Thriving as an Outsider

In this episode of the Impostor Syndrome Files, we talk about feeling like an outsider. Most of us have, at one time or another, experienced the pain of feeling like we don’t belong, though some of us face this more often because of various aspects of our identity. My guest this week is Naeemah Elias, founder of Elias Presence Ventures, about how to navigate experiences when you feel like an outsider. Here Naeemah shares her journey of working her way out of poverty and into a degree from Harvard and the experiences of feeling like an outsider along the way. In particular, we talk about the ways in which she adopted different personas to fit each situation, rather than lean into an authentic self, an approach all too familiar to me because of my own experience, which I share here. We also talk about actions you can take to counteract these negative feelings and thrive as an outsider.

About My Guest

Naeemah started her career as a professional actress. She worked her way out of poverty south of Chicago and earned a psychology degree from Harvard. After an acting tour as a puppeteer, and few years on Boston stages, she became a mother. She quickly became a Single-Mom with 3 kids under 6, and got serious about cultivating independent free-range children, while building a corporate career! Naeemah created Elias Presence Ventures to transform the universe of talent development and mobility. From Thriving as an Outsider, through public speaking, to management training, she aligns company culture with the leadership of the future so everyone thrives.

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Connect with Naeemah:

Website: https://www.eliaspresence.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/naeemahelias/

Consultation: https://calendly.com/naeemah-elias/consultation

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Transcript

Kim Meninger

I welcome, Naeemah. It is so wonderful to have you here today, and I would love to start by inviting you to introduce yourself.

Naeemah Elias

Absolutely. Thanks. Kim. So my name is Naeemah Elias. I am a mother of three, survivor of sort of early childhood trauma. I grew up in poverty and had, I think, a lot of interesting challenges, kind of getting out of the poverty space and into sort of living what was possible in my life. I grew up in a town called Harvey, Illinois, and folk with a focus on education went to Harvard, and so that was sort of a big deal and a big transition, and really one of the first sort of major spaces where I felt like I absolutely did not belong and, and so I went on from Harvard to become a professional actress. After some years acting, I went on and built a corporate career. And now I am a mother of no longer three teenagers, I now have a 20 year old, so 16, 18, 20, which is crazy, and I, and I run my own practice with a focus on what I call thriving as an outsider. And so I think I spend a lot of time sort of thinking and talking about imposter syndrome from different lenses and the idea of being an outsider, identifying as an outsider, and what it means to thrive even though you feel like you don't belong in different spaces. So excited to kind of talk about this space and how it's affected, you know, my life, and happy to take any questions that you have.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, I’m so thrilled to bring your perspective to this conversation, because you just completely caught my attention when you talked about going to Harvard and having grown up in poverty and, and I would love to hear more about what that experience was like for you, and you know, just the, the feelings that you had and how you were able to, and I don't know if it got better, but I just want to hear what it looks like and feel like.

Naeemah Elias

Yeah, yeah. So, so the experience of Harvard was just really weird, right? I grew up in poverty. I went to public schools. I didn't have private tutors. My education was fine. It wasn't amazing. I got to school and I discovered that, you know, my classmates had traveled the world. They learned about things firsthand from actually being in physical spaces. They had tutors. They went to boarding schools. The kids that I went to school with, like, some of their names were on the buildings. So the, the reality of their experience was so far removed from mine, and then sitting in classes, not even in classes, sitting in the dining hall, and kids would tell jokes referencing Shakespeare. And at this point, you know, I think I had read Romeo and Juliet, and I had read a piece of the Scottish play, right? And so very limited exposure to Shakespeare, and definitely could not joke in Shakespeare. And so realizing how little I had read in comparison to my classmates growing up, I loved to read. And I read, you know, the Grimms fairy tales and everything Stephen King ever wrote and things like that. I was not reading the great classics. And so the having the realization that I did not know nearly as much as my classmates knew, and I don't know, had this moment where I decided that I needed to accept that there was a distinction between knowledge and intelligence, and my complete lack of knowledge did not undermine the fact that I was intelligent and capable, but it meant that the latter was so much deeper. I had so much more that I had to learn, so much more that I had to figure out in order to compete. And it was, you know, competition in order to kind of compete successfully in that space. So it was a lot. And I definitely, you know, people would say, you know, oh yeah, we're gonna go out to eat. And I'm like, I can't afford to go out to eat, right? Like, I have to eat in the dining halls, right? And everything that I did was really based on what was offered to me as part of the college experience, and never, or very rarely, things that I had to actually pay for on my own.

Kim Meninger

Yeah. Thank you so much for sharing that. And you know, I had a somewhat similar experience having I went to Boston College. I didn't go to Harvard but I went to a school that where I the only reason I could go was because we were so poor that I could get financial aid. And so I found myself too surrounded by people who were going on spring break and were flying all. Over for summer vacations, and their social lives were so much more expensive than I could have ever afforded, and there is such high pressure at that point in your life to want to fit in right and, and so you just are that much more aware of your differences when you are in environments like that. And I think, you know, when you talk about thriving as an outsider, I think it's such an important like, you know, every one of us has a different experience. We all experience outsidership, so to speak, through a different lens, but it we all know, we all know that feeling to some extent, and it's incredibly painful. And I wonder, you know, just given what you described as your experience, how did you get through were there? Were there coping strategies that you used? Were you just, like, counting the day? How did it work in practice, you know, in your everyday life, like, how, how did you?

Naeemah Elias

Well, I think in the beginning, I did a lot of pretending. I had to, I sort of crafted personas. I presented myself as being, you know, what I thought I needed to be to fit in in these situations. And I crafted personas all the way into my 30s. I would always I got to be really good at stepping into a space, sizing up the people and the scenario and presenting what I thought the scenario required, or what I thought the people required. And so my authentic self wasn't a thing. Like, it wasn't that I wasn't presenting it; it didn't exist. It was always what does the situation require? And that was my coping mechanism. And I looked up at one point and realized I had different personalities for various different friend groups, different organizations and, and it built right like I did that well into my 20s, I was an actress, and so I was very good at playing roles. And I, like, I remember, before we got to Harvard, right? So going to my, my interview for Harvard, my mom came with me. And, you know, the, the interviewer sort of sat her in another room. We were at his house, he sat her in another room, and then he took me into her office, into his office, closed the door, we sat down, we had the conversation, and then we got back in the car to leave. I asked my mom, I said, Were you listening? And she said, Oh, of course, I was standing next to the door, listening the whole time. And I said, Well, what did you think? And she's like, You are your usual phony self, and like, oh. And so I think I had already started this concept of being what the situation required before I got to Harvard but then it just sort of exploded. And it wasn't until I was in my 30s that I looked up and I was like, I'm tired. I don't do this anymore. It's too much work, like keeping track of all of the different personas and being who I need to be in every situation. And what if I could just stop? And I think I was about 34 or 35 and I was just tired, and I was going through a divorce, and I had just moved to a new town, and, like, there were so many changes, I was like, I just want to stop. I'm so tired. And so at that point, I just decided I'm like, I'm just going to do me, and we'll see how that goes, and maybe people will like it. Maybe they won’t. I'm going to stop and I'm just going to be me. And that created a level of vulnerability that I wasn't used to because if people rejected a persona that I created that wasn't me, that was a persona. They're not rejecting me because they don't know me. I don't let people know me. And when I started to actually present myself in situations, it was a very different situation because I could be personally rejected. People were reacting to the real me, and I had to grapple with that, and it did not go terribly. People did not, all of a sudden, decide that I was horrible and not worthy of being around, right? I had great friendships, I had great relationships, my career went really well, you know, things were really positive but I was able to put more energy into the actions, the behaviors, the transformation, the work, the relationships because I wasn't spending so much energy thinking about how I needed to show up and who I needed to be in that space.

Kim Meninger

And you know what you just said is really powerful, too, about the way in which we protect ourselves, because it's easier to have one of our personas rejected than it is to have our true selves rejected. But I also think because we are so fragile in that way, we, we have such a desperate need to belong that we don't often test the system right? So we make assumptions that people aren't willing to accept us for who we are, that they're not going to grow with us. And so we have to continue to play this part but we don't really give them a chance to let us know if that's true. And so I know the, obviously, the risk feels really high to be that vulnerable, but the reward is also potentially really high.

Naeemah Elias

Yeah, it’s, it's fantastic, right? Like when you discover that people actually like you for who you are. When you discover that there are that your relationships can blossom and deepen because you allow yourself to be seen, it sort of it transforms your relationship with the world, right? And while you're creating more opportunity for more vulnerability, you're also creating the opportunity for richer, more meaningful relationships, and that is fulfilling and really very powerful.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, I think that's true, and it almost feels counterintuitive, because the more vulnerable you are, obviously it feels like you're more exposed. But when you talk about deepening those relationships, you, you're almost less fragile when you have that kind of support, right? It feels me, when you feel like you're just constantly playing this part and everything feels superficial. There's, there's a level of fragility to that that almost feels worse, like it feels even more vulnerable in some ways.

Naeemah Elias

Yeah, yeah. But I think I don't know I, I came full circle, right? I decided that I was going to kind of come out of my shell, that I was going to get a little bit more comfortable, I was going to play a little bit more and then when we were planning for my 25th college reunion, I stepped all the way into the vulnerability and, and not voluntarily. I got kind of bullied into it by one of my classmates, but I volunteered to do a talk, and they were doing sort of, you know, five to seven minutes, sort of faux TED talks, and, you know, for the reunion. And this is 25 years later. So I'm out of the teenager who has no idea what's happening in the world, who's completely overwhelmed by the wealth and the privilege and all of those things. And I've gone into my career, I've built a reputation, I've built myself in business and done all of the work, and now I'm on the other side of it, and we're having conversations about, like, what will my topic be? And I said, Oh, well, I can talk about raising queer children. I can talk about raising black children in white spaces. I can talk about imposter syndrome. I can talk about this with children that with children this, right? And my classmates said, I think that you hide behind your children. I think you use them as an excuse to not talk about yourself. So let's talk about imposter syndrome. And I was like, whoa. I just kind of threw that out there. I did not want you to bite, you know. And, and she pushed, and she was like, I want to, I want to talk about this. And so we, we had this conversation, and, and I had a handler, and she was, like, one of my very close friends from college and, and she's like, you know, pushing me to write it, and talking to me about it and everything. And so I sat down and I wrote it, and it was just like, you know, in one sitting, I just sort of exploded out of myself, like, I sat down, I had like, two glasses of wine, and I'm like, I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna do it. And I and I put it all on paper, and I and I shared it with her, and I was like, Okay, look at it, and let me know what you think. And, and she was just like, Okay, well, I'm on my way to the gym. I'll call you later. And then, like, five minutes later, she called me, and she's like, what is happening? What? Like, what did I do? And she's like, this is so dark. And I said, Well, what do you think imposter syndrome is? And, and she was just like, No, no, this is not okay. Like you, do you recognize the value that you add in the world? Do you recognize the value that you bring to relationships, like, how much people you know like you and want to be around you, and how like, how amazing you are. And I was like, those are all lovely things for you to say, and I hear you and I understand you, but you asked me to write about what it feels like to be an imposter. And what I wrote was my experience, the fear that I carry in the world, the every time I walk into a new role, I'm looking around, waiting for people to say, You have no idea what you're doing. You don't belong here. You are not trained properly. You don't have the right degrees, you know, or all of those things, like, I expect every step of the way for people to call me out, the emperor has no clothes, right? Like, you're a fraud. And that happens frequently, because I change jobs every year, year and a half, and so I keep stepping into spaces where I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop, and I'm constantly moving, because I feel like, if I keep moving, then nobody will notice that I have no idea what I'm doing, you know, and and she's just like, but you but you do know what you're doing in your grade. And she's like, this is really dumb. Dark and, like, that's what it is like, you asked me to write about the experience that I have, and this is the experience. It's very dark, it's very scary, and, and I carry it everywhere, you know? And so, you know, she, she made me soften it a little bit, she made me pull back on a little bit of the language. And it's posted, it's on my YouTube. And so I'll share the link with it if you know, with people want to watch it. But it was, it was a really interesting experience. And so here's what happened. I wrote it, I practiced it, I got comfortable with it. I stood in front of the room of my 25th anniversary college classmates. And, you know, I think of them as, like, you know, the Masters of the Universe. These people have gone on to, like, run corporations and build businesses and, you know, be incredibly, like, awarded artists and all of these things, like, really, really incredibly, you know, sort of titled and awarded people. And I'm standing in front of these people and just sort of revealing my soul to challenging. And after I presented one of my classmates who was a white male legacy. I don't know if his name was on a building, but we all knew his name before we came to Harvard, right? He came up to me afterwards, and he said, Naeemah, I feel like you were telling my story. Wow. And I'm like, I don't understand. Like, I that does not compute. And he said to me, I was born into this family. This is my grandfather's dream, or my great grandfather's dream. I am required to, like, it's this concept of being like a steward, right? Like I am a steward of my grandfather's dream and my grandfather's vision. I'm not allowed to disengage, and I'm not allowed to break it. The entire family's legacy is sitting on my shoulders, and if I get it wrong, I'm letting down generations of people. And I was like, wow, right? Like, I never would have even considered such a thing. And so the fact that I was able to step forward in front of all of my classmates and be vulnerable meant that other classmates were able to really think about their experience with imposter syndrome and, and we had some really powerful conversations afterwards. And it was, it changed my perspective, you know, in terms of how I think about how people walk through the world, and the different burdens that different people carry. Now, I'm not saying that, like his struggle running a, you know, multi-generational Corporation is more difficult than my struggle, you know, coming from poverty, but his experience is his authentic experience, and it is his own challenge and his own struggle that he has to face.

Kim Meninger

I, I love that you were courageous enough to tell your story in that environment because I wish that more of us had access to the behind-the-scenes of each other's lives. Because, especially in today's social media, curated world where we don't put the messy things online right that we often walk around feeling like everyone else has it all figured out. Everyone else is so put together, and I'm just a mess, and it must just be me, right? And so, like you said, I mean, there's we, we can empathize to whatever degree with somebody who's a multi-generations of wealth and influence, but, but it still shows that there's a universal human struggle, yeah, that we can all connect and relate to, but we often feel so isolated from one another because we're not sharing it.

Naeemah Elias

Yes, yes, that's absolutely right. And one of the really cool things about my experience over the last couple of years in the coaching work that I've been doing is that, you know, people look at me and they're just like, oh, well, you did all that stuff. Like, you know, you went to Harvard, and so everything was really easy. And so being able to say, no, actually, I struggle with various different things, right? So I'm struggling with neuro divergence, like, I have to build scaffolding and build structure to be able to function in the world every day, and I've gotten to be really good at that, and so I can navigate that. I had to get to Harvard, I had to work really hard and fight to be able to create that space for myself. And then when I graduated, I had to go out into the world and figure out how to create a life for myself with no network, no legacy, like I didn't have the connections and all the things built in that I think a lot of my classmates did. I had to go and figure it out on my own. My family didn't have a business to pass down to me, or any of those kinds of things. And so everything that I did was about me kind of stepping out on a limb. And I was constantly stepping out on the limb. I was constantly trying to figure out, how do I do this? And so when I'm coaching and I'm talking with folks who are trying to figure out, like, what is this next step, and they feel like, you know, oh, it's so terrifying, helping them to kind of break it down, helping them to kind of pull back from the ledge and think about, like, where do I want to be? What are my skills? What am I really excited about? And how do I marry the things I'm really good at with, the things I'm really passionate about, so that I can find the space where I can thrive and be great for myself, for my company, for my clients and everybody that I encounter. And being able to find your way into your joy space is extremely powerful. And recognizing that most people have had to go through some sort of a path to get there, and you're not the only one who is facing struggle, who's facing challenges, I think, is really helpful for people to kind of process that quick story when I was, when I was working at State Street, we would bring in high school interns every summer, and one summer, I brought in a cohort of 10 students into my business, and I built a whole program around giving them exposure and relationships. And one of the things that I did was what I called a series that I called view from the top. And in view from the top, I asked a senior vice president or an executive vice president from each business line to come in and talk to them for an afternoon. And I asked them to tell the story of their first job, right and to tell a little bit about their path from childhood to where they are right now. And I had all of these young, diverse inner city kids who walked into this building and thought, these are all rich people who have always been rich, and everything's always been easy for them. And when they had these executives come into the room, and one of my favorites was she talked about how her first job was working at McDonald's, and she worked on fries, and all she wanted was to move up to burgers. That was the dream, right? Like that was the that was the next step for her. And this is relatable to a 15-year-old sophomore who has not had their first job, or this is their first job, and they're trying to figure out where they go, like, having to take the fries out and, like, flip the burgers. Like, that is relatable, and that makes this person a real person for them, and it means that we started in similar places. And so it's possible for me to get to where you are. And so that, like that piece, I think, is really powerful, the hearing of the true stories, and the understanding that, you know, we all started somewhere and, and not looking at people who have arrived and thinking like, oh, well, they had it easy. And some people do, but most people don't.

Kim Meninger

That's right. That's right. I think that's a really important thing too. Is even within, you know, existing teams or organizations, it's easy to look up and think, oh, you know, that person could do it, but I could never do it. Or, you know, they haven't gone through what I've gone through. And, of course, everybody has their own unique challenges and differences. But it is, there is something so powerful about seeing yourself in someone else's story, even if you're very different from them in many other ways, right? And that's why I love this, the, the forums that allow for that to happen like I think it is great that you made that available to these young students who probably would never have had the opportunity to connect with these, you know, executives in in other ways.

Naeemah Elias

It was, it was a really powerful experience, and it was one of the highlights for those students. I had a number of them in their you know, summer end feedback form say that being able to be in the room and have conversations with those executives was one of the most impactful parts of the summer for them. And then the executive stuck around and hung out and talked with them for a little bit. So they didn't just sort of come in speak and leave. They engaged the students and gave them the opportunity to ask questions and just kind of hang out. And so I think the more we can lean into real conversations with real people and recognize that, you know, we're, we're all on a path. We're all on a path. And if yours sounds scary, right, if your path feels daunting or terrifying, then having some conversations, real conversations, with folks offline, not looking at their Insta and their Facebook and all of the things that they do for public consumption, but really asking people to share their real experiences, their challenges, or finding forums where that's done, I think can have an impact on your belief and your ability to take those steps forward.

Kim Meninger

Yes, yeah. And I sort of have this on it's not fully formed, this thought that's flowing through my head right now, because I think about the fact that as humans, we have this just natural tendency to form in groups and out groups, right? And so when you talk about being an outsider, naturally, we're talking about feeling outside of whatever the in group is, of the environment that we're in. And so often the in group, it becomes a, you know, sort of a product of very superficial traits that we carry around with us, whether that's our age, our gender, our race, you know, just different aspects that we see ourselves in other people. And it brings us together, because it's more obvious what that connection might look like, but what you're describing. And what I think about is like, we can adjust the criteria for in groups. And when you say, you know, the this, executives who started wanting to get to burgers from fries, right, like and somebody else from a very different background, has had a similar journey. They now become part of an in group that they didn't recognize existed before. So I think about this whole concept of being an outsider. Like, how much of so much it sounds like so much of your worldview has been shaped by that feeling of being an outsider. But how much do you identify with being an outsider today, right? Like, how do you think about your own experience today, and do you generally still feel like an outsider, or do you find yourself feeling more like, sympathetic to outsiders, but not necessarily like, I'm just curious what you?

Naeemah Elias

Yeah, that's a good question. Nobody's asked me that before. Do I? I do? I do still identify as an outsider and, and I recognize that I have a lot more insider privilege because I have insights and knowledge and a lot of experience at this point, right? And so I can help people to navigate as an insider, and I can navigate as an insider, but I've, I have always felt like an outsider. I'll tell you, I was at an alumni event earlier this year, and I so two things happened. One, there was there was a party, and they had asked people to submit pictures of us as undergrads, as students. And one of my classmates was uploading, like, tons of pictures, and she sent a link to everybody. She's like, Hey everybody, like, these are the pictures that I uploaded. And I was like, oh, it's going to be really fun to look at the pictures, but I won't be in any of them, right? And I just assumed, I was like, Oh, I won't be in any of them. And so then I went, and I started going through them, and I was actually in a bunch of the pictures, right? And we hung out, and we were friends, and I was just like, oh, like, they included me. And I had this, like, oh, wow, right? Like, it was a boost. It was a moment of, like, I can't believe that I was included. That was really cool, right? And that's this year, right? Like, that's a couple of months ago. Um, at that same event, there was, like, a, there was a gala, and at the gala, they had a photo booth, and so you could come in and, like, do, like, the funny hats and the signs and different things like that, and do the photo booth. And so I had done photos with like, one of my friends, and I have a classmate who's, who's somewhat famous, right? And he's, like, I geek out a little bit when I'm around him. He's absolutely brilliant, and he's, you know, he's popular and, you know, and that kind of thing. And so we spent some time together over the course of the weekend. And then at some point, I grabbed him, and I was just like, oh, like, you have to make sure that you go take like, funny pictures, you know, in the photo booth. And he was like, oh, yeah, absolutely. And then we, like, walked in that direction together. And then as he was standing there, what went through my head was like, well, he doesn't want to take pictures with me, and I literally allowed it to pull me out of the space, and I faded out of the room and removed myself from, from like it was just the two of us standing in the line, and I, like, just sort of slid out of the room. And then at some point, he kind of looked up and he looked around, and then he walked away. He didn't want to do it alone. He didn't want to do it alone. He actually wanted to take the picture with me, I'm assuming. But the part of me that felt like an outsider was just like, well, he doesn't want to take the picture with me. And I acted on it, and I removed myself from that space, because I was like, Well, I don't belong here with him. Like, you know, he's him, right? And, and it was such a weird thing. And, and I like, I've thought about it a number of times since then, because then you also go through the should have done, should have said, you know, over and over. And I played it over in my head a number of different times. And then at some point, I played it over my head from his perspective. And I'm like, I wonder if he thought that I didn't want to take the picture with him, right? Like, how did that play out in his head when he looked up and I had just disappeared, yeah? But I still, you know, this many years later, this far into my adulthood, this far into my coaching and advising of other people still care. Story, the idea that I don't belong all the time, all the time, right? And, and I don't know that I can, I mean, at this point, you know, we're probably beyond able to make it go away. But what I can be intentional about is my behaviors, right? I can be intentional about my relationships. I can be intentional about my behaviors, and I can recognize that, like, even if I feel like I don't belong, that I can still take up space. I can still make the decision to show up. I can still make the decision to take the action, whatever it is, and not allow myself to not force myself to be dis included, right, right. So, so, like my, my goal, my the action that I have to continue to take is to keep myself in the story, right. I think there was a whole thing some years back about keeping mom in the picture, right? And so there was this, this realization, there are all these family pictures that were all taken by moms, like, years, generations across, you know, all of the different, you know, cultures everywhere, all of these photos taken by moms and lives lived where moms not in the picture. And so that's like the, you know, sort of literal translation of it, right? But I want to be conscious of making sure that I keep myself in the picture, and however I feel about it, I can still take the action of physically keeping myself in the picture.

Kim Meninger

That's so powerful the way that you phrased that or shared that, and I think about just having that extra sensitivity, right? People who haven't had as much experience feeling like an outsider may not be primed for that when they walk into certain spaces, but if you have felt like an outsider, there's always going to be that extra level of vigilance or that extra sensitivity, but what you're describing is the power of intentionality, right to make a different choice than to, you know, go into that self-protective mode, or the, the natural tendency to kind of remove ourselves from, from an uncomfortable situation. And, you know, and I imagine that your experience has been that when you do that more often than not, there's a positive benefit to it, right?

Naeemah Elias

Yes, and that people actually do want you around, and that people do value your experience, they value your knowledge, they value your experience, your expertise. I, I don't know that I've ever been in a situation where I'm like, Oh, I don't belong here, and somebody else has been like, yes, you're been like, yes, you're right. You don't, you know. And, and when I do vocalize it, generally, the feedback is no, Naeemah, we absolutely want you to be here. Absolutely. We would love to have you be a part of this. Like, where is Naeemah we want? We want to make sure we have her voice in the room. And so I get that positive feedback. I get that validation. And one of the things that I have to be intentional about is making sure that, like, I'm incorporating that into my worldview. That I'm not hearing it and ignoring it, but I'm accepting, like, yes, people actually do want me in the room. People do like me, right? And shifting that, I think is really important.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, and this conversation is so personal to me. I wish I had met you 20 years ago because I grew up with a with a parent that moved every couple of years because of his job. And so I was always the new kid, and I never lived anywhere longer than two years. I went to eight different schools throughout my, you know, education, and I never felt like an insider anywhere. Even to this day, there's still that feeling of, are they going to accept me? Like, how much do I want to invest of myself? And these people are in this situation, and just listening to you talk is so inspiring, because it reminds me, like I get to choose, and as grown ups, like we actually have more agency over these relationships. And when you're talking about, you know, people generally liking us and accepting us, and if they don't, that's okay, that's on them, right? Like that doesn't mean that we're doing anything wrong. That doesn't mean that we're not worthy, and the right people will accept us for who we are.

Naeemah Elias

Yeah, and we don't like everybody, and everybody like us, right? And, and you find, you find the match, right? And that's where you that's where you lean in. Kim, I had the same childhood experience. We moved every two years. And so I think the, the distinction for me was the acting meant that I was able to kind of create personas and make people like me, because I was like, this is the person that you will like. I would like to present her to you, you know. And so it was different. And I think that on some level, that sort of it facilitated the idea that like, I'm not the person that you will like. I will give you the person that you will like, right? And so that's the work that I have to do. But, you know. You and I had a very similar experience, right? And, and it has a lasting effect, right? It has a lasting impact.

Kim Meninger

Yeah, you're absolutely right. But I love the idea that the feeling of being an outsider never goes away, but it doesn't have to. It doesn't have to define how we show up in the like we can make we can make different choices next. This has been such an inspirational conversation. Naeemah, I can't thank you enough for, for sharing your story with us and, and speaking to so many people listening, who I'm sure are nodding their heads and feeling very similarly about their own experience. Where can people find you if they want to learn more about you, learn more about your work.

Naeemah Elias

Yeah, absolutely. So my, the place I hang out is LinkedIn. That's where I think I spend most of my time. And so we'll have the my LinkedIn link in the notes. And so Naeemah Elias is, is my name. You can absolutely follow me. You can connect with me. I'm always looking for clients who are interested in transformation work. If you are interested in growing in your career, making a big change in your life and in your career, and need some help kind of thinking through not just how do I update my resume and how do I interview, but how can I be thoughtful about where I want to be and how I want to show up in the world, and getting myself from here to there. That's the work that brings me joy and that I get really passionate about. In addition to that, I've been having some really interesting conversations recently around the concept of healing and growth for myself, and then whether I can stay with my team, if my team is not healing and growing, right? And so I do the work for the individual to help you with your transformation, but I also can come in and do the work for the team and help with transformation, because you're if your team's toxic, you can't heal and then stay with a toxic team. But I'm working with teams and helping to do transformation around leadership, around sort of cultivation of self, around being intentional about how we grow as professionals and how we grow as teams and, and so I can also come in and help your team to grow so that you can stay with your team if that's a place where you want to be.

Kim Meninger

Oh, I love that, that I will definitely make sure that your link is in the show notes. And just thank you for the work you're doing. I really appreciate the way you have taken your story and really become such an inspiration to others. It's just so it's so helpful to all of us who are on our own journeys.

Naeemah Elias

You're welcome. Thank you. I, it brings me joy. It brings me absolute joy.