The Cheat Code for High-Stakes Success with Nicola S. Morgan - 323

Hello, you are watching and listening to Sarah Archer and episode 323 of The Speaking Club podcast.

I want to open this show with a quote from the one and only Winston Churchill. Success is not final.

Failure is not fatal.

It is the courage to continue that counts. Thank you, Winston.

I started this podcast for 2 reasons: because I want to help people recognise the power of stories and humour in speaking, and because I believe it's your message that counts, not the number of ums and ahs you use. There are some organisations that want to create robot speakers. They want you to sacrifice your personality in order to speak perfectly. I want to let you know that you can be yourself and a sensational speaker. So if you want to be a speaker that connects and engages authentically through stories, a speaker that gives value as well as a great performance, then welcome home.

Hey, welcome to the Speaking Club podcast. If you're watching the show, you will see I was sniggering there. That's because my first pass at this was shocking. So, uh, it was funny. Maybe I'll do a bloopers reel one day.

Who knows?

Anyway, let's—

enough of that. Let's talk about today's show. I was a judge in the Speaker Awards for this year, just like last year, and one of the categories I was judging was the TEDx category. And I'm absolutely thrilled to bits to be bringing on the winner of that category, Nicola S. Morgan. It was a great TEDx. The idea was stunning, and she's going to share how that came about and also more about what she's speaking on. Speaks about to schools, to organizations, to corporate teams and leaders, which is resilience. And it's more than that though, it's the whole mindset piece. And in this interview, she shares some, you know, nuggets that are really going to help you sort of cut through the stress, the chaos, and find your calm so that you can perform in those high-stakes situations. So, yeah, I'm, I'm really good. I hope you are too, and I hope you're excited to get into this so that you can get some gold for levelling up your speaking, but also levelling up other areas of your performance too. So, without further ado, let's switch over to the interview with me and Nicola S. Morgan. Welcome to The Speaking Club, Nicola S. Morgan.

Oh, it's so good to be here, Sarah. I was absolutely made up when you asked me to do this podcast with you.

Well, I was chuffed to bits that you agreed to come on. So, we're both winning, which is excellent. And there's a bit of a theme going on with what we're going to talk about today. Now, I want to start off with a question, which I didn't actually realise this until I did a little bit of sort of background. was you did a Channel swim, and I didn't realise that you had a fear of deep water. So, what on earth made you decide to take on that challenge? And what did it unlock for you when you did it, I guess, is the first question?

Oh, lots of things. A fear of deep water, hate the cold. I'm not a good swimmer at all. Taught myself to front crawl at the age of 37, which was, You know, not that far ago when I actually did the channel. Never been in open water either before. So it was a completely different animal that I was about to just dive into. But I think for me, it was the phrase that I always use, which is, why not me? Other people have done it. Not many people, because interestingly, more people reach the summit of Everest than have actually swum the English Channel. But I could see other people doing it, and I was thinking, well, why not me? Now, there were a multitude reasons why not, because I'm a technically terrible swimmer and a lot of these people have been swimming since they were knee-high. But I thought, why can't I? And what I learned was that if I put myself in the right environment and surround myself by the right people, and I'm prepared to be disciplined and consistent, that I can do it.

But when did the idea first occur to you? So like, when did it pop in your head to even go, Oh yeah, I think maybe I should swim the Channel. Like, what, when did that happen?

Yeah, I don't know about you, but do you have these crazy bucket lists?

Yes.

Yeah, you normally do them, don't you, at the beginning of every year? You think, oh, I'd like to do this, I'd like to do that, I'd like to do the other. And it was on one of my crazy bucket lists. And then one year I thought, I could do this. And I'd already started bothering with a lot of people who were doing Ironman and triathlons and open water swimming. And I thought, Maybe I should delve into this. And I was meant to do it as a relay with, with a colleague of mine, but she dropped out. And I remember saying to my personal trainer at the time, I said, do you think I can do this on my own? And she said, well, there's only one way to find out, Nic.

And that's where it started.

Oh my goodness.

So when was this?

That was back in 2016. And my first swim, my first attempt was in 2017 in August. Wow.

So take me, take me through, I, I wanna talk about other things, but I'm really curious about this. So 2017, um, is when you, when you did it, when you actually, so you trained. So how long did you train for to do it?

I trained for 12 months, which isn't long. So I had to, I had to go right back to basics. And I think that's the thing, sometimes we're, we're fearful of going back to the beginning. Because we're afraid that we're losing time. But it's a real game changer when you think, right, I'm just going to start from scratch. So I found a really good swimming coach. So I was having lots of swimming coaching. I was getting exposed to the elements, doing really long swims, 6 hours, 7 hours, 8-hour swims in cold water, which was just crazy. And the one thing that I was surviving on during those swims was mint arrows. Sarah, I can't even smell them now, okay? It turns my stomach. But mint arrows was the thing that I was surviving on during those swims. Oh my goodness.

So 12 months training, and then what time of year did you do it? It's always— is it sort of June time? Do you like—

They, they start, I think, about the middle of June, and they end probably in around the September time, because that's really when the water is at its Warmest, I don't know if you'd call 15 to 18 degrees warm, but that's the reason they choose those months.

Okay.

So, this was, so, 2017, your stand— where did you start, France or UK?

UK, in Dover, and jumped on the boat. And the boat takes you about, I would probably say about a length to 2 lengths of a 25-metre swimming pool. You get off the boat, you have to swim to the shoreline, you stand there, and for me, it was in pitch darkness. It, it, it was just like one of those horror movies. And then the hooter sounds on the boat, you get in the water, and then you've got to make it all the way.

And is it just you, was it just you, or were there other people trying it at the same time?

No, it was just me for that particular time slot with that particular pilot, and the pilot's name was Simon Ellis. I will never forget him for the rest of my life. Great guy. Gosh.

So did, what was crossing your mind as you were standing there in the pitch black at the edge of the water? We did, was there any, did you have any doubt? Did you, did you second guess yourself at all?

Oh, massively. First attempt, it was like, Nick, what are you doing? What, what are you doing? I, I, I was in my late 40s. I think I was 47 at the time. I thought, what are you doing? This is just crazy. You know, it, it, You know, just, just walk away. You don't need to do this. And I had no idea, Sarah, what I was letting myself in for.

Oh my goodness. But you got in the water anyway. I jumped in the deep end. Did you say your thing at that point? Well, why not? Did you add that mantra in or was that like out of your head at that point?

I think I was cursing myself too much at the time, to be honest with you. There was no logic coming through my head.

Excellent. So you got in the water, this first attempt, 2017. What happened?

It was rough. The sea was very, very rough. It was hard. It was swimming through the night. And as I say in my TED Talk, and it's very, very true, I had the soundtrack to Jaws playing round and round in my head. I didn't know whether I was coming or going. One of my goggles, not one of them, my eyepiece that was leaking. So it was just awful all the way. And I just wanted to get out. I absolutely wanted to get out, and I was in a mindset that I was, for want of a better term, playing victim. So any opportunity I could speak to the crew, I was saying things like, um, it's cold, it's dark, um, I'm not feeling very well, I've got pain in my eye, I've got pain in my shoulders. And I had one very supportive member of the crew that kept on saying to me, but Nick, you knew this was going to be hard. You knew it wasn't going to be easy. If it was easy, everybody would be doing it. So Head down, keep going. And that was my mantra, head down, keep going. And interestingly, Sarah, from the 2017 attempt to the 2019 attempt, to the challenges that we all go through in life to this present day, I've always used that mantra. When you feel like you want to give up, and we always wanna give up, don't we, in our darkest moments, it's head down, keep going. You can do it. Things are going to change.

Oh my God.

Yeah, no, that is so, I, it's so, the thing that I love about what you do, and it's very similar to Mel Robbins in a way, is you take very simple concepts, profound, but simple pattern interrupts and, and give people a way to move forward, I think, or get unstuck, uh, and so on. But so let's just go back. So 2017 in the water. Moaning like a good'un, probably in the wrong mindset from what I'm gathering from you. What happened next? Where did the— when, how far did you get?

14 and a half hours in, I could just about make the outline of France in the distance. And it's very hard because the crew could see France, but because you're low down in the water, I could just about make it out. And then I got stuck in a current for 2 hours. I hadn't moved anywhere for 2 hours.

Oh my God.

I was just splashing around in the water, feeling sorry for myself. And then there came a point that the pilot said, we need to get her out. We, you know, we're fearful for her safety. There's also a high risk of hypothermia in those temperatures as well. And I remember he, they all dragged me on the boat. I was in one hell of a mess. They dragged me on the boat. They wrapped me up in a sleeping bag and then I was out cold for about an hour, but just pure exhaustion. And I think shock because I'd never done anything like that before. And then I remember when I woke up and I was feeling really sorry for myself. Um, and there's regret. Oh, what if, what if I'd done this? What if I'd stayed in a bit longer? I'm a failure. That kind of thing. And of course with me, Sarah, If I get an idea in my head, I tell everyone.

Yeah.

I can't help myself. I just broadcast it. And I thought, what am I gonna tell all these people, all these teachers and leaders? You know, what am I gonna say? You know, I never made it. And then the pilot said something very casual, like a throwaway comment that I will never forget for the rest of my life. And he said this, he said, Nick, it's not failure. It's just unfinished business.

Yeah.

And then I remember this smile came on my face, and then I just flat out again for 2 hours.

Wow.

And I, 'cause this is the thing, 'cause obviously I don't wanna spoil it, but I think it's quite in the title and everything. Like at that point, did you realize, did it register with you how profound the, well, I mean, it obviously meant a lot to you. Did you, Because I guess the question, because this is the heart of the TEDx talk.

Yeah.

Was it so obvious to you that that was going to be something that you took forward and shared with other people? Or was there a delay in registering that this was something that you could share that would make a big difference?

I think for me, you know, you come across people in your life and they say something. They say a word or a phrase and it really resonates with you at that particular moment in time.

Yeah.

This just stuck. And I remember I was loosely delivering courses and speaking at conferences and just throwing the term in, but it wasn't really gaining that much traction the way that I was actually doing it. Because like what you said, you know, it probably really didn't, you know, take on a full meaning until I started crafting out the TED Talk.

Yeah.

But I think that, I think if we listen to things people say to us at those definitive moments, we really listen. There are some nuggets of gold, aren't there, that people give us, and we just need to hold onto it and think, I wonder, maybe I'll bag that and pull it out in a few years' time because there's something in there.

Yeah.

That I can use.

Definitely. So, he said that to you. At that point, it must, you must have thought, oh well, I'll just do it again.

Yeah.

And so, take us to the next time, 2019, when you set off again. What was different? Was something different from the start? Take me through that.

I did. I think with everything, I think that we go through life and we can learn from our mistakes. You know, we don't want to play victim. We want to say, you know, what can I learn from this? Or why me? You know, what can I get out of it? And for that year leading up to 2019, I implemented a lot of strategies. Now, one, And some people will poo-poo this one, but you know, it was the reason, I would say 80% of the reason that I got back in that water and I did the swim again was visualization.

Mm-hmm.

I visualized every single day and I've taken that over now to when I'm engaging in, you know, conference keynotes and so on. I visualize everything. And I spent a year just a few times during the day visualizing how I would react react to swallowing seawater, which don't do it. It's not very pleasant. How I would react to the extreme cold, to the exhaustion, to the jellyfish, to the uncertainty, to the fears, to the vulnerability of the whole scale of the challenge. And also how I would feel when my feet touched France, how I would feel. And I would say that 80% of that was down to visualization. The reason why I got back in the water and I did the swim. Very, very powerful stuff. And I use those techniques today.

Oh, you're preaching to the choir. Like, I am always talking to speakers about visualising themselves going through the process, especially at the start of their speaking journey, because effectively what you're doing is giving your brain evidence that you're creating memories, future memories, that it then thinks you've done it. And so it's such a powerful tool. So yeah, absolutely preaching to the choir on this one. And if you're not using visualisation to help you get through things that you haven't done before or are scared about, then this is gold. Thanks so much for sharing that.

Brill.

So, and did you encounter all the things that you visualised in that second attempt?

Oh yes. Loads of it.

Absolutely loads.

I remember the first 2 hours I was in again, I was swimming in the pitch black, so I just had the Jaws theme music playing over and over again. But don't ask me why, but I was swallowing a lot of seawater within that first 2 hours. And, um, I'm so sorry if anybody's listened to this first thing in the morning, but I was vomiting a lot. I wasn't really making headway. And you always have an observer on the Channel swim boat that's just checking that everything is in line, that you're following the rules, and they can make a call on whether you get pulled out or not. And she did turn around and say, I think we're gonna have to pull her out. She's, she's just not going to do this. And I was really, really struggling. And I remember my mind kept on saying to me, you stupid woman, what are you doing? You're doing this again. This is crazy. You need to get out. You need to get on that boat. And I remember the words from Nastia Liukin, who I'd listened to a podcast just a few months before. She's a gymnast, gold medalist. And I held onto her words about delaying the urge to give up. And I said to myself, I said, that's fine, Nick, you can get out, you can get on that boat, that's okay, but not right now. Get up when day breaks and the sun rises. And I thought, great, well, I can just doggy paddle for a while and splash around for a bit, but then I'm giving myself permission to get out.

Yeah.

But here's the thing, that when we do delay the urge, even if it's for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, it doesn't matter. It, I don't know, it just kind of, it gets you into a mindset that you think, actually, maybe I can go a little bit further. Maybe I can do this. And I remember when the sun came up, I felt a slight heat, just a slight heat on my back. And I thought, I think I can do this.

Oh, good.

I really do. I think I can do it. And then I was about 6 hours in. And of course, the Channel's one of the busiest shipping lanes in the world, right? It's just, surreal with all the oil tankers passing and the P&O ferries. It's just crazy. It's brilliant. You have to do it to actually kind of visualize it. But I reached the point and all I can describe it as was a wall of jellyfish. There was no escaping them and they were beautiful. They were all the colors of the rainbow.

They were absolutely gorgeous.

And something else as well, I always thought the Channel was very dirty. It's crystal clear.

Oh, wow.

Absolutely gorgeous. It's like swimming in the Bahamas, but not because it's not that warm. Yeah. And then I made a mistake because swimming through a whole load of jellyfish is like crawling through a field of stinging nettles. That's, that's the best way I can describe it. And I made a mistake of just pushing one of them away. It's a pretty big one and I pushed it away and of course my shoulder gave way and then I was in extreme pain for the remainder of the swim and could hardly move my arm. I think because I'd visualized and I'd visualized going through a lot of pain, I thought, Mick, this is just that. You've done this before. This isn't gonna last forever. You've got, you know, maybe 10 more hours, 15 more hours, whatever it is, however long it's gonna take, and then it's gonna be over. And I always hold onto the phrase as well, when you're in really, really painful and tough challenges, winter never follows winter. There's going to be a change. You're going to get out of this. So stick with it.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. So cool. And then, and then you got to the other side and how did that feel for you? When you, you have to do, you have, from what I can remember from all the films that I've seen about this type of thing, you have, no one can touch you and you have to get out the other side. Is that right? So how did that feel?

Well, number one, I couldn't use my arm. I couldn't use my left arm. So I did struggle. And I remember more or less tripping and crawling and standing again to get onto the beach and away from the sea. And my part of my crew was swimming behind me as well. And they, I could just hear them shouting out in the background going, don't touch her, don't touch her. Because as soon as you get touched, you're disqualified. And then I'm on the beach and I'm looking back at the boat and the hooter goes off again. So of course you get the hooter at the beginning and the hooter at the end. And it was just disbelief. I thought, I, I, I feel like I just dreamt the whole thing.

Did you cry? Because I'm, I, I'm like, it's funny, I don't do emotion much, but I can feel it in through other people's stuff. So I'm just imagining you standing on that beach and having gone through all of that stuff, and I can feel myself welling up. Did you cry?

No.

I'll tell you why I didn't. I'll tell you why I didn't. Because I thought, when I was stood there, I thought, because again, the boat was about a good length to 2 lengths of a swimming pool, 25-meter swimming pool away from the shoreline. I thought, how am I going to get back to that boat? I can't now use my arm. My arm is gone. So I was trying to work it out, and the only way I got back to the boat was lying on my back and kicking. I think I was more concerned about that and just getting there and just getting back and being able to have some food, have a shower, and have a sleep.

Gosh.

Did, did any emotion come through later?

Um, I think a few days later, if I can remember it, and when the shock wears off, it's like, my gosh, I've done that. Yeah, I've done that. And what a privilege, what an honour. you know, that I was able to do it. And what an experience, Sarah. It's been a massive game changer for me. Massive game changer.

Definitely. Now, one of the things that I teach speakers to do is always put themselves in the audience's shoes and think about, if I say this, or if I share this, what might my audience be thinking or want to know next? I don't know. I'm imagining my audience is going to want to know, some practicalities, whether they want to do this or not. Did it, did you, I'm assuming you had to invest a lot, cash, time, resources to do this. Is that, is that true? Could, is it, was there a cost attached to it as well?

There is a cost to swimming the Channel. You can do it through, um, through a charity and you raise money. Uh, because I have a company called NSM Training and Consultancy, I made the decision that NSM would pay for it, which came to about £3,000, um, and then anybody who wanted to sponsor me, that money went directly to this little girl, um, to buy, um, a device to enable her to read because she's partially sighted. So all the money that got raised went directly to her, which was wonderful.

That's brilliant, but that's obviously not including all the swim coaching and stuff.

No, no, again, the company, um, For want of a better word, sponsored me to do all of that.

Yeah.

So it is an investment. It's a game changer, interestingly, I think, and I think I'm right in saying this, and maybe people can correct me via the podcast, but to walk to the North Pole, I think it's something like £25,000. To do Everest is something like £50,000 to £75,000.

Wow.

So this one is £3,000, but then, you know, it is a lot of time, a lot of investment, a lot of kit. A lot of qualifications that you've got to do as well, because you've got to do a 6-hour swim. And I did that in Mallorca via Swimtrek. Absolutely fantastic. And I think that was the hardest thing I've ever done because I had to stay for 6 hours in the water without touching anything or anyone where the temperature was 9.5 degrees.

Gosh.

I was purple.

Gosh.

And blue.

Wow. Cool.

Yeah.

Oh, thanks for sharing that. So there you go, people listening, there's the answer in case that was in your head. Now I want to also go back because again, I think people will be thinking to themselves, so what did she do before this? And what has she done since this? You know, has, has, uh, has it changed what you did? And so if you can share a bit about, you know, your life leading up to this and then what's happened subsequently, that would be really cool.

I think, and maybe a lot of people can resonate with this. For me, I felt that I was never good enough. You know, I was never academic. I was never particularly good at anything. I was a dreamer, very, very creative, but kind of lived my life in my head. And I got to a point probably back when I was teaching, I think when I was about 35, something like that, and I thought, I've got so many ideas. I want to write a book, but I can't write a book because I can't read very well and I'm not very good at writing, bordering on being dyslexic. But I found another way. I thought, well, if other people are doing it, if I find another way, maybe I can. And I had my first book published and consequently I've written now and had published about 10. And a lot of them are via Routledge, which are the top educational publishers I think globally, I know in the UK, but I also think globally. So for me it was like, wow, I've published this book. What else can I do? You know, it's about getting over these limiting beliefs. And I think for me with the Channel Swim, it was coming back to why not me? You know, there's got to be a way around this stuff. If you really want something, you find another way. You find a way around it. The traditional route might be this, but if I do this, this, and this, maybe I can still get there. And since the Channel Swim, I've held onto that. And, you know, we all hit challenges because life is hard. It's meant to be hard. You know, it's about how we overcome these challenges and how we relax and enjoy in the moment when things are great. But I think when I've hit challenges since, I've held on to the Channel swim. I've held on to the TED Talk where I kind of pulled those phrases together and those phrases have got me through a hell of a lot of tough stuff over the past year and a half. You know, things like head down, keep going. And, you know, it's okay to wobble, but at one point you're going to be a warrior, but it's okay to wobble again. But also we need to take that warrior's rest, give yourself permission just to take that little bit of time out. And I think that when we stretch ourselves, when we put ourselves in uncomfortable situations, And we learn to feel comfortable. That stretches us, doesn't it?

Absolutely.

And if I did this, I can do that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So what were you teaching before you had the idea for the book?

Primary, mainstream is what I trained in. And then I did a lot of work in pupil referral units for secondary. And my main thing over the years is I've had this affinity to children who misbehave, children who are a little bit challenging, because I get it. I get the frustration, you know, that if you're expected to do this in school and you can't do it, then how about if you just swing on your chair or say something that's not particularly acceptable and you get sent down to the head's office? You don't have to do that work anymore. So this is perfect. Interesting.

And so were you speaking Before, I'm assuming you were maybe before, if you've written your books before you did the swim, tell me a little bit about that, or did it come after?

I was, before I did the swim, I was running a lot of training courses nationally and internationally to a lot of teachers and headteachers, local authorities around the area of effective behaviour management and also dealing with difficult people, having those tricky conversations. And also effective ways of engaging families. That was my thing. That was my bread and butter. But I wanted to put myself out there a little bit more.

I wanted to stretch myself a little bit more.

I always, a bit like the Channel Swim, on my ridiculous bucket list, I had, oh, let's do a TED Talk. So that was on there as well. And I thought maybe by doing the Channel Swim, I've got a story to tell. I have something to say. I have a message to get out there. And then I did the TED Talk, and then that just opened up a whole new world. I've been to places like Dubai and Thailand delivering training and keynotes on resilience. I've met some incredible people, and it's been so nice when individuals will come up to me at the end of a conference or even email me weeks or even years. I had a text the other day, or sorry, not a text, it was on Instagram. From, um, a lady that saw me speak 2 years ago, and she said, I still remember those words you said.

Wow.

I still remember them.

That's amazing. So, um, there was a question that popped into my head. Oh, I know what it was. Just before we depart from the swim and switch into some other questions, what other crazy things have you got on your bucket list still?

I've got one. I don't know if I should say, you see, this is the problem now, Sarah, because I mentioned it a few times, uh, to a few friends, but now I'm officially saying it on a podcast.

Okay.

Don't know if I should be saying this, but, but here we go. And I'm still thinking about it, so I'm not—

I'm a deaf host.

Yeah.

Okay.

So one of the hardest channel swims in the world is swimming from Ireland to Scotland. It's, it's 21 miles in a straight line, but again, nobody ever swims in a straight line, so it's more like 30 miles plus. It's a lot colder than the English Channel, and there are lion's mane jellyfish there. So, a lot of people get pulled out. Some people get hospitalised because of it. It's one of the toughest challenges ever. And interestingly, since 1940, only 115 people have actually nailed it.

Wow.

And I'm thinking, why not me?

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I can't believe it. It's really interesting. Like you say, I'm assuming these Lyme main are proper bad. Uh, yeah. Yeah. As I remember, like, I love, people who listen to the show will know I like paddleboarding. And I remember last year in Spain, I went out on my paddleboard and I, and my other half, Emma, was watching me from the shoreline and I, And she saw me, she said, I knew something was wrong because you went out and then you turned around and were paddling like super, super fast back. And it's cuz I saw a whole shedload of jellyfish and I was like, oh my God, I need to get back in. And I was on a paddleboard, so I can't imagine what that must be like. And I didn't even know if they stung or whatever, but it just like, it's such, I, I think it's in my head, this is such an amazing achievement and to, to wanna do it again with worse stuff. It's like, you must be a bit of a nutter, but I respect that. And I, and you are inspiring me. I need to be thinking of what can I do on my bucket list? 'Cause—

Actually, I've got something for you, Sarah. What we can do together is we could do a relay. What, for that?

Yeah. Oh, I dunno. But I'm getting, I can feel myself getting hot. I'll tell you, I did a sprint triathlon and I was great with the run. It, it was, it's a small, it's a smaller triathlon. You, you know, um, but for those of you who don't know, you do a swim, you do a cycle, and you do a run. And I started off on the open water with this, and I think it was 1,000 meters. And I couldn't believe these— I was— no word of a lie, these 80, 90-year-old women were passing me in this swim. I was like, oh my God, I'm so rubbish at this.

I was like, what? I thought it was going to be dead easy, but it was so hard.

Uh, well, ponder on it. I don't know though, it's scaring me. I don't, I think I'd hold you back. I'm, I'm not sure. I'll, I'll ponder on that. Uh, yeah, she's— Let me know. I'm stuck for words now, people. Anyone listening? Uh, yeah.

We could do another podcast on it in 2 years' time.

Yeah. Oh my goodness. I, I'll, I'm having a hot, I don't know if it's a hot flush or just a sweat. planet is wet. Um, right, let's, let's, let's move, let's move on. I'm getting onto more comfortable territory now, but why not me? I've got a million reasons anyway, right? Should ponder on that. Um, right, cool. So let me just— you've moved me off my thread of thought there, what I was going to think about. Um, now in this topic of resilience, uh, it's not, not often I'm lost for words.

In this topic of resilience, you've worked with, with, with school leaders, with corporate execs.

What is a skill around resilience that works just as well in the staff room as it, as it does in the boardroom?

I, I'm, I'm going to pick out this one, which I use myself, and I use this every evening, 100%. Sometimes if I need to, I use it during the day as well. It's very, very simple and it's based on the work of Dr. Martin Seligman, if anybody wanted to check it out. And it's about making sure you're picking 3 things per day that you're grateful for or put a smile on your face or you feel really good about. Because by doing that, what you're training your brain to do is to focus on the good stuff. Now, Lucy Hone mentioned this in her TED Talk on 3 Traits of Resilient People, and she said resilient people get that there's negative stuff there, but they choose to focus in on the positive. And I think that with life, like I said, it is hard. It's meant to be hard. It's an exciting journey. We just need to see it as that. But when we're in the depths of the challenge or the sadness or the upset, we can either choose to focus in on that or we can look for those hidden gems. Brené Brown said this, celebrate the ordinary. This look for the ordinary stuff. Maybe the way that it was like this morning, you're my cat. You know, they close their eyes and I'm convinced they're smiling at me. I'm convinced. And I'm just holding onto those little bits of joy throughout the day because that's what it's all about. It's finding those little bits of joy that carry you through because we don't want to get buried in the negative stuff.

Yeah.

So that's very transferable to absolutely everything that we do, whoever we are, what, you know, whether we're in the classroom, whether we're in the corporate sector, whether we're just walking down the road, This, do it. This, celebrate the ordinary. 3 things, that's it. And the real game changer is, and I think this actually came from, you mentioned Mel Robbins earlier, I think it actually came from her book, that the game changer is that if we write those 3 things down and we revisit them the following day, that's when they really start to gather momentum.

Excellent. No, that's really, and I think this is the thing, we are wired to be negative because it's been our, that's the way that people have survived is by focusing on the things that might harm them. But in today's world, that just leads to being, our nervous system being in fight or flight longer than it needs to be. So this is, this is really, really useful. Excellent. Thank you for sharing that. Now, the other thing, um, There's quite a macho sort of thing around resilience often. It's quite a hard talking about being tough, but you talk about flexibility. What does strong but flexible resilience actually look like? And I guess in a leader, in a teacher, in a speaker even, what would you say to that?

Well, coming back to the phrase, head down, keep going. Now, there's a point there that we don't keep going. And again, coming back to the first Channel swim attempt when I was caught in a current for 2 hours, it was pointless, head down, keep going. It was going to be detrimental to me, you know, medically, health-wise, it wasn't good. And there are some times in our life that we've got to work out, Is it head down, keep going, or do I need to stop? Not because I'm weak, because I'm strategic, because I'm sensible, because I'm forward playing this and I need to stop now. I need to come out of this situation. I need to reevaluate. I need to maybe skill up a little bit more, and then I go back in to give it another go.

Mm-hmm.

And I think there's a fine line there because resilience isn't about powering through everything. It is about having that flexibility. It's knowing that one day you could be that wobbler. You know, wobbled a lot, haven't we? You know, through with everything that we do. And there are those days that we become the warrior and we can fight through it.

But it's that little bit in the middle as well.

And we just need to balance the two. And we need to be really, really sensible with ourselves. I love that.

That's like strategic resilience and also giving yourself grace. Um, and, and I think that sometimes the other thing that comes to mind is that sometimes you have to take a step back to take 2 forward. And, and there is that NLP, failure is only feedback in a way.

Yeah.

So yeah, I love that strategic, you didn't say it, but flexible resilience. We'll go with your term. Flexible resilience is, uh, that's really cool.

Okay.

And when you started, you know, you switched in from training to keynote speaking, is it, there is a shift because I work with a lot of people that are trainers and then want to do their signature talk. And there are different skills to doing speaking in a training setting to speaking in a keynote setting. Did you find that? And how did you have to shift your mindset or approach to make that transition?

Definitely. I think when you're running a training course and you've got a whole day to do it, if you forget to say something here, you can say it there. And you can waffle on a little bit as well. And, you know, you can kind of be a bit creative. But I think with a keynote, because you have a set amount of time, I am doing a keynote now in September at the House of Lords. I've got 50 minutes. That is it. And I think the question I always ask myself is in that 50 minutes, They need to know something that they can take away with them, that they can implement, that's going to maybe get them to think in a slightly different way. So, whereas I maybe say a paragraph on a training course, can I reduce that down to maybe a word, a phrase, just one sentence? And I call them sticky words, sticky phrases, and I got that from the PSA, and I've held onto that because it kind of makes sense. Those things that really stick, that when you leave you think, yeah, warrior or wobbler, or unfinished business, or the challenge within the challenge.

Yeah.

And they're little things you can hold onto. I say it the same when I'm working with teachers. I try to give them short, sharp phrases. Like I'm at the union conference tomorrow with ECT teachers, and I say, just hold onto these little phrases like connect before you correct.

Yeah.

Because in the heat of the moment, we need to refer to those phrases rather than think, all right, I've got to decipher all this information. No, we want it at our fingertips. And for me, that's been the change. Yeah.

Cool. That's really useful. I think that's really useful around the short phrases. And I think the other thing that you probably do that you haven't mentioned and possibly leads into that phrase is what's really powerful for people is metaphors. analogies and making these things concrete and relatable and then capturing that in a phrase. Uh, would you say that's fair?

Oh, 100%. I think we'll always remember a good story. Yeah. We'll always remember that. And a lot of people since the TED Talk have contacted me and said, I really needed to hear this because it just summed up my, my year. You know, of going on this journey, and they feel that they've gone on that journey with me. And it makes such a difference that when we pull in really good stories.

Yeah, absolutely. One thing that I, I wrote down to ask is probably an appropriate moment just to step into it.

Have you—

was the pilot from the first attempt the same for the second attempt?

Yes.

And did you let him or her know how profound what they'd said to you had been for you?

100%. And, and, um, I remember when my TED— before my TED Talk came out, I emailed him, Simon.

Yeah.

Um, and I said to him, I said, just for you to know, this TED Talk is titled with the exact phrase you gave me in 2017.

Oh no.

Um, and when I won the, um, the award a few months ago on LinkedIn and Facebook, I tagged him in as well. And I just— and I think it's important that we give recognition and we give people thanks. And the reason I think it's important is because people will be more giving with other people. They'll think, this made a significant impact to Nick. I'm going to carry on doing this now for others.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's true, actually.

It is really true. That's cool. I'm glad he sort of did that. It's nice to know.

Okay, cool.

Next couple of questions before we go into our standard ones. I think you've said speakers prepare mentally, but often forget behavioural strategy. And I guess this also applies to other people that you work with. What's a behaviour shift that you think people can make to, to do the behavioural stuff as well?

This came to me when, when I was doing a lot of training for the Channel Swim and I listened to, I'm sure it was a podcast with Wim Hof. And you know those moments that the penny just drops and it makes sense? And he said, he said, your breath tells your brain if you're in danger or not.

Yeah.

And, and that's been something that I've done throughout all my keynotes up to this point. And even now when I get into cold water, if I control my breath, it tells my brain I'm okay.

Yeah. Yeah.

And I do a lot of breathing now. And sometimes, you know, in extreme cold when it goes down to, I got in the, in the reservoir Um, Christmas time and it was about 6 degrees and it's like, whoa. But I'm thinking, no, my breath is going to tell my brain I'm okay. I'm in control. I'm not in any danger. So before I get onto any stage, I'm always telling my brain, it's okay, Nick. Got this.

Through your breathing.

Through the breathing.

And is that, do you have a particular, um, type of breathing routine you do at that point and in the water?

I'll do diaphragmatic breathing, which is a really nice one to do, or box breathing is another really effective one to do. And when I'm in the water, I don't concentrate so much on my breathing, but I do a body scan. So rather than me going into victim mode thinking, oh my gosh, this feels so uncomfortable, I'm in so much pain, it's so cold, I go from my head to my toes and I do a running commentary. How's my head feeling? How's the water feeling on my skin? It feels really fresh. It feels cold.

It feels good.

My shoulders are moving in the right way. And I just keep on doing these body scans all the time just to check in with me. And I like what I was— unfortunately passed away a few years ago, the motivational speaker Bob Proctor.

Yeah.

He said this at one of his conferences. He said, always be as loose as ashes. When you get on stage, just be as loose as ashes, just completely relaxed with you, with your body, who you are, and just be who you're meant to be.

Yeah.

I love that.

Absolutely. And I think that's, so one of the things that I talk to speakers about doing is leaving, we have these 2 sides to us, the creator and the critic. And I talk about leaving the critic on the side of the stage and letting the creator step on. It feels like that's— I've not heard— I like loose as ashes. That's really interesting. But yeah, it's all about just being there and being you and being present with the audience in that moment.

Yeah.

Oh, it's lovely.

Cool.

And I'm going to try those. I live literally 150 yards from the sea and I haven't been swimming in the cold, cold, but I will have— I'll do that. I'll have a crack at that. Um, yeah, so, uh, yeah, there's, uh, you started to see the cogs are whirring.

Um, I think I'm going to convince you, Sarah.

I don't know.

I think we're onto something here.

I'm not sure.

It's the thought of those jellyfish.

I'm not, I'm not sure.

Um, but anyway, we'll see.

Right. Last question before we go into standard questions. You help people turn chaos into calm, and what do you think Is the biggest lie that our stressed-out minds believe that keeps us stuck in the cold water, maybe, or not going into the cold water, I guess?

I don't think there's a rulebook out there that says we need to do things straight away, that when something happens, we need to deal with it straight away. And I think that's been the biggest cause of stress for me over the years is I think I've got to do it. I've got to get it done. It's got to be done now. And it all mounts up and it becomes unbearable. But I think it's to give yourself permission that I see what needs to be done, but I don't need to do it right at this moment. I'm going to go away. I'm going to do a few exercises on myself. I'm going to give myself that space. And I always say on my courses and when I'm doing keynotes that the only person you can control is you. You either control If you're in control of yourself, you're going to respond to a situation. If you're not in control of yourself, you're going to react, which is the chaos. You get drawn into it. And again, for tomorrow, I'll be saying to the ECTs, you know, if you've got a child that's tapping their pen and you rush in, you're going to react. But if you just allow yourself, give yourself permission to create that space, you're going to respond. And when you respond, You're benefiting you, but you're also benefiting that individual, that member of staff, that team member to say, I can deal with stress. I'm safe.

I'm secure.

It's okay.

Yeah, I love that.

I love that.

And I, and I guess noticing when, or noticing when you are losing control is, is another part of this because that's maybe something else to be working on. So that you can more easily create that space. I love that, create the space and detach from that initial reaction. Brilliant. Well, listen, thank you so much for sharing all of the stuff that you've shared so far. And we will be talking about where people can find out more about you, book you, work with you in a little bit. Before that, I have some standard questions which I'd like to ask if that's okay. Um, the first question is, what's the best thing that speaking has done for you?

Joining the PSA, the Professional Speakers Association, was a game changer. I always, uh, I said earlier on the podcast, move into the right environment. The right environment will make the changes. I moved into the PSA. It was a game changer for me. I met my tribe just by being part of that. It's grown my confidence. It's grown my ability to be as loose as ashes.

Yeah.

Nice. It's been incredible. Um, whereas doing the podcast with you today, if this, if this had been a few years ago, I would've stressed over this for about a month, a whole month. I would've, I've been dreaming about it, thinking about it, and I would've probably have come over incredibly robotic because I would've learned too much stuff.

Yeah.

So, for me, surround yourself with really good people who are at the top of their game. You'll learn so much more.

Yeah.

Lovely.

Cool.

I love that.

Good.

Okay.

Next question. Has there been a time on your speaking journey or when you were training in any speaking environment where things have not gone to plan and you're like, oh my goodness, I need to erase that from my memory. I wish that had never happened and I don't want to think about it ever again. Has that happened to you, Nicola?

Oh, Sarah, I've got so many of them that there's a lot of them I can't repeat on this podcast. They're not really that professional to do with me and the embarrassments of me. But I remember I was at this one headteacher's conference and I started talking and I could just feel, this was going back quite a few years ago now, my messages just weren't landing.

They just were not landing at all.

And I think it's about having the awareness and the sensitivity to say, stop, change, rather than just keep on doing something that you know is not working. And within about the first 30 minutes, I thought, you need to just change this up. You need to come in now at a completely different angle. And I did, and it went down absolutely brilliantly. Cool.

That's brilliant. So yeah, having that, because were you reading what we, what was giving you the signals that it wasn't landing?

I think, you know, those tumbleweed moments you get. It was a lot of that. There was a lot of tumbleweed going around that room that day, and people were just looking at me with blank faces. Some were getting distracted, they were going on their phones, and I thought, Nick, this is not good. You need to change.

And it was fine.

But it's having the confidence to be able to stop, reset, And start again.

And how did you get them back? What, did you shock them back into paying attention to you?

How did you do that? I, I asked them all to do a Channel swim with me.

I see.

So I'm not the only one, am I? No.

I think I always hold on to this question, and the question is this: what's in it for me? And that was the question I was asking myself. What's What's in it for me? In the audience, what are they looking for here? And I just changed it to address what I felt that they were actually looking for, and I was right.

Yeah, that's brilliant. I love, I don't wanna dwell on this, but I think there's a teaching point here for people that are listening. In your prep for this particular talk, was it that you hadn't prepped in the right way, that you'd You'd misjudged the brief, the brief was wrong. What was it that made that first part not work? Does that make sense?

Yeah. One of the head teachers had come on some of my training before and she said, we love you. We want you to speak at this conference. And of course I assumed, and the biggest mistake we can ever make is assume. I assumed she wanted exactly the same thing. And it wasn't right. These days, and again, I got this from the PSA, which was brilliant, and from a lovely lady called Heather, and she said, always have that meeting.

Yeah.

Always get everything that they can possibly give you down on paper, then resend it back to them and say, is this what you want? I just wanna double-check again. And one question I always ask when I'm having these meetings is, When I finish delivering what I meant to deliver, how do you want your audience to feel? How do you want to feel? What do you want to get out of it? And that way then I can just work backwards and just make sure I'm on the right track.

Brilliant. Thank you for sharing that. I just wanted to drill because I could, I think it's a really important point that you, if you do the work upfront, yeah, and you potentially can avoid that, but If it does happen, I think what you said is having the presence of mind to pivot, not panic.

Yeah. Oh, I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, there you go. Look, you can have that one.

Thank you. I'll have that.

Good.

Excellent. Next question. What's the book that's had most influence on your life and why?

Oh gosh, there's so many books. I think the one recently, I'm going to talk about the one recently. Interestingly, Mel Robbins, I like the mud tools.

Don't, don't— I was just going to say, you don't have to make this longer.

You can look at that when you're thinking about similar channel with me, okay? I remember listening to it because I listen, I'm on Audible, so I don't really read for the reasons I've already said, but the Mel Robbins book, The Let Them Theory, and again, she takes simple, simple concepts that will land with you really well. And at the time I was going through a lot and I thought, yeah, just let them, just let them, but let me do this. And I, 'cause before I used to hold onto a red hot ball, but when somebody throws this ball to you, don't hold onto it. Just let it drop. Let it drop. Give it space. I'm in control of me. I'm going to respond. I'm not going to react.

Yeah.

So I really liked the way she pulled it all together and packaged it in a slightly different format. I thought it was brilliant. And it really, and I think we come across a lot of books over the years, and I think it's whatever resonates with us at that particular moment in time when we're actually needing it.

I think that's right, isn't it? There's some truth to the thing, when the student is ready, the teacher will appear, or the book will appear, or the pilot of the ship will appear and say the words. Yeah, cool. Thank you for sharing that. That's brilliant. What's the best bit of business advice you've had and why?

Best bit of business advice, be consistent.

Nice.

Be consistent. Even when things start going wrong, whether it's budgets or lack of finances, always be consistent because at the end of the day, that's what shapes our character. And I remember over the years with the companies that I've got, you know, you hit your high points where it's all great and you're getting the bookings coming in. Then you hit your low points. You're always going to hit them. So let's not be surprised that we're hitting them. It's like, there it is. But we're always consistent. And it's like with our trainers, we've always been consistent with gifts that we've given for birthdays, for Christmas, and so on. Even within the, when in the company, we haven't really had the money to do it. I thought, no, consistency is the name of the game.

Yeah.

That's what, that's what I always live by.

Is that a lesson that you've learned? Through experience, or you heard or were taught? How did that come to you?

I think it's a bit of a reflection, um, on myself that I always want people to know where they stand with me. I always want people to know what they're gonna get from me. Um, and again, with my staff, um, you know, I'm all about growth, I'm all about consistency, I'm all about creating a safe and secure environment. So they need to see that, not just hear it. And it's really great because even our trainers will say, you know, we know where we stand. It's always consistent. There's no surprises. There's no disappointment.

It is what it is, which is great.

Yeah.

And I think that does come across in your speaking as well, in terms of what you see is what you get. You know, there's not, I don't ever get the sense from you in the times that I've seen you speak that you are trying to be someone else. You are just channeling your person— you know, passion, your personality, and being Nicola on stage. And I think that's something that is worth paying or drawing people's attention to, because I see often the opposite, which is people try to become what they perceive is what a speaker should be. Um, and, and so I think, you know, that's another thing that people can learn from you is not just consistency. I think it's alignment to who you are and, and, you know, walking the talk all the time, I think is what you're saying, isn't it?

Yeah. I, I, I couldn't have put it any better myself. I am who I am. Um, I like who I am. Um, I can't change it. And again, you know, somebody's opinion of you is none of your business. You need to be comfortable with who you are. And I think that's what it's all about. And I think it gives other people the confidence to become who they are because we're all unique. We've all got something unique to bring to the table. And I think that's really important. Yeah, love that. Cool. Okay.

Thank you for sharing that. Last question then. If you could have one mentor, and they can be alive or dead, fictional or non-fictional, who would you choose and why?

I'm going to choose my future self in 10 to 20 years' time.

Nice.

Because I'm on a journey with me, um, and every day I always thank myself For encouraging myself to do things, for showing up for opportunities, even when it's really, really hard. I give myself a lot of self-praise, and I'd really like to meet me in 10 to 20 years' time and to be guided and to say, thanks for sticking in the race, Nick, because look what we've achieved. I love that.

I remember that's similar to Matthew McConaughey did that.

Yes.

And I think it's so, we, it's so profound that like, and I can tell this from you that you, you know, that's, that's who you're chasing, um, with the bucket list and with everything else. And I think so few of us do that. I think it's good that more, you know, people, more people like you is sharing that and showing that, you know, we're not, it's not about other people.

No.

It, you know, because that's, that's what holds us back sometimes, comparing and contrasting to other people on LinkedIn, other speakers. You know, you're not in life, you're not in a race with other people as much as in a race with yourself. So that's really, really cool. Thank you for sharing that. Excellent. So, um, if people have heard all the great stuff that you've shared and want to do more with you, book you, where's the best place, or connect with you to let you know that you've had an impact? Where's the best places for them to go?

LinkedIn would be great. Um, I'm under the name of Nicola S. Morgan because there's a lot of Nicola Morgans out there, so I had to be a little bit different here. Um, also I've got a website called nicolasmorgan.com. Um, also the TED Talk is Unfinished Business: Delay and the Urge to Give Up. And if any teachers or headteachers are listening, then the company name is NSM Training and Consultancy.

Smashing. And we'll put links to all of those places in the show notes as well. Nicola, it's been, I knew it was going to be a blast and it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much for sharing all of this amazing stuff with us and giving us your time. And yeah, it's been, it's been great to spend more time with you and get to know you a little bit better.

Thank you so much, Sarah. It's been wonderful.

Good. Smashing.

Thank you. Take care.

Well, what'd you think of that one then? I absolutely loved speaking to Nicola. I think you'll, you'll have those things from this interview that will linger with you and that will pop into your mind as, you know, as I like to call them, these pattern interrupts when you're in situations. where you're stuck or you're stressed or whatever it is, hopefully these will pop up and help you to get out of that. There were moments in this conversation where I found myself nodding, laughing, and then suddenly, you know, hit between the eyes by something that Nicola shared, which was really cool. So, maybe you also recognised a bit of yourself in the version Uh, of Nicola who wasn't able to take up space, or maybe it made you realise that you've been playing it safe with your speaking, with your stories, whatever. Um, and, you know, do have a go at that cold water stuff. I don't know if I'm going to take her up on a, you know, challenge to do the Channel swim, but who knows, who knows. So wherever this landed for you, I hope that it will give you a nudge to go deeper, to be braver, and to remember that vulnerability, when done well, isn't a weakness, as Brené Brown advocates so well. It's a superpower. And if something Nicola said stirred something for you, gave you an epiphany, aha, do go and reach out to her on LinkedIn to let her know. It makes all the difference when people give you feedback. And yeah, just, you know, be braver with your speaking as well. You're not going to get anywhere if you don't actually do anything. So, those are my words. And I guess the finish-off, which I'm going to share in a moment, is along those lines. But in the meantime, I want to say thank you so much for watching, for listening. I hope you did enjoy the show. If you haven't already subscribed to the channel or to the podcast, then do that. If you are a regular listener, or you can be a brand new listener, and you've got value from this, then do leave a comment in the YouTube thread below, or a review, and you can do that at ratethispodcast.com/tsc. Until next time, you know what I'm gonna say. Go out, grab your life by the nuts, and get cracking.

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