Stop People-Pleasing, Get Fear-Optimized, and Finally Set the Boundary You Have Been Avoiding, with Amy Greensmith

Default settings are great for printers and computers. Not for people.

In this episode of Lead with Spark, Lynsey Mulder sits down with corporate communication coach Amy Greensmith for one of the most honest and practical conversations on people-pleasing, burnout, and using your voice that you are going to find anywhere. Amy has been working in the personal development space for over twenty years, and her work lives at the intersection of two things: believing in your own inherent worthiness, and then learning to communicate that to the outside world with confidence instead of guilt.

This episode will challenge the way you think about people-pleasing. Most high-achieving women do not recognize themselves in that label. Amy’s first question to them: are you heavily invested in other people’s opinions? If the answer is yes, welcome to the club.

You will also hear about fear optimization, a concept Amy coined to replace the impossible standard of fearlessness. About two kinds of burnout and which one you might already be in without knowing it. About the difference between an affirmation and progressive language and why one of them actually works. And about the complaint inventory, the simplest tool Amy knows for figuring out exactly where your boundary work needs to start.

This is a conversation full of tools you can use today. Do not miss Amy’s free Boundaries Over Burnout private podcast series in the show notes below.

Together We Will Talk About

  • Why high-achieving women often do not recognize themselves as people-pleasers and the one question that changes that
  • The two types of people-pleasing: self-preservation versus outsourcing your self-worth, and why both matter
  • The fawn response and where people-pleasing comes from at a biological level
  • How to tell if you are people-pleasing strategically versus betraying yourself to keep someone else comfortable
  • How socialization and upbringing shape the way women speak up (or do not) in professional settings
  • Why fearlessness is not real and the concept of being fear-optimized instead
  • The question that separates real danger from something that is just new
  • Progressive language as a tool for getting around your own inner critic
  • How to use evidence-based self-talk instead of affirmations that your brain will reject
  • The two stages of burnout: engagement burnout and systemic burnout, and the warning signs of each
  • The complaint inventory and how to use it to find your first boundary opportunity
  • A real client story about a nurse practitioner who changed her entire relationship with her workplace in one honest conversation

One Line to Take Away with You

“Default settings are great for printers and computers. Not for people.”

Connect with Amy and Lynsey

Amy’s free Boundaries Over Burnout private podcast series is a mini-course with scripts, frameworks, and workbook pages you can use immediately. It is available right now at the link below.

And if this conversation sparked something about how you show up as a leader, in the boardroom or at home, Lynsey would love to continue that conversation with you.

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