Unlocking Potential: Coaching, Imposter Syndrome, and Growth with Liz Hnat & Amanda Cookson.

Tom: Hello and welcome to today's episode of the make things better podcast I will be talking to Liz Hnat and Amanda Cookson about coaching and how Liz has benefited from Amanda's coaching from Northern Value Creators so I'm really excited to delve into today's episode I'll just be behind the camera asking many questions so thanks for being here and I do hope you enjoy today's episode.

Amanda: What do you want us to do with our hands do they look like like weird little T-Rex hands what does it look like cuz the camera's quite low isn't it

Tom: Just do that the whole time if you okay by way it's recording so that’s going in. Hello welcome to the make things better podcast I'm wondering Amanda do you want to start by introducing yourself and then and then Liz do you want to introduce yourself afterwards

Liz: sure

Amanda: So I'm Amanda Cookson and I'm co-founder of Northern Value Creators so we are a coaching training and consultancy company that's mostly working in the tech sector supporting people who are doers moving into that leadership sort of position

Liz: that's very good

Amanda: I know

Liz: I'm Liz so I'm Delivery Director at Hive IT so I um manage a team of project managers and delivery managers and um also help kind of drive forward the growth and direction of Hive IT

Tom: Amazing and how did Hive IT end up getting help and support from Northern Value Creators?

Amanda: So I think it would have been because Simon who co-founded Northern Value Creators with me worked, with you Liz in technophobia so I think that's that kind of link a little bit about how and where and um when I was training as a coach this is going back to 2016 2017 part of the training that I had was I needed to work with um I think it was something like four practice clients and being an overachiever I found myself 10 practice client and one of them was Johnny so Jonny was my experiment and then I think and and and agreed to work with me because of his relationship with Simon um and I think Jonny found it so useful that he then um gave me the opportunity to come in and work with other members of the team so I remember the very first invoice I ever submitted was number one and Jonny said to me very sweetly he said look love and perhaps if you put like Hive one no one would know that this is the first ever paid fece of work that you've got as a coach so my whole invoice thing is structured as well around I don't think he called me love because Jon is not that patronizing but it was basically calling me to one side is a more seasoned entrepreneur to a foundling to say yeah don't do that

Liz: I think that's really interesting what you just said then that that Jonny gave you the opportunity to come in and work with Hive whereas I from the other side I very much saw it as Jonny giving us the opportunity to work with you guys and and take a benefit of your experience and your kind of skills so I didn't see it as you being given the the opportunity I saw it as Hive been given the opportunity and our staff being given the opportunity to work with you so I saw it the other way around

Amanda: yeah

Tom: Liz when did you for first got coaching from Northern Value Creators and Amanda in particular

Liz: yeah so I think I so I contracted with Hive for a while and then I had my second child and then came back as a like a permanent employee and I think it was just after I'd had Isaac that we then started coaching so that is at least eight years ago

Amanda: I think you might have been the second person I ever worked with

Liz: and then it was at least two years that we were having very regular yeah monthly sessions wasn't it I think it went it went on for a while

Amanda: It did yeah and I think Johnny had a really beautiful philosophy because what he basically said to everybody was coaching is there if you need it so I would come in and then whoever wanted coaching would come and and have a little slot with me so I'd never really know what who I was going to see what we're going to talk about but it meant that there was this really open space for people to explore what they wanted get support so I learn loads as a new coach and um and I know that the work that I did was really impactful as well because people still talk to me about it now

Liz: oh yeah yeah 100% And we still offer it now you know you know people can still have business coaching with Northern Value creators so I don't think we would be offering that and encouraging our staff to engage with that if it hadn't been impactful the work that you've done with us so I think that's a testament to yeah to the great work that you have done

Tom: And Liz going back eight years ago maybe before you ever had any coaching from Amanda how do you think you were different back then to how you are now

Liz: oh I mean yeah where do you I mean how big and how deep do you want me to go into that can of worms um I think that I'm not necessarily hugely different but I think there were some key things that Amanda helped me see one of them is instilling this growth mindset so I I don't think I maybe had that before and I um have leared that it's okay not to know everything and it's okay to admit you don't know things and you know that's just an opportunity for growth and learning and I think it took a long time to help me come to that realization and um and to change my brain to rewire my brain in a way and then the other thing I think I had was um quite bad impostor syndrome which a lot of people especially women in Tech will talk about um and I think that's great that people do talk about it because I think it's it's it can be so debilitating um but just feeling like I shouldn't be here it might appear that I'm doing a really good job but I don't I don't internally I don't feel like I am and I'm over compensating or striving or doing way more than I need to and actually just to be confident in my skills um was something that you helped me really find my feet with I think and that opened up like just being more comfortable with yourself opened up whole new parts of my brain like we we were just talking earlier about how when you're in um like a state of anxiety and uh and fear you know not fear of other people but fear that I was failing myself your brain capacity is so much more reduced um and so when I found that confidence and in my skills and my abilities my whole brain opened up to to actually learning more and um and just being more comfortable and yeah it was yeah it changed my whole career progression I would say

Tom: and from your perspective Amanda what sort of thought patterns were you looking out for early on and what sort of questions did you ask Liz to help her sort of tap into her real potential and maybe overcome some of that fear early on?

Amanda: hmm I I like the question but I might give you an odd answer so my working process is to sit and listen really deeply so as I am listening to my clients I'm looking for the metaphors that they use and the constructs in which they perceive their reality and so anything that for me seems like it might be um a limiting belief or self-sabotage or a belief that is maybe unhelpful or something that I can see that they can't see those are the areas that I kind of bring to light and to life and so I don't have in my back pocket I always ask these three questions or I always look for this particular thing because that's not the kind of coaching I do is very person-centred it's very deep listening um and it's it's reflecting back and then seeing where it goes because one of the things that we talking aren't we about you were the second paid client I had that when I did those 10 practice people I've talked about sometimes I'd be like oh I know this I know what's up with you, you're a people plays their role and you're a procrastinator and I would rush ahead and I'd be offering solutions and asking questions that were absolutely based on my diagnosis and it would go horribly wrong and so what I've learned is you go at the pace of the person you're with and you listen really carefully you let go of your assumptions and you allow the other person to work out for themselves what's going on what do they need where do they want to go next

Liz: yeah to be clear Amanda's coaching is not um I'm going to come along and give you a solution that fixes whatever you might be struggling with at all because that just wouldn't work it has to be the person themselves going along that journey in it and being guided along it to find what might be causing issues but then also to find their own solutions and it's you're really you you're using tools and techniques that help them go on that Journey but it's not like you fix a person

Amanda: yeah totally

Tom: And and then you talks about impostor syndrome and working in Tech you think from a more macro societal bigger picture like zoom in out is there any ways in which the world at the moment is set up for people especially maybe women to have more self-limiting beliefs because of you know how the tech industry is and especially like eight years ago

Amanda: just like did you say your question like of

course duh so essentially imposter feelings start to emerge when you feel othered so and been you were like three years old how many women work at Hive as a percentage?

Liz: um I should know that off the top of my head

Amanda: how many Founders and Senior leaders are female and what was that like eight years ago when I was working with you?

Liz: well there there there was one

Amanda: exactly so when you feel othered and different when you are not the same as everyone else you start to get these things like is it me you feel a bit more stressed you worry about acceptance we wander around in our brains with like this really outdated limited kit our monkey brain which is constantly am I safe do I belong do they like me am I lovable am I enough all the time all the time checking checking and so if you're the only female in a male dominated environment if your style of giving feedback coding thinking is different to others then you start to feel like is it me is it enough am I okay to challenge will I be rejected so you've got all of that coming in as well as that feeling of learning and growing and moving in your role that if you're like everybody else you don't need to worry about you just can focus on your own career and projectory and learning rather than that also am I fitting in am I okay am I the weird one am I the odd one out so yeah there's loads absolutely loads and I think um I love thinking about imposter syndrome because it's so so interesting and there is so many ways now that are being scientifically proven to make a difference the way people think and some of it's about how we give feedback and how we support others and so those kind of platitudes oh you're fine it's all right you'll be okay you can do it yeah super unhelpful because where's the evidence where's the detail how are you showing me I can do it so again if you are the outlier in an organization and you are struggling with your value and selfworth and the way that people are giving you feedback and support is platitudes because they don't really know what to do with you because they think you're awesome but you don't seem to get it then you're not getting from them the feedback that you need because what you really want when either you're working with someone who's struggling with impostor feelings or you're struggling with them yourself is gather your evidence for how awesome you are so you've been lovely about my coaching and I was saying oh I was so lucky to have this opportunity massive impostor syndrome when I started as a coach and I'm really clever with impostor syndrome because I can have it about anything give you a massive list of where I phone posture about this or I'm posture about that but going back to coaching I felt so uncomfortable about whether I was good enough that I did not ask anybody for any feedback on my coaching until I was about four years in and I was having supervision and I said well I never really know whether I'm doing a good job and my supervisor went well don't you ask people I was like no she's like well just ask people Amanda ask them in the session has that resonated has that been helpful and at the end of coaching gather feedback so when I first start you know when you did that kind of conversation with me about how did it go what did you get from it they really blew my mind because I wasn't expecting people to be as positive because in my head well nothing is it just what I do it's just listen

Liz: I I think um just just going back to your original question which I'm not going right back to the original question but about impostor syndrome let me just hang on I'm just going around in circles now but about imposter Syndrome again when we were just talking about Amanda doesn't fix you it's not like that uh Amanda helps you recognize some of the problems you're facing like we've said but imposter syndrome doesn't just go away like it's there all the time and I'm not just saying it's something that only women have men have it as well but it is more prevalent in females and I think it's there in not just your work life but also your home life or you know it can be across everything but what Amanda gives you is the ability to recognize when it's creeping in or appearing and then some kind of tools and uh ways to handle and deal with it I think the recognition is the biggest thing is recognizing oh I'm I'm feeling my imposter syndrome or I'm demonstrating behaviors that I know are a reflex of my imposter syndrome so there's that recognition of it and then there's the being able to tackle it I also think that in the tech industry which yes has been more male dominated in an answer to your question we actually do have quite a high percentage of females at Hive which I think helps

Amanda: yeah now now

Liz: which I do help feel uh build safety for the for the women that we do have at Hive um you know like you're saying we can recognize you know those people like us so in the tech industry where it is more male dominated you may have imposter syndrome that's built up since you were a child and then that sometimes is reaffirmed by uh certain males trying to impose their dominance and when you experience that because you you do get characters from all walks of life in whatever job you're in but when you're one female among 20 males it's more like that you'll see that happening and so when those males are then trying to exert their dominance um it just kind of reinforces your imposter syndrome and then it kind of snowballs and it compounds it and it gets worse and worse so is is there more imposter syndrome in a male dominated industry I would expect so because you're just having more of those incidences that build on top of it I don't know is that a question

Amanda: No that is a good question mean so impostor syndrome is where you are a high achiever but you don't recognize your high achievement and where within the context that you are in you feel stressed and your stress response has got you going back to a mental construct that you're not good enough and in that then trying to relieve those stress feelings you've then got behaviors like avoidance so turning up late for meetings not doing work leaving things to the last minute or perfectionism overpreparing being really bras and awkward you know all sorts of different kind of responses but it all comes from that kind of the context I'm in doesn't make me feel safe I'm not able to see my worth and I'm compensating for this feeling of discomfort with these other behaviors that are then sabotaging my own success and health and mental well-being so can be lots of different environments I reckon

Liz: yeah you probably right

Tom: and in terms of creating those safe environments is anything that companies and the staff that those companies can do to create more safe environments for their staff and and help people overcome imposter syndrome as what well

Amanda: we were talking about this earlier weren't we um that I think that what Hive has created is a really safe and supportive environment and so I think it's a really lovely place to work I think the people that um when I work with them and I talk to them they have so much um love and joy for where they work and I think that having worked you know for me being my first client to having hundreds of clients the way that people feel and the level of retention you have here is something that people would absolutely kill for and so I think the answer to your question about what do organizations do I think it would be more interesting to think about what does what does Hive do what do you think is at the heart of why retention is so high

Liz: I think it's because we really value people I think people are I think Hive recognizes that people are the most important asset that we have and we want to take care of those people and that doesn't just mean at work but it means you know we care about have they got a good work life balance um are we helping them develop and grow um do we give them enough support do we let their voices be heard and we want to do all of those things and we don't get it right all the time but I think you talked about feedback and I think we try to invite that feedback and we try to be as open and honest and transparent as we can be with all our staff and team members so that there's nothing hidden away nothing that they're worried about I suppose and just we recognize yeah that that people are a whole thing and everybody's very different and try to you know work with people in the way that's best for them and yeah I suppose that's what we do

Amanda: cuz I was thinking about the management training that we developed together now that was years ago

Liz: Yeah that was years ago yeah

Amanda: those beautiful little blue folders

Liz: oh the our line Management training

Amanda: yeah

Liz: so yeah so this is another amazing thing that Northern Value Creators have done so as well as doing the business coaching with us you um we recognized that we've got uh about eight or nine line managers in Hive at the moment and none of them are particularly trained it was kind of something we said people interested in doing this and they said yes and we said okay great um and we tried for a while to implement our own style of doing that but we recognized that training needed to be given and I don't know whether you'd ever done like the training the line Management training in the way that we then create co-created that together but we then set out five different kind of key things that we wanted our line managers to have experience and like a tool box and um I I reran some of that training um just a couple of months ago and you know it's so good to remind myself of the training that you've given and that understanding of how people's brains work and um yeah the Neuroscience that supports helping people grow and develop and it was yeah it was just great training and we now have that as a toolbox that we can use and train more people with and that's like really good for us

Amanda: cuz I was thinking about the training in terms of why is retention so good here so so what happens a lot in Tech is in order for someone to progress in their career and to get promotion they have line management responsibility but a lot of people when they move from being a technical expert into managing others aren't given that training or that support so you're brilliant at coding or doing a specific thing but actually working with humans is all really battling and then and this is a think what you started to do with everybody was the answer to this training is to give people HR process so this is how often you should have a one to one this is what you do if somebody wants to go on holiday this is what you do if there's a sickness um this is what you do if there's a problem in performance or if somebody requests training but what that doesn't do is give anybody a really clear like philosophical construct about what does it mean to to lead others what do human beings need how do I want to be how do I want them to be and feel and what's required so I think what we co-created within that toolkit was the ability for everybody who manages people to be really thoughtful about it so we were ahead of our time because the uh the leading thinking now around line managing people is that it's completely personalized so a lot of larger organizations have this is a model this is what you do this is what you and it's very kind of homogenized and specific whereas that doesn't work because human beings are so different we all need different levels of support and different wraparounds and different detail or freedoms and so I feel what we co-created together was something that gave people the power and the understanding to really be in relationship with somebody and understand what does this person need

Liz: and we also as part of that explored didn't we what we wanted line management at Hive to be and we created some kind of values and guidance that is when when somebody says oh I'm interested in becoming a line manager we can now say to them well this is what we feel line managers at Hive should be doing and and this is kind of the responsibilities that you'd be taking on and the ethos and the value of being a line manager at Hive it wasn't just like you say that okay yeah now you'll have to manage XYZ

Amanda: it's like blindly follow

Liz: Yeah this is like this is who we want our line managers to be and these are our goals and we defined all of that before we then put the training together to give people the tools to embody that vision of what a line manager is

Tom: what do you think makes a good line manager I me you mentioned quite a few things there but is there anything in particular that stands out

Amanda: Hmm I feel it's about listing so the more authority you have in a relationship the hard it is for people to be open and honest with you so you have to work really hard to gather those perspectives so listening is really important being curious being flexible um I feel or with you know what makes a good manager is somebody who's able to be vulnerable and human but also set boundaries to be somebody who really thinks about the legacy that they leave behind so if you think about it when you are managing others it's to get them to do stuff and the easiest quickest way to get people to do stuff is to tell them isn't it and if they don't do it right to tell them how they should do it right but you're not creating learning so I've got this real thing about regenerative um leadership and I sort of first came across this idea of regenerative relationships when I was training again as a coach so there's this um non-directive coach called Nancy Klein and she asks you a question and then she just listens and she'll say what else and she contracts with the person who's being coached that when they finish doing their thinking they say they're done and so there's no interrupting there's lots of space and it sounds like how on Earth is that going to help people do profound thinking and I've watched it and I've watched her demonstrate what she does and it's just phenomenal and I think great managers listen because every single thing they need to do and know and understand and change and facilitate their direct reports and their team will tell them if they get out of their own way and they don't make assumptions and they don't let it they like a hurt ego thing and and I think that regenerative bit for me is also that it's about learning and growing so my proudest moments when I think back to when I was leading a team with the people that got promoted and you know I'm still in contact with people on Facebook and they're all doing amazing things across the globe and I feel really proud that I was a part of their journey and the tools and the things that I gave them and the conversations we had have then sparked this whole kind of life and opportunity and that for me is what is great and going looping back to that whole impostor syndrome thing if you are listening and supporting and helping someone grow you're helping to combat those imposer feelings and unlock all of that potential that's in another individual

Liz: I also think there's there's a skill isn't there in in not just a listening but helping that person feel heard so you can sit and listen but if you don't relay what you've heard they don't know they've been heard so one of the skills I think I've picked up from you is to listen and let somebody talk and then say so what I've heard you say is X Y Z and sometimes when you hear what you've said said back to you it can start whole different thought processes or it can make you realize things that you didn't realize you were saying and I think that's a really key skill to have as well and I and I enjoy then watching where that takes them like you say maybe it's you know a whole new career or whatever but it can have been sparked just from that having been listened to and heard

Amanda: yeah that question I teach coaching skills to leaders and one of the first bits in that kind of training process is listening and and you're right that kind of I I teach empathetic listening which involves playing back summarizing um and mirroring and I why I think that's so important is we've got two adopted children at home and we had a really tricky time with our son who is a little bit neuro spicy and I think really struggled with that rejection sensitivity of of going from foster parent into our family um and he used to scream and scream and you're not listening and you're not listening part of nonviolent communication which again I think is a really brilliant toolkit for leaders is to repeat when you repeat back what someone has said there is no doubt in that person's mind that you have heard them have heard them exactly because you said the words and so what I find in coaching bringing it back to then um perhaps the conversations that leaders and managers might have is somebody might say something really hard like like I don't know I'm at shit at everything or this Project's a waste of time or um you know that was a waste of energy wasn't it and if you were to have a conversation around those sorts of things that would be really uncomfortable but you can repeat back and say so what you're saying is you think this is a waste of time completely neutral and just leave the space for oh it's not all a waste of time I guess there is you know this bit value and you can help people do some really great thinking just by hearing their exact words back super powerful tool

Tom: hmm definitely reflecting back can be very valuable I feel like I've just done it then a little bit. So Amanda you mentioned that one of your proudest moments at Northern Value Creators is and that sparked my interest into what maybe one of your most called moments Liz I wonder if you have any memories that you could share

Liz: so I've been properly part of Hive for eight years and there have been lots of kind of big wins along the way um the some of the projects that we've had the 10th birthday that we just celebrated just in March and they just keep coming like I think Hive at the moment is really striving to set really good foundations for its future so there's things like the office move that's going on at the moment the focus we've got on EDI um the fact that we we're making the effort to set business goals and share them with our employees um that were you know really striving to implement career progression pathways for our um employees some of the things that are going on at the moment when they're completed will be probably some of my proudest moments cuz I've had a good hand in trying to make them happen because we've listened to what our employees have said and we we're trying to act on that um so I think some of our most proudest moments are yet to come but they're kind of like we're in the process of them just celebrating the fact we were 10 years old with the friends and clients that we've had over those 10 years who we've built really strong relationships with and who have supported us in our journey the whole way through was probably a standout proud moment for me everybody in that room whether they've been part of our past or our present or potentially our future it was just so lovely to have everybody there and to have great conversations and to have fun and the whole night was just amazing and I I think that's probably one of our proudest moments

Tom: And talking about those initiatives we've got the four pillars at Hive the strategy team and I know you've been massively involved in creating a lot of those initiatives and what's been going on internally for our team and I know all again has to do with creating that inclusive work culture and helping people which I'm sure is being influenced by Amand alot, would you be able to share a bit more about those initiatives and what the purpose behind them is

Liz: yeah so um as a senior leadership team I think two or three years ago um an an Amanda in Northern Value Creators has kind of um helped us on this I remember we had that session where we looked at what our bright lines were in terms of what is Hive working towards um and so we got together and we said well you know if we look at our future this is something that loads of businesses do it's not unusual but if we got together and we looked at what our future was like what are some key things that we want to work on so we said you know stability of the company is almost like a given but we want to have a niche we want to have um uh we want to focus on diversity and increasing diversity in the company we want our staff to be happy and we want to do social good um and what we recognized is that as not particularly as a not particularly diverse senior leadership team um we we're not experts in those areas and we knew that our staff who are diverse and have lots of different thoughts and opinions could really help us progress in those areas and so that's why we came up with what we at the time we called theme teams but now strategy teams and then each of them have now got their own name and they're formed up of groups of different members of teams um who come together and look at what they can do to progress us towards you know expansion or um meeting goals in each of those kind of strategy areas and some of us like the EDI team which is the strategy team I'm part of we had to do a lot talking you know I I think there was a lot of what does it mean to us and I think we we're hopefully going to have a strategy day where we all get together and those teams kind of update on the progress that they've been making and for some of those teams it will be to sit down and say well we did a lot of talking um but actually some really good things came out of that like we really did define what diversity inclusion and equity looks like for Hive um we had a vision for our team um and we started mapping out a journey we've made improvements to recruitment already and you know there's loads of things that that seem quite small but actually if you put them all together can be really meaningful and impactful and are laying those foundations for Hive to to grow and thrive and I think we've got like Amanda said we've gotten a lot of stuff really right in Hive and one of that is the engagement with our employees to have um the ability to help set and drive the direction of the company and I feel like some of that has just happened by luck um a lot of it from Jonny Duncan and Marv's ethos originally and the way that they want Hive to be but it feels like you can only survive for so long on somebody's idea at some point it has to become kind of a a real thing and I think the strategy teams are kind of the result of that um making them a real thing so that as Hive grows and in the future they really are part of the foundations of of what we are

Amanda: I don't think it's luck at all no I don't I think that by having such a warm open supportive culture by giving people things like coaching you know it's really difficult because um the conversations I have with clients is completely confidential but there were so many things that I help people move through that might have been related to their home life or their health or their relationships because they could talk about anything at all that I think helped people stay regulated reduce the level of stress that they had and help them feel really recognized and supported as a whole person and I think that gift and that support and that safety and that ability to then sort some of your shit out has meant that you've got a lot of very um very grownup very rounded individuals who feel really committed to the organization because in that contract between employee and Company I think a lot has been given to employees and there are a lot of people now you know in the state of the nation that where I think that contractors finished you used to work for a company and you knew that if you kept your head down dig great stuff you'd you you'd be guaranteed a role you'd get promoted and that's kind of disappeared for a lot of organizations but I think here at Hive people just feel really looked after in a very positive way not babies but supporters

Liz: yeah I think probably

Amada: yeah but and that creates engagement and that creates the environment where people can then start to be invested in giving you their thinking their additional time and that how can we make this place even better and what is next

Liz: well I yeah I absolutely think that our employees are not just here to to to ride the paycheck like they they are genuinely invested in how can we make Hive the best that it can be and that passion is yeah yeah maybe facilitated by the company but is also our greatest asset you know the fact that people really are invested in Hive and its future is is the greatest gift it's it's really yeah really special actually

Tom: yeah is there anything you see elsewhere Amanda through your coaching and you think yeah maybe that could be improved maybe working in Tech is there any like common themes at all that you come across maybe any challenges or difficulties that other people are having

Amanda: umI mean the thing that I'm noticing which might be um a slightly different answer to your question but what I'm noticing is that when you feel safe and comfortable you can do your best thinking so I trained I think it was like 2017 2018 in conversation intelligence and this was all about how the the way you communicate either sparks connection or disconnection so you either talk to somebody and you elevate their cortisol and they think you're a dick and they don't want to work with you they don't want to help you they don't want to share anything or you work and communicate in a way that elevates oxistosin and everyone leans in and what can I do to help and so I've been teaching this for years and using it as part of my models to supporting leaders and what I'm beginning to understand is there's more to it than just that because it's not just about the way I talk to you is also about the way I talk to myself and so if you are a leader who is full of negative selft talk so you've got full of frustration for other people who thinks I don't know this person in your team is an arsehole and they should never have got the job all of these things all of these feelings all of these stresses then create an environment in your brain where you don't do your best thinking you don't learn you don't solve problems you don't see what's right in front of you and that limits then the opportunity of either yourself as an individual your team and the organization so if you take it because at the moment I think there's so much challenge out there you know the cost of living has gone up there's so much uncertainty I think you know I run a business this is the business it's like quite hard there are some real challenges and when you are challenged and stressed you're not seeing what's in front of you and the quality of your ideas and the quality of your thinking is what's going to then solve world problems but if we're all stressed and we're not operating in that kind of whole brain relaxed way we're not going to be able to think and see things and there's a lovely um example which I just think sounds too far-fetched but there was this um remote tribe some will have to fact check this and then um email in um but they had never seen a boat before so when the Invaders came and they had the the boats out the sea outside the beach nobody saw the boats because their brains were like no have a clue what that is I don't see it I don't notice it this is where this self-awareness comes in don't see what's in front of you

Liz: seriously they did not see the boat

Amanda: they did not see the boat because they'd never they'd never been out on wet stuff they'd never been in a boat no clue what a boat is they didn't see it and this is with selfawareness yeah you start to understand how is my behavior impacting on others how is this thing that pisses me off because we were just talking about somebody weren't we about the way that they work gives them more of the stuff that they hate that creates this bad behavior that gets more of the people doing the stuff that they hate so you end up with with this really vicious cycle and so the bit that I think we're not understanding and it's whether that's related to Tech which has gone awful lot of fast movement and lots of things to kind of hold together or elsewhere is that I don't think as human beings we've really got the fact that the way we think the way we communicate the way we feel affects the quality of our conversations our thinking and the success of our business and our teams because feeling stuff is like bit woo woo isn't it yeah business that's like hard man stuff

Liz: can't feel things just shove it down

Amanda: um so that's what we're missing is I think that self-regulation self-management just being more connected into how it feels because going back to Big Hive of Hive fan of Hive I don't know whether you've noted but I I is amazing but one of the things that I think is a real win for Hive is how it feels how it feels to work here and that's what people miss they might paint in the office a funky color got the bean bags got the breakfast yeah got the pods got all this cool stuff but they haven't thought about how does it actually feel and I think for leaders who would like the same level of retention would like to have and enjoy more success with their teams they need to think more about how it feels and less about what can I what can I tell do force on others how can I change this what can I do when it's actually about well how do we need to be

Liz: and sometimes the only way that you can know how it feels is to get that understanding from the people that you support you know you need to be talking to them and you need to be listening to them like we've just had that whole conversation about listening but if you're not asking your staff and they and they don't feel feel comfortable and safe to give you honest answers about how it feels then you don't know and you can't either change that or make more of that happen your employees are the people that help you know what's best in terms of the way that they want it to feel as

Amanda: well as you know I think as well you often need someone from outside the system because when you're having a conversation inside the system particularly if you think about the tribe that couldn't see the boat yeah you might think oh yeah I've had this conversation I know where we're at as a team but things still arn’t moving forward and then you need someone like me to come from outside the system actually then to be able to see things and go there's a bloody great boat just out there yeah oh we wondered what that was

Liz: yeah absolutely outside help is crucial

Amanda: We had an important had a a conversation earlier very cryptic but the thing that I'd highlighted oh yeah yeah I know about that yeah and sense's talked about that as well you kind of but you don't know that you need to worry about it like this boat unless you start to really get that understanding from outside the system to just bring it I guess into focus and into awareness yeah very much so very

Tom: yeah that made sense so finally final question we ask every guest is what can people do to make things better and you can interpret this however you like you want to start with you Amanda and then we’ll ask you Liz

Amanda: umm what can people do to make things better I think fundamentally a better life is about love so that is love for yourself which is really hard to do so that's forgiveness loving all your parts the crappy bits about you the awesome bits about you I think it's about the ability to love the people around you your friends to love your colleagues love your clients love you Liz

Liz: love you too Amanda

Amanda: um and it's also in that spirit of love to actually take a bit more responsibility and ownership for the world around you and for other people and to send that love out there and to help support encourage in whatever way they can and if we all just focused on love for ourselves for our partners for our clients for everyone else that would make everything awesome

Tom: love it

Liz: I can't say anything else now cuz you just nailed it got nothing got nothing

Amanda: nonsense

Liz: no honestly you're right and that would make everything better

Tom: Love it that is an amazing answer all you need is love all right thanks so much for watching or listening to the podcast thanks so much Amanda and Liz, Amanda where can people find you and Northern Value Creators um I'm mostly on yeah I love the internet uh LinkedIn so I'm really active on LinkedIn and I'm Amanda Cookson so I'm quite easy to find um happy for people to email me as well if they want to chat about any of this but that's where I mostly hang out I'd like to be an Instagram person but just not nothing's beautiful did I mean it would be like the ugliest Instagram space so

Liz: there should be more of that too many filers

Tom: all right great stuff thanks so much for coming on and we'll see you in the next episode bye bye