Ep 37 - Leadership Soul - Why Meaning and Connection are Crucial in Life and Business - Kate King

Kate King is a top Leadership and Team Coach who has coached thousands of the world’s top CEO’s through her own coaching practice and as an Executive Coach at London Business School.

She creates meaningful and lasting change in her clients, their teams, and their businesses. 

Formerly a Londoner, Kate now lives in the Middle East, where she has quickly become the go-to coach for change-making leaders in this future-focussed region.

We covered so much in our conversation - how an empowering mindset is a game changer, about reaching our full potential and how to live a more meaningful life.

Kate has such fantastic insights on how leadership is changing and evolving to become more empathetic , more conscious and connected. Her term ‘Leadership Soul’ really resonated with me and the themes we love to explore in this podcast.

I’m also borderline obsessed with the fact that her ideal coaching client is none other than King Charles the third himself - incredible. Just a bit of intergenerational trauma to unpack there!

Kate is incredibly wise and warm and she was full of practical tips that we can all use in our daily personal and professional lives. I’m sure you’re going to love this conversation.

Follow me, and the Good Intentions podcast:

https://www.instagram.com/kellyharvarde/

https://www.instagram.com/goodintentionsuae/

Find Kate King here:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-king-ttc/

Immerse yourself in some of the books we discussed: 

Gabor Mate - The Myth of Normal 

https://uae.kinokuniya.com/bw/9781785042720

Diana Chapman, Kaley Klemp, Jim Dethmer  - The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership

https://www.amazon.ae/15-Commitments-Conscious-Leadership-Sustainable/dp/0990976904

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Welcome to Good Intentions, the podcast where we explore the world around us, find meaning and intention in what we do. I'm Kelly Harvard and I'm on a mission to spread positive stories that will inspire you to live a more meaningful and connected life. Kate King is the top leadership and team coach who has coached thousands of the world's top CEOs through her own coaching practice. And as an executive coach at London Business School, she creates meaningful and lasting change in her clients, their teams, and their businesses. Formerly a Londoner Kate now lives in the Middle East where she has quickly become the go-to coach for change making leaders in this future focused region. We covered so much in our conversation how an empowering mindset is a game changer about reaching our full potential and how to live a more meaningful life. Pay has such fantastic insights on how leadership is changing and evolving to become more empathetic, more conscious and connected. Her term leadership soul really resonated with me and the themes that we love to explore in this podcast. I'm also borderline obsessed with the fact that her ideal coaching client is none other than King Charles III himself. Incredible. Just a little bit of intergenerational trauma to unpack there. Kate's incredibly warm and wise, and she was full of practical tips that we can all use in our daily personal and professional lives. I'm sure you're going to love this conversation. So good morning, Kate. Thanks so much for joining me today. It's my pleasure, Kenny. So fascinated by what you do. And um, in full disclosure, we actually met, uh, a yoga event hosted by the rather lovely Dina. I'm sure everybody in the Bible know and who I'm actually lining up as another podcast guest, um, hopefully as well. So, and I'm really interested just to sort of get back to basics. I mean, you are really dedicating your life to supporting others, coaching others. What made you start on this journey? So, look, I've had a, I've had a passion for, for development for my own and others development for about 30 years now. And actually the way it came about in my early twenties, like of all of us, I was really focused on changing the world out there. And I went through an experienced, a partner that I was with at the time, had a nervous breakdown. It was a really big eye opener and a big awakening cuz actually we stopped focusing on the world out there and we started focusing on the world in here and, you know, what was the inner interchange that we needed to actually help him through his process. And that's when I got really fascinated by inner work and looking at, um, how we can develop and expand and adjust ourselves to have a different impact in the world and actually to cope with the, with the world around us. And I made the commitment to myself then that I was going to make my little corner of capitalism a really lovely place to be for me and the people in it. And also to make the world of work a nice place to be because, you know, it can be pretty stressful and difficult. And actually that was what led to his breakdown. And so outta Bath experience, a real passion for working lives better and making sure that, that, uh, organizations are really well led West born. So I've been on this kind of, this journey of exploring human potential and expansion ever since then. And, you know, I was really lucky that I, I found my life's purpose pretty early on, which is, is coaching people to develop their, their potential to, to the fullest extent. And, you know, it was actually a blessing in disguise this experience that I went through because it led to, you know, to discovering what is has been the greatest privilege of my life, actually, which is being a catalyst to others evolution. So, um, I consider myself to be very lucky. Gosh, and I mean to go through that in your twenties, Kate, it must be, I mean, I think my twenties was spent sort of high kicking my way around bars and clubs in Manchester and yeah, I mean, to have to go through something quite serious like that, there was plenty of that. There was plenty of hiding as well, right. It wasn't always, wasn't always, uh, deeper deep in introspection, but, you know, it was a, a mixture of experiences. So yeah, sort of, I mean, obviously you say it set you onto this journey, but how did you cope personally was such a huge sort of, almost like a, a volcano exploding in your life when something like that happens to someone that's close to you? I'm sure it was a real learning experience about how to be present for other people, how to be fully present and not try and change them, but just to be, to hold space for somebody else's process. And that was how I, I learned, um, how to do that really to have some compassion and empathy and just be there really. Gosh, it's interesting to see how something's so positive has come out of something that must have been so very challenging and, and difficult at the time. Um, why do people come to you for coaching now? Like, what's the main reason? I mean, I love what you're saying about making workplaces better, places to be making capitalism, this sort of nicest space to be, this is something that I struggle with on the daily, you know, I'm a very corporate job. I'm fully signed up to capitalism, but I'm often, it's kind of, it's it jars for me. It doesn't always sit comfortably. So I'm, I'm, I'd love to know why do people come to you in the first instance and then how do you kind of take them through that process? Yeah, great question. So look, I work with successful people and you know, I think most people understand these days that coaching is, is something that, that is not a, a remedial activity for people, you know, for people who've who've lost the plot, although it can be helpful. I work with successful people, so really time pressed, you know, corporate leaders and founders who want to make some change either in themselves or in their way of being or in the way that they lead their teams. And there are usually several prompts that lead people to seek coaching. For some people they have an, or a, a growth mindset I would call it, where they have an orientation to do more, achieve more, be more, and they want to come to, to me to, to work out what and and how to do that. And then others, and this is probably the majority, actually find themselves that they're in a situation where they're triggered by something. And you know, that can be that they're dealing with a difficult relationship, be that with a, you know, a direct report or with a boss or with peers, they find maybe that there are other triggers that, that maybe they're losing it, they're not able to control their, their temper. You know, I was working with a CEO recently who was having these kind of flareups and found that his fuse was getting shorter and shorter and actually, you know, wanted to start to look at that. And then, you know, for others they've had some feedback or there's a limiting belief that they recognize that keeps on showing up for them. So, you know, there's another CEO I was working with recently who had this not good enough thing show up, um, on a regular basis. Yeah. Which is really tough, you know, when you're leading an organization to, to face into on a daily basis, this thought may, maybe I'm not up to this, maybe maybe I'm not worthy of this seat. Right? That's really stressful and really problematic and you wanna get that fixed cuz we can, we can fix that and well maybe we'll talk, uh, in a little bit about how to fix that. But basically, you know, people show up when they, when the strategies that they have aren't working and they want to explore ways of living and leading in a more meaningful, more connected, more alive way. You know, they want to, everybody wants to be happy, really dunno happy in their happy in their work. They want to to be connected with a sense of purpose. They want to have an unshakeable belief in themselves. They want to have a vibrant feeling of aliveness. They, you know, they want to create a life that they really love living. You know, they want to make an impact in the world. I think these are really common things that, that lots of people are, are seeking and, and looking to create and working with a coach can help you be intentional about, about those. And so why do people come to me for coaching specifically? I think what I do is help people to do the inner work to become the people that they want. They want to be, you know, lots of coaches are focused on performance and you know, the sort of external, you know, their business coaches or that sort of thing. But actually I really love the Neil Donald Walsh quote that says, you know, if you don't go within, you go without, at a certain point in life, we get to a stage where, you know, we need to do some inner work. We need to look inside and look a bit deeper. And actually my work, I think is an intersection between three things. But first of all is, is psychology. So it's really about helping people develop self-awareness and connecting with themselves. The second is about energy and, uh, spirituality and actually the, the, that's about going beyond the self to connect with things that are bigger than than us. And then the third is about leadership and organizational dynamics. And so that's about con connecting relationally with others and using the stuff that we talked about in terms of self awareness and, and going beyond the self to have the impact that we desire on other people and, and on the world. And I think that's why my people come to to you do some work on those things. Gosh, fascinating. I mean, and one thing that makes sort of jumps out me at what you're saying there is you really have to put your ego at the door to kind of, if you're, if you're good about the knowledge that you need help, you are, you are kind and this is kind of odds with a lot of, you know, obviously in leadership, you know, there's a lot of ego-driven sort of activity and feeling around that. So for someone to sort of say, you know, I, I feel like I'm not enough or I've got imposter syndrome, somebody who's kind of at the top of their game, I find it quite encouraging that people are prepared to kind of do that and come to you. That's kinda at odds with what I think we sometimes experience in the corporate world. I mean, how much of a role does ego play in it and how much do you have to sort of push that out the door? Or have they already left it behind when they come to you? It's a great question. Well, look, I mean obviously if you're going to share your inner world with, with another human being, there's a level of vulnerability that's, that's involved in that. And I think it comes down to mindset. Do you have a growth mindset or you have a fixed mindset? You know, if you have a fixed mindset, then you believe that you need to know it all already, which makes it very, very difficult to actually partner with somebody else to explore different ways of being. Because you're busy demonstrating to the world that you, that you got it covered, that you know it, that you are it. Right. And we know all know, you know, leaders and other humans around the, the place who are busy reinforcing their egos to demonstrate the mask to the world. And I don't think that's, you know, that's certainly not growthful because anybody who's interested in personal growth understands that we are all work in progress and we're all on a journey. And sometimes that journey means that it's useful to get another perspective of somebody with some different expertise or skills to help us to progress. So I think it comes from a position of strength, not necessarily vulnerability. I think it's strong to be able to say, Hey, do you know what, actually there's, there's a different way of looking at this. I'd like to explore, let me, let me see what it is I don't yet know. And get some help on that path to being, uh, expanding into our fullest potential. Which let's face it, you know, if everyone ever gets to our full potential, I'd be obviously the surprise either I hope that I'm still expanding to the very last breath. Cause you know, if we're not expanding, we're dying. Right? That's my not expanding, we're shrinking. Yeah, no, I totally agree. And yeah, I mean it's, it's music to my, it's my mindset, but I think yeah, often you encounter, especially in positions of very senior leadership, it feels that there's a lot of fixed mindsets out there. So yeah, this whole growth mindset mindset I think is really, obviously it's important, but I think it's interesting to see who would adopt it and who wouldn't and who's prepared to kind of ask for help or, you know, I like the way you positioned it that, you know, I want to think about this differently rather than, you know, asking for help and sometimes be seen as a weakness. Although I think that's changing. And, and I wanna come onto that in a bit as well. How are the issues that you see are, are they gendered? I mean, are some issues very specific to women? I mean, I mean obviously the whole experience, the gendered experience is different for men and women, but what, what are the issues that you see and how do they show up differently for men and women? Very interesting question. The reality is still the latest research, research shows us that, that there's only 25% of women in the, in the UK and US who are in executive positions. So 75% is still men. It's actually, it actually 39% on boards, but on than in exec positions. Only 25% of executive positions are held by women. And women are systematically paid less than men for the same work. So we know that this is an issue, but as a coach, I come at it with a human focus. And what I notice is that actually the human challenges and frailties tend to be fairly similar. And so, you know, I think you may be surprised, I'm certainly constantly amazed. There's something like, I think about 80%, I would say, of my clients have some form of version of, of, of not enough or not good enough. It's really surprising actually, how many people in really senior positions have the, you know, have these sort of insecurities about, about whether they're<laugh>, whether they're, whether they're enough. And I think the difference, the gender difference is more around what happens after that. So I, I think that, you know, know that the human condition is the same women I notice are much less likely to put themselves forward for things when they feel like they're not enough. Whereas men are more likely to give it a go. Right. You know, they'll kind of go, you know, let's, let's suck it and see. And, and women need a much higher degree of confidence before they'll actually put themselves forward. But, you know, for any gender, I think the cure is the same in terms of the work that you need to do around not good enough, which is, you know, going inside, doing the inner work, finding out, finding out what the limiting belief is and, and then changing it. Yeah, no, I love those that, um, mythical example isn't there and Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg, which is they show a job description to men and women and the men will be like, nah, yeah, I can do it. Whereas women will be like, I can do A, B, and C and I can do G H I and I can do X, Y, and Z, but I can't do the rest of it. And then what about those bits? Whereas men are just like, oh yeah, I, I'll, yeah, I think I have<laugh>. It's like, and there's a wonderful mindset that I'm, the pin isn't there, which is if I don't know, I'll, I'll work it out or I'll find out. And I think that's, you know, that's amazing and men are more likely to do that. But there's also, and I, and in the Cheryl Sandberg book that you, that you referenced, she talks about how women and men are perceived differently in terms of what's acceptable. So what's assertive for a man is seen as pushy and demanding for, for women. And so that, you know, there's a different interpretation. Yeah, of course, of course. And there's just, there's that great example. This isn't the Cheryl Sandberg podcast, but, um, there's that great example where they show descriptions to people and they say, this is Kate, and Kate drives the Mercedes soft talk. And then she, she goes to the beach club at the weekends and she does this and she does that, and then she buys this. The final question is, would would you like to be friends with Kate? And like 90% of people say no when it's Dave. Actually horrible. We don't Oh, I don't, yeah, yeah. When it's Dave a Mohamed or Ed people like, oh yeah, he sounds cool and great. Yeah, I'd 80% of people want to be his friend. So it's like, yeah, I mean there's so many examples of it, which are, you know, maybe you wanna tell your hair out, but yeah, it's, it's out there and yeah, we can't deny it. I mean, and on that, so if women want to sort of build their visibility at work and they want to have not succeed as just as sort a very wide term, but if they want to at least build their visibility, which probably is gonna take them out of their competent zone and then bring in all these other issues that we're talking about, how can women do that? Cuz typically we hold back on this, some of us do always worry of making total generals. Yeah, you're gender, but you know, generally I think it's about looking at the way that we show up and the story that we have of ourselves. So, you know, look at what your story is, you know, do you have a story actually that if I speak up, people won't like me, people think I'm, I'm loud, people think I'm too forthright, I might look foolish. You know, what, what is it, the story and, and what happened to you, I think is a great question. What happened to me to give me my story about what's acceptable and what, what's possible for me? And I would just encourage everybody really, but to, to sort of speak earlier, get their voice in the room, trust their intuition, you know, don't wait until somebody else says what you were thinking. You know, so many times I coach women who say, you know, I sit there in a meeting and I have all these thoughts, and then I'm, and then a man says to them, you know, and I, I've had a bit, oh my God, why didn't I say that? Well actually don't hold back. Put yourself out there, you know, you know, be asserted even if you risk being, you know, so occasionally seem to be pushy. If it's coming from the, you know, from the right place, show up, push yourself to show up and think about the way to empower ourselves to do that is thinking about what's my story of myself? What am I making this mean if I do show up? I mean, I think the, you know, your question about gendered issues, the people pleasing thing I think is potentially quite gendered. Look, there are plenty of men who are people pleasers, but actually I see potentially more women than men who are people pleasers. Of course it starts so young. I mean, the programming starts when you are barely taking steps, doesn't it? That you've gotta be good and be quiet and do this and do that. And yeah, I could rant about that for hours, but I won't<laugh> and I mean mindset. How much does mindset play into this? And we talk a lot about this. I mean, when it comes to sort of excelling like this sort of positive mindset, and I don't mean toxic positivity, but I mean this kind of optimism, like I read this amazing book, which I referenced quite a lot by a guy called Sean Akel. He's a happiness professor from Harvard. He's, he's toxics, you knows Oprah personally, all this stuff. But anyway, he has all the stats about optimism and how this can basically improve your experience of life, relationships work. I mean, how much do you think that plays into success as well? Mindset is everything because, you know, but if we just talk about what mindset is? Mindset is our, our beliefs, our values, our assumptions about the world, about ourselves and, and the world. So that frame, if you like, that lens through which we see the world gives us what we see. And I'd prefer not to think about it in terms of positive and negative, but, but about whether mindsets are helpful or whether they're empowering or not. And so, you know, this kind of the, I agree with the, you know, the optimism and the impact that it, that it has on the way that, that we see the world. But I'd be wary of toxic positivity. You know, this is not about plastering a smile on one's face and kind of, you know, showing up. Oh, happy, you know, happy, happy, happy. That's, I, I think that's not where it's at in terms of mindset. So where it's at in terms of mindset for me is about really looking a bit deeper at what our beliefs and assumptions are about the world and how they were made up. Recognizing that those, the frame, the lens to which we see the world is not the truth, it's just the lens. It's just a set of glasses that we put on. So, you know, let me give you an an example. I was working with the director of, uh, one of the lmh businesses a while ago. And, and she had a belief when we examined it that she was only in her position because her boss knew her. She'd worked with her in a previous organization. So her belief when we examined it was, I'm only here because my boss knew me. Right. Well that's really interesting cuz you can reframe that and you can look at that differently. What about your only here because your boss knew you, right? So she had, of course your boss only employed you because she knew how fantastic you were and what great work you doing, amazing reputation, personal experience of how fabulous you are. Yeah, thanks. All of a sudden, should that reframe completely changed the way she looked at it? She went, oh, okay,<laugh>, okay. And so that's ch literally changing the pair of glasses to look at things differently. And so, you know, that gives you a completely different view of things, doesn't it? If you think that you don't really deserve the position, you're only there, you know, because of a relationship. It's a different set of glasses when you look at it and go, I'm only here because my boss and you have fantastic, I was right. Suddenly that makes all sorts of different things possible. And so I encourage my clients to look at whether the mindsets they hold are empowering or not. And given that it's all made up, right? We don't know what the truth is. There isn't really a truth, it's all made up. So what are we making up? Let's make up stories that are already helpful to us in being who we wanna be in the world. So I am good enough, I can learn and grow, you know, I have unlimited potential. My voice matters. You know, all of these are really empowering ways of seeing the world that I think obviously then have a big impact in terms of how you show up and you know, your question is about how you excel well, you know, you're gonna be successful. It's really helpful to have a set of beliefs that enable that rather than get a new way. Yeah, no, completely, gosh, feel like I want to go and um, by mountain enough<laugh> and then it's quite, it's really helped me. Yeah, exactly. And then, you know, before you actually get to those empowering beliefs, it's, it's looking at what they are and then acting as if that was the case and seeing how the world responds to you. You know, given it's all made up, let's act as if yeah, this, that or the other and see, you know, see what difference you get. And before long you find that actually that's really helpful.<laugh>. Yeah, no, amazing. And look, business has changed. I think, I don't know, uh, whether Covid played a part in this or not. I know that there was a lot of research at the beginning of Covid showing that all consumers were much more empathetic and, you know, grateful. And I think that kind of stayed and then it dipped again. But definitely things have changed a lot in the world of work when it comes to things like authenticity, empathy, you know, leaders are expected to be, you know, to exhibit those traits and, and businesses are expected to sort of act in this way as well, quite rightly. I mean, has this changed the way that you coach? Does it show up in your coaching? I'm sure that it does. That's a great question. Yeah. Let's just pause a moment in terms of how has the world changed? I think there are two things going on which have fundamentally shifted both the world of work. And of course then the way that leaders need to lead to be effective. The, the first, I think the pandemic really has changed people's expectations about living a meaningful life, living a connection with other humans, the things that are important. People had a chance to stop and, and, and examine what's really important to me here. And some of the corporate facades that we had before got stripped away. People do expect different things in terms of the psychological contract with their organizations and with their leaders now. And then, you know, the second big shift for me in organizations that's coming that we're just really beginning to see now is ai. And that's going to totally change the face of leadership and, and the world of work. I mean, it's already having an impact in terms of people using strategy and things like that. But you know, AI essentially means that all the hard skills, the things that people saw as strategic around, you know, data analysis and you know, thinking about strategic decisions and recommendations for the future and all that kinda stuff that the senior leaders have prize themselves on will be done by ai. And actually, you know, leaders of the future will need to be able to, to use that data, but fundamentally they will be employed in future for their soft skills, so for their, their leadership soul. So for me it'll be, I lovely idea of leadership soul in organizations. Actually the thing that's coming to the for that's really important that AI can't do and won't be able to do is this stuff. It's the soft skills. It's certain the ability to connect with people, to care about people, to inspire people, you know, to motivate and mobilize people towards a compelling future, you know, and there isn't a robot that's, you know, that's ever going to be able to do that. So I think things really have shifted quite fundamentally, but they're going to continue to shift. We're in a period of massive change that scale that's really gonna continue and accelerate. And so I think this kind of the desire for leaders to be able to empathize to, you know, be strong and courageous and yet vulnerable to, you know, communicate clear direction and listen to their teams, you know, to be able to drive performance and also demonstrate empathy and understanding, be able to generate profit but also focus in the short term but focus on a sustainable future. All of these things are coming to the floor. So your question really was about how my coaching has changed. I think now, my coaching over the last 20 years has always been about connecting with the needs and concerns of the client in front of me. What's shifted is the needs and concerns of the clients in front of me. So that's really interesting. I find that my clients now are open to a deeper exploration. They're less interested in a behavioral performance focus and they're more interested in seeking meaning, seeking purpose, seeking connection. And so, you know, my coaching has become much more about developing your leadership soul. And that for me that's about a connection with a, an expanded self, a higher self. So my coaching really focuses on that now. Well, a couple of things. I have to say, leadership soul is one of the most fantastic things I've heard in recent times. And if it isn't trademarked, I think it needs trademark really quickly. Thanks. I just came up with that the other day actually. Do you look, look title, I mean come on. This is fun. This speaks to, this just speaks to exactly everything that I'm trying to have conversations about and the, the things that are bothering me that I think are coming up time and time again about how, you know, our world is sort of geared up in a certain way, which isn't necessarily the optimum way for us to live as humans that we're supposed to be living. And then you've got capitalism and patriarch, blah, blah, blah. But I think, yeah, what you are saying makes me feel incredibly hopeful that people are coming to you wanting to sort of work on these issues also, that this is the way the world is working and that this is something that AI can't operate. And then also, I mean, just from personal experience of, you know, some of my team that I've worked with who are these fantastic, I mean, I don't wanna generalize, but these Gen z I won't say kids cause it sounds, sounds negative, but you know, they're very strong young people and their values are just completely different and quite rightly so. Like, they don't wanna hustle. They, they, they will work very hard and they will grind, they give everything to their job. But equally like they go early in the morning to meditate, they go to bed early, you know, they're constantly questioning, you know, where is my meaning in this? Like where, where's our meaning? Well we have conversations on the daily about meaning and purpose and how do we find that? Yes. You know, essentially our job in PR is often to sell stuff to people. Stuff that they might not, they can't afford. And that that really, that can really drain you if that's not, you know, your sort of values and your, how you choose to live. So how can we find meaning and the stories that our clients are telling And we established really in incredible conversations though. I mean this whole topic is making me feel hopeful. Yeah, absolutely. And there are two things in that. One is to deal with Gen Z now and generation Z now leaders need to be leading in a different way that appeals to this desire for meaning and connection, but also, you know, thinking about who's gonna lead us in future. You know, these, these generation said that aren't going to do the things that some of our generation have done in terms of sacrificing self for the corporate<laugh>, you know, the corporate machine. You know, that just doesn't work for them. And so if we wanna have leaders of organizations in the future, we really have to be doing things quite differently to appeal to those people, to want to be leaders. Yeah, very much so. And that was the point actually that I was gonna make when I I ran outta steam was that best Gen Z is their one day gonna be like the CEOs, aren't they? So they're gonna bring a very different perspective into it. I saw a stat recently, which was, gosh, it was a bit depressing. It said something like, I don't know, something like 80% of women they're gonna drop out of the workplace or they're gonna pull back because they don't see the female, the female leaders they see it's not something they wanna emulate in terms of yeah, you know, 12 hour days, never seeing your kids. Like if you choose to have kids, you know, not seeing your family, not being able to explore your passions outside of work. I spoke that Anne Hs, um, recently, she's the lady who was Jeff Bezos's number, you know, right, right-hand were burned. And she worked at Google with Eric Schmidt and she said something to me which was, you know, your job has to give as much to you as you give to it. It's just like a bomb going off in my head. I was like, I've just, cause I'm from the different generation, you know, my mentality was, you know, you work, you work, you work, you give your job everything, you know, you're lucky to be here. You know, it's, it, it very much wasn't at all about what I was getting from it, you know, I was getting a paycheck and you know, if I was lucky I would rise through the ranks and you know, I should be grateful for that. Whereas that is just not the mindset we need to have at all. And the thought that my job should give something to me, I was like, oh yeah, of course it should, but of course it should<laugh> so we don't, I just, my programming was all different. And that's often the case, right? Yes. I think it's fascinating and actually, you know, I encourage my clients to, to see work as another means of their own growth. So our personal growth doesn't just kind of happen outta work. Actually everything that we do is a curriculum for our greater expansion and work is there's, you know, there's no greater kind of challenge to the human, human self and the human soul than some of the experiences that we, that we have at work. And if we think about it in the right way, it's a wonderful tool for expansion growth and, and you know, becoming a bigger, better versions of ourselves. Yeah. Sometimes we need that. Right. I think I wanted talk to you about your method. Cause you have this method which just sounds fantastic and it's called Success Accelerated. And you say that it's the art and science of transforming your inner gain to rapidly achieve aligned real world results using cutting edge change, change technologies to enable you to become aware, eliminate limiting beliefs and step into your full potential to create the life and business you seek. I mean, this just sounds absolutely incredible. I mean, you know, I'm just a sat here, what can I sort of take away from this? What are three things now that I could start doing or we could start doing to change our situations at work if they're not working for us? Yeah, great question. So let me learn that for you if I can. I think it's, I'm gonna give you three things and first of all to understand what it's based on. So my work is based on, on the, uh, the mindset that the way we see things, and we talked about that just a, just a moment ago, affects what happens out there. And so, you know, our life is kind of a, a printout and a mirror image, if you like, of what's going on in us. And so, you know, my beliefs about the world shape, how I interact with it, they shape what shows up for me, they shape what's possible for me. So for example, if I'm somebody who has a belief that if I don't do it, nobody will, then I'm gonna have to drive really hard to make stuff happen. I'm gonna have to be pushy, I'm gonna have to, you know, I'm not gonna trust life. I'm actually gonna micromanage the universe to make things happen. Yeah,<laugh>, I know lots of us and lots of us, you know, successful people tend to have this orientation to the world, right? It's, I'm gonna drive it, I'm gonna make it happen. But actually it's a lot to carry and it's tiring, exhausting. I mean, yeah, I'm side eyeing myself here,<laugh>. Exactly, you know, what we're not doing. It's allowing and getting in flow with the things that need, that want to emerge at the right moment and allowing things to happen, allowing the universe to kind of step forward and support us and, you know, and other people also to step forward and support us in, in making things go. So that's just a little example of how I see the world can kind of make a difference to what's possible for me. And we know that about 95% of our life is run outta unconscious patterns. And those unconscious patterns were laid down in your very early years, so they weren't even laid down by you, right? So your unconscious programming on which you run your life and which gives you what shows up in your life was a program that was installed by your parents, by, by other people that you interacted with early on. And you're running it completely unconsciously, most of the time you're not even aware of what those patterns are. So what I do with my clients, and this is your, you know, this is the success accelerated methodology is three things. It's around becoming aware of what your, your patterns are. It's around connecting to the most expanded version of yourself and acting from there. And then it's about programming your future to actually actively create the future that you want. So I'll just say a little bit more about each of those three so you kind of understand a bit more about what the, the method is. So, so the first of those around becoming more aware, what I encourage my clients to do is to really notice their triggers and to use that as a, a clue to what needs, what needs healing or what they, what, what's showing up for you and where the work is for you to do. So, I really like the work of Dr. Gabel and he's got beautiful metaphor. If you imagine a gun, a fully loaded gun, the trigger on a gun is really small, right? And what happens is that when the trigger is first, the fully compacted and compressed explosives in the barrel detonate, right? And so it can be a small thing, but it can create a big explosion. But actually, you know that you are the gun. You, you are fully packed and loaded and sometimes it only takes a small trigger to make that explode. And it's not the other person who's packed with the explosives, it's you. And so actually what I encourage my clients to do is to look at what are the triggers, what are the things where they're exploding? What are the things, what are the patterns that keep repeating that indicate that there may be something helpful here for us to unpick and change. One of my own personal patterns that I've had for a long time obviously is around being personally vulnerable and and asking for support with things. You know, I've got a pattern that says, I don't need you, you can't help me, I don't need you, you can't help me. But that only kicks in when I'm feeling really vulnerable. I become the isolated little girl who just says, right, you know, I'm gonna do this on my own and it's really helpful for me to recognize the situations in which that gets triggered, where it shows up and you know, then I kind of turn to myself and I recognize my nine year old self having a good time, having a<laugh>, having a tantrum in response to feeling like they're not getting their head needs met. And just kind of be with that a little bit and go, oh, okay, thank you very much. That's not really appropriate in this situation. Really, you know, 50 something that would be much be much more helpful just to say to somebody, Hey, you know what? I'm really struggling with this. It might be really lovey on the support for your inputs. So that's the first thing, noticing triggers. The second is then what you do with that is to connect to what I call your most expanded version of yourself. People call this the higher self, but fundamentally what it is is me on a good day, me at my best. You know, we all have those days where everything's rocking and rolling. We're completely in a flow, we, you know, things are just, it's great, it's all going really well. And what I encourage my clients to do is really get connected with what that looks and feels like for them. So they are able to bring that state into challenging situations. So, you know, at my best I know that for me I'm courageous, I'm inspiring, I'm warm, I'm alive, I'm fun, I'm funny, all of these things. So there's plenty of days where I'm none of those things<laugh>, but you know, but at my best, I'm all of those things. How do you encourage your, how do you get your clients to kinda is, is it like a visualization thing where, you know, I'd be playing tennis then I'd be like walking off the call like having just been amazing. Then I'd go and see some friends, then I'd run amazing at Ben. Like is it, is it a visual thing? Like how does it work exactly? Well some people are really great at visualization for other people it's more about feeling, but what I get my clients to do is to identify through two or three situations where they've been absolutely at their best and just kind of elaborate that for me. So kind of talk me through it. What was the state, how did you feel? What was that like? You know, how did you experience yourself? What was your state of being? And then we get some words that really capture that and that helps people define what I call the energetic signature, which is this energetic signature of me at my best, my higher self. And it's really useful to bring that into our conscious awareness because the more aware we are of that and the more we know how that feels, the more we can use that state, we can generate that state before we then go and do difficult things. So, you know, if we're going into, I dunno, a difficult conversation or we're going into a board meeting or we're going through something that's hard, it's really great to be going into it from a place where I am at my best or I'm courageous, I'm inspiring, I'm, you know, connected, I'm fun, all of those things rather than small and nervous<laugh> and I'm not good enough and all of the hell of the other bits. And so it's, it's about really elaborating that. So that's the second part, getting really clear about what your higher self looks like and being able to connect with this at will. And the third is about pre-programming your future. So this is based on the idea that we're energetic being and that what we think about and the frequency if you like, at which we resonate, which we vibrate ourselves, has an influence on what occurs around us. And so what we attract to us like attracts like, and so if you're on a certain energetic frequency, it's like kind of tuning in a radio, you know, if you're a certain energetic frequency, you're gonna pick up that, that station. And it's the same with us, with us as human beings. And I think actually, you know, we don't use the power of our minds enough to create our futures. And so when we're done with kind of clearing up the past and the triggers and we kind of we're aware of what, of the higher self that we're wanting to, to act from, then actually it's about kind of projecting forward and thinking about different situations that we're gonna experience and how we want those to turn out. So I'll give you an example of that. Before I moved to Dubai, I did a meditation every morning where I imagined meeting my kind of people and every morning I'd, I'd just sort of imagined these different people that would come into my life and how it would feel to meet them and what they'd be like and the sorts of things that we'd do. And got really connected and present with that. And the moment I moved to Dubai and just the very moment I moved to Dubai, I started getting kind of connections and messages and invitations to things that were really from my kind of people. And since I've been here, I've just met nothing but my tribe. It's been really extraordinary. But I firmly believe that that was cause of the, the sort of pre-programming that I did. And we can use this for all kinds of situations, you know, so we're going to a work event, it's a networking event. Everybody hates networking events, don't, I think they're kind weird if we don't hate networking events, I hate networking events, but I, them and I date, I think, wow, think wow, wouldn't it be amazing to meet somebody that I got really connected with you, somebody where I really shared some interests and you know, just meet somebody who would be on my wavelength and I call up my energetic signature and then I go to the event and lo and behold I tend to, I tend to meet those, those kinds of people. So I think, you know, using the power of the mind to create the future that we really want for ourselves is the third part of the technique. Amazing. Gosh, sounds fantastic. Yeah, I love this energetic signature that you talk about and kind of like, I mean, it, it makes such sense and of course we should do it, but I think just in the general melay of day-to-day life and you've got meetings, deadlines, I've gotta do this deck or someone needs me to check this and then, oh you've gotta go and have a meeting with the ceo. Like, I think it's hard to then you, you just skip into it, right? You're just like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah. But actually having that pause and be like, okay, I need to gather myself, I need to get my mind in the right space before I do that allows you to be a lot more intentional and that that Kelly should be summarized. And actually the more practice we get with it, the easier it is for us to call up that stage of being and the less time it takes, it just takes a few moments for us to reconnect with what we know about ourselves at our best and bring back that stage and then we can, you know, go straight into that meeting with the board or whatever in, in a great place. Yeah, that muscle memory, once you've worked the muscle memory it, it definitely is easier to go back to it for sure. So can you give me a couple, I'm sorry to keep just, just asking you for tips and, and you've got so much experience. I just wanna ask you so many questions about this is life is really stressful, especially at the moment. You know, the world's in a horrible, hideous place. I mean we're very lucky in the UAE every day are so lucky to be here. But if people are feeling the squeeze, you know, if you've got a family, you know you are trying to pay your rent, there's a cost of living crisis, you know, trying to support ourselves. I mean, how can we sort of try and stay grounded and connected to what's important to us and not lose sight of what is important to us in the midst? All this, you know, general just living and doing, how do we stay connected to what's important to us? It's a great question cuz already the focus on how we ground and get connected to what's important is the thing. So paying attention to that. So, you know, grounding, I think it's really simple. It's about getting off your phone, getting away from the, the laptop and getting out into nature even for a really short period of time. Go find a horizon to adjust your eyes, to take your shoes off and feel some grass under your feet. If you're lucky enough like we are to live in the uae, go find some sand, you know, we can get your feet in the sand and once you're doing it, just grieve and allow yourself to come down out of your head. Where, let's face it, most of us in the in corporate life spend most of our times in our head come down out of your head into your body and just connect your body through breathing and through touching something natural. I think that's an incredibly grounding thing to do. It doesn't actually need to take terribly long, just need to take a few minutes to get up and go out, go outside and, and pay attention to that. So I'd say that's the first thing. Second thing I'd say is around practice of developing your presence. And what I mean by that is your presence with yourself. I think we lose presence with ourself. We're so busy flying around the place and, and, and you know, really kinda overstimulated that we don't listen, take time to listen to our inner voice. And actually that's a practice of stillness, of just taking, again, taking a moment. These things don't need to be very long. Taking a moment to disconnect and to breathe and to get still and to come into reconnection with yourself and ask yourself, get connected with your own gut, being in your own intuition, you know, what's going on here. One activity I love is I do this in the morning is I put my hand on my heart and I just connect with my heart and I breathe a few times into my heart and I just say my heart, you know, how are you, what, what do you have for, you know, what do you, what do you need me to know today? And just getting that, yeah, the reconnection with our heart being heartfelt. I think that's, we've talked a lot about mindset and I think we spend a lot of time in our minds and getting any practice where we get reconnect with our bodies, I think is, is really helpful. So, you know, these simple grounding, breathing, yoga, you know, any of those things are really helpful. And then the third invention perspective, I would talk with my clients about doing something which I call getting on the balcony. You know, we spend so much time on the dance floor in among, in the, in, in amongst everything dancing, dancing away like crazy to the music. And actually I encourage people to get onto the balcony and look down and different perspective's. Taking step stop moment and step perspective is everything. There's a technique called open awareness. And in corporate life we tend to get incredibly focused just on a very narrow set of things in front of us, of our, you know, our males and our tasks. And actually what the, the reason we lose perspective is we can't have perspective when we're just, when we have such a narrow focus. And so open awareness is about expanding our focus out to take in a broader perspective. And it's a very simple thing to do. You can actually kind of take your hands in front of your face and just move them out to the side until they get to the outer peripheries of your vision and hold it there for a second and literally kind of soften your focus and expand your focus to take in a broader perspective. It's a really simple technique that takes very little time to do, but actually we look at things completely differently when we look at them from an expanded perspective because we're then able to take in the periphery, we're able to take in the context. And so often in, in leadership, we're so focused on content that we completely lose context. And actually context is everything. So taking these moments and from that perspective, think about what are my priorities? Not from the narrow, very closed. Yeah, exactly. Expand the perspective and then think about what's important to me from this point of view. You see different things. Gosh, both such useful tips. Thank you. So I love the hard one hand on the heart. I think that's really lovely. I've recently started and also connecting with yourself. Recently I've started driving home from work in silence. I'm a big podcast listener, I love podcast. So I'm, I've always, I've always seen the car as, you know, it's, it's another place I must have waste the time. Let me listen to an audio book, let me have a podcast on, let me optimize every little bit of time that I have. And then last couple of days I've just literally driven home in silence and D's actually got me humming. Sometimes I feel very conscious about humming, just, you know, I'm always, there's always someone around like the office at home. No one could hear me if I humming the car. So this, yeah, I mean obviously you can pull up alongside me at the traffic lights, just don't look at me in case I'm pulling some weird face. But I just, yeah, silence is very powerful. And just being with yourselves and you know, I don't really watch no doing absolutely nothing at the lost Art of doing nothing. Nothing<laugh>, I mean, yeah, when was the last time? I mean, because yeah, we've got a million things to do and then the guilt of everything that you've got to do. But yeah, in the car all I can do is drive and, and then and just be, oh, was such a, I had like half an hour of just complete silences obviously apart from the traffic. Very refreshing. And yeah, this is a question I've really wanted to ask you and I think you're gonna have something great to tell me on this. And especially this podcast, part of the reason why I set it up is I'm constantly struggling with, you know, I want to live a spiritual life. I want to live a life with meaning. But that's often, you know, there's the cut and thrust of the corporate world and, and the demands it places on me. It's often at odds with that. And, but what I'm hearing you say is that actually there's a way for the two to coexist a lot more. And it's coming through a lot more in your coaching, which makes me feel very hopeful. So how can we, and how, how do you, for example, balance your spiritual needs and your desires with this very corporate world that you go into, these very high level CEOs that you are coaching, how do you manage to balance them? Can we balance them? Tell me how you handle it. Such a great question. I love it. So I think it begs a further question, which is what do we mean by a spiritual? What do we mean by a spiritual life? And you know, my answer to that is, a spiritual life is one that keeps our inner light alive. And what I mean by inner light is, is the light of our consciousness that connects us with ourselves, with other human beings and with, with the universe. And I think you know what you've pointed out, it's so true. You, our day-to-day life, too many males, overwork, smartphone, relentless, bad news, kind of numbing routines, pressure demands, all of these things has an extinguishing effect on our inner light. And so I think we need intentional practices to focus on that inner light and, and keep it alive. We keep that connection with ourself, with others and, and with the universe. And I think some of the things that we've already talked about are great ways of doing that. But there's a wonderful quote from Eckhart Foley, who I absolutely love, who says, know what sparks the light in you and then use that to illuminate the world. And actually for all of us, what sparks the lightness will be different. And yeah, for some of us it'll be shaking things up, getting outta routine, doing, taking, you know, go do something different, completely different, take a different route. Hey, I'm genuine simple things. Just shake up the routine a little bit, take some time out, you know, do something that's restorative. Do something that helps you rekindle. Do something that's fun. Right.<laugh>, I mean, just have some fun, actually is one of the best ways to, to kind of rekindle ourselves. And I think, you know, the demand is as, as leaders is for us to, to shine brightly, not as egos, you know, uh, because we are wonderful, but actually to illuminate the spark in other people. And to do that, we have to keep the spark in our, in ourselves alive by being really fully awake and really connected with, with the things that, uh, that are meaningful and matter matter to us. Amazing. And look, you're so wise and you're so full of incredible energy when I speak to you. I mean, do you ever wake up in the morning and just think, I just can't do this today? I mean, I just feel like rubbish, like life is awful. Or do you just like ping out of bed every day? Like, is this this flip environment? And if you do have, if you do have bad days, yeah. How do you handle them? How do you motivate yourself to get through them? Look, we all have bad days. It's a part of a human condition, isn't it? Sometimes we just wake up and sometimes I wake up and, and think I can't do life. It's not that I can't do the work that I did fact, I never think I can't do the work that I do because actually there's the connection with other human beings. No matter how bad I feel, the connection immediately brings me back to my light and to my purpose. So, so I never think, I can't do clients, but I sometimes wake up and think I can't do life. And in fact, you know, I was married for 10 years and I got divorced about five years ago. Since then, I've had moments of quite high anxiety. I think, you know, kind of navigating the world solo without the sort of the backup team of a safe harbor of a of a marriage, you know, it's can be, it can bring up a lot of fear. I feel fearful sometimes in, in my life. And, you know, when the anxiety rises then I have techniques that, that help with that. And so I do a few things as a regular practice to keep myself where I need to be, to be able to show up as a light for my, for my clients. The first two days is exercise. I exercise every single day. I move, I do something every morning because that really helps to keep, to keep the anxiety down and keep you in, in the right place. I meditate, you know, I meditate every day and I get connected with other people. Those are the things that really help me to be able to handle all of the things that, you know, the challenges that life throws at death. But, and do you always want to exercise, but you do, do you just not always want to, but you do anyway? It's a commitment I have to a regular practice. And it's what's interesting, non-negotiable. It's a non-negotiable. Absolutely. I start the day with half an hour of movement every single day. It's just, it's not, that's not a chore, it's just what I do. And actually the wonderful thing about habits is that if we do them for long enough, they just become part of our routine and then we don't have to think about it. So, you know, if you're in a place where you have to decide whether you're gonna go to the gym or not, not, you're probably not gonna go to the gym, right? There's no decision to be made. This is what I do, you know? So I get up the first thing, I have a a morning routine. I'm a big kind of routines actually. So I have a morning routine that involves some, some meditation and reconnecting with, with self and with the, with cosmic. And then I do some exercise, and then I do some reading and writing. And that's my morning routine. And you know, I know for a lot of people, the hustle and bustle of family life and yeah. And you get out and get to a, to a corporate job makes that challenging. But it's about a commitment. It's about what your priorities are and how do you make time to do that. You know, maybe you need to go to bed a little bit earlier and get up a little bit earlier.<laugh> watch one last episode of, of whatever it's that we're tuned into right now and go to bed. Yeah, no, I agree. One of my friends recently said something, she's, she's kind of transformed. She's gone through this whole like journey and she's lost loads of weight, she's got super fit and it's fantastic. And she said, she gets a lot of questions from people saying, oh, but how did you find an exercise that you really enjoyed? Like, I just don't like any of it. And she said, I kind of feel like we're that, that that's the wrong question. Like, like you're saying, it's like a commitment that you make. And she said, you know, I, I don't enjoy every workout. You know, sometimes it's hard and it's tough, but I do it anyway. And because I know that I'm gonna do it anyway, I just do it. Which is kind of like my mindset. Often I'm driving to the beach for a run and literally as I'm driving there, I'm like, don't wanna do this. I'm too tired. It's gonna be too, at the moment, it's gonna be too hot and I'll have to really stop myself. Well, I'm gonna do it anyway. So either you moan and make it harder<laugh> or you just get on with it, Kelly and just do it anyway because you're just making it harder for yourself here. So, yeah. And do I really wanna drag myself up to the cross trainer at seven in the morning when I've done school drop off? No, I don't really. I'm much rather sit and eat a bagel, but I'm just not. I love that Tony Robbins not negotiating with yourself Business. I mean, he's, he's extreme. I'm not that extreme at all. Like there definitely days when I don't, I mean I probably manage four days a week, but this kind of like just getting on and doing it and it's just a non-negotiable and then it's just, it's habit. I agree. Life gets better when we act outta commitments, you know? And that we have those, those commitments. So in this case, it's a commitment to feeling great and to, you know, knowing that that is a route to it. And therefore it's a, it's a commitment. That's what I'm gonna do. Yep. You're gonna feel great afterwards, so don't worry about the bit that you have to do to get through that is not always gonna belo around on a yoga man and having a fantastic, yeah, a really easy run. Often they're not easy for me at all. I'm not a natural runner. Am I enough about my exercise routine? I'm interested to know like in the last five years or so, cause I feel like you are kind of totally up to date with, you know, new beliefs and you've got this growth mindset. Is there anything new that you've adopted that's really improved your life? Yeah, in terms of beliefs, for me, the belief that a founder has made, the biggest difference recently has, has been that we are energetic beings having a physical experience. And as such, we get to experience the joy of this world. So that drives me to want to be, to savor it, to go and experience the, the awe of a sunset to kind of get in touch with the, the beauty of a, of a and be awake for it. I know that there's only so long that I'm going to be in this form on this, on this earth. And actually, you know, when I return to nonphysical form, that's my belief. Whatever, you know, I know other people have other beliefs about what is, but when I return to nonphysical form, I won't be able to experience these things. And so actually I want to experience all of them now and I want to be awaken alive for them. So that's, you know, that in terms of beliefs, that's the first they, in terms of behaviors, the, it's back to the conversation we were just having. Actually, the thing that's been transformative me over the last couple of years, um, since lockdown actually has been, um, lifting heavy weights. And I've always been an exerciser, but I've always stayed clear of lifting heavy things and now I lift really heavy weight. So, you know, I can dead lift my own body weight. Um, my goal is here is to be able to do unassisted pullups, which, you know, uh, involves a, yeah, a certain, a certain degree of, of arm strength through a weight ratio, which, you know, has been sadly lacking in, in the past. But I'm, but I'm going there. And you know, what is really clear to me is that taking care of the body has an incredible effect on the mind, and particularly lifting heavy weights. It does something, it releases something into our bloodstream that, that neurobiologists have been talking about recently, which just makes us feel happier. And that's why I do it. But it also makes you look awesome. So, uh,<laugh><laugh>, which is always a bonus, right? Yeah. Those sleeveless dresses are Yeah. Are gonna be a lot more attractive to you afterwards. Yeah, no, this is so interesting. This is so interesting. There's one other thing actually that's made a massive difference to my life. I'm doing it on a regular basis and that's meditation. I sort of alluded to it, but I'd, I'd scarfed around it for kind of 20 years and I'd tried a bit here and there and just never a really kind of click with it. But actually I do a really simple practice and it was one, pretty much talked to me by my nephew Milo, who's who when he was six, he suffers with autism words. He has, I mean, I don't autism. Um, so he's neuro divergent and the, you know, the world gets pretty overwhelming for him quite quickly. And he's been taught a technique which he calls letting the world sounds in when he sits cross legs with his, his kind of fingers together. And he just lets the sounds of the world and he focuses on the darks cracking in and the bees buzzing and the trees are rustling and the birds tweeting and all of these things. And it's just a wonderful technique for just getting present with what's out there around. And actually, you know, what it does for him is it calls his overheated mind and gives him that moment to come back into presence. And you know, what I find is that regular meditation just allows, it does exactly that. It, it kind of, it stills the minded, it detaches me from the content of my thoughts in a way that allows new insights to come to the fore. And it helps me be calmly, you know, in slow and be really present. So the thing that I always recommend to my clients is that they integrate some kind of stillness practice. It only has to be 10 minutes. I can hear every, again, we've got time to meditate, when am I gonna meditate this and other before I get to work? Ok, 10 minutes. Anybody can find 10 minutes in their life, right? So I recommend an app called Waking Up by Sam Harris to get started, which has a 10 minute daily meditation. You don't even have to kind of know what you're doing, you just listen along through it. And it's, uh, it's really great for bringing that, that stillness into my life now. I completely agree. And that's the kind of practical advice that I live for doctors. Um, her frid from the lighthouse, who was also one of my guests, she does it for 11 minutes. There's some science about 11 minutes being better than 10. But anyway, I mean, I think as long as it's, yeah, I mean by, yeah, it's not competition, but I, but she always said to me, cuz I I was the same. I was like, I, I try, you know, I went on a course, I, I learned how I, yeah, I need to know I'm a need to know person. Like take me through the steps, but first few minutes is just not achievable for me. But 10 minutes is, or even sometimes I've got the Insight Timer app. Three minutes. Two minutes, great. Like in the car before you get out, if I get to a meeting early, you know, I'm sitting, a meeting gets canceled, I can just sit quietly. I get to work really early, I can sit for three minutes. Then before anyone comes in, tho those smaller by size amounts add up. And if you're feeling overwhelmed by the big cake, just take a small piece rather than, in fact three breaths, a long breath in, followed by an even longer breath out three times over has been shown to calm people's nervous system. Yeah. Wow. Crazy, right? Yeah, yeah. And everyone's got time for that. We're all breathing anyway. Come on guys. What have you become better at saying no to in the last five, two years? Five years? Alcohol. Oh, same<laugh>. I've said no completely to alcohol for the, for coming up for five years. And I have to say that sobriety is, I call it my superpower. It, it gives me wings. It's alcohol for me is the biggest distraction in life. You know, who needs life is hard enough. Who needs the added asset of having to be to, to be sort of working through a close couple of glasses of wine stage. You know, it's like, doesn't take, I'm quite a sense to be, it doesn't take very much to, to impact my state negatively. A couple of glasses of wine at night. I'm not gonna feel like getting up and doing the exercise that we talked about in the morning, which is gonna keep me in a great state. And so I cut it out all together and you know, I mean I think we all use kind of numbing techniques in one way or another. My own, I'm absolutely not perfect at all. And my next, the next one that I'm going to have to say no, two is my iPhone addiction. And so I'm working on that actively right now. It's so tempting to just kind of pick up and see what's going on. What does that look like actively? Are you, are you doing anything like putting it in another room or airplane mode? Yeah, airplane mode after a certain time at night in a different room, not allowing myself to even touch it. The moment I touch my iPhone, half an hour's gone<laugh>, it's like a vortex. A time stealing vortex. Even if I only went on it to look at one very important thing that I needed to look up. Oh, you know, I must find out this, I go to look up some interesting information before, you know, half an hour's gone, so don't, I know even touch it is my latest, uh, is this, I'm practicing it. I'm not, I'm definitely not there with it. No, I hear you loud and clear. Um, the other night I was like, I've just gotta send this one WhatsApp to this person who I didn't respond to A half an hour later I've watched 300 copy bar videos on Instagram. I mean, don't get me wrong there, but great. But like no, I could have been reading my book. Come on. That's very true. Yeah, I think loud and clear on that. I mean, if you could coach anybody, there's a lot of world leaders out there that I'm sure need, need a bit of coaching or, or a celebrity. I mean, is there anybody that would be your ideal coaching client? Charles third. He's somebody who has purpose in his life, right? And he was born to his purpose and yeah, he looks so miserable and he just so miserable. And I'd just love to help him find joy and freedom in his being, you know, he can maybe release some of his obvious trauma and<laugh> to enjoying his job. A lot of generational trauma to pick Well, yeah, I I love that you said him. I wasn't expecting that at all. Prince Harry came off in a previous podcast episode that I did cuz it was around the time of the book coming out and you know, I know how scathing people were about that book. I read it, I loved it, I read it from cover to cover and, and for me, it wasn't a book about hell all or gossip about the family, although that was, you know, theme I guess you could say. But it was all about the trauma, intergenerational trauma and hey, and you know, trying to heal from that, which I just found it very powerful. But, um, maybe do Harriet at the same time and then perhaps<laugh>, I'd love to do that. You know, bringing, bring new people together and holding space for different conversations is, is one of the things that I do in the workplace. So, so I think that would be it. But they might need a therapist for that one.<laugh>. Yeah, I think you a full team of many, many, many people. But I mean, hey, let's put it out there. You know, it's time in a year. You never know. Could you tell me about, you've mentioned a couple of sort of people that you've, you know, found really inspirational like the ga lattes of this world and Eckhart, are there any books that have really meant something to you that have shaped how you live, that you give as gifts maybe that you could tell us about? Pick a couple. Yeah, that, so there's, there's one book actually I'll mentioned that, that I really love for people that in leadership, which is called the 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership. And it's by a whole bunch of authors, Jim Desler, Diana Chapman, and Kayleigh Warner cle. And what I love about it is, well there's those of great things about it actually. It's how to live a more conscious life as a, as a leader. But the fundamental that it's based on is a model of the world, which I have found really transformational. It's the, the one thing that if I think I could describe making a big difference to the way I see the world, it would be this. And just in a nutshell, it's this. So that there are four different places from which we can see and experience the world. The first of those is to me. And so that's when we are at the effect of life. Life happens to us. And we all know people who, most people actually live in this state most of the time where circumstances occur. And it's, it's the circumstances that determine how we react to the world. When you start state radical responsibility for yourself and your and your life, it's the key then to moving to the second way of seeing the world, which is by me. And this is when we kind of get in a conscious partnership with life to create what we want to happen. So, you know, we become conscious creators and recognize that actually we do have an impact on what happens that life happens for us. We're very active participants in making that four occur. So, so that's the second when we begin to surrender, which I think is the next thing we kind of talk about, you know, giving up the control and driving, driving, driving. Actually when we get to a place of surrender and flow, then we can access the third state, which is called through me. And this is when we get really curious about what is actually bigger than me and what needs to be expressed through me. That's why it's, it's called Through Me. So looking, you know, what's the highest version of the world that actually needs expressions through me? So you're becoming present to what I call the field. It's the, it's the broader space, it's the interconnections between people and a more of an energetic realm. We're starting to get, you know, for, for people who are in a a to me mentality is actually a state of consciousness. It's very, very difficult to conceptualize that we have to do, we have to kind of progress through these to be able to experience what they, what they really are. But the last one, very, very few of us I think I've achieved is, but it's access through oneness is called asme and it's this sense of oneness. So actually there is no me, we are all one. We're totally interconnected and it's this state of really expanded consciousness that recognizes the, um, the reality of the world, which is that there is no separation. And that, um, the duality that we experience between ourselves and others is in fact an illusion that at certain, that a level of higher consciousness, we're all one, it is all one and we're all kind of energetic beings here are intimately create, connected together. But of course, you know, I don't really talk about this with leaders very often because, you know, most leaders and organizations are, are, are working at the, the two main moving to the by me. And sometimes they're through me stages of kind of consciousness. And so, you know, we work obviously with people where they're at, but recognizing that you, there are ways of expanding into something that is more fulfilling and more meaningful and has a greater impact on the, on the people around us in the world. Amazing gosh, what sounds like a fantastic book. Oh my made note of that one. Amazing. What do you think is your greatest achievement, Kate? A coach? It's really difficult to be aware of our greatest achievements because we work with people for a period of time and we see the kind of breakthroughs that they have and we know that something has shifted fundamentally. But then often a what happens is that those people go off and live their lives and we don't, we then get to find out what happens next. You know, sometimes we do. So like recently I had an email from somebody I'd worked with 10 years ago and he said, I just got tell you that that work that you, that we did together 10 years ago had such a fundamental shift in me. It had me be a developer of other people. And you know, that's at the core of my life now. And out of that I'm now, you know, I'm now the CEO o of an organization and I really prioritize other people's development. In fact, I'm setting up this whole program that's a transformational leadership program and it was all based on the work that we did together. And it's just like, wow, that was 10 years ago and it was just such a, you know, a humbling thing to know that this is small work that I did with somebody, it had an impact on them that had been rippled out into the world and now will have an impact on all these other people that will touch. And, you know, most of the time I don't even know about those things. So I hope that there are loads of great achievements out there that are, that are kind of actualized through other people and through the ripple effect of inspiring people and to see things differently. But, you know, the, I suppose the other thing I would say is that I really believe that my greatest achievement is yet to come. So one of the, the things that I think will I, I hope will be an achievement. And so I've started writing a book, it's called The Quantum Leader. Well this is the working title and the reason it's called the Quantum Leader is because a quantum is the smallest discreet possible unit of a phenomenon. So, you know, a a quantum of light is a, is a photon. What most leaders don't have, and we talked about this already is time. And so, so the idea behind the quantum leader is that it offers tools for the biggest possible leap in your energy and consciousness with the smallest possible in input. So if you like kind of bitesize transformation, and I'm gonna be distilling all the sort of tools and techniques for transformation for developing leadership soul. But I've been working, you know, with my clients on over the last 20 years into, into this playbook. I'm gonna call it a playbook cause actually it's about having some fun as who work through some of these, these things. So I hope that that will be, you know, creating a body of work that, uh, that that share is able to, that I'm able to share with people, um, more widely. Gosh, it sounds fantastic. I mean everything that we've been, you've been, we've been talking about sort of, you know, consciousness and energy and soul and how that comes into business and the corporate world. I just find personally super inspiring makes me feel very hopeful. But I also think, like you say, this is the direction the world is moving. Maybe not always fast enough, but it needs to move in. I mean to have that in a book, which is be fantastic. So I mean what, once you finish writing it, Kate<laugh>, let me know, come on, tell us all about it. I'm sure it won't take long<laugh> Well I'm putting it out there as a commitment now I've told everybody that this is what I'm, yeah, of course I actually have to do it. Which is a wonderful technique for, for getting oneself into action is make the commitment. Then of course then you have to follow through on it. Of course I have absolutely no doubt on you whatsoever. I have hundred percent belief. So, um, yeah, fantastic. And thank you so much for our conversation. I thought it was absolutely fantastic. So interesting, very uplifting and lots of practical tips as well, which I really appreciate and I know that my listeners do as well cause people wanna take something away that they can actually take and, and use in their own life as well. So thank you so much for that. Super. It's been a, a pleasure to chat with you Kelly, thank you very much for inviting me into this conversation.

Speaker 2: 1:04:51

Thanks so much for listening to the Good Intentions podcast. You can find links to issues and to books that we discussed in the show notes. And you can look for the podcast on Instagram. It's Good Intentions uae. Please do make sure you subscribe to the podcast and if you enjoyed this conversation, I'd so appreciate a review on whatever platform you're using. It helps more people find out about the podcast. See you next time.