Episode 340: Yamila Libutti - From The Boardroom To The Ballroom

Yamila Libutti started working at fourteen. She was the eldest girl in a Cuban household in the US, paying rent and helping raise her younger sister — fourteen going on forty, as she puts it. There was no straight path into college and no traditional route up. She began in paper medical records, kept asking why the systems were so painful for elderly patients and for the staff serving them, and that curiosity carried her into IT before most people had a word for it.

Early in her leadership career, someone told her she would not get far because she was too kind. She told them that was exactly why she would.

What she did not account for was what was running underneath all of it.

"I became so good at taking risks and moving things forward in my professional life, that I didn't realize that in my personal life, there were aspects that were atrophying."

Her marriage of nearly thirty years ended. She describes it as a gut punch that took the wind out of her, and it was the first problem of her life she could not solve — because the fix was not hers alone to build.

What she did next she calls her version of Everest. She walked into a ballroom dance lesson: a woman who had spent years downplaying her femininity in male-dominated rooms, now being watched physically rather than for her mind. She got in the car afterwards and told herself she was never going back. A week later she returned and signed up for a competition two months away. Eight dance styles.

For anyone still delivering at work while quietly holding something together at home.

👇 Connect with Yamila Libutti:
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/yamilalibutti/

Explore more:
Website https://www.nickjonsson.com

Episode Transcript

Nick Jonsson: Welcome back to another episode of the Limitless Podcast. Today I'm very excited, because we have with us the co-founder of Breaking Barriers Consulting, Yamila Libutti. Yamila, a warm welcome to you. How are you today?

Yamila Libutti: Thank you! I'm very well, Nick. I'm very excited to be on the podcast, and looking forward to our conversation.

Nick Jonsson: So am I. We spoke a little offline about building success and where that leads us, and I know you talk a lot about legacy in your work. Maybe we can start there. Share a little about what keeps you excited in your current business with Breaking Barriers.

Yamila Libutti: Oh, goodness. After you've had a career for such a long time, one of the things you start to realise is that you get to a point where you're able to give back. I think you're always able to give back, even in the early stages of a career, but you have this opportunity, when you have a platform, to do it at more scale. I think it's almost a responsibility for leaders to find a way to push up and pull up others along the way. We don't realise just how meaningful all those little acts are.

So for me, this legacy side of it, this side about giving back, became incredibly important. My husband and I, and this is a new relationship, and one I'm very excited about as well, started Breaking Barriers Consulting. Both of us have all of this experience in leadership, in life, in building companies and building teams, and in building ourselves and reinventing ourselves. It's something we wanted to be able to give back to others in a way that would be meaningful and practical, and that they would hopefully relate to: finding some part of our journey that relates to them, and being able to apply it in their daily lives.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for sharing that. I think that's what many of us share, especially after a corporate career. You've been in there for quite some time, and it's a tough game.

Yamila Libutti: I have, yes.

Nick Jonsson: And you worked your way up the ladder. Maybe you can elaborate a little on that. When I talk about the corporate ladder, I say I elbowed my way to the top. That was my path.

Yamila Libutti: Oh, gosh. I think that's probably a good way of saying it. For me, it wasn't the traditional path. I started working when I was about 14 years old. I didn't have the luxury of going straight into college. For me it was really about helping my family, giving back to them, paying rent, helping to raise my younger sister, being a role model for my cousins and so forth. I was the eldest of the girls in my family.

So responsibility is something I had at a very young age. I was 14 going on 40, I guess you could say. Being hands-on and being responsible at such a young age helped tremendously with that mindset of "we, not me". Growing up in a Cuban household, and I grew up in the US, but my heritage is Cuban and my parents are Cuban, there was always a sense of community. It was always about we versus me, and I applied that in every sense.

I got into healthcare. I started in medical records, back in the age when everything was paper. There was no real technology. Everything was paper medical records and paper scheduling, all analogue and manual processes. But I was always really inquisitive and curious, and I saw the pain and the struggle, not only of the patients, and these were elderly patients, but of the administration, the staff and the doctors. I kept asking questions and trying to find ways to improve the processes. That's how I got into IT. Had someone asked me when I was younger if that's what I wanted to be when I grew up, I wouldn't even have known what it was. IT wasn't a thing.

Eventually I went back to school, because I've always been a learner in some way, shape or form. When I was already in my 40s, already quite successful, I ended up going back for my Executive MBA. And since then I've continued to find ways to learn as well.

So, not a traditional path. I was often one of the only women, often one of the youngest leaders, often one of the only Hispanics in the boardroom, I guess you could say. These are all things that, honestly, I didn't see as challenges. I saw them as opportunities for me to grow in a different way. It wasn't a traditional path, but I'm quite thankful for it.

Nick Jonsson: And these days you've moved on from the corporate career and are doing what you dreamed of. Was that always the vision, to one day set up your own business?

Yamila Libutti: My father was an entrepreneur and a businessman, so I think I've always had this mindset of wanting to do something that was my own. But I think I always envisioned doing it with a partner. Meeting Chris, who also has that same entrepreneurial mindset, was the catalyst that put us both in a position to do it, because he also had that dream of eventually finding a partner. And when I say a partner, I don't mean a business partner, I mean a partner in life as well, who shared that same ambition to give back in a way that's meaningful. So being able to share this with Chris makes it that much more meaningful, something we can do together.

Nick Jonsson: And if you think about legacy and purpose: you were in the tech industry, doing that transformation you described, from paper records to digital systems, and you made life easier for people through that work. So that must have been meaningful work. In the work you do now, how important is it for you to find that meaning?

Yamila Libutti: It's easy to say that we work for a paycheque. But no matter what I did, and in many cases I wasn't making a lot of money in the early part of my career, it was never just that. Yes, I needed to take care of my family, and yes, you need a paycheque in order to do that. But I think you find meaning in everything that you do. That's the reason why you have values. If you're going into leadership based on character, and with this anchor of values, then no matter what you do, you find a way to bridge the purpose side of it.

For me, it's always been incredibly important that what I'm doing isn't just what's on a job description. How do I find ways to incorporate what I'm able to give back in a meaningful way? Let's say the job description says I'm doing this corporate job. I'm always going to find ways to go into mentorship programmes in order to give back. I'm going to find professional networks where I can learn from others and give back. So rather than staying in a very closed box, I find ways to erase those lines we've created for ourselves, those walls we've created for ourselves, and step outside and colour outside the lines in a way that's going to be meaningful.

Every human being strives to find purpose, and I think that if you can incorporate purpose into everything you do, that makes everything meaningful.

Nick Jonsson: I find it very important as well, and I believe we can have many purposes in our life. Our work is one of them, and helping others through our work is another. We also discussed this: I don't like to use the term work-life balance, though some people do. I prefer life balance, because work is just one part of life. And we discussed before, in the old days we were told not to bring ourselves to work, not to bring our emotions to work, to leave them at the door. Was that also something you experienced?

Yamila Libutti: Oh, goodness, yes. I think it took me decades to realise… Let me take a step back and say that I became really good at compartmentalising things in the early years. I grew up with that same mindset. When I looked at my dad, he was a very strong man, but he struggled with saying "I love you". He struggled with vulnerability. In many cases, he viewed vulnerability as a weakness. And I saw that in a lot of the corporate jobs I was in as well, which were very male-dominated.

I was even told, when I first went into leadership, "You're not going to be very successful, because you're too kind." I remember thinking to myself, and saying to them, "You know what, I think that's why I'm going to be more successful. Because I am kind, and being kind doesn't take away from my ability to make decisions, to be curious, to be innovative. You'll see. It's actually going to make me more successful." And it always proved to be a differentiator for me.

But again, in the early years, I compartmentalised a lot of it. I became so good at taking risks and moving things forward in my professional life that I didn't realise that in my personal life there were aspects that were atrophying, for lack of a better way of saying it. In my personal life I was actually quite conservative, or even anxious to a certain extent. I was much more cautious there, because I felt like that was an area that was always going to be there.

I was in a relationship: prior to meeting my husband, Chris, I was in a previous marriage for nearly 30 years. So that was always the safe space. "Oh, this is always going to be here." And you start to realise that all of those things you're doing in your professional life don't automatically carry over into your personal life. But conversely, what's happening in your personal life and relationships does carry over into your professional life, no matter how much you want to compartmentalise.

There have actually been studies done about how the relationships we have are probably one of the biggest indicators of how successful you're going to be in both aspects of life. I learned that the hard way. But I know that with my teams I carry it very differently now. And in my personal life, I'm trying to take those same levels of risk and growth, and introduce ways of really pushing myself out of my boundaries the same way I would in my professional life. The two are now in a very happy place, where I'm able to bring my whole self.

It's crazy. We're constantly reinventing ourselves. If we're doing things right, we're reinventing ourselves. I think people are afraid of that reinvention, because they're afraid of what it means for the identity they built before. We get stuck in these identities that other people have built for us, and sometimes that we've built for ourselves.

I'm writing a book right now, From the Boardroom to the Ballroom, and it's all about this. It's about reinventing yourself and finding a way of letting these different micro-elements of your identity, these different versions of yourself, actually meet each other and shake hands and say, "Okay, I'm good with you."

Nick Jonsson: Fantastic. I'm looking forward to reading that book when it's out. And I love what you said about what's happening in our personal life affecting our professional life. That's something I share too. For one senior role I was interviewed for, they insisted that I came in to be interviewed by myself, my ex-wife had to be interviewed by herself, and then we had to come in as a couple, so a three-way interview. I thought it was very, very strange at the time, but I can understand now why.

Yamila Libutti: Yes, because the influence of what's happening outside is always going to find a way to seep into your professional life, whether you realise it or not. A lot of people in the C-suite, and a lot of people in senior executive roles, quietly deal with these things. They feel, "Okay, I still have to deliver at work. I still have to lead the teams, I still have to lead the strategy, I still have to affect the bottom line. And no one needs to know that I'm dealing with XYZ in my personal life. That's my problem, that's for me to deal with, and I've got to keep moving forward."

While I do think there's an aspect of resilience in that, I think it's also important to acknowledge the things happening externally and how they're impacting each other. That's going to make you more capable of working through the situations, and a better communicator overall with your teams and your company as well. But yes, this whole idea of reinvention is something I think we all have to become comfortable with.

Nick Jonsson: And when we talk about vulnerability, the question becomes: should we find a few safe spaces, in the workplace and outside, where we can confide, rather than oversharing with everyone what we're going through?

Yamila Libutti: There's a difference between vulnerability, in the sense that you're being authentic, and just venting, what I would call verbal diarrhoea. I know it's an awful phrase, but it's this idea of oversharing and dumping on other people, telling every single person every aspect of your life. That's not vulnerability either. Vulnerability is not about telling everyone every personal detail about your life and what you're going through.

It is about acknowledging that you are going through something, so that you can be authentic with others and say, "Okay, I realise that I need to step up here and there. I've had some challenges, but those are things we're working through."

I do agree that you should have a circle of friends and, I guess you could say, a safe haven. You have your safe spaces in order to be able to share more. And I don't think those have to be very broad spaces and very big groups. I'm a private person, and I think I'll always be a private person. Being vulnerable doesn't change the fact that I'm a private person. It just makes me more capable of acknowledging where there is this crossover, and where I need to personally make some of those adjustments, and not be as afraid of asking for help as I was in the past.

Nick Jonsson: Yeah, that's the key: being able to ask for help, and first having the awareness to know when we need help, and then seeking out the people we trust and can confide in and open up to. That's the big challenge, I think, with many of the men I'm working with. They really struggle with this.

Yamila Libutti: As a woman, I struggled with it as well, and I think that's because of being in an environment where I was downplaying my femininity for so many years, because it was very male-dominated.

Nick Jonsson: Yeah, I can see that. And I know you had some challenges in your life too. You said you had a previous marriage lasting almost 30 years, and that its ending came as a surprise to you. Could you take us back to that time? How did it affect you, your work and your life overall?

Yamila Libutti: Oh, goodness. I think that had so much more impact than I even realised. Initially I was still going forward, like the example I gave of someone who still has to make everything work. You have a team you're still accountable to. You have a company you're still accountable to. You have commitments and deliverables.

It was like a gut punch. I think it took the wind completely out of me. I was coming home and really working on dealing with the relationship. As much as I wanted to give 100% to the corporate side of work, my mind was very often on how I was going to find ways to heal and work through what was happening at home.

Especially when you're someone who has been solving problems all your life: this wasn't a problem to solve. I couldn't find a solution. I couldn't just put an algorithm in. I couldn't just fix it. There was someone on the other side who needed to want to fix it as well, so you weren't in full control of what the remediation was. So that was a really difficult time.

For me, there were two paths. One, I could let this be the obstacle I didn't get around. Or I could find a way to bring in some of those elements of who I was on the professional side: how do I find the opportunity in the challenge?

Once our marriage ended, for a long time I said, "I don't think I'm ever going to get into a relationship again, but I'm going to use this time to work on me." That was when I really realised: what's happening in my professional life and what's happening in my personal life do have a bearing on one another. I need to find a way to incorporate some of those same things into my personal life. How do I start to take some of those risks? How do I grow? How do I get outside of that comfort zone?

And I walked into a ballroom. That was my climbing of Everest. Some people have a fear of heights, or they want to climb Everest. For me, walking into a ballroom was a pretty scary thing. I'm a bit of a germaphobe, and, like I said, I had downplayed my femininity for a very long time. The idea of being in this room, being watched by other people, and it's not about your intellect, people are looking at you physically, and I didn't like to be looked at physically… it scared me. It scared me very badly.

After that one lesson, I got in the car and I said, "I'm never coming back here again." But it was a long drive home, and on that drive I kept saying to myself, "I don't understand. In my professional arena, I've always run towards the challenge. Why does this scare me so much? Why am I running away from this?"

And in my relationship, this may be too much information, but we had lost that intimacy long, long ago. Those are things where, when you're with your partner, you think to yourself, "This is okay. As long as we're together, and we have a friendship, maybe the other aspects just fade. Maybe this is normal, maybe this is okay." But we had lost that a long, long time ago. And now you're in these environments where you have to be, for lack of a better word, intimate again with other people. That was a challenge.

So a week later, I went back. And I didn't just go back. I don't do things small; if I do things, I do things. I saw that there was a sign for a competition, a ballroom dance competition that was in two months, and I said, "Okay, you know what, I'm going to sign up." Everyone thought I was crazy. But I said to myself, "No, because this is the way my mind works. Now I have a goal, and I'm going to be accountable for meeting this goal and commitment." It's not about being perfect, and it's not about being the best person on the dance floor. It's that I have this baseline, which is at the floor right now, and I'm going to do better than my own baseline, compete against myself, so to speak. How am I improving?

I had to learn eight different dance styles. I had to really apply all of these past lessons in leadership, but I also had to let go of a lot of lessons I had learned, because now you have leaders and followers. I learned that as a leader, I also need to follow, and following is not a passive activity. Both are active. Both require active participation. So it was learning to be a leader and a follower. It was learning to be comfortable with myself physically as well, and with embarrassing myself. You build this career, and this kind of facade, and it's like, "No, it's okay. You're going to fall, you're going to fail. If you don't fail, you don't learn and you don't grow."

It was probably the best intensive period of time, and it forced me to really come to terms with the professional and the personal life in a way where it was like, "Hi! We're meeting each other, we're shaking hands." I wasn't abandoning who I was. On the contrary, I was developing this aspect of myself that was always there, but had never had an opportunity to develop, never had an opportunity to take centre stage. It made me a better leader, but it also made me stronger on my personal journey.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for sharing that inspiring journey. I think many of the listeners, me included, would be quite shy or scared to get on that ballroom dance floor, so good for you. And you've had other adversities as well. I saw your post about losing your father at a young age; he wasn't even 60. That is also something most of us go through, and I believe most people would agree it affects both our personal life and our work life. Can you elaborate a little on that?

Yamila Libutti: I had a very complicated relationship with my father. I loved my father very, very much, but he made certain decisions early on in life. There's a reason why I was working at the age of 14: my father was not in our life for a good period of time. He was with me when I was a little girl, but I was probably around 11 years old when my father was incarcerated. It's not a story I share very often, and definitely not publicly. My brother, my sister and I all experienced that in very different ways, and it impacted us in very different ways.

Eventually, I learned to pick what I wanted to carry with me. There were things my father was very good at. My father was very spontaneous. He was the kind of person who would come home after a long day of work and, at random, just say, "Okay, everybody get in the car," and then a few hours later we'd end up in Disney World or somewhere else. He was also very innovative and imaginative. He was an engineer at heart. Those are things I carry with me: that same ingenuity, that same entrepreneurial spirit, that same curiosity he had. I'm thankful for them.

But I've also learned that you don't have to carry the other things. He was someone who struggled with saying "I love you". He was someone who struggled with vulnerability. Those are things I don't want to carry with me, and that I want to make sure I'm changing along the way.

I was literally sitting in a boardroom when I got the phone call. This was one of those sessions that could make or break your career. We were going through a very, very big company reorganisation, sitting there with the heads of the company. My phone kept buzzing, and it was, "Don't touch the phone, you're sitting in this boardroom, don't touch the phone." And it just kept buzzing and buzzing, to the point where I couldn't ignore it. I picked it up, and it was my sister telling me that my father was in the hospital and on life support.

In that moment, I just remember thinking, "Whatever's happening in this room is not more important than what's happening in that hospital room, and the support my siblings need right now."

I remember the long drive. I had driven to Dallas for this meeting, and I lived in Austin, so it was a four-hour drive back, so that I could jump on a plane and get to Florida to be with my family. I spent the next several weeks working from a hospital room, but trying to spend as much time as I could, not only with my dad, but with my siblings.

In the end, he passed away. He was 59, so he didn't get to his 60th birthday. It was around Father's Day, which is why that memory hit me yesterday, really. It was technically yesterday, nearly 15 years ago, that my father passed away. So it was that memory, and I wanted to put out something about legacy, and about remembering and carrying the things that matter, but choosing to make a change. You don't have to inherit the good and the bad. You don't have to follow the same footsteps. You have choices as well. I think that was a really important lesson for me.

After my father's death, in any job I went to, I looked at my career so differently. I realised that while I had let things happen organically for most of my career, there were things I wasn't willing to compromise on anymore. There were values I wanted to make sure my decisions were always anchored in. I wasn't willing to compromise time with family anymore.

I've always been a workaholic. Work was my identity. We talked about identity: my professional life, I've been working since I was 14, and that became my identity. But that was self-imposed, and it's not who I was. That was only one aspect of who I am. There are so many micro-elements that make up our identity, that make up who we are. We choose to focus on one singular aspect and make that our world, when what we need to be doing is taking a step back and saying, "No, wait a second, there's no one thing that defines me. There are all these things, and I want to keep developing all these aspects that I haven't even realised about myself, or haven't had a chance to realise, because I've been so focused on this self-imposed identity, or this identity that others have imposed on me."

Like I said, I like to erase the lines on the box, and that's been my focus ever since my dad passed away. And then after the divorce as well; that just reinforced it even more.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for sharing that. If your father could see you today, the leader, the author, the mentor, the woman who has helped so many people, what do you think he would be most proud of?

Yamila Libutti: Oh, gosh. He said this even before he passed away: if there was someone who could make things happen, it was me. He was always very proud of the fact that I was a woman who could make decisions and have the tough conversations, but really envision something and make it happen. So the follow-through, the discipline and the vision is what he would be most proud of.

Whether he would be most proud of this or not, the thing I'm most proud of, and that I hope he sees too, is the fact that I was always able to really anchor myself in values, and to find ways of constantly growing and evolving and not staying stagnant.

I think if you are working with a leader and that leader says, "I've already learned all I need to learn," or "I already know all I need to know," that's probably the person you don't want to work with. Because we're always growing, we're always learning, we're always evolving, and the moment we stop is the moment we stop being able to give to others as well.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for sharing that. Yamila, I know the book you wrote together with your husband, Performance Unleashed, talks a lot about sustainability and success being linked, and I'm aware the book is available on Amazon if any listener wants to pick up a copy. What can someone expect from your book? How can it help them?

Yamila Libutti: Oh, gosh. This was a labour of love, for sure. Interestingly enough, I did find love again. That's a wonderful thing to share: a partner I can share a lot of life with. But we were very different. We came from very different backgrounds and very different paths. And we found that, as different as we were, we were both anchored in similar values, and that really made a big difference.

With the book itself: he was an entrepreneur who had built many successful businesses and sold them, and who had been in special operations in the military, so he really understood life-and-death situations. I had gone through the corporate world and had driven large-scale transformations. Despite all the differences in our paths, we found that there was a framework, which we named the 7R² framework, that both of our paths led to.

It's a framework of leadership and mindset: if we look at these seven aspects, it will help us sustain excellence in a way that avoids that cycle of peaks and plateaus. I think it's really easy to have a win. It's really easy for teams to find success one time, or as an event. But what are the things you are doing consistently, as a lifestyle, almost? I liken it to the difference between a fad diet and a lifestyle. Many teams and many companies go through these fads. They go through these small wins and events, and then they get complacent and go right back to where they were before.

The 7R² framework is about how you really build this lifestyle within your organisation as well, and think differently. It goes back to reinvention, it goes back to resilience, it goes back to research, it goes back to all of these components, which are not mutually exclusive; they also compound with one another. It's about understanding those seven principles and applying them to every aspect of your team.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for sharing that. It sounds like I need to pick up a copy myself. And I know you're also writing your next book. Can you give us a brief teaser for that one before we let you go today, Yamila?

Yamila Libutti: Yes. I talked a little about reinvention and the ballroom. The next one will be coming out in a few months, and it's called From the Boardroom to the Ballroom. This one is more personal stories about my career trajectory, leading into some of these hard times in my life, and how I found my way through them, and the lessons in leadership and grounded optimism that I learned along the way. You'll learn a little about what happened in the ballroom as well, but it's not a book about learning ballroom dance. It's really a book about those different versions of yourself finding a way to be in the same room.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for that. Something to look forward to. And just a final closing question for today. You've spent a life helping people see what's possible. If someone is listening today and they feel stuck, or overwhelmed, or limited by their circumstances, what's one lesson from your journey that you'd want to share with them?

Yamila Libutti: Oh, gosh. Don't quit. There will always be obstacles. That's part of what life is. It's how we respond to those obstacles, and finding the opportunities within every obstacle we face, that I think is one of the most valuable lessons.

And as you're going through this, understand that we are not one version of ourselves. There are many versions of ourselves, and that's okay. Don't be afraid of that. Learn to lean into it. Learn about yourself, develop all these aspects of yourself, because that's just going to make you that much more amazing than you already are today. Change is inevitable, so why not be a part of that change as well, and make that part of who you are?

Nick Jonsson: Fantastic. Thank you so much for that uplifting and powerful ending to the podcast. Thank you, Yamila, for being with us today, and thanks to all the listeners as well. Bye for now, and thank you.

Yamila Libutti: Bye, thank you, Nick.

Episode Transcript

Nick Jonsson: Welcome back to another episode of Limitless. Today I'm very excited, because we have a guest from Dubai. We have Seline with us. She's an author, a blogger, a podcaster, and the founder of The Dream Catcher. We're going to dig into all of that today, and also into the underlying motivation for the work she does. Seline, a warm welcome to you. How are you?

Seline Shenoy: I'm doing terrific. Nick, thank you so much for having me on the show. I'm so looking forward to having a conversation with you today, and getting into some really interesting topics that I hope will be helpful for your listeners.

Nick Jonsson: That sounds fantastic. I know we're going to talk about belonging, authenticity, self-worth, life transitions, and also the cost of sacrificing yourself to be accepted. Are those topics that resonate with you, Seline?

Seline Shenoy: Absolutely, that's all in my wheelhouse.

Nick Jonsson: Okay, so let's start there. Let's go back in time. When I read your bio and your profile, I understood that you went through some challenges in your 20s. Unless it's too painful, would you be able to elaborate a little? What happened then?

Seline Shenoy: I think most people can relate to this, because our 20s tend to be the years when most of us have our biggest challenges. We're still trying to figure things out, we're young adults, and we don't quite know the ropes yet.

Just to give some context: I just turned 43, so this was a while ago. Looking back, I feel like the 20-year-old me was really just trying to work with the knowledge she had at the time. We do the best we can with the knowledge we have.

At that time, I had graduated from college. I have a degree in marketing and a degree in global communications, and I'm proud of that. But I also had a very tumultuous relationship for seven years, which is most of my 20s. That was a really big source of learning for me. More than anything else, Nick, I realised it wasn't really the emotional turmoil I went through during those seven years. It was the fact that somewhere along the way, I lost myself.

I began building my identity around somebody else's world, and when the relationship ended, I couldn't recognise myself anymore. I was looking at myself in the mirror saying, "Who am I?" Because over those years, I was sacrificing different aspects of myself. I was giving up my hobbies. I wasn't focused on my career. All because I was so bedazzled by the world I was immersed in. The person I was with came from wealth and had high status, so I was in that kind of world.

And I was conditioned to believe that this is something I should be aiming for. In my culture, women are sort of taught to find a partner who will elevate them. Sure, they can do well in their career and pursue their own interests, but don't forget to also find that coveted partner, someone who can take your life to the next level.

So I was doing everything based on my cultural conditioning, and also on the wounds I had growing up. I had very deep wounds around belonging and self-worth, and those originate from the days when I wasn't feeling good about myself. I was overweight growing up, and I was bullied as a kid, so I still had wounds from those years. My need to be accepted and to be loved was even more pronounced, and I was willing to give up aspects of myself so that I could get that.

I had to forgive the 20-year-old me, and realise that she was just trying to make up for all of that. She was just trying to feel loved at the end of the day. I'm sure so many people can identify with that: that we would do anything just to feel that someone finds us special, that someone can see the beauty and the worth in us.

But ultimately, it's only you who can do that. If you don't feel comfortable in your own skin, and you don't recognise your strengths and your skills and express them in the world, you're always going to feel hollow, and you're going to be vulnerable to other people's actions and their views of you.

So yes, it was a very difficult time. I like to call it the dark ages of my life. But so much came from it. What came was wisdom, and the impetus to build my platform, The Dream Catcher, and to find a place where I could express myself.

I thought that maybe everything I was going through was something other people out there in the world could relate to. And I was right, because I started writing my blog in 2014, and I started hearing from people all over the world saying, "Yes, we resonate with everything you're saying." I think the reason the platform did so well is that I was speaking from a place of authenticity, and I was so raw. I was just coming off the heels of that difficult relationship.

Finding myself really came from spending that time reflecting, studying different books, the teachings of philosophers and authors I admired, and then reflecting on how that related to my own life. So that's pretty much how I would summarise that chapter of my life.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you for sharing that, Seline. I believe most of us who have lived, and I'm 51 years of age myself, and many of our listeners are 40, 50, 60, that kind of age bracket, would also have gone through some broken relationships and the emotional pain that comes with them. As you reflect back on your breakup, can you remember what part of yourself disappeared first?

Seline Shenoy: I would say my ambition. I had certain career goals. I wanted to pursue a certain path in the United States, and I abandoned that and moved back to Dubai to be with the person I was dating. That was a big step, because I had been established over there. My visa, everything was taken care of. As a non-American, getting a visa and work sponsorship there is really hard. So I left all of that and returned to Dubai.

I would say I gave up on the career path, the trajectory I saw for myself. I'd worked really hard, I got my bachelor's degree, I got my master's, and I was all set. I knew what I wanted to do, I knew where I was going to take my life. But I was so attached. I had this whole codependency pattern going on. I wasn't thinking clearly; my whole strategic mind was clouded. So I followed what I felt was the right thing to do, and I relocated.

So I abandoned my career dreams, and then I was kind of stuck in all kinds of weird internships and jobs in Dubai that did not fulfil me and did not pay well. Fortunately, my family are doing well, so it wasn't that I couldn't pay the bills. But personally, I felt unfulfilled as a professional, because I am ambitious. There are things I wanted to do and achieve, and that all took a backseat.

Nick Jonsson: Yeah, so you sacrificed your own path and your career, and made a big move, while you had everything already set up and going for you. It was really a setback. So looking back at that time, was it hardest to lose the relationship, or to realise that you had lost so much of yourself, and the things you had set up, and the path you were on?

Seline Shenoy: I also think I lost my authenticity. The things that made Seline kind of dissipated, because it was a very different world I was in, definitely driven by more superficial ideals. It was an affluent community, and everyone was in their 20s, so it was all about socialising, connecting and partying. I don't want to judge them. It's fine to live that way, it works for some people, but it just wasn't my world.

Anyone who has tried to fit into a social group or a community that doesn't quite align with their values and who they are can relate to that. I tried to change myself. I tried to hide the parts of me that I felt wouldn't be seen as acceptable or cool. I didn't mention my love for books. I didn't mention the latest study I'd read about human behaviour. I just left my brain at home and attended all these events and parties.

It was fun in the beginning, I have to admit, but slowly I realised, gosh, this is not who I am. It started to take a toll on me, because it didn't feel authentic, and I didn't feel like I was in integrity with the truth of who I am.

Nick Jonsson: And from there you catapulted yourself out, and eventually found your path and your way. Thinking back to that time, who were the people by your side? You said your family could support you, but were there other people you leaned on? What support tools did you have to move forward at that difficult juncture?

Seline Shenoy: I had a couple of good friends who chimed in at certain times. Funnily enough, some of his friends were warning me. They were like, "Hey, are you sure this is what you want?" Those were the ones who cared about me; there were others who did not want me there, and they made that very clear.

But I was proactive in getting the help I needed. I was still reading books, I was still watching YouTube videos. At that time we didn't have podcasts; this was in the 2000s. But I was reaching out for information. I did get a relationship coach, who eventually opened my eyes. She said, "No, you've got to get out of this, this is toxic."

So I was definitely aware that I was not in a good situation. I just needed someone to help me move past it, because it was hard. As I said, there was a very strong attachment, not just to him, but to that world, and to the identity I had built to fit into that world. Remember, this was seven years, a long time, a major chunk of my life. To just throw it all away and start again felt scary. I felt like I was going to jump into a dark void, and that seemed scary to me. So I needed somebody to hold my hand and say, "It's okay, you can do this."

Nick Jonsson: And what role did the relationship coach play in that? You said that person was supporting you and helping you break free. Can you share a little more? I think that could offer some hope and some ideas for listeners who might be in a toxic relationship but don't know how to move on.

Seline Shenoy: I think it's really essential to have somebody support you if you're in a relationship you can't break out of. It's very, very hard. You don't have that objectivity, and you might be intensely attached to that person. You might have an anxious attachment style, which is what I had.

A relationship coach can see it from a rational perspective. Initially she said, "Okay, let's try to rescue this." She gave me certain tasks to do, like how I could change my behaviour towards him, and change my attitude towards his friends and his world. I tried that. It did not go as planned. And then she said, "We've tried everything. I don't see this working. It's not healthy for you in the long run. I think you need to end it."

So I did it. It was the hardest thing. It was so hard for me. But she gave me the assurance that I was going to be okay. Yes, it was going to hurt. It was going to hurt like hell, and it did. It took me a while to heal. I actually took two years off. I didn't date anybody for two years, and I used that time to date myself, to rediscover myself, and the me that I had abandoned seven years earlier.

So she was instrumental in helping me move forward. It was tough, but once you get to the other side, you feel relief, you feel liberated, and you think, "Thank God I did that." I released myself from that bondage that trapped me and prevented me from moving forward, and that contaminated my energy and my soul.

I'm not going to sugarcoat it. It's not an easy process. But you will be really, really happy and thankful once you walk through that dark cloud.

Nick Jonsson: Kudos to you, Seline, first of all for admitting this to yourself and reaching out and getting that help, because so many people are reluctant to take that step out of fear of vulnerability, fear of being judged and so on, but you really dove straight into it. And then you decided to take two years to focus on yourself. With that intention, that makes a difference, and I would imagine it's a big part of who you are today. So many people, especially coming out of a long relationship, find it too hard to be by themselves, and they end up in another relationship, and many times that relationship can be just as bad as the last one, or even worse. Can you share more about that decision to take those two years for yourself?

Seline Shenoy: I learned something very interesting from Dr Phil McGraw. Have you heard of him? He's written some fabulous books. He's an American self-help figure who was popularised by Oprah Winfrey's show. I love his books because he's so practical. He doesn't have much fluff in the way he presents things.

He described this very interesting exercise you should do after a relationship. It's called a relationship autopsy. You know how, after somebody dies, a coroner does an autopsy to find out what happened, what actually led to the death? Similarly, when a relationship dies, you want to look at it and dissect it and ask, "What was it that went wrong? What led to its death, to its end?"

That's what I did. And what I focused on was where I went wrong. Most people will blame it on the other person. They'll say, "Oh, he was a jerk," or "She was too demanding," or whatever. But even if 90% of it was because of their bad behaviour, 10% was because of you. So I looked at how I contributed to the relationship's demise. That's where the wisdom comes in. Without that wisdom, you cannot create a healthy dynamic in your next relationship. And not just a romantic relationship, but with anybody.

You have to look deep down inside and ask, "What caused me to behave this way?" I won't say I was an angel in that relationship. I was reactive at times, and I could have been better in so many ways. So I asked myself, "What part of me can I improve? What do I need to look at? What are the parts of me that felt abandoned when I wasn't being loved the way I wanted to be?" These are deep, hard questions to ask, Nick.

But it's essential. It's absolutely essential, if you want to feel liberated, if you want to feel free in the true sense of the word. You have to do that inner excavation. You must. Because that's where the wisdom comes in, and that's when you can actually move forward in a healthy way, and reach a place of wholeness and authenticity. So yes, those two years were pivotal. Even though I had opportunities, I just didn't take them.

Nick Jonsson: That's great to hear, Seline. In my own recovery, when I had adversity in my life, going through the loss of a job and a divorce and so on, I turned to alcohol as a way to medicate myself through it, and that landed me in a 12-step programme. Interestingly enough, what I learned there was all about looking at my part. Just like you shared about looking at your part: what can I learn from this, how can I move forward, and how do I clean up my side of the street so I'm ready to move forward. It sounds like you really did that, that intentional cleanup of yourself, and didn't hold resentment or anger towards the other person, but asked what we can learn and grow from this and how we can move forward.

Seline Shenoy: I have to admit that there was resentment and anger, so I had to work on forgiveness. Not just for him, but for myself, and for the people around him who I felt did not have my best interests at heart. Being in that world is quite treacherous. It's a jungle when you enter it, when you're playing the whole status game. In that kind of crowd, there's a lot of competition.

Anyone who's been in that kind of place, even in the corporate world, where you're trying to climb up the ladder, is going to face people who are an impediment, who will put you down and make you feel inferior. So it was also about forgiving the people who did that to me when I was in that situation. I was vulnerable, I didn't know how things worked.

A book that really helped me was Robert Greene's The 48 Laws of Power. I knew nothing about such things. I was very naive. Knowing how the power game works can also inform how you deal with such places. I know I'm taking this discussion in another direction, but that was part of the curriculum I had to go through: understanding interpersonal dynamics and how they affected me when I was in that world, because I was clueless. I didn't know what I was doing. I didn't have the tools and the skills to fit into that world.

Nick Jonsson: But at this time you found your way forward, and you also decided to be there for others. These days you work on personal development, self-esteem, productivity and culture, and The Dream Catcher is helping thousands of readers and listeners around the world. So when did that idea come up? Was it during this time?

Seline Shenoy: I've always been interested in psychology and human behaviour. In fact, in college I would be sitting in Barnes & Noble reading books on a Saturday night while other people were partying, as they do in college. So it's a passion I've always had.

Coupled with everything I went through, the experience of the past 10 years, the relationship and the pain from it, the career fog, and even familial problems, I thought, "Okay, I've got to find an outlet for this. I've got to express myself in a way that would help others."

So I started the blog back in 2014. Blogging was still in the early stages, so I had that first-mover advantage. But it was never about becoming popular or reaching thousands of readers. For me it was just, "I need to get this out there." It was part of me getting in touch with who I really am deep down inside, because I had not given myself permission for this part of me to come out: the part that wants to help others, the part that wants to construct these articles based on what I've learned and what I've gone through.

So this creative outlet was really part of my healing process, but it was also me saying, "Hey, I want to give back to others." I had been so self-focused. I was thinking about how I could make it, how I could feel good about myself. So I said, "Okay, let me take the focus off me and put it onto others."

I also started coaching in my late 20s. I was a life coach for six years, and that got me in touch with the empathetic side of me, and that informed my writing. Then, in 2018, I started the podcast. That's when I really feel the part of me that enjoys speaking with people, and curating knowledge and information, started blooming, because I am so stimulated by intellectual conversations. I feel so blessed that I now get to speak to all these smart, interesting people. I'm so glad I went on that journey, and I'm excited about how far it can go.

Nick Jonsson: That's wonderful. Can you tell the listeners a little more about The Dream Catcher? What can they find there if they look you up? Is it a blog? Do you also do coaching through it, or what services are there?

Seline Shenoy: Right now it's just a content platform. I don't do any coaching anymore. There's The Dream Catcher blog, where you'll find articles; I update the blog every week, and I send out a newsletter every week. I'm active on Instagram too, and I post some really interesting things there. Don't worry, I'm not posting selfies. My Instagram account is about serving.

And on The Dream Catcher Podcast, I feature best-selling authors, spiritual leaders and academic professionals. These conversations do a deep dive into so many aspects of personal development, philosophy and spirituality. So if those are topics you're interested in, you'll find these conversations compelling.

Nick Jonsson: I also came across The Nomadic Soul, and belonging differently. Can you elaborate on what that is?

Seline Shenoy: The Nomadic Soul is a book I wrote about two primary needs that I feel we have: a need for connection and a need for expansion. I feel these are two sides of the same coin. The book is really about getting in touch with those two aspects of ourselves and finding ways to meet those needs. I created a framework that people can follow in order to quench that thirst for exploration and that need for connection.

That book was really birthed from my own journey, because I consider myself a seeker. As you can tell, a sense of belonging was something I've always been looking for. But at the same time, I'm fiercely independent, and there's a part of me that is super curious about the world. I feel that when we honour these two aspects of our being, we can reach a place of wholeness and a place of wisdom.

I use a lot of case studies to illustrate how this can be done. I've chosen six historical figures and illustrated how they've been able to demonstrate that in their own lives, because I feel stories can be really effective in communicating and accentuating how we can actually live those principles. The book has done really well, and there's an audiobook version too, so if people don't want to read, they can just listen to it.

Nick Jonsson: Sounds really meaningful, Seline. And what lies next for you?

Seline Shenoy: What lies next for me? I just finished writing my next book, and I'm in the process of finding a publisher. I don't know how long that's going to take, but probably one to two years before it comes out into the world, if all goes well. And just building the platform, getting more interesting guests.

Perhaps doing some speaking in the future. I'm quite busy with my own business, which is also something I do on the side. I'm a director of a software distribution company, so that keeps me busy too.

But eventually, yes, I definitely want to get out there and do something more audience-facing, because there's nothing like getting that instant feedback from others. If you're behind a laptop, just typing and creating content, you don't really get that feedback and interaction from people live. You do a lot of events, so you know how fulfilling and enjoyable that can be. I definitely want to experience that in the near future.

Nick Jonsson: Sounds very exciting, Seline. I might see you on the speaking circuit, and hopefully I'll see you next time I'm in Dubai as well.

Seline Shenoy: Yes, of course, I hope so.

Nick Jonsson: Well, thank you so much, Seline, for coming on the Limitless show today. I just want to ask you if there's anything I forgot to ask, or any last message you want to share with the listeners before we let you go.

Seline Shenoy: If you are facing rock bottom, I would say: don't give up hope. Keep moving forward, take the next step, and get the help you need. Don't feel like you're alone on this journey. There are so many people out there who are willing to lend a hand. Just speak up. Don't isolate yourself. And be willing to educate yourself about what you're going through as well. There are so many resources out there. Know that you're not alone. You can get out of whatever situation you're in. Believe in yourself. All the answers are within you.

Nick Jonsson: Wonderful. A beautiful landing. Thank you so much, Seline, and thanks to all the listeners as well.

Seline Shenoy: Nick, thank you for having me on the show, and I hope your audience gains something from this conversation.

Nick Jonsson: Thank you, and bye for now.