Your Inner Critic is NOT Your Boss

What if the voice telling you “you’re not ready” isn’t telling you the truth — it’s trying to keep you safe?

In this episode, Jess and Claude sit down with psychologist, talent agent and self-sabotage expert Dr. Albert Bramante to unpack the mental roadblocks that can keep talented people playing small.

Albert explains why self-sabotage can actually be a protective mechanism, how fear of failure AND fear of success can hold us back, and why procrastination may have more to do with fear than time management. We also get into perfectionism, the inner critic, rejection, and what happens when our brains turn one “no” into an entire story about our worth.

Plus, Albert shares practical ways to start changing the pattern — including turning your to-do list into scheduled action, reframing failure as feedback, questioning the stories your inner critic tells you, and creating a “Happy File” to remind yourself of the wins you tend to forget.

Because before anyone else can validate your value, you have to learn how to see it yourself.

In this episode:

•  Why self-sabotage can be a form of self-protection 
•  Fear of failure vs. fear of success 
•  The surprising connection between procrastination and fear 
•  Healthy striving vs. perfectionism 
•  How to challenge your inner critic 
•  Why “no” can mean “not today” instead of “never” 
•  How to create your own Happy File 
•  Why owning your worth has to start with you 

Share this episode with the work bestie who needs the reminder: you don’t have to feel completely ready before you take the next step.

You can watch the full episode on Youtube
Follow us on IG ,  TikTok, Threads and LinkedIn
Please rate, comment and provide suggestions for upcoming episodes

Work Besties! Theme Song Written by Ralph Lentini @therallyband

Transcript

The Not Ready Lie

Speaker 3 0:00

The biggest lie your inner critic tells you is You're not ready.

Speaker 0:06

And not I've always said that not ready is a lot.

Speaker 3 0:09

Today we're talking about the voice that says you are not ready, not qualified, or maybe one mistake away from being exposed. Oof. And how to stop letting that voice run your career. Dr. Albert Ramonti is a veteran talent agent with more than 20 years of experience, a psychologist, and an expert in the mental roadblocks that keep talented people playing small.

Claude F 0:33

So he has seen confidence from both sides: the person trying to earn the opportunity and the person deciding who gets the room. And by the end, you learn how do you own your value before someone else validates it. Hi, I'm Clun. And I'm Jess. We are corporate employees by day, entrepreneurs by night, and work besties for life.

Jess K 0:55

Join us as we explore how work besties lift each other up, laugh through the chaos, and thrive together in every industry.

Meet Dr Albert Bramante

Jess K 1:03

Work besties!

Claude F 1:06

Hi, Ibert. We are so happy to have you.

Speaker 1:10

Thank you so much, Jess and Clark, for having me on here. I'm really happy to be here.

Speaker 3 1:13

Your background is such a unique combination. Over 20 years of experience, and you have an interesting mix between talent agent, PhD in psychology, you've got the hypnosis, the NLP, and we're curious to understand what first made you realize that self-doubt and self-sabotage is not a lack of talent that was keeping your performers from their potential.

Speaker 1:39

It was very interesting because working as an agent back in the 2004, 2005 era, I would meet so many actors that were great. I'd watch them on screen, I'd watch them on stage. But when it came time to audition or came time to actually really show, they would freeze or self-sabotage. And when I mean by self-sabotage, come up with reasons why they couldn't make the audition, blow off the audition at the last minute, not be prepared. And it was a problem that was compounding. It was like there were multiple actors that this was occurring with. And I couldn't figure out like what's going on here. Why is there a major disconnect from their thoughts, what they were telling me, and interactions. There was a major disconnect. And so that was my first major piece. The second um source of this was being a college professor, I've taught psychology, community college for so many years. And I can tell you that so many times I would work with students and have students in my class that were really smart and really intelligent, but not disciplined or not conscientious, or that they would just stop coming to class and just stop doing the work. And I couldn't figure out like what's going on here. So this was a theme coming up now. I'm noticing a two completely different populations.

Claude F 3:09

They were subway.

Speaker 3:10

Where people were getting on they were getting their own way, they were getting in their own way. So that's where I was like, something's really going on here. At that time, so I was building my company and started teaching. I said, I'm gonna go back for my PhD and into psychology. And for all PhD programs, we have to do a dissertation. The goal was to kind of solve a problem. You know, that's where most people, when they do a dissertation, there's some personal connection. And I remember brainstorming. One question kept me coming up is self-sabotage. So for the next several years for my dissertation, I researched why do people self-sabotage?

Speaker 3 3:53

Why do they? That's what I want to know. Why do we do it?

Speaker 3:57

Great question. And it's still a thing in progress.

Why Self-Sabotage Feels Safer

Speaker 4:00

There's a lot of new discoveries in today's day. But what it really boils down to is self-sabotage is really a protective mechanism. One of the things that we have in NLP and neurolinguistic programming is that every behavior has a positive intention. Even if the outcome isn't exactly positive, the intent was always positive. Self-protection in this case. And what do you what you may be asking, well, what are you being protected from? Fear. And why self-sabotage is very sneaky is that it's unconscious. So we don't even realize we're doing it, at least in the context of that, in the context of self-sabotage or ruining opportunities or shooting selves in the foot. So this is where it takes like a good coach or an expert, a therapist, to be able to point this out to you and say, okay, this is what you may be doing. This is your blind spots in a sense.

Fear Of Failure And Success

Speaker 3 4:59

Albert, is it more a fear of success or fear of failure?

Speaker 5:03

Actually, both.

Speaker 3 5:04

Okay.

Speaker 5:05

Um now almost everyone can identify with fear of failure. Fear of success is also another sneaky one.

Speaker 4 5:13

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 5:14

Because when you bring this up for a lot of people, when you talk about fear of success, they look at you saying, Well, this is why would I fear that? I want success. Consciously, yes, you do. But change very often you're gonna happen with success. Your identity's gonna change, your life, day-to-day life may change, your relationships may change.

Speaker 3 5:41

Yeah, I would think like in your industry, especially with like the creative types, the actors and out there, that that might be more like I think it happens in the business environment too, but even more so in the creative environment. Because you're right, you things dramatically shift and change for them from the success.

Speaker 6:00

Abs absolutely. No, and and totally, it really does um change over time. In a sense, and that's where a lot of uh with with with creatives and and and performers, your life is gonna change when you get that role or get that opportunity. And you know, we all we all want it, but there's a lot more responsibility now that's gonna be attached to it. And one of the things that we don't like doing, just as human beings, is change, is being the unknown, being uncomfortable. We're so used to having everything being laid out specifically.

Perfectionism As A Trauma Response

Speaker 3 6:42

But the fear, whether of success or of failure, do you think it comes back to they feel like they have to be a perfectionist, or is there another underlying element that's causing that?

Speaker 6:55

Well, everybody's different, and and I often say perfectionism is it's not about because uh we all are striving to be better in what we're doing. I mean, that's what everyone is doing. There's nothing wrong with that. I think it's great. Perfectionism is more for beating yourself up when you make mistakes. Okay. And that's more of a trauma response. When you when you start beating yourself up, because that's the difference between like healthy striving and perfectionism, is with healthy striving, you welcome the mistakes. You welcome the learning experiences that are attached to that. The failures are not seen as something bad, but more as stepping stones. Whereas perfectionism, you start beating yourself up and saying, What's wrong with me? Or I'm not measuring up. And so that's what happens with uh with when it comes to perfectionism. And I often say perfectionism is a sign of some sort of trauma. Now, when I talk about trauma, now it doesn't necessarily be a sensational catastrophic event. It could be day-to-day things that happened to you as a child. Having an overcritical parent, a dismissive parent, a teacher that ridiculed you a lot, being picked on in school, things that were like kind of like a day-in-the-life trauma that we still internalize it as things go on. We all cover, we all carry some of this to some degree. Because you were doing the distinction with um like perfectionism.

Claude F 8:39

Do you think that do we see people that have this perfectionism being more like self-sabotaging themselves?

Speaker 8:48

To some degree, yes, because you're putting number one, you're you're making you're creating a lot more anxiety for yourself when you're a perfectionist. Our brain does a fantastic job at protecting us and keeping us alive.

Using Imposter Syndrome As Data

Speaker 3 9:03

We talk a lot about this in the business world as like the imposter syndrome. So it's really identifying or distinguishing perhaps the difference between self-doubt and maybe a genuine skill gap that you have. Um, do you feel like there's a way to tell or help people through that?

Speaker 9:23

Yeah, I mean, I my view, at least the way I look at imposter syndrome, we all have it. There's no such thing as like only certain people have everybody has it to some level. And it can be our ally uh if we use it properly. And the way I feel like it could be our ally is it will help us. Okay, what are some gaps that we're we get or that we need to to to enhance? But then the the only time it becomes a problem is when we let it paralyze us, or we start negating or deleting all of the opportunities that that we're good

Procrastination, Anxiety, And Calendars

Speaker 10:03

at.

Claude F 10:03

Do you think that procrastinating is actually a sign of self-doubt, of self-sabotage?

Speaker 10:11

100%. And I'm yeah, very glad you made that connection. I was just about going to because um it's one way to keep us safe. Very often you might think chronic procrastinator is saying, I'm just forgetful. No, it's much deeper than that. Because this is why, if you think about it, all the you know, these books that are on procrastination, they I think they have great intentions, and I think they the advice can help. But underneath the pattern of recurrent procrastinator is trauma that has to be dealt with. And that's fear. What happens if you actually get it? In my case, with actors, what would actually happen if you did book the job? Or in a business says, what would actually happen if you got the promotion? What actually happened if you made the sale? And can that be terrifying?

Claude F 11:10

Yeah, so I'm a big procrastinator. So when I have a project, I know I'm scared of doing it because I'm overwhelmed, I don't know where to go, I'll wait until the last minute, then I go crazy, I'll have an all-nighter, but I'll still do it. And do I learn from it? Not really, because at the end everything went fine. I almost feel like it's my way of working, but it's not fun. So how can you like stop this craziness?

Speaker 11:44

The main thing is to create a system. It's very easy to self-diagnose. It's very easy to sit there and say, What's wrong with me? I need to work harder, I need to work harder, I need to work harder. And one of the things a lot of procrastinators will do is they'll talk themselves into it. Oh, I work better under pressure. I need, you know, and which is, you know, I'm not denying that, but do you ever think that if you fail at that, that you you're creating an excuse out of that by saying, well, it was because I didn't have enough time.

Claude F 12:19

Oh.

Speaker 12:20

So it's easy to say that instead of like, I didn't do well. I could come up with an excuse. The biggest thing to do is create a system. And one of the things that's a really important skill that that's underutilized is conscientiousness and being disciplined and having a system, a calendar, a planner. And I'm most of the time we use calendar for like meetings or uh events, but we don't set a day-to-day. Everyone should be scheduling a calendar to work on a project. Set a block of time. Even family time should go on your calendar. Self-care should go on your calendar. And you do what? It's not a to-do list because one of the things I often talk about is to-do lists are also scary and unproductive. Because I have a list of things, and we'll have lists of things. We need to do this, this, and this, and this. But it's that's all it is. It's a list.

Claude F 13:21

I love my to-do list.

Speaker 13:24

Well, everyone does, but turn it into a calendar, turn it into action items. Okay, I need to do this. Okay, well, when? When are you gonna do that? But at that, open your calendar, pick a time, and do it. And now, instead of it becoming a passive to-do list, it's out active. It's an active thing on your list. And you're more likely to do it when you have that calendar. I mean, that that's why, like, if you think about it, when you go to a duck make a uh a doctor's appointment, what do they do? They call you the day before or you know, two days before before to confirm. Because, or they give you a card with the date because you're not gonna remember it. And it's not because you have a bad memory, it's just the way it works, the memory works. So put reminders, put schedules on, and just start doing things one thing at a time. And go into this is where you really have to do is sometimes a deeper dive here. If you're a cr of a chronic procrastinator, something isn't right here. Um, because you'll often hear people say, I I had to wait for the last minute, I'm so busy. That's great. But then also you're spending a couple hours on your phone doom scrolling. Hello?

Claude F 14:43

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 4 14:44

Um before you try and change it.

Claude F 14:47

Obviously, and I know, right? Um it's not every project is the project where I think it's the fear of failing. The very one that is out of my comfort.

Speaker 15:02

Right, or looking bad. You know, I mean, I work in higher education, and uh the I I'd say the biggest source of procrastination are students, college students. But I often frame it, I'm like, I I do see a correlation between the students who have anxiety and those that are procrastinating. Hmm, that's a good point.

Speaker 3 15:26

So and one blades the other, though, or is this to your point, it's like the anxieties, the impact of it's it it really they have a lot to do with one another.

Speaker 15:37

I mean, that was one of the core findings for my dissertation was there was a relationship between anxiety and self-sabotage. The higher the anxiety you possess on a day-to-day basis, the less disciplined you're gonna be, and the more likely you're gonna self-sabotage. So it's a two-pronged punch here.

Speaker 3 16:00

Okay.

Speaker 16:00

In a sense. So there is a strong relationship.

Speaker 3 16:04

So, based off of this, the more that you have that system in place and the planning, it helps to combat the self-sabotage, which then ultimately helps combat the imposter syndrome.

Speaker 16:18

Is that yes, and then and then also emotionally working through with whatever issues you're going through, resolving any past traumas. That is probably the biggest one there, underlying everything. Because that's the whole clue, in a sense, every all of this here. And you're not gonna really find this on the servers level. You're not, and you're gonna get people to say, Yeah, I'm a crossing, but I like working under pressure. No, you don't. You know, nobody likes that. Nobody, nobody likes it in the moment.

Speaker 3 16:54

Yeah. Exactly, yeah. But I think a lot of people do what you say, which is like, but I'm so much more productive that way. But you would you don't really have a lot of examples where you weren't stressed.

Claude F 17:03

Exactly. How do you know that you were not at all? And at the end of the day, you don't know of what you produced was fine enough, was good enough, or could have been better. Better because you had more time, right?

Speaker 17:19

Well, I I I'll go on here and say, I can 100% guarantee if you had more time, you produce a much better document or whatever, or project, or product or whatever it is that you're working on. Um so and and again, watch a procrastinator when they when they actually have the last minute. I mean, they're for I mean ferociously diving, um, or finishing up. And there you could see them sweating almost. Like, you know, where's the time gone? Um I was gonna say going into like with imposter syndrome and and and beating yourself up is if you take the mindset that there's no thing such thing as failure, only feedback. Most inventors often might um do a prototype 200 times and make mistakes before they get the one that's correct. That's actually the one that's to market. And you've never you've never seen them give up. You never see them quit. But you'll often hear them say I had 200 up times to chances to get it right. So failure became almost a game, gamification of it. Where okay, if this didn't work, great. Okay, let's try this. This is good feedback.

Speaker 3 18:40

So the it all comes back down then to the inner critic.

Befriending Your Inner Critic

Speaker 18:43

And how do you The inner critic w 100%.

Speaker 3 18:47

How do you adjust your mentality with your inner critic? So, how do you do that?

Claude F 18:53

But how do you silence your inner critic?

Speaker 18:56

Well, the first thing, understand one thing. Your inner critic, even though it may sound hostile, is there to help you. It's there to protect you, it's in your brain protecting you. So understand that. And this is where it's like you start to achieve a balance of saying, okay, I'm not gonna be reckless at the same time. Yeah. And I'm gonna be skeptical of things I'm gonna go through. But understand, and it's really about it it's you may have to resolve some things from your past, some things from your childhood. Because again, you're you can internalize your marks you have from your from your family growing up, and that becomes your own inner thought process when it's really your mom who was or your father who was insecure themselves.

Speaker 4 19:45

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 19:46

It's a process. If you're expecting me to tell you that, okay, just do A, B, and C and put water on it, it'll change.

Speaker 4 19:53

It's a secret.

Speaker 19:57

Exactly. It's a secret no. Yeah, uh just mad at you know, uh hand me ten thousand dollars, I'll get I'll take your problem. No, I mean the issue is it's a process, it it's it's a lifelong process.

Speaker 3 20:09

It's a lifelong process that you're always going to be still evolving through, too, right? Because I think that's another misnomer. Your inner critic never ends, it's gonna evolve as you evolve. So it goes back to the never go away.

Speaker 20:23

It never goes away. It never goes away. It's your friend, but it's how you work with it, it's how you sit there and say, Okay. Um, because very often you an inner critic will start to say, I'm not good at this. And then you often have to just ask, says who? A lot of times I'll hear people like, I can't do anything right. I'm like, you mean anything? And then they'll laugh and say, Well, you know, no, I don't mean it like that. Or nobody likes me. Like, nobody? You've you've it met everybody on the earth. And they all said to you, you're the entire world, and they all told you to your face, I don't like you. Because this happens a lot when

Turning No Into Feedback

Speaker 21:06

we get emotional. Like with actors, so another thing that makes this profession very hard is in most business situations when you go on an interview, very often you get a rejection. You know, maybe a foreign reject, you get a rejection letter. Like, okay, this has been filled, or we want we chose another candidate. In our field, with with performers, when you don't get the job, you really don't hear anything. Well, that's like crickets. Oof. That's wrath. Yeah, there are some rare cases where I'll get feedback from a customer saying we want, we've loved, we like your client, but we went in another direction. Now, if you think about that statement, it's very neutral. We went another direction. Some actors are going to take that personally and start smiling. They didn't like me. I knew they didn't like me. And I would go up to them and said, um, tell me when they said to you, I don't like you. And they'll laugh and say, Well, they didn't say that. I'm like, your brain just went from A to Z. You know, you you jumped. This is where we need to work on your inner critic of that here.

Speaker 4 22:11

Yeah.

Speaker 22:12

Because all it was you didn't get the role. That's nothing personal about it. It just didn't happen. So this applies to business too. A lot of times when we hear the word no, we we freeze. Or we get dejected or disappointed. If you look at it like a no being, instead of it being like a not ever, it's just not today. Not today.

Speaker 3 22:40

Yeah. And it comes back to not at this moment. I feel like the consistent theme is still disconnecting the outcome from the feedback. Because the feedback is when you take the outcome away from it, the feedback can translate much more honestly. Because you're not so caught up in the I didn't get the job or I didn't do successful.

Claude F 23:01

I think it's switching also your wires, right, in your brain to go from negative to a more positive way and more or more realistic way. Yeah, just open. You're not realistic. Letting your brain do the linking of the next step for you. Yeah.

Speaker 23:19

Absolutely. And that's what really comes down

Build A Happy File

Speaker 23:22

to.

Claude F 23:22

Some people have been asking you about the happy file.

Speaker 23:27

This is something I created for actors, but it can be relevant to anything. So it's sort of a sister, you could say, of a gratitude journal. So you take a list of everything that you've accomplished, good feedback from an audition or a callback, or in this case, a performance evaluation or a compliment for your boss or a customer, a client, and you document it. You actually put it in a file. It could be a notebook or even just a document, Google Doc, and you list all these good things, all the accolades and reviews. And when you have a rainy day, I'm not talking about the weather, I'm talking about a rainy day. Yeah. Mentally for.

Speaker 4 24:11

Yes.

Speaker 24:11

Mental when you have a mentally rainy day, you pull out your happy file and it will help you stay committed to why you're doing that.

Speaker 3 24:21

Yeah. It's true. That feels very much a brain. We have what we call a brag book on our end. You're nicer.

Speaker 24:29

Yeah. A brag book is great too. Um and because I think a lot of us um don't know how to brag. Or yeah.

Speaker 4 24:41

Yeah.

Speaker 24:42

Or talk about ourselves. And this is where I think there's nothing wrong with humble bragging, you know, in a sense. I call the humble brag where yeah, you should be patting yourself on the back.

Speaker 3 24:53

Yeah. For sure. So, Albert, we'd love to have you answer for our work bestie community.

Owning Your Value First

Speaker 3 25:01

How do you own your value before someone else validates it?

Speaker 25:06

Well, that's that's the most important thing is to know your worth. Because unless you know your worth, other people are not going to validate that. Because this is why, like, if if you're insecure and you don't value yourself well, you're going to be taken advantage of. People are going to walk all over you, people are going to treat you poorly. So you have to validate yourself first. You have to go first in this world. And that's the first thing, too, because I've been, you know, I've I've worked on a few, and I've also been to myself on a lot of like, you know, charisma or magnetism, you know, at increase like personal magnetism, personal sales. And the first half or three-quarters of these programs is all about working in your own internal state. Because you can't convince somebody else of your words if you don't have you don't have it yourself. Because then people are gonna not view you that way. And so you're training people how to respond to you.

Speaker 3 26:08

That's an interesting approach to it.

Speaker 26:09

It is really important for you to understand your words before good.

Claude F 26:12

Well, Albert, thank you so much. This was so interesting, and our Work Besties community will definitely be able to take some of those uh those things for sure and apply it to their own personal life andor their work life because they're all relatable, to be honest.

Speaker 3 26:32

100%. Yes, thank you.

Closing And Share The Show

Speaker 3 26:34

Work besties community. If you liked this episode, please share with your work besties. Check out Albert's podcast, um, and send us some questions and to all the work besties out there, keep supporting each other.

Claude F 26:51

Bye.

Jess K 26:54

Bye. Remember, whether you're swapping snacks in the break room, rescuing each other from endless meetings, or just sending that perfectly timed meme. Having a work bestie is like having your own personal hype squad.

Claude F 27:07

So keep lifting each other up, laughing through the chaos, and of course, thriving. Until next time, stay positive, stay productive, and don't forget to keep supporting each other. Work besties!