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A weekly interview podcast hosted by Melissa Hague features Courageous Coaches who explore the grit and bones of what it takes to be truly courageous. Whether you're a coach, consultant, or a leader, join us each week to explore what it really takes to be transformational in your coaching practice, your business, and your life.
Welcome back to the Courageous Coach podcast.
I'm Melissa Haig, your host, and I'm so glad
that you're here. Season three, here we are,
season three already. And this season is all
about grounded confidence. The kind of confidence
that isn't loud or shiny or perfect, but is
steady and rooted and human. the kind of confidence
that lets us step into courage without armoring
up and showing up in our coaching with clarity,
with presence and with our whole hearts. Today
in this first episode, we're setting the foundations
for the whole season. So take a breath, settle
in, and let's explore what grounded confidence
really means.
So I think there's a myth around confidence,
this myth that confidence is boldness and certainty
or polish maybe. But what I've noticed coaches
longing for, what I've noticed I'm longing
for is steadiness and self-trust and presence
over performance and grounded confidence
creates the space for our courage, our humanity
and our authenticity. So I want to share with
you um the arena metaphor, which comes from
the Dare to Lead work of Brene Brown. And if
you're a fan, you're probably really familiar
with the metaphor of the arena. But if you're
not, you haven't come across this before, I
want to just spend a little bit of time talking
about what the arena is really all about. I
mean, it's a metaphor, right? It's just a metaphor.
But it's a metaphor for that moment or experience
where we share something of ourselves that
might be an opinion, a feeling, an experience,
but we share something of ourselves with no
control over the outcome or what people might
think. And when we choose to be courageous,
we are stepping into that arena. And one of
the things that's really important about courage
is that there is no courage without vulnerability.
And this is really at the heart of Brene's
Dare to Lead research. There is no courage without
vulnerability. So when we choose to be courageous,
vulnerability always shows up. So when we're
gonna step into that arena, there's our armor.
And armor is self-protection. It protects us
because vulnerability doesn't feel good, right?
Nobody wants to feel vulnerable. It brings up
feelings maybe of shame, anxiety, fear. And
so our response to that vulnerability is to
armor up. And so what the arena might look
like for coaches, or perhaps I should say what
arena moments look like for me as a coach,
you know, every client session that I have
is an arena moment, particularly with new clients.
A lot of the decisions that I have to make
in my business, in my coaching business, around
pricing or marketing, visibility, niching even,
those were all arena moments. Maybe it might
be about coaching in rooms where, people who
have power. maybe senior leaders. Arena moments
might be about sharing your voice publicly,
know, whether that's on social media or
speaking at a conference or sharing your writing.
And of course, another arena moment for coaches
is often in supervision or peer coaching. And
so in those arena moments, we have a choice.
We can choose courage or we can choose comfort,
but we can't have both. And if we choose comfort,
we are choosing to lean into the vulnerability
that is inevitable when we choose to be brave.
And so what we want to do when we step into
that arena and we're so tempted to armour up,
to self-protect because we feel vulnerable.
In order to be courageous, we have to keep
the armor off.
And I don't know about you, but even now, when
I think about keeping that armor off, there's
a feeling in the pit of my stomach, like a,
but it keeps me safe. It looks after me, it
protects me. I like my armor. I want to keep
my armor. I don't want to feel vulnerable.
So if we're going to keep that armour off, we
need something to replace it with. And what
we're replacing our armour with is grounded
confidence. So when I work with coaches in
the Courageous Coach program, and we do a lot
of exploration around armour and what your
armour is, the purpose really of that program
is to help coaches to develop the grounded
confidence that they need. to step into their
arena, to step into their courage and to keep
that armour off.
And I want to say that arena moments are not
things that you, that stop happening when
you become a really experienced coach or a really
skilled business person, right? The arena
moments don't come away, go away, sorry, because
we're, which if we're choosing to be brave
with our lives, and we're thinking about ordinary
everyday courage, those arena moments are going
to keep showing up. When I launched the Courageous
Coach Programme, in November 2025, was absolutely
an arena moment for me. And I felt all of that
vulnerability and all of those temptations
to put my armor on and, you know, to stay safe
and stay protected. So every coach, regardless
of where they are in their journey, and every
human has an inner critic, has wobbles, has
fear. And sometimes we choose comfort over
courage.
So let's talk a little bit more about this idea
of armour and learning more about what our
different pieces of armour might be. Now, I'm
going to share some examples, but just bear
in mind that your armour may look different
to mine. All right. So this is not like a list
of armour that every coach has or every person
has. I just wanted to give you a sense of what
armouring up might look like. So some examples.
Armour can sometimes be over preparation,
over preparing so that we feel safe, so that
we feel like we know more, that we feel like
we have the answers to give us some kind of
certainty. And sometimes we do this with sessions,
right? When we're prepared, oh, I must have
some time before a session to prepare and...
Yes, preparation is good, but this idea of over
preparing can be armor. Over functioning uh
perfectionism. People pleasing, wanting to
be liked. Comparison, spirals, getting stuck
in our setbacks or our disappointments and
using those as a way of holding back from perhaps
moving forward. I think sometimes reflection
or reflective practice can be armor for coaches.
I mean, don't get me wrong, reflection and
reflective practice is an incredibly important
part of the work that we do. But I noticed sometimes
that I use armor, I use Okay, pause there.
I notice sometimes that I use my reflective
practice as a place to hide and I know that
that can be armour.
And so the challenge that we have with armour,
because we can make up a story about how it's
keeping us safe and it's protecting us, but
the challenge with armour is that it's really,
really heavy. It's really heavy for us to lug
around with us all the time. And sometimes
pieces of armour have been with us for so long
that we don't even bother to take them off.
Right, we have them on all the time. And that
whole performance of putting armor on, taking
it off, it's wearing, it's tiring. And really
importantly as coaches, when we armor up, we
can't be seen. We can't connect and we can't
grow or contribute. And all of those things
are critical for us to be great coaches. So
if we're going to take our armor off, step
into our arenas, be courageous, but keep that
armor off, what do we want to replace it with?
Because something people always say to me is,
well, you know, I get that this armor's not,
you know, not helpful and yeah, I get it, I
understand, but I don't want to walk into
my arm, into my arena naked. Oh, I don't want
to do that, right? Metaphorically. So that's
not what I'm asking you to do. What we need
to do is to develop our grounded confidence
in order to replace that harm. and grounded
confidence. is a confidence that's not built
on arrogance or posturing, but it's built
on solid ground of self-awareness, of courage
and practice. So really importantly, grounded
confidence is a practice. It's a practice that
we can develop and grow. It is not a personality
trait. It is not something that you either
have or don't have. me, the grounded confidence
that I'm developing is around feeling rooted,
you know, quite literally grounded on the ground,
but feeling rooted, rooted in who I am, and
how I want to show up as a coach. And that's
really all about my self awareness, my presence,
my ability to be present in the moment. My compassion.
And yes, my compassion for others, but very
importantly, my compassion for myself.
Another really important part of grounded confidence
is embodiment. And, and in simple terms, what
we mean by embodiment is being connected to
our bodies, and being able to access the
wisdom of our bodies. Grounded confidence is
also about values based action. So a really
important part of this work is understanding,
developing and living into our values. And
of course, all of those things as elements
of grounded confidence are really about or
supporting us giving us the ability to stay
aligned during the hard moments when it's
tough, when things don't go as we'd hoped, when
we fall or we stumble. This grounded confidence
and these elements of grounded confidence are
the things that enable us to stay aligned when
it's tough.
And Brene describes this idea of grounded confidence,
she describes it as accepting and embracing
learning and unlearning, practicing and failing.
And that it's ultimately driven by discipline
and the joy of mastery.
And I couldn't do this episode without adding
in a recommendation for Brené's latest book,
which is called Strong Ground. which is really
a build from Dare to Lead based on all of the
learnings and all of the research that's happened
in Brene's world, if you like, since Dare
to Lead was published. And a really big part
of the Strong Ground book is around grounded
confidence.
So in this season, I'm going to be talking about
with guests, the kind of the core components
of grounded confidence. But for me, the core
components that are really important for coaches
in the work that we do. And so we're gonna have
several episodes, it's gonna be nine episodes
in total, including this one. And I wanna give
you a bit of a taster, if you like, of what's
coming up. So we're gonna look at values. I've
mentioned how important they are, know, knowing
who you are and how you want to show up.
And grounded confidence comes from alignment
with our values, living into our values. But
the really critical thing for me here when
we talk about values is that this is about practicing
our values, not just professing them. So,
you know, it's great to have the words, you
know, it's great to have done the card sort
exercise. And when people ask you what your
values, you can reel off the words, yes. oh
But actually what's more important for grounded
confidence is understanding what will these
values look like behaviorally for me in this
arena moment. So, you know, that's something
I'll think about. So in one of my arena moments,
so when I was launching the Courageous Coach
Program with my first cohort, and I sat there
beforehand thinking, oh, you know, I want this
to be perfect. I want them to like me. I want
to have all the answers. I want this to be
so valuable. You know, all of that stuff was
going on for me. The question I asked myself
was, what will leaning into or living into my
values look like in this session in this first
session with this wonderful group of, of humans
of coaches? And so one of my values is curiosity.
So for me, the thing I was really important
to remind myself of is whilst my inner critic
was doing the you must know you must have the
answers, you must be the expert in the room.
What if they ask you something that you don't
know the answer to? I had to really dial in
and lean into my curiosity value. What will
curiosity look like here? What if someone asked
me something I don't know? How can I be curious
about that? What would that look like? Is it
a question? Is it throwing it to the group?
Is it saying, I don't know, I don't know,
let's explore that together, right? So really
thinking about practicing your values, not
just professing them. So we'll do an episode
on values with the wonderful Jane Gillum. We're
also going to look at emotional awareness and
regulation. Because this is such an important
part of grounded confidence. Because one of
the things and this kind of links to presence
as well, I think because this component really
for me is about staying with what's here,
not suppressing or denying or trying to bypass
our emotions. because our emotional response
shapes our presence in the room with our clients,
right? So developing that awareness and developing
curiosity around what's showing up for us and
what that might mean, but also learning to
be able to regulate.
And there's so many links there into the work
of Susan David, being embodied and connected
to self, recognising changes in your body. That
would be a really rich episode for sure.
Self-awareness is clearly a core component for
coaches of grounded confidence. I suspect you
would all agree with that. But self awareness
is, I think sometimes not only misunderstood,
I think sometimes it's not really understood.
What do we actually mean by this term self
awareness? We throw it around a lot. We know
we need to be self aware as coaches, but what
does that actually mean? And so self awareness
is really in simple terms for me, and we'll
go much deeper in the episode is around understanding
our patterns, our triggers, our blind spots.
And also, think self-awareness is really important
because it helps us to create clearer boundaries
for ourselves in the work that we do. And it
also enables us to remain present or come back
to being present with our clients when sometimes
we're pulled away because something has triggered
for us. curiosity. I mean, of course, I'm going
to talk about curiosity. It's one of my favourite
topics, but it's such an important part of
grounded confidence. And again, this is something
that I think sometimes we think this should
be easy to be curious, right? We should tap
into our inner child and be curious, be more
curious. Soften into that not knowing. let
go of the need to be the expert or to add value
or to have the answers. But what I want to
say there is that choosing to be curious is
choosing to be vulnerable because we're admitting
to not knowing. We are asking questions that
maybe we don't know the answers to. We're asking
questions and not knowing where we might go,
where the answers might take us. We're going
further into our uncertainty. And so, and of
course sometimes we hear things that we didn't
expect to hear. things that throw us off course
again and we have to readjust.
Mindfulness is a really core component of grounded
confidence, the power of the pause. And we
know this with our clients, you we'll talk
about pausing the use of silence, you know,
all of these things allow our clients that space
to pause, to think, to be reflective. But I
also want to think about the power of the pause
for the coach. know, how do we allow ourselves
to find the space between stimulus and response?
I mean, that's the famous quote, isn't it
right, the space between stimulus and response,
but there is wisdom in that space. And sometimes,
you know, there is no space, the stimulus and
response are just so tightly together. And
so mindfulness for me is about allowing myself
to create that space. between stimulus and
response. I think the other really important
thing about mindfulness is that mindfulness
also helps with our emotional reactivity and
can be really helpful in the moment. But sometimes
in life, not necessarily in coaching, but in
life, we can't manage our emotional reactivity
for any number of reasons. But what I love about
mindfulness is if we do... react in the
moment to those emotions, that strong emotion
we're feeling and maybe we show up or we behave
in a way that we aren't happy with. Mindfulness
gives us the ability to recover much quicker
than if we aren't able to be mindful. It's all
about responding, right, instead of reacting,
I think.
And of course, we're going to talk about embodiment.
I've mentioned this already. And, you know,
we're going to explore what the heck that actually
means. But also practically, how do we connect
with our bodies more? What's the practice there?
And again, embodiment, want to say, look, it's
not a it's not a like a light switch. You you
go on a you listen to the podcast and it'll
flick a switch and suddenly be you'll be embodied.
like so many of these topics within grounded
confidence, they are all about practice. So
embodiment is a practice. And it's a practice
of listening to our bodies cues. Being curious
about those cues, listening to the wisdom
of our bodies. And I think this is certainly
true for me. I also know it's true for many
of my clients, maybe it's true for you too,
that we spend an awful lot of time in our heads,
you know, thinking, cognitively processing,
making meaning, filtering, all of that hard
work that our heads are doing. And I think
often our careers, our lifestyles, society,
expectations, really encourage us to be in
our heads. And so many of us are disconnected
from what's happening in our bodies. And our
bodies are a really rich, rich area of wisdom
and data, which not only might serve us, will
serve us, but will also potentially serve our
clients too. So embodiment is really all about
developing that connection to our bodies so
that we can access that wisdom. In addition
to the head, it's not about getting rid of
the head and keeping the body, it's how do we
do both? And my work at the moment, because
I'm so in my head, that's just, I feel like
I've been that always, probably not, but I've
certainly learned to be that way. So at the
moment, I have to allow my body time to catch
up with my head. So there's a slowing down for
me as well to pay attention to the sensations,
the feelings, the things that are happening
in my body and what that might potentially
mean. And then the final component of grounded
confidence that I think is really important
in coaching, in courageous coaching. is a commitment
to mastery and discipline. And when I talk
about mastery, I want to be really clear that
for me, that's not about perfection. It's about
practice over perfection. fact, mastery for
me is about being a student of your craft.
It's not about being done. It's a commitment
to, and that commitment to is really important.
It's a commitment to continual learning and
growth and really developing kind of sustainable
habits that support grounded work. there's a
discipline to mastery as well. I think that's
part of the commitment piece really, there's
a discipline to it as well. know, Brene uses
lots of analogies, sports analogies and keep
fit and things and you know, you know, in like,
exercise, you know, it's about repetition, the
more you do it, the fitter you get, right?
This is the same thing for me, discipline is
about that repetition. And with that repetition
comes strength. And for me, I think that's
what we mean by mastery and discipline. So
we'll explore what mastery actually is and also
what it isn't. And what we need to be developing
and considering in our own journeys towards
mastery.
So I kind of want to close with kind of what
grounded confidence is not, because I want
to bust some myths here, I guess. And I'd like
you to take these away. And then I'm really
hoping that you'll listen to the rest of our
episodes in this season all about grounded
confidence. I want you to hold these myths and
remember their myths as you listen. So Grounded
confidence is not certainty. It's not bravado.
It's not perfection. It's also not about feeling
ready all the time. It's not pretending that
you've got it all sorted, that you've got it
all together. It's not being the calmest person
in the room. And it's not something that you
earn once and keep forever. It's a practice.
And I'm really hoping that this season of the
Courageous Coach podcast will really help you
to start moving towards that practice and thinking
about how you might incorporate and begin to
grow and develop some of these core components
as a coach.
So thank you so much for being here with me
for the first episode of season three of the
courageous coach podcast. This for me is I'm
hoping a season that will really support you
to develop that grounded confidence. It isn't
something that we just arrive at. It's something
that we practice and we're going to practice
it together. So I'd love to hear what resonated
with you from today's episode. You can come
and join me on LinkedIn, share your reflections
or send me a message. if you'd like to carry
on the conversation. So next week, in Episode
Two of Season Three, we're going to be diving
into the role of values in grounded confidence
and how they become the anchor for grounded
confidence, particularly during challenging
times. So until then, take care. Keep being
courageous. and keep coming home to yourself.
See you soon.