This post highlights the importance of space and time to reflect away from the ‘noise’ of life to refocus on what matters so that we can see different perspectives, shift energy and beliefs that are stagnant and move forward with a clear and healthy intention that can restore connection.
This week I am working remotely from Bright in north-east Victoria. It’s become the space that I take to regroup, reflect and refocus a few times a year. I never really know what is going to surface at these times but have learned to just create space and get out of my own way. What surfaced on day one this week took me a little by surprise.
But first – a little of the back story so it makes sense.
A month ago my eldest daughter (age 19) announced that she was heading overseas on a solo adventure for seven – s-e-v-e-n – months to Japan and South East Asia then finishing in India and Nepal. I have witnessed Amelia working three jobs to save the funds for her adventure along with the clarity and conviction in her decision to defer from her second year of university. I have also known for some months that the trip was coming. But her intention had been to travel with a friend – the whole ‘travelling alone’ thing was new. And it really sent me into a spin. In fact, I went into a whole fear-based reaction that left me with nightmares about abduction in Japan. I had broken sleep, waking up asking myself ‘Is this really happening, or did I dream it?’ I was generally motionless and speechless for a day or two as I tried to process the news.
From Fear to Courage
Over the days that followed, I started to move beyond my own fear-based reaction. I was able to step a little more off the dancefloor and up to the balcony and a broader perspective. I was then able to see and be present with the extraordinary courage of this amazing young woman. Here I was a short jog away from 50 and I have never done anything as seemingly courageous as this. My broader perspective helped me to re-frame a number of beliefs and stories that were much more useful:
- If anyone’s got what this takes, she does. She’s street smart, savvy and quick to think and act when she needs to.
- She always attracts amazing people into her life. She knows how to have fun and have deep honest conversations and connection with people so interesting people are always drawn to her.
- From the moment she was born, she has always been well and truly looking out into this wondrous world – this is just who she is. She has work to do in the world and this is the natural next step – into the world.
- If life is not a daring adventure – then what is it?
- She’s ready to step away from home – and if we’re honest with ourselves, we’re ready for her to take that step away from home too. (We’re a bit over being treated like a hotel and in many ways, this is payback time – as I recall doing exactly the same with my mum.)
Secretly (or perhaps not so secretly now) there is also a part of me that would love to head out into the world just as she is, into an adventure into the unknown…
Roll forward to yesterday – day one in this next week of space in Bright.
I had been feeling something was stuck energetically in me all day long and I was getting frustrated because I should be working/ writing/ planning/ thinking … doing something! Then inspiration struck me. What was needed was a walk by the river with the dog, revealing in the present moment through the dog’s pure joy as she chased the ducks (no hope of catching them) and fetched sticks along the Ovens River.
Perhaps you have had a similar experience too? Trying so hard to ‘do’ and needing to make a decision just to ‘be’? I surprise myself at how often I fall into this same trap.
The Realisation
As I sat on the riverside listening to the birds and watching the water flowing over the rocks, I was struck by something in relation to my daughter. It was time to make a choice – a choice to let go. I hadn’t explicitly been thinking about her travel that day but clearly it was right there not too far from the surface, waiting to be revealed when I finally found the space to reflect.
‘“To let go means to let be. When we let be with compassion – things come and go on their own’
Jack Kornfield
Emotion rose and tears rolled down my cheeks as this energy that had been ‘stuck’ started to move through me – the realisation that that I had been emotionally holding on to my ‘baby girl’ for too long now.
I spent the next hours journaling and reflecting on what it meant as a mother to ‘let go’ with compassion and to ‘let be’. I also called on Google for some parenting advice and came across the following statement: ‘The most productive relationship for adult children is for them taking primary responsibility for their lives and parents acting as their consultants’. Okay. Yep. Well, that makes sense – I could certainly transition to that, if that’s what Amelia needs.
Change and Transition
In my work supporting leaders to navigate change in organisations I have often spoken about ‘change’ being the external act – the decision to go overseas, the leaving home, etc. in this situation. But then equally I bring focus onto the transition that change brings – that is the internal emotional changes that must happen through the cycle of emotions to arrive at acceptance. I could now see that clearly Amelia and I (and the whole family in fact) were in the midst of an important life transition.
‘Space’ Creates Insight
I’m not in the habit of always sharing personal stories on this blog however I share this story as a great example of the need to carve out pockets of space in our lives and/or moments to take a balcony perspective. Unless we do that, it can be difficult to see what is right under our nose.
Had I stayed in Melbourne this week, I would still be ‘holding on’, not seeing that it’s high time to let this gorgeous, creative, amazing, strong, self-focussed angel spread her wings.
Being a big fan of the healing power of ritual, right there by the river yesterday I carefully chose three healthy green gum leaves. As a I released them into the free-flowing water of the Ovens, from deep within the core of my being and surrounded with so much love I spoke these words:
“I choose to let you go.”
And I did.
Are you needing some space in your life right now to give yourself permission to do some inner processing? Schedule a conversation with Nicola to discuss how Leadership Coaching or our new Coaching Program – Cultivating Well for senior women can work for you or the people in your organisation.
In my next post I will explore why the practice of reflection is a leadership ‘super power’ and how to build it into your own leadership rhythm.
This post was orginally published in 2018
This post explores compassion and self-compassion through a personal story and invites the reader to reflect on their own levels of self-compassion based in the work of Kristin Neff.
Late last year I had a call from my daughter’s teacher. Chiara (age 15) was midway through a nine-week personal leadership experience based at Snowy River Campus in East Gippsland (provided by the Victorian government’s School for Student Leadership initiative).
The teacher shared with me the wonderful level of commitment, enthusiasm, goal achieving and social contribution that Chiara was making. When I asked her what she saw as the greatest development area for Chiara, she replied without hesitation in two simple words: greater self-compassion.
While this was not a surprise to me to hear someone else – with an opinion that I valued – reflect this back to me, I had a sinking feeling in my heart.
Instantly feeling ‘at fault’ as a mother (as we mothers can do so masterfully), I found myself thinking about the role model that I had been and still was for my daughter. I started wondering why it is often the case that those people who are the most kind and compassionate and loving to others find it hard to provide this same nourishment and nurturing for themselves?
It also got me thinking about the drivers that can contribute to this way of being. There’s the personal focus on external measures of success that are driven by an internal tendency to not feel good enough or worthy enough. These measures often create a false or short-lived sense of success. There are things that society values and that get rewarded in school, in the community and at home – being a ‘good girl’ and looking out for others, for instance. There are those things that take us away from feeling worthy of loving ourselves in the same way that we intrinsically offer love to the people in our lives.
‘Self-compassion is a measurable trait. In 2003 no-one had defined or measured it. In 2017 there were 1340 studies on self-compassion. Self-compassion is strongly linked to wellbeing.’ [ Source: Neff 2018
What is it to be compassionate?
Meet Chiara. Chiara is a gentle, kind and compassionate teenager who is wise beyond her years. She has natural care and concern for all living things – people, pets, trees. She takes great care in rescuing the spider or bug from her bedroom and returning it to the natural environment. She is empathic – she knows how others are feeling. She’s the kid who’ll notice the person in the corner who’s been excluded and approach them to make them feel not alone. She is the granddaughter who asks her nana from a place of genuine interest, ‘How are you Nanna? What’s been happening in your day?’, instead of a typical teenage response of a one-way street and it being all about her. She’s the first to make you a cup of tea if she senses you are out of sorts or need a bit of love.
Chiara is the kid who takes time morning and night to sit on the ground with the dog and give her some real care and attention. Each morning she appears at your side just like a pussy cat and wraps you in a blanket of love to start your day. Yes, we are truly blessed to have her in our lives.
So you see? She is actually one of the most compassionate people I know and such a great teacher to me and to her sisters and peers. Compassion is the essence of this young lady. She knows it well.
Turning this compassion that she knows so well into watering and nourishing herself – that would appear to be the next step in her learning journey. And I know she is not alone. I for one need to turn up this dial on self-compassion. Perhaps you do too?
This might help:
In the later part of 2018, I attended a workshop with Kristin Neff, a world expert on self-compassion. Part of what she offered was a radical shift to ‘relate to self’ in new ways.
Kristen defines self-compassion as:
- being a good friend to yourself
- treating yourself the way you would treat a good friend; and
- holding pain with love.
She took us through a three-part reflective process, which I would like to offer you here:
Part 1
Allow a friend to arise in your mind’s eye. Allow a close friend who is suffering in some way to appear in your mind’s eye, in a situation where you are feeling resilient and strong.
Close your eyes and ask yourself this question: How would I treat this close friend?
What are the types of things you would say to your friend?
What tone do you use?
What’s your body posture like?
What type of non-verbal gestures do you use?
Part 2
Allow to arise in your mind’s eye a situation where you failed at something important to you or you are having a hard time.
What do you say to yourself when you are struggling?
How did you say it?
What is your body posture?
How do you relate to yourself when you are struggling?
Part 3
Do you notice any patterns of difference between how you treat yourself when struggling and how you treat others when they are?
What did you discover about how you treat yourself/others?
Perhaps you might like to share your reflection with a friend?
In our work with leaders – amidst the harsh demands of work and life, the absence of self-compassion is palpable. In our quest to be better, do better, earn more, get the promotion, any notion of self-compassion gets lost.
I invite you to explore the wonderful books and resources that are available on Kristin’s website.
Is there one small step you can take toward greater self-compassion?
PS. Chiara is now several months back from her life-changing leadership experience. The young lady we have here with us now is more confident, self-empowered and self-aware than I thought was possible in such a short space of time. She’s made decisions and choices this year to show more self-compassion and of her own accord has continued a daily journaling practice. She’s followed her inner-knowing and desire to do things that bring her joy (she practices yoga several times a week, walks the dog regularly and is playing netball for the first time). She is also a daily reminder to me that I have a choice.
Date: Wed 29th May 2019 4pm-6.30pm
Location: Melbourne CBD
Investment: $50 ex GST
Facilitator: Nicola Vague
Included is a screening of Sensitive The Untold Story based on the groundbreaking work of Elaine Aron and a space for HSP leaders to come together to reflect and connect and own a little more of your enormous gift.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Evolving Leaders – HSP community.
You can read more about HSP’s and our work with HSP’s by visiting:
This post explores a holistic approach taken in my coaching of a senior leader. Our aim was to help get her out of her head and into her body, accessing and stepping into more of who she was at her core. This would provide the power, confidence and presence to deliver a significant career milestone presentation. It offers the reader resources and an approach to inspire a sharpening of your own presentation skills.
I recently worked with an executive in the latter part of her career. She was naturally introverted and had little experience in formal presentations. However, she had been charged with the responsibility of delivering a significant presentation to an internal audience, part of the launch of an exciting new chapter in the business. She felt little connection to the topic and, to make the situation a little more challenging, the parent company had provided the presentation they wanted delivered. Worse still, the presentation had been translated (poorly) from another language.
The situation triggered a fear reaction in the leader driven by a low level of belief in herself. This was exacerbated by it being a new experience and the fact that, being introverted, she quite naturally felt very visible and exposed. On the plus side the leader did something that many shy away from – she recognised that she needed help and she took personal responsibility to hire a coach to help. These are the leaders I love to support.
“While many of us might fear public speaking even just at a work morning tea, stepping up to the job can make or break your career, especially for those at the top”
Dr Lucinda Holdforth on the ABC Radio National program This Working Life.
I have done my share of presenting over the years, but to be completely transparent I had never formally coached someone else in presentation skills. So, it was time to get to work!
I reflected on the number of presentations that I had sat through feeling totally bored, with speakers who were disconnected from their message and themselves. I knew that to effectively deliver a presentation requires the development of some specific communication and presentation skills such as tone, timbre, presence and connecting with audience. I also knew that to focus on skill and capability alone was not going to deliver results.
I came across a great resource that also informed my approach:
Top Five Tips for Presenting with Impact by Dr Barry O’Sullivan
So, with an eager student at the helm, I designed a coaching program based on what I had read and what I know best: starting close in – helping this leader to deepen /reconnect with who she was and what mattered to her:
Step 1: Start close in
In this context this meant helping the leader to connect to who she is and what matters to her to enable a connection between message and person. Prior to the first coaching session this leader completed a Personal Values Assessment and Core Motivation exercise (“I go to work each day at … so that I can…”) connecting her with her deeper inner motivation: what makes her get out of bed each day to come to work. She also did some reflection around these key questions:
- What is important personally in your life?
- How do you want to ‘show up’ as a leader?
- What patterns of thinking and beliefs are getting in the way of this?
- What needs to shift so that you can feel empowered and confident as a speaker?
Step 2: Understand your audience
Often inexperienced presenters become so consumed with navigating their own fear about the presentation that they lose sight of why they are doing the presentation and who they are doing it for.
This requires a deliberate mindset shift that can feel a bit disorienting, but at the same time it can be screamingly obvious as it was for this client:
- What if it (the presentation) is not about you?
- Consider:
- How can you be of service to this audience?
- How do you want the audience to feel?
- What does the audience need from you?
- What do you need to do/what needs to change for you to get out of the way of yourself?
Step 3: Change your body, change your mind
Of great relevance for this client was the work of social psychologist Amy Cuddy on body language. Given the client was quiet by nature and didn’t easily or naturally command attention and respect when she walked into a room, and nor did she feel confident and empowered when she stood before a group, we focussed on this wisdom from Amy Cuddy:
Our bodies change our minds
Our minds change our behaviour
Our behaviour changes our outcomes
Body language affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves. Amy Cuddy argues that ‘power posing’ – standing in a posture of confidence, even when we don’t feel confident – can boost feelings of confidence and might have an impact on our chances for success.
Here is what Cuddy says:
- When you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to actually feel powerful
- Power posing or high power poses versus low power poses – are you collapsing or taking up space?
- Do you feel like you are supposed to be here (‘imposter syndrome’)?
- You can choose to be assertive, confident and powerful
- Configure your brain to cope the best in that situation
Source: Your body language shapes who you are, Amy Cuddy
Well can I just say – in case you had any doubts – that it really works.
When you pretend to be powerful, you are more likely to actually feel powerful.
Why don’t you try it on?
It was through this inspiration, and practice that my client shifted from being closed down and reserved to having an open heart, feet on the ground, back tall and the presence that demanded attention and an excited anticipation from the audience about what she was about to say.
Step 4: Communication and presentation skills development
In terms of building the presentation skill development component of my program, I drew upon the following great ideas from Julian Treasure:
How to speak so people want to listen, Julian Treasure
There are three main parts to Julian’s work that all informed the coaching approach:
- “Amazing
Toolbox”
- Register – head, throat, chest voice – “we associate depth with power”
- Timbre – rich warm smooth
- Prosody – avoid monotony
- Silence – find opportunities to rest in silence
- Pitch – vary the pitch
- Volume – vary the volume
- HAIL – honesty/authenticity/integrity/love
- Vocal warm ups.
(You can access this content via the TED talks link above)
Step 5: Mindfulness to quieten the ‘monkey mind’
When the stakes are high and we are well out of our comfort zone there seems to be this natural increase in mental chatter – like the radio gets turned up to 10! This was the case for this leader and so through the four-week program and on the morning of the presentation, she used a meditation practice to quieten down this mental chatter.
Step 6: Practice, practice, practice
Nothing great is ever achieved without practice. This client was completely motivated and disciplined and these were key ingredients to her ultimate success. During the month-long preparation, the leader videoed herself presenting on a weekly basis, watching it back and reflecting on what had improved and areas for next focus. From my perspective, one of the big things I needed to do was to help her ‘take the jump’ from speaker notes on PowerPoint to cards to that final leap of faith that she didn’t need any prompts to finally getting out there and doing a great job.
The big day finally arrived. The message I received immediately after the presentation said: “I nailed it”. Job done. This leader was a true inspiration and a joy to coach.
It is a well-known phenomenon that we teach what we need to learn. After initially hesitating to accept this assignment, I am grateful that I said yes because as it turns out the coaching and support that I was able to give this leader was just what was needed, and ironically, as I step more into presenting and speaking myself, it was also perhaps the perfect medicine for me.
Interested in presenting with greater impact? I would love to help.
A unique development opportunity. 6 months | 6 Leaders | Melbourne | Starts June 21st 2019
Do you feel like you are out of flow?
Do you sense there is a better version of your leadership just out of reach?
Are you wrestling with questions that don’t have easy answers?
Are you caught in the whirlwind of doing (not being)?
Would you benefit from a having some external support to navigate long over-due changes?
Do you need a regular space to spend time working on being a better version of you?
If this is you then ”Leading with Intent” is for you. The focus of Leading with Intent is on taking your story – your ‘you’ – to the heart of your leadership.
We invite you to join this different and powerful development experience. This exclusive program has been designed for six like- minded leaders and includes:
– five half day development sessions over six months utilising The Flow Game
– two individual development sessions (prior to program start and at the conclusion)
– your own peer support learning group; and
-ongoing guidance from your flow game hosts during the program .
Full program details
Date: 17th May 2019 12pm-5pm
Location: Melbourne CBD
Investment: $250 ex GST
Your co-hosts: Hamish Riddell www.hamishriddell.com and Nicola Vague www.evolvingleaders.com.au
We would love to invite you to a different and powerful development experience. This is the last introductory experience to be offered this year.
This is an introductory session to our Leading with Intent Program leveraging The Flow Game.
We have been personally and professionally benefiting from The Flow Game and we want to share this with other leaders so that you too may get the benefit of this unique experience.
In fact, we believe in the process so much, we are offering a 100% money back guarantee if you do not get personal benefit from this experience we will be happy to refund you!
The flow game is a unique experience where a group of people come together to each gain deep clarity on a question that matters to them. Designed for leaders the game is custom made for each participant. Over the course of 4.5 hours, questions combined with joint reflection and a sharing of knowledge and experiences among the players help reignite “flow”. The game is designed to inspire your reflection, thinking and courage. Read more...
Date: 21st Feb 2019 4pm-6.30pm
Location: Melbourne CBD
Investment: $50 ex GST
Facilitator: Nicola Vague
Our first event was held in February and after such a special gathering this is a repeat of that event. Included is a screening of Sensitive The Untold Story based on the groundbreaking work of Elaine Aron and a space for HSP leaders to come together to reflect and connect.
We look forward to welcoming you to the Evolving Leaders – HSP community.
You can read more about HSP’s and our work with HSP’s by visiting:
Dates: 29th March 2019 12pm-5pm
Location: Melbourne CBD
Investment: $250 ex GST
Your co-hosts: Hamish Riddell www.hamishriddell.com and Nicola Vague www.evolvingleaders.com.au
We would love to invite you to a different and powerful development experience.
This is an introductory session to our Leading with Intent Program leveraging The Flow Game. We have been personally and professionally benefiting from The Flow Game and we want to share this with other leaders so that you too may get the benefit of this unique experience.
In fact, we believe in the process so much, we are offering a 100% money back guarantee if you do not get personal benefit from this experience we will be happy to refund you!
The flow game is a unique experience where a group of people come together to each gain deep clarity on a question that matters to them. Designed for leaders the game is custom made for each participant. Over the course of 4.5 hours, questions combined with joint reflection and a sharing of knowledge and experiences among the players help reignite “flow”. The game is designed to inspire your reflection, thinking and courage. Read more...