Welcome to the new manager podcast. I'm your host, Kim nickel. Hello and welcome. I'm glad you're here and I hope you're doing well. I don't know if there are a lot of motorcycles outside today or if it's like just one motorcycle Enthusiast who keeps driving by my house. But I have decided that your you just might So motorcycle in the background today. I don't even think I'll be able to edit it all out, so I'm just going to warn you ahead of time. That, that is a thing that is
true. I am recording this episode a bit in advance of when I typically do because I am planning to go away for the weekend with my boyfriend and I'm really looking forward to it. I had this experience a couple of weeks ago where I realized my calendar is really full. oh, Who put all this, who put all this stuff on my calendar and I realized it was me. I did that and they're all things. I like, I have been coaching more than ever.
I have also been doing some group workshops, but my calendar is getting full and it took me a while to feel the shift in energy where all of a sudden, I was feeling a little more. Pleated, a little bit more drained. I was talking with my boyfriend and saying, yeah, I've been feeling really tired. I've been feeling really busy and he says, yeah, you've been working hard and I thought, oh,
that's right. And we can sometimes forget that and especially, you know, I wanted to mention this because, especially if you are a bit of a caretaker, if there's just a part of who you are as a person, In is, you take care of other people, whether it's in your family or whether it is your clients, or whether it is the people that you work with. If you have an orientation that has you paying attention to the needs of others, sometimes that means we forget about our own
needs. It's like you're driving in a car and you forget to check your dashboard and you don't even notice that your tank is getting close to D this happens and it doesn't matter how intelligent you are. We sometimes just lose track of where our energy is and what we need and it is so important. I tell this to my students and I tell this to myself and I'm telling this to you, it is important to be aware of what you need and to tend to your
well-being before. Before it becomes a real problem before you get so depleted that you're just feeling like a zombie. And before you start getting resentful, it's important to pause and take care of you. And it doesn't mean that you're not a strong person. It doesn't mean anything other than you are a human and taking intentional time to restore yourself. Is part of The Human Experience. So let this be a reminder to us all that taking time for yourself, is also part of what
it means to be a leader. And you know the people that you work with are also paying attention to who takes time off and rests and who works so hard and without any breaks that they just burn out or get grumpy and take it out on any. On everybody else. So it actually sets a good example for others. When you show. Yes, it is normal and it is fine to take some time away. The other thing I'm thinking about today, I've had several of my clients this week who are getting promoted.
Who have new, exciting job situations happening and it occurred to me to tell you this because what's interesting is I don't coach people on getting promoted That's not why my clients come to me, but it is a very common side effect of the work we do and a lot of my clients have never worked with a coach before. And so, that might be you, you might not really know what happens in coaching. It can seem kind of mysterious if you've never had it.
So, I thought today, I would share a little bit with you about what I do in coaching with my clients, what we work on so that you can understand that for yourself. and with my clients that I was thinking of just now who have gotten promoted, we don't coach on how to get promoted but what we do cochon is what is it that you want What is it that you really want? What is it that you want? Now that maybe you didn't want a year ago? Or when you started this Courier
like what is it that you want? And what is it it that is in the way what's holding you back? What are you afraid of? These are really the core questions that we talked about and explore together. And what's cool about it is that in coaching I'm Great percent on your side. I have full belief in you and I am unattached to what you choose and that is not true of the other people in your life who
love you and who work with you. They all have opinions about what they think you should do about. What is this smart thing to do, or how you should make decisions? Because it affects them, this is just a human thing. But what's really neat thing is that in coaching You really get this space to explore the question. What is it that you want? And what's holding you back? What are you afraid of or what is an assumption or a belief that you're holding?
That is getting in your way? And as your coach I get to listen really closely. I get to serve as a mirror. So I'll tell you what. I hear you saying, I will help you to find your blind spots the thing. That you just assumed to be true that maybe are not true anymore or maybe they never were true. Maybe you just believed something about yourself because somebody had an opinion about you and you agreed with them because they were an authority
figure. And then you've just been running your life with that same belief, and same idea for all this time. And it's kind of like if you've ever heard the saying, what got you here? Won't get you there. That's kind of the work that we do together. It's all about mindset. So what is it that you want? How are you thinking about? What you want? Giving yourself permission to think generously and expansively as your Coach. I don't have the answers for you but I help you to find the
answers that you're looking for. And this to me was made. So clear in a conversation, I had just yesterday. With one of my clients who said, you know, like, this coaching stuff is very nonlinear, right? Like we're exploring thoughts desires beliefs or processing? Emotion, we're exploring her mindset, but she said, it's Saul come together.
I feel like night and day from where I was six months ago and she said the thing that I've been really wanting that sense of clarity that sense of purpose. She says, all of a sudden, I saw this opportunity that I didn't even know was out there and I knew that's exactly what I wanted. And I loved that because like what happens when we get to eager to create a N is, you eliminate all of the positive unknowns. I think of it as the Serendipity engine.
You want to have room for the Serendipity engine to work. And if you over plan in your life, then you eliminate opportunities to come into your life that you could not have planned for. Because you didn't know about them. We look to plans because they make us feel Feel secure and safe but they can also work against us if we get too narrowly focused. And so having coaching space, where you can think expansively, where you can ask, what is it that you want?
And not edit your answer or you can really be truthful with yourself about what you think, and how you feel. And then we can I'm in that and explore it and question it because it might be time to shift your mindset to think differently. And I sometimes think about this kind of like making a switch from one source of energy to
another. Like, if your whole life and career has really been driven by a lot of perfectionism and people-pleasing and feeling attached to achievement and recognition that can turn like that can be very effective for a period of time until it stops being effective and gets in the way. And it's kind of like how you can run an engine on coal and it will work.
It will work well for a really long time, but there also is a cost to that and it's not a great long-term solution at some point you might want to switch to solar you. Want to switch to a new form of energy to get you to the next level, or to the next stage of your life and learning, how to make that switch, can feel awkward, it can feel clumsy and it can feel scary because it might feel like, you don't know what you're doing. Feels different.
One of the reasons we stay in our patterns, even when they stop working, is because they are familiar. And the part of you that wants to feel safe, feels safe with familiar things. Familiar ideas, familiar behaviors, they're comfortable. So it's very common to stay in a place where you know, that something isn't quite working but you keep doing it. And the reason we get stuck is not about intelligence. It has nothing to do with how
smart. You are but it's about where we feel safe and it's really hard to talk yourself out of something that feels safe. And instead in coaching, we really get to explore. Where is your feeling of safety coming from and let's locate that inside you. I don't know if that makes sense to you. It's something I talk a lot about with my clients just How are you seeing things? And what else is possible is so
much of our work. So having someone to help you to see your blind spots to listen without judgment to think in a really generous, and compassionate way about who you are about what's next and about why things feel scary is, what coaching is all about. Because when you have that space, This then you're not ruminating in your own mind. You actually have another brain listening to you questioning some of those assumptions and Shining some of your own wisdom
back to you. Often when we're asking ourselves, what should I do? We're imagining that there is some right answer, that is outside of us that someone else holds. That's why we ask other people. What do you think I should do? What should I do, right? We're looking outside. Because we think the answer is there rather than when we get quiet and ask, what is it that I want? What is it? That I'm afraid of. What do I think? I will lose or have to give up. Is that really true?
Maybe it isn't What would I have to give up? If I let go of perfection, if I let go of Self Doubt, Who would I be? Then that can actually be a scary question because maybe you don't know, perfectionism can be
a really long term partner. And it might feel weird when you get rid of it, kind of like old shoes that you have worn a long, long time and even though I've got a hole in them, they're not really working anymore, there's still something comfortable and familiar about it. So, I've been thinking a lot lately and what I've been sharing with my clients is this reminder take your dreams seriously And face your fears compassionately. Those two things.
If you remember to do that, take your dream seriously and face your fears compassionately. That's starts to open things up where you begin to see new possibilities. One other thought I want to share about coaching and especially the way that I tend to work. So this is the new manager podcast. I talk a lot about work, I talk a lot about what it means to be a human who works with other humans.
Everyone who comes to me, we talked about all of it so the challenges that you're having at work, probably didn't start there. Often it's about patterns, we picked up early on in life and then work is just where we see them show up. And a lot of times the questions we have about our work and our career, really we've in to the life we want the life, we have what's next for us. So life coaching leadership coaching career conversations.
They're all connected. Who you are as a person, how you deal with stress, how you deal with pressure? How you think about who you are and what your gifts are, and what you want to contribute in this world through the work that you do. All of that shows up in the way that you work with others in the way that you lead in the way that you manage. So I find it to be very valuable
to have a space every week. Where you have someone whose professional job is simply to be there for you to listen to ask questions and to help you focus your attention on what it is that you want and what's holding you back. Take your dreams seriously and face your fears compassionately. You might be surprised at what becomes possible for you when you do. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time when you're more effective at work,
you're happier in your life. And when you're happier in your life you're more effective at work. I can help go to my website. Kim nickel.com and sign up for a coaching consult, it can get better.