I Can’t Get No Satisfaction: Erika Beeson Of ‘Pivoting Your Potential’ On Why So Many Of Us Are Feeling Unsatisfied & What We Can Do About It

An Interview With Drew Gerber

Re-evaluate Your Expectations: And by re-evaluate, I mean abandon. In this world we have blurred the lines between goals/aspirations and expectations. If you expect something to be a certain way, you are instantly setting yourself up for disappointment. If you are looking to buy a home, you can’t expect to find a house that checks every single box that has your favorite paint colors, your ideal flooring, the exact fixtures you would pick out and with your favorite flowers planted in the front yard.

From an objective standpoint, we are living in an unprecedented era of abundance. Yet so many of us are feeling unsatisfied. Why are we seemingly so insatiable? What is going on inside of us that is making us feel unsatisfied? What is the brain chemistry that makes us feel this way? Is our brain wired for endless insatiable consumption? What can we do about it? In this interview series, we are talking to credentialed experts such as psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, brain science experts, as well as spiritual and religious leaders, and mind-body-spirit coaches, to address why so many of us are feeling unsatisfied & what we can do about it.

As a part of this series, I had the distinct pleasure of interviewing Erika Beeson.

Erika is an Author, Speaker, Coach and Thought Leader. Erika’s expertise allows her to help people navigate uncertainty in life, to find clarity and direction so they can confidently step into a life lived on their own terms and experience happiness on a whole new level. Erika is passionate about her work and the transformations she is able to help her clients achieve.

Thank you so much for joining us in this interview series! Before we dive in, our readers would love to know how you got from “there to here.” Inspire us with your backstory!

Truthfully my backstory of how I got to where I am today is a rugged road of sharp turns, dead ends and some major pitfalls. My childhood and teen years were pretty standard for your average American kid growing up in suburban Utah in the 80’s. I grew up with some pretty strong religious roots in a pretty conservative town, which I loved and still love to this day as I do currently live in that same town, but as I started to get into my young adult years my perspectives shifted. Some evolved naturally with curiosity and others were sharply forced in my face, but what it led me to discover was that the world around me and what I thought was the recipe for happiness and satisfaction in life, maybe wasn’t all it was hyped up to be.
When my first marriage was shattered by the news of my then husband basically leading a double life, I felt like my world had been shaken to it core. Every little thing I had tried so hard to achieve in my life and my marriage was void. Every effort had been in vain. I felt helpless and buried and when the pain of that divorce subsided, I set out to never feel that way again. I was determined to find the life I wanted, one of happiness, fulfillment, fun, romance, love and adventure. I wanted the whole package. I wanted it so bad I shapeshifted into groups or jobs or relationships that I thought would get me what I wanted. I was forcing it. I was trying to mastermind each aspect of my life in order to create this culmination or collection of things to bring the happiness I wanted so badly, and if that particular round of shapeshifting didn’t work, I moved on to the next.
I was in and out of religions, I tried the partying/bar scene, I went the hardcore outdoorsy girl route and I even went back to college and got a job at a law firm to try that corporate world on for size. None of it seemed to fit. None of these “recipes” were working out for me.

Bottom line was I was looking for all of these external things to provide me with the happiness, peace and fulfillment that can only come from within. No wonder I felt so short-changed all the time. I felt like life was letting me down and the Universe was basically working against me.

It wasn’t until my late 30’s when I finally started putting in the work with some personal development that things started to click.

What lessons would you share with yourself if you had the opportunity to meet your younger self?

My younger self, oh how I love her. If I had the opportunity to meet her, I would impress upon her that fact that she is not responsible for the happiness or emotional stability of others. That she does not need to micro manage every choice in her life to ensure it meets the ideals or standards of those around her. I would remind her that it’s okay to be different and that your worth is not affected by being different.

None of us are able to experience success without support along the way. Is there a particular person for whom you are grateful because of the support they gave you to grow you from “there to here?” Can you share that story and why you are grateful for them?

There is not one single person in particular that was the main supporter in my growth, but there was a select group of people consisting of some friends, some family, my therapist and a co-worker or two that greatly impacted me. This select group was important because they all allowed me the following:

• A space to be honest about my mistakes and my feelings.
• No judgement for those mistakes or feelings.
• Challenging me on unhealthy thoughts or behaviors.
• Encouragement to trust myself and follow my intuition.
• Freedom to express my emotions.

I felt seen, I felt heard and I felt challenged by these people. They each offered comfort when needed and on occasion, a firm wake up call when needed. Even as I am thinking about some of these incredible people in my life, I am curious if they truly know of the impact they had on me. I think I have some phone calls to make or emails/texts to send.

Are you working on any exciting new projects now? How do you think it might help people?

I am preparing to launch my NEW 90 Day program Reignite Your Life. I have spent the last 9 months creating this carefully crafted program designed to create true and lasting transformation that can lead to greater fulfillment in life without the need to compare, compete and burn yourself out to keep up with whatever unrealistic standard that has been ingrained into your mind. We all struggle with clarity in this world full of overstimulation and information overload coming at us left and right and this creates so much noise around us and can result in major feelings of uncertainty. That feeling of chaos within us can effect our nervous system which can in turn greatly affect our physical body as well as our mental and emotional health. My program takes you step by step through a very unique process of self-inquiry, self-discovery and self-empowerment. You’ll learn how to better understand yourself and why you do certain things, think a certain way and react to specific things. It’s a transformative process that will break the chains tying you to feeling stuck in life. Based upon that explanation I think you can see why I felt so excited about this particular interview topic because it falls right in line with the main purpose behind my program as well as the messaging in my recently published book, The Renewal of You: Finding the Courage and Awareness to Live the Life You Were Meant To. It’s a topic I’m very passionate about and will continue to shout if from the rooftops every chance I get.

Ok, thank you for sharing your inspired life. Let’s now talk about feeling “unsatisfied”. In the Western world, humans typically have their shelter, food, and survival needs met. What has led to us feeling we aren’t enough and don’t have enough? What is the wiring? Or in other words, how has nature and nurture played into how humans (in an otherwise “safe and secure” environment) experience feeling less than, or a need to have more than what is needed for basic survival?

As an infant our needs are very simple: food, sleep, shelter and comfort/companionship. As we age and our brains develop, those needs don’t change much at all. We may become more inquisitive and crave connection a bit more, but t’s been an unfortunate evolution in my opinion, that our drive is now “do and have” versus “experience and enjoy”. In my personal opinion all of that drive comes from consumerism. The masters of marketing have presented us with enough content to persuade us that our life will be improved by having all the things and that we need to look a certain way in order to feel comfortable or confident in our own skin. The constant insertion of imagery into our minds that material things are the markers of a successful and fulfilled life and somehow provide a particular “status” within the community is truly one of society’s greatest downfalls.

Technology has been the vessel that has allowed for widespread insertion of this concept of “have and do more”. Many people right now are referring to hustle culture and how we need to slow that down. I whole heartedly agree, but the root of that is lack of self-sustainability. We rely on someone else, either a person or a company, for everything in our lives. Our food, our clothes, our entertainment, our health. We have given away our power to make decisions for ourselves because of so-called experts. Whether it’s advice from a doctor who is more concerned about pharmaceutical kickbacks than your actual long term health, to an online “influencer” offering up a very convincing testimonial on a product that may hold very little truth just so they can make their commission.

We’ve stopped thinking for ourselves. We’ve let the media convince us they know what’s better for us than we do. We’ve been re-wired to think for ourselves less and less. We’ve been re-wired for instant gratification and a very high price that comes along with that.

So you spend the money on “the thing” that someone said you needed and turns out you don’t really need it and now your problem is not solved and you have that much less money. So, you question your decision making, feel guilty for wasting money and you still have your original “problem”. Pretty great recipe for feeling unsatisfied right? You then go searching for the next great thing to solve the problem and chances are the same pattern occurs. You become a slave to this cycle until you can open your eyes wide enough to see it.

How are societies different? For example, capitalistic societies trade differently than communists. Developed nations trade differently than developing nations. In your opinion, how does society shape a human’s experience and feelings of satisfaction?

Society holds a major role in shaping the human experience. Countries that are still developing, in my opinion, are still rooted in a simpler way of life with less technology flashing material things before them and constantly inundating their communities with that do more, be more mentality. Not saying they are complacent by any means, but in their current reality their perspective on what equals success is far different than what equals success in a more advanced or more developed nation.

I can remember as a teenager watching documentaries in school about under developed nations where we would see the kids playing soccer in the dirt roads with something that looked like a very beat up old ball in their bare feet. I remember thinking, “Wow, these poor kids don’t even have proper cleats or a real soccer ball.” But the fact of the matter is, those kids didn’t know any different and they were clearly having the time of their lives out there playing, laughing, having fun. They didn’t feel any less satisfied because they weren’t wearing the latest model of the hottest cleat brand out there. Nor did they care if the leather was peeling off the ball they had or if it was the right size for their age or if it was the colors of their favorite team. They were completely satisfied with what they had. In that moment I’m certain I had thoughts like “Those kids don’t know what they are missing out on”, but now I actually would reverse that. We as a developed society are missing out as we stray farther and farther away from the simple pleasures in life.

Living in a developed nation, the bar is continually being pushed higher and higher. Do more, achieve more, get more, have more. It takes a toll on us physically, emotionally and mentally. If we want more, or feel pressure to have more, we have to work more. If we work more and are more focused on attaining more, we become less present in our own lives which in my opinion leads to lack of connection with those around us. In my experience, and work with clients, it is very apparent that feelings of satisfaction in life are directly impacted by the quality of connections we have with family, friends, co-workers, our community and ourselves. You could have the best job and nicest home with a fancy car and designer clothes; but if you live in isolation without real connections in your life, chances are you may still feel deeply unsatisfied in life. It’s such an interesting topic to contemplate and there are many layers to this, but I know we have more questions to dive into.

Do you think the way our society markets and advertises goods and services, has affected people’s feelings of satisfaction? Can you explain what you mean?

100% Yes. I feel like so many goods and services are advertised as solutions to problems or discomforts in life or even just positioned with a major convenience factor. I am actually a huge fan of problem solving and finding a way to do things smarter and not harder, but a lot of the marketing I see is a bit twisted and isn’t really offering a solution, but short term, instant gratification type of band-aid for a problem. I’ll use a very specific example that I personally a see a few times a week on a billboard around where I live. It’s a billboard for surgical body shaping, and there are two main phrases that leave me shaking my head each time. One of the phrases is “Get rid of embarrassing fat” and the other is the hashtag “#empoweryourself”. Immediately my whole being is irritated with the blatant statement that fat is embarrassing. This falls into the category of body shaming and seeing/reading things like this along with all the other diet culture garbage we are force fed all the time can lead you to begin to see your body as not up to par. Maybe despite trying and trying you struggle to lose that weight and then you feel frustrated, ashamed, and embarrassed with a giant overarching theme of being unsatisfied with yourself physically. We are perpetuating body shaming with marketing like this.
Then there is the hashtag #empoweryourself. Empower yourself to do what? Pay for a risky and expensive surgery that will possibly provide the results you want for a short time? It’s not a lifestyle change for long term results or long term health. Going through with a risky, expensive shortcut like that is the opposite of empowering. Empowering yourself would be learning more about your unique body’s chemistry, function and composition in order to make the right adjustments to your diet and exercise for a long term, sustainable and healthy solution. That right there would be the ultimate in satisfaction and empowerment, knowing that you gained the knowledge to take the very best care of your body and feel your very best.

How is the wiring of the brain, body, and beliefs shaped by marketing, language, and how humans trade?

We are all sponges literally and figuratively. Our brains are amazing and can absorb a great deal of information. How we choose to sort, filter and process that information can affect many aspects of our life. Marketing professionals these days are good at what they do and this more recent wave of marketing via “influencers” has really taken things up a notch. I recently had a conversation with my teenage daughter about understanding how some people who are promoting products may not actually love them and may not use it everyday like they say they do, but it’s more about earning that affiliate commission. I urged her to be very careful about what she takes in as “truth” vs. marketing.

It’s also not always just about products though. Everywhere from Instagram to LinkedIn I see people pushing their agendas of politics, religion, ethics, morals and so much more. Some of it is beautiful and powerful and I love seeing people speaking their mind with these words of upliftment to create connection and community. There is of course the flipside of people pushing agendas of division with hateful, hurtful words which bring about a completely different effect. All of these things can effect our own belief systems. It simply depends on what you choose to absorb and believe and what you chose to let go of.

Think about how you feel when you read a story about tragedy, think about the effect on your mood and sadness that you can feel in your body. Think about the way you feel when you see an advertisement for a dreamy beach vacation. Do you think “I could never afford that” and so you begin to feel frustrated and unsatisfied? Or do you follow a different path of motivation and innovation to find a way to save that extra money and get to that beach.

It’s a very interconnected web. Almost a domino effect of what is available to us, what is marketed to us, how that makes us feel, and what action we take based upon that.

I work in marketing so I’m very cognizant of this question. In your opinion, how do you think marketing professionals can be more responsible for how their advertising shapes humans’ health and experience of happiness overall?

This is a hot topic for me, meaning I actually can pretty heated when this one comes up because I do feel like corporations are more concerned with making a quick buck than the overall health and wellness of the consumer. As harsh as it may sound, I feel like marketing professionals often prey on the pain points of consumers. If you are someone struggling with back pain or poor posture, you don’t need a back and shoulder brace to pull your shoulders back for you all day. You need to learn how to strengthen those areas, stretch those areas and care for your body. Marketing the product as a way to relieve your pain and fix your posture just isn’t the truth. If the company or marketer truly cared about the consumer, a more accurate message would be the encouragement of using the brace in combination with a strength and stretching program for long term results. As consumers we’ve reached a place of a need for instant gratification. We want a fix and we want it now. Technology and marketing have led us to this place and fundamentally it’s actually really hard for me to wrap my head around how we undo that on a large scale. The marketers and corporations certainly won’t be the ones to lead that charge; they want the quick buck regardless of any consequence. We as consumers need to demand better, be smarter andbe more discerning about what we believe when it comes to marketing.

For you personally, if you have all your basic needs met, do you feel you have enough in life?

If the readers could see the look on my face right now….

I’m smiling and shaking my head because I actually have kind of a difficult trait within me. I honestly haven’t ever been a person that needs fancy things. I don’t need a nice car, I don’t need or even want a big nice house and I certainly could care less about designer clothes, name brands or anything like that. But my difficult trait is that I always want to “do” more. I want to make an impact and help others and inspire others and that for me is a moving target. It’s an insatiable desire for me. Rooted in good intentions of course as my service heart is my driving force, but it does on occasion bring up a sense of feeling unsatisfied with how much or how little of an impact I’m having.

Okay, fantastic. Here is the main question of our interview: Can you share with our readers your “5 things we can each do to address the feeling of not having enough.”

Ah yes! The main event of the interview. These five things are critical in my opinion, and a couple of them I actually go in depth on in my book. But let’s get to it. In no particular order, these are the 5 things I suggest doing to address the feeling of not having enough.

1. Re-evaluate Your Expectations: And by re-evaluate, I mean abandon. In this world we have blurred the lines between goals/aspirations and expectations. If you expect something to be a certain way, you are instantly setting yourself up for disappointment. If you are looking to buy a home, you can’t expect to find a house that checks every single box that has your favorite paint colors, your ideal flooring, the exact fixtures you would pick out and with your favorite flowers planted in the front yard. You’ll see people toss around the idea of “don’t settle for anything less”. That is a statement candy coated in dissatisfaction. The moment you adopt that mindset of “I’m not going to settle on anything less than exactly what I want in a home” is the moment you resign yourself to external factors determining your satisfaction. External factors you cannot control. Buying a home is a big investment and I think making a smart choice is important, but there is a big difference between having expectations, and having grounded concepts and ideals of what would work best for you and your family.
2. Stop Comparing: Way easier said than done, but if you want to step into a place of peace and satisfaction in your life, you need to learn how to step away from the comparison game. You wouldn’t get mad at a sapling for not growing faster, it will grow at the pace it’s meant to grow at given its environment and nutrients in the soil. You wouldn’t belittle an apple for not being more like an orange. They aren’t meant to be the same. Just like each of us come from different environments with different circumstances and resources, we are meant to be different.
3. Embrace Your Unique Worth: Did you know that in card collecting (baseball, basketball, etc.) some of the cards with errors in the printing are worth the most money? Why is that? Because they are unique and not a carbon copy of all the mass printed “correct” cards. I love to encourage people to take this same concept and apply it to themselves. We should be celebrating our unique traits and see those as value adds and not something that decreases our value. Touching back on number two, we compare ourselves so much to others and think we need to measure up to them in order to be accepted or valued. Let’s flip the script on that one and remember that just like printed errors on collector’s cards, antique collectors are also out hunting for unique items with character and a few dings or scratches here and there only add to the appeal of the item and the more unique, the more valuable. Apply that to how you look at yourself and watch your perspective shift.
4. Energetically De-Clutter: Many people are not aware of the energetic weight that clutter in our life places upon us. The first time I did a purge of this nature, I couldn’t believe the difference in how I felt and how I looked at my surroundings. Not only observing the simplicity of less “stuff” around, but I could actually feel a shift in my gratitude for what I did have and the freedom of being able to “let go” of so many needless things truly brought me a great deal of satisfaction. In my opinion and experience our souls sense of freedom plays a big role in our feelings of satisfaction in life, therefore caring for ourselves and our surroundings energetically can greatly benefit us.
5. Get Out of The Bubble — We get so caught up in our own little sphere of influence that we sometimes have a bit of tunnel vision. What I mean is we end up almost hyper focused on just what our daily life touches and forget to look at the bigger picture. Perspective is key and when you give yourself the opportunity to see the varied situations facing our fellow humans things shift. So I encourage you to seek out opportunities in your community to get involved. Volunteer at a soup kitchen, help assemble kits for a women’s recovery center, donate your time to the boys and girls club. There are a variety of ways to get involved and offer your help while at the same time gaining insight.

Do you have any favorite books, podcasts, or resources that have inspired you to live with more joy in life?

There are so many sources of inspiration for me but it’s actually what these varied sources have taught me that I’d like to focus on with this question. What shifted me the most into living life with more joy was the simple practice of slowing down and turning inward. The hustle and chase to do more and more almost forces you into the path of focusing on external sources to provide you with joy. Slowing down, being present and realizing your own power and wisdom that is already within you is the really the big game changer.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

In short, this is the exact reason I decided to publish my book! When I wrote my book I wasn’t sure if I actually would, but when my test readers and editors echoed the unique insights and profound impact it had on them even in it’s unpolished state, it sparked something in me. It made me realize that I did in fact have the ability to share an impactful message to bring about change. To help others, especially women, break free of conformity and gain the courage and awareness to step into a life that they actually love and feel the freedom to show up in this life as their unique and authentic selves without feeling judged or shamed or shunned. That is the movement I’m working to be a part of.

What is the best way for our readers to continue to follow your work online?

My most active online platform is Instagram @the.renewal.of.you and I do send out a weekly email of inspirational advice which can be joined by visiting my website www.therenewalofyou.com. I love the community I have and would love to invite more people into this empowerment.

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for the time you spent on this. We wish you only continued success.

About The Interviewer: For 30 years, Drew Gerber has been inspiring those who want to change the world. Drew is the CEO of Wasabi Publicity, Inc., a full-service PR agency lauded by PR Week and Good Morning America. Wasabi Publicity, Inc. is a global marketing company that supports industry leaders, change agents, unconventional thinkers, companies and organizations that strive to make a difference. Whether it’s branding, traditional PR or social media marketing, every campaign is instilled with passion, creativity and brilliance to powerfully tell their clients’ story and amplify their intentions in the world.