High Performance Mindset | Learn from World-Class Leaders, Consultants, Athletes & Coaches about Mindset - 106: Ditch the Doubt with Speaker, Coach, and Trainer, Barbara Churchill

Episode Date: May 6, 2017

As an engaging and inspiring speaker who mixes humor with a powerful message, Barbara Churchill has been mentoring working women for over twenty years. Having built and run three successful businesses herself with revenues in seven-figures, she has learned what it takes to create the kind of work/life balance that is meaningful and sustainable. Barbara has lead sessions on self-confidence and leadership for Fortune 100 companies. She also speaks on communication, work/life integration, employee engagement and coaches clients on a one-on-one basis or small group format. Topics we discuss in this episode include: The characteristics of our thoughts How to be more aware of your thoughts Why deep breathing and mediation clear your brain And the thought wheel And how to choose the wise thoughts You can find Barbara at: www.barbarachurchill.com, on Twitter @BarbChurchill and on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/barbaraburnschurchill.

Welcome to High Performance Mindset with Dr. Sindra Kampoff. Do you want to reach your full potential, live a life of passion, go after your dreams? Each week we bring you strategies and interviews to help you ignite your mindset. Let's bring on Sindra. Welcome to the High Performance Mindset Podcast. This is your host, Sindra Kampoff, and I'm grateful that you're here, ready to listen to an interview with Barbara Churchill. Now, the goal of these interviews is to learn from the world's best leaders, athletes, and coaches and consultants all about the topic of mindset to help us reach our potential

or be high performers in our field or sport. And in today's episode 106, we hear from speaker, coach, and trainer Barbara Churchill. She talks about an essential topic of how we can increase our confidence and ditch our doubt. Now as an engaging and inspiring speaker who mixes humor with a powerful message, Barbara has been mentoring people for over 20 years. Having built and run three successful businesses herself with revenues in seven figures, she's learned what it takes to create a work-life balance that's both meaningful and sustainable. Now, Barbara has led sessions on confidence and leadership for Fortune 100 companies. And she also speaks on topics like communication, work-life integration, employee engagement, and she coaches people one-on-one. Now in today's episode, we talk about a lot of different things, such as the characteristics

of our thoughts, how to be more aware of our thoughts, why deep breathing and meditation help clear our mind. She talks about what she describes as her thought wheel. And then what's probably the most powerful thing is really how to choose wise thoughts. Now, one of the reasons that I wanted to have Barbara on this podcast is a few months ago, I was speaking to a group of female entrepreneurs. And they bring in a speaker every single month. And I asked them at the beginning of my talk, right before my talk started,

I was just connecting with people and I said, hey, who's your favorite speaker been so far? And several of them said Barbara Churchill. And the information that she provides, the applicable content she provides about your inner critic made a big difference for them. So that is why I had Barbara on, to help you just learn more about

how to manage your thoughts, how to take control of your mind. Now, before I head on to her interview, let's quick read a podcast rating and review it. This is from Don Hutchinson, who also has a podcast called Discover Your Talent Podcast. Now, Don says, I really enjoy the latest episode of Dr. Cinder's show, How to Consider Your Purpose, which was episode 105. As a longtime expert in performance psychology, she shares experiences, tools, and insight to help each of us reach a life of high performance and be fully present and engaged. So, Don, thanks so much for your rating.

He says, well done, engaged, and much needed. So thank you so much to your rating he says well done engaged and much needed so thank you so much uh to Don for that podcast review again his podcast is called discover your talent podcast super good on also available on iTunes and Stitcher radio and if you wouldn't mind if you liked this podcast today if you like this episode with Barbara man it would mean so much for us if you could head over to iTunes leave us a review there I can read yours next in the next episode. That would be so incredible. All right.

Well, without further ado, let's bring on Barbara. Barbara, I'm so excited to have you on the High Performance Mindset Podcast. Thanks so much for taking the time to talk with us today. Oh, thank you. I'm just so excited to be here. Well, I'm looking forward just to talking to you more about your work. And I already mentioned, I really want to talk to you about inner critic stuff, but kind of before we go into that stuff, I really just want you to

start off and tell us about your passion and what you do. Well, thanks. You know, it's been an interesting journey for sure. I've been in business for myself for about 24 years and it hasn't always been the same thing. So I find something, I grow a business, it's successful. And then I go, Oh, I want to change it. And I want to do something different. But my passion overall has always been about helping people and being of service to people. And, you know, whatever form that took, that's always been kind of the goal is the passion of helping other people. And so throughout my career of building these three businesses, I figured out the work-life balance that people strive for, figured out some things. And, you know, the one thing really that I looked

at was, you know, man, there's this, and I experienced it myself, but there was this thing of lack of confidence. And there was, you know, always this underlying feeling of, gosh, should I, or am I ready for it or anything like that? And I thought, you know, there's something bigger to that. So what I do and have done through all my businesses really is work with emerging leaders and established leaders to help them discern what voice in their head are they really listening to? Where are you taking your direction? And it was fascinating to me, and it still is, that so many people have no idea there's a difference. They just think everything in their head is themselves speaking. They really don't know how to discern it. So I specialize in women because I am one,

and I think that there's such a huge, even though we've made so many strides, right? Yes. There is still such a long way to go. You know, women don't have to lead like men, and men need to learn to express their feelings more. And so there's a lot of work to be done. It's really exciting work for me. I'm passionate about it. And so helping people find their authentic leadership style is really the umbrella, I guess. Awesome. Awesome.

So just to kind of get us started, when you're saying that, you know, most people don't understand that there's this voice in your head and how to discern it and the two differences. Expand on that a little bit more. Well, we all have this negative voice in our head. Now, a lot of us think that we are thinking these things in terms of being realistic and so on, but there's this voice of self-doubt that we have in our head telling us that we can't or that we're not ready. Or maybe you should go get a master's or a PhD. And really the bottom line is this voice is telling us we're not good enough. Yes. And so people are believing this and not understanding that this voice has a purpose. Now in the coaching world, it's called the inner critic. Quite frankly, in my own life, I just call it the bully in your brain

because that's what it is. It's trying to keep you small. There's a purpose to that. Our brains have over 60,000 thoughts a day. That's a lot of stuff happening. And 90% of those thoughts are just recycled from yesterday, last week, a year ago. So it's not that we're having all of these great and insightful thoughts. We're just recycling them. And of that, 80% are negative. And I don't think we really realize that because we're so

on autopilot most of our days. And there's actually a scientific name, and I'm sure you know this as well because we're in the same field, but it's a negativity bias. And it served us back in the day when we were out foraging for food and we had to be on alert for when a saber tooth tiger came by. saber-toothed until you're there, but our brains haven't caught up with where we are. So this inner critic voice is about keeping you from taking a risk. It's about keeping you small. It's all about fear. If we can keep you in the fear, then you can't make decisions. You can't move forward. You can't grow. You can't do anything, right? But we've got to discern. Which voice are you listening to? Are you listening to the one that you want or the one that's really helping you back and letting you play small? Yes. And it's a very, very clever voice. There are several ways that you can recognize it. And a lot of times it just sounds like, well, it sounds really

like it makes sense, but we have to listen to the voice. So I've got five ways to spot your inner critic. Okay. Awesome. Five suggestions. All right. Let's just like dive in. Let's dive in. This is the way we're doing it, right? Yeah. So, excuse me. So the first way everybody has experienced this, okay. And I know women in particular, it is almost swimsuit season. So we're going to go to the store. We're going to buy a swimsuit, right? We're going to go in, we're going to grab a bunch of suits that really look cute. And in our minds we think, Oh, this would be cute. This would be cute. And then we get in there and what do we all do? Oh, my stars. Yeah. We don't voices, the voices, the

voices, the criticism, all that. I have never met a woman who said to me, Oh yeah, I just bought a swimsuit. And I looked in the mirror and I looked at my butt and I thought, it looks fabulous. No, it's not how we roll, right? This voice in our heads, it's so harsh. The things that we say are critical self-talk. We would never say out loud. We would never say to our best friend. And yet we say it to ourself every day throughout the day. So that is the number one way you know it's your inner critic is that the message in your head is so harsh and negative and critical. So the number one way is to notice this voice, especially the harsh voice. The harsh, harsh thoughts that you are having. Okay.

That's usually beating yourself up, telling you what you're not. Always. Always. You know, oh my gosh, who do you think you are? Kind of things, right? Particularly if you're trying to get to that next level. Yes. If you have a lofty goal or a goal that people, you know,

that are in your life deem lofty, we really shouldn't be listening to too terribly many people's opinion because they don't know what we think. And that's what I notice within myself, you know, when I'm really trying to push myself towards a new goal or a, you know, like a book that I just finished. Then it's a little bit more difficult because that voice is a little bit more harsh, kind of what you're describing. Okay, so number one way is that. The second way you can notice is if you don't feel like you're in control of your thoughts. It's like this thought just keeps invading your brain. You don't feel like you came up with that thought. It just keeps coming in and coming in and coming at you. This happens a lot in really stressful situations

or situations where you are going from this level to like five steps above. This is just a huge stretch for you. And your inner create is freaking out inside of you going, whoa, wait a minute, hang on, don't go that far. So I'm coming at you with machine gun type thoughts. We're coming at you. So that's another way to figure out, oh my gosh, is that really me or is that the inner critic? The third way everybody has had,

I know it. It's two o'clock in the morning. You wake up, you roll over, your brain starts to go. You start thinking about everything that you didn't get done the day before, everything you have to do this day. And then you start the spin. And there is one particular thought. It's like it's a hamster wheel and it repeats and repeats and repeats and repeats. That is your inner critic. Because your inner critic, remember, is all about keeping you small and not taking any risks and not stepping outside the box. So if it keeps you in a state of spinning, you can't make a decision and move forward. Absolutely. If we're in a state of spinning, we're in a state of spinning. We're stuck. So it's a great way if you find yourself, whether it's two in the morning or two in the afternoon, it doesn't matter. If you find

yourself spinning on the same thought over and over again, wow, take a moment to notice and go, inner critic, isn't that fascinating? And look at what your situation is. So you'd advise just to notice it, notice the inner critic. It's the first step is just to notice what's happening. That's the thing, because when you notice it, number one, it stops what's happening in your head. And number two, it separates you from that voice. So now you know, okay, hang on. This isn't really what I firmly believe. This is my critic taking over whatever is going on here, right? So it's super powerful when you do that, you know? Excellent. All right. So how about the fourth way to spot your inner

critic? All right. The fourth way is, and this is where your critic gets very tricky. You are having thoughts in your head that it's kind of like it's arguing for your best interests or it's giving you reasons that are quote unquote realistic. Okay. Okay. So it's, it can be very, very convincing arguments. I mean, it really sounds like this stuff makes sense, but it's your critic and you have to be really, you have to be really diligent about listening to exactly what it's saying, because it's going to argue that it's quote unquote in your best interest to do this, but it's really not. If you think about where you want to go or what the issue is, it's really not in your best interest. What are these thoughts that you're

having? Is it about keeping you small? Is it about moving you forward? And that's really bottom line here is when your inner critic shows up, is it problem-based or solution-focused? Are the thoughts you're having all about the problem, then that's going to be your inner critic. That's your clue. Dude, this is not the real you. If it's solution focused, if it's based in curiosity or wonder or solution, then that's the real you.

That's the real you. And I talk a little bit about your inner wise self and knowing what, what that sounds like, who that is. And people are like, you know, what do you mean by that? We've all had the situation where we've made a decision or the answer came to us and it just felt solid. Yeah. There wasn't a lot of hoopla there was it was just calm knowing solid that's my next step and you just knew it for sure for sure that's that's when you're listening to your inner wise self that's the true you that's the one that has all the answers that calm quieter voice it's not

the frenzy because the inner critic voice is always loud, always, always, always loud and yells at you and says horrible things. So the two selves that you kind of would describe is this inner critic versus this inner wise self. And I like the distinguisher distinguishing you're making the way to think about it is like when it's your inner critic, it's all focused on the problem and, you know, even spinning the problem into something bigger. Whereas your wise self is really this solution focused voice you need to be listening to. Yeah. And it may not be, it may not have the solution. You know, we live in such a fast paced world. We want everything yesterday. Well, we may not have the solution, but our thoughts are going to be about I wonder if I could try it this way or I'm curious if I

brought in so-and-so that you know those kinds of things that's about somewhere in there we're going to find the answer and we then we can keep moving on absolutely absolutely all right and then do you have a fifth one I have the fifth one here's the gig on the fifth one. Here's the gig on the fifth one. Other people's voices are in your head. Other people's opinions. And I call that the outer critic because they're super sneaky. This could be a voice from your childhood. This could be a parent, something in authority. It could have been a teacher, a former boss. You know, when I was growing up, I had an eighth grade art teacher. And, you know, art teachers are always really cool. They dress cool and they can just make something out of nothing, right?

Every week I would go into art class with my sketch pad and I would try to draw this bowl of fruit in a 3D manner. And I'm telling you, I couldn't do it. And every week I would get my book back with the red ink and, you know, trying to do this and this. And I'm just like, and I looked up to this person and she handed me my sketch pad one time. And she said to me, you're just not very creative. Wow. And I thought to myself, boom, she should know. She's the authority, right? That statement stayed with me all the rest of my schooling. It completely changed my career choice because I was going to be an elementary school teacher.

Wow. But you know what? Elementary school teachers are creative. And this woman who's an authority said that I wasn't. So I better change gears. That voice stuck with me for decades. I'm not kidding you. So that's an example of how an outer critic you might listen to,

and then it becomes this inner critic. It becomes the voice that, remember, this teacher said I wasn't creative, and you can hear it, and you can even hear their voice in your head. It could be a parent, a past boss, something like that. So really what this all boils down to is we have to start being super aware of what we're thinking. Because a thought, when we boil it down, really, a thought is just a sentence in your head. And we can change the sentence. We can change the script. And a belief is just a thought that you've thought for a long, long time.

It doesn't necessarily make it true. Just because you think it doesn't make it true. And people are blown away by that because, of course, we all think everything that's in our head is true. Oh, my stars. It is not. Thank goodness, I think. Yeah, for goodness. As I'm listening to you, I'm thinking, I know that you work with women and women is the primary audience that you work with in terms of your individual coaching and your

speaking. But anybody can apply what you just said, because, you know, it doesn't matter how old we are. It doesn't matter how old we are. It doesn't matter what gender we are. It doesn't matter what we do for a living. It doesn't matter for an athlete or non-athlete, you know, what we do as a profession. This is, this is the human condition. And, you know, everybody has this inner critic, this inner voice inside your head. Everybody does. And it's fascinating to watch how, how we manage it as people in the workplace, in sports, in relationships. I mean, you know, there isn't a safety zone. It's with you all the time. And so really the key is to figure it out, is to notice when it shows up and learn how to manage it because it will always be with us so at every level of success you get to you think oh phew you

know now I'm good not true because you're gonna go to the next one and you're gonna the next one and then it might keep on getting stronger as you're working to push yourself to that next level well what happens is it's very clever and it's it says to itself, I've got to get better material because this person keeps succeeding. So you notice what you're thinking is, you know, actually what's going on that's triggering this thought, you know, causing so many achievers, high achieving people are into execution and are into this drive and drive.

And that's great on the one hand, but man, on the other hand, just taking a pause and noticing what's going on in my head. Why did this thought pop up? What am I doing right now? That's triggering that and noticing that so that the next time you're doing the same thing, you're prepared. And then asking yourself, is that thought 100% true? And the key here is 100% because so many of my clients will try to hang on

to this inner critic thought and say, well, yeah, but part of that is true. I don't have a X, Y, and Z. What I didn't say, is it partially true? If it's not 100% true, it's your inner critic and you throw it out. And how would you tell people to throw it out? What's the best way that in your opinion to do that? Well, I like to have fun in my work, I'll tell you. So in the work that I do with my clients, we create a character of our inner critic, a very specific character and so on. And so we notice when this character shows up, what we're doing, all of that kind of thing.

But here's the deal. If you're just out there figuring this out for the first, hearing this for the first time, you're like, oh my gosh, okay, I'm going to notice my next inner critic. What is this thought serving you? And it's not. So what thought could you have that makes you feel the way you want to feel? So if you're going to give a big speech and you don't think you're ready for that, and the thought in your head is, oh my gosh, I'm not ready. I'm going to bomb.

And you feel super nervous. Well, let's flip that around. How do you want to feel about this big speech? Do you want to feel calm? Do you want to feel excited? Do you want to feel confident? You know, it all depends. Well, then what would you have to think in order to feel confident or calm or excited? So now let's just replace that thought. So the old one is you're going to bomb. The new one is I know my material and I'm going to deliver it really well.

And then you just, because these will come in. I mean, 60,000 thoughts a day, right? Our brains are just flying. They're flying. So we need the pause. We need to stop and pause and notice, oh, there came that thought again. Okay, here we go. No, I'm going to deliver this with confidence, you know, blah, blah, blah,

whatever the change that is that you want to put into it. So let's say, Barbara, as people are listening, they might say, you know, how do I become more self-aware? Because I think sometimes people just perhaps lack the self-awareness to listen to their inner critic. Maybe they don't even, maybe this is the first time they've heard this kind of information and you know, they might not even realize that they have this inner critic or, you know, you kind of, what you said is like, sometimes we're just on autopilot and it's like, we, we don't, we don't

even notice it. So what do you think, what's a way to help us become more self-aware? You know, I'm a firm believer in taking deep breaths when we are striving and driving and all of that just slowing down a little bit when you do that it's amazing now I'm a certified yoga instructor I don't teach but I got my certification because I saw how powerful it was slowing down your, taking a couple of minutes to just slow everything down, slows your brain down as well. It slows your entire nervous system down. So when you take a deep inhale through your nose and then you exhale, you will feel your shoulders slide down your back and everything start to slow down. So when you're kind of in this

execution, striving, drive frenzy thing, you know, we can feel it in our body. It all tenses up. You're going to just pause. Okay. Now what's really happening and check in with yourself. What kinds of things have I been thinking for the last three hours? I think journaling is huge. I am a firm believer, and I've had this practice for years, of getting up a little bit earlier in the morning, and I just do a brain dump. And I dump everything that's in my head onto a piece of paper. And there's a woman who wrote a famous book called The Artist's Way. And I'm not an artist, right? But it was all about checking in with yourself and really becoming in tune and,

and drawing on the creativity that is within you. And she called it morning pages. Her name is Julia Cameron and three pages of your notebook. And when I started it, I felt like such an idiot because I'm sitting there writing what I'm thinking. And what I'm thinking was, this is the dumbest exercise ever. I don't have time to be doing this. I need to get going. Oh my gosh. I wonder if my husband brought the dog out. And when you just dump it, you realize how many thoughts you're, they're just streaming through your head willy nilly without any purpose at all. And I think you also can see

maybe how irrational that they are. Oh, just by writing them down or by saying them out loud, it becomes you, you, you increase your self-awareness. Huge amount. And I caution listeners to not freak out at what they're thinking because everybody is doing the same thing. So don't go back and read it and go, I am crazy. I need a therapist. Understand that everybody is like this. We just have enormous amount of stuff in our heads and you will feel so much lighter when you just dump it because our brain really isn't a very good storage unit. We think it is, but it's not. And so a lot of times when we're spinning on things, it's our brain's way of saying, I don't want to forget this. So I'm going to keep saying it over and over and over. And some of this stuff is just not useful. So when you dump, you do a

brain dump into a journal, notebook, whatever, three pages every morning. It's amazing. It'll capture everything you're thinking. It's amazing how much lighter you feel for the rest of the day. Plus you've cleared your brain. That's what meditation does. It clears your brain. Well, not very many people have, you know, half an hour, hour to spend meditating. You know, three pages can take you five minutes. Boom, you're done. So Barbara, you know, as I'm listening to, I'm thinking about your why and what kind of drives you to teach this, do this work and to teach this content about the inner critic. And I know you teach other things as well, but what is it that fuels you about this, you know, this conversation, this content?

Well, I will tell you that, um, growing up, I grew up in a household that perfection was the bar. If you didn't hit it, it wasn't cool, right? No, no stress there, no pressure. And I never hit perfection. I really tried hard, you know, even when I got all A's, you know, I could have gotten an A plus or even, you know, and that led to my own experience of my inner critic, which a lot of self-doubt. Okay. Always striving to become more and more and more. It's fascinating to me when I meet leaders who have just succeeded in amazing ways and tons of awards.

What's underneath some of that, sometimes the driving force is they're trying to prove their value. Absolutely. They're trying to prove their value. Absolutely. They're trying to prove their worth. And I know in my own case, that was what I was trying to do. I was trying to say, hey, I'm worthy, right? My tagline for my business is wisdom and worthiness at work. And I mean, in the workplace and at work in your life. So I am, I am super passionate about helping people, you know, grab their gifts and talents, their uniqueness and bring that to the, to, you know, their workplace and into what they do. Cause there's a larger purpose, you know, we're here on this earth for a larger purpose. Our lives are not a checklist, you know, waiting to be marked off, you know.

We're here to have an amazing experience. And a lot of this stuff gets in the way, especially inner critic stuff. Absolutely. And, you know, I know that we've talked about how the inner critic and what you've already shared can apply to anyone, but why women in particular? Is there, you know, Why do you think that women maybe struggle with the inner critic more so? Well, I'll tell you, we have had this millennia of being looked at in the workplace as less than, and I'm just going to use it in

the workplace. And even though we've made huge strides, it still is fascinating to me that in Fortune 500 companies, 5% of the CEOs are women. What? This is 2017. Or we have, we're earning what, 77 cents on the dollar, right? And women, when we look to be leaders, when we strive, we compare ourselves to the leaders that we see. And the leaders that we see are mainly men. So we think, oh, we've got to be like that. And here's the deal. Women, we don't have to lead like a man. We have to lead like us. Bring what's us to the table. We have feminine gifts. And I don't, you know, when I say feminine, I'm not talking about wearing pink. You know, we have feminine strengths that make us amazing leaders.

You know, why do you think the human resource departments are mainly women? I'm not saying, I'm not dissing men at all. I love men. They are great. My goal is to get women to step up and take their seat at the table and understand they don't need another degree. They don't need a PhD. They are ready.

You are ready right now today to do it because women diminish. We almost apologize for being in the room. You know, Sheryl Sandberg's book, Lean In, awesome book. And I would say, I don't want people to lean in. I want them to jump in. We've been leaning for a heck of a long time. Come on, just stand up and get your seat at the table, right? That's exactly what I was thinking about when you first said your seat at the table. I was thinking about Cheryl's book. So Barbara, you know, I know one of the things you talk about with women is the importance of embracing their own unique leadership. You know, I think you kind of said that you don't have to lead like a man,

and you're kind of just talking about that. Tell us a little bit more about the unique leadership that you think women bring to the table. Well, we are built differently than men and that's great. You know, we, we need to honor that and bring more of what our unique strengths are. So for, for example, women, well, I'll back up. Men, when they are seen as being aggressive, that is a great leadership skill. When you see a man, he's being aggressive, assertive, all that, take charge, get her done. Everybody applauds and says, yay, that's really awesome. In our society, when a woman does the exact same thing, she's looked at being aggressive and bitchy and probably not a good collaborator.

So it's not just women aren't bringing themselves to the table. It's a combination of our society doesn't really support a lot of women. And it's this whole, I don't want to say epidemic, but it kind of feels that way. And so women are looking to the leaders in their company around them for how should I be leading? And they're mostly men. But when you teach them to embrace how they show up, yeah, they wouldn't do it that way. They do it their way. Maybe it's a little bit different. It gets the same result. Okay. We talk about softer skills. That's an old saying in corporate America. I'm here to tell you softer skills. We're going to stop talking about softer skills. Communication is not a soft skill. That's

an essential skill, right? If you cannot communicate your vision, you know, what you want people to be doing, all of that, I mean, these are essential skills. And women have long been looked at as, well, they're the softer side of it. Not so much. Sure, sure. And we also need to really embrace our ability to build relationships because a good leader not only has great vision, but a good leader brings people with them and leads them beyond, right? I mean, it's all about the people that are on your team, not particularly you. It's

not an ego thing. So briefly tell us how you might work with a female that you do individual coaching with to kind of find their own unique leadership style and embrace it. Well, we do, I do a lot of work on inner critic stuff because there's a lot of layers that we need to get through. And for women to even admit that they think they are capable leaders sometimes is a really big issue. They don't want to be seen as bragging. They don't want to be seen as too much. And there's a very big difference between bragging and being confident. And so teaching the difference in that you can be confident and humble. I know lots of successful people who have that combination and it's incredibly powerful and it's, it attracts everybody, right?

So it's a lot of his mindset stuff and teaching these different nuances of leadership in that, you know, what kind of leader do you want to be? And don't give me the textbook answer. I'm asking you, not what you think you should be, or what you've heard you should be. What's important to you in this particular role? And how do you want to show up? Because you and I both know that there are so many leaders out there who are so bad and they're so unaware of how they're showing up. They think it's the team, fix the team, you know, and it's like, ah, yeah, it isn't the team. It's the person leading the team. Absolutely. Sure. You know, I think you

said something really important in terms of good leaders are confidently humble. How do you help people get to that spot where they're confidently humble? Well, it's interesting because body language is huge and women in particular really diminish, like I said earlier, when we come into a meeting, we will be loaded up with our, our laptop, you know, any reports, all of this stuff we're rushing in, you know, any reports, all of this stuff. We're rushing in, you know, we're all loaded because we think we're looking prepared. The perception is, wow, she doesn't know what she's doing. Everybody else in the room, if, and I'm, again, I'm doing broad strokes, but there may be a lot of men in the room and they really haven't brought a whole lot with them.

They have different opinions or whatever. We come in and so it's a whole different perception, you know, and how do you, if you have something to say in a meeting, how do you make that known? You know, are you raising your hand? That's asking for permission. There's so many little nuances that we don't think about because we're just so used to showing up on autopilot. So sitting a certain way and leaning into the conversation. And then if you are leading something, leaning back to allow everybody else to collaborate. I'm working with one emerging leader that came to my mind and she's new at her job and she was kind of a bull in a china shop and she didn't realize it she didn't realize how she was coming off so we were teaching her a lot

of body language things pausing counting to 10 all of these things so that she can allow for collaboration because that's what she really wanted but she didn't realize she was coming off as kind of dictatorial, you know? Sure. So there's a lot of little nuances and stuff that we work on that, you know, we don't take the time to even think about. Absolutely. That you're right, that we just might be on autopilot. We don't really notice about our body language or our self-talk or how it's showing up and how we interact. So Barbara, do you have a signature technique that you use with all of your clients that you could tell us a little bit about? Well, we really, you know, it gets back to mindset and we really do dive deep on the inner critic. That's what I do. Unpacking that because what happens is that leads to realizations and ahas on some other things in

life. And oh my, this is why I have done the exact same thing throughout my entire career, or this is why I've been on the path. And working with that plus the thought model, which is about the thought in your head. And I'll go through it very briefly with you. Sure. We have circumstances in our lives. Those are just facts, right? And they don't change.

So I'm sitting in my chair right now speaking to you. That's a fact. You can prove that. For sure. Then we have thoughts about that fact. And those thoughts will create our feelings. And then our feelings will dictate how we act, what action we take or how we behave. And those behaviors will give us a result that directly supports that original thought. And the leaders that I work with, I teach them this model

and take every thought that is troubling for them or here's the circumstances because a lot of times managers and C-suites think that you need to fix the situation. Well, really what we need to do is fix what we think about the situation. You can't fix people. We need to fix what's going on in our brains. So I teach them the thought model to use with themselves. And then I teach them how to use it with their teams. It takes the drama out of a lot of situations because we just go through it, you know? And you can coach someone who's having a difficult time. Okay, here's the situation.

What is your thought about this situation? How does that thought make you feel? And when you feel that way, how do you behave? And when you behave that way, what result do you get? And then they look back and they're, oh my gosh, no wonder. So how do you want to, and you can just plug and play. How do you want to feel in this situation? Great.

If you feel that way, how will you behave? All right. And if you behave that way, how will you, what kind of result will you get? Super. That's the result you want? Great. Notice the situation hasn't changed. So what thought do we have to think?

So you'd actually teach the leaders that you coach to bring that back to their team. And then when they're struggling with something, maybe individually or as a group, have them work through that model so they can understand how their thoughts then lead to their actions. Yeah. And that is a great way to keep people accountable. Every manager and leader I've ever met wants people to be held accountable. No one wants to be held accountable. So we have this desire for accountability, but nobody really wants to be held accountable. Just let me do my job. So when we teach the thought model, then everybody is accountable for what their thoughts are. And it really, especially those

difficult people who think that everybody else needs to be fixed. I'm okay. If they're open to it, they understand that, holy smoke, now I've got to do some work on myself. So it's very simple. It's not always easy, right? Absolutely. And it takes constant nurturing the self-talk, you know, kind of the way I describe it. It's like, you don't take a day off, you know, just always noticing what you're thinking about. And, and I will say that the leaders that I coach,

when they get into this and they utilize it and practice it, it makes them better leaders. The people around them are noticing what's going on with you. Did you, have you lost weight? You know, they can't put their hand, you know, finger on it, but it makes them better leaders. It makes them more approachable. It makes people get the buy-in more because they're believing now what's happening, what's the vision. And it really creates a cohesive team. It really does. Awesome. Awesome. Well, that sounds great, Barbara. As I'm thinking about you and the work that you do, one of the questions that I always ask people on the podcast is to tell us about a time that you failed. You know, some people, I think, who we bring in as we might think, well, they're so successful. They work with so-and-so

and so-and-so, but, you know, we've all failed along our route. So tell us about a time that didn't go so well for you and what you learned from it and perhaps what we can learn from it as well. Well, failure is such an interesting concept, don't you think? You know, to me, I really don't believe in failing. I think the only way that an individual can fail is if you stop and you do nothing and you just sit. You know, fail, the word fail has an acronym, first attempt in learning. And I learned that early on in my college career. And it was so fabulous, particularly coming from a background of, you know, strive and drive perfectionism. So, you know, a couple of years ago, this something comes to mind a couple of years ago, this something comes to mind a couple of years ago, cause I took it as a failure until I really worked my way out of it. I decided to

create an online course that women could purchase to go through some of this inner critic stuff, but online. So, you know, busy, busy women in business, you can do it on a Saturday afternoon. You can do it whenever you want. Right. I put an enormous amount of work into it, webinars and online, uh, the online course housed in my website. I mean, there's just, there's so much to do in the back of my house, right? Plus worksheets, videos, tutorials, all of that. And I launched it, had a great result from the webinar. Everybody's on, everybody's excited about it. You know, I had a great thing. And then it was just, and I thought, Oh no, what happened? Where did this go?

I had a couple of days where I was just poor me, poor me, poor me. You're a failure. Sure. My inner critic was having a field day in those two days. Here's what I didn't do. So I allow myself a couple of days to have my own pity party. And then I get into what happened, what went wrong, what did I miss? Possibility mode, right? Absolutely. That's your wise self coming out, right?

So what I did was I polled everybody and the people that are subscribed to my website. And here's what they didn't want. They didn't want one more thing they had to do on their own. They looked at it as a to-do. They wanted me to be with them. They would have been happy to pay more to have me be with them. Right? to pay more to have me be with them, right? In our minds, sometimes we're thinking we need to be less so that we'll get more, not so.

So what I discovered was have an online program but have me facilitating in a Zoom environment or something like that, right? Where it wasn't just video, where they could have the interaction from me because that's what they want the best. Awesome. So had I done my research before, I'm kind of a ready go kind of gal in, in, if you know the Colby assessment at all, um, I'm a quick start. So I'm a ready go. I didn't aim. I didn't do enough research to figure out what do they really, really want. So ask what they need and don't assume what they need.

So I mean, you know, it was, it was difficult the first few days, but then it was like, why didn't this happen? And you could have sat in your inner critic and had a pity party, but then you wouldn't have been able to move through to the solution to help your business and those people that you serve in a more effective way. It's completely true. And here's the thing. So many of us, and I'm experiencing this with my clients, so many of us go through life and we haven't really decided what kind of life we want. We're just going on autopilot. We go to work every day. We take the dog out. We make dinner. We do whatever. Well, what have you decided that you want your life to be like? Because when you decide, and it is a decision that goes to the core of who you are. You don't get to have pity parties that last weeks and months and years. You don't get to be on autopilot because you know what? You decided,

you made the decision that you are going to have this in your life and nothing is going to stop you. Nothing. Not an inner critic, not know? So that decision piece is massive. And I had just decided, you know what? There is the kind of life that I want. And it's not going to happen by just sitting around going, poor me, poor me. You know, taking action is going to get what you want to do. Excellent. I really like that, you know, that many of us haven't decided the life that we want,

but once we decide that we can start taking action. Absolutely. Excellent. I really like that, you know, that many of us haven't decided the life that we want, but once we decide that we can start taking action. Absolutely. Excellent. So Barbara, I got a few kind of final questions for you. Do you have a book or a resource that you'd recommend for those high performers who are listening? So what I really mean by high performers are just people who are working to reach their potential. They wouldn't be listening to this podcast if they weren't ready to apply some of the things that you've been talking about and really master their mindset. So what do you think? Well, here's, you know, there's so many books, you know, to pick one book, but since I talk about the inner critic a lot, and because that gets tied into your sense of value as a person and your worthiness, I mean, it goes deep. You know, these are not

light conversations. Um, Renee Brown is one of my favorite authors and she has several books out, but I kind of have them as here's your beginner kit. Here's your starter book. If you've not known about inner critic things before the gifts of imperfection. And I think for anyone who is uber successful, they need to read that. And they're going to say, why? Because we need to give ourselves permission to not be perfect. We need to give ourselves permission to not be number one at all times, because there are so many lessons to learn when you come in fourth, when you come in 12th. I mean, if you're always on top, you never learn a whole lot of stuff. You never learn when you're in a comfortable zone, right? We don't ever learn anything when

we're comfortable. We learn when we are in discomfort. Awesome. I read that book a few years ago and I had many aha moments as I was listening. It was so good. It's really, really powerful. And I highly recommend that. I have it in my office. I require my coaching clients to read it. That's good. That's good. And what final advice would you have for those high performers who are listening? So those people who just really want to be at their best more often and want to reach their goals and move forward with their dreams. Allow space. Allow space because high performers, and I am one of them, I get it.

We are achievers. We are constantly striving for that next goal to achieve. And love to execute, love to have that list done and that next award and all of that. But let's allow some space. Let's allow some space to be in the moment, to enjoy that. Let's allow space for exploration, to get curious about our own thoughts if they're serving us what's happening why are we doing this if they don't serve you choose new ones and commit to being more than doing that is so counterintuitive for people who are high achievers because we get the

rush from the doing. And I will tell you, the sweet spot is when you can just be and enjoy it and allow. That is amazing. Excellent, Barbara. Super good. What are the ways that we can connect with you? Tell us about your website, how you're on social media, and anything else like that. Sure. If you Google Barbara Churchill, C-H-U-R-C-H-I-L-L, you will find me because I am barbarchurchill.com is my website. You'll find out about my leadership coaching and speaking. And I also have women's retreats that I host, leadership retreats.

I've got one coming up in April that's full, I'm sorry to say, or anybody that wanted to come, but we have another one coming up in October. So there's information on the website there. You can find me on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn. So definitely connect with me there. We have a vibrant community and I also offer a free three-part video on how to effectively communicate on my website. So I don't spam you, but if you want to know more and you want to get better and more solid in your communication, sign up for that. It's great. Awesome. And tell us a little bit more about the retreat that you have a couple of times a year. I am telling you, I am a firm believer that we need to get away from the everyday so that we can create some space so that

new ideas can come in, new innovations, new stuff, right? So I have been on retreats myself and I know the benefits that I had. And I thought, I really want to give women an opportunity to get away because we don't give ourselves permission to do that. My husband is great at going away on a sailing trip every year with his friends, golfing weekends and all of that. And I am the responsible person who makes sure everybody else is taken care of. Well, our retreat is three nights. It's up at Grandview Lodge in Brainerd, Minnesota. If you're a

Minnesotan, you know Grandview and it's a beautiful setting. And we will spend three nights all inclusive. There's a spa up there. Oh my gosh. We will be learning about this critical voice. We will be looking at what is your vision for your future, doing some vision board work. It's an amazing experience. There's only 12 spots because we want to have a really cohesive and deep connection. And the women that attend these retreats are friends for long afterwards. It's a powerful weekend. Excellent.

Excellent. So you can head over to Barbara's website, connect with her on Facebook or Twitter, as she mentioned, LinkedIn. We'd love to hear what stood out to you about this interview. So you can post any of those locations. I'm also on Twitter, so you can tag me at Mentally for your time and your commitment to the field and being the best coach that you can be helping serve people in this unique way to help them with their inner critic. And there's several things that I got out of the interview. So I want to tell you what stood out to me. I loved how you talked about in depth about the inner critic and specifically how you called it the bully in your brain. And the five ways for us to notice, is it our inner critic or is it our really inner wise self? And just the key is to notice it, have a deep notice, you know, that that's something that you're really working to

pay attention to that inner voice. But then also ask yourself, you know, is this true 100% of the time? That was really helpful. And if it's not, you know, then that's really your inner critic. And I loved how you just talked about the importance of taking a deep breath and the space that you kind of, the inner space you talked about. And then the last quote, super good about, you know, just to be more instead of do. So I'm so glad that we were able to connect through our work with the National Speakers Association. And I'm so glad that we were able to have you

on the podcast to share your wise words and your strategies with the audience. Thank you so much. It was my pleasure, truly. Thank you for listening to High Performance Mindset. If you liked today's podcast, make a comment, share it with a friend, and join the conversation on Twitter at Mentally Underscore Strong. For more inspiration and to

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