you asked it. I think it’s twofold, so. And I’ll talk about my own experience. So for me, really it was a lot of my unconscious, unexamined beliefs, my limiting beliefs about work and worthiness. So I derived so much of my self worth from my work. And I came from a lineage of hard workers where there was so much shadow around the word lazy. It was a very taboo idea. So, you know, I learned, okay, need to be the first one in, the last one out. also, you know, I’m an immigrant, right? So like very much the immigrant story of like, you work really hard, you’re so lucky for what you get, all of those things. But I also believe that overwork is a systemic issue because, because of things like the gender wage gap, because of so much bias in the workplace that we allow certain people to rise to leadership positions and we don’t allow other people to rise to leadership positions in the same way. So then we feel compelled to overwork, to outwork, to get to the places that we want to go. So I think it’s twofold. I think it’s our own psychology and there’s real systemic challenges.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And I also too, I mean I shared with you and most of my audience knows I’m over in Portugal now and even like speaking to a lot of people, from Europe, a lot of them will get, you know, just normally four to six weeks of vacation of holiday. And I know back in the States, like when, when I worked for corporate for a short period of time, I would only get maybe a week. And even during that week I was stressed about work of like stuff I’d still left on my desk or stuff like it’s going to pile up when I get back. And I think that’s so important that you have that downtime and that it is true downtime. And sometimes you just like, for the sake of your own health and well being, you have to make sure that.

Amina Altai: That happens 100% as somebody that has taken a physical hit to their health because they didn’t make space for that downtime. I’m making it my life’s work to make sure that people have a much more harmonious relationship with work and they do take that downtime.

There’s this meme that’s been circling the Internet that really cracks me up

There’s this meme that’s been circling the Internet that really cracks me up. But I think it’s, like, painfully true. And it’s basically like when Europeans put up their out of office. It’s like, I’m gone for the month of August. I’m not going to check any of the emails that you send me. And then it’s like when Americans take time off, and it’s literally this woman in the ocean with her laptop and a giant wave, like, coming to crash down on her. And it’s like, that is the vibe that we live in.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, I’ve seen that. Yeah.

Amina Altai: Funny, but not.

Wendy Valentine: I know, I know. It’s so bad. Matter of fact, I can remember when I was working for corporate back in Chicago, and I had one vacation, I was so excited, and I flew all the way out to California. I had my oldest son, my youngest son. We did this big hiking trip, and we were hiking Half Dome. And if you know anything about Half Dome, like, it’s like, that’s. It is.

Amina Altai: It’s huge.

Wendy Valentine: It is the scariest thing I think I have ever done besides delivering, you know, three boys. But I literally. I got to the top, and because there’s no phone reception, which is a good thing, I was, like, so excited. I was like, my phone’s not going to work. And I got phone reception right when I got to the very top of the mountain. And I was like. I looked at my phone, and I was like. And there was this part of me was like, do I answer that? And I knew who it was, and it was a customer that was ready to buy. And I kid you not, I sold a house on top of Half Dome. But then I had realized, I was like, this is not for me. I cannot do that. And I knew it was affecting me. And I know just like you, like, it’s. It affects you physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, your relationships that affect. Again, like, the holistic part of it. Right?

Amina Altai: Yeah.

Did you feel like you needed to make changes at your previous job

Wendy Valentine: So, let me ask you this. The job that you had prior to that moment that you knew you needed to make that change, did you. Did you feel that that job could have. Like, you could have worked with that to get it to the point that, okay, I could be happy here, I love this job enough. Or maybe you didn’t love the job. Could you talk to boss or your manager and say, hey, we got to make some changes? Or did you feel like, I just got to go?

Amina Altai: Yeah, I explored that when I went to coaching. it was like, very much the question, do I go? Do I Stay. Can I make the most of this? Is it me that’s been the problem? Am I looking at this the wrong way? And when it came down to it, it really wasn’t the place that I could thrive in. And I think it made sense for me, for me to leave. And one of the things I say to people all the time is like when they feel guilty or whatever they’re feeling about transitioning out of their role, one of the things I say to them is everybody deserves the best person in that role. Like the company deserves somebody that want that role and wants to knock it out of the park in that role. And you deserve a role where you, you want it and you can knock it out of the park. And I didn’t want it and I wasn’t knocking it out of the park. It didn’t leverage my zone of genius. I was getting sick. I did. It wasn’t the healthy dynamic for me, but it was something that’s very important to explore. Because I say this to my clients too. It’s so easy to jump from the frying pan into the fire, but everywhere we go, there we are, right? So if we don’t look at our stuff here, we’re going to drag it to the next place and the next place. So I think it’s a both and proposition of look at your stuff and if it’s time to go, it’s time to go.

Wendy Valentine: Yes. And giving yourself permission to pivot a, hundred percent. Because I think there’s so many people that will feel like, okay, I’ve had this job for 20 years, or oh my gosh, I can’t leave it now especially, I mean obviously it’s the midlife makeover show. Most people listening are like between the ages of 40 and 60ish, so they might get to the spring like, oh my gosh, I can’t go now. Like I’ll just suck it up and deal with it until retirement.

Wendy Miller: Career changes, knowing when to pivot

So give me your thoughts about that if someone is thinking that.

Amina Altai: So there’s there’s a couple of schools of thought around our jobs, right? We can have the good enough job that checks the box for us, that like pays the bills, gives us the good insurance, allows us to pay for our kids schooling. You know, it’s, it’s checking a lot of boxes for us. Maybe it doesn’t make our heart sing, but it’s like really hitting the brief in lots of ways. And then there’s the purposeful, more aligned role that I hope for you is checking all of the boxes Meeting your needs, giving you the money, and leverages your zone of genius. And that’s the conversation I like to invite my clients into. I never want to make the good enough job wrong because I feel like there’s a season for that, there’s a role for that. And people usually come to me when they’re ready for. Ready to relinquish the good enough job and play all out for the dream.

Wendy Valentine: Right.

Amina Altai: So, wait, sorry, what was your question? I feel like this is only, like, this is appropriate because we’re on the midlife makeover show.

Wendy Valentine: See, this is all normal. We’re gonna embrace. This is. I’m sure it’s perimenopause or menopause or me.

Amina Altai: I was like, this guy.

Wendy Valentine: Happy laryngitis and sounding like a frog. You know? I’m like, wait, Someone out there is going, we knew what you were asking Wendy, and you can’t remember. I know. Oh, my gosh. Well, yeah, anyways, Career changes, knowing when to pivot. Yeah. I don’t know.

Amina Altai: Great. Great. I think that there comes a time for us when the benefits or the drawbacks outweigh the benefits. And I’m a. I’m really. I think it’s really important that we aren’t tolerating our jobs, that we find places and pockets where we can fully express ourselves, where we can be in our zone of genius, where we can contribute in a really powerful way. So if. If this job is to your detriment, it is probably time to go.

Wendy Valentine: Yes, exactly. And the thing is, just like you. At any moment, like, you. You could get a diagnosis, and then that can affect everything. So in my opinion, it’s like, it’s never too late. Like, make the pivot if it’s really affecting you. I guess it depends on the level, right? Like, if it’s. If you’re able to make some changes and you’re able to get happy within that career, then you could do that instead of pivoting. But, you know, it’s. Oh, go ahead.

I think it’s also really important to look at our fear stories

Amina Altai: I think it’s also really important to look at our fear stories. Now. I remember what you said. You’re like, if you’re 20 years into your career, like, how do we make a pivot? So I think it’s important to look at our fear stories because so many of us are so afraid of the other side because it’s the unknown, and we’d rather stay in the dysfunctional known than we would throw our hat in the ring for something that is unknown and potentially so much Better. And so I think it’s really important that we work with our fear stories. We also work at the nervous system level to make sure that it feels safe for us to transition. Because oftentimes it is simply a story that we’re telling ourselves. And there are beautiful opportunities out there if we looked.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. And I think the thing, too to really focus on is your strengths. Like, are your strengths really being utilized like you said before, like, and, and mine weren’t. It wasn’t until now that I’m really getting to use my strengths. And to me, I feel like I can actually. I’m, I’m so much better at working now because I’m using my own strengths and my own talents and my own gifts. Whereas before, like, I was really, really struggling. Like, even if it was just something kind of, you know, monotonous and boring, I was like, oh my God, I can’t stand this. But now it’s like it, it really. You want your career to light you up because like you said, like, that’s majority of the time where your, your heart is beating is in your career.

Each and every one of us has a zone of genius, Wendy says

Amina Altai: You just highlighted something that’s really important to talk about. And that’s our zone of genius. And each and every one of us has a zone of genius. We’re born with this innate gift that we are meant to share with the world, but we live in a world that doesn’ is allow us to get on the court with it. And we also view genius in a very particular way, which isn’t true. Right. Most of us think about genius associated with IQ and like the Einstein’s of the world, but everybody has a form of genius. And because we’re spending so much of our time at work, I think it really needs to leverage our genius because that’s our highest yield contribution. So very. It’s very clear to me, Wendy, that you have a gift, like an en. A gift of speaking, an energetic gift. Right. I see you doing like your life’s work here, but so many of us don’t allow ourselves to get to that point. But I think that’s also associated with burnout. Because if we’re laboring in a space that we’re not designed for and we’re not leveraging our zone of genius, we can burn ourselves out because that innate gift doesn’t require as much energy, doesn’t require the push and the force the same way some of those other activities or skills require. And that was true for me and for a lot of my clients.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. How does one discover what their. What Their strengths are what they. Where they really shine. Do they. Do we deep down know what they are?

Amina Altai: So a lot of us will readily discount our gifts because they come so naturally. And this happens all the time with my clients. I’ll see them for like a couple of minutes and I’ll. Our first session, and I’ll kind of already instinctively know and I’ll bring something up and they’ll be like, but is that a gift? It’s so easy. And because it’s come so easily, we’re so ready to discount it. But of course it’s a gift. Right. And so I think it’s really important to ask ourselves, you know, where are we off the charts genius? Where do we not have to push force or effort to create something that’s really transformative? Where do we kind of outpace our peers? And if you’re really stumped, but I would ask yourself these questions first. But if you’re really stumped, you can ask, you know, three, four or five people that you really know, love and trust, and they know love and trust you, what they think your zone of genius is. But I would check in with yourself first because a lot of people can project. And also I think I have a worksheet for this on the three years that I can share with listeners too, if they want to dig into this a little bit more.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, yeah, I want that.

Amina Altai: Great.

Wendy Valentine: but yeah, you’re so right. Like it. We do discount our strengths that are talents because of the fact that they’re so easy. They come. That’s. That’s why they’re strengths and talents, because they come natural.

Amina Altai: Right, Exactly. So we’re just so willing to throw it away. But what comes so naturally for you is really hard won for a lot of other people.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. The cool thing is now, I mean, you think about it, with businesses and working remotely, there’s so many opportunities. Like, you can take anything and be like, okay, I’m going to start selling baskets. Or like, if you enjoy just making baskets, great. You can make a killer business out of making baskets. Like in with, you know, Internet and social media, there’s so many different things that you can do. So it’s like, it’s. I think it’s fun, actually to explore all the different possibilities of moving into a new career.

Amina Altai: Yes. I think it’s super fun, too. A lot of people find it terrifying because they know a particular way and, you know, when our money, which is tied to survival is coming from that thing, that can feel really scary for people because they’re Often, like, well, how can I leave a career that I’ve spent 20 years building that I know I can get good money in?

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Amina Altai: But the thing is, is our. Often our skills transfer, and we usually don’t have to start at the very bottom. So if we can get ourselves to that place where it feels psychologically safe, I believe it can be really fun, too. I’m with you. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Many of us don’t live life as if we are the main character

So how do you step into your. What do you call it? The main character energy?

Amina Altai: Yes. So main character energy. I love this. So we are all the center of our own experiences. We are all the main characters of our lives. Right. We came in alone, we’re going to leave alone. But so many of us don’t live life as if we are the main character. We live as a supporting character, maybe to our boss, to our partners, to our children, to whomever. Right. And so I think it’s so important that we seize the opportunity to allow ourselves to be the main character. I feel like you’ve got main character energy. How do you feel about that?

Wendy Valentine: I do. I feel like. I know I was thinking about. It’s like I do now. I didn’t before.

Amina Altai: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: I didn’t own that. I always kind of felt like I could not write this, my own script, if you will, like, of my own play. And now I know that I can. And now that I. And I always felt like, as a people pleaser and someone that took care of everybody else, I put the oxygen mask on them first, besides me. And so therefore, I was not stepping into my main character energy. But now I’m like, oxygen, mask goes on me first.

Amina Altai: I see it and I love it. I think it’s so empowering. And I think a lot of people resist it because they feel like it’s quote unquote selfish. But it couldn’t be further from selfish. Right. Because if you are whole in yourself, what you can give to the world, to your family, is that much greater because you’re nourished at a soul level. Right. So it’s like actually the opposite of selfishness.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Amina Altai: So I, Go ahead.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, go ahead. You first.

Amina Altai: I know. You go.

Wendy Valentine: I was going to say that if there is anyone in, you know, your friends or family or even in social media, whatever, society that are jealous or frustrated, that, or, you know, calling you selfish because you’re in your main character energy, it’s because they are not in their main character energy.

Amina Altai: 100. What we are jealous of or judging in others is usually inherent in us, and we just haven’t let it come to the surface.

Wendy Valentine: Yes, yes, exactly.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, go ahead, you go, you go.

Amina Altai: Okay. When it comes to embodying our main character energy, the first thing I think that is really important to do is acknowledge that we are the center of our own experience. And I know it sounds silly, but it is not. It’s like the acknowledgment is the biggest thing because so many of us resist that. Right. We don’t want the world to orbit around us, and so we push it away. So the first piece really is acknowledging I’m the main character of my life and things do get to revolve around me.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Amina Altai: And then, one of my favorite exercises around embodying main character energy is the self. Not self exercise is what I call it. So basically, it’s like taking out a piece of paper and that on one side writing self, on the other side writing not self. And then on the self side, making a list of all the qualities and characteristics that are natural and innate to you. So maybe it’s like a beautiful speaker, unapologetic, fierce, devotion to supporting love in my family, whatever those self themes are. And then the not self is the things that we’re living into when we’re not really being ourselves. Right. So maybe the people pleasing, which was one of mine too, not having good boundaries. and so making a list of the self and the not self themes and then tracking over the next week where you are in your self themes when not self was showing up and just bringing awareness to that list, automatically you’ll start to shift more into the self. You’ll be like, oh, there, there I went again with the people pleasing. And it’s totally fine. Like, don’t judge yourself for it. It’s a well worn pathway. And now we’re going to choose something different.

Study says managers impact mental health more than any other group

Wendy Valentine: You know, I was just thinking too, like, how much difference it makes when you’re happy in your career and how that it creates a ripple effect in your whole life.

Amina Altai: Yeah, 100. I read this study last year that said that our managers impact our mental health more than our partners and our family. Yeah. Because we spend so much time with them, they have a greater impact on us than our families, than our partners, than our therapists. I think was the, was the data. And so it makes sense, right? It’s like if you have a great relationship with your manager, your coworkers, leadership, you’re going to feel that friction every single day and you’re going to carry that home unless you have a really great hygiene practice. And so I think that for me, that’s why it’s so important for that place where we spend so much time to feel really good.

What do you think is the difference between the happiness and the contentment

Wendy Valentine: So what is, what do you think is the difference between the happiness and the contentment. Yeah, that you had mentioned? Yeah.

Amina Altai: Okay, so I’m a big proponent of cultivating contentment. So happiness is really celebrated in the West. Right. If you go to Amazon and you do a quick search, you’ll find there are 20,000 books that are all about how to find happiness in your life. But the thing is, is we try to over rotate with the happiness and hold onto it all the time. But happiness is an emotion. Emotions naturally are meant to be fleeting, right? Emotion, energy in motion. They’re meant to be changing all the time. and people that are the healthiest in the world are ones that cultivate something called emo diversity, which is emotional diversity, which means we welcome all emot. We welcome happiness, joy, grief, sadness, anger, and we let them go because we recognize that they’re always in transition. So when we try to grip on too tight to happiness, it actually makes the opposite happen. Right? It makes us miserable because it is impossible to have happiness all the time because it is an emotion. But contentment is a much more stable state. So contentment is. Is really sort of celebrated in Eastern traditions. And they talk about it’s loosely defined as the knowledge of enough, or unconditional wholeness, which I think are such beautiful definitions. And so it’s kind of the idea of riding the middle even through the highs and lows of life. And it’s not to say that we don’t get happiness. We get to have both happiness and contentment, but contentment is more that stable state, while happiness comes along for the ride with the other emotions that we also welcome in.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, I like that. And plus, I think too, I’ll add in another C there, complacency. It’s also. Yeah, I know. Like, I mean, looking back years ago where I was at, I confused contentment with complacency, but to the point where I thought like, okay, Wendy, you know, suck it up, just deal with it. You have a nice job, nice home. And then. But deep down, I wasn’t really happy. And I. It hit me and I was like, wait a second, like, I’m actually in complacency, not contentment, girl.

Amina Altai: Yes, yes, yes, yes. So I just wrote a book about ambition. And in the book I talk about how we really want ambition to come from a purposeful place, because for a lot of us, it Comes from a painful place. And that was my story too, of like, I just wanted to be seen and heard. And so we’re chasing all these accolades, and that’s true for a lot of us. And so in my journey to not be an ambition monster, I actually did the same thing as you as I swung the other direction to complacency. And it was this moment of realizing, oh, this isn’t contentment, this is complacency. I’m resting on my laurels. And in my attempt to not be an ambition monster, I’ve become something almost as ill fitting. I’ve become.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Amina Altai: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: Yep. Well, and then you just. You’re just like a robot.

Amina Altai: Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: You just do the things. Even if you’re like successful, you could be very successful being complacent.

Amina Altai: 100%. 100%. And then you are the one that gets to say, actually this doesn’t feel right for me and I want something different.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. You have to have those. You have to ask yourself those difficult questions and be prepared for those difficult answers and be prepared to make a move.

Amina Altai: Yes, a hundred percent. It’s not easy. Right. Especially if we’re, you know, 20 years down the path like we’re talking about. It requires a lot of courage. Another C. I know.

Wendy Valentine: Say, say, say, say. okay, so five step practice for stepping into your power.

Amina Altai: Yeah. So, okay, so that’s the acknowledge the that we are the center of our experience. Then the next piece is make that list of self and not self themes and see if you can start to into the self themes.

Marianne Williamson says to cultivate unbothered energy around taking up space

Then it’s also really shift our mindset around taking up space. Because so many of us have a hard time with taking up space. We have an association with it. Maybe it means that we’re selfish, that we’re braggadocious. That what we’re. Whatever. Right. So I want you to clean up your side of the street. On the mindset side, what stories are you telling yourself about taking up space being the main character? M. And then I also want you to cultivate something called unbothered energy. So unbothered energy is when maybe we’re getting fierce feedback around us taking up space. Because people are having their own challenges and triggers around it. Right, Right. And so cultivating unbothered energy is when we’ve worked with this idea at the level of the nervous system so that we’re unrattled, unshaken, when people feel rubbed the wrong way by our bigness. Because you deserve to stand in your shine. And some people are going to have feelings about that. But we can still be unbothered with that because we’ve taken, the charge out of it at the level of the nervous system.

Wendy Valentine: And then there’s a quote I want to tell you real quick before you move on in regards to that, Marianne Williamson, there’s nothing enlightening about shrinking so that others don’t feel insecure around you. I was one. I would shrink because I was like, oh, I’m, being too intimidated. I mean, I was told that all the time. Like, you’re too intimidating. Oh, my God, you’re shining too bright, you’re too loud. You’re too this, you’re too that. I was like, okay, I’ll just stay right here in the corner. Just be really quiet. And then that’s how you become miserable. Right? But yeah, now it’s like, just shine. Like, who cares? let their. Like, that’s their deal if they are intimidated by your light. So that’s their issue, not yours.

Amina Altai: Exactly. I love that quote so much. And, like, that’s their material. And I think the quote goes on to say, it’s like, when you allow the essence of it, when you allow your own light to shine, it’s an invitation for other people to be liberated too and to be in their light as well. So it actually serves other people. It’s not taking anything away from them.

Wendy Valentine: Exactly, yes.

Spend at least 10 minutes a day in your main character energy

Amina Altai: the last part of the practice is simply to spend at least 10 minutes a day in your main character energy. Because everything is a muscle, right? So the first time we do it, maybe we feel a little wobbly around. It feels a little ill fitting. And so if you can just start by spending 10 minutes a day in that energy, and then over time, build from there, all of a sudden you’ll be like Wendy and fully in your main character energy.

Wendy Valentine: Hopefully not as crazy as me, though.

Amina Altai: You know, we love, we love it.

Wendy Valentine: It’s a little too much crazy, a little too much wild.

I believe that purpose touches on five areas. And I’ll take you through each of them

So if someone out there is listening and let’s say the empty nest, they’ve been taking care of the kids for the last 20 years, and they’re like, I don’t know what to do. What is my purpose? I don’t know my gifts, strengths, talents. I really don’t know where to go next. What would you. What would you recommend?

Amina Altai: Yeah, and I actually have a little workbook on this too that I can drop you a link to as well. So I believe that purpose touches on five areas. Our zone of genius or our gifts, which we’ve talked about, our values what brings us joy, what we want to impact and what we need. And I’ll take you through each of them. So zone of genius we talked about, we each have a zone of genius. And when it comes to doing purposeful work, we want to be using those particular gifts because that’s going to be the easiest, going to light us up the most. It’s going to have the strongest return. Then there’s values. When it comes to doing the great work of our life, values are so important. Because if we’re working in a space that is misaligned with our values, it’s going to feel like friction every single day. Right. So if you really value the environment and you work in an organization that has a huge environmental footprint, every single day, you’re going to feel like, what am I doing? Then the third thing is impact. I think those of us call to purpose driven work, we care about impact. And impact doesn’t have to be huge and far reaching. I always think about impact in the context of family, community or the greater good. So what do you want to impact when you leave this earth? What do you want to have changed for your family, for the community, for the greater good? Then there’s joy. So we want the work that we’re doing to feel joyful. And I think 60, 40 is kind of like a good split. So if 60% of the time we’re feeling joy, awesome. Because we all have parts of our role goals that you know, are just like things you gotta do. Right. So it’s like I love my work. I feel so privileged to do my work. But listen, you know, 25% of the time doing some things that I’m like a little too much admin for me, you know?

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Amina Altai: So real talk, 60, 40 with the joy and then the last thing is needs. And this is like the part of the framework that most people forget. They’re like, oh, I’m doing this thing that I really love and it’s really values aligned. But you have to have your needs met in terms of salary, in terms of time off, in terms of support. Because if you don’t have that, the work will fail to exist. Exist. And if the work fails to exist, we haven’t had the impact. We haven’t made the contribution that we actually came here to make. Ah.

Wendy Valentine: love it. You’re so wise.

Amina Altai: Oh.

Wendy Valentine: I mean, not that I, not that I wanted you to go through all of that stuff, you know, 10 plus years ago, whatever that was. But it’s good that you did because now here you are I think about.

Amina Altai: That all the time. It’s like even the most painful lessons in my life. You know, it’s like, from big health crisis to divorce to big loss. I’m like, you know what? I’m so grateful because they were the biggest teachers to me, and I meant to be here teaching, and so I can always teach it. Onward. And so even though they’re so painful, I would never shortchange them because they have just given me these big, beautiful lessons.

Wendy Valentine: So true. I totally agree with you. And that, it’s also a reminder, too. Like, even if you decide to take a step forward into something, like, into. Into the unknown or career change or relationship change, whatever, and it’s going to be tough. Just think about that, though. Tough time is going to equal some type of really cool life lesson. It’s going to make you into a better person. Yeah.

Amina Altai: Can I tell you this one quick story?

Wendy Valentine: Oh, yeah.

Amina Altai: Okay. So I used, to work with this. So as a coach, I’m always being coached because I really see the value of coaching. And at one point, I had this amazing coach, and he was a former Vaishnava monk, and he used to live in a monastery. Like, was unable to touch money, like, this whole really interesting lineage. And one day I was, like, really, like, lamenting about the challenge of the day, you know, going on and on. And then he looks at me like, deadpan is like, what if that’s God? Like, what if that was God, too? Like, what if all the challenges in your life and for people that, you know, if the G word isn’t right for you, higher power universe, whatever you want to sub in there, but, like, what if everything that happened to you was actually in service to you? And I know sometimes that can sound like toxic positivity, and I don’t mean it to, because I welcome the challenging and the good and, like, label it as such. But for me, it’s been a very helpful place to rest, that some of these really challenging moments in my life were opportunities for me to unfold, to grow, to be absurd. Service.

Wendy Valentine: Yes. I totally agree. And I change it. Like, instead of saying, this is happening to me, I say, it’s happening for me.

Amina Altai: Exactly.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. It’s so cool. Love it. It’s been a good conversation. I hope everyone else enjoyed it. Hopefully I’ll sound a little bit better for tomorrow’s interview. It won’t sound like you sound amazing. I do. Yeah. You’re.

Do you ever watch Friends? Remember when Phoebe lost her voice

Do you ever watch Friends? Remember when, Yes. Yeah. Remember when Phoebe, when she lost her voice? And then.

Amina Altai: Oh, my God. And she. Yes. And she sings and she’s like, oh, my God, I’m so talented. Yeah.

Wendy Valentine: She was, like, loving her voice as she was singing. And then she was so bummed when her voice came back. So this could be my permanent voice from now on. it’s gonna be really.

Amina Altai: I genuinely think you sound fabulous.

Wendy Valentine: Oh, good. Oh, good.

How to Stop Chasing and Start Living is Amin’s new book

So tell us about your book that’s coming out.

Amina Altai: Yes, thank you so much for asking. So, my book, it’s called the Ambition Trap. How to Stop Chasing and Start Living. It comes out on May 13, but you can pre order now everywhere you get your books. Yeah. So from Barnes and Noble to Amazon to your local bookshop, you can pre order now. And it’s about kind of changing our relationship to ambition, because I think we’re in a moment that we really need to. Because there’s so much burnout, because there’s so much wobbliness around it. And ambition is one of those really interesting words. It’s kind of culturally complex whether, you know, depending on who we’re labeling, it can even either be a benefit or a drawback. Right. So ambitious men are seen as powerful and go getters, while ambitious women are often seen as shrill or even called the B word. Right.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah.

Amina Altai: So the book is really about being in Right. Relationship with our ambition, so allowing it to come from a purposeful place versus a place of pain. So I was. I highlighted this a little bit earlier, but my ambition in the beginning of my career really was coming from a painful place. Like, I had some core wounds around rejection, and, you know, so I felt like, okay, I need to be the smartest, the fastest, the best in order to matter. And that it took me out. Right. I ended up developing 200 diseases. That plan did not work. And so I had to find a new relationship with my ambition. And that’s really what the book is about. And so I hope you’ll check it out. There’s beautiful exercises in there. really great client stories as well. And you can get it everywhere you get your books.

Wendy Valentine: I love it. You know, I was just thinking, though, too, especially at this age, in your 40s and 50s even, to take a look at your entire life and going forward. Because ambition, that definition can change at this age. In this second chapter, ambition in your 20s and 30s is so different than in your 50s and 60s.

Amina Altai: You’re so good at your job. I’m so glad that you said that, because in the book, I have this diagram around ambition that we have this perception that ambition means More all the time, more, over more, over more.

Wendy Valentine: Right.

Amina Altai: Like nothing’s ever enough. But I actually believe that ambitions, like a perennial flower, that it goes in cycles. So it’s like, you drop a seed into the ground because there’s a desire for growth. And then, like, you know, you have a good inner and outer environment. So the seedling grows, and then you kind of peek through the ground and you have this momentary, beautiful flowering in the sun. And then the seasons change and the petals fall off and you wind down and you go back underground before you’re ready to take aim again. And our ambition is the same way. It’s like we’re not supposed to be growing more over more and more all the time. We’re supposed to cultivate, pace, replenish, let it shift over time. Let it shift with our body, with our hearts, with our minds. And that, I think, is a really kind relationship with ambition versus a painful one.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah. Because, I mean, just thinking about, for me, the experience I’ve been through the last few years and asking myself, what do I want? Like, yeah, I mean, I can go out there and, get some big job and make a ton of money. Like, do I really need all that? Do I need all that money? Do I need all this stuff? Like, for me, like, I didn’t want to have all this stuff. I didn’t want to have to keep up with that. And then, therefore, that allowed me to have more money because I’m not maintaining a house and all the other things. Right. So, like, you have to really ask yourself, like, what do I want? And then what does? Just, like, the definition of success that we hear so many times, what’s your definition of success? But what’s your definition of ambition? And what is your definition of contentment?

Amina Altai: Amen.

Wendy Valentine: Yes.

Amina Altai: Everything that you just said.

Wendy Valentine: Yeah, my, wheels are turning now, too, so.

Amina Altai: Oh, my gosh, I can’t wait for you to read the book.

Wendy Valentine: I know. Thank you so much. And then where can we find you?

Amina Altai: Thank you so much. You can find me on Instagram at Amina Altai. Also my website, amina altai.com the spelling will be in the show. Notes, notes. And thank you so much for having me. It was such a joy to be with you and in your energy. And thank you, everyone, so much for listening.

Wendy Valentine: Thank you, everyone. Have a beautiful day.

Amina Altai: Bye.