Lead Between the Lines: The Unwritten Rules of Leadership & Power

The Art of Transformation

Lois StGermaine Season 1 Episode 104

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In this episode of Lead Between the Lines, Lois dives deep into the raw, unspoken truths of personal reinvention. Far from the glamorous version often portrayed online, she exposes the messy, uncomfortable reality of transformation. From battling your ego and confronting emotional challenges to experiencing loneliness and the pain of letting go of past successes, this episode highlights the uncomfortable yet necessary steps in becoming the next version of yourself.

Lois introduces the Reinvention Roadmap, a strategic guide designed to help you shed outdated identities and habits, align with your True North, and lead your life with clarity and purpose. If you're feeling stuck or frustrated by your current path, this episode will give you the truth behind the transformation journey—and why, despite the discomfort, it's absolutely worth it. Get ready for practical insights, real talk, and a roadmap to guide you through the chaos of reinvention.

Time Stamps:

00:00 – Welcome to the Podcast
00:19 – The Messy Truth of Personal Transformation
00:54 – The Hard Truths of Reinvention
01:39 – Quantum Shifts and Identity
03:13 – Letting Go of Success
07:16 – The Battle Within
10:34 – The Loneliness of Reinvention
13:39 – Ego and Sabotage
17:00 – The Painful In-Between Stages
18:31 – Success vs. Fulfillment
19:32 – Aligning with Your True North
20:33 – Introducing the Reinvention Roadmap
22:53 – The Importance of Emotional Resilience
23:55 – Separating Emotion from Action
25:35 – Unlearning Old Patterns
28:14 – The Continuous Journey of Reinvention
29:39 – Personal Story and Corporate Exit
33:00 – Creating the Reinvention Roadmap
36:21 – The Truth About Personal Reinvention
38:31 – Final Thoughts on Reinvention

Ready to elevate your personal power and step into your most authentic self? Download the Reinvention Roadmap now and start your journey toward unmatched clarity, self-mastery, and bold transformation. This powerful guide will help you redefine your path and create a vision for your future that aligns with your deepest values and aspirations. Get instant access and begin crafting the life you’re meant to lead.

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Welcome. Back to the lead between the lines, a podcast. And I think. This is. Like the kickoff episode, if you will. And I really wanted to dive into the art of transformation. So today we are gonna dive deep into the real work behind personal re-invention. And I'm not talking about the shiny glamorous version of what you see online. I'm talking about the messy, uncomfortable, and often unspoken truth that no one wants to admit when it comes to completely transforming yourself. And that's what we do on this podcast. Right. We talk about the unwritten rules between leadership and power. And this is definitely one of them. So here's the thing. Everybody talks about the excitement of re-invention the possibilities, the bold vision. Right. But very few people are willing to acknowledge the hard, ugly truth about what it really takes to reinvent who you are at the deepest level. And the truth is that most of what you think you know about personal transformation, isn't the full story. It's not even like a portion of the full story. So in this episode, we are going to get real. We're going to talk about what no one tells you when it comes to reinvention. And when I talk about reinvention, I'm not talking about iterating your way. To the next level I'm talking about like quantum changes, quantum shifts in who you are. And what you stand for, how you embody. Your values, all of that. It's not just an iterative process. And we'll talk about why. Um, I think that this is the way that you. Must go. If you want to like really create a level of impact that I know you feel inside, right. We're going to talk about things like why your old identity will fight to keep you stuck. Y letting go of current success seems sometimes unnecessary. And how true reinvention can feel like deaths before it feels like rebirth. So if you've been feeling stuck or frustrated or wondering why your efforts to evolve seem to be going nowhere, this episode is for you. And I'm not going to sugar coat it at all because that's not what I do. I'm going to give you the real roadmap for what it takes to become the next version of yourself. So when we talk about. Like transformation or reinvention. What you're not often told. Is that you're going to have to let go of the very. Thing, the very success that got you, where you are right now. Right. The identity, the strategies, the achievements that you've built up until now. Probably are not going to serve you in the next phase of your evolution. So what does that even look like? I think it was Einstein, who said you can't solve a problem from the same level of consciousness that it was created? So the version of you now was created at a particular level, right? With your current skill sets with all of your knowledge. And that's great. Right? That's how you got here. However, too, like. Go to a much higher level and let's just use 10 X, right? Cause that's the buzz right now. To 10 X who you are now, there's no way that you could iterate your way there. When you want to make big moves. You want to do it within a timeframe? I assume. Right. We all like to set times timeframes and usually they're way too short for what the universe has in mind. But even regardless of that, if you aren't willing to let go of who you've been up until now. Then getting to who you want to be is going to be very difficult. And I liken it to like wearing a 50 pound rucksack on your back as you're trying to trudge your way to that. Go goal. Right? Finish line, whatever you want to call it. And, um, It's very difficult because you, you bring so much of your past with you. And that's one of the things I talk about a lot is. Like. Extracting all of the lessons from your past experiences so that you have those, like in a bank. In a file system. Should you need them? And then letting go of the actual events that got you. In those experiences, right? Because most people want to bring the event with them and then they have thoughts about it and they recollect it. They recall it differently every time that they actually remember it. And over time that, um, it built up almost like sludge that you can't get rid of. So you have to be willing to do that. And letting go of success can feel terrifying. Most people think that when they think about reinvention, they're like, oh, what skills do I need to add? Like what more things do I need to understand? What knowledge do I need? And it's not really about adding at all. It's about shedding and subtracting. Anything that no longer serves. Or won't serve the version of you that you're trying to become. And true invention. Demands a willingness to release. What's comfortable. Even if it's been successful and we're going to talk a lot about that. Um, and you've probably heard me talk about it for quite a while with the shadow operating system, as I call it. Right. Which is our subconscious way of being. It's the way of being that we created the moment that our emotional needs weren't met as a child and we've perfected it over time and we've protected it. Bye. Listening to it or not even becoming aware of when it has taken over the situation. And it's the reason. That every time you try to set an impossible goal. Every time you want to reinvent yourself, you end up falling back because this system kicks in and starts whispering words. Like this is risky. You might fail. You need to like protect what you have. It's going to be worse there. You're going to hear all kinds of voices talking to you, and nobody tells you this, right? You. Cause you're excited. And of course you are like, I'm always excited when I set a new goal and I think I'm going to like, just go gang busters and blow it out of the water. Until, you know, a few days in when all those voices start and I'm like, Ooh, I don't know if this is a good idea. This seems impossible. I'm not sure that I can do this. And like really recognizing that that's what's happening is the key to all of this. And like, kind of like, I was just saying, what. Also happens. Is that your old you, the old you, your old identity is going to fight back because it doesn't want to die. Right? It's like, Hey, wait a minute. I've done a lot for you. And I don't want to let go. So when you start to reinvent yourself, it's going to fight like hell to stay in control. And it's not just a simple process of stepping into a new version of yourself. It's the battle between who you are, who you've been and who you're becoming. And you will see. Once you like become. Hyper vigilant in your awareness. Of the patterns that begin to play out. And you can immediately see which identity they're serving. So you have to like develop this acute awareness that it is actually happening and understand that it's the, that old identity fighting back in order to. Stop right. Pattern interrupt. The version that is serving the current you or past you. Instead of the future, you and just keep redirecting, redirecting, redirecting. Most people believe that. Once they decide to change that it's going to be a smooth process. Because it probably took them a long time to decide that they were willing to bet on themselves and go in on this vision or this goal or this next version of themselves. So they think that the hard part is now behind them, but. That's not true, right? That's just the beginning of what they're going to face, what you're going to face, because in reality, the old you and your habits, your beliefs, and your ego are going to resist every step of the way. And it's trying to pull you back into comfort and familiarity because that's its job, right? That's the reptilian part of our brain that hasn't evolved since we. Began existing. It still thinks that there is present danger. In our world and there's not right. There's. There's no danger of you becoming a better version of yourself. Another thing that is rarely spoken about is how a lonely reinvention is. It's very isolating. Because the people. Who knew you as one version of yourself? Might not support or understand your transformation. In fact, you might lose relationships along the way, and you have to understand. That that's part of the process. It's part of the shedding. That has to happen for you to evolve. Sometimes. You will find yourself. Feeling responsible for how someone else sees you. I know this was huge for me because I spent a lifetime managing. The perception of who I was, especially in the shadowy ego-driven corporate environment. And. Allowing people to see you, how they see you. Is not easy, especially if you have any type of like control issues or like MI identity or reput. Reputation. Issues. Um, this is a hard pill to swallow and it's tough to allow other people to have their own emotions. But here's the truth. You don't owe anyone. A version of you that keeps them comfortable. This is your journey, everyone. We're all here on our own journeys and we forget that. Our journeys are not the same. And we try to impose. How our beliefs, our standards onto other people thinking that we're being helpful and we're not right. When the romanticized view of transformation, where everything falls into place. Um, Starts to crumble, right? Your, your, um, nostalgic or romanticized thoughts start to fade. That's when the loneliness kicks in. And especially if people closest to you don't understand. Your delusion. Right because it is delusional. We are trying to create a version of ourselves that we've never done before that we've never met before. And we're trying to achieve things that just seem impossible to the outside world. And even to us, they are not supposed to. Be logical. Like we are. Actually trying to be illogical. And the majority of the human population is not going to understand that. The next thing I want to talk about is how much your ego. Hates what you're doing. And it is going to sabotage you or attempt to sabotage you at every turn. Because again, it's designed to keep you safe, not expansive. And the bigger you play, the more threatened it feels, and it will use that fear. It will use doubt even your old successes. To keep you small. It will remind you of all of the things from your past. That when you look at them from a probability standpoint, Indicate that what you're trying to do is not possible. And it's going to keep speaking that into you over and over and over. And we tend to underestimate how much our ego influences our choices. Because the ego will frame your growth as too risky. Or unnecessary. Or it will even have you justifying your wants. Because, especially as women, right? We, we live by need. And, you know, when you have children, you give up. Things. Um, to in, um, service or in dedication, devotion to your children for a long, long time. And we become accustomed to weighing, wants and needs. And for going once and only having, um, needs met. And in this process. Your ego is going to remind you that you don't need to do this, that you don't need more, that you shouldn't want these things. You should be happy. And we're gonna talk about the sheds a lot in this process. Right. But it is going to try to convince you with all its might to shrink back into the comfort zone under the guise of practicality or self-preservation right. Like me was my reputation. Re-invention also often feels like death before it feels like rebirth. And emotional or psychological shedding of the old self before you can step into the new, is that deaths that you experienced. Right. And it can feel very disorienting and even depressing. As you let go of a familiar identity. And I think that this happens because we are so used to. Again, with the want versus need. Um, Needing something to be wrong in order to justify us wanting something different. We can't or we don't believe we're not accustomed to wanting just because we want, right. We're not accustomed to asking to be shown. How good could it get. Instead we're like, could I just have this much more? And that's not what reinvention is at all. And. People always tend to focus on the excitement of transformation, but not on the painful in between stages that happen. And it's like, you know, your teen years there is such a. Um, a massive growth. Period in between there where you kind of feel like you're in limbo, you're not sure who you are in the midst of this transformation. And the. It can feel almost like an identity Boyd, if you will, where you haven't. Quite fully stepped into the new self, but the old self is already kind of fading away. And, um, Alex mosey talks about this a lot. Because he talks about it in the terms of, um, where you are on the success. Ladder right. W when you. Start like you outgrow your current, um, Friends people that believe in you, all of that, you outgrow them, but you haven't had enough success yet to catch. The eye of, you know, the person who is much further above you. And he said, you just have to keep going until you've built up enough success. That now you can like run in those circles. And that's what happens inside of us as well. Another thing that happens is, um, Success. Doesn't immediately equal fulfillment. Right. You can reinvent yourself to achieve success, but success doesn't always equal fulfillment right away. You have to cultivate that inner alignment or you risk achieving external wins that still leave you feeling empty, which is exactly what you're trying to get out of now. Right? You. You've already hit that point of, okay. I've accomplished all these things and now they just feel, feel empty as I achieve them because. I don't, I'm not chasing that external thing. I'm chasing inner fulfillment now, or looking for inner fulfillment. So. Learning like how to shift. Um, In our expansion versus outer expansion is critical in this whole process. And even though success. Right. Often seems like the ultimate goal. True and true transformation is actually an inner, an internal work in progress. And. People don't realize that even after external success, you need to continually align to what I call your true north, right. Or to that, to be deeply fulfilled. You. Unless you're guided by something bigger than yourself. You're not going to reach that level of fulfillment that you're seeking. All right. Let's pause right here. If you're serious about stepping up, if you're done with the old stories and ready to embrace your next level, you're going to want to hear this because this piece isn't just an add on it's the foundation. So let's talk about the reinvention roadmap. Imagine the re-invention roadmap as your strategic playbook, a manual, not for incremental steps, but for radical identity elevation. This is about evolving into the woman who can hold the kind of power. That brings your deepest vision to life with unwavering presence and clarity. Without this deep internal work, you risk collapsing back into the familiar arms of your current identity. You'll find yourself slipping back into patterns of old beliefs and outdated tactics, inadvertently stepping away from your boldest ambitions. This is where most high-achievers falter. Aiming for bigger circumstances. while, anchored in a smaller identity. The reality is to create your desired impact. You must first become the woman who can sustain the level of power and resilience that your vision requires. This roadmap isn't about making surface level tweaks. It's about consciously deconstructing. What no longer serves you. And rebuilding from a place of deliberate design. It's a confrontation with the shadow operating system. The default way of being that keeps you playing small. The roadmap guide you through pivotal transformations that dissolve old narratives and reveal the true landscape of your potential. Abandoning the roadmap means abandoning the very structure you need to stop sabotaging your vision. It's a self-sustaining mechanism calling you to hold yourself accountable, to embody a relentless committed version to yourself. That doesn't flinch at the first sign of resistance. By evolving your identity. You unlock the capacity to hold and wield the power, your legacy demands. If you're ready to evolve beyond your current identity and step into the woman who can hold the power, her legacy demands. Go to the show notes and claim your re-invention roadmap now. Don't just think about it. Take the first step and transform who you're becoming. Re-invention also requires emotional resilience. And the emotional toll of reinvention is often underestimated. You'll need to be able to handle uncertainty, rejection, self doubt, and the discomfort of knowing or not knowing actually what comes next. The other thing that I think is critical in this that I want to mention is you have to learn how to stick to a plan, stick to a strategy. Take action. Regardless of the emotions that are taking place. At the very same time. Right because we're often taught and I grew up in this model as well, that thoughts create emotions, which. Um, Decide your action. Right? We take action. From an emotion. Well, that's a reaction. And in the reinvention world, we don't react. We respond. To data. We respond to truth. We respond to neutral facts. And there isn't room in this process to allow emotions to distract. Or change the action. Itself. Now I am not saying don't feel your feelings. So don't even think that that's, what's being said, you can feel your feelings. But you damn well better keep on the, on the same path and strategy, if you're going to achieve that goal. Because remember here comes that ego. And that shadow operating system, telling you all kinds of things and making you feel making you dealt, making you afraid, making you, um, frustrated or disappointed or. Just wondering if it's ever going to happen. And when you're in those emotions, those low, low energy, low vibration emotions, if you're not going to act according to your plan, right? Because your future self has already told you, you got to do this, this and this. And you wake up with all of that noise and you're like, I don't want to do that. Like that doesn't sound fun. That doesn't sound rewarding. That doesn't sound good. It sounds terrible and I don't want to do it. You cannot give in to that. You have to separate emotion. From action. As you are creating your new version of you. Otherwise, there's no way you'll get there. If you don't. And I think. Another key point that I want to make here is, um, You have to unlearn more than you learn. And again, back to the shadow operating system, the way you have operated, the way you have one, this has been your winning strategy. For your entire life up until this point. It has to go. Or if not go, you have to be calm. So consciously aware that it is, that it has kicked in and tried to take over your, and get you to react, not act. You have to become so aware of when this is happening so that you can pattern, interrupt that process and make sure that, um, The habits that it is trying to like shift you into support that future you and not the current, you. Because it, it truly is about unlearning old habits, old beliefs, old patterns, conditioning, and it's all about learning new strategies or. Um, Dialing down the number of strategies, the number of habits, and going deep on those instead of wide. So yeah, this whole transformation re-invention process is about going deep. And mastering yourself more than anything that you've. Ever done before. That's where the mastery needs to take place. And. The real transformation happens when you strip away everything that isn't. Serving the new version of you. So it's not even, um, I could say holding you back, but it's not, it's not even that it's so much more than that. It's not propelling you forward. Right. And it's not about adding more tools and more things, because a lot of people think that they don't have the capacity for this because they've only done it with the 50 pound rucksack. Right. They don't know how to do it by shedding. First. And. This isn't just about beliefs and habits and all of that. Right. It's. It's the deeply ingrained beliefs. It's the patterns that you have operated by for most of your life. And the last thing. That I feel like we need to, um, cover is. In re-invention that isn't often talked about is that it's not a destination. It's not someplace you go and you're like, shoot. Done. It's an ongoing process and there's no finish line at all. This is an infinite game that you're playing and up until now, you've probably been playing a finite game of, let me just get to the next rung on the ladder or the next goalpost or milestone or whatever. This reinvention is for the rest of your life. You are going to continue this process. Over and over and over again. Until you're done until the end. And it's continuous, it's evolving. Each level that you face are going to, um, require you to reinvent again and again and again, and it's an exciting journey. Regardless of how I just painted the picture just now, but I feel like it's really important that we don't just go in blind. Thinking that this is like an easy thing to do. It's not like all of the goals that you've set so far. If you're being 100% honest, you knew you could hit them before you even agreed to go after them. And hello. My name is Louis. Nice to meet you. I did it for 30 years in the corporate world. I looked like a hero to everyone else, but I knew that I never set a goal that I knew I couldn't achieve. This is different. Like this. Re-invention transformation is all about. Going after something that is truly impossible that you don't think in your lifetime, that you'll be able to accomplish. And it is truly, I know this is cliche and we hear it all the time, but it truly is about the journey of who you get to become. Along the way in pursuit of that impossibility. And all of this leads to wa. The re-invention roadmap that I created. And. I experienced all of this. So I know exactly what you're thinking, what you're feeling, because I was the same way. Right. I spent 35 years in corporate leadership. And at the height of my career, like all the things. I was the most unfulfilled. Miserable. Bitter person. That. Uh, I had ever been, and I couldn't understand why I had everything that I never even dreamed of having like things way beyond what I ever dreamed. And yet. I felt empty. I felt just disgusted by. The small goals that we were achieving and it was just the. It's not even mundanity of it or monotony of it. It was just the. I can't even describe it. Uh, you know it right? You probably have this feeling. Um, And like you, I was getting more and more pissed off. About. Not living up to my potential. And in that process, I decided, yeah, very abruptly. To exit the corporate world and come into this world of entrepreneurship thinking. That it was going to be a breeze. Right. Because I didn't know any of these things about this re-invention process. I. I had the rose colored glasses and I was just going to take entrepreneurial world by storm. And it. Pretty quickly put me in my place and made me realize that all of these things that I just talked about today are 100% true. Like nobody tells you any of this and you don't see this looking at the highlight reel on Instagram or any social media platform. Right. It just seems like roses and so easy and you get to be your own boss and you don't have structure and you don't have schedules and you can come and go as you want. And yeah. And all of that means you're not. Actually working on your business, just FYI for another tidbit there. Um, so. I set out because I'm like, I am going to master this. I am not going back to the corporate world. Cause that seemed worse. Then try to like. Trial and error my way through this process. And in it, I figured out all of this and all of this transformation. And I thought, wow, this is like really interesting. I wonder if I could teach it to my clients. And that's where I started. Right. I started experimenting with my clients on how do I reverse engineer, how I had this massive, um, identity shift. That, um, allowed me to be fulfilled and to have so much space in my brain. I don't argue with things. I don't argue with myself. I hold standards. I keep my word, like all of that. How do I teach my clients this. And it just took me a good year to reverse engineer that and get it into a format that I could deliver it to you. And that was, is the birthing of the re-invention roadmap that I released. Um, just this week, actually. It is. The exact steps, one by one by one. From the unlearning phase, right? The whole first phase is about unlearning. Like we talked about. It walks you through. Step-by-step how to unlearn what you've been conditioned with for your entire life. And then it shows you like how to think bigger, how to declare bold things for yourself and take action. Against or towards them. And it teaches you. How to think like an elite athlete. Because just like. I don't know, an Olympic athlete. Uh, pro um, player, right? Michael Jordan tiger woods. LeBron James Kobe. Any of them? It wasn't so much what they did on the court. It was everything they did when they weren't. All right. So we've unpacked some real unspoken truth about personal re-invention today and as uncomfortable as they might be. These are the things that no one tells you. But they're exactly what you need to hear. If you're serious about creating a lasting transformation. And here's what I want you to remember. Yes. Reinvention is messy. Yes, it's uncomfortable and yes, you will question yourself. You're going to have to let go of the very success that got you here. Your old identity is going to fight to stay in control. It's going to feel like death before you experienced rebirth the loneliness, the ego sabotage and resistance. It's all part of the journey. But here's the thing. You can't make that mean you shouldn't go after your transformation. You cannot let these obstacles become the reason you abandon your goals, your desires, your vision. The truth is. All of that messiness, all of that discomfort is the price of admission to your next version of you. Local. You can see the highlight reels on social media, the shiny success, the perfect outcomes, but what you don't see there is the hard gritty work underneath it here on this podcast, I'm giving you the truth, the real unfiltered version of what it takes to reinvent yourself at the deepest level. And I promise you the fulfillment you'll feel on the other side, it's worth every ounce of discomfort. Even if it doesn't feel like it, when you're in the midst of it. Because on the other side of this, the identity clashes, the resistance, the shedding of what no longer serves you. Is the woman you've been becoming all along. She's clear, she's powerful. She's aligned with her true north. She moves with precision. She leads her life instead of letting her life lead her. So here's what I want to leave you with. Re-invention isn't easy, but it's worth it. It's not about whether you can do it because you can it's about whether you're willing to endure the process. The re-invention roadmap is here to guide you through that process. And it's designed to help you step fully into the woman you're meant to be, but you have to be willing to face the truth of what it takes to get there. You've got everything you need inside of you already. Now is the time to strip away the noise, the old patterns, and step into the future. You've always known was possible. Let's do this. Thank you for joining me on leave between the lines. If you're ready to start your reinvention, you know where to find me. Until next time, keep leading with intention. And remember your transformation starts with the choices you make today.

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