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{( speakerName('A') )}
Just remind us, what's your catchphrase? Because I kind of got myself into a bit of a tongue twister trying to practise this, and I just went, I'm just going to get Nicola to say it.
{( speakerName('B') )}
I help women at the top find their fire, passion, their purpose, and that excitement so they can drive positive change.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Yes. And I think it was that free from overwhelm. That was the part that made me go, do you know what, being a woman, and this is not to discount men's roles, right? That's what we've got to say here, because men have a part to play, is that, for example, today I was talking to a lady who was of WI age and said, I can't bear to go because a room full of women is like having your eyes scratched out. And I felt incredibly sad, but I still had to find a way of justifying that women can be a little bit like that because we're in charge of such a lot different aspects of our life. We're mums, we're housekeepers we're the bookkeepers. Too often we have to be the procurement department. So when you break down what it is to be a woman in a family setting, it's quite a lot of departments that come into play, and it can be overwhelming when you're trying to do all of that and go and do a job. Where do you think we should start? Aside from saying well just breathe?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah, okay. Where do you think we should start? I actually think breathing is a really good place to start? Yes, because I think it's that pause, isn't it? It's that giving yourself the chance just to like, oh, it's giving yourself the opportunity just rather than just... it's very easy to fall into doing mode. It's very easy just to keep going. And actually, it feels like a really brave, almost counterintuitive thing just to breathe and stop. But actually, breathing is almost like a thermostat in the body. So even five minutes of box breathing, for example, five minutes of just slow, conscious hand on your heart breathing, it brings you back into your own body, it brings you out of your head and back into your own skin, and it just helps you to start just that slowing down of things. And you get that perspective back and you get, actually, I'm okay, I'm safe. So it sounds like a tiny thing, but actually it's a really huge thing. I'm a huge Brenee Brown fan girl. I was listening to her podcast this morning and it's really interesting because she's prolific with content. She's prolific with her business. She has been for years and years. So if people don't know Brenee Brown is an American researcher, but she also has a business around Dare to Lead and works in corporates, to kind of be brave and have a different form of leadership. Daring style of leadership, she calls it. And they're actually closing the company for a month and they're actually taking four months off social media and she's taking four months off work, because everyone's kept going for so long in that organisation. It's almost a sense of, we've kept going through lockdown, we've kept going through that first bit when we're working out what it was, that second bit of then implementing our day to day lives and how is it different? The third bit of then making that normal so that we can go to work, so that we can support our children, our family. And then the fourth bit coming back into bit of more normality. But at no point have we ever stopped to allow ourselves to grieve with the things we've missed, to miss that way of life and how it's changed to that energy that it takes every time someone sneezes like, oh, my God, have you got Covid? Am I going to get it? Am I going to get ill? Quite liberating to hear this morning that actually we've been through so much. Is it time to have almost that restorative kind of pause and rest and stop? And I know it's very difficult and everyone's in a different situation, but is that a day away for yourself? Is that even taking five minutes to pull the breath? Because it starts with that really,
{( speakerName('A') )}
Gosh where to start with that kind of information? Because the first thing I was thinking was how brilliant a strategy, because four months off, if you were thinking of doing anything with them, and it was down the line, you would make a point of setting that up now to be sure it was in place.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah.
{( speakerName('A') )}
So it can actually cement not just the idea, but becoming a reality. I think that's really clever, just being able to breathe. We've all probably caught ourselves doing that, haven't we? Hand on the heart and go, oh, my goodness, yes.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Before we face into something.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Yeah, but if we're not careful, we can do that and catch ourselves. But I would just say, right, question yourself, how many times are you doing that? How often is that showing up for you? Because there's the indicator, isn't it, that there's something not quite right.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah, absolutely. And there's some really interesting studies which I can share in the audience. And this isn't a pity me as a woman. Like I say, I'm a feminist, but actually my fiance is a feminist, because it's just about feminism, of wanting equal opportunities based on your not even performance, but based on what you can deliver and what you can do and what you bring to the role. There are studies through lockdown that showed that the gender pay gap has been 100 years, almost two years ago. 100 years ago. So basically, what that means is continuing with the rate of change and continuing with the programmes and things that are in place. Two years ago, gender pay gap was 100 years. So it means that our children are going to see that change, feel that experience, that parity, but actually through lockdown, because women carry this invisible load. And again, this is different in every situation and every home set up is different. So I'm not speaking for you, but just through what I've seen and just my experience. So we're carrying this invisible load of what the children say, do we have the dog walker today? Do we have food in for tonight? What's our social diary look like this week? And again, this is different for every family, but women were doing that and also the women I work at the top were then leading their organisations through massive change and being the ones to carry a lot of the emotional load of that. And this invisible load means that gender pay gap through lockdown and out to where we are now, has increased 136 years. So effectively lock down for women...women at the top had a 36 year detrimental impact on creating that change in quality.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Which is madness, because when you think about the effectiveness of those women, you would expect it to go the opposite way. Just to sort of counter the argument of the invisible load. Doesn't mean to say that men don't worry, but they worry about different things, don't they worry about I know, certainly in my experience, my husband worries about having the mortgage paid off and retirement, so that tends to be much bigger picture stuff. And what's for my tea is the only kind of daily thing that he's interested in is what's going in my stomach. But as women, yes, we probably still worry about the mortgage and retirement, but probably less so because there's not enough room to think about it because of the dog walker and is the school uniform done? And have I got the shopping in for the next four days dinners and we've got nothing to put in the lunch boxes...
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. So to go through that and be thinking of some of those day to day things, but then also as a woman at the top, you then step back into, what's our strategy for hybrid working? And it's a completely different your brainwave is completely different, the thought process is different. It's really hard to have that energy of flipping from one to the other. So a lot of the initial work I do with clients isn't even around leadership style or it's not around purposeful relationships which are some of the things I cover. It's actually how do we create time and space for you, given your life. Given your family. Given the role that you have. How do we create time and space for yourself. A, to do this work. But B, also just for yourself. To have those big ideas. To spend a bit of time mulling over a conversation you had or reflecting back on something. Or thinking, how am I going to have this difficult conversation with someone in my team? And it sounds like, well, how does that relate to leadership? How does that relate to being a more impactful leader? Because the space that you need isn't in the day to day. The space that you need has to be created and that's something then to honour. Because that is where the brain waves are different. Because that's where you have the big ideas and they're physically shown to be different between when you're very busy and kind of stressed in the day to day versus actually when you have time and space. The brain waves are long and looping, so then you can have the big idea day to day when you're very busy and you're running from meeting to meeting and then home is very busy. Those brainwaves are very close together and very spiky, so you don't have the capability of having the big idea. Big ideas are happening in the shower, on the beach, walking the dog, playing with your children, just being in the moment with them.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Yeah. And I think the way that I look at that creativity of self is a little bit like we have a pie and we have portions for different things, don't we? As a culture, I think we are encouraged to not say no, to take on that invisible load and think that it's going to be walking one dog is no different to walking two dogs. Well, you think so, but in reality it's not. So you're eating into bits of the rest of the pie all the way around and if that piece that is just for you, it can translate into the well, do you know who you are and what you want?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Or do you have enough time to love yourself?
{( speakerName('B') )}
I love that, yeah, definitely. And I love that analogy in the pie, because that's the one that easily gets given up, that's the one that feels for women, it's only me, so I don't need that or it doesn't matter, or I can do that later, or I'll do that when and there's almost a mentality of almost I'll be happy then.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Because they are.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. When the children are older, when we move house, when we finish the extension, when I've got the promotion, when I've done the next qualification, when we retire. Stop wishing your whole life away, because happiness is a set of ingredients that you can create now. It's a brain for pattern recognition machine, so actually you feed in, for want a better word, all the things that help you to feel happy, the brain will recognise that and that creates happiness. So you are actually you are completely in control of that and how you feel. I see women at the top almost when they come to me, sometimes less now than ever. I think that it's slightly different type of client, but it's almost like a martyrdom to sacrifice, sacrifice, sacrifice, it's like, where are you left, what position are you in? I've been signed off work with stress, or I've been offered counselling, I've been prescribed antidepressants, or I need just to take three weeks off and just not be part of the business because I'm so burnt out. But we need to kind of help women identify further back up the line when they're on the course of that and not when they're actually in it. Because the course correction is much more extreme there than it is actually. I need to set some boundaries. Actually I need to say no, actually I do need to leave a five more often.
{( speakerName('A') )}
What's your advice then, Nicola, to anyone that's finding themselves a little bit overwhelmed with it all? What would the first sort of step... I mean, we've mentioned breathing and being able to identify something, but what's the next best positive step that they can take to sort of help that course correction?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. So we talked about this pause and stopping the breathing. The next thing for me would be again, I spend a lot of time with clients in the early part looking at their life and how it's set up. So really simple next step could be to look at the pace of your life and this is something that doesn't get talked about enough. I think almost that sense of do I feel like there's never any time for anything and I feel like I'm running along headlong at twelve out of ten, or do I feel like actually it's eight out of ten, because again, women at the top, it's like I just need to deliver this project, or I've just got this board meeting I need to prep for, or we're just in negotiations buying another company at the moment. Everyone needs all hands to pump, but it's like but you need to look at that and be able to break that into. What does my pace feel like right now? If I was to think of the pace of my life right now, zero to ten, what school would I give it? Ten being it's flat out, I don't even know how I'm going to get through the week. Through to zero, actually, it's super slow and I'm actually quite frustrated. So where do you sit on that scale of pace? How does it feel for you, how's it affecting you? And then think, well, if I'm here now, so if I'm at nine out of ten and actually that feels like, oh my God, I'm only just holding it together, I feel like plates could drop at any moment. I'm feeling quite stressed, I'm feeling like my heart's racing a lot, I feel like I'm not spending enough time with my children. I'm feeling quite guilty. So how do you then take it back down to an eight? So this is where it might be around saying no, it might be around setting boundaries, it might be around being really discerning of how you're spending your time and knowing that actually if your boss comes to you and says, can you just manage this team for a few months while someone else is off? Or do you want this huge new project and this would be great for your career development, or we'd love you to start doing a Masters, it's like, it's okay to say no. It's okay to say actually at the moment, it's not quite the right time. It's no for now. It's not forever. Like you said, that fear of saying no, it doesn't make you a bad person. You're not saying no to that thing forever, you're saying no to that thing right now. And that's something that can change over time. But Pace, I think, is a really powerful one to look at if you're feeling like you're overwhelmed and there's a lot going on at the moment.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Do you think we ask ourselves often enough if I stepped out or back from being in this situation, what support do I have? Who can I lean on? Who can I bring in that would you know, so that if I didn't need to be here, do we ask ourselves, that enough or do we just plough on blindly?
{( speakerName('B') )}
I think there's a lot of ploughing on blindly. And I think again, I think Glennon Doyle talks about it on her podcast around Burnout and the fact that there's this almost creative lag from everything we've been through over the last few years. This Burnout almost there hasn't been an end to it, because it's been every day for the last few years, there's been no actually with through that or something different now.
{( speakerName('A') )}
It was desensitised from...
{( speakerName('B') )}
Almost like a collective trauma.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Cause and effect.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. And then off the back of that, there's not been a clear... like, this is now into how life looks like now. So we're just carrying a lot of emotion, we're carrying a lot of trauma in our bodies, we're carrying a lot of grief from things that might have happened or people that might have been really ill and their life has changed. We're carrying all of that with us and everything that we gave for so long through that period that we're still carrying a lot of it with us.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Is it that the rules of the game have changed and we're now not quite sure how to play it? That we can re educate ourselves and empower ourselves?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. But I also think there's this almost this sense of like, we can't stop because things are a bit more normal now. Things are a bit more let's go and shop and not wear a mask, to go and be able to visit your parents and not know that you can hug them, for example, or know that actually you can book holiday and it's likely it's going to happen. So I think there's almost a sense of, well, we're back into normal. So who am I to take a break now? Who am I to rest? Who am I to stop? But like you said, everyone's life has changed forever as a result of the last years. And I don't think we give ourselves almost the time and the space to kind of process it because we're still in it. And there's not been almost that collective break of oh my gosh, I've been through so much, I just need to rest, I just need to stop for a little bit. It's that almost that sense and that pressure? Just need to keep going. I just need to make it to some holidays, just need to make it to half turn. But the collective energy I feel is just way deeper than that. Burnout...
{( speakerName('A') )}
I get exactly what you're saying there really Nicola, is because I hear still so many conversations of trying to catch up or trying to recover what has been lost. So on a business level that could be we're trying to make up from customers and maybe a downturn, staff changes, new people coming in that there hasn't really been like you say, that big.... Reset the button, stop the clock. Now we're into a new era. It's kind of like we need a New Year's Eve, don't we? To say this is a brand new year and that feeling that we get for making resolutions or setting intentions or making intentional memories, whatever it is, I do get that we kind of need that. And sometimes the stories that we hear in the media certainly don't help us put anything to bed either, does it?
{( speakerName('B') )}
There's a brilliant book on Burnout. There's two sisters that wrote it together. I can't remember their name off the top of my head, but I can share a link, which is the idea and the concept that effectively Burnout is a collective. It's when we don't finish the cycle of our emotions. So every time we have a feeling, every time we have an emotion, there's almost like it passes through our body. And then if we then kind of shift it out of our body, it's played its role, it's given us our message or the feedback that we needed from it. But because we haven't had that through this, through lockdown and everything that's happened, we're kind of carrying all of that with us still. So it's almost like the collective emotions that we've had for the past few years, we're still carrying some of that with us and really burn out is when we don't go through and end up cycle of the emotion through our bodies. So because we haven't had that break, because we haven't allowed ourselves to grieve or to reflect or like you said, kind of hit the reset button, we're carrying a lot with us still.
{( speakerName('A') )}
It's surreal, because when we deal with an emotion in ordinary times, we take that signal, don't we, and we know how to process it. But as a collective, there has been no significant signal other than mixed messages. That means that we don't actually believe that that signal is true as well. So do we need to give ourselves permission and to ignore the collective and do what is best for ourselves? Is that a good place to be?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Again, I think everyone is different. We've all had this huge experience, but everyone's life has changed in different ways. So I think, again, it comes back to where you are and how you're feeling and what you need. But I think even if we take it back to if you are feeling tired. If you are feeling burnt out. If you're snapping at your children more. If you're not feeling fulfilled at work. If you're feeling bit resentful. If you're feeling just... If those symptoms of burnout for you. They might be really physical. It might be really emotional. If you're feeling like. That just a place to start understanding what's going on for you. And it's just like a daily checking yourself, which, again, I get a lot of my clients to kind of think about this, because a lot of them are women at the top that are giving a lot to everyone else, but they kind of lose the connection and understanding of themselves. So that is a very simple in the morning or in the evening, whatever works for you. Most of my clients do this in the morning. Just ask yourself three questions how do I feel today? What's going on for me? Like, what's the story playing out for me today? And what do I need today? And it just starts that process of really connecting back to yourself. Because if you think about what we're in control, we're not in control of what's going on in the bigger world, but we are in control of making sure today I understand what's going on for myself, how I'm feeling and what I need, and also be able to tell people I'm not feeling great, so I'm just going to get my head down and get on with work. All today, that really pressured meeting, I'm going to do my best, but I'm not feeling... I'm a bit worried, I'm not feeling as confident, those kind of things. So that understanding yourself to then be able to share with other people.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Yeah. It's not being an island, is it?
{( speakerName('B') )}
No. You never lead on your own. Who are you leading? You're a leader of one from the day that you're born, but when you step into being a leader, there are people around you and you're not going to have the success that you want on your own. And I've seen more of that in the corporate world. That actually a lot of the work that I do now when I'm running leadership programmes, is purposeful relationships, how to be really purposeful in your relationship with yourself, but then also with others.
{( speakerName('A') )}
It's a good place to start. It's the only place to start is with yourself, isn't it?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Oh, absolutely. Again, it's the foundation of all the work that I do before we look at your leadership identity or any of the stuff that might be known. Leadership coaching and executive coaching, it's like, where's the gap in understanding yourself right now? What is going on for you? How are you feeling? What are your values? What beliefs are holding you back? What's your language and how do you talk to yourself? Do you own your story of how you've come to be the person you are today? Those big five things, then essentially the heart of your leadership brand.
{( speakerName('A') )}
I can imagine the transformation. It's got to be quite magical to be part of that process.
{( speakerName('B') )}
I love it. It's very addictive. But it's just seeing these brilliant women. And some men as well. Just kind of it's almost like a perception gap when they first start working with me. How they see themselves versus how others see them. And actually just being able to close that perception gap and then saying "Oh. My gosh. I'm a real expert at this." Or "I'm becoming the CEO's right hand woman. They come to me to ask my opinion on things." And I had a really brilliant client I worked with for a long time and she was invited to the board a couple of years ago. The exec board. And she was saying that first of all, it felt like we did a lot of work together on ourselves. We did a lot of work on a leadership style. We just went really deep on stuff. And she did the work, she really focused on it. And as a result, when she went into that role, she's kind of, in a lot of ways, already doing it. There were some changes she had to make in a team, so for people to step up, to give them more freedom, to be more strategic. But she said, I feel like I'm putting on a coat and that coat didn't really fit at first and it's a beautiful coat I love, and I love the colours, but at first it didn't quite fit me. It was feeling a bit off. It felt like it was almost a little bit too much for me. But now when I go into those meetings, I have this mindset of putting on this coat and I'm stepping into it, and the coat I love, I look great in it, I stand proud and tall in it. And that's the analogy of the work that we do, is you wear that coat with pride, you stand proud and tall behind who you are. And it's transformational, but not only for that person, but also for the team around them and their peers. And they're more senior leaders as well. Just to have a woman that's not needing to be a yes woman. Not needing to be someone that is just out for themselves but actually be really at times vulnerable. Be empathetic and all the what were known as soft skills are now known as power skills. Like demonstrate and role model all of the brilliant things that women just inherently tend to have a little bit more of or tend to lean into a bit more.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Yeah. The coat analogy is... I use shoes. Sometimes a new pair of shoes can kill, can't they? Not often I get a pair of high heels on either. But we like to stay in that comfort, don't we, as well? That's the other thing. It's about getting out of that comfort zone and pushing through to the point that it fits well or they wear well. Of course, the byproduct is that goes with you everywhere, doesn't it? Not just at work.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Exactly. So it then becomes it's almost like if we don't spend the time focusing on sales, we then have a gap in understanding. So when we tend to be more influenced by other people or if we get some feedback we don't like, we carry it really heavy or we'll kind of read into situations, things that aren't really there and make it mean something about ourselves. Whereas when we close that gap in understanding, that's when you become that really impactful and influential leader because you're doing it based on who you are. So you're not having to change who you are, you're not having to just take what everyone else says and what people that influence you. It's like, actually, this is what's important to me, this is who I am, these are my values, this is what I believe in.
{( speakerName('A') )}
It becomes so much more natural as well, doesn't it, in the end? You're not then second guessing yourself or measuring up against something else that is really just a made up story in your head.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah, the word authentic is used an awful lot and I kind of..
{( speakerName('A') )}
Say genuine!
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. Beyond authentic leadership because it's simply leading us who you are. So whether that's on some days you're going to be flying high and that's brilliant, but on the other days not so much. And all of that's okay and you're then allowing and giving your team permission to do the same because like I said, the last few years have been so different. This is for me when authentic leadership needs to be at the heart of businesses starting to thrive again and starting to say pivoting and changing. Reaping all the benefits from that. But through that very authentic leadership and that very much like... I don't want to use the term psychological safety. Which I understand the term. But it's almost like people are safe to be themselves. Whatever that brings with them. Whatever differences people have. It's safe for you to be here as yourself.
{( speakerName('A') )}
It is about giving yourself the tools to be who you want to be, doing the things that you want to be doing and have the things that you want to be having. And being in 100% alignment for yourself. That doesn't necessarily mean that it's going to be perfectly in alignment with everything else in your life, but at least it comes from a truth, doesn't it?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah, absolutely. And it's almost that confidence then is built on that. It's that really firm foundation of like, this is who I am. And then your leadership is always going to be challenging. You're at the front and people are looking up to you and you're leading the business into unknown areas or responding to changes in the market. Like it's always going to be challenging because it's constantly changing. But if the brain again.... to be at your best.... the brain loves consistency and you're in that thinking part of the brain, that learning part of the brain when you have that consistent framework. So if the world is changing around us now as much as ever, if not more than ever, to have that consistency of understanding yourself is where confidence ultimately lies. Because it's almost like I'm an anchor in knowing who I am. Even if the business is changing, even if the CEO changes tomorrow, even if my division changes, I still know who I am.
{( speakerName('A') )}
My wish, or my dream, would be to see that leadership catches up as fast as technology did through that time. Because if we could transfer 10-15 years and propel things forward, then why is it so difficult for us within relationships to do the same? It's madness.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Great perspective. If you think about the changes that have been in technology, like how we went from... I use Zoom a lot to my business anyway, but imagine suddenly I'm having like a birthday party on Zoom with my mom, who's 74, and mutes herself when she doesn't mean to and unmutes herself when she doesn't mean to, and all sorts of stuff. Obviously within leadership, the people that are already leaders are going to almost like there's an element of kind of protecting all the work that they've done to get to where they are. So maybe it's an element of protectionism still. But I think actually from my day to day conversations in the corporate world, I think there's more openness than ever to things like making a company feel safe for everyone, making a company more of a coaching type culture, making companies listen to employee feedback more, because what worked in the past isn't going to work in this new world that we're in. So I think there is change. I think that varies. The speed and the appetite for a change is different in every business. But I also think I think there's a lot more hope and optimism and hopefully we've learned some huge lessons from the speed of change we went through it's actually like, when we need to do it, we can do it. Who'd have thought, like, companies would be 89% of people working at home majority of the time, or hybrid business models that we talked about for years and they're suddenly just not only just here, but they're the norm.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Yeah, they're here to stay, aren't they? It's not an idea that's poopooed anymore, just because somebody wanted to keep control over employees that it's proven that it works. So a lot for us to still think about and there's a lot for us to still work towards. Isn't there Nicola?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Absolutely.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Work is never done. Which brings us quite tidily, I think, to the part of the show that I am always like, I have no idea what's coming next.
{( speakerName('A') )}
Nichola, I asked you to think about one conversation that changed everything, if you're ready to share that with me.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah, it all goes back to one conversation I had and it was probably about, I would say seven or eight years ago, let's say eight years ago now. And it was the time when holidays are normal. And we travelled just as part of what we did. And I went on a retreat to Thailand. So all of my work's neuroscience based and I'm an absolute neuroscience geek, so this was with my coach at the time that I did all my mind map diploma with. So we were away in Thailand on this retreat and we were effectively designing our programmes that we wanted to share with the world and the things, the programmes that were going to be the things that we built our business on. So we started with what we wanted our life to be like, then looked at our values again, all those brilliant things, and then we were into, well, what do you want your programme to be? What's the biggest thing that you've learned that you can put into stages that would then help your audience or help a new audience? So we were all kind of thinking this through and went away to map out those different steps. And I realised that my biggest challenge had always been not feeling enough. Not enough of anything. Not pretty enough, not successful enough, just not enough. So this has always been nipping at my heels and I've done a lot of work over the last few years. It doesn't feel the same anymore. It's kind of like it just nips at me sometimes when I'm maybe overdoing things or tired or just having a wobble. It doesn't own me anymore. It's quite a shift for me. So I was down writing about this programme, I was mapping out the steps, so if someone came to me and said, Nic, I don't feel enough, how are you going to help me to feel enough? So I sat by the pool, beautiful location, the sun's shining, but I'm really getting really, really stuck in my own head. And also, I think I was living through a lot of the heaviness that I'd carried through not feeling enough. And, this my third business. My first business didn't take off for certain reasons, and I end up closing that business. I carried a lot of shame about it and I was like, I'm thinking about all this. And I started crying. And I had a friend that was sat to the side of me... on these retreats, you tend to develop quite intense friendships. And this particular friend was a Scottish lad, a little bit younger than me, and he's just incredibly direct and I loved it. So he was just sat near me and he came over and said, "are you okay? I just want to check in with you". I said, I'm really not. I think I'm overcomplicating this. I'm quite stuck in my head. I'm sat here thinking, who on earth is going to ever want to invest in this? And now, having worked with thousands of people I know a lot of people need help with that same 'I'm not feeling enough', so I'm just really struggling. No one talks about this, I don't feel enough. It just might be a byproduct, it might be part of something, but no one coaches someone from not feeling enough to feeling enough. And he said, Right, I'm going to ask you two questions, okay? So the first question was, he said, what will it take you to feel enough?
{( speakerName('A') )}
God, that would floor me.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. And it completely floored me! Because when I sat and thought about it, and I'm not normally silent, I can talk for Britain..
{( speakerName('A') )}
Same! (Laughs)
{( speakerName('B') )}
(Laughs) Kindred spirits in that respect. And I had nothing to say. And he said, gently kind of coaching me around it, and just spent a little bit of time sat with me, he said, what's going on for you right now? You're visibly upset. I can feel your energy has changed. I was like, I have never given myself a measure of being enough. I've set myself up for all of my life to not feel enough because I have no measure of being enough. So asking the question how am I ever going to feel enough? Because actually, when I get to here in my business, I didn't feel enough, because that wasn't a measure. When I got the qualification I got to hear I didn't feel enough, I got through a painful divorce and came out the other side and started my life. I didn't feel enough. And that one question of what will it take for you to feel enough? Just completely made me see that I had this huge gap in understanding what it would take for me to feel enough. I'd never sat down and thought about it. That led into a second question. He said, well, let me ask you another question. My first dog was a little.. he was a rehome, he was little white Jack Russell. His name was Sam. So he said, "right, let me ask you something different then, just to kind of think about this from a different perspective. Sam's enough, right?" I said, of course he's enough. He said, you love him completely. I was like, yeah, absolutely. Without condition. He said, "Does Sam need to go to Crufts? Does Sam needs to be more trained?" I was like, well probably should be a bit more trained, but that's a whole 'nother thing. He said, but the point is, Sam is already enough. And you've got this scratty little white dog that you love completely. You love the bones of him and you would do anything for him and he's like your child, yet you're not enough and you're his mum. And again, I was just really shocked at how I treated myself so badly to allow myself to love Sam unconditionally, but not feel the same about myself. And it was just getting that realisation. Sam doesn't need to change who he is. He's a little dog. Sam doesn't need to go to Crufts, he doesn't need to be on there, he doesn't need to be a pedigree. He's just Sam and I love him, but I'd never allowed myself to think that about myself. And those two questions of, what will it take for you to feel enough... that realisation, that I'd never set a measure or gave myself a point of this you're enough meant that I, by default, was never going to feel enough. And then the second question kind of conversation around talking about my dog Sam was like, how can I unconditionally love my little scratty dog Sam? But I don't feel that about myself. And that whole conversation, I think, for me, was this realisation of how I treated myself quite appallingly at times. I was kind of like the after thought after work and after I done everything and proven everything, and then I might think about myself.
{( speakerName('A') )}
What is enough for you to say that somebody else says that you're enough?
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah.
{( speakerName('A') )}
And how on earth can you ever measure that?
{( speakerName('B') )}
I think it's that shift away from it wasn't ever going to be in doing something, it wasn't ever going to be external, it wasn't ever going to be fixed. It was down to me to kind of, what do I need to do to feel enough? And those are things that I created in my programme. Yes, it's a leadership programme, but also I will help you to know yourself and know the black and white and the grey and everything between, because out of that comes that your leadership identity, out of that comes that confidence. Out of that comes out, that 'I'm going to have relationships that are really purposeful, that will help me to get what I want to feel good'. Out of that comes creating a purpose and a vision for the future. So that whole conversation just sent me off on a different route that was away from I'd had a gym businesses, I had fitness businesses, and actually, I want to be a coach, I want to be a pure coach. That led me into a coaching business that then led me into, starting last year, changing again, into becoming a leadership coaching business with women at the very top of organisations. So that conversation, for me, changed the trajectory of my whole life, because it was that slap in the face, almost of you can be stuck in not feeling enough, because how are you going to get out of it? How are you going to do it? And it actually kicked me into looking at myself, looking at the brilliant bits and understanding and being almost not sympathetic but kind of a bit flawed or a bit... now I still have parts that are quite flawed. And I kind of forgive myself those parts of me that are... not even flawed but like my own quirks, my own idiosyncrasies and what I'm just not so naturally adept to and that's okay. And I think that prompt that just that very instant question that to him was really obvious that I'd never thought about that, "Oh my God, there's no measure of being enough. So naturally I'm never going to feel enough. I need to do this in a different way."
{( speakerName('A') )}
It's beautiful that on so many occasions I can say similar, that it's the most obvious thing that sometimes you just need it pointing out. Someone will ask me a question and I'll go "but...but...." and it feels like a trick question as well doesn't it? That's the other thing when you can feel like you're being tricked into saying something and making a fool of yourself but in actual fact it is the most obvious thing. And you go, but I know that.
{( speakerName('B') )}
Yeah. Just someone else's perspective, someone else's observation, someone else's sharp mind, just like, "oh my gosh, of course" because I've warn that badge for all of my life and it's still there but it's not who I am anymore. It can nip up my heels but it doesn't own me anymore.
{( speakerName('A') )}
That's why I say you never know where a conversation will lead. Nicola, thank you so much for your time.