87 Supercharge Self-Awareness: Starting an Energy Revolution with Wendy Shooter

Welcome to another insightful episode of The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast, where we explore the world of self-aware leadership with host Dr Nia D Thomas.

In today's episode, we are joined by Wendy Shooter, a chartered psychologist and consultant with over 20 years of experience in enhancing workplace dynamics. Wendy is a dedicated advocate for workplace well-being, leveraging her experience to transform professional environments into spaces where individuals can thrive. Initially drawn to the field of counselling, Wendy realized she craved a dynamic application of her skills, leading her to focus on improving the work experience. She believes that the root of many workplace challenges lies in interpersonal dynamics, and she is passionate about fostering environments where performance, well-being, and resilience coexist harmoniously. Her mission is to help people not only perform at their best but also find joy and satisfaction in their professional lives.

Wendy shares her innovative creation, the My PowerBar App, designed to help individuals connect with and manage their personal energy across four key areas: mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical. This episode explores the transformative power of feedback, professional growth, and the crucial role of self-awareness within organizations. Wendy shares her unique methodologies like the "In My World" model and her PowerBar Energy Journal, offering practical tools for leaders to enhance personal growth and organizational cooperation. Join us as we uncover the ways in which self-knowledge can pave the path for more effective and harmonious leadership. Don't forget to check out additional resources linked in our show notes, including access to Wendy's app and journal, as well as Nia's website for further inspiration on your journey to becoming a self-aware leader.

Click here to find out more about My PowerBar

Find Wendy on LinkedIn

Transcript

Nia Thomas [00:00:04]:
Hello, and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast, where we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's guest. A very big welcome to Wendy Shuter, and she is the brilliant mind behind My Power Bar. Wendy's a chartered psychologist and consultant, and she created My Power Bar to help people connect with their personal power and to really navigate those intricacies of their unique energy system. It was originally designed for organizational settings, but Wendy's innovative approach focuses on 4 energies, which really are adaptable and fit any point in in your world, whether you're in the working world or at home. And they are mental, emotional, spiritual, and physical, and they provide you with that really holistic perspective on your personal energy and well-being, which for us, with an interest in self awareness, is really fascinating. Inspired by her energetic red set of Gaia, Wendy aspires to infuse human lives with as much energy and zest as her 4 legged companion.

Nia Thomas [00:01:14]:
With an impressive professional background, Wendy has been supporting people in corporate environments for over 20 years, guiding them to understand themselves better and make positive behavioral changes. As the author of My Power Bar Energy Journal and the creator of My Power Bar app, Wendy aims to empower people to gain deeper insights into themselves and to lead energized, purposeful lives. So join us as we explore Wendy's extensive journey from studying psychology and biological sciences to becoming a chartered psychologist, and how her passion for yoga, spiritual response therapy, and sound healing contributes to her holistic approach to well-being. Welcome, Wendy.

Wendy Shooter [00:02:00]:
Hi Leah, great to see you. Thanks for having me.

Nia Thomas [00:02:03]:
Tell us a little bit about your journey from animals to humans.

Wendy Shooter [00:02:08]:
Yeah. So my first degree, was psychology and zoology. I used to want to be an animal psychologist and I suppose as a teenager, I didn't have much awareness about organisation. So that wasn't really on my radar. As my final year project, I did my degree in Swansea and my final year project, I studied penguin behavior in a location, which was a, it was a wonderful experience, actually. It was bird gardens in Neath, which I think was down the road from you in Murtha, if I remember correctly. Yes.

Nia Thomas [00:02:38]:
Certainly remember going there as a child. It was one duffle place.

Wendy Shooter [00:02:41]:
It was really interesting. And what I found was when I put all the information and data together, it was really, really interesting. There's lots of hours of standing there waiting for something to happen. And that just isn't really a connect with my personality. So I'm much more action focused. So I, I knew that I wanted to do something different. I then worked in charities for about 10 years and, and I didn't have the best experience. I had a bit of a toxic experience to be honest.

Wendy Shooter [00:03:09]:
And during that time when I studied counselling, I thought, oh, maybe I want to be a counsellor. But again, we had the same, the same issue with there not being enough action for me. And I thought, oh, maybe I'll come back to that later. But I, what I found was when I finished my counselling studies I thought actually I want to use this knowledge and understanding to help people have a better experience at work because I don't think work has to be a difficult experience. Everybody goes to work to do a good job and it's the way people behave towards each other that often causes the challenges and discomfort and happiness at work. So my passion was then about helping people enjoy work and have a better time at work while still performing. I think performance, well-being, resilience, and enjoying our work are all part and parcel of the same thing.

Nia Thomas [00:04:00]:
Most definitely. Do you find that you still use some of the things that you learned about the animal world when you're dealing with humans? Because we are a form of animal, aren't we?

Wendy Shooter [00:04:10]:
We are indeed. We are indeed. And I think there's, I think there's a lot of awareness these days about our basic instincts and, and our emotional reactions and the balance of the emotional and the mental, which is very much what the Powerball is about. And having, having, having awareness of those different aspects and the observation techniques actually. So observing behaviors in animals because you can't ask them what's going on. You have to have to properly observe what's happening. That has put me in good stead for doing the, the human observations that I now sometimes do as part of my role.

Nia Thomas [00:04:46]:
So tell us about My Power Bar. I know I'm I'm very lucky. I've downloaded the app, and I've actually shared the app with other people and recommended it to them. Tell us about the app, the model, and I guess the journey to to getting to that point.

Wendy Shooter [00:05:00]:
Okay. Well, if we go right back in time, well-being was, was starting to become a thing of interest in organizations. And I had been working for a while and, and I was aware people talked about safety and so forth, but they didn't talk about about well-being and there wasn't the connection between mental health and health and the awareness that we need is just as important to look after our mental health as, physical health. So I wanted to create something in the well-being space for, for the working world. And, and I was doing this project for a client because something that I've specialized in is collaboration. So working often with infrastructure clients, helping 2 teams think about how they work collaboratively, be in a joint venture or an alliance or just on a project together, just an interfacing project together, and also helping them come together when they've had a big fight and, and there it's all going wrong and there's a lot of blame. So I do work helping them to be in the same space and hear each other and find a way forward through that. So I was working with 2 organizations, 2 very big organizations at one point on a project.

Wendy Shooter [00:06:12]:
And, and I was, I can remember it was a Sunday morning. I sat in bed on Sunday morning and I was thinking, how can I help these people understand what they're doing to each other? And I had this vision of this, this sort of human shape with a bar inside it and the energy going up and down to show her high energy and low energy. And it was that piece that if we're sort of a little bit antagonistic towards each other and, and I ask you for something, so I say, oh, Mia, could I have those documents? I, I really need them. And, and you're like, oh, well, I'm not really sure where they are. I'll try and get them to you. And, and you get them to me next week, even though you knew I needed them quite urgently, you didn't really bother to help me out. And then a couple of weeks later, so, so my power bar goes down a bit because I didn't get what I needed. And then a couple of weeks later, you need something from me.

Wendy Shooter [00:07:02]:
You're like, oh, I really need a copy of that, that slide set you did, Wendy. Could you get it over to me? It would really help me turn, turn this project around that I've got to do. And I'm like, oh yeah, I'll do my best to get it to you as quickly as I can. And, and of course I'm not going to do that. So, so I then withhold from you. Your power bar goes down because you haven't got what you need. My power bar goes up because I felt I've, I've got a bit of power. I've kind of got one over on you and I've got a bit of power.

Wendy Shooter [00:07:33]:
And so it goes. And in that situation, no one ends up with high power bars. At the very best everyone ends up with middle power bars. But what often happens is everyone ends up with really low power bars and they've got no capacity, or extra capacity and they get worn out, with, with that difficulty. So I use this to help them understand what was happening and that was really helpful and helped them move forward. And then I started thinking, well, how can we boost our own energy, our own power bar in a way that isn't about oppressing somebody else? Because that's not very constructive, is it? So, so I put it together with the 4 energy model, the mental, emotional, spirit and physical, where spirit is the human spirit to create boosters for the different aspects of our energy. So in putting it together with the 4 different energies, I help people cover a deeper understanding of exactly what's happening in their energy system. So they can do a bespoke diagnosis on themselves, if you like, as to which energy is high and which energy is low, and then make a targeted intervention to boost that particular energy.

Wendy Shooter [00:08:45]:
Because I think what we do is we go, oh, my energy is a bit low. I need to, or maybe I need to rest. Maybe I need to eat a cake. Maybe I need to go for a run. You know, we're a bit, we're a bit basic with our, with our, our choice of things that we do quite often. Whereas through this approach, we can be, targeted in terms of which, which approach, what, what we do specifically to meet that particular energy need.

Nia Thomas [00:09:11]:
That's fascinating. And it makes, it reminds me of, of sugar hits because we get that sugar hit, so that power, but what takes you right up brings you right back down. So, actually, if that behavior is I get one over on you and then you get one over on me, There's that constant up and down, and what we want is to balance each other and to support each other in that balance. Absolutely. You mentioned those 4 different energies. Where do they come from? Is that a model that's already developed, or is that something that you developed?

Wendy Shooter [00:09:43]:
Well I think the concept of the 4 images has been out there for forever. So if you think about it is, well it's interesting isn't it? A lot of models are constructs. We go and we we look at different elements and we bring them together in groups to create constructs. So I approached this actually slightly differently to how, a psychologist would normally approach something. So I stood inside my humanity and felt out, and that's how I, I sort of developed the nuances of the model. The broad headings have been in existence for a long, long time and are well known, but my particular take on them is, is quite deeply researched and deeply thought through, which is, and it is slightly different to other takes on it that I've seen. So the mental energy is about how clear thinking we are, how focused we are when it's high, we're really, we're focused on our goals. We're ordered, we're planned.

Wendy Shooter [00:10:43]:
When it's low, we maybe can't think straight or we're indecisive or we're jumping our thoughts around the emotional power. When it's high, it's when we're calm, cooperative even. When it's low, it's when we're irritable or impatient, blamey. The spirit power bar, it's when it's high, it's about our passion, our enthusiasm, our joy, our sense of purpose. When it's low, maybe we're despondent or depressed or apathy, can't be bothered. The physical is, muscular strength and vitality and and aerobic fitness. When it's low, retired, ill, etcetera.

Nia Thomas [00:11:22]:
In this podcast, we're on a mission to develop self awareness in ourselves, in others, and most specifically in leadership. What does self awareness mean to you, and how do you define it?

Wendy Shooter [00:11:36]:
Well, it's interesting, isn't it? The, the whole point of Powerball was to help people have better self awareness, because I thought, well, there's, there's more than 2 aspects, but let's take 2 different aspects for a minute and that's knowing, doing. So sometimes people, so one aspect of self awareness is having awareness about our stuff, our personality, our tendencies, our habits, what tends to trigger us and everything else. And then the next step is to actually take action to try and manage that. So that's kind of the next step of self awareness. In addition to that, we've got, we've got the broad sort of personality of self awareness. It's, oh, I tend to be someone that's like this. I do this. So it's likely that in that scenario.

Wendy Shooter [00:12:19]:
But what the PowerBar is, it's a state based tool. So it's about what's my state, what's my mood. So that's another level of self awareness. So there's the, there's the bigger picture self awareness of who am I? How do I tend to be? How about offers you a more of a in the moment self awareness as well, or a way to access that? It's like, what's going on for me right now and how might that impact on how I'm going to react, how I'm going to perceive things, because we will perceive things differently depending on our mood and, and what's going on for us, as as well as from our broader experiences.

Nia Thomas [00:13:00]:
That's very similar to the way that I define self awareness. So I've I've probably mentioned to you before that, it's reflection of our hard and relational skills, recognition of our impact, and regulation of our behavior.

Wendy Shooter [00:13:13]:
Yes.

Nia Thomas [00:13:14]:
And as you were talking about the what and the how, that's exactly how I describe it. It's the the the what we do is the hard skills, and how we do it is those are those relational skills, and it really does align with what you're saying. Actually, I was talking to one of my webinars yesterday that there is difference between that longer, bigger vision, my beliefs, my thoughts, my strengths, my weaknesses, and being self reflective in that moment that you have to turn it around. So, yeah, you really can use your power bar to do very short term, and you can really reflect on your behavior and how you're doing and how you're operating in that moment.

Wendy Shooter [00:13:55]:
Mhmm. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely.

Nia Thomas [00:13:58]:
So as a chartered psychologist who worked with, a number of different organization, How do you see people's self awareness or lack of it playing out in practice, and how would then does that supported by my power bar?

Wendy Shooter [00:14:14]:
Well, so it's interesting, isn't it? Because I think I think mostly people want to do the right thing and, do a good job and everything else. If we think about leadership for a moment, I'm going to share a quote with you, which a client once said about someone he managed. He, he managed, it was a director about one of the managers he managed. He said, oh, the problem is he wants to be the dictator of a democracy, which I love. And most of us have got a bit of that in us. So part of the whole self awareness need is, is about really recognizing what's, what's really going on for others and what and where, where that might go. So in organizations generally, I think, so so in this scenario through a lack of self awareness, there was a pushing of, of his own agenda. He wanted his, his way of thinking to be what other people thought.

Wendy Shooter [00:15:11]:
So he would then perceive other people's views through his own glasses, if you like, and, and, and interpret them that way. I've got a model that I use with groups and leaders, which is called 'in my world', which is all about how we perceive the world and how we behave in the world and those perceptions and, our world, if you like, which is our beliefs and values and everything else will all impact how we behave. I think when people have self awareness, it goes back to, as we say, that desire to do something differently. So some people it's like, oh, well, yes, I'm no good at reading emails. That's really what should I say. My favorite one once was I got an email from someone once that was, it was an automated response. If I haven't replied to you in 5 days, please re email me. And that to me was a perfect example of, of someone just being in their own little bubble about their own needs and not having any awareness about the needs of others and how their behavior impacted on the, on, on another, how they're giving stuff or not giving stuff allowed others to do, to do work.

Wendy Shooter [00:16:19]:
I mean, organisations are basically big cooperative systems. So if people are, we all have to, to give and take from each other. So we all have to learn to, to work in a way that supports and enables others. That's what it, that's what being in big organisations is. And I sometimes say to, to some clients, well, if you don't like that, then you maybe need to do a different job because that's what this is. That's what, being in a big organisation is. It's about working with others to make things happen. And, and thus that requires self awareness.

Wendy Shooter [00:16:59]:
I mean, if you're to think about what is the purpose of life? So some would say, well, it's funny actually, I played the game of life with some people I know recently and I actually bought them the game years ago. And, and I was horrified as because the whole point of the game is the one that ends up with the most money wins. So I thought, okay, that probably wasn't the most helpful message. But I mean, if that's your view of what the purpose of life is fine, that's up to you. Some people think that the purpose of life is our self knowledge, self awareness, self actualization to quote Maslow and, and or Ascension if you get right into the spiritual side of things, which is all about self knowledge and self mastery. So if you do have that view, then I see organizations as the perfect playground because there's, there's kind of nowhere to hide. You can't, you can't avoid people in your, in your normal life. You can often spend less time with people.

Wendy Shooter [00:17:55]:
You could, you have more control over who comes into your orbit and who doesn't. Whereas in organizations, you don't, you have to, if you have a collision with somebody, then you have to work through it. You have to look at what's going on and work through it. You have to rise above it. So, so for me, organizations offer a perfect, a perfect environment to really grow and develop and to really get into, the self awareness. It's, there's, there's, I sometimes say working in big organizations, it sort of knocks the edges off you because you will get the feedback usually. So especially these days, it's unusual not to get feedback in some way, shape or form. And of course, a lot of organizations have done the 360.

Wendy Shooter [00:18:42]:
So a lot of people have had a 360 at some point, which is a great way of, of, of getting feedback on other people's perceptions of you. It can be quite tough. I've done, I've done a 1,000,000 360 feedbacks and, and sometimes it's quite tough for people. It's quite tough for them to hear. But I think people are more used to it now and it's, it's much better. So, so the, finding out the thing is we imagine this is what we do as humans. We look at what's going on and we make up in our head what the story is. So we, we do something, we have an intent with our action and we often don't check that that intent was realized.

Wendy Shooter [00:19:27]:
So unless we actually find out if our intent was realized in our action, then we've got no way of knowing if what we're doing is useful or not. I mean, you can overdo it, but so I think what we do is we just make up a story in our head that it's good or sometimes we make a story that it's bad or we're doing it all wrong. Because it's just as important to find out what we're doing that's working as it is to find out that about what's not working. Because if we don't know what's working, then we need, we might make a change because we think, oh, actually no one said anything. So they probably don't like that. So I'm going to stop doing that. But actually people really, really like it. And also if we're feeling good about what we're, what we're doing well, what we're doing right, then that makes us feel stronger.

Wendy Shooter [00:20:13]:
And then we're better able to try new things and we're better able to cope with and be resilient to the requests to do things differently.

Nia Thomas [00:20:23]:
You talk about feedback there, and I think 3 sixties are interesting because they are they are structured. You are into the space of whatever comes back. You may like it, and you may not like it. And I'm interested to know what your thoughts are. I refer to feedback in my book. I call it a juggernaut, and I say that you either put your wing mirrors so that you can see that juggernaut coming behind you, or you totally ignore it, and then you have to deal with the dust that it throws up. So I'm interested to know what your thoughts are about feedback that comes at leaders, people within organizations that doesn't come through a 360?

Wendy Shooter [00:21:03]:
Well, it depends on the relationship. So everything is about what's the backdrop to the scenario, isn't it? And what's the level of relationship that you've got with that person. And it's how it's tabled. Everything is about how it's tabled, how you get into the conversation and, and, and how you enable it. So some of my favorites are when people go, oh yes, thank you very much. I've taken that on board. I'll think about that for next time.' Which is, is the, oh my goodness, get me out of here quick. This is really uncomfortable and I need to leave.' And then they might go home and have a very large glass of wine or, and, and, and what we do is we reject the data.

Wendy Shooter [00:21:41]:
So one of our favorite things to do as humans is reject the data because it's like, oh, well he thinks that, but oh, well he's this, that and the other. And he, what does he know? He's only met me twice. Or there's the other thing of, taking too much in. Cause it's just one person's opinion, you know, it's taking too much in. I ran a training course on, on conversations for performance recently. And obviously feedback was one of the things that I was teaching as part of that. I mean, what I was teaching was to try it, to have it as the norm. This is something I'm quite passionate about actually in their performance in, in organizations because everyone wants to perform well and it should be normal to talk about performance.

Wendy Shooter [00:22:20]:
It should be normal to, at the end of the meeting or the end of, of, of a project or, well, not the end of a project, but ongoingly through a project. Okay. So what went well this week? What didn't go so well? What do we need to do differently? And you're talking about the, the activities rather than the people did, did that meeting go well? Did that presentation go well? Did that And if it's the norm, then people don't feel like they've had negative feedback or what people call now that they go, oh, constructive feedback and constructive feedback is another way of saying negative feedback now, which is a crazy thing. And so, so yeah, so if we're in, if it's normal and I've worked in organizations where it is normal to just constantly review and then no one ever feels criticized or got out because you're just constantly reviewing, and you're being really, it's an objective review rather than a subjective review and, and you're looking to do it better. And, and also if you're doing that regularly, then people are getting lots of input about what they've done well.

Nia Thomas [00:23:27]:
Yeah.

Wendy Shooter [00:23:27]:
And, and when people have got that, platform, then they're, they're much, as I said, much more able to hear. And, when, well, interestingly, when I did this training, I was looking on YouTube for some videos of people doing feedback well and people doing feedback badly, that I could use as part of the training. I couldn't find any that that met my needs about doing it well. I had to get some, to get some people in, in the organisation to, to make the videos for me in the end. I got some senior leaders to do, which was quite fun. I told them what I needed them to do, but yeah, it was, it was good. But I did find some videos that were, that were posed as the right way to do feedback that were terrible. Really bad.

Wendy Shooter [00:24:14]:
So so, yeah, that was quite interesting.

Nia Thomas [00:24:17]:
I guess for listeners and watchers, that does mean that you have to be very careful about what you're looking for and what you're finding because you've got to be really discerning. If we think about feedback then, what kind of questions can we be asking, and what what can we be saying? What language, what words can we use to really open up that constructive, positive, actionable feedback or feed forward so that we can use it as opposed to, well, that was really rubbish, and now I can't do anything about it because the presentation was 3 3 days ago. What do I do with that information? But how how can we make that more proactive and positive?

Wendy Shooter [00:24:58]:
Okay. I'll give I'll give you 2 answers. What I mean, something that I often suggest to leaders is that as part of their one to ones, they always ask the question, what have I done this week, this month that was helpful? What have I done that was unhelpful?

Nia Thomas [00:25:12]:
Okay, good question.

Wendy Shooter [00:25:14]:
So then they can build a bank of, of knowledge of that and learn to adjust. And people learn that they're going to get asked the question. And I always say the first three times you ask it, they, they won't say anything, but just keep going. And then eventually, but then it depends how you respond to that. Because if, if you then get defensive,

Nia Thomas [00:25:34]:
then

Wendy Shooter [00:25:34]:
they're never going to tell you, never going to tell you anything again. If you go, yes, but

Nia Thomas [00:25:40]:
then they'll that If you are somebody who's asked that question and you have had feedback of something that you did that that wasn't helpful, how, as a leader or as the person who's having that answer, what do you do to give yourself thinking time, breathing time, responding time? Because I'm certainly somebody who, when I have feedback, it it for that first few seconds, it's emotionally it's that emotional stabbing sensation. And for me, I need some time to go away and think about it. But I still would want to know because if my behavior has been detrimental to somebody or hasn't opened up an opportunity, actually, I wanna do better next time. What can I do? And there are probably thousands of people like me. What can all of us do to receive that information better?

Wendy Shooter [00:26:32]:
Well, there's there's a that you could go, not so much for people to think about that, which is obviously uncomfortable. But you can do a gentler version of that. You can say, oh, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I really wasn't aware of that. I'm quite surprised by it. So I need a bit of time to process. So leave it with me. Let me have a little bit of a reflect about it and maybe we can have another conversation about it because it would be good to unpack that a bit and also find out if, if that's been other people's experience as well.

Wendy Shooter [00:27:06]:
Or you could unpack it there in the moment. So you might not be, if you've got, if you're in a heightened state, you might not be able to hear it.

Nia Thomas [00:27:15]:
Yes.

Wendy Shooter [00:27:15]:
If you're, if you're in a heightened state and you're not going to be able to hear it, then asking the questions to unpack it, you might not ask them in the best way.

Nia Thomas [00:27:26]:
Getting back to it is a really good idea.

Wendy Shooter [00:27:29]:
Yeah. It's, it's being aware of your emotional state is is really important.

Nia Thomas [00:27:36]:
When you're working in organizations, what kind of barriers are you finding with leaders or managers or anybody in organizations? When you start to talk about these things, how are people responding? Because some people find that feedback quite difficult. If you're talking about my power bar, maybe you've done a workshop or you've had people who've been in that situation. What kind of things are you finding, and what then do you do about that?

Wendy Shooter [00:28:03]:
The, the barriers to taking on feedback? Yes, because I mean, we don't, we, there's a few things really. We don't want to change, do we? We don't want to do things differently because it's, it takes a lot of effort and well, there's a few things. One is we don't know how to do it differently. And so we don't want to hear that we're not doing it right because we don't have another tool in our bag. It's like if everything looks, if everything, if all you've got is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. So, so having more tools is a way to really support that. But also the one that I, I find most difficult for people is, is they don't want to think that they've been doing it wrong all these years. And that's, I always find that really sad.

Wendy Shooter [00:28:46]:
So I always try and help people think about, well, I thought that it was wrong. It's just that that may have worked in that environment or in that time, but times have changed. Like what's, what appropriate behavior is in the workplace now is quite different to what it was. I've spoken to quite a few senior leaders in recent years about having conversations with their managers about that's no longer considered professional behavior in the workplace, you know, so it's not a, you've been bad always. It's, you know, things are Yeah. So, so try to help them not feel like they've been doing it wrong forever is, is quite important and helping people to, to see the benefits of, of, well, it's resourcing them. I mean, that's why coaching is so successful. I do a lot of exec coaching with behavior stuff.

Wendy Shooter [00:29:42]:
I do a lot of import and enhancement around behaviors, just really nuanced. The thing is people watch videos or go in training courses about trying different behaviors, but it's quite difficult to do these behaviors once you've got it. It's great. But, but you kind of need to go and try it a bit and then come back and go, oh, well, I did that, but then that happened. What do I do there? You know, it's coaching works really well to help move through new behaviors and trying different behaviors and having support to stay on track with that because it's so easy to just go back to the old way. And, and I also say as well, you are never ever going to try a new behaviour in a moment of jeopardy unless you've practiced it. You have to practice these behaviours in different environments and you can practice the behaviours with your children, with the person in the shop. Do you know what I mean? There's all the the the micro behaviors that that make up the bigger behaviors.

Wendy Shooter [00:30:37]:
You can practice in in all sorts of places and and all sorts of ways. So with yeah. There there are some of the some of the aspects that can be useful.

Nia Thomas [00:30:47]:
Going back to my power bar, you mentioned right at the very beginning that once people have, if you like, their findings or their results from their their assessment, they have the ability to take that information and then to act on it. What how do people do that? What does the app give them, and how do you support people to take that knowledge and learning and and self awareness forward?

Wendy Shooter [00:31:11]:
The app is a way that they can check-in with the energies. So it takes them through each of the 4 energies and they just use up and down arrows to log where that energy is in that moment. And then they get a summary page that shows the summary of the 4 energies and the booster buttons. There's boosters for each of the 4 energies, which gives tailored, boosters for each of the energies. The other thing that we have is the journal, the My Powerball Journal, which talks a bit more in-depth about the energies and it's a workbook and information book. So it's got information about the different boosters in more detail than in the app and there's worksheets that people can fill in and use for the different, the different boosters. So for example, one of the boosters for spirit is a joy audit. So they can draw a wheel of their life and map out the joy and and assess the joy levels in the different aspects of their life.

Wendy Shooter [00:32:13]:
That's an example of one of those boosters. This is which is quite a deep look in a self awareness way actually about what's going on for them and how that's working for them at the moment. One of the mental boosters is catch the thought, which is sort of do it yourself CBT, which is about when we've got a negative thought wearing around and how to grab hold of that and turn it into a different thought, which again is that self awareness of noticing because those thoughts will erode our energy and take us to a depleted place. Emotional, so an example of the emotional boosters around self awareness would be, gratitude. So being connected to that emotion of gratitude and feeling that in, in our bodies. So our emotions are in our bodies and we need to feel them and there can be, people can have a lot of resistance to feeling emotions. That's been some people's upbringing to push them down, to suppress them and emotion, energy in motion. Yeah.

Wendy Shooter [00:33:16]:
So emotions have to flow. It's the, it's the stuckness of the emotions that is probably the biggest blocker to self awareness because we don't wanna, we don't wanna feel them. We don't want the pain of them. We don't want the there's been research, hasn't there, that the it's the same pain receptors to emotional pain as it is physical pain. So like there's a big reason why we might be resistant to self awareness and because we have to go into our stuff. We have to do our work. We have to go into our stuff. So, so, so yes, there, there are some of the ways.

Wendy Shooter [00:33:49]:
Oh, and in the journal as well, there's people could do a log of where the energies were on different days and so forth as well.

Nia Thomas [00:33:56]:
Fascinating. How can people get hold of the app and how can they get hold of the journal to support that?

Wendy Shooter [00:34:02]:
The journal is on Amazon, the My PowerBar Energy Journal, and the the app is on Google Play and Apple App Store. So it's very easy and it's My Power Bar. There is a website which is mypowerbar dotco.uk and reach out to me on LinkedIn. And, yeah, give me a shout on LinkedIn if you can't find anything or you want to ask me anything. That's the, that's probably the easiest way to get hold of me. We've got Instagram as well. Actually the PowerBot Instagram is very good, but it's got lots of different booster ideas and so forth if you're an Insta. I'm not an Instagram person, but if you are, then that's a great source of of information.

Nia Thomas [00:34:42]:
Oh, amazing. Well, we will make sure that there are links to the 2 app stores, to your Instagram, and to your LinkedIn so that people can get hold of the app and the journal and get in touch with you if they want to. Wendy, I've really enjoyed our conversation. I think there's lots more that we can talk about. And as I said at the very beginning, I have the PowerBar app on my phone, and I really, really like it, and I have recommended it to others. So listeners, watchers, if you want to learn a bit more about yourself and how you can support yourself to be better and feel better, I really do recommend downloading the app. For today, Wendy Shuter, it's been a really brilliant conversation and thank you very much for joining me.

Wendy Shooter [00:35:23]:
Thank you, Neil. It's been great to see you.

Nia Thomas [00:35:25]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode where we aim to develop self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative work working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, podcast and book. Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.