michael quinlan

What Does It Take To Transform with Michael Quinlan

michael quinlan

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future. I’m incredibly excited to have Michael Quinlan with us for this episode. Michael is a regional vice president of sales at SAP, a transformational leader, a father, and a man I’ve had the pleasure of knowing for several years.

 

Michael is passionate about personal development and has a willingness to consider things from a different vantage point, even if it humbles his ego. After attending the SAP Masters program for leadership in London, he published a paper on transformational leadership called What Does it Take to Transform? Michael is joining us to share his story of personal and professional transformation and what leaders can do to evolve themselves and those they serve. 

“My journey into leadership was something that I really never had intended.” – Michael Quinlan

Michael had always envisioned himself as a salesperson who would make his career out of taking down big deals. After 20 years in his role and accomplishing the goals he wanted to achieve as an individual contributor, he had the itch for something more. When he realized the impact he could make by helping others in his company, he decided to step into a leadership position but quickly hit a wall.

“The training that we received was minimal at best. […] There was never any development around what it takes to lead and motivate and develop a team. So my leadership style, since I really didn’t have one, was just imitating what I had seen from leaders that had been over me in the past.” – Michael Quinlan

It’s common for people who excel as individual contributors to step into a leadership role and struggle because they lack the skill set to motivate and develop others on their team. Often, they rely on hand-me-down leadership approaches without fully understanding their purpose.

Then Michael came across the SAP master’s program on leading sales transformation.

“Transformational leadership is absolutely showing up in front of your team with trust and with vulnerability. In order for somebody to feel like they can transform, you really have to do it yourself first.” – Michael Quinlan

Transformational leadership requires self-evaluation, personal growth and actively engaging with your team to create a supportive environment. When you care for your employees and help them overcome their weaknesses, you build trust and increase productivity and performance.

“The hardest thing to do in coaching is to not give the answer.” – Michael Quinlan

Bosses give the answer; coaching managers ask questions that prompt self-reflection and empower the individual. This approach enables employees to take ownership of their words and actions and fosters personal development. When we give the answers, we reinforce an individual’s insecurity and uncertainty, taking away their power and making them more dependent on us.

There are three obstacles to transformational leadership inside a corporation:

  1. Mislabeling the type of problem
  2. Corporate hierarchies and centralizing decision-making
  3. The perception of risk

“People in middle management positions can have a big impact on the world that we live in.” – Michael Quinlan

Middle managers bridge the gap between resource-rich corporations and individuals who can execute the initiatives that would create positive change. It becomes disconcerting when these corporations have the resources to make these changes happen but aren’t willing to transform.

In a survey of 3,400 people, 70% said that their mental health is as influenced by their boss as by their spouse.

We need to acknowledge the level of influence we have to empower and bring out the best in our employees. By bravely stepping into the role and embracing vulnerability, we enable others to follow suit.

In this episode, we discuss:

  • Michael’s journey into leadership and the challenges he faced
  • The principles of transformational leadership and how they can positively impact teams and organizations
  • The three major obstacles preventing us from the transformative change in the workplace
  • Michael’s advice for transformation as an individual, leader, and team

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

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About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

christina woods

How To Break the Habits That Limit You with Hypnotherapist Christina Woods

christina woods

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

In 2019, I was attacked by two men in a parking lot. After this experience, I began to respond to harmless situations as if they were dangerous. For example, when I would walk out of a door at a department store and someone was standing there, I’d respond as if I was being attacked. 

Because of this, I became fascinated with the subconscious mind. Shortly thereafter, I discovered hypnotherapy, a form of therapy that talks to the subconscious mind in a way the mind listens. After trying hypnosis, I found I was calmer and the old triggers no longer set me off.  And this was not just as it related to the attack but in other areas of life where I felt anxious or guilty for reasons that were not logical. 

I found hypnotherapy to be a remarkable way to create profound behavioral change and began using it with my clients too.  The results they saw were profound. 

That’s why I was excited to have Christina Woods join us for this episode. Christina is a licensed Rapid Transformational Therapist®, clinical hypnotherapist, empowerment coach, and reiki master. She combines her background in corporate leadership with her life experiences in dealing with trauma and abandonment to empower other women to trust their intuition and set themselves free of self-doubt.

As the CEO and Founder of Wise Woods Hypnotherapy and Coaching, Christina has extensive experience working on complex challenges and pulling potential out of others so they can become even more extraordinary.

95% of what we think about ourselves, how we perceive the world, and how we feel comes from our subconscious. 

Hypnotherapy allows us to quiet our conscious minds to tap into our natural subconscious state and get to the root cause of the behavior, pattern, or feeling we’re experiencing. 

“It’s like gardening – you don’t just chop everything off the top, you literally need to pull out the root, or it’s just gonna keep growing.” – Christina Woods

Hypnotherapy is becoming more mainstream as people begin to realize the power of our minds. Everyone from doctors, lawyers, and athletes to stay-at-home mothers are now using hypnotherapy to shift how they view past experiences so that they can rewrite the stories that no longer serve them.

“It’s never too late to have a happy childhood if that wasn’t what you had. You can literally rewrite your story.” – Christina Woods

Our habits and patterns of behavior today are often determined by experiences we remember from the past. Sometimes we’ve interpreted events in a way that causes us to become emotionally stuck. These moments that we attach meaning to often stem from our childhood. 

“To be able to look at that now and say, ‘Oh, they had to pick me up late because they actually had two jobs and were trying to get there on time. Wow, I can see how much they loved me and were trying. They were doing their best now, but at the time, I was the last kid picked up in the dark. It felt like nobody cared about me then.'” – Christina Woods

Trauma is like a tight muscle; hypnotherapy allows you to release that tightness so the blood can get through and start circulating again. It enables you to understand what is blocking you and reframe these memories so your subconscious can release them. When you begin to acknowledge and process one experience, it can have a ripple effect and positively impact other areas of your life.

——

The Epidemic Of Not Feeling ‘Enough’ 

We live in a world of comparison and keeping up with the Joneses. Social media has wired us to never feel good enough, smart enough, skinny enough, and even spiritually enough.

Christina has found that most of her clients feel this way because somewhere along the line, they stopped trusting themselves, stopped listening to their inner voice, and gave away their personal power.

“If I get that raise, if I do this thing, if I look that way, then I’ll be enough. […] When we do that, it’s never enough; it’s a constant chase.” – Christina Woods

When we feel inadequate, we break down and fail to set boundaries, leading to resentment and a cycle of negative emotions. 

Christina’s solution is to not only find the inner voice and believe that you’re already enough but to truly feel and become the person that already has what you desire.

Most of us start backward by saying, “I’m going to do this, then I’ll have this, so then I’ll be happy.” What we really need to do is start at the frequency in line with what we want so that we can naturally decrease the cognitive dissonance between our thoughts and actions. We need to get comfortable with the uncomfortable so we’re not unwittingly self-sabotaging.

“It’s easy to become the over-doer, the hustler, the victim, one of these archetypes, when we’re trying to be enough.” – Christina Woods

This memorized state can become so ingrained in us that we wonder why we can’t change or why we keep returning to the same place, even when our external circumstances change. 

Breaking the habits that limit us from the change we want requires that we work with the subconscious mind in the way the subconscious listens.

Christina’s Practical Tips For Reprogramming 

The Morning Ritual

Christina’s approach extends beyond in-person hypnosis sessions. To start reprogramming the subconscious, she recommends a morning routine incorporating stillness and self-reflection, even for just a few minutes. Journaling and meditation are simple but effective ways to listen to your mind without distraction.

  • Journaling – An easy prompt to start with is ‘I, (your name), feel….’
  • Meditation – If you’re new to meditation, start with a couple of minutes per day. Think of a moment in the last 24 hours when you felt calm or positive, close your eyes, and allow that moment to move through you. This exercise can also be used when you’re feeling triggered.

In this episode, Christina shares:

  • The importance of understanding and reframing traumatic experiences that can block you from moving forward in your life
  • How hypnotherapy helps to tap into your subconscious and uncover the root cause of beliefs, emotions, and behaviors
  • What you can expect in a hypnosis session and ways to start reprogramming your subconscious today

Connect with Christina:

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

leading and parenting

Leading (and Parenting) In Uncertain Times

leading and parenting

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn about the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

Uncertainty is wreaking havoc in our offices and homes. For the last few years, we couldn’t even be sure what would happen 48 hours from now. This tension ultimately destroys performance, connection, and the contributions we’re here to make. It’s important that we become better leaders for these uncertain times so that we become part of the solution rather than unwittingly contributing to it.

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to appear on Oprah, but not for the reason that someone like me would dream of. When my oldest daughter was 10, she was interviewed by a popular conscious parent coach named Dr. Shaefali for a two-part series on relationships between parents and children.

During the taping, my daughter shared that sometimes when she talks to me about feeling the pressure, she doesn’t always need me to go into working mode on how to solve the problem; sometimes, she just needs a hug and the reassurance that it will be okay.

This internationally humbling experience made me realize that while I was trying to be a present and considerate, loving mother, I was too focused on fixing things and putting out fires. Even as a teenager, when she came to me with a struggle, I found myself trying to solve the problem instead of just being there to support her.

It took some time for me to realize that I was busy trying to fix something that she wasn’t asking me to fix. I was likely pushing my own agenda to get things accomplished or attempting to remove her pain because of what I may have interpreted that meant about me as her mother. 

What’s more, I realized that each time she came to talk to me and I was providing ways to fix her struggle, I was actually making her MORE uncertain and insecure.  

What does this have to do with becoming an effective leader who engages and empowers individuals, teams, or cultures to achieve great things together? 

When I talk to top performers, experts, and leaders, they often say the same thing my daughter said: “My manager doesn’t get it. He doesn’t listen. He’s not changing.” Or “She’s got her own way of doing things. She’s not interested.”

The worst part in these moments is not what’s said on the surface; it’s the underlying message that’s often interpreted and delivered when we try to solve their problems or fix things when they don’t ask us to. We may inadvertently send the message that we don’t believe in their abilities enough for them to figure it out on their own or that we are so insecure in ourselves that we need to provide solutions in order to take us out of our discomfort. Neither of these makes another more certain or more secure.

Why is this important?  

Because insecurity masks wisdom.

Insecurity is a result of uncertainty. And insecurity blocks our wisdom, which leads directly to disengagement, disempowerment, and underperformance. 

Insecurity leads to the very things we don’t want. Yet too often we are contributing to increasing uncertainty and insecurity without being aware of it.  In this way, we contribute to the very problem we are seeking to solve.

In a survey of 3,400 people published in January 2023 by human resources software firm UKG, Inc., nearly 70% said bosses influenced their mental health as much as a spouse or partner. This figure does not surprise me but does confirm the importance of your role as a leader — especially in these uncertain times. 

I know it’s not easy being a leader when there continues to be so much happening in our world. Take the swing of the markets, the decreased reliability on banks, shootings, and not to mention the host of things we face on a personal level; then you add the weight of knowing that you, as a leader, have that level of influence over others. Whether right or wrong, it’s real. It doesn’t mean your job is easy, but it does mean it’s important. 

We spend 66% of our adult lives at work. This is why improving our ability to lead during uncertain times is so important. What you do, what you say, and how you treat others matters in ways you probably aren’t aware of. We must be conscious of the messages we send to those we lead and choose to be positively infectious leaders. 

Nine out of the 10 people that you lead are not lacking the skill set or ability to make significant contributions. What gets in their way is not their skill set but their uncertainty and insecurity. We, as leaders, have an opportunity and responsibility to do what we can to help them break through it. 

Inspiring confidence is key to managing people, especially in uncertain and changing times. 

Now more than ever is the time to acknowledge the anxiety those around us may have, as well as to value their work. Not just their outcomes, but their efforts too. 

I’m sharing with you three ways to lead in uncertain times so that you can create an empowered and engaged culture – one individual at a time. 

3 Shifts to Make in Uncertain Times

  1. Have a process to grow your inner game. We have to have a strategy to process life.  We can’t lead beyond ourselves. Being able to process our own stuff and become more self-aware is the #1 advantage. Your business and leadership grow in direct proportion to your growth. 
  2. Know your intention: Ask yourself – “Am I speaking to cultivate the best version of the individual I am leading or my own agenda? Am I leading from my own insecurities or my wisdom?” Understand that when you take care of your people, business takes care of itself. 
  3. Listen before leaning in & show appreciation. Validate the person’s feelings rather than trying to take them out of their struggle immediately. After that, ask better questions to help them access their own wisdom and eventually be able to do it independently. We also need to recognize people’s anxieties and the value that they bring and share that with them. People want to know that you know them, and we all need encouragement these days.

By making these shifts, you can be magnanimous and positively infectious wherever you are serving others.

In this episode, I share:

  • A lesson I learned from my daughter to show how easy it is to unwittingly contribute to the very problems we are seeking to solve
  • Why knowing how to lead in uncertain times is more critical than ever 
  • The three fundamentals that every leader should apply to engage and empower cultures, teams, individuals, and even children in these uncertain times

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

making-the-pivot

Making the Pivot You’ve Been Contemplating Real This Season

making-the-pivot

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that has not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

Have you been thinking about making a significant change in your work or your approach to it?  

Maybe your friend calls with a business idea and wants you to join him. You read a Patrick Lencioni book and are inspired to bring a new vision to your workplace? Or you see a need and feel called to fulfill it because — in most moments — you believe you have what it takes to be successful?

If so, you’re being called to one of life’s pivots. It’s natural. The seasons have changed and you’re not the same person you were in the past.

Through the years, I’ve had my own pivots and been a part of hundreds more.  And whether our pivots are forced upon us or we choose them, the reality is pivots can be scary, painful, and downright embarrassing!  

The good news is that there are ways to successfully navigate these transitions with greater ease, grace, and peace of mind. 

Too often in these moments, our first move is to want to dive into all of the things we need to do. But to achieve your goals, you don’t need to focus solely on doing more. 

You don’t need another training or strategy. You don’t need to do more networking, cold-calling or goal-setting; you need to understand what it takes to change your thoughts and beliefs.

In other words, you need to look at who you need to become to create a new ending to the story you’re writing. 

You can’t create anything new if you don’t understand and remove your blocks to magnetize success. This means a successful pivot begins with strengthening your mindset. Here are three of my favorites for your next pivot.

  • Have a process to process your pivot.  

Having a process, system, or person to help process life and all its disruptions and resistance is critical to your pivot. In the process, you’ll likely look at where you’re resisting the success you desire. 

Ask yourself, “Where am I blocking the success I want?” “What story needs to heal that is unsupportive of where I’m headed?

  • Know your ‘why’

It’s important to understand that your ‘why’ changes throughout your life. It’s crucial to regularly connect with your ‘why’ so you can identify areas of misalignment and make the necessary change. We also need to understand why we want to make the change because it will keep us motivated and committed to our goals when things get tough. You’ll know you’ve found your ‘why’ when you feel emotional thinking about it.

Ask yourself, “Where am I not congruent with my ‘why’ today?

  • Write the ending to your story

Imagine being in the future and looking back at your pivot. What story would you want to tell? For example, I got divorced, and then I reconnected to my ‘why’. I became the most amazing parent, changed to my most incredible supportive career, and attracted a loving relationship.

Pivots are an inevitable part of life. By having a process to do the work, knowing your ‘why’, and writing a new ending to your story, you’ll be better equipped to lean into your pivot and magnetize your success – no matter what it is.

In this episode, I share:

  • The importance of having a process to navigate through life’s transitions
  • The importance to acknowledge the situation we’re in, even if it’s painful or scary
  • How to be honest about where we are and what we want 
  • The significance of knowing your ‘why’ and identifying disconnect
  • The benefits of writing a new ending to your story and mentally rehearsing the outcome of your pivot

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

How-to-Eliminate-the-Pressure-so-that-You-can-Enhance-Your-Career-Anytime-You-Want

How To Eliminate the Pressure So That You Can Enhance Your Career Anytime You Want

enhance your career

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that not only changed my life but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

When I’m asked about careers, it usually falls into one of three categories – how to enhance one’s career, achieve a specific goal, or transition into a new one. 

Regardless of the reason, there are three biases that repeatedly show up in these conversations. These biases are the very things that create the pressure cookers that prevent individuals from making the decisions and taking the actions to make the changes they want, whether that’s more satisfaction, revenue, impact, or a combination of all three.

In order to dial down the pressure you may also be experiencing in your career, you first need to understand these biases and the importance of acknowledging and overcoming them to catapult yourself forward.

The first of the three biases is the LINEAR BIAS. The linear bias is the belief that our life and work should always be moving forward and upward. 

While society tells us that we should always be progressing, life just doesn’t work this way. Sometimes it pauses; sometimes it oscillates; sometimes it moves two steps forward and one step back. 

In the book Life is in the Transitions by Bruce Fellier, he identifies over 116 disruptors, including lay-offs, illness, births, moves, and divorce. He points out that this expectation around life being linear puts a great deal of anxiety on us. That pressure to always be ascending causes us to be in a constant state of self-judgment. This self-made pressure leads to underperformance and undermines our careers.  

If something happens, it’s supposed to happen. You can fight it or not fight it, but it’s still real. 

That judgment and resistance to accepting what’s happening is part of the additional pressure we unwittingly allow into our world. This results in the inability to break through to new levels or enhance our careers at the rate we want. 

When you release the idea that you need to be constantly progressing, you’ll find you can relax, trust yourself, and have your eyes open to the golden opportunities in front of you. 

The second bias is the SCARCITY BIAS. The scarcity bias states that there is not enough of what you need. 

You may feel there isn’t enough opportunity, time, or money to be successful. You may think the industry is too saturated and there’s not enough need in the marketplace for your talent.

You and I both know your talent is needed. Has anyone ever been grateful for the service you offered? I’m betting they have. People need what you have to give. Don’t let this bias that there’s not enough, hold you back from leading your desired career.

The third bias is the HARD WORK BIAS. The hard work bias is that success is a result of hard work.  We know this isn’t true.  If it was true, everyone who worked hard would be successful.

This unconscious idea that achieving your goal needs to be difficult is precisely why so many people’s days are ruled by low-grade stress, and it gets in the way of building your career to the level you want. 

We don’t get what we want in life; we get our habits. 

I was talking to an attorney, James, this week.  As a partner at his firm, he’s responsible for bringing in new business. Three years ago he landed the firm’s largest account. Since then he hasn’t brought in any new business. Because of this, he says his confidence is shattered; he wonders what is wrong with him and why he can’t follow through on his good ideas.

Through our conversation, I saw that he held all three of these biases.  They were affecting how he managed his days and the results of his career.

Biases shape our habits, so it’s important to be aware of them when looking to build a rewarding career. 

Do you insist that you should be farther than you are today? Do you seek opportunities or tell yourself there isn’t enough time, opportunity, or support to succeed at your greatest desires? Do you make things harder than they need to be? 

If any of these apply to you, the best way to have a massive shift in your career is to recognize these biases and understand that when we’re coming from these low-grade emotions, we’re actually resisting the very thing we say that we want. 

Here’s the practice that will allow you to eliminate the pressure and enhance your career anytime you want.

  1. Get honest about your biases. Step outside of yourself and become the observer. How do you resist allowing yourself to expand? Do you spend everything you make? Are you addicted to the adrenaline of being too busy?
  2. Think of a client that you’ve already helped or a time when you succeeded in doing what it is that you want to do more of now. Write it down. Recount the experience and how great it was for the client you served. Then, consider what might have happened if you weren’t there. When life feels like you’re in a pressure cooker, return to this moment to remember your ‘why.’
  3. For one week, bring this same set of feelings to as many as you can. Focus not on what it will do for you or your career.  Instead, focus on what you are able to bring to others.  Then give it away for one week without attachment to the outcome.  Without any meaning other than you are doing your most important work.  That you are moving in your ‘right’ direction.   

We all have moments of pressure and stress. You can turn this around by dropping your old stories and your past and looking at how to give more of yourself. When you do this, your work opportunities will increase, your business connections will improve, you’ll feel better about yourself and your relationships, sleep better, and the stress and pressure that has become a habit over the past few years will dissipate. 

In this episode, I share:

  • The three major biases that are causing resistance and stopping you from up-leveling your career
  • How these biases form our habits and affect how we move through life
  • The practice that will allow you to make a quantum shift and experience a breakthrough in your career 

Resources and related episodes:

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

write your new future

The Most Influential Practice To Write Your New Future

write your new future

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the science-backed practice that not only changed my life, but also the lives of countless people over the last two decades. This is something you can’t ignore if you want to achieve that great goal you identified for this year and write your new future.

There are a handful of days in my life that stand out in my memory because of their mind-blowing impact on me. One, in particular, was the day I was given a life-changing practice that taught me how to overcome what was keeping me from making the necessary changes in my life so that I could enjoy more happiness and success. I doubted it when I first received it, but then I saw its effects on my life and the lives of people just like you over the last two decades.

Today, we’re continuing our 3-part series where you will get just what you need to do your most satisfying work and create meaningful change and the life you really want. 

In Part 1, Get Your Great Goal Down, we talked about overcoming the #1 mistake high achievers make when setting goals and how to overcome it. 

In Part 2, The #1 Ability You Need to Elevate Your Life in 2023, we covered what self-aware, high-performers understand and do to raise their performance and satisfaction at work and in life. 

In Part 3, I’m teaching you something you absolutely cannot ignore if you want to do the best work of your career — the simple, science-backed practice used by some of the greatest change-makers in history to create things that have never before existed. It doesn’t take hours to do, but without a doubt, because it works with the brain in the way the brain works, it will create and allow for the change that you desire.

If you think about the great leaders in history – Gandhi, Thomas Edison, Martin Luther King, Jr. – they all shared one common thing: they each believed so strongly in a future that was so real in their minds that they began to live as if it was already happening, regardless of their circumstances.

Those who have achieved great things in life once became so possessed with a future vision that, although it could not yet be seen in their current reality, they behaved as if that vision was already happening. When they did that, their environment bent to their behavior. 

The key to writing your new future and creating the life of happiness that you desire is to become unconditionally committed to your vision regardless of your current circumstances.

While coaching a CEO the other day, I challenged her to put this practice into action. Whereas her company had always been the manufacturer of an automotive line, in her vision, she created products for an entirely new industry: medical. But, her current reality didn’t reflect evidence that that was even possible. Regardless, she became completely immersed in the reality of her vision getting her to the future reality in advance. I know that the same has happened to you, you probably haven’t recognized it yet. 

How often have you stopped working on a goal or an objective because your environment didn’t show evidence that you need to stay the course?

Perhaps you were waiting for your work environment to reflect leadership that publicly endorses your special project. Perhaps you are waiting for employees to like coming to work before you make any changes in your leadership style. 

Oftentimes, we are waiting for some type of evidence in our environments before we actually begin to believe in this new vision and take action. But, it’s in these moments when we let our environment control us instead of communicating with our brains to take action that will then change our environment. We think the environment should lead with change and then we will follow suit, but that’s absolutely backward. This is the #1 reason why so many of us in this overstretched and the unfocused world won’t get the change we want this year.

Greatness, however you define it, requires you to hold onto your dream, your vision, or your goal regardless of the circumstances in front of you.

So, how do you do this when the reality is staring you in the face and your brain has given you 100 pounds of evidence that it’s not going to work out? You mentally rehearse it.

Those great leaders often reminded themselves of the reality they were envisioning and to do this, they had to have mental rehearsals. Having a mental rehearsal means stepping into the state of being of your future vision. This state of coming from your thoughts, your feelings, and your behaviors. Stepping into this state of being means understanding how you would think, how you would feel, and how you would behave in this ideal future and then –and here’s the key – leading your present life in that way.

Does this sound at all complicated? Well, here’s the truth for you: we are all mentally rehearsing something. 

We’re mentally rehearsing whatever is ruminating in our minds all day long:

  • I never have enough time
  • I’m in trouble
  • This isn’t going to work
  • These people are all the same
  • It’s never going to change

What brain science demonstrates is that what we mentally rehearse, we create. Oftentimes, we are mentally rehearsing an unwanted past or a dreaded future. That alone is why we may continue to repeat the limited reality we have come to know and dream to change.

The good news is that we can change our brains,  and in order to live a life of happiness and success, we have to change our brains. We have to create a new way of being for ourselves and we can do this just by thinking differently. 

If we repeatedly think about something to the exclusion of everything else, we will encounter a moment when the thought becomes the experience.

When this occurs, neurons fire together and start rewiring your brain. Your rewired programming then creates the results you want. Let’s face it.  Your existing hardware is not going to take you to that new reality. If it could, it already would have happened.

The best way to begin your mental rehearsal practice and write your new future is with these two questions:

  • What would it be like to live in that reality?
  • What if I was the person living in that reality?

Once you begin to immerse yourself in these answers, you will feel it. Then behave like that in the present time. In time, you will see that your environment bends to you and your success.  

Your Call To Action for this week is to practice mental rehearsal daily.

It doesn’t need to take long, perhaps just 2-4 minutes, and it’s best done in the morning or right before bed. This is when your brain is most receptive to suggested thoughts. You can either write something down and read it to yourself each day or envision it in the silent moment. During this process, understand that emotion is the ultimate conductor to fire those neurons and to really get your brain to change. 

I’d love to hear from you when you’ve done this practice. Commit yourself to mentally rehearsing like the leader who simply saw their idea as so, before it ever came to be. Become obsessed. 

Share what you find with me below or over on Instagram at @ritahyland. 

In this episode I share:

  • The simple, science-backed practice I once resisted but provided a massive desired change in my life once I accepted and implemented it
  • An example of this practice in action with a client and how it can elicit a completely different future reality
  • What really keeps you stuck in a limited reality (that should have been taught in school) and what you can do to more easily create life-changing work and a life guided by your design 

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

the 1 ability you need to elevate your life in 2023 playing full out rita hyland podcast

The #1 Ability You Need To Elevate Your Life In 2023

the #1 ability you need to elevate your life in 2023 rita hyland playing full out

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn what self-aware, high-performers understand and do to raise their performance and satisfaction in life and why it’s the #1 ability you need to develop this year.

Sometimes when we want to get to elevate an area of our lives, we believe we need to move faster and work harder.  As a result of the stress, we lose our focus and any hope of executing our best ideas, work, and creativity.   

We’re continuing our 3-part series that will teach you just what you need to do your most satisfying work and set yourself up for the life you really want. In Part 1, Get Your Great Goal Down, we talked about overcoming the #1 mistake high achievers make when setting goals and how to overcome it.  

Today, I want to show you the #1 ability you most need to hone your focus so that you make decisions from your highest level state of being instead of from the rampant stressed-out level and pace that too many are seeing as ‘normal.’

Let’s start with a story about a man named John

John, a respected leader in his field of work, came to work with me with the goal of managing the increasing stress levels and pace of his life. He’d been feeling overextended at work and absolutely exhausted from the stress and pace of his life. He noticed he was more irritable and anxious than he used to be. 

He didn’t feel there was ever any time for what he really wanted: freedom to focus his time and energy on his priorities. 

John and I have worked together for a few months and recently had a conversation that was notably different than prior ones. This one was about his recent experience when his teenage daughter came home sick after drinking at a party. 

At the time, John’s wife was out of town and it was just him and the kids.  He was unsure of how to respond to his daughter and noticed that he was both worried and angry. He noticed his stress dropping and rising as he watched his daughter. He also noticed his immediate pull to react impulsively.  

Where he typically would react by reprimanding his daughter, by raising his voice to command attention, he instead paused and observed.

At that moment, he stood next to his daughter at the toilet and searched Google for an answer. In his search, he clicked a link that said, “Stay calm. Your child is in a vulnerable state.” These words were just enough to allow him to recall the work we’d done together.. 

He’d recently gotten feedback from his team that he was impatient, intimidating, and not listening well. This was holding him back, it was holding his team back from fully trusting him, and holding everyone back from achieving as much as they could together. He knew this same reactivity had impacted his personal life too. The relationship between himself and his daughter had deteriorated too. 

Stress steals our focus. When this happens, we are no longer in control of our lives.

We start living in survival mode (flying in late to meetings, being annoyed at colleagues who aren’t doing things the way we do them, being hard on ourselves, yelling at our kids, and more) as our normal way of being. So, we race harder. We move faster until we’re further stressed out. Simultaneously, the goals and commitments we’d love to prioritize have no way of being executed.

The 1 thing that’s robbing us of the amazing capacity we have to get our lives back is our ability to move fluidly between the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS).

Think of your SNS as your “Survival Mode” and your PNS as your “Peaceful State” and both generate their own types of emotions.

Survival Mode emotions include:

  • stress
  • imbalance
  • breakdowns
  • contraction
  • fears
  • struggle
  • frustration

Peaceful State emotions include:

  • expansion
  • health
  • order
  • trust
  • repair
  • love

Each of us is familiar with Survival Mode. It’s an ability we’ve been gifted with to protect us in the presence of danger. It alerts us to a threat and powers us to escape. This was especially useful during caveman days when we needed this stress response to escape animals seeking to hunt us. But in modern days, we get these same triggers when we’re stuck in traffic or we’re late for a meeting. Unlike animals and our caveman ancestors, we don’t come out of these stressful states as easily. 

We don’t realize when we are leading our lives from triggered, stressed-out states. As a result, it prevents us from going after our most desired goals and priorities. 

In order to begin allowing yourself to fluidly transition between your SNS and PNS, I want to challenge you for the next week to be aware when you are operating in your SNS and then recognize any thought, behavior, or emotion you’re holding that is unloving to yourself. This is going to be the beginning of a detox that will liberate you, your body, and your emotional addiction to whatever it is that you worry about. 

What this exercise will do is begin to impede the signals of survival emotions from conditioning you any further. This will help you begin to tune those out which will free up energy that you can then use for something more beneficial. 

When you do this repeatedly, you will begin leading from your parasympathetic nervous system  (PNS) instead of your sympathetic nervous system (SNS). Think survival mode. 

Remember, you are not hardwired to be a certain way for the rest of your life. You are not hardwired to be riddled with stress on a daily basis.  And nothing profound was ever created in survival mode. 

Your ability to fluidly shift from your SNS to your PNS will be the #1 ability to elevate your life this year to create your highest levels of performance and satisfaction.  When you do it you will gain a significant advantage in business and life. 

In this episode I share:

  • The #1 ability you need to develop to elevate your performance
  • The most important thing you will do to hone your focus this year
  • A personal story exhibiting this ability in action and how it can play out and create new, ideal relationships and performance

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

the #1 ability you need to elevate your life in 2023 rita hyland playing full out podcast

Get Your Great Goal Down

get your great goal down playing full out rita hyland

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn what to focus on as the year takes off so that you can do your most satisfying work and set yourself up for the life you really want.

It’s 2023, can you believe it? The new year is here and it’s going to be a fabulous one!

I know this for certain because you have never been more experienced, wiser, and ready for what’s to come. This year is filled with an abundance of potential, and it’s the perfect opportunity for you to take advantage of the fresh slate that the new year brings.

This is your year to get your best and most satisfying work of your career out into the world and enjoy a vibrant life with the freedom to do whatever else it is you want.

However, what I see happen all too as the year progresses, among fast-paced, high-contributors like yourself,  those who are serious about growing themselves and making a real difference in their businesses and at home is that they get caught back up in the fast-paced work environment and personal lives that they lead. 

Unfortunately, this can lead to distraction and frustration, and it’s at this point that many people make one killer mistake: they begin to think that their vision isn’t that important.

But let me tell you, it is! Like an airplane needs a runway to take off, you need your vision to take off too.  As I experienced on an airplane recently, without an assigned runway,  we simply remain stuck on the tarmac. 

Without a clear vision, you’ll find yourself floating through life day-to-day, keeping yourself busy and eventually realizing you have nothing to show for all the time that’s passed you by. Maybe this feels a bit familiar to you. Maybe you’ve started your vision and you had the best intentions for it, but you’ve become distracted from it. You begin to say, “I’ll do it later.” Maybe you’re no longer lit up by the vision you’ve set out for yourself.

Friend, I want you to know that you are not alone and you are not behind. You are right on time. Each one of us has felt this in some way, so today I am going to get you back on the direct flight pattern to guarantee that you can get your vision down so you can  get started immediately. 

I want you to have the freedom to focus on planning your dream vacation to Italy  you want and to work on your business without wondering what you’re missing or second-guessing if you are doing enough.  

Let’s start by covering the biggest reason that we miss creating a vision and great goals each year and how to resolve it.  

The big mistake we make when it comes to goals is that we make our goals mean something they do not.

The first way we do this is by attaching our own personal value, worth, or adequacy to the goal.  We believe that if we hit the goal it means we’re good enough.  If we don’t, it validates our inadequacy.  

The second interpretation we put on goals is that we believe that the bigger the goal, the bigger its meaning.  If we shoot a basket in our backyard and miss, no big deal.  But when we take the same shot at the United Center, we make it mean something entirely different.  Or if we say we want to build 100 widgets instead of 10 widgets, that extra zero means so much more. 

The meanings we give our goals riddle us with stress which then contracts our ability to deploy our talents and ingenuity.  A lot of times the meanings keep us from even setting our goals. 

What we can do to resolve this is to first understand that goals are neutral. They are directions to guide us to our next action. Nothing more.

The meanings you give or don’t give to your goals change everything. When you view your goals as neutral, you will feel a sense of relief that will lead you to taking focused and deliberate action. 

Remember that our goals are not designed to assess us or our worth. Our goals are designed to guide us, to give us direction. Be aware of when you are leaning towards creating a goal that you think is going to validate you in some way. 

Once you change your mindset around goals, you are ready to clarify and declare them. I’m here to help you get that done.

  1. Begin by answering what on December 31st of this year would make you shout, “This has been an incredible  year?” Jot down 5-7 things that would light you up and excite you to experience, build, or achieve.  
  2. Once you do this, your next step is to narrow your focus. Circle 3 of those that are the most significant. Once you get your top three, highlight the ONE that you know is calling you and cannot wait.  This is it.  Your #1 goal.  It’s the goal that excites and inspires you to show up as a greater version of who you are today. 
  3. Know who becomes better off when you achieve your goal. Why does achieving your great goal matter? What is the cost and who is hurt when you don’t achieve your goal? Why is it so important? When you understand the impact of your one great goal, it’s going to help you move towards your goal when difficult moments arise.  Knowing your ‘why’ becomes your fuel in the inevitable tough times. 

That’s it. Once you do this you will have done more than 98% of the world will do this year when it comes to setting goals. 

BONUS: To get yourself going, write down the next 5 to 7 action steps you will take to achieve it.

By following these three simple steps, you’ll be able to sharpen your vision, focus on what’s important, and take action that will lead you closer to your fabulous year. 

Stay tuned for the next episode of this series where you will dismantle the hardest part of starting and following through on the best and most satisfying year of your life… learning how to identify and overcome the mental blocks. 

These are the things that keep well-meaning high-contributors stuck working too many hours and not enjoying the freedom in their lifestyle that they want. You’re here to achieve great things and live a full and vibrant life.  Let’s make sure that happens this year!

In this episode I share:

  • Part 1 of my 3-part series to help you get the focus so that you have the freedom to achieve your best and most satisfying work and vibrant life this year
  • 2 key reasons that make setting our goals difficult and how to get relief immediately 
  • 3 simple steps to take to sharpen your vision, get focused, and take action
  •  The right order and approach to narrow down what you REALLY want

 

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

reviewing the year before moving on playing full out rita hyland

Reviewing the Year Before Moving On

reviewing the year before moving on playing full out rita hyland

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the simple practice to review the year that can help you grow in every area of your life.

What I am profoundly aware of is that there have been many times in my life when I have – in the simplest terms – been wrong. 

For the longest time, I believed that I would hit a certain age and magically everything that I wanted would happen. For years, I believed that it would all just come together and I judged myself when it didn’t. 

I now realize that is not the truth – that wisdom doesn’t just arrive based on time, age, or even some external situation, but it requires deliberate actions to learn and grow.

I realized that my thoughts on success were all wrong – success is an inside-outside job. The most successful people are those that feel good in their skin, have humility and confidence, forgive themselves, and have the awareness to reevaluate their lives. 

And that last one is what I am discussing today.

Reevaluation is absolutely necessary as our old ways are not always our best ways. Without reevaluation, we make things a lot harder on ourselves as we continue to repeat things we’re unconscious that we’re doing. Conversely, there are also our achievements, our successes, and our positive habits that deserve and require our acknowledgment.

So, at a time like the end of the year when there is a collective pause, it’s important to step back, review what worked in the past year and what didn’t work well, and consciously identify what it is we want to carry with us into the new year. 

To help myself and my clients do so, I implement a simple practice I call Catch & Release each year. The practice will help you know exactly what it is you want to take with you into the year ahead, what you want to let go of and why. Let’s get into it.

  1. Celebrate your wins and accomplishments

    1. My suggestion during this step is to grab your calendar and go week by week reviewing gatherings you’ve had with family and friends, projects you accomplished at work, improvements to your house, and any other experiences you have had in the past year. This is very helpful because, if you’re like me, you may forget all the great moments you’ve experienced. 

  2. Acknowledge your mistakes and challenges with grace

    1. Just as we have reviewed our wins, we want to also take a moment to review our mistakes or difficult moments of the year. These may be goals you didn’t reach, projects you didn’t finish, or something that didn’t go as planned. Although these can be difficult to look at, they may actually become gold for you in designing the year ahead.

  3. Identify insights from both lists

    1. Once you’ve made these two lists, go through them noting next to each what insight or lesson has come from that experience. Nothing happens without a purpose, so ask yourself, “What did I learn from this?” It may have been to ask for more help or for what you want, to delegate and let go of more, or to set bigger boundaries. Look at the themes you can notice with each win and setback. 

  4. Forgive someone or yourself

    1. Forgiveness allows us to make space for other things to enter. When we’re holding grudges or judges, they retain and take energy which depletes us of the fuel for other great endeavors and dreams. What is it that you need to forgive and release so you can welcome something wonderful and extraordinary?

  5. Ask “What do I need to say goodbye to?”

    1. Maybe you’re ready to say goodbye to a relationship that isn’t serving you or to pleasing someone that’s too difficult to please and you’ve realized that’s no longer your responsibility. Being conscious of what you need to say goodbye to allows you to take the next step toward what you’d like to have.

Once you’ve gone through the Catch & Release practice, you can create your master list listing what you’re going to “catch” on the left side and what you will release on the right. As an added bonus, cut off the Release side and burn it. Perform a ceremonial goodbye and officially release those things from your life entirely. 

Once you do this, you will find more freedom to design and pursue your ultimate future.

Before you sign off on the past year, thank it for everything: the positives and the messiness. Express gratitude. Each year is another opportunity to expand ourselves.  

There is much to come in the year ahead!

Your Call to Action this week is to give yourself the gift of a break to recharge.

Take this opportunity to rest and review the past year before you move into the year ahead. The pause is a requirement to reenter the game of life with strength. 

 

In this episode I share:

  • My go-to 5-step practice for reviewing the year or evaluating the end of any significant cycle to ensure growth and success in the upcoming year
  • Personal lessons I’ve learned in life that only came from a practice of reevaluating  
  • How this practice has impacted both my life and the lives of my clients over the years

 

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

why who you are matters just as much as the work playing full out rita hyland

Why Who You Are Matters Just As Much As The Work

why who you are matters just as much as the work playing full out with rita hyland

Listen to the full podcast episode to learn the 1 thing I wish someone had told me and 1 of the most common mistakes I often see being made by people in leadership, business, and entrepreneurship.

This week, during a podcast interview, I was asked, “What 3 things do you wish someone had told you?” It inspired me to share with you the most significant one and also the most uncomfortable one for me to relive and share publicly.

Early on in my career, I was hired to present a keynote for a product company. As I organized my thoughts on what I would include in my speech, I was hung up on something. There were thoughts and images of very well-known speakers who I’d seen do successful keynote speeches in the past and I began to compare myself to them. 

Since I had never given a presentation to this amount of people before, I was suffering from a bout of imposter syndrome. 

Looking back now, it makes me squirm thinking of how I approached that presentation. But, the issue didn’t come from what I was speaking on or the words I chose to use. The real issue lied in who I was being as I presented.

Imposter syndrome led to self-doubt which pushed me towards attempting to mirror what I admired in other speakers. Now, there is some logic to this. We always hear “Success leaves clues. Watch what others are doing and repeat it.” However, in this case, my attempt to mirror someone else completely overshadowed the most important thing: who I truly was. 

Each of us has the instinctive capability to sense a disconnect between who a person is behaving as and who they truly are. When this happens, we immediately lose trust in that person. 

Here’s what I wish someone had told me: Who you are matters just as much as the work you do. People want you just as much as they want your strategy, your service, or your product. 

My coaching clients love working with me because there’s a trust and knowing that they’re going to receive the real, authentic me – transparency, imperfections, and all – as we work together. It seems simple enough, but it’s actually one of the most uncommon things to experience. 

Being true to yourself, being who you really are takes time to fully grasp. It takes each of us a unique amount of time to fully realize it, choose to be vulnerable, and implement it. We must be intentional about being true to ourselves, especially as we grow and become leaders in our industry. As the number of eyes that are on us grows, the harder it can be to stay true to who you are. 

But it is so irresistibly attractive to be authentic because it is so uncommon. When you are able to truly be yourself, it easily shines through to others due to your humility and confidence. You don’t need validation. You realize you are special and enough just as you are. 

The sooner you can realize, accept, and own that you are special, the sooner you can progress with helping those you are here to serve.

This will lead you to enjoy a greater deal of happiness. If you’re ready to do so, here are 3 steps to guide you in getting there:

  1. Set the intention to share yourself vulnerably, to not be so rigid in sharing who you are.
  2. Pay attention to how you talk to yourself. Remember: words really do matter. 
  3. When someone tells you that you’re special, accept it, own it, and say “Thank you.” Don’t deflect or dismiss. 

What can you expect to happen? For me, I began to share more of who I am and it’s led me to becoming a person more focused on how I can help others instead of concerning myself with what they will think of me. When I do this, I’m real and the experience is much more comfortable, authentic, and real for both parties. 

In this episode I share:

  • One of the most important things I wish someone had told me long ago
  • A practice to instantly defeat a bout of imposter syndrome when it strikes
  • A personal story recounting a cringeworthy time in my life where I wasn’t authentic
  • The idea that people want YOU as much as they want your smarts, strategies, and solutions
  • Why becoming truly authentic requires some initial personal work

Resources and related episodes:

 

Subscribe on Apple Podcasts for more tips, tools, and inspiration to lead the optimal vision of your life, love, and leadership. Remember, a half version of you is not enough. The world needs the fullest version of you at play.

Listen on Apple Podcasts

___

About Rita Hyland

With over 20 years of experience as an executive and leadership coach, Rita helps leaders — emerging and established — excel in corporate and entrepreneurial environments.

Rita believes if leaders were more clear about how transformation really works and more intentional about creating what they want, their impact, success, and influence in the world would be unstoppable.

Through her coaching programs, private coaching, and masterminds, Rita shows leaders how to win consistently and create the impact and legacy they desire.

Central to Rita’s work is the understanding that you will never outperform your current programming, no matter how strong your willpower.

When you learn to use Rita’s proprietary Neuroleadership Growth Code, a technology that uses the best of neuroscience and transformational psychology to hit the brain’s buttons for change, YOU become both the solution and the strategy.

Her mission is to end talented, hard-working, and self-aware leaders spending another day stuck in self-doubt or confusion and not contributing their brilliant work and talent the world so desperately needs.

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