The People Pleasing Detox Every High Achiever Needs with Adele Kamel Whitley of Buy Yourself
What happens when the life that looks good on paper feels completely wrong in your body? In this episode of Founders in Jeans, Emily Jean sits down with Adele Kamel Whitley, founder of Buy Yourself, to talk about people pleasing, self-trust, and building a life that actually feels like yours.
Adele shares how she moved from checking boxes, chasing approval, and cycling in and out of corporate life to creating a movement around choosing yourself. This is a conversation for anyone who has ever wondered whether success is still success if it costs you your joy.
Why “buying yourself” starts with questioning every should
How childhood conditioning turns into adult people pleasing
Why success without joy can become failure in disguise
The hidden resentment that comes from abandoning yourself
How to start a movement before you have the perfect strategy
Why being messy online can help you find your message
The role LinkedIn played in building Adele’s business and community
Why asking for help is leadership, not weakness
How hustle culture creates burnout when it is not rooted in alignment
Why one brave choice can create a ripple effect in your life
This episode is a reminder that choosing yourself does not always require burning everything down. Sometimes it starts with noticing one should, asking one better question, or making one decision that brings you back to yourself.
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This episode wouldn’t happen without Rita Williams, our producer, coordinator, and virtual assistant. If you want someone sharp and reliable in your corner, connect with Rita: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rita-williams-smma/
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Keywords: female founder podcast, entrepreneur podcast, Founders in Jeans, Emily Jean, Adele Kamel Whitley, Buy Yourself, people pleasing, people pleasing detox, choose yourself, self-trust, authentic living, life design, entrepreneurship, women in business, female entrepreneurs, high achievers, career change, corporate burnout, hustle culture, alignment, personal growth, coaching business, LinkedIn growth, founder mindset, startup life, business coaching, women claiming their worth, confidence, success without joy, burnout recovery, asking for help, vulnerability in leadership, building a movement, purpose-driven business, recent graduates, career inspiration, business podcast, women leaders, self-worth, designing your life, 10X is Easier Than 2X, The Big Leap, choosing joy, meaningful work, entrepreneurship for women
Transcript:
Adele Kamel Whitley (00:00)
I knew in my whole body that everything I'm doing is wrong, but let me just do it to make them happy.
success without joy is literally like failure in disguise.
if more people can wake up genuinely happy and excited for their life, that they have chosen. that feels meaningful to them.
more people can do that, I 100 % believe that this world will be a better place.
buying yourself is achievable. It doesn't have to twist and turn your life upside down. It can be one choice
Emily Jean (00:23)
Right.
Adele Kamel Whitley (00:25)
philosophy of By Yourself is to live a life that is true to
sit down with yourself and ask yourself, who am I? What do I want? How do I want to live my life? Independent of what anyone else thinks about.
Emily Jean (00:38)
welcome to or welcome back to Founders in Jeans. I'm your host, Emily Jean. And before we get into the episode, I just want to say a huge thank you so much for listening to my podcast. It means the world to me.
I also wanted to say that if you enjoy the show, feel free to leave a review on Spotify or Apple, wherever you're listening to this, and also to follow us. You can follow us on Spotify, of course. You can follow us on Instagram at Founders in Jeans You can also find me on Instagram at Emily.Jeans.
or you can look me up on LinkedIn. I'm always happy to connect with people on there and I have a lot of good conversations from listeners. Also, you can always leave a bad review for us. I'm totally fine with that. And in fact, I think that's exciting. I would love to know what we can do to improve. So you can also leave comments below and let me know what you enjoyed, what you didn't enjoy. I actually do read every single one.
We also have a newsletter that comes out once a week so you can get all the updates from us. also put in
some weekly business and marketing updates in there, as well as some personal notes from me. You can subscribe to that on my LinkedIn, also through the Instagram and in the show notes below. Anyways, that is all from me. I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I hope it's a good one and I'll chat to you soon. Bye.
Emily Jean (02:11)
Kamel Whitley of by yourself. Welcome to Founders and Jeans. I am so excited to have you on today and chit chat with you.
⁓ For people who don't know you and who are not familiar with your work, why don't you give me a little bit of a background about yourself?
Adele Kamel Whitley (02:27)
Yes. Hi Emily. Well, really good to be here. I love the name of the show. I was wondering what kind of jeans to wear as I told you in the intro. But yeah, my name is Adele Kamal-Whitley and I'm the founder of By Yourself, which is literally a movement created from the own journey of my own life. And my life from going to, I always say on and off conformed for what society wanted to buy myself from selling myself to buying myself and the whole
Emily Jean (02:32)
Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (02:55)
The whole philosophy of By Yourself is to live a life that is true to you. A life where you actually choose your dreams, your values, your aspirations, how you want to live your life. And most people, unfortunately, are living their life based on other people's expectations and wishes and what looks good on paper. And that's how the By Yourself movement started.
That's what I do. And on the side of that, I also one to one coach high achievers because usually they are the one that sell themselves the most.
Emily Jean (03:25)
I love the name. I think it's so good. It catches the eye, but more importantly, it really resonates like truly. Yeah. Okay. Well, I want to just kind of dive in here first. I happen to have your bio here. So I know, and as you just mentioned, you went from a life of checking all these boxes.
to now you're helping others break free from this kind of people pleasing attitude. So I guess I'm kind of curious, where did it begin and what pushed you to start this work?
Adele Kamel Whitley (03:56)
So where did it begin? I guess it began when I was born. As long as I remember, I was always the one questioning everything. even from like, yeah, as long as I remember. Didn't want to do what the teacher said, didn't understand what I had to wait for the rest of the class to finish before moving forward. But for some reason, it still got to me, the conforming part. So.
Emily Jean (04:00)
Okay.
Adele Kamel Whitley (04:18)
I knew that I wanted to question everything. I knew that I didn't want to do what everyone else told me to, but even my parents told me like, you want to, you need to have a degree. So I did that and I knew in my whole body that everything I'm doing is wrong, but let me just do it to make them happy. And then I did that, the degree. And then as I said in the beginning, kind of on and on conformed, it's a long story, but I went to corporate and then I quit corporate, started my own. then when that maybe changed them.
changed, maybe a business partner left or I wanted to sell, then I went back into corporate. So was like kind of always on and on and long stories of why that happened. And we can maybe go deeper in that if it fits. But then there was one point when I just realized that the pain of constantly lying to myself about what I really wanted to make other people happy and what looks good on paper was too, too, too, too much for me. I didn't want to do that anymore. I was too old.
I wanted to live as I preach because I was coaching already back then. I've been coaching for years. And finally I felt I need to be congruent with my own word. So I need to start buying into what I'm saying and living from what I'm saying so that I can start to live a life that feels true to me. And that's it, right? It's the feeling. It's not only what it is, like what it looks like, it's how it feels when you live in your life. And that for me was the biggest difference.
Emily Jean (05:41)
Yeah. So I'm curious then, I want to kind of know what does it mean to you to live a life that is authentic to you and true to you?
Adele Kamel Whitley (05:53)
Yeah, that's I think that's the one question everyone wants to know. And that boils down to silencing out all the noise. Because if you think about it, when we're born, we're born into a family that already comes with a you know, with the stories and conditioning and ways of doing things, ways of talking about things, for example, about money or by career or work and how hard it should be or
how entrepreneurship is only for the chosen one and all that. So you're literally tagging onto that. You're tagging onto the family story and then you have new friends or you come to a school and then the teacher has their stories and their beliefs and their values. And as a kid, you just take them on and make them your truth through no fault of your own. That's what you do. Like you think that that is how it is because you're a kid, you're shaping your world through the world outside of you.
And as we grow older, most people don't even stop to ask themselves, is this what I want? Is this what I want to believe? Is this how I want to live my life? Is this the path for me? Is this how I want to feel? Is this what I want it to look like? Because for them, if you don't stop to think, if you don't stop to feel, if you don't stop to ask yourself, if everything was possible, how would I choose to live my life?
then by default you will just be running an autopilot based on the stories, beliefs and values and everything you took on from childhood. So buying yourself, long story short, is to sit down with yourself and ask yourself, who am I? What do I want? How do I want to live my life? Independent of what anyone else thinks about.
Emily Jean (07:30)
Yeah, big questions. And I think definitely easier said than done. What are the first steps you kind of encourage people to take that towards that?
Adele Kamel Whitley (07:33)
Yeah.
Yeah, that's a great one because I think when people hear this, you said, it's big questions and then you get into paralysis because you think there's so many changes to do. So you just do nothing like anything. So the first thing is to realize, okay, where is a nudge or where is some of the shoulds in my life that I'm ignoring? And I say the shoulds because for me, when someone tells me I should do that,
Emily Jean (07:53)
Right.
Adele Kamel Whitley (08:09)
It comes more from fear or who you think you should be for someone else or something else than what you want. So one thing you can do for this podcast is start questioning your shoulds. Every time you say you should ask yourself, should I? Is this my voice? Is this what I want? Or did I just, have I just taken that on and just ran away with on autopilot?
Emily Jean (08:31)
Yeah. Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (08:32)
That could be a good start. then some
other things can really be to sit down and think about how would I want to live my life? If I could, like if there was no limitations, just play with it, right? So just play, like imagine it's a play. You're not doing anything. know, you know, we need to silence the brain so doesn't go into fight flight and danger because, you know, just play with it. If everything was possible. What am I curious about? You know, what would I want to do? Where would I want to be with who?
How would I want to feel? What would I contribute to? What would be a meaningful life to me? And think about it. You don't have to do anything first. Just entertain the thought.
Emily Jean (09:09)
Yeah, I love that. think I'm curious to hear your opinion on this. ⁓ I read this book once called Designing Your
He talks about, that you think like people get this paralysis of choice because they think they have so many options available to them. But when you really sit down and think about them, you realize, well, this thing sounds kind of cool, but actually in reality, I'm not interested in X, Y, Z part of it. And I love that because I have been there so many times. And I actually, I was just
in London over the weekend on vacation and I was there in London. I'm like, my gosh, this is such a great city. I love it so much for the first couple of days. And I was thinking, okay, maybe I should move here. Maybe this is my next step, even though I love where I live. And then the longer I was there, I don't drink, I'm not a big drinker. And I realized that that is like a very big part of the culture, at least the social life in London that I would be a part of with my friends.
Adele Kamel Whitley (10:02)
Mmm.
that. Yeah.
Emily Jean (10:16)
And
I was thinking, well, know, practically being in Sydney, there's a much more of like a sober lifestyle there. So you actually don't think, and that's just a small example, but like it's interesting once you begin to sit with it and play around with it, things come up and you're like, well, I guess that's not really my journey anyway.
Adele Kamel Whitley (10:32)
Yes.
Great example of sitting with it, right? Yeah. And I think like you, to your point, we're so trained, especially today with the fast dopamine. So it feels good, you know, in this, in an instant it feels good. London is really cool, right? So you get this dopamine and you go, I want to feel like this forever. Right. And then I think that's what happens many times, but also people quit things too soon is because they just go after the next dopamine and the next dopamine and the next dopamine instead of thinking about.
Emily Jean (10:39)
Mm. Yeah.
Right.
Adele Kamel Whitley (11:05)
what, you know, designing your life. Like, how do I want to live my life? Not only what feels good right now, because then, yeah, that's, that's bound to fail. It's good on you.
Emily Jean (11:09)
Right, right.
Yes. Yes, absolutely.
Well, so I think kind of what we're dancing around here too is this tendency as a culture slash society for us to be kind of people pleasing. And how that is such a integral part of how most of us have grown up. I guess I'm curious. I know this is a decent part of your work. So where do you think that comes from?
Adele Kamel Whitley (11:39)
I know where it comes from. It comes from childhood. I mean, of course, I can't say it's a general fact and truth, but many times people pleasing comes from childhood. And if we break it down a little bit more, it comes from a time when you as a child realized that who you are, exactly who you are, right? Like that is not enough. So you have to change or you have to bend or you have to adjust.
Emily Jean (11:41)
okay. Yeah. Yeah.
Mm.
Adele Kamel Whitley (12:04)
So it's a strategy, coping strategy, who you are in order to get love or acceptance or validation. So you start to see, so if I do that, then my mom is actually happy. Great, that's how work. Let me continue doing that. And, you know, and that's how we start to abandon who we really are to make everyone else happy.
And then what comes with people pleasing is a lot of resentment, right? Because when you do that for a while and you grow older and you realize that actually, I don't like to do that for other people. Why doesn't it feel good anymore? So it comes from this place of needing wanting validation, acceptance. And when we're kids, that's also the main core thing is just to keep us safe, right? Because if mom loves us and she wants to us in the house and then we're safe.
And then that we start taking that with us to adulthood because we also think that if my boss is happy, then my job is secure. And if my husband is happy, then my relationship is secure. But it does come from a time in childhood when you learned that who you are might not give you the love that you want in the moment. So you start to bend who you are. start to look at, OK, but who do I need to be to get that love? What do I need to do? And then you see that it works and you continue on that.
Emily Jean (13:20)
Interesting. Yeah, I think that's a very good point. It seems obvious, but when you put it into words like that, like, yeah, it connects on a deeper level. ⁓ So I want to look, I guess, a little bit more into the business-y side of things here. I'm curious. I think when you say starting a movement, it sounds very inspiring and glamorous.
Adele Kamel Whitley (13:30)
Yeah.
and
Emily Jean (13:45)
For founders who are listening to this or budding entrepreneurs who would love to do something similar, what are kind of the more scrappy first steps you had to take?
Adele Kamel Whitley (13:54)
realizing that you don't have to know everything. So it's easy to say, want to start a movement, It's something maybe many people can say they want to do. And then they think, okay, but I have to have everything figured out right now before I do anything. And I can tell you by yourself, some years ago is not what by yourself is today.
Emily Jean (13:57)
Hmm.
Adele Kamel Whitley (14:14)
So I'd say just, just talking, start writing, start sharing your stories and, literally being messy online. Like don't have the big strategies. Just literally come back home to why you want to have that move. Like, why is it so important for you to get this message out there? And what is that message? What does it mean to you? Just start talking about it. Like no strategy, just your truth.
And I mean, for me with By Yourself, sometimes my husband asked me like, but if you didn't have to, would you do it? And yes, I could not not talk about By Yourself or work with By Yourself or deliver the message of By Yourself because that's for me would feel like abandoning who I am. And it's crazy to say it. It's, I'm 40, so it doesn't come, you know, it's been a work in progress, but right now I feel I'm here to deliver this message. I'm here to let people know that there is a way to live your life.
from a fulfilled place, if you dare to be a little bit courageous. ⁓ So that was a bit off, but to answer the question, start. Just start. Talk, write, be messy, be truthful, connect with people, inspire people. Just, yeah, just be you. Just know why you're doing it and how that has, I mean, for me, is why buying yourself is so important for me is the difference it's made in my life. Start with.
Emily Jean (15:11)
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely, I love that. I have to ask because we met on LinkedIn, we connected on LinkedIn, so what role does LinkedIn play in all of this for you?
Adele Kamel Whitley (15:43)
I love LinkedIn. And I don't know if you've been following each other for a while, but I write every day on LinkedIn. And it's my way of letting it out. So just the outlet. It's my way of every day contribute to sharing the by yourself message.
Emily Jean (15:44)
Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (15:59)
And in the beginning, when I had no followers, it was literally for me to, like I said in the previous question, to write and get it out and start crafting the message. it was, yes, I wanted to get the message out there, but it was also for me to start writing, to start crafting, to start see, okay, what's, what looks, what feels good to talk about? How is the good question? What, you know, and who, who's resonating? How's the response?
So LinkedIn has been great for me. And from there, I've been getting on podcasts, getting the chance to talk to people, because I also believe that there's a different energy when you talk than when you just write. And I've got clients from LinkedIn. I've got amazing friends, collaborators. Also, I've got my own sound coaches from LinkedIn. So it's been a big part of my life. If you use it for that, if you use it right, there's a lot to get from there.
Emily Jean (16:29)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think it's an untapped platform in many ways.
Adele Kamel Whitley (16:52)
It is, it is. So I encourage everyone to get on there and just explore.
Emily Jean (16:57)
Yeah.
So I think that for many people coaching kind of there's this perception of it's an easy job or, or at least the process maybe of it is easier than other businesses. which I know is not true. What would, but what would you say for you has been the hardest part so far about building, building your own business?
Adele Kamel Whitley (17:06)
Hmm.
No.
So I've had businesses before my coaching business. But if we say specifically coaching, it's been the fact that it's been a little bit more untangible than other businesses. I've had restaurants, and I've had event companies, and I've been part of sourcing real estate. All this is something you can touch. And then when you go to your coaching business, it's literally you selling who you are and how you can help someone else.
Emily Jean (17:33)
Mm.
Right. Right.
Adele Kamel Whitley (17:49)
And I've been in
sales my whole life. So for me, sales has not been the thing, but it's been the patience. It's been trusting the process when nothing happens, like when nothing on the outside is manifesting yet. Like you putting in a lot of work, putting in a lot of work. It's showing up when it feels like no one else is listening. And that's why, when we go back to what I talked about before, like when you are starting a movement or even a coaching business.
Emily Jean (18:02)
Mm.
Adele Kamel Whitley (18:14)
What is it that makes you special? What's your message that you can deliver to the other people? That is what's going to make people choose you. Touching is broad, right? So stick into who you are and also not looking at how other people are doing it, but realizing that who you are is your unfair advantage.
Emily Jean (18:26)
Right.
Yeah, I love that. think that's great advice. Yeah, you're unique. You're a USP, right? You're unique.
Adele Kamel Whitley (18:39)
Yeah.
100%. Could be the same coaching question said by different people. It hits different when there's a person that you feel A is authentic, but also that you resonate with.
Emily Jean (18:50)
Absolutely, absolutely. Is there kind of a mistake or one big mistake or lesson that you learned early on that you could share with people?
Adele Kamel Whitley (19:04)
Thinking that I had to figure it out all on my own. Oh my God. I, so if we talk about conditioning, I really thought I'm a perfectionist. had to do everything alone. No one else can do it like me. And once I realized that there's the power of investing in support and stop pretending I can do everything myself and asking for help.
Emily Jean (19:19)
Yeah.
Mm.
Mm-hmm.
Adele Kamel Whitley (19:31)
which in my opinion now is the ultimate form of leadership and vulnerability. That's when things started to change. I hired coaches, I hired mentors, I collaborated with people, I asked for help. I asked other people who knows who, so really it was when I stopped trying to do everything in them.
Emily Jean (19:31)
Yeah.
Yeah.
I love that, that's true. And also it's interesting how so many women are conditioned to not ask for help in that way. think, yeah, it's a vital skill to learn asking for help and at the very least admitting when you're not sure, you know? Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (20:08)
Yeah. And
I mean, I think it comes from us thinking that it's a weakness to ask for help. Well, what I've learned is the total opposite. It's the most, it's the strongest thing you can do. And people connect with people that dare to be vulnerable. And also people love to help. If I don't, I'm robbing other people from the joy of helping me.
Emily Jean (20:14)
Mm.
Hmm.
Right, right.
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (20:34)
And especially
when we come as a service people, or I have a service person, like I love to help, so I know how that feels. But what about receiving? So, know, is this, this needs to flow. If I'm going to give, I also need to be able to receive. Otherwise I'm blocking something.
Emily Jean (20:46)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's great. I love that. That's very true. It resonates a lot. Well, I want to talk a little bit about the future and kind of what's next up for you. I guess I'm curious, are there any exciting projects or offers or anything coming up soon that people can hear about?
Adele Kamel Whitley (21:08)
Yes, there's so much you want to do it by yourself. So I'm so glad you asked. And when you talked about people pleasing, I'm currently writing a small book, tiny book about people pleasing, where I have a pleasing detox method. So that's going to come out and it's going to be an easy process to just identify a bit of your shoulds. That's why I mentioned that before. And I'm going to reframe that and then start to paint out how would it look like if I let go of some of these shoulds and actually choose what I want instead.
Emily Jean (21:11)
Yeah.
Mm. Mm.
Love.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's great. That sounds so good.
Adele Kamel Whitley (21:40)
So that's one thing.
I hope so. It's in the process right now of just tweaking and designing. And it's a tiny book. It's more like a workbook. Another thing is to get the by yourself. I don't know if you see it there. It's a journal. ⁓ That is already out, but it's also in a tweaking. So I've taken it off Amazon for now. So that's going to come out soon again. Adding some stuff again. When I first launched it, it was...
Emily Jean (21:49)
Yeah.
Oh yeah. Uh huh.
Okay. Okay.
Adele Kamel Whitley (22:06)
another by yourself. And then ⁓ as I've gone, I've realized that there's some other prompts that I wanted in there. I'm changing it. Yeah. then hopefully, so if you ask me for like future future, when I do my visualization, by yourself is literally on the milk carton.
Emily Jean (22:24)
Okay.
Adele Kamel Whitley (22:24)
Emily, don't ask me. I see a milk carton standing in the, in the, you know, on the table of the breakfast table in households where people are, where you can read about buying yourself.
Emily Jean (22:35)
Yeah, I love that. That sounds great.
It's such a specific goal. I think that's beautiful.
Adele Kamel Whitley (22:40)
Crazy, right? I really don't know where
that comes from, but every time I visualize, I visualize talking on stage and books and it's always this milk carton in the household. I guess that's coming. Yeah.
Emily Jean (22:50)
Well, it's coming sooner or later. I
mean, there's no way around it once you see it.
Adele Kamel Whitley (22:55)
Exactly.
So stay tuned and I will share all of that on LinkedIn. So if you connect with me there, I'm happy to always keep you updated.
Emily Jean (23:01)
Yeah, please, absolutely.
So outside of just your vision for the movement, do you have kind of an ultimate vision for people who join this movement as well?
Adele Kamel Whitley (23:10)
Yeah, yes. And it all starts with my fundamental belief that if more people can wake up genuinely happy and excited for their life, and I'm not talking like toxic positivity, but I'm talking about waking up knowing that they're actually doing something, waking up to life that they have chosen. They're waking up to a life that feels meaningful to them. They're waking up to fulfill life. They stop waiting for permission and stop.
Emily Jean (23:15)
Mm-hmm.
Bye.
Adele Kamel Whitley (23:38)
then start living like they actually belong to themselves. If more people can do that, I 100 % believe that this world will be a better place. So that's my mission with every single people I get in touch with is to just leave them with a little bit more confident that they can choose themselves, even if there's one thing in a week that they can do a little bit more to themselves, for themselves, from themselves.
Emily Jean (23:41)
Mm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (24:01)
That would create a bit of a ripple effect because once you've done that and you realize how good it feels and you also realize that even if someone judged you, yeah, you didn't die. Now you might take another courageous step for the next thing.
Emily Jean (24:13)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I love that. That's great. I think that is a very achievable goal as well. That's beautiful. Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (24:20)
Right? That's
what I want. Like if we can just realize that it is achievable, buying yourself is achievable. It doesn't have to twist and turn your life upside down. It can be one choice today.
Emily Jean (24:30)
Right.
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. what is one word you'd use to describe the version of yourself before this journey?
Adele Kamel Whitley (24:41)
Lost.
Emily Jean (24:42)
Ooh, okay, very
to the point, I like that. And what is one word for the version now?
Adele Kamel Whitley (24:49)
free.
Emily Jean (24:51)
beautiful. Beautiful word choices. That's great. Yeah. Okay. Do you have any kind of red flag advice that you see all over social media that you would like to call out?
Adele Kamel Whitley (24:52)
Yeah. And it's literally the two contrasts.
I do. And I bought into this lie of the hustle culture. It doesn't mean I don't think you should work hard, but hustle without alignment and without a feeling that is good and attached to it and only feeling attached to a future somewhere that you might not even have is literally the fastest way to burn out. Yeah.
Emily Jean (25:13)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah. Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (25:31)
So
I, and I work with so many of those people who bought into the line of the hustle culture and try to untangle it because once you have, there's a fear that if you stop, that you will lose everything that you built.
Emily Jean (25:41)
Right, of course. Yeah. Okay, good. I'm glad that we are speaking about that because it's kind of poisoned my algorithm, I feel like.
Adele Kamel Whitley (25:43)
Yeah.
Yes, it does. And
it's so, like, you believe it. You believe that that's the only way to reach what you want, right? And it's not.
Emily Jean (25:56)
⁓ Absolutely. Yeah.
Okay, I have another one for you. Two more to go. What is one unpopular opinion you have about success?
Adele Kamel Whitley (26:13)
That success without joy is literally like failure in disguise. Yeah. Yeah. That's when you style yourself.
Emily Jean (26:18)
Ooh, that's good. Success without
joy is like a failure in disguise. That's really good. That's so powerful. I feel like you should put that on a pillow.
Adele Kamel Whitley (26:30)
Yeah, maybe I should, maybe I
should, because that's what I feel is like, yes, you can be successful. And that's what I coach somebody. like, yeah, you can choose. Now we get a little bit deeper, but let me just say, like, many people look at success as one pillar, which is a financial success or attached to that is maybe the title. And then if we look at life, there's so many other components to life. But if you only chose to focus on that pillar, yes, you might have what
Emily Jean (26:41)
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Adele Kamel Whitley (26:58)
the society defines as success, a successful financial entitle, all that. But if there's no joy in the rest of your life, if it's on the cost of your health and your relationship and yourself and your hobbies and your joy, then is that really success? Is that a successful life? Or is it failure?
Emily Jean (27:14)
Yeah, yeah, totally.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's a great question. I love that. Well, good. Well, I have a final rapid fire question for you. And I'm very excited to ask you about this. But do you have one book or course or resource or anything like that you can recommend for budding entrepreneurs?
Adele Kamel Whitley (27:21)
Yeah, that's that's. ⁓
Shoot.
For entrepreneurs, you mean for them to read as if they want to be entrepreneurs? Yes, many books.
One book I love is 10X is Easier Than 2X by Benjamin Hardy. Yes. The reason is because I think that most of us stay so much in our limitations. And what he talks about is that, as you said, 10X is easier than 2X because 2X is literally staying in what we know. So we think that if we just put in double the work, we'll get double the outcome.
Emily Jean (27:51)
10x is easier than 2x. Okay.
Mm.
Adele Kamel Whitley (28:12)
Well, he, means that if we look at beyond what's possible, like how would 10X look like? Now we're actually also stretching ourselves, ourselves, we're expanding ourselves, we're challenging ourselves. We're stepping into a new identity that, that is required for that to happen. And for me, that's also part of buying yourself is exploring what more can you do? Who else can you be? Not with what you think, but beyond what you think.
Emily Jean (28:18)
Hmm.
Yeah.
Adele Kamel Whitley (28:41)
And that's why that book, that that book challenged you to think way out of your current beliefs. It's like crashing all limitations and go, okay. Yeah.
Emily Jean (28:51)
Absolutely. Well, that's good. I'm gonna have to look that up because I've not heard that I've not heard that recommendation yet. I love that Okay, great
Adele Kamel Whitley (28:59)
Yeah,
everyone I recommended to has loved it. Another one is also The Big Leap. It's also a great, great book that talks about upper limits. Yeah.
Emily Jean (29:02)
Yeah.
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, I love the big leap. I'm gonna have to, I'm gonna add the first one to my cart as soon as we get off of this. Yeah, okay, good, good. Okay, well, Adele, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so glad I got the chance to chat to you. It always has been such a good episode for where can people find you and where can they find by yourself?
Adele Kamel Whitley (29:08)
Yeah.
Yes, it's a newer one. maybe that's why.
So you can find me on adelekamelwhitley.com That's my webpage. You can read a little bit more about by yourself. And if you want to connect, I'm so happy to connect on LinkedIn. I'm literally there every day. So if you would DM, I'm happy to answer. I will answer everything. I have a newsletter where I share more of these nuggets every week. You'll find the link both on LinkedIn and on my webpage. So yeah, that's the ways. And I'm happy to get into conversation.
Emily Jean (29:53)
Okay.
Adele Kamel Whitley (29:56)
I'm just one DM away
Emily Jean (29:57)
Mm-hmm. Okay, great. And then I'll
all be linked in the show notes as well. But, well, thank you so much for joining me, Adele. I'm so glad we got to do this.
Adele Kamel Whitley (30:07)
Thank you, Emily. Thank you for the work you're
Emily Jean (30:09)
Oh, of course, of course. Thank
you. And that is a wrap.
