While discussing her many accomplishment and various projects on the recent episode of the We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle podcast, Natalie Portman also got personal sharing how she learned to stop people-pleasing, and shared the best advice she’s every received.
LISTEN NOW: Natalie Portman: How to Know When to Say YES
After taking on co-ownership of the the first majority, women-owned soccer franchise, Angel City FC, Natalie sought help from an executive coach to help her adjust from striving to people-please.
“It was interesting for me to understand that everyone operates in different ways, and that might not be like a universal motivating factor for everybody. I think a lot of it has to be like about remembering and relearning how to recognize your own desires, because when you're pleasing it’s very hard to distinguish between what other people want — like you get really good at reading other peoples minds,” which Natalie describes as her super power. But that it’s also important to recognize, what her coach refers to as a “full body yes,” which Portman goes on to explain.
Speaking of super powers Natalie has officially returned to the Marvel Universe and the big screen as Jane Foster in Thor: Love and Thunder, now out in theaters everywhere.
As an actress people-pleasing pretty much comes with the territory, doing take after take to make sure directors and producers are pleased. But as Natalie has spoken about before, it was while working with Darren Aronofsky on Black Swan that she received some of the most revitalizing and “revolutionary” advice, which was “do one for yourself.” Explaining that after Aronofsky had gotten a take that he was satisfied with and was ready to move on, he would advise Portman to do a take for herself, which Natalie describes as “freeing,” and also admitted was oftentimes the take Darren ended up using in the end.
On We Can Do Hard Things, Glennon Doyle and her sister Amanda do the only thing they’ve found that has ever made life easier. Drop the fake and talk honestly about the hard. Each week they bring their hard to you and ask you to bring your hard to them, and we will do what we were all meant to do down here: Help each other carry the hard so we can all live a little bit lighter and braver, more free and less alone.
Listen to the full episode with Natalie Portman above.
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