
Relationship Reset: Reignite, Reconnect, Rebuild
Feeling stuck in your relationship after years together? Relationship Reset is your go-to podcast for busy, high-achieving couples ready to break free from autopilot and rebuild a thriving partnership. Join relationship expert Katie Rössler, LPC for practical tools, real-life stories, and actionable advice to reignite passion, rebuild trust, and reconnect on a deeper level. Whether you’re navigating communication breakdowns, struggling with intimacy, or just feel disconnected, this podcast is here to help you transform your relationship—and create the love you’ve always envisioned.
Perfect for couples who want to reignite their spark and reconnect with purpose. It’s never too late to hit reset.
Relationship Reset: Reignite, Reconnect, Rebuild
Building Your Self-Esteem with Max Rosencrantz
Do you ever feel like you're not good enough, even when you're achieving great things? Low self-esteem can be a sneaky saboteur, holding you back from reaching your full potential and enjoying life to the fullest.
In this episode, I'm joined by Max Rosencrantz, a coach specializing in helping people overcome limiting beliefs and build unshakeable self-esteem. Max shares his own journey of transformation, from a burnt-out engineer to an empowered coach, and offers practical tools to help you cultivate greater self-worth.
In this insightful conversation, Max highlights the impact of negative self-talk and how it reinforces low self-esteem and the importance of recognizing present-day triggers as opportunities for healing and growth.
We delve into the connection between childhood experiences and adult self-esteem. Also, the practical techniques for identifying and reframing limiting beliefs, including revisiting past experiences and challenging negative thoughts and the power of play and self-acceptance in building self-confidence.
In this episode:
- How to identify and challenge the negative beliefs that are holding you back.
- Why procrastination and self-sabotage are often rooted in low self-esteem.
- Discover the power of play and self-acceptance in building lasting confidence.
- How to connect with your intuition and create a life that truly aligns with your values.
Connect with Max:
Website: https://www.coachmaximum.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/coachmaximum
Insight Timer: https://www.insighttimer.com/maxrose
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Level 10 Relationship Assessment
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Welcome back to the podcast!
Have you ever experienced struggles with your self-esteem, where you kind of start to question, "Am I really worthy of this? Is there something wrong with me?" Well, I've got Max Rosencrantz here, and we're going to be talking about how we can start to build up our self-esteem to be stronger. There are some probably unique and interesting ways!
Welcome to the Balance Code Podcast, a place for high achievers to step outside the hamster wheel of day-to-day life and start learning tools for more balance. I'm your host, Katie Rössler, and I will be guiding you on this journey of discovering your Balance Code.
Max, I'm excited for what you'll be sharing with us today. Thank you so much for allowing me to interview you on this topic.
Max: Yeah, thanks for having me, Katie. I'm excited to be here.
Katie: Do you mind taking a moment and sharing a little bit about yourself, where you are, what you do, and the type of people you work with?
Max: Yeah, absolutely. So, my name is Max Rosencrantz. I'm in Boulder, Colorado. I'm a coach now—at least that's what I would call myself—and I help people change their behaviors and emotions. I mostly focus on confident self-esteem and self-worth so that they can create more joyful, playful, enjoyable lives. My background is in engineering, so I had a career as a mechanical engineer for a long time, and I burned out in that career because I was struggling, unbeknownst to me at the time, uh, from a lot of limiting beliefs and negative conditioning from my childhood. So I was stressed, I was, uh, pretty worn down, and five years ago I started pursuing a different path. And yeah, so I studied extensively how to work on our self-esteem, how to work on our self-confidence to have a more joyful life. Most of the people that I work with today are either parents or entrepreneurs and people who want to live life on their own terms and are struggling with mental chatter that wears them down throughout the day.
Katie: Hmm, I love how you put that: "the mental chatter that wears us down." Absolutely! Sometimes it's our voice, and sometimes it's somebody else's voice that we've kind of stuck with. Talk to me a little bit about what you notice can impact our self-esteem, little bits over time.
Max: Little bits over time... so I'd say a behavior that tends to send us a negative message about ourselves is failing to follow through on our own promises to ourselves. Another way to say this is procrastinating, or there are many names for this. And that can further reinforce that negative self-esteem that we formed in childhood and just adds to that long list of things that we point to subconsciously that say, "Oh look, I'm not good enough, or I'm not worthy. Look, I can't be trusted 'cause I don't keep promises to myself." So that's a behavior that that can be changed and that, if not changed, will further reinforce some of these negative beliefs.
Katie: You just hit the core of me! I was like, "Oh my god, he's speaking to me!" I was like, "Oh, I procrastinate all the time." You're right, it is that. I think that's something many of us as high achievers are really good at: doing things for other people, right? Like, the products other people need. But as soon as it's something that we don't really want to do for ourselves, we put it off. You're exactly right, and that is that following through with the promises we made to ourselves. I love how you put that, uh, what, what else do you notice are the things that are really hitting at our self-esteem?
Max: I mean, what I notice is that our present-day triggers that will poke at our self-esteem and deflate our self-confidence, they're always, are almost always pointing back to earlier experiences when we formed these negative self-esteem and low self-worth concepts in the beginning. And so what I find really useful about that is when we start to see those triggers, when we start to see those things that erode our self-esteem—not as problems to be solved, but as teachers to be learned from, as pointers to where our healing work is, where our opportunities for growth are—that is something I find really useful. But yeah, people being rejected, that's a really common one, and the fear of rejection. So whether that's applying for a new job, whether that's asking for a sale with a client, whether that's asking somebody out on a date, getting rejected can be a real detriment to our self-esteem, and even just the thought of it can cause us to go back into that procrastination mode.
Katie: Absolutely. Can you give us sort of a real-life example, whether from your own experience or from someone you've worked with, of what that looks like? Kind of that voice in the back of our head and the habits that we have that are tearing down our self-esteem, and how the shift can be like, "Wait, this is just that warning sign of something we need to work on." Like, can you draw that in a real-life example?
Max: Yeah, I'll kind of put together a composite example. So I'll talk about a client that I worked with. Similar to what you were talking about, a lot of drive to get things done when other people were depending on him. And when he would create his own schedule or create his own to-do list, there was a lot of struggle, a lot of procrastination there. And a couple of the pieces that were at play... so, so the self-talk, the dialogue would be starting to work on an important proposal at work, starting to work on something that's not cut and dry. It's not like clearly defined, but it's going to require creative thinking, it's going to require decision-making. Those types of projects tend to be where procrastination rears its head the loudest. And some of the thoughts will be, "I'm going to screw this up. People aren't going to like this. I'm going to make a mistake. People are going to see that I don't know what I'm doing, that I'm not as competent as I portray myself to be." And, and so for this client in particular, one of the core things was about importance. And so the core belief there is, "I'm not important." And then this strategy for being important is to look really competent, to deliver high-quality work, to take care of other people, to get everything done for everyone else. And so you get those double whammies of sort of needing to do these things so that other people will think well of you in order to earn your importance in the world and feeling all tangled up in the, "Am I good enough? Am I competent? Am I capable of doing this?" And so that creates this analysis paralysis and a lot of anxiety and procrastination is what it looks like at the end of the day.
Yeah, so when you address those beliefs—"I'm not important"—and then what I call the survival strategy belief of, "What makes me important is taking care of others," or "What makes me important is having other people think well of me," those can really free you up to just do the work, not worry so much.
Katie: Well, and I like that you're pointing out that it's kind of noticing the themes of the struggles you have, right? And then what are the messages you're telling yourself in those struggles? And then that's the core of the work to do. So what are some ways we can start to address those negative belief systems? I like to call them false beliefs, so you know, like those negative false beliefs that are going on in the back of our heads that are driving us to be motivated in unhealthy ways. How, how can we start to do that?
Max: Hmm, yeah. So one of my favorite tools for identifying what the false beliefs are is to imagine doing the thing that you're currently avoiding. So especially with procrastination, which a lot of people struggle with—I struggled with for a long time—just close your eyes and imagine doing that hard thing, or imagine having that tough conversation, or imagine sending that email, whatever it is for you. And notice what are the thoughts and emotions that come up, and that will tell you what those false belief systems are. So if anxiety and fear come up, then there's some danger that your subconscious is perceiving. And if shame or sadness come up, then there's some self-worth at play, most likely. And your mind will tell you, if you just listen carefully to what those thoughts are, it'll tell you what they are, you know? "I'm not good enough. I'm not important. I'm not worthy." Any number of things. Once you've identified what the belief is, what you'll need to do to get the best results, in my experience, is walk the clock back to potentially early childhood. For some people, it's not, it's not all the way back into early childhood, but usually that's where we're going to look first. What are the experiences where you first felt this way? And what are the experiences where you first thought this way about yourself? And usually, it's going to be in interactions with our parents or caregivers. Because of the dependent nature that the relationship with our caregivers has, there's so much, such a power differential, such a survival need. So anytime we're criticized, anytime we're dismissed by a parent, it registers as a survival threat in our system. And so we have to come up with a way of making sense of that that doesn't threaten our connection with our parent. And usually, we do that as we make ourselves the problem. So we find those early experiences and we bring them into working memory—usually, they're buried deep in the subconscious, we don't access them very often—we bring them into working memory, and then we can reinterpret what they mean. And some of the really simple reframes that I do almost every time with everyone is: Maybe your parents thought that about you. So let's say the belief was, "I'm not good enough." Maybe your parents thought you weren't good enough, but they were just wrong. Maybe that was a little kid you weren't good enough, but that wouldn't be true forever into the future. Maybe in that household or in that town you weren't good enough, but that's not true everywhere you go. If you go to a different place or different community, people would treat you differently. Uh, and then the fourth sort of classic one would be, uh, maybe in that thing—so say it was a math assignment, you got a bad grade on a math assignment, your dad chewed you out, or what's this... C, like maybe you weren't good enough at math, but math is not the only subject that's important in the world. So it's just that thing, not everything. And what that does is it gives our, our mind different perspectives, and it kind of chops up this generalization that we've created, this like big scary "I'm not good enough" thing that is applied to all of us all the time everywhere with everyone. It chops it up into this little thing of like, "Okay, that was just one experience in my life." And, and so that's, that's one of the key things I'll share for right now that helps the mind to let go of the attachment to the story, that false belief, uh, and then your, your brain can reprocess it through something called memory consolidation.
Katie: I like how you played that out and really gave us the example of, "Okay, how, how would we shift that? What does that look like?" Because when you give the brain an option of—it didn't have to be black or white, right? Like, "Here's a, here's another opportunity of what could have been happening in the situation," it's like, "Oh, I never thought that way." So I love that you've done that. It makes us creative, and it helps us to see the bigger picture. I always say like the movie playing out, right? Like, we see the bigger picture now. What are some ways that you would help your client to rebuild their self-esteem? Okay, we shifted the belief system, now we're going to start seeing things differently, but that self-esteem and that self-confidence feels very low, and maybe there were times in our lives where it was really strong. What are things that you're doing now to really teach people to build that back up?
Max: Hmm, yeah. The first thing that comes to mind is tuning into your intuition and like what you naturally want to do. So what the client is naturally drawn to as something that's exciting or fun or playful or, uh, just for its own sake, and then making a commitment to doing that and doing it. And the reason that play and that doing it for its own sake is so important is that if it's a "should," if you keep a promise to yourself about something you "should" do, there's value in not, and then there's another belief system at play. And so we've just traded one for another. But if we're able to connect with what we really want to do for no, no good reason, so to speak, but just because it lights us up, that can help us to, uh, feel what it's like to experience in real time valuing ourselves and placing our own worth as not dependent on what we do. And that's a really good feeling.
[Interruption for ad]
Katie: You know, I think it's important you bring up play because often those of us who are very goal-driven high achievers, play is like the last thing on our list, the last thing we're going towards doing because we have all the other things that need to get done. And yet, I'm seeing more and more people in the online space talk about how play is what's leading them to the greatest success in their entrepreneurship, in their working world, because they're finally giving themselves a break and having fun, you know? Even if it's 15 to 20 minutes a day of doing something... I was working with a client recently, and I said, "You know, what is something you used to love doing as a kid?" And, "Just jumping on a trampoline." And I was like, "Great, let's find one! You've got one in your neighborhood, who's got the, you know, the local trampoline all the kids are at?" And she's like, "Oh, but it would be so weird." I'm like, "Exactly! Like, get out of the comfort zone, because that actually, you know, once you get out of your comfort zone and everything works out, your self-esteem does grow 'cause you're like, 'Oh, I handled embarrassment just fine. There's nothing wrong with me.'" So I, I really love that you brought play to the table. It is the last thing we think about when building our self-esteem. We think about doing more, more, you know, getting out there more, speaking in public more, doing... like, no. Go play. Yeah, period.
Max: Yeah, when you're selling a product that isn't you or some sort of aspect of who you're being is the customer or the client, they care about the product. And I'm going to say this in a slightly black and white way—it's not quite black and white—but when you're selling a product, the product is what matters. But when you're selling a service and experience where connection with you is integral to the person getting value out of the engagement, you have to be vibrant, you have to be, you know, lit up in your own life in order to attract the right kinds of people who are going to also want that, that you can share that and help them and support them. And so that, I think, is where play becomes so critical. That like, I know when I'm not in a particularly good mood, I really struggle to sell, and I struggle to get clients, and I struggle to build my business. And when I'm really happy and when I'm lit up by my own life, it's effortless. It's like, "Oh yeah, you want to come join me in this, in this amazing place? I'd love to help you with that and do an exchange around that."
Katie: And that goes beyond the workplace. That's with friendships, that's with our, you know, romantic partners, our family in general. When we are able to be the sun, right, and have that vibrancy because we play, because we have fun, we, we build our confidence and people gravitate to us. They want to be around us. So I, I agree with you. Yes, it helps in our, our work, and it helps in all of our relationships.
You know, when we start envisioning what we desire for our future, it doesn't include those negative false beliefs of my worthiness and like, "Am I enough?" or "Am I failing?" It never has that. We're not picturing like, "Yeah, I'm my higher self, and I'm also struggling with procrastination." No, my higher self-version, my future self never procrastinates, right? She's on it all the time, and she's someone that others would want to be around, and her spouse is excited to see, and vice versa, right? Like, I picture that, and the only way to get there is to address those false beliefs and bring them to the forefront and heal them like you're talking about. And then to build up the confidence through doing things like play, through getting uncomfortable, you know, and, and seeing it all works out. Look, everything's okay. I joke with a lot of my clients, I'm like, "What's your relationship with embarrassment like?" And they'll be like, "Hmm." And I'm like, "I know. Guess what your homework is." And they're like, "No!" But inevitably, when they work in situations where they have to get a little uncomfortable and embarrassed, they're like, "Hey, I'm pretty resilient." I'm like, "You always were, but it''s just that reminder, right? And so sometimes going and playing where it feels embarrassing is perfect because it's a double whammy of like, "Wow, I'm really building my self-confidence and my resilience to being uncomfortable." Um, so it's essential... I'm not trying to take over your episode, I'm just saying, Max, you did a great job of explaining it and also bringing some good tools to the, to the forefront. Now, if somebody's listening and going, "You know, hey, I have been struggling with false beliefs, and I'm noticing from this episode, here's some things that are coming up, and I really want to work on it," if they're not confident to go and work with someone, do you have some good resources you could suggest, or books, or, you know, different things to support them? 'Cause not everybody's ready to go and talk to someone and to be vulnerable like this.
Max: Yeah, I mean, so the most direct one is I have a recording of the most common belief that most people suffer from, which is "I'm not good enough," on my website. You can sign up for my newsletter, get the full recording. It's like a 45-minute guided meditation where you'll go deep. It's the same as doing a session with me or another therapist or coach, pretty much. So that's one resource that I'd encourage people to try out. Another great resource is Recreate Your Life by Morty Lefkoe. The Lefkoe Method is one of my favorite tools for memory reconsolidation. It's really powerful. It's really structured. It's... I love how consistent and repeatable it is. That's a great book. I, yeah, those are the two things that come to mind first.
Katie: Well, I'm definitely going to make sure that your recording is in the show notes, because that's... I know a lot of people... Yep, I didn't know that. Let's do that. You know, and it's okay, you know, if you're listening and you're going, "I am not ready to talk to someone. I don't want to be vulnerable like that. I don't really, you know, like, oh, that, that's uncomfortable." There are so many great resources out there, and I love, Max, that you've got a video and, and kind of a way for people to sort of listen to how it would have been like in a session with you but to do the work on their own time. 'Cause sometimes we need that burst, sometimes we need to have that space to realize like, and build our own confidence to working with someone and to see that, you know, it doesn't have to feel embarrassing and it doesn't have to feel so, um, like we're failing 'cause we've asked for help. Because often we want others to ask, you know, for our help, so it's okay for us to ask others to help us. That's a big piece of it. Max, if people want to connect with you, if they want to ask you some questions after today's episode, or, um, just be in your presence in your space more, beyond the, the free offer of listening to that video, what else do you, or how else can they connect with you?
Max: Yeah, so my website is CoachMaximum.com. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn: Maximum Rosencrantz. And that's a great way to just get direct access to shoot me a message, ask a question following up. And also on Instagram, @CoachMaximum.
Katie: Excellent. I will make sure all those links are in the show notes so that you, dear listener or watcher, can grab those and connect with Max. Because, you know, the value that you've shared today and the clarity I think you've given to a lot of people, um, they're going to be gravitating to want to connect with you, to talk to you about this and kind of get more of your perspective on something. So I'm glad that you are on the podcast today. Thank you for your time and your energy and the wisdom that you've shared.
Max: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Katie.
Katie: And, dear listener, here's to finding our Balance Code! Thank you for listening to today's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Take a moment to leave a rating and a review on your favorite podcast platform. That helps other listeners just like you to find this podcast, too. Want to connect and learn how we can work together? Check out the links in the show notes below. Discovering your Balance Code doesn't have to be a one-person journey. You can have a team, and I'd love to support you. So here's to finding our Balance Code!