The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast

61 Technology and Self-Awareness: Insights from Susanne Mus

April 29, 2024 Dr Nia D Thomas Episode 61
61 Technology and Self-Awareness: Insights from Susanne Mus
The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast
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The Knowing Self Knowing Others Podcast
61 Technology and Self-Awareness: Insights from Susanne Mus
Apr 29, 2024 Episode 61
Dr Nia D Thomas

Welcome to another episode of the "Knowing Self, Knowing Others" podcast!

In this episode, host Nia Thomas talks with Susanne Mus, the co-founder and CEO of AwareYES, to dive deep into the world of self-aware leadership.

Susanne, with her background in IT companies and her passion for workplace happiness, shares her personal journey of self-awareness and the pivotal moments that led her to recognize the impact of her behavior on others.

Susanne realized the importance of self-reflection and understanding her impact on others during a difficult time. She recognized a need to own her behavior and actively listen to others. This realization led her to strive for good relationships with her team members and to provide support in times of stress and crisis. Despite the challenges, she embraced the opportunity to let her guard down and gain clarity on her self and her impact on others.

Throughout the conversation, they explore the definition of self-awareness, the challenges of promoting it in professional environments, and the importance of integrating self-awareness into daily work. They also touch upon the launch of Nia's new book, "The Self Awareness Superhighway, Charting Your Leadership Journey," and the impact of reviews on Amazon. So, join us as we unravel the significance of self-aware leadership and its role in fostering respectful and creative working relationships.

Click to access Awareyess

Click to access Insight by Dr Tasha Eurich

Click to find out more about the Tasha Ten 

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 another episode of the "Knowing Self, Knowing Others" podcast!

In this episode, host Nia Thomas talks with Susanne Mus, the co-founder and CEO of AwareYES, to dive deep into the world of self-aware leadership.

Susanne, with her background in IT companies and her passion for workplace happiness, shares her personal journey of self-awareness and the pivotal moments that led her to recognize the impact of her behavior on others.

Susanne realized the importance of self-reflection and understanding her impact on others during a difficult time. She recognized a need to own her behavior and actively listen to others. This realization led her to strive for good relationships with her team members and to provide support in times of stress and crisis. Despite the challenges, she embraced the opportunity to let her guard down and gain clarity on her self and her impact on others.

Throughout the conversation, they explore the definition of self-awareness, the challenges of promoting it in professional environments, and the importance of integrating self-awareness into daily work. They also touch upon the launch of Nia's new book, "The Self Awareness Superhighway, Charting Your Leadership Journey," and the impact of reviews on Amazon. So, join us as we unravel the significance of self-aware leadership and its role in fostering respectful and creative working relationships.

Click to access Awareyess

Click to access Insight by Dr Tasha Eurich

Click to find out more about the Tasha Ten 

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 [00:00:12]:
I'm joined today by Susanne Mus who is the co founder and CEO of Awareyess, which is a Dutch based company focused on enhancing workplace happiness through self awareness and the power of personal growth. Drawing from her own personal experiences, Susan recognizes the importance of self reflection and open communication, and she firmly believes in the transformative power of embracing both the positive and challenging aspects of the self, which has led her to find a greater peace and happiness. From the Netherlands, Susan holds a master's degree in econometrics and operations research and a bachelor's degree in business administration. Her professional journey includes customer interaction, project leadership, product leadership in IT companies, and now she's leveraging all of that accumulated expertise to drive her own business forward. Susan's driving force lies in her unwavering commitment to dreaming big and taking daily steps towards those dreams. Susan, how lovely to have you here. It's been a long time to get to this point, but we finally made it. We finally came together.

Nia Thomas [00:01:21]:
It's brilliant to have you here.

Susanne [00:01:23]:
Thank you. Thank you so much for having me and and having this lovely introduction. Thank you.

Nia Thomas [00:01:29]:
So tell us about your career journey in and and especially, how did you develop this interest in self awareness?

Susanne [00:01:35]:
Yes. I I love to, tell you more about it. And to start, I think I I didn't name it self awareness until, 2 years ago. So but that will become clear also during, I think, during this conversation. I think when my career journey, kind of intersected with my life journey, I started developing an interest in in self awareness, even though I didn't call it that that way. The most pivotal moments this became clear was during a team training at the sec second company I worked with.

Nia Thomas [00:02:11]:
Okay.

Susanne [00:02:12]:
I was a team lead of around 14 people, and we had a personal development team, training. And in that training, it became clear that in moments of stress and crisis, I provided the opposite of what the team needed.

Nia Thomas [00:02:28]:
Oh, okay.

Susanne [00:02:29]:
And it was really difficult for me. I I I felt kind of devastated. I I remember I cried on my way home because I always tried to do the right thing. And in that moment, it it it was very obvious that my right thing was not the right thing for for the team.

Nia Thomas [00:02:51]:
Oh, I see. Okay.

Susanne [00:02:52]:
And it was really difficult, for me feeling that way. But I remember I also realized in that moment that I needed to own my own behavior and also to understand where it was coming from and to to really listen and understand the impact that my behavior had on others. Because clearly, it led to a result that I I didn't want it. I I wanted to have, you know, good relationships with my team members. I wanted to provide them whatever they needed also in in times of of stress and crisis. So it was very hard, but I think in hindsight, I think that was the most clear point where I noticed I needed to let my guard down and really see my self clearly and the impact I had on others.

Nia Thomas [00:03:44]:
Alright. So so very personal experience. So when you said that you were in a particular meeting, what were you experiencing or what were you doing that you thought actually this isn't what the team needs?

Susanne [00:03:58]:
Yeah. It it was a kind of a behavioral model that we were Okay. That we were looking into. And in moments of of stress, I even pushed further, let let let's say. I was I I am very results driven and oriented. I think I kind of pushed beyond feelings. I didn't I I think I I in that time, and I still need to look out for that, I think I didn't notice what others were feeling, and just pushed pushed pushed through it, let's say. And now I now I know better, where where it comes from.

Susanne [00:04:38]:
And and that is a part that I found that I find very interesting of of self awareness. I think every person has a a life story and we I think we almost all of us have mechanisms to protect ourselves. And it starts with, I think, observing your own thoughts and behavior. And especially where our focus is now is in the business environment. And I think it it is not always necessary to go back to your childhood and to have the real inner experience. For me personally, it started with my work experiences and noticing that my behavior was not always what I what I wanted it to be. But for me, personally, it was also about looking backwards to my to my life journey and to the way I grew up and also owning a a a piece of that. And what I noticed, especially the last few years here in the Netherlands, I'm very lucky also to be at I'm, one of the helpers in family constellations.

Susanne [00:05:51]:
And what I notice more and more that every one of us has a their own story. And it can be big, it can be small, but we all develop kind of defense mechanisms. And what I like so much of self awareness is that we we learn to let go of these defense mechanisms, to really see ourselves clearly, owning our our behavior, the bad and the ugly. And I I think to to be able to change, you really it really starts with seeing it clearly and also understanding a bit where it's coming from so you can accept it. And often it's also accepting your life journey and your past and accepting that, yeah, a bit of you is not that nice. And that is that is, I think, the the start of any change.

Nia Thomas [00:06:48]:
That's interesting you say that. I had a conversation with Gerardo Seggate, and the podcast went went live a couple of weeks ago. And he said the same that his childhood had very much impacted his early adulthood and the way that he sees the world now. And Alison Smith, who I did a podcast with very early on in the podcasting journey, she says you have to own all of your parts. And that's exactly what you've just said, that there are some things that we like about ourselves, some things we don't like, but they make up the whole of us, and we have to accept it all together.

Susanne [00:07:24]:
Yes. Sure. So so that's for me was where I started my own self awareness journey. And I I was also having my own journey, I also looked at other people, and I noticed more and more that a lot of people have quite some difficulties, I think, with observe and owning their their own behavior and and letting down their guards while it is not always suiting the them. And especially during COVID where I was a team lead, but we had to do everything online, I found it more difficult the than ever to to help and coach people in their journey. And and that's when I came to realize that I believe we have we have to do something and give more people, especially in the professional environment, a toolbox where we can help them grow their self awareness. Of course, there are a lot of personal development programs out there, but what I noticed, I was one of the lucky few, I always say, to have kind of a great, 2 year personal leadership development program at my company where I worked, at back then. But it were it were only around 15 people a year who were selected to do these kind of programs.

Susanne [00:08:47]:
And I think we really need to make a change where we make these kind of programs available to to everyone. And that's why because I always loved mathematics. And from mathematics, I rolled into the software industry because, I love logic and and software made sense to me. But also with the use of software, we can, scale and and and bring things to a bigger group of people, which I find very interesting. And I don't believe that technology is the answer to to everything, but I think also in relation to self awareness that it can help us provide programs that scale up and be able to get to provide these kind of programmes to to every employee. And I think that is what we need to to do the upcoming years.

Nia Thomas [00:09:43]:
But how do you define self awareness?

Susanne [00:09:46]:
I really like Tasha Eurich's definition of self awareness. So the ability to see ourselves clearly, to understand who we are and how others see us. In my own words, I think it's about owning all of yourself like we said before, you know, the good and the ugly. And to open up to yourself and to others about your thoughts, about your behaviors, and deal with them, I think, without throwing in any defense mechanisms. And I think if I look at myself personally, and I also hear it from others, I I don't think these defense mechanisms will be gone forever at at some point. I'm now 43 years old and I still feel this this the same kind of defense mechanisms but I think I notice them now. So every time that I feel a kind of defense mechanism coming up, I consciously decide not to do anything with it, but to kind of calm down, let down my guard, and own up to my behavior also when I don't like the behavior myself and to say, yes. You're right.

Susanne [00:11:05]:
Sorry for my behavior or this was not what I intended to say, that's when I kind of have a happy happy moment within myself because I know, yes, this is what self awareness to me is all about.

Nia Thomas [00:11:21]:
Yeah. That idea of ownership certainly is something that comes with self awareness. Yeah. I definitely agree. So tell us about your mission behind Aware Yes, and and it's also an online tool. What does it aim to provide to the person who is using the tool?

Susanne [00:11:38]:
What we want to do is we want to scale our personal development programs while keeping personal guidance, and that is also in person. And like I said before, the aim is to to be able to provide these kind of programs to every employee. And what we try to figure out is the the sweet spot where the real life training and and and technology has the the most the most of impact. And that that is what I love about our awareness, yes, journey, that we team up with trainers and team leads to mix kind of the best of both worlds. So we really believe that the personal touch of life training and coaching stays very important. But to use technology in the right way, we can also provide for scale. And using technology in the right way, I think, for me, is is key. I I know, of course, there are already a lot of platforms out there, but I think often, they are not yet, used in the right way.

Susanne [00:12:54]:
So if you look at our platform, it's actually actually, we try to keep it as simple as possible. And I think that is that probably is our one of our biggest challenges is how do we keep our platform as intuitive and and simple as possible and not adding too much features and complexities to really make sure that it gives the right guidance. And also to have these partnerships with our with our trainers. That is what, for me, Awareias also makes fun to do. I think having a technology company is is of course, it's about technology, but it's also not that much about technology. It's about really discussing with experts, with trainers, how can we use the best of of both worlds. So our platform is often used in combination with live training, and that can be either, sometimes it's a 1 month course, but it can also be 3 months. And we just started a program here in the Netherlands, a traineeship where we support for one and a half years.

Susanne [00:14:11]:
So that that depends. And we believe that the combination, like I said, of live training and our platform gives the best keeping the scale. So it's kind of small activities that our users have sometimes on daily basis, sometimes on weekly basis to make sure that everything they learned during the life training will be used and really try to have small activities, but in their daily lives to really try out and try to use new behavior. Because how often did we have trainings where, you know, the 3 hour training was terrific, but then we end up in our daily busy lives and we kind of forget it. So what we really aim to do is with small activities to really make sure that we incorporate the the new behavior, and and that is what also what we get back from our users. That is what they love so much about it, that it's not a whole lot it's not always easy. That that is really not the case, but it's small enough to make sure that they can incorporate it in their professional lives.

Nia Thomas [00:15:27]:
Oh, okay. So if I summarized what Aware Yes is, it's a self awareness focused training platform, molds face to face and digital learning together to achieve greatest impact in learning. Does that cover it if I had to give it a sentence?

Susanne [00:15:47]:
Yeah. I think I think I'm going to use your words. Yes. I think you you did a great job summarizing it.

Nia Thomas [00:15:53]:
Ah, okay. Amazing. If we have listeners who are interested in finding out more about the course, how how where do they go? How do they find out about it? How do they book on to your courses?

Susanne [00:16:06]:
Yeah. We started our own course, so, well, a pilot of it last year, but what we mainly do is to provide the platform for trainers and and companies to use. So what we mostly do is work together with trainers. We have our own library. We do help with building the content, but together with the trainers, we provide a course, 3 months or or 1 year or whatever for for a company. So if they are interested of working together with us, of course, we can have a a first chat in in what they're really looking for and how our platform can add value to their training courses. We started our own first course last year, and it's not really it's it's we call it Aware. Yes course, but it's mainly our partners that we worked with last 2 years that we worked together with also to provide a discourse.

Susanne [00:17:03]:
For instance, Matt Stone, who was also in in your podcast and also Tasha York was on the course to see if if this was the way the way forward. So platform the platform and the technology and the content on our platform is our number one focus. Mhmm. But we are also interested in using our partners and and experts to maybe combine knowledge and to provide our own course. But it's that is kind of our our second focus that we have.

Nia Thomas [00:17:37]:
Oh, okay. That's that's really helpful. So tell us why self awareness is important to you. I appreciate what you were saying about your own experience, but why does this matter on a bigger scale for you?

Susanne [00:17:51]:
Well, I believe that when when people are more self aware, they communicate better, handle stress more effectively, And especially in this in this time, I think the expectations that we put on ourselves is is so big. So, I mean, what we hear from a young age on, phrases like, if you just do your best, you can become anything you want, or you are responsible for your own happiness and success in life, and also, of course, by social media, our expectations become very high. It leads to a big questions that we ask ourselves. Do I make myself and others proud? And I think failure is it is seen more and more that failure is not an option, and I think we have to weigh in something else towards that. I mean, even in children's book books about failures, I myself was so surprised that that these books often end up in in success. We we bought some books for my daughter some years ago when she was younger because we noticed that she all also feared failure. So we thought, oh, let's buy some books about about the fear of failure to read to her. One book was about a brave dragon and a bunch of animals organized a running race.

Susanne [00:19:16]:
He was afraid to participate, do not do well. And then his friend, the little mouse, talked to him, and he helped him. Okay. He was brave enough to start the race anyway. And then at the end of the book, he won the race. And I kinda was in awe, and I I really don't youth and young adults, that at the end of the road, there is always success. And I think it's too bad. I think for this particular book, it would have been fine if he became lost, right? Yes.

Susanne [00:19:57]:
And yet he was proud of himself because he participated, and it didn't really matter that that he he didn't win anything.

Nia Thomas [00:20:06]:
Yeah. There's an alignment there with our ideas and our conversations about toxic positivity, isn't there?

Susanne [00:20:12]:
Yeah. It is. It's and that is what we see every day, all day. Right?

Nia Thomas [00:20:17]:
Yeah. Yeah.

Susanne [00:20:18]:
And I think it's important that we give people the toolbox to, yeah, to really get to know your yourself, and what you really want and what what there's really inside of you that is important to you and and not live up to these expectations that you sometimes create yourself, but but based on expectations that you think others have of you of of successful people in life. So I think it's more and more important that we go back to our inner self and to really figure out, yeah, what we want to have in life, how how, what what makes us happy, and what what are the things that gives us the the energy. And I think self awareness is a very important component for for that that I want to share with as many people as possible.

Nia Thomas [00:21:18]:
I think there's something there about building up your resilience muscle as well because if you're if you're never exposed to little failures and as you grow, as you get older, as you move up the career ladder, you don't have those tools in your toolbox, and you don't have the awareness of how you dip into your toolbox if you've never had those experiences. And you're right. If everything is about succeeding and being brilliant and even if you're having a difficult time, everything will be fine in the end. That lack of realism actually means that you don't develop those skills. Interesting conversation.

Nia Thomas [00:21:58]:
Are you a chief executive or 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 infonknowingselfknowingothers.co.uk if you'd be interested in having a conversation.

Nia Thomas [00:22:19]:
Tell us about your work with Doctor. Tasha Eurich. I've certainly read her book Insights, and it's it's really, really interesting. So listeners, I'll make sure that there's a link in the show notes for you to doctor Tasha Yurick's book as well. You are part of the Tasha ten community. Tell us about that.

Susanne [00:22:38]:
Yeah. So when I when I started AwareYES, I I so I didn't really use the I think I didn't really use the term self awareness. So I I I I knew what I wanted to accomplish, but I kind of couldn't give the right name to it. And then I watched the YouTube, or the TEDx talk from the famous one from Tasha Eurich about self awareness. And and that there, it clicked for me. It was like, yes. This how she explains self awareness, that that gives the right words for what I want to accomplish and what what I what my mission is about. And sometimes I need that.

Susanne [00:23:20]:
So I also figure out more and more why I love mathematics and software because it gives me logic and I sometimes I for me it's difficult to to really give the right words but she did that for me so that was great. So I bought her book. I was also in awe with her her model. And then I looked up more and more about her, and I saw the Tasha ten community. At first, I thought, well, no. This is probably not for me. These people are so famous, and I'm not. But luckily for me, that that never helped me back.

Susanne [00:23:56]:
So I I was a little bit scared of entering to have you know, to to feel the little one in in the bigger group of names. But they they welcomed me and I'm part of the community for, I don't know, a little over a year now probably. And it's such a great well, we call it a family. And for me as a Dutch person, I I really needed to get used to this warm, fuzzy feeling, I think, because it's it's sometimes it sounds a bit American to me but we really are a family. We are a group of people from all around the world We meet up around once every month. And it's really a combination of getting to know each other, supporting each other's journey, but also sharing our own knowledge and also knowledge from people outside outside of our our group to increase our own knowledge and also to have projects together to make sure that our our mission, the individual mission that we have, but also our mission as a as a group, that we bring it to a broader audience. And I must say, every time I have a meeting with the with the group, I end up with, with a lot, a lot of energy. And for me, that is for instance, we have Nobunto, she's from Africa and when she talks about Ubuntu and about so you know about, African spirit, about the culture, How can you not be inspired by that? And and that's, what this community is about with stories from around the globe That is so interesting and also very nice as an individual to also broaden my perspective.

Susanne [00:25:47]:
So we hope for the next upcoming years also not to only support each other on an individual level, which we love to do, but also to have more collaboration to make sure that our impact is even bigger. So, you know, it's a really valuable, group to be in.

Nia Thomas [00:26:06]:
It's certainly something that has come across my LinkedIn page several times. Finding time to be more involved and and to find out more about it is always my challenge. But I I think from what you said, I I really wanna find out more about the Tasha ten community. Listeners, you might wanna do the same. When you are working with people and you are hearing people talking and they want to be a part of your courses and they want to learn more, what are they telling you about their reasons for wanting to develop their self awareness?

Susanne [00:26:39]:
Yeah. That is a great question and and one that also so what what I find is the most challenging is to find, the urgency. Right? So in in the in self awareness. So when people talk to me or to us about self awareness and they want to increase it, that's I think that is because part of the work is already done. You know? They kind of often they had pivotal moments where they observe their own behavior and they noticed that, oh, but this is not the impact that I want to make for myself or the impact on others. So I think when people are consciously want to increase their self awareness, there's almost always a pivotal moment that lead led up to that point. Like, yeah, like, owning their own behavior and owning up to themselves that they want something different, that they want, to show different behavior.

Nia Thomas [00:27:39]:
That really makes sense. And the number of people that I've spoken to that that sometimes it's about them, and sometimes it's about something is happening within their team, and they've taken on a leadership role and that they have somebody within their team who has a real lack of self awareness, which is impacting everybody else. So there is yes. I think you're right. That idea of a pivotal moment, there is always a catalyst, isn't there, into looking into self awareness? The other side that I noticed is when I've spoken to people who are coaches, they say that often people come to coaching to talk about performance, to to talk about development, but they start from unpicking and digging into self awareness. And there's often an element of self awareness where that blind spot is bigger than than it should be. And they help their those leaders to really reduce that blind spot so that they can then work on that performance, work on relationship building. So sometimes there's that pivotal moment, but if you don't have a pivotal moment, sometimes it's completely hidden to you until you start talking about it, and then you suddenly realize this is the pivotal moment.

Susanne [00:28:55]:
Yeah. And that is what I I found very interesting. And it also, I think, one of the challenges for at least for me and my company with the mission that we have. Right? So we want to have this available for every employee, but not every employee is already open to it. Yeah. That that is I find very interesting, and I also don't have a good answer to it yet. You need indeed, if the blind spot is there, you're you're you're not open to it. Yeah.

Susanne [00:29:26]:
So how do we explain to these people on a larger scale that self awareness and growing your self awareness is is good for them? I I really love to hear what you think about it because I I don't have a clear answer to that yet.

Nia Thomas [00:29:43]:
No. I think you're right. The and what I'm always saying is it's about raising awareness of awareness. One of the things that I do after every podcast is write a top takeaways review, which, I share every week. And what I really want people to do is take one of those top takeaway and to just talk about it in a team meeting. You don't have to raise it from the perspective of self awareness or this is about this is about nothing more than than talking about this top takeaway, this review point. And I think that raises that awareness of awareness. And I think I often say, if you buy a red car, all of a sudden you'll start seeing red cars everywhere.

Nia Thomas [00:30:26]:
If you raise the conversation about awareness, it raises the conversation about awareness. And I think by by entertaining these small conversations within teams, it has a ripple effect, and those conversations start to go further out into team and then they're out into the organization. So I think rather than go straight in to talk about self awareness or you need to improve your self awareness, Let's just talk about being aware of things and behaviors and relationships, and that is a way to to start that conversation. But I I absolutely agree there there's no panacea to this. I think there are different people who need to hear things and experience things in very different ways to get to a point of being more aware of their self awareness.

Susanne [00:31:13]:
Yeah. Yeah. I love what you're saying about awareness of awareness. Yeah. That's a that's a good starting point.

Nia Thomas [00:31:20]:
So what can organizations do to really support them to access your training to make sure that they are getting that kind of messaging out into their organizations?

Susanne [00:31:32]:
I think I think more and more, we need to help the managers, the team leads. And I think that that is already important and becoming more and more important because often they're kind of just thrown into their roles.

Nia Thomas [00:31:45]:
Yeah.

Susanne [00:31:46]:
And also, they have so much on their plate that what you hear more and more that's taking care of their team, but also their team members in their individual growth paths. There is less and less time for that. So I think we we have to we have to help them. I think it start it starts there. So if we can train the team leads to, 1, take care of themselves, you know, grow their personal development and increase their self awareness as a starting point, but also teach them how they can do it in a effective way within their within their teams. And for instance, I one of the tools that we've implemented is the the feedback behavioral model of of Matt Stone. And it's it's these kind of models, especially based on on behavior, I think we can implement in a different way within Teams and make sure it's kind of integrated in their in their daily in their daily work. And and and that is one of the key things.

Susanne [00:32:59]:
I think what we what we didn't manage to do yet, I think, in many organizations is to have it integrated in in in daily work. Often, it's kind of a one off. Yes. Here, we have a one time workshop, and now it's a checkbox, let's say. Or we have yes. This is what we do twice a year. But to really integrate it in the day to day, I think this is what we need to make sure, yeah, that we help people grow step by step and, yeah, to have a better communication and and also, in the end, a better productivity and and and engagement. And I think that is one of the key challenges that we have nowadays within organizations.

Nia Thomas [00:33:47]:
I think you're right that the that a lot of the sort of learning that we are talking about is ad hoc. It's something that people consider they have to do on top of their day job. It's not a part of the way that they work. And it was interesting as you were talking, I was thinking about I had a conversation with Alison Largier episode 7, and she was a trainee mental health nurse, and reflective practice was a part of her daily clinical practice. And she then took that into her management style leadership style. But you're right. There are it it's not synonymous with every career path that reflective practice becomes what you do within your day to day work. So I think that's that's a big challenge for organizations where reflective practice isn't common practice to move to, a place where it's what they do on a daily basis as opposed to this is just something that we do once every 2 years with a training program.

Nia Thomas [00:34:51]:
We all do a a day out, and we all learn something, and then we come back to the office, and we don't do anything with it for 2 another 2 years. I think that's the challenge.

Susanne [00:35:00]:
Yes. I think that is, the challenge. And, of course, training programs, will, for sure help. I mean, you you need to have a starting point. So if you have a 1 month or a 3 month or a one and a half year, that is great as a starting point. But then it it needs to be internalized. And I think we do need need both. Yes.

Susanne [00:35:22]:
Yes. Yeah.

Nia Thomas [00:35:24]:
Something that Tasha Urich says is 95% of people think they are self aware, but in her research, she discovered that only 10 to 15% are actually self aware. So what do you do on on a regular basis to keep your self awareness topped up?

Susanne [00:35:42]:
Yeah. I think I'm yeah. I I don't know if I'm if I'm I found that 10%, to be honest. I I think I'm I'm I'm self aware, but I'm not self aware 100% of the time. Yeah. I think I I noticed more and more the moments that I'm not self aware. But I also I kind of sometimes consciously choose not to be because I'm just tired or just don't have, the energy at that at that moment in time to be brave, you know, and to let down my guard. I mean, it it's it's I think it's a lifetime journey, and it takes yeah.

Susanne [00:36:23]:
You need to be brave to to let down your guard again and again and again. And, yes, it it gets easier when you do it more more often, but it still takes it it still takes something. So I think what I do, yeah, is to have real open and honest conversations with the with some people that are really close to my heart. For me personally, that that helps a lot. My my children, I think help a lot in this in in my self awareness journey because, yeah, they they they give it to me.

Nia Thomas [00:37:02]:
They'll tell it like it is.

Susanne [00:37:03]:
Yeah. And I really I really love that, Emo. But also, yeah, learning from to to hear other people's perspective, to have these kind of conversations, to read books, to be in the Tasha ten community that helps me to realize how important it is to be self aware, knowing what it brings me. I think I I choose differently. I think I have a different career now because I'm more self aware. Yeah. I think some of my relationships are deeper now that I'm more self aware. I think the relationship with my children is in a better place because I'm self aware.

Susanne [00:37:45]:
And and it's important to realize, I think, again and again what it brings you and and that helps to to let your guard down and own your behavior again and again.

Nia Thomas [00:37:57]:
I think I absolutely agree. It's a lifetime journey, isn't it? And thank you very much for being on my learning journey today. It's been a really interesting conversation, and and I I look forward to hearing more about Aware Yes as it grows and it develops. And, maybe I will meet you in the Tasha ten community.

Susanne [00:38:16]:
Oh, love to me. Thank you so much for this conversation. I loved it.

Nia Thomas [00:38:20]:
It's been brilliant. Thank you so much. I'm thrilled, delighted, and so excited to announce the launch of my book, The Self Awareness Superhighway, Charting Your Leadership Journey. The book has got 3 parts. Part 1, Why Are You Here Traveller? Which is all about defining and describing self awareness, leader effectiveness, and leadership at all levels, and setting out why it's important to you, the reader, me and us. Part 2, Where Are You Going? Sets out the 9 directions of the self awareness compass. The 9 chartable compass points cover things like care, humility, authenticity and reflection. And chartable is a mnemonic chartable.

Nia Thomas [00:39:11]:
Part 2, also explores the signposts and directions that enable you and the roadblocks and trip hazards that obstruct you on your journey during your working life. Part 3: How will you get there? This describes, the variety of tools, techniques and methods that I've come across during my exploration of self aware leadership that you can use to develop your self aware leadership skills. And it covers things like mindfulness, journaling, coaching and 360 degree assessments. I've dedicated my book to those who want to care better for others and those who want to be better cared for by others. I think it's going to be of most interest to people who manage people and have a desire to improve their leadership and management practices. And I also think that it's going to be of interest to people who've been led by poor leaders and people who want to know how they can in turn be better and do better than the people that have managed Please remember to leave a rate and review on Amazon because rates and reviews influence rankings. And the higher my book goes in the rankings, the more chance we have of developing self aware leaders and self aware workplaces.

Nia Thomas [00:40:30]:
Thank you for joining me on today's episode where we aim to develop self aware leaders around the globe to generate kinder, more respectful and creative working relationships through reflection, recognition and regulation. 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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