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How to Silence Your Inner Critic (and everyone else's while you're at it)
60 Plays5 months ago
Julie Smith is a sought-after coach who has been supporting leaders and teams to grow their impact for three decades. A 15+ year corporate career with Mars and PepsiCo gave Julie first-hand experience of what it takes to succeed in a demanding, fast-paced organization.
Julie is the author of Coach Yourself Confident, an encouraging and supportive guide for professionals who have aspirations to progress further in their careers, and who feel that a lack of confidence is getting in their way.
In this conversation, we covered:
- The cost of the self-doubt tax
- Why you might want to mark down people who regularly go above and beyond
- How to grow your own confidence
- What to do about lack of confidence in people you lead
- And the name Julie gives the nagging negative voice in her head…
You can find more about Julie Smith on her website: https://talentsprout.co.uk
And find her book here: Coach Yourself Confident: Ditch the self-doubt tax, unlock humble confidence
Click here to get your free copy of my Leader's Guide to Increasing Your Impact, Influence & Free Time
And if you enjoyed the Podcast, please subscribe, share with someone who might benefit - and if you’re feeling very generous leave a rating and review!
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Transcript
Julie's Award and Self-Doubt
00:00:03
Speaker
This plant director once gave me an award when I was part of his team, the ABCD award with ABCD standing for Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. And that was like my calling card that what I did to compensate for a lack of confidence was put in an enormous amount of effort and work and exceed expectations on everything. That's how I quietened the self-doubt.
00:00:31
Speaker
You can't work in this way, ongoing. It's actually not acceptable from an organization point of view. It's quite exhausting.
Podcast Introduction and Goals
00:00:41
Speaker
Welcome to the show. I'm Corinne Hines. On the Visible Leader podcast, I talk to guests who are rethinking the status quo of leadership. Together, we will be debunking myths, challenging assumptions, and looking at alternative ways to get results.
00:00:59
Speaker
And I'll be helping you turn their wisdom into practical advice you can put into action straight away.
Julie's Corporate Journey
00:01:10
Speaker
This week I had a great conversation with Judy Smith. She has had a 15 plus year corporate career with Mars and PepsiCo. That means she knows exactly what it's like to succeed in a demanding and fast paced organization.
00:01:26
Speaker
Now she's helping other leaders grow their impact and she has written a book all about the subject we covered in this episode, which is confidence.
Confidence Gap and Imposter Syndrome
00:01:37
Speaker
You might think that senior leaders with significant competence would always have matching levels of confidence, but I'm not so sure.
00:01:50
Speaker
Often when I meet leaders, there can be a real gap between how they project and actually how they feel inside. And a lot of that is to do with confidence and imposter syndrome. So if that resonates with you, this episode is going to be really useful, but also if you have people in your team that you can see they have varying levels of confidence, this is also going to be useful for helping you know what to do with them.
Julie's Corporate Confidence Struggles
00:02:21
Speaker
Really great to have you on my show, Julie. Welcome. Thank you very much. Very happy to be here. So I said that you have had this career in the corporate world and it was fast paced and demanding. When you think back to that world, how would you have rated your confidence at that time? Well, that's a great question.
00:02:48
Speaker
I would say it lagged behind my capability so I had sort of unwarranted self-doubt.
00:03:00
Speaker
And to quite an extent, I mean, it probably lessened. So if there was a, if there was a graph, the self-doubt lessened during that period, I was in corporate and the confidence grew, but nevertheless, I think even at the point of leaving, there was a gap between my sense of myself, my confidence and my skills and capabilities.
Overworking and Burnout Risks
00:03:24
Speaker
So I questioned myself more than I, more than I needed to.
00:03:29
Speaker
Did you know at the time? Yes. Yeah, absolutely. And I knew what I did to compensate for that. I hadn't given it a name. I've now given it a name in the book, but what I was very aware of was that I always went
00:03:46
Speaker
This guy once, this plant director once gave me an award when I was part of his team, the ABCD award. It was designed, it was sort of created just for Julie Smith with ABCD standing for Above and Beyond the Call of Duty. And that was like my calling card that what I did to compensate for a lack of confidence was put in an enormous amount of effort and work and exceed expectations on
00:04:14
Speaker
everything. That's how I sort of quietened the void of self-doubt. So yeah, I was very aware of it and actually what I did to overcome it was quite tiring. It's quite exhausting. Yeah, to actually get that award. You know, I think a lot of people are doing that, aren't they? Feeling like they have to do that. Yes. To be baseline.
00:04:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Now, I call that the self-doubt tax or one of the ways that we can pay the self-doubt tax because there is a cost. It works or it worked for me. I always got great feedback, I always got good appraisal ratings, etc. I performed, I delivered in role, but it took a lot
00:05:01
Speaker
out of me.
Feedback and Performance Balance
00:05:02
Speaker
I was doing more than necessary, really, because I was compensating for a lack of self-belief, a lack of confidence. And what's the risk?
00:05:13
Speaker
I think the ultimate risk is burnout. I think it's not sustainable ongoing. And I also think it's one of those things that once you start doing that, it's difficult to reset. It's difficult to stop doing it because you sort of create this level of expectation. You almost create this reputation for yourself that it's got an edge to it. It's positive, but with an edge, the edge being the cost to you. And I think it's quite hard to
00:05:39
Speaker
set that aside, or at least maybe within the same organization, it's quite hard to reset. And the ultimate risk is burnout. That's not what happened to me. But I do think I was aware that there was a lack of sustainability in the way that I was working. And if I were to drag one of your former bosses in right now and said, how confident do you think Julie was? What do you think they'd have said? What they'd say now?
00:06:07
Speaker
I think they saw exactly what I've just described. So I think that was evident to them. And I remember there was a sort of pivotal moment when one of my bosses, Jackie, who was just brilliant, she did an enormous amount for me and played an enormous role in my increasing confidence. And one thing that she did once and I really was angry with her at the time, but I can look back now and think it was a very good decision, was she gave me a performance rating which
00:06:37
Speaker
sort of background was PepsiCo, you had a rating for business results and a rating for people results. And there were numerical scales, one to five, five being the best. And after this particular year where I had almost killed myself leading a system implementation, Jackie gave me a five on business results because it had gone exceptionally well.
00:06:58
Speaker
but she gave me a two on people results, which was actually nothing to do with the objectives that I had in that part of the appraisal. I'd smash those, but it was a really clear message about, you can't work in this way, ongoing. It's actually not acceptable. And she would say, it's not acceptable from an organisation point of view. And I thought it was incredibly unfair at the time, but she was right. Of course she was right.
00:07:25
Speaker
What an interesting way of handling it. You know, in some ways you've just given two ways of handling it. You go above and beyond, you get an award, or you get someone saying, you're delivered above and beyond, but actually it's not okay. So different.
00:07:40
Speaker
Yeah, completely. And it's not as if she hadn't tried to tell me it wasn't, you know, it sounds a bit harsh that she's not in the year. No, she, yeah, she was, she really did try and talk to me about it. And she also did a lot that was really positive in trying to sort of bolster my self belief. And alongside that, this was this was a slightly more kind of, you know, mallet type of tool to say, you have to do something about this.
00:08:08
Speaker
So you've written a book, very exciting, I'm very jealous if you really need to talk about that. I know I don't want this to be like poor Julie, she's like a confidence because you're reflecting on where you came from. Yes. Where do you think you are now?
Balancing Confidence and Capability
00:08:26
Speaker
I think now there's an alignment between my confidence and my capability, so I know that I'm good at what I do, and I know I can be really good at what I do, so I can own my experience, my expertise, my skill.
00:08:45
Speaker
And I also know that sometimes that confidence can drain away. So I am still the owner of quite a vociferous inacritic. I'm better at turning the volume down, but sometimes
00:09:03
Speaker
I can get really knocked by that inner critic commentary and confidence drops like a stone and I'm left with the self doubt and questioning myself
00:09:17
Speaker
better at coming out the other side than I have been, but I guess I just, it's human. I think that I can have a solid sense of confidence. I can know that I'm good at what I do. And sometimes I can fall into a bit of a hole of self-doubt and need to get myself back out the other side. How does your inner critic serve you?
00:09:42
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's an important point that our inner critic is actually trying to help us like they are trying to serve us. I think what my inner critic does is try and keep me safe from getting things wrong or failing.
00:10:00
Speaker
is very alert to any possibility of me getting something wrong. And that can range from saying something stupid on this podcast that I might regret to something bigger. How does it serve me? I think there's surely got to be a connection to my standards, the standards of what I deliver.
00:10:29
Speaker
So I think there probably is a sort of positive connection, a thread to the quality of the work that I do. But I have to be really careful that if I, if I just listened to my inner critic, I would be overdelivering. I'll be back to that ABCD award on everything that I do. Not in the cost.
00:10:51
Speaker
absolutely the cost. And I still have to be really mindful of things like over-preparing. So, you know, there's sort of urge to, ahead of a podcast recording, reread my own book, as though somehow I don't trust that it's in my head. So I have to have a little laugh with myself about, I think it's okay. I think it's in my brain.
00:11:15
Speaker
think I can have a conversation. Oh, it's nice. But then, then we have humble confidence that you talk about in your book. Tell me what that is. So I guess that is fundamentally the name that I give to this idea of a balance between an alignment between our
00:11:33
Speaker
sense of what we're capable of, our confidence and the reality of our skills and capabilities. And if those things are aligned, it means I can see or one can see and own the strengths and the qualities that we bring and everything that our experience enables us to do.
00:11:54
Speaker
And we can kind of see with clarity what we're not as good at, what we're still developing in, what we're not able to do yet. But being okay with that with a sense that that is okay rather than an emphasis on kind of lack. So we might move to what we might want to develop our skills, but from a place of desire to grow rather than desire to sort of compensate for something that's missing.
Language and Confidence
00:12:22
Speaker
Well, it's interesting. I think I like to get as quickly as possible on to the, how can we do things differently once we've talked around the subject. I think one thing that jumps out at me from my experience is when I first started playing football, I really self-deprecated a lot. So I've never know how to play. My, my skill level was, was very low. My confidence was very low and they, they tallied and that, you know, I still didn't need to self-deprecate because I'm new at something.
00:12:51
Speaker
Why would I be good at this thing I'm new at? But then after a season, I was still talking about it like I had no skills. And my husband overheard me, it's like,
00:13:03
Speaker
You could probably stop saying that now. It's not really doing you any justice. You have been proven. And from that day on, I was like, yeah, I'm not going to say anything negative. I'm going to be realistic, but I'm not going to be like, oh, I'm rubbish. I don't know what I'm doing. And I sometimes feel that might be quite a female trait. Now, shoot me for picking on something and being totally stereotyped about it. I'd love to hear your view of that and your experience.
00:13:31
Speaker
So I think the first thing to say is that I think you've named something really important. I'll come back to the sort of gender question in a moment, but I think that idea of the language that we use being so important in either bolstering or diminishing our own confidence
00:13:47
Speaker
And actually, and also having an impact in the extent that others would trust us or have confidence in us. If we're busy telling them that we are absolutely rubbish at football, why would they pick us for the team or pass to us? So there is something really important in the language.
00:14:09
Speaker
you know, this idea of sort of noticing when we have catch phrases that sort of say, I don't know, this is just half an idea, really, or I don't really know what I'm saying, but that signal a lack of confidence, or the sort of self deprecating jokes, I don't know whether you used to do that with your football, but there's a sort of, you know, I'm such an idiot, or, you know, my brain is mush today that are
00:14:36
Speaker
diminishing actually. That's not the intention as you're saying them, but they are diminishing. I guess there's other things in language, isn't there? I know that I apologize for things that I really don't need to apologize for. I think that's a sort of... Someone drops a door on me. I'm sorry. Or if I'm driving and I pull out and I let them through, I like thank them for like allowing me to let them through or whatever. It's just madness.
00:15:01
Speaker
Yeah, completely. Yeah, somebody asks, you know, I know that I've done this, I might be making a presentation and somebody asks a question. And they've clearly not listened, because I've covered that point. And the way that I'm asked the question seems to, you know, signals that they've not listened. What I will say before even thinking about it is, oh, I'm sorry, I should have made that clear. Or I'm sorry, I didn't cover that. Well, actually, neither of those things true.
00:15:31
Speaker
Anyway, I think there's sort of an interesting piece about being aware and really conscious of when we use language that might diminish our confidence. The gender thing
00:15:46
Speaker
is interesting, I think. I'm aware of some research, but I won't be able to reference it, that women are more likely to use some of those verbal caveats in a group setting than men. So if you did a sort of an audit of who in a
00:16:04
Speaker
meeting is doing the, it's just a thought or maybe or posing something as a question rather than a statement, that the tally of those things would be higher for female participants than men. And I can sort of imagine that that fits with sort of anecdotally or what I would observe
00:16:26
Speaker
And it does point to that sort of bigger question about women being less confident than men, which is a topic that I want to spend a lot more time kind of digging into. There's such interesting stuff there. I was reminding myself earlier of the work in Marianne Seacart's book, The Authority Gap, some of the terrifying things that she talks about around confidence in boys and girls at a very early age and what
00:16:54
Speaker
things happen, what societal attitudes are at play that serve to reduce confidence in girls and then we carry that through for the rest of our lives. Yeah, it feels like a big area that I'd like to know more about that in some ways I deliberately avoided because I chose to write the book for all genders and I stand by that in that I
00:17:21
Speaker
know that I've supported many men who lack confidence and, you know, pay the self-doubt tax. So I kind of stand by that decision and I'm really interested in digging in a little bit more to what is the sort of gendered lens on confidence.
00:17:38
Speaker
I feel like sometimes men are paying a price of feeling like the pressure to appear more confident they are. So when I sit down with men often it's an opportunity for them to reveal that side of them that is putting on a bit of a front and doesn't feel comfortable revealing their lack of confidence.
00:17:58
Speaker
I think that's so right. And that was one of the reasons why I was really keen to write it, write the book for all genders, because I think that's like a double bind. So as a man, I feel that I have the impact of self-doubt or a loud, inner critic, but somehow it's less okay for me to own that and talk about that and access support to develop in my confidence.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think that feels hard. Maybe it's why sometimes, and I'm going to generalise massively now, but sometimes you see individuals who appear to be overconfident, like there's some sort of bluster and there's a certainty and I think sometimes that is a cover for
00:18:45
Speaker
a deep insecurity. And I see that more frequently. Here's the generalisation, I see it more frequently in men than in women. Yeah, I think I probably do too. It's difficult to say these things because we haven't got this research in front of us, so it's very much our sense of it.
00:19:01
Speaker
But yeah, I think I see the bluster and the pressure and the cost. Yes. And I wonder whether that's partly because there's more of a societal expectation or meant to be confident. So that's part of what they're fulfilling with this kind of overconfidence, this bluster.
Guide for Enhanced Leadership
00:19:25
Speaker
I'm just pulling you away from this episode because I want to share with you how you can get a copy of the free guide that I've created in which I share with you several of the techniques that I use with my coaching clients today and that you can use too, which will help you create more of an impact as a leader, have more influence and the holy grail, have more time away from the doing.
00:19:54
Speaker
You can use this time for key things like focusing on strategic thinking or go for a bike ride. If you want to grab the free guide, check out the show notes and click on the link.
00:20:12
Speaker
So let's do some scenarios of actions that people can take. So I'm going to give you some scenarios that might relate to people I've spoken to over the years. I am not naming names. Somebody who's been in a role for years and is competent. They know they're competent. They actually know they are competent.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah. But they don't back themselves. They don't want to put themselves out to back their decision-making because self-confess, they lack confidence. So where should that person start? Your book is Coaches Self-Confidence. So they don't need to have somebody necessarily fixing them. Well, absolutely don't need someone fixing them. But what, where should they start?
Exercises for Self-Belief
00:21:03
Speaker
Gosh, it's a great question. There's a couple of things that come to mind and maybe they do slightly different things. The first thing that came to mind was something around seeking to own their strengths, the start of which would have to be see them perhaps a little bit more clearly and then
00:21:25
Speaker
own them. So I see something like an incredibly simple activity of writing it when I'm at my best dot, dot, dot, and then filling that page with multiple pages with as much as they possibly can possibly might extend that with getting some feedback from trusted individuals. It is entirely about what do you value about my contribution? What strengths do I bring? I guess it's trying to shine a light on some of the things that perhaps they don't see or they take for granted.
00:21:55
Speaker
in themselves and to sort of frame that as these are incredible strengths and qualities that you could choose to build on to maybe push yourself forward a little bit more.
00:22:09
Speaker
The other thing that popped into my mind was a tool around constructive pessimism.
Constructive Pessimism Tool
00:22:15
Speaker
So this is maybe more situational. So it's maybe more if they notice that they're holding back, that I could put myself forward for that high visibility project, but I don't know whether I want to. My confidence is leading me to, or my lack of confidence is leading me to hold back.
00:22:32
Speaker
I like this idea of constructive pessimism. So first we're giving rain to the worst case scenario. So invite your inner critic to tell you just what a disaster it could be. Like, you know, I put myself forward and I make an absolute, you know, fool of myself.
00:22:51
Speaker
I don't understand what's going on, I say stupid things, whatever it is. So really give full rein to mapping out a worst case scenario and then asking yourself two questions. So the first is, do you know that that worst case scenario will happen? To which the answer has to be no, because we can't predict the future. And then the second one is, if it did,
00:23:19
Speaker
if that worst case scenario played out, could you survive that? To which I'd suggest the answer is yes. It might be deeply uncomfortable. It wouldn't be what you want at all. It might be really unpleasant as an experience, but could you survive it? I think you probably could.
00:23:42
Speaker
So there's something about, and it just, it's a simplicity, I guess, of the two, first of all, it's giving full range of the worst case scenario, and then the simplicity of the two questions that might just help to get a different perspective on what's the opportunity and what's the risk, and might make it easier to step forward.
00:24:01
Speaker
I love the idea of kicking off with feedback about strengths. I think that's a lovely way of starting feedback. When am I my best? And then you can exchange that feedback with the people that offer it as a really nice exchange. That's lovely. It really is. I've noticed that my daughter, GCSE's time, has a tendency to aim
00:24:32
Speaker
Averagedly, she's not aiming catastrophically, but she's aiming very middle of the road in order that she doesn't have that sensation of missing the mark. You know that like, don't aim high and miss, just kind of go for average. I just wondered, I'm talking about teenagers, but so often that we see that elsewhere. Do you notice that?
00:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, sometimes I guess it's a... Well, I wonder whether it's in part a response to a sort of fear of failure. Yeah. And we can respond to different ways to that, but it's potentially a way of avoiding the possibility of failure. So if I sort of reset my bar to a very achievable place, I'm minimising the possibility of failure.
00:25:28
Speaker
I suppose where that takes me to is, you know, what could we do to help them to get used to failure, normalise failure, be okay with it? I remember coming across an article years ago in the newspaper and it was about
00:25:45
Speaker
a school where a school for girls, which I think is significant, where they had a failure week, which was part of a bigger mindset about failure is fine. The whole failing forward, the growth mindset, the focus on learning, the idea that we don't know what we're capable of until we push ourselves as far as failing. Beyond, yeah. Beyond, absolutely.
00:26:14
Speaker
That's where I went from your question that I think there's perhaps something really meaningful and important in all of us, and maybe particularly our children as they're sort of forming their ideas and their sense of self in exploring our relationship and challenging our relationship with failure.
Normalizing Failure
00:26:32
Speaker
And just sort of cutting through this connotation, I think the idea that success is good and failure is bad, which is just so binary and unhelpful, I think.
00:26:42
Speaker
How do you think we can, when it comes to confidence and failure, how can we translate that into the world of work and leadership?
00:26:52
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's tricky because I do see in a lot of organisations there's still a sort of allergy to failure. You know, you see where a project happens or a product gets launched and it misses the mark, it doesn't do well. And suddenly people just stop talking about it. The internal dialogue, it's so uncomfortable that it didn't work, that we just pretend it didn't happen and sweep it under the carpet. And I say that just because I think it
00:27:22
Speaker
illustrates that it can be hard to fail in an organisation when there are cultural signals in that business to say that it's not okay, that we must always succeed, which is completely unrealistic by the sense that we must
00:27:41
Speaker
always get our objectives right. We must set them correctly, deliver against them, get the results that we're anticipating, which just seems like it's a slightly mechanical way of thinking about it that it completely misses the real world messiness of we don't know how something's going to work until we try it. We can't possibly know. Yeah, especially a year from now.
00:28:05
Speaker
Yes, one of the things that can help and it's tiny and it's actually back to the point about language and significance of language. I think where we talk more about experiments in an organisation, I think that can really help because it just builds in the idea of we don't know what's going to happen and an experiment can't possibly fail because whatever happens, we learn exactly that. Yeah, it's great.
00:28:33
Speaker
I sometimes hear the rhetoric about failing is okay, but the organizational culture doesn't back that up. The history of what happens if doesn't back that up. So it's like a, it's a nice to say, but it isn't like backed up. So it must be so hard to be in that environment and a bit confusing really.
00:28:58
Speaker
Yeah, definitely. And I think some of the processes in like a long established processes can get in the way. So the whole performance appraisal that somebody, it's okay to fail. It's good to fail, but at the end of the year, we're going to have a big black, you know, cross against that objective and you're going to get a lower pay rise. So are you all right with that? I mean, it just... Failing design as long as you don't mind not being paid as much. Yes. Yeah, no, interesting. Right. Is it possible to have a think about
00:29:29
Speaker
You have a team and you notice varying levels of confidence in your people. Maybe your own confidence is quite strong or aligned to your skills in those areas, but you notice people in the team where they've got a mismatch. Basically, we were employing a Julie back in the day. Yes. You're really good. You totally don't have recognition of it. What as a leader of that person or that team, what can you do?
00:29:57
Speaker
Yeah, two things come to mind and more might come as I'm speaking. One is push them to do things they don't think they're capable of. I don't mean panic them, you know, don't don't terrify them, but give them work, give them objectives that they
00:30:14
Speaker
are a bit scared by and don't feel that they're capable of because that's how they'll learn what they are truly capable of so they might start thinking that's beyond me and then they do it and they learn that they can do it that it is within their capabilities and I think that's really important because what we can fall into the trap of is to be kind
00:30:37
Speaker
I don't want that person to be fearful. I don't want that person to be uncomfortable. So I'm going to keep them safe. I'm going to give them such a nice comfortable work. Actually, that doesn't help them. I think there is a degree of feel the fear and do it anyway, which is that brilliant title of a classic book. I think there's just an enormous amount of truth in that. So part of your role as a leader is to
00:31:02
Speaker
introduce a degree of fear and discomfort and then be alongside them and support them as they go forward. So that was the first thing. And I think the second thing is tell them how much you believe in them and tell them why. So be really clear in your feedback to them.
00:31:25
Speaker
and go beyond the kind of, you should be more confident because you're great, because that just doesn't work, it doesn't have any impact. But if you can really take care about consistently telling them what it is that you notice them doing that has a positive impact, what are the qualities you observe in them that are really making a difference, really flowing through into what they do,
00:31:48
Speaker
tell them because it's a way of helping them over time, helping them to see that for themselves.
Language Audit for Confidence
00:31:56
Speaker
Jackie, who I mentioned earlier, I think part of the reason that I built myself belief during my time at PepsiCo was because she believed in me so clearly, so consistently to such an extent that in the end I sort of couldn't help but believe in myself. And if you are sat here listening to this and you're
00:32:19
Speaker
feeling there's a gap in your own confidence, what top tips can you offer, Julie? So the first one maybe just builds on the language, what we talked about earlier, I think doing a little kind of audit, probably the easiest way is to look at emails.
00:32:35
Speaker
because they're there, you can reread them, do a little audit of where am I potentially signaling through my language a lack of confidence in myself that worst case suggests to the recipient that they shouldn't be confident in you either and play with taking out, so if there are some, you know, maybes or perhaps or, you know, I just, absolutely just take them out. They're never useful, never valuable.
00:33:03
Speaker
No, and really look, okay, so what is your intention behind that? Just, you know, is it serving a purpose? Or is it just a sort of a slightly diminishing linguistic habit? And, you know, maybe just have an experiment for a week where you reread your emails once more before you send it for the and do the filter of where can I take out any caveats? Read it again. Does it still sound like me? Does it sound rude? Probably not. Does it sound a bit more confident and assertive?
00:33:33
Speaker
Great, press send, see how it goes. The other thing that is probably the thing that I've heard most people talk about when they tell me what they've enjoyed in the book or what has made a difference to them.
Managing the Inner Critic
00:33:46
Speaker
It's just a really, really simple one of unmasking your inner critic and doing that by giving it a name. Mine's called Nigel.
00:33:57
Speaker
and potentially drawing it. It's no longer only a voice in your mind that at worst case you just unconsciously assume is telling you the truth.
00:34:10
Speaker
It's a third party with a name and with a kind of an identity or a look. I think that makes it easier to just, it just introduces a small degree of distance and makes it reminds you that your inner critic lies to you on a regular basis and you don't have to believe, absorb, accept what they say.
00:34:36
Speaker
Yeah, love that. Nigel, I know that now. I feel like I have a piece of information. We all have a piece of information about you, Julie. I haven't named mine yet, but I'm trying to work it out. It all sounds a little bit like an accountant. It does. Thanks very much, Julie. That was really interesting conversation. Love hearing all your stories and your
00:35:03
Speaker
really vulnerable and open about your past, which is always great to dig into. Big question. Your book, Tell Me Everything,
Book Promotion and Engagement
00:35:13
Speaker
where can we find it? What's it called?
00:35:16
Speaker
That's a really good point. I didn't realise that I hadn't said it and my publisher might have something to say to me about that. They're digging me at the moment. Yeah, indeed. It's called Coach Your Self-Confident. A subtitle is Ditch the Self-Doubt Tax, Unlock Humble Confidence.
00:35:33
Speaker
It's available really anywhere you buy your books, so Amazon most definitely, but Waterstones, Barnes and Noble, Foyles, lots of other places either online or pop into your local bookshop and if they've not got it on the shelves they can order it.
00:35:48
Speaker
And where can people find you if they want to reach out to you directly? So my website is talentsprout.co.uk. That's the name of my business. And I'd love people to join me on LinkedIn. So if you search for Julie Talentsprout, Julie Smith is quite a common name. But if you search for Julie Smith Talentsprout, you will find me. Those are probably the places to go.
00:36:11
Speaker
Great. Well, I will put all that in the show notes so you're easy to find. Thank you very much. Really good conversation. Brilliant. Thanks, Karen. I've really enjoyed it. Please let me know if you've come up with a name for your negative self-talk voice. I'm still thinking on it, so I shall keep you posted. So are you the kind of leader who is rewarding that above and beyond the call of duty type behavior, even though you might have suspicions that
00:36:41
Speaker
they're covering up for some of their insecurities. Or are you going to give them some of that supportive yet very candid feedback about how some of that behavior isn't really serving them? I'd love to hear from you. Tell me if that has inspired you and please get in touch if you want to have those conversations, but you don't really know where to start.
00:37:10
Speaker
I would love you to subscribe to the show because the more subscribers I can get, the more fabulous guests I can attract. So, take care. Until next time.
00:37:29
Speaker
Thanks for listening to the Visible Leader podcast. To stay up to date with the latest episode, hit the subscribe button. And I'd love to hear what you think, so please leave me a review. If you have any questions or comments, reach out to me. Corinne Hines on LinkedIn.