A Ray Of Hope
If you’re thinking of working with me, you might want to know who I am, what matters to me and how I became known as “The Listening Detective.”
For as long as I can remember, I was told I was too sensitive, I talked too much and that I took things too personally. I took this to mean that being me was not okay, so I got really good at listening and paying attention to how others wanted me to be.
Then in my early forties my world fell apart. The death of my mum, separation, then divorce, then remarrying and navigating how to bring a blended family of five children together combined with being self-employed meant I was struggling. But I felt the need to look and sound okay for the benefit of others, even though inside I felt anything but.
Despite training to listen to others and becoming a coach in 2006, I had no idea how to talk about, name or process what I was thinking or feeling without it impacting my reputation or burdening others.
One day I was so exhausted, I gave my teen daughter an ultimatum and at just 16 she walked out of the door and never came back. I was heart broken, I felt a failure at home and a fraud at work. As I lay crumpled on the bedroom floor sobbing in the arms of my husband, I recall telling him that I could not do this anymore and that I just wanted to die.
As I rambled on I asked him, “How come I can help all my clients but I cannot help my own daughter?” To which he responded “What would you tell your clients to do? And that was the moment a ray of hope emerged and I knew I would be okay.
Taking my own advice and trusting my own process
One of the things I would tell my clients to do is clarify the outcome they want and then map out the process or series of actions that would get them from where they are now to where they want to be. Then I would encourage them to develop the resources and support they would need to make that happen. This often includes finding ways to identify and track every single sign of progress and celebrate the smallest signs of change.
Whilst is sounds easy and like something some maybe able to do by themselves, I like many of my clients, needed to chat to someone with the purpose of clarifying my thinking. That day, I signed up for my own programme and worked through the Do, Delegate or Ditch Foundation Modules with my team. I also booked some one to one sessions with my mentor and I made a conscious decision to step back from the business to give myself and my daughter my attention. This then enabled me to track my own patterns and processes and step by step I was able to learn how to advocate for the kind of support I needed from my family and friends.
It took my daughter and I almost three years to rebuild our relationship and she never did move back home. Instead she got a job, her own place and started to live independently with the support of a moving on programme. Fifteen years later we now appreciate just how much change we were both experiencing. We also acknowledge that it is highly likely that we are both on the autistic spectrum and meltdowns can happen due to sensory overwhelm and lack of clarity. Nowadays we know what we need to be at our best and we can resource and support each other to get back from our worst.
What I have learned
Steven Covey, the author of “7 Habits of Effective People” said “To be heard and understood we have to first hear and understand” He was suggesting that we have to listen first, if we want others to listen to us, and I agree with this in principle.
However, to listen well we need to know our own patterns, preferences and processes and that often requires us being listened to and working with someone that can help us hear and see that which is outside our of conscious awareness. So to hear and understand we often need to be heard and understood.
When my world fell apart I was coaching for 8 hours a day, which meant I was listening for 8 hours during which time I had to hold back my opinions, reactions and suggestions. Then I would finish work and listen to my family and friends again knowing how important it was to listen, I did my best to hold back my opinions, thoughts and suggestions. I would often vent and download to my husband and although I had the the skill, time and desire to listen, I often lacked the capacity.
But 2 hours coaching per fortnight was enough to give me the capacity to do both better whilst also learning about myself, which meant that I was better informed when making decisions and I was able to advocate for what I needed to be at my best more of the time.
That feeling of not being able to get myself heard and understood from a young child right through to supporting my own child was and is, one of the most painful things I have ever experienced and it is what drives me each and every day to educate others about:
- What coaching is
- How it works
- Why it works
- When you can coach yourself
- How to ask your peers to coach you
- When you might choose one to one coaching and when you might choose group coaching
Making Space for You In Your Life
I had spent so much of my life trying to hide how I felt, it took the kindness and patience of a compassionate listener for me to be able to reveal to myself let alone anyone else, what I really wanted and how I really felt.
As a professional listener I have a supervisor, I talk to on a regular basis to process and make sense of what I hear and how to best support my clients. I have a PA to talk to about the workload and priorities and I can delegate tasks that I don’t have time, capacity, skill or desire to do, in order to do the best for our clients. My husband and friends are able to listen when I am hurt or upset and they don’t accuse me of bragging when I want to make a big thing about a small change that has taken forever to achieve.
But no one can really help or support me when I lack clarity of what I want or what I need to work, learn and live at my best. What I failed to identify is that I needed a coach in order to make space for me in my own life.
But I was the lucky one.
I knew about coaching and I knew it worked, I had just forgotten in the busyness of life. That was until my husband who rarely asked questions asked me, “What would I tell my clients to do?”
Listening isn’t easy and not everyone is resourced to listen but what I have learned is that teaching my husband what questions to ask when I am emotionally overwhelmed and or frustrated, can and does change my focus and therefore change my state. Nowadays he knows to ask me:
What would you like to have happen? or What is working? Because both train my attention from frustration and problem to outcome and resource.
Your Passport To Better Conversations
As a coach I have a contract and I have permission to ask questions and we are clear from the outset why I am asking, but in every day life it is not always possible to ask more than two or three questions. Some people love questions and the opportunity to talk, but other times questions make them think and talk about something they were not ready to hear themselves let alone share with you.
As the listener you have to be resourced to honour and hear whatever is said even if you don’t agree or like it. This is much easier as a peer who does not have to live or work with someone than it is with someone we work and live with.
There are two things in your control. You can learn how to listen, manage your response and hold space for others longer than you currently do without opinion, suggestion or advice. You can also track the patterns and notice what works for those you want to listen to.
Then you can pay attention to what kind of listening you need and then chat with the purpose of setting your listening up for success. The greatest challenge I see day to day is that we each chat with a different purpose but we rarely communicate to our listener what we need from them before we start talking.
Sometimes we want them to ‘just listen’, sometimes we want them to take action and do something with what we tell them and other times we want questions or feedback or suggestions. When our listener makes an educated guess we get frustrated and accuse them of not listening, which why I got known as ‘The Listening Detective.’ I would work with my clients to make sense of what it was that I was doing that worked for them so that they could create their very own personal passport to better conversations.
Success Without Stress
Inspired by Karen Williams of Librotas, my client in 2009 and now good friend, collaboration partner and book mentor, I have been encouraged to write about my experiences, my journey and my processes. In doing so I have discovered yet another way of hearing and understanding myself and I love that it also inspires others to get to know like and trust their own process or borrow mine.
I have for almost fifteen years produced a weekly stress management update called “Success without stress” and you can sign up here.
I wrote and published my first book, Manage Your Critic: From Overwhelm to Clarity in 7 Steps, in 2016, which focuses on the process that I learned when I trained as a coach working one to one. By mapping out how the kind of listening I was doing helped my clients transform overwhelm into clarity it not only helped others it also provided me with a valuable resource that I still use today.
I am currently writing my soon-to-be-published second book ‘Do, Delegate or Ditch With Confidence, Your Personal Passport to Success Without Stress.’ This book talks more about metaphors, models and maps and the power of group coaching and how this can resource you to work, learn and live at your best with others.
I share what I believe the six core skills to be and how using those skills to model what you need to work, learn and live at your best can make sense of so many of the things that cause us frustration. I also share the five most common causes of frustration that I have heard over the years and so I will be sharing stories, strategies and coaching questions to help the reader reflect on things like:
• Train them to listen and you not to nag
• Your passport to better conversations
• The just do it myth
• The art of good decision making
• 7 principles of motivated action
Whether you are a parent, manager or entrepreneur, please know that you do not have to do it alone even when it feels like you are the only person that can action it.
If you are struggling to hear and understand or struggling to be heard and understood, let’s chat.
Even if I am not the right coach for you, I can help you clarify what kind of coach or support you need. Sometimes all you need to make it happen is clarity and confidence and having someone to share the process and celebrate progress with can often have a profound impact.
