Nicola: [00:00:00] Hi, is Nick here just to introduce today’s episode, I’m really excited for this one today. I I’m excited about my podcast a lot, but today, particularly, so today I have left in the hands of my brilliant editing team. So we are at the one year anniversary of the podcast, which absolutely blows me away. I’m really proud.

That even with a very busy work diary, a lot of commitments outside of work that I’ve committed to delivering this podcast every week for a year now and something that I absolutely love. I love that I get to share my thoughts and my ideas. I get to share some of the stories from my clients, and I also get to interview incredible people to really help you.

Develop as a leader and really just become that very clear, that very confident and articulate leader to drive positive change in organizations and all from a female [00:01:00] perspective. So today is really taking the episodes from the last year and breaking it down into some of my best bits. So there’s gonna be a mixture of hints and tips, things that you can use immediately and put into your leadership toolkit.

There’s also gonna be some. Of the great conversations that I’ve had with my guests and some of the really impactful quotes that have come out in conversations. And then there’s also going to be some of my shorter episodes that just really help you to focus in a very specific subject. So I have left this to my editing team cuz they’re brilliant at what they do.

So I’m really excited to listen to this as well. And I’m really, really proud that this podcast has been going for a year. So today is the best bit from the last year. I really, really hope you enjoyed the. And I would love to know what you think. All my contact details are in the show notes. Enjoy the episode.

Thanks. Bye. I work with a lot of women. I dunno if you find the same that know that there’s something more for them. There’s something bigger. There’s [00:02:00] something different. It’s just this innate sense that I, I don’t think there’s all, this is all there is for them. So this, I love this idea that you’re gonna help them unlocked and live to their fullest potential.

Margaret Weniger: Yeah. Oh my gosh. Well, and so this is, I, I there’s five things and I will I’ll share the five things. And I, I think you can kind of decide what you wanna unpack and we can go into more detail. Yeah. Good. And this was, this was formed from the women that I’ve interviewed on the podcast. So I’ve done almost 50 interviews at this point.

And what. Fascinating to watch unfold is that as I would do these interviews, these were, you know, all ages, all, um, backgrounds, industries that they worked in, roles that they held. Um, Different ethnicities. And yet these resounding themes kept surfacing. They were all consistently yeah. Doing these behaviors that we’re enabling them to be able to be successful.

And [00:03:00] so the, the five things that when I boiled it down, they broke down into five things, which is the first one was they had a, a strong career crew. Yeah. So essentially a community around them, a very intentional group around them. And that included, um, mentors. Yeah. Sponsors. And typically a coach, every single person I’ve ever interviewed has at some point worked with a coach.

Oh,

Nicola: really? That’s very heartening to hear. Yes, I I’m sure. So yeah. Cheering, my little heart is elite then it’s like, yes, this is

Margaret Weniger: yes. And I’m a huge advocate for coaches. So we could definitely harp on that. So strong career crews, number one, the second thing is they are proficient networkers. And what I mean by that is it’s so funny because when I.

Particularly women, if they identify as a networker, they usually kind of bristle. There’s a little bit of stigma still attached with networking. Yeah. And really all networking is, is relationships and the best the women on the podcast. What I found that they were doing is that it wasn’t just connecting, but [00:04:00] they leveraged their network.

So they would actually make an ask of their network when they needed something or they needed help. And, and so took advantage of the fact that they hadn’t. Built these beautiful relationships invested in others. And then when they needed to, they would, they would ask something of others. So that’s, you know, as proficient networkers, they not only established relationships, but they also leveraged those relationships.

Nicola: Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think the stigma is there with networking? Do you think it’s still seen as. I can add on to a job or do you think it’s still seen as it’s a nice thing to do, but not a need to have? Or what do you think the stigma is there with the network? Cause I would, I would call this purposeful relationships.

Yes. And as in those, it’s be intentional about your. Um, you know, stakeholder management or your networking or those, you know, those terms used a lot in corporate world, but just be purposeful, just set some, be intentional with your time and how use it and who you’re speaking to. Yes.

Margaret Weniger: You know, I, it’s so interesting [00:05:00] because it, it, to me, it’s so funny cuz my background is sales and it reminded me a lot of how people talk about sales, which is they, they typically have a very outdated perception when they like with certain words.

And so to me, networking, a lot of times when people visualize. Think back to the days of business cards and those happy hours where everyone has drink tickets and they’re walking around and they’re, you know, trying to meet as many people as superficially as possible. Yeah. And, um, and I think what I, you know, especially what I find is like, people want genuine connection.

They don’t want those superficial. Um, they don’t want those superficial connections and that, that can be very exhausting. So I think a lot of times what can happen is that’s the view of it. And what I see is that women in particular are wanting to have a more genuine connection. They’re wanting to go a little bit deeper to have it be more of a relationship.

So to me, it seems more of just a. Uh, either we start calling it something else or we like, we [00:06:00] redefine what networking means so that we kind of get, get rid of that outdated, archaic

Nicola: view of what networking is, shorter pads and, uh, uh, business cards are no more . And I think given the last two years, everyone, everyone across the globe has had, and you know, everyone in their own way.

I think it’s. Deeper connection. Isn’t it? Because for a long time, connections shifted to being so different and they’re very much online and they weren’t face to face and you wouldn’t, you know, feel someone’s energy in the room is very different. So I think that that deeper connection and yeah, Karen connection, B brown talks about a lot, didn she, in a definition, Darren leadership is that actual deep care and connection for the people around you.

It’s not just a, uh, you know, a passing. How are you? It’s. No really? How are you the truth about confidence? So I wanted to share these again is a particular client that I work with when we first started working together. When she really wasn’t feeling confident in her role, incredible woman had done so [00:07:00] much, could achieve so much more, had this incredible potential, but was also at the very top of a game already.

When we talked about her confidence, it was all about the environment. It was all about overgiving overworking for so long, supporting an organization through the pandemic and also not setting boundaries and not saying. But there’s just some truths about confidence that we talked about as well, that I think could really help you.

So if you are not feeling as confident at the moment, or if you’re not feeling as confident in a particular situation, these truths might help you just because this is taking away from that feeling of not being confident and internalizing it and making it. Means something about you that you are not, you are not enough in your role that you don’t deserve to be in your role.

Who are you to do this role? These truths are just human truths about confide. They’re gonna help you to see that actually, this isn’t just how you feel. It’s probably how everyone feels at some point in their career or in their day or in their week in a certain situation. So the first truth [00:08:00] about confidence, everyone feels nervous.

So that feeling of kind of scare sighting. So when something’s scary, exciting, and that feeling kind of nerves that you might feel in your stomach, and you might feel your heart rate increased and you might feel a bit sweating hot, and you might stumble on your words a little. Nerves are perfectly natural.

They’re perfectly normal. So our first truth is that everyone feels nervous and that feeling and that sense of being nervous, just to reframe that I share with clients nerves are that scare, scare sighting feeling just a growing pain. They’re showing you that you are doing something new. They’re a reminder that you’re stepping out your comfort zone.

They’re a sign that you are becoming more and you’re stepping into something bigger and that’s purely a brain mechanism. That’s purely the brain trying to keep you safe. So when you’re stepping into something new or a new meeting, a new role or something, that’s really important to you, um, you’re going into review.

You’re going into a conversation that you think might be [00:09:00] confrontational. That feeling of nervousness, it’s a brain mechanism, so that will always happen. But the more that you push yourself, the more that you step into those new, those new areas and the, the bigger you allow yourself to become in your role.

The braver you’re gonna become, and you’re gonna feel more confident because you’ve done it again because it’s not the first time, you know, that there’s more there. So that’s number one. Number two, no one is above or below you. So I know, obviously we’re in the corporate world, there’s a hierarchy, but sometimes we can really internalize that we can really make that mean something about ourselves.

We can make ourselves feel lesser as a result. So even if your boss is the CEO yes. In the hierarchy, They’re at a more senior level, but actually that he, they are still a person. Interesting. I won’t say he there, they’re still a person they’re still gonna have strengths. They’re still gonna have weaknesses.

They’re still gonna have good days. They’re still gonna have bad days. So no one is above or below you, instead of thinking it on it in a different [00:10:00] way. So when you’re comparing, you’re not feeling so confident, just remind yourself that we’re all on our own roads and keep your eyes really focused on your own business.

Before being distracted led into others and just be conscious of where you are, where you’re picking your time and your love and your energy, because actually you’re completely in control of that. And for example, your boss doesn’t have all the power. It doesn’t have the last say because they’re your boss.

You can still challenge. You can still ask what you need. You can still voice an opinion that is still all available to you. So number two, truth about confidence. No one is above or below. Number three, all you need to be confident is certainty in you. And this is what I talk to clients a lot about certainty.

The way that I teach and coach confidence is really about having certainty in yourself. So that’s really certainty in knowing yourself inside, out, back to front, the black and white and all the gray areas in between and swim and becoming the world leading authority [00:11:00] in yourself because no one else is gonna do that.

And really the truth here. It’s all about that. The more you get to know yourself, the more confident you’re gonna feel. You’re gonna know your reactions. You’re gonna know your stories. You’re gonna understand why you respond in a certain way. And this is built day in, day out. From your knowledge, from your understanding from self awareness, this isn’t from job titles from qualifications or your level of seniority.

This is from you knowing yourself. And this is something that could be built every single day. So number four, confidence is something that you build every day by becoming an expert in you. And these are little steps every day. So that understanding of how you feel. That understanding of why you say a certain things in a certain way, why you think something, um, why you feel and reacting a certain way to a meeting or a conversation that you’ve been in and why you do certain things that don’t serve you.

And it’s not about beating yourself up. This is about understanding yourself [00:12:00] and accepting change. Number five, nothing bad will happen either way. So self fifth, truth of confidence. So you’re not gonna die from lack of confidence. You’re not gonna, nothing awful is gonna happen. You know, suddenly gonna be fired.

You’re not gonna suddenly be pushed out your job. It’s not the worst thing that can happen, but just to be aware, you will lead a smaller life and you won’t be finding that fire and creating your dreams. If you just keep that. Myth of confidence. You keep lacking that confidence and, and knowing that and feeling that and acting from that and showing up in that way, there’s nothing wrong with days or weeks that you feel less confident, but it’s a brain mechanism.

So don’t let that stop. You fulfilling all of your potential as a leader. So those are five missed of confidence that actually reminds us that everyone feels nervous. No one is above or below you everyone’s on their own road. All you need to be confident is certainty in you. Confidence is something you build every day by [00:13:00] becoming the world, leading authority in yourself.

And number five, uh, nothing bad is gonna happen to you. If you’re just lacking a bit of a confidence or having a wobble that day.

Jo Fuller: Well, Mary menopause came out of my menopause. So in my early forties, I noticed big changes to my. Physical and psychological being. I noticed, uh, my mood dropped, my skin, became itchy.

My sleep became disturbed and I started to have anxiety and I’d never suffered before from anxiety. And I was kind of what the hell’s going on. I really, you know, thought that there was something. There was something wrong with me. Yeah. Um, and I’d never had a conversation before about menopause, you know, my mom and I had never spoken about it when I was in puberty.

She was, you know, at the end of her hormonal journey in pro menopause and our relationship was so fractious and, you know, had we had a conversation about hormones that would’ve. Been so healing for us and my mom is a nurse. So it’s just something that wasn’t talked about. So my [00:14:00] generation really have come into this chapter of our lives, completely unaware.

So when I did my research, it’s like, what’s what’s happening. And I found the word perimenopause and I had never heard this word report before. And to me menopause happened in my fifties. And it was possible. You were gonna have hot flash. You know, that is, that was the extent of my knowledge in my early forties little did I know that I was already in my perimenopause and for a lot of women, it starts in their late thirties to early forties crosses over with postpartum.

Yeah. It also, you know, comes into a time of our lives. When we are, have got teenage children, we’re on a career, you know, on a career trajectory, we may be caring for elderly parents and our hormones that we’re so used to having that stability and that support. Are suddenly declining. And for some women they can decline quite rapidly.

And some women it’s a slow decline. And that brings on many, many symptoms. And if you dunno, what’s going on, it’s really frightening. Mm. Yeah.

Nicola: And I

Jo Fuller: thought, [00:15:00] why don’t we know this? Why isn’t this on the curriculum at school? Why aren’t we taught this as young women? Why is this not part of the general conversations?

Why GPS so ill informed? Why are women, you know, being wrongly treated wrongly prescribed having, you know, surgeries and being given. First line response is normally antidepressants. So there’s this, there’s this massive gap in female health, almost like a, I, I believe a women’s rights issue when you look back over cases of people that have been mistreated and mised.

And so I started the menopause. And I started it because I want younger women to have a clear understanding of this natural, normal homo, hormonal transition that you cannot cure. It cannot be avoided. It’s gonna happen. Your ovarian function is gonna decline. You’re gonna stop releasing the H you’re gonna stop ovulating.

You’re gonna stop having periods. You’re gonna, your fertile years are gonna end. And that last third of our lives, really, for most women, it happens around your last period, happens around the age of 51. You’ve then [00:16:00] got another 30 years to live. You’ve got 30 years. You know, with a long term hormone deficiency, how do you prepare for that and how do you manage it?

So you can still live a full life, you know, your next 30 years, how can you have a Merry menopause? And that’s, that’s what I want is to help women to have a Merry menopause, to give them the education, which then empowers them to make the choices they need. And then they can carry on living a, a, a great life and not press the stop button.

You know, so many women press the stop button because they just think it’s all over. It’s not, it’s the start. It’s the beginning. I believe it’s the beginning.

Nicola: I love that. I remember, I remember a couple of things growing up, but I think you’re right. I don’t, I think, I think there’s more education now and I think it’s, it’s definitely starting to change seeing some of the big companies pit that into like a menopause policy in place’s brilliant.

I remember my. My mum going through a lot of hot flashes probably a few years ago. Now I always remember, remember my mum explaining through saying it was the change. And I was like, oh, I dunno [00:17:00] what that means. Like, it’s just, you’re just saying it’s a change. And, and I remember those sort of things, but you’re right.

I think at school we’re taught from a very biological perspective, but we’re not taught about, we’re not really taught about the emotional impact or the physical, the physical symptoms that come out of it. And you’ve kind of just left to. And if you don’t know, you’ve got nothing to compare. We’ve got nothing to check, like a check again.

Cause you’ve got no way of understanding that this, oh my God, am I the only one going through this? Which we know, you know, from my work I do with women at the very top, like so many of them, like I am I the only one to think this or to feel this and almost feels like we’ve created something similar with the menopause as well.

Almost like making it, this kind of dark secret of, is it, what do you think that comes from? Is that like, does that a shame around getting older or. That loss is,

Jo Fuller: oh my well, I mean, it’s, it’s historic. It’s it’s I mean, it goes back to the patriarch. It goes back to burning us as witches, you know, and the menstrual cycle.

No woman’s menstrual cycle. So my big, the biggest tool that I use in my [00:18:00] coaching and all my education is the menstrual cycle. Is this. Incredible tool that we have in built in us, you know, and more women know more about the cycle on their washing machine than they do about their, their own cycle. There’s so much information on their, you know, mental and physical wellbeing, and you go back hundreds of years to when you know, paganism ended and the church came to the UK, they were scared.

They were scared of the power of the. The powerful older woman, they were scared of periods. They were scared of the intuition that women had, the strength that they had, their resilience, that they had their health. And they then started to cautious. And the menstrual cycle became something to be ashamed of.

Women were burnt. Women were turned against each other. So there’s, you know, there’s a, a theory that, you know, had. Women can, um, you know, be quite bitchy towards each other. They can be quite competitive and they can turn on each other. They do reckon that goes back to the time of the witches when, you know, yeah.

People, women were having to turn in their, their sisters and their mothers to save themselves women that, you know, it was [00:19:00] encouraged for women to turn on each other. And it’s so deep rooted in, in our culture. So it’s definitely a patriarchal thing. The fact that we are on a, um, you know, women are Sickler yet, our day is, is linear.

Men are linear, you know, they wake up. Yeah. They’ve got a rush of testosterone. Bye. By sales cell work, work, work, work, work, come home flop on the sofa, women aren’t like that. We’re secular. We work on a 24 hour clock, a 28 day cycle. So everything has been quashed into, into the patriarchy. And it’s, you know, women were encouraged.

You knows women encouraged to. Delete their periods and carry on a period was deemed a handicap. It was something that made you emotionally unstable, incapable of doing your work incapable of doing your job. So women deleted it and they just pushed and pushed and pushed and pushed. And I think now there is much more awareness and drive of women’s hormonal health, how important it is, what.

Gift it is what strength it is. And you know, there’s [00:20:00] a bigger weighting around it, about how important its and you know, young girls now are much more interested in asking about what, what does the pill do? You know, if you populate every month you produce a bank OFS that goes into a health bank account for when you get menopause.

If you don’t ovulate, if you, if, if you’re just on the pill and you don’t ovulate, you don’t produce pro. And it’s such a vital hormone. We need Egen, progesterone and testosterone for our long term house. It’s so important that so education around the pill needs to be bigger, broad, and wider. You need to talk about the effects of being contraception and the benefits of having a natural

Nicola: women at top of organizations can often be hyper independent.

They trust, and they know that if they do it themselves, it will get done and it will get done to a certain standard. So, what that means is at times, maybe not asking for help and maybe not comfortable with pit the hand up and saying, actually I need the help of someone. I need a little bit of support here.

So the first benefit I want to talk about for coaching for women at the [00:21:00] top is coaching is an investment of time. And money and effort in themselves. So it’s really an immediate reflection of their value and their worth and what they, how they see themselves and what they think of themselves. So really that immediate, as soon as they say, say yes, as soon as they make that investment, there’s a real shift in energy, just for them, just knowing that they’ve got that support, but also that they’ve made that investment.

The second benefit is really around having space. Having time to really focus in on you. And many of the women I work with at the top of organizations give so much to everyone else. There’s not much left for them. They give so much time. They give so much energy. They give so much expertise to everyone in their life.

They can easily be at the bottom of the priority. So coaching is really space and time purely for them to show up with however they’re feeling, whatever they’re thinking that day and really focus in on themselves. And it’s committed time when you’ve made [00:22:00] that investment, you will commit the time to honoring that space and that time.

It’s also another benefit is that within that space and within that time, it’s completely safe. It’s completely judgment free. So there’s no need to worry about what a peer might think of. You. There’s no need to worry about what the, how the boss might react to you. There’s no need to worry about always being that.

Defender in that umbrella for your team, kind of defending them from the wider organization what’s going on. And you can say whatever you want, you can share whatever you want to. And over time as the trust grows and your confidence grows, that relationship grows with you and your coach. You’ll probably say more.

And I’ve had a lot of clients who’ve said to me, I’ve never said that to anyone in my life before. So it’s almost it’s that time and space to speak, to think, to feel, to explore things. Whatever you say, whatever you bring in that moment is absolutely. It’s absolutely welcome. There’s no right. And there’s no wrong.

The fourth benefit is really just [00:23:00] around. It gives you almost a place to explore. It gives you a place to be curious. It gives you a place where there’s no pressure. There’s no expectation. There’s no right or wrong with coaching. There is as a coach, I’m always looking for my client to really own their journey, but there’s no expectation goes with that.

There’s no pressure. You’re not doing it right. You’re not doing it wrong. It’s just, uh, what I expect is just that commitment to honor this investment you’ve made in yourself. And that’s something that I would nudge clients with at times, but be curious, be open. Think of it as like an exploration. You’re going to be going on a journey of self discovery.

You’re going on a journey to really, and truly get to know yourself. You’re going. On a journey to become the world leaning expert in yourself. So be open and be curious. And you can do that without expectations without the pressure that might be in a lot of your life benefit. Number five is that it’s a neutral place.

So it’s a place where. I don’t have an attachment to the outcome as a coach. [00:24:00] So for example, if we are talking about work and actually you start to realize that over the longer term, that isn’t the same company you wanna stay in. There’s no attachment to me for the outcome. I don’t, I don’t, I’m not passing or failing and thinking of myself as a success as a coach by the outcome, but the outcomes are hugely powerful and transformation, but I, I am neutral in terms of what they are.

I try not to show up with any biases or any. Any sense of what it should be, because that keeps that energy of just being open and being curious. And the final benefit of coaching for women at the top is they have this supporter, they have this ready made fan club and support crew that is there for them.

On the times they might be struggling or they might be finding things to challenge or on the flip side of that, the times they wanna really celebrate the times they wanna scream from the rooftops, what they’ve done. They’ve got that person in their corner and that’s someone that’s not biased that doesn’t have a particular [00:25:00] perspective.

It’s just someone that is just there for them. And it’s someone that becomes a real cheerleader, a real supporter on their journey. And then just one more benefit as I was, think of things as well. And though my client’s coaching me for something they’re finding challenging in that period of time, they get a toolkit that is with them for life.

They get tools. They get exercise, they get an understanding of themselves that it’s gonna be with them for the rest of their life and the rest of their career. So if they have a wobble, for example, they’re always gonna have a couple of techniques. They can come back to if they’re feeling like they’ve lost themselves a little bit, and they’re just.

Don’t understand their priorities though. They’re not prioritize themself. They’re gonna have ways of doing that. If they’re going into confronting or challenging situation, again, they’re gonna have tools to help them with that. So over the time that we coach again and through the coaching relationship, all of my clients create their own toolkit.

They create a, a set of skills, a set of experiences, a set of exercises that they can go back to again and a gang and a gang. [00:26:00] So the investment is now, but actually. That toolkit stays with them for the rest of their life. What are the steps that you took to get to now having much more balance? Yeah, there’s been a lot,

Amy Wilkinson: um, you know, for sure.

Yeah. And I always say to people, you know, it’s not, it, it’s not a straight road to recovery from burnout. You can you go a few steps forward and you can go a few steps back, but, you know, and when I think about the advice I would give to other people as well, Always start with. Getting checked out by a doctor because you know, the stuff that we are talking about, you can make the assumptions that it’s just because, just because I’ve burn out, but actually they could, you know, you need to get blood tests, you need to, you know, I had all of that stuff, you know, I had, yeah.

And. It can be really tough. And you have to, particularly at the moment where it is harder to access health services, you, you have, you know, you’re not seeing doctors face to face as [00:27:00] much. You have to be a real advocate for yourself and you have to fight to, to just get all of that stuff checked out. Yeah.

But then I also did get support. So at the time I got a health coach and she really helped me cuz you know, I mentioned denied that I’d been on a really restrictive diet and that sort of thing, you know, I needed to almost needed a reset where I almost, I mean, I, I feel so ashamed to say this cause I’ve got a degree in nutrition, but I needed help with.

Nourishing my body learning how to nourish my body again. Yeah. Because it isn’t just about what, you know, it’s about, you know, all the, the self belief you have. Yeah. And all of that. So I worked with a coach that really helped with me with that stuff. And then through that, I found mindfulness, which has been a massive part of recovery for me.

And I think sometimes when I say that to people, I get a bit of an eye roll and I I’m I’ve cause it’s, oh, I don’t wanna sit and meditate. It’s not about that. And actually right back at the start, when I had a health coach, [00:28:00] she wanted me to meditate and I said, I haven’t got time to meditate. Cuz how many times have you heard that?

Nick from clients? Yeah.

Nicola: Yeah.

Amy Wilkinson: I. So I had to, I had to habit it, stack it as I know it now. Yeah. With having a EPSO salt worth, I would, I, I was allowed to meditate in the bath cause I was doing two

Jo Fuller: things at once. It’s just

Nicola: ridiculous. You’re still winning. You’re still multitasking. You’re still high achieving

Amy Wilkinson: Exactly. Yeah. Um, but you know, it doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to sit cross-legged for half an hour. Uh it’s just. Taking the time to notice. Yeah. So doing things like having stretches in the morning, you know, I was talking about, I didn’t notice all that stuff going on in my body. I now stretch in the morning and you know, your body, when people used to say to me, your body tell you tells you messages, I’d be like, what the heck?

I just didn’t get what they mean, but I get that now. It’s not actually words. Um, , you know? Yeah. But, but listening to, to that stuff. So it’s almost like you’ve got to start. From scratch in, in, in terms of self care, you know? Yeah. [00:29:00] Really doing that. The, the really basic stuff that you’ve forgotten how to do, because you’ve just been running around at a million miles an hour.

And I would say that was the basis. But then I did a lot of work. I’ve worked with various coaches and therapists and counselors over the years to, to get a better understanding of why I got to the state that I did. You know, why I didn’t have that? Self-belief. And that that’s been a real game changer for me, because having more self-belief has really, really helped and, and knowing that, you know, I’m worthy worthy of rest, don’t have to earn rest, still have to still have to tell myself that sometimes.

Yeah. But you know, getting a lot of support through all of that stuff. And then, so I did go back to work, you know, I had that, those that time off, um, I actually, at the time decided to take a side step where it was a step down really. So took a step down and a side step into a different function that was less firefighting in day to [00:30:00] day.

Yeah. And that was a massive decision. And felt like failure. I, I won’t lie, but actually I recognize now doing something that was much more aligned to who I was, was so important. So it was almost that whole reassessment of yeah. Who I am as a person and, and what I want to do. Yeah. And it wasn’t. Talk about pineapples imports.

You

Nicola: know, it was something else. I’ll leave that with someone else. , let’s talk

Amy Wilkinson: about how we can help the nation get healthier by eating the pineapple. You know, that was, you know,

Nicola: and that’s how I moved into that’s juicy stuff. what about a word? But, you know,

Amy Wilkinson: so I moved into more marketing because that suited my personality better and that not being shameful

Nicola: because that’s, it isn’t it it’s taking away from the.

Move always being upwards. And actually I saw a post from a friend the other day that I worked with when I worked in one of the big corporates and they’ve just moved into effectively a sidestep role. And they were on the graduate [00:31:00] schemes. They’ve done really well. They moved up through the ranks and that’s all great, but he was like, I just, there was an, there was something missing for me.

I felt like I couldn’t, I couldn’t give my everything. I didn’t feel like I was. I just felt like if I saw the next step, I didn’t want that to be me. Yeah. So he’s now moved into more of like a talent development role and he absolutely, they they’d love it. And you can feel the passion when they talk about it.

Yeah. Yeah. And that’s, I don’t, I think we need to take that pressure off myself. That’s only one way to move when you are. More senior in an organization is only ever upwards, just some stats to kind of back that off as well. That really, really stood out for me, but women are four times less likely to negotiate than men.

And on top of that tend to work 10% faster, 22% longer for the same reward. So they’re giving more of themselves. They’re delivering more. They’re working harder. For the same amount. So through that, they’re just demonstrating less value and less worth. But remember this, and this was a stat that [00:32:00] really, really left out of me.

When you don’t ask for what you worth, you don’t ask that promotion or all that pay rise. You don’t pick your hand up. You don’t, you are not self-promoting sharing the brilliant stuff that you’re doing over the course of a career. You could lose up to 1 million pounds. So that’s compared to men at the same level that’s compared to just that starting at a lower level, not negotiating, and then potentially moving company to get those pay rises rather than pushing for that promotion and pay rise where you are.

And that creates that. Your own kind of salary gap, if you like. And quite often, an ex an earlier exit from being a woman at the top and being a leader because you are working harder essentially for less. So the implications then what are the implications of women? Just all these reasons we’ve just gone through why women find it so hard to ask.

And if I look back at my corporate career, this was something that I felt really uncomfortable with. This is something that I really struggled with and I. I wouldn’t always push for more. I wouldn’t always [00:33:00] push for a huge salary increase. And I, uh, we talk about four months reviews in another podcast episode, but I felt like I was going into battle.

I felt like I was going in to defend myself. I felt like I was going in having to remind them of everything that I’d done over the year. So part of this is review to really own your value worth and. Be sharing the great stuff that you are doing be self-promoting when you’ve delivered something great.

Whether you’ve saved money for the business, changed the process that was broken and just be bold about it, it might feel uncomfortable, but you, you own your value and worth. So part of that is making sure that others are aware of that as well. So what, what the implications of women not asking for pay rise is not pushing for those promotions.

So the biggest one, obviously the gender pay gap. So the gender pay gap has been impacted through lockdown. So. That was a hundred years. So with current trends and with the way organizations are looking at gender pay gaps and the great action that’s been taken across many organizations that gender pay gap would [00:34:00] take a hundred years to close.

That was pre pandemic post pandemic, or where we are now. It’s actually 136 years. So lockdown has added effectively 36 years. To closing that gender pay gap completely because women have taken more the invisible load at home with children looking after their teams even more than ever. So those things take time.

So there’s not as much time for their big strategic words, not enough time to be pushing from what’s next, um, and be creating that strategy. But it also means that just losing talent. So women just getting to the point where just feeling so frustrated, feeling so disillusioned that they’re just leaving businesses and they’re leaving industries, maybe setting up their own businesses.

So there’s that loss of talent as well. And that latent talent that actually the biggest talent pool isn’t just is an outside an organization. The biggest talent pool is within an organization. Predominantly with the women there that are unseen, that are unheard [00:35:00] and just, aren’t really pushing themselves forward.

There’s all of this incredible and talent to be unlocked, but there’s that challenge there’s challenge around the perception gap of how women see themselves versus how others see them. And also just not having the conversations, not mapping out the development, not owning self development, or it being an afterthought.

I know for me that I. As I kind of went through my career. I really enjoyed dedicating some time each week to my development, but each week it could be something that was easily dropped each week. If something came in, if there was a emergency on a project that needed to be looked at, that is the thing that would get pushed aside.

So that self-development becomes an after. After all those conversations get canceled out of the diary that about your develop. It also, as we noted with the stats earlier, it’s also, women are moving more. So obviously a great, it can be a great thing to move to new business in a new, a new industry, but those continual career moves could potentially impact [00:36:00] on women’s career.

It could also mean that women are settling for less and they’re becoming disillusioned and they’re just, they’re working more and giving more to demonstrate their value and. As they don’t own it. So the huge implications are really that gender pay gap, increasing that loss of talent, that latent talent that isn’t been en unlocked in companies and almost this, this huge talent pool of women in companies that’s not been unlocked because these women aren’t asking for the pay rise is not asking for the promotions.

And if this is you, if this is resonate with you, this is no judgment on you not asking. This is not that you’re doing anything wrong. It’s not that you are letting yourself down. Like I said, I know that I really struggle with this in corporate world. Something that made me incredibly uncomfortable. So really my intention today is just to help you to know that it’s okay to ask and give you some practical ways to do that.

If someone’s listening and they are at the moment, correct? They were, they’re working through a change program in an [00:37:00] organization. What sort of things should they be considering to. Support their, um, teams and employees with that process. Mm. Oh, this, well, this is the huge, this is a big one. It feels like a good one.

Eleanor: Yeah. This is the big one. I am on my mission. What are the top tips to people? So I mean the traditional thing and what I would do. And so I’m not dissing any of this stuff. You know, you go in, you create an amazing change program. The leaders have all, probably gone away on a beautiful offsite or something and created this change maybe.

Yeah. It could be weeks of work, months of work years. So it depends on what’s going on. Then they bring in a comms person like myself and say, oh, create this beautiful communication we need to now go out and, and tell everybody great idea that we had on our away day. Exactly. And you know, we’ve got usually a consultant to come in and I dunno what they do, but they’ve.

Made some beautiful slide, actually never beautiful slides. Don’t you ever think that like the consultancy slides [00:38:00] are never beautiful? Are they never, it’s like, why is this we’re paying you? I love the fact that we pay. I just remember in organizations paying an order amount of money is when you, when you see the budget and you’re like, really?

And then they, yeah, they basically tell the organization what you, what you’ve been telling for the last X number years. Oh, yeah. And they don’t even bother put a nice graphic yeah. Don’t even bother to make a nice gift or anything, but anyway, um, but this is life. Uh, so that’s what happens. And so someone like me would come and do beautiful coms plan.

Oh yes. We would put listening sessions in there. We’d do Q and A’s. We’d get two. Of course we would, but these are kind of layers. If you think about a layered approach. So this is the top layer telling, sharing the vision. You’ve got the kind of middle layer of briefing and yeah. How to support managers, to support people, to listen and take their questions.

And then you’ve got everybody sitting there going, what the heck is going on. And it’s [00:39:00] basically a mismatch, which you’ve gotta think that everybody now that’s about to be told this message is about. Depending on how big it is. There are a couple of days, weeks, months behind you. You’ve all been away in a room and you understand the ins, the outs, the yeses, the nos, the whys.

It it’s completely clear to you, everyone else. This is new. So why shouldn’t they have the same space to absorb it and filter it through their lens? That is not a listening session that is giving people space and time to think about it and the tools to understand change. So we throw all this beautiful coms at people and they all just fold their arms and go, oh my God, I’m not doing that.

Oh my God. What about my job? What about this? What about that? Yeah. Get, get in touch with the union and they start rallying and defending against. In which whatever way, and this is why change suddenly gets hard because people then look for blame people, then look for the reasons why it won’t work. And you’ve got a disconnect [00:40:00] everyone’s trying to catch up with this beautiful vision, but they’re miles behind in the processing.

So I think it’s, um, a case of. Kind of giving people that space to process. So don’t fill them with answers. Don’t do a bloody Q and a don’t do all that stuff. Just let them be. And I can, when I tell people about this kind of feeling, you can also translate it into actual personal life. And we really laughed a couple of weeks cuz we had this very similar, um, personal exchange, which was exactly that process where I wanted to change round.

This is gonna sound ridiculous. I want you to change around the living room. Yeah, my husband’s away at the moment. So, you know, who cares? I just, I want to change the living room. I told him, oh, I’m gonna get a new surf and we’re put here. What, why? Whoa, hang on. Whoa, slow down. Well, like it was as if I’d sort of, you know, knocked the house down every, but the change process is everywhere.

You know, like when we delivered news to friends and family, [00:41:00] They’re like what, what, you know, to you, it’s absolutely clear. Oh, I want a new, clear, I want to do something different. It’s completely clear. Cuz you’ve been sitting with this for a long time. You’ve been working with it, but everyone else they’re catching up now.

Yeah. And they’re going through their own filters because we all naturally do that. You know? We, we tell a story and then we filter it through our own filters. Like, oh my God, should I do that? I mean, would I do that? What would I do? I dunno, oh, this is what make it, give it, give it meaning and kind of, yeah, exactly.

This is what it means to me. Yeah. So we are behind, we’re always behind on the processing of change. So I would just give a bit more respect to that, whether it is moving furniture or it’s actually a huge transformation in organization. It’s that it’s that space to let everybody catch up with your amazing vision, because that’s when deep change and real meaning happens.

That’s where connection works. That’s where engagement works. It doesn’t work by just telling people, ordering [00:42:00] people throw out more calms. I mean, the amount of times that I’ve been brought into a meeting to say this change isn’t working, we need more coms. People are not understanding it. More coms, more coms.

It maybe more comes, but it’s probably more time to think. Yeah. It’s almost like the listening sessions rather than it being like the CEO or the MD or someone sharing, you know, something and, and. Answering questions. It’s almost letting people just speak and just like sharing how they’re feeling or sharing their worries and whether that’s anonymous or whatever way.

It’s just like, rather than those being those type of listen sessions, almost like a listen session of like just a, a really free session where people just come together and it’s, you know, can be anonymous if you want it to be, if you feel safe with that, just like, what are you, what are you feeling at the moment?

Yeah. What your, you know, what are your worries? What are you. What’s the story that are playing out for you, that’s it? Yeah. Like you said, it’s almost like if, if you know, the senior leadership team are that far ahead and they’ve been looking [00:43:00] at this for months and they have the plan, they have the strategy.

That’s great. But actually the people that are gonna implement it, if they’re just finding out it’s that time, isn’t it to really buy into it and work out. What does it mean for me? That’s it. Yeah. And that’s, I mean, that’s, we’ve got a whole five, five kind of step process of frameworks that we are testing at the moment.

Yeah. That people are going through in this. Yeah. And so that’s like the deeper. More kind of supportive option, but you’re right. It doesn’t have to be a, a huge deep program. It can be just asking questions, but I think we are kind of, it goes back to the thing we were actually talking about, about busy.

Yeah. And doing, being more valued unless we are doing, unless we have answers, unless we’re telling, we don’t feel like we are being productive. Yeah. And that’s the challenge it’s like sometimes. Being productive is nothing. It’s it is allowing a space. Yeah, absolutely. Where you don’t have answers where you don’t tell somebody [00:44:00] something.

Um, and that’s, again, the work that we could kind of bring into making change a bit better in yeah. Ourselves and organizations creating time and space. Isn’t it. I know for many, many women that I work with and I think women in, in the audience, they’re there at that point, you know, career where they have a lot of responsibility.

Nicola: So actually. You know, we know that women are judged more on performance, not on potential. So they’re in that mode of like, I’m gonna keep demonstrating this great job that I’m doing. Um, and in that it takes away the time and space and. A lot of the women that are very senior it’s like, you’re not just paid for doing anymore.

You’re paid for thinking, you’re paid for strategy. You’re paid for, you know, setting a direction. And that doesn’t come in answering a hundred emails a day that comes in in having three hours to really think and feel and do some research and go back to some numbers and, you know, get the whiteboard out.

Let’s go old fashioned or, you know, just be really. Start to be creative and creative doesn’t happen in, and that [00:45:00] strategic part of creating that direction doesn’t happen in that day to day at all.

Yeah,

Eleanor: absolutely. I think the best CEOs, female CEOs I’ve worked for, or with the cleverest thing they do is ask questions at the right moment.

And yeah, there’s just a, I, there’s just something I’ve seen, you know, seen this skill of just when somebody else. Have an answer or say, I think this, I think that this is my opinion. It’s, they’re doing the opposite. They are asking questions. And I think that’s a really powerful thing that actually during times of change, ask more questions than.

You have answers. I love that. I love that. And not making the assumptions about those answers and presenting them back. Yeah. Because that, if they’re not what people are thinking or where they are, that creates an instant disconnect of, well, you’re not, you don’t get it. You don’t understand me. Yeah. Yeah.

Which is almost worse than saying nothing. Isn’t it? [00:46:00] oh yeah. Oh yeah. It will undo. It will undo your good work for sure. Yeah. So is there a final message you’d like to leave with, um, our audience today? Just about change and how to create those opportunities in change. Cuz I think there’s some great, great tips and great first steps there to take.

Yeah. Well, my, my whole thing started with losing the job and that’s the first change, you know, redundancy is probably a big change. And how do you see that as an opportunity? And then, and then realizing that actually that same thinking is in, even if you’re in work and you’re sitting there and change is happening to you, it’s the same thing.

Like, yeah, it’s disrupt, it’s a disruption of your thoughts. It’s a disruption of what we know, but that’s not a bad thing. So the first thing I’d say. If change is happening around you, step into that shape that. Yeah. Discuss step into your space. Yeah. And really own it. And really start to challenge yourself on, well, what am I doing?[00:47:00]

How am I really owning this? How am I fueling it? How is the things that I’m doing serving me and what we said before? I think the most powerful thing is other people. So how am I helping others? How am I creating space for others? And that’s where I’d start. And from there. I think it’s just one of these things that you go exploring.

That’s how I talk about it. You know, you just be curious, open up exactly. You just open up and you go exploring and you just start to see things very differently. So I think anybody can see an opportunity in change. Yes. There’s different barriers that have thrown at us, but there’s so many examples out there of people who’ve done it, that you can take energy from it.

And, and really why not give it go yourself?

Nicola: If, what I talk about really resonates with you and you love what I [00:48:00] 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. Or my V I P program, depending on 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 confide. In who they are and the clarity and what they want to be able to get there. And we do that through workshops. We do that through leadership programs, and we can do that through consulting work.

If you are looking for help with any of that, drop me an email Nicola Cola score, code.com. The spellings are the easiest. So all the details are the show notes results I get for clients. Clients have been promoted twice in the six months we’ve worked together. They’ve been invited to join the board.

They’ve gone from redundancy to being offered three dream [00:49:00] jobs. They’ve gone from being pushed out of an organization to going into a bigger organization in a bigger role with a bigger pay. And just a quote from a client that I particularly love. I’ve gone from the pit of despair. When I started working with Nick to just being really happy.

And she is an incredibly empowered leader. Now, if you’re not quite ready for that, you can download my overwhelm on fire guide. The details that are in the show notes, but that really helps you every day 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.

Uh, it’s a little crib sheet that you can just go through and tick things off. 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 gonna help your particular subject.

And it’s all about helping female leaders to find their fire and also stats and, and any research from the industry as well. And things that I’m reading that I really. [00:50:00] And 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 are always gonna have them when they’re released and doing that as well.

Not only helps you, but it also means that we are gonna reach more women and we’re gonna be able to start that revolution to helping female leaders to keep that fire. Find their fire and keep it. So keep that passion, that purpose, that excitement. So if you haven’t done that already, please go and do that.

Thank you.