Head, Heart, Gut: Aligning for Success | Judy Wilkins Smith | 578

Peter Winick.

Here's a question. Why did you write your nonfiction book? I've asked that question of hundreds of authors, and I've heard a wide variety of answers. Some authors want to build a personal brand. Business-minded people want to generate leads and opportunities from their ideas. And plenty of academics write books to meet a tenure requirement. There's no single answer that covers every author. Today, I want to explore a category of answer that I really haven't touched on much in this podcast yet. Some authors tell me they had a book inside of them, or even multiple books inside of them that just had to get written. My guest today is Judy Wilkins-Smith. An executive coach, an author. In today's episode, we'll explore how one of her books came to be, how she got pulled into executive coaching, and becoming the biggest version of yourself. I'm Bill Sherman, and you're listening to Leveraging Thought Leadership. Ready? Let's begin. Welcome to the show, Judy.

Hi, Bill. It's lovely to be with you.

So first off, congratulations on the launch of your second book, and I want to dive in into some of your work around the book and thought leadership. When we were talking earlier, you told me a story about how the— this book came to be, and you said it was either write or rage at the heavens. Can you unpack that for us?

Yeah, so the book that we're talking about, the Decoding Your Emotional Blueprint, yeah. That was one right after my dad had been killed. And, uh, it was a question of, as you say, right or rage at the heavens. And I needed, I really needed to do something that meant something. I wanted to, it, it was either that or I was gonna go under. And I typically don't like going under. I think it was one of those, it was also one of those pivotal moments where you know that you're either gonna drown or you're gonna Fly, and it's called Pick One.

So had you considered yourself a writer beforehand? Had you written before, or why did your brain go, okay, writing is my answer rather than raging at the heavens?

You know, I say no, and I say no with a giggle, but at the same time, I, I had actually done a lot of award-winning poetry. And I hadn't thought about that. So yeah, it was really, I didn't know what to do. And the one thing that I felt like would do something was writing. Could I write my way out of what I was doing? That wasn't this book. That was what set me on the journey of this work.

Well, and I wanna stay on the poetry for just a moment because I think there's an interesting connection between the work of poetry, which is distilling a moment or an idea or feeling into its really finest essence and making that visible with often the fewest words possible, sometimes a complicated form, but really it's a delicate art form. And that's, as I think about it, really a great training ground for thought leadership. How do you make complex ideas accessible?

Yeah, and you know, that's a great question. I know for me, now this is gonna sound odd, but bear with me. I know for me it's always been about, can it be sticky and can it rhyme? And for some reason it's gotta rhyme. It's almost like doing a dance. If I can't get it to rhyme in a way that really hits home, it feels— and this is going to sound weird too— it feels incomplete. It's like when I was small, when I used to draw pictures, and heaven help us, my art is dreadful, but my pictures were never complete unless they had yellow in them. So it's kind of— there are pieces that stick. And for me, it was also very much about not making the simple complex, but about making that understandable so people would really get it and have a feeling and have a shift. So yeah.

And I think you could take some of those pieces of how you described poetry, the art of crafting painstakingly every word. To get that idea or that feeling across, often to the work of thought leadership and communicating an idea where you're trying to make something visible to people that they may not have been thinking about before.

So I love that. But what you've now touched into, straight into, is the systemic work and constellations I do, because that is literally about taking the invisible and making it visible and the unconscious and making it conscious. And so of course, working in 3D, which is my favorite thing to do, I can take something that people really struggle with, dimensionalize it by using either pieces of paper or live representatives, and, and that quickly they know what it is they're seeing, where the obstacles are, how we can shift them, who's engaged, who's not engaged. So, so that's my favorite, favorite is it's like poetry in motion.

So one of the other pieces that we had a conversation about was this desire to become the biggest version of yourself. Let's start there for a moment. What does that phrase mean to you, the biggest version of yourself? And then we'll go from there.

Okay, so for me it means And I've said this before, it's the humblest day of your life. It's the first day that you agree to be fully responsible for growing the biggest version that you can. And now you're in service of the universe. And, and for me it was, if I've got a brain and, and I got a life, let's put them together and let's see how far we can push this. Not just for me, because I was also born with a, a gene. I almost want to say I've gotta share it. And that started with little pieces of chocolate and things at home. If I've got it, I wanna share it. So how do I push it as far as I can? And then how do I say to everybody else, hey, come play.

So what does that, hey, come play look like both for you? And then we'll take a step into your coaching work.

So what does Come Play look like for me? It's really, I know, I know that you have a really big version of yourself in there. Let's have a look at that because you're going to love it. We're going to go beyond brick walls and show you the other side. So Come Play is really the invitation to grow without it feeling like it's a really big job. Instead, It's an adventure. And for me, it's all about adventure. I love adventure.

And so then that leads into the invitation to your work in coaching and consulting, right?

Right, right. So yes, I think for me with, with all of my clients, when I sit down and I work with them and we work through the themes and figure out what we're doing and what they want to learn. I can already see what the biggest version is that I can see. And so I'm excited and, and I'm really ready to take the journey with them. I'm also extremely mindful of dancing at their pace.

Say more on that. Say more on that for a moment.

Yeah. So, so what I find often with, with coaching is it's no good pushing. Inviting is really good. Pushing is not, not helpful. But I also watch because as I'm working with people, I notice that there may be a hesitation or a pullback, and I'm interested in that. What was that? What was that about? Talk to me. So I watch and I listen very carefully. I'm listening to language, I'm watching body, and if they want to slow the pace down, or if there's an 'I can't,' I wanna know what that 'I can't' is because 'I can't' is protecting something, and now I'm really interested to know. What is it protecting? And how do we give what it's protecting a place? And then how do we turn that into a strength and a point of championship?

So that ability to alter your pace as well, foundational to coaching, but also foundational to the work of thought leadership because it's easy to talk over your audience, right? And so here's my question. What do you do to, to not only read when to speed up and slow down, but then how do you do that yourself? Because I can see sometimes that it's natural to be 1, 2, 3, 4, let's go, because you see where the biggest version of themselves could be. And it's like, oh, come on, let me grab you by the shirt collar and let's just go.

How do you reflect? So I think, I think there is, there's one very important one for me. I look to see immediately, are you an AZ thinker or are you an ABCDE thinker? Each is equally important. If you're an ABCDE, I need to let you process what's happening and I need you to tell me what's happening. If you're an AV, we can move a little quicker, but at the same time, I watch face, I watch body, I watch, I watch breath a lot, and I watch micro expressions. So the minute that I pick them up, I'm curious and I'll stop what I'm doing. Or if I'm, if I'm working in a large group, if I see somebody looking like they're disengaged, I want to know what that is. So, so I will. I will slow down. I will go out to that and actually invite it in. So I notice that there's a slowing down for you, or your right shoulder dropped, or you were looking not quite so sure. Talk to me about that. So I really continually invite input, and I'm aware of, is this a framework person or is this an in-the-middle person? So a framework person needs to understand what the framework is before they will play. The other person, the community person, gets in and they wanna plan, they'll figure out the framework later. You have a mix of those in a room. And my job always is, are we going too fast? Are we going too slow? Where do I need to speed it up just a little bit so that we've got happy hearts? And where do I need to slow it down just a fraction so we've got understanding minds? So at all points, I'm, I'm looking at that and sensing into it and, and seeing What do I need to do? The other piece for me is if I see somebody pull back and they're really looking like if they're resistant to it, I love that. I'll say, tell me what's got you stuck. Let's go there. But it's, it's really matching their pace.

And to underline something that I think you called out and is worthy is making room for the unspoken, the nonverbals, the furrowed brow, the dropped shoulder. All of those signals are their own forms of communication, especially if you're in a rich environment, meaning there's content-rich communication.

Right.

To be able to create space for it is critical. As you said, hesitation, emotional processing, logical processing. That's important work to be done when someone's encountering your ideas. And if you rush them through it, you're gonna lose them very, very quickly.

You'll lose them. And there's another one as well. If you— and I learned this— if I give them too much content, because I want to give them everything. And somebody said to me, I feel like I'm drinking through a fire hydrant door. And I was like, okay, I have to just, I can't give them everything. What are the most, what are the salient points that they can have right now? We can always build on. But somebody taught me, I think, a really important thing. When you do a constellation, and it stuck for me, if you watch what you're doing, you know, You know when that piece of work is complete. And when you know that it's complete, don't take your client into the next upward slope. Because then you're gonna have to work all the way up again. So less is often more. Just know when to stop.

You remind me of a story I had, have with a client years ago who was trying to figure out for book launch for themselves. What was a topic worthy of conversation? You know, what excerpt did they choose in the book launch readings and where did they focus? And I made a suggestion towards one simple foundational piece of the author's work. And I remember him raising an eyebrow, looking at me and going, really? That seems so simple. I've been talking about that for 20 years.

Yep.

And I flipped that and I said, but the people you're talking to haven't been listening for 20 years. Start with their first step. And you could see that light bulb come on. And he paused and said, okay, I can tell the foundational story. And keep it fresh.

You know, you're absolutely, absolutely spot on. I know when I went to Canada, I had a large group and I thought, okay, just so they can have a taste of it, we'll do a very simple exercise where we set up their family system and then put them into the family system and they can have a look just to sort of get that 3D feeling for what it feels like, because that's about as simple as you can go. And they were all, they were having ahas all over the place. And I was standing there going exactly what you said. Really? That made you aha? Uh-huh. Okay. Got it. Exactly what you said. I've been at this for a long time. You have not. So I've forgotten the joy of that original aha, that, that insight. And I had to step back and go, okay, go back to what it was like the first time. And take it from there.

I often think about what it would take for a primary school teacher, whether they're teaching the, you know, basic addition and subtraction, for example. That's not going to change between year to year, but the audience changes and their discovery is a first-time discovery. And you may go, yep, 2 2 is still 4. But if you can't come at it with fresh excitement, you lose the audience.

Yeah. And it's interesting to hold the dichotomy with that because 2 2 4, at the same time, if I'm not growing to 13 × 6 × 9, but you've got past 2 2, are going, what are we doing? So it's interesting to hold both spaces.

And we're talking a lot about shifting in this conversation, not only shifting between the pace and individual audience member needs, but across different audiences. Because as I think about it here, you could be doing introductory work with perhaps a new client and then advanced work with someone that you've worked with perhaps for a couple of years. And those conversations could be back to back and your ability to flex and pivot and be able to ramp up or ramp down the complexity and nuance of your ideas, that takes work. And it also is, is something that you can practice intentionally, I think.

You know, it does. It takes a lot of work. And I think one of the most, one of the best gifts I ever had was doing the work I do now. Because when you do systemic work and constellations, if you are not fully present and in the moment, you're going to lose it. And, and you can't have the answer. You've gotta allow the, the answer to emerge. Through the client, which makes it, it takes you out of your head and it allows you to travel those different complexities. But it's the most incredible teacher because it also keeps you focused in the moment. Exactly as you said, I can, I could do this, switch around and in 30 seconds I'm having another conversation and I've got to be that focused. So it teaches you to be intentionally on when you need to be on.

And present in the moment and not letting the past interaction from the last hour influence this hour. So very, very much a mindfulness flow state meditation. All of those pieces come into, I think, some of this work. If you're enjoying this episode of Leveraging Thought Leadership, please make sure to subscribe. If you'd like to help spread the word about our podcast, please leave a 5-star review at ratethispodcast.com/LTL and share it with your friends. We're available on Apple Podcasts and on all major listening apps, as well as thoughtleadershipleverage.com/podcast. You also talked about something interesting in terms of how you've been building your thought leadership work and practice. And you said something interesting that early on you undervalued your own work.

Oh yeah.

How did that come about?

I think a number of things. Culture in South Africa, we kind of lowball it a little bit because you don't want to seem too greedy or too ambitious. I was new into it, so I had no idea what the money levels were for what I was doing. I felt very much like I was new into it. I was creating a lot of content and that little back voice was going, and who do you think you are to be creating this? What gives you the authority to speak the way you better be careful because if you overcharge for this, Somebody's going to find out you're an, you know, that lovely thing, imposter. And I think I had that going on. And so it was just, yeah, I undervalued it.

So I've seen two different flavors. One, who are you, which is that imposter syndrome, but I've also seen content insecurity. My ideas aren't developed enough yet. Maybe they're not as sharp as they need to be. Was it more on the internal side of you looking at yourself, or was it also hesitation around the ideas themselves? Help me.

It was more around how do I express them? Because I can remember thinking, I can't stand doing these blooming manuals. The cat would go out one window, the family would go out the other window, and I would yell at the computer. And that happened for about the first 7 manuals. And then after about, I think about the first 1 or 2, people started saying to me, this stuff is really good. The manuals are absolutely amazing. But I kept going. And one day I can remember sitting down and going, Oh, I've gotta do a manual. And then this little voice inside said, oh, we're gonna play that play again. So now you don't know what you're doing. And I was like, oh dear. Okay. Maybe we don't do that anymore.

So it was almost that level of meta, meta-awareness for yourself that you heard what you said. Yep. Oh yeah.

I, I heard it and I went, really? You wanna do that again? That's gonna cost us how much stress and You want to go down that path? You're teaching this and you're walking that. So stop.

So that leads to something from your framework on decision-making around head, heart, and gut. I want to explore that just a little bit with you, and I also want to apply it back to the story that you just shared. So head, heart, and gut, if you would please.

Head, heart, and gut. One of the things I know and I share and teach is that we have a system in place. And I always ask people, do you watch horror movies? Invariably, the answer is no. Sometimes yes, but most times no. And I say, yeah, but you tell yourself horror stories about yourself all day long and you believe them. In other words, you are negatively aligned, head, heart, and gut. Your heart says, oh, I'm so stupid. Your head goes, yeah, that's right. You're stupid. Don't do that. And your gut just tightens. So we know that. Well, what we don't realize is that when you use it the other way around, that's conscious manifesting. When you say, I want to do X, and your heart's really feeling it and goes, yeah, yeah, your brain switches on and now you're in creative brain, and your gut goes, okay, now I can become your inner compass. And when those three align, you will not be unseated. You will do what it is that you want to do because I'm doing it. Every part of you is going, I'm doing it. So if I then go back to the story, the head, heart, and gut, the heart, the heart knew what it wanted, the head sort of had an idea of how to express it, but the gut was like, my goodness, there are so many people who've done so much. Uh, again, who do you think you are? Well, that, that was great, I will say, because it led me to teaching. There is imposter syndrome, which is that. But if you look at it carefully, there's pioneer syndrome. In other words, I may not have the answer. But I'm willing to go and look for it. And I've taught a lot about those two. Imposter syndrome will take you down. Pioneer syndrome elevates you.

And that's an interesting way of thinking of it, of I don't have the answers, but I'm ready to explore.

Yeah.

What is over the horizon? What is the next possible? I like that. So you've been on a journey on thought leadership, Judy. Where do you see going next? What are the next challenges ahead that you're trying to face?

I think the ones that I see the most often are, well, there are two. Leaders who push rather than inspire. I really work a lot with that because The inspire gets people so much further. The other one, and I know, I know that there are stages at which I bump up against it, but more and more I see it going in that direction is you're not a victim. Sorry, you are not. It's a nice idea. You are not a victim. You are always a choice. You're only a victim if you stay stuck. We're all going to have a victim. Peace or a victim experience. But really, for me, you're a victim when you stay stuck and you choose to stay stuck. And this is one that I've had to couch really carefully so that people don't feel insulted. I am not ever denigrating or diminishing what you've been through, but do you want to stay there, or do you want to use that for something remarkable?

It is definitely a tricky space in terms of language, and often people will form judgments on what you mean before you've had time to unpack it. So how do you introduce an idea without offending and driving people away. That's tough.

Well, it is. And with a victim piece, it is. So we all have the, the victim experience at some point, and then it comes down to what are you going to do with what's just happened? Because that's going to keep you victim or not. And if it keeps you victim, that then becomes my work, which is the systemic work in constellations. We then get multiple generations of victims and everybody becomes so mired in the mythology and the story and the events and the triggerings that they don't stop and look at, so if I'm not here, what's possible? And I think for me, the what's possible is huge. What's possible and what's next? If you don't unpack victim, what tends to happen is you become the next perpetrator, only 10 times worse. And do you want that journey?

Judy, so as we begin to wrap up, you've given a lot of advice, not only in terms of framing and thinking from your work, but also around the work of thought leadership and being able to speed up and slow down. I want to ask you this question. What do you wish you knew at the start of your thought leadership work? What would have gotten you further and made life easier along the way?

You know, if I, if I look at that, I would say it's like that, what would you tell your young the earlier version of you, I wish I'd have had the wisdom and perhaps even the courage to relax. Because I've, I've discovered that's one of the most important words in the universe. When I can relax, so much more is possible. I'm more present, I'm more aware. I said that to somebody today, instead of going in with your shoulders high and your jaw tense and your right hook ready, what would happen if you took a breath and went in and simply asked the question from a completely relaxed, centered point of view? And they started crying. They said to me, I've never thought of doing that. I wish I taught myself earlier to relax.

There's a way into a flow state and a highly present state through that relaxed mindset, which allows both creativity in terms of reframing the problem or finding new ways to explain an idea. As well as being able to listen much more deeply and much more engaged. And I think that's a great place to end this conversation, Judy. What can our audience do to relax and be in the moment with their ideas? I want to thank you for joining us today, Judy, and congratulations on your new book.

Thank you so much. What a lovely conversation.

I create. Okay, you've made it to the end of the episode, and that means you're probably someone deeply interested in thought leadership. Want to learn even more? Here are 3 recommendations. First, check out the back catalog of our podcast episodes. There are a lot of great conversations with people at the top of their game in thought leadership as well as just starting out. Second, Subscribe to our newsletter that talks about the business of thought leadership. And finally, feel free to reach out to me. My day job is helping people with big insights take them to scale through the practice of thought leadership. Maybe you're looking for strategy, or maybe you want to polish up your ideas, or even create new products and offerings. I'd love to chat with you. Thanks for listening.