Episode 311 Why Listening to Yourself is Critical for Business Success

In this week’s episode, Anna builds on her concept of the “good girl syndrome,” a learned behaviour from childhood that often impedes our ability to make independent decisions in adulthood. Drawing from her own experience of quitting her job in 2013 against conventional advice, Anna highlights the dangers of outsourcing our career and life choices to others. She examines the pervasive influence of business coaches and thought leaders who promise one-size-fits-all solutions, urging listeners to harness their own intuition and trust their instincts. Through thoughtful discussion, Anna encourages a move away from seeking external validation towards embracing a unique and self-defined path to success. Stay tuned for a powerful conversation about reclaiming your autonomy and redefining success on your own terms.

*Resources mentioned during the episode*
1:1 Coaching & Mentoring – If you’re looking for one-to-one support to help you achieve your specific life and business goals, Anna has a limited number of spots for individual coaching and mentoring. www.onestepoutside.com/coaching

Trusting Your Intuition in Business

I have often talked about what I call the good girl syndrome, which is the conditioning that certainly I got through my education and childhood, that I was always looking for the right answer, for that gold star, the tick from the teacher, to say that I had been a good girl, that I was on the right track, that I was doing the right thing. And I have found that behaviour, that learned behaviour to perhaps, yes, have been helpful at one stage to get me through academically and excelling in that area when I was younger, but not so helpful in older years, professionally and certainly working for myself, where I need to be far more independent, take initiative, trust myself. And as I get older, as I’m sure many others experience too, I want to be true to who I am. So I think we need to stop looking to other people to tell us what the right answer is. And that’s hard because it is learned behaviour. It’s not just learned behaviour, it’s really deeply ingrained in our psyche. If you’re anything like me, and I know many of you are, from our conversations and working together, that it’s really disempowering, obviously, to basically outsource decisions about our career, about our life, about our business. When I was making the bold decision to quit my job back in 2013, I talked to everybody and anyone to ask them for advice.

And most people, let’s be honest, said, don’t do it. But I did it anyway. So that’s one of the few points in my life where I actually listened to main tuition and did something that perhaps was counterintuitive, but the best, or not counterintuitive, because, in fact, it was in line with my intuition, but counter to traditional, conventional thinking and so called wisdom. Right. And it was the best decision I had made in a long time. So I think the danger is that we outsource, as I said, the decision. We look for someone else to validate and say, yes, yes, well done, this is the right thing to do, or to keep us safe and go, no, no, no, you can’t possibly do that, you should stick to where you are or whatever. Right.

And I’m not talking only about quitting your job and so on. What I’m seeing now, rather, having worked for myself for ten years, is the danger of this behaviour as we look to business coaches, gurus, experts, thought leaders, whatever we want to call them, who can be incredibly persuasive and compelling in their marketing tactics and so on, to tell us what we should be doing. And so, again, coming back to childhood and without getting too into sort of therapy here. I think we have this inherent need for approval to have that external validation. And when it carries over into adulthood, it does affect our career decisions, our personal decisions, and it affects our happiness and how we do in different spheres of our lives. If I apply this to the corporate environment, and hopefully if you’re listening to this, this is not the case for you, but I think there is, there are certainly trends and I see this of a fear of speaking up against the status quo. Let’s say it feels a bit like the emperor’s new clothes sometimes for me, because I’ve been out of the strict nine to five for so long when people say things like, oh, I can’t take a lunch break or my boss won’t approve my holiday, or of course all these headlines of CEO’s who shall not be named, who are calling everybody back into the office and tracking their location and so on, monitoring the time they spend moving their mouse on their computer, and yet we’re not going, hang on, some of us are, but not everybody. This doesn’t make sense.

This is wrong, right? Very toxic work environments. We might see that there’s very bad behaviour and no one is speaking up. There is that lack of psychological safety and so nobody is, you know, daring to speak up. Instead, they might just choose to leave the organisation and unfortunately no one is ever the wiser for the reason of that. Or perhaps they are and they don’t do anything about it, which is even worse. So, you know, without going too far down this rabbit hole, a culture, of course, that discourages questioning of authority, challenging established norms and so on, is very dangerous and it can be very common in an organisation that is successful and well established because, hey, it’s successful for a reason. And so you’re kind of following that status quo and that’s where perhaps things might start going downhill from more of a kind of a global perspective. If I bring that back to the business space that I’m in, working for myself again, there is this proliferation now that wasn’t there ten years ago, of business coaches who often will claim not so much, in so many words, to have this one size fits all solution.

I did this, here’s how you do it, or I have the answer. And their marketing copy is so compelling, it’s so persuasive, that even I, and I say that, you know, without arrogance, what I mean is, you know, even as an experienced business owner who pushes this message of listening to yourself and redefining what success looks like for you, even I am tempted to go oh, they must know something I don’t know. And I want to follow their blueprint and that sounds much easier. And if only I did this one thing, everything would fall into place. Right? And the truth is I could name so many cautionary tales, I could share examples, I could think of many myself as well, that it’s not going to be just, I just do that one workshop and then Tada. Or if only I had a high ticket group programme, or if only I sold a corporate, or if only, if only I did the TED talk or whatever thing we think is going to unlock our success. We can’t also blame these experts because they, as I am, are trying to make a living as you are, and we are hopefully believing in what we teach and therefore trying to. I don’t want to persuade, but at least communicate that in my case to other people in an authentic, non sleazy way, but at the same time in an effective way that also gets people coming along and buying my programme, wanting to work with me and so on.

Right. So it’s really a delicate balance that more and more people, I think, are navigating with grace. Certainly it’s a bit tentative and that there are very loud voices out there that are teaching something that’s perhaps not so aligned and authentic. And that’s worrying. I think the point for me is coming back to my big decision years ago, but many decisions since then that we need to tune into our own intuition, trust our own instincts. That’s not to say that there is no space for experts, I hope sounding boards and mastermind groups and peer groups and courses even, and workshops and whatever it is, right. Hopefully podcasts and all sorts, courses and programmes. But we need to be really careful and very, what’s the word? Considered, I suppose, in where we listen to people, where we go.

Thanks, got it. But no, where we go. Yeah. Okay. I think I can take that and apply it and adapt it to what I’m doing. And there’s a nuance there, right? So it’s not just asking, AI, hey, what are the five things I should do doing those? Boom. It’s not, oh, if only I follow step by step exactly what this person says, it’ll work. Because the truth is we all have different aspirations, goals, abilities, capabilities, situations, family situation and so on and so on, right? So, so many things that could be different and therefore would get in the way of necessarily things falling into place as the promise goes.

So really, eyes and ears open to different perspectives, different ways of doing things. By all means, listen to expert experts, do the due diligence, talk to people, learn if there’s a programme, if there’s a course that feels like it would be giving you knowledge that you’re missing or providing accountability and support, whatever it is. And that can be really powerful. But be cautious when you hear someone really sort of, I don’t know what, there probably is a therapy word for it, so apologies that I’m stumbling in my words, but someone is basically manipulating you, right, however innocently or not into believing that if only by this one course or programme, or if only you did this thing, then, you know, even bringing it back to corporate, you will get the promotion, you will succeed, you will climb the ladder, etcetera. I spoke to some friends recently who are working in finance, who basically said, in fact, in different sectors, not just finance, I won’t just blame the finance sector because my boss determines my bonus. Basically, anything they ask for, I do. And my goodness, isn’t that a dangerous place to be? No questioning authority, as I said, you know, we waste time on projects that we know aren’t helpful. We’re not even trusting these people who are in a role for a reason.

Right? They are experts also, and we’re choosing to not listen to their perspectives and just lead. Bye. Authoritarianism, autocratic leadership, and that just. I don’t see that working going forward. But that’s, you know, we’ll see, won’t we? So, in terms of how you can try to trust yourself, I mean, whatever works for you in terms of, you know, journaling prompts, we can consider practising mindfulness, taking that little break, break breath, rather taking small steps to test and experiment and validate your own ideas before you go full throttle into investing lots of money in something and then really watching out for some red flags, as we would call them. Right. So again, if you feel like, oh, my gosh, I need to talk to my coach before I do this thing, then hang on a second, maybe you’re giving them a bit too much power. It’s great to have a call with a coach or an accountant or a mastermind group and want to ask people, but even just having that thought, oh, I want to speak to these people, can help you kind of work through.

How would you coach yourself through that piece? So that’s one thing. If you’re feeling yourself, like, too compelled to rely on someone, that could be a red flag. Secondly, if you’re feeling that you’re comparing yourself to others, you know, always comparanoia comparison syndrome of seeing what other people are doing, I should be further ahead, et cetera, et cetera. That’s a bit of a red flag as well. And again, if you’re not able to make decisions without first speaking to one particular person or multiple people, especially when they’re not even experts in the thing, right, then that’s a red flag as well. So again, always it comes back to being clear on what success means to you. Again, by all means, look for advice, learn from others, but run it through your own philtre. Your values are always going to be such a guiding light when it comes to these kinds of decisions.

And then, yes, surround yourself with that tribe support network of like minded people who encourage you in your endeavours, but also encourage you to think for yourself who will go, well, how do you feel about that? Oh, this is what I experienced, but what do you think about that? Right? When I work with clients in corporate who work around how to integrate coaching skills into your management style, one of the big things is by all means share your experiences and expertise, but it’s far more empowering to speak to your coaches and direct reports and ask them. So, you know, do you feel this applies in this context? How might you think about this? What do you think would be most helpful in this situation? Rather than saying, hey, this is what I did and this is what you should do, which I would argue is not so helpful. So please, if I can leave you with one passing, passing thought, is that the expression brain’s gone to mush? Parting thought. That’s the one I meant. One parting reflection is to trust yourself, whether it’s making a small decision without asking someone else for input, just as practise or questioning. Putting that external device through a philtre, especially when it doesn’t sit right, when it’s got one of those red flags that I mentioned that is really, really powerful. And as ever, of course, I’d love to hear from you what your own experiences have been positive and negative, either of finding your own way and how that’s working for you now. And I know a couple of you have already replied to my emails about this, which I love to see, or if you are in that place where you’re still looking for that external validation, then if you want to share that as well, I’d be honoured to hear your version of this particular symptom, I suppose this particular challenge.

So here’s to finding our own way to stop looking to others for the answers and to collaborating. Yes, to supporting each other, but to trusting that we know the way, and to trusting your own unique path in business and in life. Thanks so much for listening, and I’ll see you next week. Bye for now.

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1:1 Coaching & Mentoring

If you’re looking for one-to-one support to help you achieve your specific life and business goals, Anna has a limited number of spots for individual coaching and mentoring. onestepoutside.com/coaching