speaker-0: The confidence comes from realizing that you did it. Small steps, big impact. Why? Because in essence, that's how all amazing founders, builders, and innovations came about. It just got built in small steps.

speaker-1: Today's guest is Christiane Schroeder. Christiane is a professor and the creator of Petite Practice, an approach for transforming your life built around using small, repeatable actions to create meaningful progress. In our conversation, we talk about where confidence comes from, how to rebuild trust in yourself, and how to overcome perfectionism and keep moving forward. If you get value from this conversation, be sure to subscribe and share it with a friend. And now please enjoy my conversation with Christiane Schroeder. Christiana, thank you so much for being here.

speaker-0: Well thank you. I'm really excited. Audience is gonna be a good one.

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, Christiana, you have a a TED talk that you gave, and I was watching that before preparing for this conversation. And in that TED talk, you lay out, you know, your framework. You talk about a lot of things. But one thing that really stuck with me is the idea of something that hit you when you were a professor, you were a marketing professor, and you realized that, you know, your students and the way that they were set up to learn, it was a lot of just like checking boxes. Right, just checking the boxes, checking the boxes, checking the boxes. And nothing was really like sticking, or they really weren't experiencing any transformation or r any real growth. And I think that idea can also be equated to our personal lives when we're striving for our goals and for for our personal lives or for our business. So I would love to start by exploring the idea of what have you learned about how we can actually change or transform the process of learning or striving for our goals from the checking of the boxes to an actual like transformation process where we really change in the process of of striving.

speaker-0: That's a beautiful question. And I think we can really kind of transfer that question to nowadays when we use AI, to where we feel that sometimes the checking the boxes gets replaced with the copy and paste from AI. And that we don't even think exactly what AI actually gives us because we feel like we are still just checking boxes, right? So I feel that You always need to think in life, you are the brand. You are walking around and the impression that you give is is the first one. Sometimes you get a second chance. But at the end of the day, you also have to ask yourself, what's really my my purpose in life? Like, what's my superpower? Like if I were to leave a room, what would people really say about me? Now, if you're one of those box checkers, there's not a lot we can really say. Just like with a copy and paste of AI, because you're in essence just completely replaceable. There's not really anything that sets you apart from person B and C. You're just person A, right? And I think that is too bad. And because I am a professor and I've had more than 10,000 students by now, I always tell my students, at the end of the day, this is your choice. The AI today is maybe what the calculator used to be. the you know, the the the graphing calculator or or googling the responses. In essence, it's always your choice, right? Do you want to learn? Or do you want to take a shortcut? Because it's not just learning, it's also showing up and showing what you're really here for and and how you add knowledge to this that I wouldn't have expected. Instead of just checking the box, it's really showing me like your unique insight, your unique perspective. So in my TED talk, I really talked about the fact that I don't ask my students anymore for like a 20-page marketing plan. And I mean by all means, who reads this nowadays, right? But I rather really want to see their unique thinking, their perspective. And I always push them really, thinking outside the box. Take two very different ideas and then find the intersection of them. So really like the right side and the left side of the brain. and think creative, but also have a strategy involved with that. And I think then I'm really not getting the box checking responses anymore, but I'm getting a response that bridges a little bit into that zone of discomfort. And that's really what I'm known for. I make people comfortable with being uncomfortable, right? And I think that is really where with AI or not AI, where we really need to push ourselves that we show What makes us uniquely different instead of just box checkers?

speaker-1: Right. Yeah, 'cause I mean if we all just you know, if you just use AI for everything, you're just gonna be the the average of whatever AI has ingested and what it learns, right? There's no real differentiation that comes from that. But I'd love to explore the idea of uncomfortable, like being uncomfortable. Like why do you feel it's important for you to, you know, facilitate your students, your clients as they go through this process, kind of getting comfortable being uncomfortable? Like why is that so important to the the transformation that you wanna deliver?

speaker-0: Because nothing really happens without I mean I there's a reason why it's called no no gain without pain, right? I mean nothing happens without struggle. As sad as that really sounds. If you want to build a business, there definitely going to be a a fair share of struggles and days when you think of giving up and Failures where you feel, why in the world am I doing this? So that's the discomfort that I'm talking about. You really set yourself apart because you push past that point of pain. And that's actually in essence what a lot of people are curious about. They don't want to just hear about your glory days. They also want to hear about the days when you thought about giving. And that's not the day when you give up. You don't give up on a bad day. You always stop whatever you're doing on a great day. And then you can tell others about the bad days that were there along the journey, right? So my students, even though they don't like it, at the end of their project, when they give me their final elevator pitch, they say, you know what? I have to admit you were right, because where I'm now. I cannot believe even what I turned in like four weeks ago. I mean, it was just like rough. And I tell them, yeah, I know you don't want to say you are right, but at the end of the day, it's kind of like, yeah, it if at that point you thought this is the very best thing you could create, but you kept going. And because you kept going, now you're looking back and you're like, my gosh, I cannot believe the transformation that happened. Because I did not just check boxes, right? That's really what the aha moment is, and that's so fulfilling really to see that.

speaker-1: Yeah. I can imagine. Yeah. with the discontinuing the thread of the idea of, you know, you have to get uncomfortable, right? Like there's no growth that comes from comfort. And this idea shows up in so many different domains, whether it's the, you know, even down to like your bones, right? Like your bones, they grow and become stronger through like breaking down your muscles, right? They get stronger. You build muscle through the breaking down of muscle. And it's the same thing with you know, across every other domain of life, right? Like you grow, you learn, you improve through the breaking down of your current constraints, I guess, or like the current barriers or limits of your capacity, those need to be broken down and you only do that by venturing out into the uncomfortable and the unknown, which can be, you know, uncomfortable. So how do you like maybe if you have specific examples of, you know, the practices or the things that you will encourage your students or your clients to to do that make them uncomfortable, that can You know, manufacture that growth and transformation.

speaker-0: Yeah. So it it it's actually my my trademark is called petite practice. And that's really my signature sentence that I always say. It's small steps that lead to big impact or small steps that lead to bold results. And bold being maybe something you didn't think that you could do, you didn't have the confidence for. And I always say confidence builds courage, not the other way around. You don't need courage to become more confident. You just need to show up and then eventually you're going to feel like you had courage because you did show up. So maybe a good example, let's just talk about showing up. Showing up doesn't necessarily mean that you get on the stage and you give a 20-minute talk. Showing up could just be that you deliver one sentence at a meeting and alone that was really hard for you to do. And then people say, well, I I usually walk away thinking, gosh, I wish I would have said that. And then I said, well, petite practice or the smallest step would be that you just say that one sentence, but you already planned on saying that very one sentence. So don't walk into a meeting listening in on the meeting and thinking, I could say that. I could say that. Don't do that. So you need to ahead of time maybe just prepare that one sentence structure. When you show up at the meeting, just wait for the right moment when it's coming up. So you're not being put on the spot because that is very uncomfortable, right? So you could totally say something that is just one sentence, just add that, and then in the next meeting, maybe it's going to be two sentences or a little paragraph. And then you keep building on that. Very uncomfortable the first time around. And then it will become easier over time. Part of that, that's why it's that's so important, is that if you don't speak up, Nobody actually knows what you're doing and then you are a box checker again. Because nobody knows who you are, right? I've talked about that earlier. What makes you uniquely you, what your value really is. If you never speak up, then they're gonna be like, Well, I don't know. She's just there. But we don't know really what her deal is, right? So that's in essence really why it's important to start with a very small, very petite first step, the practice.

speaker-1: Yeah. And I think the point that you make there about, you know, it's comfortable to just kind of sit there. Be in the shadows. Yeah. It's comfortable to just not really put yourself out there. But at the end of the day, you know, nobody's gonna do that for you. Right. Nobody's going to hoist you up and take you to the place that you want to be f you know, whatever it is, whatever that is for you in your life, nobody's gonna do that for you. It's on you, right? You have to take ownership over your situation and the striving and the journey of you going out and Getting what you want, right? And that's something that I had to, you know, learn. I think we all have to learn that at some point in time, that it's it's on me, right? Extreme ownership over my situation of my life. Like, if I want something, I have to go and get it myself. And yeah, and I think a big part of that, right, is building up the confidence to well, first it's finding the clarity of figuring out what it is that you want, which is always going to be murky, right? I feel like I oftentimes get way too hung up in just like. Clarifying and clarifying and thinking through, like, okay, what do I really want? Do I really want that? What do I really want? But it's just like, okay, committing to something and then breaking it down into small practices, like the petite practice idea, and then just following through to go and make it happen for yourself. But again, it it's on you to go out and manufacture this life or whatever it is that you want. but you talked about the idea of confidence, right? Confidence is going to be the thing that builds your courage. So where does the where does the confidence come from? Like where d where do you get that confidence? Obviously you have to be uncomfortable, you have to step out. And then maybe is it just being okay? Like you realize, okay, I did this thing that was uncomfortable, but I survived it. Where does where does the confidence come from?

speaker-0: The confidence comes from realizing that you did it. It's it's a little bit like you're what you're talking about with nobody's going to do this for you. I sometimes challenge people about the fact, is it really talent? Is it really skill? Or is it actually just trying it and doing it? Because I don't know. Like to me, the fact that you say some people are just very talented and very skilled, and it's just like the whole. Well, they were just born like that. I don't know. I challenge that sometimes where I'm like, I don't know. I think there's just a lot of years of practice that went into this. This wasn't necessarily something that they inherently always knew how to do. So that's how the confidence happens. You try it once, you try it again on the next day, you keep trying and every single day. And that's how the confidence builds because you become more comfortable with doing it. And it's nearly like you're you're telling yourself, like, my gosh, this gets easier. And wow, like I can actually do this. I can say one sentence at this meeting. And maybe I'm going to be more confident in saying two sentences at this meeting. And maybe I'm meeting people because I am becoming more comfortable in speaking up and I'm becoming more confident in making small talk at parties where I would never say anything. So that's really like what I'm talking about, that the confidence comes from the repetition. And the repetition is your anchor in whatever you're building to really get to that next level. Because w without visibility, you really cannot build a whole lot of anything because you're just in the shadows of some of the people that take the light. But the light is really there for everybody. It's not like they are taking it away from you. It's just you need to step into it.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, it's not a zero sum game, right? There's there's enough light to go around like the one the light of one individual builds the light of the others, right? It's a you know, more of an abundant thing than a scarcity idea. But yeah, I think what resonated with me with that idea is like confidence comes from like you have to build your own body of evidence to yourself, which will make you confident. Right. You have to have a body of work, a body of evidence in your past of like examples where you stepped out, you did something uncomfortable. And you did okay. Right. Maybe it wasn't perfect, but you survived it. And then you saw that you grew from it. Right. And one idea about confidence that stuck with me for a long time is this quote from Ed Milette, where it's confidence comes from keeping the promises that you make with yourself. And I think this is where your petite practice, your petite practice framework, and this idea is so awesome is like, okay, I don't need to make these huge, big promises to myself that I'm gonna do this huge transformation overnight, which is another thing that I can struggle with sometimes is like being like, Too ambitious, like just setting this really big thing. It's like, okay, you know, next week I'm gonna do all these things, I'm gonna be perfect. And then it just doesn't happen. Then it's just easy to just get down on yourself. But with the petite practice where you make it a small thing that's easy to commit to, maybe it's uncomfortable, but you're gonna commit to that small thing, do it, and then that's you know, how you sl you follow through on the things, the promises that you made to yourself, and then you slowly build confidence that way.

speaker-0: Beautiful. And what's really important is that it's okay on one day not to do it. So it's petite practice, meaning it's it's small steps. But we talked about the whole idea of like a checklist or anything. If you have this perfect checklist and there's this one day when you didn't do it, that's okay too. Don't beat yourself up about it. Just pick up on the next day. And that is I think what business owners sometimes really struggle with. They are like, well, but now I didn't do it on that day. In reality, most people probably didn't even notice. And on the other hand, it's just a human thing. Yeah. You pick it back up where you left off, right? It's I mean, you are in charge of your own destiny. So just pick it up and keep going. And this the step that you took was so small that it's not even that hard on that third day to pick it back up. If you didn't pick it up on the second day, you skip the day. Big deal. Right. Just pick it up on the third day and keep going.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I think the perfection or bust idea is something that I also struggle with. It's like if I'm not gonna be perfect at, you know, making this landing page or if I'm not gonna be perfect at sticking with this new habit, it's like it's hard for me to stick with it. And honestly, as I'm thinking back, it's like I mean, it's impossible to just be absolutely perfect with something, right? So where do you think that idea comes from and how do you overcome this? unachievable aspiration for perfection, which can oftentimes get in the way of someone like myself really ever starting. Right like this, okay, I know I need to do this thing, but in my mind there's this block, it's like, well, I need to do it perfect. So then I just never even get started.

speaker-0: Yeah. I mean it's just like I call it the stuck spiral. Just keeping perfecting, right? When I was earning my PhD at Purdue University, I wrote a very current dissertation on obesity. So I basically combined health data with price and income data to where I built these price signals and I built what's called an elasticity that would show you were to change prices or income levels of people of certain food products, how would the food consumption change? And then consequently, because the food consumption changes, how would their body weight or their body mass index or BMI change? So I built this whole model out. While I was building this, right? So here we are in 2003, 2004. There were all these other dissertations, journal articles, and who knows what coming up. You know how many times I ask myself, I think that's the one that actually I'm I'm also kind of working on. And it's already been there, it's already done that. And with obesity, here we are, right? It's two thousand twenty six. We're still talking about obesity and price and income changes and how it reflects on what we eat and what we do and all that kind of stuff. So I could be still writing my dissertation. So somebody told me once when I was writing my dissertation, you could be that lady in the corner in the library with the white hair that's still working on her dissertation right there. Or you could actually graduate and say, you know what, there will always be more research that's coming out. But my research is maybe the first stepping stone, the first petite practice to what somebody else is going to do with it. So I'm opening the door to some other people. And is it perfect? Nobody. But then some other people might come in and they might look at this and say, this is kind of cool. I'm going to expand that into this area. Or I'm going to move with showing these results in this other context. And that is so important that you need to think you owe it to the world in letting it go. You cannot hold on to it because until you let it go, nobody else can use it and can expand it. And your particular framework might just be like totally groundbreaking because you're not letting it go, you're perfecting it, you're not really doing anything. You're basically stealing your knowledge from the world. I mean, that's a shame. So you need to think about it that way, right?

speaker-1: Hmm. Yeah, thank you for that. I mean, that that definitely does resonate, you know, and it reminds me and it kind of rhymes with a lot of these other ideas. There's something that I would love to do at some point, is just, you know, I think we're this is episode 92 of the podcast, but I feel like there's so many analogies that can be drawn from all these different domains of experts and brilliant people that we've had on. But this idea of not making it about you, right? Like not making the work. the contribution that you want to make about you, right? It's putting it out to the world and focusing on the impact and the other people that can benefit from this and then take it and build something else with it. It's similar to the idea of like Peter George, somebody we had on the podcast a couple months ago, who's a public speaking coach. And he talks about like how do you get over the nerves of getting up there on stage and getting out of your own head? It's stop focusing on you and think about the audience, right? Focus on the audience. It's this it's a similar idea. Yeah. Here with what we're talking about.

speaker-0: Yeah, i exactly. And it it at the end of the day, I mean, like sometimes we we judge ourselves so hard. And then you should ask yourself, Who's to say that I cannot publish this? Because what you see, all these little imperfections, nobody else is actually going to notice this, right? So sometimes you just need to ask yourself, says who? I can't put that out, says who? I mean, like, I I'm I'm just going to go for it, right? So I have to be honest with you. I'm the person that always goes for it. I mean you can hear from my accent, right? I ended up in the United States with just, you know, two suitcases coming from Germany. And at the airport, I was like, what in the world am I going to do there? Right? I don't know anybody in the United States. So I am that person that's just I'm just going to go for it.

speaker-1: Amazing. And I guess going back to that, like w what was the motivation for you or the driving force like to get on a plane to another country not knowing anybody? Like why for you at that point in your life did you feel moved to make this leap?

speaker-0: I think it ties in with your very initial question that I wanted to discover my superpower. I knew there was something else there. I just needed to find it. The quest for your unique value. And I felt that if I don't geographically branch out where I'm at, I don't really open my mind enough to other ways of thinking because I'm stuck in the way of thinking in my geographic area. think that you can always argue, the home is like where you whatever, like you like the geography and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We can talk about that. But I also have it has a lot to do with the people that you meet along the way, the the knowledge that you pick up along the way, and how you change along the way. And we talked about the fact with the whole becoming uncomfortable. then getting comfortable. So I think your home eventually is after you pushed yourself many times outside of your comfort zone and you learn so much about yourself that you really know when you can say yes to opportunities and when you can say no to opportunities. And I think that happened for me when I when I ended up in the United States that there were many moments where I thought, yep, been there done that and maybe wouldn't do it again. So it and that's still happening, the growth, right? So you have to have a growth mindset in life to really get to anywhere. And I think that's for me it was geographic expansion. For other people it might be, I mean, who knows what they might do, right? But but that is I think in essence really what it comes down to that you need to figure out how you can grow. And for me it was just going to a different country, yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. I mean, there is a lot of people that have talked about the idea of just picking up and moving to a completely new place. There's just inevitably so much growth that comes from that. I didn't go to a different country. I mean, America's pretty diverse and it's like Wisconsin is very different than Arizona, which is the move that I made going from Wisconsin to Arizona. And yeah, I experienced that in myself, right? Like when you're in your hometown, like where you grew up. You know, there's people in your life that have been there forever. And like when you throw yourself into a new place, it just forces you to, you know, learn a lot of new things. Like, okay, I need to meet new people. And I'm meeting people at a different stage of life where I'm a different person. So now they're gonna we're gonna relate and bond over different interests than what I had when I was five years old when I met all the people and friends from back home and things like that. But you brought up the idea of like discovering your superpower. And this is one of those recurring themes on the podcast that I love exploring is just, you know. I personally believe that, you know, every individual, every human has a unique contribution that they have, that they can make to the world. and I think finding that is one of the most important expeditions of our lives, right? Finding that unique gift that we have, that divine spark, that unique contribution that we can make to the world. So what have you learned so far in the work that you've done with your students? And like what is how do you discover your superpower?

speaker-0: Honestly, and you can if you're watching this right now, right? There is a the book that's right next there to my right ear. Yeah. I believe the way to find your superpower is really looking at your roots. So the book has a tree as a cover. And I think that is the most important thing that you don't only think about where you are today and where you want to go, right? Tree grows up. Great, great, great. So we talked about the growth mindset. But your superpower relates a lot to your upbringing, your roots, the culture that you experienced when you were really young. Because it shaped it shapes who you are today. And it's also an important part of your story because it might impact how you do certain things or what you even do today. I mean, in b in essence, I always think it's The question shouldn't be really when you are at a party, what do you do? But more like who you are, right? Because what you do is quite honestly very frequently irrelevant of like, who are you really like? What makes you special, right? And that is really the superpower. So when when I talk with my students, there's this element of discomfort, or even on my podcast or in my books, where people don't want to share their roots. And I'm not going to go there and like rip off the band-aid and say, tell me everything about you, right? Because that's not really how it works. You need to figure out what part of your life, what part of your mess becomes your message. And that is your superpower then. So there are many things that people will never share. And that is amazing because it's not the message. But you need to figure out which part of your root system is it that you kind of like want to dig out and show to the world that made you who you are today and that is really something that is uniquely you and that is very, very important that people figure that out themselves. Is it a you know is it a health related thing? Is it a personal related thing? Is it something that you experienced along the way, like one unique event, anything like that really shapes who you are and what your superpower is.

speaker-1: love the word discover as it relates to you know finding your superpower, right? Because that hints at the idea that it's inherent, it's there, right? It's and it's never going anywhere, right? It's always there with you. It's an innate part of you. It's there for you to discover. It's there for you. It's you know, kind of rhymes with the idea that it's every individual has it, right? You have your superpower. So maybe to finish that thread, like what are some examples? Like what a superpower might be for someone.

speaker-0: Yeah, so think speaking about this, Gabor, think a little bit, your superpower is nearly like you're an archaeologist. That's like using some tools and pushing the sand away and looking at footprints where you have been in the past. And so now let's give you an example from a guest that I had that really All of a sudden, like the light bulb went on, right? It's like, my gosh, I guess that's my superpower right there. So that was a guest, and that all of a sudden figure it out, the superpower is actually the voice. And the interesting thing about that guest was really that she was like, My guess, I guess it's my voice. Because I like singing and I really like calming people down when I speak, and I have this unique ability about. You know, people are very stressed out. And I basically help them from this hustle culture in the corporate setting to really calm down their mindset and transform them into a much quieter space. And she kind of like had this aha moment where all of a sudden she was like, I guess that's what I do. It it's really comes down from the fact that I experienced this hustle culture myself. And so I know how they feel, but I also know How to use my voice in calming them down and leading to that transformation to the before and after. And again, it's it's sometimes I've been there, I know how you feel. Let me get to that level where you are and let me show you what helped me. Right? That is sometimes a superpower to where you're open to sharing that mess and make it your message.

speaker-1: Mm. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't think it's a coincidence that, you know, the best contributions, aka innovations, ideas, services, products, right, are birthed or come from the founder or the individual just solving a pain that they themselves experienced. Right. It's them solving a problem that they themselves have experienced and they have an intimate understanding of it because they've gone through that mess themselves. So then it's finding that mess that becomes your message, as you said, or you know, that previous version of yourself that you went through some experience and now you can help others in going through that with, you know, a product or service that you create. It's really interesting. Yeah, there's there's a lot to that. That's awesome. so thank you so much for the time, Christiana. I would love to have you back again because I know there's we just dipped a toe into a lot of your work. There's a lot that you cover, but I have one final question for you. It's a recurring question that I ask every guest, but before we get to that, how can people find you?

speaker-0: Go to my website, drchistiane.com in one word. And you can even grab an free audio recording that's called let it go. So we can link that in the show notes right there. Because I think we talked a lot about stress and letting it go is sometimes what you need to do if you are stuck in that perfectionist loop. You just need to let it go. You just need to push submit, send wherever you are in your journey and just let it go. And it's going to be just fine. With imperfections and everything, it's gonna be fine. Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah. And not to open an entirely new thread, but the idea of, you know, letting go the past is something that that I've been trying to learn more about. It's like, okay, how do we, you know, hold on to the things that serve us, right? Hold on to the the love that we've experienced or whatever, those those moments from our past that do serve us here today. But then the process of letting go the things that we've hold on to, which I've found are the things that can block and get in the way of me moving forward is super important. So yeah, we'll have the link in the description. So go check that out. I'm gonna Get it myself right after we hop off here and and see what you have to say on that front 'cause I think it's so important. But my final question for you, Christiana, is a recurring question that I ask every guest. And it's this if you had a giant billboard that everyone in the world could see for ten seconds with one message to the world, what would it say and why?

speaker-0: It would say small steps, big impact. Why? Because in essence, that's how all amazing founders, builders, and innovations came about. It just got built in small steps. Even though to us it for looking from the outside in, it sometimes doesn't look this way. That's in reality really how how it happens. I mean they they they have this saying for a reason Rome wasn't built in a day. It it truly actually really wasn't.

speaker-1: Exactly. Yeah, and there's this mirage of businesses and starting a business or building a product or starting a service that I had before I actually went and did it. And you very quickly realize once you start on the journey, it is just small steps of just doing it. Right? It's like, that billboard, that ad that I see on that billboard, it's like somebody just sat down on their computer, wrote the copy, designed the billboard. Like I don't know, there's some like mirage that breaks once you take out and you start actually doing it instead of just looking at it from the the spectator view and it's just like okay, it's just people doing it, taking small steps, one thing at a time, making it happen. But Christiana, thank you so much for the time today.