Hey, this is Lindsay Dotzlaf and you are listening to Mastering Coaching Skills 38.

To really compete in the coaching industry, you have to be great at coaching. That’s why every week, I will be answering your questions, sharing my stories, and offering tips and advice so you can be the best at what you do. Let’s get to work.

Happy Tuesday, friends. Or whatever day it is that you happen to be listening to this. If you don’t listen on Tuesdays, why not? Just kidding. You don’t have to listen on Tuesdays, listen on whatever day works for you. Or maybe you’re bingeing a bunch, because you just found the podcast. If that is true, no matter what day it is, welcome, I’m so glad you are here.

So today I am having a conversation with one of the most fun clients I’ve ever had. She is a hoot, you guys are going to love her. Her name is Sally Hardie. And I just want to preface this conversation by saying there’s something I do in my mastermind where I let all of the clients, at least I currently do this, so if you’re listening in the future this may have evolved.

But right now I do this thing where I let every coach in my mastermind submit a coaching call for an evaluation. So I will listen to the coaching call and I will just do an evaluation on it. They’ll get some feedback on how I think the coaching call went, what they could do next time, how they could improve, what they’re amazing at.

And when I listened to Sally’s coaching call that she turned in, she was a client of mine in my mastermind. And when I got to her coaching call, and listened, my whole mind was blown. And I think yours will be too. I just knew when I listened to her coaching that she had to be on the podcast.

I just knew that she had things to share that I might not even be able to teach you. And it turns out, I was right. She’s incredible. So don’t listen to me anymore. I want you to listen to everything she has to say. She has such a fun background. We have such a fun conversation. And she really just makes me laugh. And also just we really nerd out over some science-y, psychology, human brain, and animal brain type things.

So I hope you enjoy and be ready for some takeaways from this episode. Here we go.

Lindsay: Hello, I’m so excited to have you here today.

Sally: And I am Knicker wettingly excited to be here.

Lindsay: Okay, this might be a take two, because we had to start over, which I love. I encourage, I told you this beforehand, but I encourage all of the pausing, the mistakes, the rewinding. I love every second of it. And you said that last time, and you just said it again, and it never gets old. I could just crack up at you all day. Which is one of my favorite, favorite things about you. It was one of my favorite things about you being in my mastermind, you made me laugh all the time. And we’ll get more into that. Because I do think that kind of dichotomy of your personality is one of my favorite things. But first, introduce yourself. Who are you? What do you do? Anything else you want to tell us?

Sally: I sort of feel like I want to introduce myself like a comedian, like I’m a part time clown. My name is Sally Hardie. I am a life coach, certified life coach, which tends to come after life coach certification. I have a hugely varied background in, oh gosh, everything from social anthropology to psychology. I’m a total nerd. I love neuroscience. All the good stuff.

And we were talking earlier on and I was like, “Well, this is the bit when people tell you about their niche. Like who do I serve?” And I don’t have a niche.

Lindsay: Yay!

Sally: Yay for you, for me it’s like oh shit, I don’t have an easy sentence that I can give you. But yeah, I have a vibe. So I attract people who are ready to move on to that kind of next full expression of themselves. I kind of like to think of myself like a bit of an alchemist.

So I sort of work with the intention of my client’s vision and they provide the ingredients. So actually, I think if I could cut a very long story very short, then I could probably just say my entire thing is breaking down cultural beliefs, limits, barriers, helping people out of boxes. So the very last thing that I want to do is create a box to put people in. And that was what a niche felt like to me. It felt very kind of bounded and tight, it just doesn’t sit well with me.

Lindsay: I love that. And I mean you and I have talked about it, we’ve talked about it in coaching masters, I’ve talked about it on the podcast, I don’t think niches are required. And I think exactly what you just described, like if you don’t have a niche there is still this important piece where it’s like, am I talking to, not in a specific niche type way, but exactly how you just described it, right? It’s like here’s what I love helping people with, even if it’s super broad.

So let’s just dive into that to start with since you brought it up so beautifully. What is kind of allowed you, because there are lots of people who will tell you that that’s not how you’re supposed to do it, right? And just lots of whether it’s like business coaches, or it’s just other people in the industry, What has allowed you to kind of lean into being that, doing that?

Sally: Ooh, that’s such a good question. I think part of it is that I’ve always been a bit different. I’ve always thought differently. And it was never something that was accepted either culturally, because I live in the culture. I’d sort of inherited, I’d embedded all of these beliefs within myself. So I had an internalized lack of acceptance for who I was.

So the process of doing something different at this point, is really the result of me breaking out of my own box. It’s me, expressing myself fully. I know that sounds really tweet and that like, “I’m the full expression of myself.” it sounds like a Pinterest board. But I so fully believe that that is what we’re all trying to be, we’re trying to be the full expression of ourselves. And it’s really frightening.

It’s frightening if you don’t have a role model for that. And for me, the vibe feels very autonomous. I have authority of myself. I can have advisors, people whose opinion matters to me. But ultimately, if it doesn’t resonate with, if it isn’t reflected in how I am expressing myself, then it’s not a match. I hope that makes sense. It makes sense in my head.

Lindsay: I think it makes perfect sense. And to me it sounds like that’s exactly what you help your clients do as well.

Sally: Yeah, and I also think the backstory is what, I have a long backstory. But the backstory is that I don’t want to be hypocritical. My work is helping people to do, in effect, what I’ve done and what I continue to do. Because there are always more layers. And there’s always more shit to wade through. And just when you think, you’re like, “Yes! I’m at the top of the mountain.” And you look up and there’s another mountain.

So yeah, I think I embody how I coach and that ease that comes from efficiency of knowing who you are. And acting within your own resonance is something that’s really important for me. And it’s really important for me to let other people know it doesn’t have to be difficult.

The process of releasing things that you have carried that have been kind of drilled into us for generations, that your parents would have told you, that your peer group may still believe. Sometimes the process of letting that go can feel really untethering, your unbound.

Those are the things that tie you to your group, your clan, your tribe, your friends, your family. And you sort of feel like if I let go of those, I’m just going to float off. And quite the opposite is true. Because as soon as you can move past these limits that aren’t your limits, and as soon as you can engage with whatever it is that you want to do, and how you want to be, how you want to show up in the world as your full expression of yourself life gets so much easier. So much easier, because you haven’t got that internal battle. That internal conflict that I think we all have.

Lindsay: Of course.

Sally: For me, I believe that that internal conflict comes when what our true nature is, is kind of bashing up against what culture tells us we should do.

Lindsay: What I love about- I love everything about what you just said. But one thing I really love is that I think what a lot of people listening could take away from this is I think you do have a niche. And I think it’s just a different way of thinking about it.

Sally: How very dare you, I have no niche. My niche is that I have no niche.

Lindsay: I think that it’s just a different way of thinking about a niche. So a lot of people, a lot of coaches think about a niche and it’s like, “I work with women who have two kids.” And it’s like this very specific person. What I hear you saying is you work with any of the humans, whoever that may be who are looking for this thing that you have found.

Sally: Yeah. And I think that when you know, you know. There’s something about this kind of expression that I feel when I think of the vibe of me. So I’m kind of like Marmite, I don’t know if you know of it, it’s like a British toast spread and it parted the nation. People either absolutely loved it or absolutely hated it.

And for all of my life, I’m like, “Oh god, I’m like Marmite. People either love me or absolutely hate me.” And I thought that that was a bad thing. Actually, it’s done me the biggest favor because I don’t have to spend time with people who won’t “tolerate” me. I don’t want to be tolerated. I don’t want to be tolerated by my clients, I don’t want to be tolerated by my friends. I want to be loved. I want to be me. And I want to be accepted as me.

So that vibe is kind of like a strong line as well. It’s like, “Look, I love myself enough that your love is secondary to that.”

Lindsay: That’s really good.

Sally: That’s quite a long road though, you know.

Lindsay: Oh, I know. I know because I’ve watched you. But I also know because I was on that same journey, right? I think so many people, that is how, at least for me, maybe not so many people, but for me and it sounds like for you. This is how I got into coaching. I relate exactly to everything that you are saying.

And if you were a coach, and I found you and I was who I was maybe 10 years ago, however many years ago, that was, I would be so drawn to what you’re saying right now. Because that’s exactly how I felt, just like there is something wrong here and I can’t even pinpoint what it is. And it was just me not fully accepting who I was, not fully allowing myself to just be me in the world.

Sally: The beautiful thing about what you just said is that it shows at some point you had that awareness. And that’s step one isn’t it, just like, hang on, something’s not jiving. Something’s not right. And it’s not that I don’t have the right car, or I don’t have the right job, or the right husband or wife. It’s that something big is brewing.

Which is where kind of this alchemy comes in. My clients come to me ready to cook. They are ready to be kind of like revealed and they’re excited by the potential that is created when we’re together. I guess there’s a sprinkle of magic in there somewhere. They’re open, and they are ready to show up, and flourish, and to take up space, and to express themselves.

It’s so easy to get kind of sucked into like coaching words like authenticity, or alignment and all those bits and pieces. I think sometimes those words don’t mean anything to people. But what almost everybody can resonate with is this pull that you have in your chest when you become aware that you’re not necessarily being exactly who you would really love to be, who you are drawn to be.

So my clients may be drawn to me, but actually what they’re drawn to is themselves. And they are their best guide, there is never ever a better guide for anybody than themselves. And I am their guide trainer. And it’s as simple as that.

Lindsay: I love that. That just reminded me, I just had this flash of a movie or a show or something where they- You’re going to be like, “Okay, Lindsay, this is super weird.” But I feel like I have to say it because it just was such a strong flash in my mind.

But my kids watch this show. It’s magic and each person has these little like animals that follow them around. And they’re like they’re, they don’t call them like spirit guides or anything like that, but that’s kind of the idea of it. It’s like their soul, it’s like the darkness versus the light. I could go down the whole thing.

Obviously, I don’t pay full attention when I’m watching because I don’t know what the show is called or whatever. But it kind of reminded me of that. Like there’s this piece of us inside that if we don’t listen to it. And if we don’t listen to that little rumbling of like, “Hey, something is off here.” I would describe it as for me it just felt like, “Hey, listen to me.”

And I never did. I just always shoved it down, shoved it down, shoved it down. And then my experience was it just showed up as so much outward anxiety. So much anxiety because I was constantly just like, “Shh, nope. Go away.” Like resistance all the time.

And I’m curious, do you see that in your clients? Can you kind of pinpoint it when they come to you? Can you see like they have this thing inside that they’re just shoving down?

Sally: 100% I mean, it’s why they’re coming to me, is that they don’t know how to express- And listen, it’s not that this is a piece that’s missing, by any stretch of the imagination. This is like the diamond that they already have, with all the different facets of them already there ready to shine.

This is going to sound really odd, but considering what you just shared. I have an impression, like in the 60s, when you go to a house party and everybody throws their coat on a bed. Like they walk in, they open the first door on the left, and they throw their coat on the bed. So I imagine all of the rules, and the limits, and the boundaries that are given to us by culture, which was, you know, let’s be frank made up by somebody, somewhere.

Lindsay: Yep.

Sally: And utilize basic fears that every single human has, I feel like they’re just the coats that get thrown on the bed. They are layers and layers and layers over our diamond self. They are just covering us up. So it’s never a case that there’s anything missing. It’s just that those like onion layers if you like, need to get peeled off so that the light can get to the diamond so that the diamond can shine out of all of those different facets.

Lindsay: Such a good analogy. You know I love a good analogy.

Sally: Good, I’m pleased you like it. I’m just wondering, do you have reflection of that period in your life why you felt you had that resistance?

Lindsay: Wow, that’s good. You’re just going to turn it around on me like that? Let me think. Well, so I think one thing for me, looking back now having so much more self-awareness, being on the other side of it. I just think I spent a lot of years, starting from when I was young and something that I just learned was like just be perfect, right? Do all the things, dot all the I’s, cross all the T’s.

And I kind of warped that into be perfect all the time, which is impossible. But the way that showed up for me was I just stopped listening to me. It was like, what am I supposed to do? Well, I’m supposed to get married. Which I wanted to, love my husband.

Sally: You could quickly get that in.

Lindsay: Hey Nate, just in case you’re listening.

Sally: Got the husband, got the kids, perfect life, absolutely wonderful.

Lindsay: But it was like on the outside. And I’ve talked about this on the podcast, but it was like on the outside I did have the perfect life. There was literally nothing wrong. I was married, had two kids at that point, I think. It was after I had my second daughter where this really kind of bubbled up of like, “That’s it. This is enough, something is wrong.”

And at first, I thought I needed a new car, a new house, whatever. Not specifically those things but it was like I have to change something. And then I was introduced to coaching. And when I really listened to what the concept of coaching was, it was like, “Wait a minute, I don’t have to change anything? I just have to learn to kind of listen to myself and to lean into those little whispers that like in here that I keep pushing back down.”

And I think the biggest part of it for me was owning that I wanted something big in the world. I was going to get my PhD and then found out I was pregnant. So kind of like that journey halted. And then I was like, “That’s fine. I’ll be the best mom in the whole world.”

And I stayed home with my kids. And it was the worst two years of my life. Not because they aren’t amazing, but they are. But it was just that there was just that bubbling up of like I’m meant for more, there’s something else.

And I just kept pushing it down. Because it was like this is not what I’m supposed to be doing. I committed, I’m supposed to love these kids. I do love these kids. But if I don’t want to be with them every second, does that mean I don’t love them?

It was just all those thoughts just swirling around. And when I really leaned into like, actually, I want something a lot bigger than that, I want this other thing. I don’t even know for sure what that is yet. But just the willingness to explore it, for me it changed everything.

Sally: Okay, you’re my perfect client. Can we just go back, like I don’t know, what was that like a decade ago?

Lindsay: Yeah.

Sally: But that’s it though, isn’t it? But the decoupling of the belief that leads you to think that you shouldn’t desire more, or that you shouldn’t change your mind, or that you have to be a certain way to be a “good mom.” I mean, it’s crippling people’s lives.

Lindsay: For me to just admit that that wasn’t what I wanted, that I wanted to change my mind. Exactly what you just said. Because in my mind at that point it was like, “I committed to this, this is what we’re doing. There’s no going back. I can’t go back now.”

Sally: Yeah, this is the perfect route, professional people don’t change their minds.

So one of my clients said the other day that she wanted to make a decision and never change her mind. I was like, “Why? Why would you want to do that?” She was like, “Because if I change my mind, I’m going to be unprofessional. I’m going to be X, Y, Z.” And I was like, “What on earth has that got to do with it?” And how much more of a credible person are you than somebody who is open to different options when new data comes to light?

Lindsay: Yes, I think that’s the thing, right? It’s the new data. It’s like, I want to be committed to this decision until I know better. That’s how I always think about it now. And we talk about decisions in coaching masters and how it pertains to coaching and helping our clients make decisions.

I think it’s great to make decisions and be committed to them and stick to them until… It’s like dot, dot, dot, right? Until you know differently, or until you have more information.

Sally: Yeah, or you want differently. Until you desire to change your mind. But this desire thing, this want thing, it’s like you’re not allowed to do that. If you want something you’re like a petulant two year old stomping your feet, “I want, I want, I want.” Wants and desires are like a road map. You get to follow them, every single person, and crikey I hope that everybody listening to this hears this, every single person has a right to follow the crumbs of their curiosity. It is the thing that gives you experience, and joy, and love in life.

And if you’re not, if you’re kind of sweeping the crumbs off the path, and you’re like, “Well, because this path was set out for me by somebody else.” You’ll reach the end of the path realizing that it was somebody else’s path. Whereas the crumbs may have taken you off into the grass.

I’m running with this analogy, okay?

Lindsay: I love it. It’s so great, I love it.

Sally: But I think what is so arresting when we sort of hit the walls of these cultural limits is that- Sort of to go back a few steps, you had Danielle Cohen, on your podcast a little while ago.

Lindsay: Yes.

Sally: And I loved listening to that. I’m also a proponent of attachment theory. And I just think it explains an awful lot. There’s another part to what’s required when we’re little, which is authenticity. And I don’t mean that in the coaching sense, I mean that in an animal sense.

So one of my studies was animal behavioral psychology, go figure. Which has been bizarrely helpful.

Lindsay: I’m sure.

Sally: But I mean authenticity in terms of listening to the messages of your body, which is kind of becoming a bit of like a key thing now. I hope it’s becoming a key thing anyhow, not just like sort of a trend. But when I say listening to the messages of your body, I like to think of like an equivalent of an animal walking through the forest and the hackles go up on the back of its neck. If it decides to ignore that it’s not going to last long.

And what happens at such a young age, and this is particularly pertinent for me, because I didn’t know it but as of last year I have a diagnosis of ADHD. But when you’re younger, particularly in those very, very early years, and you require that attachment to feel safe, we have neurons in our brain. Told you, neuroscience nerd, I’m going to reel myself back in.

But we have these neurons in our brain that when we are pre-verbal, pre pretty much anything. When we’re just like little blobs of flesh we can internalize the facial expressions of others and make them mean something which is something that of course, we continue to do as grownups.

But in those very early years, if we’re behaving in a way that our primary caregivers don’t want, we can read in their face that we’re doing something wrong. And I don’t mean ever that we are, but that’s what our very, very, very pre-formed brain and non-functional prefrontal cortex makes it mean.

Now, when that happens, bearing in mind that little babies require attachment, this acceptance of others. Because they will take care of me, I will survive if I’m looked after by this big human version. And we also need the authenticity. If what I am doing is a true expression of myself and I can see that you are disapproving of it and you are withdrawing attention, or love. Which I’m going to read is I’m not going to survive, I will abandon authenticity in favor of attachment.

So I will do people pleasing. I will do whatever it is that you need me to do, so that you can look after me. If you have any neurological or physiological difference, something that isn’t accepted by culture, and your parents being your parents want to be seen as good parents. Because they live in a culture where being called a bad parent is, I think, pretty much the worst insult that anybody can get. Because you’re not just impacting your life, you’ve totally destroyed something. You know, we get to build these things up.

Lindsay: Oh yes.

Sally: You parents want to create the perfect child. So they will, this is no blame. I don’t mean this at all with any blame. I just want to give kind of a picture of how internalized and how early on these things start.

Lindsay: I love this. We’ll listen all day, you just take over, let’s go.

Sally: But the parent will withdraw attention. We’ve done it ourselves, I’ve done it myself. And I’ve just almost almost recovered from kind of putting all of this information together in my head. Which also happened around the birth of my second child. So there must be something going on there.

We withdraw attention when it’s not the behavior that we want. And we give attention when it is the behavior that we want. So we are introducing inauthenticity by our lack or give of responsiveness. And this carries through childhood. And there is absolutely no reason for your prefrontal cortex ever to challenge the fact that we abandon authenticity, we abandon listening to the messages of our body, we abandon our once. Because, look, we’ve survived. So the attachment thing, that works. But we’ve disassociated it. We’re basically a head on a robot. Actually, until we reconnect, Sheri helped me a lot with this, and I can’t say her surname. Sheri will have to do.

Lindsay: Sheri Strzelecki. Who I’ve had on the podcast for anyone listening, Sheri Strzelecki. One of my best friends and clients, yes. So she helped you with this.

Sally: She was just wonderful, and amazing, and brilliant. I absolutely adore her. She helped me with this in the very early stages of masters when I was having like a chronic big meltdown, was this reassociation and really digging into the fact that-

This is not so much what she said, but my interpretation of it. And sort of sticking this neuroscience to it as well, is that reassociation between the messages that your gut is giving you, the messages that your body is giving you. The, “I am physically tired, my central nervous system is activated.”

How often because of this whole primacy of thought thing that we have in our culture, and not all cultures. But predominantly Western cultures, we overthink. And I use overthinking in a slightly different way, like I use authenticity in a slightly different way.

When I say overthinking, I don’t mean like we’ve got a puzzle, and we’re worrying at it to death. I mean, we think over our feelings. We have this primacy of head over body, and we burn out because the body is knocking and giving us a message, ‘Hey, hey.” And the less we listen, the harder the knocks get, “Hello, hello.” Which is why when we go on holiday, you get sick because your body is like, “Jesus, I’ve been asking you to chill the fuck out for months and you’ve been ignoring me. Right, you bugger. Now we’re off.”

Lindsay: That’s so interesting. I used to always have panic attacks on vacation. And to me that was so strange, like why would I be having them now? That makes a lot of sense. And what you just described is exactly how I felt. It was like I’m not listening to any of the things, I’m always in my head thinking, never experiencing what’s happening in my body.

I look back and think when I had panic attacks, that was just my body taking over, like, “You will listen to me, this is no longer optional. There’s an emergency here. I need you to pay attention.” And then I would just work through it and then go right back to what I was doing before. Thank goodness I found coaching, it changed everything for me.

Sally: I love that.

Lindsay: Just think about all your clients. All of your clients are going to experience that in some way.

Lindsay: Yeah, 100%. And I think, knowing me, it often begins the moment they decide they want to work with me. So before they pay me a penny, and then it just ramps up as soon as the agreement is there, boom. Suddenly, all right, I know where I’m going. I don’t know what the landing spot is. Maybe there is never a landing spot. But I know the direction and the direction is wholeness. The direction is like the whole shebang.

But I think what’s really important, so you mentioned at the beginning, you were telling a story of how you got into coaching and the awareness at that point. I have this sort of triangle of safety, which requires awareness. And it requires attachment. And it requires authenticity. And if you are tending and caring to those three things, and all of them regenerate. It’s not like I was once aware and now I don’t need to pay attention to that anymore. You just keep paying attention.

When you’re tending to your own mind, and body, and central nervous system, it’s like our bespoke perfume or our bespoke blend of neuroception and perception. When we’re paying attention we can regulate our central nervous system. And when our central nervous system is regulated, then we can do thought work.

But I’ll tell you this, you cannot do thought work if you are in a stress cycle and activated. That’s when people get stuck in these loops, stuck in these loops, stuck in these loops. Like, why am I going back to old programming? Well you’re going back to old programming because your prefrontal cortex isn’t the boss anymore. This 4% of your brain that logically can control things, that can imagine, that can be creative, spontaneous and get excited, gets totally bypassed.

I like to think of it like have you ever watched Thomas the Tank Engine?

Lindsay: Yes.

Sally: Okay, so you know the controller, the train controller? I was about to say the fat controller, but I’m fairly certain that’s not a good thing to say anymore. He was in control. He had like this big lever where the trains would go this way and the trains would go that way.

So when your central nervous system is picking up stuff from the world you’re in neuroception. It’s not perception. So it’s almost like the feeling, the response comes before the thought, or the thought is so fast that you’d be hard pressed to catch it. I mean, really I don’t think you necessarily would.

And if something happens that either reminds the central nervous system of something that happened before, or it’s something that it finds traumatic at this particular point.

Like, for example, being authentic, listening to our body, having a voice, taking up space, when we’ve already learned that we could lose attachment from other people. If all that happens before we have developed self-attachment, then it can be super traumatic to the central nervous system, super activating.

And this little part of our brain called the amygdala, like the fat controller, just goes to clunk and changes the direction of data, all the data that’s coming up in the world. So rather than it going to your prefrontal cortex, this kind of 4% of your brain where we can really plan for the future, it diverts. And it goes straight into the 96% of your brain that is the hard wiring of the computer that holds all of the old patterns, all of the old programming.

Which is why these thought loops are often historic thoughts that we thought we dealt with already. Like, “Oh God, I can’t believe-” And then we get stuck in this cycle of judging ourselves. And the more we judge ourselves, the more we are self-activating, because we are not accepting ourself. So we’re doing something- Am I getting a bit nerdy on it or are we okay still?

Lindsay: No, I love this so much. And I have a specific question I want to ask, but I want you to finish first what you’re saying.

Sally: Well, really, what I mean to say is that this is why it’s helpful to have a guide. Someone who can read the ingredients from the outside of the bottle. Because when you’re in it, and I have been in it, in fact, quite recently, where I was like, “Uh!” And I didn’t spot it.

And I’m like, “Oh, bloody sodding hell, this is the thing, like this is the thing I do. Safety is my thing. Why am I feeling like this? Why am I feeling so unsafe?” And I missed it. Two weeks later, I was like, “Oh, I know what it is now. And then I was able to tend to myself in the way that I actually needed. And boom, there we go.

The beautiful thing about having a guide to go through this process is that the heart of regulating or a great way of regulating, and in fact I think Danielle mentioned this as well. One of the great regulations of the central nervous system is when you’re with somebody, you can co-regulate.

So as a guide, as a coach who just told you that about the last two weeks. But that’s aside.

Lindsay: Listen, we all have those two weeks, right? We all have them. I think sometimes it’s so comforting for our clients to know we have those weeks. We all do, it does not matter. Just because you’re a coach doesn’t mean you’re a superhuman brain.

Sally: What it did do very interestingly, is it gave me a real refresher course on what it’s like to go through that.

Lindsay: Yeah, what a better coach you’ll be every time you work through it on your own.

Sally: Please not every time, I don’t want it that much more.

Lindsay: But however more times. That’s what I always tell myself when I just have a lot going on, there’s a lot happening in my brain and my body. Whatever it is and I have to work through something, one thing that always feels comforting to me is I’m going to be a better coach when I work through this. Whatever “work through this” means. It might be multiple things, but when I work through this I’m going to be such a better coach for my clients.

Sally: Absolutely. Which is why you have coaching masters. Like clearly you’ve worked through some serious shit because that’s an awesome program.

Lindsay: Seriously, when I think about it I’m like I would never change anything because here we are. I’m doing this, it does feel like the thing I was kind of searching for. And I wouldn’t change anything because I wouldn’t be doing this thing if I hadn’t had all of the experiences that I’d had of working through some hard stuff.

Sally: Yeah. And the root out of that hard stuff, is never trying to fix it. I don’t mean that you don’t want to be on the other side of it. But the recovery from hard things, is not a quick fix. I don’t mean that it has to take a really long time. But it’s not that thing that you can grab immediately that makes you feel better. It’s this process of awareness and radical self-acceptance.

And, for me, actually, that radical self-acceptance, a lot of that came from understanding the neuroscience. It came from understanding that as soon as the controller changes the train tracks, it’s not game over. That sounds very severe, but I mean it’s not my fault. It’s not for a lack of ability. It’s not for a lack of cognitive, I can’t think my way out of it.

Lindsay: Yep.

Sally: I have to go through it. And it’s more than just processing a feeling. It’s more than that, processing feelings are part of it, and a hugely important part of it. But it’s that knowing of the fact that I am an animal and this is an animal response. And it’s supposed to happen.

Lindsay: Yes.

Sally: And once you complete that cycle and you come out the other side of it, you have a list of things, these are the things that helped me. And then you’re free to do your thought work. Because it may well be that you can retrain the pre-stages of your neuroception with perception.

Lindsay: Okay, you just set up perfectly the question I wanted to ask you when you were talking earlier. Which is, because this podcast is all about helping coaches be better at what they do, what is your process, or just your knowing if you’re working with a client, you’re maybe trying to do some thought work.

So for people that are listening, whether they use the model, or use some sort of tool for awareness, tool for goals, like future self, all of those things. How do you know when your client is in that space where thought work isn’t necessarily the thing?

When it’s not like, “Okay, well let’s just look at this. How are these thoughts creating these results?” Because sometimes there is more to it. And sometimes you have clients that say, “Logically, I understand that.” I hear this all the time and I’ve said this so many times. Logically, I understand what you’re saying. But also, I’m right here feeling terrible and this doesn’t feel like it’s helping. How do you kind of spot that in a client?

Sally: Well, I mean, that’s a really good example.

Lindsay: Just when they say that?

Sally: You know, I get this and it’s not helping.

Lindsay: Yeah.

Sally: There is a lot of judgment usually, that comes from I think this, you know, not trying to kind of sort of separate people out. But I think it comes a lot from the kind of the thought work focused element where thought work is the solution to everything. And I am massively pro thought work. And I just love the model and I use it every single day, for me and for my clients. And it is of huge value.

And there is this whole neuroception side of things. So if somebody is familiar with the thought work and it’s not working, then there could be an awful lot of judgment that comes in. So some of this goes back to the fact that I trained to be a psychotherapist as well.

So varied history coming back. So I’m fairly attuned to kind of trauma red flags, with a little T or a big T. And I don’t really like that expression, little T big T. I think it’s all lived experience. And actually I don’t think that you can ever judge, I don’t mean judge as in a judgy way, but I don’t think you can ever truly understand somebody else’s lived experience. What little T trauma to one person may be big T trauma to another.

Lindsay: This is something I spend lots of time thinking about. So I think that that’s fascinating and I completely agree with you, continue.

Sally: When you have a client who is exhibiting a lot of physiological flushes, who is very fidgety, people look uncomfortable. You’re telling them something, you can sort of get a sense, I mean, I have to say this is one of my superpowers. I’m pretty sure everybody can, it’s just how open you want to be to it.

You get a sense for someone. And the more you know your client, the more nimble and agile picking up on these things becomes. Or the more nimble you become. Its physiological responses. It is returning to the same root problem without any progress. With the progress being the client’s definition of progress, not the coach’s definition of progress.

It’s big, thick, fat neural pathways, that as a coach, you’re like, “I did not see that coming. I don’t really quite understand how this is happening from that.” It’s about being able to pick up on when your client’s internal state doesn’t appear to match the external requirements.

Lindsay: Yeah, that’s good. So when you notice that in a client, there are probably a hundred ways, but can you give us an example of what you might do in that moment, or how you handle it?

And you don’t have to like teach us a new concept, because you probably, with your background, probably have experienced that not all coaches would have, not all coaches would know how to use some of the tools that you have.

But just in general, I feel like this comes up for every single coach, whether it just shows up in small ways. And then the coach becomes very confused and gets in their head, right?

One thing I love about what you said, is just really paying attention to your client. Because it’s one thing I teach, which is like get out of your head and just be curious, be open, be with your client not thinking about what am I going to say next? How do I solve this? How do I, whatever the question is that comes up.

Do you have anything there that you can say like, well, the first thing I do is this?

Sally: Yeah, I do, actually. The first thing I do, and a lot of people just want to punch someone else in the face as soon as this is suggested, because they’re like, “You think that’s going to help?”

Lindsay: Perfect, my favorite answer.

Sally: I stop my client from whatever it is that they’re doing, whatever it is that they’re saying, whatever spin they’re in. And I just ask them to breathe.

I mean, there are so many different ways that you can encourage calmness through breathing. And like I said, a lot of people are like, “Oh, you’re feeling stressed, why not breathe?” People used to say that to me, and I felt like I would punch them in the face.

Lindsay: Yes.

Sally: But there are techniques, there are ways of breathing that hack a physiological response. So there’s an extended, I think it’s called physiological sigh, where you have two short inhales and one long exhale.

Where your exhale is longer than your inhale in any case, but particularly if you can see that they’re shortening their breath, then to inhales, and one long exhale is really helpful. Two or three of those. I mean make sure that they don’t have any heart conditions or anything before you do. Just you know, terms and conditions.

Lindsay: Right.

Sally: And box breathing, which most people are familiar with, so breathe in for five, hold for five, out for five, hold for five. You can do a few cycles of those.

This is not to recover your client from a stress response. This is just to bring them to the point where you can make them aware of what’s happening. And you have to be the boss in this situation. You’ve got to be the lead in the coach client relationship.

And I say that with absolute love, but I’ve watched some coaches freak out and give it all to the client. Which only serves to increase the stress. So being firm, but absolutely loving and kind and just like, “Hang on a minute, we’re just going to stop now. And we’re going to breathe.” You don’t need to give them an explanation of why because by this point they’re going to be spinning so much.

They’re not thinking clearly, they’re not in their prefrontal cortex. So giving easy commands to follow, not in a dictator type way. In a helpful way, just very calm. Make sure that your voice and your tonality is calm.

And then when you’re speaking to them you can, I mean, there are a whole big dose of things. But breathing I think is the easiest one to go to first. And it just settles them enough so that you can let them become aware of what’s happening.

The reason I asked you to do that is because I can see that, or it feels to me like these types of suggestions. Not necessarily in the same session. Moving on the next step, well, the things that I’ve already spoken about, which is the radical self-acceptance.

Within this awareness piece, if you’re clear that what’s going on is neuroception as opposed to perception for various reasons. In that awareness piece, it’s I find incredibly helpful if you let your clients know what’s happening in their brain.

It doesn’t have to be a huge explanation. It can be very simplified, just like okay, the controller has changed the lanes. The reason that you can’t think your way through this, and that you’re burning out from trying is that 4% of your brain is really trying. I mean, some people say 1%, but I’m settling on 4.  4% of your brain is trying to control the 96% and it can’t. It just can’t. So what we need to do is tend to the 96%.”

Lindsay: So good.

Sally: The radical self-acceptance piece, and I sort of underline and write in big capital letters, radical self-acceptance is whatever you need, take it. If you need to walk the dog. If you need to have a bath. Whatever your thing is, if you need to go to the chiropractor. Whatever you need to do, take it. And if it is not possible for you to take it, tell your brain that you will as soon as you can. And keep your word to yourself, which starts to foster self-trust.

That radical self-acceptance stops the judgment that will spiral you back up into this activated state. When you are fully recovered you can practice physiological things that help you have a regulated central nervous system. When you’ve completed that trigger cycle, that activation cycle, stress cycle, whatever you want to call it, then you can do the thought work.

Which is what we were talking about earlier on, of maybe why this situation happened in the first instance. What were the things that led to this? Like you were talking about, I kept pushing myself, pushing myself, pushing myself, and then I’d have an anxiety attack when I was on holiday.

Let’s go back in time a little bit. And let’s kind of track the data that your central nervous system was hoovering up, that led to this anxiety attack. And is there a way that we can approach it differently?

So that’s where the thought work comes in. Just from the like landmarks, the landscape, looking back and saying, “Oh, well, I can see the road that got me here. Maybe I don’t want to take that next time. Maybe I do. Maybe I need to work on becoming more resilient to lower levels of stress.”

But importantly, I think if we’re ever doing, like my clients are often pushing cultural limits, pushing boundaries, that is stressful, you will be activated. There’s no two ways about it, you will be activated whether you’re posting something on social media or having a boundaries conversation with somebody.

Work into your plan, or for coaches out there work into your client’s plan, the plan for recovery. I choose to push this limit, it’s intentional, I am choosing to come back to safety. And know that that’s not a weak position to be in. That’s an incredibly strong position to be in because we grow in safety. And if we’ve done the attachment work, and we’ve done the authenticity work, then safety is beginning to be something that we hold within ourselves.

She takes a deep breath. But the final piece that I wanted to say is that that safety is always moving. And I use the analogy of when I walk with the dog. She runs off 20 paces, and she comes back to me and she touches her nose to my hand. And this happens in all directions.

She goes off exploring the limits of where she’s comfortable, and then she comes back to her safety. I’m the boss, I’m in control, I feed her. Every time she comes back to safety I am somewhere different. The safety is somewhere different. The safety has moved in the direction that she is pushing those limits. The safety has evolved.

I think it’s really important for clients to recognize that coming back to safety is the nicest thing that they can ever do for themselves. It’s a fierce act of self-love. And you’re always evolving.

Lindsay: I love every second of that. I’m going to have you back every week, you can teach all of the things. I just love, you know, there are so many pieces of what you’re saying that I talk about, I teach in different ways but just listening to you, I’m totally a science nerd as well. So I love hearing about the actual science behind it and your analogies are so spot on.

I want to shift just a little bit because I don’t want to go way longer than an hour but I do want to get this in. And I think it is related to kind of what you were just talking about on a more personal level for you. And I asked you if we could talk about this before we started recording, just so everyone knows I’m not just throwing out your personal information.

When you applied or maybe right before you applied, I can’t really remember, for my mastermind. You sent me an email that said what? I would rather you say it in your words. Just paraphrase because I don’t remember exactly what it said.

Sally: I know the content Yeah, no, I don’t remember exactly either. But it was something along the lines of I’ve just been diagnosed with ADHD, if this is going to be a problem I exclude myself from the application.

Lindsay: Yes.

Sally: Which, oh man, I was just in this place where I felt like my thoughts told me that everything that had ever been said about me being different, being wrong, not being the right kind of person, not being good enough and you know well enough that that’s my asshole brain’s favorite sentence. I love my brain. I don’t mean that it’s an asshole. Now I’ve got proof, I have this diagnosis that I am different.

Oh my god, I’m never going to be able to function. Who’s going to want to coach with a coach whose brain is basically ruined? I mean, just like crazy off the charts, high jumping board, deep water, just craziness. Worlds of crazy, all the thoughts, and very few of them were good.

I think probably that goes back to my mom was a medical Rep and she sold psychiatric drugs. And she sold kind of high level psychiatric drugs to people that had very very serious mental conditions. And I had grown up with like those two words, mental health, meaning you would have to be sectioned. Meaning you couldn’t look after yourself or other people in society.

So the people she was dealing with were people who had been sectioned. People who couldn’t deal with themselves or other people in society, through absolutely no fault of their own, just the way their brains were wired.

But that’s what I flashed back to you. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can’t be a mum. I can’t be a coach. I certainly can’t be in this mastermind because there are going to be other brains in there that work like “properly.” What value have I got to add? None.”

And in the interim period, and during masters itself I did a lot of work on that and a lot of unpacking of that. And, oh my God, it’s just such a superpower. It is such a superpower. And the only thing that was making it an issue was what I was thinking about it.

And then I had to deal with all of the shame that I had been thinking those things. Because if I was thinking those things about me, then I was thinking those things about other people. But I knew people who had ADHD and I was like, “I don’t understand how I’m not thinking it about them, but I must be.

And I remember when I was in masters and I had like a proper break down, like a full on weep attack. And it was largely about this, you know, the shame of judging other people. Or did I judge? You know, it’s just like massive confusion. And you just said to me, just so beautifully this lovely, quiet, calm voice you said, “You know what? Seems like you’re in a pretty deep well. You know you don’t have to keep digging. You can just find the steps and come out.”

And I did not know what to do with that. Because I’ve always been about the why. Like there’s got to be something underneath, there’s got to be something underneath, there’s got to be something more.

Like when I was three my dad took me to the seaside and the sea was so huge. I remember saying, “It’s so big.” And him responding, “Yes darling, and that’s only the top.” And from that point on I was obsessed with what’s underneath.

The process of being in masters with the other coaches was the process of permission for me to accept that my way is valid. That I am valid. That I am enough. It enabled me to experiment with what worked best for me because I could see that other people did it in a totally different way from me that I was really curious about. And I didn’t know quite how they were getting success, but they were. And I was like, “Wow, all ways are good. So there is no wrong way.”

It enabled me to ask for help, it enabled me to really integrate all of the knowledge that I’ve had over all of my lifetime, where I’ve clearly been searching for why am I very much different. And now I know. And it has massively worked to my benefit.

Lindsay: I’m just so grateful that you were willing to talk about this because I think it’s so important for people to hear. And I teach this in coaching masters, I’ve talked about it on this podcast. But to hear this very specific example of one thing I do is I help my clients find those superpowers.

And I think sometimes when people hear that they think, for example if I think about you, my guess is you probably think, “Well, some of my superpowers are my background in psychology, my understanding of how the brain works, all of those things.” Yes, they are superpowers that some coaches have, some coaches don’t.

In my opinion, you having this diagnosis or having ADHD is also a superpower. It’s like how do you get to be the coach for your clients that other coaches can’t be because their brain just doesn’t work like yours, or can’t relate to clients who have brains that maybe function differently.

Sally: Yeah. And the big pluses that come from it. I mean you asked me what I would do if my brain gets distracted. And actually, that’s one of my superpowers, it doesn’t, I hyper focus. Like the level of attention that I bring in a coaching session, the level of safety that I create is off the chart. I don’t drop attention, it just doesn’t happen.

But a really interesting byproduct, so ADHD and a lot of mental illnesses are genetic, or inherited, is that whenever I went through the diagnoses my mom had to fill in the form. She filled it in for her and the center was like, “Your mom should probably apply too.” She was supposed to be filling it in for me. And I was like, “Oh, that’s interesting.”

At least 50% of your parents, so at least one of your parents have the same diagnosis when it’s ADHD. My son has recently been diagnosed. The beautiful gift that this is, is that it allows me to stop this inherited trauma. And I’m really passionate about this.

The stuff that I inherited from my mum that she had no knowledge about, that she had no control over. Her life was governed by what she learned when she was young. At least one of her parents was ADHD. At least one of their parents, I mean, this goes back generations. This inherited activation, this inherited trauma just from having a brain that works differently.

This work for me, heals generations of lack. Heals lack of attachment, lack of authenticity. My mom has a new level of self-acceptance, my son is growing up in a household that fully accepts him exactly as he is. It’s a beautiful gift.

Lindsay: Absolutely. I don’t know if I’ve told you this, I’m just going to tell all of the podcast world. My husband was diagnosed with, I think ADD, I don’t know exactly. He doesn’t have the hyperactive part, it’s more of just the distraction and not being able to focus very well as an adult. And same, his parents had to fill out the forms.

And I think what’s amazing about it is I can see even just, you know, don’t worry, I do not coach him on this. But I can see that it does turn in now that he has had the diagnosis for a while, he’s learned to live with it, he’s learned so many strategies. I think it is his superpower.

There are some things that he is so good at because of the way his brain works. And he has created so many kind of, I don’t know what you would call them but strategies or mechanisms to function properly in the situations where he wants to. In like a corporate environment, and meetings, and all the things.

But sometimes I think he pays attention better than I do. He has this superpower that’s like when he turns it on he his full attention 100%. And it’s sometimes a little intense. And I’m like, “Wow, I wish that I could do that. I should probably work on that, he’s better at it than I am.”

But he wouldn’t be able to do that if he hadn’t forced himself, or that’s not really the right word because he wanted to do it. But if he hadn’t had this experience where it was like, oh, let’s just figure out how to make this work for me, instead of always fighting against it or thinking like, “Oh, great, I’m never going to-” Fill in the blank, right? I’m never going to get the job I want, be in this career that I want, whatever it is.

Which for him that’s what it was very related to was like, how am I going to finish my MBA? How am I going to get this job? It was all like very connected to that.

But now, it’s definitely his superpower. And I think that that is so powerful for every person, whether it’s ADHD, whether it’s literally anything, right? To look at it and say like this isn’t necessarily something that makes me flawed. This is just my brain works differently. And how special and amazing is that?

Lindsay: Yeah. I just like to think that throughout 43 years of my life I thought I had a PC brain and I was given a PC user manual. And then I realized that I had a Mac brain and I could use the Mac manual.

Lindsay: That’s so good.

Sally: And I’m like, “Oh god, this just makes so much more sense to me.”

Lindsay: That’s a good analogy.

Sally: It’s like I don’t need to use all of that stuff because these are my strategies and these actually work for how my brain is wired. It’s not better or worse by any stretch, it’s just different wiring. And frankly without the ADD brain, ADHD brain, and I’m combination so I have both sides, like off the chart both sides.

Without this kind of brain, civilization would never have looked over the next mountain. It just wouldn’t have happened. We are the risk takers. If ADD shouldn’t be around, it wouldn’t be around. That’s what I like to think.

Lindsay: That’s good.

Sally: Now that could be extrapolated to a number of different things that I don’t necessarily mean. But this is one of the thoughts that I have on it.

Lindsay: Yeah. So through your own processes, through being in coaching masters, through hiring coaches, you have worked through this. And do you look at it now in your coaching, can you see how in your actual coaching while working with clients that it isn’t a thing that you have to worry about or think is a bad thing?

Sally: It’s not even a consideration. I don’t think about it at all.

Lindsay: Good.

Sally: I really don’t. And that’s been in a relatively short space of time, within a year. And that has come through this process that I have of completing the cycle.

And cycles are everywhere. You know, you breathe, in you breathe out. Cycles are genetic, cycles are inherited, cycles are seasonal, annual, daily. They’re everywhere. And this is completing this cycle for my whole general-

And it’s not just for the ADD brain, I mean, with all brains. Wanting to be more, following your desire, having the desire to be more changes all of the next generation. So I’m not just working with my super amazing, wonderfully impactful clients. I’m working with like the next 10 generations, and then some, I think that’s pretty fucking awesome.

Lindsay: I think it is too, so good.

Sally: I think I might have done a lot of swearing, Lindsay. I’m sorry.

Lindsay: You asked me up front and I said that is perfect, you do you. I love it.

Sally: I’m a bit of a potty mouth.

Lindsay: No, what’s so fun too though, is that the way you swear is very different than the way I do because some of the words we use are just different. And so sometimes I don’t even hear it as swearing, which is just funny. Because just words are different from.

Sally: You’re like, I just like kind of battled you down over six months, you’re like, “Oh, it’s just British vocabulary.”

Lindsay: Well, listen, I don’t think anyone cares. I’m positive they have listened to all of this and probably didn’t even notice, because everything you said was so genius.

Sally: Bless your heart.

Lindsay: So we’ll just end on that note because I think it’s so good. Everything you’ve said, I just already want to go back and listen and just take notes on all the things.

So is there anything else? Have we left anything out? I feel like we could talk for probably five hours. But we might have to do this again.

Sally: Well, yes, please. I could just keep talking. I could just keep talking for hours. You’re great to talk to and I love the subject matter, I’m in it, I love it.

So I think you’re right, I think this is a really good place to draw a line. Everything that I’m talking about is everything that I coach one to one with my clients. It’s required to be the bigger version of yourself. It’s integral to my practice, one to one practice. And I’m in the process now, it’s still in its infancy, but I’m in the process of developing a group which is going to be super fun and I think very interesting.

Because the support that a group can give while people are breaking down cultural traditions, social, anything that’s been inherited, borrowed, just absorbed by the human. Being in a supportive environment to explore the new version of yourself I think is going to be transformative. So I’m really, really excited. But that’s going to be dot dot dot watch this space.

Lindsay: Of course, I cannot wait for that. I think it is going to be incredible. I just found out about it today and I’m just already excited for it.

One thing I would like to say is that everybody should find you on Instagram. I hope that that’s okay for me to tell them to find you there.

Sally: Yeah, that’s where I hang out. That’s where I hang out.

Lindsay: I am obsessed with your Instagram. What I love the most about it is you show all of the sides. And this is something I tried to do. And I definitely do it but I think you just do it on the next level. You’re so open, you talk a lot about a lot of the things we talked about today in a very deep way.

You go on walks and do videos on how to, I don’t know if this is specific, but I feel like I’ve seen a video on how to kind of regulate your nervous system. How to do a lot of the things that you’ve been talking about today.

But then you also do videos where you’re trying to get the cookie from like your forehead to your mouth or whatever it was. Which I was like crying I was laughing so hard. I showed my kids at least 10 times. They have now tried it.

Sally: I was about to say you cannot watch that video and not then try it.

Lindsay: I love everything about your Instagram. It’s hilarious, it’s serious, it is just all of the things. And I think it so perfectly expresses the kind of duality or, like I said earlier, the dichotomy of who you are. Who is like this very intelligent, very kind of deep serious person.

And then the other side, which is just hilarious, always saying things that make me laugh. Which I love. I don’t think that’s a love language, but like that’s my love language. I just love to laugh and you are so funny. But not just funny, there’s so much substance to it. And that is just one of my favorite combination.

So everyone should find you on Instagram. Tell them your Instagram name. We’ll also hook all the things up in the show notes, but just tell them now in case they need to just immediately find you.

Sally: I’m Sallyhardie_coach. Sally is with a Y, and Hardie H-A-R-D-I-E. Everyone gets it the wrong way. But it’s Sallyhardie_coach and my website is sallyhardie.com. Easy peasy.

Lindsay: I never thought about that, that it could be switched. Like I feel like most people probably switch the IE and the Y.

Sally: It’s just incredible. Like even when I’ve written an email with just Sally at the bottom of it, someone will write back to me with an IE. And I’m like, “I just wrote to you.”

Lindsay: The same with Lindsay, I’m like really?

Sally: I don’t take it personally. Well Lindsay, there are like 20 different ways to spell Lindsay.

Lindsay: I know, but when I sign the email, right, it’s the same thing. Like when it come on, read the email. I’m just kidding, it doesn’t actually bother me.

I just love you. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for doing this. Thank you for imparting all of your amazing wisdom to us today. Thank you, and I will see you hopefully soon.

Sally: You’re not getting off the hook that easy. I want to say thank you because the whole masters experience was unbelievably transformative for me. And it came at the perfect point in my life. You are glorious, I absolutely adore you.

And if anyone is ever thinking about working with Lindsay, they just need to get off their ass and book in. Because you’re just gorgeous, you hold beautiful space for everybody. You ask the best questions and you really created such a ride or die community that I’m forever grateful for.

Lindsay: Thank you. Thank you. I just want to like give you a hug. All right, thank you so much. See you so soon.

Thank you so much for listening today. I really hope you enjoyed this conversation with Sally. She is so much fun and brilliant. Am I right?

So one little thing I wanted to note, she asked me to tell you this. This is like an asterisk at the end of the episode. When we were talking about her background she mentioned a lot of different things, a lot of different areas that she has studied, that she has trained in.

And one thing she mentioned is that she has some training in psychotherapy and has done some studies in psychotherapy. And she just wanted me to make a little note that she is not a licensed therapist. So just in case for anyone that’s listening, we just need to note she’s not a licensed therapist. It doesn’t make her any less amazing. Or this conversation any more important.

Have an amazing week, and I’ll see you back here next Tuesday. Bye

Thanks for listening to this episode of Mastering Coaching Skills. If you want to learn more about my work, come visit me at lindsaydotzlafcoaching.com. That’s Lindsay with an A, D-O-T-Z-L-A-F.com. see you next week.