#148 Elevate Your Executive Presence, Interview with Lucy Gernon & Carla Miller

Welcome to today’s episode of 360 Leadership Podcast. I’m Katie, the podcast and community manager on Lucy’s team, and I’m so excited today to bring you something a little bit different this week. This episode is a special conversation where our very own Lucy was featured as a guest on the Influence and Impact podcast with Carla Miller.

We just had to feature this episode on the podcast because Lucy shares her journey from a successful career in the pharmaceutical industry to becoming a coach, a path sparked by a friend’s suggestion and her love of, of course, helping others. They chat about how the definition of executive presence has evolved, why it’s so crucial for ambitious women leaders today, and some key traits that are essential for building executive presence. They also explore some of the challenges that us women face in promoting ourselves and the importance of accepting compliments with grace.

I know you’re just going to love this episode, so enjoy. Welcome to the 360 Leadership Podcast, the top rated show for driven women in senior leadership with new episodes released every Wednesday. I’m your host, Lucy Gurnan, a multi award winning executive coach for women leaders and the founder of 360 Leaders Club, an exclusive high level membership for career driven, family orientated women just like you.

I created the 360 Leadership Podcast to share practical tips, actionable step-by-step strategies and inspiring stories to support you to unlock the power and belief within to accelerate your impact and potential so you can build a life filled with success, balance and happiness. So are you ready to achieve 360 degree success? No more excuses, no more waiting. Your time is now.

So I’m delighted to welcome you to the show. Welcome to Influence and Impact, Lucy. Thank you so much for having me.

I’m so excited for another great conversation with you, Carla. Yeah, I loved being on your podcast. We could chat forever, but let’s let my listeners hear a bit more about you.

So what’s your background and what made you decide to become a coach? Oh my goodness, what a question to start with. So my name is Lucy Gurnan and I am a mother of three. I live in Ireland.

I was actually born in London. My parents lived in the UK for years and then they had me and decided to come back home to Ireland. So I’m in Ireland basically most of my life.

I have a background in science, so I have a master’s degree in biotechnology. I spend time in the food and beverage industry. I spent a lot of time in STEM and primarily in the pharmaceutical industry.

So I was in multinationals, big corporates like Pfizer and Merck and things like that, Diageo for about 20 years. And I, even though I was a scientist, I always had a passion for people. Like my whole life, even when I remember going back to think about what I was going to choose for university and college, I was originally, I wanted to be a teacher.

I wanted to do something in social care, but my boyfriend lived in the same town as me and I didn’t want to leave. So I decided I can’t go off to college. I’m just going to do a course in my local university.

That’s how basically I landed in science. And I loved my career, but even though like I ran a microbiology lab, I ran capital projects as well, sterility assurance, that kind of thing for sterile drugs. I was always into culture and people.

So any opportunity I had to get involved in Great Place to Work or developing my team, or, you know, I did a campaign with my local university to inspire more women in STEM. I always had this passion for people, but it was like, well, you know, you’re a scientist, like you’ve studied, that’s where you need to stay. But actually it’s not the case at all.

So in 2020, I had been thinking for years about, you know, this question, I know a lot of your listeners will definitely resonate with this. You know, what else could I do? Like if I wasn’t doing this job, like what else could I do? And I remember one night I was out with one of my best friends since childhood, and we were in a bar and we were drinking cocktails and it was about eight o’clock in the evening. And I remember we were just chatting about career and life.

And she said, I asked her, I said, like, I feel like, you know, I like my career, but I feel like I’m meant for so much more, but I have no clue what else I could do. And I asked her, I said, what do you think? And she said, I think you’d be a great life coach. And I was like, what the hell is a life coach? I had no idea what a coach was.

And long story short, that conversation kind of planted the seed for me to decide to become a professional coach, which turned into basically executive coaching for women in leadership. So that’s it in a big nutshell. And how does it feel now following that passion that you sort of put aside at the beginning and now you’re fully embracing? Oh, I just feel so happy.

I’m so, you know, I’m big into spirituality and I’m all about alignment. I’m all about, you know, doing things like I believe every single one of us are here for a reason. I believe we’re all here on this earth to experience something, to, you know, give something and make an impact in the world.

And I know the reason I was put in the dog-eat-dog corporate multinational world was so I could understand the women that I work with now so that I can serve them better. So it just feels like so good. I love what I do so much.

It’s so fantastic, isn’t it? When you can take the things that you struggled with and think, well, these are the things I’ve learned. And if they can make it less of a struggle for others, I feel like that’s my purpose is the things I’ve tried. Some of them went well, some of them didn’t.

But learning from my experiences to make the path easier for people that come afterwards, I think really feels like it resonates with me as a purpose. Absolutely. And I remember actually, just as you’re saying that, I remember Tony Robbins when I first started my business, and I’m sure you’ll remember this as well.

You know, I had no business experience. I tried to start a business, an event planning business about, God, 15 or 16 years ago, but I had no idea, you know, how to do it. So it didn’t work or whatever.

But I remember starting my business and I remember doing a training with Tony Robbins on business mastery because I just, I invested so much in myself to learn about how to do this business thing. And nevermind the coaching, that was fine. But I remember he said, smart people hire other people who have overcome, you know, challenges that they want to overcome to show them the fastest way to get there.

And I remember that moment just totally transformed my mindset in terms of, we don’t have to do this alone. You don’t have to figure everything out yourself and it’s okay to invest in support. And that was like a concept that really was brand new to me.

But once I started investing, you know, the rest is history because you’re in full control of the return. Absolutely. And so how are you spending your days working with women now? Well, I have a couple of different offers if you like.

So my primary thing I do is I have a membership called 360 Leaders Club, which is an online membership for women in senior leadership who want to advance their careers without sacrificing work-life balance. So the primary aim of the community is to support women to up-level their leadership skills, provide them with the tools and the training to all the stuff you do too, in terms of being more influential, how to manage conflict, like how to make decisions, all the, I’m going to say basic things that we forget unless somebody gives us a tool or a framework to use it. So the women I work with are highly educated.

You know, some of them would be at C-level, some are at SVP level, VP level, down to kind of senior managers, highly competent, highly educated. They have serious business acumen, but sometimes the work, you know, they’re so consumed by the challenges and the problems, as you well know, they can’t see the wood for the trees. So having a place to go where you can get immediate executive coaching, immediate answers to support you to move forward is an absolute game changer.

So that’s the first thing, is I have my membership. And then I also do private executive coaching, although I do a lot more group stuff at the moment. And then I work with corporates as well, in terms of developing their female talent and International Women’s Day and all those things.

And I have a digital course as well on executive presence. So they will be the main things that I do. Fantastic.

Now, there are loads of different topics that we could talk about together, but executive presence was the topic that we decided to land on for today. You’ve got your course on executive presence. How are you defining executive presence? What a great question.

So executive presence, the exciting thing is, is that it’s never been a better time to be a woman in leadership right now when it comes to executive presence. So it’s hard to give a definition. So the traditional definition would have fallen under three pillars.

It would have been gravitas, being a superior communicator, and then it was all about having this kind of polished appearance. And there was various different things that fell underneath that. But things have changed so much over the past decade that there’s a brand new expectation when it comes to executive presence.

And I can break that down a little bit if you want. That’d be great. Yeah.

So back in 2012, Harvard Business Review did a study where they surveyed a ton of executives. Don’t ask me how many. And they quantified what their expectations were of executive presence.

What did it mean for them under the pillars of gravitas, communication and appearance? And then they surveyed them again in 2022. And the study was just published actually in January of this year. So it’s hot off the press.

And Harvard published this paper, which I can send you the link to pop in the show notes if you want for your readers to see it. And there’s been some significant shifts in terms of executive presence. So it is absolutely not.

White man in a suit, being forceful, looking polished. That is not what people want anymore. So the main kind of things that have transcended the ages when it comes to executive presence are the number one thing is actually confidence.

It’s the number one trait for you to have executive presence is that you need to portray a confident demeanor. The second thing that hasn’t really changed is around decisiveness. So for you to be seen as an exemplary leader and to really have that executive presence, it’s all about being able to make those rapid disciplined decisions so that your team and your senior stakeholders can move forward.

But it can be hard to make a decision unless you’re confident and certain in yourself, which is something I absolutely love to help women with because it’s so funny. One of my gifts is seeing the beauty. Beauty and excellence would be a strength of mine in the strengths kind of profiles.

And when I meet women who are talented and they don’t see what they see, it’s so exciting to me because I see it straight away, just like you. It’s like I can see you nodding. Like you look at somebody and you’re like, you have no idea how good you are.

You have no idea how much you’re going to accomplish. And working, you know, working with those kind of people really makes me happy. So in terms of that, yeah, confidence, decisiveness.

The other things that have come through that are different. So between 2012 and current day, there’s a couple of things that registered in the survey, which weren’t even on the radar back in 2012. And one of them is authenticity.

People want to know who you are. They do not want some sort of a corp, somebody in a corporate mask with a, you know, a brand trying to fit the corporate mold. You know, people want to know who you are.

They want to know what you stand for. And then they want you to have a clear vision. That’s another thing.

And be able to articulate that vision to your teams that you can bring them along. But it needs to all kind of come from your personal brand. So in my course, the executive presence blueprint, there’s a full module on personal branding.

It’s my brand brilliance blueprint because so many people, I think you spoke about it on my show as well. I actually gave that tip that you shared. Carla gave a great tip side note on my podcast, the 360 leadership podcast on before you walk into a room, like pick three words about how you want to feel and things like that.

It’s all about you defining your brand yourself first and being able to articulate who you are, what you stand for, what your vision is, because we all have a vision, right? It doesn’t have to be the CEO has a vision. You can have a vision too. So there are just a few of the things within that story that came out, I think were important to point out.

Amazing. I have some questions, if that’s all right. Do it.

So the first one is on confidence. Do you think that people are learning to define confidence differently? Because I think if you would ask them in 2012 about confidence, it would be like a very amped up, extroverted version of confidence. And I think now we’re starting to recognize actually you can be quietly confident as well.

It doesn’t always have to look like extroverted. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah, there was something back in 2012 in that study, in that survey where under the pillar of communication, forcefulness was there. So forcefulness of how you show up in forceful, whereas now that has been replaced actually more with inclusion, learning and listening and having that people respect for others.

So that is exactly to your point that confidence does not mean being forceful and extroverted. One of the words that my coach helped me to reframe confidence, because it’s quite elusive, and we all have these preconceived notions of what it means. To me, it’s about certainty.

It’s about certainty in who you are, what you stand for, what you bring to the table, and certainty in your vision, certainty in your ideas. And that to me is more confidence than being the person who’s loud. Interesting.

And then the other thing that you mentioned, or one of the other things was decisiveness. And I wonder, I think this is evolving more slowly, but I am certainly seeing an increasing understanding of the fact that at least a third of us are reflective thinkers. Not me, unfortunately, I’m not very reflective at all.

But a third of people are not going to perform at their best when put on the spot when asked a question or asked for a decision. They want time to go away, think it through, analyse, and they’re just more analytical and more thorough in their thinking. Do you think that we’re starting to embrace that new definition of decisiveness as well? Because meetings still seem to be set up, don’t they, to make a decision on the spot at the same time as you’ve had the information, and everyone’s looking and talking at the same time.

So I totally agree. So first of all, I’ve come from an analytical background. Everyone I work with is analytical pretty much, because they all come from STEM and finance, and I’m obviously of a science background, so I totally get it.

But it’s actually those analytical people I would love to speak to right now, in a sense that I fully believe that there is value in reflection. But oftentimes, well, in my experience, people don’t make decisions and they procrastinate due to fear. It’s not because they don’t, you’re allowed to reflect, of course, you need to do your due diligence.

But there needs to come a point where you’re able to make a decision and move forward. So in my course, actually, there is a lesson on decision making, and I can share the tool with you now, I think, because it’s probably the tool that’s getting the most excitement from the course that your listeners can implement straight away. I was thinking about how I make decisions.

I’m a really fast decision maker, I always have been. And again, I didn’t own this as a strength, by the way, I just thought everyone did this. Okay, so for your listeners, you’re doing things all the time that you just do, you’ve got to promote that.

And I sat down to myself and I thought about how did I used to make decisions. And one day I was sitting at my computer, and I was about to book a flight to Spain to go over to see a client. And I found myself procrastinating.

Okay, so I had looked up everything, I knew the flight times, I knew how much they cost, I knew the seats that were available, I knew the time it was going to land. And I caught myself and I went, what the hell are you procrastinating about? You’ve got all the information you need, like what do you need to do? So when I really became aware and checked myself, I realized the reason I wasn’t making the decision wasn’t because I didn’t have the information. It was actually because I wasn’t sure I wanted to go.

Because at the time, there was stuff going on in my life and my husband was going to be away and la la la. So I developed this framework, which I can share with you now that I think is going to be a game changer. So I call it the do it model for decision making.

Do it. So it’s D is data or data, whichever you prefer to say. What do you say, Carla? Data or data? Data.

Data. First of all, it’s about gathering the data. Okay, so gather all of your data.

So like my flight example, get the times, get the prices, get the landing times, get your information and then jot it down. And you know when you’ve got enough data. Okay, you know, you know, if you’re if you’re picking for the sake of picking, you’ll absolutely know that.

So you gather the data and then there has to come a point where you tune in to your head, heart and gut and go, is this all I need? Or is there something missing? If you’re like, this is all I need, but I’m afraid that’s fine. We move on to the next step. Get your data.

The second step is O for options. So once you have all of your information, you assess the options. So what can you do here with this information? Number one, you can take the flight to Spain.

Number two, you can pick this one. Number three, you can cancel. You list out your options.

The third step then is I for impact. So what’s the impact of each of these options? And so again, if you have three to five options, no more, you could have 20 options, but you’re going to drive yourself crazy. Three to five options is what I’d recommend.

And then you look at the impact of each of those decisions and you just high level what’s the potential impact. And then based on all of that, you go to the last step, which is T for trust. And this is the biggest thing I believe, that people don’t trust themselves.

They’re afraid they’re going to have missed something. They’re afraid of the consequences of making a bad decision. Like I used to make decisions that had millions and millions and millions and millions and billions of dollars of impact because I was making decisions on batches of sterile product with the quality people from microbiology perspective on whether or not I was going to get to a patient.

So they, I know the weight of heavy decisions from a public health perspective and from a financial perspective. But there has to come a point where you trust your knowledge, you trust your expertise, you make a decision based on the information that you’ve collected. And then you communicate that decision to the stakeholders and your rationale for why you did so.

And if you follow those four steps, you have a framework and you can make a decision and you can move forward. And just before I stop my monologue, I remember a great leader once said to me, his name was Brian. He was the plant leader in one of the sites I worked in.

And he said to me, there are very few decisions that you make that can’t be reversed. So just make a decision. And if you have to come back and make a new decision, that’s okay.

And he was a great leader. I love that model. And I think it’s the D, the O and the I that then enable you to trust because you’ve had a system that you have worked through or a checklist that you’ve worked through to make sure you’ve thought of all the important things.

Because that’s the challenge, isn’t it? It’s like, oh, have I missed anything? Or, oh, what’s the impact of this going to be? How could this go wrong? So you think that all through first, you’ve got that all in front of you. And you can decide. I also just love the idea of getting it down on paper in front of you, because it’s the same with worrying.

Things go round and round in our head, and we think we’re being productive, but actually, we’re just going round in circles. And when you get it down on paper, you’re being constructive, you’re moving forward, you’re making progress. So thanks for sharing that.

I’m going to think of a decision I can apply that to. I’m going to have a little think about that one. Excellent.

Now, why does executive presence matter? Like, what difference does it make whether we have this executive presence or not? Great question. Executive presence does not matter for everybody. It matters for the ambitious, driven woman who wants to be seen as a great leader, who wants to advance her career, and who wants to play with the big boys.

And I say the big boys because a lot of the women that I work with, and I’m sure you’re the same, you know, the higher up the ladder, the less women that are there. And if you want to stand out amongst your peers, which I hear all the time, the boys are, you know, can I kind of say something kind of slightly inappropriate, but one of my clients said, you can add it out, she was like, the willy wabers, she calls them. The boys going round waving their willies, promoting themselves all of the time.

And this resentment and envy comes up sometimes in women, okay? But actually, we need to learn from the boys. It’s not about being envious. They’re not doing anything wrong.

They’re owning their capabilities, and they’re making it known to people. So if you want to be seen as a great leader who gets recognition, who gains new opportunities, who is top of mind for those promotions, who gets to go to present to the board, whatever those opportunities are that you want, executive presence is crucial to you standing out because it encompasses everything. And one of the things you talked about there is trying to do, I guess, our equivalent of willy waving.

What does that look like? Because if we act like men, we’re judged, aren’t we? So what does it look like to you to be confidently promoting yourself and letting people know what you’re capable of? Yeah, great question. I think firstly, we need to be aware of our unconscious biases as women and as men. There was another study I read recently, and I was sharing this the other night.

Actually, I was on a stage, and someone came up to me afterwards, and they were like, oh my God, you’re so articulate. And I was like, what? I’m not articulate. It’s just funny when I share these things, you come across as being articulate.

I’m not really, okay, totally normal. But I was reading this study, and it was sharing about unconscious bias in a sense that they had a room full of an audience, and they had a male leader do a talk presentation, and they had a female leader do a presentation. I don’t know if you’ve seen it.

And they asked the audience to rate the speakers. So in the first round of the speeches, they asked them both to drop in some little jokes throughout their presentation. And the audience was mixed.

It wasn’t just men. It was men and women, mixed audience. And unanimously, what was coming back for the man was that, oh, he’s making a joke to soften the tone, and he knows how to use humor to bring the audience along.

Whereas the feedback for the women who were doing exactly the same presentation, exactly the same things as the man was that she’s clearly using humor because she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. And she’s… But this was the women coming back saying it too. She needs to learn when things need to be serious.

But this is all of our unconscious bias that is the gender stereotypes that we have hold against each other. I know I do. I catch myself sometimes looking at a woman and going, you are an advocate for women.

Why do these thoughts come through for us? So it’s about, first of all, really becoming super, super aware to realize that women judge women too. So I think it starts with us. I think actually women judge women far more than men judge women, actually, a hundred times more because of this unconscious bias that we have against each other.

So I think it’s really, really, really important when you’re promoting yourself, first of all, to remember that within you, there lives masculine and feminine energy. Within all of us, there’s masculine and feminine energy. Men have it, women have it.

And so where we want to be when it comes to promoting ourselves is getting the balance of masculine and feminine energy right. So masculine energy might be, hey, look at me. I’ve just achieved this and I am amazing and you should promote me because I’m the best.

Like it’s rude, you know, it’s brash. You don’t want to be doing that. You bring in a little bit of feminine energy.

So for example, how I introduced myself and I’ve had, I used to hate doing it, but now I do it. I don’t even think about it is, I’ll say I’m a triple certified executive coach. I’m a multi award winning business woman.

And that’s how I introduced myself because it’s facts. It’s actually facts. Like we’ve won four awards.

We’ve been nominated for 17. I studied my ass off to get my certifications just on another certification of positive psychology. So why wouldn’t I own that? Because if I don’t say that, who is going, it’s about that credibility piece.

So it’s exactly the same for your audience, Carla, is if you’ve done something great, there is no point in you being the only one who knows about it. Because if you want, the men are not doing that, the men are promoting themselves. So I think it’s important to remember you’re not being conceited.

It’s not rude. You’re literally just stating facts. That’s it.

It’s so challenging, isn’t it? And I feel like as women, a lot of that envy is because it’s like, well, how come she’s allowed to do that? And I’m not like, how come she is confidently stating what she’s brilliant at? And I don’t feel confident doing that. I was, actually, this very topic came up in a therapy session recently. So I started therapy a couple of months ago.

Super, super interesting. And really interesting to see how it’s different from coaching. Anyway, I was telling the story of how when I was, I don’t know how old I was, maybe 14, there was a fashion show at school.

And it was like a charity one, everyone took turns to walk down the catwalk and back. And I thought, I should do it like a model. Like that’s what we’re trying to do.

We’re trying to be models on the catwalk. So I walked down the catwalk and back like a model would. And I got mercilessly teased for taking myself too seriously and doing that.

And I never really thought about it again. But what that taught me was it wasn’t safe to be visible, to walk down and be confident and do my best and be uninhibited. And what I realized from reflection after therapy is those girls who were mean to me, they were just doing it because someone had already taught them that lesson.

It’s not safe to talk up. It’s not safe to be confident. And so they were cutting me down as well.

In Australia, they call it tall poppy syndrome. Generally, Australians are very confident, but women, when they talk about their successes, when they get a little bit too successful and confident, then everyone brings them down. And so I do think women are just as bad, if not worse than men in this because we’ve had it done to us so many times that for us, it’s just become the norm.

And anyone doing anything differently and confidently talking about themselves just rubs a bit because it’s part of us wants to be able to do that. But we’ve had it ingrained into us by various bad experiences that it’s not safe to do that. Anyway, that’s my little bit of therapy brought to the podcast.

Honestly, Carla, I mean, firstly, thank you for sharing that. And like I’ve been for therapy as well, I’ve done so much work on myself to get to this point. And I think that’s, you know, that example you shared about your school friends, like when I’m doing private executive coaching, that’s the root of all of it, right? It’s those little moments that happen under the age of 11, where we’re forming our beliefs about ourselves.

And just like you, I mean, I was brought up to be a good girl, to be seen and not heard. Never, you know, never get too big for your boots. My mother and father were super supportive, always told me to believe in myself.

But I was always told to be quiet, because I was a child, I was always told to be quiet in school and everything. And I’ll tell you what changed the game for me was back in 2020. And when I was making the decision on should I leave the corporate world and start this business that I have no clue how I’m going to grow? Or should I stay in a career that I know I’m done with? And I was deliberating on this decision.

And my father in law was 66 year old man, six foot four, really handsome, super funny from Dublin, the kind of guy you could guess we used to have such laughs, you know, barbecues, a few drinks in the home and things like that. And totally healthy. And then one day, he got a pain in his shoulder.

And he went for a scan. And it turned out basically that he had a brain tumor. And six weeks after his diagnosis, he passed away.

And what that taught me was that I was playing small at this point.

I was not owning my worth. I was terrified of showing up online (0:09) because all my colleagues, what would they think of me? What would they think if I started posting (0:13) on LinkedIn? Who to cheat? Like I was absolutely terrified, beyond terrified.

I used to feel sick (0:20) doing my posts, everything. But what I realized was, and this is why I always get emotional when (0:25) I talk about this is, you only get one shot at this life. Literally, you have one shot.

And (0:36) if you don’t take, you have ambitions, you have desires, you have aspirations, and they’re yours. (0:42) And you’re here to fulfill those. And for me, I always had the aspiration to support other women (0:48) to achieve their goals with more confidence, because I have done it.

I have been there. I (0:52) know how to do it. And since I have adopted that mindset, I don’t genuinely don’t care about what (0:59) other people think, because I’m serving a higher purpose.

My why is to support other women to rise. (1:05) So I really don’t care what people who are not my ideal clients think about me, because I’m here for (1:10) you. And I think if you start to position that as, I’m not doing this to big me up.

Genuinely, (1:17) I’m not, when I talk about things. It’s to build trust with other people. It’s so I can get, (1:23) so I can reach the people who want to work with me.

That’s the only reason I do it. (1:28) So it’s the same for your audiences. If you’re promoting your successes, you’re not doing it (1:34) just because you want to be like, oh, look how great I am.

You need to do it as part of your (1:38) bigger strategy to advance your career. And if it’s aligned with your goal and where you’re going, (1:43) well, it’s a strategic move based on data. It’s not about you bigging yourself up.

(1:48) And that’s just how I think about things. (1:51) Thank you for sharing that story. That’s so inspiring.

And I’m sorry for your (1:54) loss, but amazing that you have turned that into this passion and not playing small anymore. (2:03) Yeah, very inspiring. I also think as leaders, that bigger purpose can sometimes be about (2:08) advocating for your team, getting people to see the value that your team is bringing to the (2:13) organization.

And so for those of us who find it really hard, because I think lots of us do (2:18) find it hard. If we think about promoting ourselves, it feels really uncomfortable. (2:22) So I love this idea of promoting your mission, your purpose, the long-term things and impact (2:28) that you can achieve in the world and what your team are doing as well.

That’s fantastic. (2:33) Now, the final thing I wanted to touch on this was about (2:35) owning your strengths or really receiving compliments. And it’s interesting because (2:40) I’ve got, we are both confidence coaches, aren’t we? Like we do confidence amongst everything else.

(2:45) And I came on your podcast and you asked me a question where you were like, (2:48) you’ve had a really successful corporate career and now you’re a very successful coach. And I (2:54) can’t remember what the question was, but it was, it was something along that. And the first thing (2:57) I did was feel quite uncomfortable with being called a very successful coach and downplayed that.

(3:02) And you and I had a chat about that afterwards. And you have just come on the podcast as well. (3:06) And someone’s come and told you you’re articulate and you’re like, I’m not that articulate.

I’m just (3:10) completely normal. And it’s the same thing. And that’s what I was trying to do as well is go, (3:13) look, I’m just like you.

Like there’s nothing special about me. I’m just like you. (3:17) So even though we know this stuff, we still, when publicly, where we know lots of people are (3:23) going to be listening, still feel a bit uncomfortable with actually owning our (3:28) strengths and going, yeah, I am successful.

Or yeah, do you know what? I am articulate. (3:32) That’s the strength of mine and I work hard on it. So I’m trying to think of a question that (3:37) isn’t what hope is there for everybody else.

So my question is, what advice would we give to (3:43) everybody else or to each other that we can start taking about when we do get this positive feedback, (3:49) how do we, how do we own it and take it on board? Great question. I’m not there yet. I’m (3:57) going to be really transparent.

My biggest thing, I can own my own worth and I can tell you I (4:02) practice it so often. I can cite off all the things I’ve done and you know, all of that because (4:07) I’ve practiced it and I’ve rehearsed it. And to me, it’s just work.

It doesn’t, you know, (4:12) I find it really hard to receive. And it’s something I’m working on in terms of like, (4:17) and I think a lot of your audience will resonate in you too. It’s like we make things so hard on (4:21) ourselves.

It’s like, I know how to work hard. I know how to serve people. I know how to big other (4:27) people up, but I find it hard to really receive a compliment.

So I remember, not just compliment, (4:33) I find it hard to receive good things. And it’s something I’m working on in terms of like (4:38) abundance. And I do.

So here’s some tips. The first thing is, I think it’s about definitely (4:44) it’s all the mindset work. It’s to remind yourself that you are worthy.

And that’s where it comes (4:50) back to. I think at the root of it all is, you know, deep down, we think we’re not worthy. I (4:55) know I certainly do.

I feel like sometimes I’m not worthy of success. I’m not worthy of, you know, (5:00) the achievements I’ve had. And I share that openly, but I’m very consciously aware of it.

(5:05) So I don’t stay in victim mode in it. So I actively will do abundance meditations. I listen (5:12) to Abraham Hicks.

I don’t know if you’re into spirituality or where you’re at in your spiritual (5:16) journey, but I listened to Abraham Hicks a lot on YouTube about receiving and Bob Proctor, (5:22) things like that. So I think there’s, you know, I can give tactical tips around, (5:27) oh, just be open to receive, but it’s very deep rooted to being able to receive compliments. (5:32) So I think it’s about, first of all, reminding yourself, you know, you said a second ago, (5:36) Carla, I’m not special.

And I agree with you. None of us are special. I believe we’re all the (5:42) same.

It’s not that anybody is better than anybody else. I believe everybody is worthy (5:48) of the same success. Everybody is worthy of love.

And it’s up to us to stop blocking it by doing (5:55) that deep inner work. So, you know, the therapy, things like that can really, really help. So I (6:00) think it’s a lot deeper than the tactics.

What do you think? What would your advice be? (6:05) I agree. I think it is a lot deeper. And I don’t know that I have at the moment, (6:11) it’s something I struggle with as well.

And I think I get as far as usually saying, (6:16) thank you. And then I go away and I really value that positive feedback. So for me, like saying (6:22) thank you and not deflecting it away, I will find myself blushing as well.

But so if we were in a (6:29) one-to-one conversation, I would be like, thanks, or thanks. I really appreciate that feedback. (6:34) But then when it’s publicly, and I’m worried about being judged, or people going, well, (6:38) who does she think she is? And that’s, you nearly said that earlier, I think that phrase, (6:44) and it definitely, at school, it was, who does she think she is? Or she totally loves herself, (6:49) as if that’s the worst thing ever.

And I’m like, she totally loves herself, needs to be the best (6:54) compliment that you could give everyone. I’m trying to teach my six-year-old to love himself (6:58) more than he loves anybody else. And it’s really hard, isn’t it? (7:03) Really hard.

Really hard. But I’m just thinking, maybe we should do a little exercise live now (7:08) for a second, will we? Just like a one-second thing. I think you give me a compliment, (7:13) I’ll give you a compliment, and let’s just share maybe what’s, like what the block is, (7:18) and then allow ourselves just to actually receive it for like 10 seconds.

What do you think? (7:22) Okay. Okay. I’m scared now, everybody listening.

(7:27) You can start with me, right? You can start with me, if you want. Just give me a compliment, (7:32) and I’ll tell you what’s coming up for me, and then I’m going to try and allow myself to receive it. (7:37) Okay.

I really love your passion and how much focus and energy you put into serving your (7:45) clients. Okay. The first thing that came up for me was trying to push it away immediately, (7:51) but now I’m going to allow myself to receive it because I am passionate about my clients, (7:57) and I do put a lot of energy.

So thank you, Carla. And now I feel better. (8:03) Okay.

Carla, I love your sense of humor. I love how you teach, and I think you are (8:10) super inspiring. I really do.

I’ve told you this already. I think you’re super inspiring. (8:16) So I’m blushing.

Oh yeah, I can see it in the camera. I’m blushing, (8:20) and I’m looking for the truth. That’s what I’m trying to do to help me receive that, (8:24) is looking for that, okay, yeah, I can see teaching comes naturally to me.

So I’m going to (8:30) hook onto that bit as a bit where I can go, yes, okay, I see that, (8:35) and I’m going to reflect on the rest. Thank you. (8:37) You are welcome.

Totally awkward, the two of us. (8:41) Everyone else is like- (8:42) Stop with the compliments. (8:44) Everyone else is like, now you know what it feels like to be coached by you two.

Brilliant. Well, (8:49) I love that. We’ve gone to all sorts of different places today, Lucy, and I do feel like we could (8:53) chat for ages.

But what I’m going to do is to finish up with a question that you quite often (8:59) ask on your podcast, because on your podcast, you often ask people about books. So what is your (9:04) favorite book to recommend to clients? There’s so many. I’m going to give you a (9:10) couple because I can’t just pick one.

The first one, I’m big into mindset. So my biggest area of (9:16) expertise would be the whole mindset psychology thing. So there’s a book called The Chimp Paradox (9:22) by Professor Steve Peters, which is going to really help you to understand how the mind works, (9:28) you know, why you act the way you act sometimes, why others act the way they act, which is the key (9:34) to, you know, it’s another part of executive presences.

Nowadays, people want to be seen and (9:39) heard. They really expect people to listen and understand and be inclusive and all that stuff. (9:43) So that will be really, really helpful.

Super book. And then the other book that I have to (9:49) recommend to your audience, which changed my life, was The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving (9:55) a F*** by Sarah Knight. And she talks about how we have, I hate saying the word, one of my clients (10:03) was like, every time I see you here, you say the word f***.

She said, I can’t believe you’re saying (10:07) it, but I have to say it because it’s in the book. But she says every day, we all have a, (10:12) basically a f*** budget, how many f’s we want to give in the day. And most of us are giving all of (10:19) our f’s to things that actually aren’t important to us.

And we have very little left over for the (10:25) things that are important to us. And she shares about how she broke free of like working in the, (10:31) she was an editor in New York, in this big publishing house, and how she basically started (10:37) going into work, not giving an absolute crap. But actually what ended up happening, and I did the (10:42) same, by the way, the year I decided I wasn’t going to care so much about work.

And I was going to (10:47) care a little bit more about me. I actually got outperformed and I got a massive long-term (10:52) incentive grant. So it just, it doesn’t mean that you stop really caring.

It means you just care a (10:58) little bit more about yourself and a little bit less about the organization. So those two books, (11:02) I would highly recommend. Excellent.

I’ve got her one on saying no, but I haven’t got that first one. (11:08) And I do feel like I need that. I’m going to be 50 next year.

And I keep saying, I’m waiting for (11:13) that magic point where I just don’t care what other people think. I’m like, when does it happen? (11:18) Because I want to get there. So that book sounds like something that could help me with that.

(11:22) It’s been such good fun, Lucy. I really love it. And I hope that we, I think we’ve been really (11:28) honest in this discussion.

And I hope that that shows that you don’t like technically you and I (11:34) are competitors, but actually we’re not, we’ve both got the same mission and we’re both just (11:38) trying to do our best and make the most impact we have. And hopefully by modeling that people can (11:43) go, do you know what? Those are the fantastic women that I work with. They’re not competition.

(11:48) We’re all just doing our best trying to make an impact and that’s collaborate and support each (11:54) other and amplify each other’s voices instead of seeing it as this scarcity thing where only one (12:00) person can be at the top and we’ve got to compete. Cause I think that’s inherent in some, in how we’re (12:05) brought up by society. Sometimes we have to consciously undo that.

So you and I have consciously (12:10) undone that today. I know we both do that regularly with guests on our podcasts. (12:14) And I’ve loved the conversation.

Now, where can people go to find out more (12:18) about working with you, Lucy? You can visit my website. So it’s lucygarnan.com (12:23) or I’m really active on Instagram, LinkedIn. And then I also have the podcast.

So the podcast (12:28) is the 360 lead hardship podcast. In the careers category, we’re regularly number one. (12:35) And yeah, I create content every single week, every Wednesday, new topics.

We have guests. (12:40) I do a lot of solo episodes as well, all around inspiring and motivating women (12:44) leaders to reach their potential. So yeah, that’s where you can find me.

(12:48) Fantastic. So head over, follow Lucy on social media, go and listen to her podcast, (12:51) go and subscribe to that. Now add it to your list.

You can listen to it alongside this one (12:55) and get more of Lucy’s wisdom. Thank you, Lucy. (12:59) Thank you so much for having me.