249. The Art of Self-Leadership with Heather Younger

Reclaim your leadership power with Heather Younger, CEO of Employee Fanatix and author of The Art of Self-Leadership. In this powerful conversation, Heather reveals how we often surrender our potential by waiting for others to guide our careers.

Sharing her personal journey through adversity, Heather offers strategies to break free from self-imposed limits and face workplace challenges with courage and curiosity. Discover how self-awareness, emotional intelligence, and challenging limiting beliefs unlock your influence and presence.

This episode provides practical tools for building resilience, overcoming imposter syndrome, and celebrating progress. If you're feeling stuck or unheard, these insights will empower you to reclaim your potential and create lasting impact.

🌐 Connect with Heather:
• Website: https://heatheryounger.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heatherryounger/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/heatherryoungerofficial/

📚 You can purchase Heather's books on Amazon:
• The Art of Self-Leadership: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1394283377/
• The Art of Active Listening: https://www.amazon.com/dp/152300388X/
• The Art of Caring Leadership: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1523092149/

Transcript

Mick Spiers: 0:00

Have you ever felt like your voice isn't truly heard in the workplace and that your needs are not being met? Do you sometimes wonder if your fears about leadership or career growth are actually real or just stories you've told yourself? What have I told you that the key to leading others starts with mastering how you lead yourself. Today, we are diving deep into the art of self leadership with none other than the amazing Heather younger. She's the founder and CEO of employee fanatics. She's also the best selling author of The Art of active listening, the art of caring leadership, and now her latest book, The Art of self leadership, Heather shares powerful insights on emotional intelligence, resilience, overcoming fear and the mindset shifts required to become a truly influential leader. So if you've ever questioned your own leadership abilities or felt stuck in your career, this episode is for you. Hey everyone, and welcome back to The Leadership Project. I'm greatly honored today to be joined by Heather Younger. Heather is the founder and CEO of an organization called employee fanatics that focuses on employee engagement and company culture, but she's also the best selling author of multiple books, including The Art of active listening, the art of caring leadership, and her latest book, which will be out by the time we air this episode, which is called the art of self leadership. When I look at Heather's body of work, I feel like I could do 27 or even 270 episodes with Heather, and we still wouldn't be finished, but we're going to drill down onto her latest book today, the art of self leadership. So without any further ado, Heather, I'd love for you to introduce yourself to the audience, give a little flavor of your background. But what I'm most interested in, why this book, what inspired the out of self leadership?

Heather Younger: 2:02

Well, thanks Mick again for having me. This book came out of a journey of doing a lot of listening. It is a core belief in mind that listening to another human being is the biggest gift you can give to them. And the audiences that I speak to, and employee focus groups that I facilitate, and the interviews that I do on my own podcast leadership with heart. I've listened to a lot of people, and one of the things that kept coming up in all those spaces was this sense of people waiting, this sense of people blaming other people for the place that they're at in their journey, and really giving away the power they have to lead themselves more effectively than they are currently. And I got a level of frustration. Part of it was that I saw in them some of the things that I actually had going on previous to this. And I remember having to I always say, I've called my way up and out. I've called my way into the places I'm in. And so now I'm here to kind of tell you what I've done and how you can actually get there. And so that's how the what the impetus was for this book on self leadership. I am I graduated from law school, so I have a law degree. I took a long journey in sales, customer experience, large account management, employee experience, leadership development, leadership development, and just got to the place where I realized that a lot of people give away their power, and there's choices that we can make to show up the way we want to, and oftentimes we make good choices, and sometimes we don't, and that's what that's the human experience. And my goal is to try to reduce the amount of times where we don't show up the way we want to because someone else is doing something to us or or we at least perceive that to be the case.

Mick Spiers: 3:48

Yes, what's ringing in my head when I listen to you, Heather is a big element of, I'm going to call it victim mindset, of people blaming kind of conditions around them. And you said this word giving away your power. I'll come back to that in a moment, as well word waiting, and also this importance of listening and a beautiful moment before we hit record. Heather is when I asked you, what does success look like for you today? You spoke about two people being present with each other, that that's what is the greatest gift is, is to be there and be present and to truly listen to someone. I want to start with this giving away your power. What? What does that mean to you? And what do you see in the world in relation to this giving away your power?

Heather Younger: 4:33

An example would be, there's an example I give in the book where there's a gentleman who's get higher. He gets hired in a role, and he's frustrated because his new boss isn't giving him any direction, and he doesn't really hear from him, and he's spending a lot of his time sitting around like Lali, Lali waiting to start, waiting to be successful in his new role and his the person who shared this story with me, who was his partner, said, why? Are you waiting so much? Why don't you just get on his calendar and let him know what you need from him in order to be the successful person you want to be and that he expects you to be, instead of waiting for him to plot a course for you that you need from him to be successful in your journey. And that was a that was a big wake up call, was a big aha. And I think many people are doing are in that waiting pattern. It reminds me of a holding pattern.

Mick Spiers: 5:28

Yeah, right. That's really interesting. So this waiting element that's coming up again, and now we're talking, I'm going to say a creator mindset, which would be stop waiting for others and stop blaming your circumstances. Sorry, to be crass for a second, but get off your butt. Stop waiting and go and ask for what you need. How does that sit with you?

Heather Younger: 5:49

I mean, it sits with me well, and it's because I've done that my whole life. I had to, I had to fight through a bit of adversity as a kid. And then you to be honest, looking what I look like, it's a there are these, you know, unspoken things that are underneath the service and the bias front. And I've had to kind of fight my way through that, you know, to reveal a very strong, capable, intelligent and compassionate and caring person, so that clawing, it's literally the only way I can really think of it. It really is that way of like, how do you get your way out of it? Because I feel like we oftentimes, we get stuck in this pit, pit of just we're stuck. We're stuck in a pit of despairs, a pit of helplessness. There's so much of that that goes on at work, at home, with friends, and how long we stay stuck, I believe, is mostly from us, our own minds, our own desires to get out of it. And so because I was able to do that and continue to continue to claw through life, continue to get out of it, I just, I want to continue to impart to people, I think I've discovered that the secret that's helped me continue to move forward and to achieve what I do is this idea of shortening the time I'm stuck in between the pain I have or the thing that's making me be in pain, and the time I find the solution out of that pain.

Mick Spiers: 7:05

Yeah, and when I can the person sitting in front of me, I can see it come through incredibly so, so well done on what you've done here, I can see your light up. Your whole face lights up. And you get excited when you talk about this, clawing out of the pit and making your own journey. It's really quite amazing. And now I see someone that wants to pay that forward and show others how to do that as well. Let me put an interesting perspective on the topic. You do a lot of employee satisfaction surveys. You've read a lot of them, etc, so you this is going to be interesting question for you, for sure, when I read some of those, I see this disconnect, right? So we have, let's say, the management and leadership level, and then the employee level in the organization, and everyone shows up to work wanting to do a good job. Now, I don't believe that anyone wakes up in the morning and goes, right, what can I do today to be a real jerk, etc, etc. But we get this dichotomy of employee ers or the the the management layer saying, Why won't people step up and step in? And then we have employees that say, No one gave me the opportunity to step up and step in. And you end up in this situation where everyone wants the same thing, but what's there's a missing dialog, or there's a disconnect somewhere?

Heather Younger: 8:29

Yeah, actually, I just was on a webinar a couple days ago with Amy Edmonds and the kind of the person who coined psychological safety, and I think that's one of the missing points here. It's probably the main missing point when we think about, historically, the employer employee relationship. My very first book is called The Seven intuitive laws of employee loyalty, where I really do kind of delve into this concept of that imbalance that exists between employer employee right? You pay me so I can survive. I come do the work that I do, the work that you want me to do, and the way I you want me to do it, or I don't get paid that helps me to survive. And when you think about Maslow's hierarchy of need, that kind of idea of security and food and safety and all those things are at the base of that employers have so much to do with giving that to people, they don't even realize how much power they possess. They think of it very superficially, and don't realize how deep it goes. So I think safety is the thing that's the difference here, that people don't feel safe in the environment necessarily, to speak their truth, to be who they are, to speak a distancing opinion. And so it just it recreates that there's like this unevenness that exists, this inequity, that an imbalance that's inside the workplace.

Mick Spiers: 9:35

Yeah, so I'm wondering how and whether this art of self leadership is going to be some of our secrets to bridge some of that gap. I'm going to go a little bit further in the story. We talk a lot about adaptive and situational leadership, right? So adaptive leadership adapting to the person. And sometimes we talk about, well, you're not going to lead a 30 year veteran in your industry the same way that you're going to lead. An intern, they have different needs, and I still believe that's universally true, even though I'm about to contradict myself. Then, when I read some of these surveys, these stories, regardless of someone is a junior through to a very senior one, these stories keep on coming up, and it's employees coming back and saying, No one made it clear to me what was expected of me, or my manager doesn't give me feedback. And my initial reaction to that is, oh, hang on a second. We've misread this. Even a 30 year veteran in the industry still needs to have expectation settings, still needs to have feedback. That's one side of the equation. Now listening to you. The other side of the equation is, why didn't that person that felt like, well, no one makes it clear to me what's expected of me. No one gives me feedback. Why didn't they ask?

Heather Younger: 10:51

There's that imbalance? It's just there. The key is, I almost think, with any change, I always say there's like, three components to change, personal change, organizational change, and it is, we have to have an awareness that there's a problem. We have to have a desire to do something about it, and then we have to have this, like stamina, or like staying power, to see the change through and for us from the self awareness perspective, which I do, I talk about lot in that first part of the book, we have to understand about the real limits and the perceived limits. So the thing that, like the guard rails that are, in fact, there, maybe the manager has put that on us, or somebody has set told us we don't do this, we do this. And then the things that we think are the real things, like our real limits, and it's in our mind. So how much of it is perceived? How much is it have we picked up from some place and all of a sudden made it our own. Then, which means then we don't take certain action, we don't do certain things, or how much of it is like it's actually real. And I think we need to decipher the real and perceived limitations at work so we can know how to communicate with other people we do then our feel more comfortable setting our own expectations about what we want from our journey. Some years ago, I read this book. It's an amazing book to this day. And anybody knows Reid Hoffman? He's the co founder of LinkedIn. He wrote a book called The Alliance, and it was a great book. What I loved about this is it talked about the Alliance just like it is. It's like we no longer this employer, employee thing. It really shouldn't work. What we should be doing instead is we act like we're in align to each other, and that the employer needs something from the employee. The employee expects or wants something for their journey. And they come to like a meeting in the minds when they first come in. Then they check in, let's say every quarter, to see if the meeting the mind still exists. Like, are you still okay with a journey, am I receiving the benefit, the value here? And so you just continue to do that now, it feels very much more like a partnership. And it doesn't feel as perennial like it doesn't feel like, Oh, I'm beholden to you, and I don't get anything out of this relationship. It feels like it's even so, that the both people are getting what they need out of it. And to a certain extent, it takes a little bit out of the emotion of it, right? It says, I have an objective. You have an objective. Are you meeting my objective? Are you meeting my objective? And I really loved it, actually, because I just felt like it's one way to put employees, employers a little bit more on even playing field. So the Alliance, I definitely highly recommend it. He's a billionaire, and he's doing all kinds of things around AI, but this particular one hit me, and I don't not many books stay with me, but this concept of let's even it out, and let's see how we're meeting each other's needs and checking in frequently with that is a very mature way of approaching that relationship, right?

Mick Spiers: 13:39

Yeah, I love it. I have not read the book, and I'm now going to read it, by the way, but you've already got me at the concept, the word the Alliance, that's going to rebalance that relationship and going to end up in the situation. The things that were bouncing in my head when I was listening to you is when everyone can answer these kind of questions, why am I here? Why are you here? Why are we here? What do I bring to the table? What do you bring to the table? And we start really deeply listening to each other. We can then start co creating something that's much greater than any of us individually could do. But we're now in an alliance. I'm relying on you. You're relying on me. We have this interdependence, we can get rid of some of that messy relationship stuff that the imbalance in the relationship, and just get on with it. How does that sit with you, Heather?

Heather Younger: 14:31

Yeah, I love it. That's exactly it. That's it because I There isn't. There's definitely a true imbalance. And I think the people who pretend that isn't, it's like, it's like, I was this is a little bit different topic, but it is similarly aligned, which is when we talk about different people having different benefits, and I'm not going political here. I'm just saying different people at work or different people in life having different benefits. And some people say, Oh, that's not very true. If you remove this, remove this, like we're all the same, like we all have the same things. And I'm just like, we must be completely fooling ourselves, and employ. Lawyer and an employee do not have the same power, and certain people do not have the same power or benefits. They just don't. It's a reality, irrespective of any of the political things you can think of. So what we what we're thinking of is, what are the, what are the safety points, or the trip wire type, like a like a fail thing that you could make it where you're not feeling.

Mick Spiers: 15:19

I'll say, Yeah.

Heather Younger: 15:20

Fail safe. Thank you very much, fail safe. What is the fail safe to try to equalize that power in the workplace. And I love, I think the Alliance concept is great. But I think at the same time, if we open up from the self leadership perspective, if we open up our minds to, you know, do things like I talk about, you know, finding the strength within us. So what are our strengths? The strengths that someone has pointed out to us, the ones we are slowly learning about ourselves. How can use that for our best benefit? How can Would it hurt us to speak up to let them know that this thing we're doing isn't serving us well on our journey with them as an organization with a leader, with a spouse, with a child, whatever, whatever that, whoever that is, how does that? How does a speaking up not serve us? And how does it serve us? I am the invitation is for us to be more introspective about the choices that we make and how we show up, about the things that we say we can't do because we're giving our power to someone else to make that decision for us, it is an invitation to be more introspective, for sure.

Mick Spiers: 16:25

Yeah, really interesting. So I want to get into these limiting beliefs that you have been a threat in our conversation so far, like so you you're saying people it's in their mind that they can't do these things, and you're a case in point of you absolutely bloody well can do these things, just crawl out and get out there and ask. So let's unpack some of those limiting beliefs and why someone tells these stories in their head that they can't Is it the lack of psychological safety? Is it the fear of the power imbalance, or is it they're mimicking the behavior in of people before them and a little bit of societal expectations of people, you know, thinking too much about what other people expect of them, instead of just being themselves, like, what's holding people back? Let's use the example I used before, that the employee is feeling like no one helps them set expectations of what what's expected of them. And the second one is that no one's giving me feedback. What's stopping them from asking, Hey, I don't know what you expect of me this week, or you haven't given me any feedback for a while. Can you tell me how where am I going right? Where am I going wrong? What's stopping them from asking those questions?

Heather Younger: 17:38

I think psycho psychological safety still is embedded in a lot of it. But I also think this is why I start the book with self understanding. Because I want you to know, like the limitations, the fears, the things that you have, if you don't understand where they come from, you can't understand whether or not you have control over them and or can you just throw those down and smash them and go away? You have to go deeper on who you are and where a lot of these things come from, because I do feel like that's what's stopping us. Another thing I talk about in this first part is on our value structure. So understanding what we value. Will understand the value we bring. We'll also understand what it was, what it is we will not suffer through the things we will not put up with. It also will help us understand what we stand for and what it is we're excited about. So I think there's a lot of work we have to do inside for us to get to the point where our brilliance shines through. My definition of self leadership really is this idea of an internal shine to then bring forth an outer brilliance. And that it all culminates in this resilience, intentional action, self awareness, we have all of this. This that we're doing allows us to shine more brilliantly. So it's like a multi faceted look at things. But I do think we are lacking the inner work to taking that time to look at the mirror and see what it is that's driving us down and bearing down of us, whether it's like in therapy with coaches, our own into inner type of like journaling, something that we're doing to dive deeper. One of the things I put forth in this book is a kind of fear mapping concept. It's, it's not my initial concept, but it's I wrap some previous work around that and put it in there, and it helps you map out your fears. Define if they're rational or irrational, define where they come from. Figure out are there, is there evidence that's counter to the fear that can help you kind of minimize some of the fear, so evidence of your success in one area might minimize a fear of your doing something in that area. So I really want you to go deep. I'm not a therapist. I am a coach too, but I do Lean on kind of therapy, types of being right. It's just who I am. And I think that there, we're really missing doing a lot of that internal work to get to the point where our brilliance can shine through.

Mick Spiers: 19:52

Yeah, this is really powerful. So starting with this self awareness, let me share the story that bumped into my head when you were talking so I'm imagining now. Now let's use a feedback conversation. And whether it's the employee or the boss, let's say that they wanted to have a feedback conversation with someone. Someone wanted to ask the boss for feedback, or give the boss some feedback, or the boss themselves wanted to give feedback to the employee, but something held them back. And when they're on the tram on the way home from work that day, instead of going, what was it about the other person that held me back from giving that feedback or asking that question? What was it about me that held me back from asking that question? And to use a therapy term, it could be, what? Well, what is this belief? But where is this belief coming from? And the therapy term is a resolving mindset. If I haven't resolved whatever it was in my mind, my past, my history, if I haven't resolved that, it's always going to haunt me.

Heather Younger: 20:54

And it's going to show up in leaders. Listen, we've got some damaged, bruised leaders in the workplace, and it ain't getting any easier as they are trying to figure out what they're needing to do to lead teams more effectively, to continue to engage people in remote or hybrid types of situations. And so the bruises are there, and it's going to be elevated. The exhaustion and the burnout amongst managers is top of the line right now. It's it's high. And so I think the key is for them to even do their own work around you know, why is this being so hard, and why are you having a hard time? And just to ask yourself, why a lot? Because I think that's how we get to the bottom of why it's like how it's revealing itself to the external world. So inward shine outward brilliance. Inward shine outward brilliance. We're constantly working on. Constantly working on the inward shine. We have more of the outward brilliance. But I do want to say this that, you know, we have become a culture, and I know, you know, I may have even contributed to some of this. We've become a culture that being good is not good enough. And what I like to say at the base of this work, and it's a realization that I had to have as I would dive into my own self worth issues based on my past and into work and the inner work I had to do to understand it. It is the idea that we are good in and of ourselves. We are good. We reformed good. We are good. And when I'm talking about in the work I do is not that you are bad. What I'm talking about is, how can the internal shine that exists with you, which, by the way, is part of your power, become more outwardly obvious and more brilliant to people outside. So everything that I'm trying to teach and train is the element of just developing more of that external brilliance, so getting it inside and then going outside. So that's what I want people to know, is that this work is not about me telling you you're bad and so go lead yourself better. Like it's not that. It's how do you just do it more effectively? How do you shine more brilliantly? How can your relationships be more fruitful? How can you feel better about yourself and and that's really the the gist of, to be honest, all of the work. Because even in the caring leadership space, when I'm training leaders or talking to managers and audiences, I'm inviting them to show up with more concern and care, first for themselves, which is what self leadership is about, then for others to start with them to go externally, the invitation is there, and it's up for them to accept it.

Mick Spiers: 23:20

So inner shine, outward brilliance, and you are saying that people are good. I want to, want to challenge that a little bit now and say, How do well, it's not challenging this. Ask for some tips here on how does someone make sure that that doesn't become their own worst critic? And they start beating themselves up or, or it might be imposter syndrome kicking in, and they and it, and they go into a spiral instead of something virtuous.

Heather Younger: 23:46

Yeah, we're all human. So I'm going to say right now, I'm a lot. I want you to allow the space to feel bad. I want you to allow the space to not feel like a hero in the moment, or like you're doing your best work, or like you are your best person. We are human. There has to be for each person is different. There has to be a cut off point, like a point where you say, I'm sick of myself, and I'm stopping this insanity, and I'm going forward, like I have to find a solution, a way out of it. I use reframing as a lot. I talk about that a lot, multiple times in the book, I have portions in the book that actually are committed to showing you the steps to take for that, but I think that's the key. Is that you got at some point, you shake yourself out of it, you smack yourself right, like this, yeah. Okay, enough. Enough is enough. And your thing is to really shorten the time between the thing that's happening to you that makes you feel stuck and the enlightenment that comes like the trigger point that comes and so that you have to define that for yourself. I call it kind of a switch in the brain, and only you can determine when you are going to be the one that kind of flips the switch that allows you to step outside of that thinking that's not serving you. I just think. But we all have our own times when we are so sick of ourselves. We got to get out of it. And you just have to figure out, when can I shorten that time? When the sickness of myself is shortened and I can stop being in this pity party with myself, or this non belief or this imposter thing. Here's another great just a really good tactical exercise. And I hear people talking about gratitude journals. I think gratitude journals are great. I also think accomplishment journals would be great, you know, just writing down where you have been successful, countering that you can, you know, you can talk about like, when I was, when I was at the point where I was a place of fear or a place of I felt like I was failing. What did that look like? What was going on now, I want you to go right next to that, like, draw a line and right next to our put a time when you actually succeeded in very similar circumstances. What was going on there? What did you do differently? Because, again, as we were able to break down our actions in both scenarios, we might see it's one little, tiny, little tweak, and it's not some huge thing. You're not looking for some, some big thing to come to you.

Mick Spiers: 25:52

Yeah, really, really powerful. So I'm certainly hearing the self awareness now. I'm hearing the self compassion and an element of, look how far I've come. Not look at all the things that are I'm not good at this. I'm not good at that. Look at how far I've come. Everyone's on a journey, so make sure you're celebrating the successes along the way. Don't forget those. Don't just be the self critical. Also celebrate the successes. Okay.

Heather Younger: 26:18

Yes, please do. Please do. And I'm and I'm, by the way, when I say that, I when I'm saying that, I'm saying it to myself too. I've just gotten better at it.

Mick Spiers: 26:26

Yeah, good, okay.

Heather Younger: 26:28

I've just gotten in my early 50s, and I have just gotten better at celebrating my successes. Because I wouldn't say I necessarily like spend a lot of time in pity parties, because I've gotten past I've learned how to get out of it quicker. That's why I'm trying to teach people how to do it. But I think the thing that I realized is my tied to this concept of, like, a low self worth. I had been a person who just marched, march, march, march, I just took my own life by storm, march, march, march, march, and I didn't take time to go pause and be like, oh my goodness, like this thing, whether it's big or small.

Mick Spiers: 27:04

Yeah.

Heather Younger: 27:05

Happened. And so the other thing that I noticed, for those who are leaders on the show, those who manage people specifically, or even have people that you're leading in your homes, is this idea that if I wasn't giving myself permission to celebrate my small wins, then I wasn't helping others inside of my sphere celebrate their small wins, in most cases, so they felt the pressure bearing down on their shoulders of not being able to to ever satisfy themselves or me with the wins they had, right? So when I started to realize, mostly through I have four children, and through my children, I would be like and I would I always would notice the small wins with them, and I'd say, Oh, this is amazing. This amazing. This is amazing. Then I started to go, Wait a second. I'm taking this time for them, but I'm not doing it for me. And how much better, much more of a like a leader in my home could I be if I did pause and if they saw me celebrating me more?

Mick Spiers: 27:54

Uh, yeah. Well, then you're, you're doing it for yourself, but then you're role modeling it for others as well, if you did that. Yeah. Really powerful. Heather. All right. So the other one that you were saying there was around those beliefs, when those beliefs pop into your head, do I know this belief to be true? Do I is this belief serving me, or is it not serving me? I think that's the other really critical thing that you said there. All right. Next question I got for you is about the fear, right? So if someone is doing the self assessment, they're doing the work, and they're going to step forward, the fear equation is going to come in. And I'll just throw it out there, and just want to hear from you as an expert on this one, people's fear of loss always outweighs their appreciation of gain. Is that the final hurdle before they go and have that conversation with their with their boss or their leader where they start stepping into their power and saying what they want or what they need in the workplace. Is it the fear of loss outweighing their appreciation of what they might gain from that conversation?

Heather Younger: 28:56

Excellent, excellent question. I don't think anybody's ever asked me that before, and I do believe, oftentimes, that whole carrot versus stick, or what, you know, what the pain versus the pleasure? I do think that comes into play a lot. And I do think even, like, remember, I talked about the three the three legged stool on change as we think of the awareness of a pain point or a stumbling block, a desire to do something about it, and then the stamina to see it through. I think often the desire is kind of what you're getting to is like hampered by our fear of rejection, our fear of negative feedback, our our fear of just someone completely denying that our view has any that's that's reputable. And I think that's the again, going back to the psychological safety part, and Amy edmondson's work was so brilliant in that. And then we just continue, see continued on. It is very real thing to work against. I don't want to minimize people's fears around what people might say or but I want what I want to do, the invitation is for you to evaluate is the. Fear real. So have you seen Is there evidence that it's real? So you've had talks with your boss or talks with people before, and you can see that they are very anti, you know, saying something in a dissenting opinion, or having people challenge them, or whatever it is. Have I paid enough attention to the people? Let's just say it's my boss, my manager or an executive leadership team member. And have I paid enough attention to how they like to be communicated? To have I paid attention to how they receive dissenting opinion, whether it's one on one or if it's an you know, you're in a small group meeting versus a large group meeting? Are you this is that goes back to the being sent being a present person, because if you're present enough, you're going to be more aware about what you and what's happening in your environment, which then allows you to meet people more where they're at, to get more out of the relationships that you have. If everything's about you, you, you, you and you're so inward focused and you're not seeing outside of you, you're not going to be effective in your spaces with the people who need you to communicate with them in the way they need to be heard, not in the way that you need to be heard. So let me give you an example. Let's say you have let's say your manager is somebody who's really data oriented. They need they in order for them to make sense of the world in the environment, and for them to find their own truth. They need data. But you are not a data person. Yours is about how people feel. You sense this, you feel this, and that person who receives data is a way of understanding the world doesn't understand you, and you're good, by the way, more likely going to frustrate them. So what you have to do is be present enough in the moment to see that that's the thing they need from you, to feel heard, to understand where you're going from coming from, and then you give it to them that way. So you find the data points, you find the metrics that prove the point of the thing you're looking to get done. That's self leadership, because it's saying, in order for me to be effective in my relationships, I got to find a way to get through to these people. And these people aren't necessarily like people who think like me or respond like me, and so because of that, I need to find a way through that. Instead of again, them giving you like them, telling you or, you know what? I mean, it just much more proactive. The intentional action is really embedded in that a lot.

Mick Spiers: 32:14

Yeah, really good. So the power of presence, if you do have that presence, you kind of have the ability to really pay attention to what's going on around you and and how the other people behave and act, etc. And then the key word that you said, that I think is really powerful for me, is the word evidence. So then this story that you've curated in your head, this powerful story that you've created in your head about your boss, about I could never have that conversation with my boss, because where's the evidence? Where's the evidence that that is true, that fear that you've got, that the conversation is going to go badly, where's the evidence that that's true? So true. And then we can have this. Now we can get back to the the fear equation again. Now we can go, well, what's the worst that can happen, and is it really true? And what's the best that could happen? And is that true? And I bet you the equation, once you write it down, it's going to come towards you're better off stepping up and having that conversation

Heather Younger: 33:12

Exactly, absolutely, you encapsulated beautifully. It's definitely that the evidence part, what it does is it, it puts you back into the prefrontal cortex, so it puts you back in this, like, more objective place, because otherwise, with the fears, there's tons of emotions, and there's imposter syndrome, and there's.

Mick Spiers: 33:28

Oh yeah.

Heather Younger: 33:29

All this stuff that's in there that you really it's just like, if you do that, you're going off a deep end, and you're going nowhere, and that conversation in your mind with other people's not serving you, and then, most often, it's not serving your relationship with other people either. So if you, if you look at the idea of the evidence, it brings up this, I'm a lawyer. I'm trained as a lawyer, and so I naturally have this thing of like, look, I'm seeking evidence. So even when I'm talking about presence, when people are present with me, I'm looking for evidence. So I'm looking at their eyes, I'm looking at their body language. I'm looking, if there's any phone nearby, I'm looking. So I'm just paying attention. And most people about it, most people are they just don't really call it that they're looking. They're looking for evidence. And so for someone to feel heard by you, which, by the way, is like the biggest thing you can do in a relationship, if you really want to have more solid relationships. At work, you work, you focus on being the most present person you could be, and the person the other end will feel that gift, and that profound gift will make them want to be around you more. Want to do more for you and champion more of your the things you want your career, I believe that deep down, true to my heart, so it is embedded in the book. Listening is embedded in there, using your own voices, embedded in there. But relationships and how we make sure we solidify them, meeting people where they're at to be heard by you in the way they need to feel heard by you. Is a power that is something you can control, and that, again, allows you to have more of that brilliance on the outside.

Mick Spiers: 34:48

So here comes the word evidence again, everything that you've just said, it took me a while to find it, by the way, in my life, but once I found the power of presidents, everything you. Said is what happens. It's 100% and if you're paying attention, you'll see it kind of multiply and reciprocate. It takes a little time, but then it starts for reciprocating as well. All right, we've got two powerful things that have happened so far, Heather, and then I want to get to the next step. So we're doing a lot of self awareness. We're doing some inner work. We're challenging ourselves around what is it that is holding me back? We're challenging some of those beliefs, right? We then got this fear equation. We've got a way of getting past the fear. What does that first conversation look like? So if I'm listening to the show right now, Heather and I'm going, Yeah, I've always wanted to do this. I've always wanted to step into my power, find my voice and be clear about what I need in the workplace. What does the first conversation look like if you've never done it before.

Heather Younger: 35:51

The first conversation with a person or with ourselves?

Mick Spiers: 35:54

Yeah you've done the inner work, you're now going to have that conversation with your boss. Step into your power, find your voice and say, Hey, I need a few things around here.

Heather Younger: 36:02

Yes. So I think the biggest thing is, don't go big. So I did go big, go home, I think, start small and go into all your conversations with humility and go into with curiosity. So let's say my boss is Joe, and I've been feeling a little under regarded and unappreciated, you know, and I and unclear about my direction in the projects I'm on, maybe even my position in the organization or on on his team. And so I might say, request the meeting. It's like a powwow or catch up. I come into his office and and I say, Bill. Did I say bill? It was Bill, right? And not Bob.

Mick Spiers: 36:53

You said, Joe, but let's go with Bill, either one. Either one is fine.

Heather Younger: 36:56

See, that's what I mean. I'm just making up a name, yeah, let's just say Bill. Since it's for some reason, it popped into my head. So Bill, I want, I wanted to get together with you. I just wanted to let you know, you know, just catch you up a little bit on how I've been feeling. And he's going to say, Okay, I've been on your team now for about a year. And I feel like, I don't know, tell me if you think I'm wrong. I feel like I've done a lot on the projects, like, I did XYZ, and then this happened, and this happened, and we did that, and I felt successful in that. But I am curious to know, you know, where you see that journey, like, do you feel like my journey has been a good one? And I'd like to just talk through that a little bit. Okay, so the reason why I'm doing that, I want the questions. I want to ask the questions, because I want to just see where bill goes. I want to, I want, I want to go deeper with that. I want to have a I want to be present and have that full understanding of where he sees my journey, and then say, you know, and so after he goes through it, and maybe he gives me, maybe he's complimentary, and maybe, yeah, there was a shortfall here, but you fixed it, and it's okay. Well, so now my question is, because I feel a little bit foggy about where my direction is, where I'm going, and where your vision is for where my role could be, and even my path, where, where can I go from here? So I just wanted to get together, because based upon what we just talked about, I was foggy. I'm not sure if you're foggy or if you even thought about it, because I know you've been really busy, but I wanted to put this on your plate, and I wanted to talk this through, and even if we don't land on a solution right now here in the meeting, I wanted us to at least start the conversation, and I want to be the one to start that with you, so I don't know, let's get you up with talk, and we have a little bit more time left. Can we talk through that a little bit more? And then that's what I mean. So that's taking it like the bull by the horns. It's not being I'm going in my office and I have just told you what I'm gonna do. That's not what I mean. It's just that we have to initiate the discussion and go from a really intelligent as much as possible, unemotional place, to be objective and mature and in this discussion.

Mick Spiers: 38:51

Yeah, really good. All right, so humility and curiosity. I love it, and to play it out a little bit if you do go in aggressive, Bill's most likely option is to get defensive, and you're not going to you're not going to find out the truth from that. Now I'm hearing a bit of testing. There's a few things that you're testing, by the way, you also don't know what's going on in Bill's life, like he's a human being as well. So having a bit of empathy and compassion there, then you're going to test, Well, where am I? I think my performance is here, but, but does Bill think it's here, or does he hit? Does he think it's here? So said, now I'm testing a little bit of my own evaluation of does my perception of my performance match the boss's perception? And the third one that's ringing for me, Heather is bill may have no idea that you're feeling this way, that you don't feel seen, heard, valued, or you don't know where you are, etc, and he cannot fix what he doesn't know about so you you're by asking these questions, you're showing him that there's a gap and he can do something about it. How does that sit with you?

Heather Younger: 39:57

It sits beautifully with me. And interesting. Thing is, I don't know if I would have had this perspective if I also had managed people for 25 years. So if you haven't been even, to be honest, before I got I at one point my career, before I end up exiting, like working for someone else, I was in an executive leadership position. But up until that, I was in middle management. I was a director level, basically the majority of my time. And so until I got to that place where I was in executive leadership, then until I after I left there, I started coaching executive leaders, primarily in financial services. And I got there and I said, oh, so all the people who I thought were idiots, well, a lot of them were like idiots, meaning they just had no clue about the human the human experience and how you need to respond and sit in it and help people through things. But as I started to coach executive leaders, because I'd only been an Executive leader for maybe a year, and the rest of time I was middle management, I started to see their humanity, and I started to see the struggles that they had. And I think if I hadn't already been through that journey, I would be sitting back looking at them really highly, judging that experience, judging them a lot more. And I think that the journey that I had been on helps me see through the window a little bit more. And that's why, like my writing, my speaking, has changed a lot. Where I I talk, I talk a lot more about every single person in their seat, in the audience, having choices and making different choices and leading themselves, irrespective of their title. And I think that is because I had gone through the journey of managing teams for a long time. So being the person who I'd get surveys and my people, it like more times than not, that was my strongest part. I always had very strong scores on 360s from my people who reported to me. You can probably guess why. I was very present. I listened. I responded right oftentimes, though maybe my boss or colleague would be on the odd side looking and wondering, why is she spending so much time caring for people and like uplifting people and trying to recognize other people, and what they didn't understand is that I understood, which is what I talked about earlier, is that if I can meet people where they're at, and I speak to them their language, and I meet their needs, they are 95% more likely to meet my need inside of any situation I have. I'm not doing it for that reason. However, it just pans out that way. So since the evidence is there that when you prove yourself out up front with those behaviors, people prove themselves out front or, you know, on the back end. For you, it made. Knows it made perfect sense for me to codify it in all the books, to speak about it from stages, because I knew it worked. So I wanted to teach other people that, by the way, this stuff works, so evidence is so if we could just create objective measurements to our behaviors, and then when we go to people, not an emo and I'm an emotional being, humans are, but I am way more. And I'm a very emotional being. Having said that, I also know most people are not. They don't, they don't, they don't like walk around with emotions in their sleeves like I do. So because I know that about most people, I'm going to come to them in a non emotional state, but I'm a very emotional being, and most people receive interactions in an emotional place, right? We're we're not. Most of us aren't operating in our prefrontal most of time, that place where we can be more objective, more fact focused, we're going to be looking. We're going to be in that place of like fight or flight, or like the emotional place where we're looking for different, different types of feelings, I guess from an interaction we're having with people, particularly with our managers. Again, when you think about the employer employee relationship, you think about that power dynamic, and you even think about the kind of parent child, it's a very weird thing that it's evolving over time, but there's still this underlying thing that exists inside the workplace. For that regard, they're satisfying my need for housing, shelter, food, right? So you are giving this thing to me and I'm giving you something back to get it. It is a very complicated mix, and we can try to make it seem like it's this or that, and oh, well, it's a job and you get paid. But no matter what, there's an emotional bond, emotional pull, an emotional pain that exists in that place. And we can make it a positive one or a negative one by the choices we make and how

Mick Spiers: 43:55

Yeah, very good. This is a great one for all the we show up. leaders listening to the show and the evidence use that word again stacks up every time that this absolutely works. By the way, it's the right thing to do regardless. But we succeed through our people. And if you take the time to give your people what they need, they'll give you what you need, and what they need is to be seen, heard and valued, and the greatest gift you can give them is your presence. It works every time. 100% it totally does.

Heather Younger: 44:25

I know it's like, if I had to give everything up, they'd be like, that would be that from a management perspective, if you can manage to do that, which is why I wrote a book on active listening, which is, right? I have a certification on active lit, because I really, truly believe that if I could just teach you this one thing from a management perspective, right? You will, you will have the the benefits from it. So funny.

Mick Spiers: 44:44

All right, really good. Heather, I feel like we're only scratching the surface of everything that's going to be in the book. So, so I'm going to give you a platform in a second to maybe give us a few other things, but some really powerful things I'm hearing about doing the inner work first and and the. Self Awareness, about overcoming some of those fears, to have some of those conversations. But then the powerful techniques that you gave us, when you start having those conversations around humility and curiosity, and don't start with an assertion, start with a question, I think these are really powerful things in the limited time that we've got left, what else would you like people to know about what they would get from the art of self leadership if they pick it up when it when it comes on sale shortly?

Heather Younger: 45:28

What I attempted to do was to give people a framework. I'm a huge framework person. I also at each and in each chapter, there were exercises I really am trying hard, hard, hard, to move away from the philosophical side of leadership to the actual applicability and practical, you know, levels of what how do we do this? How do I go deeper? How do I do the deep work? So I'm giving you exercises that I hope that you'll get the book and you'll actually do the exercises. So it feels here and there like a little bit like a workbook, even though it's not. But there are some spaces where you, I am saying, like, write some notes down, do that hard in a work. Because I do believe you're not going to buy the book because you just want to read a book. I think you actually want to achieve a thing. I think you are called to be stronger self leaders when you go get that book. I think when you're struggling at work, you're struggling at home, you're struggling in a relationship where there's, there's some dissension or conflict, and you and you're like, oh, how could I handle that differently? Why am I feeling this way? I think you want to get to the bottom of that. And that's what the art of self leadership does for you. It helps you get to the bottom of that thing that's inside of you that's just craving to come out, and you just don't know how to really make it flourish and come out the way you want to.

Mick Spiers: 46:39

Yeah. Nice Heather. I love the actionable nature of that. And it's, it's not learning that changes your world. It's, it's applied learning. So you got to apply the learning. Really powerful, all right, Heather, so I'm going to take us now to our Rapid Round. These are the same four questions we ask all of our guests. So what's the one thing you know now, Heather, younger that you wish you knew when you were 20?

Heather Younger: 47:01

I wish I knew that I was worthy enough.

Mick Spiers: 47:04

Yeah, you are we and everyone listening to the show, you are enough? Yeah, really powerful. What's your favorite book? You're a four time best selling author. What's your favorite book?

Heather Younger: 47:15

I would have to say there's, well, I want to say two, one of us Who Moved My Cheese, that one's like a 35 page read or something. It's a parable, and it's amazing. And the other one is discover the leader within and that's John Maxwell.

Mick Spiers: 47:29

Yeah, okay. Oh, he's his library is also quite amazing. Yeah, really good. What's your favorite quote?

Heather Younger: 47:36

My favorite quote? Oh, I don't have it like memorized, but it is the one by Marianne Williamson. It's a long one. That's why it's like a poem. The long, the long and the short of it is, is, don't minimize your light for the benefit of someone else's to make them feel good. You let your light shine, and you'll give other people permission to show their light.

Mick Spiers: 47:56

Yeah. Well, it's sits beautifully with your inner shine outward brilliance. So wonderful. Heather. And finally, how do people find you? Like, obviously, the book coming out. So, you know, people buy the book, but if they want to get in contact with you and know more about you and your work, how do they find you?

Heather Younger: 48:13

heatheryounger.com, it's probably the easiest way to know more about our work. I have a caring leadershiplearning.com too, where you can see, like master classes and things related to all the caring leadership ecosystem I've created. But yeah, you get the book anywhere. I mean, Amazon, but it's everywhere, so it's available now for for pre order, and then then, of course, February 11 is the date so.

Mick Spiers: 48:35

Yeah, brilliant. And congratulations. And can't wait to get a hold of the new book. Thank you for all that you do. Thank you for sharing your time and your wisdom with us today. I feel richer for this conversation like literally, I'm sitting here going, how do I apply this in my life? And I know that the audience are going to feel the same. So thank you so much, Heather.

Heather Younger: 48:56

Thank you Mick. I appreciate you.

Mick Spiers: 48:58

Wow. What an incredible conversation with Heather Younger. She's so inspirational. If there's one thing I hope you take away from this episode, it's that Leadership isn't just about how we influence others. It starts with how we lead ourselves. Self leadership is about presence, emotional intelligence and having the courage to challenge your own limiting beliefs, and as Heather reminds us, the greatest gift you can give others is your presence. If this conversation resonated with you, I'd love to hear your thoughts. What was your biggest takeaway? What's one action you're going to take to strengthen your own self leadership? Send me a message on LinkedIn, or drop me a comment on YouTube. I genuinely want to hear from you, and if this topic of self leadership has sparked something in you, then make sure you tune in to the next episode where I'm going solo, reflecting on this conversation with Heather and sharing my own additional insights on self. Leadership, I'll be diving deeper into how you can develop the mindset, the habits and present of truly impactful leaders. If you're getting great value from our content, don't forget to subscribe to the leadership project, YouTube channel, where we bring you weekly curated videos, the video podcast, and we're about to restart our live stream show all designed to help you become the leader that you wish you always had. Thank you for listening to The Leadership Project mickspiers.com a huge call out to Faris Sedek for his video editing of all of our video content and to all of the team at TLP. Joan Gozon, Gerald Calibo and my amazing wife Sei Spiers, I could not do this show without you. Don't forget to subscribe to The Leadership Project YouTube channel, where we bring you interesting videos each and every week, and you can follow us on social, particularly on LinkedIn, Facebook and Instagram. Now in the meantime, please do, take care, look out for each other and join us on this journey as we learn together and lead together.