The Influence of Change on Effective Leadership | E181

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How are you? Welcome to Leaderships Feminine. I am Chris Blackey and I am your host today and I'm thrilled that you're here. And as is usually the case, I'm recording this podcast on a walk in Hawaii. I know if you've been long time listener, you know that I record podcasts frequently here and find myself on my walks getting.

The silence that I need. And.

There'S been something I've kind of wanted to talk about on this podcast to share with you but haven't really had the headspace to do it. And I think now that I have it, I'm going to do that this way. So you're going to hear my footsteps. You might hear birds, you might hear the ocean. You also might hear the occasional golf cart chugging by. I'm not near a golf course but there are service providers and so forth that every now and then go by. So if you hear all that, that's what's happening. But I want to talk to you about change and our relationship with change and our willingness to change.

And what really takes to change. And not from like I have some sort of great expert. But I want to share with you what I've beared witness to just for myself and for others and to the hope that it could be helpful because as someone who's leading a business and leading in life, I know that you've endured a lot of change. I also know that you wish for change. You wish for things to be different also. Right? Right. So in as much as we can be resistant to change, we can often times also wish everything could be different. So that makes us sort of an interesting creature, doesn't it? So I recently this past year will mark we're not quite to a year yet. I, I would say a year would be like the beginning of November, but I have lost 60 pounds so far. Substantial change. Right. Major change in my body. I have a few more pounds I want to lose not for vanity's sake, but I think it's what my body would love to have off of it in order to continue to function well. I'm in my mid-50s and I know the consequences of.

Excess weight on our systems and our joints and our lifestyle. And my choice is to live well for as long as I can and be as active as I can for as long as I can. So I know that as you're listening you'll probably the natural question is Chris, how did you do that? In fact, I just ran into I'm going to drop lots of not lots But a few referrals or tests of people on this podcast that I adore, if you are interested in making note of them. But I was went into my favorite store here. It's a shop on the North Shore called the COVID the COVID Collection. They actually do have an online shop as well, and it's a co op of local female artists. It's owned by four women. And I love the store. And every time I host a retreat, I always stop in there and purchase treat retreat goodies for my clients who are coming to the retreat from these women. And there are all sorts of artisans. There's jewelry and art for your walls, and then there's also, like houseware art. You know, beautiful glasses and bowls and soaps and candles and all the things. So one of the women, her name is Jen Johnson, Jen with two ends. She is an incredible artist. I purchased a lot of different things from her. She happened to be there, which I haven't normally seen her in the shop. And she didn't recognize me. And she said, have you lost weight? And I'm like, yeah, I kind of have. And so anyway, it's just people want to know how. Right? That's what I always find is, well, how did you do that? So I'll tell you how. And I'll also say that whatever your thoughts are about it, that's fine. You do you, baby. I'm doing me. So how have I lost weight? I had a VIP day with another amazing client, Kaylee, roughly this time last year, and she referred me to one of her clients. Kaylee helps med spa owners scale and build their businesses. And so she referred me to her client, Dr. Rachel Fadino, f I D I N O. Out of Washington. She runs New U N U Y O U. I think I spelled that right. New Year Clinic. She focuses on a lot of meaningful and powerful women's challenges as we age and just things that seem to go unaddressed by traditional medicine. And she referred me to Rachel. Had a call with Rachel, and it was like the sky opened and it was just heaven to be with someone who was such an expert. She just took my hand and said, oh, no, everything that you're dealing with is solvable. And here's how we're going to do that. And I think I maybe did a podcast about her, about being an expert and how important that is, I think, to all of us, because every one of you listening to this is an expert. And so we value expertise. I certainly do. I value someone who looks at me and says, I got you, but you worry, right? And so I followed her protocol, and she told me things that I have heard my whole life, right? She gave me some fasting ideas. She gave me some food ideas about protein. She put me on tirzepatide, which absolutely has changed my life, because turns out.

Food noise, food chatter is actually a chemical problem, not just emotional and thought management. It's not enough, not for me. And taking terzepatite has just turned it off. It's like getting a really good antidepressant. It's like, oh, I don't have to suffer and start planning what I'm going to eat the minute my eyes open all day long. And for any of you who experience that, I just have to say, like, this has been a game changer for me in my life. Not just for my health, but just for my brain. And I discovered through my girlfriend Brooke, pickleball. And so I started to play pickleball also just a little over a year ago. And once I started to lose a little weight, I could start moving my body. And once I could start moving my body, I started to lose more weight. And so I play pickleball almost every day. It is my most favorite exercise. In fact, it's taken over walking, which is a little bit of a drag, only because I don't have as much time to think as I used to, because pickleball. One of the reasons I love pickleball is you don't think. You just have to figure out where the ball is and hit it. And so that has been my cocktail. And working with Rachel and having this concierge level of support has been heaven. But here's what I also want to tell you. I have had this before. I have worked with exceptional doctors and coaches before. So my success with Rachel, to me, has nothing to do with the ability of these other people I've worked with. My success this time around has to do with a moment. And that's why this is about change. I think that we think that we have to be ready for change, and we put ourselves through the paces on how to get ready for change. I just have to wait till I'm ready. I just have to wait till the. I feel inspired. I have to wait for the motivation. I have to wait. I just. I've been thinking about it, but I'm just not quite ready yet. It's just. Hasn't got. I'm not quite there yet. It's just not. It's not my time. I just. Right, is this sounding familiar? And I don't Care what it is. It could be losing weight. It could be remodeling your house. It could be firing Lily in, you know, marketing. It could be anything. I just. I'm not quite. Not ready for change. And we think that somehow we're gonna have, like, this moment, this. This. Oh, the sky opens, and now we're ready to overhaul our life. And I'm gonna tell you that there is just nothing about that that's true.

The reason these people just walked by, the reason that we know that that's not true, is because that moment rarely comes.

That sustained moment, I guess I should say, where you are just every day so inspired, what actually comes is one.

Glorious minute where you believe you can do it. And so when I think about the weight loss for me and the lifestyle change that I've made, the life change that I've made, it was. It was a minute that did it. It wasn't me being ready and all the things. It wasn't. It wasn't. It was, hey, you know, she referred me to this gal. I got. Got on a call with her, and in that moment, I made the decision to say yes. But then every day after that, at least for the first 90 days, was. Was harder because I had to continue to follow through on the commitment that my past self had made.

Through that moment where I felt deeply connected to this aspirational version of myself, I knew I could be that Chris, who was thinner and healthier and could play pickleball and wear really cute pickleball outfits. I knew. I saw her. I saw her clear as day. But then after that, doing the work of it, remembering, I was actually doing it like I was actually. Do you ever find that, like, you forget that you were trying to change your life and you do things that you're like, oh, wait, no, that's not what I do. And so I think when we think about what we want when it comes to change, we want it to feel amazing. We want it to be clear as day. We want it to not be too hard, right? But it is hard. I found it to be challenging to lose 60 pounds. I found it to be work to lose 60 pounds. But I have also made the commitment to become the woman who does this and becomes a woman who is 60, 70 pounds lighter than she used to be, and she plays pickleball. And I wasn't her a year ago at all.

So the one thing about change is that we think somehow the ducks have to be in a row for us to create something magical in order to experience the change. We want. I believe that is the lie that keeps us all from changing. I believe that in the moment where you connect with that aspirational vision is the moment you should take your first action.

And then you have to just commit. It's kind of like, well, I jumped off the cliff. There's no going back, so I better get ready for what's coming. I better just keep focusing on where I'm going instead of where I wish I could crawl back to. Because you can't anymore, right?

But that moment will not be. There's not a perfection that we're waiting for, for change, that moment where it's easier or someone else just does it for you. But the second thing that I think we have to confront when it comes to change and to be extremely honest about, is that change doesn't change anything.

Except for the results that you have. But it doesn't change the fact that you don't still have shitty days, that you aren't unhappy, that you don't feel stressed out, that you don't have to make decisions you don't want to make, that. That you don't hire people you wish you hadn't hired, that your family doesn't have problems.

That you don't have physical problems. Nothing, nothing makes any of that go away. So I'm 60 pounds lighter than I was a year ago today, and I can still tell you that I have things that happen that I wish didn't happen. My life is not magically like. Like I'm not skipping around with unicorns and rainbows now. I feel better in my body.

I'm more active. But I still have emotional challenges with difficult conversations, difficult people, difficult decisions. I have to find new levels of courage.

For decisions that I would rather not make. I have to find new levels of courage to support and hold people I love through their own difficult moments. None of that has gone away because I lost £60. So this. There's this other thing that happens is we tell ourselves, well, once this change is done, once I'm through this, once this happens. I did a podcast a while ago called the Relief Point that we all are waiting for this miraculous relief. Like, oh, once I fire Lily once, once I find my, you know, president to run my company, once I know how to manage my profit, once I figure out how to sell more widgets. What. Once you do that, what's going to happen? You're going to be happy. You're not going to be stressed. You can take a vacation. You take a day off, you go to sleep, you Sleep through the night, you stop working till midnight. What's going to happen? Because it's a lie. There is no circumstance that will happen outside of you that will miraculously change how you feel inside. And how you feel inside is exactly how you show up in the world outside. So if you have a tendency to overwork and you're praying for better people and you know better systems or a better product so that you don't have to work so hard, guess what, love? You might get better people, and you might get better systems, and you might get better products, you might sell more, you might make more.

But if you haven't figured out why you work so much, you keep working. And you'll keep being mad at the fact that you work. The change will not change you unless you are willing to step into a version of yourself that no longer indulges.

The stress.

The frustration, the disruption in the way that you have.

Because it'll always be there. There will always be more to do. There will always be challenges, There will always be disappointments. None of that goes away because you implemented whatever change. The only thing that stays is you and how you choose to interact with it.

And Even having lost 60 pounds, I still have a lot of anxiety around or fear or discomfort around the potential of gaining it back. It's a normal fear, I'm sure. I mean, after a lifetime of losing weight and gaining it.

But what I've decided is I'm not a woman anymore who gains her weight back because I'm a woman who values the health of her body way more over any vanity metric. And honestly, even the weight number, it's just science to me. Healthy weight equals healthier body.

I can move and I love to move. And I didn't know that. I did. I didn't know I could be good at pickleball.

But that doesn't mean I don't have days where my knees hurt. My foot's hurting a little bit today. Yesterday I was playing in Hawaii with these really good players, and one of them hit me with the ball so hard. You should see the welt I have on my knee.

But I'm going to continue because pain used to stop me. But I won't do that anymore. Emotional pain stops. A lot of us.

Just decide to not be someone who does that anymore. Change brings about a lot of really cool things, but it doesn't eliminate the truth about being a human.

But you can become a woman who up levels how she negotiates those kinds of moments, those emotional, challenging moments, right? You can become a Woman who experiences stress, who experiences difficulties with her employees and her family and her life, because those will continue. But you can become a woman who says, okay, I see you. I see how you still want to invite me to shrink, to tolerate, to avoid, to. To get mad at, to resent, to feel burdened by. I see it all. And I recognize that this is just the path of being a human being. And I will continue to walk forward on it because I want what I'm going towards much more than what I then I want to keep what I have.

And that's where we have to invite ourselves to do the hard thing.

But I also believe that if you want to create substantial change in your life and in your business.

You have to have experts that you trust, that you believe and who believe in you. Who. I wrote this down. You know, I was thinking about what makes for a really great coach or mentor.

And what I decided is it's not so much about their skill and who they are, but it's much more about who I become.

And who I believe I can be through the work I do with them. And so, as you're evaluating people in your life to help you manage change, implement change.

I want you to sit for a moment and just ask yourself, is the person I'm working with is this expert? If I don't, if I have one, do I like a way that I respond and who I am as a result of my work with this person, not are they a good coach or not? I think that's such a gray question because it's so hard to answer. Change is all about you and the chemistry of the experts that support you with you, because it's not a straight line. And I know that you know that. So finding someone who holds that aspirational version of you and also holds this like, listen to me, I got you, I got you.

So I kind of covered a few things, right? We talked about change in general and what happens, what we sort of tell ourselves about when we will change. And what I've noticed through my own life and through the work of my own clients is that change is like a split second decision, and then it's all the action that comes after that. It is not this. Like, this is why I don't do strategic plans with my clients anymore. I just can't. Like, I'm like, do you want to do it or not? Are you feeling inspired by that aspirational vision that you see? Because if you are, what's the. What's the best next step? And then we Just keep going. But we also have to recognize that even once a substantive change happens, you hit that revenue mark, you. You roll out a new product and it's hugely successful. You rebuild the team. You fire everybody and start over. You. You get that one performer, that one performer on your team. Finally she steps up and she starts to deliver all those things. Whatever it is, you're still going to face difficulties. Humaning is still humaning. Leading is still leading. None of that goes away. We just have to ask ourselves to become the woman who no longer sinks back into helplessness and powerlessness and avoidance and tolerance, and she instead steps up into the voice of herself that says, no, no, no, no, no.

I can do this. I don't want to, but I can. And when we're going to implement substantive change, we need expert partners and mentors, resources, coaches, whatever the languages you want to use that invite us.

To show us a version of ourselves that we're super excited and proud to be.

So don't just hire people because everybody else thinks they're good. Hire people because when you talk to them, you see a version of yourself.

That is really cool. You see a version of what's possible that is aspirational and exciting. That's how we get the momentum we need to continue forward with the change. Every time I talk to Dr. Rachel, I'm just reminded of how incredible I am and how powerful I am and how capable I am and what an exceptional commitment I've made and how proud I must be of myself. And this is what we're going to do next. She always has my next thing, which I love because that keeps me moving in the direction of the dream instead of sulking back into the reasons why it's hard.

Of course it's hard.

Anything right worth having, it's gonna be a little tough because it's going to challenge you.

To become.

A woman who thinks differently than the woman you do even today.

Thank you for tuning in today, love, as always. I love my Hawaii chats with you. I'll talk to you again next time. And as a reminder, if you haven't done so yet, today's a really good day to join me in Lead for Women. We start on October 9th. Go to the Visionary CEO next step so you can get all the details and how thou you commit to stepping into a version of yourself as a woman who leads her business in a way that she never has before.

Change is here. Let's do this, my love.