Interview With Linet Sanchez
This December, Linet Sanchez, a fellow Career Club DK board member, navigates us through ‘Reflecting on Achievements and Setting the Stage for Future Success’ while setting the compass on anchors such as acceptance, connection, priorities, and success. Linet has an amazing soul, and I was immersed in her words during our dialogue. Lean back and enjoy this true moment of sharing.
How would you describe who you are professionally and what you do to your seven-year-old self?
I think I would say that I am passionate about helping people create relationships: meaningful, lasting and loving ones (especially women and couples that are joining their lives together as a family). This is so that kids like you (I’d say to her) grow up in a secure environment where you feel welcome, appreciated, and loved for who you are.
From the surface and by only seeing the highlights reels, it is easy to point out other people's privileges and think they are so much happier than we are. However, the truth is that we don't know their full story, their struggles and pain. How can we be generous to ourselves and allow acceptance either for what we have or for whatever others seem to have?
The first thing that comes to mind is the feeling of gratitude for what I have and for my current situation, with the positives and the negatives, because there is always something positive to draw from the negative and a way to learn from it. So I feel grateful for having the opportunity to learn. Acceptance has to do with recognizing that whatever I am today is the result of the choices I have made and that I'm creating my future now, step by step. As a very goal-oriented and structured person, I find myself quite often in my masculine energy - very clear of where I want to be at a certain time in my life.
Looking back four years, I was cleaning toilets in a software company, me -a computer science engineer! That is pretty ironic, if you ask me. So now having quit my full-time job last year to pursue my dreams, trusting myself, taking all the risks I could possibly have taken with a two-year-old kid and living in a foreign country, I think I've come pretty far and I have to be proud of myself. The other thing is letting go of comparisons, of scrolling on social media to weigh myself against a public and unrealistic image of someone. If you focus only on their success, then you are looking at them from below and you're making yourself small. What I like to do instead is to look at them as inspiring figures, and draw on that inspiration to keep myself motivated and committed to my dreams and the life I want to create.
In a world that is so stimulating and abundant, we reach some goal or buy a new gadget but then we shortly fall back to our baseline happiness and the excitement is short-lived. How could we form a deeper connection with our surroundings?
We can only be as connected with others as we are connected with ourselves. Many of us are quite disconnected from ourselves because we are too focused on achieving things, seeking approval, validation and titles that we don't even dare to question, and so we lose ourselves in the hamster wheel of society. As I became aware of that phenomenon through my own self-growth journey and the work I do with women, I created a model for belonging and connection, inspired by Dr. Brené Brown.
The feeling of belonging is a visceral need of a human being. It starts with creating a home within where we feel that we are fully accepted by ourselves for who we are. That includes being completely attuned with our emotions, radically accepting all our parts - the funny, the insecure, highs and the lows, and especially the parts that we tend to exclude and ostracize because we believe that they won't be accepted by society.
The next step is being aware of what I'm feeling right now in my body, what my emotions, needs, and desires are. Self-awareness is the first step of feeling connected with ourselves. Only then can we be attuned with others about their needs, emotions and inner-experiences because we can recognize them in ourselves first. When we come from that space of being completely accepted from the inside out, then we can be vulnerable. There´s no true connection without vulnerability. That allows us to create a safe space where whatever relationship we happen to be in can flourish.
Presence is another important element. Whenever you are in proximity of somebody, be an active, curious listener who shows genuine interest for the other person. All that allows for trust building, empathy and emotional intimacy, from which we can feel safe to set and sustain the boundaries that honor our worth and the relationship we are building.
However, feeling a deep connection is not enough. To sustain it, there need to be reciprocity, intentionality, consistency and commitment. Only then can we get to create memories together and find out how our values align for a meaningful and lasting relationship where we feel at home and at ease.
Someone once said that if you cannot find joy in a cup of coffee then you won't find it in a yacht. How could we eventually set priorities so that we are able to find joy in drinking a cup of coffee while sitting in a yacht?
At the end of the day, priorities lead the choices we make every day. So when we have our priorities clear, the choices we make every day come almost on autopilot: we know what we are here for and what we need to achieve in the day. Having clear priorities makes it easier to design a day that is fulfilling and in alignment with the person you are or, if you are on a growth journey, with the person that you want to become. For example, I have a goal today to finish a piece of writing. If I set that to be my priority, it allows me to accommodate the other activities around this particular goal. I can compartmentalize my day according to what I want to achieve, I can set my intentions in the morning and say ‘What do I want to do today?’, ‘What is the outcome?’, ‘How do I want to feel today?’ A priority would also include feeling enthusiastic, feeling the momentum, feeling calm, activated in a positive way, feeling effervescent. I choose that intention in the morning and find activities that create those types of uplifting emotions.
What part of your day do you not look forward to and what simple choice could make the experience so much better?
Your day can be full of either meaningful activities, the ones that will get you one step closer to where you want to be, or low-value activities - like doing the dishes - that if I could, I would outsource. I pair those activities with something that I enjoy doing, and then all of a sudden it becomes an activity that I look forward to.
For example, I love learning as much as I love coaching. I am a lifelong student. It's really something that is precious to me. I have a lot of audiobooks, podcasts and trainings that I cherish. What I do is put on my headphones, and I turn on whatever is on my priority list to learn right now. This weekend I have a coaching group about self-love. I will turn on some of my trainings or audiobooks that talk about that topic, and then I get inspired, and learn more about it, so when I go to deliver my message, I draw it from collective wisdom, not only from my experience, and so that whole activity of doing the dishes becomes so gratifying, that I don't even see it as a chore anymore, because I'm doing something that I really love, and that has great meaning for me.
No matter how many times we throw a ball, dogs get excited as if it were the first time. What if we approach every situation like if it was our first, or even the last time? Can this sort of romanticizing of life eventually compromise the goals we set for ourselves?
If we all had the capacity to see everything with the enthusiasm of as if it was the first time, I think it would be pretty cool, actually. I always say that you can dream all you want – I am a dreamer myself - as long as you have your feet on the ground. If you can bring that attitude to whatever steps you take in life while tracking progress, then it's going to be a great success. However, you need to know where you are going, where you are coming from and what you've been through. You need to have crystal clear clarity on that, because that will guide you to know who you are today and what actions you need to take...and those actions will create your future. If you don't know where you are heading, you're going to be jumping on the wrong train every time, and if you're going to be seeing that as something new and exciting, it is the recipe for insanity in my opinion. I'm not a leaf in the air that can be moved wherever the wind blows, even if it can seem novel and exciting at first. It is fine if you love the excitement of doing new things but that attitude alone will not take you anywhere if you don't take the proper actions that will make you move towards where you want to be.
Our society operates on a merit-based system where we are valued based on our achievements, results, status or external validation, and we often compare ourselves to others at the expense of our own personal achievements. Do you think it is possible to detach yourself from that merit-based system and if so, how could one possibly start the journey of being the main character of their own story?
It's a very hard decision because when you find yourself standing out in a way that even your closest friends ask you: ‘Are you crazy? Are you sure this is the right thing to do?’
This is when you start doubting yourself. In that moment it is up to us to decide whether we want to live our life in the way we want or if we want to live the life that others dictate for us. It's not going to be comfortable to let others control you. If we are going for comfort, then you better stick to the norm and rely on external validation. If you are really willing to take the rough and bumpy road of living your life on your own terms, you will have to sometimes make decisions that will need a lot of patience before we see any results. In the end, you can validate yourself and say: ‘This was worth it.’ I am in that space right now. I would like to share that when I quit my job last year, it was a decision that came from my heart and I didn't have any plan B or a real idea of how I was going to achieve what I wanted.
What I am pursuing today is creating my own private practice as a relationship coach and there is nothing else that I would rather do. That was a hard decision to make but I have always been self-reliant and self-sufficient. Being dependent on my husband with a little kid was completely against my moral codes and all that I have been doing since I left home in my early twenties. So being in this position that is risky and leaves you vulnerable, demands a lot of courage and self-determination. I don't want to be a hamster in the wheel anymore and only do what is expected. I am far from being where I want to be, but I deeply feel and believe that I am on the right path.
What does happiness mean to you?
To me what it means is to feel at peace with the decisions I make and to feel that in every step I take, I am being true to myself and it's coming from a space of self-love and self-respect because I know that wherever I am physically, I will still belong to myself. That sense of belonging within and feeling deeply accepted by myself in all my parts, that inherent peace, that is priceless.
Linet’s advice:
What I would recommend to do first and foremost is to design the life you want to live, your own life on your own terms. Don't worry about how you're going to reach it, just start by defining that life. Which values do you want to live up to? Which principles? Define what success means to you. Because success, just like happiness, is a buzzword and everybody interprets it according to their values. It's up to each of us to determine what that means and think of how we can achieve it. If I am measuring my success according to the meaning that the term has for you, I'm going to be living your life and I want to live mine, because we only live once.
Connect with Linet:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/linetloressanchez/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/linetnakedsoul/profilecard/?igsh=ZXEyZWl6ZXh5c3Fu
Article by:
Rosa Pires
Career Club Advisory Board Member
