Jenny Cole: 1:02

Hello and welcome to Positively Leading. My guest today is Claire Hennessy, who is currently a Student Services Manager at a large Department of Education high school in the eastern suburbs of Perth. And in addition to her role in education, importantly she is the founder of the Feeling Center, a business dedicated to empowering busy working women through coaching, NLP and hypnosis. Claire's mission is to help individuals regulate those pesky negative emotions to the backseat of their lives, allowing them to navigate their one beautiful life with enhanced clarity, certainty and calmness. And beyond her professional pursuits, which are many, Claire enjoys exploring the landscapes of Western Australia, so I love following along her four wheel driving adventures. Welcome today, Claire.

Claire Hennessy: 1:50

Thank you, Jenny, and thank you for that lovely introduction.

Jenny Cole: 1:53

Pleasure.

Claire Hennessy: 1:53

It's really lovely to be here.

Jenny Cole: 1:55

When we first met, you were in my Women in Leadership course and I remember you as shy and timid and not very brave and I thought, oh, I'm so pleased she's here, but I'm not sure what she's getting out of it. And over that time I've really watched you blossom. It's been from a distance, but I've watched you blossom and really step into and stand in your power, which has been gorgeous, and many of the guests that I have on will describe their leadership journey and stepping stones that are kind of going to end up in some amazing place. But for you, I think the reason I invited you was you've taken such a journey of self-development. Are you happy to share some of what you've been doing with us and maybe the reason why you realized that you needed to look inward rather than outward in your leadership journey?

Claire Hennessy: 2:48

Yeah, I find it really interesting that that's how I was described, because that's absolutely what I look like on the outside, but inside I was this person who wanted a voice and I was really wanted to make change and I wanted leadership, but I couldn't get those opportunities because so much of my big feelings were holding me back.

Claire Hennessy: 3:06

I couldn't step into a room and talk and I was really impacted by people, my environment. I found it really difficult to have these big emotions and not be able to sit with them, calm myself, work through it. And your program, the Rising Leaders Program, was the first opportunity. I thought, oh, maybe I need to look at myself. And so through that, through unpacking what my values are intentionally going who do you want to be? What kind of leader do you want to be? And just exactly what you said to me how are you being perceived on the outside? Because that's not who you are on the inside. So I began this wonderful journey of congruency, so trying to align myself, my values, how I was showing up in the world, with how I wanted to show up in the world. It took me on a wonderful journey through the collective and then into the life coaching college where I started a diploma of coaching and that's been wonderful to help others but, more importantly, to understand me.

Jenny Cole: 4:05

That's so lovely, and so when you talk about big feelings, how did that show up for you? Oh, wow.

Claire Hennessy: 4:13

I don't know if everyone experiences, but I have huge feelings, so they are electricity that come through my body and they can be incredibly crippling. So when I want to talk at a staff meeting, or when I wanted to talk even with colleagues or even just a line manager, I would used to find myself completely overwhelmed and unable to express myself. And I knew what I wanted to say. I knew I was intelligent, I knew that I had the right answers, but I was crippled by these feelings and so, first and foremost, I had to understand what they were, how they were showing up, and then how to let them go, and then how to sit with them, but how to be a leader with those feelings? At the beginning of my journey, a lot of people told me I have to get rid of them and that I can't lead whilst I have these big feelings, and I was like that can't be right. They are my superpower. But how do I have both? How do I have big feelings and be a leader?

Jenny Cole: 5:04

I love that because I think, at all points in our career, those people, either with big personalities or big feelings, have been told that they need to be something else or someone else. And then we talk about leading with authenticity and it's like, well, how do those two match? So what have you done that works in order to? It's more than confidence, but those big feelings were really not allowing you to step forward, which feels like confidence to a lot of people. What have you done that works? You know little things and big things that you've done that work.

Claire Hennessy: 5:38

I started to understand and unpack the think-feel act cycle. So our thoughts become our feelings become our actions. And I could see the actions that were coming out and the feelings, but I didn't understand that it was the thoughts that was leading to that. So I started to go oh well, let's be more intentional with your thoughts. And that was mind blowing because I realized how many negative thoughts I was telling myself every day. So I realized that if I could just flip that and say no, you are brave, you can do hard things.

Claire Hennessy: 6:06

It started with simple statements to myself. Then I started to feel better in situations and then I started to be able to show up. That was really powerful. I got a mentor and a coach and started researching and learning about people and I started admiring people that were very strong female leaders, even Brené Brown. So I said, well, if you can do that, I can do that, I can be real, I can be empathetic, I can be authentic. They were the two biggest things Listen to a million podcasts, surround myself with like-minded people and people that believed in me, and then just practice, practice, practice, feedback, feedback, feedback, until I found myself improving Beautiful.

Jenny Cole: 6:47

And so those voices in your head that are telling you that you're no good, and those negative things. You gave us a couple of examples of how you flipped that. Can you unpack that a bit more for us?

Claire Hennessy: 6:59

Yeah, so journaling really helped with that and I realized through mainly through my NLP and hypnosis, that I've been carrying around that program. We all run a program in us and it's come from when we were between about one and seven. All of these imprints have been carrying around with us and it's been happening my whole life. But I've just been surging forward, surging forward, having resilience, pushing through and achieving regardless. But it was only when my leadership journey really came to a halt and I started meeting people that I really wanted to engage with, but I wasn't able to because of these big feelings. I was like you've really got to do something about this. So journaling really helped, the coaching really helped. I do think about that, jenny. What else did I really do?

Jenny Cole: 7:46

I just think sometimes, just noticing that you've got that program in your head that's saying you're not worthy, or you're not good enough, or you don't know enough, or you need to speak up, or you need to think All of that you should, you should. That's going on in there and just noticing it and then saying hello, you're not useful, and doing something else yeah, I've got a wonderful little trick because they still pop up all the time.

Claire Hennessy: 8:11

But I just have a little trick that says not helpful, not helpful, that doesn't serve me. So I'm very protective of what comes into my head now. So if I've thought that comes into my head and it's not very helpful, I just go see you later. That's not going to serve me today. How could I sleep it and what kind of thought could I be having? That's a little bit more helpful in this situation.

Jenny Cole: 8:31

Such good advice. Such good advice because it just takes up brain space and you end up ruminating. And it's often not true, it's just something that you've made up or something that you've come to believe over time.

Claire Hennessy: 8:43

Yeah, and unpacking my beliefs, unpacking my values, realizing what's lying underneath then some of the events that cause me to be in that situation, realizing that I can write my own narrative. I can write my own story. I make things mean things. That was huge. So I would be walking around and someone would say something and my little voice in my head would make that mean that that person didn't like me or that I wasn't capable, or that I wasn't able to get that job. But that's not true. That's just a little narrative, a little story that I made up. So I can equally make up a good story about myself. You are capable, you can do hard things. You can do this job.

Jenny Cole: 9:21

It's that simple, oh yeah, it is that simple. It's like practice, though, but how is what you have learnt, and learnt to do in the way that you've now learnt about yourself? How's that impacted on the work that you do with students?

Claire Hennessy: 9:37

So students I've always been comfortable with. That's really interesting. I've always been able to stand up in front of 300 students and be me. I've run days of empower groups and I actually shine. I've never, ever had that issue. It's more been around my colleagues or my leaders or in a job interview, for example. I would just freeze. But in the long run I guess it has impacted my ability to be influential on students because now I can walk into a staff room and give my advice I just finished three full day professional learning, for example in front of all of staff. I can put my hand up to deliver to staff. I can run a committee. I'm very much more comfortable in my space of running a team so I can have more influence on people and make the change that I really seek to make. Because I have that ability to sit in my emotions, let them pass and realise it's just a state. I can change my state and take those little steps to change those states that I find myself in sometimes, because I still do.

Jenny Cole: 10:41

And some of that is part of you. So you don't want to get rid of the big emotions completely. You do want them to pass through you a little more easily, and so I believe, by what you've been saying, that you're probably having a much deeper influence on the adults around you now as a leader than you were before. Now that you're more self aware, do you consider yourself a better leader Much.

Claire Hennessy: 11:06

I think when we start our leadership journey, it's like milestones, like little tick boxes, like I'm up to this stage in my journey and I found myself in a leadership position in a householder, but I had no awareness of who I was. I had no awareness of the impact that I was having around me, I had no awareness of the needs of my team. And so when I came back into leadership later in student services still growing, still learning, still having an influence on my team not necessarily in a positive way, because I wasn't meeting their needs Now I realise what a powerful, empowering thing leadership is. If you know your team and you can help your team, you are a gift to them.

Claire Hennessy: 13:57

If you know yourself well, if my armour has been strong or I've had one of those moments, I can walk in and I can apologise. I can meet with my team at the start of the year and say, hey, this is me, this is how my shadow side comes up. This is what you might see. If I'm feeling stressed or if I'm feeling anxious, it's not about you, it's about me. Please bring it to my attention. I don't want to be that person, so I have much more vulnerable and honest conversations with the people around me because, like you said, I don't want to get rid of these big feelings. I think they are my superpower, but they can negatively affect people around me if we're not all open and transparent about what's happening.

Jenny Cole: 14:34

How would you recommend people become more self-aware about what's working for them either their stars and their strengths, but also what's working for them and what's not?

Claire Hennessy: 14:45

I think sometimes you know, because your career can hit a stop. But obviously if you're feeling so much resistance, if you're surrounded by resistance or there's conflict around you or there's lots of kind of complaining or you know, you just feel incongruent, there's some need to step out of that and go all right, this is me, so my environment is a reflection of me. So what can I do? I think you need to get somebody that cares about you but is objective, to be honest and to give that feedback, and then you need to seek a coach or a mentor to guide you through that. It's the steps that I would suggest. You can only see what you can only see. You can only know what you can only know, and everybody's out there trying to fix themselves. You know, if you don't intentionally go out and seek somebody to help you, you won't necessarily be able to achieve that, yeah, and that feedback is absolutely perfect.

Jenny Cole: 15:37

We don't know what our blind spots are, but everybody else knows and we're a bit worried about feedback because like, well, what if they say things we don't like? Well, they're saying it, that's not a secret from them. You mentioned before about armour For those people who aren't aware of what that is, or your shadow side, could you shed some light on that?

Claire Hennessy: 15:58

Yeah, when things aren't going well for me. So I'm a big believer in our core needs. Tony Robbins talks about their core needs and one of my needs is certainty. And when things aren't certain, my armour comes up. I start becoming a micromanager, a control freak. I basically put tinfoil all around me and I'm like get out of my way. And I don't even know that I'm doing it until I ground myself and go oh wow, those interactions don't feel genuine, everybody's being a bit weird around me.

Claire Hennessy: 16:26

I must have my armour up. Oh geez, how did I get my armour on? And then I can generally unpack it and go oh, you know, this is why. So that takes some awareness and some training to do that. My shadow side is probably very similar to that. So, with all of my strengths, I love variety. I need variety, but that can also mean that I can be a scatterbrain. So if I'm not getting the variety in my life in the way that I need in my work, then I'm just out there doing whatever I want wherever I want, and you know that's not very resourceful.

Jenny Cole: 16:58

A couple of times you've said so. I say to my team this is what's happening for me. I love the armour, one which is you know, if you notice me doing X, y and Z. It means that I don't have the certainty that I need. I need something from you that's honest and it's vulnerable. How does that go down with the people on the team?

Claire Hennessy: 17:17

Look, I'm still getting better at that. I haven't always done that and I've seen the fall out of that. I've seen the fall out of when a relationship completely breaks down because you don't understand each other's needs, you don't understand each other's motivations and what their shadow side looks like. So I try that now. So when I get a new coordinator, we sit down and I'll talk them through all of the things that I just mentioned and then I just notice a much better relationship, a much more honest, more vulnerable, working, productive relationship between two people. And it's new. It feels awkward and it feels vulnerable, but it has such a massive impact on how two people can work together when you've already just laid everything out on the table so you can come back to that conversation then when things go awry.

Claire Hennessy: 18:03

Remember, I talked about that. I'm sorry. That must have been what I was doing and you might need some time and space from each other, but we're just humans. It's just a really powerful conversation that I recommend for everyone, again, to be able to have. That you have to know it about yourself first. So that's the first step is really doing the work on yourself and really digging deep. What are my triggers? I call them my buttons. It's like oh, you just stood on my you're not worthy button, or you just stood on my I'm not good enough button.

Claire Hennessy: 18:32

If you don't know those about yourself, then you can't share it with someone else, but you can also improve it in yourself either.

Jenny Cole: 18:39

I believe and correct me if I'm wrong that our triggers, our buttons, are very connected to our values. So I'll get really prickly if I think things aren't fair. That's my fairness and equity kind of button. And you talked before about delving deep into your values. Any tips or tricks for how people might do that, or just share what you did?

Claire Hennessy: 19:00

So I started my value work with you and rising leaders. So the values in Action Website is wonderful, so you can get your top five values. I started to really be intentional about them. I put them up next to my computer and when things aren't going well I'm like one of these things is missing. So I work in student services.

Claire Hennessy: 19:18

One of my top values is hope. You know you can. I can find myself in conflict quite a lot of the time, but I'm aware of that. So I go to myself and write. How can I put a little bit of hope in each day? So I might go for a wander into a classroom and work one-on-one with a kid. You know that brings me back that hope.

Claire Hennessy: 19:35

Another one is gratitude. But we get so busy in our day-to-day that we forget to do that one. So I just have a practice every day to put gratitude. So it's about intentionally putting them in our every day. The other part of values through NLP is that we install values. It's very different to how I've worked with it in the past, but through NLP I can go well, these are my values that I want in my life, and then we do a number of practices to install them and make them really strong in front and centre. So that's been a really different experience for me as well. So now I live every day with values that I want, rather than the values that I have.

Jenny Cole: 20:11

Yes, and sometimes the values that we have come from our history, our family. They're kind of like our inherited friends, and then values that we install are those friends that we choose for ourselves and the way that we want to lead. I've battled with that for a little while about you know, are these my values, or are they actually my family's values, my parents' values, and what are actually mine? My very core ones, and mine are freedom and flexibility. I'm completely out of whack If there's nothing new and I can't get to decide, and then all my buttons get pushed and my armour goes up and I've become difficult to work with. So it all joins in. But I believe it does start with values, as you said, and those core needs. You talked about core needs a little bit In disc. It's a model that's based on needs and I know we did the disc model when we were together Anything else around needs or values that you can share.

Claire Hennessy: 21:05

So the six core needs, according to Tony Robbins the significance and the love and connection, the growth, the contribution, the certainty and the variety. Just that they are like air and water. We need them, and if you're not going to put them in your life resourcefully, they're going to show up un-resourcefully. So if I want variety in my life and I'm not getting it resourcefully, then I might become an overeater. If I want certainty in my life think we talked about a little bit before I'd become a micromanager if it's not happening in my life, If I'm not getting significance in my life, I might be that annoying girlfriend, that kind of messages my boyfriend all the time or says why aren't I being recognized at work?

Claire Hennessy: 21:48

So they have their shadow sides too, and so we just got to make sure that we're including them resourcefully in our life, because otherwise they're going to come out in ways that are not helpful for us. And then the other thing about values that I found really interesting was that they're linked to beliefs, and so our beliefs about ourselves are even deeper, and that's a lot of the work that I've done to unpack, and they're usually around I'm unworthy, I'm not good enough, I'm unlovable we all have those ones.

Claire Hennessy: 22:16

So really being intentional about what we believe about ourselves, so that we're running a program that's getting the best out of ourselves.

Jenny Cole: 22:26

Oh, I love that. I love that I've become really conscious. I don't know if it's a belief. It's definitely a story around. I don't want to be a bother. I think it comes from my family. I don't want to interrupt. I don't want to bother you. They might be busy and I've realized recently how much that's actually got in the way of me asking for help or a whole range of things that you need to do to be a functioning human being. So all of that stuff, unless you're aware of it, you don't know that it could perhaps be getting in your way.

Claire Hennessy: 22:55

One of mine, jenny, was no pain, no gain. So I've been brought up with no pain, no gain, and then I realized that that was a huge hindrance to me because everything in my life had to be a challenge, so I couldn't just do things with ease or casually. It had to be a pain or a challenge and so I had to clear that one really quickly. So we don't even realize things that might sound really great, that we've been brought up with. We don't realize, like you said, the impact that it's having on your life every day.

Jenny Cole: 23:26

They have the little voices on your shoulder going don't do that. You need to be working harder. You don't be a bother, whatever it is, and it just gets in the way of that clarity of thought and the moving forward and being the best person that you can be. I know that one of the things that you have for the people that you work with is unconditional positive regard. Can you talk about what that is and why it's important to have it with the people that you work and live with and love?

Claire Hennessy: 23:54

Yeah, I love this word, this phrase, and it's come into education now, which I'm so happy for, and it's sort of come from the coaching community for a long time. There was a beautiful video Brene Brown and Russell Brown did and I'm not sure if Russell Brown's in favour anymore, but it was all about people just doing their best. Every single person that you meet is unconditionally doing the best they can with the resources that they have. And if you can remind yourself of that, take a breath and just approach students, families, teachers, your leaders, your colleagues, everyone. No one's out to harm you. You know they're doing the best they can with what they can at that moment, and so that really allows you to approach things without a reaction and respond to what's happening and know with deep compassion that they have no intention of harm and that if they know better, they'll do better. So let's work together to share resources between each other to be able to improve the relationship or the situation or the outcome, for whatever it is that you're being faced with.

Jenny Cole: 24:57

It's such a great thing because the minute you fall out of unconditional positive regard, you're in judgement, which is that person wants to hurt me, that person's out to care, whatever it is. All of a sudden we're making assumptions and we're judging, whereas if the only judgement is you're doing the best you can with what you've got or with what you know, you know maybe the way that you've been brought up is to yell and scream at me, but that means you're doing the best you can. It's not working here, but it was okay once. But sharing those resources and trying to understand where that person's coming from absolutely key. And it must help in student services when you'd have some really challenging kids and some really challenging families.

Claire Hennessy: 25:37

Yeah, and some of their behaviours which are just shout out of need, you know they're very unconjusive to a classroom and the teachers are doing the best they can to manage a situation and the students doing the best they can. I think it's easy we get caught in functional behaviour analysis to think why is the student doing something, but they don't know how else to do it. We have a really powerful role to teach them a better way, which takes a long time, and you know our lessons are 45 minutes and they've been interrupted and it's, you know, not great. But I just have to hold that steadfast belief that everybody is on their own journey and they're doing the best they can and I can do everything I can to improve their situation within my control.

Jenny Cole: 26:21

Yeah, such wise words. Speaking of that, this podcast is predominantly for new aspiring or middle leaders in schools. Is there any learning or advice that you would like to give them about how they might navigate this leadership journey?

Claire Hennessy: 26:38

Learn yourself. Have complete forgiveness for yourself and acceptance of yourself. Get a mentor or a coach, and being who you are is more important than being who everybody else wants you to be, because who you are is going to come out in the long run anyway. So learn about yourself. Learn about what your triggers are, what your buttons are, and stay true in that. You are going to find yourself surrounded by a tribe of people who value and hold you up and respect you. That is what's going to happen over time, so don't try and change yourself for the people that are around you. Try to know yourself as much as possible so that you can shine, would be my advice.

Jenny Cole: 27:17

That's so lovely, and in some of the information that you sent me, one of the things you said was I've learnt that it's not about me, which sounds incongruent because we've just talked about learn about yourself, but then part of that journey is learning. It's not actually about you. Yeah, nothing is about you.

Claire Hennessy: 27:33

You know everyone's carrying around their own map of the world and everybody sees things differently. We can both go to the same show and get completely different things out of it. So that's where those questions of Brene Brown you know, those rumble questions are so powerful. Learn to ask those questions with absolute ease. What did you mean by that? You know that came across like this Is that what your intention was? Just asking those coaching questions of everybody that you're interacting with so you actually know the facts behind what's going on rather than the meaning that you're adding to it.

Jenny Cole: 28:05

Yeah, yeah, because it's not about you.

Claire Hennessy: 28:08

It's never about you.

Jenny Cole: 28:10

No, we're all far too egocentric for it to be about you. You've given us lots of resources, but any particular book podcast, what are you following that you would recommend? You've talked about Brene and Tony Robbins already. Anything else that you would recommend people check out?

Claire Hennessy: 28:28

If you haven't read Stephen Covvo's seven habits of highly effective people. There's so much in there that we can use in our busy lives Our circle of influence, understanding what is within our control and what's not. His time management quadrant is so powerful because we get bogged down in education in so many things that are not important and not urgent and really being intentional with that. I'm listening to a lot of Bob Proctor at the moment, who's just reminding me just to stay out of the five C's the complaining, the commiserating, the criticising. Stay out of that world. There's some really powerful tools that I like, and then the self-coaching model, which I already talked about, is really powerful for me.

Jenny Cole: 29:09

That's brilliant. I've dipped into Bob Proctor a couple of times, but that's a good reminder to go back and have another listen. You're a mum, you've got kids and you're really keen on making sure that it's not all about work and I'm sure it could be all about work if you weren't careful. Talk a little bit about how you get balance or what you do to create balance.

Claire Hennessy: 29:31

Yeah, that is so important and it's got a lot easier as I've got older and it's got a lot easier when I separated my worthiness from my work. So very often we are caught up in a world where we define ourselves in our excellence based on what we do, and now that I'm worthy regardless of what I do, it really helps. So saying no, setting strong boundaries Within my calendar, I have the time of this is my work-life balance. I don't know if I like that word balance, but this is when I start work and this is when.

Claire Hennessy: 30:00

I stop work and I'm so intentional with what I say yes to in my life. It has to bring me joy or it has to help me serve others. I guess they're my two critiques, for if something's in my life and nothing is more important than family and health, we cannot do this job if we don't have our health, and we can't do this job without our family, and I've had a difficult year where I've had to put family first and everything still trackled along. I had lots of time off and the world still spun. So I don't want anyone to be in that situation where they have to prove that that is right. The world will still spin if you have to take time off. So you need to listen to your body and rest, and I'm really clear on those fundamentals of eight hours sleep, three liters of water and lots of fun in your life.

Jenny Cole: 30:46

Yes, which is why you get out there and you do your four wheel driving and all that fabulous stuff in nature. It's so good for us.

Claire Hennessy: 30:54

Yeah.

Jenny Cole: 30:55

Claire, I have absolutely enjoyed this conversation and I hope that other people have too. I'm going to put in the show notes links to some of those fabulous resources that you've talked about, links to your fabulous business. I urge you to go and check out Claire and the work that she does, and if you're listening to this podcast and you enjoyed it too, can you please follow, rate and review and I will see you next week when the next episode drops.

 

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