What's Your Success Archetype? Redefining Ambition for Women in Midlife with Kusum Basavaraju

Dr. Christine Li [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to the Make Time for Success podcast. This is episode number 302. I just got off a wonderful interview with my special, special guest, Kusum Basavaraju, and I learned a lot about her. I already knew she was a powerhouse of a person and leader, but now I know much more about her backstory. She is an identity and leadership coach for ambitious working mothers who are done white-knuckling their way through a life they worked too hard to just survive. She moved from India to the United States alone, having never flown before, slept on university floors between shifts, and built a 6-figure Wall Street career with no network and no safety net. She knows what it costs to outachieve yourself, and she knows how to stop. Today, she's the founder of The Sovereign Leader, a neuroscience-backed coaching program that helps high-achieving moms break the patterns keeping them stuck.

Dr. Christine Li [00:01:03]:
So they can get the promotion without paying for it with their kids' childhoods or the version of themselves they actually like. She is intense, she's warm, she's deeply spiritual and wildly self-created, and she is done performing a life when she could be designing one. I just loved her biography so much I had to read from it. So you need to listen to this episode because I think you're going to see a bit of yourself in it. Like what part of you is wondering, Am I making the right decision? And am I spending my time in the right way? And how do I draw from my own feelings and intuition to make those decisions? They're very important in all of our lives. So let's go listen to this episode together now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:00]:
Hi, I'm Dr. Christine Li, and I'm a psychologist and a procrastination coach. I've helped thousands of people move past procrastination and overwhelm so they could begin working to their potential. In this podcast, you're going to learn powerful strategies for getting your mind, body, and energy to work together so that you can focus on what's really important and accomplish the goals you want to achieve. When you start living within your full power, you're going to see how being productive can be easy and how you can create success on demand. Welcome to the Make Time for Success podcast.

Dr. Christine Li [00:02:43]:
Hello, my friends. I am really grateful and honored to be joined today by my special guest, Kusum Basavaraju. She and I know each other. We've known each other for a little while now, but not particularly closely. So I am really excited to have her energy, her wisdom, her power here today so I can get to know her better and so that we can have her teach us about topics that are really important to midlife women, topics such as self-confidence, self-trust, and what to do when you're feeling like everything is speeding on and everybody's moving on ahead of you and you have that nagging feeling that you should be doing more. So welcome to the show, Kusum.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:03:29]:
Thank you so much, Dr. Christine. It's such an honor to be on your podcast. And I'm excited to get this conversation going.

Dr. Christine Li [00:03:36]:
Yes, yes, yes. We have so much to talk about, so much to share. So let's start with how you became a leader of women. I know this might be a longer backstory, but please take us to the very beginning.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:03:53]:
Yeah, absolutely. It is a really long story, Christine. But I would like to start off by saying the way I don't necessarily consider myself the leader of women, but I consider myself to be a leader of the self. And that's where it all begins. And that's really what I teach women I work with. It's like, don't always look for leadership outside yourself. Look for that leader within you. And that's where it all starts.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:04:20]:
And I have fallen into the trap of— and that's how I got started. We are always looking for answers outside of us. We are searching, okay, who is this role model who can inspire me, who can put me on the right path, etc., etc., etc. While all of that is great, we always want to look up to people who are up there doing amazing things and be inspired by them. It's also up to us to see that, okay, I need to first of all become the role model that I'm looking up to, right? And that was really a hard lesson that I learned in my own life in a really long-winded way, I would say, because life obviously brings you the lessons that you need, but you're not always willing and open to seeing those lessons for what they are. So The universe is constantly throwing those lessons your way until you actually pause and say that, okay, something's not clicking. What is it that's not clicking? So let's go deeper on that. And that's really how I came about finding out that first and foremost, get to know yourself, get to know the type of leader that you are in order for you to step out in the world and to lead whoever it is, whether it is leading your kids, your family, yourself, your team, whatever it is, unless you own self-leadership, you can never amount to what your true potential actually is.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:41]:
Okay, that is beautiful, but it's also a really giant—

Kusum Basavaraju [00:05:45]:
Yes. Giant task, right? Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:48]:
Okay, so could you share with us a few of the early challenges that the universe gave you or that life gave you?

Kusum Basavaraju [00:05:55]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:05:56]:
That made you think, wow, I really have to find this power inside me.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:06:00]:
Absolutely. So I grew up in India. I am an engineer. My background is engineering. So growing up, that's all we knew, right? To either become an engineer or a doctor was like, coming from India, that those are the 2 professions that are really recognized. And if you're smart and if you wanted to be successful in your life, you chose one of the 2 paths. And that's how I got started. But while that was all well and good, you know, you are smart enough, you're intelligent, you can choose one of these paths and keep working hard and keep moving forward.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:06:31]:
At the same time, there's also being a woman and being, you know, growing up in India and across the world too. Now I see, back then I thought it was only limited to India, but it's not at all limited to India. It's across the world, everywhere, especially when you're a girl, when you're a woman. There's so many different restrictions and standards that are imposed upon you that you have to overcome. So no matter how smart and successful you can be on paper, that doesn't necessarily translate to how you feel on the inside. So I was the biggest critique of myself in how I looked and how, starting with my skin color, my smile, my eyes and my face and everything, I would pick myself apart every single day, right? In front of the mirror, try all of the products that were out there. And this is when I was in my teens, right? Not even like a grown woman. It was in my teens.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:07:23]:
And that really impacted my self-confidence. While on the outside, people thought I was a very confident person. I could just you know, I was a go-getter and do whatever I wanted to. That's not how I felt inside. Inside, I was like constantly questioning myself, my self-worth, my confidence. And I always looked outside and admired other women, other people who looked great on the outside, but I don't know what their story was on the inside, just like myself, right? People perhaps looked up to me. I, I never really knew, right? So that was a really long journey for me to get to a place where I started to really question some of these standards that are set for women, for girls like me. And I'm like, okay, why the heck do I not even like my own skin? Right? I had to first start there to say that, okay, I actually— and that didn't happen until I came to the US to do my master's.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:08:15]:
And people here used to compliment me on my skin color. Never once have I been complimented in my entire life when I was in India about my skin color. It was like, I'm, you know, I'm a dark shade, dark color person. And here people are complimenting me. I'm like, at first I was like, what is happening? I was completely confused. And then I realized people spend hundreds and thousands of dollars here to get the skin color that I was naturally born with. And that was really the moment that it was like, I don't even know how to put that into words because I was like, on one side confused, on the other side it's like relief. And on the other side I'm like, okay, wait a second.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:08:54]:
Did I do this to myself for 20+ years and I let that dictate how I showed up in my own life and didn't really show up as the confident person that I could have shown up regardless of how I looked, right? Regardless of what other people felt, if I could really own the fact that this is what I am born with, so what is wrong with that, right? So that was like the really the first lesson that I had to learn in my own What do you, how do you put it? On the journey to my own self-discovery, self-realization, right? So it all started with the beauty standards, me questioning those beauty standards to say that, okay, who's to say that this is beautiful and this is not? I get to decide if I'm beautiful or not. And at the end of the day, we all are beautiful in our own ways, right? Except what is shown in media and what's projected on big screen televisions for all of us to look at and then, you know, pick ourselves apart. So it really started that way. And then when I got into the corporate world, right, again, you see the same thing. I was working in New York City. You think you would've made it, but then you look at other people around you who are always like, go, go, go. And then there's another hurdle that you have to cross. Like, okay, so this is who you need to be in order for you to be successful.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:10:16]:
You have to be really loved because in a team, I was working at some of these big banks, on Wall Street, and many team members in the team are all men, and there are a few women, and they need to be the loudest, and they need to keep working longer hours than these men are, and they need to constantly keep proving themselves. And again, I took on that to be the narrative. Oh, so this is who I need to become in order for me to be successful as a corporate women, right? Again. And then I had to— one day I had this— I, to this day, I still remember. This was, I think, my second year in corporate. And interestingly enough, 3 managers, 3 skip levels above me, they were all women in a large team where there's more men across the board. Just for me and my team, my manager, her manager, her manager's manager, they're all women. So I constantly kept observing and noticing.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:11:15]:
how are they functioning in this setting? How are they— but personally, how are they when I interact with them behind closed doors? And how do they show up in team meetings, in larger groups, etc.? Sometimes I would notice a stark difference in how they represented themselves behind closed doors when we were having a one-on-one conversation versus when they were in these team meetings and settings. And sometimes they would just have this wall, right, just this facade where that's how they showed up with all of the masculine energy, like pushing constantly, never taking their feet off the gas pedal, right? And I had this one manager, I distinctly remember as if it's yesterday, where she has 3 little kids and she's in— I was just recently married then, I didn't have kids, so I was okay to stay at work even at 7:00 PM. But she has 3 little kids and at 6:30 PM, I guess we were working on a project with which had, of course, a deadline. And then she's on the phone with her nanny at 6:30, walking her nanny through the things that she wants to do with her little kids who are maybe all less than 8 years old, right? That's when, for me, something— even though I was not a mom at that point of time, something didn't sit well with me. I'm like, wait, this is why I want to be successful in life? So I can be on the phone with a nanny to tell her what she needs to do with my kids at 7:00 PM in the night. Because that day, I believe— I mean, this is the woman who would always be on her email. You would get emails from her 12:00 AM in the morning. You would get emails from her 4:00 AM in the morning.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:12:51]:
You would get emails nonstop, constantly, right? So she really became, for me, the person that I didn't want to become as I grew in my career. There are people who inspire you to be become like them. And then there are people who will inspire you to say that, okay, I never want to be that person in my life because that is not gonna help me, right?

Dr. Christine Li [00:13:14]:
Yeah.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:13:14]:
But it took me a while before I got to that place to realize that is not the version of success that I really want. But I didn't know what is the version of success I wanted. But I— it certainly started off saying, okay, this is not gonna serve me, right? But that's when going back to yourself, to asking like, what is it that you really want? Asking your inner knowing, like trusting yourself that, you know, I mean, that for that person, maybe that's the life that she enjoys, right? Nothing against them. Maybe that's exactly how she wants to be. But with— if I use that as my roadmap, as my blueprint, I'm going to ruin my life because that didn't, you know, feel good for me in my body that day. That is always like I say, I tell my clients, the first sign is always you paying attention to how you feel in your body When you are exposed to a certain situation, a certain circumstance, right? Our body is always communicating with us, but we are so in our head all the time that we ignore the signs that our body is sending us. Back then, again, I didn't have the language to say that, okay, I need to pay attention to what my body is telling me, because I had also by then become this person who's always in her head, you know, doing and thinking and, you know, strategizing, logic and all of that. But I didn't know what it felt like to listen to my body.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:14:31]:
But that was one of the first times where I did feel like, okay, something about this doesn't feel right. I don't know what it is. It doesn't feel right for me, right? So following those small threads, themes in your own life goes a really long way. I've seen that in my own life time and time again that don't ignore those feelings that come up, right? Sit with that. Maybe you don't have an answer. I didn't have an answer for that question at that point of time. Only later did I realize that that is exactly why That version of success didn't feel good for me in my body.

Dr. Christine Li [00:15:06]:
Beautiful. Did you get better at listening to your body and your intuition? And if so, what facilitated that? What made that happen? Because we are trained and we're encouraged to really be all brain, I think, too. Like, we're not in school thinking, oh, like, what did your intuition tell you? I mean, you and I have a coach that happens to lean that way, but Traditional schooling doesn't run that way. So can you tell us what happened there?

Kusum Basavaraju [00:15:37]:
Yeah, absolutely. So I would be lying if I said I never really listened to my intuition until then. I have, without knowing that that was intuition. I have done crazy things in my life. Like even coming to the US, logistically speaking, for my family and my background, it shouldn't have ever happened because I don't come from a family which is really well off. expressed interest in me coming to the US, my dad thought I was joking or crazy because he thought, what are you even talking about? That is even, you know, it's a dream that you don't even ever, you know, speak out loud. But once he realized that I was actually serious, he moved mountains to make sure that I came to the US and, you know, I fulfilled my dream. But even then, to think that I wanted to come, it was not a decision that came from here.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:16:26]:
There's something that said to me that I needed to do this. I didn't know what. So yeah, that was one of the first instances I can remember. And every now and then when I've taken any decision in my life, a big decision which absolutely makes zero sense to anybody else, even to me, if I have to think about it, it makes zero sense. But then I have made decisions that have led me on a completely different path, an amazing path that I could have never thought my way Through it, but something said to me, right? But the way I really started tapping into my intuition was going back, because we all have these instances. Like, even the most logical person, if you really talk to them, they would have a few instances in their life where they have done something completely out of character for them just because something said something to them, or it was a gut feeling. So going back, because our subconscious always is looking for proof, because our subconscious, its number one duty is to make sure that we are safe and we are taken care of. And it will only allow us to follow the rules that we strongly believe is true for us.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:17:37]:
All that to say, go back to instances in your own life to say that when was there a time when you actually did something completely so unlike you, but actually resulted in something so much more amazing than you could have ever imagined. So start collecting that proof for yourself. And once you start doing that, you will see that there have been instances, at least half a dozen, a handful instances where you have listened to something else that is your inner knowing, and you've done something that's resulted in something so much more beautiful that your logical mind could have never thought of, right? So first and foremost, if you're able to get your subconscious on board and start listening to what is it that I truly want, not hidden here, but in here, in my being, in my body, what feels right. If you start paying closer attention, that's how I would say you start being open. Start being open to your intuition, right? Because people are extremely skeptical. If I tell you, like, you know, if you're a completely logical person and if I say, you know what, start listening to your intuition and start taking decisions from there, They're like, okay, you're a crazy woman. I don't want to do anything with you, and they'll walk away. But then if you're able to give them examples of when they themselves have done this, that is them bringing their subconscious on board to start paying closer attention.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:19:01]:
Because if you feel like, okay, I have played this game 6 times and I won all 6 times, then you will be more inclined to trying that game the next time, and then again, and then again another time. Right.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:15]:
Yeah. Okay. That brings up the topic of certainty and uncertainty.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:19:21]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:19:22]:
Because I think when we're asking people to trust themselves and/or their intuition more, for many people, understandably, it brings up the, well, what if something goes wrong? And I'm always thinking about negative outcomes. I'm mimicking The average person, I would say, the typical person. Then how do we square that? How do we just say, you know, I'm safe? Maybe that's one of the answers. But what is your opinion? How do you teach your clients, like, we can do this? We— it's okay to leap forward even if you haven't had 6 wins in the game before. It's okay to trust.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:20:05]:
It all begins with, like I said, being willing to bet on yourself, right? Even when I had nobody, nothing, I didn't— I had never set foot in an airport until I flew to this country. That was my first time ever being willing to bet on yourself. Because if you don't bet on yourself, how can you expect anyone else in the entire world to bet on you, right? If I'm not offering that to myself, then why should anyone else? Like, why would you, Christine, if I don't trust myself, why would you? What reason do you— am I giving you to trust me? It all starts there. But yes, all of that is well and good to say, but to actually implement, right? One of the very First things I walk my clients through is let's start listing out all of the things. Like, let's say if you are sitting on a decision, right? Let's walk through all of the scenarios and the decisions that if you did take that decision that you're very uncertain about, let's start listing out all of the things that are going to go wrong. Because so much of that is in our head, and whatever is in our head is is so much more magnified and exaggerated than what it looks like in reality. When there is just a mouse sitting in a corner, it's always as if a lion chasing us. That's how it feels when it's in your head.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:21:23]:
But when you start writing it out, because you need to empty out the space for you to start thinking clearly. So start writing everything out, and then sometimes they'll be so shocked and surprised to see all of the things that they wrote, They are so trivial compared to the thing that they're betting on, right? I'm like, what is the worst that can really happen? Okay, maybe you're not going to make another $10,000 this year, but if you were to take a look at the regret that you're going to live with, is that worth $10,000 or is that priceless? When you really start thinking through— again, bringing back logic, right? Because if you are a person who thinks logically, and I'm telling you, I'm sitting here and telling you, okay, let's, you know, feel our way into this decision, you're not going to be on board. But I need to meet you where you are and work through that logic. Let's start listing out all of the things. And now let's circle the top 3 most scary things that are going to be outcomes of whatever it is that you're going to do. How does that feel when you look at that? Is that really as scary as you are making it out to be in your head? Right? Suddenly, you are defusing that situation that feels like a lion attacking you. It's like, oh, it's just a mouse. I can chase that out of this room and lock my door and get back to work.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:22:50]:
Right?

Dr. Christine Li [00:22:51]:
Yeah. I just find myself thinking about you as a young woman in an airport about to take your first flight and coming over here. I mean, the power that we all have to use as a resource for all sorts of things, right? Logic, intuition, decision-making, vision planning, vision creation. And much of that energy is sucked away by fear and worst-case scenarios and doubt and doing what other people think we should be doing.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:25]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:25]:
And I love that you're so powerfully representing the other part of ourselves.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:23:32]:
Yes.

Dr. Christine Li [00:23:33]:
Could you share with us what kinds of work you're doing with your clients, the typical client that you tend to work with, and what your goals are there?

Kusum Basavaraju [00:23:44]:
Yeah, being a mom myself right now, and, you know, having worked in the corporate setting and being a very ambitious woman myself, right, I know all the Type A women, go-getters, That's, that's me too, right? And that's all well and good. There's like, you know, there's 2 different narratives that are playing outside in the world right now, that you are either a go-getter or, you know, Type A woman, or you're the woman who wants to homeschool her kids and, you know, go live on a farm, right? But my thing is, why can't you be both, right? Just because I had kids, my ambition did not die overnight. And one of the things I feel like this generation or our generation is getting wrong, millennials, is because we never saw our parents having to struggle with this much. There's good and bad with everything that we have access to. Like, there's so many resources out there, there are so much amazing things happening out in the world. At the same time, we are feeling our worst, right? In a time where you have access to all of the resources and tools and you know, all of the mentors and whatever else that is out there, all of that is on one side. And the more tools we have, it feels like the less empowered, ambitious working moms have become. And that's really where my heart is set to say that, okay, what, what is happening here? Why is this equation so completely off? Because again, logistically speaking, if you're thinking from logic, like if you have more resources and tools, you should be able to, you know, approach any and all problems in life, and you can be the most successful than you could have ever been in any time in life.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:25:26]:
But that's not the case right now. Women are really crumbling. Like, if you just open up your social media, I'm sure you will see that one of the demographics that's struggling the most right now is working moms, ambitious working moms, because on one hand their ambition has not gone anywhere, no matter how much they lie to themselves. Because once you're ambitious, you will continue to be that kind of person, right? Because that is us going back to tapping into our potential. We are the women who've always been like, okay, there is something more here. It's not about achieving something more. It's truly understanding that I have so much more potential that I'm not just going to let that potential Rot, right? Just because I became a mom. Now, can the definition of how your ambition has evolved over a period of time— excuse me, change? Absolutely, right? Your ambition and what success looks like can evolve.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:26:26]:
But given the lack of support in today's society, because this system is not set up to support ambitious working moms— Like, we see these memes all the time. As sad as it is that Working moms only have 24 hours in a day, and they have work that lasts them 72 hours, and they're trying to squeeze all of that into a 24-hour window. Are they going to be a present mom? Are they going to be a successful employee? Are they going to take care of themselves, their family? Where and how are they going to dedicate their time, effort, and energy, right? And what that has done is women completely saying, you know what, If I grow in my career, all of these other things have to take a back seat. I won't be able to be present with my kids. I can't take care of myself. I can't take care of my health, my family, whatever else. So I might as well just let go of that. And now they've convinced themselves to say that, you know what, I'm no longer ambitious.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:27:21]:
I'm fine. I've grown enough. I'm successful the way I was 5 years ago, and that is good enough for me for the rest of my life. But When I again talk to people whose kids have, you know, now moved out of the house, empty nesters, you will see that they carry this regret while they are the ones who made this choice when their kids were little. They said, you know what, my career can take a backseat. My kids are my priority. I will focus all my energy and attention and effort on them. But 10 years later, they're sitting with guilt and regret and also resentment because they didn't take care of their inner needs, of their own ambition, right? And now it's like catch-22, like, okay, I have lost all of these years, now I have to start over, right?

Dr. Christine Li [00:28:13]:
Yeah.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:28:13]:
So how do we actually then find that middle ground that helps us retain that part of ourselves, which is just me, right? It's not related to me being a mom at all because I'm an individual. I have my own identity outside of being a mom, a wife, and whatever else. It doesn't necessarily have to be tied to how productive I am or what I do in my life for, for my career even. But what is it that sets my soul on fire, that gets me excited, that gets me going, that has nothing to do with me being a mom? Because right now, when I talk to some of my clients, it's like, oh, my kids are my entire world. But then you're having your identity all wrapped up in being a mom. what happens 10 years down the line, 15 years down the line when they leave the house and they go out? Are you going to then just be happy with the way you lived your life the last 10, 15 years? Or do you feel like there's going to be even an ounce of regret? Then the conversation needs to evolve and it needs to be different where we actually help women get to that place of finding what is that middle ground for me right now. I don't want to let go of my ambition. At the same time, I also want to be present and available to my kids because they're only going to be this little for so long.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:29:30]:
As clichéd as that sounds, right? I have 2 little kids myself, and it's like, how do I bring about harmony? Because I hate the word balance because it does not exist, right? But how do I bring about harmony in my life with respect to all of these various different aspects that play a role in my life that I don't want to let go of because The system is not set up for success for women like you and I.

Dr. Christine Li [00:29:59]:
So it's complicated work because it is really—

Kusum Basavaraju [00:30:04]:
It is complicated and it's also fairly simple because once you start peeling the layers, Dr. Christine, I'm sure you relate to this, right? While on the outside it looks very complicated because we have made it complicated, because society has fed all of these various different definitions of this is who you need to be, this is what you need to do, this is what it needs to look like. But when you start peeling all of those layers and when you really get to the bottom of it, the root of it, it becomes so simple, right? It's like, first, let's start looking at your definition of what success looks like. Let's start peeling the layers of what ambition looked like for you 5 years ago and now, right? With your kids in the equation and without your kids in the equation, and what actually gets you excited. For some people, maybe they've truly lost, you know, before they had kids, that was the thing that was keeping them moving forward, you know, their career and growing in their career. Maybe after kids, they truly genuinely lost that, you know, their sight on that success or their career. That is true for some people, but not for many people. But I see that that's what people are taking on because that feels like relief.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:31:13]:
Now, now, if I just said that, you know what, I don't want to grow in my career, I'm, I'm great where I am, I'll just focus on my kids and my family. It feels like there's no problem that I need to solve. But at the same time, you see, it's the same exact women who are being stretched thin 24/7.

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:32]:
Yeah.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:31:32]:
Sure, you said you didn't want to grow in your career. Absolutely. But there is a resentment that you're not paying attention to, that you, you know, slowly growing along with your kids, right? As they're growing in age, your resentment is also growing. What's that going to do to you 5, 10, 15 years down the line?

Dr. Christine Li [00:31:49]:
Yeah, I love your future pacing, what's going to happen, because I think what I've seen in working with the same groups of people, overlapping or similar groups of people, is that there's somehow the feeling like the women themselves are already fully developed, like they don't have their own developmental path and needs and journey to figure out. And of course we do. We all do, right? We're not—

Kusum Basavaraju [00:32:17]:
we don't—

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:18]:
there's no time in life when you put a pause or stop that development. And I think that's what you're really attuned to. And I love that. Yeah. And it really is. Our development is also our power. You know, what we learn and what we're able to— what we're able to experience, what we're able to sacrifice sometimes, but also what we're able to achieve, which is so valuable to all of us. Not just—

Kusum Basavaraju [00:32:42]:
Yeah.

Dr. Christine Li [00:32:42]:
Not just the children, but to society. community as a whole. So thank you. Thank you.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:32:47]:
And you bring up a great point, Christine, where you just said, you know, we are always developing, right? And I think that's one of the biggest misconceptions that people have about themselves is like, I know myself too well. I know what I want in life, right? But you and I know, as we do more of this work, like the more work I do, the less I know. The more I know, the less I really do because there's so much more out in the world. I am 42 right now, and I'm still understanding myself. And I truly believe that this is a journey, lifelong journey, where I will still uncover aspects of myself and discover certain aspects of myself that are completely new, maybe at 45, 50, 60, right? And to say that I already know what I want in my life and this is exactly how it is for the rest of my life is doing oneself the biggest disservice.

Dr. Christine Li [00:33:41]:
Yeah. Yeah. And it's also huge, right? It's huge to consider. These are very important questions, very important work for— and it's important for our children also to see us being so deeply connected to our own growth as well. I think that's a very healthy thing, by the way.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:34:00]:
Yeah. That's one of the things I tell my moms, right, the women that I work with. It's like, you know, you're all raising your kids to be amazing, you know, to dream big and to go out there in the world and conquer the world and do that and this and this and that. All of that is great. I love that. But at the same time, do they have an example of that at home where you are doing that?

Dr. Christine Li [00:34:25]:
Yeah.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:34:25]:
We're not seeing a version of you who's constantly sacrificing one thing or another or ridden with guilt 24/7. who's actually going after her own dreams, who is dreaming bigger. It's like they say, I think there was a recent study that came out that said, you know, the success of children really depends on how happy and fulfilled their mothers are. It's not even their fathers. So the kids, they can sense the energy. It's not what I tell them. It's not me telling my kids, I'm so happy in my life, you know, I've achieved everything. It's like they sense the energy.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:34:59]:
that's unspoken, and that's what's going to propel them to go after their own dreams and create their own versions of success. So what is it truly, the definition of success, that you want your children to learn from you and adapt as they grow into themselves?

Dr. Christine Li [00:35:18]:
Okay, beautiful. And I know you're doing a beautiful job there too, so thank you, thank you.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:35:22]:
I'm trying, Christine, I'm trying.

Dr. Christine Li [00:35:24]:
You are, you are. You are. I know that you have a quiz that you can share with our listeners in case they're curious about what kind of success archetype they are. Could you explain what that all means?

Kusum Basavaraju [00:35:40]:
Yeah, absolutely. So again, like I was saying, we are not, you know, cookie cutters, like one size fits all, right? We are all different kinds of beings with our own shortcomings and our own strengths. And your definition of success and my definition of success will never be the same. There might be an intersection somewhere, but it, it might not necessarily be the same. And the way you can be successful and the way I can be successful, how I show up, they are going to be completely different. And it's the same for every single one of them out there. So I have, based off of working with so many different kinds of, you know, women out there in different settings, I have really boiled down the Success Archetype to say that, okay, how does your subconscious actually operate? Because it's not what I say consciously, how I show up and how I do things. It's really subconscious, like we were talking about earlier, right? So how do you actually show up right now in the day-to-day, and how does that define what your way of showing up versus how you typically tend to show up are— there's a difference, right? Because we are all wearing those masks and, okay, this is the definition of success.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:36:57]:
If you're disciplined and do XYZ, and then you're considered to be a successful person, that's the norm, right? Typically. But if you actually, again, peel back the layers and say that this is how I actually like to show up, but this is what I've been doing instead. Right? So there are a set of questions that exposes the reality for you and how you are showing up versus what you're doing on the day-to-day. And that really tells you like, okay, this is actually your success archetype. What could you do about this? What is the first step that you can take to start peeling off those layers and say that, okay, you know what, this doesn't feel right? Again, going back to this doesn't feel right for me in my body. Let me start adapting one or two of these recommendations that come up as a result of you taking the quiz. And then once you start implementing that in your day-to-day, you will start seeing shifts and changes, right? Everything, every drop makes an ocean, right? It all adds up. So if you are able to implement even one or two of those recommendations, you will start noticing that difference.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:37:59]:
So that really is the Success Archetype Quiz where it tells people what their archetype is and what they can be doing starting now.

Dr. Christine Li [00:38:08]:
I love it.

Dr. Christine Li [00:38:09]:
I love it. So if you are interested in this wonderful quiz, you can go to maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/kusum, which is K-U-S-U-M. Again, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com/kusum, K-U-S-U-M. And the link will also be in the show notes accompanying this episode. So thank you, Kusum. This was amazing. You are amazing. And I love that you really are representing the process, the growth, the power that, you know, that women all have within them and coaching people and creating just the opportunity to say, there's more, there's more that you can do without wiping yourself out, right? You don't have to feel behind.

Dr. Christine Li [00:38:59]:
You are just where you are. And I love that. So thank you for the deep work that you do.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:39:05]:
Yeah, thank you so much, Dr. Christine, for having me. And it's been a wonderful conversation. And yeah, thank you for putting me in front of your audience.

Dr. Christine Li [00:39:12]:
Okay. Yes. Can you share with our audience a quick way for people to get connected with you? The quiz is one way, of course.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:39:19]:
Yeah. Yeah. Well, social media is the fastest. So it's by Kusum because I strongly believe that destiny is not default. You get to create your own destiny, right? Destiny by design. So kismet is destiny. So Kismet by Kusum. You— that's my handle on most of the social media platforms, whether it is Instagram, TikTok, Facebook.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:39:39]:
Yeah, that's how people can find me.

Dr. Christine Li [00:39:41]:
All right, let's do it. Let's, let's find our magic. All right, everyone. Well, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I will see you soon. Kismet.

Dr. Christine Li [00:39:49]:
Kismet. And kismet. And everybody here, I hope you join me next week for the next episode on the Make Time for Success podcast. We've enjoyed being with you today. Bye.

Kusum Basavaraju [00:40:01]:
Bye, everyone.

Dr. Christine Li [00:40:03]:
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Make Time Thank you so much for listening to the Make Time for Success Podcast. If you enjoyed what you've heard, you can subscribe to make sure you get notified of upcoming episodes. You can also visit our website, maketimeforsuccesspodcast.com, for past episodes, show notes, and all the resources we mention on the show. Feel free to connect with me over on Instagram too. You can find me there under the name Procrastination Coach. Send me a DM. And let me know what your thoughts are about the episodes you've been listening to. And let me know any topics that you might like me to talk about on the show.

Dr. Christine Li [00:40:40]:
I'd love to hear all about how you're making time for success. Talk to you soon.