Jaimie: Well, my guest today back by popular demand is the fabulous Liz Murray, now with over 25 years in executive leadership, Liz has worked with many exceptional leaders to help them take their success beyond what they did to think was possible. Now Liz does this through one to one coaching and I've had many sessions with leaders myself. Through leadership team programs and team workshops. Liz helps leadership teams get in sync with the common mission and inspire team members to take their productivity and creativity to the next level. And she does this using strategies that give leaders more time for what's important. Liz is passionate about empowering professionals to get unstuck. And find clarity in knowing the steps to take to move from where they are, to where they want to be in their career in their business relationships, and just in through life itself, through increased self awareness and a constant focus on strengthening emotional intelligence. Liz’s actually started her career or her leadership career in particular, as a school principal in a large Independent School, where she grew from five staff to over 90 across multiple sites and a wide geographic area with first hand experience in the complexities in growing a thriving team. Liz saw the value of using a coach to support and mentor her whilst in the role. Now Liz started her current business edge of possibilities in 2017 because she saw a gap in the market for professional coaches with is that leaders face her focus is on helping people identify their potential by mentoring and champion championing championing exceptional leaders to thrive in their work relationships and in life while strengthening their self awareness and emotional intelligence. What an intro Liz Murray, welcome to our podcast.
Liz: Thank you Jaimie and thanks for that fabulous intro. You've made me sound amazing.
Jaimie: You are amazing. You are amazing. And I guess I'm you know, having done quite a few sessions within myself and whenever I'm kind of feeling myself getting a little bit in a pickle in my business, I reached out to you. So just tell us you know, I know how you've helped me but generally speaking, entrepreneurs, small business owners, how do you help them in their business when they are either starting to feel something's creeping up, they're getting overwhelmed or they're losing their cool or they've been proactive and perhaps wanting to use your services? How do you help them?
Liz: Yeah, that's a great question, Jaimie. Because one of the challenges you have when you're working on your own is that you haven't got those people around you physically, that helping you remind yourself to regulate yourself a little bit. So when you're in a workplace, with people sitting around you or even in a shared office space, you're a little bit more conscious of the energy that you're putting out there and how you're impacting your environment. When you're on your own. You can get caught stuck in your own head and stuck in the distractions and things and not realise that the energy that you're putting out, even though you might be sitting in your own office at home, it's still energy that you're putting out there in your business. So even the way that you're interacting in emails, any social media posts, phone calls, client meetings over zoom, all of that kind of thing. If you're not sitting in a positive energy space in the way that you're being, then that is impacting your business and who you're being in that business. And so it's really important that we learn how to check in with ourselves. And notice that notice, notice, though, what we're putting out there what type of energy we're putting out there. And notice when we're getting triggered about things and being able to reel ourselves back in so it's so important that we have some self awareness around that kind of thing.
Jaimie: So something you said there, which I want to pick up on is this emotional regulation term and when I think of regulation and regulating so often, we think about my kids, you know, regulating their emotions. So is this can you sort of explain what that means when we're talking about adults?
Liz: Absolutely. Jaimie and I love that you mentioned about your kids because it's exactly the same thing that humans just like us. We're just bigger, bigger humans. Just because we're adults, doesn't mean that we are adulting in the way that we handle things all the time. We know sometimes when we're a little bit overtired, or we've got a lot on our plate, that we might drop our bundle more often and lose it every every now and then. However, sometimes when we're especially when we're on our own working on something, and we haven't got other people around us giving us feedback throughout the day. Sometimes our emotional regulation can kind of fall off a little bit and we don't even realise that were not behaving in the way that we think we are. And one of the things you know for me one thing that falls apart is my poker face. So I'm generally okay with having a good poker face when I'm interacting with someone and they say something that I completely disagree with or they're just not getting it and I'm, I've lost my patience with it. But if I'm spending more time on my own, and then suddenly I've got to deal with something like that. My poker face isn't as strong. And, you know, my real thoughts are a little bit more out there. But our emotional regulation is literally noticing, being able to notice when we're getting triggered by something, and then managing ourselves so that we can then respond rather than react to that situation. Exactly like we do with our kids. We expect our kids to be able to do it. But just because we're adults doesn't mean that we naturally do it all that well all the time.
Jaimie: So is it a case of you need someone to point it out to you? Or is there a matter of any sort of train yourself to identify when this is creeping up? And when you kind of need to take time out or get yourself in check.
Liz: You generally want to try and work toward being able to check in with yourself. Sometimes your life partner or a very close friend might be someone that will give you that link that blunt feedback around who you're being and how you're being. But in general, it's really important that we learn how to regulate for ourselves and notice for ourselves when we're starting to step away from that alignment with our best version of ourselves and be able to realise those back in some of it might be our phrases that we notice ourselves using it's often about our physiology. So the minute you notice yourself with your head down more, your neck is tensing up, your shoulders are forward, your body's leaning forward. There are signs that you're probably not regulating yourself really well. When we are very regulated. We tend to be able to sit back we're more open in our conversations. We're more relaxed with our facial expressions. And we're opening to the possibilities of the world out there. And in fact, just literally by tilting your head back a little bit, your mind is more open to thoughts and ideas. Sometimes when we're not regulating ourselves very well. We're headed down and we're trying to concentrate in the harder we think the less comes to us because there's the possibilities aren't there. They're up there in the universe.
Jaimie: Yes, so interesting. I love that. And so, obviously, being a great leader is something that is absolutely essential when you've got a team around you. A lot of people listening to this right now. Solo team members, you know, we are running our online businesses where a lot of the day we are sitting in front of a computer alone, that's why it's often an introverts paradise. You know, there's leadership skills and maybe engaging a leadership coach to come into play when you are a solopreneur.
Liz: Absolutely, because it's the thoughts running around in our head and what we make things mean that determines the success we have in all areas of our life. So whether it's in our career in our business, in our relationships with other people, whether it's intimate life, partner relationships, family relationships, friendship, relationships, or work, workplace relationships, and then just in life itself. So the way we're being in all of those things will impact the results and the experiences that we get to have so one of the things that we do in leadership coaching is we're asking questions to find out, help you help you recognise what your patterns are, when you're starting to go downhill a little bit so that you can start to recognise that and then pull yourself up and put some new things in place to replace those things that are might be triggering, but also sometimes you just need a good debrief with someone.
So sometimes the first step in leadership coaching is just for you to have that what we call a professional debrief and professional debrief doesn't mean there's no swearing and inappropriate content. There's often lots of that keeps it lots of fun. It's about choosing that one professional person or that one person to just let off steam with rather than going around gossiping to different people. And that's one of the things that really impacts us when we're working on our own. Because we can get stuck with a problem and we don't have people to check in with around us in the workplace to get our focus back on the task that we need to do. It's a great procrastination strategy to then start you know, Googling that person or looking at their social media if they're frustrated you and then talking to three other people about them, rather than getting on with the tasks that you need to do. So one of the things that leadership coaching helps you do is to debrief get that off your chest, say whatever needs to be said and be able to move through that frustration. And then move forward and shift your mindset to be more productive so that you can get shit done. And in a really concentrated and focused way.
Jaimie: So can you tell me about what some of the maybe common leadership mistakes are and selfishly, I've asked him for myself, how can I avoid them?
Liz: Absolutely. One of the most common ones is people that are really, really driven to get lots done and be a high achiever and tend to write you might write yourself a list of one of the exams. I think if you write yourself a list of 97 things, you only get 96 done so you beat yourself up because there's that one thing that you didn't get done. And so often what happens when we're we're leading and we're pushing ourselves to be that what we believe is the best version of ourselves. We think it's just about getting a lot done. When in fact, being a great leader is about how your what your self talk looks like and how you're recognising and acknowledging yourself for what you are doing well. So let's celebrate the fact that you did 96 things that's bloody epic. Let's get out there and celebrate that. And then the one thing so Okay, well, why didn't I get that one thing done? Is it something that's not urgent or important? Is it that I'm procrastinating because there's something I don't understand, or is it something that I should be delegating off to someone else anyway. So rather than beat yourself up about it, just put on a bit of an investigator hat and try and understand it a little bit more, rather than just focusing on the negative. So that would be probably the key thing that I see. In terms of people when when you're a little bit more isolated. And trying to lead yourself that's one big pressure that people put on themselves.
Jaimie: Do you think that women just what you describe them with the task list, the 96 things do you think women are more guilty of that are more prone to that kind of behaviour than what men are?
Liz: Generally I wouldn't say always, but definitely, it's a more of a feminine energy trait that people with high feminine energy tend to put a lot more pressure on themselves in that way, and can often be feminine energy can often be more distracted. So for example, if you work from home a great distraction strategies to do something like think I'll just do that three loads of washing and then I'll start this next task, because you don't really want like the next task that you need to do or whatever. Whereas masculine energy tends to be able to just get things done around them that that are important for the role. So yeah, just being aware of what you're letting us the way letting your mind go and how you so I'm a great procrastinator. I'm really good at procrastinating and I've got lots of practice at procrastinating so I can tell myself all kinds of stories to justify my procrastination. And you know, I often feel great at the time thinking oh, yes, well, I've I've earned this little break or I'll just wash that floor or whatever before I do the next task. But at the end of the day, I'm never happy if I haven't cut off though and done those top things that are really important for the day.
Jaimie: Yeah, is there anything else further you want to add? There's so much we could talk about I'm sure. A whole day's episode. When it comes to leadership. Is there anything else further you'd like to add about this particular area or any advice to give leaders out there business owners out there? Maybe in particular to avoid burnout?
Liz: Yeah, one of the one of the key things I'd say overall relating to everything is just be really conscious of who you're being to yourself. Because whoever you're being to yourself, that self self talk that you're hearing is the energy that you're projecting out to anyone that you're communicating with. So if you're putting yourself down constantly, you're impacting your own energy levels, you often will feel more exhausted at the end of the day because you're beating yourself up focusing on the gaps all the time. So just be really conscious of that energy. And when you do notice that you've been negative rather than beat yourself up, just notice it with interest in saying, oh, isn't that interesting? That's how I'm being because just noticing it is the first step in making the change toward being more positive and practising a little bit more self care around things.
Jaimie: Yeah, absolutely. So many great tips. I love what you have shared today. If you want to know more. I know Liz does zoom calls all over the world for aspiring leaders, business owners, team members, you can check her out. I'll pop the link to Edge of Possibilities in the show notes. But in the meantime, Liz Murray, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast today as always great listening to you. And thank you again for sharing your wisdom and knowledge.
Thank you so much for having me along. Jaimie I've really had a great time. Thanks for listening to Pitch Perfect.
