Carla Miller [00:00:02]:
What is executive presence? Why does it matter? And what can we do to increase our executive presence? These are the questions I explored in a fantastic chat with fellow women's leadership coach, Lucy Gernon, in this week's podcast episode. Now we had a really wide ranging discussion. So we discussed how the concept of executive presence has evolved over the past 10 years from something that was very masculine to something that is more integrated with different feminine leadership styles as well. We talk about where confidence comes from and how Lucy defines it. Lucy shares her brilliant do it model, which enables you to make decisions without procrastinating or second guessing yourself, and I'm gonna be putting that one into practice myself. We also talked about how can we confidently talk about our achievements. How do we deal with praise? And heads up on that, neither of us have fully mastered that yet, and we do a bit of practice on this episode. And finally, we talk about why we don't need to compete against other women.

Carla Miller [00:01:07]:
There is a lot of gold in this episode. Lucy does very similar work, and we both are so passionate about these topics. And I hope that you enjoy this conversation as much as we did. My name is Carla Miller, leadership coach, author, trainer, and founder of Women Leading, the community that helps women lead without overwhelm. I'm on a mission to empower women leaders in the workplace, and make leading less lonely. And this is the Influence and Impact Podcast for women leaders, helping you confidently navigate the ups and downs of leadership, and feel less alone on your journey as a leader. And for tonight, the episodes, I share practical tools and insights from myself and my brilliant guests that will help you succeed in your career. Now, 2 things to share with you.

Carla Miller [00:01:55]:
The first is that if executive presence is on your mind, and you're also interested in tackling self doubt and influencing senior stakeholders, we go deep on my version of executive presence, which is developing your personal leadership brand within my influence and impact program. Now this is my 3 month program. Over 500 women have been through it, and the next cohort is coming up in September. We'll have up to 20 women working closely with me. And if you'd like to find out more about that, drop me a line or head over to my website. Now, the other thing to tell you about is the free resource that I've just released, the how to say no challenge. So this is for you if you struggle to say no, you feel uncomfortable saying no, you say yes and then regret it, you feel super guilty when you do actually say no, and you've got too much work to do. So it's basically a free 5 day email challenge.

Carla Miller [00:02:53]:
You do it in your own time, but each day, you receive a short email with a short video and a question to help you apply my 5 step how to say no framework to your situation. So I will get you feeling more comfortable saying no in just 5 days. It takes about 5 minutes a day. I guarantee that if you put this into practice, it is gonna save you possibly hours in your week if you're a big people pleaser and are saying yes far too much. And not just this week, in your working life forever. So if you would like to access that, you can do that at carlamillertraining.com/sayno. So s a y n o. No gap in between them.

Carla Miller [00:03:39]:
I would love you to sign up for that how to say no challenge and start taking control of your working day. So before we jump into the episode, let me tell you a bit more about Lucy. Lucy Gurnan is an Irish mom of 3, a multi award winning executive coach, and she hosts the brilliant 360 Leadership Podcast, which I've been on as a guest, and I really recommend. She's sought out by Fortune 500 companies for her expertise in topics including executive presence, confidence building, leadership, and conflict management. Lucy is also the founder of her own members club, 360 Leaders Club, the only positive psychology infused membership focused on career advancement, leadership, and work life balance. She's a certified positive psychology coach, holds a bachelor and master's in science, a diploma in integrative coaching, and worked for 20 years in leadership roles in American and British multinationals.

Lucy Gernon [00:04:40]:
So I'm delighted to welcome you to the show. Welcome to Influence and Impact, Lucy. Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited for another great conversation with you, Carla.

Carla Miller [00:04:50]:
Yeah. I loved being on your podcast. We could chat forever, but let's let my listeners hear

Lucy Gernon [00:04:56]:
a bit more about you. So what's your background and what made you decide to become a coach? Oh my goodness. What a question to start with. So my name is Lucy Gurnan, and I am a mother of 3. I live in Ireland. I was actually born in London. My parents lived in the UK for years, and then they had me and decided to come back home to Ireland. So I'm in Ireland basically most of my life.

Lucy Gernon [00:05:19]:
I have a background in science. So I have a master's degree in biotechnology. I spent time in the food and beverage industry. I spent a lot of time in stem and primarily in the pharmaceutical industry. So I was in multinationals, big corporates like Pfizer, Merck, and things like that, Diageo for about 20 years. And I even though as a scientist, I always had a passion for people. Like, my whole life, even when I remember going back to think about what I was gonna choose for for university and college, I was originally I wanted to be a teacher. I wanted to do something in social care, but my boyfriend lived in the same town as me, and I didn't wanna leave.

Lucy Gernon [00:06:01]:
So I decided I can't go off to college. I'm just gonna do a course in my local university. That's how basically I landed in science. And I loved my career, but even though, like, I ran a microbiology lab, I ran capital projects as well, sterility assurance, that kind of thing for sterile drugs. I was always into culture and people. So any opportunity I had to get involved in great place to work or developing my team or, you know, I did a campaign with my local university to inspire more women in STEM. I always had this passion for people, but it was like, well, you know, you're a scientist. Like, you've studied.

Lucy Gernon [00:06:40]:
That's where you need to stay. But actually, it's not the case at all. So in 2020, I had been thinking for years about, you know, this question. I know a lot of your listeners will definitely resonate with this. You know, what else could I do? Like, if I wasn't doing this job, like, what else could I do? And I remember one night I was out with one of my best friends since childhood, and we were in a bar, and we were drinking cocktails. And it was about 8 o'clock in the evening, and I remember we were just chatting about career and life, and she said I asked her. I said, like, I feel like, you know, I like my career, but I feel like I'm meant for so much more, but I have no clue what else I could do. And I asked her, I said, what do you think? And she said, I think you'd be a great life coach.

Lucy Gernon [00:07:22]:
And I was like, what the hell is a life coach? I had no idea what a coach was. And long story short, that conversation kind of planted the seed for me to to decide to become professional coach, which turned into basically executive coaching for women in leadership. So that's it in in a in a big nutshell.

Carla Miller [00:07:41]:
And how does it feel now following that passion that you sort of put aside at the beginning and now you're fully embracing?

Lucy Gernon [00:07:49]:
Oh, I just feel so happy. I am so, you know, I'm big into spirituality and I'm all about alignment. I'm all about, you know, spirituality, and I'm all about alignment. I'm all about, you know, doing things. Like, I believe every single one of us are here for a reason. I believe we're all here on this earth to experience something, to, you know, give something and make an impact in the world. And I know the reason I was put in the dog eat dog corporate multinational world was so I could understand the women that I work with now so that I can serve them better. So it just feels, like, so good.

Lucy Gernon [00:08:20]:
I love what I do so much.

Carla Miller [00:08:23]:
It's so fantastic, isn't it, when you can take the things that you struggled with and think, well, these are the things I've learned. And if they can make it less of a struggle for others. I feel like that's my purpose is the things I've tried. Some of them went well, some of them didn't. But learning from my experiences to make the path easier for people

Lucy Gernon [00:08:40]:
that come afterwards, I think, really feels like it resonates with me as a purpose. Absolutely. And I remember, actually, just as you're saying that, I remember Tony Robbins when I first started my business, and I'm I'm sure you'll remember this as well. You know, I had no business experience. I tried to start a business, an event planning business about, god, 15 or 16 years ago, but I had no idea, you know, how to do it. So it didn't work or whatever. But I remember starting my business, and I remember doing a training with Tony Robbins on business mastery because I just I invested so much in myself to learn about how to do this business thing and never mind the coaching. That was fine.

Lucy Gernon [00:09:19]:
But I remember he said, smart people hire other people who have overcome, you know, challenges that they wanna overcome to show them the fastest way to get there. And I remember that moment just totally transformed my mindset in terms of we don't have to do this alone. You don't have to figure everything out yourself, and it's okay to invest in support. And that was, like, a concept that really was brand new to me. But once I've started investing, you know, the rest is history because you're in full control of the return. Absolutely. And so how are you spending your days working with women now? Well, I have a couple of different offers if you like. So my primary thing I do is I have a membership called 360 Leaders Club, which is an online membership for women in senior leadership who want to advance their careers without sacrificing work life balance.

Lucy Gernon [00:10:11]:
So the the primary aim of the community is to support women to up level their leadership skills, provide them with the tools and the training to all the stuff you do too in terms of being more influential, how to manage conflict, like, how to make decisions, all the, I'm gonna say, basic things that we forget unless somebody gives us a tool or a framework to use it. So the women I work with are highly educated. You know, some of them are would be at c level, some are at SVP level, VP level, down to kinda senior managers. Highly competent. They're highly educated. They have serious business acumen. But sometimes the work, you know, they're so consumed by the challenges and the problems as you well know. They can't see the wood for the trees.

Lucy Gernon [00:10:58]:
So having a place to go where you can get immediate executive coaching, immediate answers to support you to move forward is an absolute game changer. So that's the first thing is I have my membership. And then I also do exec private executive coaching. Although I do, I do a lot more group stuff at the moment. And then I work with corporates as well in terms of, developing their female talent and international women's day and all those things. And I have a digital course as well on executive presence. So they will be the main things that I do.

Carla Miller [00:11:29]:
Fantastic. Now there are loads of different topics that we could talk about together, but executive presence was the topic that we decided to land on for today. You've got your course on executive presence. How are you defining executive presence? What a

Lucy Gernon [00:11:43]:
great question. So executive presence, this the exciting thing is is that it's never been a better time to be a woman in leadership right now when it comes to executive presence. So it's hard to give a definition. So the traditional definition would have fallen under 3 pillars. It would have been gravitas, been a superior communicator, and then it was all about having this kind of polished appearance. And there was various different things that fell underneath that. But things have changed so much over the past decade that there's a brand new expectation when it comes to executive presence. And I can break that down a little bit if you want.

Lucy Gernon [00:12:21]:
That'd be great. Yeah. So back in 2012, Harvard Business Review did a study where they surveyed a ton of executives. Don't ask me how many. And they they quantify, like, what their expectations were of executive presence. What did it mean for them under the pillars of gravitas, communication, and appearance? And then they surveyed them again in 2022, and the study was just published actually in January of this year. So it's hot off the press. And Harvard published this paper, which I can send you the link to pop in the show notes if you want for your readers to see it.

Lucy Gernon [00:12:59]:
And there's been some significant shifts in terms of executive presence. So it is absolutely not a white man in a suit being forceful, looking polished. That is not what people want anymore. So the main kind of things that have transcended the ages when it comes to executive presence are the number one thing is actually confidence. It's it's the number one trait for you to have executive presence is that you need to portray a confident demeanor. The second thing that hasn't really changed is around decisiveness. So for you to be seen as an exemplary leader and to really have that executive presence. It's all about being able to make those rapid disciplined decisions so that your team and your senior stakeholders can move forward.

Lucy Gernon [00:13:49]:
But it can be hard to make a decision unless you're confident and certain in yourself, which is something I absolutely love to help women with because it's so funny. One of my gifts is is seeing the beauty beauty and excellence would be a strength of mine in the strengths kind of profiles. And when I meet women who are talented and they don't see what they see, it's so exciting to me because I see it straight away just like you. It's like it can see you nodding. Like you look at somebody and you're like, you have no idea how good you are. You have no idea how much you're going to accomplish and working, you know, working with those kind of people really makes me happy. So in terms of that, yeah, confidence, decisiveness, the other things that have come through that are different. So between 2012 and and current day, there's a couple of things that registered in the survey, which weren't even on the radar back in 2012.

Lucy Gernon [00:14:41]:
And one of them is authenticity. People want to know who you are. They do not want some sort of a corp somebody in a corporate mask with a, you know, a brand trying to fit the corporate molds. You know, people wanna know who you are. They wanna know what you stand for, and then they want you to have a clear vision. That's another thing. And be able to articulate that vision to your teams that you can bring them along, but it needs to all kinda come from your personal brand. So in my course, executive presence blueprint, there's a full module on personal branding.

Lucy Gernon [00:15:19]:
It's my brand brilliance blueprint because so many people, I think you spoke about it on my show as well. I actually gave that tip that you shared. Carla gave a great tip side note on my podcast, the 360 leadership podcast, on before you walk into a room, like, pick 3 words about how you wanna feel and things like that. It's all about you defining your brand yourself first and being able to articulate who you are, what you stand for, what your vision is because we all have a vision. Right? It doesn't have to be the CEO has a vision. You can have a vision too. So they're just a few of the things, within that within that study that came out that I think were important to point out. Amazing.

Carla Miller [00:16:01]:
I have some questions, if that's alright.

Lucy Gernon [00:16:03]:
Do it.

Carla Miller [00:16:04]:
So the first one is on confidence. Do you think that people are learning to define confidence differently? Because I think if you had asked them in 2012 about confidence, it would be, like, very amped up extroverted version of confidence.

Lucy Gernon [00:16:21]:
And I think now we're starting to recognize, actually, you can be quietly confident as well. It doesn't always have to look like extroverted. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. There was something back in 2012 in that study in in that survey where our under the pillar of communication, forcefulness was there. So forcefulness of, you know, how you showed up being forceful. Whereas now that has been replaced actually more with inclusion, learning, and listening, and having that, you know, people respect for others. So that is exactly to your point that confidence does not mean being forceful and extroverted. One of the words that my coach helped me to reframe confidence because it's quite elusive.

Lucy Gernon [00:17:04]:
Right? And, you know, we all have these preconceived notions of what it means. To me, it's about certainty. It's about certainty in who you are, what you stand for, what you bring to the table, and certainty in your vision, certainty in your ideas. And that to me is more confidence than being the person who's loved. Interesting. And then

Carla Miller [00:17:29]:
the other thing that you mentioned or one of the other things was decisiveness. And I wonder I think this is evolving more slowly, but I am certainly seeing an increasing understanding of the fact that at least a third of us are reflective thinkers. Not me, unfortunately. I'm not very reflective at all, but a third of people are not going to perform at their best best when put on the spot when asked a question or asked for a decision. They want time to go away, think it through, analyze, and they're just more analytical and more thorough in their thinking. Do you think that we're we're starting to embrace that new definition of decisiveness as well? Because meetings still seem to be set up, don't they, to make a decision on the spot at the same time as you've had the information and everyone's looking and talking at

Lucy Gernon [00:18:12]:
the same time. So I totally agree. So first of all, I've come from an analytical back. Everyone I work with is analytical pretty much because they all come from STEM and finance and I'm obviously of a science background, so I totally get it. But it's actually those analytical people I would love to speak to right now in a sense that I fully believe that there's value in reflection. But oftentimes, well, in my experience, people don't make decisions and they procrastinate due to fear. It's not because they don't you're allowed to reflect. Of course, you need to do your due diligence.

Lucy Gernon [00:18:48]:
But there needs to come a point where you're able to make a decision and move forward. So in my course, actually, there is a lesson on decision making, and I can share the tool with you now, I think, because it's probably the tool that's getting the most excitement from the course that your listeners can implement straight away. I was thinking about how I make decisions. I'm a really fast decision maker. I always have been. And again, I didn't own this as a strength by the way. I just thought everyone did this. Okay.

Lucy Gernon [00:19:17]:
So for your listeners, you're doing things all the time that you just do. You've got to promote that. And I sat down to myself and I thought about how did I use to make decisions. And one day I was sitting at my computer and I was about to book a flight to Spain to go over to see a client, and I found myself procrastinating. K? So I had looked up everything. I knew the flight times. I knew how much they cost. I knew the seats that were available.

Lucy Gernon [00:19:45]:
I knew the time it was gonna land. And I caught myself, and I went, what the hell are you procrastinating about? You've got all the information you need. Like, what do you need to do? So when I really became aware and and checked myself, I realized the reason I wasn't making the decision wasn't because I didn't have the information. It was actually because I wasn't sure I wanted to go because at the time, there was stuff going on in my life, and my husband was gonna be away and lalalala. So I developed this framework, which I can share with you now that I think is gonna be a game changer. So I call it the do it model for decision making. Do it. So it's d is data or data, whichever you prefer to say.

Lucy Gernon [00:20:26]:
What do you say, Carla? Data or data?

Carla Miller [00:20:28]:
Data. Data.

Lucy Gernon [00:20:32]:
It first of all, it's about gathering the data. Okay? So gather all of your data. So like my flight example, get the times, get the prices, get the landing times, get your information, and then jot it down. And you know when you've got enough data. Okay? You know you know if you're if you're picking for the sake of picking. You'll absolutely know that. So you gather the data, and then there has come a point where you tune into your head, heart, and gut and go. Is this all I need, or is there something missing? If you're like, this is all I need, but I'm afraid that's fine.

Lucy Gernon [00:21:03]:
We move on to the next step. Get your data. The second step is o for options. So once you have all of your information, you assess the options. So what can you do here with this information? Number 1, you can take the flight to Spain. Number 2, you can pick this one. Number 3, you can cancel. You you list out your options.

Lucy Gernon [00:21:24]:
The 3rd step then is I for impact. So what's the impact of each of these options? And so, again, if you have 3 to 5 options, no more. You could have 20 options, but you're gonna drive yourself crazy. 3 to 5 options is what I'd recommend. And then you look at the impact of each of those decisions, and you just high level what's the potential impact. And then based on all of that, you go to the last step, which is t for trust. And this is the biggest thing I believe that people don't trust themselves. They're afraid they're going to have missed something.

Lucy Gernon [00:21:57]:
They're afraid of the consequences of making a bad decision. Like I used to make decisions that had 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 and 1,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,000 of dollars of impact because I was making decisions on batches of steroid product with the quality people on from microbiology perspective and whether or not it was gonna get to a patient. So they I know the weight of heavy decisions from a public health perspective and from a financial perspective. But there has to come a point where you trust your knowledge, you trust your expertise. You make a decision based on the information that you've collected, and then you communicate that decision to the stakeholders and your rationale for why you did so. And if you follow those 4 steps, you have a framework, and you can make a decision, and you can move forward. And just before I stopped my monologue, I remember a great leader once said to me, his name was Brian. He was the plant leader in in one of the sites I worked in.

Lucy Gernon [00:22:50]:
And he said to me, there are very few decisions that you make that can't be reversed reversed. So just make a decision. And if you have to come back and make a new decision, that's okay. And he was a great leader.

Carla Miller [00:23:03]:
I love that model. And I think it's, it's the d, the o, and the I that then enable you to trust because you've had a system that you have worked through or a checklist that you've worked through to make sure you've thought of all the important things because that that's the challenge, isn't it? It's like, oh, have I missed anything? Or, oh, what's the impact of this gonna be? How could this go wrong? So you think that all through first. You've got that all in front of you, and you can decide. I also just love the idea of getting it down on paper in front of you because it's the same with worrying. Things go round and round in our head, and we think we're being productive, but, actually, we're just going round in circles. And when you get it down on paper, you're being constructive. You're moving forward. You're making progress.

Carla Miller [00:23:45]:
So thanks for sharing that. I'm gonna think of a decision I can apply that to. I'll have a little think about that one. Now why does executive presence

Lucy Gernon [00:23:56]:
matter? Like, what difference does it make whether we have this executive presence or not? Executive presence does not matter for everybody. It matters for the ambitious, driven woman who wants to be seen as a great leader, who wants to advance her career, and who wants to play with the big boys. And I say the big boys because a lot of the women that I work with, and I'm sure you're the same, you know, the higher up the ladder, the less women that are there. And if you want to stand out amongst your peers, which I hear all the time, the boys are, you know, can I kind of say something kind of slightly inappropriate, but one of my clients said, you can add it out? She's like the willy wavers, she calls them. The boys going around waving their willies, promoting themselves all of the time. And this resentment and envy comes up sometimes in women. Okay? But actually, we need to learn from the boys. It's not about being envious.

Lucy Gernon [00:24:51]:
They're not doing anything wrong. They're owning their capabilities, and they're making it known to people. So if you want to be seen as a great leader who gets recognition, who gains new opportunities, who is top of mind for those promotions, who gets to go to present to the board, whatever those opportunities are that you want, executive presence is crucial to you standing out because it encompasses everything.

Carla Miller [00:25:18]:
And one of the things you talked about there is is trying to do, I guess, our equivalent of Willie waving. What does that look like? Because if we act like men, we're judged, aren't we? So how what does it look like to you to be confidently promoting yourself and letting people know what you're capable of?

Lucy Gernon [00:25:37]:
I think firstly, we need to be aware of our unconscious biases as women and as men. There was another study I read recently, and I was sharing this the other night. Actually, I was on a stage and someone came up to me afterwards and they were like, oh my god. You're so articulate. And I was like, what? I'm articulate. It's just funny when I share these things that, you know, you come across as being articulate. I'm not really. Okay? Totally normal.

Lucy Gernon [00:26:02]:
But, I was reading this study and it was sharing about unconscious bias in a sense that there was they had a room full of an audience, and they had a male leader do a talk presentation, and they had a female leader do it do a presentation. I don't know if you've seen it. And they asked the audience to rate the speakers. So in the first round of this of the speeches, they asked them both to drop in some little jokes throughout their presentation, and the audience was mixed. It wasn't just men. It was men and women. Mix and mixed audience. And unanimously what was coming back for the man was that, oh, he's making a joke to soften the tone and he knows how to use humor to bring the audience along.

Lucy Gernon [00:26:48]:
Whereas the feedback for the women who were doing exactly the same presentation, exactly the same things as the man, was that she's clearly using humor because she doesn't know what she's talking about. And she's but this was the women coming back saying it too. She, you know, she needs to learn when things need to be serious. But this is all of our unconscious bias that that is the gender stereotypes that we have hold against each other. I know I do. I know I catch myself sometimes looking at a woman and going, like, you are an advocate for women. Why do these calls come through for us? So it's about, first of all, really becoming super, super aware to realize that women judge women too. So I think it starts with us.

Lucy Gernon [00:27:29]:
I think, actually, women judge women far more than men judge women, actually, a 100 times more because of this unconscious, you know, bias that we have against each other. So I think it's really, really, really important when you're promoting yourself, first of all, to remember that within you, there there lives masculine and feminine energy. Within all of us, there's masculine and feminine energy. Men have it, women have it. And so where we wanna be when it comes to promoting ourselves is getting the balance of our energy might be, hey, look at me. I've just achieved this and I am amazing, and you should promote me because I'm the best. Like, it's it's rude. You know? It's brash.

Lucy Gernon [00:28:13]:
You don't wanna be doing that. You bring in a little bit of feminine energy. So for example, how I introduce myself and I've had I used to hate doing it, but now I do it. I don't even think about it is, I'll say, I'm a triple certified, executive coach. I'm a multi award winning winning businesswoman, and that's how I introduce myself because it's facts. It's actually facts. Like, we've won 4 awards. We've been nominated for 17.

Lucy Gernon [00:28:39]:
I studied my ass off to get my certifications just on another certification of positive psychology. So why wouldn't I own that? Because if I don't say that, who is going like, it's about that credibility piece. So it's exactly the same for your audience, Carla, is if you've done something great, there is no point in you being the only one who knows about it because if you want the men are not doing that. The men are promoting themselves. So I think it's important to remember you're not being conceited. It's not rude. You're literally just stating facts. That's it.

Carla Miller [00:29:14]:
It's so challenging, isn't it? And I feel like as women, a lot of that envy is because it's like, well, how come she's allowed to do that and I'm not? Like, how come she is confidently stating what she's brilliant at, and I don't feel confident doing that. Actually, this very topic came up in a therapy session recently. So I started therapy a couple of months ago. Super, super interesting. I'm really interesting to see how it's different from coaching. Anyway, I was telling the story of how when I was, I don't know how old I was, maybe 14, there was a fashion show at school. And every it was like a charity one. Everyone took turns to walk down the catwalk and back.

Carla Miller [00:29:53]:
And and I thought I should do it like a model. Like, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to be models on the catwalk. So I walked down the catwalk and back like a model with would, and I got mercilessly teased for taking myself too seriously and doing that. And I never really thought about it again, but what that taught me was it wasn't safe to be visible, to walk down and be confident and do my best and be uninhibited. And what I realized from reflection after therapy is those girls who were mean to me, they were just doing it because someone had already taught them that lesson. It's not safe to talk up. It's not safe to be confident.

Carla Miller [00:30:34]:
And so they they were cutting me down as well. In Australia, they call it tall poppy syndrome. Like, generally, Australians are very confident, but women, when they talk about their successes, when they get a little bit too successful and confident, then everyone brings them down. And so I do think women are just as bad, if not worse, than men in this because we've had it done to us so many times that for us, it's just become the norm. And anyone doing anything differently and confidently talking about themselves just rubs a bit because it's part of us wants to be able to do that, but we've had it ingrained into us by various bad experiences that it's not safe to do that. Anyway, there's my little bit of therapy brought

Lucy Gernon [00:31:16]:
to the podcast. Well, honestly, Carla, I mean, firstly, thank you for sharing that. And, like, I've been for therapy as well. I've I've done so much work on myself to get to this point. And I think that's, you know, that example you shared about your your school friends. Like when I'm doing private executive coaching, that's the root of all of it. Right? It's those those little moments that happen under the age of 11 where we're forming our beliefs about ourselves. And just like you, I mean, I was brought up to be a good girl to be seen and not heard.

Lucy Gernon [00:31:48]:
Never, you know, never get too big for your boots. My mother and father were super supportive, always told me to believe in myself, but I was always told to be quiet cause I was a chatterbox, always told to be quiet in school and everything. And I'll, I'll tell you what changed the game for me was back in 2020. When I was making the decision on, should I leave the corporate world and start this business that I've no clue how I'm going to grow, or should I stay in a career that I know I'm done with? And I was deliberate on this decision. And my father-in-law was 66 year old man, 6 foot 4, really handsome, super funny, from Dublin, the kinda guy you cook because we used to have such laughs, you know, barbecues, a few drinks in the home and things like that, and totally healthy. And then one day he got a pain in his shoulder and he went for a scan and it turned out basically that he had a brain tumor and 6 weeks after his diagnosis, he passed away. And what that taught me was that I was playing small at this point. I was not owning my worth.

Lucy Gernon [00:32:58]:
I was terrified of showing up online because all my colleagues, what would they think of me? What would they think if I started posting on LinkedIn? Who does she like, I was absolutely terrified beyond terrified. I used to feel sick doing my posts, everything. But what I realized was, and then this is why I always get emotional when I talk about this is you only get one shot at this life. Literally, you have one shot, and you have ambitions. You have desires. You have aspirations, and they're yours and you're here to fulfill those. And for me, I always had the aspiration to support other women, to achieve their goals with more confidence because I have done it. I have been there.

Lucy Gernon [00:33:43]:
I know how

Carla Miller [00:33:43]:
to do

Lucy Gernon [00:33:43]:
it. And since I have adopted that mindset, I don't genuinely don't care about what other people think because I'm, I'm, I'm serving a higher purpose. My why is, is to support other women to rise. So I really don't care what people who are not my ideal clients think about me because I'm, I'm here for you. And I think if you start to position that as I'm not doing this to big me up, genuinely, I'm not when I talk about things. It's to build trust with other people. It's so I can get, you know, so I can reach the people who want to work with me. That's the only reason I do it.

Lucy Gernon [00:34:18]:
So it's the same for your audience is if you're promoting your successes, you're not doing it just because you wanna be like, oh, look how great I am. You need to do it as part of your bigger strategy to advance your career. And if it's aligned with your goal and where you're going, well, it's a strategic move based on data. It's not about you bigging yourself up, and that's just how I think about things.

Carla Miller [00:34:41]:
Thank you for sharing that story. That's so inspiring, and I'm sorry for your loss. But amazing that you have turned that into this passion, and not playing small anymore. Very inspiring. I also think as leaders, that bigger purpose can sometimes be about advocating for your team, getting people to see the value that your team is bringing to the organization. And so for those of us who find it really hard, because I think lots of us do find it hard. If we think about promoting ourselves, it feels really uncomfortable. So I love this idea of promoting your mission, your purpose, the long term things and impact that you can achieve in the world and what your team are doing as well.

Carla Miller [00:35:21]:
That's fantastic. Now the the final thing I wanted to touch on this was about owning your strengths or really receiving compliments. And it's interesting because I've got we are both confidence coaches, aren't we? Like, we we we do confidence amongst everything else. And I came on your podcast and you asked me a question where you were like you've had really successful corporate career and now you're a very successful coach and I can't remember what the question was, but it was it was something along that and the first thing I did was feel quite uncomfortable with being called a very successful coach and downplayed that and you and I had a chat about that afterwards and you have just come on the podcast as well and someone's come and told you you're articulate and you're like. I'm not that articulate. I'm just completely normal and it's the same thing and that's what I was trying to do as well. It's go. Look.

Carla Miller [00:36:03]:
I'm just like you like there's nothing special about me. I'm just like you So even though we know this stuff, we still, when publicly, where we know lots of people are gonna be listening, still feel a bit uncomfortable with actually owning our strengths and going, yeah, I am successful. Oh, yeah. Do you know what? I am articulate. That's a strength of mine and I work hard on it. So, I'm trying to think of the question that isn't what hope is there for everybody else. So my question is, what advice would we give to everybody else or to each other that we can start taking about when we do get this positive feedback, how do we how do we own it and take it on board?

Lucy Gernon [00:36:45]:
I'm not there yet. I'm gonna be really transparent. My biggest thing, I can own my own worth, and I can tell you I practice it so I can cite all of all of the things I've done and, you know, all of that because I've practiced it and I've rehearsed it. And to me, it's just work. It doesn't you know? I find it really hard to receive and it's something I'm working on in terms of like and I think a lot of your audience will resonate and you too. It's like we make things so hard on ourselves. It's like I know how to work hard. I know how to serve people.

Lucy Gernon [00:37:16]:
I know how to big other people up. But I find it hard to really receive a compliment. So I remember, and not just compliment, I find it hard to receive good things. And it's something I'm working on in terms of, like, abundance and I do. So here's some tips. Back up, Lucy. The first thing is I think it's about definitely it's it's some all the mindset work. It's to remind yourself that you are worthy and that's where it comes back to.

Lucy Gernon [00:37:40]:
I think at the root of it all is, you know, deep down, we think we're not worthy. I know I I certainly do. I feel like sometimes I'm not worthy of success. I'm not worthy of, you know, the achievements I've had and I I share that openly. But I'm very consciously aware of it so I don't stay in victim mode in this. So I I actively will do abundance meditations. I listen to Abraham Hicks. I don't know if you're into spirituality or where you're at in your spiritual journey.

Lucy Gernon [00:38:06]:
But I listen to Abraham Hicks a lot on YouTube about receiving and Bob Proctor, things like that. So I think there's you know, I can give tactical tips around, oh, just be open to receive, but it's it's very deep rooted to being able to receive compliments. So I think it's about, first of all, reminding yourself, you know, you said a second ago, Carla, I'm not special. And I agree with you. None of us are special. I believe we're all the same. It's not that anybody is better than anybody else. I believe everybody is worthy of the same success.

Lucy Gernon [00:38:39]:
Everybody is worthy of love. And it's up to us to stop blocking us by doing that deep inner work. So, you know, the therapy, things like that can really, really help. So I think it's a lot deeper than the tactics. What do you think? What would your advice be? I I agree. I think it is

Carla Miller [00:38:56]:
a lot deeper. And I don't know that I have at the moment, it's something I struggle with as well, and I think I get as far as usually saying thank you. And then I go away, and I really value that positive feedback. So for me, like, saying thank you and not deflecting it away, I will find myself blushing as well. But so if we were in a one to one conversation, I would be like, thanks. Oh, thanks. I really appreciate that feedback. But then when it's publicly and I'm worried about being judged or people going, well, who does she think she is? And that's you nearly said that earlier, I think, that phrase, and and it definitely at school, it was who does she think she is, or she totally loves herself as if that's the worst thing ever.

Carla Miller [00:39:40]:
And

Lucy Gernon [00:39:40]:
I'm like,

Carla Miller [00:39:41]:
she totally loves herself needs to be the best compliment that you could give everyone. I'm trying to teach my 6 year old to love himself more than he loves anybody else, and it's really hard,

Lucy Gernon [00:39:51]:
isn't it? Really hard. Really hard. Well, I'm just thinking maybe we should do a little exercise live now for a second, will we? Just like a one second thing. I think you give me a compliment. I'll give you a compliment. And let's just share maybe what's like, what the block is and then allow ourselves just to actually receive it for, like, 10 seconds. What do you think? Okay. Okay.

Carla Miller [00:40:15]:
I'm scared now. Everybody listening.

Lucy Gernon [00:40:17]:
But you can start with me. Right? You you can start with me if you want. Just give me a compliment, and I'll tell you what's coming up for me. And then I'm gonna try and allow myself to receive it.

Carla Miller [00:40:27]:
Okay. I really love your passion and how much focus and energy you put into serving your clients.

Lucy Gernon [00:40:38]:
Okay. The first thing that came up for me was trying to push it away immediately. But now I'm gonna allow myself to receive it because I am passionate about my clients, and I do put a lot of energy. So thank you, Carla. And now I feel better. Okay. Carla, I love your sense of humor. I love how you teach, and I think you are super inspiring.

Lucy Gernon [00:41:04]:
I really do. I've told you this already. I think you're super inspiring.

Carla Miller [00:41:10]:
So I'm blushing. Oh, yeah. I can see it in the comment. I'm blushing. And I'm looking for the truth. That's what I'm trying to do to help me receive that is looking for the okay. Yeah. I can see teaching comes naturally to me.

Carla Miller [00:41:26]:
So I'm gonna I'm gonna hook onto that bit as a bit where I can go, yes. Okay. I see that, and I'm gonna reflect on the rest. Thank you. You are welcome. Totally awkward, the 2 of us. Everyone else

Lucy Gernon [00:41:40]:
is like Stop with the compliments.

Carla Miller [00:41:42]:
Everyone else is like, now you know what it feels like to be coached by YouTube. Brilliant. Well, I love that. We've gone in all sorts of different places today, Lucy, and I do feel like we could chat for ages. But I'm gonna what I'm gonna do is to finish up with a question that you quite often ask on your podcast, because you on your podcast, you often ask people about books. So what is your favorite book to recommend to clients?

Lucy Gernon [00:42:07]:
There's so many. I'm gonna give you a couple because I can't just pick 1. The first one I I'm big into mindset. So my biggest area of expertise would be, like, the whole mindset psychology thing. So there's a book called the Chimp Paradox by professor Steve Peters, which is going to really help you to understand how the mind works. You know, what why you act the way you act sometimes, why others act the way they act, which is the key to you know, it's another part of executive presence is nowadays people want to be seen and heard. They really expect people to listen and understand and be inclusive and all that stuff. So that that will be really, really helpful.

Lucy Gernon [00:42:45]:
Super book. And then the other book that I have to recommend to your audience, which changed my life was the life changing magic of not giving a fuck by Sarah Knight. And she talks about how we have, I hate saying the words. One of my clients was like, every time I see you here, you say the word fuck. She said, I can't believe you're saying it, but I have to say it because it's in the book. But she says every day, we all have a basically a fuck budget. How many how many x we wanna give in the day? And most of us are giving all of our f's to things that actually aren't important to us, and we have very little left over for the things that are important to us. And she shares about how she broke free of, like, working in the and she was an editor in New York in this big publishing house and how she basically started going into work, not giving an absolute crap.

Lucy Gernon [00:43:39]:
But actually what ended up happening, and I did the same by the way, the year I decided I wasn't going to care so much about work and I was going to care a little bit more about me. I actually got I performed and I got a massive long term incentive grant. So it just it it doesn't mean that you stop really caring. It means you just care a little bit more about yourself and a little bit less about the organization. So those two books I would highly recommend.

Carla Miller [00:44:04]:
Excellent. I've got her one on saying no, but I haven't got that first one. And I do feel like I need that. I'm I'm gonna be 50 next year, and I keep saying I'm waiting for that magic point where I just don't care what other people think. I'm like, when does it happen? Because I want to get there. So that book sounds like something that could help me with that. It's been such good fun, Lucy. I really love it.

Carla Miller [00:44:24]:
And I I hope that I think we've been really honest in this discussion, and I hope that that shows that you don't like technically, you and I are competitors, but actually, we're not. We've both got the same mission, and we're both just trying to do our best and make the most impact we have. And and hopefully, by modeling that, people can look and go, do you know what? Those are the fantastic women that I work with. They're not competition. We're all women that I work with. They're not competition. We're all just doing our best trying to make an impact, and that's collaborate and support each other and amplify each other's voices instead of seeing it as this scarcity thing where only one person can be at the top and we've got to compete. Because I think that's inherent in some in how we're brought up by society sometimes, and we have to consciously undo that.

Carla Miller [00:45:07]:
So you and I have consciously undone that today. I know we both do that regularly with guests on our podcast, and I've loved the conversation. Now where can people go to find out more about working with you, Lucy?

Lucy Gernon [00:45:18]:
You can visit my website. So it's lucygarner.com, or I'm really active on Instagram, LinkedIn, and then I also have the podcast. So the podcast is the 360 lead hardship podcast. In the careers category, we're regularly number 1. And, yeah, I create content every single week, every Wednesday, new topics. We have guests. I do a lot of solo episodes as well, all around inspiring and motivating women leaders to reach their potential. So, yeah, that's where you

Carla Miller [00:45:45]:
can find me. Fantastic. So head over. Follow Lucy on social media. Go and listen to her podcast. Go and subscribe to that now. Add it to your list. You can listen to it alongside this one, and get more of Lucy's wisdom.

Lucy Gernon [00:45:56]:
Thank you, Lucy. Thank you so much for having me.