Ep244 Celinne Da Costa—Burn Down the Old Story and Step Into the Next One

Celinne Da Costa 0:00

The first phase is waking up to the story that you're in. Like, whoa, this does not serve me. I've been living out a story that feels like a tight sweater, and it is possible. The first date is like understanding that I actually want something more, and meeting your truth and what that actually needs.

 

Mike O'Neill 0:20

Welcome to Get Unstuck and On Target, the weekly podcast that offers senior leaders insights and strategies to not only lead with confidence and vision, but also to achieve groundbreaking results. I'm your host, Mike O'Neill. I coach top-level executives on the power of ethical leadership to forge teams to be as united as they are effective. In each episode, join me for insightful conversations with leaders just like you, providing practical advice to help you get unstuck and propel you and your company forward. Let's get started. Most leaders reach a point where the drive, the habits, the story that they've been running that got them to the top quietly stops fitting, not because they failed, because they outgrew it, and most of them have no framework on what to do with that. This conversation is for the leader who's still performing, but something feels off. Something no longer fits, and they can't quite name it. If that's you or someone you lead, this one's worth your time. Most leaders that I know-they're relentless builders. They build a business, they build a team, they build a reputation, and somewhere along the way, the very story that powered all that building became the ceiling. My guest today is Celine DeCasta. She helps senior leaders figure out whether the story that built their success is still the right one, or whether it's becoming the thing that's holding them back. She's the founder of Story Alice and the author of The Burning Ground. Welcome, Celine.

 

Celinne Da Costa 2:08

Thank you, Mike. I'm so excited. You and I have chatted before, so I know this is going to be a really good one.

 

Mike O'Neill 2:13

Well, I am looking forward to it as well because you're so easy to chat with. You have a great backstory, and I hope we have a chance to kind of get into that. But I love just to jump right into how we opened, and that is most of the leaders that I work with, they don't get to where they are by accident. They got there by being relentless, proving themselves, staying one step ahead. That story worked. So, what does it look like when that same story stops working.

 

Celinne Da Costa 2:42

Well, looking like has many forms, but I would rather go into what it feels like.

 

Mike O'Neill 2:49

Okay,

 

Celinne Da Costa 2:50

right. There is this um. There's actually this term that that I use that's called the burning point, just connected to the burning ground. Where have you had a moment in your life, Mike, where you you're starting to feel like your current reality? It feels a bit like a tight sweater, and people have described it as I'm suffocating. It feels really tight. I feel like boxed in, right? It feels like a prison. It feels like a cage, and we start to look at things that previously worked for us: the job, the relationship, the habits, the our lifestyle, where we live. We start to look at it with fresh eyes and start to wonder, like, "Huh, this doesn't feel right for me anymore, or "This feels like it's constraining me. Have you? Have you yourself had those moments? I know you've coached many people in those moments.

 

Mike O'Neill 3:47

I have, but I would not be a good coach if I had not experienced the same. So yes,

 

Celinne Da Costa 3:51

so yes, exactly. And so there's this point where your current structure of reality starts to get tight, which is part of being a human, and there what is what arises what I called the burning point, which is this impulse, the soul impulse that comes through of I want more. There's there's something out there bigger. There's something I need to change directions. I need to look at it a different way. I need to shift my perception of reality, and people somatically describe it as a fire. This like fire of desire that's that that emerges from within us, from that place from within, and it's this like, oh my gosh, what do I do? And this is where a lot of people get stuck, because in this place, most people actually do not know what to do. What they will do instead is they will loop, keep repeating familiar patterns. Or they'll keep keep trying to get to the new structure, but because they're essentially doing the things they used to do with the people that used to do them, no amount of trying to get to a new solution is getting them anywhere. Because there's an entire perception shift, an entire story shift that needs to happen. And so, what it feels like is this: okay, I need to change. I want to change. I don't know how to do it, and then days, months, years pass by, and a lot of people find themselves in the right place. So I'm in the same place. So I'll pause there.

 

Mike O'Neill 5:35

Well, you you mentioned the patterns, and that was interesting when I kind of saw that in the the blurb about your book, and and that is these patterns almost are on autopilot, and you know from the outside these leaders they really do look polished and decisive. Everything seems to be working, but when it's on autopilot, how does the person come to that realization. If they're in the boardroom, if they're on a leadership team, and they're real conversation, you said it was more of a feeling than something you might would see, and you described it as almost like a tight sweater. I love that analogy. Why do we go into autopilot mode, in your opinion?

 

Celinne Da Costa 6:17

Yeah. So to answer your first question, how do we know? Well, easy. You look at your reality, and if it's not a match for what you consciously are looking to create for yourself, then something's off. It's it's really as simple as that. Your reality is a feedback loop to the story that you're telling yourself. So, if you look at your reality and you think, "I'm really satisfied. I love this amazing great story, and if you're looking at reality, like God, I'm really resentful of this. I'm feeling burnt out. I'm exhausted. I don't like this. Then now that is how we know there's an immediate feedback loop, and there's something about the story you're telling yourself that you have grown out of and need to actually make some decisions around shifting, which brings us back to the piece around autopilot, right? And so I'm sure that well, I know you have, but any many people listening, you're familiar with this concept of the subconscious mind. Yes, and the subconscious mind is what's really when we talk about autopilot. It's well, what is the subconscious mind doing? So let's just arrive to a shared definition in this conversation, what I mean when I talk about a subconscious mind. So the subconscious mind is the conglomerate of everything that's you know the the ice the um you have the iceberg and 95% of everything that you are is in the subconscious and so it's a conglomerate of the super conscious of like the thin slice that is your conscious mind. It is your ancestral patterning, your genetics, everything that you've inherited before you were even born, the culture that you were born in, the socioeconomic status that you grew up in, basically everything that you inherited, that you grew up in with believing, thinking this is what reality should be, this is what it is. Plus, again, a superconscious conscious. That entire conglomerate is what forms your subconscious mind, and that it creates the the autopilot that we're speaking about. And so, until we actually wake up to that autopilot being an autopilot, we're just gonna keep running it, and the way we wake up to it is by using our conscious mind to really understand, like, and to inquire deeper and ask ourselves, what is it that we want to create in our lives? And here is the big important piece, Mike, is getting really honest as to why we want to create it,

 

Mike O'Neill 8:43

yeah.

 

Celinne Da Costa 8:43

Because it's not enough to just say I want a seven-figure business, or I want this really amazing new car, or I want my dream relationship, or I want whatever that thing is that you're gunning for. We also have to be honest about why we want it, and there's no right or wrong answer. But if you get really, really truthful with yourself, you start to see that you know why do you want money? Is it because you want validation, or do you want freedom, or do you like what is it that you're seeking when it comes to more money? So a lot of people get stuck on the material, like this is what I want on the outside, but they're not actually matching it, pattern matching it with what it what is that what it is that they want to create for themselves, and it has you run into a pickle because that's how we just keep running. That we just keep going. I want the money, and so you just do the things that you just work harder and you try harder and you do more the same way that you've always been taught to do and you've been trained to do that has gotten you this far up until this moment, but if you really want to affect true change in our reality, Mike, we we're gonna need to change our subconscious program, and we do that through story.

 

Mike O'Neill 9:53

So I want to talk about that story because what I heard you describe is to get to the why. And you, if you just take it the first why, that may not be the answer. But you describe what was going through my mind is why do I want to earn that revenue? And I'm I'm getting the sense that you're encouraging us to not stop with the first answer to keep digging. Is that a fair statement?

 

Celinne Da Costa 10:21

Yeah, you must not stop. It's not not just an encouragement; it's a requirement. Because if you just stop at the first answer, did you get it? I mean, something's off here with the sequence of what how how we're creating. If we're not creating it, it's not the system. The structure isn't working.

 

Mike O'Neill 10:40

Gotcha. So if you ask, how do you know you got it? How do you know you've gotten to what the real reason might be?

 

Celinne Da Costa 10:46

Think about a moment where you're either listening to a piece of music or you're having a conversation with somebody. You're asking someone a question, and they're saying something to you, and you're like, that's not it, and you feel contraction. I mean, you in your coaching, and then there's a moment when someone speaks something, and there's like an expansion in your literal nervous system, and there's like a relief, like an exhale, like have you had these moments where you just feel expansion in your nervous system because the body doesn't lie; the mind does.

 

Mike O'Neill 11:25

Yeah, I don't know if I use those terms, but I very much have felt what you're describing there. So it's when it happens, you know it when it happens, is what I'm hearing you say.

 

Celinne Da Costa 11:35

You know it when it happens. There's a piece of you can feel it by the way the nervous system contracts. Like if you're if you're feeling like you're contracting, like this feeling, you're bracing, you're trying. That is when there's the energy is not it's not going in the right direction, right? But there's a moment where you're like, you know what? I want more money for me because I want to be free of all this bullshit. Again, it doesn't have to be no bull. And then there's like this, as opposed to I want it because I need to pay for this thing and I need to do this and I have this much responsibility and then like da da da da and identity and identity and identity, but there's a moment where there's like the the story drops, and you're just like, I want to be free, and I and I think that's how I'm going to get it, so I want it. And then you're like, oh, okay, that's honest. Doesn't have to be noble. It doesn't have to be like, you know, you are the most noble thing on earth. Like it just needs to be Honest.

 

Mike O'Neill 12:43

I like the fact that you made that distinction. You've been doing this for a long time. You've been working on leaders for years, and you have now written a book. In what ways did writing the burning ground change anything about how you see your work or the people you work with-it

 

Celinne Da Costa 13:04

was a way to consolidate the last decade of my own lived experience with this sequence and of what it means to rewrite your story to be in higher alignment with what your soul's here to create. It is my lived experience of it combined with my lived experience of supporting all of my clients to be able to do this for themselves, like perfectly organized in this incredible story. Because my work is storytelling, I teach through story, not through giving you information. And so, through the story, we can actually see the four phases of what it actually looks like. To like, what are the gates that you need to go through in order to change your mind and change your story, right? And so, just very simply put, and the book illustrates this. The first phase is waking up to the story that you're in.

 

Mike O'Neill 14:02

Gotcha.

 

Celinne Da Costa 14:03

Phase number one is literally like, "Whoa, this does not serve me. I've been living out a story that feels like a tight sweater, and it is possible. The first date is like understanding that I actually want something more, and meeting your truth and what that actually means, which is this is not the old story. I want this story. This is why, and that is the deeper why your values, your vision. Like, what is that deeper reason why you want to shift and towards what? Phase number two is freeing yourself from the old story. You got to let it go, and this is where you need to find that place within yourself with the gate of certainty, where you say it's an inner yes, like yes, I am ready to walk the new path of who I'm here to be in the world.

 

Mike O'Neill 14:56

Okay,

 

Celinne Da Costa 14:56

and so this phase, like walking through this, so the burning. Point is when you're standing right in front of that gate and you're like, okay, there's a there's a fire moving through me, and my options are either I do nothing about it and I let it consume me, which is old story, old pattern. Keep doing what you've been doing, or you press go and you say, no, I'm walking through the gate. I'm gonna redirect that fire and I'm gonna burn it towards something that's greater than me, towards my mission, my vision, and my next level, my purpose. When you cross that second gate, you're going to walk through what I call the burning ground. This is what my book demonstrates and is about. The burning ground is the the liminal space between your inner yes and your outer yes. It's the liminal space between you saying inside you're going to change the story, and the story actually starting to reflect change back at you, and so it's called the burning ground because you're going to need to shed layers of yourself, and you're gonna when you make a decision towards this new paradigm of being, you're gonna need to reckon with the old identity that you need to let go of your perception of reality, the perception, the things you thought were true might stop being true. This is where you have to have the hard conversations. This is where you might have to quit the job. This is where you might have to file for the divorce. Like these are the. It's that uncomfortable space where it's going to start. Some things are going to start to fall off and fall down like a deck of cards. It doesn't have to be traumatizing. A lot of people opt for suffering because they don't know that there's actually a way to walk this gracefully, where you just keep giving it to the fire and keep trusting that there's some truth on the other side. That's where you cross the third gate, which is the outer yes, where life starts to meet you, the synchronicities, the people that you meet, the the random occurrences that start to happen, and this is where you start to choose the new story, and you do it through articulation. You know, when I work with leaders, it's about when you're presenting to a room, when how are you articulating the version of you that you're becoming when you're writing your book? How are you writing the story forward instead of retelling the story backwards? So you actually get to start to turn this inner world that you have created into outer world through the literal words that you speak and through the actions that you take in the world. And you do this enough times, Mike, that you cross the fourth gate, which is you know in gate three you've rewritten, you're rewriting the new story. In gate number four, you are actually in the process of giving your story to others as a lesson, as lived wisdom that other people can learn from. So gate four is really when you look back and you realized I've graduated. I'm now in the new story, and I can, you know, give it to other people. Whether it's the business, the speech, the new business, so it's a way of actually giving the offering back into the world of who you've become and the story that you now choose to lead from. So those are the four phases.

 

Mike O'Neill 18:00

In your experience, where do people get stuck on these four phases?

 

Celinne Da Costa 18:07

It's phase two.

 

Mike O'Neill 18:10

Okay, I think you

 

Celinne Da Costa 18:11

would because it's easy to be like, okay, I'm done. Screw this, you know, I'm I'm done with the story, and to imagine in your safe inner world, you're safe. You're like, oh, you do all this visioning exercise. It might be a little uncomfortable, but you're just in your room or you're with your coach, and you're talking about your values, and you're talking about your visions, and you're talking about the things you want to do. But then at that gate, in between the burning point, which is that sensation of like I need to change, and needing to cross the gate, the crossing of the gate is like, okay, close my eyes, boom, I am going to cross the gate. Okay, so now you're on the other side, and you said yes, I'm committed to the new path. And this is where people are like, oh no, oh no no no, I want to go back. But once you cross the gate, the gate is closed. There's no going back. Like no, no, let me back in. Let me back in. So I see people stuck for months, years, either at that place where they're beyond the burning point, where they know they need to change, but they haven't found the certainty to say yes to the new path, and because they don't have the certainty, they don't have the conviction to make the new decisions that will have to take them there. Or they said yes, but now they don't want to go through the burning ground because they're afraid of what they're going to lose, and they're afraid of the consequences of letting go. Because a lot of the archetypes, you know, if you're addicted to achieving, and you've been a high performer your entire life, then odds are you really, really like control. And if you really, really like control, you're not going to like what comes next, which is learning how to trust that what you are going for, the new story that. You're growing into is actually going to happen for you, but you have to let go of the old one. People don't like that, so they just keep gripping, and that can that can really drag the process on and make it last way longer than it needs to, and it can also create a lot of unnecessary suffering.

 

Mike O'Neill 20:19

There's so much we could talk about here. What has popped in your head and says, "You know what, listeners need to hear this. What comes to mind?

 

Celinne Da Costa 20:29

If you are at a burning point in your life where you're feeling the fire, the desire of needing to change, needing and wanting to change your life, so that you can grow and step into the next evolution of who you're here to be, as a soul, as a human on the planet, because it's going to be necessary. You either stay where you are, and the result is old story, old autopilot. Like you just keep, you're just gonna keep creating what you're creating now, or you step into a new way of being, a new structure of reality, a new story. My greatest invitation for you who's listening is to ask yourself, what's keeping you truly from walking through the gate of certainty and making a choice that you are going to make this change for yourself? And it's important to get very honest because a lot of times it really is fear of the unknown, and it's that you don't yet trust yourself to do it this way. You've trusted yourself to do it the way you did it, but the way you didn't isn't working. And the the tricky thing about success, Mike, is that it makes you very comfortable. Because if I sit down and I ask the listener, who's very you know you've achieved a certain level of status and wealth, you know, influence impact in your life. I bet you that if we rewind all the way back where you were scraggly and you didn't have a dime in your pocket or something like that, you would have some crazy stories to tell me about how you took a chance on yourself and how you did it very naively, and how you freaking figured it out, even though you didn't have a dime to your name, or whatever that version of your story is of the difficulties and the challenges that you went through back then for you to get to where you are today. There is a hey, you're being asked to do this again, but guess what? It doesn't have to look like that because back then you did not have the wisdom and the knowledge and the know-how that you have today. But somehow, because the brain is what does what the brain does, which is it protects us. It's it protects us from the scary things, right? It starts to copy and paste that in order for you to step into the next octave of your leadership, you now have to go and burn it down, and not have a dime in your pocket, or do all the things you struggle, thing all this the sleeping in the back of your car, the bankruptcy, whatever your story is. Now you got to do it all over again, so that you can get to the next level of who you're meant to be. Not true, not true, but you will be required to To adopt the very same things that got you to where you are now, which is embracing the unknown, doing some very scary, uncomfortable things that now maybe you haven't had to do in a while because you're comfortable and you build a comfortable life for yourself, but that's not who you are. You want to go to the next step, and you're going to need to get uncomfortable again.

 

Mike O'Neill 23:40

Yeah, it's interesting. If I heard you correctly, what you describe is what got you there. The adages won't get you to the next point. And what I think I'm hearing you saying is that if you make a decision, you go through that first gate, that you may find yourself going back to that scrappiness, if you would, if you're going to embrace, and is that does that make any sense?

 

Celinne Da Costa 24:03

Yep, yeah, you're gonna need to find your. So I'll give you an example. So the book that I wrote, The Burning Ground. I was 25 years old when I took that journey, where I decided to leave everything in my life behind, and just I left my job in New York City. I left my entire life behind, and I decided to follow this crazy intuition to circumnavigate the globe by couch surfing, sleeping in the homes of strangers, never using the app, never using the website, just six degrees of human connection, just meeting people and literally asking if I could sleep in their home that night. Now, to ask me to do that today, and it's like, heck no! I'm not doing that. So, is it that now I'm kind of stuck? Like my story, this is wasn't a story of greatness in the last 10 years that I've lived since then. Is just like it kind of is what it is, and I wrote a book, and now I'm done for the rest of my life. Is it really that? And or is it that I have to go and do the things that my. 25 year old did like sleep in the homes of strangers and travel the world on a shoestring budget and like you know not even know what she was going to do with her life and not have any money in her savings account. I don't need to do that either, but there was something that version of me figured out, and I you know and have I've only witnessed this strengthen over the I wrote an entire freaking book about it because it's so true and I've only experienced it to be true, which is there's a certain sequence to what I was doing that made what I did work, which is I recognized that my life wasn't working. I found the place within myself to ask the deeper questions about why that was. I had the courage to let go of certain life circumstances that weren't serving me at the time. I had the discernment and the self awareness to realize that all the things in my life that were falling apart back then-the breakup, the job, the apartment-were actually happening to move me towards this greater dream that I held for myself, and I also had the wherewithal to realize that if I just put myself out there and did what my heart was guiding me to do, and met the people, the synchronicities, the crazy things that were happening in my life with curiosity and with like, hey, how is this happening for me? And how can I tell the greatest story I've ever told backwards? It would lead me to where I needed to be, and I had the strength to throw myself into the unknown and not treat it like a threat to my entire being. And so that was like the ingredients, which I you know outline in the book. These are the core ingredients that I have used again and again and again, and I've transferred to my clients on what it actually takes to create really big change in a very short time in a way that does not have you blowing up your entire freaking life, but actually has you rearranging it so that it's in greater harmony with the greater vision that you hold for yourself and your life. It's different.

 

Mike O'Neill 27:10

As we begin wrapping up, Celine, I want to make sure that I give you an opportunity to speak to what listeners can do about it. So, for the senior leader, they're listening right now. The one who has that quiet sense that the story that they've been running it really no longer fit. What would be that first honest step?

 

Celinne Da Costa 27:37

It would be to look at yourself in the mirror and maybe have a notepad right next to you, and ask yourself, "What are you pretending not to see? And really listen for the uncomfortable answer. Oftentimes, you're holding on to something, and from the senior leaders I've worked with, I can share the the patterns that I've noticed, which is something along the lines of, I'm going to lose my status, whether that looks like a title, a status that you're holding within a certain community. I'm going to put my marriage at risk. I'm going to upset or really, really alienate my family, children, you know, loved ones, and then there's the very quintessential fears of well, how do I pay for all my responsibilities? Who's going to take care of my mortgage? Who's going to take care of this? There's an assumption that money will be lost many times. What about the money? Is a really big one. What about my identity, my status? Will I still be loved? Will I still belong? Will I still be accepted if I choose to follow this path? And sometimes the answer is yes, and sometimes the answer is no, and that's the reckoning of the burning ground. You know, a lot of times people come to me because they want help sharing their story, writing their they want to get unblocked from writing their book or sharing your big presentation or basically creating the next version of the story that they're here to share in the world. And a lot of times, you know, these leaders will say when we go through this process, what are you pretending not to say? Like, yeah, but I'm gonna be misunderstood, or I'm gonna be judged like something. There's this fear of the pushback that will be received if they really fully choose to step into their truth in this next chapter of their lives. And you know, the hard part, Mike, is, and this is the conversation I literally had with somebody yesterday. It's like, yeah. You actually, if you fully step into your truth and your mission and what you're here to do to the world, there's going to be lots of people that will misunderstand you. They will judge you and they will reject you. So the question is, are you going to be okay with that? Can you learn to be okay? Can we get your nervous system to the capacity where you can hold that, or are you just going to keep shrinking because that might happen because it will. So I guess you'll just stay strong, or do you get so big that you learn how to become the version of yourself that can be with that and not let it bother you, not let it affect what you're here to give to the world?

 

Mike O'Neill 30:38

Celine, this is exactly the kind of conversation I wanted today. It's been direct. It's been substantive, and it's the kind of theme that we don't often hear in a leadership context. And I know that there are folks who are listening who want to know more. What's the best way for people to find you and find the book?

 

Celinne Da Costa 30:57

Yeah, yeah. So the best way for people, the starting point to find me is my website. It's www. celinedacosta. com. There you will find how to work with me both privately as well as my group immersions, my courses, my social media channels. So you'll be able to find everything and anything that you want there, as well as you know free trainings for those of you who want to just go deeper into this conversation. So that's the first piece, and you also find a link to my book, which I can also tell you is www.theburningground.com. And when you purchase through me instead of the you know Amazon, you also get access to these incredible bonuses that I've crafted for you, including guided meditation. For those of you who are like, I love this talk about intuition and soul, but how do I listen to that voice? I literally created a meditation that allows you to carve out those neural pathways, as well as a reader's guide and some incredible material that allows you to go deeper into what the burning ground actually is and how you can practically make use of it in your in your life as you evolve and change in this next chapter.

 

Mike O'Neill 32:05

Excellent. For those who know the the links that that Celine just mentioned, those will be in the show notes, so you can go straight there, and it will give you direct access to Celine. Thank you, Celine.

 

Celinne Da Costa 32:19

Thank you, Mike. As a pleasure.

 

Mike O'Neill 32:22

So, if something that Celine has said really landed that gap that she's talking about, if it's real and worth taking seriously, because when you realize that you do need to take it seriously, the links to her book and to the to her website are going to be in the show notes. And if someone came to mind while you're listening, a senior leader who perhaps is carrying too much without a trusted advisor in their corner, I'd love an introduction. I keep a small number of coaching relationships, and I take new clients by introduction only. So, if you would like to do so, the link to reach me is in the show notes. So, I want to thank our listeners for being the kind of leader who actually does the work, and I hope that this has helped you get unstuck and on target. Thank you for joining us for this episode of Get Unstuck and On Target. I hope you've gained insights to help you lead with confidence and drive your organization forward. Remember, at Bench Builders, we're committed to your success, your leadership excellence, and your strategic growth. If you've enjoyed our conversation today, please leave a review, rate, and subscribe to keep up with our latest episodes. This show really grows when listeners like you share it with others. Who do you know who needs to hear what we talked about today? Until next time, I encourage you to stay focused on the target and continue to break new ground on your leadership path. This show is powered by Media Leads. To get your next great podcast produced, go to medialeadsco.com.