Watch my interview with Mindset And Empowerment Coach, Debbie Pickus! [video]
I really enjoyed having Debbie come to the VIP Group for Empowered Women of Chicago for an interview on LIVE WITH LIZ about “How to Turn Your Inner Critic into Your Biggest Cheerleader!”
We had a fabulous time chatting about:
💗 how Debbie’s background of martial arts and fitness transformed into empowerment and mindset coaching for women
💗 how to slay your mental bullies
💗 What the What Am I Thinking acronym means and what to do with it
💗 real life coaching success stories
💗 how to turn negative thoughts into a new belief system that is more productive
...and so much more I can’t even being to break down! You definitely don’t want to miss this one!
If you are curious how to harness the power of your mind and body to create energy and success both professionally and personally, be sure to watch the full interview about “How to Turn Your Inner Critic into Your Biggest Cheerleader” with the button link below and feel free to reach out to her at Team Fireball!
Interview Auto-Generated Transcript:
all right hello everybody so glad that you're here my name is Liz Hansen and I'm here today with Debbie pickas and I
am so glad to be hearing about what she does if you are watching us live we'd love to hear about in the comments if
you have any questions or if you just want to say hi please drop us a line um my name is Liz Hansen if we haven't met
before I am a boar photographer and I also love to manage this community this
group of local Chicago women with the goal to empower women in all areas of their lives and today we've got Debbie
with us today welcome Debbie thanks for joining us Welcome To Me Yes W see I
already started being weird thanks fine we're so glad you're here so debie you do a lot of really
cool things to empower women through your business and the work that you do tell us a little bit about what you
do um so the long and short of it is I'm a mindset coach but what I like to say
is that I help professional women slay their mental bully and unlock their
inner badass because so many women out there are freaking I'm gon to try not to drop
drop F bombs uh so freaking amazing it's gonna be difficult for me so freaking amazing and they don't really understand
that the power that they have and they don't don't understand how amazing they are so when I work with them we kind of
lift the veil on a lot of things and help them to improve their lives
exponentially this is such cool work and I can't wait to hear more about it back up a little bit and tell us how did you
get into this what's your background how did you slay your own mental bullies to
get to where you are thank you for that uh still working on slaying it you know sometimes we have to slay it every day
but um so my backround originally was in retail years and years ago and then I
began taking karate through a a college friend of mine and that helped me morph
into the world of Fitness so I taught at one of the uh big box gyms for many
years uh in in Fitness but my fitness background and my martial arts background ended up rolling me into
owning a Title Boxing Club and then out of that business which wasn't a great business model the idea of doing
empowering team building events that involved Fitness and activity and mindset and power and confidence came
out of that and that all eventually rolled into uh the mindset work and the
coaching work that I do that brings self-defense Martial Arts Fitness and mindset all together to help my clients
uh become empowered that is so cool so you are a martial arts master that also
wants to help us Master our mind yes I like that that is so cool just right now
social media thanks Liz so the work you do now do you work with women primarily in
person or on the Internet like online training yeah it's online mostly I mean I do workshops like I've taught
self-defense workshops and I do board breaking events that are about you know like breaking through the barriers and
things like that so I still do a lot of that I do a lot of speaking I love doing that um but when I'm coaching one-on-one
that is that is basically online like we do it on Zoom yeah very cool so it's really accessible to people all over
that can work with you so tell me okay so you talk about slaying our our inner
bully like tell me a a little bit more about that and why do you think women in particular struggle with
this well I mean listen if you saw the Golden Gloves the other night and you saw Demi Moore's acceptance speech you
know that even this beautiful you know person actress who's been been in the business for 45 years struggled for many
years to believe in herself you know so um when we're growing up there's
somebody in our lives like the person who's our caregiver or a teacher or a coach or somebody they may say certain
things to us and it's not that they're necessarily saying something that's cruel not you know I mean sometimes they
are but sometimes it's just a comment right based on their own filters and we
hear it and we make it mean X right um when I was around 13 years old and this
happens way before the age of 13 right it'll happen you know from in the first like probably five to seven years of
your life the first kind of comments that will happen but I can remember getting um a new raincoat you know a
robin ey blue Maxi coat when they first came out I was probably in seventh or eighth grade and uh my dad picked me up
at school that day and when I opened the car door his eyebrows you know he was a
very Fierce kind of scary guy right and he's just like is that a new coat and my brain you know it first of what was on
sale I could still think of the price tag in my mind that was like redlined and everything but I felt it meant that
I didn't deserve new things or nice things right and then as the years went
on there's another and my dad was not a horrible human but he was just old school right but years later you can
still remember that feeling feeling like you deserve to have a new coach well you know I think as I've done this work Liz
is when I discovered this because you don't the thing is we don't remember these things necessarily they're just in
us and then start doing this work it's like oh my God I remember that happening
oh my God yes that happened right and you can you can see the pieces backwards but it's hard you know because it's just
a a recording a basically a program running in the back of our minds that we don't see and I think importantly what
you said is like your dad wasn't trying to be cruel no but you interpret preted it kind of as meaning you you put some
meaning into that that you internalized over the years 100% like there's things that happen to us and then there's the
meaning that we create about it right so we make the story up about the thing that somebody said that oftentimes it
probably has nothing had nothing to do with me right it just was something that you know I mean who knows he and my mom
might have had a deal like we're not spending any money and then he seees something new on me and he's like wait is that new you know but I can look at
that now as a you know 66y old woman and look back and be like okay yeah I got it
but you know at that time and the thing is that throughout my life I felt I only
deserved at a certain level like I continue to do the work around this um
because we're never just fixed right because it's you know we're evolving all the time evolving right that's I'm going
I'm going work yeah interesting so you help women kind of identify maybe some
of those places where they have limiting beliefs then help them take those beliefs into
something that serves them better that's more powerful for them yeah we do so once the belief is there you can't get
rid of it but you can transform it right so basically what we do is when I work
with clients we'll look at you know we'll dig in right first it's an emotion right like I can give some tips here
because there's a really great way to do this you know at the base level but we look at we notice what it is and then
it's like okay let's flip the switch on that what what if some form of the opposite was true let's play with that a
little bit right and then we work through it and then eventually we have to work to find some evidence to support
this new belief right and this it's really a new decision because beliefs are just decisions right we made a
decision when we were three four five 13 you know 25 whatever it is along the way
we continue life is just full of little decisions and then where you end up is based on all those decisions right but
it can be transformed it's Never Too Late that's the good news because I didn't a lot of this till I was like you
know beyond like an age you know and still creating so that good news about
it love I want to give tip while I'm thinking about it so in our bodies we
feel these limiting beliefs in our bodies um physically so overwhelm stress
anxiety worry fear um you know jealousy boredom judgment those are all like
forms of limiting beliefs right because we're making something up and the thing is when you feel these things in your
body This Acronym it's not mine I can't take credit for it wait w AI T what am I
thinking and so you hit this place like you know I'm stressed out wait what am I
thinking right now well I'm thinking I'm going to get fired if I don't get this report in or I'm thinking this guy doesn't like me or I'm thinking like I'm
not going to look good for this you know I'm thinking I'm going to be interviewed by Liz in and what if I screw it up you know I'm thinking this I'm thinking that
I'm thinking this and when you when you look at it it's like okay that's kind of made up right or maybe it doesn't feel
made up but like what if it's not made what if I am making that up what if some form of the opposite is true and then you do that exes I just taught you about
flipping the switch on it finding some evidence to support the new belief but that weight feeling it in your body and
like stopping yourself because we'll just roll into this I'm stressed out oh my God this oh my God the walls are
coming on me what am I going to do you got to stop it when you feel it and like okay let's see if I can transform this
myself I love everything you just said I have found mindset work like this to be so
transformational the idea that just because you have a thought doesn't mean
it's true doesn't mean it's useful doesn't mean it's the most um you know
powerful place for you to be um it's just the thought that your brain has served you up in that moment a lifetime
of patterns but you can choose a different thought I've been trying to get my teens to do I have two teenage
daughters yeah yeah sometimes I've been trying to get them they'll come say something and I'll say is that how you
want to think about this you know right and they of course they don't always like it when
I yeah so powerful and on that vein Debbie I'm wondering if you could tell
us a story of someone that you've worked with in your mindset coaching practice
who maybe had a limiting belief or had something that they wanted to change in their life and just walk us through a
little bit about how you helped or how you coached this person to make some
mindset changes in their life I am happy to do that um and and then I want to share a story about myself how I had a
coach myself because it really transformation either way okay
um one of my clients um she was so I I loved the language um she's actually
somebody in this group I'm not going to name her but but um she was afraid of a tight she she had
a really great business idea she was doing some amazing things but but she basically was like I'm afraid of a tidal
wave of money coming at me now we're all as as entrepreneurs I
want oceans of tidle waves coming at me right but the thing is and and the thing
is because I've had this belief before and I have worked to transform it in myself I I could hear exactly what was
going on and when I asked her questions it turned out that she had
had uh an influx of money in a situation before that number one somebody stole
money from her and number two she didn't manage it well and so she had this
belief that she couldn't manage this Title Wave of money and so therefore she didn't want it coming in because she
wasn't going to be able to manage it and when we as soon as she heard you know when I asked the question she heard it
she's like oh my God right and then basically we did the work I can't
remember at this point exactly how we did it but we transformed that belief into you know her ability to be able to
handle the money and that that you know trust and a lot of things we worked on um since
then and she didn't want to collaborate with people either that was all part of the thing the trust was collaboration
she didn't to collaborate number two was the influx of money since we worked together it was basically like she
opened a door and on the other side of that door were opportunities to collaborate opportunities to transform a
business opportunities to do all these things all these other opport all these other projects she 10x her business
started something else 10x it again started something else 10x it again started something else now she's like
writing books and doing all these amazing things and and just creating incredible results and she told me at
one point that I was the Catalyst because I got her I was from here to here for her and then she had to go out
into the world and do the things but that's the thing sometimes we lift the veil like once you see it you can't
unsee it right now it's like that's there everywhere you look and and so in our lives we see whatever we believe out
in the world right and the universe conspires to give you back everything that you believe and every decision you
make I mean that's just how it is it's so it's I could go on forever about this work
because what I discovered and I'll quickly tell you the story about myself yes so my um I have a beautiful 29y old
daughter absolutely great relationship with her love love love her probably when she was
like 16 17ish I'm in my bathroom at home I'm
looking at myself in the mirror and I am judging judging judging I am and and you know this is after my fit you know still
in my Fitness career and things like that I'm looking at myself I'm like you are like fat what is going on
with your th you're are fat you look like you are worthless I was going
through a big financial disaster sorry something in my eyes some disaster right at that time you you effed all this up
you this you I mean just berading myself right I might cry when I tell this story
because it's so real still um and all of a sudden I had this
Epiphany I saw my daughter's face you've got daughters right and my daughter she
cannot she can never play poker because her face doesn't lie right that's the joke we have about her I saw her face if
I was speaking to her that way I am gonna cry and I saw her face just crumble in my mind's eye and it was like
holy Debbie I mean this beautiful wonderful person you would never ever ever talk to
her that way never do you think it's okay to talk to yourself that way but
you know I know a lot of women this is the voice that we've got in our head all the time right or most of the time or
half the day you know it's a continual and I could promise you that these women
would not talk to their children that way they would not talk to people they love that way they wouldn't accept
people necessarily talking to them that way I mean some do unfortunately but really but you think of a loved one and
you think of what they're face would look like if you said to them what you've said to yourself yeah stops you
dead in your tracks yep yeah and so you know I made the powerful decision that
day like still voices come up sometimes and I'm like we're not going there right
like I just stop it so if that helps even one person that sees this it's my
gift to you because it was magical thanks for letting me share that yeah thanks for sharing that I one of
the things I read Rec too was to remember I mean like for example if you have biological daughters that they
might look like you for example yeah and if you sit there and say oh I don't like
my nose or my hair whatever you need to realize your daughter might have that same nose that's hair right and would
you say that about their physical features really good really yeah that's
amazing I mean like just remember that they anyway so that's really really powerful back to the clients story
really quick the the idea that there is some sort of fear of success or fear of
big things even if they're good things fear of change even if it is good change I think is so real um yes I myself can
relate to that very deeply it may not have been that she was afraid of money but the size of the money the size of
the change absolutely can I cope with right a large sum of money or will I not
know what to do with it not treat it treat the money well and deal with it right so how how can you take a thought
like what are some ways that you can take a thought like I can't manage a large sum of money I'm afraid of big
changes how can you turn that into a a thought pattern that is more productive
or how can how can you how can you make that change I mean right right um well
and of course each each situation depends like I said I can't remember exactly how I worked with her but
one of the tools is really we start with a form of the opposite right like so let's just go let's not even talk about
money let's just talk about granular like I'm not good enough of course I'm
good enough right I mean it's so it's just the opposite now at first people say it and they're like well that's right you know so I mean we
have to do some work around it but your brain like rejects the opposite because because your brain is so used to like
well that's not true I'm just making you know I'm just saying that but the the big part of it is is it's finding
evidence to support that new belief right so maybe in this very moment I'm
not you know educated in how to handle large sons of money maybe in the past I
made a mistake you know about this situation but that doesn't mean number one I can't
learn number two that there's not people in my community that can help me number three that just because that person was
untrustworthy that there's not un you know the trustworthy people out there and then you have to look at the new
decision and say okay let me make a list of 10 people in my life that I trust and
then you find like oh there are people out there I can trust oh let me make a
list of you know people in my network that have managed those kind of sums of money maybe they can teach me something
how many people do I know is it possible so sometimes the evidence isn't Pro true
in our lives in that very moment but there's somebody else that's doing it right and so you know you just you have
to search for evidence because as I said we see what we believe right if I believe you know I'm in the dating world
right if I I'm not actually in the dating world but I'm making an example if I'm in the dating world and I believe
that all guys are jerks then I'm looking for jerky attitud I'm gonna first be attracted to that
because that's what I believe anyway there's no good guys out there I'm just going to keep finding them and every time I find one it's like J there's
another one J there's another one J I'm right I'm right I'm right we continue to manifest the exact beliefs that we
already have that we want to get rid of it's kind of like a scud missile right if I believe you know I want a great guy
but I'm programmed to go toward a crap guy I'm gonna it's like you're gonna
keep going right for it because it's like you're drawn to it it's the programming so the programming has to
change and again I'm a coach I'm not a therapist I'm not a neur scientist I'm not any of those things you know these
are but these are some basic things that I've learned and um I mean it's it's made a huge difference in my life so I
absolutely coaching is so powerful I have done therapy I have done coaching I
have gone to neuro neur neuros scientists for my headaches and
stuff and I will tell you each modality has its strength so don't I know that you weren't but like we don't don't
downplay coaching coaching has power that's different than therapy therapy is
good coaching is good but coaching has really helped me really stop and um
examine my thoughts and try to say is that the thought that I want to have
because you kind of feel like your thoughts are yeah your thoughts are sort of like inevitable and like the truth
but when you stop you can say like maybe I don't want to think that and I'm gonna think something else and that has made
all the difference for me sometimes a good question to ask to is who voice is
that because a lot of times it's not your voice right A lot of times it's you know my dad's voice telling me like find
a man to marry me and take care of me right so I believed I couldn't take care of myself so I had to like count on somebody else you know I mean again not
a bad guy just an oldfashioned guy right but the thing is that we hear these things growing up he didn't say you
can't take care of yourself I may mean that right Demi Moore heard you're only a popcorn
actress and she made that mean she would never get an award I mean I don't know if you saw it but it was phenomenal but
like you know she made it mean I'm I'm not good enough to ever be acknowledged for my work and so it's just you know
it's in but and there's women out there now and men that you know they're hearing things and it's like you know
blocked you're blocked from actually creating what you want unless you lift the veil on it and you know transform
yeah and I feel like the like the master arrives when the student is ready and
like you were saying with the the the gal who was afraid she didn't know how to master money when she decides that
she's going to figure it out she will be able to find the help she needs yeah she will be able to find the the people in
her community a financial planner an accountant a CPA who will help her through this but until she is ready in
her own heart to manage the money that help won't be available to her because even if the financial planner or the CPA
came to her and said we're here to help they wouldn't really truly be able to help her until she was ready to accept
the help the work has to start here right yeah absolutely and like you know we
lost you know not lost touch but we weren't as in touch as we had been and then a few years L you know a year or
something later I'm just like oh my God you're doing all these things is amazing and so yeah we reconnected and I got to
hear about all these I mean she's definitely you know a a great client that I was so grateful to work with
because it was just amazing to see it happen you know that's the fun right just like you get to see the beautiful
photos and all the things of what you create right it's just when you can see the transformation in people it's just
so it's very rewarding the the the the my favorite thing at the bwir studio
that I do is when I show I put up the pictures on the screen and someone says to me I've never seen myself like this
yeah yeah and I it's been you all along you have always had this within
you you are this power beautiful goddess but you came here and we were able to reveal it to you in a way that you could
see it and take it in I that's just so power you're do an amazing job you're
doing in this group I'm gonna just chime in about the group because you do such a great job in this group too so thank you
thanks for being you I love this supportive community that we've built here it's just really a nice place to be
so thanks for being part of it too well Debbie I want to hear if do you have any anything new or interesting on the
horizon that you'd love to tell us about actually so I am creating uh it's a
one-on-one coaching program I've done you know one-on-one before but this is It's kind of got a very specific
container um it's three months uh it's for you know professional
women who you know they're just they're just ready to slay that bully right and and
or they don't even know they've got a bully but maybe maybe they're not quite where they want to be or you know
they're just like hey Debbie's cool I want to work with her right that works too um and it is black belt mindset
Mastery and so incorporating uh the principles from
Marshall Arts um I people in this group may not even know it but I I do have a
black belt and I used to compete I used to fight I've I've competed nationally
can I just stop and say that is so cool oh thank you yeah I think it's pretty cool too actually um I you know I I raed
competitions and and you know taught a lot of small kids and and started a program in the Deerfield area where I
live the schools in Deerfield that have co uh martial arts that's my that was from my Dojo not mine that I own but the
one I came through and I started that program so I'm very proud of that um but
um so I'm incorporating the martial arts principles you know some of my fitness background the self-defense you know
trusting your gut your intuition all the things like you know raising that up raising up just you know understanding
ourself and and how powerful we are and um but it's also going to help people
achieve goals you know we're going to change the mindset but it's going to take us somewhere so when when we flip
the switch on this what happens out there in your life and women understanding their Worth
right and their value because we lower ourselves and we diminish ourselves and I'm tired of that because everybody's
freaking amazing that I meet and have so many gifts and here's a good question
audience who misses out who loses when you are not operating at your
Highest Potential and giving the world what you have because we make it about us oh I'm not good enough oh this oh
that well guess what somebody needs what you've got and you're not putting it out there because you're so worried about yourself so that's I think I I grew up
definitely with the idea that my worth came from how much I could give to other people in the sense that I was only
valuable if I was serving other people now listen serving other people is good
but like you just give give give for example as a caregiver or whatever and
you don't recognize your own value just as an individual yourself you can't give as much you can't pour from that empty
vessel right you can't give from an empty yeah container right and so it
took some inner work for me to say self-care is not selfish right taking
care of my own needs is not bad other people will actually be benefit more if
I take care of my own needs for and that was actually like a mind shift mindset shift I had to do as an adult yeah to
kind of recognize that my needs weren't bad because it was always like if you have needs as a woman that means you're
you're you're not giving enough or you're too needy or something you know there's something that I had L set
thoughts about right there's some beliefs out there or you know I mean there was a little bit of that in my
family like you know if you're thinking about yourself and you're not sacrificing you know then you're wrong
right and it's like no like how you know I mean eventually you're depleting your
resources you can't do it right and yes serving others is great but not
at the expense of yourself exactly
so Debbie um we have really enjoyed hearing about what you do um if people want to get a hold of you we're going to
leave your contact information in the in the comments and stuff um because you are helping women not just in the
Chicago area but Nationwide who can work with you remotely to really change that
mindset and if you are listening to this and you have not done any mindset work or coaching work like I highly
recommend looking into this working with Debbie finding out what it's about when I first heard about it it sounded a
little woo woo to me and I'm not a very woo woo person but it's for me it has
not been woow woo at all it has been actually very concrete to say what am I
thinking and how are those thoughts affecting my action do you Debbie view yourself in the like woowoo world and
I'm not saying that in a negative way I know what you mean um before I answer that can I remember
this thing because I'd like to offer your community the VIP group a gift
absolutely anybody that would like a 30 minute gifted session with me just you
know message my info is goingon to be in the comments I was thinking about it I didn't want to forget it before we before we came generous so like a 30
minute in call yes um is it woooo you know I mean it it depends on your
definition of woooo right because woooo is kind of like woo out there in the world and it's been I mean it is it's
it's pretty concrete um in in terms of you know the way our
brain works um I I I'm in commun coaching Community with people that are
like in there's some definitely woooo people in that group that are you know kind of out in that World um so I
wouldn't say it's woo woo um there's scientific basis for for how our brain
works right and and and I've been fortunate to to learn it um a lot of it
in my so yeah no I wouldn't say it's woooo at all I I personally I think that anybody
that like is struggling in any area of their life getting some help from some
an expert whether that's a coach or a teacher or a mentor or something you know we're it's pretty hard for us to
all do what we do alone right we don't do it alone you you've got to have support systems so for me an empowered
woman is somebody that like trusts and believes in herself but also acknowled when she's uh you know not at the level
she wants to be in whatever area and seek some help and guidance you know
whether that's a coach or a mentor or a therapist or a you know whatever it could be going back to school it doesn't
really matter what it is you know but we have to we have to support each other right and lift each other up and we have
to seek um seek power and and and support when we need it well and even
what you just said there about women like recognizing that you want to level up in some area of your life and that
you are going to have some help to do it you know that takes a little bit of self-c courage to do say to admit I want
to do better in this area of my life and I'm not going to do it all on my own and I'm gonna have a coach to help me and
I'm gonna call Debbie yeah yes I like that last part all right Debbie the question we
end every um interview on here is what does it mean to you to be an empowered woman in today's world world and you
have kind of answered this in a couple ways but in a nutshell tell me a little bit about what that means to you because
you and I while our businesses are totally different I do voir and you do coaching and martial arts we have this
same broader bigger Mission which is to empower women in all areas of their lives but what does that mean to you to
be an empowered woman um one thing I'd say is definitely
you know be authentic right be yourself right because you're there's only one you
you know just be it you don't need to be what anybody else is
um focus on the gifts that you bring right like what is the value what is
what are you talented with what what do you what can you do that probably nobody else can do the way you do it right and
and just focus on that you know now you might need to get some help on how to present it to the world fine great you
know absolutely um some some people have really specific gifts and and but
they're trying to be all these other things I know what I'm not I you know
it's really important to know what what you aren't right and that's not a bad thing because we're not everything I
know what I'm good at I know what I'm not great at and I don't try and you know understand Tech and I don't try and
be a home organizer and I don't try and you know whatever right uh you know I
mean I don't those are not my ex my skills and my expertise so focus on the things you're an expert at and that you
love right to do um without being apologetic about it
right like I'm telling you things that I know I'm not good at not from an apology standpoint just from a fact like not my
wheelhouse right that's not where I focus as soon as I just started focusing on what I naturally bring to the table
everything got so much easier and you attract all the things you want that way way I love that so
much focus on what you're good at and attract more goodness as you go yeah and
let some other expert handle the stuff you're not you know that's what they're there for yeah Debbie it has been so
great to talk to you you bring a light and an energy and an enthusiasm that's really infectious and I love it I'm so
glad that you came pom poms you can't really see pom poms well you know we
were talking about inner critic to biggest cheerleader so I brought out pom poms from my I love that Chago Blitz
cheerleading days didn't mention that part that's amazing that's amazing okay
well if you're watching this on replay and you want to get a hold of Debbie we're gonna leave her information in the comment section thank you again for
joining us Debbie um this is our live with Liv series to um Spotlight
empowered women who are empowering other women in our area so if you're interested in being interviewed um get
in touch with me as well thank you again Debbie for being on today it was so great to chat with you thank you so much