The Company Road Podcast

E72 Inside your inner critic: overcoming self-doubt for success

• Chris Hudson • Episode 72

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"You cannot control how anyone's going to respond to what comes out of your mouth. I think you just have to do it with an open heart and with positive intent and then just let it land. " – Fiona Walsh

Fiona Walsh specialises in guiding people through this kind of deep self-inquiry. She is a mindset coach, change adviser, and host of the Limitless: Unlocking Your True Potential Podcast. With over 20 years of experience, Fiona has helped business leaders and entrepreneurs shift their perspectives and align their careers with their true selves.

In this episode, you’ll hear about:

  • How self-awareness impacts leadership and career growth
  • The role of inner critics and how to manage them
  • Strategies to overcome fear of failure and judgement
  • The importance of mindfulness and breathwork in stress management
  • How to navigate difficult workplace conversations with confidence
  • Understanding workplace dynamics and setting boundaries
  • The power of gratitude and reflection in personal development
  • Managing uncertainty in career transitions
  • The neuroscience behind stress responses and decision-making
  • How leaders can support teams through organisational change


Key links

About our guest 

Fiona Walsh is a mindset coach, change adviser and Podcast Host, who helps entrepreneurs and senior leaders unlock their true potential to create a life of alignment, fulfilment, and expansion. She believes in the power of deep self-discovery to tackle self-doubt and uncover blind spots: when your inner world expands, your external world transforms exponentially.

With over 20 years of experience leading and advising on transformational change programs, including digital and culture transformations, customer experience strategy, and coaching high performers worldwide. Fiona brings a unique blend of strategic insight, personal growth expertise, intuition, and a lifelong curiosity about how humans, teams, and organisations evolve and thrive.

About our host

Our host, Chris Hudson, is an Intrapreneuship Coach, Teacher, Experience Designer and Founder of business transformation coaching and consultancy Company Road.

Company Road was founded by Chris Hudson, who saw over-niching and specialisation within corporates as a significant barrier to change.

Chris considers himself incredibly fortunate to have worked with some of the world’s most ambitious and successful companies, including Google, Mercedes-Benz, Accenture (Fjord) and Dulux, to name a small few. He continues to teach with University of Melbourne in Innovation, and Academy Xi in CX, Product Management, Design Thinking and Service Design and mentors many business leaders internationally.


For weekly updates and to hear about the latest episodes, please subscribe to The Company Road Podcast at https://companyroad.co/podcast/

Chris Hudson:

Okay, we are back and welcome to another empowering episode of The Company Ride podcast, which is the podcast for organizational rebels and entrepreneurs out there. And as we hit our stride in 2025, it's gonna be important to tune into where we're at and really reconsider whether we're in the right place in what we're doing. After all, we spend a lot of our available time in the grind and working. And so we may as well find fulfillment and achieve impact in what we do in some way. And a lot of that is to do with mindset and where we situate ourselves mentally. But before we get into that, I can pretty much situate where my next guest is, well, more or less because I have a lot of family in this part of the world from Vancouver, bc. So a big shout out to the Canadian fam out there, and I'd love to now welcome my very special guest, Fiona Walsh, who is a renowned mindset coach, a change advisor, and a host of the Limitless podcast. So Fiona, thanks so much for coming onto the show.

Fiona Walsh:

Thank you for having me today, Chris. I'm delighted to be here and as people can hear now, I'm not a Canadian. I'm born and bred in Melbourne, so actually. Chris and I. Sounds like we switched hometowns about the same time a few years ago.

Chris Hudson:

That's it. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was gonna introduce as my first Canadian guest. Yeah. Yeah.

Fiona Walsh:

I've got three Canadian children, if that counts.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Fiona, let me share a bit more about you and the listeners to the show a bit more about you. With over 20 years of experience in guiding transformational change and strategic development, Fiona, you've helped intrapreneurs, senior leaders, unlock their true potential. To achieve a lot of alignment, fulfillment, and exponential growth in their roles. And one of the beliefs that you hold dear to, that you hold closely is in deep self-discovery as a tool to overcome self-doubt and really unveil hidden opportunities and your work therefore, bridges the strategic with the personal. Side of things and fostering growth that really resonates both internally within yourself and externally within the work that you would do. So you've worked with people all over the world, from Sydney to New York, and lots of places in between, I'm sure, but you've worked with high performers worldwide and you blend that sort of strategic insight with profound understanding of human behavior. So I'm. Really excited to have you on the show. I want to hear about your journey, the insights around conquering some of those personal limitations as we all face, and the transformative power of aligning inner and outer worlds in some sort of way, which sounds like a sort of TV show premise, but I kind of wanna get into that. May we start with a bit about what you do and the kind of people that you work with. Fiona, do you wanna tell us a bit about that?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah, sure. Thanks Chris. At the moment I'm coaching in one-on-one spaces, and I typically coach with high performers in corporate and also people who are founders who have their own businesses and people who are not necessarily brand new to coaching or who are not brand new to say self-awareness work. And we. Go deep into their inner world. So quite often people come to me with external goals, and what we typically do is get really clear on what they're wanting, either in their business or is it a promotion at work or a new role in, or building up a new leadership skill. And then what we do is we go through a really holistic integrative process, which starts with self. So getting really clear on who is their true self. So what are their superpowers, what are their values, which I know we're gonna get to later. What are their strengths and what are they like genuinely excited by in life? Then we go into the deeper, darker shadows and we explore their inner critic or critic. So we all have parts of ourselves. That are in our inner world, and they're operating in our subconscious part of our mind and body, so we are not always aware of them. And these parts are when you get triggered, say you're in a meeting and your boss says something and you're like, oh, like why does he always do that? Or when your wife or your kids activate you, that trigger is really something happening deep in your subconscious world. And so we go deep into exploring who those parts are, who are the different inner critics in your world, because. Those critics are typically holding you back from reaching your true self, aligning with your true self, and they quite often block you. So that's a journey that we go on. It's always a lot of fun. It's quite deep, heavy work, but I always bring a lot of lightness and playfulness and fun to it because it much easier when you can laugh at yourself. We're all human and we all have this duality of our true self and then our shadow or ego self. And so it's a process of self-exploration and. What I've found is that once we unlock these blocks and blind spots in our inner world, the intentions and the goals of the external world that my clients come to me for start to unravel, and they usually expand exponentially. So they're stepping straight into the next promotion because they're starting to have the conversations that they've been avoiding or been too worried to have. They're speaking up for themselves there. Way more confident in articulating their value and because it comes from a place of authenticity rather than maybe from a place of acceptance or approval.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Nice. That sounds incredibly interesting and also really important. I feel like that you can find out a lot about yourself, but you wouldn't always know how to. Think we always find that almost the organizations that we find ourselves in, particularly as intrapreneurs and I know now that you've been in that role as well. It feels like you almost rely on other people to feedback a lot on who you are. Whereas it's mainly less of a focus on you finding that out for yourself because you're quite often reliant on the outside systems to effectively tell you who you are and what you're doing in that place. So. I love the fact that you're talking about it from a self-identification and self-awareness point of view, almost as a starting point. Can you give us a kind of, can you bring to life some of the triggers and some of the blockers, just so that people understand what sort of things those things might be.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah, sure. If I think about people who might be entrepreneurs, so in the corporate world, it might be that you might have a fear of failure that you're not actually aware of, and so that may get in if you've been put in this great new opportunity, it's like an innovation space and you're gonna have to put yourself out there and take some risks and the actual. Pathway ahead of you is pretty murky and unknown, and no one really knows where you're going, which is the world of transformation innovation. You might step into it full of excitement and confidence, and I'm really gonna prove myself. The blockers in the blind spot comes in when the little voice in your head start saying, what the hell are you doing? You don't know what you're doing here. You don't take risks. This is scary. Get out, jump. So the job of our parts is to keep us safe and the part does not want us to change. It wants us to stay in the status quo, wants us to stay safe. And so if you are in a role where you are being asked to change personally or lead change and growth for others and the organization. It's likely that the little voice in your head will start chatting to you and you may not be aware of it because a lot of us, and I know this was me, the voice talks all day long, and so you cut. It's really hard to decipher between what is just your, the, your true self talking to you versus the inner critic.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. That's sort of voice that's in your head that's telling you either you're doing the right thing or you're not doing the right thing. What were some of the scenarios that spring to mind? Have you got any stories from your own experience that feel like they would sit in that camp of either in a critic or where your voice is actually really helping you? Either of those.

Fiona Walsh:

The switch that I make from intrapreneur to entrepreneur that cracked open a huge bucket of work that I had to do on myself. And yeah, this is probably like a heads up if anyone's thinking of going out on their own, when you step out of the safety net of corporate and you are responsible for. Your income, the front and back of house, you're responsible. You effectively become your brand. There's a lot comes up in terms of, for me, it was more around fear of judgment and fear of rejection. So I have done a lot of work myself on overcoming people pleasing, which comes with wanting to be liked, wanting to have. Other people validate and acknowledge the work that I'm doing to let me know that I'm doing a good job, which these are all, and also like pleasing others is pretty much a really common trait of a people pleaser. And when I came to say, launch my podcast, I know that some of the conversations that we are having on the podcast are going to totally ruffle people's feathers, and they're not going to please all listeners and. I was very hypervigilant in thinking that I could control other people's thoughts, feelings, and actions, and spent a lot of my corporate life thinking that I could do that, and it probably led to too much stress and burnout. But one of the things that I was able to overcome was that little voice in my head when it would say. Why would anyone listen to your podcast? Who are you to do this? And then really just noticing it and in the moment and saying, it's okay. This is a big move. And yes, you're putting yourself out there. You're gonna share your story, vulnerability, and hold space for people to share vulnerable stories. And we are gonna talk about things that are not comfortable for people to necessarily listen to. But this is your purpose. This is why you are here. And so to say to, that's how my true self would. Then my inner critic was being like, okay, I'll get outta the way. You sound like you've got this. And so just having the inner dialogue, it sounds, if people listening, they might be like, my God, she's got crazy voices in her head, but it actually does work. You can encourage and be compassionate towards your critic and let them know that you've got this and that they're safe and they don't need to step in.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, definitely. I love that story. Thank you for sharing as well. And I know for myself being on that podcast journey, it's terrifying because you're putting yourself out there in the world. You dunno what's gonna come back and how people are gonna respond. And thankfully it's been pretty positive. I'm sure it's been the same for you, but the people that wanna say something will say something.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. And I think the most rewarding things that's come out of my podcast is that each episode you put out there, the feedback you get, you just don't know which part of which of each conversation is going to resonate with anyone. And it depends on where they are in that moment, where they're listening with what's going on in their life. And so I've just been floored by people like, oh, that was the most, that was the point of the podcast that I'll never forget, and I'll be like, oh, really? I thought it would've been that again, it shows you cannot control how anyone's gonna respond to what comes out of your mouth. I think you just have to do it with an open heart and be positive intent, and then just let it land.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, that's right. I had a previous episode with a parenting coach and counselor, Lael Stone, who's is quite big.

Fiona Walsh:

Oh, she's amazing.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. And Lael was talking, we were talking a bit about the inner child and how it represent and how it presents at work. And it, it is a really good chat. And yeah, I think it's, it's interesting to know what we feel we can control. Uh, but also once you're aware of what you can control, you realize that you can't control everything for one. But it's also knowing and learning how to let go of that little bit. So what you were just describing in the step that you made from inside corporate world into the outside world of running your own business and setting up your own coaching practice, it just feels like that, that if anything teaches you that you know you, you're not able to control all of the influencers. And I think as intrapreneurs we find that there's this almost. Like, I dunno if it's fixed set expectations, or it feels like you're going into quite a constant mode of work every single day and that the environment is what you know and what you would expect. But actually, if you can get used to the fact that you can't control everything within that environment as well, then maybe it would give you some courage to push into different directions and be a bit more brave. What do you think?

Fiona Walsh:

I think I agree with that. I think the trap that I fell into when I was an intrapreneur as well was because I was still like knee deep in my people pleasing and relationships was what one of the key things in connection was one of the key things that made me really successful. And so I became quite hypervigilant in making sure that I didn't piss people off and that we were giving people what they wanted. But then sometimes you then don't hold boundaries that actually are required. Yeah. That was one of my own patterns that I needed to break because Yeah, it wasn't helpful when I was in corporate.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. When you were in that role, how did you go about finding out, in a sense what was expected of you, and then finding out to the point where you're not only just delivering on that, but almost finding other ways to make it almost your own unique way of doing it?

Fiona Walsh:

Do you mean like leading a change or

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, leading a change or anything where you thought, okay, I've been asked to do this, but I'm gonna do it my way.

Fiona Walsh:

Oh, okay. Cool. So. I would always take a brief from my boss, and then the number one thing that I would always go would be go out to the organization and find out, get information on, did people have any word on this? Do they have any opinions, views? Right? Get some insider knowledge of what people thought of it or were they aware of it. And then I would use that information to help inform my plan of how I was gonna go about leading the change. And usually as well, as I said, I used core relationships to be successful. So I would in those conversations also be recruiting people to be like unofficial like champions within their departments and teams.'cause one of the things that is inevitable in corporate is that people like to shut down a new idea, or they all like to pick holes in it and pieces. And so it helps to have those cheerleaders who have your back in each of the teams or departments so that when that inevitably happens. They can be the ones going, no, I've heard about, this is a good idea. This is gonna be fun. We are gonna enjoy doing this.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Cool. And you're working with people that are in these organizations now and presumably they're either leaders or they're on the way to becoming leaders working with mainly at the moment.

Fiona Walsh:

Most of them are at sort of director, maybe senior manager, director level, and are trying to step up. And then the entrepreneurs are a whole gamut of where they're at in their business and the different revenue, um, targets they have and things like that. And yeah, so in corporate though, it's mostly people who have been leading teams and been in a leadership role with experience under their belt, and they've done leadership development programs before and they might have even had a leadership coach in their corporate environment. This is really like the fine tuning and the like leveling up so that they can move from the current level they're in and prove their value and their worth and their confidence to the people above them so that they get promoted or if they wanted to move out into a different organizational industry.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Gotcha. Okay. And then so almost they're investing in that service from you personally and Yeah. Working with you on that level rather than it being almost associated with the training that they would get through work. Is that right?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. And I think as well. I've worked with coaches in corporate and then I've also had coaches that are independent that I've paid for myself, and there certainly is a difference. There's a, even corporate in-house coaches, there can be some confidentiality questions at time. I know that coaches are not supposed to, it shouldn't come up, but I know that it's always an issue and so. A few of my clients specifically have said, I've turned down internal coaching. I want the trust of an external coach where I know what I share will never leave this zoom call. And the work I do with people's very raw and vulnerable, and quite often we go places that. They haven't been before. Memories come up like I do inner child work in my coaching, like you mentioned with Lael. We go back to childhood experiences where people are like far out. I buried that and I didn't even like really remember that memory. And so it's really about holding space in quite a different way to what I would've done when I was doing like leadership and sales coaching within a corporate environment. You're not gonna be in someone's office having those kinds of conversations. Yeah,

Chris Hudson:

yeah. In terms of approaching that, so that in getting started or. Around some of those steps to deeper self-discovery. What steps do you recommend for any individual beginning that inward journey, and where would they situate themselves with the right conditions for that sort of work to start? Do you feel? Does it need to come to a head for it to become like, I need to do this now. Can you be working at it a bit more proactively rather than reactively, as some people say? Can you do it like that?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. I think you could take either approach if you find yourself. In a crisis or you're like burnt out or you've been fired, or your partner's just left you, then those would be life moments where doing some self-awareness and self-discovery work would make a lot of sense. I think though, if you're in the crisis stage, just taking care of your health and wellbeing is probably like a primary thing. So making sure you're getting enough sleep and you've got support people around you. When you're then ready to go into self-awareness and self-discovery, I do say to people that one of the key hacks to figure out where you may have some work to do in terms of self-discovery and maybe healing some stuff from the past is when you get triggered, so by your partner. I would get them to have a journal and be writing down when they got triggered throughout a couple of weeks, a bit of a log. And to start to see where the patterns were. And another tool for self-awareness that I find really simple but effective is around doing like a practice at before you go to bed at night, which is based around gratitude, but what's three things you are grateful for during the day and why you are grateful for them and how they made you feel. And the feeling part is really critical. It's not just, oh, it's cool that my son won his soccer game. Could be'cause that made me proud as a mum or whatever. And then we then look at that log again to look for patterns and start to deep dive into what are the learnings. So if you look at both of those two examples, to create self-awareness, you really need to start tracking what you do each day, moment to moment. Because so much of what we do, we are actually operating on autopilot or not aware. And so the simplest way to get aware is to start tracking different things in your life that you might be interested in learning a little bit more about yourself.

Chris Hudson:

And does that practice then become ease? Obviously it becomes easier, but do you feel like people are then more in the habit? It's almost like a muscle memory that people are finding during the day. Oh, I'm pretty grateful for that thing that just happened and I'm gonna write down, write that down. Is it more of a kind of practice makes perfect approach?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah, I think it does. It starts to, yeah, it starts to build. The gratitude one's interesting as well.'cause it means you. Go to sleep as well. And your mind and body and soul is in a place of vibration, of gratitude, which is one of our higher vibration energy states and emotional states. And so you're setting yourself up for a much better night's sleep, much better dreams than if you have gone to bed and you've just had a bit of an argument with your other half, or, I dunno, you've watched a really scary show on Netflix or something like that. It's actually just, it's really setting yourself up for a restful. Positive sleep.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. No, good tip. Good tip. Yeah. I don't watch a lot of those shows because of that, for that reason. But yeah, maybe I could, if I did some rash to practice afterwards, I'm not sure. But is there something similar for the start of the day or are there any kind of like routines or rituals that you talk to your clients about?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah, so yeah. Most of my clients we like, one of the basis of the setup is to have a start. Of the day and end of day ritual and the end of the day one is always gratitude practice and yeah. Sorry, I will just follow up on what you asked me before. I now notice during,'cause I've done the gratitude journal for quite a few years. During the day I will like pause and be like, oh my God, that's really cool. Why am I grateful for that? How do I feel? And I, it just is, I just track through the process. Now, it's also a really good hack if you're in a bit of a funky mood. You just can't snap yourself out of it. Finding something to be grateful for is a simple hack, again, to raise your vibration and your emotional and energetic state. I recommend that for the start of

Chris Hudson:

So quick question on that. So there's a difference between thinking it, as in I think I'm grateful for this and actually writing it down. You mentioned journal, like is it really important to write it down?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. I think at the start it's really important, so you wanna think it and then you want to. Also label the emotion or the feeling in your body that you had with it. That also helps just tie it in, put a bow on top. So there's a couple of pieces to it. The morning practice is a bit of a tricky one because it depends on. If you're a parent and how young your children are, and if they get up at crazy o'clock. So I still have got a child that wakes up between five 30 and six each day, but they, so my start of my day is to do some form of like mindfulness or meditation. And I use Insight Timer app. If I'm like in a place that's really quiet, which is not often in my house, I can meditate without an app. But I do find in the mornings it's good, and my early riser now knows that if she comes in, I've got my headphones in, she's allowed to sit next to me on my bed and wait for me to be done, be done. I've trained her like that. That was not the case for when my twins were until they were about four or five. I didn't always. Have a start of the day, but I would try and do it early-ish in the morning. I'm just being super realistic.'cause I know like when you listen to so many podcasts and people are like, oh, I do 40 minutes of movement and then I journal, and then I meditate, and then I do all these rituals. I know for working parents, it's not accessible. So just finding the time. Two things I would say that I've learned, don't be a perfectionist about it. So if you miss a. It, you haven't failed, just pick it up tomorrow. You don't need to do it every single day. Just have the intention and then pick it up tomorrow if you miss a day. And also, if it doesn't work out perfectly, like you don't get to the 10 minutes or you fall asleep, you've done that, or your second or third child gets up. So it's just you can't mad. You have to stop. Like as well. You tried, your intent was there, and pat yourself on the back. And then if you, yeah, if you need. Headspace'cause that's what meditation does to me. It really clears my busy mind for me and helps open my heart as well. Then try and find it another time during the day can be helpful, which again, is not realistic on every day. But some days I'll try and find 15, 20 minutes. Another point time in the day.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Okay. So 15, 20 minutes, you reckon Yeah. Is about the right sort of time. Yeah. Yeah. Whenever you can grab it. What about the, what about the sort of high stress moment? I saw somebody, I was running, running training a little while back and she took herself off to the meditation room. I. In one of the breaks, which I thought was very cool. But yeah, she just wanted to decompress and have that sort of sensory shut down a little bit before she came back into the room and then she felt reinvigorated. But it was all quite, quite a lot for her in that sense. And obviously we work a lot with neurodiversity being very firmly in the mix within the world of work now as well. So anything around circuit breakers or ways to one mind or relax during the day?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah, I honestly think that the. Most underrated tool we have as humans is our breath. So you can, and I've got a child with neurodiversity, so you're speaking my language and as a parent, I've had to teach my child how to do box breathing or you, when you block one or store, I can't remember what it's called, but, and so yes, just taking the time. Your breath is the tool to calm your nervous system. Your nervous system is what makes you feel. Stressed or like you're racing thoughts if you've got shakes in your hand, any physical stuff that feels fast and hot and scary in your, and anxious in your body. Your breath is the simplest tool. And you can do box breaths, which is breathing in for four, holding for four, breathing out for four, and pausing for four. That's a really good one. Or you can really do a simple one where you breathe in for three. Then hold it and then let it go for as long as you can. And really to calm your nervous system, you just need your out breath, the exhale to be as long as possible compared to your inhale, because if you've ever seen someone having a panic attack. So as much as you can get your out breath to extend, you don't need to worry about the numbers. Just remember, I've gotta get my outbreath longer than my inbreath. And you can do that in a meeting room. Like you don't, yeah. Yeah. You don't even need to step into the meditation room. Another one is to just like really ground your feet on the ground. So like really planning your feet in your, and you'll have shoes on, but, and then making sure all 10 of your toes really connect in with the bottom of your shoe. These are just simple ways. These are very simple mind fullness hacks to get out of your busy brain and reconnect, focus, reconnect in with your body.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, no, those are really good. I've tried some of those as well. I went on a breath work course a few weeks back as well, and yeah, she was saying exactly the same thing. If you're, even if you're in a conflict type situation, you're arguing with somebody and you are, you're shouting or you, it's not shouting a lot of the time, but you're feeling the rage basically. You can be doing your breath work and just letting them rant and you could just be preparing yourself and steadying yourself and grounding yourself and you know, lining up for what? Just sitting with your breath and your feelings and preparing yourself for a better state and a better response in a way. And I think that's really helpful. It doesn't feel like you are always prepared for what happens in the world of work, and I think that can really help.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. And when you get stressed, you're, when we talk about it with my child, but you flip your brain, right? So from a neuroscience point of view. Your brain is not working. You're not like your cognition is switched off. So if you allow yourself to con like the stress to take over. You're not actually, you shut down listening. You shut down creativity. You shut down all the things that you need to actually survive in that moment, and it's really fascinating the whole threat response that we go through, because it comes from. A very prime, when we were in primal days, when as cave people, if we were like in North Vancouver where I live, we have cougars and bears in the forest. Yeah. Over the road. Yeah, I know. So the threat response was like, am I being chased by a bear or a cougar? Like my body needs to like flee. Do you know what I mean? I'm like, in my life is in danger. What we now know about our brains and then how that feels in our body, which is our nervous system response, is our. Human brains do the same thing in social interactions that they used to do when you were getting chased by a beer. So you might be sitting in a meeting room and someone's, hi Chris. I'd love to give you some feedback on how you showed up in that meeting the other day, who you showed up poorly. Your brain and body starts to respond in exactly the same way as if you were being chased by a cougar. And so knowing this about what's actually going on for us can be really helpful.'cause you are like, I'm safe. Take a few deep breaths. I'm not being chased. You know what I mean? Ground your feet, do your breathing. Or I always say to my clients as well, if you are actually feeling rattled, it's totally fine to be like. I'm going to need a little bit of time like to, I'm feeling a bit stressed, I'm feeling a bit anxious. I need some time just to calm down. Can I come back to you in a short amount of time? So you're just asking for some space to regulate your nervous system so that you can come back and show up as your best self?

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. Can I ask, have you been chased by cougar in North Vancouver? No. No.

Fiona Walsh:

Have

Chris Hudson:

you seen a bear? You must have seen bear.

Fiona Walsh:

I've, yeah. We have bears often. I live close to the forest, so in the summertime we have bear bears over here. They're like big dogs. They're like scroungers. So they want to get into any bin or any food on your

Chris Hudson:

Yeah.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. But cougars, no. Last winter we had. Mama and three cougar cubs that were in our local park living for three months, which is quite unheard of and was quite scary. Our kids' school was, they used to like, if we picked up, rocked up to pick up and they had music blasting out the speakers. That was because the family cougars had been visiting that day and they used the music as a deterrence and it's, I always laugh, Chris, because everyone in Canada says. Oh my God. I'm never going to Australia because of the snakes and the spiders. And I'm like, we like, these are people who live in my neighborhood. I'm like, we have cougars, walk the streets and bears in daytime and nighttime, and you are worried about a little spider.

Chris Hudson:

Oh no, I know. Yeah, I've seen alone as well. I know how, I know what's out there in for Vancouver.

Fiona Walsh:

Oh, totally. What was the music? The alone episode where the bears were up the trees was like, I was like, oh yeah, really petrified of that one

Chris Hudson:

escaping up a tree. You need to know how to climb. Yeah, it's not that bad in the corporate world. What? What was the music they were using to deter the Cougars? Cougar Families. Just out of interest. Oh my God. Was it, so one

Fiona Walsh:

day it was Ghost Busters. He knows it.

Chris Hudson:

That's it. Yeah. All right. One of the, one of the things, the example that you gave us really great, I think from a breathwork point of view, getting yourself ready for responding to that moment. I think the other,'cause we often talk about these things from the point of view is the, as the recipient, basically. So you feel like you are in a corner and you need to negotiate your way out of that. But also as a leader or as a manager from the. Other side. If you are having to prepare for some of these conversations, which can be difficult, do you know of any kind of tips around how to, how to break that sort of news and have difficult conversations or challenging conversations that could result in a, an adverse reaction and really helping people set up for it from that point of view? Just out of interest? Yeah.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. Again, back to the threat res response that I was talking about before. So this is a neuroscience. Model by David Scarf, who's an Aussie, but I did, I studied under his coaching certification. It's, and it's all brain-based stuff, so you've got your, your stress response with your threat response. You've also got like this reward state, which the other side, which is where. When you are coaching or you're a manager and you're having conversations and you wanna engage with people, you wanna keep their brain and therefore their body and nervous system in the reward state. So making sure you let them know in advance that you're going to be having a difficult conversation so that you, and don't just land it on them in the moment. And even if in tracking, in real time in a conversation with the person. Where are they at? How are they feeling? Because if they've gone into that shutdown mode, the threat response, which we all do, you're actually talking to a brick wall.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah.

Fiona Walsh:

And wasting their time and your time because they're not listening, then their cognition is Duke. Tracking with them in the moment is the most powerful tool you can do as a leader to ensure that the communication is effective.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah, I think that's really helpful because as a leader you almost find it so uncomfortable that you want to get it out the way, but forcing it in that situation, it's a bit like negotiating with a child. A child, sorry, child. Yeah. You're negotiating with your own kid and it's a bit. We have a joke about it. It's like negotiating with terrorists some of the time because you can't negotiate with that when you're getting a response, which is a screaming or a physical reaction, the throwing stuff, whatever it is. But you get that in a way. It's not quite that bad within a corporate setting, I'm sure, but Well, people can't, can't come to the party and they can't think rationally in that moment.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. And when your brain is in that threat state, you can't communicate. You can't collaborate, so you can't even. Come up with new ideas of how we might be like, how could we do this better next time? And they're like, I don't know. It is because they're like, they literally don't know they're frozen in that state. And when we're in a threat restraint, we'll show up differently. Like some people will freeze. Some people wanna flight. Like I've been in meeting corporate where someone got, instead of they were going head to head with someone and then they just stormed out of the room because they were in flight mode. I was more susceptible to. Fawn mode, which isn't not known as well, but it's if you, particularly if you've got people pleasing tendencies where you might be going from challenging someone you know, respectfully to them, oh, okay, great. It's a great idea. Yeah, let's go ahead. But you actually don't think it is, but you're, you are fawning'cause you're like completely, you're not frozen, but the words coming out are not what you really would wanna be saying.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, interesting.'cause Fly does spring to mind first of all, but there's that compliance aspect particularly, and there's, it's a weird thing within corporate, but or any business situation, but there's a lot of, I know it's like a peer to peer social norming. There's a lot of comparison obviously between people both. Overtly or consciously, or subconsciously. So I feel that can happen too. You feel like you're forced into a situation. You just go along with it because it's easier and you're not. You're just gonna complain to your partner. When you get home and have a large glass of wine or something, it just feels like you're just gonna find other ways to cope with it, which probably isn't that helpful either. So that bottling up is gonna be happening all the time,

Fiona Walsh:

and then it can come out at another time in that it doesn't need to to your kids, though it's not, the bottling ups not ever helpful. I always say. Though to my coaching clients, and this is something that I use myself as well, that if you did Fawn or you did say, oh, okay, let's just go ahead with it. No, nothing's ever won and done. You can always go back the next day to your boss and say, Hey, I was a bit rattled in that meeting. I was a bit surprised by. What you were saying, it was a bit of a shock, and you know what, now I've had time to sit with it. Would it be okay if I share my thoughts on it now? And you then you returning from a much more regulated space, you're much more likely to have more positive intent rather than how you might have shown up the day before when your nervous system was really firing.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, I mean that definitely that sense of the moment has passed and you can't go back to, it is, yeah, won and done as you put it. It's like it's set in stone, but you wouldn't want to revisit it or you'd be worried about your boss being even more annoyed by the fact that you would bring that up again because they've moved on. I. You should have moved on. It's getting to that feeling of awkwardness. It's a bit of a guilt feeling that creeps in and yeah, people don't always feel confident going into something that isn't progressive. It feels like it's a step backwards rather than a step forwards. Yeah. How do you get more comfortable with that? Think?

Fiona Walsh:

One thing I'll say from the leader manager role in that is that you need to be having constant open feedback loops with the people on your team. And if you sensed in a meeting or you heard from somebody else that people were shocked and that there was surprise or there was a whole, there was a lot of emotion in the room, then go back and ask for more feedback because you may not have, you may have got a certain, sometimes you might have got a bigger reaction than what actually. Has landed. Like people would like, I don't have that idea. I'm not gonna, or you might have had thought everyone was okay with it, but then they've gone back to their offices and they're all bitching and gossiping and figuring out how not to do it. So a constant communication and open lines is definitely the way to go. And not thinking that you're one and done, I, I'm not saying don't overdo it as well,'cause people will always find something to complain about, but just make sure that. If there's close the gap on whether or not you know, won and done is enough, no, it's probably not. So just use your own judgment and. For people who are intuitive, use your intuition. Usually it's pretty bang on when it comes to people's reactions or if there's something that's astray that you haven't quite uncovered within your team or your group that you're working with.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, I always think there's inter, there's interest in looking at what is feeling like that's almost agreed upon, and where are people aligned and where are people behaving almost similarly to one another, and where are people behaving different to that. So both of those situations tell you something about what the group dynamics within the corporate landscape are, because you've got the back channels and other things happening, and you know that somebody's making a cup of tea in the kitchen and they're moaning about something. And you can walk in and you can overhear some of that. But it's almost what do you do? How do you respond? It's very complex, like from a, from anyone out there who experiences social anxiety, and I feel I've had this myself. It's what am I walking into here and how should I respond and how do I arrive at work every day? And it's really hard to navigate. Have you had any stories like that from clients that you work with and help people in that sort of sense of knowing where, where certainty exists or how to manage uncertainty?

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. The. There's a model, David Rock, who I mentioned before, he's got a, he's got a really cool assessment called, and it's a scarf model. And one at the C in scarf stands for certainty. And, and this model actually links directly to what I've been talking about, like how in social situations, how we respond to how we might be triggered or respond in certain situations. So. I would usually get people to do the assessment so they can see where they are on the certainty scale. What are we doing? We are creating self-awareness of, I remember when I was consulting last year, one of the leaders I was working like side by side with, she had the highest, she had such a high tolerance for uncertainty, and I was like. That's why you're like such a superstar in digital transformation.'cause there is zero certainty. It's just like the unknown every day, swimming through murky water and hoping you find what you're looking for versus, and having things thrown at you constantly versus someone who has a really low tolerance for uncertainty. And yes, I have coached those people and they tend to be. Have either high functioning anxiety or just medical diagnosis as anxiety because they are trying to control the situation and it is very hard on their nervous system to come into work every day. I think the people like that need to be aware of it and make sure that they choose roles that are not, that can give them more certainty day to day. So I wouldn't go into anything that's innovation or transformation where you're evolving. Phase to phase or sprint to sprint because you can't predict plan and predict what's gonna happen in the next three months. So making sure you choose a role that really plays to your strengths and'cause I found that people who like a lot of certainty can be really sturdy performers in some operational roles and they actually shine really brightly once they find the right role for them rather than. Trying to operate in a state of anxiety, which is, it's challenging to, to reach your true potential if you're anxious at work every day.

Chris Hudson:

Mm. Yeah. I think you're right. For sure. Yeah. It just reminds me of. Some work that I've done work in the transformation space and often in that kind of uncertain area as well. I think there's something to be said for really naming what people are going through, particularly within a group context, so that people understand the direction that you're going and whether you might be in a divergent stage where yeah, is goes, come up with as many ideas as possible and let's all have some fun doing that. Then you need to converge on something that's really important and actually make a decision so that you can move past a particular gate or a milestone and get to the next stage. So it feels, some people might be expecting certainty at points of uncertainty or vice versa. And as a leader or an emerging leader, you need to manage that. You just need to help people understand the situation that they're in within a meeting context, within a workshop context, or even a conversation. And then just move them. Always signpost it a little bit so that it becomes a bit more understandable, a bit more relatable. And then I think I've seen really positive results from that too.'cause people that do have a kind of inclination for certainty, all of a sudden you take the shackles off when they're in a workshop environment or they're, they're able to just throw out their ideas in a more carefree manner and they're really happier. It feels really liberating for them as well at times. So I think it's setting expectations, obviously. But

Fiona Walsh:

yeah, I think also as. Don't let it become the elephant in the room. I think when things are uncomfortable, there's discomfort at work. It's really important to talk about it. Yeah, and talk about ways to move through discomfort. Emotions that come up don't last more than 90 seconds, but if we numb them or push them aside, which is normally the corporate way of dealing with like negative emotions, they will come back to bite you and yeah. I think that leaders do. It's their job to be sturdy and to, as you say, provide as much certainty as possible. And if there's, or scaffolding as the other ones, give people, I can give you this and we're gonna bounce around between these two scaffolding pieces, but not, but never over communicate certainty if it's not there, because that actually rattles people way more.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Hey, as we come to the close, I wanted to maybe just start or end with a fairly big question because obviously you work a lot of people around the world and I think that you're gonna have, I do the same thing. I work a lot of businesses, work with different people that I mentor and coach, and you get a read for what's going on in different industries a little bit and, and what people are experiencing. So it's probably a question around that, around what you are hearing as being within the world of work. In particular, not so much about intrapreneurs, but what are the big things that you are seeing still needing to change within the world of work and yeah. Have you got any kind of sense of what those themes are?

Fiona Walsh:

I think it's a couple. One would be that there, there's this, there's a lot of talk in the moment about post Covid. You know how we, when we're at home and we were all laid there and we had kids on our lap and dogs peeing next to us while we're trying to facilitate calls with 150 people, and then people have come back to the office and I think there's a lot of talk about what people wanting to bring their whole self to work, but then. Bringing things to the workplace that might actually be better suited with a coach or with a therapist. And I'm hearing a little bit more like that. So my coaching clients wanting me to work with people on their team because they're like, they're bringing stuff that like no one used to bring this to work before. And so I think that's one that's interesting that's come up, which might be particular to the kind of work that I do. But yeah, people bringing things into the workplace that maybe. And it's also an opportunity for leaders to, to establish some fresh boundaries around, I'm here to support you, but I have boundaries around X and Y. And we either have an EAP program that can help you, or like we can get you a coach or a therapist. So just making sure that people feel supported through the all the uncertainty that is in the world. The other piece that's been really relevant for over here in North America has been, and I don't wanna go into it'cause I don't talk politics, but Trump being voted in, caused a huge ripple effect across North America and being in Canada, we're just over the border. We do feel it a lot. And there was a lot of despair, I would say, and like really. Negative emotions about what could be. So that really rattled people in the last sort of month, I would say. But it, I think people are coming out of it now and there's some optimism and some, we've gotta be open-minded about what happens. It was just last time Trump was in power. It was a bit of a, it felt like a bit of a circus in Canada watching on, and we were impacted by different pieces of it, and I, I am sure it was the same for the rest of the world. Yeah, watching on times that we was disbelief of some of the stuff that was being said and taking place.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. I get that. You can feel incredibly. Drawn into that, both personally, psychologically it feels like you, you feel like you, you would have an attachment, but obviously the lack of control, it's the same within Yeah. Social environment. If there's a new CEO or a new manager, somebody came in, you wouldn't, it's an unknown until it happens. But until it happens, in some cases it is a known and yeah, you're just dreading what might happen.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah, and, and in those cases, like you need to protect yourself. So if that means taking a break from the media. Do it. Like I did not check the newspapers for the week after Trump was announced. So just out of self-protection. So I didn't go down rabbit holes of looking up the guardian and all the different news sources, the New Yorker and everything. Put boundaries in place for yourself. If it's making you feel stressed, then it, you are your own boss at the end of the day. Yeah, put some boundaries in place so that you can shut out the data coming in, because that's one of the biggest issues of this information age is that we're just overloaded with information. So if we don't have good boundaries ourselves around what we're allowing into our mind, it can create swirl and a lot of stress that is, and like with us politics like. Most of your listeners and me included, have zero control over anything that's happening in that space. So us actually thinking about it is not the best use of our time or our brain or emotional capacity. I.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah. Yeah. I was speaking to somebody the other day and it was just very matter of fact. They, he's gonna be in, there's gonna be a term, it's four years, it'll be somebody else after that. Maybe not. It's, it's easy to distance yourself if you can or if you know how to, but yeah, boundaries is really important, particularly as more and more is coming in, as you say. So I think having a healthy. Ongoing reset or ongoing boundary setting here and there. Being aware of your habits and what you feel is triggering you, like I was saying before, is all very important. Yeah. Yeah. Really good stuff. Thank you.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. I think also, one last thing is to, yeah, be aware of if there's, you've got a really sense, strong sense of purpose and why you are here, and if you are, like for you, it might be this podcast for someone else, it might be an offer that they're launching that. If you've got a really strong purpose that comes from your values and from your heart, that is where you should be investing your time and effort. And really, if other things are distracting you that you have zero control over, then you are in your best interest to block it out and just stay razor sharp. Focus on what your purpose is because what at the end of the day when you die, you're gonna look back and be like, oh my God, I'm so proud that I did that and I caused that ripple effect. I served people in a way that I know I was here. You, no one's gonna sit there and think, oh, I'm so happy I read all those Trump articles.

Chris Hudson:

Yeah, I think regret is in incredibly powerful. You think back to wasted time or it's when you are older and you think, but I wish I'd done that when I was younger, or if I'd done this sooner. And it's hard one, right? You can focus on the future so much, but obviously a lot of people are feeling a deep sense of regret.

Fiona Walsh:

Yeah. Yeah, unfortunately.

Chris Hudson:

Great. Yeah, we'll wrap there. Thanks so much for coming onto the show, Fiona. I really enjoyed the chat. We've gone into a lot of different areas and yeah, a lot of it is gonna be memorable to me and I'm sure to the listeners out there as well. And of course, every time I hear Ghostbuster's theme, she, I'm gonna be triggered by that. I'm gonna be thinking of Cougars running after me. No, I won't. But yeah, I really appreciate you coming into the show. Thanks so much for joining us from Vancouver and yeah, have a wonderful day.

Fiona Walsh:

Thanks so much for having me, Chris. I've really enjoyed our conversation today.