#189 - The Goal That Was Never Yours: Andrea Mancuso on The Space Between

Most people never ask whether the goal belongs to them. Andrea Mancuso is a licensed mental health counselor, an ICF-certified coach, and a former New York City public school psychologist who spent 14 years in the system before founding Intentional Healing & Wellness. Her book, The Space Between: Navigating the Journey from Dream to Success, is about the part of the journey nobody documents: everything that happens after you decide and before you arrive. In this conversation she names something that catches a lot of high achievers off guard. When a client brings her a goal and they start taking it apart, the goal often turns out to belong to someone else. It was suggested. It was gifted. And that is usually why finishing it produces so little. Ryan tests it against his own twenty years of completing a checklist he never chose. They also get into why change is so hard even when it clearly helps, why flexibility is an emotional intelligence skill and not a personality trait, why healing tends to happen in community rather than alone, and Andrea's answer to the question most ambitious people are quietly afraid of: does doing the inner work slow you down? Her answer is no. It makes you travel lighter. What you'll take from this episode: A test for whether a goal is yours or inherited, and why goal precision comes first Why the life you already know exerts more pull than the life you want What healing work actually looks like when you strip away the mysticism Why failure is more usefully read as a reroute than a verdict How to leave room in a plan for the outcome you could not have predicted Chapters (00:00) Introduction (00:15) Who Andrea Mancuso is and what Intentional Healing & Wellness does (01:53) The father who taught her emotional intelligence in 1980s Brooklyn (04:10) What 14 years as a school psychologist taught her about change (06:35) What people underestimate: the pull of the life you already know (10:13) Flexibility as an emotional intelligence skill (14:03) When you cannot change what is out there, go inward (17:57) How The Space Between started as an event, in the shower (20:38) Failure as a reroute, not a verdict (24:52) The arrival fallacy and becoming the person first (27:14) Patience and the undeniable process (30:39) The goal that was never yours (35:26) Ryan finishes the checklist and finds nothing there (36:58) Why one-size-fits-all leadership advice misses the person (40:46) Why healing happens in community (44:14) Wired for connection (48:45) Leaving space on purpose so something unplanned can happen (51:11) Spaciousness and force in the same day (56:18) Presence, and what is relevant right now (59:23) Gabor Maté and healing as a direction, not a destination (1:02:17) Does healing slow your ambition? (1:08:07) Where the sense of insufficiency comes from (1:11:46) The legacy Andrea wants for the book (1:16:01) Where to find Andrea Mentioned in this episode The Space Between: Navigating the Journey from Dream to Success by Andrea Mancuso (Mascot Books) The Myth of Normal by Dr. Gabor Maté Bronnie Ware's work on the regrets of the dying, which Andrea recounts in the episode Jay Shetty's story about reciting scripture as a monk, told in Andrea's own words Connect with Andrea Mancuso Website: https://www.iamandreamancuso.com The book: https://www.iamandreamancuso.com/book Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Space-Between-Navigating-Journey-Success/dp/1637555008/ Bookshop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-space-between-navigating-the-journey-from-dream-to-success-andrea-mancuso/a377783b675889d5 Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-space-between-andrea-mancuso/1149729657 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/iamandreamancuso/ Instagram: @iamandreamancuso Andrea asked listeners to reach out. If something in this conversation lands, send her a DM and tell her you heard it here. The Personal Success Podcast New episodes weekly. Follow so the next one finds you. Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-personal-success-podcast-with-ryan-watts/id1699785392 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0poXmaxpjA6ViNDy1KOh9c Show page: https://www.ryanwattslifecoaching.com/podcasts/the-personal-success-podcast-with-ryan-watts