The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast

57 Unleashing Courage: Taming Fear and Challenging Thinking with Jacqueline Wales

April 01, 2024 Dr Nia D Thomas Episode 57
57 Unleashing Courage: Taming Fear and Challenging Thinking with Jacqueline Wales
The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast
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The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast
57 Unleashing Courage: Taming Fear and Challenging Thinking with Jacqueline Wales
Apr 01, 2024 Episode 57
Dr Nia D Thomas

Welcome to The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast. In this episode, we dive into the world of self-awareness and personal transformation with the engaging Jacqueline Wales.

Jacqueline Wales, a working class girl from Edinburgh, Scotland, had childhood dreams of seeing the world. Despite the challenges she faced growing up in a family with alcoholism and violence, she never gave up on her dreams. With a map of the world on her wall, she mapped out all the places she wanted to go. Her journey to becoming her own person was not easy, but she persevered. In her TED talk, she speaks about the obstacles she overcame and the complicated journey that led her to where she is today. She is a testament to the power of determination and resilience.

Jacqueline challenges conventional thinking and encourages listeners to confront their limiting beliefs. Nia Thomas also shares insights from her upcoming book, "The Self Awareness Superhighway," offering herself as a guide for those embarking on their self-awareness journey. Together, they discuss the impact of self-limiting beliefs, the importance of overcoming fear, and the role of self-awareness in leadership and personal development. Join us as we explore the depths of self-awareness and uncover the keys to unlocking personal growth and freedom

Access Jacqueline's website here

Buy The Fearless Factor here

Support the Show.

Find Out More
Thanks for joining me on my learning journey! Until next time...


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Show Notes Transcript

Welcome to The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast. In this episode, we dive into the world of self-awareness and personal transformation with the engaging Jacqueline Wales.

Jacqueline Wales, a working class girl from Edinburgh, Scotland, had childhood dreams of seeing the world. Despite the challenges she faced growing up in a family with alcoholism and violence, she never gave up on her dreams. With a map of the world on her wall, she mapped out all the places she wanted to go. Her journey to becoming her own person was not easy, but she persevered. In her TED talk, she speaks about the obstacles she overcame and the complicated journey that led her to where she is today. She is a testament to the power of determination and resilience.

Jacqueline challenges conventional thinking and encourages listeners to confront their limiting beliefs. Nia Thomas also shares insights from her upcoming book, "The Self Awareness Superhighway," offering herself as a guide for those embarking on their self-awareness journey. Together, they discuss the impact of self-limiting beliefs, the importance of overcoming fear, and the role of self-awareness in leadership and personal development. Join us as we explore the depths of self-awareness and uncover the keys to unlocking personal growth and freedom

Access Jacqueline's website here

Buy The Fearless Factor here

Support the Show.

Find Out More
Thanks for joining me on my learning journey! Until next time...


Rate and Review
Once you've taken a listen please leave a rate and review on your favourite podcast player. A little word from you means a big deal to me!

Nia Thomas [00:00:00]:
Hello, and welcome to the Knowing Self, Knowing Others podcast where we discuss self aware leadership with thinkers from around the globe. I'm your host, Nia Thomas. Join me as we talk to today's guest.

Nia Thomas [00:00:13]:
Today, we have a truly remarkable guest joining us, Jacqueline Wales, known as fearless to those who know her. Jacqueline's journey is one of resilience and growth. Overcoming self doubt and fear, she's dedicated over 40 years to personal development, emerging as a trusted coach and adviser to academics, entrepreneurs, scientists, and corporate executives alike. Her candid, empathetic approach has earned her praise as an insightful guide who's unapologetically raw and real. Jacqueline's list of accomplishments is extensive. She has authored 3 books, including The Fearless Factor series and a novel, When the Crow Sings, creating transformative online programs and delivering a powerful TEDx talk on unleashing the power of fear, and there will be a link to that in the show notes so that you can go straight and watch that. She's a professionally trained singer. She's earned a black belt in Shotokan Karate and embraced CrossFit at the age of 63.

Nia Thomas [00:01:11]:
Yet, her greatest achievement is her loving family spanning 4 children, 3 grandchildren, and 44 years of marriage. From her roots in Edinburgh to her global adventures across San Francisco, Los Angeles, Paris, Amsterdam, Bali, and beyond, Jacqueline's story is one of perseverance and triumph. So join us as we delve into the wisdom of Jacqueline Wales.

Jacqueline Wales [00:01:34]:
Well, that is a lovely introduction there. Thank you so much.

Nia Thomas [00:01:38]:
It's wonderful to have you here. Thank you so much for joining me. You're welcome. Jacqueline, tell us a bit about your journey. You've you've been around the globe, and you've had a very interesting journey to doing what you do now.

Jacqueline Wales [00:01:53]:
Well, if someone had said to to the wee lassie in Edinburgh that this was where she was going to go, I would have been quite surprised. Although I had childhood dreams of traveling the world. I mean, I had a big map on my bedroom wall and I had mapped out where are all the places I was gonna go to, but, you know, I'm a working class girl from from Leeds, Scotland. And what did I know about anything? And in my family, working class family, there wasn't any expectations that you would do anything significant with your life. It was simply just show up and do the work. So that was the early start to my life. And, and as I mentioned in my TED talk, there was a lot of violence, alcoholism, and and all of the dysfunctions that go with that. So the journey to become me was a fairly complicated one in many ways.

Jacqueline Wales [00:02:45]:
And, you know, I'm often asked what was the driver for you to heal your own traumas? Because that's really what we're we're talking about here. And I say always, it's my children. It was, it was up to me to clean my act up in order for my children to to be in a better place. And that's not something that a lot of people take on because it's it's hard work. The process of change and transformation of self really demands a lot of focus and attention. And after 18 years of working with people and and many decades of going through my own processes, I can absolutely say to to my clients, you know, this stuff is hard. But if you're willing to do it, the rewards are beyond anything you could possibly conceive of. And that has truly been my life.

Jacqueline Wales [00:03:39]:
And I look back on it now and I go, wow. How did you get from there to here? And of course, I know how it got from there to here. It was about constantly paying attention and and being willing to dive into the gnarly, uncomfortable, you know, very traumatic stuff that, that really defines you as an individual. But at the same time, redefining yourself becomes the key piece to it.

Nia Thomas [00:04:10]:
In your TED talk, you talk a little bit about And and for people who don't necessarily work in the early years sector and and don't know what ACEs are like we do, ACEs are adverse childhood experiences. Those shaped you. How did they really help you uncover your awareness of of life and and people and relationships?

Jacqueline Wales [00:04:34]:
So when you think about adverse childhood experiences or ACEs as they're called, they determine the thinking and behavior that becomes the patterns of your life. In my case, there was a lot of drugs and alcohol. There was a lot of abusive stuff going on. I gave my first child up for adoption when I was 20 years old. And I walked out on my second one when he was 3 and a half and left him with his father. So there was a tremendous amount of dysfunction, and I use that word because and it's generally thrown around, but truly dysfunctional behavior. And that's at the root of ACE traumas. And so for me, it was about, you know, how much more damage do I wanna do? And, and it came to me, frankly, when I was 35, I got pregnant for the 3rd time.

Jacqueline Wales [00:05:25]:
And at that point I'm living in San Francisco and I have the relationship with my husband, as you mentioned in my bio, 44 years now. And I realized that I needed to do it differently, that there was 2 children in the world that I had left behind. And it was time for me to figure out my stuff so that this child would have a better start. So the traumas of early childhood really need to be addressed by looking at what are the behaviors that are serving you or not serving you. And that I think is really the key piece to that, you know, and we all know that we can be our own worst enemy. No question about it. So how do you change that up? Well, I certainly didn't get there by doing it by myself. I'll say that right off the bat.

Jacqueline Wales [00:06:13]:
I've had tremendous amount of support from therapists and coaches and teachers and various modalities, physical and mental and spiritual over the years that has helped me break through some of those really damning behaviors that not only damned my life, but damned my offspring if I wasn't going to clean it up.

Nia Thomas [00:06:39]:
Quite an amazing journey. I was reading, some of the reviews of your book, The The Fearless Factor, and and maybe you can tell us a little bit about the fearless factor. So it's the fearless factor at work, and also that will be in the show notes for people to go and have a look on Amazon too.

Jacqueline Wales [00:06:55]:
So I started the coaching business when I was 54 years old. It came about because circumstances changed dramatically in my life. And suddenly I was faced with, you better figure out how to get a job. And what is that gonna look like? And it was a coach who said to me, you've gone through so much in your life and so much of it has been fear based. Maybe you should write about fear and maybe you should become a coach and, you know, really coach people on that subject. So I started to think about that and realized that a lot of my life had been fear driven. And as you know from my talk, fear, I believe, is imagination based. It's the stories we tell ourselves, and it is what becomes our lives, frankly.

Jacqueline Wales [00:07:42]:
So I decided that I would tell the story of my life, and I would tell the tell people what I had learned about the journeys I have made. And that became the fearless factor. And I had invited, I think, 12 women at the time to come and share their stories of how they became fearless. And so between us, we we put together very personal stories, but yet some wisdoms around what we were experiencing in order to be fearless. Because here's what I like to say about fearless. Being fearless is not the absence of fear, but the courage to take the next step. Fear and courage are two sides of the coin. And if you can flip the fear towards the courage side of things and you take it one step at a time, then the fears that you dismantle are simply about changing the narrative of who you think you are.

Nia Thomas [00:08:36]:
When we're talking about fear, I assume that you have to know yourself pretty well to understand both what your fears are and the impact and the implications that that has on you. So where does self awareness fit when we're talking about fear?

Jacqueline Wales [00:08:52]:
Analyzing and examining the stories. That's the self awareness part right there. So I have an exercise in one of my programs. It's called going beyond fear. And I say, take a blank piece of paper, put a bubble in the middle, and put the word fear in there. Now start creating all kinds of different bubbles around that bubble about all the things you think you're afraid of, all the fears that you have about what might or may might not happen in your life or the the ways in which you've you've limited yourself because of specific types of fear. I like to say that there are, I believe, 6 6 things that are really the fundamental to fear, maybe more. But fundamental to fear, number 1 actually is I'm not good enough.

Jacqueline Wales [00:09:38]:
That belief system that you're not good enough. You're not deserving. You're not worthy. These are 3 big ones right there. And I see that in my clients over and over again. Then you got the fear of loss, the fear of humiliation, the fear of rejection, the fear of failure, and the fear of success. So there's a whole lot of stuff, and I'm not talking about phobic fears here, like, you know, spiders or snakes or whatever. We're talking about the mental constructs of what really creates fear in our minds.

Jacqueline Wales [00:10:11]:
And, again, it's a mind trip. It is not anything physical. Unless you have empirical evidence for fear, you're just making stuff up.

Nia Thomas [00:10:19]:
Interesting something? But you're right. In many cases, it is just the story we are telling ourselves. What is The Fearless Manifesto?

Jacqueline Wales [00:10:37]:
The fearless manifesto was was made up of the the ways in which I see fear operating in in our life, you know, just simply simply that. So the fearless manifesto for me was, let's take a look at fear. Fear is our inability to trust. We can handle whatever comes our way. That's that's one of the pieces that are in there. How do we develop our confidence? You know, fear is about taking that next step, as I said, to be more courageous. The point I'm I was making with this is little aphorisms that you can think about in terms of fear. And it is important that, you know, your self awareness will not improve until you're ready to analyze the narrative of self.

Jacqueline Wales [00:11:25]:
That's all self awareness is. What is the narrative of self? And if the narrative of self is that you're not good enough, you're not worthy, you're not deserving, you you can't create the life that you want to create or there's other people in your life you wanna blame because they're the ones who are holding you back or there are circumstances in your life that are not optimal. And so that's, you know, one of the ways in which we cannot move forward. We have to constantly examine what that is about. Now the examination of our negative thinking, the examination of our behaviors, the examination of our fears is a lot of energy. It's a lot of energy. So, you know, you think about how you communicate, for instance. Now the internal dialogue that we have a lot of us have going on is that we're not very worthy, frankly.

Jacqueline Wales [00:12:16]:
Mhmm. And we call ourselves names and we get into blaming life and so forth. You know, you could see yourself as a victim as a result of your childhood or your upbringing or your teachers or whatever the case may be, but that's a choice. And the other thing that I like to talk about is we're always in choice. The choice to accept, to reject, to change, to build something different than what you currently have. And I don't care what your circumstances are. You always are in choice. And when you say I don't have a choice, you just made a choice.

Nia Thomas [00:12:57]:
Yeah. An interesting way of thinking. And I think people often don't realize that they have that choice, and sometimes they need a a a friendly other or a coach or a manager or somebody within their family to say, but you do have a choice. Yeah. You you mentioned self, the narrative of self, and something I I I always ask guests on the show is how would you define self awareness? And I like that way of describing it. It's the narrative of self. And the my the third layer of my self awareness definition is regulation of your behavior, and I think regulation of your narrative also fits that. Because when you have that narrative, again, you are back to that position of choosing whether that narrative continues or you, whether you want it to change.

Jacqueline Wales [00:13:48]:
Yeah. I mean, if you go with the fundamental pieces I keep talking about, which is that fear is the stories we tell ourselves. You know, what is the story of you? I mean, I have a piece in my TED talk as you know, where I my mother used to say, who do you think you are? Which was meant to keep me in my place. And many of us have heard that that phrase in that way. But when you change the narrative of who do you think you are, that becomes a different conversation. Because if you take away labels, you take away, you know, the roles that we have and the ways in which we describe ourselves, to come down to that fundamental question of who are you is a very difficult question to answer. Because most of us are living by expectations of of people who raised us or people around us, of the ways in which we're supposed to live our lives. Now I like to say most people live their lives very linear.

Jacqueline Wales [00:14:42]:
You know, they're vertically, I should say. You know, you you do a job and then you do the thing, and it's up and down the ladder kind of stuff. But I like to see my life as being horizontal because I absolutely have done a whole bunch of different things and I've been blessed to have the resources to be able to do that. So, you know, it makes a difference right there. And it's easy for people to say, well, you know, that that stuff costs a lot of money to do. And they're like, yeah, it does. But, on a different level, you can easily do it yourself just by simply reading enough stuff, watching enough podcasts like this, or or listening to to good stuff, you know, and really trying to change that narrative, which as you said, is a regulation of thinking and behavior because that is really what we're we're doing here. Do you wanna be different? Yes.

Jacqueline Wales [00:15:35]:
Okay. So if you wanna be different, then be different. Don't keep repeating the same stuff over and over again and hoping for a different result. It's the the definition of stupidity, isn't it?

Nia Thomas [00:15:49]:
How can people develop these mechanisms? I'm just thinking, we've talked a lot about fear, and I think when you're in a situation of fear, you're not ready to be able to accept that you are in control and you are able to make choices and you're able to make change. What can people do to move away from that fear into a more positive place?

Jacqueline Wales [00:16:11]:
K. So let's take, you know, the the fear of asking for what you want. That's a big one. I might not get it. They're gonna turn me down. I'll get rejected. I'll be made to feel like I'm not worthy of asking for what I want. Well, until you try, until you actually open your mouth and do something, and this is specific to women, by the way.

Jacqueline Wales [00:16:36]:
Women don't speak up. When you're willing to to challenge yourself, and, yeah, your your palms are sweaty, your stomach feels like it's about to throw up, you feel like somebody's gonna come down with a hammer and ruin your life. Well, I have to tell you, that doesn't happen. You might be made to feel or you will feel that you're maybe not adequate for the task. But if you don't push yourself, if you don't take the risk, and now here's what I like to say about risk. It's an acronym I made up called respect your intention and show courage. So the courage piece comes up again. Risk and vulnerability are part of life.

Jacqueline Wales [00:17:19]:
Are we willing to be taking that risk that someone might not give us what we want. But until you learn how to ask for it, you're just gonna sit there and go, well, nobody's given me what I want.' Yeah. Well, have you asked? No. I haven't asked yet. Okay. Great. So what would it look like if you were just to go, feeling damned uncomfortable about this, but I'm gonna stick my neck out and see what happens? And I see that more and more in the work place. When I work with my clients, I really challenge them.

Jacqueline Wales [00:17:54]:
I'm known as unapologetically raw and real for a reason, which is you come to me and you tell me a story about what you think is going on. I'm gonna challenge you to go the opposite way. And when they do and they come back to me and they go, wow. I had no idea what the power was of that. And I go, uh-huh. So do more. Do more.

Nia Thomas [00:18:19]:
You sometimes really do need to have somebody lift the lid or open the curtains or or help you uncover your blind spot so that you can, understand your potential, your power, and your choices. And and sometimes, you know, we need to dip into somebody who's raw and real and and ask them to show us that bit of light that helps us move forward.

Jacqueline Wales [00:18:42]:
Yeah. And sometimes we need the push, you know, I mean, there there is no question that having a good guide in your corner helps. You know, I used I stopped using the term coach a long time ago because I think there are far too many bad coaches out there, frankly, who haven't had the experience that is necessary to help guide people in the right direction. So a guide is is far more of how I would see myself at this point. I help people navigate the the challenges of showing up for themselves. That's really it.

Nia Thomas [00:19:15]:
And that's an interesting way of thinking about it. So, listeners and watchers, you probably know that my book is coming out, and it's called the self awareness superhighway because self awareness is a journey. If you need a navigator, you know where to come.

Jacqueline Wales [00:19:30]:
Thank you very much.

Nia Thomas [00:19:32]:
Self awareness is the first module in your transformational strategies for success program. Why does it come first?

Jacqueline Wales [00:19:41]:
The first module is actually called going beyond fear. So the second one is called, what are you willing to change? These are the first two modules of transformational strategies for success, and it's 11 strategies altogether. But the first one, the going beyond fear plea piece is really about you starting to challenge your thinking and behavior. That is self awareness right there. You know? So if I'm looking at this and going, well, there's a lot of bullshit stories going on here, then I'm willing to say, okay, I'm in this program for a reason. And that reason is I wanna uncover what is my limb self limiting beliefs? Where where am I sabotaging my own behavior with my thinking? And, of course, the emotional responses to that as well. And the brain stuff. I mean, our brain starts creating chemicals around the thought processes.

Jacqueline Wales [00:20:35]:
And those chemicals, as you've heard on my TED talk also, are what's driving this thing of the alarm bells going off. Yeah. You know, I'm under threat. So when we can remove that threat from our existence, knowing that, you know, you're not that unique, by the way, which is another thing. I get people going, you know, I got this problem and blah blah blah. I do group facilitation on my programs and what they get, the biggest piece they get from that is, wow. I didn't know that everybody else was struggling with the same stuff. Because we keep it under wraps.

Jacqueline Wales [00:21:10]:
We try to hide our insecurity. We hide our shame. We hide our distrust of of others. We hide our our feelings of inability or disappears because it's no longer unique, you know? And, and we, we spend so much of our lifetime to protect ourselves. You know, I talk about controlling my work and especially in the fearless factor at work, which was written for mid level managers, by the way, because I had seen the lack of self awareness, lack of trust and so forth. And so, you know, when we were really ready to dive into to the control issues, control is a way of saying I'm safe. Well, it's an illusion because you're not. But when we we feel like we must have a hand in everything, then we have a hand in nothing cause it's all about you and the people around you suffer.

Jacqueline Wales [00:22:13]:
I call myself a recovering control freak, but my kids would argue, you're still a control freak. So there you go.

Nia Thomas [00:22:21]:
You mentioned there that, you've seen middle managers without self awareness. How did that look when you said you you were spotting it, you were observing it?

Jacqueline Wales [00:22:29]:
Lack of confidence, not taking decisions, avoiding, seeking approval, wanting to maintain status quo so that you do things by the book, you don't show up fully. Or the other side of it is that you get too aggressive and you wanna control everything. And and you're, you know, very much about get the work done and, you know, don't ask questions. Or if there's new ideas, you push against them. You don't admit to mistakes. There's all kinds of ways in which that behavior is running organizations. I do, behavioral assessments, 360 behavioral assessments in my work. And those patterns are very predominant in leaders who are not constructive, who are not concerned about helping people to grow and develop.

Jacqueline Wales [00:23:25]:
Because that's the other thing about managers. They'll tell you, I don't have time. I you know, I give my feedback, and it's usually negative focused as opposed to taking the time to get to know someone, get to know what's really challenging for them, and ask them how you can help. That becomes a bigger conversation than just get the work done.

Nia Thomas [00:23:49]:
Yeah. You mentioned trust there very briefly. I've I've read one of your, blog articles, and you use the phrase that trust is a performance multiplier. What does that mean?

Jacqueline Wales [00:24:02]:
If I trust myself to do the right thing, and I learn how to trust other people to do the right thing, very simply, that is a performance multiplier.

Nia Thomas [00:24:11]:
Okay. Are you a chief executive or

Nia Thomas [00:24:15]:
a senior leader within your organization? If so, it would be great to have you join me on the podcast to share your journey, experiences, and light bulb moments along the way. Drop me an email at info at knowing self knowing others dot co dot uk if you'd be interested in having a conversation.

Nia Thomas [00:24:36]:
What kind of, self reflective exercises are you doing when you're with your, your clients and your teams when you're doing programs? You talked about the the circle with the dots. What else are you doing to help them build, especially people who are embarking on that journey? What are they doing to build their self reflection?

Jacqueline Wales [00:24:58]:
So here's number 1, notice. And it's about noticing. I'm very big on meditation and the awareness that comes through that. And when we are caught up in our thoughts, we have to start noticing them. Number 1. So if you're caught up in a negative cycle, notice it. Ask yourself, is it true? Is it true that you're not capable? Is it true that you're stupid? Is it true that that nobody loves you? Is it true that you're not worthy? You know, and if the answer comes back to you, no or I'm unsure, then continue to examine it a little bit more. But noticing stuff and not putting a judgment on it either.

Jacqueline Wales [00:25:42]:
But equally, you know, I wanna blame other people and not take responsibility for my actions. Take a look at that too. You know, what happens when you take full responsibility for everything in your life, not just for the the bits and pieces, but for everything. It was part of my choice. It was a decision I made. Here's the thing about failure. I'm a failure. No, you're not a failure.

Jacqueline Wales [00:26:06]:
The events of your life may have failed. But here's what failure is simply put. It's an expectation, a choice, or a decision that did not go the way you had planned. And I want people to really hear that because the biggest fear that I hear constantly from people is, I'm afraid of failure. I can't fail. Well, how many times have you failed in your life and survived? You know, how many times have you measured yourself against that failure because it was about you rather than the circumstances? And again, choice decision or an expectation that didn't go the way you had planned. So think about what that's all about for you. So again, the thinking piece becomes the first part of the self awareness.

Jacqueline Wales [00:26:54]:
Notice where does your thinking go under certain circumstances And ask yourself, is it true? 9 times out of 10, the answer's no.

Nia Thomas [00:27:07]:
That is hard stuff, isn't it? That is you're you're opening cans of worms, you're going into very dark places, and you're having to admit things to yourself. And from your TED talk, you you really had to dig deep to understand yourself to be in a point where you could make those choices to do something different. I think that fear of going in and finding out those answers to who you are, what is the narrative of the self, that is tough stuff, isn't it?

Jacqueline Wales [00:27:40]:
It is tough stuff. But here's what I say. You know, who said life was gonna be easy? It's not easy if you, even if you go the hard way and you continue to beat yourself up and your, your, your behaviors are not the healthiest, You know, is that easy? Hell no. You know, is this stuff hard? Yes. But what's the reward? And I'll tell you, my clients tell me they are absolutely gobsmacked at the changes that take place in their lives because they're willing to take the hard look and to be willing to say I want to do this differently. And one of the stories I tell frequently is, I have a client who said for 20 years, she cried every day. 20 years of crying every day because she was a very unhappy woman. Her first marriage was a complete disaster.

Jacqueline Wales [00:28:35]:
And the second marriage, she carried some of the behaviors into her second marriage with a much more loving and caring individual, but her insecurity and her fears still kept her trapped in that that small place. And so she learned for herself that she could step out of that and become more. And now she's got more confidence. She makes decisions. She's leading her team more effectively, and she's discovered a freedom that she never knew she had. And that's the other side of that, freedom. I don't think about that stuff anymore. You know? People say to me, how do I get to be more confident? I go, well, inch by inch.

Jacqueline Wales [00:29:16]:
Until one day you look back and you go, I don't think that way anymore or I don't do that anymore. Cause you made conscious choices. And consciousness is what a lot of self awareness is all about. I want to become a more conscious human being and we should all strive for that.

Nia Thomas [00:29:34]:
Responding rather than reacting. Yes. Definitely. You mentioned earlier your assessment tools. Something that we like to talk about is what are the tools and the techniques that people can use to develop their self awareness. So tell us a little bit about the assessment tools that you use.

Jacqueline Wales [00:29:49]:
So I work with a company called Human Synergistics, and, Human Synergistics has been around for 40 or 50 years at this point. But we look at 12 behavioral styles. We actually scientifically measure it. So people take an assessment. It's about 240 questions. So and they're they're weighted. There's it's a psychological assessment. So they're weighted in different ways to get the results we're looking at.

Jacqueline Wales [00:30:16]:
And it shows very clearly the percentage of these types of behaviors that are active in the individual. So for instance, I find a lot of people are very approval driven. They want validation because they they don't feel it in themselves. So you're constantly looking to other people. Now on a scale of 0 to a 100, if I had somebody who was at an 80%, I would say, you spent a great deal of your life not making decisions, not wanting to rock the boat, not wanting to upset people, and making sure that you're volunteering and being extremely generous with yourself. And then you get very resentful because it's not appreciated. So that's just one example of that. But these 360 assessments for me, because they're scientifically based, it's not just, you know, the Myers Briggs, you know, what are you? You're high ID, whatever the the the the definitions are.

Jacqueline Wales [00:31:14]:
And there's a ton of them out there, But this particular one, I really love because it is scientific and because it really pinpoints the areas where people get caught up in their stuff. And when I can do that for an individual, they'll look at it and go, oh, wow. There it is. It's evidence. And you remember I said earlier, look for the evidence. This is one way of gathering evidence. And then from there, once people have that recognition, because this is true for self awareness too. Once you have the recognition, you can't go back.

Jacqueline Wales [00:31:50]:
You can't just shut the door and pretend you didn't know. Mhmm. Once you know, the next question is, so what do you wanna do about it?

Nia Thomas [00:31:58]:
And if listeners and watchers do want to do something about it, before we came on air, Jacqueline mentioned that, a lot of her training now is virtual. So that means it doesn't matter where you are around the globe, you could access Jacqueline's training. So if people do want to get in touch with you and they want to contact one of your training courses, what is the best way to get in touch?

Jacqueline Wales [00:32:18]:
So the best way for me is is, jackeline@jackelinewales.com. Very simple. The programs are all described on my website, jacquelinewales.com. And, I generally work with, with teams, with groups of people rather than individually, but I will make exceptions for for certain individuals. But that's primarily how I work because I find that when you're working with teams and organizations, and you can really uncover this stuff and I've got 3 programs. 1 is Leaping with Trust. The other one is From Chaos to Clarity, dealing with anxiety, stress, and fear. And the other one, of course, is the transformational strategies for success.

Jacqueline Wales [00:32:59]:
And we're currently building a 4th program on communication. So we we run the gamut, and it's about how do I help organizations and especially mid level managers really develop the skills and insights necessary to build a better workplace. It's very simple. There's too much toxicity and fear in the workplace. And my mission is to say, let's help individuals change their ways of thinking and doing so that we can actually build a better workplace.

Nia Thomas [00:33:29]:
Amazing. Jacqueline, it's been brilliant having you here. Thank you so much for for joining me. It's been a, such an interesting conversation. And I actually got to see your TED Talk yesterday. So to be able to watch that yesterday and then to have a conversation with you today, it's brilliant. Listeners, watchers, you really, really do need to go and take a watch of that TEDx talk. It it's so good.

Nia Thomas [00:33:49]:
Jacqueline, thank you so much for joining me. It's really, really been interesting.

Jacqueline Wales [00:33:53]:
Thank you so much, Nia. It's been my pleasure. Appreciate it.

Nia Thomas [00:34:03]:
Around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. Head Head over to my website at knowingselfknowingothers.co.uk to sign up to my newsletter to keep up to date with my blog, podcast and book. Looking forward to having you on my learning journey.

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