Nicola: [00:00:00] welcome to the female leaders on fire podcast. I am your host. I am Nicola Buckley. I am the coach working with women at the very top of organizations, helping them to find that fire. So we find that passion, that purpose and that excitement, they can fall back enough of what they do to drive positive change in organization.

And to also have more impact, influence, and income as a result. So today’s podcast, we have slightly different format today. So I am excited to try this out today and see what you think. Please do let me know, but these podcasts is shorter episodes. So they’re going to be, I’m going to challenge myself to talk for 10 minutes.

So anyone that knows me particularly well knows that is quite a challenge for me. These podcasts are going to be called leading. Lessons and the inspiration behind this is that I talk [00:01:00] to my incredible clients every week and a half coaching sessions where there’s a huge shift or change in energy or realization or a light bulb for them.

And what I want to do is just take some of those inspirational stories. Take some of those realizations, take some of the tools and techniques I use with them. Just be able to share them with you and share them in just a shorter format. So we might be. Overlapping with some of the subjects we’ve already covered, but the brilliant part is these are going to be bite size chunks.

And like I said, this is going to be a real challenge to me. And today as off the subject, what I wanted to cover was just talking about why you’re lacking in confidence. So confidence for me is all about having that absolute certainty in yourself. It’s that certainty and trust in who you are. And really confidence is at a heart of being that impactful and influential leader so that you can speak up [00:02:00] so that you can share.

What’s really. In your mind so that you can challenge as needed so that you can be truthful and honest. And so that you can be, you might be the lone voice sharing something in organization that’s against the tide of change and confidence as well to ask for what you want confidence to ask for what you need.

Conference to have the support that you need, or to get the feedback, the, just have curative feedback so that you know, what you need to do to get to the next level so that you know, what you need to deliver on, uh, you know, any behavioral tweets that you need to make as well. So confidence for female leaders and women at the top is absolutely huge, but why might you be lacking in confidence?

And this was inspired by an incredible leader that I work with at the moment. And I’ve worked with her since. The end of last year, and this woman came to me at a time when she was just fitting. She was just feeling like she’d given so much for so long. She supported an organization for a pandemic through huge internal change [00:03:00] and all of that.

Uh, bull that was predominantly male that had a very different perspective and she’d had a very different backgrounds. So she came to me just really, really lacking in confidence. But why, why was she lacking confidence? Why had that happened to her? Because if you look at our externally, she has incredible life and this brilliant career, and she’s at the top of her game.

And she’s at the point in her career where she can really just choose what she wants to do, but she was lacking in confidence and that lacking in confidence really came down to a few different things, but see how these resonate with you. The first one is around having given so much for so long, she was overbearing.

But she was overworking and she, as a result, she was just, she was tired and what I call bone tired. So she wasn’t going to be at our best. So when you are in that, in that mode of so tired of you given so much for so long, you’re just feeling drained. You’re feeling exhausted. You’ve filled that bone tiredness.

Even if you’ve had a restful weekend, even [00:04:00] if you slept LA you’re still tired. And what that does from a brain perspective, it means that you get stuck in your old beliefs. You get stuck in your old stories, your old beliefs, your old habits, because the brain is looking for certainty because it’s that fear that there’s a lack of safety.

’cause you’re tired. So that was the first thing. The other thing was that she was in an organization that had a predominantly male board and she’d been that lone female. It had been lonely for her. It had been challenging for her. There were certain behaviors that went with being a predominantly male board.

She felt like she was paid lip service to, she felt like she was just like the token woman. So really for her, it was just a gang she’d given so much for so long. Also because she was that lone female voice on board. So that just meant that actually over time, she felt like she didn’t have the support that she wanted to make.

These big sweeping changes. She felt like she was always the one calling out having a different perspective. She felt like she [00:05:00] was also the one that was supporting her colleagues and appears on the board as they were going through changes difficult times. But for her that same support wasn’t that. So it’s almost like the environment didn’t necessarily fit with her.

That’s that the over-giving and being bone tired and adds to that as well. Just she lost sight because of all of these contributing factors, she’d lost sight of how brilliant she was. She’d lost that sense of her confidence. She’d lost that sense of knowing who she was. And the other part, just to consider as well, why she’s lacking confidence is because she hadn’t she’d let go of some of her boundaries.

She’d let go of saying no, she’s probably doing more than her role. She was working for a weekend. She was how to work for neon. So meant she didn’t get that time to switch off. She didn’t get that time to recharge and rest and come back into work, feeling refreshed because she was always on. So all of these factors.

Have contributed to her lack of confidence of feeling like when she came to [00:06:00] me, her confidence all time low. So the reason why to share this with you today is because I think it’s really, really important to recognize that actually you are still the same person. If you’re not feeling confident right now, if you’re not feeling like you’re that same person.

That’s just, that’s a story that you’re telling yourself, and there’s this myth around conferences as well. There’s a lot of pop, psychology and confidence that you can go on a course. You can read it, but you can drop in a MAB. You can learn to be confident. And I know for me, even in corporate, well, when I wasn’t feeling so confident immediately in my line manager would, they would send me to go to another confidence building workshop.

And I didn’t suddenly just come back and feel confident because I’d worked with a group of strangers and I’d be taught certain techniques. And in that group, they caught me when I fell backwards. And I actually, that all must, I must be confident now because that is not confidence. And I understand this tips and tricks, but you don’t have certain yourself.

All of those will fail at some point. And that’s the [00:07:00] myth of competence I see over and over again. Is that there is something is something that you’re somehow make that your create that you arrive one day and you’ll wake up and you’ll be behold today’s day that I’m confident. And that is a myth of confidence.

I see so much, but those points while you might not be feeling confident right now, So while you’re lacking in confidence. So that environment, it might be that you’ve had to be, you’ve had to shout for a long time to be heard. You might be in a male dominated environment. You might be over-giving and overworking.

So you’re just bone tired. And also your visibility ironically is less because you’re giving so much, it’s just assumed you’ll be there. It’s just assume that you’ll fix a problem. You’ll find a solution. To that challenge. And you’re stuck in your old beliefs, you feel very emotional. You’re feeling easily triggered, and it’s just, you’re not the best of you.

So you’re probably not performing at your best. So it’s just a vicious circle, but why you’re lacking confidence. It’s not a set with absolute [00:08:00] love. It’s not your fault. But it is your responsibility to change it. You know, the brain works in certain ways. So that part around being stuck in those old belief, that’s not your fault.

That’s just how your brain is programmed. But actually it is your responsibility to set boundaries, to say no, to call out behavior. That’s not appropriate to have that voice that keeps speaking up. Even when you don’t feel heard, even when the environment doesn’t fit you. So this client we’ve gone through huge changes.

And how she’s feeling now is like nice and day, but that’s the first episode that I wanted to share with you today. We’re going to have three episodes coming up about confidence. The first one today. Just want to share really just that. Why you might be luckily confidence, right? There might be a, you stepped into a new role.

It might be stepped into new organization. It might be feeling like you don’t fit in. It might be that you’re saying yes. When you mean know, you might not have set boundaries, you don’t fit in the environment. You’re over-giving and you’re overworking to really demonstrate your [00:09:00] value because you’re feeling like you’re judged on performance.

So just have a think about out of those, which one of those you feel is contributing to not feeling cold. So, is it around your skills? Is it around not being listened to, is it around just over-giving and overworking? So that’s it for today. And on the next episode, I’m going to be talking about the truth about confidence and the confidence, some, so, yeah.

Uh, look for, to share that one and if you need any help with your confidence, please drop me a message or my details. Thanks. Bye

If what I took about really resonates with you and you love what I have to say, and you have moments and flashes of inspiration from the podcast. I would invite you to get in touch, to find out how I can help you. So individually, that can be through my coaching focus program for my VIP program, depending on [00:10:00] how you like to learn and what will suit you, or I can help you in your organization to really help the women that you work with across the organization at all different levels.

And at that very senior level to really feel empowered and to know that they can reach the very, the most senior levels in that organization and to give them the. In who they are and the clarity, what they want to be able to get there. And we do that through workshops, do that through leadership programs, and we can do that.

Free consulting work. If you are looking for help with any of that, drop me an email nycla@nicholasschoolco.com. The spelling’s not the easiest. So all the details were in the show notes results I get for clients. Clients have been promoted twice in the six months we’ve worked together. They’d been invited to join the board.

They’ve gone from redundancy to being offered three dreams. They’ve gone from being pushed out of an organization to going into bigger organization and a bigger role with a bigger pay rise and just a quote from a client that particular. I’ve gone from the pit of despair. When I started working with Nick to just being [00:11:00] really happy and she is an incredibly empowered leader.

Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, you can download my overwhelmed on fire guide the details that are in the show notes, but that really helps you everyday to stay in your fire. So it helps you to clear your head. It helps you to come back to what’s important to you, and it helps you to have that most impact and influence every single day.

It’s a little Quip sheet that you can just go through and tick. So go and download that. Or you can subscribe to my newsletter, which comes out every Friday, which is a Roundup of the week. Really? So what’s going on in my world. What’s the blog for that week, a quick video, that’s going to help your particular subject.

And it’s all about helping female leaders to find their fire and also stats in and any research from the industry as well. And things that I’m reading the. Um, recommendations that we’re making. So go and subscribe to that. And finally, for the podcast, if you haven’t done so already, I would love you to go and leave us a review and subscribe so that you never miss an episode.

And you’re [00:12:00] always going to have the, when that release and doing that as well. Not only helps you, but it also means that we’re going to reach more women and we’re going to be able to start that revolution to helping female leaders, to keep that fire, find their fire and keep it. Keep that passion, that purpose side excitement.

So if you haven’t done that already, please go and do that. Thank you.