#29 The Art of Self-Leadership: Where and How to Start - With Inger Beate Botheim

To lead others or yourself, you have to start with yourself first. But where do we start? Leading others and self-leadership turns out to have a lot in common.

Get on board on a journey of self-discovery with leadership coach Inger Beate Botheim and myself, as we discuss the transformative power of self-leadership and authenticity. Looking into the complexities of inner growth, this episode promises to shed light on how your personal quest for self-awareness can dramatically improve your leadership capabilities. From embracing vulnerability to challenging personal narratives, we navigate leaders' inner workings, examining how our private battles shape our public success.

In our conversation, she underscores the critical role of emotional intelligence, diving into the teachings of Brené Brown's "Atlas of the Heart" to amplify our understanding of emotional literacy. Discover the art of pausing between stimulus and response, a technique allowing for more thoughtful decision-making and cultivating more profound relationships. Inger illustrates how a seasoned leader can refine their approach to emotional triggers, leading to a harmonious balance between professional achievement and personal satisfaction.

Wrapping up an episode that's as enlightening as it is engaging, she advocates for the joy in the leadership development process. To explore the delicate act of aligning personal dreams with societal expectations and the exhilarating potential of practicing new behaviors that resonate with your true self. Join us for this heartfelt exchange as we pave the way for an authentic, enjoyable voyage toward becoming the leader or self-leader you're meant to be.

I am honored that The Practice Gap is on the list of the Top 100 Chiropractic Podcasts on the web. Link is below.

https://blog.feedspot.com/chiropractic_podcasts/

Thank you for listening! If you like what you hear, please share it with someone that you think might find value in this episode.

Kind regards,
Elisabeth Aas-Jakobsen, DC, MSc

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Transcript

Elisabeth: 0:00

Hi and welcome to the practice gap, the podcast for closing the gap between the practice you have and the one that you want. I'm Elisabeth, a chiropractor, a business owner, coach and entrepreneur, on a mission to help you move from frustration and overwhelm to clarity, focus and joy in practice. Today's guest in the studio is a coach. The reason I have invited her here today is because on the earlier podcast it has been a lot of talk. You have to start with yourself first if you're going to help others. So the reason I invited her today is that we are going to get some tips on where to start when working on ourselves. So today's guest is Inger Viate Wothheim. She is Norwegian and could you start by telling the audience a little bit more about yourself?

Inger Beate: 1:06

Thank you so much for inviting me, elizabeth. I've been kind of nervous to come here today, so this is my debut as a podcast guest, so thank you for helping me with that. You can talk about it. So I'm a 50-year-old woman, a 51-year-old woman living in Oslo. I'm a mother of three and that's also how I got to know you, because you helped me when I was pregnant with my twins. Thank you for that. You're quite welcome.

Inger Beate: 1:34

Am I for everything to do? Yes, lucky for me. So I work with leaders, with leadership development. I work with individual leaders and teams, and I came to this work after several years of being a leader myself and I was more interested in the people and all the other stuff you have to do as a leader, and I also was a consultant for some years. And then, six or seven years ago, me and a colleague decided to follow our dream to Wothheim. We had this dream that we would work in the way we felt was natural for us, because we were doing a lot of personal inner development work and we thought that maybe this is also something for the leaders out there.

Inger Beate: 2:25

A lot of the leadership training that we saw was more technical stuff, like what Like how to run my meetings better, how to delegate more efficiently, how to hire the right people. It's often what we call technical leaders stuff. It's super important to do, but we are strong believers that the inner game runs the outer game and we knew that for ourselves to really find new ways to work or live, we needed to go inside instead of looking for everything outside of us.

Elisabeth: 3:04

So to be a good leader, then you have to start with yourself, and then, before you do all the how to?

Inger Beate: 3:11

Yeah, exactly what makes a good leader. That's such a big question. The first thing that comes to mind is I don't know. There are so many good leaders out there. I think what I like to see in a leader is someone that I believe are just themselves Right, and I think that's so authenticity, yeah, authenticity.

Inger Beate: 3:39

And that's a very popular word the last few years Like you, should lead with integrity and be authentic, and I think a lot of leaders try to do that, but also from a more technical point of view. So for me, a good leader is a person that I really just like I believe in, are themselves, show what they're passionate about. Also show what they're not so good at. So the vulnerability part, to be able to be open I think I really value that in the leader. That's like open and transparent about their leadership journey, because, of course, I work most with leaders that are on some kind of inner journey.

Elisabeth: 4:26

And I think as a chiropractor I mean, or as a you are self-employed, and yeah, I mean some of my colleagues they run their own clinics and some they have people working for them where you are a leader in a kind of weird relationship where you're self-employed, so you don't really want somebody to lead you, but you actually want a leader for the clinic. So it's a very strange arrangement. But not to go into depth, to that right now but when you are self-employed. You are older. How can I become a better leader of myself?

Inger Beate: 5:11

That's a really good question, and I think that's actually the starting point you asked me earlier where to start.

Inger Beate: 5:17

And I think that is the starting point If you're self-employed. But for every leader they are first leading themself. This is what I talked about. With the inner game, we run the outer game. Brine Brown we talked about her, the American scientist. She researched shame and vulnerability. That's her field of research and she says that who you are is how you lead. So I think that's what I'm always curious about Still curious about myself, but also in every encounter and every meeting with leaders that I have To try to get curious about. Who are you?

Elisabeth: 5:57

So if I'm a leader of a small clinic and I come to you and say who am I?

Inger Beate: 6:04

No, no, I'm an alphabets. I would say how can? I.

Elisabeth: 6:08

Or maybe it's better. Okay, nobody listens to me.

Inger Beate: 6:12

How can I, what can I do to?

Elisabeth: 6:15

lead this gang of funny crazy people.

Inger Beate: 6:19

Yeah, and we're laughing, and what you're saying is actually not that uncommon. Because, often people who are hiring a coach or a leader coach or team coach. There is nothing not working in their shit. That's very human and very common to blame it on the other people.

Elisabeth: 6:35

Yeah, so it's everyone else's fault.

Inger Beate: 6:39

Yeah, so the thing that you won't have when you go to a coach is to coach the ghost, like we say. It will not work if you're working with a coach to talk about everybody else. Yeah, so that's the.

Elisabeth: 6:53

That kind of sucks, it's so much easier to just blame everyone else.

Inger Beate: 6:56

So if you don't want to talk about yourself and what you're doing and not doing, don't go to a coach and now go to somebody else. Yeah, so we would start there to get curious about who are you.

Inger Beate: 7:09

And that's the funny thing when we grow up, because we are telling ourselves a lot of stories about how. Who am I? That's what lies in Brenne Brown's quote who you are is how you lead. So who are you? We are telling ourselves stories to fit in. I think I'm this person, or somebody told me that I need to be this person to fit in, or I feel safe if I'm just this version of myself and not the other version of myself.

Elisabeth: 7:45

So how many versions of your? I mean, sometimes you're one version of yourself at work. Yeah, and among your, Some of your friends, you have a completely different role. You're a different person and by yourself you might be Like. How many versions of Earth do you have?

Inger Beate: 8:02

At the end we use the word role, and I think that's key. We play a lot of different roles in our lives as human and we have different commitments, you know, to family, to kids, partners, colleagues, friends. We have many different roles.

Elisabeth: 8:19

Is that okay or should?

Inger Beate: 8:20

Yeah.

Elisabeth: 8:20

Should we be the same when? First and never no, no, no, no, no, I think that's completely okay.

Inger Beate: 8:26

It's natural and maybe it's also an advantage. You know you can play out different roles and I think we all know that we enjoy some roles in our lives more than others.

Elisabeth: 8:37

I mean it's definitely a fun. Some roles are more, much more fun. Yes, yeah, I get curious which roles do you think is most fun, Come on you're out with the coach now so you can tell me. Oh yeah no, okay, well, it's much fun being no, let's not go there, let's not go there.

Inger Beate: 9:01

So let's keep it into that.

Elisabeth: 9:02

Yeah, okay after this episode After this episode Okay, yeah, so okay, so I'm the leader, I'm coming to you, I'm a little frustrated because no one is listening to me and it's everybody else's fault, and I may understand that it has something to do with me. Where do you start when you work with me?

Inger Beate: 9:24

Yeah, so to get to know each other. That's the main job of the coach in the first meeting to build trust and build a relationship when you say and you cannot. And that's actually the main thing as being a leader. So I think that's a very important job for the leaders. So we start there to I listen. So I trained myself to listen really good because I'm more of a talker than a listener and I really really practice that and now I enjoy so much because when you start to listen, really listen to a person, you can hear a lot of the stories and a lot of the roles that they have played in their lives. And I think that's it's such a privilege to be able to sit with a leader in this room and just start to listen and hear. Who are you.

Inger Beate: 10:14

And the thing is that often leaders I don't work with that many leaders that are like 25. You know they've been working for quite a bit and I think many leaders that works with the coach have a sense that something is not working. You could be blaming other people, but you are kind of curious and how can I make different choices? And I think that's the key part when you get curious about yourself and all the stories you tell you can also get curious about. So is there stories or ideas of myself that I hold on to that I'm ready to let go of? I think that's where you're heading. So it starts with curiosity.

Elisabeth: 10:59

so really everything in your practice is the pure spirit of yourself and how you can just become a better human being.

Inger Beate: 11:09

Yeah, we're just a leader and whatever that is, but I think we human beings we have a tendency to have many strategies and things that we do more or less automatically.

Inger Beate: 11:22

We are not even aware of all the roles we play in our lives or all the things that we do, like a second nature does. We can necessarily see them before we've done it. And I think the curiosity working with the leader is to have the leader be curious about where are the places where I Something happens to me like some kind of stimulus If that's a comment from a colleague or somebody demands something of you, they have a stimulus around you and we have a lot of them during the day and you automatically just react. And I think what we want to do with this curiosity is to try to have the leader see all the stimulus and use the curiosity to make a little space between the stimulus and the response. Yes, so I think that's the beauty of it, because it's not something you do that is wrong or you should be this kind of leader.

Inger Beate: 12:22

Like I said, I'm kind of no idea what makes a good leader. It's just to break the habit of having stimulus and react like instantly. I think we have the area that when we do that, we kind of have the feeling that I should have done something else. You can go like looping in the afternoon or evening I shouldn't do that or yeah, or you can feel like I'm so ashamed I feel guilt I did this. You have all those negative self-talk and that's often because we have just had this automatic reaction to stimulus instead of things happening to us.

Elisabeth: 13:01

So the instant reaction will create the suffering afterwards.

Inger Beate: 13:05

Yes, I believe so, and you know this stimulus and response. I know it that you know this quote from Victor Frankel Frankel, this psychotherapist that survived the death camps of Auschwitz. He wrote a beautiful book that's called the man's search for meaning, and this quote is kind of from that book, or at least I say he said it is that between stimulus and response there is a space, and in that space lies our freedom to make choices. And if you have the freedom to make choices, that's where you can grow. You know to do different stuff.

Inger Beate: 13:46

And I think that's all All our work with with leaders are in that space how to make them aware, how to make them conscious about all the stories they tell themselves, all the rules they play, everything they think they need to do to be a good leader, and how to kind of stuff in it or find the space. And if you find the space you have time to reflect them. Is this how I want to respond if I get feedback that's not positive for my colleagues? You know you need the space to be able to choose differently.

Elisabeth: 14:20

So if I'm hearing you right, then if I come to you first, then you will work on me. So I see the space, or I see what triggers, what are the stimulus or triggers me, just to have the reaction of that and in those situations, to pause yeah and Make different choices or look at my choices. If I do this, this is gonna cause this Like just to Evaluate.

Inger Beate: 14:50

Then yeah, what's gonna happen? Yeah, that's a very good summary of a coaching process and it can seem like, of course it's not, like something will happen to you in a meeting and you say let me have 10 minutes and I will think about my choices. The space when you're working with a coach is that you, like you train your muscles in Knowing what's happening and maybe recognize the feelings, what's going on?

Elisabeth: 15:16

Yeah, and I think when you, when you say that you're pointing to your heart.

Inger Beate: 15:19

And I think that's to to be aware. I think that's the first thing we are getting curious about. When you work with a coach, you're fix and they're brought, but but she researched this and she's as that usually people can just name three feelings. And now I'm curious yeah, those three.

Elisabeth: 15:38

And a lot of the research.

Inger Beate: 15:41

Researchers have said that you know two, three, four, five Feelings, and that's the common feelings sad, angry, happy. You know those feelings, most people know, so she made a whole book it's a beautiful book called the Atlas of the Heart, which she researched and found names for all the feelings that we have as human beings.

Inger Beate: 16:03

To be more literate. You know to know. Okay, am I Actually angry, or might I be sad, or do I feel shame? So I'm acting angry, you know. So that's it's extremely interesting world to dive into with the, with leaders, to get them curious about. So what do I actually feel? What does my body tell me? Because you were pointing to your heart, you know the feelings live in the body, so try to get them curious about what's really happening under here.

Inger Beate: 16:35

We know that you need to go down to go up, and that means you need to go down to the bottom of your body. That means you need to go down into your reactive sides, Because we all have this reactive tendency that we snap very fast if that it's with our kids or partners or colleagues or whatever. You need to go down into the reactive side To find out what's there. What are you? Just a reactive human saying that got you so far. And I guess people you work with all the clinic leaders. They are highly competent people, right, super competent. There have been many, many years to Higher education, worked for many years, and that competence is often an outer competence. So what we get them curious is to go inside and go mirror into the inner game. Yeah to find.

Elisabeth: 17:23

I mean, the outer game is so easy because then you get the certificate. You're like, oh, you're doing this, you follow all the procedures, yes, but you never, actually ever, learn how to work on your inside. That is doesn't really have a great. It's kind of hard to be graded on that.

Inger Beate: 17:39

Yeah, that's really good point and I think, especially when we grew up, like in school and in university, there were no curricula curriculum around this, maybe, except if you want, into psychology or those kind of.

Inger Beate: 17:55

Yeah, you know so we don't learn that and I think also, like in the western society, the rational side of human behavior and human beings. That's what's been valuable. You should be rational. You should not listen to your feelings when you take decisions. You should do everything that we say and hold true for people and leaders. That's rational and that's like we believe that the brain is rational. I think the researcher today would say that the brain is rational right, because the mirror of fear fear is not very rational. It's like huge exaggerate what's going on in your life and looking for all the dark stuff.

Elisabeth: 18:38

I just remembered there was one of my favorite book titles. It was written by one of our colleagues called Dr Fred Barge. The title is Life Without Fear.

Inger Beate: 18:52

Oh.

Elisabeth: 18:53

It's probably written in the six years of it.

Inger Beate: 18:54

Probably. I have tried it for many years but I still I see the front of that.

Elisabeth: 18:58

I think it's the most wonderful title.

Inger Beate: 19:00

Is that a house to book? I don't even remember, but just like living like just life without fear.

Elisabeth: 19:07

And that's such like. That's kind of what we aim for, I mean, if we manage that. I mean there's so much fear in everything Fear about the economy, fear about war, fear, like, and I just feel like everything is just feeding our feeling of fear.

Inger Beate: 19:23

Definitely, especially in the times that we live in now, like you say, when we have war closer than I guess we ever experienced. So there's much, a lot of fear going on, and that's the hard thing about being a human being, because the brain, the main task of a big part of your brain, is just to keep you alive.

Elisabeth: 19:42

Yeah.

Inger Beate: 19:43

And the fear center in your brain has that task, just to keep you alive. It doesn't matter if you're flourish or if you have find something new to do after your midlife crisis right, it's just constantly surviving.

Elisabeth: 19:55

So then, in a sense, you should be a little happy about the fear. Think that it's a good thing. It's like, oh, it's the body's trying to keep me alive.

Inger Beate: 20:02

Yes, it's definitely a good thing, and make sure that you don't get hit by a car when you cross a road, right? Yeah, the thing about fear is that it's like we're talking. It's not very rational because it just tries to detect everything that possibly can go wrong, because it's too.

Elisabeth: 20:19

Some are really good at that. Yes, you are what.

Inger Beate: 20:22

So you're normal, at least in that sense.

Elisabeth: 20:26

You're normal.

Inger Beate: 20:27

Yeah.

Elisabeth: 20:28

So if you should start by giving some concrete advice to our listeners, if they're sitting there and like, okay, I am ready to become a better- leader or a better leader of myself and they don't have a coach. And where should I Like what's a good starting point, but what everyone just can do if they start to? Where should you?

Inger Beate: 20:53

start. That's a really good question because you can. What are some starting points? Yeah, because there's many ways to start and I think the first thing is to get curious about where you are Right. What's the story? I'm telling myself and, like with the leaders, we often ask, Like you ask me, we ask leaders. So what do you think is a good leader? Right? So you're right out. If you have some time for yourself to try to see what do I think a good leader is and what do I want more of in my life, If that's a leader, or you say like you lead yourself, Because often we have longings that we are not aware of, not until somebody asks us.

Elisabeth: 21:39

Could you elaborate on that? Could you give me an example?

Inger Beate: 21:43

So I will ask you so what do you dream about? What do you long for? What do you want more for?

Elisabeth: 21:49

More freedom, more what else Freedom, but also more security and more fun, yeah, and what else. More time.

Inger Beate: 22:05

Yeah, what do you fear? What's the worst thing that you could have?

Elisabeth: 22:12

Oh, where to start now? Illness to not be able to and, of course, being alone, having no friends, not having a job to go to not being part of the society, not being unable to connect with other people, like fear of like I mean now I'm talking more like the deep, deep thing in there, yeah, the fear of being left behind and not being part of. I think that's like the thing to be alone and unhappy and broke without having any meaning in my life. That's a pretty shit idea. Yeah, that's.

Inger Beate: 22:56

Then you should go to court.

Elisabeth: 22:59

Yeah.

Inger Beate: 23:00

Thank you for being so honest, and I think this just to get this insight, because you could think that this everybody knows what they're longing for, dreaming of and what they fear about. But what I see when I work with leaders, they have never had the time or made the time even think about that. We know often strategies, goals, goals for the clinics, how many patients, blah, blah, blah, how much we earned last year. We know that like more harder stuff and the numbers, but what we really dream of and long for and that's often where we start with leaders to get curious and conscious about ah, what am I dreaming of and what would that give me? How would that feel and where does my fear live? Right, it's not rational, but it's still there to get. It's like when you look inside, you can actually see more clear also outside in your life, right? So that's where we start and I think that's also good for like self reflection practices, just to write down and to see where am I?

Elisabeth: 24:11

So then you can have the journal and then write down what you want more of in life and what are your biggest fears. Anything else you should write down in that book?

Inger Beate: 24:25

Oh, it could be a big book, yeah, by Pages.

Elisabeth: 24:30

But starting, that's a good starting point.

Inger Beate: 24:32

I think that's a really good starting point and I think it's always good to take your time to be conscious and aware and reflect before you start doing, because we are human beings and not human doings, so we do have Right. And when you have the time to reflect, of course, then if you want to have change, you need to practice something new, right? You won't have change if you don't do or practice something new. So, of course, when you have that, when you feel this is something I would have more of or less of, let's see if there are small things you can start to do.

Elisabeth: 25:09

So then find to see if, if I want more freedom, what does that mean? Yeah, to me. And then what can I do in my life now to get more freedom, or or, and then maybe help, get some help outside or just focus on, I don't know.

Inger Beate: 25:28

Yeah, well, no, it could be a lot of things that you could do, but I think when you get clear and I trust that when people get clear and more conscious they know that there's something they can do. It doesn't mean that you will have just because you're writing in your journal you will have a full life freedom. But there could be small stuff, Because that's the thing about fear that fear isn't that rational. It's often things that holding us back that aren't just based on facts. It's a lot of feelings there. So if freedom is your goal, is there some time during the week that you can do something that makes you feel that you are more free, right?

Elisabeth: 26:06

So it's just to get started on that, yeah and then I think also another interesting thing that I've found that I think that I want something, and then I go in to see what that is and it is just a symptom of something completely different. So then it's like one thing, you're starting point is one thing, and then you realize it hasn't really nothing to do with it. You want something completely.

Inger Beate: 26:33

Yeah, I love that you bring that up, and that's, of course, that's why it often helps to talk with somebody or journal, because when you see what you're writing or hear what you're saying and somebody repeats it, maybe I'll give it back to you. You can, because you have time to reflect on and you can see hmm, this isn't really what I want. I want something else, and that's why it really helps to have the time, and I think that's back to the Viktor Frankel quote If you have time, between stimulus and every reaction and response you have in your life, you have that time to notice what I really think, one we don't want no, and we don't want all the things that comes along with the things that we want.

Elisabeth: 27:18

No, that's true, and it's society and everybody else that thinks that you want to be always think we want the same as the neighbors or keeping up with the Joneses, and that's most likely. It will not bring any kind of happiness at all.

Inger Beate: 27:32

I don't think so. I think also to be able to have time to see. Is it I that want? Do I want this for my life, or is this how I all I think that leader should be? For example, this is how it is to run a clinic. I should be like tough or clear or decisive, or whatever they think a leader should be. That's not necessarily what I want or what I long for in my life.

Elisabeth: 27:54

Okay, so if we're going to sum up a little bit, here, being a leader and being a self leader, self and full is kind of the same thing. Yeah goes in a way and you have to like our practice and inside out thing.

Inger Beate: 28:09

We work with the body for the inside out.

Elisabeth: 28:12

Being a good self leader or leader is also going deep, deep down in yourself before you can have any kind of better impact on other people. And then start a journal see what you want more of in your life and see what your fears are. And then start exploring that and see where you end up and I would say get a couch or at least talk with some people. That's a good step, and have fun in the process.

Inger Beate: 28:42

Oh yeah, you should definitely have fun. Fun on ease, Fun on ease yeah that will be good to bring along with this kind of journey.

Elisabeth: 28:50

Yeah, is there anything else you would add?

Inger Beate: 28:53

I think you sum that up beautifully and what comes to mind when you're talking, it's the leadership development journey. It's make it personal Because, like you say, you have to start with yourself. It's the inner game runs the outer games. Just make it personal.

Elisabeth: 29:07

And not be so scared of being yourself and open, and most of the people are pretty nice. Yeah they are To people who are themselves. Yeah Well, thank you, I'm so happy to have had you here. I'm sure you will be back with some more interesting topics in the course of the next time out there.

Inger Beate: 29:32

Thank you for having me Bye.