People-pleasing looks generous from the outside. Underneath, it can be an attempt to manage everyone else’s feelings so that you never have to feel rejected, unsafe, or alone. In Vibe Sesh 24, self-leadership and relationship coach Kori Strobl joined Bruno and Cisco for a raw conversation about the anxiety beneath people-pleasing, why insight alone rarely changes us, and how easily chemistry gets mistaken for emotional capacity. Cisco brought a recent experience with limerence into the room, Kori caught the entire pattern hiding inside one tiny word, and Bruno confronted his own struggle with “algorithm pleasing” while building a growing public community. The conversation eventually returned to the yoga studio Kori once tried to save, the shame that drove her into hiding, and the emotional work that helped her step back into visibility. This was not a conversation about becoming selfish or no longer caring about people. It was about learning to care without disappearing. 10 Highlights From the Conversation 1. People-pleasers can be quietly controlling Kori began with a provocative idea: when your okayness depends on everyone else being okay, you become invested in managing their emotions. The intention may be loving, but underneath it is an attempt to create safety by influencing how other people behave. 2. People-pleasing is indirect self-care The people-pleaser is often trying to take care of themselves, but through everybody else. If I can calm you, please you, heal you, or prevent your disappointment, then perhaps I can finally feel safe. The problem is that my emotional stability now lives outside of me. 3. Sensitivity can become either hypervigilance or a gift Kori’s childhood sensitivity taught her to monitor everything happening around her. That same sensitivity later became her ability to recognize patterns, hold space, teach, and understand people deeply. The work was not to lose the gift, but to turn some of that sensitivity inward and include herself in her own awareness. 4. Chemistry can make you feel full without giving you nutrients Cisco shared a recent experience with limerence and a woman who told him she did not have the capacity to pursue the connection. Kori distinguished chemistry, how intensely someone makes you feel, from capacity, what that person can actually sustain through honesty, tension, disagreement, and repair. Chemistry may temporarily fill the stomach. Capacity provides nutrition. 5. The entire pattern was hiding inside the word “yet” The woman told Cisco that there was chemistry but no capacity. Cisco repeated it as “no capacity yet.” Kori stopped him immediately. The woman had already completed her sentence. Cisco added “yet” because hope could not tolerate the finality of what she had said. One tiny word kept the emotional tab open. 6. Stay in your own life and visit the other person Kori’s dating advice was beautifully simple: slow down. Do not mentally move into another person’s life after a few moments of chemistry. Stay rooted in your own routines, friendships, purpose, and identity. Visit the other person, observe them over time, and then return to the life you already love. As Kori put it, you have to create a life worth staying in. 7. Adaptability is a superpower until you have no center Cisco described himself as a chameleon who can move between different people and environments. Kori did not tell him to stop adapting. She explained that adaptability becomes dangerous only when there is no internal reference underneath it. The question became: Who are you when nobody else is in the room, and can you remain that person when someone walks in? 8. The algorithm can become another person to please Bruno admitted that weak engagement can make him question whether he has lost his ability to create. Kori called it “algorithm pleasing.” The same mechanism had found a new target. What began as authentic expression could slide into performance once there was an audience, a community, and something visible to lose. 9. Kori returned to the story that once made her disappear Years ago, Kori attempted to save a yoga community by taking over its studio. The business generated significant revenue, but the rent made it unsustainable. When it closed, she experienced the outcome as a personal failure and retreated from public life. During an earlier Breakthrough Call with Bruno, the story was still intensely emotional. Afterward, Kori allowed herself to grieve, wrote herself a letter, and began slowly returning to visibility through Toastmasters, social media, podcasts, and public teaching. In this conversation, she told the story without disappearing inside it. 10. Showing up for yourself does not immediately remove the pain Kori compared emotional presence to sitting beside a child who has skinned his knee. Sitting with him does not instantly stop the knee from hurting, but he no longer hurts alone. Self-leadership is not always fixing, explaining, or transcending the emotion. Sometimes it is simply remaining present in the body and refusing to abandon yourself while the feeling moves through you. The conversation ended with Kori imagining her eternal loop: dancing alone on a baseball field to Prince, fully alive, completely free, and enjoying her own company. Maybe belonging to yourself looks something like that. You can find Kori at: https://www.koristrobl.com/ Get full access to Vibe Samurai at vibesamurai.substack.com/subscribe
