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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.
So hello, welcome to the Courageous Coach podcast.
It's lovely to have you here, whether you are listening or watching.
And today I am delighted to welcome Julia Carden as my guest.
It's so lovely to have you here, Julia.
And I'm so looking forward to this conversation.
Julia and I have known each other for what feels like a long time now.
I don't know.
It's certainly a few years, but I feel like I've known Julia for a very long time.
um And I asked Julia to come along and chat with me today about self-awareness, which is
really important part, foundational part of our grounded confidence.
um And Julia is something of a um curious person when it comes to self-awareness, so much
so that she's done some research, she's written a book, um but I'm not gonna...
call her an expert because I don't know that she'd be comfortable with that.
So, but nonetheless, when I wanted to talk about self-awareness, Julia was the person on
the list.
So I'm so excited to have you here and to have this conversation and see where it takes us
as always.
So let's start, Julia, tell us, tell us a little bit about, about you, about your journey.
Oh, well, Melissa, thank you for having me here.
I mean, you've been part of my self-awareness journey, haven't you?
Because we're in supervision together in a group.
I'm obsessed with self-awareness.
think I'm obsessed with it because I've got this desire to know what's in the unknown
unknown box of Johari's window.
And I'm really, really interested in unconscious dynamics.
So I feel the self-awareness is going to help me get to that place, not completely, but
there.
But I suppose you should tell me about myself.
So I've coined and nicked off the Channel 4 Royal Navy advert.
I was born in Cornwall and made in the Royal Navy.
So that's what I've nicked that advert.
And I now live in Hampshire and will probably stay in Hampshire, though up and down to
Cornwall for a fair bit.
And I've been in this coaching journey for, gosh, several...
I've slightly lost count for a long time since the mid 2000s.
And that's where I've sort of focus now really.
Lovely.
Thank you, Julia.
And I love that the nicking of the, know, born in X raised in the made in the yeah,
lovely, lovely.
And I think that, you know, there are some really interesting um points around or points
of your journey, I guess, coming from the, you know, the Royal Navy and a very structured,
um I imagine I'm imagining, I don't know, but a very structured kind of environment.
um and uh lots of rules and standards and things, and then moving into this kind of
coaching space.
And you're also now supervising coaches and developing coaches.
And I think you and I share a passion for not just being a coach, but coaching, the
profession of coaching.
um And it really being um such a joy to be part of that.
But I'd love
for you to share.
Let's start with you sharing, I think, what is it about self awareness and self awareness,
particularly for coaches that is so important to you.
Well, I realised early on, I had a fantastic mentor, Alison Hardingham, that you had to do
your self work to work with others.
But I think what I've learned through doing my own self awareness and what I know from my
research is that self awareness enables you to connect with yourself.
on multiple levels.
And the more intentional you are about developing the self-awareness, the more you can
connect to yourself.
And I think that's why it's so important.
Because when we connect with ourselves, and linking this to your grounded presence from
Brené's work, is we start to become more more comfortable in our own skin.
The more comfortable we become in our own skin, the more we can leave our ego at the front
door.
and be more present with our clients.
And also then hold uncertainty, just hold that space where we don't know where the
client's going to go.
And we're also not so hung up on, uh the client got some value out of the session?
we hit the goals that have been set?
we've left that at the end.
This week, the people that helped with my website did some web content for me.
And they wrote something like leadership coaching will dot dot dot.
And I crossed out the will and wrote may because that's not for me to say that it will
it's for the client.
Now I couldn't have done that without really doing this self work.
Now I'm not saying I've nailed that and there are days when I'm thinking, my goodness, did
I do enough today?
Did I add value?
My ego's there because my ego's always there but I'm learning to manage it through.
you
and the self-connection work.
So I think that's why for me it's so important.
Yeah.
there's so much richness just in that, just in that sharing, Julia, because there's
something in there about intentionality and performance.
Maybe I'll go with the performance piece because I think that's the bit that really
resonates for me is that the more that I develop my self-awareness, the less I feel the
need to perform as a coach.
And that is incredibly freeing.
It's a blinking relief, if I'm honest, you know, just a relief.
And also the less you perform, the more space it gives your client and the more magic
happens in the moment with the client then.
And once you realize that, it's almost for me, it's become a little bit of a drug.
I'm like,
I want more of this.
I want more of this less performance and more me.
because self-awareness is not like a once and done thing, is it?
I mean, I know it isn't for me.
I mean, I'm constantly, yeah, absolutely.
So this letting go of performance is, I think for me has been the gift of self-awareness.
Yes, and there are days where you get a client that just triggers you to go back to that
performance place.
And I think the more self-aware you are, the more you can realise, I've been hooked again
now.
What was it about that client and what does that tell me about me having had that?
So that self-awareness is layering all the time.
I saw a lovely tweet some time ago by Tom Hanks.
which he was talking about negative capability.
uh Keats' concept of being able to hold uncertainties without any, I'm going to
paraphrase, earnestness to get to a place.
And he said, actually, what we need to learn is that doing the work is the win rather than
the work itself, rather than the outcome of the work being the win.
And I think that self connection.
through the more work we do on ourselves through self-awareness can enable us to do the
work for the win rather than the outcome being the win.
So yeah, the client may not change and yet we still will have bought our humanity, we will
have held the place for them and I think that's where the richness is.
Mm, yeah.
Yeah, I mean, you mentioned the word humanity.
I'm all about the human in the coaching, right?
I'm bringing more of that humanity, but bringing it in a way um that supports the work um
rather than just because, right?
And so, okay, so let's talk practically now.
So, okay, so I suspect...
that alongside you and I, everyone in our audience is going, yes, of course,
self-awareness is very important.
Probably nobody is arguing with us at this point, right?
So, but I think there's this knowing that it's important and that we need it.
And then there's this, but how the heck do we get it?
Right?
And so, and I mean, that's interesting in itself, this idea that it's something that we
get.
Right.
Again, that implies this kind of it's something we have or we haven't got.
And actually it's something that, for me is a layering and developing over time.
But so how do we, how do you, how have you developed your self-awareness?
What have you actually done over the years?
What are those moments or those things that you've done where you've gone, this is, this
is self-awareness development.
Okay, now I thought, and I think I have developed self-awareness over the years, don't get
me wrong, but there is a but there.
I don't know if I was, I think I was, I've got some evidence I was, but I didn't know what
self-awareness actually was until I started my research.
And I had assumed, because we all talk about self-awareness,
within the context of coaching, but more before coaching and leadership development space,
that it was going to be defined.
So I had assumed I was going to get the academic, because I was doing research, the
academic construct definition of self-awareness, and then I could take that and then build
the rest of my research.
I spent the first year defining it within the context of adult development.
So that's why I I think I was developing, but how would I have known if I didn't know what
it was?
Okay, okay.
So we need to start there then.
I think we need to start there.
Yeah.
So uh it is complex and it's multi-layered and it's ever evolving and it ebbs and flows.
So that's the first thing I want to say.
Now I've got a wordy definition here, but which people can find on my website.
So self-awareness.
consists of a range of interpersonal, things that other people can see, the perception of
others' individual behaviours, and also intrapersonal, which we are in within us,
components, things like beliefs and values, motivations, those sort of things.
There's quite a few of those.
And that's what it consists of.
Within the context of coaches, in order that we can connect with self and clients to have
deep and meaningful conversations.
So it consists of lots of components or ingredients, if you like baking a cake,
ingredients.
So I've got a pictorial representative of that, which is much easier.
And I've presented it as neat and tidy boxes.
So it's the interpersonal, what others see, how they experience me, the intro within me.
It's not actually as neat and tidy as all of that.
It's more like lots of balls of wool that have all got messed up together and it's all
tangled up.
Yeah.
And now I'm talking about conscious self-awareness.
But all of that, so a lot of things like beliefs and values can also be helping be there
unconsciously as well, we don't realise.
So that's the, I think that's the first thing.
Get clear on what it is.
And whilst my diagram is overly simplistic and it is two-dimensional, it made me really
check in around, oh gosh, what I've never really thought about.
I haven't done enough in the somatic space, for example.
So you then say, what have I been doing to develop myself awareness?
Well, I've been working with Eunice Aquilina.
I've been doing much more yoga.
I've been doing more Pilates.
I've been doing much more body connection.
I've been on a mindfulness retreat.
um So lots in that space, it's definitely helped me get in touch with my body and out of
my head.
And so now, you know, I get a feeling of what's going on in my body and I can connect with
my body, which I can use with my clients or not, or just be aware of it.
Why is that?
feeling in my body happening and it wasn't happening yesterday or you know and it might
not be client related it's just there.
But so I think the things that have helped me develop my self-awareness the most because
I've done it with intention and reflection and thought about what it meant was my coach
training for sure.
Every time I work with a client because I reflect afterwards
coaching supervision and therapy.
Now, I've also done some other stuff.
I've trekked up a mountain in Morocco, you know, and you learn and definitely in the Navy,
the feedback I got after I did my leadership assessments would have done, but at the time
I wasn't consciously thinking.
What does that mean for me as a leader?
What does that mean for me how I show up in the world?
And so I didn't quite close the loop.
So I was developing self-awareness, but I wasn't really closing the loop and thinking
about the meaning-making part of that.
so that's why I I think I was developing self-awareness, but now I know and understand it.
I close the loop.
Mmm.
or at least revisit, revisit.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so there are, again, lots of things, lots of threads that I might pull on there,
because I'm thinking about what you've prompted for me is that we've kind of got that
intentionality piece again.
So being intentional about the development of self, the reflective practice, which is such
an important integration part of the work that we do.
Yes.
And everything, in some ways, I'm kind of thinking to myself, know, everything is a
possible moment of development of self development, right, development of self.
And therefore, there's always the opportunity then to reflect and integrate that in some
way.
And then I'm also noticing, and this is something that's super interesting, I noticed this
is my bias, because I'm interested in this, from my own development at the moment is that,
you know, we've got our kind of thought what
what I might call our formal development, the stuff that, you know, we probably all do,
you know, the coach training, you know, CPD, webinars, courses, workshops, all of those
things.
And there's lots of great stuff out there around kind of self-awareness and development of
self now.
But then there's all the other stuff like yoga and climbing mountains.
And I know you and I have talked in the past about, and with others about painting.
And all of these other things that we do that help us to learn about ourselves.
And I know for me, the biggest thing for me this year that has moved my self-awareness
development forward is recognizing how important it is for me to be outside and connected
to nature in some way.
And that's been like, okay, that's not a workshop I went on.
or uh something I'm going to maybe list on my CPD log, but it was absolutely about
self-development.
there's such a wealth of opportunities to develop this, if we're open to them and
intentional with that development, I guess, was what I was kind of got to.
Yeah, there are lots of things.
I don't know if you always have to be intentional, but what you do have to do at some
point is do some reflection and make meaning out of that experience.
So you might not say, I'm going to go and do some painting because I want to think about
developing myself.
I might be going to do some painting, some of my reflection, but then making meaning out
of that afterwards in the reflection.
Now that doesn't have to be immediately after it could be the end of a sick quarter or the
end of it or just when it when it happens, you know, sometimes.
You notice that meaning making going on in a dog walk, because I you and I walk the dogs.
And you're making meaning.
And then I don't always journal it, but I think, you know, it's almost like I a glimpse of
my unconscious in that moment.
Ah, that's what that means for me.
Or that tells me this about me.
Or, that was a good opportunity.
I wonder what I can do with that
So I might not journal it and you don't have to journal to reflect but you have to do some
meaning making.
I think that's where the intentionality is needed and I do look at my little visual of my
self-awareness, the little ingredients and think I probably need to pay a bit more
attention to beliefs or a bit more attention to my neat motivations this year.
What's this?
Is it my ego coming back in again?
know what's...
So sometimes I use it as a bit of a check in.
Yeah.
Okay, you've mentioned some of those components, Values, beliefs, somatic awareness, you
mentioned.
Are there others?
What other components might we be looking at?
So if I talk about the intrapersonals, this is the South, because I think they feed into
how we show up without, well, they do.
It's not a thing, they do definitely feed into how we show up without this.
So beliefs and values, and um I've put them together, but there's work to be done around
both of that.
I mean, I've learned in the last 18 months,
two years through my therapy work that there's a belief and it's a family belief that's
been passed down to generation to generation.
It's a do your duty, funny, join the Navy, do your duty, do your duty in serving others
and put others before yourself.
which is not always helpful.
So when I say beliefs, but why have I only just learned that?
I mean, it was always there, but it was obviously there unconsciously and it was driving
lots of behavior.
So beliefs and values, strengths and weaknesses.
So I originally had that label to personality traits, but it all sort of got over.
So strengths and weaknesses, could say personality traits, things like organizing, know,
that sort of thing, or quick to act.
also could be rash as well as critch-ratch.
That is one of my strengths and one of my weaknesses at the same time.
yeah, that's another story.
Motivations in terms of what are the, what's our motivation for doing the work we're doing
and also underneath that what are our needs that need to be met because that fuels into
our motivation.
So needs and motivations.
The other component I've labelled internal
mental state, is thoughts and feelings uh and emotions together, then physiological or
somatic responses.
So they're the big ones.
And then interpersonal, it's how do others perceive us and what are our behaviours?
And the reason I say we're never as self-aware as we think we are is we can never really
get that perception of others filled in completely because...
How do we receive it in a way that we can absorb it?
But also, are they being completely honest?
And how self aware are they?
Can they say, when I'm in your presence, my body's doing this, whatever this is, they may
not be able to, they may.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that they may be projecting their own stuff onto us, of course.
Yes, absolutely.
And actually, once you get into the external and that interpersonal, so much of that is
coloured by perceptions and the values and beliefs that you mentioned, the values and
beliefs of the other person who's giving you the right, they've got their own set of
values and beliefs, which they are essentially holding you up against, as it were.
there's a whole, it gets murkier, cloudier.
hence hence my balls of wool it always so tangly so tangly
My goodness.
Absolutely.
And so, okay, so there's lots of, there's lots of lovely buckets.
I was thinking of them as right buckets that we, okay, these are my buckets of self
awareness, right?
But, but I love the fact that you said, but there's lots within those buckets, right?
They're not because I think it's so easy to just create a label.
Oh, right.
I need to do this, but there's so much within that.
right, within each of them, know, strengths and weaknesses, strengths overplayed in
certain contexts, you know, a strength, something that came to me when you talk about
strengths and weaknesses, I was thinking I have some strengths that work really well for
me as a solo business owner, that do not work well for me as a coach, right?
And those two things are interlinked.
I own a coach, I run a coaching business.
And so those two things are some things that serve me over here in the coaching business
do not serve me well over here as a coach.
So sometimes I think the strengths and there's so much more than just here's my list of
strengths, here's my list of weaknesses, right?
It's kind of like, well, sometimes those strengths are really helpful to me and sometimes
they're not, right?
Sometimes they're not just as you said.
Okay.
And I think...
That also is something in the kind of values and beliefs bucket, right?
Because there's, as you said, beliefs are, does this belief still serve me?
Right?
And where did that belief come from?
whose belief actually is that?
Right?
And, and is it, is it something that I still need to hold onto?
So there's also something for me about
And actually, I'm noticing that this is linked to a bias I have, which is around, I get
really kind of, well, I get really frustrated with a lot of the self-awareness work that
people do, and then they fall into the, well, that's just me.
That's just the way I am.
Right?
Yeah, it's almost an excuse, but this idea that we are fixed, right?
And I just think, never, right?
Never.
uh
And I think that's because we're not fixed and we're always changing and growing.
I like to think that I'm critically questioning some of those things in those buckets.
Hang on a minute.
Because otherwise we get into this fixed, this is who I am and I'm always going to be this
way for good or bad, right?
And it's such a...
And I guess your idea of the ball of wool is that, you know, I can remember certainly,
again, I think similar to you, I wasn't aware that I was on a self-awareness development
journey, but I had this ball of wool and it was all tangled and messy.
And I thought my job was to unravel it all and then roll it all up again in a beautiful,
neat ball.
Well, it's not a beautiful, neat ball.
It's probably never going to be a beautiful, neat ball.
And every time it gets close to being a neat ball, one bit unravels and then there's
another thread to pull on, right?
Which is the joy and the challenge of developing self.
I think the minute you think I'm fixed, I'm done.
You're no longer self-aware because you've tipped into self-delusion and hubris.
So that's, I think that's what I want to say in response to that.
So I think the more self-aware you are, the more you realize there's more work to be done
and more work.
So I think the increase now, and I also, mean, Johari's window is old, it's simplistic,
but that unknown unknown box, there's always stuff in there because
however emotionally intelligent we are, however aware of our hooks, there will be those
days where it all slips out the window and we do something.
uh And that might be for a number of reasons, but you know, it does, it does happen.
I've started behind me.
It's not, I've only literally just put the components up on a flip chart and I want, and
I've got coloured pens here.
I want to lots of, I'm trying to create a map of me on there, but I mean, I haven't,
So, but it all will be messy at some point.
I want to just try and illustrate the mess.
It won't be complete.
It will never be complete, the messiness of it.
I was trying to do something to illustrate the messy balls of wool.
And if I can get a good graphics person, yeah.
it is messy.
we and we always say, you know, Brene always says, and we always talk about this
encouraged building, we are messy and imperfect and human, right?
And that and that's part of our beauty.
So we don't, I'm not trying to fix myself anymore.
I stop.
I think, actually, I think that's the first time I've ever said that out loud.
Since becoming a coach.
and kind of embarking on all of the development that I've been doing alongside that, I've
stopped trying to fix myself, which I think is so freeing.
Yeah.
I love what you've just said because that tells me you're approaching self-awareness from
a healthy perspective.
So interestingly, self-awareness was written about in the 1960s by two academics called
Duval and Wickland, and it was deemed to be an aversive negative state because it led to
rumination.
at which is circling on, you know, why aren't I good enough?
I need to fix myself.
I need to be better, blah, blah, which potentially then led to anxiety and then
depression.
So I think the other thing is when we realize that we'll never be completely self-aware,
we'll never be fixed, we'll never be done.
We realize that and then we accept that we can then do self-awareness work, whatever that
work is from a uh really positive, reflective space rather than a
ruminatory, self-flagellating, which is where I was, space.
And I'm never, you know, that not good enough drive is never going to go away because it's
part of me.
It's part of my less good side, my shadow side, young would say.
And, and it is part of me and it has some real strengths, but now I can say, what was that
revealing to me?
what do I need to pay attention You know, it's a much healthier reflection than, oh God,
here's that, beat yourself up again.
Yeah, absolutely.
And I this is a for me, this is a really important point, because there are two things
that are coming out for me is how important self compassion is.
If you are going to embark, if you choose to embark on a journey of self discovery, you
must also practice self compassion.
think that's so important.
Yes, yes, absolutely.
And then I think this other thing, and I mean, we've talked before about shadow work.
I've had Teresa Wilson on the podcast because I am very novice and very interested and
fascinated by this idea of shadow work and parts and all of that kind of stuff because I
really recognize that there are bits of me, there are parts of me that I don't like and
would like to hide or
get rid of or parts of me that I think I've labelled as bad, you know, and then there are
parts of me that I love and I nurture and I think they're beautiful and brilliant and I
hold them close and you know, all of that.
And, you know, I'm really getting to grips with this idea of loving all of me, right, all
of me, even the parts that sometimes I don't really want people to see.
And I think that this is such an important part of the work of the coach, the self-work of
the coach, because there's so much, there are so many rules, there are so many shoulds and
shouldn'ts when it comes to how we coach.
And so my biggest challenge as a coach, and it's still a challenge, and I'm like,
when will it not be a blinking challenge anymore?
And I've learned it will always be a challenge because the part of me that wants to be the
expert, the part of me that wants to be the Noah in the room, well, that part of me has
been rewarded and fed my entire life.
It's not surprising that it's quite a strong, exercised part of me.
So I spent a lot of time in my early coach development trying to rid myself
of that part of me because I was told it was the bad part of me or I what I heard was not
what I was told what I heard was is that is the bad part of me whereas now I'm like no
it's part of me and when it comes up and says you know the answer to this you know the
answer to this you can show how clever you are I say hello you're lovely to see you again
but you're not needed right now you can I'll come back to you later right so that that was
a real
turning point, a tipping point, if you like, for me in that kind of whole self-awareness
development journey around realizing I don't need to be fixed.
I don't need to rid myself of things.
It's more about accepting the whole of me, right?
Does that resonate, Julia, for you?
completely.
And I'm not saying I'm there yet, but I love Yatundi Hoffman's description of love when
she talks about love-based leadership, when she says, love within the context of
love-based leadership is acceptance of all of who I am, all the stuff we don't like, and
acceptance of all of who I am.
So that's the other reason why.
this work is so important for me because if I can't accept myself, how the hell am going
to accept my clients?
And I remember Alison Hardingham saying when I started showing, you don't have to like
your clients.
And I was like, what do you mean you don't have to like them?
You've only got to love them.
And I thought, well, that's just because I wasn't loving myself.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yes!
so interesting around that space.
I have to say though, the not being the expert and the knower, the irony of studying
self-awareness to get to a place where you can accept uncertainty isn't lost on oh me.
uh
Yeah.
Totally.
Okay, ah so I have to ask this question then I think around the link because because I see
a really big link in my own journey between courageous coaching, being able to be
courageous as a coach and my self awareness journey.
And I always hesitate to use the word journey.
but I only use it because I think it's so important to recognize that I'm not done and I
will never be done.
But I think that it's such an important part, this idea of self-awareness, as part of our
grounded confidence, as part of our ability to be present, and as part of our ability to
step into our courage.
And for me, it links back to something you said earlier on about being comfortable in your
own skin.
So there's something about trusting yourself,
There's something about confidence for me, I think.
So I'm curious for you, when you think about being courageous, maybe as a coach, but just
a courageous human, where does self awareness come in for you there?
Mmm.
Um, I think the, self acceptance piece and the self connection enables the courage to
happen.
And, you know, I, I remember you and I had this conversation about courage because I
thought quite a lot about it.
Fun, funny that when you've been in the military, because they talk about courage a lot.
They talk about physical courage, physical courage, which for a Rens officer wasn't so
prevalent as a Royal Marine out there on the ground, but also moral courage.
And, when I think about the value of more moral courage, it's A, doing the right thing at
the right time.
And if I translate that into coaching, it's being able to say or ask the things that
nobody else would dare or say or ask of our clients.
And that's maybe our intuition saying, there's an edge here.
There's a, I can feel it, you know, and,
I believe the more work I've done on myself because I've let go of, well, the client may
not like me if I ask this.
The client may stop working with me if I say this.
The client may say I've added no value because they've somehow taken reaction to my
question, but I can still say it because I'm using, I'm being courageous, but it's
actually moral courage.
um And...
And this is where it starts to get really complex.
So this links across for me how we show up ethically as a coach, how we, um you know, say
those things that need to be said and ask those things that need to be asked.
Mmm, mmm.
Yeah, uh I think that there's that moment isn't there, I think with clients, not with
every client, but there's those moments with clients.
And I find it most often early on in the coaching relationship, where we're still kind of
building that relationship, we're building the trust and all of those things.
And for me, it's something just above my gut that kind of goes.
there's kind of a, there's a, you said an edge.
was thinking there's like a sharp edge here.
And it like, I think I can go here.
That's a moment of courage, right?
That's an opportunity if you like, for courage.
And so I think the other thing with self-awareness is, well, first of all, that I know
that that's what that is.
that I mean, I'm kind of feeling it just in the middle, just literally above my stomach in
the middle.
It's like, it feels like a sharp edge.
And I think, Ooh, hello.
What's that?
So that's, this is what we're talking about, right?
When we're talking about developing that self-awareness, that's something somatic,
something physiological that shows up that I can recognize.
And then having the courage to say it out loud to your, to your client, right?
It's like,
without worrying or well, I say without worrying.
Sometimes I do still think what if I say it they don't like me?
Oh, or what?
Well, actually for me, probably more likely, what if I say it, they don't like me and then
they don't want to work with me anymore, which, you know, has consequences for my ego and
my bank balance and you know, all of that stuff, right?
So, so being really aware of those things and actually,
I'm also now thinking about, because you mentioned that idea of moral courage and also how
it impacts ethically.
So we've talked about the practice of coaching with our clients.
I mean, this plays out in our work, in our businesses, in our organizations as well,
doesn't it?
In terms of the work we do and the work we don't, the work we say yes to and the work we
say no to.
I mean...
How many times have you been in a situation where you've gone, this doesn't feel right.
I don't think I want to do this work or I'm not sure I can work with this organization
because whatever, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, paying attention to that, because connected, of course there is a penalty, and you
know, it's easy to pay attention to all of this when we've got other work, we've got
enough work that's paying the bills, but when we've got the bills to pay, but then I go
back to that, that does link back to self-awareness, because if I'm doing it with
conscious awareness and thinking, okay, I know maybe,
this isn't the right work for me, as long as I'm not being unethical.
So it might be a client that I don't want.
I don't know.
It might just be, I'm squeezing it in because I'm busy.
I should be saying no.
Let's just use that example, which would be quite real for me.
Let's use that example.
So I squeeze it in.
OK.
I should be saying no.
Right, okay, I'm aware of that.
What does that mean for how I'm going to show up with that client?
Now I can do that with self-awareness, but if I'm doing it with a lack of awareness,
because I've just gone on an automatic pilot, then it becomes unhealthy, I think.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, okay.
So this is, this is the self awareness piece, isn't it?
It's that second, that awareness piece.
And then I always love the, I repeat again, another thing, yes, I repeat a lot because I
think it's really at the heart, certainly of the work I do, is that awareness brings
choice.
Awareness gives us choice.
So,
It's not about the right thing to do that you shouldn't take the work because you're
squeezing it in or you should or what it's not about what you should and shouldn't do.
It's about, okay, now you have developed the awareness.
can now, you now have a choice and you can make that choice from a place of awareness,
whatever that choice is.
It might be still to squeeze it in, right?
But you make that choice from a place of awareness.
And I think we go through and I say we, and I mean that in the biggest generic term, I
think we go through.
so much of our lives without making choices without awareness and then kind of go, well, I
mean, how did I get here?
I don't want to end up here and yet here I am.
So yeah, for me, awareness is what gives me choice, whatever that choice ends up being.
Right.
Yeah.
And I think then we can be courageous because we know that we might lose the client or
they might not like us, but we've done the right thing at the right time and we may lose
them.
Yeah.
Okay, so now I kind of want to come back to your, because as you say, you've done your
research around self awareness and we were connected and friends at the point where you
were doing that research and I remember it being kind of like a, my Lord, I thought it was
going to be this and now it's this big thing and there's no definition and ah, right?
So I know it wasn't an easy piece, well is research ever easy?
I don't know, but.
It didn't strike me as an easy journey to go on that whole big piece of research that you
did for your PhD.
And now, of course, you've published your book, which um I will put, we'll share in the
show notes, but it's called, You're Not As Self-Aware As You Think You Are.
And I'm chuckling because I chuckle every time I look at the book because I think what a
great title, right?
Because it's just, if that isn't a courageous title for a book, I don't know what is,
right?
Because it's got a challenge right there on the front,
blinking front page.
I love it.
I love it.
Yeah, no, I love it.
think that's great because that's what people pick books up, right?
They're like, what's that?
Anyway, what I'm wondering about is
Where do you, what are your, what's the word I'm looking for?
What are your, what are your hopes for yourself and the people, the people that you work
with maybe, but certainly for yourself, of where this, because we've said it's a journey.
So it's not like you did your PhD, you wrote your book, you're done, I imagine.
So what are your, what are your hopes?
Where do you want this journey to take you and your work next?
Yeah, I want to deepening my acceptance of self with self-compassion and I want to help, I
want it to help me find spaciousness, spaciousness more is my hope for it but I...
Somebody said to me a while ago, I was doing a webinar about, isn't this all very
self-indulgent, Julia?
Yes, was my answer, it is.
But if I can love myself, I can love others.
And boy, do we need love and compassion in this world right now.
So my hope is that if I can encourage others to do their own work with self-compassion and
self-acceptance, there'll be more.
ripple effect will be more self-compassion or compassion in our communities.
Well, it starts with the profession.
That's my big, big hope.
And I know Helena Clayton is doing lots around love in organisations and love in
leadership.
It's that as well.
uh
Yeah, for me, that's my hope really.
you know, if I could, I need to do more of myself and that's ongoing work.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think that, I mean, I love the idea of the ripple effect because I think, I mean,
this is true for so many professions, but I think it's particularly important for the
coaching profession because of, you know, we can be, I believe, and I don't mean this in a
grandiose way, but I feel like we can be the catalyst for that ripple effect.
Because we create that ripple effect with our client.
They go back into their world and create it in their world, organization, their family,
wherever they touch people, basically.
And of course, then the ripple goes out from there.
And I just feel like for me, that's why, like I always say, courage is contagious.
So the more courageous I am,
the more courageous my clients, know, people catch it.
And I think that that's true here too, right?
And I still believe that one of the biggest, um well, this biggest might not be the right
word.
I'm going to trip over my words now because I'm thinking about how I feel like one of the
important things about coaching when people are coached is that it is about developing.
their self awareness, because you can only coach the person who's in the room with you.
You can't coach everyone else, just that person.
so it is, I think coaching in and of itself is a journey of self awareness, developing
self awareness.
And so therefore we as coaches must be on that journey too, right?
In order to be able to take our clients there.
Yeah.
think we need this thing about shoulds don't bring yourself into the room as the cage.
We can't, we're there.
So bring ourselves and bring our vulnerabilities.
We don't need to tell our client all of that, but let's bring it in that we are also a
vulnerable person that is learning and developing.
yeah, absolutely.
And because, you know, I use that term, you know, we're messy, imperfect and human.
And if we show up in that way, it gives our clients permission to do the same.
And that has enormous value because I know, I mean, you and I both work, you know, with a
lot of leaders in organizations where there is not the permission to be messy and
imperfect and human.
No.
that is absolutely what we, what I want to offer in my coaching space is be you here, be
messy, be imperfect, say the things you can't say anywhere else.
And I will meet you with my messiness and my imperfections because I'm human too, right?
That's the kind of coaching space I want to be in both as a coach and also when I am
coached.
So yeah, and to do that, we have to...
I believe to do that, we have to commit to doing the work on self, right?
That's the commitment that is required.
If that's what we want to create, the commitment we must make is to do the inner work, to
develop ourselves.
So yeah, I think it's so, so important.
And I love that today we've kind of touched on as well all the different things that make
up self-awareness and also the different ways that we might develop it.
Because I think
Self awareness, like so many things is is a term a phrase that we throw around.
And I love this idea of being more intentional and deliberate about our, you know, our
reflective practice and thinking about how do we develop and recognizing those things that
happen in our lives where we go, hang on, there was a there was a self awareness thing
happening there.
I mean, we might not we wouldn't label it like that, of course, but the richness of self
awareness, developing our self awareness.
The richness of that is that it happens all the time, every day, in lots of different
contexts, in lots of different ways, right?
Yeah.
Julia, as expected, I have loved our conversation.
I'm gonna, just brilliant.
I mean, I know, you we've taught many, times before, and we will talk many, many times
again, because this is just such a passion, shared interest, shared...
Yeah, we just share it.
We're just sharing it.
Let's just leave it at that.
And yeah, I just I'm so grateful for you for being here.
And I'll share in the show notes, everyone, I'll share a link to Julia's website, her
book, know, all of all of that, all of her.
She's written some great articles as well.
So there's loads of research and more information and more learning.
So, yeah, get and connect with Julia if you're not already connected, because because,
Definitely.
Julia, thank you so much for being here.
thank you, Melissa.
What a joy.
Thank you.
You take care.