#084: Looking back on "Self-Validation: Shifting The Dial" with Natalie Balmain

Welcome back to the Women on a Mission show where I want to start with a huge thank you this week.  Those listeners who tune in via the Goodpods platform will be aware that, like Apple, they have listener charts which track the progress of podcasts and they have a particular interest in supporting indie shows.  So each chart category has two charts – one specific to independent podcasts and one for more mainstream listens.  I’m delighted to say that, this week, they introduced a new chart specific to the area of leadership, and we went straight in at the top of both the indie and the main chart where we have stayed all week at the point of recording.  And, in addition, we then moved to the top of the Management chart too! 

So that’s been very exciting and then, over on Apple we’ve been climbing the management charts too – both in the UK and in Spain.

I’ll be honest and say it’s all a bit of a dark art to me, but to everyone who listens, shares and contributes in any way to getting my message out there to support women – a huge thank you from the bottom of my heart.

And on that note, I’m delighted to announce the first winner of the coaching giveaway for this season.  Regular listeners will know that I’m doing a very specific promotion of my own mission this season, asking for your help with reaching more women who are on a mission to make a difference. You’ll hear all the details a little later in the show and for now I just want to say thanks to those who have led the way and got us off to a great start with your shares and reviews.  At the beginning of each month, I will share who has won from the previous months entries and this month, drum roll please, it’s Paula Timmins!

Paula left a wonderful review about what the show is achieving, saying:

The second you press play and hear Sue’s dulcet, soothing voice you are transformed into a state of calmness yet addictive listening where you hear her every word with a sense of increased sensitivity. This enables you to transport yourself to the place you need to be, in a virtual sense, to learn from the wonderful women that Sue is interviewing. Some are magical, energetic, vibrant whilst others express a sense wisdom and experience only living a full career can possibly create. But every podcast gives me a sense of connection of reinvigoration again with women I feel I come to know and admire. If you are seeking a sense of belonging, looking for your tribe because you just can’t find it in the real world then Women on a Mission is a club to join. Take yourself on a journey with a cup of coffee each week, you deserve it and who knows you just might hear what you need to hear, when you need to hear it! I know I feel that every time I’d listen in, like I was meant to hear this guest this week :) To all potential listeners, press play and find a few minutes to find yourself. To my wonderful friend Sue (I wonder if everyone considers you to be there wonderful friend?) keep finding these amazing women, keep doing your thing, you are having a wider impact than you could ever possibly know.

I hope that people consider me to be their friend, Paula.  The leadership journey can be pretty lonely at times, and leading change can be particularly isolating when you’re maybe holding a vision that others can’t yet see. Thank you so much for your beautiful and thoughtful words – I’m so looking forward to our coaching session together.  Do get in touch via the website and we’ll get that set up.

Ok, let’s get into today’s Insights episode, where I’m looking back at last week’s conversation with Natalie Balmain.  If you haven’t had chance to listen to the interview, we heard how Natalie is a campaigner, designer & broadcaster AND the winner of Channel 4’s Make Me Prime Minister, which aired in the UK last autumn.  She describes herself as the kid who never gave up on the idea of a fair, perfect world and she’s on a mission to challenge societal constructs in her fight for freedom and democracy.

Let’s take a look at what I noticed…

Today we’re looking back on episode 83 with Natalie Balmain.

The first thing I notice is the irony of this show returning to the topic of validation – given the discomfort I felt reading out the whole of Paula’s lovely review.  There were at least three points where I was tempted to skip to the end, rather than read to the end because it’s not always easy to accept such lovely praise, is it?  Or is that just me?!

As I listened back to my conversation with Natalie, I was struck again by the part of the conversation where I checked in with my sense that there had been an even deeper shift in her confidence and self-belief than she had described to that point.  This has been an important point of learning for me in creating this podcast, how far do I have permission to scratch below the surface of an answer? It’s so easy for coaches to coach without permission – and I try not to do that on the show – but this was a point where I thought it was worth asking for permission, in the moment, to ask an extra question.  And it opened the door to the conversation I want to have today because, my experience with clients, has taught me that this is something many, many, many women struggle with.  The spectrum of validation and its’ relationship to our self-belief, self-esteem and self-confidence.

Forgive me if I’ve mentioned this story in an earlier episode but as I talk, I’m reminded of an experience I had many years ago, where I was performing in a carol service to a packed congregation of some 600-700 people.  At the end, I was talking to the vicar as people were leaving the church.  Many people were kind enough to stop and thank me for my solo, including an elderly lady who waited patiently to speak to me. She too, thanked me for my contribution, and I responded as I had done many times before, slightly embarrassed and playing down my performance.

And after the lady had left the church, the vicar – a wonderfully wise  woman – took me aside and gently chided me for my response.  She asked me if I had stopped to consider what it had meant for that lady to wait to speak to me, the feelings that she may have experienced and the importance it must have had to her, to have joined the queue to speak with me. And I was, genuinely, mortified… for the first time seeing those lovely conversations, which I always found slightly embarrassing, through the eyes of the other person.

Why do I share that?  Because I think validation is a complex thing.  On the one hand it’s easy to hanker after it, and on the other it can be an awkward experience. At the other end of the spectrum, we can have this sense that validation is better when it comes from within, but we don’t know how to create it…. Any more than we know how to accept the validation of others!

And I talk about ends of the spectrum because that’s exactly how I see it.  At the one end of a line we have self-validation – our inner knowing when we have done a good job.  At the other end of the line we have external validation – our thirst for feedback from others.

Shelle Rose Charvet, author of Words That Change Minds, describes validation as one of six motivation traits – how these traits show up for us may vary depending on the context, but they are helpful to understand as they are likely to influence how we make judgements and decisions.  They are also hugely helpful to understand if your role is to influence others which, as women on a mission, we absolutely need to do. As I say, our natural response may vary according to the context in which it applies, but there is research in Shelle’s book to suggest that 40% are internally referenced and 40% are external – leaving 20% of us in the middle with both patterns. I’m not going to major on the power of influence in this episode, but if that something that interests you, I will pop the book reference in the show notes because it’s a brilliant resource for learning how to use language well to trigger motivation and influence people’s thinking.

In the second half, I’m going to come back to this theme in the context of Natalie’s story, so stay tuned and I’ll be back in 60 seconds.

[COMPETITION TIME: Today, I'm asking for your help.

I'm on a mission to stop women playing small so that they can think, dream and be bigger in leading the change they want to see in the world. And I need your help to reach more women.

As a thank you, I'll be giving away a free online coaching session each month during this season. So four lucky listeners will win an hour with me during season six. It's super easy to enter.

Go to the Apple or Goodpods platform and leave a review of this episode, telling us how it helped you or why you enjoyed it.

If you take a screenshot and share it on your own socials, you'll get an extra entry for each post. Use the hashtag Women on a Mission and remember to tag me in so that we see it.

The winner will be announced on the first episode of the following month. So do keep listening.]

Ok, so in Natalies’ story she shared how she shifted the dial on external validation to being more internally referenced, by addressing some issues from childhood that had stayed with her, dealing with her tendency to people pleasing behaviours and learning to put her own needs first.

I don’t want to get into whether internal or external validation or reference is better or worse because, as I say, our response is likely to be context specific and there are many layers that influence our response and our natural place on that spectrum.

Similarly, I rarely get asked how to shift the dial towards being more externally referenced – of course, that’s probably a self-fulfilling thing given the implications of being internally validated!

But I *regularly* get asked how a client can become more self-validated – maybe not using that exact turn of phrase but conversations about becoming more self-confident, having more belief in what we think, owning our experience, being less people-pleasing, loving ourselves more…. You name it, I’ve probably heard it.

And in the leadership context too.  I will work with clients who are incredibly internally referenced if I talk to them about their professional activities – maybe a clinician who has spent years working with patients and when I ask them how they knew the next step to take, they will invariably reply with some version of ‘I just knew”.  Or if I ask them where they know something in that context, they will be able to point to a place inside themselves that represents ‘just knowing’ for them. 

But when I talk to the same person about an issue with their leadership, maybe a conversation with their line manager, or their team, or a partner organisation – the language suddenly turns to needing feedback, and the importance of every word that feedback has included… and how it was said… or not said. And so we start to work on how to build transferability of awareness and knowing, in the same way as we would talk about transferability of skills and experience in comparing different jobs.

And I want to leave you with one story that I always share, which many of my clients have found helpful over the years. It’s a story that I hinted at in an earlier insights episode, looking back on my conversation with Sherry Bevan, but I’m not sure if I’ve ever told it in full on the podcast.

I once had a root canal filling with probably the most pompous professor I’ve ever met.  It was an extremely complex piece of dentistry, performed over several visits, and the professor never failed to take the opportunity to tell me how lucky I was that he was undertaking it. Naturally he always waited until I had a mouth full of instruments and couldn’t point out how many times he had told me this before!

One of the other things that he told me on every visit, was that to avoid infection, and therefore failure of the filling, it had to be filled and layered incredibly carefully. Even a hole the size of a grain of sand could let infection in.

Over the years since, it has occurred to me that this is a great analogy for how we shift the dial towards self validation, however that presents itself for us. If we want to truly build our confidence and our comfort with what we do and how we show up in the world, I think we have to build the internal evidence just like those grains of sand.

In the last Insights episode – number 82 – I talked about how confidence is a result not a requirement. Instead of waiting to have the confidence to do something new or different, we have to take the first small step, then the next small step, then we add more and more small steps – each time adding the smallest step that will make the biggest impact – layering in those grains of sand. Proving to our monkey minds that we’ve got this. 

Gradually, while lovely to receive, that external validation becomes less and less important because our sense of ‘just knowing’ builds more and more.

And that, dear listener, is how we shift the dial.  One grain of sand at a time, one small piece of personal evidence.

What does that look like for you?  It depends on your mission and the change you are looking to make. But each small step will build your confidence and increase your impact.

And, if I can help you to feel more confident in who you are becoming in your mission - reach out via my website at Sue Revell dot com, and I’ll be in touch. Or enter the coaching giveaway I mentioned earlier – to be in with a chance of winning an initial session with me.

My last word, as ever, goes to my guest.

Natalie, it was so good to talk to you in person and learn from your story. Thank you for sharing your experience of shifting the dial and helping us to understand more of what is possible when we achieve that.  I’m so excited to see what the future holds for your mission – and if you need someone to interview you on your stateside show when it happens – you know where to find me!  I am so grateful to you for joining me on the show.   Thank you.

Thanks for tuning in again today.  I’ve loved spending time with you as always and I really hope that Natalie’s story has inspired you to think about who you are being and who you are becoming in your mission.

If you’ve enjoyed what you’ve heard, do hit the FOLLOW button wherever you are listening so that you don’t miss out on future episodes.

And if you’d like to stay in touch with Women on a Mission news, go to the show notes at womenonamission.club and fill in the big pink box on the main page to make sure you get the next edition of Mission Mojo sent straight to your inbox!

Next week I’ll be talking to Veronica Pullen, who is the online marketing and copywriting expert for introverted and ambiverted coaches, therapists and service-providers. Veronica works with people who want to create standout social media content - that builds engagement, authority and trust - and sizzling sales copy that brings perfect-fit prospects flocking!   Another very different conversation and I can’t wait to share it with you!
 
That’s it for today, my friend. Thank you for being with me as always. Have a wonderful week, and I’ll see you next time.