#135 How to Step Into Your Leadership Authority with Dr. Alessandra Wall

Lucy Gernon (00:01.038)
Alessandra, so good to have you here on the show. How are you doing?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (00:05.532)
I am, I’m doing well. I just woke up a little while ago. So this is a perfect way to start my day.

Lucy Gernon (00:11.35)
my God, we were just talking off air that you, she is hardcore. Right now we are navigating West Coast US time with BST and it’s like 6 a and I am your first call. So I’m honored that you’re taking the time to be here with us today. Do you want to just introduce yourself to our audience and let them know who you are, what you do?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (00:31.068)
Absolutely. Well, what you and I do align pretty well. I am, I work with elite executive women who have huge ambitions.

And it’s a word I love using with women. I have huge ambitions. They have worked their way to the top. Most of my clients are at the top of their game and they have an incredible amount of pressure to perform excellently. I’ll be honest, a lot of that pressure is self -imposed.

Lucy Gernon (01:00.494)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (01:01.692)
And they have missions. These are women who are building legacies. Their careers are not just jobs. And they want to make sure they have mentor and advisor.

an accountability partner, somebody who’s like nearly an athletic coach, you know, top athletes, they have coaches who understand their strengths and their weaknesses and can create playbooks. And more than anything else, they want somebody who’s going to hold a mirror up to them and make sure that the way they’re showing up in the world, the way they’re leading and the way they’re living their lives are aligned with their values, their top skills, and the way they imagined it would be.

to live and to access kind of the top of the game professionally. That’s what I do. Professionally, the title would be, well, all the things I mentioned before, executive coach, I’m a CEO of my own business and formerly was a clinical psychologist. Lots of titles in the background.

Lucy Gernon (01:47.95)
Hmm.

Lucy Gernon (02:03.886)
Amazing, amazing. So how did you get into this whole area of executive coaching? Because obviously that’s what I do too. It’s just the most rewarding, fulfilling thing in the world. So how did you get into this?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (02:16.784)
My story, I believe, is fairly typical, fairly similar to a lot of the women I work with. Very young, I started off and I had this vision of what I wanted to be. And I don’t know if you’ve ever read the book or seen the movie, The Prince of Tides, beautiful book by an author called Pat Conroy, whose stories are always psychologically incredibly complicated. But in this book, in this movie, the movie version of the book,

There’s a psychologist, psychiatrist actually played by Barbara Streisand. And there’s this image of her. I was thinking of yesterday on my drive up. I’m right now in Santa Barbara, as we mentioned, but normally I live in San Diego. For anybody in Europe, that’s a 350 kilometer drive. So lots of time, four and a half hours to think. And there’s this image of her in this New York office.

She’s got the 80s power suit, the pearls, beautiful office in Manhattan and this view of New York City. And that’s what I wanted to be. I wanted to be a powerful psychologist, somebody who changed lives, but I wanted to do it at the top of my game. I think I was 14 or 15 when I read that book, decided it was what I was going to do.

went to university, went to graduate school, got a PhD, did it, decided I was focused on children. That’s my whole own family background. So decided I was focused on children. And by the time I would say within seven years of starting, so that seven year itch, it was done. I did not.

Lucy Gernon (03:57.07)
And what was it? What was it that made you go, this is not for me?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (04:00.7)
But the two things, so I used to love what I did so much. I share this story often. I literally sang when I walked into work, sang. By the way, I’m back there now in my career. So there were two things. One is I had my own children. And in having my children, suddenly when I was done with work, my time wasn’t mine anymore. And I discovered that I was an introvert. Didn’t know it because I’m super social. Who knew? But neurologically, I’m an introvert.

The other thing is I found myself in my office looking at my patients thinking that I wanted to shake them and run out and do something about it. Do something. We’ve talked about this. We’ve explored it. We know the antecedents. We do something about it, which nobody wants their therapist thinking. You know, you need that patience.

Lucy Gernon (04:49.198)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (04:54.236)
So coaching was the most natural transition out of that into still that same space where we’re exploring, supporting, helping people make big, big transformations in a very intimate setting. Coaching, as you know, is very intimate. Even executive coaching should be. It’s about insight. It’s about transformation. But with women, with folks, because at the beginning it was men and women who were action ready.

Lucy Gernon (05:20.366)
Mm hmm. Yes. So let’s just pause on that piece there. I’d love to dig into that a little bit because I can really resonate with the action piece. I’ve been there so many times. I’m sure you have too with people who they invest in coaching and then they just don’t want to take the action due to fear. So like there’s no point in having all of these skills and tools and investing in yourself unless you’re willing to actually take action and do something different. So how do you?

I suppose, I know you’re working with women at the top of their game who are probably action takers, but if any of my audience are stuck in that fear when it comes to pushing themselves out of their comfort zone, I know we’re going a bit off piste, but what would you say?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (06:05.916)
Never all peace, it’s a conversation, right? We’re good. Okay, I thought you were going to go in a different space with that very specific question. So my mind was not doing active listening, actually, I was already at the answer before you finished the question. I just wanted to tone that for a minute right there. That is the opposite of active listening for leaders who are listening to this. The whole question before you think you know the answer.

Lucy Gernon (06:22.894)
coaches love it

Alessandra Wall, PhD (06:36.06)
There are two things. One is to recognize that…

Action should always feel scary. So, so many people want to take, want to wait until they’re ready to take action. They want to feel motivated. They want to feel comfortable. They want to, you know, they want that sense of, yep, I’m good. I’m going to do this. But I use this analogy the other day with a hopefully new client who’s working with me is a, it’s a big investment. And that’s for a couple of reasons. The work I do creates big changes.

Lucy Gernon (06:46.447)
oooo

Lucy Gernon (06:57.198)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (07:13.564)
And then the other reason is I will only work with women who are actually action ready, but that wasn’t always the case. And sometimes getting them to that place means reminding them that action is uncomfortable, that action should feel scary. If you’re not anxious, if you’re not a little bit nervous about what your coach is asking you to do, about the transformation that they’re building, this vision of what your future could look like after you work together, then you’re not dreaming big enough.

Lucy Gernon (07:18.47)
Yes. Mm -hmm.

Lucy Gernon (07:42.798)
Hmmmm

Alessandra Wall, PhD (07:43.164)
you’re not setting goals that are the real goals you want and need. So the analogy I put it, I put for her as I said, you know what this should feel like? It should feel like you’re on a pier right by a very cold lake. And I asked her, do you know from based on where she lived in America, I knew she would get this. I’m like, have you ever jumped into a very cold lake? If you haven’t, if you ever jumped into a very cold ocean?

And you’re right about to run in, you know, you have to run in and you have to jump and you know, you’re committed to making that jump. And at the same time, you know that the second your body is going to hit the water, it’s going to be so jarring. And then eventually everything will settle and everything will feel right. And you will feel braver and stronger and more exceptional for having taken the risk. That’s the way it should feel like to coach. So one is.

Lucy Gernon (08:16.59)
Hehehehe

Lucy Gernon (08:30.766)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (08:41.82)
Prepare yourself, enter into this journey understanding exactly what it is you should be feeling entering into this journey. It should not feel comfortable.

Lucy Gernon (08:51.47)
Hmm. Exactly. There’s no growth. Growth does not come from our comfort zones, right? And I think if that’s the thing is exactly what you said. It’s like so many people just wait until they’re ready. You could spend your whole life waiting, right? You could literally spend your life.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (08:57.692)
Never.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (09:04.22)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (09:09.116)
Yes, many people do, right? Most people do. And so this brings me to the second thing that we need to consider, which is the status quo, this urge, this tendency to want to keep on doing things the way you’ve always done it is going to be your biggest enemy. It’s going to be what’s going to keep you from growing, from evolving, from taking risks, from having a better life. We know this all the time.

Lucy Gernon (09:10.862)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (09:35.804)
So it’s very important. And one of the pieces I do is as asking the women I work with, what are you holding onto that you shouldn’t be holding onto? And what are you not doing that you know you should be doing? And we use that as a starting point.

Lucy Gernon (09:48.91)
Great questions. I love that last one. What are you not doing that you think you know you should be doing? Because there is always a knowing, right? There is always a knowing. Okay, so let’s move on to talking about this whole concept of women and senior leadership. Why do we need more women and senior leadership? What’s the problem? Why aren’t there enough women and senior leadership? Let’s go.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (10:17.468)
You had a fabulous episode about this in early May or April. We’ve had a fantastic episode about this. So why do we need more women in senior leadership? My flippant answer is because we, the numbers tell us, the numbers alone tell us that we don’t have enough. But that’s not the real reason, right? Because if women were terrible leaders,

Lucy Gernon (10:23.854)
You’ve got a better memory than I do.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (10:44.636)
Who would care if the numbers were really minuscule? Which they are, by the way, the numbers are minuscule. We need more women in senior leadership because at the end of the day, half of the population is female. And so there are incredibly big decisions about the way the world should be run, the kind of medicines that are going to be put out, the structures of our societies that are made by a group of people who have a very important perspective.

but not necessarily a perspective that can adequately take into account what our experiences are as women and what our needs are. So the idea is that if we can get a greater number of women.

And a greater number, just in general, of diverse people who are representative of the human population in these high decision -making roles than the decisions that are coming out of there that now shape the industries. I work a lot in finance and technology and biotechnology, so decisions that shape the world of banking. Who gets access to money?

Lucy Gernon (11:49.198)
Hmm?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (11:51.004)
that shape how your AI is going to respond to you, what your technology in your house or the technology that shapes how cars are made, how your city’s infrastructures are made, the medicines and the medical treatments that come out, that make sure that all of those decisions are made with our biology, our needs, and our expectations into account.

Lucy Gernon (12:17.678)
Absolutely. I really love the way you articulated that. I think like that is the thing. It’s like we live in a world where we need more women in leadership. But this is the thing. Whoever is listening to this and you’re you know, you’re listening to Alessandra and Alessandra works with women at the top of their game. And, you know, a lot of my audience would be out that like maybe that director level, but they’re not quite at that executive level yet. Or maybe they’re even below that level. And they have these.

amazing aspirations and they know they have inside, they have this capability, they want to make an impact, but they’re still looking for permission. And all the while we have all of these decisions being made at the top, like you said, that are impacting our world in such a profound way. Like I know that if there was more women in leadership, if there was more balance of masculine and feminine energy, it’s not about men versus women, right? It’s about having this balance.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (12:56.316)
Mm -hmm.

Lucy Gernon (13:16.11)
We would be living in a much better society, right? So how do we encourage more women to step in and to step up?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (13:27.1)
You know, it’s an interesting use of that word, encourage, because I don’t know about you, but I’m talking to women who are, they’re hungry for it. They want it. It’s not in my experience that they’re not asking for it. It’s that the pipelines to get there aren’t.

aren’t available. And I’m talking about all kinds of pipelines. And that might be where you’re going with with with encouraging and it actually going back to your previous episode. So as a listener, if you haven’t listened to it, go through Lucy’s episodes, look for this one on why we need and why there aren’t more women in senior leadership. But this wonderful that there is this there is this idea that women get anxious, they get scared. But

Lucy Gernon (14:05.55)
We’ll link it in the show notes. Thank you, Alessandra.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (14:19.42)
What I’m finding is, you know, right now, at least in America, more women get postgraduate degrees than men. Right.

There are certain pipelines where we’re not seeing that many women still in STEM and other places. We need a higher percentage of women, but women are there. You work with a lot of women in senior management. They’re there, they’re poised. They are just waiting to get to that director level. I do some work with an organization called Women in Bio, and one of the programs I help them run is called Emerging Executive. These are all director level women who are…

Lucy Gernon (14:44.942)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (14:58.556)
working to get to that VP level, that full executive, they’re poised to get there. So why are they? We’ll talk about what’s happening. I think that when people are promoting, I often say we have an archetype for what a leader looks like. And if I were talking to a white man in a suit, so who, when people are naturally, as a psychologist, and I know you have a background in this too, right, as people are thinking about,

Lucy Gernon (15:01.966)
Mm -hmm.

Lucy Gernon (15:05.614)
And so what stops them? So let’s talk about the pipeline and let’s, yeah.

Lucy Gernon (15:14.766)
-huh, white man in a suit, right?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (15:28.156)
they’re going to promote unconsciously, they’re going to promote the person they think fits in that. So we have unconscious bias coming into place. The other thing that we run into is that, and this gets often maybe too often cited, but women still think they have to check all the boxes, about 90 % of the boxes, to be able to raise their hand to feel like they’re qualified. I still see this with women in the C -suite. I feel when they want to enter board positions or when they access those positions that they need to be

Lucy Gernon (15:50.766)
Mm -hmm, me too.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (15:56.7)
90 % qualified men understand that at 60 % they’ve got the substrate, they’ve got the foundation and they can learn whatever skills they need to learn those gap skills to really excel in that position which is fantastic because it makes work so much more interesting. Who wants to step into a space where you know how to do everything and you have nothing to learn?

Lucy Gernon (16:18.35)
Exactly. And I think, you know what, you’re so right, Alessandra, because I think so many people think that everyone at the top knows what they’re doing and actually nobody knows what they’re doing in, like, how can you? You’re always growing and learning. Nobody in the world, like nobody can do it on their own. Nobody has all the answers. And even when you think you have, you’re hit with Covid or you’re hit with a war and there’s variables. So I think we just need to remember to trust ourselves and just

make it happen. So how do we like, so say if women are hungry, like you said, they’re hungry, they want it. And I see that too, but they’re told they’re not ready because of some unconscious bias. Okay. Let’s be real. A lot of the time it is it’s also confidence though, in terms of how they portrayed themselves in my ability, in my opinion, how do we, first of all, let’s talk about how we educate up in terms of the value that women can bring. And then maybe let’s talk about the authority and the confidence piece.

Your favorite, my favorite.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (17:17.596)
Yes, so I was going to add one last thing and it ties exactly into what you say. The third and final one, which is the most technical of all of the issues, is that women, too many women still think that their work should speak for itself.

Lucy Gernon (17:31.886)
amen. It does not, it’s not the thing.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (17:35.74)
It’s that idea that works well up until mid -management. The way you succeed early in your career is you get the right experience through education, right? Or through, if you’re doing an apprenticeship, through practice. Then you work very hard. You demonstrate dedication. You learn on the job. You continue acquiring skills. Maybe you continue acquiring degrees and certifications.

And that works about to mid -management. And once you get to mid -management, everybody up there has been technically working very hard. They’re dedicated. They have as much experience. The benefit of adding yet another certification or degree is really minimal.

And this is where women get stuck because they think if I just work harder, if I spend more hours at the office, if I make sure that everything I do is done excellently, somebody will notice my manager will notice and they’ll promote me. So there are two problems with that. One is your manager is managing many people. If you’re a manager listening to this and you’re expecting your VP or your director to notice you, to promote you, just think about, do you know what all the people you’re managing are up to? Do you know exactly what each person is doing?

Lucy Gernon (18:32.782)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (18:52.334)
person you manage what their top skill set is, where they love applying that skill, and where they can build the greatest value. If you’re honest with yourself, unless you’re the world’s best manager, the answer is no. So why would you expect the person above you to have that same kind of information? So that becomes a big issue. And then,

And then if you’re really, really, really good, and since most people are not the best managers in the world, and you’re making your boss, your supervisor look great, where is the incentive for them to promote you? That’s just the reality of human nature. Only really great leaders see great potential and say, I’m gonna promote this person into a space where they might one day replace me, or advance beyond me.

Lucy Gernon (19:29.646)
Mmm. Mmm.

Mm -hmm.

Lucy Gernon (19:41.71)
Yes.

So how, it’s such a big topic, right? But.

How can women get more visible? How can they stop all of this working and hoping to get recognized? What do they need to do to increase their visibility so that their work is seen and their value is seen?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (20:06.556)
So this is work that you can do on your own or you can do with some friends, or you can call Lucy or me and do it with us because we’ll ask the tough questions. But it starts with identify what you love doing that you excel at. Make sure you know what you excel at that you hate doing. And think of how often you spend your time promoting those skills.

Lucy Gernon (20:31.486)
my God, that’s so good. Say that again, say that one more time, because that was so good.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (20:33.084)
Right. And then stop.

Think about all the things that you excel at that you hate doing. I talk about it in terms of being soul crushing, those tasks where you’re like, I don’t want to, but because you’re so good at them and you raise your hand to be helpful, that’s what you build your brand around. And so people come back to you again and again and again to do work that you excel at, but that makes you dread walking into work. Stop promoting.

Lucy Gernon (21:04.654)
That is so good. You’re literally giving me flashbacks to my career. I absolutely hate data analysis. I’m a scientist, I’m a master’s degree in science, I did biotechnology, genetics, all of the things. I hated it, but I was good at it. And my whole career, I was asked to do data analysis and write reports and look at trends. And I didn’t enjoy it, but I was so good at it. I literally built a career around it. I’ve just realized, holy shit.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (21:18.364)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (21:31.26)
I’m right there with you. I remember working on my dissertation and I loved the synthesis. I loved the last, you know, when you’re writing a research paper, I love the discussion. Give me the data, somebody else crunch the numbers. Let me look at the data. Let me look at the context within which we’re exploring this data and let me write out a theory about what the data means. Fun. Let me design the study. That’s so fun.

Lucy Gernon (21:44.878)
Mm -hmm.

Lucy Gernon (21:54.126)
Nice and creative, beautiful. Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (22:00.124)
All that middle part, hate it. And yet some people love it.

Lucy Gernon (22:03.854)
Yeah.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (22:04.54)
Right? So once you’re clear about what it is you love doing that you excel at, the second thing you need to do is start thinking about what kind of impact do I want to make with that skill set? What kind of impact have I made with that skill set? This is also really important because just because you tell somebody that you are good at something does not mean they understand how to leverage that skill in a way that’s going to make you again, look forward to walking into work or allow you to not get disengaged or burnt out.

Lucy Gernon (22:34.638)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (22:34.67)
or build the legacy you want to build. So Lucy may ask you a question. What made you so good at data analysis?

Lucy Gernon (22:38.51)
Mm -hmm.

Lucy Gernon (22:43.118)
What made me so good? I’m a high achiever and if I’m told to do something, I want to be the best, so I’ll just do it and practice.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (22:51.74)
Are you also somebody who’s very attention -oriented, detail -oriented?

Lucy Gernon (22:59.15)
No, I hate it. I hate detail. I’m more big picture, but I’m asked me to deliver on something. I’m very conscientious to make sure that, you know, I worked in the pharmaceutical industry. So there was patient impact so that it was the, it was the impact of a potential error would have been the thing that drove me. But I, I did not like the analysis. Spreadsheets give me shivers.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (23:12.028)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (23:21.02)
Okay.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (23:25.212)
I’m right there with you. You probably feel about spreadsheets the way I feel about fixing technology issues in my own household. And if you want to hurt people. So we might talk about a skill set you have around being driven and conscientious, right? Really caring about others and wanting to make sure that you do the best that you can do. And that’s a skill. It’s a quality and it’s a skill.

Lucy Gernon (23:32.846)
Alessandra Wall, PhD (23:54.268)
But we want to make sure that you explain to people how you want that skill set used. So for example, I’ll be lazy and I’ll use myself as an example for a second.

One of my top skills is actually building connections with people and building rapport. We can all see how that ties into being a psychologist. The ability to walk into a room, a psychiatric emergency room, for example, and talk to somebody who’s having their first psychotic break, who needs to be calmed down, who’s very panicked, who doesn’t know what’s going on. I’m great at that. I can walk into a room.

I can build a connection with that person. I can help them calm down and get them to a place where they understand what’s going on so they can receive treatment and they can stop feeling so scared. Such a scary place. I have absolutely no desire to use that skill set in that context. But it’s a skill set I use all the time with the women I coach, right? We said in the beginning, I need to get them to be willing to commit to doing things differently.

Lucy Gernon (24:49.102)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (24:55.548)
to get to the places they want to go. This is scary. It’s risky. It can backfire. So that ability to build reports, not just knowing this is a skill set I have that I love. I feel in my zone when I get to do that, but understanding what’s the impact I can make with it and translating that impact to other people so they understand how to leverage that skill. That’s the second thing you need to do. The third thing we need to do to build visibility is to…

Leverage are general, I’m gonna speak in generalities as women, our ability to connect and to get to know people. Because ultimately human beings are very egocentric. This isn’t a bad thing. Egocentricity is what allows us to have empathy. The only reason I care about somebody outside my world is because I…

Lucy Gernon (25:33.166)
Yes.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (25:46.044)
I associate their experience with mine through egocentricity. that would feel terrible. Well, that would be exciting. I would really want that. That egocentricity relating everything back to me allows me to care about you. That’s a natural human attribute. Yes, everybody.

Lucy Gernon (26:00.238)
But that’s a natural human, like everybody is like that, right? Mm -hmm. Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (26:05.436)
So if I can build relationships with people, I can come into a conversation and explain, you know, I know you’re working on this project. I understand that for you being able to unlock this would really be huge. It would, we’re very worried about the bottom line right now, the revenue stream in our company and not wanting to lay off. You were in the bio and pharma space, lots of layoffs here in the U .S. Everything’s contracting in that space. And I know that if we could,

unlock this and drive revenue. The anxiety you’ve been having about having to go through another round of layoffs would be assuaged. Here’s the thing. I am really good at whatever your skill is. And as a woman, I mean, we actually can’t say that I love doing the following things.

Lucy Gernon (26:44.59)
Hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (26:56.316)
They’re exciting to me for whatever reason. And by the way, this is how we do it as women. And by the way, I’m also very good at this. And because we have to, because there’s still unconscious bias around women saying that they excel at things. And because of that, I’ve been able to do X, Y, and Z. I…

Lucy Gernon (27:04.974)
It needs to be the other way around, alright?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (27:19.516)
believe that we could do that exact same thing with this project. And for those reasons, I know I’m the best person to make this happen. Or one of the best people. Or I would be very interested in getting an opportunity for this role, this project. But we have to explain it to people. We have to help them.

Lucy Gernon (27:42.51)
I totally agree. It’s like it goes back to the confidence piece of actually articulating that with energy and confidence so that you instill in those decision makers like I am the right person for the job. So do you have like, let’s say we have somebody listening and they really are, they want to go for a particular opportunity and they know they are really strategic themselves and they…

Alessandra Wall, PhD (27:50.876)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (28:07.996)
Mm -hmm. Yep.

Lucy Gernon (28:11.566)
don’t know how to articulate that. And the reason I say that actually is because in my top three gallop strengths, my third strength is actually strategic. I had no idea that that was a strength because I wouldn’t have labeled it as that. I just knew that when I, when I set out a plan, I always made it happen. I always knew had plan B’s and it just happened. And there’s lots of women who were told they need to be more strategic, but actually they are. They’re not just not seen it that way. So how can our listeners,

articulate their strengths in a way that translates to their audience.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (28:46.972)
Mm.

So if you’re lucky enough to have somebody or something like an assessment point out to you what a strength is that you have, you start there, right? And then look back. What does it mean to be strategic? I mean, ultimately what it means to be strategic is to be somebody who can get a, you know, a 30 ,000 foot vision of what’s going on, who can look at the present and the future. Take all,

all factors into account or most of them, create a plan, understand who the player should be for that plan and communicate that vision and motivate others to take action, right? That’s a strategy piece. If you don’t see it, sit down with somebody.

Have them describe to you what they think the skill set is, and then go back and start thinking throughout my life, not just in my career, not just in this role, where have I showed up like this? Lucy, I bet that if you and I did this exercise, and I do this exercise all the time, I love that you’re asking these questions, because I do this work all the time with my clients. We’ll start off with that question, what do you love doing that you excel at? I don’t ask them what their top skills are. What do you love doing that you excel at?

And as they talk, I’m starting to think about what is the skill set involved here? Where are the patterns? And I’ll feed it back to them. This is what I’m hearing. Hey, this takes this. What do you think about these things?

Lucy Gernon (30:17.07)
Mmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (30:25.788)
And then we’ll talk about where has this shown up? What are some projects that you’ve worked on in the last five years where you’ve been able to unlock a win with this skill set? But oftentimes in order to communicate the story, I’ll also say, but where does this show up in your past? So we talked about rapport for me. I was the kid who, when there was a new child who came to school, a new classmate would walk up to them and get to know them.

Lucy Gernon (30:54.062)
Me too.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (30:55.708)
I was so acutely aware of the I moved not a huge amount, but I didn’t move some as a child and the first seven years of my life were in the Middle East and then I moved to France, which is where my mother grew up and that was a huge Saudi Arabia to France is like a huge shift and believe it or not France to America. It was a huge cultural shift.

Lucy Gernon (31:13.678)
Yeah, imagine.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (31:20.924)
And so when I look back, that skill set was always there. When I look back, if I wanted to, if I didn’t feel comfortable talking about professional stories, I can go back and I could tell those stories. So I know this is a very complicated engagement. One of the parts that is critical is building a strong partnership with this other organization so that we can get this drug to market.

Now I’ve always been the kind of person who connects with others. When I was a little girl, I da da da da da da. Right? I could tell.

Lucy Gernon (31:54.798)
I’m going to pause you there. How important is this? Because I talk about this as well a lot from the science of positive psychology, about this whole area of storytelling to build connection. Can we? Yeah.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (32:04.988)
For all my data people, for all my scientific people out there, just know that studies demonstrate that people retain 20 % more information when that information is presented in the story format versus a raw data format. So if I give you 10 significant, which is too many by the way, but 10 really important data points, and I give them to you in a bullet format.

and or I give you those 10 data points buried in a story, you will remember 20 % more data points if I provide a context for the data. Even if the context is not the exact same like the one to one correspondence context. So if I use a childhood story or an analogy, we use I use analogies all the time.

Lucy Gernon (32:46.446)
Yes.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (33:01.564)
to present a point. My listener is more likely to remember this. Now, since you were in the field of pharmaceuticals and in biology, you’ll also understand this. So for my data people, I’m gonna continue. When you tell a story, and when you tell a good story and you get excited, a couple things happen.

Lucy Gernon (33:05.966)
Yes.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (33:21.756)
anybody watching, you would see I start smiling. I start leaning in towards the camera if I were in front of a physical human being, I’d lean into them. My eyes open up and that’s external. Internally what happens is in my brain I start producing more dopamine, more serotonin and specific neuropeptides and these all have a certain function. The dopamine gets secreted because I’m feeling rewarded. Stories are fun, stories are excited.

The serotonin has to do with the smiling. So I start dumping serotonin and serotonin is a feel -good neurotransmitter. And then the neuropeptides help with calming me down. So simply by telling a story about my skillset, instead of coming in and feeling very anxious, suddenly I’m feeling calmer, I’m feeling happier, I’m feeling rewarded. And again, thanks to human biology, what happens is whoever’s listening to me, so even the sound of my voice, if you can’t see me,

But especially if you can see me because of mirror neurons in their brain, the same process neurochemically takes place in their brain. So now somebody listening to you, instead of hearing this boring story about, well, let me tell you about my background. I went to Duke University. I graduated with this and this and this. And after that, my first job was this. And then with this role, I did da -da -da. So boring.

You’re giving them a story, you’re sharing the same data. But in their brains, they’re producing dopamine. So they’re feeling rewarded in your presence. They’re producing serotonin. So they’re feeling a little happier than maybe they were after doing, you know, after listening to 50 other people pitch an idea.

they’re producing the same neuropeptides, so they’re feeling calmer. And here’s this other thing with dopamine. Dopamine is not just a neurotransmitter that’s associated with reward. It’s a neurotransmitter that’s associated with memory. So I talk about it as a sticky neurotransmitter. When we experience situations that lead to a secretion of dopamine in our brain, we are much more likely to remember those experiences.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (35:30.78)
So a great story is fantastic because it makes people feel good to be around you and it allows them to produce a neurotransmitter that’s going to make them remember what you’re saying and remember you far better.

Lucy Gernon (35:43.342)
I really hope everyone who is listening today is taking on board what you’re saying. So, so powerful, like so powerful. And I think like how can our listeners leverage the power of their story to advance their career? And the reason I ask this is because it’s something I’m really passionate about, and I teach it as well in my programs. I’d love to hear your perspective on how they can leverage their story, what parts.

and how do they translate it?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (36:15.516)
All the parts, any of the parts. The idea, the beauty with the story is that.

It doesn’t have to be a script. I don’t know how you feel about elevator pitches. I hate them. They’re terrible. On paper, they look fine, right? The idea, the concept behind an elevator pitch is fantastic. It’s about communicating with passion what your why is, not talking about what you do, but what the impact of what you do is and who it’s for. The reality of an elevator pitch is it’s a pitch. So we feel like we’re selling ourselves and it’s rehearsed. So we come in and there’s a

this context, and we’re trying to figure out how to fit the right those words into this context. Stories are very different. Once you’re clear about what three things you want people to know about you, and how you want them to feel about you. Remember, humans are social creatures. It’s not just what they need to know. It’s like, do you want them to feel excited? Do you want them to feel reassured? Do you want them to feel curious? That’s going to determine how you speak your choice of words, your choice of story.

Lucy Gernon (37:01.742)
Hmm.

Lucy Gernon (37:18.35)
And you can tailor that too, right, to your audience. Like, so say, mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (37:21.084)
You have to tailor that to your audience, otherwise you’re being selfish. I’m not going to talk to a 10 year old.

Lucy Gernon (37:24.814)
Mm -hmm.

Hmm. There’s nothing as bad actually as meeting somebody at a networking event and you say, who are you and what do you do? And they give you a big fancy title. They talk about acronyms in their job title that nobody understands. They talk about big jargon words and it doesn’t relate to who you’re speaking to. So I think I did a retreat recently and we looked at this area of personal branding and we looked at the elevator pitch piece.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (37:48.316)
Absolutely.

Lucy Gernon (37:54.766)
But in it, it was like, you need to be able to communicate exactly what you said, like what you do, why you do it and what the impact it is. And something, something about you, like people connect with people. They don’t connect with, you know, with the title. But a lot of the ladies who were there were really struggling with communicating who they were and like what they’re all about. They just went straight to the title.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (38:08.86)
I know, right.

Lucy Gernon (38:20.814)
and they just couldn’t seem to simplify it. So what example, I’d love to know what you’d say.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (38:24.412)
If you’re struggling with that, I would start to think of answering the question differently. So you’re going to be asked things like, tell me about you. What do you do? You know, what brings you here? But really, the question people are asking is what makes you interesting? That is the question they’re asking. And I know that’s a really terrifying question because we want to be self -effacing and we think who me? I’m not that interesting. I’m not.

Lucy Gernon (38:39.95)
Hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (38:48.54)
But something makes you interesting. So again, if you come into all of these conversations, when you work with Lucy, I’m sure she has you come in and thinking about what do people need to know about you? What does this individual need to know that’s going to allow them to be more successful, to deal with a headache, to unlock a project? Because…

In a business context, that’s why we’re sharing our value. It’s not because we’re bragging. It’s because we want to make sure that we can position ourselves to help people. And the

Lucy Gernon (39:19.47)
So do you do you recommend sorry to interrupt, but I will forget. Do you recommend then that, you know, say, for example, you and I as business owners, we’ll have our, you know, our whatever you call it, your benefit statement, who you are, what you do, why you do it kind of a thing. And for me, it’s you know, it’s always about being in service to other people. It’s always about bringing it back to my mission, my why. So. If if somebody’s unsure, it’s easier, I think, when you’re a business owner and you’re.

You know, you’re building a company to try and make an impact. It’s not necessarily as easy if you’re a leader and you’re you’re in an organization, but you’re also a person. So how how can like what we need to do here?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (40:01.372)
Again, it’s about figuring out what your top skills are and what you want to do, who you can help. Impact means, how are you successful? How do you create success on a project? In your role or in future roles, what’s the work that you’re able to do that advances the bottom line, the objectives, the goals of your team, your organization? Because that’s what you’re going to position.

And you can position it in three ways if you’re uncomfortable. One is you can go directly to a work story. Somebody says, you know, tell me a little bit more about why you’re here and why we should consider you for this project. And you could say, listen, I’m the type of person who loves doing X, Y, and Z.

And the reason I love it is honestly, these are things I’m good at. Because I have this skill set, a few months ago, we just closed a project where we were able to make this kind of impact, right? This was the win, the KPI, if you want to think about it in those terms.

And this was the benefit of being able to have that kind of impact to make that win to be successful for the organization for my team for my boss for the client for the community whoever your your organization is serving I Genuinely believe never use I think I know this is true based on that experience

that that same skill can be leveraged in this space and that it’s the kind of work that I would love to be part of. So if you don’t feel comfortable saying I would be the best at talk about love. This is the kind of work I’d love to do. Think about how in the real world.

Lucy Gernon (41:30.35)
Ugh, so powerful.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (41:42.608)
how compelling it is when you meet somebody who thinks that you are the most fascinating person. Suddenly, this person who maybe was boring before, they become more interesting to you because they think you’re fascinating. Now, move this into the business space. If I’m talking to a partner, a client, a board member, a future boss, a future employer,

And I tell them how excited I would be to work on a project, to get to collaborate, to make an impact, to be CEO of an organization. And why? Because I have the skill set. Because these are things I love to do. Because there’s alignment between their values and my core values. Because I know I can unlock a win. I suddenly become that much more interesting to them, not just because I have the skill set, but because I’m telling them, you’re so attractive. This is so attractive.

Lucy Gernon (42:35.438)
So it’s like that ego piece again is popping in there right in that communication.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (42:38.076)
Okay.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (42:43.644)
And it’s no BS, right? The whole point of you sharing your value around a certain project or a role is because you would be excited to do it, because it’s going to allow you to leverage your top skill and make a huge impact for them. So what I tell women who feel very scared about this, the reframe for them is communicating your top skill set, owning how good you are at it, and talking about the wins that you’ve been able to unlock.

That is not, it’s not bragging. It’s not boastful. What it is, is helpful. It’s about making sure that the people who need your skillset know exactly who to come to, to get the help that they so desperately want to build success.

Lucy Gernon (43:17.454)
Mmm.

Lucy Gernon (43:22.606)
yeah.

Lucy Gernon (43:35.47)
And I think it goes back to what you were saying earlier about your manager and those senior people, right? Like you’re just one of many. So you’re expecting that they’re going to see it, but you’ve got to show them your value and you’ve got to actually speak it. I love that. I just wanted to bring that back to what you said earlier. Okay. So, my God, this has been such an insightful conversation. I’ve absolutely loved it. Is there anything else that you’d like to add before I ask you our closing question?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (43:49.372)
Yes.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (44:03.196)
One more thing, because we’ve been talking about people who are rising to the top. But I want to remind you that if you are at the top of an organization, if you are the CEO, the president, the founder, these same things are just as important. The people who work for you, who count on you to lead them, they need to understand why you’re at the top. They need to understand what value you bring to the organization. Why are you getting the big bucks? Why are you? Why do you have the title? Why should they listen to you? Why should they trust you?

Lucy Gernon (44:07.566)
Mm -hmm.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (44:32.604)
And they need to understand it not just in terms of your skills, they need a context. And the context is what kind of a human being are you? And that’s again where stories become very important.

Lucy Gernon (44:44.014)
Yes, amazing. And I think, isn’t it, authentic leadership is one of the most important traits of executive presence nowadays. People want to know who you are, where you came from, and why they should listen to you. So I think that’s, yeah, so, so powerful to end on. Alessandra, thank you so much for being here. I can’t wait to go back and listen. There’s been an awful lot of really insightful nuggets in this conversation. So I appreciate you.

sharing everything with us. I’d love to know just before we wrap up, what is the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (45:23.804)
to slow down. The best piece of advice I’ve ever received is to slow down. We tend to rush into life, we rush into school, we rush into our first jobs, we rush into opportunities and promotions, we rush back home from work, we rush, we rush, we rush, and we end up creating very reactive lives. And so many years ago,

I was, I had a podcast too, and I spoke very, very fast because this is the way my brain works. Today, I listen to everything at 2x speed, even when I rewatch videos of myself. And one of the podcasts, somebody who’d been podcasting since the beginning of podcasting said, Alessandra, channel your inner Southern girl, slow down.

He happened to be talking about the pace of my speech. But it’s true about everything. Slow down. When you walk into work in the morning, don’t open up your computer and start looking at your emails. Slow down. Center yourself. How are you feeling? Where’s your mindset today? Look at all the things you have to do. Identify the top three. Identify of those three, the one that is most important. Focus on that. Slow down.

Take breaks every 45 minutes. Stop for lunch. Slow down at the end of the day. Look back at what you’ve done. Slow down. I used to practice parkour. I picked it up as a 38 year old and in parkour they say slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Right? So you have to move slowly in order to move smoothly through space which will then allow you to gain speed.

Lucy Gernon (47:01.358)
Ooh, love it.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (47:10.076)
But if you try to rush, that’s when you fall off of the building. That’s when you try to get over a wall and your legs get caught. And next thing you know, you’re in a hospital. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. So that, that’s the number. And as a psychologist who used to specialize in anxiety, I would repeat that, slow down.

Lucy Gernon (47:31.31)
Slow down. I need to slow down too. Thank you so much for being here. Where can my listeners find you?

Alessandra Wall, PhD (47:40.828)
You see, it has been wonderful. If you want to find out more about what I do, you can go to my website, which is noteworthyinc .co, so Inc Inc., Inc. Noteworthyinc .co, or LinkedIn. I spend a fair amount of time posting regularly on LinkedIn, sharing stories, sharing experiences and insights from those experiences.

Lucy Gernon (48:04.142)
Amazing. Well, thank you so much. We will link to everything in the show notes. You’ve been an amazing guest, Alessandra. Thank you for your time. And hopefully we’ll definitely have to have you back on because I feel like I could talk to you forever about this stuff.

Alessandra Wall, PhD (48:16.924)
I love your podcast. I love what you’re putting out into the world. So thank you very much for having me. Bye.

Lucy Gernon (48:22.158)
My pleasure. Bye.