Overcoming Communication Fears for Introverted Creatives | with Bridget Sampson

About Episode

My guest today is Bridget Sampson who is an author, leadership coach, and the founder and CEO of Sampson Coaching and Consulting. She is also a professional public speaker at TEDx and has written a book, Communication Secrets for Success.

Now, before you dismiss this episode as something that’s ‘not for you’ because you’re introverted like me, I want you to understand that effective communication is essential for building relationships and expanding your network. In our conversation, Bridget and I explore how the fear of putting yourself out there is not only experienced by introverts like us but by everyone. Bridget even shares her own journey from being terrified by early public speaking experiences to becoming a confident communicator. Bridget and I break down the mindsets needed to overcome that fear. More importantly, she reveals the process of crafting a thoughtful, meaningful message to share with the world.

If you find yourself struggling to communicate effectively to build relationships, I highly recommend listening to my conversation with Bridget. The insights she offers are incredibly valuable for developing your communication skills and achieving success.

Key Takeaways

It’s easier to deliver a message with a lot of energy if you actually care about what you are talking about.

Transcript

Zack Arnold: I am here today with Bridget Sampson, who is a TEDx speaker, an author, a leadership coach, a retired professor, a mother of two and a podcaster. Just to name a few, something tells me we're going to talk a lot more about what it means to be a multi hyphenate. However, I'm going to need to reserve the next 17 minutes just to talk about all of the things that you've done in your intro before we actually get started. So you Bridget are the founder and CEO of Sampson Coaching and Consulting. And you've been doing that for over 25 years, you teach the skills of communication, mindset, leadership, many more beyond that. You've done it for clients, such as Google, Mattel Capital Group, other nonprofit organizations, as well as six universities. And you're also the host of not one or two, but three different podcasts, growth, in gratitude, the right questions and transgender school, I'm already exhausted. And I haven't even thank you for being on the show today.

Bridget Sampson: Thank you so much that you've just made my day that makes me feel really good. And I love that we both appreciate being a generalist and think that there's value in that as opposed to just having one thing because I am excited and passionate about everything I do. So thank you for appreciating that and recognizing that and sharing that with me. Yes.

Zack Arnold: So you may not know but this is actually a secret meeting of overachievers anonymous, I am the president and I will be asking you to join us today. But in reading your your opening bio and your profile, I can imagine you can relate to me. And that when you're in, whether it's a networking setting, or just a personal setting, and somebody says, Oh, what do you do? And you're like, oh, boy, this is gonna take a while. Right? Up to this day don't know how to answer that question.

Bridget Sampson: Say I have about 50 Different elevator pitches, because I don't like any of them. I'm constantly rewriting them. So yes.

Zack Arnold: Well, one of the areas that you do specialize in, we're going to talk more about the idea of generalization versus specialization, because I believe that underneath all the different things you do, there's one unique specialty. And my assumption is based on your TEDx talk is that it's probably about communication and public speaking.

Bridget Sampson: Absolutely. Yes, I would say yes. And that goes for being a professor. When I was teaching, I was teaching public speaking courses beginning and advanced. I've taught many, many powerful presentations and public speaking workshops, and all the companies I've worked for, and I do lots of public speaking coaching. So you're 100%. Right. Thank you for reading through reading between all the lines, and seeing that if I had to pick one thing, that's really my thing, and that I really help people with that would be at public speaking. Absolutely.

Zack Arnold: Which makes perfect sense. Because you're naturally born a public speaker, it just came easy to you, right?

Bridget Sampson: You are so funny. No, as I share my TEDx talk, I was terrified of it very traumatized by early public speaking experiences that that did not go well. And it wasn't until I took my first college, public speaking course, which again, terrified me, and I fell apart during my first speech that I decided I can't let this ruin my life. I can't let this limit my career, my my personal growth, my confidence in myself and what I have to offer the world. And so I decided, at that point, my third year in college, not only to conquer it in that basic public speaking course, but then to become a Communication Studies major, and make that my career. So it's pretty interesting how that took did a 180. For sure.

Zack Arnold: Not what I'm curious about, as most people on that instance, if they were in college, and they had this horrible public speaking experience, it's one and done. No, I'm never doing that again. What What was it about you that instead decided I'm going to conquer this? Well,

Bridget Sampson: you know, that's a great question, Zack. And I think, looking back, what it really was, is that once I finally got the coaching and support that I needed for my instructor, I realized it could be incredibly meaningful to talk about things that you care deeply about. And I know this is so cliche, but the last speech I gave in the class, this was a million years ago was on recycling when it was kind of a new thing. And I was so excited that everyone in I got an A on it. And everyone in the class said they were gonna start recycling, and I had proven it with all the research and I had this amazing rush of wow, this can actually really make a difference in people's lives. And I can have some influence to make the world a better place. And that's been what it's all about, for me, whether it's my own public speaking, or coaching. I've coached several folks now on their TEDx talks, or big speeches that they're giving out in the world where they're really making a difference. And that's what it became about for me, I switched, by the way for being a political science major, because I always wanted to change the world and make the world a better place to realizing maybe I can do that in a different way through studying communication.

Zack Arnold: So what I don't want to do is turn this into a diatribe on all the things that are broken about our education system. That can be not just an episode that can be an entire podcast, and I'm sure there are many out there that are talking about how broken the education system is, but my theory not being in the academic space, but having gone through the education system Is that our version of public speaking is introduced was usually late elementary or sometime in middle school. And you have to get in front of the class and read from index cards and read a book report. This book was about Johnny and Johnny's, his mom didn't like him. And you're just like, Why in the world? Would I want to get in front of people and embarrass myself talking about something I don't care about? And what you pointed out is that when it's expressing something that's meaningful to you, that has a positive impact. Those are the raw materials that you can then build from. So what what have you seen in learning so much about public speaking and actually teaching communication? Why is it gone? So wrong for us up until this point? Why is everybody afraid of it?

Bridget Sampson: I think you described it perfectly. And I have that experience. My first experience was sixth grade, and I had to give a book report in front of the class and I was shaking, and I had index cards, and I dropped the index cards, people, I don't think they were laughing at me. But I think it was one of those moments you see on TV, where you are imagining that everyone's laughing at you as I'm trying to shuffle and pick them up. I think everybody's got some kind of experience like that. We're the way we were introduced to it. I agree with he was all wrong. And for all the wrong reasons. And I have to help a lot of my coaching clients unlearn that and come around to No, no, here's what something I always say, when you're the speaker, you are the least important person in the room, I don't care if you're speaking to 10,000 people, you don't matter, your message is all that matters. And that those people in that audience can hear your message and take something from it, that then will have a ripple effect and allow them to make other people's lives better, you're the least important person in the room, you're just the channel for the message. So being really nervous about it, making a big deal about it being so worried about it is kind of self centered, if you think about it.

Zack Arnold: It's funny, because there's what I've talked about with people, and I don't teach public speaking, but I teach communication, relationship building, networking. And as an editor and filmmaker, for most of my adult life, we're communicators just in a slightly different art form. And it's a communication form, where I get to sit in my small little dark room, and nobody knows that I exist. And I get to share the message, but nobody knows who the messenger is, right? So I always talk about how the message is important. But the messenger is also important to a certain extent. But again, it's it really is ultimately about the message, right? Yeah. So the was in saying that what I want to better understand next, and we're gonna go a lot deeper into how we can overcome some of these fears, why they're irrational. But I don't know if I'm going to get this statistic. totally right. I'm probably paraphrasing it. But I know I'm not terribly far off. That if you go through all of the biggest fears that people have, my understanding is that public speaking statistically, is a bigger fear than dying. Yes, like dying is like number two or something. But public speaking is number one. Yes. This is so ridiculously, completely irrational. Yeah. Have you in all of your many years? Do you understand why this is the case? No, but

Bridget Sampson: Well, let me think about that. But I love that Jerry Seinfeld long ago had a joke about that, if you've heard it, where he said that. So that means if you're at a funeral, you'd rather be in the casket than delivering the eulogy. But it that way, doesn't make any sense. But yes, I do know why it is. It's because as human beings, we are terrified of judgment, we're terrified of having eyes on us, it goes back to some primal fight flight freeze wiring in our brain, we don't want everybody's eyes on us, because that means we're under threat. And that would have meant, you know, back in the cave days, you have a, you have lions who are staring you down, and they're about to come and tear you to bits of EU. But now, what it is, is that the terror of having all the eyes on us is the fear of judgment and the fear of social ostracization, that people are not going to approve of me, I'm going to say something wrong, I'm going to be an outsider in the social group. And that triggers the actual fight or flight or freeze response so that we're terrified of it as if someone were holding a gun to our head. But in reality, the biggest fear we should have is that people are going to just forget everything we said and forget all about us, because that's way more likely.

Zack Arnold: What you can do, you go through a whole host of different techniques. So you've got an entire you've literally written a book on communication skills and public speaking. And we'll of course, make sure to have a link to your site and a look link to your book and everything else. What I don't want to do is go through chapter by chapter point by point because that was why you wrote the book. Right? But one of the things that you mentioned that I think is so important, is that if you want the message to come through and when the message comes through, and it's meaningful to you, it takes off kind of some of the irrational fear of putting yourself in front of people. But that requires something that's called a point. Yeah, right. You need to you need to collect your thoughts and have them be somewhat organized. Yes,

Bridget Sampson: yeah. So I'm big on I have my little acronym is cod content, organization delivery, and they're all part of the puzzle and they're all incredibly important. So you've got content, you got to have a meaningful message. It's got to be something Do you care about when I used to teach speech, I taught public speaking courses for 28 years. And students would come to me and say things like, I'm going to give my informative speech on how to change a tire. And I would say, are you passionate about changing a tire? No, it just seems easy. That's not your topic. You're not doing it on that. You've got to talk about something that you care deeply about. And you care about enough to be able to set aside your your terror and your fears and anxieties. Enough not entirely. It's okay and normal to be nervous, but to really care about speaking about this, and then yes, it has to be organized, I'm a big fan of having some key points, having an overall theme having a message you want to come across, it really depends how much structure the person I'm working with is willing to put their talk into I'm a big fan of lots of structure. And I've never been criticized for having too much structure. So I like having three key points. I like having an overall theme that's really clear, I like starting with an attention grabber that really draws people in. So I have my my structure, my framework that I share, and that people can take or leave the pieces that they want and then delivery, you got to get rid of the arms, you got to have a confident tone of voice. You have to learn how to use pauses and make eye contact and use your body your body is your tool when you're speaking. So absolutely, these are all pieces of the puzzle that need to come together to have a powerful talk. I want

Zack Arnold: to talk a little bit more about body and dynamics. Because I think that especially for those that are probably listening like me, or at least the me of 10 years ago, before I decided, hey, let's start getting on stage and talking to people on let's start a podcast. It was my message has always been getting it out via a computer or via some other medium. And then all of a sudden getting in my head. Well, it's all about the words, I've got to have all these words perfect. And I've got to have a memorize. And thinking that, like you said, it's all about the message. So the words have to be perfect. How important are the actual words and phrases in our speech compared to delivery and all of the other attributes, you actually have this broken down into percentages? You probably

Bridget Sampson: heard this before, right that there was a professor Mark Rabin, who did a study and found that the words were only 7% of the impression it's often misunderstood, but it's the impression that people are left with about you. The words are 7%, where the exception to that is, is that the words are really shocking and striking. Right? So right now I'm working with someone whose husband committed suicide. And I want to rephrase that because I said it the wrong way. That's fine. Right now I'm working with someone who's whose husband died by suicide, and she's working on her TED talk about that, right. And so her work, no one's going to forget that that's those the words are much more significant than 7% of the overall message in a talk like that. But most of the time, what we're saying is not that shocking, right? So people forget the words, but what they're left with. So Moravian says 7% is the words. And I believe it was about 55%. I'm gonna round a little bit, but 55% body language, I'm not going to remember the statistics. I didn't look this up, sorry.

Zack Arnold: Sorry, you don't need to know them verbatim. Because again, 7% of this is relevant

Bridget Sampson: right now, only 7% are the words and the rest of it is broken into body language and voice, your tone of voice your pacing? Do you have fillers that everything that is included in the way your voice comes across. So people spend way too much time worrying and stressing about the words and need to spend a lot more time practicing their delivery? Absolutely, this is proven.

Zack Arnold: Well, and the reason I bring this up, what I don't want to do is get too into the weeds of all the little nuances of how to create a presentation and the structure. And that's viral, I want to make sure that we stay a bigger picture. But the reason I wanted to go into the weeds here, it's way easier to have an energetic and passionate delivery when you actually care about what you're talking about.

Bridget Sampson: That's right. That's right. I wish I if I had my way, I'd have a world where no one ever needs to do any kind of public speaking on a topic they don't care about. I've created my courses and my coaching and all the programs I have where we're only working with subject matter that the person is incredibly passionate about and most wants to put out into the world. I agree.

Zack Arnold: The concept that I just thought of that translates I think perfectly to the work that so many creatives do behind the scenes, so to speak, is the first speaking opportunity that I think I remember outside of high school like in college was I was asked to come back and speak at my alma mater about how I got a job in Los Angeles and how I made it in the industry. And I at the time, I was a trailer editor and I was editing movie trailers. And somebody asked me like how do you edit a good trailer and I had to think about it on the spot. And I said that the if you think about the ultimate purpose of a movie trailer, a movie trailers job is to get you to buy tickets to go see the movie. That's the only way reason that it exists has become its own art form in and of itself. But a lot of people listening today work on trailers work in entertainment work somewhere in some creative industry that's adjacent to that, right? And people are so hung up on what are all the story beats and do, I knew all the plot points. But what I always tell people is that nobody's going to remember what the movie was about from the trailer, all they're going to remember is how they felt for those two and a half minutes, and they're going to buy a ticket, because they want to feel that way for 100 minutes. If you can get them to feel the way you want them to feel for those two and a half minutes. That's how you put butts in seats. And that's exactly what you're talking about, where it's not so much about all the little details or the order of the sentences, or we want to have structure and again, we want to have a point. But if they walk away feeling something and they can only feel something, if you feel something, now you've got something that they can hang on to.

Bridget Sampson: That's right, I could not agree more. And that's why one of my favorite quotes is Maya Angelou, she says, people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel. So I think that is very true for your world editing. And I want to say thank you. By the way, I'm a movie lover. And the trailers are really important to me, because I always watch the trailer before deciding which movie to watch. And it's how does it make me feel is it going to is this film is the investment of the 100 minutes going to evoke the feelings I want to experience. And I am very well aware that the editor is really the person or the editing team who makes the movie what it is. Yeah.

Zack Arnold: And I actually had an experience the very first trailer that I ever caught, it was like less than six months after I had graduated from college. There was a movie that nobody at this company wanted to work on, because it was not a good movie. And essentially, I got my promotion because I was like, I'll do it. I'll cut it. And they're like, No, you don't understand, like, this movie is so bad. I'm like, I don't care because the raw materials are there to create a great trailer to make people feel something. So I took it upon myself to work on this based mostly independently, I had a creative director that was helping me through it. But everybody was like, I don't want to touch this piece of crap, right. But I knew there was an opportunity to make people feel something with it. So not only did I make people feel something with that trailer, I had somebody come up to me that I was talking to randomly at the gym one day, they said, What do you do for a living? I'm at a movie trailers. Oh, give me an example of what you worked on. And I shared the name of the film. And immediately his demeanor change. He's like you, you will be $15 Because I saw that trailer in the theater. And I was like, this is going to be a great film. And it was crap. I'm like, yeah, no, it was a bad movie. But that's my job is to make you feel something that was that feeling that got him in the room. Not only that, but that trailer ended up winning what's called a golden trailer Award for Best trailer for worst movie, it's called the Golden Fleece. It's like the most coveted award in trailers, because you took a horrible movie, and you got people to show up for it. I just I say all that to emphasize how important that feeling is? Yes,

Bridget Sampson: yes. I could not agree more. And thanks for letting me know. So I'll know not to watch them.

Zack Arnold: I'll send you what the what the film is, I don't want to say it publicly because who knows, or somebody who worked on it. But

Bridget Sampson: I know but no, I could not agree more. And the same goes with public speaking, when we are putting for those of you who are putting your work out into the world, even if it's just on social media, we know that it makes all the difference to choose the right clips to have the right sound bites, and I'm constantly working, I've had to learn to become my own little amateur editor and I take my own video clips, and I just put them into iMovie. And I edit things and I throw them on social media. And wow, you can really see the difference if you find that not just the right words, but how you make people feel with how you're saying what you're saying. The number of likes will shoot up dramatically. So these these little efforts make a big difference.

Zack Arnold: So the reason that I want to emphasize so deeply that the way to overcome a lot of these fears is to find topics that you're passionate about, find something that's meaningful to you that will evoke that emotion and others is that I think that in not just the entertainment industry, but in a multitude of industries. I think we're watching this, the word transformation has been used realignment, like there are a lot of industries that just kind of don't know what the hell is going on right now. Whether it's with artificial intelligence or the economy, like, I think everybody's in the state of what the hell is going on right now. And what I have found in talking to many experts in technology and the economy and finances, and even in just entertainment, I firmly believe in anybody that's listened to the show every week. They're like, Oh, God, here we go. Again. I think we're gonna see the transformation from a specialized society to a generalized society and the multi hyphenate generalists that have experience and skills and abilities in so many different areas, rather than going from just pick your lane and do one thing like everybody else. They're the ones that are going to rise to the top because they have options. And I know that you feel very similarly And that you two are very much a multi hyphenate, or on a single sheet of paper, you know, make a hell of a lot of sense. It's like, Well, why didn't you just choose this one thing to be, but I think you've found the you've, you've been able to take advantage of that in a multitude of ways. Yeah,

Bridget Sampson: absolutely. I think you put it perfectly. And I could not agree more. And I hope you're right about that. Because there's a lot of folks out there making a strong case that we should have our one niche, and we should go that way. And then we'll be the expert in that area. But I've just never enjoyed that I get bored with things. I love doing a little bit of everything. If somebody comes to me and says, Can you could I've done weight loss coaching, I've done mindset coaching, I've done training, when people come to me, can you design a training program, and if it's going to be on anything personal growth, or professional growth related? I'm passionate about it. So yeah, I hope that that is true. And it definitely feels true in my experience.

Zack Arnold: And the reason that I want to dig into this deeper, it's all of this started with essentially the opening of your TEDx talk, which like you said, it's an attention grabber, right? It wasn't just Hello, everybody. My name is Bridget. And I like to give you some statistics on why public speaking is important. Right? You started with this idea of these gifts that we have. And what I want to do today is I want to help people understand how to identify the many gifts that I have. So I can apply that gift in that passion to it when when I say public speaking, I don't mean getting on a stage in front of 100 people it could be, but it could also be a podcast, it can also be a social media channel, it could also be a YouTube channel, it could be a newsletter. Those to me are forms of putting your ideas out into the world. But I've spoken to so many of my students where they're in this this realignment period, saying, I know I've got skills, but I could never be a teacher, or I could never be a consultant. I couldn't do that. But as we've talked about, you just need to have the passion and the purpose behind it. So I would like you to kind of give a brief summary of the way you open your TED Talk. But more importantly, I want to help people understand how they identify what their gifts are, so we can start to leverage them.

Bridget Sampson: Thank you

that you're asking me questions I've never been asked. So thank you for that.

Zack Arnold: That's my goal. At the end of every you can ask Debbie, at the end of every podcast, the response I want is wow, that was really different than all the other episodes I've done. So that means that I'm trying that so far. Yeah,

Bridget Sampson: I really appreciate that. So how did I come up with the opening to my TEDx talk? Well, there's a lot of pressure on me to give the most amazing TEDx talk, because I had been a public speaking instructor and coach for all these years, and I'm giving Yeah, it was really, it was really anxiety producing, I didn't sleep at all the night before, it was really difficult. But that's a whole other story. Let me stay on track. I came up with the opening to my TEDx talk in just a moment of not thinking about it. And I'm a big believer in that a lot of the Guru's as I'm sure you know, say, you've got to have just time where you step away from your project, and you do things for self care, and you I'm big on exercise and fun time and hiking and getting out in nature. And it was one of those moments of inspiration where I had the talk completely scripted had rewritten it a million times. And it was just a moment of stepping away from it, because I really worked on it for months before I gave it. So I wanted to have lots and lots of time, if we have the luxury of that we don't always sometimes we have to turn things around really quickly. And it was just a moment completely stepping away from it. What if I, what if I opened with the attention grabber being about this idea that everybody has these unique gifts inside of them to give to the world. But if they didn't ever engage in any kind of public transmission of that gift that's inside them, it's gonna stay inside them on unopened as a gift. And so that's how it that's how it came about. And I played with it. I remember doing it with my kids and my husband over and over. And they were like, Oh, it's a cool idea. But it's not working when you do it that way and try this and say that and with people who coached me and it Yeah, and that's what I've gotten a lot of recognition for was that opener, which I came back to at the end. So it was I bookended it. But I really would pose I really put a lot of pressure on myself to have a strong attention grabber because that's a point I make in every course I teach on public speaking and in every coaching interaction that you got to start with a bang.

Zack Arnold: Well, since you started with the Seinfeld references, I'm going to continue go down the Seinfeld road. And that I think you yatta yatta the best part, because you said, you know, I've got this public speech, it was up to you the entire night before with nerves, but that's another story. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, I think the last thing we want to do is overlook this professional public speaker and communicator for a living that has a giant bundle of nerves because guess what, so all of us, so actually want to dig deeper. And it seems like somebody who's been doing this for so many years, that you would just naturally write your speech. You've got a draft, you do a couple of polishes, you stand on stage, and you are a TEDx speaker. And it sounds like that's not the case at all. So it sounds like you're kind of like all of us.

Bridget Sampson: I am so like all of you. And I've heard you say that, Zack. And that's what calmed my nerves about coming on your podcast today, because you said, you're just like everybody else out there trying to figure things out trying to grow, trying to learn. And that's me as well. And giving the TEDx talk was one of the most frightening experiences I've had in my entire life. Because, and I don't want to discourage anyone from doing I think everybody has a TEDx talk, one or more in them, and I want to encourage you, and I want to coach you to give them yours. And at the same time, I would say, you really have to be ready. And it's an it's a whole different level, because once you give it 10 owns it, you cannot say I'm not happy with it, or I want to edit it myself, or I said something I didn't like, you get you give over the rights. Much like when you have a book published or when you make a film, right, you you have whatever it is you give over the rights. And so there's a different level of pressure.

Zack Arnold: And I think that what you pointed out and this is something that I talked about in a previous podcast, where a lot of times people that get to higher levels, the assumption is they have less impostor syndrome. And it's actually the inverse proportion, because the higher xpect the higher the expectations become, the more that there is imposter syndrome. Yeah. So I would guess that for you to give any given lecture at CSUN, or wherever, it's just kind of business as usual. But now all of a sudden, you're on the red stage. And it says Ted behind you. And it's not just you're speaking for Ted, it's you're a public speaker talking about public speaking for a public speaking organization, massively high expectations, therefore impostor syndrome goes up and not down.

Bridget Sampson: Thank you, thank you for that empathy.

Zack Arnold: Because I get it. You

Bridget Sampson: get it. Thank you. Because most of the time, people say, Oh, you have to budget your time, public speaking for 25 years at a university before you did that, no, it doesn't matter, each new experience with with the volume turned up on the risk and what feels like is at stake, and you're the level at which you're putting yourself out there into the world. I'm not saying this to brag, but I think the TED talk is up to about 350,000 views. And that's what no advertising whatsoever. So I knew that there was the potential for that. And knowing that in that moment of getting up on that stage

is a lot.

Zack Arnold: And again, you knowing the importance of that message and the purpose that it has and the impact that it has, I'm guessing it's probably something to do with how you got through the nerves and actually showed up on stage and gave

Bridget Sampson: That's it. That's it, I kept telling myself the same message, I tell the people I coach, I don't matter, I don't matter. It's not about me, this, this can really help people. And I go to those comments every once in a while and really, to kind of fill myself up that oh, okay, it really did help a lot of people, a lot of people were inspired to really work through their nervousness around the talks, they have to give at work or putting themselves out there in a bigger way to get more recognition for their career and how they want to show up in the world. So it's been very rewarding.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, and I want to make one correction. I completely agree with you that it's not about you. And it's about the people in the room, I disagree that you don't matter. Yeah, I definitely think the you matter, I think, like you said, You're the least important person in the room. But it's not that you don't matter. The reason that I say that, and this is a little bit of a tangent, and we won't go too deep into it. But when I coach my students on resumes, on portfolio websites, on job interviews, I always have to help them with a mindset shift that this isn't about you. This is about them and their needs. And you're the solution to their problems. And once people make that mindset shift that changes everything. It's the same mindset shift on stage, or on your podcast or whatever. This isn't about me right now. This is about you, me extracting your story. Because I think your story can inspire others and give them education for how they can then extract their stories and inspire others. But it doesn't mean that I don't matter. It just means that I'm the least important person on this call right now.

Bridget Sampson: That's exactly right. And when I'm working with people, that's the opposite of what I want to convey, I always want to convey to each person that they matter, they matter so much, and that they have so much to give and that they probably have gifts that they're not even aware of that I want to help them uncover. So I cannot agree with you more. That's a much better way to say

Zack Arnold: it. And that's what I want to dig into now is helping me extract and more importantly helping everybody else listening to extract. Why do I matter? What are the experiences that matter? Well, how can I have impact with my past work experience, my life experiences, my skills, my passions, my unique knowledge and this one random subject that nobody's ever heard of? How can I actually figure out what it is that I want to or need to express because I've talked to so many people who have There's nothing interesting about me, I'm just a normal person. It's like, everybody has a story. I've talked to hundreds of people. If you were to grab like my neighbor that I've never met ever I've seen him once or twice. And you said To me in five minutes, you're doing a 90 minute podcast with them. I can all but guarantee it's going to be an engaging and interesting conversation because everybody has a story. But most people don't believe it. So how can we help people start to extract the gifts that they have? So once they least see them, now they're motivated to actually express them? Yeah,

Bridget Sampson: I think as a coach, I love to just start with Tell me about your life. Tell me your story. Who are you? What is the story of Zack? What is the story of Mary and just let them talk and I'm, I love to listen to people's stories. So I've you told me the story of your life. I'm going to be so engaged, I'm going to be nodding and asking, and then what happened? And then what did you do? I just went out to brunch with a new friend for the first time Sunday. And we talked for like two hours about her life. And if you were to look at her life on the surface, like what she does for a job, you would probably think nothing remarkable about that. And she has had some of the most incredible life experiences that she could give 20 TED talks on different subjects. So I think, yeah, we have to mind for the gold. I think that's one of the gifts that we give as coaches. And I know you do as well, and just let people talk about their life. But I do think it's important, I want to reinforce what you said about that marriage between what we're passionate about and what we know about. I do think it's a requirement to have a good combination of both and a high degree of both a significant degree of both. And that's why I picked public speaking for my TEDx talk, because I had been teaching it for so many years. And I was passionate about it. I could have picked as, as we are generalists. I could have picked from such a variety of topics, but it was really what, what meets what ticks both boxes, experience and passion. Right.

Zack Arnold: So now you just triggered my imposter syndrome again, because now I'm thinking, I have all these experiences, but I don't have an advanced degree in teaching. And so I'm out. You don't know

Bridget Sampson: no degree, not required experiences, not degree, the degree does not always equate to experience.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, they're two very different things, right? life experience and book experience and scholarly knowledge are very, very, very different things. So the reason that I pointed that out is that I hear all the time, well, I don't have a coaching certification, or I don't have a teaching certification, or I don't have a masters or a PhD. And what I always tell people is that ultimately, if you have the solution to their problems, nobody cares. As long as you know how to solve their problem. Your experience is that you solved

Bridget Sampson: it for yourself. Yes. 100%. So it's one thing

Zack Arnold: to say I'm super passionate about eating healthy. But I'm vastly overweight. And I know nothing about diet. Well, that's a problem, right? That's where the the idea of the message and the messenger can be a challenge is I know eating broccoli is good for you. But I've never eaten in my life, and I hate it and I have doughnuts for breakfast. Well, the messenger is gonna matter even though the message is important, right? But I just want to make sure that when you say you need to check the box of passion and experience, it's not experienced that a scholarly level where you have accredited degrees, not that they're bad, but they're not necessary. Because I hear so many people get stuck on Well, I can't talk about this yet, or I can't teach you yet. Or I can't build a business around this concept. Because I'm not ready. I'm not I don't have whatever the certifications are. Nobody cares.

Bridget Sampson: No, I could not agree more apps. Some of the best speeches I've heard in my life, were first year, undergrads in my class, because they they check those boxes, they pick something they knew about and something that they really cared about. You don't have to have any of those credentials. I could not agree more. And some of the best speakers out there have none of that. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: I agree. I can think of a host of TEDx speakers, that would all be like, you know, the A listers, and yeah, they've got degrees, and they're, you know, consultants for big firms. And they're New York Times bestselling authors. But then there are others that you just find kind of going through the TED, either the app or going through the YouTube channels, you're like, Who's this person, and five minutes, and you're like, This is fascinating. And they have none of those accreditations because, again, it's it's about their experience and their passion for sharing that message.

Bridget Sampson: And with TEDx. Keep in mind, the maximum time is 18 minutes. So my biggest problem as a coach is not that people don't have enough experience is how do you take all those years of experience and all that passion and whittle it down to an 18 minute talk? Yeah,

Zack Arnold: that's my challenge. Whenever I put together workshops for my community, I'm thinking, I don't know how long I can talk about this. And then all of a sudden, four and a half hours in, like, dear Lord, how did I talk about how to write an email for four and a half hours? That's not an exaggeration. I've literally talked about how to write a cold email for four and a half hours.

Bridget Sampson: I understand that. I could do the same. Yeah. So

Zack Arnold: you and I are cut from the same cloth. Yeah. So I want to break this down. And I really want to kind of start with a very small manageable step. I've listened to this so So far, and I thought, You know what, I didn't think I could ever do this. I'm not the kind of person that could public speak. But maybe there's something here, how do I start to kind of find that first kernel, that first manageable step to, maybe I can give this a try?

Bridget Sampson: I would start with writing with journaling. If that works for folks, let me amend that I would start with finding a way to get it out. So if you general just start, just start writing about your story, you know, there's the there's the idea of morning pages, where people just get everything that's in their head out, or just some way of even if it's five minutes a day to just start writing and thinking about what's important to you, what matters to you, what interesting experiences have you had, but some people like recording things on their phone and memos, and some people like recording little video clips, whatever you like, but you've got to get out of you what's inside of you. And that's what's in your mind and your heart? What are the challenging experiences that you've had? How did you overcome that? What what of your professional experience has been? Get it out? And then you can look at it and then do that mining? And see what's there that could really benefit people that I could share?

Zack Arnold: And then from there, how do we get them to the point from it's just this endless list of a bunch of stuff to their? Do there it is, it's what I call the moment of inception. Any suggestions as a fellow coach to get people to that, that moment of inception of there's the kernel of the idea of what

Bridget Sampson: the actual idea is? Yeah, you got to get it into one sense, you've got to get it into your, if you will, your value proposition. What is it? What is one sentence of what you have to give on this? Right? So my TEDx talk is called how public speaking will change your life? It's not how to overcome anxiety about public speaking, it's not right, organize the structure of a speech, if this is will change your life, right? So you've got to get it into some kind of language like that. What is the value proposition? And then I really advise people, if you've got multiple things to choose from, pick the one that is not the one that everybody's already talking about.

Zack Arnold: So give me an example of something everybody's talking about right now. So why shouldn't Why shouldn't I express myself?

Bridget Sampson: Or you can do that. I mean, you Are you okay, here's what I really want to say, to have a twist on it. That's different. There we go. Now, you're all right. So of course, there are lots and lots of talks about public speaking. But I feel that my twist on it was different than you're going to use it as a personal growth, opportunity to change your life to change everything in your life. That's my story. My TEDx talk on why I think it's successful for somebody who's not, you know, in the public eye at that, at the level of the TEDx talk, that have millions of views. So take that thing and figure out how you have a different message about it is what I mean to say. But I also do think if you're, if you're buried in a sea of voices talking about the same exact thing, and you have that topic to choose from, versus something where you have a unique voice, and there aren't a lot of voices, I would go with that. And I'll give you from my personal experience. My example is, as you know, I have a podcast and whole educational program with my daughter called transgender school, we have a way bigger audience for that, than any of the audiences I have for any of the other work the other podcasts I do. And I'm just very transparent about that. And all the other work I do, because there, there are no other voices, there is not a single mother, daughter, mother, adult transgender woman, daughter team out there talking about her coming out and the struggles we went through and the mistakes I made. And so we just have a much bigger audience and a much bigger following and much greater success, because there was no other voice out there. Coming from the perspective, we were in saying the things we were saying.

Zack Arnold: It's like you're looking at my notes, because that's exactly where I was going to go next. And what I what I was going to do is challenge your idea with your own idea, which is that I would argue that something that everybody's talking about in every realm, the political space, the comedic space, like just, you know, the general Zeitgeist online, like, transgender is a very, very common talking point, everybody in some way, shape or form is talking about it? Well, you did is you found something that everybody's talking about, and you took your own unique perspective, right. And not only that, but again, the ingredient is this is clearly something that you're passionate about. And it's also something that you're experienced in even though your experience is not. I've written seven scholarly dissertations and PhDs about this. It's I'm living this experience from the mother's perspective, and talking about it from my daughter's perspective. Exactly.

Bridget Sampson: You're right. You're right. Thank you for that clarification. You're right. It is certainly something that's being talked about a lot, a lot more today than when we started three years ago, but we have a take on it and a voice that I think isn't really out there. Yeah.

Zack Arnold: And that and I applaud you for putting that out there in the especially given knowing your background about how just public speaking in general was something that you struggled with and Even still, frankly struggle with even though you've chosen that to be your profession. So now let's just choose the most personal most difficult thing I've probably ever been through. And that's what I'm going to talk about publicly like that requires a tremendous amount of courage. So first, I just wanted to point out my gratitude for the fact that you're doing that.

Bridget Sampson: Thank you, I appreciate that. And I want to express my gratitude for my daughter, Jackie, who's now almost 27. Because it if she weren't willing to talk about it publicly, this wouldn't be happening. And it's very rare for people to want to do that, having been through everything that she's been through. So I

Zack Arnold: want to use this if you're okay with it to reverse engineer so people can better understand how can I take a lived experience? And how can I express it. And again, it's not public speaking just on a stage, it's in the form of a podcast, but you're putting your ideas and your thoughts and your beliefs out into the world, hoping that it has a purpose and a positive impact on others. So take me back to whatever part of the story that you consider the beginning of the story where it went from, whether it's, you know, when you initially found out or you decided, well, I want to take this experience, and I want to help others, you decide where the beginning of this story is. But for others that are going through some form of a lived experience, I want them to understand how you got from, here's this thing that happened to now I want to express

Bridget Sampson: it, I would start with the day she came out, which is in March of 2017. And an interesting note about that is that my TEDx talk on public speaking was just a little over a month later. So I have an article on Medium called Why I gave the wrong TEDx talk. It's not really what the article says. But I wanted it to be a catchy title, because I was deep in shock and denial and depression, and confusion about my 19 year old telling me that I had been wrong about my own child being the gender I thought they were at 19. So it was just a month later that I gave my TEDx talk. So it was very it was it was so surreal to know that I was internally going through one of the most challenging for me personally, experiences I have ever been through and no one knew. And here I was giving a TEDx talk about public speaking and about how the gifts inside you are your own experiences and your own knowledge and wisdom. But I didn't have the I did not have the hindsight and the having worked through and having come to a different place with this to be able to even consider talking about it until years later. Yeah.

Zack Arnold: So you are clearly in it at the moment. Right where it's so you just you can't see anything else. There's no perspective and you're just in it unable to to objectively step away and kind of see what's the meaning of this? Why am I going through it? It's just this thing that's happening to

Bridget Sampson: nothing right now. I

Zack Arnold: think perspective, a lot of people over the last few years in whatever shape or form it might take a lot of people are in that same place of just the world just keeps happening to me. All these things, all this flux, all this transition. I'm curious at what point did it go from this is happening to me to all of a sudden there's just a little bit doesn't have to be a this amazing introspection, and aha moment, but at one point was it I think that there's a kernel of something here beyond this is my own experience, and I have to get through it.

Bridget Sampson: It was probably somewhere between the two to three year mark after and we started transgender School, which is an educational program, we have webinars, and we have a variety of resources for people about three years, somewhere between three and four years after her coming out.

Zack Arnold: So it's the this timeline of you gave me the data was March something in 2017. I forgot I forgot the exact date, but March of 2017. Right? So March 4 of 2017. And if I do the math, that means right around the time the world was falling apart is when you decided that you wanted to start a school for chances transgender people give or

Bridget Sampson: take 2020 Yeah, yeah, exactly. And go if it weren't for COVID, which was tragic in multiple ways, but also provided some fascinating opportunities for some of us. That was that was part of the impetus at home, and we're trying to figure out how to live life on Zoom. Maybe we should start a podcast. Yes, it was 20.

Zack Arnold: So the part of the reason that I wanted to bring up this idea of you decided during COVID lock downs that you wanted to share this story is that number one, there was a part of you that I would guess and I don't want to put words in your mouth or thoughts in your head where it was a matter of, I don't care what's going on in the world. This is an important idea that I really believe needs to get out there. But as a public speaking coach and teacher, I can't go out and talk on stages. So let me find the opportunity in this massive disruption. That's kind of a common theme.

Bridget Sampson: That's exactly right. That's exactly right. And I had never done that. Really in a partnership with something so deeply personal. I had had employees and partnerships professionally with coaching and training. But to do that with my daughter, was really a scary idea. So we talked about it a lot before we put anything out there. But you're exactly right. That's what it was.

Zack Arnold: So one of the themes that I'm kind of hearing from this is that you decided, not that you decided to go through this experience, but this experience was thrust upon you in 2017. You've gone through the the next few years of talking to whomever you need to to better understand it. But then you decided, You know what, there's this tremendous opportunity amongst all this disruption, I have an idea, a purpose behind this idea that I think can help people, but I can't get on a stage, I can't talk about it, because the world is falling apart in front of me. And you didn't use that as way to stop you or create an excuse was, let me figure out how to do it on Zoom instead. And I think that finding opportunity and disruption is a very relevant theme to what's going on even now. So talk to me a little bit more about the mindset of, let's do this, no matter what it takes. That's a

Bridget Sampson: great way to put it. I love the way you described it all. Yeah, so when the journey started in 2017, I could never have imagined that I would ever talk to anybody about it. Nobody knew for the longest time. So I went through a lot, I spent a lot of time in support group meetings and online groups and talking with a lot of other parents and working through things with my daughter who helped me understand a lot. And I went through a period of denial and shock and a lot of lot of emotional turmoil where if you had said to me, oh, you know, you're gonna end up talking about this all publicly in a few years, I would have said, You are insane. There's no way I'll never be able to speak about this intelligently or confidently. And so fast forward right to COVID, three years down the road. And we're all trying to figure out how to, I had to try to figure out how to take my business online, I had been mostly a coach and a trainer in person. And my daughter, and I just started having conversations about we've learned so much over the three years, three and a half years, whatever it was. And we really could help people there are so many families experiencing their kids coming out as transgender or non binary or gender fluid. And I had learned so much from all the professionals in the field and read books, and she had learned so much and built her community of people in the LGBTQ community. And so we just started having these conversations about maybe we could put something out there in the world that could really help people. And she's an activist, she's lived, she works in the world of politics. And she's always been very outspoken about the issues that she cares deeply about. She has no problem with public speaking, I used to bring her to my classes when she was a kid, my public speaking classes. And she would challenge the students during this not during their speeches, but in the q&a. So she always had that very innately in her somehow, much more than I did when I was younger. So we just had a lot of conversations about how to maybe take advantage of the opportunity of being at home, start a podcast, start some webinars over zoom, start building a community and see what happened, and it grew from there.

Zack Arnold: What I want to dig into even deeper here that I think is so important and relevant to your work, but also helping helping everybody else listening to understand the value beyond Well, I have value I can bring into the world and I can create an impact. So I write or maybe this is a way that I can share an idea and maybe I can make some money as a side hustle. What I've discovered for me personally, and I have a feeling you're going to be in the same camp, but I don't want to make any assumptions, which is why I'm asking. I've discovered that possibly the most valuable and impactful therapy that I've had for myself to work through problems, is sharing them with other people. And I came to this realization I was one of those like da moments when I was actually talking to another podcaster. And they were talking about the value of a journaling process. And I said, I've tried journaling, like 10 times, I've got a whole slew of journal notebooks, all the nice ones you spend like 30 $40 I fill out four pages, then it goes on the shelf to this day, I still yet to crack that code, right. But then she said something really interesting. She said, Do you write a newsletter every week? Like yeah, she's like, haven't you had like 250 conversations with people talking about life and this and that, like, yeah, she's like, don't you post stuff on social media? Like yeah, she's like, sounds to me, like maybe that's your form of journaling. Boom, all of a sudden, it just occurred to me holy crap. Everybody this listening now, you're all my therapists. And I would guess you experienced a lot of this going through this process. That

Bridget Sampson: is so true. I cannot tell you how much I I just was, I can't tell you how much everything you just said resonates with me, Zack. And it's really nice to hear that I'm not the only one with just shelves and shelves of journals with four pages. Yes, I yeah, this has been therapy. Absolutely. And not only that, it's been family therapy, Jackie and I, my daughter, Jack and I have, we just finished our 38th episode, we do one episode a month and every single one, I can pretty much say it has helped me to go deeper into the healing work with her within myself. And it's not we don't talk about it that way. We're really the conversations we're having are to inform and educate other people who are going through similar things and just share our story and bring on lots of amazing guests who have expertise in different aspects of what we're talking about. But yes, each episode, in a way, some part of it has been therapy for me. And she might I wonder she probably say not for her, I wonder she says she's a tough cookie. So solid and herself, I would take a fraction of her like confidence and solidness if you watch this, you'll see the difference. But she would probably as well say that some of it has been therapeutic for her. And

Zack Arnold: again, kind of going along this idea of putting your thoughts, your experiences out into the world. The other thing that I discovered, and this is just like, literally, I've turned this into a dual therapy session where you and I are talking well beyond how you structure an outline for a public speech, right. But what I have found is that there are so many areas of my life where I have challenges or struggles where I just assume must be something wrong with me, because everybody else seems to have this figured out. And then when I'm willing to have the courage to say, anybody else out there feeling burned out right now, no, no, it's just me. All of a sudden, everybody comes out of the woodwork. Oh, my God, it's me too. That was how all this started. For me. And I say this, because again, this isn't about me, I'm the least important person in the room right now. But I share this story for your benefit. And for everybody else. The reason I became a podcaster is because people were reaching out to me because I had achieved a pretty high level of success pretty quickly as a film and TV editor. And they don't want to talk to me about how I got this opportunity or how I cut the scenes or whatever, right? It's all about craft. And people would reach out and they'd say, I'd like to have you on my podcast. What would you like to talk about? I said, Well, what I'd really love to talk about is like, the conditions in our industry, the overwork and the fact that I'm burned out and trying to find a better way to be more healthy. And the response was, yeah, no, I just want to talk about your TV shows, like, Well, shit, somebody's got to say it. So I there was this compulsion inside of me that's like, I need to put something, I just need to get it off my chest. And I figured I'd get it off my chest for a few episodes. And I'd put it out there. And almost 10 years later, somehow still haven't gotten it all off my chest. But it was number one very therapeutic. But what I found is that there are so many other people that are struggling with similar challenges. But I didn't realize that until I put those ideas out there into the world. But my guess is you've discovered something similar.

Bridget Sampson: Everything you're saying I'm just nodding and nodding and going How do you know this? How do you know this? Because you're speaking my language and my world? Absolutely. One of the things that I would say I'm probably known for just being really honest and vulnerable about whatever I'm going through, I talk about it on all the podcasts I share with clients. I mean, I feel like I'm pretty solid and very much able to provide a lot of value for people in terms of what they need. But I'm very open about the things that I struggle with. And I attract people who were who want that who want a coach or a trainer or somebody who's willing to share their struggles as well. So on my current podcast, which is called will the other transgender schools current, but I have a podcast called growth and gratitude, which really is my coaching podcast, you're right that I pick a different topic for each episode that really is based on kind of the struggles that I'm having, and that I'm seeing a lot of my clients have and then they feel we're having conversations around. And I can give some tips and tricks and ideas but with with true honesty and authenticity about how I'm struggling with it as well. And the more I do that, the more I see that it's a value to people. So on girls and gratitude, I put it on YouTube, and the highest number of YouTube views is on an episode called How to Be kinder to yourself. And really, it was just a week where I had coaching session after coaching session after coaching session, whatever I'm coaching the person on public speaking, executive coaching, everybody was just so darn freaking hard on themselves. And I found myself saying that over and over and I was being hard on myself. I was wondering all these coaching sessions, Am I doing the best job I can of helping these folks to be kinder to themselves. So that's often where the inspiration comes from my episodes of that podcast, which is my coaching podcast for the world, but really, especially for my clients because every episode is based on things that come up in coaching. So I think that's an exam ample, I hope that's an example of what you're saying. Yes. therapeutic for me, hopefully therapeutic, not therapy, I don't want to suggest that I'm a therapist. I'm not I'm a coach, but hopefully helpful for my clients in a way that they can get value outside of our coaching sessions, and find that additional healing, and learning and way of really deepening the work that we're doing in the coaching sessions on their own. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: I'm glad you brought up this very, very fine line of coach versus therapist, because this is a conversation that I have all the time. And I'm sure you do, too. Where I find that and I use the term Career Strategist, somebody wants to know what what is it that you focus on? I'm a Career Strategist. But unofficially, you know, underneath the surface. Full disclaimer, I have no medical degrees, I have no psychology degrees, but unofficially, I'm also a career therapist, I have a feeling you experience a lot of the same issues, where it's really hard to talk about what can you do next? And how do you move forwards? If you don't spend a little bit of time in the past?

Bridget Sampson: Yes, yes. And, yes, I think there are important distinctions to make between coaching and therapy. But I do think coaching can be very therapeutic to just use the word as an adjective, right? It can be very healing. And I don't see how we can be talking about what's going on for you now and the goals you have for the future without looking back at some of the things that have held you back and some of the the mindsets, and the messaging and maybe even some of what you absorbed, growing up from people around you, we have to be able to look at that a little bit. But honestly, a lot of the people I coach are also in therapy. So there's overlap, they will bring to me what they're working on with their therapist, and they'll bring to their therapist, what we're working on and coaching. And I think it's a world where we can see the value in all of these different helping professions. Yeah,

Zack Arnold: it's weird, because I literally just had this conversation with my client, right? Before I got on with you talking about, they're getting ready to work with a therapist, and trying to understand how the two work together. And I said, we can workshop the same problem from different angles, like, here's the challenge you're dealing with, right? Now, I can help bring practical strategies and tactics to move you forwards. They're gonna help you unpack Where did these patterns come from in the first place? Right? Same problem, different angles, yeah.

Bridget Sampson: And to help people understand what that really looks like, I feel like a lot of times where it comes up is the client will express a lot of emotion and start crying. Or I can see that there's so much emotion around something. And I'll say, you know, do you want to talk about how you're feeling about this? Do you want to talk about how difficult this is in your emotion around this? Because I'm trained to do that. And I'm happy to do that. And I love tears, I think there, we need to release our tears. And I'm happy to hold the space for that. But a lot of times the clients will say to me, no, no, I can do that in therapy, I need you to help me figure out the plan. And I'm like, Okay, I could do that, too. I can do either. And yes, your therapist is going to be great to help you work through the emotion, and maybe even indefinitely, I stay away from trauma and addiction and all of that. And I know you do as well, that's the place for therapy. But so we can have these really upfront conversations about where to get the right kind of support in a given moment. And it can change, right.

Zack Arnold: And the reason that I bring this up is that I want to talk a little bit more about this word that I think scares so many people, which is expertise. It becomes such a barrier. And I'm assuming you probably see this with your students and with your clients, though. Well, I'm I'm not an expert. So I can never give a TED talk on this. Right. And I think redefining expertise is so key if you're, if you're doing the work to understand what are the gifts that I possibly have? What are the experiences, the unique knowledge, my perspective on an idea that's out there, but my perspective is different or unique. But I have this barrier that I need to overcome of expertise. And I think that as you and I are talking we you and I have a very similar challenge, which is this fine line of veering from coaching into therapy. Now one area where you and I are very, very different. You have a whole list of coaching certifications and coaching programs. I've got exactly zero, right. So I what I bring to my coaching experience is all of the past experience in solving problems. And my clients come to me having the same problem that I had not so long ago. So I'm not an expert. But on that one problem. I'm an expert because I solved it for them. So I stay in my lane with oh, you've had that problem. I have solved that 27 times in my career. Let me share how I did it here are some frameworks are here some some tactics, right. I went through an immense, immense amount of impostor syndrome. When I made the transition from being a craftsperson for a living to being an entrepreneur and a coach thinking, Who the hell am I like, why would anybody ever pay me money to do this stuff? If I'm not certified? If I'm not an expert, like, nobody's going to be willing to do that, until I realized it's just about me again, coming back to this theme of sharing my personal experience. Here's how I saw have the problem, you might want to try this, but I'm not the world's expert on it. I've just been there before.

Bridget Sampson: Exactly. And honestly, I only have two coaching certifications. And I got them in the last five years. And I've been coaching for 30 years. So I was doing a ton of coaching before I had any kind of credential in coaching. Those actually came out of COVID. Because I had to shift into a lot more coaching work when I was doing before it was doing much more training. And so to do the coaching, I thought it would help to have the certifications. But I was always a coach. Exactly. As you said, I knew I had areas of expertise, based on my professional experience that I could bring to people as a coach, so I could not agree with that more. And a lot of what I learned in the coaching certifications, just reinforced things.

Zack Arnold: Yeah, you probably like yeah, already do that already do. That's interesting. I haven't tried that. But yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm sure.

Bridget Sampson: I wouldn't dissuade people if you want to do it. And you have the means and you have the time. It's great. And I did learn some new things, but absolutely not necessary. It don't let that hold you back.

Zack Arnold: Yeah. And the reason I bring that up, this is another conversation I had recently with a longtime friend and colleague that reached out to me because they're they're making this career transition. And they were looking into coaching. And they knew nothing about coaching. And they figured I'll do the six month training certification program. And I said, that's great. But you have to think about where are you uniquely able to solve somebody's problems now. So rather than this is going to show me how to be a coach, it's here's where I can be somebody's expert, and this will augment my ability to coach them. Exactly.

Bridget Sampson: I agree with that completely. Yeah. So here's,

Zack Arnold: here's the reason that I bring this up. There's, there's a lot and I'm sure that you can attest to this a lot more than even I could. But there's there's a lot of stigma right now to the term life coach. And I'm sure I'm sure you've heard this, especially over the last three or four years. Now that everybody's moving businesses online. Everybody's becoming an influencer. Everybody's on Tiktok and Instagram. So I want to get your take on the following statement. I'm just sharing the statement I'm not sharing for or against. But the statement that I've heard shared numerous times, is that life coaches are people that failed at life and therefore become coaches. Have you ever heard this before? I think

Bridget Sampson: I may have heard that. And I just would laugh at it and say, Okay, that's somebody who just doesn't get it. And that's okay.

Zack Arnold: How do we dig a little bit deeper into that? Because I think that the be beyond just the the imposter syndrome, and I need a certain level of expertise. There is very much a stigma around the term coach nowadays, because everybody says, Well, I can't figure out what to do with my life. So I'm going to become a coach.

Bridget Sampson: Yeah, I am proud to say that I'm a life coach. And one of my certifications is with a school called The Life Coach School. And so I don't buy into that stigma at all. I just think some people understand it, and some people don't understand it. And I'm, that's fine. And more and more people. Well, more and more people are making fun of it, more and more people are coming around to it. And my personal experience informs that tremendously. Because prior to five years ago, I would have laughed at life coaching, I would have said something like what you just said I was a professor, I was a corporate trainer at Google, right. And I saw myself as an executive coach until I discovered the Life Coach School. And it changed my life. I listened to the podcast, every episode added tremendous value to my life, I joined their membership program and did coaching online with their coaches, I started coaching, one on one with one of their coaches completely changed my entire mindset around what life coaching is and what life coaches can offer. And I see it as one of the most valuable opportunities that anybody can have if they can afford it in the world today. And it just doesn't really bother me, the people who think that if they, if they'll hear me out, I'll have a lot to say. And I'll have about, you know, a stack of books and a ton of podcast episodes that I think could change their mind. But people come around when they come around or never. And that's, that's okay. I think there's plenty of life coaching work to go around and coaching work in different areas of expertise, such as the areas that you and I have, and plenty of people who recognize the value of it. That's how I choose to look at it. Well,

Zack Arnold: I appreciate that viewpoints. And one of the things you said that just shows the your level of humbleness is you said I was a professor, you weren't just a professor, you were a professor emeritus. Did I said that correctly? By the way? Yes,

Bridget Sampson: very

nice. That just that just means we're tired. But keeping all your produce, it means you did a lot of service and exactly my

Zack Arnold: point is, at least according to your bio, you retired with 28 years of experience in an academic scholarly setting where you were considered the expert. So what the reason I say that is that going from that transition to learning about life coaching, what was it about it that completely changed your life? Because I would imagine that for others, they get to have have a similar experience.

Bridget Sampson: Yeah, it's just funny. It makes me laugh, as you mentioned that because when I think about a lot of my former colleagues who would just totally laugh and snub their nose, like, Oh, she's a light now, right? But yes, I am also a professor emeritus, which means faculty and retaining all your privileges, which is, you know, means I did a lot of service and was recognized and won a lot of awards, basically. So, yeah, so I stumbled on the Life Coach School, I saw, I think, an ad on Facebook that spoke to me about weight loss, I wanted to lose weight, and I started watching the videos, and I started learning more about how the Life Coach School has a track that teaches you about weight loss. So I'm trained in helping people through weight loss, and I wanted to lose weight, and I wanted to to be happier. And I wanted to have a better relationship with my family members. And this Life Coach School was had all these podcasts and all these content, all this content around things that I wanted to improve in my life. Yes, I was an expert in public speaking, yes, I had already given a TEDx talk. But I still had problems with my husband. And I still couldn't lose the weight I wanted to lose to get to where I wanted to be. And to be honest, I was drinking too much alcohol, I wasn't an alcoholic, but I was like, This doesn't feel good anymore. As I'm getting older, I want to cut way back on this. So I did one on one coaching, with life coaches on all of these things. And over time, it took time it took work, it took a lot of rewiring of my brain, I got to a really new place a much better place on all of those issues, and more built my business grew my business overcame a lot of self doubt about how I could move into more coaching work and be a life coach myself. So it was having that personal experience seeing the results. And I was coached by people who had no degree and I didn't care, I learned to not care. You don't have a degree, but you figured out how to be able to only have two drinks a week in a social setting, or none, or, you know, I want to learn how to do that.

Zack Arnold: So again, it comes back to the theme of they're not the world's expert, but they've solved the problem that I need to solve next, therefore, they're my expert. And I share all that for anybody that has this feeling of imposter syndrome, or this feeling of I have to know all of that before I can start or be perfect or have all these accreditations or degrees, it comes back to like you said, here's, here's a problem that I need to solve. And somebody else solved it for me. But this is something that I now want to express to others. All right, so it's starting with this giant, long laundry list of all the things that you've done as a generalist. Bringing it down to your one specialization is communicating your experiences, so you can help others through similar experiences.

Bridget Sampson: Yes, exactly. So

Zack Arnold: figuring out where you are, anybody else can be both a jack of all trades, but a master of one. That's the work that I want to do and the work that you also do just to be able to help people understand what am I gifts? And how can I put them out into

Bridget Sampson: the world. And what I think I find as I talk to more and more people is a lot of people are already doing it for free. Right? A lot of people listening right now you're helping people in your life in some way. You're coaching people informally, I have no doubt people are coming to you for advice about things. So just think about how you already have that ability this and so if you can reframe it in your mind as why, if I'm doing this for free, and people are finding value, people ask me for my advice on whatever this topic is, if you want to, you can build it into your career, you don't have to, but I believe everybody could at least one way, if not many different ways.

Zack Arnold: I believe the industry term for what you just said is what I call a mic drop moment. That was the perfect, perfect summarization of today's conversation. So now we come to what I call the shameless self promotion portion of the program. For those that are listening that want to learn more about the multitude of things that you have to offer, whether it's your book on public speaking your TEDx talk, other resources, you as coaching, I could send them to 27 different URLs. But what's the best place to start if people want to learn more about you and connect with you?

Bridget Sampson: The best place is my website, sampsoncoachingandconsulting.com. And Sampson has a p in it. sampsoncoachingandconsulting.com That's the hub. Everything's there, you'll see all my services, you'll see the podcasts, you'll see ways to get in touch with me. Everything is right there. That's the best place to start. If you're interested in transgender school, transgender education and broader LGBTQ education, which we do a lot of as well go to transgenderschool.org.

Zack Arnold: Great.

I'm glad that you mentioned that as well. I appreciate that. Well, this has been tremendously informative for me, and I hope that it was enjoyable for you as well. And I'm going to do my best to send as many people your way as possible. So thanks for taking the time today. I appreciate it.

Bridget Sampson: It was so much fun to talk with you Zack. I enjoyed our conversation a lot. I learned a lot from it and you make me feel really, really good about what I do. You and the work that I get to put out into the world. So thank you so much for this conversation. It was really, really enjoyable beneficial for me.

Zack Arnold: You're more than welcome. And I'm also going to throw a thank you all to our mutual connection, my Podcast Producer, Debbie germini, because we wouldn't be here today sharing these stories without her. So unofficially. Thanks, Debbie.

Bridget Sampson: She's wonderful. Thank you so much, Debbie. I so appreciate you and everything you've shared with me. I'm so grateful for Debbie too. Thank you.

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