April 1, 2025 • 48 mins
"You cannot control how anyone's going to respond to what comes out of your mouth. I think you just have to do it with an open heart and with positive intent and then just let it land. " – Fiona Walsh
Fiona Walsh specialises in guiding people through this kind of deep self-inquiry. She is a mindset coach, change adviser, and host of the Limitless: Unlocking Your True Potential Podcast. With over 20 years of experience, Fiona has helped business leaders and entrepreneurs shift their perspectives and align their careers with their true selves.
In this episode, you’ll hear about:
- How self-awareness impacts leadership and career growth
- The role of inner critics and how to manage them
- Strategies to overcome fear of failure and judgement
- The importance of mindfulness and breathwork in stress management
- How to navigate difficult workplace conversations with confidence
- Understanding workplace dynamics and setting boundaries
- The power of gratitude and reflection in personal development
- Managing uncertainty in career transitions
- The neuroscience behind stress responses and decision-making
- How leaders can support teams through organisational change
Key links
- Fiona Walsh’s Limitless Podcast
- Work with Fiona
- Fiona Walsh’s Instagram
- Fiona Walsh’s LinkedIn
- Email: fiona@fionawalshconsulting.com
About our guest
Fiona Walsh is a mindset coach, change adviser and Podcast Host, who helps entrepreneurs and senior leaders unlock their true potential to create a life of alignment, fulfilment, and expansion. She believes in the power of deep self-discovery to tackle self-doubt and uncover blind spots: when your inner world expands, your external world transforms exponentially.
With over 20 years of experience leading and advising on transformational change programs, including digital and culture transformations, customer experience strategy, and coaching high performers worldwide. Fiona brings a unique blend of strategic insight, personal growth expertise, intuition, and a lifelong curiosity about how humans, teams, and organisations evolve and thrive.
About our host
Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneuship Coach, Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.
Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.
Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.
For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Chris Hudson (00:07):
Okay, we are back and welcome to another
empowering episode of TheCompany Ride podcast, which is
the podcast for organizationalrebels and entrepreneurs out
there.
And as we hit our stride in2025, it's gonna be important to
tune into where we're at andreally reconsider whether we're
in the right place in what we'redoing.
After all, we spend a lot of ouravailable time in the grind and
(00:27):
working.
And so we may as well findfulfillment and achieve impact
in what we do in some way.
And a lot of that is to do withmindset and where we situate
ourselves mentally.
But before we get into that, Ican pretty much situate where my
next guest is, well, more orless because I have a lot of
family in this part of the worldfrom Vancouver, bc.
So a big shout out to theCanadian fam out there, and I'd
(00:48):
love to now welcome my veryspecial guest, Fiona Walsh, who
is a renowned mindset coach, achange advisor, and a host of
the Limitless podcast.
So Fiona, thanks so much forcoming onto the show.
Fiona Walsh (00:58):
Thank you for having me today, Chris.
I'm delighted to be here and aspeople can hear now, I'm not a
Canadian.
I'm born and bred in Melbourne,so actually.
Chris and I.
Sounds like we switchedhometowns about the same time a
few years ago.
Chris Hudson (01:11):
That's it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I was gonna introduce as myfirst Canadian guest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (01:16):
I've got three Canadian children, if that
counts.
Chris Hudson (01:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fiona, let me share a bit moreabout you and the listeners to
the show a bit more about you.
With over 20 years of experiencein guiding transformational
change and strategicdevelopment, Fiona, you've
helped intrapreneurs, seniorleaders, unlock their true
potential.
To achieve a lot of alignment,fulfillment, and exponential
growth in their roles.
And one of the beliefs that youhold dear to, that you hold
(01:38):
closely is in deepself-discovery as a tool to
overcome self-doubt and reallyunveil hidden opportunities and
your work therefore, bridges thestrategic with the personal.
Side of things and fosteringgrowth that really resonates
both internally within yourselfand externally within the work
that you would do.
So you've worked with people allover the world, from Sydney to
(01:59):
New York, and lots of places inbetween, I'm sure, but you've
worked with high performersworldwide and you blend that
sort of strategic insight withprofound understanding of human
behavior.
So I'm.
Really excited to have you onthe show.
I want to hear about yourjourney, the insights around
conquering some of thosepersonal limitations as we all
face, and the transformativepower of aligning inner and
(02:19):
outer worlds in some sort ofway, which sounds like a sort of
TV show premise, but I kind ofwanna get into that.
May we start with a bit aboutwhat you do and the kind of
people that you work with.
Fiona, do you wanna tell us abit about that?
Fiona Walsh (02:29):
Yeah, sure.
Thanks Chris.
At the moment I'm coaching inone-on-one spaces, and I
typically coach with highperformers in corporate and also
people who are founders who havetheir own businesses and people
who are not necessarily brandnew to coaching or who are not
brand new to say self-awarenesswork.
And we.
(02:50):
Go deep into their inner world.
So quite often people come to mewith external goals, and what we
typically do is get really clearon what they're wanting, either
in their business or is it apromotion at work or a new role
in, or building up a newleadership skill.
And then what we do is we gothrough a really holistic
(03:10):
integrative process, whichstarts with self.
So getting really clear on whois their true self.
So what are their superpowers,what are their values, which I
know we're gonna get to later.
What are their strengths andwhat are they like genuinely
excited by in life?
Then we go into the deeper,darker shadows and we explore
(03:33):
their inner critic or critic.
So we all have parts ofourselves.
That are in our inner world, andthey're operating in our
subconscious part of our mindand body, so we are not always
aware of them.
And these parts are when you gettriggered, say you're in a
meeting and your boss sayssomething and you're like, oh,
like why does he always do that?
(03:53):
Or when your wife or your kidsactivate you, that trigger is
really something happening deepin your subconscious world.
And so we go deep into exploringwho those parts are, who are the
different inner critics in yourworld, because.
Those critics are typicallyholding you back from reaching
your true self, aligning withyour true self, and they quite
(04:15):
often block you.
So that's a journey that we goon.
It's always a lot of fun.
It's quite deep, heavy work, butI always bring a lot of
lightness and playfulness andfun to it because it much easier
when you can laugh at yourself.
We're all human and we all havethis duality of our true self
and then our shadow or ego self.
And so it's a process ofself-exploration and.
(04:37):
What I've found is that once weunlock these blocks and blind
spots in our inner world, theintentions and the goals of the
external world that my clientscome to me for start to unravel,
and they usually expandexponentially.
So they're stepping straightinto the next promotion because
they're starting to have theconversations that they've been
avoiding or been too worried tohave.
(05:00):
They're speaking up forthemselves there.
Way more confident inarticulating their value and
because it comes from a place ofauthenticity rather than maybe
from a place of acceptance orapproval.
Chris Hudson (05:11):
Yeah.
Nice.
That sounds incrediblyinteresting and also really
important.
I feel like that you can findout a lot about yourself, but
you wouldn't always know how to.
Think we always find that almostthe organizations that we find
ourselves in, particularly asintrapreneurs and I know now
that you've been in that role aswell.
It feels like you almost rely onother people to feedback a lot
on who you are.
Whereas it's mainly less of afocus on you finding that out
(05:34):
for yourself because you'requite often reliant on the
outside systems to effectivelytell you who you are and what
you're doing in that place.
So.
I love the fact that you'retalking about it from a
self-identification andself-awareness point of view,
almost as a starting point.
Can you give us a kind of, canyou bring to life some of the
triggers and some of theblockers, just so that people
(05:55):
understand what sort of thingsthose things might be.
Fiona Walsh (05:57):
Yeah, sure.
If I think about people whomight be entrepreneurs, so in
the corporate world, it might bethat you might have a fear of
failure that you're not actuallyaware of, and so that may get in
if you've been put in this greatnew opportunity, it's like an
innovation space and you'regonna have to put yourself out
(06:18):
there and take some risks andthe actual.
Pathway ahead of you is prettymurky and unknown, and no one
really knows where you're going,which is the world of
transformation innovation.
You might step into it full ofexcitement and confidence, and
I'm really gonna prove myself.
The blockers in the blind spotcomes in when the little voice
in your head start saying, whatthe hell are you doing?
(06:40):
You don't know what you're doinghere.
You don't take risks.
This is scary.
Get out, jump.
So the job of our parts is tokeep us safe and the part does
not want us to change.
It wants us to stay in thestatus quo, wants us to stay
safe.
And so if you are in a rolewhere you are being asked to
change personally or lead changeand growth for others and the
(07:03):
organization.
It's likely that the littlevoice in your head will start
chatting to you and you may notbe aware of it because a lot of
us, and I know this was me, thevoice talks all day long, and so
you cut.
It's really hard to decipherbetween what is just your, the,
your true self talking to youversus the inner critic.
Chris Hudson (07:22):
Yeah.
That's sort of voice that's inyour head that's telling you
either you're doing the rightthing or you're not doing the
right thing.
What were some of the scenariosthat spring to mind?
Have you got any stories fromyour own experience that feel
like they would sit in that campof either in a critic or where
your voice is actually reallyhelping you?
Either of those.
Fiona Walsh (07:40):
The switch that I make from intrapreneur to
entrepreneur that cracked open ahuge bucket of work that I had
to do on myself.
And yeah, this is probably likea heads up if anyone's thinking
of going out on their own, whenyou step out of the safety net
of corporate and you areresponsible for.
Your income, the front and backof house, you're responsible.
(08:03):
You effectively become yourbrand.
There's a lot comes up in termsof, for me, it was more around
fear of judgment and fear ofrejection.
So I have done a lot of workmyself on overcoming people
pleasing, which comes withwanting to be liked, wanting to
have.
Other people validate andacknowledge the work that I'm
(08:25):
doing to let me know that I'mdoing a good job, which these
are all, and also like pleasingothers is pretty much a really
common trait of a peoplepleaser.
And when I came to say, launchmy podcast, I know that some of
the conversations that we arehaving on the podcast are going
to totally ruffle people'sfeathers, and they're not going
(08:47):
to please all listeners and.
I was very hypervigilant inthinking that I could control
other people's thoughts,feelings, and actions, and spent
a lot of my corporate lifethinking that I could do that,
and it probably led to too muchstress and burnout.
But one of the things that I wasable to overcome was that little
voice in my head when it wouldsay.
(09:09):
Why would anyone listen to yourpodcast?
Who are you to do this?
And then really just noticing itand in the moment and saying,
it's okay.
This is a big move.
And yes, you're putting yourselfout there.
You're gonna share your story,vulnerability, and hold space
for people to share vulnerablestories.
And we are gonna talk aboutthings that are not comfortable
for people to necessarily listento.
(09:30):
But this is your purpose.
This is why you are here.
And so to say to, that's how mytrue self would.
Then my inner critic was beinglike, okay, I'll get outta the
way.
You sound like you've got this.
And so just having the innerdialogue, it sounds, if people
listening, they might be like,my God, she's got crazy voices
in her head, but it actuallydoes work.
You can encourage and becompassionate towards your
(09:52):
critic and let them know thatyou've got this and that they're
safe and they don't need to stepin.
Chris Hudson (09:57):
Yeah, definitely.
I love that story.
Thank you for sharing as well.
And I know for myself being onthat podcast journey, it's
terrifying because you'reputting yourself out there in
the world.
You dunno what's gonna come backand how people are gonna
respond.
And thankfully it's been prettypositive.
I'm sure it's been the same foryou, but the people that wanna
say something will saysomething.
Fiona Walsh (10:14):
Yeah.
And I think the most rewardingthings that's come out of my
podcast is that each episode youput out there, the feedback you
get, you just don't know whichpart of which of each
conversation is going toresonate with anyone.
And it depends on where they arein that moment, where they're
listening with what's going onin their life.
(10:36):
And so I've just been floored bypeople like, oh, that was the
most, that was the point of thepodcast that I'll never forget,
and I'll be like, oh, really?
I thought it would've been thatagain, it shows you cannot
control how anyone's gonnarespond to what comes out of
your mouth.
I think you just have to do itwith an open heart and be
positive intent, and then justlet it land.
Chris Hudson (10:54):
Yeah, that's right.
I had a previous episode with aparenting coach and counselor,
Lael Stone, who's is quite big.
Fiona Walsh (11:01):
Oh, she's amazing.
Chris Hudson (11:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Lael was talking, we weretalking a bit about the inner
child and how it represent andhow it presents at work.
And it, it is a really goodchat.
And yeah, I think it's, it'sinteresting to know what we feel
we can control.
Uh, but also once you're awareof what you can control, you
realize that you can't controleverything for one.
But it's also knowing andlearning how to let go of that
little bit.
So what you were just describingin the step that you made from
(11:25):
inside corporate world into theoutside world of running your
own business and setting up yourown coaching practice, it just
feels like that, that ifanything teaches you that you
know you, you're not able tocontrol all of the influencers.
And I think as intrapreneurs wefind that there's this almost.
Like, I dunno if it's fixed setexpectations, or it feels like
you're going into quite aconstant mode of work every
(11:47):
single day and that theenvironment is what you know and
what you would expect.
But actually, if you can getused to the fact that you can't
control everything within thatenvironment as well, then maybe
it would give you some courageto push into different
directions and be a bit morebrave.
What do you think?
Fiona Walsh (12:03):
I think I agree with that.
I think the trap that I fellinto when I was an intrapreneur
as well was because I was stilllike knee deep in my people
pleasing and relationships waswhat one of the key things in
connection was one of the keythings that made me really
successful.
And so I became quitehypervigilant in making sure
that I didn't piss people offand that we were giving people
(12:25):
what they wanted.
But then sometimes you thendon't hold boundaries that
actually are required.
Yeah.
That was one of my own patternsthat I needed to break because
Yeah, it wasn't helpful when Iwas in corporate.
Chris Hudson (12:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
When you were in that role, howdid you go about finding out, in
a sense what was expected ofyou, and then finding out to the
point where you're not only justdelivering on that, but almost
finding other ways to make italmost your own unique way of
doing it?
Fiona Walsh (12:54):
Do you mean like leading a change or
Chris Hudson (12:56):
Yeah, leading a change or anything where you
thought, okay, I've been askedto do this, but I'm gonna do it
my way.
Fiona Walsh (13:01):
Oh, okay.
Cool.
So.
I would always take a brief frommy boss, and then the number one
thing that I would always gowould be go out to the
organization and find out, getinformation on, did people have
any word on this?
Do they have any opinions,views?
Right?
Get some insider knowledge ofwhat people thought of it or
(13:22):
were they aware of it.
And then I would use thatinformation to help inform my
plan of how I was gonna go aboutleading the change.
And usually as well, as I said,I used core relationships to be
successful.
So I would in thoseconversations also be recruiting
people to be like unofficiallike champions within their
departments and teams.
(13:43):
'cause one of the things that isinevitable in corporate is that
people like to shut down a newidea, or they all like to pick
holes in it and pieces.
And so it helps to have thosecheerleaders who have your back
in each of the teams ordepartments so that when that
inevitably happens.
They can be the ones going, no,I've heard about, this is a good
idea.
This is gonna be fun.
We are gonna enjoy doing this.
Chris Hudson (14:04):
Yeah.
Cool.
And you're working with peoplethat are in these organizations
now and presumably they'reeither leaders or they're on the
way to becoming leaders workingwith mainly at the moment.
Fiona Walsh (14:12):
Most of them are at sort of director, maybe senior
manager, director level, and aretrying to step up.
And then the entrepreneurs are awhole gamut of where they're at
in their business and thedifferent revenue, um, targets
they have and things like that.
And yeah, so in corporatethough, it's mostly people who
(14:32):
have been leading teams and beenin a leadership role with
experience under their belt, andthey've done leadership
development programs before andthey might have even had a
leadership coach in theircorporate environment.
This is really like the finetuning and the like leveling up
so that they can move from thecurrent level they're in and
(14:53):
prove their value and theirworth and their confidence to
the people above them so thatthey get promoted or if they
wanted to move out into adifferent organizational
industry.
Chris Hudson (15:02):
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Okay.
And then so almost they'reinvesting in that service from
you personally and Yeah.
Working with you on that levelrather than it being almost
associated with the trainingthat they would get through
work.
Is that right?
Fiona Walsh (15:14):
Yeah.
And I think as well.
I've worked with coaches incorporate and then I've also had
coaches that are independentthat I've paid for myself, and
there certainly is a difference.
There's a, even corporatein-house coaches, there can be
some confidentiality questionsat time.
I know that coaches are notsupposed to, it shouldn't come
(15:35):
up, but I know that it's alwaysan issue and so.
A few of my clients specificallyhave said, I've turned down
internal coaching.
I want the trust of an externalcoach where I know what I share
will never leave this zoom call.
And the work I do with people'svery raw and vulnerable, and
quite often we go places that.
They haven't been before.
(15:56):
Memories come up like I do innerchild work in my coaching, like
you mentioned with Lael.
We go back to childhoodexperiences where people are
like far out.
I buried that and I didn't evenlike really remember that
memory.
And so it's really about holdingspace in quite a different way
to what I would've done when Iwas doing like leadership and
sales coaching within acorporate environment.
(16:16):
You're not gonna be in someone'soffice having those kinds of
conversations.
Yeah,
Chris Hudson (16:21):
yeah.
In terms of approaching that, sothat in getting started or.
Around some of those steps todeeper self-discovery.
What steps do you recommend forany individual beginning that
inward journey, and where wouldthey situate themselves with the
right conditions for that sortof work to start?
Do you feel?
Does it need to come to a headfor it to become like, I need to
do this now.
(16:42):
Can you be working at it a bitmore proactively rather than
reactively, as some people say?
Can you do it like that?
Fiona Walsh (16:47):
Yeah.
I think you could take eitherapproach if you find yourself.
In a crisis or you're like burntout or you've been fired, or
your partner's just left you,then those would be life moments
where doing some self-awarenessand self-discovery work would
make a lot of sense.
I think though, if you're in thecrisis stage, just taking care
(17:08):
of your health and wellbeing isprobably like a primary thing.
So making sure you're gettingenough sleep and you've got
support people around you.
When you're then ready to gointo self-awareness and
self-discovery, I do say topeople that one of the key hacks
to figure out where you may havesome work to do in terms of
self-discovery and maybe healingsome stuff from the past is when
(17:32):
you get triggered, so by yourpartner.
I would get them to have ajournal and be writing down when
they got triggered throughout acouple of weeks, a bit of a log.
And to start to see where thepatterns were.
And another tool forself-awareness that I find
really simple but effective isaround doing like a practice at
(17:53):
before you go to bed at night,which is based around gratitude,
but what's three things you aregrateful for during the day and
why you are grateful for themand how they made you feel.
And the feeling part is reallycritical.
It's not just, oh, it's coolthat my son won his soccer game.
Could be'cause that made meproud as a mum or whatever.
And then we then look at thatlog again to look for patterns
(18:15):
and start to deep dive into whatare the learnings.
So if you look at both of thosetwo examples, to create
self-awareness, you really needto start tracking what you do
each day, moment to moment.
Because so much of what we do,we are actually operating on
autopilot or not aware.
And so the simplest way to getaware is to start tracking
(18:38):
different things in your lifethat you might be interested in
learning a little bit more aboutyourself.
Chris Hudson (18:43):
And does that practice then become ease?
Obviously it becomes easier, butdo you feel like people are then
more in the habit?
It's almost like a muscle memorythat people are finding during
the day.
Oh, I'm pretty grateful for thatthing that just happened and I'm
gonna write down, write thatdown.
Is it more of a kind of practicemakes perfect approach?
Fiona Walsh (18:59):
Yeah, I think it does.
It starts to, yeah, it starts tobuild.
The gratitude one's interestingas well.
'cause it means you.
Go to sleep as well.
And your mind and body and soulis in a place of vibration, of
gratitude, which is one of ourhigher vibration energy states
and emotional states.
And so you're setting yourselfup for a much better night's
(19:20):
sleep, much better dreams thanif you have gone to bed and
you've just had a bit of anargument with your other half,
or, I dunno, you've watched areally scary show on Netflix or
something like that.
It's actually just, it's reallysetting yourself up for a
restful.
Positive sleep.
Chris Hudson (19:35):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, good tip.
Good tip.
Yeah.
I don't watch a lot of thoseshows because of that, for that
reason.
But yeah, maybe I could, if Idid some rash to practice
afterwards, I'm not sure.
But is there something similarfor the start of the day or are
there any kind of like routinesor rituals that you talk to your
clients about?
Fiona Walsh (19:51):
Yeah, so yeah.
Most of my clients we like, oneof the basis of the setup is to
have a start.
Of the day and end of day ritualand the end of the day one is
always gratitude practice andyeah.
Sorry, I will just follow up onwhat you asked me before.
I now notice during,'cause I'vedone the gratitude journal for
quite a few years.
(20:11):
During the day I will like pauseand be like, oh my God, that's
really cool.
Why am I grateful for that?
How do I feel?
And I, it just is, I just trackthrough the process.
Now, it's also a really goodhack if you're in a bit of a
funky mood.
You just can't snap yourself outof it.
Finding something to be gratefulfor is a simple hack, again, to
(20:31):
raise your vibration and youremotional and energetic state.
I recommend that for the startof
Chris Hudson (20:37):
So quick question on that.
So there's a difference betweenthinking it, as in I think I'm
grateful for this and actuallywriting it down.
You mentioned journal, like isit really important to write it
down?
Fiona Walsh (20:46):
Yeah.
I think at the start it's reallyimportant, so you wanna think it
and then you want to.
Also label the emotion or thefeeling in your body that you
had with it.
That also helps just tie it in,put a bow on top.
So there's a couple of pieces toit.
The morning practice is a bit ofa tricky one because it depends
(21:07):
on.
If you're a parent and how youngyour children are, and if they
get up at crazy o'clock.
So I still have got a child thatwakes up between five 30 and six
each day, but they, so my startof my day is to do some form of
like mindfulness or meditation.
(21:27):
And I use Insight Timer app.
If I'm like in a place that'sreally quiet, which is not often
in my house, I can meditatewithout an app.
But I do find in the morningsit's good, and my early riser
now knows that if she comes in,I've got my headphones in, she's
allowed to sit next to me on mybed and wait for me to be done,
be done.
I've trained her like that.
(21:49):
That was not the case for whenmy twins were until they were
about four or five.
I didn't always.
Have a start of the day, but Iwould try and do it early-ish in
the morning.
I'm just being super realistic.
'cause I know like when youlisten to so many podcasts and
people are like, oh, I do 40minutes of movement and then I
journal, and then I meditate,and then I do all these rituals.
(22:12):
I know for working parents, it'snot accessible.
So just finding the time.
Two things I would say that I'velearned, don't be a
perfectionist about it.
So if you miss a.
It, you haven't failed, justpick it up tomorrow.
You don't need to do it everysingle day.
Just have the intention and thenpick it up tomorrow if you miss
(22:33):
a day.
And also, if it doesn't work outperfectly, like you don't get to
the 10 minutes or you fallasleep, you've done that, or
your second or third child getsup.
So it's just you can't mad.
You have to stop.
Like as well.
You tried, your intent wasthere, and pat yourself on the
back.
And then if you, yeah, if youneed.
Headspace'cause that's whatmeditation does to me.
(22:55):
It really clears my busy mindfor me and helps open my heart
as well.
Then try and find it anothertime during the day can be
helpful, which again, is notrealistic on every day.
But some days I'll try and find15, 20 minutes.
Another point time in the day.
Chris Hudson (23:10):
Yeah.
Okay.
So 15, 20 minutes, you reckonYeah.
Is about the right sort of time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whenever you can grab it.
What about the, what about thesort of high stress moment?
I saw somebody, I was running,running training a little while
back and she took herself off tothe meditation room.
I.
In one of the breaks, which Ithought was very cool.
But yeah, she just wanted todecompress and have that sort of
(23:30):
sensory shut down a little bitbefore she came back into the
room and then she feltreinvigorated.
But it was all quite, quite alot for her in that sense.
And obviously we work a lot withneurodiversity being very firmly
in the mix within the world ofwork now as well.
So anything around circuitbreakers or ways to one mind or
relax during the day?
Fiona Walsh (23:51):
Yeah, I honestly think that the.
Most underrated tool we have ashumans is our breath.
So you can, and I've got a childwith neurodiversity, so you're
speaking my language and as aparent, I've had to teach my
child how to do box breathing oryou, when you block one or
(24:12):
store, I can't remember whatit's called, but, and so yes,
just taking the time.
Your breath is the tool to calmyour nervous system.
Your nervous system is whatmakes you feel.
Stressed or like you're racingthoughts if you've got shakes in
your hand, any physical stuffthat feels fast and hot and
scary in your, and anxious inyour body.
(24:32):
Your breath is the simplesttool.
And you can do box breaths,which is breathing in for four,
holding for four, breathing outfor four, and pausing for four.
That's a really good one.
Or you can really do a simpleone where you breathe in for
three.
Then hold it and then let it gofor as long as you can.
(24:54):
And really to calm your nervoussystem, you just need your out
breath, the exhale to be as longas possible compared to your
inhale, because if you've everseen someone having a panic
attack.
So as much as you can get yourout breath to extend, you don't
need to worry about the numbers.
Just remember, I've gotta get myoutbreath longer than my
(25:15):
inbreath.
And you can do that in a meetingroom.
Like you don't, yeah.
Yeah.
You don't even need to step intothe meditation room.
Another one is to just likereally ground your feet on the
ground.
So like really planning yourfeet in your, and you'll have
shoes on, but, and then makingsure all 10 of your toes really
connect in with the bottom ofyour shoe.
(25:37):
These are just simple ways.
These are very simple mindfullness hacks to get out of
your busy brain and reconnect,focus, reconnect in with your
body.
Chris Hudson (25:48):
Yeah, no, those are really good.
I've tried some of those aswell.
I went on a breath work course afew weeks back as well, and
yeah, she was saying exactly thesame thing.
If you're, even if you're in aconflict type situation, you're
arguing with somebody and youare, you're shouting or you,
it's not shouting a lot of thetime, but you're feeling the
rage basically.
You can be doing your breathwork and just letting them rant
(26:10):
and you could just be preparingyourself and steadying yourself
and grounding yourself and youknow, lining up for what?
Just sitting with your breathand your feelings and preparing
yourself for a better state anda better response in a way.
And I think that's reallyhelpful.
It doesn't feel like you arealways prepared for what happens
in the world of work, and Ithink that can really help.
Fiona Walsh (26:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I agree.
And when you get stressed,you're, when we talk about it
with my child, but you flip yourbrain, right?
So from a neuroscience point ofview.
Your brain is not working.
You're not like your cognitionis switched off.
So if you allow yourself to conlike the stress to take over.
You're not actually, you shutdown listening.
(26:51):
You shut down creativity.
You shut down all the thingsthat you need to actually
survive in that moment, and it'sreally fascinating the whole
threat response that we gothrough, because it comes from.
A very prime, when we were inprimal days, when as cave
people, if we were like in NorthVancouver where I live, we have
cougars and bears in the forest.
(27:12):
Yeah.
Over the road.
Yeah, I know.
So the threat response was like,am I being chased by a bear or a
cougar?
Like my body needs to like flee.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm like, in my life is indanger.
What we now know about ourbrains and then how that feels
in our body, which is ournervous system response, is our.
Human brains do the same thingin social interactions that they
(27:36):
used to do when you were gettingchased by a beer.
So you might be sitting in ameeting room and someone's, hi
Chris.
I'd love to give you somefeedback on how you showed up in
that meeting the other day, whoyou showed up poorly.
Your brain and body starts torespond in exactly the same way
as if you were being chased by acougar.
And so knowing this about what'sactually going on for us can be
(27:58):
really helpful.
'cause you are like, I'm safe.
Take a few deep breaths.
I'm not being chased.
You know what I mean?
Ground your feet, do yourbreathing.
Or I always say to my clients aswell, if you are actually
feeling rattled, it's totallyfine to be like.
I'm going to need a little bitof time like to, I'm feeling a
bit stressed, I'm feeling a bitanxious.
(28:18):
I need some time just to calmdown.
Can I come back to you in ashort amount of time?
So you're just asking for somespace to regulate your nervous
system so that you can come backand show up as your best self?
Chris Hudson (28:31):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can I ask, have you been chasedby cougar in North Vancouver?
No.
No.
Fiona Walsh (28:37):
Have
Chris Hudson (28:38):
you seen a bear?
You must have seen bear.
Fiona Walsh (28:39):
I've, yeah.
We have bears often.
I live close to the forest, soin the summertime we have bear
bears over here.
They're like big dogs.
They're like scroungers.
So they want to get into any binor any food on your
Chris Hudson (28:51):
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (28:52):
Yeah.
But cougars, no.
Last winter we had.
Mama and three cougar cubs thatwere in our local park living
for three months, which is quiteunheard of and was quite scary.
Our kids' school was, they usedto like, if we picked up, rocked
up to pick up and they had musicblasting out the speakers.
(29:13):
That was because the familycougars had been visiting that
day and they used the music as adeterrence and it's, I always
laugh, Chris, because everyonein Canada says.
Oh my God.
I'm never going to Australiabecause of the snakes and the
spiders.
And I'm like, we like, these arepeople who live in my
neighborhood.
I'm like, we have cougars, walkthe streets and bears in daytime
(29:34):
and nighttime, and you areworried about a little spider.
Chris Hudson (29:37):
Oh no, I know.
Yeah, I've seen alone as well.
I know how, I know what's outthere in for Vancouver.
Fiona Walsh (29:42):
Oh, totally.
What was the music?
The alone episode where thebears were up the trees was
like, I was like, oh yeah,really petrified of that one
Chris Hudson (29:50):
escaping up a tree.
You need to know how to climb.
Yeah, it's not that bad in thecorporate world.
What?
What was the music they wereusing to deter the Cougars?
Cougar Families.
Just out of interest.
Oh my God.
Was it, so one
Fiona Walsh (30:01):
day it was Ghost Busters.
He knows it.
Chris Hudson (30:07):
That's it.
Yeah.
All right.
One of the, one of the things,the example that you gave us
really great, I think from abreathwork point of view,
getting yourself ready forresponding to that moment.
I think the other,'cause weoften talk about these things
from the point of view is the,as the recipient, basically.
So you feel like you are in acorner and you need to negotiate
your way out of that.
But also as a leader or as amanager from the.
(30:27):
Other side.
If you are having to prepare forsome of these conversations,
which can be difficult, do youknow of any kind of tips around
how to, how to break that sortof news and have difficult
conversations or challengingconversations that could result
in a, an adverse reaction andreally helping people set up for
it from that point of view?
Just out of interest?
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (30:48):
Yeah.
Again, back to the threat resresponse that I was talking
about before.
So this is a neuroscience.
Model by David Scarf, who's anAussie, but I did, I studied
under his coachingcertification.
It's, and it's all brain-basedstuff, so you've got your, your
stress response with your threatresponse.
You've also got like this rewardstate, which the other side,
(31:10):
which is where.
When you are coaching or you'rea manager and you're having
conversations and you wannaengage with people, you wanna
keep their brain and thereforetheir body and nervous system in
the reward state.
So making sure you let them knowin advance that you're going to
be having a difficultconversation so that you, and
(31:30):
don't just land it on them inthe moment.
And even if in tracking, in realtime in a conversation with the
person.
Where are they at?
How are they feeling?
Because if they've gone intothat shutdown mode, the threat
response, which we all do,you're actually talking to a
brick wall.
Chris Hudson (31:47):
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (31:48):
And wasting their time and your time because
they're not listening, thentheir cognition is Duke.
Tracking with them in the momentis the most powerful tool you
can do as a leader to ensurethat the communication is
effective.
Chris Hudson (32:02):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's reallyhelpful because as a leader you
almost find it so uncomfortablethat you want to get it out the
way, but forcing it in thatsituation, it's a bit like
negotiating with a child.
A child, sorry, child.
Yeah.
You're negotiating with your ownkid and it's a bit.
We have a joke about it.
It's like negotiating withterrorists some of the time
because you can't negotiate withthat when you're getting a
(32:24):
response, which is a screamingor a physical reaction, the
throwing stuff, whatever it is.
But you get that in a way.
It's not quite that bad within acorporate setting, I'm sure, but
Well, people can't, can't cometo the party and they can't
think rationally in that moment.
Fiona Walsh (32:38):
Yeah.
And when your brain is in thatthreat state, you can't
communicate.
You can't collaborate, so youcan't even.
Come up with new ideas of how wemight be like, how could we do
this better next time?
And they're like, I don't know.
It is because they're like, theyliterally don't know they're
frozen in that state.
And when we're in a threatrestraint, we'll show up
differently.
Like some people will freeze.
(33:00):
Some people wanna flight.
Like I've been in meetingcorporate where someone got,
instead of they were going headto head with someone and then
they just stormed out of theroom because they were in flight
mode.
I was more susceptible to.
Fawn mode, which isn't not knownas well, but it's if you,
particularly if you've gotpeople pleasing tendencies where
you might be going fromchallenging someone you know,
(33:22):
respectfully to them, oh, okay,great.
It's a great idea.
Yeah, let's go ahead.
But you actually don't think itis, but you're, you are fawning
'cause you're like completely,you're not frozen, but the words
coming out are not what youreally would wanna be saying.
Chris Hudson (33:35):
Yeah, interesting.
'cause Fly does spring to mindfirst of all, but there's that
compliance aspect particularly,and there's, it's a weird thing
within corporate, but or anybusiness situation, but there's
a lot of, I know it's like apeer to peer social norming.
There's a lot of comparisonobviously between people both.
Overtly or consciously, orsubconsciously.
So I feel that can happen too.
(33:57):
You feel like you're forced intoa situation.
You just go along with itbecause it's easier and you're
not.
You're just gonna complain toyour partner.
When you get home and have alarge glass of wine or
something, it just feels likeyou're just gonna find other
ways to cope with it, whichprobably isn't that helpful
either.
So that bottling up is gonna behappening all the time,
Fiona Walsh (34:12):
and then it can come out at another time in that
it doesn't need to to your kids,though it's not, the bottling
ups not ever helpful.
I always say.
Though to my coaching clients,and this is something that I use
myself as well, that if you didFawn or you did say, oh, okay,
let's just go ahead with it.
(34:32):
No, nothing's ever won and done.
You can always go back the nextday to your boss and say, Hey, I
was a bit rattled in thatmeeting.
I was a bit surprised by.
What you were saying, it was abit of a shock, and you know
what, now I've had time to sitwith it.
Would it be okay if I share mythoughts on it now?
And you then you returning froma much more regulated space,
(34:53):
you're much more likely to havemore positive intent rather than
how you might have shown up theday before when your nervous
system was really firing.
Chris Hudson (35:02):
Yeah, I mean that definitely that sense of the
moment has passed and you can'tgo back to, it is, yeah, won and
done as you put it.
It's like it's set in stone, butyou wouldn't want to revisit it
or you'd be worried about yourboss being even more annoyed by
the fact that you would bringthat up again because they've
moved on.
I.
You should have moved on.
It's getting to that feeling ofawkwardness.
(35:22):
It's a bit of a guilt feelingthat creeps in and yeah, people
don't always feel confidentgoing into something that isn't
progressive.
It feels like it's a stepbackwards rather than a step
forwards.
Yeah.
How do you get more comfortablewith that?
Think?
Fiona Walsh (35:35):
One thing I'll say from the leader manager role in
that is that you need to behaving constant open feedback
loops with the people on yourteam.
And if you sensed in a meetingor you heard from somebody else
that people were shocked andthat there was surprise or there
was a whole, there was a lot ofemotion in the room, then go
(35:56):
back and ask for more feedbackbecause you may not have, you
may have got a certain,sometimes you might have got a
bigger reaction than whatactually.
Has landed.
Like people would like, I don'thave that idea.
I'm not gonna, or you might havehad thought everyone was okay
with it, but then they've goneback to their offices and
they're all bitching andgossiping and figuring out how
not to do it.
(36:17):
So a constant communication andopen lines is definitely the way
to go.
And not thinking that you're oneand done, I, I'm not saying
don't overdo it as well,'causepeople will always find
something to complain about, butjust make sure that.
If there's close the gap onwhether or not you know, won and
(36:37):
done is enough, no, it'sprobably not.
So just use your own judgmentand.
For people who are intuitive,use your intuition.
Usually it's pretty bang on whenit comes to people's reactions
or if there's something that'sastray that you haven't quite
uncovered within your team oryour group that you're working
with.
Chris Hudson (36:55):
Yeah, I always think there's inter, there's
interest in looking at what isfeeling like that's almost
agreed upon, and where arepeople aligned and where are
people behaving almost similarlyto one another, and where are
people behaving different tothat.
So both of those situations tellyou something about what the
group dynamics within thecorporate landscape are, because
(37:15):
you've got the back channels andother things happening, and you
know that somebody's making acup of tea in the kitchen and
they're moaning about something.
And you can walk in and you canoverhear some of that.
But it's almost what do you do?
How do you respond?
It's very complex, like from a,from anyone out there who
experiences social anxiety, andI feel I've had this myself.
It's what am I walking into hereand how should I respond and how
(37:36):
do I arrive at work every day?
And it's really hard tonavigate.
Have you had any stories likethat from clients that you work
with and help people in thatsort of sense of knowing where,
where certainty exists or how tomanage uncertainty?
Fiona Walsh (37:50):
Yeah.
The.
There's a model, David Rock, whoI mentioned before, he's got a,
he's got a really coolassessment called, and it's a
scarf model.
And one at the C in scarf standsfor certainty.
And, and this model actuallylinks directly to what I've been
talking about, like how insocial situations, how we
respond to how we might betriggered or respond in certain
(38:13):
situations.
So.
I would usually get people to dothe assessment so they can see
where they are on the certaintyscale.
What are we doing?
We are creating self-awarenessof, I remember when I was
consulting last year, one of theleaders I was working like side
by side with, she had thehighest, she had such a high
tolerance for uncertainty, and Iwas like.
That's why you're like such asuperstar in digital
(38:33):
transformation.
'cause there is zero certainty.
It's just like the unknown everyday, swimming through murky
water and hoping you find whatyou're looking for versus, and
having things thrown at youconstantly versus someone who
has a really low tolerance foruncertainty.
And yes, I have coached thosepeople and they tend to be.
(38:55):
Have either high functioninganxiety or just medical
diagnosis as anxiety becausethey are trying to control the
situation and it is very hard ontheir nervous system to come
into work every day.
I think the people like thatneed to be aware of it and make
sure that they choose roles thatare not, that can give them more
(39:16):
certainty day to day.
So I wouldn't go into anythingthat's innovation or
transformation where you'reevolving.
Phase to phase or sprint tosprint because you can't predict
plan and predict what's gonnahappen in the next three months.
So making sure you choose a rolethat really plays to your
strengths and'cause I found thatpeople who like a lot of
(39:38):
certainty can be really sturdyperformers in some operational
roles and they actually shinereally brightly once they find
the right role for them ratherthan.
Trying to operate in a state ofanxiety, which is, it's
challenging to, to reach yourtrue potential if you're anxious
at work every day.
Chris Hudson (39:57):
Mm.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
For sure.
Yeah.
It just reminds me of.
Some work that I've done work inthe transformation space and
often in that kind of uncertainarea as well.
I think there's something to besaid for really naming what
people are going through,particularly within a group
context, so that peopleunderstand the direction that
you're going and whether youmight be in a divergent stage
(40:18):
where yeah, is goes, come upwith as many ideas as possible
and let's all have some fundoing that.
Then you need to converge onsomething that's really
important and actually make adecision so that you can move
past a particular gate or amilestone and get to the next
stage.
So it feels, some people mightbe expecting certainty at points
of uncertainty or vice versa.
And as a leader or an emergingleader, you need to manage that.
(40:40):
You just need to help peopleunderstand the situation that
they're in within a meetingcontext, within a workshop
context, or even a conversation.
And then just move them.
Always signpost it a little bitso that it becomes a bit more
understandable, a bit morerelatable.
And then I think I've seenreally positive results from
that too.
'cause people that do have akind of inclination for
certainty, all of a sudden youtake the shackles off when
(41:03):
they're in a workshopenvironment or they're, they're
able to just throw out theirideas in a more carefree manner
and they're really happier.
It feels really liberating forthem as well at times.
So I think it's settingexpectations, obviously.
But
Fiona Walsh (41:15):
yeah, I think also as.
Don't let it become the elephantin the room.
I think when things areuncomfortable, there's
discomfort at work.
It's really important to talkabout it.
Yeah, and talk about ways tomove through discomfort.
Emotions that come up don't lastmore than 90 seconds, but if we
numb them or push them aside,which is normally the corporate
way of dealing with likenegative emotions, they will
(41:36):
come back to bite you and yeah.
I think that leaders do.
It's their job to be sturdy andto, as you say, provide as much
certainty as possible.
And if there's, or scaffoldingas the other ones, give people,
I can give you this and we'regonna bounce around between
these two scaffolding pieces,but not, but never over
(41:57):
communicate certainty if it'snot there, because that actually
rattles people way more.
Chris Hudson (42:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Hey, as we come to the close, Iwanted to maybe just start or
end with a fairly big questionbecause obviously you work a lot
of people around the world and Ithink that you're gonna have, I
do the same thing.
I work a lot of businesses, workwith different people that I
mentor and coach, and you get aread for what's going on in
different industries a littlebit and, and what people are
(42:25):
experiencing.
So it's probably a questionaround that, around what you are
hearing as being within theworld of work.
In particular, not so much aboutintrapreneurs, but what are the
big things that you are seeingstill needing to change within
the world of work and yeah.
Have you got any kind of senseof what those themes are?
Fiona Walsh (42:43):
I think it's a couple.
One would be that there, there'sthis, there's a lot of talk in
the moment about post Covid.
You know how we, when we're athome and we were all laid there
and we had kids on our lap anddogs peeing next to us while
we're trying to facilitate callswith 150 people, and then people
have come back to the office andI think there's a lot of talk
(43:05):
about what people wanting tobring their whole self to work,
but then.
Bringing things to the workplacethat might actually be better
suited with a coach or with atherapist.
And I'm hearing a little bitmore like that.
So my coaching clients wantingme to work with people on their
team because they're like,they're bringing stuff that like
no one used to bring this towork before.
(43:27):
And so I think that's one that'sinteresting that's come up,
which might be particular to thekind of work that I do.
But yeah, people bringing thingsinto the workplace that maybe.
And it's also an opportunity forleaders to, to establish some
fresh boundaries around, I'mhere to support you, but I have
boundaries around X and Y.
And we either have an EAPprogram that can help you, or
(43:50):
like we can get you a coach or atherapist.
So just making sure that peoplefeel supported through the all
the uncertainty that is in theworld.
The other piece that's beenreally relevant for over here in
North America has been, and Idon't wanna go into it'cause I
don't talk politics, but Trumpbeing voted in, caused a huge
(44:11):
ripple effect across NorthAmerica and being in Canada,
we're just over the border.
We do feel it a lot.
And there was a lot of despair,I would say, and like really.
Negative emotions about whatcould be.
So that really rattled people inthe last sort of month, I would
say.
But it, I think people arecoming out of it now and there's
(44:31):
some optimism and some, we'vegotta be open-minded about what
happens.
It was just last time Trump wasin power.
It was a bit of a, it felt likea bit of a circus in Canada
watching on, and we wereimpacted by different pieces of
it, and I, I am sure it was thesame for the rest of the world.
Yeah, watching on times that wewas disbelief of some of the
(44:52):
stuff that was being said andtaking place.
Chris Hudson (44:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get that.
You can feel incredibly.
Drawn into that, bothpersonally, psychologically it
feels like you, you feel likeyou, you would have an
attachment, but obviously thelack of control, it's the same
within Yeah.
Social environment.
If there's a new CEO or a newmanager, somebody came in, you
wouldn't, it's an unknown untilit happens.
But until it happens, in somecases it is a known and yeah,
(45:18):
you're just dreading what mighthappen.
Fiona Walsh (45:20):
Yeah, and, and in those cases, like you need to
protect yourself.
So if that means taking a breakfrom the media.
Do it.
Like I did not check thenewspapers for the week after
Trump was announced.
So just out of self-protection.
So I didn't go down rabbit holesof looking up the guardian and
all the different news sources,the New Yorker and everything.
(45:42):
Put boundaries in place foryourself.
If it's making you feelstressed, then it, you are your
own boss at the end of the day.
Yeah, put some boundaries inplace so that you can shut out
the data coming in, becausethat's one of the biggest issues
of this information age is thatwe're just overloaded with
information.
So if we don't have goodboundaries ourselves around what
we're allowing into our mind, itcan create swirl and a lot of
(46:05):
stress that is, and like with uspolitics like.
Most of your listeners and meincluded, have zero control over
anything that's happening inthat space.
So us actually thinking about itis not the best use of our time
or our brain or emotionalcapacity.
I.
Chris Hudson (46:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was speaking to somebody theother day and it was just very
matter of fact.
They, he's gonna be in, there'sgonna be a term, it's four
years, it'll be somebody elseafter that.
Maybe not.
It's, it's easy to distanceyourself if you can or if you
know how to, but yeah,boundaries is really important,
particularly as more and more iscoming in, as you say.
So I think having a healthy.
Ongoing reset or ongoingboundary setting here and there.
(46:46):
Being aware of your habits andwhat you feel is triggering you,
like I was saying before, is allvery important.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really good stuff.
Thank you.
Fiona Walsh (46:53):
Yeah.
I think also, one last thing isto, yeah, be aware of if
there's, you've got a reallysense, strong sense of purpose
and why you are here, and if youare, like for you, it might be
this podcast for someone else,it might be an offer that
they're launching that.
If you've got a really strongpurpose that comes from your
values and from your heart, thatis where you should be investing
(47:14):
your time and effort.
And really, if other things aredistracting you that you have
zero control over, then you arein your best interest to block
it out and just stay razorsharp.
Focus on what your purpose isbecause what at the end of the
day when you die, you're gonnalook back and be like, oh my
God, I'm so proud that I didthat and I caused that ripple
(47:35):
effect.
I served people in a way that Iknow I was here.
You, no one's gonna sit thereand think, oh, I'm so happy I
read all those Trump articles.
Chris Hudson (47:43):
Yeah, I think regret is in incredibly
powerful.
You think back to wasted time orit's when you are older and you
think, but I wish I'd done thatwhen I was younger, or if I'd
done this sooner.
And it's hard one, right?
You can focus on the future somuch, but obviously a lot of
people are feeling a deep senseof regret.
Fiona Walsh (47:59):
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately.
Chris Hudson (48:01):
Great.
Yeah, we'll wrap there.
Thanks so much for coming ontothe show, Fiona.
I really enjoyed the chat.
We've gone into a lot ofdifferent areas and yeah, a lot
of it is gonna be memorable tome and I'm sure to the listeners
out there as well.
And of course, every time I hearGhostbuster's theme, she, I'm
gonna be triggered by that.
I'm gonna be thinking of Cougarsrunning after me.
No, I won't.
But yeah, I really appreciateyou coming into the show.
(48:21):
Thanks so much for joining usfrom Vancouver and yeah, have a
wonderful day.
Fiona Walsh (48:26):
Thanks so much for having me, Chris.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation today.
Okay, we are back and welcome to another
empowering episode of TheCompany Ride podcast, which is
the podcast for organizationalrebels and entrepreneurs out
there.
And as we hit our stride in2025, it's gonna be important to
tune into where we're at andreally reconsider whether we're
in the right place in what we'redoing.
After all, we spend a lot of ouravailable time in the grind and
(00:27):
working.
And so we may as well findfulfillment and achieve impact
in what we do in some way.
And a lot of that is to do withmindset and where we situate
ourselves mentally.
But before we get into that, Ican pretty much situate where my
next guest is, well, more orless because I have a lot of
family in this part of the worldfrom Vancouver, bc.
So a big shout out to theCanadian fam out there, and I'd
(00:48):
love to now welcome my veryspecial guest, Fiona Walsh, who
is a renowned mindset coach, achange advisor, and a host of
the Limitless podcast.
So Fiona, thanks so much forcoming onto the show.
Fiona Walsh (00:58):
Thank you for having me today, Chris.
I'm delighted to be here and aspeople can hear now, I'm not a
Canadian.
I'm born and bred in Melbourne,so actually.
Chris and I.
Sounds like we switchedhometowns about the same time a
few years ago.
Chris Hudson (01:11):
That's it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
I was gonna introduce as myfirst Canadian guest.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (01:16):
I've got three Canadian children, if that
counts.
Chris Hudson (01:18):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Fiona, let me share a bit moreabout you and the listeners to
the show a bit more about you.
With over 20 years of experiencein guiding transformational
change and strategicdevelopment, Fiona, you've
helped intrapreneurs, seniorleaders, unlock their true
potential.
To achieve a lot of alignment,fulfillment, and exponential
growth in their roles.
And one of the beliefs that youhold dear to, that you hold
(01:38):
closely is in deepself-discovery as a tool to
overcome self-doubt and reallyunveil hidden opportunities and
your work therefore, bridges thestrategic with the personal.
Side of things and fosteringgrowth that really resonates
both internally within yourselfand externally within the work
that you would do.
So you've worked with people allover the world, from Sydney to
(01:59):
New York, and lots of places inbetween, I'm sure, but you've
worked with high performersworldwide and you blend that
sort of strategic insight withprofound understanding of human
behavior.
So I'm.
Really excited to have you onthe show.
I want to hear about yourjourney, the insights around
conquering some of thosepersonal limitations as we all
face, and the transformativepower of aligning inner and
(02:19):
outer worlds in some sort ofway, which sounds like a sort of
TV show premise, but I kind ofwanna get into that.
May we start with a bit aboutwhat you do and the kind of
people that you work with.
Fiona, do you wanna tell us abit about that?
Fiona Walsh (02:29):
Yeah, sure.
Thanks Chris.
At the moment I'm coaching inone-on-one spaces, and I
typically coach with highperformers in corporate and also
people who are founders who havetheir own businesses and people
who are not necessarily brandnew to coaching or who are not
brand new to say self-awarenesswork.
And we.
(02:50):
Go deep into their inner world.
So quite often people come to mewith external goals, and what we
typically do is get really clearon what they're wanting, either
in their business or is it apromotion at work or a new role
in, or building up a newleadership skill.
And then what we do is we gothrough a really holistic
(03:10):
integrative process, whichstarts with self.
So getting really clear on whois their true self.
So what are their superpowers,what are their values, which I
know we're gonna get to later.
What are their strengths andwhat are they like genuinely
excited by in life?
Then we go into the deeper,darker shadows and we explore
(03:33):
their inner critic or critic.
So we all have parts ofourselves.
That are in our inner world, andthey're operating in our
subconscious part of our mindand body, so we are not always
aware of them.
And these parts are when you gettriggered, say you're in a
meeting and your boss sayssomething and you're like, oh,
like why does he always do that?
(03:53):
Or when your wife or your kidsactivate you, that trigger is
really something happening deepin your subconscious world.
And so we go deep into exploringwho those parts are, who are the
different inner critics in yourworld, because.
Those critics are typicallyholding you back from reaching
your true self, aligning withyour true self, and they quite
(04:15):
often block you.
So that's a journey that we goon.
It's always a lot of fun.
It's quite deep, heavy work, butI always bring a lot of
lightness and playfulness andfun to it because it much easier
when you can laugh at yourself.
We're all human and we all havethis duality of our true self
and then our shadow or ego self.
And so it's a process ofself-exploration and.
(04:37):
What I've found is that once weunlock these blocks and blind
spots in our inner world, theintentions and the goals of the
external world that my clientscome to me for start to unravel,
and they usually expandexponentially.
So they're stepping straightinto the next promotion because
they're starting to have theconversations that they've been
avoiding or been too worried tohave.
(05:00):
They're speaking up forthemselves there.
Way more confident inarticulating their value and
because it comes from a place ofauthenticity rather than maybe
from a place of acceptance orapproval.
Chris Hudson (05:11):
Yeah.
Nice.
That sounds incrediblyinteresting and also really
important.
I feel like that you can findout a lot about yourself, but
you wouldn't always know how to.
Think we always find that almostthe organizations that we find
ourselves in, particularly asintrapreneurs and I know now
that you've been in that role aswell.
It feels like you almost rely onother people to feedback a lot
on who you are.
Whereas it's mainly less of afocus on you finding that out
(05:34):
for yourself because you'requite often reliant on the
outside systems to effectivelytell you who you are and what
you're doing in that place.
So.
I love the fact that you'retalking about it from a
self-identification andself-awareness point of view,
almost as a starting point.
Can you give us a kind of, canyou bring to life some of the
triggers and some of theblockers, just so that people
(05:55):
understand what sort of thingsthose things might be.
Fiona Walsh (05:57):
Yeah, sure.
If I think about people whomight be entrepreneurs, so in
the corporate world, it might bethat you might have a fear of
failure that you're not actuallyaware of, and so that may get in
if you've been put in this greatnew opportunity, it's like an
innovation space and you'regonna have to put yourself out
(06:18):
there and take some risks andthe actual.
Pathway ahead of you is prettymurky and unknown, and no one
really knows where you're going,which is the world of
transformation innovation.
You might step into it full ofexcitement and confidence, and
I'm really gonna prove myself.
The blockers in the blind spotcomes in when the little voice
in your head start saying, whatthe hell are you doing?
(06:40):
You don't know what you're doinghere.
You don't take risks.
This is scary.
Get out, jump.
So the job of our parts is tokeep us safe and the part does
not want us to change.
It wants us to stay in thestatus quo, wants us to stay
safe.
And so if you are in a rolewhere you are being asked to
change personally or lead changeand growth for others and the
(07:03):
organization.
It's likely that the littlevoice in your head will start
chatting to you and you may notbe aware of it because a lot of
us, and I know this was me, thevoice talks all day long, and so
you cut.
It's really hard to decipherbetween what is just your, the,
your true self talking to youversus the inner critic.
Chris Hudson (07:22):
Yeah.
That's sort of voice that's inyour head that's telling you
either you're doing the rightthing or you're not doing the
right thing.
What were some of the scenariosthat spring to mind?
Have you got any stories fromyour own experience that feel
like they would sit in that campof either in a critic or where
your voice is actually reallyhelping you?
Either of those.
Fiona Walsh (07:40):
The switch that I make from intrapreneur to
entrepreneur that cracked open ahuge bucket of work that I had
to do on myself.
And yeah, this is probably likea heads up if anyone's thinking
of going out on their own, whenyou step out of the safety net
of corporate and you areresponsible for.
Your income, the front and backof house, you're responsible.
(08:03):
You effectively become yourbrand.
There's a lot comes up in termsof, for me, it was more around
fear of judgment and fear ofrejection.
So I have done a lot of workmyself on overcoming people
pleasing, which comes withwanting to be liked, wanting to
have.
Other people validate andacknowledge the work that I'm
(08:25):
doing to let me know that I'mdoing a good job, which these
are all, and also like pleasingothers is pretty much a really
common trait of a peoplepleaser.
And when I came to say, launchmy podcast, I know that some of
the conversations that we arehaving on the podcast are going
to totally ruffle people'sfeathers, and they're not going
(08:47):
to please all listeners and.
I was very hypervigilant inthinking that I could control
other people's thoughts,feelings, and actions, and spent
a lot of my corporate lifethinking that I could do that,
and it probably led to too muchstress and burnout.
But one of the things that I wasable to overcome was that little
voice in my head when it wouldsay.
(09:09):
Why would anyone listen to yourpodcast?
Who are you to do this?
And then really just noticing itand in the moment and saying,
it's okay.
This is a big move.
And yes, you're putting yourselfout there.
You're gonna share your story,vulnerability, and hold space
for people to share vulnerablestories.
And we are gonna talk aboutthings that are not comfortable
for people to necessarily listento.
(09:30):
But this is your purpose.
This is why you are here.
And so to say to, that's how mytrue self would.
Then my inner critic was beinglike, okay, I'll get outta the
way.
You sound like you've got this.
And so just having the innerdialogue, it sounds, if people
listening, they might be like,my God, she's got crazy voices
in her head, but it actuallydoes work.
You can encourage and becompassionate towards your
(09:52):
critic and let them know thatyou've got this and that they're
safe and they don't need to stepin.
Chris Hudson (09:57):
Yeah, definitely.
I love that story.
Thank you for sharing as well.
And I know for myself being onthat podcast journey, it's
terrifying because you'reputting yourself out there in
the world.
You dunno what's gonna come backand how people are gonna
respond.
And thankfully it's been prettypositive.
I'm sure it's been the same foryou, but the people that wanna
say something will saysomething.
Fiona Walsh (10:14):
Yeah.
And I think the most rewardingthings that's come out of my
podcast is that each episode youput out there, the feedback you
get, you just don't know whichpart of which of each
conversation is going toresonate with anyone.
And it depends on where they arein that moment, where they're
listening with what's going onin their life.
(10:36):
And so I've just been floored bypeople like, oh, that was the
most, that was the point of thepodcast that I'll never forget,
and I'll be like, oh, really?
I thought it would've been thatagain, it shows you cannot
control how anyone's gonnarespond to what comes out of
your mouth.
I think you just have to do itwith an open heart and be
positive intent, and then justlet it land.
Chris Hudson (10:54):
Yeah, that's right.
I had a previous episode with aparenting coach and counselor,
Lael Stone, who's is quite big.
Fiona Walsh (11:01):
Oh, she's amazing.
Chris Hudson (11:02):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And Lael was talking, we weretalking a bit about the inner
child and how it represent andhow it presents at work.
And it, it is a really goodchat.
And yeah, I think it's, it'sinteresting to know what we feel
we can control.
Uh, but also once you're awareof what you can control, you
realize that you can't controleverything for one.
But it's also knowing andlearning how to let go of that
little bit.
So what you were just describingin the step that you made from
(11:25):
inside corporate world into theoutside world of running your
own business and setting up yourown coaching practice, it just
feels like that, that ifanything teaches you that you
know you, you're not able tocontrol all of the influencers.
And I think as intrapreneurs wefind that there's this almost.
Like, I dunno if it's fixed setexpectations, or it feels like
you're going into quite aconstant mode of work every
(11:47):
single day and that theenvironment is what you know and
what you would expect.
But actually, if you can getused to the fact that you can't
control everything within thatenvironment as well, then maybe
it would give you some courageto push into different
directions and be a bit morebrave.
What do you think?
Fiona Walsh (12:03):
I think I agree with that.
I think the trap that I fellinto when I was an intrapreneur
as well was because I was stilllike knee deep in my people
pleasing and relationships waswhat one of the key things in
connection was one of the keythings that made me really
successful.
And so I became quitehypervigilant in making sure
that I didn't piss people offand that we were giving people
(12:25):
what they wanted.
But then sometimes you thendon't hold boundaries that
actually are required.
Yeah.
That was one of my own patternsthat I needed to break because
Yeah, it wasn't helpful when Iwas in corporate.
Chris Hudson (12:39):
Yeah.
Yeah.
When you were in that role, howdid you go about finding out, in
a sense what was expected ofyou, and then finding out to the
point where you're not only justdelivering on that, but almost
finding other ways to make italmost your own unique way of
doing it?
Fiona Walsh (12:54):
Do you mean like leading a change or
Chris Hudson (12:56):
Yeah, leading a change or anything where you
thought, okay, I've been askedto do this, but I'm gonna do it
my way.
Fiona Walsh (13:01):
Oh, okay.
Cool.
So.
I would always take a brief frommy boss, and then the number one
thing that I would always gowould be go out to the
organization and find out, getinformation on, did people have
any word on this?
Do they have any opinions,views?
Right?
Get some insider knowledge ofwhat people thought of it or
(13:22):
were they aware of it.
And then I would use thatinformation to help inform my
plan of how I was gonna go aboutleading the change.
And usually as well, as I said,I used core relationships to be
successful.
So I would in thoseconversations also be recruiting
people to be like unofficiallike champions within their
departments and teams.
(13:43):
'cause one of the things that isinevitable in corporate is that
people like to shut down a newidea, or they all like to pick
holes in it and pieces.
And so it helps to have thosecheerleaders who have your back
in each of the teams ordepartments so that when that
inevitably happens.
They can be the ones going, no,I've heard about, this is a good
idea.
This is gonna be fun.
We are gonna enjoy doing this.
Chris Hudson (14:04):
Yeah.
Cool.
And you're working with peoplethat are in these organizations
now and presumably they'reeither leaders or they're on the
way to becoming leaders workingwith mainly at the moment.
Fiona Walsh (14:12):
Most of them are at sort of director, maybe senior
manager, director level, and aretrying to step up.
And then the entrepreneurs are awhole gamut of where they're at
in their business and thedifferent revenue, um, targets
they have and things like that.
And yeah, so in corporatethough, it's mostly people who
(14:32):
have been leading teams and beenin a leadership role with
experience under their belt, andthey've done leadership
development programs before andthey might have even had a
leadership coach in theircorporate environment.
This is really like the finetuning and the like leveling up
so that they can move from thecurrent level they're in and
(14:53):
prove their value and theirworth and their confidence to
the people above them so thatthey get promoted or if they
wanted to move out into adifferent organizational
industry.
Chris Hudson (15:02):
Yeah.
Gotcha.
Okay.
And then so almost they'reinvesting in that service from
you personally and Yeah.
Working with you on that levelrather than it being almost
associated with the trainingthat they would get through
work.
Is that right?
Fiona Walsh (15:14):
Yeah.
And I think as well.
I've worked with coaches incorporate and then I've also had
coaches that are independentthat I've paid for myself, and
there certainly is a difference.
There's a, even corporatein-house coaches, there can be
some confidentiality questionsat time.
I know that coaches are notsupposed to, it shouldn't come
(15:35):
up, but I know that it's alwaysan issue and so.
A few of my clients specificallyhave said, I've turned down
internal coaching.
I want the trust of an externalcoach where I know what I share
will never leave this zoom call.
And the work I do with people'svery raw and vulnerable, and
quite often we go places that.
They haven't been before.
(15:56):
Memories come up like I do innerchild work in my coaching, like
you mentioned with Lael.
We go back to childhoodexperiences where people are
like far out.
I buried that and I didn't evenlike really remember that
memory.
And so it's really about holdingspace in quite a different way
to what I would've done when Iwas doing like leadership and
sales coaching within acorporate environment.
(16:16):
You're not gonna be in someone'soffice having those kinds of
conversations.
Yeah,
Chris Hudson (16:21):
yeah.
In terms of approaching that, sothat in getting started or.
Around some of those steps todeeper self-discovery.
What steps do you recommend forany individual beginning that
inward journey, and where wouldthey situate themselves with the
right conditions for that sortof work to start?
Do you feel?
Does it need to come to a headfor it to become like, I need to
do this now.
(16:42):
Can you be working at it a bitmore proactively rather than
reactively, as some people say?
Can you do it like that?
Fiona Walsh (16:47):
Yeah.
I think you could take eitherapproach if you find yourself.
In a crisis or you're like burntout or you've been fired, or
your partner's just left you,then those would be life moments
where doing some self-awarenessand self-discovery work would
make a lot of sense.
I think though, if you're in thecrisis stage, just taking care
(17:08):
of your health and wellbeing isprobably like a primary thing.
So making sure you're gettingenough sleep and you've got
support people around you.
When you're then ready to gointo self-awareness and
self-discovery, I do say topeople that one of the key hacks
to figure out where you may havesome work to do in terms of
self-discovery and maybe healingsome stuff from the past is when
(17:32):
you get triggered, so by yourpartner.
I would get them to have ajournal and be writing down when
they got triggered throughout acouple of weeks, a bit of a log.
And to start to see where thepatterns were.
And another tool forself-awareness that I find
really simple but effective isaround doing like a practice at
(17:53):
before you go to bed at night,which is based around gratitude,
but what's three things you aregrateful for during the day and
why you are grateful for themand how they made you feel.
And the feeling part is reallycritical.
It's not just, oh, it's coolthat my son won his soccer game.
Could be'cause that made meproud as a mum or whatever.
And then we then look at thatlog again to look for patterns
(18:15):
and start to deep dive into whatare the learnings.
So if you look at both of thosetwo examples, to create
self-awareness, you really needto start tracking what you do
each day, moment to moment.
Because so much of what we do,we are actually operating on
autopilot or not aware.
And so the simplest way to getaware is to start tracking
(18:38):
different things in your lifethat you might be interested in
learning a little bit more aboutyourself.
Chris Hudson (18:43):
And does that practice then become ease?
Obviously it becomes easier, butdo you feel like people are then
more in the habit?
It's almost like a muscle memorythat people are finding during
the day.
Oh, I'm pretty grateful for thatthing that just happened and I'm
gonna write down, write thatdown.
Is it more of a kind of practicemakes perfect approach?
Fiona Walsh (18:59):
Yeah, I think it does.
It starts to, yeah, it starts tobuild.
The gratitude one's interestingas well.
'cause it means you.
Go to sleep as well.
And your mind and body and soulis in a place of vibration, of
gratitude, which is one of ourhigher vibration energy states
and emotional states.
And so you're setting yourselfup for a much better night's
(19:20):
sleep, much better dreams thanif you have gone to bed and
you've just had a bit of anargument with your other half,
or, I dunno, you've watched areally scary show on Netflix or
something like that.
It's actually just, it's reallysetting yourself up for a
restful.
Positive sleep.
Chris Hudson (19:35):
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, good tip.
Good tip.
Yeah.
I don't watch a lot of thoseshows because of that, for that
reason.
But yeah, maybe I could, if Idid some rash to practice
afterwards, I'm not sure.
But is there something similarfor the start of the day or are
there any kind of like routinesor rituals that you talk to your
clients about?
Fiona Walsh (19:51):
Yeah, so yeah.
Most of my clients we like, oneof the basis of the setup is to
have a start.
Of the day and end of day ritualand the end of the day one is
always gratitude practice andyeah.
Sorry, I will just follow up onwhat you asked me before.
I now notice during,'cause I'vedone the gratitude journal for
quite a few years.
(20:11):
During the day I will like pauseand be like, oh my God, that's
really cool.
Why am I grateful for that?
How do I feel?
And I, it just is, I just trackthrough the process.
Now, it's also a really goodhack if you're in a bit of a
funky mood.
You just can't snap yourself outof it.
Finding something to be gratefulfor is a simple hack, again, to
(20:31):
raise your vibration and youremotional and energetic state.
I recommend that for the startof
Chris Hudson (20:37):
So quick question on that.
So there's a difference betweenthinking it, as in I think I'm
grateful for this and actuallywriting it down.
You mentioned journal, like isit really important to write it
down?
Fiona Walsh (20:46):
Yeah.
I think at the start it's reallyimportant, so you wanna think it
and then you want to.
Also label the emotion or thefeeling in your body that you
had with it.
That also helps just tie it in,put a bow on top.
So there's a couple of pieces toit.
The morning practice is a bit ofa tricky one because it depends
(21:07):
on.
If you're a parent and how youngyour children are, and if they
get up at crazy o'clock.
So I still have got a child thatwakes up between five 30 and six
each day, but they, so my startof my day is to do some form of
like mindfulness or meditation.
(21:27):
And I use Insight Timer app.
If I'm like in a place that'sreally quiet, which is not often
in my house, I can meditatewithout an app.
But I do find in the morningsit's good, and my early riser
now knows that if she comes in,I've got my headphones in, she's
allowed to sit next to me on mybed and wait for me to be done,
be done.
I've trained her like that.
(21:49):
That was not the case for whenmy twins were until they were
about four or five.
I didn't always.
Have a start of the day, but Iwould try and do it early-ish in
the morning.
I'm just being super realistic.
'cause I know like when youlisten to so many podcasts and
people are like, oh, I do 40minutes of movement and then I
journal, and then I meditate,and then I do all these rituals.
(22:12):
I know for working parents, it'snot accessible.
So just finding the time.
Two things I would say that I'velearned, don't be a
perfectionist about it.
So if you miss a.
It, you haven't failed, justpick it up tomorrow.
You don't need to do it everysingle day.
Just have the intention and thenpick it up tomorrow if you miss
(22:33):
a day.
And also, if it doesn't work outperfectly, like you don't get to
the 10 minutes or you fallasleep, you've done that, or
your second or third child getsup.
So it's just you can't mad.
You have to stop.
Like as well.
You tried, your intent wasthere, and pat yourself on the
back.
And then if you, yeah, if youneed.
Headspace'cause that's whatmeditation does to me.
(22:55):
It really clears my busy mindfor me and helps open my heart
as well.
Then try and find it anothertime during the day can be
helpful, which again, is notrealistic on every day.
But some days I'll try and find15, 20 minutes.
Another point time in the day.
Chris Hudson (23:10):
Yeah.
Okay.
So 15, 20 minutes, you reckonYeah.
Is about the right sort of time.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Whenever you can grab it.
What about the, what about thesort of high stress moment?
I saw somebody, I was running,running training a little while
back and she took herself off tothe meditation room.
I.
In one of the breaks, which Ithought was very cool.
But yeah, she just wanted todecompress and have that sort of
(23:30):
sensory shut down a little bitbefore she came back into the
room and then she feltreinvigorated.
But it was all quite, quite alot for her in that sense.
And obviously we work a lot withneurodiversity being very firmly
in the mix within the world ofwork now as well.
So anything around circuitbreakers or ways to one mind or
relax during the day?
Fiona Walsh (23:51):
Yeah, I honestly think that the.
Most underrated tool we have ashumans is our breath.
So you can, and I've got a childwith neurodiversity, so you're
speaking my language and as aparent, I've had to teach my
child how to do box breathing oryou, when you block one or
(24:12):
store, I can't remember whatit's called, but, and so yes,
just taking the time.
Your breath is the tool to calmyour nervous system.
Your nervous system is whatmakes you feel.
Stressed or like you're racingthoughts if you've got shakes in
your hand, any physical stuffthat feels fast and hot and
scary in your, and anxious inyour body.
(24:32):
Your breath is the simplesttool.
And you can do box breaths,which is breathing in for four,
holding for four, breathing outfor four, and pausing for four.
That's a really good one.
Or you can really do a simpleone where you breathe in for
three.
Then hold it and then let it gofor as long as you can.
(24:54):
And really to calm your nervoussystem, you just need your out
breath, the exhale to be as longas possible compared to your
inhale, because if you've everseen someone having a panic
attack.
So as much as you can get yourout breath to extend, you don't
need to worry about the numbers.
Just remember, I've gotta get myoutbreath longer than my
(25:15):
inbreath.
And you can do that in a meetingroom.
Like you don't, yeah.
Yeah.
You don't even need to step intothe meditation room.
Another one is to just likereally ground your feet on the
ground.
So like really planning yourfeet in your, and you'll have
shoes on, but, and then makingsure all 10 of your toes really
connect in with the bottom ofyour shoe.
(25:37):
These are just simple ways.
These are very simple mindfullness hacks to get out of
your busy brain and reconnect,focus, reconnect in with your
body.
Chris Hudson (25:48):
Yeah, no, those are really good.
I've tried some of those aswell.
I went on a breath work course afew weeks back as well, and
yeah, she was saying exactly thesame thing.
If you're, even if you're in aconflict type situation, you're
arguing with somebody and youare, you're shouting or you,
it's not shouting a lot of thetime, but you're feeling the
rage basically.
You can be doing your breathwork and just letting them rant
(26:10):
and you could just be preparingyourself and steadying yourself
and grounding yourself and youknow, lining up for what?
Just sitting with your breathand your feelings and preparing
yourself for a better state anda better response in a way.
And I think that's reallyhelpful.
It doesn't feel like you arealways prepared for what happens
in the world of work, and Ithink that can really help.
Fiona Walsh (26:30):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I agree.
And when you get stressed,you're, when we talk about it
with my child, but you flip yourbrain, right?
So from a neuroscience point ofview.
Your brain is not working.
You're not like your cognitionis switched off.
So if you allow yourself to conlike the stress to take over.
You're not actually, you shutdown listening.
(26:51):
You shut down creativity.
You shut down all the thingsthat you need to actually
survive in that moment, and it'sreally fascinating the whole
threat response that we gothrough, because it comes from.
A very prime, when we were inprimal days, when as cave
people, if we were like in NorthVancouver where I live, we have
cougars and bears in the forest.
(27:12):
Yeah.
Over the road.
Yeah, I know.
So the threat response was like,am I being chased by a bear or a
cougar?
Like my body needs to like flee.
Do you know what I mean?
I'm like, in my life is indanger.
What we now know about ourbrains and then how that feels
in our body, which is ournervous system response, is our.
Human brains do the same thingin social interactions that they
(27:36):
used to do when you were gettingchased by a beer.
So you might be sitting in ameeting room and someone's, hi
Chris.
I'd love to give you somefeedback on how you showed up in
that meeting the other day, whoyou showed up poorly.
Your brain and body starts torespond in exactly the same way
as if you were being chased by acougar.
And so knowing this about what'sactually going on for us can be
(27:58):
really helpful.
'cause you are like, I'm safe.
Take a few deep breaths.
I'm not being chased.
You know what I mean?
Ground your feet, do yourbreathing.
Or I always say to my clients aswell, if you are actually
feeling rattled, it's totallyfine to be like.
I'm going to need a little bitof time like to, I'm feeling a
bit stressed, I'm feeling a bitanxious.
(28:18):
I need some time just to calmdown.
Can I come back to you in ashort amount of time?
So you're just asking for somespace to regulate your nervous
system so that you can come backand show up as your best self?
Chris Hudson (28:31):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Can I ask, have you been chasedby cougar in North Vancouver?
No.
No.
Fiona Walsh (28:37):
Have
Chris Hudson (28:38):
you seen a bear?
You must have seen bear.
Fiona Walsh (28:39):
I've, yeah.
We have bears often.
I live close to the forest, soin the summertime we have bear
bears over here.
They're like big dogs.
They're like scroungers.
So they want to get into any binor any food on your
Chris Hudson (28:51):
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (28:52):
Yeah.
But cougars, no.
Last winter we had.
Mama and three cougar cubs thatwere in our local park living
for three months, which is quiteunheard of and was quite scary.
Our kids' school was, they usedto like, if we picked up, rocked
up to pick up and they had musicblasting out the speakers.
(29:13):
That was because the familycougars had been visiting that
day and they used the music as adeterrence and it's, I always
laugh, Chris, because everyonein Canada says.
Oh my God.
I'm never going to Australiabecause of the snakes and the
spiders.
And I'm like, we like, these arepeople who live in my
neighborhood.
I'm like, we have cougars, walkthe streets and bears in daytime
(29:34):
and nighttime, and you areworried about a little spider.
Chris Hudson (29:37):
Oh no, I know.
Yeah, I've seen alone as well.
I know how, I know what's outthere in for Vancouver.
Fiona Walsh (29:42):
Oh, totally.
What was the music?
The alone episode where thebears were up the trees was
like, I was like, oh yeah,really petrified of that one
Chris Hudson (29:50):
escaping up a tree.
You need to know how to climb.
Yeah, it's not that bad in thecorporate world.
What?
What was the music they wereusing to deter the Cougars?
Cougar Families.
Just out of interest.
Oh my God.
Was it, so one
Fiona Walsh (30:01):
day it was Ghost Busters.
He knows it.
Chris Hudson (30:07):
That's it.
Yeah.
All right.
One of the, one of the things,the example that you gave us
really great, I think from abreathwork point of view,
getting yourself ready forresponding to that moment.
I think the other,'cause weoften talk about these things
from the point of view is the,as the recipient, basically.
So you feel like you are in acorner and you need to negotiate
your way out of that.
But also as a leader or as amanager from the.
(30:27):
Other side.
If you are having to prepare forsome of these conversations,
which can be difficult, do youknow of any kind of tips around
how to, how to break that sortof news and have difficult
conversations or challengingconversations that could result
in a, an adverse reaction andreally helping people set up for
it from that point of view?
Just out of interest?
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (30:48):
Yeah.
Again, back to the threat resresponse that I was talking
about before.
So this is a neuroscience.
Model by David Scarf, who's anAussie, but I did, I studied
under his coachingcertification.
It's, and it's all brain-basedstuff, so you've got your, your
stress response with your threatresponse.
You've also got like this rewardstate, which the other side,
(31:10):
which is where.
When you are coaching or you'rea manager and you're having
conversations and you wannaengage with people, you wanna
keep their brain and thereforetheir body and nervous system in
the reward state.
So making sure you let them knowin advance that you're going to
be having a difficultconversation so that you, and
(31:30):
don't just land it on them inthe moment.
And even if in tracking, in realtime in a conversation with the
person.
Where are they at?
How are they feeling?
Because if they've gone intothat shutdown mode, the threat
response, which we all do,you're actually talking to a
brick wall.
Chris Hudson (31:47):
Yeah.
Fiona Walsh (31:48):
And wasting their time and your time because
they're not listening, thentheir cognition is Duke.
Tracking with them in the momentis the most powerful tool you
can do as a leader to ensurethat the communication is
effective.
Chris Hudson (32:02):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think that's reallyhelpful because as a leader you
almost find it so uncomfortablethat you want to get it out the
way, but forcing it in thatsituation, it's a bit like
negotiating with a child.
A child, sorry, child.
Yeah.
You're negotiating with your ownkid and it's a bit.
We have a joke about it.
It's like negotiating withterrorists some of the time
because you can't negotiate withthat when you're getting a
(32:24):
response, which is a screamingor a physical reaction, the
throwing stuff, whatever it is.
But you get that in a way.
It's not quite that bad within acorporate setting, I'm sure, but
Well, people can't, can't cometo the party and they can't
think rationally in that moment.
Fiona Walsh (32:38):
Yeah.
And when your brain is in thatthreat state, you can't
communicate.
You can't collaborate, so youcan't even.
Come up with new ideas of how wemight be like, how could we do
this better next time?
And they're like, I don't know.
It is because they're like, theyliterally don't know they're
frozen in that state.
And when we're in a threatrestraint, we'll show up
differently.
Like some people will freeze.
(33:00):
Some people wanna flight.
Like I've been in meetingcorporate where someone got,
instead of they were going headto head with someone and then
they just stormed out of theroom because they were in flight
mode.
I was more susceptible to.
Fawn mode, which isn't not knownas well, but it's if you,
particularly if you've gotpeople pleasing tendencies where
you might be going fromchallenging someone you know,
(33:22):
respectfully to them, oh, okay,great.
It's a great idea.
Yeah, let's go ahead.
But you actually don't think itis, but you're, you are fawning
'cause you're like completely,you're not frozen, but the words
coming out are not what youreally would wanna be saying.
Chris Hudson (33:35):
Yeah, interesting.
'cause Fly does spring to mindfirst of all, but there's that
compliance aspect particularly,and there's, it's a weird thing
within corporate, but or anybusiness situation, but there's
a lot of, I know it's like apeer to peer social norming.
There's a lot of comparisonobviously between people both.
Overtly or consciously, orsubconsciously.
So I feel that can happen too.
(33:57):
You feel like you're forced intoa situation.
You just go along with itbecause it's easier and you're
not.
You're just gonna complain toyour partner.
When you get home and have alarge glass of wine or
something, it just feels likeyou're just gonna find other
ways to cope with it, whichprobably isn't that helpful
either.
So that bottling up is gonna behappening all the time,
Fiona Walsh (34:12):
and then it can come out at another time in that
it doesn't need to to your kids,though it's not, the bottling
ups not ever helpful.
I always say.
Though to my coaching clients,and this is something that I use
myself as well, that if you didFawn or you did say, oh, okay,
let's just go ahead with it.
(34:32):
No, nothing's ever won and done.
You can always go back the nextday to your boss and say, Hey, I
was a bit rattled in thatmeeting.
I was a bit surprised by.
What you were saying, it was abit of a shock, and you know
what, now I've had time to sitwith it.
Would it be okay if I share mythoughts on it now?
And you then you returning froma much more regulated space,
(34:53):
you're much more likely to havemore positive intent rather than
how you might have shown up theday before when your nervous
system was really firing.
Chris Hudson (35:02):
Yeah, I mean that definitely that sense of the
moment has passed and you can'tgo back to, it is, yeah, won and
done as you put it.
It's like it's set in stone, butyou wouldn't want to revisit it
or you'd be worried about yourboss being even more annoyed by
the fact that you would bringthat up again because they've
moved on.
I.
You should have moved on.
It's getting to that feeling ofawkwardness.
(35:22):
It's a bit of a guilt feelingthat creeps in and yeah, people
don't always feel confidentgoing into something that isn't
progressive.
It feels like it's a stepbackwards rather than a step
forwards.
Yeah.
How do you get more comfortablewith that?
Think?
Fiona Walsh (35:35):
One thing I'll say from the leader manager role in
that is that you need to behaving constant open feedback
loops with the people on yourteam.
And if you sensed in a meetingor you heard from somebody else
that people were shocked andthat there was surprise or there
was a whole, there was a lot ofemotion in the room, then go
(35:56):
back and ask for more feedbackbecause you may not have, you
may have got a certain,sometimes you might have got a
bigger reaction than whatactually.
Has landed.
Like people would like, I don'thave that idea.
I'm not gonna, or you might havehad thought everyone was okay
with it, but then they've goneback to their offices and
they're all bitching andgossiping and figuring out how
not to do it.
(36:17):
So a constant communication andopen lines is definitely the way
to go.
And not thinking that you're oneand done, I, I'm not saying
don't overdo it as well,'causepeople will always find
something to complain about, butjust make sure that.
If there's close the gap onwhether or not you know, won and
(36:37):
done is enough, no, it'sprobably not.
So just use your own judgmentand.
For people who are intuitive,use your intuition.
Usually it's pretty bang on whenit comes to people's reactions
or if there's something that'sastray that you haven't quite
uncovered within your team oryour group that you're working
with.
Chris Hudson (36:55):
Yeah, I always think there's inter, there's
interest in looking at what isfeeling like that's almost
agreed upon, and where arepeople aligned and where are
people behaving almost similarlyto one another, and where are
people behaving different tothat.
So both of those situations tellyou something about what the
group dynamics within thecorporate landscape are, because
(37:15):
you've got the back channels andother things happening, and you
know that somebody's making acup of tea in the kitchen and
they're moaning about something.
And you can walk in and you canoverhear some of that.
But it's almost what do you do?
How do you respond?
It's very complex, like from a,from anyone out there who
experiences social anxiety, andI feel I've had this myself.
It's what am I walking into hereand how should I respond and how
(37:36):
do I arrive at work every day?
And it's really hard tonavigate.
Have you had any stories likethat from clients that you work
with and help people in thatsort of sense of knowing where,
where certainty exists or how tomanage uncertainty?
Fiona Walsh (37:50):
Yeah.
The.
There's a model, David Rock, whoI mentioned before, he's got a,
he's got a really coolassessment called, and it's a
scarf model.
And one at the C in scarf standsfor certainty.
And, and this model actuallylinks directly to what I've been
talking about, like how insocial situations, how we
respond to how we might betriggered or respond in certain
(38:13):
situations.
So.
I would usually get people to dothe assessment so they can see
where they are on the certaintyscale.
What are we doing?
We are creating self-awarenessof, I remember when I was
consulting last year, one of theleaders I was working like side
by side with, she had thehighest, she had such a high
tolerance for uncertainty, and Iwas like.
That's why you're like such asuperstar in digital
(38:33):
transformation.
'cause there is zero certainty.
It's just like the unknown everyday, swimming through murky
water and hoping you find whatyou're looking for versus, and
having things thrown at youconstantly versus someone who
has a really low tolerance foruncertainty.
And yes, I have coached thosepeople and they tend to be.
(38:55):
Have either high functioninganxiety or just medical
diagnosis as anxiety becausethey are trying to control the
situation and it is very hard ontheir nervous system to come
into work every day.
I think the people like thatneed to be aware of it and make
sure that they choose roles thatare not, that can give them more
(39:16):
certainty day to day.
So I wouldn't go into anythingthat's innovation or
transformation where you'reevolving.
Phase to phase or sprint tosprint because you can't predict
plan and predict what's gonnahappen in the next three months.
So making sure you choose a rolethat really plays to your
strengths and'cause I found thatpeople who like a lot of
(39:38):
certainty can be really sturdyperformers in some operational
roles and they actually shinereally brightly once they find
the right role for them ratherthan.
Trying to operate in a state ofanxiety, which is, it's
challenging to, to reach yourtrue potential if you're anxious
at work every day.
Chris Hudson (39:57):
Mm.
Yeah.
I think you're right.
For sure.
Yeah.
It just reminds me of.
Some work that I've done work inthe transformation space and
often in that kind of uncertainarea as well.
I think there's something to besaid for really naming what
people are going through,particularly within a group
context, so that peopleunderstand the direction that
you're going and whether youmight be in a divergent stage
(40:18):
where yeah, is goes, come upwith as many ideas as possible
and let's all have some fundoing that.
Then you need to converge onsomething that's really
important and actually make adecision so that you can move
past a particular gate or amilestone and get to the next
stage.
So it feels, some people mightbe expecting certainty at points
of uncertainty or vice versa.
And as a leader or an emergingleader, you need to manage that.
(40:40):
You just need to help peopleunderstand the situation that
they're in within a meetingcontext, within a workshop
context, or even a conversation.
And then just move them.
Always signpost it a little bitso that it becomes a bit more
understandable, a bit morerelatable.
And then I think I've seenreally positive results from
that too.
'cause people that do have akind of inclination for
certainty, all of a sudden youtake the shackles off when
(41:03):
they're in a workshopenvironment or they're, they're
able to just throw out theirideas in a more carefree manner
and they're really happier.
It feels really liberating forthem as well at times.
So I think it's settingexpectations, obviously.
But
Fiona Walsh (41:15):
yeah, I think also as.
Don't let it become the elephantin the room.
I think when things areuncomfortable, there's
discomfort at work.
It's really important to talkabout it.
Yeah, and talk about ways tomove through discomfort.
Emotions that come up don't lastmore than 90 seconds, but if we
numb them or push them aside,which is normally the corporate
way of dealing with likenegative emotions, they will
(41:36):
come back to bite you and yeah.
I think that leaders do.
It's their job to be sturdy andto, as you say, provide as much
certainty as possible.
And if there's, or scaffoldingas the other ones, give people,
I can give you this and we'regonna bounce around between
these two scaffolding pieces,but not, but never over
(41:57):
communicate certainty if it'snot there, because that actually
rattles people way more.
Chris Hudson (42:03):
Yeah.
Yeah, I think so.
Hey, as we come to the close, Iwanted to maybe just start or
end with a fairly big questionbecause obviously you work a lot
of people around the world and Ithink that you're gonna have, I
do the same thing.
I work a lot of businesses, workwith different people that I
mentor and coach, and you get aread for what's going on in
different industries a littlebit and, and what people are
(42:25):
experiencing.
So it's probably a questionaround that, around what you are
hearing as being within theworld of work.
In particular, not so much aboutintrapreneurs, but what are the
big things that you are seeingstill needing to change within
the world of work and yeah.
Have you got any kind of senseof what those themes are?
Fiona Walsh (42:43):
I think it's a couple.
One would be that there, there'sthis, there's a lot of talk in
the moment about post Covid.
You know how we, when we're athome and we were all laid there
and we had kids on our lap anddogs peeing next to us while
we're trying to facilitate callswith 150 people, and then people
have come back to the office andI think there's a lot of talk
(43:05):
about what people wanting tobring their whole self to work,
but then.
Bringing things to the workplacethat might actually be better
suited with a coach or with atherapist.
And I'm hearing a little bitmore like that.
So my coaching clients wantingme to work with people on their
team because they're like,they're bringing stuff that like
no one used to bring this towork before.
(43:27):
And so I think that's one that'sinteresting that's come up,
which might be particular to thekind of work that I do.
But yeah, people bringing thingsinto the workplace that maybe.
And it's also an opportunity forleaders to, to establish some
fresh boundaries around, I'mhere to support you, but I have
boundaries around X and Y.
And we either have an EAPprogram that can help you, or
(43:50):
like we can get you a coach or atherapist.
So just making sure that peoplefeel supported through the all
the uncertainty that is in theworld.
The other piece that's beenreally relevant for over here in
North America has been, and Idon't wanna go into it'cause I
don't talk politics, but Trumpbeing voted in, caused a huge
(44:11):
ripple effect across NorthAmerica and being in Canada,
we're just over the border.
We do feel it a lot.
And there was a lot of despair,I would say, and like really.
Negative emotions about whatcould be.
So that really rattled people inthe last sort of month, I would
say.
But it, I think people arecoming out of it now and there's
(44:31):
some optimism and some, we'vegotta be open-minded about what
happens.
It was just last time Trump wasin power.
It was a bit of a, it felt likea bit of a circus in Canada
watching on, and we wereimpacted by different pieces of
it, and I, I am sure it was thesame for the rest of the world.
Yeah, watching on times that wewas disbelief of some of the
(44:52):
stuff that was being said andtaking place.
Chris Hudson (44:55):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I get that.
You can feel incredibly.
Drawn into that, bothpersonally, psychologically it
feels like you, you feel likeyou, you would have an
attachment, but obviously thelack of control, it's the same
within Yeah.
Social environment.
If there's a new CEO or a newmanager, somebody came in, you
wouldn't, it's an unknown untilit happens.
But until it happens, in somecases it is a known and yeah,
(45:18):
you're just dreading what mighthappen.
Fiona Walsh (45:20):
Yeah, and, and in those cases, like you need to
protect yourself.
So if that means taking a breakfrom the media.
Do it.
Like I did not check thenewspapers for the week after
Trump was announced.
So just out of self-protection.
So I didn't go down rabbit holesof looking up the guardian and
all the different news sources,the New Yorker and everything.
(45:42):
Put boundaries in place foryourself.
If it's making you feelstressed, then it, you are your
own boss at the end of the day.
Yeah, put some boundaries inplace so that you can shut out
the data coming in, becausethat's one of the biggest issues
of this information age is thatwe're just overloaded with
information.
So if we don't have goodboundaries ourselves around what
we're allowing into our mind, itcan create swirl and a lot of
(46:05):
stress that is, and like with uspolitics like.
Most of your listeners and meincluded, have zero control over
anything that's happening inthat space.
So us actually thinking about itis not the best use of our time
or our brain or emotionalcapacity.
I.
Chris Hudson (46:23):
Yeah.
Yeah.
I was speaking to somebody theother day and it was just very
matter of fact.
They, he's gonna be in, there'sgonna be a term, it's four
years, it'll be somebody elseafter that.
Maybe not.
It's, it's easy to distanceyourself if you can or if you
know how to, but yeah,boundaries is really important,
particularly as more and more iscoming in, as you say.
So I think having a healthy.
Ongoing reset or ongoingboundary setting here and there.
(46:46):
Being aware of your habits andwhat you feel is triggering you,
like I was saying before, is allvery important.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Really good stuff.
Thank you.
Fiona Walsh (46:53):
Yeah.
I think also, one last thing isto, yeah, be aware of if
there's, you've got a reallysense, strong sense of purpose
and why you are here, and if youare, like for you, it might be
this podcast for someone else,it might be an offer that
they're launching that.
If you've got a really strongpurpose that comes from your
values and from your heart, thatis where you should be investing
(47:14):
your time and effort.
And really, if other things aredistracting you that you have
zero control over, then you arein your best interest to block
it out and just stay razorsharp.
Focus on what your purpose isbecause what at the end of the
day when you die, you're gonnalook back and be like, oh my
God, I'm so proud that I didthat and I caused that ripple
(47:35):
effect.
I served people in a way that Iknow I was here.
You, no one's gonna sit thereand think, oh, I'm so happy I
read all those Trump articles.
Chris Hudson (47:43):
Yeah, I think regret is in incredibly
powerful.
You think back to wasted time orit's when you are older and you
think, but I wish I'd done thatwhen I was younger, or if I'd
done this sooner.
And it's hard one, right?
You can focus on the future somuch, but obviously a lot of
people are feeling a deep senseof regret.
Fiona Walsh (47:59):
Yeah.
Yeah, unfortunately.
Chris Hudson (48:01):
Great.
Yeah, we'll wrap there.
Thanks so much for coming ontothe show, Fiona.
I really enjoyed the chat.
We've gone into a lot ofdifferent areas and yeah, a lot
of it is gonna be memorable tome and I'm sure to the listeners
out there as well.
And of course, every time I hearGhostbuster's theme, she, I'm
gonna be triggered by that.
I'm gonna be thinking of Cougarsrunning after me.
No, I won't.
But yeah, I really appreciateyou coming into the show.
(48:21):
Thanks so much for joining usfrom Vancouver and yeah, have a
wonderful day.
Fiona Walsh (48:26):
Thanks so much for having me, Chris.
I've really enjoyed ourconversation today.
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